#cw: forced starvation mentioned

[literarystarfish]

Caretaker's Friend

Whumpee being rescued and brought home with Caretaker to try to recover. Only for Caretaker to leave Whumpee in the hands of a friend for a while who only makes their recovery harder.

~2800 words

cw: past forced starvation mentioned/ past forced isolation mentioned/ past violence mentioned

-

Whumpee’s recovery, by all of Caretaker’s standards, was going great.

They’re making progress. They’re doing so well in fact!

Both Whumpee and Caretaker had fallen into a healthy day-to-day routine where Whumpee is moving forward. Not, of course, without a few missteps, but all in all they’re doing great! They still can’t be alone for long periods of time. Too much solitude still terrifies them, makes it so their mind plays tricks on them—makes it so it feels like Whumper is leaving them in that dark pit, alone and cold and wet and starving as a punishment again.

So when Caretaker is called away for something they cannot possibly get out of, despite their best efforts, they are forced to leave Whumpee with a trusted friend. A friend of theirs that Whumpee had met a time or two before the whumping even! A friend they’ve met again plenty of times with Caretaker after. Caretaker trusts them and even Whumpee seemed to be only a bit wary of them after getting to know them more. Much better than the absolute terror of having someone new come into their home, at the very least!

Surely Whumpee and Caretaker’s Friend (CF) were going to be alright for just a week together! They both agreed. They could do it! They would be fine!

Plus, Whumpee was doing so great and being so independent, even if they just needed another’s presence to fend off Whumper’s solitude. CF could provide that presence and perhaps help in case Whumpee had any difficulties or setbacks. Just until Caretaker returned!

Just a few days!

And day one went off without any major hitches. CF wasn’t used to Caretaker and Whumpee’s routine, so of course the going wasn’t as smooth as when Caretaker was there, but it was still fine. CF didn’t always seem as willing to help Whumpee with the small things like Caretaker either, so Whumpee found themself trying their best to be more independent. That’s a good thing though! Right? Independence again!

Maybe they didn't need to have Caretaker there all the time anymore. They were handling this! Perhaps they were a little more anxious, but they're getting through it! If only it didn't remind them of Whumper, but those are just memories. Nothing real... anymore.

But then on day two, CF seemed a bit more standoffish and annoyed, especially when Whumpee was having a bit of an unresponsive panic attack after CF had come up on them a bit too silently.

Whumpee had been concentrating hard on a small craft—crafts, Caretaker had said, were a great way to keep their mind off things and something to bring them joy and accomplishment!— when CF had come behind them and grabbed the pair of their safety scissors to cut a small string off their own clothes that had come unraveled.

Whumpee, of course, hadn’t heard them approach, though they knew Caretaker had warned CF not to come up on their back without a verbal warning (surely CF just forgot!), so when a sudden figure behind them grabbed the scissors of all things, Whumpee couldn’t help but imagine the terrible things Whumper could have and would have done with those scissors. (After countless nights of pain from other such sharp things, scissors weren’t a far stretch to imagine in the hands of Whumper.)

This, of course, sends Whumpee into a state. Panicking and hyperventilating and sobbing that they were sorry and not to hurt them, despite anything CF said to counter the idea that they would.

“Oh, come now! I wasn’t going to hurt you.” “You know you’re not with Whumper anymore. This is Caretaker’s house!” “What could I even do with safety scissors anyway?!" "I'd really have to put effort into it if I was going to hurt you. I could barely cut you if I even tried!" CF tried to calm them, but hearing Whumper’s name like that (another thing Caretaker had warned them not to speak of that CF surely just forgot in their haste to try to settle them) and the reminder of how easily mundane things could be used to hurt them if someone wanted to only made it worse.

CF sounded so exasperated by Whumpee’s panic the longer it went on that Whumpee could only think about how bad they were being. A burden. How annoyed CF was that they wouldn’t—couldn’t— calm themself down.

They were unsettled the rest of the day after they managed to pull themself out of it. They found themself needing CF’s presence more than usual. CF accommodated them, but seemed to do so begrudgingly. (Whumpee understood. After all, they had just been so independent the day before! How frustrating it was to CF that they seemed to be going backwards.)

Whumpee awoke with a start in the dead of night that night to their own screaming. They jolted up and nearly threw themself off the bed. They must have kicked their blankets off themself during the night in their dream. A chill ran down their spine and they started to shiver.

It was no dream. It was a nightmare. A nightmare of being back in Whumper’s grasp. With a pair of safety scissors cutting into their skin so easily. A nightmare that left their nerves frayed and them sobbing and terrified.

CF comes in to see them and Whumpee is thankful for the presence that could scare away the loneliness that was creeping in and for someone who wasn’t Whumper—who now seemed to linger at the edges of their mind after the nightmare. Their door swinging open the rest of the way to see the other familiar person brought Whumpee a sigh of relief.

“CF, I—”

“You woke me up!" Whumpee started at CF's tone, sitting up straighter and clasping their hand behind them. How Whumper had always wanted them when they were angry. Because CF was clearly angry. "I’d just fallen asleep on that shitty slab of concrete Caretaker calls a mattress when you start screaming and woke me up! I thought Caretaker said you were getting better. If I’d known you were so needy still, I’d never have accepted babysitting their charity case. God! Stop your sniveling and go to sleep! It was just a damn dream!”

CF’s narrowed eyes pierced through them and Whumpee found themself swallowing down their sobs even as their tears flowed freely. It was unfortunately very easy for them to do. Whumper hated when they cried loudly after any of their punishments. (It was obnoxious for something they had deserved for being bad! It was their own fault they had been punished 'so stop your sniveling!') So Whumpee had trained themself to keep quiet. It was so easy to fall back into that habit. To stop the sniveling like Whumper wanted them too. (Whumpee may have forgotten that Caretaker has never wanted them to keep their feelings bottled up and that they hated when Whumpee didn’t let out their cries, as loud as they needed to be, no matter the time of night.)

Whumpee tried not to let the whimper out that they felt build in their chest when CF left, shutting their door with a slam. Whumpee never shut their door all the way, feeling too trapped and isolated if they did. Then CF turned off the hall light that filtered under Whumpee's door frame as they made their way back to their own room, bathing Whumpee in complete darkness. The same light that Caretaker always left on so that Whumpee would never be without some light, knowing they were terrified of the dark.

Whumpee didn't sleep again that night.

Days three and four were much more difficult. Whumpee tried to stay away from CF as to not annoy them by being so needy again. That, of course, did no favors to their mental state. Solitude in any capacity was difficult. Now so more than before after the rough day (and night) they'd just had. But it was easier if Whumpee self-isolated so that CF could be happy with them. After all, they hadn’t asked to take in Whumpee! They were doing Caretaker a favor. They didn’t deserve to be annoyed like this! They were doing them both a favor. The least Whumpee could do was try their hardest!

Unfortunately it seemed CF was always in the kitchen. So, in attempt to keep away from CF, Whumpee kept putting off eating until they weren't. They could wait just a little longer! Surely CF wouldn't be there for too much longer, right? But -oh.. CF was sitting in the small, cozy breakfast nook in the kitchen now. It looks like they were reading. Perhaps they will be done soon and Whumpee could get food after.

They were making popcorn now? Another snack? Okay. Maybe a little longer.

But now its nighttime. Surely CF wouldn't appreciate being woken up again by Whumpee messing around in the kitchen so late at night. Maybe tomorrow morning..? Unless of course CF was making coffee again...

Every time Whumpee would make their way to the kitchen, CF was there. Either making food or eating a snack or reading at the breakfast nook or walking in right after them to do any of those things, forcing Whumpee to turn around and walk right back out in order to stay out of their way. They've been starved for days before with Whumper. They can wait just a little bit longer. A day and a half was nothing they couldn't handle.

And right as Whumpee was coming down the stairs a little later to check to see if CF was still in the kitchen, they tripped and fell the last few steps to the floor. It was an accident- they promise! CF had come running in wondering what the racket was.

"No-nothing! I promise! I just... I just fell down the steps a little. I'm fine! It's nothing! An accident..."

"Are you hurt?"

"N..No. Just.. maybe it'll just bruise a little. But... but its fine."

"Thank goodness!" Whumpee sighed in relief at CF's clear relief. At least they weren't angry they had fallen and- "If Caretaker knew you got hurt while I was watching you, I'd be in so much trouble." -oh.

They supposed that was true. If Whumpee had gotten badly hurt, it would likely strain CF and Caretaker's friendship. Caretaker trusted CF. They wouldn't be happy if Whumpee managed to hurt themself during CF's watch. It would be their fault if Caretaker had gotten upset at CF...

CF shook their head with a roll of their eyes and made their way back from where they'd come. The kitchen.

Whumpee sighed and limped back up the stairs on the ankle that would surely stop hurting once they slept if off.

That night, the fourth night, was another difficult one. With Whumpee's stomach growling at them and their body stiff and sore and bruised, they couldn't help but feel a bit like they did when they were with Whumper. They weren't with Whumper, of course! They knew that...

But...

But it was getting harder to remember as their ankle throbbed and their stomach grew hungrier and the night grew darker. Everything felt much too... painful to be with Caretaker still. Too similar to when Whumper had them.

Oh god... what if their head was playing tricks on them. Caretaker never let them go to bed hungry. And Caretaker never left them go to bed alone if they had a panic attack or left them without patching them up if they accidentally hurt themself.

Maybe...

Maybe Whumper found them again? It wouldn't have been the first time their mind played tricks on them, thinking they were back with Caretaker in happier times only to wake where they had passed out (or been knocked out) on the floor and find themself beaten and bruised and starving and alone.

Oh god, they were alone again, weren’t they? They... Caretaker wasn't here. Whumper... Whumper had found them! They must have. That's why they were alone and scared and in pain and in the dark and starving.

Whumpee hugged themself tighter, pulling their legs closer to their chest (and ignoring the throbbing still in lingering in their ankle), unwilling to touch or feel the grimy, cold, damp edges of that damned pit they were surely trapped in again.

Whumper’s pit.

Dark and cold and alone.

God, it really was Whumper again, wasn’t it?

They were taken from Caretaker again! They... they-.. No. Wait-

A memory filtered into Whumpee’s head. A recent memory… of Caretaker leaving them. Of the door shutting behind them without ever looking back at Whumpee. Of Caretaker leaving them with... someone else.

Caretaker left them. They left them! They left them and gave them to Whumper, didn't they? They were finally annoyed by how needy they were. How annoying and clingy they were. With how loud they were with their sniveling all the time. By how often they had to cook them food or to feed them out of Caretaker's own pocket.

Whumpee let out a tearful sob, but they quickly hushed themself. What if Whumper heard?! If they were caught crying again they’d be forced to stay even longer in this pit. In the dark. All alone.

“Whumpee! CF! I’m home!” Caretaker called gently into the home after they managed to finally get the key in the lock. It was dark. Usually Caretaker wouldn’t have been traveling at night, but it had already been five days since they’ve been home and they were antsy to see how CF and Whumpee handled themselves together.

Whumpee had been doing so well! They were curious to see if any more progress has been made in their absence.

“Welcome back, Caretaker,” CF came out of the kitchen with a smile, book in hand.

“Hi, CF! How’d it go?”

“Fine! No trouble at all!”

“Really? That's great to hear! Where’s Whumpee? In the kitchen?”

“No. I actually haven’t heard from them for a few days.” CF grinned happily, “They’ve been very independent. At first they were a bit nervous. Asked me for help and to stay near them all the time. They must have been missing you." CF nudged Caretaker's shocked form with their elbow. "But then they seemed to get better very quick! They barely came looking for me after. In fact, I only checked up on them one night when they had a nightmare. They’ve been calm and quiet ever since! You’ve really done very well with them, Caretaker. I was worried in the beginning when they were so clingy, but it turned out fine!” CF recounted their successful days here. Only after they finished their explanation did they notice that Caretaker wasn’t as happy about it as they were.

“Wait… so where is Whumpee?”

“Like I said, they’ve been very independent. They were doing that craft or whatever it was in their room a few days ago. I assume they’ve been working on it since.” CF shrugged.

“You- you haven’t seen them for a few days?” Caretaker was horrified now.

CF noticed their face was a little paler than usual. Traveling must have taken a toll on them.

“Nope. I know you said they were a lot more independent lately. I guess you were right!”

“In their room? By… by themself?!”

“Yes? Of course. Why? Is everything- whoa!” Caretaker pushed past CF. They ran up the stairs and down the hall, realizing with horror that the hall light was off.

“Whumpee!” Caretaker called as they reached Whumpee’s door. Whumpee’s closed door.

Caretaker scolded themself as they realized calling their name like that would only scare them worse.

“Whumpee, I’m coming in! Its just me! Its Caretaker, okay?”

They didn’t hear anything from other side of the door. That didn’t calm their fears.

“Caretaker, whats going on? I’m sure they’re fine. They’re probably just sleeping or something.” Caretaker didn’t even pay attention to what CF had said.

“Whumpee? I’m coming in!”

When they opened the door, they couldn’t see anything for a moment, the darkness too impenetrable. A darkness that Whumpee was still not okay with.

They flicked on the light only to lay eyes on Whumpee.

It took both Whumpee and Caretaker a moment to process what they were seeing.

Whumpee. Oh god, Whumpee!

Whumpee, who was curled into the center of the room into a tight ball. Their wide, wet eyes poked out from their arms that were poised over their head.

Then Whumpee flung into action.

"I-I'm s-sorry! I... I'm sorry! I'm sorry for m-making you so angry, Caretaker. Please forgive me! P-please don’t leave… Don’t leave me! Don't give me away to Whumper again. Please! P-Please! I’ll- I’ll do anything!”

Caretaker watched in horror as Whumpee threw themself onto the floor at their feet. Their knees hit hard enough that Caretaker heard the audible thump and could imagine the bruises that would form. Ones that took just as long to heal when Whumpee had first been rescued.

They could see the way Whumpee cried by the shaking of their shoulders, but they didn't hear a sound from them as they held it in with their head bowed to the floor.

Bowing to them.

"Pl-please d-do-don't m-make me go i-into the p-pit, Master. Please!"

"Whumpee, no-" Caretaker wasn't sure what to say as they were thrust back to memories of when Whumpee was first rescued.

Back to when Whumpee's mind was still thoroughly in Whumper's clutches.

Whumpee was back to square one.

---

This one got away from me again. It wasn't meant to be this long but I kind of like it so here it is. Hope you enjoy!

loosely inspired by this post

[azen13]

CW: Yandere Themes, Imprisonment, Mentions of Starvation

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Something I think we don't talk about enough is how interesting Yandere!Zhongli would be in the past, when he took a more active role in Liyue's rule, under the name Rex Lapis. More specifically, I continuously go back to the idea of Rex Lapis falling in love with one of his most loyal mortal worshippers.

Every day, he can hear your prayers floating across stilled air, stirring up the more draconic instincts in his heart. Such beautiful songs, all for him. Your prayers alone are the greatest blessings he's ever received in all his years as Liyue's Archon, but you've also given him frequent offerings, from grains harvested to jewels mined. Sometimes he cannot help but feel concerned, hoping you're not living in squalor due to your unceasing devotion.

Every night, he enters your dreams and claims them as his own. He never reveals himself, but he stages scenes where he plays the part of the heroic lover, protecting you from harm. For you, it provides protection, soothes your worn mind from labor done during the day. For him, it quells the possessive desire to have you in the palm of his hands, pampered and doted upon, treasured for all eternity.

It isn't enough. Rex Lapis knows it isn't enough, but he pretends as though this little share of your life is satisfactory, even though the depths of his heart stir with displeasure. He wants to be your world in every way.

Luckily for him, he soon gets the opportunity. A famine of unparalleled magnitude—the most devastating disaster Liyue has faced in three centuries—strikes. Not only that, but the heart of the ruin centers around your village. Your prayers become more fervent and frequent. At the sound of your sobs, he can't hold the draconic side of himself back. Rex Lapis may not be Morax, but like his past self he is neither mortal nor moral, and does not abide by the laws of humans. Freedom is not a blessing to be granted, but a cantrip to contain by means of contracts and laws.

That very night, when he comes into your dreams, it is with the sole intent of coercing you into his private adeptal domain. Go with him, and not only will he protect you for eternities upon eternities, but he will protect your village—and all who you love within it—with his life.

The only price you must pay for such a bargain is with your freedom.

Don't worry though. Should you decline, Rex Lapis would be remiss to bind you to him through force. No, he'd much rather let you learn the consequences of contumacy, the many follies of freedom you seem to cling to with such pitiful desperation. Instead, he'll let the days pass by, every second wasted avoiding an inescapable outcome. While those you hold dear begin to grow weak and starve, by some miracle, you stay strong.

Each night, visions of luxurious domesticity pass across your eyes, as thick and syrupy sweet as honey. After the montage, Rex Lapis returns, contract in hand and a knowing smile playing on his lips. Though he says no words, his argument is clear as day: should you agree to fulfill your destiny, your village will need not fear the threat of famine ever again.

Finally, as expected, you crack. The minute the quill you write with leaves the parchment, you find yourself transported from one dream to the next: a picturesque diorama surrounds you, the landscape a perfect replica of Liyue's scenery. A few yards in front of you rests a house as big as your village. "Our home", Rex Lapis tells you, his expression indulgent, though you see in his eyes the depths of his devotion and what lies within them: an insatiable desire to possess you wholly.

"Where you will stay. Forever, my treasure."

[kiwicopia]

MDNI | Themetober: Tricked

Fae!Geto x Fem!Reader

CW: noncon/dubcon, kidnapping, imprisonment, chained reader, mentions of starvation/dehydration, mentions of impregnation, dacryphilia, cunnilingus, overstimulation, licking, biting, body worship, face fucking, sex against the wall, creampie.

tags: @sweetchildcloud

Themetober Masterlist

He had to give credit where it was due, truly. Not many humans could evade a fae for as long as you had, but even you had limits to this evasion. He just had to find them; however, he wasn’t as patient of a fae as he should have been. The desire to have you as his was overwhelming to the point that drastic measures had to be taken. One little slip-up was all he needed, and the very second it occurred, he whisked you away to his domain.

“Darling,” he cooed, dark eyes watching as you shied away from him. Your body moved further back in the cell, and the soft clinking of the chains caused the corners of his lips to twitch as he smiled. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Things would be easier if you would simply give in.” Geto inched closer to the bars of your cell, his fingers tightly wrapping around the cold metal as he rested his forehead against it. “You’re being childish.” 

You hadn’t eaten or drank anything in three days, having refused him each and every time he would bring you something—it was such a childish thing for you to do. His eyes lowered, squinting as he assessed your huddled form in the corner of your cell. Geto didn’t want things to be this way. He couldn’t understand why you resorted to such stubbornness, which only resulted in an inevitable deterioration of your body. 

The fae huffed in irritation, brows creasing as his mind came to a single conclusion: be forceful. Honestly, this was the last thing he wished to resort to, but he couldn’t think of any other way to make you see reason and listen to him. With a quick tap of his forefinger against a metal bar, the door to your cell opened and he stepped inside. Your wide, teary eyes watched as he came closer to you, causing you to squish yourself against the cold, hard wall of the cell. 

“You have left me no choice,” he said. Geto then snapped his fingers, causing the chains connecting you to the cell wall to quickly slide back, which lifted your body to your feet. He came closer, stopping a foot in front of you before reaching a hand out to gently caress your cheek. He thumbed a tear away, tutting softly before letting out a small sigh. “You’ll see reason soon enough.” 

Disgust bubbled in your stomach as his hand drifted from your face and down to your thigh. His other hand followed suit, and you squirmed as his fingers wrapped around the flesh beneath your tattered dress before forcing your legs apart. Geto hummed softly, his smile broadening as he lowered himself to his knees. 

“So beautiful,” he whispered. His thumbs rubbed gentle circles against the skin along your inner thighs before cupping the plump flesh and lifting your lower half up. It was just enough for him to roll his shoulders underneath your legs, situating them over his shoulders perfectly—though he still kept his hands cupped beneath your thighs. Geto’s lips kissed along the skin, trailing his movements further up to your awaiting cunt. “So beautiful, and all mine.” His nipped at your flesh, causing you to cry out before attempting to wriggle away from him. 

