#grave desecration cw

[fictionkinfessions]

I almost feel a little. dumb for making this post, but I want to talk about it.

Lux, Lux I am so sorry.

I am so sorry for everytime I got angry at you and didn't properly apologize. For everytime we fought. For being the reason you lost an arm, the reason you lost your dad. For giving you so much grief for working with Mouthpiece and getting a Charter item. I am sorry for anything and everything I have ever done. For destroying Bonesburrow, destroying the Mason's grave, hunting you down. For being such a menace to you at the start.

I am thankful you let me be your ally. Let me be in your life. You are, were I guess, like a daughter to me. I think I love you more than anything else on the server. Which, I know, is probably a bit of a shocking statement. Me? Love something more than my rats and chaos? Hell, me picking you over Astron, my long time companion, is probably odd to hear. But it's the truth.

I'm not sure if you knew it, if you could tell, but I loved you so much. I was proud of everything you did. I was amazed by the Wardens, and your little Ink Blots. Markhett was an amazing place that you made, even with everything that happened, you managed to make spawn so nice. I loved watching you learn how to use L'Ancre. Even after months of using it, it still brought me pure joy to see your happiness and capabilities. I was overjoyed when you moved in with me and Astron in the cabin, knowing that I could keep a better eye on you. When we ran through Neverend together, ultimately finding joy in our creation.

Folly. I am so sorry that I failed you. That I let you die. I should've never taken the Mark of the Benefactor. I should've given it back to you immediately. I should've died then, not you, never you. You shouldn't have had to suffer as much as you did on that wretched server. You shouldn't have had to die in the place you made for peace. Folly, you should have lived. You should've been allowed to have a peaceful life. I shouldn't have taken peace for you, from everyone on the server, and I'm so sorry I did. You, all of you, deserved so much better than the hell I caused. By myself, and the unintentional uprisings of Blake and Diansu that I brought about because of my initial hunt and Freebird.

Luxintrus, I adore you more than anything else, and I am so deeply sorry for everything that had happened. Please, please, know I love you more than I have loved anything.

- Doctor4t / RAT , Content SMP

w

[0nlyfiends]

THE THINGS YOU SEE

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago for a prompt event - enjoy, and Happy Halloween!

CW for desecration of a corpse & body horror vibes!

=========

Hemlock could never remember the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard. They knew one was something to do with being attached to a church, but somehow they doubted the tiny chapel room next to the morgue truly counted as a church. It was barely more than a ten by ten room, with a couple of wooden benches and that thick red carpet that they saw so often in places of worship. There was a single window facing out to nothing, and it was stained glass, but still.

They didn't think it counted.

It was barely a graveyard, anyway. There were fifteen or twenty grave sites — Hemlock had never checked for sure — on the lot, a new lot, and all the graves had that sweet shine to them that they hated.

They preferred the old graves, the names difficult to read, everything eaten by time and weather, epitaphs obscured by the moss that grew over the stone. It felt more like an artifact belonging to no one, a ghost of what it had been.

The newer graves rarely had stones at all. They were too new. Instead there was a wooden stake driven into the ground, the lot labeled with a piece of laminated paper showing name and the obituary and anything else someone had thought to include. By now the flowers were withered and dying, joining the freshly turned dirt below, but still they were undeniably a person.

Somewhere down there, anyhow.

Hemlock leaned on the shovel, wishing they had thought to wear gloves and then thinking about stupid it was when there was dirt over every inch of them and if anything their hands not being filthy would stand out that much more. It wasn't as if anything they could find would harm them.

They were long past that.

For a moment they just stood, leaned on the shovel, eyes sliding over the graveyard. What they could still see, anyhow. They were several feet down and it was dark and well, there wasn't much to see. A line of cedar trees blocked the lot off from the rest of the older sites, and the morgue itself walled another side. There was a road, somewhere out there, Hemlock had heard the crunch of tires on pavement once and had lowered themself down into the earth for several minutes, just listening, but there had never been the sound of a car door or anything else, so.

They were safe, for the time being.

The shovel hit the top of the coffin — casket? Hemlock had never known the difference in those words either, and perhaps they should have — around the time Hemlock's arms had started to shake from exhaustion, when their knees threatened to buckle, and it was inconvenient because the next few moments were the worst part.

Hemlock frowned down at the wood below them, where the shovel had left a noticeable scratch.

Hopefully it was nothing anyone would ever see. After all, there wasn't a reason for anyone else to be digging up fresh corpses in the graveyard. There were no organs to be found here for the black market, and very rarely did anyone take their valuables to the grave with them anymore.

It was reasonably difficult to hawk an old family ring in a town of two hundred people, where at least a third were related to the family in question.

"Martin?"

A flashlight beam hit Hemlock like a spotlight, encasing them in off-white, detailing every stitched bit of them. Not that it was anything new to Whittaker. He had seen all of them. All of it. The good, the bad, the.

Covered in graveyard dirt and robbing a casket — coffin? — in the dead of night.

Martin stared down at the body below them for a moment, reaching up to press their bangs out of their face with dirt encrusted fingers. Thinking. Gears turning. Of course. The car had been Whittaker, wandering up to the morgue for his regular task — trying to record nonexistent ghosts for his blog, no doubt.

He'd gone inside, seen Martin's key card logged in, seen the computer turned on, and gone looking.

Because why wouldn't he?

Of all things, of ensuring that Miriam was on vacation and that Darjeeling was on danger of working overtime if they came in, Martin T. Hemlock had forgotten to consider Whittaker.

They sucked on their lower lip, teeth catching at the silver piercing, and looked up, unable to make out Whittaker's face past the glow.

"Hand me that, will you?"

Whittaker almost dropped the flashlight once, again when the light found what Hemlock had been reaching for and failing to grab — a bone saw, sat up on the ground outside the open grave. He took it, held it down blade first with shaking fingers.

"You should always hand people things handle first, Whittaker," Martin said coldly, as if what they were doing was perfectly normal, as if what they were doing wasn't a crime in most states if not all of them.

They weren't a lawyer.

But perhaps a mortician ought to know where the law lay as far as grave robbing went.

"Sorry," Whittaker said softly.

Martin chewed on the piercing again, thinking they needed a new one, thinking perhaps tomorrow, maybe. "Turn the light off, will you? I don't need everyone knowing we're out here."

There was a second mumbled apology and they were plunged into darkness, save the moonlight bouncing off the blade. Whittaker lingered at the top of the grave, dropped into a crouch, peering down at them.

Not liking what he saw, apparently, because he stood back up a moment later and took a step back.

"I. Should I go back inside?"

Hemlock felt for the throat, along the shoulder, fingers touching carefully but sharply to find where the joint started. "I'd rather you stay, but you can go where you like if you're uncomfortable."

"If you want me to stay," Whittaker started, and Martin could hear the lump in his throat, could hear the way his voice wavered and broke. He didn't want to stay. It would be cruel to make him, but. "What are you — Martin, that's. What are you doing?" Then. "Can't you do that during the autopsy?"

"Unfortunately most people will notice during the funeral that their beloved is missing an arm." There was no humor to it and Whittaker didn't even fake one of his nervous laughs, and for that Martin was grateful.

Laughter in a graveyard, particularly in the dead of night, seemed like it should be bad luck on top of everything else.

"What is it. What—"

"Whitt?"

Whittaker eased back up to the edge of the pit, and the ground below him gave. He yelped, and fell — not forward but back, landing on his ass in the freshly turned earth, and Hemlock thought for a moment they could hear his racing heart below his chest. Sometimes it felt like that, anyway. Something about the graveyard, about fresh pieces, about.

"You okay?" Martin said finally, looking away from their work and up.

