#My bones are crumbling inside my body and my skin is crawling.

[fukounaboy]

I wanna delete this goddamn app n run away forever bcz WHUH....

[runariya]

🥸🤫☠️ : JK

He wants something 🤫 as down payment before he lets u inside safe haven (a place where survivors go to seek refuge)

(yandere+smut+apocalypse) part of the prompt game pairing: metro inhabitant!Jungkook x survivor!female reader genre: apocalypse!AU, S2L, yandere-ish? warnings: survival after nuclear fallout, dark creatures, denied prostitution for safety, Jungkook is whipped from the start so that should suffice for yandere, foul language, smut, oral (f. receiving), squirting, JK comes in his pants, fluff, lmk if I forgot smth (still hate writing warnings) word count: 3.239 (upsiiii)

a/n: I couldn't rly make JK more yandere without it feeling a bit too dub-con, so I hope that's alright 💕 also it's heavily inspired by the trilogy '2033' by Dmitri Gluchowski (and to my Russian readers: Московское метро выглядит так круто на фотографиях в интернете, надеюсь, однажды смогу его посетить☺️)

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You’ve been wandering for what feels like years, though it could be months, or perhaps just weeks; time’s an abstract notion now, in this world broken to pieces and baked under a nuclear sun. 

With each step you take, the weight of exhaustion and your protective suit presses harder against your bones, but you don’t let it stop you. The world may be a dying beast, choking on its own ash and poison, but you still walk through it, a lone ember that refuses to snuff itself out. The remnants of cities whisper ghost stories to you as you pass, their bones twisted metal and crumbling concrete, charred earth for flesh. The wind sometimes hisses through the ruins, carrying tales of survivors—others like you, fighting, scavenging, enduring—and sometimes it’s silent, as if even the air is holding its breath for fear of what’s out there in the deep silence of the aftermath.

The black creatures—those twisted silhouettes of the apocalypse—roam the earth like shadows unbound from their hosts, moving through the poisoned fog with an unnatural grace that chills your very marrow. They are things of nightmares, remnants of the old world, perhaps, mutated beyond recognition by the fallout or born anew from the hatred that festers in the radioactive soil. 

Their eyes, if they have any, are voids, consuming light and hope in equal measure, and their movements are barely perceptible until it’s too late, until they are upon you, whispering your end in a language only the dead would understand. They hunt relentlessly, not for sustenance, not for survival, but as if driven by some primal force deeper than instinct, a desire not just to kill but to erase, to wipe away the last remnants of humanity like dust from the pages of a forgotten book. 

And you—battered, exhausted, teetering on the edge of oblivion—cannot rest, not here, not ever, because even in your sleep they find you, crawling into your dreams with their inky tendrils, reminding you that peace is a luxury no longer afforded to the living outside of shelter.

Your gas mask, an old friend now, covers your face like a second skin at this point, the filters clogged and heavy with days of dust, radiation, and fumes. You’ve noticed the way it pulls in air with more effort now, as if it’s trying to remember how to breathe. 

You check the filter again. It’s nearly gone, the little red marker ticking closer to empty with every breath you take. You’ll have to find something new soon or you’ll suffocate on the very air that should sustain you.

This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to find shelter. In those early days, the optimism hadn’t yet drained from your veins and the desperation to belong somewhere, anywhere, had clouded your better judgment. 

There had been men—those ones with teeth like wolves, eyes like death, always leering, always demanding. You’ve had to pull your knife more than once to remind them that your body isn’t for sale, that safety shouldn’t cost that much. That death, perhaps, is a kinder alternative to what they would have asked of you. 

You can still hear their laughter sometimes, echoing in your skull—mocking, cruel. You had fled from them, from their dark gazes and cruel hands, from the taste of fear that licked at your throat when their eyes lingered too long on your body. Better the damnation from outside than their promises of protection.

But today… today you find yourself at the mouth of the metro. The entrance yawns wide like a secret, and the shadow of it draws you in, as though it’s reaching out for you. Your steps falter, but only for a moment—just long enough to recognise the hesitation in your chest, the uncertainty gnawing still on your mind. The thought flickers briefly across your consciousness—what if the people down there are like those others? What if all you find is more violence, more degradation, more proof that humanity has shed its last skin and become nothing more than base instincts and brutality?

But the mask is running low, and you can feel that desperation is creeping back into your bones, burrowing deep. You tighten your grip on the strap of your pack, pushing the fear down, burying it beneath a layer of resolve. You’ve come this far; you won’t turn back now.

The entrance is quiet—eerily so, as you push the tall hermetic door open and step inside, closing it quickly after. You glance around, eyes scanning the wreckage for signs of life. There’s nothing at first, just the silent exhalation of wind and the low hum of the distant, underground world. Then, movement.

You hear him before you see him—a soft shuffling of boots against stone, the faint click of a weapon being cocked. You freeze, instinctively tightening your grip on your knife as he steps into view.

Tall. Taller than most of the men you’ve encountered in these forsaken times. Muscles sculpted from necessity, sinew and strength coiled beneath his clothes like a waiting beast. He’s staring at you through the mask, gun raised, the barrel pointing at your chest. For a second, neither of you move. Then his eyes flicker downward, just for a moment, taking you in, assessing, like all the others. You brace yourself for what’s to come.

But it doesn’t come.

“Take it off,” he commands, voice low, barely more than a growl. His weapon doesn’t waver, and his expression is hidden behind a mask, eyes glinting through the cracked visor.

You hesitate. There’s a moment where you think of running, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s only the metro behind him, and the world ahead, both full of uncertainties, both as equally capable of destroying you. You suck in a breath, let it fill your lungs like a final goodbye to the stale air in the mask, and then you reach up to peel it away from your face, your skin sticking to the rubber for a moment before it falls loose.

The air tastes strange on your lips—metallic, sharp, almost alien after all this time behind the mask. You lift your eyes to his, half-expecting some sort of reaction, maybe disgust, maybe lust. But instead… there’s something different there, something you hadn’t anticipated. His gaze softens, though his grip on the weapon remains steady. He stares at you as though you’re something out of place in this hellscape, something fragile, a curiosity more than a threat. His gun lowers, just slightly, but his eyes don’t leave your face, as he too rids himself of his mask. 

He’s younger than you thought. Ink spills across his skin—tattoos that ripple over his arm, dark lines twisting around muscles. You catch a glimpse of two piercings through his lip when he tilts his head slightly, like he’s trying to figure you out, and then his lips curve, ever so slightly, not quite a smile but not quite hostility either.

“Shelter,” you say, your voice rough, the words like stones scraping against the back of your throat. You cough once, clearing the dust away. “I need shelter.”

He eyes you for a moment longer, his gaze wandering down your frame, but it’s not like before—not like the leering stares of the men who sought to take more than they were willing to give. This is different. There’s something almost reverent in the way he looks at you, as though the mere fact that you’re still standing here, after all this, after the end of the world, is enough to stir absolute disbelief in him.

“Alright,” he says, after a pause that seems to stretch out longer than it should. “We’ll see.”

He gestures with his head, motioning for you to follow him into the metro. You hesitate for only a heartbeat before stepping forward. The air inside is cooler, the shadows deeper in the few flickering candle lights, and for a moment, you think you can almost breathe easier.

“Wait here,” he says, nodding towards a bench half-buried in dust. “There’s a process. Need to fill out a form.”

You blink. A form? The absurdity of it almost makes you laugh—almost. But you’re too tired for laughter, too worn down by the world to even consider the possibility of joy. So, instead, you sit with an exhausted plop. You watch as he disappears for a moment, hear the soft scrape of papers being shuffled, and then he’s back, clipboard in hand, a pencil poised like a weapon in his grip.

He doesn’t sit down. Just stands there, towering over you, his presence impressive but not oppressive. You glance up at him, and there’s something about the way he looks at you that makes you feel exposed—not in a dangerous way, but in a way that makes you feel seen for the first time in a long time. It’s unsettling.

He clears his throat, eyes flicking to the clipboard. “Name?”

You give it to him. He writes it down, slow and thoughtful.

“Age?”

