#I did this in like 15 minutes or something

[dollgxtz]

His Watchful Eye Pt. 6

Word Count: 15.k...(oops)

Tags: yandere!sylus, sylus x fem!reader, dubcon, vaginal sex, creampie, breeding, comfort sex, cunnilingus, overstimulation if you squint, mentions of murder, nightmares, manipulation, pet names like, kitten, sweetie, honey, tw for panic attacks, rape flashbacks, xavier appears

Taglist: @ngh-ch-choso-ahhhh, @eliasxchocolate, @nozomiaj, @xmiisuki, @sylus-kitten, @its-regretti , @m0onlustre , @ve1vet-cake, @letgobro, @starkeysslvt, @yarafic, @prince-nikko, @leiaglmela @connorsui, @iluvmewwwww75, @biggest-geo-oogami-enjoyer, @mysssticc, @babygirl-panda19, @someone-somewheres-stuff, @zaynesjasmine1, @honnylemontea, @altariasu, @the-slytherin-poet, @sorryimakira, @pearlymel, @emidpsandia , @angel-jupiter, @hwangintakswifey,

AN: Hi everyone! This is also on A03! Please someone stop me, how the hell did I manage to squeeze in like 4k extra words than last time??? Anyways, enjoy the meal, I definitely have missed writing smut with yan!sylus and reader :3. Also a gentle reminder that reader has no specific skin tone! I just use images that I think represent the chapter well, you can imagine her however you’d like ^^

"I'll make it all disappear," Sylus murmured, his voice low and hypnotic, penetrating the darkest recesses of your fractured psyche. It was as if he possessed the power to reach inside your mind and vaporize the painful memories that clung to you like shackles. "You want to feel so good you won't think about him again?"

Read Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.4 Pt. 5

The car roars down the empty road, its tires devouring the distance between freedom and your inevitable return to captivity. Luke sits at the wheel, his face completely hidden behind the bird shaped mask. You can’t see his eyes, can’t gauge anything from the way he’s holding himself—just the silent, unyielding presence of the man steering you back to your prison.

You wonder how he sees out of that thing.

Kieran sits beside him, his mask just the same, his fingers tapping a light, almost carefree rhythm on the dashboard as he finishes humming a cheery tune. His face, too, is entirely concealed, leaving you with nothing to hold onto—no eyes to search for clues, no expressions to read.

In the rearview mirror, you sense Kieran shift his head to look at you but can't entirely tell, his hidden gaze offers you nothing. The silence stretches on, broken only by the low hum of the engine and the steady, deliberate breaths of Sylus against your neck, the heat of his body keeping you trapped in more ways than one.

Sylus holds you tight, as if the moment he loosens his grip, you’ll dissolve into the darkness beyond the windows. His large hands are splayed possessively across your thighs, pinning you in place on his lap. Each minute that ticks by in this confined space feels like a countdown to something you can’t define, but the feeling of impending dread settles deep in your bones.

Your mind is a storm, thoughts swirling in an endless, chaotic loop. The gunshot that ended Reese’s life thunders in your head, over and over, refusing to let you go. You can still see it so clearly—the way his body slumped to the floor, lifeless, his eyes wide with the shock of it all.

It feels like it’s eating you alive.

This is your fault.

Yes, Reese was a monster. He’d kidnapped you, lied to you, dragged you into a nightmare you never deserved. But even now, that part of you—the part that still clung to honor, to a sense of right and wrong, the part of an honorable deep space hunter—hated what had happened. You hated yourself for it. He should have been locked away, brought to justice, not gunned down like that.

Your chest tightens. Why didn’t you stop it? You could have, couldn’t you? You didn’t have to let your anger take over, didn’t have to spit those words at him, didn't have to tell him to go to hell. If you hadn’t done that, Sylus wouldn’t have killed him right? The weight of it presses down on you, like you’re suffocating under the guilt.

You can feel it in your bones—the sharp sting of your failure, the way you let your emotions run wild. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. You weren’t supposed to be the reason a person died, no matter how twisted or evil they were. You were supposed to be better than that.

But you weren’t.

And now Reese’s blood is on your hands.

The guilt coils tighter around your chest. You can almost taste the bitterness of it on your tongue, a relentless reminder of how you failed. Maybe if you had just kept your mouth shut. Maybe if you had found some way, any way, to de-escalate the situation, he’d still be alive. You wouldn't have to carry the weight of his death.

But you didn’t. And now it’s too late.

This is your fault.

You feel tears begin to prick at the corners of your eyes, but you quickly suck in a breath, forcing them back. You can’t let them fall—not here, not now. You can’t let Sylus see the storm raging inside you. If he sees you faltering, sees your weakness, he’ll think he’s won.

You sense his eyes on you, watching, studying, but thankfully, he says nothing. His grip around you tightens slightly, as if he’s aware of the cracks forming in your resolve, but for once, he stays silent, leaving you alone with the war you’re fighting within yourself.

Instead of crying, you shift, turning your head to focus on the window. The dark tint makes it difficult to see clearly, but not impossible. You can just make out the blurred outlines of buildings as they whip past, vague shadows in the distance.

How much longer would this take? How far had you come?

You think back to the agonizing walk that had led you to the convenience store—the endless hours of trudging through unfamiliar streets, hoping for an escape. Time had lost all meaning then, just like it had now.

Lost in your thoughts, you feel your body betraying you, your exhaustion creeping in. You start to drift off against your will, feeling the heaviness pulling at your eyelids as you sink further into Sylus’s lap. You fight it, not wanting to rest your head on his chest, fearing what you might wake up to. But it’s been days since you’ve had proper rest, and the pull of sleep is relentless.

Minutes stretch into eternity, and despite your best efforts, your body begins to give in. You’re teetering on the edge of unconsciousness when suddenly, Sylus’s gruff voice cuts through the silence, startling you awake.

“Luke, tell the chefs to have dinner ready in an hour. Kieran, cancel my meeting with the general.”

Luke and Kieran both nod silently, their masked faces giving nothing away, and just as you’re trying to make sense of the words, the car abruptly comes to a stop.

“Yes, boss!” the twins respond with a clipped tones, as if this exchange is routine.

Everything happens so quickly. The moment the car parks, Luke and Kieran scramble out of their seats with swift, practiced efficiency. The sound of the doors opening and shutting echoes in the quiet night. Sylus shifts beneath you, opening his door, and you awkwardly slide off his lap, trying to maintain some semblance of balance as he exits the vehicle. You watch through strained, weary eyes as he steps out, his figure towering over the open car door. Then, he stretches out his hand toward you.

You hesitate.

The gesture, though outwardly polite, is anything but friendly. It’s not an offer—it’s a command, an unspoken reminder of your captivity. The world seems to close in around you, the air growing thicker, and your heart begins to pound in your chest. Your mind races, but there’s nowhere to run.

“If you’re thinking about driving off,” Sylus says with a low chuckle, leaning down to peer into the car, “Luke’s already got the keys, kitten.”

You can’t help but shoot him a sharp glare. You’d thought about running, yes, but not now—not when escape was utterly impossible. The moment passes quickly, and you open your mouth, wanting to explain yourself, to insist you weren’t planning anything. But the words stick in your throat, useless.

Instead, you shut your mouth, swallowing your frustration, and glare at him in defiance. Wordlessly, you reach out and take his hand. His grip is firm, possessive, as he helps you out of the car. Carefully, you step onto the ground, your heart still racing, knowing you’re walking back into your cage.

You glance around as Sylus pulls you forward, your hand still trapped in his. The sight of the mansion looms ahead, its grand, imposing silhouette becoming clearer with each step. Tall iron gates and bird statues loom in front of you, a place that might have been beautiful if it weren’t for the dread curling deep in your chest.

The mansion is more than just a building; it’s a cage, one that now feels even more suffocating as Sylus forces you to walk beside him, hand in hand like you’re something precious. But you know better. This is control, a quiet but undeniable display of power.

With each step toward the front door, the walls of the world seem to close in tighter, and your heart races faster. The echoes of your own footsteps blend with the eerie silence of the night, the only sound that reminds you how very trapped you are in this place—never truly alone, but never free either.

As you walk toward the towering front doors, your eyes drift upward, almost unconsciously, to Sylus. His appearance has always been striking—red eyes that seem to glow with a mix of malice and amusement, and white hair with subtle gray undertones, catching the faint light of the mansion. His angular features, so sharp and perfectly controlled, show signs of wear now. You can see the tension in his brow, the tiredness in the slight creases around his eyes—things you hadn’t noticed before. It makes you wonder how much stress your escape had caused him. How much had he sacrificed in the time you were gone? Had he been frantic, furious?

As if sensing your gaze, Sylus turns his head slightly, catching you in the act of studying him. A smirk plays across his lips, and his crimson eyes flicker with amusement. "What’s the matter? Falling in love?" His voice is a low drawl, teasing, but there’s something predatory in it—like he’s already enjoying this little game.

Heat rises to your face, a mixture of irritation and something else you refuse to name. You look away quickly, forcing yourself to focus on anything but him. His taunts are the last thing you want to entertain, especially when your mind is still spinning with the weight of what lies ahead. Still, the words linger, taunting you as much as his smirk did.

Finally, the massive front doors loom before you, framed by the same wrought iron and heavy stone that always made the mansion feel more like a fortress. Sylus stops, standing tall beside you, his hand still gripping yours as if to remind you that escape, or even defiance, is out of the question.

He gestures toward a small panel embedded into the wall near the door. "Lean down," he orders, the edge of his voice soft yet commanding, "in front of the scanner."

Confused, you glance between him and the scanner, unsure of what he’s planning. You hesitate, but his unblinking red gaze locks onto you, expectant, leaving you little choice. Slowly, you lean forward, lowering yourself until your eyes are aligned with the scanner. A soft beep fills the air, followed by a click as the door unlocks.

You straighten, startled, staring at the door in disbelief. "Wait," you stammer, turning to Sylus. "Aren’t you trying to prevent me from escaping?"

A deep, rumbling laugh escapes him, and he shakes his head, the white strands of his hair shifting slightly as he leans in closer, his red eyes flashing with amusement. "Your eyes," he says with a grin, "can only get you into this place." He leans in further, his breath warm against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. "Not out."

His words settle heavily in your chest, and a knot of dread tightens in your stomach. Your eyes—the very thing that could open doors here—were also the key to locking you in. Any hope you might have had, any fleeting thought of escape, is crushed in that moment. The world seems to warp, the walls of the mansion now looming around you like a trap. A cage disguised as opulence.

Why had he even bothered with something like that? The thought gnaws at you as you stand at the threshold of the mansion. Did he seriously think you would ever want to come back inside? The idea seems absurd. You were his captive, forced into this nightmare. There was no version of this where you willingly returned.

But as you glance back at him, his smirk still lingering on his face, you wonder if that’s exactly what he wants. He’s a man who thrives on control, on bending people to his will, and the thought that he might relish the idea of making you come back to this place, on your own terms, sends a shiver down your spine. Would he leave you out there in that desolate city, waiting, desperate, only to watch you break down and crawl back inside? The idea feels like a twisted game only he could design—where escape was impossible not just because of physical barriers, but because he'd burrowed deep into your mind.

You shake your head, trying to push the thought away, but the question lingers, settling like a weight in your chest. Did he think that, over time, you’d surrender? That this grand mansion, this cage, would eventually become a place you’d walk into willingly?

Sylus catches your hesitation, his red eyes glinting in the low light. “Strange, isn’t it?” he muses, his voice smooth and casual, as if he could read the questions racing through your mind. “A key that only lets you in. But maybe someday…you'll want to use it.”

His words hang in the air, and you can feel your pulse quicken, anger mixing with the uncertainty swirling inside you. He can’t seriously believe that, can he? That one day you’d walk back into this place of your own accord?

The very thought of it makes your stomach turn. You can’t imagine a future where you wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to stay away from here. Yet, there’s an unsettling confidence in the way he says it, a certainty that leaves you with more questions than answers.

“As if I would ever, prick,” you spat, your voice sharp and defiant.

Sylus laughs, his amusement rolling off him in deep waves, rich and unhurried. His red eyes gleam, locking onto yours with a look that holds something deeper than mere satisfaction. There’s affection there—twisted, yes, but genuine.

“Ah, there she is,” he murmurs, his grin widening. “I was starting to wonder if the N109 Zone had fully broken you.” His grip tightens, not painfully, but firm and reassuring, as he leads you into the grand mansion. To him, this was always meant to be your home, even if you couldn't see it yet.

You grimace at his words, irritation bubbling up inside you, making your heart race. This was still a game to him—a challenge, but not one born of cruelty. No, he found your defiance amusing, like a kitten batting at the hand that feeds it. He loved it, even.

You silently curse him under your breath as he leads you deeper into the grand house, your feet moving mechanically while your mind fights to keep up. The familiar sights come back into view, flooding your senses like a slow wave of nausea. The glossy black tile beneath your feet, the dark, lavish décor that loomed from every corner—it was all the same, just as cold and suffocating as you remembered.

Your eyes flick to the kitchen entryway, a place that had once offered a glimmer of hope, a chance to escape. You remember fleeing into it, heart racing, desperate to get away from all of this, only to be dragged back into Sylus’s grip. The memory gnaws at you, bringing a fresh wave of bitterness.

It makes you sick.

Every inch of this place, every dark aesthetic, seemed designed to remind you of your captivity. This was a cage, no matter how opulent or luxurious it appeared on the surface. And the worst part was the weight of his hand around yours—the possessiveness of his grip, the unspoken reminder that escape, no matter how hard you tried, was out of reach right now.

Sylus gently guides you toward the stairs, his grip still firm, giving you no room to hesitate. You feel your heart pounding in your chest as your feet start moving up the dark, winding staircase. Every step feels heavier than the last, your pulse thrumming in your ears as memories flood back—memories of when you had fled, heart racing, legs burning, desperate to escape this place. You’d made it down these very stairs once before, only to have freedom ripped away from you.

Now, you were being forced back up, step by agonizing step, into the room you had fought so hard to leave behind.

With every step upward, your resolve starts to crumble. The closer you get to that door, the more you feel the weight of your captivity settling in again, suffocating you. The darkened hallways, the oppressive silence—it all presses down on you, reminding you that no matter how much you fight, this is where you’ll always end up. Trapped.

You hesitate when you finally reach the door to the bedroom. The sight of it makes your stomach twist, your feet glued to the floor as a wave of dread washes over you. Everything in your body screams not to go inside, not to let yourself be locked in that room again. To run, to fight.

But Sylus is right behind you, close enough that you can feel his presence, his breath warm and steady, almost unnervingly calm. His grip on your hand softens, his thumb tracing a slow circle against your skin, as if to soothe your frayed nerves. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, his voice gentle but laced with that unsettling authority. “Go on, sweetie.”

The way he says it is almost tender, but it only deepens the knot of anxiety in your chest. You can’t tell if it’s real kindness or just another layer of control. That soft, coaxing tone… it unnerves you more than his laughter, more than his taunts.

Despite every fiber of your being wanting to resist, you find yourself moving, stepping forward under the weight of his quiet insistence. You cross the threshold into the room, your body betraying you even as your mind screams to stop. The door clicks shut behind you with an almost imperceptible finality, and just like that, the familiar four dark walls of your prison close in around you once more.

You fight back the tears burning at the edges of your eyes as you step further into the room. The familiar surroundings feel like a punch to the gut—the large, imposing bed where Sylus had forced himself on you many many times, leaving behind scars you hadn’t realized had cut so deep. The leather couch in the center of the room, cold and impersonal, where you’d sat, waiting for the next wave of control to sweep over your life.

It’s too much.

For a moment, your knees threaten to buckle beneath you, the weight of it all pressing down with crushing force. The memories—dark, suffocating—swirl around you, making it hard to breathe. You almost crumble right there, unable to withstand the flood of emotions, of trauma that suddenly feels too close to the surface.

But before you can collapse, Sylus is there, his hand wrapping around your arm, guiding you away from the room and into the bathroom. His touch is firm but oddly gentle, a contrast that makes you even more uneasy. He’s pulling you toward the tiled space, and your mind races, trying to understand what’s happening as he begins to carefully, methodically, lift up your shirt to undress you.

“No,” you whisper, your voice trembling, barely audible over the sound of your own racing heartbeat. Your body goes stiff, your hands gripping the fabric of your shirt as if holding onto it could somehow protect you. “No,” you repeat, a little louder this time, your voice shaky and uneven. The tremors wrack your body, panic rising in your chest.

Sylus looks at you with something akin to worry, his touch slowing, but not stopping. He doesn’t force you, but his actions continue with a sense of inevitability, as though he believes this is just part of taking care of you, of ensuring you’re where you belong.

"I'm not going to do anything to you now, you just need a shower, sweetie."

But your mind is somewhere else entirely.

