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maybeitsalivescribbles · 9 months

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VH - Meet the Wife

Vampire Hero was insufferable. All his foes agreed on that.

So, after Supervillain escaped, the first thing he wanted was revenge. It was easy to locate Hero – it was not like this smug bastard was hiding. Currently, Supervillain was watching him by one of the windows of his home.

It was a nice scene, if a tad melodramatic. Hero was sitting by the bed – and yes, he was kneeling – holding the hand of a pretty woman who didn’t react. Supervillain knew that she wouldn’t. He had made an inquiry about her. She was Hero’s wife, and she'd been cursed.

“It’s a sleeping spell, and it’s not curable for now”, he’d heard from one of Hero’s colleagues. “She’s only awake one or two hours, poor guy. He basically turned good for her sake.”

Supervillain’s reasoning was simple. If you couldn’t attack your foe directly, you went for the weak spot. A hero annoys you, you kill his wife, the hero goes mad with grief, that was a classical story. He had a nice view from the window. She really looked like one of these virginal princesses you see in these old fairy tales books. It was not hard to imagine the girl with her hands clasped, pleading for the life of the innocents until her man relented. Yes, it would be fun to rip her into pieces.

After a while, Hero went off. Breaking into the place after that was easy. Supervillain opened the door, checked a couple of rooms, and smiled. He didn’t have to be careful. Even if the wife would wake up, she looked frail even wrapped in blankets. He tilted his head, looked at her, wondered if that was worth gloating when no one could hear him, then shrugged and stabbed his victim.

“Zdiiiiiiiingbonnng”

Supervillain’s eyebrow went up his hairline. He removed the blankets, leaving the body covered with only a silk gown, and tried again. The result was the same. The dress was damaged, but the blade bounced on the skin. Supervillain squinted.

Two purple eyes slowly blinked and stared at him. A skinny hand brushed over the hole in her dress. The wife yawned.

“Are you the delivery man ?” she asked.

Supervillain straightened up.

“I’ve come to deliver a message to your husband”, he answered. “I will not rest until I’m avenged.”

“Avenged ? You didn’t get a tip ?”

“I’m your husband’s mortal foe.”

She laughed.

“No, you’re not. You’re food.”

She opened her mouth, and Supervillain just had time to see a glint of her razor-sharp teeth before she bit his neck. That didn’t last long. After the first sip, she rejected him with disgust. Her thin arms threw him away much farther than the laws of physics should have permitted. He landed in the middle of the room, and not too softly.

“How dare you,” she said with a voice low enough to make the ground shiver. “You’re not even worth eating. A couple of centuries ago, young man, I wouldn’t even have wanted your head in a spike near my castle.”

Supervillain crawled back in the direction of the main door. She stepped towards him with as much enthusiasm as one would throw the trash out, but she stopped. Her eye had caught a note stuck on the fridge. Supervillain squinted. The note said: “Please don’t kill or maim in the house sweetheart ♡ (because of my job)”

The wife clucked her tongue and sighed, but reluctantly stayed still. Supervillain’s pride got the better of him. He stood up, dusting his cape, squared his shoulders and groaned:

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with. You might be strong, but I’ve wiped out cities. Once the country was nearly in my grasp. It takes talent. It takes guts. It takes more than powers that were given to you on a silver plate.”

“Nearly ?”

She gave him a look of absolute contempt and went back to bed:

“Don’t boast about your failures, little man, and leave me be.”

Incredulous, he watched her getting back to sleep, putting on her face something to shield her eyes from the light. It looked like a mask, and not a normal sleep mask, but a huge, heavy thing that glittered. As a vampire, he supposed she didn’t need to breathe, but still, it didn’t look comfortable. He stepped forward to take a better look. It was in metal all right, and it was a grimacing face of a demon.

His blood ran cold. He already saw that mask. It was depicted on a book he had as a teen, about the dark and evil rulers of the ancient times. “The Iron Death”, said the legend. “The gory story of an evil empress who drowned her captives in the blood of their subjects, and sought to be turned into a vampire so she would keep her empire forever.”

He shook his head in disbelief. It was an old tale, a story from at least a couple of centuries ago. And the Iron Death had been vanquished by a vampire hunter who had...oh.

