#but there's still guilt and horror at it. the lost of control. that's why he's in silent hill

[supernaturalfreakout]

— Fester (possessed!Sam x fem!reader)

Summary: No matter how hard he tries, Sam can't keep you off his mind, and a particular demon has noticed. After a stressful hunt leads to a fight with Dean, Sam finds himself trying to dissociate, leaving him open for the taking. Meg seizes her opportunity, then proceeds to make sure Sam will never forget you.

CWs: Okay, this one's pretty dark. Triggers for non-con, non-negotiated/risky/dangerous kink, degradation, repressed desires, and lots and lots of guilt. If you are not comfortable reading any of these things, please DNI. 18+ MDNI. 🔞 There's some mutual longing here too underneath all the despair, but don't expect a happy ending or any fluff here. This is basically Meg screwing with Sam and having her version of a good time. If you like disturbing shit you might like this.

Thanks to @foxwinchester83 for the request. This never would have existed without you.

If Sam hadn’t let his guard down, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. 

If he hadn’t fallen out with Dean, slammed the motel door so violently it fell off its hinges, and ran until his breath was coming in shallow, wispy huffs—the stars above him no longer only in the sky, but sparkling bright and dizzying behind his eyes—then maybe he wouldn’t have ended up alone, pissed off, and incapacitated in the middle of this shit hole of a town. 

If he hadn’t lost his charm.

If he hadn’t stepped into that bar.

If he hadn’t drowned his sorrows in cheap whisky that turned his deoxygenated blood into honey, and his appendages into sluggish excuses for limbs.

If you hadn’t infected his memory like a stubborn contagion he couldn’t budge no matter how hard he tried. And if she hadn’t appeared: the haunting shadow that stalked his every move.

If Sam hadn’t let the bitch inside, the dumb fuck that he was.

It was nice at first, being out of control. It had felt nice for around five minutes, letting someone take over his body and just having things happen to him. He supposed that was why he’d started drinking. To dissociate. But he’d let thoughts of you fester. He’d let you affect him, and Meg had cottoned on.

After hijacking his body, Meg had also done the same to a car, and driven with haste towards the nearest highway.

What Sam was originally mad about no longer mattered. It was nothing compared to the horror he’d felt when he realized he was swerving off the road and barrelling towards your sleepy town.

Now, he was angry, drunk, incapacitated in a very different way, and most definitely not alone.

He hated himself for this. How could he ever forget you now?

Meg had seen her chance and grasped it with her filthy claws at the first opportunity, and now he was balls-deep inside the woman he’d been crushing on for the past six months, watching your pretty face contort with every deprived word that left his sinful mouth. 

It may have been his voice, but it definitely wasn’t him. And he was horrified to find that you seemed to be enjoying it. That he was.

Though he may not be in control of his hulking, sweaty body, he could still sense. He was still aware. Meg had made sure of that, slipping into his skin just loosely enough so he could still see everything. Hear everything. Smell everything. Feel and taste everything.

And you felt and tasted exquisite. Even better than he’d imagined a thousand times over. Spiced wine. Sweet, with just the right amount of tang to leave him buzzed and slightly on edge. But Sam had already drunk enough. He didn’t need another weakness.

But the sounds leaving your mouth–the moans that made his internal breath shudder–made him question his sensibilities and scold himself in the process.

He thought about the way your nipples pierced the air, and the way you’d arched your back for him—for Meg—when she’d slid his tongue down your stomach and attached his mouth over the whole of your dripping cunt.

The way your clit had tasted when Meg had plunged—without any warmup—two of his large, strong fingers into you, straight to the knuckle.

The way you’d screamed.

The way you’d writhed as your body struggled to accommodate him, and–despite the stretch–the way you’d begged for more.

Begged him to fuck you.

To tie you up.

To strike you.

To mark and bite you.

The way your mouth had felt around his cock. The way your drool trickled down his length—warm, wet, and slick. The noises you’d made when you’d gagged on him.

The way—despite his conflictions—every perverted act made his cock pulse violently.

You didn’t seem to be the kind of girl that would be into this kinda shit, but they never were, were they? 

It was all too much. Sam couldn’t take it. 

It wasn’t the sex that bothered him. The fact that you were enjoying his body delighted him immensely. It was the circumstances. Not what you were enjoying, but how you were enjoying it. The fact that it wasn’t him. Not really.

Is this what you’d expect from him if he continued seeing you after this? No. How could he even contemplate that? How could he go on after this? How could he ever look at you again without thinking of this moment? About how much you’d enjoyed him. Enjoyed her. He’d forever feel an imposter.

“Sam—” you gasped, and Sam pulled himself out of his reverie just in time to watch his hand slash across your ass in several merciless spanks. Squealing from the impact, you balled your already clenched toes and fists, muttering a string of curses Sam figured might as well have been Enochian.

Meg had flipped you over and was now taking you from behind in a rather undignified fashion. Your hands were still bound to the headboard with his belt, and he could see the leather chafing your wrists, making them red and sore. You didn’t seem to notice, or care.

Sam’s stomach dropped.

He wasn’t opposed to kink, as long as it was consensual. But he had not consented to this. Neither had you.

Meg hadn’t done it the way Sam would have; she hadn’t awkwardly asked you out, made you laugh, bought you flowers, or taken you on a nice date first. She had simply turned up at your door unannounced and proceeded to fuck your brains out.

But to Sam’s horror and delight, you seemed to be into it. Into him. And had invited him in willingly …

~

Sam felt your eyes wander over his body as he stood on your doorstep in the dead light of night. Your hair was mussed from sleep, and you were in your pajamas. Pink flowery ones. He’d woken you up.

“Sam?” You squinted up at him. “What… what are you doing here? It’s two a.m.”

Sam’s body shrugged and he heard his voice come out, rough from the alcohol. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said. Like that was an adequate explanation for his spontaneous appearance in the middle of the night.

You eyed him curiously for a moment, then seemed to accept it and welcomed him in. As Meg made his body step inside, Sam cursed your naïveté at letting a man inside your house at such an ungodly hour. You were too trusting. You should know better than this. As a daughter of a hunter, you were well versed in the creatures of the night, but had seemingly forgotten all your training when met with a familiar face. He’d need to have words with you after this.

After this? After what? What was happening here exactly?

Panic set in as Sam trailed you through your hallway to the lounge, through piles of open texts and manuscripts. Though you were in ‘the life,’ you’d managed to live adjacent to it, dedicating your time to research rather than being physically involved in hunts. It suited you better. You’d always been more a thinker than a fighter; you’d even gone to college to study occultism to help with the cause.

Sam was attracted to you from the beginning. You were incredibly studious, and your discoveries had saved Sam and Dean from several sticky situations over the past few months. He owed you a lot. More than whatever was going to happen here tonight.

“Bad hunt?” you asked, and continued to ogle Sam as he studied your lounge like it was the first time he’d seen it.

Something like that, Sam thought, but Meg didn’t answer. He could feel her impatience rattle inside him. She wasn’t a fan of small talk.

“Do you… do you want to talk about it?” And when Sam still didn’t reply, you rubbed your arms awkwardly, like you were warming yourself from the cold.

Sam wanted to offer you his jacket. Apologise profusely for barging in like this. Instead, he felt his lips curl involuntarily.

“Truth is,” he said, and he turned to face you, your figure tempting in the lamplight. Nipples peaking through the satin of your pajama top. Fuel to the fire of his already vivid imagination. He stepped closer, and your breath caught as he backed you slowly against the wall. “I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about you. In fact, baby, I can’t get you out of my fucking head.”

Meg wasn’t lying. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you. That was the whole reason he’d been so distracted and screwed up on the hunt. The reason Dean had gotten so mad at him for his negligence. It wasn't like Sam to fuck up like that. Not like him at all.

Sam watched you closely. Watched you squint at him like he was a puzzle to solve. One of your cryptic passages.

Solve me, Sam thought, his mind pleading. Realize this isn’t me.

He hadn’t missed how your eyes had snapped up to his when he’d called you baby. He’d never called you that before, and he started to sweat. He would never be this forward.

He half expected you to laugh it off, to take it as a joke, or tell him he was an idiot and try to send him away. What he didn’t expect was for you to move closer. Much closer. So close he could see down your top. To your cleavage. To the perfect curve of your breasts and the way your nipples stood, now undoubtedly erect beneath that flowery satin. He didn’t have to imagine anymore. It felt like a personal attack.

If he was more himself, Sam would clear his throat and force himself to look away. Store the image for a lonely day and let it wreck him in a stolen moment of satisfaction that would promise relief, but ultimately leave him with a deep-seated shame.

But he wasn’t. And he didn’t. His body refused to obey him.

He could sense Meg’s tendrils in his motor cortex, prodding around and manipulating his voluntary muscles. His eyes. His voice. His limbs… She’d pretty much left his sensory and autonomic tracts unmanned. How generous.

A low, insidious hunger stirred below his gut, something darker than just want. Something he should fight. And he found himself staring like a dog in heat. A predator that had finally trapped its prey.

Low and behold the thing he’d feared appeared. Nature took its course, and it was fucking obvious. He couldn’t even move his arms to tuck it beneath his waistband.

A knowing smile formed on your face as you looked him up and down. You’d caught him out. Sam’s heart stuttered, and for a second he thought you weren’t just letting him look. You were daring him to.

You drew in a breath. “Fucking finally,” you said. “I was wondering how long you’d make me wait.”

And before Sam could register what he was hearing, you did something he had been imagining for months: you rose to your tip-toes and kissed him. And as your soft, warm lips collided with his stern, cold ones, Sam felt his internal knees weaken.

He wanted to tell you how much he’d longed for this. Longed for you. Wanted to soften the kiss and tell you how beautiful you were. How intelligent. How every time he was around you, he’d forced himself to look away, because he’d never be good enough for you. How you deserved better than him. Better than a college drop-out and a pathetic excuse for a hunter.

Instead, he was insulting you. Degrading you. Using you. Worse, he was letting Meg use you in whatever fucked-up game she was playing. He’d been negligent–again. This was all his fault. He should’ve listened to Dean and gotten that damn fugly tattoo.

The kiss was heady and demanding. All sharp lines and rough edges. A clash of tongue and teeth. With every movement your breaths were coming heavier, hotter, and you were pulling him closer, clawing at him.

Sam found his hands grappling for your clothes. Your flowery pajama pants. Hiking them down. And then his hand was between your legs, just a thin strip of cotton between his fingers and your liquid heat.

“Sam—” you gasped, as Sam cupped your mound possessively. His touch wasn’t shy, wasn’t gentle, and Sam shuddered at the thought that this was how he’d touch you for the first time. So selfish. The guilt that was his constant companion wound around his throat, constricting his internal voice, choking him harder with every effort he made to break free.

Sam wanted to take his time with you, to map your body with his mind and to notice every detail; how you liked to be touched and where, to gauge your reactions with every pass of his fingertips. But he wasn’t given that choice. This was an excavation, not an exploration.

 “Come upstairs,” you pleaded against his cheek, and bit your lip to stifle a moan as Sam started prodding you through your panties. “Please, Sammy ... want you in my bed.”

Sam heard Meg laugh, then speak to him for the first time.

She’s a brash little thing, isn’t she? I can see why you like her. A natural submissive, with a hint of defiance. This will be fun. Oh, how I love to watch them break. Better appease her first, though …

“Sure, baby,” Sam heard himself say, then let himself be pulled up the stairs.

~

This wasn’t fair. You deserved more than this. A conversation, at least. A safe word.

But Meg wasn’t big on safe words; she was only big on pain.

But this was never about harming you, Sam realized. It was about torturing him. It was always about torturing him ...

So, you’ve cottoned on, puppet?

Meg’s voice in Sam’s head rang clear as the highway had been when they’d driven here. Her voice was gloating.

You’ve always been my favorite toy, Sam. You’re so fun to play with. Big... Commanding... Full of self-loathing... You make it so easy.

Sam felt the threads around his internal voice loosen. She was allowing him to speak.

Get out of me, he growled. Leave her alone. Fuck off back to Hell.

Lighten up, Bullwinkle. She’s game. She wants this, clearly. She’s not as innocent as you think. Or are you really that dumb? Look at her.

And Sam did; he had no choice.

Meg flipped you over again so he was forced to look at your face, and he watched as your eyes rolled back in your head with every punishing thrust of his hips.

You looked like a broken doll.

Incapacitated, vulnerable, and…

Hot.

Incredibly fucking hot with your eyes glazed, tits bouncing, hair mussed, wrists bound, and legs spread wide for him.

Fuck. The fact that he was even deriving a single ounce of pleasure from this was unspeakable. Abhorrent. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t thinking straight.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Yeah, must be the alcohol …

With Sam’s lips, Meg smiled a sadistic grin and re-tightened her threads. Sam felt his larynx constrict, choking him quiet as Meg grasped you by the heels and sucked several of your pretty little toes into the pink flesh of his mouth.

Even they tasted sweet.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“God—” you choked out, squirming. In delight or disgust, Sam couldn’t tell any more. Maybe it was both.

Not everyone plays by the rules, puppet, Meg continued. You should know that more than anyone ... I wonder how many other men she’s fucked like this. Must be quite a few. She clearly knows what she wants.

Sam felt a rage that incapacitated him further. But he was completely at her mercy, unable to do anything to prevent this.

He pulled your foot from his mouth, your toes now shiny with his spit, and grazed his teeth along the inside of your calf, leaving several bruising bites.

A dog gnawing on a bone.

A rabid animal.

And stop lying to yourself. Your mind may be capable of deceit, but your meat-suit isn’t. The body doesn’t lie. That was all you…

That was, also, frustratingly true. Despite his intoxication, Sam hadn’t had any trouble getting it up. Of course he hadn’t—it was you. He’d imagined this moment too many times: you, naked, below him, screaming his name. He’d pleasured himself to that thought no less than ten times in the past week alone. It had gotten a little out of hand.

You want this too, puppet. Repression’s an insidious thing. Has no one ever told you that? I’ve seen how you’ve thought about her. The things you’ve imagined... You’re as sick as I am. I’m not doing anything you haven’t already thought about. I’m doing you a favour. Give her what she wants. Give in to the darkness that’s already inside you.

No, Sam thought defiantly, his vision swimming, stars falling like specks of dust. Not like this…

She wants this, puppet. If you won’t give her what she wants, then I will. You have no choice. She’s a pretty little thing. Even when she screams. I wonder what she looks like when the light’s leaving her eyes.

NO, Sam thought, but his hands were already grappling for your neck, his long, skilful fingers hovering over your carotid arteries.

“You want this, baby?” Sam heard himself ask. “You want me to fuck you up?” His voice was still thick from the whisky, and he was horrified to see you nod, dazed though you were.

Sam could hear Meg laughing in his head. This wasn’t funny. It was exactly the opposite. She was screwing with him well, making out that any aspect of this was consensual. She’d learnt that the hard way with Jo. If she was too obvious, you’d know this wasn’t him, surely? Surely you would?

“Just to be clear, you want this, right? ‘Cause I wouldn’t want to hurt you, baby.” Then Meg ran a hand down the rippling muscles in his arm and flexed, making him look like a total jackass. “I’m a big guy, if you hadn’t noticed.” Again, total jackass move.

“Yes, Sammy,” you rasped, watching him beneath heavy lids, mouth parted in awe. “Of course I’ve noticed ... I’ve been waiting so long for this ... For you.”

Sam felt his stomach drop again and fall through the earth. How could you believe this was really him?

You see, Meg taunted. She’s game, baby.

The admission did nothing to reassure Sam. In fact it only made the guilt worse. Hearing that you’d wanted him too, for some time, and were willing to overlook this problematic behavior, hit him like a punch to the gut. It shouldn’t have gone like this. You deserved more. So much more. You deserved to be made to feel loved, not lusted over and debased like a cheap whore.

Meg placed his hand around your neck and squeezed, and the moan you gave in response sent shivers up his spine. With every following word that left his mouth, he felt his grip tighten, your blood pulsing beneath his fingers. “You’re a depraved little slut, huh? Who’d have thought? It’s always the quiet ones. Lose all sense of dignity when they’re being fucked.”

