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dragonnarrative-writes · 10 months ago

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Part 8 - Romance Isn't Dead

Slasher Handler Masterlist

NSFW under the cut.

CW: Bones, flashback, high anxiety/panic, violence and gore, brandon being brandon (assholery), crying, manic pixie dream ghost (assholery), MREs, descriptions of knives/multi-tools (not in use)

You can’t fucking breathe. It’s like your diaphragm is frozen and you can’t pull air into your lungs. Your vision is tunneled onto the skull in the box, the bright blue scrap of painters tape with Simon’s messy scrawl. Behind and under you, you know he’s saying something. All you can hear is the blood rushing through your ears.

The last expression you’d ever seen on Brandon’s face flashes before your eyes.

A big hand closes over your mouth and nose.

You flail. Before you even know you’re doing it, your elbow comes up to slam against the man behind you. The hand disappears. Using the momentum of your swing, you pitch yourself sideways. But a huge arm wraps around your waist. You’re trapped. You’re trapped. The killer is at your back and you’re trapped.

Simon’s voice cuts through the panic. “Stop squirmin’ before you hurt yourself, precious. Or I’ll make you.”

Every muscle in your body locks up. You burst into tears.

It’s awful, the way he coos at you. But when he gathers you in this arms and cradles you, you can’t help the way you cling. You’re torn between burying your face in his neck and being too terrified to close your eyes.

Images from that night at the ski lodge flash behind your eyes. Finding Stacy bleeding out from her shoulder, already too weak to stand. Your manager, propped against a wall with his guts spilled in his lap. Amber, her throat slit long before you and Brandon stumbled across her. Brandon, who’d followed you downstairs as you looked for matches and candles. The same Brandon who had been trying to convince you to share a bed with him when the power went out.

“To conserve warmth,” he’d said, with that that stupid smirk on his face as he followed you into the kitchen area.

“No, Brandon,” you’d finally hissed at him, whirling on him with a long, unlit white candle in your hand. You poked him with it as you whisper-shouted, sick of his shit. “No. No. Fucking no. What do I need to say to get you to get it? I don’t sleep with my co-workers. And even if I did, I wouldn’t sleep with you because you’re an asshole who can’t take a hint. Go find Amber if you’re so hard up. She’s actually interested in you.”

“Amber’s a slag,” Brandon said, not bothering to whisper. “What, you’re not actually fucking Riley, are you? Won’t fuck a co-worker, but you’re fine shagging a neighbor.”

“I’m not fucking Riley,” you’d snapped, still at a whisper because you weren’t about to be goaded into shouting.

“Then what’s the problem?” Brandon’d snapped right back. “Stop being so stuck up. I bought you drinks, I walked you home more than once-”

“I told you not to!”

“-I’ve brought you flowers and chocolates. I got you coffee from your favorite spot, and a pastry-”

“You think I’m interested in dating you because you picked up a danish on your way to work?” You’d wanted to pull your hair out. Wanted to wrap your hands around his throat and shake. “Brandon, I fucking hate cherries and you-! No, that’s not even the point. I’m not interested. I’ve never been interested. Leave me alone.”

His fingers closing around your upper arm, tight, had made you push him away. Not as hard as you could, just enough to startle and put some distance between you. But he’d slipped in something on the tile and fallen to his knees.

“Shit,” he’d yelped. “What the fuck? Ugh, the floor is wet. You’re lucky I didn’t break something.”

You had snorted, turned your back and picked up the matches that were laying on the counter. Lighting one, and then your candle, you’d turned back as you heard him getting up. You’d opened your mouth to say something scathing, but… “Brandon, what… is that?”

There’d been something dark and wet on his hands, his sleeve. Whatever it was, he’d slipped on more than a trickle of it, coming from under the table. And when you rounded the table, there she was. Amber, in a pink pajama set and a pool of her own blood.

Yours was the first scream of the night. Brandon’s had been the last.

And now the man that had killed both of them is petting your hair and shushing you. You gasp as you pull yourself from the flashback, teeth chattering with remembered cold. A wave of goosebumps sweeps over you. You’re very aware of the gloved hand that rubs up and down your calf.

“A couple of deep breaths now,” Simon murmurs. You can feel his lips on your forehead through the cloth of his balaclava. “Deep breath in, there you are, precious. Let it out. Slow yourself down. That’s it. There’s a good girl.”

Another memory flashes through your body. Simon’s hands holding your hips steady as you rode him, just last night. His voice smoky and soft, “Easy, easy. There’s a good girl. Let me do all the work, yeah?”

You’re wracked by another wave of sobbing.

Eventually, you tire yourself out. Your limbs are suddenly just so much dead weight. Your eyes are so sore it hurts to blink. Every hitched breath shakes your whole body. You don’t fight it when Simon makes you tip your face up so he can see how puffy and red your face is. Only let out a shaky breath when he lifts the bottom of his mask just enough to let him taste the tears on your face.

“That was the worst night of my life,” you rasp.

Simon hums at that. “Worse than the hospital?”

“I thought I could trust you,” you say. You sniffle, then continue. “I knew you weren’t safe. But I thought I could trust you.”

“Can’t you?”

You think about that for a long moment. Have to concede, “Don’t think you’ve ever actually lied to me. Well… you lied about your name. Fae rules.”

He chuckles at that. “Callin’ me a fairy?”

“Equal opportunity serial killer,” you murmur. If you weren’t so tired, it might have been funny. Right now, it feels like the words are all that carry you from one moment to the next.

“Cute.”

He lets you sit in his lap for a little while longer. It reminds you of being locked in his apartment that first week after the lodge. You’d sobbed yourself empty so many times. Felt hollowed out just like this. You’re going to need water, soon.

Finally, you put your feet on the ground, so you’re perched on Simon’s knee. He lifts a water bottle to your mouth, tips a mouthful at a time for you until you feel ready to hold it yourself. When you look at him, the skull is less menacing than in your memories. But his eyes are just as cold and dead.

“You’re fucked up,” you say to him. “You know that?”

The way his eyes crinkle at the edges means he’s genuinely grinning. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

“That’s good, clever girl. Can you tell what I’m thinking?”

You shrug. “Any time I try, I get it wrong. So tell me.”

“I’m thinking,” he says, leaning in to kiss your cheekbone. “That you have eleven minutes left.”

Everything in your body freezes. “What?”

“Haven’t found the key,” he says, kissing your cheek again before pulling his mask back down. “Clock’s still ticking until you’re out of the cuffs.”

The urge to burst into tears again wars with the urge to scream. You take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slow. “Why are you like this?”

“Probably all the trauma,” he drawls. His hands lift you to stand and he pats your ass. “G’won then. Key’s in the box. You have plenty of time.”

Looking back at Brandon’s skull makes you feel ill. “Can I have the key you have?”

“Too late for that, precious. Don’t have enough time left to trade.”

“You fucking fucker,” you mutter around a hitching breath. A few deep breaths and you make yourself look at the skull again. Try to look at it as an object, a pile of shapes, not the remains of a person.

It takes you longer than you’d like to admit to step closer to the box. But you do. And you realize that the skull is on top of something. Cloth is folded up under it. On the left side of the box is a small, black hard case. You step over to that side, crouch down to pick the box up. Avoid the profile of the skull as much as possible. It has simple clasps. You take a deep breath and hold it before you open it.

Inside, surrounded by foam lining, are what look like three folding knives.

“It’s not in there,” Simon tells you. “Once the timer stops, you’ll have plenty of time for those.”

You don’t bother to answer, just put the case down next to you on the ground. The only other option for looking for the key is to move the cloth and, by extension, the skull. You clench your hand into a nervous fist, take a deep breath, and let it out. The cloth, when you touch it, is stiff. A gentle tug wiggles the skull a in place, just a bit.

You put your hands on the edge of the box and close your eyes for another few deep breaths. Fight the urge to vomit. Try to think.

Simon put it there to get a reaction out of you. Labeled it so you’d panic and cry. He knows you, so he probably knew you’d have to interact with the skull with a time limit. The key is in the box, somewhere, under all of that cloth and the skull.

The key… is under the skull.

Before you can let the nausea set in, you open you eyes and reach out to poke the skull hard with one finger. It tips, the bulk of it falling away from the jaw. And there’s the key, taped to the palate. A tiny metal cylinder, just like the one around Simon’s neck.

Even though you know the answer, you ask, “Do I have to touch it?”

Simon, of course, doesn’t say anything. You tug the cloth closer to yourself so you don’t have to reach too far and lay your fingers on the cheekbone. It’s cold, solid, and dry. You’re not sure why you expected different. You use your thumb to pick at the tape, focusing on that and nothing else. It comes away remarkably easily. The key falls from its spot with a soft clack against a tooth and lands on the cloth.

Unlocking your cuffs feels anticlimactic after all of that.

“Three minutes to spare,” Simon says. He sounds impressed.

You sniffle a bit as you rub your wrists. “New personal record.”

“You did yourself proud, Precious.”

The truth bubbles out of you before you can think better of it. “I can’t think of a reason not to hate you right now.”

“That’s because you’ve got some sense in your head,” Simon says. He stands, turns his back to you to go to the table. He picks up two of the MREs, reads off, “Chili with Beans or Mexican Rice and Bean Bowl?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Gotta eat more than crackers,” he says. “Might as well have some while I tell you about the rest of our little adventure together. Come sit at the table.”

You stand, look at his back where he’s picking grapes from the bag. “What’s outside the door?”

“The not-so-safe zone,” Simon says, without turning. “You go out that door, the next part of the game starts.”

Hunting trip three-point-oh. You sigh and walk across the mattress to the chair at the table. “Mexican rice, please.”

He passes it over. “Good choice.”

He’s quiet while you reacquaint yourself with the heating element and examine the rest of the package. He opens his own MRE and cracks open a bottle of water, offers it to you first. You use it to start the heating process, watch him do the same.

“So,” you huff, crossing your arms. There are a few minutes until the food will be hot. “What’s the next part of the game?”

“We’re gonna play a bit of capture the flag,” he says. “You ever been paintballing?”

You stare at him, jaw dropped. A headache starts to form under your left temple. “Have you lost your mind?”

It’s not often that Simon looks affronted. “Paintball is fun.”

You can’t help the disbelieving laughter. “Then why didn’t you take me to paintball?”

“Gotta train you on gun safety first,” he points out. “And most places make you play on teams.”

“And the guns aren’t real,” you counter. “That’s the real reason, right?”

He shrugs, “I prefer knives. But yeah, I’d want you to have something real.”

That reminds you. “What are the knives for?”

Simon goes to retrieve the little carrying case, snags his chair on the way back. He places the box on the table, turns it toward you and opens it. He picks up the leftmost blade and flicks it open with a quick motion. He hands it to you, black handle first as he takes a seat.

The handle is thick and the whole thing is a bit heavy. You turn it in your hand and realize that it’s a multi-tool.

“This is a Leatherman Free K4,” he says. “Decent multi-tool, lots of uses. How does it feel in your hand?”

How are you supposed to know? “Fine? It’s a knife.”

“Show me you can close the blade?”

You find the mechanism pretty easily, close the knife without incident. Simon nods, presents his hand, so you give him the knife back. He fiddles with it for a moment, and out pop a pair of scissors. And he hands it back.

“This one,” Simon calls your attention to the second item. It has a black handle as well, but the frame is open so you can actually see the tools. “is a Leatherman Skeletool CX.”

It’s impossible for you not to poke around. There are 8 little tools attached the the knife, including the scissors. A few you don’t really understand, but there are three separate screwdrivers and a bottle opener. You can think of a few times in the last couple of years a multi-tool like this could have come in handy.

You snort. “Skeletool?”

“Hush,” he chides you, smile audible in his voice as he hands it over. “This one has pliers, and a few other tools the other one doesn’t. Shorter blade, a bit lighter.”

“I can kind of feel the difference?” you offer.

“Don’t worry too much about it. Open and close it.”

You do. Pliers first, because you can. Then the blade. “Cool.”

He hands you the last one, a tiny thing that’s all silver, as he takes the second from your hand. “This one is the Skeletool KBX.”

You flick it open and closed without him asking. “Itty bitty.”

“That one’s very straightforward. Just the blade and a bottle opener on the handle.”

You pick up the little package of pretzel nuggets that came with your meal and cut into it. The plastic splits like butter. “Dangerous.”

“I dunno,” you admit. “I haven’t used them yet. You gonna tell me what they’re for?”

Simon hums, a noise you secretly have categorized as one of his “happy tiger” noises. You look up to see he’s got those eye wrinkles that mean he’s pleased. He’s looking at the little blade in your hand.

“Do you like them?”

“They’re gifts,” he says. “One for your usual purse, one for your backpack. The little one for the next time you want to go out dancing. After lunch, I’ll show you how to hold them.”

Staring at him, you think that you’d call the way his shoulders come up toward his ears bashful if he was anyone else. “Did you get me romance knives?”

“Skull’s got me in the doghouse,” he mutters, picking up his now-hot food. “Gotta give you something nice to balance it out.”

“Drugging and kidnapping me got you in the doghouse,” you correct him. “The skull has you under it.”

“I’ve got experience digging myself out,” Simon says with a shrug. “Eat.”

You grab your food and start extracting it from the heat pack. “You want to get back into my good graces? Tell me what the fuck happened in 2007. What the fuck does Roba mean?”

Simon chuckles. “That’s not a story you want to hear while you’re eating, sweet thing.”

“You made me touch Brandon’s skull,” you point out as you tear the packaging open. The smell of hot food makes you suddenly aware of how hungry you are. “So you had better start talking.”

“Promise I’ll tell you more when we’re home, Precious.”

“Swear it.”

“Cross my heart,” he says, flat blue eyes staring into yours. “Hope to die.”

“The whole story.”

“Promise you a summary that won’t make you vomit more than once,” he offers. “And I’ll rub your feet.”

You scoop a spoonful of rice and pop it in your mouth. “You’re going to rub my feet regardless.”

Simon gives a dry little laugh as he pushes his mask up over his mouth. “Yes, ma’am. Now eat. I’ll tell you the rules of capture the flag.”

#dragonnarrativewrites fanfiction #cod #fanfiction #simon ghost riley #dark fic #simon riley x you #slasher handler #simon riley x you smut #manic pixie dream ghost #fun fact - in the charmed slasher ghost series by charliemwrites ghost doesn't lie to the reader. only brandon

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valeskawhore · 1 year ago

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IMAGINE:

APOCALYPSE AU?? PROXIES X READER (IDEA!)

A/N: This is an idea that I’ve been seeing all around tumblr from my mutuals and honestly, why the hell not? I love the idea of apocalyptic survival. Let me know if this should be a series !!

An eerie creak sounds out behind me as I opened the window, and Dust flooded the dimly lit room as I made my way inside. Exploring abandoned houses wasn't always a typical interest of mine, but staying warm and having a dry place to sleep at night was.

Rain clashed gently down on the roof from outside, crickets could be heard and soon the silence rested back into place when I pulled the cracked window shut from the other side.

This place definitely was not the best, but at least it was dry.

First thing I did was open my backpack, setting up candles and hanging an old sheet that I found laying in the corner, over the window to block out the light.

Repeatedly, I told myself that this was just temporary.

I didn't have enough food to last more than a few nights anyways. Walkers roamed more and more with every passing day, tho winter was coming and it was coming fast.

Hopefully, that would do something to slow the walkers, even if it was just by a few steps, I prayed.

With a sigh, I slowly sat down on the make-shift mattress that I made for myself, hearing my ankles pop in the process because man, I really needed to stretch more often, I'm not getting any younger.

I took off my baseball cap and pulled down my mask to breathe just a little bit clearer, running my fingers through my hair, I noticed how greasy it was. The thought made me disgusted since.. Well, I couldn't even imagine how I smelled and i didnt want to either.

Popping open a bottle of water, I drank my thirst away. Listening to the rain pour, the thunder crack and the sounds of the undead trudging along outside.

As I clenched my eyes shut for a second..

I blocked out the screams, the cries and pleads for help.. The cocking of guns and the growls of the unthinkable tearing and ripping the flesh of the people being eaten alive. My fingernails began to itch, my knuckles on fire, tears welding in my eyes.

“Y/N!!” She screamed, “HELP ME!!” she cried..

I sat my bottled water down, and lit up a cigarette.

“It’ll be ok..” I told myself, “Survive one more day, just one more,” everynight.

“I’ll find you baby.. one day..”

I closed my eyes.. Relaxed my body, breathed out deeply.

“Goodnight y/n” I told myself.

The front door clashed open.

*~*~*~~*~*~*~

“GET INSIDE! GET THE FUCK INSIDE!” A voice screamed. The sounds of the undead gurgled up the last of their life and slammed their heads against the door, screaming. I heard multiple people slamming themselves against the front door, refraining it from opening. “ROGERS, FIND SOMETHING, NOW. WE NEED TO BARD THE DOOR!”

“I-I-M OHN–ON IT!!” Someone stuttered.

I jumped up from my mattress, reaching for my gun and loading in the magazine. I threw the sleeping bag off of me, and unlocked the door. I heard the others rummaging down stairs for something to board the door. I peaked my head out,

Something suddenly rammed against my head, the door was torn open, slamming into my head. I fell back on my ass, and reached around lazily for my gun.

I heard a gasp fall above me, my vision was spinning, but I found my gun and raised it above me at the silhouette. There were two of them, then three, then two, until both shadow figures meshed into one guy. His face was something more,

Two dark brown eyes, greasy chestnut hair, he nose was already bleeding and there was a bandage covering up the right side of his lips stretching to his cheek bones.

He was definitely a young man, 23-24 maybe. Wearing yellow rusted-rimmed goggles, a blue hoodie with a tanned, older jacket overtop, there was a black and gray-ish mask wrapped around his neck and pulled up over his face. The (now) snickering man wore stained blue jeans and some bloodied converse.

His laugh rang out through my skull, pounding against my ear lobes. His eyes became impossibly wide now, canines glimmering in the moonlight as thunder cracked in the background.

With one final sadistic smile,

He picked up his double hand axes and raised them high, His laughter almost screams now, The screams of a hyena, a skinwalker luring its prey.

