#I know it isn’t gothic…but the notes

[chainmaillecurse]

VFW Hall - Chassell, MI

these string lights were put up eight years ago, for a wedding, and just never taken down.

[can-of-w0rmz]

Sometimes I remember that my sanity is actually dependant on a few fictional characters from 200 years ago, like not a silly haha joke but that I genuinely don’t have any other support system or healthy coping mechanism other than reading about and engaging in fan content for these fictional Victorians, and then I am like “uh oh. Goodness me. I may be in a bit of a sticky situation. A pickle, if you will.”

Anyway ahahahah something something humorous tumblr post as a coping mechanism ahaha something something

[affableramen]

Kinktober: Aphrodisiac | Pantalone | Neuvillette

Minors do not interact; nsfw explicit content 18+ only

Synopsis: what happens when a calm, collected man takes stimulants

⟢ Pantalone’s part tags: domestic sex, dirty language, unprotected sex, cumming inside, size kink

⟢ Neuvillette’s part tags: rough sex, mirror sex, slight domination, order giving, unprotected, pulling out

note: it should have been obvious by now but i only write consensual intimacy. also, i’m sorry this one did not include capitano, but he’s going to appear in another, not less spicy scenario. :)

You and your boyfriend Pantalone got your aphrodisiac chocolate on a business meeting organised by his business partners. He caught you red-handed, pleasuring yourself, though he was under the effect of stimulants too.

You and your husband Neuvillette were invited on a wedding to one of the government officials where he accidentally took a bite of arousing cake

⟢ Pantalone

“What… are… you… doing there… with your hands?”

Hearing his voice you almost jump on the chair. Although the room is dimly lit, the atmosphere is almost gloomy in the living room, nothing can escape Pantalone’s sharp eyes.

“N-nothing.” 

Pantalone slowly approaches you with his designed smirk. 

“If it isn’t you, masturbating in my own mansion, after the important meeting we just had.” 

You pull your hand from the middle of your thigh and sit straight immediately.

“Are you going to pretend like you didn’t do that just now?” 

Pantalone leans in. At such intimate closeness you hear his ragged breath. His usually pale face is flushed now. Apart from that, there is a slight shaking in his body, as if he is no less excited than you. 

“Why use hands… when you have the whole cock available?”

You roll your eyes, trying to mask the embarrassment with scepticism. He teasingly caresses your neck, shoulder, sliding down to your chest. Wanting to feel his touch even more you involuntarily get up from the desk. In no time, Pantalone pins you to the nearest wall, his eyes are ones of a predator. He brushes his nose against your cheek, inhaling the scent he finds so sweet and seductive.

“So, why touch yourself when you can use my cock?” He places both of his hands on the wall, caging you between. His sharp look examines you in the dimly lit, gothic-styled room.

“He’s ready for you to use…”

“You sound like a drunk man.”

“The question is - am I drunk, really?”

You gently pull him in, grasping his shoulders as if letting him know you’re in need.

“You ate those chocolates too, didn't you?” 

“Oh yes… Seems like those weren't just chocolates.” He looks at you so hungrily, but so longingly at the same time.

“I think we both might have eaten aphrodisiac. Those businessmen sure wanted to have fun.”

“And they are quite effective too, considering the fact that I…” Pantalone gives his lip a shallow bite and exhales with need: “…desperately need to be inside you right now.” 

He takes your earlobe in his mouth and tastes it, which forces a heat rush through your body. 

“My balls are aching”, Pantalone lets out a shaky moan into your ear. You can see the strained fabric of his trousers wrap tightly around a well-formed bulge. “They need to be emptied.”

Seeing you eyeing him shamelessly, Pantalone cups your cheeks and says right into your lips. “Don’t just look. Touch me.”

Hearing this man begging for your touch does its magic on you. Once gotten an explicit invitation, you bring your hand to his leather belt, slightly lower and unzip him. Kissing you impatiently, Pantalone buries his moan inside your mouth. His trousers are pulled down and you successfully release the heavy-looking cock from the tight fabric of the black boxers. Obviously the cool façade of your boyfriend slowly melts once his hardness is freed from restraining formal suit.

Pantalone pulls out from the kiss and looks you up and down. You hold the eye contact with him, not allowing yourself to look down where he pushes your legs apart with his knee. You know, this kind of staring game between you that he enjoys doing during your intimate banters. 

“Let me check how well you were doing before I heartlessly interrupted your leisure.” 

His fingers find the waistband of your underwear and slip in carefully. You gulp impatiently when you feel his slender fingers work skillfully underneath the thin fabric.

“P-Pantalone-” your voice shakes, not knowing if you should give in to desires or let the damned stimulant subside. Everything feels so hot, all sensations appear increased. 

He starts drawing wet, slimy noises from your centre with his fingers. The movements quite rough, giving out his own impatient thoughts to have you.

“Goddamn… You’re soaking wet”, his breath hitches. He pulls the fingers out, denying you right on the edge when replacing the cool fingertips with a thick tip. He gives you a good rub first.

“Gonna slide it in… slowly…” 

GAH! The both of you let out a noise resembling a yell.

“That wasn't slowly, thank you very much”, you bark, grabbing Pantalone’s shoulders to hold onto something. Seeing you afraid to fall, Pantalone pulls your leg so it wraps around his waist. At the same time such friction provides you with a better angle.

“Listen to me, woman”, Pantalone hisses through teeth, while thrusting actively and sharply right from the start, not intending anywhere near to go nice and slow. “You’re not the only one who stupidly took those arousal chocolates. I had to… ngh!… satisfy my curiosity…”

“Satisfied?”

“You tell me.”

Your hole recognises the usual size and takes him with ease all way in, swallowing it to the base. 

“I swear- you’re taking this cock as if you own it.”

Breathlessly you manage to respond dryly:

“I do kinda own it…”

“Don’t get too cocky.”

His slim body presses you against the wall of the mansion making the friction between your bodies grow louder and more lewd. The thursts cause more noise with each moment as he pumps his length in and out. 

“It’s getting more difficult to control myself. Do you mind if I?”

“Go faster?”

“A lot faster than usual, to be precise.”

“Surely do, if you intend to break us.”

“Let me indulge my dirty desires once in a while. You’re going to like it, I promise,” he lets out a blissful sigh. “I’m going to fuck you into pieces.” 

“Not a fan of quickies, Pantalone.”

“Me neither. But there’s some charm in fucking you as if both of our lives depend on it right now.”

You stop talking. He gives you a particularly sharp thrust, and you feel your mind increasingly getting blank from the pushing. The man having you does his job excellently, hitting your weak spot with an angle that could almost be called perfect.

“Fuck, you're dripping.” Pantalone whispers as if warning you, but doesn’t stop in his motions, the slapping sounds of body against a body becomes only louder. “All I did was just…” gasp, “a few feeble thrusts… ngh!… and it’s all over your thighs…”

His monologue of self praise doesn't end while he’s balls deep inside you. You stay surprised that he’s still able to yap during such intense procedure.

“No one can satisfy you like I do. I fuck you just… heavenly. You know that, don't you?” he grips your hips tight as he keeps slamming into you roughly like never before. Like if he were not an exhausted older man for a moment of time. You immediately grab onto him tight, anxious to fall as his movements become more chaotic and unbearably tense. 

“I’m going to fucking explode.” Pantalone spits out breathlessly, his words mixing with raspy moans. “You're going to bear a child…” His desperate voice cracks so endearingly and it turns you on even more hearing him vulnerable like this.

You blame your brain for imagining these things before they even happen. Getting closer there too, you cannot keep your own emotions in track.

“Keep moaning like that and we'll never hear the end of our neighbours’ complaints”, his brings his hand to your lips, brushing over it. “Sh-h…”

You know that he’s nearing the peak and his body is desperately begging for release when he leans in and asks with a hoarse voice:

“Are you on a birth control?”

“Yeah”, you respond with the same hoarse voice, praying that you’ll keep your voice down till the very end because otherwise it might be too loud for the both of us to hide.

“Good for you… cause I won’t be able to- darling-” he tenses up, his eyes shut tight as he blows all his load in one go and falls dead silent.

You reach the peak after him, your body is left trembling but unlike Pantalone, you’re still able to stand. When Pantalone finishes, he pulls out, spilling the rest on the floor and weakly collapses against the wall. He’s panting heavily and his state cannot be described anywhere near to good. 

“Pantalone honey, are you alright?”

You ask, seeing him barely capable of keeping himself conscious. He doesn't respond, bending over the wall. Obviously he is not.

“Pantalone.”

“G-give me a moment…”

You inquire again, worriedly.

“No, seriously, are you alright?” 

“I’m fine!” the grumpy old man responds almost cracking his back from exertion. Gently, you place your hand on his back and pat it.

“Pantalone?”

“Isn't it selfish? Cumming before you. I guess we’ll need to compensate for that.”

You pull him close so that he can use you as a support. “The aphrodisiac must have raised your blood pressure. Let’s get you to the sofa.”

“I’m not usually feeble like this”, he keeps muttering, his pride wounded as you help him settle on the couch and take a seat as well. “I last.”

“I know that you do. But forget about that right now. Just breathe in and out”, you say, carefully pulling him into the hug. 

Still dizzy from over exerting, Pantalone lets out a sigh. “I could go all night.”

“Surely you could.”

“Just give me a moment, and I’ll make you cum again. Before myself.”

“Don't say it like that. You were great. Cumming earlier than me doesn’t make our sex worse, to your information you looked quite cute when you did.”

“Teasing me again? You know what happens when you rile me up? You are not able to walk the next day.”

Heavily breathing he reaches out to pull you into the kiss once more, although it’s sloppy and less rough.

“But I hope you know that I’m not done with you, not by a long shot.”

You hear a faint sigh from him as the both of you raise from the sofa to go upstairs and finally get the well-deserved rest.

“Going to deal with the nosy neighbours tomorrow again. That damned old couple always trying to put a sex ban on us.”

“I’ll just tell them someone had a little too much of viagra.”

“You little sh—”

⟢ Neuvillette

You’re sitting in the living room of your big lavishly-decorated house as you hear the entrance door slightly creaking at an opening.

“Honey?” you ask, knowing well it is your husband who’s returned at such hour. But to your biggest surprise, Neuvillette simply rushes through the vestibule, not even glorifying you with his glance.

“Good evening”, his voice is but an echo, and he himself looks no more than a ghost. 

“What the hell?” you think, realising that there should be a good damn reason for him to evade you like that. You put your book away, take your glasses off and quietly sneak out of the couch, following the judge’s steps. He goes upstairs, to your bedroom. But it’s not very late?- you think. Why would he go to sleep so early? Is he so exhausted?

When upstairs you realise that he doesn't aim for your shared bedroom, he goes to the guest room for whatever reason.

“Are you going to explain?” you catch him off guard. Neuvillette gives you a brief look but suddenly turns away, adjusting his tie. 

“I wish to sleep alone tonight.”

“Why? We are married, aren't we supposed to share the room like we always did?”

“I have… some matters at hand I’d prefer to solve alone.”

“Really…”

You look as Neuvillette disappears in the guest bedroom shutting the door right before your face.

As soon as he settles in and the noise of his presence subsides, you gently push the door to the room and enter.

Neuvillette, however, is not in the bedroom anymore. You look around, realising that he’s most obviously in the bathroom, attached to the room inside. 

“Are you feeling unwell? Are you ill?”

You ask through the door, not wanting to sound clingy but also feeling a sense of responsibility for your beloved one.

“Do you want me to bring you a glass of water? Or call the doctor?”

“No-” he responds stiffly from inside the bathroom. “There’s nothing you can do except for giving me some privacy.”

“That’s unusual of you. I don't want to sound clingy, but when you feel bad you usuaully turn to me right away.”

“This situation is different, darling.”

You find yourself dumbfounded as you’re standing right there only knowing that your husband's unwell but never getting an explicit answer.

“Monsieur Neuvillette, you’re not acting funny at all. Spill the beans.”

“D-don’t call me that”, Neuvillette’s voice shakes and that little clue makes you finally realise that…

“Oh my God.”

Neuvillette’s side is suddenly completely silent as you make your suggestion.

“Please don't tell me you ate those cakes with aphrodisiac.” You try to keep cool but his answer just kills you.

“I confess…”

You rub your face with a hand desperately trying to find a solution because you were the one a lot smarter in this situation to avoid the dangerous cake. There was no aphrodisiac in you.

Neuvillette is a solitary and collected person who is also, ironically, quite calm in sex. And having him taken these stimulants… you understand how complicated he must be feeling right now. He must be completely smitten and embarrassed. Always so cool and restrained when suddenly feeling like a horny mess because of some stupid cake.

Attempting to comfort your husband you speak through the door, hoping that he’d listen.

“Neuvillette, come out, you’re going to be alright. Those are just silly stimulants. They won't harm you.”

“You don't understand. I need to be inside you right now. So badly…”

Hearing such filthy words slip off your husband’s tongue you feel something awakened in you. The heat courses through your body and you start aching for his touch, though probably less uncomfortably than he is for yours.

“Archons, you’re making me regret I didn't take a bite of that cake.”

Involuntarily, the flushed face of your aroused husband appears in your imagination and you start feeling just as aroused. 

“Why must we deny ourselves, then?”

Your words alone cause Neuvillette to forget his duties at once and give in into his desires. The door opens in front of you. He really looks flushed and messed up, but his voice remains one of a gentleman’s.

“You mean it?”

“Sure. Besides, it’s not like given the tight schedule of our work, we have been indulging ourselves often. I don't even remember the last time we used the bed for a different reason than sleeping.”

At that, Neuvillette completely unleashes the effects of the aphrodisiac. He starts stepping on you until you get pressed flush against the wall.

“You have no idea the things I want to do to you right now.”

“Show me.”

“Turn around”, his words not a request but a command. You raise an eyebrow at him but do as he says. “Bend over.”

You bend over, forcing your ass up which is an extremely rare position for the both of you. Neuvillette is a classy man who enjoys primarily missionary and needs your eye contact on him. But these stimulants… making him feral to the brim.

“Look at this ass…” he whispers quietly, probably hoping you won’t hear of it but you successfully do. You grip the wall with both of your hands, seeking balance as Neuvillette rolls your hair over his fist, pulling it dangerously. You swear, this is a new aide of him you’ve never known before.

The judge’s cool fingers spread you with skill and finesse, drawing content sighs and gasps from you from a while before he deems you ready to take him all. Still bent over to the wall, you feel Neuvillette press his blunt tip against your thigh, aiming to the entrance but teasing the soft flesh all over long before he finally sticks himself in.

The grip on your hips is tight, almost made of steel. For a moment you find yourself lacking the sensation of his hands entangled in your hair and attempt to ask him do more, but Neuvillette grabs it before you can open your mouth. You recognise the pleasant filling sensation inside you and turn your head to the side, wanting to see what's going on behind you. Luckily, your eyes bump into the long mirror, reflecting monsieur fervently taking you from behind. The face he makes is almost embarrassing to look at, but you find it extremely hot.

“Look at yourself, not me. Don’t you dare look at me.”

“You look awesome like this, Neuvillette.”

With hearing that, he goes rougher until the thrusts become evident in sound. Neuvillette’s butler knocks into the door to offer the dinner, but he quickly steps back hearing your soft moans and Neuvillette’s raspy grunts. Perhaps you should encourage him taking these stimulants more often?

With a loud groan Neuvillette pulls out right at the time, and everything gets spilled around. He wipes himself clean and helps you up, pulling flush to him so that you don't fall. 

Later at night you find yourself resting next to Neuvillette in the bed, with your eyes wide and breathing ragged. Your heart still pumping quickly after the adrenaline rush that coursed through your body just minutes ago.

 “Wow… Guess those stimulants were not such a bad idea after all. I should thank the chef.”

“I didn't even consider you liking me being so cruel with you.”

“I see nothing cruel with being a little fervent and passionate once in a while. Especially, willingly.”

Your husband turns to look at you, his fingers gently hide the hair strand behind your ear.

“If that makes you happy.”

[simpjaes]

ONE OF THE DAMNED GIRLS PT. 2 (P.SH)

Moving to a city with wild nights and charming days felt like the perfect choice in your head upon finishing college. Hours away from home, you accept a job at a local museum ironically placed dead between a large historic cathedral and a booming gothic nightclub. You were meant to curate the art, not be curated yourself by a local priest who found you with buckled knees outside of said goth club. ― part one | MINORS DNI

PAIRING ― vampire park sunghoon x afab reader  

WORDCOUNT ― 21.8k

CONTENT ―  modern vampire sunghoon, cathedral/chapel settings, blasphemous behavior, false holy facades, the main vampire trope i use is the act of drinking blood, luring, and living forever, heavy manipulation and toxic behaviors, mentions of reader being alt/goth

SIDE CHARACTERS―  jungwon as your very very best friend who has an installation at the museum (you guys are attached at the hip), jay as the hot bisexual bartender at the goth club, some goth guy named balor 

!WARNINGS! ― dubious consent (due to the act of mind manipulation), hunting and playing victim, a lot of blood: blood sucking, wounds/puncturing, menstruation in a sexual light, manipulation, near-death experiences, fainting, talk of death, acts of mind control/luring 

NOTE ― you must read part one to understand the story. anyway i did not mean to go in so deep with jungwon, i just really fucking adore him please forgive me. anyway, this is briefly edited. if you see a typo, shhhhhh, i don't wanna know.

tags under cut

smut tags [ these tags refer to both parts of the fic] ― big meat sunghoon, biting, A LOT OF BLOOD, sucking and drinking of blood obv, pussy eating (once while reader is menstruating, and another time where she isn’t), deep penetration, rough sex, unprotected sex bc like…he’s dead so lmfao, missionary, scratching, dirty talk, body worship, praise, jungwon is involved in a bit of an erotic situation but there is not smut involving him, 

other tags [ these tags refer to both parts of the fic]― depictions of death, anti-religious language, the act of dying including intense descriptions of the feeling, mentions of pimping and human trafficking, corrupt government, dead nuns, funerals

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

“My love, let me.” 

You sit up only to be eased back onto the soft mattress. Pillows plush against your head as Sunghoon dabs away at each puncture he’s left on you. 

“You know you can’t sit up so quickly, just rest and let me.” 

You’re littered with his bites by now and you only grow more and more enamored with the feeling of it. Or, perhaps you just enjoy the fact that he’s fixated on drinking from you. Multiple times a day, until your fingers and toes are numb, until you can barely stand without dropping to the floor. 

Enamored through all of it, really. With the way he bites so gently only to suck harder and harder until his fingers grip and pierce through your skin much like his teeth do. He’ll hold you so hard through it, forcing arousal to run through you every single time he goes for that artery in your thigh. You think that’s his favorite spot to bite, if the dozens of wounds there are anything to go by. Truly, you’re enamored with him, always wanting to give him more just so he stays with you longer. 

You seem to have lost yourself in the lust of it all. The fantasy, the desire. On the brink of insanity, you know you’ve grown obsessed with what Sunghoon does to you, and it’s to the point that you don’t question yourself like you normally would. Your desire for this is too strong, far too intimidating to doubt. 

But since that night, he always leaves you with blood against his lips. Aroused, frustrated, confused. Never once letting a hand stray too far, never letting his lips trace anywhere but to your wounds or new expanse of skin that needs to be bitten. 

For days now you’ve been here. You lay here one full day since you were supposed to be back at work too, just waiting for the moment Sunghoon will do more than just drink from you. Mostly for a confirmation. It feels like you’re forcing yourself to go missing for this alone and every night you lie awake in this room waiting, wanting more from him now than you think you ever have.

The room you're in now is lonely, though adorned nearly as beautiful as the one you were in the night Sunghoon stole you away. You know the place you want to be is just down the hall, but your legs won’t carry you there no matter how much you try. He’s rendered you bed ridden and you miss it there, with his silk sheets and candle lit walls. 

Then again, maybe it’s not the room at all that you miss. Maybe it’s just Sunghoon.

You can’t help but note that when he’s on you or next to you, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. But when you’re alone, you feel your skin crawl with such immense anxiety that you nearly want to scream out for him to come back. Several times already you have called out for him mere moments after he’s left the room. It gives you hope in knowing that each time, he does return to you even if just for a moment. 

All of it is very arousing when he comes to you, but it’s killing you inside to know that he does nothing more than feed off of you. You get nothing out of it but his presence, and perhaps he expects that to be enough. It’s driving you insane to give everything you have to him so willingly, knowing he hasn’t offered anything back to you. 

The fact that you want this, you want him, and you want to be the only blood he craves? It’s a feeling you’ve had to accept, because trying to deny it at this point would only lead you down a more destructive path. As if the one you’re on now isn’t already killing you, if not physically, emotionally. You want to be the person lying in his bed again so badly. You want to show him that you’re no longer terrified. You want to give him equal arousal and interest. 

But he doesn’t offer it. No, he simply bites. 

“I can do it.” You say to him in a frustrated sigh. “I’m not helpless, you know.” 

He’s taken aback by the way you rip the gauze from his hands, sitting up and scooting away from him when you dip it into the bowl of alcohol. Your head spins at the act, but you push through the weakness anyway, knowing he doesn’t like the distance you’re creating between him and you. 

You don’t like the distance either, but it’s helpful to know he doesn’t ignore it. 

“I’m aware.” Sunghoon narrows his eyes at the way your heart is beating for him right now, taking the gauze back from you and gripping your arm to pull you back and against him. “Why are you being difficult?” 

He cleans a wound just under your jaw as he looks at you, waiting for you to answer him. You stare back as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, not wincing at all like you previously had when he lets the alcohol burn the swollen punctures.

“Hah, so you can’t read minds?” You confirm for yourself, though you had the suspicion that he couldn’t. “You just keep doing this–” You continue, trying not to sound as if you’re nagging. “And nothing else.”

He tilts his head as he moves the gauze to another part of your neck, knowing full well what it is you want. 

“Nothing else?” He repeats in a sly question. “Is there more you want?”

You nod slightly, feeling the cold alcohol send a shiver across your skin, your head finally clearing of the dizziness just from sitting up.

“Name it.” 

Somehow, you lose the ability to ask for what you want. It feels silly to be mad that he hasn’t given you any sexual pleasure despite feeding off of you for days now. Is it insane that sex is all you want in return? Should you ask for financial compensation or something? 

“Ah.” He answers for you with an all-knowing smirk, his nostrils flaring as he inhales your scent. “You want pleasure, yes?”

“Do you not?” You ask simply, and he pulls back with the gauze to look at you dumbfounded. 

For a solid twenty seconds the two of you stare at each other before he’s dropping the gauze into the bowl and pulling you against him in full, turning your body so that your back is to his chest. His strong arms are still cold, but you feel warm enough against him like this.

“It pleases me to know you want it.” He smiles against the top of your head. “Unfortunately, I have other things to tend to.” He continues, pausing to hold you a bit closer. “I still have to feed, love, and I still need to maintain order here. I cannot just spread your legs every waking minute.” 

You’re not asking for him to fuck you every waking minute. It makes you feel as if he’s annoyed to even use such words regarding this. Still, your cheeks warm at his sweet voice. 

“As much as I’d like to.” 

Oh. Your cheeks aren’t just warm, they’re on fire at those words. You’d grasp at anything right now, despite feeling like an afterthought. You don’t like that you’re not a priority to him, even though he fucking feeds on you consistently. To the point you can’t even stand for a full minute without fucking fainting from blood loss. Still, you accept his words and try to think of the positives over the negatives. 

Unfortunately, you’ll never be satisfied with just his words and a mere ten seconds later you’re right back to questioning, doubting, and feeling upset. 

So he can feed this often, but not even slip a finger into you through it? 

Priorities. He has to feed, he said? Does he not already?! 

“Wait, Sunghoon, you do feed.” You argue. “On me.” 

He shakes his head at your ignorance of believing he’ll ever truly have enough of you. Even past death, he’ll never have enough. Which is precisely why you’re still breathing. 

“There are needs I have that you’ve yet to understand. You satiate the hunger, yes, but that is nothing more than a feeling, not a truth.” 

You try to comprehend his words but fall short. Only because that would mean–

“You’re becoming afraid again,” He comments on your heart rate. “Calm yourself, darling, the need within me is no fault of my own and I’ll continue to keep you from seeing the act take place.”

There’s silence from you as you try to calm yourself down. Of course he has to feed, but…is that not what he’s already been doing to you? Your heart isn’t racing from fear, it’s racing from–jealousy.

“So, mine isn’t enough?” You feel your heart shatter a bit when you voice it, knowing full well that for him to be full, he likely has to kill.

Why are you jealous? Well, if you’re so irresistible like he says you are, why does he hold back? Why are you still alive? Does your blood not taste as good as whoever else he’s been having at? Why does he keep you around, but no one else? Maybe they’re the ones who are irresistible, and you’re just a placeholder for if he can’t find his meal for the night. Maybe he’s just using you. 

“Hmm.” Sunghoon thinks hard at your question. “You’re feeling envious?” 

You don’t respond to him or the way he clocks your jealousy, and instead shake his grip off of you before grabbing the gauze yourself again.

He watches you take the material and dip it into the liquid, moving it down your legs and to the assault of wounds against your thigh. 

“You’re truly strange.” He licks his lips at the sight of your thighs, listening closely to the artery you have there, always so hungry for more but knowing he need not drink for the time being. After all, he’s just eaten. “Almost as unnatural as I am.” 

You have to force back a smile at the truth of his words though, softening at the way he compares you to him like the two of you fit together perfectly. The jealousy rages within you, but so does this strange adoration you have for him. 

“To think I don’t crave you? Have I not shown you already?” 

“Hmm, you might need to remind me.” You’re being playful now, trying to get what you want. Entirely thankful for the way he solves every problem you have with him in your head even if just for a moment.

You think you’ll always miss him on a deeper level than just sitting and speaking though.

“When can I leave the room?” You ask now, suddenly. “When can I come back to your room?” 

Sunghoon doesn’t fight his own smile, loving the way you stay of your own free will, even while upset with him for not giving you more than that single night of love making. 

“Not yet, love.” He mutters now, knowing that it’s not likely for you to be able to make it down the hallway without calling for his help, also knowing that he can’t give you what you want again so soon. 

“Oh.” You look at him, face falling. “Let me guess, because you have better shit to do.” 

“Still so envious.” He shakes his head with a laugh. “You’ll learn soon enough how I need you.” 

Just, not yet. 

After all, he drinks you until he has no choice but to stop. Multiple times a day, draining you until it’s near dangerous. The fact that you enjoy it drives him to do it more and more. 

You think it’s easy for him to utilize self-control around you? You think he doesn’t want to experience you in every way you can offer? With those pretty sounds you make? God, he misses the way your body hugged his cock so much. You’re out of your mind to think he’s holding out on you because he doesn’t want it. Because you're not good enough? Stupid, stupid girl. 

He needs it. He wants it. He’s fucking obsessed with what you do to him.

You’re truly not the only one trying to adjust to this situation. He has to be very careful with you, and having sex with you could very well break the resolve he’s forced into himself. A simple touch from you that feels too good could have him acting on a split second decision, drinking until you’re dead and cold, just like him. 

Essentially, he has to train himself to your scent and taste. Sure, he’s been fucking nearly every victim since his cock started working again, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’d rather it be you. In fact, the only reason he’s fucking them is to satiate the need to destroy everything that you are for his own desire of having you. 

The issue is that his drive to kill is insanely high, smelling you just down the hall makes every new victim taste better. It makes his cock fuck harder, it makes their bodies feel almost good enough for him to release. But they’re not you, and it’s rendering him unable to control himself. 

His recent victims? Oh, it ends so gruesomely. He feels overheated in the moment, drenched, fucking feral when he makes his kill. Wishing it was you, ignoring the scent of the person beneath him just to smell you from a different room. 

If he gets his hands on you when he’s in that state of mind again, you’ll be gone forever. That’s something Sunghoon wouldn’t be able to live with. Already he’s controlled himself through it once and that may very well have been the hardest thing he’s done in his life. He can’t promise that he can hold back again.

Until he can feed and fuck without feeling his instinct grab him by the throat, he cannot do more than small feedings with you. That alone is training all on its own, because every single time he feeds, he struggles not to take all of it. 

Bit by bit. Sunghoon has to take you piece by fucking piece. And your willingness to do it, entirely awake and aware, makes it all the more difficult. 

He can’t tell you this. Not yet, at least. You’d know the danger you’re in. Nor can he pretend like he will let you leave out of fear. He needs to keep this peace with you until he can truly enjoy you in a way that will ensure you’ll be alive and well after the fact.

And so, he changes the subject, grabbing you even tighter and hugging you in the way any modern boyfriend would. This. This is something he can handle.

“Are you bored of me carrying you across the room?” He asks. “Do you miss walking on your own two feet that much, if just to make it to my room?” He smiles now, making jokes with you that feel a bit dry when it hits your ears. 

“Are you implying that I’m a slut?” You laugh at his attempt to make you smile, slapping against his cold arm playfully. “That the only reason I want to leave this room is to come into yours and fuck you?” 

He shrugs from behind you, hugging tighter, wanting to be under your skin with that beating heart.

“Am I not right to assume? You little harlot.” 

Well, he got you there. 

And you laugh with him about it, living in your little fantasy world like this never has to end. Reality looms taller than Sunghoon does, unfortunately. 

He can feel your heart rate pick up when your laugh slows down. 

“But, Sunghoon, I can’t stay here for much longer like this.” You drop it on him like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and oh how he wishes you could just disappear with him. “I haven’t been home, my phone is there and I’m sure people have been calling.”

His eyes darken at your words as he pushes you from his grasp. Already you wish to leave? After complaining to him about what he doesn’t give you? Is that why you’re saying this right now? No sex means you’ll leave? 

Serves him right for not using the pull on you. He should have kept hold of your mind rather than relish in your willingness. 

“I’ve missed work already.” Your voice gets smaller as you watch him move from the bed and stand in front of you, the scent of cinnamon assaulting your nose along with his darkened and intimidating facial expression. “I– I’ll–come back. I promise.” You cower immediately.

Sunghoon shakes his head at you. 

“Did I not make myself clear?” He deepens his voice, unsure of how to handle his own internal panic. “Never have I let a commoner leave this cathedral alive and knowing the truth.” 

“Are you–threatening me?” You ask, scooting away from him and accidentally knocking over the bowl of alcohol with your foot. 

“Did you not just say you envy the others? Envy dying by my hand?” He questions you back, looming over you in an intimidating stance. Suddenly much, much taller than reality.  “Every time you’ve said you’d come back, you’ve done no such thing. Have I upset you this much?”

You frantically shake your head. 

“No, no!” You lift your hands in defense, reaching out to his towering figure. “I want to be here with you! You just said yourself that you have things to tend to, so do I! If I don’t show up at work, or at least have my phone, people will have the fucking cops out and looking for me!” 

Sunghoon softens, cinnamon air fading out within a second. He feels only slightly ashamed of his immediate outburst when all you can offer back to him is truth. Perhaps you’re the only one living in the real world, even if he’s been living in it for far, far, longer. 

You’ve pulled him into a fantasy, just like he has for you. He truly let himself forget that you’re no victim that’s meant to die. You can’t just disappear without question, and already it has been days. 

Still, you can’t just leave him. 

“I see.” He says, reaching down to grab at the hands you have clinging to his clothes in an attempt to calm himself more than you. “Shall I retrieve your device for you then?” 

You slowly nod, looking away from him and ignoring the fact that as much as you do want to be here with him, the fact that he just implied that you can never leave is a bit– um, intense. So, you don’t argue when you nod to him. If anything, to keep the peace.

“I’ll see to it that you have it in your hands by tonight. And in time, I’ll invite you back to my quarters.” Ending his sentence with a bribe to keep you here felt fitting, and he’s thankful for the way you accept it. 

You nod quicker now, entirely satisfied with his words when he steps back and away from you. 

