#THESE GUYS ARE MY FAVOURITE MONSTERS EVER

[empressofthewind]

Rating Reactions to Seeing Shinigami for the First Time

A comprehensive (and probably biased) list :-)

~~~

Chapter 1 - Light

Falls on the floor and screams, then recomposes himself and very unconvincingly pretends he expected this. This is the first we get to see of Light's Perfectly Normal And Chill Guy persona and I have to say it's not a strong introduction to his acting skills. He gets points for entertainment value though, and also for managing to scream without attracting the attention of his family???

Rating: 8/10

~~~

Chapter 7 - Kiichiro Osoreda

This is the guy who performs the bus-jacking that forces Raye to show his ID. It's a very entertaining scene, but he's being controlled and his reaction is therefore inauthentic, which makes it difficult to give him an accurate rating.

Rating: 0/10

~~~

Chapter 26 - L

This one doesn't technically count because L is merely hearing about Shinigami rather than seeing one, but it's too good not to include. He silently falls off his chair while actively solving a murder case in which the main cause of death has been heart attacks. Naturally the entire task force panics and thinks he's dying, and he does nothing to assuage these concerns. Absolutely iconic of him. Also makes for brilliant foreshadowing.

Rating: 10/10

~~~

Chapter 46 - Misa

We don't get to see Misa's very first reaction to meeting Rem, but we DO see their reunion during the Yotsuba arc, and she is horrified. She screams just like Light and L did, and her fear persists as long as Rem's hand is covering her mouth. She reacts pretty much how I would expect the average person to.

Rating: 5/10

~~~

Chapter 53 - Soichiro

Another pretty standard reaction. Falls backwards, screams and immediately reaches for his gun. Nothing remarkable about it.

Rating: 3/10

~~~

Chapter 53 - Aizawa

Exact same reaction as Soichiro, but he gets extra points because this panel of them both panting on the floor is utterly delightful. The eyes?? The pose???? They look like a pair of petrified crabs. I'm obsessed.

Rating: 8/10

~~~

Chapter 53 - L (again)

L has heard that Shinigami exist and already knows that there's a "monster" attached to the notebook, so he's not surprised at all by the time he actually sees Rem. Instead, he starts having such an intense and paralysing epiphany that he doesn't even notice Light taking the Death Note from him. The least dramatic reaction so far but incredibly on-brand for him in every way.

Rating: 6/10

~~~

Chapter 70 - Rod Ross

Freaks out once he actually sees Sidoh, but he's incredibly relaxed about the notebook flying beforehand. His line "I wouldn't be surprised if it's alive" is hilariously ironic given that the notebook does turn out to have a living component to it, and this does, in fact, surprise him.

Rating: 7/10

~~~

Chapter 70 - Kal Snydar

One of my favourite reactions purely for the implication that Rod might have recruited an 8-foot-tall man in a monster costume. Perfectly reasonable assumption to make.

Rating: 9/10

~~~

Chapter 70 - Mello

Much like L, everyone around him is panicking, but he stays impressively nonchalant. Immediately starts plotting ways to manipulate the demon creature for his own gain. This is essentially L's reaction if he was 90% more unhinged.

