#he is the cycle of life and death and blood and decay

[bosspigeon]

i never know what is a socially acceptable level of "i vibe rly hard w ur oc lore and here's why" dhdhfhhf

[cheriecoke]

˚₊‧꒰ა cold embrace (provenance) — fyodor dostoevsky

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎. you buy a two hundred year old house with a two hundred year old painting hanging above the mantel. it's not the only thing the previous owner left behind.

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈. ghost!fyodor, f!reader, violence, angst, death, alternate / modern universe, no smut but it is suggestive, fyodor is kind of a pervy ghost so, wc: 6.1k

𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈. this one has two titles bc it was supposed to be for my kinktober... never finished it. embarrassing ! but here is a semi-revamped version for this series! i can finally check it off my wips page <3 idk how i feel about it but i hope you enjoy

part of my summerween series !

A chime from the grandfather clock brings Fyodor out of his stupor, the sound signaling another day, another meaningless hour that will only continue his eternal misery. He’s grown used to it now—evening after evening of emptiness, of reading nothing but the same books, playing the same pieces of dull sheet music, and the lifeless chess matches against himself. The house is cold with only his presence, dusty without a housekeeper and a life to make it a home.

There are a million things in Fyodor’s life that he must have done to deserve this misery, but he can’t pinpoint which one solidified his reward of a lamentable, endless cycle.

He’s certain hell is better than this. It’s something he wishes for every day, if only to have an eternal companion with the devil, a challenge to overcome.

Though, even with this boredom, Fyodor refuses to let anyone live in his home. They’ll only serve to be another pain, something that would, surely, push him past the brink of sanity.

The centuries old décor will get replaced with gaudy twenty-first century items, ones that will be nothing more than an eyesore. There are a few already scattered around his home from previous tenants, but only things that he believed useful enough for him to keep; a few books from authors he didn’t live to read, a television from the nineties, a computer that he watched one couple scroll on before he murdered them in cold blood.

Perhaps he is two hundred years dead and gone, but he refuses to be an ignorant ghost, one that is unaware of anything beyond these four walls, caught forever in the past.

Although now, it’s been a while since anyone’s tried to move in, and he’s certain the only reason the house hasn’t been torn down is because its preserved nicely, an eighteenth-century home that has withstood the test of time.

Fyodor, in his lowest moments, wishes they would tear it down. Maybe then, and only then, can he be set free. Or maybe, he’s forever trapped in this exhaustive lot, doomed to decay, even when there’s nothing left of the foundations but soil.

He pushes a pawn forward on the board, putting himself in checkmate for the millionth time in a row. It’s been so long that he’s used to his own tricks. Even the computer, which he’d come to understand quickly, is no match for him. It’s far too exhaustive to play against a machine that utilizes an algorithm he can so easily decipher.

Out of nowhere, the front door unlocks, and Fyodor glances over at the sound, dark hair falling over his eyes. Seconds later, he notices an older realtor with a clipboard leading you around, a woman he’s never seen, dressed up nicely with a darker shade of lipstick smeared across your mouth.

He’s been through this before. It’s a miracle the realtor hasn’t given up on this house yet, a mansion she is determined to sell despite the endless horrors that have been committed by his hand.

“Here it is,” she says, nervous, gesturing around the expansive hall, the crystal chandelier and staircase that immediately follows. “It was built in 1731, but one of the owners remolded it in the style of the mid-nineteenth century. The structure has been stabilized; it’s safe… enough.”

The two of you chat, but he doesn’t bother to listen in. It’s all questions of: when can I move in? can we negotiate? — things you will come to regret once he sets his sights on killing you.

Then, the realtor is sighing, wringing her hands together as she watches you spin around the house in awe. It’s clear that you’re impressed by the layout, the rich furniture and colors that have been used.

That, at least, satisfies Fyodor. Everyone else who has moved in was looking to upgrade it to a modern style, rid the place of its aged grace and charm.

“I’m truly sorry,” she says, brushing curly hair away from her cheekbones. “But I am legally obligated to tell you that every person who has lived here before has suffered a terrible, terrible fate. There have been gruesome murders that cannot be explained, done in ways that I don’t even want to tell you about.”