“Now, please finish cleaning your wounds. I don’t want to taste infection in you.” 

Despite feeling better about it, wanting him still, those words hurt you. You feel insulted by the time he leaves you alone in the room. Like if you got an infection he’d simply lose interest in you, or perhaps end this love of your blood he has. 

He may even just go ahead and kill you if that were to happen.

It drives you to clean yourself twice over. Three times over. Unwilling to lose the feeling of someone biting you so gently, unwilling to die because your use to him has run out. And it feels like you clean yourself all day. To the point you’re probably making yourself more susceptible to infection rather than protecting yourself from it. 

And in this room, time doesn’t exist. There’s a window indicating where the sun is in the sky, but hours and minutes are meaningless. Only when the sun is up do you start counting, knowing that Sunghoon will only visit you during nightfall. 

You clean yourself for what you assume to be hours upon hours, all the way up until the sun falls and you hear the door creak open. You expect to see Sunghoon coming in for his routine of drinking from you, but instead, you find a pale-eyed nun rush to you with your phone and immediately leave after. 

A quick presence is gone within a moment, but you pay no mind as you look down at your phone. You’re thankful for the fact that it’s probably been on the charger all four days you’ve been gone. Considering, well, there’s no electricity this high up in the cathedral, you’ll have to save your battery as best as you can. 

So many missed calls. 

Even more missed texts. 

Dozens of emails. 

Jungwon.

In the morning after you left your apartment, he checked in with you. All throughout the day too. It wasn’t until that same night where his texts became frantic. A little, “i’m coming over, fuck you if you get mad at me for it.” followed by “are you mad at me? why won’t you respond?” 

You couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

Really though, it hurts your heart to have forgotten about him entirely during your time here. Reading through his texts, you see him fight with himself over your absence. Up until yesterday, where he texts you from the museum. 

A glaring “stopped by again today only to realize your apartment was unlocked this whole time. i’m with your boss now, we are calling the cops if you don’t respond within the next ten seconds.” 

A full day late, you respond quickly. 

You: wonnie!!! i’m sorry! I got sad and went home to see my mom. totally ignored my phone…and forgot to lock the door i guess

You: you know, hormones lol 

Immediate spam. Your phone vibrates aggressively back to back with his frantic texts. 

Wonnie: you have to be fucking JOKING

Wonnie: NOT A SINGLE WORD FROM YOU. YOU COULD HAVE CALLED WORK OR

SOMETHING FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S PHONE. I WAS AT YOUR PLACE EVERY DAY.

Wonnie: i CANNOT believe you!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonnie: your whole ass apartment was unlocked and you weren’t there! anyone could’ve walked right in!!!!! are you stupid or something? 

Wonnie: are you home now?

Wonnie: i’m so mad at you FUCK

Wonnie: i got so scared

Wonnie: im coming over

You panic. 

You: wait, i’m not home yet. I didn’t mean to stay so long, I promise ill be home soon and fill you in on everything. 

Wonnie: call your boss. 

Wonnie: ill deal with the cops, then im gonna be waiting outside of your apartment

Wonnie: don’t ever fucking do that shit again, been crying all morning

Wonnie: i hate you so much right now, im never talking to you again

Wonnie: get your stupid ass back home 

You smile fondly at his worry, but the smile is short lived as you know you probably can’t leave here. Not only from the fact that Sunghoon appears to be unwilling to let you leave but you…don’t want to.

Still, you do need to call your boss, and you make quick work of it. Sitting dissociated through the mindless scolding of your terrible lie of an excuse, and then the following call from the local police department. 

Arguably, speaking to the police was easier than knowing you’ll have to lie to Jungwon again. At least the police are aware that you’re a grown woman who can disappear if she wishes. Jungwon, on the other hand, requires a little more care and consideration. 

You’re tired by the time you lay your phone down, unable to keep your eyes open as you drift off. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Some time later, you wake to the same familiar scent of Sunghoon wafting from under your door. It doesn’t process yet in your brain that you’ve not smelled it since the night you wandered from your apartment. But now? Oh, it’s strong. 

It’s very, very strong. 

Your drowsy eyes look to the door as your legs carry you there, and out you go. Down the hallway, straight to those big doors, straight through those big doors.

The scent burns in your throat the moment you step inside, blurry eyes witnessing two figures right there on the floor. The only clear thing you can make out are his darkened narrowed eyes, only because your brain refuses to process the act taking place in front of you at first.

He looks…rabid. Hair is a mess, sticky and dripping with thick metallic liquid. 

Oh, it sounds so loud. The squelching and the smacking of skin. Your stomach drops, the pit inside of it flourishing with nothing short of rotted desire. 

Right there on the floor of his room lies a woman seemingly experiencing god. Sunghoon is moaning with his eye trained on your shocked figure. He ignores the woman’s aroused grasps against his arms to keep his eyes trained on you. And he just…smirks through it, licking his lips, rolling his eyes back only for them to fall right back to you.

The squelching rings in your ears as he moves faster, feverishly chasing a hunt he’s already got lying beneath him. Almost as if catching him in the act aroused him more than he already had been. Like he’s showing you how much more he’d prefer someone else over you. 

He moans your name inwardly again and again, as if to call you forward to him but your feet can no longer move as you process the act with each call of your name. 

He’s fucking her. He’s devouring her. 

Not you. Her. 

You can feel your heart shrivel at the act when you stumble back, a twisting pain in your chest that you feel silly over. You barely know Sunghoon, but somehow it feels like he’s given you more of himself than he has anyone else. He speaks that way to you, anyway. Always with the words of “I’ve never done this, until you.” 

That was a lie. You’re seeing it now with your own two eyes and you’re paying for believing that you, somehow, could be special. And the pain in your chest travels all throughout your body at the fact that you let this man bite you. You let him take and take until you could barely stand, until you could barely think, until you were right on the cusp of death. 

And you still want to do that for him. But now? He’s grown bored of you. Perhaps he intends to let this woman live too. Perhaps she’s silly enough to fall for a sweet vampire’s words too.

You stumble back more, forcing your legs to work with you rather than against you. It’s like your body has a mind of its own when he smells so welcoming. Cinnamon, spicy, sweet, painful cinnamon. Such a suffocating smell, easy to give in to and grow weak for. At least for you, that’s how it feels. 

When you force yourself to turn around, only to continue stumbling down the hallway, your eyes work against you now too. You knew it would happen though and it’s not something you can stop. The burn and blur of tears prickling at the corners, your throat scratchy and sore. 

You try to hold it in, feeling as if life is being suffocated out of you all the way down. Down, down, down. Past the nuns, past the beautiful and intricate interior, and straight out of the big front doors of the cathedral. 

No goodbyes. 

The breezy night air smacks you hard, forcing a sobbed breath out of you. You dry heave for a moment, squeezing your eyes shut so tight just to try and regain control of yourself and your emotions. The images behind your eyes flash back and forth. You’ve not just witnessed death, but the pleasure of death. Well, if he kills the woman, anyway. 

And you still can’t fathom it. The way you feel, the way you’re reacting, the intense desire for death if it means Sunghoon wants you that badly. Never would you have guessed that a feeling so deeply terrifying exists. But it does, you’re witnessing it overtake the deepest parts of you right now. 

Fuck, you didn’t want to leave but you did. And now here you are, freed from a grasp that you still want so badly. 

Your lungs burn and your chest hurts more than the swollen puncture wounds all over your body. Everything is burning. It’s too, too, hot inside of your skin right now and there’s nothing more you’d rather do than to crawl out of it and freeze. 

Still, you do your best to control the emotions within you. You take a short look around only to feel the head rush hit you now like it should have when you stood from your bed. Right, the blood in your body likely isn’t enough to keep you upright for long and you know you’ll likely not make it to your apartment in this state. 

But you try. Your eyes are out of focus and your legs are clumsy as you try to walk. Down the sidewalk you go, until–

“Woah, little lady.” 

You hear Balor’s voice echo in your ears. The sound of safety feeling so, so far away. 

You can’t even thank him for it because your vision blurs more at the feeling of big, leather clad arms holding you upright, and then– you’re out.

You’re not sure how much time has passed by the time you’re able to hold your eyes open again, but when you do, Jungwon is here and so is that hot bartender you forgot existed. And as you try to comprehend where you are, you learn very quickly that you’re in the back room of the club with concerned eyes focused on..not your face, your body.

“Let’s get you home.” Jungwon’s concerned voice settles in your ears, and only now do you feel his warm hands soothing you against your shoulders. 

“Or maybe a hospital?” Jay offers, also inspecting your skin and the weak state of your body as you try to sit up. 

“No, no. I’m okay, really.” You say, immediately starting to cry out. “Please, just take me home.” 

And so, home is where you go. Jay drives both you and Jungwon there with a kind voice and worried eyes. You see him make the attempt to hug you before leaving, but Jungwon is quick to stop him with a small shake of his head. 

“Let me know when you’re feeling better.” Is all Jay says when he leaves, which, you’re sure he didn’t intend to leave but of course, Jungwon. You can see that he wants to be the one here with you and he insisted to Jay that he’s got you. 

It heals your heart a little bit, but doesn’t change the fact that you’re embarrassed for not only Jungwon to be pulled into your mess, but Jay too? 

You’re humiliated. 

And by the time Jungwon has undressed and redressed you, ignoring the intense smell of alcohol against your skin for now, he’s immediately lying next to you, clinging to you really. 

 You’re aware of what he saw when he removed your clothes. You heard the breath he took in, you saw his confusion at how the clothes you had on were very much not from your closet. He’s going to ask, and you knew he would.

“You’re really cold.” He says in a cracked voice, gentle and sweet as he tries to warm you up. “You weren’t with your mom, were you?” 

You weakly shake your head. 

“You were with that guy you told me about before.” He says now, grabbing you tighter pretending he doesn’t know just how many wounds you have under your clothes. He can’t help but hold you tighter, even if it hurts you.

“What did he do to you?” 

Your throat starts to burn as you cry again. You can barely process what’s happened yourself and explaining it to someone else only feels that much harder. 

The pulsing in your head is too much, you can’t even think straight right now. 

“It was–” You try to calm down, breathing in deep but avoiding eye contact. “It was consensual, don’t worry.” 

Jungwon’s eyes narrow, staring at the deep bite marks on your neck. He’s quick to lift himself up, ripping your shirt up and off of you without so much as trying to be gentle. His panic is blatant and he’s entirely unable to hide how pissed off he is right now.

“No, it wasn't.” He dead-pans as he presents your own body to you, his voice coming out harsher than usual. “You’d be out of your fucking mind to think i believe that this was consensual.” 

He glares at the swollen marks, unsure as to what to do with himself. 

“Fuck,” He scoffs your name along with the curse, throwing his hands up. “Fucking look at them.”

You turn away from him now, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively in an attempt to not peer at what you wish you could have more of. You know what this looks like though, and you’re really trying to see things from his perspective. 

But…It’s hard after everything you’ve witnessed yourself. 

‘It was.” You say again. “I practically begged him to keep doing it.” 

Jungwon falls silent as he counts. 1, 2, 3, 13, 25, 56, 72, still more.

“I wasn’t going to come home, you know.” You sigh out at the silence of his counting. 

More silence. 

“Was gonna stay and never leave.” 

“What? Why?” He panics more at the admittance, dropping down over you and forcing your arms from yourself, trying to pretend he didn’t re-open some of your wounds by tearing your shirt off of you. 

You can hear your best friend crying at the way you hide from him, all bloodied and bruised, but you keep your eyes closed even tighter. All he can do is lend you the entire weight of his body, enveloping you in all of his warmth and care, using his entire body to shield you from even the air in your room. 

“What did he do?” Jungwon pleads for an answer with a cracked whisper. He needs context. Anything to explain the state of you right now.

“You wouldn’t understand.” 

“What did he do?” He presses again, voice only cracking more as he cries along with you. 

“It’s more so what he didn’t do.” 

Silence again. 

“What did he fucking do?” 

You take in a deep breath, sighing out against your best friend’s fluffy hair, humming at his warmth and how much you’ve missed it. 

There’s nothing you can say to make him understand, all you can do is try because hearing him like this is, arguably, just making it more painful.

“I just really liked him, and I guess he didn’t like me so much in the end.” 

Jungwon chooses to take that at face value, opting to not let you out of his sight from this moment forward if he can help it. At one point with you, he was worried about being too clingy. Truly, he was afraid he would annoy you by attaching himself. Never has he grown so close to a person so fast and never has he gained such comfort within someone else’s bubble like he does with you. The comfort is still there, but no longer does he give a single fuck about clinging too much. You clearly cling too.

If you cling enough to let a man abuse your body like that, you’ll be able to handle him clinging just as much, enough to care for you, and enough to not fucking leave your side. He’s not going anywhere, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

After all, he’s not stupid, but he’s willing to act as dumb as you need him to if it means you’ll let him keep you within arms reach. In his head, there’s no way you fell into something with someone who could do this to you without reason, and it appears it’s not a question he’ll get a clear answer from you any time soon. 

It doesn’t matter if his installation will come to an end at some point. He can’t just leave you here when there’s some strange man running around biting the fuck out of people like a rabid dog. Abusing his best friend? No. He won’t have it and he doesn’t care if he has to force you to accept his protection.

He can’t do much for you, but he’s willing to at least be here with you. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Jungwon soothes you, clinging tighter just to feel some of those reopened wounds bleed onto him. His voice is a stark reminder that there’s more to feel in your body than just pain. “I won’t let him near you again, okay?”

You nod, still crying as you cling back, trying to ignore the images in your head of Sunghoon. 

“Okay.” You lie, missing him too much already, the faint scent of cinnamon still in your nose. 

And you fall asleep like that. Warm. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

You hate calling it an “escape.” You carried yourself out of that beautiful cathedral against your body begging you to stay. Still, even now with Jungwon clinging so warmly at night, you wish you had never left. 

Even the pain of seeing what Sunghoon does behind your back, the jealousy that came with it, you would have stayed if only to prove your worth to him. Being so close to death is exhilarating, and you find yourself feeling entirely empty and void of any emotion that brings joy because of it. 

This isn’t depression, nor is it simple envy. This sadness within you sinks lower than you thought possible, so deeply rooted within you that you feel death itself couldn’t even allow a safe escape. After all, if vampires are real, who's to say you won't end up as a tormented ghost forever searching for a man who can never die?

Damned if you live, damned if you die, so to say. You can’t have Sunghoon either way, you can only have him while suffering. 

And oh, how you miss the cold. You miss his cold. You miss the fear too. You miss the way he’d laugh with no breath against you and drink from your thighs like he needed more. You miss the way your wounds would pulse in pain and lend little reminders of the teeth that pierced them. Even now, they’re healing so well.

And it still hurts.

It hurts to know he said, while holding you, that he craves you. That he very much wants you but has things to tend to. The fact that he needed to tend to fucking other women while drenched in their blood? Things to tend to. 

Because to Sunghoon, real life women, breathing women, are minimized to things to tend to.

Fucking vampires. 

It’s been a week now since you left and it hasn’t gotten easier. During the week, Jungwon hasn’t so much as let you shower without the bathroom door open. You guess that’s fair. 

Still, it has only been a week. A week of everything moving fast, a week of Jungwon, a week of slow and dreadful acceptance, and a week of smelling nothing but faint, ever so slight, cinnamon. 

By now you know it’s him. Like he’s truly dug his claws into you and doesn’t intend to let you forget all that he took from you. Always that fucking smell, from the first night you met him until now. Yet he is nowhere to be seen, even when you stare at the cathedral after the sun goes down. 

No one has left. No one has gone inside. 

Part of you even found yourself worrying if he’s eaten. Hah. Funny.

Still, you’re forced to live in reality now. Nothing but healing wounds, meaningful days, and reminders that you let yourself fall as quickly and painfully as possible. 

You’re entirely dissociated, as if you’re gliding rather than walking, as if each day passes in a second rather than a twenty four hour time span, as if you’re truly empty now and not filled with the blood you thought meant so much. 

Somehow, you find comfort in the emptiness though. Jungwon fills the space as best he can too. He always accepts your rejections of going to update Jay at the club just to sit between your legs on the living room floor and try to make you laugh through silly faces riddled with concern.

You assume he’s in contact with Jay anyway, letting him know that you’re not quite dead yet. 

The days blur together now, up until two weeks pass, three weeks, four, five weeks.

Thankfully, by the fifth week, it’s gotten easier. Each day you just have to remind yourself that you can never forget Jungwon again like you did before. He’s the one who helped you through this, and to think you’d ever make him go through this again is insane. In fact, he’s the reason you finally feel good inside again. 

He’s like medicine, which is cringe and lame as fuck to say but it’s true. Internally, he’s made you feel better. Yet, right beside all those happy warm feelings lies everything else. Distress, sadness, anxiety. 

They still seep out of you too. Every night, really, after the daytime wears off and Jungwon runs out of things to distract you with.

“Why do you have to look at me like that?” Jungwon says sweetly, sprawled out on your bed in his pajamas as he watches you pace around your room. “I swear, it’s like everything I say to you goes through one ear and out the other.” 

You pause in your step, sad eyes reaching his face. 

“I already told you I’m not going home.” He repeats himself for what feels like the thousandth time to you. “I’m still getting paid, I have enough to last me if you let me stay here before finding work.”

After all, it’s not like Jungwon has anything to go back home to. Save for an annoying sister who probably wanted him to move the fuck out of her space anyway. He’s the last person on this earth to be afraid to up and move out with a near stranger.

You’re not so much a stranger to him though, and the need to be by your side far outweighs anything else right now. 

“Yeah, but, eventually.”

Never have you been one to worry about fleeting time. Never until you met that dead motherfucker. You worry about not what is happening, but what will happen. The inevitable. You no longer welcome it. 

It’s not death that brings the anxiety though, it’s just…the clock. 

With the ticking, the tocking, and the changing of seasons. Everything lasts both too long and not long enough. At this moment, the fear is Jungwon leaving at some point in your life. For any reason at all, really. 

He’s been by your side since you found your way back to him. A nuisance at times, yes, but you’re attached. To an unhealthy degree, you are fucking attached to him at the hip. He’s your only grounding force on this earth and you think he’s picking up on it. 

To the point he’s offered to drop his entire life an hour away just to stay for you. 

Yes, Jungwon recognizes how toxic and unhealthy the friendship has become, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t just leave, nor does he want to. Even if he’s the one who leaves to get your mail, he’s the one who cooks, and he’s the one who holds you close at night, reminding you that time doesn’t have to mean a damn thing if you try hard enough to forget about the man who doesn’t experience it at all.

There’s no way you can get through a single day without him right now, and the thought of having to do it in the future scares you. 

You know it’s pathetic. You know you have no right to keep him in a box next to you as a comfort, you know he’s still got a life to live and romance to find. But…you hate it. 

“Eventually what?” He quirks a brow at you, having been concerned for you and the shift in your entire personality yet again tonight. You’ve changed for the worse, and it terrifies him to see you act so gone. 

“You’re gonna leave me here alone.” Your voice is small, cracking when you say it only because you hear the words ring in your ears. 

A pathetic whine, as if you’re speaking to someone else and not Jungwon. You’re not you anymore. No, you’ve become obsessed with the looping memories and feelings that took a mere four days to fall in love with. 

Addicted to emptiness but begging for Jungwon to forever be the crutch you stand on. 

You’re selfish and you have no fucking right to do this to him.

“Hey…” He rolls out of bed and steps up to you, easily putting a soothing hand against your shoulder. “Do you want me to stay?”

You nod. Knowing this same situation happens nearly every night. You panic, he soothes. You beg, he reminds you that he’s the one who offered in the first place. You ask him to stay, he confirms by asking you to let him.

And to him, he knows this is anything but a romantic partnership. You very much need someone here who is willing to play dumb but remain hyper aware. He wants to be this person for you because of his own selfish reasons too. 

It’s not all for you.

For one, he wants the girl back that he met last month. Secondly, he wants to see you learn and grow, because he knows you have a long and beautiful life ahead of you (and he better be fucking part of it.) And lastly, he’s never felt needed like this and there’s something in him that craves to be important too. 

It’s not too difficult for Jungwon to find people that’s important to him. Really, it never takes much. Perhaps someone held the door open for him, he’d probably jump in front of a bus for that person not two seconds later. But to feel just as important to someone else? 

He needs to be here with you. As toxic as it may seem to outsiders, Jungwon sees nothing wrong with being the person you need simply because you’re the person he needs too. 

“Then stop saying stupid shit.” He mopes now as he pulls you back to your bed and holds you much like he always does, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re always okay at work, but I swear the second we come home you’re falling apart.”

You freeze, falling apart instantly. 

“I wish you’d tell me what happened.” He says now, jumping into the typical routine of calming and soothing you. “I don’t know what to do when you get like this.”

You wish you would tell him too. 

But if he knew, that hope of ever seeing Sunghoon again would crumble. Already, Jungwon swears to you that he will never let this happen to you again. But you want it to, so, so badly. 

Even if you’re taking advantage of his care by letting him treat you like a child who can’t escape a tantrum, he really flipped his whole life because you chose to live in a crisis. 

You chose to do this to yourself and to Jungwon. 

Finally, you look up at him with your fingers gripping him.

“I ask so much from you.” You sniffle when you say it, immediately calming yourself and feeling like a fucking idiot for doing this. “I feel like I’m going insane.” 

He nods.

“You kind of are.” He confirms for you. “And you have to talk about it eventually, it’s just going to keep hurting if you don’t.”

He’s right. He’s always right. 

And like always, every single time you imagine how you’ll tell him, nothing in your brain can form a sentence. But you do try and by now, accustomed to your pain, you feel like something needs to be said before he grows tired of you too. 

“I don’t know why, but I wanted him to kill me so badly.” 

Saying it out loud doesn’t feel as good as you wanted it to, not with the way Jungwon’s face immediately contorts into panic.

“Wha-”

“But he wouldn’t do it.” You shake your head, refusing eye contact. “He’d do it to everyone else, but not to me.” 

“Wait, what?”

Maybe choosing to say that of all things was a mistake. After all, you did appear stumbling down the street near death already. Jungwon isn’t going to take what you’re saying lightly and you were stupid to believe otherwise.

“Have you ever smelled cinnamon?” You continue, trying to skew the conversation from his panic.

Jungwon is flipping his shit trying to make sense of your words. You wanted this guy to kill you? Well, he damn near fucking did and even now, while he’s not around, you’re practically dead already in terms of everything but breathing. And what the fuck do you mean he’d do it to everyone else?! 

Are you referring to an emotional death? Trying to make this shit sound poetic? Or did you really want to die? 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jungwon’s voice is stern but shaky. “Kill you how?” 

You shake your head.

“I don’t know.” You offer, knowing you’re just making it worse. “I wanted him to want me that badly.”

Jungwon drops his arms from you to pull back, dead-pan staring at you because he doesn’t know what to do or say to that. He forces himself to think of the reality of the situation. You’re just being poetic. You’re just being dramatic. 

He’s the same way when someone hurts him too, but still. Using such heavy words scares him, and he can’t just sit here and tell you it’ll be okay anymore. 

“But he doesn't.” Jungwon musters up the courage to say it, knowing you’re going to cry. “This weirdo literally tried to eat you alive, and he still doesn’t want you.” 

And you do cry again. 

“And now, you’re letting him kill you anyway?” Jungwon scoffs. “You’re begging me to stay here with you, just so I can watch you not even make an attempt to fucking get over it?” 

You know he’s telling you what you need to hear, doesn’t change the fact that you don’t want to hear it. The only thing you want to hear is Sunghoon and his lying words, telling you that Jungwon is full of shit. 

The worst part about it is that, it’s not even that you’re suicidal. You’re not. You like being alive. You’re just…you don’t know. You don’t fucking know why you wanted and still want Sunghoon to kill you.

Perhaps it’s because it would mean he needs you that much.

But he doesn’t need you, you’re not irresistible. 

And that hurts you. That man fucking slithered into your heart and made a nest there. You can’t get him out no matter how much you try. 

“He broke up with you. You were together for like, what? A few days?” Jungwon minimizes the situation unintentionally, panicking at the way a person he’s grown so close to has managed to be utterly fucking ripped apart by a singular man. “He broke up with you. That’s it. It’s time to stand up and move on, there’s better people out there that–”

“No.” You shake your head. “I broke up with him, I guess, if you can call it that.” 

Jungwon softens, tilting his head. Now he’s getting somewhere. 

“Why, then? Why did you break up with him when you didn’t want to?” Still, Jungwon is glad you chose to. Clearly you’re not as absent minded as you pretend to be. Seeing how littered your body was with pain, you knew you needed to leave, right? You weren’t really just going to let this guy wither you away, right?

“He was with someone else.” 

Jungwon shakes his head in pity. 

“What a scumbag. A total freak.” 

“But like, he needed to do it, I guess.” You try to explain without truly explaining. “I got mad and left because he was doing something he needed to do with someone that wasn’t me.” 

“He needed to cheat on you? Are you hearing yourself?” Jungwon questions, throwing his arms up. “He’s a nympho, babe, he probably manipulated the fuck out of you to make you think this way.”

And at that, you give up on talking about it. You feel too tired to continue. 

“I guess so.” You whisper out with a shrug, sniffling up the tears.

“He doesn’t deserve you. You can’t just…die for people.” Jungwon says, realizing that even he doesn’t follow his own advice. He’d probably die for you himself, but not because he craves it.

He’ll never understand why you wanted this man to “kill” you. In whatever way you meant, no one is worth owning that much of you. 

Jungwon hums though, knowing you’re tired now. He isn’t exactly being as soothing as he’d like to be right now but never has he seen a person act like this over a break up. Cheating hurts, of course, but you barely knew this guy. There’s no way there isn’t something else going on for you to say such insane fucking things. 

“You must’ve lost your damn mind to let someone do that to you.” Jungwon says against your hair, his soft voice not matching his words in the slightest. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Me either.” You admit, feeling the insanity bubbling in your stomach and hating it. 

Still, the scent of cinnamon. 

“Do you smell it though?” You ask now, voice even weaker. 

Jungwon inhales deeply, releasing his breath with all of the frustration in his gut.

You feel it fan across your cheek warmly, minty, and you smile. 

“Cinnamon?” He asks, remembering your question from before. “Yeah, sometimes I can smell it.” 

You smile bigger now. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Another two weeks pass, only this time you are coming back to yourself. Which is strange, really. You were beginning to think you’d never feel like a person again after the first month passed. Then, within another few weeks you’re almost entirely back to yourself. 

You’re still a bit dissociated, which is likely due to the trauma of what you experienced and put yourself through but thankfully, the ticking-time spans you grew to hate forces itself now to be your new form of comfort. With each passing second, hour, day, and week, you’re slowly able to not forget, but accept and move on. 

Still, you know it’s going to fuck you up for years to come. You’ll always have the feeling of emptiness deep inside no matter how much the space shrinks. You have no choice now but to try and fill your life and time with things and people who matter to you. At least this way, you know that you matter too. 

And with this time spent away and healing, the scent has faded too. You can even go to work now without holding your breath or your eyes being forced to look at the source of the smell. In fact, you avoid taking even a glimpse of the looming cathedral. You don’t keep cinnamon in your apartment now either. You don’t take it with any of your beverages or food items, and you certainly shouldn’t be smelling it in the air anymore. 

Sometimes it’s still there though, turning your stomach in a way that’s both needy and sick. You still miss him and the feeling of ice, but you know better now. Why give up the ability to breathe without your throat burning? Why give up being a person that Jungwon actually wants to be around now? 

After all, you’ve started feeling so much better to the point that even he feels okay leaving you alone from time to time. Showers are back to being private, you can check your own mail, and a few times you were even able to go to work without him trying to force his way inside like his installation was still sitting on display. 

Which, it isn’t, by the way. Your boss had his name and face blacklisted, but still on most days he waltzed in like he owned the place. Every single time buckling the knees of your boss, every single time being allowed to stay. 

Thankfully, push came to shove and he landed himself a job there with you, his employment became official just today, actually. And as professional as the place was for you when you approached with your resume, it’s definitely not professional at all. They did pay Jungwon under the table several times just for doing shit you were supposed to be doing. 

The point is, even if Jungwon wasn’t able to make the effort to keep good on his word regarding moving into your apartment to stay beside you, he still likely would have pushed to at least work with you. 

Thankfully, he gets to do both those things. 

And despite the fact that he feels okay leaving you alone from time to time, there’s still an immense amount of anxiety about being away from you for too long. He knows that in time, it’ll pass and the two of you can live both near each other and apart, but for now? Might as well call him your husband because there’s no way in hell he’s gonna be doing his own thing without you. 

That leads to now. The same day Jungwon secured his employment, the same day you made it through without a single breakdown, the same night Jungwon needs to actually go back home to move his shit into this apartment with you.

“Come with me.” Jungwon comments, but you know it’s more of a demand. “You can meet my sister, just ignore if she makes jokes about us dating or something.”

You laugh. Genuinely, you laugh.

“Jokes? We both know you’re in love with me Jungwon. I’m just waiting for the ring at this point.” 

He laughs with a shrug, knowing he probably would marry you at this point, if just to protect you from all the people who wouldn’t care for you as much as he does. 

“Really though, come with me?” He asks again. “I’m still a little worried about leaving you here.”

“You’ll be back in the morning,” You start, trying to calm him down. You genuinely do feel okay right now. “I’ll just be sleeping the whole time, I'm tired anyway.”

Jungwon nods fondly, aware that it’s only practical that he make the move during the night hours. After all, his sister won’t be home otherwise and he does miss her. It’s true that you’ll probably just go to bed and he’ll be back before you even wake up tomorrow.

Still.

“You could just sleep in my old ro–”

“Wonnie.” You walk up to him and grab his face with both hands. “I’m fine.” 

He smiles at you, always loving the way you do your best to reassure him even through your worst breakdowns. You’re not breaking down right now though, and he can’t help but believe every word you say when you’re looking at him like this. 

“I swear to god if I come home and you so much as have a single bite mark on you, I’m burning this fucking city to the ground.” 

You roll your eyes, the memory stinging only a little bit. By now though, you’ve almost entirely forgotten how it felt in the first place. 

In fact, you’re shocked by the way you acted after leaving. So outside of yourself. Truly, you think you were going insane and Jungwon was right to confirm that for you. You’re lucky you had him here with you, because you likely would have ran right back into that fucking cathedral and–

Yeah. You would have done something dramatic. 

You didn’t though. And sure, you now know vampires exist or whatever but Sunghoon has not bothered you even once since you left. You hope he’s simply moved on so that your resolve doesn’t break. Jungwon worked so hard to make you feel better, and you worked just as hard. You can’t just feel bad that you don’t remember what Sunghoon’s fangs felt like against your skin.

If anything, you hope Sunghoon is freaked out by you leaving and knowing his secret. Maybe he thinks that if he tries to approach you again, you’ll tell everyone about what he is and what he did. Not that it would end with him in jail or anything. You’d probably end up in an asylum, actually, but still. 

And to Jungwon’s threats of arson, you simply pinch his cheek, being sure to sit your thumb right in his dimple. 

“Strictly no vampire kinks.” You smile at him, crossing both of your arms in front of yourself to create an X. 

“Good.” Jungwon nods back as he puts on his shoes and heads for the door. “Call me if you need anything, I’ll keep my volume turned up. You’ve got Jay’s number too, he can be here quickly if it’s an emergency.”

He feels content knowing that you’re about to be stuck with him for as long as he can manage. It’s just one short trip back home. A mere six or seven hours spent away while he packs the shit his sister probably “forgot” to box up for him, loading up the rented van, and then unloading it here. 

It’s just a short trip. You’ll be sleeping through it anyway. 

And when he’s gone, you feel tired. Keeping good on your promise of going to bed almost immediately. The feeling of being alone for the night is a bit uncomfortable, so sleep comes easy as a means to escape the inevitable over-thinking you’d probably do otherwise. 