Flashes of memory assault you—dim lights, the scent of damp stone, and the overpowering fear of when you were in that basement. The man who had tried to force himself on you, who had pressed you against the bed with a hunger that still made your skin crawl. Your breath hitches as you remember his hands, his twisted smile. The terror, the helplessness—it's all too real, crashing down on you like a tidal wave.

You hadn’t realized just how deeply the trauma had sunk into you. Not until this moment, with Sylus standing in front of you, touching your clothes, his touch too familiar, too close to the horror you’d endured. You had been holding your emotions back but you couldn't now.

You flinch, your body recoiling instinctively as the memories close in around you. Your voice cracks, barely holding back the sob building in your throat. “Please…don’t.”

Sylus’s hands pause, and for the first time that entire day, you see it,—hesitation flickering across his sharp features. His red eyes, usually so calculating and cold, soften just enough for you to notice. His grip loosens, his fingers no longer working to take off your clothes but instead resting lightly on your shoulders, as if afraid of causing more harm.

“Be still,” he says again, his voice quiet and strangely tender. “I’m just trying to help you.”

But his words barely register. The panic has already set in, tightening around your chest like a vice. Your breathing grows shallow, quick—too quick. Your thoughts scatter, your heartbeat hammering so hard it feels like your ribcage might shatter under the pressure. The room spins around you, and suddenly you’re not here anymore. You’re back in the basement, cold stone beneath your feet, that man’s hands on your skin, forcing you against the wall. Forcing you on the bed.

You gasp for air, but each breath comes in ragged, uneven bursts. Your vision blurs, and your knees wobble beneath you. It’s happening all over again. The helplessness, the terror. It’s like your body has been pulled back into that moment, and no matter how much you try to claw your way out, you can’t.

Sylus moves swiftly, pulling you into his arms before you can collapse. His embrace is strong and grounding, his chest solid against your trembling form. “Breathe, sweetie” he whispers, his voice low, soothing, as if trying to coax you back from the edge of your panic. His hand rubs slow circles on your back, the gentle rhythm fighting against the chaos inside you. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

But you can’t. The air won’t come. Your breaths are sharp and shallow, your body on the verge of shutting down as you feel the world slipping away. You struggle, pushing weakly at him, but his arms only tighten around you, holding you firmly in place, anchoring you.

“Shhh, shhh…” His voice drops even lower, soft and almost tender. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

The warmth of his body presses against yours, his presence somehow steadying the storm inside you. You eventually cling to him, not because you want to, but because it’s the only thing that keeps you from spiraling into complete panic. His hand continues to stroke your back in slow, measured motions, and though your heart still pounds in your chest, his touch starts to break through the suffocating fog.

“I’ll turn around, okay?” he says gently, as if sensing the root of your fear. “You can undress yourself. I won’t watch.”

There’s something in his tone—something that feels honest, reassuring, like he’s not just saying the words to control you but because he wants you to feel safe. You weakly nod, barely, but he catches it. He loosens his grip and takes a slow step back, raising his hands in surrender, his red eyes locked onto yours.

“I’ll give you some time. You don’t have to rush.”

With a careful turn, he faces away from you, his broad back filling the room but no longer imposing. His actions aren’t threatening; they’re deliberate, giving you the space he knows you need.

Your breathing slows and you blink back tears, but your body still trembles. You wipe the remaining tears from your eyes with a shaky hand, glancing around the bathroom as the panic begins to ebb. And then you notice it—something is different.

The bathtub is gone.

It had been there before, you remember. A large, ornate tub that had taken up the corner of the bathroom, a symbol of something luxurious in this prison of yours. But now, it’s nowhere to be seen. Your brows knit together in confusion as you stare at the empty space.

“Where’s the tub?” you ask, your voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.

Sylus doesn’t turn around, but his response is quick and calm, as if he expected the question. “I had it removed,” he says softly, his voice strangely careful, almost cautious. “I didn’t want you to drown yourself again.”

The words hit you like a slap, sharp and unexpected. You freeze, your heart skipping a beat as the weight of what he’s saying sinks in. He thought…no, he knew. He knew how deep the darkness inside you could go, how close you’d come to actually dying. He’d taken precautions—not just to keep you here, but to keep you alive.

You stand there, frozen, staring at the empty space where the bathtub used to be, and the reality sinks in—there’s truly no escape. Not from this place, not from Sylus, and not from the relentless grip of your own mind. He’s stripped you of every option, every avenue, until there’s nothing left but this.

Nothing left but him.

The exhaustion presses down on you, heavier than ever before. With slow, mechanical movements, you step into the shower, your limbs feeling distant, as if they don’t belong to you anymore. The warm water hits your skin, but it does nothing to ease the weight in your chest. You close your eyes, hoping that the steady stream of water can drown out the chaos inside your head—the panic, the hopelessness, the memories.

But they cling to you, stubborn and unyielding.

Images flash behind your closed eyelids—memories of that basement, the cold stone walls pressing in, the terror that gripped you when the man came too close, his hands reaching, his breath sour. You press your hands against the tiled wall, your body shaking as you fight the memories back, but they keep coming, like waves crashing over you, dragging you under.

And then there’s Reese.

You can’t stop seeing it—the moment his body hit the floor, the sound of the fatal gunshot echoing in your mind like a haunting refrain. His face, twisted in shock and pain. Your fault. The words circle in your mind like a dark mantra, mixing with the trauma of that basement. It’s all tangled together, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t make it stop.

"Go to hell, Reese."

The water cascades down your back, but it doesn’t wash away the guilt. It doesn’t drown out the horror. The images of blood and brain matter sliding down concrete walls.

You press your forehead against the cold tile, letting the water soak through your hair as you fight the rising tide of emotion threatening to overwhelm you. You want to believe that there’s a way out, some form of freedom—maybe not from this mansion, but at least from the grip of your own mind. But right now, standing under the relentless stream of water, you know that freedom is further away than ever.

No matter how much you fight it, you’re trapped. Inside this house. Inside yourself.

And the worst part? Sylus knows it.

You feel the tears begin to well up, hot and uncontainable, spilling over before you even realize you’ve let them go. They mix with the water, disappearing beneath the steady stream of the shower, unseen, unclaimed by anyone but you. For the first time in what feels like forever, no one is watching. Not even Sylus.

You let the sobs come quietly, your body trembling as the tears fall, merging with the warm cascade. It’s a strange relief, knowing that in this moment, he isn’t witnessing your breaking point. Sylus had made it clear—your pain, your misery, your tears, they all belonged to him.

But right now, this moment is yours.

As the tears fall silently, you press your forehead against the cool tile, letting yourself cry in a way you hadn’t allowed before. The sobs are shaky, barely audible over the sound of the water, but they are real, raw, and they are yours alone. The stream washes them away before they have the chance to leave a trace, like they never existed at all.

Even as your heart aches and the trauma still weighs you down, there’s a strange comfort in the tears that go unnoticed. For just these few minutes, you aren’t his broken thing to fix or keep. You’re just a person, trying to survive, trying to breathe.

And even though the water doesn’t drown out all the pain or the memories, it gives you enough space to let the emotions pour out—if only for a little while.

Xavier’s breath came in shallow bursts as he navigated the empty streets of Linkon City, the familiar hum of his hunter’s watch glowing faintly on his wrist. His blue eyes flicked between the road and the holographic screen hovering just above the watch face. The blue light illuminated his face, highlighting the sharp focus in his eyes. The signal from the phone booth was still there, blinking steadily. That was his main lead—the last place you’d been before everything went silent.

His mind replayed the sound of your voice from the call, every word etched into his memory. Kidnapped. You hadn’t said much, but the panic in your tone had been unmistakable. The moment the call cut, something in him snapped. There was no hesitation, no second thought—he had left almost immediately, speeding through the city, your trembling words echoing in his head.

"Yeah, his name is S—"

Your words echoed in Xavier's mind, over and over, like a haunting refrain. You hadn’t been able to finish your sentence before the call had abruptly cut out, leaving him with nothing but that single, meaningless syllable. S. It replayed in his head as the car sped forward, finally breaking free from the limits of Linkon City and onto the dark, winding road that would lead him toward the N109 Zone.

He had tried to call back the second the line went dead, his hands trembling as he frantically redialed the number, but it was no use. The call wouldn’t connect. Maybe you had run out of money for the payphone. Maybe something far worse had happened.

The not knowing gnawed at him.

Who was S? The question had burned in his mind from the moment you said it. A name. It had to be a name. But just that one letter wasn’t enough to figure out who this person was, let alone why they had taken you. He cursed under his breath, gripping the steering wheel tighter as the dark road stretched out before him.

Whoever S was, they were dangerous enough to bring you to the N109 Zone. That part made his blood run cold. This place wasn’t just desolate—it was the kind of area that most people in the city pretended didn’t even exist. It was lawless, forgotten. A place where the desperate went to disappear, where the city’s darkness festered beneath the surface and on top of it, darkness everywhere you turn.

But why there? What did this S want with you? And why take you so far from the city?

He replayed the phone call in his mind again, your voice shaky but steady as you’d tried to tell him what had happened. The fear had been there, simmering just beneath your words, but you had clearly fought to stay calm.

Xavier’s heart pounded harder with every mile. There was something else that bothered him, something gnawing at the edges of his mind. Why had you been targeted? You were strong, capable—smart. One of the best deep space hunters around. You wouldn’t have let yourself be taken easily. That meant whoever S was, he’d planned this, thought it through, and knew how to get to you. That thought made Xavier’s stomach twist. This wasn’t random. It was calculated.

The car hit a bump in the road, jolting him back to the present, but his mind still raced. He needed to find you, needed to get to you before this S—whoever he was—did something unforgivable. He couldn’t stand the thought of you being out there, scared and alone, waiting for help that felt too far away.

He glanced at the holographic display on his hunter’s watch again, watching as the faint signal pulsed from the N109 Zone. It wasn’t much of a lead, but it was the best lead he had. That phone booth, that single clue you’d left him before the call ended, was his only connection to you now.

Who are you, S? The question echoed in his mind as he pressed down harder on the gas pedal, the car roaring down the empty highway.

He didn’t know what awaited him in the N109 Zone, but he knew one thing for sure: he was prepared to fight like hell for you.

After what felt like an eternity, buildings whipping past him, Xavier finally pulled up to the phone booth, his heart hammering in his chest. The headlights illuminated the cracked pavement and the battered glass of the booth, standing alone at the edge of the desolate lot like a ghost from another time. But of course, you weren’t there. The booth was empty. You were nowhere to be found.

Xavier’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as he sat there for a moment, staring at the empty phone booth. His mind raced, thoughts tangled in frustration and fear. You had told him you would call back—you had said you were going to that strange man’s house, and then you’d come back to tell him what it looked like. But now, standing there in the middle of the N109 Zone, it felt like that plan had shattered into a thousand pieces.

He stepped out of the car, the cold air hitting him like a slap to the face as he approached the booth. His eyes scanned the area, up and down, looking for any sign of you. But there was nothing. Just silence. The eerie kind that made his stomach twist with unease.

The booth was run-down, even worse up close. He stared at it, his thoughts flickering between panic and regret. Should he wait for you to come back, as you said you would? Or had something already gone terribly wrong? Every second that passed felt like a ticking clock, time slipping away, leaving him more uncertain than ever.

He leaned against the booth, raking a hand through his hair, trying to decide. You had been so determined—so sure you could handle this. You’d said you were going to check out this strange man’s house, get some rest, and then return. But the thought of you going there alone, to that man—whoever he was—made him sick.

I should’ve told you not to go with him.

The regret hit him hard, twisting deep in his chest. He should’ve been more forceful, should’ve stopped you. The second you’d mentioned this man, this stranger who had somehow convinced you to follow him, alarm bells had gone off in his head. He had sensed something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t he told you to stay away? Why hadn’t he made sure you didn’t go?

But you were strong, capable—you had always been stubborn, determined to handle things on your own. And he had trusted you to do that. But now…now you were missing. And he was standing in an empty lot with no idea where you were or who had taken you.

Xavier clenched his fists, staring at the phone booth as if willing it to give him answers. The last place you had been. He thought about turning around, driving through the N109 Zone, checking every corner, every building. But the reality of how vast and dangerous this area was made him hesitate. He didn’t even know who to look for. S. The mysterious man whose name had been cut off by the phone’s disconnect. That wasn’t enough.

Xavier’s stomach growled, pulling him from the fog of his frantic thoughts. He hadn’t eaten properly in hours, and the adrenaline that had been fueling him was finally wearing thin. He gritted his teeth, the pang of hunger a sharp reminder of just how long it had been since he’d stopped moving. He didn’t want to waste time, but he knew he needed to eat, to think straight.

Reluctantly, he climbed back into the car and started driving, scanning the streets of the N109 Zone for anything that looked remotely functional. This part of the city was basically wasteland—most of the buildings were crumbling, their windows broken, and the streets were nearly empty. He almost decided to give up before spotting a flicker of neon in the distance.

It was a convenience store—small, dingy, and barely lit—but it was open. The cracked neon sign buzzed weakly, casting a dull glow over the entrance. It didn’t look promising, but it was all he had. He pulled up, the car’s tires crunching over the broken pavement as he parked.

Xavier stepped out, his eyes narrowing as he approached the entrance. The store looked as worn out as the rest of the area, its windows covered in grime and dust, but the lights inside told him it was still in business. He pushed the door open, the warmth of the store enveloping him.

The place reeked of stale air and something faintly metallic. Shelves lined the narrow aisles, most of them half-stocked but there was variety. Xavier grabbed a few snacks—whatever looked edible—and made his way to the counter, where a grimy man with disheveled hair and yellowed teeth sat behind the register, staring at him with a disinterested scowl.

“Do you take gold?” Xavier asked, pulling out a small pouch from his pocket. It wasn’t unusual for places outside Linkon City to not take gold, as a lot of places were still living in the past. Couldn't hurt to ask though.

The man behind the counter laughed, a rough, guttural sound that made Xavier’s skin crawl. “Gold, huh? Figures. You Linkcunt folks just keep coming in here actin’ like it’s worth more than it is.” He leaned forward, eyeing Xavier with something between amusement and suspicion.

"No, we don't take it."

Xavier pocketed the small pouch, unsurprised by the man's harsh words, “You said Linkon folks? Who else from the city has been here?” His tone was casual, but his heart skipped a beat. Maybe someone else had seen you?

"Linkcunt," the man corrected with a sneer. The man’s eyes flicked up, narrowing slightly. “Why, you looking for someone?” He eyed Xavier and leaned back in his chair, his voice taking on an edge of curiosity.

Xavier pressed, trying to keep his voice steady. “Maybe. Just wondering who else might’ve been through here recently.”

The man scratched his stubbled chin, considering. “Well, there was this disheveled-looking girl who came through a little while ago. Had a lot of attitude, that one. Demanding help. Swiped some snacks and shit when I wasn’t looking. Took off before I could do anything about it.” He shrugged, clearly not too bothered by the theft. “But that’s basically all I know.”

Xavier’s heart stopped. A disheveled girl… Could it have been you?

His pulse quickened, the pieces clicking together. You must have come through here before disappearing. The man didn’t seem to know much more, but this was a sign. You had been close—you had been right here.

“What’d she look like?” Xavier asked, trying not to sound too eager.

The man waved a hand lazily. “Didn't look that closely to be honest. Bitch looked like hell, though. Clothes all messed up, like she’d been through something. But she was quick—didn’t stick around long enough for me to really notice much else. Don’t know where she went after that. Just up and vanished with my stock”

Xavier nodded, feeling a surge of both hope and frustration. You’d been here, that much was clear. But now you were gone again, slipping through his fingers like a ghost.

"You really shouldn't talk about women like that".

He paid for the snacks with some dollar bills he kept in his car for out of city trips, and turned to leave, leaving the disgruntled cashier. His mind already racing to figure out where you could’ve gone from here.

Xavier’s heart pounded in his chest as he stepped back outside, the cold night air hitting him like a wall. You’d been here. Not long ago, from the sound of it. He could almost picture it—your disheveled form rushing through the aisles, grabbing whatever you could before vanishing into the shadows again. You were close, too close to give up now. But where had you gone?

He clenched his jaw, glancing around the empty streets. There were too many directions, too many places you could have disappeared to. The N109 Zone was vast, a labyrinth of forgotten corners and abandoned buildings, and there was no telling where you might have run off to next.

His mind raced, trying to make sense of the little he knew. You had come here to get food, maybe out of desperation—running on fear and adrenaline. And then, like the man said, you were gone. No tracks, no sign of where you’d been taken.

Xavier pulled a crumpled pamphlet out of his jacket pocket, his fingers brushing over the faded image of a sleek pair of boots. It was the same pamphlet the shoe store clerk had given him earlier, and now, it seemed like his only other lead. A shoe store… It might seem like a stretch, but he had learned to follow even the smallest clues. If he couldn’t figure out where you had gone, maybe he could figure out more about the man who had taken you. And starting with something as small as his shoes might just be the break he needed.

