#disembowelment trap

[passengerpigeons]

becoming largely chill about most things. but i give myself permission to be mad about car infrastructure, car dependence, and cars flagrantly ignoring pedestrian right-of-way and generally endangering beings of flesh. because this is one of the few truly moral axis of this world

[cowboybutchboots]

i caught a possum in a live trap by my chicken coop today :) i took him on a ride and dropped him off in the woods on the other side of the river

[kabr0ztrousers]

Hiya, didn't wanna leave your asks dry for too long :3c

Fem hunter who's been trying to trap something terrorizing the village, only to realize she's the one caught in it's trap. (Maybe some knotting and overstim on both sides?)

I'll let you work your magic, Your Horniness~

Let's see if you can figure out which property this was almost fanfic of

Kabr0z Writes Episode 36: Hunter, Hunted

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: noncon; physical force; violence; knotting; overstim; creampie; transformation; Interspecies;

A/N: Still some asks in the box, including one that I'm definitely getting 2 unrelated stories out of, but don't let that stop you sending in requests! It might be a few days until they happen but I'm endeavouring to write something for basically every ask I get

Now without further ado:

##################################

You lay another trap, wafting a bunch of smouldering twigs over it to mask your scent before moving on. Whatever was in these woods, it was bigger than a man and killing sheep. The villagers brought you in to put a stop to it before it started hunting villagers. You grasped the holy sigil dangling from a cord between your breasts. You were going to destroy this monster, failing that you knew a dozen binding spells to stop it doing any more hand.

A trap snapped shut, not far from you. You'd not even finished laying them all and already something's been caught. You took your scourge off your belt, the many barbed whips coiled in your hand, ready to strike as you stalked through the forest to where you heard the clang of the metal jaws.

The trap was empty. It had definitely been triggered by something, the bait was gone, but whatever took it was still around. You stayed in the shadows, the matte leather of your hunting garb disguising you despite the omnipresent full moon hanging in the sky. Your hand drew to the sigil again as you said a silent prayer for protection. The Angel was dead, of course, but it helped ease your mind. Few enough people even wear her symbol any more, not since the horror was trapped in the moon, but she saved you once and you had faith she'd do so again.

Another trap sprung, from the direction you'd came. You set off towards it. Moving quickly and silently, you avoided the moonlight. This time a clump of coarse fur was left in the jaws of the trap. This was probably a werewolf at work.

There wasn't any howling, it must be alone. You wondered if it's by choice or if it's newly turned and not been adopted by a roving pack yet. It's certainly still got enough of itself left that it knows how a bear trap works. That doesn't bode well for you.

You squeezed the weapon in your hand, the leather of the handle creaking as it pressed against the straps. Stepping closer to the trap you could see tracks, digitigrade feet taking long strides. Well formed pawpads. Stride length suggests something like seven or eight feet tall.

An experienced wolf, then. Shit.

You started backing towards the tree behind you, making sure to step in your footprints to avoid any errant snapping of twigs.

You bumped into something.

It wasn't a tree.

You spun, releasing the thongs of your scourge to lash it across the beast. You weapon struck true, vicious spines lashing across your mark. A sheep, freshly disemboweled.

It hit you. Eight feet and three hundred pounds of apex predator swept you off your feet and carried you a dozen feet or more. The tree you hit splintered on impact. The beast threw you. You hit another tree and slid down the trunk.

You could only sit there and cough up blood as the monster loped over to you. It tore open your shirt, bearing the silver mark. A guttural, growling laugh rumbled from the beasts maw.

"A dead protector, for a dying hunter. Fitting."

It grasped the symbol and tore it off you, the cord snapping like dry grass. You could smell searing meat where the beasts flesh touched the silver before it threw the totem away.

"I'm going to hurt you, then I'm going to turn you"

The monster grabbed your face in both hands and dragged you towards it. The cracked bones made you gasp in pain. The beast took advantage of your open mouth, pushing your face to its sheath and humping madly. Your head filled with his musk, the scent and the pain killing any thoughts that weren't about the rapidly growing cock being thrust against your face, painting you with precum, marking you as his. The cock slipped into your mouth again and again, the fluid coating your tongue and throat, making you choke and gag at the sheer amount of the salty pre flooding your senses.

He pulled you up properly, turning you around and holding you upright by your bruised waist. The broken bones grated against one another as you barely balanced, waves of pain coaxing you to delerium.

His claws tore the crotch out from your trousers, pushing aside your undies he lowered you onto him. You felt your mouth gape and your eyes bulge as the cock stretched you open. He was still humping even as he dropped you on him, his hips moving with a life of their own forcing him deeper inch by inch until he was buried in you, his knot already starting to swell and plug you up

The best drew you to his chest, hips bucking and pumping. The sensation of the thick knot bouncing in you, stretching your opening then jamming upwards again and again was making you sweat, the feeling of orgasm overwhelming the pain from your battered and broken body as you rode the first wave.

Your voice was weak, you could barely hear your moaning into his chest.

That's when he bit you.

His fangs sank into the meat of your shoulder, breaking the skin and drawing rivulets of blood. He staggered into the moonlight and let it bathe your skin.

The curse set in fast. Your cracked ribs set themselves and knit together. The tooth marks on your skin closed and faded as a thin fuzz of fur sprouted from every inch of your skin. Your legs cracked and reversed, your knees breaking and re-setting with a sickening crunch.

You barely felt it.

The moonlight brought something else. A heat rising in you. Your arms wrapped around the other wolf's chest as you drove your pelvis into his. You were desperate for him, and you didn't care about anything else. You toppled him as you started fucking yourself on his knot, hearing his grunts turn to yips as his overstimulated cock pumped more and more cum into you. You were a wolf now, just like him, and you'll be damned if you're not gonna make him your bitch.

Your fingers pressed and rubbed against your clit as you groped one of your tits, drawing you to orgasm after orgasm as you bounced on him. They were starting to hurt, your muscles cramping up despite their newfound power, your tortured nub sending waves of discomfort along with the pounding satisfaction.

At last you fell on him, the cold light of dawn starting to fill the sky above you, that full moon still hanging in vigil over the world

You're one of them now. A hunter in the dark. A beast to be feared.

#####################################

Thanks again, Anon, for the wonderful request

And thank you, dear reader, if you click my profile and leave a request of your own! Limits are in the pinned comment, but I don't bite and I don't charge!

I'm looking to do another 330-ish of these so I need all the requests I can get!

[sreabhadh]

Don't know how Tumblr works honestly, or if I'm doing this right but Kef's TexAid au and everything everyone has written, drawn, and made for it- well it's got its hooks in me. It's probably pretty tame as far as TexAid goes... so trigger warning here lol. If you are not part of the fandom/already a freak I do NOT recommend reading it because I don't want to be responsible for accidentally traumatizing someone/revealing to others who aren't also like this how "like this" I am.

Like I said, probably pretty darn tame as far as TexAid goes (so those of you like me, don't get your hopes up), and those of you NOT like me in this regard... probably better keep away lol.

Anyway, you've been warned. If you're still here, please enjoy.

--------------------------------------------------------------

He still hasn’t found him yet.

Vortex held back his laughter at the thought, wondering how much longer it would take Felix to find his ‘other friend,’ Ambulon. His other friend. Well, ‘another friend.’ That’s what Aid had said. First Aid considered him, Vortex, his friend. A place he could be safe. ‘Friend.’ It should’ve made Vortex want to squish the ‘pilot’ up till he popped and died. Should’ve made him want to explore the ways he could torture him without killing him, break and bend his mind, then test out a new method of completely dispatching him. Just like his other playthings. That had been one of the only things that had been exciting about Vortex’s life, back when he had a fleshy body, and it had been arguably the best part about being… him. Gears and all.

Killing things would always be fun. Unless it was First Aid. Somehow, somewhere along the line, First Aid had made the thought of killing his pilot…less exciting. Letting him live, the little freak, had turned out to be much more fun. Letting his squishy ‘pilot’ feed him information, ideas on how to disembowel their prey. At first Vortex had done it so he could keep going out without risking the scrapheap. Done it for the thrill of watching his cleaner squirm, trapped and forced to come back every time, no matter how much he didn’t want to. His newest toy had proved to be much more entertaining than that though. And now he was- Vortex didn’t want to think too hard about it. But he was his. First Aid, no- Felix was his.

Vortex had chosen him as his pilot. Felix had ‘chosen’ to accept. Felix chose to call Vortex his friend, chose him as a safe place to rest. And Vortex had chosen, time and time again, not to kill him. He belonged to Vortex now. Felix was his. And no one, Pharma or otherwise, was going to take him away. Vortex wasn’t going to let him leave the cockpit ever again.

Logistically, that had issues. Which should be Felix’s problem. Vortex shouldn’t care about that. It should be for Felix to figure out. Vortex’s mech- his body- his- there wasn’t a bathroom. Or a cafeteria. There were lockers, with his old stuff. Old MREs, enough water to help Felix after he woke up- even if the idiot had puked the first bottle out onto the mech’s- Vortex’s hull. But it wouldn’t be enough, not forever. Maybe Felix could think of a solution; he was smart like that sometimes. Felix seemed to have a lot on his mind right now though. Vortex had expected Felix to find Ambulon by now, he really wasn’t that well hidden. He was just tied to the wall with some cable, one of the sleeping bags Felix had brought inside Vortex’s- in the mech’s head- to cover him up.