No overthinking. 

It’s just a short trip. 

Jungwon will be back before you wake up. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Ah, to think it’s over. 

To think he’d leave you be? To think he wouldn’t be looming around every corner watching, waiting? If it weren’t for Jungwon, these weeks wouldn’t have passed so easily for you, that much is certain.

As if they were easy for you to get through at all. Jungwon, the very person who got you through it, was the reason he stayed away, the reason you were able to heal. 

Jungwon was the ward.

Was. 

Deep in your sleep it’s like your body knows. The same scent fills your nose just seconds after your sleep brain feels the goosebumps spread across your skin. Instantly, you wake up and back to insanity you go

You truly wake up. 

Your legs aren’t being carried by any force other than you own, and your mind is crisp and clear in your thoughts as you jump out of bed. 

Not walking, running to your apartment door. You swing open the door and don’t even look at him before slamming your entire weight against his chest and clinging like a lost child. You can feel the familiar cold fear filling your body, knowing that if he truly wanted to, he could kill you right now. 

All of the progress you made burns away within seconds. You’ve never felt so elated to ruin your own life. 

Even when he pushes you away, nothing at this moment could make you let him go. He’s here, he’s standing right there. Your fingers grip as he pushes you back in silence, stretching his garment out far beyond the bounds of which it was sewn to withstand. It rips, and still he shoves you further back from him all while stalking forward. 

Walking you back into your apartment, just to let the door slam behind him as he stands with a narrowed gaze fixated on you. 

You glance up at him only for a moment, loving the crazed look in his eye. Adoring that he must have missed you to appear so full of life like this. You can only compare his eyes now to the same eyes you saw when you ran away from him. 

As if they were burning on you. Or perhaps, for you? 

He’s dangerous, your body feels it instantly and all you can do is lean into it.

“That’s all it took for you to leave me?” Sunghoon bellows out in a spiteful voice, the sound sending pleasant shivers down your spine. “Had your blood boiling over some minx? I told you I didn’t want you witnessing it.” 

You soak in his voice like it’s your last supper, missing it so badly, adoring it even more. He speaks as if weeks haven’t passed, as if it’s a mere hour after you ran from him. You move forward to cling again, unable to think of words to say and opting to show how much you regret leaving through your actions.

Still, he pushes you away from him. A bit harder this time, to the point you almost topple over onto your back. You keep your balance only because it feels like you’re fucking floating just looking at him right now.

“I tried to pull you back to me, why did you fight it so hard?” He continues to fuss, as if he’s been thinking over and over again about all the words he wants to spit at you. Like he’s punishing you, and yet still struggling himself not to cling back. “Never has your aroma been so empty, so faint.”

You’re in shock but your body yearns for him, thankful to go back to square one. Like you’re special. Like you meant something enough to him that he’s here looking like he may give you what you’ve wanted all along. 

“Countless women. Countless men. Never you, and now you manage to hide from me?” His hand shoots to your neck, pushing you back further into your apartment. “How?” He grips dangerously tight as he continues to spew his breathless words. “You masked yourself with that– that floral boy, didn’t you?” 

You listen to his spiteful words like your favorite song, falling into each vibration of his vowels and consonants. Never has he spoken so much, and never have you heard his voice waver the way it is now. You can’t help but follow his movements with a smile on your face, swallowing through this tight grip on your throat. 

“You cannot fathom how hard it was to stop. Do you understand how much I want to fuck every last drop out of you? You should be thanking me.”

Oh, you’re so proud. So, so, fucking proud. The glee runs through you at his needy words, even if you know better. He’ll always feed on people who aren’t you, and he’ll always probably fuck them too. 

But does he show up at their house? Does he grow frustrated with them like this too? 

“Did you kill her when you were done?” You ask out through his choking hand, so confident that it makes him freeze on the spot.

He’s genuinely shocked that you’re not scared. You’re not intimidated. You don’t feel bad. No, you feel proud of being hunted. Like you take enjoyment out of his suffering, much like he does for you. 

On his part, it’s not intentional. You have to suffer to be next to him. 

Never has a person made him suffer too though. Fucking never would he have allowed it. God, he’s infatuated with you, utterly obsessed.

“Of course I killed her.” Sunghoon admits with his brow rising up, feeding into your ecstatic reaction of his death grip on you, only gripping tighter now. “Does that please you?” 

You’ve never been happier. 

And he moans out at the way you shyly nod, seemingly experiencing euphoria at his admittance of murder. Oh, if only you knew how good you smelled that night. Blood pumping for him, blood boiling in emotion for him. The woman didn’t last more than a minute after you left him. He couldn’t resist at that point. 

Seeing you, smelling you, fucking someone who he wished could have been you. 

He’s not prepared at all for this, for you. So willing, wanting what he’s trying to avoid doing to you.

That’s why he’s here though. Unprepared, but unable to resist any longer. He has pulled and pulled, every single day trying to lure you back to him against your will. He thought he was going to have to take you tonight against your wishes. 

But your eyes are sparkling for him. 

“No one’s heart has ever beat quite like yours when looking at me.” Sunghoon whispers now, falling and spiraling into this moment with you, losing his composure entirely. “So loud, each pump fucking gushes.”

“And I'll chase it every time.” He continues to ramble in a way that sounds like he’s in physical pain, like the amount of time you’ve stayed away from him genuinely hurts him. 

You still can’t respond though, your words are caught up in your throat right where his hand squeezes and you couldn’t even if you wanted to. He knows it too, and he didn’t intend to let you answer anyway because genuinely, he’s fucking losing himself. 

His hungry lips chase forward near instant after saying those words to you, not biting, just kissing. Tasting you rather than the blood that drives him. 

Because for some reason, that’s what he craves right now. 

“I beg.” He cries out against your tongue, relishing in the feeling of your life clutched in his hands, not even sure himself of what he’s begging for.

“Sunghoon,” You choke out his name with a gentle voice, pulling back from his bruising lips and throwing your arms up around his shoulders. “I bet you could smell my heart shatter too.” 

He moans at the strained words first and the out of body experience you lend to him second. His soul is always trapped within this dead skin, but you ascend him. 

Here, standing with his hands on your throat, you hold him? You say sly, mocking words? Oh, he can give you the world. He can give you anything you want. He can be whatever you want. Never has a person had this hold on him, and never could another person be able to do what you do. 

He can’t just let you go. He tried already. He’s supposed to be the one with the ability to hunt, lure, and pull. How is it that you do it to him? Your blood alone does it. The fact that all you need to do is exist within the same city and he’s ripping his bedroom walls apart wanting to get at you? He needs you. 

No. You’re not going anywhere this time. He’ll give up the taste of your sweet blood if he has to. The taste of your wet tongue is enough to satiate him by this point. The feeling of your neck beneath his hands, your pretty eyes urging him to strangle the life out of you.

He’d do it too. All you’d have to do is ask. He would do anything for you at this moment, no matter the cost. He will take anything you offer.

“Oh–” He groans first, licking his lips. “I could almost taste it.” His eyes darken more, somehow, as he leads you through the apartment. All the way until that same gaze causes your legs to buckle. He can’t help it by this point, after all, he knew coming here would end up this way.

There’s no self control when his hands release your neck, your buckled legs forcing you to fall against the floor, and he gladly topples with you. His hands immediately shoot to either side of your head, holding himself up just so he can dip down and inhale you. 

Fuck, he missed the way your skin smells more than he remembers. And trust, missing you was a daunting experience for him before he got here.

He inhales all over you, again and again. He trails his nose against both sides of your neck, up your cheek, into your hair, down to your neck again.

“So delicious.” He moans mindlessly. “Never have I missed someone so terribly.” 

“You were with someone else.” You continue your confident scolding with a scoff, only because of the way he’s losing himself on you. This is all you could ever want and reminding him of why you left feels elating. 

“My love,” He starts, speaking right up against your ear as one of his hands trails from your cheek to your waist. “My loyalty to your life is what I offered.”

Goddamn the confidence running through you smells stronger than anything he’s ever experienced. As if you didn’t already drive him to do things he never once considered. Oh, now? With you like this? He would die ten times more for you and you alone, if he could, anyway. 

“Do you not recognize that I would have drained you to death, if I didn’t want you here with me?” 

He lifts his head now, looking at you with so much adoration. 

“You’re not a simple meal, when will you understand that?”

And when you snicker at his desperate praise, he cannot fucking control the feelings within him.

“Your little floral friend is going to be devastated,” He admits with a rumbled voice, alluding to the inevitability of him coming here tonight. “You’ve begged me for this, and now I’m begging you.” 

You pause, feeling the butterflies in your stomach release in a deep breath. 

“Die for me.” Sunghoon whispers, dragging that same wandering hand straight between your legs and dipping into the wet heat he’s been missing so badly. No blood, just thick, hot, wet slick. “I beg.” 

You can barely comprehend his words through that ice cold feeling of his fingers pressing into you. He hums in the silence, looking straight into your eyes with the question. He’s very aware of the weight behind it too. 

“My love, please.” He continues, losing composure by the seconds as he feels how warm your wet walls are hugging his fingers. “Not in a thousand years have I wanted someone more than you.”

He continues pressing his fingers in, moaning himself at how good it feels, only to feel your moan fan against his cheeks in turn. It’s something that drives him only further from the self-control he fought so hard to keep. That warm breath represents the life within you that he intends to snuff out. If at all, to keep  you forever. 

“And not for a thousand years more–” He’s starting to babble, his once clear thoughts racing at being surrounded by everything that is you. “Please.” 

And his fingers only quicken with his thoughts, rendering you unable to answer even if you tried. The idea and confirmation in his head of not truly killing you drives him wild. It would be death, nonetheless, but not true death. For weeks he has suffered over the thoughts, always telling himself that he would never fate someone to a death such as his own. 

But you, oh you. The sublime blood within you pulled him harder than he believes he pulled you. Never in his thousands of years has he experienced such a thing, nor did he know such blood existed within a person. It drives him to feel for you. To adore you. To be entirely enamored with the fact that you have shattered him from within at both the thought of losing your blood, but wanting to take all of it. 

Still, he craves the taste of you to such an extent that you truly will die tonight, whether it’s against your will or not. It’s too late for him to reason with himself, feeling your walls wrapped around his fingers, seeing you act so mischievous towards his antics from before. At this point, just a blink of time compared to how long he’s lived, the decision is clearer than anything he thinks he’s ever had to choose. 

If he can’t have all of your blood, you’ll waste it on a death not nearly as beautiful as he can offer. 

If he can have all of your blood, perhaps he doesn’t have to lose you along with it. After all, it’s not just the blood at this point that makes him feel like a blood-drunk beast. No, no, no. It’s everything that is you. Your skin, the secretions of your body, the way your hands grip and the way your eyes blink. Blood-drunk, yes, but more so just drunk on you.

He can settle without the breath and without the blood if you’re willing to share meals with him for the remainder of time this earth has in the universe. 

Sunghoon’s mind is racing at the thought. Working too fast for him to focus on everything at once, but he tries. Tucking his fingers deep, nuzzling his nose into the crook of your neck and inhaling as deeply as he can. 

You’re feeling like you’re on top of the world in the way he falls apart on you, unable to comprehend that this is actually happening. Every word he’s said to you rings in your ears as if it were spoken in a language you can’t understand. With his fingers working you open, with his lips on your skin rather than his fangs…

You feel…different. Like he feels differently. 

And you can’t stop yourself from basking in the thought that he killed that woman. What was once jealousy that he didn’t want you enough to kill you has twisted and morphed into the thought that he kept you alive because he couldn’t stand not having you.

Every whispered word confirms it, and still you can’t comprehend fully what it is he’s trying to say. 

So, you focus and try to comprehend the feeling in your body that he’s offering instead. You have yearned for this cold within you. Missed it so badly you went insane. 

To think you’d ever truly get over him is arguably more insane than wanting him to kill you at all.

“Did you hear me?” He whispers against your ear, shoulders shifting with each plunge of his fingers, other hand clinging to your waist so tightly, almost pulling you to him. “You could be beside me,” He moves his lips across your neck, resting his lips against the moan you let out. “Forever.”

Oh, it clicks. 

And just as it clicks, he can hear your heart rate gushing the same blood he intends to take from you in full. Gushing, rushing through each vein and valve within you. Oh, he could truly devour you whole with how you’ve deprived him of this. He could leave not a trace of you left for the world to remember, but no. That would be worse than the beheadings that haunt his nightly visions. 

The sound of it rushing through you, god, it makes him feel like a mad man. He can’t help but prevent your timid answers in the midst of red hot desire. He pulls his hand out of you, spreading his palm against your healed thighs instead and spreads your legs out wide from under him. 

He’s quick to move down. No kissing, no biting, nothing like what he wants to do. He needs to satiate his desire somehow, and he doesn’t want to waste a single drop of your blood until the time comes. 

And when he pulls your sleep-shorts and panties off of you, he’s immediately licking a languid stripe up your glistening cunt. He remembers how it looked in red, the thought sending his body into overdrive at the taste of you now compared to that night. 

Still so sweet. Almost as good as the blood. Ah, it serves as a reminder that perhaps he can give up the blood after taking it from you. This alone is enough. So creamy, so slippery. 

Yes, yes. A confirmation. It’s you, not just your blood. It’s you he won’t live without. Your mind, your voice, the wet you spill, the cum you’ll let him fuck out of you. 

It’s always you. 

And he hums into it, licking into you as far as his tongue can manage. He braces both hands on your thighs just to spread them further, skewing his head to reach deeper, deeper, fucking deeper. Tasting you, smelling you, utterly obsessed with you. 

All you can do is shoot your hands down, forever waiting to feel his teeth sink into you but only feeling pleasure. So much pleasure. All of his freezing body parts just send consistent shivers up and down your spine. It’s like you can feel him under your skin when he does this, even with his hair tangled in your fingers as if you’re appreciating him for all of it. 

It’s so good. With the way he doesn’t need to breathe. He keeps his tongue in you, and even still you feel as if you don’t need your clit stimulated at all with the way he’s working his mouth so aggressively. And it’s good with the way his fingernails dig into your skin not yet enough to cause blood, unlike before. Good with the way he hums into you through it all, the same way he did when he’d feed on you.

Ah, it’s just, it’s good. It’s dreamy. All of it feels like a fantasy up until he does pull back. 

You look down in time with him looking up, those pretty eyes no longer looming and dark. Still crazed to an extent but you know they’re for you. 

“Sunghoon,” You whisper out, watching him closely with the way his eyes roll back at even hearing his name on your tongue so prettily. “Why aren’t you feeding?” 

You feel his fingernails leave more half moon shapes in your skin at the question. His eyes open in a half-lidded stare at you now, lips falling slack.

He looks so pretty, with the wet coating of his plush and pretty lips, your hands still tangled in his hair. 

He still just looks at you. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, and doesn’t answer. 

“You’re so quiet now.” You comment, feeling shy with the way he stares at you rather than your open pussy right in front of his mouth. “Say something.”

And within a single blink, his face is right up against yours, one hand still keeping your leg spread open, the other pinching your chin as he continues to stare.

“Let me have you.” 

You hear his words clearly this time, breath caught in your throat up until he kisses it out of you. He breathes you in deeply, trying to drown himself in all that is your life before what he will inevitably do. 

“Let me.” He pleads again, his eyebrows falling as if he’s in genuine pain to say it. 

Your arms reach around his neck, staring at him with so much confirmation in your eyes. You’d let him have anything he wants. Anything. 

And he groans at you, releasing your chin just to reach down to get his length out, appearing as though looking at you like this alone is enough to make him crumble to dust. He’s been aching this whole time too, since before he even left the cathedral. Borderline edging himself from both the pleasure of your body wrapped around him and the pleasure within you that would satiate his hunger just for a moment. 

He misses the feeling of you so badly. The warmth, the slide, the way you cling to him like nothing he could do would scare you. 

Just….one last time, he wants to feel warm. 

And he chases for the heat inside of you, sliding in without breaking eye contact, without waiting, without savoring it. 

It knocks the breath out of you again, forgetting just how cold it is when he settles in deep. So fucking deep. 

You wince in pain before moaning out to him, whispering his name in a drawn out sigh.

“Ah, my love,” He groans at your reaction, his hips immediately moving. “My pretty, pretty, love.”  Your walls hug him so perfectly, taking every inch with just a tiny wince.  “Will you still sound so lovely?”

You don’t understand the question, but you nod to him, wanting nothing more in this moment than to prove your worth to him. To please him. 

Such an insane woman, he thinks. Letting him take you and have you in whatever way he wishes. Whether living or dead, he truly believes every mindless nod you give to him. It’s clear, you’re just as deeply infatuated with him as he is with you.

Both of you would give and take happily, no matter what it is. 

And fuck he can feel your living pulse against him with each fast and torturous thrust, snapping his hips so quickly into you. He can’t help but fuck hard and with purpose. Slamming in and out with echoed slaps and mindless groans. 

Everything that you are could end him in an instant and all you can do is moan out for more. 

Oh, he gives it. Of course he does. He will give you anything. Everything. 

And it only becomes harder to resist when he kisses against your lips again, swallowing each moan of his name, exhaling it back out to you with the sound of your name. A mantra of two people, facing only death together and loving every heart-wrenching second of it. 

The cold within you flourishes with each sound in his throat, you squeeze around him, your legs hug against him, your arms wrap tightly against his neck as he kisses you. Your body can’t withstand the speed of his cock slamming into you for much longer without coming undone.

And he doesn’t stop, seemingly never growing tired. Up until he feels your body clench entirely around him, he clings back at you at the feeling, whispering handsome words and proud promises. 

“Already?” He grunted out first, hearing your blood rush and your muscles tense. “Ah, can hear it rushing through you, let it go, love.” 

And you do, you let it go despite wanting it to last longer. So, so much longer. 

He lends you a choked and inward groan at the way you react to his relentless thrusts, flexing his abs and pointing his cock as deeply into you as he can reach. And for the second time, Sunghoon feels the warmth of you spill over him. Prettier than the blood, your voice so, so, sexy choking out a string of curses just for his ears to adore.

“There you go.” He coos through it with his own groans, savoring every squeeze and squelch, adoring the sounds you make for him. 

And as he watches, he can’t help the feeling inside of him. Your heart is beating so fast through the pleasure only he can offer you, and he keeps doing it. Fucking you through the orgasm only to not stop after the fact either. 

It’ll be the last time he’ll ever feel heat like this on him. He can fuck any and every victim, but none will feel as good as you. Partially because you aren’t being manipulated, he has no hold on your mind right now. You’re not gripping and moaning because you’re in a daze, you’re doing it because you fucking want it.

God, having sex for the sake of sex is something he hasn’t done in a long time before you. Enjoying in the pleasure, fucking suffering through all of it. Truly, for him, if this is the last time your body will be warm, he’s going to take his goddamn time making sure you’re well aware of just how good you could have it if you let him keep you forever. Cold and dead, he’ll still love the feeling of your body.

So much that still, even with your orgasm dripping all over him, he pushes and he pushes. Thinking only of how he plans to drain you in more ways than once tonight. He can hold off for as long as he can with his own pleasure, because this alone is fucking bliss.

And he doesn’t care if he’s knocking the breath out of you, only because he knows that soon enough, you’ll never have to worry about breathing again.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

You’re unsure as to how long Sunghoon has been lying with you like this, but you were able to get a bit of rest against him. Even with your fingers feeling like ice wrapped up in his, you feel safe and at home here. 

Not because you are at home, but because he’s here with you. 

The night outside your window tells you that you’ve not been sleeping for long, but you can barely recall coming to your bedroom at all with him. He must have carried you here and cuddled himself up against you. 

You stir in his grasp, peeking an eye up at him. 

“You’ve rested enough?” Sunghoon smiles at you with saddened eyes, his pupils still blown and hair an absolute mess.  

You shift against him, turning to face him entirely. 

As he looks at you, all he can do is remind himself that he’s never considered fating someone with this curse until finding you. With your pretty jealous words and your intense need to have him take you out of this world all together. Never has he given the chance for another person to know him so deeply and have them react with only fondness and desire. 

This is his chance, isn’t it? To find forever? 

As monstrous as he is, he does still have desire. The feeling of loneliness isn’t meant to be grown accustomed to. For him at least. All of his fellow vampires have companions, and he swore he’d never do that to another person. 

Perhaps it’s because many of the vampires he has mingled with took their companions by force. He could see the disdain in their eyes, and that’s not something he thinks he could live with. But you don’t look at him like that. You slept soundly next to a man wanting to kill you. Actively struggling not to do it with each and every breath you take. 

And oh, since the start of his curse, the need to taste that last famed drop lured him to every meal he’s feasted on up until now. Such a delicious flavor, truly the best sensation running down his throat. To have you offer that last little sip to him? Ah, fuck.

 The feeling in his stomach flutters at the thought of turning someone for the first time. Knowing that someone will be you. Knowing that you wouldn’t be a companion filled with resentment and agony at your new life. 

It’s electrifying. Like his heart could beat again at any second because you truly make him feel like he’s never experienced death at all. Despite being surrounded by it, despite experiencing it himself, despite taking lives daily for thousands of years. 

It’s amazing to him, to love someone so much he’s willing to fate them with eternal thirst, congealed blood, glitter and gold, beautiful and ugly, accidental lures before intentional ones. 

Death.

Vile, cold, damp skin. Safe light of the moon, dust in the sun. The only threat is that of life itself.

Light. Sharp pointed dogwood stakes. Beheadings. 

But…a companion.

The life he could live with you, oh the joy that runs through him is far too beautiful. The forever life. Eternity. Living through it all, far surpassing the roaches and bacteria of this earth. With you. 

So many things you’ve forced him to understand. Loneliness, despair, want, need, envy. It’s been so long since he’s entertained petty mortal feelings, but you forced them into him and out of him. The only need he’s grown accustomed to was hunger and thirst. Never love, or warmth, or want. 

Oh, forever. The two of you could starve after draining every living soul. All it takes is for him to take that last gush of blood from you. 

Without the lure. Without the manipulation. 

Never would he perform the rite without your pleasant voice telling him to. Never would he want to spend eternity with a woman so luring who would want nothing more than to be the blade slicing through the bone in his neck. 

That legendary, utterly delicious, last drop of blood that he’s tasted so many times before. It’s different this time only because the blood isn’t for him and him alone now. He has to share it, and it pains him to know that none would taste quite like yours. 

The hardest part would be controlling his instinct of swallowing it instantly, rendering you dead and unmoving for the eternity he wishes to have you. 

A new feeling. 

Anxiety. 

Your death would be slow, a cold and dreary one, but it wouldn’t be lonely. He’d make sure you feel so good through it. He wouldn’t spill a drop. You’d be clean, avoiding a gruesome death otherwise. 

And time would be against him, because upon taking that last drop, he’d barely be able to savor it before continuing the rite. A final sip that he can’t even swallow. A final sip that must be fed to you. Blood leaving your veins only to slide down into your emptied stomach through dead lips.

There, a final exhale, and then forever inhales. 

You’d look so beautiful dying next to him. He’d hold you through it. 

Is fate so dreary in a moment like that? Where is he feeling something akin to love for the first time in lifetime after lifetime? Is he selfish to need you so badly? 

“You could have it all.” He inhales the words at your drowsy face nearing sleep again. The silence you lended after his last comment kept him in his head, and now he wants out of it. 

He hugs against you so tightly, trying to keep you awake despite knowing he likely fucked you too long and too hard.  Still, he wants to encourage a life with him for you. 

“I can give it all to you.”

You’re silent at his words as you listen to him. You soak them into your sleepy head and smile.

“Sunghoo-”

“I beg of you.” He answers for you, grabbing your face tightly and landing an immediate kiss against your lips. A deep kiss, one that…oh. He’s crying. 

You feel the cold wet hit your cheeks as he kisses. He does it before you can even move your own lips against him, but you do start to kiss him back. Your brows furrow in concern at this new emotion he’s showing to you, but your handles are gentle when you caress his cheeks through it. 

“Die for me.” He whispers through the kiss, trying not to let you pull back at the words. He knows now that you heard them loud and clear.

Oh.

Why is there nothing in this world that you want more?

“It’ll only hurt for a little while.” He tries to make it sound pretty with his soothing whispers, not yet realizing that he hasn’t cried in several centuries. “You’ll come back.”

“Are you asking me to–?” You breathe out for him, once, twice, and then never finish what you were trying to ask simply because he makes himself very clear.

“You can be like me, my love.” 

Your body pulses in fear, but the adrenaline hits you in all the right spots as you break eye contact to cling instead, this time shoving your nose up and against his neck. Wanting nothing more than this dead skin, needing nothing more than a man who wants to kill you. 

But Sunghoon doesn’t want to end you, no. He wants to keep you forever. 

And forever is different with Sunghoon. It’s never ending. 

Are you even prepared to never see an end? With the man whispering so sweetly to you? Absolutely. 

Would a split second decision like this ruin your life forever? What's forever anyway? When you have many lives to ruin and many more to deem a success if you choose to go with him. 

Die. Only to live forever? 

You nod once, then you shake your head. His arms wrap around you tightly at your indecisiveness. He’s content enough just knowing you’re considering it and truly, he’s trying to be patient. Waiting and well aware that the question is likely the hardest decision you’ll ever need to make. 

“I’ll beg again and again.” He whispers, feeling your panicked lips try to calm your breathing against his neck. Still, you’re clinging to him tightly and it makes him feel…happy. “I cannot fathom a death for you that’s not this. Forever gone from me.” 

You shake your head again, but then…you nod. 

“Will it hurt?” You ask, feeling your heart rate threaten to kill you before Sunghoon even gets the chance himself. 

“Tremendously.” He chuckles at the ignorance, though even he barely remembers the pain himself these days.

 “Only for a little while, darling. I told you.” He licks his lips, anticipating the blood running through you to run through him soon. The hunger is almost overcoming him now and if you don’t agree, he very well may end up killing you regardless.

And the thought pains him. 

If there was ever a time to hold himself back, it’s now.

“Don’t die without me here with you. Now or ever.” He continues in a sweet voice, trying to control the wavering breaks his throat is trying to force out of him. 

“Can I…” You stop yourself, squeezing your eyes shut. “Can I have a minute to think?” 

“Oh course,” He smiles to hide his frustration, pulling you back by your shoulders and sitting himself up against your bed. “But, the sun rises in three hours, and that’s three hours of fighting my urge to do it without your confirmation.”

You pause, finding comfort in the fact that he’s willing to suffer through your inevitable acceptance. There’s no way you’ll end up saying no to him, only because of how badly it hurt when you walked away from him. It rotted within you for weeks, and even when you thought you were better…all he had to do was stand outside your door to have you running to be in his arms.

What’s a bad decision when you could have lifetimes to make up for it? Even if said decision is what gives you those lifetimes. He’s asking for you to stay with him. To be with him. Isn’t that what you want?

But to die…

And you only cling to him through the fear, hoping he can save you from what he’s offering. He’s the comfort and the ultimate end. 

Or, perhaps, the ultimate beginning.

You’re not sure. You only found out vampires are real like two months ago. It’s not exactly something you can comprehend so quickly, but it is something you know you want more than anything if it means you can be next to Sunghoon. 

“Will it ease your fear if I talk about what it’s like to be me?” Sunghoon offers both a reason to give you insight, as well as distract his own mind during this moment of distress.

You nod immediately, hugging yourself so tightly to his side and trying to keep your nose up and against him simply because that brings you the most comfort. Smelling the faint cinnamon, feeling him against you. 

“I’m the first of my family to reside here, but I’ve been here for thirty years. Commoners aren’t aware as I try to remain hidden save for when I need to hunt.” He starts, continuing after hearing the way your heart calms. “But, city officials know very well who I am, and where I come from.” 

You listen, trying to take in his words as truth rather than fantasy. 

“I was born in seventeen thirty eight, overseas. Every few hundred years I’ll relocate simply because it becomes boring watching the same country grow and be destroyed. I ran from many wars, have lived many lives.” 

Oh. Okay.

“I know every language. I’ve lived every life you can imagine, worked every job you can think of to rid myself of boredom.” 

“So you weren’t always pretending to be a priest?” You try to make light of the fear within you, almost, somehow, wanting to snort at his choice of current lifestyle. 

“Ah, no.” He chuckles for you, rolling his eyes at how you mock him in the face of your own death. “I was a banker before this, I despised it. Only lasted about seven years before relocating here.”

A pause, you hear him chuckle. 

“I really despise numbers.”

In the calmness of his voice, within his gentle grasp, you feel comfortable. 

“Did you come for the cathedral?” 

He nods, holding you against him even tighter.

“History is protected, whether it be land, buildings, or people. It felt fitting to be a priest if I was to stumble inside parading as a drunken man needing a place to stay.” 

“How did you become, uh, what did she call you? Master?”

“Ah,” Another scoffed chuckle at your ignorance. “Did you believe them to be alive?” 

You freeze, body stiffening at the shock. They were fucking dead?! This whole time?!

“I slept in a cathedral full of fucking vampires?!” 

“You did.” He smiles. “But they are very well aware of what’s mine.”

He loves the way your face looks when you process words. He is more aware than you think of how insane all of this must sound to you. Yet, still, he has never truly lied to you. 

“They needed an order, so I brought that order. Thus, Master.” He smiles as he motions towards himself with you still in his grasp, as if he’s playfully boasting his own intelligence over the vampire-nuns. 

You pull back to look at him, feeling a bit calmer now in the way he describes countless lives and knowledge. You can’t experience any of that with the life you have right now. In fifty to sixty years you’ll be in an urn on your mother’s fireplace. 

Why would you want that when you could be in a bed with silk sheets? Or perhaps by then you’ll be able to travel elsewhere with Sunghoon, finding new beds with even softer sheets.

And only now do you realize that Sunghoon didn’t put you in danger at all. In fact, he knew he was dangerous and forced you to live. Even when you asked him to kill you. He…

Oh. Wow.

“Now, what is it, you think, that made you so special in regards to that woman you found me with? What is it, love? What do you believe kept me from ending your life to sustain my own?” And goddamn does it feel good to finally say it. Sunghoon loves the feeling of the words coming out of his mouth, finally spilling it all to you and seeing you only react with cheeky curiosity. 

“Why is that? Can you tell me?”

You’re silent as you think of his questions, unable to answer at all.  

“No…” You breathe out, knowing he can feel the hot breath against him only because his hand squeezes your waist. 

“I suppose after how long I’ve wandered this earth, even I am left with curiosities and questions too.” He smiles when he says it, thankful to know he hasn’t yet experienced everything there is. “I’d like to know why you have this hold on me too, darling.”

“Maybe it’s because I want it?” 

“Perhaps, yes. If you didn’t I likely would have savored every ounce of you already and for that, I should be thankful.” 

He shifts now, pressing you down against your bed and hovering over you with dark and sparkling eyes. His lips immediately go to your neck with the hunger he feels. Talking isn’t enough anymore. Holding you isn’t enough. He hasn’t eaten in days, and the fact that he could hold off even until now is strange to him. 

“Unlike many, you do not seek death–” He drags his lips against your skin, relishing in it. “You exist alongside it happily, you welcome it.” He continues to talk, his teeth now retracting against your skin and leaving little swollen scratches with each drag. “Perhaps had I not chosen to be a priest during this lifetime, you’d have already said yes.” 

“A singer? A dancer? Anything you wish for, I’ll become.” He smiles when he feels the goosebumps plump up under his teeth, and it’s so, so, hard not to bite. “So, won’t you stay? “

He listens so closely to your heart and breathing, nearly moaning at the need for it. 

“Watching you wither to death by anything other than my own teeth would surely have me seekinga dogwood.” 

Ah, so the fantasy movies and novels aren’t all wrong? So strange, truly, that he lives in a cathedral of crosses made from the very wood that could kill him. 

“We could be anything, go anywhere, dine on meals you merely taste but never need.”