There wasn't an answer, not at first, and Martin stood up a little bit straight with the bone saw hanging down at their side. "Whittaker?"

"Yeah." He swallowed audibly. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Don't fall in. Give me a hand, will you?"

Whittaker was up on his knees now, leaning a little bit out over to look down, and then rocking back away from all of it, ducking out of sight with a sound low in his throat.

Which was fair. Hemlock held the bone saw in one hand and the arm in their other and they did their best not to roll their eyes, not to scoff in a way that Whittaker would hear them.

They sucked on the piercing, calling up with a drawl. "I suppose that was a poor choice of words. Take the saw, please. And then …"

"Martin."

"Yes?"

"Did you. Are you gonna—"

"Stop asking questions you don't want the answer to, Whitt." Martin let go of the saw and heard it thump against the ground above, tried not to scowl because it wasn't like it was cheap equipment but it was, after all, just the grass. They slumped one shoulder down to let the bag across their back slide down and around, and it wasn't without difficulty they slipped their new treasure inside.

If it weren't for Whittaker, if it weren't for their nerves, Martin might have examined it there and now. Probably should have, rather than climb all the way out and have to dispose of it somehow if it weren't what they needed, but.

There was a tiny little voice scratching at the back of their skull, that what if Whittaker wasn't the only one out and wandering around in the graveyard — the cemetery? — after dark.

What if someone else had followed Whittaker up?

What if Miriam had lied?

"Can you pull me out?"

"Do I have to?" Whittaker's voice was barely above a whisper and Hemlock recognized vaguely that he was having a panic attack, perhaps.

Martin swung the bag back around to rest between their shoulder blades. "No. It's not the first time I've done this alone."

It was, if they were being honest, the only time they hadn't done it alone. That they could recall, anyway, but there were many gaps and wide expanses of unknown thought and perhaps there had been others before, who had reached down into the open maw of dirt and corpses to take their hand and pull them above. Instead Martin kicked the casket lid back closed, latched it, feeling stupid every single time they did it. From there it was just a manner of scraping dirt back down underneath them until they could reach the top without having to stand on their tiptoes, and clawing their way back out.

There was nothing graceful about it, and it was worse now with Whittaker standing at the top waiting for them. They had to get up, and not roll, even if everything in them said collapse, said roll, said take a break just for a second, you freak, just lay down in the graveyard and breathe.

Martin scarcely needed to.

"Did you. Um. Did you leave it?" Whittaker asked the question with a kind of quiet pleading, a begging, a please tell me you didn't do it, and let out another small sound when Martin slapped the bag behind them. "What are you doing with that?"

And now Martin wished they were laying flat on their back, staring at the sky, if only so their eyes could slide over to Whittaker's face with a frown because wasn't it obvious?

"I'm falling apart, Whittaker."

"Oh."

And Martin didn't blame him.

"Did you think somebody just cut me up and put me all back together with the same parts?" Martin said, with just the faintest hint of teasing. Mostly because Martin was so rarely capable of humor, and a little bit because Whittaker looked like he might faint at any moment, and in their state Martin had no chance at carrying him back to the morgue. "I really don't want to wheel you up on a gurney, Whittaker. Come on, then."

"I just. I never really thought about it, I. Do you have to do that all the time?"

"What did I say about questions?" Martin dusted off their pants, picked up the bone saw and let it hang from the tie on their belt as it had before. "Carry the shovel?"

Whittaker examined it for a moment, clearly trying to decide if it were somehow incriminating for him to do so, or perhaps rolling over how likely it was the shovel had actually come anywhere near a corpse like the saw had.

"It's not going to hurt you," Martin said softly, and Whittaker's eyes met theirs. Another unasked question — where do you get your eyes? Your face? Is your face even yours?

That was answered easily enough by the discoloration, by the jaw, by the teeth. Whittaker had never looked that close, and the morgue lighting was terrible at best, but now.

Once inside Hemlock hit a switch behind the door and bright, painfully vivid fluorescents came to life. For a moment Martin just stood there, let the light etch out the details, let Whittaker see Martin for what they were more vividly than he ever had.

"I … think I should go home, Martin," Whittaker said finally, weakly, hands shaking at his sides. His camera was still set up in one corner and Martin realized with a jolt that the tiny red light was on and blinking. Recording. Whittaker had left the camera going while he'd been gone and it was going now, perhaps even focused on Martin's disturbed, stitched face as they stared into the lens, insides turning over.

"Whitt?"

"Huh?"

Martin nodded at the camera, hands curling into fists. Their thoughts going a million miles an hour. About what they would have to do. "That's not live, is it?"

They knew Whittaker did that, sometimes. Recorded, talked, let it all feed into a live stream for viewers — all two of them — to comment on and say they saw something, they really did, they heard something. Martin watched the feed on the desktop sometimes, said something here and there.

Whittaker didn't know, naturally, but it brought them a level of amusement to see Whittaker's excitement at one more person. Hemlock didn't need the audio. They had it all, right there in the room, Whittaker often cross-legged on his little blanket with his spirit board in front of him, or a deck of cards at his knee.

"Um—" Whittaker did a double-take, swallowed, and Martin could see him trying to recall. Sweat pooled in the small of their back. What if it's live? "No. It's not live, no, it's just. Recording, so I could. Look later."

Martin almost insisted on opening the system, on checking, but that would be silly. That would be stupid, it would be.

The trust was all they had.

"You'll delete that, won't you?" Martin said finally, softly, watching Whittaker's eyes widen behind his glasses.

"I. Yeah." Whittaker reached for it, and for a moment Martin knew they were perfectly in frame, could just see their own reflection in the lens. Stitches, patchwork skin, the dirt and mud that encased them almost up to the hips, up to their elbows, and just barely the fingers poking out the top of the bag slung over their shoulders.

The light stopped.

Trust was all they had.

=========

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[mydysfunctionalvampirefamily]

The title makes me very worried!

Lmao not me being confused that parents come to pick up their kids at night when Lex says there are vans outside the school. 😂😂 I'm so stupid.

This underworld storm sounds very bad and really gross.

Something that is dormant, but does not sleep. One of those Zantosa house gross antedeluvians?

I forgot about the raven feathers.

Lmao Wynn keeps forgetting she is an archon now and people respect her.😂

Red death?? 😂 I'm sorry, it's judt so funny that they get to pick their own names and they pick them like they're edgy 13 year old gamer boys.

Why the fuck would they go to hell house?!?

Wynn just casually throwing out weird ass occult names.

Wow. Justicar Lucinde being well not kind but practical, giving guidance and not being unnecessarily cruel. I didn't think she had it in her.

Wynn is a necromancer??? I feel so stupid, how did I not know this? Or is this Wynn's ghost stuff?

NO!!! Noooooooooo!!!! Lex, don't do it!!! Not the bloodbond 3 please! 🙏😭

Fucking lady lucinde farquad.

Fuck the camarilla.

What??? It's still the same fucking night???? These nights are endless!!!! But I'm relieved! There still is a chance. 😭

The masquerade is failing in new York where they are fighting and diablerising in the streets? Oh no. Who could have for seen this unlikely turn of events...

Lol pendragon being scared of getting diablerised.😂

I know Wynn hates this, but it sounds like she's doing a good job at being an archon. Fighting ghost stuff and being a badass is kind of her thing.

The sabbat doing their weird fire ritual stuff? Yuk.

Serpentine? Is he a settite??

A nun? FLAYED OFF FACE???? what the fuck. 😭 (the painted bone with flowers and stuff is kind of cool, but very gross)

Well I guess this explains the desecration of graves cw.

Archon Cabot. Sounds kind of hot, sorry not sorry. 🤷 Wynn having someone reach out to keep the coterie updated is much appreciated.

