#Twisted Wonderland x cannibal reader

[shiratamahatsumiyo]

Jamil Viper with Carl! Yuu from Llamas with Hats, ft. Octavinelle Trio

I can't say that everyone is not dying in this one 💀...

Warnings: Blood & Gore, Violence, Swearing, Cannibalism

• I was torn between choosing the reader to be isekai'd as a llama or isekai them as a llama beastman. I'm just gonna go with beastman cuz I thought it'd be funnier if they could talk. I also made them less murderous. There's also a collab with other characters from Filmcow 😉.

• There's a high chance that Jamil has heard of you through Kalim. The boy said he witnessed a llama beastman causing a fire and a monster running around during the ceremony. Great, he went through the trouble to prepare a welcoming party for the freshmen and now he has to fix Kalim's robe. He just hopes that Kalim won't forget what he said about the new schedule tomorrow.

• Kalim forgot. Again. Of course he would.

• Kalim forgot about the sudden change of class schedules and spent the entire morning wandering to wrong classrooms. Jamil just received his text message after class and texted back the room number. Kalim did not reply or read his message. Luckily, Jamil remembered that he turned on the location in Kalim's phone just in case for these types of situations. He tried tracking him down but Kalim kept moving, so he ran as fast as he could to catch up with him.

• Jamil finally see Kalim not moving in the courtyard. When he caught sight of Kalim, he sees another person next to him... A beastman? He approached you two and called Kalim.

Jamil: "Kalim!"

Kalim: "Jamil! There you are! How'd you find me?"

Jamil: "I turned on the location on your phone, remember? I texted you the room number, why haven't you read it?"

Kalim: "Oh, I thought that I'd find the classroom myself but it looks like I got lost more, hehe!"

Jamil: "Honestly, I thought you were... Who is this?"

Kalim: "This guy's trying to help me out!"

Carl! Yuu: "Nope, I'm just as lost as you are. I didn't even know we even got class."

Jamil: "Who are you?"

Carl! Yuu: "I'm Carl! Yuu. I'm just a regular llama guy with a hat, yup. A totally normal beastman. Nothing comes after that because of how normal I am."

Kalim: "I've got an idea!Why not just come with me and Jamil? We could go to our classrooms together."

Carl! Yuu: "Oh hey, that's a great idea. Why haven't I thought of that."

Jamil: ".... Kalim, come here for a sec."

• Jamil pushed Kalim away from you. They went a distance farther from you and Jamil whispered to him.

Jamil: "Kalim, have you met them before?"

Kalim: "Uhh... no?"

Jamil: "It's the llama beastman you talked about causing arson at the ceremony!"

Kalim: "OH! Now I remember!"

Jamil: "Sshh! They might be as unhinged as Floyd. Thank the Sevens they didn't harm you."

Carl! Yuu: "Why are we whispering?"

Jamil: "Gah!"

• He was right. You were as unhinged as Floyd and were as nosy as Azul. If you have those obnoxious two's personalities then whatever you're hiding must be as fucked up as Jade's. He doesn't want to assume but he does want to be cautious. If you easily caused arson, then that means you're worse than that monster at the ceremony.

• Kalim insisted that you three should join at the cafeteria for lunch and here he is, sitting beside Kalim who lost his appetite after you opened your lunchbox. Jamil smelled an odor coming from your food. It smells like something is... Rotting?

Jamil: "Kalim, your next class is... Sevens, what is that smell?!"

Kalim: "Eugh! C-Carl! Yuu, has your food gone bad? I-I can buy you lunch if-"

Carl! Yuu: "No thank you, but this is what I usually eat. It's my favorite."

• Jamil looked at your lunch and his eyes widened in disgust. What was in your plate was raw meat still wet with blood. The foul odor eventually reached the noses of the nearby tables and the students moved farther away from yours.

Jamil: "CARL! YUU, WHAT IS THIS?!"

Carl! Yuu: "Would you believe that it's melted and solidified jellybeans?"

Jamil: "NO, I WOULD NOT BELIEVE THAT."

Carl! Yuu: "Red milk?"

Kalim: "N-No 😰...?"

Carl! Yuu: "Some of Crowley's tears?"

Jamil: "CARL! YUU!!"

Carl! Yuu: "Fine... It's raw meat. And a bit of blood. And mold."

Jamil: "I CAN SEE THAT!"

Kalim: "I-i-it's rotting! You can't eat that!"

Carl! Yuu: "Yeah, you're right. I should've brought the fresh one. This one is actually one of the leftovers from yesterday. The blood may have gone cold, but it makes the meat taste sweet. Do you want to try some?"

Jamil: "NO!"

Carl! Yuu: "Dang, that was rude. You don't have to shout, you'll disturb the others. Want some, Kalim?"

Kalim: "...😰... N-no thanks..."

Carl! Yuu: "Alright. More for me then."

Jamil: "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO BRING THAT HERE? WHAT KIND OF MEAT EVEN IS THAT?"

Carl! Yuu: "... You don't want to know."

• The smell and racket made the Cafeteria Ghosts kick you out. Jamil made an instant mental note to himself and Kalim to never cross paths with you again. Unfortunately, during a class collaboration, you became lab partners with Jamil. Jamil was irritated but he has to work with you for the grades. Honestly, same.

Jamil: "Ok. This is fine. This won't turn out bad if you just calm down... Hopefully this will turn out well-"

Carl! Yuu: "Hey Jamaica, what happens if I accidentally devoured a mandrake because I mistook it as a live form of food and shoved random potions in the cauldron causing it to rain acid and melt the ceiling while simultaneously making the students fall unconscious due to decreasing brain function, again caused by said acid rain. And I also managed to defy gravity and to attract several flamingos from Heartslabyul, as well as the vultures from Savanaclaw because of the substance emitting from the cauldron, and now they are brutally fighting each other while defying gravity. Hypothetically?"

Jamil: "............................"

Carl! Yuu: "Judging by your lack of response, I guess I haven't done enough and should've add my leftover meat into the cauldron. This question is not hypothetical, by the way."

Jamil: "NO SHIT."

Crewel: "CAAAAARL! YUUUUU!!!"

• HOW? JUST. JUST HOW? HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD AT GETTING ON PEOPLE'S NERVES? YOU'RE BASICALLY WORSE THAN THOSE OCTAVINELLE IDIOTS COMBINED! AND EVEN THEY'RE AFRAID OF YOU! THE HEADMASTER IS A LOT MORE STUPID THAN HE THOUGHT. WHY ARE YOU NOT EXPELLED?!

• It got worse when you wreak havoc at Scarabia. Is that even possible?!

• During winter break, he doesn't let you in the kitchen. When he heard your loud-ass cat talking, he immediately instructed the students to bar the door as to not let you in. The students were confused and were hesitant. Why is Jamil scared all of a sudden? But it was too late, you and Grim are already in the kitchen.

Grim: "Woahh! What's that smell? It smells good!"

Carl! Yuu: "Yeah, you're right. Hi, Janet. Is there any meat around? Preferably raw ones?"

Jamil: "GET. OUT."

• Talk about bad timing as Kalim walks in to check on the food for the winter break parade. Jamil massaged his forehead to lessen the impact of another headache and continued to cook.

Kalim: "Hey Jamil! I'm a little hung- Oh! Hey, Carl! Yuu! How's it going?"

Grim: "Ya forgot about me! Grim, the sorcerer extraordinaire! Carl! Yuu here is my henchman!"

Jamil: "...Ugh..."

Kalim: "Nice to meet you too, Grim! What are you guys doing here?"

Carl! Yuu: "Grim's stomach was making the rumblies and I was craving for something that only meat can satisfy."

Kalim: "U-uh... Wow, you sure like meat, huh?"

Grim: "Fnyagh, I wanted premium tuna but the headmaster won't give any!"

Kalim: "Is that so? Tell you what! How about I invite you to Scarabia and we'll have a party!"

Jamil: "NO!"

Carl! Yuu: "Sounds awesome."

Grim: "Really?!"

Kalim: "Yeah, really! And Carl! Yuu... I'm sorry for the incident from the cafeteria. Your food was bad and we were so loud that you couldn't eat your lunch properly because the ghosts kicked you out... But I guess everyone has different tastes when it comes to food, right?"

Jamil: "THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!?"

Carl! Yuu: "It's ok."

Kalim: "I'll make it up to you by inviting you to the party! It's gonna be so cool! We'll eat and dance all day!"

• You had fun at the party. Grim ate until his stomach was full, not unlike in Ramshackle where you sometimes try to feed a dead cat to Grim. What was the cat's name? Lucifer? Lucius? You kind of forgot. You've never had this much raw meat on your plate before (although you must eat in a separate room so that everyone won't lose their appetite). Usually you had to hunt something and eat it but this tanned party-goer saved you the trouble.

• The Scarabia residents almost got their hands bitten by you. They are all puzzled on why you only wanted raw meat but they guess that it's a beastman thing... Wait a second, aren't you a llama?

Carl! Yuu: "Hey Kalim."

Kalim: "*yawn* Yep?"

Carl! Yuu: "... Thanks for the party. I honestly don't remember when was the last time I had fun without the blood and all. I haven't seen Grim this happy before. Maybe I should improve on my party-hosting... You know, I had this roommate named Paul and he--"

Kalim: "😴"

Carl! Yuu: "Kalim? Kalim? Kalim? Kal-Oh, you're asleep. Must've partied hard. Goodnight, Kalim."

• Timeskip to the part where you and Grim are captured by the hypnotized Scarabia students and were forced in a cell. Jamil had enough. It didn't take long for him to run out of patience and hypnotized Kalim. Grim tries to escape with a spoon and you decided to help him than wait.

Grim: "Fnyagh... No! The spoon's bent! Carl! Yuu! What are we gonna--"

Carl! Yuu: "...ughh...uhhh...."

Grim: "Hey, don't just stand there!... W-wait! Are you vomiting?!"

Carl! Yuu: "...Blegh!"

Grim: "Eww! Gross!"

Carl! Yuu: "Wow. It's been a long time since I throw up from a full stomach."

Grim: "... I-is that a key?!"

Carl! Yuu: "Yep. I snatched it from that Scarabia student earlier."

Grim: "Why didn't you do that in the first place?! And is that a... a f-f-finger?!!"

Carl! Yuu: "Oops, I must've bitten his finger off too."

• You two finally escaped the cell and snuck into the treasure room. You and Grim grabbed the magic carpet and ran from the pursuing residents. Both of you stumbled in Mostro Lounge, crashing into a table or two. Azul and the Tweels do not want to deal with you right now...

Jade: "Azul."

Azul: "Yes?"

Floyd: "They're back."

Azul: "............. Fuck."

Floyd: "Aren't you gonna do something?"

Azul: "Why are you asking me?! Just throw them outside!"

Floyd: "I don't wanna! They're gonna bite and eat my other ear!"

Azul: "Jade?!"

Jade: "... I also do not want to. Not after what they did to my poor terrariums."

Azul: "Why are you passing this problem onto me?!"

Floyd: "Who else is gonna talk to that freak?!"

Jade: "Certainly not us."

Azul: "...*sigh*. Fine, but you two are going to pay later!"

• Even before his Overblot, Jamil took notice of your relationship with the Octavinelle Trio... Floyd, who was in a bad mood, threatened to squeeze you one time and you bit off his ear. Jade became interested in you by the amount of food (mostly meat) you can consume in a minute. He tried to trick you into taste testing the dishes he made for free, when in fact, he laced some of them with poison.

• Jade was fascinated that your body withstood the poison and decided to experiment more. But you've reached your limit and started bashing people's heads on the tables, ripped off the Octavinelle banner and painted it with the students blood, and then declared a revolution. Azul ordered Floyd to throw you out but you began hitting the eel with the dorm leader's own cane. You then smashed the aquarium, resulting a flood within the dorm. People were seeking higher ground to avoid drowning while you were dancing on a buoyant wrecked door.

• After evacuating the residents, Jade swam to his room to save his precious terrariums but it was too late. You were using a swordfish how the hell did that get there? to drunkenly fence the terrariums. They shattered and Jade has to watch in horror as you ate his mushrooms and shards of glass. It took Leona, Riddle and Azul to physically restrain you.

• That day became one of the darkest times Mostro Lounge has ever faced a crisis. And to think all of this happened in just HALF AN HOUR. Azul blamed you for all of this mess but the headmaster covered for you... Jamil also took notice that every time you commit these atrocities, you'd try to put far-fetched reasons for your actions. Your smile still brings him shivers down his spine. He still can't believe you were the one that helped ended Overblots for the school. He thought that you were most likely the one that caused them.

• The Octavinelle Trio never want to deal with you again. Until today... Azul approached you cautiously, casting a magic shield around him just in case. He wasted no time in calling you out on your trespassing.

Carl! Yuu: "Hey Azul, long time no see. I know that we weren't on good terms after what happened to the dorm, even though it was still your vice dorm leader's fault to poison me, but hear me out--"

Azul: "Carl! Yuu, what made you have the right mind to step in Mostro Lounge? After all that chaos you've unleashed? The amount of employees you've nearly killed?!"

Carl! Yuu: "I do not kill people. That is my least favorite thing to do."

Azul: "Don't give me that excuse! We STRICTLY told you AND the headmaster that you are banned from entering this establishment. Now if you please, just leave--"

Carl! Yuu: "What do you mean Azul? I'm not in the lounge."

Azul: "Yes you are! You're standing by the doorway!"

Carl! Yuu: "No I'm not. I'm standing outside. See this line by the doorway? I'm standing on the other side. Not on the lounge's side."

Azul: "That doesn't count!"

Carl! Yuu: "Yes it does."

Azul: "No, you're still in the establishment!"

Carl! Yuu: "But I didn't step on the other side. Therefore, I did not enter."

Azul: "We literally heard you crashing into the tables!"

Carl! Yuu: "That must've been a phantom."

Azul: "You and Grim flew in here with a magic carpet!"

Carl! Yuu: "False, we were standing here waiting for you. The carpet must have flight skills as horrible as yours."

Magic Carpet: "😠!"

Azul: "Ugh, this is getting us nowhere... What do you want?!"

• You negotiate with Azul to help you with your predicament but he refused, afraid that you are capable of causing financial problems for the lounge... Until you mentioned Jamil. He was curious about Viper and Al-Asim and decided to hear you out.

• After shooing off the chasing Scarabia students, he listened to your negotiation and as it turns out, you have a grudge against Jade for attempting to poison you and no matter how delicious the poison tastes, you still haven't forgiven him. Jade also held a VERY DEEP grudge against you after you destroyed his terrariums and doesn't want to work with you. Azul feared that if your grudge against Jade will create a conflict, it'll pull Mostro Lounge along with it. So he has no choice but to give you temporary alliance, much to the twins' dismay.

• With the Trio's bait & trap and your annoyingly gruesome abilities combined, you successfully made Jamil have a mental breakdown 😃!........ Okay, he's laughing, that's probably too successful 😨....

• And here we go again, another Overblot. Defeating Jamil was a bit more difficult than you expected now that he's hypnotized every Scarabia resident, and now he has an army to corner you. Jamil then whooped your asses to the ends of the dessert.

• Azul was in a mild panic, pulling his hair out and walking in circles, he kept on rambling on how his plan had failed, how he never should have helped you, and how to figure out a way out of this dessert. Kalim was just bawling out the feeling of betrayal and was in denial of Jamil's grudge against him. Jade and Floyd were on the verge of abandoning all forgiveness and proceeded to try and strangle you.

Carl! Yuu: "Huh."

Azul: "HUH? HUUUUH?! THAT'S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY AFTER THAT?! WE'RE STRANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, MILES FAR AWAY FROM THE DORM, A FUCKING OVERBLOT IS ON A RAMPAGE, AND ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY WAS HUH?!!"

Carl! Yuu: "No, I meant huh, I could have sworn I smelled orphan blood."

Azul: "NOT ANOTHER WORD OF YOUR NONSENSE!!"

Kalim: "WAAAAAAHHHH!!! W-w-why J-Jamil?! sob! Whyyyy?! I trusted youuuu...sob... WAAAAHHHHH 😭!!!"

Grim: "Caaaarl! Yuuu! Do something! I wanna get outta here!"

Floyd: "That's it... I'm gonna kill this motherfucker right here."

Jade: "Not if I kill them first 🙂." ← Look of pure bloodlust.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

• A blood curdling roar was heard and a creature made out of raw meat flew down... IS THAT A DRAGON?!

Carl! Yuu: "Aha! I knew I smelled orphan meat! Well, crisis averted!"

Azul: "...W... W.... WHAT IN TWISTED WONDERLAND IS THAT?!!"

Carl! Yuu: "Oh just a meat dragon that I've been working on. What do you think?"

• ... That night, Azul concludes that logic does not apply when you're around. The twins put a pin on when to strangle you after the Overblot. Kalim is even more traumatized after you told him what the dragon is made out of in detail. Grim just sighed to himself since he thought that you weren't planning on using the meat dragon.

• When you got here, the place was reeking and dripping with blot and for some reason, you are tempted to bite into it but Grim stopped you. Azul thought of a distraction while Jamil ordered everyone to praise him until you ruined it. Everyone was complimenting him on how handsome, talented, and sophisticated he is meanwhile you complimented on how his newly inked skin will taste better if you either boil or fry it.

• Jamil realized that the cannibalistic compliment was from you and became alert. Azul and the other deadpanned at you, practically tired of your bullshit. Jamil attempted to whoop your asses again, this time permanently. The meat dragon charged toward him but the Overblot monster crushed and tore it to pieces. Everyone braced for impact but the attack never came. Everyone looked to see Jamil looking at something.

• Why did Jamil.... A... Crack?! In the sky!? ....

• Everyone turned to you, knowing that this is definitely one of your doings. You tried denying it but eventually revealed that you may have created a crack through space time. Azul was about to argue with you but Jamil interrupted with an attack. Jade and Floyd used this momentum to shield Azul and attack Jamil. Kalim shouted that they do not have time for arguements and that they must do their best to defeat Jamil.

• As the crack grew bigger, another flying creature that looks like a giant otter come falling to the ground... marshmallows?

Pink Marshmallow: "The otter won't fly!"

White Marshmallow: "Great, not again! Now where the hell are we?!"

• Talking marshmallows!? This has got to be one of your creations beside the meat dragon.

Pink Marshmallow: "Oh shoot! It looks like these randos are attacking this rando."

White Marshmallow: "Finally! We can attack people as much as we want!"

Pink Marshmallow: "Can we eat them too?"

White Marshmallow: "What, are you kidding? Let's set them on fire!"

Pink Marshmallow: "Ugh! We always set fires! It's boring!"

White Marshmallow: "Let's just beat up this guy and be done with it!"

Pink Marshmallow: "AAAAHHHH!!!"

White Marshmallow: "AAAAHHHH!!!"

• For some reason, these... Things joined in on the fight, which doesn't really help much until the white marshmallow pulled out a knife and begins to stab Jamil's leg and the pink marshmallow ran to bite Jamil's snake hair. It was horrifying to watch but at least he didn't die.

• After a harsh battle with blood and sweat, morning comes, the skies finally cleared up and Jamil's magic was broken. The ink was out of Jamil's body and the monster disappeared. Kalim threw himself on Jamil and cried out his apologies. Azul checked everyone for injuries and gladly, no one was hurt... Too much.

• Post-Overblot, The Octavinelle Trio's alliance with you has come to an end as they went back to Mostro Lounge and hopefully, you'll eat befriend them in the near future. Kalim has repaired his friendship with Jamil and now, Jamil won't be holding back his talents.

• He's gotta say, it was horrifically bad knowing you but you saved him and for that he's somewhat thankful towards you. At least you didn't kill Kalim. He may not remember a thing from his Overblot but he does remember you trying to skin his face.

• Speaking of Kalim, he asked you at Kalim's victory party about why you chose not to kill anyone for now. You replied that you wanted someone to acknowledge the effort you made with your... Macabre art. He guesses that you have a that complex where serial killers want attention for the crimes they commit.

Jamil: "I don't get it... I don't get you... I don't know if I can ever understand why you keep on doing this... I don't know how you'll benefit from making these... why? Just why?"

Carl! Yuu: "Possibly because I am a dangerous sociopath with a long history of death, violence and genocide."

Jamil: "............"

Carl! Yuu: "............"

Jamil: "That explains a lot. You do have a problem..."

Carl! Yuu: "You're right. I have a problem. I have a very serious problem. I don't know how you keep forgetting that, Jennifer."

Jamil: "Ugh, my name is Jamil!"

Carl! Yuu: "Oh, it is?...I thought you were a woman."

Jamil: "How could you not know that? And why would you think I'm woman?"

Carl! Yuu: "Mostly the hair. Are you sure?"

Jamil: "Yes!"

Carl! Yuu: "Yeah, I didn't know that. I'm in the wrong here. I suck..."

Jamil: *sigh*

• When he got to learn more about you during the VDC arc, he's come to a conclusion that you do these things as an impulse. That you have some kind of mental disorder that revolves around normalcy and sociopathic tendencies. You believed that killing things are what you are good for and nothing else. You're afraid that if you'll be admitted to a mental facility, you'll just be a normal llama guy with a hat.

• But look at what progress you've made! You've befriended people and made new enemies, you turn your cannibalistic behavior to a minimum, try to cause less damage, and even developed some hobbies aside from killing things! You can see people more than just bodies filled with blood and meat.

• Grim got used to your abnormalities but you got to remind yourself that if you did something unforgivable and got expelled, who will take care of Grim? So he became one of the motivations for you to change your habits.

• You and Jamil became frenemies. On days you take favors from Jamil in exchange for meat and on other days, he'll argue with you about Kalim's safety. However, you'll still involve them in other atrocious project of yours. But it became less bloody poor Kalim. He doesn't know if you've learned to be more civilized or that you've learned to hide your unhinged tendencies better. He cooks for you sometimes as to lessen your affiliation with raw meat.

• Jamil gifted you a new hat on your birthday since he noticed that your old hat is worn out and you loved it! It looks just like your old hat but fancier. Ah, this takes you back to day you met Paul--

• ..........................................................................

• .........................................................

• ..................................Let's not talk about him.

• You're still fighting the need to stab and eat everything. You need to control your hunger. You need to control your impulses. Besides! If you've become normal, you'll see him alive and well again! Right?

• This was all he ever wanted... A normal friend. A normal day. A normal life. Right?

• He won't have to shout your name every time you do something wrong again.

• ...Right?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

• What happened to the marshmallow people? Well, let's just say that they didn't make it to the end and are in a better place now...

Carl! Yuu: "BUUURP!"