He nods his head against your skin, hoping you’ll nod along with him, knowing that you will. 

“You could be mine, forever.” 

You’ve accepted him already, you just haven’t said so yet. He doesn’t mind sweet talking you though, reminding you of everything he can and will provide.

And to you, every single word he mutters is pretty, and everything you could ever need or want is right here. 

“I could be yours, forever.”

“I think–” You breathe out, hands now reaching up to scratch through his hair. “there is nothing I could want more than this.”

And the moment he gets that final word of confirmation out to you, he bites. The words you mutter drive him to it. He couldn’t even kiss you in appreciation simply because his instinct takes over. He lets go. 

Finally, he can let go. 

The need to control himself is no longer here, and it feels astounding. 

The sting is deep and it rings within you so loudly that you could hear the puncture vibrate your brain. Your ears burn at the direct puncture, and already you can feel his hands bracing you through it. As if he knows he’s never bitten you so deep in your pulse point like this. 

But the intention behind it somehow feels better than anything you’ve ever experienced. This is what you were jealous of and now you can only agree with your past self. There was good reason to be jealous of feeling this from him. Except, unlike that woman, he’s holding you through it. He’s grunting against your neck and swallowing large portions of your blood as the seconds pass. Losing himself with you. Almost as if he’s dying with you.

And he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, to the point your toes are feeling the sleep overtake them, then your legs, all the way up and down your body until your fingers are too weak to keep gripping against the locks of hair on the back of his neck.

You feel his fingers soothe you through the weakness when he pulls back, keeping his promise of not wasting a single drop. There is no blood smeared on him, only a trace of it on his inner lips as he watches your weakened expressions. 

He isn’t intentionally draining you so quickly, but…fuck. The blood. That glorious scent and taste was already too much to bear, but now? Knowing he gets all of it save for the best and final sip? He genuinely can’t help it. Controlling himself now after how long he’s held back? 

Darling, you asked for this. 

And his body reacts in aroused euphoria. Already he feels an orgasm bubble up just witnessing you die for him. Even then, he barely feels the heightened pleasure because the mind, dead or not, simply cannot comprehend the pure potent pleasure he’s experiencing.

He spills out all over himself, while you spill out for him. Your life, your very being. 

How can he not be terribly, horrifyingly, utterly stupendously in love with you? 

“My love, the light in your eyes will come back soon.” He smiles as he watches what happens to you through this, and then throws his head back in manic pleasure with a deep and animalistic moan. Arguably, even his eyes hold more life than yours right now. 

So, so beautiful. 

You’re too weak to speak, but you shake your head. Nothing is a pain to lose, nothing except him. 

And you find comfort in the way he sinks his teeth right back into those puncture marks. Sucking more and more out of you with a content smile on his face. He doesn’t think he could ever feel happier, knowing you’re giving him everything, and he wants nothing more than to return the favor to you.

Oh, how he wishes it were you sucking the life out of his veins. You’d be so gentle, you’d look so pretty losing your mind like he is right now. 

You continue to feel your body grow numb, up to the point that your heart rate slows at the loss of blood. To the point you can tell he’s sucking harder and harder just to get more. You feel a weight shift inside of your body, it writhes and chokes every inch of your innards. 

Shrivelling, spiraling, cramping. 

If you could curl in on yourself right now, you would, but you’re too weak even for that. You can’t even twitch a finger against Sunghoon at this moment as you feel everything within you dehydrate and search for life. 

It hurts. 

Badly. So badly that at this moment, you can’t remember a single thing that has ever felt good. In fact, everything is painful. Life is painful and horrifyingly full of things that will hurt you. But–Sunghoon is here. That much, you still recognize. Even through the pain, and even through the twisting inside of you, he remains constant. He’s soothing you through it well past the comprehension of your dying brain. 

You can’t shiver at the loss of warmth, but you do try to take a breath. Working your weak body to near exhaustion just at the act of trying to expand your lungs. And oh, you can’t even open your eyes at the way the last breath doesn’t come. You must have lost it already. 

And then, darkness. 

Nothing. 

And it feels like this for an eternity. Nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to fear or love. 

Absolutely fucking nothing. And to think humanity has built governments off promised afterlifes? To think anything ever mattered in the first place? The emptiness soothes and relieves your still working soul, wisping in the darkness for eternities more it seems. 

To the point names and faces leave you, and all you can think, feel, or hear is that of unfilled space and pure, deafening, silence. You cannot feel content, or peace, or happiness here. You just feel nothing. And it truly feels good to be nothing. 

Until there's warmth. You feel it somewhere hugging you, or perhaps inside of you? Do you even have a body to hold warmth now within this vast void of darkness? Why do you hear…?

Feelings come back to you tenfold. Seemingly experiencing everything you’ve ever felt and lived through all at once. That deafening silence becomes louder, louder, louder, until– it flourishes in the pit of your belly.

So much chaos within you. Swirling and bubbling in such a way that it fucking blooms in this darkness. You feel like you’re burning, freezing, dying, living, fucking drowning all at once. 

That flourish forces the nothingness out of you. As comfortable as this place is, there is nothing and you want something. You need something. You crave…something.

A little dribble running down your throat leaving a trail of warm, blooming heat. As if you just swallowed a sun-ray itself. Only now can you feel your body again enough to know where the heat is coming from. It blossoms within you, increasing each sense within your body tenfold. 

It doesn’t hurt. 

Only now do you recognize that it’s silent again, as if you were slammed into a wall by the force of the god you now know does not exist. You feel yourself restrict under skin, you feel cold, you feel…heavy. 

And the silence is still too loud to be so restricted. You miss the sounds of what you must have unintentionally listened to every waking moment of your life. The only true soundtrack of a living, loving, and heat-radiating being. 

No heart-beat. No whirring of blood. No rumbling in your stomach. Nothing.

And yet still, it doesn’t hurt. 

Just a bouquet in the pits in your belly. Your precious life, all summed up in that single diluted sip of blood. 

And somehow, someway, you regain your strength faster than it took for you to lose it. You open your eyes on instinct and the world is glowing. Sunghoon is glowing. As lifeless as you are, and as empty as your brain is at this moment, you reach out to him immediately.

But he has yet to let go of you since all of this started. He stayed. He held you, just like he said he would. 

“Did it hurt badly?” Sunghoon calls out to you, helping your mind awaken again. 

He barely remembers the pain he went through when it happened to him. Truly, pain is so temporary, so meaningless to indulge but, the curiosity still sits with him. 

After watching you for upwards of two hours to both die and come back to life, he can’t help but wonder if it was anything like what he experienced. 

Even with that curiosity though, seeing you open your eyes for the first time in your new life fills Sunghoon with overwhelming glee. To the point he feels like a child, wanting to ask so many questions, thoughts shifting from this, to that, up until all his thoughts run together and all he can do is squeeze you in his grasp. 

He’d have pulled down the stars if he could just so it could be your first view of the afterlife with him. But alas, he couldn’t step away even for a moment. He needed to be with you, not just for your sake, but his own. 

You’re cold now, but oh, the blood within him could satiate him for hundreds of years. It’s gone from you now, and he fears not missing it. Not when you’re here. Not when you chose to be here with him. 

You weakly nod to him, amazed at being able to do it again. Already the pain you’d previously felt feels like a long lost memory as you stare back at him. 

“I’m sorry.” He smiles through the apology, unable to pretend he means the words at all. “I didn’t intend to drain you so quickly. My poor love, you must have felt miserable.” 

You nod again, feeling him so tightly against you.

Only just realizing that he’s holding you. Your body, it’s coming back to you. You can feel sensations again. 

“I feel–” Your voice cracks with a dry throat and you inhale.

On instinct, you try to exhale but your throat just gets drier and drier. 

“I–”

Sunghoon coos, shushing you with a gentle kiss. Lending you his own saliva because if there’s one thing he can remember, it’s the act of learning how to…not breathe. 

“Slowly, love, slowly.” He smiles when he pulls back, watching you swallow around his gift and instantly droop your eyes again. 

“You’ve only just died and you have all the time in this world to speak, no need to do it now.” 

And he’s right. You’re spinning, yet balanced. Fuzzy yet smooth. You are everything and nothing at this moment with your glowing after-death aroma. Sunghoon smiles, cradling the back of your head. 

Finally, he’s gotten to drink you in full. No true death, and he feels more elated than he ever expected. Almost lulled to sleep at the scent of you disappearing. Never will he taste your blood again, but you. He has you now. Knowing you had a taste at all is enough. Knowing that he has broken for you enough to beg you.

To beg you to die for him just to be with him on a level deeper than thirst. 

Never once has he wanted someone like this.

And never once had he expected you to agree with him. 

The moment is sweet with him, and still you’ve yet to comprehend the truth reality of your life now. You know at least, that it could take longer than you’d have had previously to figure it out. You did this to be with someone, and that someone is right here next to you. Smiling, clinging, seemingly ecstatic to know he’s no longer alone. 

A forever companion, truly this time. 

And as sweet as the moment is, time still moves even after becoming ageless. 

“The sun will rise soon,” Sunghoon hums at your reluctant gaze at the window. “Shall we go home?”

You would nod. Truly, you would, if it weren’t for that suffocating scent entering your nose. 

Roses? No, tulips?

Lavender? 

Your belly pangs, a dry and itchy feeling overtaking your entire being. To the point that Sunghoon clinging to you can’t even calm the itch. The world stops at the scent, so strong and sweet. 

Sunghoon smells it too though, and he knows. He’s experienced it time and time again, though he’s long since learned how to control it, clearly. He purses his lips in frustration. You’ve only just come back, and he’d very much like to get you home with him so that you can learn and grow accustomed to this life. You need to realize that you haven’t even experienced the hardest part yet. 

Disappearing. 

After all, his intention was to hunt for you, teach you, comfort you. There’s so much to do now that the deed is done, and he hadn’t prepared for interruptions such as this.

Unfortunately, he knows very well the thirst. You won’t be able to control it, especially considering he knows this scent too. He has to force himself to try and lend you alluring words, but they seem to go through one ear and out the other. 

Your brain is empty at the scent. 

“Ah, what a turn of events.” He tics his tongue with a smile. “I smell him too.”

Your eyes do not reach Sunghoon at all, but he understands. Even with the jealousy in his gut. 

A key clicking into a lock, a turn of the knob. The sound is amplified in your ears along with the scent. 

“Wake up and help me unload all this shit!” 

Oh, what a shame. 

You really loved Jungwon. 

“Can you smell it flowing through him?” Sunghoon smiles at the light in your eye now, endeared by the way scent ignites you entirely. As envious of Jungwon as he is to hold certain parts of you when he couldn’t do it himself, seeing the way you react arouses him beyond belief. 

Your first feeling of thirst. 

“Shall I greet him?” 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Jungwon peers at the stoic figure that appeared from your bedroom. His first thought is that he’s going to kick your fucking ass because number one, this better not be who he thinks it is. And number two–

There is no number two. A mere three seconds after stepping into his new home with you, his mind goes fuzzy. Thinking only of you, of needing to see you, of needing to make sure you’re okay. 

He wants to know if you slept well, and if you were able to have any sweet dreams without him here. 

“Jungwon, I take it?” Sunghoon lends him a lively smile, impressed by the pull you unintentionally lay on the guy. 

“Ah, yeah.” Jungwon weakly scratches the back of his neck before feeling his body move on its own. “Where is she? I need to see her.” 

It’s a pity, really, but Sunghoon has seen it time and time again with his own victims. A weak mind, one that is easily broken and even easier to lure. It’s kind of cute really, seeing how breathing humans cling to what balances them. 

He almost feels bad for taking you from Jungwon, but he doesn't only because he hates that he has to see you drink from someone you were attached to. He knows it’ll hurt you when you realize, and he no longer wants to see you hurt after witnessing your death.

As beautiful as it was. 

Jungwon truly chases you, stepping through the apartment and dropping everything in his hands without care. He heads straight to your room, swallowed in a somber smile and a welcome scent. One that he doesn’t know is death.

“Wonnie.” You rasp sweetly. “Come here.” 

There’s no reluctance within him, even upon hearing Sunghoon close the door behind him and lock it. Even when the man looms at the door, watching, narrowing his eyes at you in jealousy. 

You ignore it as you grow enamored with Jungwon at this moment. Is this what his life smells like? So pretty, it truly fits him. 

And it drowns out all of your thoughts. The flowers, like a fresh spring day with no worry. You think it’s your favorite smell in the world as you inhale him with each step he takes toward you. 

For Jungwon, even upon feeling you grip his shirt, pulling him closer than he’s ever been to you without the excuse of comfort, he pays no mind. He missed this bubble he shared with you, the single night with his sister almost felt like agony to be away from you.

After all, the love he holds for you is truly deeper than romance. There is no need for any physicality between the two of you, yet…he welcomes it at this moment. In fact, he’s entirely aroused, stiffening in his pants at the sheer blissful anxiety your uncanny smile and shining eyes lend to him. 

Did you truly miss him so much? 

“You look so pretty…” He trails off, closing his eyes as he feels you caress his warm cheeks. “Your hands are so cold, let me—ah” 

You’ve never felt an instinct quite like this. You could truly hear it, the pulse of his heart. You can still smell his sweet scent, and you truly weren’t in control of your own body when you gripped him, lifted, and sank your teeth right against his pulse point. 

Jungwon moans at the bite, drifting off entirely at first contact. 

All while Sunghoon continues to loom. Watching with weight in his pants. The way you bite so messily, spilling blood and wasting it as it trickles down Jungwon’s throat. The small sounds your mouth makes as you suck has him throbbing non-stop, to the point he almost needs to hold onto something just to keep from jumping on you, just to keep from tasting Jungwon himself.

And, oh, his pretty love, you have so much to adapt to. 

It appears he does as well. 

As he watches the furrow of your brows at the first taste falling to that of relief and pleasure as you drink, and you drink, and you drink, until–

Sunghoon smirks now, quirking his brow at how you stop yourself before he needs to step in and separate the two of you. In all honesty, he was unsure if he’d be able to give in and stop you either. After all, killing Jungwon now would prove easier than letting him live.

The fact that you stopped yourself though. Perhaps your mind grew more stubborn and strong-willed through death. He nearly cannot believe that you aren’t draining the man dry right now. 

And you aren’t even sure yourself why you do. The feeling in your gut is full and satiated, but the grip Jungwon has on you only grows more and more limp. You love the way he clings as much as the taste, and even through his slumber, he clinged so tight. 

Not so much now though, and that scared you. So, you let go. 

If only because truly, you do love Jungwon. Enough to no longer pull him into your messes despite forcing him to become one at this moment. What’s even more scary is though, even with all of the endearment you held towards him in life, the feeling is only amplified now. These new bitter and floral scents pulsing through him makes you want to protect him from any leech wanting to drink it out of him.

Even if you’re the leech. 

Ah, he tasted like honey suckle, and it dropped down your throat like honey too. Warm, gentle, pretty. Just like him. 

And you have to continue to keep yourself from sinking your teeth into him. Your stomach is greedy, wanting more, but too in love with the life he has and willingly wanted to share with you as a best friend and forever comfort. 

Forever for Jungwon is nothing but a moment to you now, but it’s one you hope he enjoys, at least. 

And when you hold him against you, so weak and sound asleep, you look at Sunghoon. The tears fall so, so, cold against your cheeks. The heightened senses within you become overwhelming with the horrifying silence and intense smell of floral blood wafting through your nose. 

“Much like you, he won’t remember. You lured him deeply, love, did you know that? He was asleep from the moment he saw you.” 

You pause, nodding as the tears continue to fall. 

“Brilliant.” He compliments now, moving to hold you as you cling to Jungwon. 

“Sunghoon, did my blood taste like that?” 

Sunghoon kisses you once, sucking Jungwon’s blood from your tongue. 

“Ah,” He chokes. “Absolutely not.”

You pause at his scrunched nose. 

“You were much sweeter.” He whispers sweetly, fondly, tilting his head to kiss against you again, licking the mess of Jungwon’s blood from your lips, chin, and neck. Still, he chokes it down. “I’ll miss it.”

“What did it taste like?” Your weak and dry voice falters repeatedly, but you need to speak right now.

“You tell me.” 

You only slightly remember the flavor as you were brought back. Warm, blooming, spicy, sickeningly sweet. 

“I have never tasted anything compared to it…” 

“Exactly.” Sunghoon smiles, inhaling deeply and lending no breath against your skin when he scrapes his teeth there. “Like the sun.” He hums, nosing down to your neck and inhaling again, arms only slightly trying to push Jungwon out of your grasp. “Like the one thing that could get me killed.” 

You cling tightly to your best friend though, not wanting any more harm to come to him. Still, you stare at Sunghoon’s sweet words, finding yourself smiling at all that is to be gained rather than lost. 

Your life. The light outside, the light in your eyes, the warmth. 

Not Jungwon though. 

“You don’t intend to leave him be, no?” Sunghoon furrows a brow at how your face rises for him, but falls instantly at inhaling Jungwon’s blood. 

You frantically shake your head. 

“We’ll figure something out, love.” He says now, looking away from you and doing his best to ignore the envy that fills him time and time again when this floral-boy is near. 

He told you he’d do anything for you, give anything to you. 

If that includes Jungwon….

Ah, always so fucking stubborn. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

The sun rises and falls. 

Repeatedly, for months. 

Jungwon wakes himself with the warm sun hitting his face, the bed just as warm from his own body heat. He loves this space, and adores the way that even if it’s only him, he never feels lonely with that pretty smell in the air. 

Every morning when he wakes up, and every night before he goes to bed.

The shock of learning the inevitable still hurts him from time to time, but still, he smiles with that dimple you threatened you’d steal right off his face if he chose not to show it to you. 

His hand reaches to his neck, the single wound you gave him and apologized profusely for after. It’s healed well.

And when his phone vibrates in the middle of the day, he wonders why you’re awake. 

You: wonnie

Wonnie: wat

You: come over

Wonnie: was wondering why you were trying so hard. nearly suffocated this morning. 

You: and you were fighting it? asshole

Wonnie: be over in a few, stinky

And as strange as it is, Sunghoon doesn’t mind that you wouldn’t let Jungwon go. After several conversations needing reassurance that you’re not trying to spend your forever elsewhere, anyway.

Really, to think you’d die for him but want someone else? Sunghoon truly is insane, but so are you. 

And it works. 

Because Jungwon loves insanity, even if he hates Sunghoon with a passion. Even if he can only see you with Sunghoon in the room too. Even if you’re dead. 

You’re still his best friend, and he doesn’t mind helping you disappear as long as it’s not from him. 

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

not me accidentally making this a sunghoon ft.jungwon fic. 

Fanart by @a-the-na 🖤🖤🖤🖤

[comfortless]

Only Other

chapter three of three.

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. historical au (set around 350BC); potential inaccuracies as i am no historian!, König speaks some German here (as opposed to Gothic), mutual pining & worship, smut (piv), sliiiight breeding kink, violence, as always König is horribly in love and says ridiculously worrisome things, reader feigns ambivalence but is equally unhinged and smitten.

notes: eternally grateful to @wordsbyvani for reading over my shoulder and genuinely being the sweetest throughout every part. ^^ and again to @writersdrug for giving me the idea to begin with!

wc: 9k.

<- previous.

König’s men arrive sometime in the afternoon, a few hours behind but carrying hoards of supplies. There are weapons you recognize to be from your city stuffed into bags, pelts and silks and twinkling stones, meats and fruits. They had not forgotten to bring along wine, either: two barrels to either side of a gray mare led along behind one of their rugged steeds by a length of thick rope.

You don’t ask how they found her, let alone how they managed to actually tame her down enough to follow amidst the chaos that broke out the night prior. A weak string of “thank you”s leaves your lips when you press your nose to the horse's snout, sobbing into her silver fur. She seems less bothered, huffing impatiently as she’s tethered up with the others against broad trees.

You’re not convinced that here or anywhere is safe anymore, and you don’t assist when the men begin to set up their camp. They’ve enough supplies and arms to do it themselves, anyhow.

Guilt, trepidation and confusion, haunt you: cast out for all to see by your forlorn stares and the tremor of your lower lip as you continuously fight an internal battle to keep yourself sane. And how could you? You’ve only come to reason that this has all come to fruition because of you, because of the things that you could not help. Your curiosity, fascinations, and impiety had all led you to be here, now, while everyone you once knew sleeps eternally.

You have condemned yourself to the life of a slave girl, and later to the darkness of the Orcus when you do die.

Though… men do not give their slaves the looks that König gives to you. You haven’t spoken to him in hours, and you do your best to avoid his glances, shoot down his smiles with the curved arrow of your own sullen frowns. Still… amidst setting up the tents and gathering wood for the fire to stave off the chill of nightfall, you catch the very stars reflected over a sea in his eyes.

There is love there, a too-uncanny and harrowing love, but a great devotion nonetheless. It burns like a fire of its own in your chest, inescapable and rampant. You know it in the spaces behind your skull, your ribs, that what he feels is another cage: roomier, softer, but you will never be free of it either.

König does not follow you to the tent when the moon rises. He sits by the fire, watching as you go with the pelt drawn up over your shoulders and curled around you. When you sink into the bed of fur that has replaced the straw mattress from before you find yourself somehow even more fitful here than outside. Sleep is evasive, leaving you tossing and twisting amidst the smell of sweat and animal fur. Not even the crackling fire outside defeats the quiet or the cold in the air.

There’s a sickly pit in your stomach, thorn seedling threatening to take root and spread the longer you stare up at the blackened abyss of the tent ceiling. If you’re to live a life torn, at the very least you could be warm; you take to König’s side in moments, joining him by the slowly dwindling flame.

The brute isn’t sleeping, either, just… lost. Lost like you the day that you met him.

“I need to look at your wound.” Your excuse comes weak and puny, doe limbs and fragile glances when you do sit at his side and speak. You’ve never been anyone’s ‘Göttin’, you don’t know what you’re doing, what blessings to grant or judgments to cast. Avoiding him only seems a punishment for you both, and you’ve had your share of those.

König is anything but small: even amidst the turmoil your silence has gifted to him, he still seems himself, all ego and cruelly cut silver, softened only by your words, your touch.

“Richtig,” he mutters, reaches out to pull you in, and you let him. Straddling his lap with only the moon above awake to witness, cast her curious gaze down and illuminate the expanse of his chest whilst you work to pull away the bandages.

There isn’t much to tend to, it’s healing well. The flesh that once seemed inflamed has only drawn back its redness to simmer to the natural color of his skin. When you begin your careful prodding, it does not hurt him. He doesn’t so much as flinch or huff at your touch.

When you dab your index in the sweet honey that serves as a salve, he grasps at your hand and brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to your index and middle without hesitation. And you see it then: a glimmer of hesitation in the way his lips pull and his eyes search your own, a silent plea for vindication.

You’ve never been cold to him, not even as he spoke with so much self-importance when you first met, not when he rutted his blade between your parted legs, not even now after all that he’s done. In his own way of thinking, these things have all been some display of courtship. There’s never cruelty toward you, not in his touch, the words that he speaks, and especially not in those somber eyes. These things break down the last fraying edge of your resolve.

You press your mouth to his, sharing the taste of honey pressed to his lips, everything sugary and warm. Over and over until the night begins to close its way in, plump clouds drifting over the pearl hanging in the sky when you finally find yourself tucked back into the tent with König curled at your side. He holds you closer than he ever has, not from a fear you’ll take off under the darkened sky, but in the honoring of something far greater. Some love comes quiet like flower blooms, his comes with fire.

“Wolves pair in winter,” he says quietly, burying his face into your hair. It’s shy, almost, as though the man has not already embedded his scent into your very skin and toyed with your most sensitive parts. It’s truer, more heartfelt, than even his confessions of love.

“Is that what you see us as being?” You laugh, a slow, gentle chime that aches your throat, face still puffy from tears and voice scratchy from those thick clouds of smoke.

“Ja…”

“You really…” The words get caught up someplace in the spaces between your lungs and tongue. You don’t want to cry, not anymore, but you find it difficult not to choke up after so much comfort with a lifetime of so very little. “You do care for me, don’t you?”

He answers your question in a grumble, a string of foreign words only meant for mountain caverns and creatures that walk on all fours and somehow they make sense. A resounding yes, in three gutteral sounding words. The frayed ends of guilt and anger finally drift off as you settle into his hold like a den of pure comfort, warm and buried in a world of fur and a man blessed by trees and the earth rather than gods and myth.

When the breeze picks up outside, rustling sprawling oak limbs, momentarily silencing the fire, its as if they answer him in your stead. You don’t cry, though it aches, but you let go of the memories of all your begging to those that never seemed to listen. Here, in the dark you’ve found the only person that seems to understand without even knowing.

You drag the pelts up over the both of you, clasp your hand over his where it rests beneath them, and fall into a haze of contentment. He draws you nearer, breath filtering through your hair from where his head lies just above your own.

The dreams that come are no longer of places you can not reach, but only of the memory of a city that was never meant to house your spirit.

You wake to König’s pawing. It begins along your sternum, hand placed flat there only to glide further up and push at your tit. It’s gentle and testing, pushes fire into your very veins when for the first time he doesn’t seem to remain entranced there. It drifts, further up to cup your jaw.

“You are awake?,” he rasps, propping himself up to inspect your face where you lie, weakened and warmed by sleep.

“Yes…”

“Are you still bereaved?,” König asks in such a hushed voice, reaching toward you again. His hand seems to tremble when it finds your face, thumb brushing over your mouth with such trepidation it seems misplaced for him.

“Partly.”

You consider your dreams again: the open street, devoid of people apart from those that face down at you with contempt building in hollow eye sockets. Where grass once sprung up beneath the cracks in the stones, there were only small flames. And you do still grieve for those that were innocent in the entire affair, those trampled by cattle when they had only just had a taste of escape. Your very mind begins to darken at the thoughts, your body only tensing further, a bowstring on the verge of snapping,

“Is that why I can not have you?”

“I never said…” Your voice only grows thin, detached almost from the way you purse your lips to kiss the digit toying with you. Your heart is only thunder, the sound of those wretched hooves: yearning was dangerous itself, your own only seemed to take further shape with each passing moment. Claws and a waiting maw, just like the wolves he speaks of.

König hums, a deep rumble from his chest as he gives a slow nod of acknowledgement.

It all becomes tree sap, a sticky confectionery bout. His mouth descends upon your own as though starved, hurried and longing as he samples you, the you who certainly yearned for the bathhouses to clean herself properly. All thought seems to dispel when his hand leaves your cheek and neck to begin its painfully slow descent between your legs, burrow between wax and honey to pull soft cries from your mouth.

He only stills his dismantling of you when you’re trembling and doughy, squeezing around his fingers so tightly you wonder how he can continue to bury them inside at all.

Just as the other gods, Sol is lost here when König crawls over you, all shadow and wretched, led here with the promise of a prey that you are not. Only another wolf… the flame in his winter eyes is the same that’s settled inside of you.

His head dips to kiss into your hair while your leg is pulled to settle over his hip. You feel a kiss, a different sort, when the pillar of his manhood reaches between your bodies to settle over your sex, probing at your slit that only seems to pulse and beg under his touch.

You had never found these silly metaphors enticing with the men of the city, even the entertainers with their pretty words could have never lured you this far down. Yet, here is different, here is cold and lonely and wild: a culmination of all that he is, incarnation of the earth and man and a desperate hunt.

“You are ready for me,” your god hums, pleased, as he coats himself in your arousal, sticky like warm sap. The sounds of his toying with you are something you should be accustomed to now, with him, but still makes your face warm. Not with shame, only a quiet desperation. “Beautiful little goddess...”

It’s summer here; winter tears its claws right out of your flesh when the sun itself sinks inside. The turning of seasons is natural, so dreadfully normal you’ve never bat an eye until you could physically feel it: the strip of your own apprehension tossed into a steaming sea, the dewy wetness all but drowning you entirely.

And it’s König who loses himself first, a sound so pitiful carving its way out of him you would almost believe him to be hurt if not for the way he throbs inside of you. He feeds it, a stuttering twitch of his hips as he slowly brings you toward him by your hips. Far too large to properly bottom out but encumbered and ecstatic by the sensation around him. Tighter than any sheath, but a weapon pushes through you all the same- inch by loving inch, until he manages to fully fill you with himself.

“I don’t want to hurt you, little one.“ Each word is torn from him, punctuated heavily by the shallow movement of his body and the drag of a demanding cock. Restraint is a peculiar thing hovering over him, his brow pinched as though forcing himself to concentrate on not ripping you apart where you lie.

“You’re not hurting me..,” you sigh as your hands find his shoulders, fingernails dimpling the skin there. If anything the urgency is only shared.

When your hips push back to meet him, the lead is dropped, another surrender. Too much trust for a man deserving of none of it.

His response is a breathy groan, mouth finding your shoulder as his hands drift to pull your hips upward to better meet him. Teeth find purchase along your flesh, gentle as he can be, but grinding and desperate to leave a mark, a piece of him behind.

It’s almost with a fury that he stuffs himself into you then, his jaw going slack and eyes wild, hands grasping at every inch of your pillowy flesh that he can reach.

Never could König have looked more beautiful than now, once starved and now tasked, for and now with you. His gaze trails from where your thighs tremble around him, to where the sap pools and nature builds up its own obscene choir at your togetherness… and then, to your face where his gaze only shatters into softness.

Something bubbles right against your lash line, a stray tear, overwhelmed by the feel of the giant ravishing you, pulling you down from your world of jewels and pillars to his own devoid of anything but need.

His head dips immediately, tongue running up the length of your cheek, a hand falling away to pry open your already parted thigh as he licks at and fucks into you like something truly feral. He coos his praises against your mouth, parted and whining, claims a new kingdom all for himself in you, of you.

You feel how the temples must, trodden through and left with gifts, blood and honey and fire as the muscles of your thighs begin to tense. Instinct spurs you to catch his lip between your teeth, push your hips back to laboriously furl around him.

His pace comes to a halt, settling to only grind himself so deeply within you that you feel the last of the stars begin to die out in the recesses of your skull, dim and dumbly smothered until they reignite in a blinding wave of white. König does not give you the time to settle, only spears into you with a renewed fervor as you cinch around him, furthering your rapture to a point that is almost agonizing.

He chases his own end with the same famished glare as before, stares right into your eyes as you pull iron from his lip and cast it into the fire of your waiting mouth. The sting, the bliss, only makes him whimper, a sound so small and choked its unfathomable to have come from a man who slams into you as though you were paid for.

You lick into his mouth in a way so tentative and fragile he immediately crashes down, blankets you in the strength of his arms and kisses you in turn: so soft and chaste it’s uncanny in this moment. His groan of defeat only comes when he stills fully, buried to the hilt, thrumming and shivering through his own release. Honey and seafoam, the rise of a tide touching earth to brim and spill past your joining.

He chases the feeling for several moments longer, bucking his hips sloppily as he lies atop your spent form, barely coherent when he mutters nonsensical praises into your hair, against your neck, the corner of your mouth- any place he can think to leave a kiss.

“… everything,” he mutters when he lies atop you fully, satisfied where he nestles his head into the fur below you both. “Everything I have ever wanted.”

The day passes on like this. Even as his men maneuver about camp, preparing to hunt or practice with their stolen weapons. The only thing König seems keen on doing is bringing you to ruin, repairing you with kisses pressed into your hair, along your cheek.

He leaves you only twice as the day drags onward. Once to gather you a meal of something meaty roasted over the fire, what remained of a boar, a gathering of dried fruit, and water from a small flask. You’re famished and exhausted by the thrill of being shoved down into the fur to tolerate him three times over already. The twinkle in his eye is nothing short of mischievous when you do finally tell him that you need to rest after eating.