Again, you’re honest, coughing right after. He writes again, his eyes lifting to your face between each question as if checking to see if you’re lying, or maybe just to remind himself that you’re real.

“Where did you come from?”

You answer, though the place you once called home feels distant, like something from a dream you can’t quite remember. His pen scratches the paper, and you almost lose yourself in the sound of it, that soft, repetitive scrape, the only noise in the otherwise still part of the metro.

“Any medical conditions? Injuries?”

You shake your head, your body numb to the aches and pains that have become part of you, the exhaustion that’s settled into your bones as permanent as the sorrow for the destroyed outside world.

He writes.

The questions continue. And all the while, his eyes keep returning to you, scanning your face as if he’s trying to commit every line, every shadow, to memory. You can feel his gaze lingering on your skin, not in a way that makes you want to shrink or hide, but in a way that makes you want to ask why he’s looking at you like that, why his lips keep twitching into something that almost resembles a smile, sometimes a pout. 

After what feels like an eternity, he finishes writing, his pen stilling against the paper. You think he’s done, that maybe this bizarre interaction will end and you’ll be allowed to rest, to sleep, to breathe for just a moment.

But then he clears his throat again. And this time, when he looks at you, there’s something different in his eyes. Something you can’t quite place.

“There’s one more thing,” he says, and the air between you feels too much like outside, chocking and not fit for you. 

You stiffen. You feel that old familiar dread curling up inside your chest again, clawing at your ribs. You’ve been at this stage before, the formality of it, the false promises of security, of kindness. The moment where it all comes crashing down, where the mask slips and you’re left standing there, alone and defenceless against the greed, the hunger that always lurks just beneath the surface of those too desperate to remember what it means to be human.

He sees the shift in you. You know he does. You see it in the way his brow furrows, the way he toys with his lip piercings as though he’s searching for the right words, something to say that won’t make you bolt for the hermetic door. He takes a breath, and for a moment, you think you might run, you think you might grab your mask and take your chances with the toxic air outside because anything—anything—might be better than this.

But then, he speaks.

“I—” His voice falters, and you see the muscles in his throat work as he swallows. His grip on the clipboard tightens, the knuckles going white. “I want to… I want to eat you out.”

The words hit you like a shockwave. You blink, stunned, and for a moment, you’re not sure you heard him correctly. Did he really just—? 

You stare at him, your mind racing, trying to process the absurdity of it, the strangeness, the unexpectedness.

He’s looking at you now, eyes wide, almost pleading. There’s no threat in his posture, no demand. Just… want. Raw and unfiltered. Like he’s asking for something he shouldn’t even be allowed to ask, but he can’t help himself. His breath is shallow, and you can see the way his hands tremble slightly, the tension in his body like he’s bracing for you to reject him, to walk away.

And maybe you should. Maybe you should get up, leave this place, leave him behind, leave all of this strangeness and vulnerability and run back into the wasteland where at least the dangers are known, where the air is poison but the intentions are clear. But instead, you sit there, frozen in place, your mind spinning, your heart pounding in your chest as you look at him.

He’s not like the others. That much you know.

He’s so painfully handsome, a rare sight in this broken world, and it’s been so long—too long—since you’ve felt the heat of another body, since before the fallout turned everything to pure survival. 

So, when the chance arises, when you catch the hunger in his dark eyes and feel the thrumming ache in your own bones, you seize it like a lifeline in the endless wasteland. Your fingers tremble as you pull the zip of your protective suit down, the rough fabric parting like a sigh, and you free your legs, peeling it off your lower half. You shift on the bench, boots still clinging to your feet as you raise them to rest beside you, and open yourself to him, your legs spread wide, exposing your cunt like a silent offering, need pulsing through your veins.

Jungkook barely hesitates. The clipboard thrown, clattering to the ground behind him, forgotten, his focus now laser-sharp on the sight before him, his eyes flickering wildly between your face and the growing wetness glistening between your thighs. He steps forward with a pull that feels almost sacred, falling heavily to his knees as if the ground beneath him is the only place he belongs. His warm, calloused hands trace their way up your bare legs, the roughness of his skin sparking something primal under your own.

He leans in close, close enough that you can feel his breath ghosting over your slick skin. He takes a deep breath, inhaling you, and the word falls from his lips like a prayer, “Fuck,” and then he’s there, tongue pressing into you with a hunger that’s suffocating, lapping at your cunt as if he’s desperate to prove himself worthy of it, as if he knows exactly how lucky he is to be granted this wish. 

A moan escapes your throat, unbidden, as his tongue forces its way into the tight heat of your hole, your hand reaching instinctively for his dark hair, fingers threading through the strands as you push your hips into his eager mouth. The sound that rumbles from deep within his chest vibrates against you, a groan of raw pleasure that seems to send waves of newfound pleasure coursing through your body, arousal dripping from you, coating his tongue.

“Taste so good,” he rasps between breaths, his voice rough and broken with want. “Fucking angel sent from heaven.” His gaze flicks upward, catching yours, his eyes wide with disbelief, adoration simmering beneath the surface despite the fact that you’re strangers, despite the fact that the world outside has crumbled to nothing.

You find yourself moving against him, riding the flat of his tongue, his fingers dancing over your clit in a rhythm that feels almost divine. His other hand grips your thigh, fingers pressing into your flesh with a kind of desperation, as though he’s terrified that if he lets go, you’ll disappear, that this will vanish like a dream.

“Yes,” you cry out, breathless and shaking, as he finds the perfect pace, the perfect pressure, his mouth and hands working together with an almost agonising precision. And neither of you can tear your eyes away from the other, locked in this frantic, desperate exchange of need and lust and something deeper you can’t yet name.

He gives you everything—every ounce of affection and euphoria you’ve been deprived of for months—and you can feel it in the way his own body trembles, the way his hips move mindlessly against nothing, rutting into the air as though he’s just as desperate to be filled with pleasure as you are.

“I’m close,” you gasp, your hand tightening in his hair, pulling him harder against you, urging him on, desperate for more, for him to push you over that edge.

And he listens, his tongue working with relentless skill, circling your clit with a pressure so precise it almost drives you mad, and then you feel it—your orgasm tearing through you with an intensity that leaves you breathless, shockwaves rippling through your body as you squirt onto his tongue, something you’ve never done before, the surprise of it lost in the haze of pleasure. Jungkook groans beneath you, greedily lapping up everything you give him, cleaning you with his mouth like he never wants to stop, his hips stuttering forward as he spills into his pants, caught in his own silent climax.

“Fuck…” he moans thickly and long, collapsing against your stomach as your legs tremble and fall to the floor, muscles too weak to hold them up any longer.

For a long moment, neither of you moves, the silence between you filled only by the sound of your ragged breathing, the disaster of the world momentarily forgotten. But eventually, he pulls himself together, straightening up with a sheepish grin, adjusting his pants which are now damp with his own release, his expression cringing just slightly.

You quickly dress again, pulling your suit back into place, feeling a flush of heat creeping into your cheeks. There’s an embarrassment there, sure, but not disgust—not even close. If anything, there’s a strange sense of satisfaction, of relief, and you catch yourself hoping this won’t be the last time you see him, that he isn’t bored now that his hunger has been sated.

But as you reach for your pack, Jungkook’s voice breaks through the quiet, and he gestures for you to follow him deeper into the metro, his arm draping casually around your shoulders as if he can’t quite bring himself to stop touching you. “I’m Jungkook, by the way,” he says, a grin spreading across his face, his eyes bright with something that looks almost like joy—something you haven’t seen in anyone since the fallout. “You can stay with me if you want.”

There’s a pause, your heart skipping a beat at his offer, and you hesitate only for a second before whispering, “I’d like to stay with you, if that’s okay.”

He beams down at you, stars shining in his dark eyes like you haven’t seen in months, and he takes the opportunity to press a gentle kiss to your sweaty forehead. “Good,” he says softly. “I’d like that too.”

PART 2

[zipper-ghost]

From chapter 2 and 3 of my fic where Kim and Harry go to a gay club for a case

You can read the uploaded chapters so far here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55229812/chapters/140088478

First part of chapter 3 is under the cut. Waiting for my friend to finish beta reading it for consistency and general unhingedness before I post it.