Who had put her to sleep eternally.

He suddenly felt a drop of sweat on his forehead, but he grunted for good measure:

“Right. Like I’m going to believe that. Where’s your consort, Iron Death? Where’s your cruel prince who tortured for his entertainment?”

“The Hero agency offered him money to look after me if he worked for them”, answered the low voice of the lady. “My poor darling didn’t enjoy the scream of his victims as much as before. He’s changed his hobbies. You do that after a while. But I didn’t. Get out.”

Supervillain ran.

Vampire Hero is now a recurring character. His job is to troll current villains. (Yes, I know he technically doesn't appear here, but it still counts.) Check the Vampire Hero Masterlist or Tag for more snippets with him.

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jaybleu25 · 2 months

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mfw i suddenly get like 51 notifications from people liking my recent posts

like, hello??? hi guys qwq

#EVEN CRAZIER IS SOMEONE I REALLY LOOK UP TO REBLOGGED AND LIKED THE SMO STORY #LIKE HI????? YOU READ THAT WHOLE THING????????? AND LIKED IT????????????????#currently very shaky rn i am not used to this many people liking the stuff i make qwq #thank you all for the support though i appreciate it <3 #the story was kind of inspired by a few feelings of mine i've been having recently #and after it happened i just kinda went 'oh. oh that's how mario felt'#so then i just wrote out my feelings i guess #i guess personal experiences help a lot with coming up with stories #tw slight vent #jay bleu post

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loktauri · 2 months

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Hey you! Like my art? Want to help me out by saving me from eviction? Now's your chance! (😭)

£35-£40 rendered headshots depending on complexity. OCs and Canon characters all welcome! No mechas unfortunately as I'm short on time :(

All payments taken via K0-fi! If you can't commission me, rbs are still super appreciated! I also take tips :') ☕️ Shoot a dm if you're interested!

Current commissioners from before are still being worked upon, do not worry!

#commissions open #commission #dnd #ocs #fallout new vegas #fallout 3 #asking for help because i havent been able to take extra shifts due to uni finals :')#6 exams fuck meee #ty all for the support so far!!! i really appreciate it :')

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sysig · 10 months

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Delusions (Patreon)

"Could I have your hand, sir?" Max didn't move, which Dexter was, sadly, getting used to.

"Sir?" Max jerked, then turned and stared at him, lost and blank. "Your hand, please."

Max's hand lifted shakily, and he laid it gently in Dexter's upturned palm. Dexter gave a quick and quiet "thank you," then turned it over in his own hand, observing him closely.

Too closely - his knuckles were rough and his fingernails were dull and cracked in places. His once-soft, not-a-day-in-his-life-subjected-to-hard-labour hands were now, already, toughened and split and scarred in places, especially the heel of his palm. He turned it over again, this time to stop looking so intensely. He had only wanted to give it a cursory glance to begin with.

"Do you know what I see, sir?" he asked as conversationally as he could manage, running his fingers along Max's abused flesh. He seemed to be at least half paying attention, his eye gazing down between them, and he'd occasionally twitch, encouragingly Dexter thought. He seemed to want to curl around him, then stopped and shook, his hand squeezing into a fist. Dexter coaxed him back out, encouraged him to hold himself lightly.

"What do you see?" He was almost startled by Max actually continuing their conversation, that happened so rarely now, shaking and quiet as it was. He took a deep breath, was he really going to do this?

"I see a hand, with five fingers." Max remained quiet, though his brow curled, and a guarded look came into his eye, though he still wasn't looking at Dexter. He felt a pang of guilt, but he had to try. "What do you see?"

Max's eye unfocused and began to water. He looked up, but not enough to reach Dexter's gaze in return, instead staring through his chest, and he felt just as hollow and empty as he must look to him.

"Do you take me for a fool, DAX?" Quiet and as close to angry as he'd heard since they'd been here.

No, not angry.

Betrayed.

He swallowed down the stinging lump at the back of his throat. He had to put on a brave face, had to keep his composure if he wanted Max to get better. That was the only thing he wanted, more than anything.

"Of course not, sir. Genuinely, what do you see?"

Max pulled his hand away and turned his body, his bandaged side facing Dexter. Shutting him out, pointedly. Dexter's empty hand curled into a fist, he was no better.

