#does not take away from scripture

[fidius]

You know how sometimes the stupidest shit will be happening and you'll suddenly understand something people have been telling you for years?

So yeah (because I have this theory that Cyndi Lauper is awesome enough to redeem even obvious mistakes) I was watching Life with Mikey and this line (and a great read my MJF doing some heavy lifting in a waste of film even Nathan Lane is kinda phoning in) came out and I had to pause the movie and tell you about it. Because that's it, right? That's the other side of the glass that rescues us all from

[readwritealldayallnight]

Routines

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Reader

wc: 1.4k words

warnings/tags: fluff, Simon worshipping reader, brief allusions to smut

credits to @lettaniko for the incredible Ghost art!!

“At that point I was about ready to fall asleep. I swear to you Si, these meetings are so pointless.” You state loud enough for him to hear you over the sound of the shower. Your eyes are closed, tilting your head back into the stream as you rinse off the final step of your weekly long shower routine, knowing Simon’s somewhere in the bathroom listening to you go through your day.

You’ve got your back turned to him so you can’t see him, but you picture him leaning against the sink, with his muscular arms bulging as they’re crossed in front of his wide chest. Or maybe he’s got his hands reaching back to grip the edge of the counter top.

He is facing the shower door after all. And though the water has fogged up the glass, his heavy gaze can still make out your bare, sultry figure moving only a few feet away from him.

He hums along in response to your ranting when appropriate, letting you know that he’s following along, as he always does. When he hears the sound of you shutting the water off, he can’t help the smirk that slides across his face. His favourite part is about to begin, after all.

Just as he does every time, Simon grabs a new fluffy towel off the rack, holding it open for you as you step out of the shower. Like a man on a mission, he diligently wraps the towel around your wet figure, pressing small kisses to the specks of water dotted across your shoulders.

“And you know it’s not like I’m not paying attention, but when we keep repeating the same stuff over and over-” you continue to explain to him as he slides his palm down to your waist, giving it a slight squeeze as he reaches over and grabs another towel, this time handing it to you.

“Jus’ say the word, lovie.” He informs you, taking a small step back to give you the space to flip your dripping hair up into the towel. “Told ya already, don’t needa be workin’ so much anymore.” Both towels now secure in place, he scoops you up by your hips, earning himself a sweet giggle from his birdie, gently placing you atop the counter. “Lemme take care of ya.”

“You always take care of me, Simon.” You correct him, reaching a hand up to lovingly run along his jawline, scratch along his neck and into the soft hairs at the base of his neck. He can’t fight the soft groan of pleasure that slips between his lips at the feeling of your hands on him. “Such good care. But I’d go crazy when you’re gone for more than like, two consecutive days. At least I get to talk to people at work…”

As you’re speaking to him, Simon’s hands are reaching out towards the products laid out atop the counter next to you. He starts with your favourite scented lotion, scooping himself a general amount before kneeling down before you.

His large calloused hands, which have seen more blood and violence that any man his age should, handle you with such reverence and utter care, you would think he was afraid of breaking you. Simon hasn’t always been the best at expressing his feelings towards you through words. He didn’t grow up in a home where words of affirmation were shared over meals, where affection flowed through one another seamlessly, where love was expressed regularly.

But he’s learning. For you, he’s learning. And what he cannot always show through words, he makes up for tenfold through his actions. You can feel the love Simon holds for you as he massages the lotion onto your feet, your ankles, calves, working his way up your limbs. All while listening to you drone on and on about whatever it is you want to tap his ear off about this time.

Always listening to you, hanging off of your every word as though it were invaluable scriptures, and not just complaints about your workplace. And he does it all with such patience and almost gratitude. Gratitude that week after week you allow him to be in your space, to witness you performing such mundane tasks, to partake in your sacred routine and to be a part of what makes you so soft, at least on the outside.

“Maybe a couple more years, eh? When you decide to stop getting shot at as a career,” you tease, earning you a slight smack against your thigh, where he’s now worked his way up to spreading your lotion, inching the towel up just high enough to reach your skin. “Maybe we’ll move somewhere quiet, find ourselves a cute little cottage, close enough that we can still get our favourite take-aways though, mind you.”

Having finished massaging nearly ever available inch of your lower half, Simon scoops up some more lotion, using his other hand to delicately peel away the towel wrapped around your chest. He offers you a glance, almost as if asking permission to remove the garment, as though he hasn’t seen and worshipped everything underneath it. As though this isn’t your routine every week. You give him a nod, and the towel slips off your figure, leaving you sitting bare in front of your mountain of a man.

“Hmm,” His hum is one of agreement. His hands have begun to massage your hands, your arms, working up to your shoulders and collarbones. “Sounds nice. Hop off for me, beautiful.” At his request, you slide yourself off the counter now firmly pressed between the sink and the 6’4” shadow that follows you everywhere. You slowly turn around so that your back is pressed to his front and you are both facing the mirror.

His hands begin to run along your tummy, massaging the soft flesh he finds there, before his digits make their way up to your waiting breasts. He takes his sweet, sweet time in worshipping your chest, his gaze never straying from your face in the mirror, watching for your every reaction as his fingers glide along your sensitive nipples.

“How many bedrooms are in this cottage, hm?” He ponders as his head drops forward to press a kiss to your temple. You can feel him hardening through his pants against your bare ass, and a thrill runs up your spine.

“Uh, at least two, I suppose? A guest room if ever the boys want to come and stay?” You reply, steadily losing your will to hold a normal conversation as his fingers become more insistent across your tits, his bulge pressing up against behind you.

“Where we putting all those babies I plan to fuck into you then, eh lovely?” He asks so casually, as though he was simply wondering where you’d place a too large piece of furniture. At the sound of your burst of laughter, Simon finds himself smiling wider. God, he’s always smiling around you isn’t he?

“Well,” you tell him, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “How’s about you start by putting said baby in me, and then we’ll figure out rooming situations.” You’re teasing him, but this isn’t the first time he’s brought up wanting to have kids with you. Just the idea of carrying his baby around, proof of the love you two have for one another, a human life you created together, has your knees going weak.

“Like I said, you just give me the word, love.” He finishes with a kiss to the other side of your head, deciding he’s given your breasts enough of a groping for now. He’s reaching for your skin care products next, nodding towards the counter for you to hop up once again.

And so the routine continues, Simon lovingly applies your serums and moisturizer to your face, tenderly brushing his fingers against each freckle, each beauty mark, each imperfection that he wishes to photograph in his memory forever. He’s combing out your damp locks, helping to apply any product you’re wanting to use in your hair as well. His hands are never not touching you, never not helping you in some way.

Finally, Simon is carrying you bridal style out of the bathroom, leading you towards his side of the closet, grabbing whichever one of his oversized t-shirts you point out, and helping you slip it on. When your head pokes through and your glowing eyes reach his once more, with a content smile stretch across your face, he reaches out with both palms to cradle the back of your neck, pulling you in for a sweet kiss, mindful of all the products he’s just applied to your skin.

He’s always taking care of you, your Simon.

[retroaria]

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⚠︎ Hottie Alert! ⚠︎⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

✴︎˚｡⋆let’s not talk about how bad I am at titles….things the bllk boys do that make your head spin! sometimes it’s unintentional, sometimes they just wanna see that flustered look on your face… ✴︎˚｡⋆

cw: suggestive MDNI (18+), gn!afab!reader, isagi and bachira are longer bc i wrote them before i got nervous abt not having posted in a while and decided i gotta finish this fast >~<

BLUE LOCK M.LIST | requests are open! | with love -aria 💋

As told by the holy blue lock scripture (the egoist bible) we all know isagi has a thigh fetish. I like to imagine he indulges in this more subconsciously than he’d like to admit. his hand dragging up your thigh as his attention is focused elsewhere, his grip tightening, his fingers tapping slightly. he’s about three inches away from your heat and he’s rubbing his thumb in slow circles, teasing you without even knowing. when you jolt slightly from the touch he snaps his head over to you, then glances down at the position he’s got you in before scrambling an apology and moving his hand back to a safer spot, still gripping softly on your plush skin.

he has a detrimental case of hair blindness. his little sprout is adorable, but he’s never thought to pay any mind to the way his hair falls in front of his face. he simply lets it dry however it chooses and carries on with his day. he’s always found it a bit silly the way you prance over to him all flustered as he steps out of the shower, his hair pushed back, the pieces on the sides dripping little droplets down his shoulders and chest. you’d run your fingers through his pushed back bangs, admiring the full view of his face and all his features that would typically be covered by his deep blue locks.

he’s not one to tease, but he is an opportunist. when he sees you standing over the kitchen counter, cooking, cleaning, whatever it us you’re doing, he takes the opportunity to slowly grip your waist, sliding his hands up your sides before moving towards the center of your torso and fully engulfing you. he loves the way you jolt at the surprise of his gentle touch, and the way you immediately melt into him once you realize who it is.

as much as you’d love to pay attention to the actual game, it’s so hard not to let your eyes follow bachira’s every move, in what anticipation for the moment that he bends down, hands on his knees as he’s panting and sweating - just to see that sickening smirk painted across his face. it’s the same smirk he gives you before he tackles you to the bed, or when he sees you wearing something that highlights all his favorite parts of you. that devilish excitement in his eyes always serves as a painful reminder of how gorgeous your boy is (and how badly you can’t wait for this game to end so you can have him all to yourself)

his touchiness often takes him places he had never intended to go, not that either of you are complaining. when the two of you lay together he loves to let his hands roam all over you in a gentle graze across your soft skin. sometimes he’ll close his eyes as he does it, no aiming necessary when all he needs to do is feel you. and he knows just how tantalizing it is for you. every time his fingers crawl up the valley of your chest, only to come back down, grazing your softly over your tummy, giving you goosebumps.

when he’s super focused on something he tends to stick his tongue out just a bit. you’ve yet to decide if this is actually hot or if it’s just adorable, sometimes it’s both. his focus only falters when his eyes flicker up to your gaze on him and he slowly pulls his tongue back into his mouth licking his lips in the process while he looks at you - now that part of it, is in fact hot. 

nagi doesn’t do many things to purposefully get your attention other than whining at you like a baby, but over the course of your relationship he’s become aware of little things he does that seem to rile you up. he’ll lean “nonchalantly” against the door frame as he speaks to you, purposefully reach as far up as he can when he stretches so his shirt rides up his torso just the right amount, slip his hands teasingly under the hem of your shirt as he hugs you from behind.

when the two of you wake up in the mornings, nagi sits up on the bed and ruffles his hair a bit. it’s a simple ministration that always has you watching in awe as he combs his white locks back and forth, his eyes barely open as he mumbles a soft good morning to you.

if reo could make teasing you his full time job, he would. he takes any chance he can to show off when he knows he’s got your attention. and when i say he knows, i mean he literally knows.

he knows how hot he looks fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist as he makes his way over to you to start some bullshit conversation that only serves as a means to get your eyes on him. he knows you’re practically oogling at him when he’s on the field, his eyes laser focused, sweat dripping, pupils blown. he pays attention to your reactions and loves them so much he goes out of his way to recreate them.

another one of his favorite tactics is whispering dirty things in your ear when your out in public. he gets off on the wide eyes you give him as his words dawn upon you, chuckling at the flush that spreads across your face.

oliver aiku morning voice would send you to heaven and back. it would heal the soul, soothe all your woes, and make you all hot and bothered at the same time. it’s incredible.

on the topic of mornings, just watching him get ready is hot (it’s not fair one guy gets to be this sexy). the silly faces he makes when he’s shaving his face are somehow also adorable though, like a girl putting on mascara. seeing him step out of the bathroom all fresh and clean, coming over to engulf you in his scent (definitely wears like a sandalwood musky type of cologne ugh) and warm soft skin. if you’re attracted to masculinity, oliver aiku is the perfect embodiment of that.

he is clueless to how attracted you really are to seeing him do all these little things. as much of a tease as he is, he doesn’t expect his casual ministrations to be such a hit.

ok so kaiser does this thing that’s maybe a little odd?? to some people?? but he loves giving you light scratches. gently dragging his nails down your back and arms and legs and watching the subtle goosebumps form. would want you to do it to him as well, it’s probably a turn on for both of you.

this man would defend you to the ends of the world. he truly believes you could do no wrong. seeing him all riled up on his own arrogance in your honor is quite a site to see.

hello tumblr goers !! aria is back in action, thank you for your patience during my mini hiatus :) i did rush this post a bit so i’d have something to give you guys while i work on my drafts. i’m gonna be closing out my event soon (i’ll try to write the prompts that weren’t requested but we’ll see) the event was lowkey a flop lmao but to those who did request thank you so much !! (i’ve noticed that events are a tumblr artifact now or maybe mine just sucked i’ll try again for 2k or 2.5k maybe) with that being said i have a cool kaiser nsfw fic coming out soon (plus more obvi) so stay tuned !! i love u guys, stay safe and stay kewl :3

networks: @bllk-tv + @pixelcafe-network

[unorthodoxfaithxx]

Super happy, puppy dog yandere boyfriend that’s happy to have sex with you for the first time

afab reader ; nsfw

You look so beautiful in bed, all dolled up and pretty just for him! And only for him! He’s so excited that his pants feel way too restrictive, and if he had a tail you bet it’d be wagging a mile a minute. 

He looks at your soft curves, your bashful, oh-so-cute-eyes, and the rosiness of your adorable cheeks with so much love. Because he loves you. And he really REALLY means it. And wants to show you how he really feels tonight. He was so happy that you’d agreed to go all the way with him. 

When he undresses and leans over your body, hands squeezing your hips and inner thigh, you feel him trembling with anticipation. You giggle at the sight, and he swears your voice is like an angel from above singing holy scripture into his ears. 

You unclasp your bra, throwing it to the side of the room. He imagines smothering his face between your tits until you slowly peel your laced panties out from under you, revealing a perfectly pink pussy that has him practically drooling, all sense of self restraint bursting at the seams.

He’s all over you before you can even say a word, face between your legs, boyish hands keeping a vice like grip on your thighs to keep you open as he laps and laps away until he’s satisfied. Which in the moment, he thinks he’ll never be with how good you taste. His drool gets everywhere, coating your already wet cunt with his own juices. He apologizes for the mess and eagerly goes to clean it up with his tongue, sucking on your mound like a dog gobbling over a chew toy. 

Did he already say your voice sounds like an angel? Because your moans are so immaculate he can just listen to you say his name and ONLY his name all damn day. Just you and him. Together forever and ever and ever and ever —

The thought of spending eternity with you puts him over the edge, and he practically whines for you to let him put his cock inside. 

“Please, baby? I promise I’ll make you feel good. I promise! I wanna feel you so bad. I can’t take it anymore.”

You find his begging cute, but would be a cruel woman to tell him no when he’s staring at you with such puppy-love, lust ridden eyes. When you say yes, he’s over the moon, already covering your body with sloppy kisses and thank yous, muttering promises of how he’ll make you feel oh so full, oh so good, and that he’ll take care of you forever. 

He knows you’re not a virgin but he doesn’t care. He would have loved to be your first but that doesn’t matter now, the only thing that matters is making you his right this moment and making it to where you’ll never want another man ever again, just him. 

When his cock plunges into you he moans just as loud as you, if not more. You feel his heart pounding like crazy and reach to kiss him, sending him into a frenzy of ‘I love you’s and ‘Mine, mine, MINE’. He latches onto your tits like they’re a lifeline, feeling so high with adrenaline that he almost zones out and ignores your moans. Uh-oh, can’t do that! He wants to hear every noise you’ll make for him tonight. 

He’s fucking you so fast and so good you can barely think straight, and your fucked out expression just sends him over the moon. He squeals at your adorable face and holds you tighter, biting into your neck and laughing when you gasp at his actions. He hasn’t bothered counting how many times you’ve come. He just knows it’s been more than three. 

You ask him to take you from behind, doggystyle, and he happily obliges. He fucks you deep, slamming into you as hard as he can, gripping your ass and giving one cheek a nice smack. With a pull of your hair, he’s got you on both knees pressed flush against his body. He gives you another hickey on your neck, but not before another bite. 

“Oh you’re doing so good for me baby. Just like that! Yeah. Go ahead and cum for me.” He encourages. 

Boy, does he want to come inside you so bad, make you his and mark you, but he knows how you feel about that and opts to come outside instead, all over your perfect ass. 

When he finishes, he flops into bed next to you and holds you tight, looking at you with concerned but hopeful eyes. 

“How was that?? Was it good? You won’t leave me know will you? I know I liked it, but did you? We can go another round if you want. I wanna make you—“

You hush him with a reassuring kiss on the lips. 

[realspacejunk]

Character sheet for Osen, a character who is part of the core group together with Lito, Raél and Enneke. He is a sheltered individual, spending most of his time as a scribe, writing and reading scripture, mostly those regarding Xerneas, who he reveres the most. On the rare occasion when his teacher takes him with her outside the monastery, He is overly cautious and skittish, and he greatly longs to return home. Of course, this does not mean he does his work halfheartedly. Osen always tries his best to fulfil his duties and meet the requests of his superiors. But this strong commitment to his tasks will lead him on an adventure that gets him farther away from his monastery than he could ever imagine.

[somnambuletta]

tithes of flesh (mdni 🔞)

(implications of consentual non-con, and previous non-con, degradation, power-play, fingering.)

jack does not kill needlessly. that is what you tell yourself, in the quiet spaces between wakefulness and sleep, in the moments where his presence looms beside you, dark and still like something not quite human.

his hands, when they touch you, do not bruise like how they once did. no, not now. now, they map the ridges of your collarbone with a reverence you do not understand. now, they linger at the hollow of your throat, fingers brushing against the sliver of a beat underneath, feeling- not for the purpose of harm, but for certainty.

