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on another note I hate realm public test I take NOTHING but Ls. I got my mace last night and it was all downhill from there
#log on this morning and find out a griefer hit basically every base on the server breaking chests#I had valuables in my echest and such so it wasn't horrible for me and they didn't destroy the base itself#so I was like whatever. I wanted a better base anyways because my shit is so cramped#I just realized I lost my creator music box disk :( but like I said whatever#anyways I take a trip thru the nether and find a nice new spot in the overworld to settle down and there's even a village nearby!!#yay!!#after a painstaking amount of time digging the villagers down into a hole and getting them transported.#my fucking. dog. teleports to me. and I'm holding my water bucket as I try to sit the dog down#I place my water on accident. it pushes the boat with the villagers into the wall. and one of them fucking suffocates and DIES#I HATE SETTING UP VILLAGERS MAN!!!!#also during this adventure I dropped my silk pickaxe on accident while mining up#I had just happened to break into a cave and INSTANTLY a creeper fell into the hole and blew up and deleted my pickaxe#I remade my pick pretty easy but I still need to get another villager back home god damnittttt#doozer server has open space rn but it's late and I should go bed. grrr
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adding onto your price x mermaid!reader thought....
price who spends hours that day just sitting atop his boat, talking to you, learning what you like, what you don't like, etc.
he asks if you've ever left the water and you obviously say no, but you'd love toâyou'd love to explore, learn what it means to be part of his world (see what i did there)
so he decides he's gotta make it all happen for his future wifey. he lines the back bed of his truck with tarps and fills it up with water for easy transport to his home
i dunno how, but he gets you in there. you survive the 15 minute drive to his flat which isn't too far from the beach and he's already got a ginormous pool in the back that he switched out for fresh water, and also got you an assortment of pool toys and some of those inflatable chairs 'n what not
then if you wanna go dark with it, price decides that he just has to keep you. who can provide for you like he can back where you're from? obviously no one, silly!!! but don't worry, he'll even by some pebbles for the bottom of the poolâlike your own personal fish tank.
kay, shutting up now đ¤
YES OMG >O< both to fluff and dark plot yes-
also, in my head mermaid reader wear none of them clams, so you're topless đđââď¸
I imagined Price would ask if you wanted to wear anything, he'd love to see you in his shirts. And you'd responded with, why do I need to wear anything
Price paused for a while before agreeing, you're right why would you need to cover those pretty tits? yeah he might get a lil jelly of some bloke eyeing you who's lounging prettily at the back of his truck. But he could handle them himself, it's alright đď¸đď¸
He'd keep you in the pool at the back yes- pool toys, decorations and all that included. He also taught you about this thing called the phone.. and the internet, where you could buy more of those pretty- what are they called? floaties?
You're a fast learner, so soon enough you're adding stuff after stuff into the cart before batting your eyelashes at him to pay for them all.
And he'd do it, he'd do anything for you. Anything to keep you happy and stay with him forever.. And while he is a possessive man, there was still an itch at the back of his head, something that told him to get his men to meet you.. to show them what he got that they couldn't even dream to have.
side note: when i was little, i remember boys used to trap little fishes and clip their fin to keep them from being too wild as they would escape- so- đď¸đď¸ Price doing that to you when you were unconscious, after putting a load of sedatives in the water without you knowing
and please never shut up, come back u_u)/
#mbe ask#call of duty#call of duty x reader#cod#john price#price cod#captain john price#captain price#price x reader#john price x reader#captain price x reader
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selfish // ghost of you
navigation -- series masterlist
pairing: jj maybank x routledge!reader (she/her)
summary: covering the 18 months after el dorado, the pogues are home and are attempting to work through life back in kildare. you're dealing with your trauma setting in, and jj's usual reckless decisions are not helpful in the slightest. oh, and it's time to treasure hunt. again.
warnings: s4 spoilers! for episode one, violence, cursing, the usual obx. heavy mentions of trauma/depression/anxiety/ptsd.
-- So, you might be wondering. What happens after you find the lost city of El Dorado, get blown up, two of your parents die, and youâre stranded in South America with a sack full of gold? Letâs catch up.
First, you catch a ride back home, and you sleep for like three weeks. And then when you finally get back, you make peace with the fam⌠or not really. And after all the loose ends are tied up, the gold.
$1,172,549âŚEnough money to get you back on your feet and taken care of after what had been the most insane chase of your life. Pope was the mastermind that pieced together a plan and after a heated, overpriced auction, you stood in front of the old Maybank property that had been transformed into a dream. A surf shop, JJâs new boat, a dock, and a house full of love and friendship.
Granted, things got iffy and your plethora of money dropped quickly (no thanks to JJâs poor budgeting), and you were already tight in terms of keeping the business alive. So, you were laying low and helping where you could.
While you were glad to be home and no longer on the run, it didnât keep away the haunting memories that followed. This was the first time since John B went missing that youâd been able to sit with your thoughts and try to process everything that happened. And it wasnât easy.
âHey there, sweet thing.â
You glanced up from your spot on the hammock, having been dozing in and out of sleep for a few minutes now. JJ stood in the doorway, his cutoff shirt framing his tanned skin nicely as you smiled up at him.
âHi.â
He moved to meet you, lips pressing against yours in a warm, feverish kiss. The two of you had just spent the weekend away in Savannah, Georgia while the other Pogues placed the finishing touches on the property and store for opening. They were more than happy to send the two of you off for time away since you were both more touchy and lovey than you had been in a while. It was the vacation you needed and deserved.
âYou coming to the race?â JJâs voice was raspy and he sat on the netting next to you. It was the annual Kildare Enduro, one that JJ loved to get involved in and you loved to watch, but after his last biking accident, you were a bit nervous.
Your fingers messed with the hair behind his neck as you hummed in agreement, pulling him back down to your lips. âNot happy about you racing on that bike but yes, Iâm coming.â
One of the few things you all allowed was for John B and JJ to pick out a new dirt bike, given the fact that you only had the Twinkie as reliable transportation. Now all three of the boys had their own, so as long as the van kept running, the six of you had a fair chance.
âYou love me on the bike, baby.â
You chuckled at JJâs words, giving him another kiss before rolling off the hammock to prevent yourself from falling asleep. âI love seeing you on the bike, J. Donât love you racing on it.â
The beach was slammed with bikes, trucks, and tents for the racers and crowd of the day when you all arrived. You and Kie business yourself grabbing lemonade as Cleo and John B made sure JJâs bike was ready to go.Â
âHow was your trip?â Kie asked as she shoved her reusable straw into the lemonade cup after politely declining the plastic ones the cashier had offered.Â
You pushed your sunglasses up and sipped your drink as the two of you started walking back to where the Twinkie was parked. âSo nice and peaceful. We didnât do too much but it was a welcomed change in the chaos.â
Your eyes caught sight of Topper Thornton in his red racing gear, no doubt having a stare-off with your boyfriend. The thought of JJ out there racing against Kooks who clearly had a bone to pick with you guys didnât help your anxiety.
Sarah thanked you as you handed her a lemonade before sitting in the back of the van which had been pulled up to the makeshift track so you all could watch. Being in this new rhythm had been so odd for you, especially after you started to make peace with the idea that you would never have this sort of ânormalâ again.
âDid you know?â
You looked up to see your brother, John B, staring back at you with a frustrated frown on his face. He had pulled on his racing jacket, which added to your confusion, but you could tell he was pissed at something. And just like that, things had gone to shit again.
You glanced at Sarah, who looked just as confused before shaking your head. âWhat are you talking about?â
John B sighed and stepped closer, crouching in front of you. His demeanor changed when you tensed, not knowing what was happening. âDid you know JJ bet the gold?â
âHe what?â Your voice was deep and angry. JJâs lack of self-control when it came to spending money had become severely frustrating for all of you, especially when he spent so much to reclaim his house when it wasnât worth over half of it. âPlease tell me youâre lying, JB.â
He didnât answer and instead, got to his feet to grab the handles of his own bike that had been driven over.
âJohn B!â You set your lemonade down and quickly got to your feet as Kiara started cussing out JJâs behavior, Sarah mumbling her agreement. âAre you serious?â
Your brother stopped short, his eyes searching yours as if he could say everything without speaking. He knew you were already anxious about JJ racing, and putting both of them in there was slowly becoming a fearful experience for you. It didnât make you feel any better when Rafe settled into a spot next to Topper on his bike, revving his engine to make a scene.
âIâve got him, okay? Weâre gonna make it work.â
You didnât say anything else, watching as he made his way to the starting line and leaving you between two heated girls who had their glares set on your boyfriend.
It had been hard for you to adjust after nearly dying multiple times while in South America. Youâd had a lot of talking sessions amongst each other as a group to cope with it, making sure everyone aired all their emotions when they needed to. Even as though you were practically adults, life was still scary, and youâd had too many breakdowns to not acknowledge it.
JJ had taken most of the nightmares and sleepless nights youâd been cursed with, talking you through every bit of it until you would fall back asleep. John B did his best to pull you out of your head, clocking the look on your face when youâd get too deep and try to pull away. He meant it when he said he was working on being better for everyone, but especially you.
It was a process, but it was working. Slowly but surely, you were healing. It weighed on you mentally, but you were so appreciative to have the support you did.
So, watching the two boys you loved the most get into a race with people that hated you, was scary.Â
âTheyâll be fine,â Sarah reassured as she watched her own boyfriend pull his helmet on before adjusting his bandana around his face. âDoes JJ ever think before he does anything?â
âNo, never,â You were quick to answer, crossing your arms over your chest. âNot even once.â
Kie wordlessly held her joint out to you, which you took with no objection. This was slowly becoming a horror movie as they took off from the starting line, the roar of the bikes overwhelming as sand flew up behind them. You kept your eyes on JJ and John B as long as you could until they disappeared over the hill and into the treeline.Â
âWeâve got some serious contact in the brush. Oh, and it sounds like Topper didnât like Maybank crowding him there. Taught him a little lesson. Stuffed him like a turkey!â
You groaned, burying your face into your hands as the announcer covered the parts of the races you couldnât see behind the trees. Not only was JJ losing, he was losing badly.
âIt looks like theyâre turning around the buoy. Weâve got Rafe Cameron still in front ahead of the group of riders. Cameron seems to have things well in hand. No mistakes and he should take home the Kildare Enduro. Thereâs Maybank bringing up the rear. Tough race for him and oh, heâs down again in the deep sand!â
Kiara groaned loudly this time. âFucking shit, JJ!â
âWait, whatâs he doing?â You caught on to the fact that JJ wasnât slowing down to make the left-handed turn that would put him en route with everyone else and instead had set his eyes straight ahead where the inlet met the track. âAre we seriously doing this again?â
Sarah grabbed your hand, squeezing tightly as JJ approached the jump at full speed. As much as you wanted to, you couldnât take your eyes off the scene as he threw himself and the bike in the air, managing to catch the ground just ahead of Rafe.
âHoly shit!â Cleo yelled as JJ pushed forward, everyone bursting into cheers as he held the lead. The remaining racers turned the corner and you caught sight of John B nearing Topper, the two pushing each other for the next spot.Â
Rafe managed to catch up to JJ quicker than you wouldâve liked as they hit the final stretch. Things were looking up and you fought the glimmer of hope bubbling in your chest that this may all end up in your favor.
Until Rafeâs tire nudged JJâs and sent both of them flying in the air.Â
âJay!â You were moving before you realized, only to get tugged back by Sarah and Pope from interfering as more racers caught up. JJ was moving though, and that was the only part you really cared about.Â
John B came flying into view next, barely stopping in time to miss JJâs crumbled form that was in the sand, which gave Topper the door to win. You couldnât even care about that though, and as soon as the bikes cleared you were flying forward to your boys on the track. You made it to them as John B pulled JJ from the ground, your boyfriend shoving your brother angrily as he mouthed off.Â
âHey!â You yelled and grabbed JJâs arm to move him as he tossed his helmet aside angrily. âWhat the hell is wrong with you?â
JJ shook his head and continued separating himself from the group. âI donât want to hear it right now.â
âThen youâre going to fucking hear it later, JJ!â You shouted after him, anger overtaking your anxiety as the adrenaline wore off. So much couldâve gone wrong and you couldâve lost more than the money. You glared at him, angry tears burning your eyes as he continued to walk away as if it didnât matter.Â
âHey, hey.â John Bâs arm wrapped around your shoulder, tugging you back into his chest as he turned you away from the sight of your retreating boyfriend. âHeâs fine, weâre fine. Thatâs all that matters.â
âGet used to it.â A raspy voice cut off your response to your brother as you shifted to see Rafe pulling himself off the ground next to you.Â
âWhatâd you say?â John Bâs hold disappeared from around you before he moved forward to confront the older Kook with a shove. âNah, man. Whatâd you say?â
Rafe hit John B back, both boys ready to start a fight instantly before Sarah jumped in between them. âHey!âÂ
âThis is forever, alright?â Rafe screamed, backing up a few paces. His face was burning red with anger and you feared he would lash out right in front of you. âYâall donât get to win.â
You shook your head, placing your hand on John Bâs shoulder to keep him back. âWe never get to win, Rafe. In case you havenât fucking noticed.â
âYou couldâve killed each other!â Sarah yelled back at him as she continued to force her brother away from your group.Â
Rafe pulled himself out of her grip and shook his head. âYeah, like you give a shit. You gonna kill me like you killed Dad?â
Your eyes widened as Sarah attempted to defend herself from the comment, but Rafe had already walked out of hearing range. Your friends crowded around the three of you, JJ still in his own head behind the crowd where you left him.Â
John B shook his head, running his hand through his hair. The last hour had really wiped him out, physically and emotionally. âWe are so screwed.â
Kiara nodded in agreement, the displeasure evident on her face. âYeah. We are.â
âWhy are we screwed?â
The question coming from Pope made you sigh and dig your palms into your eyes in frustration. This was the worst outcome possible for something that was supposed to be fun.Â
âJust come on, letâs go.â John B led the group back to the van as Pope pushed for an answer that none of you were willing to give yet. Kie busied herself tossing the lawn chairs in the van, John B taking a seat on his bike and replacing his helmet as Sarah waited for him.Â
âDo you want me to get him?â Cleo asked you as she nudged her head in JJâs direction. You followed her movement to see the boy cussing at himself, kicking sand, and throwing an angry fit.
It broke your heart, but you shook your head. âLeave him, he can come home once heâs calmed down.â
That was another thing that had taken a lot of time to figure out, was how to separate yourself from everyoneâs emotions. You were such an empathetic person that you wanted to solve the problems and help everyone, but it had taken its own toll for so long that you needed to end the habit. JJ included. As much as you wanted to run over and hug him and tell him it was fine, it wasnât.Â
It wasnât until you guys were back home, John B and Sarah following the van on his bike, that Pope approached the subject again. âSomeone better tell me what happened before I lose it.â
Shoving the passenger door open, you forced yourself out of the car, knowing the rage was coming quickly. âJJ bet the last of the gold on himself for the race.â
Silence echoed for a moment.Â
âWhat the fuck!â
--
The rampage of Pope Heyward was well deserved. The poor boy had done so much to try and extend the gold payout as best as possible and lost in every way. So when JJ resurfaced at Poguelandia 2.0, all hell broke loose.Â
âI said it. I said it once, and I said it again. I said donât touch the last of our nugget. That was it. That was the last of our savings! Do you not care?â
JJ spun around in a fury, his body scratched and dirty with sand from the crash. âPope, you saw what happened, man! He stole it, okay? He cheated and he stole it. Thatâs not my fault, Pope.â
âDo you know how selfish you sound?â
JJ laughed, which just pissed everyone off further. âI sound selfish? I was trying to help us.â
âYou helped us, you just cost us everything. Thank you!â
You curled into the sleeves of your sweater as you watched your boyfriend pace. How he thought none of this was his fault was crazy. âJayj, why are you making it sound like you had nothing to do with it?â
He looked at you and all the anger disappeared from his face, leaving the vulnerable boy you loved so much with tears in his eyes. âOkay, babe. Babe. You know me. Okay? I was gonna bet it all. Thatâs who I am.â
Kiara scoffed from next to you, âYou shouldâve talked to us first! It was too risky this time.â
âAnd what were you doing?â Popeâs anger turned toward John B, who instantly went wide eye at the attack. âYou knew he had it and you just let him race?â
âHe told me last minute, alright?â Your brother attempted to defend himself but it fell on silent ears.
âJohn B, look, man. You were supposed to cover-!â
âI did cover!â
The arguing escalated loudly between all three boys until you covered your hands over your ears to block it out. Youâd never faired well with yelling since everything happened with Rafe, and hearing it from the people you loved made it worse even if it wasnât directed at you.
Cleo took one look at you and shut it down. âHey, enough!â Her voice echoed around the space, effectively chopping the harsh words that were being through. âHow bad is it, Pope?â
âHow bad is it?â Pope repeated the question as he faced her. âWe have a $13,000 property tax payment due in seven days. And we have zero working capital. There is nothing. And you took the last of our savings, so thank you.â
Silence followed the heaviness of his voice before he left you all outside. You winced at the severity of JJâs actions, knowing these consequences affected all of you and it wasnât like the hot tub episode at the Chateau where it was a rough purchase.Â
JJ called your name, breaking you from your thoughts as you looked up at him. His eyes were still red and clouded with tears. âBabyâŚâ
âIâm going to go for a little bit. Iâll be back before dark.â You didnât leave room for argument, instead taking off in the direction of the dock where the HMS Pogue was.Â
You werenât trying to give anyone the cold shoulder, but you promised yourself you would try to be better about handling your emotions on your own. You needed to process and take care of yourself alone sometimes.
âHey,â Popeâs voice was soft as you caught sight of him in the boat, looking out over the water. Seems the two of you had the same idea to come out here. He whispered your name when you didnât answer or say anything.Â
You shrugged, climbing in to sit near him as you pulled your sleeves over your hands. âIâm trying.â
âYouâre okay.â Popeâs affirmation sent you into tears. Your knees pulled to your chest as you let out a shaky breath. He didnât hesitate to wrap you into a hug, letting you cry softly.Â
âIâm trying really hard,â You breathed out, hating how weak your voice came out. âItâs like the second a voice raises I shut down and-and-â
Pope held you tightly against him, allowing you to have time to get your emotions out. These panic episodes happened more often than youâd like since you had all gotten home an you felt so embarrassed for your friends to deal with them.Â
âJust breathe, Iâve got you. I promise.âÂ
Pope had become an anchor for you since the moment that was shared on the plane to Orinocco. When it had been revealed that you felt left behind after John B disappeared, he took it personally to help where and when he could. You had always been like a sibling to him and it broke his heart to know you were struggling so much.
The two of you sat there for a few until you caught your breath and recentered. The air was brisk as you drove the HMS through the marsh, taking in the sunset as you did. As much as you loved JJ, you were disappointed he had made this decision on his own. He was trying to help, he always was, but sometimes it just didnât go that way.
âIâm sorry about JJ,â You said as Pope slowed down for the final stretch before the dock. âI know he means well, but it doesnât always turn out that way.â
Pope shook his head softly. âI know he does too, but his impulse will be the death of him.â
Unfortunately, you didnât disagree.
--
The house was relatively quiet as you walked in, quietly thanking Pope before making your way up to your shared bedroom with JJ. You could hear the shower running, the light poking from under the door along with soft music that told you that Sarah was likely inside. The bedroom door creeked quietly as you opened it. JJâs figure was sitting in your floating egg chair, the one thing youâd asked for at the thrift shop.Â
âHi,â You greeted quietly. He immediately looked up, relief flooding his body at the sight of you as he got to his feet.
âIâm so sorry, I-â
You held your hand up, intercepting whatever he was going to say. âJayj, I know you are. And I love you, but I really donât want to talk about this right now. Okay?â
His hope deflated but he nodded regardless. âYeah. Yeah, okay. Um, Kie made salad. Thereâs leftovers in the fridge. I can⌠I can sleep on the couch if you want.â
You shook your head softly, giving him a small smile before wrapping your arms around his neck gently. âAfter today, thereâs nothing more I want than to hold you and make sure youâre okay. So no, youâre sleeping here. Now come on, macho. Letâs clean up those cuts and get your ass to bed.âÂ
And then our luck turned, and the Outer Banks Sentinel wrote about us and our journey. They finally excavated the cave we blew up and suddenly, weâre heroes. Itâs pretty weird, to be honest. After the ceremony, this old guy named Wes Genrette came up to us with a request. He invited us to his private estate to discuss his proposition. So, here we are. Eighteen months after finding El Dorado, on our way to Goat Island. Back in the G game, for what we hoped was the last time.
--
navigation -- series masterlist
a/n: and we're back!!! send ideas, send requests, and let the angst begin !!!!
#goy series#jj maybank imagine#jj maybank x reader#jj maybank#jj x reader#john b routledge#john b outer banks#outer banks x reader#outer banks jj#jj maybank x routledge!reader#ghost of you
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hi! i was wondering if in dunmeshi, before falin was eaten by the dragon and before present events, laios and his party were earning money for k*lling monsters in the dungeon? i don't understand if someone was paying them, how they were making money and how it worked
I want to write a proper, thorough reply to this with citations to specific references and mentions in the story, but uh, a tree fell on my house so I've been a bit too busy to do that lmao.
BUT, to give an incomplete answer:
Yes, adventurers get paid for work they do inside of the dungeon, or, they just harvest monsters/plants/treasure that they find. The dungeons are a kind of boom town, similar to a gold or silver rush, which means that the entire local economy is based on people trying to extract wealth from the dungeon, since it's dangerous but easy work, anyone can try to do it with very little resources, and the potential for profit is huge.
Someone with almost no money could, potentially, go into the dungeon and walk away with enough money to start a business, or buy a house or a boat. If they don't die. If they're lucky. Desperate people cling to the hope that they will be one of the lucky ones who become insanely wealthy.
Based on things Kui's told us in the manga and the extra materials, we know:
You pay a fee or a toll to be allowed to go into the dungeon. Access is controlled by the local government. Some people avoid this, like Senshi and the orcs since they just live in the dungeon and avoid leaving.
Many people die, give up, or fail to accomplish anything useful in the dungeon. These people probably generate a good, steady income for the island, since they pay fees but don't have to be rewarded. The lure of trying to strike it rich keeps huge hoards of people flowing in steadily. Most money in boom towns is generated by all the people who are trying and failing to get rich buying things from local people (food, supplies, lodging).
When a dungeon first appears, it is full of easy to harvest gold and treasure. "Gold peeling" is how Laios and Falin started out, and it's literally going into the dungeon and peeling gold off of the walls and statues, and taking any easy to transport treasure with you.
Various tasks need to be done in the dungeon to keep it safe, clean and accessible, and all of these result in a person either being paid by the lord of the island, or the person who they have saved. Killing dangerous monsters, finding people who have died and taking their corpses to the resurrection office, reporting changes to the dungeon, discovering new paths, etc.
When gold and treasure that is easy to find starts to run out, people turn primarily to harvesting monsters. They are probably paid a bounty for every monster they can prove they killed (bring back some body part that a monster only has one of, like a tail), and then they can also sell anything else they harvested from the monster in the market (meat, the rest of the hide, horns, teeth, claws.)
You want the dungeon to stay safe with a well-managed monster population to prevent something like Utaya from happening.
But if you kill too many monsters, now that the treasure is gone, there won't be any profit reason for people to go into the dungeon anymore, and your economy will collapse.
So you need to manage the dungeon and keep the monster population high, but not too high. This is what the Shadow Lord was complaining about. He thinks that if they evacuate the dungeon the expensive monsters they are currently harvesting may stop manifesting/spawning/being born, and all that will be left to harvest is mushrooms and slimes, which are not worth a lot of money.
Laios' group had an assignment from the island lord to try and find the giant doors on the 6th floor that nobody had been able to get past. That was what they were trying to do when they ran into the red dragon and Falin got eaten!
Despite everything, at that time Laios' party was the number one team on the island, capable of going the deepest into the dungeon.
Kabru's team is also considered pretty good, despite how often we see them dying - this should tell you how bad many of the teams that go in are! Most of them don't accomplish much or anything... Just like a boom town, where most miners go into debt trying to find gold, and only a few strike it rich.
This is what Rin is talking about in her first appearance, when she scolds Kabru for being too modest around other adventurers. She wants those other people to know that they are not going into the dungeon for profit and that they're not like the rest of them, dream-chasing fools hoping to make a payday.
She's offended anyone would mistake them for people like that, meanwhile Kabru would rather keep their motivations obscure and not advertise that they're in the dungeon on a moral crusade, not a financial one.
It should also be noted that the dungeon has a lot of criminal activity going on inside of it, because it's not well monitored and it's easy to conceal your activities. There's also a population of people who can "no longer live on the surface" for various reasons, such as being wanted criminals, exiles hiding to avoid vigilante justice, people too poor to leave because they wasted all their money trying to get rich and now they can't afford to live on the surface, or leave the island.
Essentially there is a population of homeless people living in the dungeon, eating anything they can scavenge, begging and stealing to stay alive. This could even be part of the taboo on eating monsters in the dungeon - that's something poor and desperate people do, and doing it is seen as a sign of how low Laios' party has fallen.
This is also why Kabru is so worried about the Touden party: their financials are a mess, but they keep going into the dungeon. Why? People think they are good, but maybe they're secretly criminals? Are they on the run from the law? Kabru has no idea, since "they just really love monsters and this is fun" is not a motivation ANYONE ELSE ON EARTH HAS.
The Toudens can't even say "we're monster researchers trying to write a book on monsters." They're just hobbyists, they just like them a lot. Kui tells us that Laios was encouraged to become a monster researcher but the studying was too intense for him.
It would be like finding out someone who works in a coal mine that kills 80% of the miners doesn't actually care about being paid, they just loooove coal and want to be around coal all the time.
#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#dunmeshi#talking mushroom#psa#laios touden#kabru#kabru of utaya#dungeon meshi research
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HII EMMA, I just wanted to tell you that youâre one of my favorite users on tumblr if not my favorite. Anyway Iâve seen you did the Ancient Rome script and I LOVED it. So can you do an Ancient Egypt script too if you can? Iâm shifting to the prince of Egypt đŤśđť THANK YOUU
the ultimate guide to surviving ancient egypt.
time traveller, welcome !!!! you stand at the threshold of one of history's most opulent and mysterious civilisations.....ancient egypt. a land of towering pyramids, sacred temples, and a society so deeply entwined with its gods that the line between mortal and divine blurs. my name is emma, and if you want to not only survive but thrive in this world of pharaohs, priests, and scribes, you're going to need more than just blind luck.
forget everything you know about modern convenience. no running water, no wifi, no google maps. you're stepping into a civilisation that has perfected the art of both grandeur and survival for over three millennia.Â
ăăăăăăăăăă âšă ︜︜ă ŕ¨ŕ§ă ︜︜ă âš
â social structure & blending in.
ancient egypt is a hierarchical society where social class dictates everything from your clothing to your access to temples. the nobility, scribes, and priests hold power, while farmers and labourers form the backbone of the economy. if you're aiming for survival, either blend into the upper class or adopt the disguise of a scribe. education is a key social elevator. if you want the easy route, have a compelling backstory as a foreign noble, or forge a connection with the priesthood.