After a bout of playfully shoving him away, you only find yourself on top of him, then. He seemed entirely unashamed, more hurried and desperate than before as he bucks at you like a wild horse, voicing his praises and spitting out such sugary sweet nonsense about how you would carry his son and only ever experience him, you almost felt shy. A curled finger hooks under your jaw to force you to look down at him, lose yourself in the vast, uneasy sea of his eyes while he floods you with his seed again. Finally, he seems sated, pulls you down to lie atop him.

König promises you that he will find your mother, that he will take care of you as no other has or ever could, while stroking along your back. He tells you of the mountains, the trees, the animals and the men who live amongst them and inside of them.

He tells you of the sea when you ask, how the sand is softer and sticks as if it never wants you to go. In turn, you tell him that he must be like the sea then, never fully parting from you, leaving his trace imprinted upon your skin with teeth rather than sand. A sea that loves instead of hungers, one that presses you onto your back to wash over you to steal the very breath from your chest and push it back with a kiss.

— — —

The wilderness is cruel. Wild things lurk in the brush and occasionally you pass by other settlements. Less friendly than the small band you have grown accustomed to. You’re always urged to shush, then have yourself tucked further against König while he speaks low and threatening to any would-be bandits. Only once has that resulted in a death, but not to one of König’s own. You didn’t watch when the man with the red hair carved a hole through the trespasser, just squeezed your eyes shut and buried your face into a waiting bicep.

Days pass on horseback, your legs feel stiff and clumsy, and there are no amount of pelts serving as makeshift saddles that could ever help the ache that shoots up from your pelvis. It serves no aid at all that, when riding ahead or too far behind the other men, König takes this newfound intimacy between you two to be a liberty. Regardless of your formation, he never ceases looking at you as though his only wish is to devour you whole.

Those times are often quick, palm pressed over your mouth as he dutifully breeds you beneath the sun, in the softest patch of withering wild grass or barren land available. You melt into him, part your legs like a wife rather than some skittish woman that he himself has whisked away. Each time, he whispers his praises, professes his love in more creative ways, covers you in so many kisses you feel a bit dazed by the time the ordeal is through.

Then, you’re righted back onto the horse with König at your back, the most horribly endearing smile plastered upon his face.

It’s not much of a surprise that his men do start their caterwauling at some point during the journey to wherever— past dormant trees and approaching the silhouettes of hills so tall and vast you’re certain that they must be the mountains you have heard of, even if you had yet to properly see them. König had made it perfectly clear just what you are to him in his coarse words to his companions, but never directly to you. They do not mock your union, but they do often give you strange looks, particularly at your tummy while they discuss you with their leader.

There’s nothing there, you’re sure of that much, but you shoot them your angriest glare anyway and raise your chin to look forward instead. Their talk of the possibility of a little “prinz” does not distract you from your own thoughts, drifting up to scrape the sky just like the peaks of the mountains.

“So that is where the gods live?,” you ask, mostly to yourself as you curl your fingers into the horse’s reins. There’s subdued laughter from either side of you, and you almost shrink at the thought of making a fool of yourself before these brutes. It wouldn’t be the last time, surely. You couldn’t even bring yourself to fully commit to the idea of there being any sort of vast and ethereal field awaiting you when you die anymore; it was already here before you, painted in the color of evergreen and winter blossoms.

König doesn’t laugh, at least. Only places his palm over the front of your neck and guides your head back to look up to him, gives a toothy grin when your eyes light up just from the sight. It was difficult not to when you’ve been fed and pleasured incessantly by him. You reason that your punishment for forsaking all that you once knew must assuredly be your own mind deteriorating to feel the way that you do.

“They are right here,” he says, so quiet and sweet, gesturing between the two of you. He had no interest in your former gods, of what he seems to view as stories for children, but he listens as you tell him the significance of such lofty places cloaked in fog, mist and trees.

His hand finds your cheek, savors in the feel of your skin against his thumb while you tell him of your misplaced belief in him being some son of a war god that he’s never even known, much less prayed to. He then reminds you of the woman he seems certain could have been your mother, says that surely she must have been wed to the shallow of a sparkling lake to birth something as lovely as you.

The men regroup after some time, stilling their horses and your rowdy mare still tethered behind one of the others to speak, access the distance from here and their destination while sipping wine from leather flasks and putting weapons back in their proper places. You listen on, picking up on the few words you did understand from their language, but ultimately gather nothing from it all.

“Where are you taking me?,” you hazard as you try to push yourself forward in a subtle reminder that yes, you were there too, and woman or not you had a right to know.

“Home,” König gruffs simply in response, gathering you back into his arms and taking the reins from your hands. His chin rests atop your head, the fingers of his free hand petting your side in an attempt to snuff out any further questioning. “You will like it.”

Home. Home to the place he had claimed you would find your mother; to foreign woods and wild downs, sprawling hills and little shacks covered in sticks and leather instead of the villas with their terracotta tiles.

You didn’t even know that you had a place to return to at all, not now. Your eyes catch his, though, and you know then just what it truly must feel like to belong someplace. Never had home been Gaius, reduced to smoldering ash in some divine reckoning, but it had always been with someone you truly believe you have wanted. Had you ever even been allowed to want before him..?

Your brow pinches as you shift to rest your head against the broad back behind you, held fast by the iron grip around your waist. The clouds drift by above, the sun casts a warmth over your face and you fall into comfort, into promise.

— — —

Barbarian settlements are strange.

There are no paved streets here crowded with people and decay, no hallowed and looming temples hungry and waiting for sacrifices. The columns are tree bark and very much alive with twisting limbs and growths of green that never seemed to dull even in the winter, not the stiff and lifeless marble you had grown accustomed to.

The homes are pieced together with wood, clay, anything that could be used with no clear rhyme or reason to their architecture. Goats wander about, bleating out for food or ramming into one another for play. The children don’t sit in houses studying or wander from stall to stall snatching and scurrying off, they play and work. There is a strange contentment here, too, something that feathers on the wind as it does the same on each face that you pass,

Everyone seems to have a place, a thing to be, and you feel like the world’s most delicate and forgotten pearl amidst these people who do not even seem to pay you any mind. If anything, they only seem pleased to see the man with his arm cloaked over your shoulders. They smile to him, greet him in their strange words and dip their heads as though he truly were some king.

Maybe he was, to them, to the wild people with no true reasoning to have any sort of monarchy. They barely had land to claim, much less rule over.

You’re not paraded around as a slave: he cups your jaw and lifts your head when your gaze falls to the dirt and dust below your feet, chides you in a rough whisper about how a Königin should present herself. The people do acknowledge you then, with looks of awe and offerings of dried flowers pressed into your palms and tucked behind your ear, Roman bronze dropped at your feet. You look the part of a proper queen too, when you flash them all your loveliest smile and nestle closer to your giant of flame and earth.

Thoughts of your past in the city come to mind when you note their lack of conveniences. Even the dread of forsaking your own gods briefly leaves you halting midstep before a firm hand urges you forward. König’s warmth comes as a comfort now more than ever when your thoughts do eventually circle back to a guilt, heavy and dreadful: the picture of Juno’s altar forgotten and burned away weeks of travel behind you.

“You will like it here,” he mumbles, trailing the same hand up to the back of your neck as he repeats the words he spoke only days prior on your journey. You could, you will, but it all feels so different that your pulse seems to triple its racing.

Your fingers graze over the dried flowers in your hand, sweet smelling as you trace over each petal to center yourself, take back that prideful smile that was in place just a moment ago.

If you’re to run amok, you may as well enjoy it.

You settle, regain your pace and that forced look of utter contentment at his side.

At least, until he begins to speak again.

“I will kill them all if you prefer we be alone,” König whispers into your ear, has the audacity to nip at your lobe, and does not even bother drawing back as if those words were meant to make you wet and pliant for him. All sense of reason must have left you entirely, because a shiver rips its way up each knob of your spine. “Would that please you?”

“No… Do not jest,” you grit out, staring only forward and not offering so much as a glance toward the beast at your side, even as his hand drifts down to palm at your breast.

“I am not.” He laughs, breathy and low when he finds your nipple already hard, thumb grazing over it as though this act of exhibitionism was as natural as any of the other things his madness compels him to do. “I will give you anything. Even blood, meine Göttin.”

Surely… you should be flattered that his loyalty is reserved only for you, but there’s no appeasement held in the glare that you shoot him as you pry his hand away from your chest. He gives you the look of a kicked stray then, even a pout so foreign on a face so scarred, you may have even chuckled if you were in better spirits, but he does relent. His hand drops back to his side and he detached from you after pressing a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth.

You’re led to a shack larger than the others, but more or less in the same state. It’s simple, built solidly with thick carved wood and packed to prevent weather seeping its way in. It’s humble in a way, far more humble than any ruler’s you’ve only imagined. A bench, a table, a mattress likely stolen away from some Roman soldier’s tent. There’s nothing particularly special about it, but it smells like König, like the trees and the earth in a way that is comforting.

It takes a moment for it to fully register that this is what he had meant by home, not the people and their affairs outside, only this place. Only him. A temple all your own that you imagine he must wish to fill with love and children and an abundance of gifts he may steal away all for you.

His men bring in what little of the supplies remained, stuffed away in a corner and voluntarily relinquished; even if it means they’ll be fending for themselves like the others in the village rather than feasting on stores, they only seem happy. The red-haired one even flashes you a contented look of admiration on his way out, as though you just being there was enough to soothe and patch some void here.

That may have been the case.

When the door is shut and all falls to silence, the barbarian king kneels before you. His hands find your hips, thumbs grinding gentle circles along them and further down to your thighs, your calves, to everywhere that aches. A gentle sort of worship that coaxes soft sighs and a buzzing of flesh from you.

König brings you to the mattress when your eyelids begin to flutter, exhaustion settling over you in full when you’re lifted and brought toward his chest. You could fall asleep in his hold alone, but you settle to only rest your head there and reach up along his vastness to rake your fingers through his wild hair.

Your voice tells him that you do like it here, with him, in this strange place circled by withering ferns and trees so infinite that you could never hope to find your way away without him taking your hand and navigating through. Your touch tells him the words that you dare not speak, a kiss to voice that you too would burn away everything if it only meant that you could share in this at his side, a mimicry of his massage along his own shoulder to whisper a great confession of adoration and boundless promises.

— — —

When the ferns and flowers begin to grow again throughout the spring and into the summer, you find yourself accustomed to everything. You aid the women in caring for their children, though you begrudgingly swear that it is not for practice whatsoever. The stitching and cooking that is done here feels far less harrowing— you do not put it off and leave it in a heap upon the floor as you would have in the city. There’s no looming dread of what’s to come when you perfect your work: you’re gifted only smiles, blessings and gifts.

Though the woman König had claimed to be your mother is not here, you ask him to recount the way she looked and spoke to you often on quiet nights, where his hands drift over you and his voice comes in a whisper. She may not have even existed at all, some lost spirit amidst the trees that wails and cries and leads men like him to their destinies. Your heart only tears when you begin to wonder if Juno herself had imparted such a quest to him. Save the lost woman that she favored so much, grant him some divine luck and intoxicating charm to ensure your safety and happiness.

He does not understand when you gather up honey and blossoms to pray over, but he does sit at your side and listen when you whisper your thanks to this new altar. Kisses the crown of your head when you’re through and lures you back into an embrace where he reminds you that he knew what he needed to do the moment that you met at the stream. No other woman could have swayed him the way that you have.

His offerings are only to you, even after such a length of time has passed. There’s no goddess that he kneels for other than the one that sleeps at his side and tells him of her dreams.

The day he gifts you his seax is one that resonates more than even the necklaces and gowns of silk and linen. It feels heavy in your hands, the blade almost as soft as gossamer when your fingers trail along it, though it does not yield. It’s only well polished and freshly sharpened. The handle bears a strange carving in it now, one of two wolves staring up at a broad moon. It breaks something inside to know that even he does find some things sacred: beasts, the glow of an untouched paradise and you.

“Why are you giving me this?,” you manage to whisper as your diligently ghost over the carvings in reverent repetition. “Don’t you need it? For hunting and fighting…”

“You like it?” It’s impossible not to notice the cocky expression on his face that tells you full well he’s recounting that experience. You liked it then, certainly, but it wasn’t as if you had any use for it in such a way when he kept you satisfied enough with himself.

“Yes… but it’s yours.”

He shrugs then, a great lift of his shoulders as you’re pulled to him with a careful grip to the wrist holding the weapon.

“Will keep you safe,” he huffs against your neck, leaving a kiss there when you sheath the seax at the strap you had also been gifted pulled taught along your hip.

You didn’t even know how to use the thing properly, and you were not quite fond of the idea of chasing down rabbits or puncturing another human with it. Your concerns fall on deaf ears when you’re led out into the surrounding forest to a thicket of wild raspberries. Your wrist is steadied by a firm hand as König diligently teaches you to carve away limbs heavy with fruit without actually bringing any real harm to the plant itself.

There are many things to forage this season, some you had never even heard of before he explains their significance to your wonder-filled face. You hadn’t thought him stupid, not truly, but it still comes as a surprise that he seems to know so very much.

When you find yourself seated beside a slow-moving stream, a ripe berry crushed between your teeth, you’re finally allowed to put your new blade away and set it aside on moss-covered stones.

“You should keep it close. A bear might want to eat you, hm?,” he playfully chides behind you, lifting your drab little gown up and over your head. As if to further his point, his teeth rake over your pulse, applying just enough pressure to draw a whine from your lips.

“You are not a bear,” you huff and turn to pull away his tunic, pressing a kiss over the scar he now dons just above his heart.

“Ja…” He lowers his head again to kiss along your neck, trailing a heat up to your ear as he maneuvers you into the water to bathe.

Your foraging and banter go forgotten, and a different sort of howling fills the air shrouded in tree limbs. There are no wolves or wind, only two so feverishly desperate and in love that any other with their dowries and arrangements would find it even more compelling than the Empire itself.

He sinks into you when you’re brought to your knees, bellows his contentment when he brushes your wet hair away from your face and dives forward to cover you fully, bury you in a world of love and sweetness. Even when the act is done, König does not pull away, only lies you back along to shore and tucks you further against him.

You remain chittering and laughing until the sky begins to reflect the very stars you see in his eyes, glittering constellations that seem to flicker and echo the steady beat of his own heart as you lie against his chest.

The summer wedding that the fortune-teller had once spoken of seemed to already take place here. There’s no need for a lectus or some grand display to reveal to others that you’ve united, it comes in the stillness and shared contentment when your voices begin to quiet, and at last you resign yourself to tell him that you belong to him just as much as he belongs to you.

The final flurry of surrender comes out as a soft whisper, one that only leaves you with your knees folded back to your chest and an insatiable giant hugging his gratitude and love into your ear with each graceless snap of his hips.

He drags you down to your own ruin, spells his own with haste and what comes as a twist between a dispatch of tears and a sigh. You can’t recall ever seeing him cry, not even now as he burrows against your neck and shakily breathes against your shoulder, muttering such nonsense about how he would still take you up and into the sky if only you would continue to let him stay with you like this.

“Always,” you murmur fondly, cradling him as closely as possible. Inside, outside, embedded into your very flesh you feel him near. He does not pull out from you this night, only falls asleep in your embrace, cloaks you from the breeze over the water with his own heat. You follow suit, petting at him as though he’s far smaller than his massive weight suggests. He shifts just enough to not fully crush you beneath him, just as you begin to drift off.

When morning does come, König is already stood at your side, staring off into the distance with an expression that only foretells of something you’re certain you will want no part in. He shushes you when you part your lips to speak, nervously scrounging up your gown and the strap holding your gifted weapon. There are no protests from you, and only the babbling of the stream and sounds of distant yelling break up the silence.

You don’t need to ask to know what’s occurring. Just as you had predicted before the Romans had come to dismantle the village just as they had many others before, take the women as slaves and force the children to learn and take up arms for their empire. You had never thought of the violence before when it occurred, when you saw the faces of those miserable women at the sides of people they could never afford to feel any fondness toward. You had always been lucky and blind.

König, however, must have only known wraith. His fingernails dig into his palms, nostrils flared and expression pensive.

“Wartet hier.”

He does not even hesitate as he begins to move, leaving you behind along the peaceful shore. As if to spur you forward, the shallow water rises to lap at your ankles, and still you do not budge. Your hands feel heavy, encumbered by the seax still set in its sheath, and only then does it dawn on you that König had not even had a weapon his person. What good would he even be without one? When so many men armed with sharpened swords and spears had come for his head…

Though fear creeps in, subdues your limbs with its stiffness, rakes fangs of pure ice along every pulsing vein held within you… you can not bring yourself to flee or stay put. You follow, quiet as a wood mouse as you walk along the forest with trembling hands clutching a weapon you almost hope is not too late to save your home, your heart.

There’s no clear trail, no sign of König, not even a shadow or a whisper that may belong to him. Instead there are shouts and the heavy smell of smoke. The gray billows up, more imposing than even the oaks and pines. The only comfort you will yourself to take is the fact that the words you can make out are Germanic, not Latin. Not all is lost, not yet.

You steel yourself and push your resolve to the forefront of your mind, creeping ever closer with careful but steps far more swift. You wind past throning brush and sprawling vine, past trees but familiar and not until you finally cross over from forest to the tall grass lining the edges of the village.

There lies chaos you expect, and that which you do not. Some of the cabins have gone up in flame, fire that coils and spreads to set your nerves alight with memory and dread. There are men fighting at the heart of it all, weapons slick with blood dripping down to the fallen at their feet. The women and children have all fled or have been taken captive, you couldn’t be certain amongst all that was already occurring around you and beyond. You couldn’t even count your enemies, a smaller army no doubt, the arrogance of the Empire knew no bounds. Twenty men to take down one was substantial enough when the others could be used for further conquests.

And there is no sign of König.

You feel numb when no matter where you look you can’t seem to catch sight of him, and how easy a task that should have been given his stature. The seax is pulled from its sheath when grief begins to settle, and the tears that threaten to spill are forced back with a grimace. There was still some hope, you knew. The village was not so small that you could map all of it from the small lump of a hill, but that desire to find him, bare your own teeth and fight at his side to protect what was yours brims up and chokes back the fear harbored in your chest.

Lady or wolf, you cared not. You would lose your titles just as he would if it came down to it. When the histories speak of how that city burned, how a king without a name brought the Empire to kneel if only for a moment before they sought revenge, you would be written in ink alongside it. A devotion so strong echoed in each page, as a barbarian queen that chose to keep her heart and lose her head.

But it doesn’t come to that. There’s another woman stood at König’s side when you do find him, wielding a stolen sword from one of the opposing soldiers as sweat and blood paint his face.

Unharmed and unknowing of the presence at his side, a mirage carved of smoke she was, his eyes stared out towards where the blade struck while her eyes only settled over you. Your breath catches when your gaze moves from König to her and you do find a resemblance: the way that her hair, the same color as your own frames her face, her frame, the way that her nose shapes, even the expression upon her face.

The mother he spoke of, the feral love and protectiveness outspoken and proud in her eyes. You do not recognize this woman, even amidst the cluster of sparse memories in your mind. Not until now had you ever seen her, but the feeling you’re gifted then… a roaring settling in your chest to extinguish all apprehension tells all.

As the last of the Romans is struck down by König himself, a blade sunk so deep into the other’s stomach as the other man spits out a gurgled wail, the woman only seems to fade out into nothing, replaced by the backdrop of the trees surrounding. Nothing left behind in the wake of the place she once walked apart from fallen soldiers and a trail of blood and König, safe as he could be.

When you come to him, teary-eyed and fretful, your roaming fingers do not catch on a single gash. The blood painted over his face, neck, chest is none of his own. He’s well, just as the other men from the village as they rush to snuff out the flames and clear away the bodies.

Though König pants heavily and his eyes are still wild, mind momentarily lost to the thrumming adrenaline in his veins, your touch seems to settle him greatly. The sword falls from his hands to clatter in the dust and muck, curling around you to pull you in. You think he should be angry that you hadn’t listened when he ordered you to stay, but he only seems as grateful as you to find his other half alive and longing still. Always.

You tell him of the woman as you sob into his chest, describe her and her vanishing as best you could in your own muffled voice. He grins, strokes your hair as though he truly believes every word even with how ridiculous it all sounds. There are things far more demanding to focus on now, and eventually you fall to silence as he holds you there.

Your home still stands, built just far enough off from the rest that its managed to avoid the battle entirely. Untouched, except from inside. The altar you had dedicated to Juno is gone, vanished just like the woman you had seen before. The scent of cinnamon hangs in the air, misplaced and unannounced, but a comfort all the same. You smile to yourself, bittersweet but comforting, with tears drying upon your face.

— — —

The village takes time to rebuild.

You lose time just as much as you lose sleep helping out with the endless tasks. König, thinking himself chivalrous, or perhaps hinting at what your future may entail if he continues to ravage you as though he would die without your warmth, never allows you to carry anything heavy. Even clay pots filled with water from the stream are swiftly taken from your hands. Gods forbid you even attempt to aid in cooking over the fires, either. He pulls you away with a hand clasped over your mouth and nose, delicately caressing your face and reminding you to be careful.

Something has changed. What you knew to be love before only seems to double with each passing day. He fusses and dotes over you endlessly, ensuring that you’re well fed, trailing behind you to bathe and it isn’t even just for the chance to sink into your cunt.

Often, he sits with you in his lap, guiding a wet cloth up to gently wash you, toys with your damp hair beneath his fingers, tells you stories of his own adventures and the people who traveled alongside him. Not of the hundred wives his men had boasted about him having, a ridiculous statement only meant to make you pine for him more than you already had, you supposed. He even tells you, sheepishly, that most women seemed afraid of him, but never you.

When you do make love, it’s an act of endless desperation. Along the bank of the stream, your shared bed, against any tree he deems fit enough to not budge beneath your shared weight, and even once in a field of wild blooms you two had found along a foraging trek. The floral aroma had kissed your skin each place he had, left you more doughy and sweet even as you took to conquer him, straddled over his hips with your head thrown back to the wind. You laughed with him when it was through, curled your hand beneath his chin to you with the rough feeling of his unshaven hair.

Everything— each new thing you learn and see with König as your guide only seems to melt away any wall you put up. Your life before only seems to fade from memory, that lonely bitterness consumed by the well of love he’s pushed you into.

When autumn comes and the trees begin to turn, each wealth of green faded and given way for yellow and red, your mare has finally become more docile and tame. You’re not even sure who to thank for it, for the way she struts about with giddy children on her back and doesn’t fuss when even you will yourself to settle over her saddle.

The saddle like all else in your life only seems softer, stitched together with leather, a cushion made of a rabbit’s pelt and stuffed full with straw and down so soft you don’t even dread the idea of the long ride to come.

The mountains, here, surrounding the valley and the village are wild and beautiful, still layered near to their peaks in abundant fields of late-blooming flowers. The stars still hang above, twinkling and glittering as if only to silently deliver their blessings for your coming journey. It is only the sea that you’ve yet to venture toward, the last on the list of honeyed promises König has made to you.

Your luggage is packed and spread between the two horses, your mare and his stallion. There are blankets and preserved food, light posts to set up a tent someplace a distance from the shore, even a pearl dangling from a thin chain that König dutifully places on your neck. It’s no exchange of rings, but you clutch the little gem tight as you will yourself not to cry. There was no need to be so sentimental not now, not after you’ve already shared so many moments far more tender.

The seax dangles at your hip, catching the glow of the sun above when you pull it free and polish it alongside König as he does with his pilfered sword. He shows you how to use a whetstone, delicately maneuvering your hand to sharpen the blade before dousing the thing in oil, makes you swear not to accidentally nick yourself when you’re inevitably dragged in the throes of some hunt at his side.

You’ve yet to use it for that purpose, but going alone means you’ve no choice but to offer your support… even with the knowledge that he wouldn’t actually allow you to do much at all, frustrating as that was.

When morning comes, you say your goodbyes to the village. You’re thrown flowers both pressed and new, petals latching to the fur of the pelt tied over your shoulders. König receives wine, far more useful than the delicate little blossoms that you brush away with shy smiles and glassy eyes.

The language is easier to understand now, when the others offer you great fortune on your travels, the women speaking greatly of your fertility despite the way it makes your nose scrunch in distaste. They call you Königin, only that, never any name you’ve offered for them to use. Perhaps even above the name the people of the city called you by it is more fitting.

You settle into the saddle with König atop his stallion next to you, reach for the reins when he flashes you a wary look, tells you that you will ride slow and he will keep you safe in case anything does happen to occur. You only think to remark the same, gesturing toward the weapon strapped to your hip, smirking when he snorts in amusement.

“Are you ready to depart?,” you ask him as you reach a hand out to trail along his arm, heart thumping wildly when his gaze only begins to further soften. You almost fear he may begin to cry, just as overwhelmed and sweetly pacified as you feel now. “We can stay a while longer if not.”

“Nein… we still need to plan for the stars after,” he whispers as he takes hold of your hand, interlocks your fingers and brushes against each knuckle with the pad of his thumb before bringing it toward his chest.

The moment is broken when the horses begin to huff in anticipation. You don’t get the chance to remind him that you still see each constellation he’s shown to you in the glimmer of his eyes, but you know well enough by now that he would only tell you the same in turn.

[azsazz]

Might Bite Back

Vampire!Azriel x Human!Reader

Summary: Anon Reqs: "how do you think vamp az would react it he lost control of his blood thirst and accidentally hurt reader?" and "OMG a fic where Vamp!Az loses control and accidentally hurts reader and then he realises what hes done!! I LIVE for those fics, we need more vamp az!!!!!!!"

Warnings: Biting, blood, vampire things.

Word Count: 2,544

Notes: This belongs on the vampire Azriel timeline.

_________________________________________

Something startles you awake.

It isn’t a noise, it’s the lack thereof that startles you awake. 

There’s an eerie silence to the black consuming the room. You curse yourself for falling asleep when you’ve been so desperately aware of the fact that he lurks at night, watching, waiting.

Your body is rigid, heart stuttering loudly in your chest, and the only part of you that moves is your eyelids as you blink wearily, sleep still clinging to your body, your mind searching through a hundred scenarios, trying to pinpoint what is going on. 

This is different from the silence you’ve slowly become accustomed to, when you were taken in the dead of night by the undead. His fangs had gleamed in the moonlight and you’d screamed so loudly that the trees surrounding the secluded home shook. Crows cawed in warning, flocking from trees and night creatures startled from the woods. Your blood wooshed in your ears like the wind pulling your hair from your nape, carrying your sickly sweet scent to his parted, hungry lips.

Your heart pounds in your chest exactly like that night. When you had felt like nothing more than prey.

Turning your head slowly, as if the slightest movement might make the darkness snap, you look towards the door. The chair you’d stuffed beneath the knob is still in place, and though you know the flimsy construction of wood would not withstand an ounce of his force, it serves as a piece to make noise should it shift, in case you’ve fallen asleep, much like you had tonight.

You force your rampant heart to calm, ears straining over the waves of blood rushing through them as you listen for the silent entity sharing the home with you. You’ve picked up on the noises that you could, trained your ear to hear the signs of the vampire that has locked you in this gothic tower. The whisper of fabric on cold skin, since his silent steps are impossible to pick up. The shifting of the air in the rooms as he moves, growing colder with his menacing presence. The rustle of his wings when he stretches them in frustration. The shivers crawling up your spine whenever he’s near.

But right now, there’s nothing. 

“Azriel?” you ask into the darkness, and you sound nothing more than a terrified child. There are no monsters lying beneath your bed, waiting to snatch you up by your ankles. No, this monster roams the large home freely, sharp teeth on display so that you know exactly what he can do. The only time you’re even a smidge safe is when the sun blinds through curtains you force open daily, but even the sweltering rays are not here to help you now. You are petrified beyond all belief, despite the softer instances you’ve seen of the slightly unhinged vampire who’s trapped you in what you know will be your grave.

There is no answer to your call, but you don’t expect one. He’s a predator first and foremost, and he thrives off of the quickening pace of your heart, the sound of your blood rushing through your body, the shuddering of your bones as you tremble. You catch him sometimes, when you quiver before him, how he licks his lips, fangs pressing into the soft skin of his unfairly luscious lips.

Your mind is screaming at you not to move, not to get up and find out what’s awoken you and has you feeling this unease. Surely, Azriel cannot be in danger. He is the danger. 

No one has tried to breach your room, the chair hooked up against the door, and you wince at the scrape it makes when you pull it away and turn the knob.

The door gives easily, almost swooping in on a phantom wind. It’s not him. Your body is too accustomed to his presence by now. And the lack thereof a darkness that rattles you so deeply it makes your thighs clench, you know he is not near.

The hall is long and dark, freezing cold. So much so that you can see your breath puffing before your face. Azriel doesn’t understand that you need heat to survive in your inferior human body, and you won’t tell him. Maybe it will become so cold at night that you’ll fall into a peaceful slumber, each shallow breath icing over until your heart freezes in your chest. Then, you won’t be trapped anymore.

But there’s a part of you that’s driven down the hall, seeking him out. A part of you that you shove away when you wonder if he’s alright. A part of you that likes knowing that he’s there, watching you when you’re doing the most mundane things to keep yourself from getting bored to death in this hell. When you read in front of the window, or cook yourself something in the kitchen. When you put on a particularly expensive dress for what? For…for him.

Your footsteps are silent against the carpets but to him you know you sound as if you’re stomping around the corridor, making as much noise as possible. It’s normally your tactic during the days, wanting him to know your displeasure for this place. The thought of him being able to hear your soft steps, your hardly there breaths makes you quake in both fear and excitement, knowing how he always knows your location, and can seek you out no matter where you run.

“Azriel?” you call again, softly. It’s hardly a whisper at all, and there is no response.

Your fingers tremble where they’re pressed to the wall, following the darkened corridor. They brush over the frames of artwork curling at the edges, paint dusty and faded with time. You caress the wooden railing, following it down the staircase, ignoring the nagging in your mind that’s telling you to run.

A fire crackles in the hearth and you pause, confused. All this time Azriel has never kept a fire going, not even per your request with chattering teeth and bluish fingers. He doesn’t like them, and you don’t ask why. You don’t care why. At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

You don’t know what possesses you to move closer to it when the popping of logs is a clear warning sign.

Pausing on the last step, foot hovering before the floor, the hair at the nape of your neck prickles. It winds down your spine like an icy rope, settling into the very marrow of your bones. It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right.

Before you can whirl around, race back up the staircase to your room, a voice sounds softly in your ear. “You smell impeccable, crow.”

You whirl, a scream tearing from your lips as you tumble from the stair. You catch yourself on frozen toes, staring up at Azriel with wide eyes, who is shrouded in shadow. He’s standing with preternatural stillness, spine tall. His wings are tucked tightly behind his back, and the talons stick high above his head like horns. 

“Azriel?” you ask, taking a step back. Two.

He doesn’t answer, he follows. Azriel takes one step forward for every one you move away, towards the sitting room with the fire. Orange light bathes him, and you can feel it roaring hot at your back.

As the firelight washes over his stoic face, your stomach roils in horror. This is not the Azriel who had stolen you away, who had given you dresses and your own space, who tried to make you feel less like you were robbed of your former life and more like this had been a choice.

But none of it has been a choice. And you are reminded just what he is capable of at the sight of red-rimmed eyes, the lack of color, the baring of sharp fangs that call your name. 

Bloodlust.

His pupils have swallowed the stroke of hazel completely. You watch as his fingers curl and his nostrils flare when your heart triples in pace. His unfocused gaze sharpens on the column of your throat where your pulse pushes through your skin. 

“Please,” you beg, but he doesn’t seem to hear you. Azriel is no longer there, instead, the very beast that lurks inside of him has taken control and is thirsty for blood.

Azriel lunges and you scream, pivoting on your heel. If you can make it to the iron poker by the fire you may be able to slow him down, stun him as you claw at the front door to try and get away. It’s no ashwood, which would kill the vampire who is much too fast for you to even take a step, grabbing you and pulling you back into his chest.