You laugh, eyeing her with skepticism. “Are you telling me it’s haunted?”

The realtor shrugs. “That’s what people say.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” you answer, and Fyodor rolls his eyes, scoffing as he floats to the second floor, unable to listen into the unreasonable conversation anymore. It’s been the same story for decades. No one believes in ghosts, but it is always a ghost that kills them.

He returns to the chess board, irritated, though unable to consider the game any further. Your face is stuck in his mind. For some reason, he can’t remember the last time he’s ever seen anyone with such beauty.

Fyodor stops; your ageless elegance doesn’t matter—it can’t, and it won’t. You’ll be dead by the end of the month, when you gather all your things and invade the bedroom that was once his own. Even if you are beautiful, you are a nuisance, a threat to Fyodor’s eternal torment and quiet existence.

Still, he can’t help but wonder if it would be nice to have something other than his own thoughts to distract him from the endless misery.

You move in on the thirteenth of June, nothing more than a few boxes and a decade old car to keep you company. He guesses you’ve traveled a long distance to get here, and you’ve gotten rid of half of your life in the process.

A good thing for him. That means things can be over relatively quickly, and all your belongings can be disposed of easily after he kills you.

You spend the entire first day unpacking, and Fyodor waits patiently, allows you time to get comfortable in his home. He watches as you bring a stack of thick novels into the waiting room, which once boasted large parties, and place them on a shelf below those that have his name within the covers.

You take a few calls as you hang up your autumn coats, ones that won’t be needed for a few months. The voice on the other line sounds frantic, worried. A local, most likely. You only seem annoyed by his continuous string of anxieties.

When the sun sets, and you grow tired, you rub your eyes and head to bed. The first night you will spend in this place that Fyodor likens to Hell.

It’s the time he’s been waiting for—a moment to catch you off guard. You are so unsuspecting, already so at home in the mansion, that you have no fear of anything hurting you in the middle of the night.

While you get ready for bed, Fyodor slips into your room, observing the pieces of your life that have conquered his bedroom. A soft classical piece plays from your phone, one that he recognizes from his mortal life. Clearly, you are fascinated by the period he once lived in. A shame, really, he won’t be able to tell you more about it.

You leave the bathroom, come back towards him to change into a pair of small shorts, a large shirt hanging over your frame.

He’s forgotten how long it’s been since he’s seen a woman, how long since he’s touched one.

Fyodor finds himself distracted by your body, the smoothness of your skin. His eyes travel over your legs, your hips, the fullness of your breasts and ignores how much he desires to let his thumb graze over your flesh. There is something so soft about you, so gentle and innocent.

Perhaps, that is where his fascination stems from: he has always been the opposite. Even in his human existence, Fyodor was not a kind man, and he doesn’t plan on becoming one now that he is dead.

He shakes away the vision, the thoughts that swirl within his mind. It has been far too long since he has experienced any sort of pleasure, and maybe even a man as cold as himself is not immune to the desires that course within his veins.

Though he tries to be. He ignores his arousal desperately in exchange for a renewed bloodlust.

You climb into bed, put your phone on the white cord, and shut your eyes. Thirty minutes later, you’re sleeping soundly, soft puffs of air leaving your lips as you sleep.

It’s the opportune moment. The silver knife gleams brightly in his hand, streaks of moonlight tracing over the slanted point. It’s the same blade he’s killed every other new tenant with, their screams still echo in the halls like a harmonious melody each time he bring the knife down on another unknowing victim.

He stands before you at the side of the bed, watches as your chest rises and falls, the evidence of your life undeniable. You are a lovely image like this, something to be painted and adored; more beautiful than many of the women he’d met in his time, even those who were of the finest elite in the country.

Fyodor presses the blade to your throat, contemplative. He considers how much lovelier you will look with the scarlet stain of blood seeping down your neck, spraying across the room and ruining the fresh sheets. Will you awaken, gasping as you claw at your throat, or will you drift away without even understanding what has become of you?