â titles && status to guide yourself by.
pharaoh :Â literally a god on earth. don't offend them. nobles and officials :Â control administration and land. dress richly, act poised. scribes :Â literate and valuable. learning hieroglyphs can get you into many doors. priests : have spiritual and often political power. great connections. artisans and merchants : middle-class but respected for their work. farmers and labourers :Â the vast majority. hard lives, heavy taxes. slaves and servants : often war captives. zero autonomy.
â hygiene & beauty (aka, avoiding disease and smelling like a deity).
ancient egyptians take hygiene seriously, and you should too. disease is rampant, and being clean is not just about vanity. it's survival. essentials included. . .
bathing :Â daily cleansing is a MUST. use natron (a natural salt) as soap. perfumes and oils :Â frankincense, myrrh, and lotus oil are status symbols AND practical (they mask body odour and deter lice). shaving :Â egyptians detest body hair. use bronze razors or depilatory creams. makeup :Â kohl-lined eyes prevent glare from the sun and have antibacterial properties. linen clothing : light and breathable, keeps you cool. wigs (yes !) : essential for elites, they are perfumed and keep bugs away.
â food & drink.
avoid starving by sticking to a staple egyptian diet. if you're noble, enjoy lavish banquets. If not, stick to the essentials. do not drink nile water unless you like parasitic infections. beer and wine are safe bets.
bread and beer :Â the foundation of all meals. fruits and vegetables : dates, figs, onions, leeks, and cucumbers. meat and fish : nobles get beef and poultry; commoners rely on fish. dairy : milk, cheese, and butter are common. honey and spices : used for sweets and preserving food.
â shelter & lodging.
if you're noble, youâll have a house made of mudbrick with courtyards and pools. If not, simple mudbrick homes with few rooms. temples often provide lodging for scribes and priests. good for you, i have some travel hacks.
temples and inns :Â often have food and shelter for travellers. avoid the desert at night :Â sandstorms, bandits, and jackals. use the nile : boats are the best mode of transport.
â safety & warfare (aka, don't get killed).
egypt is relatively stable, but internal power struggles and invasions happen. your best bet is to keep a low profile and don't offend priests or the pharaoh. if caught in a legal dispute, bribe a scribe to doctor the records. justice favours the literate and well-connected. albeit, try to avoid these dangers. . .
crime :Â thieves lurk in busy markets. military drafts : if war happens, you might get recruited. wild animals :Â crocodiles, hippos, and scorpions. avoid them. the afterlife obsession :Â mummies and tomb curses.....real concerns.
â money & shopping.
egyptians use a barter system, but weights of silver and gold serve as currency. markets are your go-to for essentials. sadly there weren't any designers. alas, here's where to shop . . .
the marketplace : everything from linen to cosmetics. the temple storehouses : Â goods from taxes and offerings. workshops : best for tailored clothing and crafted goods.
â entertainment & leisure.
nobles feast, play senet (a board game), and attend religious festivals. music, dance, and poetry are popular.
things to try . . . attend a festival :Â great for networking. visit a temple library :Â read and gain knowledge. watch a hunt :Â nobles hunt hippos and lions for sport.
things to avoid. . . speaking ill of the gods :Â instant execution. the wrong political alliances :Â power shifts quickly. tomb robbery :Â even thinking about it gets you cursed.
#asks#emma motivates#shifting#shifting motivation#reality shifting#desired reality#realityshifting#reality shift#shifting community#shifting realities#emmas vampire dr#shifting antis dni#shifting blog#shifting reality#reality shifting methods#reality shifting community#shifting advice#shifting help#shifting ideas#shifting memes#shifting consciousness#shifting diary#shifting methods#shifting script#shifting stories#shifting thoughts#shifting tips#shifting to desired reality#shifting storytime#shifting realities stories
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Long(?) Distance Relationship
シËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďž
Genshin masterlist || Scaramouche masterlist
Tags: fluff, gn!reader, pre-established relationship, mild crack ig Summary: is a long-distanced relationship even possible when your boyfriend can just travel on foot cross nations for you?
A/N: so uhhhh this kinda sucks but it's midnight here and i'm losing my marbles or however that saying goes. happy reading yall w/c: 1.3k
シËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďž
You place your luggage down onto the wooden floor of the rental in Mondstadt city, sighing under your breath. The week-long boat trip from Sumeru to the docks and then another few days worth of slime balloon flight had not been easy on your body, especially since you mostly bury yourself in research upon research instead of strengthening your body.
A sense of peace wells up as you take in the bustling atmosphere of the people and the music carried by the wind through the window as you sit down onto the bed. It was the right choice to go to Mondstadt for your new project! You do miss Wanderer much more than you would ever admit after all the traveling though.
Quickly clearing up your mind, you put away your things and tidy up the room a little so that it is more livable than before. As you hang up the last of your clothes, a piece of paper falls down to the ground. You pick it up and freeze at the realization that it is the note you wanted to leave for Wanderer about leaving. A few moments pass and you give up on trying to think. Whatever will happen is for the future you to worry about!
Meanwhile, your poor boyfriend just returns to your shared abode after having to help the Dendro Archon out in the desert. Wanderer was expecting to see you excitedly rushing to greet him, or at least hear you in the living doing random things but is met with an empty home. His non-existent heart stops beating for a split second. Where did you go!? So the only reasonable action Wanderer can take is to rush out and grab the nearest familiar looking scholar for interrogation.
While questioning his victim, his brain is filled with the worst possibilities he knows, what if you finally realized that he is unsuitable for you, or you got kidnapped or- The poor scholar can barely answer him before getting thrown onto the ground and feeling a gust of wind rushing by, followed by a trail of dust. Wanderer breathes a sigh of relief knowing you are safe and sound. He thanks the Dendro Archon that you are simply on a work trip to Mondstadt of all places.
The anemo vision on his waist glows as he pushes the limit on speed before he inevitably is forced to go on foot once again. The puppet complains under his breath. He did not realize the way to Mondstadt is this long but at least this would be faster than to travel on any other transportation method. He also simply cannot believe that you would leave for your research now of all times. The puppet was away for two, t-w-o weeks(!) and you dare to leave without even informing him beforehand! Admittedly, he was released from his duties much earlier than expected but you could have left a note! (Even if technically you did, the results still matter more in this case)
Wanderer is immediately stopped at the gate of the city. The guards both looked at each other when they saw him rushing over at the speed of light and anger (?) practically radiating off him and swiftly concluded that he is, in fact, a danger. He stops when they block his entry because he is a law-abiding citizen! The scholar stands there in annoyance, one of his feet tapping the ground impatiently as his eyes flit over the two soldiers trying to do their jobs. Even if he would love to just go right over their heads, he can already hear Nahida nagging at him the moment he steps foot in the vicinity of Sumeru.
He zones out slowly at the mind-bogglingly boring questioning and profiling despite its necessity. The puppet wonders if you are doing fieldwork or writing out your plans at the moment. Wanderer is already planning how he would punish you for your lack of communication and- He snaps out of his thoughts at the guards handing back his identification papers with a polite apology for stopping him. He simply nods and walks in. Paperwork is always so tedious!
Meanwhile, you walk around the library of the Knights of Favonius, in awe at the sheer collection of books available and the crisp cleanliness somehow maintained despite everything. The librarian is an oddball but that is just how scholars are sometimes. Not the oddest one you have had the pleasure of meeting, at least. You run your fingers over the leather book spines as you hum along with the music selection from the gramophone. One book, and then another, and another one⌠They begin to stack up higher than you had expected. You stare at the pile in mild contemplation. How are you supposed to bring all of this back?
Lisa, ever the sweetheart, taps your shoulder and promises to help you reserve the books until your next visit. With that out of the way, you carry a comfortable amount in your (not) noodle arms back to your humble abode.
Wanderer walks into the bustling city while looking for your silhouette in the crowds. The guards said that there has been no scholar leaving the city for the last few days so you should still be around the place. He regrets not having planned this out better so he would not have to be walking around like a headless fly right now. He stops for a moment at the water fountain and allows himself to take a breather. You would tease the living hell out of him if you ever find out that he was in such a rush to see you again. Despite the way Wanderer acts, the corners of his mouth rise subconsciously at the thought of your surprised expression when meeting him. Maybe you would even be so happy that you hug him tightly and shower him with affectionâŚ
Instead he gets attacked right in the face with a thick encyclopedia on Mondstadtâs oral legends and a frantic scream that threatens to blow out his eardrums. Truly makes him wonder if he stepped out of the house with the wrong foot or something like that⌠Wanderer still catches the books flying at him, despite the urge to watch the world burn, and looks at the perpetrator in anger until he realizes it is you who did that. You know what, he can forgive you as long as you promise not to leave him without notice again.
You tumble, full Inazuman rom com novel style, sending you and your books flying at the fountain. A blood curdling scream makes its way out of your throat, effectively stunning everyone in the plaza. Honestly, for a moment, you wish that a hole would open up on the ground beneath you and swallow you up. You push yourself up from the ground, your knees still aching from the impact. You slowly look up at your victim and you rub your eyes vigorously at the sight that greets you. Isnât Wanderer supposed to be in Sumeru right now? Are you somehow hallucinating in the middle of the day??
Regardless if this is an illusion whatever twisted god up in Celestia may be subjecting you to, you stand up and rush into your beloved boyfriendâs arms for a hug, deftly avoiding the books and the possibility of falling right into the water. As awkwardly as he is, Wanderer returns your affection. He pats your back lightly while maintaining a delicate balance with the books in his hand and you. Feeling your warmth against him is more than enough to make the trip here worth it.
The touching moment is cut short when you push him away. The puppet pouts a little but allows you to do so either way. âSo uhh, how did you get here? Are you free from your deadlines yet?â He freezes up. Oh no.
シËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďžď˝ĽËâ§ď˝Ľ+â§ââ§.°.â.𫧠.â˘Ëââ§â:・+.シďž
Taglist: @amyminhminh @xrmywaifxx @samyayaya
#genshin x reader#genshin#genshin impact#x reader#fluff#gender neutral reader#wanderer x reader#wanderer#drabble#scaramouche x you#scara x reader#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche#gn!reader#gn!y/n#coffeeturtle talks
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hello; im not sure if youâre taking requests but could you do a shanks x marine reader? (it can be any gender but id like if it was gender neutral!)
(ps: I love your work!!đ¤đ¤)
An unexpected evening
Masterlist

Hello, anon! Iâm not really taking requests right now, but I just couldnât say no to you <3 Thank you so much for your kind words and for reaching out! I hope you enjoy this! đ Summary: Your marine unit has been disbanded, and youâve been reassigned to a new division on a distant island. Accompanied by a silent and surly warlord, your journey comes to an unexpected stop along the way. Word count: 1300 Warning: Shanks x gn!reader. Dialogue from OPLA. All my stories are written entirely in Spanish and then translated into English, so I apologize for any mistakes I might make.
You curse under your breath as your boots sink into the sand. Keeping up with that arrogant and temperamental warlord is no easy taskâespecially when you're wearing clothes that arenât even yours.
The division you belonged to had been disbanded. In some bureaucratic decision far above your pay grade, a random draw had sent marines of your rank to various islands scattered across the Four Blues.
Your destination was particularly far, and with few ships available for transport, Admiral Monkey D. Garp had a "brilliant" idea during Mihawkâs visit to Headquarters: why not have the Warlord ferry you there on his creepy coffin-boat?
Initially, Mihawkâs response was a curt scowl and a flat-out refusal. But after a long, frosty stare-off between the two men, the swordsman begrudgingly agreedâmost likely out of boredom.
The Hitsugibune was comically small for a man of Mihawkâs stature, yet you barely saw him during the five-day voyage. Honestly, it was a relief. You hated pirates. You hated how they ruled the seas with fear and violence, terrorizing innocent people just trying to make an honest living.Â
But by the sixth day, you noticed the course had changed. Mihawk, distant and unreadable as always, didnât say a word. Still, you suspected it had something to do with the rolled-up piece of paper heâd snatched from Garpâs office and now kept locked away in his cabin.
And you were right. His gruff demeanor and the bundle of clothes he tossed at you confirmed it.
âPut this on. Where weâre going, you donât want to be seen wearing that,â he muttered, gesturing disdainfully at your blue-and-white marine uniform.
Not wanting to provoke the worldâs greatest swordsman, you reluctantly changed into an outfit that would undoubtedly get you arrested if any of your comrades spotted you.
Now, youâre trudging after Mihawk along the shore, your eyes scanning the islandâs tall palm trees, trying to figure out where on earth youâve landed. The Warlord strides ahead without stopping, his boots stomping through the sand, the roll of paper clutched in his hand, and his usual scowl fixed firmly in place. When he comes to a sudden stop, you nearly bump into his back.
âThis is an unusual place for a man of your... stature,â Mihawk drawls, his eyes fixed on a point ahead of him.
Your first instinct is to respond, but a slightly raspy male voice beats you to it.
âCome on, lads, weâre in the presence of a mighty warlord of the sea. Show a little uuugh... respect.â
You immediately peer out from behind Mihawk and tense at the sight of a group of scruffy men, each looking worse than the last.
âIâm not in the mood for a duel today, Hawkeyes. Weâre hungover.â
Your attention focus on the speaker. A striking redhead, draped in a black cloak with an attitude so shamelessly carefree it borders on reckless. Far too carefree, considering who he was addressing.
Your mind races, flipping through every bounty poster youâve memorized, before stopping on that face.
Red-Haired Shanks.
An Emperor.
One of the most wanted and dangerous men alive.
âIâm not here to fight,â Mihawk replies smoothly. âNot when youâre half the man you used to be.â His hand shifts slightly, stopping you in your tracks when he catches you instinctively reaching for your weapon.
Shanksâ eyes darts toward you briefly, noting your presence before returning to Mihawk.
âI could still take you," he says, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Even with one arm tied behind my back!â He throws his head back in laughter, clutching the cuff of his empty sleeve as his crew burst into cheers.
The two men continue their peculiar conversation, tense yet strangely amicable. Every time Shanksâ gaze flickers toward you, you meet it with a glare of pure disdain, which only seems to amuse him more.
âOh, lighten up, you somber son of a gun! Drink with us!â Shanks cheers, holding up the bounty poster of Monkey D. Luffy in his hand.
Horrified by the invitation, you turn your eyes to Mihawk, silently willing him to decline. Surely, his disdain for unnecessary human interaction would align with yours. But to your dismay, he doesn't.
âI suppose a drink wouldnât hurt,â Mihawk says casually. You bite your tongue, suppressing the urge to protest.
Seated on the sand under the starlit sky, a roaring bonfire warms you as you eat and drink alongside Mihawk. The Red-Haired pirates have laid out their best food and bottles, laughing and chatting boisterously as they devour the feast and drink like the rowdy cosacks they are. You take cautious sips of a spectacular wine, doing your best to stay sober. You canât afford to let your guard down around these dangerous sea dogs.
Shanks, cheeks flushed partly from the fire's warmth and partly from the barrels of alcohol heâs consumed, keeps unabashedly staring at you. You notice it but pretend not to, avoiding his gaze as your fingers idly toy with the hem of your shirt. Then, with the grace of someone who owns every space he steps into, the redhead saunters over and drops into the sand directly in front of you.
âSo⌠are you two dating?â he asks, a wolfish grin spreading across his face.
Mihawkâs already stiff posture somehow straightens even further, but you rush to answer first.
âNO. Iâm a mariââ
ââY/N,â Mihawk cuts you off, his icy glare practically freezing you mid-sentence.
Shanksâ eyes widen, and a grin so big it could split his face appears as he gives his friend a hearty slap on the shoulder.
âWell, damn! Married? To this beauty?â
If looks could kill, Shanks wouldâve been dead twice over.
âNO,â you and Mihawk bark in unison, prompting Shanks to raise his hands in mock surrender.
âAlright, alright,â he chuckles.
You go back to your drink, but maybe itâs the alcohol, or maybe itâs just him, but thereâs something overwhelmingly magnetic about the redhead. You watch as he raises his cup, laughing so freely and attractively that itâs almost impossible to look away. Your thoughts blur for a moment, and you abruptly stand, muttering something about needing to get away from the fire.
Stumbling slightly in the sand, you make your way toward a secluded, wooded area and lean against the trunk of a tree. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath to steady yourself.
"You OK?"
Your eyes snap open at the sound of Shanks' voice. The man approaches with a particular gleam in his eyes and an amused twist to his lips.
"Yes..." you manage to say.
"Good." He grins.
Damn... that devilish smile again.
He steps closer, dangerously close, and raises his only hand, offering you a swig from his bottle. You shake your head, your gaze briefly settling on his empty sleeve. He notices and furrows his brow in an exaggerated attempt to look serious.
"You should've seen how the other guy ended up..."
As soon as he finishes, he laughs, but this time it's a softer, almost melancholic sound. For the first time tonight, your expression softens as you look at him, the corner of your mouth betraying you with a slight curve upward.
"So..." he leans in closer, and your breath catches in your throat, "you're not with Hawks?"
You shake your head, swallowing hard as you feel his nose playfully brush against yours. He smells of campfire smoke, salt, and alcohol.
"Good, good..." his voice drops lower, "how about we have a little fun, just the two of us? Hmm?"
You hated pirates. The academy had drilled into you how cruel they were, how ruthless. And yet here he is. So lighthearted. Sharing his food, his booze, and by his insinuation... even his body.
You close your eyes and nod, feeling his breath against your neck.
"It's a shame you took off your marine uniform," he says and your heart stops. "Would've made this even more fun."
...............................................
Taglist: @fanaticsnail @armiliadawn @pandora-writes-one-piece @i-am-vita @eustasscapitankid @nocturnalrorobin @daydreamer-in-training <3
#one piece#x reader#jintaka stuff#jintaka asks#shanks x reader#red haired pirates#red haired shanks#shanks#akagami no shanks#red hair shanks#akagami no shanks x reader#op shanks#opla shanks
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mundane headcanons
đ
morning routine
at what time do they generally wake up?
do they tend to wake up early and take their time, or would they rather rush it?
how many alarms do they need to wake up?
are they a morning person?
bathroom first or breakfast first?
do they take a shower to wake up?
coffee, tea, milk or juice?
sweet or savoury breakfast?
what do they like to have for breakfast?
do they prepare their clothes before going to sleep, or do they prefer to improvize?
do they spend a lot of time dressing up, fixing their hair and/or putting on makeup?
đż personal hygiene
how often do they take a shower/bath?
shower or bath?
shower/bath in the morning, afternoon or evening?
do they use specific perfumes?
do they prefer their shampoos and soaps plain, or do they like to smell like something specific?
do they have specific shampoos, conditioners and body wash, or do they go with a 3-in-1?
what's their go-to flavor when it comes to toothpaste?
đ food breaks
do they have set times for their meals, or do they eat whenever they feel like it?
do they have a proper meals everyday, or do they tend to skip or get just a snack for lunch/dinner?
are they a home-cooking kind of person, or do they rather get takeouts?
if they eat at work/school, do they take time to prepare even just a sandwich at home before going out?
do they tend to have any make-ahead meals?
do they tend to have leftovers?
how often do they get fast food?
how often do they go to restaurants?
đ§š chores
are they the one doing most chores in the house?
which chore is the one they dread doing the most?
do they wash the dishes right after a meal, or do they leave them in the sink until it's impossible to ignore them?
do they have the dreaded "laundry chair" where they put dirty clothes on?
do they make their bed in the morning, or leave it undone until it's time to sleep?
đ transports
do they have a driving license, wether it's for a car or bikes?
do they have any other kind of driving licences ( planes, ships, buses... )
do they own a car?
do they own a bike?
are they the kind of person who think of their car as if it was their baby? perfectly clean, not a scratch, almost overly protective of it?
do they use public transports? if so, do they like using them?
do they like going on trains?
do they like going on boats or ships?
do they like going on airplanes?
đą phone
what phone do they have?
do they use specific ringtones depending on who calls them, or do they use just one for everyone?
how often do they check their phone?
do they keep their phone's audio volume on, or do they prefer the vibration or? or do they rather have it silenced?
how many apps to they have on their phone, give or take?
do they have games on their phone?
what's their background and lock-screen?
đť social media
are they registered to any social media?
how often do they log in?
how many followers do they have?
do they follow a lot of people?
how easy is it for them to block someone online?
what do they tend to post online ( art, videos, just starting fights online... )?
did they ever get in an online fight?
do you think they'd have callouts about them?
đ´ sleeping routine
at what time do they tend to go to sleep?
do they take anything to help them sleep ( medicines, chamomilles, warm milk... )?
how much does it take for them to fall asleep?
are they a light or a heavy sleeper?
do they snore, talk and/or move a lot while sleeping?
do they dream often?
what kind of dreams to they tend to have?
do they prefer to be in complete darkness to fall asleep, or are they ok with a bit of light?
do they need the door or the windows open, or do they prefer them closed when they go to sleep?
what's their usual sleeping position?
where is their bed? with a side against the wall, in the middle of the room... ?
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Some more Headcanonâs of mine for Punkflower/ Hobie/ this damn obsession like đ iâm starved for content.
Anyway,
- Hobie uses Any pronouns. Most ppl default to he/him cuz he is very male presenting.
-Hobie wears makeup and skirts/ dresses as often as he wears pants.
- Hobie lives in a canal boat and in a private boathouse. The boat house has his workshop and private jam space. (I wanna get a sketch made for the whole thing)
- Miles loves how cosy Hobies place is. And wants to spend all their time together there.
-Hobie wants to spend his time at Milesâ place cuz itâs lived in and lively in a way his quiet boat isnât.
-Hobie knows how to Knit, Crochet, and sew.
-He makes his own clothing from thrifted parts and old clothes of his.
-He writes his own music and is a songwriter.
-Miles tags his friendâs worlds with stickers.
-He makes the stickers himself. Along with full on Painting on canvas.
-Stickers is just an easy transportable medium that Miles loves.
#spiderverse#miles morales#miles morales x hobie brown#princesslufiteabwriting#headcanon#punkflower#hobie is jamician#spider punk#Hobie Brown#Spiderpunk#ASTV
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Strange Liberty
Dark fantasy fiction. A young man convicted of manslaughter is sent to a magical prison.Â
Rated M, 27.5k, dark fantasy with some M/M dark romance on the side.Â
Salvo Caine, cursed with a magically sapping touch, is convicted of manslaughter and dispatched to an island prison. Once there, heâs offered limited freedomâââand affectionâââby the cold and manipulative prison warden, Guillaume Villiers.Â
Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Leave a tip.
Good bit of age gap sexiness, and some medical and care-giving kink as well. Note CWs for the expected violence of the prison system; past chronic illness and child neglect; threats of, discussion of, and attempted sexual violence; traumatic death; power struggles and fucked-up dynamics.Â
----
He arrives in the middle of the fucking night, and Redford leans up against the open trap, watching as the guards come in. Theyâre all soaked through from the fucking rain, must have had a bad boat trip over â he looks fucking tiny in between all the guards coming in with him. Half a dozen guards would normally be the standard to transport a whole coach of new meat, but they always put a whole unit alongside this sort of inmate.
When the guards part, Redford gets a good look at him, slim and slight with a thick cloud of hair and very big eyes. His ankles and his wrists are cuffed, chains running between the four points and making him move slow.
He stumbles and collapses to the floor on his knees and elbows, making the chains rattle, and Redford canât even hear the names the guards call him or the things they snap at him over the roar of everybody else watching him come in.
Already, heâd been able to hear the quieter talk and laughter up and down the rows of cells, prisoners talking about him â now, on the floor with his ass in the air, thatâs too much not to react to.
âThat arse looks like itâll bruise nice and easy!â he hears Rand call from the floor below, and he hears other jeers and compliments â about the ladâs ass, about his thighs, how tight his boycuntâll be, how pretty his lips are, how theyâll be happy to show him what real men get up to behind bars.
Itâs always like this, with the cuffed mages.
Half the men in this prison have suffered at the hands of magic-users like them, and even if they hadnât, the attitudes they come in with are enough to hate them over. Even the big, more muscular ones get this sort of intimidation â theyâre usually arrogant sorts, used to relying on their magic instead of any strength or agility, and with their magic dampened, they end up pretty easy to push around, and they deserve it, too.
Haughty, over educated, always acting like theyâre too good to be in here with the rest of them.
Redford is the first to get at him in the morning when he comes out of the new arrivalsâ cell. He doesnât look like heâs slept, dark bags under his eyes, his lips chapped and bitten bruised, and he doesnât meet a single manâs eye as he nervously steps out of his cell.
Red shoves him up against the wall, and he drags in a hitched breath, his big eyes going wide â Redâs belly is flattening him back against the stone, and he can feel him trembling, feel how warm he is. Red leans in and breathes on the side of his neck, blows air over his ear, but he doesnât say anything.
âHow long are you in for, sweetheart?â Redford asks softly. âYou even know what deep shit youâre in?â
The new meatâs gaze is fixed on Redâs upper chest instead of his face.
Thereâs a clicking of a tongue behind him, and Redford steps back from the new inmate, making him drop like a weight. He stands back and straight to attention as he glances back at the warden, whoâs standing in the centre of the corridor, leaning on his cane.
âWarden Villiers,â Red says.
âI wish you werenât so quick to make new acquaintances at times, Mr Redford,â Villiers says mildly, and Red grins at him. âIn my office, Mr Caine, if you would.â
Caine cringes, looks anxiously between Redford and Villiers both, and when he looks up to meet Redâs eyes for the first time, thereâs something pleading in them. It only lasts a second, and then heâs trailing after Villiers down the corridor.
Redford watches them go, and hums thoughtfully to himself before he heads to eat.
* * *
Salvo shivers as he follows up the stairs to Villiersâ office, feels the chill on the back of his neck, insinuating itself under his skin. Villiers moves slowly, leaning heavily on his cane for the support it can give him as they ascend â he speeds up a little once theyâre on even ground. Salvo risks looking up at the older man as they move, looks at how thin he is â even thinner than Salvo is himself, pointy and angular under his black suit, which is narrowly tailored.
He wears boots instead of shoes, although theyâre not like the guardsâ boots. These barely make any noise at all on the smooth lacquered floors, and they come in tight to the ankle and the foot.
A guard opens the door for Villiers, and Villiers nods his head for Salvo to step into the room ahead of him.
After crossing the threshold, painfully aware of Villiersâ gaze on the back of his neck, he goes to stand in the middle of the room, in front of Villiersâ desk.
Itâs warmer in here than in the prison proper, a fire crackling in the hearth, which has a firmly bolted set of guards around it and a very small trap on the front with only just enough space to reach in and move coals and kindling.