I totally forgot they hadn't talked about the ritual yet. 😂

Zofiel is being channeled by Pendragon??? This sounds like the worst idea I've ever heard.😂

So either Zofiel has taken over Pendragon, or Pendragon is fleeing diablerie?? Either way he is facing some deserved consequences of his own actions. 😂😂

Britta tiny voice: I stepped into the circle and kissed him. Lmao

Johnny is cracking me up this episode. First with the phone and now with the mirror and Britta. He doesn't give a shit.

Johnny 😂😂 gping full dad! 😂😂😂 So angry, yelling he's turning this combat suv around.

Miles just so tired and annoyed, and no one is listening to him.

Lil baby Neil needs Wynn with him. 🥺 I grt yiu baby Neil, I also need powerful Wynn with me to protect me with her claws of doom!

13 levels of damage? That seems like a lot???

So if corpses are running around eating people, I'm assuming the masquerade is also breached in new haven?

No not Rufio and his dogs 😂😂 I know this is all super serious but I cannot take anything seriously when they are around.

Wait why do they need to heal? Am I forgetting something?

Not me thinking my phone broke but it is just sound editing week of nightmares effect. 😂😂

Also yaaay Wynn!!!! Is this part of Neil's new power he got for ascending?? Dope af.

Oh no. Lex saying Miles, Miles Miles Miles in that specific tone cannot be good.

Zofiel? He sounds kind of scared or smth? Wheres your fucking power when we need it?

He's hitting Rufio with his sword and it's like killing a child, he's just a teenager pretending to be a badass but he's actually just got 3 down hairs on his lip and doesn't know how to properly smoke.

Tim rolling a lot of dice! Yay!

Wow sword bisected and torpored though, nice job Miles. That sword is badass.

Whoooo baby, Johnny omg. You're so badass. I need to fan myself like Al middle aged Southern woman on a hot day.

We can say all we want about Neil, he might not be the raw damage dealer that the others are, but he got Wynn here, and his hiding stuff is clutch!! Also I know it's been a while but remember when he made it easier for Johnny to resist frenzying for like 3 months. That was clutch! (I know there's no point in me defending Neil here, we all love him, I'm preaching to the choir)

Oh no. Lex is letting them have freebies, I don't trust it. Bad stuff is coming. If not this fight then the next one.

Weeping bear???? Wtf. I'm almost there on my relisten too. 😂

Beserker merit? Reduce by 3??!!!?? Holy freaking fuck. That is so good!!!

Ohhh we're basically getting canary mode? Damn. So cool.

The blood is so bad it hurts the special armour? That's not Good.

The bullets are consumed by an en tropic field??? They're just freaking dusted like in endgame? Damn that is not great.

He feels sick??? No! Not my baby sweating!!! Hell have to throw away that suit!!!! 😔

They fight so well together now! Like it's almost instinctual. Love that for them, hopefully it will keep them alive.

I feel like I don't know enough about combat and vtm lore to know how bad this fight is. Because honestly it doesn't seem that bad, they keep killing folks, they're all laughing and it doesn't sound like the panicked hysterical laughter yet (I could be wrong though) but then we have them running and throwing dead bodies at a nun with an entropy shield, and that sounds very bad??

Okay that is a lie, I know it has to be bad, but the vibe isn't that bad!!

That no did sound very panicked. And bone rafting has to be bad right??? Isn't that what Vito did??

Fuck yeah Wynn!!!!

They were all so good!!! 😍😍😍 (Neil did his best, you guys!)

Lmaooo I clearly didn't understand how bad this fight was until the after credit scene. 😂😂😂 Holy hell!!! "Are you touching your weapon to her?!?" it would just be gone??? That's crazy! He hardly got to swing it at all!!!

I know he's going into torpor within 24 hours but it feels like a fair trade.

[iguanodonwildman]

Finally this makes it to mainstream media. Imagine the headlines if this were reversed. And the White House still can't think of any war crimes Israel has intentionally committed in Gaza.

[namazunomegami]

Post Mortem - gothic!au series masterlist

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. - Hamlet

A sandbox filled with interconnected drabbles telling a story of decay, disease, social taboos and social horrors.

Or, what kind of dread will torment you when you arrive in a small earldom where people can't bury their dead?

CW: fem!reader, mid-victorian setting, elements of horror, suspense, witchcraft, period accurate sexism, power imbalance, desecration of graves

These are just general warnings, every lil drabble will get their seperate tags as usual :33

Background noise: my very own post-punk/horror punk/shoegaze/darkwave playlist

The Oval Portrait

Following the instructions written in your late father's will, you seek help and protection from the only man who - according to him at least - can be trusted. But this small town, somehow, reeks from death.

The Mystery of the Grave-Yard

Slowly, Geto finds a way to bond with you a little. And since you are a curious little creature, you ask him about the creepy air surrounding his earldom.

The Amber Witch

As if you got possessed, you play a little game on the staircase.

Evil Eye

Your mourning is officially over and Geto invites a few of his aquaintances to the manor. One of them is a man with pale blue eyes and an aura so eldritch it makes you feel uneasy.

The Haunter of the Dark

The corridors of the mansion are calling out to you again. But there are monsters hiding in the darkness, and they're keen on to drive you away from the mansion.

A Dowry of Blood

You're on the brink of madness since that fateful night. You're tormented in your sleep and strange omens are following you everywhere. But some tricks from your mother can help warding them off for a while. Geto is willing to soothe your troubled mind and as a result, strange urges wake inside of you. All ungodly and sinful.

In a Glass Darkly

As a last resort, Geto proposes the idea to open up an old crypt in the outskirts of the town. A crypt that belonged to a cruel medieval lord, who - according to the legends - cursed his own grave and anyone who dares to disturb his eternal rest.

The Turn of the Screw

Laying the dead to rest is a more important issue than to think about curses. You sweep the ancient tomb clean, giving it to the public to make a mass grave for their loved ones in a grandiose funeral. But are you... are they, safe from the wrath of Lord Sukuna?

Story is loosely inspired by the horror movie Post Mortem (2020)

dividers are from @/cafekitsune

[nirikeehan]

“Halla fur caught on tree bark” for whoever you like?

I. Look I'm sorry.

For @dadrunkwriting

Characters: Samson & Mareth (OC, his seneschal in nightmare!AU)

WC: 701

CW: Samson is a creepy sad sack

---

Caught in the dead tree trunk was a soft white tuft, fluttering in the cold breeze. Samson reached out and plucked it with his gauntleted fingers. He couldn’t feel it, but it looked downy and delicate. 

“Halla fur, that is, ser,” chirped his Dalish seneschal from behind him. 

Samson let out a long-suffering sigh. “Did I not say I wished to be alone, Mareth?” 

“Er, so you did, but Lieutenant Rylen said you’d been gone so long that I should look for you. The column is near ready to march again, milord.” The redheaded elf peered over Samson’s shoulder. “I was sure the halla’d all have died out, what with the…” He gestured vaguely up toward the churning green-grey sky.

 “Are you saying there might be one alive round here?” Samson demanded. 

Mareth shifted his weight from one foot to the other, scratching behind a long ear. “Possibly. On their own they sometimes travel in herds, but… I wasn’t sure there’d be any this far east. We’re a long way from the Dales.” 

Samson was only partially listening. He brought the tuft of fur to his cheek. The sensation was intense — the fur was cool and warm at once, one of the softest things he’d ever encountered. These many months encased in heavy, burning armor, and the many years before that, sleeping on the hard cobblestones or the humble templar’s bed, it didn’t matter which. Comfort was only a vague concept to him. 