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Force in Nature | Platonic Yandere Trey Clover

Part 1

If Trey could explain what climbing out of the charred skeleton of his own body was like he’d say it was repulsive. Yes, there was no blood to dirty his hands and knees with but the small bits of ash and bone-crunching underneath his weight wasn’t comforting either. The hours spent sitting in the waste of his own remains as he pushed at the iron door of his furnace. In those hours that blurred into days, he’d thought back to the children who’d felt the same pain as he. On this cycle of self-incrimination, he’d thought back to the last faces he’d seen. That unruly red head he’d shooed out the furnace, the crying blue-haired boy in the cage, and the small toddler he’d put to bed minutes before his capture. In the days that agonizingly became weeks all he could think about were the only things that mattered. How he could have achieved his goals differently, revenge, and how hungry he was. He knew humans if they could resurrect from their ashes alone would have died of starvation by the time he’d begun to think coherently again.

But he was not human. 

He was a witch. 

Who died countless times because of something he didn’t need to do. 

Witches didn’t need to eat children. It was a preference. A tradition he continued from his family to maintain his age every 50 years. Children were easy to prey on, and known for their enriching souls. But it truly wasn’t necessary…adults with decent lives would have been just fine and Trey imagined if given the chance again he would have preferred to do that instead. If only because of his burning desire to have a family of his own still present. To think after dying at the hands of a child he thought of making his own he still wished nothing more than to have a life filled with child-rearing. His brain silencing his resentment with defense for the child responsible. He truly must be insane.

With the endless time in the darkness of the oven, Trey effectively strikes this hole within him for romantic attachment. He has had his fair share of partners that he often spared from being an ingredient for his desserts. He never felt the need to actively pursue anyone but if he ever got the chance to adjus this diet that’d had to change.

With no other thing occupying his time Trey only found his only interest to be scheming. Thoughts about what he’d do if he found the children responsible for his entrapment. What he’d do with another chance at life beyond the darkness of the oven. How he’d forget his taught aim for beauty when it’s done nothing but gotten in the way of what he’s always wanted. Thinking as though he’d never get the chance to enact it. His imagination filled his heart with a desire for this reality. But deep down he knew it’d be years before the iron lock would decay with rust enough for him to escape. By then the children he remembered would have moved on and become adults. It was best that his reality be kept with him in the confines of the oven; if only to spare the world of the monster he’d become. 

Creak.

“Hey look this place has an oven too!”

On second thought—the world was filled with monsters what was one more?

______________________________________________________________

A clog shoe bumped into a worn notebook sprawled on the floor. The owner of the clog sighed and bent down to lovingly hold the book. The blue-haired preteen knew exactly who this belonged to, gently collecting the bundle from the floor as he navigated his way over abandoned clothes and toys. Deuce already knew where the owner of the notebook was, looking out the window to see his siblings scampering near the edge of the woods. With their chores done, Ace and (Y/n) would spend the rest of their time enjoying their time together. Playing games and chasing one another was a past time the two of them partake in religiously. 

Deuce was just glad there was no one cruel enough to stop them. 

Not anymore. 

Since the harrowing escape from the child-eating witch, a new option for unruly adults had appeared. And his stepmother was the second lucky candidate. Of course, he and Ace agreed they’d never tell (Y/n) how that happened but the truth of the matter was that they had one parent now. That parent—their father was decent on his own. Between his civic duties, his socialite practices, and his job he was a nice father. Not as present as any of the other single parents in town but Deuce wouldn’t complain. After all they’d been through he was just happy they could still play without the looming dread about what happened. 

On an outing in town–something Deuce found himself doing more now that the woman was gone– he saw that many of the men previously sent to the militia littered the allies. Homeless, injured, and ignored as they mumbled about the horrors of the battle-field. While Deuce wouldn’t say he and his siblings survived a war they certainly could be considered survivors. Some nights he awoke to Ace calling out to him in his sleep. Pleading with the apparition in his nightmares to let his family go. 

It was heartbreaking. 

Deuce wouldn’t delude himself that he was grown up enough to pity his brother. He knew that he wasn’t spared from the effects that experience brought. Even their younger sibling now much older had an anxiety over being left alone. Over a span of two years, they refused to write out the entirety of their journey. Only giving bullet point on their experience. Ace confided in him that he thought it was because of guilt that they didn’t share more. Assuming their experience wasn’t as violent as theirs it’d make sense. But like Ace, Deuce couldn’t bring himself to mad at anyone but the witch themself. 

To think there was a being that kept the shoes and keepsakes from their past victims, forcing his victims to clean the very place those children probably begged before. It was an evil beyond words but it taught them all to be wary of people. Adults mostly. 

Sure, it shocked their father when they refused to go into town with him for the first time since their return.Thankfully their father didn’t think too much about it, in the same way he didn’t think much about the news of his missing wife. For all he knew, the children were happy being at home by themselves. Magically being more behaved on their own than with their step-mother. 

That was fine with Deuce. 

Perfect with Ace.

And what was best for (Y/n).

As long as the three of them stayed together, they’d be better off. Things were different now but that was okay. Because as far as Deuce was concerned they were better off than ever before. 

______________________________________________________________

“Why did he bring out these candles?”

The written question brought the brothers’ attention to their frantic father. Darting around the kitchen with a sweaty brow and dressed in something nicer than his pajamas. It was the question they all were asking. Ace and Deuce scrunched their faces in disgust at the last time they’d seen those dreaded candles out and about. The last time the twins had smelt the burning scent of macadamia nuts and vanilla their father had introduced a young chatty woman who’d turn into the nightmare that plagued their daily life. It eventually did lead to (Y/n) being born but that was beside the point. 

“Is he seriously getting into dating again?” Ace snickered. 

The redhead was already replaying the pranks that bothered his stepmother the most. Prepared to unleash a renewed sense of menace since their grand escape. (Y/n) recognized the look on his face, smiling to themself as they wrote their own plans into their notebook. Looking over their head Ace was already considering what to do being so close to dinner, it would have to be a minor prank. The two watched their father, trip over himself as he struggled to carry the extra chair to their dining table; scampering in silent giggles as they decided on one of their schemes. Deuce didn’t bother to follow, reassuming his role as the innocent bystander drawing the focus off the mischievous duo. Huffing to himself, he entered the kitchen offering to help with getting dinner together. 

“Aw Thank you Deucey! I was hoping you’d come help, you know ever since your mother went missing you’ve been such a big help.”

Deuce smiled as he finished seasoning the food on the stove,“Happy to help!” 

He really was, especially since their father would be cursing their existence by the end of the night. Deuce was aware that by the time a knock was at the door and Ace and (Y/n) returned all smiley, that they were prepared for the night ahead. When their father quickly smoothed back his gelled hair and opened the door revealing the unwitting victim for this evening all the children within that shack felt reasonably threatened.

“Hey Tania, happy you made it!”

“Thanks dear, I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Their latest enemy was a newcomer to the village, a librarian that was looking to settle down. With blocky glasses in front of golden eyes, black hair with a greenish tint, and a slim fitted dress of course the children’s father was taken with her. Far too young for a man his age, this woman made the children’s skin crawl. 

“You didn’t tell me what adorable children you have!”

Their father nervously chuckled, “Aye well they’re so independent they’re more like little adults.” 

Ace shared a look with Deuce, the latter lightly shaking his head vetoeing the chance for a snarky comment. Rolling his eyes he turned to their younger sibling who was already preparing for their first prank. Joining back into the conversation Deuce made sure the adults were occupied. 

“That’s not right. Children should be allowed to be children, it's important they have a childhood.”

The woman woefully tilted her head, making their father fumble with his words.

“Y-y-you’re absolutely right! I just hope they get all of that without their mother. Uhm Bread?”

Ace mimicked throwing up which made both of the children giggle from behind their plates. It earned them a glare from their father who covered that up with passing the plate of bread. Unknowingly setting the stage for their first prank.

The woman’s raised eyebrows indicated she noticed the unfortunate state of the bread before their father did. Lifting a slice all she found was the wet and drooping remains of the bread that everyone seemed to be enjoying. The children hid their smiles by stuffing their faces watching as she examined everyone’s plate and silently cringed at her own. 

“Is something wrong, Taina?”

Completely unaware their father brought her attention back to him. She shook her head bringing back her painted smile.

“No nothing at all.”

Deuce was surprised their previous step-mother was quite loud when they tried that prank; blaming her future husband for barely being able to make bread. They received an earful for that one. Embarrassing their father was off-limits, apparently. But if this woman didn’t mind keeping such things to herself; Deuce figured it’d be better in the long run. With a look to (Y/n), he knew what was next. 

They gathered everyone’s attention with three taps to the table. Once everyone’s eyes were on them they pointed to their cup which was previously filled with milk empty once more. Ace decided to heed their call.

“I’ll go get the pitcher for you (Y/n).”

Excusing himself from the table he made his way to their tiny ice box, grabbing a pitcher filled with the milk he’d squeezed that morning. Usually they’d feel bad if it was their father’s work but he hadn’t touched their cows in months so it wouldn’t be a big deal considering their plan for their next prank.

“Such dutiful children, Mister Diamond you must be proud.”

“That I am. As I said they are so incredibly independent!”

Acting as though he hadn’t heard a thing Ace returned, “Would you like me to pour it for you (Y/n)?”

The little child shook their head and reach their hands for the pitchers handle. When Ace finally pulled away (Y/n)’s hands momentarily held the pitcher before giving to it’s weight. The glass pitcher clashed down to the table spilling the white drink directly onto their guest’s plate and off the table trailing into her lap. There was the added bonus of the milk’s initial splash which coated the woman’s face, making for a hilarious scene to the children at the table. 

“Oh my goodness!”

“Oh Taina I’m so sorry!”

(Y/n) quickly adjusted their handle on the pitcher properly filling their cup and putting it away. Deuce silenced his giggles, offering to clean up. Grabbing a napkin he kept his laughter to himself as the woman voiced her discomfort their father fussing over her awkwardly as he tried to wipe her off. 

“I’m so sorry about them! The children can be so clumsy.”

“It’s…alright. Children who usually do things by themselves happen to learn the hard way.”

“Or in this case the wet way! Am I right?”

Taina stopped smiling as she looked their father with disgust. Looking around he found his children were doing the same. He pulled at his collar as though that would relieve the newly created tension. 

With an awkward cough he attempted to start again,”So is this something you’ve noticed with your own children or was it in a book you read?”

The question seemed to alleviate the atmosphere, everyone going back to cleaning the mess. 

“I have no children of my own. I’m always too busy traveling to have any children of my own but now that I’m settled maybe I’ll change that.”

Their father visibly swooned at that and Ace delivered a firm kick to the older man’s knee. Hiding his grunt of pain with another cough he went back to his seat, resuming his dinner. Everyone was eating once more and the children were more than prepared for their final prank. 

During the commotion of the spilt milk, Ace had swapped the bowl of noodles for something of his own concoction. Having planned for this from the start he waited for Taina to ask for the noodles to which he happily obliged. Their father kept her attention, eyes solely on her as she filled her plate with the dish he felt proudest of. The other children were struggling to hold in their laughter as they watched her mindlessly stab and curl her fork within the specially crafted noodles Ace had made. 

The noodles Ace had provided were from his very own collection of maggots and worms covered in the sauce their father had made–to an untrained eye it looked exactly the same. It seemed as though Taina was discovering this as she took her first bite, stopping any motion to chew as she realized that the noodles were wriggling within her mouth. In frantic realization and a mouth far too full she looked at the red-headed boy who smiled widely at her. Looking at the other children she realized they too were well aware of what she’d put in her mouth and were all eagerly waiting for her grand reaction.

“So what do you think?”

Their father looked at her expectantly, completely oblivious to the organisms pushing at her lips begging to be released. (Y/n) with a breathy giggle they couldn’t delay put their hands over their eyes, almost frightful of the blast that was meant to come. But alas it did not because instead of vomiting or opening her mouth to reveal the horrors inside, she chewed. She chewed, gnashing the creatures within to bits before swallowing heartily, making all the children drop their jaws in shock. 

Taina licked her lips and her teeth for good measure, sending a beaming smile as she took their father’s hand.

“It was delightful!”

______________________________________________________________

From then on Taina was a forced to be reckoned with. Without an utterance to their father about what she’d endured she took on whatever pranks the children had come up with. Dodging bags of manure, somersaulting over spills, and devouring the little creatures Ace relied on to make any other woman squirm. 

It was torture.

Taina had gone from an occasional guest, to one that stayed over night far too quickly. Suddenly taking over the kitchen to cook meals for everyone. Implementing her own traditions where she read to everyone before bed. Demanding the children take tests with her grading their work.

While she wasn’t actively wicked like their last step-mother, her will was no compromise. 

When she demanded their father do something he’d do it, even when he was so exhausted he could barely stand. When their father wished to join the neighborhood watch she refused demanding he prioritize the family and his rest. It was frightening how quickly their father had gone from an active socialite to a man dictated by Taina. 

That wasn’t all, so many things had changed and not just within their home. On one of his last trips to town Deuce noticed how many families were in mourning, apparently looking for their young adult sons and daughters. Ace noted that their kitchen had begun to change, filled with appliances they never would have gotten with their father’s salary. 

It was (Y/n) who offered an answer to all the strange occurrences as of late. One that terrified their brothers to no end but with no other explanation it seemed to be true.

“You’re the witch from the forest. The one that wanted to eat us, right?”

Ace was the one to confront her, cooking in the kitchen with a resolve to confirm their worst fears and face the witch head on. She tilted her head at him, turning from the oven to put her hands on her hips.

“Are you saying you’ve met a witch in the woods?”

Ace growled,”Don’t play dumb with me! I know what you are!”

Her curious smile fell and for a moment Ace thought she’d start to cry but that died when her painted lips curled into a devilish smile. The green tips of her hair seemed to climb to the roots fluttering in waves of magic that made her yellow eyes shine with malice. Her white teeth sharpened exactly the same as the witch who’d forced Ace to organize the shoes of victims from years before. For a second the red-head found himself right back in that basement staring desperately up at the witch who declared that he’d eat his brother in exchange for eating his candy house. 

“Glad we don’t have to lie to each other, anymore.”

The voice that came out of her mouth was exactly the one from the witch in the candy house–sultry, smooth, and a masculine sound. One Ace regretted to say he admired before his brother was threatened. 

“What do you want this time? To get revenge on me!? To eat me?!”

Taina or Trey made a mockery of his anger, jutting their painted lips out in a mock pout. With an offended hand on their chest, they pitched their voice to match Taina’s.

“Me? Never I’m a changed witch! I’m not here to eat you kids…” Trey couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled from within slipping back into their original voice. “No I’m here to eat your father.”

Ace growled charging his head into Trey’s stomach attempting to throw punches and scratch at the green haired witch whom held his head at an arms length keeping all his assaults inches away. 

“Hold on. You didn’t let me finish.” With a light push, Ace stumbled into the wall behind him, unprepared for the pain budding from his back. Trey, picking up on his pain, bent down on one knee to continue,”I will eat your father if you all don’t help me get what I want.”

Ace peeled himself from the wall, swatting at the hands that attempted to catch him when he stumbled forward. Shouldering his pain, he pushed on to ask the question that’s been plaguing his mind.

“What do you want?”

Trey’s wide and unsettling smile softened, reminding Ace of when they first met the witch. 

“A family.”

If Ace felt better he would have laughed. Instead he settled to scoff.

“You?! A family?! With the kids you tried to eat?!”

“I didn’t try to eat all of you.”

“You tried to eat my brother!”

“You locked me in an oven!”

“You were going to eat my brother!”

“...Fair.”

Trey sighed sitting down on both knees, in a attempt to level with the boy. Looking into the scared fiery eyes of Ace, he closed his own as he spoke. 

“I just want to try and see what life is like with a family. Once I’ve done that you can put me in an oven once again…just play along with me for a little while. Please?”

Ace floundered a little, those golden eyes for once looked honest, desperate, lonely. He felt like he was loosing his edge, he sent a glance to the hallway where his siblings listened. From the sight he could tell Deuce wasn’t signaling anything in particular, (Y/n) was no different. Their face was stuffed into his twin’s side, once again hiding from the after math bound to come.

It was up to him once again.

Just like it was his job to shove the witch into the oven. 

It was his decision and the witch’s fate.

______________________________________________________________

Trey adored the sunrise. It brought such excitement that the day was starting once again. He also adored waking to an empty bed because it meant that the most beautiful part of his day was to come.

The sounds of small pairs of feet padding against the creaking wood coming already brought a smile to his face. The hushed arguments and demands to ‘shhh’ made Trey pretend to be asleep as he felt the side of the bed dip from multiple angles. Feeling the little hands that opened his arms to curl into his sides and the smaller weight plopping on his stomach. It made Trey irrevocably happy.

“Daddy, are you awake yet?”

It was Deuce. Polite as always. Trey loved that about him.

“Dad’s not awake. If he was awake he would have stopped me from picking my nose just now.”

The other children laughed to themselves. 

That was Ace. Ever the mischievous trickster and the unexpected leader of his siblings. Trey loved him despite his flaws and was more than willing to deal with anyone who’d bother to complain.

There were no words from his third child. His baby. Just the light plat of their hands against his cheeks, eventually becoming curious tugs at his lashes. After successfully lifting one of his lids to see his golden orbs alert and moving, Trey figured the jig was up. 

Closing his arms in he trapped all of his children and held them tight. Perfectly able to deliver a number of kisses on their little heads. Unbothered by the joyful squirming and their protests Trey made sure every one of his children got a barrage of kisses and ‘I love you’s before they were released. He held onto (Y/n) easily cradling them to blow raspberries into their tummy. He already knew they’d need a nap from waking so early.

“Papa wanted us to tell you he’s back from hunting.”

The message Deuce delivered reminded Trey of the concept of hunger. He didn’t feel it much anymore but he was sure his children did. And they couldn’t possibly handle a whole human at their age, so he better get breakfast ready.

“Thank you Deuce.”

Ace jumped up, hopping up and down on the bed emphasizing his words with every jump.

“I–wanna–hunt–!”

Trey reached over to drag him from the edge, saving the kid a world of hurt. 

“Not until you’re older and it’ll probably be different then what your Papa does.”

“But Papa’s taken us hunting before a long long long time ago…at least I think he did."

Deuce innocently chimed tickling (Y/n)’s feet, unknowingly making Trey’s heart heavy. Trey kept a smile on his face as Ace joined Deuce, making (Y/n) let out more silent laughter.

“Oh yeah I think he did  but we were real little I don’t even think (Y/n) was around then!”

“Yeah…Dad were you with us then?”

The eyes turning to Trey put him on the spot, his heart skipping a beat before he answered.

“Of course I was. I’ve always been here.”

Deuce smiled, “That’s what I thought. I don’t think I can remember anything without you Dad!”

Trey quietly mumbled to himself,”A time without me….”

The witch thought about the mother he’d seen in the market place and the infant she paraded around. A babbling baby that only knew to cry out to her in times of stress. Trey never got to experience that. Looking down at (Y/n) who was released from the barrage of tickling to just stay cradled in their father’s arm. Trey smiled to himself.

“My baby!”

Bending down to kiss their forehead, he relished in the incomplete smiling back at him. He did the same to the twins on each side. Trey’s grateful for the magic that let him keep this family and he was grateful it would let him get back all the times he’s missed with his dear family. 

“My babies! Come let’s get started on breakfast! Who’s hungry?”

“Me!”

“Me!”

(Y/n) raised their hand, fighting to bring their hand as high as theirs. An impossible feat at their age but with a bit of magic maybe that won’t be the case next time. 

“My perfect little family and it’s all mine.”

[dark-side-blog3]

(Minors and ageless blogs do not interact)

Consider making squid ink pasta, but instead of squid ink, it’s ink from the overblots.

Squid ink has a deep, woodsy, nutty flavour, almost like a black truffle, and pine nuts. It goes best with roast portobello mushrooms, and some fish, in my opinion.

The overblot ink is more akin to writers ink at first glance, but it is a secretion from a body, is it not? Sort of like how sweat and tears are water.

Granted I’m sure if you ever got found out for eating essentially globs of vomit from the latest sick overblot student, your reputation would tank faster than Grims— because at least he’s only eating the magistones.

But even so, I’m curious! Sue me. Some weirdos might even find it fascinating (Rook might be intrigued, yet sickened).

Perhaps some students who haven’t overblotted would feel a strange… Jealousy. The intimacy of consuming someone’s literal insecurities manifested, of cherishing a remnant of their worst personality traits and turning it into something beautiful. Or at the very least, meaningful.

Ace tries to gross out other first years by showing an exposè of your dinners, and the only one who’s grossed out and remains grossed out is Sebek. Everyone does recoils and exclaims that’s disgusting, and Jack can’t even look you in the eyes for a week!

But slowly, Epel comes to the idea that maybe he wouldn’t mind if you ate his ink— if he was gonna overblot, it’d suck major dick, but at least you’d find a way to make it less shitty? Like, at least you’d care more than every’ne else, who prolly just wouldn’t wanna die.

Deuce cannot and will not articulate that he wants you to eat his overblot— he sure as hell doesn’t WANT to overblot! But maybe you’d be down to eat some mochi? Or fresh squeezed juice? Something that’s got a lot of handwork and might make him a bit sweaty. It’s like a diet version of the overblot! You’re consuming something he made to show you the bond, and you’re eating something he made from his body to show the bond! It doesn’t have to be life or death!

[tartstealingknave]

I wanna make a example of a TWST au I've been working on... Let's call it "Red and yellow, the color of hunger."

it's a cannibalism!au and it's based off butcher's vanity, so the au's background is this!-

(TW!!)

Everyone of the housewardens are cannibals (+the headmage), everyone doesn't know they are actually, except I'm changing jamil to be a cannibal instead of kalim, because it wouldnt make sense, and rook would know but shuts up about it because of vil.

Every month, a student or more, goes missing, and ends up being seen as a rotting dead corpse weeks later or never being seen at all. (Aka they got all of their body parts eaten, not a single piece left.

Let's say that heartslabyul's weapon of choice is a.. Knife, or a butcher's knife. And savannaclaw's weapon of choice is their claws, since they're beastmen-, oh and octavinelle is literally water or Azul using his tentacles as a way of killing people by suffocating.

The added characters to the cannibal list is; (-the staff. They are the highlight of this au.)

-Trey clover, ruggie bucchi, floyd and jade leech (we can't deny it tbh), lilia vanrouge, sebek.

I might add Yuu to the au but I don't know because this takes place where yuu haven't appeared yet (they will, but not in the mean time.)

And in this au, there will be NO ships because unfortunately unfortunately, this au has too many angst shi to actually have a nice relationship, the only nice thing you'll be seeing is the memes, and maybe occasionally yuu and grim Bonding time.

In this au, Y/N is a thing! Because technically, I cannot animate for shit! I can only write and draw. So you'll be experiencing the nightmare too! Don't worry, you share the ramshackle dorm with yuu. The lore of how y/n and yuu met will also be written.

