#Grapevine Decor

[funnyartprintsnow]

[vintagehomecollection]

A ceramic vine clutches a pot containing dahlias and is the perfect detail for this porch. Designer Ronald Grimaldi says 'I wanted to create a cool, refreshing 'living porch' where people can relax, dine, read, drink, and meet in comfortable and luxurious surroundings.

Interior Visions: Great American Designers and the Showcase House, 1988

[aestrologist]

<3

[image-appreciator]

"Grapevine Panel", Louis C. Tiffany [ca. 1902–15]

A leaded favrile glass panel depicting grapevines climbing up a trellis, on display in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum.

[Photo: NYClovesNYC on Blogspot]

[chameleonstar]

A cute bath mat with pixelated floral ornament with green grapevines.

* Step out of the shower onto a soft, spongy, absorbent work of art

* Foam cushion and non-slip base

* 100% polyester microfiber face and polyester back

* Full-color fade-resistant design printed for you when you order

* Available in multiple sizes

* Machine wash cold

* Worldwide shipping

* Exchange or money back guarantee for all orders

It's a new design from the collection with Ukrainian ornamentation to #SupportUkraine and promote #StandWithUkraine movement as it's common on Ukrainian vyshyvankas.

A unique design to stand out from the crowd.

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Check out this lovely design in the Chamy’s RedBubble Store!

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

Make your life so much more personal and unique~ 

[yourcoffeeguru]

Vintage Pewter Silver Metal Napkin Serviette Holder || swtradaepost

[frecklenog]

picard is jewish and he married his husband under a chuppah and their ketubah hangs on the living room wall

[atskiruma]

his attempts at courting you

expl: he finds himself thinking about you more often, wanting to seek you out consistently, and giving you numerous gifts every day to see you smile

a/n: it has come to my attention that the last ff i wrote, (snow day) was not very well depicted for all readers to enjoy, i want to apologize for that and promise that i will get better at trying to make sure everyone is able to read it and enjoy it, my writings are targeted for all | unfortunately, i can not edit it right now seeing as there's a poll going on, but once that poll is finished i will change my wording in the ff

ask me anything masterlist

second person writing no pronouns used

Zhongli often felt himself thinking about you more often while he was working around the parlor. Even seeking out your name in conversations and listening more attentively when someone was speaking about you. It didn't confuse him though, he was aware of his interest in you.

You opened up the warmth in his heart and welcomed him kindly every time you two saw each other. It made him happy to see you happy, and this was evident when flowers were delivered directly to your door one sunny afternoon.

"These are for you," The mail lady said before turning around and walking away to do more deliveries. You didn't even get to ask who they were from before she was gone. Staring down at the bouquet of tiger lilies in front of you, you could only assume that the bright orange and black colors could depict a certain someone's hair color.

It was a nice piece on your kitchen counter and went well with the other decorations spiraling around your house. That was, until the next morning, you were greeted again with another gift. A bright orange vase to compliment the tiger lilies you received the other day. It was funny, why was he going out of his way to send you such nice gifts?

You finally managed to confront him when you saw Childe and Zhongli sitting together on the seats of an outside cafe. Walking over and waving to the both of them. They greeted you back, and small talk was given for only a couple minutes.

"I actually came over here to thank Zhongli," This caught his attention, and he turned to look up at you, "I really loved the flowers you sent and the vase goes really well with them too!" You said while smiling.

He nodded back at you, seemingly collecting himself extremely quickly at the fact you figured out so quick who it was. "I'm glad you liked them," He said.

"I came to give you this in return," You said," "I know it's probably not as extravagant as the ones you gave me, but I like it." Handing over the small gift box, he opened it and smiled softly at the item. It was a small keychain, nothing special, and it was decorated with a lovely orange seem.

That same keychain would be hung up right next to his bedframe, along with variant letters you sent him on the table accompanying it.

Diluc was someone who took courting another person seriously. He found it tradition since his father had spoken so much of it when Diluc was younger. He always wanted to treat the one he loved with respect and be as much of a gentleman as possible.

This was why you were taking a stroll with him through his grapevines on a sunny afternoon. He offered for you to come down to the Winery a couple days ago and you had just gotten around to accepting his offer. His hand rested on your back as he took you through multiple different paths and explained everything. As you strolled, he talked about things concerning the vine, his profits, the seasons they needed to be planted, etc.

You smiled at him, knowing it was something he took dear to his heart, and listened very attentively to what he was saying. In reality, Diluc was really hoping that all he was talking about didn't bore you in any way.

Then, the next couple of hours were spent sitting in his large dining room, eating food made by the cooks in his home. It was nice, and you were very happy that he wanted to spend this much time with you. Diluc even found himself watching you eat here and there, asking you if the food was good or if you needed anything else in the time being.

After everything was over, and the night sky shined over the two of you as you stood outside his doors, he leaned down and pressed a small kiss to your hand. Telling you how much of a pleasure it was to have you here, and how he wished you could stay longer.

Diluc even offered to walk you home, tediously not taking no for an answer, he reached down to take your hand and hold it the whole walk home.

Alhaitham was very closed off when he first met you, he was closed off with anyone in general. He found it strange that you always seemed to be there when he was thinking about you, and when his eyes would try and search a room in the akademiya for you.

He realized that something had to be done about this, so, he did what any other raging nerd would do, and researched about it.

You also found it odd when you'd see him looking at you from across the library, or holding the door open for you whenever you'd walking behind him. Alhaitham always seemed like the guy who only cared about his own, yet he was so evident in helping you out here and there.

Helping you when you'd be confused about a book, rewording your essays to make them better. Alhaitham seemed to want to assist you with almost everything. This was no different than today.

You found yourself back at the library looking down at a long-written parchment on the forest rangers' activities. Trying to figure out how you could make this work in the essay you were conducting on Sumeru's forest.

This was when you heard the chair scrap right next to you, and looked up from where you had originally been focused. Alhaitham took his seat next to you, slightly taking up more space than necessary with his manspreading.

"Do you need help with that? It looks like a longer report than usual for you."

"Longer than usual?" You shot back, "Are you saying that I'm not capable of reading this?" His eyes widened a bit and he instantly tried to retort his original statement. "No, no, I thought- Well- You know you usually read shorter reports in order to get more details. I didn't think you'd take something this large to account."

His confession made you smile, and you leaned in closer, "How'd you know how I like my reports?" At the response with your cheeky grin, a blush formed on his cheeks before he looked away.

"Scholars are supposed to be attentive, it's natural to know a few things you prefer in order to work best with you."

The response he sent back your way caused you to roll your eyes and turn back to what you were originally doing. "To answer your question, no, I do not need help, but thank you for offering."

That didn't seem to make him budge, because he kept sitting there watching you copy down and write words from the book.

"You misspelled climate."

The sound of a book colliding with his head echoed throughout the library.

Ayato enjoyed your company, a lot, so much that he seeks you out anytime he and his sister go down to festivals or strolls through the city. He always wanted to start up a conversation with you, and if anyone else walked by anytime he'd be down there, Ayato would be right next to you listening with a smile at whatever you said.

Ayaka loved you too and found it amusing that her brother was so interested in you. She often found herself trying to spark up conversations with you, asking if her older brother proposed yet in a joking manner.

You laughed it off, Ayato was nice but you were sure he had other rich and important people to concern his love life with. He was just a very nice man to talk with here and there, and you didn't seem to notice that you were one of the few he'd actually seek out.

That was, until, every time he saw you, he came with some form of jewelry or expensive item to give you. Asking you how your day was, what you were doing, and if you wanted to come to spend some time up at the estate with him.

"What about Ayaka?" You said with a tilt of your head in confusion. He smiled back and said, "I'm sure she'd rather stay down here and explore more of the shops.

Ayaka would have loved to come along, but before she could even turn around, the two of you were already heading back up to the estate.

He catered to you, made sure you were comfortable, and even asked if you'd like anything from his personal chefs. It was a bit much to handle, seeing as you weren't used to living so luxurious, but he was very nice about it all and understood.

The catering didn't stop after that day either, more and more people began to wonder why the Kamisato siblings were spending so much more time outside their palace. Ayaka once mentioned that you loved a certain color, and the next day Ayato was handing you a box with that color, and a necklace with the pearl containing that color too.

He even found himself marching over to you when he saw someone speaking to you in a more flirtatious matter. Moving next to you and asking if everything was alright while his hand wrapped around your own.

[writteninkat]

Visions | Diluc x Reader

synopsis: You love how much of a gentleman your fiance is. You swear on Barbatos. Yet, there are moments when you long for him to be more assertive, to take instead of asking, to lead instead of following, to claim instead of requesting. This desire consumes your thoughts so intensely that it even starts to invade your dreams.

a/n: so. :) heyyyaaa i'm baaack,, anyways ending was finished in a hurry cause im tired and i wanted to post this asap rocky k bye

wc: idk but it's pretty lengthy i think i yapped tew much

warnings: bondage, mentions of cheating(no one actually cheated ok?), smut, Diluc has a god complex

navigation

Today has been extremely draining for you; you took on four commissions, four bounties, traveled to Liyue, took on more jobs there—all you wanna do is get in bed with Diluc and sleep until you're forty.

As you make your way past the grapevine, you can't help the ominous feeling that you're being watched. No, followed.

You turn around scanning the area behind you with narrowed eyes. Before you let out a nervous breath, you catch a dark figure in the corner of your eye, causing you to choke up in surprise.

What the hell?

You narrow your eyes once more, slowly reaching for your sword strapped on your back. Just as you unsheathe the blade, the figure runs towards the woods, eliciting you to sprint towards them.

If they think you're someone easy to scare, then they've got you all wrong. Spooked, yes. Uneasy, for sure. But scared? Ha! You fought the Electro Archon. It'll take a lot for something to scare you.

You pass by multiple trees, jumping over bushes and frightened squirrels, leaping on branches and swinging yourself from tree to tree before dropping back on the ground.

Shit!

You feel sweat trickling down your spine as you heave for air, looking around you. You lost them. Maybe today's been more tiring for you than you thought.

You let out a sigh, squeezing the handle of your sword before clicking your tongue, disappointment seeping throught your body.

You turn around, about to take a step until you hear the swoosh of the air behind you, quickly followed by the swift sound of a blade hitting the bark of a tree. You jump, about to turn around but unable to. Confusion decorates your brows in a furrow as you look around, your eye catching the glint of the throwing knife. The blade is pierced deeply on the wood and as you continue to study it, you notice a piece of your clothing is stick with it.

Fuck.

As you busy yourself with trying to undo the knife, another knife is stabbed on the bark, this time, a hand is gripping the handle. You feel your heart sink as your eyes trail from the gloved hand, down to the covered forearm—this person must consistently work out as you eye the jacket struggling to keep itself from ripping when your gaze reaches their biceps. You flick your gaze up to their face, swallowing harshly at the sight of their white and gold mask that covers their eyes.

"Oh what the hell." You growl, trying to push your fiance off of you. "Diluc what the fuck are you doing? You gave me a fright!"

As you continue pressing your hands against his chest, your assurance slowly breaks apart. What's he doing?

"Move." You spit harshly, too tired to play his games.

Frustration begins to claw at you when your fiance doesn't move. At all. You let out a huff, about to give him an earful, but something catches your eye.

In the corner window of dawn winery in the upper floor, you see a shadow moving about. You can distinctly make out the ponytail, the body structure, and the posture.

Your eyes return to the person holding you against the tree, the feeling of fright comes back to you tenfold, engulfing in a tsunami of cold sweat and weakened limbs.

The person infront of you isn't your fiance.

As you mentally shake yourself, you carefully lift your leg, ready to kick him in the nuts but the stranger reads your actions, pressing his entire body against yours. You open your mouth, ready to scream but he covers it with his gloved hand, muffling your attempts.

He slowly moves his mouth near your ear, his rough breathing hot and harsh. "I love it when someone so strong trembles for me." He mutters, the feeling of his warm, wet tounge gliding over the shell of your ear causing you to shudder. He chuckles deeply at your reaction, softly nipping at the tip of your ear.

This is so wrong. This is so so wrong. Your fiance's right there and you're here shaking against another man pressed to you. Diluc is right inside your home and you—

"What's this?" The man's voice snaps you back into reality. Your worries caused you to ignore his other hand letting go of his knife and slowly make its way down your stomach, bunching your dress right above your legs.

"Such a whore." He whispers, forcing you to look down. Your breath shakes as you take note of the wetness on his fingers.

Pale. He has pale hands, so his skin colour must be on the paler side.

Everyone and their vision knows you're simply deluding yourself by making these observations. You're making grounds on why you're allowing this to happen. You're trying to reason with no one.

"You like this? You wanna be taken?" His fingers return to the drenched place between your legs and you try, you try so hard, to muffle your pathetic whimpers, but they all pour out as if they have a mind of their own.

His fingers move in tight circles on your clit. Your breathing turns harsher and harsher. Before you know it, your hips are rocking on their own and you've fisted the stranger's suit in front of you.

"Look at you using my hand to get off like a pathetic village whore." Your moans spill from your lips, your hips moving faster and faster as you try to seize your high. "Such a fucking slut, letting a complete stranger fuck you with his fingers when your fiance's right there."

That snaps you out of your lustful haze.

No.

You can't do this to Diluc.

You push the masked stranger's hand away, reattempting to shove him off of you again but he simply clicks his tongue, grabbing your wrists and pushing them on the space above you.

"Tsk tsk tsk." He shakes his head. "You get to have your fun but I don't? Seems a bit unfair to me." He frowns as you sneer at him.

"Let go of me and fuck off. Once I tell my fiance about this—"

"Diluc, will not be able to do anything after I've used you."

Oh great Barbatos above, forgive me for ruining my knickers at what this fucker had just said.

"He'll kill you." You spit, the glare you're wearing amusing the sicko even further. He grins widely, canines showing.

"And I still would have killed this pussy."

Oh, hardy har har. This idiot's got jokes.

"I'll join him and enjoy watching the life bleed out of you very, very slowly." You taunt, grinding your molars.

"And I'll enjoy watching my cum drip from this pretty pussy," You hear the clanking of a belt buckle and the familiar sound of a zipper being undone. "Very, very slowly." he whispers.

He uses his leg to part your thighs.

"What are you—" He cuts you off with the feeling of his bulbous head pressing against your folds. You stare into his crimson orbs before he pushes himself inside you, stretching you completely.

"Ah, fuck!" You cry out, euphoria slowly slithering itself through your vains, making their way up your head as the stranger slowly pumps himself inside you.

"This pussy's such a good girl, taking me, making room for me." He hooks your leg around his waist as he abandons any ounce of consideration he had for you and quickens his pace, his ungloved hand pressing and massaging and prodding—

"Oh Archon!" You hear your voice echo throughout the land and you scream a silent prayer for your fiance.