Rating: 10/10

~~~

Chapter 101 - Near

Only character to look genuinely happy about seeing the Shinigami which is an instant 10 for me. He gets an extra point for having the most precious smile ever <3

Rating: 11/10

[peebeexd]

quarrister + most of my headcanons for these bastards. i love them so much.

[abisalli]

bone apple teeth laios dungeon meshi!

[thunderstomm]

In my Heath Burns G3 era... he's so cute I can't. They couldn't give me this picture and expect me NOT to change my profile pic. !!

If you don't like G3 Heath that's your loss, he's literally the silliest guy and I love him.

[sunnie-angel]

week 1 (oct. 4) | voice kink

✮⋆˙ baby (2.3k)

it's been a long, shitty day and all jason wants to do is call his baby back home. they have a great idea of how to make the day end on a high note

tags: gn!reader, established relationship, guided masturbation, phone sex, voice kink, exhibitionism, sub!jason

⊘ this is an 18+ fic. minors do not interact, you will be blocked

Jason Todd throws himself onto the shitty motel bed and groans with relief. See, normally he wouldn’t collapse into bed right after a shower with his curls still damp but it’s been such a long day that he can’t be assed about flattening them on the cardboard thick pillow. He’s spent enough time since his rebirth to figure out how to make his curling hair look not terrible even after wearing a helmet for hours on end but the 18-metre tall intergalactic monster really killed any desire to make an effort.

Now Jason’s strictly a local guy – a hometown hero, if you will – but Dick had asked with his perfected puppy eyes and sickening earnestness and now here Jason is, all the way on the other side of the country from you and privately wanting a word with Lovecraft over just where he got his inspiration for Cthulu from. Somehow, due to unknown methods of persuasion (Dick’s puppy eyes), Jason had signed himself up to stay behind a second day just to make sure the quasi-scientifical-mostly-magical inter-dimensional crazy glue actually held the fabric of the universe together. So here he is, stuck in the least sleazy motel that had survived the day’s carnage with walls so paper thin he can hear Roy’s terrible singing echoing off the shower tiles. ‘Flawless victory’ or whatever the line is.

Too exhausted to change out of his towel or bother getting up to bang on the wall he shares with Roy, Jason paws at the night stand for his phone. Hopefully it’s had enough time to charge because he’s been itching to call home ever since he left the city boundaries. Listening to the phone ring, he closes his eyes, rests the back of his wrist across his forehead and waits. God he hopes you pick up.

“Hiya baby,” you greet him, voice tinny through the phone’s speakers. “You have fun fighting the creature from the deep? It was all over the news.”

“Remind me never to do Dick a favour ever again,” Jason grumbles. “Give me a crime lord with a hard on for sequins and leather any day. Never again.”

“Good, I don’t have to worry about you suddenly wanting to become a space man,” you snip back. Jason can just picture you nodding along with your words, already mentally discarding a desire that hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“See if I ever leave the state again! I had to spend 30 minutes in the shower trying to get the mysterious space gunk off and I don’t think any amount of washing is going to get my pants back to normal.” Genuinely Jason feels rubbed raw, the cheap bar soap in the bathroom basically doing nothing against the battle wreckage. He’s only glad he wore his second favourite pair of tac pants today. “Shit, I don’t think I even packed any spare underwear.”

“Oh so it’s that kind of phone call, huh?” your voice suddenly drops, low and purring where it was playful earlier.

“Wha– no, I didn’t– I mean,” Jason splutters. The motel room is suddenly boiling, AC probably on the fritz.

“Uh-huh, I’m sure you didn’t, baby,” you humor him. “Calling me up in nothing but a towel and lettin’ me know you don’t even have any underwear on.”  

“I just really need to do laundry!” is what comes out of Jason’s mouth in a mortifying mixture of embarrassment and growing horniness.

“All that talk about leather and showering, and you aren’t teasing me, hmm?” Jason can feel his hesitation crumbling at the sound of your voice, all whiskey and sin. “Left me alone for the whole weekend, aching for your touch. But you’re not teasing, right baby?”

“I wouldn’t wanna–“ Jason swallows thickly, adam’s apple bobbing, “–wanna leave you hangin’. But I uh, I don’t really know how to do this.” He whispers the last part like a secret, a confession of his innocence just for your ears. 

You laugh with delight, not even the busted speakers able to disguise the richness of it. Jason thinks he’d quite like to bathe in that sound.

“I’ve got you baby, you don’t need to worry about that. You just gotta come along for the ride. Can you do that? Just make yourself feel good with me?”

Jason nods, too lightheaded with how fast this conversation has changed direction to realize you can’t see him.

“Need you to use your words Jay,” you prompt him.

He flushes, embarrassment ripping through him.

“Y-yeah. I can do that. I can be sweet,” voice strangled in his throat. “But gotta– gotta be quiet ‘cause the walls are thin.”

“Okay! We can make quiet work. Baby’s first phone sex,” you say with palpable glee. Jason could swear he hears you rubbing your hands together, scheming. “Are you sitting or standing?”

“M’lying down,” he mumbles. “On the bed.” Jason’s trying to be helpful – he really is! – but the self-consciousness is creeping in, blurring out the edges of his vision. His room seems larger than it was an hour ago, suddenly hyperaware of every inch of space that doesn’t have you in it. The terrible singing through the walls echoes.

“Why don’t you prop yourself up on the pillows, get yourself all nice and comfy,” you direct him. There’s a corresponding sound of rustling coming over your end of the phone as Jason adjusts himself. Tucks two pillows under his back and neck until he’s satisfied that this is probably what you want from him. The cheap duvet scratches at his back, fabric bunching up beneath him.

“What about you?” he asks, sinking back into the disappointingly thin pillows.

“Me? I’m lying in our big, empty bed. It’s a little cold without the blankets, you can see my nipples right through my shirt.” Jason has to swallow back a sudden mouthful of saliva at the image. “Oh! And I put a towel down because I don’t want to sleep in the wet spot later and I plan on you making me messy.”

Jason has to fight the audible click of his jaw to keep the phone balanced on the pillow beside him as his muscles tense.

“Yeah? All of that for me?” he manages to get out.

“Why would I ever wanna do this with anyone else?” Something warm and possessive curls through Jason’s gut. “Now, you still in that little towel you were telling me about?” you ask.

“Uh-huh, still damp too.”

“Bet your skin is all lovely and warm. Poor baby rubbed himself raw trying to get clean, bet my baby’s just so sensitive now,” you drawl.

Jason looks down at himself, flushed torso still beaded with water. The towel, loosely wrapped around his waist, does very little to hide his dick chubbing up. It would be embarrassing, how quickly he gets hard for you with just a few coy words, if it wasn’t so hot. A door slams in another room.

“S’cold here. Feels– feels real nice on me.” It’s true. The working AC blasts directly onto his heated skin, gooseflesh rising across his forearms.

“Good. Can you touch yourself baby – only above the waist – like I’m the one touching you. Want you to tell me as you do it.”

Jason swallows. Hard. Slowly drags a hand up across his torso to press his thumb into the divot of his collarbone. Lips part with anticipation.

“Your fingers are on m’clavicle,” he whispers.  Slowly he drags his hand down to cup his chest, nipples tight from cold and arousal. “Now you’re touchin’ my chest. Squeezing. M’skin’s so sensitive, feels real nice.”

“Yeah? You lettin’ me feel up your tits baby?” you whisper and Jason chokes. Feels something hot unfurl in his brain at hearing his chest called something so vulgar.

“They’re not– not– ” he stutters.

“Not what?” you cut him off. “Not tits? ‘Course they are, nice big handfuls too. Want you to cup your tits baby, want you to play with them.”

Jason does, cups each pec in a large hand and squeezes, marvels at how his tits spill out around his fingers even as he feels the blush crawling down his chest. The side of a finger brushes a nipple and he has to bite back a groan at the sensation. Arches his back just to get a better view, imagines your hands are the ones on him. You don’t stop talking the whole time.

“–that be fun? I bet I could make you come just from playing with your tits. But I wanna see that in person so let’s wait on that, hmm?”

If Jason’s brain wasn’t melting out of his ears, he’d be able to tell you exactly how big a fan he is of that idea. As it is, he manages a sort of hrnng in a register he’s never been able to hit without a sharp kick to the balls first. He freezes, but Roy’s awful banging about continues. Jason sighs in relief.

“Oh you would like that. Now, take one of those nice big hands of yours and wrap it around your throat. Don’t squeeze, just hold it there for me baby. Take your time and unwrap yourself for me.”

With his eyes closed, he can almost picture it’s your smaller hand a steadying weight across his collarbones. Idly he trails his other hand down his torso, lets it trace over scars and follows his happy trail down to where it meets the knotted towel.

“Words,  baby,” you prompt him and he has to fight the thick syrup in his veins to put a thought together.

“M’undoin’ the towel,” he whisper slurs.

The cold air finally hitting his damp cock is heady. It springs up, already drooling with pre and Jason knows he’s not gonna last much longer with you purring in his ear. He reaches down and grabs hold of himself, has to bite his lip and close his eyes against how raw it feels.

“Holdin’ the base. Gonna– gonna cum if I don’,” he pants. 

There’s rustling on the end of the line, slick wet sounds as you start to split yourself open on your own fingers. Something like pride throbs in his chest at the sound, that even all the way over here he can still get you desperate for him.

“Good baby, good,” you praise him and he puffs up at that, chest arching out. “Can take your hand off your throat now, want you to play with yourself.”

His other hand slowly trails down to join the first. Jason huffs when it brushes a particularly sensitive patch of skin, gooseflesh raised. He cradles his balls with it, feels how heavy and tight they already are from just some words and a few light touches. Rolls them in his palm and has to wheeze out a breath between clenched teeth at how goddamn good it feels.

“It’s– m’balls are heavy. Needta– needta come,” he grits out. Begging seems like a good idea, why hasn’t he tried begging yet? “Please?”

“Ye-ah baby,” you say. It’s the first time all night that your composure has slipped and Jason is preening at the slight hitch he put in your voice. “Want you to fuck your fist like you’re fucking me and then you come alright?” 

Jason can’t do much more than pant his agreement into the phone, voice stolen by the feeling of that first tentative stroke of his cock. God he wishes it was your hand, or better yet the hot, tight clutch of your body welcoming him home. With his hand slicked in pre and almost painfully tight, he can imagine its you sinking down around him with that cheshire cat grin of yours. Lewd, wet sounds of flesh on flesh fill the motel room as Jason works himself over. Sets a vicious twist of his wrist to the end of each stroke that has him gasping for air, hips bucking up to meet it. His teeth ache with the strength of his desire to come, something hot and heavy gathering low at the base of his spine.

“M’close,” he grunts, wants to give you what you want.

The wet, filthy sounds from your end of the line speed up in their intensity.

“Wanna hear you when you come baby,” you gasp, all pretense dissolved under the building pleasure.

And Jason wants to be good but, but–

“Roy’s– Roy’s gonna hear.”

“Yeah? What’s he gonna hear? You being a good boy for me baby, doing exactly as your told? He gonna hear just how desperate your are to get your dick wet for me?”

Jason goddamn whines, high and wanton and desperate for your approval. The singing from next door abruptly stops. I hope that doesn’t awaken anything in me, Jason thinks hysterically before he stops thinking at all.

He comes babbling your name like a holy catechism, cum spurting all over his fist and belly. Muscles spasming under skin that feels too tight, mouth drier than dirt. Spent and over-sensitive, he lets go of his dick just as he hears your own orgasm take you under. Jelly limbed and feeling better than he has all day, he lolls cum drunk on the bed. Two sharp rapid knocks on the wall startle him but do nothing to cut through the lovely post-orgasmic high. If anyone deserves to be a little out of it in this moment, it’s him.

“Saw you took a pretty bad tumble...” you trail off leadingly, voice lilting upwards.

“Looked a lot worse than it was. Medics gave me a clean bill of health and everything.” It’s odd to be the one doing the soothing, Jason thinks, still fucked out and blinking away stars.

“But you’d tell me if it wasn’t, right?” you press him.

“Course baby, you’d be the first person I call.”

[feeder86]

Feeder 86: The Top Ten

Can you believe that the Feeder86 ‘Orginal Gainer Stories’ blog will soon be posting the two hundredth story? I thought of many ways to celebrate. But then I stopped and realised that I would probably be best using the time to address one of the questions I get asked about most frequently. Which of the stories do I personally like the most?

This was not an easy list to make as I very rarely go back to re-read my own work after I have finished editing and posting them. This is not because I do not like them, but because I always see bits that I want to change. Nevertheless, this project was the perfect opportunity to revisit a few oldies that I remember being very proud of at the time. 

Hopefully you will see this list for what it is: a glimpse into how I write, my motivations and drive; rather than just a self indulgent pat on the back for myself. Yuck!

So, with that being said, let us begin...

#10 The Feeders’ Formula: This tale certainly had to be placed into the list. After all, it is the one that kicked off ‘Original Gainer Stories’ all those years ago. There are many amazing examples of instant body weight transformation stories out there. I felt that I needed to write this one as my contribution to the genre. It went down well at the time. I swiftly wrote a Part Two, then followed it up with others (The Feeders’ Formation, The Feeders’ Formalities, The Feeders’ Foreclosure, The Feeders’ Forecast, The Feeders’ Former Years), becoming something of an ongoing saga in recent years; focusing on the different Feeders from that very first meeting. As a writer who sometimes struggles to find the ending, these are wonderful to write as they all have the same inevitable conclusion. There is also so much freedom to be had when you’re working with characters who are pretty much pure evil. I know so much more about the Feeders than I’ve ever written down, so it is great to tease out those little details with each new installment. The newest of these tales (The Feeders’ Foreplay) was the darkest yet, but seems to have provoked a very favourable reaction from many. Who knows what the Feeders may get up to next? I do! And you can find out too, once we start a whole new sweeps season of stories this April! Come with me into The Feeders' Fortress!

#9 Only One: Where do I start? Only One has my absolute favourite type of feeder. Ben is big, sexy and very in control. He’s one of those rare types of guys who always stays on top and is a step ahead of absoultely everyone he meets. Who wouldn’t fall for him? I certainly did! In fact, I loved him so much that I wrote an entire prequel for him (and none of you even noticed!) Check out Rewire if you want to see how Ben became the man we know and love.

#8 The Wright Boys: The idea of a weight gain that cannot be stopped or controlled is a tempting one for many. How much easier would it be if you didn’t have to second guess your choices or face the pressure to lose weight? This was the first tale of what I see as ‘The Curses’ saga that eventually bled into many other stories (including another one on this list!) and culminated in Wright vs Beckett. However, this story remains my personal favourite of these. If you’re a fan of looking for crossovers between my stories, these are some of the most explicitly linked. I followed it up with a spin-off tale (The Wright Boys: DNA), but continue to have ideas about how I could go back to these boys in the future. Watch this space.

#7 Making Monsters: The title of this story really does give away how I felt about it at the time. This is quite the saga, spread over into not just two, but three parts! It began as a story that was very similar to Blackmailed; a tale that I had written previously about a guy voyeristically enjoying seeing his friend fatten up her boyfriend. However, this story evolved even further for me, with Tommy’s love of eating and gaining weight being both his greatest love, and his biggest shame. His denial only heightened the tension for me, and, when he does eventually give in, the gains feel all the more satisfying as a result.

#6 The Pig Feed: It’s not easy to write a gainer story where there isn’t another character spurring the events along and encouraging things. In this tale however, that role is given to a very tasty and surprisingly addictive pig feed mixture that Steve gets himself hooked on. It’s a story that I really enjoyed writing and still feel very happy with. I have considered writing more stories around this interesting feed. However, I am yet to do so; deciding (for now at least) that things are perhaps best left as they are. But, feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.

#5 Farm Boy: Whether you grew up in a big city, or a small rural community, like Hayden in this story, we can all relate to having desires and attractions that those around us don’t understand. And, thanks to how well connected we are these days, we now know what it’s like to realise that you’re not actually alone, and the whirlwind of excited emotions that follow. I enjoyed writing this story because I, quite simply, fell completely in love with Hayden. As kinky as he was, he still retained that fresh faced innocence throughout. If any of my characters were destined to be together forever, I imagine that these two would be my top choice.

#4 Keeping a Crush: This is one of those stories that I wrote in a matter of hours, and I was so pleased with it when I was done. Getting the train to go to work is not necessarily something that many Americans have to do, and so the location had to be switched to the UK (quite refreshing, I thought!). For me, it’s one of those really rare instances where placing very solid restrictions on the structure of a story (In this case, having it all take place during the commute to and from work) and finding that it actually elevates the sexual tension and mood. All scenes take place in public settings. All conversations could, in theory, be overheard. These days, so many people meet online and flirt for weeks by messaging back and forth, before they even see each other for the first time. Nowadays, for better or for worse, the actual, real fantasy is finding a connection with someone you just see in the real world; perhaps with a person you literally just met on the way to work...

If you’ve not read this one, I really would highly recommend it.

#3 To the Max: Stories with a magical element to them are either loved or hated. However, I find that this tale walks that line very successfully. Ned gets his hands on a love potion and makes straight guy, Max, fall for him. I’m sure we’ve all been there with that fantasy! However, it is in the consequences of inviting someone into your life, someone that you actually know very little about, that the entire eroticism of this story is based. I won’t spoil it for those who have not read it, but believe me when I say that things soon start getting very interesting indeed…

#2 Tommy’s Two Hundred. Don’t recognise this one? Well, that's because none of you have read it yet. 

Now, I’m not just saying this because I want you all to come back for the two hundreth story, but this is genuinely one of my absolute favourites. For my big milestone stories in the past, I have written something specifically for that event (Wright vs Beckett, The Seven Feeders of Finn). However, this is just a tale that I adored writing and decided to hold back for you all, especially for this occasion. It’s a story of domination and submission within a fairly open, but very kinky, relationship. Strapping Hunter plays the part of a very controlling feeder, making me break many of my own rules and stretching my boundaries to the absolute limits. You’ll either love him, or you’ll hate him. That’s all I’m going to say…

Also, this story is going to be the first Feeder86 story that will be fully illustrated. It’s all thanks to the amazing talents of Spellwell9 who was given an advanced copy and asked to imagine the characters in four different scenes. I cannot wait for you to see this!

Put it in your diary. All will be revealed from Friday 5th April…

#1 F80 Control: This is perhaps a controvercial choice (especially as my #1). I have previously admitted that this story strays a little from its purpose of being a gainer story. In other words, I get very caught up in the background story that is being told. However, I feel that the science fiction genre is surprisingly underused in tales of weight gain. Yet, the combination of Aritificial Intelligence and submission seemed, to me, to be the perfect blend. It really is a beast of a story if you can follow it all the way through to its conclusion. 

With the advent of improved artificial intelligence software in recent years, I felt the time was right to develop the world further, with the addition of F80 Ctrl Alt Del; a spin-off tale set slightly before the main story. Then, unable to help myself, I followed this up again with another companion story, F80: Kidnap and Control. 

The reason I chose this universe as my favourite is because this is where I am happiest writing. With AI, I don’t need to consider the morality or motivations - I know exactly what their aims are and I can see multiple ways in which it will cause conflict with humanity (and their waistlines!) I would also love to write more for this world one day, and I even left a little unused subplot in the last story that I think would provide the perfect starting-off point for another chapter. Will I ever write it? Well, we’ll have to wait and see…