REMINDER!!! this is still in thought!! I'm still waiting for the right time to start something like this because I still haven't done other drafts yet because of my motivation!!! but please do share your thoughts.

[nymphbroadcast]

Heartslabyul x MC! like Rosie

⊹Synopsis ⊹ೃ 🌹⋆The Heartslabyul boys with a MC! or Yuu like Rosie.

⊹Relationship ⊹ೃ 🌹⋆ Fall in love / free of interpretation.

⊹FEM! MC/Yuu/Reader ⊹ೃ 🌹⋆

⊹Clarifications: I changed the fact that MC! Rosie is a cannibal for obvious reasons and the age of the reader is not specified in case they want to interpret themselves as another species that is not human. I specify that MC! has great talent in the kitchen because Auntie Rosie really gives me THAT expert cook vibes.

⊹Rosie's Analysis ⊹ೃ 🌹⋆

• Rosie is a capable and articulate woman, quite gentle and friendly but no one knows if she is really honest, she is intelligent, patient, courteous, elegant and charming when interacting with others. She is especially kind and affectionate with those she considers her friends, she is very close to her group and is a very good and efficient leader, just as she is kind she can also be intimidating and authoritarian when she wants, her jokes can be somewhat old, which She is right with her taste for the old and old-fashioned, she is good at giving advice and can even offer to solve other people's problems herself, she is a kind host, giving her guests a place to sit and rest and offering to give them food before accepting listen to their problems and possibly offer help, however she also has her dark side, being someone very intelligent and astute, it is relatively easy for her to find people's weaknesses or virtues and manipulate them to her convenience. Among her tastes are cooking, old-fashioned music and meat, she is talented in areas such as cooking and music, especially in singing and charisma, and it is easy to get attached to her and her intelligence, deducing quick solutions to problems.

Riddle Rosehearts

🌹Riddle sees you as a kind of mother, the way you speak to him and see him proudly when he has an achievement makes his little heart feel warm with the maternal affection that he never really had.

🌹 You are his best advisor when he feels overwhelmed or stressed, your calm attitude helps him calm down and think with a cool head.

🌹 Your taste for old or outdated doesn't really bother him, in fact he finds it cute that you look like an ancient woman despite you're apparently being his age.

🌹 Riddle thanks you for calming down the uni-neural duo Adeuce's antics and keeping them calm at least for a while, before you has to be dragged with them into another problem.

🌹 Riddle probably didn't see many movies growing up and only saw a few with his mother, so he probably knows Mary Poppins and might find it curious how much you look like that old character.

🌹 Riddle loves your style and how you combine it with the aesthetics of his dorm, the red and pink colors with black in your elegant and sophisticated outfits remind him a lot of roses and in general of his dorm, along with your good education and good manners he thanks heaven (Crowley) that for once he doesn't have to deal with another troublemaker.

🌹 Due to his closed thinking, Riddle is glad that you like old music, because his mother used to listen to that type when he was younger and almost automatically he learned it by heart, so there are times when both of them do duets in private, singing songs that almost no one at school could recognize.

🌹 The first time he saw your imposing and somewhat... sadistic side... he was paralyzed, for the first time he saw you approach someone without your kind smile and instead it was a smile almost without emotions and as if you were about to eat someone alive (wink~ wink~), at that moment he swore never to turn you against him and even less to get you angry.

🌹 Hiss tea parties are the best since you are present at them and accompany him, your conversations never bore him, whether it is a story of mischief with the duo Adeuce and Grimm or that you have heard some gossip from a student, you always have something what to tell him.

Ace Trappola

♥ YOU HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO UNOFFICIAL GODMOTHER OF ACE-

♥ This boy is very prone to getting himself and the others around him into trouble, so luckily you are there to control his recklessness.

♥ When Ace is angry or frustrated, whether because of Riddle or because the basketball club lost a game, he comes to you to feel comforted and pampered. You are good at listening to all his complaints and watching him vent without feeling judged. (even if you almost never understand him, because he speaks too complicated and fast-)

♥ However, you always scold him and avoid his disasters when he act like a brat.

♥ Your taste for things that are old-fashioned and old makes him wonder if you are really his age, in addition to your strange way of speaking and your manners reminding him of the old ladies in his neighborhood, however he will never criticize you and instead he may ask you one thing or another joke about that.

♥ It must be said that Ace has quite a sweet tooth, but you managed to convince him to come to you and not to steal Riddle's pies, Ace would never admit out loud the fact that he feels like a spoiled child trying the delicacies you cook for him.

♥ Ace is tender when he wants to, he really likes being with you without doing anything because you tend to spoil him and take care of him. (ROSIE HAS A LOT OF A CUTE MOM VIBES)

♥ Just as Ace is a total idiot, you are a sweetheart of a person, no one knows how the hell you ended up with him and they start to think that Ace put a spell on you or something.

♥ Aside from your good taste and talent in food, Ace is a little disturbed by the fact that you sometimes make either desserts or meals in the shape of human body parts... in addition to your jokes about cannibalism.

♥ Ace admires how easy it is for everyone to like you, he would pay anything to have your talent... I mean, even Riddle adores you!... that may or may not include the fact that he takes advantage of some people 'cause they have you appreciated

♥ In short, he loves you, although sometimes you seem like an old cartoon character because of your personality and tastes, he loves you because you are his compass in his impulse of idiocy.

Deuce Spade

♠️ Deuce... Deuce... this poor boy is exploding with love, we all know this boy LOVES his mother and the fact that you are like one really takes him through the roof.

♠️ Oh your food! Add Deuce to your list of the most loyal (free) customers in all of Twisted Wonderland! this boy dies for your food! It will actually eat anything you give to him, even if he ends up rounder than a ball.

♠️ Oh yeah, you're definitely what he needs, pull his ear when he does something stupid! or reward him with your love when he achieves a goal! this man is at your feet.

♠️ Regarding your tastes... he doesn't really know what to think, on the one hand he finds the fact that you look like an old lady in the fashion of the time adorable and on the other hand it confuses him... How old did you say you were? Are you sure you weren't born in 1920?... oh don't be offended! It just means that you see a lot of those times! It's a compliment!

♠️ Oh I really think Deuce would learn some of your songs just from you, plus he probably knows them if his mother used to listen to them or if he shares tastes with you! I really think Deuce would be a gentleman, even looking at the ground 7/24 when dancing with you so as not to step on you.

♠️ He probably takes photos of you to send to his mother or something, he's really fascinated by how your style combines with your youth and elegance. PS: Mama Spade is already scheduling everything to meet you, lady!

♠️ Deuce really appreciates your advice and teachings, he has improved a lot since he applied them, from his grades to his social relationships, oh my god, this man is going to marry you as soon as you both graduate.

♠️ Deuce believes that you were really meant to be in Heartslabyul, your care with animals, how you don't fail a single Riddle rule and how you have such a motherly relationship with everyone... Deuce admires you the most, girl.

♠️ Deuce notices how you tend to prefer his manners, often jokingly comparing him to Ace and saying something like: "Oh Deuce, polite as always. Ace! You can learn something from him!" And there you have it, as red as Riddle's hair as he feels blessed by the gods to see you so comfortable with him.

♠️ However, you also take care of reminding him that not everyone is good, taking care of his naivety, reminding him that an action can sometimes be worth a thousand words. He thanks you.

♠️ In the end, Deuce realizes that you are perfect for him: Intelligent, wise, educated, friendly and so beautiful in his eyes. You can bet what you want, but this guy will ask you to marry him as soon as he can! Do us a favor and take care of him, this boy loves you very much!

Trey Clover

♣️ Oh boy... There's finally a mom to take care of the big brother of all Heartslabyul! Girl, please take care of this man...

♣️ I think we all know Trey's caring tendency with his teammates, in the end he is surprised when he realizes that you are trying to take care of him and advise him, because usually the one who assumes that role is usually him.

♣️ Sometimes you have to remind him that just like his peers, he is a teenager and should focus on enjoying his youth! The poor man is always taking care of others and forgets about himself :(

♣️ You and Trey are a cute duo, you both cook excellent and take care of others... Who knew you weren't married huh?

♣️ Your old style and taste for the old-fashioned is curious, in reality it doesn't bother him since it is your own style and good for you if it makes you happy.

♣️ It only takes a few minutes for him to realize your resemblance to certain old characters cough Mary Poppins cough... And your exotic way of speaking, I honestly doubt he's ever heard someone with your accent and idioms before aside from one or another old woman.

♣️ Couple's hobby! You two definitely cook together! He is splendid with desserts and you with the common dinner! especially meat!... Trey sometimes doesn't know whether to laugh or ask for help when you start making certain black jokes about human flesh... (That no one understands)

♣️ Trey is amused by your musical nature, you actually sing or hum old songs while you cook or do other things my goodness! He may even end up learning them by listening to you.

♣️ Oh god, take care of this man for us! He's so tired of being the one who takes care of him!... please don't hesitate to pull his ear when he tries to disobey out of mere habit-

Cater Diamond

♦️ TAKE NOTE: CATER IS TURNING YOU INTO A MAGICAME MODEL.

♦️ My God. Cater loves your aesthetic, you give him the most beautiful vintage and dark vibes that he can't resist taking photos of you and uploading them to Magiacme. (with your permission.)

♦️ I don't think Cater will stop when it comes to teaching you about the technology, because even if you don't use it much you still agree to listen to him talk as much as he wants about it.

♦️ Let's say it, Cater is not really as we know him... And he tries to hide it, however you are always there to give him words of support and a sweet hug that takes him out of his turbulent mind.

♦️ Cater will definitely help you create content on networks if you access, cooking recipes, tips or pure photos with your aesthetic. Count on him!

♦️ Cater is amazed by your musical talent, although your voice may not be that of a modern singer who hits exaggerated notes, you know how to use your own voice and create a beautiful symphony and you can bet that Cater records it, even if it is just for him. (With your permission.)

♦️ Cater is already planning the wedding, he can already imagine you in a beautiful white dress with a "mermaid tail" skirt, a beautiful dress adorned with roses or white feathers, your beautiful smile that lights up her days... oh god, you have this man in your hands.

♦️ Cater loves your advice accompanied by a delicious meal or a simple cup of tea, Cater may not like sweets but you especially know how to make him eat some healthy sugar from time to time without making him feel disgusted or directly unable to swallow, now you're the Star chef of Heartslabyul. (Trey prepares the desserts)

♦️ Cater loves being with you, even if it's in silence or listening to your vintage music while you simply rest in each other's presence, this poor boy is tired and you are his comfort.

♦️ Congratulations, you have adopted five children with emotional problems! Now you are the mother/godmother of Heartslabyul, they love you and you love them, please take care of them! and I recommend that you start charging Crowley for the therapy of these boys, because you're leaving here married.

Nymph's Note:

My life is crazy, I had a flood in my apartment due to the negligence of a plumber... you have no idea of ​​the chaos of things I currently live in, documents and clothes got wet, I have had to send many things to wash... Well, life goes on :), I finally managed to finish this one! Rosie really is one of my favorite characters, she's a beauty and I really feel like she fits like a glove with Heartslabyul.

I hope you enjoyed!

Remember to tune in, end of this broadcast!

Heartslabyul Dorm x MC! Like Rosie Done!

Next: Savanaclaw Dorm x MC! Like Carmilla Carmine???

[yuri-is-online]

I ffeel like if Ace heard my thoughts about him he'd freak out bc I wax poetry about (METAPHORICAL) cannabalism and the inherent eroticism of it like.

Ace appears in my homescreen. Me: I want to tear open your flesh and crawl inside of you so I can be one with you and we can never be apart ever again

Or the usual with me: I'M GONNA BITE YOU RARARARARRARARARARATWGRHHEHGARSTSRARARARARARARAR MARK MARK MARK MARK UP YOUR PRETTY NECK—

I need to be put down like an animal genuinely

Cannibalism is my one major hard no, I do really like what you have written here very much but please do not send me more about it even if it is metaphorical (つ﹏⊂)

Ace is one of if not the most normal guys in the cast, so if he heard someone wanting him, yearning for him, longing for everyone to know they're with him from his body alone would freak him out... but it would probably also go straight to his head. He bragged about having relationship experience and was making fun of the other first years for being single so yeah. If Yuu was that down bad for him he would want to flex it.

If he didn't realize he had bite marks on him and someone pointed it out he'd probably run away from the conversation though hehehe

[khalixvitae]

i usually give gifts like origami bouquets and other origami pieces, letters, and drawings to my loved ones. rook is naturally, artistically inclined and has a deep love for it so he'd absolutely adore it. what if your letters were all romantically comparing him to the weak quarry you've caught in your fist. entailing deeply strange expressions of affection that most fortunately (or unfortunately?) grasp rook's attention the most. wow..... you just wrote 2 pages dreamily touching on how you'd love to rip his throat out because cannibalism being a metaphor for deep, obsessive, and devoted love is the most apt way to express what you're feeling.... for him, him, ever elusive rook hunt to trust you and bare his throat to you! of course in any case should death come rapping at the door with her decrepit knuckles he'll die by your loving hand instead because is possession in death not the deepest form of connection to you little weirdos. he'll giggle and twirl his hair while rambling about you to vil and vil can't decide if he should flip between deadpan, concerned, or disgruntled or all at once! leaving little notes inside the origami flowers you make entailing your darkest desires for him ever pure because how can they be taboo when they are what you truly feel for him out of trust and loyalty!! he opens a gift box from you and there's a VERY realistic, human pottery heart inside because he's captured your own!!! drawings of you and rook in strange, baroque/renaissance esque compositions where your love is both dreadful and holy. you would consume him on the silver alter as if he were your salvation and the closest thing to god. rook would reciprocate your effort even more!!!! i love being gay... not so much, rook... /silly

See now I know we’re all on the same page!

Rook would be on a whole other level of vaguely (highly) concerning devotion, and he strikes me as the type to really push the limits of a dynamic. He wants to see just how deep it goes, and so long as he feels like it’s safe(ish) and reciprocal, he’s going to be greedy for more.

On the note of comparing him to your quarry, ABSOLUTELY. Rook regularly fantasizes about death- like, the number of canon tangents he’s gone on about the prospect of being maimed is pretty outlandish on its own. Not to mention when ((BOOK 5 MINOR SPOILER)) he wanted to drink something cursed by Vil supposedly because he wanted to know what it would taste like (though I personally think there was a mix of things going on there, but I digress!). he wants to go all the way to that edge and come back purely for the experience. He’s nearly hedonistic; the only thing that keeps him in check are his responsibilities. I also firmly believe he wants to be chased after- there’s something exhilarating to him about being wanted so deeply that his partner infinitely pursues him. He may have claimed the title of Chaser of Love, but to be coveted? To be loved that intensely? That’s when he’s willing to bare his throat and any sense of self preservation goes out the window. There has to be something there that is deeply personal and trusting for him to toss his typical guard aside.

[fakesaintess]

Grotesque Gourmet Eater

Summary: Taking shelter from the fog in a strange manor, you're told stories by someone called Deuce who inherited the manor and his interesting appetite from his mother. This fic takes place in a different setting/time period as the rest of the au but it is not a necessary read to go along with the other stories in the series, especially if you don't like the horror genre. It does contain mentions of and characters similar/related to the main series but contains a different main character so count it like a dlc story. Warnings: Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Suicide, Attempted Lover's Suicide, Disordered Eating, Major Character Death, General Horror. Notes: Reader is referred to in third person. This fic is a lot more loosely based on the source. Banica is not the true Banica from the song but more a Banica adjacent character to serve as Deuce's mother. The term upstanding is used in place of honor student. I have no plans for the other sins so if you'd like to see certain characters as them let me know <3.

A mysterious person is wandering through the night. They had left their home seeking answers to a mysterious popular rumor that had been the talk of the town, but the thick fog they ended up walking into has left them unable to tell where they're coming from or going to.

The sun has long since set and the fog shows no sign of clearing, leaving the person growing only more lost. By what must be a grace of gods, they stumble across a manor, a place to take shelter in until the fog resides. The place seems entirely empty at the moment, almost hauntingly so considering it is near such a busy town. It must be some sort of vacation home for a noble family.

Surely, as the residents must not be home, they would not mind the person staying inside for a bit. They test the doors, "Unlocked," they think before opening the doors and entering.

Walking into the grand central room of the mansion, their senses are assaulted by a rotten stench. The vile smell is unfamiliar to them yet it stirs up nausea for some reason.

"This must be why this place is empty." They mutter to themselves. Still, a foul smell is better than being lost in the fog. They look around at their new surroundings, it's dark but the place is well kept. Almost as if there is someone living here despite how the place looks from the outside.

As if summoned by those thoughts, footsteps can be heard coming down the grand staircase. "It's unusual to have guests. Did you get lost?" A dark haired boy clad in an elegant blue outfit comes into view. A mask obscures part of his face, but his kind smile is still in view.

The person nods when no words to answer with come to mind. The boy casts a sympathetic look. "You poor thing. How about stay here a while? Until you get your footing to head back out there." He says.

The person mutters a quick thank you.

The boy walks down in front of them. "Forgot to introduce myself. The name's Deuce. I'd offer you something to eat, but late night snack time just ended. It will take a minute to get something made. How about I tell you some stories to pass the time until food's ready?"

Deuce's offer sounds generous but the person wants to question how food will be made if he's busy telling them stories. The answer is given when a pair of identical boys appear almost out of nowhere.

"We got people over?" One says.

"I hope you remembered the proper greetings for guests. You tend to struggle with manners." The other says.

"I did, I did. I'm upstanding after all." Deuce replies. He gestures to the boys. "These're Jade and Floyd." The two both say some form of greeting. "You've probably heard of the Coral Kingdom revolution. These guys are named after the people involved 'cause they look real similar."

The person had, of course, heard of that. Near everyone who's learned any history has. But why someone would name themselves after a tyrant, no matter how similar they look to them, is baffling. And who was the other named after? Only one name was someone involved in that revolution.

"Does this mean we gotta make food again, Mackerel?" The one presumed to be Floyd based on his remarkably similar appearance to the former tyrant says with a frown. "I really don't wanna."

"Now, Floyd, it is our purpose to serve someone with a heart such as Deuce's." The one who must be Jade responds. "Allow us to escort you to the dining room, dear guest."

In contrast to Jade's efficient escorting, Floyd drags his feet with the occasional complaint. In what sounds almost like scolding Deuce says, "I'm someone who's upstanding so I can't let someone out in that weather. Hold in there."

When referring to his heart, Jade must be referring to the standards he must hold himself to the guest rationalized to themself.

Floyd makes a face and walks ahead into the mentioned dining room.

The dining room is better lit than everywhere else in the manor that's been seen so far. The cost for the room being more visible must be the fact the stench is far stronger there.

As Deuce takes a seat at the head of the table, the guest is left unsure where to properly sit. "Ya confused, Platy fish? You can take a seat anywhere." Floyd responds when taking notice of the confusion.

While Floyd gives advice in the form of teasing, Jade has a much more direct approach. He pulls out a chair at the foot of the table for the guest. "Please take a seat."

The guest does so and both the servants head to stand behind Deuce's chair. Why they're lingering when they previously mentioned making food has the guest confused. But many of the things done and said so far have been confusing to some degree.

"Make yourself comfy. The fog here usually lasts a while. But the stories I've got are pretty entertaining so they should help pass the time." Deuce leans back in his chair with a confident smile.

"Which one do I start with?" Deuce thinks out loud. "Should start with this place, right? I inherited this place from my mom, the last Duchess of this estate."

"You inherited her appetite as well." Jade says, followed by Floyd saying, "And us too"

"These two have served me since I was a baby, even though they look real young. I try not to think about why they've never seemed to age any and you shouldn't think too hard on it neither." Deuce explains, dismissing something that seems significant.

"We've told you before. We got real special circumstances 'cause of bad things some people did, like, forever ago." Floyd says.

"We served your mother throughout her life as well. Ah, minus one small period of time. You could say we're like members of the family." Jade converses as if there is only the three of them in the room, sharing some friendly banter.

"I wouldn't say that. Mom is the only family I have." Deuce says.

"What are we to you, babysitters? We went through a real hard time to get back here to take care of you when Angelfish went away. Think higher of us, Mackerel." Floyd's voice is menacing but it doesn't seem like he has any intention to harm Deuce. Only intention to cause harm to something.

"Where did you two go? For that time period, that is." The guest asks, trying to get some answers on the people they're with. They're curious to why servants with such a loyal sounding resumé would ever leave.

"None of your beeswax." What Floyd feels towards the guest changes with each action they take and how he acts changes in turn. The stark differences in how the servants act at least helps the guest tell them apart.

"It would take much too long to explain. Let's sum it up as the Duchess dismissed us over a dinner party, but we returned here after receiving some unfortunate news so we could look after her child." Jade's unwavering grin as he speaks about something that sounds almost sinister is unnerving. This is added only to by the shark like teeth he and the other possessed.

"Let's change the topic. Consider that an appetizer so we can move on to the main course." Deuce says, the nervousness felt by the servants dissolving at his friendly demeanor, or, as he would say, upstanding demeanor. "Of all the stuff in this place my favorite thing I got from mom is this." He holds out a wine glass, full of a thick looking liquid.

The guest holds back a grimace when seeing whatever unusual beverage is in that glass slosh around. What Jade said about an appetite stirs in their mind.

Jade must've sensed what they were thinking as he says, "Do not worry about the contents of that glass. Deuce has an interesting appetite that must be entertained."

"It's not as extreme as Mom's was. I don't think I could eat half the foods she did. Can't say I don't indulge in some odd flavors though." Deuce shrugs. "And 'sides a healthy appetite helps growing boy like me stay fit."

The guest feels an intolerance towards that glass as time goes on. Seeing the way it moves when Deuce takes a sip makes their skin crawl. It's a sharp turn from how Deuce's persona has them feel.

"Part of being upstanding is always finishing your plate. But eating the same flavors gets boring so you have to make sure to branch out." Deuce's cheer makes him come across as if he's giving honest advice.

"I cannot critique the enjoyment of eating as it's something we share, but I do wish you'd only eat food. It's becoming a growing expense that you eat the dinnerware after each meal." Jade delivers this line as if the action isn't strange, just annoying.

"Don't think stores believe us when we say you're eatin' them. They must thing we smash 'em after every meal." Floyd finds what he says amusing, the strangeness of the situation lost on him too.

"You've told me mom did the same. I'm sure this is something she'd be proud of me for." Deuce grins. "If you're still hungry after your meal's done might as well chew the plates. And whatever else you can find."