Diluc, my love, please forgive me. I tried to stop him, I swear I did! But he just feels—

"So good!" You yell out in euphoria, nearing the edge.

Just as you jump off of it, the stranger lifts off his mask. You're face to face with the same man you mentally apologized to, but your confusion is drowned in your pleasure.

"Cum with me my love. You can do it." He whispers as you press your lips on his, your moans and whimpers muffled against him.

Your back arches as electricity runs down your spine. Your walls clamp down on your fiance's dick as your head lightens. Your legs buckle, your body tembling against Diluc.

"Love... My love." He whispers.

"What?"

"Love, wake up. I think you have a fever."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Love, please."

Your eyes snap open as your breathing slowly calms. You're face to face with the familiar bedroom ceiling you know all too well. You turn your head to the side, seeing your fiance wearing an extremely worried expression.

"Love? Are you finally up?" He asks, helping you sit up. Once you're situated, he hands you a tall glass of water. "I think you have a fever my love. You've been huffing all night. Your drenched with your sweat and your face is as pink as it gets."

Oh, bless your fiance's poor soul. He thinks you have a terrible fever when in fact, you've been—

You stamp down on those thoughts, gulping down the glass of water. As you shift to put the empty glass on the table beside you, your face warms at the slick, wet feeling between your legs.

"Love?" Diluc rushes to cup your burning cheeks, his brows furrowed in worry. "I think you should take a break from commissions for a few days. It's stressing you too much." He takes the empty glass from your grasp and places it on the table for you.

"Let me wash the sweat off of you so you can sleep comfortably." He stands, holding out a hand for you.

You take it, letting him half-carry you to your shared bathroom.

Now, you know you don't actually have a fever. And you can walk by yourself perfectly fine. But your fiance's given you a perfect alibi to hold on to until you've thought of a way to tell him what actually happened—why you look like you're fighting for your life.

"I've asked the help to warm up the water for you. Let me help you wash up-"

As soon as he begins to slide your nightgown off of your shoulders, you catch his wrists.

Once this nightgown's off of you, he'll see everything. And you'll have some explaining to do. And you're not ready for any of that yet.

Diluc raises a soft brow questioningly.

"Can you-" You nibble on your bottom lip, feeling your cheeks warm up once again.

One order of well-done cheeks please!

"Can you please turn around? I'll get in the tub on my own." Your tone is as gentle as you can turn it.

Diluc looks confused, mildly hurt, but he hides his expression quickly as he turns around. "Grab onto me if you feel like you're about to fall." He mutters, pushing his hand out from behind him.

You smile at your adorable fiance, quickly taking your nightgown off.

Even if you can do everything yourself, his hand is reached out for you to hold on to. And it'll be very rude to turn down someone extending a helping hand. Literally. So you softly hold onto his hand as you lower yourself into the tub, letting out a relaxed sigh at the feeling of the warm water almost immediately washing away your stress.

"May I turn around?" Diluc asks. "Mmhmm." You hum, watching him slowly turn around.

His eyes don't drop to the water to try seeing what's underneath all the soap bubbles, he simply grabs the small seat beside the tub, a towel, and silently asks for your arm.

You feel like the world's most loved queen as your fiance softly scrubs the dirty and sweat off of your skin, slowly traveling from one arm to the other, massaging your shoulders and back as he goes.

"Lift your leg for me, love." He asks softly. You bite your lip at his request, remembering how dream Diluc lifted your leg to his hips.

Now, in no way were you a virgin. You've done it multiple times with your fiance. And it felt amazing everytime. And he was so nice, so sweet. He kisses you everwhere. Asks how you feel. Asks what you want, what you don't want. Prioritizes your pleasure before his.

There shouldn't be a 'but'.

But there is!

You wish your fiance was sometimes rough with you. You wish he was more assertive with you—like he is with the people under him. It's one of the reasons you love watching him work.

You just wish he'd force you. Even just once.

You wish he'd leave marks where people can see.

You wish he'd fuck you like you're nothing but a hole to him.

You widh he'd—"Claim me..."

Diluc freezes mid wipe, his gaze stuck on a spot on your forearm. "What did you..."

Your eyes widen at the realization at what you just said out loud. Your cheeks burn once again, but this time your nape, shoulders and ears warm as well. You press your lips together and drag your gaze down at the bubbles, not wanting to meet his gaze.

"Love."

You feel your heart beat at the back of your throat. You wish for the bath to swallow you whole. For time to stop. For the world to implode.

With fingers on your jaw, Diluc turns your head at angle where you'll have to look at him. "What did you just say?"

Your mouth opens and closes, you feel like a total idiot! You have so much to say in your head, yet when the opportunity presents itself, you've got nothing!

"Tell me." Diluc demands, your pussy tingling at his tone.

"I just- well actually, last night- here's the thing though-"

"Spit it out y/n."

Your eyes widen.

He's annoyed.

Diluc never calls you by your name unless he's categorically pissed. His gaze stays on yours, unwavering. You know he's getting an answer out of you one way or another.

Silently, you move towards him, wrapping your arms around his waist. You're soaking him with the soapy water, yet you don't have it in you to care. You press your cheek on his side, letting out a sigh.

Looking up at him, you pout. "It's just that... I had this dream..."

Diluc nods as he resumes with wiping your shoulder.

"And- and in this dream, I was walking back home, here, after a long day of work. So much commissions, so much bounties, I had to travel-"

"Your point, y/n." Diluc commands, his tone making you slightly jump.

"Well, before I could enter the winery, I felt as if someone was following me. And someone was!" You look at him and his eyes are still on your shoulder.

He's upset you're keeping something from him.

"And- and he... He pinned me to the tree and..."

Diluc freezes once more, his gaze finally settling back into yours. His red orbs burn with possessiveness and fury.

"You dreamt of another man?" He roars.

You think—he's already mad, let's just pour everything out.

"And- and he touched me, and one thing led to another, and he took me. He just took me and didn't ask, he didn't let go when I told him to, he just-" Your words stop at the sight of him extremely livid.

At who? At you? At the man in your dreams?

"I liked it..." You whisper.

Diluc grabs you by your arm and hoists you against him, forcing you to stand up. The water is swashing around you, his suit is wet, the room is colder with your wet body, your fiance's grip on your arms were tight. It didn't hurt, but you're also unable to pull away from him.

"Who?" It's such a simple question, and the answer isn't a problem at all. And yet, why does your future with this red headed man depend on it?

"You..." Your voice is small and soft.

Diluc looks as though he's about to pass out from relief. His grip on you loosens and you instantly miss it. You whimper against him, gripping on his suit.

"Don't let go. Do it again." You beg, receiving an inquiring look from your fiance.

"Hold my arms that tight again. Please. I-"

"Love, no. I feel like I was too rough with you. I'm sorry I-"

"You kept me on the tree with a knife. You pressed against me and you just took and took and took. You fingered me, with asking, you fucked me when I told you no, and I loved it, Diluc." You sound pathetic and foolish and daft, but you can't help it. You're begging this man to fuck you like how he did in your dream. You want that shit turning into reality. You're desperate for it.

"Love-"

"Master Diluc?" A muffled voice calls out before you hear two knocks. "The traveler is here to see you. She says she needs to speak with you about the Fatui."

You curse Barbatos and whoever maid was standing outside your door for making this opportunity slip past your fingers.

"Tell her I'll be right down." Diluc yells, his eyes never leaving you. "So you don't have a fever?" He asks, completely dismissing how you had just bared your darkest desires to him. It stings.

You shake your head, at a loss for words.

"Finish washing up. If you want, you can come to my office if you want to say hi to the traveler. I think she misses you." He says, pressing a sweet kiss on your forehead before stepping away.

You listen silently to his footsteps slowly drifting away, and with a click of the door, you're left alone with your thoughts. Your regretful, embarassing thoughts. You sit back down on the tub, bringing your legs to your chest.

What does Diluc think of you now? Is he upset with you? Is he grossed out? Maybe he regrets proposing...

You wallow in shame for a few more minutes, keeping the tears from falling as you finish scrubbing your body. You hate this feeling. You hate that you like being roughed up. You hate the fact that you don't stick to the norm.

"Fuck." You sigh, drained and defeated.

You drop the one last bunch of grapes onto your basket. Your fingers are stained purple and they feel sticky, but it's all worth it. These are the best grapes in Monstadt.

You pick up your basket, taking in a deep breath of the night air. The moon is big and bright tonight, so you didn't need to hassle yourself with bringing a lamp along with you. It's a Friday night, and as always, Diluc has dismissed the staff for the weekend. After meeting you, he believes his people should have the opportunity to spend an ample amount of time with their families.

After his talk with the traveler, he decided to go with her and check out the area where she mentioned a lot of Fatui activities were going on. You didn't ask any more details, you were still too embarassed. Now, however, you're regretting it. You're all alone in the house and you're unsure of when your fiance is coming back.

You enter the winery and quickly shut the front door behind you making sure to lock it. Placing the basket on the long dining table, you double check all the windows and back doors. After which, you move over to the office, letting out a relieved sigh to see all the windows are locked.

Storing the grapes in cryo-induced compartment, you blow out all the candles and turn off all the light before making your way upstairs, ready to wash up before calling it a day.

As you turn to the hallway, the sound of a glass shattering roots you in place. You turn to the side, looking down at the empty foyer.

Fuck. You don't have time to grab a weapon. Your gaze hands on a book. That'll have to do.

Slowly and quietly, you make your way down the stairs, keeping your sense sharp as you look around. The sound came from the kitchen. You bring your book up, ready to hit or throw it at anyone or anything that comes your way.

You arrive at the scene, taking note of the broken wine glass on the floor. You huff, bringing the book down before turning in your heels.

You'll clean that up tomorrow.

"Fucking mice." You mutter, climbing back up the stairs, quickly making a beeline to your bedroom. You quickly shut the door and drop the book on the nightstand, hurrying to the bathroom.

You feel fresh and clean and ready to go to bed. You wrap the towel around your body, hating how you have to leave the warmth of the bathroom and enter the cold stagnant air in your bedroom just for some clothes.

You make a mental note to ask Diluc to renovate your bathroom into a walk-in-closet/bathroom type. That'll make your life much easier.

Padding towards your closet, you begin to dig through your night wear, looking for something warm and comfortable. Just as you've picked out a sweater, cool air brushes on your back. You jump, turning around to see no one and nothing.

Nothing but your open bedroom door.

I closed that, didn't I?

Furrowing your brows, you make your way towards the door. Your defenses are brought up again. Just as you reach the doorway and are about to close the door, you notice the book you were supposed to use as a weapon.

It's open.

You take a step towards it, you notice a small circle on the page. Black ink aurrounds the word 'I'm' in the middle. Two red roses stick out, acting like bookmarks. You turn to the page of the top-most rose, seeing another word encircled. 'Watching'. And the second- 'You.'

Goosebumps erupt all over your body and a loud crash causes you to scream. Your head snaps towards the unlit hallway outside. You question yourself if it's even worth it to go down there anymore.

"What am I thinking?" You mutter to yourself.

I've taken down ruin guards and abyss mages and hundreds of hilichurls. A little burglar doesn't scare me. In fact, it should be scared of me.

With a huff, now feeling annoyed that your peaceful night is ruined, you grab the hand knife Diluc likes to keep hidden in your drawer. Clutching the towel against your body, you quickly but silently make your way down the stairs, looking around for anything amiss.

As you reach the foyer, you notice the office door's ajar. You look around before scurrying over to it, pressing yourself against the wall as you clutch the knife to your chest, the blade pointing away from you. With a deep breath, you kick the door open, your body ready to fight whoever broke into your fiance's office.

Once again, you're greeted with nothing.

Confused, you turn to search the rest of the house when another crash echoes throught the foyer.

Kitchen.

As you run towards the kitchen, you freeze at the sound of footsteps padding quickly on the second floor.

How the fuck...?

You switch your pursuit of the kitchen and start running towards the stairs. Halfway up, you notice something wrong. You turn your head slightly around, just to check, before something grabs you by your ankle, causing you to fall.

The corners of each step dig into your body painfully, but you ignore them as you twirl the knife in your hand, you swing the knife against whatever was behind you, turning your body along with it.

You come face to face with a cloaked stranger, who managed to dodge your strike. You lift your leg up to kick them off of you but they read your movements, gripping on your ankle and angling it to the side.

The stranger uses their free hand to grab onto your hand that held your knife, pressing it onto the step above your head as they press their body against yours.

"Get off of me you fuck!" You yell, your weak attempts at loosening your hand from their grip is overpowered by their strength.

The stranger chuckles—they chuckle darkly as they let go of your ankle and grab onto your other hand. A man. With one hand holding both your wrists, the other grabs onto your towel, forcing it down, exposing your breasts.

"What the fuck are you-" You're cut off by the feeling of their belt pressing against your naked cunt. Heat blossoms on your stomach.

Your hands are pinned above you, your legs are open with a stranger in between them, your body is barely covered by the flimsy towel, and said stranger is grinding on your cunt. Your now wet, hot cunt.

"Slutty fucking body's just begging to be fucked." The stranger growls, the timber of his voice deep. He continues to pull on your towel until it slips from underneath you.

"Let go of me! Do you know who's house you're in right now?!" You yell, your weak attempts at freeing your wrists pitiful, to say the least.

The stranger simply chuckles, and before you know it, the towel is restraining you instead of his hands. "Take this off of me!" You demand, sneering at the man.

"You're in no position to be in control now, slut." He spits, his free hand trailing down your breasts. He squeezes and fondles them before lowering his head, taking your nipple in his warm mouth.

Your teeth dig into your lower lip, you don't want this fucker to hear you feeling good about this.

His tongue swirls around your nipple, sucking on the puckered point before softly sinking his teeth on them. "Fuck!" You cry out, the sudden pain bringing heat down your cunt.

Not now, kitty! You can't do this to me right now!

The stranger chuckles, moving to your other tit, his movement similar, but this time, he bites roughly, making you yell out in pain. Tears sting the corners of your eyes as you look down to see him licking the red mark around your nipple.

"You sick fuck-" You're cut off once again at the feeling of his fingers against your sex. Your wet, hot, needy sex.

When the fuck did his hand get there?!

Your try wriggling your body from his, but he doesn't budge. His finger presses on your sensitive bundle of nerves, causing your lips to part.

Holy shit.

He draws circles on it, pressing the pads of his fingers harshly, intensifying the pleasure charging all over your body. Without warning, he presses two fingers inside, forcing your walls to stretch immediately.

"No! Fuck!" You cry out, begging your body to listen to you.

Diluc. Diluc! Where is he?!