The smoking section is a small square patio with exposed brick walls on all sides, a couple of chairs, and a trellis with a brown drying vine. A string of fairy lights drapes the walls and provides the barest illumination. Kim is relieved to find it empty. He can still feel the bass of the music inside through the walls. Lighting his cigarette he leans against the exposed brick wall and inhales a lung full of smoke. 

He reaches for his notebook which isn’t in his jacket. 

Tonight is more stressful than Kim expected it to be. It’s been nearly a decade since the last time he’d been at a gay club and he’s no longer used to the atmosphere. He can’t believe he used to find the loud music and crowds fun. 

Harry is having fun, at the very least. As Kim expected, he is very popular. 

“I can’t believe him,” Kim mutters. It annoys him, more than he likes to admit, how pleased Harry is at getting attention from those two young boys. They are twenty-five at most. 

Kim exhaled the smoke through his nose, the scent of chestnut engulfing him. He glanced down at his hands, for once without driving gloves. The skin is tight against sinew and bone, with blue veins visible underneath. He isn’t young anymore. He isn’t spritely, wide-eyed, enthusiastic, adventurous, or full of wonder. Kim isn’t sure he has never not been jaded. But now he gets pain in his back and neck randomly and he can’t sleep as easily as he once could, he can’t drink as much without getting terribly hungover. 

Kim shouldn’t be surprised that Harry is enamored with them. He always had a thing for young, pretty, whimsical things- people unlike Kim. 

Kim takes a deep drag of hot air and then watches his cigarette balanced between his fingers thoughtfully. His body relaxes, and the jittery feeling in his hands eases. A part of his dreads going back inside and seeing Harry dancing with Lucas. 

That boy has no shame, rubbing himself against Harry and mewling like a kitten. Kim could never- 

Kim shakes his head. He’d never want to act like that, crawling all over Harry and shamelessly flirting with him for all the world to see. 

Of Harry’s many flaws, the one that bothers Kim the most is how clouded his judgment becomes under the fugue of sexual attraction. It was bad when Klaasje used Harry’s obvious attraction to her to manipulate him but somehow this felt worse. 

It’s different when it’s a woman, Kim can’t compete with that. If Harry can love a man why not him? 

Kim groans, he wants to slap himself. It’s not a competition, he isn’t competing for Harry’s attention. 

Again he reaches for his notebook. He wants to get this jumble of thoughts out of his head. He wants to write everything down and burn the pieces. 

He knows he shouldn’t like Harry like that, he shouldn’t want Harry. Harry doesn’t see him like that. 

They are coworkers, partners, and friends. They’ve saved each other, again and again. Kim shouldn’t want anything else, anything more. It would make work complicated. 

One cigarette might not be enough today. 

Kim tilts his head up and looks at the sky. The city lights drown out all but the brightest stars.

It’s hard not to find Harry loveable. For all of Harry’s tragedy and dysfunction, when he says something deeply insightful and intelligent he leaves Kim in awe. When Harry’s eyes are full of joy as he exposits about some newly acquired niche fact, when he glances at Kim for approval and reassurance, and when he looks so pleased to make Kim laugh, when he looks at Kim like he hung the stars in the sky, Kim feels his resolution crumble. 

Sometimes Kim catches a heated look in Harry’s eyes, a predatory hunger that borders on longing, Kim wonders if–hopes maybe Harry too desires him. 

But Kim can’t be certain. He can’t trust his eyes, or his judgement clouded by desire. He can’t ever risk being wrong about this. 

If tonight was any lonely sleepless Saturday night, Kim would be in the safety of his bed spinning inane fantasies, where Harry, unable to contain his desire pushes Kim against a wall, or on the hood of his kineema and kisses him. Harry’s kisses are terrible at first; wild and messy. 

He’d tear off Kim’s orange pilot’s jacket and push his hand under Kim’s white t-shirt. Kim takes off whatever mismatched outfit Harry is wearing, ripping seams and buttons in the process. Harry growls Kim’s name in his low gravelly voice and leaves bite marks and bruises on his wake as he trails kisses down Kim’s body. Kim knots his fingers in Harry’s hair as Harry takes him into his mouth. He'll lick the tip and stroke the rest with his hand too intimidated to take Kim down his throat. 

Kim will guide him and praise him and Harry will do his best to please Kim. 

Kim sighs out a lung full of smoke, again grateful to be alone. 

Then, as if his thoughts manifested it, Harry burst out through the doors.

Unconsciously, Kim licks his lips when he sees Harry, the wisps of his fantasies still lingering in his mind. 

“Kim, he’s here!”

“Who?” Kim takes another drag from his cigarette, barely paying attention to Harry’s words. He watches Harry’s lips, the way his throat bobs as he swallows. Kim wants to reach out and touch his face, feel the roughness of his beard between his fingers, making out the crooked shape of his jaw beneath. Harry is more handsome each time Kim sees him. Kim wills himself to look away.  

“Who else!” Harry whispers-shouts at him. “The suspect. Red hair and a tattoo on his arm, exactly like the witness said.”

The suspect, of course. Kim half hoped he wouldn't appear tonight but it is good. They are here for a case, not to flirt and fantasies. 

“Alright,” Kim says. His dark jeans are tight and unforgiving, constricting his half hard cock. He straightens his posture in hope of some relief without making Harry suspicious. “What do you suggest we do?” 

“We should go talk to him.”

Kim taps his cigarette to shake off the ash. 

“That’ll be risky, we might scare him off. We should just watch him for now.”

“But he is here! Now!”

“We can’t be 100% certain it is him. The witness didn’t give his name, just a vague description. We need to confirm he knows the victim and was with him last night.”

“We can do that by asking him,” says Harry. 

Kim narrows his eyes. “No, not you. I’ll do it.” 

“What?”

“Your interrogation techniques are effective but we can’t let him know we are interrogating him. I’ll talk to him, you’ll scare him off.” Kim admires Harry’s wild, throw anything against the wall until something sticks method but it has a high chance of scaring people or pissing them off. Neither option they can risk tonight. They need the name of the suspect at the very least, ideally confirmation that he knew the victim and met him last night. 

“I wouldn’t,” Harry insists, furrowing his brow. 

“Yes, you would,” Kim says firmly. “I’ll go now, wait a few minutes before coming out.” 

God, Kim wants to kiss him. He wonders if Harry would be shocked or pleased. If Kim slips in his tongue would Harry suck on it?

Kim walks up to Harry and places his half-smoked cigarette between his lips. 

Harry’s eyes widen as he searches Kim’s face, bewildered, trying to figure out what he's thinking. But he accepts the cigarette in place of Kim’s tongue, taking a deep inhale of the cigarette. 

“Finish this for me alright?” Kim says. 

Harry nods dumbly. Kim itches to kiss Harry now, to breathe in the smoke from Harry’s lungs. Harry staggers back and leans on the brick wall for support. 

Kim goes back into the club before he does something he shouldn’t.

Close up on their faces incase Tumblr chews up the quality again 😭

[danosrosegarden]

this could build us a home - edward nashton x gn!reader headcanons ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

{contains: very mild religious references, descriptions of stalking, and mentions of smoking.}

{note: this piece was a paid commission, and i have permission to share it publicly. find out more about commissioning a piece from me in my pinned post.}

☽ What if Edward Nashton wasn’t alone in his suffering? What if the pitch black, grime-infested hellscape he spent each day zombie-stumbling through was also the sunshineless wasteland that you shivered and wandered through, too? What if his stomach wasn’t the only one glazed over with a thick, slimy, goopy layer of churning, crawling disgust and disdain for everything he saw? What if you saw through the same cloudy, weary eyes? What if there was you?

☽ You’d wake each day with a throbbing headache and aching bones. Your body was tired, your soul was weeping, your heart was heavy, your eyes were red from crusty sleep scratching at the whites–but there was work. There was always work to be done, something to check off the to-do list.