"you are afraid", jack tells you- his words factual, and almost amused. he tilts his head, faceless, eyeless, yet he still sees you all the same.

you shake your head. "i'm not."

his hands slide lower, pressing at the dip of your waist, tightening just enough to make you draw a breath. not enough to hurt. never enough to hurt. not anymore.

"liar." his voice has become a thing without sharp edges, smooth and indulgent, as if he enjoys peeling the truth from you like skin from a fruit. he likes that you still tremble, that your body still remembers the things that he has done- the ways he has made you beg- once for mercy, and now for something far worse.

"you told me once," he muses, his hands curling around the small of your back, "that you believed in god."

you swallow, and he hums, as if he can hear the answer in the silence that follows.

"i did", you breathe, and it is the first true thing you have said in days.

"and now?"

you do not answer. jack does not need you to.

his head dips, slow, deliberate. his mouth drags over the curve of your shoulder, breath hot against the bare skin, a mockery of something holy.

"it's cruel," he murmurs, "what they do to the lamb, isn't it?" his lips press comfortably against your pulse, the words a stain against your skin that he washes out with a kiss. "to call it blessed, even as they slit its throat."

his words pout into your ears like venom, slipping down the ridges of your spine, curling around something deeper than fear. he is too close, his breath rolling over the damp flesh of your jugular, the heat of him pressed firm against your back, his hands searching with an hedonistic slowness.

but there is no mercy in his touch- only possession, only the weight of his aver settling into the fatty cavities of your bones.

jack exhales, lips painting the shell of your ear. "and yet", he hums, voice slick like oiled leather, "you let me touch you, still."

one of his hands slides downward, slow, deliberate, tracing the curve of your hip. his grip tightens, just enough to remind you of what he is, what he has done, what he could still do, if he wished.

"you don't fight anymore." his tongue flicks over the pulse at your throat, teeth nipping, not quite bothering to break the skin- but clenching enough to feel it later. "you don't cry." his other hand moves, trailing up your ribs, spreading his fingers over his stomach. holding you still. holding you open.

"you just.. take it."

the heat pools low in your belly, shame curling with it like a serpent. because he's right- you don't fight. you haven't in a long time. his hands are carved into your flesh like scripture, his voice tattooed in the recesses of your mind where prayers and gospel no longer reach.

jack chuckles, the sound vibrating against your throat. "does that make you a disciple, then?" his fingers flex, his body shifting against yours, making you feel just how much he enjoys this too.

you try and twist away, but he tuts, tightening his grip.

"no, no- don't run now. not when you were so eager just a moment ago." his hand dips, teasing, tracing, mocking the way your body responds to him despite it all.

your breath hitches. he presses a kiss to the side of your neck again, deceptively soft, almost tender. and then- his lips part, his teeth grazing over the place he's marked again and again.

"sweet little lamb," he murmurs voice dripping with amusement. "so desperate to pretend you're still innocent."

shame burns in your chest, between your thighs- and jack feels it, drinks it down like sacrament.

"poor thing", he purrs, fingers curling into you, drawing a sound from your lips that you do not mean to make. "do you think the lambs understand, before the knife comes down? do you think they know they are being led to slaughter, or do they just stand there, dumb and docile, letting themselves be taken?"

you shudder, gasping as his pace shifts, pleasure curling, building-

"ah-ah", he coos, hand stilling, pulling back just before the crest, leaving you trembling, ruined, aching. "not yet."

your head falls forward, frustration burning hot in your stomach. he presses his lips to your temple, cruel mimicry of affection.

"what's wrong?", he teases. "did you want to be blessed?"

you hate him. you hate him so much, and yet, you arch into his touch anyway. as you had- as you always would since the first day you succumbed, and offered yourself to something other than god.

his fingers return, slow rubs for no reason other than to taunt. your hips jerk towards them, betraying you, offering yourself despite everything.

jack hums, like he expected nothing less.

"i think you have been led astray", he says, mockingly thoughtful. his hand hovers just before you, free palm cupping your jaw, and turning your head towards him. his thumb presses to your lips. "maybe i should make you repent."

your breath is shaky. his nail digs into the crevice you'd bit into your own flesh.

"say it", he commands, voice honey-thick with satisfaction.

you shake your head, refusing- because you know what he wants. you know what he's trying to do.

but jack has made you weak. jack has made you his.

his grip strengthens at your chin, forcing you to still. "say it", he repeats.

you bite your lip, breath shallow.

"say it, little lamb."

your resolve breaks. you close your eyes, heat crawling up your spine, and in the smallest, most humiliated whisper, you give him what he wants.

"..please."

jack moans, lips curving into something dark, triumphant, and unbearably pleased.

"good girl."

[memoiresofaneternaldreamer]

Sanctus

Demon! Choi San x Novice! F. Reader.

Themes: Smut | PWP | Religious AU | Slight Angst ? | Incorrect depiction of the Church

Smut Warnings: Explicit sexual acts - Dom! San - Oral (M.Receiving) - Hair pulling - Throat fucking - Masturbation - Depictions of sex - Deepthroat - Sub!Reader - Slight praising

Word Count: 3.5K

Playlist: ‘Under Your Skin’ - Aesthetic Perfection

“Dead silence. Black space. I've been patient for too long. I just can't wait to get under your skin."

Part of the 'ATEEZ as Dark Tropes' series:

Seonghwa - Hongjoong

This story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors do not interact.

The candlelight flickers against the stone walls of the monastery, casting elongated shadows across the wooden pews. You exhale softly, fingers smoothing over the worn pages of your Bible as you shift in your seat. The air is thick with incense, heavy with the weight of silence, of solitude—your only companions for the past few years.

You have chosen this life, surrendered yourself to God after a past you never speak of. Here, within these sacred walls, you are safe. Your days are measured in prayers, your nights in whispered confessions to the heavens. And soon, soon, you will take your final vows.

But then he arrives.

The new priest.

You first see him in the courtyard, sunlight kissing the edges of his dark hair as he stands by the fountain, speaking with the Abbess. His cassock fits him too well, cinched at the waist, the fabric flowing down his body like water. You catch a glimpse of his face—sharp yet warm, eyes dark with quiet curiosity, lips curved into the gentlest of smiles.

And when his gaze meets yours, you feel it in the pit of your stomach.

It is not the look of a man passing by a fellow servant of God. It is something else. Something dangerous.

You swallow hard and quickly bow your head, gripping the hem of your veil as if it will protect you.

You are being tested.

“Sister,” his voice is smooth, each syllable deliberate as he settles across from you in the study hall. “I see you favour the Gospel of John.”

You keep your eyes on the scripture before you, forcing yourself to focus on the words rather than the way his presence fills the small space between you.

“Yes, Father. His words remind me to love without fear.”

“A beautiful lesson. But love, true love, often carries fear, does it not?”

Your fingers tighten around the pages. “Not when it is given fully to God.”

San hums, his head tilting slightly. “And yet, even Christ Himself wept in the garden, afraid of what love would cost Him.”

You hesitate. He is right. You have read the passage a hundred times. But you don’t like how the words sound coming from his mouth, as if they hold a deeper meaning.

As if he sees something inside you that you wish to keep buried. As if he knows of your wicked past.

Weeks pass.

You try to avoid him. You fail.

San is everywhere—leading prayers, guiding studies, offering words of comfort to those who seek him. And despite your resolve, you cannot help but admire him.

He is kind. Thoughtful. He listens, truly listens, in a way few men ever have. And worse than that, he notices you.

Your silence. Your hesitations.

The way your breath catches when his hand lingers near yours on the study table.

The way your shoulders tense when he murmurs your name.

One evening, as you pass through the narrow corridor of the abbey, he steps aside to let you pass. But the space is tight, and when you move, his palm brushes against the small of your back—just barely, just for a second.

But it burns.

You feel it long after he is gone, as if his touch has been seared into your skin.

That night, you dream.

San’s lips against your throat. His hands gripping your waist. His voice, whispering your name like a prayer.

You wake with a start, heart pounding, heat coiling between your legs. Shame washes over you so quickly that you barely remember to breathe.

This is wrong. So wrong.

With trembling hands, you push the covers away and slip out of your bed, the chill of the monastery’s stone floor grounding you. You need to pray.

You need absolution.

The chapel is empty, dimly lit by the golden glow of the candles near the altar. You sink to your knees, pressing your forehead against your clasped hands.

Your voice is barely a whisper.

“Forgive me, Father. I have sinned in thought. I do not wish for this temptation, yet it lingers. Help me resist. Help me stay on the path meant for me.”

You cross yourself, whispering the familiar words:

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

You do not hear the quiet shuffle of feet beyond the columns.

You do not see the figure standing in the shadows, hidden beyond the flickering candlelight. You do not feel the Evil watching you.

For weeks, the dreams return, each one more explicit than the last.

San’s hands, firm yet reverent, tracing over your bare breasts. His lips at your throat, then lower, lower—his voice thick with sin. The weight of his hips pressing yours into the mattress, claiming you in ways no man ever should.

You wake each night drenched in sweat, thighs clenched together, your cunt aching with a hunger you are not supposed to have.

So, you pray. You bury yourself in scripture. You fast. But nothing helps.

Because San is still there. Always there. And if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was pushing you toward the edge on purpose.

During Bible study, his voice lingers on certain passages, the words rolling off his tongue with slow deliberation.

“My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts…”

You shift uncomfortably, fingers clenching at the hem of your sleeves, but San doesn’t stop.

“Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue…”

You glance at him sharply.

He is watching you. Not the page. You. Your skin prickles, but you tell yourself it’s nothing. A coincidence. It must be.

Except coincidences do not account for the way his fingers brush yours when he hands you a book, the way his hand ghosts over your lower back as he moves past you in the corridor.

Or the way he leans in too close when he prays beside you, his breath tickling the shell of your ear.

You tell yourself you are imagining things. That you are being tested, and you must not fail.

But deep down, you know the truth. You are not imagining it.

That night, the dream is worse than ever.

You are naked beneath him, the warmth of his body caging you in. His hands pin yours above your head, his voice dark, low.

“Do you want me, Sister?”

You try to say no. You try to be good.

But then he moves—hips rolling into yours, his mouth trailing open-mouthed kisses down the column of your throat—and all that leaves your lips is a desperate, broken moan.

“Say it.”

Your body betrays you, arching up into him. “Yes, Father.”

You wake with a strangled gasp. Your nightgown is damp with sweat, your pulse frantic as if you had truly just been beneath him. Your body throbs, your core pulsing with a need that cannot be ignored.

You need air.

The halls of the monastery are empty at this hour, cloaked in shadows and silence. Your feet move without direction, your mind still dazed, lost between reality and the lingering ghost of your dream.

You do not know where you are going until you are there.

Outside his chamber.

His door is slightly ajar, the glow of candlelight spilling into the corridor.

You should leave. Right now. But you don’t.

Something—something—pulls you into the darkness and presses you against the stone wall just outside his room. You peer through the narrow gap between the door and the frame.

And then you see him.

San stands near the small wooden basin, his back to you. A towel sits low on his hips, barely clinging to his body as droplets of water glide down the hard ridges of his back. His dark hair is damp, sticking to the nape of his neck.

Your breath catches. You should not be looking. But you are.

Your gaze rakes over him, devouring every inch of his exposed skin. The broad expanse of his shoulders, the smooth planes of his back, the way his muscles shift and flex with every movement. The deep V of his abdomen leads your gaze downward, down to where the towel barely conceals him.

And that is when you see it.

The thick outline of his length, straining against the fabric.

Your thighs press together. A whimper escapes your throat before you can stop it, a sound so quiet, so small—yet so damning. You bite down hard on your lip, pulse roaring in your ears.

He doesn’t turn. He doesn’t move.

With that realisation, as your body trembles and your core clenches with unbearable heat, you do something truly unforgivable.

Your fingers slip beneath your nightgown.

Soft, tentative at first, brushing over your slick folds. The moment you feel how wet you are, you exhale sharply, your other hand clamping over your mouth to stifle any more sounds.

But you do not stop. You can’t.

You circle slow, teasing circles over your clit, your body already wound tight from weeks of torment. Your eyes never leave him—his body, his strength, the sheer wrongness of your actions—yet you do not care.

Because it feels good. So fucking good.

Heat coils low in your stomach, an unbearable ache building, building—

And then, just as you teeter on the edge, ready to fall into the abyss, San exhales as he cracks his neck. A deep, slow breath, as if he, too, is feeling something.

And in that moment, you wonder—

Does he know? Does he feel your eyes on him? Does he feel the weight of your sin, the way you are crumbling for him?

You are so close, so terribly close—

And yet, instead of release, guilt slams into you.

You rip your hand away from your sopping cunt, stumbling back against a wall, heart racing in horror at what you have just done.

With no other options left, you flee.

Morning comes, but sleep does not.

You stare at the ceiling of your chamber, the weight of your own betrayal pressing against your ribs. No amount of prayer, no scripture, no discipline can erase what you did last night.

You touched yourself.

You touched yourself while watching him.

The shame is unbearable, clinging to your skin like filth. You have fought temptation for weeks, but last night—last night, you succumbed. And the worst part? You want to do it again.

You press your palms against your face, willing yourself to think, to breathe. There is no escaping this, not unless you confront it. If you are ever to take your vows, you must face this temptation head-on.

You must confess. To him.

San is in the courtyard, speaking in low tones with the Abbess when you approach. He notices you immediately, his dark eyes flicking to yours, curiosity sparking in their depths as he steps away to join you.

"Sister," he greets, voice smooth and slow. "How can I be of service?"

Your fingers clench at the sleeves of your habit. "I need a confession, Father."

His brows raise slightly, not in surprise but in intrigue.

"A confession?" He studies you, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. "You wish for me to perform it?"

You nod.

He hums, lips parting as if he wants to say something more, but then he merely inclines his head. "Very well. Tonight."

Your breath catches. You nod quickly and turn to leave before you lose your nerve, but you feel his gaze on your back as you walk away. You do not look back.

The halls are unusually empty as you make your way toward the chapel that evening. It is late, past the evening prayers, and the monastery is silent save for the sound of your own footsteps echoing against the stone.

Your heart pounds, though you do not know if it is from fear or anticipation.

The confessional stands at the far end of the chapel, a wooden partition dividing it into two small spaces. A flickering candle glows from inside one of them. San is already there.

You take a steadying breath and step inside the opposite partition, kneeling on the worn cushion. The wooden screen obscures most of him, but you can still see his silhouette, the faint glint of his eyes through the latticework.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

San hums softly, his voice like velvet in the dim light. "The Lord is always ready to forgive, Sister. What sins do you seek absolution for?"

You hesitate. The words sit on your tongue, heavy, shameful. But you cannot back down now. "I have been…tempted," you start carefully. "My thoughts have been impure. I have been plagued by…desires that I should not have."

There is a pause before San speaks again. "Desires?" You swallow. "Yes, Father."

"Tell me, Sister… what kind of desires?"

Your hands tighten into fists in your lap. "They come to me at night. I—I dream of things I should not. Things that make me unworthy of my vows."

Silence. Then, "What things?" You shake your head, breath hitching. "I cannot say."

"You must." His voice is lower now, quieter, yet firm. "Only by speaking of your sins can you be absolved of them."

Your eyes squeeze shut. "I…" You hesitate, shame rising in your throat like bile. "I dream of flesh, of touch… of sin."

"And these dreams… they are about someone specific, are they not?"

You freeze. How does he—?

"Who are they about, Sister?"

You stare at the partition, your breath coming faster now. The chapel suddenly feels too warm, the air too thick. You should lie. You should make something up. But you can't. Because he knows.

You whisper it, so softly you almost do not hear yourself. "You."

The moment the word leaves your lips, your entire body goes taut.

You brace yourself for his reaction, pulse hammering in your throat, but nothing comes.

Your fingers tremble where they rest against your lap. "Father?"

Still nothing.

The moment stretches unbearably long, the quiet pressing down on you like a weight. You part your lips to call his name again—

And then the curtain to your confessional rips open.

You barely have time to react before a figure steps closer, the candlelight casting a tall, broad silhouette over you.

San.

You scramble on your knees in shock, nearly losing your balance as the space suddenly shrinks around you. He is close—too close, his body blocking the only exit, trapping you inside with him.

The smirk he sends your way is devastating.

"Well," he murmurs, voice thick with something unreadable. "That is quite the confession, Sister."

The air between you is thick with something unspoken, something far more dangerous than mere temptation.

San crowds into your space even more, his presence suffocating. You press back against the wooden wall of the confessional, but there is nowhere to go.

He bends down, his lips so close to yours that his breath fans against your skin, warm and steady. His dark eyes pierce through you, pinning you in place like prey caught in the sights of a predator.

You want to speak—to rebuke him, to ask him what he is doing, to demand why—but before you can, his hand moves.

Fingers wrap around your throat, firm and unyielding, squeezing just enough to make your breath stutter.

Your lips part in a gasp, and that is all the invitation he needs.

His mouth crashes against yours, his lips hot and demanding, stealing the very breath from your lungs.

You try to resist. You try.

Your hands press weakly against his chest, but he does not budge. Instead, his grip tightens, his tongue parting your lips as he takes what he wants. And you—God help you—let him.

Your body betrays you once more. The tension in your limbs melts away, and you sink into him, your hands fisting into the fabric of his cassock. The kiss is searing, claiming, the taste of him overwhelming your senses.