He remembered his dream; the girl’s silky skin had been near as soft as this. And there’d been a halla there too: a giant stuffed specimen, for the express purpose of fucking on its back. He quaked a little, aroused. Samson knew little of halla, aside from the brief glimpses he’d caught while on assignment for Corypheus in the Emerald Graves, but the thought of Thalia’s legs snaked around his waist, the two of them pressed against the velvety fur of the majestic creature, her breathy moans in his ear—

“How easy are halla to hunt?” Samson asked, cutting off his own reverie. 

“Hunt?” Mareth stared at him, aghast. “Halla are not creatures to be hunted; to the Dalish, they are the most revered animals of—”

“I don’t care what they are to the Dalish,” Samson sneered. “I care about whether we’ve time to kill one.”

His seneschal looked ready to either faint or be sick, perhaps both. “I am begging you, that would be a most cruel thing to do. If the halla are not already extinct, you would put them one step closer to their grave? Merely harming a halla would be desecrating our most sacred beliefs!” 

Samson loomed over his subordinate. “Does it look like that matters to me? Do you forget, Mareth, you’ve a new god now, our good lord Corypheus?” 

Trembling, Mareth shook his head. He stood to his full height, which was still a good head and shoulders shorter than his boss. “O-of course not. Milord.” 

“Good. You’d best keep that in mind going forward.” 

He opened his mailed list and let the tuft of fur waft into the air. Mareth dared not reach out and snatch it, and soon it was lost among the rest of the rotting forest. 

“Speak to my men. Surely there’ll be a platoon to spare for a side mission. Have them report to me at once.” 

Mareth let out a resigned sigh. “Yes, ser.” 

Samson stalked past the elf, headed to the Red Templar war camp. They were to march, of course, but if one unit could track down a halla for when they reached Thalia’s hiding place, so much the better. Was he fool enough to think she might be excited by the idea? Considering how boring things were bound to be between her and Cullen, maybe. Perhaps he’d have to talk her into it. That alone had its appeal; the women normally at his disposal submitted themselves to his whims with nary a peep, and it was only recently he didn’t have to pay them for the favor. 

No, it would be nice to have an equal at last, even if she might prove skeptical now and again. Samson allowed himself a secret smile.

[ill-written-god]

T | 290 | m/m necromancer/frankenstein's monster kinda | horror elements kinda | cw for some grave robbing, corpse desecration and harvesting body parts | local necromancer helps in his boyfriend's transition in the way he knows best :)

The moon was high in the sky, casting soft light on the gravestones. Two lovers met around a pile of wreaths, admiring them for a moment, sniffing the live bouquets, before pushing them aside to reveal the grave below. The stillness of the night was broken by a metallic cling of a shovel and a chant of pet names that followed.

"My love, my darling, the sweetest man I've ever met!" one of the figures singsonged, shovel striking the freshly upturned soil. His love, a man sitting on top of a nearby tombstone, giggled, legs kicking against granite.

"My daddy dearest, the light of my life," he chanted back, eyes cast towards the moon, and his lover started digging. The pile of soil grew in size slowly, covering the wreaths, and spilling onto other graves. It took enough for the horizon to lighten behind them. 

Finally, the shovel hit the wooden casket. The man swapped to  a crowbar and it opened easily, his movements well known and practised. The necromancer eyed his loot.

"Come here baby, see if this'll suffice."

His companion jumped off the tombstone and kneeled on the grave's edge. He watched him cut open the expensive suit, exposing the body beneath, the parts they were looking for. 

"Ooh, it's perfect."

"You like it?" he looked up grinning, his knife already in hand.

"Of course!"

With his partner's approval, he went to work, glad that the weekly trips to the mortuary and reading obituaries proved fruitful. Soon, he was presenting the new part to his boyfriend, who hastily posed his first dick over his crotch.

"How do I look?"

"Like I can't wait to feel you inside me."

The man chuckled in delight. 

"Let's go attach it, then."

[inavagrant-a]

Thinking about how the eternal oasis is going to crumble and fall apart and be swallowed up by the sands eventually because we undid the seal that protected it.

[whatwwwwwww]

the way parents act is so funny like you know u might not see ur grandchildren right

[fictionkinfessions]

uhh. for disabilities, i had bpd and possibly psychosis as well as depression, and i still have all of those lol. not fun. also lost my arm and had a weird magic wood prosthetic made out of a dead guy (which I did not consent to being added to my person , lemme tell you). also didn't have a left eye for a bit, but I just got a new one, as a naruto character does, yk. add a little grave robbing and bam, perfect naruto villain!

where was i going with this again

I think that's it so signing off

-obito

w

[iguanodonwildman]

I haven’t been able to find any credible sources that verify WHO is shooting the grave. Just that it is being shot at. It’s still an important story about propaganda and the hate it can sow. If anyone has a reputable source, please add it in the comments. And always fact check before you reblog! <3

Fred Hampton Jr visiting his father on Father’s Day…his grave is annually shot by local police

[ahkaraii]

[ff15] for the price of an arm (3666 words)

(spiritual sequel to my fancomic here, cw: gore)

"My, my," said the dismissive voice that still haunted Gladio's dreams, over a decade since. "Another one come for a rematch?"

"No." Gladio could not see Gilgamesh, but he knew the old bastard was watching him. "Not unless you don't give the Marshal back."

"The Marshal...?" A low, echoing laugh bounced around the bridge, and was then lost to the fog beyond. "Oh, the little lion? I'm afraid I bested him, long ago... He has belonged to me, since. And now, I have reclaimed him."

"Give him back," Gladio rumbled, voice like gravel. "Or I'll take all of your little arms, and then your fucking head."

The laugh echoed, fainter still, until there was a still sort of silence, broken only by a hair-raising whisper. "You may try, Shield of the Chosen King. But you shall not succeed."

"Show yourself," Gladio said, coldly. "And I shall prove you wrong, Corpse-Stealer."

It was only years spent fighting in the dark that allowed Gladio the reflexes to parry the blade that sought his head, and the years prior to that the ability to recognize the youth attached to the familiar body.

"Cor--?!"

It was undoubtedly the Marshal, but his once-lined face was now clear of scruff and weariness. His eyes were sharp, bright, and filled with a vicious determination Gladio had only ever seen aimed toward their enemies.

"Cor! Wait--"

The man did not appear to hear him, already in transition to perform a flawless gyaku-inazuma giri, and after Gladio hastily parried that opening onslaught, a tsuki thrust that nearly tore through Gladio's throat, managing only to avoid being skewered by leaping as far back as his legs would allow him, though of course Cor followed through flawlessly, relentlessly, and Gladio swiftly found himself on the defensive, gasping through disbelief and then raw, unhindered fury.

"You DARE!" Gladio howled. "You DARE steal his face!"

"His face belongs to me," tittered that ancient, odious voice, bouncing off the walls to the beat of Cor's Kotetsu against Gladio's Genji blade. "All of him does. And you shall not take him from me, unless, of course...you best me."

Gladiolus had bested the Blademaster once, and he could do it again. But it was quite a different story to be fighting against the puppet-corpse of his teacher, his friend. "Cor, don't do this," Gladio spared the breath to say. "Cor, don't make me do this!"

Cor did not appear to hear him, and through sinking dismay and true grief, Gladio knew Cor would never hear him, for Cor was likely already dead. Cor Leonis had said his goodbye, and everyone had respected it-- even Gladio had respected it, in the end. But he'd come down here to reclaim Cor's body and bring it back to Lucis. Bring it back home. He'd meant to bury the Marshal next to King Regis, as Gladio would want someone to bury him next to Noct, when his time came.

He'd envisioned having to fight the Blademaster for it, but he had never imagined he'd have to ruin Cor's corpse to win it back.

"You are dishonourable--" Gladio screamed. "You are despicable--"

"I am, at that," the voice may have whispered, but Gladio was fully concentrated on Cor's blade, the whistle of it before it nearly took out his legs; the metallic vibration of it when it parried his own massive katana; the reach of it, always further than one might expect.

