#LOL SIKE I'M NOT SORRY AT ALL !!!

[chemilico]

I'm still losing it over this IT'S A FULL LENGTH DRESS AND HE'S WEARING A RING !!! he looks so nice I'm gonna draw this soon , he looks soooo smart and fancy in his little dress

[willowser]

Hello again! Willow you HAVE to stream! You would be so good at it! Take it from someone who did it, hated it, and quit lmao. But also from someone who made it through the pandemic with the help of twitch streamers and their awesome communities. Even the chats I didn’t actively talk in which was the majority. You can absolutely create a nice little space on twitch just as you've done here.

We already know you’re excellent at interacting with strangers on the internet and people want to hear your thoughts on the things you love. You’re great at keeping a conversation going and making the quiet ones (like me) feel welcome to the point that we want to participate too (clearly). And you just have great internet etiquette and carry yourself so well when you have to deal with gross anons that I’m sure you’d handle twitch trolls no problem IF it ever came to that. And thaaaat’s coming from someone who mods for a guy who did not handle the trolls well 😬

Was that screenshot you making your account? Lemme go follow

i really can't tell you how important it is to me that you feel welcome in our lil space here 🥺 because you are 🥺 you're so so welcome here and the thought that we've been able to curate this little corner of the internet into something fun !! and enjoyable !! and for everyone !!! means everything to me 🥺 you're so kind 🥺 how special it is that you've formulated such high opinions of me, i'm so 🥺 touched 🥺 blessed 🥺 how wonderful 🥺

i think it could be so fun to chat there !! idk what i would play !! maybe something fun and romance-y, like stardew 😌 idk idk !! the possibilities seem endless !! but it does sound fun 🥺 i am coming up on a milestone very quickly and i briefly wondered if maybe celebration stream would be interesting to do but !!! idk !!! i'm shy !!! i wasn't sure how many people would want to do that 🥺🥺

you sound so experienced with twitch !!! i was wondering if, in the future, if we go through with this, i could ask you some questions if i needed to ?? 🥺 bc i admittedly know nothing about twitch ajfbrjajq and you're like a liddol wizard 😌 idk !!!

how fun 🥺 how sweet 🥺 i'm so touched by all you've said, i can't believe it, how lucky am i 🥺

oh and yes !! hehehe that was my bio but !! this me !!! if you want to follow 🥺

[mellowwillowy]

Stupid personal AU Bailey rambles!

(very OOC, just personal AU~ ah, might also mention other bastards?)

My AU is real!!! Bailey and his old crush!!

still not sure if Bailey was an orphan but... this will work! (Reader and Bailey were both orphans!)

coughing blood... yes... (coughing blood) and now his world was dead and he became a monster of a caretaker... yes!

technically Reader is considered to be beautiful beyond comprehension, lol.

the loft...? what did you do to reader...?

my agenda is... real!

So from what I got from all the asks, Bailey didn't know Briar or Darryl. Bailey knew Landry but kept him at arm's length. Darryl, Mason, Niki and Landry were the juniors, Mason, Niki and Darryl were Leighton's victims. Leighton was the English teacher. Briar seemed to have genuine care for Darryl though I'm not sure why yet. Avery and Remy were in the same private school and uni. (Remy might be Avery's Junior...)

... dead! (at least in the AU, PC was Reader but reincarnated(?)~)

(gushing blood)

it was... pure love!!!

and giddy!!!

SHADY BASTARDS GRRRRR,,,,, (where's remy Q^Q)

... locked in loft... very dark (locked with trauma)

maybe it's time to give Bailey a lotus in the first gen~

Past regrets that defined him... and he didn't have any regret about how he was shaped to be (monstrous caretaker)

hehehe, they died. Shady bastards sad, others also sad. Some got shaped into the current bastards they were, some no.

not using the canon PC logic but the second gen reader was eerily just the first gen reader but 19 years younger... maybe Bailey just, yknow, seeing things in second gen reader that haunted his dream or... the reader themselves came to his dream in this AU!

real. It was never confirmed.

out of topic but hahhahahhahahhahashhshshshhshsh. Him and the first gen reader....

Speaking of this, Bailey would not mind reader hanging out with any of the other shady bastards because he thought they wouldn't harm reader in any way (and protect them).

If first gen reader was still alive, she wouldn't really age at all and I can see them all concerned over reader... are you okay?

with the... second gen reader! Familiarity that unnerved him...!

As much as I don't care about Eden (sorry not sorry), this can explain what's going on with Eden and Bailey.

nine fucking points. HE WAS WILLING TO GO AT 9 FUCKING POINTS MILE.

the warmth difference from between him with first gen reader and second gen reader... my heart... sobs.

okay I reach the limit of image posts... byeeeeeeeeee (I still have like a lot screenshotted but tumblr desktop says sike hahaha)

[choppedsouldreamer]

Hello everyone, I'm back from the grave WOOOOOO, cuz I have art block yippieeeee

This is also kinda a hint to a thing I'm working on with yet another AU for CSD, damn I'm finally feeding you guys lol, sorry, it has been ages but like I said before I've been busy and uh, life gets in the way of stuff all the time ya know? anyway, have my doodles / art block of the upcoming stuff (sorry if it's kinda hard to see, my phones camera isn't the best and I just kinda sketched these so they aren't dark at all-)

CLOSE UPS!!: Middle CSD, I wanted to do like a chibi anime kinda style, I guess it looks okay- SHE BE GETTIN SLASHED AT D:

oh hey look it's me, I legit only did this beause I thought it was funny I practically never draw or use my self insert and just make myself CSD all the time lmao:

Oh hey here's normal CSD, now one that looks like she is a demon from hell..SIKE SHE'S HIGH (I was so bored guhhh, I did a quick doodle and she looked high and I couldn't be bothered to change it so just went with it XD):

a kinda sneak peak ish to if CSD was in the GodBox AU, I honestly think she looks awesome even if YOU CAN'T FUCKING SEE BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I TOOK THIS OR WHAT ANGLE IT WOULD BE BLURRY IN SOME WAYS AND NOT OTHERS (you can tell my brain is all over the place rn pft-) @grinnames:

and uh, a benny drawing, cuz I find him adorable and I wanted to draw him ^w^

[lambment]

Hello! I love your art so much! Your cult of the lamb stuff has really inspired me and has pumped me up and I’m trying to basically re learn how to draw again! Do you have any advice for a fellow artist and how to approach story telling? :D

anon its been like a good while since this message has been sent (I think? based off all the homophobic crown asks this was wedged btwn) and WAHHH im so happy for you, I hope youre enjoying your reentry into art C:

first and foremost, try to enjoy the process rather than the end result. a much wordier explanation in this post (X)

theres also the discipline aspect of it, you need to be pretty concious of balancing learning with enjoyment (and you can absolutley have that balance without thinking about it). but I find a lot of new/learning artists get easily discouraged when a piece doesnt pop out exactly how they imagined it. I have a secret, lets be realistic, none of my pieces do lol. expectation is the killer of art imo, just go with the flow of enjoyment and learn what you can to become better at it. get used to adapting often.

even if you arent always studying (dont make it boring for yourself now), just you constantly drawing will improve your art, but dont expect to notice an improvment with every piece, its an incremental process and youll have bad days. just focus on the journey not the destination is what im getting at.

REFERENCE!!! its a beautiful, beautiful thing, anyone telling you its cheating is a silly billy who needs to learn. look up artists you admire, try to figure out how they tackle a piece, examine photos that you think are beautiful. just collect different pieces of reference, and try making a piece based off of them, a fun excercise. it'll improve your art.

as for the story aspect of this, im ngl, Im still learning myself. my main rule of thumb is "if i want to see this, someone else out there will too." so dont get discouraged by thinking no one will want to see your story idea.

I'm constantly adding story ideas to my notes to save for later, idk bout you, but I WILL forget the idea if I dont write it down immediatley (built worse), and if you have a mental image of it make sure to add very vague stage direction to supplement it, dont get too detailed tho, youll be changing alot. if youre anything like me -pepaw brained- try to keep in the habit of that. some storyboarding tips for staging tips and reference (X)

from there, I'll take a key moment -money shot or emotional moment- of the story, and base the rest of the comic around that image -> how I tackle formatting and making a comic (X).

the best way to learn is by doing, and failing and learning from that. so dont sike yourself out when you get there and it doesnt turn out as expected, it might be something so much better, thats the fun of it (:

I hope this helped, sorry im a yapper!

[itjazzbicch]

No Angel

Pairing:  Johnny Cage x Fem Reader 

Quick Authors Note: This fic is supposed to be a bit funny but spicy! Also, the reader is a bit of a daredevil airhead (LOL)

Summary: Living life on a farm, the reader is loaded with excitement as she goes to Hollywood with her best friend, Johnny Cage, for the first time, diving headfirst into a whole new experience that she only wants to share with him...

Warnings:  SMUT! (18+ ONLY! MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DNI! YOU WILL BE BLOCKED!) Swearing, skinny dipping, pool-sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!), loss of virginity, foreplay, oral M receiving, pet names (buttercup, baby, angel)

Word Count: 1.7k 

Considering I only knew life on a farm before Lord Lui Kang changed that, culture shock wasn't even fitting enough to describe my feelings.

First Outworld, then a whole other timeline? My brain was stuffed with loads of new information. Life still had its beautiful days after all I’d seen.

One of my new but best friends, Johnny, offered to let me play my role in his recent work, and when I saw Hollywood? I felt like a kid again, curious and wanting to see everything there.

Since we had the time and Johnny was a megastar, he showed me all there was to see. All the vast buildings, the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign. It was all so beautiful.

I was gasping and awing all day, making Johnny laugh yet again as he brought me to his home:

"YOU LIVE HERE?!"

"Hell yeah, buttercup," Opening the door for me, I ran in and stopped to take in his gorgeous home, gasping as I saw the pool with a view of the city before me.

"You even have a pool?!" I squealed, and he continued to laugh at me:

"Wanna go for a swim?"

"Please?!" I jumped for joy, not paying attention to him:

"Let me go grab-"

"Thanks for the towel!" That's what I thought he would get, frozen and watching me toss off my clothes, jumping right in, in just my bra and panties, "Ahh, the waters not freezing!"

I was having so much fun, floating on my back and seeing Johnny, still frozen and staring at me.

"What? Have you never swum in panties before? Mine are clean! I swear!"

We both laughed at what I said, Johnny shaking his head at me as he unbuttoned his shirt:

"You are something else, Y/N."

"Just jump in! Hurry up, Johnny!" Bundled with energy, I laughed as he got down to his briefs, jumping in and splashing water all over me.

"Hey!" I smiled, splashing and laughing hard as he choked on the water, "I'm sorry!"

"It's okay. Sike!" Splashing right back, the water went up my nose, making me snort, but I was still smiling, turning to shake off the burn in my nose, getting lost in the view of the city.

"It's beautiful, ain't it?" Joining me at the edge and enjoying the view too, I nodded:

"I see why you love this place so much. Thank you for all you've done for me today. I'm so happy."

"Oh, I know," He chuckled, pinching my plump cheek, "Don't mention it. You saved my ass how many times since we've met? It's the least I can do."

Flowing with happiness and graciousness, I hugged Johnny with a squeeze, expressing:

"Everyone may think a certain way about you, but know, I think you're the best, Johnny."

"Bout time someone's seen that," He was always boastful but hugged me back and smiled, "Thanks, buttercup."

"Of course," Kissing his cheek, my bundled energy wanted me to keep moving, so I offered, "Wanna keep having fun?"

The hand behind my back was ready to splash him again, but I noticed the look in his eyes as he stared at my body:

"You know what skinny dipping is?"

"Swimming naked, right?" I wasn't that out of touch with the modern world; realizing that he was flirting with me, I played along, shrugging, "My bra and undies need to dry, anyhow."

He wasn't expecting me to dive right into the situation, tossing my bra and panties to the floor next to us and letting out a sigh of relief:

"That's better."

"Hell yeah," He murmured, eyeing every part of skin he saw, again taken aback as I came to him, toying with the band of his briefs:

"Need help?"

"He, good one," He chuckled, going to the edge for a moment, "Just a second."

Floating back on the water, I stared at the bright city, looking back at him as I heard music playing softly, noticing his briefs on the floor next to my wet garments.

"Setting the mood?" I giggled, swimming to him and saying, "It's a first for me, but I trust you, Johnny."

"I knew Buttercup was perfect for you," Pulling me to him by the waist, he had so much charm, getting lost in his eyes, "You're so sweet."

"You're sweet too," I smiled, playfully mocking the voice he'd used when saying, "Buttercup."

Laughing but starting to get handsy, the pace picked up as his lips inched closer to mine:

"Never a dull moment with you."

When our lips met, I never felt my blood rush as it did then, knowing what was happening to me but actually processing it for the first time, not wanting to embarrass myself because of my inexperience as I kissed back, not so hard on myself mentally as he dipped his hand down to squeeze my ass:

"Sure that this a first for you?"

"I wouldn't lie to you," Kissing more, he was mindful but wanting more as his tongue rolled:

"Just asking because damn, you're good."

That compliment made me feel even better, daring to go under the water to touch him, a little hesitant till he took my hand, doing so for me, softly wrapping my hand around his cock, his guidance pumping it up and down.

"I'm all yours, buttercup," Letting my hand go as I stroked his cock on my own, all nervousness left me as he cooed, "Go after what you want."

Nodding in my kisses, I didn't notice how fast I began to stroke him, the rush in me taking control, especially when his hands slid between my thighs from behind, a finger gliding through my folds.

I instantly whimpered at the feeling. I stopped what I was doing to adjust my legs, whispering in my blissful sigh, "That's really nice."

"Want something even better?" His whisper in my ear made me twitch with anticipation, moaning at his finger slipping into me, pumping softly.

Resting against his chest, I was smiling with moans, continuing to praise, "That's so, so nice."

"I promise, I'll keep making you feel good," Pumping a bit faster made me want more, palming his cock and making him stare at me from my rather bold offer:

"Just want to fuck already?"

"Again, you sure this is your first time?" Just wanting to be sure, I giggled but meant wholeheartedly:

"I just want you to be my first. I imagine that you won't disappoint me."

"Imagine?" Getting things back on track, we floated to the wall with the view, his charm coming back strong, "You've thought about it before?"

A bit flustered as he guessed correctly, I admitted, "Yeah, I mean, have you seen yourself?"

"Sexy, right?" He chuckled, taking my thighs and picking me up, wrapping my legs around his waist, my arms wrapping around his neck:

"Mega sexy," I giggled, watching his hand under the water.

"Just tell me if you need to stop," Caring that this was my first time, he helped ease the little anxiousness with a kiss, unintentionally biting his lip when I felt a pop inside.

"Johnny-" Whimpering and biting a little harder, I began to stretch open on his girth, grunting as he pushed into me softly.

"You all right, buttercup?" Checking on me, my body made more room for him, begging for more, showing that I was more than alright as I pushed against him, intrusive thoughts taking over my mouth:

"Fuck me."

"My, my," Pushing further, he had no complaints, smiling against my neck, "My sweet, innocent buttercup isn't so innocent, huh?"

"Is that a bad thing?" Shivering with pleasure, I was only curious, back to smiles as his head shook:

"Far from it. Don't worry, angel. I'll hold your halo so you can have a little demon time."

The water started splashing against us as he pulled back and rolled his hips quicker, still soft but making me moan more, clinging and exploring a whole new universe, loving how my nerves jolted and the way he could go deep, learning new points in me that I didn't realize I had.

"You like that?" Watching me moan, I was tight and wet, taking him easier, "You feelin' good?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Feeling our hips inching closer, I wondered if I could take all of him, sharing a loud gasp with him as I pushed myself down onto all his cock, "Yeah, Johnny!"

"Oh fuck," He huffed, proud of me as he had to look to believe, only pulling back a bit of his length, bucking and creating more splashes, "You want it like that?"

"Please," Nodding quickly, I felt a tear in the corner of my eye, "It feels so good."

With our hips meeting, his pelvis brushed against my clit, and after so much, it swelled, pulsating, gasping out each time he hit it again:

"Ooo-Ooo!"

"Gonna cum, baby?" Holding my head and finding my eyes, it was hard to stay still, twitching and whining:

"Yeahhh! Make me, Johnny!"

"I gotcha, baby," Hugging my torso and going a bit faster, he started groaning at how I clenched his cock, "Fuck that's tight. Oh, yeaa-."

My head fell back, and when I opened my eyes, all I saw were blurred city lights, then his blurred but bright smile as he picked me back up, hugging his head tight as it hit me, shaking with pleasure and gasping:

"Shit, that's amazing. You're amazing, Johnny."

"So are you," He hummed, slowing to a stop and whispering, "Your pussy's too damn good."

Knowing why he stopped, the water helped me stand upright, turning so that he was against the wall, looking down at how hard he was holding his cock:

"Want me to take care of that?"

"Wanna tell me how?" Cocking his eyebrow, knowing and keeping his hips above water, he shook and gasped at how quickly I sunk and took his tip into my mouth, "Shit, baby. Fuccck-"

He instantly came from my warm, wet mouth, gladly taking his load, picking my head up as I swallowed:

"Sorry, that's all we could do since we're in the pool."

"Don't you dare apologize," He heaved, smiling down at me, "You know how good that feels?"

I thought I couldn't stop smiling before? My smile was stuck on my face as I hugged him, floating as he picked me up, "I love that I make you feel good, too." 

2023 © itjazzbicch — do not repost or translate my work. Likes, reblogs, and comments are always welcome 

[bbromeus]

Hello!! Your art is stunning and you're also one of the few people who have an overlap with orv and isat - I was wondering what your very normal thoughts about the overlap between these two is

Have a good day !!!!!!

hihiii thank you so much !!! first off sorry for the delayed response. I immediately wanted to respond to this but also wanted to give it some thought bc I just love orv and isat so much !!! us orvsatters (name I decided just now) must stick together... let us spread the gospels.