The stranger continues to pumps his fingers inside you. The house echoes with your whimpers, your ragged breaths, and the squelching sound his hand and your cunt makes together.

Everything sounds so lewd.

And you fucking love it.

No! No I fucking don't!

"Diluc!" You cry out.

"No need to yell for me." The stranger pushes his hood off and you've never felt such immense veneration to see the familiar red hair and red eyes you've come to love so much.

That feeling is quickly replaced by a sudden burst of euphoria as Diluc pinches your clit, forcing an electrifying orgasm out of you. You throw your head back, your back arching as waves upon waves of pleasure roll out of you.

"Don't mind if I do." Diluc mutters, feasting on your tits as your orgasm rolls on.

You're left panting and light headed by the time the feeling ceased. "Love." You breathe out, "What are you doing?"

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" He asks, flipping you over to your stomach. He grabs your waist, pulling it up so your ass is in the air.

"Fuck, love. When you told me about your dream, I almost creamed my pants." He grunts as you listen to his belt buckle clanking. A great sense of deja vu washes over you.

"I've been holding back for so long." He lines his cock to your folds, pressing against them. "You have no idea how many times I fucked you and thought, how would my future wife look covered with my cum?"

Without warning, he shoves his cock deep inside you, all nine inches making it hard for you to breathe. He doesn't give you time to adjust as he withdraws and snaps his hips back.

"And of course, I held back." His thrusts are brutal. " What kind of fiance would I be if I treated my woman like a cocksleeve?" That's exactly how he's treating you right now.

"Fucking you for the sake of my own pleasure?" He chuckles, his fingers digging into your hips. "That'd be very selfish of me." His thrusts have become sloppy, as if he's now chasing after his high. The thought of him using you for his personal gain has your pussy fluttering around him.

"Oh you fucking love that, don't you? You love listening to me talk about making you my bitch." He spits, no, like actually spits on your back.

His fingers weave their way through your hair, gripping on them as he pulls your head back. "Arch the fucking back." He commands, your body following his words immediately. "Fuck yeah, baby. You feel so good right now." He mutters in your ear, his thrusts erratic and unsteady.

"Oh Archons! Let me cum, Diluc! Please let me cum!" You yell out, feeling yourself reach the edge.

"I'm your Archon now." He whispers, his other hand traveling down your cunt. "Cum for me, my little follower." He pinches your clit, an orgasm even more powerful than before shakes your body. Your moans are loud as they travel all over the winery.

"Holy fuck this body is made for sin!" He yells, bottoming out as you feel warm liquid being spilled inside you.

Diluc falls on your back, his ragged breath hot on the side of your neck. A few moments pass before he pulls out, taking you in his arms as he walks up the rest of the steps.

You mentally sigh at the thought of having to wash up again, but your heart is ecstatic right now. You eye the bathroom door, furrowing your brows when you pass by it.

"Where are we going?" You ask, taking note of how your hands are still bound together.

"We're not done." Diluc declares.

"We're not?"

He takes you out the balcony, setting uou down and undoing the towel and dropping it on the ground. "I wanted to watch the moon." He says, taking a seat. "You," he points at you, before point down. "On your knees."

You suck in a breath, slowly kneeling down.

"Take out my cock." He orders, taking off his gloves.

You follow his instructions, feeling your insides turn to jelly at how demanding your fiance is tonight.

If he keeps this up, I'm marrying him tomorrow.

You take out his cock, pumping it softly and slowly at first, unsure of what uou're supposed to do.

Diluc's the first and only guy you've ever been with. And given his track record, he's never ask you to give him head. Sure, you've heard your friends telling you about their experiences, but Diluc always prioritized your pleasure before his. He never found it necessary to ask you for a blow job, and so, you never learned how to.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" He raises a brow, "Use your mouth like the good girl you are."

He places a hand on the top of your head, softly pushing you down until your lips connected with his tip.

"You don't wanna disappoint your Archon now, do you?"

Oh, fuck.

You part your lips, the tip of your tongue softly flicking on his swollen head as your eyes flick up to meet his. Diluc grinds his molars, closing his eyes as his hand pushes your head even lower.

His cock pushes against your tongue, to the back of your throat. The reflex to gag hits you instantly and you begin to pull away, but your fiance's hand keeps you in place.

"Tap my thigh if you feel like it's too much."

Huh?

Without warning, he stands up and grips your hair, pulling you towards him as he snaps his hips forward. Your eyes widen as tears begin to form in the corners. Immediately, you think to tap on his thigh, just as he said. Right before you do, you look up at him, and you're struck.

The expression on him right now—so desperate, so needy. As if he wants nothing more than to fuck your mouth. As if uour mouth is his only salvation from a life of sin. His eyes are hungry and wanting, his hips fast and harsh, his grip on your hair tight and rigid.

"Shit, baby. This mouth is made for fucking." He grits out, his thrusts unyielding.

Your hands move up his thighs, running up and down before you dig your fingers into his skin.

"I said to tap, not to draw blood, love." He breathes out, mistaking your actions for a tap out. You quickly correct him by hallowing your cheeks, independently moving your head in and out.

"Oh fuck!" His moans are loud and desperate as he throws his head back, his chest rising and falling as he chases his second high of the night.

"So close baby, I'm so fucking close!" He yells out and you moan around his dick, making his hips stutter before he pushes his whole length inside, your throat muscles convulsing around him as you begin to push away, but he keeps you in place.

With one last loud roar, he spills inside you, slowly withdrawing his cock. Out of breath, he presses his thumb on your bottom lip. "Open." He commands.

You open your mouth, revealing his spilled seed inside.

"Swallow."

You swallow.

"On your knees, teary eyed, and looking up at me like I'm God." Diluc chuckles, softly pulling you up to stand. He captures your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue dancing against yours. You are completely and utterly in the man's command.

"I love you, baby." He whispers against your lips.

"I love you more, thank you." You close your eyes, smiling.

"I ahould be thanking you." Diluc chuckles, "How did it feel?" He asks, walking you to the bathroom.

"Mmmm..." You ponder, "I'd like to do it again."

"Really?" He raises both brows in disbelief.

You giggle, pressing a kiss on his cheek. "Mmhmm. I enjoyed it too much. Can't get enough of you." You mutter against his lips before turning to get into the tub.

Diluc fucks you roughly in the tub. He scolds you for being a tease. And again on your bed, for saying you can't get enough of him. And once more until you pass out, your body shaking, covered in marks and sweat and cum.

[funnyartprintsnow]

Victorian Mice Winemaking Art Print, British Cellar Scene, Old-Fashioned Ink Watercolor, Wine Cellar Decor, Quaint Wall Art (Print only no f

[teenytinyjimin]

baroque (j. jungkook)

summary: masquerade balls are all fun and games until you meet that one person that you feel like you’ve known for a lifetime, but regardless as to who he is, you can’t just let him go.

pairing: jungkook x reader

word count: 2.4k

tags: masquerade, mystery, academia/renaissance/baroque (i know these are all different but its a little combination), ballroom dancing, reader is absolutely in love with this mystery man she’s dancing with, and he’s kinda in love with her too, spoiler: they know each other, kissing of course!

warnings: none

author’s note: IM BACK! IM SO SORRY BUT IM BACK! anyways i hope u guys enjoy! my last kook fic got a lot of traction so thank u so much <3 so i hope this is up to par with that one :)

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

As you stood at the steps to the entrance of one of the largest ballrooms in town, you took a deep sigh. This wasn't a sigh of distress, however, it was more of a sigh of anticipation.

Balls weren't necessarily a thing of the 21st century. Had it been, say, four-hundred or five-hundred years prior, a ball would be the talk of the town and absolutely everyone would be flooding into the ballroom to have the time of their lives dancing with one another. Alas, it was 2024, and the only people you'd see attending a ball nowadays would be people who are actively interested in Renaissance and Baroque culture and seek rare events pertaining to such.

There was something about these classical time periods that felt ageless and beautiful to you. The big gowns, glimmering jewels, and elaborate ballroom designs were absolutely gorgeous. So of course you were going to indulge in as much classical beauty as possible in modern times. And that meant going to balls whenever you could (or, in other words, whenever you were able to hear about them through the grapevine).

So here you were, in your elaborate Renaissance dress, staring at the entrance ahead of you. This particular ball was a masquerade ball, so it was even more exciting considering the fact that most everyone would be anonymously dancing behind beautifully decorated masks. You looked down at your own mask in hand, a beautiful and ornate piece strewn with jewels, glitter, and feathers. You had spent the last week perfecting the mask and had gone through nearly a dozen prototypes before you created what you thought was the best piece of work you had ever done in your twenty-something years of living. It was beautiful, and it would do a perfect job of hiding exactly what needed to be hidden to make this masquerade a true mystery for you.

Fastening the mask over your head and onto your face, you began to ascend the steps and enter the ballroom. As anticipated, the venue was covered in beautiful Renaissance artwork and ornate chandeliers. The marble pillars holding the place together really brought everything to life as they echoed the Roman influence that they possessed into the large room. Ahead of you was a sea of elaborate gowns and tuxedos, all spinning around in harmony as they danced with one another to the beautiful orchestral music that played.

"A glass of champagne, miss?" A voice called out from next to you. You looked over to see a masked waiter with a tray of champagne flutes in his hand. You gave him a polite nod and curtsy as you took a glass from him. Champagne wasn't necessarily your drink of choice, however you needed something to keep you company while you waited for a good opportunity to join the dancing or, alternatively, until you were asked to dance.

As you approached the floor of the ball, navigating through the sea of dancing people, you attempted to find someone you may have recognized. Sure, masquerades made it rather difficult to identify a person and thus it was quite hard to know if you knew anyone anyway, but it was worth a shot for the sake of socializing. For the most part, everyone seemed pretty invested in their partners, committing to the elaborate ballroom dance that was taking place to the sound of a piano and violin.

Within a matter of moments, you suddenly found yourself on the ground as you had accidentally run directly into another individual. You looked up to see a gloved hand reach down to you, begging for your touch so that it could help you to your feet once again. As you obliged, you realized the body to which the hand was connected was much stronger than you had anticipated as you practically flew back to your feet. A little lightheaded from the rush of movement, you swayed for a moment and tried to find your footing, but the hand that previously helped you was now firmly on your waist as a form of support.

You brushed off your dress once you found yourself more stable, a bright red blush creeping to your cheeks. "I'm so sorry-" You began before looking up to the person in front of you. Something about his presence left you fascinated – He was tall with wide shoulders and toned arms, something you could immediately notice through his tight-fitting shirt. Despite being fit to his body, his shirt was beautiful and contained all sorts of frills and jewels. Only one of his hands were gloved, as the other one was covered in bracelets and rings of a particularly ornate design. He had the most beautiful chain necklaces wrapped around his neck which perfectly suited his beautiful jawline, which was both sharp and soft at the same time. His lips, a perfect amount of plump, were curled into a soft smile which made him a lot less intimidating than he seemed. When you finally saw his eyes, you were met with the most beautiful black orbs that were wide with wonder and amazement. You could've sworn that you've seen those eyes somewhere, as they reminded you of all the comfort you had ever felt in your life, but you couldn't quite put them to a face you recognized. Though this man's face was hidden behind a beautiful mask, you could tell that he was breathtaking in every sense of the word.

"Are you okay?" He asked, maintaining eye contact with you. There was no way you were going to escape his gaze, not because he wouldn't let you but also because you didn't want to. You nodded softly as you continued awkwardly brushing off your dress, unsure of how to speak to the man in front of you. The soft smile that was once on his face now grew to a more toothy grin as he took your hand in his and gently pressed your knuckles to his lips. "If you'd like to make it up to me, I'd love to dance with you."

How were you meant to say no to him? Besides the fact that he had quite literally left you speechless, everything about him was absolutely gorgeous and you'd never turn down an offer to dance with someone like him. As you once again responded with a nod, you felt as he used the hand he had wrapped around your waist to guide you further into the crowd of people and to a more open area where you could properly dance. Once there, he pulled you slightly closer to him as he took your hand in his free one. You naturally placed your other hand upon his bicep, which was tense under your touch, and he began to guide you into a waltz-style dance. It felt as if this came naturally to him as you effortlessly swayed around. You continued to stare into his beautiful doe eyes which shimmered with fantasy as they quite literally pierced into your soul. Whoever this man was, he was perfect in every sense of the word. He was just so perfect.

"You look absolutely stunning, by the way. I'm not sure if I mentioned that," He said after a moment, causing you to blush and look away. "I could say the same about you," You responded quietly, letting yourself feel the air around you blow through your hair. "Thank you for helping me up, by the way. This dress is difficult to maneuver in when you're on the ground."

"It's my pleasure. After all, we bumped into each other. I had an obligation. I wasn't going to let a beautiful girl fend for herself on the ground as a bunch of people danced all over her." You looked back over to him and let out a soft giggle, watching as a grin rose to his face. Something about him was just so warm and inviting, yet you couldn't put your finger on what it was. Perhaps you two knew each other in a past life, one in which you were actually attending balls together in the Renaissance.

"I bet you call a lot of girls at these sorts of things beautiful. I mean, look at you." You say in a teasing tone, watching as his grin dropped to a smirk. "Bold of you to assume that I go to these dances very often, miss." He lets out a soft sigh as he continues to effortlessly sway you around, refusing to stop staring at you. "But even if I did, you're the most breathtaking of them all. Honest."

You remove your hand from his as you bring both hands to rest on the back of his neck, attempting to push yourself closer to him so you can talk a little quieter. "You seem like a pro, do you really not go to balls very often?" He shrugs under your touch as he wraps both arms around your waist, holding you tightly. "Not really. This is my first time coming to this place at least. I'm more of a contemporary dancer."

"Ah, I see," You say softly, letting one of your hands feel at the hair on the back of his neck. He lets out a hitched breath at your touch but continues to sway the two of you back and forth. "It's a beautiful venue, though. It feels like we're in the 1700s and not the 2000s." He comments, looking up briefly at the chandelier above the two of you. You couldn't help but agree. Sometimes when you go to events like these you forget about the chaos of life and pretend that you're still in the Renaissance, which is beautiful in and of itself.

"Have you been on the balcony yet? It has a beautiful view of the city if you want to go take a look," You propose, looking back down at the man in your arms. You watch as his eyes soften and a small smile grows on his lips, pulling away so he can offer you his hand. "You lead the way," He says as you take your hand in his and gently pull him away from the crowd.

As soon as you reached the fresh air of the empty balcony, the two of you stood in silence as you admired the shimmering lights of the city in front of you. "Wow..." He muttered, clearly surprised at the sight in front of him. "You can see pretty much everything from here. How is that possible?" You approach the railing of the balcony and lean against it, taking a moment to look around. "The ballroom is on a hill, even though it doesn't really feel like it. It's actually above the rest of the town so the balcony is able to look down on everything around us."