The guest fidgets in their seat. The image of Deuce they had changing as the talk continues. If Deuce is aware his eating habits are strange, it doesn't seem to affect him any as he continues talking. "If it tastes good and you can digest it, it's food. I think, at least. But, some people have said I have strange tastes." He smiles like he finds it embarrassing that people believe his habits are strange, not that he has them. "My stomach isn't hurt by strange things so it's no big deal if I eat things others can't. They always taste better than normal stuff."

"Should we move onto dessert?" He asks. "This story will be much sweeter."

The guest wants to excuse themselves. Such odd people in an empty manor never ends well in stories. But as they move in their chair the icy glares of the twins freeze them back in place. They decide to stay a bit longer, just until Deuce finishes his dessert story. Desserts are the end of every meal after all.

"This story will about my 7th chef, Ace Trappola." Deuce is clearly more passionate when he mentions Ace. "I admit that these guys are wonderful cooks but eating food, even if its made with different stuff, by the same people gets kinda boring. So we hire cooks to spice things up. The other 6 all ended up quitting."

"Couldn't handle the stuff we wanted." Floyd interrupts.

"I'm glad they did. Otherwise I wouldn't have met Ace. Ace was-" Deuce starts.

"Arrogant. Or, perhaps, cocky is a better word." Jade finishes Deuce's sentence with his own word choice.

"Okay, he was uppity. But the food he made was like none other. He's truly an ace at whatever he tried. When he tried." Deuce's fondness for this man is obvious. The existence of a chef provides an answer of why the servants did not need to leave the room. Something that helps tide over the worry the guest feels. "But Ace served me more than just food. He served me one of the most important thing a person could have. Love. He filled my heart along with my stomach."

Deuce has a dreamy expression on his face, swirling around the contents of his wine glass the way a child with a crush twirls their hair. Ace must be a dedicated lover to put up with Deuce's eating habits based on what has been described. "Despite the impression he gives off, he can be very affectionate. The time we spent together was pretty great. We made one hell of a duo."

The usage of past tense when talking about Ace should be an alert that something's not right. But with strange happenstances beyond that having already occurred, the guest brushes it off as Deuce's way of speaking.

"Besides a desire for my company, Ace had a desire to fix the appetite I had inherited from mom. He tried all sorts of tips, tricks, and more to make me normal. One night he came to my room so we could spend some time alone together." Deuce begins to blush. "Later we shared omurice he had made. Real considerate of him since that's my favorite food."

Deuce pauses, a eerie silence filling the room as he took a sip from the glass. "Ace must've realized it was a hopeless idea to try and fix what mom has left me. His solution was to poison the food he served so we would die in each other's arms. Real romantic. Unfortunately, poison doesn't do nothing to me except taste nice but it did a whole lot to him."

"Looks like the last thing Crabby served was his just desserts." Floyd says and Jade bursts into a fight of laughter.

Deuce scowls at the two. An aggressive look makes more sense on him than how he has presented himself during the night to the guest.

"Ace left me one last thing though. An irreplaceable, once in a life time ingredient stemmed from love itself." Deuce grows increasingly more excited the more he goes on, trembling in his chair with assumed pleasure. "Himself. My lover had left me a chance to dine on something I never had before. He was more divine than anything else I've ever tasted."

"He's been kind enough to join you two at the table today." Jade says, having managed to choke in his laughter that had gone on a bit too long in order to tell that joke which nearly sends him into another fit of laughter.

Cold dread fills the guest's stomach as they come to the realization what's inside the wine glass. Whatever remained of Deuce's former lover has been what he's been drinking as they chatted. The reason for why the place is so uncannily empty clicks into place. The host, who had kindly invited them in, had eaten every other occupant. This meant there is no cook preparing food in the kitchen. The people in that room are all that are left and there must be a reason they all chose to stay.

"Can I ask you a question? What's the name of this estate?" The guest asks, seeking an answer to the suspicion turned fear they had.

"The Spade Estate. Name's Deuce Spade." Deuce answers, confirming what the guest had hoped they were wrong about.

The rumor they had set out looking for they stumbled on by mistake. They were in the home of the grotesque gourmand Duchess Spade, a woman who was rumored to have tasted each and every evil in the world before devouring herself entirely when nothing was left. And sitting on the other side of the table from them is the son no one knew she had.

The son who has been repeatedly described throughout the night as someone who inherited his mother's, the aforementioned Duchess Spade's, appetite. The servants here tend to Deuce not because of the morality he holds, but to inspire him to follow in the sinful footsteps of his mother.

"I think the fog's cleared up." The guest attempts to leave the table, hoping to get out before things were too late, before they were another step on the staircase of sin, and found themself harshly restrained by Floyd with no idea how he had made it to them within a blink of an eye.

"Ya ain't gonna try and leave now, are ya?" Floyd says, squeezing the ex-guest in his arms tighter than any human could manage.

"It's impolite to leave so quickly. Have you no manners?" Jade joins his brother at the ex-guest's side. That horrible sharp-toothed smile he has kept the whole night only making his looming figure more threatening.

"It wouldn't be upstanding if I didn't offer this, so, won't you join me for a bite?" Deuce says with a chilling grin.

[goldennightengale]

This is literally my favorite read I’ve ever encountered on this website OH MY SEVEN

VISCERA. floyd leech

Held in Floyd’s hand is a single fish fork. It incandesces like a lamp, and when you blink, the contour is burnt on your inner eyelids. “Can I taste you?” OR; Floyd is trying and failing to confess to Mostro Lounge's new line-cook.

tags: cooking, not actually unrequited love, courting rituals, cannibalistic thoughts, developing relationships, food as a metaphor for love, blood kink, first kiss, wingman jade, underage smoking, culinary crucible (twst), they're sooo in love ur honor

word count: 17,686

You do not like the look in Azul’s eyes. To be frank, you do not think you have once seen a favorable expression on the roulette wheel of masks Azul Ashengrotto wears. So, backtracking, you have never liked the look in Azul’s eyes (even more so now).

This one you have seen before: right at the point where the words ‘I heard if someone makes a deal with you, you’ll grant any wish’ fell from your mouth when you wanted to snip anemones off Grim, Deuce, and Ace’s heads. 

Originally, you did not have the drive to save all two hundred and twenty-five students. Only those three. Even with the title Prefect, you could have cared less about NRC’s student body until Azul sought to amp up the risk and reward. You accepted his offer for thrill and entertainment, loving the taste of it. 

Now, you stand in the VIP room with that similar atmosphere perfuming the air. Old paper and pen ink, the scent of an odious deal about to be struck. You challenge Azul’s self-assured look with an equally authoritative simmer. Your expressions size each other up like claymores on a battlefield. Azul is the first one to break first. He raises a hand and says, “Jade. Floyd. You are dismissed.” He even sends away his reinforcements in this warfare. 

Leaving himself vulnerable like that? … No, backtrack again, Azul is far from a vulnerable student. 

“Aw, but I wanna hear her answer!”

“Come now, Floyd. We shall be made aware of their decision at a later time.”

“No fun Azul.” Still, the door closes behind the twins. Now, it is just you and Azul alone. Like two shipwrecked survivors in a rowing boat. You are sure he knows you will go for the jugular upon the sight or scent of blood.

He gestures towards the space between you two, two sofas and a table. “Prefect, why don’t –”

“I’ll stand.”

Ah, Azul thinks fondly, that callousness that managed to ensnare one of Octavinelle’s slipperiest and mischievous fish. Still. A knot forms in Azul’s cheek in vexation. Your audacity and Azul’s are matched up so evenly that he almost wonders if you two share the same Zodiac sign. 

“So be it.”

You cross your arms as Azul continues. “A talent of yours has been brought to my attention. I was hoping that we could discuss it peacefully,” his blue eyes narrow, taking your stone-like stature, “without any hostility … But, no matter, it is still worth discussing.”

“I thought the Ramshackle dorm is the only asset of mine that has value.” Your posture shifts, straightening. “If it has to Aduece or Grim, you can forget it.”

“Aduece …? Um, no, nothing of the sort. It is strictly something brought to my attention during –”

There is this thing about Octavinelle. More like Octavinelle’s atmosphere. It clings in the air like a heavy candle scent, suctioning itself to the wallpaper, aquarium tank glass panels, and each stitch of the Octavinelle uniform. Something that stalks like a shark. It is a presence you label: viscera. 

A stomach and intestines is a viscera and a viscera is a stomach and intestines. You feel if you ever drop your armor around Octavinelle, gastrointestinal acid will come to consume you. The jaws tunneling down to the belly of Jonah’s whale is just a show of weakness away. It is why you act so callous now.

You always try to keep yourself schooled in the trio’s presence. “--During the Culinary Crucible.” And with that, viscera returns to you when those words leave Azul’s mouth. You feel like you just drank spoiled milk. Before he can accuse you of anything, you speak.

“You were one of my judges. I hope you aren’t going to make a baseless acquisition like food-poisoning. Remember, two other people ate what I served you.”

“I also remember, quite clearly, that you were one of the four students able to get a perfect score of thirty.”

Spoiled milk is too weak of a rotten flavor. You feel like you have just dug into a garbage bin and picked the last mold-crusted food item, all the way at the bottom of the barrel, sponging up all other rotten seasonings. To have something of yours peak Azul's interest again … it is not a nice taste. You are quick to shut down what you know has probably already been formulating in Azul’s head. 

“Dumb luck. Floyd also got a perfect score.” Him, Trey, Jamil, and yourself.

“You seem to forget I was one of your judges too. I thought you had a more effective memory than that, Prefect.” 

Floyd getting a perfect score could be more closely aligned to dumb luck than you. Which is not to say it was dumb luck. Nonetheless, stars and planets happened to align as Floyd was in a good mood while cooking and Jade was a judge out of three others; it just happened. Your food though? Azul runs a restaurant. He can taste experience and talent on the edge of a fork. 

Coupled with your experience and talent, you are not an ignorant individual either. Which is why you sit down, imaging that this conversation is going to drag. You ignore Azul’s smile. 

Elbows on knees, you drill in, “So, what? You want me to replicate a meal for you? Getting the twins to drag me here is a bit excessive for another bite of lamb and oysters.”

“I would rather monopolize that talent beyond just one simple meal. You’re thinking too small, Prefect.”

“You’re thinking too big.” 

You really wish you had magic, just to reverse time. Even if you were a mage, you doubt you would even have the skill to master such a complex spell. But, you would master it. To reverse time and find a way to get a different judge not named Azul Ashengrotto. The line-up for your judges at the Culinary Crucible was three housewardens: Riddle Rosehearts, Kalim Al-Asim, and Azul Ashengrotto. Grim had panicked at the trio, thinking both of you would be losing your elective credit. As always, you took the reins and got you both out of the whale’s stomach before digestion. 

“I was thinking: the fruits of your talents are quite wasted. Who do you cook for? That ungrateful cat-beast has no refined palate; he would eat table scraps if presented to him. Ace and Deuce, neither of them are grateful for the meals you must provide. You are surely underappreciated.”

“Wow, you clearly don’t think at all.” You eye a section of the VIP room in exasperation, close enough to the eye-roll you desperately want to do. “You think – what? – I don’t get enough thank you’s and I’m suddenly going to do what exactly?”

Azul almost deflates. It is surprising how easy you can sometimes manage to get him that way. He chooses to straighten a few pencils on his desk as a means to straighten and iron out the imperfections of his approach. Glasses tilted down, Azul answers, “I mean no offense to your friends. But, I think you are not getting proper payment. No, that I know.”

“Unbelievable.” You tsk, falling into the embrace of the seat. “You think the world runs on money.”

“Does it not?”

“...”

“Your silence tells me all I need to know.”

“You want me to work at the Lounge, don’t you?”

“Yes. A much better use of your talents, don’t you think?” 

In your head, you imagine the taste of umami takoyaki. A cleaver is raised with the vindication of a French guillotine; when judgment falls, it hits the thick part of Azul’s upper arm. Which would be more ironic: selling Azul’s body parts or eating them?

Below you, your foot taps on the wooden floor. A restless rabbit pittering that gives the housewarden some insight into your otherwise stone expression. Azul must be so certain that you are thinking of throwing in the towel right then and there. Really, you are thinking of Ruggie. Ruggie and the Intra-school Competition. For that time briefly, he had worked in Mostro Lounge, wearing his ceremony robes. 

You and Ruggie are very close, lesser than the trio you had dubbed your own, but still more than your other first-years. So one day, he regaled you with the story of working for Azul Ashengrotto just to fill up talking space.

The situation of the broken glass and Floyd’s moodiness. The situation of the kitchen lacking people and Azul having to send servers into the back to help cook. Those are two factors you really have to roll around in your head. You do not like to be rushed and you are wary of Floyd’s penduluming moods. 

Though Ruggie has a positive outlook of the rewards he reaps from that time, you do not think you can handle working in Mostro Lounge. You squeeze by with the money you make. However, “You pay well?”

“I assure you will have proper compensation for your labor.”

“Could you stop being scummy and just tell me the hourly rate?”

“For your skills – if they aren’t dumb luck – you’re looking at twenty-eight per hour.” 

You know what? The world really does run on money. 

While not an expert at mental math, even you know that with just a twenty hour work week, that kind of money would shift the motion of your boat, put more wind under your sails. Monetary motivation is perhaps the most powerful thing in the world.

Expression still schooled, you contemplate it. Accepting this … you imagine yourself tiny, using a tongue as a diving-board into a devilish pit of gnashing teeth and churning tentacles. Right into the belly of the beast. The conjured up image makes you want to shudder. Instead, your soft enamels move and your tongue articulates, “I’m gonna need smoke breaks every two hours.” 

Oddly enough, out of all the times you pressed him, this one catches Azul by visible surprise. “Sm-Smoke breaks? … why, I suppose that is acceptable.” That is far from unreasonable, surprising but not unreasonable. “I’m glad that we could come to –”

“And I’m going to need more time to even consider it. That isn’t a yes. I’m outlining terms.”

“Perfectly fine. I was actually going to outline this,” you and Azul lock eyes. “Just in case what I tasted was dumb luck, in a week, I wanted you to return to Mostro Lounge during closing hours. You’ll cook a meal for three judges again, myself included. Then, this conversation will become serious.”

“I will not sign a contract.”

“This is employment; no contract is required. You labor – cook. I pay. Such is the usual transaction of jobs.” 

Despite the feeling of a tongue slimming itself across your spine and teeth nibbling on your toes like garra rufa, you think that does not sound too devastating.

A week passes; you decide to keep your discussion with Azul concealed to yourself. There is this epidemic going around NRC called the lost art of keeping a secret. You decide for your mental well-being that you will wait for a week to pass, serve your meal to Azul and two other mysterious persons, and then, spill your guts to Ace, Deuce, and Grim. 

You have a close call though, guts almost prematurely ripped from your abdomen. The familiar feeling of teeth on your jugular creeps up onto you in the cafeteria. Fingers agile, you press your plastic fork into another’s jugular and greet him, “Hi Floyd.”

Held hostage by your plastic fork dug into his throat, Floyd smiles and cheers, “Shrimpyyy! Thought I could surprise you this time.”

“Nah, not fast enough. Next time though.” You smile sweetly..

You do not hate Floyd Leech. Though, he is far from your favorite student. The label of friendship does not really fit on him (despite the fact he thinks the opposite). Out of everyone in Octavinelle, the presence of viscera glues itself to him. Carnivorous teeth coupled with his predator adroitness screams belly of the beast to you. 

Which is why you fend him off with a plastic fork.

“Hehehe, next time then,” Floyd grins. He leans in, uncaring of how plastic folds on his pallid throat. “Azul-y told me that ya remembered I got a perfect score.”

For a second, you have no idea what he is talking about. You share a grand amount of two classes with Floyd; you do not remember him getting perfect marks in either subjects. Until it dawns on you, that far-off conversation with Azul, the Culinary Crucible. For some reason, your neck feels warm as if you should not have made that observation; like noticing Floyd’s perfect score is a rude thing to do. “Ah. Yeah, I did. Good job again.”

Floyd laughs; you feel the noise through the connection of fork and skin, finally lowering it at the sensation. “Shrimpy did pretty good too. Ya gonna cook me something sometime? Not fair that Azul is the only one who got to taste your cookin’.”

You lower your voice to a suspicious whisper as a thought dawns on you. “... Hey, why does Azul need me working there if you cook so good?” 

Unlike Azul, you had not been mystified by food at the Culinary Crucible. During the entire ordeal of being transported to a tropical beach via book, Floyd had cooked at the abandoned cottage. You had been amazed by his skills, gorging yourself on the delicious spread.

His eyes shift up to the left, avoiding your slight interrogation. Almost hiding something. “Eeeh, I don’t know. Azul’s always complainin’ even though he can barely cook. His food is super boring; Shrimpy’s probably tastes better.” 

“Talk to Azul about it. I’m sure it can be – Grim, paws off my food.” You brandish your makeshift fork-slash-claymore at your little beast.

“Ah, but I want Shrimpy to cook for me because they wanna.”

“Heh, yeah,” you trail off, unsure of how to respond to that. Mostly failing to come up with a response because you cannot see a possibility of that ever happening. “Like I said, um, Azul.” And that is all you really can articulate because, that’s a cool thought but I can’t see myself cooking for him. 

Besides; to you, love is an ingredient stored in the kitchen. And, to you, love is about finding people to be in the kitchen with. Your philosophies do not synchronize with your feelings with Floyd Leech. 

“Mmm,” Floyd hums, dissatisfied with your answer. He watches you place your fork down; glances at Baby Seal who has been watching this go down (Ace and Deuce still in the cafeteria line). “Guess I’ll just have to wait to taste Shrimpy’s cookin’ on Sunday, hehe. Caaan’t wait!”

“What’s on Sunday? –”

“I suppose you will. Bye for now, Floyd,” you interrupt Grim.

“See ya, Shrimpy.” He leaves you with a peace-sign.

Slowly, the feeling of being slobbered on like a squeak-toy in a dog’s mouth ebbs. The indent of teeth loosen with each step that Floyd takes, rejoining Jade and Azul outside the cafeteria entrance. When Ace asks what that is all about, you threaten him too with your plastic fork. Sometimes, a girl has business of her own to take care of, your fork emphasizes to the trio. Thus, you manage to keep it secret despite hiccups. 

Eventually, Floyd’s statement does come to fruition. Because like you said, a week has passed. On Sunday, he gets to taste your cooking because: “I didn’t know you two were the other judges.” 

“Aw, not excited to see us,” Floyd asks with a fake frown. He is leaning over your shoulder, hands in his pockets, and looking far too much like a vulture. 

“Did you honestly expect someone else,” Jade asks, following you inside. 

Despite the fact they were assigned to guide you in, you take up the front and walk with purpose into the stomach. Mostro Lounge has finally closed and you trudge into it, yawning. Sections of blue lighting twist up the ceiling like a tunneling rib-cage. When blue gleams on Jade’s smile, more importantly on his teeth, you think of viscera. 

Rolling your shoulder, you reply, “Guess I didn’t put much thought into it.”

“At least, you came prepared with some strategy. I imagine that must have taken up priority in your mind.”

“Not at all.” The toothpick clenched in your teeth wobbles with your words. Floyd giggles happily; his contagious high-pitched giggle has you fighting back a smile. You manage to knock the mirth away when yours and Azul’s eyes collide. “You two will just have to see if I’m as good as he claims. Isn’t that right, Azul?”

“Seriously, Prefect, did you come here with zero preparation?”

“I was busy with schoolwork. Piss off.” 

Azul lets out a tired sigh. You shuffle in front of him, body like the condiments in a sandwich between six-foot-one eel-mer-shaped bread. “So, I’m assuming this is going to be more or less like the Culinary Crucible. I’ll cook, you three will judge. Sounds simple enough.”

“Yes, that is the gist of it. Floyd, if you will.”

“Here ya go, Shrimpy.” 

In front of you is Floyd’s hat turned upside down like a beached turtle. Inside lie about twenty or so folded slips of paper. The eel-mer uses the proximity to touch his bicep to yours. So moving that hand off the point of contact, you reach in. “Cioppino with mussels,” you read from the paper. “That’s relatively an easy meal … Give me another slip of paper.”

“But, why?” Azul questions.

“But I’m not going to cook unless I have a challenge,” you say. Over your shoulders, Floyd grins wide at your words almost as if in agreement. 

“Now,” Jade pushes your hand back into the hat before you can unfold the second slip of paper. “While I may understand your reasoning, it is quite late. We delegated to write down meals that could be cooked in under an hour. All of them are easy.”

“C’mon, let Shrimpy pick another, Jade.”

“Floyd.”

“Fiiine.”

“Fiiine,” you whine in a matching tone, looking at the Nunito font spelling out the meal you have to make. You frown when realizing you and Floyd accidentally matched up. Before anything can be said, you direct a question at Azul, “Can I listen to music? They didn’t let me at the Culinary Crucible.”

“Of course. However you wish to go about artistic expression, don’t let me stop that.”

“Thanks.”

From the closed door, the sound of guitar that more closely resembles the sound of a chainsaw starts up, horridly grating. Like a surgeon orchestrating with his tools of carnage. Commencing this operatic butchery of a feast. Body and blood. 

Loitering, you start to thumb an unheard beat on the bakery box in hand. In your mouth, a toothpick swings up and down and tumbles left to right like a gymnast. Students file past you to enter the classroom you are waiting by and … ugh, why is this taking so long!

Quickly and a bit peeved, you check your phone. You and him agreed upon this time before Defense Magic class could start. The bell should ring in about five minutes and he should have been here five minutes ago.

Glancing into the open doorway where a long fighting platform and multiple seats await, you consider just leaving it on his desk. If you do that then you can still make it to your next class … you are just about to jump in to fluidly join the swimming crowd walking in the class when —

“SHRIMPY!!!”

The toothpick in your mouth breaks into splinters, guillotined by your teeth.

Cradling fallen wooden bits in your hand, you look up at Floyd with an expression that is beyond peeved. It does little to deter him. Hands in his pockets and brother shoulder to shoulder with him, Floyd stalks over to you energetically, grinning wide.

“Hello Prefect.”

“You switchin’ to a second year class, little shrimp? Defense Magic gets a bit rowdy, hehe.”

“Hi Jade. Hi Floyd. No, I’m waiting for someone right now.”

“Aw, Shrimpy, ya miss me that much?”

“If you were so eager to see us before your first day at the Lounge, you only need to say so, Prefect.”

Oh, backtracking, you got the job. Another perfect score of thirty. You start later this afternoon … that is all normal and expected. 

There is this odd thing that has been bugging you though. After you had presented the dishes, toweling down your hands and asking for a smoke break, you came back to see: Jade ate the entire meal, scraping the plate clean like a suctioning tube; Azul ate but left a reasonable amount of leftovers that were both alternatively acceptable to trash or save; Floyd took a few careful nibbles then left the rest untouched. Guess I’ll just have to wait to taste Shrimpy’s cookin’ on Sunday, hehe. Caaan’t wait! Such untrue words. Why even say something like that if he would just pick at it like a finicky child? 