The young man brought the axes down quickly,

I rolled over with a small scream, doing my best to avoid the hard steel.

I fumbled around on the ground, reaching for my gun.

When I had it in my hand, the man jumped on me and slammed my back into the hardwood floor. The house was so old that dust jumped into the air, and swam around. I clenched my eyes shut and coughed until I could breathe again. I felt his boney hands wrap around my throat, his skin uncomfortably cold and white. I kicked my feet behind him and threw my head back,

The man let up his grip but didn't scream out in pain, his laughter only grew.

I grabbed the boy's hair and threw him off of me, his body collided against the wall,

Because,

His body actually went through it, clashing into the room next to us.

Dust flooded the room once more, and as the psychopath took longer than expected to rise back to his feet, I grabbed my sleeping bag and ran downstairs, contents loosley in hand.

I struggled to throw my jacket on as i ran down the steps,

A shorter figure stepped in front of me, and stuck his leg out, successfully tripping me in the process. I felt my world being flipped upside down as my rib cage cracked against the staircase. I coughed up blood, my heartbeat in my ears as I laid there motionless.

With my vision dark, i could only here throat-ripping screeching from the outside world,

Three figures stepped in my view of the door, I pulled my arms in front of me and did my best to drag my body away. I moaned out in a breath-less cry as I felt the rusted nails sticking out of the wood flooring scraped against my cracked ribs.

Something stopped me, whoever or.. Whatever it was, grabbed my achilles heel and dragged me back in the living room with one strong pull.

They flipped me on my back, blood dripped down the corner of my mouth as I did my best to control my breath. Hesitantly, I reached my hand up and folded my fist into a weak, shaky middle finger, my ‘fuck you’ to the world.

I heard one of them snicker before the tallest one leaned down carefully, dark red painted eyes peered into mine before he pulled off my mask. I had a surge of anger come over me, as I reached to kick him in the balls but he caught my leg, almost expecting it even. His grip tightened menacingly on my thigh, before he gave my cracked rib cage an almost impossibly fast sucker punch.

I coughed out blood on instinct, my body spasming. I held my chest and my body folded forwards, my knees to my chest. “F-fuck you..” I coughed, tears streaming down my face.

His hand, still on my thigh, tightened once more. Leaning close to my face, the stranger whispered..

“What.. do we have here?”

#funny story #marble hornets #marble hornets x reader #masky marble hornets #masky #masky headcanon #masky x reader #hoodie #hoodie x reader #creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta imagines #creepypasta incorrect quotes #ticci toby #ticci toby x reader #yandere ticci toby #funny content

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overtaken-stream · 10 months ago

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Where On3 Will St4nd

King The Wildfire x F!Lunarian!Reader

100+ Followers Special!! I APPRECIATE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE SUPPORT!! <3 (This was posted so late oml) This bad boy has been cooking in my drafts for close to a year and a half it feels like, it is very much burnt to a crisp. Thank you anon who asked me about King meeting another of his race! This would not be here without you <3

Also, sorry for the grammar mistakes, English isn't my first language.

word count: 8.9k

Warnings: incorrect cultural description(?)/practices(?), Self-harm(Burns), Imprisonment, Timeline is a mess don't come at me.

( The Land of a Demon )

Onigashima is an intimidating island; the smell of ash penetrates every corner of the scene where a battlefield will unfold. There are no flowers to add color to the brown mud and grey rocks, no snowflakes to grace the island or land on the red mist. The only thriving presence is the skull, where the fire emanates—the lair of a wrongdoer rotting and resting in this sinful place.

The skull, or rather, the rock resembling a creature much like the one on Thriller Bark—Oars, to be exact—was its name. But even he, the Junior, paled in comparison to the Skull Dome. No human could have sculpted it; giants, maybe, but even then, there are doubts.

It was formidable for you to step into the den of a beast earlier than expected, where you would be alone and defenseless. The dreadful aura the place is emitting is fitting for an Emperor of the sea. The deeper you went, the lighter you felt, the fearsome and overwhelming feeling was replaced by the intimidating, and may I say, strict walls you can find in the Wano Kuni, or the Flower Capital to be more exact, the only thing Onigashima lacks is the malnourishment that comes with Shoguns' rule, the exhausted faces of workers, the food prices and the dirtied outskirts. The separation of morals between the Wano Kuni and Onigashima shows clearly in the environment, it's like stepping into a completely different world, detached by the innocent victims who got birthed in this tangle of knotted rope, a mess, a sculptor done masterfully by manipulators of different social hierarchies. It's an art piece that took lives. A work in progress.

Their happiness depends on us. The ones who took it in the first place. The pirates.

We are the only people who bleed flames and light up the shadowed space that is Wano.

Soon.

...Soon.

After the worrying incident of the crew splitting apart yet again to get Sanji back and despite your worries for the polite cook- you were among the majority who continued traveling toward Wano. The plan was for you to become a Geisha working alongside Robin to get selected by the Shogun, but at last, the paths split and here you were in the den of beasts.

There was little chance of concealing your true identity in Wano; the absence of hair dyes posed a challenge. However, with strategic tying, the Obi belt effectively concealed the main factors that could give you away. The uncomfortable sensation is so familiar that you've learned to master not showing the everlasting pain on your face. The lightened makeup applied by the elderly further masks your skin, with red lips complementing your Obi and velvety gloves. The black hue of your flower kimono, snug tightly to your legs, hinders your pace, restraining you from keeping up with other women who, despite being more nervous, are less experienced in the field of treachery. Tonight, it will be challenging to differentiate professionals from novices, and you vow to take advantage.

The occasionally beautiful scenery inside the castle fails to comfort you amidst the fast-beating hearts; it is unsettling. The empty halls, guided by one of Kaido's puppets, make everyone dizzy with the maze-like walls—plain, hard to remember its turns.

In what way did the he turn last time?

The candles dwindle in plain sight as the floor creaks, accommodating the heavy steps of someone on the other side of the hallway. The sound becomes more vivid as it picks up pace, running past your group from the other side of the wall, capturing the attention of a soldier who turns and continues guiding with an anxious face.

It's only when the others, approximately ten pairs of feet, follow suit that you realize the commotion beside the separation. Judging by the soldier's expression, it seems to be a normal occurrence. However, you do not halt your steps; you continue to motionlessly follow, much like a sheep. It turns out the other women have the same idea.

There's an Oni free of its cage.

Debris falls from the shaking ceiling onto your shoulders. You wipe the black fabric clean, huffing as you quicken your pace, gently pushing the ladies to make way. The man, with spiky brown hair, takes another turn to the right this time.

``Sir, how far are you going to make us walk? Do you want us to be gasping for breath when we entertain our customers?`` You ask in a monotone voice, the impatience underlines your words, while your facial expression is the same as the one you entered with.

The soldier angles his neck to look up at you before his expression turns sour.

Lazy sons of bitches are too tired to answer a simple question. Tsk.

Your eye twitches as you await his answer. Not minding the spooked expressions of the ladies.

``Just above this floor.``

You only take your eyes off of him when the dark wood stairs come into view. It's been twenty years since the Beast Pirates invaded Wano Kuni and the history of Onigashima, they left a mark that will be impossible to remove. The residue of red that has maintained its place on the stairs is proof of that, who knows how many more illicit and barbaric things this place... This Country has witnessed. Who knows how many more will be lost.

Yet, people ignore it for their safety, geisha act no differently, even if they feel the warmth of a body no longer on the bottom of their okobo, they don't look down. For their security. Though you seem to be unable to look up, whoever the unfortunate victim was, you wish them a peaceful afterlife.

You hold in what anger you have, clenching your fists onto the sides of your kimono. There will come a time for you to spill it.

Soon.

...Soon.

A dreadful feeling emanates within the group, snapping you out of your daydreams. You didn't mean to get lost in your head, but the moment you let the fabric loose, the double door opens, and the women hurry their way to spots alongside every wall, unhappiness settling in their guts. They put their knees onto the soft purple cushions. Your eyes travel over the shamisen lying beside the cushion you were supposed to rest on. The three-stringed instrument you pick up seems to be brand new—unused and unprepared. However, even as you fix the strings, you feel relieved. Kyo Mai is a slow dance with complicated steps, and your confined wings always disturb your enactment. You were supposed to play the instrument and stay hidden among the performers, even with your snow-white hair and height.

The door opens right after everybody picks up their fans, you hid away in the background with the shamisen now in the proper hold.

(Away from the intimidating aura the girls seem to be spooked of. They don't break under the pressure. They repeat what was practiced.)

Here they come.

The All-Stars.

( Eyes That Follow )

From the three goliaths that were sitting and having an exchange, you've decided that Queen was the worst out of all of them. His immense and twisted pride shows even during his interactions with the women currently swarming his sides, the sadism that chokes the air out of every woman doesn't reach the beasts.

He calls it... “Flirting” it's not obvious to the naked eye but the girls feel uncomfortable, even when they smile, you can tell. It's for survival they smile. It's for survival they nod their heads as Queen throws compliments at a woman who isn't here. Komurasaki.

You feel sorry for the girl, to have Queen captivated was horrifying. You hold hope that Komurasaki will never meet him in person, even as your eyes continue to wander over Queen, for he, even if the filthiest of the All-Stars, was the most social one. A star scientist. It's when Queen starts practicing his singing talent that one of them calls.

``Oi.``

You straighten up. From on top Jack, The Drought looks down at you.

``Could you start the music already?`` His unreacting eyes only leave your face when you answer with an apology. It was obvious he was trying to silence Queen.

As you pull the shamisen closer to your body, you can hear the blond's offended complaints soon be replaced by the excitement when he realizes the Geishas' standings.

``Well, aren't you a beauty with white hair of yours, musician? Though no one will beat my Komurasaki! That bastard Shogun! Such a shame.``

You aren't sure what he pulls out of his pocket—a paper of some kind? A picture. You thought maybe some information would leak out of their mouths, yet the only conversations you hear are Queen's complaints and praises towards the women. Lost in your own mind, studies continue to mix. Is Kaido awarding his men before the festival? It seems unlikely, but unfortunately, that might be the case.

As you begin the melody of "Crane Wedding," there isn't another noise except Queen's malicious giggles interrupting you. That is until the sounds of squeaking leather picks up in the trapped room. You fix your eyes on the instrument while somebody else's eyes drill into your face, past your cosmetics and the flawless kimono. They don't move from your face; in fact, you might even think they are staring past your soul. You can feel their eyes travel to your neck, covered by the geisha's makeup. They stare, and you don't dare to look up meet meet them.

The pleasant music of yours doesn't halt as a geisha brings in the food, throwing a quick and nervous glance your way, but soon she too turns towards one of the three men who called her, leaving you alone with that crushing stare. The time stretches along with the performance; the short melody now feels like a loop of endless tactics put together. Lovely notes turn into a disgusting mess of mud inside your mind, plugging your ears and forcing you to hear the way your heart speeds up, noticing his eyes cling onto the darker color not peeking from under the makeup. You're nervous, as are the dancing geisha, whose only audience is Queen at this point. It's soon when the second, heavy pair of eyes turn towards you, but this one is much quicker to leave you be.

That must have been Jack.

King. He's the one that continues to stare.

The corner of your lips twitches after the realization. You try to keep away from falling and dissecting below his gaze. It lasts even after the dance was finished, his red eyes hold you hostage for the most part, even when you get up and do what your teacher, a sweet old lady has taught you.

It's fear, not of him, but rather afraid of him finding out what no outsider should know.

It's doubt, he is doubting you. Suspecting you, yet he asks no question. He only stares you down like a predator when you finally meet his crimson eyes. Your (E/C) eyes reflect his fully leathered top half.

You aren't afraid of him, no you can't be, you've faced many opponents in your 25 years of living, and you've gone through the suffering even the strongest men cannot withstand.

You are a Straw hat.

You are part of a future Pirate Kings crew. You cannot be intimidated by a mere second in command. You hold your head up high.

It turns out to be the right action that causes him to back down slowly, surely you are let go from the muddy waters.

( Eye to Eye )

The sunrise began as Jack got up, and soon Queen followed him. After his callouts to King, who threw an audible shut-up in his way but did not move from the spot he was standing, Queen wasn't convinced until Jack bulldozed through the door opening and intentionally dragged Queen out of the way.

The poker face you've kept up so far slips when King calls every woman out of the room except you. You can feel Haki building its way through your veins, but you don't jump to conclusions, even as he gets closer to you with a towering height difference, his latex and bands stay unmelted when the fire on his back explodes, little sparks jumping towards you, who is by now trapped between the wall and the giant. You can feel the hot sparks on your clothing land and extinguish themselves, The conclusion is slow beneath his red eyes that are staring at you so angrily, any other emotion so hard to read beneath the mask that thoroughly covers every part of his body, the folded black wings are no exception.

Besides blocking your means of escape, he has yet to do anything physically, the temperature in the room rises with how fast the heat is produced on his back. The fire is so familiar you might even get lost in it, in the old times, when fewer shit stains were roaming the planet. It makes you sweat underneath all the tight clothes you're wearing, especially on your back where the wings have started to ruffle, trying to let some air into its layers to no avail.

You wish you had talent in observation haki to determine what he was going to do next.

You flinch when his right arm raises from where it slept beside his thighs, it slowly gets closer to your frozen form, even if you try to lean away, there is no point, you realize. You are tall, but as both of you stand beside each other, He towers over you, but his intention isn't to intimidate you. The instinct is your strong suit and your weakest point.

You can feel the leather wipe away at your excessive makeup, from your cheek to your platysma his hand travels with a heavy heart on its sleeve.

If King was anyone other than King, you would have slapped it away.

If only he didn't share traits you are so familiar with.

If only you didn't share traits he is so familiar with.

You can feel the cosmetics dragging and staining his gloves, wiping away half of your disguise easily, thanks to the heat, he keeps a note of your half-disguised face with calculating... Wide eyes. The other half of your face, one that stayed untouched, must be melting.

It's the shaky puffs of air released from his mask that gives him away, the sudden rise in temperature in an already hot room, it must almost be 40°C, yet he does not budge.

Is he relieved...? Enthusiastic much...?

Not a word is said when he takes his arm away, now covered in white. You can see the way the pupils shake, you are sure he can see yours too, the furrowed brows and slightly parted lips of yours must be a giveaway.

The wings.

The eternal inferno.

A laugh escapes in the room-turned-oven, a nervous laugh of a feminine voice. You must be in shock to have fallen so low. Not even trying are you?

In a world that ought to hunt your kind down, to exterminate the past, the world that succeeded in destroying your kind, you don't feel alone. Or... You will no longer.

In the fervor, the mask comes off, leaving his sweat-covered face uncovered for you to see.

(``What tells that you are the only survivor?`` King used to ask himself back in his younger years before he made it clear how erroneous that question was, not to mention unlikely. It a proof of his childish innocence and the improvement. If more of his kind existed, they would be in the hands of the Government, doing god knows what to them. It always made the locked space of memories in his subconscious bubble up and boil over in quiet rages and liquor-companied nights. As he looks at your somewhat clean face, he is comforted by the pitiless thought that, by some luck, someone else managed to survive the hell he also went through. He wishes he could feel at ease, but he has to be sure. He has to eliminate every doubt in his mind.)

It's not out of intimacy and lust that he asks an inappropriate question to your calmed self about stripping. The surprised look in your eyes indicates a misunderstanding of his intentions. It's only mutual trust that guides him to do what he does next. Slowly but surely, he tries to pull his mask off, letting the tight piece tug at his scalp as he sets his hair free. Only when the temperature doesn't change, even when his skin feels the air, does he let the fire return to its original size.

King The Wildfire, only looks down at your complicated emotions. Even if he does not remember the company of his people, he would truly be a fool not to recognize his own biology. Though he doesn't hold onto hope, suspicion still lingers in his red eyes. It differs from your beaming laugh full of shallow happiness, representing more of a nervous tick than anything. It's been so long since he has heard a laugh not accompanied by sadistic undertones—exploiter gifters who dared to approach him—and the liquor Kaido keeps so close during his episodes.

``... I apologize for the heat."

You smile with somewhat shocked eyes looking up at him. ``...You know, it's been a while since I've felt the excitement of my kind.`` a nervous sigh you let out lead the conversation.

`` you don't have to apologize.``

``Yes... I-`` He has forgotten many unique reflexes with time. For this instance, it doesn't pains him. Every day he forgets what distinguishes the instincts of Lunarians, for he feels less of his kind.

He counts it as a sin, a shameful part of adulting, a side effect of having to live among the likes of Kaido's men, therefore his choice.

You acknowledge his position with his back turned to the door, sitting down cross-legged as he mentions for you to do the same. You obey, his wings hovering over you and hiding your figure from the outside world.

He asks once more to turn your back to him. You try to find any joke to fit in the thick air of nervous glances, but you find none. The unconscious mutual loyalty the both of you have towards one another is born by the shared traits, of family. Of shared pain.

You take the Obi belt in your hands and off of your waist.

He has many questions he cannot get out of his mouth, but for now, he keeps quiet. He is sure you have no intention of reliving the hell on earth that is the past.

You turn your back to a beast with the pattern of a face on its back.

As you take the black fabric of your kimono off, layer by layer the cold bites at your wet body, and the salty smell lets out into the heated air, though none of you care for the odor. You drop the kimono just below your belly button and let the relief that comes with letting your wings flex and take hold.

With a fast-beating heart, King watches.

It's in a haze that he reaches out to your back, his fingers connecting to the shoulders where the wings come from, sending a shiver down your sweat-covered spine, they're smaller he thinks, more fragile than him, though there is no difference in the power of flame and healing when it comes to genders. She could make them bigger when required. They aren't fragile, they are as powerful as his, but the size difference makes it easy to tickle his instincts, long forgotten and left in the past, starving for attention. His hands run over your coracoid, trying to find the place where the feathers meet the skin, attempting to find the evidence that you are real.

He barely hears your name, caught in the view of the wings turning from black to dark blue at different angles. Though he doesn't answer, he has already shown you enough of himself, it is no longer essential. King will do just fine.

The wings are erogenous, however, even if you shiver under the sensitive touches, no lust taints the special moment between the survivors.

``(Y/N).`` you spell out your name.