You thrash, screaming, but your efforts are futile. No one can hear you in the depths of these woods. Your strength is no match for him.

Azriel must be in there somewhere, as he is not crushing your body into dust. No, he wants you otherwise unharmed except for holes in your neck. That, he doesn’t mind seeing, tasting. It’s exactly what he’s taken you for, isn’t it? Just when you’d begun thinking that he might not be as bad as the stories you were told when you were young, tales of bloodthirsty creatures who would tear your throat out to taste your pretty blood.

Now is your time.

His grip is strong around your wrists. You kick back with your leg but can hardly reach him. He is immune to your weak hits. You can feel him leaning over you, closer and closer until his fangs are a whisper against your skin, a tease pinpricking right over your thrumming pulse.

“Devine,” he whispers, and the sensuality of it rips through your body like a lance. As you part your lips to exhale another beg, he bites. You scream.

You tremble in his iron hold. His fingers feel like icepicks as they dig into your flesh. Your scream melts into something long as heat courses through your body, the adrenaline and sting of his teeth burning you to your core. It feels…good. 

It feels like you’re walking on flames, yet they aren’t burning you. They’re caressing you in the best way, holding you, cradling you like a babe. For the first time since you’ve arrived at this horrible place, you feel warm. Like Azriel is embracing you, and he is, because you’ve stopped fighting. His hands are around your waist, holding you tightly, and yours are buried in his thick hair. Heat courses through your bones, pooling between your thighs. Your mind whirls with pleasure as he suckles, the hot press of his tongue lapping your skin, mirrored in the pulse of your throbbing clit.

You relish in the feeling. His body pressed tightly to yours, the strain of his cock through the thin fabric of your nightgown. You can feel the way his muscles loosen the longer he leeches from your neck. 

And you enjoy it until you become woozy, when the euphoria seeps from your blood back into his mouth. When his grip feels like each individual finger is imprinted on your bones. Your neck throbs painfully, and your vision is blackening with shadows in the corners. Your head lolls a little, unable to keep it up.

“Azriel,” you choke, but it’s hard to get your lips to form the words. It’s difficult to do anything except lean into him, to let him take his fill. But you have to try, because this is not how you want it all to end. “You’re…” you huff a painful exhale, “You’re hurting me.”

He goes still, bones popping with the effort. His hold on your falters and you sway, and as badly as he wants to pull away, to run and hide in a whisper of darkness, he catches you, because he’s harmed you and the bloodlust has been wiped away by your words alone. Words he swore he’d never pull from you. Words that will haunt him for centuries.

You’re hurting me.

His vision clears, goes sharp, staring right at the two holes in your neck, thick, red blood still dribbling from the punctures. The beast in him rages to lean down and lick you, keep sucking at the marks until your already slowing heart stops completely. He wants to feel the last beat of your heart beneath his hands, his lips, but he forces himself to do the one thing he hadn’t been able to do tonight: focus.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in horror, when his mind catches up to what he’s looking at. You, looking so broken and fragile in his arms, pale. Your head rests against his chest, eyes fluttering with the strain to keep them open. Your mouth parts but no words come out. 

Azriel wants so badly to drop you, to get away from you, because he’s so stupidly allowed his bloodlust to consume him. He selfishly thought that he would be okay for a few more days, that he wouldn’t have to hunt in the aftermath of a brutal storm because all of the animals would be hidden away. He’s been stupid to think that, and the worst has happened.

He shoves the couch closer to the fire with a shove of his boot. The logs pop and he winces, hating the sound. He’d started the fire as a way to lure you down, the warmth calling to you. It was as much of a present for you as it was a distraction for him. A warning he was giving himself, not to enter the room with the fire roaring in the hearth. He hates the way the flames taunt him. You hadn’t made it to the room before your scent had stuck in his throat and his beast caught a whiff. 

Your body looks frail when he sits you down. Your eyes have closed and your lips have lost color. Azriel knows that if his heart was capable of pulsing, it would be a pounding drum in his chest, beating with worry. He races to your rooms, ripping your blankets from your mattress and is back by your side in a matter of seconds. He tucks you in tight, worrying over you as if you are a sick babe. But you’re not, you’re a pretty little thing that he’d taken in the dead of night for his own selfish reasons. For company, for your heart. But never for your blood. 

This is not how any of this was supposed to go.

Azriel’s mind races with thought. The wounds on your neck have stopped leaking, and they’ll close up quicker if he just licks over it one more time but he can’t force himself, not when he’d violated you like this, hurt you. He needs to leave. He needs to get as far away from you as he can. 

The lethargic beating of your heart tells him that you’re going to be okay. You will be wobbly for a few days, throat in pain, but you’ll live. He didn’t go too far tonight. He didn’t drink you dry.

So Azriel does the only thing that he can. The only thing that he’s ever been good at. 

He leaves.

[ariseur]

'Ello luv, it's been a while since I saw someone writing for DMC ugh, miss when dmc(5) was trending... What a good time!

I don't know if your requests are open or not, but catch up with me!! Our pretty girls and boys with a vampire!reader! Or or— A WITCH! BOTH

Like, you choose if it's a bunch of headcanons, blurbs, a full one shot with a character or not, I just really want to see it!

Well, obviously if you can do it honey, if you can't it's fine <3

dmc crew dating a vampire 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

devil may cry x reader

┊ ˚➶ notes ｡˚ 🎼

this was actually my first request on this blog!! i don’t know why i put it off for so long bc it’s literally so cool?? i ended up just doing a vampire instead of witch/vampire witch so i hope you guys enjoy considering my phone crashed trying to copy n paste this from my notes to tumblr 💋

┊ ˚➶ warnings ｡˚ 🎼

blood (but in the vampire way ykyk), fangs and mentions of sharp teeth, intended lowercase, kinda spoilers for dmc5 in v’s,

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓓ANTE — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ you are literally so hot in DANTE’s eyes, you could honestly do no wrong.

❥ i think you guys already know what i’m gonna say..

❥ if you feed on blood or need it for some sort of sustenance, dante will gladly volunteer. he thinks it’s the hottest thing ever.

❥ although, i’m not sure if vampires much like demon blood..

❥ eh, oh well. dante will still think it’s attractive, especially if you have fangs or some sort of sharper canines.

❥ only downside to being a vampire and dating dante is that you’ll occasionally hear a super bad transylvanian accent. like.. really bad.

❥ but!! if you’re also a demon hunter like him— and you have some cool freaky powers like draining blood or energy from empusas or really just any ability that’s useful, it’s heart eyes all around from him.

❥ you could be covered in blood or feasting on something and then you’ll spot dante in the corner wielding devil sword dante after defeating like seventy fuckin other demons and he’s just.. mesmerized.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓥ERGIL — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ VERGIL’s much more curious about your species. do you have any weaknesses? are the fictionalized versions of your kind portrayed accurately? what are you exactly?

❥ luckily he’s a lot more quiet about his curiosity compared to, maybe— nico. his staring is intimidating, though. when he sits with you or near you, he’ll usually just study you. maybe it looks like he’s judging but he’s really just analyzing your appearance. especially if you have any distinctive features.

❥ if you have that dark ruddy aesthetic, he’ll likely admire from afar even if red isn’t exactly his favorite color.

❥ if you really needed it, he’d let you feed off of him although it’s definitely not his first choice. he’s not really a fan of being bitten, especially if you need to bite his neck or something like that.

❥ probably finds some esoteric artistic poem or painting with an underlying meaning of having to do with vampires and thinks of you every time he looks at it.

❥ his gothic poetic side is showing

❥ ugh i just wanna kiss his scowl so bad but i also wanna punch him.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓝ERO — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ nero literally thinks it’s so cool.

❥ he might be a little wary once he first meets you? like are you gonna tackle him rn and sacrifice him with your own lil blood ritual?

❥ but once he finds out you’re docile or that you pick and choose on whom you feed on, he’s like, “oh okay that’s cool”

❥ probably like dante where the only version he knows of vampires are the hollywood adaptations of them. so like.. he’s confused if you can go into sunlight? or you can eat certain foods? or if you can go near churches??

❥ he, too, thinks you’re super hot. however!! very iffy about you drinking blood or feeding in front of him. not like it grosses him out but it’s kinda.. weird to watch for him?? idk.

❥ another thing is that he doesn’t want you biting him at all. he’s like vergil where he’ll be baffled if you even ask, except he’s super hesitant to offer himself unless you’re super injured and in dire need of it.

❥ just step on him to shut him up atp

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓥 — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ V’s goth ass won’t shut up about how divine your species is and how fascinating he finds you.

❥ curious on your feeding habits and what you essentially need to survive, tries to find any and every book that he can about vampires so he can learn about you even more.

❥ he’s like those people who romanticize the 1800s or the salem witch trials or greece or ethel cain or lana del rey while kicking their feet and posting about it. he will find a way to make the situation poetic, trust me.

❥ finds it amusing if you’re annoyed by griffon’s teasing and threaten to eat him first if you were to ever go rogue, you might even be able to get a close mouthed chuckle out of v.

❥ utterly fascinated by just your very being, even if it’s just mundane traits. especially loves to see your fangs, dunno why but they’re just aesthetically pleasing to him.

❥ considering he’s kinda like a deteriorating human that’s basically turning into a husk, i wouldn’t recommend feeding on him unless you plan to kill him—which who would wanna murder our emo bae right here? (capcom)

❥ the type of person to roll his eyes at false folklore and representation because he’s literally in love with an actual vampire?? how dare they portray you like this??

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓛ADY — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ LADY also finds you super hot!!

❥ also interested because she’s probably never seen a vampire outside of media— so it’s a nice change of pace rather than being face to face with demons all day.

❥ despite all this, after the initial introduction, i’m not sure she’d care too hard? like— sure, you’re considered a supernatural being and all that.

❥ and although she thinks it’s super dope, i feel like it wouldn’t matter as much to her. she’s seen and done a lot of things at such a young age, i feel as though she’s almost desensitized?

❥ she’s so badass she can’t even care. she’s literally respected by dante, whom is titled ‘the legendary devil hunter’. (dmc5 did her dirty with her lack of part in the storyline 💔)

❥ she’ll respect any of your needs, and ngl also thinks you biting into her neck is hot.

❥ kinda surprised that you’re able to go out into sunlight even if she’ll never tell you that 😭

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓣RISH — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ another one who doesn’t care that much. it’s not like TRISH is dismissive of your species and where you come from, but she’s literally a full on demon who’s probably seen everything.

❥ you guys r so hot though, like the ultimate power couple.

❥ oh, and if you’re a devil hunter, too? you guys r gonna kick sm ass together. she’ll invite you to roll around with her for a while rather than with dante, although if you’re associated with devil may cry then that’s fine too. she’ll put up with dante’s ass just to visit you more often.

❥ i don’t recommend feeding off of trish?

❥ idk how vampires take to drinking demon blood

❥ but shit, if you have that red aesthetic and are just a total femme fatale (or other gender equivalent to that), trish is in charge of your outfits now.

❥ don’t even fight it, you will end up in the outfit regardless.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈ ｡ﾟ

. ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ 𝓝ICO — 𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

❥ oh boy

❥ if you’re lucky enough to survive the first meeting with NICO and you end up actually being in a relationship? you are def a trooper.

❥ when you’re first introduced, she bombards you with questions.

❥ where did you come from? do you have powers? are you like a demon and are there more of you? if so, can she harvest parts for a new bio-weapon? do vampires reproduce the same as humans? are you gonna suck her blood??

❥ she’s just a curious lady cut my girl some slack

❥ she thinks you’re so cool though!! wants you to tell her everything you know about vampires so she can log it. even if you’ve been in a long term relationship, she still can’t help but ask more questions.

❥ but!! as cool and hot as she thinks you are— like nero, she does not wanna see you feed and does not wanna be fed on!! (except.. maybe just one time to see how it feels.)

❥ ugh she just loves you sm please indulge her

[aelius29]

The Rain

It's a one shot.

Pairings: Fem reader x Wednesday Addams

A/n: it's my first time to wrote it in here. I hope you guys like it. ✨💕

And my friend help me fixing my grammar.. 😭😂

Her name @phantomverse707 . She wrote a story a h.p. fan fiction as well. I hope you guys support her. ✨🖋️

Y/n P.O.V.

We stood together, sheltered under Wednesday’s black umbrella. The soft patter of rain droplets against the fabric filled the air as I gazed out at the rain, feeling a sense of calm wash over me.

Wednesday stood silently beside me, her expression stoic as always. I could sense her eyes on me, sharp and observant, aware of my appreciation for the rain.

“You seem to have an unhealthy obsession with rain,” Wednesday noted, her voice flat, with just a hint of curiosity beneath her monotone.

I nodded, my gaze still fixed on the falling raindrops. “Yeah, I like it. It’s soothing.”

Wednesday tilted her head slightly, considering my words. “There is something strangely satisfying about the rain’s capacity to drown out the noise of humanity."

I smiled at her, surprised by her insight. “Exactly. It’s like the world just… stops. For a moment, the rain washes away all the worries and stress of the world."

Wednesday’s eyes flickered with the slightest hint of agreement. “It does have a certain tranquility. Like the prelude to a funeral.”

Without warning, I sprinted out into the rain, laughing as I let the cold drops hit my face.

“Wednesday!” I called, grinning as I spun around. “Come on, join me!”

Wednesday’s expression remained stony, though there was a flicker of something akin to annoyance—or maybe intrigue—beneath her dark eyes.

“You want me to engage in this frivolous display of joy?” she asked, her tone laced with a heavy dose of skepticism.

I nodded, my hair already soaked. “Yeah! It’s fun, you know. Live a little.”

Wednesday stared at me, visibly torn between disdain and something less familiar. Finally, she let out a resigned sigh, setting the umbrella aside. “Very well. But don't expect me to enjoy this.”

I watched, delighted, as she stepped into the rain. Her dark hair quickly became wet, framing her pale face in sharp lines. She looked almost ethereal, like a gothic painting come to life.

“You’re actually doing it,” I said, still amazed she’d joined me.

“I’m merely proving a point,” she muttered, trying—and failing—to keep the corners of her mouth from twitching upward.

We ran through the rain, hand in hand. Her grip was cold, firm, and oddly comforting. The rain poured down around us, soaking us to the bone. I glanced at Wednesday, her eyes glinting with something that almost resembled amusement.

“See? Isn’t this fun?” I laughed, feeling more alive than I had in ages.

Wednesday huffed, her attempt at a smile barely visible. “It’s… tolerable.” Her voice was quieter, almost lost in the sound of the rain.

I released her hand and spun around, letting the puddles splash up against my legs as I danced. I glanced back at Wednesday, half-expecting her to roll her eyes, but instead, she watched with something like fascination.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, but there was no venom in her words, just a dry observation.

I laughed, unbothered. “Yeah, but who says that’s a bad thing?”

For a moment, she stood there, just watching me, as if seeing me clearly for the first time. There was a flicker of something in her eyes—curiosity, maybe even admiration, though she would never admit it.

Wednesday P.O.V.

Watching Y/N dance in the rain, utterly unrestrained and blissfully unaware of how foolish she looked, stirred something within me. It was an unfamiliar sensation, irritatingly close to… admiration.

She was always so composed, so confident. But here, she was raw, joyful, and unabashedly herself. It was maddening and captivating all at once. I couldn’t look away.

When she reached out to me, her hand dripping with rain, I hesitated. I was not one for touchy displays of affection, but there was something disarming about her expression.

Reluctantly, I took her hand again, feeling the warmth of her skin against mine, a stark contrast to the cold rain. She pulled me closer, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Dance with me.”

I scowled, resisting the pull. “I don’t dance,” I stated flatly.

“You don’t have to know how,” she replied, her tone annoyingly cheerful. “Just move.”

I let her lead me, feeling awkward and exposed. My limbs felt heavy, resistant to the idea of surrendering to something so… whimsical. But as we moved together, my body loosened, if only slightly. It was uncharted territory—dancing, in the rain, with someone who made me feel less like a shadow and more like a person.

And despite myself, I didn’t hate it. In fact, it was almost... enjoyable. I, Wednesday Addams, was enjoying myself. Absurd.

Y/N smiled at me, her laughter blending with the sound of the rain. “We’ll have to do this again. Same time, next storm.”

I gave her my best stoic glare, but I could feel the corners of my mouth betraying me with the faintest hint of a smile. “Don’t get any ideas,” I grumbled, though the words lacked their usual bite.

She chuckled, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Oh, no ideas at all,” she said with feigned innocence, her tone dripping with false sincerity.

I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help the flutter of anticipation that her words stirred. The idea of doing this again, of sharing these stolen moments, didn’t seem as intolerable as it should have.

The End ....

A/n: thank you for reading ✨🍂

Edit: I'm sorry if i-edit some of the scenes if u notice. 😭

[koisuko]

some mk1 men ( maybe. johnny...) with a reader who listens to metal music and is super dark dressing and gothic/emo but their personality is the opposite super sweet, extroverted and fun! nsfw or sfw :)

ooo can do!

Tw: none, silly little fellas, gn reader ft: Jonny Cage, Kung Lao, Raiden, Kenshi Takahashi, Liu Kang

Johnny Cage

Something tells me that Johnny won’t really mind your appearance. Your style and choice of music might pique his curiosity, prompting him to ask in his smooth classic way about the band you like.

“What ya listening to sugar?”

When he starts to get to know you, past your dark exterior, it was like doing a complete 180. He’s probably seen dark goths and emo’s in his career but likely chalked them up to their stereotypes. He was surprised, and would likely tease you about it often. He finds your personality cute, and likes the way it contrasts your exterior style. Especially with the music taste, how dark and aggressive the music is compared to your soft and sweet personality.

Kung Lao

It’s certainly something he’s not accustomed to, but something tells me he would be really into it. Your style is something new, refreshing from his village living, and it drew him in. In regard to your music taste, it would take some time for him to warm up to it. Best believe he’s dancing with you to it.

“Play that one again!”

He would find your personality adorable, likely teasing you on your soft interior. I’m sure he would find your style and your personality attractive. Having a bit of both is always nice.

Raiden

Your style is interesting to him, something he’s not used to but he isn’t one to judge. I would think he would not really care about your style, seeing past it in his cute little humble way. Your taste of music isn’t his cup of tea, but he would more than likely indulge in it simply to make you happy and spend time with you. He would be supportive of your music taste, dancing simply to be with you.

“Can I listen with you?”

Like the others, your personality is adorable to him. This would likely be the most compatible aspect to him, how soft and sweet you are to everyone around you. Best believe he’d enjoy some cuddles while you blast metal through your ear buds.

Kenshi Takahashi

He loves your style, it really suits your appearance. He’s not one to really care about how you look, or how you dress. But he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy goth styles. Although, he wouldn’t personally dress in that way. As for the music, he’d likely enjoy it, but it wouldn’t be his favorite. He would chuckle at your enthusiasm in showing him every song on your playlist.

“Sure, baby, show me the next one.”

Again, like the others, your personality would be enjoyed. A bit of a surprise to him as he’s seen many goths in his lifetime and met a few. He’d find it lovely, enjoying the brightness you bring to every room. I would think he enjoys someone is the life of the party, to make up for his more reserved personality.

Liu Kang

I’d like to think he is very similar to Raiden, not really paying much attention to your exterior. And I mean, you could have the strangest style, dressing like a literal clown, and he would still treat you like anyone else. Whatever makes you happy, he will love just the same. Your music style would be no different. If it makes you happy, he will like it too. Perhaps it’s not his cup of tea, preferring more calm and relaxing music over the aggression of metal music. But regardless, he would listen to it with a smile on his face.

“I truly adore the happiness this brings you, my treasure.”

Your personality, he will love just the same. If anything, he would find it beautiful, like the balance of night and day. He would remain a protective figure while you make everyone smile, hanging back with his hands folded and smiling at the joy you bring others.

Notes: sorry this is so short, I struggled a bit with it but I hope it’s at least to your liking❤️maybe I’ll redo it sometime.

[rotworld]

3: Long Goodbye

art by @exorbitantsqueakingnoises

your friend garrett went missing almost a year ago. when he mysteriously reappears asking to meet up again, you're expecting answers. what you get is much worse.

original work. suggestive but not explicit. contains non-consensual touching, blood drinking, emotional manipulation, hypnosis, gore, implied kidnapping.

.

.

.

You miss the first call.

The train home is crowded. It’s one of those dreary days where the rain feels like knives, falling cold and half-frozen in heavy sheets. Harrow Creek’s staggered silhouettes come and go like a mirage through the foggy haze, an anachronistic chimera of a city with thorns of Neo-Gothic rooftops and scalloped Art Deco skyscrapers, blunt and brutal modernism filling newer valleys of construction. Bright lights and billboards wink past the windows. On nights like this, you used to meet up with friends at an all-night cafe, commiserating over hot drinks and a shared plate of hot, buttery pastries.

It rings once. Twice. You don’t know the number on the screen so you slide it back into your pocket and watch the city pass by in gray-blue melancholy and golden smears of streetlamps. It buzzes, ignored. It goes to voicemail. Your stop is next. All you want to do is curl up in bed and not think about anything. Every signpost, stoplight and utility pole on the long uphill walk to your apartment building is papered with crumpled, peeling posters, faded and weather-beaten. 

“MISSING” they say in bold above a smiling face. Short brown hair. Hazel eyes. A flash of checkered red and black at the bottom from his favorite scarf. “PLEASE CALL IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION.”

You miss the second call. You’re peeling off a soggy sweatshirt and kicking off waterlogged shoes. You need to eat something but you don’t feel hungry, just empty. On the news, they’re saying there’ll be rain tomorrow, too. You shove something in the microwave and watch it spin, checking your messages just for something to do. Someone asks about trading shifts. Someone asks if you’re doing alright. A chime, and then a new message pops up. Unknown number. 

“its me,” it says.

Another chime and then another, and another, coming so quickly your phone can’t finish the notification sound before it interrupts itself with a new one.

“still alive.”

“srry.”

“plz pick up.”

“im in trouble.”

You’ve never hit the “call” button so fast.

He doesn’t answer right away and you pace, your heart racing, listening to the sluggish one-note ringing with growing panic. It’s him, isn’t it? It has to be. That’s how he texts, one rapidfire thought at a time. But what happened? Where is he? Why the new number? Is he with someone? Is he safe? He said he’s in trouble. Was that him before, those calls you didn’t answer? You’re starting to spiral when the ringing suddenly stops. 

Silence. A shaky exhale through static. Someone starts to speak and then stops themselves. Takes a deep breath. Starts over. “H…hey. Hi. I’m…I wanted to talk to you.” 

It’s him. You have to lean against the kitchen counter, your knees buckling. “Garrett?” you say, quiet, hoarse and hopeful. “You’re okay?” 

“I’m okay.” He doesn’t sound okay. Garrett is the social butterfly of your friend group. He’s a smoothtalker, a good listener, the kind of guy everyone knows and likes and owes a beer. And he’s unflappable, too confident to lose his cool, too unbothered by insults to pick a fight. He’s a safe harbor in the insular cliques of Harrow Creek’s nightlife. He’s your best friend. You hear him sniff and clear his throat, a long pause before he tries again. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t…I couldn’t call before. They’re strict about…” He stops abruptly. Another inhale, pause, exhale. “Can we meet up?”

It’s eleven at night and you’re a cold, tired mess. “Yes,” you say without hesitation. You beg him not to hang up while you change out of your wet work clothes into something warmer and he sounds uneasy. He mutters something that comes through muffled, away from the receiver, and a different voice says something indistinct. “Should I bring someone? Harley’s probably still up.”

“No,” Garrett says quickly. “Just. Just you, please. You’re the only one I called. I can’t…I’m not even supposed to…”

“Just me,” you assure him. There are a million more things you want to ask but he talks to whoever’s with him again in that small, scared tone and you know you won’t get answers. “Where should I meet you?”

“Thank you.” 

Those two words make your chest feel tight and aching. That’s the Garrett you know. The smile you can hear. The quiet relief. He’d sounded so begrudged and exasperated when you offered to bring him cough syrup and tissues that time he got sick, but he met you at the door with and promised to pay you back, looking at you like you’d hung the moon and stars in the sky. He always took care of everyone else. He wasn’t used to being taken care of.

“No problem,” you say, swiping a hand across your face.

“Have you heard of Betwixt? It’s a bar on the east side, right next to the movie theater and the Italian place.” Another pause. Another murmur from someone you don’t know. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you there in a bit. Just you, please. Don’t tell anyone. I’ll explain everything, but it has to be you.”

You throw your coat back on. Different shoes. Remember your umbrella this time. You take the stairs two at a time, throw yourself back into the cold and rush down the same street you just trudged up. East side, he said. Movie theater. Pizza place. You’re not over there much so you look it up online. A couple train stops later and you’re in an old part of town, the streets wide for trolleys that don’t run anymore. The buildings are red and brown brick, the rooftops prickly with chimneys and jagged spires, hunched gargoyles leering over the edge. The streetlights don’t seem as bright, all burnt orange and eerie.

The map on your phone says you’ve arrived as you stand in front of a stone archway with double doors set further inside. A vintage sign hangs overhead, painted wood dangling from a decorative metal pole. “Betwixt” is printed in curling, golden letters on a black background. From here, it looks more like a classy, upscale restaurant than a bar, candlelight glimmering on the other side of the glass. You push the door open. The heat is on inside. 

Wooden floorboards creak under your footsteps. It’s dark. More than ambience, the candles are the only source of light. You can’t see much but you can hear lively conversation, the scrape of chairs and the clink of glasses. You glimpse an eclectic collection of framed photographs on the walls; portraits and landscapes, city vistas and mountaintop views. There are a few small tables scattered around and a row of booths against the wall, candlelight gleaming on leather upholstery. A couple in the back presses close in a booth, hands wandering. You hear a giggle as one of them caresses the other’s cheek. Traces their jaw. Runs one fingers down the side of their neck and whispers something that makes them shudder. Eyes glint in the dark like a wolf’s caught in headlights and you step back quickly.

“Excuse me,” someone mutters, touching your shoulder to guide you out of the way. But they stop suddenly, turning around to look at you. 

Not Garrett. He’s too tall, shoulders too broad. Hands in the pockets of a leather jacket, he tilts his head and looks you up and down with obvious interest and a widening smile. You try to get past him and he steps in your way. 

“Hey. You wearing red?” he asks, his tone flirtatious. 

You stare at him, shaking your head slowly. You don’t know what he’s talking about but you don’t think it’s any of your business. “I’m meeting somebody here.” You take another step back, nervous. You see more animalistic eye shine, the glint of unwanted predatory attention. Your pulse quickens. You’re definitely not supposed to be here. Why didn’t Garrett warn you?

“Yeah? I can keep you company ‘till then.” The man takes a step closer. “Is this your first time? It’s alright. Don’t have to be nervous. You could practice with me, if you want. I’ll be gentle.” 

You back into someone. A hand grips your shoulder, keeping you still. “This one’s mine,” you hear, the words low and angry. Your heart lurches in your chest. You know that voice. The man in front of you scowls, shrugs, and stalks off towards the bar in the back. You turn around and see what you stopped hoping you’d ever see again, lightheaded with overwhelming, conflicting emotions.

It’s him. You know it is. It doesn’t matter that half of his face is concealed, a mask over his nose and mouth. It’s stiff, not flimsy fabric but something firmer. Those are his eyes, wide and astonished with tears bubbling up along the lower lid. That’s his voice, slightly muffled, saying, “Sorry. Uh. Hope you weren’t waiting too long. You wanna sit down?” 

You look around nervously. A few people are staring. You can tell because you can see their eyes, wolf-like and glinting in the dark. “Could we step outside? I don’t think this bar is for, uh…” You don’t finish the thought. It doesn’t matter if you whisper. They’ll all hear you.

“Humans?” Garrett says. Chuckling, like this is funny somehow. “No, it is. It’s for everyone. That’s why I picked it. So we could both…” You look at Garrett and he looks back at you, something desperate in his gaze. “Please don’t go,” he says, his voice quivering. 

“I won’t,” you assure him. You don’t know what else to do, so you step forward to wrap your arms around him. Garrett nearly knocks you over when he hugs you back, surging forward, meeting you halfway and more. He squeezes so hard that it hurts but you don’t say anything because he’s shaking, breathing heavily against your shoulder. He buries his face against the side of your head, the thick material of his mask nudging against your nose and your jaw. He nuzzles into your neck. He growls. When you go rigid in his arms, he pulls away like you burned him, squeezing his eyes shut. His shoulders rise and fall as he takes deep, steadying breaths. In for five. Hold for five. Out for five. He does it over and over until the tremors stop. 

“Okay,” he says finally, opening his eyes. “Okay. Sorry. I’ve got it under control, I promise.” 

“We need to talk about this,” you tell him as gently as you can. 

He looks at the floor guiltily. He nods.

Garrett leads you to a booth in the back. The chair that shares the same table is already occupied. A stranger sits there with a notebook open on the table, pen in hand, scribbling something. He doesn’t look up when Garrett slides into the booth across from him. He’s not dressed for the weather, just a thin tank top under a jacket falling halfway off his shoulders. He has long hair, bleach white, the ends dyed blue. Both arms are tattooed from the shoulders to the backs of his hands. You don’t sit down and Garrett looks nervously from you to the stranger and back again. He doesn’t look afraid of him, you think. More like he’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

“Virgilio,” the stranger introduces himself, still not looking at you. You can’t read the page in front of him but there are notes of some kind, something that looks like a list. He’s doodling in the margins. “Just supervising. Don’t mind me.” The other voice on the phone wasn’t clear enough to hear, but it sounded close to his. Deep and gravelly.

“I’ve been staying with him,” Garrett admits. His eyes are pleading. He scoots over further, leaving plenty of room for you in the booth next to him. 

Reluctantly, you sit down. “You said you were in trouble.” 

“I was. I still am, I guess. It’s complicated.” Garrett rests his hands on the table and they fidget restlessly. His fingers have been picked raw in places, pink underlayers of skin and newly-healed scabs surrounding his nails. You set your hand next to his, palm up, offering. Garrett grips it immediately. He laces your fingers together and holds on tight. “You remember I was going on that trip? Flying out to see Nate, hang out for the weekend?” 

You nod. You remember. That’s the trip he didn’t come back from. Nobody’s heard from Nate since, either.

“That’s when it happened. We were going out for drinks. It was some place with live music and…” Garrett rubs his face. “I can’t. I can’t say it. Can you please…?” 

Virgilio stops writing. He hooks his pen into the notebook’s spiral metal spine and actually looks at you for the first time, studying your face, glancing up and down. His stare makes you uncomfortable. It feels like he’s looking through you rather than at you. “What do you know about nightbound?” he asks.

You knew where this was going—knew the moment you saw reflective eyes staring back at you in the dark—but the word still makes your pulse pick up. “Not much,” you admit. That they exist and that it’s what they call themselves. You don’t know when or why ‘vampire’ became a dirty word. 

Virgilio nods. He doesn’t look surprised. “Garrett is the victim of an unauthorized turning.” He speaks slowly and clearly, the words unauthorized turning enunciated so there’s no misunderstanding. “It was traditionalist dissenters. That means people who don’t respect Council authority, running their own compound in the middle of nowhere and grabbing whoever they wanted off the streets. It’s my understanding that Garrett was taken with four others from a music venue, but he’s the only survivor of his clutch. Two didn’t survive turning. They had the other…” He pauses, studying your horrified expression with a slight tilt of the head. The gesture strikes you as animalistic. Bird-like and curious. “Well, they were traditionalists. They only want one per clutch, and it’s up to the hatchlings to see who makes the cut.” 

Garrett squeezes your hand. He avoids your eyes. “Right,” he says hoarsely. 

“Why is he in trouble?” you ask. “It’s not his fault this happened to him. He shouldn’t be punished for it.” 