"I hate to say it, but it seems like I might have found something more beautiful than you." Letting out a small gasp, you turn around to face the man behind you, noticing a huge grin on his face. You smile in return. "I guess I don't blame you. A good view beats a pretty face any day."

"Mmm." He hums, approaching you slowly. He secures his hands on your waist as he picks you up with ease and places you on the railing, keeping contact with you at all times to ensure that you don't fall. Once you are steady on the railing he wraps both arms around you and presses himself tightly to you for extra support, and you instinctively wrap your arms around his neck to stay safe. "I'm only joking anyway. I don't think it's possible to be more beautiful than you."

"Well, I think you're living proof of that, because you're definitely more beautiful than me," You mumble as the distance between your faces becomes much shorter than it once was. He lets out a breathy laugh as he removes one of his arms from your waist and attaches his hand to your face, stroking it gently before closing the gap completely and bringing you in for a kiss.

Kissing someone under the stars is one thing, but kissing someone mysteriously under the stars is another thing. You have no idea who this man is, you don't even know his name, yet here you are, lips connected to his. This is perhaps the best kiss you have ever experienced, as he is so soft yet so passionate with his movements. He never once lets go of you with his other hand, keeping you secure on the railing so that you don't accidentally slip. The one on your face is so soft and gentle, holding onto your face in the most perfect way. It is only now that you are able to really breathe in his scent, an obviously expensive cologne that you would kill to drown in at this point. He was consuming every part of you and you wanted him and only him.

The two of you pulled away briefly so that he could stare into your eyes for a moment. "You really are breathtaking," He mumbled, fiddling with the bottom edge of your mask. As he began to slowly pull it off of your face, you watched as his expression went from lovestruck to shocked. It looked as if seeing your face without the mask scared him. He didn't like how you looked.

"I'm sorry-" You begin to say, tears welling up in your eyes. However he stops you as he takes his own mask off, revealing a face that you could never forget. Jeon Jungkook. Your childhood best friend. The boy you had a crush on for years several years ago. He wasn't disgusted by how you looked. He was shocked that it was you.

"Jungkook?" You said breathlessly, unable to say anything beyond his name. He only stared at you in response, unsure of what his own next move would be. This wasn't something you had ever expected. Not the whole 'kissing your childhood best friend' part, but the fact that somehow in an event of anonymity, you would find your way to each other. And now that you have shared this night together, it's almost as if all the feelings you ever felt for him over the years have flooded back to you as you once again felt head-over-heels for him.

Finally, you watched as a toothy smile returned to his face. He placed his hand once again on your cheek and brushed it as you watched him admire your features. "Thank god it's you. I've been waiting for this moment for years," He mumbled before pulling you in again for another kiss.

[girlkisser13]

dionysus cabin headcanons

children of dionysus

• HUGE theater kids.

• being highly emotional, wine children make great actors.

• they throw the best parties.

• they have extra beds in their cabin for people who pass out and can't handle their liquor.

• when one of them is upset, others around them get upset too, due to dionysus having influence on the mind.

• they hate the indoors and prefer open spaces.

• even when sober, they can't pass a breathalyzer test because they naturally have the scent of wine on them.

• they are all great cooks and know which wine to pair with each meal.

• they are all very good at directions and are rarely lost (a blessing from their stepmother).

• gender fluidity is common with dionysus kids.

• they all have thick, curly hair and strange color eyes.

• they are prone to depression and anger and are often bipolar.

• daughters of dionysus are rare so they are as powerful as big three kids (canon in the myths).

• they are harder to charmspeak due to their connection with the states of mind.

• arguments last for months because anger runs in their blood and the wine influence makes it worse.

• when they’re sad, they can make vines wilt by just looking at them.

• on very rare occasions, wine children can be born with the ability to affect another's mental state temporarily.

• this ability makes them feared by many, because they can cause hysteria and hallucinations, but they are also sought out by some suffering from depression or anxiety to help relax them.

• they get really thirsty really easily. they always have a bottle of water on hand.

• they are able to recognize all kinds of alcohol with just a sniff, but they all hate wine-tasting.

• they can automatically tell if a beverage has been tampered with, laced with something unwanted or if the ingredients used to make said alcohol are not safe for consumption.

cabin exterior

• the cabin is draped in grapevines and ivy, with the plants growing in a seemingly chaotic yet aesthetically pleasing manner.

• the exterior features vibrant and rich colors like deep purples, greens, and golds. they are reminiscent of a vineyard in full bloom.

• their cabin has a rustic, almost ancient greek villa vibe, with wooden beams, stone walls, and terracotta roof tiles.

• strings of fairy lights, lanterns, and other festive decorations hang around the cabin, creating a lively, celebratory atmosphere even when there's no party.

• comfortable outdoor furniture like hammocks, cushioned chairs, and wooden benches are scattered around for lounging and socializing.

• the doors in their cabin occasionally change colors and vines tend to move on their own.

cabin interior

• their cabin is almost entirely purple on the inside, which makes everything a little bit dark and dramatic. it's also usually very cool and damp inside- the perfect climate for storing wine.

• plush, comfortable furniture in rich fabrics and colors create a cozy yet opulent atmosphere. think velvet couches, silk cushions, and ornate rugs.

• they have a central bar area with stools and a variety of non-alcoholic drinks (and a secret stash of wine). nearby, they have a lounge area with low tables, bean bags, and cozy chairs for socializing and relaxing.

• soft, warm lighting from chandeliers, lanterns, and fairy lights create a magical, inviting ambiance. there are also be candles and fireflies in glass jars scattered around.

• the interior also features plenty of natural elements, like potted plants, hanging vines, and flowers. some walls might even have living plants growing on them.

• decorations include garlands, streamers, and masks hanging from the walls and the ceiling, giving the cabin a perpetual party vibe.

• the walls are adorned with art pieces, ranging from classical paintings to more whimsical, modern interpretations of dionysian myths. sculptures of satyrs, nymphs, and other mythological creatures are scattered around the cabin.

cabin traditions

• when a child of dionysus falls in love, it's a cabin tradition that they give their partner a hideous leopard print shirt.

• they put on regular plays, improv sessions, or storytelling nights, often featuring greek and roman myths and tales related to their father.

• new wine children undergo a playful initiation rite, involving a series of fun challenges and games, ending with a toast (with grape juice) welcoming them into the cabin.

• inspired by traditional wine-making, they hold an annual grape-crushing competition, with teams competing to crush the most grapes by stomping on them, followed by a big party to celebrate.

divider by @plutism

[evan-collins90]

Assaggio restaurant - Boston, MA (mid 1990s)

Designed by Arteriors

"Enjoy Italian cuisine in a Renaissance ambiance. Assaggio, designed by Arteriors, re-creates experience of Rome in Boston. Artist-designer Stephanie and Amiel Mesner created an unconventional interior. They used no floor plan. Instead, they improvised as the project progressed. The idea originated from the artworks by Botticelli. The ceiling is filled with grapevines and ivy; Zeus and faux columns are attached to a wall that's decorated in trompe l'oeil marble blocks; the room is topped off full of woodland scenes, with a midnight-blue overhead rendering of the zodiac. Assaggio is a bistro with an underground wine bar. The ceiling is painted to simulate sunlight shining through; the stonewalls and ivy-clad columns are all faux art. The Napoli room is a recreation of a seaside villa."

Scanned from 'American Theme Restaurants' by I.M. Tao (1999)

[rel124c41]

NARC. floyd leech

It’s a chance to prove yourself again … and to ignore this godforsaken craving for a burger.

tags: mafia au, blood and injury, mild sexual content, organized crime, emotionally repressed, food issues, nonconsensual kissing, & post-betrayal

word count: 9436

You pluck a glass of red wine from a tray. Shoulders gliding past a humanoid Cthulhu, you pour the blood-hued liquid down your snorkel and sample the taste of dry wine. It is a Pinot. Gratefully for this, you take care to pour a bit more in your snorkel. Though, just as you duck under the wayward stretch of a shark’s gesturing, cigar-holding hand, – smoke from a White Russian cigar furling out of his rubber lips like crisp, morning fog that a ship must part through  – Jesus asks, scandalized, in your ears, “Are you drinking on the job?”

The wine halts its descent down your throat. Holding (almost choking on) the liquid in your mouth, your eyes momentarily widen in surprise. You throw your head back and down what is left in your snorkel, because it is necessary to communicate with an empty mouth. “I thought you said you didn’t have any eyes in here.”

No one can really blame you for how your own eyes start to flutter around the room, like tracking an energetic butterfly.

“I took the precaution of sending Rook to plant S.T.Y.X. cameras in the ballroom. I, however, did not know I would have to take any precaution against one of my spudlings being inebriated,” Jesus chastises. 

Caught red-handed, you feel heat crawl up your face. “ …It’s just one drink, boss.” Even though it is soft, you can still clearly hear that admonishing huff of breath come through your ear-piece while your personal Jesus – your boss, Schoenheit – breathes with affront. You decide that you will hold the cordial glass for the rest of the night as decoration rather than drinking it.

“One too many.” The words are so cold that you feel a shell of frostbite coat your earlobe. “I expect your greatest performance, Potato. The audience is very bilious tonight.”

Bilious, as in bad-tempered. For a moment, it feels the weight of the world socks you in the ear. That you know too well. Whether they are actually watching through the S.T.Y.X. footage back home or are simply holding up an ear to tomorrow’s whispering grapevine, the audience is upset with you. 

If tonight’s performance does not go well, there will be no more stage for you. The next time you appear to the audience, it will be on your curtain call. You imagine Rook (under Schoenheit’s instructions) taking a knife to your throat with all the poise of a violinist playing its instrument, the red notes splattered across the leather seats. 

The thought makes you yearn to down the rest of the Pinot. 

Instead, you find an appetizer table to stand by inconspicuously. And though you have already been stricken by the sight (which caused you to even grab a drink!) you glare upwards with a furrowed brow, through the polycarbonate sheets of your swim-goggles, towards the second floor. 

Above the ballroom is a circular platform walkway, connected to the ground by two spiral staircases. Leaning on the golden railing that twists like interlocking peppermint canes, the left hand man of Ashengrotto fiddles with a single drumstick. It propels through his hand like a miniature helicopter blade, spinning effortlessly. Sullen and bored, his eyes flicker all across the ballroom to find a crumb of entertainment. In Floyd’s right ear, Ashengrotto is talking – yet most likely being ignored too. 

His outfit is … juvenile. (the sneer blooming on your face is natural) Unlike the other attendants, the eel-mer is simply dressed in a graphic tee – your HUF graphic tee with Spider-man and Venom on it – and sweats. There is a ketchup or tomato soup or blood stain on your shirt’s collar. A pair of Monty Python bunny slippers peek out from the pooling, gray fabric around his ankles. The ears flop as he squirms back and forth on his feet.

Ashengrotto is dressed much better – an expensive, freshly pressed notch lapel suit of cobalt and swirling violet – but it is still very different from the fool’s play that is happening below them. You survey the crowd wearing rubber fish masks, diving equipment that conceals their faces, and any other variation of deep sea disguises. The ocean tonight is full of sycophants..

Most people think an Ashengrotto masquerade is the zenith of high society. Tabloids have waxed poetry about the ‘nocturnal beauty of a deep sea labyrinth where desires are found in nebulous waves’ and how the masks give ‘a thrilling sense that we are all drowned, wayward souls brought together in harmony under his glorious might’. You know better. That flowery poesy is a mere facade in a game of facades. Ashengrotto likes to throw these masquerades so often because he likes to laugh at others who unquestionably follow his every whim or will.

Schoenheit has informed you that Ashengrotto is a schadenfreude. Not too fluent in German, you asked for the translation. The two jigsaw puzzle words of schaden, which is damage, and fruede, which is joy, connect to make schadenfreude. It means Ashengrotto experiences emotional pleasure at the sight of others misfortune. 

‘There is no better sight to Ashengrotto than the sight of some poor, unfortunate soul begging on their knees at his doorstep. You would do well to remember that, Potato.’

Remember it you shall and you have. One drink is not enough to send you to your knees or make you beg. However, to Schoenheit, sipping a drop of wine tilts the scale in favor of the one-out-of-ten chance of you walking up there, blowing your cover, and smashing the empty glass in Floyd’s face.

Instead of doing that, you ask conversationally, “When was a covenant struck with the Shrouds?” You wish Schoenheit would have more trust in you, but you are well aware you lost that trust. Waiting for an answer, your eyes search the environment for those mentioned cameras.

“When you were out of commission.” 

All of your limbs flinch at that, as if you have just taken a bite of the world’s sourest lemon. “Ah.”

How altruistic of Schoenheit to remind you.

Being out of commission was very unlike you. For five years, you have known Schoenheit; for four, you have worked for him. In that time, sick days were once-in-a-lifetime events. You pride yourself on how effectively you worked because, for three years, you have known Schoenheit’s face and for two years, you had been in the upgraded position from canon-fodder to information recon. 

Then, for one whole year, you had … well, you rather not say. Speaking it would be like swallowing a bouquet of roses but without the petals and solely the thorns. At the very least, you inform Schoenheit on new information, just in case he has not seen it on the cameras, “He’s here, boss.”

“Ah.” At least both of you are dealing with this in stride. After that faint whisper, the earpiece fixated tightly on your snorkel is quiet for a few moments. In that time, you stumble into a memory. 

As the kunai slams into the wall by the door’s opening entrance, emitting a sharp warning bang, you announce to your uninvited guests, “If it’s the mailman, you can leave the package by the grocery bags like normal. If you’re here to stop my heart, someone’s already beat ya to the kill.” With that said, you let your deceased arm drop and fall limp on your mattress. 

“And if it’s your boss?”

Wincing, you respond, “ … ah, I supposed you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Schoenheit says primly as you hear your apartment door close. 

Though he says nothing, you can hear Schoenheit’s eyes flickering across each item of a break-up vomited across your single room apartment. Ah, where to even start? The snow white vivisection of the beheaded bear that he made for you at Build-A-Bear? How about the dart board where a handful of porcupine quill darts stick out of a five-tiered photo of you and him squeezed tight in an arcade’s photobooth? Yet, who could neglect to look at the real ruins of the relationship which is you, spread out like a starfish on your bed, eyes raccoon-ed with running mascara and insomnia?

After scrutinizing over the heartbreak hurricane that has torn through the room, Schoenheit starts to make his way over to you. It only takes a second to recognize that he did not come alone. You hear a second pair of shoes. “Oh, mon cher,” Rook says sullenly.