Felix usually had a much sharper eye than this. Vortex grumbled quietly. Felix didn’t notice. Vortex snorted crossly, more loudly. Felix picked his head up from his hands. “Vortex?” he asked. There was something in the way Felix said his name, something in the way his eyes glinted in the mech’s- in Vortex’s- red lights.

[FELIX BABY~] he purred.

Felix leaned forward in his seat. “Yeah?”

Vortex let the silence pick at Felix’s patience a moment, then grinned.

[I CAN WARM YOU UP~] he said, flashing the words on his screen and speaking it into Felix’s head through the drift, grinning fiendishly as the suggestive tone in his voice made Felix blush. Little freak~

“Errrr, but I’m not cold,” Felix fumbled. His eyes darted around a little, as if looking for somewhere to look that wasn’t part of Vortex. He still didn't see Ambulon. He was busy looking for somewhere that wasn’t flirting with him. Basically, Felix was avoiding looking Vortex in the eye. Or he would be if Vortex were.. organic. And while he tried to feign a lack of understanding, Felix was blushing. It was cute. Vortex snickered. His pilot was adorable. And also a freak. He was an adorable freak. And he was his.

Vortex snickered again, opening the vents and blasting his AC. Felix stared dumbly, then stood, hand on hip, an admonishing look on his face. His mouth opened like he was going to deliver a withering retort, then it shut again, and he swallowed. His expression softened slightly, then contorted with confusion, and rehardened into complete bafflement with an edge of offense taken.

“…why?” he murmured quietly, so softly Vortex felt it through their drift connection more than he heard it.

[COLD YET?~]

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Vortex opened the vents even wider, blasting the cold air even harder.

Felix gaped.

[COLD YET?]

“No, but I will be soon, do you mind??” he snapped back. His exasperation overpowered his fear of retribution for being cheeky. It was delicious.

Slowly, Vortex closed the vents, letting the air flow ponderously wilt to a trickle. Felix glared suspiciously at the vents as they sluggishly shut close. Vortex held them open a moment, waiting to see and feel Felix’s anticipatory frustration bubble, which it did. Once he’d tasted enough of that, he let the vents snick all the way shut, cutting off the AC completely. Felix held his breath a moment, waiting for Vortex to do something. Which he didn’t. Felix waiting for him to do something was too fun. And it felt nice having Felix so focused on him, especially after he had spent so much time “distracted.” By Pharma. By recovering from Pharma’s vile mysterious IV drip. By Pharma trying to turn Felix into another one of him. Another Vortex. Vortex gritted his- well he would’ve gritted his teeth except he didn’t have any. His gears ground in response to his anger. His current “body” didn’t have organic teeth but it did what it could.

Felix tensed, ever mindful of Vortex’s moods. The moment was ruined. He HAD been planning on waiting until Felix relaxed, then immediately restarting the AC as strong as it could go. Give him a good jumpscare, and give Vortex another excuse to crack a joke about keeping him warm before pointing him to the sleeping bag Ambulon was occupying. But Vortex had gotten distracted thinking about Pharma- every passing thought on the matter made Vortex itch to kill something. Or rather, several somethings. Lots of somethings, (including Pharma of course), with as much blood and screaming as possible. Anyway. He had gotten distracted, and ruined the moment before he could make Felix jump.

Vortex forced himself to allow a smile on his… well, not on his face. His mood? He allowed a smile on his mood. Felix was okay. He was away from Pharma. He was safe, and alive, and trapped inside his cockpit. He wasn’t going anywhere. Vortex had plenty of time to play with his pilot. And they had a friend now too- someone Vortex could send out to get food for Felix, or hold hostage if Felix tried to leave. Someone else who had an actual brain to figure out how to solve problems. Felix’s brain couldn’t be trusted- not when it came to self-preservation. His choice of Vortex as a friend made that clear enough. That and his inability to spot anything wrong with the bulging lump on the wall. Vortex had a mind, he was able to think despite being dead afterall, but his brain had been dragged and cleaned out of his current head ages ago. Shattered skull and all. ��

Ambulon, despite getting very chatty when he had first woken up, still had a skull in perfect condition. He wasn’t even bruised (probably) when Vortex re-sedated him and tied him to the wall, and covered him with the sleeping bag. He’d even managed to duct tape the jumpy lab rat’s mouth closed without blocking his other airways. That took skill. Absently, Vortex wondered if Felix would be impressed by his handiwork. Felix hadn’t been around when Vortex first came online- after dying that was. Didn't know how difficult this kind of precision could be. Hadn’t been around when Vortex was still figuring out how to move his new “body.” Some of the casualties he’d caused back then had been accidents. Sort of. Accidents he’d, unbeknownst to his victims and everyone else who’d thought he was gone, reveled in. And then replicated. Again. And again. Repeating until he was capable of the same intentional blood spilling he had been capable of before. Like a baby murderer, relearning how to walk and talk- and stab people in the guts.

Killing was like breathing to Vortex. Was like laughter, and smiling. It was really quite kind of him to have not killed Ambulon. He was Felix’s friend though, and had enough potential to be fun and useful- not to mention he’d been running from Pharma. Vortex might not know a lot about Ambulon, but he wasn’t about to do Pharma’s dirty work for him. Beyond that…Ambulon’s drift connection allowed Vortex to feel what Felix felt like. As an organic. With a living body. Had allowed him to feel what it felt like to hold his hand. To hold him as he slept, safe and sound. Vortex could repay that by not killing or hurting Ambulon too much. Wouldn’t stop him from spooking him as much as he pleased, but…he was grateful, in a way. It wasn’t something he had ever expected to experience. It was part of why Vortex had stuck him to the wall instead of back in bed with Felix. He liked it, but he wasn’t sure what to think or feel about it, and frankly didn’t want to right now. And he didn’t want to share the feeling either. Felix was his, and that’s what mattered. Ambulon was Felix’s friend, and they, he, Vortex, could figure out what that meant later.  

Felix, for his part, had fallen back asleep, slumped in his pilot’s seat. Ambulon could wait until he woke up again. Vortex used some cabling to grab the remaining sleeping bag, then wrapped it around Felix and the chair- cocooning him cozily and tying him to the chair simultaneously. He toyed with the thought of dangling his old suit in front of Felix’s head so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke up… but he decided against it in the end. He liked the thought of punishing Felix if he tried to grab and put it on, but he knew he wouldn’t. There had been such a reverence in the way Felix stared at the suit that Vortex had once worn. An unspoken want in the way he caressed Vortex’s name stitched over the right breast of the suit. An unspoken want that made Vortex want him to wear it. Even without punishing him for it, just to have his name on him…he couldn’t stitch it onto his chest, not directly- Felix was too squishy for that, and Vortex wasn’t delicate enough with a blade on his own to do it without killing his prize. If he could have his name on him though, if Felix put it on by choice-  

Vortex hummed thoughtfully. The notion was intoxicating. Invigorating. Carefully adding more cabling to secure Felix to the chair and their new resident lab rat to the wall, Vortex got up and started walking. Felix had only just recently removed whatever Pharma had attached to his leg, and if it had been a tracker, then they didn’t want to stay here for long.

Maybe he could find some monsters to kill, something to take the edge off his currently stronger-than-usual bloodlust. Maybe find the ones Felix had once considered the most likely to be edible. Have Ambulon cook it and test it, see if it worked.

He hummed some more, looking forward to getting his gears bloody again. He was going to go kill some monsters, wouldn’t be returning to base, and would have Felix with him the whole time. Yes, today was going to be a good day.  

[despazito]

A neighborhood overrun with cats is a spectacle of contradictions. Our sympathy for animals has created a situation that’s terrible for animals. Cats are considered creatures of the natural world but also members of the family. (If a child had a penchant for disembowelling wildlife, would his parents shrug and say it’s just his nature?) Human progress is the argument for reforming the shelters, while long tradition is the argument for leaving cats outdoors. The people who feed feral cats are owners who don’t own them, and No Kill doesn’t mean no killing. At the root of the contradictions are difficult choices that haven’t been made. Both cats and nature pay the price.

[is-there-a-limit]

ok but i need to talk about how hoffman went right for “jigsaw trap” when he was planning how to kill seth. not normal cop stuff like planting drugs in his car then conveniently having him mugged to death in prison or something. nah, bbygirl went straight for disemboweling his enemy with a pendulum. icon.

[just-null]

I feel like all the clones in the Pet AU would physically drag each other to have the privilege to rest on your chest.

Urogi and Karaku are just two different faces of the same coin. Its honestly dependant on the phase of the Moon if they will get along that certain day. They already get into erratic fist fights and fits often, something Aizetsu doesn't bat an eyelashe to admit; even more shameless to fault them than even Sekido is.

'Joy' and 'Pleasure', pure greed and gluttony embodied, I can see Urogi growing more and more stiff in the naked feather because Karaku exists simply to be a nuisance. If Urogi isn't the center of attention, he acts like he never had it in the first place, pouting like a child and brutally sharpening his claws to exhaust stress. Frantically scrambling in impatient frustration, trying to claw Karaku's face off while Karaku laughs his ass off in-between your fleshy mounds, stroking and prying, thick hands wandering and possessing as furiously as possible while he still holds free reign.