âThank you, Rusk, youâre relieved.â
â⌠Sir? But heâs, umâŚâ
âI have a firm handle on our new addition, Rusk, I donât need your assistance.â
Villiers closes the door behind the guard, and Salvo hears his bootsteps recede down the corridor.
Salvo swallows as Villiers slides the lock across and then moves into the room. He sets his cane in a bucket with an umbrella to one side, and Salvo watches the way he favours his good leg as he moves across the room, laying his hands on the side of a bookshelf, then on his desk, to support himself.
âAre you frightened?â Villiers asks.
Salvo doesnât know what the correct answer is, and says nothing.
Villiers goes on, as if heâd said yes, âI would be too. You heard the baying of those jackals out there as you arrived â fresh meat, they called you. And those men are passionate carnivores.â
Salvo presses his lips together, gripping his fingers against one another in front of his belly, and he risks a glance up at Villiersâ face. Itâs a somewhat handsome face, although severely featured â his eyes are a dark blue, his eyebrows thick and dark in colour, his upper lip very thin, his lower lip thicker. Heâs got very thin skin, and in places Salvo can see the blue show through of his veins, especially on the side of his neck and where his throat adjoins his head.
His face droops on one side.
âYou had a stroke?â Salvo asks. He doesnât mean to ask the question â it comes out of his mouth unbidden, and when Villiers smirks at him, the smile is lopsided, stronger on the left side of his face than his right.
âThatâs right,â he says quietly. âYou were a nurse, yes?â
âNo,â says Salvo. âIâm just a care assistant.â
âYou didnât want to pursue nursing?â
âDidnât have the marks for university. I was looking for an apprenticeship, but itâs hard to get a place.â He frowns, and looks down at the rug beneath their feet, an antique thing with a dark green and blue pattern. âWonât be able to get one now.â
âWhy not?â
âDBS check.â
âMagical crimes arenât always included on mundane criminal records,â Villiers says mildly. âItâs decided on a case-by-case basis upon your release.â
Salvo doesnât say anything, but he does exhale, feeling at the same time relieved, and also as if a trap is being laid for him.
âWhy am I here?â he asks.
âI think you should know that by now,â says Villiers snidely, and Salvo presses his lips together, clenching his jaw to keep from snapping back, because that is a trap.
âWhy am I in your office, sir?â
âWell, thatâs rather up to you,â Villiers says, his voice softer now. His boots still donât make any sound as he comes out from behind his desk, and Salvo doesnât move as he watches the shadow of the other man in his peripheral vision, feels him come closer. The older manâs breath is warm on the back of his neck, making Salvo shiver and have to resist leaning back into him â he smells very faintly of coffee, mostly smells of shaving foam and camphor oil. âWhy would you like to be in my office, Mr Caine?â
âI donât understand.â
âYoung man, this is a prison filled to the brim with hardened criminals. Many of them, despite being so inclined, havenât known the touch of a woman since they were incarcerated â pretty thing as you are, Iâm sure youâll do in a pinch.â
Salvo doesnât say anything, but he canât stop himself from letting out a short, abortive sound when Villiers lays his hands on his shoulders, grips them, presses his narrow thumbs into the tension on the back of his neck. Heâs so unused to being touched, and it feels painfully good, makes his skin feel like itâs singing â he leans back into it, and he lets out another small noise, this one of loss, as Villiers steps away and releases him.
âYour fellow inmates will make use of you,â Villiers says, âand short of fucking you, I expect theyâll push you about a bit, bruise you, hurt you here and there. Youâre an easy prospect to bully, with your magic dampened and that protection stripped from you. Do you want that?â
âTo be bullied? No, I donât think so.â
âAnd to have them fuck you?â
Salvo thinks of the noise it had made when heâd come in and theyâd all been shouting and banging on the walls, laughing, how loud it had been. It had been⌠overwhelming.
Heâs spent a long time avoiding crowds, groups of people, avoiding anyone who might be forward in trying to touch him, speak to him, want to fuck him. His whole body aches with want, but not for that.
âAre the guards meant to let them?â Salvo asks.
âNo,â Villiers says. âAny guard I caught abusing an inmate, Iâd have punished â any guard permitting it, Iâd punish myself. The so-minded inmates tend to hide this sort of thing, of course, and guards rarely advertise it either.â
âThat sounds like an excuse.â
âIt is â but a true one. I donât have enough guards to watch each man twenty-four hours a day, though, or even just the pretty ones who might prove a temptation.â
âAm I pretty?â
âIn here? Youâre a vision.â
âYouâre suggesting something. An alternative.â
âOffering something, rather. Protection, if youâd like it.â
âFrom other inmates?â
âYouâll be with the general population through most of the day â work duties, recreation outdoors. But I can arrange particular bathing and bedding arrangements for you.â
âBedding,â Salvo repeats.
âQuite,â the warden says. âA bed to lay your head on, no cellmates, no risk.â
âExcept from you.â
âFrom me? Young man, what risk do you think I pose you? Look at me â an infirm old man, no risk to anybody at all.â
Salvo looks up at Villiersâ face again, at the sly expression there, the amusement writ in his glittering eyes and lopsided smile.
âWhat do you want, if not sex?â
âIâm offering out of the goodness of my heart,â Villiers says with utter insincerity, so transparent about it that Salvo almost marvels at it. âWe both know youâre not a criminal like the majority of my other charges.â
âIâm a murderer.â
âA manslaughterer,â Villiers corrects him. His tone is surprisingly kind as he says, âI actually tried to refuse you, insist you go to a more appropriate institution than this one, but the decision was out of my hands.â
Salvo looks down at his own hands, gripping tightly at one another, tighter now. His knuckles hurt, and are going white from the clenching in his hands. âYouâre not going to fuck me?â
âNo. Have you had sex before?â
Salvo nods.
âConsensually?â
Salvo hesitates, not certain how to answer, but then he nods.
âHm, well. Nonetheless, no.â
Salvo shifts his hands, and he feels the weight of the two metal bands around each of his wrists. When heâd been brought in last night, a chain had run between them to keep him halfway bound, but theyâd taken that away when theyâd left him to his cell. Now, the cuffs just sit around each of his wrists and ankles, simple bracelets of silver. He can see the sheen of the magic in them when he looks at them directly, watch the pulse of it through the metal in rhythm with his heartbeat â in rhythm with the magic inside him.
âYou didnât have to come to prison to have those fitted,â Villiers tells him. âYou wouldnât even have had to have them commissioned â any good doctor would have provided them free of charge.â
Salvo opens his mouth, closes it. âThere is a gnawing hunger in me,â he whispers after a pause. âThese cuffs prevent me from harming anybody, true, but they also prevent latent magic from flowing through me. I eat, but I starve; I drink, but I thirst. Ever since they snapped shut around my limbs my bones began to ache.â
âThat hunger is part of your penance, then,â Villiers says, and Salvo closes his eyes, but nods his head. âI read the statement you gave at your trial, that you wish youâd chosen differently.â
âWouldnât you have?â
Villiers limps around the table and sinks down into his chair, making it creak, and Salvo automatically sits to keep his downcast eyes from being so close to Villiersâ face, to keep from keeping his stare.
âI thought it would be enough,â Salvo murmurs. âSeparating myself from magical life, magical society, living and working with mundies. That I could keep myself intact, and still live.â
âYou crossed paths with your victim by happenstance, I take it?â
âHe wouldnât have touched me, only he recognised me,â Salvo says. âRecognised my fatherâs features in mine. He caught my hand, and it wasâŚâ
He thinks of it often. Every day, every night, when he sleeps, when he wakes â itâs impossible not to think about. He thinks of how it was as though his flesh came suddenly alive after being halfway to comatose for so long, as though lightning were alive under his skin, sizzling out of his veins. He recalls craving more of it, the reflexive need to be closer, much closer, to sate the painful hunger in him.
âHe didnât know toâ he didnât think to push me off or away. He didnât know that⌠He laughed, was delighted, and he kissed me back when I kissed him. I had effectively been fasting for years, near to a decade. I leeched from him all he had before I knew what I was doing.â
âA horrible way to die, Iâm informed,â Villiers says. âTo have the magic wrenched from you, sapped from your very cells â like having the blood bled from you all at once.â
âHe didnât have time to scream,â Salvo says. âBut yes, it hurt him a great deal.â
âAt least it was quick.â
âI fail to see a silver lining.â
âA guard will collect you when itâs time for lights out,â Villiers says. âOff you go.â
Salvo silently nods his head, and as he leaves the room, canât help feeling heâs made some sort of deal with a devil, going along with the offer as given.
* * *
Redford watches the new mage as he comes back from the stairs, not with the warden this time â Villiers is a freak of some proportions, always likes the strong mages, always likes the trim and pretty ones.
âHe used to be an assassin, you know,â he says when Caine finally comes down onto the main floor, and Caine glances his way, but doesnât let his gaze flicker all the way up to Redfordâs face. He stands there with his hands clasped in front of him, silent. âVilliers.â
âHow the fuck was he an assassin with a bum leg?â asks Rosen next to him, and Pike grips the back of his neck as Redford laughs.
âHe used to be an assassin,â Redford repeats. âKilled people the world over â then he had a stroke, couldnât hack it anymore.â
ââCause of his leg.â
âItâs not just the leg and the facial droop,â says Pike. His gaze is on Rosenâs neck as he keeps rubbing his thumb into the base of it. Redford can see the mark higher up on Rosenâs throat where Pike must have bitten him last night.
Caine has drifted closer to them, albeit without saying a word.
âStrokes on different sides of the body damage different parts of the brain,â says Pike. âDifficulties with language, or with writing, mathematics⌠But that can include differences in personality. He was a wild man before â heâs cold now. Collected, but cold, cautious.â
âYou speak as though you know personally,â says Caine, but he doesnât lift his eyes up. âYou donât look old enough for all that.â
âIâm not so old,â says Pike, and Redford watches the way he looks at Caine, the way his eyes rove over the new meatâs body. Heâs not interested in sex, of course â he likes a man for the blood inside him, and with a skinny little thing like Caine, thereâs not much blood to spare, even without the taint heâd complained before that the cuffs leave on the stuff when you tap the barrel.
âHe was killing into his forties,â Redford says. âHeâs fifty-six now, had the stroke years back. Came to be warden here after getting out of rehab.â
âHis personality used to be different?â Caine asks.
âWhy?â Redford asks mildly. âYou like his personality now?â
Caine might not speak much, but heâs got a nice voice. Itâs stronger, warmer, than Redford would have thought from the looks of him, so slim with his big brown eyes, the fluff of his dark curls around his head.
Caine doesnât answer, so Redford reaches out and grips him by the hair, slides his fingers through the curls and tightens his hold experimentally â Caine goes loose and breathless immediately, his lips parting, his eyes widening. A blush darkens his cheeks and his knees look loose. He doesnât try to drag away, doesnât seem to be following Redfordâs hand out of reflex, either â heâs up on his toes, pushing up into more of the touch.
âLeave the kid alone, Redford!â barks Cornell from the other side of the hall, and Redford lets him go.
âYou have a heartbeat like a mouseâs,â Pike says. Heâs a freak, and doesnât make any attempt to hide it â Caine, to his credit, doesnât let it put him off. âQuiet and fast.â
âWhat are you in for?â Rosen asks, and Caineâs eyes flicker up to him. Rosenâs smaller than he is, and he looks Rosen in the eyes.
âYou first,â he says.
âI killed a guy,â says Rosen, and Caine stares at him, his eyes widening further, his lips parting.
âYou did?â he asks, and Rosen laughs before Pike slaps him upside the head.
âTheft,â Rosen says, chuckling. âCars. A bus. A train, they charged me for, but I didnât steal that.â
âOnly âcause you couldnât drive it off the tracks,â Redford says, and Rosen laughs. âNow you.â
âI killed a man,â says Caine, and Rosen laughs again.
Caine doesnât. He stands there with his hands still clasped in that way he has, still. He looks like a little statuette of a saint.
âOh, shit,â says Rosen. âHe have it coming?â
Caineâs gaze flickers to Redfordâs chest, but not all the way up to his face. âNo,â he says. He looks like heâs sad about it, like he regrets it, but then his eyes shift upwards and he meets Redfordâs gaze, something in Caineâs face goes hard. âDo you?â
Red grins down at him, and as soon as he shows his teeth, Caine retreats, turning away â one of the guards takes him through his paces, shows him around the place, tells him the schedule.
The evening time, through, he disappears.
He doesnât stay in the new transplantsâ cell and doesnât get moved in with someone elseâs either â Redford wonders if heâs been put in confinement on his own, all the better to keep him âsafeâ, but when heâs passing Beck Virgoâs cell a little before lights out, Beck tells him.
âSaw him out of the window,â he murmurs as Red passes him a cigarette through the trap. âTrailing behind Villiers like a fucking puppy.â
âHuh,â Redford murmurs, and thinks on that as he continues down the corridor.
* * *
The guest bedroom in Villiersâ lodge, separate from the prison proper, is modest, warm, and comfortable.
Itâs nothing like the cell heâd been in, nor the cells that heâd seen in the prison â each has rather narrow bunks, thin mattresses, thin blankets, battered pillows. The sheets are cheap, made of crisp white cloth, and theyâre all laundered en masse in the basement, but not with particularly forgiving products. A prison bed is not meant to be a place of comfort or ease, after all, nor the cells themselves.
This guest bedroom is made to serve one man, a lush double bed in the middle of the room, the bedspread red and silken, the fabric smooth under his fingers. Thereâs a chair and a desk to the side of the room, and Salvo stands with his hands rested on the desk, looking out over the hill.
The window doesnât open, is just a set of wide panes, but at least there are no bars. Salvo can see the old stone sprawl of the prison over the island, can see the forestry either side; in the distance, he can see the pier, a boat tethered and waiting. The waters are choppy this evening, and although he canât hear the wind through the thick glazed glass, he can see the trees whipping one way and the other.
âComfortable enough for you?â asks Villiers, standing in the doorway.
Heâs undressed, and Salvo stares at his body â heâs still wearing his suit trousers, but instead of his boots heâs wearing crushed velvet slippers, and belted over his chest heâs wearing a fine silk brocade smoking jacket, green and gold. If heâs wearing a shirt underneath, it has a low collar or none at all â where the smoking jacket is open, Salvo can see the edges of Villiersâ collarbone, the hollows in it; further down, he can see the curls of hair on his chest.
Salvoâs hands twitch at his sides, and his mouth feels dry.
âYes,â he says. âYes, thank you. Is there some hidden consequence about to be sprung on me?â
âAm I going to clamber into bed with you, you mean?â Villiers asks, arching one eyebrow. âNo, young man, Iâm going to sleep in my own bed, where I belong. This door will be locked as I depart â you have your own bathroom, where you might pursue your evening ablutions, take a shower, and so forth. Any items you purchase from the commissary, books from the library, items you receive by post once your approval comes through, you might keep all these things here in your bedroom.
âIn the event prisoners are confined to their cells during day time, you will be escorted to my office, whereupon you will either rest there with me or be brought here and locked in. Beyond such extenuating circumstances, however, you will not be able to return to your room here in the course of a day â you might want to keep that in mind when you consider what to bring out with you, your books, writing implements, and so on.â
âYes, sir,â Salvo says. âDo you want me to be raped, sir?â
âWhat a curious question,â Villiers says, his blue eyes dark, his smile still dangerously sly. âWhy ever would you ask it? Iâve made rather unorthodox choices if my desire was to have you victimised, bringing you here, isolated from the other prisoners, or even the guards.â
âIâve never been at home with unorthodoxy,â Salvo says honestly, looking cautiously at the other man. âIt strikes me as unpredictable.â
âIâm predictable enough,â Villiers murmurs. âIâm sure youâll have the way of it quite soon.â
âThey said you used to be very different, the other prisoners. Before you had a stroke.â
âWhat would they know of it?â
âOnly hearsay, I suppose.â
âHearsay, yes. Hearsay, and rumour.â
âIs it true?â
âDoes it matter?â
âWhy wouldnât it?â
âIf I am different than I was before my stroke, the change is now permanent. What does it matter to you, young man, if I was different before now?â
âArenât you interested in how different I was, before I became an inmate here?â Salvo asks.
Itâs the right question, and posed right too â Villiers stares at him, his expression retaining exactly the same slightly smug expression it had before, and then he exhales, smiles, adjusts his grip on his cane. He seems satisfied.
âWeâve plenty of time to get to know one another, Mr Caine. And many evenings ahead of us to do so.â
âIs that the purpose of my being here?â Salvo asks, and Villiers chuckles quietly, pulling the door closed and locking it behind him.
Salvo takes to his bed and sleeps well despite it all.
* * *
Salvo Caine is a funny sort.
Red doesnât see any problem some mages being raped when they come into the nick, the ones that deserve it â there are men in this place whoâve spent all their years chained or controlled by very powerful or just quite sadistic sorcerers, and itâs more than a little catharsis for them to take out all that pain on whoever the fuck comes in chained and manacled. They go all their days able to hurt anybody they like, able to get away with all sorts, and when they finally get done for it, the tables are turned on them, and suddenly the scum under their feet get to turn around and give them the same shit back.
Itâs not nice, no, and maybe itâs not really moral, but he couldnât give a fuck.
Morals and ethics are limited in a place like this â when you live out your nights and half your days in a little grey box with bars on the door, thereâs no fucking space for them. Red himself has never gone in much for rape â it doesnât turn him on like it does some of the others, and heâs got a job concentrating on keeping his cock hard if heâs wrestling with whoeverâs underneath him in the process, but itâs not because he cares that itâs fucking wrong, any more than punching a manâs lights out is wrong. If he deserves it, if heâs fucking earned it, who cares?
But in all honesty, he doesnât much go in for men at all, although thereâs as little room here for choice as there is morals and ethics â when he fucks a lad in here, itâs typically the ones like Salvo Caine. Round in the face, with a bit of plumpness to them, enough softness to sink into â his hair is soft too, all fluffy with thick dark curls, and with his big fucking eyes, he looks girlish enough, even without turning him around.
In all honesty, soft as it might fucking make him, itâs not the sex he misses â he wasnât married, no, but he had a few regular women heâd take up with depending on where he was working, and it was the sharing a bed he missed, the feeling of someone sleeping beside him, smelling her perfume, touching her hair.
Caine is an odd duck, and itâs not like he could be mistaken for a girl to glance at him, at the shape of his shoulders or his body, the way he moves. Heâs not a very big lad â heâs plump and has good flesh on him, but thereâs a delicacy to him, pear-shaped and short, most of the plushness around his middle and his thighs, less on his chest and about his shoulders. He walks very carefully, like heâs nervous of making any noise at all.
Redâs not surprised when he hears someone talking about it, about what heâs in for â itâs not as if Caineâs going to be the only lad in the nick for something that wasnât his fucking fault, something that basically amounted to a twist of fate or an accident, but that doesnât mean he has to like it, has to approve of it.
All his life, heâs made certain trade-offs â as a lad when he was training up for the glass trade, he remembers learning how to fiddle the books from the out, remembers laughing conversations as they bought sand or panes or whatever else, about how much one thing was and how much theyâd write down it was. Smuggling had been a pretty natural extension of it all, once he was running his own business, bringing things in from abroad and secreting the illicit alongside the legit.
It had been getting into the latter that had got him fucking pinched, working in with the Pikes out of Lashton and trafficking too much in drugs and highs for it to be ignored or overlooked.
It wasnât that he hadnât cared, per se â thatâd be fucking stupid, itâs not like he enjoys it here â but he had felt the weight getting bigger and bigger, felt the other shoe getting too heavy not to drop, felt the shadow of it all over his head. When heâd come home to find the coppers going through his house and the pig leaning against the wall with the warrant in his hands, at the same time as the pit had gone out of his stomach and nausea had come clawing up his throat, heâd even felt a bit of relief.
Not out of guilt â whoâd feel guilty for stealing from the fucking king? Cuntâs in a fucking coma, heâs not missing any of the tax â but just because he couldnât bear the anticipation of it, of waiting for when he was going to get caught, and then the anticipation was gone and done and dusted.
And this is punishment enough â the fucking boredom of it, every day the same, no activity to take up your time except chat, books, and working the body in between working shifts. Itâs not what people think the punishment will be in prison, but it fucking is.
Caine often filters over to them in the course of his days ahead for all Red threatens him, and he seems decently at home with them, at home with Pike and Rosen and all.
Redâs known this junior Pike a few years â heâd seen him about for years even before heâd taken on the smuggling jobs himself, and more than once on the outside, he and Pike had gone out for pints together, or at the least, Pike would find Red where he was at the bar and insist on paying for his drinks, always flush with cash.
âWhat do you think of him?â Pike asks now as Caine shuffles obediently off after Cornell to be escorted up to Villiersâ house, laying his chin on his hand and watching thoughtfully as Caineâs shadow disappears after the rest of him. âI bet heâd taste fucking great if it werenât for them cuffs.â
âYou like âem with a bit of meat on them, donât you?â Red asks, and Pike laughs, laying his arm around Rosenâs shoulder.
âClearly,â he says.
âMind your tongue, or else youâll not be drinking from me again,â says Rosen, flicking Pikeâs hand, but heâs smiling all the while, and Pike chuckles, nipping at the shell of his ear.
âIâm waiting anyway,â Pike says seductively. âKeeps you from getting anaemic.â
âPrick,â mutters Rosen, but heâs gone from smiling now to grinning, and Red smiles at him.
He likes Rosen well enough â heâd come in a month before Pike had, and Red had stepped in to keep some of the lads on 10 from roughing him up for being a Jew. Itâs all very well roughing a lad up for having done something, itâs another for doing it because heâs had his cock clipped and says his prayers on Friday nights instead of Sunday mornings.
âHeâs lived a fucked-up life,â Red says. âBut youâd be hard-pressed finding a man in here that hadnât. I donât think he should be in here, anyway.â
âWhy not?â Rosen asks. âHe did kill that man.â
âNot on purpose,â Red says, shrugging. âThey only take a hard line on it âcause they canât do anything until after someone gets hurts, lads like him, and they wish they could do it from the out. Heâs just another sort of vampire, really â he canât help the way he is.â
âHe can live without it,â Pike points out, his hands twitching â he wants a cigarette, Red supposes, but he canât have one until tomorrow unless he wants to set off one of the fucking smoke detectors. âThen again, technically, so I can I.â
âCan you?â Rosen asks, raising his eyebrows, and Red looks at him in surprise as well, but Pike shrugs his shoulders.
âWouldnât be comfortable by any means, but I could probably get by on an iron-rich diet, a lot of raw and rare meat, shit like that. Vampirism is a bit different in a fae body than a human one â we get a bit more sustenance from magic than you sorts do, depending on the families we come from.â Pike exhales the way he might if he had a cigarette to hand, blows out air and obviously doesnât find it quite satisfactory. âI think Caine did the best thing he could. Lived amongst mundies, worked with them â made sure anyone he might touch wouldnât be too affected by it in the event he sapped anything from them. That man reached for him, he said, touched him without thinking â some family friend or the like. He should have fucking remembered who he was, what touching the man would do to him.â
âYouâd think the guilt would be enough punishment,â Rosen says quietly. âI think itâd kill me, that sort of guilt â to know Iâd killed a man, a man Iâd known, liked, loved, even. Without even realising it was him, without a cause. Without coming in here as well.â
âYou have enough guilt just by living, seems to me,â Red says, and Rosen laughs, then comes over looking a bit more thoughtful, pensive.
âAnd him,â he says quietly. âHim too.â
* * *
Salvo receives his work duty after a few days in the prison â basic enchantment work. He has to sit an exam to show he knows how to write out the symbols, to show that he knows how to properly draw them or carve them into a piece of material. His cuffs remain in place, of course, and none of the prisoners are permitted to charge their enchantments themselves anyway to keep people from enchanting weapons or explosives â they simply lay out the runes and theyâre enchanted later, off the island.
Some of the prisoners are enchanting furniture and larger pieces of mechanism and machinery, but judging by how they talk to one another, how they chat, several of them were tradesmen or wizards on the outside â theyâre at home with magical plumbing and complex warding structures, some of them with licenses under their belts and specialist training. Salvo is not given anything so complex or large: he paints the enchantments into little gift items, charming welcome mats to clean off shoes, charming keys and small signs to create small lights, even enchanting a few toys here and there.
Every day is the same: he goes down to the prison for breakfast, eats, attends his work duty, eats lunch, finishes his work, has some free time, which he often spends reading or sitting quietly, listening to others talk. Generally, he gravitates toward Rufus Redford â he prefers âRedâ to Rufus, and Salvo doesnât fault him that â and his friends: Callum Pike and Ira Rosen.
Red is a confident man, tall, square, and thick with muscle â heâs one of the tradesmen that works in enchantment, although he doesnât use precisely the same skills he had on the outside. Heâs a trained magical glazier, apprenticed when he was fourteen and left school early to take up the work â heâs worked for years with huge panes of glass, fitted windows in all kinds of public buildings, even in some of the royal palaces, even in Camelot Castle itself â but here on the prison work detail he mostly enchants craftsmanâs tools or complex pieces of magical machinery, scaffolding, and things like that.
According to chatter around the prison, Red is in on tax fraud on a large scale, and a lot of organised theft that heâd done through his work, never doing the stealing himself, but organising for others to do it â Salvo gets the impression that he and Pike were already familiar with one another before meeting in prison.
Pike is in for some violent convictions â not murder, mostly aggravated assault and battery charges â alongside a long history of drug trafficking offences, and has been inside for short stretches twice before; like Red, Rosen is in prison for the first time, although Rosenâs sentence is a good deal shorter.
Rosenâs only going to be inside for another twelve to eighteen months â Red has close to a decade left on his sentence.
âHow long you got?â he asks one afternoon at lunch, and Salvo looks up from his plate to meet Redâs brown-eyed gaze. He has a few scars on his face, and on the backs of his hands â one, on his forehead and cutting through his eyebrow, is from an enchantment he messed up when he was scarcely eighteen, the pane of glass exploding outwards and the shard only narrowly missing his eye.
Rosen and Pike arenât paying attention, engaging in a very flirtatious game that Salvo canât determine the precise rules of, but seems to involve a lot of trying to finger one anotherâs wrists while kicking each other under the table.
âSix years,â Salvo answers.