By instinct, his fire becomes ablaze when his hand sneaks up your humerus, lingering touches ruffling your feathers as the fire licks at your ungroomed wing. It lights the reflective white strands of hair that escaped from Geiko Shimada. The warmth on your back is comforting to the point where you lean your wings into it. Finally, you light the eternal flame, his hand engulfed in your flames goes undamaged. It extracts and attracts the fire from his hand into the center of your spine, causing the fire to grow and spread onto your wing feathers.

Looking back you're met with what you would call, a confused face of King whose features have been caught in the yellow glow of a fire that you are able to control.

King only stares at your almost nude form with a wrinkle of thought between his eyebrows.

( Guard )

In the way King shelters you, with him beside you and you hidden in the massive wing as he walks into his chambers, you would be wrong if you said you aren't anxious. Happy but skeptical. You doubt he'll hurt you, but the mask locking away his facial structures works as an intimidation factor.

The click of a lock on his door is the only sound that disturbs the silence. Now you are in his territory, his nest.

``King?`` you turn around to look at him.

``Where did you come from.`` It's scary how quickly and unnoticeably he changes his mood. But it is probably because the enthusiasm has passed and questions have started to surface, what you thought to be a nice welcome, turns into icy bars locking you out of your getaway, just like earlier. His red eyes leave a permanent mark on your (E/C) ones.

Where did you come from. that's not a question. Questions don't make you feel as if the warmth has left your body and sent shivers down your spine. They don't drag you down the lone caves and lock up your respiratory system.

Questions aren't meant to stop time. But the way both of you aren't moving, they might as well.

You have to be careful with every word and syllable you mutter. ``I've come fro-``

``How are you alive.``

``I-``

You barely have time to finish your answers before he's asking another one, slowly he steps toward you. In the dark, his leather shines, but as you take another step back you cannot help but glance at his wings. How the moonlight seems to bend with each curve of his feathers, sinking into the crevices and lightening them up in a blue hue, similar to you, but unlike the yellow glow, King's replaced by the white. You can't help but be deprived.

There is only one sentence that is louder than the rumble coming from within him. The declaration you acknowledge within all the noise clogging your ears.

You don't feel the suffocation of this situation, nor do you hear King's voice anymore. The pressure (Despite the windows being open) comes from the claustrophobic chamber. Your wings stay close to your back. The masked face looks down on your kimono, his pupils have seemed to freeze on your form, and the angry aura that he emits is all but a facade of defense. His jaw is moving but all you can hear is a rumble that pours out deep from his chest, it's incredibly loud yet deaf to the ears of normal humans, the volume that should shake walls only quiver your brain.

The moonlight seems to cage you in, showing your footsteps to a starved predator, it's the devil's eye that replaces the moon, with red pupils that stare you down. He overshadows your form, sending warnings throughout your system-

The possessiveness only sends shivers down your spine.

(Fight or flight?)

From somewhere far away, a boy with a straw hat on his face lifts his head from where it's laying in a hammock, letting the yellow straws that are incapable of being split slowly drop onto his bandaged chest. The rough feel of the same material wraps around his forehead trapping a few black strands of hair with it.

He grumbles, the ache in his limbs starting to become much more obvious, with half-lidded eyes Luffy looks up from the opening of the hammock, letting his head peek over at the sleeping skeleton currently knocked out in the same way Luffy was supposed to be.

Something's happening.

He is sure of it, but with grogginess biting away his consciousness, he has no energy left to chase after that feeling, he turns his stiff body the other way, peeking from the left he comes face to face with the man who is a family member in all but blood, who he got back just a few hours ago.

He smiles and lies back down, from the position he is in, a window the size of his head stays open, it shows the moon and the stars twinkling their way into existence.

He wonders what others must be up to, are they watching the moon with him? Basking in its glow like a tiger?

He hates that he has to keep them waiting, but it was necessary.

Soon.

...Soon he'll be there.

Wait for him... A little more!-

( Domain )

There's something cataclysmic lurking in the walls of his chambers, causing your ears to bleed. The shackles rattle loudly next to your helix as you scratch at your ear, only making the headache worse. The heavy pull of sea stone brings down your mood. Rough exterior already leaving its mark on your hands

The mirror rests across the bed, compelling the disheveled mess of yourself to face the view. Hair strands fall on the sides of your face, greasy with gel, and your face—oh God, your face—appears smudged, as if the color is melting away. The swollen eyes that signal a newly awakened person squint to see your reflection.

The clothes are still on your body despite being passed out on the enormous bed of a murderer, a killer, and a tyrant's sidekick last night. Another ridiculous error to add to the imaginary board.

Back when King unleashed the color of the Supreme King on your cornered self you didn't dare fight back, and the shackles were here in the form of consequence to your conclusion.

The room was dark, with the only source of light being the window next to the mirror. The bars on the outside really make you feel at home. The decor set a scene suggesting no man had ever lived there. Occasional scratches marked the floor, and the specially modified bed, along with what you could only guess was a closet, were all tailored to fit his taste. Gothic undertones and a taste reminiscent of some old king's private quarters defined his preferences. You could barely discern the detailing on the bed and the strangely designed closet colored in black and gold. The dominating dark blue swallowed any light that entered the room, and there was a door to your left, likely leading to the bathroom.

The quiet morning was disturbed by the entrance of King, he stands in front of the same door you remember entering last night.

You feel quite disgusted.

``I didn't expect you to be awake.`` For a moment before you passed out, you didn't either.

The uneasy eyes meet kings' as time stills. Dragging out the undesirable connection. It only serves to tug your heart down to your gut. The happy moment, the relief and sorrow for the past nothing but a distant memory in the dark shadows of a realm not your own.

He moves closer to your bed, hands dropping what seems to be extra clothes near your feet. The man doesn't flinch as you push your legs closer to your torso and away from him. The rejection is disregarded.

``You should change.`` Carefully you nod your head.

``The bathroom is over there.``His stern voice shakes the weak walls of your mind as he turns his back on you before walking over to the entrance.

You can't help but let out a shaky breath as the door is locked and you're left alone with thoughts you can not connect no matter how hard you try, it only serves to make tremors run up your spine and into your fingertips, it's a dread invading a carefully maintained flesh you tried to protect with the hands of a child once. The deep noise your restraints produce was nothing but a ghost of your past just a couple of days ago. The weight on your wrists burns. The crackle is deafening and bone-shaking. There's no one else to hear you.

``... I need...`` Time to think, to process. Your lips shiver.

The soft white walls are nothing but an illusion. You wonder if the blue-colored room of a beast is a delusion.

The eyes and the goggles flash before you, white coats accompanied by bloodlust run over your thoughts.

Breathe.

You push your knees off of the bed, sweat traveling down your face, the cold is in no way a comfort.

The warm water is what tempts you to tread the wooden floor.

( Lone Wolf )

The water is hot against your skin as the shower head lets the boiling droplets escape freely from the metal, and steam coats the world in the lightest tints. King brings the ache you've long forgotten existed ever since the smile of a boy with the straw hat lit your life full of shadow. You wish you could be happy in the burning downpour, you deserve it, however, the inferno on your back heals the drawbacks, leaving no trace of your accomplishments which took more than a couple of burns to earn.

And you wonder what have you done to earn this.

The happiness of no longer carrying the guilt was relieving, even if it lasted for a couple of minutes.

As a little lady you would wish for a knight to come and take you away to the land of dreams, make the walls just a bit more colorful and alive in the world that burns dreams. The warm hands would he have, the soft look and the shine in his eyes, the wings on his back, and the fire that would put the sun to shame with its flames. The honey on his lips and the daisies in your hair.

The desires were harmless, they gave you hope, something a human would have.

(You can still taste the metal. You can feel the debris fall and you hear their landing making the ground of pure white shake.

Your instincts would only let you run. Would only make you avoid the black broken bricks covered in glitter. Shining green from the light and smoke.

You have no idea what exploded. You won't want to know.

That night, the girl left that place and its guards to be doomed into oblivion.

That night, a knight was left without his princess.)

The sizzling sound you feel is draining you of the energy you might need, it's a waste yet the fire on your back regenerates the lost skin again, again and again. Until you give in and stop the shower, only for the shackles to be felt around your hands. Your wings are open, fully on display.

Sensing the burns in your bones, you wonder what would have happened if you were more close to the explosion of the past, wonder if it would have been better as the water droplets fall from your wet face.

It's fairer than facing the reality that complicates the fragile string of truths once again.

Hands clenched into fists and fire growing ever hotter on your back, you wonder if you are patient enough for this, no longer does a little girl await for saving. She doesn't need to anymore. Someone else might.

It brings up a question. Can you be the light needed for one's darkest times?

You walk out of the shower with a hot back and bloody palms, the fire burns brightly above the feathers. You can only hope to fuel it forever. You keep the wings close, your captor closer.

No longer will you be truly alone.

( Purity )

If there's one thing you've learned as a child, it's that they aim for the stars, with no plan in mind and ambition in their belly, only a brave few truly make it into the sky and those who could not are left with clipped wings and broken dreams. Fragile to the point they crash onto the soil and shatter, never to be put together again.

It makes you proud that your captain never crashed down, that his wings were never clipped, you're sure that the thoughtlessness was enough to boost him to reach beyond the stars.

Before, you wondered if you were able to grab onto the lights that looked down on you during the night. Now you live to see it come true.

However, where you succeeded some failed.

And so King came crashing down with the one who put his wings back together, feather by feather, vigorous and more dreadful than ever.

He split the skies until it cried.

You refuse to allow him to recite Kaidou's doing to you. Day after day in the dark and cold chamber, your fire brightens the dark and continuously burns on your back, never once diminishing.

Nobody is allowed that pleasure.

( Prison )

Getting used to a closed environment comes naturally, as much as you hate to admit it. The dim walls are a new addition to your view, which is no longer full of white coats and a bright enclosure. The heavy shackles are much harder to familiarize with.

In a cold chamber time moves fast.

Your only interaction with the outside world is King, dark and broody, full of confidence and gentleness, he treats you as if you're fragility itself. You won't beg for a way out, you never did, humiliation over naught is an intense feeling to swallow. He's careful with his words, careful in the way he acts and reconnects with his instincts right by your side.

Day after day his visits keep a consistent schedule, with two plates of food and loneliness in his belly he strives to spend breakfast, lunch, and dinner together with you, speaking only a few words of insight. There's fire on your back yet, it does nothing to protect you from the coldness he brings. Wings stay close to your back, never truly opening in the cage. The words he says don't carry the weight of a man born for death.

One wants to lower your walls while shackling you with his, to the point that the invisible distance strains you, he is full of drought and he craves to end the famine.

Time passes and the longer you ignore the elephant in the room, the heavier its weight on your shoulders grows. You destruct yourself for a question you're not ready to hear the answer to. The pressure leads to an opening to form.

It's said in an outlandish way, heart swelling with numbness and hate tingling your fingers. Your eyes stare onward, beyond the figure meeting them.

``What are you achieving?`` Why have you caged me? Weren't you in my position once upon a time?

It stops him dead in the tracks. His eyes don't widen yet his mouth does in a way that seems robotic. The air stills, only the noise of crackling fire could be heard, heavy and rich with the enigma the man was created to be.

Why did you choose kaidou?

You want to ask.

``...Nothing. I achieve nothing.`` you ignore the strict undertone and drink the tea he brought not too long ago. It conceals the wary gulp.

``I would never have taken you for a liar.`` An intense sound is created as he slices the distance between you two with his flight, black wings ajar. a sharp feather rests near your throat. You have to be attentive. Careful to not snap the thick rope that holds his pieces together.

Blood seeps out of the cut.

``Why do you wish for death?``

``You could have murdered me the night we met.`` It's too late for your soul to perish. His reasoning for keeping you alive is clear to you.

His hand, clenching the root of a dangerously pointed feather shakes with the conflicted emotion.

Your back lights and the cut is healed.

He cannot do it, not to his kind. With a quiet grunt, King backs off to leave the chamber, his feather crumbled and abandoned on the cold wood.

Every night is spent alone on a bed made for your kind, it's just that this night feels full of plain dismay and sorrow.

The past does not visit tonight.

( The Other Side )

Your words penetrate him, though he doesn't indicate. The conversation is buried in the depths of ash, fire blooms inside of him, it rages and burns, and wherever he steps the smoke trails after him.

``Haven't you walked the same path?``

His subordinates are seated around a large table, smiles and crevices on their face.

``Do you not know darkness?``

He does. He is intimate with it.

``The hopelessness of being someones plaything?``

He can feel the heat of the past catching up to him, engulfing him in the ball of flame and strapping him on a table. He knows how it feels to be burned to oblivion, the only peace he has known. Words of madness leave his lips, everyone, including himself knows that it's empty threats, for he stands on the other side of the glass. Nothing but a guinea pig

``I know that you know it too. We walked the same path.``

He would have grabbed anyone's hand if only they reached out. It just so happened that he grabbed someone who could change the world, for the better or for worse.

He looks at the barren wasteland of Onigashima.

Was it truly a choice when your options were between freedom and its absence?

He finds that time flies swiftly when sailing. It halts when on the land.

(He has never belonged to either.)

``Why do you recite history?``

He comes to a conclusion, one of selfishness and fear. Clenched fist heats up, he does not pay attention to the rising temperature.

He craves his kind. The hopelessness is the reason he captured you.

His teeth grind against one another. He isn't on the level of humans, his superior biology won't let him stoop that low, but he finds that mentally, he and them are cut from the same cloth. Other's consequences directed him to repeat what he feared.

The thought has long since passed.

King finds it hard to care about them.

But you are entirely foreign. He can taste the smoke of Punk Hazard.

You try again and again. Lightly scratching at the metaphorical walls of him until your hands grab his heart softly, ripping the veins and staining your hands with his blood.

Your mouth only forages for the food King fetches. He wonders about you and the possibilities of it all until the voice he has gotten used to brings him back to earth, you do nothing to cushion his fall, only stalling his drop with words he feels entirely uncomfortable to understand. For the reason that he had no one to share it with.

``There's a saying about them`` You say, looking oblivious with the plate resting on your knees, mouth cooling down the food.

``A man is wolf to man.`` He gets it, King is sure he will hear your voice saying it whenever the existence of The Celestials get brought up.

``I'm glad you aren't one.``

For a moment King thinks about the blood he spilled, the curses his shoulders withstand and the beginning of it all, the things he has seen himself do, and replies.

``I could say the same.``

You can see his face, swatted with shadows even without the mask, crack, and the hidden comfort dawns on his face.

The soup in your hands is warm like the sunlight, the mask he gripped whenever entering the room rests on the bed, no longer present in his claws.

A path reveals itself to the two of you.

(There's a flower that blooms only in cold surroundings, It feeds from the ground and awaits the warmth of the sun, from the grey clouds and falling snow, the light peeks through.)

( No Regrets )

Through the window, you can smell the madness in the air, it's evident in the way King comes in while the walls around you shake with the rhythms of Queen's performance.

Your heart follows along with the melody without your consent. After all, there is not much to do with the man that you have come to accept. The walls are nothing against the booming voice of a man too loud and apathetic. But within the confines of the castle, the tense atmosphere can be felt with the help of King. Every step he takes and grunt that follows brings forth his thoughts and instincts, there's something in the air. Teetering on the edges of your mind.

The Lunarian gets closer to you, finally reaching down to your level. For minutes he stares at you, taking in your features as if you'd disappear. The leather flexes as his left-hand holds your wrist.

The red eyes don't move away. Neither do yours.

The metal spikes on his mask gleam. His eyes tell a story as his head drops down, gloved fingers sliding over the rough material of your cuffs.

Time is ticking, and you are waiting for him to succumb to temptation and finally make a move for both's sake.

King's face tilts up with a heavy sigh in tow to look at you, only for a soft smile to greet him. The cuffs are warm around your skin and cold to the room.

After all, the sun speaks of your captain's arrival.

It doesn't take many days for King to return with the key in between his fingers and no fire on his back. Your smile greets his eyes, and the knowing grin settles on your dark skin, yet the maliciousness is nowhere to be found between your lips.

Ever since his release, King has never felt at peace, perhaps he can only close the distance.

(A glimpse of sunlight was all the flower needed to rise from the frozen land.)

The heavy cuffs harshly meet the floor.

( Reunion )

The smoke is filling your lungs, the familiarity making your heart clench and bring forth a cough. The walls are stained with blood, but you don't dwell on it. Instead, you let the sounds of battle lead your wings; feeling the air make way for you is a sensation missed. The chunks of limbs and lifeless bodies are nothing but a blur in your vision. The battle has long begun, and your release from the King's chamber is far too late.

A cunning smile flashes in your mind, long black hair, and rosy cheeks decorate the memory.

``Better late than never.`` Her composed voice would say, accompanied by her icy and all-knowing stare.

Suddenly, a blue light shines through the castle wall ahead, accompanied by the noise of a gigantic object impacting from the other side. With a single flap of your wings, you pick up speed, aiming to breach the barrier. Your tough feathers shield your body as you slam into and shatter the wall's material. Unscathed, your eyes adjust to the bright figure standing on your left, emanating a stunning light that brings life to its surroundings, leaving your eyes wide. You notice a trail of smoke to your right.

You get a better look at him as the surroundings clear up.

``S-Sanji?!`` You feel quite happy to know that his issue has been resolved, judging from the way his face brightens and stands on the ground of Wano's borders. Although he always lights up near the opposite sex.

``(Y/N)-Chan?!`` His matted blond hair is a detail you only notice with the advanced eyesight your kind seems to possess. The bloody lip and his bruised forehead made him quite a sight. Although the swelling is nowhere to be seen.

You can try to make the words of delight resurface in your mouth, it's always nice to let others know of your feelings, though sometimes it sure gets hard to pull them out from the bottom of your heart.

``I'm glad to see you here!`` it lets the burden on your shoulders lighten.

Sanji responds the way you except him to.

``(Y/N)-Chwaaan!!~♡ It's been so long since I last saw you!`` No longer able to contain the love in his body, the hearts burst from his very soul. Happiness fuels his wiggly movements. ``Oh, how I missed you!~``

A large smile stretches your lips, dry as a desert. ``It's nice to have you back!-``

You could have said more, but the time has already run out.