Cor did not fight silently, for all that he did not speak a word. He grunted and gasped and growled, and it felt awfully like he lived again, for it was his selfsame voice, the voice Gladio had grown up listening to and learning from, fighting with and fighting for. It was both a gift and a gutwound, to hear it again, in the flesh.

It could have been a shorter fight-- intense, furious, but inevitably lethal-- had Gladio not kept missing opportunities to cleave the man in two. He could not bear it. A part of him longed to prolong this, if only to keep the fiction going. That Cor still lived, that Cor could still come back alive.

Unfortunately, the longer Gladio drew it out, the more tired he became. And Cor, in the undeathly grasp of Gilgamesh, did not.

He became faster, and faster, and impossibly faster, until Gladio knew that if he did not end this soon, if he did not end this now, then it was Gladio that would be cleaved into pieces, and Cor-- who had not once batted an eye at carnage, who had not once looked upon a fallen enemy with regret-- Cor would simply end him without giving a shit, and then Gladio would be dead, and all this would be for naught at all.

Cor Leonis was dead, Gladio told himself through glassy eyes and a swiftly clogging nose, and this? This was just a cruel echo. It would be kinder to silence it, and let it rest a memory.

So, without further hesitation, Gladio closed himself off, and with one sure thrust, impaled Cor's body with his very own Genji blade, twisting it to ensure he'd severed that great man's spine and abdominal aorta, then up to cleave through three ribs and into his lungs and hopefully his heart, so his end would be swift.

So his end would be sure.

But of-fucking-course the Immortal refused to die easy. Cor made a truly awful noise, choking on his own blood, body twitching with the aftershocks of an immense blow, still struggling, still attempting to swing his sword, which Gladio barely stopped with his other hand.

"Damn it," Gladio choked, through messy tears. "It's okay, Cor. Let go."

The man screamed wetly, gagging, jerking futilely against Gladio's hold. He was half-collapsed on Gladio already, legs limp and lifeless. But even still he refused to die, let alone let go of his sword, which came to rest on Gladio's shoulder, sharp side trying in vain to dig toward his neck, even now, when it was past the realm of unlikely into the sad reality of the impossible.

"It's all right," Gladio whispered. "Shh. Shhh. You can rest now."

Cor shuddered, twitched, and let out a rasping exhale, that seemed to last an age. Blood kept bubbling up his mouth, out his nose, and this close Gladio could see the burst blood vessels in his eyes, making the blue of them all the brighter, even as that inimitable gaze clouded, unfocused, and seemed to still half-lidded, far away.

His sword finally slipped out of his grasp, and clattered unceremoniously to the ground.

For a long while Gladio couldn't speak through his tears. The hand holding the Genji blade was soaked with Cor's blood, with his spilled flesh, and Gladio couldn't find the will to remove it, to further damage Cor's body with it. He pulled Cor close instead, tucking his old friend's face into his chest, shuddering through his grief and processing his rage.

"I'll kill you for this," Gladio promised wetly. "I will fucking desecrate you for this."

"You may try," the Blademaster said, finally showing himself at the other end of the bridge, both armless and unarmed. "I may even welcome it."

Gladio ran a gentle hand through Cor's bloodied hair, and impulsively kissed the top of it, like he remembered Cor doing, once, when he'd been six or seven and he'd asked Uncle Cor for a bedtime story, and he'd eagerly listened to the Marshal stumble through what was more a mission report than a proper fairytale, talking about some young punk going down to Hell to fight some big tough guy with a weird accent, to prove himself worthy of his King. And Gladio, who even at that age feared being unworthy above all else, had anxiously asked And he did, didn't he, Uncle Cor? And Cor had quirked that small, sad, private smile that he showed only to Gladio and Gladio's dad and their King, and then kissed the top of his head and said Sure, champ, 'course he did.

'Course he did.

Gladio gently laid Cor's body on the ground, dislodging the Genji blade from his sternum as carefully as he could. It was impossible to pull out the two-meter long blade elegantly, or even respectfully, not without the King's magic to simply dispel it as he would have preferred, but Gladio did his utmost to do it without messing Cor up more than he had to. He ached to throw the damn sword away and simply grab Cor's corpse and run with it, abscond with it, away from this traitor's cesspit of a bridge and finally lay it to rest where it deserved to be-- but another louder, righteous, and infinitely angrier part of him needed to take the Genji blade-- originally Cor's blade, and now forever the blade that had finally ended him-- and skewer that dishonourable, hateful, and pathetic wraith of a creature at the end of that bridge. If not for Cor's sake, then Gladio's own; for the Blademaster was, if legend served, ancestor to his own blood, traitor to his own line, and therefore Gladio was the last of that longwinded legacy, the last Shield, and if it was anyone's duty to end this farce of a trial, then was is his own.

Gladiolus Amiticia stood tall, and readied his bloodied blade with the grim resolve of a man ready to face his death and walk out alive.

Gilgamesh didn't say a word. He'd said all he needed to, over two thousand years of projected self-loathing, through cruel whispers and claimed corpses shambling in the dark, patiently waiting for his own end, waiting for just this moment.

The tension between the two warriors rose like a fetid odor, permeating a grave. Only one of them would leave here alive, and increasingly it seemed it would be Gladio, for Gilgamesh had made no move to summon either arms or weapons.

"Take out your sword already, you lowly piece of shit," Gladio demanded, coldly. "Or die without one."

Gilgamesh tilted his head slowly, gesturing towards Cor's corpse, cooling before him. "You've already taken it," he said, simply.

Rage enveloped Gladio. He'd killed defenseless men before, but only in the heat of battle; to kill a traitorous kin-killer like this would bring him no satisfaction. Hell, it might even bring him shame, and that pissed him right the fuck off. That even now, filled with so much grief and fury and resolve, he could still lose against this wretched ghost, because winning against a thing determined to die without a fight was no victory at all.

"Arm yourself, Blademaster!" Gladio roared, swinging the massive Genji blade, splattering drops of Cor's lifeblood upon the bridge.

"I have none left," the ghost said, mildly, shrugging his great shoulders bereft of limbs. "Claim my head, Gladiolus Amiticia. It is yours."

"You vile, repulsive--" Gladio snarled, incandescent with rage. "You dishonour my name, your name, the name of the man who you just made me kill-- the lives of my father, my father's father, and all the kings the Amiticia have served--"

"Yes," the Blademaster interrupted calmly, "That's right."

"Pathetic," Gladio spat. "You're pathetic. You are less than a man. I renounce you as Shield of the Founder King. I renounce your trial as anything more than worthless, wretched--"

"That is your right," the Blademaster agreed, placidly.

Gladio screamed, and in his mind, he rushed him. Genji blade met Genji armour and parted it like butter, revealed the putrid insides of a man long since dead; another swing beheaded the man and spilled his brain across the bridge; his red-soled boots stomped that skull to shards, mercilessly, pounding it into the ground, into less than dirt, into less than a memory; in his mind, his heart thoroughly disowned that heartless cur to oblivion.

In reality, Gladio only screamed. And then, heaving like a beast, he gathered up his spite and spat on the ground. "If you will not fight," the Last of the Amiticia swore, "then you will rot here, forevermore."

Gilgamesh's glowing eyes tracked him, quietly, then he bent his head forward, bent his whole body forward, into a bow. "Yes, Amiticia," that dry, ancient, patiently undying voice said, "I know."

Gladio could bear this no longer. He turned, blade in hand, seeking Cor's corpse--

Only to find Cor struggling to his knees.