At that, Sam’s hands withdrew and you gasped, your breath shallow and whiny, and your eyes reflected something other than pleasure for the first time tonight. They flashed black, and Sam could see himself in them. It looked a little like fear.

Meg laughed. At you. At Sam’s clear perturbance. And then with a force he never would dare use, drew back his hand and slapped you across the face. You were so small compared to him, so delicate, it wouldn’t take much to break you.

Don’t worry, Meg said. You’re not going to kill her. I can’t deal with reapers right now. They ruin all the fun.

Sam watched your supple skin bloom from the impact of his hand, and your head loll to the side. A single tear rolled down your cheek and pooled in the crevice between your collarbones. You looked undoubtedly out of it, whimpering incomprehensibly, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for Meg. If she couldn’t have you dead, she’d have the next best thing.

Please, Sam begged, as his hand returned to collar your throat. No more. Do what you want with me, but leave her out of this…

As his fingers constricted even further around your neck, Sam couldn’t deny how pretty it looked–his hand around your throat like a gorget. It fit perfectly, like it was meant to be there.

Trouble was, a gorget was meant to protect you, and he was doing the exact opposite…

Maybe you’re not a lost cause after all, Meg chuckled. Damn this is fun.

Fuck, Sam thought, as he struggled in vain to put an end to this violent act, his vile thoughts. But it was too late; the light was already leaving your eyes, your face was turning redder by the second, and...

And…

Your pussy was clenching around him.

This was getting you off.

Told you, Meg said. She’s a freak. We’re not that different.

And as the rest of your climax seized you, Sam felt his own take hold.

He pulled out and began pumping his throbbing cock with the hand he’d just used to strangle you.

A dizzying pleasure overcame him.

Whisky in his veins.

Stars again behind his eyes.

And it didn’t take long before he was groaning in ecstasy, shooting his silky seed across your chest and face.

Through Sam’s now hazel eyes, Meg forced him to look down at you. At what he’d done. At your unconscious shell of a body he’d defiled with his pathetic lack of self-control.

A pornographic painting.

A disturbing display of his descent into depravity.

And then Meg did the cruellest thing she could have possibly done in that moment.

She left.

Left him all alone to deal with the aftermath of this mess. The emotional and physical.

Guilt swallowed Sam whole. Not only for what he’d done, but for how good it had felt to lose control, to sate the desires that that taken root deep inside his rotten, corrupted soul.

The last thing Sam heard before she abandoned his aching body–as he closed his internal eyes and admitted defeat–was Meg’s voice, crisp, clear and gloating.

I’ve ruined her for you now, haven’t I, puppet?

And as much as Sam didn’t want to admit it, maybe she had. Because he now couldn’t imagine having you any other way. 

[bbybhr]

Edging with old man logan

Mainly a one-shot just to bust my confidence into publishing my fiction

Old man Logan had become a shell of himself, his mind consumed by the horrors he had witnessed and caused throughout his long, bloody history. The memories of the people he had lost and the things he had done had become a constant torment, an endless barrage of guilt and pain that haunted him every moment of every day. He had become a man of solitude, pushing away anyone who dared to get close,but still afraid of the darkness that followed him nonetheless.

And than you came around. A ray of hope in his never-ending torment. A light in his path he didn't thought he deserved. A chance to truly live, away from the shadows of death.

You were the last shred of control that he had left, the only thing that tethered him to his humanity. He was a man plagued by demons, haunted by a monstrous alter ego that threatened to consume him. In your presence, however, he found a sense of peace, a sense of control. And he had no intention of losing that.

That's why he kisses you with a passion that is nothing short of primal, a raw and unbridled desire that leaves you breathless. He would unleash the beast you tamed upon yourself, and You would fist his white shirt like it's the last thing that keeps you grounded while he tear up your dress in one move.

"Logan..."

You would call him with a desperate tune as you hear his claws, he hooks them under your bra tearing it apart. His claws millimetres away from your skin, moving down to your panties. His eyes devour you after he freed you from every piece of clothing. His claws retracting slowly to his knuckles as he stand on his knees between your legs. Standing there in his full clothing he didn't even unbutton his shirt, too impatient to have you this helpless under him.

"Fucking beautiful"

He whispered and leaned on you again. One hand steading his weight over you, the other kneading your breast, caressing your sensitive nipple here and there. Making your breath hitche.your hands come up, trying to grab his wrist hut he warns you.

"I don't want to see your hands on me tonight princess...do you understand?"

You nod as you grab the sheets with your fingers while you feel his thigh coming up slowly in between your legs, urging you to grind against it and get off as he was too busy working his tongue over your nipple.when you didn't move your hips (not as noticeable as he wanted to)he looked up,moving his head from your breast to your throat.

"Com'on...Don't keep me waiting sweetheart..."

He voiced in hoarse way,making you shiver.

"Hear, let me help you"

He moved his hand down to your core, leaving your poor nipple alone. He dragged his finger over your clit making you jump and squirm.

"Stay still"

He said with an unmoved expression, wanting way more than that. He moved his position, more on his knees now but still hovering over you. The hand he was leaning on to came and grabbed your jaw, forcing your lips open. He put his hand over your parted lips, the ulnar fleshy side of his palm under your teeth.

"Bite"

And as soon as you questioned what he said you got your answer, he pushed two of his fingers inside of you. Stretching your tight hole. You bite at his hand and mewl, feeling his finger pummelin inside you. You could hear the wet sound they made while moving in and out so clearly.

The knot in your stomach pulled tighter and tighter, but as the feeling of the familiar satisfaction approached, he stopped,suddenly pulling out his fingers leaving your hole empty.

Your eyes got widened. Looking up to him with tears in your eyes and his hand still on your mouth.

"Hmm... I don't think so"

He said nonchalantly, his hand over your cunt, fingertips traveling through your foldes, over your pulsing hole. Making you fist the sheets with so much force that beside your shaking legs they trembled too.

"I think you're in for a surprise darlin, too bad you can't beg for it now huh?"

You closed your eyes in the feeling of his fingers filling you again, but now instead of the cruel pace, they scissored inside you. His thumb came up, finding your clit, caressing it lightly at a circular motion.

Your eyebrows scrunched up, you were lost in the sensation of his fingers working on you. Your body begging for a release, your mind focused on getting the orgasm that it missed.

He moved his hands from your mouth without looking away from how your hole swallowed his thik fingers, coating them with your wetness.

"Breath"

He reminded you, making you take a deep breath you didn't know you needed until now

But before you could exhale he put his hand back on. Making you sob as you pushed your head on the pillow in frustration.

"Look at you darlin...I would feel pity for you,princess ,if I didn't know how much you fucking love this"

Everything became so much, you swear you could feel Everything ten times better. But as that feelings build up, he again leaves you on edge. Taking his finger out and leaving your puffy nub alone. You hit your head on the pillow with frustration, overwhelmed by Everything.

"Imma give you ten seconds...cum or your gonna spend the whole night like this"

You quickly nod and he shoved his finger inside of you again picking up a relentless pace, his hand slamming against your cunt...ten seconds?you only needed five till you feel that mind blowing release, it snapped something inside you. And before you realise you gushed all over his hand

"There we go...my good fucking girl"

He moves his hand from your mouth but his fingers still inside of you, riding you down your high. But even after that he goes on.

"Please...logan"

You beg for it to stop only for him to smirk, taking your state in.

"We're not done even forplaying sugar"

He leans and whispers on your lips.

[arxiwon]

i looooove that you’re writing a lot of vampire!enhypen!!!! if you don’t mind, can i please request a longer version of the what would they do if they saw their gf get her neck bitten by another vampire for ni-ki? where in his jealousy/anger he accidentally hurts her (like grips her too tightly or something) and when she says “riki you’re hurting me” he realizes and becomes super apologetic/feels really bad? thank you!!!!!

say less sweetheart

U can read ot7 too

The Monster in Me

Ni-ki × Reader (Vampire AU, Romantic Angst Jealousy, Supernatural Romance, Hurt/Comfort )

Ni-ki’s vision tunneled the moment he saw it. Another vampire—someone who wasn’t him—had his fangs buried in your neck, his hands gripping your waist far too intimately. A low, guttural growl rumbled from Ni-ki’s chest, something primal and possessive snapping inside him as his nails dug into his palms.

He was by your side in an instant, yanking the other vampire off you with an unforgiving force. The intruder barely had time to react before Ni-ki had him pinned against the nearest wall, his forearm pressing against the other’s throat.

“You really had the audacity, huh?” Ni-ki’s voice was dangerously low, laced with venom. His eyes glowed an eerie crimson, pupils dilated in fury. “Touch what’s mine again, and I’ll rip your heart out.”

The other vampire, despite his clear struggle, let out a choked laugh. “Didn’t seem like she was resisting that much.”

That was it. Ni-ki’s control snapped. He struck the vampire hard enough to send him crashing to the floor, his entire body shaking with rage. But then—your voice.

“Ni-ki, stop!”

His head whipped toward you, eyes still dark with fury. But the anger only reignited when he saw the way you clutched your neck, your skin marked with fresh punctures. The scent of your blood lingered in the air, mixing with that vampire’s scent, and Ni-ki’s jealousy twisted into something ugly.

He was in front of you in a flash, gripping your arms tightly—not enough to bruise, but enough that you gasped. “Why did you let him do that?” His voice wavered between anger and something almost broken. His grip tightened, his jaw clenched. “You’re mine. He had no right—”

“Riki… you’re hurting me.”

The moment those words left your lips, it was as if all the rage drained out of him at once. His hands instantly let go, eyes widening in horror as he took a step back. You were rubbing your arms where he’d held you too hard, and guilt hit him like a tidal wave.

“Baby, I—” His voice cracked as he reached for you again, this time with trembling hands. But he hesitated, afraid to touch you, afraid of himself. “I didn’t mean to. I—” He let out a shaky breath, his hands curling into fists before he forced them open again.

He looked so devastated, so lost, that your anger wavered. “Ni-ki…”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice barely audible. His eyes met yours, filled with regret and self-loathing. “I was just so—so mad, and I wasn’t thinking, and I should never—” His breath hitched, and his hand gently cupped your cheek this time, his touch featherlight as if you might break.

You sighed, leaning into his warmth, and his body instantly relaxed just a little. His thumb ghosted over your skin, his expression pained. “Please, tell me you’re okay,” he murmured.

“I’m okay,” you assured him softly. “Just… next time, don’t let your jealousy get the best of you, alright?”

He nodded, swallowing hard before pulling you into his arms—this time, with nothing but gentleness. “I’ll never let it happen again,” he promised, voice trembling. And you knew he meant it.

[cursedonyx]

I read the post about students reacting to mc dying in their arms. You should do the professors (including Black)

Thank you for the ask! 💚

Hogwarts Legacy Professors React to MC Dying in Their Arms

Link to student reactions here

⚠️Content warning for Death and Body Horror Below the Cut⚠️

Professor Hecat

Dina Hecat had rarely found herself as impressed with a student as she was with you. Your tenacity, your aptitude for magic, your ability to pick up new and complex defensive magic was unmatched, though Sebastian made a valiant effort to maintain a solid second place behind you. Such was your prowess that Dina thought you might make an excellent Auror, and determined to tutor you privately once you expressed an interest. It was a thrill to begin with, to teach you all the tips and tricks an Auror might need in their arsenal, you picking them all up as if it was as easy as breathing, to the point that Dina grew complacent.

She’d heard tales of your exploits during your fifth year, of course, and fought beside you during the Battle for the Repository. She was confident that you could handle anything thrown at you, and you impressed her over and over and over. But all it took was one tiny misstep, one foot wrong, and all her Ministry training and the reason behind it was thrown into sharp relief.

The troll was supposed to be an easy dispatch. You’d defeated one when you were brand new to magic, after all. Dina had taught you an advanced form of confringo, or at least, she’d taught you the theory. It was a powerful spell, a short step below feindfyre, and she was eager to see it in practice. But the troll had flung its club just as you began the incantation, and everything went wrong. You were distracted as it flew towards Dina, and you lost control of the spell.

The resulting inferno was too much for mere aguamenti, and there was nothing Dina could do but wait for the flames to die down, listening to you scream as you blundered about in the middle of the fire, unable to find a way out. When the smoke cleared, all that was left of you was a charred skeleton, your clawed hand leaving sooty streaks on her skin as she took it, hoping that this was some kind of nightmare, some kind of illusion or hallucination, anything but brutal, cold reality.

There was an investigation, of course. Why was a seventh-year student out fighting trolls? Why was this student doing so under the instruction of a faculty member that should have known better? Why had this professor allowed things to get so out of control?

Dina avoided Azkaban for her neglect by a narrow margin, but she had to give up her teaching post. She passed a little over a year later, having drunk herself to death, unable to cope with the guilt.

Professor Ronen

Abraham Ronen had always had such a love of fun and games, determined to make each of his classes a joy for his students. Yes, he recycled ideas through the terms, a large timetable in his office holding large lists of games he could incorporate that was appropriate for each year of Charms classes. But even so, after several years in his position, he found these games began to grow repetitive, and he wanted to liven things up.

That’s where you came in. Your ingenuity was famous throughout Hogwarts for a reason, and so he called on you one day after class, requesting your assistance in thinking up new games to play. He gave you a list of the spells he was to teach his seventh-year students, promising to waive your homework for a month if you helped out. You took to the task like a kappa to water, assailing Abraham with a variety of ‘games’ that would help the other students learn. The problem was, most of your games involved far too much risk for his liking, including trying to steal a dragon egg. Despite your protestations that you knew where to find one, Abraham wasn’t having it. But he’d promised, and you’d promised, and a deal was a deal.

So extreme were your ideas that when you proposed the still dangerous but comparatively tame idea of delayed-action bombarda combined with glacius, Abraham thought the idea of students running through a booby-trapped field, freezing the latent explosive spells, was a positively marvellous idea.

The students were less keen. They, unexposed to your particular brand of fun, saw the folly in such a practice. But you, determined that everyone should have fun, decided to be the first across the field. Abraham realised far too late just how foolish this game was, and had barely raised his wand as you danced across the minefield before disaster struck, and you were blown apart.

He tried his best to gather the pieces of you that rained down. A severed foot here, a shattered forearm there, holding his robes like an apron and gathering you up. It was futile, of course, for once a witch or wizard’s head is detached from their body, even the very best healers only have a few seconds to make it right.

He could never get that image out of his mind. One moment you were smiling, laughing, joking, teasing the others for their hesitancy, and the next you were in bits, everything that you were tumbling from the sky in slow motion. Every student in that class was scarred for life, set to fail their Charms NEWTs, fifty promising careers suddenly thrown down the toilet. Abraham resigned in shame, and did not go home to his wife. He wandered until he became lost, and lost himself until he found a cliff. Only by shattering himself on the rocks below could he find some form of atonement for his sins.

Professor Sharp

Aesop Sharp had always preferred to be somewhat gruff and stern. It kept his pupils in line, and his firm but fair approach ensured that everyone that took his classes passed with good marks, even if they had a tendency to blow things up, a practice he’d secretly taken to calling “doing a Garreth.” You, on the other hand, slipped past his guard. Maybe it was your incredible aptitude for offensive and defensive magic, or perhaps it was your endearing wit and charm. It could have been your happy-go-lucky nature, your ability to smile no matter how dire things seemed to be, always poking fun at yourself before anyone else. He found himself growing fond of you, thinking of you as some kind of wayward nibling.

He still had to give you detentions on occasion, of course, because even you couldn’t cheek the Potions Master and get away with it, no matter how well-intentioned your words had been. He found such hours to be more of a delight than a chore, happy to talk to you about anything and everything, even laughing a little as you revealed some of the mischief you’d gotten up to, things he’d normally give more detentions for.

One evening in the dungeons, you were cheerfully scrubbing out the cauldrons, and you asked him about is days as an Auror. You told him about an Ashwinder camp you’d caught wind of, and how you wished you could eradicate them. Aesop knew he should report it to Officer Singer and keep you out of it, but hell, he’d seen you fight, and there was something in him that yearned for that spark of excitement that came with defeating his enemies. He suggested travelling with you to wipe them out, considering it worth at least three detentions. You joked that this meant you had two free passes to be cheeky in class, and he told you not to push your luck.