You are still kneeling before him, and when you try to pull him down to your height, he suddenly pulls away.

His hand remains around your throat, fingers flexing slightly as he looks down at you. And then he smirks.

"Tell me, Sister," his voice is smooth, deep, utterly sinful, "does this position remind you of one of your dreams?"

A wave of heat rushes through you. Your lips part, but no words come out.

San tilts his head, squeezing your throat just enough to make you gasp. "Well?"

Your breath is ragged as you meekly nod. San hums in approval, his thumb brushing over your pulse. "And in these dreams," he muses, "what exactly were you doing in this position?"

You swallow thickly, the pressure of his hold forcing you to stutter over your words. "I… I was…"

"Say it," he coaxes, the corners of his lips twitching in amusement.

Your face burns with humiliation, but as you force the words out, you see something darken in his gaze. Something primal.

And beneath the heavy folds of his cassock, something else stirs.

His cock bulges in arousal.

Your own need coils in response, emboldened by the way his body reacts to your every word. A boldness overtakes you.

Your hands move before you can think, pressing against the front of his robes, feeling the hardness beneath your palm.

San inhales sharply, his smirk widening.

"A demonstration," you whisper, your voice barely more than a breath against his stomach, "would be preferable, would it not, Father?"

San chuckles lowly, pleased.

His fingers loosen from your throat, his hand resting atop your head instead. "Open it," he commands, nodding toward his belt.

Your fingers shake as they fumble with the leather, pulling it free, then moving to the buttons of his trousers. San watches you silently, his grip on your hair tightening slightly as he feels your hesitation.

"Go on," he murmurs, his voice holding a quiet authority. You do not hesitate further. The moment his cock is freed from his undergarments, your breath catches. He is thick and heavy, his head flushed with arousal.

And for the first time, you realise just how deep your sin truly runs.

Because you want this.

Without thinking, you lean forward, pressing a soft, tentative kiss to the head of his cock. San groans, his fingers tangling into your hair. "Good girl."

The praise sends a shudder down your spine, and you finally take him into your mouth.

At first, you move slowly, tentatively, your tongue circling his tip, your lips wrapping around him with cautious reverence.

San groans again, a sound that sends heat pooling between your legs.

"That's it," he murmurs, his grip in your hair firm but patient. He guides your rhythm, his hips shifting slightly as you find a pace, your tongue gliding along his length.

The pleasure in his voice is intoxicating. "Take more."

You obey, hollowing your cheeks as you move deeper, your hands gripping his thighs to steady yourself.

San exhales sharply, his fingers tightening against your scalp. His hips twitch, and before you can react, he pushes your head down, forcing you to take him to the base.

Your nose presses against the coarse hair at his pelvis, and you gag around him, choking slightly at the sudden intrusion.

San groans, a dark, pleased sound, and laughs. "So good for me," he whispers, his voice thick with approval. "You were made for this, weren't you?"

You pull back, gasping for air, your lips slick with saliva and arousal, drool dripping out. But before you can catch your breath, his hand in your hair tightens again, guiding you back.

Your eyes meet his. And you do not resist.

His hips thrust forward, his grip steadying you as he uses your mouth for his pleasure, his groans growing more ragged with every movement. You moan around him, your own pleasure surging, your thighs pressing together in desperate need of friction.

"Fuck," he breathes, his composure slipping.

Tears well in your eyes as he drives deeper with each trust, but you take it, lost in the sheer wrongness of it all. God, you love it.

You moan again, sending vibrations through his cock, and San curses under his breath. His pace stutters, his fingers flexing in your hair.

"I'm close," he warns, his voice low, rough.

You brace yourself, swallowing around him, your eyes fluttering shut as his release spills onto your tongue. The taste of his seed fills your mouth, warm, thick, and you swallow it as best as you can.

Your breathing slows as his movements still, your body trembling from exertion and something else—something much, much darker.

You finally open your eyes.

And what you see makes your blood run cold.

San looks down at you, his expression unreadable, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

But his eyes—His eyes are no longer dark brown. They glow.

A deep, unnatural ruby red.

A slow, wicked smirk spreads across his lips as he tilts his head, his thumb brushing idly against your cheek.

And then, in a voice smooth as silk, he speaks in Latin:

"Qui cum ludo diabolum ludunt, paulatim ad gladium eius pervenient."

Those who play with the Devil will, little by little, come to his sword.

A/N: Soooo... This happened. After watching Nicholas Alexander Chavez's performance in Grotesquerie, I knew I had to write something like it. And who better than Sannie? Hope y'all enjoyed this depraved brain rot of mine. 💟

Send me your hard/soft thoughts - feedback/fangirling is always welcome.

[Moodboard created by me. Credits to the owners of these pictures, I do not own any of them. All pictures are exclusively found on Pinterest.]

[pretend-i-don-t-exist]

ok back to my sy as yang yixuan au bc the brainrot refuses to leave

Luo Binghe's shixiong and shijie do not like him. This is a fact.

Qing Jing Peak and Bai Zhan Peak have long-standing animosity with each other. This is also a fact.

Those two facts are the root cause of why Luo Binghe is desperately running away, ducking and weaving through the bamboo as four Bai Zhan disciples hunt him down during their raid.

He yelps when he trips over a portruding stone, landing harshly on his elbows. He's already scrambling away when one of the disciples grabs his arm, and punches him on the cheek.

Luo Binghe, with all the force he can muster, pushes him away and resumes running. It doesn't take long before he's cornered to a dead end, and he backs away, trying to find an exit.

He does not need to plan his escape any further when a boy– dressed in Bai Zhan blues and blacks, lands down silently in front of the disciples, and proceeds to solidly beat each and every one of them up.

He has them all giving up in just a few minutes.

"Ah, seriously..." this new boy— older than Luo Binghe, stronger and smarter, too— sighs, placing his hands on his hips. "None of you really listen, don't you?"

With one swift, practiced motion, he swings the four rambunctious disciples over his shoulder, looking unamused. "All of you are to present at the Hall of Reflection and copy down the scriptures fifty times, and I will personally oversee your training for the next two months," the boy says, authority dripping off of every inch of his body. "Seriously, you're lucky you haven't injured anyone or else you'll be facing a worse punish–"

The boy's eyes catch Luo Binghe's. Luo Binghe shrinks away, all too aware of the livid bruise on his cheek and the blood from his nose.

There is silence. Then there is a thud, and all the Bai Zhan disciples who came for the raid groan in unison. There are footsteps, and the boy is suddenly kneeling in front of him, his hands inexplicably tender and gentle.

The boy hisses at the sight of the bruise. "I apologize for my shidi and shimei," he says, soft. His hands are marred with callouses, strong and firm and powerful, but they are gentle when they touch Luo Binghe. "They are rowdy and a little feral after being left uncontrolled for too long. May I ask for shixiong's understanding?"

Shixiong? Luo Binghe nods, a little wide-eyed. The boy softens, perceptibly, and begins threading qi to his meridians. "This is to quicken your body's natural healing," he explains. "You should get it looked better, however– I can accompany you to Qian Cao Pe–"

"No!" Luo Binghe blurts out, cringing away. Da-shixiong's friends warned him against going to Qian Cao. He doesn't want to know what they'd do if he does go there.

A pause. "Very well." The boy stops his qi, finding the bruise to be sufficiently healed. He pulls out medicine from his sleeve, just like how his Shizun does. "This is for bruises, and this one for small cuts. All topical– externally applied on skin, not ingested. No, please don't worry, this is the least I can do."

Luo Binghe accepts the medicine under the boy's insistence. He cannot say anything, tongue heavy in his mouth, not to even ask for the boy's name or why he is helping him.

The boy rises to his feet. "Well," he says, hesitantly laying a hand on Luo Binghe's hair. Either he doesn't seem to notice the flinch or he ignores it, but that doesn't matter because the boy is– patting his head. Gently and softly, like he has not the power to defeat all of the disciples here in this clearing on Qing Jing Peak.

"We'll have to get going now," the boy says. "Don't worry, they will be reflecting on their actions and will be sincerely apologizing for them. Take care, shixiong."

With two disciples over his shoulder and two under his arm, the boy flies away on his spiritual sword. Luo Binghe clutches the medicine in his hands tighter, feeling the warmth of the boy's gentle hands lingering on his own, and tries to carve every line of the boy's face into his memory.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: Names for the Devil

The word devil comes from the Greek diábolos, which literally means “slanderer.” The Spanish diablo and the adjectival diabolical also come from this word.

Satan

Perhaps the most well-known name for the Devil is Satan.

This name appears repeatedly in the Bible, such as in Luke 22:3 when the Devil is blamed for Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus Christ: Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.

The name Satan is recorded in English before the year 900.

The English word comes through the Greek Satán from the Hebrew word śātān meaning “adversary.”

Ash-Shaytān (Shaitan)

The Devil appears in Muslim scripture as well.

Comes from the Arabic al-Shaytān and is etymologically connected to the English Satan. The “ash” or “al” indicates that one is talking about the Devil (with a capital D) as opposed to a devil or demon.

The name Ash-Shaytān has several different variants in Arabic, including Shaytan, Shaitan, and Sheitan.

Iblis

Often used to tell the story of the origin of the Devil.

According to the Qur’an, God commanded all the spirits to bow before Adam, but a spirit named Iblis refused.

For this blasphemous act, Iblis was cast down from Heaven.

Iblis is actually a source of debate among Islamic scholars and thinkers. Some consider Iblis to be a fallen angel or archangel. Others count him as a jinn (a spirit that is lower in rank than an angel), usually the jinn that fathered all of the others.

The name Iblis comes through Arabic from the Greek diábolos, that same word that is also the origin of the word devil.

Lucifer

Often a source of debate among Biblical scholars.

In the Bible, the story of a fallen angel is mentioned in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.

According to the Bible, this angel became so vain and proud that he thought himself above God. As punishment for his wickedness, the angel was cast out of Heaven and into the dark pit of the Earth so that he would be even lower than humanity. In translations of the Bible, such as the King James Version, this angel’s name is said to be Lucifer.

The Bible does not say that this angel Lucifer is the same being as Satan. That connection was popularized by poet John Milton in his famous epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), which tells the story of the fallen angel Lucifer becoming Satan after a failed rebellion against God during a War in Heaven.

Paradise Lost is so popular that its depiction of Satan still heavily influences modern depictions of the Devil and the lore many people associate with him.

The name Lucifer comes from Latin and means “morning star” or can be literally translated as “light bringing.”

In classic mythology, Lucifer was the name of the planet Venus, which was personified as a man holding a torch.

Prince of Darkness

This name for the Devil appeared in Paradise Lost, as well as William Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606).

In the Bible, God is often associated with light, while the Devil, the opposing force, is often associated with darkness.

The Devil has turned away from God’s light and embraced the darkness of sin.

Prince of Darkness, then, accurately describes the Devil’s role as the ruler of the darkest darkness that is the pits of hell.

A few other names for the Devil, such as the Lord of Darkness or the Dark Lord, similarly give the Devil a diabolical-sounding title.

The Serpent

Largely based on Genesis 3, wherein Eve is tempted by a talking snake to eat the forbidden fruit. Although the Bible doesn’t explicitly say so, popular biblical interpretation is that this serpent was actually the Devil.

This belief that the lying snake was the Devil was the reason behind his many other duplicitous names, such as the Deceiver, the Tempter, or the Father of Lies.

The Devil seems to enjoy taking the form of nefarious lizards, as he is said to take the form of a gigantic dragon in the Book of Revelation. This explains another of his reptilian nicknames, the Dragon.

Old Nick

An informal nickname for the Devil that has been used since the 1600s.

Although there are many theories where this name came from, nobody can say for certain. This one is surprising given that Old Saint Nick (or Nicholas) is a commonly used nickname for Santa Claus, who is about as far away from the Devil as you can get.

Interestingly, though, there is a bit of a connection between these two in the form of Krampus, a terrifying goat-demon creature who, according to European legend, emerges during Christmastime to beat naughty children or bring them to hell.

The Devil’s age inspired a few other nicknames, such as Old Scratch and Old Harry, which also focus on his long lifespan.

Belial

In the Bible, the name Belial is used to directly refer to the Devil in 2 Corinthians when it is used to contrast the Devil as being the evil to Jesus’s good.

Used throughout the Old Testament to describe wicked or sinful people as being men, children, and sons/daughters of Belial, meaning that they have turned away from God and serve the Devil.

Comes from the Hebrew bəliyyaʿal and is equivalent to a combination of the words bəlī (without) and yaʿal (worth).

Used in the Bible to say that a person embodies wickedness and is therefore “worthless” in the sense that they only take from others by performing evil deeds.

Beelzebub

Used to refer to the Devil himself or another devil that serves under him.

Appears in the New Testament in the Gospels of Luke, Matthew, and Mark.

According to the Bible, some onlookers accused Jesus of having the power to exorcise demons because he serves Beelzebub, who is said to be “the chief of devils.” Jesus assures the people that his power comes from God and not Satan.

Comes from the Hebrew bá`al zebūb, which literally translates to “lord of flies.”

In popular culture, Beelzebub is often depicted as a horrifying fly demon when he is considered to be a separate being from the Devil.

Apollyon

Mentioned in Revelation 9:11 and is used to refer to a king of demons.

The Bible names Apollyon as “the angel of the bottomless pit” and states the name Apollyon is the Greek name for the being known in Hebrew as Abaddon.

Common interpretation of this passage says that Apollyon is Satan or a powerful demon that serves him.

As the Bible hints at, the name Apollyon comes from the Greek apollýōn, which is a participle of the verb apollýnai meaning “to destroy.”

The name Abaddon comes from the Hebrew ăbhaddōnōn, which means “destruction.”

Whoever Apollyon/Abaddon is, they are also often referred to as the Destroyer.

Mammon

Appears in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew when recounting one of Jesus’s sermons. Jesus uses this term to refer to the wicked greed and desire for wealth. He states that it is impossible to serve both God and mammon.

As time went on, writers would interpret this passage to mean that Jesus was talking about a demonic entity named Mammon that embodied wealth and obsessive greed.

Comes from the Aramaic māmōnā, which means “riches” or “wealth.”

Legion

The name of a demon or a group of demons that Jesus encounters in the Gospels of Luke and Mark. Jesus asks a demon who is possessing a man their name and receives the famous answer of “My name is Legion: for we are many.”

The name Legion comes from the Latin legiōn, which refers to a body of soldiers.

Ancient Rome was famous for its legions (of soldiers) that made it a dominant military power.

Azazel

Used in translations of the scapegoat ritual as mentioned in Leviticus 16.

According to the account of the ritual, a goat would be offered to God and a second goat bearing the sins of the people would be offered to Azazel.

This being known as Azazel is also referred to as “the scapegoat.”

Interpretations of this passage would suggest that Azazel was some kind of demonic entity, possibly even the Devil himself.

Mephistopheles

Comes from the German legends of Faust.

In the legends, Faust is bored with life and pleads to the Devil to give him knowledge and pleasure. Happy to oblige, a demon named Mephistopheles appears before Faust. Depending on the story, this Mephistopheles is either the Devil himself or a devil who works for him.

Either way, Faust makes a deal with the Devil and gets the sinful pleasure he wants in exchange for his soul and an eternity in hell.

The Antichrist

Only briefly mentioned in the Bible in First and Second Epistles of John as some kind of being that is acting in opposition to Jesus.

However, the role of the Antichrist would be expanded on in other Biblical texts and by many Christian writers.

In most versions, the Antichrist is imagined as an unholy opposite to Jesus Christ; the Antichrist is a being that will bring sin and damnation to mankind.

It is said that the arrival of the Antichrist will signal the end of the world.

In modern depictions, the Antichrist is frequently imagined as the son of Satan, mirroring how Jesus is the son of God.

More Devils and Demons

While Satan is the Devil, he doesn’t rule alone in his fiery pit of hell.

He has many devils that work under him, gleefully spreading evil and corrupting humanity. More words used to describe these infernal denizens of hell:

devil

demon

fiend

imp

succubus

incubus

jinn

The Devil is often said to have many lesser demons that help him rule over hell. The names of these were catalogued in the Dictionnaire Infernal (1818).

Some interesting names include Belphegor, Lamia, Astaroth, and Garuda.

Source ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ References for Poets ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[rxzennia]

rare critters

– tales of the voracity pathstrider

✎𓂃 a healthy dose of curiosity (ft. dr ratio) yall if i have to write another report i think i might kms sorry im 3 days late lol i was busy making concept art 

when dr ratio somehow acquired a few rare critters from herta space station, he thought of one person:

aventurine.

if he’s so bad at looking after himself, maybe he could take care of something else instead. and these cat cakes are pretty tame and adorable… seems just right for him.

ratio sent a text to let aventurine know he’s coming to drop off some souvenirs

said souvenirs being these critters

ratio has one on top of his head and two in one arm as he rings the bell

it’s sometime in the afternoon, and you’re not around

(you’re attending a meeting on aventurine’s behalf so he can have a longer lunch break)

(you do that pretty often, actually. that’s why your boss can have entire afternoons or evenings to himself)

nothing would’ve prepared ratio for what he sees when aventurine opens the door

one, no, two? no, three?? faceless serpents slithering around his feet

and one really huge one around his neck???

their maws, aeons, their maws. as stunned as ratio is, he’s also scared shitless

they remind him of a certain aeon and he isn’t sure if he liked the implications

though, that aeon has long since disappeared…

the very moment the serpents sniffed something in the air, they’re all right up in ratio’s face

the trash cakes are definitely scared shitless

they’re quivering and whimpering

ratio is trying so hard to hide his unease

“since when did you have pets, gambler?”