At least you don’t have to turn your head to see who it is. Body comatose in dolor, you cannot be bothered to move an atom of yourself besides the hand that feeds yourself and your bunny a bowl of carrots.

You hear one of your two superiors seat themselves at your bar as Oswald nibbles an orange stalk from your fingers. “How long do you think you have been here?”

“Must be more than a couple days, three?” You put a carrot in your mouth as you wait for the reveal.

“A week and a day,” Schoenheit supplies the answer. Then, he repeats chastising, “A full eight days.” 

“Hm,” you hum, just as acknowledgement to let him know that you heard him. Eight days seems so insignificant. You press another carrot to Oswald’s lips as he takes it in his chattering teeth. As the ebon Havana whittles the vegetable down to nothing, you depress your fingers down onto his fur, feeling the vibrations of his nibbling on your chest. 

Eight days? If you had the energy to scoff, you would be up in Schoenheit’s face with the loudest, most scornful scoff he has ever heard in his life, a scoff that would have the academy sending you home with a performing arts award. 

Eight days is nothing!

Your apartment goes quiet for a beat. Unsure which one has previously sat down at the bar countertop, you listen to the single pair of footsteps that walks around the wreckage. Crunching glass murmurs in the air. Again, you are unsure on whether one of your two superiors has picked up a photograph frame you bludgeon to bits or has accidentally stepped on the skeleton remains of a ceramic plate you two painted downtown at some rickety pottery studio. 

You bloodlet a year worth of your time for him. He left. So, you broke everything that could be a reminder of stolen seconds, minutes, and hours – even though it does not reverse the clock at all – to cement the finiteness. 

No going back: that is what you wanted your destruction to symbolize. You know that is not where your feelings lie. Reversing time is all you want to do. All your love and longing is strapped to you like a huge hiking bag, and you cannot find it in yourself to shoulder off that paralysis-esque weight. Thus, it crushes you, much like how Oswald crushes down on your sternum when he starts to make biscuits. 

“Do you plan to make it nine?”

That rouses you enough where you stop looking at the ceiling and drop your cheek on the right side of the bed. Schoenheit is the one sitting at your bar. Plucked straight from a vogue magazine, your boss looks like Jesus himself with his shoulder-length hair. His halo is the light shining in your set of a dozen, upside down cordial glasses. Like sleeping bats, they hang from your iron mounted, wine glass rack and cover him in evangelical sunshine. Your personal Jesus who came to console you after a break-up. 

“I don’t know,” you verbalize. Moodiness makes you brave. “Why don’t you stay for the next twenty-four hours and find out?” You put another carrot in your mouth, intending to turn back to staring at the ceiling when, “Ew, bunny hair.” You flick your tongue up and down, trying to dislodge the stray black hair. 

Chuckling with a dangerous undertow, Schoenheit says, “I wish I could but I have much better things to do with my time than watch you eat your pet’s hair. Time should not be wasted. I know, Potato, that you can use your time more wisely than this.”

Oswald’s hair finally out of your mouth, you bite back, “No, I’m quite content doing this forever.” This time you take care to brush your fingers on the edge of your shirt to rub off pet fur before you reach back into the bowl. 

“Well, I tried to be gentle about it.”

Oswald is plucked off your lap. You give a noise of protest when the rabbit is handed to Rook. That noise is effectively silenced when a disposable syringe tip is placed on the skin folding over your carotid artery. Not yet pressing it, just a small apply of pressure to remind you of its existence. 

Your slow blink is confronted by the blink of awe that rinses over Schoenheit’s face, thoroughly shocked at your lack of reaction. In the grand scheme of things, eight days truly is nothing. And, in the grand scheme of things, death really is nothing. “I loved him, Schoenheit.” You have no idea what could possibly be in the syringe. Poison made by your boss has made men weighing two hundred plus pounds drop in seconds and has made others dissolve into a bubbling puddle of red. 

Thus, you continue on, bitter and thoroughly hurt, “I loved him like a garden loves the sun and rain. I loved him like a guitar loves making music. I loved him like … oh, I don’t know. More than anything really.”

“The sustenance from a kiss is a fertilizer like no other! From each replenishing embrace, a flower grows in the garth of our hearts! What a beautiful seraphim love is! A free spirited angel of our making! Some might even say finding love is like finding Heaven on Earth! Que c'est beau!”

“You’re not helping.”

“Ah, je suis désolé,” Rook apologizes, switching his energy outlet from an impromptu poetry slam to brushing Oswald’s fur in neat sections.

Schoenheit’s eyes are testy as they regard you. Two rich pools of orchid violet dissect you from the top layer of epidermis down to your bone. You are very curious to what those keen eyes could be seeing in the decrepit, disgraceful state you are in. Is there anything left to salvage from you or are you a lost cause (a potted plant, too withered to revive)?

You flinch when the syringe goes in. It feels like pinching skin between metal. As mysterious fluid flows through your carotid artery, you listen to Schoenheit’s lecture, “He has stolen from me something that was in your possession. Something that I trusted you to keep safe. That I cannot forgive.”

When the syringe is pulled out, you offer nothing more than a wince. You want to be a smartass and ask, no bandage?, but you continue to listen on. “Diligence. Excellence. Relentlessness. Those three values are what Pomefiore is founded upon.” The cap clips over the empty needle of the syringe. “I have full confidence in you that those are memorized in your mind. Yes?” Those orchid lakes seem to grow bottomless and nebulous. Which of the Greek Gods must you never look in the eyes?

Jesus pulls back from your coffin-bed. Oswald is put back on your chest like a bundle of flowers. 

“The heart is flexible. There is always a place to make new love.” 

You have no idea what is in the syringe but you sit up in bed, feeling refreshed like one does after a long shower or long nap. 

After they leave, on your countertop and under the hanging wine glasses is a ticket to Ashengrotto’s upcoming masquerade along with three vials of swirling colors that move like tiny lava lamps of blue, red, and yellow.

“Remind him, Potato.”

So caught up in memory-lane, you startle because who are you supposed to remind? And remind them of what? Jesus (the actual Jesus, not your boss), did a week out of commission really have you in such disarray? 

Yet, you know each intricate circumstance that leaves your nerves so shot. Just like you know exactly where freckle is on his back, the exact hues that blend together to make up the color of his contrasting, gazing eyes, and just like you know the print his teeth leave behind when he bites down. All that information is left in high, extensive detail in the files of your mind. 

Luckily, Schoenheit was only beginning his sentence with Remind him, Potato. You listen to the rest of his words and commit them to memory. “That he is not the only one on the stage. You are there too. On the same stage.”

You inhale a tiny planet of air. Steeling yourself, you take one last glance up to the second floor. The only person who could recognize your face from the casting call of tonight’s performance stands up there, picking his nose with his pinkie like a child. Tonight is just: him, you, and this wire.

The objective of tonight – in order to proceed to the main objective – is to find someone to inject with a syringe. 

You have exactly three. Blue, red, and yellow. Three plastic vials that are hidden in a pocket professionally stitched inside the inner wrist of your suit. Nestled together like newborn bunnies nursing, they lie in that pocket and await the moment you take out the needle from your boutonnière. 

It is an impossible task to bypass security into an Ashengrotto masquerade. Without fail, guests are scanned down for metal lingering on their bodies. Thus, creative liberties need to be taken to complete Schoenheit’s wish. Underneath the rose pinned on your suit are three needles. They blend together with the metal found in a boutonnière, and that disguise allows you to perform on stage. 

A brief [Aside], they also do not check shoes here with their metal scanners.

Each vial has a different job for tonight. Blue, red, and yellow. All your primaries gathered together underneath the veins on your non-dominant wrist. 

If injected, blue will cause a seizure unlike the likes anyone has seen before, causing bones to climb into directions thought impossible of anatomy as the victim crawls upward for heavenly salvation. If injected, red will cause the punctured spot to dissolve, flesh dripping away to reveal bone that falls away like a melted jar of sugar. If injected, yellow will cause any wounds to heal, reversing all damage no matter how grotesque or twisted out of proportion. 

The best thing about them is there is no need for a syringe. As soon as the needle pierces something, the liquid is pulled out of the plastic by its own fate. Right now, you look around for a masked individual (anyone besides Ashengrotto and Floyd)  to empty the blue one into.

It has to be a distraction of magnetic caliber. Everyone’s focus needs to be pulled, even those of the most insignificant waiter to Ashengrotto himself. No matter what, it has to be compelling and spellbinding.

Which is why you chose a man wearing a diver’s helmet. So when his Herculean head inevitably falls, it will cause a loud clank! that is heard all the way from the second floor. 

It is why your conspiracy starts off delicate; the femme/homme fatale simply spreading out their influence in subtle ways. You only know you had him ensnared in your web when the arm you are running a hand upon relaxes, his previous flinch and tension melting like a peppermint in the mouth. You flutter your eyelashes at him from behind your goggles.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you; I was simply hoping to get the hors d'oeuvre in front of you.” You retract your hand but not without giving his elbow a teasing squeeze.

It is difficult to deduct any sort of thought from the impenetrability of his costume. Sealed away by blue-rusted brown copper, his ‘face’ is a tenebrous ebony with the words Anchor Engineering, 1913 as his temple and then as his chin. Unperturbed, you stare lovingly into the cold, lifeless circle. 

He side-steps but does not leave. That’s good. As you masterfully pluck a shrimp square off the lazy susan, you make sure to turn your victim. Act uninterested in the food. Look at him as if he is your next meal. 

“They always serve such extravagant, authentic seafood here. It feels as if I am truly dipping my hand into the Coral Sea and reeling in my meal from those very waters. Don’t you agree?”

The helmet sways up and down in a slow nod. His body underneath is like a statue.

You take half a bite of the shrimp square. It is an explosion of flavor; the bread, sauce, and meat combines into one sophisticated umami that excites your tastebuds. When you finish chewing, actually genuinely pleased with your bite, you hum out, “köstlich!”

And whatever fleeting interest this stranger has with you is amplified, if only by a slim margin. That flat black circle that reminds you of a bottomless fishing hole in northern ice tilts, curious at your words. A smile graces your face. 

“Do you speak any German?” The helmet goes back and forth in a negative response. “I’ve picked up a bit of German in my teens. A beautiful language. Köslitch, a pretty word, no?”

His body language is poised with interest. Thank Jesus, he must think you are something exotic and seductive. That intrigue will solidify his fate. “In German, it has a double meaning.”

You finish your shrimp then continue, “It means both funny and delicious. You would call a certain snack köslitch in the same way you would call someone that makes you laugh köslitch. I think,” — Here, you grab his hand. It is ungloved and a bit coarse. Meaty in your slim hand. Gingerly, you pull his hand up towards your mouth, making sure your breath hits across each of his knuckles — “, that you could fit both meanings.”

Then, mimicking a centipede with sharp pincers, you bite hard upon his index finger. And, with both hands cradling his single hand, you slip the needle piercing the blue vial into his exposed wrist. A crescent mark of teeth lingers on the top notch of his finger.

“I’ve always had this secret yen for funny guys.” The black hole leans forward, intense. “Meet me in the bathroom on the second floor in ten minutes.”

Yet, walking away, you know the diver only has five minutes of oxygen left in his tank. 

“Ya never had a burger?”

Even though, yes, you did just previously confirm that, Floyd’s awestruck words leave you wide-eyed. You are in disbelief over how … in disbelief he sounds! Lips on his cheek, lipstick-staining activity halting momentarily, you ask, “Is it really that hard to believe?”

“It’s almost impossible to believe!”

You chuckle with a dumb grin. Used to his dime-flipping moods, you lean in to continue peppering his face with kisses. Arms already around his neck, you pull him just a few more centimeters down so you speak into his ear. “Well, we just gonna have to order one after we fuuuck.”

Despite the chuffing link you have with your arms around his neck and with your legs around his waist – your crotch rubbing eagerly and teasingly up against his! – Floyd pulls back from you. It is almost comedical the look of sheer devastation of his lipstick polka-dotted face; would be too if you were not so astronomically horny. “Never? Like never never?”

Oh God, this is going to be a whole thing. “I don’t know. Maybe as a kid? Come here.” You tighten your legs around his waist when he tries to pull himself up from your apartment’s bed. Doubling down, you fasten your pace a bit when grinding down upon his crotch, feeling the familiar shape of his penis in his sweats moving against you so nicely. “Forget burgers. I want a different kind of meat.”

“I can’t just forget something like that! Who the hell grows up without eatin’ a burger!” 

How you desperately wish to reverse time when his steadyfast words reach your ears. There is a determined fixation in his voice. You let your arms fall by your head as Floyd’s hands squeeze your ass; he’s now no longer reciprocating in your grinding. Putting on your best pouting face like a young actor desperate for the role, you whine, “If I knew you were going to be like this, I would have said yes.”

“But seriously, how have ya not?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t something my parents made and now I’m on this caloric diet that has me eating whole foods.”

“A hamburger is a whole food. It’s a whole cow.”

“Ugh, I don’t know! Can we please have sex!” 

You throw your head back in exasperation. Legs fall down by your side. Floyd had the munchies after coming back from your bowling date, so you thought it would be nice to brainstorm aftercare options for dinner together  — ping-ponging between the idea of ordering takeout or going somewhere. Curse you and your big, dumb mouth. 

“Nope! We’re goin’ out again!” 

Just like that, he is skirting around your apartment to pick up the graphic tee he shucked off. His Neckface dunks are already hooked on the edge of his fingers when you sit up, readjusting your wrinkled shirt. You need to fix your cosmetics. However, when your hand falls around the oyster-shell of your compact mirror, your other hand is grabbed.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Floyd cheers, half-dragging you to the door. He is ignorant to your distress as the compact-mirror slips from your grip, soap-esque. “Me and my brother used to go to this place all the time. They do this whole burger of the week thing; it’s like pun-based burgers. My brother kept going back for the jokes, but I just think the grub’s good. You’ll love them! The owner’s super nice and I met his wife and kids –!”

“Floyd.” Your feet digging into the carpet finally grabs his attention. His face is equivalent to a giant question mark. “I need to check my face.”

The blank look on his face is wiped by him moving his dual-colored eyes up and down, surveying the area. His reply is genuine. “Looks fine to me, babe.” A mischievous gleam comes to his irises as he chuckles, “It’s a real sexy face. Even sexier when it’s moanin’ my name.”

Hope flares up in you. Maybe, just maybe, you can drag him back to the bed. 

“Yeah, baby?” You slur huskily before pulling him into a deep kiss. 

Floyd always kisses well. Somewhere in the middle of it, he spins you. Towards the bed? Hope is dashed when you hear the click of your apartment door, realizing you two are on the opposite side of it. Your boyfriend giggles the entire way down to the lobby, having successfully duped you.