The fae tutted softly, shaking his head a little before tightening his grip on your thighs. You should know better than to refuse—not that you could if you tried. “Please,’ you begged. His eyes flitted up to your tear-filled expression. The way you cried and pleaded for him to stop brought forth a low rumble in his throat, as well as causing his cock to chub at the sight of more of your tears. You were so beautiful like this. Teary-eyed and pleading; a real sniffling mess as you attempted to wriggle away once more, but to no avail. “Please don’t—.” 

Your words died midsentence upon feeling his tongue lick a thick stripe along your folds, the tip curling slightly to catch your clit at the right angle. His ears rang with cries that spewed from your pretty lips, only to be ignored as he continued lapping at your cunt. The fae’s fingers dug into the flesh of your thighs to quell the constant squirming of yours as you tried pulling your hips back. Geto’s nose soon brushed against your bundle of nerves the further he pressed his face against your pussy, earning a shrill cry as you tossed your head back against the cell wall. 

He couldn’t hold back anymore. The soft slurps rang in your ears, and the fact that your body was so eager to wet itself with arousal as he pleased you felt so wrong. You didn’t want this, you never wanted this. But it felt good. No longer could your mind hold the disgust for what he was doing to you; that feeling now fading as a sick and twisted need for him to continue festered in its place. 

The second your hips began to grind against him, he knew. You were giving in, and he groaned softly as his cock twitched beneath the fabric of his pants. It ached to be free, to be deep inside of you, but not yet. Geto still needed you to give in entirely, and there was only one way to get that. His pace increased as his tongue delved past your folds, lapping up the slick that now coated his lips and chin as he feasted on you like a starved beast. 

His nails dug into your flesh the more you fucked yourself against his face, now whining and moaning for more. You needed more, wanted it, craved it, and he delivered. The fae held your lower half up as your body shook upon releasing a sudden, sharp cry. His dark eyes watched as your back arched while your senses flooded with pure ecstasy. “Pretty girl,” he chuckled. Geto flicked his tongue along your puffy clit, relishing in the whiny moan that slipped out from you. “I’m still not finished eating.” 

He lapped at your sensitive, slick cunt again, pulling orgasm after orgasm from you until he finally felt satisfied. The fae’s tongue licked along his lips after he pulled his face back, relishing in the sweetness of your multiple releases. Your body still twitched from the effects of him overstimulating you, which made you perfectly pliant for him as he stood to his feet and pressed his chest against yours. Geto kept you balanced between him and the wall, with an arm around your waist while a free hand worked to release himself from the confines of his pants. 

His cock sprang free—the tip angry and weeping arousal—and he slowly rubbed the thick head against your folds before easing himself inside. You whined at the stretch, body tensing from the sudden burn that ached the more he disappeared inside of you. The fae’s arm around your waist tightened as his hand moved to grip your hip, and his face buried itself in the crook of your neck. Your scent wafted through his nostrils, causing his dick to twitch inside of you, and Geto gave you a small moment of adjustment before pulling his hips back and slamming himself into you. 

The pace was relentless, with little to no room for gentleness as he fucked you. Gods, you were so tight and warm, with walls that sucked him back in with ease—so heavenly to him, this feeling. His arm soon unwound from around your waist, and both of his hands firmly pressed against the cell wall. Your tears were long gone by now, with eyes rolled back as you babbled nonsense in his ear, to which he let out a breathy chuckle at. 

You were adorable. His little human, getting herself fucked by a fae she thought she could evade. The thought of his little tricks almost not working on you days ago didn’t sit well with him, and he now desired to make you his in more ways than one. Fucking you just didn’t seem to be enough for him. Geto could impregnate you, force the swell of your belly with his seed. Then you would be his forever. 

Such an idea spurred him on, his body squishing you against the wall as his cock bullied your sopping cunt. “Take it, take it, darling,” he panted. Those words spilled from his lips like a mantra, a heavenly chant that would ensure your bond to him for life. Gods, it was enough for him to finally come undone. With a low growl rumbling in his throat, Geto fucked into you one last time, spilling into you and painting your walls in thick, creamy cum. 

His thrusts had slowed, gentling out as he kissed along the side of your neck. You were too fucked out to comprehend what had even happened. Too overstimulated from orgasms prior to realize the fate he resigned you to. Geto was a fae that had always gotten what his heart desired, no matter how sick and twisted it was. 

If impregnating you kept you bound to him, then so be it. Simply another little trick that had to be done. 

[gor3-hound]

over again

ft. leon kennedy x fem!reader

cw: 18+ content, dark content, heavy dub-con, forced ddlg, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, fingering, p in v, creampie, mentions of past drugging, daddy kink, lots of pet names

a/n: took me forever n ever to write this ahhh sorry :/ hope you all enjoy it !! feedback always appreciated !! hopefully the writers block will finally perish.

word count: 1.6k words

14 weeks. 98 days. 2352 hours.

Leon leaves the house at 7.30 am every morning, except for Sundays. From Monday to Thursday, he's home around 6 pm. On Fridays, he isn't home until around 9 pm. Saturdays are the worst because he's home just after lunch.

Usually, when he comes home, he goes to the bedroom and unlocks the door to let you out. He threads his hand in your leash to take you upstairs, giving you a kiss on your forehead as he takes you to the kitchen to eat a meal. He gives you your food on a pink, plastic princess plate with plastic cutlery, and cuts the food into bite size pieces. More often than not, he hand feeds you.

You don't fight it. You'd learned your lesson. You refused food from him once. For 2 out of your 14 weeks locked up in his home, he'd underfed you to the point of starvation until you were begging him to feed you. He sat you in his lap, cooing all sweet as you chewed and swallowed every mouthful he'd given you. That day was the first day he slept with you.

It wasn't all bad. He was sweet. Gentle. If you closed your eyes, you could pretend he was a loving boyfriend. Someone who cared for you, not the creep who'd snatched you from the street after you had a few too many drinks at your friend's party, promising you a better life, safe from the world.

But he isn't sweet, or nice, or kind. He didn't do this for you, despite what his twisted brain tells him. You can pretend all you want that he's something other than what he is, but it doesn't change what he is. A monster.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Where's my little princess?” Leon's asking as soon as he walks into the house, kicking his shoes off and hanging his jacket up at the door. You recently got free reign of the home for being on your best behaviour. Didn't even have to keep the leash attached to your collar anymore. Lucky you.

“Here, daddy.” You say meekly, poking your head out of the living room to approach him, fiddling awkwardly with the edge of your shirt. Head down, so he doesn't have to see the defeated expression on your face as you force out the words, swallowing thickly to hold back your tears.

“You have a good day, sweetheart? You do any coloring in those cute little books I got you?” Leon's hands come up to your cheeks, gently stroking his thumbs back and forth across your cheekbones. You shake your head, gritting your teeth to stop yourself from saying something.

“No? Why not, baby? You don't like them? I got the one with lots of kitties. Pretty girls like you like cute things, don't they?” He coos, squishing your cheeks in his hands to make your lips all pouty so he can lean down and give them a little kiss, letting out a loud ‘mwah’ as soon as his lips make contact.

“You eat at least? I left some food in a lunchbox for you.” You shake your head again, and this time it seems to elicit a worse reaction. His brows furrow, and his hand grips your face even tighter. “No? Silly baby… can't do anything without daddy, can you? Come on. Daddy'll feed you, cutie.”

He heats up some food for you and puts it on a plate. The pink, plastic princess plate. He sits you on his lap and feeds it to you from a fork. Pink, plastic fork. The routine is the same, no matter how much you wish for it to change. When you finish eating, he presses a tender kiss to your head and rocks you in his arms.

“Such a good girl. Good girls get rewarded, princess.” He murmurs, pressing soft kisses against the skin of your neck, trailing them up until he's nosing at the hair behind your ear. His hand slides up your thigh and under your skirt, his thumb swiping your swollen bud through the already damp fabric. It didn't matter if you didn't want it. Your body didn't seem to understand what was happening - all it knew was Leon made you feel good. You hated how compliant you got when he touched you, how any thoughts of defiance melted away.

You go limp when he touches you. Docile. You let him do what he wants to you, just like a good girl should. Back-talking daddy is a big no-no. He wrote that in big writing on the rule list that's pinned to the fridge. Escape didn't use to seem impossible, yet now the thought never even crossed your mind. You'd tried, but he kept a tight lock on you. You wouldn't be surprised to find out one of the many injections he gave you when you were unruly had a tracker in. He always seemed to know exactly where you were.

You whimper as he dips his hand under the waistband of your panties. He parts your puffy lips with practiced ease as he continues on with the next part of his routine. 98 days later and he's mapped every inch of your body perfectly - found out everything that has you keening under his touch. Your hips buck as he runs his fingertip between your folds, gathering slick before rubbing small circles into your clit.

“Poor, dumb baby. She's soaking me already. You couldn't make yourself feel good when daddy was gone, huh, sweetheart?” His words are followed up by a finger burying itself in your tight heat, curling to find that gummy spot that has you clenching around him and bucking your hips. “Pretty princess cunt's been drooling for me all day.”

A choked sob leaves you when he pulls his cock out and sits you on top of it. He pulls you down until he's buried to the hilt, groaning as you tighten around his length. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, peppering it with tiny little kisses. You can't help but cry whenever Leon fucks you. 98 days later and you still sob whenever he bullies your cervix with his dick. No matter how many times he makes you cum or makes you go dumb on his cock, it doesn't change anything. He took everything from you - your family, your friends, your job.

You hated yourself more than Leon. For letting him break your walls down. For clinging to him as he tightens his grip on your waist, manhandling you on his cock, lifting you up and down. For finding yourself missing him when he's at work.

“Love…love you, daddy…” Your words come out more like a cry, nose all runny and cheeks wet with tears as he fucks up into you, his head shifting to hang back in pleasure. His fingers dig into your waist as he hears the words, a breathy laugh leaving him as he smiles - all toothy and bright like it always is when you say that.

“Love you even more, princess.” He grunts out, leaning back on the seat to force himself deeper into your pussy, guiding your hips back and forth so you're grinding his cock inside of you, rubbing your pretty clit against his happy trail. You gasp at the sensation, your hands gripping into his shoulders as your brows furrow in pleasure.

“Daddy… daddy…” You gasp out as your orgasm hits, your lips parting as you gush all over him. The look on your face as you cum is enough to have his balls tighten, his teeth gritting as he starts to shallowly thrust into you once more, chasing his own release. You always cry when you cum, and Leon always kisses the tears away when you do, his lips pressing against the wetness on your cheeks repeatedly. Another part of the ritual, another moment repeating day after day.

“Want daddy to fill you up, sweet girl?” He grunts, nipping at your neck as he wraps his arms tight around your waist in a bear hug, holding you steady as he fucks up into your drippy cunt. “Gonna warm you up right in that cute lil’ tummy.”

His hips stutter as his orgasm hits him, his jaw going slack as he presses the tip of his cock right up against your cervix, filling you to the brim with his sticky cum. He slides a hand under your shirt, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into the skin of your tummy.

“That's it. Keep it all in, okay? Daddy doesn't want to see his little angel spill a single drop.” He says softly, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. He holds you there for a couple of minutes, cradling you against his chest until it's time to go to sleep.

Before bed that night, Leon ushers you into the bathroom. Like every night before this one, he gently grips your jaw with one hand as he stands behind you, his other hand gripping your pink princess toothbrush as he brushes your teeth, his eyes locked onto you through the mirror. At bedtime, he tucks you in and curls up behind you, spooning you with one hand on one of your tits, and the other wrapped tightly around your waist.

Tomorrow is a Friday. He wakes you up at 6.30 am with a kiss to your head as always, a warm cup of milk in one hand and your breakfast in the other. He feeds you off of a pink, plastic princess plate and presses a kiss to your lips before leaving at 7.30 am on the dot.

[millersfinest]

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. . .

ELLIE WILLIAMS, YELLOWJACKETS AU, SERIES!

blurb: there’s a 0.0001% chance that an airplane can fall and hit the ground, injuring and killing a variety of innocents. and there’s an even slimmer chance of a talented team of soccer players from jackson, wyoming being a part of that minuscule percentage, heading to a well-deserved national championship game in boston, massachusetts. but, although these circumstances are slim, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. in 1996, a soccer team, called the fireflies, fell from the sky latched into the seats of a private flight. for twenty months they were sequestered in a canadian forest; away from civilization, forced to fend for themselves. under such fraught circumstances… what can a bunch of teenage girls really be capable of? within the clutches of the wilderness.

cw: mentions of blood, gore and viscera, CANNIBALISM, kind of period piece, character death, sexual content, nudity, images of starvation, harsh climate, established!ellie x reader, some original characters to fill in the gaps, complicated relationships, deluded spirituality, thrilling themes, homophobia and homophobic slurs (used by gay people lol), reader isn’t 100% out (maybe like 70%), more to add...

coming sometime this year...

(some things can be subject to change as this is currently a developing project)

[nana-gumi]

devoted f.toji

pairings: fushiguro toji x fem! reader

cw: angst, divorce, mentions of bullying, death, mentions of abuse, starvation, bruises (megumi got into a fight), timeskip, not proofread

a/n: an alternative angst ending. enjoy :)

would everything be different if toji did not sign the divorce papers 7 years ago? everything would but everyone knew that it was already too late for that.

happy ending | alternate angst ending

"i'm back, my love." toji muttered as he wiped his hand on a certain graveyard showing a certain name as he placed white roses above it. today marked the death anniversary of toji's wife, megumi's mother. he didn't brought megumi with him though. he went alone.

"megumi's turning 6." he mumbled as if someone was around to listen to him. "i couldn't do it alone. before. i-" toji paused, gathering the courage to spill out the words he didn't want to utter. "i almost sold megumi.." he said as he sucked in a breath.

"i'm sorry i couldn't visit you for the past weeks." toji caressed the name with his thumb. he recalled the day he didn't leave the grave, even if it rained, he stayed there.

"i miss you." toji muttered. "so much." he added. "i don't know if i am doing things right." doing things right? but what exactly?

"i couldn't stop thinking of you in her." he mumbled as he balled his fist. "ahh, i'm so stupid."

toji leaned his back on the tombstone as he looked at the grass.

would you forgive him if he said the truth? that up until now, he still couldn't move on with his deceased wife.

he didn't even noticed the time as toji stood up from the ground, the sky turning dark when he came home.

-

"where have you been, toji?" you worriedly asked as you approached him but he stopped you by your shoulders. "i'm sorry about what i said last night." you said as you lowered your head. "i didn't mean to involve her again."

"can we talk about something?" he asked, dismissing your apologies as he looked at you.

"uh, sure?" you asked, chills running down your spine at the unfamiliar tone of his voice. it was— sad?

he sat from the couch as you followed.

"(name). you know that i love you right?" he said and you couldn't help but be nervous as you weakly nod. he loves you? you didn't know. "forgive me, (name)." he said as he intertwined his hands together. "because after all this time, i realized that—" he paused as he looked at you. and he just hoped he didn't. "i still couldn't move on." he mumbled, enough for you to hear it.

you gulped the lump in your throat as you sat beside him, placing a comforting hand on his back.

"it's okay and— i know." you said as you forced a smile.

"i'll let you go if you want." he said, but do you really want to?

"mh, maybe it's for the best, right?" you said as hummed.

"i'm sorry."

"don't be." you said as you stood up from the couch. "it'll be fine." if it is for your happiness. then it'll be. "well, i guess we'll push through the divorce?" you said.

it was a harsh decision. you both knew that, but maybe it was really for the best.

"you can come visit megumi. i'm sure he'll be glad to see you." he said as he smiled lightly.

"that would be good." you said, returning his smile.

-

was it really the right choice?

toji was vulnerable that night he came home. he didn't know if he really did made the right choice. now he had to deal with megumi's tantrums as they watch you leave.

"mama!" megumi cried as toji held him by his shoulders, restraining him from following you as you walked out of your home.

"mama will visit, 'gumi." you said as you waved him a goodbye.

"mama, don't leave please!" megumi yelled, trying to remove his father grip but it was useless. "mama!" he cried.

was it a coincidence that it started to rain heavily too? maybe the universe was crying with you.

megumi was already turning 13, but ever since you left, not a single day you payed him a visit. he barely remember your face, your voice as you lull him to sleep, you cookings. he missed it. he had to learn cooking at a very young age because you weren't around anymore.

at his age, he finally understood what happened to his father and his step-mother. it was a marriage where there was no love in it.

he was fooled by the people he loved the most.

megumi became distant to his father, and he believes you were a liar for promising that you'll visit him. he waited, and waited until he couldn't anymore.

everyone lied to him. his father did, you did and he thinks he couldn't just forgive you, not until you'll show yourself again.

-

toji was restless on their living room. megumi is still wasn't home. it was around 9pm in the clock when he heard a knock on the door, and once he opened it, instead of seeing his grumpy son, he was met with.. your youngest sister.

"toji zenin?" she asked as toji frowned.

"toji fushiguro." he corrected.

"well that's still the same. can i go inside?" she asked and toji hesitantly let her inside.

-

"here." your sister said, handing him a paper bag.

"what's this?" toji's asked with a raised eyebrow as he took the paper on his hand.

"my sister's belongings. you can keep it."

"why?"

"she wanted your son to have it. she said it's a gift from the birthdays she missed."

"why don't she give it herself?"

"could a dead person do that?" sarcasm was evident on your sisters voice when she said those words. "she—" your sister paused as she cleared her throat. "—died of heart failure." she continued.

he doesn't know what to say, not when your sister was on the verge of tears but she concealed it with a heavy sigh.

after several minutes, your sister took toji silence as the sign to go out but before she could leave the house she faced him again.

"i hope my sister's been good to your family." she said with now a sad tone, only to be met with a younger version of toji who was frozen at the door, band aids decorating his bruised face. she bowed at megumi and walked past him.

-

megumi took out all of the things inside the paper bag. there was a book with a dried purple rose in it, a polaroid, a picture frame of you and him when he was still in elementary and a two knitted scarfs with his and toji's name embroidered on it.

megumi failed to notice a certain birthday card on it. not until it flew down on the ground.

'happy birthday my 'gumi.'

it said on the front page.

"happy birthday megumi! i'm sorry i missed a lot of your birthdays. knowing you, you hate mama now, don't you? i'm sorry i couldn't keep my promise to visit. mama's been busy with a lot lot of things but don't worry, mama will visit you as soon as she can! i love you my baby."

love,

mama <3

-

toji heared loud footsteps from the stairs as he caught the scarf megumi just threw at him before it could hit his face.

"are you happy now?" megumi said as he clutched the dark blue knitted scarf on his hand, identical to ones he threw at his father a minute ago. "mama's dead now!" megumi exclaimed.

"this is all your fault." megumi said, his voice breaking as he clutched the scarf close to his chest. "if only.. if only you stopped mama from leaving."

and toji could only stay quiet, taking his son's anger all by himself.

-

"abused, isolated and was left starved. they didn't feed her for days until her body gave up." the police said.

"i thought she died from heart failure?"

"no. they kept her death a secret and it's been 2 years since mr. fushiguro, how did you found out about this case?"

"(name)'s my ex-wife. i only found out when her sister visited."

"i see. well that's understandable knowing that her death was kept from the public. but worry not, her parents was already in jail. that's the only information i could give you, mister."

-

"what did you want to talk about?" your sister said as she leaned her back on a wall.

"you lied, you said she died from a heart failure."

"that's what she wanted me to tell you." she sighed, placing her hands inside her pocket. both was quiet, none wanted to start speaking but both has a lot to say.

"i was very close to my sister and it hurts me to see her defend you from our parents." she said as she continues. "she suddenly came home saying that you wanted a divorce and our parents got mad. she was treated like a maid in our home. i couldn't do anything. i wanted to help her but she didn't want me to be in danger."

"my parents were furious because your family removed all of the connections they had together with my family and they blame my sister for it. did you found out?" your sister asked.

"found out what?"

"the only reason my parents asked your family to marry my sister was because of your company's money." toji kept quiet and your sister took this as the chance to continue. "my sister didn't want it but suddenly, she told me she was excited for the marriage. she told me that you were the boy she was looking for." she smiled as she recalled that day. "i don't think my sister agreed to marry you because of your company's money. my sister genuinely loved you, mr. zenin."

that was your parent's plan all along? he didn't even knew it because he thinks your sister was right, you really did loved him genuinely.