"Please, don't..." Max took a shallow, shuddering breath, and several beats before he spoke again, even quieter. "Don't ridicule me." Dexter could hear his breath catch, and he wanted nothing more than for this all to just stop.

"Sir, I didn't-"

"I've had enough of that." He shook his head stiffly, the action strange and wrong, like he had forgotten how. He stilled, his head turned even further away. "More than enough."

#Doodles #SCII #Helix #ZEX #Dexter Favin #And a drabble-fic under the cut #I ended up writing that the night after I read - I was a bit too inspired while busy so it's a little on the unfocused side haha #I would've cleaned it but I worry it wouldn't make it out of that stage! Please enjoy it for now <3 #This set is mostly periphery ideas - inspired by events rather than directly shown ♪ I suppose the first two kinda count tho #But they're more directly of the little scene I wrote ouò Poor ZEX </3 #And Dex! He's usually so capable! But he's stretching himself so thin ahh it's hard to watch in the best way #Of course he doesn't want to give ''Max'' over to just anyone - anyone at all really - both of their trusts have bottomed out #But how much could he reasonably care for him in that state? When he's still being actively haunted and most importantly - Not Max #He needs helps he needs support he needs to sleep and shower but a second with his eyes off Max and - then what? He'll immolate from fear #It's hard to imagine him crying but pushed to this extreme? To the thought of losing Max utterly and completely? Hhhhh #I do also just love him being possessive even outside of how terrible the situation is - he's always had his glimpses but this situation #Brings out the worst in him <3 In terrible ways #Really his method is just setting ''Max'' up nearby and prompting him over the sound of the shower like that's not nerve-wracking at all #Like he already doesn't answer half the time if that #As for the mini fic I was really interested in Dex's line about indulging ''Max's'' delusions #Apart from the fact that they're not delusions - not that anyone believes him outside of the Institute - what it means to indulge is weird #I saw one example of how to handle delusions that stuck with me - how not to deny them outright while also not reinforcing them #Since it's not actually helpful to be told ''That isn't Really happening to you'' when to you - to ZEX - it really is! How invalidating #And so rather to take the approach of ''I don't see/feel/hear what you are - I can't find any evidence of it myself'' and extrapolating #Dex taking the approach of ''What reality are you experiencing right now?'' and trying to build from there!#Unfortunately ZEX has already been treated like....well like all that - he's not in the mood for games even well-intentioned ones #He /knows/ he's in a human body. He can feel that and see that and understands that. It doesn't change who - what he /is/#The idea of a completely broken ZEX is so sad to me :( He's so strong and prideful and vivacious - Max really is another him </3 #It's not the same but he was saved from death! To fall into torture... But even despite that I want to see him succeed! As much as he can #Even in that small and shaking way I want to see him be hateful and spiteful - angry. Powerful <3 Fighting ♥

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ehlnofay · 5 months

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Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, “What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

#for context - in my version of events sheogorath's recruitment of the HoK is a lot more active #it needs someone who can fulfill the metaphysical niche of the hero. it needs someone experienced enough that they might not even die tryin #and it needs someone desperate enough to take the deal #pax is fifteen years old has alienated everything that maybe could have been a support system and is grieving very badly.#perfect mantling material!!#so sheogorath pursued them very specifically and was very judicious about what they revealed when. which is why pax already has some kind o #relationship with it here - they've interacted before - in that for weeks pax's reflection has been constantly begging them to 'visit'#writing the interactions of these guys is a lot of fun because there is always so much sheogorath is keeping from pax. it is #extremely strategic in how it presents itself #and pax falls for it hook line and sinker. though we can't really blame them #it's hard to outsmart something that's in your head #and at this point pax is pretty much made up of their worst impulses #which sheogorath cannot and does not help with #see: this piece #“I would NEVER make you do something you don't want to do <3 if you'd like to go back to your miserable self-destructive hellscape that's #YOUR CHOICE. but wouldn't it be more fun to be regular destructive here... i made you brass knuckles... 🥺“#im obsessed with them #the elder scrolls #tesblr #tes #my writing #fay writes #oc tag #pax #oblivion #shivering isles #the shivering isles

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