Anyways I'll get into it !!! There is no clear format as idk what I'm doing. spoilers below for:

ISAT: up to ACT 3 finale since I got there recently ORV: up to the epilogue ! my orv-reading friends, pls look away!

✨ As per my little isat au for orv I see correlations between kdj/loop and yjh/siffrin, at least when it comes to their positions as characters. Simply put: guy going through a time loop and the trusty (???) advisor/sponsor/weird star thing that's annoys them (but also closest to understanding them/helps them cope with the overwhelming loneliness!!!! hahahah). At the same time I think that kdj and siffrin have several parallels as well: self loathing, sacrificial tendencies, concealing one's feelings...

(ORV Epilogue) To be extra specific I consider siffrin (from the start of isat) as similar to 0!yjh and loop as similar to dkos kdj... ahahah. I am normal about this I promise!

✨ Found-family trope. It goes so crazy I love it so much. In both isat and orv... there is so much love in both of these stories. Kdj's

I, someone of no redeeming quality, could be loved by the others.

(ch 513) is giving big siffrin vibes. And siffrin's conversation with the party about whether they are friends or not -> turns out they are FAMILY! take that idiot (sif).

✨ As mentioned these are medias where there is So Much Love. This post comes to mind. Big theme in orv (epilogue flashbacks), and I think in isat as well (specifically, the one loop where sif and the party become very well acquainted through the friend quests and sif hopes dearly that this is the key to ending the loops -> sike).

✨ Siffrin and yjh parallels !!! The regression (accidental pun) of one's emotions as they go through time loop again and again... siffrin repeats the same 2 ish days whereas for yjh the amount of time is much larger and variable. Their personalities are both wearing out... I think of the scene where sif just massacres the tutorial sadness. lol. OH god (just remembered as I write this) and yjh's internal thoughts in the revised version of WoS if kdj were to die:

「 I thought it was going well. That's what that person said. Everyone was fine until the 'outer god' appeared. 」 「 Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? 」

(ch 282). They are both so broken lmao.

✨ I think sif and kdj share a lack of awareness about the consequences of some of their actions, specifically those of the sacrificial variety. Sif not understanding how bonnie had been traumatized by his action of saving them at the cost of their eye. Kdj who does similar sacrificial things every week and thinks little to nothing of it. Why are they like that. Are they stupid?

[ It isn't salvation. It is a curse. ]

(ch 283) this line from orv comes to mind. Even crazier that sp is the one saying this...

🌌 Ok that's all I can think of for now. I haven't finished isat yet so I expect more orvy things to happen!!!!??? And I fear it (no spoilers pls!!). Anyways that concludes this rambling! Hope it's a satisfying response,.. maybe lmk what you think?! and have a good day !!!

[tarta-de-limon]

not a request but can u do a post explaining the bat family?? (i’m new here and just know batman and robin lol) 😭

OH MY GOSH, it took me so long to reply to this, at this point you might as well know more than me LMAO.

To be honest Idk either💀 I started in the fandom because I saw a clip of the DC animated universe of Damian. And if I like the voice of a character I just love them already. Happened with HXH, with Killua, with Hunter and Luz, from the owl house, with Scaramouche, from Genshin impact.

Then I started reading all the comics Damian appeared, then I started reading Wayne Family adventures and I discovered Jason and Cass and Steph and—

Whatever I say here might be wrong because I'm not really into every member of the Bat-family, just in a couple of them. Literally just a couple of them.

So, there's Bruce Wayne, he lost his parents because they went to the movies and, for some reason, his parents decided to go home walking through a dark alley. Great choice. Anyways, he's Batman, everyone knows him and everyone knows Alfred, his butler

Then there's Dick Grayson! Circus boy, saw his parents die and became the first Robin! I really like the idea of him being angry asf, but I don't know if that's canon so, idk. Turns out he's involved with the Court of Owls and—yeah, i Don't really understand much either. I remember that the circus he grew up kind of, raised Talons, a group of highly trained assassins loyal to the Court of Owls (ty google). But then Bruce found him before the court did, so he became Robin. The court of Owls still wants him...at least that's the last thing I read in comics/don't trust me because I have horrible memory.

Something about a bunch of kids saying they're Robin, and a war against the court, Damian betraying the family, sike! He's still a good person, but he has a mask and has explosives, or something like that, and so Damian keeps living Dick accepted to work with the court and—

I don't remember how that ended. Actually I'm sorry I just spoiled you like, a whole comic, sorry not sorry.

Uh, let's keep going.

Then there's Jason! Pretty baby Jason! Second robin, used to be a stray kid, Bruce took him in when he tried to steak his wires, and he discovers that his mother isn't his real mother and the joker tricks him an—AND HE DIES, HE EXPLODES.

Then he revives, six months later, because...superboy? Superman? I can't remember anymore, hits...reality? And well, he comes back to life. To be honest, I don't remember how this goes. There's a version where he does and Talia brings him back. Then he goes all cray-cray and turns in the red hood.

But-then there's this thing with superboy prime, and I remember something about him getting hit by a truck...but I don't remember if that was canon or fanon or from a fanfic... Yeah, just, just know that in both cases he ends up in the Lazarus Pit and goes all crazy. Have you seen his suit in batman and Robin, when Damian is Robin for the first time?

THAT'S HIM, LMAO.

And to be honest? I did a drawing of him with braided hair like Ana from Frozen because;

REDHEAD, BABY!

AND there's Tim Drake. Jason's mad at him because he sees him as his replacement/at first. He kinda... blackmailed Bruce??? And to be honest, that's all I know. Yup, I'm not a big Tim Fan, nothing against him, of course!

Then there's Steph!... And I don't know anything about her either! Next! Nah, she's the daughter of...a villain, I think? Then she dies while being Robin...she didn't actually die, she was alive all along...then she's Batgirl, then she's spoiler... And that's it. Yeah, I love Steph but I haven't read anything about her. Same with... Cass, and Thomas. Yup. Bat-family's #1 fan right here y'all. Cass was raised to be weapon, and that's literally, literally all I know about her.

...

She's Chinese???? And, uh...She likes pancakes.

Thomas, I think he appeared in Robin war(the whole comic I just spoiled you) but that's all I know about him. that, and what appears In Wayne Family adventures lmao.

AND THEN, THEN THERE'S MY BABY BOY, PRECIOUS DAMIAN WAYNE. Raise to be a weapon, in the League of Assassins, son of the Bat and Talia Al Ghul, Grandson of the demon head!!!(tell me u have a favorite without telling me you have a favorite) he's the one I'm ALWAYS drawing.

In the DC animated universe he's send away after the League is attacked. I don't know if there's a new version in the comics, but he actually earned the right to meet his Father after beating his mother in a fight! I LOOOVE the fact that in the DCAU they kept the; I thought you'd be taller, father. FANGIRL MOMENT, BEHOLD.

He literally just wants to impress his father. That's the whole reason why he's grumpy and aggressive when they meet! Bruce treats him like a nuisance and he literally trained so hard to meet him! Damian hates being patronized, literally. This baby bat is Tim drake #1 hater at first. He beats his ass!

Thing is, well, things get complicated and Bruce is lost in time or something like that, so Dick is Batman and that's why Dick and Damian have such a strong bond!

And well, there's a lot of things to explain about this character...I really want to say everything about him but this is too long already lmao.

Well, that's all I think! I'm pretty sure this didn't help you at all, but hey, I had fun rambling! Thank you so much for asking and I'm so sorry this is all useless rambling lmao

Lots of love and have a great day or night! Yk what, have a great day, month and year! Have a great life! 🫵🫵🫵🫵

[h5eavenly]

BESTIE SAY SIKE RN?????? NOT YUNA????? when the words of a sister come back in whispers that prove she was not in fact what she seemed not a twin from your dreams she's a crook who was caught..... ooooo not you hitting us with that old familiar body ache damn :-(

i hate to say this but this makes so much sense :-((( with how yuna was so excited and eager to be y/n's friend even when y/n didn't know her at all and had no business at all with her omgggg :-( and woo is such a real one btw i don't think i ever gave him the credit he deserves but damn he's REAL

and can we talk about hyune referring to y/n as "the girl i love" and her being the last straw for him to beat up changbin bc he's as loyal to her as he's loyal to his family like omgggg i know this isn't the main focus of the chapter but im such a sucker for this type of trope ik i have issues but he really sounds like he called the amateurs and cut 'em from the team 🥹🥹

also did we just witness woo and felix finding out they were in love with a person who hurt both their respective best friends bc :-((( i want to be mad at this but you pulled this plot twist so gorgeously like okayyyy angie christie!!! we see you and we love you 🩷🩷 also the way yuna knows damn well y/n is head over heels in love with hyune but still offered woo her help to win y/n over.... like that's your so-called best friend, her man AND the man you're supposedly into who's also your so-called best friend's best friend that you're trying to play with like that's sooo not 💀 i was like omg yuna is on a silly goofy mood rn lol she's so funny but omg????

anyways this is getting too long and i'm sorry but you got me bad. it's almost midnight and i can't lay down bc i'm so gagged i'm afraid i'll choke in my sleep. i love you sm and i'm sending you the biggest hug ever 🫂

i wish i could say sike babe😔😔 i know yuna was so sus from the start yess woo is A REAL ONE woo defender till the day i dieee the only character that was 100% honest from the start 🙏🏻 my girl yuna really came into their lives to fuck everyone over helpp

not you calling angie christie helpp🥲🥲 thank you so much my love i’m so happy you stuck around for so long and enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it! you’re so always so kind and funny with your notes fhat i find myself smiling along without meaning to ajakwna and please don’t apologize i dont mind lonf asks at all🩷🩷🩷 I LOVE YOU🥹🥺

[survivalove]

I think one of the most dumbass arguments from Zooter Tooters 🐂💨 is the idea that Suki or Toph would be Zooter Tooters because "feminism." I'm sorry, but Suki would never force Katara to date a boy she has zero interest in and while Katara and Toph may clash sometimes, the worst she'd do is throw mud at Katara, not sell her out to again, said boy Katara gets the ick from. Them Tooters need to show some respect to Suki and Toph's name fr.😤

Zooter Tooter dhfjjfjg

Suki, a character Katara barely interacts with interfering with her dating choices… for what? (Katara barely interacting with female characters her age is a major faux pas when I think about it but anyway)

and Toph… the amount of times she and Sokka pick up on the vibes between Katara and Aang, it actually baffles me why so many of their shippers use her and Sokka’s aesthetic all over their page. (SIKE! they don’t actually care about either character and use a third party character to appear neutral and it shows when they have to talk about said character outside of their ship lol)

[elliebean714]

Hi! I was wondering if you could do a Chris x Male reader (Cause he fr is a Bi king and deserves all the love in the world) Where it takes place during the game, and the reader wasn't apart of the joke but Josh believes he was and tries to put him in the traps (I think thats a good for it) and when Chris finds out it was Josh he gets really upset. You can kinda decide the rest of it. If you don't want to do this request thats totally okay, I completely understand.

(Also can i be the 🍄 Anon? Again it's totally okay to not refuse) Love you and have a nice day!

GREETINGS 🍄ANON!! OF COURSE YOU CAN! I LOVE YOU TOO💗💕 So, Chris x reader in this is a pre-established relationship, I didn't want to do the 'will they, won't they' he had with Ashley in the game cus I wanted to write him already in a relationship with youuuuuuu💘 I'm very glad that 'Chris is Bi' is canon in our collective minds, this page believes in Bi Chris supremacy 🙇🙇‍♀️🙇‍♂️ This is so goddamn long i'm sorry lol tryin something new that's all. I really like this btw pls request more,🍄 anon. ily. BTW IM SO SORRY YOUVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SINCE AUGUST PLEASE IM SO SORRY. Tiny Tw for gore and panic attacks, honestly if you're fine with the game you should be alright it's not too bad just thought I'd mention it in case yk?

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Chris Hartley x M!Reader

Fluff, Angst, Comfort, kinda slow-burn (plot wise)

During-Game

Prologue

Chris and Josh layed passed out on the kitchen counters, Beth did the dishes, you cleaned the kitchen. You heard hushed laughter through the double doors that led to the main room, they were surely doing some late night pranks on each other, you rolled your eyes and continued cleaning.

"Did you see that?" Beth asked, searching for something outside.

"What?" You tore your eyes from the surface you were cleaning to watch her.

"Dad said it'd just be us this weekend." She mumbled.

"What's up Beth?"

"I think someone's out there."

You went over to the windows to see if you could find what she saw and she began trying to wake Josh.

"I can't see anything. Where did you see whatever you saw?" You asked but got no response, you turned to see her reading a note.

"I think something's happening to Hannah." She sighed, "Woah, what the fuck?"

Her eyes were on the window, you turned around and saw something running past. You both ran out of the kitchen to see everyone else running to the wide open main doors to the outside.

You quickly found out they had pranked Hannah, humiliating her, causing her to run away in embarrassment. Beth ran off after her alone, you and Sam got everyone inside. You thought the twins would be back soon, you left the door unlocked so they'd be able to get in once they did.

Chapter One

You and Chris sat beside each other on the bus, sharing earbuds, listening to the unsettling video Josh filmed and sent you. He looked out the window, staring at the breathtaking mountain and the snow falling onto the ground outside. You gently laid your head on his heavily layered shoulder. Once the video ended you put the regular music back on.

"I love you." Chris smiled.

You pulled him into a sweet kiss. "Love you too babe."

"He loves me!" Chris exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air with a big goofy smile on his face.

"Always." You rolled your eyes playfully, big smile on your face too.

"Okay, so... when we get to the lodge... what do ya wanna do?" Chris asks.

"Uhh, I dunno, it honestly feels a little weird to be going back you know?" You answer, an uneasy feeling in your gut.

"Yeah, I know. But, trust me, Josh is super siked to have everyone back this weekend. I really think this'll help." He comforts you, gently picking up your hand, giving it a loving squeeze.

"Okay, I trust you." You relent. Still feeling uneasy but pushing that feeling deep down as to not let it ruin your weekend away.

~~

"Cable car's gonna be a while hun. We should look around." Chris says, placing his bag on the bench and leading you around the back of the Cable car station.

"Hey, didn't you say Sam would be here?" You ask him, looking at the wanted poster on the side of the building

"Huh? Oh yeah, she said she'd go earlier, she went up with Jess I think." He replies, distracted by the gun he's holding.

"Where did you find that?" You jumped in surprise, staring at the gun too.

"Oh, there's a shooting range over here." He answered nonchalantly.

He walked over to it, you followed. Once you were beside him, he began shooting the makeshift targets, looking proud of himself and his aim.

"See that babe? I could protect you from all kinds of dangerous things, no sweat." Chris boasts, his big silly smile lighting his face in an ethereal manner. You pull him into your embrace and kiss him sweetly.

"Have I told you how much I love you?" You whispered, staring deeply into his love filled gaze.

"Probably but I'm not gonna tell you to stop." He smiles fondly.

"Good." You say before kissing him again

Chapter Two

You and Chris reached the lodge together, there you found everyone in the group besides Mike, Jess and Emily, the latter were probably busy fighting out in the snow whilst Mike watched so you ignored that and went to sit on the steps beside Ashley whilst Chris spoke with Josh.

You could hear them both laughing and chatting lightheartedly, the sound made you happy. Last time you'd seen Josh he was an emotional wreck, unable to talk through his sobs, seeing him so positive now helped further suppress that uneasy feeling within you. The boys stepped up the stairs towards the main door only to find the lock frozen.

"We're gonna go find another way in." Chris informs you.

You stand to kiss his cheek "I wish you luck, brave traveller." You put on a silly accent.

"Your affection, Good Sir, is all the luck I need." He kisses your hand.

~~

Everyone entered the lodge, chattering idly before Josh lent down to get a fire started, not long after, Mike and Jess enter, with Emily on their heels. As usual, a fight started almost immediately between the two girls, Josh interrupted once he got too frustrated with their petty argument. He instructed Mike and Jess to visit the cabin in the woods, Emily instructed Matt to help her find some bag she lost on the hike upto the lodge, Sam left to take a bath and Ashley to put her things in her room, leaving you and Chris alone with Josh.

You made your way towards Chris, taking off your coat and hanging it beside Chris'.

"Aww look, our coats are in love too!" Chris comments cheesily.

"Romantic." You smile at him.

"You lovebirds almost done?" Josh interrupts.

You and Chris roll your eyes at him and walk over to the frozen stiff sofas, sitting next to each other for warmth.

"So, Josh, you said no ones been up here?" You asked.

"Yup, not in a whole year. Why?" He answered.

"I'm sure you know about it but down at the base of the cable car I saw a wanted poster for somebody. Do you know if that's anything we should be worried about this weekend?" You inquired, with a lighthearted tone to cover the nerves.

"What? No I had no idea. I'm sure it's fine though, don't worry about it." He stated before turning back to the fire.

~~

Josh sent you and Chris down into the basement to look for the spirit board whilst he helped Sam with the boiler.

You both searched the old cardboard boxes for the spirit board Josh mentioned. It seems you were taking the search more seriously however.

"Woah Y/N check this out!" Chris called out from behind a shelf.

You followed his voice to where he was standing, rummaging through a cardboard box with 'costumes' written on the side in black sharpie.

"What's up?" You ask.

"Babe! Look at all this cool old junk!" He takes out a creepy mask and brings it upto his face.

"Still hot." You remarked causing him to smile beneath the mask.

"I kn-" Chris is cutoff by the sound of Sam and Josh entering the basement, chatting idly.

He quietly puts on a robe, also found in the box, and the mask. You stifle a laugh and find a costume of your own to put on, Chris leaves to continue searching for the spirit board. Once you're fully dressed, Chris has already found it and hidden it in his robe. You both begin shaking boxes as a distraction, you hear Sam and Josh discuss the noises then begin to follow them.

You snuck ahead, so that when Chris jumped out and began chasing them, you'd have a head start. Sam continues forward, slowly. Chris jumps out at Sam, making a big noise and running after her, she throws down a mat in hopes of slowing him down. That's when you join in, chasing after the duo, making Sam scream louder. Once they reach the door Sam begins banging on it, swiftly finding it locked.