There's water leaking from the floor above, a loud shriek is heard and your back is met with a cold, menacing look from who seems to be Sanji's opponent.

The reflexes kick in, sinking into your veins, moving you out of the threat of a mechanism falling on top of you.

You'r gaze falls on the Beast. His eyes meet yours.

There's a glimmer of familiarity in his eye.

``Out of the way!`` Sanji's yell warns before the foe swings his oversized arms once more.

The amount of force needed for your wings to fly backward is more than necessary, though the opponent's swings seem to be getting swift at every dodge, the heat produced on your back strengthens your arms and then fists, and you look for an opening to get one hit in, but for a second you can see the furious blue eyes tell you his whole story, the desperation of a man becoming more clear to recognize...

You decide that this is not your battle... The heat is diminished.

( A Change )

The short encounter with the cook was not for naught, his instructions led you directed to a stadium full of warriors ready to risk their lives for a nation that has only its history to live for.

Within enemies, there are familiar faces mixed in, who are also fighting alongside you. With Kaido fighting Luffy and Sanji taking on Queen, it's only logical to assume that the first mate would go for the top of the food chain.

There's so much to do, yet the responsibility does not intimidate your kind.

You're left to protect the survivors of a war already won.

The aftermath was nothing more than a reunion for your crew.

( Hello )

The victory comes and brings midnight with it, cheers and smiles bloom on the warriors' faces as you breathe heavily, and everyone starts to tend to their wounds, burns and deep slashes are nothing compared to what they've achieved. Pirate crews are no exception, they rest and gain the energy they'll need for the morning, until then it seems that you're the only one with stamina left.

The fire on your back grows small until it vanishes completely.

Of course, after Kiado's defeat, warriors took advantage of the weakened Beast Pirates and imprisoned those who could still stand, albeit their dreams were and still are drowning in pieces far too small to see or collect. It's evident that they hold no hope for the future.

But there's a link connecting you to one of them.

You walk near the exit door, watching as men talk among each other and discuss their next step, whatever that may be. Your semblance to that man does not get mentioned by anyone after all, they have not seen his face, but the single glance from Zoro as he stayed awake for 5 seconds is enough for you to tense up, you wonder when it will be brought up. Zoro might have fallen asleep but your heart stayed heavy next to him.

It's a dangerous idea you have, suspicious even, though they must understand, Luffy's intelligence, Nami's smile, Robins's knowledge, Usopp's understanding nature, Chopper's innocent outlook, Franky's family ties, Brook's dedication, Sanji's acceptance, and Zoro's strict attitude. If a word got out, you'd have to face your friends, have to rip a bandaid off of an old wound and hold in a cry. You just have to wonder when?

Yet you still head towards the Udon Prison, consequences last in your mind, the night sky looks down upon you, the stars begging you to go back, however the dark clouds hide them away.

The night air feels nice on your skin, even as you stand above the walls keeping in the Beasts. You can tell that no one is awake, exhaustion haunts the air as you leap down on the dry ground. Mad Scientist Queen is lying face down, covered in bandages that soil the dirt underneath him red, you're glad that his snores are loud enough to hide your wings' shuffling.

The sudden chill runs up your spine and alerts your senses, face tilting sideways, you look at a disheveled man standing over you from behind.

``Hello again, King.`` He thinks of your eyes and how beautiful they look under the moonlight. Your beauty would put Luna to shame.

Your greeting is dismissed.

``Why are you here?`` His dry mouth can barely open to question you.

``To see you of course.`` This time he keeps his mouth shut. Yet his eyes observe your appearance, the dirt, and blood that soaks your Kimono.

To see him after a loss, in a state such as this is a crime that would be punished by death. You're the only exception to the rule that didn't exist yesterday.

``Let's take a seat.`` He hasn't even noticed you move into the center of the prison, too busy trying to keep all the blood inside his body to not flat-line. The bandages are not doing much, and the fire he used in his battle has extinguished itself. All his strength was used up and you wish to see him in this state? There are no words left for him to speak, so he takes the seat next to you. His knee touches yours, the intimacy is foreign.

``This calls for a celebration, don't you think? I grabbed us some booze.``

The liquor bottle nudges him and he takes it with no complaints. The reasoning for others' celebration is obvious, dethroning an emperor is a big feat for anybody.

``After all, a God has awakened.`` King knows.

His eyelids are closed yet he can see the vague silhouette of JoyBoy, the godly form only brings bitterness to his tongue, so he tries to drown it with the smoky taste of beer, which accomplishes little.

``I was mistaken.`` with Kaidou. Regret fills him.

He isn't angry at his loss as much as he is irritated.

``You were.`` The moonlight shines down on both of you. The silence is deafening, nothing but your heartbeats are heard.

``I was saved by that man.`` His head looks up at you, and each of his limbs freezes at the implication. The misery and hopelessness engulf the surroundings. He thinks about nothing except the straw hat with a red ribbon.

``I see... So you're apart of his family?``

``I am.`` the soft look in your eyes makes him envy you.

``...Are you happy?`` He doesn't know what he will do if you respond negatively. King already imprisoned you, took your independence, and chained you to him, yet you didn't burn out, How will he treat you?

``I am, were you not?`` with Kaidou? He doesn't have a straight answer, so he only responds with silence. This was a question he thinks you know the answer to.

It isn't until your hand grabs his cheeks that he opens his eyes in surprise, also realizing he closed them.

``What is that look?`` The strict tone in your voice is nostalgic. He tries to direct the conversation elsewhere, however his mind is flooded with the feeling of your warm hand on his face.

``The marines will come.``

``They'll come for you too, you know.`` You respond with the warning, the Navy isn't known for mercy after all, they'll go after the cause too.

``I don't want that... I don't... I don't want to be alone.`` You add, sheepish of your request, is it too much to ask? You have friends who you consider as family, but King is... Different.

King also does not want to be the sole survivor of his race, he has carried that burden for long enough and now that he had a taste of his people, he wishes to not go back.

``You won't be.`` It's the only promise he'll keep, for your sake and his.

For this, he will have to leave the prison.

``Stay alive for me.`` You beg and he complies.

It all starts with your wing enveloping his form, the soft heat from your contact, and the gentle touch of your fingers over his cheek.

( See You Later )

It ends with a promise and an escape into the night.

With you in the company of your friends on the Thousand Sunny.

And with him on top of a waterfall, watching with curious and intrigued eyes as he holds the leftover newspaper, the ship descends down the mountain and leaps into the ocean next to the koi fish.

He finds your smile now meters away, he gazes with a newfound meaning to his life.

#one piece #anime #king one piece #king the wildfire #king the conflagration #king the wildfire x reader #one piece x reader #one piece spoilers #wano arc #wano spoilers #wano kuni #one piece wano #beast pirates #.my writing.

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four-crows-in-a-trenchcoat · 5 days ago

Text

Bleeding Me Dry Like A...

[Firewood Snippet]

I would like to blame/dedicate this to @cupofmysteriousfluid for this ship entering my head at 2am. Here is a small fic snippet/ chunk of writing.

C/W for: Blood.

Martyn was the worst best vampire hunter this side of the pale grove. Best in that he could hunt any query, survive near certain death, stake a vampire from a mile off, discern even the most covert and careful creature haunting the night… Worst in that he was currently in an illicit situationship with a vampire he had been ‘hunting’ for close to a year, built on a mutual fondness humiliating the hunter...

Worst in that he was currently bound tight in blood red rope, armour discarded and left half undressed, spilling out of his clothes with a twisted bar of wrought iron keeping his legs spread. All he could see was himself reflected back in a mirror older and larger than any he had ever known. Its gold finery is uncannily pristine, not a mark clouding his reflection.

All he could see was his flushed cheeks, chest heaving under a half unbuttoned shirt. His cock: short and stubby, twitches in the chill of the room and drips glistening pre in the glow of the candles that had been lit around him. The world beyond the borders of the mirror was unbelievably hazy, a dull warm glow against blackstone.

He knows he is there. Cold clawed hand, blackened and monstrous, at the base of his skull with a gentle firmness, keeping him fixed on the mirror. On his own dishevelled attire, on the way his "pathetic little cock" throbs when Tango whispers in his ear and a cold hand he can't see wraps tightly around him and pumps slowly, torturously slowly.

It's almost uncanny watching a candle float in the mirror, head fuzzy, unsure if it is floating or if Tango is lifting it over his chest. Martyn becomes tense, shoulders knotted as he watches the candle slowly tip and drip sanguine wax on his chest. He gasps before swallowing his breath. The pain was sharp at first, hot and heavy as it splashes across his chest, and Martyn doesn't need to see a reflection to know Tango's lips stretch into a smirk when he whimpers out a moan.

For a moment, Martyn attempts to lean back on Tango, but he is swiftly denied as the hand on his neck snaps shut like a tiger's maw and keeps his head forward.

"Eyes on the mirror, don't even think about looking away, pet... need you to watch as I pull this handsome, pathetic slayer apart. Remind him that he is nothing compared to me, isn't that right?" Tango's breath is cold against his ear, his claws coil so tight around his throat that Martyn could feel the pressure in the back of his eyes as the world drifted away, submerging him in a breathless fog. Tango's hand was like a collar on his neck, like he is a prisoner chained to the wall, perhaps he was... perhaps today was the day Tango simply wouldn't let him leave, would banish him to the wall of some dark dungeon.

Another pour of wax against his chest and heat blooms outward and rips a raspy broken moan from his throat. A knot of shame twisted in his gut as he squirmed in Tango's death grip.

"I asked you a question Martyn..." oh right, he did

Martyn nods, but he knows that's not what Tango wanted, especially when he made his displeasure apparent with a tightened grip.

"Yes... Yes sir..." His voice is beyond broken, like a baby bird that fell from the nest. God, he sounds so weak, so fragile. Martyn could feel himself dripping in Tango's hand before his back arcs as a stream of wax rains across his chest, forced to watch as it drips down to his solar plexus, marking him.

Everything was close to a blur and yet the whimpering hunter with hot wax splashed across his chest, struggling for breath, in the mirror was crystal clear, perhaps even clearer. It looked as if his soft chest had been gored, as if he were a blood hungry beast like Tango, gorged on the blood of the innocents.

"Are you this pathetic for all the other vampires oh great hunter," Tango voices rings through his head, as if he is all at once echoing from miles away and booming like a cannon, and he can't help but feel a deep shame rack through him at just how much Tango's voice turns him on.

Before Martyn can shake his head, his words spill out. "No Tango... only you."

The candle falls into the fog of the world beyond the mirror. His arms wiggle behind his back, grazing Tango's stomach and jumping when he felt the soft give of flesh devoid of all the warmth expected of a person. Well Tango wasn't a mortal person. He could feel him rustling behind him, moving, but Martyn could only see himself, chest stained red and heaving

"Good pet."

Martyn seizes when he feels it. The dull drag of his fangs, like a blunted blade against his throat, sends a visceral shiver down his spine. He was teasing him (for once) with each streak of those cold points against his neck.

He can feel his heart racing, threatening to break through his sternum and spill on to the ground, waiting for Tango to sink those infernal fangs into his neck. Part of him loathes it: loathes how good it feels, loathes how it makes him melt, loathes that he now fully understands why these monsters are so alluring.

"Did the big bad vamp lose his bark-" Suddenly, Martyn is gripped by the overwhelming sensation that he's had his throat pierced by twin icicles. A quick, sharp pain, blisteringly cold that slowly fades to a dull throbbing numbness radiating across his neck.

Martyn can feel his breath quicken when he catches the drizzle of red spilling past the lips pressing against his neck that he cannot see, meandering down his neck in thick sanguine streams. He could feel his blood racing, coursing through his body and Tango's, and it's such a destructively sublime sensation.

He can see it himself, how his eyes go hazy, his body going malleable in the cold invisible hold of the vampire, how his breath hitches and catches in his throat when Tango drinks deep. It's euphoric, the way Tango's hands become warmer, the rough playful pulling on his cock seizing him with a new intensity, the hand on his neck now biting at him like the comfort of a familiar pillow.

He was easily losing himself to the ministrations of the vampire as he drank deep and seemingly did not care how much he spilled.

Martyn isn't even aware Tango's hand leaves his neck until he feels it spark against his neck like striking a match. Even as Tango's fingers drag through rivers of red, staining his pale skin, the ghost of his hand keeps Martyn fixed on his reflection.

"Open up pet, time for a little treat," whatever fight he might have had floods out of his body through the two punctures in his neck. He does as told, tongue hanging over his lip. The echo of a chuckles in the vast emptiness behind him as fingers he cant see are dragged across his lips, smearing red like a good rouge, before being pressed on the flat of his lax tongue.

The whimper that shudders out is diabolically pathetic. Tango's fingers dance on the wetness of his tongue, mixing his own blood into his spit, forcing the harsh taste of iron into his mouth.

"Such a sweet vintage, a little smokey, a delectable slab of meat..." The way Tango's words cut the space between them it almost feels as if he's inhabiting the thick haze wrapping his mind. Maybe he is... Martyn is too fucked out to figure that out at the moment.

Even now, his reflection is the only thing he can make out definitively, indents flat against his tongue drip blood into the back of his mouth, drool spilling onto the splattered rows of wax marking his chest like the harsh kiss of a whip.

How happily he is debasing himself...

The taste, the heavy metallic taste filling his throat does slowly get less harsh. It never gets sweet like Tango claims, but as his fangs sink back into his flesh, a smokey undertone floods into his mouth.

His fangs sink into some new part of him, and he is seized by the sensation that Tango is flossing with his carotids… and he can only watch with a whimpering moan as he cums all over Tango's mirror. He watches his body shake. The invisible force manipulating him like a meat puppet leaves his mouth, letting his relaxed jaw hang as he spills all over himself.

Tango snickers, "I didn't even touch you that much, well... not that there's much to touch." His words are a distant echo, drowning below the low breathy moaning spilling out of his blood marked lips.

Tango drains him for everything he's got. While his sword (It might be more apt to say dagger) may not be the mightest, his balls were heavy, and Martyn was being forced to watch as he continued to shoot streaks across the mirror, covering his reflection in his own release.

He wouldn't be sure he stopped if Tango's fingers didn't return to roost in his hair, tangling themselves in thick golden locks like he was pulling weeds, as he pressed Martyn against the mirror.

"Well pet, clean up your mess." Oh that... Martyn is just about cognitive to follow the command, not that he has much of a choice in reality, as Tango drags his face against the mirror, his tongue catching his own mess. It's tart, Martyn has never liked the taste of his own cum and Tango knows this, but what could he do about it?

So, he cleans up his mess. Tango loosens his grip, letting Martyn dictate his own course, but he makes sure he watches. Made sure he watches the great slayer clean up his own mess after being drained by his prey, lapping up each thick strang and milky glob as he had been told to. It was he who was prey now, and they both knew it.

Once Martyn had finished tongue cleaning the mirror, the spreader bar was effortlessly removed and the rope pulled away in such a fast singular motion that Martyn was sure his body was stained with red chains.

The hunter fell to his knees, and then further. Sat on cold stone, knees pressed together, legs turned outward, arms slack against his side, head lifted high slowly swaying back and forth as he recollected his breath in long raspy breaths.

For the first time in a while, he catches a glimpse of Tango, throwing a robe on. The vampire approaches him, ethereal, just about coherent if a little blurry around the edges.

The vampire, with a cheshire grin, slowly drags a blackened claw along his wrist, enough to break an angry red line in its pale flesh. With an unholy aloofness, it holds its wrist out to Martyn, blood spilling like a waterfall.

"Is tonight the night pet, where we stop playing these silly games, and you give in?" The last three words scream through his head as Martyn finds himself transfixed on the sanguine stream. His body screams at him to take it, to drink deep, to wrap his lips around Tango's forearms and gulp him down.

But... he can't. Martyn turns away and swallows that perverse desire.

"I'll... I'll get you next time..."

Tango smirks with a content huff.

"You're not getting any younger Martyn... do think it over before you waste my time again." In a twisting of darkness, Tango is gone but the world does not return to him. Shakily, Martyn stands and finds the will to button his shirt and pull his trousers up before staggering back to town in the light of the rising sun.

Next time... Next time for sure...

Thank you for reading! AO3: Link

#crow fic archive #ficlet #trafficnsfw #.ml #.tt #accidentally choked myself too hard while doing research now my throat hurts lmao #Crow Ficlet

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woncon · 2 months ago

Text

➳ deal with the devil

➶ enhypen hyung line x demon!reader ｡˚ °

-ˏ` ✎﹏ "See? Who's the victim and who's the hunter is a matter of opinion. You've got the throwing star, but your neck bleeds because of my teeth. Who's who now?"

The whole university went out to haunt people on Halloween night, but you're in detention. So you're playing a game of hunter and prey. They're the hunters, you're the prey.

Only for a while.

➴ genre: suggestive, demon au, warlock au, supernatural college au, pre-poly / friends in a big situationship

: ̗̀➛ warnings: very slight knife play, jakehoon (not actually, you'll get it), seduction as manipulation (it works!), predator/prey with a twist, biting, making out, actually not as dark as it seems

⌨ :: 4.2K words ♡ ︵ . .

⁀➷ i'm a little late, but it's done. happy halloween, engenes! 🎃

⁀➷ thanks to @wonsheep for beta-ing this <3 i'll give you a pack of jelly beans later.

➳ mlist

The cursed piano plays his favorite classic in the Music Room. Melancholic, dark melodies float towards you as the heel of your shoe beats up the silence of the abandoned corridor. You twirl the sweets in your pocket. Jungwon gave them to you before he left to go and scare people. He probably did it out of pity, since you couldn't go with him to the usual Halloween campus program. The piano in the distance starts a new song, and you take off to push the arched door of the Hall of the Immortals, decorated with vines and skulls. The wood wails to let you enter the hall, where the rituals of demons and witches usually take place. Right now there are no reddish pentagrams painted on the floor or heavy, sinister books and bones on the table. Only a few candles flicker and surround a table with four mugs on it. There's a fifth, held in the warlock’s palm, and he's about to plunge a dollop of thick, brownish liquid from the pot with great care into it.