☽ At first, Edward feels bad for watching. For internet stalking. For trailing a few concrete slabs behind you while you walked home from work. He really can’t explain what drew him to you. It was like a magnet. Like there was some pheromone in your weakly glimmering aura that he couldn’t get enough of. You smelled like something familiar, you tasted like something irresistible. You carried with you the same tired, fed-up ambience that he had lugged behind him for his own entire miserable life. There was something cracking and crumbling apart inside of you. It was something only another broken person could recognize.

☽ He justified the nights he’d spend with his stomach in knots, wishing he had the courage to follow for just a little bit longer before turning the street corner and avoiding suspicion. He had no malicious intent coursing through his veins as he got up early to watch your morning commute to work from his own apartment across the street, this you must understand. He’d calm the guilt coiling and knotting in his gut with this: I just want to make sure they’re safe. That’s true, in his own odd way.

☽ What he didn’t know was this: you’d also had your eyes peeled, your teeth sharp for any scrap of Edward you could get your hands on.

☽ You hadn’t been working together for long. Your desks were across the office from each other. You didn’t even live in the same apartment complex. But Edward Nashton was some missing remedy for your water-logged, disintegrating life, you were simply sure of it.

☽ You weren’t sure how to describe it. A crushing schoolchild, scribbling your first name with Edward’s last in a notebook, surrounding the words with sparkling gel pen hearts? Maybe a dying sinner, weeping at the blood-stained cross for mercy. However you spun it, a spell had been placed over your everyday life. You wanted to share each moment with him, let him see all that had been stomped and spat on. As if what, he could heal it? Well, it sounded idiotic, but your heart scratched and clawed at your chest for any piece of him you could get.

☽ Maybe you didn’t know that Edward followed you home after work or stalked your social media each day, hungry stomach growling for another post. But he didn’t know that you looked out your window and watched him smoke outside the complex, tripping and falling deeper in frothing obsession as you watched him stamp out his cigarette and walk back inside. He didn’t realize how superglued your eyes were to him as you should’ve been working, the pile of papers on your desk growing inches with each look you stole.

☽ Edward Nashton had lived through hell, this was certain. But you…you had walked across the same broiling coals, flames licking at your skin. Perhaps you could create a shelter from the lake of fire together, if only either one of you had the courage.

[lifenconcepts]

I want to suffocate under the roar of an avalanche, have my body drift to the mercy of what once was apart of the inside my body, to sink into the density of a cold blue, see the light of the sky before buried just as I lived, feeling that ice hollow out my cells - and as I lose sensation throughout my body and skin, my limbs go before my consciousness. I feel the warmth of the water against my skin, and hum it a lullaby. Why crawl when you can sink? The fish surround me and I welcome them, for this is their home, and I am now apart of them. Whatever happened to the desire to be apart of society when you can become lost in the forest? I will find myself upon being gone, time I spend alone will allow me to reflect on the fact that the outskirts of my entire being are riddled with parasites and pain seeps through the seams, as a fire rages on and burns my heart to pull me on yet pieces crumble and burn into intimacy and the bite of a harmed dog will stand for nothing against my cry of love. Like a feather molts off a bird in the air, the droplet of rain will fall against my smoothed flesh, a churning grin among my bones, as they beckon and mock me. Laugh in my face! Cackle! I’ll turn the volume into violence and my light will force the cars eyes to face you. Can’t you see that behind my hand is a growing darkness, of a glowing desire, and a beautiful love that comforts me. No, no I won’t ever let you down me again. I won’t forget them and I will be risen higher. You’ll never speak nor hear from me once I disappear, but feel my presence, I look beyond your eyes. I beat my heart, and you will hear. You will be shaken with the rock of a thunderous storm, it’ll leave nothing, yet it’ll always stay. Not once more have these clouds dissipated and a glimpse into the horizon will see a little gash of dust shining against the sun, but don’t look, you’ll be blind by then.

[rollercoasterwords]

14. when you have nothing to say, set something on fire.

r/s for this one pls because i can just imagine the angst already!

simmy!! anything 4 u my love <3 one order of r/s angst, as requested

this prompt list

when you have nothing to say, set something on fire

it is 1976 and there is a boy in the broom cupboard. a boy. tie undone. shirt unbuttoned. bruises already blooming on his neck.

there is also sirius. in the broom cupboard. with the boy.

"oh," remus says. something has just punched him in the gut. he can't catch his breath.

the boy is fumbling, frantic, shoving sirius away and scrambling to button his shirt. he plays quidditch, remus thinks. hufflepuff. maybe their seeker. remus wouldn't know. he never pays any attention to the other teams. 

"sorry, i just--sorry."

he shuts the door, slams it, and starts floating down the corridor. somehow, in the past twenty-three seconds, he's become a ghost. also, the stone is all crumbling beneath his feet. also, the portraits are melting off the walls into puddles of toxic goo.

a boy. in the broom cupboard. a boy. 

"moony--wait!" 

sirius is panting, hard, the same way he was panting, hard, in the broom cupboard. with the boy. he grabs remus's arm, and it makes his blood fizz like champagne, the way it always does when sirius touches him. remus turns, and they're looking at each other the way they always look at each other. like two people on a tightrope. opposite ends. whole world holding its breath. 

"you..." sirius gasps, pupils wide and dark like an open mouth, like he's looking at remus and swallowing him at the same time. "i..." 

what, remus thinks, whatwhatwhatwhatwhat. a boy. a boy! in each fingertip clutching his bicep, there is six years' worth of knees knocking together under tables and hands brushing shoulders in passing and tiny, private smiles and eyes darting away in the mornings when they're changing and that look sirius gave him, that one time, when he came out of the shower with nothing but a towel slung around his hips complaining that he couldn't find his good trousers. when remus didn't look away quick enough. that look that haunted him for weeks, that he was sure meant the end of everything, that look like sirius could see right through his skin and bones, all the way to the want that sits in every single organ of his body. but sirius never said anything. and remus thought maybe he had just made all of it, every single tiny piece of it, up in his head. 

but then sirius moves his hand. 

"you can't tell anyone," he says. 

that's all he says. 

and then he goes back to the broom cupboard. 

"thought you hated smoking," lily comments, off-handed, when remus turns into a knocked-over pile of children's blocks in front of her and then asks for a cigarette. she perches on the windowsill, exhaling like a pro. remus coughs and keeps coughing forever. his body dissolves and he turns into one long cough, ongoing, eternal. his lungs are burning. 

"just wanted to try it," he says. 

it is 1978 and sirius thinks he is being quiet. thinks he's capable of being quiet, as if remus's ears don't turn into telescopes the moment he opens the door, seeking out every star in the sky. every breath, every whisper, every muffled creak of the floorboards. as if remus's body exists for anything other than sirius, sirius, sirius. he can hear the boy's heartbeat. he can hear his cells dying. 

muffled laughter. shh, shh. creaky floorboards. stolen kisses. the familiar sound of sirius guiding his newest victim down the hallway of their flat, to the bedroom where he will turn into a spider and string webs from the ceiling and crawl down and sink his teeth into the neck of whatever man he's brought home, liquefy his insides and eat him alive. at least, that's what it feels like, in remus's head.

soft breaths. shaky moans. murmured words. one single wall between them. a tightrope. opposite sides. sirius must know that remus can hear. he must. 

remus crawls out of bed and drags himself to the window. opens it. fucking freezing december air. fuck. wand, flame, cigarette. inhale, exhale. tomorrow, sirius will smell the ash on his t-shirt and make fun of remus for his chain-smoking. what, war not killing you fast enough for your liking, moony? 

mean. he is always so mean. 

"please--" the hushed plea, on the other side of the wall, "fuck--don't stop--" 

remus is a house on fire, lungs burning, burning, burning. 

it is 1980 and they're at a club. too much death to give a fuck about anything now, that's what sirius says. but he still only ever brings remus. still says you can't tell anyone, like they both don't know the reason that remus would never tell anyone to begin with. 

it's the sort of club where the lights are low, and flashing. the sort of club where men cling to each other's hips, twine together like nobody's watching. the sort of club where fear runs like an electric undercurrent, someone's eyes always darting towards the door, the risk of police bursting in.

everybody loves sirius, here. everyone wants him. he is the brightest star in the sky, holding court with his rockstar hair and his leather trousers, bowie's starman, the one that lady stardust sings about. taking his pick of the sweaty bodies, the eager smiles and grasping hands. remus stands at the bar nursing vodka and coke, thinking that one day he'll kiss one of these men and let sirius have a turn watching, let sirius have a turn feeling all of his organs rot, summer fruit left out in the sun for nine years. as if remus's lips wouldn't burst into flames if they ever touched anyone else's skin. as if sirius would even rot, watching him. as if sirius would even bother to look in the first place. 

remus finishes his drink, and goes outside to smoke a cigarette.