So, there you have it! The the complete list!

This was a much harder exercise than I expected when I first embarked upon it. Stories like: Jiggle the Jock, Meticulous, Rule Number One, Freaks, Leftovers I and II, Ethan: The Secret Feeder and, not fogetting The Consequences I, II and III all crept in and out of the list, unfortunatley missing out on the final cut. There are many, many others, of course. But this list cannot go on forever...

So, why not tell me which ones were your favourites? Feel free to write in the comments and post a link to any other stories that you have enjoyed from myself, or from other authors. Hopefully, if we all work together, this could become a great resource for people in the future, filled with signposts and reccommendations.  

Also, don’t forget the Feeder86 Contents page where you can find links and descriptions of all the 200 stories posted so far (as well as plot outlines for upcoming tales as well). Please continue to enjoy the vast catalogue of stories, and even have a go yourself! I love supporting the many new gainer fiction writers who contact me. So please do get in touch if you need advice, or to talk through your ideas. Let’s all encourage a whole new generation of people to get typing away! I’m sure you will cheer them on just as much as I will.

Thank you to everyone who supports the stories blog here on Tumblr. Keep checking in every Friday througout April for a whole new sweeps season to celebrate this milestone. Stories will include: Tommy's Two Hundred, Train for a Gain, The Feeders' Fortress and The 1% (a companion story to The 5%). For now, I thank you all for taking time out to sit and read the very bizarre tales that sprout from my mind. You are all wonderful.

Happy 200 stories!

Feeder86

[floueris]

Boyfriend ? (西村力)

boyfriend!nishimura riki x reader

genre : fluff, headcannons, riki being the sweetest everrrrrr

summary : riki as your boyfriend

- most pookie boy everrrrr

- literally the sweetest ever

- the princess treatment is so real with him

- wanna pay for food ? he acts like you just asked him to slap you , wanna help him carry something ? he looks at you like you asked to break up with him

- would want to do anything and everything to make you happy

- looked at an item for a little long ? purchased ! even if you were stoning and happened to look in the direction of an item , riki doesn’t care, he’s just buying that

- ngl, you did tell him off a few times that he can’t just keep buying everything you look at, it’s just ridiculous

- you know what that sly boy did ? he hugged you and tried to gas light you that it was just his love language , like bro 😭😭 you are not about to spend your entire fortune on me

- ofc he had to use this situation to his advantage!! since you felt that you owed him something ?? why not be slick and ask for payment in the form of hugs and kisses (lol he think he sooo slick)

- literally sooooo clingy (I LOVE IT BYE 😭😭)

- literally wants to be attached to the hip if possible and is always asking for kisses

- but how could you refuse him when you want to kiss him and hug him just as much

- your partner privileges are through the roof

- riki literally looks at you like you hung the moon and the sky

- listens to everything that you say

- ask him to help you grab something ? already on his way, asked him to get a glass of water for you ? literally dropping everything and helping you

- but ofc riki isn’t riki without being a little shit sometimes

- always always always ask for a form of “payment” when he does something for you

- most of the time it’s usually hugs and kisses but once in a longgggg while he would just tickle the hell outta you (riki the tickle monster)

- secretly he knows that the reason why he tickles you is just to hear your unhinged laughter and giggles as you try to squirm out of his grip (he also enjoys the feeling of you squirming 🤷🏻‍♀️ he thinks it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen) but he gotta maintain his cool and acts like he only tickles you to keep things fun

- but he gotta be slick maintain his cool and mysterious demeanour okay…..

- he does look intimidating on the outside but he is the sweetest

- riki always is sooo kind and gentle to you

- literal definition of gentle giant

- so so so soooo sweet and always leaves sweet messages like “ hi babe, thought of you” and a pic of your fav food etc … or “ hi babe, miss you sooo much, have you eaten ?”

- always checks on you and always always asks if you have eaten

- if you haven’t, he would get pouty because why is his favourite person in the world not taking care of themselves

- when he’s not able to be physically with you he always takes more pictures and sends them to you and it’s super comforting to him because it makes him feel like you are there with him

- quality time is so important to him

- even if you are napping or he is napping he just wants you beside him at all times, it makes him feel so safe and comfortable in your presence

- talking about napping, he always needs a cuddle session before sleeping and would pet your head and play with your hair while asking about your day

- he always (like 99% of the time) makes sure that you are asleep before he sleeps, it’s the only way that he would be at ease knowing that his best girl was safe in his arms and he would just hug you a little tighter before drifting of to dreamland

- all in all riki is the best boyfriend ever !!!! (literally me when wtf😭😭😭 sobbing fr)

A/n : HI GUYS… idk if y’all rmb me but if ykyk, I hope you like my “ comeback” fic LOL, this was so cute I love riki sm 😭😭

[owlyjules]

My favourite Spooky things to enjoy on Halloween!!

Tought I would make a little list of spooky things to read, listen and watch for the big day!:D

I am pretty varried in scary scale but I tend to stay away from jumpscare! And I will try to not recommend the classic like "Over the garden wall" (1000/10 requiered halloween watch) and the classic movies like "beetlejuice" and " Hocus Pocus" since you guys probably know them well.:) Here goes! -------------------MOVIES-----------------------------

John Carpenter " The Fog"

(Classic old movie, 3.5/5 spooks, old practical horror effect, mood is 10/10 with bonus for having a lighthouse) 2. The Cat people (1942)

(very old movie, and has some old tropes but great tension in some scenes and has that feeling there is a monster about to pop out at any moment without the jumpscare. 2/5 spooky)

3. The Others (2001)

(SPOOKY! One of the first scary movies I watch. still get me. Love it. 5/5 spooky for someone like me.)

------------PODCAST--------------------------

13 Days of Halloween (Season 2 and 3 ESPECIALLY)

(Fantastic ambiance, amazing voice actors cast. Season 2 is in a small seaside town and very Lovecraftian + lighthouse, Season 3 is countryside great depression feel. Both fantastic. 5/5 spookies)

2. Old gods of Appalachia

(one of my favourite podcast. if you like the magnus archive, you will like this! one of the best narrators in the world of podcasting. 4/5 spookies)

3. Ghost Story Podcast

(Not really scary but an interesting investigation into familly history and probable haunt. Just a touch spooky. 1/5) ---------------BOOKS and MANGAS----------------

The twisted ones by T. Kingfisher

(Maybe because I grew up in the countryside with a house similar to that one on my street, it gets me. 5/5 spookies)

2. Even Monsters Like Fairytale

(Kinda villainess manga, kinda twisted fairytale, I highly rec this one! 1/5 spookies)

3. Shadow house

(I would rec reading the manga more than the anime, if only because the art get that mood even better in black and white and Somato is amazing! 3/5 spookies)

4. A guest in the house by Emily Carroll

(Uncanny and such an atmostphere! Emily Carroll is, as always, a master in scary stories! 5/5 spookies!)

5. Anything by Algernon Blackwood

(Old school gothic and short ghosts stories. perfect for your dark academia and victorian haunts feels! You can find a lot in free audiobook form too on youtube and spotify! 3/5 SPOOKIES) ---------------GAMES--------------

Little goody two shoes

(horror pixel art with the dark german fairytale look and yuri? yes please! 3/5 spookies!) 2. The return of the Obra Dinn

(Ghost ship, solving crimes, nautical spooks and amazing atmosphere. 3/5 spookies) 3. Emio, The smiling man

(Investigation game with amazing graphic and live 2d-animations! a touch of the supernatural. 3/5 spookies!) 4. Paranormasight

(Seriously one of the best supernatural games I ever played. can be done in 1 or 2 days, its funny, scary and amazing. 5/5 spookies)

And that concludes thjis little list! I could add even more and Might as I think of some!

[mochiepie]

Tits TyPa Man you ask? - sukuna

He is the epitome of "tits are the greatest invention, creation, whateva 'tion' just, tits are life" there's not a single day he is leaving without.. touching your tits, flicking your nipples or pinching them, squeezing them, biting them, or digging his long nails into your nipples and the flesh of your tits.

🍈 " you keep talking and giggling, and those milk monsters go boom boom on me brat!" yeah, that's the king of curses right there talking, like a toddler. Like wtf is boom boom?

🍈 when you weren't sukuna's gf or even wife, like the very first time you met him, girl. He wasn't even looking at your face. His eyes, were stuck on your.. titties. His face told that, he was wondering how your breasts looked like under your tshirt

🍈 he thought himself to be into ass, as with the amount of concubines he had slept with in the past. And that's when he totally went wrong when you walked towards him.. well not exactly towards him you walked past him when he saw you for the first time ever. His eyes got stuck on those magnificent 'boom boom' of yours. For the first time he doubted himself.. " i was.. into ass right? ....right? "

🍈 it's so normal now, his hands resting on your chest, not even in a sexual way.. just, laying on em, yeah it's his property, you just lucky enough to have tits attached to your body but it's .. his. He is the owner. You wanna take a bath? Sure, he'll be the one to wash, massage your breasts. He'll be the one to put the lotion on your titties, help you wear a bra and any dress. Why? Cuz you (your boobs) belong to him you stupid.

🍈 when you guys had sex for the first time, when he saw your glory, for the first time, your tits for the first time.. his 4 eyes snapped. He paused.. like *sukuna.exe stopped working* his four giant palms immediately kneading your tits simultaneously, like his movements were soo sloppy, inexperienced despite sleeping around with so many concubines, that is because no woman has ever tempted him the way you did. And yes, you changed him, you changed the king of curses completely. You made the ass guy turn into tits guy. "Fuck, these tits are gonna make my silk black sheets turn into white" and then, automatically he got the breeding kink, the thought of you getting pregnant?

🍈 sukuna threw your birth control and began to fuck you like a bitch in heat. Why? Cuz your tits would have milk. Simple. That's all what you lacked. What's the purpose.. of these gorgeous tits when it can't produce milk.. right? So he is being generous enough and planting his seeds in each round, making sure you womb is swollen. Your milk ain't belonging to his future child.. nah, it's his. His alone. Mf is jealous of his own child.

🍈 his favourite position? Missionary or you riding him. Why? TITS. he'll need your tits to stay motivated and keep fucking you. The bounce? The jiggle? The sounds? The perky nipples? Those areolas? The squishiness? Oh YEA

🍈 sukuna would always roll his tongue around your areolas, while his second mouth would be biting, digging those sharp canines in your other breast, he once bit your nipple so harsh, that made u bleed.

🍈 despite sukuna never caring for anyone, he cares immensely for you. He instantly began to give up, trying his best to remove this addiction to your tits. He loves you so why is he acting like some perv only blinded by your tits? Well, his will didn't even lashed 2 days and here again he is sucking your tits on the kitchen counter, your apron and tshirt thrown somewhere.

🍈 "you're the only woman who is... Making me get on my knees" sukuna isn't a man to show vulnerability.. but if showing his vulnerable nature makes you stay with him. Oh yes, he is ready to become a sub. He is too into you, drowned basically, and now he can't resist anymore.

🍈 while he sleeps, he'll unconsciously end up getting between your arms.. his face squished and pressed on your tits.. ocassionally licking and sucking your nipples and tits. Oh yes, you sleep naked. That's your relationship rule.. you can't sleep wearing something. You must sleep naked. He'll wake up, between your arms, pressed against your tits, and again begin his session of sucking titties. Yeah, that's his ritual. You can't stop him.

🍈 he is in some meeting? His subjects are busy talking? Yeah let em talk! He has your sitting on his lap while he is sitting on his lap. His 1 hands resting on your tits. Yeah, and if any of his subjects looks at you? Instantly "cleave" attack. Also, he likes to demonstrate his powers and show you how... You belong to him and if.. anyone even looks at you the way he does.. he gets pissed, super pissed. Like not even any enemy or opponent can piss him off more then if he catches any men or even women being tooo into you or your beauty. Just, not possible. You're only his. His alone. You can't even count on how many lives he has taken for you. Both men and women, he had killed just because they stared at u for longer then necessary, or tried to approach you. Also, you don't even know that he had killed anyone for you cuz.. how can he let his precious wifey know about his wrong doing.. right? He only shows his upper layer or a coating of his powers.. just to keep you under him. He can't think of traumatising you by showing his real doings. You're too precious.. also your tits.

[lotus-n-l0ve]

𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐀 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐳𝐞𝐞

— Peter Parker x Stark!Female Reader

☯ SYNOPSIS : When Peter's girlfriend pays him a little visit in Midtown High School and meets his long time bully, Flash Thompson.

☯ WARNINGS : Au, stark!reader, Peter is barely present in the fic, cursing.

☯ NOTE FROM LOTUS : Hey guys. I have been having such a bad writer's block that I couldn't write anything for past few weeks. I'm writing this to, hopefully, get over my writer's block.

𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 || 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐋 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

The red Saleen S7 car, parked outside of Midtown High School, gaining curious glances from the students and passersby. You wait, sitting on the driver's seat, with your phone in your hand. The past week you were out of the country with your father so you had not seen him for the past seven days and barely got to talk to him.

So when you came back today, you wanted to give him a surprise visit. You came here, all confident, but now you were doubting your choices. Maybe you should just wait till school ends?

Fuck it. You are Y/N Stark, girl. Since when do you get nervous?

You checked yourself last time in the back mirror. Perfect as always. You throw yourself a flying kiss and put on your favourite pair of glasses. The car door opens with a click and you get down. It was not long before you were walking down the halls of Midtown High, making everyone stop what they were doing and gawk at you.

You chuckle in your mind. Of course you loved being the centre of attention. You were Tony Stark's daughter after all. Now there's one problem. You don't know exactly where Peter is. You look around the hall before your eyes fall on a boy, sitting with two girl on each side.

Without any second thoughts, you walk up to him, "Hey, do you know where Peter Parker is?"

Flash tore his eyes from the beautiful girls in his arm to the legs standing in front of him. He raised his eyes to your face. His gaze so disgusting that made you want to throw up.

"Talking to me, angel?" Flash stood up, abandoning the girls.

You roll your eyes at his pathetic attempt of flirting. At least he got the angel part right.

"I asked if you know where Peter Parker is." You deadpan.

"Peter Parker? Oh! You mean penis Parker. What do you need with him? I'm sure I can help you way more than he can." Flash wiggled his eyebrows at you, giving you a suggestive look.

You just stared at him, completely unimpressed and now angered. This pathetic flirt has the audacity to call your baby penis— wait a damn minute. Penis Parker? Something clicked in your mind.

"Are you Flash Thompson?" You ask before you could stop yourself.

Surprise flashed on his face before a smug smirk appeared on his face.

"Wow! I know that I'm famous but not much. Damn!" He said, running a hand through his hair.

You giggle at his ignorance as you take off your glasses. Folding it and keeping it safely in your hand bag, you step towards him, closing the distance between you two.

"Listen here you little shit." The smirk on his fell at your words, "If I ever hear from Peter that even got anywhere near him, I'll kidnap you, shave off your head, leave you on a deserted island and post your disgusting nudes all over the internet."

"Wh—"

"Shut up and listen." Flash gulped with fear, his face covered in sweat. The menacing aura around you looked scarier than the monster under his bed.

You say while jabbing on his forehead with your pointer finger, "Don't think of him, don't look at him, don't walk on his direction, don't breathe on his direction. Don't go anywhere around my boyfriend. Got it, you failed experiment of a chimpanzee?"

"Y-yes, I....um, I-I..... I under-understand." He nodded his head vigorously. Anything to get away from you.

"Good." You back away, giving him space to finally breathe in relief. Fuck! He didn't know Peter's girlfriend was this scary.

"Y/N?" The familiar voice of your boyfriend called from behind and your demeanour changed like lizards change colours.

"Hey, Pete." You walk up, giving him a quick kiss, "let's go, you are skipping class today. I missed you."

You linked your arm with him and started dragging him out of the school. Peter complied with you because he did miss you a lot too and skipping one day was not going to do any harm on him.

"I missed you a lot." Peter smiled down at you.

You left the school, leaving behind a embarrassed Flash. After you two left did Flash realised the crowd of students circling around him in the hallway. And they were chuckling while looking down at his pants?

Flash looked, "FUCK!"

His blue jeans were now dark blue, water spread on the floor around him. He had peed in his pants. His face turned red with anger and embarrassment. He should not have fucked with Peter.

FUCK!

© 𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐔𝐒-𝐍-𝐋𝟎𝐕𝐄 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑, 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃 — all content rights belongs to LOTUS-N-L0VE. do not plagiarize any works and do not repost or translate onto any other sites.

All the rights and credits of the characters, gifs, songs and pictures used here belongs to their rightful owners.

[fanaticsnail]

Come and celebrate with me!

As a gift for myself, all I really want is you guys with me. I love this community here, and I hope you enjoy the month of October. With a variety of 'x reader' characters for you to become, come and enjoy being taken on a writing journey while I explore a variety of our favourites.

If you feel inclined to gift anything to me in return: Reblog any of the works on my Masterlist and tell me what you liked about it in the tags. Art will always be welcome for my works: if there's a scene that lingers on in your mind, I would love to see your interpretation. If there's ever a fic that you feel could be expanded on with words: upload what you write and tag me so I can get all giggly alongside you. Send me asks with your thoughts on characters, and I will appreciate all of them so much.

Tobiuo, my OC, is always on my heart. You're welcome to draw her, write about her, and enjoy her with me. Whether it's her ship (Tobiuo x Heat), platonic with her crew (Heart Pirates), or being alongside your own in any capacity: friends, enemies, lovers - I would love to see your interpretation of her.

Mdni, NSFW, 18+, characters and prompts below.

The Dinner Menu:

Multiple: First Time (Oct 30th)

Gn!reader

Beckman: Hair Pulling (Oct 1st)

Gn!reader

Law: Exhibitionism (Oct 2nd)

Afab!reader

Shachi & Penguin: Caught Masturbating (Oct 3rd)

Afab!reader

Doflamingo: Humiliation (Oct 4th)

Gn!reader

Bartolomeo: Pet-Play (Oct 5th)

f!reader

Wire: First Time (Oct 6th)

Afab!reader

Sanji: Boot Worship (Oct 7th)

M!reader

Killer: Blindfolds (Oct 8th)

Afab!reader

Heat: Feet (Oct 9th)

Afab!reader

Koby: Discipline (Oct 10th)

M!reader

Garp: Age Gap (Oct 11th)

F!reader

Caesar: Aphrodisiac (Oct 12th)

Afab!reader

Sabo: Gloves (Oct 13th)

Afab!reader

Kuzan: temperature play (Oct 14th)

F!reader

Bepo: Ursusagalmatophilia (furry) (Oct 15th)

Afab!reader

Fujitora: Suspension (Oct 16th)

F!reader

Katakuri: Food (Oct 17th)

Gn!reader

Lucci: Marking (Oct 18th)

F!reader

Jinbei: Double Penetration (Oct 19th)

Afab!reader

Crocodile: Spanking (Oct 20th)

Gn!reader

Cracker: Mommy (Oct 21st)

F!reader

Zoro: Cuddlefucking (Oct 22nd)

M!reader

Cross-Guild: Free Use (Oct 23rd)

F!reader

Franky: Body worship (Oct 24th)

Gn!reader

Buggy: Chastity (Oct 25th)

Gn!reader

Mihawk: Knife-Play (Oct 26th)

F!reader

Reiju: Poison Play (Oct 27th)

F!reader

Tashigi: Face Sitting (Oct 28th)

Gn!reader

Robin: Overstimulation (Oct 29th)

Afab!reader

Borsalino (Kizaru): Roleplay (Oct 30th)

F!reader

Kid: Halloween (Monster Edition) (Oct 31st)

Gn!reader

Rosinante: Love Confession (Nov 1st) My Birthday

F!reader

🎶Happy Birthday to me🎶

If you would like to celebrate by indulging my caffeine and bubble tea addiction, my Kofi link is here.

[nataliasquote]

Double the trouble | new families | n romanoff

Summary: the twins take a trip to meet new family members, but it doesn’t go as smoothly as Natasha wanted

Age: 3.5 years old

Warnings: cute Mama Nat content

wc: 4.4k

Pairings: WandaNat

Note: I’m not a WandaNat stan, it’s never been my first choice of ship, so tbh I’m still questioning how I ended up with this pairing in this series. Which is why I focus so heavily on Natasha’s relationship with the twins, because it’s something I’m used to writing. Hopefully that clears up why my writing is so imbalanced x