You wait for the door to slam behind you, shutting out the piano's dismal song, but instead somebody catches the heavy door, and you are perhaps a little startled by the sudden presence behind you.

“Mugs? Really?” Heeseung looks on with disbelief as he sidesteps you. “The school has so many goblets, there's one for every rite. And you put the curse into a mug?”

“Don't be such a snob,” says Jay, placing the filled cup next to the others. He neatly arranges them in a circle.

“I'm not a snob,” replies Heeseung darkly.

“Imagine that it's just pumpkin flavored hot chocolate. Four really is just that, so maybe you don't even have to imagine.”

Although, the way Jay is looking at Heeseung right now, he might want the elder to choose the one with the curse. To somehow relieve the tension you sense, you walk over to the table and eye the similarly plain brown china, from which a fragrant, spicy steam rises.

“They're cute,” you note.

Heeseung snorts and leans against one of the tables against the wall. The light from the candles doesn't reach there, and his tall figure is completely lost in the darkness, in the shadow. Remembering how lonely and desolate the university's castle is this evening, you wish he would drink the curse, that he'd be the one to be hunted down tonight. He's so good at blending in, that you probably wouldn't catch him.

“Where did you get them?” You stroke one of the mugs’ handles and stare hard, in hope that you recognise the cursed one.

“From the kitchen. Someone in the divination department has already got the mugs in advance, so that we can paint on them at Christmas.”

It was the same last year, you painted on mugs before the break. Everyone had a chance to get creative and take the results home. But for now, you're going to play. Christmas is still a distant, frost-white dream. At the hour of death, when the bodies crawl out of the grave and the children dress up as monsters while the monsters themselves walk among them, you are going to play a game in which someone nearly dies.

One of you.

The door opens with another slam. An impatient demon rushes to the table.

“Are you ready? Is the curse in there?” asks Jake, leaning so far against the table that the drinks are shaken and the tip of his horn almost grazes Jay's skin. “Can we start?”

His excitement spreads to the candles. They flare up, burning orange and giving off enough light for you to see the tip of Heeseung's boot.

“Sunghoon is not here yet.”

“Did he chicken out?” Heeseung asks mockingly.

“Haha, no,” replies Sunghoon, who also emerges from the shadows, but not through the door. He came through the secret witch's passage from the hall, which the demons don't know about, so you can only guess which way the entrance might be. “I've just spiced up the curse to make sure it's effective. With snake venom.”

And the flames burn faster, even more brightly. The white wax drips in hot drops down the melting stump, as if to symbolize Jake's anticipation. You, on the other hand, who has no effect on the lights with your emotions, are merely blown away because the contents of the vial Sunghoon brought you mix so easily with the hot chocolate that after Jay spins the tray on which the mugs are standing, you have no idea which one contains the poison-turbocharged curse.

You're about to find out.

You're all gathered around the table, and it's not just Jake and the candles that are radiating excitement anymore. You can hardly breathe.

“Everybody take one. On three," Jay says in a serious tone. “One, two, three.”

You reach for one of the cups that looks sympathetic. With a trembling hand you lift it to your mouth.

"Ouch, it's hot!" exclaims Jake.

"Obviously. Because it's hot chocolate," Heeseung rolls his eyes. Sunghoon scowls at him.

“Do you feel strange?” Jay asks Jake, who is fanning his tongue.

“It just hurts like hell.”

Finally, after the interlude, you pluck up the courage and drink your own. You are careful, only taking a tiny sip, so you don't burn yourself like others, but it immediately starts burning your mouth and then your throat. You grip your skin, fingers curling into claws, hoping to scrape the tantalizing taste out of you. This is not what a pumpkin flavored hot chocolate is like, not at all.

You fall to your knees, gasping for air. A supporting hand brushes your shoulder. When you feel better, you stand up.

You feel immortal, and yet very, very vulnerable. Weak. Like a victim.

///

Your friends are lurking to kill you.

Three important events have led to this moment, as far as you can tell. First, the day you were learning in demonology class about the various torture methods that demons have developed together with witches. One of these was the curse of immortality, where a person is immortal and can therefore be tortured beyond the extreme. Then came the time when you summoned a spirit with Sunghoon's ouija board. The spirit lady possessed Sunghoon and flirted with Jake through him. Jake was so embarrassed that the armchair underneath him immediately caught on fire, and half the lounge was burnt down before they could put the flames out. It didn't end well for the community space, nor for you. That's when you were banned from going out into the human world on Halloween to haunt. So that led to the third event, when you were wondering what to do to distract yourselves when Halloween came. What could you do to have fun? Jake suggested horror movies. Heeseung said those are boring because what's the point of watching killers hunt when you could be the ones hunting. And the picture came together.

That's how your friends happened to be hunting you down today. With crossbows, knives, swords, anything and everything they can find. If they catch you before dawn and make you give up, they win. If you hold out and survive, you win.

The scariest part is you don't know what they're up to. How they're going to get you, and with what.

You fear Heeseung the most. His family is a traditional one of demons who sacrifice goats on full moons and blood moons. With such experience and your horns twisted into the shape that goats’ ones are, it's easy to imagine you as the animal and take your blood until you beg for them to stop. It's just a sick fantasy, you reassure yourself. Heeseung can't see you as a goat if he recalls you kissing in his bed a few days ago. He probably doesn't do that to sacrificial goats. There is some level of tender emotion here.

You turn in after one of the rows of lockers. You don't know exactly where you are. You don't usually have classes in this corner of campus, and it doesn't help that there's no lighting. Yesterday, colorful decorations hung everywhere and talking, red-eyed skeletons strutted at the doors of classrooms to greet students arriving for class. Real bats fluttered around the ceiling, occasionally getting into the hair of passers-by. Pumpkins were placed here and there and their scent was everywhere. But the memory is not worth much now. The university is haunted. A murderers' den. The den of your murderers.

And as much as you're a successful demon, proud of your professors, at this moment you're nothing but a frightened victim, not sure if you're capable of being a ‘final girl’. But you're trying as hard as you can.

In your pocket, you're fiddling with your sweets. Your palms are sweating, your sweets may be melting soon. When the candy papers make noise, you quickly reach out and look around. It is deathly quiet. Everything is still. You've long since left the piano's surroundings behind you. Have they banded together to hunt you down as a team, or are they looking for you individually? Where are the witches' passages? Do Jake and Heeseung use the demons' ones?

You can't hide your fear. Your breathing gets heavier with each passing minute.

It's just a game. Just a game, you remind yourself. Or at least it is now. In the Middle Ages, it wasn't considered a game by the poor people who were tortured to madness.

Something snaps. Must be the knightly armor worn by the fanged pig statues in the corridors. It's been knocked off, then it fell softly to the carpet. What did they knock it down with? That's an easy question to answer when you hear the heavy weapon being dragged across the carpet. A big poleaxe, a very big poleaxe is coming, and it's coming for you.

Your footsteps become frantic, but you try to remain silent and get as far away from your pursuer as possible. The corridor ends in a staircase somewhere, you can make it that far and then decide which way to go. Except that somewhere nearby a door opens. Right in the direction you're going. You're forced to hide in the nearest room before you're trapped halfway down. As quietly as you can, you push down on the handle, squeeze through the gap and throw your back against the door. You close your eyes in the darkness and try to slow your breathing. In, out, in, out.

But you're not alone here either. Something squeaks in the dark, then croaks. Hisses and scratches. It makes a throat sound, rises, then finally lands on your shoulder. It's the three-headed bird, the university mascot. You don't have to see it to know it's rubbing its raven head against your hair. That's the head on the far left. Then comes the owl, and finally the hawk.

He's waiting for a treat. You give him something every time you see him. If you don't, he starts throwing a fit, which means it starts squawking loudly with all three heads as if were an alarm.

“Hi, Casper,” you greet him quietly. “Look what I brought you.”

You reach into your pocket and take out the first piece of candy. Carefully, you peel it out of the wrapper and drop it in the crow's mouth. It happily closes up. Then the owl's opens. You pop the next candy into it, and so far you're very proud of your thriftiness. The hawk is also waiting for its turn, but there's only empty paper in your pocket when you're rummaging around. You remember that you ate the third piece you had, because the poison still tasted awful, even after you'd swallowed the disgusting sip. You sucked on the candy during the rules discussion, and it tasted so good. At this moment, you miss it very much.

The hawk closes his mouth, opens it again, makes a soft noise, then nips the back of your hand.

“I'm sorry, but that's it. That's all, okay? I'll bring you more next time if you don't open your beak, hmm?” You bargain pleadingly.

Your physical wellness depends on a sugar-addicted monster bird. As it turns out, Capser is not on your side. He flies off your shoulder, his wings rustling loudly in the dark. Then his voice rings out. All three of his mouths start to wag at once, wanting more than two grains of sugar.

“Fuck.”.

You need to get out. Quickly.

You start feeling around the furniture. You're in the library, you know the feel of the old armchairs. Since most of the lounge burned down, you've been coming here under strict supervision. As you've been here many times, you know there's a secret demon passage in the wall. If you can get there, maybe you'll get lucky and your blood won't stain the furniture. And if you're lucky, you won't run into anybody in there who wants to stab you either.

You start walking carefully and almost fall on your face, tripping in one of the coffee tables. The door creaks open and the bard clatters on the floor of the room. Scrambling on your aching foot, you reach the secret door and throw yourself behind it. And then, with your ankle throbbing, you dash.

You run and run, as if it was the hot, angry hell at your heels.

Somehow you get to your own room. A pentagram lies reassuringly on the floor. You fall to your knees in it, breathing thunderously. You could do with a fiery cup of coffee or an energy drink to give you strength. But at least this hand-drawn pentagram radiates security. It's like you've found sanctuary.

You need a plan.

But when a masked figure emerges from under Jungwon's blanket, you can't think of plans. You leap up to dart for the door, but a sword stands in your way. If you keep going, it will cut you in two. Instead, you jump back into the pentagram and look up at your captor. His mask is a weeping drama face. He's wrapped himself in a cloak that covers his entire face. You cannot tell if the horns you see belong to him or to the mask. He waves his gloved hand at you.

“What's it going to be? Are you going to skewer me?”

The masked man shakes his head. He gets up from the bed, now towering over you. He draws a question mark in the air with the tip of his sword, then points at himself.

“You?” you ask. “What about you?”

He shrugs.

Maybe this guessing game is worse than if he'd thrown you up on the edge of his sword in the first minute. Him playing games with you makes you nervous. You're surprised to find your fear is fading. This could have something to do with the beneficial effects of the pentagram. In any case, you're able to forge a plan.

“Oh, come on, now. Take the mask off.”

He shakes his head.

You think about the chains under your bed.

You are not allowed to use weapons. Their wounds will not heal as yours will thanks to the curse. But no one said you couldn't use your charm. If your starting point is that you've been in all of their mouths, you have a chance to play this card. What do you have to lose by trying? If they all want to play, that's fine. If they underestimate you, you can take advantage. They have the weapons, but you're smart. If you push fear and panic to the back of your mind, you can succeed. You can succeed because you're tired of running around with them just waiting here and there, chasing you.

Let this be a game for you, too.

“Should I guess who's under there?”

This time he nods.

“Then you let me go?”

He pauses, thinking. Then he nods enthusiastically.

He should know better than to make a deal with the devil.

“Hmm. Give me a minute.”

You get up and dust off your knees. It feels good to be back to yourself. You're not looking at a killer anymore, you're looking at one of your friends dressed as a killer. But which one? Heeseung hates wearing masks at ceremonies, not to mention he's not the playful type. If he has to stab you to win, he'll stab you. He's out. You're taking a good look at the masked man. He's got sneakers peeking out from under his robe. Jay's wearing brown boots. That leaves Sunghoon and Jake.

How exciting.

You reach for the top button of your shirt and undo it. And then the next one. “Wow. I'm so hot from running around.”

When you reach the third button, and most of your chest is perfectly visible, the candle on the desk comes to life and burns orange. You smile in satisfaction and put your hands on your hips.

“So will you take the mask off, Jake?”

He tilts his head towards the table, then sighs in disappointment. He takes the mask off.

“You took advantage of my embarrassment!”

“That's it. Now come here. Your hair is all messed up.”

Jake drops the sword, takes off the cloak, and obeys. You take the mask from him and arrange his locks.

“Good,” you nod. You step out of the pentagram. “Claude eam,” you murmur, and the pentagram glows red.

“What? Did you really just lock me up?” the boy asks, stunned. “But I let you go!”

“Sorry, but I haven't forgiven you for threatening me with a sword yet," you blow a kiss in the air, then reach for the robe resting on Jungwon's bed. “And I need to borrow this.”

“What are you up to?”

You just wink, then put on his mask. It's interesting to wear the enemy's face. When you put on the cloak too, you transform completely. You go from prey to full-fledged hunter.

“Oh. You look hot like this.”

“Thanks.”

///

It's not difficult to find Sunghoon, you just have to follow the sound of the poleaxe scraping on the carpet. You tap his hunched back. He looks up.

“Jakey! Did you find them?”

You nod. Sunghoon straightens up completely.

“Where?”

You take him by the arm and lead him to the nearest room. Luckily, there are windows and enough moonlight to keep you from tripping. You're in the dining room. A fitting location for what you plan to do with Sunghoon. You point to a long table with a tablecloth that reaches to the floor. Sunghoon approaches. He slowly kneels beside it, then peers under the tablecloth.

You take advantage of this and push him to the ground, straddling his hips.

"Jake!" he exclaims in surprise. "What are you doing?”

You put your finger over his mouth. You run it down his chin, down his neck, over his Adam's apple, down and down and down his chest. When your palm strokes his stomach under his shirt, Sunghoon's mouth opens, his head dropping to the carpet. With your free hand, you pull the scarf from your pocket. You stole it from one of the ghost decorations and put it to good use when you blindfold the boy. He looks irresistible like this under you. You take off the mask and kiss his chin.

“We have to find-” You grab his hips. He immediately falls silent.

As you push his shirt up his stomach, he thrusts his hips up. You clasp his wrists, lift them above his head, and pull a magic cuff from your other pocket. You stole this from the torture chamber exhibit. It doesn't open with a key, only with a spell. Sunghoon can entertain himself with it.

You cuff both his hands to the leg of the table. You lean to his ear.

“What were you planning to do with that axe?” you whisper.

Sunghoon stiffens under you, but soon relaxes again.

“I didn't mean to hurt you, just to scare you.”

“You succeeded. I don't want to get you laid either, just to get you horny. Did I succeed as well?” You sit on his groin. Sunghoon moans. “Yeah, it seems so.”

“Please…”

“Don't worry. I'll be back soon. There are only two of you left.”

You climb down and out from under the table. The successful hunt gives you endorphins. You can't wait for the next victim to walk into your trap.

///

You don't have to search for long. As soon as a throwing star whizzes past you, all you have to do is turn around and there's Jay. In his hand, he's twirling the next throwing star. “Give up.”

“No, thank you.”

He throws the next one, which rips your shirt, but doesn't hurt you. You back up to the nearest wall and let him use you as a target. Jay misses again and again. He doesn't want to hurt you, and that's comforting..

“Give up,” he steps in front of you. “Please. We never should have agreed to play this game in the first place.”

You put your arm around his waist and pull him closer to you. “I'm fine.”

“As of now. But you haven't met Heeseung, have you? You didn't see that fire in his eyes.”

“When we meet, I'll defeat him.”

“How?”

"With my mouth," you tell him. You stroke his jugular with the tip of your nose. "I'll beat you with my mouth too."

You lick his skin, then sink your teeth into it, the movement soft and light like a knife in butter. Jay's forehead falls to your shoulder, but he doesn't flinch, doesn't resist. You lean away and smile up at him. His eyes are misty.

"See? Who's the victim and who's the hunter is a matter of opinion. You've got the throwing star, but your neck bleeds because of my teeth. Who's who now?"

“I'm... dizzy.”

“I know.”

You help him slide down the wall and stretch out on the ground. By the time he lands, he's asleep.

You smeared your teeth with a sleeping potion called vampire kisses. You bought it as a joke, you’ve never used it before. You had to go back to the room to get it, but at least you could see that Jake was okay. He summoned himself a console, and he's playing on it in the middle of the pentagram.

You wrap the stolen cloak around Jay's body, then head to finish your hunt for the day.

You plan the finale to be truly spectacular and grandiose.

///

The cursed piano doesn't play alone. Ten fingers rest on its keys and duet with it. The music is somber and dark, deep but inviting. You hope Heeseung, your last killer, your last prey, will come to hear your serenade. You’re playing for him.

You aren't disappointed. He doesn't even try to hide his footsteps, as if he was just waiting to see when you'll reveal yourself to him.

"It's a painful song," he says when you finish. You turn towards him on the bench.

With the light of the candles you have lit for the occasion, his face is half lost in the shadows, but you easily recognise the pocket knife held loosely in his hand.

“Painful, but beautiful. Just like you.”

Heeseung chuckles. “How can I stab you when you’re flirting with me?”

You shrug. “Be creative.”

“Yeah?”

He steps closer. He lifts your chin with the tip of the knife. There's indeed a wildness in his eyes, but Jay misread that. He's not like this because he wants to kill, but because he can give chase. You know it because your gaze would be the same if you looked in the mirror. The happiness of a successful hunt turns Heeseung's face red and makes his eyes sparkle, but he doesn't actually want to hurt you.

One by one, he cuts off your buttons and looks you in the eye. They all fall to the ground and scatter.

“I met Sunghoon on the way here.”

“Did you like the view?”

Heeseung's tongue strokes his fang. – “You're evil. Wicked.”

“I wouldn't say that. I'm rather consistent. They were the ones who made a deal with the devil. These are the consequences.”

“And what do I deserve?”

“I'm thinking about it.” Even though you say that, you already know what you want to do with him. You want him to remember that you defeated him for a long time.

“That means you're not giving up, right?” Heeseung helps you out of your shirt.

“If I remember the rules correctly, the game is over when I beg.”

“Understood.” He sits down next to you on the piano bench and kisses you. You part your lips and brush your tongue against his. Heeseung shudders. Your palm slides to his thigh, and he drops the knife.