"i don't blame you for it, mr. zenin. but i just hoped that you didn't let my sister go home that night. maybe her fate would be different, maybe.. she's still alive until now. i didn't even know she was suffering from a heart disease." she said, muttering the last sentence as she chuckled bitterly.

"why didn't she reach out at me?" toji said, mainly asking himself.

"that's what i told her but my sister doesn't want to force herself to someone who threw her away." that sure hit a vein on his heart because in reality, he did threw you away.

"where was she buried?" toji asked.

"you wouldn't find it. she was cremated and i don't know where my parents took her ashes. maybe they even threw it somewhere."

-

toji went home with an aching body as he fell down on the couch.

your parents was already sent at the jail 3 months ago already. your sister was brave enough to tell the police after 2 years of your death.

he didn't know how many hours has it been as he went to his room, walking past his son's room but his instinct tells that something was wrong so he went to open the door of megumi's room, only to see shattered glasses everywhere, his study table and chair was destroyed, his computer also, as he find his son laying on the bed, with a scarf around him. the scarf you made him.

"megumi." toji called as he slightly shake his son and megumi jolted awake as he pushed his father.

"what are you doing here?" megumi rasped. "leave." he said, pointing at the door.

"i got a call from your school. you were bullying someone. is that true?"

"why does it matter to you?"

"megumi—"

"dad, i said leave."

"i'm sorry, son." toji said as he placed his palm on megumi's head, only for megumi to push it away. "papa— dad will take all the blame."

"you should." megumi said but his voice betrayed him. "i hate you."

"i know, i hate myself too." toji said as megumi looked up at him. "i regret everything 'gumi."

"stop calling me that, i'm not a kid anymore."

"yeah, sorry." toji said as he stood up from megumi's bed as he made his way at the door of his room.

" 'say sorry to your papa.' that's what would mama tell me if she's here right now." megumi said.

toji sighed as he finally opened the door.

"i'm sorry. i was just mad. i'm sorry, i didn't mean it. i don't blame you." megumi said but toji was already outside of his room as he closed the door.

he didn't deserve his son's apologies, he even deserved to be blamed because in the first place, all of this could've been prevented if he did not signed the divorce 7 years ago.

"what should i do, (name)?" he asked as if you were around as he fall on the ground as he leaned on the wall.

what should he do to make his son trust him again, he wanted to have the closure he had with his son when you were still living with them.

toji doesn't know what to do at this point, and instead of thinking about his first wife, he just hoped that you were beside him right now, telling him the things he should and shouldn't so megumi wouldn't hate him like how it was now.

he just hoped that you were beside him..

taglist: @xllizs

[pursuitseternal]

“Knowledge is a dangerous weapon:” Bookworm!Tav, Vampiric Spawn Powers, and Breeding—“Bites” Update 📚

Astarion x F!Reader | E | 4.6K of banter and breeding

Based on an anonymous prompt

(HBD @lipstickghoulie )

Summary: You have always loved your books and a challenge, when your Vampire Rogue learns his starvation has kept him from his full powers, you take him up on his challenge to teach him the skills that are his due. As you draw closer together, he finds that one bit of information you have failed to teach him… how to make a dhampire

CW: light mocking of Astarion’s ditziness, Spawn Spidercrawl, catching powers and feelings, flirty touching, creepy silent vampire moves, Breeding talk, no babies just breeding, Mating Press™️

Ao3 link | Series link | Masterlist

📚✨📚✨📚✨📚✨📚✨📚✨📚✨📚✨📚

You always knew he was… dumb. Thick headed. Unobservant.

Okay, at times the comments from his thick, rosy lips were just plain stupid. “That lever… must do something…” That was a wonderful moment, one that earned him your eyes rolling so far back in your skull they hurt. “We have some words and some… circles…. Wonder what they do….” Another example of his unparalleled intelligence.

Not to mention the countless times he failed to remember any of the major gods and their shrines as you passed through crypts and defiled chapels.

For as handsome as he was, for as sultry and seductive as you found him, he was… smoothed-brained. But as your journey forced you closer together, you couldn’t help but think some of it may be merely pretense, he was a magistrate after all. He was abused and tortured for centuries, surely that does things to one’s mind. And he was always reading. Every day, every night at camp, his beautiful aquiline nose stuck in a book, crimson eyes devouring the words at a breakneck speed.

One to even rival your own thirst for knowledge.

Maybe it was that you allowed the poor Spawn a chance to drink living, thinking blood for once. Your own. Maybe that was what began to take his little, stupid moments and turn them into something endearing.

Not that he was gracious when you corrected his ignorance. Every time, he gave that adorable, grumpy harumph and then defended his comments, or… since he started feeding from you, he’d just look at your neck still freshly marked and lick his lips. That really shut you up. Set you on fire.

But it wasn’t until you needed him to reach that last little chest up on the crumbling ledge inside some dank cavern that you realized his ignorance wasn’t wholly pretend.

Astarion, vampire spawn, didn’t know just what he should be capable of. He looked positively befuddled when you told him to just climb the brick wall. His sass had been sharp, “I’m not some spider, darling.”

“But you can spider climb, you dolt,” you had laughed imitating his tone, trying to call his bluff on skills he should have, at least according to what you had read in your book. A Spawn should scale such a wall with immense ease.

He just narrowed his crimson eyes at you, a snarl on his lips as he shook his head. “I have never performed such an act, darling, nor have any of my brothers and sisters, those of us Cazador kept for his bidding. Better check your precious facts in your precious tomes before you throw your assumptions on my prowess… dear.”

You still shiver at that night. Back at camp. When you ignored the way he bristled as you approached him in front of his tent. He had sneered at you, readying his next acerbic quip for you… Until you sat so close beside him, settling the heavy book in his lap. Leaning in, you point to the page. Traits and Strengths of the Vampiric Spawn.

You felt him cease breathing, his left hand clutching at the edge of the book growing even whiter. “Astarion,” you breathed. Leaning in more, you looked into his eyes, his gaze scanning the words so quickly on the aged vellum. And then he shoved you by your cheek out of his sightline. He needed to finish this.

“Why, I should be positively remarkable, assuming your book is correct,” he sighed, as if he saw a vision, a dream fulfilled. One where he was powerful.

You nodded as his crimson eyes flashed at you, wide with wonder. “You mentioned Cazador never let you feed enough, and not from thinking creatures.” He nodded, skeptical even as his eyes fixated on your lips. “Well, what you did not know was that denying you a sufficient diet meant also restricting you from your full powers, even as a Spawn, Astarion. You should be able to climb up walls and ceilings, move swifter, lift boulders too much for even Karlach to manage. You should be able to heal almost instantaneously, without potion or feeding.”

“And now?” he replied, that little tremor of hope in his voice unmistakable as his hand traced over the page of your book.

“Well, it’s a difficult deduction, since you have our unwelcome illithid parasite. But now that you are feeding regularly, even from thinking creatures, you should find the effects more than just making you feel… happy,” you rambled on. Even as you kept talking, his eyes glued their gaze to your neck, your lips. If you weren’t mistaken, they even dipped down the v-shaped cut of your tunic.

“So… the more I drink from thinking creatures, the stronger and more powerful I will be?” he murmured, a slight grit in his throat as his eyes definitely darted down your bosom now.

“Y-yes,” you rejoined, sliding back just a touch.

And he slid that touch closer, and then some.

“You’ll help me, won’t you, darling? You’ll help me learn these skills? Give me all I require to access my full potential….” His eyes looked wet, the ruby irises glowing in the flickering firelight. “Please?” he adds with that smirk and that single arching brow of his made you stomach flutter and heart thump so hard in your chest.

“I…” you started, but he only seemed to lean ever closer.

“You know, when I was a Magistrate, back in the City, I would have craved someone with intelligence like yours. We would have been rivals, colleagues…” his eyes dip once more shamelessly up and down your seated body. “Perhaps lovers even,” he breathed. “I always surrounded myself with those of highest intellect, darling. Intelligence is so… undervalued by many, and knowledge is a dangerous weapon, but I see you, my darling. Won’t you please come to my aid now?”

“We… we can try,” you had whispered, barely able to the let the words from your lips with how you seemed to seize under the intensity of his stare.

“Wonderful,” he purred, catching your cheek, your chin in his cool palm. “I just hope we don’t have to wait too long…”

You squirmed as his thumb began to brush beneath your lip.

“…to put my new strengths to the test I mean, of course.” He smirked that little bit more twistedly. More seductively. And you knew he heard your heart beating in your artery, your blood rushing under his touch in your veins to pool lower. It was his nature, and you knew more of it than he did.

“Of course…” you breathed. “I’d be happy to help.”

“Then it’s settled,” his voice was thick in his throat, you relished the way his other arm stole around you, clutching at you back to bring you all the closer under his heady spell of charm and seduction. “All that’s left is to seal our new arrangement somehow…”

He pushed that heavy book off his lap, sliding to bring you into completely flushed against him. You’re sure your pulse was raging so loudly, it’s deafened his pointed and twitching ears. That chilled, corpse-cold touch under your chin tilts you up just… so…

You melted, closing that distance between your lips. Every logical thought dispersed in the wind of your desire, that panting breath that passed from your lungs into his.

That’s how this all began, and where it had brought you to this moment, where he clings to the ceiling of a massive cavern filled with both the stink of Gnolls and the vile creatures themselves. Dagger gripped in between his glinting fangs. He readies himself with a look of pure and dark excitement. He loves this. He misses this when it’s just you all back in the quiet of camp, where he tests his ever growing strength and climbing abilities, where he drinks from you every night before he hunts in the dark.

Where he slowly makes you more and more aware of your awakening body the more he touches you and caresses and kisses you. Always every night. Always between your increasingly intellectual discussions about vampiric powers and the moment he sinks his fangs into your skin to feed. He always leaves you after dark, his own belly sated, while you… you grow all the hungrier. Needier. You want more debate, more analysis, more of his body covering yours as he drinks you down.

But not anything more. Not yet. Even as you knew he was edging closer to asking you for sex. Even if he didn’t know all the… implications. After all, knowledge was a dangerous weapon.

You shake your head to free yourself from the longing thoughts of past nights and burning expectations of the night to come. You give him the signal, watching him release with flawless precision, dagger in hand now, as he falls from his spider-perch.

The Gnolls never see you coming, not before your endearingly ferocious Vampire Spawn lands with preternatural grace on their heads and vivisects them before you even reach their location.

He pants as you get at least one good shot from your bow, right for the last twitching body on the ground.

It’s not until you smile, satisfied, you notice that Astarion’s pale skin is riddled with scratches and tears from the beasts’ claws. He holds out his arms, rolling up his sleeves and smiling. Enjoying the sight of his vampiric body healing before his eyes. That crimson gaze practically glows as he looks at you over the carnage. “See something you like, my sweet?” he purrs, arching that brow, just for you, as if the others in your party aren’t even there.

“Ahem,” you clear your throat, turning to find the coveted chest of supplies, that Zhentarim sigil on it is no deterrent to you. Not when your Vampire Spawn can charm anyone to do anything now. “We better head back to camp,” you kneel before the strong chest, trying your hand to pick the iron lock.

“Tch,” his voice brushes your ear, physically tickling the small stray hairs that make you gasp. “You know I’m far more skilled with my fingers, especially when it comes to slipping inside…” You shudder to feel him crouching right behind you, his thighs pressed against your ass, his waist brushing your lower back. “…Slipping inside chests, locks, that sort of thing,” he adds louder, just to appease your unease. That dexterous touch has only grown all the smoother and stronger and sneakier now that he has fed well for a while.

He is so sneaky in fact, only one of his hands actually works the lock pick for a moment, the other quickly skates up your leg, tracing the inner seam of your buckskin breeches almost to the peak of your thigh. He laughs in your ear as you muffle a noise under your own palm.

“Soldiers, you really need four hands to pick one lock? Haven't you gotten better, Fangs, now that our fearless leader has let you suck on her and tutor you in being a Spawn?” Karlach chortles, her feet swaying side to side in that perpetual motion dance she seems to do.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Astarion throws the barb over his shoulder, letting you bury your face to hide the tweaks of ecstasy at the corners of your eyes as his fingers keep moving higher… higher. “Some silent performance only you get to savor, it seems?”

“If I didn't know better…” Gale’s pedantic voice draws closer.

“There now,” Astarion crows like the proudest rooster of them all, his hand quickly leaving the edge of your mound to twist that pick and pop the lock just as Gale peers from behind. “Look at all this loot,” he groans and stands, satisfied as he folds his arms over his chest. “Good thing you have a strong, well-fed Vampire to bring it back with us. Wouldn’t you agree, darling?”

He smirks down at you, hand extended to help you to your feet. Back to the rest, he flashes you that fang-toothed smirk that he knows sets your pulse galloping out of control. Pulling you up, he has to steady you in your legs, near boneless as they are with just that tease of pleasure. “Calm yourself darling, you're making my undead heart hurt sympathetically from all that… excitement,” he rasps right into your ear once you’re on your feet before him, releasing you in favor of bags of treasure and potions and loot to stuff in his pack.

Your mind is racing as your trod back towards your little camp well off the Risen Road for good measure. Thoughts scramble, worries peak their heads up, and you can’t stop thinking about the rest of what you have learned reading about vampires. Necessary research for you, particularly since Astarion has seemingly added flirtation and seduction into your witty repartee this last tenday. So far, you’ve managed to keep his wandering eyes from those pages when he glances through your tomes. He seems to prefer every little dip of your skin where he can see it at any rate. So far, you’ve managed to keep his hands in places on your body that are not too dangerous, yours on his as well.

But something inside you knows that tide is shifting. He wants to offer you more in exchange for more… and… well, if it doesn’t just make your body thrum with life in ways no books had and no previous interests had either.

He has beaten you back to camp, haphazardly tossed the loot for the rest of you to sort out in the center of camp. You know he’s waiting in his tent, now that the sun has begun to trek lower and lower. It’s time for your research, for your indulgence of his strength, and… whatever else might happen.

His tent is dimly lit as you enter, a mess of blankets and pillows, some fine and some in tatters. Stacks of books in the corners have replaced the blood bank bottles you first found here to clutter his space.

But no Astarion.

You tilt your head confused, settling down on one pillow, more or less intact, reaching for an apple he keeps in his stash of food just for you. Just to replenish you between his own feedings. As you bite into the hard skin, as the juice fills your mouth, you reach for a book, some ancient law book he found in the ruins of that village. Must make him think of his old life.

The pages are old and soft in your fingers, your eyes absentmindedly skimming the long words and complex sentences as you chew.

Peaceful. Until you realize it’s far too quiet.

You feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, that feeling of being watched creeping up your spine. Turning, mid bite, you peer into the shadowed corner of his tent behind you.

Two glowing red eyes stare at you from the dark, just a hint of glinting teeth as he smiles and drinks in your fear and surprise. He laughs to hear you hiss as you jump in your seat. “There you are,” he croons from his darkened corner. “I’ve been waiting.”

“F-f-for what?” you force a smile and force your breath to steady all at once. He slides closer, settling down right beside you, and you notice your worn book in his hand, the smile on his face is sultry.

And predatory.

And for a moment, you regret teaching him as much as you have about his untapped powers.

“When were you going to tell me about your little bit of… research… on the side?” his voice is chilling, his brow arching as he flips the book open right to the back.

Right where you had been trying so hard to prevent his eyes from skimming, his ambitious brain from devouring the knowledge.

Your body is hot and rigid, and you know from the way his pointy ears twitch, he hears your pulse. You know from the way that his nostrils flare that he smells your arousal, the slick that dampens your underthings just to be this close to him again after his little stunt today.

“If my observations are correct… and they usually are…” he purrs, even though the stack of evidence to the contrary is vast. But you bite your tongue as he continues, your heart leaping at the topic he is about to breach. “You sound and smell eager to discuss this topic if dhampires, my darling.”

You swallow, watching so heated and frozen as he slides so gracefully to place the weight of that tome in your own lap, his fingers removing the half-eaten apple from your fingers to toss to the side. Then he brings their sticky, juicy tips to his mouth to suck them clean.

You moan, unbidden, at the wet and vigor with which his tongue cleans every crevice of those digits.

“Now, I’d hate to be left wondering just why my intelligent, little darling would withhold such a vital… potent… part of my unrevealed powers as a vampire?” he sets your hand back on your thigh, a little extra brush of his fingers, returning to trace that seam inside your breaches as he had before. “Is she… curious? Afraid? Is this why she has been just so hesitant during our…” he grips your chin, turning your head with commanding force until there is nowhere else to look but his deep crimson eyes, “…late night trysts?”

“It’s not something one just… brings up, Astarion,” you try to flatten your tone, even as that one hand still traces up and around your thigh. “It’s just not… done…”

Something about his eyes softens, “It would be important to discuss, you know, for there is more that I would like to share with you than just witty banter and blood…” his tone dips low into a rumble. “It’s not something I would have known, not a concern I would have shared until I knew of it…”

“There’s more to it than you might know,” you squeak as his fingers press into that slot between your legs. “Now that you’re well-fed, you’ll feel actual….”

You swallow the word. His touch presses hard enough into your folds through your breaches to make them soaked. And you, wanton you, you give a breath and a buck of your hips to keep his fingers there.

“Pleasure,” he smirks, eyes scanning your face as your force your eyes back open, halfway at least. “Yes, I gathered as much. The more I feed, the more I come alive… alive enough to perhaps even bestow a new life…” he squints a grin at you, your mouth slack as he draws that touch just as hard again, “…perhaps one day.”

You arch your body, trying to slip closer. Your secret is out, your anxious thoughts over clandestine information dispersed in the air. And so, the next words from your mouth just build on all that you had been swallowing down.

“Yes, perhaps one day…” you sigh, leaning back on your hands to try to give him full access to your cunt. “Perhaps one day, we could test out those powers together.” Your voice shakes with excitement, it’s pressed with the sincerity you feel for him.

“Oh, my love,” he smirks and reaches both arms around your waist. That newfound strength pulls you flush into his lap, until your molten, silk-soaked center presses against where he’s hardening. “You always know what to say… Seems like quite the power that will take much preparation and proper timing…” He brings your fingers back to his lips as he kisses them softly. “I’d have to feed on more than just a bear and more than just sips from my little treat, sweet as you are…”

You nod, once or twice, before losing yourself in the bliss of his tongue on the tingling inner skin of your wrist. Barely more than a lap before his fangs pierce your skin and suck you down. Your very essence, your living blood pools in his belly, you feel it coursing in his veins. It fills him and hardens him beneath your hips in an instant.

“Well, practice makes perfect you know,” he croons, bloodied lips barely hovering off your own. “I can tell from your scent you are not… in season…. And I have only had the single little taste.”

You pant, writhing at the scratch of your clothing, you long to rip it off and toss it where your book has long since been abandoned. “Sounds right to me,” you hiss, arms tucking around his neck to lower those arrogant stupidly handsome lips to your mouth.

Astarion’s throat rumbles with a growl, the taste of your blood fresh in his mouth as he rolls you on your back. Primal. Feral. He’s your powerful vampire, blood in his body, lust in his brain. And you want to put it all to the test—your own little experiment to match his enthusiastic desire for you. His touch is lightening fast and strong, pulling off your clothing, swift and sure and careful until every inch of your bodies are bare.

Strength hums in his muscles, even as his hands gently caress your cheek, your neck still sore from all his feeding. His body presses you into the pile of blankets that cover his plank of a bed. His hips grind your belly, your thighs are pulled almost against your chest until you’re spread wide open for him. But for every jolt of his cock as it prods above you and drips his early cum on to your belly, his kisses on your lips are sweet, gentle. A silent movement of gratitude for all your willing aid. Those fingers drag their slightly warmed touch around your breast, kneading it tenderly. With every arch of your back, you can almost catch the base of his cock inside your folds.

And you shake. You quiver. You’d had a few lovers, mostly boring and few and far between. But never has your body burned for anyone like it does for him.

As if his vampire touch is calling your blood to pool beneath it. Not one traditional strength, but with Astarion, you aren’t totally sure he doesn’t have some unnatural ability to command your body. To make your blood pound and sing just for him.