-⧗-

Natasha would be lying if she said that the thought of what was coming today hadn’t kept her awake for most of the night. Wanda slept soundly by her side, unaware of the anxiety coursing through her wife’s body. The older redhead kept her eyes glued to the bedroom door, expecting one if not both toddlers to come running in in the middle of the night as monsters plagued their dreams. But it wasn’t weirdly quiet, which didn’t help to settle Natasha.

It was barely 5:30am by the time she had pulled herself out of bed and padded down to the kitchen, careful not to make any noise past the twins’ rooms. The sun had began to rise as she poured the first of many mugs of coffee, so Natasha wandered out onto the patio and sank onto one of the damp chairs that sat there. She loved the stillness of the morning, a start contrast to the usual chaos of her life. The air was crisp and fresh and just smelled like summer. Her favourite season.

A familiar set of footsteps echoed through the empty kitchen and Natasha smiled, looking over her shoulder just as her wife stepped through the patio doors. Wanda was definitely still half asleep, her hair mussed up from tossing and turning but she still looked as beautiful as ever. She carefully leaned down to give Natasha a kiss before looking out across the view their garden gave them. The house sat on the side of a hill, with the bustling city coming alive beneath them. They loved their location and wouldn’t change it for the world.

“How are you feeling about today?” Wanda asked, settling in the chair across from Nat as the cold stone beneath her feet started to get uncomfortable.

“I don’t know.” Natasha stared into the dark depths of her coffee, her eyes glazing over as she got lost in her thoughts. “That’s what scares me.”

Wanda softly touched her hand across the table. “The girls will be fine. Yelena will love them, as will Melina.”

“They’re not who I’m worried about.” Alexei had the biggest mouth and Natasha couldn’t shake the feeling that he would traumatise her babies. Especially Y/n, who had been really wary about guys recently.

“We can handle him, he won’t hurt them. He’s harmless Nat, except for when he talks. But you’ve got ground rules and Melina knows them, so I know she’s just as anxious as you are that he makes a good impression.”

Natasha just nodded but nibbled on her lip, not fully convinced. Motherhood was her favourite thing in the world, but it sure did attack her nerves and leave them frayed.

“Why don’t you go and wake the babies and I’ll start on breakfast. They can’t sleep for too long otherwise the drive will be hell.” A 7 hour drive with two 3.5 year olds… sounds like so much fun.

Wanda disappeared into the kitchen to get ingredients for breakfast whilst Natasha slowly made her way upstairs. By the layout of the house, the door to Y/n’s room was first. The twins’ rooms were conjoined but separated by a door, allowing them to have their own space.

The hallway light lit the way to Y/n’s bed and Natasha crouched down beside her youngest, stroking her messy curls out of her face as she slept. Despite having Natasha’s hair and eyes, the twins’ nose was definitely Wanda’s, and was Natasha’s favourite thing. Y/n’s tiny lips were parted and she slept peacefully, unaware of her Mama’s presence.

“Y/n, time to wake up sweetheart,” Nat said in her softest voice. She rubbed her daughter’s arm and smiled as the little girl frowned, her whole face screwing up. A small yawn escaped from her as she turned to face the one who disturbed her sleep, but all hard feelings vanished as she came face to face with her admittedly favourite parent.

“Mama,” she mumbled, reaching out with heavy arms. Natasha almost melted at the sight and gently scooped her up, the dead weight of her daughter making the task very inelegant. Almost immediately, Y/n snuggled into her neck and closed her eyes, falling back asleep in the comfort of Natasha’s arms.

Nat kept a strong hold on her before she pushed open the door to Isla’s room, surprised to see the little girl sat up in her bed. She’s clearly heard the noise next door.

“Mama,” was her response, her princess pyjama-covered body flinging itself out of bed and stumbling over to Nat to attach to her legs. “Wakey time?”

“It is wakey time, baby.” Isla’s curls were equally as messy as Y/n’s were, so Natasha didn’t even bother to smooth them down. “How did you sleep?”

“Good. Mr E kept me safe from the monsters.” Mr E was Isla’s stuffed elephant that she’d had since she was a baby. It was a little worn out but she slept with it every single night without fail. An adorable sight.

“He’s doing his job, I see.” Isla toddled over to free him from her tangled covers. “You hungry baby? I think mommy is making pancakes.”

“Pancapes?”

“Let’s go see.” With Y/n still fast asleep against her chest and Isla clutching onto her other hand, it was a miracle Natasha didn’t tumble down the stairs. She was very much relieved when Isla went running over to Wanda and Nat was able to hold Y/n with two arms.

“Don’t tell me she fell asleep again?” Wanda said with a laugh, helping Isla carry her sippy cup over to the table. She settled her toddler into her high chair and kissed her cheeks lovingly.

“Of course she did!” Natasha was leaning against the back of her chair with Y/n curled up in her lap, chest rising and falling almost in sync with Natasha’s heartbeat. “I don’t know if she slept well.”

“Is it mean to say I hope she didn’t?” Wanda asked, adding a ladle of pancake batter to her pan. “Would make our lives certainly a lot easier.”

“Mommy, pancapes please!” Isla announced, drumming her little fists against her plastic tray table. She kicked her legs eagerly in anticipation as the smell of fresh pancakes filled the air.

“Patience, baby girl. Mommy needs to cook them first.”

Natasha had successfully woken Y/n up for the second time, but this time the scowl on her small face did not let up.

“Hey grumpy girl,” she cooed, bouncing Y/n softly as though she was a baby. “Mornings really aren’t your thing, huh?”

“Here,” Wanda handed Natasha Y/n’s cup of milk, her go to in the morning. The twins had outgrown their morning bottles, but the comfort of warm milk at breakfast was something they both still enjoyed. “Hello grouchy,” she said with a kiss to her head.

Y/n did not stop glaring at everyone throughout breakfast, and Natasha and Wanda found it thoroughly entertaining. Her poor pancakes were being murdered by her tiny plastic fork and spoon, and with the combined mess of her squished raspberries, it sure looked like a massacre.

The plan was to drive to Melina’s in the morning and arrive late afternoon, just in time for the twins’ dinner and bedtime. This was the first time they would be sleeping in a different bed and both mothers were anxious to see how they would handle it. Hence the shortened night sleep.

Bags and car packed, twins buckled into their car seats and google maps yelling directions from Natasha’s phone, they were finally on the road. Y/n watched the world go by out of the window, the fluffy summer clouds catching her attention. She reached her hand up and stroked it through the air, trying to grab them.

Beside her, Isla was playing with Mr E, of course. He had one ear smaller than the other thanks to her teething phase, but she still cuddled him close and babbled to him quietly.

So far, so good, Wanda thought.

But she’d spoken too soon.

One hour. That’s how long they’d been on the road for before the sound of cries came from the back seat. There was still another 45 minutes before their first scheduled stop so Natasha kept driving, trying to block out the piercing screams behind her.

Wanda craned around in her seat, trying to pinpoint who was crying. But seeing Isla’s smiling face, she knew it was Y/n. She was sat directly behind Wanda’s chair which made the whole situation a lot harder.

“It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. Mommy’s here.” She tried her best to soothe her, rubbing her knee just about. But Y/n continued to cry and now Isla was looking a bit put out. The last thing the mothers needed was two crying toddlers.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Natasha asked, taking a small look at her daughter before she merged onto the highway. “Wands, can you-“

“I’ve got her, don’t worry.” She turned around in her chair more, trying to look directly at Y/n. “Don’t cry baby, what’s wrong?”

“My stuffy!” Y/n wailed, kicking her feet against the hard plastic of her seat. “My stuffy!”

Isla looked at her sister and then looked at the floor in front of her, spotting the familiar orange and black stuffed animal in the wrong place.

“Mommy she drop it,” Isla helpfully pointed out, gesturing down in front of Y/n’s seat. Wanda glanced down and sighed. Y/n had dropped her favourite tiger plushie onto the floor and out of reach, triggering her little outburst. The Sokovian reached behind her seat to grab it but failed; it was too far away. Y/n saw her unsuccessful attempt and cried harder. Her tiger was doomed.

“I’ll get it,” Natasha muttered, taking one hand off the steering wheel and reaching it behind Wanda’s seat whilst keeping the car steady on the road. She was such a typical dad driver, almost as if she were reaching back for candy.

“Nat no, you drive, I’ll do it. You really forget I’m a witch don’t you.” Natasha smiled sheepishly and retracted her hand, allowing Wanda to retrieve the toy with a few simple red wisps. She brought it to the front and dusted off and bits of dirt before handing it back to Y/n who seized it gladly and stuffed her face into its fur, her cries ceasing immediately.

“Noisy,” Isla said, making Nat and Wanda burst out laughing. Oh she was such a hypocrite even at the ripe age of three.

The gas station they stopped at luckily had a McDonald’s attached, which meant the twins struck up a chant for Happy Meals the second they saw their favourite restaurant. And luckily for Wanda and Natasha, their girls had a habit of falling asleep after lunch, so this was impeccably timed.

Two chicken nugget happy meals silenced the twins enough for the moms to get some peace and quiet. Natasha picked at her wrap whilst Wanda chewed on her fries, not overly fond of the burgers sold here. The restaurant wasn’t too busy, with it being a Wednesday, but Y/n and Isla still peered around at everyone who passed their table, making several elderly couples coo over their matching hair and outfits.

Wanda’s guilty pleasure was dressing them in the same outfit. She had to, before they got too old and refused. Natasha let her do most of their clothes shopping and each week she would return, squealing over the latest adorable outfit.

Y/n and Isla were comfortable but cute today. Black leggings and little grey sweatshirts with their newest pair of white converse. If Wanda was the clothes lover, Natasha was the shoes. Something about tiny versions of her own shoes made her heart clench and she just couldn’t refuse them. But of course there was a spare change of clothes on hand, just in case.

After another 5 hours of driving and stops, the SUV turned down a street that was incredibly familiar to the redhead behind the wheel. She drove slowly, taking in her surroundings. This place had never been associated with a happy time in her life, and receiving the news that Melina had bought the house again shocked her.

She cut off the engine in the driveway and felt Wanda’s hand slip into hers, giving her an encouraging squeeze. Wanda didn’t need to read her wife’s mind to feel the anxiety radiating off her, so she stepped up to be her rock and grounded her instantly.

“Where is this?” Isla piped up, her eyes glued to the window and the trees outside. Y/n was still half asleep but followed her sister’s gaze.

“Let’s go find out.” Natasha climbed out of her side and went to get Isla, whilst Wanda did the same with Y/n. The youngest was far too tired to want to walk, so she clung to Wanda’s cardigan desperately, wanting the safety of her mommy in this strange environment. But the second Natasha appeared she reached out, tiny fists grabbing at the air.

“Come on big girl,” Natasha groaned, taking Y/n from Wanda and settling her on her hip. “Let’s go see your aunt and grandma.”

Y/n didn’t clock what she said, too focused on playing with Natasha’s hair. Wanda held Isla’s hand tightly as the four made their way to the front door. There was a faint rustling once the doorbell was pressed and the door flung open to reveal a grinning blonde woman.

“They’re here!” She yelled, bouncing on her toes in excitement. “Natasha! You brought my babies!”

The redhead rolled her eyes. “Hello to you too Yelena.” Yelena barely acknowledged her sister, too busy smiling widely at the small red haired girl in her arms. “Are you going to invite us inside or are we going to stand here and freeze?”

“Yelena let your sister and her family inside!” A voice called from the dark hallway, making the blonde woman smile sheepishly and step to the side. Natasha tightened her grip around Y/n and stepped inside, focusing her attention on her daughter to keep her anxiety at bay. Walking into her childhood home had hit her harder than she’d expected.

Isla held onto Wanda’s hand as the family entered, suddenly feeling really shy in this new space. The interior was dark but weirdly comforting, the dated furniture only adding to the odd charm. Wanda could see how tense Natasha was just from the way she was standing and she wished she could comfort her.

The atmosphere was tense and awkward, and even the twins sensed it. Isla had stopped smiling and Y/n looped her arms around Natasha’s neck, pulling her closer. Nat kissed her hand and smiled reassuringly.

“How was your drive?” A dark haired woman asked, appearing in the corner of the room like a ghost. Pale skin, dark hair, Y/n was intrigued.

“Not too bad, a bit of traffic in the city but we got through it.”

“Mama who’s that?” Isla asked, holding onto Natasha’s pant leg whilst looking between the two strange women in front of her.

Natasha crouched down and placed Y/n on the floor, holding both of her girls by their waists.

“Ok girls, this is Mama’s sister,” she pointed to Yelena who gave a thumbs up. “And that’s your grandma. That’s my mom.” Y/n stared at Melina with hesitation. She could hear how uncertain her Mama was and that manifested itself in her own thoughts too. Even thought she was only two and a half.

“Who wants to give Aunt Yelena a hug?” Yelena sat on the floor and patted in front of her.

“They’re not dogs, Lena. They don’t just run over to you like that.”

Yelena frowned. “Well I don’t know! Fanny does it!”

At the mention of his name, the Akita perked his head up and trotted over to Yelena before settling down with his head in her lap. The twins’ eyes lit up at the sight of the dog.

“Doggy! Can we pet Mama?”

Wanda studied the scene in front of her. “Is he well trained, Yelena?” The blonde nodded and so did Melina. “Go on then girls. But be gentle.”

Y/n and Isla held each others hand and slowly approached the dog, completely missing the way Yelena grinned as they approached. She wanted to be the cool Aunt who spoilt her nieces and this was a win in her eyes.

“If you sit next to him he might give you kisses,” she said in her heavy Russian accent, gently pushing Fanny off her lap to let the twins take a seat. Y/n was more hesitant, letting Isla take Yelena’s hand first. The blonde crossed her legs and settled the small girl into her lap before holding out her arm for Y/n.

“It’s ok sweetheart,” Natasha encouraged when Y/n looked back at her moms. But that didn’t work. The youngest girl ran back to her Mama and pressed into her side, not trusting strangers like her sister did. She watched from the safety of Natasha’s arms as Isla stroked the Akita and giggled as his wet kisses tickled her cheek.

“Do you want to come with me and get a drink, Y/n?” Melina asked, smiling softly at the young girl with her hand out. Y/n looked up at Wanda and Natasha who nodded towards Melina, trying to get her daughter to detached herself from Natasha.

“You can’t stay with me,” Natasha said firmly, although her voice still had that gentleness to it. But Y/n really was struggling, and her change in voice made the little girl’s eyes well up with tears. Natasha glanced at Wanda with a sigh and quickly excused herself and Y/n back outside.

“What’s wrong, detka? Why the tears?”

“Just want you,” Y/n mumbled, rubbing her eye. Natasha shook her head and refused the toddler’s request for cuddles. “Mama!”

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” Her motherly instincts had hit the nail on the head and Y/n nodded. Not necessarily sleep-tired, but more from being in a new place. She just wanted to go home and be with her mamas but clearly that wasn’t an option. “Why don’t we see if grandma Melina has some milk or juice so you can have a nap.”

Y/n brushed against her lips with her thumb as she thought. “I get tiger?” Natasha allowed her to retrieve the forgotten stuffed animal from the car before they headed back inside to find Wanda sat on the floor giving Fanny some belly tickles with Isla.

Nat gave Y/n a small nudge of encouragement and watched as she toddled over to Melina, clutching her tiger for courage.

“Milk, p’ease?” She asked quietly,

Melina’s heart softened at her request and she glanced at Natasha fondly. “Of course, let’s go find some.” Offering her hand to the small girl who took it after a few seconds, they disappeared into the kitchen, Natasha following to loiter in the doorway between the two rooms.

Melina had picked Y/n up and sat her on the counter whilst she rummaged in the fridge to find a glass bottle of milk. She may act cold, but the second she’d found out the twins were visiting she had gone out and bought all the supplies she could think of. High chairs, plastic cups and plates, toys. You name it, she probably bought it.

And Natasha couldn’t quite believe it when she saw her ‘mom’ pull out a brand new cup with Y/n’s favourite princesses on it. The toddler smiled and accepted the drink, sipping on it carefully through the lid.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Natasha said, crossing her arms against her chest.

Melina shrugged off her comment, not wanting to be complimented. “I never got to do it with you.”

Natasha smiled a watery smile and crossed the threshold, gravitating towards the dining room window that overlooked the garden she knew so well. “You kept our old swingset.”

“Didn’t have the heart to take it down.”

“I used to love it so much-“

“You thought if you swung high enough you’d be able to touch the stars,” Melina cut her off, looking at Y/n fondly. “She looks so much like you.”

Natasha’s eyes lingered on the desolate swing set for a few more moments. If she looked hard enough she swore she could see tiny lights in the trees, dancing around the branches like forest stars.

“She’s got your heart too.”

Natasha wiped a stray tear and turned around, pressing her lips into a tight smile. “She’s my little miracle.”

“What happened with her?”

Natasha leaned her hands on the closest dining chair and sighed, not really wanting to relieve the moment that still felt so fresh in her mind, despite it occurring over two years ago.

“She had a heart defect when she was born and the doctors didn’t pick up on it right away. It was obvious that she was a bit smaller than Isla but they thought that was it. It wasn’t until a couple days later that she started struggling to breathe because her heart wasn’t working properly. I really thought we were going to lose her before we even brought her home.”

Y/n was oblivious that she was being talked about and she just sat there idly drinking her milk and fiddling with the technological watch on Melina’s wrist. She didn’t understand, but the sound of her Mama’s voice was soothing and made her eyelids start to droop slowly.

“Does she still have trouble now?”

Natasha shook her head. “Thankfully no. We still have to have regular check ups just to make sure it’s all ok, but the surgery seemed to have fixed the problem.” She couldn’t help but pout at Y/n tiredness as she noticed from across the room. “Would you mind making another cup for Isla? They could do with a nap before dinner.”

Melina happily obliged and sent Natasha back into the living room with a cup for Isla who gratefully accepted it. She leaned against Yelena as she drank it and the blonde woman held her carefully, her boisterous nature suddenly flipped 180 in the presence of a child. Wanda came to join Natasha’s side, having missed her even for those few minutes.

“Do you want to put them down for a nap?” Natasha whispered to Wanda, knowing that she felt very much on the outside of this situation. “I’ll go and bring the bags to our room.”

“Have the girls got their own room?”

“Yeah. Yelena offered to sleep on the couch so they’re taking her room and we’re across the hall. Like always.”

Wanda slipped her hand into Natasha’s and pressed a small kiss to her lips, wanting to keep it short and sweet. “Ok then, I’ll let Isla finish if you go get the stuff.”

After an almost-asleep Y/n was placed on Wanda’s lap, Natasha headed back to the car to start ferrying their bags back and forth.

“Isla, baby, it’s nap time,” the Sokovian cooed, only to be met with grumbles of protest.

“No, stay Lena!” Whining was a clear sign that she was tired, but Isla was a stubborn as Natasha and scowled hard, tiny face screwing up.

“I’m sure Yelena will come and help if you’re a good girl.” Bribery, the most effective parenting tactic. Isla turned around and looked up at Yelena with her big green eyes, completely melting the Russian’s heart and making her fall head over heels in love.

“Why don’t you show me your cool pyjamas, huh?” Yelena said, tickling Isla gently in the ribs. This got the toddler up and moving, pulling as hard as she could on Yelena’s hand to make her follow. Wanda chuckled and let Yelena lead the way up the small staircase to her room where two makeshift beds had been set up.

Natasha had worked speedy and already laid out a folded pair of pyjamas for the girls on each bed, and Isla ran straight towards hers, eager to show Yelena. She babbled away as the blonde helped her get changed, her sleepy state now a million miles away.

Y/n let Wanda get her changed and didn’t protest once, but the slightly frown on her face was a telltale sight that she still wasn’t happy.

“Will you read story?” Isla asked Yelena as she climbed under the covers, Mr E tucked safely under her arm. Yelena looked at Wanda for permission who just shook her head.

“We usually only do stories at bedtime.”

“Maybe later, soldier.” Isla frowned but accepted her answer and yawned. “Sleep well, little one.”