Of the four, he is the most hungry for touch. He doesn't like to admit it, hiding behind his smug, cold and mocking mask, but when you’re making out, it's obvious. You lean in close, let him touch you where he wants, and when he can't think of anything but you, you ask him.

“Did I win?”

“You won.”

It's as sweet to hear that from his lips as it is to kiss them. It's as sweet as Jay's blood, the fire from Jake's embarrassment, or even as sweet as Sunghoon's commitment to drag a bard across campus just to scare you. Sweet enough to make your victory complete.

#enhypen x gender neutral reader #enhypen x reader #enha x reader #sunghoon x reader #heeseung x reader #jay x reader #jake x reader #enha hyung line #enhypen hyung line x reader #happy halloween #gender neutral y/n #enha hyung line x reader #enhypen x gn reader

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cloudss-space · 3 days ago

Text

Emo boy

( killer chat ) emo boy ronin x hot topic worker reader ... fluff ...

author note: personally, not my fav, but i did want to write something involving "emo boy ronin" so, this is my attempt on that. i hope that you all enjoy !! trigger warning: - slight none

You step into the bright fluorescent light of Hot Topic, the air thick with the scent of synthetic leather, stale incense, and overpriced vanilla-scented candles. The walls are covered in band posters, slashed denim jackets, and the eerie glow of neon skulls. The clock in the corner ticks, its hands crawling, reluctant to even whisper the passage of time.

The outside world seems to bleed into the space. You can hear the hum of the pavement through the glass door and feel the restless heat pressing against the window. But inside, there is nothing but this cocoon of plastic and metal. Customers come in droves, their faces as pale as ghosts. Each one is a shadow passing through, drawn by the allure of rebellion. They skim the shelves, their fingers brushing across black fabric and metal, never pausing long enough to care. No one stays long enough to see the rot beneath the surface, the decay festering in the corners.

You lean against the counter, staring intently at the skull rings and spiked chokers. There's a dread in the air, a silence that is too loud. The people pass by you like ghosts, nothing more than moving shapes that dissolve into the dark corners of this purgatory. You catch glimpses of their empty, hollow eyes, filled with the deadness that matches your own. They flicker and die as quickly as they ignite.

A shrill sound slices through the air. The register dings as yet another transaction is made, yet another meaningless purchase. You feel the weight of time wasted as you hold the small sliver of paper in your hand. Another moment lost. You shove it into the drawer, the metal clattering like a corpse hitting the floor.

A couple approaches the counter. The girl is wearing a tight T-shirt that shows off her arms, which hang limp by her sides. Her eyes are shadowed, her makeup smeared like ash from a dying fire. The boy beside her wears chains so heavy they could drag him into the underworld. They argue about which pair of boots would fit better, but you don't care. You want to scream at them, tell them how insignificant their choices are in the grand scheme of nothingness. But you don't. You watch them. Their breaths rise and fall like the dull thud of a drumbeat.

As they leave, you look at the clock. It hasn't moved. The seconds are frozen in place, refusing to shift. You are stuck in this place, trapped in a loop of tedious moments that stretch and stretch into infinity. The light flickers overhead, casting jagged shadows across the room like a sickening pulse. It makes you shiver. You want to scream. But you won't.

A shriek of feedback tears through the speakers. You flinch at the noise scraping against your mind, gnawing at the edges of your sanity. Another band. Another song. The lyrics are blood-soaked, dripping from the speakers like a warning you can't decipher. It's all noise, all hollow sound with no meaning. It fills the void, but only makes it worse.

Then, a pair of black boots clunk against the floor and your attention is drawn to them. Another customer. Another shadow. She picks at her fingernails, as if trying to find the truth in the cracks of her skin. She doesn't look at you, but you see her out of the corner of your eye. The drag of her steps, the subtle sway of her body, as though she's been hollowed out from the inside, searching for something she'll never find. You watch her. She disappears into the dark, leaving nothing behind but a whiff of her perfume—a cloying scent of decay.

The silence returns. It's a suffocating kind of quiet, the kind that's too thick to breathe in. You don't know how long it's been since anyone spoke. The store is empty, just one person in the corner, hunched over a display of wristbands. They move slowly, like a ghost in a dream, hands trailing over the leather, never touching anything. They're waiting for something to happen, something to break the silence. But nothing happens. Seconds tick by.

The overhead lights buzz again, like flies caught in a spider's web. You can hear your own breath in the hollow space, your pulse thrumming in your veins like a drum that refuses to slow down. You glance at the clock. There is no movement. The minutes are frozen in time, caught in the jaws of some endless, agonising moment. You wonder if the world outside still exists, or if it has crumbled to dust.

Your fingers curl into fists, but they shake. Your chest constricts as if the air itself is thickening, making it hard to breathe. You feel the weight of your own existence pressing down on you. This place, this job, is a prison, a cage built from nothing but endless hours of waiting for something that never comes. You could scream, you could tear at your skin, but it wouldn't matter. The walls will not move. The clock doesn't tick any faster.

The next customer enters, a young man with a lip piercing and a look of quiet despair. His eyes are dark, filled with something you can't name, and for a moment, you wonder if he sees it too. You carry the same emptiness, the same weight of something unspoken. But he moves on, picks up a t-shirt and shuffles to the counter, and you are certain he can feel the same hollow echo you do. If he knows this place is just a veil, a mask over the abyss.

He hands you the shirt, and you take it, instantly recognising the fabric as ash. It's black, as expected. It's always black. You ring it up, the register making its empty noise. The drawer opens with a squeal, and you think about how long it's been since you've felt anything other than numb.

When he leaves, the door chimes as he departs, and you watch the last of the light fade. The shadows grow, stretching across the room and swallowing the colour whole. The walls close in on you, but you stay still, frozen in place, as the silence grows louder and louder until it engulfs you.

The clock ticks once more. Another second gone. Another moment slipping through your fingers. You are waiting for something to change, or you have forgotten what it feels like to move. The day stretches on. The world beyond the glass remains a distant memory.

Time. It is a slow, dripping wound that won't heal.

The door chimes again, a soft clang, barely a whisper in the dense air. A boy steps in. He's the kind of boy who doesn't walk, he drifts—like a shadow made flesh, fading in and out of existence with each step he takes. His skinny jeans hug his legs so tightly they almost appear to be painted on, dark denim faded by too many hours spent in the same empty room. His boots click with a muted tap against the floor, the only sound in the suffocating stillness.

His hair falls over his face like a dark curtain, long and tangled, reaching down to his shoulders. It's the kind of hair that's perpetually windblown, yet static, as though he's caught in some endless storm of his own making. The bangs fall in uneven lines, framing his face in a way that looks deliberate, as though he's hiding from the world—or maybe just hiding from himself.

The shirt he wears is an MCR tee. The black fabric bears the logo like a badge of honour, like a secret carved into his skin. You've seen that shirt a thousand times, but it looks different on him. He wears it like a shroud, like it shields him from the world that doesn't care. The world has already eaten him alive and left nothing but the remnants of someone who used to be. His eyes are sunken, deep shadows under them, like he hasn't slept in weeks, hasn't bothered to wipe away the tracks of whatever sadness or rage he carries.

The dark streaks of make-up on his face blend into his pale skin. The way it clings to him is almost ritualistic, as though he's painted the darkness on, drawn it across his features to summon something, to become something else—something dead. It's wrong, but it's perfect. You feel an inexplicable pull toward him, an attraction you can't quite place. It's not the makeup, the dark circles or the clothes. It's the way he moves—or doesn't move. He's there, but not there. His existence seems to fade from the edges of reality.

He stares at the shelves. His gaze is unfocused. He sees something beyond the merchandise. His hands twitch at his sides, fingers brushing the air as though reaching for something just out of reach. You are certain that he is not aware of you watching him, nor does he notice the world around him. He is living in his own private hell, removed from everything, just like you.

Your pulse accelerates, a strange heat spreading through your body. You can't stop looking at him. His stillness, the haunted way he walks, the dark aura that seems to swirl around him like a storm cloud, draws you in. It's a magnetic pull. It's not just about his looks. It's darker, it's dangerous, like the gravity of a black hole. You can feel it in the air, suffocating, drawing everything toward him, sucking you in.

He picks up a chain from a nearby rack, turning it in his fingers. The links of the chain glint in the light, but he is not at all delicate. The way he handles it, casually, as if it's an afterthought, only makes him more intriguing. His lips are set in a thin, tired line, not quite a frown, not quite a smirk, but both, and it's clear he's seen too many broken things, too many things left unsaid.

The air thickens around him. You could almost reach out and touch the space where he stands, where everything about him feels alive, but it doesn't feel like he's alive—not really. His pulse is distant, like it's coming from far away, a heartbeat that's too slow, too deep, too alien to be real. You think you see him shiver, but it's gone before you can confirm it. He doesn't shiver. He doesn't feel.

But he's beautiful. There's a tragedy in him, an ache in your chest you didn't feel before he walked in. He's broken in a way that draws you in, a puzzle that you don't want to solve but can't look away from. You recognise his pain, even without the details. The emptiness in him mirrors the emptiness in you, a dark reflection of the same hollow space that never quite fills.

He turns toward the counter and sees you. His eyes meet yours—sunken and dark, like the bruises of a life lived too close to the edge. There's a fleeting glimpse of recognition in his eyes, but it's fleeting and he quickly looks away. His lips part slightly, and for a heartbeat, you're sure he's going to say something.

But he doesn't say anything. He just looks at you, his gaze heavy, weighing you down like a thousand unspoken thoughts pressing against your chest. His eyes are deep pools of sorrow, but they still find a way to pierce you, to draw you closer. When he doesn't speak, you feel a pang of disappointment. But then, you realise, maybe it's better this way. The silence between you is not just a lack of words, but a shared understanding, a communication without words.

He walks up to the counter, slowly, like he's been frozen in time and is only just starting to thaw. You remain still. You are trapped in the moment, caught in the way the air seems to bend around him. His hand reaches for his wallet, pulling it out with a fluid motion, the dark leather slipping through his fingers like the night itself. You feel his presence all around you, suffocating and intoxicating, like a perfume you can't quite name.

The register dings again, but this time the noise barely cuts through the fog between you. You ring up his purchase mechanically, your hands moving on their own, but your mind is elsewhere—lost in the depth of his eyes, in the hollow of his expression, in the way he stands there, silent, waiting for something that doesn't come.

When he finally leaves, the air itself seems to shift, the space around you hollowed out in his absence. The door chimes again as he vanishes into the world, slipping away like a ghost that was never really there. You're left standing at the counter, your heart thudding in your chest, and you wonder if you'll ever see him again, or if he was just a figment of your own aching mind.

The clock ticks on, ignoring him. But you're not the same. Something inside you has shifted. The air feels heavier, charged with something you can't name. And for the first time today, you realise you've been holding your breath.

The next day is a long, dark road. The store feels the same: suffocating in its fluorescent glow, the walls closing in on you. The silence settles like dust in the corners, the shelves full of meaningless trinkets that mock your restless mind. But even in this heavy, stagnant air, there's something different.

You feel a pull, a hum in the air that you can't quite name. Your thoughts drift back to him, that boy with the long hair and the hollow stare, his presence like a spectre that lingers in the edges of your mind. You are certain that he will return today, that that strange pull will bring him back through the door, or that he was just a dream—one you couldn't wake from.

And then, the door chimes again.

It's soft at first, like a whisper in the stillness, but it's unmistakable. You turn your head, your breath catching in your chest. There he is. He's the same boy, stepping into the store like he belongs there, like he's made of the same air and shadows. His long black hair hangs over his face, but today, there's a subtle difference. His eyes aren't hidden behind his bangs. His eyes are dark and sunken, but there's something else in them now. A flicker. A spark. It's as if you can see recognition in them.

He doesn't look around like last time. He's more focused now, his gaze sweeping over the shelves with a slow intensity, as though he's searching for something only he understands. His steps are quiet, deliberate, as if he's trying to blend into the shadows, yet you can't help but notice him. He stands out in this sea of monotony, in this place full of faces that barely register.

His eyes meet yours, and the world stops for a moment. Your breath catches in your throat, the air thickening between you. His gaze is no longer hollow or distant, but searching. It's as if he's found what he was looking for.

He strides purposefully towards the counter, his steps confident and determined. He's different today. More alive. But still carrying that same weight of something unsaid. His face is pale and his dark circles under his eyes are still there, but today he has more to him. It's as if a slow-burning ember lies behind the darkness, its soft glow almost visible on closer inspection. He doesn't speak immediately, but you can feel the words hanging in the air between you.

You find yourself waiting, your heart pounding a little harder than it should. There's no reason for it. Nothing has changed, except the way your pulse quickens at the sight of him. You tell yourself to breathe, to stay focused, but your mind won't stop racing.

And then, he speaks.

It's just one word, but it cuts through the air, slicing through the tension that has built between you. "Hey," he says, his voice low and almost drowned out by the silence of the store. But his voice is there. It's real. When he says it, you can feel the weight of his gaze shift, settling on you like a weight on your chest.

"Hey," you say, your voice barely louder than his. There's a pause, and then you wait, ready for him to say something more—to ask you something, or maybe even speak the words that have been hanging between you since yesterday. But he just stands there. His hands are still at his sides, fingers curling slightly as if fighting the urge to reach out, to touch something, to feel something.

The silence that follows is strangely comforting. It's not awkward, not in the usual sense of silence. It's as if you and he are both suspended in the same moment, trapped in a world that doesn't make sense, where time moves like molasses, yet here, with him, it seems to have stopped altogether.

He picks something off the rack – a black hoodie this time – and runs his fingers over the soft fabric. His eyes never leave the clothing, but you can see the faintest trace of something darker behind them. It's as if he's trying to bury himself in the fabric, to lose himself in the soft, dark embrace of it, like it'll shield him from the world outside.

You want to ask him what brought him back, but you don't. The question feels too heavy, too intrusive. Instead, you watch him, watching the way he moves with such quiet precision, his body almost too still, like he's afraid of being seen. There's a sadness in him, one you know you could get lost in if you're not careful. You want to fall into that darkness with him, to reach out and pull him closer to you, but you stay silent.

He places the hoodie on the counter and you ring it up without a word, the soft hum of the register filling the silence. Your fingers briefly brush against his as you hand him the receipt, and for a second, it's like the world shifts just slightly, just enough for you to feel something electric pass between you. You don't know if he felt it, but you did. The tension in the air grows thicker, heavier, but you don't mind it. It feels right.

He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't need to. He just turns, his movements slow and deliberate, and walks out the door, leaving behind that same stillness, that same lingering feeling that refuses to leave. The door chime echoes in your mind long after he's gone, and you find yourself standing there, staring at the spot where he was.

He will return. When he returns, it will be different. Something is changing, something you can't control.

The days blend into each other, indistinguishable from one another, yet every time the door chimes and he steps in, everything sharpens, everything changes. He's back again, and again, and again—like a restless ghost that can't quite leave, like he's tethered to this place, or maybe to you. The days blur together in this suffocating haze, but his presence makes every second stretch out, bending the hours into something that only exists in the quiet space between you.

Each time he walks through the door, it's like a spark igniting in the air. His eyes meet yours with that same haunting stare, but this time, it's less distant, less lost. There's more now, something unspoken but understood, like an unbroken thread weaving between the two of you. The pull grows stronger with each visit, a gravitational force you can't resist.

He starts off barely saying a word, just the softest "hey" that floats through the air like a secret. But with each encounter, the silence stretches just a little less. He starts to linger, standing by the shelves for a bit longer, as if giving you time to take him in, to get used to the way he moves, the way he seems to blur the line between presence and absence.

Then, one day, it happens. He's standing near the band tees again, running his fingers over the fabric as if trying to decide which piece of darkness he'll drape over himself today. You watch him, your breath catching as you notice the subtle shifts in his demeanour—the way his shoulders relax just a fraction when he notices you looking, how his gaze lingers for a fraction longer than usual.

"Do you think… they'll ever come back?" His voice breaks through the silence, low and almost tentative, as if he's unsure whether you'll answer or not. It's a simple question, but the weight behind it makes your chest tighten. They — the bands, the ones whose shirts are hanging on the racks, their names etched in faded ink on fabric that's been worn down by years of rebellion.

You blink, not quite prepared for this small talk, but your mouth opens on its own. "Maybe," you reply. "But I think it's the kind of thing that doesn't really come back, you know? They're part of a time, and that time's already passed." You're amazed to be talking to this boy who's always seemed like a phantom, and yet, here you are, standing in the middle of this empty store, speaking about something as mundane as old band shirts.

He nods slowly, his lips curving into a faint, almost imperceptible smile. It's so subtle that for a moment, you wonder if you imagined it, but it's there. It's just the slightest hint of something softer, something human. And then you realise: You're falling for him.

It's strange, this attraction. It's an odd sensation, this yearning you feel for him, this hunger that defies logic. It's not just about his looks, though he's undeniably attractive in that brooding, raw way that makes you want to reach out and heal him, to uncover the secrets behind those dark eyes. It's not just about the way he wears his pain, though that's part of it, too. It's the way he exists, simultaneously here and not here, an enigma you can't unravel and a mystery you don't want to solve.

He returns time and time again, and the attraction grows. It's like a fire growing inside you, stoked by each new conversation, each new visit. His eyes linger on you, his posture shifts when he speaks to you, as though you're the only one in the room that matters to him. Look at him when he thinks you're not looking. See the brief flicker of desire beneath the exhaustion, the darkness, the weariness in his expression.

The small talk continues, each encounter slightly different from the last. He talks about the weather, his favourite bands, how tired he is, how the world outside feels heavier with each passing day. In return, you offer him pieces of yourself: small, fragile fragments of who you are. You tell him about your favourite songs, the books you're reading, the slow, dull ache of working here day after day. The conversations feel effortless, as though they're not just casual exchanges, but something more – something intimate, something shared in the quiet spaces where neither of you says what you truly mean.

Sometimes, he'll come in and barely speak. He'll stand there, leaning against the counter, staring into the distance, waiting for something he can't even define. In those moments, you will find yourself standing beside him, offering him a quiet kind of company, the kind that is needed but never asked for. You don't talk; you exist next to him, and somehow, that's enough.