“oh, they’re my assistant’s – don’t bite, please.”

and these dangerous, dangerous noodles listened???

they backed off obediently while still scenting the air again and again

at least they’re not one hair away from ratio anymore?

wait, more importantly…

“you’re living with your assistant?” ratio can’t help but ask. “and… they brought their pets over?”

technically, the slithery creatures around the house aren’t your pets, they’re literally parts of you, but does aventurine want to get into the details? not particularly.

“doctor, it’d be heartless of me to tell them to leave their pets,” aventurine chuckled, “it’s a long story. are these…?”

“i thought pets would do you some good. seems like your assistant has the same idea.” ratio passes the three cakes over to him. “here – from the space station.”

aventurine tells the especially thick leviathan on his neck to get off so he could hold the trash cakes

more like patting its body a few times until it got the signal and slid off of him

the cakes like him!

once he’s passed the sniff test, the cakes are all over him

they do remind him of someone, with those yellow eyes and grey… trash can(?) like body…

he holds them carefully, because unlike your creatures, he needs to hold onto these little guys

else they’d fall

invites ratio in while he’s at it, and he sits down to properly examine them

ratio watches aventurine for a moment, until your serpents catch his attention

oh, he’s so unnerved by them, but also…

he’s so curious! his scholarly senses are telling him to seize the opportunity!

are they really the same creatures as the ones depicted in the scriptures for oroboros?

how did aventurine get his hands on them? or rather, how did you get your hands on them?

and why are they so, so… docile, if they are really what he thinks they are?

what have you done!? how did you get them to be your pets?

his academic interest in you might have just skyrocketed

he engages in a staring contest with a creature with no eyes

somehow, somehow he just knows it’s a staring contest

he’s debating between approaching or not

they look like they would snap his neck before he could even react

“don’t try it, doctor,” aventurine warns, reading ratio’s actions from a mile away, “they’ll probably bite.”

“huh…” ratio makes a sound of pure wonder as he stands still, staring at the few noodles slithering over each other and scenting the air around him. “how did you tame them, then?”

“i didn’t.” aventurine shrugs as he plays with the new critters in his arms. “just sit tight, my assistant should be back soon.”

does that mean you’re the one deciding who gets to touch your serpents and who doesn't???

meanwhile aventurine has taken to the cakes from the space station

they’re so delicate and adorable, with their huge eyes and how stretchy they are

such a contrast to your huge serpents

your serpents are curious about them too, it seems

they keep trying to slither up aventurine’s legs

he has to keep pushing them down, all the while their maws opened and closed

trying to get a feel for the taste of these critters

not trying to outright eat them, just trying to get a taste

ratio is itching to just… grab one of your noodles

he can’t

how devastating

just then, the door opens with a click

“i’m home, aven.” you enter and practically throws your shoes off. 

the sudden need to retain some semblance of formality in your home feels foreign to you now, but you’ve sensed someone else’s presence. it can’t be helped, even if the name aven feels odd on your tongue.

weird, aventurine usually runs out the moment he hears you

when you made your way to the living room, you see him and… some random guy?

said random guy looks like he’s into greek mythology?

is he like zeus or something

no, more like male athena or something

“oh, welcome back!” aventurine perks up as he lifts one of the cakes and shows it to you like a proud parent. “look at these little guys!”

your eyes never quite look away from the stranger, but you also dazedly take the critter into your arms. “this is…”

you immediately catch ratio’s eye – the way you carry yourself, the way the ends of your scarf seem to move on their own, and the way the few serpents find their way up your neck without so much as trying to touch the cake in your hands (even though they’ve been trying to taste it when it was in aventurine’s arms).

“veritas ratio.” he stands up before aventurine could introduce him and offers you a handshake. “you might know me as dr ratio of the intelligentsia guild.”

you stare at him without much of a reaction

his hand stays outstretched as he watches you expectantly

after a few seconds, you give his hand a firm shake and introduce yourself

you do know him, actually, you’ve read a few of his works

you quite liked his takes on philosophy and natural theology

he’s very insightful for a mortal

“can i help you?” you ask, because you don’t think ratio would bother talking to you if he hadn't been curious about something.

“your pets are most fascinating,” he gets straight to the point, “may i examine them?”

???

your pets?

the serpents? 

you look to aventurine, who just turns away like he didn’t tell ratio those are your pets

you pinch the bridge of your nose and exhales exasperatedly

then again, perhaps calling them your pets is the best course of action right now

because the other option is spilling the beans about yourself

yeah

so… nice save, aventurine

you set down the critter in your arms on a nearby table and turn to face the doctor

“here.” you pick up one of your leviathans and guide it over to ratio. “they might do… things around you, but they won’t hurt you.”

ratio tries not to flinch when the heavy leviathan slither up his arm and coil around his neck loosely, but he winces and backs away slightly anyway. “how are you so certain?” he watches the creature with so much wonder as it scents him, then lifts its head so he can stare at it properly. or the other way around; so it can stare at him properly. who knows.

a healthy dose of cynicism is always good

it’s not like you don’t understand where he’s coming from

you shrug, because you really have no better answer without outing yourself

“i have them trained.” you say, but at this point you’re just pulling shit out of your ass

aventurine immediately covers his mouth to hide a snort

you shoot him a quick glare

you run a hand along its smooth body to show ratio that yes, he can touch them

its maw opens a little wider and drools a little onto the carpet

ratio carefully puts his hand on top of its head

it turns its head on contact and nudges against his hand

trying to scent the thing touching it (aka ratio’s hand)

but it doesn’t do anything other than what appears to be purely harmless scenting

could this possibly be the subject of his next paper?

“don’t think about it, doctor.” you cut him off the moment you see the telltale glint of academic interest in his eyes. 

“i must disagree; they are of leviathan descent, are they not?” ratio asks, now caressing the big noodle with both hands and handling it with less hesitation than before, “this is of utmost significance; they might shed some light on the mystery of oroboros the voracity.”

you narrow your eyes at ratio

he doesn’t even try to prod around the subject, he just hits you in the face with it

as expected of such an erudite scholar, but still

(aventurine is watching the interaction with much interest while he plays with the cats)

(it’s like he’s enjoying the show)

(the remaining free serpents of yours has coiled up by his feet and fallen asleep)

(since they’ve realized aventurine doesn’t want them near the cakes)

you don’t want to bring too much attention to yourself, or your serpents

you don’t want things about oroboros to spread, either

in fact, you’re quite thankful to the enigmata and the ipc for heavily censoring them 

“with all due respect, i refuse.” you do not allow any room for disagreement. “you are prepared to uncover the truth. is the rest of the cosmos ready?”

that’s not all of your argument, but the one you determine would be enough to keep ratio from conducting and publishing research about leviathans for now. oh, right – you’re not against ratio’s curiosity. you simply don’t want that curiosity to spread far and wide.

ratio frowns, not expecting such a swift rejection from you, but you do have a point. he’s a little blinded by his excitement.

your rejection sounds a little personal, if aventurine may say so himself

to ratio, it is very much just you being overprotective of your pets

as all pet owners do

to be fair, it’s hard to say. ratio is a sharp man

you stare at him, and he stares at you

the leviathan hanging on his neck tilts its head in confusion

if ratio is anything, he’s persistent

especially when it comes to knowledge

he opens his mouth to try to convince you again

you beat him to it and raise a hand to stop him from talking. “you can examine them for as long as you do not make publications.”

ratio is taken aback, his brows furrowing as you give him permission for further interaction with these descendants of ancient leviathans. this is your first meeting, so why –

in fact, aventurine is wondering the same thing

like, why are you getting along with the doctor so well when you’ve only met today

he’s not jealous or anything, he just has a huge question mark on your reactions

you’re usually very, very guarded against people who ask questions

especially about your scarf

but then ratio did see your serpents slithering around

perhaps you see no way of weaselling your way out of this?

anyway

if we’re being honest, ratio also has a huge question mark on your reactions

“i am a fan of your philosophical works,” you say, guiding your serpent back around you, “hence i am willing to satisfy your curiosity… provided you agree to my terms. think of it as an invitation.”

ratio takes a moment to mull over your words. to think that someone under the ipc has read multiple of his works, and has enjoyed them… is that why you are willing to compromise? but, well… you give him a feeling of a learned person. perhaps he will enjoy debating you.

“very well, that is good enough.” he nods, even if he still feels just a little bit disappointed, he’s anticipating a good back-and-forth with you already. “in that case…”

“i will let you know when i am free.” you sit down next to aventurine and let the critters on his lap crawl over to you and knead your thigh with their little paws. “and, doctor?”

it’s apparent to you that ratio has the same thought as you did when you decided to let your serpents drop their disguises at home. you glance towards aventurine next to you, then back at the doctor.

“thanks for the critters.”

[thefrontmanscockwarmer]

Ink Master

Player 001 x reader [SMUT]📸

Masterlist <- Comment on this post to be added to the tag list

Note: pretend you have tattoos, sick ones, whatever your heart desires. I’m heavily tattoos and wanna give love to my tattooed and wanting to be tattooed girlies. In this, i am describing a few of the tattoos I have, yes each one has a real meaning behind it. If so desired, I can explain the meaning behind each one.

You sat down with your friends eating dinner, laughing, and talking. The day seemed to have never happened, even Gi Hun and Young il were laughing so hard they were crying. You got a sudden heat flash. You ruled out the possibility of a cold as you had immediately. You stood to take your jacket off. Pulling the sleeves down one by one revealing tattoo filled arms. Young il looked you up and down before looking away quickly. A smile crept onto his face as butterflies erupted from his stomach.

“Wow, (y/n)” Dae ho exclaimed. “Your tattoos look so cool! I love that on your arm. Oh oh, and that steers head.”

“Thank you!” You beamed looking at the artwork that covered your skin. “I’ve been getting tattooed since i was 15 I’m 24 now, so about 9 years of work” you laugh, feeling the nostalgia of the tattoos.

“Do you have more?” Young il asks politely.

“I have a lot more, my back is done, rib cage, all the way up to my collar bone” you pulled your shirt collar down slightly to reveal bats that lined your collarbone, a betta fish on the left side.

“Wow, did they hurt?” Young il asks. “I mean, obviously they hurt, but you know, which one hurt the most?” he asks hating himself for how stupid he sounded.

“The one i have above my uhh lady part.” You giggled awkwardly. “That one was not comfortable at all, and i have both nipples pierced.” You admitted.

“You heard the signal for bed time. You retreated to your bed smiling at Young il as he lays in his bed next to yours. He wanted to see all of them, maybe hear a story or two, find out what they mean. Each and every one of them, no matter how bad the story may be.

He lays awake, he turned to you as he heard you rise up from your bed.

“(Y/n)? Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, i just have to pee really bad.”

“Yeah, so do I, mind if we walk together?” He asked, hoping it wouldn’t be too weird.

“Yeah of course, maybe if there are two of us they’ll let us in” you smile gently, taking his hand in yours, pulling you towards the door. You knocked softly the pink guy opened the window. “I need to use the restroom, and so does he.” You moved aside so they could see Young il, he smiled bashfully. The door opened immediately, allowing the two of you to leave the room. You walked towards the ladies room before you soon felt yourself get pulled into the men’s.

“Young il? What’re you doing?”

“I know this sounds really stupid, but can i see the rest of your tattoos?” He asked. You nodded and pulled him into a stall. He gently pulled your shirt up, then your sports bra, revealing tattoos all down your sternum and stomach, right rib cage covered with sharks, left side presented numerous scriptures.

You felt Young il's hands grasping your waist, pulling you closer to him as you stood in the bathroom stall, the need to get back to the room before other noticed you were gone for too long creating a sense of urgency. His eyes were fixed on your skin, ignoring everything, roaming over the intricate tattoos that covered your body. You could sense his obsession, his fascination with the artwork that adorned your body.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. "These tattoos... they're a part of you, aren't they?" His voice was laced with an unspoken question, as if he was trying to understand the story behind each design.

You nodded, feeling his fingers tracing the lines of a snake coiled around your right arm. "Each one has a story," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "A piece of me, etched into my skin forever." He turned you again, this time facing away from him. His hands roamed over the Japanese waves on your back and hips before moving lower to grip your ass cheeks firmly but gently.

Young il's lips brushed against the cherry blossom tree on your shoulder. He kissed each petal gently, reverently, as if worshiping the art itself. His hands slid down your back, following the curve of a dragon's tail that wrapped around your spine. Every touch sent shivers down your spine. He touched the angel on your right shoulder blade, following the angels hand as it reached for a skeleton that stood by the open mouth of the dragon, begging to be saved silently. He stared in awe at the scene before him.

"I want to explore every inch of you," he panted, turning you back around, his mouth moving to yours in a fierce kiss. You felt him harden against you, his desire fueled by his fixation on your tattoos.

As you broke apart for air, Young il gazed at the animal on your chest. "Tell me about this one," he asked, tracing the lions head with his finger. Before pulling your pants down to your ankles.

You smiled mischievously. "That one's for protection," you replied. "A fierce protector against those who would try to hurt me."

Young il's eyes flashed with intensity. "You don't need protection from me," he growled. "I'll never hurt you.”

His words ignited a fire within you, seemingly healing all the broken ends of you. You wrapped your arms around his his neck, drawing him closer as you as he moved to position you better on the stall door.. Young il continued to map out your tattoos with his fingers and lips.

Every touch was like a spark to dry kindling – it set you ablaze. The way he held onto them indicated how much control and trust had grown between the both of you in just moments.

As one hand still gripped, he entered slowly then harder deepening himself, stroking all areas sending moans escaping past your parted lips

"You feel so good," you gasped quietly in his ear.

"Your tattoos are driving me crazy," Young il replied hoarsely . He thrust deeper, trying feel you all over his body. He wished he could explain this feeling you were giving him. He was so clouded by lust, he was pretty sure he was in love with you.

Suddenly, as your muscles clenched wrapping tightly around him, it triggered something fierce within young il's thrust became faster pushing the both of you toward intense explosive peak which shredded apart any lingering rational thought leaving primal instinct only.

In that moment, all there existed were two people trying desperately not be left behind when the other reaches their climax first .

"Cum on me" you begged . No answer - only labored breathing intensifying into frantic almost sobbing sighs pushing desperately your shared goal, your final release.

And then youngil mouth came crashing onto the nape of your neck begging:

"Cum… cum on my cock please, let me drain you until you’re empty so you can do the same to me, please, (y/n)" he pleaded breathlessly.

His begging for your release was what made any remaining composure disintegrate, sending a shattering explosion through both of you, immense pleasure flowing through your veins as your body nearly crumbled from your orgasm.

His lingering moans and your whimpers as you both came from your highs.

“Young il, if i knew all i had to do was show you my tattoos to get you like this, id have done it way sooner.” You give a dry laugh.

“No, this was bound to happen anyways, you just gave me a reason to do it sooner.” He responded. He began to clean you up, then himself. He picked your shirt off of the floor along with your sports bra. You pulled up your pants, accepting the shirt and bra once you were upright.

“Let’s do this again sometime?” You ask.

“Oh definitely. Your pussy is to die for, literally. I’d die over it.” He said.

“I’d die for you” you counter romantically. “Sorry, i dont know wh-“

“(Y/n), if only you knew the things id do for you that are far worse than death itself.” He said before kissing you. When you got back into the room you got into your bed. Young il coming in behind you.

“Young il, what are you doing?” You ask, confused as to why he was in your bed.

“I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t cuddle you after sex” he said pulling you into him. You smile softly, suddenly falling asleep. “good night, (y/n)” he kissed your lips softly. He was now sure he might genuinely love you, but he still wasn’t sure if lust was still clouding his sight that made him feel that way. He felt something inside him, but it was yet to be discovered. It was yet to be assessed, maybe as he slept, maybe during the next day, maybe if you were walking down the aisle to marry him, maybe when you were pregnant and birthing your children. Would they want to be tattooed like their mother? He didn’t mind that, he’d be proud of them, the same way he’s proud of you. He loved you.

[poovyn]

TEK IT ⎯ mydei x gn!reader [1.1k] fluff. mild hurt/comfort. allusions to canon-typical violence. you owned a quaint little book stall in okhema’s bustling markets before it was destroyed by nikador’s troops, mydei (against his own will) has grown fond of your store and does what he can to assist you.

The sight was clearer than a cloudless sky, torn books strewn against cracked debris and tarnished pieces of wood. You had paced yourself slowly as you walked through the remnants of the stall that you have been culminating scroll after scroll for, all gone in one fell swoop. 

Only a few books had managed to be saved from the rampage, a whopping amount of thirteen scriptures spared from Nikador’s rage. You had decided to keep them in a locked box until further notice, you wouldn’t want him to take what little you have left away from you too. 

What you didn’t notice was Mydei’s subtle observation from afar, he watched with careful eyes when you beheld your shattered business with a silent horror. It was useless to ponder on the could-haves and what-ifs, this was the fruit of strife after all, and there was no undoing what was done. The most he could do now was consult Tribbie on the matter to see what she could do to mend some of the damages, but even from there, he could tell it was almost unsalvageable. 

He could still remember his first memory of it clearly. On a burning summers day, post-spar with Phainon, he never wholeheartedly enjoyed the brief strolls throughout the market. Being the Crown Prince of Kremnos with another Chyrsos Heir certainly met that they attracted a lot of stares, many people approached them, and asked for something of a memento of their interactions. 