If only he’d known. If only he’d taken a moment to think. If only he’d listened to his Auror instincts that told him this was a bad idea.

You’d both crept up on the camp, wands at the ready. There weren’t many of them, but enough to pose a bit of a challenge. Aesop had every confidence in you, he knew your skills after all, but unfortunately, the Ashwinders did as well. The moment they saw you, they didn’t bother with their typical hexes. They knew enough about you to know they couldn’t waste a second if they wanted to live. Three Killing Curses were sent your way, and one found its mark.

Aesop thought he knew loss when his partner was killed in Scarborough, but this was something else. Watching the light go out of your eyes, the ghost of your last, confident smile on your face, broke him like nothing had broken him before. He didn’t even try to resist when the Ashwinders took him, snatching his wand and throwing him in a cage along with the kneazles they’d poached. He couldn’t get the image of you out of his mind, your still body lying amid the debris of the Forbidden Forest, already ignored and forgotten by your foes, left for whatever scavengers crept through the night to feast. He refused food and water as he was dragged from one end of the country to the other, kept prisoner by those that had killed you. It took weeks to kill him, but one morning, lying on the floor of that cold, hard cage, he just didn’t wake up.

Professor Black

Phineus Nigellus Black preferred to let the students of Hogwarts think he was a cold-hearted, pompous bastard. It was much easier to work this way, easier to make the tough decisions a Headmaster of Hogwarts needed to make. Budget cuts, cancelling quidditch, extending exam season and banning Hogsmeade visits to ensure student safety was easier to weather if his heart was already hardened to the complaints and cries of woe, the bitter mutters, the whispered insults, the playground songs made up to poke fun at him. Yes, it hurt, but he was better than that. Stronger. Prouder. He had a job to do, after all, and Merlin only knew the previous Headmaster had left a hellish mess for him to set right. He had to be hard to be kind. He preferred not to pay attention to those around him, erecting a hard wall around his heart.

You, however… you were different. He heard about what you did in your fifth year, and though he found it hard to believe at first, he paid a bit more attention to you as time went by, and found the tales of your prowess were, if anything, undersold. Phineas made an effort in your final year to take you under his wing, seeing a potential candidate for the position of Minister for Magic in your future. He wanted to teach you the finer points of politics and bootlicking, introduce you to the right people, like the Gaunts, the Blacks, the Malfoys and more to give you the boost you needed to clamber up that slippery ladder. The only gifts he knew how to give.

You were resistant, of course. What kind of firecracker would you be if you weren’t? Phineas relished the challenge, demanding more and more of your free time until you began to understand just what kind of privileges came along with knowing the right people and scratching the right backs. Ominis knew it and used it to his advantage perhaps less than he should have done, but this seemed to tip the scales in Phineas' favour, and you finally began to listen and learn from his wise tutelage. He found himself swelling with pride as you whipped about your newfound allegiances, terrifying students and teachers alike, reining you in when you frightened Hobhouse so much he wet himself, his scolding gentle and warm. He might have had five children, but you showed promise.

Unfortunately, even the shrewd and clever Phineas couldn’t have foreseen the simple dangers of existing in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He’d taken you to the trophy room, waxing lyrical about the famous witches and wizards that had come through Hogwarts, pointing out their accolades with relish, his hand on your shoulder, a rare and affectionate gesture of genuine pride. He told you that you could achieve just as much, perhaps more, if you applied all your skills and knowledge in the right ways. He even smiled at you, and his eyes were warm.

You asked to see a particularly bright medal on a high shelf, and Phineas, taking a leaf out of your muggleborn book, decided to give the other life a try, just for once. If a muggleborn could be as impressive as you, perhaps he didn’t have to use magic for everything. He tried to reach the medal by hand, even climbing on the shelf to do so, smiling as it made you laugh. He climbed down, medal in hands, his brow furrowing as your face grew ashen. The next moment, you had barrelled into him, throwing him out of the way of the falling shelf.

By the time he picked himself up, scolding you for your behaviour, it was too late. The falling shelves and shattered glass had crushed you, slashing your neck. By the time Phineas realised you weren’t just pratting about like you usually did, you’d bled out, your skin pale, your eyes wide and unseeing. Phineas sat on the floor beside your corpse, holding your fingers closed over the medal that read:

Most Impressive Display of Honour.

Professor Garlick

Mirabel Garlick had endured her share of enamoured students, villagers, and even fellow professors in her time. She dealt with it all with the grace and decorum that was expected of such a sunny personality, treating all and sundry with the same level of ardent attention and big, bright smiles. She had a soft spot for you though, someone who appreciated magical plants for the marvels they were. She didn’t mind when you stayed after class to quiz her on the less known properties of pufferpods or the right way to tamp down earth around a mandrake to ensure maximum comfort. She’d heard all about your little adventure to see the giant venomous tentacula, and had been curious about your knowledge ever since.

She was more than happy to help you grow your plants bigger and better than what the school board advised. She even cleared out Greenhouse Four for your personal use, encouraging you to grow things most students would only ever see if they were extremely unlucky. But she trusted you. She believed you knew what you were doing, swept up by your enthusiasm, tempted by her own curiosity to see just how far you could push your skills.

So it was that the pair of you ended up breeding a new kind of Devil’s Snare, one that was resistant to light and heat. It took time, and though you both occasionally wondered what the purpose of such a plant would be, you were too excited by the prospect of your experiments bearing fruit to worry about consequences. Mirabel should have known better. The only defence against a Devil’s Snare is light and heat, and both of you pushed away thoughts of protection against such a thing. It seemed playful, intelligent, happy.

It was early on a Saturday morning when Mirabel decided to look in on Greenhouse Four. It was only by chance that she had decided to do so, and she would spend the rest of her life wishing she had been five minutes sooner. She saw the Devil’s snare distract you with dancing tendrils as it had so many times before, only this time, you were too close. It wrapped you up faster than a spider wraps a fly, crushing the life from you. No matter how many incendios she cast, no matter how much she shouted and beat at it, even conjuring a torch to hold against the vines, all it did was hurt you more as it crushed the life from you, each snap of your ribs loud above your gasping breaths, the crunch of your spine grinding in her ears, the blood from your nose splattering on the floor as your lungs punctured, your eyes bulging out of their sockets. Even still you fought to draw breath until there was no more room in your chest.

Mirabel had never felt so helpless. She sank to her knees, waiting as the Devil’s Snare took you into its core to feed upon your corpse. She didn’t resist when the vines caressed her face, then wrapped around her throat, her wand lying forgotten on the floor of Greenhouse Four.

Professor Fig

Eleazar Fig had always had a soft spot for you. He’d watched you grow from a novice to a master in the space of a year, popular and clever, beloved by your peers and professors alike. He always made sure to make time for you in his office, sharing a cup of tea as you discussed your past adventures, gossiped about the students, or just had a jolly good chinwag. You both shared a love of adventure, and made time at least once a month to get up to mischief, whether it was investigating old ruins, clearing out mongrel dens, or just running the occasional errand for those in need. You delighted in having your mentor along for the ride, and he adored helping you where he could.

Unfortunately for you, your exploits over the years made you enemies. Though you helped a good many people and made plenty of friends, there were those that were hard done by when you stole from them or caused them trouble on behalf of someone else. Eleazar knew this, and made sure to continually warn you to watch your back, clucking like a mother hen. Perhaps he warned you too much, his words of caution becoming background noise as you continually avoided retribution for your misdeeds. Eleazar did his best to keep you safe all the same, ardently researching your enemies and eliminating plots before they came to fruition.

But after almost a year of no schemes against you, he dared to relax. He invited you out to lunch at Steepley and Sons, intending to enjoy a quiet cup of tea, some nice sandwiches, and perhaps even a slice of cake, his treat, of course. He wanted to catch up properly, to make sure you were happy, on top of your homework, getting on with your friends. You wanted to know how he was coping after Miriam’s passing, if he was back on the scene, how his work as a teacher was going, and can he please get you out of detention with Professor Sharp?

Neither of you expected after all this time there were still those that held a grudge. The young wizard helping Mrs Steepley was actually an Ashwinder, and they poisoned your cup of tea. It took a moment to take effect, but once it did, the only way to save you was locked away in Hogwarts Castle. Even accio couldn’t have got the antidote to you in time.

Eleazar watched as your face went ashen, seemingly sinking in on itself as you clawed at your throat. He caught you as you listed sideways, his eyes locked on yours, trying to comfort you, soothe you as you struggled to draw breath, not even a pin able to pass through the tightness of your throat. Your nails left bloody furrows on your neck, your feet kicking feebly even as someone ran for J Pippin’s, hoping he’d be able to help. Eleazar knew better. He just held you as your body jerked, the last of your life sliding through his fingers as he tried oh so hard to hold on to it, begging you silently to just hold on a little longer. You were all he had, the last spark of joy in his cold, dark life. Once you were gone, there was nothing left for him. A swift unforgivable curse delivered to his temple as he lay in his chamber was enough to ensure he could see you and Miriam again.

witchdoctorpirate ~💚

[sylusonychinus]

💖 Day 1 - Love When You're Submissive 💖

📌 Pairing: Rafayel x GN! Reader 📌 Requested by: @lyrisnightblood "Would it be alright to request MC × Rafayel angst for Valentine’s Day? (Would it be alright to ask for a gender-neutral MC 👉👈)"

For the angst: MC and Rafayel are engaging in CNC roleplay (nothing too explicit!), and MC ends up manhandling Rafayel a little too roughly—all pre-discussed beforehand. However, once MC realizes they’ve actually hurt Rafayel, even in a consensual setting, they immediately safeword and break down in tears, realizing that hurting him was the last thing they ever wanted. 😭💔

✍️ A/N: Hewwo! 🐾 Thank you for the request! Welcome to Day 1, and we’re kicking things off with some very, very smutty angst—WE LOVE TO SEE IT!!! 🔥💔💖

The air crackled with a strange energy. MC, clad in simple black, felt a nervous flutter in their stomach. Tonight was the night they and Rafayel would explore the boundaries of control in their relationship.

Rafayel reclined on the bed, his violet hair cascading over the pillows, catching the soft glow of the room’s light. His blue-purple eyes, sharp yet enigmatic, held a knowing glint. He was calm, composed—always in control, even when surrendering it. "Ready?" he murmured, his voice smooth, carrying that familiar blend of amusement and challenge.

MC nodded, their breath catching. They moved toward the bed, their steps measured, each movement deliberate. The dynamic they had planned demanded a display of power, a delicate dance on the edge of control. They circled Rafayel, their gaze intense, their touch a carefully orchestrated exploration—a firm hand here, a lingering caress there.

Rafayel exhaled softly, his lips curving into the faintest of smirks. "You’ll have to do better than that," he teased, voice low, testing.

MC pressed forward, responding to the challenge, but something shifted within them. The playful edge of their intent wavered, tipping into something deeper, less restrained. Their grip tightened, their movements growing too firm, too forceful. The moment tilted.

Rafayel's breath hitched—not in pleasure, but in pain. His body tensed, his smirk vanishing. "Enough," he commanded, voice firm, but controlled. "Purple."

The word cut through the charged air like a blade.

MC froze, horror dawning in their eyes. They had crossed a line. Their pulse thundered as they released him instantly, retreating as if burned. "Rafayel… I—I'm so sorry. I didn’t mean to—"

Rafayel pushed himself up, his expression unreadable. He took a slow, steady breath before his eyes met MC’s—searching, assessing. Then, his features softened. "You lost yourself in the moment. It happens." His voice was even, reassuring, but his usual effortless confidence had been shaken, if only slightly.

MC’s knees hit the floor, hands clenched. "I hurt you. I never wanted—"

Rafayel leaned forward, his fingers tilting their chin up gently. "You stopped. You listened. That’s what matters." His gaze, always so piercing, held something warmer now—understanding. "Control isn’t just about power. It’s about knowing when to let go and when to hold back."

The weight of guilt pressed down on MC in the days that followed. Rafayel, patient as ever, reassured them, his every action a quiet reminder that trust was not so easily broken. Still, the doubt lingered.

One evening, as they lay together in the quiet glow of the city skyline, MC finally whispered, "I don’t deserve you."

Rafayel turned to them, amusement flickering behind his gaze. "Oh? And why is that?"

MC swallowed hard. "I almost ruined everything."

A low chuckle escaped Rafayel’s lips. "You underestimate me. I don’t break that easily."

MC hesitated, uncertainty still etched in their features. Rafayel reached out, threading his fingers through theirs. "You think I hand over control to just anyone?" His voice lowered, teasing. "Trust goes both ways. And I still trust you."

MC searched his expression, and for the first time since that night, they let themselves believe him.

A slow smile tugged at Rafayel’s lips. "Besides," he murmured, voice dipping with its usual velvety confidence, "I think I could teach you a thing or two about control."

MC blinked, then let out a breath of laughter. "You think so?"

Rafayel smirked. "I know so."

As they lay there, wrapped in each other’s warmth, the fear began to ease, replaced by something stronger. Their bond had been tested, but it had not broken. If anything, it had only grown deeper—an unshakable connection, forged in understanding and trust.

[thebaronsilver]

First of the bat, let me say this as a disclaimer. I love the og Percy Jackson series. Secondly, my fav character is Nico and then the Percy from the og series.

Do you know why I make this distinction? Because, Heroes of Olympus ruined Percy's basic characteristics.

Just think, this is the percy who was bullied in almost every school he attended (except, maybe, Goode). Even, camp half blood,till he came back from the first quest. This is the guy with so strong a sense of loyalty that he was willing to get into trouble with the teachers for Grover when they studied together, was willingly an outcast because he would rather be friends with the one guy everyone picked on and thus be bullied himself. He was pretty excited to have a brother once he got over the whole Cyclops thing, too. This is the same guy who spent all his free time looking for a runaway kid who said he hated him. Maybe it was out of misplaced guilt. Maybe it was due to the fact this guy big brothered everyone he could get away with. (Atleast, I felt like that.)

While we're on that issue. Was Nico right to blame Percy for Bianca's death? Absolutely, not. But he was also a grieving ten year old who just lost his only family (even though she had, in a way, already left him behind. But that's an entirely different rant on the Hunters as an institutions. Bianca was also a child, remember.). And considering that Nico changed his tune once he found the truth out and even helped Percy and the camp willingly afterwards, I like to think he more than made up for that mistake.

There's even a part where Percy refuses to burden Nico with the prophesy and claims it for himself. Considering that till then he was trying not to even think about it, I believe we can easily claim that Nico was in some ways important to Percy. Maybe not in the same way his Mom, Annabeth Or Grover was to him, but still an important person.

Then we have in the last Olympian, Percy using Nico as an example why Children of Hades shouldn't be treated as Pariahs. Because if not for him and the reinforcements his powers brought (not even counting the three whole deities he brought along) the casualties would have been higher. (It was Hades who locked Percy up. He even confirms that Nico hadn't had a clue. Nico in turn broke him out and got himself in trouble. Then in a turn of events, Percy starts to blame Nico for something that wasn't in his control. A reversal of roles so to speak. I had thought that it had been momentary anger on Percy's part, but apparently considering all the references to how Nico betrayed him in the HoO, it wasn't. He'd pushed it aside momentarily, it seems.)

Percy was not to blame for what happened to Nico in the original series. Life isn't fair and it just happened to be extra unfair to Nico. Even then Percy went out of his way to look after the kid, to make sure he had a safe space.

This is the Percy who I liked. The Son of Neptune only emphasised this. Even without his memories, he took Hazel and to a lesser extent Frank under his wings. He actually recognised Nico in a vague way. Not just Annabeth (which is something else I have beef with. What about his mother? Why didn't he remember Sally till a lot later and even then he didn't let her know he was safe till a lot later?)