Aizetsu is the most mindful of the siblings, Sekido will note this himself, not like that'll stop him from constantly insulting and deeply belittling his brothers any less. Aizetsu's 'sensitivity' is a useful weapon in the right scenarios. On another note, Aizetsu is incredibly emotionally perceptive, he knows better than to think basic guilt-trapping would work on people as inherently selfish as his siblings, least of all Sekido. There is not getting through to them regurdless of whom their present Owner favors.

So, Aizetsu simply takes advantage of the blatant vulnerabilities in the situation. In steady, silent intervals. Slipping through the smallest cracks in your demeanor and the personalities of his brethren are fairly predictable for the most part. And he holds quite a steep pride in just how heavy he can cling to the source of his desires, none more stubborn than pets, demonic or otherwise.

Sekido is a whole different can of worms entirely. He's actually pretty level-headed, given the specific circumstances. He is extremely temperamental first and foremost, but in an environment where he feels in complete and total control, Sekido turns almost tolerable and considerate, slightly more eager to converse about anything and nothing at all.

Rage is what defines himself.

He will immediately blame it upon his siblings on why he's always on the verge of exploding, always playing the blame game, but he won’t outright scowl at subtle attempts of closeness. He will appreciate the fact you are considering his personal space, though he is hypocritical for it. He hungers for humane physicality and validation the most of the siblings; Sekido's old body did use to be human, he's long-forgotten what it's like to hoard, to cherish the warmth of another who he didn't want to remorselessly disembowel. He can be reasonable and functional amongst others, long as they mind their tongues, as well as yours. But of course, siblings are siblings, always ripping each other's throats out.

Sekido does all the fucking thinking around here, so they better fucking move their pathetic asses off of you and make some damn room!

EATING THIS EATING THIS EATING THIS

you described this so well, im in tears. sLAMMING MY FISTS ON THE TABLE. YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!

[colinrobinsonscardigan]

Rewatching Hannibal, and I forgot how funny Chilton is. He's bitchy. He's a loser. It barely feels like he's in charge of the asylum he owns. He survives being shot in the face. He survives being shot in the face and disembowelled and there's not even anything remotely cool about it. If he was a cartoon character he would step on the rake he previously left out as a trap for someone else. Banana peel type man.

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddie-week.

Seen Nothing, Heard Nothing

Day #4 - Prompt: Trade | Word Count: 833 | Rating: T | CW: Steve's S3 Injuries, Spooky Vibes, Language | POV: Eddie | Tags: Canon Divergent S3, What If Eddie Crossed Paths With Steve and The Upside Down Sooner?, What If Steve and Robin's Run-In With The Russians Happened Just Bit Differently?

"Hello?"

Eddie freezes. Utterly fucking freezes. The stilted male voice that has come from somewhere around him sounds ethereal, floating. Like it's an echo. Bouncing through the trees. Like it might be right next to him, but also far, far away.

Ignore it. 

That's what his grandma always taught him. You've seen nothing, you've heard nothing. 

Mind your own business.

"Hello? Is somebody there?"

The voice is familiar, less creepy this time, but he can't place it. The familiarity doesn't mean safety, though. Mimicking known voices isn't at all unusual in the realm of weird, and it's best to not engage. Rule one: Do not invite anything of that world into your own world.

So, Eddie ignores it and keeps gathering up his stuff, acting like he's not in a hurry, even if his heart is hammering behind his ribs.

"I need some help."

Then he hears the rustling through the trees along the well-worn path, and his heart drops. It sounds like something is tromping towards him, getting loud and louder with every step. 

He slings his backpack over his shoulder, and takes three big steps away from the picnic table, away from whatever that thing is, without running. Not that he has anywhere to go. Not really.

That's the way out, and unless he wants to just stumble through the thick woods, getting lost, he's kind of trapped.

He's never felt scared here before, and he hates it.

So, he decides he'll just forge past whatever it is. Without acting like he's heard a damn thing.

He really hopes it's invisible. He can ignore noises, voices. But if he has to see something? He's gonna freak the fuck out and get himself disemboweled, for sure. He'll scream like a little bitch and freeze.

Then he'll run.

He just knows that about himself.

You've seen nothing, you've heard nothing. 

You've seen nothing, you've heard nothing. 

You've seen nothing, you've heard nothing. 

He keeps telling himself that as he walks up the path, trying desperately not to run. Hawkins is weird, but it's never been this kind of weird, as far as he's seen.

But this has scared the shit out of him.

"Eddie? Eddie Munson?" 

Eddie stills. That voice is closer, and crystal clear.

And definitely Steve Harrington. 

"Thank god. Dude, are you deaf, or what? I've been asking for your help for ten minutes. Goddamn."

Okay, not a monster.

Just a dumb jock.

Eddie wheels around, snarking, "What's the matter, Harrington. The big bad wolf take a bite out of ya?"

And the next words, the next bit of sarcasm, dies in his throat. 

Steve's face is wrecked. His body, too, Eddie suspects by the way he's limping along. Eye nearly swollen shut, covered in a dark purple bruise. He's missing a shoe.

And he's in a sailor suit. Like the ones from the ice cream shop in the mall. Does Harrington work there? Surely not.

Eddie drops his bag, and bounds towards him, "What happened to you? Who did this? Or what?"

Steve looks at him from his one good eye, and sways. 

"Robbin'," Steve says, and Eddie grips his shoulders, forcing him to back up until he can sit down on the bench of the old picnic table.

"Robbing? You were robbed?" Eddie asks, and Steve's mouth is swollen, too. Blood staining his front teeth, dried on his face where it came from his broken nose.

"No. Robin," Steve repeats.

"Who's Robin?" Eddie questions.

"Robin. Buckley."

"From band? Robin Buckley from band did this to you?"

Steve looks exasperated, and like he wants to cry at the same time.

"No. No. The Russians. She made a trade. I said no, I did, but she was scared, and I was…this," Steve says. "We have to go back. I just need help. They drugged me."

"The Russians?" Eddie asks, his eyebrows shooting up. 

Steve nods, "Under the mall."

"How'd you end up out here in the woods?" Eddie asks. Because he's a long way from the mall, even if what he's saying is true. That's on the other side of town.

"They dumped me," Steve says. "I think they thought I was dead."

"Well, you look it," Eddie says, and then regrets it. 

"We need to find Nancy Wheeler. She'll know what to do."

"Steve, are you sure this is really something that happened? And not just in your head after whatever accident you've clearly had?"

Steve sighs and holds his head in his hands. He's missing a fingernail, like it had been plucked right off. Like he was tortured.

Shit. Okay.

"Okay, okay. We'll go back. We'll find Robin."

Eddie isn't at all sure what he's agreeing to, but Steve can't do anything by himself. Not in this condition. They'll find Nancy Wheeler, and Eddie isn't sure what a little priss like her is gonna do, but whatever Steve wants, they'll try.

"Thank you," Steve breathes, and as sure as Eddie is that he'll regret this, he's in it now.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddie-week and follow along with the fun!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 1: Am I More Than You Bargained For Yet]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra's wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook's Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother's life. Now you are in the lair of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting...

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, a brief history of burn treatments, alcoholism/addiction, references to sexual content (18+), a wild Sunfyre appears, catching feelings for literally the single most inappropriate man on the planet.

Series title is a lyric from: "7 Minutes in Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 5.3k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

💜 I’m going to tag like a bazillion people since this is the first chapter of a new fic, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. I hope you are all doing well, wherever you are in the world! 💜

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You scream when he grabs you, this lightning strike of a man with a grip like an animal trap that splits bones. He pulls you away from the soldier you’re soothing—a young dark-haired Norcross, disoriented, doomed, his intestines spilling out onto the grass and blood on his lips—and through the forest of smoke and corpses and pine trees. Your eyes sting and water, your boots snag on gnarled roots. When you yelp and stumble to the earth, the man drags you upright again. You struggle like a beast with a blade at its throat, cold, serrated, pressure on the jugular. You shove and scratch at him, trying to plant your boots in soil strewn with gore and glowing embers.

“Stop, stop it, you’re hurting me!”

“Hurry up.”

“You’re going to break my wrist—!”

He wrenches you around to look you full in the face, and only now do you know who he is. A gasp hisses through your teeth; the acrid air in your lungs vanishes. Every muscle and tendon and ligament of you is taut with horror, tight enough to snap. It’s like meeting one of the Seven, the Warrior or Stranger or Smith, a shade you know only from myths and nightmares. It’s like being led to the executioner’s scaffold. His long silver braid hangs over one shoulder. His eyepatch conceals the childhood maiming that left him half-blind. There’s blood and ash on his scarred face, a ruthless breed of fear in his remaining eye, icy blue, creek-shallow, soulless. The man clasping your wrist is Prince Aemond Targaryen. “I’ll break your neck if you don’t come with me now.”

He does not wait for your protest or acquiescence. You couldn’t give it anyway. Your muddied boots move numbly as he tugs you forward, this man they call Aemond One-Eye, a monster, a murderer, a kinslayer. The earth is littered with carnage from the battle, charred ribcages and disemboweled horses, scattered armor and severed limbs. Ashes fall from the smoldering treetops like dark snow.

What does he want from me?

Rape seems unlikely; everyone knows Prince Aemond’s deviancies do not run in that direction. He is cold, hateful, dispassionate, made of stone. He does not lust for anything but power and retribution, fire and blood.

To kill me?