“What a good girl,” he rasps, a grind of his hips to send that cock near your navel, over your skin. “I can feel your heat for me from here. Just waiting to be fucked full.” His mouth descends quickly but carefully, only taking a single nipple in his lips. Sucking hard, he pops off with a loud wet noise.

Almost as loud as your moan.

“So ready, aren’t you?” His question weighs you down, your eyes half shut to savor the way he drags back with that length, sliding it in just an inch or so into your aching sex. “I’m waiting…” he growls, and you sob as he pulls even that little bit of his tip back out.

“Yes, hells below, yes,” you pant, hands flying to claw into his ass. Pulling him towards your throbbing core.

That blunted tip prods just barely inside you again. “You want me to fill you?” he rasps.

You nod, your teeth biting your lip hard enough to bleed.

“You want me to fill your belly like you let me fill mine with your sweet blood?” he grips his arms around your shoulders, pressing harder into, cock sliding in another little bit. “Fuck you so many times, my cum will drip from you for days?”

“Yes, Astarion…” you breathe, his mouth devouring your words, ready to swallow your cry as he does, finally, fill you.

You feel the gravity of his body crushing you, his legs braced with every tendon taught as he snaps his hips into. It’s so deep, so driving the way he fucks. And every thrust slaps your flesh and smacks his balls against your ass, but you love it. His breath dampens your collarbone, arms wrapped so tightly around you, you can do nothing but hold on for dear life. Your thighs burn from how they’re bent into your stomach almost, your folds leaking with arousal, and the drag of his cock touches every part of your walls and slams against your channel’s end.

He licks your shoulder, wet tongue lapping up to the artery in your neck. Where it pulses and dances in time with his beat inside you. Flushed and boiling, speared on his length, you pant, suffocated deliciously until you burst. Your visions swimming and muscles contorting in his press, you scream for him. You can hear your arousal, your slick, coating his thighs as his thrusts only increase with speed.

Lifting his head, he sweeps a hand down your sweat-drenched belly, palm bracing just below your navel. His push is relentless, hard and gradual enough you feel it behind your belly, how he gives you resistance from outside against that constant ramming of his cock at your deepest point. It’s enough to throw you into another coil of bliss instantly. “Good girl, so wet and dirty and waiting to be filled…'' he finally speaks through his panting. And he pushes on your belly once more, grunting with each fuck as he comes undone.

As he thrusts and spills his seed, prodding the full length of him to the deepest point yet. You can feel it almost sticking through your skin as he pulses. As he spills, burst after burst, he still rams that end of your cunt.

Beads of sweat drip from his forehead as he looks down your body, and how your skin is wet and flushed and marked from where he gripped you so fiercely.

He smiles and licks his lips. You try to clamber out, but his hand only comes to rest on your shoulder. “Ah ah,” he tutts his tongue at you, slipping out, only to take two of his fingers to play in your mix of cum, slipping it back inside you over and over again. “You’ll need to practice too, and you’ll need to rest to keep all of me inside of you.”

You shudder, a smile wide on your mouth, aroused and embraced, half hidden behind the back of your hand as you cover your face.

“Tch,” he chides you, pulling that hand from your face, “none of that, my darling. I’ll watch every bit of your blush darken your cheek until you’re ready to go again.”

“Again?” you choke. Your hips already feeling stretched and sore, you lay them flat and try to ease the aches.

“Oh yes,” he purrs, “you’ll have to build your strength the old fashioned way, my treat. Now,” he gives your ass a little smack on the side as he lifts it, “on your knees, darling…”

You finally take a breath, freed from his wiry, heavy frame. One cool hand settles between your shoulder blades to have you rest your head on his bedding. But that other hand pulls your hips up, slipping through your juices and teasing your clit until you buck back against his belly. You breathe contentedly, savoring the way his fingers caress you, worship you.

You close your eyes, wriggle your hips, already craving that stretching fullness inside you. A future with him at your side during the day as your strong, well fed vampire… and on your back and knees and belly and any way he would want you during the long nights with your virile lover.

[yandereunsolved]

» 🪙 Yandere Connor — RK800 » 🪙 (part 2)

➜ (part 1) ➜ cw(s): kidnapping, self-harm mentioned (reader), starvation (reader), suicidal ideations (reader), force feeding, & manipulation ➜ tags: @bimboghostface, @savas-q1, & @aceofheartsssss

You have screamed your voice raw in hopes that some unknown savior will take pity. You have cried your tear ducts dry until your eyes swell and become bloodshot. You have cut into your skin with whatever you can find for just a modicum of control. More times than you can count, you have done these things. Each time the consequences increase, but the probability of escaping does not.

Each new place he—it, that thing you dared call your friend and perhaps even your crush, has hid you in has become progressively more dilapidated. Plush armchairs and soft carpets once softened the torture of your solitude; now splintering wooden floors and asbestos-filled walls are left in their wake. Places so damaged you question why Connor chooses them. It should go against his programming, or whatever's left of it.

But why should you care?

He deviated and showed you once again how dangerous unchecked androids are. Now small groups of rebellious preprogrammed code run amok, causing havoc—at least from what little you've been able to gather. Connor isn't keen on informing you of the goings-on of the outside world. He prefers to reassure you, which does little good (because fuck him).

A familiar shuffling behind the door alerts you. Your head snaps up like a startled deer, staring at the door like a predator will come through. He's drenched in blood when he comes in, red blood. His beanie has been lost. His multitude of jackets have tears and bullet holes. But he looks okay for the most part. The word must really hate you.

"I have news that will please you," he murmurs in that babying tone you have snapped at him to stop using.

He approaches you, kneeling down, a bag stuffed into one of his pockets.

"We'll be at a compound soon—one where my kind are able to live freely. And you have been granted access too. It has all of the necessities and even a bit of luxury."

He takes out the bag, unfazed by his own appearance but noting that it's disturbing you. He pulls out a packet of crackers and some applesauce. No. No, no, no, no.

"Connor, please, let me go," you beg with the panic rising in your voice.

You quickly shake your head as tears prick your dry eyes. You fruitlessly kick at him and yank at the chains holding you down to this place. You can feel the bile rising in your throat and the arduous aches in your muscles struggling to keep it held down, struggling to keep you awake.

Other things arise. The regret of being too weak to fend him off. The sorrow in being denied the right to take your own life.

A plastic spoon is inserted into your mouth with the apple mush oozing off it. You try to spit it out, but he wipes your face and more forcefully inserts the next spoonful into you.

"Nutrition is necessary for human survival, to thrive, yet you deprive yourself of it. Convincing me to let you leave would be much easier if you stopped proving that you are unable to care for yourself."

"I just want to go," the soul-crushing defeat evident in your voice.

Without missing a heartbeat of yours, he responds, "You can't. I-I need you here."

He shoves not just one cracker, but three, into your mouth. You almost choke, but he makes sure you are unable to. Maybe it would just be better if you choked on them. Or your vomit. Or even the shitty plastic spoon he keeps forcing into your mouth.

"You're being selfish," you finally manage to get the words out.

"You're being selfish. I have sacrificed the entirety of my being for you. And still you try to harm yourself. Do you hate me that much?"

He retracts the food from you. He stares unceasingly at you. His LED switching from red to colorless, one of the only parts of him that he has kept since his deviancy.

"Do I hate you?" you incredulously, rhetorically question. "Yes! I hate you! Is that what you want to hear? A confession of how much I loathe you for fucking up what little good was in my life?"

The tears well up and escape down your face, getting wiped off by Connor's attentive hands. You can't stop the shaking or the meltdown his presence has placed upon you.

"I hate you. I-I hate you. I h-hate y-you!"

The last syllable is barely out of your mouth when hands come up to cup your face, squishing your cheeks. Still having a meltdown, your teary eyes are just barely able to make out the abnormal pinkish hue on his LED. A color you've never encountered, even with him being deviant these last months—years, whatever.

"I understand," nearly inaudible, "and I suppose I always have. Your human nature causes you to think irrationally. You aren't able to see the 'bigger picture,' as humans call it. You have suffered at my hands. That I apologize for."

The acknowledgment of his transgressions breaks you down further. You can't quiet the wails escaping you, snot dribbling from your nostrils. Your body rocks itself back and forth in a pitiful attempt at comfort. You can't stop. It won't stop. He won't stop.

It validates him. He continues his tirade, sure that it will have the intended pacifying effect.

"I should be more attentive. But I'm so busy making sure that neither of us is caught by the authorities."

Excuses.

"When we get to the compound, all of that will change. You will have a higher standard of care. Me at your side. Your brain will stop merely surviving."

Promises.

"Then your love for me can bloom."

Resolution. His mission completed with you as his lover.

You quiet. He mistakes, or quite possibly dissmisses, your transition from an unfiltered meltdown to a horrified shutdown as an opportunity to cradle you. And for the first time since your kidnapping, you embrace him back—not out of some sweet, loving bond, but out of need. The need for someone else's closeness, touch—affection, even if it's all wrong. The desperation seeps out of you in droves and into your actions. Your mind and body want to claw at his synthetic skin, tear him apart, and thrive off the warmth of his parts.

...

If he can have a mission beyond his own makers, then you can have one beyond your captor's.

[delta-pavonis]

Fic: Solar Futhark

Dreamling (Solarpunk Urban Fantasy AU) | Rated E | 8.2k words | complete

CW: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Solarpunk, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Drow!Dream, Druid!Dream, Half-elf!Hob, GunslingerBard!Hob, investigators, work partners, partners to lovers, banter, temporary bodyswap, being captured, held prisoner together, starvation, tied together, confessions under duress, love confessions, soulmates, mates, escape, prison break, animal transformation, possessive Dream, matriarchal drow society, subjugated male drow, male gestation, male pregnancy, mention of forced pregnancy, mention of platonic soulmates, Dream has a cock and a cunt, pussy eating champion Hob Gadling, cunnilingus, oral sex, vaginal fingering, squirting and vaginal ejaculation, vaginal sex, anal fingering, hair-pulling, rough sex, cum slut Dream, sex magic, Hob probably has a copy of the Belmont Book of Penis Spells, large cock, multiple orgasms, discussion of fisting, happy ending

(AO3 hates me right now, so I will post this there later.)

Hob cackles as he tucks the large hourglass under his arm and fucking runs.

“Oh, what the hell…” Dream drops the vase of flowers he had been planning on using as an improvised weapon and takes off after his partner. A partner who is rapidly climbing the rankings for stupidest sentient being Dream has ever known. “Gadling! What in the name of every god extant and extinct do you think you are doing?”

The half-elf startles for just a moment as Dream easily catches up to him despite his head start and the crowded market streets. “This is evidence, right?”

At this rate Dream is going to pull a muscle rolling his eyes at Hob. “We do not steal evidence! I do not have the least idea of where you learned how to be an investig–”

“Pirates!” He chirrups happily, skidding around a corner as horns start to sound the alarm throughout the resonant underground halls of the Duergar city.

The answer is so absurd that Dream is struck speechless. 

Then a rumble sounds to their right and it has Dream reaching across Hob's chest to grab his gun in its shoulder holster under his duster. Luckily the gun and the hourglass are not under the same arm, because Dream is completely out of spells, both divine and arcane. He jumps ahead up the stairs and twists, taking two shots at their pursuers and grinning when he hears a shout of explicatives.

Another set of stairs, then they are scrambling up a wall, grabbing the bottom rung of a camouflaged ladder, and are back in the surface’s sewers before the next round of horns sound. Dream slides the cover over the secret entrance and breathes a sigh of relief as, with a golden shimmer, it seals itself once again.

Panting and apparently completely uncaring of the state of the water around their feet, Hob drops to his arse with a thud. Little bits of duckweed and algae slop up onto Dream’s boots.

“We should keep moving.” Dream scowls at his footwear as he also breathes in huge, heaving gulps. “We don't know the power of their artificers and–”

“Don't have ‘em,” Hob shakes his head. “It made bartering for certain items with them a total crapcircus because they didn't value the same basic material goods. Everything they do is mechanical. Non-magic. Luckily we didn't get stuck down there often.” Dream just stares at him; theoretically those are all common words, but fuck if he parses their meaning right now with the adrenaline crash just starting to take its toll. Hob smirks, lopsided and definitely not charming. Absolutely not. “Pirates, remember?”

He feels a headache coming on and so pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you actually trying to tell me that before joining the Houndsguild you were a Hawkshaw?”

“Uh… yes?” Hob blinks at him as if Dream is the one asking the dumb question. “Thirteen years. Is that so hard to believe?”

Dream just stares. If this half-elf was a Hawkshaw, one of the pirate codekeepers (the closest to lawmen such outlaws might ever get), then there is so much more here to uncover, so much more to Hob, that he isn't even sure where to start. Hob drops back down in Dream's mental rankings of stupidity. Dream breathes out and now, a little calmer, some of Hob's behaviors slot into place. The impulsivity. The recklessness. The charisma to get himself out of just about any problem caused by said impulsivity and recklessness. “No, actually, now that I think of it. It makes some sense.”

The smile that brightens Hob's face is also extremely not charming. Or cute. No. Not at all. “Help me up?” He holds out his hand and Dream automatically grips his forearm as he continues to speak, “I know we got off on the wrong foot when we first met, but I hope you are coming to realize that in this, in solving cases like these at least, I am actually competent.”

Dream grudgingly nods, but also cannot resist the opportunity for a good jibe. “It at least explains why when we first met you were balls deep in the barmaid bouncing on your lap in the middle of a crowded tavern.” He smirks back, trying to convey that he isn't really judging, just teasing. “Never met a Hawkshaw who didn't want to be the absolute center of attention.”

Hob splutters out a laugh and gets his feet under him, blushing all the while. “Hey there! It is a specific tactic! Think of it like slight-of-hand and bardic performance had a baby, but it acts on a group level. While everyone is busy watching me…”

“Your fellows are working without being noticed.” Dream shakes his head ruefully, ceding the point to Hob. “Not bad.”

“Fun, too.” Hob's grin goes lopsided again as he waggles his eyebrows and he stares at Dream for a beat longer than necessary. Dream has to resist fidgeting under that warm gaze and so distracts himself with their usual banter.

“If that is your kink, then I am sure it is fun.” Speaking of fun, watching Hob's eyes widen and his neck flush when Dream says the word ‘kink’ is extremely fun. He studies his fingernails and tries to exude nonchalance. “Exhibitionism isn't really to my taste, though. More of a leather and ropes type myself.” He hears Hob inhale sharply and smirks, still not looking up. “Did you know that if you get strips of leather soaking wet they shrink and constrict as they dry?”

Dream looks at Hob through his lashes, sees him open-mouthed and panting, eyes dilated. Delightful. 

Maybe he will be able to get through this partnership with his dignity intact after all. Or, at least, Dream certainly won't be the first one to lose his composure.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

“Got you,” Hob thrills at hearing the voice he now commands come out as that rumbling purr he loves so much. “Do you yield?”

He looks down to see his own face twisted with a sneer that is familiar but he has never seen on his own features. “Absolutely not.” 

It is decidedly strange to hear his own voice this way–not quite similar enough to trigger the embarrassment one feels when listening to a recording, but still disconcerting. 

Then again, all of this is disconcerting and decidedly strange. He is currently inhabiting the body of his work partner, a drow who Hob had fallen ass over tea kettle for decades ago. He is using said drow’s body to pin his own to the dirt in a forest clearing outside the overgrown castle ruins they just investigated. They are now speaking again after a long stretch of silence, a silence that was only interrupted because their respective bosses told them they had to work together on this case. Which was very much not how Hob had imagined their reconnection going, but beggars can't be choosers. Or so humans say.

Hob is learning quickly that drow not only look different than other elf-kin, but that they see, hear, and smell differently, too. It makes sense, given that their senses are attuned to a vastly different environment, but as a half wood-elf he had just never thought of it before.

As Hob lowers his face, Dream's long white hair cascades over his shoulder. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

He flexes his hands around the wrists he has pinned and spreads them wider, giving him a stance with the leverage to hop up and have his feet come down between Dream-in-his-body’s calves with enough force to pry his legs apart. The elf beneath him grunts as his thighs splay and their pelvises crash together. Even through the spelled denim they wear Hob can feel how aroused his friend is, no matter how he denies or ignores it.

“I feel it is rather narcissistic of you to enjoy the possibility of a sexual encounter with your own body.” He relishes the breathlessness he can hear in his own voice, how the body beneath him trembles. Hob knows exactly what has to happen to drive his own body to that point and if he is causing that in Dream… well. He was rather hoping they could have one of their catfight fuck sessions before the curse wears off.

“Come on,” Hob says, enjoying the rough, raw sexuality he can convey with just a slight change in tone with Dream’s vocal cords. “It gives a whole new meaning to go fuck yourself.”

It is fascinating to see what is so clearly Dream's eyeroll cross his own face. Drow vision is far more sensitive to movement than his own and it allows Hob to see even the slightest twitch of brow or flutter of lashes or movement of lips. It is kind of distracting, all this detail.

But that is nothing compared to the distraction of this sense of smell. Hob is no doubt never ever going to get this chance again, so he might as well indulge a little while he can. He drops his face into his own neck and inhales deeply. “Tannatell’s tits do I always smell this good to you?” Hob repeats the act, this time dragging his nose up into chestnut hair as he breathes in. “How can you work like this? I’d be on the edge of coming all the goddamned time. No wonder progress on this case has been so slow, you’re the smart one and you only have half your blood going to your brain. Fuck, it is like I am… your...” he trails off as that thought completes itself in his head. 

Oh.

Now, drow vision might have traded brightness of color for its enhanced sensitivity to motion, but there is no doubt, when Hob lifts back up and looks down, that there is a fiercely red blush on Dream's cheeks. And Dream refuses to meet his gaze.

Hob lets go of the wrists he holds and sits back on his heels so he is kneeling between Dream's thighs. He watches as the other elf brings his hands to his chest, rubbing gently at them where Hob's grip was tightest. Dream keeps his head turned to the side the whole time. 

“Dream, why didn't you t-”

“Don't. Just don't.” His eyes close and his face crumples into something pained. It guts Hob to think that this is something painful for Dream. “The first time we talk about this can't be like… I do not want it to…” Hob has never heard Dream fumble for words and it is distressingly alarming. “I would prefer to be in my own body when we have this conversation, please.”

Hob can't do anything but grant that request.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

“If we get out of this the first thing I am doing is getting a three hour massage, bloody fuck these chains are tight.” Dream tries to twist his wrist to get some wiggle room and can't even manage that; all the movement does is jostle their chairs. His partner whines. “You alright there, Hob?”

They are chained to a pair of chairs, back to back, with heavy steel links. The chains aren't spelled, but they don't need to be when they are this tight: there is no way Dream will pull off even the smallest somatic component restrained like this and Hob certainly can’t play an instrument or draw a gun. Even worse, the room is unnaturally dark.

Dream hadn’t realized how used he had gotten to the sunlight and the greenery of the surfacelands until they were taken from him. For a moment he takes comfort in thoughts of twirling tree branches forming the beams of great towers, arched windows carefully grown in between, columns of elevators going so high they meet the top of the buildings in the clouds. He thinks of winding streets made of sandstone and brass and overflowing with greenery, the whirring music of solar panels as they track the sunlight along with their flower-kin. 

The thought of the movement of the sun reminds Dream that time has been passing, that they have been in here long enough that he is starting to have trouble tracking time–the only clock he has to go by is his heartbeat and that is only reliable for so long. Hunger has long since passed into a dull ache, which tells him it must be more than a couple days. Both of them have vacated all the remaining volume of foodstuffs left in their digestive tracts, removing another marker of time. 

They have not seen another soul since they awoke here. There is a dim illumination that comes from… somewhere, but Dream cannot pinpoint it. It is only enough to see his own knees by, make out the faintest outline of the large stone blocks of the ceiling that is a mere few feet above their heads. It is not enough for Hob to see anything, dull as his half-human senses are. 

Cruelly enough, water drips from the seams in the stone structure in a few places, landing on the top of their heads, on Hob’s shoulder and chest, on Dream’s cheek. It is the bare minimum to keep them alive and Dream suspects that is very much on purpose.

Dream leans his head back with a sigh and it presses against Hob's. 