Then comes the Mark of Athena. He apparently told so many horror stories to the 7 that there was a debate on whether or not they should save a 13 year old demigod, the brother to one of them, from a preventable death. This wasn't like the Titan war were demigods could be the enemy. Then why was there even a debate? It's like all that loyalty disappeared. This is the guy that was once bullied at every school he's attended. Doesn't he know the impact of telling tales when people aren't there to defend themselves? To tell the whole story? Then House of Hades. Every single person in that ship thought that Nico was spooky, creepy whatever and all that poor kid was doing was exist. He made himself scarce, barely spoke unless necessary and even then they were like ew, creepy. It's like Percy's personal loyalty became loyalty to just Annabeth. Fuck whatever happens to anyone else. It upsets me.

The later books ruined Percy as a character. And I will stand by this.

[wormslikestostarve]

My Funger Termina HC (pt 1)

So, I'm pretty obsessed with Funger since a while and I have been accumulating a lot of HC, specially for termina (very specifically Levi lol) and I'll share them in part bc there are MANY

First, I think there are more termina contestants that have PTSD than levi (since he canonically has C-PTSD) BEFORE the festival starts. (bc definitely all of the survivants will have PTSD after seeing inhumane horrors and being forced to kill other people) However, they cope with it in differents forms.

Daan doesn't talk about Sylvian or what happened during the war but he'd admit that has messed up his life due to obvious reasons. But, if you ask about the Von Dutch, he would totally deny that they harmed him (I'll explain my opinion Abt that in the next few days) and he will claim that he loved Elise, that she was the sun of his life and the Baron Von Dutch has given him a better life and a vocation. Daan will never blame Elise for anything bad.

Also, Daan is not asexual but he doesn't like that vulnerability that he feels at intimacy so it's either, or he is hipersexual to evade think about the lost of his wife and somehow reclaim his body from Sylvian or he is really uncomfortable at being touched since I also don't think that Elise cared about his comfort in that sense and well... 'Sylvian studies' with Einer (grooming btw) and the fact that he may have been forced to participate in such activities when he was young (in the cult or when he lived on the streets) doesn't make a great floor for enjoying physical intimacy. (In fact, in the Sylvian statue on prehevil, Abella comment about the 'form' of the statue and Daan cut her off mid sentence clearly annoyed. Something that doesn't match his character)

Samarie is well... Samarie. She's seriously fucked up in the head yk? I think she would have special problems to sleep since her problems are with Rher and still probably has flashbacks with the nine circle, the isolation and the experiments (probably torture in the god's name like gro goroth, Sylvian, having some kind of mental magic, drugs or psychological torture for Rher or starve for GOFAH, idk about how would you pray for vinushka but I imagine that) to the point that even before termina and all the perkele stuff, she had nightmares of Rher talking to her almost every night (could be actually Rher or just her head playing tricks, probably both since she can mind read)

Pav has PTSD and goddamn he has it. Anyways if you ask about it he will probably call you a slur and completely deny it. (Bury trauma) He is the kind of man who is completely anedonic one day and maniac or extremely irritable the other.

And definitely he drinks any licour available until he falls asleep completely worn out to evade thinking about his past or his guilt before sleep, he knows he won't stop if so. Plus, his liver is great to process ethanol so he never had a hangover. When he was young he was quite proud of that but probably it's one of the reasons why he drinks like a fish, he doesn't have any physical consecuence and to be fair, it's not like he really cares about dying young.

It would be interesting if pav had a personality disorder type B (BPD, bipolarity, histrionic) but I didn't decide which one fits him better.

And last there's O'saa, he does have PTSD but he thinks about mental health and emotions like a weakness too much to admit he has a problem at all. After all, what are a little flashbacks or nightmares if there are people dying all over the word? Concentrate and stop being a maggot. Anyways, I don't doubt that he has passed a few nights searching for any rite or spell to help his mind, forget about the dungeons of fah or whatever that could help or make him feel like he has the control over his emotions again.

If he was on the city for any reason, he would go to a bar to drink and search tarts and evade thinking for a few hours, even if it was hypocrite with all the 'search enlightenment and reject worldly things and fantasy' thing. A man needs to be a little hedonistic every now and then to restore mind, right?

Even so, if you ask him about mental health he would absolutely be like "yeah no, white h0e problems, I've seen worse".

Not really because he's insensible or mean on purpose but bc he is from a poor country in the middle of constant war, he went to the most inhumane dungeons and went back after seeing all the degeneration of humanity in the form of darkness and monsters with a talking burned head who constantly tells him to distrusts everyone like if nash'ra was fucking Andrew Tate of the 16th century, his standard are awful and he wants to be in absolute control over his head.

(You can see it on his moonscorched form, it apparently looks like O'saa is the least changed contestant since he's still humanoid and has his yellow mage clothes, it may be seen like he has control over himself, like he is the master mind. But in the diagnosis of Daan he says that it looks like a parasite is controlling him. He was never in control but always at the mercy of a higher power)

(also, sorry for any grammatical mistake, I'm not an English speaker. I have more HC about the mental health of the rest but this is specifically Abt PTSD, sorry for any misinterpretation of the disorder)

[neversetyoufree]

GOD I just realized.

When Jeanne goes to Gévaudan in the present day, she's dead set on killing Chloé. And that sense of obligation isn't just due to her sense of duty as a bourreau; she very clearly feels personal guilt about failing to kill Chloé the previous time. Why?

Jeanne goes into Gévaudan thinking that Chloé really is the Beast. And that means she thinks Chloé's been killing the people of Gévaudan, which she must know Chloé in her right mind would rather die than do. Hell, Chloé even asked Jeanne to kill her when they met on the cliff as beast and bourreau, as she really was laden down with the guilt of "causing" the deaths of her family and the horror of the true nature of the "beast." Jeanne has every reason to think that Chloé has been killing her people and is suicidally miserable about it.

And it's not just that Chloé wants to die and Jeanne failed to kill her. As far as Jeanne can tell when she comes back to Gévaudan, Chloé is still alive and living Jeanne's personal worst nightmare. When Jeanne cries to Vanitas about the fear of losing herself in the atelier, she's not just scared of a loss of identity or control. She's terrified that her violent impulses and loss of self will one day bring her to hurt Luca—the person she loves and most wants to protect.

Chloé is absolutely devoted to the people of Gévaudan. Jeanne knows that, and when she thinks Chloé is the beast, she thinks she's been killing them. She thinks that Chloé has lost herself to her violent impulses and is hurting the people she most wants to protect. So of course Chloé has to die! Jeanne herself also desperately wants to die rather than risk hurting a loved one. It's why Vanitas's promise is a comfort to her.

Jeanne is haunted by the thought that she failed Chloé by not killing her, and that guilt is informed by a bone-deep understanding. Jeanne wants to kill Chloé because she sees herself in the horror of what she thinks Chloé's situation is, and she cannot allow Chloé to keep living their shared worst nightmare. Chloé has to die because she cannot exist in a world where she's hurt her people, and Jeanne can relate to that better than anyone.

That's why Vanitas has to emphasize that Chloé never hurt the people of Gévaudan when he finally talks Jeanne into saving her. Jeanne's guilt may not be the only reason she tries so hard to kill Chloé. There's also her job as a bourreau and her sense that she's simply bound to carry out orders, but I don't think she initially enters Gévaudan with the blank mindset of a thoughtless drone.

Jeanne goes to Gévaudan to kill Chloé because she knows that Chloé would rather die than live having hurt her beloved people. There is no saving her once she's crossed that line. And Jeanne understands that because she's terrified of the exact same thing.

[twistedheartsclub]

Salt and Ink: A Fairytale of Pocketcat X Fem Reader

⚠️ Content & Trigger Warnings: Psychological manipulation / gaslighting Emotional abuse disguised as affection Stockholm Syndrome / coercive control Implied non-consensual intimacy / dubious consent Captivity / entrapment Power imbalance (non-human entity vs. human) Loss of agency / identity erosion Surreal horror / unreality / story-based entrapment Mentions of isolation, starvation, and exhaustion

“Stories don’t just live on pages,” the woman had once said. Y/N had spent her life chasing lost fairytales—uncut, undusted, raw. The ones where the beast didn’t turn handsome, and love didn’t save anyone.

That’s why Pocketcat loved her.

Not loved like a man loves a woman. No, he loved her like a story loves a reader—desperately, greedily, wanting her eyes on him forever.

So when she said no, when her soft scholar's voice trembled with fear and revulsion, he did what stories do to their readers: He pulled her inside.

The first time she saw him, he didn’t enter so much as arrive.

There was no clatter of boots on the wooden floor, no rattle of the old brass bell that hung from the lintel. One moment, the shop was empty, save for the soft hiss of rain against the windowpanes; the next, he was simply there—standing between shelves stacked with books older than grief, bathed in the amber hush of gaslight.

Y/N had been cataloguing a tattered folio of Breton lullabies, her gloved fingers tracing the curled ink as if the pages might flake away under breath. She was used to strange customers. Eccentric scholars. Cult collectors. The occasional storm-drenched tourist who thought the shop was a café. But this—

This was different.

He was tall, skeletal beneath a tattered, many-buttoned coat stitched from velvet, brocade, and something like moth wings. A silken cravat foamed at his throat. And his face—if it could be called that—was concealed behind a porcelain cat mask. One half smooth and expressionless, like an antique doll. The other side, cracked and grinning wide, bore too many teeth carved in cruel, childlike strokes.

He didn’t speak at first. He simply watched her with the unsettling stillness of a puppet between scenes.

Y/N cleared her throat, spine straightening. “Can I help you?”

His head tilted. A sound—like wind brushing paper—escaped him. “Ah… but you already have, dearest heart.”

His voice was liquid. Not warm—never warm—but smooth, like ink poured over a corpse. The accent was peculiar, too, like someone playing at civility from a place that had never known it.

She didn’t answer immediately. Years in the trade had taught her when to speak and when to simply let silence stretch. The man—thing?—before her was clearly dangerous in the way ancient books were: charming, impossible, and not quite of this world.

“You deal in lost things,” he went on, stepping closer. His boots made no sound. “But not just the forgotten—no, no. You gather the wrong versions. The wicked ones. The stories that bite back.”

Y/N slowly placed the book on the table and closed it. “I collect original forms. Stories before they were sanded down for children.”

“A charming euphemism,” he purred, circling her desk. “You hunger for the unwritten truths. The wild woods. The devouring mother. The lover with teeth. Tell me—how many ways can the Beast be punished before he is loved?”

That made her stiffen. She hadn’t told anyone about that story. A rare variant from an Italian folktale, barely translated. In it, Beauty is trapped not by gentleness, but by the endless performance of gentleness. She falls for him not out of affection, but because the world will not let her leave without guilt.

Pocketcat noticed her reaction. Of course he did.

His voice softened, wrapping around her like silk sheets gone sour. “Ahh. That tale. Your favorite. You saw yourself in her, didn’t you? Not in her love—but in her doubt. Her defiance.”

He was too close now. She took a step back.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice low.

He bowed—fluidly, mockingly. “I am a story that walked too long without a reader. I am the empty space between a child’s scream and the silence after. I am…” He tapped his mask, where the smile met the porcelain cheek. “A collector, like you.”

She didn’t like the way he said it. Like he’d collected things that bled.

“I think you should go,” Y/N said quietly.

A pause. Then:

“I think you don’t mean that,” he whispered. “You’ve been reading me for years. Every time your fingers turned a page, I felt it. Every time you understood—every time you chose the version where love was a trap and kindness was a mask—I saw you. I knew you were the one.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

“I’m not interested in playing house with a haunted mask,” she said, harsher than intended.

He didn’t flinch. If anything, he looked delighted. “Oh, darling. Who said anything about playing?”

And then—just like that—he was gone.

No flicker. No puff of smoke. One blink, and the space where he stood was filled only with dust motes drifting like drowned things in the amber light.

Y/N didn’t sleep that night.

She tried, of course—curled in the tiny apartment above her shop with a cup of tea left to grow cold at her bedside. But something in her head itched, like pages turning behind her eyelids. And somewhere, in the quiet between streetlight flickers and passing cars, she swore she heard a soft meow… and the rustle of a story slipping itself off the shelf.

It began with the books.

Not all of them—just one. The one.

Y/N kept her private collection separate from the shop floor: the rarest, strangest editions locked in a rosewood cabinet behind her desk. She didn’t loan them, didn’t display them. Some stories weren’t for sale. One of them—her favorite, though she’d never admitted that aloud—was a version of Beauty and the Beast that didn’t end with love, but with quiet surrender.

It had no author, no publisher. Just a cracked leather spine and a name etched in gold on the front:

“The Beholden Bride.”

In it, Beauty was not drawn to the Beast for his tenderness or tragic curse. She stayed because every time she tried to leave, the Beast wept. He clutched at his chest and cried that she was breaking him, that she didn’t understand what she meant to him, that she had ruined him by showing him kindness only to take it away. It was never violent—but it was suffocating. She stayed not for love, but because she couldn’t bear the guilt of his grief.

It had always haunted Y/N, how quietly the story turned its screws. How Beauty’s freedom was never taken—just made unthinkable.

That book was the one she found open on her desk the next morning.

She hadn’t touched it in months. She never left it out.

Worse still—the pages were different. Slightly. A phrase here, a turn of metaphor there. At first, she thought she’d simply forgotten how it read. But then she saw it: a new passage that hadn’t been there before. A scene where the Beast watched Beauty sleep, whispering:

“Even if she forgets me in the waking world, her dreams will keep me close. Her soul remembers. Her bones remember. They have always belonged to me.”

Y/N slammed the book shut.

It hissed as it closed—like air sucked between teeth.

She tried to ignore it.

Two days passed. Then three. The lights in the shop began to flicker without reason. Her teacups moved slightly from where she’d set them. Once, she caught the smell of lavender ink and dust when no one had opened a book in hours.

And on the fourth night, when she locked the shop and climbed the stairs to her apartment above, he was waiting.

Not inside.

In the mirror.

He stood behind her reflection—taller than the frame allowed, head tilted as if examining a cherished trinket. His masked hand reached forward, brushing ghostlike against her cheek in the glass. She turned—nothing there. But in the mirror, he remained, watching with the patient hunger of something that had all the time in the world.

That night, Y/N did not dream of her own memories.

She dreamed of ballroom floors layered in ash. Of roses that sang lullabies in forgotten languages. Of herself, dressed in crimson silk, walking through a mansion made of torn pages and stitched shadows.

And always—always—he was there. Offering his arm. Smiling with half a face.

It was raining again when he returned—this time, with sound. A soft chiming of the doorbell, just like any other customer. Only the air shifted—thickened—as though the walls of the shop were holding their breath.

Y/N stood behind the counter. Her hands did not shake.

“You’re not real,” she said. “You’re part of a story.”

“Exactly.” Pocketcat bowed low, one hand over his heart. “And so are you.”

He straightened slowly, the porcelain catching candlelight in strange ways. “You’ve read me. You’ve known me. And I… I have loved you from the moment your fingers touched my name.”

“I never asked for that.”

“No,” he sighed, stepping forward. “You didn’t. But stories rarely ask permission, do they?”

He placed something gently on the counter. A book. Leather-bound. No title.

She stared at it.

“It’s yours,” he said softly. “I wrote it. For you. About us.”

Y/N didn’t touch it. “There is no us.”

Pocketcat cocked his head. “There was. There will be. There must be.”

His tone was still velvet, but something coiled beneath it now—tighter, meaner.

“I love you,” he said.

Y/N’s breath caught.

“I don’t.”

“You don’t yet.”

And then—so fast—his mask was inches from her face. The world blurred at the edges. Time shuddered.

“Let me show you what we could be.”

Her mouth opened—to scream, to protest, she wasn’t sure. But the words curdled in her throat. The floor vanished.

She awoke in silence.

The shop was gone. Her body felt different. Heavier, but graceful. The air smelled like parchment and old perfume. She stood slowly, her shoes clicking against marble tiles that hadn’t existed before.

Before her rose a grand hall—dark and gold, hung with chandeliers that dripped wax like tears. The walls were covered in moving murals—scenes from a story she knew far too well. Roses curled around mirrors. Dresses shimmered in wardrobes. A table set for two waited at the far end.