Both adults backed out of the room and found Natasha downstairs with Melina, their voices hushed as they talked.

“Are they always so different?” Yelena asked, plopping down onto the couch and almost hitting Natasha in the process.

“What do you mean?”

The blonde screwed up her face. “Well, Isla is so… you know, and Y/n is…” descriptive as ever.

“They’ve always been like that,” Natasha sighed, leaning her head on Wanda’s shoulder and smiling as their hands found each other.

“Y/n is her Mama’s girl,” Wanda said with a fond smile, no hint of resentment or jealous in her words. “But they’re so different it’s crazy sometimes. And Y/n has her moments, but she prefers to watch while Isla talks. Saves our ears, that’s for sure.”

“Speaking of talking, where is he?” There was bitterness to Natasha’s tone and Melina clenched her jaw, her hands coming to smooth over her black pants.

“I sent him away for the week,” she admitted, watching Natasha’s eyes shift at the news. “I didn’t think it would be good for the girls… or you.”

Natasha’s original hardened expression slowly softened and she bit her tongue to stop the tears building. Motherhood had made her soft and emotional, but she didn’t realise just how much.

“A mother always knows, Natasha. I’m sure you both would have done the same if it was the other way around.”

It was like a weight lifted off her shoulders and for the first time since they’d left that morning, she finally relaxed. Her girls were safely asleep upstairs, Wanda was grounding her by her side, and the family she had abandoned for years had welcomed her back with open arms.

Maybe these reconnections weren’t going to be so bad after all.

[sweet-as-an-angel]

Yandere König Headcanons

Warnings: Some 18+ Moments (Nothing Explicit), Social Anxiety, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Acts of Revenge, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Underwear Stealing, Possessive Behaviour, Yandere Behavious, Toxic Behaviour, Intimidation, Social Sabotage, No Pronouns used for Reader Except 'You', etc.

Wordcount: 14,544 words

A/N: Hey Guys, Happy Valentine's Day <3 ! Thanks for stopping by to read my fic ! Much love and wellness to you all :-). I've had to split the bulk of the text and the ending into two posts because Tumblr will not let me keep them in the same post - it just won't save or post. A link will be provided below the main body of text to take you to the ending post <3

You and König became friends the very same day you met.

You were a new student to the school that König called Hell; not yet alive – conscious – to the incessant bullying and ignorance that occurred there.

Upon seeing you for the first time, feet pointed in, shoulders rigid, lunch pail squeezed – compressed – tightly between your tiny fingers, König felt… strange.

He’d never met you before, but he already felt that there was something to be done in the way of you.

As to what that ‘something’ was was completely lost on König.

But alas, he tore his resting head from his palm, his senses sharpening as he was drawn from the fantasy world he’d crafted for himself, becoming aware of his surroundings,

He watched you, for the first time, a child no older than himself, nigh-quivering under the curious gazes of students.

As if by instinct, König’s gaze drifted to the table that housed his tormentors.

And, sure as ever, their eyes held nothing less than malice. Intent.

Something in him told him to sit up straighter, to get his hands off the desk – anything to appear bigger than how he did now.

He recognised this feeling. Though, he’d never felt it towards a person.

In König, it only ever manifested whenever he happened upon some small, injured creature.

Despite being just children, König was already a little taller than everyone else in the class; foreshadowing of the monster he’d become, whose horns just peeked through his skull, made him an inch or three taller than the rest.

And yet, he was still the butt of every joke, the object of needless ridicule.

Little did he know that would all change the very same day he met you.

Something in him prompted him, told him, to talk to you, to find out as much about you as he possibly could.

An impulse he had never known until today.

Though, as to how he’d initiate conversation was tricky.

He could barely talk to his own parents, let alone a complete stranger.

As you peeked up from the floor every now and then, scanning the room and all its pieces, its players, your gaze fell upon König.

His heart fitted, adopting an irregular rhythm – a genre of music he’d never heard before.

Usually, he’d tear his gaze away, look down or out the window.

But he couldn’t.

With you, it was impossible.

The seat beside him was empty, a sliver of mercy his favourite teacher had imparted on him.

The possibility that you would be seated next to him – that you might choose to sit beside him of your own volition – filled König with a dangerous sense of hope.

He found himself clenching his fists when you made a move to go to him, taking but a small step in his direction. The right direction.

Before the teacher pointed to another seat halfway across the classroom.

König deflated, his shoulders sagging, his mood dampening as if sodden with tears.

He looked upon your reluctantly retreating form, your friendship withering away with each step you were forced to take.

König looked upon his teacher that day with something he hadn’t felt for them before.

Contempt.

The lesson dragged, yet playtime loomed.

It was less of a break for König than it was an opportunity for his bullies to find him. Capture him.

Yet today, he was the one seeking them.

He’d seen the way they’d looked at you, leered at you, repeated your name in mock mimicry when the teacher called on you for attendance.

König’s heart thrummed in his chest, an off-key harp.

He swallowed thickly, trying to hear over his internal symphony’s failing orchestra.

He almost considered calling off the search and searching for a teacher to help when he heard it.

You.

A sniffle. Then, insults.

Hissed and seethed and quiet, just below the radar of the adults ‘watching over’ the students.

König turned, only to find a long corner before him.

He pressed himself close to it, and listened.

Another sniffle, verging on a cry. Then, more insults.

The Cycle.

König’s fists clenched, his heart flared with the anger he’d felt many a time when he’d been on the receiving end of such torment.

Yet somehow, now that it was you receiving it, it was as if the cap König had set atop his anger, to prevent himself from doing something drastic, or displaying too much emotion, had blown off.

The anxiety that occupied König’s every waking moment boiled with his growing fury, a chemical gas that threatened all life that came into contact with it.

Without thinking, blinded by something greater than his limitations, he embarked the corner.

There you were, surrounded by four boys, each as diabolical as the last.

Devils in cherubs’ clothing.

König’s shadow descended upon the scene, covering your cowering frame.

The leader turned around.

He gave a sly grin, and turned partially from you.

He didn’t even have the courtesy to face König completely.

“Oi, oi,” he said, voice shrill and piercing. König stood his ground.

“And what’d’you want, König,”

König said nothing still, though the expression on his face was twisted, a far cry from the doe-eyed boy he was just two minutes ago.

The leader, when König didn’t answer, abandoned you, leaving you to his lackeys.

He approached König with a walk too old for his body, a cheap imitation of intimidation.

He only came up to König’s chin.

“I said–” he poked König’s chest, punctuating each word with a demeaning splinter.

And yet, König wasn’t paying attention to him.

He was looking at you.

You, having your hair pulled and your shirt practically torn.

König’s eyes narrowed.

“What. Do. You. W–”

Everything happened so fast that König scarcely thought it happened at all.

One minute, the bully was barely chest-to-chest with him. The next, he was on the floor, wailing, clutching his nose in his hands.

König almost couldn’t look away as a thin trickle of blood seeped between the boy’s fingers, staining his hands, and the concrete, a dark red.

König’s body shook, much like that displayed in starvation. He caught a glimpse of red along his knuckles.

And then, looking up from the bully, to his dumbfounded lackeys, he found you.

The lackeys were slowly backing away from you and making their way around König, as if he were a tiger, to their leader.

“Leave (Y/N) alone.” he said to the group, his shoulders heaving with his fresh victory.

The odd few nodded, mouths agape as they watched the leader struggle to get up onto his feet.

König walked past them and, taking cautious, slow steps towards you, stopped just shy of three feet away from you.

You were still shaking, your eyes wide as you craned your neck to look up at König’s face.

König felt giddy. A bubbling feeling welling up inside his chest.

Though, something caught in his throat. Something uncharacteristic of this situation.

“Hey–” König said, coughing, clearing his throat, when his voice cracked.

His face began to heat up, and he tried again.

“Hey,” he said, quietly.

You, awe-struck, with your mouth hung open, said nothing.

“I’m (Y/N)–...wait, no…I’m– König–”

König’s stilted introduction, and the fumble he made of it, was cut short with a soft, almost invisible feeling.

You’d thrown your arms around his middle and buried your face in his chest.

He looked down at the top of your head, only your hair visible.

The warmth on his face multiplied, growing hotter by the second as the gratitude in your muffled words – your ‘thank you’s – spilled from between the fabric of his jacket.

And, that feeling from before, the one that told him to act, returned; prompted him to do that which he thought best.

He put his arms around your shoulders and held you.

Only a moment later did you look up at him, eyes reddened with tears.

“I’m (Y/N),” you said.

König smiled, his teeth crooked.

“Hello, (Y/N).”

Immediately after the incident, a swarm of students gathered where the bully lay, ultimately unable to peel himself from the floor, his lackeys too frightened to turn their back on König for even a second.

The incident was passed around the playground like folklore, and König, and yourself, never had any trouble from those bullies again.

They’d all but discredited their leader, claiming that he’d “Tripped and fallen on a  rock,” and hadn’t finally gotten what was coming to him.

They could hardly say otherwise when König was staring them down with the look of hatred they’d all so mastered.

The group was disgraced, some of the boys eventually refusing to come to school altogether, transferring.

And all the while, you and König became inseparable.

That was the day you learnt what true friendship was.

Your parents came to know König very quickly, as his family came to know you.

You both walked home together every day, memorising the paths to each other’s houses “In case aliens invade and I need to find you!” as König justified his vested interest.

The first time he visited your house was like visiting another country.

You were much different at home than you were at school.

For one, you were more vibrant, more prone to voicing your opinions rather than keeping quiet.

And König found this quality to spark something in him.

The fact that he had gotten to know this side of you while no-one else had felt like an accomplishment.

Whenever you had anything to say, he was listening.

Regardless of how menial it was, how borderline unexplainable or just plain complex, König tried to make sense of it every time.

The two of you would spend every waking moment together, never apart for a second save for sleeping and the singular day of the week when your family would take you away somewhere; and even then, König was often invited to go along.

You had sleepovers as often as you could manage, exchanging stories like currency in a continent where only you and König lived.

König’s favourite to recite was Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart, which, the first time he relayed it to you, had you peeking out from beneath your bed sheets, shivering.

That night, as König tried to sleep, he heard you whisper his name in the dark.

He spared no hesitation as he answered.

“König,” you said. “Will you…” your tiny voice barely permeated the suffocating dark.

“Will you sleep next to me ?”

König froze, then, as understanding gripped him, he thawed.

He clambered out from his sleeping bag and onto your bed, unsure of where to look or what to do once he got there.

He rested his arms above the sheets and stared up into the abyssal ceiling, hearing your breathing next to him.

You shifted closer, wrapping an arm around his front.

König became a corpse.

He stiffened, his breathing stopped, and he dared not move a muscle for fear of doing something wrong.

“Thank you,” you said. König could feel your smile against the fabric of his shirt.

"Goodnight, König,” you whispered, your face buried into him as it had been the day he confronted your bullies.

Swallowing thickly, and, sliding an arm around you, König shot a reply into the darkness.

“Goognight, (Y/N).”

After that night, König began to feel…different where you were concerned.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it would hit him whenever his mind drifted back to you, which he found himself doing much more often than he already did.

Considering you were his only friend, you already occupied a good portion.

König always shelved the feeling, promising to try and make sense of it later.

Later, later.

He tested his tolerance for physical contact again one day when you were both walking home.

He’d calculated what he was going to say, to do, and, taking a deep breath, he grasped your hand in his.

His palm was sweaty, the anticipation of this action weighing on him all day.

He couldn’t even bring himself to look at you – to see your reaction.

His heart spasmed.

With nothing to say, to rebuke, you just smiled and squeezed König’s hand.

He felt a weight fall from his shoulders, the sky clearing, his face heating with that feeling of butterflies rather than crushing doom.

You would walk hand-in-hand everywhere you went after that.

Eventually, when all the stories you each had to offer were spent, you found another way of amusing yourselves – of remaining connected regardless of how far away the other was.

The Bestie Bible.

A scrapbook, patchwork, Frankenstein’s novel of shared memories, diary entries; testaments of the people you were.

The book would be passed between you each week; a ‘safer’ alternative to sending letters where your parents were concerned.

An encyclopaedia of your lives right at your fingertips.

You got to know things about König that not even his own family knew, details that he was too shy to tell you, causing him to write them to you instead.

Like his hopes to become a ‘protector’ when he got older.

Little did you know, he wanted to do it for you – to protect you.

That part, he kept to himself.

And vice versa, König got to learn of your life, too; everything from your second favourite colour, bands you were into at the time, your favourite foods, shows - anything.

And he’d feverishly consume your every entry, committing them to memory.

Bible verses.

Whenever he was with you, he felt as if his whole world got brighter, that he could see a clear future with you and him in it.

And that feeling would always come with you. That damned feeling.

It only strengthened the older he became, heating his cheeks and knotting his words in his mouth.

And he’d shelve it, every time.

Because his time with you was precious.

That much was innate; he just knew.

He didn’t have time to understand, only to enjoy.

You celebrated birthdays together.

Every year, without fail, König would buy you a present that remained as timeless as your friendship.

And you’d always thank him the same way; a bone-crushing hug, a squealing “Thank you!”, and a lifetime of gratitude.

That, and one birthday, you kissed his cheek, sending him bright red, making both your families point and coo and stare.

A social nightmare for König, one which you rescued him from by finding a table to hide beneath and sit with him.

You apologised. He told you that you’d done nothing wrong.

You didn’t kiss him again after that.

Which, little did you know, evoked something from within König that was stronger, more potent, poignant, than the feeling he’d felt before. Its predecessors.

At what point König stopped seeing you as just friends was clear to him, yet the shift in his behaviour was subtle enough to be a snake hidden in the grass, a knife slipped between the mattresses – the ribs.

Or, perhaps he had always been that way. Completely and unequivocally in love with you and simply unaware of it.

Or, as close to love as one as young as him could interpret his feelings to be.

But that didn’t mean he understood what he was feeling.

It was light yet strong, a great army pounding on the walls of an even greater empire. A takeover.

He’d lay in bed most nights, hands clasped over his racing heart, as he thought of you, your smile, your everything, and he’d hope beyond hope, pray beyond heaven, that this feeling would last forever.

At first, he’d condemned it, and while he continued to shelve it, he couldn’t deny the butterflies you made him feel.

The warm jitters you’d give him whenever you’d hold him.

One day, sat in the tunnel of your favourite slide, in the local park you and König had claimed as “ours”, you sat together, waiting for your mothers to pick you up. König sat close beside you, almost fused to your side.

His hands shook in his lap, his gaze drifting to yours in a similar position, just lacking the jitters.

He wished he could be calm like you, to not be plagued with the mental anguish that he was born with.

He’d rehearsed this many times the night before, speaking with himself in the mirror – the only person aside from you he felt comfortable talking with – and prepared himself.

He took a deep breath, and before he could think about what he was doing, took your hand in his.

König waited a second, then two, before looking to you and gauging your reaction.

You didn’t even flinch, instead looking back at him with a small smile.

You squeezed his hand as you had done many times before.

So why did this time feel so different?

“What’s wrong, König ?” you said, tilting your head.

Wrong wasn’t even a word when König was with you.

König stifled the urge to withdraw, to retreat to his bedroom and hide beneath the covers of his bed until the day melted away and began anew, wiping your memory of this ever having happened.

But, again, König ignored the impulse.

He breathed deeply, hoping you wouldn’t notice as he tried in vain to placate his racing heart.

“Do you–” he swallowed, looking away, into the skyline of the fading sun, a sun set, then returning to you.

“D’youwannakiss?”

It came out so fast that even König had a hard time understanding what he was saying.

Your eyebrows crumpled, and you looked down in thought.

König’s heart stopped.

Had he said something wrong ? Had he offended you?

He thought his body would just seize up and release his soul to the heavens right then and there.

You turned to face him, your previous expression dissolving.

“König, we’re twelve. We don’t know how.”

It took König a second to understand what was happening until, yes, of course, the answer came to him.

Come to think of it, he’d only just realised.

His, and your, only knowledge of what ‘kissing’ was was something that people did when they loved each other.

He knew he loved you, though he knew the love he felt for you was different from the love he felt for his parents, or other family members.

He was rather sparse on the friend front, so he had little to compare you with there.

He bit the inside of his cheek, and, thinking, found a solution.

He said nothing as he placed his forehead to yours.

You seemed confused for a minute, before you understood and applied equal force, your forehead resting against König’s.

And you stayed that way. Just you and König sat in a kaleidoscope of childhood with your heads pressed together; two halves of an arch way, one side meaningless without the other.

Act 2

Your childhoods came and went, a flambaic fanfare of hopes, dreams, and cartoons. And your teen years gave way to feelings you’d never felt before.

And throughout it all, König was at your side.

Even now as he shot up in height, you lagging behind in that same department compared to him, he would gladly bend the knee to take your hand in his.

As was the case on your first day of high school, where you and König hurried down winding, identical corridors that you could only ever have hoped to be liminal; too many people existed here for them to be so.

Eventually, you found your classroom, miraculously having an identical timetable – at least for now.

And as you sat beside each other, your knee bouncing, watching the students filter in, König squeezed your hand in his, casting you a small, quivering, nervous smile.

Your shared anxieties would continue on from this day forth, solidifying as, just as you had been in elementary, you and König seldom spoke to anyone outside your duo, having created an impenetrable wall through which nobody could enter and neither of you could leave.

Your habits from elementary continued on, too; you both completed homework together, you had sleepovers, you continued the Bestie Bible.

But something was…amiss.

This feeling, this loss of something, grew as you did, and by your early teen years, you realised what it was.

It was around every corner, at every block of lockers, leaned against them, gazing into the eyes of the most wanted.

Love.

Sure, you knew what love was, hypothetically. You could identify it on paper, sense it between two people you’d never even met. But you never felt it.

Not the kind that you observed, anyway.

Perhaps it was your young curiosity.

Perhaps it was simply a longing for something new.

But you wanted to feel what everyone else seemed to feel.

What on-screen heroes and heroines so easily attained.

And thus began your pursuit of that which would be your downfall.

Your gaze would begin to linger more on boys in your classes who you could see yourself liking.

Prospectors, you called them to König.

Your first mistake had been ever trying to like someone in the first place.

At your sleepovers, your homework and study sessions, your park wanders, you’d spill your heart to König.

Just not in the way he wanted you to.

You’d tell him of guys you thought you may, perhaps, just a little bit, be interested in.