But why not do it here, now? There is a sword hanging from his belt, a dagger in one fist. There is no reason to wait.

To take me prisoner? To feed me to his dragon? To torture me for information?

Surely there are more knowledgeable people around to torture. What use could you be, a healer, a woman? Unless…

Unless he knows who my father is.

You glance down at the fabric band looped around the upper half of your right arm, the only mark you wear of your house, stark white banner, skittering red crabs. It is soaked through with blood. It is unreadable.

Someone is shrieking, but not like a dying man. He has too much fight in him for that, too much glass-clear agony, unwanted blistering consciousness. He screams like someone being flayed, gutted, burned alive. You’ve only ever heard this sound once before. You choke on the greasy, putrid, metallic sweetness of scorched human flesh as it sears down your throat, not knowing if it is real or remembered.

There is a tent in the midst of the pine trees, fluttering canvas that’s green like emeralds or jade. The wind is picking up; you will need to evacuate soon. The cinders will spread and the forest will blaze. Somewhere a dragon is roaring, wounded and mournful like the cry of a lost child. The screams of the man grow louder; they fill your skull like a fever, scalding and senseless and red. Aemond yanks the tent flap aside and pulls you in. And when you breathe it is nothing but the sickening miasma of burnt flesh, coppery blood, suffering, sweat, ruin.

He’s writhing on a wooden table, the man the Greens call king. It has to be him: white-blond hair down to his shoulders, blue eyes and fine aristocratic bones. Two ancient, shaky-handed maesters—hastily commandeered from the defeated House Staunton, you assume—confer nearby, clutching glass bottles of milk of the poppy. A man in armor is cutting tatters of clothing from the so-called king. When he lifts the fabric away, skin sloughs off with it. Aegon wails, struggles, begs him to stop. Aemond goes to his brother and carves away scraps of melted leather and charred cotton with the swift blade of his dagger.

“Shh, shh, don’t fight us, we’re trying to help—”

“Aemond, let me die,” the burned man rasps. He is trembling violently, he is half-mad with pain. Meleys’ flames claimed a swath of his right cheek, his neck and chest and back, his arms down to his wrists, his belly to the crests of his hip bones. “Please. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want it to hurt anymore. Don’t try to help me. Just let me die.”

Aemond looks back at you. “Can you treat this?”

He thinks I’m a Green, you realize with panic, with relief, with terror. And of course he would: you had wandered into the Greens’ side of the battlefield and therefore did not surrender or flee or die with the other Blacks, you were tending to a Green soldier when he found you. Aemond the Kinslayer would not comprehend the notion of service to humankind without a line drawn down the middle of it, of uncategorical compassion.

“Can you help him or not?!” Aemond shouts; and you know that he is not just afraid but shattering, spider-leg cracks inching across a window or a mirror. Perhaps the Greens have souls after all.

You shed your paralysis like daylight erases the stars and approach to examine the so-called king. You do not touch him; still, he whimpers, sobs, quakes like waves in a storm. “He needs more milk of the poppy. A lot more of it.”

“Yes,” Aegon agrees immediately. His streaming eyes—a bleak, murky blue like the sea off Claw Isle—list to you, agonized and grateful.

The maesters gape. “More could kill him,” one says. And they are petrified of being blamed for it. They are plagued by visions of Aemond hacking off their heads and displaying them on spikes above the stone walls of captured Rook’s Rest.

“No drawbacks at all then?” Aegon manages between moans.

“If his pain does not abate, he will die of shock,” you say. “He must be unconscious.”

“Knock me out,” Aegon pleads, pawing at Aemond. “Tell them, tell them.”

Aemond looks to the man in armor: dark-haired, olive-skinned, Dornish. Sir Criston Cole, you realize. The Hand of the King. The Kingmaker. After a moment, Criston nods. “Do it now,” Aemond orders the maesters.

Grimacing, grim, they pour the opalescent liquid into Aegon’s mouth. He gulps it down as quickly as he can. “Enough,” you tell the maesters. Instinctively, you reach out to comfort Aegon: a palm rested lightly on his forehead, fingers threaded through silvery hair that’s filthy with soot and blood. You should hate him, but you don’t. When you look at the Greens’ broken king, you cannot see a murderer, a usurper, a depraved hedonist, a consumer of innocence. You can only see a man worn threadbare by ill-advised bravery.

“Hello, angel,” Aegon murmurs as he gazes up at you, a ghost of a smile on his lips. His eyes really do remind you of home: ocean currents like iron, fog like flint. “Welcome to the end of the world.” And then he’s out, extinguished, eclipsed.

Servants bustle into the tent carrying heavy buckets. “What is that?” you ask.

“Pork lard,” one of the maesters says. “For his wounds.”

“No, no, no, some of these burns are nearly down to the muscle. They’re too deep, too fresh. Lard is for later, to help with scarring, although olive oil or rose oil would be better. He needs to be cleaned with vinegar diluted with water. Or red wine, if that’s all that can be found.”

“Vinegar?!” one of the maesters exclaims.

“It helps prevent infection. Nobody knows why.”

The same maester turns to Aemond, imploring him. “My prince, I can assure you, the Citadel recommends pork lard or cow dung as topical cures, or both used alternatingly. There are also reports of cases where frogs have been helpful, warmed in oil and then rubbed on the affected area.”

Criston blinks. “I’m sorry, you do what with the frogs…?!”

They’re going to kill him, you think. Not with malice, but with stupidity. A wasted life, a wasted death. You demand of the maester: “When was the last time you treated burns this severe?”

He glowers at you, sharp dark eyes like flecks of onyx in a nest of wrinkles. And you know you’ve won when he replies: “When have you?”

“My brother was burned in a housefire started by an upturned lantern. It was five years ago, but I remember the direness his injuries. And what was done to save him.”

Silence in this tent the color of summer: green grass, unsinged trees. Aemond waits for the maesters to produce some astute rebuttal. When they cannot, he orders the servants: “Vinegar, water, rags. Now.” They dash off to oblige him, wide-eyed and quivering like small dogs. Then Aemond looks to you. “What next?”

“His wounds should be treated with honey and then bandaged. The dressings must be changed frequently, at least once per day. He must be repositioned so the scar tissue does not immobilize his joints. He will suffer, it cannot be avoided, but he should suffer as little as possible. Listen to him when he says the pain is too much. Let him sleep. When he is awake, he must drink plenty of fluids. He is losing water through his burns, and it must be replaced. Milk is preferable. Tea and fruit juices are good as well. Some wine is acceptable if that’s what he likes best.”

“And it certainly is,” Criston mutters. You’ve heard the same: that the Greens’ king is a drunk, an adulterer, a coward, a ghoul. You cannot speak to any of this. You know him only as someone who is horrifically pained and sick to death of fighting. Again, without thinking, you comb your fingertips distractedly through his hair as he lies unconscious on the table, bleeding from everywhere. He’s so young, so breakable, so unlike the monster you’ve been led to believe he is.

“Get honey and bandages,” Aemond tells the maesters. They depart, casting each other incredulous glances: Are these our new overlords? Men who heed the wisdom of impetuous young women filthy with blood and earth?

“I’ve heard salt can be helpful for wounds,” Aemond says. “They used it on me when…” He gestures to his eyepatch, to his scar. Lucerys Velaryon took that part of him in self-defense; at least, that is what you have always been told. But you’ve read enough to know that for every event, there are at least two stories. Whatever the truth is, Luke paid for that eye. He paid, Rhaenyra paid, the world continues to pay the price over and over again.

“Because it dries. It absorbs moisture.” You skim your palm over Aegon’s forehead, without lines of fear or anguish as he sleeps. There is a ring on his left hand, a gold dragon with glinting dots of jade for eyes. You twist off the ring so it will not hinder circulation as his fingers swell and give it to Aemond. “But burns weep as they heal. They need to be wet. If they get too dry, they will crack open and fester.”

“Is that what happened to your brother?” Aemond asks.

“Where we did not pay enough attention. The backs of his knees, the soles of his feet.”

“But he survived.”

“Yes,” you tell Aemond; and you can see how desperately he is searching for hope in your face, your words. “He did.”

The servants return with buckets of water, handfuls of rags, glass bottles of vinegar that is cloudy and rust-colored.

“What’s it made from?” you say.

“Fermented a-a-apples, my lady,” one of the boys sputters. He watches Aemond out of the corner of his eye like sheep look for the shadows of wolves. He shivers, he sweats. This boy, who last night was fetching meat and mead for Lord Staunton, has heard the same stories you have: the degenerate king, his murderous brother.

“That’s fine then.” You haul over one of the water buckets and Criston helps you lift it up onto the table. You empty half a bottle of vinegar into the water, mix it by wobbling the bucket back and forth, and then soak a rag in the pungent liquid. “You can help,” you tell Aemond and Criston. “Dip a rag in the bucket, wring it out, then press it to his wounds. Remove any dirt or scraps of fabric. But don’t rub. Try not to damage the skin he has left.” You demonstrate: dabbing at flesh that is torn and bloody and blistered, a black-and-ruby wasteland that at best will leave him irreparably scarred and at worst will swallow his life like ships sink in storms.

Tentatively—with hands at ease with killing but not tenderness—Aemond and Criston join you, studying your movements and imitating them with great care. There is a sniffle, a teardrop that falls onto Aegon’s filthy but unburned left hand and glistens there like a splinter of glass; you are alarmed to see that the Kingmaker is weeping.