He pictures it, and digs the blade close to your throat, nothing more than a pinprick of blood flowering there.

You don’t awaken; but you a little sound leaves you, something between a gasp and a moan, and you shift away from the knife gripped between his pale fingers. It’s a sound that has him pausing, musing, as he regards your vulnerable state, a beautiful figure there with no clue that such a murderous man is also a resident in her home.

You make another one of those pretty noises in your throat, and Fyodor, against two centuries of murderous intent, pulls the knife away. He watches as you roll on your stomach, your shirt scrunching, moving up your body to reveal the undersides of your breasts. Your hand shifts towards him on the bed, reaching in his direction, before you still. Then, your breathing is back to normal, evened out completely.

Your lips part blissfully as you sigh in your sleep.

He can’t stop looking at you, can’t stop wondering what his name would sound like leaving the perfect swell of your mouth, if you’d sound just as pretty when you orgasm as you do when you’re asleep.

Surely, he can find a better use for you—it would be a shame for such a pretty thing to go out so early.

As he draws back, Fyodor notices the chess board on the side table, the pieces arranged nicely, each on the correct square. He can’t tell if you play. You could just have it for decoration, or perhaps it was a gift given to you from a lover that he hasn’t seen pictures of, the one that he’s certain someone as lovely as you must have.

The board is aged; not as old as the one in the drawing room, but a nice set, nonetheless. Fyodor glances back at your sleeping form once more, smiles coolly to himself, and shifts a pawn forward.

The chess piece is the first thing you notice in the morning.

It’s almost ridiculous how easily it catches your eye, a tiny little movement within the chaos that was your brand-new room. A pawn is on a different square, leering at you from the other wall, as if smiling, a flashing sign above its head, calling to you, hoping you’ll pay attention.

You almost think nothing of it; things can move, can’t they? Perhaps there was a shift in the earth overnight… Though, that makes little sense when you think about it rationally.

It’s strange, that much is certain. You remember the realtor telling you about the ghosts, and though you aren’t inclined to believe in haunted houses and scary stories, you find a part of yourself questioning the logic of the chess piece.

You are certain it was on the correct square before you slept.

It’s the only thing on your mind as you get ready, suffer through a tasteless breakfast, and throw on a rain jacket to combat the dreary weather. You’re meeting a friend for lunch—the only friend you have in this town. Sigma is the sole reason you decided to move here, instead of the other arbitrary cities that you’d been desperate to escape to.

Still, the board won’t leave your mind. You take one last glance at it before, on a whim, pushing the opposite color pawn forward as well.

Then you leave, hoping that a conversation with your friend will take your mind off the strangeness of that happenstance, the anxiety you feel about moving to a new place, a new job where no one knows you, a home that stays cold, despite the heat that reigns with long summers.

The walk to the cafe is short, but with the wind and the drizzling rain, you are miserable, your hands wrinkling from the dampness, even within your pockets.

Sigma is waiting for you, his lavender and white hair loose over his shoulders as he peruses the menu, eyes darting across it like he’s never read it before.

You sit, offer him a greeting, and though your conversation is cordial, the two of you catching up on your day, you eventually ask the question you’ve been dying to know.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Sigma stops, puts the utensil back down on his plate, and regards you with a thin frown. “Did something happen?”

You think of the chess piece, wonder if another will be moved when you get home. “No, but—”

“I told you not to move into that house,” he says, eyes narrowing. Sigma refuses to step into that mansion, grows anxious every time you mention it. “Over ten people have died there. Do you want to get murdered?”

“No particularly,” you say, staring at him flatly, your mouth pulling into a line. “But I’ve made it one night already. I’ll be fine.”

A hard laugh leaves him, as he shakes his head, unamused by your cheekiness. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it? Then they all die.”

“Very dramatic.” You take a long sip of your water. Sigma’s features don’t crack in the slightest as he stares at you, waiting for you to continue. “I’m not scared. I just want to know if you believe in ghosts or not… Because I don’t.”