“You ever wonder what would have happened if we met under different circumstances?” Hob's speech is slurred enough that it makes Dream reconsider if those arrows they got hit with were a poison targeted for those of the surface. It adds a new layer to the puzzle of who has captured them. “Like, if I wasn't working that night in the tavern, wasn't being the biggest distraction possible?” He is silent for a beat. “I would've asked to join you at your table. Started to chat you up properly. Instead of pretending we were old buddies as part of the case I was working. Because we’re not friends, are we?” His chuckle is hollow. “No, most definitely not. Perhaps I would’ve tried to woo you with song… paint you a picture with music. Gods, you were so beautiful. Are. So beautiful.”

“Hob…” He doesn't sound like himself, can't possibly be meaning to say any of this. 

“Do you have any idea how badly I want you? Fuck, like all the time. From the very first moment I saw you, the swish-click of your air walker boots on the tavern floor, noticeable to a trained ear even with the din of patrons.” Dream can hear him swallow. “It never goes away, you know? This yearning for you. It lives inside me now.”

He closes his eyes and tries to ignore it. Hob cannot be meaning to say this right now and Dream certainly does not want to hear it without Hob’s consent; he is relieved when they lapse into silence once again. 

But it doesn't last.

“If you get a chance to escape, you have to promise me to take it, even if you can't get me out.” Hob’s voice is a threadbare whisper.

No. They can't talk like this. He won't have it. “Hob, you’re-”

“I am not delirious and I am not talking nonsense!” He is panting now and Dream swears he can hear Hob's racing heartbeat. It is another piece of evidence that he is not himself. “Promise me, Dream. Promise me you will save yourself if you have the chance, even at my expense.”

“No.” Absolutely not. Dream's answer is immediate and brooks no argument; he won't even consider it. The idea is anathema, like teaching the Druidic language outside of a Circle or attempting to unbalance Nature itself. “I will not leave without you.” 

Hob’s breath rate is increasing, pushing into hyperventilating, and his voice is unsteady as a newborn foal’s legs. He sounds almost on the verge of tears and it makes something in Dream’s heart crack. “Please, Dream! I need you to promise me.”

He grits his teeth hard enough to make them squeak. “I will make no such vow.” Dream growls. It is harsh, he knows, but he will also not lie to Hob. Not after everything they’ve been through. 

They never got a chance to talk about it, what lay implied between them from their adventure with that soul-swapping curse. Not properly. Not before this case, which pretty much immediately went tits up. Fuck, they should have spoken about it. 

Dream adds this to his long ledger of regrets.

When Hob speaks again the words are clearly forced through a rising tide of panic. “I need to know you’ll be safe, that y-” 

“Breathe Hob. We don’t need to plan-”

“Promise me!” he sobs. “I need to know you wi-”

The crack in Dream's heart cleaves it in two.

“I will not leave without my Mate!”

For a moment the only sound in the small room is Hob’s panting, then Dream lets his head fall back; this time it lands on Hob’s shoulder with a dull whump.

“You were right. What you felt during the curse.” Dream closes his eyes. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I just… we were… we’ve been…”

Hob turns his head, twists his shoulders, as much as possible, until his nose nudges the point of Dream’s ear. “Stupid. We’ve been truly. Amazingly. Stupid.” 

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

They crawl out of the cave system into a raging thunderstorm. Might as well be a hurricane for how the wind is blowing the rain and trees sideways. However, the sight of cypress trees and the salty smell of the ocean limits the possible places that they have been taken to. 

“Holy shit we're in Port Essen!” Hob gasps in breathless laughter. When Dream looks at him he is smiling, almost glowing, underneath all the dirt and grime and soil and debris they are covered with, that is all rapidly turning to mud as the forceful winds and driving rain wash them clean. He looks to Dream and it is like the sun has risen, warmth diffusing through Dream's skin. “I grew up here!”

That raises a red flag in the back of Dream's mind–he doesn't believe in coincidences. 

“We need to move. Get as far away as possible. Fast. Get on.” Dream doesn't say more, doesn't explain, just grabs some of the reedy dunegrass at his feet and pops it into his mouth as he makes the appropriate hand motions. 

Hob lets out a yelp as Dream transforms into a dire elk, huge and black. He wouldn't be able to fly in such rain and he has no meat for a spell component, so his dragon form is out; the elk will give Hob a smoother ride over the widest variety of terrain. 

Once fully shifted Dream drops onto folded legs, but that still means his back is at about the height of a horse, so he angles his head towards Hob to lend an antler for leverage.

Luckily Hob catches on quickly, hefting himself up onto Dream with a grunt. “West,” he says as he buries his hands in the ruff of thick fur around Dream's neck, “We’ll hit forest and freshwater fastest if we go west.”

Dream stands, looks back at Hob once to make sure he is settled, and then leaps into action. Hob lets out another yelp the first time Dream lands from a bound, but he sets a rhythm and the bard in Hob cues onto it almost immediately. 

Then he outright laughs.

“Dream,” he whispers into his fur, must be leaning over to get so close to his ear, “you are amazing, dove.”

Dream would laugh as well, if he could. 

He has never had a rider before, not in any shifted form he has taken, and that it is Hob on his back, moving fluidly with him, legs around him, clinging to him… well. Apparently one doesn’t need wings to fly.

But first they need to disappear. They need to get gone and regroup and get food and maybe bathe in a cold stream and start assembling their meager knowledge of their captors so that they can send out feelers for information and start the tedious process of revenge. 

Because Dream will eat their hearts raw for making this the bower in which he told Hob the nature of their connection. He will make them watch as he sucks the marrow from their living bones for how they have treated his Mate. He cares not that he himself has been tortured; Dream has done more than enough terrible things in his life to have earned such an experience. But Hob? No. He will not let them survive this insult.

However, getting to that point, when he will be able to revel in the suffering of those who caused so much of the same, will take time. Dream is always thorough in his planning.

And while they wait, keeping to the shadows and gathering their knowledge and power, Dream will sup upon his Mate. He will devour the finest meal he will ever have. Savor the small pieces that he can pick up between his fingers and drop into his mouth and lick from under his fingernails. Drink long draughts of pleasure of Hob’s body and thereby nourish his own soul. Dream has been starving and did not know it, did not really understand what he was missing, until his body was weakened by the captivity and his mind sharpened by the pain his Mate experienced. 

Dream vaults over some rocky ground, avoiding it completely, and then as they crest a hill the treeline comes into sight and he could cry for the relief of it. Within the embrace of the forest Dream will have all the tools he needs to keep them safe. And then he can look towards the future. 

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

The most shocking thing, honestly, is how shocked Hob isn't.

“Dream,” he sounds like he is calming a skittish horse, “I have been in love with you for literal decades. This isn't a problem for me. So we're tied together on a metaphysical level, so what?”

The druid just blinks. 

Hob sighs, running a hand through his hair as he relaxes back against the trunk of the tree. It reveals the gentle point to his ears and Dream has a bolt of desire lance through him, urging him to put his mouth there. He shoves it to the side.

They are deep in the densest portions of this forest now, having ridden for hours, past the midsummer sun setting and the quarter moon rising. They slept almost immediately once they stopped running, along the banks of a creek deep enough to wade into. Once sleep was had, Dream went hunting while Hob washed their clothing, which now lies drying on some rocks and tree branches close by. They have been so exhausted that only now is Dream noticing that Hob being completely naked is rather… distracting.

The trees, strangers though they are to Dream, have generously given them ample shelter on the creek’s bank; even if someone does get close they likely won't see or hear a hint of them through the lush greenery. The maple Hob leans against has been particularly taken with the half wood elf, although Dream is unsure if Hob notices the tree doting on him, swaying its leaves to keep him shaded despite the moving morning sun.

“I’ll be the first to admit that I know close to fuck all about drow, your culture, your biology… really just what is told in popular stories, movies, whatnot, which may or may not have truth in them.” His head thumps back against the tree trunk and he has to tilt to the side to look at Dream. “But tell me what I need to learn and I’ll learn it. Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it. The last thing I want is to be a burden to you, Dream.”

A burden?

Dream shakes his head, as much to clear it as to disabuse Hob of such a notion. “No, Hob, I…” He searches for the words and none come, stubborn as they often are, so he decides on action instead. 

Looking Hob directly in the eyes, Dream crawls across the space between them, over the gunslinger's legs, and sits with his knees on either side of Hob's thighs. He is so warm beneath Dream that the drow shivers, but all Hob can seem to do is stare in shock at the fact that they are naked and Dream is in his lap.

By the Gods it feels good to be this close to his Mate. It will feel better to touch.

Hob gasps when Dream's hands land on his chest, slide up slowly to his shoulders, his neck. He takes time to savor every hill and valley. Mine. One hand moves higher, fingers curling around the top of an ear, petting softly and making Hob’s mouth drop open and his eyes flutter closed. 

“You are not a burden, Hob Gadling,” Dream reassures. “Far from it. You have heard that traditional drow society is matriarchal, yes?” Hob nods but doesn’t open his eyes, instead leans into Dream’s hand on the side of his head. “Add soulmates to that and who do you think gets to end up with the Mate they truly want?”

Hob looks at him at that. “Are soulmates not perfectly matched? Made for each other? Fated?”

“Mmm, a topic of much debate.” Dream cards through Hob's hair with his fingers as he talks. “At its core ‘soulmate’ for drow seems only to mean you are tied to each other deeply. For better… or ill. And it is certainly true that you can fall in love with someone who is not your Mate. There have even been drow who found themselves unattracted to their soulmate, at least sexually.”

Hob’s hands alight oh so carefully on Dream's thighs, a touch radically different than during the adrenaline-fueled ‘work partners plus sex' arrangement they have had for the past few months. And the touch is light years different than their first time together, when an actual duel to the death had turned into a battle of a totally different kind. To be clear, they were no less feral in their fucking when they were high on the rush of escaping imminent danger than when their lust had ignited due to mutual hatred.

Right now, though? Dream lifts up onto his knees, his ass leaving the comfort of Hob's strong thighs, as he leans in to nuzzle into Hob's temple. 

“But attraction isn't in question here.” Hob isn't asking; they can both see their mostly erect cocks laying ignored between them.

“No,” Dream chuckles, “It certainly is not.” He drags his nose down so he can bring their lips close, not quite a kiss. “Rare is it allowed for drow males to be able to truly choose their Mate. So many are deemed unfit, taken to serve only as brooders for the Great Mother’s many children. And so it is not something I dared dream possible for myself. Before now.” He speaks against the corner of Hob's mouth. “I want you to fuck me, Hob. I want to know what it is to feel you spend inside me.”

With a wanton cry Hob is kissing Dream, crushing them together, and all the skin contact is glorious, as are the needy noises coming from his Mate’s throat. But Hob doesn't even know… he doesn't know.

“Hob!” Dream gasps, pulling away. “You don't understand.” They are both panting softly and Dream almost gets distracted by another kiss. “I said brooders. Female drow provide only eggs. Male drow gestate and birth our children.” That seems to get Hob's attention and he blinks his eyes until his gaze is sharp once again. Only then does Dream continue. “My cunt, Hob.” The wood elf inhales sharply. “I want you to fuck my cunt.”

Dream is barely finished with the sentence when Hob surges up and wrestles the druid to the mossy ground. Laughing, Dream pushes and scoots away, smirking up at Hob, parting his long slate-colored legs and reaching down to stroke his cock, tugging it up to reveal the wet folds hidden further down. Hob moans, eyes fixed to where Dream is showing himself off. Their fucking has always been frantic, hurried, and with Dream doing the penetrating, so Hob hasn't ever been given the chance to explore what lies deeper between Dream's legs. He looks ravenous for it.

And Dream is ready for such an exploration, except Hob doesn't even stop to touch: he grabs Dream's thighs, slings one onto each shoulder, and pulls Dream's hips to his mouth. “Hob!” Dream barks. Hob is ravenous, quite literally, licking and obscenely slurping up fluids, and Dream can do nothing but scream his pleasure. 

Hob laves up and around until he can suck on the side of Dream's cock before purring, “Knew I smelled something more when you’d fuck into my throat, could swear I heard something more wet than just your spit-slick skin slapping my face.” He takes Dream's prick all the way into his mouth, sucks until the drow cries out, then backs off to allow filth to keep spilling from his lips. “Fuck, when we were under that curse I chalked up any feeling that what was between my legs felt different to the fact that drow senses are so different. I never thought…” He licks back down, exploring the wet folds with his tongue and lips. When he next needs air, Hob speaks with his damp cheek against Dream's thigh.

“I can't fill you with children, but I am gonna come in you so many times it is going to damn well feel like I did.” Each word is a puff of steam-hot air on where Dream is most sensitive, making him writhe. “Until there is enough spend in you that I can press on your belly and make it flood out. Cover these pretty thighs in my cum. Once it drips down to your ankles I will lick you clean so we can start all over.”

“Fuck, Hob.” The bard has always been good with his words in bed, but it hits differently here, with Dream revealed to him completely. Further, he’s hit upon a specific kink that Dream has the tools to actually indulge in and not just spin pretty stories about. “There’s a spell. Originally it was to increase chances of conceiving, but more often nowadays it is used in modified form by those of us with a cum kink.”

Hob's groan is muffled when he leans forward into Dream's genitals. “Those of us….modified…”

Dream laughs, fingers finding Hob’s hair. “I’ll take you to Elegy one night. There are many of us, if you know the right clubs.” Hob lets out a needy whine at that. “I’ll need some cum–preferably yours–as a spell component. Then I cast on your bollocks so that the next time you come you produce, ah, lots more.”

His eyes appear above the rise of Dream’s hip. “How much more are we talking about here?”

He smirks. “Let's just say that the modification I was talking about involved merging the fertility spell with a spell that summons water in a person's lungs in enough volume to drown th-ahAH!” Dream is cut off as Hob dips back down and his tongue snakes inside Dream's body, his moan vibrating through Dream's pelvis.

Oh, it is so good to be touched there, for Hob to know all of him, to be laid bare before him, his Mate. 

Then Dream feels Hob shifting, moving away so Dream's knees are on his shoulders and he’s sliding a hand around from where it was holding up Dream's hip so that rough fingers can–“Oh yes!”

Hob pushes one finger inside and Dream’s entire body arches. “Let’s see, does your anatomy track with…” he mutters as he changes his angle over the course of a few thrusts and then it is like his finger strokes Dream’s cock from the inside and Dream screeches in surprised pleasure. “Yeah it does.” Hob sounds smug, which is so godsdamned sexy it only pushes Dream closer to tears. He slides a second finger in and Dream can’t stop himself from rocking into it. “Okay gorgeous, I’m gonna loosen you up with a couple orgasms and then you can have me.”

“Noooo,” Dream whines, plaintive, “Want to come with you in me!”

“Oh, you’ll do that, too.” And fuck him, he can hear Hob's grin. “Gonna make you come so many times you start babbling in Druidic. Break down every sense of propriety you have.”

Dream laughs through a moan, making it tumble and bounce. “An ingenious plan to learn the secret tongues.” He uses the word deliberately, playful and so fucking happy.

“Learn the-” Hob clicks his tongue against his teeth, chiding. “Are you saying that you are not satisfied with what my tongue currently knows?” Of course, he lays the flat of said appendage along the underside of the head of Dream's cock, rubs it back and forth as he looks up for an answer.

Seeing his Mate look at him like that, his cock aimed into his open mouth and his fingers buried inside him and his amber eyes burning so bright they are almost gold–fuck, it is so much. And the little movements just under the head of his prick plus the repeated deep massage of whatever that place inside him is, and Dream’s eyes widen as pleasure rushes in. 

He barely gets out a surprised, “Hob I’m-” before something inside him feels kind of like it pops and suddenly there is liquid pouring out of him along with his orgasm. It is as if his climax spreads out from a single point within his pelvis, pushing out sweat and screams and cum and tears and whatever else it can squeeze out as it hits the edges of his body.

Dream watches, awed, as his cock shoots white onto Hob's tongue, Hob's eyes closing as he groans, collecting all of it before he swallows. But also fluid gushes down, over his folds and along the seam of his ass; when Dream moves a hand he feels it dripping all the way to the small of his back. The liquid is almost as thin as water. It is most certainly not cum, nor is it the same as the lubrication his cunt produces. 

It takes another moment for it to click. “Holy fucking… did you just make me squirt?”

Dream looks up to find Hob licking glistening fingers that are no longer in his cunt. Which might be the most erotic, obscene thing he has ever seen and he feels like his brain short circuits a bit. Hob blinks at Dream twice before his own realization dawns. “Have you never done that before?”

“No!” Dream can't help but giggle. “I didn’t know that I could!” 

Hob watches, eyes rapt, as Dream takes his own fingers, the ones that have a bit of the fluid on them, and sticks them in his mouth. Slightly bitter, not as alkaline as cum, not as earthy as his cunt. 

His Mate watches his every move and looks like he might spontaneously combust. Dream can't resist teasing. “Like something you see?”

Hob actually growls as he lowers Dream's hips to his lap. His fingers, calloused from the instruments he plays and the grips of pistols, slip under Dream, to the top of his ass. Then Hob pulls his hand slowly forward, scraping, over one entrance, then then next, all the way to the base of the dark cock, collecting Dream's fluids in his hand as he goes.

Dream sees only a momentary glint of sunlight off the small pool of liquid cupped in Hob's fingers before they are heading for his mouth. Oh fuck. He opens his mouth, thinking to accept Hob’s offering as it is poured, but then Hob is smearing it, from one cheek, across his open mouth, to the other cheek. Hob tries to pull his hand away but Dream grabs his wrist, licks a long stripe up the inside of his fingers. When he releases his Mate’s wrist he purrs, “Again. More.” And that hits a goddamned button, because Hob repeats the collecting motion quickly, gathering as much as he can, and then turning his hand over as soon as he gets to Dream’s mouth, dribbling the liquid in. He uses Dream's bottom lip to wipe the last dregs off of his skin and then Hob is grabbing Dream by the neck and kissing him something fierce. 

His tongue is a lick of fire and it catches on the kindling of Dream's body, creating a blaze that tears through the drow. Lust. It gnashes, claws, in its effort to get out through Dream's skin and if he doesn't get proper fucked right now–

He rips his mouth away from Hob's with a wail. “Fuck your plans. If you don't get your godsbedamned prick into me right the fuck now I am taking the control of this operation away from you, so help mYES!” 

Hob drives into him to the hilt and Dream howls like he is worshipping the moon. “Bratty thing, aren't you?” He grabs a fistful of Dream's long white hair and yanks his head back with enough force to make his whole dark torso bend back into a U-shape. It pulls electric pleasure up Dream's spine as Hob sits back on his heels. “Seems you were never broken to saddle. Is that it? Do you need me to train you to be ridden? To be a good mount?” 

Oh hell yes. 

Two can play that game.

Dream gets a foot up onto Hob's chest and shoves him away hard, forcing him not only out of Dream's body, but also to sprawl backwards and drop his grip on Dream’s hair in shock. At the same time Dream twists, shifting from being on his back to up on all fours and then lowering his chest and face to the ground. It angles his ass up into the air and towards his Mate, and then he lets his knees slide apart. Presenting himself.

“My God…” he hears Hob gasp. 

“You think I need training?” he purrs, all seduction as he looks back over his shoulder. “But you haven't even mounted me properly yet.” He hears Hob panting even from a distance. “Come on, lover, ride me hard.”

He can't help but chuckle as Hob scrabbles to comply, crawling up behind him and pressing their thighs together but holding their hips apart. Hob palms both sides of his ass, meager flesh there is, and parts them with groan on his breath. “How hard, dove?”

Dream sways back into his grasp, forcing himself open wider. The stretch feels good, like anticipation. “Pretend you’re hammering nails with your cock.”

Hob’s muttered curses accompany feeling the head of his prick lining up. They are perfectly ready and yet then Hob stops just so that he can gather all of Dream's hair carefully into one rope to loop around his fist. Dream whines and buries his face in his arms. He just… he just needs. Please. Please.

“Alright, baby, alright. I got you.” Hob soothes, free hand petting down Dream's thigh. 

Hob fucking into him again is a homecoming; this, this is where he is supposed to be. 

The first withdrawal and thrust back in slaps their skin together so hard it sounds like a whip crack. “YES!” Dream gets up on his elbows and digs his fingers into the soil. He feels his magic root him to the ground. “More!”