The burger joint is built like a tiny house or a big shed, depending on how you view its humble spot in the universe. With the sun starting to set, the owners have powered on the string of lights crawling like a march of ants across the tiny house’s soffit. The unique footprint of Floyd’s car engine is already recognized before you enter. And, when you are seated, the waitress already knows not to ask for Floyd’s order (“He won’t order anythin’. Just trusts the slobs in the back to bring him something good.”) and the waiter claps him so hard on the shoulder you are afraid Floyd’s thin frame would break (“Haven’t seen you in a whole month! Where you been?” – here, the waiter stops and looks at you – “… and you are trying to hide things from us now?”). The energy is so light that you cannot stop yourself from leaning over your shared appetizer, waffle fries. 

“You failed to mention you're a local celebrity here, you know? Warn a girl/boy before you bring them to somewhere where they’re rolling out the proverbial red carpet for them” you say, fishing a fry out of the greasy basket. You really should have done your face.

“What,” unlike you, Floyd talks with his mouth half full of words and the other half full of food, “everyone here is super lowkey.” 

“I think the entire world is lowkey from your perspective.” You dot your sentence by dipping the waffle fry in the shared ketchup. “I feel like everyone is dissecting me.”

Floyd looks back again at the bar where everyone seems to be oblivious to your conversation, so deep and entangled in their own. “Nah, I don’t feel it.” And before you can refute, Floyd reaches over and bumps your chin with his finger, causing you to miss your bite. Your worry is forgotten as you dabbing your face with a napkin, laughing threats about taking the entire basket if he plays dirty with his food anymore.

At an appropriate time, your food arrives from the kitchen. It is set down on the table and this time, instead of Floyd’s shoulder being clapped, his hair is ruffled. Juice spills over the edge of the lower bun, soaking into the yeast. The bun seems to radiate its own heat as you pick up your burger – Knife to Meet You Burger (comes with thinly sliced beets) – and bring it towards your mouth.

“You eat with your pinkies up?”

Lower jaw still hanging open, you glance at Floyd. He has already taken two large bites of his burger, a ketchup mustache decorating his face. My, he really does not care about his appearance. “Hmmm?” You look down to see that your pinkies are in fact raised like two little horns.

A laugh comes out of your mouth. It has been ages since you’ve eaten finger food other than fries or maybe some whole wheat crackers. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Floyd smiles, fond. “Cute.”

The clang as metal helmet meets ground sends a shockwave through the masquerade. A woman shrieks; when a man starts to yell out if anyone shrouded in mysterious masks might just be a doctor by chance, you make your way up the stairs.

It won’t take you long to decipher the code. The potion Schoenheit gave you yesterday heightened your senses. Hearing each click of a correct turn on the safe’s dial will be easy. Like how elevated your sight and smell are, there is a certain air about you. 

Despite the entire prologue, you feel good. Heartbreak might be the costume cemented upon you in this masquerading parade but you are still capable. Pomefiore’s disciples always seek to be their best.

As you slip into Ashengrotto’s bedroom like a breeze, removing your snorkel, you forget in your joy of elevated sensations how your own heavy scent carries on the wind. 

Just as the safe opens, the door to Ashengrotto’s bedroom opens. 

It is a bit hard to shoulder your apartment door open with arms full of groceries, five ringlets of plastic hanging on for dear life on each of your forearms, but you still manage to do it. 

Today, the click of the door seems a smidgen louder than normal. It is probably because of how you need to use your spine and hip to push open the wooden slab. Blissfully unaware your key did not manage to unlock the door on the first try like you thought, you rotate yourself so you walk into your small apartment chest first. 

You would have flicked on the lights if you did not spot movement in a place that is definitely not where your bunny cage is. Five grocery bags sliding off your right arm, you hold out your second kunai, pinched in your hand. 

The first kunai you throw lands a few centimeters from the man who is crouching down by your slide-open closet door, piercing the birch wood. 

You take care to put down the groceries bags on your left arm. You have lettuce, eggs, and bananas in those. Hand still aimed, the point of the kunai trained straight at the spot where the intruder is, you take your non-dominant hand and turn on the lights. 

“Floyd?”

Standing up – the files detailing Schoenheit’s jury tampering where two of Kingscholar’s men were killed by Schoenheit’s men and then the failed narcotics conspiracy sentence to imprison one of Ashengrotto’s men (files that could get Schoenheit arrested in the wrong hands (his) and files that could get Ashengrotto arrested in the right hands (your boss’s)) in his dominant left hand – Floyd gives you a fleeting once over. He looks as if all of your time spent together was erased from his memory. As if he has successfully forgotten it.

“It’s nothing personal, Shrimpy. Just business.”

The door of Ashengrotto’s bedroom fully opens and knocks you back into the present.

He looks handsome. 

To be fair, his face has always looked handsome. He has looked handsome curling into your blankets, hair unbrushed and laughing. He has looked handsome picking you up in his car, cheek soft and squished on his steering wheel. He has looked handsome eating a burger with you, face dotted with a melange of sauce and crumbs. He looks handsome, staring down at you now. 

Shock – in the terms of upsetting events that surprise you like a deer in highlights – is something Schoenheit has trained out of your system. The only man who does not act is a dead man. So, when you launch yourself to your feet, you fully anticipate getting the first punch in.

Only to be caught so off guard when your ex-boyfriend cuffs both your wrists in one large hand and sends your face reeling back in whiplash due to the connecting embrace his other hand delivers. 

It feels like a spider blooming. That animal is all you can use to describe the sensation of being punched. The egg-shaped body of the arthropod is the spot where the nose lands – directly on your nose – and the spreading flame of pain is like a thousand legs stretching over your face.

A teardrop trails down the heated surface of your face as you gather your bearings. Or is it blood from a nostril? You cannot check the color of the watery drop because Floyd still has your two wrists prisoner in his single hand. With a grimace and hateful eyes, you turn so you may face him. Gaze upon his handsome face and deem it ugly. 

“Shit. I didn’t mean ta hit ya that hard.” The whiplash you are receiving tonight is like a rollercoaster! Full of so many ups and downs, just like you would expect of Floyd. Still, you cannot help the look of pure dumb shock that paints itself over your face as you are suddenly fussed over. 

When the hand that punched you tenderly touches your broken nose, you reel back with a growl.

“Get your hands off me!”

The files are still in your hand when you pull back. Like a magnetized magnet, Floyd follows in your desperate attempt to escape the bind he has upon you. You waste no time in clicking your heels, gaining an extra inch under your left sole. If that idiot won’t let go, you’ll force it. Left soles now sprouting a field of spikes, you bring your foot up and kick him hard in the abdomen.

Floyd falls back. The papers rustle. The click of your heels is like the tongue of a dragon sparking up a breath of fire. As his footing stumbles, you kick up and cut a long slash across his cheek and down to his lips with the knife sticking out the top of your right sole. 

“Shit,” Floyd shouts as his body collides and closes the door. 

When you pull your fingertips back from your face, you see that the drop from earlier was certainly blood.

Then, for a moment, you and Floyd observe each other. Intensely, both of your eyes take to tracking over the features previously known so intimately. Your eyes squint with so much vitriol that Floyd almost blurs in your vision. But, you are eating up the gourmet image of him, blood curling down the left side of his face much like the black strand curls down his right.

He smiles that familiar smile. “Hi, Shrimpy-baby.”

“...”

“Ya know, I never told ya this, but I always had this secret yen for the feisty ones.”

“Don’t spew that shit at me, you asshole.”

What a wicked game he played with you. To burrow into your life like a plump, devouring mite that took to digging deeper into the soil of your garden. A year of love is too convoluted of a scheme for a man of his ever-changing disposition to do, yet he did it. In doing so, he has destroyed your belief in the very concept of love. 

This time around, you are much more unsure if the drop falling down your face is a tear or blood. 

“Ya … You smell the same.” Confusion flickers over your face, so Floyd continues, “Didn’t think you’d be wearin’ the same perfume. Was almost positive I wouldn’t smell it again. Shit stinks.”

My, what a compliment. Like a practiced magician, you go to pull a syringe out from underneath your cufflink when surprise paralyzes you. Cheekbones burns as Floyd perfectly recites the French name – you distantly him saying how much he hated that language – of your perfume. 

“Comme Des Garçons Avignon.” Then he names the top notes. “Smells like Roman chamomile, elemi, and incense.” Then he finishes off with, “Ya spray like twelve puffs on yourself. And ya always make sure to get in on your inner wrist before rubbin’ it into your neck.”

“There’s something evil in you.” Disgust coats your tongue as you shake your head back and forth. Why can’t he just vanish off the face of the earth? Or at least walk back into the masquerade so you can finish your job. 

You cannot face the ugly truth that you still love him.

Floyd’s eyes flicker down to the ground … or perhaps only to analyze the files in your hand. All the same, a shadow falls over his features. It reminds you of each time his body shut down when emotions got too big, resemblant of powering off electronics. His next words are less confident than how he described your habits and perfume in detail. Whispering, he insists, “You should be in my life.”

What is he talking about? Your head continues shaking, almost stuck in that action. You were in his life. Both of you were so intimately entangled with one another’s life. That sentiment is now completely unrealistic; this cavern between you will never heal. 

“I hate you,” you whisper, just before closing the distance. 

There is a foreign sentiment you know pretty well despite the language gap. Bilingual because of Schoenheit and his right hand man, you pick up French and German much like how a child picks up alluring shells on the shoreline. You carry them in the pail of your brain. Naturally, you cannot stop one from floating to the surface as pallid plaster coats your knuckles.

Qui aime bien, châtie bien. Who loves well, punishes well. 

In its original meaning, it relates to the idea that as your love grows older, you become well versed in teasing. More comfortable in your aging relationship, certain barriers fall away from the heart. The nautilus shell falls away to reveal the soft, vulnerable body of slime. Teasing happens. Tough love is natural. Right now though, as your hand clenched around a syringe falls in a diagonal arch, you use the proverb in a much more literal way.

The popcorn wall dissolves under administration of the liquid. Red churns in the tube before magical magnetism pulls into the area of injection. Floyd ducks out of way just in time and makes a grab for the hand holding the files.

TITLE: THE TEXT MESSAGE ‘IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU’

INT. ASHENGROTTO’S BEDROOM

OPEN on two people fighting. One holds a stack of papers large enough to be a dictionary. The other is trying half-heartedly to steal those files back, but is mostly fixated on avoiding the onslaught of punches falling in his direction. The shuffle is a violent dance. Punches are thrown and dodged. Some connect and others miss. The only sound is the huff of measured breaths, exhaling when either FLOYD or YOU attack on offense. 

The room is full of three main objects; a safe, a bed, and a dresser underneath a large mirror. 

FLOYD. 

(exuberantly) 

You’ve been holdin’ back on me. I didn’t know you could fight like this.

YOU. 

…

FLOYD.

C’mon, Shrimpy, don’t be like that. Woah!

YOU

Do you ever shut up?

FLOYD. 

I’d like it if you made me. Aren’t little spiders supposed to neutralize their prey with venom?

YOU.

Aren’t little eels supposed to bite their prey with teeth? … Did it feel good? Building me up to tear me down?

FLOYD.

It was just business. It had nothing ta do with us.

A punch connects with the side of FLOYD’s face. As he stumbles, a swinging leg sends his torso falling onto the dresser. It rattles like a hundred bones in a coffin shakened like a child’s birthday present. 

YOU. 

(voice raising)

Don’t lie again. I’m sick of being lied to by you!

FLOYD.

I never lied to you. I haven’t been lyin’ about a thing. It’s not fair that Vil gets to have ya.

YOU keep throwing punches, ignoring his words. 

FLOYD, growing increasingly aggravated, abandons his position of defense. He pulls YOU in by the lapels of your suit, hoisting them up by sheer strength and slams them into the mirror above the dresser. Papers fall like autumn leaves and glass falls like snowflakes. Seen subtly behind them, a trail of blood coming from their pierced shoulders, rolling down the dresser’s side like one stretching snake of sanguine. 

YOU twist yet are unable to escape the grasp.

FLOYD narrows his gold and olive brown eyes.

FLOYD. (CONT.)

I know everything about ya. I know ya can’t blow a bubble with gum. I know each mole and freckle on ya. And I know no matter how hard you try, your pinkies always go up when you eat a burger! So, you shouldn’t be with a lover who doesn’t know ya. Give him up. I can put in a good word with Azul; we could be back to how we used to be. It’s not fair that Vil gets to have you! I should have ya!

YOU

(shaking their head and laughing, haggard)

You don’t get to have me. – No-Not after what you did. 

FLOYD

(angry)

You should be in my space! You should be in my life!

THE fight continues. A sharp sound much like a tongue clicking inside a mouth startles the audience. YOU press the left sole of their shoe into FLOYD’s abdomen and push back as hard as they can. A pained shout bleeds out his mouth. YOU, stumbling from the glass that managed to sink through their suit and into skin, goes to punch yet is blocked. 

WITH a rough tug on YOU’s biceps, FLOYD pushes them both down to the ground. Pain flares across their back like one crashing wave. EXIT SCENE.

“Kiss me. Kiss me,” he pleads, his fingers digging so harshly into your skin that bruises will be there tomorrow. His voice is turbulent with so many emotions. “Just one. Just kiss me again.”

Fist enclosed on his shirt’s sternum, you push against him and try to rebuild the distance between you two. “Get off! Get off me, you psycho!” Each time he attempts to close the gap, you violently twist your lips away. Your body squirms like a desperate fly caught in a web. His lips collide with the corner of your lip and chin. You push back as hard as you can. “Get off me right – fucking! Floyd!”

The hands that left tomorrow’s bruises on your upper arms move to grip your writhing, wrinkled in anger face. He holds you still with tremendous strength, eye to eye. Each atom of your skull shakes with frustration. Gritted teeth almost seem to vibrate in your mouth. Despite your desperation to tear away and flee, Floyd keeps you pinned.

“I love you so much,” he confesses, dual-colored eyes brimming over. Emotion crinkles his voice. You want to scoff at his well-improvised act.

The scoff lands in Floyd’s mouth as he pulls you into a perilous kiss. Teeth act like iron gates. Closing him off from your love, you try to use each component of yourself to escape. Knees and fists curl up and push him away with fruitless strength. Nose wrinkles as if you smelt something horrid. When he tries to French-kiss you, you take the hand shoving at his chest to wrap your hand around his throat. A thumb presses hard in his trachea.

Floyd pulls back immediately, hacking and his spit flying through the air. There, you think, is your opening for freedom. 