And standing beside it—

Was him.

Dressed now in regal finery, his mask polished and smiling wide.

“Welcome home, Beauty,” Pocketcat purred. “You’ve remembered, at last.”

The mansion was alive.

Not in the quaint, whimsical way of talking teacups or self-sweeping brooms. No—this house breathed. The wallpaper curled and flaked like old parchment. The chandeliers flickered with candlelight that dripped blood-red wax. The rugs shifted beneath Y/N’s steps, stretching subtly, as though the floor was sighing beneath her weight.

Every door she tried led back to the same place: the great hall.

Pocketcat sat at the head of a long dining table, sprawled like a marionette king. His coat now shimmered with black velvet and gold thread, and his porcelain mask had been polished to a gleam—both halves smiling, but in different directions. The left, soft and courtly. The right, too wide, teeth carved deeper than before.

When Y/N entered, his voice rang out like bells at a funeral.

“Ah, my lovely, tragic bride returns. Did the halls not amuse you?”

She didn’t answer. She stood at the far end of the table, spine straight.

“I want to go home,” she said.

A pause. Then, in a voice that dripped with performative pain:

“Again?” He sighed, theatrically, resting a gloved hand over his chest. “Each time you say that, my heart withers just a little more.”

Y/N’s jaw clenched. “You don’t have a heart.”

He stood, slowly—each movement too smooth, too fluid, like he was being played from behind by invisible strings.

“I gave it to you,” he said softly. “And you—you—have stomped it into the dirt.”

He circled the table as he spoke, voice rising like a melody played backward.

“Do you know what you said to me the first time we met? You don’t, do you?” His tone became pitying. “Of course you don’t. This version of you is so stiff, so cold. But in another life, another page, you whispered to me in the margins. You said I was the only one who ever saw you.”

“That never happened.”

He stopped walking.

The room darkened by a degree.

His mask tilted, as if he were weighing something. Or sharpening it.

“Are you so certain?” he asked quietly. “Stories remember, even when people forget. I remember. I remember how you used to dream of hands like mine. Gentle. Unyielding. The only hands that never let you fall.”

Y/N took a step back. “You’re twisting things.”

“I’m telling the truth,” he snarled, voice cracking just once before smoothing again. “You don’t know how cruel you’ve been. I waited centuries for a reader who understood me. Do you think I chose to be made of scraps? To be part mask, part mouth, part monster? No. I was written to be unloved.”

He was in front of her now, close enough for the lace at his throat to brush her arm.

“But you read me,” he whispered. “You saw my story, and you kept it. Don’t pretend that didn’t mean something.”

“It meant I’m a scholar,” she said, voice low. “Not a suitor.”

For a moment, the silence was heavy and awful.

Then, Pocketcat laughed.

It was a sharp, rising sound—wrong in the way a music box is wrong when it winds too far.

“Oh, my dear,” he said, voice laced with acid-sugar, “you are the story now. You should be grateful. I’ve given you such a beautiful role.”

He gestured to the gown she hadn’t realized she was wearing—a deep crimson thing, embroidered with eyes and roses and tiny, silver-threaded mouths. Every part of it whispered as she moved. It hadn’t been on her moments ago.

She tore at the collar. “This isn’t love.”

“No,” he said softly. “This is devotion. It’s stronger.”

She looked up, fury rising like bile. “Why me?”

Pocketcat knelt, suddenly, at her feet. His voice turned hushed—too soft.

“Because you didn’t look away. You read the version where the Beast stays a beast. Where Beauty’s silence is survival. You understood me.” He reached for her hand, porcelain fingers curling like claws. “And now I’ll help you understand yourself.”

She yanked her hand away. “I’ll never love you.”

A beat of silence.

Then, something in his mask shifted.

“No,” he said, voice hollow. “But you will stop fighting me.”

That night, she woke to find the mansion had rewritten itself.

The hall was gone. In its place: a bedroom made of forgotten verses. The bed was carved from blackened wood, draped in gauze-thin curtains. The mirror above the vanity showed not her face—but a version of it. One smiling. One docile.

And on the desk, laid with velvet care, was The Beholden Bride.

The passage she had read weeks ago was gone. In its place:

“And when Beauty looked into the Beast’s eyes, she saw not a monster, but a man made of longing. She pitied him. And pity is the first shape that love takes, when one is too tired to run.”

Y/N closed the book. Her hands trembled.

She was too tired to scream.

Y/N didn’t cry. Not when she realized the doors were illusions. Not when her fingernails tore bloody trails down wallpaper that peeled back like skin. Not even when the book began to speak to her in her own voice, reading The Beholden Bride aloud at night while she lay in bed, rigid as stone.

She didn’t cry. She observed.

That was what scholars did. They categorized, they recorded, they refused to be consumed.

Pocketcat did not like that.

“Oh, darling,” he cooed over breakfast one morning—a dish of candied figs, black tea sweetened with something she could not name, and a piece of toast carved into the shape of a heart. “You glare at me like a villain in your little thesis. So tragic. So predictable.”

Y/N sipped her tea without responding. She’d stopped reacting to his monologues three days ago. Or three years. Time was melting here.

Pocketcat circled her chair, trailing gloved fingers along its back.

“You could make this easier,” he whispered. “It would be so easy, Beauty. Just a smile. Just one kind word. I would rewrite the world for you. Would you like a garden? A library? The moon, hollowed and filled with roses?”

“I’d like my name back,” she said calmly.

That stopped him.

He tilted his head, expression unreadable behind the mask. “You have it.”

“No,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “You call me Beauty. You’ve buried my real name in whatever version of the story this is. But you don’t own me. I’m not yours.”

He knelt beside her, voice softening in that awful, broken-glass way. “You could be. You used to read tales of possession, of devotion. Of love so deep it swallows. I’m giving that to you, my beloved. I’ve chosen you.”

“And I didn’t choose you.”

Pocketcat’s hand twitched on the table. He went still. Something rippled behind the mask—a seam splitting.

Then: laughter.

But it was tight. Fraying.

“You think you’re so clever,” he said, standing slowly. “So untouched by sentiment. But I know the truth, Beauty. You were lonely in your little shop. You whispered secrets to the books when you thought no one heard. You kept my story. You kept me alive.”

“I kept you on a shelf,” Y/N replied, voice sharper than before. “There’s a difference.”

Silence.

The chandelier above them flickered. The air grew heavy.

Then, very quietly:

“Ungrateful.”

That night, the mansion changed again.

Her bed became a cradle of thorns. The candles spat salt instead of wax. Her reflection in the mirror wept constantly, even when she did not.

She wandered for hours, refusing to sit, refusing to speak. She scratched messages into the bannisters: You are not in love. This is not love.

When she returned to her room, there was a gift waiting. A book. Bound in velvet. Its pages were blank—except for the first one.

Write our story, it said. Or I will.

The next morning, he greeted her as if nothing had happened.

“Dearest heart,” Pocketcat sang, reclining on a chaise shaped like an open book. “Have you rested? Have you thought?”

“I’ve thought,” Y/N said.

“Oh?”

“I think you’re terrified.”

That made him freeze—just briefly, like a crack passing through porcelain.

“You speak nonsense,” he said lightly.

“No. I understand you now.” She stepped closer, expression calm. Controlled. “You’re not in love. You’re desperate. Desperate to be known, but too cowardly to be truly seen. You pretend to be romantic, but you’re just... lonely.”

The words hit like stones.

Pocketcat stood slowly. His mask didn’t shift. His tone did.

“You wound me.”

Y/N took another step, ignoring the cold building in her gut.

“You thought you could rewrite me like a page,” she said. “But I’m not a story, Pocketcat. I’m the reader. And I know how your kind ends. You're not the beast. You’re the curse.”

The slap didn’t come as a hand.

It came as a shift.

The room darkened. The walls sighed like lungs expelling air for the last time. The ground beneath her feet folded into paper, then thorns, then shadow.

When it stopped, she was on her knees in the library.

He stood before her, towering, voice now stripped of silk.

“You think you’ve won?” His voice cracked like thunder through ink. “You will beg for my affection before this is done. You will starve for it. And when you finally crawl into my arms, I will cradle you like glass and remind you what mercy looks like.”

Y/N looked up, still breathing hard, still shaking—

And she smiled.

“Then you’ve already lost.”

He left her alone after that.

For days. Maybe weeks. She wandered the storybook mansion in silence. No music played. No meals arrived. Her dresses hung limp in the wardrobe, colors draining from them like life from a corpse.

She was starving. Sleep-deprived. Her mouth tasted like ink.

And still—she did not speak.

Not until he returned.

Not until he knelt at her feet again and said, in a hoarse, breaking voice:

“Please. Come back to me.”

And she looked at him.

And for the very first time— she almost pitied him.

She thought he’d stay gone.

The house had gone quiet since the library. No grand entrances. No riddles. Just silence and dust and the feeling of being watched through the spines of books. It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. The silence had teeth.

Y/N tried to pace her way through the days. She spoke to the empty rooms just to keep her voice working. She whispered her name into mirrors to remind herself who she was. She tore strips of linen from the hem of her gown and used them to mark time in knots.

Still, the house pressed in. Hallways curved when she wasn’t looking. Her meals came late. Her reflection began to blur.

She didn’t want him back.

But she knew he would return.

She just didn’t expect him to crawl.

It was in the music room.

She stepped inside and froze.

Pocketcat was sprawled on the piano bench, one leg draped over the other, tailcoat spread behind him like a dying bloom. His mask gleamed in the low candlelight. He was not smiling. Not mocking. Just watching her.

His fingers ran gently over the piano keys—ghost-notes, no sound.

“You came back,” she said flatly.

“I never left,” he replied.

The air thickened.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “This—quiet sympathy act. The soft voice. You’re trying to trick me into trusting you.”

Pocketcat’s head tilted. Slowly. Deliberately. “Must everything be a trick with you?”

“You took me,” she said. “Trapped me in a story. Gutted my name. Rewrote my thoughts. And now you want me to believe you’re just some lonely shadow looking for love?”

He stood.

Glided toward her.

Each step was too smooth—his heels didn’t echo, his coat didn’t rustle. It was like watching a thought drift closer.

And when he stopped in front of her, he did something he hadn’t done before.

He touched her.

Two gloved fingers—cool, delicate—brushed her cheek. The touch lingered.

Not rough. Not possessive.

Affectionate.

Calculated.

“I do not want you to trust me,” he said gently. “I want you to need me.”

She tried to pull back. His hand followed.

“You’ve gone so cold,” he murmured, voice curling into her skin like warm breath. “What’s the point of playing the heroine if you never let yourself be saved?”

“I’m not the heroine,” Y/N said. “I’m not even the audience. I’m the one trying to wake up.”

Pocketcat sighed, as though she had wounded him.

“You still think this is a dream?” he whispered. “You still think you are real, and I am the lie?” He stepped closer. She bumped against the wall.

His hand trailed from her cheek to her collarbone. Fingers soft. Intent sharp.

“You are inside the story now. And I am its voice. Every heartbeat you have here belongs to me. Every breath is because I allow it. I keep the ink from drowning you. I keep the walls from closing. I keep you alive, Beauty.”

She shoved him back.

Or tried to.

Her hands met his chest—velvet over bone—and he did not move.

But his head tilted. Just slightly.

“You’re trembling,” he said, almost fondly. “Still full of fire. I admire that. But fire needs fuel, doesn’t it?” His voice dropped. “How much longer will you burn when no one else will touch you? When the only warmth left is mine?”

He leaned in then.

Not to kiss.

To rest his forehead against hers.

His breath was slow. Imitated. Like a learned behavior.

“You’ve slept in my house. Dined at my table. Let me dress you. Watch you. Speak you into soft things. And still, you resist.” His voice trembled—not with emotion, but with restraint. “It makes me want to break you in the most delicate ways.”

Y/N’s throat dried.

“Kill me,” she said. “If that’s what you want. Just stop pretending this is love.”

“Oh, Beauty…” His lips brushed her temple like a whisper. “If I wanted you dead, I’d have written you a grave instead of a gown.”

His fingers slipped under her chin, tilting her face up.

“Love isn't a kindness in the stories you collect. It’s a cage. I thought you understood that. I thought that’s why you kept me.”

She met his eyes.

The smile returned. Subtle. Terrible.

“You’re not in love with me,” she said, softly now. “You’re in love with the idea of someone who can’t leave.”

That hit something real.

He stepped back, slowly.

The mask didn’t change. But the air around him rippled—like the moment before a glass shatters.

He didn’t speak again. He simply extended his hand.

Not to offer. To demand.

Y/N hesitated.

Then turned her back.

She walked away.

The candles flickered as she passed.

That night, her room was filled with roses.

Blood-dark. Thorned. Blooming from her pillow, her sheets, her hair.

And in the mirror, scrawled in black ink across the glass:

“You can only walk away so many times before your legs remember how to kneel.”

Y/N awoke in velvet.

Not sheets. Not pillows.

The air itself was velvet—warm, weightless, pressing soft against her skin like a lover's breath.

She blinked slowly. Her bed was gone. The walls were deeper now, lined with black damask, the floor soft beneath her bare feet. The mirrors were gone, too. Only candlelight remained, licking the room in amber and honey.

She sat up.

And there he was.

Pocketcat.

Seated in a high-backed chair, hands gloved and steepled beneath his chin. Not watching.

Waiting.

He stood as she moved. Fluid. Controlled. His coat shimmered, deep crimson this time—matching her gown, which she didn’t remember putting on. Silk straps hung off her shoulders like spider silk. The fabric clung. It whispered.

“You’ve been sleeping too much,” he said gently, stepping closer. “And eating too little.”

Y/N stared at him, throat dry.

She hadn’t had a proper meal in days. Her limbs were slow, her thoughts slippery.

“Let me care for you,” he said, his voice a caress. “You’ve punished yourself enough.”

“I didn’t ask you to watch me,” she whispered.

“But I must.” He stepped behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders—his touch featherlight, but possessive. “It’s my role, is it not? To care for my Beauty. To dote, to tend. To... adore.”

She stiffened.

His fingers traced the line of her collarbone. Not threatening. Not groping. But intentional. Sensual by accident—or by design.

“Tell me,” he murmured, voice low and reverent against her ear, “when was the last time someone touched you like this and meant it?”

Her breath caught. Her body remembered need before her mind could protest.

“I don’t want—”

“You don’t know what you want,” he said, gently but cruelly. “You’ve lived in ink and dust, in pages where the endings were always rewritten by someone else. But I—I see you. I remember the way your hands trembled when you found the first version of the tale. I remember your breath hitching at the passage where Beauty almost runs, but stays instead.”

He moved around her, kneeling in front of her now, gloved hands resting lightly on her thighs.

“Let me be the ending you never got.”

Y/N gritted her teeth. “You’re confusing obsession with love.”

“No, no,” he said softly. “You are. Because if I were a monster—truly—wouldn’t I have taken you already?”

The word sat between them, hot and heavy.

Y/N flushed. Whether with shame or fury or something darker, she wasn’t sure.

“I don’t—”

Pocketcat leaned closer, mask brushing her cheek, lips at her throat.

“I want you to want me,” he murmured. “That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s what makes it real. So I wait. I wait for the moment your voice breaks on my name. When your eyes soften. When your hands no longer push.”

His hand trailed down her arm. Her skin prickled with betrayal. Her body wasn’t listening to her brain.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” he cooed. “So tired of resisting. So tired of being alone in a house that only echoes when I’m not in it.”

“I’m not yours,” she breathed.

He nodded. “No. Not yet.”

Then, slowly, deliberately, he took her hand.

Guided it to his chest.

Let her feel the steady, mimicry of a heartbeat beneath his ribs.

“I made this for you,” he whispered. “It only beats when you’re near.”

She yanked her hand back. He let her.

But not before pressing a kiss—slow, lingering—to the place where her fingers had rested.

Y/N’s heart hammered.

“You keep pretending I’m special,” she said, voice unsteady. “But I think I’m just the first one who stayed long enough for you to wrap your claws around.”