âThatâs a long time for an accident,â Red says disapprovingly. âHalf my sentence, that, and I did what I did on purpose.â
âNo one died from what you did,â Salvo points out, and Red sighs, shaking his head. âThe point was that I was irresponsible, I think. That I should have taken better precaution, should have worn cuffs like these.â
âThey hurt, donât they?â Red asks, raising his eyebrows, and when Salvo doesnât say anything, he says, âIâve seen a lot of mages wear those â here inside, sure, but in my line of work too, seen cloistered mages have cuffs like that, to keep them from going mad from the amount of magic around them, or to keep them from harming others. One thing to wear them for a quick outing outward, or to opt into wearing them out of some fucked up religious sadomasochism â one manâs torture is another manâs kink and all that â but itâs another to wear them every day just to fucking live, isnât it?â
Salvo looks back at him, and then asks, âIs this you showing compassion for my perspective, the better to catch me by surprise when you turn on me?â
âAnd when am I gonna get the opportunity to turn on you, when youâre Villiersâ special little lad?â Red asks dryly, tilting his head and looking back at him with his lips twisted in a grin. Heâs got uneven teeth â his jawâs slightly uneven, Salvo thinks, from when he boxed as a teenager and a young man â and Salvo finds that he likes that. He likes how they look, like how much his teeth show his expression when he smiles. âFollow you back to the old manâs house after dark?â
âDonât tell me youâre jealous of the wardenâs special attention,â Salvo says.
âSomething tells me Iâm not his type,â Red says.
Salvo wonders what Red would say, if Salvo told him. If Salvo told him Villiers hasnât touched him yet, nor seemed even to want to â if Salvo told him that he sleeps in his own very comfortable bed, in his own room, that Villiers barely even sees him most days, let alone speaks to him, with him.
Most nights, heâs escorted back to Villiersâ house by a guard, doesnât walk back with Villiers at all, and Villiers has already retired to his office or his own bedroom for the evening. Would Red believe him, if Salvo said that Villiers hasnât touched him yet, and heâs not sure the old man ever will? Does Salvo even believe the latter part himself?
âDoes he frighten you?â Salvo asks.
âVilliers?â
âYes.â
âHeâs a frightening man,â Red says. âScary sonuvabitch, he is.â
âYouâre a good deal bigger than he is,â Salvo points out. âHe hasnât a size advantage on you as he might on me â quite the opposite, in fact. And heâs elderly, and⌠infirm.â
âThat the word he used?â Red asks wryly, insightful in a way that Salvo might like, if he let himself like men much âif he let himself like anyone who wasnât a mundie, any longer. âInfirm?â When Salvo doesnât reply, Red says, âHe likes that people think of him that way, people that donât know what he is, donât have an idea of who he is. He might be crippled by that stroke of his, but that doesnât make him any less fucking lethal. Itâs injured dogs thatâll harm you the worst, when it comes down to it. Theyâve got less to lose.â
âOnly when you have them cornered,â Salvo replies, setting his fork down on his plate. âAn injured dog is only a threat once you start trying to corral it â dâyou really think the old man is dangerous to you now, here?â
âHe knows who I am, knows my name, has my file, holds the key to my lock-up,â Red says. âTo everyone outside of this fucking place, Iâm a bastard with a laundry list of things to punish me for, on an island far away from everybody â here, Iâm nothing, and heâs God.â
Salvo considers this, considering too the fact that Villiers is more his god than Redâs, has more power over him â has even more privacy to do to Salvo as he pleases than he might Red, where there at least are, if not other prisoners as witnesses, there are other guards. Salvo has nothing, alone in Villiersâ house with him, but his word and Villiersâ own.
âIâm an atheist,â decides Salvo, and that makes Red laugh â he has a good laugh, barking, sort of rough and throaty â before he turns back to the others to talk to them.
On Thursdays, the allotted day of his prisoner number, Salvo goes into the prison library and withdraws three books â the limit â and throughout the week returns them through the slot before waiting impatiently for his opportunity to retrieve new books.
He has no one to call on to transfer money to him for the commissary, and heâs on a long waiting list for a prisoner assistance program on the mainland to get back to his letter to see about transferring some money from his own accounts, so he doesnât buy anything there â the prisoner wages for their labour are low, though not as low as they are in mundie prisons, heâs fairly certain. A dayâs labour can actually buy you something, anyway.
âYou have a very fine hand,â Villiers remarks one Thursday evening as they walk back to Villiersâ lodge together. Itâs raining, but the rain isnât especially heavy, just falls in a very fine mist that sticks to his hair and the back of his neck and his hands. Heâs carrying his books inside the leather satchel Villiers had handed him for the purpose, to keep them from getting wet. âI examined your handiwork from today. How long has it been since last you pursued enchantment?â
âNot so long,â Salvo murmurs. âI used to whittle when I was a child â it was supposed to hone my concentration, keep me calm. I wasnât very good at animals â I was a bit better at architecture, at carving lighthouses, cabins, castles, towers. Enchantment was a bit more concentrated still, carving very small figures in place â Iâd carve buildings and make them light up, make windmills turn, water flow, similar to the kind of stuff Iâm doing now.â
âThose skills will serve you well here,â Villiers says. âWould that schools were upfront about what education will best serve a young person when theyâre inevitably incarcerated.â
âInevitably?â Salvo asks, and Villiers makes a quiet, amused sound.
âSomething of an inevitability with you, young man,â he says, and the two of them step into the corridor, Villiers leading Salvo not to the bedroom that serves as his cell but through to a small sitting room, some armchairs beside a fire, a chess table set up and waiting. âDo you play?â
âNot really,â Salvo says. âI whittled some sets, but never liked to use them.â
âIâve never been much of a man for the game myself,â Villiers says, sinking into one of the armchairs and gesturing with one long-fingered hand for Salvo to take the other seat, which Salvo does. This is only the third time he and Villiers have sat down together once theyâre in the house â the first time, when Villiers had first brought him up here, a cold night a week back where Villiers had invited him to read beside the fire where it was warmer than in his room, and now. âItâs the sort of thing expected of a man my age, a penchant for chess games and long hours whiled away with a broadsheet newspaper.â
âYou must resent it,â Salvo says as he picks up a pawn and moves it forward. âGetting old â being disabled.â
âOf course I resent it,â Villiers says mildly, moving a knight. âYou would resent it too, and will do, as you grow older â you chose to remain intact, after all, no matter the risk it posed others. You only accepted this condition of chronic pain when it was forced upon you. Age forces such things upon us all.â
Salvo says nothing, reaching forward for the next piece. âYou were an assassin, before. Thatâs what they say about you.â
âI was,â Villiers says, his lips twitching. âAlthough outside of a blunt and straightforward place like this, various polite epithets are applied to the profession instead â attachĂŠ, intelligence agent. I served the crown a good many years â from the age of fifteen onwards.â
Salvo frowns, furrowing his brow. Itâs one thing for a man to be apprenticed as a glazier as a teenager â as an assassin seems a bit much. âWhat, you were in the army?â
âI was enrolled in a private school,â Villiers says. âA military school in Scotland, Sons of Cumhaill. I was born in London, not in a particularly affluent area, but I earned a scholarship as a young boy, and boarded from then onwards. Sons of Cumhaill, upon its founding a millennium back, was originally a school for the children of knights and high-ranking battle mages, or for titled youths in need of blooding before they might lead their family lines. The reason for dispatching oneâs children there has changed, but much of the syllabus remains the same â training in traditional weapons, battle magic, poisons and venoms, battle tactics, and so on, alongside a rather robust focus in other valuable subjects. History, literature and culture, magical sciences, languages, politics, economicsâŚâ He gestures vaguely with his weaker hand â he canât lift the arm as high as he can his other, and the hand is a little limper on the wrist than seems entirely right, the fingers unable to complete the easy movement the ones on his other hand can. âA feeder school today for the army, for certain areas of the civil service, for the Knightsâ Circle.â
âWow,â Salvo says, and heâs unable to hold back his curiosity as he looks repeatedly between the board and Villiersâ face. Villiers isnât as old as those heâd worked with in the care facility, many of whom were in the later stages of dementia or struggling with other debilitating and degenerative conditions, but heâd always enjoyed the aspect of the job that concerned making conversation, listening to older, wiser people talk about their lives.
Salvoâs never been an adventurous sort and doubts he ever will be, lacks the natural appetite for such things, but despite not being very interesting himself, heâs always enjoyed showing interest in other people, talking to them.
âWow?â Villiers repeats, arching his eyebrows, the very word coming out dripping with irony, not fitting his accent and his careful enunciation. âDoes it truly seem so lofty?â
âMaybe a bit. Are you, umâŚâ Salvo doesnât know how to ask the question exactly as he moves his bishop. âHow posh are you, exactly? Like, for you to get this scholarship, youâve got a posh accent, but is that⌠yours, or did they train it into you?â
Villiers laughs. Itâs a reserved laugh, compared to how some men laugh, his head turned to the side, and Salvo is fascinated at the stillness on one side of his face versus the other, the way the paralysed muscles canât mirror those on the other side. He likes it, actually, sees a strange sort of handsomeness in it like he does in Redâs uneven teeth and jaw â like in some art, where people use asymmetry.
âIâm not as posh as I sound, no, though itâs too ingrained in me now to be an affectation,â Villiers says. âMy father was a mundie, a drunk, walked out on my mother. In her youth, she was a dancer, a performer, and then became a teacher. She developed a magical intolerance after an injury, had to carefully measure her direct exposure to active magic and enchantment, so we lived in a non-magical area of town.â
âI knew a girl like that,â Salvo says. âHers was part of an immune condition, but we went to the same magical therapy centre â for her, it was regular controlled exposure to help her body not go overboard with the allergic stuff, for me, I was meant to be trying to train in my power.â
âShe had more success than you did, I hope.â
âI think a bit more,â Salvo murmurs, shrugging. âThey tried her with a fleshturner, to see if they could reach in and basically just make her nervous system a bit less sensitive, but that didnât work, and then they tried different steroids and stuff. When we were really young, youâd see she was sick with it, like sheâd have hives and stuff always, and her skin was really bad â for me, going through puberty made my problem much worse, but for her, I think it really helped and made it more manageable.â
âThese conditions arenât as well-understood, and thus arenât as predictable, as we would often like,â Villiers says, shrugging his shoulders.
âWere you resistant to magical treatment for the stroke? Same genetics?â
Villiers looks mildly surprised, and Salvo likes that look, as well, likes the slight wideness of his eyes, the way he leans in just slightly. âQuite right,â he says softly, and his gaze roves now over Salvoâs body, over his chest, his neck, before back up to his face. Salvo feels warm, and he wishes it was just arousal, wishes it was just him wanting to fuck the old man, but Villiers isnât exactly his usual type, older, thinner, angular.
The hunger heâs feeling, the intimacy he wants, is⌠different.
âTo return to my anecdote, it was nineteen eighty-three, two days after my birthday. My mother had sent me the new David Bowie on vinyl, and I snuck away from evening rec to listen to it up in the music tower. We werenât meant to go up unaccompanied, cretins that we were, all of us, liable to damage instruments or try to dangle one another out of the window.â
Salvo blinks, trying to imagine it, Villiers, angular and awkward limbs in the way of a teenager, upside-down with some other boy gripping his ankles. âYou got dangled out of a window?â
âMore of a dangler of boys than a danglee by them, for my sins,â says Villiers, and Salvo hears himself laugh. When he moves his pawn, Villiers is quick to take it â so quick that their fingers brush against one another.
Villiersâ demeanour might be naturally cold and flat, but his fingers are warm, and Salvo feels the bone-deep ache inside his guts, the craving to get these bracelets off him and soak that warmth and the life that powers it into himself. Ever since poor Brownie died underneath him, ever since he felt the crackle of his magic into his fingertips, heâs hungered for it, wanted it. Heâd never tasted it before â the power had been latent until heâd started puberty, and it had been weak at first. Heâd sapped a little from people, but not enough to hurt them, just to make them a little tired and drawn. About the same time as heâd had a significant growth spurt, when heâd gotten taller and started to gain more weight and muscle, his absorption rate had changed too.
Augmented â significantly.
Overnight, it had gone from something of a joke, an unfortunate side effect of his company, even a party trick from time to time, to a genuine risk to everybody around him.
âSo you listened to the record?â Salvo asks, and Villiers exhales.
âNot that night, no. His majesty, the king regent, was sitting at the music roomâs piano when I made it up the stairs.â
Salvo doesnât know that heâd be able to cope with it if he went out somewhere and came back to Myrddin Wyllt sat in front of him, or any knight, or any kind of famous person, really. Heâs never really felt at home with fame and influence. âWould have figured him for the drums.â
Villiers chuckles. Theyâre each making their moves fairly quickly, black and white pieces lining up on each side of the board.
âAnd what, he asked you to kill someone?â
âWanted me to kill the music teacher, in fact.â
âSo you did it?â
âGladly â Iâd never liked him much, and he hated David Bowie.â
âIs that why the crown wanted him dead?â
âNo, he was a spy, apparently,â Villiers says, although he frowns as he says it, furrowing his brow. âSomething like that, anyway â you may well think ill of me, young man, but I didnât ask many questions. A very attractive and powerful mage was offering me money and his permission â his approval, even â to kill a man in cold blood. I was hungry for the chance, and quite eager for it.â
Thereâs something chilling in how easily Villiers says it. Salvo couldnât even call it a confession, he doesnât think, because there is no implication of regret or shame, no play at secrecy or modesty â he says it openly and with a remembered relish, and his tongue comes out from his mouth to wet his lower lip. Salvo looks down at his knees, trying to make sense, or to somehow organise, the tumultuous emotions tumbling over one another inside him â the craving and the hunger and the desperate, greedy want; the shame and the horror and the disgust at the fact that he wants it; the faint wish that it was a regular lust, a normal personâs lust and desire; the jealousy at the ease Villiers finds, for being the sort of person he is.
âYou didnâtâŚâ he starts, and the question goes dry and dusty on his tongue.
âHm?â
âYou donât sound guilty,â Salvo says. âYou donât soundâ you killed him. And you talk about it like it was easy, like you always, like you always wanted it. Didnât you have, donât you have a conscience?â
âNo,â says Villiers smugly, making his move. âIâve never been burdened with such a thing. Since I was very young, what I craved, what I wanted, was blood, death, feeling another manâs life in my hands, and having the power and the privilege to snuff it out.â
Salvo feels a mix of sick and desperately, almost painfully hungry. His fingers twitch as he looks out over his pieces, at where Villiers has moved his king to. âDo you think it would be a burden, if youâd had one?â
âIt burdens you, doesnât it?â Villiers asks snidely.
âCheck,â Salvo says, moving his queen, and Villiers looks critically down at the board, then sighs with a lopsided smile that genuinely is quite handsome, Salvo thinks.
He considers what it might be like to kiss the old man, wonders what it would feel like, if heâd be able to feel the weakness on one side of his mouth rather than the other â and then all of a sudden he imagines the rest, imagines that it might be like to sap the magic out of him through his mouth, imagines feeling that hot, desperate tingle in his own lips, in his tongue, sinking down his throat and suffusing him. He imagines the electric, overwhelming thrill of it all, imagines that hot, giddy flow of someone elseâs power in him, someone elseâs life in him.
He hasnât kissed anybody on the mouth since he was fifteen himself, at the same age Villiers was killing a man, and back then it had been just a warm tingle against his lips, a sort of heady rush around his ears and heating his face â he knows what the real thing feels like, now, knows what it feels like to sap the force from the whole of someoneâs body, to be suffused with stolen energy. He knows what it feels to have someone elseâs soul subsumed into his, and itâs the best feeling in the universe, and he hates himself for wanting to taste it again.
âYou dastardly little thing,â Villiers says, not without pleasure or satisfaction as he takes the head of his king under his fingertip and tips it over. âYou set quite the little trap for me, didnât you?â
Salvo smiles faintly. âYouâre bored here,â he says quietly. âWith the prisoners, with⌠this.â
âOften, yes,â Villiers agrees.
Salvo studies him for a few moments, and thereâs a distant ache inside him, a faint compassion that pangs against the inside of his rib cage. Is Warden Villiers spared that as well, the same as he is a conscience? âWhy work here as a warden, if itâs so boring, if you want for company so badly that youâre taking a prisoner out of the main lot and bringing him here to lose to him at chess?â
âItâs quite simple,â says Villiers in mild tones, and then he moves so quickly that Salvo almost doesnât see him, that heâs not cognizant of whatâs happening until Villiers is on top of him. The older manâs weight is incandescently warm in Salvoâs lap, straddling his thighs and pinning him back in the winged back armchair, and half of his cane has been drawn back from the rest, showing the blade sheathed inside it.
Salvo canât breathe, can barely even think with the heat of Villiers in his lap, his bony knees digging in against the sides of Salvoâs thighs, and compared to the warmth of the older manâs body, the blade of his secret sword feels very cold against the underside of Salvoâs chin.
He feels dizzy, because heâs terrified, certain that Villiers is about to slit his throat, is about to bleed all the life out of him for real, no metaphor and no magic about it. Villiersâ expression is cold and haughty and he smells of a subtle cologne, one thatâs just a little bit sweet, makes Salvo want to lean in for more of it. Red was right. An atheist he may be, but here is Villiers demonstrating how godly he is, how absolute his power is over Salvo here, without witnesses, without an audience, without any protection at all.
Paradoxically, as frightened as he is, thereâs arousal too, heat sinking down and tingling between his legs, heat between his thighs.
âI have complete authority over each and every one of you,â Villiers says in a very quiet whisper, and Salvo breathes in very carefully through his nostrils, but when he swallows, an involuntary reaction, he feels the twitch of the blade against the skin, probably cutting off one or two hairs. âI could kill you right here, young man, and little fuss would be made of it â it isnât morality or fear of surveillance that keeps me from bringing you into my bed, chaining you to it, if I wished to.â
âAnd when my sentence was up?â Salvo asks faintly, feeling dizzy, and Villiers laughs. âWould they ask where I was, to have me released?â
âSuch terrible behaviour,â he says faux-seriously, pouting out his lips and stroking the thumb of his bad hand, mostly limp, against Salvoâs chin. It still feels as warm as the other, even if he canât move it as well. âWe had to add a few years to your sentence.â
âOh,â says Salvo. He wonders what Villiers would say, if he was to tell him that he and Red used the same words as one another, describing Villiersâ position. He wondered if Red and Villiers had had this conversation before. âYouâ Why did you have to stop being an assassin, when you can still move like that?â
âYouâre very good at flattery, boy, did you know that?â Villiers asks, tilting his head to the side and looking more than a little amused, his lopsided smile almost indulgent now. With his good hand, this time â it only takes the flick of a wrist to put his blade back into its sheath and set the cane aside â he spreads his hand on Salvoâs chest to brace himself, then eases himself up and out of his lap, onto his feet again.
Maybe itâs just because itâs not as fast, but this movement is a little clumsier, and Villiers has to be careful about which side heâs putting his weight on, has to lean his good hand on the chair to steady himself as he stands again, and then gets his cane beneath him again.
âIâm not good at flattery,â Salvo says. âIâm not really good at socialising, to be honest â I was okay when I was working, talking to people, letting them talk, trying to make them feel good, make them feel safe, make them feel human even though they were sick, or disabled, or just really, really tired, and in a lot of pain. But Iâve not been able to go out, basically, sinceâŚâ
âThe core of effective flattery is always the appearance of sincerity,â Villiers says mildly. âBeing truly sincere is just another way to go about it, I suppose. You donât seem very frightened for a man whoâs just had a blade held to his throat.â
âMy lifeâs in your hands either way,â Salvo says, adjusting himself subtly in his seat, because his cock is hard and itâs not as well-hidden in his loose prison tracksuit trousers as heâd like. He tries to shift the head of his cock against his waistband to keep it from pressing forward too much, but the way that Villiersâ eyes flicker downwards makes it clear it doesnât matter how subtle he makes his erection appear. âThe blade was just an example.â
âQuite right, of course,â Villiers says, and then the blade is bared again, and this time the very tip of it is resting on his shoulder, the silver of polished metal catching the light. Salvo stares down at it, at how sharp it looks, and very carefully, very slowly, glancing up at Villiers â for what? Permission? Approval? Just to see the older manâs face not change? â he touches his finger to the side of the blade and immediately draws it back with a quiet hiss.
âThought it would be blunt, did you?â
âNot really,â Salvo says, and tries to make sense of the multiple wants and lusts inside him, the way they tangle with one another, the way they twist about each other like vines. Thereâs something almost like a whine, almost like a moue, in his voice â which he doesnât let out on purpose â as he asks, âYouâre really not going to fuck me?â
âNever,â promises Villiers, and he slides the blade in closer, drags the tip over the line of Salvoâs collarbones through his clothes before it comes to rest in the hollow of them. âIf I pierced here, through this little hole in the bones, useful little target on a thinner boy like you, I could cut right through your trachea. Youâd aspirate on blood, unable to draw oxygen into your lungs, and what leaked out of you would froth and bubble.â
Salvoâs cock gives a desperate twitch between his legs, and he doesnât make a noise, but it shows in his face, he thinks â Villiers laughs at him, and makes a show of sheathing his blade his time, sliding it back into its place with a quiet shkkt of noise.
âWhat a curious boy you are,â Villiers says. âSatisfy my curiosity, wonât you â would you rather I kill you, right here, enjoy the powerful eroticism of a cruel and nasty bastard like me threatening you just like this, perhaps with my boot against that precious little cocklet of yours for you to grind against,â (now Salvo does let out a helpless, embarrassing noise, and his trackies feel a little bit wet at the pre that dribbles from the head of his prick), âor would you rather slake your thirst and drink all there is from me? Sate that hunger of yours, gorge yourself on my magic until Iâm dry?â
âYouâre part of the way intolerant to magic, you said,â Salvo says to avoid the question, although heâs so full of want that his prick throbs â heâd been horny after drinking poor Brownie dry, no matter that the man was never attractive to him, a friend of his dadâs. Heâd been stunned on the floor in the street, Brownie laid out and pale and still and going cold beside him on the cobbles, and for all his fear and horror and guilt, at the same time heâd felt blessed and beautiful warmth and satisfaction and satiation⌠and his cock had been the hardest it had ever fucking been, on the verge of coming even as the mage cop had come to cuff him, even as the magical police had cordoned off the area and taken away his corpse, and begun to take his details down.
The high hadnât dissipated for hours, until he was alone in his cell, and only then had he felt cold enough to start sobbing over what heâd done.
âYou might not even make a good meal,â he adds.
âPerhaps not,â Villiers allows. âBut any sustenance at all is nectar to the starving man, isnât it?â
âIâm going to go to sleep now,â Salvo says, getting to his feet.
âGo to bed, at least,â Villiers says dryly.
The door hasnât even had time to lock behind him before Salvo has his hand around his cock to pull desperately on it, to get himself off.
* * *
Later that week â a Friday â Salvo is caught as he makes his way to his work detail, grappled and hauled into a cell, and he tries to shout out a protest, call for help, but a palm is already pressed tight over his mouth. Heâs terrified of it, obviously, terrified, and yet a part of him sings for how much heâs being touched, how the hands are grabbing at him, at his thighs, around his waist, up at his shoulders, even though the hands touching him are a bit clammy.
âWhere have you been going at night, eh, you pretty little muzzled pup?â asks the voice in his ear, and Salvo doesnât recognise it, tries to raise his frantic eyes to get a glimpse at whoever it is in the cell mirror, but theyâve obviously smashed it and had it taken away. Thereâs a gap on the wall where the mirror is meant to be, a different colour to the rest, and while thereâs newspaper bits pinned up, some animated pin-ups of actresses and models, Salvo canât glean anything from them.
He tries to squeal out a protest as a shoelace is strung through the gaps in his cuffs and used to hang his wrists over his head, up over one of the top bunkâs posts, but this bloke is obviously old hat at this, keeps his palm pressed fast against Salvoâs lips. Heâs dragging down Salvoâs bottoms with his hooking thumb and his hand is a little cold and clammy where it slides down between his arse cheeks, thumbing at his dry rim, and he whimpers, but he can barely hear it, jolting when the same hand squeezes his bollocks and plays over his soft cock. Â
Heâs at the wrong angle, his arms behind him and hooked above his head, his shoulders wrenching and feeling like they might well be dislocated any moment. His donât tear up but he can feel the blood rushing through his veins, feel the adrenaline pumping, and he tries to kick, but itâs painful to let his shoulders take any of his weight in this position.
âThink Iâm getting the first go, arenât I?â asks the man behind him. âHavenât heard anybody else bragging about it, and I know everyoneâd be crowing at having had the privilege.â
âLet him go, Mason,â drawls a Brummie accent from behind them, and Salvo looks desperately back at Callum Pike standing there, Rosen hovering behind him like a wide-eyed shadow.
âFuck off, Pike,â hisses Mason â Daf Mason, he guesses, the ex-miner in for rape who was in the papers, and Salvo watches Pike make a big show of sighing and adjusting his sleeves.
Where Rosen is small and round, plumper than Salvo is, and has sort of anxious, eager movements, often seeming like heâs vibrating from the inside, Pike is often inhumanly still. Itâs not do to with being a vampire, Salvo doesnât think, but maybe more to do with his being part-fae, or maybe just personal to him â when Pike goes still you canât even see him breathing, barely see him blink, and thatâs how he settles whenever heâs not talking or playing a game.
He looks like his dad, people say, some northern mob man whoâs famous enough for people to know what he looks like, not that Salvoâs ever heard of him, though people say his dad doesnât do stillness like Callum Pike does. Heâs big and tall, lanky with a runnerâs muscle on him, and he does parkour, apparently â people have said that the reason he goes inhumanly, inorganically still like that is because he blends in with the gargoyles when he climbs tall buildings, but Salvo doesnât know that he believes that.
Pike isnât still now: he moves as fast as the warden had the other night, is nothing more than a flickering blue before Salvoâs eyes, and then the weight of Mason behind him is gone, and he hears the other man groan.
Rosen has to climb up on the lower bunk to reach and undo Salvoâs bindings â the double knotted lacing is deceptively hard to snap, even without Salvo being hung at a painful angle, but Rosen undoes the messy knot with quick, skilled fingers.
Salvo rubs at his sore shoulders as he stands up straight and turns to look at Mason. Pike has him sat on the floor, leaning back against Pikeâs chest, looking like a spider with a fly what with how long his legs and arms are contrasted with Masonâs stouter, more contained form. Masonâs eyes are glassy and his body has gone limp, and Pike is wiping his mouth with the inside of his wrist as he pulls back from the bloodied marks on the juncture of his shoulder, where heâd dragged back the manâs shirt to sink his teeth in.
Releasing his grip on Masonâs shirt collar, the bite is hidden as the fabric snaps back, and Pike drops Mason unceremoniously to the ground with a dull thump as he gets to his feet.
âYou alright, Caine?â he asks casually.
âYeah,â Salvo says. âPrick.â He kicks Mason hard in the ribs, and Masonâs so out of it with Pikeâs vampiric venom that he doesnât even jump, though he does groan quietly after a secondâs delay. âThank you.â
âThank Ira,â says Pike, nodding to Rosen who â seemingly out of reflex â is rifling through the top drawer of Masonâs side table. âI didnât hear you, I was sucking off Lee Havers down the hall.â
âSucking off his neck, orâŚ?â
âHis cock,â Pike says helpfully, and Salvo huffs out a quiet laugh.