[rion-writes]

Revenge of the Quay (Part 2)

I believe Amari Quay will return.

We've got textual context including Fetch being wrong for the stage he set. A summation he gives to her situation appears in Dead Man in a Ditch Chapter 9,

Amari was a Wood Nymph. A Forest Sprite. Larger than the Fae back at the pharmacy but just as precious. Once upon a time, she’d been the most magical thing in the world. You can keep your sunsets, shooting stars and babies’ laughter. All those birthday-card ideas of what makes life worth living. I’d trade them all if she could say a single word again. Amari hadn’t moved a muscle in six years. She was stuck in place. Turned to wood. Splintered and cracked.

Seems pretty point blank- except Fetch is wrong and contradictory to what he described in Last Smile Chapter 15, " A couple of years ago, I convinced them to come to the mansion with me and try to move her body. That was before we realized Amari had sprouted roots that were embedded into the floor".

Amari the Wood Nymph hadn't been stationary. She'd been rooting still unlike other fae in the Church, It looked more like someone had carved out an old tree stump. The flesh of the Fae’s head was firm, like petrified wood, but filled with tiny tunnels. Looking closer, I could see that his insides were marbled with silver; just the faint glimmer of something shiny, like spider’s web or starlight, threaded into his muscles and bone.

These were forest creatures. That meant that, unlike the creature on the signpost, their bodies were still growing. Little vines had crawled out from their shoulders and back, wrapped around their bodies, and tightened, crushing their limbs. Under the snow, the foliage must have spread out to reach the nearest trees because there were leaves there; little ones, born from the threads of vine that sprouted out from the creatures decomposing on the floor. It was all too familiar. All too sad. [ Dead Man, Chapter 11]

I'd make the argument that growing vines was not the same thing and rooting but that seems pedantic- except that not all the Fae did, and not all the Fae remained. I wouldn't go as far to say Amari was thriving in the first book post-Coda, but there was some indication of natural life still blooming from her, especially in he context to how the quick-drying Fae in the Church are again described slightly different than Amari's plundered corpse:

Her body was where it had always been but the ground around her was scattered with sawdust and curls of papery bark. Her hair crunched between my fingers like autumn leaves and pieces of her skin snapped off in my shaking fingers. She crumbled under my touch and I crushed her body into a million tiny pieces. All empty. All cold. She dissolved into dust and with every breath, I blew another piece of her away. Just in case. I’d been right to do it, too, because some piece of her had remained. A glowing heart full of power. Full of life. [ Dead Man, Chapter 72]

This isn't the last time Amari and her body are slightly out of normal for Fae and the Coda, but there's a few steps before that one. Add to that the context we get at the start and the end of Dead Man in a Ditch specifically about a certain Tree.

The story goes that there was once a tree whose roots reached so deep into the planet that they touched the great river itself. One spring, the branches bore a crop of rare apples infused with sacred power. When a herd of wild horses passed beneath the tree, they fed upon that fruit and the magic caused spirals of purple mist to spin out from their foreheads. [ Dead Man, Chapter 1]

"The story goes that when the horses ate the apples from the sacred tree, a piece of pure magic attached itself to their minds. This isn’t like the Faeries at all. This is more like unlocking a piece of the river itself."[ Dead Man, Chapter 79].

What happens when the magic (aka Materia just call it what it was) taken from her body was used? Well, some magic cores were fiery. Hers went literal.

“No,” said the dishwasher, refilling his glass. “Apparently a whole tree grew right out of the ground. It destroyed the walls of the Gullet and let Tippity climb to safety. Sounds crazy.” Hendricks in my office, he had an orb in his hands. He was holding it up to the light and splashing the acid around inside. He’d asked if he could borrow it. I’d let him. And then a tree had grown out of the ground.[ Dead Man, Chapter 71]

There were no clouds overhead, and the freshly grown leaves went translucent when they caught the light of the sunset, turning every shade of green. The twisted branches were painted with fluffy patches of moss and wrapped in dainty loops of vine. Dewy pink flowers, white buds, and shoots of long grass sprouted from the stringy bark. The whole place shimmered with butterfly wings and buzzing bees. I pressed the palm of my hand against her trunk. She was cool to the touch. Rough. There was a bend in one of the branches. When I put my hand around it, it felt like she was holding me too. I squeezed. She was strong. I put my forehead against her bark and closed my eyes. Under the bees and the wind and the hum of the factories, I swear I could hear her breathing. [Dead Man, Chapter 79]

A tree had burst from its walls about a year ago. The plant had once been a Sprite, then a statue, and was now a towering landmark looking over all of Sunder. She’d gone bare during the winter, but now her branches were budding, and her trunk was shedding bark to reveal fresh, pale layers underneath. She was huge, and she was still growing, her limbs reaching out towards the lights of the city. Insects buzzed between her branches. Her first new leaves opened like beckoning hands that unfurled from each other, ready to return her to her fullest glory over the coming weeks. She could breathe. She could feel the sun and drink the rain; watch the days rise and fall and the city turn, and her old idiotic friend run around in circles waiting to figure things out. I put my hand against her. Her trunk was thick, and her roots were deep. She was strong. [ One Foot, Chapter 17]

Our girl Amari might be more tree than tree nymph right now but I don't expect that to be the status quo for too long. Lets disregard for a minute that Amari had always been more earth bound natural than other magical beings, "This was different. There was something effortless and almighty about how she carried her power. The magic wasn’t something she used but an intrinsic part of herself. It was primal and breathtaking." [Last Smile, Chapter 13].

Fetch can be right about things sometimes. In Dead Man, Fetch also considers that the Fae knew something was happening since "It wasn’t impossible. Faeries were a perfect blend of magic and matter, closer to the sacred river than any other creature." [ Dead Man, Chapter 10].

How did that conversation come out? Well, Fetch checked in with someone smarter and more rational than him: Baxter, a something that didn't appear to be affected by the Coda. As mentioned, Amari was already something as a part of an anomaly group. Between him and Baxter they sussed out:

“But what about the corpses? I never thought about it before, but I didn’t see any Fae bodies after the Coda. I guess I assumed they’d just vanished; turned back into pixie dust or something. But that didn’t happen to Amari and it turns out that didn’t happen to a lot of them.” Baxter lost the last of their enthusiasm. “What do you mean, a lot of them?”[ Dead Man, Chapter 10]

Most fae bodies disappeared on account of being tied so utterly close to the Great River. From the Fae that remained with a tangible body, all but one known one so far stopped at once like the magic stopped at once for everything.

Except Amari.

My heart was beating loud in my ears at an uneven rhythm and my feet left bloody prints on the polished floor. The only sound I could hear was the soft groan that came from her strained little body. She was fighting it. Her white knuckles gripped her sides and her eyes were wide and full of tears that splashed upon the floor. I got down on my knees. Her breath on my face became a little softer, a little shorter, a little colder every time. “What can I do?” I said. What a question. She forced her eyes to look at me and I could see the pattern of woodgrain creeping into her face. Dry flakes of bark curled out from what had once been the soft skin of her cheeks. The matte, gray timber that had replaced her long and powerful legs already looked old and immovable. She was a statue with living eyes and even they were leaving her. [ Last Smile, Chapter 32]

Amari was one of the most magical creatures in the world and she fought to survive? move? hold on help? when no one else as magical as her did. Elves decayed and died in minutes. No more flight for anything. She was a Fae that got her life force from the Great River.

And maybe somewhere else at the end.

It would be entirely unethical to think that people would brutalize and take advantage of the weak for magic [Tipperity, Linda], roughly use whatever resources they had left [Hendricks], or gladly feast on others for a smidge of a chance[ Rye], certainly not before the Coda that made everyone desperate, except the Wizards.