He studied the pamphlet again, his eyes narrowing as he recalled his brief conversation with the clerk. The shoes had been expensive, high-end—definitely not something most people in the N109 Zone would be wearing.

But S wasn’t like most people, was he?

Xavier’s mind spun as he hurriedly typed the address from the pamphlet into his hunter’s watch, the holographic screen glowing softly as it processed the information. The watch pinged, highlighting the location of the store in the city. It wasn’t far, but it was a place he wouldn’t have expected someone from the N109 Zone to frequent.

If S was wearing those shoes, it meant he had money—or at least access to it. That was something Xavier could work with. People like that left trails, even in places where they thought they could stay hidden.

He started the car again, his pulse quickening as the watch projected the route onto the windshield. The shoe store was his next stop, and if he was lucky, he could get more information about who S really was. Maybe someone there had seen him, or better yet, could point him in the direction of where he lived or did business.

As the car sped toward the heart of the city, Xavier’s determination sharpened. He was getting closer to answers—closer to finding you. If he could learn more about this mysterious man, this “S,” then maybe, just maybe, he could figure out where you were being held.

As Xavier sped through the dark, crumbling streets of the N109 Zone, the world outside his car blurred into a mix of shadows and faint streetlights. His mind was focused on finding you, piecing together the next step in his search. Then, out of nowhere, a piercing scream shattered the stillness.

His foot slammed on the brake, the car lurching to a stop as his heart raced. The sound of the scream echoed through the desolate streets, raw and desperate. He scanned the area frantically, searching for the source of the cry for help. Then he saw her—a woman stumbling into the dim light from a broken streetlamp, clutching her side, her face twisted in pain.

“Help! Please, help me!” she gasped, her voice cracking with panic as she looked directly at him, her body collapsing onto the cracked pavement.

Xavier’s hunter instincts kicked in immediately. He couldn’t just leave someone like that. He shoved the car door open and rushed toward her, his eyes darting around, looking for any potential danger. The streets of the N109 Zone were unpredictable, but he couldn't just ignore someone in need.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” he asked, his tone urgent but calm as he knelt down beside her.

The woman’s breathing was shallow, her face pale and contorted with pain. She clutched her ribs, wincing with every breath. “I don’t know,” she whimpered, “I was attacked. I need help… please…” Her eyes were wild with fear, darting between Xavier and the shadows beyond, as if expecting someone—or something—to come after her at any moment.

Xavier’s heart pounded, his mind racing. “I’ll get you some help,” he assured her, reaching for his phone. But as he fumbled for it, he felt a shift—something wasn’t right.

The woman’s eyes flicked over his shoulder, her panic momentarily replaced by something colder, more calculating. Before he could react, a blur of movement rushed behind him.

A sharp clink. The keys.

Xavier’s blood ran cold as he spun around, just in time to see a man slip past him, keys glinting in his hand. The stranger, quick and agile, darted toward Xavier’s car, jumping into the driver’s seat. How did I not see this coming? The realization hit him like a punch to the gut—this was a setup.

“Hey!” Xavier yelled, lunging forward, his heart hammering in his chest. But it was too late.

The woman, now standing tall with no trace of pain or injury, smirked at him, her expression smug and mocking. “Thanks for the ride, city boy,” she sneered, her voice dripping with satisfaction as she ran toward the passenger side of the car. She moved easily now, as if the earlier fear and desperation had been nothing but an act. It had been.

Xavier’s mind raced as he sprinted toward the car, but the engine roared to life before he could even get close. The man in the driver’s seat gunned the accelerator, the tires screeching against the pavement as the car sped away, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

His heart sank as he watched the taillights disappear into the darkness, the weight of the situation crashing down on him. His car. His keys. Everything—gone in an instant. And with it, any chance of quickly finding you.

He'd have to walk on foot.

The steam from the shower still clung to your skin as you stepped out, your mind swirling in a haze of exhaustion and hunger. Your stomach growled loudly, reminding you just how long it had been since you last ate. The hot water had done little to wash away the weight of everything pressing down on you—the memories, the fear—but it had, at least, cleaned the grime from your body. You were left feeling raw and exposed, unsure of what was coming next.

You opened the glass door of the shower and grabbed a towel laying on the counter, wrapping it around yourself quickly before exiting.

You saw Sylus had elected to lean against the doorframe when you stepped out, and he turned around to face you. His eyes, those sharp, red eyes, softened when they met yours. "The chef has prepared food for you," he said, his voice gentle. The tenderness in his tone felt unnerving, like everything else with him, but the thought of food was too tempting to resist.

But before you could respond, he gestured to a set of neatly prepared shopping bags laid on his bed outside the bathroom. “I want you to open these first. Consider them gifts I had planned for you… before you ran off.” The edge in his words lingered, but his expression remained neutral. You vaguely remembered him clipping your nails while you were in the bathtub, a pile of shopping bags at his feet.

Ah, you had forgotten all about those. You wrapped the towel around yourself tighter, a knot of discomfort forming in your stomach.

You hesitated for a moment, then slowly approached the bed, your hands trembling slightly as you began to take out the "gifts". The first bag contained delicate pieces of underwear—soft, lace, and undeniably expensive. You swallowed hard, feeling a wave of unease crawl up your spine.

“Gifts for me? Or for you to see on me?” you muttered, unable to hide the malice in your voice, the bitterness slipping out.

Sylus’s lips quirked into a small, amused smile, his red eyes flickering with that familiar, unsettling glint. "Why not both?," he replied softly, the weight of his gaze lingering on you as though he found your defiance amusing.

These weren’t just clothes; they were symbols of his control, of how he saw you. Like you were his little doll to dress up. Still, you nodded hesitantly, accepting the garments with quiet reluctance.

Beneath the underwear were more practical clothes—soft, comfortable tops, leggings, and dresses. Each piece was chosen carefully, and despite yourself, you appreciated the effort, if only because you were desperate for something to wear to avoid Sylus's lingering gaze on your damp body. You chose a simple, slightly loose white dress, letting it fall over your damp skin. Then slipped on one of the many underwear he had bought for you. Sylus watched you quietly, a small smile playing on his lips as he waited for you to finish.

“You might've lost a few pounds from stress, once you start eating more, it’ll fit better,” he said casually, his tone matter-of-fact as though he hadn’t just casually referenced your weakened state. The words hung in the air, a subtle reminder of how long you'll be trapped here. Then, with a surprising softness, he added, “You look beautiful nonetheless, honey.”

“Honey.” A new pet name.

Surprisingly, instead of making you grimace like his usual endearments, it sends an unwelcome heat crawling across your face. You bite the inside of your cheek, forcing yourself not to react, but the flush is unmistakable. Against your will, your gaze drops, and you look away from him, the sudden surge of embarrassment catching you off guard.

Sylus notices, of course. His smile deepens slightly, a quiet satisfaction flickering in his eyes as if he can sense the effect his words have on you. He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel his gaze on you—steady, watchful—his presence filling the room in an unnerving way that makes it harder to breathe.

He extended his hand toward you, the gesture oddly tender and yet impossible to trust. You hesitated, unsure if taking it would solidify his power over you further or if refusing would draw out something worse. But you take it, residing to the fact that you didn't have much choice.

He moved toward the door, your hand held in his grip. “Come,” he said. “The food is waiting.”

Your stomach growled again, and despite the tension between you and him, you found yourself trailing after him, your body driven by the gnawing hunger you couldn’t ignore. As you stepped into the dining hall, the rich, mouth-watering aroma of freshly prepared food hit you like a wave.

The table was filled with an extravagant feast. Platters of roasted meats sat alongside bowls of vibrant vegetables, glistening under the kitchen lights. There were thick, tender cuts of lamb, still steaming from the oven, their edges crisp and golden. Roasted chicken, its skin perfectly browned and seasoned with herbs, sat atop a bed of caramelized onions and garlic. Beside them, a platter of seared duck breast, cooked to perfection, its fat rendered into a rich, savory glaze.

On another side of the table were bowls of creamy mashed potatoes, rich and buttery, their surface dusted with flecks of chives. A dish of roasted root vegetables—carrots, parsnips, and beets—was arranged in a beautiful display, their edges crisp and caramelized, drizzled with a balsamic glaze. There was a vibrant salad of mixed greens, tossed with fresh pomegranate seeds, crumbled goat cheese, and candied walnuts, the dressing a light, tangy vinaigrette that made your mouth water.

A basket of freshly baked bread sat in the center of the table, the rolls warm and soft, their golden crusts begging to be torn apart. Small bowls of whipped butter, infused with honey and herbs, accompanied them, the scent sweet and savory.

But it didn’t stop there. Desserts, too, were laid out, tempting you even further. A decadent chocolate tart with a glossy ganache topping, dusted with powdered sugar and fresh raspberries, sat next to a platter of delicate fruit tarts, their centers brimming with custard and topped with glistening berries. A tower of macarons in various pastel shades—lavender, pistachio, rose—completed the lavish display.

Sylus pulled out a chair for you, his smile widening as he watched your eyes dart from one dish to the next. "Well don't just stare, sit down".

The sight and smell overwhelmed you, and for a moment, you felt like a prisoner presented with a royal meal, knowing full well the chains still bound you. But hunger gnawed at your insides, and no matter how conflicted you were, your body screamed for sustenance as you sat.

"Eat," Sylus urged, taking a seat across from you. His eyes never left yours, watching, waiting for your reaction.

Your hand trembled slightly as you reached for a piece of bread, the warmth of it soothing in your palm. You tore it open, the soft dough yielding beneath your fingers, and dipped it into the whipped honey butter, taking a small bite. The flavors burst in your mouth, and despite everything, you couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh of relief.

The food was perfect—too perfect. And as you took another bite, you couldn’t help but wonder: was this all part of the game too? Or was it simply nourishment after the storm?

Sylus leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on you as you ate, his expression unreadable. He didn’t speak, just watched you in that unsettling, familiar way—like he was always studying you, always thinking, always planning. His silence, for once, was almost a relief, allowing you to focus on the food and ignore his presence as much as possible.

You couldn’t help it. The hunger gnawed at you, and the feast before you was impossible to resist. The flavors were rich, the textures comforting, and before you realized it, you had cleared almost four plates. Each bite had momentarily dulled the chaos in your mind, letting you push aside the fear, the memories, and the discomfort that still lingered in your chest.

Sylus didn’t comment as you reached for more, nor did he interrupt. He seemed content to let you eat in peace, his eyes never leaving you but his lips remaining closed. It wasn’t until you finally pushed the last plate away, feeling the fullness settle in your stomach, that the silence between you felt heavier.

The weight of exhaustion began to settle over you. The warmth from the food and the sheer relief of being full left you feeling heavy, your eyelids growing heavier by the minute. You hadn’t realized just how tired you were until that moment. Your body felt like it had finally reached its limit.

Sylus stood up, breaking the silence. His movements were smooth and deliberate as he pushed his chair back, his gaze never leaving you. “You must be tired,” he said softly, the same unnerving tenderness in his voice as before. “It’s time for bed.”

You tensed slightly at his words, but your body, worn down by hunger and stress, didn’t have the strength to protest. You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak, afraid of what might come out if you did. There was no point in resisting, not tonight.

Sylus moved toward you, his hand extending again as if offering comfort. You hesitated, looking at his outstretched hand, but you didn’t have the energy to reject him. You let him guide you, his touch gentle yet firm as he led you toward the bedroom you were dreading your return to.

You don’t remember when exactly you slipped into unconsciousness, but the world had faded into nothing after Sylus lifted you into the bed. His arms were unexpectedly gentle, cradling you with a kind of care that felt entirely out of place. You were vaguely aware of him pulling the blankets up around you, tucking you in, but then everything went dark. The exhaustion you had been fighting all day finally consumed you, and you sank into the deepest sleep you’d felt in what seemed like forever.

There was comfort in the darkness, the kind of peace that only comes with complete surrender to sleep. No fear, no panic, just the void. You floated there, cradled in warmth. But soon, the darkness gave way to a dream, vivid and consuming.

Xavier appeared first, stepping out of the shadows of your mind. His familiar figure brought an immediate sense of relief. His ashy blonde hair fell into his face, and his striking blue eyes bore into you with the same warmth and intensity that always made your heart flutter. There he was, just as you remembered—strong, dependable, and safe. He reached out, his hand extending toward you, and without hesitation, you moved toward him.

The moment your hand met his, your heart melted, the overwhelming sense of security flooding through you. For the first time in what felt like ages, you felt safe. You felt home.

But something changed.

Xavier’s gaze, once filled with affection and care, shifted. His eyes darkened, turning cold, distant. The warmth you’d found in his presence quickly evaporated, replaced by something harsh and unfamiliar. His lips curled downward, a shadow crossing his face, and his grip on your hand tightened. The shift was sudden, the dream warping around you like a twisted reflection of reality.

"Why did you want him dead?" His voice cut through the dream, sharp and cold, the softness you’d expected from him nowhere to be found.

You blinked, confusion gripping you as his words sank in. “Huh?” Your face faltered, your heart pounding in your chest. His cold stare drilled into you, and you could feel something inside you cracking under its weight. What was happening?

"You're the reason Reese is dead," Xavier said, his words landing like a punch to the gut. His voice, usually so steady, so comforting, was now filled with anger, with accusation. His grip on your hand turned painful, his fingers digging into your skin with an almost crushing force.

“No...” Your voice wavered, barely able to push the word out as your mind reeled. “That wasn’t my fault, it was Sy—” You tried to explain, to say anything to stop the blame from settling on your shoulders. But the words caught in your throat, and you couldn’t finish. You couldn’t get them out.

His face twisted, contorting with anger and something that looked like disappointment. His blue eyes, once a source of warmth, were now filled with icy judgment, the coldness sinking into your skin like knives. His grip tightened further, pain shooting through your hand, but no matter how hard you tried to pull away, you couldn’t escape.

The dream around you blurred, the edges of reality warping and distorting. The ground beneath you seemed to shift, unsteady, while Xavier's figure loomed larger, his presence suffocating. The weight of his blame pressed down on your chest like a stone, suffocating you, filling your lungs with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

You tried to explain again, your voice strangled by the intensity of the moment, but Xavier wasn’t listening. His hand was like a vice, his fingers digging into your skin as his gaze pinned you in place. His words repeated in your mind, echoing louder and louder—“You're the reason he’s dead.”

Xavier's face began to twist, distorting into something grotesque, something no longer human. His once gentle features morphed and stretched unnaturally, his blue eyes darkening into hollow, accusing pits. His grip on your hand became unbearable, crushing the bones in your fingers as his form continued to change, shifting from the man you loved into a nightmare. The warmth that had briefly comforted you was gone, replaced by a deep, bone-chilling cold.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you tried to pull away, but the force holding you was relentless. You stared in horror as Xavier’s form became unrecognizable, his skin taking on a gray, cracked texture, his mouth elongating into a grimace filled with sharp teeth. His eyes, now nothing more than deep, empty voids, bore into you with a hatred that sent shivers down your spine.

“You’re a murderer,” the figure spat, its voice now a low, guttural growl that echoed in your ears, far louder than it should have been. “Murderer.” The word hit you like a physical blow, making your entire body tense as you tried to make sense of what was happening.

“No…” you whispered, your voice trembling as you desperately tried to defend yourself. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t—”

“You have blood on your hands!” the figure roared, its voice shaking the world around you. Xavier’s face continued to twist and contort, veins bulging from his neck, his body looming over you like a towering monster. “You told him to die!”

The words echoed again and again, crashing into you with the force of a tidal wave. The weight of guilt slammed into your chest, almost knocking the wind out of you as the grotesque version of Xavier leaned in closer. His voice became more vicious, more unforgiving. “You let him die, and now the blood is on your hands!”

You looked down, and your breath caught in your throat. Blood. It was everywhere—on your hands, dripping from your fingers, pooling at your feet. Panic surged through you, your heart racing as you tried to wipe it away, but no matter how hard you scrubbed, the blood only seemed to multiply, staining your skin, your clothes, everything around you.

“You’ll never wash it off!” the figure screamed, its voice shaking with rage. “Never!” It grabbed your shoulders, shaking you violently as it continued to scream. “You’re a murderer!

You struggled, trying to pull free, but the figure’s grip was unbreakable. The dream spiraled into chaos, the world around you collapsing into darkness as the screams filled the air, overwhelming your senses. The blood seemed to rise like a tide, crawling up your arms, soaking through your skin. You gasped for air, but it was suffocating, the guilt swallowing you whole.

“Murderer!” the figure roared again, louder this time, shaking you until your vision blurred. “Murderer! Murderer!"