Sigma’s eyes flit across your face, searching for any hint of a lie, for any signs of fear. When he finds none, his hands stretch across the table, lacing them together as he glares. “Whether you believe in ghosts or not doesn’t matter. There’s something evil about that house, and you’re putting yourself in danger by living there.”

The conversation with Sigma weighs on your mind for hours after, when you return home, still thinking about the chess board. It was just as you’d left it, two pawns moved forward, staring each other down menacingly. Nothing out of the ordinary.

You sigh and finally put it out of your mind. It was just a coincidence, that’s all. The piece was probably on the wrong square all along, and you’d been too tired last night to notice it.

Instead, you focus your sights on unpacking, and contemplate what to do with the portrait hanging above the mantel.

It’s a dusty old thing, one that the previous owners had, for some reason, never taken down. It had hung over the mantel for centuries, the corners faded from the sun, but the sinister grin of the subject never losing its effect.

You tilt your head, stare at it from a different angle. Looking at it that way, you could, perhaps, see why the painting appealed to them. It’s old, with a style from a different century, and the man composed of deep shadows and pale colors is undeniably handsome. He seems out of place in the portrait, trapped there, too otherworldly to be captured on such a canvas. His features are sharp, molded out of something tougher than diamonds, something more beautiful than this plane is able to comprehend. His deep eyes seem to know all as they stare at you, trace you across the room.

For minutes, you are hypnotized, before a wave of disgust washes over you, and you turn away, unable to look at it any longer. You’ll sell it, you decide. Maybe it will be worth a pretty penny.

That evening, you decide to look into it, but the search into a local art dealer doesn’t get far. When you sit down at your laptop, beginning to type your question into the browser, the lid shuts on your fingertips.

It takes a moment for you to register what had happened. A faint sting dances along the back of your hands, your knuckles tender as you lift the lid back up. Lines bounce along the screen, as if the imprint of your hand had made its way into the pixels, matching the pulse of your nerves.

You curse lowly, hoping that a reset will fix the issue.

The lid had just fallen, nothing serious. It was a newer model, but those things could happen. Issues with the manufacturing, with the way it was assembled. Technology fails you all the time.

You hold the power button, irritated, and upset, when a horrible, screeching noise echoes from the computer. Nothing but a shrill scream, the speakers begging you for help. You slam it shut once more, and the noise stops, but your heartbeat doesn’t slow down.

Shit.

Tomorrow, you’ll have to take it in, and see if anyone can discern the issues. It’s not ideal, but there’s so many things to still need to do, and a broken laptop makes those things very difficult.

You sigh, pushing the chair back into the table. The portrait looms above you as you retreat back to your room, hands shaking. It’s irrational, you know it is, but you swear his eyes follow you all the way up the stairs.

It doesn’t take long for you to start believing in the ghost that is haunting your manor, the one who has let you live for a week and who plays a new game of chess every time your back is turned. Whoever it is, they are much better than you; so far, you’ve lost twice—haven’t even gotten close to winning.

He hides things from you, items that you are needing for the next day, papers that you can’t submit to work on time because the important files have been stashed away.

You find your books opened to paragraphs the ghost seemingly finds interesting, your sheet music scattered in a mess when you return. The candles get blown out unexpectedly, and doors slam when you’re not suspecting it.

If he’s trying to scare you—it isn’t working. You remain in the house, sometimes talking to him like he’s a friend, whispering amongst the walls that know all of the secrets in your home.

You stop at the library on your free weekend, flipping through a dusty copy of the local legends, only stopping when you find your home. There’s a copy of the painting there—your painting, the one that still hangs above your mantel, despite your better judgment.

Beside it, there’s a painting of your home, done when the house was first built. The outside of it is a differently color entirely, the garden in front blooming with pink and yellow flowers. It looks cheerful; the home of a warm and loving family, inviting and kind to each of the neighborhood children. Nothing like the dark manor it is today, with a dead garden in the front and shutters that keep even an ounce of light out.