âThank you,â he says as Rosen comes away from Masonâs things looking mildly disappointed. âYou didnât really think he might have the keys to some kind of vehicle?â
âI suppose not,â Rosen admits immediately, and Salvo feels his lips twitch into a tired smile as Pike laughs, gripping the back of Rosenâs neck in that effortlessly easy, possessive way he does, squeezing. âA man does live in hope â I just forget, I suppose, where I am.â He sighs, full of soft yearning. âI wonât be able to get my hands on a vehicle until Iâm out again.â
âDid they take away your license?â
Rosen lets out a dismissive noise and waves a hand. âNever had one.â
Salvoâs pleased to have read him right, but as he trails after the two of them he looks at Pikeâs hand on Rosenâs neck, wonders what it feels like. Vampiresâ skin is cold, heâs heard â heard Rosen good-naturedly complain about it, even, but what would it feel like, the energy of him?
Pike splits off from them, loping back down the corridor to finish off Lee Havers, Salvo guesses, and he and Rosen fall into step beside one another.
âYou on enchantment detail as well?â he asks.
âNo, no,â says Rosen. âEmbroidery, me.â
âEmbroidery?â Salvo repeats. Heâd said when he was going through the list of work options that he sewed at school, and the guard doing his assessment had actually laughed and told him no, that he wouldnât be able for the sort of needlework they did here. Heâs even peered into the room where theyâre at it on his way back, and heâs never noticed Rosen in there, but the guyâs usually late for everything â who he has seen at work are very, very old fae, the ones that donât speak English and wonât make any effort to learn, the ones that simmer with magic he can feel even with the cuffs on, that make his mouth water and his vision swim.
âYeah, thanks to my granny, itâs seven faeries older than sin and then me. Theyâre nice enough, even if they try to use Hebrew with me sometimes and end up mixing it up with fucking Aramaic, not to mention that as you can imagine, their idea of Jews is, uh, a little old-fashioned. Fuck, itâs ancient-fashioned. I canât do enchantment â too dyslexic â and I canât sit still long enough to do some of the other crafts stuff. You canât get bored doing this kind of sewing, though, âcause you have to work in sync with one another and go fast, layer magically charged threads over one another, the fabrics, all that.â
âYou like it?â
âNot really,â Rosen says, âbut itâs better than bouncing off the walls, I suppose. Does he fuck you?â
Salvo looks sideways at Rosen, who looks politely interested, but if he thinks heâs asked something rude, he doesnât seem worried about it.
âVilliers?â
âYeah,â says Rosen.
âNo,â says Salvo, more to see how Rosen reacts than because he thinks heâll really believe it â heâs only young, really young, about twenty, twenty-one. âWhy, would you fuck him?â
âProbably not,â Rosen says, shrugging. âI think his face is creepy, the way his mouth droops on one side, and I donât like how he talks.â
âHis accent?â
âNo, the, uh, what is it, a slur? From the stroke.â
âA slur, yeah,â says Salvo. âThough itâs rather mild, I expect it was much worse in the recent aftermath.â
âI donât really like old guys,â Rosen says. âIâve fucked them, obviously, to get my hands in their pockets for their keys or their phones, but I wouldnât fuck them for the sake of it. No offence if you like to fuck old guys, itâs just not my thing.â
âNone taken,â says Salvo. âI donât really have that much experience.â
âWhat, youâre a virgin?â
âNot quite, but Iâm basically celibate,â Salvo says.
ââCause youâd kill people by fucking them?â
âNot mundies,â says Salvo.
âWhy not fuck mundies then?â Rosen asks. Theyâre lingering in the corridor now, and Salvo knows he might be late for his own work detail, but Rosen obviously doesnât care â heâs teetering back and forth from his heels to his toes, looking up at him with astonishing, kind of unsettling attentiveness. âIs it like, you canât be open with them or whatever?â
âI donât know,â Salvo says. âI worked a lot, and I would be tired, and I tried a few times, um⌠Apps. Or going to bars. And I just wasnât good enough at it to make it happen, to actually get a guy to come home with me, or take me home, and itâd be months or years in between me actually trying, because it was just⌠It was excruciating. I donât know why. It made me feel horrible.â
âShame?â Rosen asks. âDo you hate your body?â
âUm,â Salvo says. âI donât think so. Why, do you hate yours?â
âSometimes,â Rosen says, with the same incredible frankness with which he asks questions, and Salvo actually feels breathless with it. âSometimes I only really feel okay âcause Iâm behind the wheel of something, and then itâs like thatâs my body instead of this. All this flesh â not just âcause Iâm fat, but I guess thatâs part of it. All my family used to pinch at me, at my cheeks, my arms, anywhere you could pinch, really. You canât pinch metal or fibreglass, and even if someone tries, you donât feel it â and youâre going too fast for them to try anyway.â Rosen laughs, a scattershot sound that matches perfectly with his rapid fire, kind of clumsy way of speaking, but thereâs something about the laugh that doesnât match up with how he talks, a sort of tonal disconnect. âAnyway,â he says, and instead of saying âbyeâ or âsee you laterâ, he just turns on his heel and walks away.
Salvo rubs the back of his neck, smiling faintly, and goes to work himself.
It was good to talk to Rosen right after â itâs twenty minutes later that he remembers Daf Mason nearly fucking raped him, and then he throws up in the workshop sink.
* * *
Red walks with the lad back to the main block after theyâre done working. Heâd asked if the lad was ill, but heâd dismissed both the guard looking over him and Red, and then just worked in even more palpable silence than usual. Heâs never chatty during his work detail, but at least heâll sit closer to other people and smile or laugh along with the conversation going on, listen more attentively if someone tries to give him advice, whatever else.
Most of today heâs in his own fucking world, and heâd barely eaten anything at lunch, had mostly just sat there with his tray in front of him, barely touching what was on it before drifting back to work.
âYou need to eat something,â Red says behind him when theyâre in the queue. âJust get the rice if you canât stand to taste anything, but get a full portion.â
Reluctantly, Caine takes a bowl of rice, half-heartedly putting some boiled carrots in it at the last minute, and he sits and eats in silence across from Red at the table until Rosen and Pike come to join them.
âYou feeling okay?â Rosen asks, and then adds, âStart to sink in, did it?â
âYeah,â Salvo says hoarsely.
âMason tried to fuck him this morning,â Pike says when Red doesnât say anything, but looks across at them askance. âHad him trussed up when Ira got me to come in and rescue him. Speaking of, it seems my consequence for that has arrived.â
âFuckâs sake, Pike,â growls Cornell as he stalks across the bar, and Pike is stone-still as the guard grabs him by the collar and drags him up from his untouched tray. âYou could have fucking killed him.â
âIâve never killed a man in my life,â Pike says unconvincingly as Cornell hauls him away, and Red watches as Caine half-stands to his feet, looking like he wants to protest.
âBecause he helped me?â Caine asks, looking horrified. âWhat are they going to do to him?â
âSolitary for a few days,â Rosen says. âItâs not like they can take his fangs out.â
âOr cuff them,â says Red.
Caine looks even greener now than he had earlier, but after a little quiet coaxing from Rosen he does sink down onto the bench again, and he reluctantly begins to eat again.
âTheyâve put him in solitary before,â Rosen says. âItâs not as though it bothers him any. He wouldnât have stepped in if he wasnât willing to make the trade-off, a few days of extra boredom in exchange for stopping Mason raping you. Youâve never been raped before, have you? I donât recommend it, youâre better off without.â
That makes Caine blink a few times, not seeming to quite make sense of Rosenâs tone. Even before heâd been brought to the nick, heâd known more than a few lads with personalities like his â more than a few lads whoâd had blows to the head like Rosen had had as a lad and all, the sort of head injury that douses out a manâs impulse control like a fucking church candle, and makes him talk like bullet fire.
Surely, working with old folks and the demented, heâll have met people that talk a bit more frankly than others, but unless you knew already, he supposes, youâd never know Rosen had an extra impact on him one way or the other. Heâs said to Red that he was always more impulsive than his siblings even before he took a brick to the side of the skull, and that you never know whatâs natural and whatâs from concussion.
Daf Masonâs a victim of repeated concussion and all, though heâs the more traditional headcase, Red thinks, the one that people might imagine. Angry, and a raper.
âI know Iâm better without it,â Caine says slowly. âJustâ Just that itâs not right, Pike being punished for stepping in in my defence. Iâll talk to Warden Villiers about it.â
âOh, do you think maybe if you offer to suck him off or something, heâll let Pike out early?â
Red can see that initially Caine is just straight up taken aback by it, by the way that Rosen just comes right the fuck out and says it, but then he sees the wires connect and cross in Caineâs head, the way he connects the idea of Villiers shoving his cock into Caineâs throat with wherever Daf was gonna shove his earlier, and Red grabs Rosenâs already-empty bowl from in front of him and slides it in front of Caine to catch the bulk of the vomit.
âOh,â says Rosen, not without sympathy, and pats his shoulder, which makes Caine, in a flop sweat under his tracksuit, jump and shudder, and then lean into the delicate squeeze of Rosenâs pretty little hand. âOh, itâs okay. Villiers will probably take it out worse on Mason anyway â what with you being his special case and that.â
Caine retches harder, and Rosen makes a face but awkwardly exchanges his now-full bowl for one another lad passes them from the next table over.
âOi! Guard!â Red shouts over his shoulder. âOne of you screws come be of some fucking use, would ya? Bring a mop and all!â
* * *
âHe was only helping me,â Salvo says for the third time, feeling out of sorts and strangely unbalanced, because heâs in his bed and has a blanket over him, a glass of water next to another glass of flat lemonade on the bedside table next to him, a slice of very thinly buttered toast on the plate beside it. It has a few bites taken out of it, but more than half of the slice is still left â Villiers had stood over him and ordered him to take each bite, ordered him to chew, to swallow, to take a sip of water to ease it down, at the same time he confined him to his bed. âWarden Villiers, please, he onlyââ
âI understand your protest implicitly, Mr Caine, you need not repeat yourself again,â Villiers says coolly. His cane is hooked on the back of Salvoâs desk chair, and the man himself is leaning back against Salvoâs desk, looking down at him in his bed.
He hadnât fainted, fully, but heâd been so stressed and sweaty and nauseous from throwing up on top of barely eating all day that his knees had gone weak when the guards had gotten him up, and Villiers had ordered him up to the house immediately.
âMr Pike is under express instruction, as all vampires in this prison are,â Villers says, ânot to bite his fellow inmates. A vampire cannot be easily milked of their venom because they typically produce it too quickly, and Mr Pike, like so many of his unfortunate provenance, has rather powerful venom in any case. Were Mr Mason a diabetic, or otherwise under the weight of some condition that makes him particularly vulnerable to such venom, Pike might have killed him as easily and quickly as having snapped his neck. He is given a measure of blood each week to sustain his appetites, and he isnât to augment that diet.â
âHe drinks from other inmates during sex,â Salvo mutters, reaching reluctantly for his lemonade and taking a sip of it. Heâd felt fucking wretched, watching Villiers drizzle a little sugar into the glass and make it fizzle, stirring it until all the carbonation was gone, âthat it not spur on your nausea any furtherâ.
âHe isnât to do that either,â says Villiers, his arms crossed over his chest. Youâd not know one was weak, with him supporting them like this against his breast like this. Salvo doesnât really understand why it bothers Rosen so much, the slur â itâs so mild, youâd easily think it was just from his posh accent rather than from the stroke. âAlthough heâs good enough not to render his willing cohorts fit for the infirmary. Intimate contact between inmates is itself prohibited, I might remind you, but regardless of how Pike penetrates his cohorts â or indeed, is penetrated by them â we avoid official evidence of the fact so long as his partners are not hospitalised.â
âAnd what about Mason?â Salvo asks bitterly, putting the glass down on the coaster before reaching reluctantly for the toast and forcing himself to take a bite of it, to chew it, to swallow it down. Itâs cold, and it feels too thick and heavy in his mouth, and he hates it, but he sees Villiers incline his head slightly in visible approval, and he doesnât hate that.
Itâs the only thing today after Mason, except for Rosen babbling at him when heâd forgotten about it, that he hasnât hated completely.
âDafydd Mason is recovered from his stupefaction, and will be fine come morning, Iâve no doubt.â
âHe tried to rape me,â Salvo says. âHe tied me up and he stripped my trackies off me and he was going to rape me. He touched me. He touched myââ He squeezes his eyes shut as he feels his stomach turn over, trying to swallow down the nausea, feeling the toast wanting to come back up on him.
âMore lemonade,â Villiers orders, and Salvoâs hand trembles a bit as he drops the plate in his lap and picks up the lemonade, swallowing a bit more down. He thinks the sweetness of it will make him gag, but it overwhelms the nausea, actually, the acidity of it and the sugar at once, and it fucking annoys him, actually, because Villiers is looking at him kind of smugly from his place on the other side of the room. âWhy did you not call for a guard?â
âHe had his hand over my mouth,â Salvo says. âHe grabbed me in the corridor and pulled me in, and as he tied me up and stripped me andâ He had his hand over my mouth the whole time. I couldnât say a thing, I was making noise but no one could hear except Ira, who went and got Pike.â
âWho pulled Mason off you, knocking him out with his bite, yes?â
âYeah.â
âAnd then?â
Salvo stares at him. âWhat do you mean, and then?â
âYou didnât call for a guard then,â Villiers says. âYou left Mason on the floor of his cell, a puddle of drool collecting under his gaping jaw, and took the effort to bruise one of his ribs before you left him there.â
âHowâd you know it was me did that?â Salvo asks, looking at his plate instead of meeting the older manâs eyes. âNot Pike? Or Ira?â
âMr Rosen is not violent â to the point of pathology, he avoids violence, in fact, though I must say his vegetarianism makes providing healthy and satisfying kosher meals rather easier whilst avoiding potential interference from other inmates, so I suppose I ought render no judgement on it. And had Mr Pike kicked Mason in the ribs, he would have broken one, not just left a bruise.â
âI donât like you,â says Salvo, and Villiers laughs richly and quietly, supporting his weak arm with his other as he unfolds them, and then leaning back further against the desk, rolling his shoulders.
âIâm wounded, Iâm sure,â he murmurs. âYou did not call for a guard, young man. Mason was not discovered until two hours after, and he could easily have died. Mr Pike would be spending more than three days in a solitary cell had he brought that about, I must say.â
âSo? Heâd just tried to fucking rape me,â mutters Salvo, tearing into the toast with his fingers and finding that itâs strangely cathartic, tearing it in half, so he tears it into quarters, and then eights, and then tries to tear it into sixteenths, but mostly by this point he just has crumbs all over his hands and on the plate and a little bit on the sheets. âWhy the fuck should I have called for a guard?â
âYou forgot, didnât you?â Villiers asks, arching an eyebrow. âI know that Mr Rosen likely did as soon as he left the room. Heâs forgotten his shoes more than once before whilst wandering the halls â his sewing companions consider him quite the queer little thing.â
âMaybe Pike forgot.â
âMr Pike is well-familiar with the drill, by this point. He didnât forget a thing.â
Salvo glares at him, and Villiers smirks his cold, lopsided smirk. âIt didnât occur to me,â he admits, shaking out his crumby hands and putting the plate back on the counter, and Villiers walks forward and takes hold of the top sheet in his good hand, supporting himself on the side table with his weaker elbow and sweeping the sheet back with a surprising speed and strength, letting out a sound like a sail filling with a gust of wind. He shakes out all the crumbs before he passes it back, and Salvo smooths it over himself.
âYou were never a nurse,â he says.
âNever,â Villiers agrees. âIâve always been rather more comfortable ushering someone toward death rather than out of its clutches.â
âYouâd be handfeeding me if you could,â Salvo accuses him. âWould have brought in the plate and glasses, would have tucked me into bed. Bet youâve tampered with an IV â have you ever put one in?â
âNo,â Villiers says softly.
Heâs standing very close, now, leaning on the end table instead of the desk â heâs so much closer, and itâs more intimate, like this. Salvo has to lie back on his pillows and look up at him, and itâs even more unequal, even more imbalanced, the dynamic between the two of them. Salvo canât stand the idea of touching himself, not at the moment, but thereâs heat between his legs, and his cock is half-hard even before he breathes in the sweet scent of Villiersâ cologne, and he loves it, craves it. He wants to bury his face against Villiersâ belly and feel the touch of his cold, slim fingers in Salvoâs hair, touching his fingertips against his scalp, wants Villiers to hold Salvo���s body to his.
âWeâre not meant to put them in, care assistants â weâre not trained for it,â Salvo murmurs. âNot accredited, anyway, and youâre meant to be. Inserting IVs and taking them out, thatâs an invasive procedure â I got sent on a training course to take and process blood samples, but I should never have been doing IVs or catheters. Understaffing being what it is, though, if I wasnât doing it, or one of us doing it, thereâd have been a Hell of a wait, sometimes, so they just showed us, and taught us how, and unless we were getting inspected, it wasâŚâ Salvo exhales, tapping his fingers against the sheet, against his knees. âItâs delicate work, the tourniquet, the needle, finding the vein. Thereâs so much power in it. Thereâs so much, um, vulnerability in it. Itâs just this portal right to their insides, to their heart. You can put anything in it â too much medicine, too little. Insulin to really fuck somebody up, but not even that, though. All you really need is a little bubble of air.â
âYou neednât inform me of that,â Villiers says softly. âAs I said, Iâm more familiar with those latter points than I would be any actual nursing.â
âThatâs what I mean, though,â Salvo says. âI always wanted to help people, care for people, yeah. I always craved it, I always⌠My dad had a pacemaker put in, and two different women on my street were nurses, and one of them minded me after school, and that was even without all the check-ups I had to have, as a child, the extra attention. I liked it. I liked the way nurses talked, and I liked how people paid attention to them and how they gave instructions and orders and help and I liked how physical it was, the, the knowledge. Like they could go into a cupboard and look at all this equipment, all these weird little devices or bits of tubing or whatever else, and just know how to use all of it to help you, to heal you, to fix you. But it was the power of that, really. Iâve always felt a bit bad about it, but itâs not like youâre going to judge me, like youâre going to fucking care. I liked nursing because it was authority â more authority than a doctor, sometimes. You never hear the doctor going, âActually, nurse,â and correcting what theyâve said, but nurses are always stepping in when the doctorâs fucked up.â
He looks up at Villiers, whose expression is not so obvious in its smirk now, but whose attention is fixed on Salvoâs face, studying him intently.
âYouâd like to be feeding me,â Salvo says. âYouâd like to be bringing the glass to my mouth instead of trusting me to do it myself â youâd like to force each bite, each mouthful of water or lemonade. Youâd massage my throat to make me swallow, even, if you had the chance.â
âTeasing me with such seductive talk will not convince me to release Mr Pike any earlier, young man,â Villiers says, his voice a little bit hoarser, a little more resonance in it. Arousal, that is, arousal, and want. Salvo swallows.
âWhat will it get me?â Salvo asks, and Villiers laughs quietly, then picks up the plate with his good hand and walks away.
âGo to sleep,â Villiers orders him. âNo work detail for you tomorrow â you can take your choice of confinement here, or in my office.â
âHow cold is your office?â
âQuite.â
âHere, then.â
âAs you will,â Villiers says, and after setting the plate down in the corridor, he pulls the door shut behind him.
* * *
Caine doesnât come down from the wardenâs house at all that day. The screws wonât say anything about whatâs up with him, but when Red asks Kim Adder, he says that there was a little dispensation, that he was confined to bedrest in his own quarters, but was noted down on the infirmary log as being unwell.
Not much of a surprise, that.
âHello, Red,â says Rosen when Red steps out from the workshop, and Red raises his eyebrows at the sight of the lad, reaching out and touching his knuckles to the back of Rosenâs forehead, because heâs pink all over, and sweating.
âSeems like youâre red,â he mutters. âThe fuck happened to you, you jog down the corridor?â
âOh, there was a fight in the embroidery hall,â Rosen says, reaching up and wiping his face with his sleeve. âI had to run â the old faeries can do all sorts to each other, but itâd fuck me up, Iâm not two thousand years old and with skin as thick as tree bark. The magic that would give them a little burn would go right through me.â
âRight,â Red says, raising his eyebrows, but he puts his hands in his pockets and walks alongside Rosen down the corridor, toward the canteen. Rosen hadnât eaten lunch with Red â heâd been chattering away with some recent new transplant whoâs in from London for arson, and is apparently an old schoolmate of his. âDâyou mind if I ask you something?â
âNo,â says Rosen.
âWhyâre you in a magical nick, not a mundie one? Was it a magical train you tried driving off?â
âNot that I got caught, but they knew I had done,â Rosen says mildly. âAnd they decided they couldnât trust me not to blab away to mundies and not keep secrets â Iâm no good at keeping secrets.â
âFair enough,â Red says. âThat what had those old tree fuckers going mad at each other? You blabbing secrets?â
âDidnât fully follow a lot of the conversation, to be honest, I normally donât,â Rosen says. âThe way those old pricks talk to each other is fucking weird â itâs not just the language they use, Iâve kind of been starting to pick up some of the, um, I think itâs too old to even be Welsh, itâs some kind of Brythonic. But they talk in verse and riddles and stuff with each other, so even if I can make out the words or recognise names and things theyâre saying, itâs well beyond me to understand what they actually mean. They were doing some sort of poetry thing today, a bit, um⌠I donât know, they were roasting each other. Something about someoneâs daughter, maybe? And fucking her? I donât know. But old Bleiddgwn flipped his fucking lid, and he was properly screaming at Cadllew, and they were already angry at each other, and then Toutorixs said something else, like, commenting, or a joke, and then they were all trying to rip each other to shreds. I had to run out, and then French had to flip that switch, you know the one that locks the room down and chokes all the magic out? Theyâll be in there for days until theyâre either calm enough to come out or until they fall into hibernation, so either way, I donât have work detail for a while.â
Red blinks a few times, because it takes him a little while to actually comprehend that Rosenâs stopped talking â how the fuck he makes sense of what those ancient cunts are saying, let alone what the protocol is around them, he has no idea. Most of the inmates keep a wide berth from the prisoners that have been imprisoned at his majestyâs pleasure long before this prison island was even built, and have sentences that last centuries or millennia instead of being decades at the most, for their own fucking safety, not to mention their own sanity.
âHibernation?â he repeats. âWhat, like fucking bears?â
âIf theyâre starved of magic for long enough, yeah,â Rosen says evenly. âBut apparently they normally tire themselves out fighting and arguing before they get to that point. Fingers crossed, though! I wouldnât be able to embroider on my own, so theyâd have me doing something else. No Caine today?â
âApparently heâs ill,â Red says.
âOh, right, okay,â Rosen says, and furrows his brow. âYeah.â
âYou want to help me with a job after dinner?â Red asks, and Rosen lights up.
He doesnât ask for any details at all, of course, before he says, âSure!â
Itâs not like Red wants him doing anything particularly risky in any case â Rosen chats up a fucking storm to the trustee mopping the floors in the infirmary, the doctorâs already gone off for the evening, and Red knows that the infirmary nurse, a little prick called Julian with eyebrow piercings, will be off getting high at this time of day.
All he wants is to pay Daf Mason a little social call â and funny enough, he doesnât find the prick in situ.
âIs there a reason yourself and Mr Rosen are wandering the corridors with no-doubt pilfered sets of keys?â Warden Villiers asks in withering tones, and Red straightens up, his hands behind his back.
Rosenâs eyes widen, his lips parting, and he says anxiously, his gaze flitting back and forth, âErm, hello, Warden, uh, weâre not, we havenât been, Iâmââ
âDonât trouble yourself attempting deception, young man, we both know it beyond your capabilities,â Villiers advises, and Rosen blows out air from plump lips, and he looks reluctantly at Villiersâ outstretched good hand, palm up, before he drops the tools from his pocket into the wardenâs grasp â a bobby pin and two half-melted embroidery needles. âMr French said you werenât injured in this afternoonâs fracas between your fellow needleworkers. He is correct, I hope?â
âYessir.â
âWhy were you loitering about the infirmary, then?â
âWhereâs Salvo Caine?â Red asks, and Villiersâ uncanny gaze flits to Redâs face, his thin lips twitching. Heâs a scary cunt, and thereâs no mistaking that, but itâs not like itâs Redâs first time dealing with scary academic-seeming types, the ones with more power and danger simmering under the surface than you can see in their muscles or feel in their magical fields.
âIll from yesterdayâs escapades, still,â Villiers says.
âAnd Daf Mason?â
âMr Mason?â Villiers repeats, and tilts his head to one side, then smiles a coolly satisfied smile. âYou really thought Mr Pike would face punishment for stepping in, but Mr Mason would face no consequences for his actions at all?â
âIs he in solitary?â Rosen asks, and Villiers nods for Red to open up the door for them to go downstairs, which Red does, Rosen going ahead of him onto the landing.
âNo,â says Villiers, and shuts the door after them.
* * *
âDress yourself for dinner, if you would,â Villiers had said when he came back from the prison proper, and Salvo thinks about it when he shadows, plays it over and over in his head, turning it over. In Villiersâ posh, stupid accent, made up and learned to make him scarier as an assassin or as a spy or whatever the fuck else, it sounds like itâs a bigger thing than it actually is.
For dinner, like itâs an occasion, like theyâre in some period drama, like heâs gonna put on a tail coat and fancy trousers and nice shoes and a bowtie, and like thereâs gonna be all lords and ladies sitting down around the dining table and prawns in a dish and a butler pouring drinks.
He puts on his issued trackies, and a t-shirt, and his sweatshirt, and he walks out into the corridor through the unlocked door to his room and down toward the little sitting room where they ordinarily eat together, if they share a meal. Itâs never an inmate that serves them, not like how inmates work down in the kitchen â Salvoâs actually never seen whoever it is that serves them in Villiersâ house, and heâs not sure if thereâs even a person doing it at all, or if itâs all enchantment.
He knows that the place gets swept and cleaned â he tries to keep his room tidy because heâs just that sort of man, but sometimes if he doesnât fully make his bed if heâs in a hurry to go in the morning, or if he spills something on the desk or spills shampoo or something on the bathroom floor, itâs always cleaned up by the time heâs back. His sheets get changed once a week, and a lot of the time, he can see that someoneâs hoovered or scrubbed the floors or done something like that in the sitting room or in the hall.
Normally when Villiers calls him to come eat dinner, there are plates already on the little table for them, but there arenât tonight, and the chess board isnât laid out either.