Pocketcat smiled—soft and wicked.

“Doesn’t that make you special, darling?”

Later, in her room, she found a gift on her pillow.

A necklace.

A silver chain, too fine to be handmade. Dangling from it: a locket.

She opened it.

Inside was her name. Her real name. Not Beauty.

And beside it, carved in impossibly small script:

Beloved. Mine. In every telling.

She wanted to throw it in the fire.

She wore it instead.

That night, she dreamed of him again.

But not chasing her. Not threatening.

Dancing.

A ballroom of shadows and candlelight. Music hummed from nowhere, and he held her—not forcefully, not greedily.

Just close.

And when she looked up, his mask was gone.

And he was almost beautiful.

There was no day. No night. Only velvet dusk.

Y/N had stopped counting the hours. Time didn’t move here—it coiled. The mansion was always awake, always watching, and it changed when she wasn’t looking. One hallway now led to a conservatory she’d never seen. The mirror in her room whispered lullabies in her voice.

And the house—the house had learned her footsteps. It shifted its floorboards to slow her. It offered soft chairs when she shook, blankets scented like old paper, hearths that roared to life only when she returned from arguing with him.

Even the silence was tailored to her.

She hated how kind it was becoming.

Pocketcat began touching her more often.

Not forcefully. Not even possessively. Just… constantly.

A hand at the small of her back when she passed him. Fingers brushing her jaw when she refused to speak. His voice, always low, always velvet-wrapped, curling against her neck like perfume.

And she—

She flinched less.

That frightened her more than anything.

One night, she found herself in the observatory.

It hadn’t existed the day before. Or maybe it had. The mansion didn’t follow the rules of real space. It made new rooms when it wanted her vulnerable.

The ceiling was a dome of glass. Outside, stars wheeled in unnatural patterns. Red, blue, silver. Too close. Too bright.

The floor was covered in cushions and books—some hers, some unfamiliar. All open to stories where Beauty never escaped.

He entered without announcing himself.

She didn’t look at him.

“Is this where I’m supposed to surrender?” she asked dryly. “The stars, the pillows, the mood lighting? Going for the tragic romance ending tonight?”

He knelt beside her.

Not close. Not yet.

“Tonight,” he said, “I want to show you what I could be.”

She laughed—soft, bitter. “You’ve shown me. Over and over. You change the set, but the play never changes.”

He didn’t move.

Just watched her for a long, long moment.

Then he reached out—slowly—and undid the ribbon at her throat.

She stiffened.

But she didn’t stop him.

He pushed her hair back with careful fingers, exposing her bare neck.

“You think I want to devour you,” he said quietly. “But I already have. Every time you said my name, I tasted it.”

“I never said your name.”

He leaned in.

And whispered it into her skin.

“You did—in dreams. In silence. In the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”

Y/N wanted to push him away.

But he was too close now. Too gentle. His touch was precise—like a sculptor, shaping something fragile. Not lust. Not love.

Control.

That was what it always was.

“You’re going to kiss me,” she said flatly.

“If you want me to,” he said.

His hands ghosted her waist. The silk of her gown sighed.

“I don’t,” she whispered.

“Then I won’t.”

He stepped back. Instantly.

That was the cruelest thing.

Because she expected him to take.

She expected him to pin her, to force the scene.

Instead—he withheld.

“I want you to come to me,” he said softly. “I want your hands first. Then your mouth. Then your name.”

He walked to the door.

Paused.

Turned.

“But if you don’t come soon…” His voice turned quieter. Darker. “I may have to start rewriting again. Just a few lines. Nothing major.”

Y/N’s blood ran cold.

He smiled.

“Wouldn’t it be awful,” he mused, “if the next version of Beauty was just a little more pliant?”

She didn’t sleep.

She couldn’t.

Every time she closed her eyes, the story warped. The Beast grew kinder. The girl softer. The text began to forget her.

When she tried to read her favorite copy again, she found the ending had changed.

“Beauty remained, not out of fear or pity, but because she had learned at last: what seemed like chains had always been arms. And love, even twisted, was better than being alone.”

She threw the book across the room.

And wept.

Two days passed.

The silence pressed against her like a wet sheet.

And then—on the third night—he came to her door.

He didn’t speak.

He opened it.

And waited.

She stared at him from her place on the floor. Her hair unbrushed. Her lips cracked. Her gown falling from one shoulder.

“Say it,” he said softly.

She didn’t.

But she stood.

Crossed the threshold.

Let him take her hand.

He led her to the bedroom. His bedroom.

It was all dark velvet, black glass, and silk sheets that whispered her name.

He didn’t kiss her.

Not yet.

He undressed her slowly—his fingers reverent, almost trembling. He looked at her like a collector unwrapping a long-lost artifact.

“Am I yours now?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

He only touched her cheek. And whispered:

“No, my love. I’m yours.”

He closed the door behind her.

Soft. Intentional. Final.

Y/N stood at the center of his room, arms limp at her sides, every instinct screaming and curling inward at the same time. The gown he dressed her in the first night shimmered under the low candlelight, wine-dark and open at the back. It slipped too easily when he tugged the laces loose.

She didn’t move. Not yet.

He circled her like a gentleman preparing a bride.

Or a butcher his meat.

“I dreamed of this,” he said quietly. “A thousand variations. A thousand versions of you—some sweet, some vicious. But you—oh, you—you’re the one who made it to the end.”

His fingers slid the gown down her arms.

It fell like sighs to the floor.

Y/N flinched as cold air touched her skin—but didn’t cover herself. That, too, had been trained out of her. Modesty was a kind of rebellion here, and rebellion was punished.

He stepped behind her.

Hands ghosting along her spine, down the curve of her hip.

“I can stop,” he murmured, lips brushing her neck. “Say the word, and I’ll step back. I’ll let you go.”

Liar. Liar. Liar.

She almost laughed.

“You’ve already taken everything,” she whispered.

“Not everything,” he said.

She turned her head to face him. Their eyes met—his mask reflecting firelight, her expression drained, defiant, dizzy.

“This isn’t love.”

Pocketcat exhaled.

“Of course not.”

That stunned her.

Then, quietly: “It’s possession. Love is what mortals call it when they’re too weak to name the truth.”

He moved slowly, his gloved fingers removing his coat, his cravat. Everything precise. Ritualistic.

She should have run.

But she had nowhere left to run to.

When he touched her again, it was with care. That was the cruelest part.

There was no force, no haste.

Just the slow, deliberate claiming of someone who knew he had already won.

She turned her face away. His hand gently cupped her jaw and brought it back.

“Look at me,” he said.

Y/N clenched her teeth. Her breath came shallow.

“Please,” she said—not pleading, not begging. A whisper from the last place in her that still remembered who she had been.

He kissed her.

And that was the end of it.

Not because it was beautiful. Not because it was good.

But because it was inevitable.

Later, she lay curled against his chest, blanketed in silk and murmurs.

He stroked her hair with one hand and turned the pages of a book with the other—her book. Their book.

She no longer flinched from his touch.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

But because it was the only touch left.

Pocketcat kissed the top of her head and whispered:

“And so, Beauty stayed. Not because she loved him. But because the story had forgotten how to let her leave.”

*

They say if you find the book bound in velvet and stitched with thorns, you mustn’t open it. But you already have, haven’t you? You followed the pages. You watched her fall. You whispered no with her. And still you turned the last page.

Somewhere, deep in the house where stories are made of hunger and silk, a voice sighs against your skin—

“There you are, my Beauty.”

[hanayori89]

IN TANDEM

*Temple of Time*

Link wasn't surprised to see the vagrant's hood still draped over Zelda's face.

He approached her without so much as a single word, knowing from his encounter with Ilia that Zelda did the right thing by placating her. Still, he couldn't help but continue to fault her for her implication.

"It seems you made it here without any trouble." She pulled her hood down, revealing a stolid expression scribbled on her face. A grunt caught Link off guard as it escaped his nostrils instead of his lips.

"Do you still incriminate me with the shadow?" Zelda questioned.

He let out a sigh of surrender. "No, Zelda. I never incriminated you. I saw the horror of it with my own eyes. I understand why you did it. I just wish you wouldn't leave me in the dark all the time. Am I not your knight? Do we not have to join forces, lifetime after lifetime, to continue the same mission? Why do you mistrust me so much? Why couldn't you have warned me about Ilia?"

"What about my behavior leads you to believe I mistrust you? Did you ever stop to think I did it to protect you? That perhaps, I too, feel guilt that you must be the holder of the Triforce of Courage?"

"You wield that which is wisdom; you do not go without your cross to bear."

"Yes, I will forever rule Hyrule because of the goddesses' dictum. However, you will forever be the one to fight for it. And in fighting for it, you are not only protecting it against the wicked, but you will also continue to correct the mistakes made on my behalf. For wisdom only comes from mistakes." She pressed her lips into a firm line that emphasized the crestfallen gaze of her eyes.

"Tell me...why do you think Hero Shade has disintegrated into the background of time? Who do you truly think is responsible? How do you think Ganondorf got into the Sacred Realm?" Zelda let out a bone-chilling laugh. "Evil will always exert its dominion, whether it possesses the Triforce or not. It knows only one way. But the one who is wise should know better than to give it an open door. To welcome it forth. As I did then."

Link shuffled his feet, unsure of an appropriate response. He was torn between his duty to protect Zelda and the fragility of her emotions or to protect a man whom he exalted more than himself.

A man that was more of a hero than he would ever be.

"What happened to him is not your fault, Zelda!"

"Don't you understand, Link?" Her voice was dissonant from her usual placid exterior as she began to scream. "It is my fault! It will always be my fault, just as you will always be the honorable knight lost within the cogs of time! We will never be free, even should time end! So, do not adjudicate what you do not understand. I bear many responsibilities, but my greatest one is to never let another soul fight on behalf of my negligence." Zelda ripped a shard from her neck, dangling it before Link. Her voice eased into a calmer tempo.

"I cannot control the fused shadow that remains in our realm, but by my tear's decree, I will make sure nothing ever breaks through it again."

"Wait a second, that isn't part of the Mirror of Twilight?"

Zelda shook her head. "You knew it wasn't. Midna destroyed it. This is my tear from that day, when I watched Midna go. I may never see her again in this life, but with this, I can control inter-realm travel. It seems Y/N hasn't told you. I will presume she hasn't mentioned the fused shadow within her or its origin."

Link knew this should all be piecing together, but he still wasn't comprehending Zelda's words. He stood there, stupefied. 

"Link, there is a shadow within all of us. As I mentioned earlier, evil only knows one way. But good can go two ways. Do you know what dictates good to go towards evil? Why do we smile at the light of the sun but frown at the darkness of the moon?"

Link's lips parted; the answer caught in his throat. A glint from the Rod of Dominion caught Link's eye. His Master Sword, which had felt impossibly heavy amongst his weary muscles, now felt like a caress of air against his back. He unsheathed it, his Triforce incinerated as if it wanted to meld his flesh into the very steel that was his blade.

That's when he caught a reflection in his sword. A reflection that was not this own.

The familiar thirst of eyes steeped in the color of blood peered back at him. The recognized color of ashen bangs hung down and poked against his eyelids, the sight forcing him to attempt to swat them away.

But no matter how many times he smoothed them to the side, they remained untouched in his reflection.

Links's fingers trembled as he slid them down his cheek, the tips hovering above his lips and the depraved grin that was now present.

Only his lips weren't smiling.

With nothing left to ponder, Link spun swiftly on his heels, only to feel his blade being hampered down by the weight of his shadow.

"Hi, Link." Dark Link stood atop his blade. A rogue fang protruding from his smirk drew blood from his lower lip.

Shit.

The Rod of Dominion glistened once more, begging Link to notice it. Only when he paid attention did he see Zelda holding it in her hands. She thrust it in Link's direction.

"The Rod of Dominion can be quite useful at commanding the attention of statues. It has one other function, which, regrettably, you did not need during Ganondorf's invasion." Zelda's eyes glimmered in synchronicity with the chiseled metal of the rod's shaft.

Link swung the rod down. Within an instant, Dark Link was off his sword and positioned next to him. Zelda's voice was a faint tickle in his ear behind him.

"It can collaborate with shadows."

Link slowly turned his head over to his shadow.

Dark mimicked him, slowly turning his head towards Link, his cocky snarl still intact.

"Ready, partner?"

Dark Link's laugh was a jarring wrecking ball to what remained of the already demolished Temple of Time.

Edited:12/8/24

Who would have guessed this is what the sages had in mind? The Rod of the Dominion, the mover of stone, is also an influencer of shadow. While Link considers himself forsaken by Hylia, he is claimed by his darker half. With a reluctant partner by his side, Link can't help but wonder: Which shadow should he worry about more?

The beast within Ilia or the beast of his darker self?

The beast known as Dark Link.

Check out my other completed OOT Zelda work- No Woman Beyond

[gravelsong]

I call this the "what if I overanalyzed the HELL out of the Arcee and Carly interaction" post because this scene was really good

Before this, the ONLY time we've really seen them interact is when Arcee saved Carly from falling. They're still on unfamiliar terms, probably only knowing each other through name. Arcee's come over to see Carly, being curious about her, wondering what she's doing, or both. Carly clearly doesn't give a shit though, responding in a very short, and clipped answer.

Okay, so she doesn't seem to be that thrilled about Arcee being over there. That's okay, Arcee will simply ask what Carly's doing instead of beating around the bush, which Carly ALSO responds to with a short, sarcastic answer. Her answer doesn't really help Arcee work out what's going on all that much, so she asks for further elaboration, both wanting to know more and also learn something new about Earth.

Carly gives another vague answer ("gotta start somewhere") so Arcee offers to join her in her activity, maybe hoping that they can connect more and she can learn further about what's on Carly's mind. However, Arcee's blaster causes a solid amount of damage, but it seems to catch Carly's attention and even makes her smile, impressed with the sight.

With Carly seeming more open, Arcee talks a bit about her own skills, her own history with weaponry. She IS a very impressive shot, as vouched by Optimus, but with her time spent fighting in the war, she's mournful over this, as her skill with a blaster adds to the carnage and horror she's seen (the flames in the background serving as a reflection of her memories, what she's witnessed through her talent).

Carly, who just recently lost her father to Starscream, is baffled by this statement, saying that Arcee's skill would REALLY help with killing decepticons (as she seems to have missed the point with what Arcee was trying to say). Carly even specifies Starscream, which makes it clear that she's practicing specifically for revenge purposes against Starscream (great news Carly, Soundwave already took care of that problem). Arcee recognizes this desire for revenge, and states her thoughts clearer: that she can see how Carly's falling to her rage, that her hurt is driving her to future pain (with Arcee probably reflecting on her familiarity with her own hatred).

Unfortunately, Carly is no longer open to listening, switching back into being angry and annoyed. She knows that Arcee's analyzing her, thinking that she knows better than her (also Carly is a teenager, and hurt teenagers tend to shut themselves off to focus on what they think is best for them). The remains of Arcee's shot also look like a burning inferno behind Carly, used as symbolism for her own feelings, her own rage.

("I apologize. It's just... you remind me of myself, when my gears were beginning to turn. I had a teacher then.")

Arcee isn't using subtle dialogue or small talk anymore, she's outright telling Carly of her own history, of how she was the same way. Of how she had someone she loved and trusted so dearly, but he died (ALSO MAGNUS IS DEAD AUGHH) because she allowed her hatred to control her. She was so focused on revenge, she lost another loved one. Even now, Arcee's reflection on her journey of healing is that her hate costed her far more than helped her. It's a painful memory for her, and she doesn't want to see someone else go down the same path she did.

But she's too caught up in her desire for revenge to really hear what Arcee's telling her.

Hell, even in the scene afterward, Cliffjumper is berating himself for not killing Starscream, and that Carly isn't even speaking to him anymore because he couldn't kill Starscream. Jazz tells him that there's no shame in pulling the trigger, but if that was true, then why does he feel so awful (he feels awful because he feels like he hurt Carly right there and then. Also, Starscream immediately grabbed her, and would've killed her if he hadn't been crushed. Cliffjumper is feeling guilty over not taking the shot because it could've killed Carly, and even though she survived, a part of her was still killed in that moment.)