A few moments of panic pass then Chris murmurs "Hey."

"What?" Sam struggles to catch her breath.

"Hey." Chris continues.

"What the hell?" Sam finishes.

You both remove your masks, laughing. "Boom. You just got punked."

Chris and Josh share a high five as Sam finally catches her breath. Josh unlocks the basement door after a bit, Chris, Josh and you start teasing Sam. Once you reach the top of the stairs you see that Ashley is waiting by the fireplace.

Chris makes some cute dumb joke, Sam leaves to finally bathe, then you go with Chris to help him set up the spirit board.

Chapter Three

Josh lights the last few candles, you sit next to Chris, giving him a sweet kiss on his cheek as Ashley sits herself in front of the board.

Chris let's Ashley ask the spirit questions. At first they are simple, silly questions, but they quickly turn serious as the spirit reveals themselves to be one of Josh's deceased sisters. Chris struggles to keep an upbeat mood, Ashley begins to panic further and Josh's face sunk, you can see regret and guilt fill his eyes.

The pointer starts moving erratically across the board, spelling 'proof' and 'library' then suddenly, the table jumps up and the spirit board and pointer fly across the room. Josh freaks out and leaves the room, Ashley scolds you and Chris, thinking you were playing another prank then leaves to find Josh.

"So, I guess we should go find that proof in the library, right?" You ask cautiously. Chris nods solemnly and leads you down to the library. Once you reach it you both look around for a few moments before a series of books are tossed from there place on the bookshelf, a button is found in their place.

"Should I push it?" You ask nervously.

"That's what buttons are for I guess..." Chris responded, a shaky tone to his typically jokey demeanour.

The bookshelf opened, revealing a hidden room, Chris entered before you got the chance to offer. Whilst you're sure it's more eagerness and curiosity, your heart flutters at the idea that he didn't want to risk you getting hurt.

"Woah Y/N, come look at this." He says, a quiet terror to his voice.

You enter the room and take the picture he's holding, examining it. Its nothing special, just a cute photo of the twins, you look at the other side.

I WILL TAKE THEM AND BLEED

THEM LIKE PIGS AND RIP THEIR

SOFT WHITE SKIN OFF! FUCKING

16 YEARS. 16 YEARS I WAITED

FOR PRETTY LITTLE

HANNAH AND BETH

...

Jesus...

Jesus fucking christ...

You feel vomit clawing it's way up your throat.

This note...

Is the most vile thing you've ever read in your life.

And...

It looks like,

it's written,

in blood.

"Hey, hey, babe..." Chris' ever soothing voice cuts through the white noise in your head.

"I feel sick." You whisper. Chris takes the photograph from you and places it back on the desk he found it on.

"I know, it's horrible." He gently holds you, running his comforting fingers through your hair.

You stay in his arms for what feels like forever. Eventually you calm down and pull away. "So uh," Your voice is cracking still, "we should show Josh that picture right?"

"Yeah, when you're ready though. I don't want to push you." He caresses your cheek.

You breathe out slowly, "I'm okay. Let's go."

The pair of you leave the tiny room, he holds your hand, and walk through a long hallway. Eventually you reach set of double doors, you open the door first only to be grabbed by someone in a weird mask and knocked out.

Chris bangs on the door after you, when it opens for him, he spots you unconscious on the floor, Ashley laying beside you, then the person in the mask knocks him unconscious.

Chapter Four

You slowly awaken, in a cold dark room, feeling your arm muscles ache. They're held above your head, hanging from a hook attached to a wooden wall. You hear soft breathing beside you and turn your head towards the sound.

Somebody hangs there, in the same position as you, you call out to them, trying to wake them. When they don't respond you try to kick them softly but they're too far away and your legs can't stretch far enough to reach them.

A few more minutes of trying to wake them pass when you hear Chris and Ashley's voices getting louder and louder, shouting your name. Eventually they enter the shed you're in.

"Chris? Ashley? We're in here!" You called out as loud as you could.

"Y/N? Baby boy I'm coming, don't worry sweetheart!" Chris exclaims, following your voice towards a large window and locked door.

The lights turn on, you see Chris and Ashley through the window and finally recognise the figure beside you to be Josh.

A weird creepy voice starts talking, Josh finally wakes up.

The voice explains that Chris will have to choose between you or Josh. The other will be sawn in half.

Josh and Ashley cry out in terror, you and Chris in desperation. The saw starts spinning. Ashley runs away from the window, not wanting to witness the bloodshed of two of her dear friends.

"I, I won't let you die Y/N, I promise baby, I promise." Chris cries, pained to betray his best friend.

He does just that. Pulling the lever in front of him causes the saw to travel towards Josh.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

The most gut-wrenching cry possible, coming from Josh and Chris, you feel your own tears spilling, and Josh's red, hot, metallic blood splashing onto you.

What feels like hours pass but is really just a few seconds. The screaming creases but the blade keeps spinning. The door unlocks and whips open, Chris runs to you and unties your wrists.

When you fall he holds you, when you find yourself unable to move he carries you out, when you need him he's there, always.

The chill of the winter air freezes your tears, and Josh's blood. Chris hugs you tighter as he sobs.

"They're over here." Ashley calls to someone. Matt and Emily come into view along side her.

"Jesus, is what Ash said true? Some killer is on the mountain.?" Matt asks, stunned by your appearance. All you can do is weap louder and nod slowly, which is more than Chris, who continues to hold onto you and sob.

Their words turn to white noise. The only thing you can hear is the sound of Josh's scream and his blood spluttering everywhere.

Chapter Six

You and Chris returned to the lodge to search for Sam whilst the others returned to the cable car. Chris looked around the upstairs rooms and you checked the bathroom only for everything to turn out empty.

"Hey, Chris?" You stop suddenly, "I can't imagine how bad that was, having to choose between us, but... I appreciate it babe. I really love you Chris."

"I love you too." He sighs, "Let's find Sam, yeah?"

You nod, following him downstairs into the theatre.

"Y/N, you alright?" He stops to check up on you.

"I'm a bit better. But not much." You smile solemnly, he takes your face into his hands as he kisses your nose.

"I know babe, we're gonna get the hell of this mountain and never look back I promise." Chris pauses, studying your face, he looks at you like he's just fallen in love all over again.

"We just need to find Sam then we can go?" You finish his sentence after a couple of seconds.

"Find Sam then we can go."

~~

You found yourselves in the cellar after a series of creepy noises and doors slaming. Once you calm yourselves you start looking around, finding a pink dollhouse with a weird lock on it. You think nothing of it and continue forward down the short hallway when suddenly a painting flies of the wall.

You let out a short yelp in surprise "Woah!"

"How does a painting fall of the wall like that?" Chris whispers to himself, bewildered.

You approached the spot on the wall where the painting once hung, to find a key in its place. You take it to the dollhouse and unlock it. Inside reveals seven dolls upstairs and four dolls downstairs.

The dolls upstairs are posed very deliberately, six dolls have their backs towards you whilst one faces you, without eyes. Looking closer you realise each of the dolls represent one of your group. And they are posed like your friends were in the video they filmed. The one that costed Hannah her life.

Downstairs, two dolls are sitting on the couch whilst only one was in the kitchen. A blond on the stairs. And one upstairs looks like you.

"What the hell?" You whisper.

"I know, this is real creepy." Chris answers.

"Yeah but look, that one," You point to the blond on the stairs, "is Sam. And this one," You point to the doll that looks like you, "is supposed to be me? But I was downstairs with Beth cleaning."

When you say that, the lights suddenly come to life, flickering, and things begin getting thrown off shelves. You and Chris jump in fright and, just as suddenly as they started, everything stopped.

"I'm getting sick of this now!" Chris cried, exasperated. "That's weird, let's just keep going. I want to get out of here fast as possible."

~~

After a pair effort of pushing the heavy metal door to the freezer, you both manage to get in, unfortunately it's a one way door meaning you will have to find a different way back.

Shivering, you groan "Uggh! Why they'd want to make it colder?" Regretting taking off your coat earlier.

"I don't know. Keep moving, that should heat you up a bit." He answers wrapping an arm around you to share his body heat, or maybe he just wants to be near you. "You know I'd offer my jacket if I had it." He smiles as you continue on as one.

"Aww, and they say chivalry is dead." You kiss his cheek, "I appreciate your hypothetical sacrifice."

You turn a corner and find something hanging from a meat hook. A creepy mask, and wearing what looked exactly like Sam's clothes.

"Oh my god is she..." you begin, horrified by the potential answer you'd receive.

Chris reached out to touch it, quickly discovering that is was only a creepy decoy of some kind.

After finding that, you both moved with haste. Time was potentially of the essence, Sam was definitely in danger and you could save her if you hurried, unless she was already dead, of course.

In the next room you found a chair in the middle. With some strands of blond hair poking out from behind it.

"Oh my god, Sam?" You called out, releasing yourself from Chris' arm and running towards the chair, swivelling it towards you. Sam sits in it, in only a towel, unconscious but breathing. "She's okay!" You call out to Chris, "Hey come help me ca-"

Chris' muffled screams interupt you, you turn to face him only to see the creeper in the mask from earlier has drugged him, now he lies knocked out on the floor. Then the freak tried to drug you.

Thinking quick you punch them square in the jaw, so hard they take several steps back, you have to force yourself not to apologise profusely, and to try to escape, but of course they have you cornered, and drug you before you get the chance to fully register everything that's happened. And your plunged into darkness yet again.

Chapter Seven

You awake in an extremely dark room, once again. This time chackled to a chair opposite, who you assume is, Chris, whom finds himself in the same position as you, except with one hand unchackled. In the darkness, you can barely make out a gun that lies on the table between you two.

"Chris?" You call out trying to wake him, after a few more tries he eventually comes to. When he does, the lights come on and, as dim as they are, they do help considerably.

Then you hear mechanical revving from above the both of you, looking up you see two more saws, identical to the one that killed Josh. And the voice comes back.

Chris uses his free hand to grab the gun and shoot the saws but to no avail. Then the voice explains the situation this time. Chris has to choose whether to kill himself, or you. If he refuses, you'll both die.

"Oh fuck." You whispered, letting tears fall.

"I love you. Please remember that honey, remember I love you. With everything in me." Chris smiles sadly.

"No. Chris no don't you fucking think about it. Don't you dare!" You cry as he lifts the gun to his neck.

"He said it's my choice right? Just close your eyes baby. It'll be okay. I promise it'll be okay." You shut your eyes tighter than you have ever in your life at his command.

"Please. Please just let it be me. Don't make me live in a world without you. Please Chris." You sob. Your pleas are met with one final 'I love you' then you hear the shot.

~~

The next few minutes are haunting. You can't hear anything, you don't feel anything. And you don't dare open your eyes. All of a sudden you hear a few more shots being fired and that killers evil, distorted voice taunting 'Chris'. Who is Chris? Your boyfriend? Didn't he die? What's happening?

Then you hear Sam and Mike's voices? What are they doing here? Now Sam is... beside you? Loosening whatever is binding your wrists? Now she's calling your name and placing an arm around you like she's trying to comfort you.

An argument ensues with the voices around you, Mike, Sam and, Josh? And Chris? What the hell is going on?

Mike yells something then you hear what you think is a punch and something large falling to the ground. Following after, Sam and Mike converse on the other side of the room, and Chris moves to hold you.

"Hey, hey babe, you can open your eyes. It's okay I'm here. I'm okay." Chris kisses your head softly, holding you tight. You take a few shaky breaths to calm yourself before opening your eyes.

And he's okay, he's still there. Chris didn't die.

The relief that floods you at the conformation brings more tears. You don't ask questions about what happened or why you heard Josh's voice when you felt him die beside you, you just cry into your beloveds chest because, as shitty as tonight has been, he's okay, he's still here, he didn't die.

~~

You, Chris and Mike took Josh out to the shed to tie him up until morning. Josh was rambling on about nonsense which was aggravating Mike, you and Chris trailed behind.

"Hey, I love you." You smiled, rubbing his cheek softly, "I didn't say that earlier. I was a bit stressed."

In response Chris just hugs you.

"Aww look, my best friend and the prick that almost broke my jaw!" Josh interupts angrily.

"You deserved it." Mike mumbles under his breath.

"I was scared. I had found Sam passed out half naked. You just drugged my boyfriend. Of course I was gonna punch you." You defend yourself, causing Josh to start rambling again.

Chris and Mike scold him for his disturbed actions throughout the night whilst you hang back, only occasionally joining in, one thing that still didn't make sense.

Why was the doll made to look like you sitting upstairs?

Once the group reached the shed, you remembered what grotesque horrors occurred here. Only for them to have been a facade.

In anger, Mike forced Josh to the ground and began doing, something, that was making Josh writhe in pain. Although typically you or Chris would've stepped in to make him stop, neither of you did. Your own anger halting you, plus Josh killed Jess according to Mike so you both felt he deserved some vengeance.

Honestly when Chris told you what Mike said Josh did, even though you'd been through a night of Hell at his hands, you still couldn't believe he'd actually done that to someone. No matter his reasons.

Josh denied the accusations, although none of you took him seriously, he was clearly not lucid. Even as the three of you berated him for everything he'd done, for his disturbed plan, he still defended it like it was something to be proud of.

Finally having enough, Mike grabbed him and pulled him towards a stool sat in front of a pillar but as Mike tried to tie him to it, Josh started thrashing around and eventually it took all three of you holding him down to finally tie Josh up.

Once you did Josh started rambling on again, but no-one was paying attention to him. Mike inquired on whether Chris had ever seen Josh act like this before but he hadn't.

When Josh was done with his rant he laughed creepily and started insulting you, still laughing after each sentence. Angry as you were, you didn't feel the need to defend yourself. He just looked so pathetic, you could've just threatened to punch him again and he would've shut up, but Chris really didn't take lightly to insults thrown at you.

He started to argue with Josh, who was clearly getting a kick out of tormenting the two of you, "I just can't believe you choose your pretty little boy toy over your best friend you dick! Ever heard of loyalty? That guy helped kill my sisters! But what? He's got you so cock drunk you can't think logically?! You tried to kill me for that dic-"

Chris hit a plank of wood over Josh's head so hard he was knocked unconscious.

After a momentary freak out, Mike tells you to take Chris back to the lodge before he 'beats Josh to death'. You do so but once you're out of eye shot you kiss him roughly.

"You're hot when you're angry." You whisper into the next kiss.

"You have terrible timing." He quipped making you chuckle.

The walk back was silent, your mind kept wandering back to what Josh had said, 'That guy helped kill my sisters'...

But you were in the kitchen all night. The dolls did show you upstairs, but you were in the kitchen all night. When you said that whilst inspecting the dolls, the lights flickered and shelves shook violently, like you were lying, but it wasn't a lie, you were in the kitchen all night.

Chapter Eight

"Ahhh!" A bloodcurdling scream pierces the uncomfortable silence over the three of you.

"What the hell?" Sam asked uneasily.

A few seconds later someone started banging on the door and screaming to be let in, Emily.

Chris ran to the door and opened it for her, she fell to the floor shuffling away from the door, then she screamed for him to shut it. You and Sam helped her to her feet and walked her to the couch, all the while trying to calm her and get answers.

Apparently Matt and Ashley abandoned her whilst she was hanging off the side of the fire tower, she fell into the mines, found some horrible shit, and was chased by something.

Eventually Mike came running in, immediately hugging Emily when he saw her. Then came another knock at the door.

After a quick discussion Mike and Chris walked stealthily towards the door. When you tried to join them, Chris told you to hang back to protect the girls if anything happened. But you heard the slight quiver in his voice. A few moments of hushed tension between the two pass before the bang of the door slamming open, followed shortly by loud thumping boots on the hard wood floor.

When the boys came back around the corner, they had a creepy old guy, with a few large weapons and three huge gas tanks on his back, quick on their heels, who then began to scold you all for returning to the mountain. Then after Mike mentioned the Washingtons owning the mountain, he stated that the mountain belongs to the 'Wendigo'.

Murmurs of confusion spark between your friends before the old guy continued on briefly before once again, being interrupted by the ever-argumentative Mike, who himself was shut down by Sam.

The old guy told everyone that there is a curse living in the mountains, that if anyone resorted to cannibalism on it, "the spirit of the Wendigo shall be unleashed.". Whilst everyone stared at him in disbelief or disgust he continued, not giving anyone time to question him, about needing somewhere safe to stay for the rest of the night, Sam offered the basement and the guy told you all to go down there.

"Guys... I ran off and left Josh when I heard screaming." Mike's voice was laced with regret.

"Where did you leave him?" The guy asked.

"In the shed." Mike answered.

"Oh, then your friend will already be dead." He responded ominously, matter of factly.

After hearing this, Chris' face contorts into something solemn yet unreadable. You could see the conflict in his eyes, you took his idle hand and interlinked your cold fingers with his colder ones, bringing his attention back to you. With glimmering eyes he looked into yours.

"I have to go after him." He said louder than he intended.

"What? No! No way, the guy just said he's dead!" You scolded through your teeth.

"I'm sorry babe, I have to go. If there's a tiny chance he's okay I have to try." He reasons with you.

"Please Chris, please don't. He just told us how dangerous being outside is! Please I don't want to you to risk yourself. Please baby." You plead but just as before he ignores your wishes in favour of his selflessness. You'd be angry if it were anyone but Chris, perfect, protective, selfless Chris. How could anyone angry at him?

"I'm supposed to be his best friend and I let him down." He sighed.

You lowered your head in resignation, nodding dejectedly. "Fine, just come back.".

"I plan on it, don't worry." He smiles, with a comforting lack of fear.

"Then I'll come with ye." The guy joins in.

"I don't need your h-" Chris begins

"Shut up and take him." You interrupt, "We'll wait for you downstairs. " You finish.

Everyone began towards the basement, Chris was pulled aside and spoken too by the guy. After their conversation was concluded, they walked briefly towards a side door. You followed behind, wanting to give Chris a quick kiss for luck, stopping to watch as the 'flamethrower guy', as Sam had dubbed him, handed Chris a shotgun. After another short conversation between the two, you found the perfect place to jump in.