âAh, there you are,â says Villiers, and he walks forward, sliding past Salvo and back into the corridor, then gesturing with two fingers for Salvo to follow him down the hallway, which Salvo does. âFeeling better, I hope?â
âYeah,â Salvo says. âI was a bit bored, to be honest. Finished all my books.â
âThose Lawrence Kidd romances again?â
âTwo of them,â Salvo says. âThe other one was an Agatha Christie. Where are we going?â
âOh, through here,â Villiers says in smooth, easy tones, and leads him through the door and into Villiersâ home office. Itâs a much warmer affair than the one he has in the prison proper, a fire burning in the hearth, and thereâs a fancy brocade wallpaper on the wall. On the other wall is another door, this one slightly ajar, and Salvo peers through it, because thatâs Villiersâ bedroom.
He has dark violet bedsheets made of cotton, not silky at all, and Salvo gets a glimpse of the brass bar beside the bed thatâs obviously there to help him up and down, andâ
Villiers closes the door shut.
âNot what I brought you here for, young man,â Villiers tells him, and limps across to his desk, where he slowly spins his chair around. Itâs a big, leather-backed thing, so that until itâs turned around, Salvo canât see whatâs in it â whoâs in it.
His mouth goes dry as he looks at Daf Mason, his hands cuffed behind his back, his ankles chained together, a gag like a horseâs bit stuffed in his mouth, forcing his teeth apart. Salvo stares at him, uncomprehending, unable to breathe, his heart beginning to speed in his chest, sweat beginning to gather on his skin, beading on his forehead.
His stomach clenches tightly like a squeezed balloon, and heâs glad they havenât eaten dinner yet, glad that he was left with a plate of sandwiches for lunch that he ate before it was even one oâclock.
âWhat the fuck?â Salvo demands, the words coming out in a whisper, as if heâs scared of Daf Mason hearing them. Heâs not really frightening, now that Salvo sees him like this â heâs been thinking about him on and off today, trying to remember glimpses of him heâs seen about the prison, thinking of him on the floor. Heâs not a big man, by any means â solid and stout, but not really big, not that intimidating. âWhat the fuck, Warden, you canât justââ
Villiers has stepped close to him, close enough that Salvo is distracted by the scent of his cologne, so distracted he doesnât realise that Villiers is reaching for him, touching him with his surprisingly warm fingers â so distracted he doesnât realise why Villiers is actually touching him until the cuffs fall aside, dropping into Villiersâ hands, the left, then the right.
Salvo actually feels dizzy for a second, magic rushing through him like heâs just been dropped into a river of magical flow, and he feels the hot bleed of it through his veins, under his skin, feels the incredible sing of pure energy in his head, between his ears, on his tongue, in his heart, his belly, in his very core. He whips back and steadies himself on a wall as he adjusts himself to it, his eyes closed tightly, his heart pounding.
It's like the world temporarily ceases to exist, like itâs just him and all the magic around him instead, and itâs surprisingly very intimate, feels good and comforting and warm. Itâs like magic itself is cradling him in its embrace, enfolding each of his limbs, cradling his body, stroking through his hair, even.
Heâd forgotten.
Salvo had forgotten how good it felt, sometimes, all the magic in the world â heâs been wondering of late how the fuck he used to manage it, how he used to stand it, not being touched, the awful skin hunger, the awful starvation in his muscles and in his flesh for other people touching him, not just for hugs or squeezes, not even for kisses or whatever else, but even just the casual touches of other people. Brushing shoulders with people in a corridor, feeling the weight of others in the crowd around you, wrestling, shaking hands, high-fiving, even.
Not like Masonâs touch, no, not the grip of him, the violence of it, the fucking invasion of it, but everything else, everybody else.
The magic isnât a substitution, but itâs good. It feels right, natural, satisfying, and he slowly breathes in through his nose, steadying himself and standing up straight as he looks across to Warden Villiers and Daf Mason.
He can feel the magic in the room. He never used to feel it much in the care home or in his own apartment â he could reach out and feel the electrical circuits sometimes, the flow of the wiring around his flat, separate from the concentrated magic in enchanted items of his own, in warded or enchanted furniture.
It had never been like this.
The whole of the island is singing beneath his feet, the soil rich with magical salts and proteins, magical root systems from trees and flowers, the ground rock heavy with magic from whenever this island was constructed a few millennia ago. He can feel every brick around him, taste on the air the order in which they were laid, can even imagine the ghosts of the men whoâd laid those bricks â fae labourers, many of them, indentured to the crown for resisting the march of King Arthurâs army.
He can feel the age of Villiersâ huge, mahogany desk, feel the solid wood of it and the magic that gathers and settles in its grooves and secreted knots, in its enchanted brass knobs and handles; he can feel the enchantment on each of the furnishings and devices in the room, everything from the privacy charms on his in- and out-trays to the anti-pest ones stitched into the rug beneath their feet and inscribed on the bottom of his bookshelf.
He can taste them, all these magicks, discrete from one another, feel how scattered and chaotic the older magic feels, how untethered and sprawling it is; he can feel the straight lines and rhythms of the newer charms and enchantments, the magic channelled and controlled by careful inscriptions of symbols and writings; he can feel the life in it all, the energy.
Daf Mason burns brighter than the fire does.
Villiers does have a pulse to him, a font of magic buried in his chest and letting more magic flow through his body, but heâs a lighter, less saturated grey where Mason is a hot burn of white energy, pure and wholly concentrated and radiating outward, and Salvo has never felt so incredibly and unspeakably hungry.
He can barely breathe, staring at Mason, unable to separate the detestable man in his vest and trackies and careful bondage, doused in a flop sweat and struggling helplessly against the leather seat beneath him, from the sweet fucking nectar that flows through him. Salvo can see it, feel it, taste it â magic gathers in the very core of a person, runs up and down their spinal column and out from their heart and their brain, flowing through the bulk of their nervous system and their arteries and capillaries, but Mason has been in magic all his life. Was raised in a magical home, learned enchantment as a child, worked in a magical mine, is now kept inmate in a magical prison, probably even raped magical victims â every ounce of magic in him, Salvo knows as intimately as he knows his own heartbeat.
Magic clings in caps around the tips of his fingers, where heâs been enchanting all his life, and gloves his palms leaving gaps where the enchanted wooden heft of his pickaxe wasnât in contact with his skin; his hair and fingernails arenât as doused in magic as his skin is, seeming paler and less saturated than the rest of him; if Salvo stripped him naked and then stripped the top layer of skin off his back, he might even be able to read the old ghosts of the runes inscribed on the inside of his armoured mining vest, where the enchantment has left its ghost within Masonâs body from so many decades of use.
Salvoâs thighs touch Villiersâ desk, and Salvo blinks, laying his hands on the wooden surface, staring down at it before he looks back at Mason. He hadnât even realised he was walking forward, hadnât realised he was even approaching him.
Daf Mason looks fucking terrified, tears on his cheeks, snot on his top lip and shining yellow in his stubble.
He looks at Villiers, who is watching him keenly, hungrily.
âYouâre letting me,â he says, and his voice sounds strangely hollow in his own ears as he slowly moves around the desk, advancing closer. âYouâreâ youâre letting me? I can⌠Thereâs so much in him, itâŚâ He tries to remember what it felt like to be nauseous, but thereâs too much of a roar inside him to remember what the fuck something as awful as that felt like â he canât remember what it felt like to be nauseated and ashamed and horrible with Brownieâs corpse on his conscience, and he canât remember either what it felt like to be terrified and scared and on the verge of throwing up at the memory of Masonâs hands on his body, Masonâs bondage holding him in place, the thread of Mason behind him. All he can feel, all he can really concentrate on, is the hunger, the need, and better than that, the knowledge of what the satiation will feel like, what wonder it will be to taste him. âItâll kill him,â Salvo says weakly. He can barely hear that last part.
He can hear Masonâs useless, pathetic begging, even through the gag in his mouth â he canât really make out the words, but he can hear his desperate fumbling in English and then in Welsh, which Salvo doesnât even speak. How many people have begged Mason like Salvo didnât have a chance to yesterday morning, have begged him not to hurt them, not to rape them, not to tie them up? How many people have plead for mercy and havenât had it from him, or havenât had the chance to do so because he gagged them first, like Villiers has gagged him?
âAnd what are you robbing him of, if you take his life?â Villiers asks in a silken voice that weaves around Salvoâs heart and feels like itâs making itself at home inside his skull, inside his heart, inside his fucking soul, and he likes it. He likes the sound of Villiersâ voice, the taste of it. âThe chance to ravish another unwilling party, to emasculate another prisoner? To bash in a fellowâs brains, embarrass himself, be cruel, be ugly, beâŚ?â Villiers trails off, and then gestures to the struggling, sweat-soaked Mason, pushes out his lips in a mocking pout, and Salvo looks at the slight weakness of his lips on one side of his mouth, and wonders what Villiers would do if he kissed him there, on that loose corner. âLook at him, Mr Caine,â Villiers says. âIs it even the moral choice, to spare him?â
Salvo could touch Villiers instead.
He could reach out and grab Villiers instead, grab his wrists or his throat, touch his cheek, even kiss him â he could touch Villiers and sap from him, and show him exactly what he deserves, give him what heâs asking Salvo to do to MasonâŚ
But Mason burns so much brighter, and maybe he doesnât deserve it more â but Salvo deserves it more. He doesnât want revenge against Villiers, doesnât crave to take anything from Villiers, because Villiers has never taken anything from him.
He closes his hands around Masonâs neck, moans aloud at the sudden shock of lightning-fast power crackling up through his palms ad up his arms, and Mason chokes and stiffens up and stops struggling and fidgeting all at once, frothing at the mouth as he chokes on air around the bit.
Oh, but itâs ecstasy.
He can feel the stutter and shudder of Masonâs swallowing throat under his thumbs, but itâs nothing compared to the sensation of the feed, of the way all the magic gathered under Masonâs skin, running through his veins and coiled about his bones, held in his every cell, transfers to Salvo instead. He feels as though heâs flying, as though heâs soaring, feels the rush in his ears, crackling over his skin, a whipcrack of wonderâ
It's not like how it happened with Brownie.
With Brownie, he hadnât even known it was coming, had gone from nothing to everything in one moment and not truly been cognizant of what was happening, had never experienced the like of it before. Heâs more in control of himself this time, more attached to himself. Heâs aware of the moment that Masonâs body, cold, his eyes dead, falls back in the chair, Salvoâs hands releasing him.
Masonâs cold sweat is clinging to his palms, and Salvo flexes his fingers, feeling the pulse of energy under his skin, and feeling strangely satisfied, strangely⌠whole. He stares down at his own hands as he clenches and stretches out his fingers, slowly rolling his head on his neck, his shoulders, his elbows, feeling oddly like a glass thatâs been filled to the brim, but not poured over.
He looks to Villiers, who is watching him intently, and he sees and feels the energy that runs through Villiers, too, the magic in the core of him and that flows through the conduits heâs made up of, but what he doesnât feel, he finds, is hunger. Want, yes, desire â want for the older man to touch him, hold him, want him, but not to drink from him.
âI donât feel cold,â Salvo says. It comes out in a soft and mystified whisper, and Villiers hums a sound of comprehension, or perhaps of understanding, or maybe just acknowledgement. Heâs holding out a tray, and Salvo obediently takes the two bracelets back off it, sliding them onto his wrists and clicking them into place.
Itâs as if the room goes suddenly dark again where before it had been drenched in light, his connection to the magical flows around him abruptly cut off by the enchantment in the cuffs, but he doesnât feel like heâs drenched in darkness, doesnât feel as though heâs been dropped into some dark pit.
He can feel his heart beating, is aware that his breaths are even, that his blood must be flowing through his veins, that his organs are at work.
âA hunger sated, yes,â Villiers says. âIâm not surprised that warms you. Come, I have a bath run for you.â
It almost doesnât occur to him that he could protest, let alone that heâd want to, as he follows after Villiers not, disappointingly, through to his own bedroom, but into the corridor and then to the master bathroom, which is very warm. A few candles are lit around the darkened room, and Salvo strips off his clothes as indicated, sinking then into the bath.
This is Villiersâ own bathroom, more brass bars around the room to support him standing and moving, and Villiers draws over a brass-legged stool before stripping off his cardigan. Heâs wearing a dark brown wooden vest over his shirt underneath, and after hanging the cardigan up on the back of the bathroom door, Salvo watches as he rolls up the sleeve on his bad arm, and before he can start with the other, Salvo reaches out with his still dry hands and rolls it up for him. He neatly folds the shirt cuff up and over, trying to mimic the same angles Villiers had used on his other side, up to the elbow.
There are more scars on Villiersâ forearms, the insides of his wrists and elbows â places where the hair on his skin has been burned or altered, marks where heâd been cut, even a messy, fatter wound that he thinks was maybe from a bullet, or was from something else with a straight path, like a sharp pike or stick.
Villiers keeps his weaker hand in his lap as he reaches for a glass jug and fills it from the water, pouring it over Salvoâs head and wetting down his hair as he obediently tips his head forward. There are no bubbles in the bath, but itâs fragranced with salts and smells faintly of flowers and a fruit, he thinks maybe peaches or apples.
âYour father was ill when you were growing up, you said, a pacemaker. Your mother?â
âShe worked,â Salvo mumbles, grateful for the curtain of hair hiding his face from Villiersâ gaze. He doesnât feel any compunction about being naked in front of the other man â a part of him is frustrated that heâs not looking at Salvoâs body with any particular desire or hunger, but that doesnât sting so much feeling Villiersâ hands on him, moving over his body.
âWho bathed you, as a child?â Villiers asks.
Salvo is quiet, leaning closer to Villiersâ hands as he pours cool, creamy shampoo through Salvoâs hair and massages it into the curls, squeezing and combing his fingers through to ensure he gets as much coverage as he can with his one working hand, the other remaining rested on his knees.
âDoes your sapping effect impact a pacemaker?â
âNot as a matter of course,â Salvo says. âI can, um, be aware of electrical fields and stuff, but I donât really impact them. But he had other stuff wrong with him, and he was ill a lot, and tired a lot. So he couldnât touch me much, because itâd take so much more out of him than someone else.â
âAnd your mother?â
âShe was already tired from work.â
âAnd grandparents? Other family members?â
Salvo doesnât say anything, leaning his cheek into the gentle scrub of Villiersâ narrow fingers as they rub behind and at the underside of his ears, massaging down the back of his neck. It feels good, sends thrills down his spine, and he likes how strong Villiersâ approach to it is â he likes the authority with which Villiers moves his head one way and then the other, how he tilts Salvoâs head for him to pour water over his scalp before smoothing it out.
âI suppose I can imagine it,â Villiers says mildly. âRelatives sitting back from you, coaxing you and tutoring you through combing your hair, brushing your teeth, how best to wash yourself, not touching you and demonstrating as they ordinarily might for a small child. Were you aware of the casual touches your childhood was robbed of by your condition, hm? Cognizant of the way other parents and relatives reached out and touched children of the same age as you â stroked their hair, patted their cheeks, held their hands or gaze them affectionate squeezes and half-hugs? Did you understand why you were an island, even before you were old enough that your touch was a death sentence, and not a promise of mere discomfort and exhaustion?â
âThey touched me at check-ups,â Salvo says, although he doesnât know why he says it â is it a defence of his family, an excuse? An assurance heâs not as stunted as Villiers must assume he is? An explanation about why he is the way he is about care? âMaking sure I wasnât adversely affected by it, that I was still growing, that I wasâŚâ
âWere you a rich boy, of course, or from some more established magical family, your condition would have been treated very differently. Youâd have been dispatched to a boarding school with as rich a magical field and history as they might find for you, appropriate sources of sustenance brought to you.â
âVictims,â Salvo says.
Villiers shrugs. âPerhaps. But were you trained from youth to control this need of yours, not to mention regularly fed, perhaps you wouldnât sap so strongly from those you touch. No boarder was suggested, no alternative school?â
âI didnât have the grades,â Salvo says, vaguely remembering the way his mothersâ smile had faded as sheâd excitedly torn open the envelope with him watching, the way it had slowly dripped from her face and faded into the ether like evaporating steam.
âThey wouldnât have seen you as having anything to offer, I suppose,â Villiers says. âNo money or storied blood, no especial academic or magical ability. Only a hungry mouth to feed, and to what benefit?â
Villiers massages conditioner into his hair, and then he has a washcloth in his hand and heâs scrubbing in slow, rhythmic circles over his shoulders, his neck, the top of his chest, his arms, and then his belly, between his thighs. Heâs not remotely horny about it, isnât sexual about it, and Salvoâs own arousal isnât actually that overwhelming, isnât as satisfying as the pure intimacy of it, and not just the warmth and comfort of Villiersâ hand on his body, the scrub of the soap and the cloth and his fingers, but the control of it. He feels like heâs just so much more hot water, like heâs part of the bath heâs stewing in, heâs so relaxed, not having to think at all, not having to put any of his thoughts or feelings in order â all wants and needs and anything he might think about dissolve into the water as well, and all there is, all there needs to be, is Villiersâ hand guiding Salvoâs body to where he wants it, and then Villiersâ hand making him clean.
âThis is what I was talking about,â Salvo says when Villiers reaches over and pulls out the plug of the bath on the chain. âThe power of it, care. Complete authority.â
âIndeed,â Villiers murmurs, standing up and reaching for a towel from the heated rail. Salvo looks at it, the way he holds it out, obviously higher held in one hand than the other, looks at the tight clutch of his weaker hand around the lower corner of the towel, and Salvo stands up and steps onto the bath mat, exhaling as Villiers wraps the towel around him â and at the same time, wraps Salvo in his arms.
Salvo smells his cologne and smells the pomade he uses in his hair, feels the soft wool of his vest, feels the heat of Villiersâ body.
âDo you think Iâm pathetic?â Salvo asks.
âHardly the correct question, young man,â Villiers murmurs. His breath smells faintly of coffee, and looking up into his face, Salvo stares into the terrifying freeze of his icy blue eyes, their noses brushing against one another. âA more suitable question might be â if you are pitiable, as is your concern, is it pity I feel for you⌠or something else?â
Salvo feels like heâs been drenched in hot water for a second time, searing over his flesh, and this time he is aroused, is keenly aware of the heat between his legs and the fact that his body is tight up against the wardenâs, and the wardenâs breath is intermingling with his, and is close enough to kiss.
âTake the towel from me, if you would,â Villiers orders him quietly. âBathing you I might attend to sitting down â drying you off would be a dangerous gamble against my ability to keep my balance.â
âSorry,â Salvo says, taking the towel, and Villiers laughs.
âWhat on earth are you sorry for, stupid boy?â he asks, raising his eyebrows, and grips Salvo by the jaw and squeezes. Itâs not painful by any means, is a firm grip but a gentle punishment, and fuck, but heâs hornier in this moment than heâs ever been in his fucking life, Villiers laughing at him, holding him like this. âDo you want me to kiss you?â
Salvoâs breath hitches in his throat, and he feels his lip quiver, leans forward. âYes,â he whispers.
Villiers leans in, gripping the side of the sink to better support himself as he does so, and their noses brush against one another again, and he can feel the heat of Villiersâ breath as much as he can smell his coffee. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for Villiersâ lips to touch his, but they donât â they glance over the side of his cheek, and then his breath is hot against the shell of Salvoâs ear, and his knees go weak at the thrill it sends down his spine.
âEarn it, then,â Villiers almost growls into his ear, and Salvo is humiliated by the fucking noise that squeaks out of his throat, involuntary and desperately eager. âGet yourself dry and return to your room, young man,â Villiers tells him as he pulls away, throwing his cardigan over his shoulder as he grasps hold of his cane and opens up the door. âYour dinner should be waiting for you.â
âFuck me,â Salvo mumbles, and Villiers laughs again.
âThat, I will not do,â he says, and limps off down the corridor.
* * *
When Caine is allowed back down from his special little holding cell up in Warden Villiersâ house, whatever the fuck that looks like, he comes down with a smile on his face. Itâs a dreamy smile, distracted, and Red wonders if the ladâs gonna be distracted from his work detail, but he isnât at all. He writes like a demon, moving a lot quicker through his little toys and small things than he normally ever does, carving runes into place or painting them onto wood panels with confidence and ease.
Heâs pleased to see Callum Pike and all, and when the four of them sit down to lunch together, Pike gives Caine a grin.
âWhat, you thought theyâd fucking lock me away forever?â he asks.
âI just feel bad you were put in solitary on my account, thatâs all,â Caine says.
âWhere is he, Mason?â Pike asks, casting a look around the hall â itâs a question Redâs interested in hearing the answer to, and he looks at Caineâs face for an answer, but his pretty brown eyes donât show any sign of guilt or regret. He, like Pike, casts a look around the room, tracing the lines of the long tables looking for Daf Masonâs face. âYou seen him about?â
âWent looking for him in the infirmary yesterday, but there was no sign of the prick. Whatâd you tell him, the warden?â Red asks, and Caine does look a little uncertain now, pressing his lips together and twisting his mouth just a little.
âI told him what happened, what Mason did,â Caine says. âThat it wasnât your fault, that you shouldnât be in solitary for defending me. But he didnât say anything about punishing Mason any extra, or putting him in solitary, orâŚâ He looks down at the canteen table, nervously fingering the edge of his fork. His voice is very quiet as he asks, âDo you think he hurt him? Warden Villiers, do you think he hurt Mason in defence of me?â
âI bet it wasnât just to defend you,â says Rosen pleasantly, patting Caineâs hand in the most comforting way heâs capable of. âI bet he goes looking around for excuses to kill people, sometimes. He probably gets bored that heâs not allowed to any longer.â
Caine stares at him blankly, seeming distantly horrified and not going exactly how the fuck to cope with that, and Pike laughs.
âYou should come work with us when youâre out,â he says, reaching across the table and patting Rosen on the side of one plump cheek. âSort of lads I could refer you toâd be more than happy to have you nicking cars and trucks for them.â
âItâs no wonder recidivism rates are so fucking high with you recruiting, lad,â Red says, and he looks across at Caine, who slowly begins to eat his meal.
âI donât think my family would be very pleased if I became a drug-runner on top of stealing cars,â Rosen says.
âWhy not?â Pike asks. âMy daâs just another kind of florist, he and your da are two sides of a penny.â
Rosen sniggers, and Caine looks across to him as he keeps eating from his plate.
âYour family are florists?â he asks.
âMy dad and his two brothers, and a few cousins,â Rosen says, nodding his head. âMy motherâs sort of the opposite â less of a green thumb, more of a death touch, you know. Liable to make a flower wilt just by touching it.â
âI have something like that myself,â Caine says, and Red stares at him â it takes Rosen and Pike a few moments for them to register that Caineâs actually made a joke, especially given that the lad doesnât smile or grin or wink or do anything like that. Rosen laughs uproariously, tapping his little feet on the floor as Pike wheezes, slapping the side of the table, and Caine smiles a thin-edged smile, and seems to⌠Not get bigger, exactly, but fold out from himself a bit, not so small in his place.
âYou never killed someone, before you killed that fella?â Pike asks.
âNo,â Caine says. âWhen I was small, it wasnât enough to harm anybody â make people tired, make them irritable, more than that. They wouldnât realise what it was, often enough, wouldnât realise why it was bothering them, if they touched me casually. I had to go to a mundie school â magical schools, even knowing what I was, teachers would touch me, lean on the back of my chair or tap me on the head or⌠And theyâd start snapping, me gruff, annoyed. Like people who are ill, you know, itâs not controllable. A history master nearly slapped me once for scratching a scab before he got hold of himself and remembered who he was, who I was. I never had that once I was in with mundies.â
âI got slapped around at school,â Pike says. âMind you, it was normal back then.â
âWhy, whenâd you leave school?â Rosen asks.
âI left early, I was fourteen, I think. â81.â
ââ81?â Rosen repeats, aghast. âSo, what, youâre sixty-seven?â
âSixty-six,â Pike corrects him, apparently offended. âNot sixty-seven âtil November.â
âThere was me thinking you were younger than me,â Red says, laughing and shaking his head. âAll the time youâve said fucking âage before beautyâ to me about buying the first round!â
âWell,â Pike says, shrugging his shoulders. âYou look it, donât you?â
Caine laughs at that hard enough to choke on his overcooked potatoes, and Rosen pats him hard on the back as he coughs and swallows down a mouthful of water to try to ease it down.
âIâll remember you fucking laughing at that, lad,â Red promises him, injecting all the bass he can into his voice. âThere may well be consequences.â
Caineâs eyes flash with a bit of energy, and as he wipes away the choking tears from his eyes and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, he says, âAlright,â with a note of challenge in his tone. âConsequence away, old man. How old are you, sixty-five?â
âYou little prick,â Red growls at him, half-laughing himself, but Caine only beams at him, all easy smiles.
Daf Mason doesnât turn up, in the next few days, but things get back to normal.
After another two days, the ancient fae that make up the rest of Rosenâs fucking sewing circle tire themselves up, and Rosen reluctantly returns to his work detail instead of dossing about in his cell all day, although at least he stops complaining about being fucking bored when everyone else abandons him.
Caine keeps up the fast pace at work, often finishes up a little earlier than he used to, and one evening as Red finishes up for the day, he finds Caine lingering in the corridor outside of where theyâre embroidering. The door is slightly ajar, and Red swallows hard, clutching at his own chest to try to cope with the unholy fucking vibrations that sing through it.
He fucking hates it when the old fae sing together, the noise of it putting the fucking willies up him. Theyâre all twice the size of most fae youâd see today, those old cunts, as tall as the trees theyâve sprung from with skin like tree bark, so that Rosen looks even smaller than usual when heâs in there with them.
The sound radiates out from the embroidery workshop and into the corridor and right down the halls, bouncing off the tiled floors and the undecorated walls, and it makes Redâs ribs feel like theyâre vibrating, and he feels it on the inside of his ribs, the inside of his skull, the inside of all of him.
Itâs a waulking song, or something like it, a song to keep them in rhythm with one another as they work, Red guesses, although when he hovers behind Caine and looks into the room over his shoulder, he sees that theyâre done working for the day. Theyâre trying to teach Rosen the song, judging by how theyâre all sitting in their chairs and have their faces angled toward him, one of them moving fingers that look like tree roots in rhythm to keep Rosen on beat, and heâs nodding along.
Red canât make out Rosenâs voice in amongst the noise theyâre making, a collective sound louder than a choir of fucking thousands, louder than a church organ if you had your ear right to the pipes, and it should hurt, itâs so fucking loud, but it doesnât hurt, exactly. What it does is make his bones feel like theyâre shivering, makes all his nerves fucking jangle, and he looks to Caine.
His expression is one of soft and quiet awe, his thumb tugging and playing repeatedly over one of the metal cuffs around his wrists, his lips parted, his eyes as big as fucking plates. When the fae stop â oh, God, fuck, itâs like if trees could sing, itâs like if they were singing right from the core of the fucking Earth â itâs an unspeakable relief, and Red leans against the wall, exhaling.
One of the fae stands now, and he says something in his unearthly and ancient voice, the language guttural. Redâs no big Welsh-speaker himself, but he can hear the ghost of the Welsh in it, he thinks, or the roots of it, although it sounds closer to fucking Latin to him.