Tears streamed down your face as you tried to shake your head, to deny it, but the accusations wouldn’t stop. The guilt, the blood, the rage—it was all around you, suffocating you, crushing you.

And then, just as quickly as it began, the figure stopped. It stood over you, silent now, but its eyes—those hollow, accusing voids—were locked onto you. “You can never escape what you’ve done,” it whispered, the venom in its voice chilling you to the core.

You shot up in bed, heart hammering in your chest, a scream tearing through your throat before you even knew what was happening. The sheets clung to your sweat-soaked skin as you gasped for breath, the nightmare still gripping you in its suffocating hold. Your hands shook violently, fingers instinctively rubbing at your palms, expecting to see the blood, the thick, crimson stain that had haunted you moments before.

But there was no blood.

The room was dark, dimly lit by a lamp settled on the nightstand. Sylus sat beside you, awake, casually reading a book. His red eyes glanced up from the pages, calm and steady, showing no sign of surprise at your sudden outburst.

“You’re okay,” Sylus said softly, his voice low but steady. He closed the book, setting it aside as he reached out, pulling you closer, into his arms with a gentle grip. The warmth of his body on yours was meant to be comforting, but the lingering terror from the dream made his touch feel heavier, suffocating.

Your breath came in ragged gasps, the echoes of the nightmare still gripping you. The blood, the screams, the weight of guilt—it all felt so real, too real to shake off. Your hands trembled in your lap, still trying to rub away the invisible stain that wouldn’t leave.

“Shhh,” Sylus soothed, his voice soft as he stroked your back with deliberate calmness. “It was just a nightmare, kitten.”

But his words barely penetrated the thick fog of panic swirling in your mind. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to steady your breathing, but the image of Xavier’s cold, accusing gaze still lingered in the corners of your thoughts, leaving an ache in your chest that refused to fade.

Sylus’s gaze never wavered from you. He was patient, his grip around you getting stronger as you fought to regain control, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern, though it was impossible to tell how much of it was real. He watched you wordlessly, waiting patiently for your breathing to slow as he rubbed your back in soothing motions.

And you did, eventually. Slowly, your heartbeat began to slow, the cold sweat drying on your skin as the nightmare finally started to loosen its grip. You were still shaken, but reality was settling back in.

Sylus smiled, his eyes softening slightly. “Good girl,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from your face. "You feel better?"

"It's not my fault..." you muttered, your voice barely above a whisper as tears began streaming down your face, hot and unstoppable. The weight of the nightmare still pressed against your chest, the guilt wrapping itself around your heart. "Reese... I told him to die, kinda. But you killed him!"

Your words trembled in the air, and for a moment, the room felt suffocatingly silent. Sylus’s arm stilled on your back, his red eyes watching you closely. His face remained calm, unreadable, but something flickered behind his gaze—curiosity, perhaps, or even amusement. He began rubbing your back again.

He leaned in slightly, his voice low and steady as he spoke. “I killed him because he took what was mine,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “You didn’t pull the trigger, I did. Don’t fool yourself, sweetie.” His fingers gently wiped away the tears falling down your cheeks, lingering on your skin a second longer than necessary.

“His fate was sealed the moment he touched you. You’re not responsible for his death.”

Your heart ached, the confusion and guilt twisting inside you. The memory of Reese's lifeless body, the sound of the gunshot, played over and over in your mind. You knew that Sylus had been the one to end it, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that your words, your anger, had driven the final nail in the coffin.

"But I—" you started, your voice cracking, but Sylus shushed you gently, pressing a finger to your lips.

“Don’t burden yourself,” he whispered, his voice soothing but firm. “Reese was a pest, and pests are dealt with. It wasn’t your fault. You said what you needed to say in the moment” His eyes softened, his gaze almost affectionate. “And now, you’re here—with me. Safe.”

"Am I?" you sobbed, the weight of your emotions crashing down on you all at once. The tears came faster, and with them, the memory of that night—the night Sylus had taken everything into his own hands, literally. The sharp pain, the feeling of your skin being sliced open as he calmly removed your birth control implant, resurfaced in vivid detail. The raw fear that had gripped you then returned now, surging like a wave you couldn't hold back.

"At least Reese never hurt me," you choked out between sobs, your voice trembling, barely holding together. "You, on the other hand..."

Your hand instinctively went to your arm, tracing the faint scar left behind from when Sylus had decided, without a second thought, that he would control every part of you—inside and out. The scar was still there, but it wasn’t just on your skin. The memory of that violation ran deeper than any wound that could heal.

Sylus’s expression didn’t shift at your words. His calm gaze remained fixed on you, though there was a slight narrowing of his eyes. His hand paused in its comforting motions, hovering just inches from you, as if calculating how to respond.

“I did what was necessary,” he said, his voice calm, controlled, almost dismissive. "Everything I’ve done has been for you. For us. Why are you crying over a man that handed you and countless others over for crack?"

The flood of emotions broke through all at once at his words.

"Because-because he wasn't supposed to die. Hunters aren't the reason people die, we save people...he could've went to jail he wasn't supposed to-"

You crumpled, sobs wracking your body as the weight of everything—of all you had endured—became too much to bear. Memories you had tried to suppress, to bury deep within you, rose to the surface like dark waves crashing against fragile walls.

The man from the basement. His hands grabbing you, the smell of his breath, the sheer terror that had paralyzed you as he tried to force himself on you. You had fought, screamed, but the memory was still there, etched into your mind like a brand that would never fade. The nightmare you had just woken from had only served to rip open the scars you had so desperately tried to heal.

Your words came out in broken fragments, incoherent between sobs. "That other man…he tried… I couldn’t— I couldn’t stop him…" Your voice cracked, your chest heaving as you babbled through the memories, the trauma wrapping itself around you like a suffocating shroud. "He—he wouldn’t stop… I couldn’t breathe, I was so scared…"

You weren’t even sure Sylus was listening. You couldn’t look at him. Everything blurred together, your mind overwhelmed by the pain, the helplessness, the feeling of being trapped again in that moment. You curled in on yourself, trembling as the sobs became uncontrollable, the terror of that night suffocating you all over again.

Then you felt it—Sylus’s hand, soft and deliberate, gently cradling your cheek. He leaned in, his voice softening into something almost unbearably tender, a tone you never thought he was capable of.

"Poor thing, you're such a mess," he murmured.

His eyes lingered on you with a mix of pity and affection, as though you were something fragile, something cherished. It was as if watching you unravel before him caused his heart to ache.

“I can help you forget,” he whispered, his thumb brushing away your tears with slow, careful strokes. “Let me take the pain away, kitten. You don’t have to carry it anymore.”

His words were soothing, like a lullaby coaxing you away from the edge of your breakdown. His touch was uncharacteristically soft, his presence surrounding you like a cocoon, making it harder to pull yourself out of the depths of your despair. For a brief moment, the way he looked at you—like he truly cared—made you falter.

"I'll make it all disappear," Sylus murmured, his voice low and hypnotic, penetrating the darkest recesses of your fractured psyche. It was as if he possessed the power to reach inside your mind and vaporize the painful memories that clung to you like shackles. "You want to feel so good you won't think about him again?"

You hesitate at his words. The rational part of your mind urged you to turn away, not to respond. To pull yourself from his embrace and fight him. But the other part, muddled by trauma, drove you to stay. To seek comfort, any comfort, even in his arms.

From your captor of all people.

“Yes…” you whimpered, blinking away tears. You didn’t know why you answered that way—your mind screamed at you to stop—but you found yourself reaching out, your fingers clutching the collar of his shirt and pulling him closer.

Anything. Anything to make this pain stop.

His lips crashed against yours before you could even register what was happening, consuming you in a kiss so passionate it bordered on painful. All rational thought evaporated as his tongue plundered the recesses of your mouth, stroking along your palate and tangling with your own tongue in a sensual dance as old as time itself.

You were consumed, caught in the storm of his touch, unable to think beyond the overwhelming need to escape the agony of your memories—even if only for a moment.

Your hands flew to his face of their own accord, fingers threading through his hair as you clung to him like a drowning woman gasping for air. You kissed him back with a fervor born of desperation, pouring all your pent-up anguish and trauma into the hungry clash of lips and teeth. The two of you panted against each other, like animals ready to tear each other to shreds.

Some distant part of you screamed that this was mistake, that doing this with him willingly was certainly wrong. He had kidnapped you after all. Stolen you. But it was drowned out by the pounding of your heart, the ache of need pulsing between your thighs. His hands slid under your dress, calloused palms skimming over hypersensitive flesh, and you arched into his touch with a whimper.

"Sylus..." you whined, already feeling the desperate ache reach your core.

"I know, kitten. Patience, we just started" he said, amusement adorning his face.

His lips found yours again, hot and demanding, silencing any lingering protests. You melted into the kiss, your fingers tangling in his hair as you pulled him closer. The taste of him was intoxicating, a heady mix of desire and danger that left you craving more. His fingers find the hem of your underwear, wasting no time to remove the obstacle from your wet depths.

Your whole body trembled as Sylus's lips blazed a path down your body, trailing molten kisses along the column of your throat. Each brush of his mouth against your sensitive skin sent electricity singing through your veins, igniting another fiery ache between your thighs. When he nudged aside the fabric of your dress to nuzzle the slick flesh of your cunt, you let out a strangled moan, your fingers curling into the sheets beneath you.

The tip of his nose grazed your swollen bud, and your back arched off the bed, every nerve ending sparking with raw pleasure. "Nnnngh…" you whimpered, hips bucking instinctively toward his teasing touch.

Sylus's deep, resonant chuckle rumbled through you, vibrating against your core in a way that made your toes curl. "So responsive," he murmured, his warm breath ghosting over your dripping folds. "Tell me, kitten-were you this wet for him? Did he make you shiver and moan like this when he touched you?"

He grips your thighs almost possessively, waiting for your answer.

His words were like a bucket of ice water dumped over your head, plunging you back into reality. Shame crashed over you in nauseating waves, your arousal doused by the realization of how easily Sylus manipulated your body. Tears leaked from the corners of your eyes as you squeezed them shut, fists clenching in the bedding.

"No," you choked out, voice brittle. "Never. He never touched me like this…Sylus, please…" The plea was torn from your throat, part desperation, part disgust. You felt filthy, tainted by your own traitorous reactions to Sylus's sensual assault on your most intimate parts.

But despite the revulsion roiling in your gut, your body still yearned for more.

"Its hard to say no when you beg me like that," he said, seemingly satisfied with your answer, began trailing a hot, wet streak against your folds. A gasp punches through your throat, eyes fluttering as you try not to lose all control. The mere feeling of his tongue was sending your brain into frenzies. But it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough to block the pain.

"Sylus, ple-mmph!”

You grip the bedsheets even tighter when he tenderly cuts off your plea with a moan against your clit, his tongue beginning to spread the entrance of your lips apart feverishly. Your breathing gets rapid when you feel something hot breaking past the entrance, deeper and deeper into your walls. Sylus's tongue delved deeper, stroking along your inner walls with devastating skill.

"You don't have to hold the bedsheets." he says, withdrawing momentarily from your depths. He wordlessly guides your hands to the top of his head, and before you can say anything, he's back licking up and down your folds, eventually making his way back in completely. The immediate shockwaves of pleasure make you grip his hair basically against your will, and you tearfully hold his hair as you neared an orgasm.

The pleasure built to an unbearable crescendo as Sylus's tongue relentlessly stroked your inner walls, each slick thrust driving you higher toward the brink of climax. Broken moans spilled from your lips, intermingling with his hungry growls of appreciation. Tears streamed down your face as your hips rocked shamelessly against his mouth, silently begging for the oblivion that hovered just out of reach.

Sylus's strong hands gripped your thighs, holding you in place as he feasted upon your aching cunt. He seemed enraptured, almost worshipful in his attentions, lavishing your most intimate places with devoted licks and sucks. He ate you out like a starved man. Like he craved you.

Like he missed you.

Occasionally his nose would rub against your clit again and again, a delicious friction that made you sob with the intensity of it all.

When his lips finally closed around your swollen clit and sucked hard, you nearly vaulted off the bed, a strangled scream tearing from your throat.

"Mhgn! Sylus! Please, I can't…it's too much!"

But he didn't let up, his talented tongue circling the sensitive bundle of nerves with ruthless precision. Your vision whited out as you finally reached heaven, wave after wave of ecstasy crashing over you until you thought you might drown in it. Your walls clamped down on his invading tongue, pulsing with the force of your release, unwittingly calling out Sylus's name as you did so.

Finally, blessedly, Sylus withdrew. You melted in the sheets, finally letting go of his hair, boneless and shuddering in the aftermath. Tears streaked your face, but for once, they weren't because Sylus had hurt you. He had done quite the opposite actually.

Taking in the sight of you sprawled before him, flushed and panting, your body trembling. With a wicked smirk, he trailed a hand along your trembling thigh, drawing a shuddering moan from your throat. Evidence of your orgasm coated his mouth, and you watch as he licks the remaining from his lips.

"Tired already?" he teased, quite enjoying the way your body tensed under his touch. "For a hunter I expected you to have more stamina."

The haze of post-orgasmic bliss dissipated as quickly as it had descended, harsh reality crashing back in with brutal clarity. Tears pricked your eyes as the weight of your shame threatened to crush you. You had begged him for it, eagerly spread your legs for your kidnapper as if y'all were lovers. What was wrong with you?

"I..." you trail off, vision blurring with tears once more. What were you going to say? What could you say?

Sylus trailed lazy kisses along your jaw, seeming to sense your internal turmoil within your head. His lips rubbed against your sensitive skin, sending unwanted sparks of pleasure skittering through your nerves.

"If you're still able to think," he murmured against your throat, "then I clearly haven't kept my promise of helping you forget." His nimble fingers worked at his belt buckle.

The leather strap slid free of the loops with a hiss, dropping forgotten to the floor. Soon after, you felt the straps of your dress slip past your shoulders, past your waist, and eventually off your body completely. Sylus's gaze raked over you, lovingly and hungry, devouring the flush on your skin, the swell of your heaving breasts. You felt bare under his scrutiny, stripped of all defenses.

"And here I thought I was doing such a good job of distracting you," he purred, palming himself through his jeans. The rigid line of his erection strained against the faded denim, an obscene bulge that made your mouth go dry. You watched as he began taking his shirt off from over his head, his chiseled stomach and chest coming into view.

"Please..." you whimpered, the word torn from your throat as fresh tears spilled down your cheeks. Your body trembled, caught between the whirlwind of conflicting emotions roiling within you. Revulsion. Lust. Desperation. Self-loathing. You don't even know what you're asking for.

Sylus's expression softened as he gazed down at you, his thumb brushing away the moisture collecting on your lashes. It was uncharacteristic of you to beg for anything other than freedom. It was pulling at his heart and making him feel weak. "Shhh, it's alright sweetie," he soothed, his voice a low murmur. "I'm keeping my promise. Don't think, just focus on me."

Slowly, reverently, he lowered his mouth to yours in a kiss that stole your breath and shattered your reservations. His lips moved over yours with aching tenderness, sipping at your parted lips as if savoring the sweetest nectar. The press of his body against yours was solid, reassuring, anchoring you in the whirlwind of sensation.

His tongue slipped past your defenses to stroke the sensitive flesh within, each languid thrust a silent promise of the ecstasy to come. One large hand cradled your face, angling your head to deepen the kiss, while the other smoothed soothing circles on the small of your back.

When he pulls back, eyes staring down at you, it feels like he's staring into the depths of your soul. His eye begins to glow dangerously, and you begin to feel your mind start to spin and the room start to grow hazy. Voices begin pouring into your ears.

Devour him.

He's right there.

Grab him!

But just as quickly as they started, they stopped. You lay there shocked, unable to process what just happened.

"Your mind says a lot more than your mouth does, kitten" he chuckles, and you can only blink confusingly at him as he begins unzipping his pants. He stands up momentarily to remove his pants and you watch as his cock finally spring free. You feel a gush of arousal as you watch it throb, precum slightly leaking at the tip.

"W-what?" you ask, one half of your brain focusing on his raging erection and the other half wondering why the hell your mind felt like it was splitting in half just a second ago.

But you have no time to ponder such questions as Sylus begins to tower above you once more, grabbing your legs and spreading them apart. You squeal at the sudden touch and shiver when his tip rubs against the slit of your opening. His face is twisted with pleasure and his lips are parted, as if he's restraining every part of himself not to push everything into you at once.

"Slow...please" you beg, your hips involuntarily pushing down on the head of his tip when it greets your opening.

"You want me to go slow, yet your hips are lifting off the bed like you can't wait to have me buried inside you," Sylus teased, his voice a low, wicked murmur. He enjoys the way your face twists in annoyance.

 "So greedy, aren't you kitten?"

"I'm not trying t-mmph!"