Because Wizards "were able to summon energy from some far-off place to the space between their hands" doesn't mean that they would be so vulgar to draw from something " closer to the sacred river than any other creature". After All, Fetch knows exactly how Wizard would choose to work,

This cry was full of grief. I turned and saw a woman, her palms empty and open, her face a vision of pain. She sent a stream of light right in my direction and I took the hit straight to my heart. Magic burned from her fingers, striking somewhere deep inside my chest. It wasn’t a single bolt, but a prolonged and intensifying torture like a hot coal being pushed into my flesh. The pain held my eyes open so I had no choice but to look at her face as she howled with fury. For a moment, I could have sworn it was Amari, screaming through tears as her outstretched hand forced pure hatred into my body, cooking my chest from the inside. [Last Smile, Chapter 24]

He knows Wizards would never do something like pull Magic from places it shouldn't. So much so that he even remembers,

The birds were screeching but I couldn’t make sense of them. No. Not birds. Voices. Not screeching either. Screaming. I dropped the sword. My hands were covered in blood. Fresh. Glistening. Not mine, though. No. The blood belonged to the body at my feet. I’d killed them. More screaming. Louder. I killed it all. The world was already breaking. Blood thick on my fingers. On my soul. A scream, louder than the others, cuts me. A woman. Eyes of accusation. Of hate. She readies her attack.

Do it. I think. Kill me. I deserve it for what I’ve done. She screams again. I don’t stop her. She pushes the pain into my heart.[One Foot, Chapter 45]

Such an interesting dream brought to his mind after Khay's kiss leaves a mark on him. There's really nothing special about Fetch except the markings and things he carries around on him - and some of that might be Amari Quay.

[iriswords]

Febuwhump day 1 - Touchstarved

You can also read this on ao3 and read the rest of my febuwhump fics here

tw: Ivy’s pollen and its effects, self-esteem issues

Tim has been hit with Ivy’s pollen and doesn’t tell anyone. He thinks it will go away on its own. It doesn’t.

Fandom: Batman

Number of words: 1442

The unpleasant itch under his skin starts in the Batmobile. Tim is sitting in the backseat, squished against the door by Jason’s broad frame. The contact, at least, brings some comfort to him.

No one else got sprayed with Ivy’s pollen. Tim, being Tim—useless Tim, failure Tim—got hit full force with it. Of course, he did. He has not told anyone. He does not want them to know he failed at something yet again. His relationship with everyone has changed since he brought Bruce back from where he was lost in time. Ironically enough, it is with Jason he interacts the easiest. They fall into light banter often enough, both of them pretending to have forgotten about the Tower episode. Jason apologized when Tim came back with Bruce. It was an awkward conversation for both, but it did ease the tension between them.

Dick apologized, too. For not trusting Tim and for taking Robin away from him. Tim lied and said he accepted the apology. But their relationship still hasn’t recovered. Tim distances himself from his older brother. Every time they interact, his treacherous mind throws at him all the hurtful words Dick said to him.

Tim knows they would be better off without him in their lives. He knows this, but he is selfishly hanging onto what he has until they tell him to leave. Still, he does not want to burden them with his failure. He does not want to have to face their disappointment.

His skin is crawling by the time they arrive in the Cave, the primal need inside him barely soothed by the faint contact of Jason’s arm against his. Tim breathes in deeply, opens the door of the Batmobile, and tears himself away from his brother. His breath goes shaky as the itch suddenly increases but he forces his face into his trademark poker face and submits himself to the decontamination protocol as though nothing is wrong with him.

His hands tremble as he washes the pollen off his body, distractedly listening to Dick’s and Jason’s chatter. He wants to curl up in a tight ball and hug himself and bury in blankets. He wants his dad and his warm embrace, wants his brothers around him, their affection sincere and everlasting.

Tim pushes these thoughts away. He has made a resolution of not wishing for what he cannot have.

Once they have all gone through the decontamination protocol, Bruce insists on a quick debriefing. Tim stands as far away from anyone as he can without raising suspicion, not trusting his body and the pollen affecting it if he gets too close. He rattles off his report, his voice steady in a way his hands aren’t. As his brothers leave the Cave and Bruce takes place in front of the Batcomputer, Tim fades into the background. No one notices him slipping away and taking his motorcycle.

Since he got back, he has had trouble sleeping at the Manor. Once a place of comfort, it has become a burden. He has become a burden. If he stays there for too long, he will inevitably feel out of place, his instincts screaming at him that he should not overstay his welcome lest they throw him away for good. Tonight, he cannot even bear sleeping there, in his old room.

He manages to keep his composure up until he arrives at the Nest. He crumbles as soon as the apartment’s door closes behind him. Violent tremors wrack his lithe frame, and his skin prickles from thousands of invisible needles, begging for him to get touch, affection, warmth. Tim keens softly.

Bruce said, once, that the pollen affected touchstarved people worse than it did others. Tim is nothing if not touchstarved. He curls up on his couch, blankets draped over him. They don’t appease the bone-deep cold that has settled inside him.

In the morning hours of the night, just as the black sky is about to leave way to dawn, Tim grabs his phone, his nerves on fire. His finger hovers over Bruce’s contact for several minutes as he debates whether or not to call the man. Eventually, he throws the phone on the armchair on the other side of the coffee table and resigns himself to shivering his way through the pollen.

Tim wants to have words with Ivy. He wants to know why she makes that forsaken pollen, and why it hurts so much, and why it lasts so fucking long. The day came and went, and all Tim can do to stop himself from screaming is clench his teeth very hard and remind himself he has neighbors. Non-vigilante neighbors.

Tears stream down his face as he cries silently in his blankets. Why is the pollen still affecting him? He has been doused in it before, and it never lasted this long. He has dealt with it himself and—

Tim’s eyes widen at the realization. He has not actually dealt with it himself before. All the times he was hit with it were when he was Robin and Batman doted on him in a way he does not anymore. He never did manage to hide being doused in pollen. Until today.

Tim bites down a sob. He does not want to call his family. He is too vulnerable already; he won’t be able to face their disappointment and disdain. He can imagine the pointed expression on Damian’s face already, so out of place on his tiny face, and Bruce’s pursed lips, can hear Jason’s taunting words and see the silent guilt written all over Dick. All of this scream ‘failure’. Because Tim should know better, should be better. No one else than him was hit last night.

He realizes, eventually, as night gradually bleeds into the evening sky, that not going to patrol will give away his situation. That if he wants to keep it a secret, he has to drag himself off this couch and to the Cave.

He does it. Out of sheer willpower, he makes it to the Cave, whole and only barely on the verge of tears. He does not know how long his composure will last. If he had actually made a habit of having a somewhat decent sleep schedule, he could pretend to be exhausted and stay in for the night. But as it is, this excuse would only bring more suspicion onto him.

He tells himself his situation could be worse. He could have to spend the night in his mausoleum of a house, instead of basking in the comfort of the Nest. As comfortable as it can be when his nerves beg for a touch of any kind, at least.

Everyone else is already in the Cave and dressed up when he arrives, reunited against the large table they use for debriefing. Tim approaches them and tries to keep his distance as inconspicuously as he can.

It works for a time. And then Bruce looks up from the notes scattered on the table, and his gaze bores into Tim. Tim knows, then, that Bruce notices all that is wrong with Tim. From the tremors running through his body to the way he cannot help but hunch on himself, as though to preserve any warmth.

“Are you alright, Tim?” he asks, his voice softer than Tim deserves, and everyone turns to Tim.

Tim stumbles back a step, panic growing in him. His reaction gives him away. Jason puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder, and Tim crumbles.

His knees give out beneath him, and he pitches forward, a sob caught in his throat. Then the touch is gone, and fire flares in Tim’s body. He grabs onto the hand before it can leave entirely. Only then does he realize what he has done. He freezes and lets go of the hand, ignoring how much it hurts. He tries to scramble backward, but now his body has tasted touch, it wants more.

Garbled apologies fall from Tim’s lips as he breaks down and curls on himself. He failed. Again. He ruined everything, and now they will feel obligated to provide comfort, even though he does not deserve it. Bruce crouches down in front of him.