His presence is now an integral part of your routine, something you actively look forward to. You wait for the moment when he'll walk through the door, when the store will go still and the world will narrow to just the two of you in this small, dimly lit space. With every visit and every word exchanged, your connection deepens, pulling you both closer together like two pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit but always belong together.

You know that you're not just waiting for him anymore—you're craving him. The pull is undeniable; your heart skips when he enters the room and your breath catches when his eyes meet yours. There's no denying it now.

He's more than just a boy who comes into the store. He's become a part of your days and your thoughts. You feel like he belongs here just as much as you do. With each visit, with every word, that strange, intoxicating attraction grows deeper, more uncontainable, until you realise it will always be enough.

It's late afternoon. The dimming light outside casts long shadows into the store. The usual hum of fluorescent lights overhead is punctuated by the soft tapping of a keyboard in the back, but the store feels emptier today. It feels suspended, as though time has slowed just for you, just for him. It's one of those quiet days where you almost forget how long you've been here, how many hours have passed since you first arrived this morning. But then the door chimes, and everything shifts.

He strides in, as if the air itself revolves around him, and the room instantly takes on a weighty sense of his presence. Ronin. You don't know why that name feels like it belongs to him, but it does. His long hair falls in its usual curtain, but today, there's a hint of something new in his demeanour—a slight looseness to his posture, like he's letting go of whatever invisible weight he's been carrying around for so long.

He glances around, his eyes flicking over the racks, but always find their way back to you. For a moment, neither of you says anything. The silence is familiar, but different today. There's something more to it, as if it's begging to be said. His gaze is a little softer than usual, like he's waiting for something.

You smile at him, your smile small and uncertain, and your pulse starts to race. He notices. His lips quirk slightly, not quite a smile, but enough to show that he sees you, sees the way your body tenses just slightly when his eyes meet yours. Then, finally, he speaks, his voice solid and real.

"Ronin," he says, and the name is like a breath, sharp and heavy, almost foreign on his lips but somehow fitting, like he's just stepped out of the shadows and into the light for the first time. He says it quietly, but there's something almost final about it, like he's been carrying that name around for longer than you can imagine, like it's been locked away inside of him, and now, he's giving it to you. Ronin. The name hangs between you like a promise, like a key to something deeper.

You blink, and the weight of it hits you. Ronin. You repeat the name in your head, letting it settle there, trying to hold onto it, trying to make sense of why it feels so important. You open your mouth to speak, but the words get caught in your throat for a moment, and the air seems to thicken around you, thick with everything unsaid, everything that's building between you.

"Ronin," you repeat, testing it out, and as you say it, you watch his face carefully. His eyes flicker, a brief, imperceptible softening, a pulling back just a little. It's a subtle change, but it's undeniable. You are compelled to explore the nature of this phenomenon.

"That's... that's your name?" You don't know why you feel the need to ask, but the question slips out before you can stop it. You feel like you're stepping into unknown territory, like you're treading carefully on the edge of something that could break open if you push too hard.

He nods, his expression unreadable, but there's a clear sense of melancholy in his demeanour. His name and identity have clearly been a burden for him to bear, something he hasn't figured out how to untangle. "Yeah," he says, his voice quieter this time, more drawn out. "I guess I never really got to tell you, did I?"

There's a flicker in his eyes—regret, maybe, or exhaustion, or both. You want to ask him more about the name, about him, but you don't. Instead, you simply nod, acknowledging the trust he's given you, this small piece of him he's just handed over.

"Nice to finally know," you say, and there's a strange feeling behind those words—like you're stepping into something much deeper than a simple conversation, like this moment is the start of something neither of you quite understands yet.

Ronin doesn't say anything, but the way he looks at you changes slightly. The air between you is no longer just heavy with silence, but with something else — something unspoken. His gaze is deeper now, revealing something personal and raw. By telling you his name, he's invited you into a part of him he's kept hidden for so long.

He stands a little taller, but his gaze never leaves yours. "I didn't think you'd even care," he says, his voice low and almost a murmur, as if the confession itself is more vulnerable than anything else he could say. "But I guess... I don't know. I guess I wanted you to know." The words hang in the air between you, fragile, as if they're teetering on the edge of something bigger, something more.

Your heart beats faster now, not just from the tension in the room, but from the way the world seems to have narrowed down to just him and you, standing here, in this moment. The store feels farther away, as though the walls have blurred into the background, leaving only his name, his presence, his eyes locked with yours.

"I care," you say firmly, not giving it much thought, the truth just flowing out of you, quiet but certain. You don't know why those words come so easily, why it feels right to say them. But it does. When you say them, you can see him relax just a little bit; the tension in his shoulders eases for the first time since he walked in.

For a long moment, there's only the quiet between you, but it's no longer uncomfortable. It's not empty. It's full of possibilities, full of questions and answers waiting to be uncovered. You both stand there, the silence not oppressive but expectant, and you realise, with a sinking certainty, that this moment, this exchange, is just the beginning of something neither of you can run from.

The door chimes and you snap back to reality. He leaves, the soft click of his boots against the floor marking the end of another visit. But before he leaves, he nods slightly, and for the first time, you see the faintest, most genuine smile curl at the corners of his lips.

"See you," he says, his voice low and unambiguous. It is an invitation, a promise that you will meet again.

And with that, he's gone, leaving only the lingering echo of his name hanging in the air, a name you now own, a name that feels like it belongs to you as much as it belongs to him.

The days stretch and unfold, as if the store itself has become part of some slow-moving dream. Ronin keeps coming back, and with every visit, something shifts. At first, it was just the smallest exchanges – barely more than a nod or a quick word about a band, or a flicker of something darker, something deeper in his gaze that made your heart flutter. Now, as the days blur into one another, the distance between you both seems to shrink. Every time he steps into the store, the walls close in, making it just the two of you, standing in this strange, suspended space.

His visits have a rhythm of their own. He doesn't come in every day, but when he does, it's as if the world slows down for a few moments, the time around you bending to accommodate his presence. He lingers longer now, his eyes scanning the shelves but always coming back to you. The silence between you has softened; it is no longer filled with tension, but with a quiet kind of understanding.

It starts with small talk—casual, throwaway comments that don't mean much. But the way he says them, the way he lets his guard down just a little more each time, makes you feel like you're inching closer to something important. One day, he comes in and starts talking about a new album he's been listening to. The conversation is simple at first, just the usual banter—"Have you heard it? It's pretty good. You'd probably like it." But then, his voice drops just a little, like he's letting you in on a secret, and you find yourself leaning in to listen more closely.

"Yeah, I get that it's not everyone's thing," he says, his voice almost a whisper, "but there's something about it... It makes me feel less alone, you know?"

You nod, the words resonating with you. You don't need to explain it—he already understands, like he knows exactly what you mean. It's strange, this quiet bond growing between you, something unsaid but so obvious that it almost feels like an echo of your own thoughts.

The next time he comes in, it's the same—more small talk, more shared silence between the lines of conversation. But there's something different this time. There's a charge in the way he looks at you and the way his words hover between you. It's as if there's more he's not saying.

"Do you get off soon?" he asks one afternoon, his voice soft but laced with curiosity. It's the first time he's ever asked anything like that—something personal, something that makes you feel like maybe he's starting to see you as more than just a face behind the counter.

"Yeah, in about an hour," you answer, the words almost sounding foreign on your tongue. You hadn't realised how much you were looking forward to answering that question until the words left your lips. His question carries weight, his manner inviting you to share more.

He looks at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable, then tilts his head slightly, as if weighing something. There's a pause, a quiet heartbeat of time, before he speaks again. "Let's grab coffee," he says, his voice tentative. He's unsure how you'll react, afraid of pushing too far.

Your heart stutters in your chest, your mind racing. You want to say yes, you want to reach out and accept his offer, but the words get stuck somewhere between your throat and your lips. You feel a strange pull between you, a growing desire to get closer to him, and yet the fear of what that might mean keeps you frozen in place.

Ronin doesn't wait. Instead, he reaches into his pocket, his fingers brushing against something hidden there. His movements are slow and deliberate, as if he's giving you time to catch up, to process. He pulls out his phone and for a moment, the world narrows to this one simple action. He unlocks it, then turns it toward you, the screen glowing with his number ready and waiting.

"I don't know," he says confidently, a hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "I'll give you my number. That way you don't have to think about it." His voice is quiet, but steady, offering you the chance to decide without pressure or expectation.

You stare at the screen, unsure, your heart pounding, and then you look up at him and see it—the faintest glimmer of something in his eyes, something vulnerable but also confident. He's waiting.

Everything else fades away for just a second. The racks of clothing, the constant hum of the store, the people who pass by without ever noticing you—it all disappears. At this moment, he is the only thing that matters. He is standing in front of you, offering you a piece of himself. You can feel your breath catch in your throat. Everything feels like it's hanging by a thread.

Without hesitation, you seize his phone, your fingers barely grazing his. The moment is suspended in the quiet space between you. You type your number in quickly, almost clumsily, and when you hand the phone back to him, you both know it's more than just numbers being exchanged. It's a door opening just a crack, but enough to let something new, something unspoken, begin to grow.

"I'll text you," you say, and the words feel strange, almost too forward, but they're real. You both know they are.

Ronin looks at you, his eyes softening just a little. There's a flicker of hope, or maybe just curiosity, in the way he gazes at you. "Good," he replies, voice steady, but there's something unspoken in the way he says it, something that feels like the beginning of something neither of you can control.

He slips his phone back into his pocket and nods slowly, almost imperceptibly. "See you later," he says, and this time, it doesn't feel like goodbye. It feels like the start of something new.

As he walks out, you can feel it – the shift, the undeniable change in the air. You're not sure where this is going, but you know, deep down, that this is just the beginning.

The coffee date is unforgettable; its warmth lingers long after it's over, and the cold night air is no match for its radiant warmth. The café was small and intimate, making the world outside feel distant and irrelevant. The conversations flowed easily, as if you had always known each other, as though the silences between words didn't matter, because the space between you was filled with something unspoken, something electric. You talked about music, life, those spaces that neither of you could quite fill, and in those exchanges, you felt more connected than you ever thought possible.

As the evening wound to a close and the last sip of coffee warmed you from the inside out, you both knew it wasn't really the end. Not yet. The night was still young, and Ronin wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere.

"I'll walk you home," he says, his voice low and casual, but there's something underneath it—an invitation that carries more weight than the words themselves.

You don't hesitate, nodding immediately. The air between you electric with anticipation. You are acutely aware of him, his presence filling the space around you, drawing you in without a word or touch. It's just him – Ronin, with his worn MCR shirt, his long, unruly hair, his steady gaze – and you, both moving through the darkening streets like two souls tethered together by something neither of you can fully explain.

The walk is quiet at first. The world seems to be holding its breath, watching the two of you, waiting for something to happen. The only sounds are the crunch of your footsteps on the pavement, the distant hum of cars, and the occasional rustle of the wind. Ronin glances at you, his eyes meeting yours, and there's a quiet understanding between you—a recognition that tonight is different, that something is shifting, something that neither of you can stop.

You walk in step with each other, neither of you rushing or eager to break the silence, because in this quiet, something feels more real than anything else. His presence is close, his hand just a hair's breadth away from yours, and every movement feels amplified, as if the world has shrunk down to this moment.

As you approach your building, the streets become darker, the lights of the city receding into the distance, yet the warmth of his proximity propels you forward. When you finally reach the corner by your building, you stop, and so does he. The air between you both is charged, the tension that's been building between you since the moment you met is palpable. It's as if everything has led up to this precise moment. His eyes search yours, his breath catches, his lips part as if he's about to say something, but he doesn't.

Instead, he steps closer, closing the distance until he's standing just a breath away. His gaze flickers down to your lips, and you feel the pull of it, the magnetic force drawing you in closer. It's as if the rest of the world disappears, leaving just him and this moment.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks, his voice soft and almost a whisper, as if he's afraid of pushing too far, afraid of scaring you off. The way he asks the question is strange. There's no force in it, no urgency. It's just a gentle curiosity, as if he's asking for permission to cross an invisible line between you.

You hesitate, your heart beating faster. You could say no, you could pull away, but you don't. Something in you, the part of you that's been quietly aching for him, wants to feel the weight of his lips against yours, wants to know what that spark between you feels like when it ignites. You feel a tension in your chest, almost unbearable, and when you look up at him again, his eyes are full of raw, open emotion that you can't refuse.

Instead, you answer him with the smallest, most uncertain nod.

And that's all he needs.

He moves in slowly, his hand reaching up to gently cup your cheek, his touch warm against your skin. His breath brushes over your lips, and for a moment, the entire world seems to still. You can feel his pulse, feel his heart racing in sync with your own, and then, without another word, his lips finally meet yours.

It's soft at first, tentative, as if he's waiting for you to pull back, to change your mind, but when you don't, when you lean into him just a little, the kiss deepens. It's slow and deliberate, as if he's savoring every moment and your connection. His lips are warm, his breath mingling with yours, and you can taste the remnants of coffee on his mouth, the bitterness now mixed with something sweeter.

The world narrows to just the two of you, standing on the edge of your building, lost in this kiss. You feel your heart race, feel the heat spreading through your chest, down to your fingertips, as if the entire universe has condensed into this one, perfect moment. His hand slides around to the back of your neck, pulling you closer, deepening the kiss, and you let yourself fall into it, into him.

When he pulls away, it's slow, his forehead against yours, his breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. You remain silent, standing close together, as if you don't know how to move or break the spell.

"That was...," you begin, but the words trail off. You are unsure of what to say, unsure of what any of it means.

"Yeah," Ronin says confidently, his voice low and rough, "It was." He doesn't say more, the unspoken understanding between you two clear in the air. He doesn't pull away immediately, and neither do you. You stay there, like time has stopped, holding onto this fragile, beautiful moment.

Then, he leans back, his fingers brushing your hand one last time, his eyes lingering on yours with something unreadable, something soft. "Goodnight, [Your Name]," he says, his voice quieter now, tinged with sincerity that sends a shiver down your spine.

"Goodnight," you reply, though you're not sure how you're still standing, how you haven't melted into him completely. You do, your feet feeling almost unsteady as he steps back, slowly disappearing into the night, leaving you standing there, heart pounding, lips tingling with the taste of him.

The door to your building looms ahead, but you don't move. You stand, the echo of his kiss still humming through you, knowing that everything has changed. This wasn't just a kiss. It was a promise. A beginning.

#killer chat #fanfic #fic #x reader #gender neutral reader #killer chat ronin #ronin beaufort #fluff

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hypothermic-dream · 6 months ago

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She deceived us all. We once called her the Angelic Mother, with her shorn head gleaming like a beacon in our barren world. The drought stretched on endlessly, blurring the lines between years— Centuries, perhaps millennia, bled into one another. The once vibrant ochre paint that adorned our faces had faded, replaced by the dull patina of despair. We, the remnants of the Green People, were mere whispers of who we once were. Time, a concept as withered as our crops, held no meaning in this arid wasteland. Hunger gnawed at our bellies, a relentless beast whispering promises of oblivion in our ears.

Conversations, if any, were guttural groans, the symphony of a dying language. We were marionettes on the strings of starvation, our movements jerky, our eyes hollow caverns. The elders, their skin stretched taut over brittle bones, mumbled incoherently of a time when the sky wept with life-giving rain, a paradise mocking us from the dusty recesses of memory.

The once vibrant colors of our communal life had bled away, replaced by a chilling sense of isolation. The drought had stripped bare not just the land, but the very soul of our tribe. Gone were the days of shared meals and joyous songs. Now, every man, woman, and child was an island, a fortress of gnawing hunger. Trust became a luxury we couldn't afford. Sharing a morsel of dried lizard meat was akin to inviting a viper into your tent.

The nights were worse. Under the cold gaze of a million indifferent stars, our minds played cruel tricks. The shimmering mirages of shimmering oases danced just beyond reach, driving us to the brink of madness. Some swore they saw plump, ripe melons growing in the cracks of the parched earth, only to collapse in despair as the cruel mirage dissolved into dust. Others saw their deceased loved ones, their spectral forms beckoning with ghostly feasts, only to vanish with a heart-wrenching sigh as we reached for them.

Hunger, the great leveler, stripped away all pretense of civility. The bonds of family, once sacrosanct, frayed and snapped. The cries of children, once a source of joy, became a maddening symphony of need, a constant reminder of our dwindling resources. Desperate whispers of a forgotten prophecy surfaced – whispers of a red moon and a sacrifice to appease "the Thing." We, who once scoffed at the superstitions of neighboring tribes, now clung to this sliver of hope like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood.

Enter the Angelic Mother. She arrived like a wraith, shrouded in black leather that seemed to drink in the ever-present sunlight. Her shaved head, once a beacon of fertility, now gleamed like a skull polished by the desert winds. Her eyes, cold and calculating, held no warmth, no empathy. Her smile, a chilling crescent moon, sent shivers down our spines. Despite the gnawing suspicion that curdled in our bellies, her pronouncements held a strange power.

The queen, a woman with eyes as hollow as our bellies, became a mere pawn in the Mother's game. We were desperate, so desperate that reason itself became a luxury we couldn't afford. The Mother's demands – the desecration of our most sacred traditions, the sacrifice of our ancestors – were met with a mute acquiescence. Hope, a flickering candle in the wind, fueled our compliance.

As the crimson moon, a bleeding wound in the inky sky, painted the parched earth red, a flicker of something akin to hope stirred within us. Gathered on the shore, the once vibrant pulse of the ocean stilled, replaced by a slick, crimson calm that mirrored the blood sacrifice staining the Mother's hands. Her chant, a guttural invocation in a language older than time, echoed across the desolate landscape. It wasn't a prayer. It was a pact, a bargain struck with a power as ancient as the stars.

The ocean churned, waves of blood crashing against the shore. From the depths emerged a monstrosity that defied comprehension. Six spindly legs, each thicker than the mightiest baobab tree of our forgotten past, propelled a gelatinous mass that pulsed with an unholy luminescence. Its eyeless head, a grotesque parody of a starfish, writhed with impossible angles, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth that gnashed at the air. An inhuman stench, a cloying amalgam of decay and sulfur, assaulted our senses, threatening to melt our very flesh.