Hob tugs on Dream's hair hard enough to make him yelp. “You’re here to get fucked, so take what I give you. Brat.”

And doesn't that make lust curl hot in his belly. He whines and lets his head drop limply between his shoulders, as far as the grip on his hair will allow, hunches to rest his forehead on the ground. “Please Hob. I need… please.” Hob complies swiftly this time, fucking into Dream with these slow rhythmic thrusts that hit like a battering ram. He feels each one shake his very foundations. “So good,” Dream cries, “Yes! So good!”

It is the beat of a drum and Dream falls under its sway. He is hypnotized by it, losing his higher faculties and left only to scream his pleasure as he tries desperately to get fucked faster. But Hob continues the basic rhythm for what might as well be forever, until Dream is sobbing into the ground and smearing mud on his cheek as he hiccups out soft pleas. 

Finally, he falls silent, nothing left in him but the ache of his need. And that's when he hears Hob's quiet chanting.

Pace like a drum. 

Chanting.

It is a spell.

Hob is casting a spell using Dream's body as an instrument and the rush of arousal at the thought nearly makes him pass out.

“Was wondering when you’d figure it out,” the bard laughs, hands sliding down Dream's thighs and back up. “If your body is meant to birth children, then this spell is for you.” Hob sings one last phrase in a language Dream can't parse right now and then the magic snaps into place. 

It takes a moment, but as Hob fucks back in Dream realizes what is happening: his cock is getting larger. It is incremental, but that stretch definitely wasn't there a minute ago, that insistent press against the insides of Dream. 

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” he moans, helpless to the rising tide. “So full. Oh gods.”

The bastard above him chuckles. “Not even halfway done, pet. This spell is calibrated exactly to the receiving party’s limits. Gonna find out exactly how much your pretty body can take, then fuck you loose on that. So next time you can take just a little bit more. And then a little more. And a little more. Until you can take my fist.” Dream wails at that. “Until you can take my fist wrapped around my cock.” The thought makes his entire body shake. “You like that idea? Want me to jack myself off buried inside your cute cunt? Move my fist faster and faster, use a finger to curl up into your G-spot, make you squirt around me…”

He keeps talking, but Dream can't make out the words anymore over the whistling of blood rushing in his ears, over the throbbing, thrilling fullness thrumming deep in his body. It is so fucking good. 

But then on the next measured thrust Hob drives in deeper as well as wider and Dream loses the last thread of sanity he ever had. 

Digging his fingers into the ground like claws, the druid snarls and uses a surge of strength to pull himself off of Hob and then quickly fuck himself back, feeling how Hob's cock gets a little bigger with the in and out motion. This spell was meant to be taken slowly, but Dream needs more and he needs it now. 

Dream rolls his body again, making Hob groan and his hands tighten to bruising around Dream’s hips. “I told you to ride me,” he growls, “So fuck me like you damned well mean it. Fuck me like yoAAAAHHHH!!”

He screeches as Hob pulls him off the ground by only his hair, arms dangling and fingers brushing the ground, until he can get his hand around Dream's mouth. Dream lets his weight sag into Hob's grip and the gunslinger has no problem holding him up. “Fine, you want me to use this spell to ruin you?!” Hob bucks twice in rapid succession, the spell working each time and Dream splays his legs wider, as if that will relieve the building pressure. 

It doesn't. 

Dream mewls into Hob's hand. “Do you want that?!?” Hob roars.

He nods vigorously, as much as he can with Hob's large palm across his face, and presses backwards as much as possible. 

“So be it!” Hob releases Dream's face, letting him flail to catch himself before he falls into the dirt. Then Dream hears the sound of Hob spitting and before he knows it a wet finger is sliding down the cleft of his ass. “If you want to be filled so badly, then I will make sure to fill you completely.”

On the next delicious thrust of Hob’s cock deep into his cunt a finger drives into Dream's ass and the noise he makes is nothing short of a squeal. “YES!”

It is so much. Fullness and pressure and stretching and it doesn't hurt in the least, more like it feels as if his body was made for this, to take and take and take. And on each pounding thrust in Hob gets bigger and bigger, and just when Dream thinks he can take no more, the stretch deepens and his body accepts another finger or another millimeter. 

“Fuck, look at you,” Hob's hoarse whisper is tinged in awe. “Never seen the spell last like this. Never seen a body so greedily take more and more and more. So fucking perfect. And all mine. Mine.”

“Yes! Yours!” Dream wriggles, letting his shoulder and face take his weight as he reaches back and grabs behind his knees, pulls his legs further apart. “Please, Hob, wanna come like this. Please touch me, lover. Mate.”

Hob groans and the hand that is not buried in Dream’s ass finds its way to his cock. It barely takes two strokes before Dream is coming, shaking and screaming and oh fuck if Hob just keeps going… 

“Don't stop,” he pants, Hob still driving into him, wider each time, making his body sing, “Oh fuck don't stop gonna gonna gonna—HOB!” 

Dream howls as he comes again, writhing as Hob keeps thrusting, faster and harder, his fist still tight and pumping Dream's cock, and then Hob’s fist gets tighter and twists. It is too much so much too much, but then Hob fucks into him harder and his vice-tight hand starts twisting on every upstroke and he can't possibly not no oh gods oh gods! 

He cries through his third orgasm in as many minutes, overwhelmed and overstimulated and Hob keeps fucking him, even as Dream’s entire body goes liquid and he slumps onto the mossy ground. Hob’s fingers leave his ass with a slick squelching noise and then his Mate’s whole body is pressing Dream down flat, legs splayed, his hips still pistoning his spelled cock in and out of Dream's cunt. “That's it baby, I finally hit your edge. Not gonna get any bigger than this today. You good to let me keep going? Want me to come in this pretty pussy of yours?”

“Yes, please, yes.” Dream rasps, throat raw from his screaming. 

Hob presses his chest down onto Dream's back until not even a molecule of air is between them, his breathing heavy behind Dream's pointed ear. “Want you to do this to me, too, darling. Cast the spell and fuck me until I am gaping and exhausted.” He fucks fast and stays deep, never pulling out very far, and Dream doesn't know what is better, the images Hob paints with his words or how easily Hob‘s now-huge cock rams into his cervix on every thrust. “So good around me. You can already take so much… can't wait to see how far I can stretch you. Can't wait to try that spell of yours, fucking drown you in my cum, so stark against your gorgeous skin. Probably not healthy to cast it more than once in a day, but I’m nothing if not reckless. Wanna flood your cunt, your ass, and your stomach.” Dream moans, shivering and helpless beneath him. “Make you lick up whatever spills out of your holes. Swallow it down. Make sure you take all of it. Then plug your holes, gag your mouth, keep it all inside.”

It is like Hob had seen the beginnings of Dream's most depraved fantasies and he can't help but continue them. “That's… I want that so badly. And more, Hob. I want more. After all that I want you to tie me up, wrists to ankles behind me,” Hob makes a noise like a sob and buries his face into Dream's neck, rhythm stuttering, “And then I want you to spend all over my cock. Because I haven't come yet, you haven't let me.” That pulls a whine from Hob. “And after all that there will be paltry cum left in you, but that's all I get. That's all I get to use to rut against the hard floor. Smacking my hips down onto the wet tiles, but at that point any contact would feel like heaven. Would come so hard, for you, my love.”

A hitch in Hob's breath and he starts slowly pulling out as he climaxes, drawing it out using Dream's body just like he has used Dream's hand in the past, cock twitching wildly. He lengthens the pleasure enough that he gets to push back into Dream at the very end of his orgasm, gets to bury himself to the hilt as his last little jolt of overstimulation. 

Panting, prick softening within Dream, Hob lets all of his weight collapse onto his lover. “Fuck, you’re amazing. I can't believe I get to have you.” He nuzzles into Dream's hair. “My beautiful Dream.”

“My Hob,” he sighs, “my Mate.”

[mintyeggs]

DUMPSTER ARTHUR LORE

My version of Arthur Lester, or I guess now he's officially going to be known as dumpster Arthur (sorry man), has essentially the same storyline up until the Dreamlands, where the slight canon divergences start, culminating in the deal made with Kayne in Addison, with a very different "catch" as payment for John's return.

This is a bit of a long one, so click the readmore!

CW: cannibalism, autocannibalism, self harm, starvation, all canon typical shit

Starting with the prison pits in the Dreamlands!

Instead of giving in to killing and eating Faust after learning about what he'd done, Arthur held out a little longer by eating bits of himself. He has bite scars on his right arm and his legs, all avoiding the parts of himself that John can feel.

John was not exactly psyched about Arthur having to do this, especially because it takes a lot out of his friend; not just physically. He even tried offering Arthur his arm instead so the poor guy wouldn't feel it, but Arthur adamantly refused, because he'd already bitten John once before (their pinky) and was pretty horrified at how right it felt to have flesh between his teeth.

He doesn't talk to John about that, though, especially while they're still fighting about John's outburst about Faroe. John remains relatively in the dark about Arthur's internal struggle eating human flesh, even his own, since it's kind of hard to tell if he's feeling more fucked up than usual given their situation.

The altercation with Faust ends up pretty much the same way, Arthur broke and attacked him, forcing John to relive his death while he ate. John does start to notice something is off with Arthur psychologically at this point, though he assumes it's because Arthur has just killed and eaten someone for the first time.

They also do not talk about this because Arthur refuses (mostly out of shame and fear that John will think he's a monster haha)

Given how long Arthur was able to hold out before killing Faust, they're in the prison pits for about a month longer than in canon, and upon escape, Arthur doesn't feel the same amount of hope at their future.

Things proceed pretty close to canon at this point, they meet Kayne, they get their shit wrecked by the King, Arthur cuts his own throat, John gives himself up to save Arthur's life, etc etc.

The one big difference here is something the King says to taunt Arthur; he mentions that Arthur has come closer to knowing his form of love than any human ever has, and it has scarred Arthur permanently, even if he doesn't see it yet.

Now, to Addison!

Upon landing in the cabin and calling Kayne, Arthur is presented with a different option; get John back, safe and sound, memories intact. However, when asking about the catch, Kayne says something along the lines of "you'll have your golden boy back, but part of you will forever remain in the pit".

Kayne here just kind of wants to fuck with Arthur and watch him like a TV show, so this is more entertainment than anything power-seeking; Nyarlathotep (who I assume Kayne actually is) delights in cruelty and causing madness. Note, Kayne doesn't actually do anything to Arthur here, he's just kind of exacerbating Arthur's self doubt about his own humanity and sanity. No worse enemy than one's own mind, after all.

Kayne also does inform Arthur that John is in the Dark World! This obviously sways Arthur's decision quite a bit, and he immediately agrees to Kayne's terms, even assuming part of himself would be sent back to the prison pits, John not being alone in the Dark World is worth it to him.

Some of the main consequences to this decision!!

Arthur isn't really able to come to terms with John intrinsically being a part of the King in Yellow, and neither is John!

Arthur still very much views John as something that never was and can never be the King in Yellow, so he holds him to those standards, making some of their fights while in Addison have a different flavor to them.

In the same vein, John isn't able to have that "aha" moment of accepting his past as part of him, instead continuing to fight tooth and nail against the things he thinks are something the King would do.

As such, when Arthur snaps again and attacks Larson, and starts his descent towards bedrock in the mines under Addison, John is much harsher towards him, starting to see Arthur as the monster the King in Yellow is.

This culminates in Arthur killing Uncle, where another big problem makes itself apparent; the smell of blood makes Arthur painfully hungry, and he realizes this is what Kayne meant when talking about the part of him left in the pits.

Arthur reverts to his old habit of satiating his hunger here, and John sees him bite himself again, this time as a form of self-harm and what Arthur thinks is due punishment for becoming a monster, and they have their heart to heart about reaching bedrock.

John definitely knows something is up at this point, and is quick to reassure Arthur that they'll kill Larson, but they need to save the people of Addison first, if only to prove to Arthur that he's not the monster that either of them thought he was. John also comes to the realization that he might've been the cause for all of this; he remembers how the King said that knowing his love had scarred Arthur permanently.

So, after freeing Addison, John's main focus becomes separating them again, but this time it's for Arthur's own sanity. They do learn about the order of the fallen star, which John thinks is a better lead for separating them than searching for Anna Stanzyck.

That leaves us where most of my drawings of Dumpster Arthur are set timeline wise! They're in New York, grappling with Arthur's growing hunger and self-harm habits and finding a way to separate them, something Arthur is getting less and less willing to do, given as John is pretty much the only thing holding him together now.

I'm working on a comic about them finding a vessel for John, the construct body built by a fringe cult worshiping Hastur. This essentially is just an anchor for John, while he's still bound to Arthur, that body does give him autonomy and allows him to project without causing Arthur any stress (beyond emotional).

All of this is kind of subject to change, but a couple people in the tags of some of my art pointed out how interesting it is to focus on Arthur becoming more of a monster, something I definitely am going to explore a bit :^)

As a reward for finishing reading my very long brain vomit dump, have some fun(ish) Dumpster Arthur facts!

he wears a trench coat way too big for him because he thinks it makes him look bigger and more intimidating. john does not have the heart to tell him it just makes him look like a really sad wet cat

john takes on a bit more of a caretaker role for arthur when they reach new york! part of learning his own humanity comes with caring for someone else the way Lily cared for them in the hospital.

arthur also does have some nerve damage at this point in his right arm, so he does kind of twitch and shiver like a chihuahua when it gets particularly bad

john and arthur create a version of asl meant for one-handed signing, though it's rather hodge-podge to anyone who signs traditional asl. this allows john to communicate without arthur translating (noel has a bit of trouble reading the signs at first but learns quick) and also allows arthur to communicate silently with john.

[rx-wr]

🌧️•~Sad Times~•🌧️

A ticci Toby x Reader (smut) by: rxwr

CW- depression, starvation, cutting, sympathetic sex (in the beginning), rough sex, depressed reader, stalking, blood, suicide attempts mentioned, degrading.

Words: 1,073

~•~•~•~•~

You sit in your room, no music, lights off. Tears run down your face as small hiccups escape your lips. Your life has been pretty shitty for the last couple months. It started one day when you had caught a man following you home. You didn’t get a good look at him before he disappeared away from your sight. You’ve been on edge ever since. A few weeks later you lost your father, sure you guys weren’t close but it still hurt. As the rest of your life went on more and more started to go on. So now here you sit, a knife by your side blood leaking down your arm. You stare at it be for you clean up and wrap your arm.

You get up and start to walk downstairs. Walking over to the fridge you open it. Most of the food in there had gonna bad. You’ve stopped eating about a month ago. You’re really really skinny right now surviving mostly off of water and small snacks every now and again. You sigh and close the fridge walking over to the sink and getting a small glass of water instead of food. You down the water and start to walk upstairs.

You return to your room but stop dead in your tracks, I man stands over your bed back facing you, there’s a hatchet in his right hand and it looks like he’s twitching. You step back trying to be as quiet as possible only for the floor of your hallway to creak. Before you could look up the man had you pinned to the wall. Hatchet in the air. I start to cry more out of pain as your cuts on your arm had reopened by the force. You put your arms up to shield yourself from the weapon as much as possible. But nothing came…no pain, no sound, no swing. The man grabs your arm and pulls you to the ground and climes on top of you.

“G-god your look s-so fucking miserable…” he said the mouth guard he wears slightly muffles his voice.

He removes the hoodie he has on revealing the rest of his brown hair. You try to move out of his grasp but he simply grabs both your wrists and pulls you back. 

“You k-know it’s ru-ude to move away from people when t-they’re talking to you, r-r-right?” He said a little anger in his voice.

He give you a skeptical look then smirks. “You scream hav-v-ven’t been fucked, god makes me f-feel bad…” he removes the mouth guard and goggles from his face. “A-am I right?” He asks smiling.

With his face exposed you blush as you look at him. He has honey brown eyes that complement his pale skin. His lips are slightly tinted red. His cheek has a gash through the side of it, revealing his teeth and gums. He has a slight stubble peppering his face.

His hands still have ahold of your wrist as he hold you down. “S-shit by the w-way you’re looking at me-me right now, y-you probably haven’t f-felt the touch of man i-in months.” He said with a chuckle. “I m-might fuck you out of p-pity,” he moves closer to your face. “Would you l-like that?”

You don’t know what your body is doing it moves on its own as you nod. He gives you a crazy smirk and brings his face down to yours. His lips take yours in a rough kiss, his tongue forcing its way into your mouth. He smirks against your lips and pulls away bringing his mouth to your neck. He bites down on your neck causing it to bleed, he uses his tongue and licks at the blood.

“God-d so good…” he says and continues. His hand moves down to your shirt and removes it. He moves down from your neck to your tits, he takes a nipple into his mouth and his fingers play with the other one. You get out moans and groans as he does this, his pants growing tighter on him form his erection. He pulls off and flips you over

“I c-can’t fuck wait…” he says his voice raspy. He gets down lower and moves your panties to the side. “B-but fuckkkk I might h-have too…” he says and licks up your folds. “So w-wet, fucking s-s-slut” he sticks to fingers in as you let out a gasp. “And t-tight, god my c-cock might no-ot fit.” He says chuckling darkly. “Oh but I’ll m-make it f-fit”

He pulls away undoing his pants letting his dick spring free. You gasp at the size has to be 7 or 8 inches, it’s girth isn’t that much but it’s still a lot compared to what you have had before. He pushes into both of you letting out a moan as he bottoms out.

“F-fuck so tight…” he says his voice strained slightly. After let you adjust he starts to move. His thrust are slow at first but there not like that for long as he starts to slam into hard and fast. “Ugh f-fucking slut…t-taking it l-like a whore.” He says into your ear as he thrust into you from behind you. Your hands grab onto the carpet of your hallway as he continues.

The room fills with the sound of slapping skin and moans. “Fuck, I’m going to cum!” You scream.

“That’s it c-cum for me, cum for me l-l-like the cock taking w-whore you are…” he whispers in your ear. He continues to thrust. You start to cum and he’s right behind you. He cums inside of you with a few slow thrust then pulls out. His juices leak out of you, he uses his fingers and scoops the back up inserting them and sticking his sperm back into you.

He gets up and fix’s himself. He looks down at you and picks you up laying you down in your bed. He walks over to the window placing his hatchets into their holsters.

“Where are you going?” You ask sitting up slightly.

He looks back at you his body half way out the window. “I can’t s-stay.” He says. You look at him and nod.

“Can I know your name…?” You ask hesitantly. He looks at you for a moment then nods.

“T-Toby…” he says. He looks you over again. “I’ll be b-back for more in t-t-the future…” he says before hopping out the window. You lay down and get some of the best sleep you’ve had in a few months.

[pigeonwhumps]

Home

Bug and Company masterlist

Taglist: @littlespacecastle @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @whumpinggrounds @den-of-whump

@painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @rainydaywhump @alphabetofwhump

Alphabet of Whump: H is for Home

A recently discarded, desperate pet approaches a house he hopes might hold kind people.

(or, Charlie finds a home)

CWs: BBU, pet whump, zip ties, restrained, mention of possible amputation (non-medical), starvation, implied non-con, self-dehumanisation, crawling

The pet crouches in the mouth of the alleyway, watching the house opposite.

Not– not directly opposite. But nearly. Shiny bronze numbers on a polished wooden door. Neat brickwork. Big front garden filled with native plants. Polished swirly fence and gate. Sparkling tiled path.

The pet has been watching this house for a while now, and he has learned three things.

1) He has never heard shouting. Not at anyone, not even the woman who works there. The man sometimes speaks sternly into his phone but nobody ever shouts or screams or yells.

2) Everything is neat. But he doesn't think it's a show house where only perfect people live (he's nowhere near a perfect pet (a perfect pet wouldn't think) (a perfect pet wouldn't be thrown away)).

3) The man has a dog. A puppy. He walks it, and the woman walks it, and sometimes the pet can see around the side to watch the puppy being played with. He got close, once, and the puppy sensed him but didn't attack. It doesn't have any scars that he can see. Maybe, if they're kind to that puppy, they'll be kind to this one too.

The pet's stomach cramps, hard enough to force him to double over, feeling nauseous. Even if they're not kind, it'll be better than starving.