You read the pages proceeding the painting. The first owner had been a kind man, but the next were not such. After the original owner lost his wealth, he sold the house, passed it to a line of greedy men, ones that were focused only on their money. For a century, it went on this way—until a man named Fyodor Dostoevsky purchased the home for twice as much as it once was.

He was the one who changed it, renovated it, upgraded it to his own personal style, ensuring that it fit in with the times and his own opinions of luxury. Fyodor was charming, but ruthless, deadly with his own intelligence, owning half the town as they lost their money to his schemes.

Fyodor’s rein came to an end when he was poisoned by his closest friend, perhaps the one man he had trusted. It was the first murder in a string of ones to follow within the house.

You close the book, unsure if you regret the knowledge you’d gained or not.

The house feels colder now that you know the history of it. As if you can see the cruelty etched into every wall. Colors of the home bleed into each other, a pastel yellow of warmth and light, and the next room empty, almost uninhabitable, with its royal purples.

You stare at the portrait as you make dinner, feeling like you can never escape the gaze of those oil painted eyes. He has a name now—Fyodor. It feels even more disarming now that you know more about him than he’ll ever know about you.

And though Fyodor watches you, every night, from every angle, you convince yourself it’s just the way that the painting is situated. It would be foolish to think that he’s really watching every move you make, irises pinned on your form, unblinking.

The oven heats up behind you as you cut up your food, humming a soft tune to yourself. It’s getting hotter outside – you’d almost forgotten how miserable the summers could be. You forget every year, even though you’ve lived many.

Just as you’re getting lost in your thoughts, going through a list of things that need to get done in your fixer-upper home, you hear a scratch behind you.

It’s a quick sound, so quick that you almost think it was only your imagination. It’s enough to give you pause, your humming fading out into the night as your eyes dart around your house. Although you’ve tried not to let urban legends get the best of you, you’re paranoid in this aged mansion now.

A few seconds pass. You listen to the sound of your own heartrate, feel it pounding in your chest as you will it to calm down. It’s just enough time for you to convince yourself that it was nothing, that you’re far too nervous about silly ghosts to think rationally.

Though as you turn, a knife flies from the counter, just grazing your cheek, but enough to cause a scratch to open up against the skin. Your finger draws away scarlet as you press it to the wound, staring at the painted crevices of your fingertip.

You can’t move. Despite every cell in your body begging, screaming at you to move, you’re frozen, trapped in the four walls of that kitchen as you stare at your bloodied hand.

It’s all a dream, you repeat to yourself. A dream.

One that you don’t wake up from.

Time passes strangely, when every muscle in your body is on edge, your head pounding from the anxiety that spikes throughout your nervous system. A bead of sweat drips from your temple, and though you aren’t sure how long you stand there, nothing else happens. The knife remains lodged in the wall behind you, and the ghost makes no other attempt to lodge one into your stomach.

It’s quiet. There’s no noise, save for the music that plays softly from your phone.

After you regain control of your racing heartrate, you realize that the song playing isn’t what you’d put on originally. It had switched to a gentle, classical piece. Tchaikovsky, you think… or something similar. Something that a man from a different era would be familiar with.

“Who’s there?” You find yourself saying, perhaps stupidly. “What do you want?”

There’s no response – of course there isn’t. You’re talking to the air. To a ghost. No one had gotten inside the house. You’d checked more than enough times, just as you always did.

“I live here now,” you offer, thinking that, perhaps anger is not the best course of action. Neither is fear, though, if the scary movies you’d watched as a teenager had been any indication. “But I’ll leave, if you want me to.”

There’s no answer to that either.

You sigh, and deflate once more, trying to make yourself believe that there was a logical explanation to knives flying and playlists changing. Just as you’d made yourself believe that everything the “ghost” had done before was just a game, innocently played.

Perhaps, there was never a ghost at all. It could be that stress is driving you to insanity.

With a glass of wine in your hand, you finish up dinner, feeling like you are at your wit’s end. How is it that only a few weeks in this house has already singed your mind, turned you into a believer of things that you are not?

The portrait feels like an omen, staring at you with violet eyes, as you wonder where Fyodor is now. Does he watch you when your home, cooking, as you shower, a vicious gaze tracing over each curve of your body, with a sickening thought of all the things he wishes to do to you?