"Hey." You called out.

"Hey." He smiled.

"Come back in one piece, okay?" You kissed him swiftly.

"I'll do my best." He assured you, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

"I trust your best." You sighed as he walked out into the unpredictable snowscape.

~~

The unsteady, suffocating silence filled with tension wore heavily in the air, making it hard to breathe. He'd be okay, he promised, you kept repeating his previous reassurances in your head, every second of agonising quiet you became more fidgety.

A series of distant gunshots stirred further unease within you, curiosity guiding you towards a glass door. More gunshots, getting closer with each one. Eventually you see Chris come, just barely, into view. Aiming the gun at something out of view and sprinting, best he can with a seemingly injured leg, towards the door your standing at.

As soon as he was at the door you threw it open allowing him to re-enter the lodge quickly, once he was in you slamed the door back shut. He hurried you away from the door and down into the basement, limping as fast as he can behind you.

Once you both reach where everyone is waiting for you both they start bombarding Chris with questions. When Sam asks about the flamethrower guy, Chris shudders as he recounts that he was killed brutally by the Wendigo.

Mike started looking for another way out but Sam argued that they should stay put, Emily agreed, mentioning that the key to the cable car was missing when she visited with Matt and Ashley. Mike thought Josh might have it on him and Emily told him the Wendigo may have taken him into the mines, with that Mike decided he'd go down to try and find him.

Then the trio start investigating the flamethrower guys belongings, discussing what they're seeing and what they've seen throughout the night.

You and Chris remained silent, off to the side. Chris held himself tightly and rocked back and forth gently. To comfort him the best you could you put one cautious hand on his back. When he didn't fight, you slowly pulled his shaking form into you. Running a gentle hand through his hair, you calmed him slightly.

"It bit you? What bit you?" Mike's questions interrupted your moment.

"The Wendigo." Emily answered, voice shaky, then she started trying to make excuses as to why it was alright but Mike was denying the possibility.

"Emily, if the Wendigo bit you, you could turn into one of those things." Mike reasons.

"Oh that's ridiculous." Sam tried to defuse Mike's argument.

"He said it was from eating each other, if it bit you..." He trailed off, trying to find the courage to finish his sentence, "You can't be down here with us." Despite protests from you, Sam and Emily, he remained steadfast in his assumption. "You gotta go.".

You thought you should involve yourself, the idea of letting a friend get left to potentially die whilst you stayed safe downstairs made you sick to your stomach, Mike could be right. There was so much you didn't know about these 'wendigo' that you couldn't really discredit Mike's concerns, because to be fair, you shared them.

How could anyone be sure this was safe? That Emily wouldn't turn and kill everyone in the room? At the same time, who in their right mind would send someone to their death based on an assumption. Whilst thinking about whether you should join in or not, your rushed to reality when Mike pulls out his revolver and points it at Emily, who screams in, rightful, terror.

"This is the safe room, Em!" Mike cries through clenched teeth and streaming tears. Everyone stares at the scene with bated breath, begging someone else will stop him, because they're not going to.

~~

Mike left. A few minutes later Sam read the flamethrower guys notebook and found out the bites weren't contagious, and some other things that prompted her to go after Mike, she wanted everyone to go with her, but worried for Chris' injury, you decided to stay behind with him so Sam left with Emily.

"How's the leg?" You asked, hating the silence, but you only got an indifferent sniffle in response. He's trying his best to stay strong, soon you find yourself wrapping him up in your loving embrace.

"His fuckin head came off..." Chris whispered, voice cracking making your heart hurt more than it was.

"I know, I'm so sorry Chris." You soothed him to the best of your ability, he tucked his head into you.

"I just, want to go home." Chris sighed sadly.

"I know baby, I know we're almost done. Just have to wait for dawn to break, then we'll get home. Kay?" You kissed his head and prayed that time would pass faster.

Chapter Ten

Emily returned to the basement alone, saying Sam climbed a cliff on her own to find Mike. She took comfort in her own corner, barely looking at you or Chris once she'd finished explaining what happened. You guessed she was still deeply upset neither of you stepped in to defend her, although in Chris' state, his abstinence was far more explainable. Your silence was a betrayal.

Almost an hour passes, a thick, hefty cloud of quiet suffocates the three of you, one in anger, one in shock, one in horror.

Faint animalistic screeches from afar and all heads whip in their direction. "Fuck..." Emily whispers, Chris whimpers into you and that's all the conformation you need. They're here.

~~

"Run!" Chris shouts when Sam opens the door.

"Go go go go go!" Emily repeats, not before shoving you aside to rush ahead of you.

"Run!" Mike orders Sam after you run past him.

"Oh shit!" Sam screams as she rushes to slam the door shut then follows everyone to the top of the stairs.

"Don't move..." Mike whispers to Sam when the Wendigo arrive.

"Don't fucking move a muscle..." He completes when, clearly, the strongest one locks its eyes on Sam.

Then two more come up the stairs, they clearly anger the main one. Causing a fight to break out between two Wendigo. One gets tossed around and ends up breaking the gas pipe in the fireplace, giving Mike an idea. The first wendigo is killed.

You're unsure of the plan Mike and Sam come up with, telepathically, everybody just knows to slowly make your way towards the open door. The second wendigo is killed.

Once Mike has made it to a light bulb, he takes advantage of the Wendigo being distracted by Sam to crush the glass in his hands. As your inching towards the door, you hear it open and know Chris escaped.

And he's okay, he's out there. Chris didn't die.

"Hey!" Sam calls out when the Wendigo starts to investigate Mike a little too closely, but you're distracted with all the relief in the universe.

Then you hear one more pair of footsteps slowly retreating then turn to sprinting out the door and you know you're next.

The wendigo decides to stare in the direction of the door, however, momentarily trapping you inside and you thank every star in the sky when Sam hides behind a pillar, her squeaky sneakers being a good enough distraction for you to make your exit.

You crash into Chris' arms as you exit the cursed building. Heart pulsing in your ears, he cradles your head into his chest.

"Fuck." Chris whispers with tremble in his voice "It's done, babe, Y/N? It's over we made it! We survived!"

The cry that escapes your throat is full of relief and pain, it's wild and free whilst tied by knowledge that you could never be the same person you were. How could a person recover from this?

Before you know it the lodge has become an inferno and Mike has been thrown out. Everyone stares.

Jess

Time of death 00:12

Josh

Time of death 06:23

Matt

Time of death 06:31

Sam

Time of death 06:52

Epilogue

So much is happening, your head is killing, people died, no one believes any of you when you blame the Wendigo, everyone has sleeping problems now.

When things get bad, you can't breathe, can't think, can't stop crying, you run through it again, a simple statement that kept you sane the whole night.

He's okay, he's still there. Chris didn't die.

You call him he's probably having as bad a time as you, but he helps you through it, and when he needs you, you're right there.

It feels nice, to have someone to talk to, who'll understand you.

You know you're not crazy, and so does he, you hold him, he smiles for you.

That's why the answer is so easy, when, years later, once scars have healed, bruses faded, he asks you to marry him.

Because only a crazy man would refuse.

What I Write~

Games

TWD

~Elliebean714

♤♡◇♧☆♧◇♡♤♡◇♧☆♧◇♡♤♡◇♧☆

[fawnnbinary]

I totally agree with they just don’t want this big buff macho man to be into men because “OMG Geralt is just such a man’s man he couldn’t possibly be into men. (Ignore the fact that he is the perfect queer allegory because he is called a demon just for existing. Or that he is essentially immortal which means the idea that he has NEVER found a man attractive/questioned his sexuality in all his years of living is insane)

Also I’m so sorry. I hate when they age up characters THIS much. It always fucks with the lore and also just makes some things like… icky. Even if I did ship them then I have to deal with this idea that in every other version that man is a CHILD. Bro is literally Ciri’s age 😭

- SF Anon

(I should start shipping Rasputin, or whatever his name is, with Dara just for the lols. Cause they are the same age)

(Also also what’s with all that mirrored storytelling they were doing in blood origin? Like Bestie said Bard in love with a Witcher *wink wink* and just went ha ha sike)

likeeeeee idk idk twn is off the rails I'm killing and maiming the writing team with my mind and I think I'm going to take my bestie up on the agreement to just not watch s3 <3

[tsuko-san]

Update～3！！！

[NOTES: I'm sorry to say this before you read a kind reminder to please don't ask me a request to put your Bluey OC here, I allready planned of which OC to pick, Thank you for reading this note.]

Finally Adding the LAST 3 more OC's on the 2nd row... BUT SIKE... it's not over yet :'<

(Adding Hyperlinks so you can find them easily) Credits to the Last 3 OC's are

frsikyrad, HomeBlue19 & AndrewStarBluey !

If you've been in the last update, I know I shouldn't be taking requests but honeslty I want frsikyrad to add too, I try to find her OC on twitter but I couldn't find it anywhere... so for losing hope back then, friskyrad will not be in the list... UNTIL she commented her OC. knowing this I feel happy so brought her back into my list!

HomeBlue's (A.K.A Josè) was easy to do... but something was missing on him, So I used clipping and color him red to make him really stand out lol. the only colored character in this picture, Also I know HomeBlue will never see this update because he's been going to "Boot Camp" (I researched and it was kind of brutal there...) wish him good luck from there!

As for AndrewStarBluey she was very easy to do, also making her very happy as exicting to take picture with the other members, Her scarf and clothing are the one's colored. (cuz' for drawing base reasons, turn them black would be complicated to draw. I know it's obvious but I thought I would share this.)

BUT IT'S NOT OVER YET, Gonna add there more on the 3rd row and Once thr base id done. I can finally draw the FINAL drawing! Wow look how many they are!

Once I am done done I'll explain what it was and also about the censoring eyes (the censoring eyes is part of the suprise tho.)

I hope you will all see the final thing! wish me luck!

You know... I think I should've name this Project. I will officially call it:

The BLUEY COMMUNITY GROUP SURPSIE Project! (BCGSProj!)

Finally! gonna give this suprise project a name! That's all I have in this 3rd update for now! See you in the nect one! ;)

[hyukascampfire]

GOD BLESS THIS RB LMFAOOO CAM IM SORRY (pretty please don’t send any cease and desists my way)

im gonna place all your suffering right here so i can giggle at you

“Nothing is more certain than that I will greet every living thing eventually. I’ll come to take you, too, when the time comes.” knowing what i know now i could but rip at you with my bare hands after seeing this line again- 

when i tell you im here sitting in my living room on the edge of my seat- like knowing more of his lore just puts me out bc i know this is going to be painful

STOP IT ASH COME PAY FOR MY THERAPY RN RIGHT NOOOOWW. ASSSSHHHLLYYYNNNN IM SUING YOU

Im going to start sobbing now

Ash fix this wrong you have created, this hurt that has come to take from me pls- And it hurts so much because your writing is just so good like im rolling around on the floor bc i know the pain is here and now- 

Pov this is me at the end of the fic lol <333 hehehehe so cute so fun so not heart wrenching- 

yeah im paying for my sins for finding him hot in that moment because now im in pain again hahahahahah yay! 

ha ha hA HA HAHA ASH WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY- HUH YOU LIKE HURTING ME? HUH? YOU FIND THIS FUNNY? Real tears REAL ones came down my face like say sike rn pls pretty pls take it back and delete it pls :)) 

sobs - Sobs harder wtf ash- 

i’m such an evil dictator a giggled through it all. have mercy on me i am just a fanfic writer pls

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH ALREADY ASH YOU HAVE ME- how i was silenced, i know its simple but it feels so like a book opening like not a book opening but a book that i have in my mind opened to witness all that is coming next STOP DONT MAKE ME CRY

At the start of this im so hooked on you have no idea it feels hazy like foggy, dark, and dare i say mysterious the beginning of this fic is gen so ominous yes

THE ALLURE PLS HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL i love this so much i can feel the way his voice is in the woods now. It’s such a start to a fic i'm so in love. ALLURING IS LITERALLY THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE THIS YEONJUN IM GONNA SMOOCH YOU ON THE MOUTH

THE FEEEEELLLINGS I HAVE AAAASSSSSHHHH PLLLLS I'm attached to him in an unhealthy way. me too

Ugh a gift, i love the power in names and in a fic like this feels so heavy and im just eating it up its hitting me and it hurts im covered in bruises- i literslly love the power of names, like not having someone’s name or having someone’s name affects smth its so interesting, especially in this when it alludes to the fact that she is in fact special to him TEEHEE

And i love this feeling him before seeing him the same kind of feeling as the start with the woods i love it i love it i love it sm me too i need him to come visit me

When i tell you i love scenes like this, small but in comparison but overall so impactful to the characters, i eat them up and its so soft and gentle i love it sm-  i could kiss you right now because these are my favorite kind of scenes. seeing who someone is outside of romantic interaction is so impactful :,) and just him being there for a dying animal showing MC that dying doesnt hve to be such an awful thing. sobs.

I DONT MEAN TO BE YOUR MONSTER STTTTTTOOOOOPPPP IT NOW STOP- IM SO GLAD THAT YOU GET THIS LINE LIKE ME WE ARE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH I WAS GIGGLING LIKE WTF

this is them and also us if youll accept cuddling as an apology

I love the lore ive been a nerd for a long time and eat up anything that has to do with the wild hunt and reading this just fixed me and broke me but mostly fixed me. & YOU DONT GET IT I LOVE THIS SM i love the wild hunt lore i love this vibe i love this feeling i love this- IM SO HAPPY YOU GET ME SO WELL BECAUSE THERES JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THE WILD HUNT i literally could not put it into words for you but it just has this feeling and i am so obsessed with the concept. i woukd literally read a fantasy book if that was the only selling point i’m so serious PLUS IT JUST MAKES HIM SO SEXY AND MYSTERIOUS

Ugh the intimacy in nothing but a question and i love the parroting back of the ‘no’ and the term of endearment being love- ive melted cam’s finally met the way i write yeonjun (it’s not a choice i literally am shackled i think i’m like forever ruined by tsfawc yeonjun or smth) and i could not be happier. SENSUAL INTIMATE BUT ALSO FREAKY YEONJUN YES PLEASE ILL TAKE TEN YES THANK YOU :3

ID LET HIM EAT MY HEART you get it >.<

A strong moment of silence- “I want you to beg me for it,” rumor has it that user biteyoubiteme has not recovered from this line.  you better believe i’m begging, like meowing and on my knees thwres no limits thank u v much

Okay pause a bit bc is it wrong for me to be like- ‘oh hey hottie’ like in this moment like it was only for a second but- no speak your truth he’s hot he can’t help it, it’s just that he’s also hot in the wrong situations

Now this is the moment i knew i was in trouble, ash has come to collect her dues on some long lost list of transgressions ive done in a past life- The moment starts so simple, over bread like its nothing- simple enough like a paper cut i swear because it burns and im bleeding tears- ruin me why dont you-Kill me in the worst way- sobbing thinking about this moment too it was so sweet in a disgusting bittersweet way i hope they’re happy forever and ever.

This reblog was made in loving memory of cam, otherwise known as user biteyoubiteme on tumblr dot com, slain at the hands of ashlynn, otherwise known as user hyukascampfire on tumblr dot com, to show your condolences read this fic in its entirety over and over again to share even a fraction of her pain- STOP ITSBJSJSJS ILY AND IM SORRY FOR WHAT I DID OKAY TAKE ME BACK

PLS ILY A THOUSAND KISSES

THE TERRIBLE HALF-TRUTHS OF THE UNDEAD ҜING

⠀(🍂 ) 𝓡EVENANT in folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living ... ( 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 )

1︎5.5k revenant!yeonjun · ƒ ! r ft. soobin ⸺ ✴︎ 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗒 ... smut, violence, angst, death, animal death & vivid descriptions of animal death, major character death, unprotected sex, cumming inside, dry humping (because bring it back), biting, dom yeonjun sub reader, mentions of death in childbirth, reincarnation, teasing, breast worship, yj calls reader ‘my love’, def some typos

🪶 ⦂ how fun is this collab? :,) this fic was so fun to write. i personally believe that tsfawc enjoyers will love this one,, but you'll have to read it to confirm that, right? hehe. and of course, go read everybody else's if you love this one! they're all set in the same world, and everybody worked so hard on these fics. send some love their way!

rꫀׁׅܻblogs & asks arꫀׁׅܻ always apprꫀׁׅܻciatꫀׁׅܻd!

𝒪𝑁𝐶𝐸 𝒰𝑃𝑂𝑁 𝒶 𝒯𝐼𝑀𝐸, in a land far, far away, where the treetops touched the soft clouds of the sky and the water sparkled under the glowing sun, where mountains rose high, and long, deep caves ran through them, where the sea met shore in collisions of swirling, foamy punches, where the undead walked among the living, where the winged flew above the finned, there was a land where things beyond reason and rhyme existed perfectly true. Among those strange beings and within the veils of Aethera, there was a girl loved by death. 

He sits on your shoulder, a dark, boding shadow and glared at those around you with promise in his eyes.

That’s how it seems, anyway. That’s how everybody looks at you. They dodge you, whisper about you, evade your gaze as if he might reach his claws for them next if they linger for too long.

Crows with dead eyes arrive at your doorstep like some lover’s cheeky gift, other poor creatures like fat grey mice are left to rot in the wheatfields, and yarrow stocks wilt outside the wall of your room. If Death thinks that you are flattered, he misunderstands you. You are terrified of nothing more than dying. The first time, it was a sly joke. Then it happened again, and you watched their eyes change. And it happened again and again, and your people are a suspicious type. Something can only be a coincidence so many times.

When you began to sneak into a little shack with a village boy, you thought that maybe, somehow, this would all pass. He died too. There’s really no coming back from that, is there? You don’t blame them. You’re not the freak that they all believe you to be—none of them get close enough anymore to know that, though.