“What is wrong, Tim?” he asks in that same too-soft voice.

“Ivy’s pollen,” answers Tim, even though he meant to say ‘nothing’.

Immediately, Bruce’s warm hands swipe him into his dad’s arms, and Tim burrows against him. He wants to say many things as his dad carries him out of the Cave, his siblings following like obedient ducklings. But he is exhausted, and the pain alighting his nerves has finally soothed. It can wait for tomorrow.

@febuwhump

[gingerbreadmonsters]

it’s snippet SUNDAY...

...because i got a bit carried away and missed snippet SATURDAY, which i was actually tagged in - apologies for my habitual tardiness 😭😭 thank you very very much to @zozo-01 ​ and @darlincollins ​ for the tag - i hope this does the job! no tags because i’m late as usual, but for anyone who’d like to show off a wip they’re working on, consider this my tag to you 💕💕💕

under the cut: the companion cube AU returns at LAST - it’s been sucking up all my time and it’s taking FOREVER :((( it’s only at about 7.5k and i’m anticipating quite a lot more to go, so please have this to chew on in the interim!

minors dni - warnings for heavy gore, graphic violence, fatal injury, character death, and loss of bodily autonomy. we’re right in the thick of it, my loves! it’s VERY bloody and gory, so please consider yourself warned. 

Most of the fighting seems to be inside the building, from what you can tell. Several floors' worth of windows seem to have been smashed out - presumably there was a Sonal Energetic running around up there at some point - and what little you can see looks like absolute hell. Crumbling walls, crushed furniture, what might have once been a potted plant by the entrance now reduced to ash. A screaming figure tumbles from a fifth floor window, disappearing behind a half-collapsed wall, and then they’re not screaming any more. 

Maybe it’s best to breathe through your mouth for a little while. Caelum leads you onwards past the Spire proper, hurrying towards one of the adjoining buildings, and you try not to think about what you’re running through. 

Magic really can be nasty stuff, especially when it comes to all the juice and slush that’s supposed to be inside a human being. Spit and skin and acid, hair and teeth and fingernails. A hellish collage. Your head spins, stumbling as a vampire boots what must be a Graviton Energetic through a nearby fence, only to slump lifeless to the ground as a vicious-looking Dreamwalker comes up behind him. Half-melted fat falling off the bone as the fire rages on, sizzling and crackling as an unlucky Stealth loses a fistfight with a Fire Elemental. Mmm. Delicious.

Over there!

A high-pitched voice in your head breaks your spiral, and you follow Caelum’s gaze over to what looks like the tail end of a pretty nasty scuffle by the entrance to one of the buildings. All the glass has been smashed out of the revolving door, and the lights inside flicker unsteadily through the ruined brickwork.

As a blood-soaked vampire stumbles out of the door, her eyes fix onto you, and no amount of [REDACTED] was ever going to be a match. Protectively, you push Caelum behind you, but it doesn’t matter. A split second is enough. You feel the iron beginnings of a trance forming in your mind, stiffening in your spine, racing through the bone and crawling up into your brain. Black water chokes you, thrashing and screaming in the instantaneous stillness of your body, before-

“-!!”

[im-just-a-ghost5]

The only way I can describe how I feel right now is like roadkill.

I have been hit by a strong, invisible force and my body is now laying alongside the road. My chest has been cracked open- heart on display, bloody ribs protruding from a gaping hole in my sternum. My weaknesses on show.

My head is slumped, like it's far too heavy for anyone to even think about picking up. My neck is broken, seemingly from the weight- but most likely from the impact. My arms and legs seem fine, almost like I am curled and asleep. The curling is the only way to feel any kind of hope for myself; if I curl up, then it feels like that invisible force can't reverse back over me.

There are bugs inside the cavity of my chest. They gnaw at me, ready to absorb my nutrients so they themselves are stronger. Ready to make me completely disappear into a pile of chalky bones- you touch them, and they will crumble, I guarantee it.

The thing about being roadkill is that I am left on a busy road. Cars are passing by each and every day, multiple times a day, for days on end. They look, at my mangled remains and the bugs crawling into my skin and the blood smeared across asphalt- and they drive straight past. They all gawk at the gorey scene, glancing at me in some kind of pity, but no one thinks to move me into the woods.

No one thinks to bury me sweetly, under green grass and daisies so that my soul may find its own peace. They just keep driving.

[ottitty]

Content warning: Body gore and obsessive relationships used as a thinly veiled metaphor for gender dysphoria and mental illness.

I'd like to crawl up within your rib cage just to feel your blood against my skin. I'd like to grip your heart in my hands just to feel it beat in my fist. It isn't enough to lay next to you, I need to breathe the air whistling out from your lungs when they're torn and sew myself up in a sinewy blanket made of your skin.

It's been a long time since I've seen the sun. My skin is pale and my bones are a cracking, splintering cage, holding a heavy stone heart that cares for little else than you. I know you'd have to understand it from the way I can watch my hands push against your brittle bone as it crumbles from the inside out.

We were always told that humans were meant to find their other half; to bond and become one with someone they loved. Was this not the sacred union they'd promised?

[loverboy-havocboy]

Mushroomgate! I neeed

mushroomgate was answered here my beloved 💖 however, i do have another written part i can offer you! read the other post first to understand, but this is boost's pov later on.

uhh warning for hospitals and angst

Boost hates hospitals. Everything about them makes his skin crawl: the unnatural stillness of the air, the cold, monotonous beeping of machines, and the smell - god, he especially hates the smell. It’s always the same, somehow, no matter what hospital you’re in. They all smell just like this. But Sinker is here. So here he is, enduring the stillness, and the beeping, and breathing in the same air he did the day his parents died. Hoping that this is not the day he loses Sinker. He lets out a shaky breath, one hand coming to lay over his chest, as if that could calm the aching pressure behind his ribs - the pressure that started there when Sinker told him what was on his pizza. He’s managed to keep it contained since then, pushing and pushing and pushing against it, squashing it down so he could take care of business. Now, business is taken care of. There’s nothing left for him to do. He can’t be with Sinker. He’s called their parents. He’s called Comet. He wants to call them back, just to hear their voices, because he thinks it might fend off the way the pressure is building now inside his ribcage. That would worry them, though, and they’re already worried about Sinker. He couldn’t do that to them. He thinks he’s out of words, anyway, but he needs - something. Someone. He always tries so hard not to need someone. To be the one people can lean on. It’s in his stomach now, and his arms. It’s bubbling up faster than he can shove it back down. He clenches his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms, and tries to breathe deeply, but it’s happening all wrong. Too fast, too shallow. Please, not now. Not here. Not when Sinker is hurt. Not when Comet is on his way. He’ll be scared. He’ll need me. Still, the pressure mounts - a buzzing under his skin, an ache in the marrow of every bone. It fizzes and pops inside of him, like he’s a bottle of soda that’s been shaken violently and left to sit. It fills every inch of him until there’s nowhere left for it to go, until his body is shaking too. That’s when he knows he’s past the point of no return; the dam is crumbling and there's nothing he can do to hold back the flood any longer. Boost has no choice but to pull his knees up to his chest, tuck his head between them, and let out a harsh, keening sob.

you can't tell from how i treat him, but i love my little autism creature

[beevean]

❤️️

I started writing Grip at around... I think November 2022? And I published the first chapter in March 2023. I published the third one in June 2024. That's more than a year of growth in writing, and it shows! Reading it now gives me whiplash because it's like someone else took over by the end! But no, it's still me! I'm proud!

like, maybe it's just me, but I see the evolution chapter by chapter:

He had discarded his old armor, sometime before collapsing and awaiting death: even as he left a trail of blood in his way, he had enough pride to not accept going to Hell in the clothes of the life that he had thrown away. While Hector is aware that his silver hair makes him stand out amongst crowds, he had refused to brand himself – he never felt the need to flaunt – therefore on his skin, at the very least, he doesn’t carry the sins of his past. Without the crest on his back and the demonic legions at his command, he should be hardly recognizable as one of the infamous Devil Forgemasters that became the scourge of Wallachia. And yet he can’t shake the fear that the others can sense it coming from him, the curse that taints him, comes from him like a miasma, that marks him as an abnormal creature masquerading as a human being.