You shiver. It’ s been a while since anyone’s looked at you with a hint of desire. The feeling has become foreign, now, but you can still recall the gratification that comes with being wanted, how it makes you feel, if only for a moment, comfortable in your own skin.

That thought alone quickly snaps you out of your irrational behavior. Thinking of a ghost wanting you? A man that had been buried in the earth for so long that his body would be nothing more than bones?

This house was making you sick, you concluded, wrapping your leftovers up in plastic and tinfoil, placing them in the fridge. Your nervous friend was right – you never should’ve moved into this house, and you never should have stayed this long.

Your hands shook along the banister, heart racing around every corner. You expected that, maybe, you would see a dark-haired spirit there, his body translucent, but still corporeal. Though, there was no spirit hiding within the depths of the shadows, lurking in the places where he still belonged. No sounds startled you, caused you to jump as you brushed your teeth, completed the one last routine of your day.

The bed was colder than usual as you climbed into it, like a flush of a cold spot had settled within the sheets. You remembered what they said about temperatures and ghosts—how they changed, nothing able to survive in the places that they haunted, as they were not of this world, but something in between, something unnatural.

Your lamp flickers as you turn it on, and it’s just one more red flag you choose to ignore. In houses as old as this one, there are issues like that. The wiring is faulty, the electric needs to be monitored, a laundry list of items you will probably never resolve.

There are a thousand rational conclusions, though, and only one irrational one, which puts your mind at ease. Things like flickering lamps and cold spots can be explained simply, even if knives flying at your face cannot.

Still, you settle into bed, deciding that you will talk to the realtor again soon. You’ll move in with Sigma if he’ll have you. Anything to put your mind at ease for good.

That night, you dream of Fyodor, as if he is there right in the room with you, looming above you with those deep, violent eyes. His fingers, long and pale, trace across your cheekbones, as your eyes flutter open, consciousness coming back to you.

He says your name – it’s no surprise he knows it, after living with you for so long. It’s spoken softly, with a hint of possession behind it, like you belong to him. And yet, you’ve never said a word to him, even if all this time, he’s gotten to know you better than anyone else ever has.

You expect a scream to leave your throat, some hint of surprise, of fear, even, to see a stranger in your bedroom. To see him watching you with those familiar eyes, hair falling over his pale forehead as he gazes down at you from the edge of the bed.

No sound emerges.

Your mind feels a little fuzzy, hazy at the edges as you blink at him, closer to a state of intoxication, than you are alertness. Despite that awareness, you can’t seem to snap out of it; maybe you don’t want to. Instead, you sink deeper into the warmth, the honeyed feeling that comes with turning off your rationality. Everything feels as if it’s coming through in blurred, rosy glasses.

“Fyodor,” you mouth, instead of the scream that you’d anticipated, his name coming out in two wistful syllables.

You should hate him – there’s something in your instincts pushing back at you. A flash of a knife, the days of chaos and uncertainty, where you were sure you were losing your mind, come back at you.

But none of that seems to matter now, as you trace your finger across his cheek, feeling the sharp indent below the high bone. His eyelashes are a shade lighter than his hair, soft as they flutter over his forehead. The portrait of him didn’t do him justice… or perhaps, it is in death that he has found his purest form.

“I’m too tired.”

You’re not sure where those words even come from. Calm, like this is nothing but routine, and waking up with Fyodor beside you is the closest thing to normalcy.

He smiles at you, leaning over you again on the bed, lips pulled tightly together in a morbid grin. It does little to sour your mood, to scare you into action, even if you can’t quite understand why.

“I know,” he replies.

It’s the first time you’ve heard him speak, a deep, accented sound smoothing against your ears as he traces his gaze against each of your features; musical, almost. His voice calms you, lulls you back into a meditative state.

You reach for him, in a trance, and twirl a strand of his hair between your finger, just to see if he’d let you. After the hell you’d been through the past week, well – was it really that miserable? He seems content to watch over you, observe the gentle movements of his dark hair coiled up around your pointer finger.