You words lodge into your throat as you feel the head of his tip pierce your hole. You gasped, back arching as you stretched impossibly around him. A painful stretch causes you to groan and try to pull away, but Sylus puts a hand on your stomach, holding you down and ceasing all resistance.

"Be still, hah, it wont hurt for long". Sylus lips are parted as he lets out his own breathless groan, his senses being overwhelmed with you as he sinks deeper and deeper.

"Fuck, you're so tight," Sylus groaned, his eyes squeezing shut as he fought for control. He eased forward slowly, inch by excruciating inch, letting you adjust to his substantial size. Your velvety walls resisted initially, clamping down around him like a vice.

Sylus paused, buried to the hilt inside you, his pelvis flush against yours. "Breathe, kitten," he instructed, his voice strained with the effort of holding still. "Try to relax okay?."

You tried to relax, to focus on the pleasant pressure building deep in your core instead of the dull ache in your stretched flesh. Gradually, you yielded, your muscles unclenching as Sylus began to move.

"Good girl," he managed through clenched teeth, withdrawing until just the tip remained before sliding back in with agonizing deliberateness. Over and over, he set a torturously slow rhythm, savoring every drag of your fluttering walls along his rigid cock.

 Soon, the sting gave way to blossoming pleasure, radiating outward from where you were joined. You found yourself meeting his measured thrusts, your hips rocking up to take him deeper, chasing that euphoric friction. Sylus's pace quickened marginally, his self-control fraying at the edges. The slap of flesh against flesh echoed obscenely in the room, a filthy symphony that drowned out your labored breaths and muffled whimpers.

Each deliberate thrust carried you further from the pit of anguish threatening to swallow you whole. The exquisite drag of Sylus's thick cock along your sensitive walls obliterated every coherent thought, leaving only the raw, visceral pleasure of the moment. Higher and higher you climbed, chasing the blissful oblivion he promised, until the first warnings of an impending climax rippled through your trembling form.

Sylus shifted his angle slightly, and stars exploded behind your eyelids as he grazed a spot deep inside that made your toes curl. A strangled moan tore from your throat, lost in the slick slide of bodies and the heady musk of arousal perfuming the air.

"That's it, sweetie," Sylus coo'd, his voice low and rough with lust. "Let go. Think about the one making you feel good right now. Think about me. Only me."

His words shivered through you, igniting something primal and needy. Your hips bucked up to meet his thrusts, desperate for more, harder, faster. Your mind snapped and went blank. You were drowning in sensation, drowning in him, and you never wanted to surface. Never wanted to think about reality ever again.

"You're so cute like this," Sylus purred, punctuating each word with a savage grind of his pelvis against yours. "Brain empty and filled with too much cock to think. Should just keep you like this..."

His filthy praise melted your reservations, stoking the desperate frenzy consuming your body and mind. Nothing else mattered beyond the slick slide of flesh and the heady perfume of sex saturating the air. In this moment, Sylus owned you wholly, a willing slave to his lust. All you could do was surrender, drowning in the exquisite agony of your impending release.

The coil of tension in your core tightened with each passing second, your impending climax hovering just out of reach. Sylus sensed your mounting desperation, his rhythm faltering as he chased his own release.

"You're so close," he growled, his rhythm growing erratic as he chased his own completion. "I can feel you tightening up, greedy little thing."

"Go ahead, cum. Let me hear your pretty sounds."

The lewd demand shattered your composure, catapulting you into heaven and you practically screamed his name. Pleasure crashed through you like a tsunami, obliterating every coherent thought. All you knew was the pulsing ache in your core, the rhythmic throb of Sylus's cock buried deep, prolonging your climax until you couldn't take the sensations anymore and almost begged him to stop thrusting.

“Sylus…” you whimper weakly.

Your vision grew blurry as you teetered into overstimulation, your walls clamping down on Sylus's pistoning length like a vise. Thankfully, he was at his own end. You hear a guttural groan of your name in your ear, and then felt the hot splash of his seed painting your insides soon after. His thrusting completely stopped, and the both of you lay there, panting and unmoving.

It was only when you felt his warm seed spilling out onto the bed that you snapped back into reality.

"Did you-"

“Yes, I did it inside,” Sylus murmured, his voice calm, almost too calm. “Where else would it go?”

Before you could even process his words and sit up, he was on you, pinning your arms down to the bed with a swift, ruthless precision, as if anticipating your next move. The weight of him was suffocating, leaving you no room to escape. Panic surged through you, your body instinctively twisting and writhing beneath him, but it was useless. You were trapped.

“After your little escape," he continued, voice laced with playful amusement, "I’ve realized I need to put in more effort. Taming you isn’t as easy as I thought...a baby should be a nice, heavy, leash for you"

“Sylus… please,” you stammer, your heart pounding in your chest. Desperation claws at you as the gravity of his words sinks in. “We don’t need to do this. Not like this. Please, let’s solve this without a child?—I’ll do anything you want. I won’t try to run again, I swear.”

Tears blurred your vision as you begged, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush, your voice cracking with the weight of your fear. But Sylus just smiled, that soft, chilling smile that made your stomach drop. He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he leaned closer, his hand disappearing beneath the bed.

“I know you won’t be running away again. In fact…”

Your breath hitched in your throat as you watched him, terror coiling tighter with every passing second. What was he doing? What was he reaching for? You searched your mind desperately, trying to think of anything, anything at all that might change his mind, but you knew better. Sylus was relentless. He hadn’t forgotten your attempts to resist, and now he was only more determined.

And then you felt it—the cold, unforgiving touch of metal snapping around your ankle.

Your eyes flew wide open, your pulse spiking as you looked down in horror. An ankle chain. You were shackled.

“No,” you whispered, your voice trembling. "No...is this..?"

“Anything I want, you say?” Sylus's voice oozed with satisfaction, a smile creeping across his lips as he leaned in closer. The warmth of his breath contrasted sharply with the cold metal now binding you in place.

“Then make us a baby, sweetie,” he purred, his fingers tracing lightly down your arm. “That’s what I want most right now.”

The weight of his words settled like ice in your chest. A shiver coursed through your body, your mind racing, searching for some way out, but the chain around your ankle clinked softly with every tiny movement, a reminder of how trapped you really were.

“It’s long enough to reach everything in here, including the toilet and shower,” Sylus said, his voice dripping with satisfaction as he leaned down to press a slow, deliberate kiss to your cheek.

You shuddered beneath him, your tears finally spilling over as the full weight of your situation crashed down on you. “Is this… my punishment for running?” you whispered, your voice fragile and trembling, as if the question itself might break you.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes gleaming with something you couldn’t quite place. “No, it’s not a punishment,” he said, his tone soft but resolute. “It’s a necessity, honey.”

His words hung heavy in the air, sealing your fate as surely as the chain around your ankle.

Tears broke free, pouring down your face in uncontrollable waves as the reality of it all crushed you. You sobbed openly, your body shaking under the weight of it, and yet there was nothing you could do. Sylus leaned down, his presence overwhelming, his hand softly brushing the side of your tear-streaked face. His voice was low, almost soothing, as if he believed he was offering comfort instead of twisting the knife deeper.

“The faster you accept this,” he whispered, stroking your hair gently, “the easier it’ll be for you. Accept your place by my side and have my baby.”

"I'll take care of both of you, I promise."

His words only made the knot in your throat tighten further. You hated him. You hated him with every fiber of your being, but worst of all, you hated yourself. Hated the fact that you had once given yourself to him willingly, that you had let the devil himself have your body in a moment of weakness, as if you hadn’t known exactly what he was capable of.

The shame of it burned through you, deeper than any chain ever could. How had you fallen so far? How had you ever let him touch you, let him inside your body, your mind—your soul? The answer twisted cruelly in your gut.

But even despite all the burning hatred you had for him in this moment, another unknown feeling sprouted. One that ached and felt almost unbearable to think about. A longing. Festering within the walls of your strained heart and mind. You refused to acknowledge it though, choosing to drown in the sorrow of your new situation.

Sylus shifted beside you, wrapping his arms around you as if you were lovers instead of captor and captive. His warmth pressed against your skin, a twisted parody of intimacy, and you lay there, eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling. You felt his breathing slow beside you, felt his presence still as he settled in comfortably at your side. But you were miles away, staring into the abyss above, where there was no escape, no solace.

Only the cold, bitter truth. You had let the devil in, and now, there was no way out.

[tpwk-formula1]

haii could i please order a pizza with sicillian crust with red sauce, and jalapenos, chicken, and tomatoes and my drinks are mtn dew(dom), beer and diet coke. Served by Max Verstappen please!!

Lee-Lee's Pizzeria Menu

sicillian crust dating red sauce rough sex jalapenos "always such a fucking brat" chicken "awe you thought I'd let you cum that easy?" tomatoes "do you enjoy pissing me off?" mt dew dom (reader) beer edging diet cock recording kink served by Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen x Dom reader

AN: I am so pleased with how busy the Pizzeria has been! I work at night today so I'm gonna get a couple fics more pizzas done before I have to go in.

TW - edging, sub max, dom reader, begging, unprotected sex, filming, taunting

WC 2100+

Y/N POV

I've been watching Max from the other side of the bar for the past 15 minutes while he talks to Checo about something having forgotten about the drink he was supposed to be getting me.

Another 5 minutes pass before Max is finally waving the bartender down to orders drinks and another 3 minutes before I watch Max approaching with his puppy smile trying to sweeten me up once he saw the cold stare I was giving him.

"Max it's been almost half an hour since you told me 'I'll be right back just gonna get your drink' right back my ass" I saw while rolling my eyes and talking the drink he was offering me.

"M'sorry, Checo was talking about the car," Max tells me sheepishly. I could tell he was sorry so I decided to brush it off and pull him to my side before placing a soft kiss on his cheek.

"It's fine, just stay on task next time," I tell him softly whispering into his ear.

I don't know how or when it happened but there had been a shift in max and I's relationship. At one point in time, Max was a young curious boy doing any and everything he could to dominate me and 'keep me in check' but as the years progressed there was a switch and he was no longer the one wearing the pants in the relationship. Most people just assumed Max was whipped but the very few who actually knew about the dynamic just understood it. To them it all made sense, on track, Max was a dominant force that instilled fear in his fellow drivers but off the track, he just needed an outlet to be taken care of.

"I promise," Max whispers before placing a kiss on my lips.

"Love you," he says when he pulls back. "Love you too"

As the night progressed Max had done really well about doing what he's asked but then Lando showed up and I knew instantly I was gonna lose him in the crowd.

I trust Max and I have no issues with him going off but being left at a table by myself surrounded by people I had never met was making me grow more anxious than I would like to admit.

It was about an hour later when I finally saw Max approaching the table with a dopey smile across his face letting me know he had definitely had another drink or two.

"Hi baby," Max says while plopping down right next to me not picking up on the annoyance radiating off of me.

"Do you enjoy pissing me off?" I ask back watching as the smile on Max's face instantly falls.

"Wha- huh? Wait, what did I do?" Max stutters, struggling to try and figure out what to say.

"You just disappeared for over an hour. You left me alone at this dan table and you didn't even tell me where the fuck you went or ask if I wanted to join," I tell him back piching his thigh slightly under the table.

"M'sorry. I promise I've been trying to be good. Don't wanna make you mad, schat" Max mumbles clearly feeling the shame of the verbal lashing he was gonna get later when we got back to the apartment.

"You're gonna be in tears tonight," I reply back straight faced not cracking a normal smile.

"Please just one more chance," Max begs knowing I meant every word.

"I gave you a chance with Checo. I don't understand how you hanging out with Lando somehow always results in you getting punished. Maybe we should send him a video of you tonight to let me know he's a terrible influence," I tell him while looking into his eyes before placing a soft kiss on his cheek to throw him off.

"You wouldn't" Max says with wide eyes of the threat of sending a sex tape. I just shrug my shoulders playing along with the bit.

"I don't know, I think he would love to know that the man he's fighting to get the World Driver Championship is just a needy whiney little bitch," I reply back making Max whine.

"You're a meanie," Max mumbles.

"And you're a brat. Don't we make a perfect pair," I saw with a smile on my face.

When we finally get back to the apartment for the night Max was pretty much sober knowing I would wait until morning if he wasn't sober. He chose take his punishment now versus the morning when he would be nursing a hangover.

"Go into our room, make sure the cats are out of the room, then strip down and be laying on you back in the bed. I'll be there in 5 minutes," I say the second the door is closed.

Max makes quick work of disappearing into our room where I assume he listened to every word I said.

In the 5 minutes, I stripped down into the lingerie set I had chosen to wear under my outfit before making my way down the hallway where I find Sassy sitting by the door staring up at me curiously. I give her a quick pet before slipping into the room to find Max exactly how I told him to be. I look around the room and found a neatly stack of clothes letting me know that Max had folded them up instead of throwing them arounf our room.

"I see you remember some of our rules," I saw while staring at the clothes so Max understood what I was referencing.

When I start climbing into the bed with Max I can see him tensing slightly in anticipation.

"You know how embarrassing it was tonight?" I said before spitting onto Max's cock and starting to jerk him off making him instantly grow hard under my hand.

"I was sat there all alone for over an hour. I looked dumb as fuck. I'm sure the Monaco gossip is gonna eat that up "Max Verstappen disappears leaving his long-time girlfriend alone at the table' You know how media is, they're gonna make it seem like there's trouble in paradise. When in reality it's just little Maxie being a brat. Oh! I almost forgot," I stop my teasing to grab my phone which I brought with me into the room.

"Say hi to Lando," I say while pointing the camera at Max's face. He's giving the camera such a pained yet slutty look it makes me laugh at his desperation. I wait a couple seconds before my voice booms through the room, "I said, Say hi to Lando." While verbally reprimanding Max I send a quick slap to his inner thigh close to his dick before pinching the same spot making Max squirm a bit.

"Hi, Lando," Max mumbles barely audible.

"Try that again. I hear the way you yell at your engineer. Such a disrespectful boy," I tell him with a raised brow.

"Hi, Lando" Max finally says in a loud enough voice to be heard.

"Good boy," I tell him while moving my unoccupied hand back to his dick making sure I have the perfect angle to get Max and his already wet with precum ccok.

"So needy. You're already dripping for me," I say with a smirk on my face.

"So good, schat" Max whines making me speed up slightly just to watch Max's breath hitch.

"I love it when you get like that," I mumble while squeezing Max's cock a bit harder.

"M'close," Max mumbled making me speed up just slightly before pulling my hand away and watching Max's eyes roll into the back of his head and tremble slightly from his pleasure being ripped away in a matter of seconds.

"No," Max whines dragging out the O sounding so desperate.

"Awe you thought I'd let you cum that easy?" I tease while starting to jerk Max off again while zooming the camera in on Max's cock dripping with precum.

"Schat, please," Max says already starting to beg.

"Oh come on, you can handle more than one," I tell him while leaning down and kicking softly at his tip collecting a bit of his precum.

I shuffle down the bed slightly to start pulling Max into my mouth and down my throat taking all of Max's length into my mouth making sure to bob my head slightly before bringing Max to the edge all over again.

I could tell when he was getting close again because his thighs started tensing under my hands making me rip away from Max's cock to watch him thrash around while bucking his hips to try and gain some kind of friction.

"Fuck no," Max whines staring straight at that the camera that I angled perfectly on his face.

"I love watching you get progressively more needy," I say with a smirk while gripping onto his cock and giving it a rough couple jerks before pulling Max into my mouth again.

I didn't give Max much time to calm down so he was on the edge rather quickly.

"Please, I'm gonna cum," Max says making me bod my head a bit faster before pulling away and watching Max try and chase his orgasm on his own by moving his hand to go and finish himself off but I quickly get a grip on his wrist and giving Max a look that says knock it off.

"No more," Max whines making me smirk slightly.

"Can you give me one more?" I question with a raised brow making Max whine but slowly start to nod his head.

"Yes, I can give one more," Max mumbles softly making me smile softly.

I started jerking off his cock softly making sure I'm filming everything again. I loved it when Max got like. The noises, his hips bucking, and the pure desperation in his eyes always seemed to turn me on.

I could tell Max was getting close but I wanted to push him farther than previous so I continue my movements till the second I know Max will cum I rip my hand away and watch as Max lets out a roar of desperation while jerking his body around not being able to gain any friction as I moved away slightly.

"Please, I need it. I can't do it anymore. I need to cum baby, please," Max begs making me smile softly.

"I'm gonna let you cum in a minute," I tell Max softly while rubbing his thigh in a soothing manner making Max whimper at the touch.

I turned the video off and tossed my phone away from us. I was still sitting in my lingerie set which is completely soaked through both from just witnessing Max get to the point of begging and also because I had snuck a couple fingers into my folds and teased my clit while giving Max head.

I stand from the bed softly and strip down completely before climbing back into the bed and climbing on top of Max before instantly sinking all the way down on Max.