The wickerbasket’s handle creaks under your fist. You usually only forage along the shallow line of the forest; you pluck from bramble bushes topped with plump berries that crawl between trees during the summer, and when the crab apple tree’s branches hang heavy with the fruit, you snatch those up too. You’re more useful to your family out here, in the woods that they deem just as cursed as you. Where you won’t be their burden.

Crisp autumn leaves crunch under your boots. You scan between them—more grey and rotted this late in the season than fresh and orangey—for the edible mushrooms and roots that you usually forage at this time of year. The basket’s already pretty heavy with a variety, black morels and sorrel and burdock, as you bend down to pull a truffle from the dirt against a tree.

You drop it down with the rest of your finds. The basket smells like earth, no doubt your hands do too. You dust your palms off on your skirts and go to rise back from your squat.

A deep, billowing horn pierces the forest’s silence. It’s both far away, wiggling between the whispers of rustling leaves, and much too close. It draws out. Long. Bone-chilling. You freeze, scanning between each tree trunk and praying that you won’t find what you fear you might.

You are much deeper into the woods than you usually are. Than you ought to be. And you know what that horn means—you know that it means something far worse than what you’d been afraid of, coming into these woods. Much more primordial than the hide-behinds you were scared you might find this deep, much less avoidable than the faerie rings you stepped around.

Why would The Wild Hunt be here? A shudder runs down your spine, and you curl your fingers into your skirts and lift them as if to prepare to run, but you don’t. Your feet find root in the forest floor and all you can do is stand terribly still in catatonia. Their horn sounds again, and a procession of wicked whoops and howls follow. Wild hoofbeat rumbles under it all—the hunt and their rides. You hope that they’re just passing through, and you won’t so much as see one of those wild riders. There were plenty of folktales that the matrons of your village would bolster to terrify you as children, but you knew even then that their stories of the riders, with their flesh falling away from them and their pale or beady eyes and their gnarled maws and frightening figures as they rode on the backs of equally terrible steeds, were not fabricated. They are not a bogeyman or a wailing banshee; they are death made in the flesh, and they are here. In your forest. 

Your legs won’t work. You curl your clammy fingers tighter around your basket and lean into the tree beside you. How deep had you wandered into the forest? Hopefully not too far; when you gain the courage to run, you hope that they do not send their hounds to snap their foul breath on your heels. Maybe just standing here and blending into the trees is best. The Hunt would love a chase, and you don’t want to become their next.

The next call comes and you throw that all to the wind. Your heart pounds against your ribcage as you let your basket clatter to the leaves and you take off. You fly over roots and shrubbery and between the trees, your blood roaring in your ears faster. You’d oblige if you could.

Above the loudness of your frantic mind, the harrowing whinnies and The Hunt’s ruckus dulls until it’s faraway again, and then it’s gone. Well, you don’t stop to check if they’ve really passed through the forest. You just run.

“There you are, love.”

His voice cuts through your frantic escape and stops you dead in your path. You almost go crashing down over the ground with the force that you dig your heels into it. Though the voice is non-threatening, you don’t turn to face the source.

He speaks again. You already know who it is. He, old as the earth you stand on itself, leads that band of wild riders. Is the king of the undead, collects souls for reaping.

And he’s the one who’s plagued you with his attention. Death.

“Why do you keep your back turned to me?” he says. “I frighten you. That hurts.” His voice lilts with amusement and sharpness. “I wish that you would face me.”

You’re not fond of the way that he speaks to you with a familiarity. But then again, you’re not fond of dying, either. Your legs are boneless beneath you. Turning, you slowly indulge him, though it takes a great amount of willpower to not run again like your jittering jaw and trembling hands ask you to.

The King of Death stands tall and utterly preternatural, leaned against a crooked tree in the woods behind you. His smile cracks across his face in a jagged way that suggests he finds you amusing, but none of that meets his eyes. They’re the color of the greyish, rotted leaves beneath you. The dark shadows beneath his eyes are the only thing belying the weight that his infinite life might have on him. That, and the hollowness that rings from him.

And though he sounded entirely playful, you are shaken by the sorrow that you find in him now that you’ve turned. Even more so, you’re not sure why you feel it echoed somewhere in the hollows of your bones. “I’m sorry,” you say. It trembles terribly. You want to say that you’re sorry you caught his attention, but it seems you’ve always had his attention. It’s more that you are petrified down to your marrow that the time’s come that you face this… strange infatuation. Here he stands: the one who leaves hollowed out husks of creatures at your doorstep. Should you run or thank him? Is Death as prideful a creature as the other kinds that inhabit Aethera? “I don’t mean to…”

He pushes off his tree, fixing his cape that cascades over only one of his shoulders. It’s tattered and falling apart like the rest of his clothing, though you think that the bronze stitching and swirling oakleaf patterns in the black say that they might have been immaculate at some point. Or maybe they weren’t, and they had started that way. He is Death, anyway. “You’re sorry?” he says. “Why are you apologizing to me? You’ve hardly done a thing to warrant it.”

Faltering, you wet your chapped lips. You’re not really sure. Holding back another apology for fear that you’ve offended him and he’ll now strike you down for it, you say, “I thought that, maybe the hunt was…” Wow, you sound stupid. You can see in the sly smile his lips form that it amuses him. That’s almost worse than angering him: intriguing him. What you really should be doing is boring him so that he’ll find you a waste of his time. Then, maybe, he’d give up haunting you.

“After you?” he finishes. Shaking his head, he says, “My hunters only answer to me.”

“Oh,” you say plainly. Part of you wants to ask why that should comfort you, especially when you’re the one that he sends little bits of death to, but rationality keeps those words in the back of your throat. You don’t really want to know. “Why are you passing by here?”

Something akin to old longing passes through those witty eyes, and then he eats up the distance between you with languid steps of his long legs until he’s nothing more than one last step in front of you. The closeness consumes the air in your lungs, leaving nothing for you but short and shallow drags. The forest has gone dead silent aside from the sound of it. His voice is even more magnetic now that he’s so close.

You recoil when he brings a hand up to brush the pad of his thumb over your cheek and then cup your jaw, as if afraid that he might snuff you out here and now. His fingers are softer than you thought they might be, and the lines of his face sharpen into what you think is hurt. Hurt that you flinched?

“We go here and there,” he says, “but it’s been a very long time since we came here.” There’s a certain thickness to his words; a certain tension coiled over them from something that you’re not privy to. And yet, there’s a farawayness, too. You bet he’s full of a lifetime of secrets. Lifetimes of secrets. “But I think I’ve found myself a reason to finally return.”

Breathy and still struggling to flatten out your breathing, you ask him, “Why?”

The Undead King’s smile turns wicked once more, and he doesn’t answer you. It’s awfully eerie.

“Do you have… business here?” you try again. It’s a roundabout way of asking, do you have someone to take away?

“I have business wherever the living go,” he says, letting your face go but not giving you any more room. You narrow your eyes. He’s quite good at non-answers. “Nothing is more certain than that I will greet every living thing eventually. I’ll come to take you, too, when the time comes.”

Your mouth dries up. The entirety of your home, all the people you’ve ever known, fear you for all the death you bring. Not one of them fears it more than you do. You’ve seen it enough to fear its frightening finality.

The drop of your face must’ve told him how much that scared you. “Dying is not such an awful thing, love. Living pales in comparison.” Searching your eyes, he adds, “But I’ve not come to take you.”

That’s easy for him to say: that death isn’t something to fear. His words don’t calm your thundering heart, but you offer him a, “Thank you…” It trails off toward the end when you realize that you don’t have his name. If he has one, anyway.

“Yeonjun.” He tilts his head, strands of sparrow hair brushing over his watching eyes. “Most don’t know it, but you’re not most people, are you?”

Your breathing had just begun evening out. It’s a shame, the way that it kicks back up at the way he looks at you. “What do you mean?” you say, but of course you know. Nobody else is given dead things like you. It’s not like you yourself are very strange; you like pretty dresses and sharing gossip with friends just as much as any other girl your age.

Giving you another one of those knowing smiles that he uses just like words, he steps back. “I’m sorry that I scare you how I do.”

You don’t answer him. What could you say to that? That he doesn’t? That would be a lie, and he would know it.

Yeonjun’s eyes flit over your face, over your cheeks made pink by the autumn cold, lingering on your lips for a few unexplainable beats, and then landing on your eyes where he searches and finds something that sends his throat bobbing with a thick swallow. “I don’t mean to be your monster. It’s only that…” He steps back again. “You remind me a terrible amount of someone I once knew.”

“Who?” Though your shoulders relax a bit with some distance between the two of you, you do your best to not let your guard down. All the stories that you recall being told, all those cautionary tales passed down through word of mouth around a fire, end with some stupid girl thinking that the monster could be changed or tricked. You’re willing to bet that the man in front of you, no matter how human he looks or how enchanting his words are, could be neither.

That doesn’t explain the ache in your chest when he holds your eyes for too long. But you shove that feeling way, way down. It’s nonsensical.

His voice takes on a parting tilt when he says, “It doesn’t matter anymore. Death takes us all.” Yeonjun dips his head at you. His smile wavers. You’d think that crooked smile on his mouth was indelible had you not seen it twitch down at the corners only for a moment. If you’d have blinked, you’d have missed it. “You think I’ll hurt you,” he says, “well, don’t let me stop you. Go ahead, run. I apologize for your basket.”

Death takes us all. You’re not sure what that’s supposed to mean, coming from him, but it sends a cold wind up your spine and goosebumps crawling over your skin.

He watches you go. You don’t look back when you do, but his gaze sits on your back until you’re sure you’re out of his sight. When you return to your home, your mother asks where the basket full of ingredients for supper went.

You imagine what her face might look like if you told her the truth. But that was impossible, so instead you tell her some stupid story about a wolf that startled you so bad that you ran home paying no mind to where your basket was. It’s close enough to the truth.

༺ ꘏ ༻

It doesn’t matter what you do; you can’t get his face out of your head. While you cut butter into flour and then roll out dough, simmer fruits over flame and you slice cheese off blocks, you replay that meeting in the forest. The memory spins and turns over no matter how hard you try to put it away from your thoughts.

It’s not every day that somebody meets the likes of him. You can’t blame yourself; he had such captivating eyes. Dark, playful, and endless. There they are again. You sigh and dust your hands off. Maybe you are just as strange as they all think that you are. Morbid curiosity is like that, though. Taking the most normal of us and making you wonder what you absolutely should not wonder about.

And you absolutely should not wonder about him.

The sun has begun to hang high in the sky, but the breeze that crawls through the window you pulled open before you got to work is a crisp one. Autumn’s really come, now. Outside the window, a huddle of children play around in the leaves that you’d raked up. You’ll have to rake those back up, but you hardly have the heart to tell them to take their playing elsewhere. Their giggles and small voices waft in with the breeze, and a traitorous part of you yearns for a family that you know you’ll never have. No man would risk that fate, not after what happened to the last man who paid you any attention. You grit your teeth at the memory.

Having a face for the thing that’s made your life the way it is is strange. Seeing him in the flesh, with handsome eyes and a taunting mouth, looking something near human, you think you’ve come to resent him for it. How dare he ruin your life? He, more than anybody, should know how fleeting life is. What is in it for him to deface what little time you have? You keep going back to that thought: why did he ever even appear to you in that forest? There is not one story in which you remember Yeonjun showing his face to those he hasn’t come to claim. Death makes his visits swift and purposeful.

Moreover, why on earth would he even look your way? You wish there was a plain way to ask him why, or even to plead with him to stop. Whatever it is he’d ask of you, you think you might give him. To get back to living, you would.

A deep, familiar voice from behind you gives you pause. “Want some help with that?” Soobin says. He stands  in the doorway, his head nearly brushing the top of the frame. It’s made too small for him. Most things in your tiny village were made too small for Soobin. There had been a time where you’d been taller than him, that had hardly lasted long enough.

“As if,” you dismiss and gesture at his dirty hands. He’d no doubt been out working his family’s field, his tunic sleeves rolled up to his elbows.  “Cow shit isn’t an ingredient.”

Anybody else might’ve scoffed or taken offense, but he just laughs and invites himself in anyway. It never fazes Soobin. He doesn’t let you push him away.

It’d be better if he did. How long before he ends up dead, too? Alive one moment, and then a husk without a soul next. You don’t think you could handle seeing cold, dead eyes where the annoying, warm shine should be. Of course it would be better if he stayed away, if he had half the mind to. Even most of the children have heard enough from their mothers to stay a healthy distance. He’s not too much better than a child, though.

“Isn’t it?” he says. His cheek is smudged with whatever sort of dirt he’s got on his hands and under his nails. “I’m done with work for the day. Want to go out to the field?”

You two have always ran off and avoided your life in between willowy, flaxen wheat stocks. They were just tall enough at this time of year to hide you away. But, for some reason, your stomach does a quick flip at the thought of being outside. It’s silly; couldn’t he find you here, too? “I’m busy,” you say. You’d already kneaded this roll of dough plenty, but you dig your fingers into it and begin again.

“Busy?” he scoffs, “Since when are you too busy to get away from work?”

Gritting your teeth, you let the sounds of your kneading answer. Now, more than ever, he should keep his distance. You know one thing that you’re sure nobody else does: Death’s come to visit. 

His brows shoot up in your peripherals. “I don’t get answers today?”

“I’m sorry,” you say, giving up working the over-kneaded dough only because your arms ache. “Why don’t you go talk off the ear of some other poor village girl? I’ve heard as much as I can handle today. And then when that one’s tired, you can bother the next, I’m sure.”  You soften the words with a quick smile his way. No matter how many times you say something sour in hopes that it’ll send him away, as soon as you glance up at his face, you reel it in.

His company is all you’ve ever had. The least you can do for him is make sure he doesn’t end up like carrion, even if he chooses to take that risk himself. You don’t know why he does.

Voice playful, he says, “I’m glad to hear that you believe I’ve got ladies falling at my feet, but I’d rather not annoy a pretty girl, so you’re my only option.” He pokes at the sleeve of your simple cotton dress. “Should I drag you out of here? Don’t your arms hurt doing all that?”

“Oh, you are a refined man, aren’t you?” you say, shuffling out of his reach. Damn him, he makes it difficult. “Well, I am a pretty girl, so you should take yourself elsewhere.”

Soobin smiles easy. “I’m bored out of my mind. You’re just going to let me suffer?”

“That’s not my issue.”

“I’d argue that it is,” he says. “Come on. Why are you giving me a cold shoulder?” Leaning, he tries to get a look at your face. “Did I upset you? I wasn’t aware that you cared much about what I thought.” When you spare him a sharp glance, he says, “I think you are very, very beautiful. Would you stop ignoring me, now?”

You wish you could fall into the easy banter that comes with being around Soobin, but you can’t. You can’t let him be around you. “Soobin, stop it,” you say, draining your voice. You don’t look at him while you say it.

Going quiet, he seems to notice that today’s different. His gaze is heavy as he stares at you for a few long moments. Crossing his arms over his chest, he asks, “What happened?”

You swallow. “Nothing. I’m just doing something.”

“Oh, alright,” he says, tone inflicting in a way that says he doesn’t believe you one bit. He pushes off the counter. “I’ve put up with you pushing me away for years. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Soobin,” you warn. If you look at him, you fear you’ll be forced to watch the only one who never cared much what a risk it was being around you leaving. So you don’t.

Your friend raises his hands in the air defensively. “Okay, then.” He makes for the doorway with languid, lingering steps. As if he doesn’t want to leave. “Tomorrow..”

That’s both a threat and a promise, knowing him. Sighing and watching the rowan tree out your window sway, you bid him a curt goodbye.

If only that jerk took offense to things. It would make things an awful lot easier for you.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Being out in the wheat fields brings you peace when you’re alone, but you find it to be terribly lonely. The earthy, sweet scent of it wraps around you, and the stalks whisper against each other in a soothing way.

When you look beside you, the patch of wheat imprinted with the shape of your bodies is empty on his side. You are quite weak; it makes you want to go knocking at his door for his company. But that would be the selfish thing to do, so you card your fingers between the golden straw instead.

A chill trickles down your spine. You feel his presence before you even see him; it’s a feeling that you used to get fleetingly, as if something far away was tugging at you. But then he became real, a living thing in front of you that can touch, and that is much different.

“Why is it that I always find you out in the wilderness?” Yeonjun says. His voice comes from behind you.

Has he been watching you? You stand and dust your bottom off, heart kicking to life. “It’s nice out here,” you say. In truth, you haven’t come outside since that day. You’ve dodged Soobin and made a million excuses as to why you won’t go anywhere past the fences of your home. “I like to… watch people go about their days. It’s interesting.” It’s true—you always watch from afar how the village folk interact. How groups of girls your age link arms and whisper to each other, how neighbors come together to fix up a shoddy fence. You watch them be a community that you are not a part of. Watching it tastes bitter sometimes, but mostly you take pleasure in imagining yourself there with them. You’re not sure why you try making small talk with him, but what else? Should you go running again? If you were to listen to your pattering heart, maybe that’s what you’d do. He’s hardly shown you any bad will, though, and he’s the one that’s come to you. Maybe it’s silly to wait until something bad happens to be cautious.

A thousand pounds in stones sit at the center of your chest, though, and his voice makes them feel lighter. Why on earth that is, you’re not sure. It’s a nice relief regardless.

He smiles. It's different from the ones he showed you before. It’s knowing; more sweet than cracking over his face like the smile you would expect from the likes of him. What use might he have in being sweet? “Could I join you?”

Blinking dumbly at him for a second, you nod. “Oh, uh… Yeah.” Settling back down into your spot, you spare him a few curious sideways glances.

The breeze billows over the gold stems, moving them like gentle waves over the ocean and blowing your hair in it too. The flattened bits rustle under his weight. He doesn’t even turn his face toward the village; instantly, his gravitational eyes are on you.

“Do you come here often?”

“I do,” you answer. Mostly when you and Soobin have too much to do and not enough will to do it. “It’s nice. The village doesn’t like me much, so it’s easier out here.” You don’t mention that mostly you don’t come here alone.