It seems Floyd never has a long-lasting objective.

Holding the bakery box with one hand, you reach in your pocket to discard your broken toothpick and grab a new one. As you do, Floyd folds cursory arms over your head, leaning over you like a bar-table to talk to his brother.

“Caaan’t believe it; Shrimpy’s big day in the ocean blue starts today.”

“Yes, I’m sure it will be quite interesting.”

“All that delicious food … I should show her how to make takoyaki.” 

“Now, Floyd, she must follow along with the orders placed.”

“Aw, boooring.”

“Who's gonna be training me?” 

“I believe Azul designated the job to Floyd.”

“Aha ha, hear that Shrimpy? We get to hang out all night tonight~” Floyd leans in a way that you can see his wide, visceral grin. 

A human has a set of thirty-two made of enamel and root cementum. Omnivorous with molars in the back for plants along with incisors and canines in the front for meat. Floyd has a set of forty-two teeth. Quite unlike humans, his teeth are made of cartilage – a human body could never adapt to safely chew with cartilage-made teeth. Floyd’s teeth shine in a glass-esque glow.

And: “you got something in your teeth” you say to him, pointing to your own mouth. Because there is a medium-sized piece of something wedged between his glimmering teeth. 

“Huh?” 

You watch him momentarily jam a fingernail in his mouth, trying to find whatever you are pointing out. And completely missing the mark too. He is so annoying. It is on the bottom row of teeth, not the top, you seethe. 

“Ugh, let me.”

Downward, the bakery box finds the floor. Instead of just one, you shake two bamboo toothpicks out of your pack. One flips easily into your mouth and the other pirouettes between middle and index. By the lapel of his incorrectly put on jacket, you pull Floyd down to your height. “It’s not even in your top row of teeth,” you scold. “Open.”

Your command is ignored. It surprisingly seems like Floyd will never open his mouth again. Tight-lipped and staring, his mismatched eyes look at you like you have suddenly grown an extra head. Then, a slow mounting blush grows on his face that peaks at crimson. Hell, the whites of his eyes almost glow when backdropped by the flush on his face. 

Did the temperature spike or something? You are at a comfortable temperature. It is certainly odd – your train of thought ends when Jade checks behind you, “My, how scandalous. And right in the middle of the hallway too. I never thought of you as such an audacious person, (Name).”

“Huh?” You raise an unamused eyebrow at Jade. Your own toothpick in mouth tilts down in ire. “You know what, forget it. Look stupid the rest of the day.”

Serves you right for trying to help … stupid twins.

“Wh – Wait! I’ll open my mouth!” Floyd’s tongue lolls out.

Ah, it seems the temperature has spiked. This is why you try not to interact with Octavinelle and all their consuming ways. And because! “Your fucking teeth! Dude, I just need to see your teeth!” Jade’s laughter grows in volume. 

Eventually, a bit pissy that this has become a whole ordeal, you manage to get the piece out of Floyd’s teeth. Both of you share a bit of warmth on your faces. 

The toothpick is flicked into the trash inside the Defense Magic classroom. You want to forget all about this interaction already.

“Thanks Shrimpy. You’re a lifesaver!” Floyd gives a big, boyish grin, all forty-two of his teeth cleaned. Pink is still a sandstorm dusting on his cheeks.

You look away from Floyd with a twitch in your cheek. Finally – “Ruggie!” The hyena’s ears twitch on the top of his head. You pick up the bakery box of donuts from the ground and meet him halfway. “You’re late,” but you scold Ruggie with a smile rather than a frown. 

“Sorry, Leona had me running an impromptu errand. Work never ends.”

“Oh, I know what you mean.”

And you and Ruggie share a bone-deep sigh, despite smiling, that only Leona’s and Crowley’s errand-runner could possibly sympathize with on equal footing.

“Well, payment as arranged,” you say, going to hand Ruggie his payment when – “Jade!”

“Oya, was this the person you were waiting for, Prefect?”

“Yes, now give that back.”

“You said this was payment? What an unusual transaction. I wonder what it could be for.” He opens up the bakery box. Six different types of donuts stare back at him.

You stare right alongside them. You would rather not have him or his brother knowing that you get study guides from Ruggie. In exchange for them, you bake Ruggie donuts and other sweets. Information like that would be valuable to Azul. You remember Deuce, Grim, and Ace taking study guides from Azul in November; you are smart enough to make deals with less odious individuals. 

You can even imagine what Jade would say upon learning you require help in your classes, “My brother and I would be happy to tutor you, Prefect.” Why Jade includes his brother when trying to interact with you, you will never know. You doubt Floyd could sit still for one math equation. 

“Keep wondering,” then, you retrieve the bakery box from Jade with a huffing puff. 

Yet before you can even give Ruggie his payment, an arm hooks around your neck in a chokehold. Gasping startled, you look up to see Floyd’s fluorescent smile hanging above you like the moon on a riverbank. Yet when he speaks, he does not look at you.

“See ya tonight, Shrimpy?”

“Um … yeah.”

“‘Kay Shrimpy! Hehehe!”

As you walk off, you rub your neck wondering what that was all about. 

You are prepared like someone might put the finishing touches on a cake. Azul gives you your Octavinelle hat and apron while Jade explains how they go about business. A slip of paper from Jade tells you the connection between abbreviations and meals. 

“But if you have any questions on what a certain abbreviation stands for, Floyd will assist you.” You then asked why you would need help; they all personally tasted how capable you were at making meals. Abbreviations are relatively easy to understand too. Jade simply laughed before opening two swinging doors to the kitchen. A tongue lolls out and on the beastly carpet, Floyd stands, dressed up in cooking attire rather than waiter attire. 

“Have fun you two,” are the words Jade leaves you with an hour or so ago, standing in the whale’s guts. Fun? You think Floyd is having the most fun out of the two of you because –

Blood hits the floor and soaks into the linoleum. Little stardust sprinkles of red between both of your awestruck bodies. Each droplet holds such a weight that you are almost surprised that the red splatter does not start burning holes through the floor like stomach acid. 

Floyd is bent over like he has chronic stomach pain. Teal hair covers his face as his shoulders. Backtracking, he was looking at you a minute ago. Pestering you, he had tried to change what you were making. You were not dealing with that. (A knife suddenly falls in the path of Floyd’s hand.

“Please keep your filthy hand to your side of the kitchen.”

“That just makes me wanna touch your side more, Shrimpy.”

“Then, you must also not be fond of your fingers. Unexpected but nothing I cannot work with. A pinch of seasoning and I’m sure even you will be easy to swallow.”

“I have something else you could – FUCK!”)

Now, Floyd is bleeding all over the floor. The metallic stench has you squirming.  

Oh, I am getting fired. Or, squeezed. Or, Ace and Deuce are going to find my drowned dead body. The dumpster fire of thought explodes like an atomic bomb when Floyd’s head lifts up. The grin on his face splits from ear to ear. All forty-two teeth catching the light a certain way. Forget all that! I’m going to be eaten alive!! The thought runs a strangely pleasant shiver up your spine. 

Is money worth this stress? Because you are dealing with parts of yourself that you do not want to address.

It is the day after and Floyd is staring enraptured at his palm. 

Perhaps English language cannot house the absolute devotion that Floyd stares at his palm with; however, Jade believes enraptured is one-fourth close enough given language’s constrictions. His twin brother looks at the innards of his hand with the same expression when he saw fireworks for the first time or experienced the sight of red for the first time. Looking at it like it is the first time he has seen his palm. It is because something new lies on his palm. A new difference between Floyd and himself as identical twins.

Scheming, Jade decides he wants to poke at that wound. So, tearing paper off his notepad, he leaves the pending order with one of the kitchen staff and does not pick up the tray designated for him. Pocketing work, Jade slithers over to the bar.

With his non-dominant right hand, Floyd starts to trace the innard of his palm. That look of enrapturement is so strong now. As if he is only happy when observing that plane of skin. It even changes his eyes, speckles of their natural bioluminescence floating in them. Enraptured so deeply like black-hole is sucking him in.

“Did you happen to forget you have five fingers?” That does not work. Still leaning on the countertop, Floyd glides his hand contently on his palm. “Happen to be missing home?”

That knocks Floyd out of his stupor. “Huh?” On the other side of the countertop, Jade stands at the most empty bar, because customers seem to recognize they aren’t going to get a drink from such a distracted Floyd. Jade smiles politely. 

“You are staring at your hand as if you’re trying to will your fins back.” 

Jade suspects there is more to it. And he is proven correct when Floyd tights his dominant hand into a fist. The blood-lamp in his eyes dim just a bit, growing timid … no, his brother is acting shy right now? Mumbled into Floyd’s shoulder when he turns away: “I’s nothin’.”

Oh, this is going to be fun. Teeth on display, Jade interrogates, “With that look, I wholeheartedly doubt such a statement. And you are retreating like a pitiful hermit crab right now.”

“Fuck off.” 

“(Name) happens to have the day off. I happen to wonder if that has any correlation, with this sudden hand-staring. Did your hands happen to touch, going for the same ingredient?”

“I happen to wonder how many punches it’ll take till ya have a black eye.”

“Fufufufu. To think that all your efforts to get her attention and employed here; and she ends up cutting you on her first day.”

Floyd’s mood lightens. A lovey-dovey sigh escapes him. “I know. Ain’t she perfect~”

You found out only two weeks into your employment that you were getting paid more than ninety percent of the staff.

(One of your fellow line-cooks spit out of his drink when he heard you mumble under your breath during lunch rush, “twenty-eight dollars per hour, twenty-eight dollars per hour, twenty-eight –” like a momentary mantra to convince yourself to not stress too much. Apparently you are getting paid forteen more dollars than the average kitchen staff. You do not get to speculate with him why. Azul comes rushing in, scolding anyone who does not have a hundred and one percent of their attention on their work station. 

When you ask Floyd about it, he becomes uncharacteristically less fidgety than normal. How juxtaposing. People that are put-off usually squirm but Floyd goes comatose-like when bothered.) You have decided to drop it since then; why look a gifted horse in the mouth?

The money is such a darling incentive to come into work that you have yet to miss a single shift. At least, it is never boring. Not that you think Floyd would allow you to wilt in the industrial-ness of cooking in a restaurant instead of tender, domestic cooking. You two manage to have this weird mixture of fun and prodding.

And when a customer puts in an order for lobsters, you are not going to waste the opportunity.

“I’ll think I’ll name him Floyd 2,” you say, holding up the crustacean. Twitching antennas wave at you when his rubber-band claws cannot. Floyd glances at you out of the corner of his eye, golden iris like a supernova star. Just as he goes to talk, you drop Floyd 2 into the pot of boiling water. “Whoops.”

“Shrimpyyy.”

“My hand slipped,” you smile.

“Why’s Shrimpy so callous all the time? Ya got a hard shell just like this lobster. Look.” A blackish-orange, uncooked lobster is shoved in your face as you laugh.

“What do you even mean?”

“You’re a real serious type like Azul. But you were all giggles when you and Sea Otter were riding on my back over Winter Break. You danced really funny at the banquet.”

“I dance funny?”

“Yeah, like this,” Floyd starts to shimmy the lobster back and forth. You take it from him with a smile, dropping it into your pot. All four lobsters boiling, you switch your attention to cutting up the appetizer salads by your station. “Ya doing anything after work, Shrimpy?”

“Just going to Ruggie’s Spelldrive practice tonight.”

“You should come to one of my practices, Shrimpy. Way cooler than Spelldrive.”

Your knife falls on the midpoint of five or so slices of washed lettuce. Glancing up, you see as Floyd washes the rest of the vegetables, he is oddly still. His bandaged left hand clenches around the handle. Usually, he taps a rhythm to the side of the sieve. 

That is really odd because his voice is so light and carefree. But you can dissect his body language.

“No way, Spelldrive is so cool. You used magic to control the disc but it’s exactly like football.” Your world already had basketball, but Spelldrive is an entirely new thing.

“What’s football?”

“Ah, nevermind,” but Floyd presses for more answers with a smile. “It’s the same as the rules of Spelldrive. Instead of using brooms, you run. And, the control that the players have on their magic plus the second and third years who ride brooms are super impressive. The level of mastery is … on another level!”

Floyd’s face twists at that. “It’s just ridin’ a broom. Ain’t so hard.”

“I thought you, your brother, and Azul were bad at riding brooms. Y’know, sea legs and all that.”

“I’m waaay better than those two.”

“Whatever you say,” you dismiss the conversation just as you slide the cut lettuce into two bowls. You want to drop the conversation and work on the next entree. Floyd does not share that sentiment. 

Shaking water out of the sieve, he whines, “Spelldrive’s so boooring. It just a bunch of guys throwin’ around a disk.”

“And basketball is just a bunch of guys passing around a ball.”

“C’mon Shrimpyyy.” You are uncertain as to why, but you kind of don’t like the sight of Floyd frowning.

“I guess I could make the time to attend one practice.” Floyd lights up at that. Evangelical light shines in his mouth. Something boils over in you like the stove’s temperature has been turned up.

You are being eaten alive. It is not so bad. 

However, backtracking, it starts with kisses. 

Whoever is kissing you – crowding above you like a nebulous night sky and draping each warm star finger on the cold surface of your face, mandible to cheekbone – has never kissed anyone before. And it is surprisingly endearing to you. Having to guide the night to properly understand kissing is not biting. Tentatively having to pinch or pull hair when a tongue ventures too far down your throat or a pair of needle teeth bite too hard on your lips. This is how it starts.

Happiness is like the calcium in your bones. You are awfully pleased to be kissing this pair of midnight lips. Speed of kissing escalates and deescalates in intervals; sometimes, the two of you press into each other like you are afraid one of you will leave come morning before falling into slow pecks like time has suddenly become infinite. 

In this anonymous kissing, you lie happy on some hard, uncomfortable surface. But with how elevated you feel, it feels like a cloud is cradling your body. Euphoria is a well-versed painkiller. 

Peppermint burns your nostrils as the face above you gasps. Ah, despite how you had been chiding off teeth on your lips, you are the one that actually breaks skin. Three pupils of blood fall on your closed lips. Your sheepish tongue pokes out and licks red rain away. Blood falls into the sizzling grill of your mouth and you gasp in response.

Taste is categorized into five groups. This tastes like a sixth. Suddenly, all other tastes pale in comparison. The revelation makes you shudder, each bone vibrating. 

You never want to taste anything else. You will never pick up a cigarette if you get to taste this again. 

The taste gradually dims when the face finally pulls away, revealing who you are kissing. “Floyd?” Spherical blood sits, a tiny cherry, on the middle of his bottom lip. He blushes like he is sunburnt by your attentive eyes. Before you can ask why he is kissing you, Floyd leans back, sitting on his haunches.

You two are laid on a table. The table stretches so far out into the distance that it enters a void. Behind Floyd, it shrinks down until it blurs away; when you tilt your head back, it fades due to distance. The range of your eyesight cannot comprehend the length of the surface. 

Everything else is swallowed and lost to the chewing void. When you tilt your head left and right, tenebrous ebon greets you like a wall. Your eyes are magnetized to the only light source now that Floyd’s lips are too far away to kiss. 

Held in Floyd’s hand is a single fish fork. It incandesces like a lamp, and when you blink, the contour is burnt on your inner eyelids. 

Puffy, swollen lips move to speak but Floyd beats you to the punch. Out of his mouth falls an even sweeter palate beyond his blood. Your real name – in his voice, nasally, a bit lightfully high-pitched, a bit annoying and a bit liberating –  on his tongue, pronounced and said with a hefty weight. 

“(Name).”

“Yeah?” You answer, breathless from kisses and that word.

“Can I taste you?”

You think back to how each of you were feasting on each other in your liplock,  a sudden amorous meal.

“Yeah.”

Instead of him leaning down, the fish fork in Floyd’s hand starts to move. Your eyes track it with intrigue. Beyond the valley of your chest, you are caught off guard seeing your button-up undone and open like wings. Into an abyss known as the midline sternotomy, Floyd’s fish fork digs in.

A dog-esque whimper falls from your lips. The toes of your right foot curl behind Floyd when you feel a fork scraping past rib bones. Three prongs pierce convulsing muscle tissue. Lithe fingers twist the utensil. Arousal coats like goosebumps on your flesh as a section of you is taken. Eyelids half mast, you watch Floyd bring the red fork to his lips. A section of still-beating, still-drumming muscle disappears into his mouth.

This is more intense than the kissing, that you wake up on fire. 

The fire is metaphorical but the engrossing heat that blankets your entire body is not. In Ramshackle’s bed, you kick awake breathlessly. The pillow you were squeezing gives a wheeze of pain when you hug it to yourself tighter. Propping yourself on your elbows, blinking away a dream, you groan. “Oh fuuuck no.” In your chest, your tell-tale heart pounds.

You fall right back on the embrace of your pillow as it mimics the feel of a lover’s chest. Silk and the fire in your face collide in a burn. As chunks of your dream expand or delete away, you consider the heavy weight of … everything.

Floyd. 

Floyd was eating your heart. Your face smolders on your pillow – you refuse to dwell on the implications of that. 

You dwell on the implications, almost ruminating. In your quad-'apartment stomach, the rumen and reticulum digests the dream, the omasum allows the dream to filter into your bloodstream, and the abomasum finishes up your dream analysis. You metaphorically puke in your own mouth the entire morning, ruminating. 

When the taste becomes too much, you hunt down Jade. 

Stalking halls with eyes and nose trained for locating only him. And when you do, you do not busy yourself with the subtlety of a prowl. You launch right in on the attack. Stabbing him with a question even though he has a forkful of something in his mouth, “What’s Floyd’s deal?”

Caught off guard, Jade blinks at you. It is rare for such a blank look to cross his face that you are almost unnerved. Then, he pulls the fork from his mouth, chewing and dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean. My brother and Azul are not under contract.” 

“Not a real deal – ugh, Jade, you know what I mean.”

Sharpened teeth make a beastly smile. A shiver tiptoes up your spine like a spider. 

Turning back to his meal, Jade brushes off your response with, “Vagueness is one step away from misunderstanding. You should clarify for your own sake.” 

He lifts up his fork and your eyes fall to the cafeteria table. Right now, you are on a fake bathroom break during astrology. Azul and Floyd have lunch together while Jade has a separate lunch. It is the perfect time to strangle information out of him, and, like a good predator, you should not waste time on prowling or stalking but –

“I don’t understand how you can eat like that and remain that skinny.”

As a cook, you are well-versed in the balancing of meals. To be frank, Jade’s lunch probably has the most optimal nutrition in terms of carbohydrates, protein, and vegetables. However, lunches are standardly medium-sized. In front of him lies a caesar salad stuffed with chicken, BLT sandwich, and an egg salad lettuce wrap. He’s three-fourth done with the caesar salad and sure to dig into the rest.

“Metabolism is a fascinating genetic function.”

“If I can convince Crewel to make a body-swapping potion, how about a quick switch for a day?” You can only imagine how cultured Jade’s tongue is.

“You in my body and I in yours. Floyd would have a field day with that.”

“Oh my god, what does that mean!”

Jade chuckles at your boiling worry. One hundred and one spine-chilling scenarios flash in your head. Backtracking, you vow to never give your autonomy to Jade Leech of all people. It will only end in misfortune for you. Scolding, you seethe, “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. Your smile’s too creepy.”

“I’m not thinking about anything in particular. I’ll let you ruminate on it however. I’m sure you can think of much more than I can.”

“You’re the worst.” 

Jade gives a musical hum and forks the last bit of his salad into his mouth. “You know, I could ask the same question: What’s your deal?” His yellow left eye sharpens, taking in the space where you disrupt the atmosphere. Remembering what that evil star could reel out your throat (truth, awful truths you have not made peace with), you scoot back on the table’s seat. 

The mental image is odious. Jade’s hand hovering over your salivating mouth with the other holds your chin skyward; his fist clenches around a fishing line, yanking; he scoops up everything you keep concealed as you cough up blood like a weak geyser. A violent image. Yet, violence absent of any amatory intent. (So unlike your dream with Floyd.)

Putting distance between you two like a panicked crab, you mutter, “What do you mean?”

“You are good friends with Riddle Rosehearts, yes? You should know that he never indulges Floyd’s whims; he would never agree to working in the same Lounge as Floyd either. Yet, the two of you have gotten quite cozy.”

“I never voluntarily approach him. I work there for the cash.”

“Hm, perhaps. However, you do not shy away when he approaches you. Why is that? What is your deal?”

“We’re supposed to be talking about Floyd’s deal.”

“Alright. Then, let us talk about it.”

“Lets!”

“How do you find his disposition? Too wholesome, too loathsome? You two seem to be becoming fast friends … ah, but that is just my humble, little opinion. No need to look so upset.”

“Floyd is … Floyd … he’s viscera.”

“I assure you my brother has other anatomy beyond his stomach.” As Jade says, he unwraps his egg salad lettuce wrap. The smell burns your nose. You get the egg-scented message that such a description could match Jade with his bottomless stomach.

“No, it’s not literal. It’s – Being around him feels like being in the belly of the beast.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why don't you give me an example?”

“You know what? Okay.” You contemplate for a moment, thumbing through the notecards of your memory. Finally getting it, you snap your fingers. “Okay! Okay. Last week, Tuesday, during my shift. He stood behind me the entire four hours of my shift. Like I mean, stood there. Just breathing down my neck, all pissed off. I thought he was going to take a bite out of me, Jade!”

Ah, Jade remembers that day well. It was the day you had a laundry mishap, procrastinating on the chore to the point where you had no clean slacks. Nothing too interesting – so what you forgot to do laundry, that happens in the life of a busy Prefect! The only thing is:

(“Shrimpy’s wearing leggings! Shrimpy’s – fuck!”

Jade looks up from his paperwork, hovering over Azul’s shoulder. Holed up in the VIP room, he and Azul are going over the month’s numbers of hours delegated to the staff. Measuring punchcard times and figuring where to subtract or add hours for each staff member. Numbers on papers become quite boring when Jade sees the state his brother is in.

“Floyd. Do not knock over the table.” Strife laces Azul’s voice.

Sprawled on the ground, Floyd half-sits and half-kneels on the violet carpet. In his excitement, he had bumped into the table set between the two couches. Pushing himself up, the grin on Floyd’s face is mammoth and energized. “Shrimpy’s wearing leggings!”

So it seems you were, Jade would find out later. Skin-tight leggings; black with flared bottoms. You had walked in with your button-up untucked to hide what Floyd cites is the prettiest ass he has ever seen. That particular article of clothing left little to the imagination – snug so tightly on each tantalizing curve of yours.