Your body rolls onto its side. You only get a shuffling inch or so away from him before he is laughing jubilantly, teeth gleaming in his mouth – Like he used to laugh at comedy shows, playing on your shitbox CRT, or like he used to laugh when breaking out into an impromptu dance, playing music and heartstrings in your kitchen. – “That’s my Shrimpy. Oh, I love you!” 

Your fruitless escape is squashed as Floyd pulls you back into another kiss. This time he manages to slip his mouth past those iron gates.

According to songs, sparks fly when a kiss happens. In this moment, you feel like those sparks are not from joyous, amorous fireworks but a hundred plane engines blowing their transmission. Screaming into his mouth, you pull back so hard that your head splinters a crack into the wooden dresser behind you.

Floyd’s hands protectively cradle the back of your head after that. He rotates his body so his weight smothers. Your rotated body is once more flatten like a pancake. Lying by the dresser, you kiss – well, he kisses you. You are actively still fighting against it.

Curses and potions, you know them well. They are frequently used in your work. It is not unheard of to utilize ancient, outdated methods of magic to gain an upper hand in this dangerous tango of organized crime. Just like the Shrouds excel in technology, the Schoenheits excel in potions and curses. No matter how many charms cloaked over objects or potions brewed inside bubbling cauldrons, you have never been under a curse or tasted a potion more dangerous than love. It is the most potent, poisonous curse.

A wet drop falling from Floyd’s face falls on your cheek; tear or blood, who can tell? The next motion you make, you blame it upon the brain damage you sustained when knocking your head into the dresser’s bottom leg. 

As you grab his hair and open those iron gates, you think, ‘Sorry Schoenheit.’

Slobbering into his mouth, like you are trying to fuse together, you explore the cave. Finding the familiar stalagmites of teeth and the moss spot where his canker sore from too many bedtime sodas or snacks laced with salt and vinegar. Teal hair is pulled at the root and your embrace feels more like a hook than a hand, yet Floyd still launches into the kiss with relief and excitement. 

He is an everlasting object of motion. Unstoppable and breaking laws of psychics. He pushes his tongue further in, entwines it with yours. Each pressure point of contact is seductively bewitching. Floyd lets out a long, stretching groan like a widow mourning. The sound reverbs in the grottos of your interlocked mouths.

Hands flurry about in wild motion. You open up your legs and hold him pelvis to pelvis. His hands do not stop running up and down frantically from shoulders to waist. It is only because of this endless stream of movement that Floyd does not notice when you draw a Z across the back of his skull. 

Pulling back from the kiss, you say a single word with closed eyes, “Somnum.”

Floyd’s own eyes fall shut and his body goes limp. 

Like pushing away fallen rumble, you discard Floyd’s body to the side and bring yourself up to sitting on your knees. A shaky groan exits you. Fingers trembling from adrenaline, you smooth the pads of them over your nose – it is definitely broken – over your back – the material is wet with blood – and over your bottom lip – it radiates a soft heat. Ducking your head, you sigh.

Bewitched Sleep is one of the least complex curses. Just a simple swish of a finger writing a Z and a single Latin word, the chosen victim will fall under a temporary spell of sleep. Those guarded enough will be able to resist it though; casting a glance over at Floyd’s slumbering body, you reflect upon the notion that his iron gates must have been open the entire fight.  

A glare passes over your face. It melts. Then, it comes back again stronger than before. “Such an asshole.” You bite at the air and push yourself up to your feet. One last time, you knock your heels together and the spikes underneath your left sole disappear. “You’re the most convincing actor of all, Floyd.”

It takes a while to gather up the mess of papers, shaking the glass off certain pages. Still, you pile them all back into the folder and check that none had swooped underneath the bed or dresser. As you go about collecting all the pages, you also pick up the snorkel you left by the safe. Holding it up to your ear, you say, “Have Epel send the car around to the back.”

It takes a while to receive an answer and, even when you do, the snorkel is held in your hand rather than by your ear so it is a very muffled answer. “Good work, Potato.” The praise feels empty as you stare down at Floyd’s body sleeping in a bed of glass.

He is not your problem anymore. He is not yours. Yet, it was only nine days ago that he meant everything to you and he had been yours. Just because it is over, that doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything.

Like a sinking stone, your acid-coated heart makes itself a little elevator ride down to your stomach. 

“Fuck,” you whisper before fastening your snorkel back on your face. “I’m ridiculous.”

So, ridiculously, you find yourself hooking your hands under Floyd’s armpits. Dead-esque, his head slumps forward on a limp neck. It reminds you of those nights, coming home to the apartment from the bar, each of you shouldering the other’s weight. Experienced with it, it is a fluid effort and getting Floyd on Ashengrotto’s bed is no trouble. 

You shake the files in your hand. You stomp your feet to make sure each blade is inside the sole. Then, you go to leave?

Ridiculously, you find that your feet are hesitating. Shuffling indecisively on the carpet. Heavy as if cement has been poured in them. The window is only a matter of a dozen steps away yet you might as well be trying to trudge through glutinous quicksand towards a whole other planet.

Once more, your intelligent mentor’s voice rains down from the Heavens with his oh so introspective words of wisdom (this time imaginary). “Honey, ditch that loser,” Jesus-Schoenheit says.

‘Oh I wish I could. I really wish I could,’ you bemoan to the fake voice of your boss, face pinched in a grimace. As you turn around, you start to dig around in your slacks pockets. 

‘I should have that pen somewhere.’ Shoving the files under your armpit, fingers flutter through the snow fields of lint at the bottom of each pocket. Where is that stupid pen? You know you were carrying a permanent tattoo marker. If you had to make a run for it after getting the codes but before opening the safe, you brought along the writing utensil so you could mark down the numbers on the length of your arm … that is, if you can find it.

A breath of relief escapes you. Uncapping the pen, you take a short moment to observe comatose Floyd. Even with his clothes elongated and stretched from your hateful hands and his skin drenched in sweat and sanguine, he rivals the very concept of beauty. Individuals favored by Aphrodite, actors or actresses with faces that belong immortalized in marble, and a blond Queen who seduces men and women with a poisonous potency: these are the type of people you surround yourself with daily. Yet, all of them look hideous in comparison to Floyd who sleeps with a slightly parted mouth and tacky blood streaming down his face. How has he warped your vision so grandly?

Upset, you force your eyes to fall away from his mesmeric features and move down to his waistline. Most of your graphic tee is untucked like normal so you have little problem with wrestling his shirt above his belly button. On his navel, above the dusting of black hair, you place the tip of the marker. 

In quick yet eligible swirls, you write down your new phone number across Floyd’s V-line. A twisty six forms, an eight loops side to side, a soldier-straight one is born. You punctuate it all with a sharp dot, imagining that your very innocent pen is a dangerous knife. The stab of ink hits him so hard that he coughs in his sleep, pained. 

God, you want to make him feel so much more pain than that. 

Capping your marker, you pull down his shirt and pull the files from the crook of your armpit. Rereading the document’s identification, you feel just a tiny spritz of your frustration dissolve inside of you. The job is complete. Despite everyone back home thinking you would be a loose canon and fail tremendously, you manage to succeed. 

Yes, your nose will have to be snapped back into place. And, you doubt Rook (under Schoenheit’s instructions) will be gentle with the whole procedure. But, at least you did not run into Ashengrotto which you consider a huge, jackpot-esque win of a night full of many ups and downs, and much lack of faith from homebase.

The door clicks open just as you reach up to your ear. Startled, your fingers depress down on the still intact communication device, sending your desolate “fucking shit” out on radio waves back to that beloved homebase.

“(Name)? (Name), what’s wrong?” Schoenheit’s voice worries in your ear as you and Ashengrotto lock eyes across his wrecked, demolished bedroom. The absolute puzzlement in those blue eyes would be amusing if only you did not know the octopus’s exact next move.

“How close is Epel?”

“He’s only one block away from your location.”

“Yeah, I got enough time.”

“Potato?”

“I’m jumping out the window,” you inform your boss just as Ashengrotto unclips the gun from his belt. Confusion has long since drained from those blueberry hues; just as hesitation has vanished magically from your feet. “Tell Epel, proceed as planned, meet me at the spot.”

“Potato! Don’t you dare jump through a window! (Name)? (Name)!”

You have a nagging suspicion that Rook (under Schoenheit’s instructions) will not be gentle when taking the glass out of your skin. It matters very little to you as the wall by your head coughs out a dusting of white plaster. A decorative new eye in Ashengrotto’s bedroom wall is just another damage left behind in the mess you have made. Something else matters much more.

There has been a dormant craving in you for disgustingly greasy food for days.

That said, you need to keep your calories in check so you could definitely use some company to reach over the sticky table and paw at your share of food. The burger of the week at yours and Floyd’s self-established ‘joint’ is Poutine on the Ritz Burger. Comes with poutine fries. Probably will put a yellow, waxy clot of cholesterol in your veins. As you leap from the window, you can already picture it perfectly. 

Floyd, sitting across the table from you, licking gravy from his fingers, his shark maw gnashing back and forth noisily as he grinds down cheese curds and potatoes from your fries, looking as irresistible as a hung Da Vinci portrait. 

[nofingjustaninchident]

ᯓ★ i hate you more pt.3

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

pairing jason grace x roman!reader

summary well, he should be dead, and she’d gladly kill him

warnings probably cursing, third person writing

now listening to bad blood by taylor swift

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Chiron invited them inside, sending Drew back to her cabin. y/n was glad when the girl walked away - her excessive touchiness with Jason had been grating on her nerves, as was the fact that she didn't even understand why it pissed her off so much. 

Especially because it shouldn’t, since they apparently hated each other so much. 

"Follow me," the centaur said. "We have lemonade." 

Grapevines covered the walls of the living room, running across the ceiling as well. y/n wasn't sure how they were able to grow inside, especially given the season, but they were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes. 

The girl looked up at a stuffed leopard's head hung above the fireplace, so real-looking that its eyes seemed to move. It snarled at Jason, and she felt him nearly jump out of his skin next to her. 

“For the gods’ sake-” He muttered under his breath and y/n had to stop herself from snickering.  

"Now, Seymour," Chiron chided. "Jason is a friend. Behave yourself." 

Chiron threw a sausage to the leopard, who snatched it up and licked his lips. "You must excuse the decor," Chiron said. "All this was a parting gift from our old director before he was recalled to Mount Olympus. He thought it would help us remember him. Mr. D has a strange sense of humor." 

"Mr. D," Jason said. "Dionysus?" 

"Mhm." Chiron poured three glasses of lemonade, though his hands seemed to tremble slightly. He and Jason carried on a conversation about the old camp director and Seymour's origins, y/n watching in silence. She could tell that Chiron was wary of her as well, though he hadn't recognized her the way he recognized Jason. She supposed that was a good thing, giving the conditions - he had said Jason was supposed to be dead. 

"So, Jason, y/n," Chiron said. "Would you mind telling me – ah - where you're from?" 

"I wish we knew," Jason sighed. “I mean, i don’t. Maybe she does and just don’t want to tell anyone.”  

That earnt him a smack in the arm, which was nothing but passive-aggressive.  

y/n let Jason tell the story, only chiming in when he left out a detail or she needed to speak from her own experience. Chiron didn't react aside from nodding encouragingly for either of them to continue. 

When Jason was done, Chiron took a sip of his lemonade. "You only remember each other?" he asked for clarification. 

Y/n nodded. "Sadly, yes. Just names, but still." she muttered, looking over at Jason briefly. "Everything else is... blank." 

"I see," Chiron said. "Well, you must have questions for me." 

"I have one," y/n spoke up. "Any reason in particular those... naiads? Is that what they're called? Is there a reason they talked to me or...?” 

Chiron regarded her with inquisitive eyes. "They talked to you?" 

y/n nodded. "Yeah, one of them just... stood – can i say stood if they’re underwater? Anyway, one of them stood there and told me to just breathe." She tried to push away the memory of the human-like thing telling her to take a breath underwater. "Is that... normal?" 

"No," Chiron confessed. "That's highly unusual - naiads are typically friendly, especially the ones in the canoe lake, but they don’t usually talk. Well, at least, not that anyone could understand, anyway. The only person they talked to was...”  

With his pause, y/n looked expectantly at him. “The only person they talked was..?” And something Annabeth said came up to her. “Was it that guy that Annabeth talked about? Uh- Percy, right?”  

Chiron’s expression got somewhat darker, but he managed to cover it up. “Yes, Percy. He's one of our oldest campers now, but he’s missing.”  

“Oh.” y/n muttered. “Sorry.”  

“It’s no problem, child.” Chiron assured. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

But what if it was? 

"In any case, that indeed is strange," Chiron said quietly. "I will have a talk with them. Until then, it may be best to steer clear of the lake." 

"That won't be a problem," y/n muttered. 

"Do you have any other questions?" Chiron asked. 

"Uh, yeah," Jason admitted. "What did you mean when you said I should be dead?" 

Chiron studied him with concern. "Do either of you know what the marks on your arms mean? The color of your shirt, Jason? Do you remember anything?" 

Jason shook his head. "No, nothing," Jason said. 

"Do you know where you are?" Chiron asked. "Do you understand what this place is, who I am?" 

"You're Chiron the centaur," Jason said. "I'm guessing you're the same one from the old stories, who used to train heroes like Heracles." 

"And this is a camp for demigods," y/n said, "children of the Olympian gods." 

"So, you believe those gods still exist?" Chiron asked. 

"Yes," Jason answered immediately. y/n felt the same confidence, though she didn't know where it came from. "I mean, I don't think we should worship them or sacrifice chickens to them or anything, but they're still around because they're a powerful part of civilization. They move from country to country as the center of power shifts - like they moved from Ancient Greece to Rome." 

"I couldn't have said it better." Something in Chiron's voice had changed. "So, you already know the gods are real. You have both already been claimed, haven't you?" 

"Maybe," Jason answered. 

"We can't remember," y/n said. 

The leopard on the wall snarled, and Chiron studied them for a moment, waiting. y/n realized after a moment that Chiron had switched to another language, and she and Jason understood it fluently. 

"Quis erat-" Jason faltered, as if the language was automatic. "What was that?" 

"You know Latin," Chiron observed. "Most demigods recognize a few phrases, of course. It's in their blood, but not as much as Ancient Greek. None can speak Latin fluently without practice." 

y/n frowned, trying to wrap her brain around the fact that she could speak Latin, of all languages. Why couldn’t it be french, german, maybe? It felt so familiar on her tongue as she spoke it, the same as in her ears when Jason and Chiron did. 

"I taught your namesake, you know - the original Jason," Chiron said. "He had a hard path. I've seen many heroes come and go. Occasionally, they have happy endings. Mostly, they don't. It breaks my heart, like losing a child every time one of my pupils dies. But you two are unlike any pupils I've ever taught. Your presence here could be a disaster." 