"Cor?!" Gladio choked, and for a moment his grief and rage split him, for he could not kill Cor a second time, a second time would surely end him--

"Clarus...?" Cor's eyes were still bloodshot but the blue shone through, electric, and violently alive; his face was young, bereft of age lines and beard; he looked like he was half Gladio's age instead of double. "What...?"

"Cor!" Gladio fell to his knees. "You're alive!"

"You're not Clarus," Boy-Cor said, voice oddly-pitched. "Who're you?"

"I'm his son," Gladio said, through tears. "Fuck. God damn it. You're alive, Cor." He impulsively gathered Cor up in his arms, and the kid-- God! Cor was at most a fucking teenager!-- squirmed, uncomfortable, looking confused as all hell.

"As if I'd die in a place like this," Cor said, gruffly, and then he jerked up, "Wait, son?! Y'mean, you're his da?" He pushed Gladio away, squinting up at him suspiciously. "No fuckin' way... you ain't Marshal Amiticia. He's bald, and you got more hair than a goddamn Ronin!"

Gladio couldn't help but laugh, wetly-- even through his confused joy and skewered grief, hearing Cor speak like a feral brat was something else.

"...unless that's a wig? Uh, sir? Shit."

But Gods above, what if this was an illusion? Gladio's whole self shuttered at the thought. He wouldn't put it past that old ghost. He was vile enough for it, Gladio now knew.

"If this is a lie," Gladio murmured, tracing Cor's wary face with his eyes, thinking this might be the last time, "then I swear on my life, I will cut off your legs and piss on your mask, Blademaster."

Cor's eyes widened, narrowed, and shuttered in quick succession. "Well, that's gross," he said, tense-like, eyes skittering over to the Genji blade, thrown aside in Gladio's disbelief-- then he stared at something beyond Gladio's shoulder. "Wait, did'you actually kill him?!"

Gladio automatically followed Cor's line of sight, thinking he'd see the Blademaster as he had been seconds before-- but the fucker was no longer standing there, head bowed or otherwise. He'd vanished.

"Shit," Gladio swore, lunged for his sword-- immediately realized Cor had taken the Genji blade with him, and turned to snatch the Kotetsu instead-- and was on his feet an instant later, ready for a fight. "God damn it--"

"Ramuh's balls--" Cor piped up. "You fuckin' did!"

Cor had fearlessly loped on over to where the Blademaster had once stood, all two meters of the Genji blade casually resting on his shoulders like it belonged there, instead of the Kotetsu he'd carried by his side for forty years-- and then he was bending down, was the sword too heavy?-- no, Gladio realized abruptly, Cor was bending down to grab a familiar silver thing.

"This is his mask, ain't it? Goddamn..." Cor looked very small at the end of that immense bridge. "You beat me to it, huh."

"...I don't think he can die," Gladio said, uneasily. "He's probably hiding somewhere." He resisted the urge to spit and say 'like cowardly fucker', and instead adjusted his hold on Kotetsu, its smaller size unfamiliar to his hands.

"Maybe," Cor said, but he didn't sound convinced. "Shit...if only I'd been a little faster, I could've gotten him first." He looked down at the mask like it had impaled him, like it had skewed him straight through and had watched him drown in his own blood.

Gladio knew that look, because that's the same look Cor had had, as he'd died in Gladio's arms.

Gladio felt the unreality of the situation finally descending upon him. "Hey, kid," he said, low and slow. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was running away from this," Cor said quietly, down at the mask in his hands. Then he squinted up at Gladio. "Sure don't remember you, though. Sir. Did you come down for me 'cause Clarus said somethin'?" His lower lip stiffened, and there was an unmistakable wet sheen to his eyes. "I had it handled, sir."

Gladio's heart was hurting something awful. This wasn't the Marshal he remembered. That inimitable man-- the Cor Leonis that had indulged Gladio's love of fairytales, who had kissed his brow goodnight, who had taught him how to fight, whose last words to him had been 'Y'know, Gladio, I think I've finally earned myself a goddamn vacation'-- that immense, amazing, larger than life man was dead.

So, what was this mockery before him? The soul Gilgamesh had defeated and claimed, forty some years ago, now returned to its old body?

"I know it was disrespectful, sir--" Cor said, stiffly, misinterpreting Gladio's expression. "I know this Trial is only for Shields of the Amiticia line, but-- I can do it, sir, I was doing just fine--"

"All of this is a farce," Gladio said, hollowly.

"No, I can prove myself worthy!" Cor said loudly, desperately, and Gladio was reminded of himself, thinking that being a worthwhile Shield to his King was all he'd ever wanted or would ever want, that fighting some big tough guy could grant him that and more. "I can do it--! I'll try again, I'll beat him, I'll prove it--"

Gladio felt something heavy press against his chest. If this was Gilgamesh's last fuck you to his descendants, or, worse, if it was his idea of a fucking consolation prize--

"Let me try again," Cor said, firmly, holding the mask out like Gladio could summon the Blademaster with it. "I'll show you, sir. I'll show you I can do it."

Gladio's frustration was hardly this kid's fault. Well, it was only Cor's fault insomuch as he'd jaunted on down here as a brat, gotten his ass kicked and his soul snatched, then come back down for seconds when he was too old to care if he lived or died. But it wasn't this kid's fault, anymore than it was Noct's fault he'd gotten saddled with a prophecy that wanted him dead and he'd chosen to fight it for as long as he could, before finally succumbing to it, back straight and head held high.

Gladio had hopefully outgrown his knee jerk reaction of yelling at dumb kids for making dumbass decisions, and he liked to think he'd soon ease into the calm melancholy of a man used to outliving those he loved. Like Cor himself had. The Cor of his memories, now forever laid to rest.

And yet Cor-the-kid was still staring up at him, refusing to cry, looking as stiff and proud and fierce as ever, waiting for him--for Gladio, of all people-- to denounce him.

So he chose not to.

"You did do it," Gladio said, gently. "Cor, you completed the trial, and then some. You are more than worthy to be a King's Shield, or Sword, or soldier--whatever you wanna be."

"What I want is a rematch," Cor insisted, looking more and more like he was gonna fight Gladio for it.

"Maybe later," Gladio said. Maybe never, he thought. Gods. He didn't know if Cor could even leave Taelpar Craig, or if his body would collapse like the walking corpse it should be, without Gilgamesh's magic holding it together.

"Sir," Cor said, edging on the line of begging. "I can't go back empty handed like this. I'd rather die than live with the shame of it."

"Take the mask, then," Gladio said, with an exhausted finality in his voice. "It's there because you defeated him, in your own way."

"...you ain't gonna piss on it? Sir?" Cor said, suspiciously, holding it close like he was protecting it.

If you die as we leave this place, I sure fucking will, Gladio thought, but said aloud, "I'd gotta drink some water, first. You thirsty?"

"What the fuck, sir," Cor said as respectfully as he could, which, at this time, was not much.

"I'm joking," Gladio said, though he really wasn't. "I'm not about making some instant ramen, though. After a meal--" Cor's last, perhaps, "--then I'm leaving here, for good. You comin', or you stayin'? Your choice, Leonis."

He'd come down here for Cor's body, but if Cor truly wanted to stay here, forever fighting a disgraced demigod whose hobby was making undying warriors out of decent men-- if that was truly his idea of a good afterlife, then, hell, Gladio wasn't going to force him. He respected Cor that much, even if this wannabe Valhalla was, in his personal opinion, as disrespectful as it could get.

Cor's rumbling stomach interrupted his thoughts. The kid turned a little red, and it broke the spell of Gladio's melancholy some, to see that. "Hungry, huh?"

"I could eat," Cor admitted, with a stiff little shrug. "What kinda flavour y'got, sir?"