“Is that so,” Jade asks, having yet to see you during your shift. Looking at the clock, he notices that you have only been clocked in for about three minutes. 

“I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Floyd breathes starstruck, hand clutched to his wrinkled shirt. 

With that, an evil thought comes into Jade’s head.

“I am sure today will be an equally blissful day for the staff of Mostro Lounge.”

“Huh? What ya mean?”

“I mean, she is not invisible. Obviously, if she is such a sight to behold, the staff will be looking as well.” 

Jade puts his own hand up to his heart, polite smile on his lips, and closes his eyes. He reopens them when the VIP room door slams shut – the wind carrying Floyd’s worsening mood and threats against the entire staff. The clock shows you are only four minutes into your four hour shift. The politeness of his smile morphs into something sinisterly serene as if a cunning plan of his has come to fruition. And it has, in just a few small minutes. 

Ah, what an unfortunate start to your shift it seems. Fufufu.)

But it was far from unfortunate for Jade, who chuckled every time he opened the kitchen door to see Floyd standing protectively behind you, crowding around you to cover you up while refusing to let you reach for anything on a high shelf. He would bare his teeth at whoever glanced in your direction for mere seconds. 

“I doubt he would have bitten you,” Jade placates, not wanting you to misread Floyd’s intent.

Emphasizing each word, you seethe, “He was breathing down my neck. He sounded one breath away from tearing apart my jugular!” Even though Jade seems to be reminiscing, he is obviously looking back through with a damaged pair of glasses – one temple broken off and one lens cracked.

You remember it much better: the wind-chill of a predator’s breath kissing your cervical; the uneven, spontaneous growls that would bloom behind your ear and have you pressing tighter to the stove; the intimate fear pierced into your spine through the morbid surgery of Floyd’s presence. You still wonder what you did to upset him so badly that he felt the need to monitor you for your entire shift. 

“Listen,” your face pulls into a frown as you stare down Jade. “Your brother has life sorted into two categories: fun and boring. I’m in a category I don’t want to be in. Just tell me what I need to do to make myself unappetizing to him.” 

So I don’t have another dream like that ever again.

“Ah,” Jade puts on a mask like he is going to tell you devastating news. “I’m afraid you’re quite a delicacy to him. Floyd has always been known to hold on tight to his food and eat in painful little bites. How unfortunate for you~” 

You hang your head like the strife of Floyd is a guillotine snapping the cervical bones in your neck. To be so consumed by him like this mentally … it’s tearing you up inside. 

“If I may pry, why are you so insistent on knowing about my brother? I sincerely hope it is not for ill intents, dear Prefect.” You are starting to catch onto the theme that most of Jade’s smiles are just threatening. 

Insistent? Out of the two of you, Floyd is the insistent one, binding himself tight around you. But – you still Jade’s words linger in your mind. Why were you so insistent … You imagine a fake reality where you answer his question with, ‘because I burnt food for the first time in my entire life this morning. Because this morning, I ate overdone scrambled eggs that crunched in my mouth like pretzels. Because I think I’ve unknowingly developed a crush on him and it hit me so hard this morning that Ramshackle would have gone up in smoke if Grim and the ghosts took a minute longer to notice the burning stove.’ 

Instead, you answer, “Just want my peace of mind back.”

It is a partial truth that Jade does not have to use hooks to create red, wet aqueducts in your throat to get the answer. No need to use magic like Shock the Heart on you; you have already had your heart-attack this morning!

“I sincerely think there is more to it than that.”

“I promise that is it. I want to know Floyd’s deal to get him off my back.”

“See, but you’re acting in such a contradictory way, Prefect. Perhaps I should use something to loosen your tongue. Holding so many barnacles of thoughts in your head must be tiring.” His left eye starts to fluctuate with pulsing gleams.

“OH! Would you look at the time! My bathroom break – it’s uh! I’m gonna be late for class! Bye Jade!!” You race off mouse-esque.

You have not seen Floyd today … which is admittedly very nice.

At least I only had to put up with one fake eel and one real eel today. Two real eels is too many, you think as you pluck a tender cigarette from the package. Despite having a closing shift, you have yet to see Floyd since he invaded your dreams. A beady eye of red is born as you pocket your lighter. Breathing in, you contemplate on this slight blessing.

Apparently, Floyd has been neglecting schoolwork for the past week. 

Whenever he was on his laptop, Jade mistakenly thought Floyd was doing his assignments. Turns out for seven nights he had been browsing GOAT for shoes and organizing each one on documents – so his typing mimicked the sound of doing assignments. Caring in a far too sinister way, Jade has locked Floyd in their room with a spell too advanced for it to be broken by one mage. 

(“I don’t quite understand why he even would look at shoes; you see, he’s low on cash at the moment. Oh, but I am truly sorry to have to separate you two tonight.” Jade apologizes as if you are upset over the matter. Your deadpan look is far from mournful. 

“However, I told him I would let him out when he has at least completed three-fourths. I believe he should be successful as long as he can find the correct playlist.” Jade’s yellow eye gleams at you, almost winking. “Plus, he has proper motivation to finish up sooner.”

“The hell –? I just asked if I could go on my smoke break.”

“Yes, but your constipated expression told me that you had more on your mind. Besides, isn’t this part of Floyd’s ‘deal’? His day to day – I thought I’d graciously keep you updated.”

You flip him off as you walk out the backroom.) Now here you sit, a wall embracing your back. 

Usually, you would stand but you think you might mistakenly pour cement in your shoes. Soreness is like molten lead in your bloodstream, weighing you down. You have never felt such agony in your hamstrings and thighs. Thus, you sit on an awful, treacherous thought. 

Would Floyd accept any study-guides you get from Ruggie? 

There are multiple faucets to why this is a cretinous thought. Wouldn’t Azul have study-guides for the twins; would Floyd swallow his pride to accept anything; did Ruggie even have the topics that Floyd was struggling with – because you have no idea which schoolwork Floyd is skimping out on! Like you said, it is a cretinous thought. For some reason though, you would really like to help Floyd – paying back nothing yet paying back everything too. 

Your blooming cloud of smoke asks Why am I acting so selfless for a selfish eel before it evaporates slowly into the oceanic air. There is not really any sensible answer hidden in your soul.

Twisted Wonderland is without a doubt as senseless as your soul. Even now, where you sit smoking is so world-shatteringly different from the typical ‘go out back and smoke’ area. The Octavinelle dorm is enveloped in water. The night sky outside of Mostro Lounge is a unique pocket that isn’t really a pocket at all. In a bubble, on the edge of a cliff that dips down into black, you sit staring at the swimming stars of fish. 

Even the classes are an oddity. The two classes you share with Floyd are Art and History of Magic. As far as you have observed, he does well in both of those subjects. So, you doubt he needs a study-guide for either. 

Which subject could it be: Astrology, Magic Analysis, Ancient Curses –

A pair of arms wrap serpentine around your shoulders. The anaconda has bound around his unexpecting prey. As a passenger to your train of thoughts, your mind goes blissfully blank. It is an odd sensation: to have been ruminating the entire day over a dream and when confronted with the only corporal part of the dream, you feel at peace. 

You breathe out a dragon’s breath and a greeting, “Hi Floyd.” 

Mmmmmmph. Is the response spoken into your right shoulder. Reaching behind, you take the hand still pinching your cigarette and stiffly pat the top of Floyd’s head, sharing his tired-tinted sentiment.

You have been eating your heart out, and puking in your mouth all morning. It is an exhausting activity, anguishing yourself over a silly dream, over your dream. “Did you get all your work done?” You stop petting teal hair to return your cigarette between your lips.

Mmmmmph! Anaconda-esque embrace squeezing tighter and tighter, you are really unsure of how you should take that sentiment. It sounds more frustrated than anything – can you share in Floyd’s frustration? Heartbeat lines of waves fall over you two from the overhanging light. No, you have transferred all your strife out of like the emotion is but a colony of bees smoked out of a hive.

When tobacco and paper wrapping has burnt away to about halfway, you receive a clearer insight to Floyd’s misery. “I’m never lookin’ at stars again.”

“Ah, astrology.”

“Mmmguuuh.” 

Throat-held vibrations tickle against your shoulder. Floyd depresses his face on the ledge of your collarbone, weight so crushing like he wants to melt into you. Pinioned up in his grip, you just accept the heat of his cheek and the rhythm of his groans. 

Pretending to hold an intelligent conversation: “Totally agree with you there. Stupid scorpion.” Ash is tapped off the side of your steel-toed work boots. “I’m a –” then you tell Floyd which animal/symbol aligns up with your Zodiac.

The weight on your shoulder ebbs slowly as Floyd lifts himself up. Then, his bony chin digs into your shoulder causing you to squirm. Arms tighten to stop your earthworm motions and Floyd remarks sleepily, “Mmm, I like shrimps better.”

“You know I can never wrap my head around that nickname. I get why Grim’s a seal because he’s shaped similarly. I don’t get mine. Eels eat shrimp or something?”

“ – Or something.”

“That’s vague.”

“What? Ya want me to eat ya, Shrimpy?”

In cartoons, when a character is punched in the face, stars start to prance and bounce around their head. Floyd’s words are equivalent to a face-impacting wallop. Words crash into you with all the grace of a burning space-shuttle ripping through air. BANG! Bunny-esque stars start to dance around your head, reeling as if all those letters had condensed into a fist.

Lightning of pain branches across your face, and you only get to save yourself by doing one thing. You turn your head to where Floyd’s chin perches and blow smoke into his face. As he falls back, coughing up a storm, you quickly work to get control of the weather inside you.

The turbulent sea of a crush is something calamitous. Lunar shadow-waves tilt across Floyd’s body as you breathe in more smoke. Still coughing, Floyd grumbles, “Why do - ack - ya do that? Smells funky.”

“No asking questions if you don’t answer questions.”

Elbow protecting his nose and eyes seething, he grumbles again, “I told ya, or something.”

“Not good enough. I don’t like roundabout answers.”

“Shrimpyyy.”

“Hey, no calling me that if you can’t tell me why.”

Floyd avoids eye-contact. Not blushing but with all his grimacing teeth on display, he whines, “But it’s embarrassing.” 

“Now you have to tell me.” 

And he really does because Floyd being embarrassed is alien. You go to deal your own physical blow on Floyd. Aiming a hit that is intercepted, you gloat, “Or this little shrimp is going to take down a big eel.” 

When Floyd interlocks your fingers together, you fight back. You fight back through depressing pressure on it; you do not fight the borderline amatory gesture. His hand feels nice in yours. The lighting-shaped lesion in his inner palm that you created feels so warm.

Your mark, your heart sings. Killing that melody, you start to wrestle slightly with Floyd. Horseplaying, your joint hands press against one another, moving back and forth with each playful jab you throw at one another.

“No waaaay, you’re too weak.”

“Says the person about to be beat.”

“I’m fending you off with one hand!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Ack - ak! That’s – uuk – cheating!”

“Why am I called Shrimpy!”

“Because I’mma squeeze you like a Shrimpy!”

“Oh my God,” you laugh. “That’s an even bullshit-er answer than ‘or something’!”

“It’s true! Come here!”

“Ahahaha!” 

Sportive laughter blooms from you. Pouncing like a dog seeing its owner after a week long vacation, Floyd pushes you down onto the ground. You squeal breathlessly, “Oh my God!” The back of your head collides with his other protective palm rather than ground. You two are still entwined at the hands – his left and your right. You slap and wrench your left hand this way and that. Floyd follows with his right, trying to grab that too. A foot scuffles up to his lower stomach, pushing. No way are you going to accept a Leech squeeze without a proper fight. You two twist and squirm on the floor, laughing together. 

All the while, the caress between your right hand and his left hand remains an independent variable. Unchangeable in this discord of rapid-moving limbs. A caress of interlocked fingers.

“Shrimpy’s gonna – AH HAHA – Shrimpy’s gonna get squeezed!” A mouthful of sharp piscine teeth gleams over your face. You kick at Floyd’s intestines hard enough where his mouth goes circular instead of being crescent.

“Nuh – hahaha – no way!” Floyd makes another grab at your left arm. You twist on your side, crushing his grip on the cement below you, as your heart pounds in your eardrums. You arch in a giggling shriek when Floyd tickles your side, exposing your left arm.

“Aha!” Floyd shouts victorious when he manages a squeeze to your bicep. 

Yet, before a shrimp can be squeezed, a door opens. “(Name), your break has been over – oh.” 

Jade drinks in the sight of you and his brother like it is a recherché tea blend he has never seen before. A gloved hand covers the uniform pressed over Jade’s chest. Well, this is his first time seeing his twin have a crush so: “Oh, I am so glad to see Floyd getting along with his little shrimp. Warms my brotherly heart.” 

Frozen on the ground, you and Floyd show Jade your teeth in matching, disgruntled, and cringing grimaces. All thirty-two square enamels of yours; all forty-two triangle enamels of Floyd’s. 

“My, what sour expressions! Fufufu!”

“Why are you making that face!”

“I’m gonna shove this down your throat so you stop saying such stupid shit,” your fork moves with each word you say.

“All I said was –”

“I heard you. Do not repeat it.”

Oh, how you heard Ace, loud and clear. With all the agonizing clarity of a centipede squirming in your ear, his words made an invasion in your body. Not even a full minute ago, Ace had commented, “you and Floyd seem pretty close now.” Those words got you to instantly drop your waving hand, Floyd’s scarred palm still up and waving buh-bye to you, before you rounded on Ace with your fork. 

More frequently, between class breaks, Floyd has been visiting you during the time you and your trio have lunch. It is nothing eccentrically different. Floyd has been a persistent leech on you since Jamil Viper’s overblot … but you never reciprocated in conversation until now. Which is probably why Ace brings up the one basketball practice you attended fourteen days ago: 

“You know that one time you came to our practice, I think he played the best he has in  – FUCK!”

As Ace nurses the four indents on his throat, you fake a moue, “Oh, what was that? You have to speak clearly Ace.” 

The sound of your best friend’s hacking and your other best friends’ laughter is a tranquil balm. Enough to where you can stop stressing over the lack of distance now between (Name) (Last Name) and Floyd Leech.

Okay, maybe you never stop thinking about the lack of distance. You are a person who always backtracks into previous thoughts. Reversing time in your mind and puking in your own mouth is perpetual. Therefore, you end up stewing away in your mind, moving a spoon through a bowl of wet rice. Ah … closeness is such a flimsy concept. 

You and Floyd seem pretty close now? Perhaps.

‘Cannibalism Cooking’ is a teaching segment on how to erase the distance between self and other? Perhaps.

You think too much? Yes. 

Despite your ire, there has been a shift. It is could be in something small like how instead of cooking alive lobsters you name Floyd 1, Floyd 2, Floyd 3, etcetera; you have taken to making stories up for each lobster with Floyd, humanizing them in jest like one does with Barbie dolls, as Floyd’s lobster mourns the death of your lobster who fell into the boiling pot. It could be something large like how you will look at Floyd at times and think of how you want to devour him down to the bones — cooking him on the very stove in Mostro Lounge that you work, your own lai d'ignaure.

Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking, you repeat to yourself in threes. You try to focus on the preparation of rice.

For almost three months you have worked at Mostro Lounge and it has gone on without a hitch. Which is odd because backtracking … you think back on Ruggie and the Intra-School Competition. You have yet to see Floyd in a bad mood, and that cannot last forever. 

Eventually, the thing Ruggie foretold comes to pass. Three days later. It is like a weatherman reporting a category four hurricane, an inevitable part of the atmosphere that cannot be avoided. Floyd has fallen into one of his bad moods. And it is worse than any natural disaster.

Double swinging doors open like a maw of roaring teeth. One door happens to smack the tray out of an employee’s hand, just about to exit to the dining hall. That is what causes your eyes to flicker up. Calamity comes in the sound of crackling porcelain and squishing food. Two dishes have clattered to the floor, food wasted. Your eyes flicker up from the discord of pasta, seafood, and vegetables to see the criminal of the crime. Floyd Leech who has the meanest maw that would put any apex predator to shame.

That monstrous look? You guarantee that the credit for crafting it belongs to the sauce splattered on Floyd’s slacks and shoes. Shadows settle over the eel-mer’s face. His hand comes up to hold his own shoulder in an iron grip.

Besides you, a line-cook bemoans, “Well, it was nice knowing him.”

Every employee is aware of the rules: if one of the employees is not following the rules, squeezing is permitted. One of the unspoken rules: do not piss off Floyd Leech. Ruining his shoes is a swift way to get his mood down.

You and your fellow line-cook share a grimace. The employee – you think he might be a Scarabia or Savanaclaw student, too far away to tell the color of his arm-band – is shaking in Floyd’s presence. Watching Floyd’s mouth and eyebrows twitch and the student’s hands move in apologetic measures, you consider something heavy on your tongue. 

I really don’t have to go out of my way to help that nameless student, you think just as your mouth opens. Really, though, you only think that because you do not want to confront the reality of who you are helping. “Hey!” The kitchen staff switches their attention from the scene to you. Ugh.

“Which table was that for?”

The Scarabia/Savanaclaw student almost looks ready to fall to his knees in gratitude. Shaking, he replies, “It wa-was for Table N-Nuh-Nine.” 

“Well, clean up Table Nine’s mess. Mop’s in the supply closet,” you hope the student is sharp enough to pick up the message: stay there until Floyd is calm. “Then, get out on the floor and offer Table Nine complimentary drinks because of the delay. Move it.”

“Yes, right away!” You think he might be Savanaclaw because you have never seen a person run that fast before.

It is like those stare-down between two predators on nature documentaries. You and Floyd size each other, him pissed that you let his punching bag escape and you pissed that he caused perfectly fine food to spoil. Eye contact locks in place; confrontation like a rumbling storm cloud separates you two. Whoever yields is going to have the face and accept the bite of the other. It comes as a surprise to the kitchen staff when you look right into the sun, challenging that mean eye. Lips pulling back to grimace, it comes to an even greater shock to everyone when Floyd looks away first. When his sheepish eyes glance back up, you move a finger in a ‘come here’ motion. 

It would be ideal if he could move without kicking a wad of spaghetti across the vinyl floor … but you take what you can get. 

“Hand me that stool,” you say. Refusing to take your eyes off Floyd, you hold your open fingers out behind your back towards your fellow line-cook who has a stool by his oven. When Floyd passes some cooks, they press their stomachs up to the burning stove-plates, dangerously leaning inward to avoid the immediate danger of a grumpy eel. Still, you two look daggers at each other. 

The stool finds your hand and you set it down in front of you – right by your own designated stove . 

“Sit,” you instruct and he wordlessly obeys. 

Even while listening, he is glaring at you. A sculptor named Animosity has molded his features; he looks at you like he wants your head to fly off, probably thinking you are going to scold him like Azul and Jade do. Instead, you turn on a third burner (bottom right) and look around for a frying pan. 

You were warned by Jade and Azul around the first week of your employment, Azul’s words far-off yet intimately close too: We tell all long-lasting staff but I ask that you heed this more than the others, Prefect. It is better to leave Floyd alone when he is in a bad mood.

Floyd is silent as he watches. His lilac vest and white button-up is wrinkled with his slouched posture. Tie still undone. No hat this time around. Sitting and slouching, he still comes up to about your elbow. On the stool’s footrest, he hooks his shoes on them, just glaring and glaring at you. 

No matter, you think, retrieving slices of bread. I can deal with a childish glare. You start to lather up the slices with garlic Parmesan butter as the pan heats up gradually. But – you have to go to the refrigerator to retrieve two ingredients you do not have on hand.

Just as you go to ask your fellow line-cook to fetch those ingredients that you needed, a hand grabs your slacks. Mild surprise seasons your face as you look down. Burying itself into your black slacks is Floyd’s left hand. 

“Why aren’t ya yellin’ at me?”

“Would you like me to?”

Floyd shows you all forty-two of his teeth in a disgusted grimace. Like the mere notion of you yelling at him leaves a bad taste in his mouth. 

“Don’t ask for it then,” you scold lightheartedly before finally asking yet another favor of your co-worker. Floyd remains silent but keeps his hand attached to you.

You are baking something quick because you need Floyd’s spirits lifted before that student comes back with the mop. Heat kisses on the plain of your forearm skin as you put the bread slices on the pan. Dial up to eight, a perfect temperature for this little meal. When you get the other ingredients you need, you quickly assemble Floyd’s sandwich.

While you cook each side for four minutes, Floyd bounces his left leg in dismay. His eyes trace over your countertop surface where all your preparation lies but you make sure to keep his eyes away from the stove. His hand is content on your pant leg. 

“Here,” you say, holding a sea-turtle green plate out to Floyd. You set it down on the countertop. He eyes it with disinterest yet stops slouching. Quickly turning off the third burner, you move the frying pan to the top right to cool off. 

“Grilled cheese?”

“Oh, please, I would never make something so boring.”

Foyd’s eyes glow a bit when he is intrigued. Right now, his eyes are pricked with little firefly holes of light because of your words. That sentence motivates Floyd to pick it up. 

Which you only really consider a success when he looks at you wide-eyed, chewing on his first bite. “Tis so goe.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. I can’t understand a word.”

“This is so good.” 

Oh.

Why does your chest hurt right now? 

“Damn Shrimpy, this is really something!” Floyd praises as he takes another bite, uncaring of the heat.

Oh your bittersweet organ pounds. Maybe – just maybe – because it is Floyd, that praise settles on you a little differently than previous praise. Not that you are unappreciative of those that eat your food. As Grim really thinks anything you make tastes great, as Ace or Deuce did not come from a lineage of highly sophisticated and picky taste-buds, Floyd’s praise is different. Floyd is not as easy to please as he seems. The glaring fact that your food has brought a smile to his face causes your heart to pound in an alternative rhythm that you have never felt before.

Before you can start thinking about that more, you explain what makes the grilled cheese so different: “It’s a combination of grilled cheese, pizza, and garlic bread. The pepperoni and garlic butter add a punch, while it really just looks like a normal grilled cheese. Figured you’d like it.”

He really does like it. It is evident as he takes a gigantic bite, listening to you explain your mixture of three types of bread-based foods combined into one. Stringy cheese connects from his lips to his food. It is a little distracting how fluidly he gathers up the flexible intestines of your grilled pepperoni sandwich. His tongue and teeth are inhuman after all. 

Hell, should you turn down one of the burners? Why are you feeling so hot? You watch a slice of pepperoni disappear into Floyd’s chipmunk cheeks before he says:

“Shrimpy’s a real good cook.”

“Of course, it was why I was hired here. But … Thank you. That’s very nice to hear from you.”

“And ya made it especially for little me.”

“Hm?”

“Shrimpy cooked just for me.”

“Uuk –” Caught just like that. You were hoping he would somehow overlook it, either because of his bad mood or his admiration towards the food. Before you can open your mouth to embarrass yourself with pointless retorts, another calamity steals your attention.