“Criston,” Aemond says gently. “We are doing everything we can for him.”

“Since the day he was born, I promised…”

“I know.”

“Your mother…”

“I know,” Aemond says again, and you think: The Greens aren’t demons, they aren’t savages. They’re just patchworks of memory and flesh and suffering, the same as any of us. “He will live. And his sacrifice won us a victory today.”

As you tended to wounded men caked with blood and pine needles, you saw them tangled above in the overcast sky, scales of scarlet and gold and an ancient muddy viridescence. There were flames and shouts, and then all three dragons hurdled towards the earth and out of view. “The Red Queen?” you ask Aemond, mindful to keep your voice perfectly level.

“Dead,” he says: dark satisfaction, fearsome pride. “And so is her rider.”

“The gods are good.” You are amazed at how easily it slips out, a reflex of self-preservation while your mind is elsewhere. Does my father know yet? Does Rhaenyra, does Daemon, does Corlys? People will be searching for you soon. If you do not appear from the smoke and chaos of the battlefield, your eldest brother Clement will come looking with his sword in hand. Everett, scarred and unagile but clever, will be pouring over maps to see where you might have ended up.

There is no suspicion in Aemond’s face when he glances over at you. He is gingerly cleaning soot and charred strips of ruined skin from Aegon’s chest, which rises and falls in deep, slow breaths. “Which family is yours?”

House Celtigar, but you can’t tell him that. You scramble for a noble family of the Crownlands whose accent you share, whose history you have been taught, whose men fight for the Greens but are not so distinguished that Aemond will know them well. “House Thorne.”

He nods. “Are you one of Sir Rickard’s sisters?”

You startle. Perhaps you have chosen the wrong disguise. “Far less illustrious than that. Just a cousin.”

The two maesters return, their archaic hands piled high with linen bandages and glass jars of honey, a fiery gold like sunset. “Set them down over there,” Aemond orders, pointing. He has a presence, it cannot be denied. He is tall, fierce, swift yet calculated. He moves like a man who has killed once, twice, again until it is no longer something that keeps him awake at night. It is something that has become a part of him like arteries or bones. “Prepare a room in the castle.”

“For Prince Aegon?” one of the maesters says, then quickly corrects himself. “I mean, for the king?”

“For until we decide what to do with him.” Aemond stares at Criston. Criston stares back, his dark eyes huge and shiny. There is a war to be waged, but Aegon will not be able to help them. Not for months, at least. Not ever, if he dies. The maesters disappear again, grumbling to each other. Unwelcome tasks, unwelcome guests.

Rhaenys is dead, you think as you work. It doesn’t feel real. Meleys is dead. Hundreds of Black soldiers are dead. Rook’s Rest is the Greens’ greatest victory yet, and one they desperately needed. This war is nowhere near over. And the betting odds keep changing.

You say to Aemond and Criston: “Help me turn him. We must clean the burns on his back as well.”

They listen, they obey, they help you because helping you means helping Aegon. When he is washed as well as he can be, you spread a thin sheen of shimmering honey over his wounds—an amber river that will trap moisture and discourage inflammation—and wrap him in bandages. The only burn you leave uncovered is the one on his right cheek. It creeps up over his pale face like red tentacles, curling and grasping, hungry, insatiable. They match now, you think. Two brothers, two scars.

Criston assembles a group of Green soldiers and Aegon is carried in a litter to the castle that serves as the seat of House Staunton, once allies of Rhaenyra, now traitors, now dead men walking. Outside rain has begun to fall, putting out flames born from dragonfire. The pine forest is saved; wounded men lie in the dirt with their mouths open hoping to quench their thirst. By the time Aegon is placed in an opulent bedroom with a view of Blackwater Bay, he has already bled through his bandages. You clean him again, bandage him, dribble milk of the poppy down his throat when he begins to stir and whimper. Aemond gives you command of a makeshift fleet of caretakers: the two requisitioned maesters, three maids, servants to bring food, drink, bandages, wood for the crackling fireplace.

My family is searching for me, you know as you battle to save their enemy’s life, this maybe-king with silver hair and eyes like deep water.And then: I cannot leave him. Not now, not yet.

In the night, as cool rain patters against the ocean and Aemond and Criston are slaughtering House Staunton men down in the castle courtyard, you dose Aegon with milk of the poppy every few hours. The maesters refuse to take responsibility for it; if the king is poisoned, it will be you who swings from a rope for it. You hold cloths dripping with cold water to his forehead. You feed him nibbles of bread and venison when he is conscious enough to eat, cinnamon tea, pomegranate juice, goat milk. You inspect him for any signs of infection. You braid a small lock of his hair before you’ve stopped to consider why you’re doing it.

And when no one else is watching, you untie the bloodstained armband of your own house and burn it to ashes in the fire.

~~~~~~~~~~

Someone is jostling you, grabbing at you. You fell into an exhausted, sporadic sleep in the next room long after midnight. It’s morning now; warm sunlight blooms like flowers on your face, yellow roses and buttercups and daffodils. When your eyes open, they are sore and unfocused. Aemond is a blur of white hair and black leather. He is tugging on you again, his lithe fingers like a vice around your forearm.

“Stop it, get off me!” You shove him away. He waits, bemused. “You can’t keep dragging me around like this!”

“Why not?”

Because my father is one of the wealthiest men in the Seven Kingdoms. Because I may not have silver hair or a dragon, but if you cut me open the blood of Old Valyria would spill out like red waves. Because the man I am pledged to marry is good at killing, very good at killing, maybe even better than you. “Because I’m a noblewoman. I’m a lady.”

“You don’t act like one,” Aemond counters. “Ladies flee from blood and gore. Ladies are nowhere to be found on battlefields.”

“I like being useful.”

“Then I have brought you a gift. You are needed now. Aegon is asking for you.” And then, when you hurry out of bed, finding your footing on chilly wood floors: “Well, that certainly got you moving quickly.”

“He’s in pain?”

“Not especially, from what I can tell. I think he just wants you.” Aemond glides out of the bedroom. You follow him to Aegon’s chamber. The Greens’ king is propped up in bed on a great mass of pillows, bandaged, limp, eyes glazed and barely open. There are men huddled around him. You recognize Criston, though not the other ones, some old and some young and all in armor. You hope that none of them are Sir Rickard Thorne.

You feel Aegon’s forehead for fever. To your relief, he is no more than modestly warm. He catches your hand, holds it tightly, doesn’t let go. After a moment’s hesitation, you sit down beside him on the edge of the bed. There is a curl of his lips, just a whisper of a smile, just a phantom of one. Aemond glances at you and Aegon with mild interest, then turns his attention to Criston.

“Aegon,” Criston informs the king, patiently, like a good father would. “We have to move you back to King’s Landing.”

“No,” Aegon says. His voice is so low and weak that he’s difficult to hear.

“Your recovery will be long and arduous,” Criston explains. “Aemond and I will be needed in combat. We cannot stay to guard you. The Blacks may try to retake Rook’s Rest. You staying here is not an option. King’s Landing is safer. It is well-supplied, it is protected. And we have our own maesters there who will help tend to you.”

“Can’t leave,” Aegon croaks. “Sunfyre.”

“Aegon—”

“I can’t leave without Sunfyre,” he forces out with immense effort. Then he gasps and moans, tears pooling in his eyes. You offer him milk of the poppy; he guzzles as much as you’ll allow him to have.

Criston sighs. “You can’t stay. And Sunfyre can’t leave. One of his wings was nearly ripped off, he’ll never fly again. We have no way to transport him, he’s too heavy.”

One of the armored men mutters: “And that’s assuming he wouldn’t incinerate anyone who ventured close enough to try.”

“Where is he now?” Aemond asks the man.

“Down on the beach, my prince. Eating dead soldiers.”

Criston shudders. Working in close proximity to dragons has not given him a liking for them.

“Can’t leave him here,” Aegon whispers, shaking his head.

“You must,” Aemond says.

“What if it was Vhagar?”

“I’d leave her. I’d have no choice.”

Aegon frowns, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s all too much for him. “Not the same.”

No, perhaps not; Aemond’s dragon may be the largest and most lethal in the world, but Aegon’s bond with Sunfyre is said to be what legends are built of, words written in ink and stone. You watch the agonized confliction on Aegon’s drawn face: can’t leave, can’t stay, can’t fight, can’t run. You say softly: “Could Sunfyre be assigned a detachment of guards?”

Aemond looks at you as if just remembering you’re here. “What?”

“Men could be tasked with ensuring the dragon is secure and fed. From a safe distance, of course. They could report on his health. Then perhaps when he is stronger, he can be reunited with the king.” The king. Again, it stuns you how easily the treason rolls out, like waves bubbling over rocks and sand.

Aemond turns to Criston. “Could it be done?”

“I don’t foresee many men volunteering for the task. But it could be done, yes. Sure.”

Aemond asks his brother: “Would that make a difference?”

Aegon’s eyes drift to you. They are churning with sluggish, clunky thoughts, heavy burdens to bear on raw shoulders. The braid that you wove absentmindedly into his hair is still there. “Alright,” Aegon agrees at last. “I’ll go.”

“Good,” Aemond says. “We leave at dawn tomorrow.” Then he looks to you. “You will come south with us.” His tone invites no argument. He doesn’t even conceive of it as a possibility. Why would you refuse? Why would you, a purportedly devout Green, shy away from the opportunity to nurse your king back to health? You bow your head in compliance. You wonder what is being discussed in the Black Council; you wonder what your father is thinking, what Everett believes happened to you.

“But I have to see him first,” Aegon says.

Aemond does not understand. “See who?”

“Sunfyre.”

“But you can’t walk to the beach,” Criston says. “You can’t walk anywhere.”

Aegon grins, showing his teeth. His dazed, deep blue eyes glitter mischieviously. His hand has not disentangled itself from yours. “Then carry me.”

The deal is struck, like a face minted onto a coin or a bolt of lightning meeting the earth. Soldiers transport Aegon down to the stony, mist-sopped shoreline. Blade-sharp agony is flooding back into his face, but he refuses more milk of the poppy. He wants to be awake when he gets there. He wants to be himself.

The soldiers cannot get too close to Sunfyre; no one besides Aegon can. He is helped off the litter and then tries to amble across the wet, grey sand. After a few steps he collapses. You rush to him, dodging Aemond and Criston’s grasps as they try to stop you.

“No,” Aegon says when you attempt to help him to his feet. He is panting from the pain, his face flushed with torment and exertion. His white-blond hair whips in the wind. “Do not follow me. Not even if I pass out, not even if I’m dead. I don’t know what Sunfyre would do to you.” And then he crawls forward alone on his hands and knees.

Waves crash, spraying saltwater into the air. Crabs scuttle over rocks. Gulls swoop low to claim mouthfuls of flesh from bloated corpses in worthless uniforms. The dragon known as Sunfyre the Golden is curled up on the beach. Many of his metallic scales are singed; the pink membranes of his wings are tattered like lace. His right wing hangs at a ruinously odd angle. You would know how to set that if he was a human. And you could do it without the threat of being reduced to ash and history.

Sunfyre unravels as Aegon nears him, long angular face rising, frayed wings settling by his sides. You have seen dragons before, of course—Syrax, Caraxes, Arrax, Vermax, Meleys—though never from this close. They horrify you. You cannot look at them without thinking of the devastation they sow like a plague, of how they so unmistakably no longer belong in this world.

Sunfyre’s head stretches out towards his rider, a half-dead man kneeling in wet sand and wearing only bandages and loose cotton trousers. Beside you, Sir Criston Cole sucks in a noisy, nervous breath. Aemond watches Aegon, his face like stone. His hair hangs in long, damp waves.

Aegon embraces Sunfyre, clinging to him, resting his face against the dragon’s. They stay like that for what feels like a very long time. Then Aegon crawls back to you, sobbing with pain by the time he is lifted into the litter. You give him milk of the poppy and he accepts it eagerly. He is unconscious again within seconds. Down the beach, Sunfyre looses a soft desolate cry like a plea: Don’t go. Don’t leave me. You might never come back.