Yeonjun’s face becomes far away. It looks strikingly like somebody forced into an old, unpleasant memory. “Don’t like you?” he asks, “What reason would they have for that?”

“They fear me. Things go wrong around me, that’s all.” You pluck at the hay absentmindedly. “Things die. They’re smart to stay away.”

The hay whispers much louder for the long moment he remains quiet, digesting what you’ve said. Maybe deciding what to say, considering that it’s his fault.

“Die?” he asks, voice inflected with surprise.

Turning to him, your brow creases. Shouldn’t he know? He’s the one that’s done it to you. “Everything that gets too close ends up dead. Everything,” you say, resting your temple on your knee. “So, I guess, I just keep it all at arm’s length.” You look back at your tiny village, a collection of familiar, un-familiar thatch-roof homes. 

Continuing to blink at you, his eyes narrowed in a strange grimace, Yeonjun says, “Death follows me, too.”

What? A laugh of disbelief bubbles up in your chest. Of course, death follows him. You cover your mouth with a hand to obscure your laugh, but you just giggle at him harder.

A laugh twitches at the corners of his mouth, too. “I mean it,” he says. The lines of his face become distant again, eyes both trained on your face and melancholic as if the sight reminds him of something.

It ignites a question in your mind about something he said in the forest. “You said that I reminded you of somebody,” you say, testing the waters. “Who?”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. He looks away, as if he can’t look at you while he says it. “I loved a girl from this village once. When I was human, no less than you.”

You falter, mouth falling open to ask all the questions that flurry through your thoughts. You settle on one. “You were human?”

“I was,” he says ruefully. “And I had everything. I had the love of my life. I think that even the most bitter of creatures on this island had envy for our love. She would braid dandelions into my hair, and then I’d braid them into hers.” He swallows thickly and pauses, as if the wound was still festering and fresh. “And then she died. She died starting our family. She died because of me, in my arms.”

You don’t know what to say, so you just look into his shining eyes as if that’ll help. You’re not very useful with people, much less comforting them.

“I couldn’t accept that. I wouldn’t. So I went where I shouldn’t have gone, and angered something much bigger than myself. They thought it would be a fitting punishment for me to live an eternity, the King of Death who could not bring back his dead lover.” The harrowed look that he gives you, only briefly, has your chest heavy all over again. “They have a sense of humor, the forces.”

You imagine what it would’ve been like for him to lose his lover in that way. How far he’d gone to try and have her back, but death does not give back. Where had he gone to have been turned into this? An immortal thing, forced to roam the world and scoop up the souls of the living for an eternity? To be bound in ancient bones and made to remember forever how you had lost your lover?

The grandness of what you want to say is too big, but all those words feel pitying and patronizing in a way that you don’t think will actually bring him any comfort. Rather, you doubt anything you say will be able to patch up a wound older than you could imagine. Simply, you offer him a raw, “I’m so sorry.”

Yeonjun lets a crooked smile replace the trembling at his lips. “As long as I live, so too will she,” he says, placing his palm over his heart. “Death doesn’t so much happen when we leave behind our bodies, but when we’ve left the minds of the living.” Narrowing his eyes at you, he brushes hair behind your ear with his knuckles. “I know she lives on, somewhere out there. Somewhere. I’ll find her.”

That intrigues you. “Is there some way that you could bring her back?”

The grim light in his eyes tells you his answer. “My curse is to take life,” he says, “not to give it. But the one who made me this, he is cruel in a twisted way. If I were to find her, as a human or an animal or a blade of grass in the forest, only then could I rest.”

It is cruel. “You’ve been searching, then,” you conclude. “When you find her, you’ll both be able to rest.” But how could he find her, if as he says, she could be any living thing? Where would he even begin?

Slowly, he shakes his head, throat bobbing. “Death needs a farrier.”

She would become what he is. You swallow thickly. Was it not him who caused the deaths that follow you? Or, at least, it was not on purpose?

Opening your mouth, you go to tell him that you’ll help him look. You’re sure you’ll be of no help. He’s spent an immortal lifetime searching, and he still hasn’t found his dead lover. Nobody would know better than him where to look.

The ground shakes beneath your palms with impact, and something cuts through the wheat. The noise of its bleating becomes nearer until the both of you scramble up to find out what’s in such distress.

A deer stumbles around wildly. It looks lame, but you don’t see anything wrong with its legs. Your throat tightens at the awful sound, piercing and sad. Frozen, you watch it try to stay upright before it finally collapses down, legs still kicking as though it still wants to run but its body has begun weakening on it. “Oh my god,” you say, stumbling back. The sounds; its sounds are awful, echoing in your bones and constricting your thoughts until they’re a pinched panic.

There’s an arrow lodged into its ribcage, deep and at a terrible angle. You already know that it’s pierced some vital organs, if not its heart. It continues to writhe on the ground, not ready to give up. You’re not sure if you should approach it—you don’t want to scare it, and you can tell by the look in its wet eyes that it already wants to be away from you.

Or, maybe it had come to you. How else had it found the two of you in the middle of this field?

Yeonjun’s already on it. He puts his knees into the dirt and dried wheat to kneel by it, running his hand over the beast's pelt in long strokes. The small buck flinches at first but relaxes once he learns that his touches are gentle, not the gnashing of hungry teeth ready to make him a meal.

Blood runs like lead through your veins. You say, “Can we help it?”

He shakes his head. “He’ll die.”

Whip-lashed, you swallow thickly. He says it so unphased, and you’re sure he is. You can hardly make yourself mirror that serenity that he exudes as he runs his hand over its flank, but you get on the ground beside him anyway.

The buck’s breaths slow to desperate drags for breath. For a few long minutes, the two of you sit in silence and stay with him until he no longer fights, until his breaths are ragged. You feel his side, still warm and alive, but you see the life going from his eyes. You sit here, talking to each other about nothing just so it hears gentle voices as it goes, for a while.

Eventually, he’s gone. Quiet and at peace, no longer hurting. This time, when you look over to Yeonjun who still smooths over the deer’s skin even as he goes, guiding him delicately into whatever greets us when we go, you see death as a gentle thing.

༺ ꘏ ༻

Though you never seek him out, Yeonjun always finds you. In hidden places, away from prying eyes, he appears behind you and makes himself known. Well, you have a feeling that he watches you for a while before saying anything. It’s hard not to feel the strange tingling of his gaze over your form. It’s akin to the sixth sense that’s supposed to keep you safe out in the dark hearts of forests, an innate feeling that tells you some beast with a rotten, pale maw watches you between the trees.

Yeonjun doesn’t feel rotten, though, preternatural and eerie as he is. As you shirk your duties and talk with him for hours, you stare into ancient eyes and watch his crooked mouth move around his words and you feel an odd comfort. As if he’s the only one who’s ever understood you, or maybe that your strangeness pales beside him and for once you’re nothing but who you are. So many nights, the sun fell on your talking until the night insects buzzed from the grasses and your eyes were heavy.

Sometimes, as you dozed off with your back to a hay bale or a hardwood wall of the abandoned home beside yours with its sagging thatched roof, you caught such festering longing in his his eyes that you’d let your lashes fall and pretend to sleep so that you could imagine what it was that he longed for. No doubt his lost lover. When you imagine him, bound in bones and coming back to haunt the living for an eternity as he mourns her infinitely, searching for her in impossible places, your chest aches with a gnawing intensity.

It’s a terrible, cursed existence. Even the nothingness of death becomes a paradise beside it.

“Is it scary?” you ask into the air, sat criss-crossed on the thick duvet of the bed. He sits across from you, looking perfectly lazy. Moonlight pools in like sterling mist through the shutters.

“What?” He watches you, sitting in your plain dress, as though you’re the only thing in the world.

You’ve begun to wonder. Wonder about those looks he gives you.

Shifting, you fix the shoulder of your soft chemise where it’s slipped down when you catch his eyes lingering on it. His throat bobs. “Dying,” you elaborate. “Is it really nothing? After we go, all of it was for nothing?”

A slow smile tugs his full lips, made a bit red in the middle where he likes to worry it. It’s such a human habit to see on something so far from human. “Hardly,” he says. “It’s like going home, right where your soul is supposed to be. Who do you think rides with me?”

Furrowing your brows, you tilt your head toward one shoulder and let your hair pool there. “The riders are dead?” You had thought they were undead in some way like Yeonjun, other sorts of revenants come back to life with their own purposes. Then, are their creepy horses dead, too? A chill goes down your arms. Sometimes, sitting here with him when his face is made soft by the orange glow of the fire he puts on, you forget what he is.

“They are.” He nods, leaned back onto his elbows, his eyes alight with a hunger that makes your insides feel funny. “It doesn’t stop once we’ve died. You don’t need to be scared, my love. So many things end, but then so many things begin. The earth no longer holds you down, the weight of being is gone. You don’t know anything like it; you don’t know leaving behind the pleasures of earth to know the ones that only the afterlife can show you.”

His eyes laced with something entirely else, he adds, “And it’s not the end. Not for everything. For some it’s only the beginning, and for others, those who have not yet fulfilled their purpose, they come back to the flesh. They return.”

You can’t tell if he means himself, or something else. The weight in his eyes, dark, endlessly swirling pools, makes you wonder again why it is that he’s lingering here: the place that he had not visited once since the death of his lover, for the fact that it still hurts too much. Why his shadow of death, his fault or not, was tangled in your soul enough to brush its fingers over the things around you.

“It’s scary,” you say, breathy. The thought of eternity.

Soft hairs brush over his eyes as he tilts his head at you. “Do I scare you?”

“No.”

“No?” he echos, pushing himself up so that he leans back onto his palms. “Isn’t that strange? Pretty little thing says she’s not afraid of death, but her heart races when I’m near. Her sweet heart jumps at just the brush of my leg. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth, love?”

Your blood roars in your veins, inflaming your cheeks and making your head dizzy. Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before. Hair prickles on your skin. “Yes,” you breathe.

Feral delight sparks in his eyes, black as pitch. His smile turns up all feline at the crooked corners. “Crawl to me, then.”

Like how fire licks up oxygen in any room it is in, his words steal the breath right from your lungs. What does he think you are? You blink at him wide-eyed and dumb for a moment.

How can he say that as though it were nothing? Moreover, how does the ravenous flare in his eyes, his head tilted back as he watches you down his nose expectantly, do that to your belly?

Your mind glazes over with something thick and heady, and you damn the nerves in your belly and begin to crawl from your end of the bed to his. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, making sure you feel every inch of the taunt in his eyes as he trains them on you. When you’ve gotten to him through the thickness in the air, you settle into his lap and bracket his waist with your thighs.

Yeonjun takes the soft fat of your hips in his fingers. “Fuck,” he says. It sounds like he’s barely holding the gates on something endlessly consuming. Something that might break loose on the two of you, and leave you changed forever with its hungry, gnashing teeth. His head hits your collarbone. “Tell me to stop. Please, tell me to go. Because I don’t know how.”

“Don’t,” you say. “Don’t stop. I want it, Yeonjun. I want this.”

He straightens, pupils blown and eyes as tense as his set jaw. “No, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. All I’ve ever done is ruin. All I’ll ever do is ruin. I won’t ruin you; not again.”

That rings bells somewhere outside the heavy fog that’s infiltrated your mind, but they don’t sound too alarming when he looks as though he wants to drag his teeth over your heart to taste its beating. It doesn’t touch the ground, when you want him to, so badly. So badly that you taste it on your tongue and it tinges your words as you tell him, “I do know what I’m asking for. I want you. Yeonjun. Don’t you want me too?” Voice and confidence wavering, you pull back. Maybe you’ve read this all wrong. A tickling shame crawls over your skull. “Do you not want me?”

“You think I don’t want you?” he says, straightening up and meeting your gaze. His breath is hot on your mouth. “I want you so fucking bad. You are in the marrow of my bones. Fuck, I have done nothing but want you, but I am foul. I will only hurt you.”

He takes your hand and places it over his chest, where a heart should be. Beneath your palm, you do not feel the thumping of an alive thing. Yeonjun has no heart. You knit your brows and examine the strain of his features. Does he think that you’ll be disgusted? Maybe the girl you were in that forest might’ve been, but being near Yeonjun has changed you in ways you couldn’t start to put your finger on. “I’m asking you to,” you say. “Show me what you want to do to me. What you’ve wanted to do to me.”

Searing silence burns between you as he drinks that in, and then he shoves you onto your back. Supporting himself with an arm beside your head, he curls his fingers into your hip and nudges your thighs wider. He doesn’t lift the hem of your chemise like you expect him to. No—Yeonjun begins to grind himself into your cunt through all the layers of your clothes. Though your dress is bunched up and his pants lay between any real contact, Yeonjun’s hard and that friction tastes fleetingly sweet.

“I want you to beg me for it,” he says, grinning down at you with cruel intention. “Beg me, and make it so pretty.”

You let little sounds linger in that back of your throat and become hungrier each time he grinds against you. It’s so much, mind swimming and sparks spraying up your spine, and yet each time it is not near enough. Damn that foxish smile on his face; you beg for him anyway. “Yeonjun,” you breathe, curling your fingers around the wrist of that hand with which he pins your hip. “P…lease, will you help me? It feels so good; I want more, please.”

He raises his eyebrows at you and an eager grind comes right over your throbbing clit. 

You know he wants more than that, but mortification already is making your voice unsteady and your cheeks burn. “Yeonjun,” you huff, hips wiggling.

The king of the undead delights fully in your shame and rewards you with more of those pointed, dry grinds. Your legs tremble; he’s giving you so little, and yet your need takes it and magnifies it into something grand.

Though he pretends he’s on some high ground, you hear his shuddering breaths each time his fucks his hips against you. He feels that roiling, liquid need in his belly just as vehemently as you do. The room fills with your breathy pants and grinding bodies. You catch your lip in your teeth and begin to meet him half-way. Your moans are low and sweet, and each one sends his jaw tighter. 

You twist and grind against each other like fumbling teens until you’re coiled up so tight that he has to pull himself away. Your throbbing cunt protests, but you know he doesn’t want you cumming like this.

“You want me to show you what I’ve wanted to do to you?” he says, working at his pants. His eyes are so drunk on you, and his cheeks betray his state. “Open your legs, my love. Let me show you a little death.”

Throat gone dry, you slowly let your thighs fall open. The dull throbbing between your thighs roars to life. He slides your skirt up your leg, stopping when he frees your knee to pepper a few hot kisses into it. Once he’s got it bunched up at your ribcage, he runs his tongue over his dry lips to wet them. “Fuck. Such a pretty pussy. I want to fucking eat you up.”

“Yeonjun,” you whine. His name is all you can muster out, anticipation sharpened to a knife point.

Flashing his teeth, he purrs, “You like that, you filthy thing. I bet you’d like for me to fuck you till your brain’s gone and all that’s left is my name. Isn’t that right? Is that what you want?”

Your thoughts stall and you nod, making your mouth into a filthy pout. God, how you want that. Maybe he’s right about you being filthy. Coming from him, it sounds like a delicious thing to be.

The pretty, leaking tip of his cock brushes your clit as he slides it up and down your slit to collect the mess there. Your thighs jump to close before your mind gets the better of it. He does this a few times—up and down, letting you feel and get used to the size and length of him all the way till his cockhead kisses your clit and you squeak.

“Are you comfortable, love?” he asks, shifting your hips with strong hands. “Do you need anything from me?”

It’s so at odds with his other, nastier words. Your head spins, the moonlight blurring. “I’m okay,” you tell him. “I… just want you. Want you to put it in, want to feel you.”

His cock catches on your hole, and he begins to push forward with promising pressure. But then he pulls back, smiling downturned. You whine; why can’t he save his capriciousness for later? You’d almost had it…

“I could give it to you, or I could not…” He hums. “Wouldn’t that be so cruel of me? To leave you wanting?”

You flutter around nothing. Every inch of your body buzzes. Alive. You are more alive now, at the promise of Death’s touch, than ever before. The irony might be something to wonder about if you weren’t dribbling down onto the bed sheets with crude need. “Stop it,” you say. Your voice is whiny. You’re glad you can hardly hear yourself past the pounding in your bloodstream.

That delights the King of Death. He wrinkles his nose at you, burning you alive with his eyes as he presses his palm to your belly and guides himself into you with his free hand. You wrap around each inch of him slowly. The air between you bows under the weight of your gazes; he holds your eyes the whole way, inch by inch until he’s seated fully into you with his groin flush to your body. He stretches you to fit, and yet it’s just right. You could ask for no more or no less; you might even think your body was made for him, were you not too busy circling your hips to feel him.

“Good?” he says, squeezing your hip. “Do you need a moment?”

Pursing your lips, you test out the shape of him with another wiggle. “Maybe… Maybe a second.” Truth be told, you need a moment to grapple with the sparks sprinkling over your mind more than you need a moment to adjust to his stretch. You let out a shuddering breath.

He traces circles into your belly, just beneath your navel. The pad of his thumb goes round and round, warm on your flesh. “As long as you need,” he says, but it’s more like a triumphant, playful coo. There’s that lopsided smirk. One day, you’d like to kiss it off him. Taking that hypnotizing finger, Yeonjun trails it up your stomach, over your ribcage. He hooks it beneath your dress and drags it higher, revealing the soft swells of your breasts to the air. You shudder, body so, so hot that your nipples peak and tighten against the cool air.

“Such pretty tits,” he says, brushing his knuckle up the underside of one. “Everything about you. Such a pretty, pretty body. God, I don’t know if I want to worship it or ruin it.” His breaths fan over your skin as he bends down and pops an eager nipple into his mouth, lavishing it before releasing it with a lewd pop and letting his mouth fall all over your breast. Lick here, nip there, until you’re squirming adequately and squeezing him like a virgin. Then he blows cool air over it and watches with eyes like a cat toying with its prey as you shudder harder, your chest jumping. “Fucking look at you,” he sneers.

“Junnie,” you say, lost for breath. You think you’ve walked yourself into the lion’s den.