You look towards the noise by the double doors, and before you lies the best sight you have ever seen at Night Raven College. Azul. Flat on his ass, having slipped because of where that student mopped. The octo-mer’s glasses are tilted and blue paints his cheeks. “HAHAHAHA!” You quickly slap a hand over your mouth so you do not join Floyd’s laughter. Though, your shoulders shake quite a bit.

It is also the best sight in Night Raven College because it allows you to procrastinate on the philosophy of how love, to you, is finding people to be in the kitchen with. 

But, mostly, it is the best because it is Azul having slipped on his ass. “Hehehe.”

Eggs in a carton. That is what they look like. Eyes in a mask of skin. A twin set of eggs, turned sideways and unblemished. Staring up at you, those eggs remain open and bulge from the concave carton made of skin. One yolk is yellow and the other is a plain olive-rust. 

There is a third part to your philosophies – the idea of Heaven that I see is a slice of you staring up at me. If love is an ingredient then the body full of love is a banquet hall. 

A dish acts as his pillow. His locks are combed back with gravity, teal and black angel hair seasoning the meal. What you have on your plate is Floyd’s upside-down head which unblinkingly stares at you. He looks coherent. You are not sure if that makes it better or worse … because it means he can hear (along with you) the words Azul is saying:

“Unadon is just one of the many delicacies made from eel. The average chef knows about nine ways to prepare eel into different meals – braised or stewed or fried or grilled. Today, the Culinary Crucible asks that you prepare this catch with your heart as the writer of the recipe.”

And what awful words they are. 

Timid, you look up at Azul while he walks the length of the room. He is dressed in his Culinary Crucible uniform; hair tucked behind his ear, cotton table cloth on his hip, sleeves of the double-breasted jacket rolled up to his elbows. He is reading off a clipboard. His glasses steal in the limited light, glowing like a kitchen knife, each motion of those lenses keen as a stab. Each step of his is perfumed with the scent of viscera. 

It only makes sense because you are in the belly of the beast.

“Cooking eels is particularly challenging. Unlike other finfish, the skin needs to be removed as soon as the eel is dead due to the slippery consistency. On average, a chef invests a number of years into mastering and perfecting the craft of making a mouth-watering meal.”

Reddish-mauve muscle layers drape across the wall like curtains. Hardly noticeable but the walls shudder with digestion. Incurvate muscle layers are connected together by towering bone pillars. In the thinner layers, between this fusion of stomach and rib-cage, reddish-mauve turns a reddish-orange with light.

Food acts as the flooring. A runny egg yolk about the size of pillow nestles into a crimson tomato that is equal to the size of a beanbag chair. Juicy ribs decorate the floor like carpeting. Baguettes underfoot crunchy softly with each step Azul takes. You look down at what is holding yourself and your chair up. 

Underneath your feet is a cucumber. Kaleidoscope-esque seeds are arranged in the shape of a sun. Foamy white-green has a moist caress on you, and, when you test it with your toes, white plasma froths up with the pressure. 

“Harriet Van Horne was an American newspaper colonist with her career starting in 1940’s. In 1956, she wrote an article titled ‘Not for Jiffy Cooks’ and, in it, she wrote the following words: Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Chefs. (Name). The Culinary Crucible asks that you enter with this love. Or never cook again. Please begin.”

Begin?

There is such a momentous weight before starting. Not limited to cooking, there is always a kind of second breath curled up in the first breath before one starts a new task. Breathing with more effort to steady yourself in your resolve.

The breath you take suctions in a perfume, aligned with the floral notes of sweetness found in sugar-peppered churros, sourness found in slobbering grapefruit, saltiness found in prickling flakes on fries, bitterness found in melting dark chocolate, and savoriness found in – you don’t know yet.

Cooking is like love, you reflect amorously. You maneuver with a careful approach, gently moving the plate closer to you. Keeping him upside down, you take the hook of his mandible between your thumb and index. Dentist-like, you open his mouth. Paralyzed with an active consciousness, Floyd’s tongue hangs in his mouth like a stillborn, pink mole rat.

It stretches. Stretching like taffy with cheesy elasticity, you tug it between your dull square enamels. Pulling inch by inch, you hold Floyd’s tongue with tongs made of teeth. When it disconnects from his buccal cavity with a wet, ripping sound – spuuuul-ck! – evangelical light burns from your mouth to your retinas. 

My – My bedroom. I’m in my bedroom. Gently, your teeth move off the object you were biting down in a violent grip. Salvia soaken into your pillowcase, you let out a quiet groan. You fall back down on the pillow, finding a dry path to rest your cheek on, having just woken up.

Not good … Not fucking good at all. 

That stupid eel; will you ever get a goodnight sleep again because of him … him and stupid sweet laughter, sour eyes, salty lips, bitter touch, and savory kiss. Kiss? Kiss! You blink and reel yourself from the image your brain was starting to paint.

“No way,” you breathe flustered. “I don’t want to kiss Floyd.” You hold that thought on your tongue like a cough drop. The flavor seeps in and – “Fuck, I want to kiss Floyd.”

Grim, who sleeps belly-up, gives a little kick next to the cradle your left thigh has on him. Quieting down, you think of a conversation you and Floyd had about a month ago. You still need to answer that question – “You know I can never wrap my head around that nickname. I get why Grim’s a seal because he’s shaped similarly. I don’t get mine. Eels eat shrimp or something?” / “ – Or something.” / “That’s vague.” / “What? Ya want me to eat ya, Shrimpy?”

With determination, you reach over your pillow to your bedside table. Hand locked on the phone, your first sight of the morning is a tiny Grim blooming alive on the screen. You coo at the picture of Grim sleeping, tail tucked closed to his body and eyes drawn shut. Cutie, you think, sliding up the screen. 

Now back to being a soldier on a mission, you click on Safari and type away. Eels and shrimps. You click search. Not wanting a long hunt, you hit the first website. MORAY EEL and CLEANER SHRIMP writes itself out on a blue webpage. Relief fills you to find the article is only two paragraphs worth of reading.

Okay, Floyd. Time to see what is so embarrassing about a tiny nickname. There is no comprehensible way that his embarrassment could possibly tip your own embarrassment off the scales. Two dreams intimately cannibalistic is much harder to admit than the reason for a silly nickname. 

The two paragraphs read:

“There are approximately 200 species of Moray Eel, most of which are exclusively marine although a small number inhabit brackish water and fresh water. Its eyes are small and vision limited, so the eel relies on a sophisticated sense of smell to detect prey, which consists primarily of cephalopods and crustacea. They possess one long dorsal fin that extends from the neck to the anal fin, allowing smooth propulsion through the water. Snake-like in appearance, with wide mouths full of misshapen teeth, the Moray Eel looks ferocious but is in fact a shy, mostly solitary creature living most of its life in burrows and caves.”

Shy? You scoff at the very idea of it. Continuing on, you read the second paragraph.

“For some species, the only regular companions are cleaner shrimp, which live in a symbiotic relationship with the eel. The shrimp congregate in teams called a ‘cleaning station’ and move across the whole body of the eel – including inside the mouth – removing parasites and dead skin, which is their food. This cleaning ensures good health for the eel, so both species benefit.”

Your hands clap over your face as if the pressure can push down the geysering flush that is overriding your skin and hide away all these emotions. 

“(Name), could you retrieve something from the walk-in freezer for me?”

It has been a torturous week. Being co-workers with someone you have developed a crush on; you imagine creating a big X with your arms, you do not recommend it. It is such a delicate tight-rope walk across a boiling pot of scalding water. 

Even while working without him as a constant leech, he remains there. 

On your body and inside your body. Inside your body, it is how he infects your thoughts. On your body though is a bracelet made of teeth (beastman, merman, fae, and human). Floyd made it for in Art; even took the red string and tied it himself around your wrist. (“I don’t have any stuff for an earring so I hadda improvise. I think humans wear shark necklaces sometimes; bracelets are like necklaces for the wrists!”) There might just casually be a tooth from each of the seven dorms on your wrist. You are currently stirring scallops around in an oiled skillet, watching a golden crust form on them and admiring your recently made jewelry.

Floyd’s very odd, you think as you look up from your station. To see who needs you to retrieve something from the walk-in freezer. A pair of heterochromic eyes size you up. “What do you need me to get,” you ask. “I can’t really leave these to burn.”

“It will only be a matter of seconds. Turn the temperature down a bit.”

Lawfully, you decide not to argue against it. Jade is just one ring lower from being your boss. The blue flame lowers slowly. You walk away from the oven, keeping your apron on, and follow after Jade.

“Thank you. I cannot quite carry it all myself.”

“No problem. What are we grabbing?”

“A shipment of veal and fresh beef. Two boxes each.”

You nod your agreement to help. When you two come up upon the steel door, Jade takes the handle in his gloved hand and pulls towards himself to remove it from the first locking mechanism. Cold rushes towards you with a bear-hug-esque strength. You give one hard shiver before falling still. Jade almost seems to smile in the face of frosty air, lips quirked up.

“By the way, have you seen Floyd today? He’s always around on the weekends but I haven’t seen him enter the kitchen yet.”

“Still interested in his day to day?”

“You know what, forget I said anything,” you say, stepping in front of Jade. Like a deflating flower, your toothpick lowers to the ground in disappointment. “I’m sure I’ll see him later.”

“Who knows it might be earlier than expected.”

“Huh?”

Then, Jade gives you a shove hard enough to send you sprawled on the floor inside the walk-in freezer. You almost end up puncturing a hole in your cheek with your toothpick. That bastard!

The thing about freezers is a majority of them have plastic sheeting between the steel door and the inside to keep the temperature below zero. Long, seven inches wide stripes of plastic hang like party streamers from the entrance. Coated in ice, it is extremely difficult to see through, whether in or out. 

Which is why you do not notice until you are inside the freezer that Floyd is there too. He looks at you down on your hands and knees, confusion a mere flicker until a flame of rage consumes it. Standing up, Floyd rushes past you. At the hanging plastic and entrance, he screams.

“Jade – you fucking bas – !”

“The human body takes four to six hours to succumb to hypothermia in zero degree weather. So, take however long you need.” And though the difference is not too noticeable, the room grows a bit dimmer. The very noticeable part is the sound of the lock clicking in place.

“Jade!” A fist flies through the icy plastic, banging loud against steel. “Jade, I’m gonna strangle you when I’m out! I’m gonna break your fuckin’ terrariums!” You think you just saw the steel door dent with the force of Floyd’s kick. 

A pregnant moment of silence settles between you two. Floyd refuses to turn around. After a few more threats and punches to the door, he still remains spine facing you. 

By now, you have picked yourself from the ground, hugging yourself. All you are wearing is a thin unbutton, apron, slacks, and a thin tank top. Your shoes and Octavinelle hat might keep some heat circulating. Four to six hours? That is too generous for what you are wearing; Jade probably got that statistic about people wearing winter gear.

When another shiver races down your vertebrates and Floyd still has not moved, you quietly poke, “Um, Floyd. Do you know what’s up with Jade?”

“Ugh, I told him I had this handled.”

“What handled?”

It seems you were not supposed to hear that because Floyd finally turns around. Droopy eyes give you a fleeting, disinterested once over. Besides his usual fidgeting, he appears unbothered by the cold. Spinning around with a sigh, Floyd aims at his vitriol at you with a glare.

When he stalks toward you like a predator, you straighten up. While not entirely experienced in fights, you are not going to be the squeeze-toy thrown to an angry mongrel to be torn apart until stuffing flies like snow. The fist you were preparing loosens when Floyd simply reclaims his spot on the ground, leaning against the opposite wall. Huh?

“I’mma go to sleep. Wake me up when Jade opens the door.”

Huh!

“Wait, but can’t you get us out with magic?”

“Jade used that spell again; needs two mages to unlock it.”

A curse sizzles under your breath. It grows into a mushroom cloud of air in front of your face, crystalizing. Fuck, it is like a miniature Antartica. Not wanting to display any weakness, you only rub your hand up your left arm instead of rubbing both like you desperately want to. “Well, there’s got to be a reason why. Revenge for slacking off?”

Floyd does not answer you. He just sits with his legs pulled up and chin resting on his knees. “Look, I gotta get out of here. I’ll freeze to death.” At that his eyes grow a bit more alive, flickering up to you. A weak half-smile is aimed at you.

“Well, I don’t want a popsicle Shrimpy.”

“So, you can get the door open? Oh, that’s a relief!”

Turns out Floyd cannot get the door open because all he does is start stripping. HUH! Floyd might be a little too late in stopping you from turning into a popsicle; you remain frozen solid, openly leering with questions. You only unthaw when you see it is just his Octavinelle jacket and scarf he is taking off. Those two items he offers you in an outstretched hold. 

“I thought you could get us out of here,” you mourn with a whine.

“Unless you gain magic, I can’t. Here, it’s not going bite –”

You barely let Floyd get out another word before you are throwing on his jacket and mummifying yourself with his scarf. Screw humility, you bet half your salary that this freezer dips into the negatives at times. Oversized, his jacket falls at the midpoint of your thighs. You squeeze yourself in an imaginary embrace, trying to bottle up all your warmth and –

“Why are you holding your hand out still?”

“I don’t really mind the cold. You’re gonna start shiverin’. You should sit.”

“I’m fine.” Your toothpick flies up and down in your mouth, moving to the beat of your full body shivers. “I’ll still be able to move when Jade unlocks the door.”

“C’mon Shrimpy.”

“I’m not going to cuddle up with you for warmth.”

“It’s not cuddlin’, it’s squeezin’.”

“Same thing.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh uh.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh uh!”

“Nuh uh!”

You end up letting Floyd squeeze you to keep you warm; it is not cuddling. 

Sitting between his long legs, accepting his arms which wrap around your waist, letting him rest his sleepy head on your shoulder as the black strand tickles your cheek. It is not cuddling because he holds you with cement arms instead of in soft amatory. Despite that, it is helping with fending off hypothermia. 

Floyd’s hands are flushed pink, almost frostbitten. When you look down at where his embrace locks, you see the crimson flesh of his phalanges and your own hands ache from just looking at them. Your hands are tucked in Floyd’s jacket sleeves. Only equipped with a button-up now, there isn’t much to keep him protected from the frigid ventilation. 

“Pu-Put your hands under my jacket.” You break a silence that has been stretching on seemingly infinitely. Snotty slugs run down your nose and you sniff them back into their home. “You’re going to lose a finger.”

“I’m fiiine,” Floyd mumbles into your shoulder. He has been drifting in and out of sleep for, well, you do not know how long truthfully. He seems to be stewing deep in thought.

It takes only a minute (you counted in your head) to get him to put his hands under your tank-top and all the layers above it. They feel unnaturally hot against your skin. Moderate frostbite. You thank him for listening then go back to counting the number of boxes in the room for a third time.

“There’s got to be some kind of loose screw or like weak area in the magic, right?”

Frustrated, you pat the steel door, nudging the plastic out of your way with your shoulders. After whittling down so many toothpicks, you start to grow fidgety. You need to go outside and take a smoke break; hell, you would forgo the cigarette just to get a breath of fresh air. 

Claustrophobia settling in, you press your frostbitten fingers over the seam of the metal door and wall. Maybe you can use something to push the lock open. “Maybe I can knock something into this spot and unlock the door.”

“Jadio sealed it up with magic. It ain’t gonna open.”

“If you’re not gonna help, zip it.”

“You talked to me first.”

“That’s it! Quiet game starting now!”

You lie on Floyd’s side, sharing his jacket like a blanket, when you murmur, “Floyd, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“... Ya lose the quiet game, Shrimpy.”

“Hehe, damn, you’re right.” You two watch your laughter float up in clouds of cold air.

It takes until Floyd gets the start of deep frostbite and you get the start of superficial frostbite when he admits softly, “I think I know something that might work.”

You look up with shiny eyes. Growing really frustrated, unshed tears have started to cling to your eyelashes. Not that they would really vanish if you ended up crying. The image of tears freezing on your face is much more appropriate. 

Poking your mouth out of Floyd’s scarf like a timid turtle, you ask, “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinkin’ –” Floyd trails off, oddly shy. He is already flushed from the chill but you watch crimson spread like an infection. He will not look at you.

His red expression reminds you of the time you took a toothpick to pick food out his teeth … wait, a minute: The shrimp congregate in teams called a ‘cleaning station’ and move across the whole body of the eel – including inside the mouth – removing parasites and dead skin. Now you two definitely match on levels of blushing. 

Why do I think of that now; you startle when Floyd’s eyes narrow down at you. 

He drinks in each atom and molecule of you with his eyes. Snotty nose, flushed face, shivering tremors all ingredients used to make the messy image that is you at this very moment. Floyd could not ask for a better sight. A little apprehensive at his intense staring, you hide your chin in his lilac scarf. He looks like he wants to take a bite of you –

“Shrimpy, I love you.”

“...

“Huh?”

“You don’t needa say it back or anything. 

“Just,” Floyd then pronounces his next words like someone speaking to customer service, making sure each syllable is clear. “Shrimpy. I. Love. You.” Your face creases at his odd tone until you hear it – the click of the steel door being unlocked. Your eyes widen in shock. “There we go,” Floyd says, reaching one hand through the plastic hangers to push open the entrance.

“Ya can just forget this – mmh!”

Reviewing and backtracking, a stomach and intestines is viscera and viscera is a stomach and intestines. Each organ of your own viscera is working itself into this violent kiss. Churning and ruminating like lustful waves. You have to digest each part of Floyd Leech in this kiss or you will starve. 

This has marinated long enough.

It is even better than your dreams. 

When you take his tongue in your mouth, each nerve on your tongue flares up in a sweet vibration. Warmth melts through your bones as you grasp at Floyd’s hair and he pulls you up by your waist. He is a bit inexperienced but he is surely reacting positively to it. 

This savory flavor is unlike anything you have ever tasted. Tagging and twisting tongues, you two devour each other like you are each other’s three star michelin feast. With harsh bites, you two switch flavor profiles with which area that is explored.

Like an inmate on death row, you take care and time with making sure each lick and bite is savored. Peppermint and meat. A laugh huffs into Floyd’s mouth, you were not expecting such a weird combination.

You two break apart momentarily, panting breaths beating out in tiny clouds against the cold. Sharing a moment where you both just want to stare at each other. His olive-brown and gold eyes are like heavenly light. There are sand-flickers of a dozen different hues in each one, all shades deliquescing together to make them glow slightly. He has such a tender look in them.

Five seconds is far too long to pause kissing; you and Floyd both agree, throwing yourself back at each other.  

Each part that Floyd touches on you ignites with a hellish fire. Not even the negative temperatures of the freezer can subdue such a flaming sensation. He cradles your organ and skeletal system with such care, moving kidney to lung to lymph nodes, moving ilium to scapula to xiphoid process. Every part of you worshiped.

You are never going to come up for air. You both have waited far too long for this. 

I’m gonna fucking bite off his lips off, you think with untamed carnivorous desire. It seems Floyd agrees to the sentiment. Because he eagerly follows when you move him by a handful of his hair on the right side, black and teal threading through fierce fingers.

“Aah,” Floyd gasps when you pull.

“Mmmm,” you moan when Floyd squeezes. 

“Ah,” Jade squeaks surprised. 

You pull away first, head snapping towards the open door. Iron hot warmth burns your lips. You look at Floyd’s twin with horror when you realize you definitely have salvia coated generously on your lips. Mourning that it is not blood on your tongue, you listen as Jade says, “I felt the spell break, but it looks like I made an ill-thought-out decision to check. My apologies; please continue.”

But you cannot because – “my fucking scallops, Jade! If those are burnt, I’m going to break your terrariums!”

“My, what flaming anger. Perhaps another hour in the freezer.”

Both you and Floyd run at Jade just as he unclips his magic pen. 

This should not be that big of a deal. 

You have done this a hundred times over and will continue to do it a hundred times over. So there is absolutely no rational reason for your hands to be shaking on this avalanche level intensity. Still – looking down at them, clutched around a tiny red coffin – there your hands are … at the end of your wrists … shaking. 

There is still time to dispose of the evidence. On both hands you can count the number of people who would be more than grateful to receive this little tomb. Two of them happened to have beast features on the top of their heads, and one of the two already expressed interest in it.

(“How does this smell?”

“Shishishi, smells delicious. I didn’t know today was payday.”

“Wait! Aaah, don’t touch it please – this isn’t payment.”

“Hm,” confusion knits Ruggie’s face. “Then why bother asking?”

You cannot meet his eyes at that moment. Shuffling shoes suddenly seem more interesting as you murmur sheepishly under your breath. “It’s a little embarrassing.” Unable to elaborate further, you open up the red box. Aroma and warmth swims through the air. Ruggie’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight.

“Oh. I get it now.”

You ruminate at that moment, vomiting out all your insecurities. You barely even stop between each word. All of it pulled from you by an imaginary fish hook: “It’s so embarrassing; I’m going to throw it out!!”

“Don’t you dare.” Ruggie yells as you rush off to find a trash-can.) Eventually, Ruggie did manage to convince you to keep it in a very cop-talks-down-a-suicide-jumper with the cop being him and the suicide jumper, the bento box. 

Floyd will – backtrack, Floyd is going to laugh at it. You are just stuck on predicting if his high-pitched laughter will be mocking or amused. Perhaps, his dominant hand will come to rest on his right shoulder, miffed beyond sensibility. A mini-hot-dog-faced bear sleeping under a blanket of rice, dyed to look like a watermelon, with dreams of corn, cucumbers, and meat floating above his head. Is that amusing or aggravating?

Waking up so early in the morning to make another lunch on top of the ones prepared for yourself and Grim … what illness have you caught, fever turning your hands into fretful shaking limbs … what happens if he hates bear and would prefer a bunny or panda … you even stressed over picking an aquatic themed bento, but decided it against it because it was too on-the-nose for your tastes. 

If a heart is made of meaty worries and anxieties, you put your heart into this meal. Head down, roaming Night Raven’s halls, you blush hard at the thought. 

Things have been escalating fast between you two. Floyd’s shyness melted away when you two stumbled out of the walk-in freezer. His body and blood eagerly reveal his own matching hunger. You still remember last night kneading dough at Ramshackle, him nestling you from behind and pressing more and more kisses to your pulse point. Both of you devour each other in lip to lip kisses.

Love, an ingredient in the kitchen.

By the time you have arrived at your destination, your face has thankfully cooled down. There he stands. He is caught up in a conversation with Jade as Azul patiently waits off to the side. I shouldn’t interrupt them, you think and gladly grab onto that detour. If you turn down the left hallway, you can avoid this and pass Ruggie’s D period class. This vulnerability is worse than the vulnerability of being magicless. I should go. They seem busy –

“Shrimpy!” Your heart knocks hard on the muscles of your throat at that nickname. How does he always know when you are around?