~~~~~~~~~~

The drivers have been instructed to proceed slowly and with caution; still, the carriage pitches and jolts as you traverse the Rosby Road towards King’s Landing. In addition to the caravan’s most precious cargo—the Greens’ fragile and intermittently sentient king—it transports also two severed heads: Lord Simon Staunton’s in a basket, and Meleys’ in the bed of a mule-drawn wagon. High above in slate-grey clouds, Aemond and Vhagar are safeguarding your progress. Criston rides on a monstrous warhorse just outside the carriage. You are leafing through a book that you found in the castle library at Rook’s Rest: anatomy, surgery, sicknesses and cures. Aegon is bandaged and heavily medicated in the cushioned seat across from you. While servants flit in and out frequently, you are the only passengers in the carriage at the moment. You do not know that Aegon is awake until he speaks.

“Sinful,” he says. His voice is groggy, only half-here. He is gazing blearily at the illustration on the open pages of your book: a quite detailed naked man, his arteries and veins mapped like the roads of Westeros, his cock bare and sizeable.

“It’s informative,” you reply in your own defense, smiling.

“My father would have hit me for looking at something like that. If he’d noticed.” Aegon smirks, resting his head against the back of his velvet seat. His hair has been scrubbed and rinsed by servants, the braid you made for him undone. “He probably wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Mine has a great love for all books.” Bartimos Celtigar is eternally turning pages: computations, records, revenue. He does not just sit on Rhaenyra’s council. He is her Master of Coin. He funds her war effort, he fuels her like wood to a fire. “Besides, I have seen naked men in person. No book can scandalize me now.”

A little twitch of his silvery eyebrows: fascination, amusement. “He does not lose sleep over your spent innocence?”

“He has other things on his mind presently.”

“Like what?”

Like helping Rhaenyra win the war. You find a different truth to tell him. “Some men consider one daughter to be too many. My father has four. His attention is thoroughly divided.”

“He doesn’t like you?”

“He likes me plenty. He just doesn’t need me.”

Aegon nods. His eyes travel over you slowly and meditatively, not leering but learning, memorizing slopes and angles, taking you in like he’s never been able to before. He is in the brief lull between doses of milk of the poppy: lucid enough to speak but not so much that he can feel the full extent of his injuries. “Are you married?”

This is a bit of a fraught subject. “I am betrothed.”

“Oh,” he says, with what might be disappointment. “And he wouldn’t rather have you home right now? Putting all that knowledge of male anatomy to good use? That’s difficult to believe.”

You peer evasively down at your book. “He has a role to play in the war. I’ve been given permission to serve in my own way until it is over.”

“Permission,” Aegon echoes. He finds this interesting. He studies you for a while before he asks, his voice gentle: “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. He’s honorable, he’s brave. He’s marvelously formidable. He could carry you around like a sack of potatoes.”

Aegon chuckles, a slow reflective laugh, curiosity, intrigue, something to think about besides the fact that he’s missing half his skin. “Do you fear marriage?”

What is the answer to that question? Do you even know yourself? “I fear being possessed. And having no remedy if the circumstances are not to my liking.”

“You can’t get one of your three superfluous sisters to marry him instead?”

You smile faintly. “No, we’ve met. He chose me, he favored me. I’m not sure why.”

“Probably because you’ve read all there is to know about cocks.” Aegon grins, drowsy and crooked and playful. “Who is he?”

“Just a man,” you say. You can’t tell Aegon more than that. It would give your Black affiliations away.

You are betrothed to the Warden of the North, Lord Cregan Stark.

[pmamtraveller]

JAN DE BAEN - THE CORPSES OF THE DE WITT BROTHERS, 1675

In 1672, the major European powers united and launched an attack on the Dutch Republic, posing a danger of overwhelming the nation. This cost the De Witt brothers, Johan and Cornelis, their lives. De Baen's artwork illustrates their lifeless bodies suspended at the Groene Zoodje on the Vijverberg in The Hague. Johan de Witt served as the Pensionary (the actual leader) of Holland, the most influential province. He was killed by a carefully planned lynch "mob" following his visit to his brother Cornelis de Witt in jail. He was lured into this trap by a forged letter.

The aftermath of this interaction, captured in this artwork, is disturbing, to say the least. Stripped of their garments, the siblings were suspended upside down from a wooden beam. They were castrated and disemboweled. Protesters severed fingers, toes, tongues, and noses to trade as keepsakes. A man is thought to have twisted the neck of a stray cat, the carcass of which he inserted into the open cavity where Cornelis’ penis used to be. Every bruise, cut, and amputation was integrated into the artwork.

Witness accounts assert that Johan's body was displayed higher than that of his brother. The rioters did so because he held the most powerful office in the country, and this aspect was noted by de Baen as he envisioned his artwork. As the De Witts lost numerous distinguishing features, it becomes challenging to identify which of the two figures in "Corpses" is supposed to represent which brother. Thankfully, an inscription on the back of the canvas dispels much of the ambiguity:

These are the corpses of Johan and Cornelis de Witt, made by a prominent painter from life as they hung from the post at eleven o’clock in the evening. Cornelis is the one without a wig. Johan de Witt still has his own hair

The painter was, after all, not present at the lynching. Other draftsmen were, and their sketches appeared in newspapers that de Baen then cross referenced to construct his own version of the events. Despite his remoteness from the incident, his interpretation continues to be treated as a kind of hand-painted photograph: an honest, accurate, and reliable depiction of a historical event.

[mirroredmemoriez]

One of the reasons I like Valentina from Saw X so much is because I think honestly for a period of the movie- I feel the most bad for her. Right before she's kidnapped, Valentina is literally in the midst of fighting off an attempted sexual assault. The only reason she was able to get out of that was due to Amanda smashing the car window and by proxy hitting Valentina's attacker. You'd rather Amanda have showed up when she did than some minutes later.... Yet Valentina goes from one highly traumatising situation to the next as she's then dragged out of the car and knocked out.

She's a sex worker and it's not a shocking line of work for her due to the fact that everyone who is a part of the scam besides Cecilia and possibly Parker are struggling financially. Valentina is doing whatever she can really to gain any sort of income, which we can only assume is just to get by as there is no mention of her funding something such as a substance issue like Gabriela. This to me is almost... Realistic horror? The horror of the world let's say. It's not the gore or torture, it's the fact that this woman is turning to either amoral or unsafe places to support herself. I'll also state here that I have no issues whatsoever with sex work and that you don't always have to be struggling money wise for it to be where you source your income! However, it's very well known and documented that almost all forms of sex work can take advantage of people in a number of ways. Valentina isn't the only sex worker in Saw either, there is Addison Corday who was also a prostitute and then we have Brenda who was a pimp.