Not to say that he was ungrateful for the attention and worship, but it definitely wasn’t something easy for Mydei to grow used to, from Kremnos to Okhema. He clasped Phainon’s shoulder in his hand and dragged him to the quietest store in the entire lane, upheld by shelves and standees that were rife with books. 

Your bewildered expression, however, was what he remembered the most from that day. 

Phainon being naturally upbeat carried most of the interaction, he never had the time to read much in particular, and neither did Mydei, so he expressed how helpful for the both of them your selections were for expanding their horizons on literature. All while you stared and nodded with the meekest smile on your face, it was clear to him that you were trying your best to keep your composure. Albeit rather poorly, at that. 

“Hmm, I’m just a little stumped. What kind of book do you think I’ll enjoy?” Phainon hummed, he picked up the nearest tome on the shelf in front of him. You perked up at his question, grabbing a book from another stand before blowing the dust off of it. 

“Ah, I heard that you have an appreciation for history, sir. I do have a handful of books that explain the workings and past of certain machines, cultural practices, cuisine, so on and so forth, specific to the city of Okhema. That is, if you would like to familiarize yourself with the culture here?” The book that you had earnestly displayed to them was a notable title: ‘Fire to Furnace: The Blazing Path of Okhema’s Craftsmanship’. 

“Ooh, this does look promising! I’ll pay you a hundred Balance Coins.” Despite the way your jaw dropped in utter shock, it did not stop Phainon from digging into his pouch for the money. Your protests fell on deaf ears as he poured the gold into your shaking palms, all you did at that point was thank him profusely. However, he was far from done. “How about a read for Mydeimos here? He has pretty refined tastes, so I’m sure that he’ll thoroughly enjoy your recommendations.” 

“Do not frame me in such a light,” Mydei grumbled before he turned to you, his voice softening apologetically. “You do not need to do such a thing, he means it in jest. Isn’t that right, Phainon?” 

Phainon could not help but crack a smile at his own antics, he raised his hands placatingly, after all he did not wish to stain the many papers at your stall with blood. 

You laughed awkwardly, fidgeting with the frayed corners of an aged book. However, you quickly caught yourself and straightened your posture. “Ah… If that is what you wish, then I won’t say a peep. Although, you are free to browse for a while to see if anything may interest you, sir.” 

Mydei simply nodded, he pulled Phainon away by his ear before he could say more utterly embarrassing things to you. 

He supposed it was intrigue that brought him back to your stall, only a small time before it closed. You appeared to stay out a little later than the other booths at the market, and while there were some that were likely still accepting customers, he was not there for them. 

The dim lamps scattered about each nook and ledge casted a peaceful, golden glow against the curves and edges of your face. You were dusting your collection, until you startled by Mydei’s sudden appearance at the front display. Quite honestly, it definitely seemed like you weren’t actually anticipating his return. A fair assumption, Mydei was unaware that he would come to visit again so soon too. 

His perusing had only lasted a few minutes, however. While he did see some interesting titles, he still wanted to spend his gold wisely. After all, his business tended to keep him away from idle and mundane tasks such as reading. 

He had taken notice of the book in your hand once you had completed brushing the dust off of the shelves, Okheman Flower Language and History, he noted to himself. 

What you certainly didn’t expect, however, was for him to purchase the book off of you. To the mere observer, Mydei looked like the type to enjoy action books. The Crown Prince of a land that was so obsessed with war and strife would want to read a book about… Flowers? Even the idea seemed a bit absurd to you, but a break from the combat, to stop and smell the flowers, was what he wanted and you didn’t want to oppose him on that. 

The warmth of that day, your meek smile and small suggestions, it all faded away with the disheveled state of your stall now. You stood at the front of it, holding back tears in consideration of the many other vendors present in the market at the moment. The sensation of cold metal caused you to jolt, but you relaxed at the sight of Mydei just behind you, “Your business will be avenged. Nikador’s coreflame will be seized soon.” 

You lightly squeezed his hand and looked up at him, his face was steeled over with determination. As to why Mydei seemed so concerned over your book store came second to you of the moment, at the very least, he was offering you a shoulder to lie on and justice for the attack. 

There was no telling what the future could be, it took many years to amass a collection as large as it was. Being that it was all just pieces of scrap paper and leather now was disheartening, but you wanted to take Mydei’s word for it.  

As false as that hope may be. 

honestly the mydei brainworms are kind of eating away at me. i've always wanted to write hsr x readers so there may or may not be more coming in the future if i have the time to write them...

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Where does "turn the other cheek" leave Christians in terms of self-defense?

Alright, so, big asterisk up front: we've been arguing about this among ourselves for about two millennia and it shows no signs of stopping. A Quaker is liable to give you a much different answer than a raised-Baptist.

First, some context. The "turn the other cheek" verse is specifically part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus takes Old Testament law and raises the ante. The law says not to murder, He tells them not to let their anger overtake and control them to begin with. The law says not to commit adultery, He says not to even look at people with lustful intentions (this is the poke out your eye, cut off your hand passage). The law says that a man divorcing his wife has to give her the legal protections of a certificate of divorce, He says that anything short of cheating isn't valid grounds for divorce to begin with (this has a lot to do with the protections or lack thereof for unmarried women at the time, but that's a whole tangent I won't go into here). The law says to keep your oaths, He says to be such a straightforward and honest person that you don't even need to give your oath to begin with. And so on.

Now, with all that in mind; "turn the other cheek" is Him upping the ante on the segment of Mosaic law that literally gives us the phrase "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." It was half legal prescription on the just punishments for certain crimes, and half laying down the rules and restrictions of what constituted acceptable proportionate retaliation. If someone punches you, you can punch him back. Someone kills your brother, you can execute him. What you can't do is go and slaughter his entire family, because that's how you get blood feuds, and that doesn't end well for anybody.

Looking at it from that angle, "turn the other cheek" is a commandment against retaliation and vengeance, and this is the interpretation I've grown up around most of my life. Someone hits you and you've got the opportunity to walk away, then you take your lumps and go, and you don't stew and think about what you're gonna do to get back at him the next time you see him.

Active and immediate self-preservation is another matter. To the best of my knowledge, there is no clear prohibition in the Bible against such actions; even "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword" is immediately followed by "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" The rebuke isn't for acting in the defense of others, it's for getting trigger-happy when Jesus isn't in any true (immediate) danger and because it's ultimately a pointless fight; Jesus has to go to the cross.

If you'll pardon an older example, let's take a look at Esther Chapter 8. King Ahasuerus gives the Jews leave to form militias to protect themselves and their property against the lynch mobs that would be attacking them as part of Haman's genocide plot, and this is presented to us as an inherently just and sensible course of action.

So, to answer the original question, I don't believe that there's anything wrong with Christians practicing self-defense, "turn the other cheek" notwithstanding.

But.

There's one more thorny patch to consider in this whole argument, and that's the one bit of Matthew 5 that comes after "turn the other cheek": "Love your enemy, and pray for those who persecute you." The safety that Christians enjoy in the modern west is an anomaly both geographically and historically. Christianity is, at its very root, a religion of martyrs. Many and maybe even most of those martyrs have gone to their deaths, if not willingly, then at least peaceably. It's worth noting that we don't tell the story of Stephen, who made a valiant last stand against the mob that tried to stone him. We tell the story of Stephen the martyr. "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

Honestly, I don't know that I'd have the courage to die like they did. If there's someone who's trying to hurt you, trying to hurt your family, I won't be the one to look you in the eyes and say you have to stand down; I'm already well aware of the decision I'd make in that situation. But from the moment we accept eternal life, our old lives here on Earth are forfeit. Any time that could be taken from us with our death is on loan to begin with. A hypothetical attacker in a self-defense situation isn't guaranteed that same benefit. They might very well have far, far more to lose than we do.

I don't believe Christians are forbidden self-defense, but I think we are expected to weigh the costs.

[comfortless]

Hello! This is the Frankenstein anon back with more praise and another prompt that you might like. Again you are amazing and everyone you come out with stuff, I weep for joy! Please continue what you are doing because it is absolute art✨

Okay onto the prompt. So lately tiktok has been putting onto this telenova drama called Hilda Furcão which is pretty much this priest and prostitute fall in love but due to societal pressures, cannot be together. The YEARNING in this show is amazing and I can’t help but think of Priest Konig in this situation. Imagine he falls in love with reader who works at a brothel but because he’s a churchly man, he’s fighting demons in his head (and down yonder) cuz he YEARNS for her but the lord says no🥴

Please keep doing what you’re doing and I’m constantly cheering you on with your work! ❤️

In the Arms of Flowers

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. pining, lots of talk of religion/silly metaphors, fluff, ridiculous attempts at courtship from both, dark (if you squint), implied cyber stalking, violence/murder, minor character death, some angst, sexual violence (not done by König), König becomes horribly obsessed and reader is fine with it, virgin!König-> oral (both receiving) piv smut.

wc: 11k.

There’s a garden in the churchyard, one that’s always been, even before his vows were taken and the cassock was pulled around his shoulders.

It’s the very place that the arching den window in the clergy house faces out towards, and the very place that an angel descends from Heaven to stalk through night after night.

Even when the thunder clamors and rolls to light up the sky above, the pretty thing is there, kneeling amongst the blooming lilies. A listless sort of purity swallows over her, bathes her in the white of petals and the bright illumination of each bolt of lightning above, arcs a halo over her head like a proper mirage.

The whole town knows these doors remain open, but never does she even look toward the church or the home of holy men at all: only the flowers. The lilies and carnations seemed to be her favorite to haunt, weaving through the petals as they sway for her in breezes like whispers from the pouting lips of cherubim.

He’s prayed for this lost soul many times already; clutched the rosary between his fingers and whispered to the Lord to protect her, to heal whatever aches, to bring her wandering feet into the chapel one of these days. But as most lilies, this one’s beauty is gone away by mid-morning.

Tonight, he wills himself to bring her in for prayer and refuge from the coming rain. Its been a long time coming, and regrettably he’s hesitated at every other opportunity. Nothing’s changed, the scene was so commonplace even the others have commented on it prior.

Maybe he hallucinates her holiness; the halo has become made up of fallen petals now as they arch over the crown of her head where she’s found sprawled out amongst them. She raises herself to sit upright, dusts the dirt from her knees and offers a wary glance with each step he takes until his soles halt in soil that would soon be mire.

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave,” the angel breathes out with her eyes darting from his collar down to rest at the expanse of short blades of grass between them. “I don’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

She doesn’t meet the concern in his eyes, and König is no stranger to sin. To the shame and grief that he’s absolved from far worse than her in the stuffy wooden confessional.

“You’re welcome to stay.” A silent prayer rests there in his breath — please stay, though even he wasn’t certain as to why there’s a demand stirring in the pit of his stomach for this woman clad in a dirtied white dress.

She smiles then, gazes right up at him in such a way that immediately sparks something misplaced, something tucked away beneath studying scripture and kneeling before the wooden altar. A sin of the flesh, a heated poker jabbing at both his heart and his loins.

“No, I’m okay,” she assures with a slight dip of her head, already taking steps back to dart away, back to whichever gilded little nest of baubles and starlight she took flight from. “I was just heading home.”

And that’s it. He doesn’t plead for her to come inside, the offer has been laid out already. It’s not his job to force a belief that one doesn’t want, only lend a kindness and a cushioned pew, advice for the lost and a choir for bleating lambs.

He bids her goodbye and walks back to the clergy house, ignoring the strange looks of his peers as they all prepare to bed down after a nightly prayer. It’s rare to smile here, when sacred words are passed from the wrinkled, cracked lips of his seniors. But König does smile, the grin is as bright as the seconds of white lighting up the sky in intervals as he silently thanks God for such a sweet vision amidst such darkness.

The fixation does not falter for the following three nights. She doesn’t return to the churchyard to whisper secrets to the blooms, but the angel weighs on his mind so heavily that König finds himself convinced that she must have been his calling, a soul that he would assuredly save.

His sermons now lack their passion. The parishioners come to him with weighty hearts and misery in their eyes, but bless him all the same, even when he’s distant. Away with the fairies, some would say. He can’t help but wonder when one such service rolls to a closing prayer if whoever conjured such words had also been in the presence of a seraph.

“Do you need prayer?,” one of his fellow priests asks as the flock trickles out, worry clear in the wrinkles laden beneath this eyes and the way his lips draw down before pressing thin. “You don’t seem to be sleeping well.”

And König regrets the words he speaks next, when he describes the woman from the flowers in detail greater than necessary: how her eyes seemed so soft, her smile fragile, and her body language more docile than that of even a lamb. He mentions the dirty dress, the way she seemed to be trying to escape something yet refused the shelter he offered.

The other priest nods and sighs, his eyes squeezing shut in thought, and though König has not feared a scolding since he abandoned home nearly two decades prior, the way the ordinarily calm priest seems so frustrated by this sends a swell of fluttering anxiety beneath his ribcage.

“The woman you describe is a temptress,” his elder explains coldly. His sharp, dark eyes rest on König’s face as though the disparity in their height does not exist at all. “Best to let her be, she does not want our help. Leave it alone.”

“Ja. Verstanden.”

The warning is enough to dull the buzzing in his chest, the mush that’s been made up of his head until he sees her again.

The bakery in town regularly makes donations of pastries and thick loaves of bread for church goingson. It isn’t regular that he’s been asked to pick them up; the eldest of the priests usually does so, some blood relation to the owners that König has never cared enough to ask about. The old man never did well in the summer months, though, far too frail now to bear the heat snaking over his pale skin and leaving burns.

With the mistake of rambling onward about this perturbing fascination still grating at his mind, he doesn’t hesitate to volunteer, to take the old truck and step away from the stained glass and crucifixes for a brief outing. A moment of respite.

There’s a complimentary mug of coffee presented across the expanse of the counter when the cashier greets him with a smile so broad it seems faked.

König’s fingers twitch when he grasps at the handle; the uncertainty was something he had sworn he would outgrow one day with God’s healing, but it never seemed to stray far from him. It rests over the back of his neck like a feeding vampire when he takes his first sip, one that burns his tongue and stings at his eyes when he notices the woman seated at a table in the corner.

It’s her: temptation and fate packaged up in a loose fitting sweater that covers the pulse in her neck and a short skirt.

She holds her phone, not the mug stationed before her, staring down at the thing with the most somber expression he’s ever seen on a lady before. She taps her thumbs at the screen, talking to someone, but there’s a loneliness in her expression apparent like the rust on the old truck parked outside.

Poor little thing.

She glances up when his staring is detected, confusion stripped bare upon her with a pinched brow and a slack jaw. Then, follows realization and she offers the same smile she did that night, some seventy or so hours prior.

“Morning, Father.”

There’s not a fractal within König that wants to make the sweet spirit uncomfortable, but each step he takes towards her table seems to make her shoulders tense. She knows that he knows, sees that sympathetic look in his eye and hates it.

Maybe even hates him for the divinity he wears in the sable cloth pulled over his shoulders.

That doesn’t stop his approach.

König sits across from her with shaking hands and a forced smile like the one the cashier wears, drops his mug onto the table and offers her his hand. Fingers bending to graze the palm as though beckoning a frightened animal when it’s he who feels most afraid.

The angel merely eyes him cautiously for a moment before she takes the cup into both of her hands and gives him a fragile huff, dismissing his attempt to pray for her soul. Again. Yet, the sting he feels is not from a lack of a starved savior complex being satisfied, only… that he has yet to touch her somehow. That sudden thought stifles him in full.

But angels are nothing if not merciful and loving; she picks up on his dejection and speaks again in his place.

“How are the carnations?”

“Hm?”

“The flowers in the garden… the red ones,” she elaborates with a soft laugh, hides it behind the rim of her cup when it’s raised for her to take a sip. Her mouth looks soft, compelling, and he’s staring again. “I like them the most.”

He knows he should stop this, that what’s become of an innocent meeting has left him feeling anything but. There’s a howling chasm in place of the heart of a worthy devotee. She’s nothing like the women who frequent the church — the only other women he sees. Brighter at best and alluring at the worst.

“I thought the lilies were your favorite…” It’s unsuited for a priest and a man so tall and broad to sound so breakable, but his voice only comes in an hurried breath, embarrassed and small.

She shakes her head, tousles her hair in the process. “I like all of them. The ones at your church grow prettiest.”

“I see…”

The woman gives him an expectant look, as if prompting him to speak more, before her phone chimes and the air seems to shift from tentative yet sweet to something vast and cold. She doesn’t seem eager to be interrupted in such a way, either; her expression falls from that subtle playfulness to something akin to a regretful acceptance.

She stands from her seat abruptly and takes a step towards the door. “I have something I need to take care of.”

God gives and takes away.

“I can bring you some,” he offers, winding in the too-small wooden chair to face her. Too late to reel in the flirtatious nature of such an offering, too late to bite his tongue and remember the vows he had taken. The burden upon his heart seems far more pressing than any words from an old book. “Carnations and lilies… some of the others, too.”

The woman almost seems shy when she glances over her shoulder and offers him the most imperceptible nod. “Yeah, sure… I’ll see you around.”

His angel leaves him to rot in thought at that lonely table, in this tiny bakery. He does not think to repent for the way his temperature and pulse spiked in her presence, for the way he takes her empty cup and stuffs it into one of the boxes of baked goods to collect later.

Riding back to the church is dreadful, because she’s already fastened to his heart like a ribbon on a pretty bouquet. He’ll ask the sisters from the cloister to clip flowers for him, tie them up in a lace that will leave her face warmed and lips pouting.