Closing the gap, refusing to make eye-contact. You can feel the casual observation of Azul and Jade on you as you display what is in your hands. Stop shaking, you big baby, you scold yourself. “Floyd. This is – um –.”

“Is that for me? Aw, does Shrimpy like me or something? That’s cute — a little shrimp with a little crush.”

You finally look up. An amused, mismatched pair of eyes squint impishly at you. Miles of intestines give a teapot boiling over sound in rage. Okay, two can play at that: 

“Jade. How nice to see you! I happened to make extra for my own lunch; I noticed your habit of eating more than one meal at lunch and thought you would enjoy this.”

“My, what a gracious offer. Thank you, (Name). I will be sure to savor every bite.”

What you are offering to Jade is suddenly swiped: “HEY, THAT’S MINE!” 

Your lips quirk up, expecting that. His next move you are much less prepared for. Halfhazardlessly, he flips off the box as if to check that Jade has not eaten anything from the tomb. All of his energy drips out of him, bloodletting-esque. He almost appears paler.

His only response is a slow blink directed at you. 

“You don’t have to eat it. Grim or Ruggie will – And! And I get it! It’s pretty embarrassing. I totally get –” Your word vomit is swallowed by a pair of lips. 

Floyd does not even give you a chance to reciprocate, pulling away with laughter on his tongue. Not mocking or amused. Lovey-dovey laughter. 

Love has such a wonderful flavor. Right there, in the belly of the beast.

[jenchan-writingmultis]

Twisted Wonderland Boys x Fem Reader in their respective Fairytales (Series)

(Azul's Part two)

Previous Part (Leona)

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Content Warning: This Fic will be tagged as 16+ since it is a bit suggestive along with mentions of Gorey themes (Azul), it’s very vague. I haven’t finished Book 6 and Book 7 because I’m stuck in Tartarus, but they’re not done here yet. Riddle (Suggestive Themes), Leona (Cussing, Blood mention), Azul (Obsession, Manipulation, Cussing once, Potential Cannibalism? (He eats merpeople who are turned into Polyps). The reason for potential OOC was cause I mixed both the classic Villains with the personality of our beloved boys

Due to the Tumblr Limit, Each one will be divided unfortunately, hopefully it's an easy navigation for all of you!

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First Batch would be: Riddle, Leona, Azul

Second Batch would be: Kalim, Idia, Malleus

List of Villains interconnecting with each character:

Riddle = Queen of Hearts

Leona = Scar

Azul = Ursula

─────❅───── Azul: “That’s all?” Your skepticism grew further while you scanned his face for any type of deception.

“That’s all” he said, leaning on the cauldron he placed his arms on the top of it, while resting his chin on his hand, he looks so trustworthy looking at you like that, if you didn’t know your Azul inside out you would have jumped into the opportunity of creating a deal with him in a heartbeat.

“Ask” You decided to take a bite on his bait, and that made Azul sneer, he walked towards you, a golden contract all too familiar was placed on your lap. “I can’t just ask you questions without having it written by contract my star” He pats the contract to your lap like he’s smoothing the paper out while calling you a little nickname he felt that was right. That was the nickname your Azul called you a lot, but right now, it made you feel uncomfortable, the situation was uncanny, grabbing the contract you tried to find loopholes that were written on it, but so far, you couldn’t find anything that dooms you to fail.

“So?” he urged you to sign away your soul faster, growing a bit impatient, he taps his arms while keeping it crossed around his body, “The contract won’t sign itself Starfish.” He turns around, giving you a reasonable distance as you contemplate about it.

Without anything to fall back to, you decided to take risk, your face turning sour as a magical pen manifested in front of you, taking it, you closed your eyes signing the contract, which made Azul’s heart beats fast, oh you’re in it now.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed, his enthusiasm palpable as the contract vanished before your eyes, you felt as if you made a mistake, wanting to grab the paper again before it vanished, but before you could, Azul's cold fingers intertwined with yours, his other arm wrapping around your fins and waist. “Now come” he commanded, as if you had any say on it, dragging you to the couch, he placed you there, a more comfortable place to sit down than the rock earlier.

The first questions he asked were straight to the point, asking if you knew him in your “real world”, you answered truthfully and correctly of course! He may not be your Azul, but he’s still Azul, and you’re bounded by his contract.

While you would be fine on the first questions, you still couldn’t shake off the feeling that you were scammed, but so far, they all were cut and dry, “What was my relationship with you?”

"You were my boyfriend" muttering that out, Azul was unreadable, humming in acknowledgement. You know he was quick with his tongue, and smart with it, of course; even if you keep your guard up, you know in the battle of wits, you lose to him.

So, the moment he traces his fingers on your shoulders, shivering at the sudden physical intimacy, he had planted his hands on your shoulders, leaning down as you kept your hands to yourself. “This is my last question” You looked hopeful, it was almost done! And so far, nothing bad happened yet, glancing to your side as he was really close to your face, you backed up a bit before looking down.

“Okay," your voice steady but your grip tight on your wrist. You tried not to feel nervous as you attempted to pinch yourself, the skin on your fins wasn’t something you could pinch on, so you ended up touching your wrists instead.

“Do you remember the first time you met a great mage?”

You look at him confused, eyebrows knitting together while you look at him confused. “What?” you tried to get any clarification for the question.

Oh, Azul was feeling gracious, an arm of his tracing your chin, “Let me clarify”

“When did you meet Azul?”

Well, that confused you more, answering him about the time you met your Azul.

You’re quite naïve, then again that question of his was bound to make you fail. Feigning sadness he pushes the hair away from your face as he leans closer. “How unfortunate, answering wrongfully.”

You feel your blood run cold as you look at him, “What-“Golden handcuffs wrap around your wrists as the contract takes effect, grounding you to it.

Unfortunately, you broke the contract, but that’s alright” he says smiling menacingly “At least you belong to me.” Kalim's part

[cursedcupcakemaster]

can I please order a Spider Cider and Poison apple pie x reader yandere reader.

sincerely 🦝 anon (if you don't mind me being called that) sent with love because your a lovey person

Happy spooky season!

Aww that's sweet and I don't mind calling you that and congratulations you're my first double Dutch poison apple pie requestor 🦝 anon

Order; double dutch poison apple pie and a glass of spider cider

Notes; I do not own twisted wonderland, Skully or the reader,Skully and Twst belong to Disney as well as the brilliant mind of Yana Toboso, reader belongs to themselves, this is just my interpretation of how this would go with the character, reader isn't neccesarily Yuu but if you want to imagine they are you're welcome to, y/n, reader is you

Warnings;yandere reader and yandere, reader and Skully Skully may or may not have killed a few people, implied death, implied minor cannibalism(?),descriptions of blood

Yandere Skully J. X yandere reader

Sickly sweet

Everyone adored your sweet shop and you just loved baking for everyone, but there was a favorite customer of yours

Skully J. Graves, the most handsome man in town at least to you anyways

His order was always the same a glass of apple cider and a slice of your pumpkin pie

Just seeing him made your heart race and brought a genuine smile to your face

You would secretly watch him enjoy the treat and just seeing the happy expression he would make on the first bite made you feel so giddy

It helped that you always had an extra special ingredient that helped you get so popular

Sadly today you weren't greeted with the usual smile of Skully, he looked positively miserable

You went over to ask Skully what was wrong and he told you about how everyone threw his invitations in the trash

He had been telling you about a wonderful party he was planning this year, even asked you to make treats for the event since no one could do it the way you could

"I'll just have to cancel it if no one will come" the skeleton like man said with gloom in his voice

An idea crossed your mind before you spoke

"Don't cancel it just yet Skully, I'll find a way to convince them"

Your words managed to calm him down before he hugged you tightly thanking you but it was time to put your plan into action

When it was time for the party you arrived with a load of guests behind you many of them smiling

Skully had gone all out with the decorations including those lovely little games that one would have for kids of guessing what was inside a jar and feeling it

Inside them were rather odd feelings

Skully was very happy with the treats you had brought, your lovely red velvet cake and a few meat pies, lollipops bright red of course you included your famous pumpkin pie Just for him

The guest all throughout never really said anything fearing it would upset you or skully

Skully raised a brow when one of the guests seemed ready to go home within a few minutes of eating your meat pie until you said you'd handle it

The guest wasn't seen for the rest of the party after

After a while you danced with skully who asked to meet in private after the party was over

When you did he smiled at you "I'll keep your secret if you keep mine " he spoke

"Oh? And which one is that Skully?" You giggled

"Your secret ingredient you made extra with it today just for me right?" He asked

"I did but don't worry if anyone says anything I'll be sure to treat them the same way I did the last one"

"Funny I found some extra"

He showed you the last people who had been rude to you in your shop that went missing months ago

Their organs were missing from their insides to their eyes, this would normally frighten anyone but certainly not someone who was used to cooking with those parts

This made you smile because it meant there was someone as crazy about you as you were them and now you had a little baking partner who would throw the best parties every year on Halloween

All with a secret ingredient along with love

[vyrsgore]

smau | scaramouche x gn!male! reader

"we're all mad here"

synopsis in the hazy twilight of dreams and nightmares, we all stumble into the labyrinth of our own making. your misstep? a shadowy accusation whispered through the corridors of fate: the murder of your mother. allegedly. now, here you are, ensnared within the crumbling walls of the farewell asylum. but then, a glimmer of hope weaves through the gloom. you encounter them—the wonderland four, as they call themselves. the elusive cheshire, the whimsical hatter, the anxious march, and the formidable queenie. each one lost in their own delusion, convinced they embody the characters of a tale long forgotten. and you? you are their alice, the one destined to challenge the cruel tyrant that looms over them. yet, as the curtain begins to lift, revealing the twisted strings of fate, you unearth a truth far darker than the whispers of rebellion. what lies beneath the surface of their enchanting madness is a sinister web, spun from shadows and secrets, binding you all to a fate you never chose.

status starts in a few weeks

cw tw cannibalism, 18+, explicit, murder, animal death, drugs, suggestive, sexual content, hallucinations, mentions of animal abuse, blood, heavy gore!! if you are a minor, please read at your own discretion! will contain very heavy themes of death and murder

genre horror, thriller, romance, smau, ya fiction, modern/ fiction au

taglist open, will be closed

notes hihi second smau guys~ 又来了一个对不起大家。。。my first horror even though i'm a huge horror fanatic omg~

@vyrsgore ᯓᡣ𐭩 do not copy or steal

[cestlaf1n]

THE WAY CANNIBAL ANIMAL STARTED PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND😩😩 *chef kiss*

My soul ate that well♡

❝FEAST❞

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖗𝖊: horror

𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗: male

𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖑𝖊: feast

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌: jamil x yandere!cannibal!m!reader

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌: gore, blood, minor character’s death, cannibalism

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞: rumor says there's a cannibal at the school, but that's just a myth…right…?

“A cannibal? Are people really coming up with that story…?” you yawned with boredom, leaning back on the pillow. jamil hummed, “But…there were a few students who went missing. What if it's true?”

“Jamil, there isn't any proof that there's a cannibal in this school. I blame Crowley since he's being a shitty headmage right now.” you accused.

“...You’re probably right. That headmaster doesn't do much at the school to help his students.” the tan skinned male sighed. “Why am I worried about that?”

“Hey, you're ok with me cooking up some dinner tonight, right? Or you don't trust me to make dinner because I might poison Kalim?” you raised his eyebrows. jamil deadpanned, “...I trust you since we have known each other growing up. just don't add too much spice like last time.”

“Boo. You're no fun…” you pouted, causing jamil to chuckle a little.

night had arrived, you were given permission to make dinner in the school kitchen. jamil doesn't understand why you want to make dinner alone, but he didn't bother questioning it.

it's strange. it's…quiet in the scarabia dorm. why is it so quiet? the vice-housewarden went to knock on kalim's door to check on him, but all he finds is a note that read: “having a sleepover at the heartslabyul dorm with my band mates! i’ll be back tomorrow!” with a smiling face on it.

“Seriously…? What about everyone else?” jamil questioned.

“Jamil. There you are!” you waved to the tan skinned male. “Dinner is served~ It'll be our romantic dinner.”

“Eh? You and me? Alone?” jamil blushed. you winked, “We're mates, are we?”

“G-geez, I hate it when you do that. Fine…” jamil huffed.

you and jamil are seated in the lounge with dinner resting on the floor. it's nice that you set up dinner for you two, but…he still felt this ominous feeling that it makes him feel uncomfortable.

“Hey, are you alright?” you asked.

“A-ah. Yeah. It's just…I find it weird that it's so quiet. Too quiet…” jamil mumbled, rubbing his arms.

“Yeah…it is odd. Why is it so quiet…?” you raised your eyebrows while scooping some curry on jamil’s plate. “Curry? It's your favorite.”

“Oh. Thanks…” jamil accepted as he took the plate from your hand. you winked, “I added special ingredients that you might enjoy~”

“If you added extra spice, I'm so gonna kick your ass.” jamil narrowed his eyes on you. you brushed it off with a laugh, “It isn't spice~ Something new and special that might be extra good~”

“Whatever.” jamil rolled his eyes before taking a scoop of curry in his mouth. after swallowing it, he was impressed by the new flavor. “Hm. This is good. What's the special ingredients?”

“It's a secret~” you placed your finger over your lips.

“You think you're so mysterious…” jamil said sarcastically, taking another scoop of curry in his mouth. you hit yourself on the forehead, “Ah! I forgot to get us some drinks! I'll be right back. Don't eat all the curry without me, curry snatcher.”

jamil struck his tongue at you before you left to get drinks. the tan skinned male seated back in his seat and continued eating his curry, but…something stopped him from swallowing it whole. he felt something round in his mouth that doesn't quite fit in curry. jamil spit it out in his hand to see what it might be.

“...!” to his horror, it was an eyeball. jamil slowly turned to the curry on his plate and noticed some horrifying things in it, leading him to toss the curry aside and back away in horror. “...w…what…?”

jamil creeps over to the pot of curry and removes the lid to look inside of it. witnessing the gruesome horror made him want to vomit. now he realized what he has done, he has been eating something, no, he has been eating someone. the tan skinned male stood up and backed away, “So…the cannibal is…”

“Jamil. I bought the drinks.” jamil jumped at your arrival. you noticed the ruined curry on the ground and the look of horror on jamil's face. “Ah. I see you have not finished eating your dinner.”

“Y…you…you killed…” jamil pant in panic as he shakily grabbed his pen and pointed at you. you sighed with disappointment, “Such a shame. I have been hiding it for years since I was a child. Why do you think there are people missing? Do you realize what yours and Kalim's family have been eating from my family’s recipes for years?”

jamil gasped in horror and covered his mouth upon realizing what he had eaten. he then pressed his back against the wall, glaring at you with pure rage, “You…! It was all you!”

“Sorry for anger ya~ I get hungry easily.” you shrugged as you stepped closer, making the tan skinned male pointed his pen at you. “I wouldn't want to eat you, but…I’ve been wanting to know what you taste like, my lil’ cobra~”

“Stay back…! STAY BACK!” jamil screamed as he aimed his magic at you, but unfortunately for him, you grabbed his wrists and pinned them against the wall. “L-let me go!”

“Have I ever told you that you look delicious? How much I've been wanting to taste you?” you grinned ear to ear, tightening your grasp on jamil's wrists, causing him to hiss in pain. “Jamil, may I have a bite?”

jamil's eyes widened as you leaned closer to his neck. he struggled in your tight grasp, trying to set himself free, but failed. the poor vice-housewarden screams in pain as you bare your teeth in his neck, pouring blood from his neck.

missing person: jamil viper

╰┈➤ author note: please note that this is a slow update. i will still accept your request, but it will take a while since i'll be working on my books on wattpad. if you wish to read those books, here's my wattpad account.

twst masterlist

rules

[tartstealingknave]

ˋˋ RED AND YELLOW, THE COLOR OF HUNGER. ˏˏ

" and goodness you're bleeding! What a wonderful feeling! You're down and you're pleading..! ---- THE RED MEANS 「 I love youuuu 」. "

◇------- INTRODUCTION (✅)

◇------- REMAKE OF STORYLINE + PLOT

◇------- CANNIBALS AND NON-CANNIBALS

◇------- AU EXPLANATION

------- ABOUT YUU AND Y/N(YOUR NAME INSERT)

------- ABOUT REQUESTING

------- "Ceremony."

------- "The strict queen and her fellow guards." - HEARTSLABYUL ARC

------- "The lion prince and his followers." - SAVANNACLAW ARC

------- "The sea witch and the twin eels." - OCTAVINELLE ARC

------- "The bright heir of the kings throne and his servant." - SCARABIA ARC

------- "The fairest one of all and her worshippers." - POMEFIORE ARC

------- "The underworld ruler and his robot brother." - IGNIHYDE ARC

------- "The thorn fairy and her guards." - DIASOMNIA ARC

Made only by - @tartstealingknave

[blushing-concubus]

Master list, Rules, & Request Info

Requests: Open

Pending: 2/10

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General Rules:

I write Male & Gender Neutral Yuu/Reader for Twisted Wonderland and Fragaria Memories, both SFW and NSFW, with some limits. 

Note: Nsfw is not the main focus of this blog. The main reason this blog is labeled nsfw is because I write about blood and the like pretty often, and it's relatively descriptive depending on what I'm doing.

I do write what people normally think of when it comes to nsfw, however. Those rules are further down.

All characters I write for, regardless of if the request is SFW or NSFW, are aged up and depicted as adults. In the case of TWST NRC is depicted as a College/University, I have majors and minors I think they'd have, as well as “redesigns” in the works. My blog is for adults, I can’t control if younger people view or interact with my content. So I’m going to trust people respect these boundaries.

Otho is aged up to be an adult in this AU as well. I know a lot of people won’t like that decision so I will have an option for you to chose if I write Ortho as he is in canon for your request. If you chose that option he can only receive platonic requests, if not he is allowed the same requests as the others. His redesign can be found [here] ← Not finished

Myunna Can only receive platonic requests as I did not and will not age him up.

I will write yandere, but the way I go about it is pretty different to how a lot of other people. I only write "Soft Yandere." What that means is I will write a yandere as normal with the exception that they will not hurt the object(s) of their affection in any way. Most of the time I write them as fools falling over themselves for their love interest, depending on the character.

The only rules I have about requesting are:

Keep it to one fandom at a time. If you send in a request and want me to write for both fragmem and twst at the same time, I'll either ignore part of the request or delete it entirely. 

I don't have a strict character limit, but the more characters you ask me to write at once, the harder it is on me as a writer. This isn't meant to be discouraging at all, just a reminder that I am a squishy rat of a man.

I also prefer writing fics as opposed to headcanons, i will still write headcanons, but most of the time, if left, unspecified what I write will be an actual fic.

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NSFW Rules:

I only write Dominate Reader stuff, so regardless of the character, they will be a submissive. With the possible exception of Dom Reader x Dom Character x Sub Character. If you don't specify if gender neutral reader is afab or amab I will pick at random. If you want me to write a trans male reader or character I can do that too, just let me know. 

I'm incredibly flexible when it comes to most nsfw topics, pretty much the only things I won't write are: incest/pseudo incest, pedophilia or age play, scat, water sports/omorashi, or fart kinks. 

I also do everything in my power to avoid writing about boobs [in the afab sense] as it triggers my dysphoria and makes my skin crawl.

I will and have written things such as blood play and cannibalism in sexual and nonsexual lights. I am aware this kind of thing can be off putting for a lot of people which is why I tag and TW my nsfw writing extensively.  

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Other:

I don't use Reader in my writings themselves as I prefer giving the reader a placeholder name that's easy to replace. For TWST, that's Yuu. For Fragmem, that's Na, short for Name.

I love writing monster reader and monsters as a whole. Some of my favorites are: Changelings, Eldritch Entities, Slimes, ect. 

I do write poly stuff, I have written a few poly requests in the past some of my favorites being: Idia/Floyd/Yuu, and Aduece/Yuu. I will also write characters as transmasc if requested.

I don't exactly take art requests but on occasion I will draw something from an ask if I like the idea, so feel free to send in an ask about it.

I have a multitude of OC/NPCs that will appear on this blog as well. Feel free to request them if you would like as eight of them actually originated from a request and it makes me happy to see people take an interest in them

➽───────────────❥

Twisted Wonderland Directory

Fragaria Memories Directory

➽───────────────❥

Twisted Wonderland AUs

Fragaria Memories AUs

➽───────────────❥

Art

[cutiesgawr]

(🌊) CUTIESGAWR NAVIGATION (🌊)

𝙞𝙛 𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚, 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙩𝙤 swim away 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 ! block gawr if uncomfortable !

(★) ִ— ୨ৎ you can call me : gawr/sharky ! I use hir/they/shark/gawr/princess & pansexual/polysexual ! Anyone can read my works ! I write; angst, smut, fluff ! gawr's selfships; kazuha, ayato, nilou, scara, childe, aether, rosaria, atsushi, sigma, fyodor ! >< I love nilou and kiara

(⁠✿) ִ— ୨ৎ tags; #🦈gawr’s waters! = works | #🦈gawr’s blood! = dark content | #🦈gawr’s teeth! = angst | #🦈gawr’s gummy! = Fluff | #🦈gawr’s mating! = smut | #🦈gawr’s sharkys! = moots! | #🦈gawr’s mate/pretty treasure! = <3 | #🦈gawr’s fins! = asks | #🦈gawr’s swimming! = random | #🦈gawr’s older one! = My irl older sibling | #🦈gawr's leftovers! = Reblogs. 🦈gawr's sweethon! = Irl sweetheart (kinda? All we did was kisses eachother cheeks and just call eachother Petnames but never said that we are dating:3)

{Tags in the bottom so u could find it}

(♡) ִ— ୨ৎ request rules! = Will do: any genders of readers(male,female,gn,nb,trans), any kinks, fluff, angst, gore, horrorp0rn(?), cannibalism, wlw, mlm, platonic, dead dove: do not eat works, incest, non/dubcon! Will not do: Adult x child, Romantic stuff with child characters, scat kink! I write for; genshin, bsd, hsr, tokyorev, blue lock, obey me, twisted wonderland, demon Slayer, chainsaw man, original characters !

GAWR'S SHARKYS [moots] !!

(⁠๑) ִ— ୨ৎ gawr’s herd(anons)! [U can be anything, emoji or name!) || :3 anon, 🎀 anon, 🦈🦈🦈🦈 anon, vamp anon, 💩 anon

(🌀🦈) GAWR’S MASTERLIST !

another one will be added if needed ! 🦈

©2024 CUTIESGAWR | do not copy, plagiarize, or translate my work + dividers/headers are not made by me & some are made by me !