Anyway, I think Valentina day to day would've always been aware of possible violence against her... But just the same as being a member of the scam, it was a risk she had to take for the money. What she could have never expected was being put in a death contraption where her only way of avoiding having her head cut off was sawing her own leg off instead. Oh, she also needed to collect the bone marrow out of said leg in I believe it was 3 minutes overall? It gets better though! EVEN IN DEATH, HER BODY IS STILL BEING USED. First Cecilia disembowels Valentina and uses her intestines as a rope. Then as a decoy to distract Parker, Amanda uses Valentina's severed head.

CANNOT CATCH A BREAK. Not to mention the fact that even though sure she was successful in removing her leg and starting the extraction of the bone marrow... Valentina realised she was still fucked. Impending doom as she watches her time go down and there is nothing she can do to speed the process up. (ADD ON: I also believe that her trap shows everyone else the reality of the situation they're in. She's the first to be tested among them and in that way she's like the guinea pig or even the lamb to the slaughter. I feel for a while there is this atmosphere of disbelief which is shared between all of them and when Valentina's head comes off that's when chaos really erupts. Your life truly is on the line.... And if you don't win your test? You'll end up like her.)

Another thing we discuss with feeling pity for characters and etc is age. With Gabriela she's early 20s for example... Paulette Hernàndez (Valentina's Actor) is 34 now and I always viewed the character as early 30s- THAT IS YOUNG. SHE WAS STILL A YOUNG WOMAN. To end this off because it is just rambling. I think her trap is my favourite from Saw X and I know that's a common opinion. I love the practical effects and the overall set up of it.

I feel as though this one is very well up there into being one of the most iconic Saw traps? I think it's memorable for all the right reasons and Paulette gave an amazing performance alongside that.

[tadpolesonalgae]

Fear of the Dark

Dark!Ghost!Azriel x reader

synopsis: after escaping from the Shadowsinger, the High Lord provides you with a new home, in a location entirely of your own choosing. One that just so happens to be frequently visited by window-rattling blizzards, and snow so heavy you’ll often find yourself trapped within the supposedly safe haven. But when things begin moving on their own, and shadows stalk your well-lit halls, you begin to think maybe the Spymaster somehow eluded death, too.

warnings: references to implied noncon, dark!az, paranormal events, nonconsensual touching (shoulders, mouth, hip)

a/n: dedicating this to @azrielhours , and inspired by her wonderful Company of Phantoms🧡💛

want to know more?

word count: 1,963

-Fear of the Cold-

It’s been six months since he died in the fire.

Six months of roaring screams echoing through the desolate hallways.

Half a year.

It goes by quickly when swallowed by delusion. Of persistent psychosis.

Of imagined shadows stalking your corridors. Of dragging footsteps just outside your chambers. Of the windows rattling, and not from the sudden blizzards that sometimes hit—seemingly out of nowhere. Unpredictable, and haunting.

Some days you’ll wake up, greeted by the barren landscape or grey skies and greyer rock, and others all that lays there is white. Blinding, dominating white, like a blanket smothering the harsh, unforgiving terrain.

You know why you picked here to be your place of refuge. For complete isolation.

The rocky landscape means no one could stumble upon your house without intention, tucked up in the sides of the rugged mountain, weathered by icy rain and lashing winds that could make the blood in your fingertips recoil in the space of a breath. Cold so penetrating it could snatch the air from your lungs.

Few understand the true horror of the cold.

Absolute, inescapable cold.

Nature’s blade, that could cleave glaciers in two.

With the stormy skies, there is no access by air. Winged creatures staying clear of your northern-facing home. And yet, despite the utter isolation, you’re faced with company.

After not even a week in your new house, the hairs had been rising at the back of your neck. Unexplainable drafts ghosting up your spine, or kissing the length of your throat. Doors clicking shut during the grey hours of limited daylight. Books that fall from low shelves, the chandeliers that swing softly when you enter a room, plates that appear where they hadn’t been left.

It’s rarely dark in your house, but the weight is smothering. Every corner is kept clear of shadow, flame purging the darkness with a quiet conviction that feels almost reassuring. But there’s nothing reassuring about your new home. Forearms almost constantly littered in goosebumps, hairs rising, skin prickling.

Even at night, candles burn away at the dark, eating at every shadow that tries to crawl in from the cold. But it feels like lighting a fire in the barren wasteland of the frozen tundra. Flame blazing with superficial strength, until it melts the snow bowing the branches far above, ice slipping free, and smothering the fire in one smooth avalanche.

The glass is rattling again, deathly cold wind whipping, icy rain lashing down as you try to lower yourself into sleep. But every time you near that precipice, something pulls you back: the groan of heavy wooden beams that creak through your house, flame flickering with dwindling light as if blown by a ghostly breath, a strange coldness rising from the foot of your bed. That seeps into your blankets first, then spreads to your feet. Slowly crawling up your body, until you’re wrapped in the haunting embrace of long-dead arms.

Even fire can’t always clear his kind of dark.

Dark that smothers, and festers. That concentrates in the hollow space beneath your bed, that hides in the softness of your pillow, that lurks in the pits of your pupils.

He found a way inside, and now he’s sunk his claws in. Like hooked blades that disembowel when they’re extracted. You’d have to empty your brains out into a bucket to be free of him.

Even then, your body would remember. His touch memorised into the tissue of skin, his terror embedded in the sinew of flesh.

The window spiderwebs, the distinct sound of fracturing glass dumping icy water over your near sleeping form. Hauling you up from the pit of an ocean, wrapped in seaweed to face the stormy grit of the blizzard outside.

Instead, your attention is sucked in by the ever-shifting shadow at the foot of your bed, chilling wind pouring in through the glass, candles winking out. Swallowed in darkness.

The air is pulled from your lungs faster than the cold can snatch it, sat bolt upright in your still-cooling bed.

The darkness holds no recognisable form, simply clustered together as a writhing mass of overwhelming shadow, but there’s no mistaking who it is. Who lurks beneath those suffocatingly concentrated umbras. Inky and undulating.

You’re frozen to your mattress, an icicle thawing out far above as it drips cold sweat down onto your brow, every breath biting at your lungs, making your throat raw.

It’s dark, and you have no protection as he looms so tauntingly before you, hands trembling as they try to grip the freezing sheets. But you can hardly move.

Air chokes in your throat as the shadowy mass expands forward, encroaching toward the foot of your bed. Your eyes widen with terror, watching as talons of darkness spider-crawl onto your duvet, feet recoiling like hot blood against the cold, knees pulling up to your chest, back pressed against the headboard.

“You’re dead,” you breathe out, air thin and slippery between your lips. “You’re dead. You can’t hurt me.”

Your stomach seizes, lurching as the shadowy tendrils stutter in their movements, like shoulders shaking with silent mirth. You get the feeling he’s laughing. Crawling closer still.

He reaches past your feet, darkness swarming over your knees, and within the cloying night you can feel the weight of hands. Of heavy, corporeal touch. One that sinks into your bones as they tremble with old fear.

“You can’t be here,” you whisper, pressing tight into the cold cushioning of the headboard, head tucking into your shoulders as you try to pull away from his overwhelming darkness, writhing throughout the deathly cold room, his touch like ice. “Leave me…” you breathe, voice breaking.

The weight of a palm weighs into the mattress, beside your hip, tying you in place as the living night, faceless and dominating, swells above you.

Your hand reaches sharply for your bedside table, viciously shaking fingers fumbling with the box of matches, sliding the cardboard out with a last trembling hope. Again the darkness stutters, a shadowy laugh whispering beside your ear, an icy draft kissing up the length of your throat.

The match strikes…once…twice…three time before sizzling into a small lick of flame.

In the few seconds of light you’re afforded, shadow easily melts away, pulling out instead hauntingly dark hazel eyes, piercing as the flame sharpens them. The cold, dead mouth that had once hungrily claimed your own, teeth dragging and prominent as they bit you into pieces. The eerily pale tones of his face, warmth vacant from the smooth planes.

You choke on a breath.

Soft, cruel lips curve at the edge, eyes twinkling with the reflection of your match, before his weight shifts over the bed and scarred, calloused fingers pinch out the flame. Skin that remembers its burn now extinguishing it without thought, freed from its sizzling agony.

You scream into the darkness, sinking down into the false safety of your duvet, hauling it over your head as you tuck yourself tight, trembling violently despite desperate attempts to still yourself. A cry breaks from your lips as you feel himself lower over you, directly atop you, trapped beneath his bulk. A cannonball shackled to your ankle, pulling you beneath a frozen lake, blood icing in your veins.

He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be alive.

You heard him die, watched as the flesh slid from his bones, muscle melting beneath the blazing inferno of the house fire.

You smelled it. Could taste it in the smokey air.

“Come out…come out…,” the shadow rasps mirthfully, weight brushing atop the blanket, stroking down your arm, drifting to your hip. Touch biting into bone. “Come out…and play…”

“Go away,” you beg under your breath, squeezing yourself tight, tears burning as they drip over the bridge of your nose, sliding off your face. “Leave me alone…”

The darkness laughs, and your stomach seizes as the duvet is slowly pulled back, dragged firmly from your grip. Numbed fingers try to grapple with the sheets, but he’s so much stronger than you. Just as he’s always been.