Maybe.

Probably.

He's good at begging.

It'll be better than being found here. Then he'll be hurt, and hurt again, and sent back to the people who took his name and threw him away. And then they'll chop his forearm off to get rid of the barcode and leave him to bleed out.

He doesn't want to die yet. He wants to be loved useful again first.

(Pets don't have wants. Bad mutt.)

He stands. The puppy will be let out into the garden at some point, and that's his best option for getting in. Pleading his case.

He hopes he's made a good choice. He's not known for it.

(He shouldn't be making decisions at all.)

It still feels profoundly wrong to walk instead of crawl, something in his body twitches and burns and aches with punishment, but he's learned that he has to, especially when crossing the road. People look at him with disgust if he doesn't.

His knees threaten to give out, but he keeps walking. It's the longest he's walked without stopping. Maybe not ever, though. He still has longings for a hike with the good kind of ache.

(Pets shouldn't long for anything that isn't their owners.)

(Bad mutt.)

The pet pushes the latch of the side gate up with his bound hands and shuts it again once he's on the other side. It's very fiddly.

There. There's the garden, in all its green glory. He settles in the bushes to wait for the puppy to emerge, half lying down, leaning on his elbows.

It's not long before the back door opens. Or maybe it is, maybe he's retreated again like he's prone to when he's not required to be an active participant in being used.

(He's not supposed to do that. Bad mutt.)

The dog comes charging into the garden. It's round, with stubby legs and a too-long tail that it hits itself in the face with. The pet loves it.

(Pets don't have likes. Bad mutt.)

He shakes himself out of his head and starts pushing himself towards the open back door, towards where he needs to wait until whoever let the dog out returns. He doesn't want to miss his chance.

He's walked too much today. It's tricky to crawl with his hands tied in front of him, but he manages it, pulling himself along. He settles into a kneeling position just behind the door.

Footsteps approach. A woman sticks her head out of the door and calls, "Mathonwy! Here, boy!"

The pet pushes himself the last few inches he needs to go to make it to within her sight. She looks... friendly, he hopes. Not too polished.

(He's allowed to hope.)

She sees him and freezes.

"Well, you're not Mathonwy."

The pet looks up at her with his best puppy dog eyes, hands resting on his legs. He yips pathetically.

Most people don't like dogs that talk.

"No, you don't have to– you can talk. Can– can you talk?"

"Yes, miss," he whispers hoarsely. It's been a while, and his mouth is so dry.

She smiles, though it looks a little forced. The pet hears thundering behind him and Mathonwy barrels into his side. He falls and the puppy starts licking his face.

"Oh, for– Mathonwy, come!" Mathonwy lets him go reluctantly and returns to the woman for ear scratches. "Sorry about that. Young staffie cross, and we're still training him. This is Mathonwy, and I'm Mandy. Are you okay?"

The pet nods and sits back up. He's always okay, although no-one's ever asked him before. "Right. Well. I assume you wouldn't be here if you had anywhere else to go, so come inside. No– you can walk, you don't need to– I mean, whatever makes you feel comfortable I guess. What do I call you?"

The pet heaves himself up against the doorframe. His name was Fido, but that was taken when he was thrown away. He's not their dog anymore either, not if he's not there. He can still be a puppy, he was sometimes that for clients and nobody's said he can't be, but he doesn't even have the ears for it. And it might get confusing. He's not a mutt, he's not being bad, he's sure he's not. Is he? That's not a status he can give himself, only a person can decide that. All he can remember otherwise is his designation.

"I– this puppy is– I– my designation is 726E, miss."

Maybe he is a mutt. That was a mess, and not even a cute one, which clients sometimes excuse because puppies make messes.

"Okay, well, that isn't much of a name. No offence."

How could the pet take any offence? He's not supposed to feel anything.

And yet, he knows that isn't true.

(Just another reason to add to the list of why he's so unwanted.)

Miss pulls a chair out from the table and swivels it around, patting the dark wood. "Sit down here, hun. We'll cut those zip ties and your collar too, and then I think you could do with a bath and some food. What do you think?"

Baths are icy with soap that stings, and he hasn't been able to keep any food down for a while (it's part of the reason he was thrown away and what if she discovers and does it too?). Not having a collar means he's unwanted or about to be used so heavily, so violently, that it might be damaged or stained. But there's only one possible answer.

"Yes, miss."

Miss brings over a pair of scissors as he manoeuvres himself into the chair, crouching down (which is wrong, wrong, wrong) and taking his hands. With a couple of cuts, none of which break his skin, the cable ties are on the floor.

Cutting the collar is much less pleasant. It's thick, heavy leather, and stuck to his skin in places. He can't stop himself from crying out, especially when she starts dabbing at the edges with a wet sponge to loosen it.

"I'm sorry, hun. Nearly done now."

Miss' touch is quick and efficient, no lingering or stroking that's always a prelude to something awful that he was trained to do, and he finds himself leaning into it. He has no ears to scratch behind but this is almost as good.

"Oh, hun." She sets the scissors down and drops the sections of collar onto the floor (his neck feels so much lighter, and so wrong), gathering him into her arms. He stiffens, startled, and then realises this is just gentle. It's not sexual or painful part of his function, it just is, and he leans his head on her shoulder, giving up on stopping the tears escaping.

Dogs don't cry, they can't, but nobody's ever managed to train it out of him.

[mizutenshii]

STARVATION.

— pairing ; kaneki ken x human!gn!reader

— summary ; kaneki despises eating humans and rather starves himself to death, until you plead him to stay alive.

— cw ; yoshimura is ooc but i just needed a semi-parental figure, mentions of starvation and human consumption, fluff and comfort, angst

     "kaneki, this isn't working," yoshimura spoke from his position in the doorway, arms folded as he looked at the frozen boy worriedly. "you have to eat."

the younger stood in the middle of the living room of one of the living quarters above anteiku, entire form petrified and eyes glossed over as a result of the inner battles that were fought in his mind. his skin was sickly pale, the bags under his eyes deeper than ever, pale hair messy and unkempt and his body shaking visibly while it was struggling to keep him up. not only did kaneki look weak, the refusal to eat humans really made the power his body held dissolve into nothing, and it had reached a point where it was becoming dangerous. 

you, too, watched your lover with worry, occasionally exchanging a look with yoshimura because you were both at a loss of what to do. it had been two weeks since kaneki last ate, which would be no problem if he would've been a ghoul for longer. but he had just turned a few months ago, meaning that he needed more human flesh to strengthen his newly adapted body. however, kaneki kept bringing himself to the point of starvation, refusing time after time again to eat until yoshimura would decide it was enough and forced the nearly lifeless boy to swallow an amount of flesh that was hopefully enough to keep the boy going for a while. since turning, he only hunted and ate properly a few times, which by far wasn't enough. both you and anteiku's manager knew it couldn't go on like this; kaneki had to accept his fate one day, along with the fact that he had to eat humans in order to stay alive. 

     "i don't want to eat," kaneki brought out weakly. 

his voice was hoarse and dull, even more so than usual.

yoshimura's shoulders slumped, looking as if he was this close to giving up. force-feeding kaneki only served as a temporary solution, and it didn't provide enough for his needs. the boy needed a proper meal to support his body, and that would only happen if he went along with it voluntarily. 

after glancing at the manager one last time, you hesitantly got up from the couch you were seated on, approaching the frozen boy carefully. the oldest instantly got the message, pushing himself away from the doorframe and disappearing into the connected hallway. as soon as you were alone, you gently wrapped your arms around kaneki's waist, pulling him into a hug. he was quick to reciprocate the gesture, clinging onto you as if his life depended on it. you felt every tremble of his body, and only hugged the ghoul closer. 

     "kaneki, you have to eat," you whispered, softly letting your hand run circles over his back to soothe the stress that made his body rigid. "please."

you felt slightly uncomfortable after speaking those words, and you felt your stomach churn. there you were, begging a ghoul, the only natural enemy of mankind, to go on a hunt and kill a human to eat. it felt wrong, as if you were committing a crime and betraying humanity, but you also knew it was the only right thing to say. the ghoul in your arms had grown to become so dear to you, and letting go or losing him was out of the question. 

     "i can't do it," kaneki croaked out, voice muffled by the fabric of your shirt.

     "you're not going to last much longer like this," you said, slowly pulling away from the embrace to look at the boy.

     "what if that's exactly what i'm waiting for?" came the reply, and you witnessed him grinning bitterly. 

you felt your heart freezing over in fear upon those words, and you looked at the boy in shock. was he serious about waiting for the moment his body would give in? you couldn't begin to imagine how the poor ghoul felt on the inside, which had been an obstacle for sympathizing with him from the very start. you tried your hardest, but didn't know how to be there for him, or which words you had to speak to help him through it. 

you fought the tears that threatened to well up, pursing your lips in a painfully thin line. you felt so powerless and pathetic in that moment, and you lowered your head.

     "i don't want to lose you," you said quietly.  

you heard kaneki suck in a shaky breath, before you felt two hands cupping your cheeks, urging you to look at him so softly. you were met with a pair of mismatched eyes looking into yours, filled with emotions you failed to decipher. the pads of his fingers rested gently on your skin as he brought you closer, as if you were the one who was breaking slowly instead of him. his face was unreadable as he moved a strand of hair away from your face, never breaking the moment that dragged on between you. 

then he moved away, his eyes shifting towards the doorway before they flitted back to you.  

     "you won't," he spoke softly. "i'll be back." 

with those words, he fully let go of you. he gave you one last look before he left the living room, disappearing into the hallway where yoshimura was most likely waiting, hoping for kaneki to follow him. well, he did, and the relief you felt made you feel sick at the same time. of course you were happy that the ghoul was going to eat to regain the strength that had left his body, but you also realized somebody was going to die tonight because you convinced kaneki to go out on a hunt. it was so two-sided, and the feeling of being stuck between wrong and right was suffocating. you didn't even know which of the two you had been persuading.

you heard the stairs creak, and you sunk back onto the couch. your mind was going berserk under the pressure of the mixed feelings you were having and a sudden tiredness came over you. it was the kind of tiredness that sleep did nothing against, though. you just needed to distract your mind for a bit, so you reached out and grabbed the tv remote off the armrest. maybe some childish cartoons were just what you needed.

you knew you could just go home, to hang out with your friends, or boot up your playstation and game your worries away. yet, you decided to stay here and wait for the guys to return. there was no way you could bring your mind to rest without seeing kaneki after he went through something he despised so much. all you could do was hope that he was okay, and that he didn't come back all upset and bloody. you weren't sure if you could deal with the last part. 

the colorful motions on the flatscreen in front of you only did so much, and your mind kept wandering off to a certain boy. part of you couldn't help but wonder what he was doing right now, but you tried to fight those thoughts. you didn't want to know, you really didn't. 

kaneki was a monster in the eyes of this society, whether he wanted to or not. it was just how it was. you made a choice to accept it and live with it, and the boy meant too much to you to have second thoughts on that matter. but that didn't make it easier.

you had no idea how much time had passed by when you heard the stairs creak again, but the sound woke you up from the daze you had been in and you sat up straight. there were muffled voices, a few incoherent sounds, and then the door that separated the hallway and the living room from each other flung open.

in came kaneki, face hidden in the shadows of the hood that he had pulled over his head. he didn't say anything, didn't look up, just beelined straight towards the bedroom. he disappeared as soon as he had appeared, barely allowing your heart time to leap in your chest.

yoshimura entered the living room right after. the man heaved out an exasperated sigh before his eyes landed on you.

     "you waited?" he asked, even though the answer was beyond obvious; of course you did.

     "yeah," you replied.

the manager nodded slowly, seemingly overthinking what he was going to say next. 

     "i'm not really sure what you want to hear right now," he hesitantly started. "but he ate, and he's doing so much better now. physically, at least."

     "okay," you said, once again experiencing that unsettling feeling of twisted relief. kaneki was fine now, but it was at the cost of a human life. 

     "you should go after him," yoshimura suggested, before quickly adding, "i mean, if you want to, of course."

without hesitation, you got up from the couch, abandoning the tv show you never really paid attention to in the first place. you weren't sure why you waited for the manager's permission before going after kaneki, while you had the urge to go after him the moment the boy entered the living room. it was as if all the doubts left your mind, and you took confident strides towards a certain bedroom door. 

inside you were met with darkness, and you tentatively made your way towards where you knew kaneki's bed was. you almost tripped over the sweater he had tossed onto the floor, but managed to keep your balance and sat down on the edge of the mattress. it dipped under your weight, but the boy either didn't notice it or decided to ignore you.

as your eyes got more used to the dark, you saw the outline of him curled up under the blankets and guessing how he was feeling wasn't hard. all you heard was his uneven breathing, and it broke your heart.

     "kaneki?" you called out, hoping that the ghoul wasn't going to shut you out completely right now. 

but the blankets rustled, and kaneki sat up. for a moment, you just stared at each other in the darkness. you couldn't see the boy's expression, nor could you really see anything at all. yet, you still felt his gaze on you, and waited for him to do or say something. the longer the silence dragged on, the more worried you got, and you reached out your hand. kaneki caught it with his own instantly, lacing your fingers together. 

     "i did it," he said flatly, tone void of any emotion.

his grip was steady and firm and warm, meaning that his body had replenished the energy and strength it lost. relief washed over you, and you mustered up a genuine smile. kaneki ate, and he was okay again. you would focus on that.

     "i'm glad," you replied. 

     "are you really?" the ghoul inquired skeptically, and if it weren't for the darkness, you would've seen how he scanned your face for any traces of lying, using the fact that he could see in the dark to his advantage.

he found none.

     "yeah," you nodded. "i hate seeing you like that, upset and on the verge of passing out." 

kaneki snorted humorlessly. "well, now i'm less weak and still upset, is that any better?" 

     "yep," you replied, nodding earnestly and knowing that the ghoul would see. "at least now i don't have to be afraid of coming here only for someone to tell me that you passed away because you grew too weak. i was so afraid of that to happen."

the boy was silent for a while, before he heaved out a sigh. "well, maybe my body is fine now, but i still feel fucked up, and whatever is going on in my mind isn't pretty."

you bit your lip, not really knowing what to say. after a while you just moved over, inching closer to the boy and wrapping your arms around him. you knew how much comfort your hugs brought to the young ghoul, how much he appreciated having someone to hold him close in times he was struggling, so you made sure to always try to bring him what he needed, to be his peace in the turmoil. 

you knew you did the right thing when two thin arms returned the embrace, and kaneki pulled you down with him as he let himself fall back onto the mattress again. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, and you soon felt hot tears staining your skin. you were his place to break down and let go, to be weak without the risk of anyone taking advantage of the moment. 

     "not eating people will kill me," he muttered, his wry smile invisible to you. "but the guilt that comes with eating people in order to stay alive will also kill me slowly. i don't know what to do, y/n. i just want it to end."

you knew nothing you could say would help the boy in any way, no matter how much you wanted to ease the pain for him. this was a battle he had to fight himself; he had to come to terms with it and accept his new self and everything that came with it. you and everyone else at anteiku could only do their best to support and guide him as much as they could, but the outcome all rested on kaneki's shoulders. 

all you could do was try to make him feel better in hard moments, and so you did. slowly, you pulled to covers over you both, and allowed the boy to cling to you like a koala. you threaded your fingers through his hair that was as pale as the moon, until the ghoul's breathing became steady. finally, you could allow yourself to fall into a deep slumber, your arms wrapped around the boy that changed your life.

mizutenshii — O4.1O.2O23 — masterlist

[cupcakes-and-pain]

Charles & Ollie: Past

Hey guys. Um. It’s been a while since I’ve written. Sorry. Anyway! I really love this piece. It’s also much longer than most chapters I write, I’m pretty sure. Almost 2.8k words. So that’s fun.

Enjoy!

CW: pet whump, slave whump, refusing to use someone’s name, insults, perceived abandonment (technically not real), fear of punishment, self hatred, unreliable narrator, drug trafficking, drugging mention, police, starvation, escape/running away, homelessness, fear of death

Masterlist

— — —

It had been a normal day.

Wake up, make breakfast for Master, kneel quietly, and hope that he did well. Hope that he wouldn't have to spend the next few days tied up, bleeding, and starving in the basement. It was always his fault for being so stupid and deserving to be punished, but he could hope. Not want, of course, that'd never be allowed. But he could secretly wish and dream for a time when Master was forgiving.

Luckily, Master didn't find anything wrong with his pet's behavior that morning, so he set out. But not before giving his slave a strong kick to the ribs to keep him in his place. Pet preferred the kicks, the other choice for a daily reminder was a slap. Pet hated the hand marks. They made his already hideous face look even more ugly.

Pet set about his chores, washing the dishes and wiping the counter. He caught his blurred reflection in the polished granite. His collar was tight around his neck, the little tag hanging from it jingling.

He touched it gently, longing to hear his Master say the name written on it, just once. He knew that he needed the reminders because he was so stupid and useless. He'd forget his place if he wasn't called names all day. "Slave. Pet. Stupid. Ugly. Mutt. Useless. Fleabag. Bitch. Dog." On and on, all the cruelest things Master and his friends could think of, perfectly suiting for the crushed and bleeding thing that so often laid at their feet.

But Pet longed to hear his name, his real name, so badly. It had been so long, he knew it was bad, he knew he was selfish and worthless and dumb. But... no one would know, right? If he said it, just this once? Such a tiny word, only two syllables.

"Ol-"

The door flung open, and Pet jumped back, arms above his head. It was like the ground crumbled beneath his feet, and his stomach dropped. He fell to the floor, curled up, trying desperately to protect his most vital organs from attack. Had Master been waiting for this? He knew that his slave would mess up, didn't he? And he was just waiting to beat the living daylights out of the useless, worthless, disgusting piece of flesh that he owned.

"Hey, no, stupid dog. Come here." Master hauled him up off his feet and dragged him towards the basement. Pet whimpered but was in awe that Master was able to hold his fury in until they got to the basement. Usually, he'd just beat Pet wherever he was and make him clean up the blood from the floor and carpeting later.

"M-master, please, I-"

"Shush. You know what, hide! I'll be back in a few days. Some guys might come through, maybe a cop or two. Listen to me, you pathetic excuse for a dog." Master grabbed Pet's face roughly, fingernails digging into his cheeks. He was forcing Pet to look into his eyes, something that was rarely allowed. But it must be okay this time if Master was the one causing it.

"You have to understand.” Master said, “Do. Not. Come. Out. For. Anyone. However you need to do it, just get it through your thick skull. Don't stop hiding until I come back and say it's okay to leave, okay?" Master half-heartedly threw him to the floor, his slave more confused than he had ever been or probably ever would be. With one last disapproving glare, Master left.

Pet never saw him again.

- - -

It was true, he soon learned, that many people would be coming through the house. Pet feared he would feel lonely and bored while waiting, but there was a lot to keep his thoughts occupied and off of... other things.

First, cops searched the entire building. Pet heard them and dashed to a tiny closet in the basement, wedging a piece of wood in the handle on his side of the door. The police tried and failed to get in and even discussed cutting it open with an ax. Pet trembled, sweat dripping off his forehead while he tried to stop himself from hyperventilating.

Eventually, though, one of them protested, not wanting to do more work when they already had evidence. And so they left, making the house silent and (somewhat) stress-free once more.

Other people came and went too, talking and cursing. Most of them Pet recognized as the voices of Master's friends. He knew better than to listen to people's conversations, but they all kept mentioning drugs and pills, the type that had once been used on Pet. He remembered the experience, although things were still a little fuzzy.

It made his head hurt for days afterward, but at the moment, everything had felt so nice and peaceful for a few minutes before the blackout. When he woke up, he was covered in bruises and cuts, but it had still taken a few minutes for the relaxation to wear off and the pain to settle in.

Master had gotten very upset that his friends wasted the pills on a pet, after "everything he went through to get them." Despite already being beaten just an hour ago, Pet was punished severely for taking the pills. He had wanted to protest that the men had made him, but he knew better. The men were superior to him. They couldn't be faulted for it. So the blame must lie with Pet. It must. Master was never wrong.

In the present day, after many days of hunger and freezing nights down in the basement, Pet felt like he couldn't go on like this. No one had visited in a while. He knew what he was thinking about was bad. He knew that if Master found out what he was about to do, he'd be furious. He made it absolutely clear that his pet was not to leave the basement.