[only-lonely-stars]

Splintered Ice

Oneshot – (FFN) (AO3)

Summary:

For all intents and purposes, the Ice Emperor is dead. However, his ghost remains, in icy joints and frosted eyes. How can Zane trust himself not to become him again? How can he heal? How could anyone begin to forgive him?

Ice cracks. It splinters. It shatters. Zane shivered; every movement, punctuated by the sound of fractures. What was it like to move freely- to not be frozen to his seat? To feel human, instead of frozen? To feel alive…

Crack, crack, crack, snap. The cold anthem of his existence. An orchestra of fractured glass. Horrible, beautiful.

Everything was white and gray. What did color look like, again? His mind was sluggish. No matter where he looked, the world was hidden by a panel of frosted glass, shielded from his tyranny. Maybe it was better that way.

The door creaked open, and Zane's frosted eyes slowly panned to it. He started, edging away as Pixal approached him with a plate of hot food and a sympathetic smile. Whatever she was saying was lost to his ears; he backed away, trying to tell her to flee. What if she froze? What if there was no way for Kai to thaw her? What if he controlled her?

No sound escaped his throat; only the sound of cracking ice. Pixal smiled gently and nodded; she gave him space but stayed in the room. How foolish. Zane shivered violently, snowflakes falling from his hair. Why wouldn't she leave? Didn't she value her safety?

Logically, Zane already knew the answer. She was a nindroid, like him. She believed he wasn't a threat. But what if he was? What if she was wrong?

Something clinked loudly on the ground; an icicle, falling from his hand and joining the pile below.

Was it just Zane, or did it feel like the world was tilting off its axis? He leaned on his hands, trying to support himself as the world spun out of order. What was happening to him? The warmth of the sun streaming through the window felt far-away, glinting off his metal in a painful glare on the permafrost.

Pixal shielded her eyes, and Zane felt pure, unadulterated guilt. It swelled up in his stomach, hot and painful and unnatural. He hated it. How could he let this happen?

Zane hugged himself tightly, attention turning inward. Maybe he deserved this, as punishment for freezing the Never Realm and all its people. Because he believed Vex. Maybe he deserved this for so blindly thinking he could safely reboot that accursed mech. It- it was all his fault, anyway! If he hadn't dragged it into that cave, or hadn't tried to fix it, or had looked around before he interfaced with it, or had backed up his memories again, or had just thought twice about what Vex said, this wouldn't be happening!

He heard a muffled voice, murmuring comforting words, but he knew he didn't deserve them. Pixal was always so compassionate. Too compassionate for a slow, outdated droid like him. An old operating system in a new body- a relic, whose only value was his power source.

Was he always like this? Maybe the veil had just been lifted away, showing the true horror of his nature– his inhumanity, finally on display for an entire world to see. It was all he could do to afford himself the mercy of gratitude that it wasn't Ninjago that saw his awful nature. They used to know him as a beacon of justice, light, and truth. What was he now? A tyrant? His memory banks were empty of decades of information. What had he done for the past twenty years? Thirty, perhaps? Maybe even forty? All of it was blank, wiped from his mind by the very staff that corrupted him.

Where was that accursed staff, anyway? Had he truly broken it? Even now, he could remember the feeling of it in his grip, heavy and slick. It released hidden power– did it also release hidden intentions? Maybe he had always wanted to rule. He still felt its heavy weight in his hand, cold and cruel.

Zane shivered again, and more snowflakes fell into the food before him. The world had stopped spinning, leaving him feeling numb. The plate of food in front of him was no longer steaming, having its heat sapped by his ice.

The frost over his eyes was thicker, but he saw Pixal, edging closer to him. She put her hand on his, and Zane felt even more numb. She had to know he was going to freeze her, right? Did she really trust him enough not to be afraid? He frowned, unmotivated to correct her mistaken trust. She would see eventually. He remembered so little about her anymore, but he remembered that she would never budge when she chose to do something. She was grounded. He didn't remember being like that, even though he knew he was once. Didn't someone once tell him that time erodes memory and mind alike?

Maybe it would be okay to submit to her affections, just once. Surely it wouldn't hurt her, right? Slowly, he knitted his fingers together with hers, as small chunks of ice splintered from his joints. She held his hand tightly, and murmured in his ear. Zane shook his head, clearing the frozen fog for a moment. He needed to eat; as one of the perks of being Borg's most advanced machine, he ran almost like a person would. Including digestion.

Pixal raised a piece of warm bread to his mouth, and he ate without tasting. The warmth radiated through him, gone too quickly. He ate more, giving her a faint, frostbitten smile. She was too good for him. How did he deserve her care?

The food was gone before Zane realized. When was the last time he had eaten? Either way, the room felt less cold. Stable. Almost like home. With Pixal, anywhere felt like that, he was remembering. He felt safe.

He blinked slowly, watching the frost on his eyes break off as ice and fall. His ears were ringing- weird. Pixal took the dishes and kissed him on the cheek, but he was unable to look at her; as he tried to turn his neck, the sound of ice breaking heralded his effort. Instead, he focused on clearing his mind. A few deep breaths brought a sense of calm, and Zane relaxed a little. He hadn't hurt Pixal. She was safe from him.

A few more bits of ice fell out of his hair, looking akin to diamonds. Zane smiled for a fleeting moment. He would be okay, right?

He sighed. "Okay" was a relative term at best, after all. For now, for his own safety (and more importantly, for everyone else), he would stay isolated. He laid down, looking at the ceiling as tendrils of frost again invaded his vision. Just for now, he would wait…

It wasn't hiding, right?

No, it wasn't. It couldn't be. It was really self-preservation.

Zane smiled faintly, closing his eyes. It was a good idea to stay away, just for a little longer. Even if it meant locked, icy joints. Even if it meant an inability to sit up. Even if it meant disappearing. It was in everyone's best interests. It was a good thing.

[songsofbat]

but hey, hey what can you do

i would give anything to not give a shit about-

or,

Corus-Corvus-Corvid reflects.

(It's an easy thing, really. Not like there's anything else to do.)

It's dark here, wandering. This vast plain of guilt that digs into their ankles as they wallow in misery. They don't mean to, maybe.

A loop, running on for stars knows how long. Self-hatred into hatred. Weren't they supposed to be good at avoiding feedback loops?

They're lost. Hopelessly lost. They're not sure how long they've been asleep. (Nobody's looking for you, anyway.)

But they've been awake, haven't they? Moving over rooftops. Eating. Tracking down criminals with perfect precision and their eyes empty behind their mask.

Autopilot. Moving their body, without being there. Taking down criminals, while telling the collective unconsciousness to forget them.

It's so easy.

No more Corus-Corvus-Corvid getting in the way. Just... the useful parts. Everything else strained away, locked away, forgotten.

(Who did this to you? Yourself, of course.)

Because they weren't needed. Just look for criminals. Stop entangling into people's lives and making a mess.

Worthless. Miserable.

This was better.

They could just exist. Eat enough to fuel their body, and go back into fighting.

No worries about relationships with anybody. No worries about saying the wrong thing and having their tongue twist in their mouth.

Nobody had to worry about them.

Nobody is worried about them, anyway. Drove away their friend and they still don't know how.

They remember stumbling. They remember being so, so- they don't know, actually.

They think they remember scribbles. Something, figments? No, glint of metal. Morgan. Pathetic, pathetic. You're so pathetic. Stay away. Never come back? No, yes, she asked, my friend, my best friend, liar liar liar we weren't best friends are we can we be I just wanted to be a friend-

They wonder if she's fine.

But checking would mean going back to- being human. Being as human as they can get. Stumbling over words and making everything wrong again.

They don't need their eyes anymore. They don't need to see. The third eye is all they'll ever need.

(Look with your third eye.)

But what would the point be?

She doesn't want them around anymore.

Vice?

He has Morgan. ...and Jacyn.

Morgan can take care of him. ( Why are you skirting your responsibilities? )

Those other crow-corvid-based people.

...

Corus-Corvus-Corvid isn't exactly a friend. Those people won't need them.

( Your family wouldn't want you to treat yourself like this. )

Stars, they miss them.

"Well," they find it within themselves to snap. "They're not exactly HERE, are they?!"

Do it for them.

But they don't want to.

They're useful this way. They prefer this- no more messing up. Just seeing what the future so needs, requires- and just...doing it.

Corus-Calla-whatever they were. Whoever they were. They weren't needed. That much was clear.

( You aren't helping criminals to reform. You aren't helping to comfort anybody. You're just fighting. A machine. You're not inspiring hope or being kind. Isn't that what you wanted? To be good? )

But they never were good. That's the point. If they can't be kind or caring or good, they can, at very least, be useful.

( What if you face Carnival, while like this? Are you going to fight them? )

She would want to fight, anyway.

( But you don't want to harm her. )

Who said anything about harming her?

( You're not controlling your own body properly anymore. )

They wouldn't harm a friend.

( Didn't you already? You're not even friends. )

They don't want to think about this anymore.

It's difficult, not thinking.

There's nothing here but their thoughts. Just no way for it to reach the outside world and make everything worse. No way for electricity to arc, for spoons to bend. For red to trickle across the sterile floor and disgust disgust fear horror disgust please please please i didn't mean to

So it doesn't matter if they're not good.

They can't harm anybody anymore.

( What makes you not good? )

Can't help anybody. Bad at friends. Can't- can't talk to people. Drive people away. Hurt people. Keep hurting people. Can't save people. Powers unreliable. Keep hurting and hurting and hurting. Can't save not smart not good not useful not useful not matter how much trying my trying I cannot-

( Carnival stole a switch from a child. )

But-

( Criminals main and kill and hurt. )

It's not the same.

( Why don't you deserve what you believe they do? )

Normal criminals can't arc lightning with their anger. Normal criminals can't warp people's minds. Carnival can't send-

Another loop. On and on. An argument, repeated against the darkness of their mindscape.

When'd they leave the conservatory?

It doesn't matter, in the end.

How long has their body been on autopilot?

It doesn't matter.

How's Morgan?

She doesn't- no. Morgan matters. They just- shouldn't. get involved.

( What do you want? )

It doesn't matter.

( You want

warmth again a reason to live beyond saving others

to hold your family's hands on a rainy day

your friends, your friend, you think, mabe, that you miss Morgan

to be good

to be kind

to be useful

to rest

to know that you won't have to be alone. )

What they want doesn't matter.

( You want to be allowed to exist. )

Stop it.

Just because they are selfish in nature does not mean they have to act on it.

( Is it selfish to want to be happy? Would it be selfish if you friends felt like this?)

( If your third eye is all you need, then look. )

Why.

( Look. )

Oh.

...oh.

My friend. Hospital. Thoughts. Loud. Whose? Not hers never hers she is. Impossible?

My best friend? No.

Friend.

My impossible friend.

Impossible, impossible, wonderfully impossible.

Almost gone. Gone. He. I should have you should have.. no? Superboy. Ah. I don't know.

(Do it for her.)

Tired of everything.

( You miss- )

Feeling like I am loved.

( That's alright. )

Is it?

( You'll get through it. One step at a time. )

It doesn't feel that way. Still more useful on autopilot.

( Check on Morgan, at least. And Vice, later. People. Everyone. )

...okay.

i would give anything to not give a shit-.

They're tired, maybe.

Very much so.

Corvid drops the last criminal in front of the police station, movements robotic until they aren't.

It's a stumble, at first. They don't remember walking being so hard.

Their mind is blurry. Stone? Void? Stone. Oh. Gotham. Not mindscape. Yes? Yes.

They're scared.

They miss the nothing. It was just them with their thoughts, yes, but at least they didn't...mess up. They didn't have to pretend they were good at emotions. That they had humanity in them.

It seems- it seems so completely illogical, really.

...

One step at a time. One step at a time.

-but i do.

[pinkestmenace]

🥀 for whichever oc you want! :D

🥀 (Wilted Rose) - Do they have a Soul form? What would it look and act like? How much control over themselves do they have? Is it still possible to save them, or are they too far gone?

*Sweats nervously* Oh, my dear, dear anon. Beware! You have hit the jackpot of DOOM! /jk

This subject is very spoiler heavy for 'Broken Hato' and its sequel fics in my Hatoful Dreams series, so I have to tread carefully.

Does Olympea have a Soul form? Well, her future soul is certainly in a form. It may even retain some awareness. Where it is and why, how long it has been there or will continue to be there, I cannot tell you.

...Have you ever heard anyone say people die twice? First when their body goes and finally when everyone who knew them has forgotten them and passed on themselves? The Ancients are dead. The Heroes of Yore are long lost and cursed to be forgotten. Only Galacta Knight remains and his memory is not only fading after his endless imprisonment, it's also affected by the curse. But he is still alive. Wisps of his friends still linger in his memory. As long as he holds on, some of their presence may linger. Is this a blessing or a curse? And for whom? Will they go with him...or will he go with them? Where are they going?

But let's ignore all of that for a moment and think about what a Soul form normally means. A character is driven to the extreme, to the threshold of death, but their determination prevents them from giving in just yet. Their body warps and keeps fighting in a last ditch effort while their mind is already degrading. You don't come back from this. Not unscathed. Maybe you just straight up turn into paint and die (Drawcia). Maybe you return, but you're undead and keep some eldritch traits (Marx). Maybe you go to superhell, gain catholic guilt and fight the personification of your sins before becoming a questionably trustworthy salesman in another world (Magolor). Maybe you go insane and wither, with your last remaining essence joining a giant plant (Sectonia). Maybe, if you're very lucky, you finally get purified and your reincarnated form gets another chance at a better life (Void). Maybe you're even assimilated by a reaper butterfly, hold on to your will to live and steal its power for yourself, before finally letting your last remnant reunite with your counterpart (Fecto Elfilis).

Let's say some catastrophe like that happens to her, hypothetically.

[CW: loss of sentience, amalgamation, body horror, death. Features some headcanons about the physical makeup of Astrals/Puffballs and how Soul Matter affects that.]

If she had to push it beyond the limit to keep fighting it would be to save her friends. It was always her greatest Dream to be a hero and she is very determined to achieve that! ...But ironically, as her body is so stable and uniform in its makeup, it never had to make Soul Matter to glue itself back together to keep from collapsing before. Being flooded with too much of it at once means she has little control over it. It would corrupt her.

As she keeps fighting and her mind deteriorates she'd slowly be reduced to nothing but a fighting machine, mowing down her foes left and right without a care about collateral damage. Soon she wouldn't be able to distinguish between friend and foe anymore. Anything that stands against her is getting crushed. When she reaches the tipping point and only Soul is keeping her hollow shell going, her now jelly-like body would meld with her weapons and armour. What little magic her unholy cyborg body contains would only serve to make the impact of her attacks greater. Every hit of her club shakes the earth, shatters dreams and breaks the resolve of anyone nearby with its shockwave. Her previously modest finger gun morphs into a devastating laser cannon. She swings and stabs her glaive with such speed the gusts of wind and concentrated energy shoot out as cutters and slice all around.

I doubt she could be fully saved from this form, since there won't be much left to salvage of her organic body as most of it has melded with her metal armour. She would be unrecognisably, irrevocably altered. Yay? (-Ŏ⌒Ŏ- )

Oh! Why not make a little blurb while we're having fun? :)

Soul of Olympea: Shatterer of Dreams

Once a brave hero protecting the people, now corrupted, this amalgam of determination and automation has lost all reason. No longer able to distinguish friend from foe, she lashes out at everything that moves. Stop her rampage before there's nothing left to protect!

Good thing this is all just a hypothetical, right?

(I really wish I could say that I don't enjoy putting her through the wringer, but that's more of a retroactive "NOOO! What have I done to you, my girl?!" after getting attached to what was supposed to be a tragically doomed background character. Oops?)