âUm,â says Rosen. âHe said, um⌠Something like, asking if youâre imagining what he tastes like?â
Caine smiles at the fae â Red canât even tell them apart, but he thinks this one is Toutorixs, because a crown of bramble thorns, complete with blooming white flowers, is sprouting around the crown of his tree-trunk head â and puts out his hand.
âOh, erm, Salvo, they donât, they donât shake hands,â Rosen starts to say urgently, but Toutorixs reaches out and winds his root-like fingers around Caineâs outstretched fingers, around his palm, around the base of his wrist.
Caine gasps, but instead of pulling away or shouting out loud, he leans in closer, and his eyes shine gold for a moment, the cuffs around his wrists flashing so brightly they look ready to fucking melt, before the screw in charge of the embroidery crew, French, barks, âNo contact between inmates, you know that! Stopâ doing whatever youâre doing!â
Toutorixs pulls back and lets out a gut-wrenching sound that must be a laugh, because all his friends join in, and Caine and Rosen follow after Red toward the canteen, Rosen soon beginning to chatter on about something or other â horse-racing, Red thinks, although he canât make himself tune into it properly, still trying to work that awful sound out of his head.
Heâs quiet as he eats, as quiet as Caine had been before â and just as quietly, apparently, Caine follows after him to his cell when he goes there instead of playing a game or watching TV or anything else.
âYouâre bottom bunk?â he asks softly as Red slides into his bed, which has two blankets on, one that Sandra had sent in for him when he complained about the winter chill his first year in, and another Patience-May had brought in when sheâd visited for his birthday earlier that year, sewn together of all different flannel shirts sheâd gotten from the scraps bag at work.
âNah, Churn is more than young enough to jump up there himself without having me do it,â Red says, and he watches as Caine steps slowly around the room, looking at Redâs books and Churnâs, looking at the pictures Churn has up on the wall of his daughters and his wife, and at the painted picture Sandraâs daughter had sent in for Red of the flowers in their garden.
âYou have children?â Caine asks.
âNo,â Red says. âBut the women I take up with, some of their kids like me.â
âEven though youâre in prison?â
âThey donât know the difference between me being in the nick and being away at work.â
âI suppose not,â Caine says, and toes off his shoes.
Red leans back in bed and lifts up the blanket, and the lad apparently needs no more invitation to slide between the blankets and in close, and Red exhales at the feeling of Caineâs body warm and soft against his. He doesnât know what shampoo the wardenâs giving him in his house, but it smells very nice, of nectarines. When he slides his hands underneath the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms, he finds that the flesh of the ladâs thighs and arse is just as generous as it looks, and he sinks his fingers into the warm yield of it, squeezes.
Caine sighs luxuriously, leaning in closer and burying his nose against Redâs chest, banding his arms around Redâs middle, and as Red keeps pressing and massaging at his buttocks and thighs, kneading at them like bread dough, he feels Caineâs prick against his thigh, feels the lad grind against him.
âI hope you donât think Iâm going to fuck you,â Red murmurs into his curls, âunless you feel like going door-to-door down the corridor and seeing what you can trade for a tab of sildenafil.â
âIs every man in this prison fucking impotent?â Caine asks in a grumble, although it sounds pretty fucking sleepy to Red, and Red laughs.
âOnly the fucking old ones you keep throwing yourself at,â Red tells him dryly, and he waits for the lad to argue with him, for him to debate, for him to keep grumbling, but he doesnât do any of that. Red keeps squeezing the flesh under his fingers, rubbing back and forth, and with his other hand he reaches up and combs lightly through his hair.
âFeels nice,â Caine says quietly. âNo oneâs ever touched me as much as since I came here.â
âNo touching between inmates, remember,â Red tells him. âAnd I donât think the wardenâs meant to be touching you either.â
Caine doesnât answer.
Heâs fast asleep, breathing quietly in and out, and Red enjoys the heat of him and the softness of him and the scent, too. Not like a woman, no, but almost like being at home with one, until one of the screws comes along to break them apart. He wouldnât mind fucking him, by any means â he might well ask one of the other lads about trading him something for his ED if Caine likes the sound of it â but this is nice on its own, just sitting here and soaking in the ladâs heat, the magic of him.
Red closes his eyes and lets himself doze until Cornell comes along to get them out of bed again.
* * *
In the observation room that adjoins Warden Villiersâ office, Salvo stands at the window and looks down over the canteen, where most of the long tables have been folded away for the evening, and a few of the lads are sat around, playing chess or basic boardgames, or reading books, or sitting around and watching TV.
Itâs frosted on one side, the glass, and he hadnât even realised it was an observation window â he doesnât think he ever realised it was actually a window at all, and wasnât just a big pane of frosted glass behind the metal balcony with emergency stairs coming down, separate to the wall.
Red is playing cards around a table with Rosen and Pike, and from this angle he looks to be a bigger man than he is, in contrast to Pikeâs gangling limbs and Rosenâs round but confined little form, broad as he is. Salvo thinks of how warm he is, when heâs under the blankets and pressed up against Redâs broad, hairy breast, very different indeed to the wardenâs spindly but muscular form, all joints and flat, hard edges of muscle.
In the past few weeks, heâs been touched so much.
Touched by the warden, not just when heâd given Salvo a bath a few weeks ago, but in the intervening period as well â reaching out to adjust his clothes or his hair, touching him as he passes him by in the house, brushing his hands as they play chess together. Once, yesterday, leaning over ostensibly to take the salt from the table at dinner, and taking the opportunity to breathe in Salvoâs ear.
Touched by Rufus Redford, petted and touched here and there, touching or chucking his chin or his cheeks or the back of his neck, and where theyâve been able to sneak it without being told off by the guards, Salvo curled up to doze in bed with him, or sit with his head against his lap or his belly while the TV is on and itâs deniable enough that Salvo is sat on the floor in front of the sofa or the bench.
Touched by others, too. Toutorixs, of course, had gripped his hand a few weeks ago and sent magic flooding through him even through the cuffs â theyâre no match for the old fae and how much magic flows through them, and the others of the ancient fae have made a game of it, Rosen seems to think, reaching out to touch him when he walks by, zapping him with bits of pure magic that ripple right through him, no matter that the guards bark at them whenever they catch him at it.
Other touches, too. Brushes in the corridor, standing in line, and on Wednesday, when theyâd been outdoors for exercise, Pike had taught him some wrestling grapples and holds. His hands are cold, his palms rough, but it had still felt good, had made him feel somehow real, feeling the weight of Pikeâs thigh against his chest or his arms around his chest, or feeling the solid weight of Pikeâs body under his own as Salvo tried to keep him pinned or still â especially, the whole time, feeling Pikeâs laughter and Salvoâs own running through both of their bodies.
âFeeling hungry?â the warden asks as he enters the room, and Salvo turns back to look at him as he approaches, his cane making only the tiniest noise on the ground, his footsteps utterly silent. Salvo can only make out the noise of the caneâs grip against the floor because heâs so used to listening for it by now. âEven with those would-be dryads supplementing your diet.â
âI thought dryads were meant to be pretty young women,â Salvo says.
âIâm sure theyâd present themselves as such, if they felt like it,â Villiers says dryly. âBut that would rather lead to unwanted attention in a prison like this, as Iâm sure, by now, youâre aware.â
The warden is warm behind him as he comes closer, and Salvo quietly exhales and leans half an inch backward, feeling todayâs pin-striped waistcoat against his back.
âIâm told you were dozing in Mr Redfordâs cell once again yesterday,â the warden murmurs in his ear, and Salvo shivers at the warmth of his breath tickling over the lobe of it. âHas he fucked you yet?â
âHe canât get it up without a pill,â Salvo says. âSame as you.â
âVasodilators are contraindicated for previous victims of stroke, as Iâm sure you know,â Villiers says, his voice quiet but his tone amused, and Salvo can feel his smile against the back of his neck as he reaches past Salvo to rest his cane against the wall. âIn any case, it isnât dysfunction that prevents me from fucking you, young man, but disinclination.â
âAm I meant to believe you donât actually want to fuck me?â Salvo asks, feeling as though hot water is beginning to flow under his skin as Villiers tugs up Salvoâs shirt with a finger and bands his weaker arm tightly around Salvoâs middle. He opens up his hand, but he canât grip very well with it or easily manipulate his fingers â itâs mostly with the strength of his elbow and his arm, and the tuck of his chin against Salvoâs shoulder, that keeps him upright. âThe way you touch me. The way you look at me.â
âIâve never found myself vulnerable to the sirenâs call of penetrative sex,â Villiers says as, with his good hand, he slides his fingers up under Salvoâs sweatshirt and plucks at one of his nipples with a graceful, artsy movement like heâs playing a string on an instrument, and Salvo whimpers at the sudden sear of sensation it sends through his chest and rocketing down his spine. His cock is hard, and his knees threaten to go weak. âAh ah,â Villiers starts sternly. âYouâre the only thing holding me up, boy â keep those legs strong and solid, unless you want us both clattering to the floor.â
âYouâll clatter, maybe, being all bones,â Salvo mutters, heat rising in his cheeks as he squeezes his eyes shut, feeling Villiers laugh against his neck, his thumb and forefinger teasing and tugging over his nipple. âOr shatter. What do you mean, sirenâs call? What, youâre like, asexual?â
âA side, I believe is the modern parlance,â Villiers says, and before Salvo can grumble about that, Villiers drags his teeth down the side of Salvoâs neck, making him whine. His eyes shoot open, terrified for a second that everyone downstairs will be able to hear him through the glass, that even if they canât see his face, theyâll see the two shadows of him and the warden, and know itâs him, know what the wardenâs doing to him, that theyâll be watching. âHow does it feel, when those fae touch you? Comparable to your feast on the soul of Dafydd Mason?â
âI donât believe in souls,â Salvo says breathlessly, then groans softly as Villiers plucks at his other nipple, flicks over the tip of it with his neatly-groomed nail, his other hand sliding slower and gripping at Salvoâs hip. Villiersâ hands are so warm and his fingers are so clever and it feels good. He tilts back his head, turning it to the side and moaning when Villiers shows his approval by licking a stripe up the side of his neck, nips the edge of his jaw, then the lower part of his ear.
It's not the same â it hadnât been the same. The way the fae touch him tastes different to when heâd touched Mason, for want of a better word â their magic is older, richer, comes more from inside them than it flows through and gathers in them as it does in human beings. Even through the cuffs, even at a glancing touch, it overwhelms his senses and the core of him, but it fills him and leaves him fizzing over with it.
Mason had⌠sated him. Wholly and entirely, and a little bit more than that, but it had felt natural, though perhaps he shouldnât think of it that way.
âDo they suspect his demise is down to you?â Villiers asks, sliding a hand up to grip the base of his throat as he bites down harder now on the side of Salvoâs neck, as if heâs some kind of fucking vampire instead of Salvo, and then Villiers shoves him forward, against the glass. Heâs able to put more of his weight on Salvo like this, his hand going from Salvoâs neck down between his legs instead, his fingertip tugging at the ring of Salvoâs arse and making him squeak out a sound. âDo they know you to be a killer twice over, and hungry to lay waste to a third victim?â
âNo,â Salvo groans, reaching clumsily back for Villiers, one hand reaching back to squeeze his narrow arse, making Villiers let out a short, sharp, breathless laugh. âWhy, dâyou think I should fucking advertise it?â
âTemper temper,â Villiers says, and uses the waistband of Salvoâs tracksuit bottoms to ease his way onto the floor, and Salvo stands up straight, whipping his head around to stare down at the older man aghast.
âYou canât be on the fucking floor, what about your knees? Sir, you canâtââ
âItâs not as though Iâll be down here long, is it?â Villiers retorts â thatâs all the warning Salvo gets before he licks a hot, wet stripe from the back of Salvoâs bollocks up to his hole, and the sensation wrenches through him, right up his hard and aching, dripping cock. All of a sudden, heâs coming, white spattering the frosted glass of the window in front of them, his eyes tearing up, and he tries to stop himself from going wholly limp, bracing himself on the bar.
Heâs breathing heavily, unable to catch his breath, somewhere between hotly satisfied and a little embarrassed.
âTold you so,â says Villiers.
âFuck off,â Salvo says, and Villiers laughs.
âHelp me up, would you?â Villiers asks. âI am so very old and very infirm, and my thoughtless young lover has abandoned me to the floor.â
âI could kick you.â
âI invite you to try.â He really does, too â Salvo would never, could never, he doesnât think, but when he looks down at Villiers on the floor, braced on his better knee more than the weaker one, he sees that the old man is more than braced for it, that heâs hungry for it, wants to scrabble with him, wants Salvo to try to hit him, just so that Villiers can pin him down to the floor instead.
âNot today,â Salvo mutters, a little too flustered to actually sound at all stern, and offers the old man his arm to help him up â as soon as his knees donât feel so much like fucking jelly.
* * *
Itâs Rusk and French that grab him just before lights out and knock him out with something like fucking chloroform. They donât frog-march him up the fucking hill, and they donât let him make his own way either. He just wakes up in a leather chair in an even fancier office than Villiers has in the prison proper, his ankles tied together, his wrists cuffed behind his back, a gag in his mouth.
Red sits back in his seat, looking around the room, at the fancy floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather bound and gilt books, at the astronomy equipment next to the window, an astrolabe and an armillary sphere, and more shit heâs seen in plenty of fancy offices like this one, but has never learned the name of. Thereâs a fancy rug thatâs probably centuries old rolled out on the hardwood floors, and all the furniture is good, heavy, antique stuff, and he can feel the enchantment in all of it, feel how old the subtle magic is, even if he canât feel the age of the wood.
Up on one wall are a bunch of frames: Villiers in a line of other bureaucrats or maybe other assassins, receiving some kind of medal or award from the king regent; a portrait of a young Villiers alongside a severely featured but happy-looking woman he guesses must be his mother; a few calligraphed certificates covered in more bits of gilt and fancy ink for his various degrees, declaring him Guillaume Copernicus Villiers, BSc, MA, MSc, MMSc, PhD.
He's been in a lot of offices like these over the years, talking about how theyâre going to fix the windows, what sort of glass or framing would suit best the architecture and mimic the original style, what sort of enchantment they can put in, what carpenters and joiners, what masons, heâs going to be working with.
Heâs never felt at home in them, exactly, but Redâs gotten used to them, almost comfortable with them. Heâs learned the names of the old-fashioned astronomical equipment, or vintage navigational tools, or basic entomology and demonology, learned to recognise certain bits of taxidermy. Heâs learned the basics of these fancy posh cuntsâ hobbies and interests, so that heâs more comfortable talking to the bastards, and theyâre more comfortable giving him a big fucking tip.
He never thought heâd die in an office like this one. Figures.
âFuck off,â says Salvo Caine as he crosses over the threshold, staring at Red in his chair, and Red marvels at the expression on his face, at the way he shoots a fierce glare at Villiers and seems very surprised at the fact that itâs Red, but not surprised that itâs fucking somebody.
Lied through his teeth about Daf Mason, and Red never even suspected he was lying.
Caine isnât wearing his bracelets, Red sees â when he casts about to look for them, he sees them on a tray next to Villiers, and Villiers himself whoâs standing up straight and wearing a fucking green and gold housecoat over his clothes, like some fella in a vintage advert, all settled in his pyjamas.
âYou arenât hungry after all?â Villiers asks, gracefully arching an eyebrow.
âNot him,â Caine hisses. âNot hâ he has a family.â
âI can assure you, he doesnât.â
âHe has women he goes to see, women who love him â kids who love him.â
âAnd you?â Villiers asks in mild, dry tones, sounding for all the world like heâs about ready to laugh in the ladâs face. âDo you love him? This trafficker and embezzler, hm?â
âEasier to love him than a fucking, a murderer and a creep!â
âMaybe so,â Villiers says, delicately shrugging his narrow shoulders. Keeping his weight braced on his cane, he holds out the tray with his other hand, Caineâs cuffs rested on them. âBy all means, thenâŚâ
Red looks up at Caine as he slowly approaches, his pretty hands held awkwardly in front of his belly. Itâs been nice, the past few weeks, having Caine in his bed, feeling the softness of him, the warmth of him, smelling the fancy scents the warden apparently bathes him in for his own fucking pleasure, it seems. Strangely, ridiculously, he wonders in the moment how Caine dresses himself when heâs not in the nick, what scents he likes to wrap himself up in.
Caineâs gaze lands on Redâs face, and Red meets it. Theyâve not been talking much, really, not about the things that matter, not about the things that catch in the chest or in the mind â if anything, Caine seems pretty content to be petted and played with more like a cat than a young man.
Heâs overheard him talking to Pike, though, once or twice, the past few weeks, about the hunger he feels, about the need inside him â heâd been downplaying it, obviously, if heâd fucking killed Daf Mason.
He doesnât struggle.
Heâs not fucking stupid â he knows damn well he wonât be going anywhere, up here in the wardenâs office, tied up in his chair, the warden being an assassin with however many titles and qualifications after his name, the lad with a fucking death touch in front of him, not having his bracelets on. Thereâs no sense in struggling, not now.
The only man with Redâs life in his hands is Caine â and itâs only in his hands because Villiers has put it there.
âI donât want to hurt him,â Caine whispers to Villiers. âWhyâd you fucking gag him? Heâs not like Mason.â
âIf you donât wish to sate that hunger gnawing in you, boy,â says Villiers in tones as dry as dust, but again, the bastard is still visibly on the verge of fucking laughing, âby all meansââ
Caine swallows as he comes closer, his hands up close to his chest as he meets Redâs gaze, biting the inside of his pretty plump lips â Redâs not even fucking kissed them. Thatâs what he gets for beating around the bush, isnât it?
âSorry, Red,â says Caine, and then his hands are whipping out, and Red closes his eyes as tightly as he can so he doesnât feel it coming.
It doesnât come.
The tray clatters to the floor, the magic cuffs jangling before they hit the rug and go quiet, and Red opens one eye to see that Caine has one hand gripping at Villiersâ hand and the other wrapped around his throat.
* * *
âOh,â says Salvo, because Villiersâ skin is beautifully warm under his hands, as warm as it ever is, and he can feel the magical flow beneath the older manâs skin, is cognizant of the glow of the other man compared to the rest of the room.
Heâd noticed, before, that Villiersâ magical glow was lessened compared to Masonâs, and itâs lessened compared to Redâs. Some people have thicker skin than others, thicker skin or thinner veins, so that you donât see their blushes as much when the blood comes to the surface, and this is like that, he thinks. Villiers has magic in him, but itâs deeper under the skin, harder to get at â like Pike or another vampire would be hard to cut or bite your teeth into, because their flesh is harder, denser.
âIt might behove you to know,â says Villiers, utterly unaffected by the touch of Salvoâs hands against his skin, even as he turns his hand up to playfully tickle the underside of Salvoâs wrist, âthat apart from building up self-defence techniques and immunities to various poisons, I was trained to resist draws like yours as a matter of course.â
âYou fucking cunt,â Salvo whispers, and Villiers laughs, his thumb sliding warm against Salvoâs palm, pressing against it. It feels nice. Salvoâs never been able to touch another magical person since he was a kid without killing them â and never without hurting them, without tainting their feelings for him.
He wants to stay angry, wants to stay pissed, but a part of him is sparking to life inside because Villiers is touching him, and it feels nice.
âYou canât win every chess game, dear,â Villiers says, and tugs Salvoâs hand to enclose around Redâs throat instead. âCheckmate.â
Salvo sees Redâs eyes bulge and his expression of relief explode into panic and fear and pain, hears his choking sound of terror, and he canât focus on compassion right now, because all that matters is the rush of Redâs magic into his hand, into both his hands when he puts the other on Redâs cheek, draws from him entirely.
He should feel terrible, should be beside himself with guilt, but he doesnât â it feels wonderful. It feels wonderful, feels sublimeâ
âGood man,â says Villiers, and kisses his fucking cheek. âYouâre free to come for dinner whenever it suits you.â
âFree, am I?â Salvo asks, and Villiers chuckles, patting his arse as he limps away.
âAs much as youâre good, young man,â he says, and goes out into the corridor.
Redâs body is already going cold, but the room is warm, and as he feels the pulsing spread of stolen magic all throughout his body, rippling under his skin, Salvo feels very warm as well.
FIN.
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it's easy to ferry souls, not carry them
deep down in the realm of the netherworlds, there exists a rower who transports deceased souls from the land of living to the land of dead-
and occasionally lends an ear and a hand, in the event of yet another collision between their weary queen and her just as cheery suitor...
[uraume deserves a raise.]
â¸gojo satoru x fem!reader; the tale of kore!gojo & hades!reader w a guest appearance by charon!uraume; uraume is a very nice parental figure to you [ooc!uraume but ehh]; the reader is honestly so sweet and hot-tempered...; the cutest doggy cerberus too is there!!!!; gojo satoru must be his own warning...; uraume does not like gojo [no parent [blood-related or not] actually wld]; fire hazards; 2k wc
⸠i've nvr read percy jackson and wtv i wrote here is based on my shaky knowledge of greek myths and stuff đđ anyways, this header's from pinterest, these dividers are by @benkeibear and the characters used ain't mine. pls do not plagiarize, translate or repost this. enjoy reading! â¤ď¸
⸠belongs to series 'wreaths of asphodel' â same universe as the work 'hey, where is the pomegranate tree?' â but you can treat this as a stand-alone fic if you wanna!
"why is kore so set on marrying me, uraume?"
it isn't the ask itself which causes the rower to nearly lose grip of their oarâ but the way it is spoken: soft, solemn and faintly tense. they look away from the endless expanse of the styx before, to find you staring at your reflection in the inky waters, features unnaturally crumpled.
uraume holds back a frown. "has her majesty considered asking the god the same?"
"i have asked him," you mumble, "but i did not receive any conclusive answer in return. the imp was being too vagueâ must be a trait learnt from those shifty nymphs always sticking to his side."
if your faithful follower detects anything except dislike in your words, they make no mention of it. merely humming as they continue to row the boat, "and may this servant know the question her majesty asked the god?"
"two," you mumble even more clumsily now; they take a beat to grasp it, too concerned by the way you drape yourself over the edge, nearly falling into the water as you say, "i asked him two questionsâ one, if he loves me; two, if he wants to have children should we get married."
shock must not be uraume's first reaction to these queries, yet it isâ and for a moment, it isn't you sitting there anymore.
instead, it is a little girl, no older than seven or eight years, cherubic face fixed in a look of deep concentration and fascination while the rower narrates to her stories from times millennia agoâ
only for the child to morph into a young ladyâ no, goddessâ the very next beat... slouched under a regal cloak too heavy for her shoulders, under a royal crown too large for her head... that sweet innocence of childhood nothing but traces now, having been withered by the foul, dirty politics of those damned deities high up on that mountainâ
"what answers did the olympian offer her majesty?"
"he said he would love me and sire my children if that is what i wantâ i asked if he wished anything out of our unionâ he said all he wanted is to be my husbandâ"
something between a frustrated sigh and an exhausted scoff erupts from you, becoming an opaque fog the moment it hits the frigid air of the underworld. uraume plucks the oar out the water to come sit next to you, letting the boat be driven by magic.
"you're worried," they state, forgoing all formalities in favour of giving you some much-needed comfort. you never much cared for stations anyways, quite unlike your elder brother, the former king.
"an unfamiliar friend poses more risk than a familiar enemy, uraume," you mutter, resting your head on their shoulder, "why do you think kore wishes to marry me so much, if not out of love or the prospect of the powerful offsprings we might beget?"
"marriage is not solely for love or for procreation," the rower starts to explain, mildly amused before it grows into sympathy at your baffled expression.
ah, they muse fondly, not unlike a parent watching their child witness the world seemingly the first time ever since they learnt to walk, you who presides over something as profound as death yet knows not of the trivialities of life...
"it can also be for many other reasons likeâ"
the remainder of the words skitter away from uraumeâ cerberus is playing with gojo.
the fierce guard of the netherworlds, the three-headed hound, loyal and dutiful to a fault: hades' dearest canine companion is frolicking with the god of life in a green meadow, that most certainly was not there so close to the stygian marsh, when they lastâ
"gojo is laughing," your remark draws them away from their musings, only to find a changed shadow over your countenanceâ pensive yet not thinking at all; almost as if you too are floating in the stale air of your kingdom akin the soft flower petals...
another ring of raucous laughter pierces the silence, mingled with a delighted series of barksâ cerberus is busy licking gojo's face now, the olympian reduced to a puddle of giggles as he scratches behind the dog's ears.
his happiness so clear in the stretch of his grin and the crinkle of his eyes, very much the jarring contrast to the last timeâ
oh. oh, oh, ohâ
"escape," the word leaves uraume in a sudden moment of realisation, as quiet as a breath but loud enough for you to whip your head back to face them, confusion engraved into your scowl. "escape?? what is that supposed to mean, eh?"
the rower feels their lips lift into an infrequent smile. "the god of life wishes to marry you to escapeâ from his mother, or from his many suitors, or perhaps from mount olympus itself."
"whaâ howâ hah," you breathe out a disbelieving little huff, "that is simply ridiculous. have you even heard yourself? that is ridiculous."
used to such resistance from yourself, even more from your brother, they move to state their points, only to beaten by you as you persist to speak.
"no one in their right mind will decide to come live in the underworld, no matter how overbearing their mother or insistent their suitors are. have you seen this place? it's too, too unlike the lushness of the earth or the grandeur of the heavens he has experienced. andâ" you add, a harsh laugh accompanying it. "gojo satoru is a god. a fish might leave the waterâ but a god never steps a voluntary foot down that horrible mountain. never."
"but the olympian never truly lived on mount olympus," uraume says once they're sure you've completed your tirade, "and you are a goddess as well. why do you speak so ill of the heavens then?"
"why?" you echo the word. they nod, hoping you take the bait they've intended for you. you do.
"why, because that place is nothing but a shining apple with a rotten core!! everything is polished marble and glittering gold there. people constantly wave at each other, lavishing smiles and praises like there is no tomorrow. everything is so warm and brightâ what a bunch of lies and liars!"
familiar fire burns in your aura, the immense heat making the waters erupt into boilingâ uraume uses their powers to cool the river down, lest anything disturbs you.
you're too far gone in your rage to be shaken, however, continuing:
"but it never can hide the grime and dirt accrued beneath such shine and sheen. nor the vicious minds and crooked hearts of those deities up aboveâ what lame excuses of gods and goddesses, hah. and you might think me to prefer the light and warmth up thereâ you will be sorely wrong, my dear uraume!! i much prefer the genuine darkness and frigidity of my beloved kingdom to the faux comfort of the awful mount olympusâ"
"is there no possibility the god of life too despises mount olympus for these same reasons, milady?"
you open your mouth and close it, then open it again to let out a very aggrieved whineâ momentarily transporting uraume to your younger days. the rower merely chuckles when you punch their arm lightly.