"Oh fuck," I moan when I feel Max stretch my tight walls. I knew neither of us would last very long but looking at Max's face he was completely blissed out.

"So good," Max mumbled making his accent come out a bit thicker.

"So big baby," I moan while softly grinding my hips to gain some friction but not enough stimulation to bring Max or I to an orgasm.

"More, please" Max begs and I give him exactly what he wants because I start bouncing my hips slightly making both Max and I moan at the pleasure coursing through our bodies.

It doesn't take me long for the knot in my stomach to grow alerting me of the incoming orgasm. I look at Max's face and can tell he's trying to hold his orgasm off until I was cumming.

"Cum for me baby," I whisper out bouncing harder on Max's cock throwing me off the edge and into a violent orgasm.

The way Max's hips were erratically thrusting and the feeling of him filling me up sent me over the edge into a shaking orgasm. I'm shaking on Max's cock trying to ride both of our orgasms out.

"So good baby," I whine softly still feeling the aftershocks of the intense orgasm I just had.

"Thank you," Max says softly through staggered breath still trying to catch his breath again.

"You did good for me," I tell Max softly while pulling off his cock and laying down on his chest.

"You're not gonna send that to Lando right," Max mumbles softly making me chuckle a little and shake my head no.

"You know I would never, but I did love watching you get desperate on camera. Might start having to do that more often," I tell him softly looking up to watch his face. I could see the conflict in his eyes but he still nodded his head letting me know it was something he would be willing to do again.

[iiotic]

TWO WRONGS, DONT MAKE IT RIGHT, AFTERALL

summary: your relationship with wanderer is complicated, friends? friends with benefits? partners? enemies? definitely not the last one, yet you don't know the answer to that question.

tw: modern au, female reader, swearing, suggestive, ooc wanderer?? sexual topics, wanderer is taller than you, not proff read, lowercase intended, poorly written, cringe, if you'll find more please tell me!! MDNI | wc: 1.4k

"what are we?" the question hovers your mind hundreds and thousands times already, yet none of you two are brave enough to ask about it. pheraps in wanderers case its his pride?

instead, you just keep everything.. flowing. one time, he'll be as sweet as sugar and the next day he's as cold as ice. it's not the first time you bumped into him him with another woman and its not the first time he caught you flirting with another man.

one day, you're sitting in a cafe across the street from the university. you took a deep breath, scrolling through the social media mindlessly with your head in the clouds as you were lost in your thoughts. until a tall male took a seat infront of you.

a very known tall male with his signature dark blue hair and violet eyes, wearing a black shirt with some sweatpants for today.

"hello there" he greeted you, teasingly.

you looked up at him from your phone, an unpleasant expression formed on your face as you remembered the events that accured last night. as you were coming back from the local library you found him and some random chick making out in an alley way.

you obviously didn't care, why would you? its not any of your business who he fucks. you grumbled a greeting before looking back at your phone again, hoping that he can leave as soon as possible.

he gave you a subtle smile, while scanning your face. you were so lost in your thoughts, staring at your phone, that he was able to take a good look at you without disturbance.

"what's up with that face?" he asked, leaning his back on the chair.

"what's up with you."

his stupid signature smirk formed on his lips. you know him as well as he did with you. he knows your mood. he knows the possibility of whats bugging you inside, and him seeing you frown and pout like this, clearly means something is irritating you. however he decided not to push it.

"nothing much. just thought i'd stop by here." he responded casually. "and see you."

"why don't you stop by somewhere else where your woman is."

"i dont have a woman." he almost chuckled at your sassy remarks. "though, i do have a date in 30 minutes." he answered bluntly, giving you a glance before focusing his attention on the waitress.

he didn't look like he was going on a date, more like going to dig trash to find something to eat, but then not finding anything and starving to death.

"even better, how many woman have you seen this month.." you said, it was clearly a rhetorical question. you opened your mouth to say something but a waitress cut you off.

"may i take your order?" you looked at wanderer who seemed deep in thoughts before starting ordering a bunch of things. he stopped and then the waitress turned to you, you quickly dismissed her saying that you don't want anything. she looked confused at first as she thought you guys were on a date but walked away not questioning anything anyway.

"i thought you were going on a date in 30 minutes, why are you ordering so much, hell, why are you ordering anything at all?" you questioned him, clearly irritated by his doing and his presence here.

"i am." he answered bluntly, once again. not adding anything not even looking at you anymore.

the awkward silence accured, nor you nor wanderer saying anything to break it. 15 minutes passed and the food was put on your table, that you booked for yourself tonight, that you were supposed to enjoy alone.

"say, are you jealous that im going on a date?" he said finally breaking the silence, yet at the same time offending you.

"excuse me? i feel bad for all of the hearts that you've broken, these poor woman.." you said defending yourself and feeling pity for all of the females he hooked up with then just leave them feeling worthless, you glared at him as he started laughing, clearly not taking you seriously.

"please, they all know better that im not exactly into commitment. they know im not worth breaking their hearts. they just want to enjoy the ride, one night and nothing more."

"well, have fun with your new date." you said standing up and heading to the door. you heard enough from him, you had enough of him. you didn't care about him nor his sex life, then why did your eyes watered as you waddled to the exit?

"dont be so cold like that, im hurt!" he yelled, chuckling. that were the last words you heard from him before leaving the building.

why did the truth hurt? why did you care? why were you crying right now? your making messed up as you waited for your taxi to your apartment. yet deep down you knew that you're just as bad as he is, just as terrible as his actions; you thought as you rode the taxi driver, desperately needing a stress reliever.

the morning after yesterdays incident of bumping into eachother, you found yourself in bed with another man. was it the taxi driver? you thought, before leading him to the front door in only his boxers. the answer was positive. you kicked him iut of the house, before seeing that there's a package in front of your front door that he almost stepped on.

quickly picking it up and closing the door behind you, ignoring the taxis driver screams. you walked into your kitchen, looking for the scissors to open it. the package was medium size, not too small yet big enough to fit a cat.

you slowly, precisely opened the package not knowing whats inside. it didn't have a label on it, it could've been a bomb but you were met with a small box with a muffin from the cafe you were at yesterday, it was your favourite in fact and an small piece of paper that had something written on it.

"read your messages"

thats it? nothing more? just read your messages? you pulled out your phone to find 8 unread messages from kuni, 7 of the first ones were deleted, the latest one saying "sorry ig"

it was so stupid. then why did you caught yourself smiling at the sight? maybe you'll forgive him or maybe you've already forgave him.

if you were so mad at him then why did you talk with him the entire evening?

© 2024 iiotic. — do not steal, translate or repost any of my content onto any other platform

this is so cringe, might delete it later

[vidavalor]

Hello lovely! I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about Maggie in Final1 5? Isn't it weird that she wants to go back to talk to Az and Crowley while Nina's working? Something about it feels off to me.

Hello right back. 💕 There's chamomile mint tea and shortbread since we're on a Maggie theme, if you'd like some. Maggie's behavior from that scene on is super fucking weird, I agree.

Before the milk run-- when Maggie becomes the only involved character whom we lose track of a bit during The Final 15-- versus how she behaves when she returns is so strange as to be something that I consider maybe additional proof that things are not at all what they seem to be in The Final 15.

On Maggie and Crowley's weird Final 15 behavior, a possible meaning to all the allusions to robbery in S2, and what Maggie and Nina might be able to tell us about what happened at the end of S2.

TW: brief mentions of show's non-consensual possession/rape analogy.

Think for a moment about how truly weird Maggie's request for her and Nina to go back to the bookshop in that moment actually is...

It's only been a matter of minutes since Maggie and Nina were basically hostages in the bookshop who were almost killed by Michael and Saraqael. Crowley saved their lives in getting them out of the shop maybe, what? It's been a minute since I rewatched that bit of it but it couldn't have been more than 15 minutes prior?

The beings in the shop but for Maggie and Nina are supernatural and so left magically without using the door but while we the audience know that these people are no longer in the shop because we were watching it, Maggie and Nina do not know that. When Maggie suggests to Nina that they go talk to Crowley and Aziraphale, they have no way of knowing if the beings that just tried to kill them are still in the shop. They didn't even see Aziraphale leave with Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing yet because Nina was all "where's the other one?" to Crowley when they arrived back in the shop.

Maggie is literally like: Nina, I know you opened the business you own late and are the only one working right now and have a line of 20 people waiting for their morning, pre-work coffee but what if-- just hear me out-- we just made them wait an indefinite amount of time to voluntarily go back into the place where we nearly died a matter of minutes ago that could still be full of the people who wanted us dead and we did this for no other purpose than just to tell off my beloved adopted godfather and his partner, who just risked harm to save both our lives? And to maybe then also stick our noses into their love lives in return or something?

I mean... WHAT?!?! lol

Consider, even, how even more weird that is when Maggie, just *prior* to having gone to the mini-mart, had never been more on the same page with Nina and never more understanding?

She sacrificed her own want to go sleep behind the counter of her shop to offer to help Nina. It's a big moment of change in their relationship and shows a lot of growth for Maggie. She's gone from someone who is caring but has a tendency to only think about how things make her feel to seeing things from Nina's perspective. She's matured through the season into being someone more ready to be a partner to Nina. Maggie offering to help Nina with her morning rush-- and Nina accepting the help-- is the sweet, romantic moment showing that these two are heading in a positive direction, both individually and together.

When Maggie gets back with the milk, though? After she's been out of our sight for a few minutes? She's behaving very differently.

During S2, Maggie is shown to be a pretty guileless character. She might have the occasional judgemental moment but she's not deceptive or tricky and she really wouldn't hurt a fly. When Maggie comes back from the milk run, though, her insistence on Nina dropping everything and going with her in that moment is not just weird behavior but manipulative in a way that could not be more out of character for Maggie.

Nina has been in an abusive relationship where she was afraid of displeasing Lindsay. Maggie is aware of this, as it's been the subject of multiple conversations between them throughout the season. So, when Maggie gets so bizarrely insistent on Nina dropping her work-- her livelihood, her purpose, her job-- to meet Maggie's demands in that moment? When this isn't an emergency of any kind and isn't at all time-sensitive and there is no objective reason why Nina should be halting her job to do what Maggie wants in this moment? Maggie is being controlling in a Lindsay-like way. She keeps at it, knowing that Nina will give in and agree to go with her because Nina is used to doing that with her partner.

Nina hesitates and isn't sure whether or not to go with Maggie for a moment and I don't really blame her? This is the complete opposite behavior to Maggie before she left for the mini-mart. Maggie is suddenly acting quite a lot like her polar opposite-- the Lucifer-and-Heaven-paralleling Lindsay.

Maggie is also literally on Nina's shoulder like a devil the whole time in the scene in which she's convincing her to step away from the shop and go across the street with her to the other shop for a chat and...

...listen to what we just said there...

...it's a parallel to the thing that Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing is doing with Aziraphale, is it not?

So, what happened on the milk run?

Who did Maggie run into at the mini-mart that we couldn't see in the ending of S2 without it giving the game away? I wouldn't be surprised if, on this mirror-happy show, on the other side of learning in S3 that it was The Devil with the coffee in the bookshop in The Final 15, we also had a scene that showed that, while on her milk run, Maggie had a run-in with Sister Teresa's killer.

Did Hastur possess Maggie as part of Satan's plan? Was the idea to use Maggie and Nina to further trip Crowley and Aziraphale towards disaster to get Aziraphale? If so, it kind of half-worked. I'm not convinced that anything Maggie and Nina said to Crowley really mattered-- I think they weren't telling him anything he didn't already know or feel and that it's largely misdirection for the audience. What was effective, though, was the impression Aziraphale got upon seeing them leave as he was coming in.

Maggie and Nina being back in there at this weird time and then rushing out with smiles and comments like that they were "just leaving" and they were sure Crowley and Aziraphale had "a lot to discuss" seem to have led Aziraphale to assume that Crowley had asked them to come back and to the conclusion that he must have done so to tell them of his intent to ask Aziraphale to marry him. It's Maggie and Nina leaving the shop that reinforce to Aziraphale the idea that, when Crowley stands up afterwards, takes off his glasses, and says he supposes he has "something to say", that Crowley is only trying to communicate a proposal and not a plan.

It's what helps-- big time-- to lead Aziraphale to not listen for a shred of coded language for the entire scene. Neither he nor Crowley are listening for that with one another, which is why neither of them can truly understand what the other is saying, but Aziraphale's part of that is really fucked to Hell by the presence of Maggie and Nina in the shop when he came back. That's all pretty suspicious since Maggie was out of our sight for a few moments and came back fixated on the idea that she and Nina needed to go to the bookshop right that very moment and that it couldn't wait.

The Final 15 is a dark parallel to The Baby Swap plot and Maggie and Nina are full of shadows of Sisters Mary and Teresa to a point that the final shots of both of them in the series are mirror images of the final shots of their S1 characters. Nina looking through glass at Crowley departing is the last shot of Sister Mary both in 2008 and 2019, while Maggie's last shot?

To me, it's one of the most eerie moments in the entire series because of how much it visually resembles Sister Teresa's death.

Basically two minutes after we hear about The Second Coming... in the same season where Maggie and Nina's partial-vavoom gives way to a (possessed?) Gabriel saying: the dead will leave their graves and walk the Earth once more... we are shown Crowley and Aziraphale's apparent adopted goddaughter unresponsive on the counter of her shop.

Is Maggie dead?

Is Maggie asleep, like we were led to believe she wanted to do earlier in the episode? Maybe. Is she comatose/unconscious? Maybe. It's just that, best I can tell, she does not take a breath during the shot which I feel had to be intentional on the part of Maggie Service, and she's in the same position as we last saw Sister Teresa in S1...

Then, there's the robbery theme and how Maggie and Nina foreshadow so much of the end of S2 back in this scene here:

In Good Omens, the shop is the character. Maggie is, symbolically, the records she sells. The show also explains that Maggie's shop used to be a part of the bookshop. Now, there are three characters, not two, who are A.Z. Fell & Co.: Aziraphale, Crowley and Maggie. At the same time, Aziraphale is also The Small Back Room. The shops are intertwined as the characters are, essentially, family in the story. The fate of one is the fate of the other, which makes what Maggie and Nina foreshadow when talking about Maggie's shop while trapped together in Nina's not just the fate of Maggie's shop in S2 but also of the bookshop.

Maggie says that if she can't close the door to her shop, someone could walk in and take records. Maggie is the records she sells so, symbolically, this means someone could take Maggie. We got a bit of a preview of that when Shax appeared to get into her mind during the attack on the bookshop and Maggie also became the one who unintentionally "let the robbers in."

These robbers, Maggie frets... they could empty her till-- take all her money on a literal level... take her mind, or maybe even her life, on another. (Not to mention the now chill-inducing use of money-related words and coins with regards to the paralleling Crowley...) These robbers could take forcible ownership of Maggie's shop-- so, of Maggie. Maggie's shop was born of the bookshop... so, they could take forcible ownership of the bookshop, too.

Not just the physical bookshop, though that, too. The symbolic bookshop. Which is not only Aziraphale but Crowley and Aziraphale.

But, if The Small Back Room was originally part of the bookshop, then the bookshop really isn't just Crowley and Aziraphale-- it's Crowley, Aziraphale and Maggie.

If the robbers come for the bookshop, they've also come for The Small Back Room because it is all born of the same, symbolic shop.

Is that what they did?

Is that why Maggie is last shown to us non-responsive in her shop?

Now, Nina's even more foreshadowing reply:

Nina said that, if she owned a record shop, she'd be more concerned about "someone breaking in and leaving more records behind."

What are records? They're the literal records in the musical and old film sense that Maggie sells, yes, and also Maggie herself. They're also books, like what Aziraphale sells, and Aziraphale himself. But they're also a third thing that's very much of note in S2.

They're also the life's work of a scrivener, like what Muriel does.

Nina foreshadows someone breaking in and leaving "more records behind"... which is exactly what happens in The Final 15.

Elspeth's graverobbing. Bildad stealing Job and Sitis' wine and food. The 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. Aziraphale having the missing Shakespeare Robin Hood play in the box in 2.06. The robbery-based fantasy Aziraphale was telling Crowley in Lockdown: ...the other night, when a couple of young lads broke into the back and tried to steal the cash(cache)box!

The Final 15 is a robbery.

The last two episodes see the shop attacked during The Meeting Ball and into the next morning. Aziraphale is robbed blind of his entire life. Characters are taken hostage. Signals for help are tried and fail. The cop, it turns out, was a stooge for the robbers. Whoever Derek Jacobi Is Playing broke in through the open door and robbed the place blind, as Maggie foreshadowed. As Nina foreshadowed he would, what did the robber leave behind?

More records. Muriel.