When the people in the church have their fill of sweets and bread, König tells a lie, maybe several.

He claims he doesn’t know why that innocuous porcelain thing is resting where food once had, doesn’t know why the baker would have stuffed that in there too. He takes it to his room and claims that he would return it come morning.

The bed has always felt far too small for him alone, but he pictures her there with him, sat upon his lap when he brings the cup up to his lips with his eyes closed.

It’s cold and hard, difficult to imagine it to be a kiss at all, but he pretends her lips are upon him, eager and willing. It takes only rolling his tongue back to flick over itself, envisioning it being her own, for him to feel his trousers grow too tight. He doesn’t touch himself. He can’t bear the thought of it, not with the cross staring down at him from the far wall.

And finally, regret comes.

Shame, too, because König is aware he’s become a bit of a creep; enchanting himself with second hand kisses whilst his angel takes another man to bed. A man undeserving, but… he could be. He was deserving enough to become a holy man, surely she could see he was worthy of her as well.

The bed is too small even when he curls into himself and pulls the blanket up passed his eyes. Sleep is too skittish to come for him, even when he prays in a whisper to be absolved of his lust.

The dreams are only filled with images of an angel trapped in a rose bush, the thorns sinking into her wings until blood is drawn, but still she smiles. She reaches toward him with shaky limbs, whispers something so dreadfully mournful he knows to his very soul that she is his purpose alone.

It’s what wakes him in a fit, compels him to venture out through the yard with a heart set on seeking guidance. There are moonbeams above and animal calls from the surrounding trees. All of God’s creations are in perfect, dreamy harmony.

Why couldn’t he be the same? Always the outsider in one way or another; always the sore thumb rather than the loving green. Desolation is an art, a skill he’s learned to hide back: clenched teeth to still a wrathful tongue and a layer of muscle to guard that wounded thing in his chest.

There is no better peace than the quiet of the church in the late hour. Moonlight through stained glass and empty, antique seats that would make the worldly whip out their phones to snap pictures in a heartbeat. The doors are always open, for the sinners and the devoted alike, though the confessional is rarely touched when there would be no saint awake set on absolving.

Perhaps that’s why he takes to the booth he needs to make himself smaller to fit into: one shoulder and one foot first, then the next set. He’s never cared for it, left it to the better and smaller. The sound just past the thin partition rattles him. It isn’t the creaking of wood below his feet, but something softer. A weak sniffle. A cry from the other side.

“I’ll leave in a moment,” comes a voice, broken from tears and so horribly sad that the usual script entirely fails him. He recognizes the voice, though a bit warbled now. The voice that would make the choir pause, an angel’s sweet tone.

“Wait… no. You can stay. I’m hiding, too.” A breathy laugh comes forced and misplaced. Priest or not, König has never been the best at consoling anyone, let alone one so far above him.

“I’m not hiding,” she tries to sound braver now. He can imagine her chin tilted forward and that sweet smile trying it’s damndest to paint its way across her face. “But… why are you?”

“Don’t know.”

“Who are you?” The crying seems to have ceased entirely for now. Clearly whatever seemed to ail her could be remedied by her own curiosity. A cute, unorthodox little thing.

“König.” It served well enough as a confirmation name when he could not settle on one of the saints. King of them all, one of the other saved men had said in jest. Ironic, now.

“I like your voice, König,” she murmurs, deliberately testing the pronunciation on her tongue in such an alluring way that a small shiver runs its way down his spine.

“Danke… and you?”

God forgive him, he doesn’t even try. Doesn’t try to bring shame or guilt, read her scripture or pray for her soul. He only listens in silence when she tells him her name, beautiful and charming as he had expected it to be. The woman then tells him of her work, of the motel she ventures to at night… the troubles with money and even vaguely, some of the men she suffers through. This had been a bad night. Strange how a singular hour could have broken someone down to such a desperation to open up, to grasp for what small comfort they could receive.

But she came for him.

She must have hoped to see him.

He thanks his god for that.

— — —

“I bought a phone.”

“I see that.” Her fingers graze over the stems of the flowers, cleanly cut by hands more patient and stable than König’s own.

The angel isn’t looking up at him, not this time. There isn’t even a smile on her face when she cradles the bouquet close to her chest, petting over it where she sits upon the motel bed wearing nothing but some strappy, barely-there lingerie. Pure white with pink lace over the cups of her bra where her breasts swell with each shaky intake of breath.

In this week apart, he’s kept the device hidden in a loose pocket and spent many a night scouring the seediest websites looking for a hint of a body that may belong to her in this very area. Only one seemed to match. The messages exchanged were about hours and pricing, establishing a location, and terms he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t harp on the small details, but finding her messages to be so rigid and dry did surprise him. There were no cute hearts or winking emojis, it all felt horribly transactional.

Priests don’t make a lot of money, it all goes back to the church, but he’s thieved enough from the offering bowls to have a night with her alone. As disheartening as the lack of flirtations seemed, he hoped not to squander whatever opportunity this outing proved to be.

The balaclava covering his face wasn’t purchased with the intention of making her nervous, only… shielding himself from curious stares. The whole town knows his face, his name, the words he speaks so resolutely to his flock. Just as well as they know of who she is, what she does.

Even this knitted shield couldn’t hide himself from her, though. The very moment he entered this drab, modestly decorated room with flowers in hand she had only looked further lost.

“You look very pretty,” he tries as he removes the mask and drops it to the floor, kneels just a hair from where her feet dangle from the bed. “I’m glad that I found you.”

“Thank you.”

The flowers are placed on the side table, petals falling down to the thin carpet below. A cascade of red like blood and white like doves feathers. Purity and a wound in one.

The poor thing looks scorned when she does give him a glance then, but she forces herself into a position that stokes a hellish, unnatural flame within him. Her thighs part as her hands rest on the cups of her bra, pushing the thin fabric down to reveal areola, her soft nipples, sights that he had never seen before.

“You shouldn’t even be here, König,” the lady warns when his gaze sweeps over the innocent flesh laid bare before him. The angel isn’t even wet. Her panties are pristine over her womanhood, and it dawns on him that… she wouldn’t risk what he was even for the generous donation he had given.

“I don’t want to ruin you.”

But she should. Crumble him into salt, cast him away with the wind. Should.

She sees something holy in him too… albeit, not in the way that he would like for her to.

He swallows hard as he rises to his feet and sits next to her. The hands that were so accustomed to being joined in prayer find her breasts now with tentative touches, a curious squeeze, until he wills himself to readjust the fabric and conceal her properly.

“Ja, but… I just wanted to visit you.”

“You don’t need to pay me just to see me.”

The tension in the room finally begins to dissolve. Not by much, but when she sighs something that sounds like amusement, the restless throbbing of his heart does begin to settle.

As much as he would like to take her like some beast in rut, lay some claim to her in bursts of white seed, he doesn’t even know where to begin. Each curve of her body looks as though it would feel like a miracle beneath his palm, under his tongue.

It’s just that nothing is going to happen, not here, not now that he’s brought a prostitute flowers and revealed who he was to her. She sees something pitiful, where he only sees someone to love.

He can’t tell her that he dreams of her, that he views her in the same way he views his god. That would only scare her away, lead her to believe he’s a lunatic rather than a man only just now having his first taste of love.

“Then could I see you every night? So that you don’t have to…” His head dips, because no matter how he tries he knows any word he says is foolish.

This isn’t something she’s doing because it is fun for her; it’s a job just like his own. Flesh or words spoken… did it even matter? And yet, König could feel a malicious, gnawing envy at the thought of a bolder man taking his place tomorrow evening. That man wouldn’t hesitate to peel away her pretty lingerie and fuck her, shove his tongue into her mouth while his cock sat between her legs as if it belonged there.

“König,” she sighs next to him, pityingly.

His jaw tenses as his fingers curl into his palms. The hopelessness of it all crashes down around him as though sung out from the loudest of the choir. He hardly notices when she presses her head against his shoulder, only realizes how close she’s come to him when her hand curls over one of his own.

“You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met.” It’s not a compliment but it feels like one when she laughs like that, airy and soft. “The sweetest one, too.”

He smells her perfume from this close, something scented like fruit or maybe maple, sap-sticky and saccharine. All of her flesh feels warm against the plain t-shirt he wears, a warmth he would give anything to dive into, but not without her explicit command. A powerful seraph in the form of one painfully cute, gentle lady. If anyone could see what he saw now, they too would forsake those holy books and eat from her open palm instead.

“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses, a peculiar bitterness hanging on his tongue.

“How about a walk?”

He pulls the balaclava over his face again when they make their way out into the quiet, darkened street. Hand in hand. It’s not from shame, but a necessity, perhaps, because his pale face has only flowered into a lasting pink since laying eyes upon her on that mattress, sprawled out and waiting. The blush only deepens with every squeeze she blesses him with, every hushed word spoken as she tells him about her favorite places.

She’s dressed in the same white dress they had initially met in, now clean of the dirt from flower beds. Somehow even more radiant at this close, too.

The churchyard and the clergy house are nothing in comparison to the way the rest of the town feels when the moon rises. It’s a world all their own, a place where no one looks at her as if she were a simple harlot, but a queen amongst chipping wood and tarmac. There’s even a skip in her step as she walks ahead of him, her hips swaying beneath her skirt. All because there’s no one here but she and her most loyal and only acolyte.

He wills himself out of her grasp when they cross the threshold into the cemetery. The darkness there is enough to pull him back to earth; thoughts of how easily swayed he’s been linger in the back of his mind. The want doesn’t even begin to reel back its claws, but the guilt does sink its pearly fangs in alongside it.

“I get it. You don’t want to be seen with me,” she says a small step away, drawing her hand up to her chest. It’s the saddest she’s ever looked, and he doesn’t have the words to further explain that he has no god damn idea what he’s doing: here, with her, in the midst of something that feels so normal even though it should not.

“Nein! That’s not—“

“You don’t want to touch me. You barely talk…”

Because the words don’t come easy. Because he’s never felt such an overbearing devotion to anyone, anything apart from what he prays to. How could she… this woman that shared in such loneliness with him not see him for what he was, not see him in the way that he sees her?

“You’re misunderstanding.”

“You just want to… to convert me, is that right?,” she hisses, sounding more shaken up than he had ever hoped to hear.

All hesitation had to be swallowed back.

There was no other option. He could feel her slipping away, a pain he wasn’t prepared to face.

God gives and takes away, but König refuses to let go.

His eyes narrow, his breath halts entirely, and he cups her face in his hands as gently as he can. The distance between them feels like miles as he lowers his head to kiss her through the knit barrier. It’s flighty and petrifying on his side… he feels cold sweat wet his brow when the warmth of her pulls through.

She could hit him, spit her curses like a proper witch, and he would only fall to her feet and kiss her heels. But… she does none of those things. Whatever pain was brewing here is ripped away with the night breeze.

Her hands peel away the balaclava, discard it somewhere into the tall grass where it wouldn’t be found, and she grants him his first, proper kiss.

With only the cracked headstones and cemetery angels watching, what once was tentative becomes a full indulgence. König samples from her mouth as though it weeps honey when the gentle peck graduates to a parting of lips. His hands run down the length of her sides as she grasps at his shirt, they pull her in close until her chest meets his own and two pairs of eyelids flutter.

She feels more heavenly than his imagination could have prepared him for, her tongue hotter and her sounds… the soft sighs and shaky murmurs of approval that fill him with both a maddening love and an urge to burn everything away if only it would keep her safe and near.

The world ceases to be entirely, cast down with Lucifer to the sulfur and smoke. Her lips remain parted when they break apart, a haze over her eyes reflecting the veil clouding his own irises.

Was a kiss really forsaking his vows? Was that really such a painful treachery? No… no it shouldn’t be. The issue remains that he can not see her as just some woman. Something as small as this could consume him entirely.

The night is spent with an abundance of those shared kisses when they return to the motel. Tentative touches, too. He’s never held a woman, not in the way he gets to hold her then. She presses tightly to him, her back to his chest with her hand keeping his own in place over her middle. She’s so soft, swans down plush and smooth as silk ribbon.

There is mint lingering on her breath each time she speaks. No talk of her work, only… she confesses how she had feared him so initially, how she worried that a holy man stepping into her life would only be further condemnation: an angel terrified by a devil that does not exist at all.

He knows he’s lost a part of himself here when he tells her he wishes to meet with her again, that if the church is no longer the place she fancies to walk, he’ll meet her amongst the dead again and again when the old clergymen sleep. Those promises he had reserved solely for God turn on themselves now, when he reveres the idol he shares this bed with.

Though her hips press back against his groin when his fingers crawl up to her sternum, and the desire strikes up within him, his cock remains untouched here. He doesn’t whisper a prayer for forgiveness into her hair when he grows hard, just tucks her in closer and smiles where his head rests atop her own.

It’s the closest to bliss he’s ever felt.

— — —

“You weren’t here for morning prayer.” The voice isn’t accusatory, just observant. The nightly prayers were missed too, though a reprieve is granted by way of those remaining unmentioned.

But the guilt does eat at König when he sees the concern in this man’s eyes, splinters at his very soul until he asks in a fragile voice if he can speak to the old priest in the confessional.

Everything here feels much too small and the booth is more or less the same. The wood closes in around him, bathes him in a blackness that even the glow of candlelight within these walls can not reach. The partition separating them does not help bolster courage, it only leaves him feeling more alone.

The clergyman listens in silence as König confesses that he has become weak. He does not mention the lady of the night, but there’s no need to at all: finding himself so captivated with a woman that he considered breaking every promise to the higher power was bad enough. He does not mention how he’s considered pleasuring himself, touching her too… only that they shared a night together embraced, counts the kisses that were exchanged with each digit of his hands.

There’s a pitying sigh from the other side before the man begins a lengthy prayer that König does join him in. With the “Amen” that follows, he’s told only to rid himself of those thoughts, to bury them with fasting and prayer. No more visits with this temptress, remain on the right path. The very, very simple things he must do to receive God’s forgiveness and favor once more.

“You are not a disappointment,” his elder reminds him with a small pat to his cheek and a smile. It’s more fatherly than the sparse affection he received from his own flesh and blood before coming here.

“Danke… thank you,” he breathes when his eyes bear the burden of tears.

God loves him and so do the sainted men.

But to never see her again would be worse than flagellation.

He chokes down the pain with more water when his stomach roars with hunger, hides the broken heart with smiles and prayer. Holy clothes feel heavier now. The money he stole to spend that night with her is returned to the collection pool in a week's time. The smartphone he had purchased is tossed out with the rest of the garbage in the bins. Even the cup is returned to the bakery after being rinsed in the sink.

Still not a part of him feels absolved from this torturous puppet show.

He thinks of her more than he ponders over his fear of Hell itself. God feels like an old memory as the days pass. He counts them in his daybook, an ‘X’ next to the dates he had gone without seeing her. Ten becomes twenty, and it becomes no less agonizing.

The prayers come easier, at least. He joins with his fellow men, kneels with his hands clasped before him, speaks such heartfelt words now that on more than one occasion he’s shared a healing tear or two with the other clergymen.

God is an old friend, yes, but that title is just a placeholder for the one his prayers are truly for. The little angel of the garden, the woman who has given him nothing at all but stole his heart all the same. Was she not the same as God from that aspect?

After a month, he’s finally given the privilege to stand before the altar and preach to the parishioners again. His sermon is directed by the other clergymen, a subtle admission of his own misdeeds as he guides the flock away from the sins of lust, of worldly pleasures that would steer them away from the right path.

Amidst the men and women crowding the pews sits a new face. She wears a hat, looking uncertain and skittish as a bunny amidst a pack of starved hounds beneath its curved brim. Her coat is tugged tightly around her where her hands grip to keep it closed and snug. No one is out to get her, not here, but there’s a purplish bruise on her neck. A sad stare trails up to meet his gaze when he stammers through the words of scripture.

Then, she smiles and his heart only feels full.

The sermon ends clumsily enough, but she waits for him in the center pew. He ensures the others have cleared out before he takes rigid steps toward her, where he sits a foot or so away on the bench; the feigned friendliness is only a front for the rapid beating of his heart and the way the blush upon his face paints up to his ears.

“I waited to walk with you… like you promised we would,” she says in place of a greeting. There’s no chiding in her tone, just curiosity. Gentle, like she’s speaking to a wounded bird, and perhaps that’s what he’s become: some big, ugly vulture. Holy in its love of everything from the sky to the rot down below.

“I’m sorry. I..,” he laments, grasping for an explanation that does not come.

“No, I understand. It’s alright, König.”

He knows he doesn’t deserve the gift of her redemption with how easily he turned away from her, from the blooming of… something. It was best not to use that word anymore.

“I just didn’t want to wait any longer. I missed you,” she huffs when the silence extends between them, breaks up the tension in the air but not what creeps over her own shoulders.

“Your bruise..” He wants to tell her of his sleepless nights, of how he pictures her in place of any old deity upon a throne in heaven, but settles for where his eyes linger on her neck.

No explanation is provided, but she lets him bring his fingers to it, ghost over where the purple melds to yellow in the shape of thick fingerprints. Add wrath to the ever growing list of his sins, because it’s all he feels amidst the envy and love.

His fingers dig into the plain back trousers when they rest upon his lap again, something foreign buzzes beneath his skin. The thought that any man would be brazen enough to lay hands upon his very own angel.. It’s unbelievable, unforgivable. His thoughts spiral so quickly it’s frightening. Timid things can become vicious, too, when backed into corners.

She manages to keep this growing storm in check when she stands and smooths her skirt, and offers to tidy up the church in an act of ‘repentance’.