The first time you told König, he almost laughed.

He cast you a doubtful look, only to unfurrow his brows, unhook the smiling corners of his lips when he found you to be dead serious.

That night, König went to bed with what you could characterise as indigestion of the heart.

What you’d said didn’t sit right with him. Stirred a storm in his chest.

And he hadn’t even interpreted your words correctly.

He thought you just wanted to be friends with other people.

More people.

The idea made him anxious, made his nerves light with doubt.

And he calmed himself, looking upon your Bestie Bible, reminding himself that your friendship was God, stronger than all the forces that kept the earth together.

Or so he believed.

One evening, weeks later, during one of your routine visits, König sensed a shift in you.

You were quieter, almost as if you had clouds drifting around your crown.

Over time, as your desire to experience more, do more, grew stronger, your gaze began to wander to your classmates.

One in particular.

Just some boy, really nothing objectively noteworthy about him at all, save for perhaps his kindness, his wit, and another benign personality trait you could romanticise.

Initially, you thought little of him.

But as the weeks crawled by, and you had extra time in your classes to simply retreat elsewhere, into another world, he would be there, smiling, waving.

And you would speak with him, imagine what his opinions would be, what his voice would sound like up-close.

Fleeting instances of a desire for friendship.

That’s what you thought they were.

What else could they be ?

Meanwhile, you and König still shared as much time together as you could, even when school was becoming troublesome. Difficult.

You’d study together, have sleepovers, write in your Bestie Bible and exchange it like a letter, a story almost as old as you were.

Whenever you’d fall asleep, König would watch you, unabashed and unfettered.

An identical habit to that he’d created during childhood, with a similar goal in mind; to protect you.

Though, that was not his only motivation now.

König would watch you, watch over you, and look for as long as he liked upon your sleeping features.

And, as he advanced into his later teen years, he couldn’t deny that he found you to be very attractive.

Anyone with eyes and common sense would !

He always found his heart stuttering, his breath catching, his body heating at every docile gesture you made.

Not that you knew this, of course.

He’d studied, learnt enough from watching failed couples and friendships in school to see where mistakes were made – where friendships ended due to another’s impatience. Lack of restraint.

He made sure to avoid them at all costs.

And so he fed from you as you slept, unawares, your vulnerable state further motivation for him to protect you.

From what ?

He didn’t quite know yet.

But he held an answer, and it hung in his mind, a constant.

Everything.

During your study sessions, König began to notice that your attention seemed to be elsewhere.

Let me rephrase that; he’d noticed weeks ago that you seemed taken with something, but König couldn’t tell what.

He’d studied your Bible many times over, trying to find something indicative of your newfound interest.

And yet, nothing struck him.

Nothing new, at least.

And now, sitting here with you, König grilled you. Politely, with enough characteristic fragility in his tone that made him sound endearing enough to be spared any wrath you’d think to impart on him.

“Nothing’s wrong, Köni,” you assured him, smiling.

Your words were clear, but your eyes held a dream in them, a haze which settled over them like clouds before the moon.

König’s eyebrow raised, and, with a playful lilt, pressed further.

“That’s not true,” he said. He put his pen down and rested his hands upon the table.

“Something’s occupying your mind – I can see it.” He took a shallow breath, trying to keep his mouth stretching into a smile for as long as he could.

The fact that he didn’t know what was causing you to be this way killed him.

He recognised it in you, much as he recognised it in himself.

Love.

Or the infantile beginnings of it.

And yet he knew not from what it was borne.

You shrugged him off again, smiling, returning to your work.

“Really, König, it’s nothing !” You made mindless markings on your paper. “Now come on, drop it. We have a history test tomorrow.”

That night, König couldn’t convince you to stay over.

You both knew the evening would drag on ‘til the early hours of the morn, and neither of you wanted to fail this test.

As König embraced you, his giant form eclipsing yours, he saw the back of your bag unzipped.

He knew exactly how many seconds he had until you’d pull away.

Without a sound, he slipped his hand inside and withdrew the paper you’d been scribbling on earlier.

For once, he withdrew first, though it pained him to do so.

That night, he looked upon the paper.

There was little he could decipher from the obsolete doodles and scribbles, but something did stand out to him.

A name.

Nothing more.

The name of a boy.

It was given neither ceremony, nor decoration, simply slapped onto the paper as if it belonged there.

Looking at it made bile churn in his stomach, so he folded it, tucked it away somewhere he didn’t have to think about it.

The next day, it was his turn to receive the Bible, his makeshift friend, to give a near-identical account of experiences as you.

Given how you were both attached at the hip, there was little fluctuation in your day-to-day encounters.

In all honesty, he’d hoped that whatever had been plaguing you last night would emerge in the pages of that book, somewhere between the Frankenstein’s monster pages of glitter and brightly-coloured card paper and receipts from shops that exposed a most ambitious fashion sense.

And, like an answer from God, it did.

Laying in bed, leafing through the shared history book you and König shared, he sought your latest entries.

His heart burned as he discovered them, and, enthusiasm unmatched, he consumed every word.

He’d initially suspected that perhaps you’d taken up a new hobby, was maybe, in even a miniscule capacity, planning a gift for him, what with all your secrecy and all.

But König could read you like the book in his hands, and though he wanted to believe anything that crossed his mind, he knew any answer he came up with wouldn’t be the right one.

He truly had no way of knowing what was making you tick.

And then, he saw it.

A needle in a haystack; a whimpering puppy in a darkened alleyway.

A name.

A confession.

König’s body seized, his heart palpitating, his mind beginning to burn.

His throat tightened, and his stomach clamped shut, causing an immediate sickness to shoot through every nerve in his body.

The corners of his vision darkened, as if a cloud – or the cape of a villain – had settled over him.

And for a second, König thought that this was death.

There, in your handwriting, your letters, your words, was the cause of your distractment.

‘I like someone,’ you said, and König heard your voice in his ears, his head, as if you were speaking these words to him now, tearing his heart out now. ‘A boy from our class – the one who sits at the front, with the vintage biker jacket.’

König’s mind acted of its own accord, searching every frame of memory from the beginning of your school career to now to find the perpetrator.

All the while, König’s throat stung, the antiseptic truth bleaching, purging, the hope that had grown there over the years, a feeling which had persevered above all others.

The tightness in his chest gave way to a smouldering, burning, second death, the peeling of his heart in two, acid poured into the separate halves to be drunk by you, disintegrating the cumulative joy he’d felt there. Once.

The pages of the book tore in König’s hands, his grip on the edges enough to give the impression of a seizure, or some primal, uncontrolled bodily spasm.

The searing behind his eyes gave way to tears, an onslaught that choked him, choked him as the fiery clump in his throat burst into a sob.

König threw the book aside, feeling minimal relief from having done so, instead simply discarding the cross from his Hell-skin.

It hit something, unknown damage being done.

It would not compare to the damage done to König.

His hands clawed at his chest, pounding against the skin as if to search for the stolen heart beneath.

No words could, or would, leave König, no language of anguish or despair elaborate, violent, or loud enough to express what he felt.

On his knees now, König keeled over himself, compacting his large frame to a ball, as if to disappear entirely.

His mouth hung open, moulded to The Scream’s tune of horror, saliva stringing from within and onto the sheets.

He sobbed, convulsed, the same, nerve-frying stress that turned one’s hair white crushing him.

He knew now.

He knew what that feeling was, all those years ago, as another, younger version of himself lay in the same bed he wept on now, the agony his older self was benign subject to unseen by him, merely a pin-prick in the fabric of the universe, a bout of sadness, brief and fleeting, the desire to mourn, if only for a second, yet not knowing what for.

That feeling he’d felt…

It was love.

In all her most glorious, radiant terms, what he’d felt since the beginnings of your friendship, to the tumour it had developed into now, malignant and all-consuming, was love.

König wanted to part from it. To tear its parasitic tendrils from his mind and erase it so thoroughly from the universe that none should ever know it again, not its name, nor its face. Neither its feeling.

König’s face, pressed into the sheets to stifle his cries, to block out external stimulus, was scrunched in a portrait of terror, mid-scream, mid-death.

Eternities passed. The infernal suffering encapsulating König in its current made him break out into sweats, soaked his shirt and his body.

Through the dense thicket of heartbreak, König saw a thinning of trees, a glimmer peeking between distant gaps.

He searched for it, sought it, followed it blindly – anywhere but to be here.

An idea was brewing. A dangerous one.

König fled to the treeline, tangling in the vegetation and clawing his way free, sacrificing whatever material sentimentality he had to propel himself to freedom.

Body shaking, trembling, König threw himself into the light.

He shot up from the sheets, still clutching his spectral heart in his hands, breathing heavily, panting.

The idea settled, nestled in the forefront of his mind, incubated and basking in his attention.

König’s eyes darted from one dark corner of his room to the other, only the lamp by his bedside enough to fend off the monsters.

That, and the demon which sat upon his shoulders, bringing with it a weight which did not crush König, but grounded him, anchored and committed him to the plan festering in his mind.

If I can’t have you, he said to his two selves, the spirit of his innocence watching helpless and fraying from the sidelines.

Then nobody can.

Every time you returned with your findings, of guys you thought were nice, of those whose personalities you analysed and decided would be optimum for your first relationship, König felt his blood start to simmer.

Anything to get you away from those Prospectors.

You were slipping away from him.

He knew it.

Especially when you started liking that guy.

König never bothered to learn his name – not properly. Even after he’d seen it square on your research paper like it was printed there intentionally.

And besides, it seemed to please you greatly whenever he’d get his name wrong, making you laugh.

Every night whenever you and König lay parallel, one on the floor and one on the bed depending on whose house you were staying at – since when did you stop sharing a bed…? – all you could seem to talk about was this feeling your whatever-he-was gave you.

And König listened, albeit unwillingly.

Though, even as he lay, fists clenched beneath the bed covers, his ears would prick as you relinquished something new, something palpable, taintable, to him.

Like how he drove a car, how he was an athlete, how he was tall – “Not nearly as tall as you, though, Köni~” – and how he’d be taking you to the school dance.

König felt his heart seize.

Oh no.

That wasn’t right.

Everything faded into white noise after that, König’s head burning with a thousand ways to separate you and your “crush”; how to remove him from your portrait and replace him with König.

But, having been willfully confined to the incredibly small circle that was only you and König, your social skills left… a lot to be desired. Made it easier for König to keep a closer eye on you without you flitting off to your other ‘friends’.

And whereas König never even thought about trying to alleviate his affliction, the “curing” of yours was all you ever thought about.

Each night, as you lay in bed, you dreamt of another you who was unafraid of public speaking, of private speaking. Of interacting in even the most broad or minimal of capacities.

Of talking to him.

And whenever you’d wake from those dreams, your chest puffed with the remnant confidence your alternate self gave you a sample of, it would deflate, crumble into ash the second you set foot over the threshold of the classroom.

People casting you a passing glance, the close proximity to others in a packed classroom…

It shot you straight back to square one.

And each time, you’d sit beside König, shoulders slumped, hands clasped in your lap, eyes devoid of any semblance of hope.

König wasn’t an idiot; he knew what that look was.

He’d encountered it many times in his youth before he’d grown comfortable with the uncomfortable; laid to rest his desire to remove the enemy and instead just live with it – anything for an easy life.

But with you…it was different.

He could tell.

And as he watched your mind become filled with calculus and angles and the dates of histories that barely sounded factual, something, a wicked little thought, crossed his mind.

You were going to be difficult to break.

The idea cracked in his mind’s eye, a flash of lightning against the clouds.

It shocked him, made his heart stammer.

He wondered where it had come from, and he glanced over his shoulder, as if to find the person who had put it there.

When the blazing cold panic fizzled out, calmed and quelled, he gave a glance to the thought, which hovered just out of reach; a legendary sword – antagonist – with not enough room in the inventory to keep.

And so König cast it into the Memory Pit, to die and to fade, while he returned to the lesson.

But it never left him.

It clung to the sharpened cliff edge, giving way to a bottomless pit.

The wright remained the day after. And the day after that, and the day after that.

Weeks passed, and König continued as normal.

Normal to you, at least.

He had another set of eyes now, up above him, behind him, wherever he needed them.

His intuition sharpened, a cat in all but disposition, as he discerned the most miniscule of gestures in the most benign of people.

All excluding you, of course.

Knowing what he did now, König could see what you were thinking and when, especially whenever your attention turned to the boy at the front of the class with the decrepit cyclist’s jacket.

One time, you’d actually gone up and spoken to him, coincidentally on the one day König was off school ill.

Beginning a dark descent into something you couldn’t even fathom as of yet.

A ‘secret’ friendship that, when you’d tell König of it, excited and overjoyed at your progress, his face soured, his mood darkening.

And yet his demeanour remained unchanged.

König had pretended not to have seen your entry, pretended not to have actually had the book at all, but to suggest that someone may have stolen it, or that it had been thrown out when his parents were cleaning his room.

You found it difficult to believe, but what other alternative was there?

Trust your best friend or the possibility of pure, freak chance?

You chose the latter.

König neve let you out of his sight for a second.

Whereas he could trust you before, to handle yourself, to be loyal to his friendship, he could no longer.

Even when you were separated by timetable differences, he still had eyes on you.

A well-timed bathroom break, the revelation that he’d left his textbook in his locker – anything to slip out of his classroom and glide past yours, his eyes on you all the while.

Even if you’d caught him, you’d have assumed he was simply being humorous, as all friends were, or, again, pure chance.

He’d work harder than all other students, earn the teachers’ praise and trust, all to worm his way out the classroom a few minutes early to ensure he could pick you up from your class whenever you were separated.

In the corridors together, König would watch your line of sight carefully.

He’d see who you were looking at, who was looking at you.

Luckily, he never had to do much to deter others from interacting with you.

His rapidly growing height did that for him.

By his mid-teens, König towered above everyone else, giving an unsuspecting you scary dog privileges, and giving everyone else a heart attack when they caught sight of the well-dressed Austrian constantly at your side.

Given his stature, König could cast rotten looks to those who seemed even marginally interested in you, completely unbeknownst to you.

And besides, you wouldn’t believe anyone who told you as much.

König, the shy, quiet, socially anxious boy shooting daggers at another student ? Preposterous !

With this crush of yours, König already had enough to deal with. He wasn’t about to relinquish you to the throws of another person’s friendship as you seemed to already have done with your heart.

The one person König could never seem to do away with was your crush.

He truly was fearless. Or arrogant. Or braindead.

Not that you knew, but König would catch his eye in the hallways, see him stare at you for a moment before the reaper beside you caught his eye.

He looked away, and König hoped that was the end of it.

It was not.

The boy would look at you again.

A feat not yet coined by any.

Except for him.

König knew he was losing you.

Or, losing what part of you was meant to be his.

And so he brought you to where you’d frequent as children, where you scarcely came to now ever since life had become so much more complicated.

The playground was desolate and empty, void of distractions save for the equipment – rides – which seemed too small for you now.

That didn’t stop you from trying to squeeze down the straw-thin slide, though, or into the seats of the roundabout.

König only watched, knowing he wouldn’t even have a chance of fitting like you would.

His palms were sweating, the script he’d rehearsed laying in some crevice in his room, ink smudged with anxiety and sweat.

König clambered up onto a climbing frame, the one which you had occupied when you ‘kissed’ for the first time.

The memory warmed König’s cheeks. But he couldn’t lose focus now.

He called you over, his voice deeper than it had been then, all those years ago.

And you came, bounding over to him, a labrador or a kitten.

You clambered the frame and came to sit with him.

He offered you his hand. Wordless. Intentionless.

(Or so he would seem).

And, wordless, equally intentionless, you faltered, just for a moment, then took it.

He pulled you into the tunnel, the tube wide enough to support König’s staggering height.

Comfort wasn’t the goal here; not for him, at least.

You fit perfectly, a perfect, perfect, perfect specimen as ever in König’s eyes.

That word reverberated in König’s soul, the only sublime measure capable of describing you in your purest form.

Now, hand-in, hand, you and König sat in silence.

Geese called somewhere in the distance, flying through the sunset gates in the sky to a land unknown, collecting passengers on their non-stop express to salvation.

The wind blew the trees as night began its slow descent, ink hands reaching down from the top of the canvas to transform this half of the world into its playground.

Much like the one you and König inhabited.

König looked down at your conjoined hands.

He ran his thumb across the back of yours, your knuckles.

He saw – felt – you wince, flinch. The beginnings of doubt, of retreat.

He knew he had to be quick.

The crippling anxiety that had shadowed from childhood sat with you in that tube now, your Venus, your evil twin.

It was you, who spat at him, at his attempts, and fed him tales of rejection and deceit, of your loyalty to that boy instead of him.

And yet here you sat, eyes wide as ever, curious and ambient, an ocean of possibilities.

The demon on König’s shoulders growled, its claws taking König’s heart in its clutches, knives to your feather-touch, and squeezed it.

König gave a cavernous, inward sigh and returned to you.

It’s now or never.

“(Y/N),” he said, timid, lamb.

He tried looking into your eyes. Peering into them as if they were the future.

You leaned in, swearing you could hear his voice twice.

One which spoke the truth, one which spoke a darker truth.

You listened for your friend’s tone.

“Yes, Köni ?”

God, that nickname.

As old as König himself.

Stay focused.

König swallowed. His throat prickled.

An oncoming sickness. A nestled affliction.

Lovesick.

“Do you remember…when we were kids – and we…”

He faltered. His gaze dropped.

Keep going !

He cleared his throat again.

Your hand lay limp in his.

”And we…we did that…thing?”

Your head tilted and your gaze flew to the sky in remembrance.

Your nose scrunched.

“König…that doesn’t particularly narrow it down,” you laughed, returning from the Heavens to him once again

König swallowed, thickly. He gave a wavering chuckle that barely reached his chest.

“Yeah…yeah, you’re right.”

With his free hand, he rubbed the back of his neck, only to mortify himself when he found sweat collating there. Colony.

He slapped it back down on his thigh, desperately, discreetly, trying to wipe the sweat off.

He returned. Head above water, bobbing.

“I– what I’m trying to say…is…”

He shuffled closer. You mirrored him, ear-first, trying to catch his words, butterflies in a net.

“What I want to say is…”

He looked at you, dead in the eyes.

He was partially hunched, giving his tilted face a menacing, sharp look.

It almost took you aback.

His free hand, puppeteered by his demon, snaked past your body, fingers crocheting through your strands. Fusing you to him.

Your breath hitched, your guard defiled, as he placed his hand firmly there, the cold tips harsh against the warmth of your scalp.

“König–” you said, as if trying to identify the person in front of you.

König – or what he was now – didn’t listen.

He pulled your head closer, braced your hand in his.

You felt your heart pounding in your chest, your nerves beginning to spark with…something.