To rob, as we know, is to steal. It's to plunder or strip a place from someone through force and/or violence. That is why it was once, in addition to being descriptive of physical goods stolen from a person, also a word that was used for rape, for which non-consensual possession has been analogous since the show's first episode. That is why some of us think that the music goes insane on the look to Crowley in the scene below. Satan is robbing Crowley-- forcing him to identify him as The Metatron to Aziraphale and the angels and to let Aziraphale go alone with him.

Satan attacked Crowley in front of Aziraphale and, while Aziraphale pretended he didn't see it, he did, which is why he led "The Metatron" straight out the door in an effort to get him away from Crowley. Because, speaking of characters behaving very weirdly... anyone have a better explanation for why guard dog Crowley sat in that chair like he couldn't get out of it and encouraged Aziraphale to go alone with a guy who once tried to kill them? It just doesn't make any sense unless his words are not really his own and there's only one character we've seen do that to him.

And if Crowley's not the only one behaving out of character, then what else happened to Maggie at the mini-mart but something similar?

What happened in The Final 15? Satan robbed the bookshop.

He and The Metatron don't give a toss about the shop itself and plan to destroy it alongside everything else once Armageddon gets rocking. They're there to get Crowley and Aziraphale out of the way for Armageddon by dividing and conquering. Just because we've yet to see blood doesn't mean this wasn't robbery by force.

Satan took hostages at the start-- letting the ones go he didn't care about go and keeping the ones most likely to influence the shop's owner: Crowley and Muriel.

Satan and The Metatron sacrificed Muriel to their plan, not caring if Muriel explodes along with the shop when they kick off Armageddon a matter of *checks watch* basically any minute now after S2. We think Muriel is better off in the shop at the end of S2 but I'm not totally sure they are. I think it actually might be one of the most dangerous places to be in right now. The bookshop didn't burn down this time-- it was burned as safe space in every possible way. It's a crime scene.

The Metatron and Satan are here for revenge. The Metatron is letting Satan have Aziraphale to get Crowley and Aziraphale out of the way for Armageddon. There is no real job offer-- it's all Satan tempting Aziraphale into falling. Satan's revenge on Crowley and Aziraphale is to force Crowley to help him take Aziraphale right out from under his nose. That's the start of it, anyway.

Besides Armageddon and daring to have a relationship and a sense of self outside of the demonic collective of Hell what is Satan really pissed at Crowley and Aziraphale about?

His kid. Adam. Crowley and Aziraphale helping Adam against him.

If Satan has been lying in wait, still very, very angry at Crowley and Aziraphale for turning his son against him and if he's now here for revenge, then who else besides Aziraphale is then most in peril here?

Yes, my Job-and-Sitis-paralleling poppet... your big, cross duck and your kids are most imperiled here and S2 showed us that your kids are not just humanity writ large but, specifically, Maggie. The Small Back Room is of the bookshop that is you and Crowley. Maggie is your Adam. Will Satan come after your daughter? It's a concept posed in your paralleling/foreshadowing story earlier in the season... actually, it was also the entire plot of that paralleling story earlier in the season as well...

I feel like not going with Ennon and Keziah's theories on Satan's behavior is probably the best way to form a Good Omens theory 😂 so I'll stick with the idea that Satan very much would dare leave a revenge body count of Crowley and Aziraphale's adopted kids, as the Job minisode proved he'd do even with the spawn of "God's favorite human", let alone anybody else.

As, speaking of foreshadowing lines, this is really even more S2 than it was about S1:

Satan will even have a whole pseudo-philosophical chat about it with you first, amused that he's standing in a place called Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death and ordering a coffee while the plan is likely for this place, the women making him the coffee, and everyone on this street and on most of the planet to be dead by tomorrow.

Maggie is the only character who actually asked for coffee using that exact word in S2.

[roguephenon]

II: The Thing That Will Always Be

"...Knowing this was the outcome, would you have still done the same?"

"In a New York minute." (Chapter cover is by @pinkmeanschaos. Check them out; they have fantastic work.)

The beginning of the end lies under the cut.

This would be the part where I post a tease of the chapter, followed by a link to said chapter.

Let's switch it up this time.

You've all given me so much love and encouragement, and I appreciate and cherish it all. Thank you so, so much.

But I'm not the only fanfic writer for this fandom. There are so many others who deserve love too. Some come to mind.

Like...

@geekinclara just recently started a KND fic, "Those Were The Days". It looks to be their take on Rachel's days as Supreme Leader and maybe even beyond that. It's off to a fantastic start. I've occasionally seen their posts about how much prep they've been doing for it (did you know making a cohesive timeline for this show is hard? Because it truly is), so it could do with some love, non?

And then there's @spicedwatermel0n and his KND fic, "The Rebellion," a GKND AU with 15 chapters already. It explores darker themes (which he's gone through the effort of listing before it starts to prepare his audience; he cares!) while weaving a narrative of the cast trying to fight an oppressive GKND regime. In space. Which is dope. He even has his own art of his designs. I hear he loves people asking about his AU and headcanons on his side blog when he has time to answer.

Nowadays, I write stories and create art for myself first and foremost, and I believe that should be the ultimate goal. Learning to love and take pride in your work should compel your drive to tell stories!

But comments matter, too. Feedback and engagement are rarely ever not a boost. I read every review left and respond to what I can when I have spoons, and it's an amazing feeling.

So, this is just me saying, "Help them feel amazing, too!" And not just these two, but all fanfic writers! If you see a fic you like, leave a quick sentence of your favorite moment!

Even if it has no traction, you'll just be their first!

Even if it has yet to be updated in 14 years, maybe there's a chance they'll come back one day!

Just something that came to mind to me today! And, of course, everyone has boundaries and things they like and dislike. Be respectful of those, too! Seriously. I've had to learn lessons the hard way, and I hope you don't have to have as harsh of an experience.

Thanks for listening to me yap!

Here's the link to Cold Reception's penultimate chapter for your trouble.

[stellayuta]

Racing Hearts! - F1 Driver! Gojo Satoru (A LOTG spinoff) - Part 2

Part 1

synopsis: Ferrari sensation Gojo Satoru dominates headlines and social media with his unmatched driving prowess and intriguing personal life. Yet, beneath the surface, Gojo harbors a secret that could shake up the F1 world. An unrelenting F1 journalist, determined to unearth the truth, becomes his unexpected adversary—one who might finally expose the enigma that is Gojo Satoru.

content: mdni/18+, formula one x jujutsu kaisen, afab!reader, eventual enemies to lovers, angst, themes of isolation, mental health themes, swearing, suggestive themes

author's note: I've decided that we all deserve F1 Gojo as much as we deserved F1 Yuta. Hope the jjk and formula one fans enjoy this. This will be much more drama packed than LOTG. Keep following along!

word count: 1.8k

Gojo Satoru knew that the weight on his abdomen was off by a pound or two. Had you lost weight?

"Wake up, already" you coo at him teasingly. "You're such a sloth, 'Toru."

"Mmmm...." Gojo stretches his neck back to its limit and places his hands on either side of your hips. "Five more minutes."

Gojo opens his eyes a little to see you perched on his crotch comfortably. He likes the view. Annoying little leech Y/N, her spaghetti strap falling off on one shoulder, her satiny dress bunching up under her breasts.

"It's media day, you have to wake up!"

"You wake up too. Don't you have work on media day." Satoru groans. "Wear something red."

"Red?" your voice suddenly turns darker. "Shouldn't I be wearing teal?"

Gojo furrows his brows and looks at you. "What d'ya mean?"

"Satoru Gojo, aren't you abandoning Ferrari and shifting to Mercedes?" you cock your head to the side as Gojo's eyes pop open like glowing bulbs as he realizes what you are saying.

"N-no. It's not... How did you know?"

"I know everything... and soon, everyone will." you whisper as you lean down to place your lips on his, your silhouette melting away into the air as the room goes dark.

The sharp ringing of his 6AM alarm slaps Gojo awake.

For a minute he lays there, his breath on a high tempo, unsure of where he is. He looks around for any sign of you - a shoe, a dress, a lipstick. Nothing. You were a dream.

A nightmare.

He slaps his cheeks, trying to normalize his breaths. "Wake up, Satoru!" he tells himself, much like you did, in his dream.

Gojo sits up in bed, ruffling his white hair and blinking at the slivers of early morning light creeping through the hotel curtains. The cool, sterile silence of his Monaco penthouse is replaced by the humid buzz of Singapore. The thin layer of sweat on his skin serves as an immediate reminder that he’s far from home.

Gojo rolls out of bed, stretching his long limbs as he paces to the window. The view outside reveals the glittering skyline, the bustling preparations for the Singapore Grand Prix starting below. The Marina Bay Sands glimmers in the distance, but Gojo's mind is elsewhere.

The weight of the upcoming media day hangs over him like a storm cloud. As one of Ferrari's marquee drivers, he knows every question will be a potential landmine, especially after yet another disappointing season without a championship. Every reporter will try to pull the truth out of him. There will be questions about his future at Ferrari.

"You’re really losing it, Satoru." he mutters as he heads to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. "Dreaming about that leech? Are you really that freaked out?" His reflection in the mirror stares back at him, mocking him with that same charismatic grin he's perfected for the cameras.

He pats his face dry with a crisp white towel, then tosses it aside, grabbing his phone to check the time—6:15 AM. He had about forty-five minutes before the media onslaught would begin.

Breakfast first, he thinks, as he throws on a Ferrari polo and a pair of sunglasses, slipping effortlessly into his public persona.

"Smile for your lovers!" He tells himself. "Smile, or they won't have a nice day!" He tugs at the corners of his mouth, coaching himself.

In the hotel’s bustling breakfast area, the scent of freshly brewed coffee mingles with the warm aroma of pastries and eggs. Gojo grabs a plate and scans the room for Yuji Itadori, his teammate. Sure enough, he spots Yuji already sitting at a corner table, enthusiastically chatting with some team engineers, gesturing wildly with a piece of toast in his hand. His face glows with enthusiasm when he sees Gojo walking towards them.

"Sensei!!!!" he yelps out, extending his hands towards Gojo.

"For fuck's sake, I've only taught you for two days, when you were a rookie."

"Whatever. Gojo sensei it is!" Yuji says, shaking his head like a puppy.

"How come you're up this early though? I was about to walk up to your room and create a scene." Yuji comments mischievously.

"Media day. No choice, right?" Gojo says, sliding into the seat next to Yuji. He wouldn't tell him about the dream. Or about the teal.

He gives a casual nod to the engineers, who quickly retreat to give the two drivers their space.

Yuji digs into a bowl of fruit, talking between bites. "You ready for it? They’re probably gonna hammer us about the car upgrades again. If I hear one more question about tire degradation, I might throw a pizza slice at them, mamma mia!"

"That's a sad rendition of the Italian mannerisms." Gojo comments, raising an eyebrow.

Before the playful banter can go any further, Gojo finds his phone vibrating.

—this time, a reminder about the team's pre-media meeting. He stands, adjusting his sunglasses, already slipping into the character the world knows him as.

"C'mon, Yuji. Let’s get this show started."

-

Gojo stood just outside the press conference room, one hand resting against the cool wall as he took a slow, deliberate breath. The air inside the venue was a mixture of anticipation and tension, thick enough to taste.

He entered the press conference room, his signature confident smirk in place, but beneath it, for the first time in his career, he felt something foreign—nerves. The weight of the rumors, the nightmare from this morning, and the pressure of yet another championship slipping away all collided in his mind. His sunglasses remained perched on his nose, shielding his eyes from the bright flashes of cameras. He took his seat at the front of the room, the Ferrari emblem standing bold and bright against his chest. The other drivers filed in slowly, taking their places for the press conference. Geto Suguru from Red Bull sat to his left, already engaged in conversation with one of the FIA officials, while Yuta Okkotsu and Inumaki Toge from Mercedes filled the spots on the far side. The media room was packed, buzzing with anticipation.

The moderator cleared his throat, signaling the start of the event. Gojo knew his turn would come first—being Ferrari’s star driver in the midst of swirling headlines made him the immediate focus.

“Gojo Satoru,” the moderator began, his voice cutting through the ambient chatter. “There have been several rumors about your future with Ferrari. Could you tell us if there's any truth to the reports linking you to a potential move to Mercedes next season?”

Gojo cleared his throat, trying to find his usual rhythm. “You know, I’ve heard the rumors too,” he began, flashing a grin at the reporters. “But I think people have been watching too much Netflix. Ferrari’s my team, and I’m fully focused on bringing home the championship for them. Anything else is just… background noise.”

Lies. Straight through his teeth. Sheer lies.

He tried not to but he made a split second eye contact with Mercedes' team principal - Toto Wolff, who nodded at him.

The reporters scribbled furiously, cameras clicking nonstop. It was a polished answer, the kind Gojo had given a thousand times before, but something in his chest remained unsettled.

The moderator then aimed his next arrow at Okkotsu's heart.

"Regardless of Mr. Satoru's answers, how do you feel about him as a potential teammate for next year's season, Mr. Yuta?"

Yuta looked slightly taken aback by the question. He took one swift glance at Inumaki and said - "It is up to the team. I have good rapport with Toge, here. I'm sure I'll do well with Satoru although, it will be sad to see my dear friend, Toge leave."

A diplomatic answer. Expected from Yuta.

The next question snapped Gojo back to reality.

“Gojo, with Ferrari’s recent struggles, do you think you still have what it takes to win a championship this season?” one reporter asked, clearly digging for tension.

But it wasn't the words, it was the voice that shook Gojo up. It was the same lips kissing him in his dream this morning. Gojo Satoru jerks back into his chair.

"I-I-"

"Do you think Ferrari have a good reason to keep you in?" you press, furrowing your brows. The reporters around you sense this strange animosity brewing between the two of you and start mumbling among themselves.

At that moment, Gojo feels utterly alone in the room.

"We will do whatever it takes to win! That is Ferrari's way of doing things!" a voice cuts through the silence. It is Ferrari's number 2 - Yuji.

A calmness takes over Gojo after Yuji's declaration.

Gojo leans back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other as he flashed a cheeky grin. “Do I think I still have what it takes? Come on, have you seen me race?” He let the laughter ripple through the room before continuing, his voice a touch more serious. “Look, the season’s not over yet. We’ve had some ups and downs, sure. But if anyone can turn this around, it’s me. Ferrari’s still in the fight.” He adds.

"Well then, I wish you two all the very best!" you say as you back out from the front row of reporters.

Good. You made them say that.

Gojo sat back in his chair, still trying to steady himself. The press conference had moved on, and the questions were now aimed at other drivers—strategies, tire management, technical updates—but the tension in his chest refused to settle. His mind raced, replaying the brief but intense exchange between the two of you.

He was shaken. Not by the technical questions being lobbed his way earlier, but by your presence, by that strange animosity that had crackled in the air. You weren’t just another reporter; there was something more. You had unsettled him in a way no one else had, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Across the room, the Mercedes team principals exchanged quiet words, their glances occasionally darting toward Gojo. Even though the spotlight had shifted to Yuta, who answered the questions with his usual calm professionalism, Gojo could sense the eyes watching him from all corners of the room.

Meanwhile, you stood among the other reporters, your pen idly tapping against your notepad, but your eyes were fixed on Gojo. You could feel it too—something was brewing in the background. The whispers about his potential move to Mercedes weren’t just rumors; they were part of a larger plan, something carefully orchestrated.

You weren’t sure how deep it went or who exactly was pulling the strings, but you knew one thing: Gojo couldn’t leave Ferrari. He belonged there. The thought of him jumping ship to Mercedes, of abandoning the prancing horse in its time of need, didn’t sit right with you. Something wasn’t adding up, and you felt the need to protect him.

With your job on the line, if you must.

You owe the timid boy from seven years ago, his face freshly red from his first race. You owe him that much.

To be continued...

[witchdisk]

Skin Removal Sep 17 Postmortem

A few days ago I performed another skin removal procedure. (See #skin removal for more) Here's a writeup of some of the things we learned this time.

The #10 scalpel blade is useful for long+thin removals because the blade is longer. This lets us do the sort of "long, loving cuts" while pulling up the skin, under tension, using the full length of the blade. This is faster than the #15, but you still want that one for precision at the beginning and end.

For this design, there were certain cuts which we wanted to be along the same line, like the edges of the eyelashes:

When doing the procedure, I did each of the eyelashes separately, so I did these cuts at different times. I should have used the sterile ruler that comes packaged with the surgical skin pens and made these cuts all at the same time. This would have helped make sure they're in line.

This time I used sterile dermal curettes to even out the depth after removing the skin. This was a great idea and it made this step so much easier. I used the 4mm curette for this procedure, and I only needed one. I will be recommending this going forward. Here's the tool and me using it:

Have multiple sets of splinter forceps!! (Or whatever your main forceps are.) I had backup adson and hemostatic forceps, but I was acutely aware the procedure would get a lot harder if I dropped my tools. This isn't relevant if you have a flash sterilizer, but those are kind of expensive.