His breathy laughs fall over your breast. Taking his teeth, he drags them over your skin, right over where your heart thunders a rhythm fully for him, and then he bites. Nothing more than a shallow mark, the shape of his teeth in your soft tit. He lingers there, admiring the sight before he straightens himself up again.

“Fine.” He pulls out of you slowly, but you know what comes after that, so you savor every second of it. “I suppose you’ve wanted after it long enough. Let me hear your sweet voice again, my love.”

Yeonjun fucks you just right. His cock nudges right up on your sweet spot as if he’s done this before. Like he knows where to find it. You gasp and whine—you’re just happy he’s finally giving you something. 

“Oh, fuck,” you mewl. His shoulders wear the red crescent marks of your nails. “That’s—so good right there.”

Ever egotistical and cocky, he croons, “Yeah?” Rolling himself back, he makes it his mission to hit it ruthlessly.

A sharp, pitchy sound comes tumbling past your lips. You bring your hand up over your mouth, letting your eyelids dust your burning cheeks so that you can brave the flipping in your spine and deep in your belly. It’s nearly insufferable—the way pleasure licks up your spine, how it spreads out into your veins and takes control of you.

“No,” Yeonjun growls. “Don’t you dare close your eyes. Let me see that look in your eyes when you cum.”

Your eyes are heavier than they’ve ever been, but you open them. The sight that greets you is worth the effort. Yeonjun’s lip twitches and then he throws his head back, the column of his neck on display as his Adam's apple jumps around a thick swallow.

If that sight wasn’t enough to send you teetering down into whatever depths of lust and ecstasy that he crawled out from, then the angle he hits as he pushes one of your thighs to your chest is. The world frays, deep tremors starting at one small point in your cunt and then exploding up through your stomach and down the back of your thighs. Your chest arches off the bed and you mewl helplessly, fighting and embracing your orgasm in an intoxicating death.

“Oh, fuck,” Yeonjun growls, strained with something whinier as he watches you shake beneath him. “Fuck. I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna cum…” His voice chokes as his hips become stuttered more than pointed, the slick sounds of your own release tangling up with his grunts and pants until he shudders and stills, cumming into your puffy, fluttering cunt.

You both catch your breaths as if there’s no air in the room left for a while. His hair’s damp on his forehead, as is yours on your neck, and his eyes droop lazily. More lazy and content than you’ve ever seen him.

Collecting you to his chest, where only your heart thumps away frantically, he presses his mouth to your ear and says, “Do you think death is so scary now?”

With your limbs nothing more than boneless and liquid pleasure floating slowly through your thoughts, you smile.

A little death can be more visceral than living, you think.

༺ ꘏ ༻

The tree stump beneath you makes your tailbone ache. You sit criss-crossed, watching Soobin work away at the soil and tend to that section of the fence that’s begun to rot and sag. Your mouth moves endlessly, filling the space that would otherwise just be made up of his grunts of hard work.

“You know, you ought to help me if you’re just going to sit and watch,” he says, straightening to swipe at his forehead, sweaty despite the cold in the air.

“Totally improper,” you say, smiling at him cheekily. “Are you saying that you can’t handle yourself, strong man?”

He glares at you with the venom only somebody made to put up with hours of chatter could muster. “What’s got you so talkative?” he says.

You know he means why you’re suddenly not glaring him away. You can’t tell him that you’ve spoken with Death himself, so instead you say, “Nothing.” Letting your legs dangle down, you smile at him.

Yeonjun hadn’t done any of it. It’s a comfort, to some degrees, to know that. It’s not your fault that they died. Being around them, being around Soobin, won’t make them turn up dead. The rest of them still don’t know that—and they wouldn’t believe it, anyway—but the black shadow hanging over your shoulders dissipates.

For the first time in so, so long, you do not feel marked by death.

“Sure.” His smile tilts. “A week ago, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Rolling your eyes, you decide to give him a hard time. “Not true. You just have a way of getting on my nerves.”

“I take pride in that.”

“Take pride in what? Being insufferable?”

Crinkling his nose, he says, “Knowing how to bother you best.”

“Get back to work, stupid.” Your heart soars. It’s good to have friends. To let yourself have friends is an ever better thing. Is this how it is? To be with others and not feel like their burden, or like they’re crossing their fingers behind their back to ward off whatever bad things you might bring onto them? He’s made it his mission to hover around you no matter what, but this feels different.

Maybe, for so long, part of it has been your own gloom that’s obscured it all. Maybe if you didn’t bare your teeth to anybody who got too close, it could’ve been like this always. You hate to think that your own isolation could be some part your own fault. But how were you not to show your teeth when someone tried to reach their hand out to you?

It doesn’t matter now. You shove that all down and let yourself feel the slight warmth of the sun’s glow on your skin where it peeks through the clouds. It’s a nice day, you shouldn’t ruin it with those thoughts.

The sun’s begun making its descent when Soobin’s done. He takes a long drink of water, hissing with relief and crumpling down to the ground with his back to your stump.

“Are you making any way with that girl you were talking to me about?” you prompt.

Giving you a long look over his shoulder, he says, “Don’t.”

“What?” You laugh a little, raising your brows down at him. “I’m not doing anything.”

“You know what you’re doing,” he says, voice flat as he picks stickers out of his fingers.

Soobin’s had a thousand different crushes. There was that daughter of the shepherd, and then the wealthy merchant’s daughter and her long pretty hair, and then the neighbor… Well, you could go on. None of them ever really came to fruition for the poor guy. He thinks that it’s because he’s a poor farmer’s son, but you always tell him that it’s because he’s got an insistent mouth, and that he should be more grateful that you deal with him. Your lips turn up at the corners a little thinking about it—he’ll find the one eventually, but you like the indignant look on his face when you say it.

“I mean it!” you say, nudging him with your leg. “Tell me. I want to know.”

“You won’t even tell me what’s happening with you. Until one of us quits keeping secrets,” he says, placing accusation heavy over the words, “I’ll keep my dealings to myself. What’s it to you, anyway?”

Feeling the weight of his head as he lets it loll lazily against your thigh, you decide that it couldn’t hurt to tell him. The itch to tell somebody crawls under your skin. Especially to tell him. “You know the other day? When I was… being awful?”

His body shakes with a vindicated laugh. “If you’re nothing else, at least you’re self-aware.”

You skirt around that with your own, more awkward, laugh. It’s nice that he thinks so, but you don’t feel it. “Stop,” you huff and nudge him again. “I was foraging out where I usually go. But I guess I wandered out farther than I thought I did. You remember when they used to tell us stories, right? Like the bogeyman. That he’d come snatch us up if we didn’t listen.” Your mom especially had loved that one, back when she cared what became of you. Would she care again, if you told her that everything was fine? “Well, I don’t know if you remember the one about The Wild Hunt, but… Anyway, I was picking some stuff, and…”

Sitting up from his exhausted slouch, Soobin looks like he’s suddenly come back to life. “What?” he interrupts. His voice is strangely serious.

“What?” you say, brow creasing. “They travel here and there… but they were here. In the woods. Like, I heard them.”

Tersely, he asks, “What were you doing that deep in the woods?”

“I mean, I just kept on finding nice stuff until I just… was deeper.” You survey him. You hadn’t thought that he’d react like this. “So I ran, and then there was this guy,” you say, watching realization fall over his face. He knew those stories as much as you do—knew where you were going with this. He is as starkly superstitious as the rest of your people, you forgot. Pushing past the grimace on his face, you say, “And I knew that he was the king. The one from the stories. It was so weird; it’s like you can feel it. And I spoke to him, and then…”

Stood up now, he cuts you off once more. “Are you kidding?”

“Why are you being like that?” you say, messing with your skirts to quell the defensive bite in your tone. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t do anything? Are you trying to get killed?” He throws up his hard-working hands. “We have rules for a reason. Don’t go out into the forest, don’t make deals with faeries, don’t follow a banshee scream. And then you go and talk to the king of death? How am I not supposed to be upset about that? You know that…” Soobin blinks a few times as if second-guessing what he’s about to say, but he says it anyway. “You know that he’s the reason that they treat you how they do. You know that he’s the one who ruined your life. Why would you ever mess with that?”

You push yourself up from the ground, eyes burning. That stings like a cut. “He didn’t do it. None of it is his fault,” you say, furrowing your brows. “What are you trying to say, Soobin? Just say what you want to say. Come on.”

“He didn’t do anything?” He scoffs, letting a heavy silence hang suspended in the air for a moment before saying, “Is that what he told you? And you just believed it? Listen to yourself, does that make any sense? He’s played with your life like it’s some fucking toy, and now he’s come to rub it in your face. Think about it: do animals just fly into anybody else’s windows and die? Do the trees that they pick from just end up dead? It’s his fault that they all treat you the way you do.”

Mouth opening and closing, you don’t know what to say. 

He sees the hurt in your burning eyes and tries to reel it back in. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“I know what you’re saying,” you say, grabbing up the lunch you’ve been nibbling on. “I know exactly what you’re saying. I just never thought you’d say it out loud.”

“Say what?” Soobin says, his voice raising behind you as you storm off.

That you think it’s my fault, you want to say. That they all die because I am a plague, and you are a charity worker for being my friend. Instead, you just leave and try to choke down the tightness in your throat.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You curl your arms around yourself, the night biting cold. Yeonjun had dragged you from bed, and who knows what hour of the night it is? If the heaviness beneath your eyes is to judge it by, it’s far too deep in the dead of night to be outside with your boots half-laced and nothing but your sleep chemise on.

You might’ve just stayed wrapped up in your blankets if you weren’t so lonely as you’ve been. Soobin’s been scarce. The most you see of him is in the fields from morning to afternoons. You hope that he’ll stop by your doorstep and knock so that you can groan about it but swing the door open anyway each time, but he doesn’t. He thinks that you won’t want to see him, and so he allows you your space.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s hard to be the one to come back after a conversation like that, though. You watch him from the windows and hope he understands at some point instead. It’s an awful lot easier.

Other than preparing meals and window watching, you’ve been up to nothing much at all. You hadn’t realized how much you had, but you feel him in his absence. 

“It’s cold…” you say. The fog of breath that punctuates it makes your point. Whatever he’s brought you out here for, you have no doubt it’ll be something strange. The grin on his face tells you as much.

Leading the way, he heads for the Darkwood. “Only you would come rushing out without a cloak for your shoulders.”

“Well, only you would drag me from my nice, warm bed at this time of night. For what?”

“Can’t anything be a surprise with you?” he says, shooting you a cheeky glance over his shoulder. “Surprises are fun.”

“Surprises!” you say, working your legs to catch him. “Not surprises that involve you bringing me out into the woods. You know, it’s awfully suspicious. Somebody who sees this might think that I am the type to… sneak out with men.”

“Aren’t you now?”

Your lips tug down. “You know what I mean.”

He laughs in his airy way, a twig snapping under his foot. You’re well in the woods, now. Probably somewhere near where you’d first met him.

Lifting a brow, you look at him expectantly. Maybe a will-o’-the-wisp will come floating through with its light bouncing off the trees. That would be a nice surprise, you admit.

Yeonjun circles you. His presence behind you tingles in the way it always does, but true chills erupt when his breath puffs against your ear. “Close your eyes. I have something I want to show you.”

Your mind wanders back to what Soobin had gotten so twisted up about. It might be naive and reckless and against everything you ever learned, but you let your eyes fall shut to blackness. If he was going to hurt you, you imagine he’d have had that opportunity a mind-numbing amount of times before.

“Are they shut?” he asks, waiting for your nod. His voice comes from in front of you now. “I want you to keep them shut. You can’t open your eyes, or it will all go away. Okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, mind full of a bounty of questions. You don’t even know where to begin to assume what he’s got going on, so you stand there shifting your antsy feet.

There’s a strange, rustling sound that catches you off guard with your eyes closed. It drags on for a long moment. Curiosity pries at your eyes; you want nothing more than to just crack an eye open to spy the source of the ruckus. 

It’ll be gone if you do, anyway.

You let out a surprised squeak as something rises up beneath you, as if risen from nothing more than the dirt and roots of the forest floor, bringing you up from the earth. You wobble and send your hands out to find a perch.

A horse. It’s a horse, its mane so tangled and windswept, but matted and clumped with leaves that crunch under your palm when you find them. It reeks of mud—everything around you begins to smell of earth and decomposition.

You know that if you open your eyes, you’ll find yourself sat upon the pale white steed of the Undead King, its eyes white and its knobby knees almost as famous as the leader of The Hunt himself. It chuffs beneath you.

“Are you ready?” Yeonjun says over your shoulder. You can hear the feral grin in his voice. It’s the leader of The Hunt, a creature of folklore, that sits behind you now. He curls an arm around your waist and tugs you closer to him, securing you against the wall of his chest. “Hold on tight, my love.”

The call of the wild, that horn, bellows again like it had the first time you heard it. Rather than coming from nearby as you thought it would, it dances between trees far off just like it had that time, too. Your heart jumps up into your throat.

Taking off with a howl, the Wild Hunt follows it.

You dig your fingers into Yeonjun’s at your waist. Weight melts away, and you know you’re in the air. Your belly swoops in tandem with the howls and hoots of the riders, heart palpitating to the hoofbeats. How there’s hoofbeats as you ride through the air, you’re not sure. The ghostly fleet manifests around you in vivid imagery, though you squeeze your eyes shut. They are wild enough to imagine just what they might look like: with their clothes and flesh in tatters, with their eyes beady or pale, with their hounds piercing the air with their calls and running alongside them, they are a perfect personification of freedom.

Whip-lash sends you reeling, body going rigid. You grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes harder, wishing that you’ll touch ground soon and that everything would become real again.

Yeonjun feels you go stiff. Bringing his head back to your shoulder from his own delight, he says, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Let it into your bones. Do you think I would let it hurt you?”

He is their leader. If it got too much, you know Yeonjun would be there to catch you. Curling your fingers into his, you release that tension and allow their drumbeat to echo through you.

And when it does, your blood begins to sing along. The wind whips your cheeks and your hair, and you begin to laugh with them. The Hunt twists and turns and dances through the air, an apparition in the night, but nothing more than that.

It comes to a slow, eventually, until the noise and even your steed crumbles back down into the dirt it appeared from. Your eyes pop open hoping to catch at least a glimpse of them, but only the dark forest and pale moonlight answer. Your legs threaten to give out on you, veins still thrumming, but, oh, do you feel alive.

You feel more alive than you ever have, more than you ever could have hoped to have known. Mind spinning, you stumble. Yeonjun catches and steadies you before you can go scraping your knees on a rock.

“Oh my fucking god,” you say.

The laugh that Yeonjun breaks into has you sending him a glare, but you break too. Everything about him is ironic; and how ironic indeed that Death himself should show you how to be alive, rather than to just live?

༺ ꘏ ༻

The air is so fresh in your lungs when you step outside that it nearly burns. You clutch your basket of warm fig tarts. Songbirds trill and fly between tree tops that slowly become more bare the deeper you fall into the season, singing their sweet songs that sound like new beginnings.

Raising your hem from the ground churned up into mud from the afternoon’s trickle, you prance into town with a lively pep in your step. You spent all last night making these—Yeonjun had kept you company, watching you how he always does as you pored over making them just right. His cruel snicker when the jam had simmered over flame for too long and became too thick bounces off your bones in a sweet melody. You’ve come to adore his wicked delight, the way his smile cracks over his face and the facetious raise of his brows, more than you fear it.

Sending small smiles to the people that you pass, you stop by a huddle of kids digging sticks into the mud. They look up at you with curious eyes, stopping to gawk.

“Hey, guys,” you say, pulling back the cloth laid over the sweets. “I’ve made some fig tarts. Do you like fig? I bet you’ll like them; they’re sweet.”

The kids stand up, eyes big as they share a look. They don’t let out so much as a peep before they scurry off home.

You blink. Well, you’re used to weird reactions, but that was… different. Picking up your deflated shoulders and hesitant limbs, you make a shoddy attempt at not letting it dampen your good morning. You were expecting wary looks, anyway.

You head down a little further toward the far side of your home village, the side that breaks off after a fenceline into a great, grassy field. There’s a bustle, mothers washing their clothes in pails and hanging them up to dry and a few others whispering at each other lowly as they go about their days.

An old woman so old her back curves and her fingers have gone knobby makes her way to wherever the day’s duty demands her to be. Your neighbor—an eccentric old lady bound in her times. You decide on her: the elderly are forgotten by the young. She might enjoy knowing that her neighbors still know she exists.

“Hello,” you say, showing her your basket with a hopeful, excited heart. “I have some treats that I was wanting to give out. I know they might not be much, but would you like one? I’m not the best baker, but I do it often enough.” A face like that, dragged down by her years on this earth and not long to death, has no doubt spent many years making meals for her family. You imagine your goods would be nothing beside hers, but it’s the gesture, no?

“Oh, girl,” she says, voice crackling as she clutches her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I’m afraid it’s best if you found yourself missing from this place. Hurry yourself up and spare the drama.”

The incessant cawing of a crow from a clawed tree fades into the background as you furrow your brows and lower your basket to ask, “...Huh?” Your belly goes up in knots; terrible knots done up tight and fast. You haven’t got a clue what she’s talking about. Elders always did speak a bit strange, though. It could be nothing much; she’s a stern old lady.

But her eyes are not angry and glaring in the way that a harrowed old hag might turn her nose up at the youth. They drag down with a cold pity.

“Listen to me, girl.” She points at you with one of those worn, sun-spotted hands. “You had best leave. The boy’s gone, and they are already not fond of you. Who will they point their fingers to?” the woman says. “I hardly know you, but I would hate to see it.”

The rest of her words fade into the roaring in your ears, the feral drumbeat of your heart like a wardrum in the cage of your ribs as it beats against them as if to escape from you. You don’t feel the basket in your hands, don’t feel the solidity of the earth beneath your feet, and don’t feel a single one of your thoughts like tangible things. They flit as if liquidated into a rotten, sick mush.

Nothing. You can think of nothing. Nothing real; nothing holding you to the earth.

“What?” Your voice hardly reaches your ears, but what does is weak and broken and like a plea for her to tell you that it’s not really what you think it is.