On other days, the tide overflows and overwhelms him, and Hector drowns in a cell of his own mind. The dark magic that flows in his blood and impregnates his flesh screams and gnaws at him from the inside, it doesn’t accept being suppressed and denied: Hector can wear the mask of a human as long as he likes but he cannot repress his true nature as demon. It is what his old friends tell him, who have come back to whisper vile temptations in his ear, because they never left him and will never leave him and are part of him – they cackle at his futile attempts to pretend to be a person, coward who doesn’t know how to accept reality, how can a spit in the face of God expect to find a place among His creation? Murderer, traitor, scum, what are you doing here living among innocents? You should rot under the ruins of your true home, in the grave of your old master, keep company to your dearest friend. And they pull him by the collar, they sink their claws into his skin and don’t let him go, they insist on dragging him towards the castle once again like when he was a child and they showed him his only source of salvation, the only paradise that a blasphemy of nature like Hector could deserve.

He crawled as far as his broken body would carry him, low and miserable like the beast he was. The magic that Lord Dracula had imbued in him had long bled out of him, leaving him sapped of all strength. On the edges of his mind, the memory tasted familiar, like ashes and coal and shrill screams of people who deserved to die; but unlike then, Hector no longer burned. His bones were rattled by uncontrollable tremors, as he dragged himself towards nowhere deep in the forest, sight too bleary to enjoy his first dawn ever since his rebirth. A particularly old tree near a crumbled wall marked the end of his wandering. As in a dream, he ripped from his chest his damned uniform soaked with mud and blood, his and Isaac’s, and there he closed his eyes, and allowed the dullness of senses to envelop him in bliss. The smell of petrichor and chirping of birds lulled him to an end that didn’t fit an executioner like him. Death would not be so kind as to reach him soon. That was fine. He was in no rush. God, God – hah, he truly was delirious, he’d always be a deluded child – if You have mercy for the wretched as the Christians say… send me back where I belong, I beg of You. Please, for once, heed my voice. He would have laughed. All that effort to sever his bonds with them, only to rejoin them soon in the afterlife. They would all have a good guffaw, as they tore each other to shreds for all eternity. But God, the spiteful being He had always been, did not send His smiting hand. Instead, the one who lent her hand was an angel with a smile warmer and brighter than the sun shining upon Lord Dracula’s and Isaac’s defeat.

I fear that I've grown stagnant and complacent in my writing, then I re-read my past works, and aside from the occasional cringing, I do see that no, I've improved, while still being recognizably me! So once I'll be done, this unassuming 4-chapter fic will be testament to all my work and I'm very happy :D

... well, if I can keep up the quality ofc. It's not given. I'm a huge perfectionist...

[thewalkingcigarette]

I had sex with him in the dirt.

The dust is all I felt. It seeped from his skin, it coated his hair, it painted his tongue dark. I pushed my teeth against his, I made music with our bones. I thrust my hips against his and watched each touch crumble more of myself away. I was a machine incapable of restraint. The motors in my body smashed me to bits.

I poured two shots of Bacardi in my morning cup of coffee today, because I wanted my morning cigarette to feel better. My parents left home to vote. I am not a citizen. I infiltrated this house in 2011. I ate the girl alive and crawled inside her bed. Sometimes, her skin slips off my own. I sew it back together late at night. I can’t remember if the holes were there before I was.

I haven’t eaten in three days. I have swallowed food, but I am not eating. I wait until I’m high enough or drunk enough, and then I lose myself. I chew with my eyes closed. In the morning, I’m confused by the fullness of my stomach. For nothing has moved inside the fridge, nothing has disappeared in the cabinets. What do I eat late at night? The dog looks at me nervously. The window is left cracked. A breeze brushes through.

I tore my nails off three months ago after smoking pot and losing my mind. Do not eat items you are not meant to. Do not swallow items that your body does not ask for. The itch might have killed me, but luckily, I detached my mind from my body in order to relieve myself. I ripped off every nail, pesky parts that kept me from scratching at the perpetrator. When blood soaked my sheets, I felt freedom.

I carry a book in my bag as if I will not spend all of my free time thinking about nothing. I cannot do anything when I smoke cigarettes, so I think. And considering how black and blue my chest aches, I think often. I eat ten cigarettes and smoke five. I leave the rest for middle schoolers who hate their parents. I feel sorry for them. They will slowly forget the anger they felt, and they will slowly forget their promise to be better adults. They will treat children the way they were treated as children. The least I can do is give them a cigarette before it goes to shit.

[uroborosymphony]

7 - calista (from tvsteoftrvgedy)

#7 THINGS YOU SAID WHEN OUR WORLD BEGAN TO CRUMBLE. FROM THINGS YOU SAID ⬩ Still accepting.

"You should not be here." Her words were cold. Colder than they ever were, as cold the tone of her carnation that has been mutating since the Witches curses have fallen upon. The kingdom was of blood and horrors, bodies piling up in front of the palace doors, a blood bath raging as every single living soul was losing their minds, killing each other, killing themselves due to an unbearable force, one that the freshly turned Lamia became. Slowly, she turned around to face the other, her dress of an immaculate luxurious white covered in reds of bloods, some fresh, some dried as if the soon-to-be-queen have spent days standing here, not cleaning herself from her sins. Her eyes were basking in an unstability and sorrow so deep, that the tears of rage have marked and deformed her features while the devil slowly crawled under. "I will kill you." Her lip and corner of her eye twitched into a sad, mad, ironic, desperate state, defeated by her own tragic destiny, her own punishment. "The monster under my skin, it is going to take the life out of the soul of yours, Jieun. In the way it has killed and tortured every single living soul that has come near me. It simply was a matter of time, was not it? That a heart as petrified and rotten as mine become the source of this kingdom's decline and fall. They tricked me, The Witches of the Moutains, their chaos magic penetrated inside of me, inside of my bone and blood, it turned me into this... creature... I wish to never pronounce the name of." Her pain was grand and her despair so deep tears started raising again, her eyes now staring down at her hands, wide open, perhaps still in shock. "I have simply asked them for the world to see me for who I truly am. I wanted my beauty inside to shine. How ridiculous. How ironic. That I fooled myself believing my inners were beautiful when truly, they were an abomination all along." Her hands were shaking, and so was her voice. "DO NOT. COME. NEAR ME." She shouted as from the corner of her she caught Jieun making one small step into her direction, her voice causing her friend's body to unconsciouly follow the order and instantly freeze. Frightened, the princess stumbled back until her back hit the window, petrified every time one of her powers manifested, taking control of minds and bodies around her, bending them until death follows. "Why would you even come here ? I have condamned you since the moment you have been by side. Gungnyeos were foolish, idiotic in their jealousy, in their envy. What was so envious about being attached to the malediction I was meant to become? Every single moment we have shared paved to this instant. The instant I would betray you out of my own monstrosity... - ." She paused, closing her eyes, focusing the hardest she could to release her friend's body from her hypnosis, not opening them just yet, perhaps scared to harm the only person who came back here, in this empty castle surrounded by death, to see her, to talk to her - the only friend she ever had. Her fists and jaw remained clenched and her eyes close, in frustration, in fear, in pain.

"Run. As far as you can, run. And never cross paths with me. Ever again. Please."

[098-lxxon]

Decaying

I am a disgusting, disturbing pieces of corpse waiting to be liberate.

My bones crushed into powder and my body are crumbling down inside.

But this meat armour still trying to keep me away from getting point and laugh by thousands of people around who would screams like war cries.

And will do everything to makes themselves feel like they had it worse.

And I should be grateful for what I have.

People's words are just like worms swarming into me.

And their actions are maggots crawling up on my skin.

Parasite choose me as it's host. And I'm not doing anything about it.

As least I'm the choice that are chosen for once.

At least they makes me feel like I'm worthy enough to be chosen.

This world is

Disgusting,

Disturbing,

Rotting,

Decaying

Just like me.

And this is just a part of my decomposition.