The Mother, her laughter a chorus of rasping echoes that seemed to emanate from every crevice of the world, threw herself willingly into the creature's maw. Panic, primal and raw, seized us. We scattered like frightened insects, but escape was futile. The entity devoured everything in its path, leaving behind only the chilling emptiness of a world devoid of hope.

I never believed in gods. Even now, staring into the abyss that swallowed my tribe, I don't. This… thing… was no deity. Perhaps a devil, a manifestation of our collective despair given form. A single tear, a glistening ember in this wasteland, rolls down my cheek. Does it even matter if I believe anymore? The Green People are gone, their vibrant colors replaced by the crimson stain of a hungry god, or perhaps, a reflection of our own corrupted souls.

The vast, indifferent sky stretches above, a canvas of countless, mocking stars. In this cosmic dance of oblivion, where meaning crumbles to dust and civilizations rise and fall like fleeting breaths, what is the purpose of a single life, a single tribe? Lost and alone, I stand on the precipice of oblivion, a solitary echo in the face of an uncaring universe.

But a chilling memory surfaces, a testament to the true horror of our demise. In the throes of starvation, driven to the brink by the Angelic Mother's maddening pronouncements, the whispers of cannibalism began. At first, it was the weak, the elderly, those who succumbed to hunger's cruel embrace. But the hunger, once awakened, became a ravenous beast with an insatiable appetite. Suspicion turned into accusations, accusations into violence. Families fractured, bonds severed. Brother turned on brother, sister on sister, all for a single, meager scrap of flesh. The stench of roasting human flesh, a macabre incense to a pitiless sky, became a constant companion.

The nights were the worst. The gnawing hunger, fueled by the taste of forbidden flesh, twisted our dreams into grotesque parodies. We feasted on spectral versions of our loved ones, only to awaken to the emptiness of our bellies and the chilling reality. The line between sanity and madness blurred, leaving a chilling emptiness in its wake.

The Angelic Mother, that harbinger of doom, watched with a detached amusement. Her eyes, devoid of any human emotion, gleamed with a cruel satisfaction. Was she a prophet, or a puppet master, a willing servant of the entity that rose from the crimson sea? The answer, like the meaning of our suffering, remains shrouded in the dust of this desolate world.

Now, I am the last. A lone survivor in a graveyard of forgotten dreams. The entity, satiated for now, has retreated to the depths, leaving behind a chilling silence. Do I yearn for death? Perhaps. But a flicker of defiance, a vestige of the Green People's spirit, still burns within me. I will not surrender to despair. I will live, if only to bear witness to the desolation, a living testament to our folly and the cruel indifference of the universe. There may be no redemption, no solace in the afterlife. But I will cling to this life, this solitary existence, a final act of rebellion against the oblivion that awaits.

Painting : “sacrifices” by scott flament

#dark academia #literature #poetry

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sultrydxrling · 4 months ago

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PRIEST X DEMON SHAPESHIFTING OF DEATH (GAY / MASC CHARACTERS) AMAB MASC READER! PART 1!

HAPPY 1K EVERYONE! TYSM😊 3,300 words

(Sacrilege / Tongue / creature / drugs / violence / blood / gore/ sodomy ) Purple text is info or side notes

green is where the fun starts

and red is still more or less important back story or context but feel free to skip down to the fun!

(Most of the pictures are just what I find inspiration from. :3)

You stand at an altar, blood on your hands as you stare out into a chapel full of gloom and despair. Your people are suffering.

Various people are caring for the sick and wounded, while others are clinging to the corpses or clothing of their deceased loved ones.

Groans and wails of sobbing bounce off the walls, and the sound seeps into your head as you try to find a reasonable solution.

You turn and decide to consult your library. It was your last hope. Your cassock blew behind you as you walked through the vast hallways and corridors.

You could hear screaming outside and the ripping of flesh from bone through the high windows as you passed them, but tried to pay no mind.

You spent hours examining and scanning through books, each one seeming to get deeper and deeper into acult magic. You found a page that depicted a ritual, It was in a language you couldn't quite make out.

Thankfully there were very well-illustrated pictures. The title of the ritual looked like something close to either " Savior demon" or "savage demon" but you weren't quite sure and ready to take the risk. The pictures depicted a few black candles, a dear skull, a heart of some kind, and a hand holding a blade to its wrist/arm area. By the shape of the organ, you could guess that it was a lamb's heart.

You sent one of the hunters out to look for a lamb and to bring it back or if it could not be salvaged, it's heart.

You gathered the rest of the things, and within about 3 hours, your hunger had returned with a dead lamb over his shoulder. You took it gently, thanked the man, and hung the lamb upside down to drain its blood as you carved its heart out.

You gently placed the heart on a platter to the side and once there was a decent amount of blood in the bucket, you dipped your hand in.

It was a very unpleasant sensation, the blood was cold, and the thickness was enough to make you queasy.

You checked the book page and carefully painted the large symbol onto the brick of the back room you'd snuck off to and began laying out the items in accordance with where they should be.

You washed your hands and prepped your arm for the cut you'd have to make. Trying your best to replicate the length of the cut, you allowed the blood to drip down your arm onto the lamb's heart and then the symbol you'd drawn.

You read from the bottom portion of the page, trying to decipher what you could and pronounce it correctly, it took a few tries but after a while, you were finally able to recite the text exactly.

As you spoke you could feel the words start to pour out naturally as if the letters were pulling themselves from your very throat, the power sourced through your veins as you chanted and the flames candles you had set up blew out in a sweeping motion around the symbol you'd drawn.

You held a cloth you'd carried with you to your bleeding arm and did your best to tie it tightly. Though the cut wasn't deep, it was long and painful and had an extremely annoying sting.

You heard ghostly whispers erupt from the darkness around you. Black smoke spun across every inch of the bricks, collecting in a mass directly in front of you.

You felt paralyzed and clutched the cross around your neck, praying for the best. Your heart sounded in your chest as your breath caught in your throat.

As the figure materialized, a dark closed skeletal figure with large fangs stood, staring down at you with empty sockets. It must've towered over you by almost two feet.

It stared at you curiously before speaking, it sounded like another language that you couldn't gauge.

You spoke softly, "I apologize but I can't understand you-"

It reached forward and pressed its skeletal palm to your forehead. The sharp cold of the bone causes you to recoil slightly. You heard a booming voice, now in your language.

"Hello. Is this better?"

The voice seemed just as cold as the bones that had come into contact with your skin. It was low but about a medium pitch. There was a slight grain to the back of the voice as if to be a scratchy noise in the non-existent throat.

You tried to steal your resolve, barely avoiding stuttering, "Yes. I can understand you now."

"Why have you summoned me? What deal do you intend to make?" The entity leaned forward and down toward you as if to make the size difference clear; to remind you of your place.

"I need help."

"That's why most summon me. Please be more specific-",

You could almost feel an eyebrow raise in the voice it used as if this creature was challenging your intelligence.

"Yes, my people are dying. There are these creatures raining corruption upon my village. I fear that everyone in this church is still in danger. I'm not sure what you can offer. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure what to ask for.",

You looked at the being with pleading eyes.

You looked over the creature, and as your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you noticed a thin layer of skin holding the bones together and a tiny shimmer of light in its eyes.

The being studied you. "Do you want safety for your people, defense from the creatures, or safety for yourself? The list goes on."

"I would like all of those things, I suppose, if that's possible. I assume that the defense from the creatures would be helpful, but the stipulations don't guarantee our safety. I would like safety for everyone who's alive and human in my village, me included and possible defense from the creatures."

The entity circled you slowly, floating with its arms behind its back.

" I believe it is within my capabilities. But, what do you have to give?"

"I do not have much. If you have anything to ask of me, I could answer you with a yes or a no."

You felt panicked. You'd assumed this was a deal, but you didn't think you had anything to give that was worthy of all that you'd asked.

"I know you do not intend to fool me. For, I am no fool. I know of your intentions, and they are not of malice, this can change things. I would like your power."

"My power?"

"Yes, dear priest. Your power. You have a say in what the people do. You are the leader and almost the king of this small village. I want your power."

"How-"

"Leave that to me. I will grant you your small wish. By the end of tonight, every living human will be here, safe. Those creatures outside, reaking havock will be dealt with. Tomorrow at sunrise, you will meet me in the graveyard, and we will discuss the terms of our deal properly. Until then, tend to your wounded."

"I'm not sure we have the supplies- but we'll definitely try."

You smiled at the entity,

"What do I call you?"

"Abatu is fitting."

(Ah-bah-tu with a slight 'silent behind T)

"I am Jareth."

Abatu nodded once and disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

As you came to your senses, the candles relit themselves, and you stood. You turned around and there, behind you. There was a pile of medical supplies, not an obnoxious amount, but it was helpful.

Over the passing night, the sounds of the creatures outside subsided and the nuns were able to help bandage and medicate the wounded. Your nurse also helped clean and wrap your arm tightly.

"Thank you, Maridith." You smiled at her gently and bowed your head lightly.

Her cheeks flushed red as you smiled at her, and she looked down at your arm to distract herself.

The night came and went, and you found yourself unable to sleep. You kept thinking about the creature you'd met. It wasn't as scary as you thought it would be.

Abatu was very intriguing, and you wondered about -his?- origins? Abatu sounded masculine, at least.

You found yourself unable to sleep and crept carefully into the sanctuary, deciding to go to the cemetery early.

You weaved between the tired and wounded who lie on pallets on the floor, making your way to the door.

You slipped out into the cold night and looked around, making sure no more creatures were wandering around.

Alas there were none to be seen so you made your way along the bloodied mud path, trying not to dwell on the death that surrounded you. There were no boddies like there were when you had left.

This made you nervous, but your feet carried you absentmindedly to the cemetery as you melted into your own mind.

Once you made it to the dark gated and slipped in, you found a concrete bench and sat to drown in your thoughts, expectations to have to wait a while until sunrise.

A dark figure materialized in front of you as a thick fog rolled across the hallowed ground.

"You are early, Jereth."

You nodded softly. "I couldn't sleep."

"We shall discuss early then. I'm going to need permission to change my features and mannerisms to be exactly like yours. This will help me accomplish something I have planned in the future. However, I will not do anything that will sully or ruin your name."

You thought about this for a moment, with abatu laying out the rules for himself against ruining your reputation; it would make sense to allow this. Especially with what he'd done for you.

"Alright. Anything else?"

"Yes. I'll also need permission to study your anatomy and mannerisms. This will help avoid any slightly off-putting differences that cause people to believe I am not you and cause any uproar."

"Study my anatomy? Meaning-?"

"I'll need to see all of your body to be able to correctly replicate it. Studying your mannerisms, I believe, speaks for itself."

"How would you go about studying my mannerisms? You'd have to follow me around, and people could see you."

"Only you can see me if I wish, dear priest."

You took a breath and pondered. Your cheeks flushed red as you realized he would have to see you naked, but you figured with his tone and the way he failed it out with little to no malicious sounding intent that it wouldn't matter much, but you hadn't been undressed infront of anyone for a long time.

"I suppose I agree to this. Anything else?"

"No, that will be all for now. If I need anything else I shall inform you. I will be taking my leave until tomorrow. Do try to get some rest, Jareth"

You nodded, and Abatu vanished into the darkness. The sun started rising, and a soft blue appeared over the horizon.

You walked absentmindedly to the church, entering the sanctuary and entering your sleeping quarters. you flopped on the bed and undressed down to your undershirt, folding your clothes on the chair.

You climbed into the bed and snuggled under your heavy covers, the day running through your head.

___

You had fallen asleep without really noticing and woke to a slightly uneasy feeling. You pealed your eyes open and looked around the room, finding Abatu at the foot of your bed.

"Good morning, dear priest."

You sat up straight and fumbled for the covers to cover you below the waist. "Hello- I didn't realize you would be here when I awoke. Could you let me get dressed?" "Today is the day I study your body, Jareth. So there is no need to cover yourself for now." Your cheeks burned red hot, and you hesitantly slipped out of bed. Your soft cock hung beneath your undershirt, and the creature studied you curiously. He walked over to you and gently held the fabric of your undershirt. "This too, if you please." You nodded. You slightly regretted agreeing to this, but you couldn't help but fantasize about Abatu now that he was standing so close to you. You felt a pain tugging at your chest. You would be sure to pray after this interaction, for you could feel the lust building. You slipped out of the thin shirt and tossed it to the side. Abatu walked around you slowly. He seemed to be carefully taking in every single ounce of your appearance. You felt his downy fingers slipping across your skin as he traced your muscular outlines and along your spine and shoulder blades. This sent shivers through your body that drew a sharp-toothed smile from the entity. "Your skin is very sensitive, Jareth." "Your hands are cold-" you muttered shakily."Hold your arms out." You did as you were told, your face still burning. His touch was such an odd and new sensation that you could feel the blood running to your once soft cock, now growing in length. You felt increasingly embarrassed, doing your best to avoid covering your face. The creature traced along your lower back with both hands on both sides, then up your sides to your arms, feeling along the muscles in your arms. He felt your hands, lingering along and between your fingers. You couldn't help but grow harder, your length fully erect, your dip aching softly as Abatu gently made his way back around to your front, sliding his cold hands back to your chest and down your midriff. His eyes lingered on your election. "Hm. That has changed since I last looked." You nodded and didn't allow him any explanation. "Why?" "It's just a bodily reaction-" you stammered. "What is it a reaction to?" He seemed genuinely curious. However, you couldn't help but feel that he was teasing you. As you tried to distract your mind you felt your cock twitch, the red on your face stretching to your ears. Abatu took your length into his hand, and it took everything in you not to groan in desperation. Although, you couldn't silence the soft gasp that left your lips. "This part of you is even more sensitive than the rest. Is there a reason?" "It's how humans procreate and reproduce.im not sure if that answers your question." "Possibly, it feels strange." The entity traced his fingers along the veins that ran up and down your length, then up to your tip, and rubbed it softly. You almost collapsed, gasping again and letting out a soft moan. Your tip leaked precum that gently coated Abatu's bony fingers. The mixture of his skin's cold and his touch's softness drove you crazy. "There's something wet coming out. What is it?" "It's- nh~ meant to be- lubrication."

As he touched you, you couldn't help but pause in between every few words, your brain softly churning itself into mush. "Hm. Interesting."

His body gently began to change, first his skin color to match yours. Then, he carefully worked on matching the features of your face. His body worked itself from head to toe to transform itself into you. You looked him over and were astounded. You reached forward to touch him, very gently. You needed to make sure it was real. The creature looked confused but didn't stop you as your hands connected with his skin, and strangled enough, it was still cold. You supposed it wouldn't be easy to change his body heat to match yours but regardless of this, you were in awe. He was still covered in his black closet, which he took off and sat to the side to analyze himself compared to you. You noticed that his or rather, how he saw your cock was hard on him as well. You quietly corrected. "Usually, it looks as you saw before, but this happens when it is touched-" you remembered that it had hardened by itself due to your sinful thoughts and repeated. "Usually." He thought hard and focused, transforming that part of himself to match you when soft. He turned around in a small circle in front of your full body-length mirror in your room. "I think I have managed to match you perfectly." You nodded in agreement. It was so strange to see yourself standing in front of you.

"Alright, Now that I have your form, I'm going to go to my realm and practice the fast-changing process You are free to do as you wish. Once I master your form, I will return to learn of your mannerisms. thank you, and I shall see you another time." With that, Abatu vanished into a cloud of smoke as usual and you let out a sigh of relief, collapsing onto your bed, your cock still throbbing desperately. You were unable to refuse the urge to wrap your hand around your length, spreading the precum along yourself. Groaning lewdly and running a hand through your hair.

you Imagined the creature's hand wrapped around your cock once more, stroking you with purpose as he teased you.

'Why are you so sensitive, My Priest?'

'you're so warm..'

anything you could use to fuel the raging lust erupting from you. you couldn't understand why you felt so attracted to Abatu, his dark mysteriousness, something about him. He was forbidden to you, this was sodomy. you wanted him inside of you, though you hadn't figured out how that would work.

from there your mind worked itself into imagining his shapeshifting abilities. shapeshifting into other horrible demonic creatures, just allowing himself as is to grow something close to a cock with enough length to absolutely destroy you from the inside out.

Abatu watched you from the end of your bed, invisible to your eyes,. He watched you quietly, trying to figure out what exactly you were doing, you had begun to moan, then eventually moaned out his name. You grasped desperately at your neck, squeezing it tightly.

"Abatu!- fuck- Please destroy me- I am yours to use and control!-", everything you called out incoherent to yourself, spewing out of you uncontrollably.

"God forgive me! i Cannot stop! forgive me-", You muttered softly as you felt the orgasm building.

Abatu cocked his head to the side and carefully crept closer to you as he watched your body jerk slightly, now increasingly more curious as to what was about to occur.

"God! I beg- Forgive me! I cannot contain my lust any longer-", your tip ached as your cock throbbed and spewed your warm cum over your chest and stomach, your brain drowning in euphoria for what felt like many minutes at least. your breath caught in your throat as you laid on your bed, trying to grasp for some sense of reality.

The entity's eyes widened slightly as he saw your cum erupt from you, finding himself deeply intrigued. By the dazed smile on your face, it seemed to be something you enjoyed, and you were calling out his name as if to summon him. This must have been something you wanted from him and were too careful to ask for. Abatu had decided that he would try to indulge this for you the next time he was able. He disappeared fully now, back to his realm.

You stood and faltered slightly, almost unable to keep yourself upright. Wobbling into the bathroom area, you gently braced yourself on many objects to hold yourself up. You cleaned yourself off and got dressed, laying your cross over your neck. Making your way into the Sanctuary, you greeted many people, hearing that they were getting better by the day. you shook many hands and gave many blessings before heading over to your bench behind the podium and whispering an apologetic prayer. 'Forgive me father, for I have sinned. Sodomy has overtaken my mind, my thoughts, and even my dreams. Please allow me to redeam myself and send me the strength to repair my faultering loyalty. I have pledged myself unto you and will continue to do your work. In your name, thank you god, and Amen.'

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