"Thanks," Jason muttered. "You must be an inspiring teacher." 

"You should look into motivational speaking if you get bored here," y/n grumbled. 

Chiron sighed quietly. "I am sorry. But it's true. I had hoped after Percy's succeeded in the Titan War and saved Mount Olympus, we might have some peace. I might be able to enjoy one final triumph, a happy ending, and perhaps retire quietly. I should have known better. The last chapter approaches, just as it did before. The worst is yet to come." 

A heavy blanket of gloom seemed to rest over the entire room. 

"Okay," Jason said. "So - last chapter, happened before, worst yet to come. Sounds fun, but can we get back to the part where I'm supposed to be dead? I don't like that part." 

“Why not?” y/n asked, rolling her eyes as she looked at him with annoyance clear on her eyes. “I like it very much. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?” It was as if the tease just had to leave her. She didn’t understand where all that came from.  

“Oh, fuck off for a moment.” He grumbled and flipped her off.  

"I'm afraid I can't explain, my boy. I swore on the River Styx and on all things sacred that I would never..." Chiron frowned. "But you're both here, a violation of the same oath. That, too, should not be possible. I don't understand. Who would've done such a thing? Who-" 

Seymour howled, his mouth freezing halfway. The fire stopped crackling, its flames hardening like red glass. 

Everything seemed to just... stop. 

"Chiron?" Jason asked. "What's going-" 

Chiron was frozen, too. Jason and y/n stood up, but Chiron's eyes didn't waver. His mouth was open mid-sentence, and he sat there, not blinking or even breathing from the looks of it. 

"Tell me you're seeing this, too," Jason whispered, reaching for y/n’s hand instinctively. 

She squeezed it tightly, not even noticing at first. She glanced down at it, and decided to stay holding it. It was the only sign that they both weren’t crazy. "Frozen centaur? Yeah, I see it." 

Jason, a voice spoke. y/n. 

A dark mist poured from Seymour's mouth. Storm spirits, she thought, her free hand going to her pocket and taking her key out. She and Jason both summoned their weapons. 

The mist shaped itself into a woman in black robes. 

Her face was hooded, but her eyes glowed in the darkness. Over her shoulders was a goat-skin cloak, falling down her back and brushing the floor. y/n recognized the cloak for some reason, and she knew somehow that it was important - that it was much more than a strange fashion choice. 

Would you attack your patron, Jason? the woman chided. Her voice seemed to echo in y/n’s mind, bypassing her ears entirely. Lower your swords. The two of you. 

"Who are you?" Jason demanded. "How did you—?" 

Our time is limited. My prison grows stronger by the hour. It took me a full month to gather enough energy to work even the smallest magic through its bonds. I've managed to bring you two here, but now I have little time left, and even less power. This may be the last time I can speak to either of you. 

"You're in prison?" Jason questioned, still not lowering his sword. "Look, I don't know you, and you're not my patron." 

You know me, the woman insisted. I have known you since your birth, Jason. 

"I don't remember," Jason said. "I don't remember anything." 

No, you don't, she agreed. Neither of you do. That was also necessary. Long ago, Jason, your father gave me your life as a gift to placate my anger. He named you Jason, after my favorite mortal. You belong to me, Jason. And unfortunately, she’s way too useful to be left behind.  

"Hey!” y/n protested.  

"Whoa," Jason said, ignoring her completely. Something told y/n that this was something he often did. "I don't belong to anyone." 

Now is the time to pay your debt, she said. Find my prison. The girl has the key to unlock me. Free me, or their king will rise from the earth, and I will be destroyed. You will never retrieve your memories. 

"You stole our memories?" y/n asked, her eyes narrowing at the hooded woman. "And you want us to help you?" 

You have until sunset on the solstice. Four short days. Do not fail me. 

The dark woman dissolved, the mist curling into Seymour's mouth. 

Time unfroze. Seymour's howl tapered off into a cough. The fire crackled to life and Chiron continued, 

"—would dare to bring you here?" 

"My guess is the lady in the mist," y/n muttered. 

Chiron looked up at them in surprise. "Weren't you just sitting... why are your swords drawn?" 

"I hate to tell you this," Jason said, "but I think your leopard just ate a goddess." 

He proceeded to Chiron what had happened when time froze. 

"Oh, dear," Chiron murmured. "That does explain a lot." 

"It does?" y/n asked. "Care to fill us in?" 

"Please," Jason added. 

Before Chiron could say anything else, the front door to the Big House blew open and Annabeth and another girl, a redhead, burst in, dragging an unconscious Piper between them. 

"What happened?" y/n asked, rushing over to them with Jason close behind, both of their swords abandoned on the coffee table. "What's wrong with her?" 

"Hera's cabin," Annabeth gasped, like they'd run all the way to the house. "Vision. Bad." 

The redhead looked up, and y/n saw tears on her cheeks. "I..." She gulped. "I think I may have killed her." 

                           𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 

The redhead – who, later, y/n discovered to be named Rachel Dare – had not, in fact, killed Piper. She was still breathing, though she couldn't seem to wake up. 

Ophelia didn't like the sight of the girl so pale and sickly, as if Hades himself had come up to the mortal world to take away her soul but forgot to do so. y/n was positive she didn't know the girl, not like she knew Jason, but they had survived a battle with storm spirits and a chariot crash within the span of just a few hours - things like that bonded people. 

Chiron put his hand on Piper's forehead, grimacing. 

"Her mind is in a fragile state. Rachel, what happened?" 

Rachel shook her head slightly. "I wish I knew," she said. "As soon as I got to camp, I had a premonition about Hera's cabin. I went inside. Annabeth and Piper came in while I was there. We talked, and then- I just blanked out. Annabeth said I spoke in a different voice." 

"A prophecy?" Chiron asked. 

"No. The spirit of Delphi comes from within. I know how that feels. This is like long distance, a power trying to speak through me." 

Annabeth ran into the room carrying a leather pouch. 

She knelt next to Piper. "Chiron, what happened back there - I've never seen anything like it. I've heard Rachel's prophecy voice. This was different. She sounded like an older woman. She grabbed Piper's shoulders and told her-" 

"To free her from a prison?" Jason offered, looking at y/n with a grimace. The latter was still staring at the girl laid down in front of her, wondering what she could do to help – or rather, if she could really do anything to help.  

Annabeth stared at him. "How did you know that?" 

Chiron made a strange three-fingered gesture over his heart, like a ward against evil. y/n tried to ignore the unsettling feeling it gave her. "Jason, y/n, tell them. Annabeth, the medicine bag, please." 

Chiron trickled drops from a medicine vial into Piper's mouth as Jason explained the vision he and y/n had witnessed of the woman who claimed to be Jason's patron. 

"Does this happen often?" y/n chimed in when he was finished talking. "Supernatural phone calls from convicts demanding you bust them out of jail?" 

"Patron," Annabeth said, looking at Jason with a frown. "Not your godly parent?" 

"No, she said patron. She also said my dad had given her my life," Jason said. 

Annabeth's frown deepened. "I've never heard of anything like that before. You said the storm spirit on the skywalk - he claimed to be working for some mistress who was giving him orders, right? Could it be this woman you saw, messing with you?" 

"I don't think so," Jason said. "If she was my enemy, why would she be asking for my help? She's imprisoned. She's worried about some enemy getting more powerful. Something about a king rising from the earth on the solstice-" 

Annabeth looked at Chiron, her face losing its color. 

"Not Kronos. Please tell me it's not that." 

Chiron was quiet for a moment, checking Piper's pulse before he finally answered, "It is not Kronos. That threat is ended. But..." 

"But what?" Annabeth asked. 

Chiron closed his medicine bag. "Piper needs rest. We should discuss this later." 

"Or now," y/n said with a frown. "You said the greatest threat was coming. The last chapter?" 

"You can't possibly mean something worse than an army of Titans, right?" Jason asked.  

"Oh," Rachel said, her voice small. "Oh, dear. The woman was Hera. Of course. Her cabin, her voice. She showed herself to Jason and y/n at the same moment." 

"Hera?" Annabeth looked downright murderous. "She took you over? She did this to Piper?" 

"I think Rachel's right," Jason said. "The woman did seem like a goddess. And she wore this- this goatskin cloak. That's the symbol of Juno, isn't it?" 

"It is?" Annabeth scowled. "I've never heard that." 

Chiron nodded. "Of Juno, Hera's Roman aspect, in her most warlike state. The goatskin cloak was a symbol of the Roman soldier." 

"So, Hera is imprisoned?" Rachel asked. "Who could do that to the queen of the gods?" 

Annabeth crossed her arms. "Well, whoever they are, maybe we should thank them. If they can shut up Hera-" 

"Annabeth," Chiron warned, "she is still one of the Olympians. In many ways, she is the glue that holds the gods' family together. If she truly has been imprisoned and is in danger of destruction, this could shake the foundations of the world. It could unravel the stability of Olympus, which is never great even in the best of times. And if Hera has asked Jason and y/n for help-" 

"Fine," Annabeth grumbled. "Well, we know Titans can capture a god, right? Atlas captured Artemis a few years ago. And in the old stories, the gods captured each other in traps all the time. But something worse than a Titan...?" 

"Hera said she'd been trying to break through her prison bonds for a month," Jason said. 

"Which is how long Olympus has been closed," Annabeth said. "So, the gods must know something bad is going on." 

Jason sighed, a look of frustration on his face. "But why use her energy to send y/n and me here?" he asked. "She wiped our memories, plopped us into the Wilderness School field trip, and sent you a dream vision to come pick us up. Why are we so important? Why not just send up an emergency flare to the other gods - let them know where she is so they can bust her out?" 

"The gods need heroes to do their will down here on earth," Rachel said. "That's right, isn't it? Their fates are always intertwined with demigods." 

"That's true," Annabeth said, "but Jason's got a point. Why them? Why take their memories?" 

"I'd like to know that myself," y/n muttered. 

"Piper's involved somehow," Rachel said. "Hera sent her the same message- Free me. And, Annabeth, this must have something to do with Percy's disappearance." 

Annabeth looked at Chiron, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Why are you so quiet, Chiron? What is it we're facing?" 

Chiron looked as if he'd aged ten years in a matter of minutes. "My dear, in this, I cannot help you. I am so sorry." 

Annabeth blinked. "You've never... you've never kept information from me. Even the last Great Prophecy-" 

"I will be in my office," Chiron announced, his voice heavy. "I need some time to think before dinner. Rachel, will you watch the girl? Call Argus to bring her to the infirmary, if you'd like. And Annabeth, you should speak with Jason and y/n. Tell them about- about the Greek and Roman gods." 

"But..." 

Chiron turned away, heading out of the room and down the hallway. Annabeth muttered something in Greek that y/n suspected wasn't too kind toward centaurs. 

"I'm sorry," Jason said. "I think us being here - I don't know. We've messed things up coming to the camp, somehow. Chiron said he'd sworn an oath and couldn't talk about it." 

y/n frowned, wanting to add that she definitely hadn’t asked to come to the camp, but she bit her tongue - it wasn't the time. 

 "What oath?" Annabeth demanded. "I've never seen him act this way. And why would he tell me to talk to you about the gods..." Her voice trailed off, looking at the two gold swords lying on the coffee table. She touched Jason's gingerly, like it might be hot. "Are these gold? Do you remember where you got it?" 

y/n shook her head, Jason doing the same. "We don't remember anything," she said. 

Annabeth nodded like she'd come up with a rather desperate plan. "If Chiron won't help, we'll need to figure things out ourselves. Which means... Cabin Fifteen. Rachel, you'll keep an eye on Piper?"  

"Sure," Rachel promised. "Good luck, you three."  

"Hold on," Jason said. "What's in Cabin Fifteen?"   

Annabeth stood. "Maybe a way to get your memories back." 

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[muwapsturniolo]

✯Hoodie Pt.1✯

Summary: Matt can't seem to let go of his ex-girlfriend

Warning: angst, cigarette smoking, I think that's it.

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See, it's been a whole summer since I told you we were done

It's been one whole summer since Matt broke up with her. He doesn't even know why he did, he was just wrapped up in his head and let his thoughts ruin the only good thing for him.

Heard you found a new someone, I'm happy you're moving on. Tell my friends that I'm over ya, I don't miss you at all

Matt heard through the grapevine that she started to move on. He wanted to be happy for her, she deserved it. When his friends would ask how he felt bout it, he would say he's over her and that he didn't miss her at all. After all, he was the one that broke up with her.

But I'm still riding round With your hoodie in the car

Matt knew deep down he wasn't over her; hence why he would drive around at night with her hoodie in the passenger seat, trying to clear his head. It was his favorite hoodie of hers. It was Y/F/C and still had hints of her scent attached to it.

I saw your friends at the mall, they said that you been living lavish Yeah, you flying solo, you only got designer baggage

He ran into her friends at the mall one day. Being the protective friends they are, they made sure to let him know she's doing great without him. They told him how she finally moved into her own spot, it's decorated lavishly, and she's living the life she deserved. he couldn't help but ask if she was still seeing someone.

"She's flying solo, she doesn't need a guy to hold her back."

You seem so happy like you don't think of me at all, While I still ride around with your hoodie in the car

Matt would torture himself by stalking her socials. All he saw were pictures of her at parties and different outings. It doesn't seem like she's upset at all about the breakup, she seems happy not thinking about him. He couldn't help but be envious of her. she's thriving while he still holds on to the memories of her, wishing he had her back.

Weekends passing, I'm still not moving on Like traffic on the freeway in the hot, hot sun

It's now September and Matt still isn't over the girl. he's stagnant. Every day he wakes up and thinks of her, hoping if he rolled over she would be right there, instead it's just her damn hoodie.

This scent of you has faded but I'm still holding on

He holds the hoodie in his hands, rubbing the material through his fingers. He goes to smell it but he realizes the scent of her has faded. Tears form in his idea at the thought of her finally fading away from him. He stands up and starts tearing his room apart, looking for a specific item. He finally finds it, a spare bottle of her perfume.

I just smoke a cigarette and ride around With your hoodie in the car

Matt was so stressed, he resulted in going back to smoking. He stopped while they were together but he couldn't handle the stress of the breakup. So here he is, driving down the streets with the windows down, and her hoodie in the passenger seat.

I wanna be okay But you, you're always in my head

Matt knows this isn't a healthy way to live. He so badly wants to get over her and finally be ok and move on, but he can't. She's always in his head, laughing, smiling, dancing, kissing...

But I'm still riding around with your hoodie in the car

Matt pulls over on the side of the road and throws his head back. He looks over and sees her hoodie, taunting him.

But you, you're always in my head

"fuck it"

My head

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something small i whipped up! i hope yall like it!!

TAGLIST 🍑

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