You didn’t know what it was, but you knew you’d never felt it with König before.

You couldn’t place it, tried as you may.

It was only when König’s forehead kissed yours, his skin scorching, his eyes puppy-like and pure, that you found the answer.

It was the same feeling you felt for the boy with the vintage biker jacket.

You felt frozen, breath stilted, thinned with revelation.

And, with your forehead to König’s, a mirror image of the past, you were flooded with an ocean and all its creatures.

Confusion, apprehension, affection, and…disgust.

You’d never viewed König like that, not once.

And even now, it made you uncomfortable to feel this way.

And so, with the vigour of one escaping a trap, your eyes squeezed shut and tore yourself away, past König’s grip, his hold, and landing a foot or two away.

The umbilical cord, his hand in yours, was cut.

Your body felt cold, a phantom gust of wind prickling the skin, your heart.

König looked at you with wide eyes, pleading eyes, and a hole in his chest.

You looked upon each other, trying to find an answer, trying to see what the other would do.

Swallowing, breathing uneven, you crawled out from the tunnel, not looking back at König as he all but whimpered in your absence, eyes stinging, throat singing. A familiar condition settled upon him.

A paroxysm of his loving sickness, seeping deeper into his veins when you’d done your part in trying to uproot them.

Neither of you spoke about the incident after that.

It took a week of wavering smiles and faltering waves, of a wince or a jump when one of you spoke to the other, for you to eventually put it behind you.

Even with your minimal experience in Romantics, you knew something about the way König held you was different from every time before.

Or, maybe, you had only just awoken to the fact that such intent lay in all his actions towards you.

You tried not to think about it.

And besides, it made no sense to.

Since your crush had asked you to the school dance !

You’d made an effort to conceal that information from König, but he was fluent in the language that was you, and all its most obscure dialects.

You knew he’d figure it out sooner or later, whether you told him or some Rogue of Fate did.

But you wanted to live in this bubble of possibility for a bit longer.

Sure, you didn’t know your crush to a degree that you could call him as close a friends as König, but you’d done something to make him want you.

Your heart soared, chest swelled, the pit of pride held within.

And you waited.

And waited.

Your face grew sourer over time, the dripping of wax work, as realisation crossed your mind.

You didn’t want it.

This ivy – creeping – dread lacing around your heart, chains.

You felt your eyes kindle the embers of tears, your shoulders lowering yet remaining rigid, deflating.

And you jumped as a hand found your shoulder.

You knew who it was.

You could feel his fingerprints against your skin. Distinct as he was.

You turned, a sliver of relief finding you, nesting between the cracks in your chest as you set your eyes upon him.

He wore a dark suit, altered in the sleeves and legs to accommodate his height.

He’d gelled his hair to appear as one would in a romance film. At least, that was what you thought.

The very incarnation of a classic heartthrob.

Just for a second did your mind dare to tell you that this situation would not have happened if König had taken you to the dance.

The thought left you as you faced him fully, your hand coming atop his.

You squeezed it.

“Here all by your lonesome?” König said, voice low, a hint of humour within it, just short of malice.

You nodded. Dropped your head.

You went to talk, to say whatever came to your mind, when your voice gave way to tears.

König didn’t even flinch, even as your grip on his hand tightened.

Instead, he offered himself to you, bringing you close to him by your waist and holding you to his shoulder.

Bystanders would give a glance and König would give them death in a stare, and they quickly turned away.

The material of König’s jacket felt lavish, a far cry from the polyester of the other boys’ outfits.

You couldn’t place it. Not as your head panged with an oncoming headache and your heart burst with a reddening ocean, fire beginning to spark at the edges, boiling it.

You couldn’t help but go over every interaction you’d ever had with your crush, analysing it, scanning it, identifying any and every discrepancy that could have caused him to leave you this night.

And each time, your heart was heir to the shocks and bolts of despair, a palpable, gaseous substance that burned each time you inhaled, each time you thought

And as he held you, felt you shudder, quiver, into his shoulder the weight of your rejection bearing down on you, a far greater weight rested on his.

His demon sat there, smiling, grinning, the ghost of god.

He already had you flush against him, two cards packed tightly into the same pack.

“What’s wrong, Engel?” he said, softly, quietly. He rubbed your back, squeezed you.

“I am certain that whatever has you so upset is not worth your tears.”

And that just made you want to cry more.

The fact that König always knew what to say and when made the doubt from before – the regret – materialise.

König wouldn’t have done this to you. He wouldn’t have even thought about it.

“Come now, (Y/N),” he moved, his hand on your shoulder trailing the length of your arm and taking your hand.

You made no attempt to move.

He sighed, though you knew it was not of frustration. It was…something else.

König went still, then, his arm from your waist disappeared.

You nuzzled closer, an unconscious practice, as cold air hit your back.

“Listen !” he said, enthusiasm uncharacteristic of this situation laced in his tone.

You risked a glance, sniffing as you looked up at König.

He had a hand cupped over his ear, a makeshift megaphone. His gaze was occupied elsewhere, over your head.

“Do you hear that ?” he said.

Your chest stuttered with the remnants of your upset, and you strained to cease, to hear.

Music drifted over the sound of both idle and excited chatter, of the hazy, dusty, dusky layer of first love that had encompassed all.

All except you, it seemed.

You nodded into König’s chest, giving a cracked hum.

He finally looked down at you, both hands coming to yours.

He held them. Squeezed them once.

“It would be a waste for this song to go unremembered,” he said.

You gave a smile, strong as you could, yet it still turned out watery. Incomplete.

Something about König was…different.

You couldn’t quite tell what it was, but you knew you’d never seen it before.

His vehement denial of attending events such as these in the past had led you to the assumption he’d have stayed well away.

Now, you were glad he hadn’t.

Still, the prospect of König even existing in a roomful of people, nevermind being watched by them, stunned you to the extent that you were sure it usually would have König.

You gave a short nod, and offering you his arm, you rested your hand upon it.

That night, König kept you close to him, sheltering you from everything.

When you were at your lowest, he brought you cake and a drink, watched over you as you tried to make sense of it all.

Then, he encouraged you, slowly, softly, to dance a few steps with him.

It started with him taking your hand and pulling you, like rope, up from your chair.

You resisted, initially, terribly invested in the comfort and protection of the corner you’d both taken up.

You felt as if everyone else knew of your predicament – like they were aware of your suffering.

Were somehow party and privy to it.

It took König’s reassurances, his placating tone as he promised he’d “Let nothing happen to you,” and “you’re safe with me, Little One,”

And, on your knees, with nothing else filling your head save for the crushing defeat of a love you hadn’t even had chance to know, König was your only salvation.

At first, dancing was the last thing you wanted to do – especially when it was what you were planning on doing with the person who had ripped your confidence out.

Other couples melted into the atmosphere, the ambience, becoming the backdrop to this milestone in your life, making the experience feel somewhat…less lonesome.

That, and the gentle grasp König had on you.

He was particularly agile as he kept you both in time with the music, setting a gliding rhythm and spinning you in his arms.

Initially, he was slow, despite the upbeat music not permitting such.

It shocked you how little König cared about the million ways he himself would have identified his actions as making him ‘stick out like a sore thumb’.

And yet, his confidence reassured you.

Created a buffer between you and the rest of the world.

Though the sting of rejection followed you from each scene of this tragedy, its bite dulled, grained and blunted by the sheets of film placed over it, filled instead with the growing phantom of König, and you.

Little did you know that, inside, König was dying.

This place, this event, was a composite of all his worst nightmares, you being stolen from him included.

But, he knew that if he were not to face his demons – at least the ones that held him back – tonight, he’d lose you forever.

A sacrifice he’d make any day.

He only hoped you wouldn’t hear the clattering of his heart, feel it amid the plush layers of his suit.

Amidst the streamers and music and sticky scent of perfume and the slice of cologne filling the air made your mind hazy.

The music slowed the deeper into the night it became.

You swayed with König, your head against his shoulder, eyes shut. A glint of the dimming, pink lights reflecting against the disco ball pierced your eyelid, making you squeeze your eyes tightly, rub your face into the confines of König’s jacket.

He resisted the urge to let out a yell of victory.

The evening was drawing to a close, and König knew that, now, he had you.

Both mentally and physically.

He knew how untrusting you’d be towards your crush if you ever saw him again – if he ever dared to exist near you again.

And he knew how likely you were to take things like this – no matter how minimal the inconvenience – to heart.

König rested his chin atop your head. And, when you didn’t move, not one muscle, he relaxed onto you.

His mind and body had been a firework of nerves all day, waiting for even a second of doubt to cross your eyes, or your crush to come staggering out of the bin König had hidden him in.

But, here he was, the person he loved most in all the world with him and him alone.

Yet, despite his victory, he knew he couldn’t have you fully.

Not yet.

While no longer children, you both still had a considerable amount of time to change your minds, your mindsets, and so acting now while your life would be at its most volatile would be a wasted opportunity. A dangerous opportunity.

No, König knew when he had to act.

For now, he would abstain, take to your hand holding and secret sharing and forehead kissing until, one day, your eyes would open as his were, see the world with him as he did with you.

Pink. Rose-tinted as the very hall you occupied.

Act 3

König’s inclination of ownership over you did not cease with the coming and going of age; not as he advanced from teenhood to adulthood, nor as he outgrew his parents’ house and moved into his own.

If anything, it grew more palpable, yet not stronger.

It was already at its most imposing height, its final form, as König thought it.

The demon on his shoulders had retired to the corners of his mind since Prom night, surveilling everyone and everything that it thought a threat to your relationship with König.

And all the while, König kept it concealed from you.

König’s inclination of ownership over you did not cease with the coming and going of age; not as he advanced from teenhood to adulthood, nor as he outgrew his parents’ house and moved into his own.

You both ended up moving within close proximity to each other, though, given his occupation (which you’d vehemently warned and even denied him of doing) kept him away for many months of the year.

Resultingly, König could think of no-one better to guard his house and all its worldly possessions than you.

“What’s mine is yours,” he told you, handing you your very own set of keys.

“So you’ll see no point in stealing my shirts again.”

“Oh my god, that was one time! I was cold and it was just there !”

“Just say you missed me and save us both the effort.”

But seriously though, König almost died the first time he saw you in one of his shirts.

He leaves them strewn about in easy-to-reach places in the hopes that, one evening, he’ll come home and see you bundled up on the sofa, wrapped in one.

He gets a little frisky when he sees you in them.

First time, he thought you were adorable, pint-sized in his clothing.

And then, once the initial shock had worn off, his mind began to wander to…places.

He himself was rather taken aback by the ferocity of these fantasies, now breaking through the surface of his dignity to plague him.

He knows you have a preference for one of his hoodies, and he’s seen you wear it enough times to know that your birthday present this year was going to be very easy to choose.

He could have wept for the joy that spread across your face when he gifted you the hoodie, watching you wriggle into it before the wrapping paper had chance to fall to the ground.

He had to excuse himself to the bathroom soon after, though.

You honestly spent as much time at König’s as you did at your own home.

Watering his plants, dusting the shelves, cleaning before he returned home; König found it all to be quite domestic.

Especially whenever he was ill and you were always there to make him feel better.

Like one time, when he was hit with a  particularly bad cold, and was bed-ridden for three days.

You came and cared for him, cooked for him, catered to his every need with neither hesitation, nor complaint.

During his delirium, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have you around like this all the time – to have you as his housespouse.

The thought, to König’s heavy, weary head, was particularly appealing, nigh euphoric, and when he slept he dreamt of you, serving him as you did now.

And he’d return the favour, of course.

It was in times like these that König’s mind began to…degrade, one might say.

More so than it already was.

Whether it was delusion or a sheer desire to have you, König began to try and make these scenarios a reality.

Make no mistake, he’d had similar ideas when he was younger, but now he had both the means and the time to actually do it.

And König’s mind had no qualms with exploring the darker avenues of this possibility, of the methods of how to enact it.

In the meantime, he was perfectly content with keeping you close to him while you watched films together, your head on his chest, arms wrapped around him.

“My big bear,” you called him.

And a bear to most, he was.

Ferocious and positively massive, his mere presence was enough to frighten off potential suitors.

And friends.

That, coupled with his often silent exterior made for a terrifying experience to all that were not you or the handful of allies König had.

Often, you’d call him whenever you were frightened, or anxious.

Especially if you were out in the evening.

Not that König ever left you during those hours; regardless of the time of night or day, he’d accompany you anywhere and everywhere, your shadow.

But, on the rare occasion he was kept away, you’d call him, ask him to talk to you, keep you grounded.

One evening, you’d made the mistake of not telling König you were leaving to go out, and when he woke up at some odd hour of the night to find you gone, his first, soldier instinct was to panic.

He swept the house, found you nowhere, and began calling your phone so many times it very well could have exploded.

And when you answered, voice laced with sleep and heavy without judgement, König had to resist the urge to cry out in relief.

“(Y/N), where are you?”

“Corner shop. Had to get some snacks.”

Had he not still been coming down from the panic high, König would have considered being angry.

“All right, just stay there. Don’t leave the store until I find you.”

“How do you even know which store—”

Needless to say, König was not best pleased to find you practically putting your life on the line for a bagful of crisps, a chocolate bar and…a toy fish?

“Impulse buy,” you told him.

König sighed.

“Next time, try not to act on your impulses so quickly.”

Like me, the voice told himself.

Your hand was shackled in his for the duration of the walk home.

And the whole night as you slept together.

Though, despite your blatant lac of self-awareness or judgement, König couldn’t help hut find you endearing.

The chocolate in your bag was his favourite brand, one which you couldn’t stand.

You’d gone out to do it for him.

He pulled you into his chest, practically purring as you nuzzled into his chest, enveloped completely by him.

“I’ll always protect you, Y/N,” he said, running a hand through your hair. “I promise.”

Even during those moments where you were at your most intimate, regardless of how innocent your intent.

The first instance of this, a most shocking development, occurred when you and König had visited the beach.

It was a few months before his deployment to a far-away military base to train.

The two of you, as was to be expected, wore swimsuits.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

It was only when you’d shed your thin jacket that König was affected.

His gaze fixed on you, unable to be torn away as he took in the silhouette of your body.

He’d never had an innate desire to see you partially, or fully undressed, even when he was at his most hormonal.

His love and appreciation for you had been based purely on you, your demeanour, your personality.

So to now see you having shed your fledgling body in return for one that was more mature, more defined, König couldn’t take it.

Sure, he’d seen people scantily clad before, though that was in magazines and shopping catalogues and movies that never quite took his fancy.

Not real life.

And they had never been you.

König felt a familiar tightness forming in his swim shorts.

He swallowed thickly, the sun suddenly too hot, the sand suddenly too sharp.

And then, you had to bring him closer to ruin.

“Köni,” you called, melodic, a tune König would fall for every time.

“Would you help put this sunscreen on my back?”

This was all moving so fast.

Sure, he’d had thoughts of being intimate with you before, but they’d only been thoughts, hallucinations, even.

And he knew they weren’t real, weren’t palpable.

Unlike this.

Hesitantly, fearing his secret would become apparent to you, he sat beside you, legs clasped together as he tried desperately to keep you oblivious to the growing issue.

He’d lathered the cream between his waiting hands, and his breath shuttering, placed them upon your skin.

You were soft. Tiny in König’s giant hands.

He’d have cursed his genetics for making him so adept at this practice – for making it pass too quickly – was he not fighting every moral and ethic he had yet to break.

You purred as his hands slid from the to the bottom of your back, your unintentional mewls destroying König’s resolve.

His hands dipped, slowly, fractionally, down your sides, close to your front, your chest.

He wanted to.

God, he wanted to.

But he knew not to risk it.

Abstain. Abstain, the voice told him.

He resisted, took in your body feverishly one last time before he got up, finished, his hulking figure blocking out the sunlight.

“Be right back,” he’d told you.

And off he sped to the nearest bathroom, where, whimpering into the jacket he’d balled over his fist and put to his mouth, he apologised over and over to you, his toes curling as he brought himself to a reluctant conclusion.

He returned soon, just as he’d said.

You smiled back at him from your shallow edge of the ocean, waving him over.

He declined, instead hiding beneath the shade of the umbrella.

He was still sensitive between his legs, as was his mind.

He wouldn’t risk compromising himself again. Not when he was so close to having you.

Or so he thought.

After that first encounter with his own beasteous appetite for you to a more…carnal degree, König had begun to indulge in some personal delights.

AKA, stealing your underwear and using it to get off during his long trips away.

And, whenever he stayed over, he’d take his opportunity to rifle through your drawers, gather intel (as he was so trained), see what new clothes you’d bought (why – and who for?).

You and König took to sharing a bed again.

Perhaps it was the false assurance of maturity that stopped you from realising – from seeing – how König felt about you.

Whenever he would come and pay you a visit, the afternoons would transform from a dusk-ridden sky to a languid black wine speckled with the universe’s offspring.

And there you and König would be, in bed together, talking for what would always be hours about anything and everything.

Much like that time in the tunnel, neither of you spoke of your time at the dance, though rather for you it was a source of hurt, whereas König, proof of conquest.

Regardless, you’d both matured, left school, and had pursued your own paths.

All while remaining as close as you had since childhood.

König’s decision to join the military had been one you’d discussed at length.

Or rather, you’d tried to convince him of staying.

He won that particular argument.

Not that he’d have let you stay mad at him, anyway.

“I can handle myself extraordinarily well, mein Maus.”

Your eyebrow quirks up.

“König, I’ve never seen you hurt a fly, nevermind a person.”

His stomach dropped when he remembered that you didn’t know about his…altercation with the boy who almost stole you from him all those years ago.

And the odd few he’d instigated whenever a potential suitor walked onto the scene.

He gets called away on business a lot, so you find other ways of communicating.

He’s not permitted to use a mobile phone since it serves as both a distraction and a vehicle for tracking, and the last thing König would do is put you in harm’s way.

Instead, you send each other letters, from addresses different to your true ones, of course.

You often send him books you know he’ll like, going through and annotating all the parts you found funny, sad, or profound.

And there was always a heartfelt note trapped within the pages, pinned to the paper in ink.

He has a limited edition copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart and a body of his other works that he keeps hidden beneath his bed.

‘Limited edition’ because you’d gone out of your way to print out each page of the book when you were just children, unable to purchase the book for both a lack of personal finances and not wanting to get König into trouble for reading such dark material.