Virgilio leans back, throwing one arm over the back of the chair. He regards you with renewed interest, his head tilting the other way now, frowning like you’re a puzzle he can’t quite solve. “He’s not in trouble for getting turned. The problem is his appetite. Traditionalists aren’t big on restraint. He’s been taught to gorge himself whenever he’s hungry, and we get a hunger response every time we catch a whiff of a human on the breeze.” 

“I’m getting better,” Garrett insists. He sneaks a look at you out of the corner of his eye but quickly looks away as though ashamed. 

Virgilio nods. “It’s true. He’s come a long way in just a few months. But that’s why he can’t call anyone. They’d want to see him to make sure he’s alright, he’d smell them, and it’d get messy. Well, that and the Council wants him to focus on acclimation. Hatchlings do better in the long run if they start over. Make new friends.” 

“New friends?” you repeat, your voice thin. “So he’s just supposed to cut us off? Let us all think he’s dead?” 

“No,” Garrett insists. “No, no, it’s not like that, it’s more like…like a precautionary—”

“Yes,” Virgilio says. 

You look at Garrett, his shoulders drawn up, trying to disappear into his seat, and Virgilio staring at you both across the table. “But he called me,” you say.

“I let him call you,” Virgilio corrects.

“Why?”

“Well…” He drums his inked fingers on the table over his notebook, humming thoughtfully. “How do I put this…there’s an exception. He gets to keep someone from his old life under very specific extenuating circumstances. You happen to fit all the criteria.” Virgilio pauses. He looks at Garrett. Inclines his head towards you. “Go on,” he drawls. 

“Right. So.” Garrett steadies himself with a breath. “Feeding is, uh…it’s. Really intense. And emotional. So if you’re going to do it, you know, not just from a bag but from a person, from…” He stops, stroking your thumb with his. “If you’re going to do it, it should be with someone you know and trust. Who trusts you, too. That’s how it’s supposed to be. And you’re…I mean, we weren’t…I never got to ask…”

“Garrett,” Virgilio says, sounding impatient. 

Garrett tugs at your hand gently. He brings it up to his mask, pressing it against the inside of your wrist. “I want to feed on you,” he says. His voice is hoarse. His eyes half-lidded and nearly black, pupils fully dilated. “Please. Please let me feed on you.” 

“You’d have to move in,” Virgilio adds, rubbing his chin. “It’s just standard procedure. I have Garrett feeding often, but on much smaller amounts. A sip here and there. And it’s not a bad gig, you know. The Council will do just about anything to keep you comfortable. You’d be doing us a favor, after all.” 

They both stare at you expectantly and it makes you feel like cornered prey. Gently, trying not to upset him, you tug your hand out of Garrett’s grasp. “Can I have some time to think about it?” you say carefully. Garrett’s shoulders sag in disappointment. Virgilio frowns. “It’s just…it’s a lot. All of this. I want to help Garrett. I don’t want to lose him. But I have to figure some things out if I’m going to move.” You have to tell someone. Your friends. His family. The authorities. The nightbound must have their own government—that “Council” Virgilio keeps mentioning—but you don’t trust them. Nothing about this sits right with you. 

“Sorry,” Garrett mumbles. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you assure him, shifting away as discreetly as you can. “None of this is your fault, okay? We’ll figure this out, I promise.” Another small, subtle scoot back, but you don’t get far. Someone slipped into the booth behind you. Panicked, you turn around and find Virgilio sitting far too close, one of his hands seizing your arm and the other grabbing your jaw. When did he get up? You didn’t see or hear him move. 

“I couldn’t do it,” Garrett says miserably. 

“I didn’t expect you to.” Virgilio grabs your chin between his thumb and fingers, tilting your face higher to meet his cold gaze. His eyes are gold. Bright and glittering, speckled with flecks of amber and paler yellow. Your struggles to get away from him are hampered by his eyes and just how pretty they are. How nice they are to look at. How easy it is to lose yourself in them. Like autumn leaves. Like honey. Warm. Gentle. Comforting. Gold. 

You feel so tired. What were you doing earlier? And why?

“It takes practice,” Virgilio says. “You probably wouldn’t be able to maintain it very well. It’s another thing we can work on later.” He sounds faraway. Echoing. He never looks away. He doesn’t even blink. Your eyelids flutter but they don’t shut completely. You don’t want to lose sight of him. “Don’t feel bad. You tried asking. If they want to be mad at someone, they can be mad at the Council. Here, hold onto them. It’s fine. They’re under.” 

Virgilio pushes on your shoulder, urging you to lie back. You’re in Garrett’s arms now, leaning against his chest. It feels nice to be here. Nice to be between the two of them. You look up at Garrett and his eyes are pretty, too.

“You can take the outer layer off,” Virgilio says. “Just the outer layer.”

Garrett nods feverishly. He pinches the edge of his mask and something shifts. There’s a shrill, sticky sound like velcro. The mask comes apart, a thick panel of leather peeling off. Garret sets it on the table and you see him better now, nose and lips and the way he’s panting, but there’s still something on his face. Dark lines. Bars. Metal? The frame of the mask is still hooked over his ears. 

It looks like a muzzle.

“Take a breath,” Virgilio reminds him.

Garrett listens. You see his lips part. A tongue, darting out to moisten them. A flash of fangs. He holds you close as he tugs your jacket down, pulls the neckline of your shirt to the side, and leans in. The muzzle digs into your neck. You hear Garrett suck in a deep breath. He shivers. His breath comes in hot, humid puffs against your skin. Saliva drips through the muzzle, his tongue desperately pressed against the metal trying to reach you. 

“Garrett.” 

“I know. I know.” He pulls himself away like it physically pains him to do so, groaning, biting his lip. “Fuck, I can’t…I need them so bad.”

“Look at me. You’re doing fine. I’ll stop you if I have to, but I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you were ready. I’m going to unlock your muzzle.” 

You feel your stomach twist. A twinge of fear sours that sweet, floaty feeling making everything soft and nice. Something’s wrong here, isn’t it? Something is very wrong. You were trying to leave. Why were you trying to leave? You hear a chair scrape the floor. Footsteps. It’s all muffled and dreamlike, impossible to focus on. Your head lolls back and you’re staring at the ceiling. Where are you? Smells like beer. Like blood. There’s a loud metallic clatter and then a hand against your neck. Shaky fingers. A loving caress. 

“Just like we practiced,” Virgilio whispers. The hand on your shoulder tightens. A warm, wet mouth presses against the side of your neck and you remember suddenly, the realization like ice water down your back. It’s too late. You see Virgilio looming over both of you, standing beside the booth. He tilts his head. Smirks at you. Garrett bites down. 

You’ve never felt pain quite like this. There’s the sharpness, daggerpoints sinking into your skin hard and deep enough that blood gushes out of the wounds, and a spreading heat like your veins are igniting. It’s not a nice, neat incision, not just two little pinpricks. His jaw clamps shut and all of his teeth are crunching through flesh and delicate soft tissue. There’s the arrhythmic agony of Garrett’s tongue pressing at the wound in short kitten licks and the greediness of his mouth, harsh suction that pulls and drags at delicate things under your skin. Garrett moans against your skin and you scream when he pulls and tugs and finally wrenches his teeth out of you, only to drag them teasingly against a new, unmarked spot slightly lower. 

You beg him to stop. You plead and you cry and you try to make him look at you. You regret it when he finally does. Garrett looks like a wolf that just dragged its snout out of a dead deer’s belly. Your blood is smeared all over his mouth and dribbling down his chin. Panting open-mouthed, you see it staining his teeth. He swipes his hand across his face, making his fingers red and wet. He licks them, one at a time. He moans at the taste, drool escaping the corner of his mouth.

“I’d let him give it another try, if I were you,” Virgilio says. “No venom in the first bite. If you don’t want to feel that in the morning, you’ll need a dose.” 

You don’t answer. You can’t. It hurts whenever you breathe, or swallow, or your heart beats. You feel like you’ve been chewed up and spat back out, your neck raw and prickling. Garrett’s eyes are drawn to the slow ooze of blood from the bite he left behind and you see the moment he realizes what he’s done, how badly he’s hurt you. Eyes wide, swallowing hard, he tries to say something but never does. He looks at Virgilio but the other man looks at you, waiting for an answer. 

You tremble, your hands clutching fistfuls of Garrett’s sweater. Shaking and reluctant, you touch Garrett’s face, resting your palm against his cheek. His eyes shut and he lets out a pleased sigh, turning to kiss your wrist. You flinch in anticipating terror when he licks and nips at your skin, but he doesn’t bite. Something about the gesture, the reverence he shows your wrist and your hammering pulse beneath the skin, feels important. Maybe it means something special to the nightbound. Maybe he’s trying to tell you something. 

“Make it stop hurting,” you beg him. 

Garrett kisses your wrist again. He holds it against his cheek, eyes closed in bliss. Carefully, he moves you. Rests you against his other shoulder. He exposes the untouched side of your neck and you can’t stop the helpless, frightened tears that prick the corners of your eyes, expecting even more agony. He kisses the spot first. A chaste peck first, then longer, with tongue. You feel his fangs first, sharp as thorns. A dull pressure. A sharp pain.

And then, without warning, there’s ecstasy. 

It starts in your neck. Everything he touches, everything his teeth rip and shred and tenderize, feels electric. The blood dripping down your shoulder feels like a caress. His hands are on your hips and he’s moving, rocking against you, gasping and breathless as he grinds the hardness in his jeans against your ass. Every sensation is razor-sharp and amplified. Everything that used to hurt is heavenly now. Garrett’s teeth come out of your neck with a wet, sucking sound and then he’s licking you, making love to the wound with his tongue, whispering sweet nothings and promises of always, forever, no matter what it takes. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells you. “I shouldn’t have lied. But you’re glad, too, right? This isn’t goodbye after all.” 

You’ll be mad at him later, probably. You’ll scream and you’ll cry and you’ll find a door you can lock, anything to put some distance between the two of you. But it feels good now. Everything is perfect sweetness and heady delight. You curl into Garrett’s chest and he holds you, not like the way he used to but in a new, more desperate way, like you might disappear if he lets go. Virgilio says something about a mending poultice. Stopping the bleeding. Getting you settled at home. You don’t care. But even now, in this warmth and haze, part of you understands that nothing is ever going to be the same again.

[sanjoongie]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℭ𝔞𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℭ𝔞𝔫𝔞𝔯𝔶

💚Pairing: Vampire Rockstar! Kang Yeosang x Reporter! Reader (f) ft Human Servant! San

💚Au: modern vampire au, Rockstar au, reporter au, queen of the damned au

💚Genre: contemporary

💚Rating: 18+, MDNI

💚Word Count: 2,829

💚Warnings: mentions of blood, blood loss, biting, vampiric habits

💚Summary: finding it odd that you have to interview a Rockstar in the evening, you trudge to the gothic mansion expecting a hungover man. Instead, after being left alone in his cave of a living room, you discover something much more deeper and darker than he hosts orgies with his groupies...

💚Author's Note: Happy birthday to this man who's humor, slyness, wholesome heart and thick waist will always hold a place in my heart!

“Absolutely ridiculous,” You mutter to yourself, hefting your bag with your laptop and climbing the stairs to Kang Yeosang’s gothic mansion. 

The sun is setting, and you have much better things to do than get the skivvy from a rockstar’s point of view on life, but here you were. Your editor, much to your chagrin, assigned you this task with enthusiasm. 

“He’s more interesting than you think!” Mingi said but you just thought he was a little star struck. 

You are still muttering to yourself as you knock on the lion’s mouth door knocker. He was already rich. Why did he make it look like he was a duke rather than a modern rockstar? A somewhat tall, handsome man opens the door, staring down his nose at you. 

“You’re the reporter, I presume?” He says with his haughty expression.

It took everything in you to not roll your eyes. A butler too? You grab your lanyard from around your neck and brandish your credentials. “Yes, I’m here for the interview,” You reply cheerily despite your attitude. 

The butler bows deeply, fanning out his arm to indicate you can come inside. A quick look around, with a grand staircase in the foyer and the limited edition glass chandelier, lets  you know Yeosang enjoys giving an impression. 

“The chandelier was imported from Italy,” the butler informs you. “A one of a kind piece.”

You nod appreciatively and pretend you’re taking notes. “What year?”

“1812,” the butler says.

“1812?!” You gasp and your cool exterior is gone. “Jesus.”

The butler smiles in faint amusement. “Yeosang enjoys timepieces. It says it helps him get into his stage persona.”

“Ah yes, the vampire,” you muse out loud. “However could I forget.”

The butler frowns at you, his lower lip jutting out just a tiny bit. “Are you mocking Yeosang?”

“No, a man pretending to be a mythical creature for the money isn’t anything mock worthy at all,” you reply sarcastically.

The butler uses his height to his advantage and attempts to loom over you, his face stormy with withheld rage. “You dare mock him in his own household?”

“It’s fine, San, stand down,” an amused voice comes from atop the staircase.

You turn your head and see the rockstar you were here to interview. He muses his hair and yawns prettily. He was dainty of face but his body was built a bit like a muscle-perfectionist. Needless to say, he drove his fans wild with the juxtaposition. 

San took a step back and bows. “As you wish, Master.”

Yeosang laughs, but it sounds forced and fake. “Ah, San, no need to be so formal in front of our guest!”

You raise your eyebrow. “Are you saying he refers to you as master when you don’t have guests?”

Yeosang smiles at you angelically. “Not at all. San simply enjoys teasing.”

The rockstar guides you to his living room, which is just as much a museum as a sitting room. He perches on a royal blue stuffed chair, it’s mahogany legs decorated in fleur-de-lis. Yeosang crosses his legs and gives you his full, undivided attention. “Where do we begin?”

You sit across from him on a chaise lounge, reaching into your bag to awkwardly balance your laptop there. You open it and listen to it hum as it powers up. “Well, we sent over some questions to your PR department, which you pre-approved. We can start at--”

Yeosang leans forward, elbow on knee, face in hand. “You’re awfully pretty for a reporter,” he comments.

You chuckle mirthlessly. “Are you implying only ugly girls become reporters, Mister Kang?”

“Please, call me Yeosang,” the rockstar replies smoothly, shaking his head to move his fringe from his eyes. “And no, I am not. I am simply admiring your face.”

You clear your throat. “As I was saying, I think we should start with the basics like--”

“Oh please,” Yeosang drawls. “You don’t want to ask basic questions, do you, miss reporter?”

You pause on typing up your intro and peer over your laptop screen at Yeosang. “Mister Kang, you do not want me to put on my true reporter's cap on.”

Yeosang smiles in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Try me. And I thought I told you to call me Yeosang.”

You close your laptop and crack your fingers. “Okay, Yeosang. You typically dodge the questions about fans of yours going missing after being seen leaving your concerts with you. What do you have to say about that?”

Yeosang shrugs gallically. “I am not responsible for a person after they’ve left my bed.”

“So you openly acknowledge you were with them the night they disappeared,” you press.

A smirk curls the side of Yeosang’s mouth. “I thought you were reporting for the newspaper, not the tabloids.”

“I work off of facts, and it is alarming the amount of young men and women that go missing after a chance encounter with you,” you insist.

“Perhaps they believe they simply cannot live without me after a night with me,” Yeosang purrs. 

You scoff, “You don’t believe a word you’re saying, surely.”

Yeosang lets out a peal of laughter, this one sounding genuine. “Are you implying I’m good at lying to myself?”

You slam your laptop shut. “I knew this was a waste of my time. How about I do us both a favor and type up some bullshit interview. I’ll send it to your team to review. And then we never have to do this again?”

Yeosang looks as if he contemplates it for a moment and then shakes his head. “Aren’t you having fun, miss reporter? I know I am.”

San suddenly enters the room, his broad shoulders unignorable. “Ma… Yeosang. You should eat a meal before too long. You just woke up, after all.”

Yeosang meets your glare with an amused look of his own. “If you will excuse me, I will attend to a minor personal matter and then we can resume. Make yourself comfortable.”

Both San and Yeosang leave the room. San is whispering fervently and Yeosang is replying in even tones but you cannot hear the subject of their conversation. 

You sigh heavily and get up to peruse the living room. It is full of old world art. Yeosang went full-send into this vampire stage presence. You observe a Greek clay vase and a very rage filled 17th century Baroque painting. There is a velvet lined gold box that must have delivered some fanciful jewelry back in the day. 

But what seems to draw you the most were the books. Most had old world bindings, perhaps bought at auction. Some were titled, and some were not. You, by pure curiosity, pull one out of the shelf to crack it open and are surprised to see handwriting inside. 

Paintings no longer intrigue me anymore. I sigh at the simple human nature portrayed in them. If I cannot even enjoy art anymore, what is an immortal to do for the rest of eternity?

You snort at the absurdity of that sentence. “This was clearly a trap for a snooping reporter.”

You close the book with a snap and put it back. You meander down the rows and randomly pull another. It reads:

Yeosang doesn’t know I will leave him tonight. I have done everything I can for him, as a fledgling vampire. He’s grown and can adapt in his own way. I will throw myself into the sunrise and finally see it after 500 years in the dark.

“My Master was very dramatic, I’m afraid.”

You squeal as you close the book and find Yeosang behind you. When had he come up behind you? You had heard nothing? “Finished eating, have you?” You attempt to deflect. 

Yeosang smiles serenely. “I’m quite full now. I’m much better equipped for your questions now, ma belle.”

You roll your eyes and shove the book into his chest. You move back to the chaise lounge you had occupied. “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know. The story of your french vampire master is a bit overdone. I’m sure your fans would eat up an exposé on the real Kang Yeosang.”

You sit down primly, but Yeosang is still where you had left him, regarding the book solemnly. “The real Kang Yeosang, huh? But haven’t you been paying attention? I have been myself this entire time.”

You wave your hand as if to dismiss him. “Fine, do what you want. Shall we resume then, in a professional capacity?”

Yeosang tips his head sideways, considering your proposal. “I rather enjoy a more casual setting myself.”

“I really can’t win with you, can I?” You mumble to yourself. Still, you pull out your laptop and wait for Yeosang to join you. 

Yeosang moves behind the chair he had been sitting on, hands firm on the back of it, remaining standing. “You remind me of someone I used to know. Your inquiring mind is encouraging me to answer some questions better left in the dark. But I know better than anyone that a picture is worth a thousand words. Would you care for me to show you something?”

You close your laptop with finality. “It’s your interview, Yeosang.”

You follow Yeosang as he strolls with his arms held behind his back. “As you can see I am a bit of an acquirer of certain antique goods. It reminds me of the days of old. Depending on the day I could be remembering good memories or bad. Still, it is good to remember all the years that have built me up to this moment. Helps with writing lyrics for my songs as well, you know.”

You nod like it was just a regular Tuesday as a vampire rockstar persona told you about his life. “You certainly do own some very beautiful pieces.”

Yeosang opens a very large set of doors and it brings the both of you to a long hallway with high ceilings. The walls are covered with paintings, large and small and it reminds you of an art museum. Yeosang really wasn’t kidding. 

“I’ll show you a painting of my best friend and I when we were in the prime of our youth. Wooyoung was boisterous and friendly, everything I was not. We were yin and yang, perfectly suited to fill out each other’s imperfections. My master wished to have a portrait of the two of us, his opposite pair, he used to call us. Master, human servant and fledgling vampire; a triumvirate.”

Yeosang stops before a somewhat large portrait. There is a young man with his hair tied back and a beauty mark high on his cheekbone. He is grinning like he knows a secret about you but he’s going to tease you about it before he’ll reveal it. Beside him is a beautiful youth. His hair also pulled back but a reserved look on his face. It appears as if he’s looking at someone behind you and not at the viewer of the painting themselves. He almost looks like…

You giggle nervously. “Gee, the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Yeosang?”

Yeosang’s shoulder brushes yours reassuringly. “There is no apple, ma belle. I am the tree.”

The painting looks authentic to your eyes but anyone could have recreated a painting that matched 18th Century French painters. Surely…

“If this is your strategy to set me on edge so that I don’t ask you a question that could set you in a suspicious light of murder, then it’s working,” you joke dryly.

“Do I set you on edge?” Yeosang asks. His hands are still held at his back but he leans forward boyishly to peer at your face.

You square your shoulders with determination. “Shall we continue?”

Yeosang continues his tour of his art collection, walking down the long hallway. You pull a notebook out of your back pocket, worn and dogeared, to jot down notes. You might as well keep up with Yeosang’s facade, noting the dates and the people associated with the paintings. 

You fall into the lull of Yeosang’s voice, deep and soothing, until you belatedly realize that you are no longer in the hallway. You shake your head a bit and find yourself in a small room, with a table, chair and a couch. It’s dark and modern but you can’t for the life of you figure out the purpose of it. 

“...so that’s the end of the tour?” You prompt.

San shoots up from his place on the couch, eyes wide in alarm. “Master, you didn’t bring her to the hallway, did you?” You study the butler as he winces, looking a lot paler than you recalled from earlier.

Yeosang does not scold San for the mistake of the title of Master this time. “Of course, mon petit chou, she thinks it’s all an act regardless.”

San claspes a hand on his collarbone. “Please don’t make me a spectacle,” he pleas.

Yeosang walks to San’s side and claps a hand down on the shoulder near where San’s holding his collarbone. You watch as Yeosang’s forearm tightens, fingers digging into his butler’s shoulder. “Why San, don’t you want to be a part of the fun?” There is an edge of danger to Yeosang’s voice and your stomach dips. 

San slowly lowers his hand and you can’t help but gasp at the two dainty holes located on his collarbone. San does not appear ashamed but more as if he’s worried. 

You swallow loudly. “You go through an awful lot to keep up appearances. I’ll be sure to note everything I’ve seen here today, don’t worry, Yeosang. Now if that concludes our interview…?” 

Yeosang sports that smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes again. He’s back to the calculating man that intimidates you far more than the entertaining one. “I have one last thing to show you,” he admits, crooking a finger at you.

Your feet move on their own accord and you feel a bit foggy-headed, much like the same state you ‘woke up’ in when you found yourself in this room. It was as if you didn’t have control over your own body. 

“Everyone has seen me flash my fangs on stage but I want you to have a front row seat to the event,” Yeosang croons softly.

The corner of his top lip lifts up and his canine is there but just as a normal human’s appears as. Then you watch in horror as it slowly elongates into a sharp tooth, perfect for a predator. “Do you need any more proof, miss reporter?”

You shake your head quickly. “No, Yeosang, that’s plenty.”

Yeosang throws his head back and his laughter echoes in the tiny, empty room. “I put on a grand show for you and the one thing that convinces you is something base like my teeth? How dull.”

“Can I be excused?” You say in a small voice, your throat tightening up in fear.

“No, I think I’d like to show you first hand why people go missing after spending a night with me,” Yeosang says.

“A-are y-y-you threat-t-tening me?!” You can’t help but stutter in disbelief.

“Master!” San protests.

Yeosang sighs deeply. “You two are wet blankets. Can’t we have a little bit of fun here?”

There’s a sense of mirroring between you and San; a held breath like a deer pausing in the middle of a clearing. Neither of you knew how to move until Yeosang, in this case the predator, indicated what would happen next.

Yeosang practically growls his next sentence, “Well?”

You can’t help but whimper. “I don’t want to die tonight.”

Yeosang rubs the bridge of his nose. “I said ‘the why’ they go missing, not that I was going to make you go missing. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Is that why you only took a sip from me?” San hazards a guess.

Yeosang looks like he is the cat that ate the canary. “If I had it my way, I would have drunk from you then our lovely reporter here. Two lovely dishes, how could I resist?”

“I’m not making it out of here with your secrets, am I?” You whisper.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Yeosang informs you.

“Master, you cannot have told her all your secrets and let her leave. What will the other vampires think?” San objects.

Yeosang performs one of his gallic shrugs. “Perhaps that’s why I set up this interview, San. I tire of hiding everything. Having a proper reporter document everything might be nice.”

If you writing everything down that Yeosang told you was going to keep you alive, you were all for it. “I’ve made avid notes, I promise!”

Yeosang’s eyes, a light amber color that you were starting to believe were not contacts, darken when he locks eyes with you. “Do you still want that live demonstration?”

On second thought, perhaps you wouldn’t make it out alive, at least if Yeosang kept looking at you like that.

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Headcanons: Watching a Scary Movie Holovid with Torrent Company

I got intense brainrot after seeing this adorable art from @lonewolflupe, and it’s been consuming me ever since. 

As a horror wimp, this is how I imagine things would go.

Jesse 

He’s the one who suggests horror night in the first place.

He is so enthusiastic about it that you don’t have the heart to turn him down.

He promises not to pick anything too scary.

He passes out fifteen minutes into the holovid (“Sorry, cyar’ika, it was leg day”).

You’re too scared to get up and turn it off, so you end up hiding behind him for the whole movie.

You have vowed revenge, but it’s been weeks, and you still haven’t figured out anything that he’s scared of. Kix knows, but refuses to tell you.

Hardcase

He wants to introduce you to the classics, so he picks Alien (1979). “It’s not scary, babe, I promise!”

LIES. IT IS SO SCARY. 

HOW CAN HE BE EATING POPCORN WHEN A KARKING CHESTBURSTER JUST KARKING CHESTBURSTED?!

Ripley kinda 👀

After the sixth jumpscare, your nerves get the best of you and you smack him with a pillow, which successfully instigates The Great Pillow War.

As hostilities escalate, you “accidentally” bump the remote and turn off the holo.

As per the terms of the ceasefire, Hardcase is contractually obligated to cuddle you all night so the facehuggers don’t get you.

Tup

Neither of you even want to watch a kriffing scary holo. Why are you doing this again? Because Hardcase convinced you it was a foundational piece of galactic pop culture, that’s why, Force damn him!

You don’t even make it ten minutes before Tup suggests switching to Hocus Pocus instead.

You have to pause mid-opening credits because you realize you can’t watch Hocus Pocus without eating a battalion’s worth of candy.

You both jump on the sofa to belt out “I Put a Spell On You.”

Twice.

You take a break to make popcorn because you forgot there were only three minutes of the holo left, so then you have to start Halloweentown while you finish eating. One thing leads to another, and you end up binging not-scary Halloween classics until 3 AM.

Dogma

He wants to do a comparative analysis of Nosferatu (1922) with Nosferatu (1979) in preparation for Nosferatu (2024).

He takes notes.

He points out every plot hole and inconsistency.

You’re pretty confident that you can handle the cheesy horror of 1922. You are unprepared for the emotional impact of the third act. 

Dogma puts down his datapad so he can give you a hug. When the holo ends, he makes a pot of tea and the pair of you spend the rest of the evening discussing the film. You never get around to watching 1979, but that’s okay, because you’re going to have another holo night next week. 

The next day, you receive a holomessage with his formal report on the plot, structure, music, and performances. There isn’t a single typo.

He suggests going out for dinner before your next holo night. He knows a great place in Little Mon Cala.

Bonus: Fives and Echo

Chaos in the mess hall.

You don’t even know what holovid they pick because they keep you laughing too hard to pay attention.

Something with werewolves and corsets, you think. Wait, is this just an early ‘00s gothic rock music holo?

Whatever, the night turns into a sugar-fueled impromptu pajama party anyway. Where did they even get nail polish?!

The twins are so loud that the rest of Torrent Company shows up to investigate and ends up crashing the party.

Rex walks in to get a cup of caf the next morning to find you all passed out and covered in candy corn. He turns around and leaves without saying a word. Plausible deniability is his middle name, and he already has enough flimsiwork without adding whatever the kriff just happened in the mess hall to the mix.

[candycandy00]

CANDYYY!! Congratulations on 2k followers!! You deserve every single one of them!! 💕💕

I saw the build your own fanfic adventure and you know I have to get in on this soooooooo:

Character: Dabi (what a surprise there 😂)

AU setting: Honestly I'm so stuck between Gothic Mansion and Monster Forest, I'll let you decide!!

Spice level: screw it let's go all the way, NSFW bb

Mood: I'll leave it up to you! You know me, I could go either way!

Kink: ugh I'll indulge a little today, Breeding/Daddy kink (sometimes I like being taken care of, you know?? 😂😂)

Have fun my love! 😘 Can't wait to read Choso's chapter!!

Waxwork - A Dabi x Reader Fanfic

Smut. 18+. Fem Reader. Dabi as a werewolf. Dabi as a vampire. Light vampire-related blood. Rough sex. Breeding. Oral sex. Heavily inspired by the 1988 horror film “Waxwork”.

This ended up a lot longer than I planned but I hope you like it, babe!

Part of CandyCandy’s 2k Followers Event! Any feedback is loved! Dividers by @benkeibear.

You’ve always loved wax museums, so when a new one opened up in town, you just had to visit on opening day. You walk through the doors, noting sadly that there isn’t a very big crowd. After looking through the “historical figures” and “celebrities” sections, you wander into the “fictional characters” area. 

There are highly detailed wax figures lovingly made to recreate various famous scenes from novels and movies. A large portion of them are horror, and so you feel a chill down your spine as you notice you’re the only visitor in this section. 

Some of the wax figures look so realistic, you find yourself staring at them to make sure they’re not moving. You walk around, looking at the displays, before stopping at one that fascinates you. 

The scene looks like the interior of a cabin in the woods. There are even fake trees outside the windows. The “room” is lit by a fireplace. Near the door, there’s a young man bent backwards in what appears to be agony, in the midst of a transformation. He has messy white hair, and half his body is covered in white fur, giving the illusion that the fur is spreading. His dark clothes are ripped, and he’s clutching his head with his hands, one of them tipped with razor sharp claws. His eyes, so bright blue that they seem to glow, are staring upwards. You imagine he’s staring at a full moon.

Also in the display is a young woman in a ragged dress, recoiling from him in horror. Strangely, she resembles you. Her build is the same as yours, as well as her hair. But with her face so twisted by fear, you can’t really tell if that resembles yours too. 

Your eyes keep being drawn back to the man, to the fine white fur that looks like crushed velvet. You want to touch it, to feel it beneath your fingertips. And his eyes… so beautiful. 

Wait… did his eyes just move? For a fraction of a second, you thought his eyes flicked down to your face. But surely you imagined it. You laugh nervously, deciding you’ve been looking at this display for too long. 

You move quickly to the next display, this one looking like the ornate dining room of a gothic castle. Sitting at the table in a beautiful Victorian style dress is a young woman who looks almost identical to the one from the previous display. Which means she looks just like you. Her hair is pinned up in an intricate style, and her dress is way too immodest to be historically accurate. It’s an off the shoulder design that is extremely low cut, exposing way more cleavage than was probably common in the Victorian era. 

The young woman is holding a steak knife in her hand, and has apparently cut her finger on it by accident, as a shiny drop of red “blood” is made to look as if it’s dripping down her hand. But the most interesting part of this display is the man standing behind her, like a predator. 

You draw in a sharp breath as you look at him, realizing with a tinge of alarm that he’s the same as the man from the werewolf display, with slight differences. This one has black hair, and is wearing a black Victorian suit with a cape. He also has scars covering the lower half of his face. But those eyes… those lovely blue eyes… they’re the same. There’s a look of hunger in them as he leans over the woman, staring at the drop of blood. You look at the blood too, trying to imagine why he finds it so compelling. 

Oh, he must be a vampire! You almost laugh at yourself for being so slow to realize it. You casually glance back up at his face, and your breath catches in your throat. 

He’s looking straight at you. Not at the drop of blood, but at you. 

Your heart pounds furiously as you stare at him, locked in his gaze. This time you’re certain. His eyes moved! You know for a fact he was looking at the woman’s hand before! So why is he looking into your eyes now? 

This must be some kind of trick or gimmick, you tell yourself, trying to calm down. Maybe the wax figure has some sort of mechanized feature that makes his eyes move, as a way to excite the visitors. Or, judging by how realistic he looks, maybe he’s an actor! The possibility makes you feel quite silly. 