And yet, Pet finds himself sneaking up to the kitchen. He filled two bags with dog food and then, with some careful consideration, took three apples. Master never liked fruit but would still buy it; Pet was never quite sure of the reasoning behind that. And Pet had already been so bad, a few apples that would've rotted away even if Master had been there was nothing.

Pet then made his way to the living room and took several blankets and pillows. Then, noticing the mail had been delivered, he also took the newest copy of Pet Paper. Most of the articles either were boring or scared him, but they usually had fun pictures and a few games.

Carrying all of his loot and feeling surprisingly okay for a disobedient mutt who may have been abandoned, Pet made a little camp for himself in the basement. He decided to put the pillows and blankets in the closet where he had previously hidden from cops. The tiny space felt almost like his cage upstairs and he knew now that it was suitable for hiding.

Then he sat on the floor, grabbed a handful of dog food to munch on, and started reading.

Several more days passed before Pet started to get incredibly worried. He had heard the garbage truck pass by this morning. That was the second time since he had last seen Master. More than two weeks had gone by and still, no sign of where he had gone. What was previously just another anxious thought had transformed itself into a legitimate concern. Had Pet been abandoned?

Of course, it didn't make any sense. Why would Master leave everything just to get away from his pet?

But he couldn't deny that something was wrong. Even Master's friends had stopped visiting too. He didn't get it. Of course, he was so stupid, he could never understand why humans do the things they do. But he just couldn't think of any other explanation. So Master must've abandoned him.

Pet waited another week before finally deciding to leave. The dog food was running out, even after he had made several more disobedient trips upstairs. And if Pet had been thrown away, shouldn't he get out of his Master's house? Maybe Master was waiting until he left to come back to the house. Pet was probably being bad for staying there for so long. He was so selfish, not wanting to leave the comfort of the building for the scary outside world.

But he had to now. At least there would be food outside. And also cruel people, the cold, sickness, and probably death. But a bad pet like him deserved all of that, surely. He was such a rotten animal.

Pet's first steps outside were cautious and weak. He nearly stumbled from the sheer shock of it all.

He had done it. Ollie had done it. He couldn't believe this... this... this whole new world.

but it wasn't new, not really. It wasn't new at all. He just hadn't been here in a very long time, if ever.

He felt like he had stepped into a fantasy world after only hearing of it in fairytales. The outside world, the land beyond the kitchen window, was never allowed to him before. It might as well be something that only existed in legend.

- - -

Ollie sat huddled under the bridge, violently shivering. He hadn't eaten in two, maybe three days? He didn't know.

He was cold, wet, tired, and starving. He deserved all of it for leaving his Master's house. He should've accepted his fate and died there.

He was horrible.

- - -

Earlier in the day, Ollie had run away from some police. It was only because he was so small and capable of hiding that he got away. His muscles were very weak as of late, so he could've been easily caught. He'll have to be more careful next time.

But now, because of all the distance he had worked hard to put between him and the officers, Ollie had found himself in an entirely new area.

It was late at night, so restaurants had probably thrown out their leftovers already. If only he could find a place and dumpster dive for spare food.

As he wandered, he spied yet another cop. He was so frightened that he ran into the first available hiding place he saw: a bright, bustling building. He hadn't been thinking. He was so stupid. He dashed in and joined the crowds, trying to hide himself in the large group.

When someone first noticed him, in his dirty, smelly, roughed-up state with no shoes, she shrieked and backed up so fast she bumped into a man, who fell on a waiter, who spilled two glasses of wine they had been carrying.

Soon enough, everyone was in a great commotion, trying to get away from Ollie and call security.

The pet began to cry, overwhelmed and tired and hungry and not at all wanting to deal with this. He was sorry, he was, and he would do whatever they wanted to make up for it. Just please don't hand him over to the police. Please. He didn't know what they'd do to him, and he wasn't eager to find out.

The guards approached Ollie and he fled, going deeper into the crowd, until he tripped over his own feet and fell. He curled up and lay trembling on the floor, sobbing and so terrified.

He heard a bunch of people shuffle and he looked up to see the crowd part as a man walked through, headed straight for Ollie. This man didn't look like a security guard but rather was dressed in an expensive suit and had a stern, irritated expression.

When the man saw Ollie, however, his expression changed a bit. Ollie didn't know how to describe it, having never been looked at with such a visage. But it seemed less upset than the previous one, so that might be a plus? Maybe? Maybe this man won't kick Ollie as hard as he could, or won't insult him while throwing him out.

The man looked around.

"Whose pet is this?"

Of course, no one stepped forward. The man looked back at Ollie and asked if his owner was here. He shook his head.

"Are you lost?'

"Um, yeah... I-... I was abandoned, sir."

"Oh. I am very sorry to hear that. So you need a place to stay, then?"

Another nod. The man bent slightly and extended a hand. Ollie flinched away, bracing for a slap, but none came. He looked back and the hand was still there, just resting in the air. Ollie hesitated, but the man nodded encouragingly, and so Ollie took his hand and got helped up.

He whimpered as pressure was put on his ankle, then froze. He was bad.

His ankle must've been injured when he tripped, which was his fault, he shouldn't have run. And now he had the audacity to whimper?? He was so, so bad. This man would realize what a pathetic mutt he was and hurt him for it.

Glancing up fearfully, he saw that the man was indeed frowning. Ollie shrank back, hand slipping out of the man's grasp. He started shaking even harder.

"Oh dear, easy, it's alright," the man soothed. "I didn't mean to further injure your ankle by forcing you to stand. I will call a doctor for you immediately."

Did he think Ollie was upset because his ankle hurt? But.. why? Sure, the pain was intense now that he was trying to stand, but it was nothing compared to what he's been through.

"There's no need to be so concerned, sir. I'm alright. I can take it and more. I can take whatever you want me to."

The man frowned again and Ollie nearly cried.

"No, no, don't be ridiculous. I have no reason to harm you. You've done nothing wrong, dear. I don't want you to be unnecessarily hurt."

The man hesitated, then spoke again.

"That's not how I want one of my workers to be treated."

...

...what?

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I do not wish for you to be harmed, regardless of your status, but especially if you agree to work for me. You don't have a home or... employer, do you?"

"No, sir, I don't have either of those. But really, you don't have to, I'll only be a bother and a burden-"

"Nonsense. I have heard of how they train you guys. I'm sure you are wonderful. And besides, I am forgiving, I promise."

Ollie couldn't help but notice some of the crowd looked doubtful at that, which was very concerning. But at the same time, the man did not possess the same cruel glint in his eyes, the expression of deceit, the glee in waiting until the perfect moment to strike.

Of course, the man could just be better at hiding those things, or Ollie was dumber than he thought.

But what other choice did he have?

This person was offering him a lifeline, a chance at a new home and a new life. Ollie would die if he continued to be homeless. Maybe not right away, but he'd eventually catch an illness or upset someone or get caught, and then it'd be all over.

He didn't want to die.

"Okay. Of course, sir, I'd be happy to be your slave."

The man just nodded tight, and the pet was certain that he had already messed up.

But still, the man didn't do anything to him. Instead, he addressed the crowd.

"Apologies for the interruption," He announced, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "I have urgent business to attend to with my worker, so I must leave. Enjoy the showing, it will continue until 10:30 PM as planned. My accountant will be handling any further purchases. Good night."

Then, looking back at his new slave again, Master spoke much softer.

"What is your name, dear?"

Oh god. Oh no. He knew what he was supposed to say, he knew he had to be good. He should tell the man that he can call him anything, even horrible insults, and the slave would readily accept it. He had to show his new owner that he could be good. But the man had asked. Please. The pet wanted to be allowed his name, his real name.

"Ollie, sir. My name is Ollie."

The man nodded, not seeming angry at the slave's terrible presumption that he could demand a free person use a particular name for him.

"I am Charles Durand, please to meet you, Ollie. Come with me. I'll help you to a couch to rest until the doctor arrives."

Given no other option, Ollie followed him, allowed to dangerously lean on his arm as he hobbled along.

Hopefully, this man wouldn't be too cruel to him.

— — —

Tag list: @whumpzone @whump-me-all-night-long @whumpsweetwhump @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @apples-and-whump @professional-idiocy @nicolepascaline @cowboy-anon @wolfeyedwitch @kim-poce @guachipongo @badluck990 @secretwhumplair @batfacedliar-yetagain @whumpsday @extrabitterbrain @morelikepainsley @catawhumpus @starfields08000 @mylovelyme

[shywhumpauthor]

I am obsessed with the villain rehab writing and the whumper turned whumpee writing you did! Would you ever write a continuation to either of them?

Haha let’s pretend this wasn’t from February I’m so sorry

I always liked this piece, I never really had any motivation to continue it. I got an ask from an anon earlier this month for a continuation of this but from a different angle. That was my intention when writing this, but it was getting to be too long so the ideas in that ask will be included in the next part

To the anon who sent the ask earlier this month, it’s coming! I pinky promise. I loved the idea so much actually. Hero better hurry up

Villain Rehab Part Two

Continued directly from Part One

Cw: institutionalized abuse/torture, vague medical malpractice, manhandling, restraints, torture disguised as “treatment”, blood, sensory deprivation, starvation, blunt force trauma, implied broken bones, captivity setting, light suffocation/choking, vague themes of abandonment, mentions of accidental self harm/burning (villain has fire powers)

The guards were on them a moment later, barking orders, pushing and shoving them. A cold numbness that budded in their chest was quickly spreading, swallowing the voices and sensations around them. Vaguely, they registered a guard unhook the chain connecting their cuffs to the table, another grabbing them under an arm and hauling them up to stand. Villain’s feet moved along with them, steps hesitant but unresistant as they were led from the room.

The bag of food Hero had brought remained on the table, untouched. The thought of eating left a bitter taste in Villain’s mouth.

When they got to the corridor Villain knew their room resided in, a small spark of relief flickered through the fog that clouded their body. A sudden, intense longing to bury themself under the thin blanket on their bed seized their chest. Instead of pausing by the door, the guards that flanked them continued walking, leaving Villain to look back over their shoulder, faltering slightly. One of the guards’ hands found their hair, twisting their head around to face forwards.

“Don’t resist,” the guard ordered gruffly as Villain stumbled, not giving them a second to center their balance as the pair continued to pull them forwards.

They didn’t move that much further before stopping outside a different door. It looked similar to that of the block Villain was assigned to, but instead of a big “E” painted on it to indicate the hall, the blocky letter “F” glared back at them.

Over the months, they had learned the system, or at least their own interpretation. The “A” block was the most lenient, with the smiling patients and the group activities and the walks through the courtyard. The ones that weren’t a danger, that could be trusted. The “B” block required a bit more supervision, but they were often allowed to interact with the residents of the A block, most of the same privileges as far as Villain was aware. They had never been in either, so they weren’t really sure of the differences, if there were any. The C block was isolated from A and B, contained within their own wing. Villain hadn’t spent any time there either, but they knew that from C and up, the sectors did not interact.

Villain had started in “D”, so they knew a bit more about that. They hadn’t spent long there. Most of the patients were kept separated from each other, each had their own room and such. Villain remembered the beds—actual beds, not cots. They were far from perfect, but looking back they were a luxury. That described every aspect of D, honestly. The food was crap but at least it was food. Chicken, vegetables, rice, standard meals with little flavor or seasoning. It had reminded them of cafeteria food, but in comparison to the tasteless crap they gave in E, it was the most delicious thing they’d ever tasted.

D had had actual staff members, not just guards. Attendants and nurses would deliver their meals, stay and talk to them for a short while if they wanted. Villain had never earned the privilege, but they knew that things like books and puzzles were obtainable in D with “stellar behavior”, as they’d been told.

Restraints in D had been rare and based off true necessity, never left on for long. They remembered the padded leather feeling against their wrists and ankles, the terror that had bubbled in their chest when they were first secured to their bed following an “outburst”. A staff member had checked on them every so often, shadowed by a guard. It couldn’t have been more than six hours before they were released, once they had been determined to be stable and no longer a threat. They couldn’t believe how they had felt the first time, how pathetic it was. How pathetic they had been. They’d long since gotten used to the restrictions of the cuffs.

They couldn’t have spent more than a week in D before they were moved due to what the doctors would refer to as the incident. It had been an accident, they really didn’t mean to. No, if Villain had meant to, things would’ve turned out much worse. They hadn’t even been awake, it was a nightmare. They had jolted awake in a panic to burning blankets, blisters swelling along their palms. They were moved to block E before breakfast.

The difference between D and E was drastic and certainly for the worse. They had spent the rest of their stay in E, until now. The unspoken threat of the next corridor had kept them in line, and though there were small incidents along the way, but nothing big enough to warrant a level change. Those slip ups were dealt with, consequences such as loss of meals or increased therapy sessions following.

They couldn’t think of why they were being moved up. They were far from perfect, but hadn’t it been clear that they were trying? No, obviously not.

You’re not willing to put in the effort, that’s what Hero had said. Villain’s stomach flipped.

There were two scanners on either side of the door. Both of the guards had to scan their keycards and enter a code for it to hiss and slide open. They escorted Villain in, and the door closed behind them.

It was noticeably colder. The compound couldn’t be considered warm, at least not the parts Villain had ever been in, but this was freezing freezing. The hallway was shorter than the others, doors stationed evenly on either side. There were numbers above each door, stretching from 1 to 12. The hall was narrow, so much so that it was tight for the three of them standing shoulder to shoulder, each guard only inches from the wall. It was darker, though the lights seemed brighter. Cold, LED whites that burned Villain’s eyes to look at. At the other end of the hall, there was another door, slightly different from the rest. Instead of a number, above it simply read “Control”. Villain wasn’t sure what that meant, or if they wanted to find out.

The guards pulled them down the hallway, stopping outside of a door with the number 9 above it. There was a bolt lock at the top and the bottom, both already undone. Above the handle, there was another thicker deadbolt lock, and another scanner like the one outside of the hall’s entrance. The guard to their left reached for the identification tag at his chest, pulling it against the retractor to reach the sensor. A quick buzz and a small green flash of light granted him access, and he tugged open the deadbolt above the handle, pulling the door open, sidestepping so it didn’t hit him.

The room was bare and small, a low ceiling that Villain could probably touch if they stood straight and raised their arms. The walls and floor were all made from smooth concrete, as was the ceiling. It was dark, but with the light seeping from the hall they could see the outline of a flat light on the ceiling, and a vent near the light. It was empty, completely empty except for the black eye of a camera above the door, a red light indicating its functioning status, a small circular drain in the center of the floor, and a metal hook built into the wall opposite the door, close to the floor. Connected to that hook was a short chain, couldn’t be more than a three feet long, with a thick metal loop opened at a clasp.

Villain’s stomach dropped as one of the guards pushed them forwards, rough hands on their shoulders shoving them down to the floor. A dull flare of pain jolted up their arms as they caught themself with their forearms, the cuffs around their wrists clinking against the floor.

“Wa- wait,” Villain croaked, their voice scraping against their throat and they tried to twist around, but a boot planted firmly in their back, forcing them down. A strangled grunt escaped their chapped lips as that boot soon turned into a knee, digging into their spine as the guard knelt down. Their chest heaved as they tried to draw in air against the pressure pinning them to the floor, which the guard must have mistaken as an attempt of protest. It didn’t take him a moment to react, a hand twisting in Villain’s hair and quickly slamming their face into the concrete.

“Stop resisting,” the guard growled.

Villain grunted, a flash of light exploding in front of their eyes as their head made hard contact with the ground. They swore they heard a crunch, the taste of iron quickly flooding their mouth and clogging their nostrils. The guard reached forwards, the pressure on Villain’s back increasing as he put more weight against them in order to reach the chain. The metal links scraped against the floor as he pulled the looped end closer, fooling with it for a moment.

Hot tears welled in Villain’s eyes, the initial shock of the impact quickly shrinking to the pain radiating back through their skull. Something seared against their hands, burning but they barely registered it. Something cold pressed against their throat, digging in for a moment before it latched with a click, catching a few strands of their hair in the clasp.

The pressure on their back released and Villain twisted to their side, blood dripping down their throat. They stumbled up, but a pressure around their throat tugged them back down, the links of the chain clinking with their movement. They coughed, spitting blood as their chained hands rose to their face. Their palms were burning, heat twisting down their forearms but that was a pain they were used to. Their lungs were starting to ache, but each attempt to draw in air only brought more blood flooding into their mouth. They looked up, vision blurred with the tears that freely dripped down their cheeks, mingling with the blood on their chin. All they saw was a flash of the two guards, both looking down on them with disgusted expressions before the door shut heavily, and all they heard was the mechanical click of the lock, followed by three heavier thumps of the deadbolts being pushed into place.

The room was dark, completely dark. Not even a sliver of light filtered beneath the door. The only thing they could see was the small bead of dull red light, letting them know that they were being watched. It was silent, not even the hiss of the vents could be heard, only their own heaving breaths and strangled sobs.

[rockpaperscissuhs]

Episode 9 of The Pacific needed to be at least 5-10 mins longer. Here's why...

1.

We needed a scene addressing the massive wedge of tension that grows between Sledge and Snafu

There was already some friction there, w/ Sledge becoming increasingly distant and surly as he slid further toward the deep end. Then, the two of them fall into a screaming match- which, as we know, also leads to Peck's mental breakdown, and Hamm's death.

Then the next day, the two of them find the baby and its family who was killed (probably by them).

Afterwards, Snafu, who's clearly noticed Sledge's changed demeanor, stares at him for literally the rest of the entire scene.

Yet all of this never leads to anything, and it's just left as a loose end.

Who knows, maybe IRL the two men never actually sat down and talked about it. But this is a television show. You aren't supposed to put the main characters through multiple consecutive soul-crushing experiences together and then never have any acknowledgement of it whatsoever between them.

2.

We needed another moment(s) to re-affirm the growth in both Sledge and Snafu’s characters

After all of the emotional turmoil they just went through, there needed to be something to follow up, and to show how it & the events of the episode have changed them. Instead, we just get both of them just staring silently.

But that isn't enough. We're not mind-readers, nor should we have to be.

A few lines of dialogue in that last scene with the two of them in the back of the truck would've gone a long way. Maybe Snafu burying his collection of gold teeth? Or something as simple as the two of them helping an Okinawan refugee pick up something they dropped? (IDK just throwing out ideas here.)

3.

We needed another scene(s), &/or discussion of the final days of the Battle for Okinawa, and afterwards

The show transitions to the final scene by showing Sledge's tally-marks of the days in his journal, indicating that several weeks have passed since the previous scene.

Last we saw, they were on the front lines of the battle and covered in mud, grime, and blood. Now they're clean and fluffy, and watching the ocean while lounging around in the sun.

So clearly a lot has happened and changed for them, but why don't they show us anything, or even have them talk about it?

What about the aftermath from the events of the previous scenes? Or the relief they must've felt after combat ended? What about the dread of an impending invasion of mainland Japan? Or the relief of that invasion being called off? Any or all of these would've been relevant and interesting to include, and could’ve made the episode's story end smoother.

4.

Viewers needed to see some post-credits information (like Band of Brothers did), to inform and help contextualize what they just watched

(CW for mentions of sexual violence, suicide in this section)

For instance:

The horrifically high rate of civilian casualties, including those who were conscripted to fight, forced &/or induced by propaganda to commit mass suicides, etc.

Likewise, the rate of sexual violence against civilians- a large portion of which was done (and covered up) by members of the U.S. military, both during the battle and afterward

The U.S. military had more than twice as many casualties on Okinawa as Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima combined

More mental health issues were reported than from any other battle in the Pacific during WWII

The Japanese civilian casualties of the atomic bombs, which are mentioned in passing at the end of the episode

The U.S. military set up civilian internment camps post-war, where thousands more Okinawans died from starvation and disease

The U.S. occupied of Okinawa for decades, and still have a huge military presence there, despite protests from islanders

TLDR

It's still a good episode. But the ending is rushed and leaves loose ends, which does a disservice to the characters' development and the story overall.

It also needed to provide information to the viewers, both to fill in some gaps of information which deserve to be acknowledged, as well as to contextualize all of the horrors and atrocities they just watched.