"you're the worst, uraume," you cry, getting up and moving to sit on the other end of the boat. the rower too rises but only to resume rowing the boat by the oar.
"you never spoke this way when sukuna was the rulerâ only because his baby sister is the ruler now, and you think she is very stupidâ"
"as much as i respect and revere lord sukuna, he wasn't one to listen to anyone else," uraume interrupts gently, "you do, thoughâ which is why i spent so much time telling you this. i hope you did not mind."
"hey, no," you immediately wave away their concern with a wide grin, eliciting a smaller one from the latter, "i could never..."
another peal of laughter and barks rings through the otherwise-quiet. you abruptly trail off, the same conflicting expression from before on your face yet again. though not without a spark in your eyes, uraume notes, almost as if you're slowly learning how to solve the puzzle who is repeatedly offering himself to you.
uraume keeps the silence you initiate, choosing to row the boat while you keep staring at the assortment of hues near the stygian marsh...
until you call their name and declare, an odd firmness in your smile, "well then, it is decided. i shall allow gojo to stay here for as long as the god so wishes to, escaping whatever or whoever he is escaping. and i shall protect him from the latter, should it ever come for him."
a beat. your smile falls into something graver. "would it be better if i swore by the dread water of styx, uraume?"
"uh, um," the rower finds themselves at a loss of words, the first time in seemingly forever, and they have been around since titanomachyâ but before they can recover themselves enough to formulate a proper reply, a giggly voice joins inâ
"well, if my rose does that, i would consider myself the most blessed amongst all mortals and immortals!"
â and the waters surrounding the boat shoot upwards in a scathing geyser-like jet and steamâ the ferocious queen of the netherworlds visibly torn between remorse and terror, as they offer uraume a stiff nod and gojo a horrified look, before vanishing in a wisp of fog.
the boiling waters of the river styx calm down only after a twenty-minute-long struggle by uraume, joined at the very end by gojo.
the latter looks positively delighted, when the former collapses to the bottom of the boat, exhausted beyond belief. "hey, charon. was that a result of your queen getting flustered by me, huh?"
yes, it was. it very much was, the sentences nearly slip past the tired rower's crumbling defences... until it hits themâ who they serve, and who they don't.
uraume decides to throw back a glare and a lie. "her majesty was not flustered, lord kore. she was enraged at how you invaded the privacy of her weekly boat ride, intended to make her relax."
"oh, puh-lease," the god makes a face. the rower is certain he would have been punished in the pits of tartarus for all eternity, then some more were he to pursue you this way during your brother's reign, let alone disrespect you thus.
ignorant and insolent, he continues, "in few days time, i'll be allowed into the privacy of her living quarters; what is the privacy of her boat thâ"
"you're lucky you did not make such outrageous remarks in front of the queen," uraume cuts him off, none too kindly nor gently, "if you did, her majesty would have certainly burnt you along with the boat to a crispâ"
"i know," comes the defeated reply within the instant. and while gojo is still not in uraume's good graces, the latter decides to notch him a level higher, considering the god of life accepts their queen's powers.
not many do.
he strikes a pathetically pitiful figure, uraume reckons, seeing him sit then slouch on the bench. "was she serious when she said she would protect me?"
your loyal subject nods, certain and solemn. "yes, she was. the queen is never careless when it comes to making promises."
"oh, that's reassuring," gojo says quietlyâ only to recline even further in the very next beatâ an anguished, grating wail tearing from him to the stifling silence looming near the stygian marsh. uraume wonders if it is worth it to steer the boat towards acheron... then push him into its waters of woe...
they decide against it on catching the desperation worn by the god.
for all it is, it might nothing more than a ploy. yet something tugs at their mind to pause and listen when gojo howls, "why does my rose always scurry away after tilting my world on its axis? why does your queen always torment me like this, charon?"
uraume stares pensively at their face in the sacred waters of styx for a while. then heaves a mighty sigh.
certain, this exchange between the goddess of the dead and the god of life will impact not only your and gojo's respective worldsâ but the general world and everyone else in it, as well.
did you know, in the actual greek myths, persephone was never called so before her marriage to hades? she got it only after, w the name meaning "bringer of death". her initial name was kore, referring to her being a maiden & the spring goddess.
the river styx was called the "dread river of oath" by homerâ in both the iliad and the odyssey [greek epic poems], swearing by its waters is the "greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods" -> this shows how serious the reader is towards ensuring gojo's safety and freedom, and how deeply this affects gojo as well [source: wiki đ]
also: the reader is totally ready to jump into the water to swim away when she realises gojo was listening in on her conversations- but then she remembers she can js vanish away and so she does js thtâ the queen of the underworld, and of escaping, hehe
also also: the reader is slightly jealous when she is talking of the shifty nymphs always sticking to gojo's side. [uraume identifies it; you think it is js your usual dislike to such frivolous things and ppl as flowers and nymphs etc.] [hades is emo imho đ]
⸠masterlist
#gojo x you#gojo x reader#gojo satoru x you#gojo satoru x reader#satoru x you#satoru x reader#jjk x you#jjk x reader#gojo fluff#jjk fluff#kit posts đ
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Colonial Espatier Task Force Lan, assigned to protect the space colony of Umbral Keep. Umbral Keep, despite its vast potential to enrich the megacorp Krewstara and provide highly valuable resources to Sol, only rates the minimal Colonial Espatier investment given its isolated location and the competing need to protect the Aeralyn terraformer project in the same system. If it wasn't for the nearby transit gate and the previous Ijad invasion of the system, its possible The Powers That Be wouldn't have bothered at all. The PCL-01 Rookery class light carrier (inspired by the ARMD carrier from Robotech/Macross). The Fisher King is assigned to Taske Force Lan and the sister ship to the Angraal assigned to Task Force Kay tasked with guarding the Aeralyn terraformer colony. The Rookery class is a converted orbital platform popular with salvage and maintenance operations. Using the Fisher King as an example, the primary upgrades to the base craft are an integrated hangar with an elevator to the catapult, upgraded sensors and communications, and additional engines both for primary thrust and rapid maneuvering. The ships ability to rapidly change velocity is its primary defense as it is lightly armed and armored, completely dependent on its mobile frame company to defend it from aggressors. Multiple locations were reinforced for PDG installation, but the Fisher King has yet to receive this upgrade. In theory the Rookery class can transport a standard mobile frame company's entire 14 frame compliment, but it is only designed to launch and support up to a single augmented squad of 6 frames at a time during combat operations. The Angraal however is rumored to be undergoing upgrades to support an additional mobile frame squad during combat as well as additional defenses despite concerns on impacts to the ships overall speed.
Kobold frigates, based on the general purpose tug of the same name, are a slapdash, minimal cost answer to Colonial Espatier needs throughout the transit gate network. Kobolds are often present en masse around gates and space colonies, and are relatively cheap and easy enough to acquire that the local megacorp losing a few to stand up the local espatier chapter is of neglectable impact in exchange for the security provided. The two kobold examples provided are the Sylph, a missile boat, and the Salameid, a gun boat. Almost completely unarmored the kobold frigates rely on speed and distance, much like the Fisher King, to avoid enemy fire, although at least the Salameid is equipped with 4x PDGs for anti-frame defense.
#lego#mf0#mfz#mecha#mobile frame zero#bricklink#lego studio#digital art#spaceship#micro space#intercept orbit#scifi#robotech#macross
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Saw a bait and switch joke playing off the assumption that 'piracy' meant media piracy, but then no you don't need a VPN you need a good solid wood boat and limes to prevent scurvy arrr!!!
it was a good joke. But let's get real here. To be a decent pirate your targets MUST fear you. Unless you're Zheng Yi Sao you're up against trade groups and their enforcers with massively more resources than you have. You can't fight for the loot every time; you have limited ports of harbor for repairs, funds for repairs and wages and injury compensation, etc.
You have to convince your targets that despite being much better supplied than you, IF they decide to resist, you WILL murder them so bad they can't continue to sail EVEN IF you lose the battle. This is no time to worry about your chivalrous noble thief image, you WILL be executing people if they give you guff. You're protecting your crew's lives. Being a successful pirate is about intimidation.
When some wealthy entity believes you don't really have the power to back up your threats, they'll do pretty much whatever they want, lock all their shit down, and ultimately you won't be able to challenge them. Because even if you're a temporary nuisance, they can outlast you. Your risk is higher every time than theirs.
They. Have. To believe. You're scary.
They have to think obstructing you has serious consequences.
It is very easy to tell people, 'to be a pirate you just need a boat and some limes', because it's sort of true,
(Um hello, you need a quartermaster... please think of them!)
but if the environment is dog shit for piracy-- the targets believe they have a lot of control, they can transport loot in ways that circumvent human judgement about whether to let you have it-- you won't be very successful. There must be a way to strike fear into the hearts of your opponents, or else it'll be the other way around every time!
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Day Out In The City
Rowan: Mooooom, Iâm going to be going out!
Ruby: Okay! Just be home before it gets too late! *she shouts from the kitchen*
Rowan: Okay! Love you! *leaves the cottage*
Rowan makes his way through the forest to his destination. He makes it to Patchâs town, space walking through the dirt streets and buildings to arrive at the pier where most trade and transportation are located on the island. Rowan gets on one of the ferries and then pays the toll to ride it to the mainland. The ride from Patch to Vale only took about an hour at most, a long ride but one that was going to be worth it.
Once the ferry is boarding onto the mainland, Rowan makes his way through the docks, walks into the city streets until he finds the destination of which his new friend has chosen for them to meet. He sent a message saying that he is there, then finds someplace to go sit while he waits for his friend to find him.
???: Hey Rowan!
Rowan: *looking up, smiling* Hi Ivy.
Ivy: Kept you waiting didnât I?
Rowan: Nah, Iâm just sitting here, it was a bit of a hike to get here.
Ivy: Hope youâre not too tired, because thereâs a lot of places I want to show you today!
Rowan: Canât wait. *giving a big smile.*
Ivy: First, letâs get something to eat. We can hit the pizzeria next to the Arcade. Hit some games, go explore the city a bit, quick and easy!
Rowan: If you say so. Lead on, city girl.
Ivy: This is at small town boy!
The next following hours, the two friends ate pizza, played games consisting of shooting, racing, and dancing (Ivy was the winner of that one), and then watched the latest action movie Ivy had been begging him to come watch all month. After the film, the two spent talking and rambling on about their thoughts of the film while they walked to the docks. Once arriving, the two friends awaited until it was time for the ferry to depart.
Ivy: I still stand by the fact that the space battle was the most accurate depiction of a Super Wukong that weâll be seeing for a long time.
Rowan: You mean for a live action film?
Ivy: Yeah, of course. Canât beat the 2D with live action.
Rowan: *laughs* Well⌠I guess I got to go now.
Ivy: Yeah, looks like. Well hope you make it home before dark. Donât want your mom to make you deaf in one ear, ya know?
Rowan: Iâll still be good. But, thanks for today. Itâs been fun.
Ivy: *throwing a peace sign* Ditto, now, you better catch your boat, small town.
Rowan: Right! Later, city girl! *waving as he ran to catch his ride*
The two waved each other goodbye until Rowan was far from the pier to open waters. The ride back to Patch didnât take long, once back to the island port, Rowan made his way back home. Walking through the port, the town, through the trees and forest, until he finds his way back home. Once there he enters home, there he sees his mom, aunt and sister all gathered in the living room. His mother is the first to notice his return and smiles at her son.
Ruby: Well, took you long enough, mister. How did it go.
Rowan: It was good, had a lot of fun. Ivy says hi by the way.
Summer: So, how did your date go bro?~
Rowan: *frowns and then roll his eyes* Sum, it was just us hanging out. No romance was involved here.
Yang: *grabs at her chest and gasps mockingly hurt* My brotherâs nephew, youâve got a heart cold as ice. Playing with the hearts of young maidens.
Ruby: Okay you two, leave the poor boy alone. Heâs tired and Iâm sure he would like to lie down.
Rowan: Thank you mom, I will do just that. Good night everyone.
Ruby/Yang/Summer: Goodnight/Night twin!
Ruby: Oh, sweetie one more thing!
Rowan: Yeah mom?
Ruby: Hope you had fun with your girlfriend today~ *grinning*
Rowan: *flustered* Ugh! Goodnight everyone!
Ruby/Yang: *laughing*
Rowan drops onto his bed and groans from the teasing of his family that had just inflicted on him. Being the only male in the house subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of their teasing since he started having girls in his friend group. His attention then went to his scroll after it had sent a notification. He reached for the device, opening the screen, and he sees a message sent to him by the girl he had spent the day with.
âHope you made it home okay, thanks for coming out to hang. Rest up, small town <3â
Rowan: *smiles, then messages back*
âHad a blast, hope we can hang out again later on! Hit me up whenever, you know where to find me. :]â
A/N: Introducing OC and
Rowanâs friend, Ivy Sustrai-Black (Emercury Kid)

#rwby#rwby au#rwbabies#ruby rose#rwby lancaster#yang xiao long#rowan rose-arc#summer p. rose-arc#ivy sustrai-black#RWBY emercury
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Jotaro Kujo (Part 3) x Reader
Dating Jotaro Kujo would include:
- Boy I donât even know how the hell you got him to fall for you. You probably didnât bother him like his fangirls and just talked to him like a normal human being. I feel thatâs all he wants
- It might take him a while to actually start liking you, heâll slowly start falling though as he realizes youâre a pretty cool and chill person
- Chillin with him while he smokes whether you join him or not
- If you donât like the smell of smoke (like me and my lungs fr) then he wonât smoke in front of you, though that doesnât mean he might have the scent of cigarettes on him
- We established heâs a tsundere, he loves you a lot just doesnât know how to show it straight up, especially in the beginning
- If you ask him out heâd accept, probably acting like he doesnât care and pulls his hat down to hide his face and smile
- If he asks you out heâd keep it very straightforward, short, and simple. Itâs just âLetâs go on a date.â And you BETTER accept, do not break this big guyâs heart :(
- The first date would also be simple, maybe a small picnic in the park or going out for food
- I feel a lot of the dates wouldnât include a ton of talking, and if there is talking then youâd be doing a good amount of it. Jotaro comes off as the type of guy who enjoys just being in your presence
- So basically his love language is quality time
- Heâll give you small gifts like seashells and jewelry or have Star Platinum get things for you if you wanted
- As your relationship progresses his gifts will get bigger. Such as giant ocean animal plushies
- More dates like going to an arcade so he can win you prizes effortlessly and impress you
- There will be aquarium dates, might be the place where you first kiss. Picture it, standing under a tunnel of fish swimming all around you and he pulls you in for a kiss
- Will beat people up for you, no questions asked
- You got a girl from school picking on you? Donât worry, his fists are rated E for everyone. Equal rights equal fights
- Will not let his fan girls bother you, like they will never even get close to you (donât ask how)
- Listening to music together whether itâs blasting in his room, on the car while you guys watch the stars, or sharing ear buds
- Even though he holds up his bad boy personality around everyone including his mom, he has his moments where he just melts with you
- Please hold his face once in a while, heâll love it
- Very minimal PDA, closest you get is you and him wrapping your pinky fingers (if his giant hands let him)
- His mom would love you so much oh my god, sweetest woman alive
- Sheâd invite you to come over so often and loves that someone got Jotaro to settle down with
- Jotaroâs friends would be so surprised if they found out he was dating someone, Kakyoin wouldnât be as surprised but Polnareff? Polnareff would be so lost as to how Jotaro got a girlfriend before him
- Forehead kisses, he has to bend down all the time to kiss yours
- Probably has back problems because of you
- Despite his fists being brutally scarred and coarse, heâs so gentle whenever he touches you in any way. I feel his hugs are the best and heâll try to be careful when you hold hands
- Will carry you
- Letâs you wear his hats and clothes (but not for too long cause he wants them back)
- If you ever go on any transport, plane, boat, train, you name it, he will let you rest on him. Just donât bring Joseph, itâll give Jotaro PTSD
- Carefully caresses your face and admires every part of it, even plays with your hair
- If you can see Star Platinum he would love you so much, they say that Stands are a reflection of oneâs soul. So basically Star will be very excited to be out and to see you
- Jotaro will smile with you a lot more than others
- Heâs not the best at communication but once you get to know him itâs very easy to tell how heâs feeling
Thereâs probably more stuff but thatâs all I got for this one. I am currently going through a JJBA brain rot please let me know if you have any requests!
#jjba#jjba part 3#Jotaro#jotaro kujo#kujo jotaro#star platinum#stardust crusaders#jojo#jojo no kimyou na bouken#jojos bizarre adventure#jojo's bizarre adventure#jojo x reader#jotaro x reader#x reader#jjba x reader
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The Siren and the Little Girl Part 2
Warnings: Siren singing, newly transformed Siren, death of a sailor, heart being ripped out, blood & gore, drowning
A HUGE thanks to @idkanonymystuff for the idea for a part 2!! Originally this story was going to be a one-shot without continuation -- but they were awesome and gave me a great plot idea.
The gills always appeared first. And the Siren waited patiently for it to happen before dragging the girl underwater, and down into the dark depths of the ocean that would soon become her home.
The Siren had sung to the girl as she carried her into the ocean depths. As she delicately laid her on the sandy bottom to fully transform into her new body. And she sang as she watched it happen, the girl gradually growing a tail and looking more and more like a true Siren as time passed.
   Until finally⌠the change was complete. And the Siren stopped singing, allowing the girl to wake up. Sheâd care for her well, she swore â teach her how to hunt, how to kill and swim and use her claws and fins and teeth.
   Moryana was the name she had given the girl in the end â which meant âshe of the sea���. A fitting title for a new Siren.
   The Siren spent days connecting with her new apprentice, showing her the ways of the ocean and how to swim properly with her new tail.
   And Moryana was a fast learner, a perfect mouldable pupil. By the time a week had passed sheâd gotten the hang of swimming, and especially steering with her fins, learning how to read the ocean currents and ride them when needed to travel faster.
   Today the Siren was showing her how to locate riptides to avoid, but she could tell Moryanaâs head was somewhere else.
   And it finally made sense when she saw Moryana wrap her arms around her stomach with a wince.
   "Oh little one," the Siren sighed. "Looks like you need someone to eat. Let me show you how to be a true Siren."
   "S-Someone?!" The girl squeaked. "What do you mean?"
   The Siren cupped the child's face in one webbed hand, smiling sympathetically. "The first time is always the most stressful," she said, "but it gets easier with time. I'll guide you on how to do it -- follow me." She flicked her dark-scaled tail and veered to the left, Moryana beating her tail hard to catch up and keep pace with the larger Siren.
   "Where are we going?" She panted, gills opening and closing fast as she struggled to stay close.
   The Siren slowed down to make it easier, and saw the girl smile at her with sheepish gratitude. It was easy to forget how small she was, how her tail wasn't big enough to swim as fast as the fully-grown Siren could. The Siren made a mental note to pay more attention to her own power and match it to her new apprentice's.
   The Siren had already tracked down a ship to target hours earlier while she had the girl practice swimming on her own in the safety of the deepest waters. But now it was the perfect opportunity for Moryana to make her first kill as a Siren.
   It wasnât hard to find the vessel sheâd spotted earlier, as slow-moving as it was, and she approached the boat from its right side, Moryana sticking close next to her as she headed up to the surface.
   Their heads breached the water, and the Siren smiled in anticipation as Moryana stared wide-eyed at the huge boat -- it was more like a big transport ship, made of wood and with an old-fashioned sail to carry it through the ocean.
   "Now... you sing," the Siren encouraged. She let out a few single notes of her own as an example -- not enough to draw the humans onboard completely off the boat. She wanted the girl to do it herself. Learn how to kill.
   "I-I'm... I'm not a very good singer," Moryana whispered, face flushing with embarrassment.
   The Siren brushed her small tail lightly with her own in reassurance. "You forget you are a Siren now -- singing is how you survive. Even if you couldn't sing well as a human, the Siren blood in your veins has gifted you a voice like mine. Try it out."
   Moryana cleared her throat nervously, fidgeting with the webbing on her hands. She let out a shaky breath, drawing another one in -- and hesitantly sang.
   It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. The Siren was so proud.
   Even though the girl's voice wobbled with uncertainty, the melody was entrancing, like a true Siren song would be. Lovely, hauntingly elegant as it carried over the water. Full of pain and heartache and longing, telling the story of the girl who'd been lost at sea and saved by the very creature nature designed to kill her as a human.
   Moryana closed her mouth, looking shocked by her own talent -- then glanced at the Siren for approval. "Like that?"
   "Exactly like that," the Siren praised.
   Moryana beamed at her, tail swishing excitedly.
   The Siren guided her closer to the wooden ship, nudging her encouragingly.
   "Sing now, little one -- let them hear your voice. Bring them to you, so that we may have our fill."
   The girl looked confused by her words, not quite understanding the implications yet. But she sang again, more confident this time, louder -- and didn't stop, delighting in how her own voice filled the air above the ocean, caressing her ears in peace and tranquility.
   It was a fulfilling sensation that filled her with nothing but joy and a profound sense of freedom. This was something she was made for.
   And she felt dangerous. Powerful.
   She kept on singing, feeling the music vibrate deep in her bones -- but was startled into silence when something fell off the ship and landed in the water a few yards away from her with a splash.
   She jerked back in surprise, fear flashing through her -- but her Siren mentor went rocketing through the water past her, lunging at whatever it was that had fallen. She only realized what it was when she heard the terrified scream that pierced the air. It was a human.
   She didn't know what to do, watching as the Siren expertly maneuvered behind the man and restrained him to limit his flailing, both arms wrapped tight around him and holding his wrists to his own chest, pinning them there.
   "W-What are you doing?" Moryana stammered, stomach churning with unease.
   "This is how our kind survives," her mentor explained, hanging on tight to the struggling sailor in her grip. "Our songs entrance humans off their boats to come within our reach, where we can dine on their mortal hearts. It's the only way to live. Sirens can survive weeks without food, but you've already gone long enough without a meal that you need this."
   "We... We have to kill him?" Moryana was surprised to find she wasn't nearly as mortified by the thought as she'd expected. Quite the opposite, in fact. She felt... eager. Enticed.
   The Siren nodded, clamping a webbed hand over the man's mouth when he tried to scream again.
   "We drag him down and rip him apart, little one," she said, her sharp teeth showing gleefully. "It will make you feel better."
   Moryana secretly knew she was right -- the hunger was lurching inside her, instincts driving her as she swam over to the restrained sailor. Part of her felt like this was wrong, to take an innocent life, as she met the terrified eyes of her victim. But the hunger was stronger than her reluctance -- it was at the forefront of her mind, nagging and insistent -- and the man's death was a small price to pay to sate her emptiness.
   She somehow knew what she had to do now -- it felt as natural as breathing as she came closer and grabbed the man's wrists, the other Siren letting her take control of him instead.
   Deep urges surging to life in the child, the Siren instincts rising up within her -- a precious gift her mentor had given her to save her life when she was human.
   She'd get used to it, her mentor had said. That the killing got easier with time and practice. And she hoped it was true, because she didn't like the subtle jab of guilt that poked her conscience when she dove underwater -- dragging the poor human with her beneath the ocean waves.
The man was strong, and she was small enough that it was hard for her to keep him from twisting free -- her grip slipping. But fortunately her mentor swam over to help, grabbing the man by the ankle to assist in dragging him down into the ocean depths.
   Together they pulled him into darkness, until the Siren signaled to stop.
   The man's eyes were wide and panicked as he stared up at the faraway surface, now only a distant light, and there was a sort of devastated hopelessness in his expression that tugged at Moryanaâs heart. But it wasn't enough for her to spare him. She needed sustenance, and this was the way to get it. To end the hunger pains twisting her stomach.
   The adult Siren was right next to her, and Moryana watched as she clawed right through the human's shirt, exposing his chest. She began to sing underwater, her voice even more beautiful that the girl's had been -- honed by decades of experience and training. Irresistible.
   The man's eyes glazed over, though he was still struggling weakly, hands reaching for the ocean surface he'd never go above again.
   His fate was sealed the instant he'd stepped off the boat and into the water.
   "Take his heart," the Siren murmured into Moryana's ear, pulling the man close to her. "You've earned it."
   Moryana looked at the man's face as he struggled to hold his breath, slowly failing as bubbles escaped from his nose.
   "Your claws are made for killing," the Siren whispered, taking one of her webbed hands in her own. "Use the gift you've been given to take what is rightfully yours, little one. It'll be alright."
   Moryana flicked her tail and hesitantly grabbed onto the drowning sailor while the other Siren resumed singing to subdue his mind, offering his life to her to be stolen away. The pull of her song was overpowering.
   Moryana rested a shaky hand atop the man's chest and dragged it down -- single claw cutting into his delicate human flesh and drawing a thin trail of blood. The instant the scent reached her nose she lost control of all restraint, clawing, ripping into the human with feverish desperation. A wild animal tearing apart prey.
   The adult Siren stopped singing to watch with fascination and eager interest as the little one clawed the man's chest wide open, movements frantic and erratic now that blood was in the water.
   The human snapped back to himself with a muted cry now that there was no melodic voice to sweep his mind away and lull his senses into blissful oblivion, and he struggled desperately, disoriented.
   But he was losing too much blood, too fast. Weakening. Dying.
   The man twitched and convulsed, mouth open in a soundless scream of pain that left him in bubbles, and he sucked in nothing but water when he instinctively inhaled right after. Leaving him choking, drowning.
   Moryana gutted him like a fish, clumsy from lack of experience. It was a far slower kill than a normal Siren could make, drawn-out and messy. The man suffered way longer than he should have, but results were all that mattered in the end.
   Eventually she located the right spot in the sailorâs chest and sank her claws in, the man thrashing in agony until she finally wrapped her webbed hand around his heart and ripped it clean out of his rib cage.
   He immediately went limp, though a few last muscle spasms made his limbs twitch, his face still frozen in a look of pure unbridled terror and pain.
   Moryana didn't hesitate to savagely sink her teeth into the meaty flesh of his heart, devouring it hungrily and letting the mangled body of the man float into deeper waters.
   âGood girl,â the Siren purred, rubbing the girl's back reassuringly as she finished the meal. âBetter?â
   Moryana nodded, pupils blown huge with excitement and adrenaline, her face and hands smeared messily in human blood and teeth dripping with gore. A frightening sight.
   âD-Did I do okay?â She whispered shakily.
   The Siren gave her a beaming smile.
   âI'm so proud of you, little one,â she purred, and pulled her into a tight embrace, stroking her hair affectionately, their tails sliding against each other â scales on scales. âYou were wonderful for your first time.â
   Moryana smiled broadly, savoring the metallic tang of the blood clouding up the water around them both. It was thrilling, absolutely addictive on her tongue.
   The child's innocence was stolen. She'd killed a man.
   But now she knew the darkness as her home, welcomed it into her heart and embraced the fact...
   That she was a Siren now. Made to sing. And made to kill.
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