The chores are simple and the sisters that linger far past service seem grateful to have her here as she takes up the broom and sweeps away at the dusty floor. They chatter away with her, take her hat and rest their hands over her shoulders when the cleaning winds to an end. His angel closes her eyes in prayer, doesn’t so much as open them to send him a knowing glance when they pray for her to find a good husband, someone who deserves such a lovely, godly woman.

She shares a meal with them while König keeps to himself with scripture in hand, mindlessly roving over the words even when his thoughts drift to the night of their first kiss.

He reasons that it’s only natural when she gives him such a display of acceptance too. It only solidifies what he knows already: this woman is no succubus— she has not crawled from the depths of Hell to drag him back with her, she’s only heavensent. An angel with a broken wing or a gaping wound somewhere… something to care for.

She’s encouraged to return by several fond voices. A few of the women even offer to walk her home, the daylight is dying and it’s dangerous for a lone lady out at night. The angel smiles at him then, sharing in the knowledge that she prefers the dark. Not the wicked things, but the peace and the beauty of the moon.

And she returns when he abstains from her.

She confides in him after each sermon that she does long to see him more often, but she likes the way he speaks of Mary Magdalene and the other women in scripture, pokes fun at the lilt to his voice when he notices her amidst the crowd of others. She says she likes him a lot before they part ways in the evenings, but she doesn’t tempt him with pouts or trailing fingers.

He thanks her for respecting his faith each time - despite being the one who crossed several boundaries initially. Though he keeps his hands to himself now, the looks he gives to her are pleading and soft. If she would pull him into a kiss now, he would let her have all of him. They could run away together, from the church, from her clients…

It’s on one of those cloudy Sundays that he does ask her if she’s stopped. He braves the look she gives him when his question comes as a hushed stutter. The comfort between them no longer feels tentative. It’s just there. Ever-present as the sky above.

“Well, you haven’t,” she whispers in response, propping her elbow up on the back of the pew. It’s as if she believes it could be so simple, but it’s not. Not for either of them.

The spiels of Heaven and Hell won’t reach her, so he doesn’t bother with those. She offers him an invitation with her words and the way she remains so open that it’s difficult not to take.

It’s been months since he touched her last and the love has only seemed to have grown. Strange. Perhaps he is as odd as she’s imagined him to be. There have been weddings in this very church, talks of long years of courtship, and even then what those men must have felt for their brides had to have paled in comparison to this. It had to.

“Tell me how to,” he breathes without any underlying thought. Saints don’t question their gods, they only serve them.

“You’re actually considering it…?”

“I might.”

The silence crowds around the bench while her fingers brush over the pages of a hymnal in repetition and his only inch closer to her clothed knee.

“You could meet me at the cemetery tonight… We could talk more there.”

“At night is probably not the best time.”

“Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Friends don’t kiss. Friends don’t feel the way he feels now, or how he’s felt for the past few months. Platonic arrangements don’t require repentance. But, he bites his tongue and tilts his head back, lets it roll off the shoulder when his hand draws back to his lap. Another time.

Not where the Heavenly Father could see, if he were even watching any longer.

“… Tomorrow morning would be better.”

“Then I’ll come get you. Don’t you dare try and get out of it,” she chirps with the wildest glint of mirth alight in her eyes.

Stay.

If the church caught fire now and the rafters came to sink into the earth not a part of him would or could even care as long as she were just here. But he watches her go without a word of opposition, watches her nod toward the sisters standing out in the yard and clasp her hands in front of her, smiling to herself as though the world were made for just the two of them.

It stings during nightly prayer, and it burns when he lies in bed to wait for the morning. There are cicadas singing and footsteps on old wooden boards to remind him that he isn’t entirely alone, the scent of tobacco drifting from his window when another plaster saint hides beyond the veil of night to smoke. He doesn’t sleep, his eyes remain fixed upon the ceiling until the darkness of the room drifts to a dull gray with the sun’s slow rise.

And König does not wait for her to fetch him. Morning prayer dissolves into a mournful cry because there is no part of him that can fathom or interpret any of this. A trial should not feel like a blessing when he’s faced with it. God must be playing the stupidest game imaginable to test him with someone so lovable, so charming. Where the church leaves him feeling filthy with remorse, she purifies him with only a curl of her lips and starlight dancing in her eyes.

None of it is fair.

The guilt must be something obligatory, summoned up like puffs of dust from the floorboards. Worshiping idols is a sin, but it’s not the angel that feels like one, it’s the attention he pays to the cloud in his head that does. That’s the one that should go.

He grits through prayer with the other men, doesn’t chime in with unnecessary words of devotion this time. The coffee burns his tongue when he downs the mug and forgoes breakfast. There are dark rings beneath his eyes when he ventured to the washroom to brush his teeth, and there are whispers in the halls that the young priest must be either coming under a possession or God is preparing him for something. Something big and exciting. He ignores those and the stern glances from the little nuns in their robes, huffs something of a joke about a momentary sabbatical when he lumbers out of the walls of the church.

There are no new bruises this time, but König has the memory of the last ones stuck in his skull. A clear image of four small marks on the side of her neck, another on its opposite. Larger, more pronounced. Five marks from a hand that never belonged there. Kerosene and a match are what the thoughts running rampant in his head would look like to an outsider.

She tells him on the thin picnic blanket that she’s got a new client, that he gives her enough to where she doesn’t have to consider any others now. The man has a much stranger set of interests, ones she hadn’t delved into before him, but she’s merciful enough to withhold the details that would lead König to make the crucifixion seem a gentle affair.

She tells him because she wants him to be proud that it’s only one now. That she’s making some sort of progress for him. None of it is fair, and he knows without asking that she feels more akin to the way that he does than any of the holy men.

And still he can’t help but ask, “Do you love him?”

“Of course not,” comes her immediate response, and there’s a near imperceptible glare there, judging by the fire in her eyes. It’s cute… and he feels the world's ugliest fool for daring to ask for reassurance as though this relationship was any sort of normal. If it were even a relationship at all.

Their hands touch, reaching for the same flaky pastry in the basket she brought along and Heaven’s bells ring out in his ears when her gaze sweeps over him. Everything is sugared dough and right again. She offers him her lap in place of a pillow for his head when the clouds grow thick and gray above, feeds him from her own hand and runs her fingers across his face with the other.

“How did you get the sky in your eyes?,” she asks him, makes him blush so easily his heart stutters within his chest. He feels like a boy in her presence, and in a way, to her, maybe he even is just some inexperienced whelp nipping at her heels.

The angel does not judge, she softly rakes her nails behind his ear and neck until he shivers in her hold. His hair is next, a victim to her comfort as she tousles it between her fingers, strokes him like the smallest of kittens when he feels anything but.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he mutters, raising a hand to brush at her cheek. Warm as he expected, yet softer. There’s nothing wicked here, only a woman. A woman who loves him as he loves her.

“Your eyes are pretty… sad. I love them,” comes the sweet reply that reduces him to nothing but scattered feathers and a howling ache.

Did he even exist before now? Before her? This woman has filled him with such purpose, breathed new life into a stagnant soul. The church was a safe place for a man scorned by the rest of the world, but that blanket felt unnecessary now. He wanted to feel her hands move over him like this, smell the petals in her perfume, hear her voice speak to him, all of it. Forever.

“I think that I lose myself when I’m with you.”

“Does that hurt you?”

“Nein… I’m happier like this.” It’s the closest to a confession he can whisper.

And he returns to her, morning after morning König rushes through paying his dues to God and his men to return to her like this.

When the graveyard is silent and the dew still sticks to the blades of grass, her voice sounds sweeter somehow beneath the glow of the rising sun. The birds sing around them and often she pushes wildflowers into his hair, clasps her hands around his neck and teaches him to kiss.

Her tongue moves with grace, his is only a thing of greed. Each chaste peck is met with a hunger from somewhere so foggy and forgotten it never had a home at all, not before now. The angel needn’t show him where to rest his hands, they pry at every part of her: gentle brushes against her cheek and neck, kneading at her shoulders, further, further until he does finally starve off any lingering thought of what is good or evil to explore the curve of her lower back.

Most of the time words come in afterthought, once lips are wet and plush from this gentle devouring, after she steels herself from running her hands any further down than his stomach. He tells her in truth that he prays to her, not for. Not anymore.

The shadows cast from the aspens keep them tucked far away from sight, from God and his people alike. A temple for two without four walls to close them in. The only place on this earth that he’s ever found himself in perfect solace.

“I want to try something,” she breathes just when he’s prepared himself to leave. The tree at his back, knees parted, where she remains sat across from him. There’s nervousness there, not the fretful way she looks after a long night, nor the way she looked to him upon their first meetings. “Do you trust me?”

“Ja… more than anyone,” he reassures in a soft tone of voice, tipping her chin up with the tips of two fingers to further accentuate it. Her beauty and her uncertainty always strike a chord within him, a fire that never dwindles. When her eyes search his own, his breath catches.

He doesn’t say a word when she peels away the robes from the front of his trousers. Her hands linger on at the waistband for a moment, takes enough time to offer the gentlest peck to the side of his neck before continuing. It’s another first, being exposed to a woman like this when she lowers the band and has him shimmy backward to free his cock from his pants. Soft with shame or embarrassment, a concoction of other things he could not name, but the moment she looks up at him with pure delight he feels himself grow stiff.

“Wow… You’ve got a perfect cock,” she assesses with a laugh, finger running up the length of it as it twitches to life under her touch.

Scheisse.

He strokes her cheek with reverence as she bends down before him, watching him carefully through her eyelashes. Her warm breath drifts over his manhood and he’s already horribly aware that this would not last long. Another lesson, like the kisses, maybe. She could mold him any way that she likes and he would be pleased to play the role of her Adam.

The tongue isn’t what he anticipated. She flattens it against the tip, breathes a laugh when a keening whine is pulled from his throat. To see such an ugly, vulgar thing pressed to the beautiful mouth he’s kissed a dozen times now. It feels wrong. There’s no hesitation when her lips wrap around him. And then all of it— everything is just right. Every moment spent in this hazy, loving glow with her is right. If Hell were to come from this, then let it.

He can’t tear his eyes away from her, can’t bring himself to speak when he feels the way his cock hits the back of her throat, feels her swallow around him and make such a pleased noise as she wraps her fingers around the expanse she can not take.

Its pitiful, the way he must look: mouth agape, eyes lidded and heavy… He brings a hand to her hair, and runs his fingers through it as if she isn’t letting him fuck her mouth, but rather in the midst of something far holier, softer. Sacrilegious or divine. If God we’re watching, let him.

She pulls back a little, an obscene, wet sound in answer when her mouth is drawn back enough to merely press a kiss the tip, puffy lips glossy with drool. “Is this okay…? Not too much?”

“You are so pretty… it feels… just keep going.” His voice no longer possesses any feigned confidence, it begs like a wounded thing, chanting, “Bitte. Please…”

His hips tilt up when she parts her lips again, all trepidation be damned. This is something, something he’s aches for and never had the chance to feel. All of the ache, the longing to be diminished, to unite with the angel who fled Heaven for him. The cock pushes at her open mouth, smears thick beads of precum over her cheek, before she takes him in again with a delighted, muffled sound. Her soft mouth, the tongue that thoroughly laps at his shaft and follows her movements to wrap and suck at the head. Otherworldly, and… unfathomably bittersweet.

Her lips suction around him, the movements of her wrist only increasing, and with the second roll of his hips he feels his stomach begin to tense as pure heat rolls its way through him. A gentle coursing becomes a blinding inferno in mere seconds, and regrettably, instinctively, that hand so gently combing through her hair comes to snare it instead and force her down further.

His soft grunts and low pleading morph to something choked and almost agonized. It’s the purest rapture, a pleasure so absolute his eyes prick as he bows lower to cover over her as she swallows his devotion by mouth. The angel pants breathlessly when she pulls away with saliva and semen still stringing them together, cleansed by his thumb tracing over her lips, replaced so swiftly by his own mouth. The kiss is so chaste it feels misplaced here, but she nuzzles against him in this comedown from ecstasy, doesn’t even chastise how he lasted a mere two minutes.

And he vows, vows in the sweetness of her comfort and love that no one else will ever have this again.

— — —

Abstaining from meals during a fast is a struggle in and of itself; abstaining from her is some long-forgotten circle of Hell.

It’s not avoidance, but a necessity.

To think that his first sexual encounter would provoke days of concern, a wistful daydream about a future he never would have thought to have had otherwise. There was a desperate, starving desire to repent when he first arrived home after that, but nothing that a bottle of communion wine and a cold shower could not wash away. Repentance has lost its merit to him.

And after seven days, he’s perfectly aware of what he must do. To absolve them both from things where atonement seems far from a necessity at all. He folds his holy robes and leaves them on the bed in the room too small, set neatly next to his Bible. The rosary was the one thing that König could not bear to part with. The beads, red and shimmery, were chosen and strung together with him in mind. It’s slipped into the pocket of his jeans after the plain, black t-shirt is pulled over his head.

There’s a hammer in his gloved hand, and he doesn’t recall where he found it. Lying with its head rusted in the churchyard, perhaps half buried beneath the soil. Some of the other clergymen are talented at fixing things, but König’s never been very good with that. His first rosary was broken with a careless slip of his fingers, and he’s shattered more porcelain than he could count on accident.

Even communion wine can be a bit too strong, sometimes. Or maybe that’s only when the bottle’s been entirely downed. He’ll blame one of his betters when the stock is counted and one turns up missing, if they bother to come seek him out again at all.

The motel is dead at this hour, so late into the night. The few normal visitors have already been accounted for with watchful eyes, and the angel waits in one of the rooms on the second floor. He imagines the laces on her lingerie, the healing bruises on her throat, and that sweet expression upon her face. Or maybe that one was reserved solely for him. He prayed… no, he hoped so.

After tonight, there would be no more mercies for him. Or perhaps there would be an abundance, blessings from the vultures and the wolves and the maggots he would feed. New gods that were still far lesser than the angel who suffers men in sheets, but only looks to him with love.

And he doesn’t have to wait long, because the demon finds his way here with haste. Does he come here every night looking as proud as he does now? His attire even resonates with death, black with those white details, a costume that seems so fitting for one about to meet the very face he wears.

Killing someone isn’t so easy. Cain murdered his brother with a rock, described in such loose detail that one would think a playful throw led to Abel’s end. But it’s not so, not when the victim is hellbent on living.

The demon is smaller, but strong. He’s been in situations like this before, doesn’t have to spit the words to tell König so. They’re felt with each blow, with the sharp edge of the knife this bastard manages to dig into his side. Just barely, before it’s jerked out of his hand and thrown several paces away. The skittering across the tarmac is enough to chant doom.

There’s blood. More with the first strike of the hammer. It seemed so much easier in thought rather than practice. In his imaginings, the head would split with the first fall like an overripe apple, crumple in and the breath would leave the demon in an instant. Instead, it’s dozens. Blow after blow while the smaller man struggles below him.

A strange catharsis comes over him when his soul grows murky, when his hands are slick and the struggle comes to an abrupt end. The sobering only comes when he’s spent an hour driving down the most forested roads to find a place to dump the body. There’s no tact to it, laying a man to rest in shrubbery and dirt. With a head so collapsed it’s hard to think of this as a man at all. A corpse, something no longer simply human.

König does not pray for him when he rests the hammer in the deceased’s hands. Does not offer it more than a passing thought when he peels away back toward home. The deed is done and he’s free of those horrid burdens tainting his heart, keeping him held back on a short leash to divinity.

Like fate, she’s found out in the garden again after the bloodied shirt and stained gloves are discarded. The wound is patched with what he could find available, a hastily tied strip of gauze covers his side. A week or so at best until the gash would heal into an ugly, jagged scar. It seemed even a bastard devil’s blade couldn't be sharp enough to fell a Goliath when he’s caught by surprise and horny.

He feigns merely emptying the garbage into an outside bin, plays off the sting of the gash with a humble, lumbering gait. She beams up at him through lines of tears running down the sides of her face like small, silver streams beneath the darkened sky above.

He’s not a saint anymore, no… a guardian angel. The archangel Michael with his sword set ablaze and divinity scrawled into every scale of his chest plate. Something holy and glowing, unsullied and beautiful.

Like her.

“You’re crying…”

“Sorry… bad night. Client just ghosted me.”

No. This was good, couldn’t she see that? All the sleepless nights, the prayer and the constant, overwhelming longing. Everything he had suffered for her, and still she only comes to him with the thought of that horrible thing in mind.

“He’s dead.” Maybe it was just the fear of a loss of money. He had enough saved up someplace, and the collection pool would be beneficial enough to pivot them towards a new life. No church. No lonely motel. He had to test it, give her a trial and hope that she did not simply break.

The look that crosses her face is one of confusion… Then comes a strange twist of relief. Her mouth falls slightly agape and her arms squeeze slightly around his middle.

“We just spoke a few hours ago. How…?” Finally, suspicion.

Maybe he’s too drunk on playing God now to care, to realize this isn’t how a good man would have handled things. The only thing that holds any weight, that resonated with him any at all is the thought that he loves her, that he will protect her until his dying breath, pray at her feet and anything else she might ask.

That’s what pulls him to press her down against the bed of the truck, to kiss her with every lesson she’s blessed him with in mind. Tongue and teeth, fire and spit, she accepts all of it. She doesn’t beg him for an answer: she’s seen the worst of men, taken cocks far less deserving. Her hands find his hair as they drift away here, gives the strands a sharp tug to usher him closer, roll her tongue against his own.