You back away, suddenly eager to leave this section of the museum, but your back collides with something and your body bounces forward, causing you to stumble over the velvet rope cordoning off the display and fall directly into it. You close your eyes and brace for the impact of the floor, but instead you black out. 

When your eyes snap open, you’re sitting at the fancy table in the dining room. There’s a plate of delicious looking food in front of you and a steak knife in your hand. A single drop of blood is sliding down your index finger. You look in front of you, where the rope should be, but it’s not there. In fact, the rest of the museum is gone! You really are in a complete dining room! 

All at once you remember the other occupant of the room, and you slowly turn your head to look over your shoulder. Leaning over you is the very beautiful, very alive, vampire with the black hair and the scars. 

“Did you cut yourself? Are you okay?” he asks. You expected his voice to be more smooth and formal, given his attire, but he sounds like any random guy you go to college with. 

You’re not sure what to say, wondering if this is a dream or not. Did you hit your head when you fell? 

The man grabs your hand, firmly but not harshly, and pulls it up to his face to examine it. “Looks like a small cut,” he says, then wraps his scarred lips around your finger, his tongue lapping gently at the blood. 

You’re so transfixed that you don’t think to pull your hand away until he’s finished. His eyes move over you, and you’re suddenly very aware of how obscenely low cut your dress is. You stand up from the table and look around, still hoping to see the rest of the museum somewhere. But it’s just not there. 

“Not running off, are you?” the man asks, a hint of a grin on his face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone for dinner.” His tongue runs over his lips as he says it, making your face flush with heat. 

“Um, I’m not really sure where I am,” you say, your back against the edge of the table. 

He steps closer to you. “You’re in my home, doll, and we’re about to have dessert.”

You feel paralyzed as he gets closer and closer, until his body is pressed against yours. He’s taller than you, probably a little older, but he’s fucking gorgeous. 

Maybe this is a dream. Maybe it’s a concussion-induced hallucination. But whatever it is, you might as well enjoy it. 

You reach up and wrap your arms around him as he lifts you up and sits you on the table, the plates and silverware magically gone. His mouth is on your neck, licking along a vein before you feel a sharp pain. He’s biting you! The pain is intense for a few moments, and then disappears, replaced by a feeling of euphoria. You can feel his teeth tearing at your delicate skin, can feel his tongue gliding along the wound, but it doesn’t hurt at all now. You only feel warm and aroused, listening to the sensual sucking sounds as he devours your blood. 

He lies you back on the table and pulls away from your neck. His mouth is sticky and red. He pulls the top of your dress down, freeing your breasts, and then his hands and mouth are upon them, squeezing and licking. 

You moan, clutching his shoulders, opening your legs ever wider as his body presses to you. Eventually he reaches down and rips the skirt of your dress right up the middle, clearing himself a path to your panties and exposing your white garter belt and stockings. He tears the panties away and bends down, running his tongue along your heated, damp flesh. You arch your back, ridiculously turned on by the idea of a vampire eating you out. His tongue, still wet with your blood, circles your clit, driving you to madness. 

When you’re right on the edge of climax, he stops and pulls away, opening his pants to the sounds of your panting. “Gonna be a good girl for me?” he asks, sliding his hand up and down his hard, pleasingly large shaft. 

“Yes! I’ll be so good!” you breathe out, locking your legs around his body, pulling him closer. 

He grins as he shoves himself into you, licking your blood from his lips. His thrusts are deep, intimate, and hit your sweet spot just perfectly. “Ahh… feels so good…” you cry. 

You want to moan his name, but you have no idea what it is. 

“That’s it,” he says with a grunt, thrusting deeper, “taking me so well!”

Fuck it. Just go with the vibes. 

“Harder, Daddy!”

He looks down at you, momentarily surprised, but then he laughs and fucks you harder than you’ve ever been fucked before. 

You were already on the edge of cumming, and now you’re pushed over the edge by the way his tip hits your cervix, making you bounce off the table. You cum while clenching his cock. 

Just before he releases his seed inside you, painting your womb in his color, he leans forward and bites your neck again. There’s that brief searing pain again, contrasting so deliciously with the pleasure rippling through you as his cock pulses in your body. 

He pulls away, licking his lips again and pulling you up to your feet by your hand, like a gentleman. You’re in a daze as he leads you to the door of the room. “Thanks, doll. I haven’t had any visitors in a long time. Hopefully I’ll see you in the next one.”

“Next one?” you ask, confused as you walk through the door. 

You find yourself back in the museum, standing in front of the vampire display. But it looks different now. The woman sitting at the table doesn’t look like you anymore, instead having plain, almost blank features. And the man, the vampire, is standing up straight, looking right at you, a subtle grin on his bloody lips. 

Startled, you step back and touch your hand to your neck. You can feel the puncture wounds, the slick blood trickling out. 

Was… was that real?  

Somewhat delirious, you stagger away, and end up stumbling right into another display. This time you blink and you’re in the cabin in the woods. You’re the girl in the torn dress, cowering in fear of the white haired man who is turning into a werewolf before your very eyes. 

He looks at you through his agony as his body transforms, and you can see the recognition in his eyes. 

“Oh fuck, not this one!” he says, trying to move away from you. “Run! Get… to the edge… of the forest! Hurry!”

“What’s happening!?” you scream. “How did I even get here?”

“It’s the museum!” he shouts, clutching his head in pain. “Listen, you have to run! I can’t… control this form! I go fucking feral!”

You stand there, frozen, watching the soft white fur spread across his lean body, the claws on his hands get longer, the teeth in his much wider mouth become large and sharp. Two white furry ears even grow out of the top of his head. 

“Feral, you say?” The question rolls off your tongue. Watching him writhe in pain as his body changes is… actually kind of hot. 

He looks at you, blue eyes wild, and he seems to understand what you want. The transformation is complete. He stands before you much taller than before, covered head to toe in that lovely white fur. There’s a primal feel to the way he looks at you. Animalistic. Predatory.

Either he’s going to rip you apart or fuck your brains out. You really really hope it’s the latter. 

He lunges forward and tackles you to the floor, pushing you face down onto the rug in front of the fireplace. His movements are fast and aggressive, but not too rough. He easily could have killed you already. 

With one swipe of his powerful claws, your dress is in tatters, barely clinging to your body in tiny strips that cover nothing. Behind you, he lifts your hips and spreads your thighs, and almost immediately plunges into your slick pussy. 

You cry out, gripping the rug in your hands as he begins fucking into you, your bare chest and stomach rubbing against the rug with each thrust. Ah, his cock feels incredible! It’s long and hard, covered in a thin layer of soft velvety fur. As he takes you from behind, he uses one hand to lightly scrape his claws down your back. 

“Oh god!” you scream out when one clawed hand reaches around and finds your clit, rubbing and pinching it, making your body tremble. You don’t have to tell him to fuck you harder. You don’t think he possibly could. Your knees are wobbling, barely supporting you, your face is pressed into the rug, your tears seeping into it. You’ve never felt this good in your entire life. 

You feel him twitching inside you, and just as you feel his scalding hot cum shoot directly into your womb, you feel your own orgasm wash over you. Moaning and panting, you stay there on the rug, your face buried in it, until he eventually pulls out. By the time you have the energy to roll over and look at him, he’s reverted back to human form. 

He’s standing there naked, his white hair damp and hanging in his eyes. He drops down onto the rug beside you, and you scoot closer to him, pulling your knees up to your chest. 

“What is this place?” you ask him. “Is this really still the museum?”

The fireplace is roaring behind you, and you can hear the wind blowing through the trees outside the cabin. 

“I think every display is its own pocket dimension,” he says. “But fuck if I know how it all works.”

You look at him intently. “Who are you?”

He shrugs. “Just a guy who got stuck here. I came to the museum with some friends a few years ago, stumbled into one of the displays, and got stuck. I stayed inside too long, so now I can’t leave.”

“Why not?” you ask. 

“When I finally found the border, the way back to the museum, I stuck one arm out and it instantly turned to wax. As long as I stay in the displays, I’m flesh and blood. But I can move my consciousness around the different dimensions.”

You suddenly feel panicked. “What about me?”

He grins. “You’ll be fine. You haven’t been here nearly long enough. Certain rare people get pulled in, and I always lead them out.”

You meet his gaze for a few moments, then say, “I’ll come back! I’ll visit you as often as I can!”

He gives you a somewhat sad smile. “The museum moves around to different towns. We probably won’t be here for longer than a year.”

“Then I’ll track it down!” you say forcefully, causing him to blink in surprise. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you!”

“I hope so,” he says, then he stands up and heads for the door, opening it. He tosses a blanket to you to cover yourself with and says, “You better get going. Head to the edge of the forest and you’ll be back in the museum.”

You wrap the blanket around yourself as you walk through the door. You stop and look back at him. “What’s your name?”

He smiles. “Touya.”

Minutes later, you’re back in the museum, standing in front of the werewolf display. The man who was once bent back in pain is standing calmly in the cabin now, looking at you without moving. You wave to him before turning to leave. “See you later, Touya!”

[emilykaldwen]

Lost | Aegon x OC | Modern!AU | NSFW

Rating: Explicit (oral sex, f receiving. fingering, girl on top, mild breeding kink, mild dirty talk, lots of feelings and thunderstorms) Pairing: Aegon x Abrogail Strong

Summary: Lightning streaks across the sky and he pauses, knees bumping at the edge of the bed. It illuminates her features, and her eyes are large in her thin face, cheeks streaked with tears. There’s an aching in his chest and he immediately crawls across the covers into her waiting arms, draws her into him and drags his mouth against her cheeks. She whimpers at the touch, trembles against him in time with the thunder and he tastes salt on his mouth.

Notes: Unbeta'd! @vampire-exgirlfriend had sent me a prompt for some southern gothic!Abrogon which has been a little AU world I've been playing in. This is a repost, since I can't find my original post.

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She doesn’t move at the sound of the window opening. Abby stays in her four poster bed, rolled over on her left side tucked under the covers and the lace curtains flutter in the breeze and the lazy spin of the ceiling fan.

“Are you awake?” Aegon asks, toeing off his boots from his perch on her window sill. The air smells of ozone, the storm rolling in and there’s a flash of light and he silently counts. One… two… three… the rumble of thunder answers and he rolls his shoulders with it, reaching back over his head to pull off his worn t-shirt.

She shifts beneath the pale pink blanket, her hair tied back in a ponytail but gives no other answer. He scratches his fingers across his bare chest, the fine blonde hair gathered there catching on his calloused fingers and reaches down to shuck his jeans off like he always does. The clink of the belt buckle echoes in the room and Abby shifts again, turns in her bed to face him.

Lightning streaks across the sky and he pauses, knees bumping at the edge of the bed. It illuminates her features, and her eyes are large in her thin face, cheeks streaked with tears. There’s an aching in his chest and he immediately crawls across the covers into her waiting arms, draws her into him and drags his mouth against her cheeks. She whimpers at the touch, trembles against him in time with the thunder and he tastes salt on his mouth. Comforting his girlfriend buck ass naked and half hard since he left his house twenty minutes ago thinking about her.

“What’s wrong?” he swipes his thumb along the apple of her cheeks, cups the softness of it. Softness that’s slowly been going away over the past few months since her dad got sick. The heart attack and the stroke, the way her shoulders bowed beneath the stress.

“Harwin.”

“What about him?” His brother in law. His girlfriend’s older brother, and Aegon wonders if they’ve achieved peak southern stereotype by having him be his brother in law on both sides. Eventually. When they get to that point where he can be the man Abby needs him to be. One who isn’t jobless and still living with his mom and flunked out of Tulane.

“He wants to move dad in with him and Nyra. Says I should come too. Finish out senior year in the city.”

The answer is immediate. “I’ll figure out how to get back into Tulane and you can live with me.”

“Aegon.”

“Or if that doesn’t work, I’ll move you into the big house.”

“Your mom wouldn’t allow it.”

Aegon makes a face. “She doesn’t have to know.”

That gets a wet laugh from her and it’s all he wants to hear. She says nothing except presses her wet face against his neck. His hand drops to her cute ass beneath the hem of his Hozier t-shirt he got at the concert they went to last year, runs his fingers under the elastic edges of her panties. “Let me make you feel better,” he whispers against her knotted curls. When was the last time she brushed her hair? He moves his fingers and strokes his knuckles along the seam of her, separated by the purple cotton with the little white hearts dotted all over it.

The thunder rumbles nearly over them, little time between the flashes of lightning, casting shadows across the room

Her hips shift against his touch, the puff of damp breath against his throat and he tugs the cotton aside, strokes two fingers along where she’s warm, and he promises her in whispers that she’s safe. His fingers come away damp and his thumb joins in to press against her clit, draws that achy whimper and her teeth catch against his neck, cock hard between them. The whine Abby makes is muffled with the rest of her sounds when he presses both fingers in and he groans into her hair. “Little rabbit, you’re so fucking tight.” Tiny and tight, whimpering and wriggling against two thick fingers curling into her. If he was kinder, he would have made her come first and let her loosen up.

Aegon is a good boyfriend, but he’s not always a kind one.

Abby doesn’t mind. Her body grips him tight that he can barely move with how tense and needy she is against him. He presses kisses against her brow and pulls her closer. “Take it easy… I’ve got you. Let go, Abs.” He feels her nod against his shoulder, spit gathering from her rubbing her mouth against his skin and he finds a rhythm, grinds the heel of his palm into her clit while he works his fingers against her, insistent on making her see stars.

Harwin and Rhaenyra are asleep downstairs, in town to take care of things with her father’s heart attack and Larys’... mysterious disappearance with a warrant out for his arrest. Wylla had found the dump site and it was the brotherly bonding activity between him, Aemond, and Daeron when the youngest was home for the weekend from his fancy boarding school.

Uncle Daemon had even showed up. A full family event as Aegon watched the dozens of blinking eyes swim closer. Listened to the whining gasp of his girlfriend’s monster of an older brother who thought he could make Abby an amusement, invade her and rob her of her sense of safety all for the fact that the foot fetish OnlyFans weren’t enough for him.

The gators had thrashed with glee in the water, the shadows thrown long from the headlights of the SUV, Larys hogtied on the pool inflatable, shirtless and bleeding from the dozen cuts sliced into him.

Blood in the water, nothing left behind.

“I want to stay,” Abby whimpers and her sounds, those precious sounds turn high pitched and draw him from the memory. Aegon licks into her mouth to swallow them down, keeping them from escaping the precious space of her bed. Her body bows and arcs into his touch. They’ve gone through the room from one corner to the other. The cameras are gone. It’s just them and the storm.

Aegon was too distracted to put a towel down, too in a hurry to comfort his crying girl and when she comes with a frantic jerk of her hips and a rush of wet like a broken levee, he makes sure the blankets are gathered beneath her cute ass so they can keep going.

Rain starts to ping against the windows, the howl of the wind audible through the cracks of the old frames and Abby lays against her pillows, dreamy eyed and swollen mouth watching him while she pants in the fall of her first orgasm he’s given her in weeks.

He’s a good boyfriend. His hand splays across the soft swell of her stomach to push his shirt up and over her pert tits, stroking against the pebbled peaks and hums in contemplation. “Be quiet,” he orders her and she nods frantically, reaching for his hand to noisily suck on the fingers he had inside of her. He raises his eyebrows at her and she hums. It’s good to see her cheeky and each suck shoots straight down his spine to his cock.

The head of it drags against her, bumps up against her clit and he’d tease her endlessly until she came twice, three times. He’s too impatient though. It’s been too long and with the way she swallows his fingers down, splays her legs wide and hooks them over his hips, it’s been too long for her too.

Abby gets stuck in her head with her pretty brows furrowed, and her nose scrunched up in thought. She needs him to take care of her, she needs him, needs him needs him, him only him.

He draws his fingers from her warm mouth with a wet pop and he kisses the whine from her mouth, rolls them over so he’s on his back and his girl is straddled across his lap.

Only him, only him and her and them in this bed. No one to ever hurt her again, no one to scare her. He reaches down to rub his cock against her and they both moan and shudder. Abby’s hips wiggle trying to catch him in and she pouts, opens her mouth to whine and complain and he shoves his fingers past her pretty lips once more.

“No wonder you were crying,” he teases her and he slides against her. Once. Twice. Third time's the charm, catches where he needs and he presses in with a groan and a roll of his hips. She works her way down and her free hand presses on his chest to keep her balance. “Gods, you’re so fucking beautiful. Look at you, taking me like this.”

She’s so beautiful with her hair tangled around her flushed face, eyes large and wet that he thinks he can drown in them if he stares at her long enough. Aegon can’t decide what to take in more: the sweet expressions on her face while she sinks down, or the way she splits around him, the way he disappears into her. He drops his hand from her hip to work her clit, slow swipes his thumb along the aching bud. Abby wriggles and whimpers and then… then….

The groans they make in unison have his toes curling in delight when she fully takes him and he arches into her and thinks, ‘we could just run away’.

Aegon doesn’t know where they’d run to, and doesn’t particularly care. All that matters to him is this. He surges up and takes her face in his hands, needs to breathe in her cries and her sounds and every good thing he’s doing to her, that she’s feeling because they’re together and she’s with him. Aegon licks into her mouth like he owns her, like she belongs to him and part of him would say it was true, uncaring of the eye roll that it’d get.

Abby doesn’t push him away. No, she claws her hands against his shoulders, his biceps, dives in to pull at his hair in all the feral little ways he adores, and he thinks, ‘If she is mine, then I am hers’. He relishes at the marks she scores in her desperation, and the painful way she tugs at his hair so he’ll feel it for hours afterwards.

Her hands find his shoulders and she breaks their kiss, her pouty mouth swollen, and red as jolly ranchers. “More,” she says with a crack in her delicate voice and pushes him down. Abby’s pupils are blown so wide the river blue of them is a thin rim, and as lightening flashes through her windows, she looks possessed. Feral, even.

“Take it all,” he promises her with a guilelessness he hasn’t held since he was a boy. She is everything sacred left in this world to him. She is his goddess, his beginning and his end. Abby finds her rhythm in the dance of her hips and he relishes in how his rabbit uses him for her pleasure, uses him for her escape into the world they’ve made together. She draws the t-shirt over her glistening skin and Aegon sighs, happily, to watch her perky tits bounce and the way her flush blooms across her skin.

He reaches up to gather the bead of sweat coursing down her sternum and groans when she slaps his hand away.

“I didn’t s-say you couldn’t touch,” she tries to command him and he drags his nails over her belly, watches her quiver and whimper as he skims lower where she’s so sensitive.

“I wanna touch.” He preens at her and thrusts up, drunk with how tight she is around him. This is as close as he can get to crawling inside of her into the place between her ribs where he wants to live forever.

The second smack to his hand is loud in the room and he growls at her, the lilac of his eyes a burning blaze. Her head rolls to her shoulder, her hand coming up to tweak and twist the pebbled nipple and his mouth waters. “Give me.”

“S-say please.” She tugs at her breasts again and he feels her clench around him and sees stars for a moment. His breath catches and he licks his lips, mouth too wet and he hasn’t even gone down on her.

Too impatient for his own good.

He reaches up and wraps his thick fingers around her wrist, digits still damp from her hungry mouth, and tugs her down so he can ensnare her. She struggles, a wriggling rabbit and he bands his other arm around her back so she’s pressed to his chest, her knotted hair curtaining around them.

Aegon bites at her candy mouth and breathes into her all the love he holds for her, as broken and as messy as it is. She’s unable to move and his hips snap into her with a relentless focus. Her bratty behavior is adorable and it ignites the need he has for her to levels that he can’t do in a house where her brother can and will shoot him on sight for this.

What better way to die than to be covered in her, and she with him?

She cries into his mouth when she reaches that pretty point where her body shakes and trembles and writhes, where her muscles clamp him down like she’s gonna pull him inside to stay. He falls with her a moment after and it’s better than any hit he’s taken, any bottom of the bottle of Jack he’s had. There’s nothing better than Abby for the high he wants. There’s nothing better than the tingly sparkle feel where everything, in that moment, feels like goddamn fireworks and cotton candy and her shaky voice whispering, “I love you I love you,” into his mouth.

Nothing better than breathing back his own, “I love you I love you.”

He drags her up his body so she’s straddling his face and admires the mess he’s made of her cunt. A gentle tap with the back of his hand, and slides his fingers in the mess, lets it drip down, licks at her like the feral, hungry animal that lives inside of him. She’s on the pill and for a mad moment while he works his tongue inside her where she’s sore and sated, he wishes she wasnt.

If he got her pregnant, then, she couldn’t leave. She’d have to stay and they’d live their little life with their baby and they’d be happy and-

She’s coming again like a little earthquake, a burst of damp and her thighs are trembling so hard he takes pity on her and draws her down. Arms come back around her and Abby rubs her cheek against his shoulder, that place beneath his chin that was made just for her, the place made just so he could hold her close to him and their hearts could beat in time.

His Abby is made for great things. Things greater than this shitty town with the ghosts and the gators and the weights around their ankles. She’s far too good for him, far better than the rotted likes of him, but when she tilts her face back to kiss his jaw with another whispered, “I love you,” he thinks that maybe he’s being too hard on himself.

If Abby Strong could find something in him to love, then maybe he’s not such a lost cause.

“If you wanna go with them” he murmured against the crown of her hair, the scent of her shampoo faded to almost nothing by now. “I could… I could come with you.”

His chest is tight, his eyes shining with unshed tears. She’s not saying anything, just puffs of warm breath against his skin and he wonders for a moment if she’s fallen asleep. Then, little fingers trace the spot above his heart.

“Do you want to?” she whispers and it’s her scared whisper, the one where she hides with him under the covers and tells him about the bad dreams and the worries and the way she misses her mom.

“I just wanna be with you.” He steels himself and turns his head so he can look at her. Eyes shining with an expression he can’t quite figure out and the thunder rumbles overhead, rain lashing against the window.

A storm to wash everything bad away and make it new.

“I wanna be with you too.” She smiles then, and presses her flushed face into his neck. He tightens his arms around her.

“I’d follow you wherever you wanna go,” he tells her with his lips pressed into her hair. “I’m a balloon tied around your wrist. Red strings and all that. I’ll be good. I’ll be better. I’ll be whoever you want me to be.”

Just don’t leave me.

“Just be you,” she whispers. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Just you. My Aegon.”

He nods and squeezes her tighter. “Your Aegon. Always.”

If you liked this story, I would love to hear what you think! Please reblog to share the love and let me hear your thoughts! Thank you for reading <3

[goingmerryfics]

Hii!!! i really love all your writing and wanted to request smth if that's okay!

could i request law x so who's into lolita fashion/subculture? Like, on days that they're able to they'll wear really extravagant looking lolita dresses and such, and is just overall really girly, and might be embarrassed about being such, esp with someone like him. but maybe he even likes that they're aesthetic opposites. idk fjsjfjfk

Ty!! <3

(idk if i need to say this but lolita fashion doesn't have anything to do with the. other uses of the term. sometimes ppl make accusations abt it but the jfashion and book are not related)

Lolita Style S/O w/ Law

Content: can be read as GN reader that wears skirts, all SFW

Notes* Thanks for being patient with me while I worked on this request! A couple of things popped up for me (and my new-used computer quit suddenly so I have to wait to see if it can be repaired or if I should just buy a brand new one) so I’ve been trying to work around this. Back to mobile tumblr I go 😢 ! Anyway- I know all too well how lolita culture gets sexualized in people’s eyes so this is a completely nsfw-free request. I made this more relatable to those in sweet style lolita more than gothic lolita since you’d commented about them being opposites and personally, I think it would be super cute for him to be paired with someone with this style. Hope you like it :)

Law

Law isn’t the type to pay attention to what people wear as long as they are dressed in proper uniform when need be. Self expression is something personal, and he’s aware of different everyone’s style is

Though he finds it hard not to notice how you dress on your days off, whether it’s just around the sub or out on the town

It’s a lot of pastel, and a lot of fabric

You hadn’t thought of what Law or the others might’ve thought the first time you dressed up, so when you kept catching Law staring at you at various points of the day, you started to feel a little nervous

Later though, the two of you had crossed paths and he stopped you there to ask about your choice of clothing

While you explained how you enjoyed the colours and the overly girly feel of it all, he listened to every word, and even asked you some questions- like how everything fit together, and how you chose to match your accessories to your clothes

He was intrigued, and being a knowledgeable man, he wanted to learn about you and your clothing style

He’d even gone off to do his own research at the next island, and secretly commissioned a seamstress to make a little purse modeled after Bepo’s face for your outfits because god knows this guy can’t sew for shit

Law had been waiting for you outside of your door, his present to you held in his hand, in a sweet little bag. You weren’t expecting to see him, nor were you expecting any sort of gift- it was nowhere near your birthday- but here he was. He pushes himself off from leaning against the door when he sees you.

“Here. I’m not sure if it’s alright, but I thought you might be able to use this.”

He hands you the bag, and you thank him before going off about how he didn’t need to get you anything, and asking what the occasion is as you dig through the white, glittery tissue paper to open it.

“No occasion. I just thought you’d like it.” He tries to act nonchalant and calm, but he’s watching your face for any changes to see if you like it or not.

You pull out the bag and gasp- it was perfect. Fluffy and pristine white, perfect for an outfit you’d been trying to put together for a while now- and it looked like your dear crewmate. You pull it to your chest with a big smile, going on a bit of a ramble at how cute it is, and how you’re going to use it right away.

The entire time you’re squealing over your new gift he’s smiling to himself, even if he doesn’t realize it.

The next time you change into your style, you make sure to keep the mini Bepo bag at your side. It goes great with your outfit

Bepo freaks out a little at the likelihood of the purse and his own face, but you quickly calm him down and explain that it’s not the head of a polar bear that you’re carrying around

Law watches you fawn over the bag with him from a distance, smiling to himself

He joins you later to walk around town with you. He’s come to enjoy how your style stands out so well beside him against his usual darker clothes

Law will also help you get dressed if you let him, buckling your shoes for you so you don’t have to fight the layers of skirt to reach your feet, or helping you pin up your hair pieces

You’d asked him once if he’d like to try men’s lolita style and he was very quick to shut that down.

“It looks better on you than it will on me.”

He really just likes seeing you as the unique one

[see-arcane]

Well. I just read the Robert Eggers Nosferatu (2024) script in its nascent 2016 form. Quick and haunted thanks to @nosferattusx2 for making me aware of its existence. It’s here on the Internet Archive if you want to give it a look yourselves.

I don’t know if it’s legit, but it seems precariously close to the trailers. Even if it is the real thing, it’s also an eight-year-old rendition of the script, so there’s no guarantee of it being an exact mirror of what will hit theaters. That being said?

It’s. A lot.

SPOILERS BELOW

I won’t regurgitate the whole thing here, just the main bits that stood out to me for better or worse:

For a guy who says he's very against the sexy romantic vampire trope, Eggers makes sure to have everyone getting scared and horny over Orlok at every opportunity. I will give him grudging kudos for not confining this strictly to Ellen or otherwise Just the Ladies~. The thing opens on Knock stroking himself to the concept of the guy and Thomas gets his own erotic/assault-flavored attack from Orlok at the castle with future allusions framing it in a distinctly sexual framework. Ellen is set up as the ~darkly tempted Eve to Orlok’s Adam~ but it’s not aggressively mega-hetero about it. Progress?

Thomas arrives in Orlok territory and immediately gets swarmed and pickpocketed by smelly-masculine Romani people (referred to strictly by the g word through the script) bar the one pretty young teenage girl one who we later get to see riding naked on a horse because only naked virgin girls can lead the group to hidden vampires for their destruction. Yeah.

…

Bobby Egg, I can get behind the VVitch using seductive evil weirdness and I see why mermaids would swim around topless, but. What the fuck? And also follow-up what the fuckery to the whole portrayal of these guys, period? On that note.

Here we see the first example of Thomas being Assigned Twink at Comparison to All the Other Men. Eggers frames him as insecure beside the masculine Romani and has a future character refer to him as a ‘dandy’ (despite that being a term reserved for men who were well-off, not just effeminate/less than manfully manful). To Bobby Egg’s slight credit, Thomas is not portrayed negatively or milksop-shaped because of this; it’s just. Kind of there. All the time.

Count Orlok’s description isn’t bad. Very ominous, very classic gothic-supernatural. I do appreciate that he’s explicitly given more corpse-like attributes, making him seem like a mobile cadaver more than anything else. And Eggers does keep him creepy—no stealthy Count Fuckula spit-shining on him.

Shovel scene sort of happens as an original Dracula nod, but with no payoff. An attempt was made and thrown away.

Ellen. Oh, Ellen. Such a double-edged piece of work here. On the one hand, this version of the script implies that she isn’t doing the classic bastardized Mina thing of deciding her lame lameo human husband isn’t good enough for her and she needs herself a REAL MAN. There’s a lot of the original Thomas and Ellen’s genuine love and regard shown in the couple…

…up to a point. Eggers writes them a very very ugly and basically wholly OOC argument to do with Thomas claiming he wed her out of pity and saying she ought to have been sent to a madhouse when she was young, which itself was a follow-up to Ellen yelling that Orlok’s work is all his fault in a weirdly victim-blamey way and a scene that felt less like a badly done seduction and more like she was trying to actually assault him. They seemingly both reconcile after this, but like…what the entire hell?

Okay, to get this out of the way—I think Eggers is trying to lean hard into the ‘well in the actual time and place of the story things would be so grimdark and depressing, so it has to be nasty even between the loving main couple, and it adds to the horror-misery of it all, and it makes Ellen’s dark temptation~ more reasonable!’ thing. We can see a lot of that in how he sets Ellen up to have a history of dark thoughts, a lot of stigma surrounding her sanity/insanity, and there’s some very cruel medical ‘treatment’ she gets subjected to during her fits while waiting for Thomas and/or Orlok to arrive. Naturally those fits are all sexual/orgasmically twitchy because of course. Eggers is very much trying to set Ellen up as sympathetic in her situation and as a kind of next evolution to the Francisified Mina character who wants to fuck Dracula/Orlok/Death so so bad~

And then we get to the Van Helsing stand-in, Von Franz, and he is…oh man. 90% of his bits are fun. Interesting. The last 10% would make Abraham van Helsing in every iteration punch through the fourth wall and beat him to death with their library books. Surprise, Von Franz and Ellen both secretly colluded to set up the sunrise trap that will inevitably kill Ellen via Orlok feeding on her into the dawn. Von Franz purposefully leads the vampire hunter crew astray, including Thomas. When Thomas discovers this—from Knock who he mistakenly staked in Orlok’s place due to a mix-up with the coffin—Von Franz laughs as Thomas and Dr. Sievers the pseudo-Jack Seward make a run back to the house to try and save her.

The climax comes with Ellen and Orlok playing out the original Nosferatu ending. She dies happily cradling Orlok’s carcass. Thomas reaches her bedside and collapses in despair. The script closes on Von Franz showing up with a lilac bouquet and putting his hand on Thomas’ shoulder as he grieves, still unmoved from the bedside. Close on Ellen’s dead face ‘at peace.’

Somehow the scene doesn’t end with Thomas wringing Von Franz’ neck.   

There’s a lot more to read in there, obviously, but those were just all the big lumps sticking out of it to me.

I will grudgingly say it is not the absolute worst-case scenario I was afraid of. It’s not what I was hoping for—but that is keeping in line with Dracula and Nosferatu-adjacent media, per tradition. I do still want to see the film, I do want to like the finished product, even with the worrisome second trailer and sundry interviews throwing up red flags. Like The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it is at least an earnest attempt at taking this vein of classic gothic vampire horror seriously as a horror story.

But also.

I would really like directors to stop turning the Mina-Ellen figure into the vampire-pining gothic blowup doll for the latest ‘Bold and Subversive’ take #1654237 of GIRL AND THE DRACULA DO KISSY SEXY ROMANCE TIMES. An impossible dream, I guess.