Masterpost

[your-divine-ribs]

Ice Cold Part 20

Words: 2.6k

Ice Cold Masterlist Main Masterlist

I stood in one of the shower cubicles at my workplace, eyes closed and head tipped back, letting the warm water cascade over me. It beat down on my face and flowed off, taking with it the spatters of blood which stained it and my fresh tears, washing away the horrors of the morning. It couldn't clear the images from my mind though. The bullet bursting through Simon's chest. His body crumpling lifelessly to the pavement. His cold, dead stare.

Of course I knew that his fate was already sealed that day no matter whether our meeting had taken one minute or fifteen, and his death certainly wasn't my fault, but still an uncomfortable cloak of guilt had settled itself around me and I couldn't shift it.

Simon's killer hadn't been Van. The dead man slumped in the BMW was unidentified. He'd taken out Simon with a long range rifle in one shot and then met his sudden end at the hands of another killer. The assassin... assassinated. Some would call it poetic justice.

No one had witnessed the shooting of the mystery killer, but as the crowd had gathered around the crime scene I’d heard several officers discussing how they'd seen a motorcyclist riding away from the area at high speed.

Speculation was rife, the whole agency puzzling over who would do such a thing. Why commission an assassin to carry out a hit and then a second one to kill the killer? They said it just didn't make sense. But it did... to me. I knew with certainty that Van had been there, watching over me just like he'd promised, taking matters into his own hands with keeping me safe. Once again snuffing out a life so that I could live. But I could take little comfort from this fact. Simon was still dead, and so was Scott, and I knew that they wouldn't be the only victims in this bloody war. As long as the criminal network carried on operating then the nightmare would continue and the body count would keep getting higher. Many more innocent and not so innocent lives would surely be lost along the way.

I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off, changing into clean clothes that I’d had in my locker at work, transferring the piece of paper with the details of Van's next target into the pocket of my fresh jeans.

My tears were dry now and I was starting to gain my composure, slipping back into the calm and controlled demeanour I knew that I’d need to face my colleagues at the de-briefing. It was true that this job desensitised you to the sorts of atrocities that could render others incapable of functioning, but that didn't mean that I was left completely unscathed. Every death or injury of a colleague and every grisly crime scene I witnessed whittled away at my soft edges, hardening me.

The chatter in the meeting room hushed as I pushed open the door, and I steeled myself. I kept my eyes on the floor as I made my way over to an empty seat, trying to keep my mind clear, hearing various comments from the assembled agents that were directed at me, but not looking to see who'd spoken them.

"Here she is. Cheated death yet again!"

"You were bloody lucky today Lyla! Poor Simon though..."

"Someone up there is definitely looking out for you!"

"Must be a guardian angel or something..."

"Oh... there's someone looking out for her alright, but he ain't no angel." That was Jason.

"Okay, okay... settle down everyone!" Paul raised his voice and there were a few more murmurs before the room fell silent.

Paul flicked a switch on the console on the front desk that he stood behind and the projector screen behind him flickered into life. There, displayed, bright and unforgiving was an image of Simon lying lifeless and bloodied, his unseeing eyes fixed on nothing, his lips pulled into a grimace of pain. There were gasps and shocked angry mutters all around the room. I looked down from the screen.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind each and every one of you how dangerous it is out there at the moment. Simon was a brave man. He was inside that organisation for six months, right in the heart of it. He gave his life for the job and whilst nothing can ever bring him back, if we can bring these fuckers down then at least he won't have died in vain."

"Was it McCann?" A voice piped up from the back of the room and I had to restrain myself from springing to my feet to defend him.

"Not this time," Paul answered, and he stepped over to the console again to press a key, bringing a new image on to the screen of Simon's killer, taken in the forensic pathologist's laboratory just hours before. The whole left-hand side of his face was a shattered and bloody mess where the fatal bullet had exited his skull.

"The killer is yet to be identified, but we're running prints. He's more than likely another hired gun just like the two men in Paris."

Jen spoke then, glancing over at me as she did, then back to Paul. "But who killed him? Was it another one of them? It doesn't make any sense."

I squirmed in my seat, staring straight ahead at the screen, not daring to look at Jason who was on the row in front, craning his neck to glare at me.

Paul shrugged and shook his head. "That's the big question Jen. It's got all the hallmarks of an organised hit. The only plausible explanation would be a rival gang member, but I think that's unlikely. Why would they pick off a low level target like this? Surely they'd be aiming for one of the bigger players. No... I think there's more to it. I just can't quite figure it out..."

Chatter instantly erupted, everyone turning to one another, mulling over theories. I just sat with my head slightly bowed, hoping no one could see the turmoil that flowed through me.

"Lyla..."

My head snapped up so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. Paul was looking right at me, and I took a deep breath, bracing myself.

"Would you like to share with us what you found out from Simon?"

It was a simple question. One that had a simple answer. My hand slipped into my jeans pocket under the desk, fingertips toying with the edge of the folded paper. It was all there. I’d studied it. The Ritz club, tomorrow night. The target was the nightclub owner and unfortunate scapegoat for the leak which had led to the organisation's cocaine haul being seized. The method? A rifle fired sniper-style from a derelict building situated across the road from the club. It would be the perfect opportunity for the team to ambush Van and bring him in... or kill him.

"Simon didn't get chance to tell me... about Van's next target."

What the fuck are you doing Lyla?

But I didn't listen to my conscience. Now the lies had started they flowed with the ease of breathing. It almost felt natural.

"He was literally just about to tell me when he got shot. You know Simon, he just wanted to chat. I tried to tell him that we didn't have long..."

I watched Paul's countenance crumple with frustration. He'd been pinning his hopes on me and there I was, withholding important information on an ongoing criminal investigation. Aiding and abetting a known felon. Both crimes punishable by imprisonment... and for what?

The rational part of my brain was screaming at me. Come clean Lyla, it's not too late! But I just couldn't do it. I knew Van wouldn't surrender and come quietly. I kept playing the scenario in my head, changing up small details, but each and every time the end result was the same. If the team stormed in to apprehend him the resulting hail of gunfire would be sure to lead to his death.

Jason got to his feet. "So we basically have nothing to go on?"

Paul opened his mouth to speak, looked lost for words and turned to me. "Well Lyla... do you have anything that we can use? Anything at all?”

It was now or never. I knew if I didn't act I’d have crossed a line and there was no going back. My hand went to my jeans pocket again. The paper seemed to press itself on to my fingers, begging to be drawn out into the open. This wouldn't right all the wrongs that I’d committed but it might go some way to redeeming me, a scrap of salvation.

My voice came out surprisingly steady and with conviction. "I'm sorry Paul, I tried my best, I really did."

I asked to be excused from the rest of the briefing shortly after that, walking out feeling Jason's accusing stare burning into my back. Paul let me go, assuming I was still grieving at seeing my friend and colleague gunned down in front of my eyes, and I was, but it was more than that. I needed to plan.

I took advantage of the whole team being occupied and picked up a stack of files from the incident room, then headed for Andrea's office, signing out reams of paperwork about Van's criminal history. I made for an empty meeting room at the far end of the building, locking myself in and spreading out paperwork until every inch of desk space was covered, and then I started using the floor and tacking sheets up on to the walls. When I’d finished I stepped back, admiring my handiwork, a complete timeline of Van's tragic life from his parents' death right up to the present, in all its brutal and gory detail. I pored over his wretched childhood, then the minor misdemeanours of his teenage years leading up to his spell in a young offenders institute. It was on his release from there that he got recruited into the fringes of the network he was currently embroiled in, steadily moving up the ranks as his unflinching and fearless attitude in getting the job done saw him advancing to his current position. Somewhere he finally fit in.

I mapped his timeline with my own life, my father's death and my turbulent childhood which followed until I finally realised in my mid-teens that I wanted to make something of myself. My fastidious studying and training as I entered the agency, acing every test until I graduated as an agent, finally finding my niche in life. Two lives forged by the tragedy of losing family but with starkly different outcomes.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but I searched anyway, reading and re-reading statements and reports, expecting to find some sort of connection, but I found none. There just had to be something that I was missing...

The call came through just as I was opening up the door to my apartment that evening, and I screwed my eyes shut at the unwelcome sight of the caller ID, letting it ring out. Unfortunately my mother was persistent, and after the sixth attempt I pressed the screen to answer, flicking the call to speaker phone to enable me to grab a bottle of wine from the fridge. I suspected that I’d need something to dull my senses and I was right.

"I didn't think you were going to answer!" Came her blunt greeting.

I sighed, pouring out a large glass and flopping down on to the sofa. "I'm here mum, what do you want?"

"Is that any way to greet me?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes for no one's benefit other than the fact that I needed to let out some frustration. "Well... let's see... the last time you called... oh no... wait... I can't actually remember when that was. So cut the bullshit. This isn't a friendly call is it?"

There was quiet and I pictured my mother on the other end of the line, pursed lips, running the string of pearls she always wore around her neck through her fingers. "I don't know why you always have to be so hostile Lyla."

There it was, it always came back to me. What had the therapists called my mother? Emotionally unavailable. She hadn't always been like that of course. She'd never really recovered from losing my father and I supposed I should have made allowances, but she'd not been there for me when I’d really needed her and that was something that I’d never gotten over.

"Look mum... I've had a rough day. I lost a friend and colleague this morning. He was shot dead in front of me. I don't really have time to listen to your..."

"You know how I feel about you doing that job," she cut in with no recognition of what I’d said. "It's no job for a young woman. How are you ever going to find yourself a nice man and settle down?"

I spoke through gritted teeth. "I don't need a nice man. I'm perfectly happy."

"You're not fooling anyone," she scoffed.

I took a huge slug of wine, wanting to unleash my anger, but I bit my tongue, restraining myself. "Have you purposefully called just to gloat about my so-called unhappiness, or was there actually a reason?"

There was silence again, and it stretched on. I nearly thought she'd hung up but then I heard a very quiet sob. My anger dissipated quickly and I grabbed the phone, holding it closer. "Mum... are you alright? What's happened?"

"Oh Lyla," she sobbed. "Someone's been in the house. They broke in when I was out shopping this afternoon."

I sat upright at this news, flicking the call off speaker phone and pressing it to my ear. "What? Have you called the police?"

There was a drawn out sob then, and I waited for her to compose herself, still shocked to hear her so emotional and shaken up despite the circumstances.

"They ransacked your father's office. The police have only just left. You should see it..."

She tailed off then into more sobs and I felt my usual indifference melting away. Since he'd died my mum hadn't touched a thing in my dad's office. It was like a shrine, sacred. Whenever I visited, which wasn't frequently these days, I almost fancied I could see him sitting there behind his desk, head bent, poring over a file.

"Calm down mum, I'll come and see you tomorrow. Did they take much?"

"That's just the thing, I don't understand it. Nothing of any value was taken, even your dad's antique gold watch was left. They just took some old files. But they made such a mess. They were obviously looking for something."

I let her words sink in, wondering why on earth someone would be interested in files dating back to nearly 15 years ago. And more importantly who?

There was so much happening right now and I didn't believe in coincidences. I prided myself on my intuition and right now my mind was whirring, trying to put together the pieces of this complex jigsaw puzzle, but it was an impossible task with so many pieces missing. I just knew that somehow, in some way, Van had to be involved. I knew then that I had to see him.

I tried to placate my mother with promises of visiting the next day, then I ended the call, tipping the remainder of the wine in my glass quickly down the sink. I needed a clear head for tomorrow.

Ideas swirled around my head, forming themselves into something coherent. By the time I’d slipped into a restless sleep that night I’d formulated a plan.

[its-tricky-to-save-baldurs-gate]

Reunion

A fan fic where Tav is Astarion's younger sibling/brother/sister keeping it GN so anyone can imagine Tav however they want (well Tav is wearing a hood and mask and an high elf so sort of but still lol) Spoiler alerts for the game! Read at your own risk.

"Over here!" Tav froze as they heard a familar voice -- one they hadn't heard in centuries. Tav looks over to Shadowheart who is puzzled and concern, their eyes began to tear up. "I think someone I know is also captured and still alive."

Shadowheart's eyes soften, judging her high-elven ally's reaction. Had they lost this person? "Then what are we waiting for? I'm sure this person would be pleased to see you." Shadowheart responded. Tav and Shadowheart run for the cliff then they found the source: form a distance a pale high elf.

The Shar Cleric tugs Tav's sleeve. Who's that?" she whispered. Tav gives her a look. "My brother..." Tav replied in a hushed tone.

The pale elf sees Tav and Shadowheart, seemly relieved. "Hurry, I got one of those brain things cornered." Tav looks over shocked, dropping their weapon, the pale elf respond with a bewildered expression. Shadowheart watches with concern. "Why are you looking at me like that? The brain thing!" He points at the direction of the cliff side. Tav slowly walks over to him. "Astarion?" Tav replied.

The pale elf grow shocked and pulls out his dagger but Tav wasn't stirred by it. "Get back, how did you know my name?!" Shadowheart looks at Tav, it was starting to worry as she prepares her weapon. "What are you doing? I don't think he wants to talk." Tav removes their hood and mask, the pale elf's eyes went from hostile to shock.

(Astarion's pov third person) Memories of a distant past before Cazador resurfaced. At sixteen, he hold his baby sibling for the first time. At twenty-one, he bites his lip as five year old Tav talks his ear off. Another time that same year, he saves Tav from drowning. At thirty-one, Astarion listens to Tav vent about their parents expectations and Tav wanted something different. Last memory is pushing Tav to save them. Cazador swoop in and the next two hundred years was hell.

(Now back to Tav)

Astarion stands there in a trance then looks at his sibling; he puts away his dagger cautiously. "Are you really Tav? Or am I speaking to a thrall?" Tav shook their head. "Its me, I'm not a thrall," Then the mind worm connected their minds. Revealing each others memories to an extent. Astarion shakes his head as the memories faded. Tav rubs their temples, the pain and sensation from inside their skull was irritating. "It's the mind flayer worm, It connected us," Tav respond.

Astarion's eyes soften with realization. "The worm of course. That explain things. Somewhat..." And to think he was going to decorate the ground with his sibling's inwards. Guilt and exhaustion was running through him like a punch in a face. He should be happy to see someone from his past life let alone a family member but he felt numb instead. He didn't started really bonding with Tav till they became an adult. No one was at fault the siblings had a large age gap.

"Um, did you said about a mind flayer cornered?" Tav asked. Astarion started chuckled awkardly. "That was a lie to question you. Uh...apologies." he replied.

Tav sighed, they ain't getting mad for this, their too tired physically and mentally. "Apology accepted, I can understand why. I might've done something like that if I was in your shoes." Astarion smiles somewhat, a rare softness shows as he places his hands on his hips. "I'm glad you understand then. So Gwing, do you know anything about these worms?"

Astarion can sense that Tav had developed a wisdom from the passage of time and experience since that fateful night. Tav looks down with fear written on their face. "Yes unfortunately, they'll turn us into mind flayers." Tav replied.

Shit this is worse than he thought. The horror sets in, Astarion realizes once again, he'll be controlled by a different being. "Turn us into..." Astarion starts laughing he didn't want to believe, but reality is cruel. "Of course it'll turn me into a monster. What did I expect?" Then he started to think. "Although it hasn't yet. If we can find an expert -- someone that can control these things. There might still be time." Tav looks at him scared it reminded him of when Tav was little hiding behind him when he talks to someone.

"Control it? We need to get rid of it." Tav replies.

Tav can't deny they are frustrated. Where were you? I thought you were dead. What about its good to see you again? Alias the younger high elf bites their lip. Astarion nods in response to Tav's statement.

"Yes of course, but first things first. Tav I was ready to go this alone, but maybe sticking with the herd, with familar company isn't such a bad idea." said Astarion.

Tav relaxes they had a feeling this is Astarion's way of assuring them he's glad to see them again. To be fair Astarion didn't believe his own sibling was there in front of him.

Shadowheart who was quietly listening to all of this was relieved there was no fights. "I'm glad no one is hurt, I think we should get going." said Shadowheart.

The three nodded and head out. Astarion felt happiness for the first time. But there is a new fear manifesting, Cazador will know soon and his relationship with his sibling will be put to the test. Lets hope they don't come out dead or worst twisted and broken. And he owes an explanation Tav needs, and answers he can provide...soon.