Even though it was far more difficult to travel light enough to fight on the go without the magic of the Armiger, Gladio still made sure to carry at least one of his favourite meals with him in a backpack. For this journey, he'd packed exactly two Cup Noodles: one for him, and one for Cor's memory. He'd left it at the fireplace just outside this final room, alongside the waterproof tarp he'd brought to put Cor's body in-- though now, Gods willing and Gilgamesh be damned, Cor might just walk out on his own.

"Beef," Gladio said, and was gratified by Cor perking up, as he hoped he would. "You okay with that?"

"Yes, sir," Cor said, and quietly admitted, "It's, um. That's my favourite."

"Well, ain't that something," Gladio said, instead of saying, I know. "You comin', then?"

"Yes, sir," Cor said, and even if this was Gilgamesh's last laugh, or his last apology, then Gladio would take it, because Cor was worth it, Cor had earned it.

[suspicious-pools-of-blood]

He Became His Father

CW: PTSD, blood, stabbing, domestic abuse (sort of)

An arrow whizzes past my head as I dive behind a tree for cover. I hold my breath. The forest is completely silent. No animals live in these trees. It’s like they know this is a place of death. This is not a place any living creature would willingly choose to enter if they wished to continue living. But I was not given that choice.

I hear leaves rustling behind me and spin around to face him. Before I can say or do anything, I feel the disorientingly sharp pain of a sword entering my belly. He pulls it out and stabs me again. Blood spills out onto the ground and I sink to my knees in the crimson pool.

I hear a voice behind me.

“You failed.”

I turn and see a young boy staring at me with a indescribably disappointed expression on his face.

“What?” I ask, bewildered.

“You let him kill me. Why would you do that?” the boy asks.

“I didn’t!”

“You didn’t protect me.” He looks accusingly down at my bleeding stomach.

“I--I did, I protected you, I...” I trail off as I look down, desperately pressing my hands against the wounds, as if I could push the blood back in and undo whatever wrong I may have committed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whisper. My hands are covered in blood, but it’s not my blood. How could I have let this happen?

I look up and see my murderer take the boy by the hand and begin walking away. I fall sideways to the ground, one arm covering the desecrated grave of the past and the other outstretched towards the corruption of the future.

A dozen meters or so away I see the boy, now a man, with a woman. I can’t hear anything they are saying, but the woman looks terrified. The man lifts his sword and plunges it into the woman. More than anything else, she looks surprised. She shouldn’t be. But he has already forgotten about her, turning away before she has even hit the ground. He approaches and kneels by me.

“Elvan,” he says, shaking me by the shoulder. What a strange thing, for a son to address his mother by her given name.

“I’m sorry I failed,” I say again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

“Elvan,” he says again, shaking me harder. I close my eyes to stop the tears from falling.

“Elvan,” comes another voice. A different one, but one I would recognize anywhere. I open my eyes and see a concerned face looking at me. I let out something between a cry and a groan and immediately throw my arms around Asenath, pulling her close.

“It’s all right, my love, you are safe.” She tries to look into my face but doesn’t pull away from the embrace.

I realize I am hyperventilating and I take a few slow breaths to try to calm my racing heart. Releasing Asenath, I throw off the covers and leap out of bed, and in three strides am by the crib and the sleeping child inside it. I lift him up into my arms and caress his soft hair until he begins to stir. I sit back down on the edge of the bed, holding the small boy close to my chest. I feel the mattress dip slightly as Asenath sits down beside me. She puts her arm around me and leans her head on my shoulder.

After several minutes of silence, Asenath speaks up.

“So Tyros was in this one.”

It isn’t a question. It doesn’t need to be; she knows me well enough to tell.

I try to push away the visceral feeling of dread and fear that the dream had brought about. “He became his father,” I finally manage. I turn to look at Asenath. “I failed to protect him.”

There is a pained look on her face. She looks down at the sleeping boy in my arms and says, “You didn’t fail. Not when it was real. That’s all that matters. Theos is gone from this world forever, and it will only be a matter of time before he is gone from your dreams as well.”

She smiles encouragingly at me. I return it unconvincingly.

I don’t tell her about how much the other woman in the dream looked like her.

[curiosity-killed]

bitter wine

word count: 2094 cw: mentions of desecration of corpses, brief/implied self-harm, descriptions of violence just some noodling on a potential solution for the trouble of tcp’s saggy, plotless middle. in which Reimon gets mean when he’s mad and Callebero just. honestly. babe’s having the shittiest fucking birthday

“If it were Dameron before me, I would rip out his throat,” the prince said, sharp and savage. His lip curled back a little, disgust in the way it pulled from his teeth and fury in the dark slash of his brows. Leaning back slightly, Reimon raised his eyebrows and didn’t bother looking to his empty hands or many injuries. “Oh?” he asked. “With what weapon?” The last time he’d met him, the imperator princep had been a child with a vicious blade held to their throats. Now, he stood before Reimon clothed in servants’ spares and enough injuries that he should have bled out before even making it here. Fine tremors seized through his legs sporadically; with the lashes on his back still raw, he wouldn’t be able to stand upright much longer without support. There were other chairs in the room, but Reimon did not offer a seat. “My teeth, if necessary,” the prince still spat.

He said it with such conviction that Reimon could nearly picture it—the barbarous emperor tearing out his half-brother’s throat with the same mindless bloodlust of a wild dog set loose on a goat. He’d heard more savage stories of the Aeridians and their mercenary past. An empire founded by highwaymen maintained little squeamishness around spilt blood. “And me?” Reimon asked, interlacing his fingers lazily so they caught at the first knuckles. “I have no weapon, as you can see, and the guards are beyond a closed door. Will you kill me as well?” The prince’s jaw tightened, chin lifting even as his gaze dipped low and to the side. His lips pressed together in a way that must have made the ragged cut through them sting. “Jisel cares for you,” he said after a moment. “You are not worth betraying her trust.” He stared, struck silent. A low rage flickered, licking up into incandescent flames in the cage of his chest. This murderer, this monster, thought he deserved to know his sister so well? A dog draped in silk robes was still a beast, a low and base distortion of man. “How noble,” Reimon said slowly, holding his voice steady in the same way his mother did around the pushier members of court. “Should I laud you for your mercy, Your Eminence? Title you a saint and crown you with speedwell and bow at your feet?” The prince met his gaze, chin lifting slightly and dark eyes hooding. His hand had folded into a fist at his side, but he didn’t flinch from the taunts, not visibly. Reimon canted his head to one side, looking pointedly up and down his frame. Aeridians were so tightly laced, wrapping themselves in layer upon layer as if it could hide the sins that were written on their skin. Dressed now in commoners’ clothes, the black tattoos of the prince’s arms and lower legs were bared to the world, and a fat, dark scar peeked out from under the short hem of his tunic. “The Bloodletter holding back—such a miraculous trick might rival a talking bear,” Reimon continued. “We could put a collar on you and parade you around the capital. What do you think—would your knights and generals recognize their prince then?” A muscle bunched at the back of the prince’s jaw, his lips working briefly as if to spit out words. Reimon smiled, polite and thin as a garrote. There. “Those knights who died for you,” he said thoughtfully, “would they be honored by a prince like you? What a shame, to have all their throats cut only so you could bow down as a side amusement in our court.” The tremors had increased, become fine shakes running through the prince’s whole body, even as his breath picked up. His broken hand curled together now to join the other, surely a painful reflex. Loosening his own hands, Reimon reached over to pluck his cup from the table with his fingertips. He took a long sip, not bothering to look at the prince. “It’s a shame they’re already dead,” he mused as he lowered the cup to fit precisely in the water ring left on the wood, “or we could have had a whole troupe to dance for us. The Bloodletter and his loyal guards, muzzled and leashed. Do you think we could train them to beg on command?” “Do not speak of them,” the prince snapped finally. It was funny, how he thought he had any command here. Turning toward him, Reimon tilted his head as if in thought. “I’m sorry, what part do you not enjoy?” he asked pleasantly. “The reminder that your loyal knights are all dead in a wood none of your saints could ever find or that they died for nothing but a pathetic, broken husk who has so little to offer their memory?” Some part of the prince must have held Jisel’s concern in high regard—or else, more likely, his injuries were too grave to even try attacking: the hate in his eyes was a living, snarling thing as toothed as the dragons that guarded the deepest seas. Reimon held his gaze, unflinching. For all his conquests and all his glory, the prince was nothing more than a prisoner here. A plaything or a servant or a sacrifice, all depending on Reimon’s own whims. He’d never thought himself a vengeful man, but now, with the architect of his family’s downfall trapped before him, Reimon suddenly understood why cats toyed with their prey for so long before biting through their necks. “Your mother died at my father’s blade,” he said, and a jolt ran through the prince. “Perhaps when you’ve worn out your novelty, I will add you to the collection. Two imperators princep killed by the same bloodline would certainly be an accomplishment.” Despite the surprise that had snapped through the prince like a taut bowstring at mention of his dead mother, there didn’t seem to be much impact in theorizing on his own death. Reimon supposed that it was to be expected. From what he’d heard, Aeridians were raised bowing to Death itself and kissing its bony hands. Mortality might not be so fearful a thing in the face of such customs. “We could even be generous,” he offered, turning his tone light and almost friendly. “If both your heads were stored in the same chest, wouldn’t it be a touching reunion?” “You—” the prince started, taking a single step forward. He froze, fists still clenched and breath coming in rapid hitches through his chest. With his shoulders squared and hands tight, he looked a single step away from swinging a punch. Reimon really didn’t have a weapon around him, and he hadn’t trained in martial skills since the doctors determined his body too fragile for such exertion. If the prince decided to kill him, if the goading snapped his surely thin restraint, then Reimon had no plan in place. And yet—