And if you could see or hear anything beyond your fraying little rift in reality, you would’ve heard the man coming up to you. You would’ve heard the words coming from his angry, sneering mouth, and would’ve done something when he picked up a pail of water, and you would’ve been shaken by the nasty ice water that runs down your frozen body and plasters your hair and clothes down as he pours it over you. But none of it cuts through your stupor.

He yells some awful, stabbing things at you, and a few others join him. They tell you that you are nothing but a plague, tell you to leave and to not come back here.

But this is your home. Where else would you go?

With your sopping wet dress clutched in your shaking fists as though that might keep you grounded, you choke down the tightening of your throat and sift through their faces, searching for his face. Those brown eyes, brown and always shining with nagging playfulness, do not come up anywhere. Jaw trembling, you search harder. Out on the field where he should be at this time of day, at your doorstep demanding that you go spend the day doing nothing with him, in someone’s yard helping them fix up a broken fence, no matter where you look, neither his broad silhouette nor his cheeky, dimpled face is there. You continue to stand stricken dumb, looking for him even though you know by the churning in your belly that it’s true, and you’re just hurting yourself trying to find him right where he should be.

Fine. Alive. Untouched by your disgusting, destructive presence.

When you can no longer fight the strangling tightness in your lungs and your dress is as heavy as your heart, you take off. The hem of your dress drags in mud and sticker bushes and catches on stray twigs, and you don’t know where you’re going, but you just run. You’ll give them what they want. 

You stumble, probably like some lost, undead thing, until you find yourself at the edge of the forest. Only then do you let the wall of whittle-edged tears roll down your face. And you assume you sound like a choking, dying animal with how you choke and heave on them, but he was the one you might’ve dropped your head and cried to, so what’s the use of making it pretty? No; you let it all fall as it is.

Soobin’s dead. Soobin’s dead, and it’s nobody else’s but your own fault. You clutch your chest to staunch that old ache that’s grown teeth and tears at your heart; you have and will always be the end of everything that comes near. You are just as much the plague that you began to pretend, to believe, you weren’t. It was your stupid hope that maybe you could have something and not watch it become carrion that drove that pick. It was by your hope that he’s gone.

The hair on your arms begins to raise. You pick your head up and find Yeonjun standing in front of you.

There’s a few beats of long, dreadful quiet as he takes in the state of you. He drags his eyes down and they become liquid flame—something different from the impious delight that he is made of. He becomes the King of Death.

“What happened?” he says. The chills on your arms prickle furiously at the words, furling out distant and yet furious like the center of the fire.

You shake your head, wiping your soaked cheek.

“What the fuck happened?” he growls again, taking your face into his hand. “Who did this? Who did this to you, my love? I need you to tell me who the fuck did this to you.”

Letting the venom in your mouth out, you shove his chest and say, “Get away from me. Don’t fucking touch me.”

Yeonjun’s face twists up, looking scalded. Not surprised, though. “Don’t do this,” he says. “Let me hold you while it hurts. Don’t push me away. I can’t… I won’t lose you again.”

All the pieces that you had been putting into the corners of your mind snap together at that. As many suspicions as you had, though, it feels sour hearing it confirmed from his mouth. That you are his dead past lover, reincarnated or whatever you are. That it was his presence—because even though he stayed away for centuries, a part of him still lingered with you—that now has torn down everything you ever thought you could love. He, standing there in front of you like a kicked puppy, is the ruination of your life in the flesh. The flipping of your stomach is nauseating.

“I hate you,” you spit. “I hate you so much.” You repeat it a few more times, and you sob it into his chest as he takes you into his arms. “Is this what you wanted? You’ve been waiting for this forever, haven’t you? To find me again, so that you can die and fucking leave me here. So that you can make me exactly what you are, while you get your peace. You are a liar and a thief. All you’ve ever done is steal and take. How could you do it? Huh? Tell me…” Your voice trembles and staggers off. “Tell me how you made love to me, how you made me believe that you loved me, and all you ever wanted was to save yourself? You betrayed me.”

Pulling back, Yeonjun says, “No.”

“Yes,” you say, stumbling back away from him with a shaking, accusatory finger pointed at him. “Yes you did.”

Fingers itching to reach out to you, he holds them back by curling them into fists. “No. That’s not fair. I have spent an eternity loving you. I spent the entirety of my immortal, monstrous life searching for you, just so that I might find you in any form. I would have been glad to find you as a leaf in a tree, as long as I found you. But, then, I find you alive. Alive and back, as if… it never happened.” He steps toward you, aching to be near you. His voice wavers. “Please, don’t do this to me, love. Please, just let me have you again. I’ve waited… I’ve waited and I’ve waited, and I finally have you, and now you’re looking at me like I… Like I’d ever hurt you. Finding death—finally getting to die would be worth nothing if you weren’t there with me. It was never about that.”

“I could never love you,” you say, matching his steps forward with steps away from him. “I could never love a monster that does… Does nothing but kill. Take.”  You know your words are cruel, but you need them to be. You need him to hurt, you need him to go so far away from you that never again will you cause another living thing’s death. 

“You did.” Yeonjun’s mouth cracks into a pained smile, sharp at the corners. “You loved me just as much as I love you, once.”

“Just leave me. Leave me, and I wish to never see you again. If you love me, then you’ll give me that.” 

He looks at you, clever eyes intense and glassy, for a long time. And then he says, “Would that make you happy? Would it make it so that you could live a happy life, and find yourself something to live for?”

What’s left for you? A small village that won’t ever embrace you? No, it wouldn’t fix your life. But you open your mouth and tell him, “Yes.”

“Okay,” he says, brushing his knuckles over your cheeks reverently. He swallows in your features, running over them for what he knows is the last time he’ll be seeing you—the very last time he’ll see the face of his undying love. When he finally opens his mouth again, his voice is gentle. “I’ll leave you. If my being here hurts you, then I won’t be selfish. I love you, darling.”

Don’t go, you want to tell him. Please don’t leave. Please, hold me. But your mouth is dry, and you let the radiant hurt in your chest stop you. You let him go.

༺ ꘏ ༻

There’s only one place you can think of going to. It’s the only place your vagrant feet take you.

His spot still is held sacred by the flattened, gold wheat stalks. Your best friend, still living here on Earth in at least one way even if he’s not here to listen to your stupid rambling. And he would maybe complain, but he’d always listen.

The last thing you’d done was fight with him. What an awful thing—what an awful way to repay him for being the only one who ever dared to get close.

You sit in your spot, beside his, and rest your chin on your knees. If only the ground beneath you would open up and swallow you whole. You’d deserve it.

What’s left for you? Is there a place in the world that would keep you happily once they see what you do? No. There is not. You wish you knew what to do; you wish you had somebody to ask.

Releasing a long, tight breath, you just sit and wait for something to give you answers. A gentle breeze makes your hair dance, but it does not whisper anything to your ears. Something’s circling over head, but it doesn’t caw in the cadence of his laughter.

The day moves along without you. You’re not sure how long you sit, but it stretches somewhere between a few minutes and eternity. No matter how long you wait, there are no answers. No matter how long you mull over it.

Conceding, you begin to push yourself up from the ground. A rustle in between the foliage stops you before you stand.

A tawny hare leaps out in front of you. It sniffs around you, nose twitching. Then it stands back on its haunches. It stares straight at you, an intelligent light in its eyes that knits your brows. The wild thing stands there with a purpose that is uncharacteristic of a forest animal.

But entirely familiar in the face of your best friend. That shine in its eyes as it stands there, nose still twitching, makes your chest tighten up.

“Hey,” you say, as if it might answer you. Your eyes well up with hot tears again. Of course, it doesn’t. 

Maybe you’ve gone mad, but you know that it’s him. That idiot, coming to show you that he’s okay in the afterlife—to visit one last time and to let you know that you shouldn’t worry for him or cry for him. Look at him, full of life once again, he seems to say. The hare blinks its beady eyes. It lingers there for a long time, the ease of peace found in his gaze that Soobin hadn’t had in this life, saying that there is still something waiting out there for us once we go. You reach out a hand. He does not flinch as you scratch behind its ear.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m glad to know you’re alright. I know what I need to do, now.”

He blinks.

You laugh a hoarse, breathy laugh, familiar in only the way that Soobin could achieve. “You look stupid.”

Indignantly, the hare stops a bratty foot in a way reminiscent of one of Soobin’s huffs before it settles back down onto its forelegs and scurries off. He goes to live out this new form of life, because it’s true: life does not end in death. He’s shown you that.

Maybe, like this, he’ll find that pretty lady that loves him the way he deserves. That loser.

༺ ꘏ ༻

You spend only one night in your home and you know that what you’ve chosen is right. After spending your day out in the field, you sneak under night’s cover into your husk of a room and let yourself sleep there under the covers one last time. When morning breaks through the window, you gather your weary bones up and leave. 

You run into your mother on the way out. She doesn’t yell at you to leave, but her eyes have gone cold. Colder than you’re used to. You’ve killed again, in every way that counts. So you don’t bother with bidding her or any of them any grand goodbyes. You couldn’t handle the relief you might find falling over them, should you.

Plopping down to the floor, you take a few bites of the cheese and bread lathered in sweet jam that you’d swiped from the kitchen. The grass is long and willows in the wind, bending and dancing prettily. It’s so soft; you enjoy the feeling of it beneath your fingers in your quiet serenity. The scent of it, fresh over the baseness of dirt, you breathe into your lungs.

It would be the loveliest place to spend the rest of eternity.

For the first time, Yeonjun appears in front of you rather than behind you. He materializes from nothing, his elbow on his knee as casual as if he’d been sat there the whole time. The darkness beneath his eyes seems heavier, but then again you know that exact heaviness. It sits right in the very center of you.

You both are quiet for a bit. You let the tall grass whisper, instead.

“Bread?” you say and slant your lips into a smile. Bringing it up, you offer it to him.

His smile wrinkles his nose and curls at the edges. Entirely him. Yeonjun accepts the bread, ripping a bite out before throwing it away into the sea of green. Once he’s chewed, he leans in and captures your lips in a kiss that’s utterly at odds with his sharp mouth. Your lips move over each other gently, save for an indulgent nip or bite here and there.

He pushes you back into a bed of sweetgrass, never letting your lips go. Not to breathe, not to say something that’ll pale in comparison to the sweetness of your mouths on one another. He kisses you until he’s had enough to fulfill a lifetime without it, and then some more.

“My love,” he whispers into your skin, his breath hot on your collarbone. “Mine,” he says, pressing a kiss into the column of your neck, and then he says it again with a hot kiss to the place where your dress suggests your breasts. He says it a handful more times as he pushes your skirts up your thighs. “My love forever. I waited for you so long, and I would do it again.” Lowering his voice to a honeyed whisper, he adds, “I would find you no matter what.”

Laughing softly, you run your fingers through his raven hair to better see his eyes. You know he would.

Gently giving you one more of his lingering kisses that make your skin tingle, right into your bare shoulder, he presses into you. You loose a soft breath, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. The beating in your chest slows to a content purr as he begins languid thrusts in and out of you, rolling pointedly and unhurried.

Yeonjun makes love to you in a thousand dusted kisses and sweet words, your hands holding each other’s soft edges. Yeonjun traces the lines of you, taking the pads of his thumb down your cheeks and your lips and then his hand over the swell of your breasts and down your belly and over your thighs. Clamping down on him as your belly grows tight in the way it had the first time you had done this, your thighs begin to shake.

 Breathlessly, as you hurdle over the edge, all that you can say is, “I love you, ‘Junnie.” 

Yeonjun smiles at you and then presses his face into your neck. He doesn’t even brace himself against the grass to chase his own peak. Neither of you want this to end; you want to hold on to this moment and let it span forever. Slowly, Yeonjun rolls up into you until his hips finally stutter and he cums into you, his cheeks pink. The weight of him above you as he shakes with your shared ecstasy, and even as you both have come down and are nothing but lazy, is the only thing in this world. He is the only thing in this world.

Once you’ve both evened your breathing out, you roll apart and face each other, still just two forms bending the grass into your shapes. Blinking slowly and digesting his features one at a time—the angle of his eyes, softened but never tamed, the line of his nose, the line of his mouth always so proud and playful, and that pretty dot below his left eye—you let them solidify fully in your mind.

“Yeonjun,” you say, finally meeting his eyes across from you. “I want to go. I’m ready.”

The gentle, knowing look that he gives you soothes over the way your heart begins to race in your chest in rebellion. “I know,” he says.

Of course he had known. Yeonjun had been called here to ferry you into the afterlife. He had known the moment he appeared in front of you that his last soul to reap would be you; an ironic circle of karma that should be cruel, but you two make it something sweet. Chewing on your lip, you will your hands to not shake as you curl toward him. You’re no longer scared of going. You know that if you’ll be with him, it will be okay. It won’t be so scary. A hot tear rolls down your temple and then drops into your hair. “Will you be with me? I won’t be there alone?”

He tucks some hair behind your ear reverently and then leaves his hand there. “I don’t know,” he answers. “But I won’t leave you. I’ll stay right here with you.”

You lay there for a long time. Chatting and giggling and just looking into each other's eyes, until your heart becomes slow and all you feel is the wind singing in your blood. Yeonjun presses one final kiss to your forehead.

Maybe, in some years, somebody might dig up your bones and find you immortalized like this in your love. Your bones bowing toward each other, as if even death were not enough to stop you from reaching for each other. Or maybe they’ll just find yours, and Yeonjun still curling into them how you know he will for an eternity more.

Either way, the going is still slow and gentle, as death always is.

🪶 ⦂ tears. omfg i cried writing this which could totally be me being a bitch baby but it DAMN. omfg.

rꫀׁׅܻblogs & asks arꫀׁׅܻ always apprꫀׁׅܻciatꫀׁׅܻd!

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[cameheretorepent]

Karma hit harder than a muhh

Hello ol' kindred spirit, It’s been quite some time. I've wanted to reach out at times and reply more but felt unsure if it was the right thing to do. On a personal note, things have been a bit rough on my end, but I guess that’s just the way of the world these days, isn’t it?

I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt apologies for how things played out between us. I genuinely miss the friendship we shared, especially my bond with N. She became an incredibly close girl friend, someone I deeply valued during a time when I felt I had no one else. Her sisterhood meant a lot to me. And the Court gaming sessions were the highlight of many days. I really miss the excitement of our friend group as it was something new and special for me. I think I've expressed all this to you before.

As much as I'd love to reconnect, I believe it might not be the wisest choice at the moment. I came here to repent. Looking back, I realize my actions were deeply wrong. Going behind N’s back and lying to everyone was a mistake I deeply regret. It caused a rift in our connections, and for that, I’m truly sorry.

My recent ending of a painful relationship triggered the regrets I've had to the forefront. I found out that he was engaging with other girls behind my back, under the guise of 'friendship', which has completely and utterly shattered me. However, it was a huge culmination of a series of red flags – his interactions with other women, his online onlyfrenz/waifu habits, and all the untruths which I can't even begin to fathom how much omitted information there was. I feel angry with myself for ignoring my intuition and turning a blind eye because I was in love and feared being abandoned. The pain and loneliness is crushing and unbearable on top of leaving me with a heavy heart and no one to confide in.

I hope this doesn’t come across as a pity party; it’s just the current reality I’m navigating through. Writing this amidst my tears is oddly therapeutic, allowing me a momentary sense of relief. The universe said sike tho, cause I'm sobbing again. lol curses T_T

Your message response, even just reading this, means a lot. I appreciate your kindness, understanding, and confidentiality. I hope life is treating you well, despite the challenges it throws our way. I am sorry if me sharing is disturbing anything. I am sorry if I am intruding. I just...am feeling broken and lost and deeply exposed rn on top of that. Yeeeek I don't even know if sharing all this was the right thing to do, but i just want to say THANK YOU and I'M SORRY I AM CONFLICTED AF ABOUT SO MUCH RN, HEARTBREAK IS A MOFO xD -AND SCENE! *exits stage left* *cries into pillow*

[thesugarhole]

third and last dd2 post for now sorry I'm not making it one big incomprehensible post as i usually do:

ive noticed some heros have the goal to go to the sluice. i dont know what that is. it rewards candles. it doesnt say what it is.

i had an opportunity to go there earlier. no special condition or goal with extra reward. just, The Sluice. i dont know what that is.

feels like something really, REALLY hard though. and my team was beaten to shit so i had to do a wise choice and choose a safer route then. i currently dont have the chance to go to the sluice.

im so excited to find out what The Sluice is. maybe it will give me that "wow this dungeon really is the darkest" feeling i got from dd1s final levels that the first chapter of dd2s mountain so far has failed to deliver. maybe.

i have to remember to be lenient, because i got into dd1 when they were wrapping up updates to CoM/shieldbreaker (dont remember which one came last) and there was nothing else to give (sike butcher circus)(still bitter about that ruining my 200% completion. like sure i could just trudge through all the hours of pvp to get the achievos but i would be miserable and wanting to kill myself. i straight up dont have a good time on random strangers multiplayer ever)

random dd1 tangent aside do NOT tell me what the sluice is i already had so much spoilered even though ive been doing my best to block tags and avoid reading posts and videos and etc. its bound to happen due to me being a honest salaryman now with no time for work week video games but it doesnt mean i cant be sad about it. im excited to fuck around (in The Sluice) and find out

oh before i go and make a fourth text post: tangle boss fight the dreaming general. or sleeping i don't remember. saw him twice. the vines say invulnerable so i didn't bother attacking them (bc i got to the boss really weak both times and was just waiting for the party wipe) but i did sometime near the end of the second run in and it drew back the vines and. its all so obvious now and i feel so stupid. i really did not understand how to combat that annoying mechanic like. invulnerable in the sense you can't stop it BUT you can delay it again and again. augh. ough.

funnily enough havent found other bosses. i managed to see the librarian and the. foetor fetus? lol thing on the demo. and was lucky enough to i guess learn what their deal was then... this tangled guy though... augh. you and your stupid vines.