Ask your subject what kind of communication they want from you! This time, xe said "if you had told me [we're halfway done] I don't think I would have been able to finish." Good thing I didn't do that!

EMLA cream (lidocaine 2.5%/prilocaine 2.5%) is quite useful to help those with a lower pain tolerance. It pretty much eliminated the pain from the cutting, but not all the sensations (e.g. skin being pulled up, felt sense of something wrong ("felt like something i could not perceive but my body was reacting to"). I have some prescribed because I've been scared of needles, and the numbing helps with getting blood drawn.

We already know this, but just to reiterate: it's important to get the correct depth on the guiding lines. The skin should separate, like this:

Using sterile bordered gauze + hydrogel for the wound dressing did not work this time. It dried on the wound, and removing the bandage to clean resulted in mechanical debridement. This hurt a lot and irritated the wound in ways that we hadn't planned for. Using tegaderm initially, like we did two times ago, was also not ideal because it resulted in a big gross bubble of exudate. Something in-between these is required, but I'm not sure what. It should stay moist, but still be relatively absorbent. Tegaderm+pad, for the occlusiveness? Recs here appreciated. Pigeon reported it used a bunch of saline to soak the area to help with this, but there were still some issues.

The lines ended up thicker than in the design. We think this is mainly because skin tension pulled the cuts open. This may be mitigated by wound contraction during healing; we will measure how it ends up vs the desired width to determine that. See this video of me removing a full section to see what I mean.

The loupe glasses!! As seen below. These were some cheap ones I got off amazon, but were actually super helpful. They didn't really improve my posture, and my back still hurts >.< However, they did help me see details a lot better. If I keep doing this I will consider getting a better pair. They gave me a headache after about 30 minutes while practicing, but were totally fine during the procedure. Unsure why!

I need to work on my aseptic technique. I was not adequately monitoring for reaching over the sterile field. My gloves should have covered my sleeves, but there was bare skin exposed. My gown was not sterile (haven't found sterile ones for a reasonable price) and it probably touched the drape a few times. The sterilization pouches I used were difficult to use for the bowls I had - difficult to get them out easily, difficult to load in the pressure cooker. I should really look into getting a secondhand rigid sterilization container. Last I remember, the difficulty was finding filters for these. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place, or maybe I could make my own (tyvek? like the mushroom growers use...).

My informed consent notes mention the risk of keloid scarring, with a note this is 15x more likely on darker skin. I don't have a source cited for this, and so I don't know how this applies to black vs brown skin. This would have been useful to know!

Needed to print/laminate the handwash/handrub posters.

Re-affirmed a lot of things we already learned. Full-depth removal is the way to go. Ensure guiding lines are deep enough. #11 blade for short/straight lines, #15 for removal, and having separate scalpel handles for each is good.

Dumb one, but having a bunch of tiny individually wrapped gauze pads is annoying as hell. I picked up some bigger ones, we will see if those are what is needed or if I need to find packs of multiple smaller ones.

I'm gonna give it one more go, but I don't actually think pig skin is ideal to practice on, mostly due to the lack of blood/lack of elasticity. Much more difficult to determine the appropriate layer to separate skin at, compared to live human skin. Would appreciate other recommendations here for practice materials...

Okay, I think that's about all the thoughts I want to write out now! I will meld these notes with my existing ones soon, and get those published. As always pls hmu if you want to talk about this, especially if you have experience.

[sunnfish]

[ID: A loose digital drawing of Sasaki and Miyano from Sasaki to Miyano. They are laying down cuddling with their arms wrapped around each other, and Miyano’s leg slung up around Sasaki’s waist. It’s rendered in saturated, loose scribbled colors. /End ID]

Happy first sasamiya of 2024

[ryssbelle]

My cousins made their own troll Ocs and I drew them in my style.

They were very excited about it

[iamthepulta]

i did it u_u

[rigelmejo]

some basic language learning thoughts (based on some common questions i see on reddit forums). as usual, if you don't like the suggestion, feel free to ignore and throw it out! what works best for you will be what works best for you - everyone is different. at the end of the day, if you continue studying (hours add up), study some new stuff (expand your knowledge), and practice/review some stuff you've studied (improve comprehension of what you know), then you'll improve. You can achieve that in a ton of different ways, and any way which motivates you to keep doing it is great.

What's the easiest language to learn? My thought on this question is... it doesn't matter as much as it might feel like it does. If any language is going to take hundreds or thousands of hours of study, you will probably want to have goals that motivate you to study for THAT long, for years. If Danish 'takes less hours to learn' than Thai, but you watch Thai shows everyday and follow thai webnovel writers and twitter, and don't have much interest in anything Danish (and no friends that speak the language), then Thai is going to be 'easier' because you have more reasons to USE it. If Spanish and French seem to take a similar amount of hours to learn, but you're planning to go to school in a French speaking country and get a job there? Well you have a more pressing Need to learn French, that will hopefully help motivate you. The 'easiest' language to learn is the language you have REASONS to learn. The language you will use, and keep using. If you have no pressing reason to learn any language, but want to learn a language? Find reasons. Make goals that require the language.

(Here's one from me - I wanted to learn Japanese, in theory I can mostly do anything I want by just reading/watching/playing translations, however I am the kind of person that really enjoys reading originals in their original form... so that's motivating. My recent kick to study more? A show I want to watch is untranslated, so I better get to studying so I can still watch it.) Your goal can be anything from: I want to visit X, I want to talk to X friend/family better, I want to blog in multiple languages, I want to watch untranslated media, I want to sing my favorite musicians songs easier, I want to work in a country that speaks it, I want access to more recipes in X language, I am into history and want to read a history book from X time period in X language, I want to play a video game before localization, really the sky is the limit on goals you can set. Your goals, and how much you want them, and how often you do the sub-goals (so if reading untranslated cnovels by an author you love is your goal, maybe along the way you read easier webnovels to motivate you and find more writers you like), is going to push you to keep studying. Even if your goal is 'pass language B2 test' if it has a deadline, and it's a goal connected to other goals (like going to work in a country with the language, translating work, writing better), that will keep you motivated. Motivation is what will make a language 'easier.' If you can't find the motivation, even the languages which should take the 'least amount of time' will feel hard.

All that said, I am now about to contradict myself. While I really think motivation is the biggest factor in if you'll keep studying and keep learning... there are languages which due to their similarity to languages you already know, will take less Total Study Hours to make progress. As an English speaker, it only took me 6 months of very lazy unorganized studying (half hour most days) to be able to start reading non-fiction French with only a handful of word lookups per page. A lot of that was because French (especially science words and proper nouns like places) has so many cognates with English. I basically 'had' thousands of words of French I already knew, just because I knew English. It took about a year to read fiction books in French only looking up a handful of words per page, for 'general main idea' comprehension. When studying Chinese, it took me also about 12 months to read fiction, look up a handful of words, and understand the 'general main idea.' But I was studying 2 hours a day. So I studied around 182.5 hours to read French fiction with word lookups, and 730 hours to read Chinese fiction with word lookups. And the Chinese also took longer to learn to read with NO word lookups, since there was no english-cognate carryover to sound-out and over rely on like with French. (Although at a wonderful certain point, you know enough Chinese hanzi that new words are built of mostly hanzi you know, and you can use that to guess the gist of a LOT of new words when extensively reading with no word lookups - that happened for me at about 2 years). My point is: Chinese DOES take more hours of study to reach language skill milestones as an english speaker, compared to French! It took me the same amount of months, because I studied Chinese more hours per day (to make up the difference - and I had a better study plan with Chinese). But if you are a total beginner, and unmotivated and KNOW you will study maybe 1 hour per day and probably not more, then learning a language that is more similar to one you already know WILL take less study hours total to reach skill milestones. And that will hopefully be motivating.

(Another example: I spent 3 months of 1-2 hours a day studying Spanish, and can read Spanish nonfiction - thanks to the similarities to French and English. I can read fiction too but it requires word lookups. Japanese, due to kanji, also got 'easier' to read once I had learned more Chinese hanzi. So if your goals include learning languages with some similarities, then once you learn some of those similarities it will make future learning 'faster.')

I spent a month once studying Esperanto (a constructed language). Do I ever use Esperanto? No. Did I find the experience helpful? Yes. Because Esperanto is designed to be fairly easy for european language native speakers, has no exceptions, it had 1. a lot of similar-words to english so I could practice 'guessing similar words' (a skill I'd use a lot with French and Spanish later), 2. practice guessing what word endings mean grammatically (since Esperanto has no exceptions the grammar patterns are much more obvious than say grammar patterns in French). 3. Practice recognizing spelling to sound connections. Those 3 skills are useful in learning any language, but natural languages will have more exceptions to the patterns.

After spending a month on Esperanto, I saw HUGE progress after studying a few hundred words, noticed a huge amount of grammar patterns and how to notice them, and just generally got the experience of 'this is what skill milestones feel like.' Later, when studying French, I used that experience to recognize French word endings and what they tend to indicate, word functions, patterns in pronunciation, guessing with cognates/similar words, and I knew what the first 'milestones' I was aiming for would be. In a similar pattern: French milestones took me a few months each to hit, so when I studied Chinese later and it was taking 2-3 times as much study time... I knew which milestone to expect myself to 'work toward' and achieve next, and knew what making progress should feel like (even if it felt like it was moving slower) so I didn't give up. I was aware that Chinese language skill milestones might 'take more hours' so I didn't panic when it was taking me almost a year of reading graded readers in Chinese to move on to simple webnovels, whereas in French I'd only been reading graded readers for half a year before I felt ready to move on. I knew the general process, because I'd done it before in a shorter timespan with French, with Esperanto.

Is Esperanto useful to you? Only you know that. I personally did not find it useful in general for me, and didn't continue to study it. But it did teach me 'how' to study a language, what progress to monitor, and gave me the confidence that I was capable of learning.

If you really feel you're incapable of learning any skill in a new language, then spending some time on a language more similar to what you already know (if possible - a language you have motivating goals with), may help you see you are capable and can learn. An addition to this: spend a LOT of hours studying as a beginner, if lack of progress demotivates you. Once you push past the beginner stage, you'll be able to do goal-related things in the language you study and that will keep you motivated. But in the beginning, progress feels slow and you feel very confused. So the more upfront studying you do, the quicker you will push through that hard-to-motivate stage.

Is learning a language that is more similar to ones you know going to take less hours of study? Probably. But either way, motivation over hundreds or thousands of hours, for years, is going to be needed. So the goals you wish to achieve will be more important in your success, rather than how many 'hours' it will take.

What do you do if you get demotivated that it's taking SO LONG to hit the next language skill milestone? Fair concern. I got demotivated OFTEN by how much longer it took to reach milestones in Japanese compared to in French. First: try to keep perspective. It's normal for it to take more hours to understand certain things, if the language is not very similar to ones you know. You have to build a bigger foundation of understanding for lots of totally new stuff. Second: you're going to hate me but I'd suggest upping the study hours per day (or week). Studying Chinese RARELY demotivated me, despite it taking more actual hours of study to hit milestones compared to French, and why? Because I increased my study time for Chinese so I was still REACHING milestones in a reasonable amount of months (very similar to the months it took to hit French milestones). 2 hours a day of Chinese study was more than 1/2 an hour of French study, but 2 hours was doable. And it meant I still got to watch shows and read within a few months, and watch/read without looking many words up (depending on difficulty) by the end of year 1. Once you are doing the goals or sub-goals you have, it becomes so much easier to stay motivated. Once I could watch cdramas before they got translated, or read any novel I wanted using Pleco or Readibu to help? It was very easy to stay motivated and do things I WANTED to do in chinese. From there it was just practice/learn using activities I had the goal of doing.

Finally, similar to the suggestions above, if you find yourself in a motivation rut what can you do? I personally try to do 'study sprints' when I'm getting demotivated and need to see significant progress. What I do is pick a small goal, then spend 1-2 months studying as much as I can to improve in that goal. Suggestions: A beginner may make the goal to study the alphabet, a pronunciation guide, and 300 common words and see how far they get by the end of the month. (If at the end of the month the pronunciation is easier to hear and alphabet is easier to read then they succeeded - and they likely will). Another beginner may make the goal to read graded readers 1 hour per day or more all month and see how much they can read. (If the first graded reader they read is easier to read at the conclusion of the month, such as less unknown words or faster reading speed, then they succeeded - and they likely will see progress). A beginner/intermediate learner into flashcards might try to study as many flashcards in Anki as they can for a month. An intermediate learner may pick an audiobook and try to listen to AS MANY chapters as they can in a month, or may pick a novel and look up every unknown word while reading for 1 hour per day or more, until the end of the month. The idea is to pick a goal where you KNOW you're current skill level, work HARD on studying to improve that skill for a month, and then try to do the skill again and see how much progress you've made. I find it very motivating. It can take months to broadly notice progress milestones like managing to improve in your overall reading skill to tackle more difficult novels. But it can take just A MONTH to learn a few hundred new words and make the current novel you're reading become much EASIER to read, or the current show you're watching to become much EASIER to follow, or for the listening skills you're struggling with to become much more instant and reliable.

Example: one of my most recent sprints was to improve my Chinese listening skills. So for a month, I listened to audio flashcards of chinese-english sentences audio, and audiobook chapters (re-listening to each chapter a few times). I saw progress in 1. The audiobook got easier to understand over time, and 2. I tried watching a cdrama I've watched before, only this time I watched it without any subtitles, and it is now much easier to quickly comprehend and follow the lines (even without chinese subs). A sprint I did after a 2 year funk with minimal japanese progress was to cram study 2000 words in memrise Nukemarine's LLJ decks (took 3 months) then try to play a japanese video game I'd tried playing before the sprint. Another japanese sprint I did was listen to japaneseaudiolessons.com free lessons for a month, to work on improving my listening comprehension and recognition of word-order faster, and it did really help with seeing an improvement in those things.

As a beginner, I think the sprints can help with staying focused on small achieveable goals and seeing your progress (like reading daily, watching a show daily, studying X new words daily, going through a chapter of a grammar book weekly, etc). And then as you get farther and can actually do some of your sub-goals, can help with pushing yourself to some significant improvement in a particular area. (Like if you reached a sub goal of reading easy webnovels, it might be a month where you read a webnovel with more unique words that's 'harder' and look all unknown words up, and by the end of the month you see that medium-difficulty webnovels now feel as easy as the 'easy' ones did at the start of the month).

And then... if you study like me, which tends to be periods of a LOT of study followed by lulls where I might watch/read/listen to the language but not do much active study, then the sprint goal months tend to help cram in 100 hours of study every so often. So that you'll still (on average through the year) have studied 1-2+ hours a day. I do not focus well, and sprint goal months along with more relaxed months where I just watch/read/listen to stuff when I feel like it, is the only way I can get myself to study regularly. If you can consistently study daily, then sprint goal months can help you make Significant progress in a very specific area if some slow-progress area has been demotivating you. (And you can turn the sprint goals into challenges with friends, or tests to see what study methods work great for you versus bore you).

[wellthatschaotic]

neurotypicals are so frustrating,, i keep forgetting that "can you do x" means "go do x"

[jekyllnahyena]

Johnny Johnny Johnny

(they were in fact too sloshed for this but they’re also beyond help and completely smitten and have decided now or never. luckily, it all worked out because all three people involved are weird as shit.)

(prequel to the weird confession ayoooooo)

[slav-every-day]

[thunderboltfire]

I've tried to run BG2 again (I need to finish my modded playthrough) and my laptop is in such a bad state it prectically lags BG2. BG2, which could be run on a determined microwave, on a laptop that has 8GB of RAM! It is heavily used and it has a lot of apps, but I've uninstalled everything I didn't use and cleaned the registry awhile ago. I suspected the antivirus, but the system manager shows it actually doesn't consume a lot of resources. It's not the disk space, since it's got plenty. It turns out it uses 100% of its disk all the time, and the main culprits seems to be.... *drum roll* system and Windows telemetry service! I now have to spend the evening elbows deep in frankly confusing system settings to find a way to turn the telemetry service off, and it may or may not improve the situation.

Once I finish this playthough, I'm definitely switching the laptop to Unix.

[idissectgermanwords]

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (noun, neutral):

Rind (noun, neutral); bovine

Fleisch (noun, neutral); flesh, meat

Etikette (noun, feminine); etiquette

-ung (suffix, feminine); used for the nominalization of verbs

über- (preffix); over

wachen (weak verb); guard, watch

-ung (suffix, feminine); used for the nominalization of verbs

auf- (prefix); on, to

geben (strong verb); give

über- (prefix); over

tragen (strong verb); carry

-ung (suffix, feminine), used for the nominalization of verbs

sitzen (strong verb); sit