The sheer tights she wears beneath her skirt are ripped at the seam between her legs by large hands, panties pushed to the side before she finally presses against the broad chest against her to gain some space. Her breath is shallow, face warmed and hair a mess, still the loveliest thing he’s ever laid his eyes upon.

“Are you afraid?” He tilts his head to the side, curious, as if there were no reason for her deny him of this now after he had just *killed for her*. After he forsook what once was all he knew all for her. He would do it again without question, with no gain at all, but the sting of rejection was not something he could entirely choke back.

But his angel never runs out of mercies, it seems.

“No… just give me a second.”

She slips her hand down between her parted legs, demonstrates for him just how to prepare a woman. He watches, mesmerized, as she circles the bud above her slit, dips her finger downward to spread wetness along her flesh. Dew over petals. A finger slips inside of her, and all at once is shoved aside.

“Let me,” he pleads, already pressing both hands to her inner thighs, tilting her hips upward as his head sinks between them.

“You don’t have to,” she whispers, but grants him his wish with feverish nods that betray her words, allows him to kiss her sex as he shifts himself into a better position.

There’s nothing to go off of but her sounds, the cries of pleasure when his tongue lolls out to lick at the nub where most of her reactions stem from. He mutters against her about her taste, something so ethereal he could not even begin to place. Her scent envelopes him in full, and he’s never felt closer to anything prior. She allows his clumsy licking, moans louder for him when he can’t stifle his own groaning. The pants are too tight around him, and patience is another virtue he finds that he lacks.

She doesn’t reach some fantastical height of pleasure when he presses a finger into her cunt, but her body seems to fit even that like a glove, squeezing around him as he lazily circles her bud with his tongue. She doesn’t come, but she tugs him by the hair to usher him back into another kiss, hands roving down his abdomen to free his manhood from the barriers of fabric. And finally… finally he’s granted entrance to Heaven.

The first thrust leaves him spiraling, lost into a world of silk and honey. And the angel does not give him any time to recover, she writhes beneath him, shifting her hips to pull him in deeper, muffles each whine and groan from his lips with her tongue hungrily lapping over his own.

He’s thought about having a woman many times, but never imagined it could feel this good. To be so complete, every woe or fear cast aside in the act of mindless pleasure.

He doesn’t know where to put his hands, to keep his eyes shut or gaze down at her and cease this assault on his mouth to tell her that he loves her, that she feels like pure fucking paradise and he’s already on the verge of coming undone. He settles for moving, dragging himself in and out of her in slow movements, turning his face away to bite down on her shoulder when the feeling of her walls cinching him like a vise threatens to spur him into finishing on the spot.

“That’s just… god… you’re good at this,” she gasps when a hand is sunk between their bodies, flicking at her clit as he spears her open. Her hands find his back, raking her fingernails down past his shoulder blades. It’s agonizing, trying to fight back the urge to breed her full, watch his come spill out from her perfect cunt until he finds himself hard again. The very thought makes him gasp, grind himself deeper inside of her as her nails dig into his back.

“Mein… this is… you understand…,” he’s babbling, hardly coherent, and she only seems to accept it. The angel chants her agreement amidst the beginning of her rapture.

She cries out for him when she comes, her sex pulsing around him as she shivers that all restraint is immediately lost. She hugs him so tightly, squirms as she hisses a curse into his ear.

It’s a miracle he’s even lasted this long. He halts his pace for a mere second to prop himself up, gaze down at her in absolute reverence before that fire swallows him whole. It’s unceremonious when he comes: a growl and a wail as he buries he face into her neck and pumps every last drop of his seed into her pussy.

He doesn’t want to pull out, doesn’t want to leave such a complete embrace. The world has already ended for him, a long time ago on the very night they met. There’s no need to drag out their ruin with whatever else occurs when she’s out of his grasp.

She strokes over the marks she’s made, gentle, tickling touches of her fingertips and shy giggles when their eyes meet again.

“I thought I would never get to do this with you,” she admits, quiet when her hands drift to cup his jaw instead. “You’re perfect, you know that…?”

He wants to cry, wants to fuck all of his woes away, kneel before her and beg that she find a place where they can never be apart. Steal her away to some cabin up in the Alps, where flowers grow in thick patches on the hillsides, a wild garden of her very own.

“… You should stay with me,” he huffs into her ear, fingers dimpling the flesh of her hips as he tries desperately to force himself closer to her.

“You can’t mean the church,” she giggles. “So where should we go?”

“We can figure that out in the morning, hm?”

[cloudluvrrr]

fluff with obsessive (ok sounds hella creepy lmao) madly in love sunday but NOT LIKE THE YANDERE TYPE IF YK WHAT I MEAN. LIKE THE TYPE WHERE HE WILL WORSHIP THE GROUND U WALK AND THANK THE AEONS HE BREATHES THE SAME AIR AS U

basically sunday who sees you as the aeon of beauty herself

a/n: i love sunday guys hes so cute i wish he wasnt so negative and traumatized. Also idk if it was but i just made him like love bomb you but its permanent and he just loves you a lot and worships you and also general ideas 😭🙏

loving! sunday x g/n reader

Angel

virtual angel - artms

--

-hes very busy, with meetings and constantly is in his office. Reviewing plans or studying the scripture. But he never fails to send you texts

'hello angel <3'

"I will be home late, please don't stay up for me <3."

“I’ve made us restaurant reservations, so be ready when I get home <3.”

-his texts are always grammatically correct, since hes always writing to his colleagues or to other families.

-but sometimes he tried to incorporate emoticons.

“How are you my angel? :3”

“These meetings are boring. ;-;”

"Hello darling, I bought take out! o((>ω< ))o"

-he’s so cute

-but he often checks in when he has a chance too, and often responds quickly. And always ends his message with a heart.

-when speaking of you or to you he smiles with his eyes closed. He will find any excuse to talk about you

-and he’ll likely bring your flowers after a long day, as an apology for taking too long.

-taking you to his 'family' dinners, and parties.

-and help you dress up and even put on your makeup, jewelry, and help you with your zipper/tie/buttons.

-kissing your cheek, and shoulder as he does. Whispering sweet things in your ear.

-he'll always have things for you incase of an emergency as well, if you find yourself with a spill or your shoes are hurting. He'll tell his assistant to bring you a new pair and escort you to a private room.

-during parties he'll drag you away, to walk around just the two of you

—

Your sitting on the couch on your phone, reading the latest news before your attention is turned to the door opening. Revealing Sunday as he carried a small bouquet of flowers “I apologize the florist didn’t have any that were bigger my love” he began as he closed the door “I’ll buy you bigger ones next time”

"you and your gifts for me sunday" you spoke taking the flowers from him and arranging them. "I love giving you things, I have money to throw around why not spend it on my lovely fiance" he replied playing with your hair, and burying his nose into your collarbone "you're so wonderful... " he uttered his hands gently rubbing your waist "so perfect.. I love you very much you know"

--

-Sunday only works during the week, on weekends he's all yours.

-you both wake up late in his expensive bed, he'll be all over you in the morning whispering sweet nothings.

-he'll make breakfast, whatever you want he'll make.

-Making a plan of what you want and organize the day to fit your schedule. Ordering his driver around and having a private shopping day

-giving anyone a look if they look at your a little weird

-buying you anything and everything 'I dont have any other use for my credits' he'd say as he placed another ring on your finger.

--

"Sunday I can make pancakes" you huff trying to take the spatula from his thin fingers

"You work too hard, It time for me to pamper you" he said slyly, bringing up your hand and kissing your knuckles. "You do that every week"

"oh do I? I guess i forget" he chuckles flipping the pancakes.

"Would you like bacon with that my love?"

--

-you spend weekends together, in restaurants or shopping.

-or just at home lazing around, watching tv, scrolling through social medias or just petting his wings.

-he spoils you in every shape and form.

-buying you earrings, rings, necklaces and all kinds of stuff that'll make you happy

--

"this looks lovely on you doesn't it" he said pulling out a frilly shirt, with a gentle smile. "Sunday I have that one in 3 colors"

"it looks so beautiful on you why not have one more" he said putting up again your torso "its on sale as well" he added placing it on the overfilled basket

--

- He'll try to hide his stress and his own emotions from you, in an effort to not affect you.

-sometimes he'll open up about his past if hes tipsy enough, his wing piercings, his clipped wing on his torso, his trauma with the family, loosing his mother.

-especially when its something with that gopher fuck gopher wood

-you could tell when he was anxious, he would touch his piercing on his wing or play with his gloves

-that and he'll be spacing out during dinner

--

"did something happen a work" you asked taking his hand from his wing. "Nothing to worry your pretty head about" he said calmly kissing your hand, and smiling. "your sure.. you seem antsy" you insist "Just a bit antsy for the festival.. Hoping everything will be perfect, especially you. We have to find a new outfit for you don't we?"

--

-he was always a smooth talker and manipulative, hes able to easily do it when your worried as well.

-he does it so you dont think about it too much, as well as using gifts to lead you away from the conversation

-he doesn't like manipulating his love he'll avoid it, but its so you dont ask too many questions.

--

"I love you, you know that" he said not looking up from his desk, as he spoke to you over the phone "I know that.. I'm just worried you know, you haven't taken any days off this week." you vocalized as he continues his paper work "I'll make us reservations at your favorite restaurant" he suggests finally picking up the phone

"Sunday.. I just want to know you're okay"

"I am my angel, please stop worrying we'll see eachother at dinner. I love you, alright? I love you.. very much" he murmured before hanging up. His mind had many thoughts but you were always on top, he smiled to himself as he looked as the many photos of you on his desk.

--

Sunday loves you very much, his only regret it not showing it more. As he fell from the penacony theatre, his eyes following the horizon as he envisioned your smile. The only thing giving him hope, that he'll survive this fall.

-

STREAAM TTYL BY LOOSEMBLE GUYSYY

also kinda got carried away 😔😔

-- navi >.<

[somnambuletta]

if not a contradiction:

personal list of eyeless jack / reader headcannons + reference guide to be updated upon.

(please share with me your headcannons (for any of the creepypasts). i plea for knowledge)

i. you do not know when he first called you lamb - only that he did, and that it stuck. you did not protest it- not because you liked it, or that something about it felt right; but because something about it felt inevitable. it is not a pet name, and it is not a lover's whisper. it is a sentence, a truth carved into your being as though you were something frail branded into his pack. the name, is his proof of ownership- something always spoken soft and slow, as though it is divine scripture that falls from his lips when he says your 'name'.

ii. he speaks to you the same way men speak to their gods. with reverence, with worship- with an oath to never let go. he kisses you like a priest kisses their cross, like a zealot pressing their lips to relics; holy at first, and then frenzied, desperate, lost to something greater than 'faith' itself. he praises you in the same breath that he ruins you. calls you pure- albeit he keeps you in the filth of his hands:

"untouched", he whispers against your nape one day, "unspoiled" -

yet his fingers bruise. yet his teeth leave marks. yet his mouth takes, takes, takes.

iii. jack does not let you walk around the world untouched. it is not enough that he keeps you. that he feeds from you, that you know you belong to him. no- the world must know, too. he leaves his scent along your skin in papyrus, pressed into every place that matter.

"i won't stop you from leaving", he mutters to you one day, and you shudder. "i just wonder what the other wolves will think when they smell me on you"

you do not leave.

iv. jack sleeps like gravity—pressed to you, unmoving, inevitable. his arm drapes over your waist, fingers idly stroking the hollow of your throat, tracing the rhythm of your breath. he doesn't lull you, doesn't need to, or frankly want to. the silence is as warm as it could possibly be, thick, filled only with the steady rise and fall of your body against his own. his nose lingers in your hair, breath slow, savoring the scent—coconut, mango, vanilla. soft things, things that don’t burn. things he can stand. you shift slightly, and he exhales—not in protest, not in demand. just a slow, quiet thing. a sigh against your skin.

he sleeps like this. always.

iv. ii. -> jack doesn’t like most scents. strong ones make his skull ache, make something inside him recoil. lavender stings. mint is sharp. floral perfumes cling to the air too long, cloying, bitter at the edges. but then— you find the one. the first time you used it, he lingered closer to the vanilla. nose tucked into your hair, breath deep, slow, thoughtful, curious about the mango. he didn’t pull away. didn’t grimace like he does with the others. just breathed you in. now, when you wash your hair, you feel the way his grip softens at night, how he exhales against your skin—like something settled, something content. his nose presses into your hair as he drifts, fingers at your throat, stroking absent patterns against warm skin. you keep using it.

v. he delights in the tremor that runs through you at his touch— the way your soul seems to lurch as if startled from prayer. jack does not just wish to claim you; he desires to hollow you out and fill you with nothing but him, until your trembling ceases, not from fear, but from devotion. it is not love he seeks—it is need, an aching, all-consuming dependence, the way a drowning man needs air, the way sinners beg for absolution. there is power in that.

no harm will befall you—no blade, no beast, no vengeful hand—save for the ruin he carves himself.

"the world cannot have you." "and you can?" he smiles, slow and wolfish, baring something closer to teeth than affection. "of course. who else would know how to break you so gently?"

vi. jack is not a creature of petty jealousy, but of sequestration, and there is a difference. he does not rage, does not ask, and he does not accuse. but he sees. oh, he sees. a glance that lingers too long. a voice too honeyed, too bold. a hand that dares hover in your space. and later—when the world has gone quiet, when you are his again— he will remind you. his hands will trace the places that matter: your waist, your throat, the curve of your hip– not to punish. no, not that. to mark. to press his truth into your skin like ink into vellum.

"did they touch you?" "did they think they could take what is mine?" it is not anger. not quite. it is certainty. jack does not fear losing you. he only fears the mess he will have to make proving that you were never anyone else’s to begin with.

vii. the wolf is particular about his meals—irony at its finest. he does not simply consume whatever organ he can pry from a body; he has his preferences. kidneys are his staple—nutrient-rich, compact, easy to claim. but intestines? god forbid. he would rather starve than suffer the slick, rubbery indignity of gut-meat. something about the texture revolts him, a bodily rejection so visceral it makes his stomach turn. you find it amusing. monstrous, to be sure, but amusing nonetheless:

"you’re a literatim monster," you say, watching as he grimaces at the sinewy coil of flesh in his grasp. his mask is lifted just enough to reveal the sharp cut of his mouth, a slice of shadowed expression beneath the darkness of his hood. he levels you with a look, flat and unimpressed. then, with the deliberate slowness of someone indulging a particularly stupid argument, he says; "and? even wolves won’t eat spoiled carrion."

viii. jack does not fear pain. he has been carved open, stitched shut, unmade and remade. fire does not scare him because it harms—it scares him because it cleanses. he loathes candles. the flicker, the scent, the raw reminder that flame was once used to purge unholy things- to ritualize. he watches matches burn down to your skin, eyes dark, as if something buried in his marrow remembers being hunted by torchlight.

once, you held your hand above a lighter—just to test the heat. his hand had closed over yours before you could blink.

"don’t," he murmured, quieter than you’ve ever heard him. not a threat. not a warning. just something dangerously close to pleading. you do not touch it again.

ix. jack collects things from you. it is instinct, not sentiment—at least, that’s what you tell yourself. but still, he keeps them:

a hair tie, forgotten on the edge of the sink.

a loose thread from your sweater, wrapped between his fingers absentmindedly.

they do not belong in his pockets, but they end up there anyway. you find them in odd places—the windowsill, the nightstand, tucked beneath the curve of his mask where he presses his face against you at night.

"what are you doing with those?" you ask him once, and he does not answer; just twirls the thread around his finger, pulls it tight until the skin blanches pale, and lets it go.

x. jack likes it when you speak. he does not ask you to talk, but when you do, he listens. the shift is subtle—a quiet, instinctive thing. shoulders uncoil, breath steadies, the weight he carries settling just a little lighter. your voice anchors him, keeps him from drifting too far into the abyss clawing at his ribs.

"keep talking." "about what?" "anything."

so you do. halfhearted musings, lines plucked from dog-eared pages, idle talk of rain on the windowpane; and you pretend not to notice the way he exhales, how he sinks into the sound like it’s something that keeps him tethered.

x.ii. alternatively, jack is not a man of conversation. he will almost never engage first; but when you speak, he, again, listens. you tell him about a book you read. about a movie you half-remember. about a stray thought that slipped into your mind while staring at the ceiling. and even though he does not reply, days later, you find proof that he was listening. -> a book left at your nightstand—the same one you mentioned in passing. -> a piece of fabric, soft, in the color you once said you liked. -> a place, once empty, now filled.

he does not speak his affections, but they inevitably settle in the spaces between you, waiting for you to find them.

xi. possession is not always teeth, nor torn flesh. sometimes, it is the quiet return of what was never his.

a bracelet, long vanished, placed soft upon your pillow—your name, worn down against the silver

a book, barely a thought, waiting at the table’s edge—pages bent, a thumbprint smudged into the margin, proof of something unread but held.

a ring—not stolen, but found—turned over in his fingers, the metal catching dull light. held, as if some part of him still recalls the shape of offering.

"you keep bringing me things." "you keep losing them, lamb." no further explanation. no excuse, no reason, just the weight of his gaze and the silence between. but there are things you have not lost. things jack still brings:

a feather, left where your fingers will find it, sleek and dark.

a bullet casing, nestled in the curve of your palm, warmed by the heat of his pockets.

a coin, foreign and old, stamped with a face neither of you recognize.

tiny gifts, placed in your space, your hands, your life— things that do not belong to you, and yet, somehow, do.