Above the braced shoulders and clenched jaw, his eyes were too bright. No tears fell, but they glistened, precarious along the edge of his eyes. Reimon stared, gaze caught on the glitter of them. The imperator princep, the Bloodletter prince of Arradine, didn’t weep. Hell, Reimon would half expect him to dance over his enemies’ corpses like a fleet-footed nightmare. “Fuck. You,” the prince enunciated, the words rolling and crisp in Aeridian. Reimon had learned most Aeridian curses in secret, stealing books off the shelf to share with his younger brothers and the closest of his personal guard. Learned in laughter and conspiracy, they didn’t carry half the weight that Capallan curses did. If he wanted to hurt someone, if he wanted to be sure they knew how much he hated them, he would always use his native tongue. The prince met his gaze with a furious stillness, eyes bright and hands clenched, and for the first time in the hour he’d stood here, he spoke in the language of his home. Reimon smiled. “How unfilial,” he remarked, as if chiding a younger sibling. “Of course, I imagine it would be a disappointment for her to see you now. Your mother was a hero, wasn’t she? She died nobly, holding the line so her own knights could escape, and you—you just left them to die along a dusty road while you grovel at the feet of her killers.” He’d been sixteen when Aliras died on his father’s sword, barred from the battlefield for the sake of succession. They hadn’t known, then, that it didn’t matter whether he died on the field or in the comfort of the palace—he would never sit on the throne. At the time, the streets had filled with clamors for Aliras’ body, commoners and courtiers alike frothing at the mouth at the thought of ripping her into five pieces and waving each of them above the parapets like bloody banners. Yet when the king returned with his soldiers, there was no head on a pike, no arms ripped out of their sockets. When Reimon asked, once, what became of the body, his father had frowned down at him and said she was given a proper burial, in an unmarked grave. No one knew where the grave was, and no one outside of a select few knew that she had even been afforded one. Her son was not among them. “It’s a shame what happened to her,” he lied easily. “My father the king respected her as a valiant opponent, but the armies were so furious after what she’d done, there was no stopping them once they got hold of her body.” The prince’s eyes widened, horror smoothing the lines of anger from his face and making him look completely taken by surprise. The knuckles of his fists had started to bleed white, cracks of red lining the tendons where they stretch over the bones. “I’m sure you’ve seen street dogs with a carcass,” Reimon continued pleasantly. “I assure you that looks domestic in comparison.” Shaking his head slightly, as if in disbelief, the prince swallowed. A tear slipped to trail down his bruised cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice. Smiling indulgently, Reimon gave a slight nod. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Did you really think we would honor someone who killed so many Capallans?”

“No,” the prince said. “No, you—” His voice came out small, almost fragile. He made no effort to wipe away the tears that curved sluggishly down his cheeks, just scoured Reimon’s face as if searching for the lie in his words. Meeting his gaze, Reimon kept his expression perfectly even and amiable. The prince’s brow furrowed, his lips parting slightly. Reimon raised his eyebrows, waiting. “What,” he asked, “do you think you’re the only one who would want revenge? You may have my father’s crown locked away in your palace, but your mother greeted the afterlife in so many pieces the finest tailor couldn’t have sewn them together.” He’d been pressing for a reason, needling to prick the prince’s skin a thousand times over for his offenses. This was the man who cut through their armies until he snatched the crown from his father’s head. He took Jisel, kept her from them for years. He deserved every slice Reimon landed. But—as the prince stared at him with cracked-open horror in his eyes, his lips trembling with the tears that slipped one by one from his eyes, no satisfaction welled in Reimon’s chest. His stomach twisted instead, reminded too much of fights in his childhood when his words grew too sharp and Laisa or Adamil’s eyes would grow glassy with tears. “Guards,” he called, raising his voice to be heard beyond the study’s walls. The door opened promptly, and Reimon flicked his hand in a gesture for them to take the prince from his sight. The prince offered no resistance as each of them took one of his arms and tugged him from the room.

Left in the sudden quiet, Reimon reached for his wine and then paused with his fingertips resting along the rim of the glass. The prince deserved every blow that landed. It should be a victory to have the imperator princep weeping before him. His fingers pressed tighter against the glass, until a dull ache bit into the bones. Jisel cared about this prince, for whatever reason. She called him her close friend, dear. Biting the inside of his lip, Reimon slid his hand down to cup the goblet’s belly. The wine didn’t wash the sour taste from his mouth.

[adventurepunks]

Just as a general warning that I rp a necromancer and thus dead people will get mentioned, things like grave robbing going as far as raising cadavers as well as traditions like the Famadihana in rp, as always I do tag them with ;;desecration cw , ;;ritual cw but I don’t use read more ever ever as I hate the function, so if such things bother you please unfollow me, you deserve to have a happy experience on Tumblr <3 ps: this is just so I can pin it no one has messaged me offended or hurt before there’s the thought, I am simply now rping them more openly rather than vaguelly mentioning it in the background.

[ao3feed-themagnusarchives]

keep your eyes closed (and your ear to the ground)

by freudiancascade

Jon is no good at this work-horror-life balance, not yet. Gerry isn't much better, but at least he's practiced in the fine art of making sure the Powers That Be are fully aware that you don't give a single solitary shit about their plans.

Or, rather, he was practiced in that. It’s all gone a bit sideways, these days.

Words: 3770, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen

Characters: Gerard Keay, Jonathan Sims, Basira Hussain

Relationships: Gerard Keay & Jonathan Sims

Additional Tags: cw for the desolation and the buried, grave desecration (which i tagged but we all know it Be Like That Sometimes in these parts), desolation!Gerard Keay, canon-typical Gerard Is A Total Badass Just Slightly Off-Screen, canon-typical Jon Is Such A Bloody Archivist, they were roommates (oh my god they were roommates)

source http://archiveofourown.org/works/19302145