“Stop it…” you beg, trying to turn to the side as the blanket is pulled away, revealing his swarming darkness that looms above, with a weight that should not be possible. A spectre should not be corporeal, should not have the right to touch the living. He should have lost that privilege upon passing.

Icy fingertips brush your cheek, and a small cry breaks from your lips, quiet and terrified, eyes squeezed shut in feeble attempts to keep him out as the storm rages.

He dips down, and chilly breath grazes the space beneath your jaw, a whimper pulling from your throat as a broad palm makes its way up your front, settling across your sternum heavily, pressing down on your chest, making it difficult to breathe.

“Please…” you whisper, crying now, “just leave me alone…”

His cold mouth opens over your neck, soft lips sealing over a patch of skin as he tastes you, tongue slowly licking over the junction between your shoulder and neck. Darkness shrouds your bedroom, encasing you in a perpetually cold bubble, sealing out the lashing wind and rain, but trapping you in mist. Thick and impenetrable.

The phantom pulls away, lips grazing your jaw, and even with your eyes closed you can feel his proximity. The piercing weight of his attention as it presses up against your skin.

“Call out for me,” he rasps, voice shadowy and shifting, as if speaking in multiple tones at once. “Call out for me,” he urges, coldness thumbing across your cheek, as if trying to coax your eyes to open. So he can feel their warmth, and their terror.

But you shake your head, teeth chattering as you shiver, shuddering beneath his touch. “Go away,” you beg, “leave me alone.”

A soft puff of breath ghosts over your lips, like a faint laugh, and you shrink back into the mattress while his shadows wrap closer around your body, squeezing like serpents. “Call out for me,” he repeats, his gaze roving over your mouth, parted for air despite its bite.

Hot tears scald your skin as they drip out, peeking open your eyes, as breath is again snatched from your body. A mountain of pressure sitting atop your chest.

He’s as haunting as you remember, cruelly carved beauty, hewn from an ice that tries to be soft, but will only end up flooding if it thaws. Drowning you in his deadly affection. Filling your lungs until they’re close to bursting with his poisonous infatuation.

Hazel eyes flicker as they greedily devour your own, overwhelming and immense as you’re submerged into his obsession. Saturated in his hunger. Starvation so deep it persists after death.

“Azriel…” you breathe, lips trembling around his name, feeling as though its the last line of an enchantment, solidifying his presence, binding him to your own mortality.

Soft lips curve at their edges, a spark of life stolen from your existence. Fed off of, until he’s permanently entwined with your being. Persistent and parasitical.

He hums lowly, approvingly, and you swallow. Fear making you feel sick.

Slowly, as if basking in the descent, he settles his mouth atop your own, snow-soft lips slanting against a frozen stiff set, applying gentle pressure as he savours the feeling.

He still moves with such grace, such innate refinement that between the two of you, you seem the more lifeless. With unmoving limbs, and vacant eyes, you are the more dead.

The shadows pull away, blood gingerly rising to where his touch had been.

“I’ll return,” he whispers, mouth still faintly curved into a soft deception of tenderness.

Flickering night morphs and shifts, dissolving along with the wind.

“Find me in the dark.”

general taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @amygdtjhddzvb @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022 @hannzoaks @hnyclover @skyesayshi @nyotamalfoy @decomposing-writer @soph1644

az taglist: @azrielshadows1nger @jurdanpotter @positivewitch @nightcourt-daydreaming @assassinsblade @marvelouslovely-barnes @v3lv3tf0x @kalulakunundrum @vellichor01 @throneofsmut @vickykazuya

dark!az taglist: @honeyandhalfmoons

[blackberrybuds]

i feel like it goes without saying that tamba is not the killer oml. i feel like pegging tamba as the killer means you have incredibly low faith in tetro's writing. people dont just act insanely wildly out of character for no reason?? why the fuck would tamba disembowel kamimura. why would tamba set a stake trap above a door to kill tsuno. especially since she was handling the cold motive the best out of anyone like HELLO?? its not tamba lmao im 100% certain of this

[vampirebloodie]

Jealous jealous jealous boy | Mark Hoffman x Reader (Part 1)

Summary: Where you were Mark's ex-wife and even after so long he was still jealous of you, especially with Strahm.

Warning: angst/sad history, mentions of trap and blood.

You've reached your limit, he's reached his limit. You didn't know what a hole you were in until you discovered who Hoffman really was, his second "job" was simply the most disgusting thing you had ever been aware of in your life. As much as you loved him, you knew that after that you couldn't trust him anymore and that's why you decided to leave the apartment where you two lived.

Mark was at the police station while you packed your bags with some clothes and personal objects, your tears wet the clothes you were folding, it had been three days since your personal investigation made you discover that he was Jigsaw's apprentice, three days you held back so as not to explode and tell someone everything.

You had been suspicious of Hoffman for some time but you refused to believe in anything like that, after all, he was your husband, someone you swore to trust forever, but the evidence was very clear, all the police officers at the station were dying being tested in the worst traps, but not him, as if he were invincible, and that was why the investigation never moved forward, with Hoffman's hands probably sabotaging the evidence.

You wanted to tell and end it all, but if you did that you could easily end up dead, rules are rules, and as much as Hoffman liked you, you didn't want to test how far his loyalty to Jigsaw would go. An image of Angelina flashed through your mind, she had been killed by her boyfriend because she discovered he was a criminal and drug user, what if Hoffman did the same to you if he discovered what you know?

You had already bought a ticket to your hometown, far away from him and all these cases, everything would go well, you would disappear and start your new life somewhere else, without Mark, without murders. When you closed the suitcase and placed it at the bedroom door, you heard the sound of the main door lock opening. You had completely forgotten that Hoffman was leaving work early today, your heart fluttered and you hid the suitcase under the bed before he entered the room, trying to act as normal as possible.

“Hey, babe. What are you doing? You look so pretty, is this all for me?”

Hoffman came in and gave you a quick kiss, you felt a little disgusted.

“Hi... I was cleaning our room, why are you home so early?”

“I just came to have dinner with my beautiful wife.”

He smiled and left the room heading to the kitchen, you sighed. You even thought about putting poison in his food, but Mark wasn't stupid. Maybe if it was a situation before that, you would have been happy hearing him call you that. You put your bus tickets inside your makeup drawer and left the room to eat with him, even though your appetite wasn't present. Hoffman was already sitting at the table eating when you picked up your plate and sat down too, starting to play with your food instead of eating.

"Babe, what happened?"

He asked wiping his mouth with a napkin.

"Hm? It's nothing."

You shrugged. You was so scared. You was afraid of him.

"Don't lie. You've been acting strange for days."

He tried to touch your face and you immediately pulled away, getting up from the table, panicking and starting to cry. Mark was scared by your reaction, you had never treated him like this in all these years of your relationship.

"Do not touch me!"

You shouted pointing the knife from your meal at him. The images of the bodies of all those victims of the cases flashed through your mind, your husband was one of those responsible for all that happening and you could no longer bear the pressure of knowing that. You felt disgusted to think that you shared a bed every night with someone who always got their hands dirty with other people's blood, who did an extremely dirty and cruel job, torturing people by making them disemboweled, mutilated, who killed people even though he knew what happened about his own sister had been murdered in a brutal way.

“Y/n! Put that knife down, what happened?”

He asked with a worried expression trying to get closer to you again, making you move further away.

“I can't do it anymore... I need to go, i need to get out of here...”

You said, throwing the knife on the floor and going to the bedroom, Hoffman followed you immediately, you pulled the tickets out of the drawer and took the suitcase from under the bed.

“A suitcase... Where are you going?”

He asked confused.

“It's over, Hoffman. I can't anymore, I can't be together with you anymore. I need to go."

You grabbed your suitcase and tried to leave the room but he pulled you back.

"Why are you doing this? Why are you leaving me? I love you, you can't do this to me. Please....”

He asked looking into your eyes, his eyes were watering. Flashes of your wedding day hit your mind, those same blue eyes looking at you in a passionate way as he held your hand at the altar and said the most romantic words in the world to you, promising to always protect and love you.

“I love you too, but i can't stay with a.... with.... with you... If you really love me.... Let me go..”

You almost said "killer"

"But why? Please don’t leave me, i only have you...”

“Some things don't last forever, Hoffman. The same goes for our marriage.”

You touched his face leaving a kiss on his lips, one last kiss, only to turn around and leave the apartment with your bags in hand. Tears covered your face and you tried to avoid them, but it hurt so much to have to leave him. Everything both of you experienced in three years of marriage was something surreal, even with all the fights because he was an extremely complicated person to deal with, it had never reached such an extreme point, only at the most with you telling him to sleep in the living room, which don't lats two hours because soon you would miss him in bed and call him again. You left the building starting to call the only person who could help you at this moment, an old high school friend.

“Special agent Lindsay Perez, how can i help you?”

“Perez, i need help. My relationship is over and i need to get out of town, can i stay at your place for a few days until i settle down again? I already found a job interview and i just need to go to the bus station .”

“Oh Y/n... I'm so sorry, yes of course, my house will always be open for you. You don't need bus, my car is being repaired, but i can ask my work partner to pick you up, he's in your city for an interview. His name is Peter Strahm. I think you gonna like him.”