Perhaps that had been some precursor to what your lives would become – a foreshadow over you.

The copy König had was worn, despite his best efforts to preserve it.

Dog-eared corners, blunted edges and yellowed, softened paper.

Some of the ink had scratches through the letters, faded.

And between those pages, a picture of you was held.

Each night, König would hold that photograph between his fingers, sometimes quivering with adrenaline, other times numb with the same affliction.

And, without fail, your visage brought him to sleep, to slumber, to a recreation of your domestic future that played behind his eyelids.

Your letters kept him more than excited, too.

When he’d be gone for months at a time, you’d update him on your life occurrences; birthdays, anecdotes, work complications; König lived for it all.

All, except, for one sliver of news which you’d so foolishly told König.

And, as he held your letter between his clenching, grasping, white-knuckled hands, his teeth gritted, his eyes going wide, breath billowing from his nose like steam.

You’d started to fancy someone at work.

König did something he’d never done with your letters before.

He crumpled it between his fingers, his every nerve ablaze with the need to do something, to intervene.

König knew he wasn’t thinking straight, but he didn’t care.

This was different from Prom; he couldn’t reach you here.

That day, König’s kill count far exceeded that of his peers, many bodies ravaged with enough stab wounds to think them sacrifices for some angry god.

His teammates seemed a little reluctant to cooperate with him this time round, and steered clear of him for the duration of the mission.

Days later, König was home.

His fury remained with him, that demon he’d harboured for so many years now emerging from the corners of his personality.

But he knew to conceal it from you – knew how to.

He arrived at your doorstep before he’d even gone home yet.

To him, you were his home.

And as you invited him inside, his mask no longer an instigator of fright to you but of your best friend, your soulmate in another life.

König took little time to settle in your living room, putting his overnight bag somewhere, all the while his mind still rubbed raw with the mission.

And you.

Seeing as he’d been gone for some months, he knew he’d need to be attentive to the way you spoke of this new ‘crush’ of yours.

I’ll crush him, all right, he said to himself.

He couldn’t be sure how serious you were about him.

How deep a threat he was.

You’d cooked König’s favourite in anticipation of his arrival, having developed something of a sixth sense when it came to his making an appearance.

And as you brought him his fresh, spare clothes from your wardrobe, König couldn’t help but let a comment slip.

“We’re like an old married couple,” he said, stitching a laugh between his words to give the illusion of jest. Of humour.

An easy deflection tactic.

You gave no indication of rejection.

No idea of disgust.

You only laughed.

“Yeah,” you said, placing König’s meal down in front of him.

“I suppose we do.”

And, as you went to pull away, König took your wrist, gently, in his hand.

He dwarfed you in every aspect, and this was no different.

But something that was different that you’d picked up was his stare.

It was deep, almost half-lidded in its demeanour.

König’s hand slipped from your wrist into yor hand, holding it, gently, like porcelain.

You squeezed his fingers.

“Something wrong, König ?” you asked, turning to give him your full attention.

He paused for a moment, then two, then three.

“No.” he said, final and certain. He let you go.

“Nothing at all.”

König began showing up to your work.

Since you stayed at each other’s houses as much as you did as children, König found it almost frighteningly easy to make you blunder.

He’d take your lunch out the fridge and hide it, only to deny ever having seen it when you searched for it in the morning.

Later that same day, König would come and pay you a visit, dropping off your lunch, claiming it to have “been in the back of the fridge. Must’ve missed it, Silly,” and he’d give you a smile.

The first few times, he’d treated your artificial oblivion to your surroundings as ‘cute’, ‘endearing’.

Then, when you began ‘misplacing’ your keys, your phone, everyday essentials, König would shoot you a concerned look.

“(Y/N), Sweetie–” he’d look in the cupboards with you, a look of concern laced into his features.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right ? You’ve been losing track of your things for quite a while now.”

At first, you could only give him quick reassurances before rushing off to work.

Rushing off to see him.

And König would remain.

Searching the house not for your lost items, but for those he could hide next.

You’d never find them again.

You’d have to get copies of your keys, a new phone – replace all the contacts you lost,

And even then, König made sure you’d have to work for the ones he didn’t want you to have.

Like His.

Eventually, three months into this plan, this scheme, König made a proposition.

He sat you down at his dining table, his hand atop yours, holding it.

He appeared genuine.

True.

“(Y/N),” he said, almost exasperatedly.

“I’m…concerned about you.”

He gave you a second to consider what he was saying, wanting to give you the illusion of verbal freedom.

When you only nodded eyebrows knitted together in mirrored concern, he inhaled deeply.

“And, considering how…” he pretended to rummage around in his mind for the right word. “Forgetful you’ve been recently…” he watched you. Tried to gauge your reaction. Something flickered behind your eyes.

Annoyance.

König began to tread carefully.

“I thought that, perhaps, just for a week or so, you could try…living here.”

He waited in silence, for your confirmation.

Or denial.

You sniffed, rubbed your eye, and settled your weary head into your hand.

König pushed further.

“Unless…” he cast his gaze down, to the oak table.

“You don’t think I’d be able to care for you.”

At that, your eyes widened, and you clasped König’s hand between yours.

Desperate.

“Oh, no, Köni !” You exclaimed. “I-I can think of no-one better to look after me than you !”

König cast you a doubtful look.

“But…?”

You swallowed.

“But…” you retracted. König had to resist the need to pull you back into his arms.

“But you’re just so busy. I don’t know if… I’d just be a burden to you.”

König almost let out a snort.

“A burden ?” he said, leaning back in his chair, as if taking an arrow of offence straight to the heart.

“My dear, you would never be a burden to me.”

He leaned in, took your hands in his again.

His voice lowered. Soft. The flight of a bird across the ocean’s face.

“Ever.”

You looked up from your lap.

Your eyes were glassed. Doll-ish.

You sniffed. Sniffed again.

A tear fell onto the hoodie you wore. The one König gifted you.

“Okay.” You relented.

The shark tore the bird from its glide, dragging its corpse into the abyss.

König squoze your hands.

“You won’t regret it,” he assured you.

You were his prisoner from then on.

You just didn’t know it yet.

König left on official business not long after you moved in.

You still had you other apartment, but the way König spoke of it, using ‘was’, ‘were’ and ‘used to be’, gave the impression that it was off-limits to you now.

Lost.

You were allowed time off work after explaining your predicament to your boss.

She was supportive, told you to take as much time off as you needed.

As you bade König a farewell at the door, something about him felt…different.

You could feel it in the way he gripped you, pulled you up to him, his arms around your waist, hanging lower than usual.

His breath hot against your neck, the phantom brush of his lips against your most sensitive part.

And when you withdrew, König imparted only a sliver of advice to you.

“Don’t go into the basement.”

The look on your face implored ‘why?’, yet your lips did not.

König set your mind at ease regardless.

“There’s a bit of damp down there. Don’t want you getting sick–” He looked at you, smiling. “–er.”

And he bore himself into the night, shedding König and becoming a killer.

That night, when the TV had little to offer in the way of entertainment, and your phone offered little incentive to play games or socialise, your mind began to wander.

Through meniality, then obscurity.

You thought about your old home, and everything in it you loved.

Your heart ached for it, for everything you’d left behind there.

I’m sure König wouldn’t mind if I…just had a little time at home.

You consorted with your mental audience.

After all, he’s going to be gone for at least a few weeks.

Standing from the sofa, legs wobbling with inactivity, you hunted for your keys.

König kept his on a hook by the door.

But when you checked it, yours were nowhere to be found.

You searched your shared bedroom, the drawer.

You found something…peculiar.

You lifted a pair of underwear from within that you swore you’d lost months ago – before you’d ever moved in with König.

Perhaps I’m mistaken, you thought.

Rationalised.

I probably just packed these without thinking. Found them in the wash bin and threw them into a suitcase.

And you continued your search.

Soon, however, you were beginning to run out of rooms, and you were growing restless.

The longer you were forced to abstain from the outside world, the more ants felt like they were crawling under your skin

Eventually, despite König’s warning, you had no choice but to descend into the basement.

And you did so.

Quietly.

The feeling of having König over your shoulder didn’t leave with him.

Not this time.

And, as you clambered the newly-cleaned stairs down, you saw a dim light peeking out from beneath the door frame.

You reached for the handle, breath bated with the hope of discovery.

Your keys had to be here, right ?

Reaching for the handle, you opened the door.

And everything stopped.

For a second, you didn’t believe what you were seeing.

The source of the light had been candles.

Many, many candles, varying shades of your favourite colours, blended into a macabre rainbow over a horrifyingly familiar artifact you’d assumed had been lost to time.

The Bestie Bible.

Mounted on a makeshift pillar and aged with childlike handling, though it was noticeably pristine.

Stepping back, you hit something.

A wall that hadn’t been there before.

You gasped, turning on your heel.

A man stood before you, but it wasn’t König.

It couldn’t be.

Though identical in build, in height, and in the way he stood, this veiled man was not your König.

At least, not the König you’d grown up with.

He took a step forwards. You scrambled back.

Ending...

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist

Masterpost

[jevilowo]

MY OPINIONS ON VARIOUS TF2 SHIPS

For funsies

SCIENCE PARTY:

fun ship, but they're GodComplex4GodComplex and I fear that would only end in disaster

TOASTED SANDVICH:

if there is one heavypyro fan on this stupid baka planet it is me. shout out to menacing quiet individuals who like violence but have a soft side fr.

BLOODY SUIT:

literally The Original toxic yaoi rivals to lovers red blue combo ship. speeding bullet and napoleon complex fans WISH they had our shared update and corresponding voice lines

BATTING HELMET: (scout n solly)

i just think it's really funny trust me on this one guys. have you seen them in the fourth comic it's a constant "yes, and" bit between the two of them. soldier's love language is choking people out.

HIT AND A MISS: (scout n pauling)

like most ms pauling ships, i'm only into it if scout's a cool lesbian. which he is not most of the time.

RED OKTOBERFEST:

AAAAAAAAAAAAA literally the ship of all time save me heavymedic save me. if they don't smooch in the next comic i will become jay pinkerton's personal sleep paralysis demon.

SPEEDING BULLET:

my feelings on it are Complicated. twas my first love (otp) in this fandom, but the overabundance of twinky uwu scout and daddy dom snoipah has built up some resentment on my part. call me back when people stop making up imaginary life problems for sniper to comfort scout over.

NAPOLEON COMPLEX: (Spy n Engie)

literally just rarjack if they were boys and not horses to me and i'm not even an mlp fan. it's alright, just doesn't really stick out to me.

SPYMA:

LITERALLY THE POWERCOUPLE EVER TRULY A LOVE STORY FOR THE AGES or at least the version that exists in my head is. i have so much made up spyma lore it's crazyyy. bonus points if they're polying up they cule with sniper it's quickly becoming my favourite genre of fanart (i have seen at maximum three)

SUPPORT SANDWICH: (spy n sniper n medic)

in my opinion, it is healthy for everyone to have at least one ship they just like bc they think it's hot. for me, that is support sandwich. not much else to say on that the fics are all banging go look them up.

SNIDOS: (sniper n GLaDOS)

hell yeah.

ADMINPAULING:

i used to like it a lot, but timelining implies ms pauling's been working for helen since her mid teens at the latest so i no longer like it. 4chan leaks my beloathed pleaseee don't make them kiss i think it would kill me in a bad way

URINE SAMPLE: (medic n sniper)

there's a lot of werewolf and vampire stuff for these two on ao3 which is pretty fun. and i'm way more likely to find sniper angst under the medicsniper tag than sb and bs which is always a plus.

FRENCH TOAST: (spyro)

have you seen that one animation where pyro gives birth to spy's child and gordon freeman is there at one point. yeahhhh. the ship's pretty cute tho spy would be sooo soft for pyro they'd light his cigarettes for him.

BOOTS AND BOMBS:

THE FORBIDDEN RED/BLU ROMANCE GOES CRAZY I ADORE IT. same team bnb is pretty banging too. bonus points if they're polying up they cule with zhanna.

SPYPAULING:

HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE. imagine. spy x pauling. yuri. that will be all.

SWORDVAN:

SWORDVAN MY LOVE!!! idk what it is about demo and sniper together but HELL YEAH TOP 5 SHIPS FR FR. shout out to the guy still writing monsterous intent, they're like single handedly carrying the swordvandom.

TEXAS TOAST:

I used to think "this is cute" but then my friend got really really into it and that hyped me up into "THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST SHIPS OF ALL TIME" territory. bonus points if they're yuri! shout out to Technicolor California, my current favourite fanfic of all time (it overtook running blind in the interal rankings). oh yeah insert mandatory "no hate to engie and pyro father son dynamic preferers" message here lol.

Ok that's enough I will cover more at some point maybe.

[foone]

whats your favourite narnia book if you have one

Since I grew up as an autistic christian, I have many Narnia Opinions!

So, my favorite book for it's own reasons is probably The Magician's Nephew. I'm always a slut for worldbuilding and backstory and that novel is basically just only that. Some guy we know from another book goes on an adventure and in the process gets to be involved with the creation of one world and the destruction of another? kick-ass.

Best book to adapt? The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. 1988 BBC version, 1979 Cartoon version, 2005 theatrical? All good, in their own ways. The BBC version is just perfectly 80s and the costumes are amazing (because they are costumes! they did all the monsters by sticking a guy in a big costume and I love it), the cartoon version captures the fucking whimsy of a story where SANTA SHOWS UP AND GIVES EVERYONE PRESENTS and the first person to offer any serious lore about the situation is named MR BEAVER. And the 2005 film has the big battles and CGI and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch which is... so much. I love them all.

But the best book adaptation is the 1990 BBC The Silver Chair. Hands down. It's got Tom Baker's Puddleglum, Warwick Davis playing an owl, 0£ BBC budget greenscreened giants (MULTIPLE TIMES), a group of people discovering IT'S A COOKBOOK and one of them being offended by the cookbook saying they don't taste very good, the bad guy turning into a giant rubber snake. a witch trying to gaslight some humans into believing the sun is a myth, and the ultimate salvation of Eustace Scrubb: a boy who almost deserved being named that.

And since I can't not list basically everything Narnia ever made, BBC's 1989 Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is pretty good too. It's a fun "road movie", in that it's an odyssey into a fictional Mysterious Ocean of Here There Be Dragons.

Lotta hits in that one. It's also got a "collect the macguffins!" plot where they're trying to collect the Seven Lost Lords.

But yeah, it's like... the first Island gets them a lord and they get to end slavery. Next up, Dragon TF island (The dragon is Greed... but it's also just a literal fucking dragon). Next, Gold TF island. Gold, it turns out, makes you go insane in your lust for wealth, even if you're already a Prince of a whole country. The gold is Greed, but it will also just fucking kill you because you'll be turned into gold.

Then it's the island of the ugly invisible one-foot guys and it turns out they cast a spell to turn invisible so no one could see how they're ugly but they're not ugly, they just think they are? and then it goes "HEY LUCY COMPARE YOURSELF TO YOUR OLDER SISTER" and she's like "I'm ugly.... unlike her. Maybe I should use magic to STEAL HER BEAUTY?!" and it's like, wow. Is there maybe a theme here about self-esteem in your appearance? and Clive Officemax Lewis is over there going I'LL NEVER TELL.

Anyway it's got the good line about how the Wizard in charge of the ugly invisible one-footed pogo-idiots is that how he eagerly awaits the day that they can be ruled by wisdom, instead of magic. It's a fun approach to magic: it's something that is a shortcut, a crutch, and it's a poor replacement for Wisdom, even when used by "the good guys". Tell me, Mr. FedexKinkos-Lewis, do you have any opinions on the complicated relationship between Christianity and magic? oh, you do? I never would have guessed!

They also find The Island Where Dreams Come True. They don't land there, they just fish a screaming man out of the ocean who is trying to escape it. The sailors hear it's The Island Where Dreams Come True and are like "wow, I could have my own ship!" and he yells no, you fools, not dreams like your wishes and imaginations, your actual dreams come true on this island.

and everyone agrees: Get us the fuck away from this island and lets never return.

Anyway I'm not gonna talk about THE ENTIRE MOVIE/BOOK but it's got a great weirdness at the end where they reach the end of the world (which is flat. It's okay, this is Narnia, a completely different world with different physical rules than Earth), and it's a waterfall, but a waterfall going up?

It turns out Heaven is on the other side of it. They turn around, but the anthropomorphic mouse is like "ehh, I'll take that journey" and becomes the Elijah of Aslan's Country, their equivalent of heaven.

Narnia, won't you?

[thoughtsonkm]

Mimi-san & Kookoo-san

This photo really fulfills my need for aesthetic shots

This episode (and probably the whole trip) is like the biggest, warmest, lingering hug someone could give you. Not letting go for a long time, until after it's over you're left with a full heart, teary eyes and a sense of unprecedented calmness.

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So no Tokyo for us (as expected). That city really is theirs and theirs ONLY. (I read that ppl saw them with a camera in that ramen shop in Tokyo, so now everyone's thinking of a possible GCF #2 but that would be INSANE)

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Jimin stop ruining the romantic moments JK creates, challenge failed! (he really does live up to the "conceal, don't feel" idea)

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This ritual of Jimin singing Kook's new singles on each trip, is very very cute.

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THE BABIEST OF THEM ALL another bean here⬆️

Did they lowkey have a gentle monster sponsorship? Way to go Jikook 👏🏻👏🏻

I know it's always been Jimin's go to brand for glasses so it feels kinda full circle. He should be some kind of brand ambassador for them.

Oh hello mister 'I can eat yo fingers but not yo potato peel' (I get it tho)

This is the single softest Jikook moment ever!! Period. End of discussion.

Sharing earphones, romantic music, beautiful scenery, calm setting, head on shoulder. - Who says romance is dead? 😭

Not even the background animation can ruin this for me. (ingenious idea nonetheless)

I CANNOT deal with the sweetness of this daughter talk. DO THEY KNOW WE'RE INSANE??

My guy starts talking about a family. The other guy he's gripping tight is already discombobulated, gulping, eyes going left and right lol

Jokes aside he really would be the most gentle, bestest, most caring dad ever 😭 (I promised myself to not get emo during this episode, I'm saving the waterworks for the inevitable last ep.)

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I do remember they (especially Jimin) used to be pretty fluent in japanese so I'm guessing since they haven't done Japan promo since 2021, they forgot a little bit..

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Imagine Jimin in a jazz bar with a 10 year old whiskey in hand, flirting with his bf.. Improv kings!

Happiness looks so good on them.

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I love that from time to time they almost forgot they had a show to shoot. A DAMN JOB to do 😂

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I present you a compilation of Jungkook saying how happy he is, how much he loves it and how good it is, during this episode.

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LOL at them doing the english meme thing. Just two simple guys with ONE BRAINCELL. Looks like one of those random af videos they would watch while learning english.

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Oh yes, we do indeed enjoy y'all gradually getting raggedy and fat 😂😂 He's hilarious, he's on a roll ladies and gents.

Jungkook half wishing they were the same age so they could "twin" even more (I'm sure that would be so convenient for you Jk 👀) as if it's possible for them to be even more on the same wavelength than they already are.

I do feel like in the distant future it would be such a good option for them to transfer and live in Japan cause it does seem like their favourite place in the whole world and the one place they feel themselves the most.

Sapporo in their 40es would be like a little hidden paradise for them to be somewhat free..

(let me dream)