“Why are you here?” you ask, your voice softer than a whisper, carried away by the wind until it never existed at all.

Fyodor never disappears from your line of sight, even when you try to blink, to close your eyes. He’s there, gazing at you with a lustful fondness, one that’s dangerous, perhaps even malicious. If it’s a dream, it sure feels like a vivid one.

“You wanted to leave,” he says, taking your finger away from his face, before bringing it to his lips. The kiss is barely there, and his mouth is cold, chapped, from the brutality of the afterlife. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Hm?” You try to sit up. It takes more effort than it should’ve – you’re so relaxed, so weak, that you fall back down, letting yourself sink into the plushness of the pillow. “Why?”

Fyodor releases your hand, before touching his own finger to your mouth. It’s slender, like a piece of ice, gently parting your lips before grazing your chin, hovering over your neck. Then, he drops his touch to your collarbone. He stakes a claim on every inch of your skin, pausing as he reaches your chest, still covered by the blankets.

Your clothing is thin – it wouldn’t take much effort to get his cool hands on your bare skin. But he refrains, still smiling before answering your question, tucking his hands together onto his lap. “It’s been so long.”

It doesn’t make sense, but you can’t muster up the effort to question him, not when he’s contemplating every word, like he’s hesitant to scare you away. You let him think, watch him ponder, as you stare, too exhausted to move a muscle.

“I thought you’d be like all the rest,” he says, taking a seat next to you on the bed, nearly touching your hip. “They were nothing but filth, stains in these halls. It’s a crime for them to ever think that they belonged here. In my home.”

You blink. “It’s my home, too,” you say, suddenly filled with an immense amount of dread. It crawls up your neck, chokes you, and nothing leaves you but garbled sounds, as you panic.

Fyodor doesn’t move – there is no twitch in his features, as he watches you with disguised adoration, a kind you didn’t think a ghost capable of revealing. “Of course it is, darling,” he says, so softly, it could’ve been mistaken for kindness. Fyodor leans down, presses his cold, dead lips to your cheek, a kiss of death. “That’s why I couldn’t let you leave. It’s your home. You belong here.”

“Right,” you breath, steadying yourself, before nodding. “My home.” Once more, you gaze around the room, your eyes flicking over every surface. Things are exactly as you’d left them, nothing out of place. “With you?”

The ghost smiles, and reaches out to you, finally helping you into a seated position. Your neck is so stiff, in pain, and you roll it around, feeling nothing there when you expect shifting bones. “With me,” Fyodor confirms, running his icy fingertips across your throat, tangling them with your hair.

He leans into you, pressing a lingering kiss to your mouth, one that catches you off balance, before you accept it with an eagerness that surprises you further. It doesn’t feel unfamiliar, instead, it’s as if you’re coming home, like the man you’ve never seen until now was always meant to find you.

A thought that should’ve scared you, even though it doesn’t.

Fyodor pulls away, right as you begin to shift forward, maneuver yourself onto his lap. “You should rest,” he replies, keeping you at a distance. “It might take some time to adjust.”

“Hm? What do you mean?” you blink, holding onto his wrist as your gaze shifts from his impossibly dark eyes to the mirror across the room.

There, in the darkness of the evening, shrouded in moonlight, you can see your reflection staring back at you, eyes vacant, lifeless. You expect to see yourself as nothing but exhausted, but when you draw your gaze across the image of yourself, there is blood seeping from your neck, a stream of scarlet. There is thick gash across your throat, slashed so deep that it would’ve killed you instantly.

The expression on your face shifts from one of calm to horror, as you scrape at your neck, trying to clear off the blood that isn’t really there, the permanent wound that will follow you even into your death.

“What did you do?” you scream, tears rolling down your cheeks, even though you can’t feel them, can only see them in the mirror. “What did you do to me?”

Fyodor smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. Though you fight against him, he takes you into his arms, and you are too weak to fight him off. “I told you,” Fyodor says, shushing you, running his palm over your head as you scream. “I couldn’t let you leave.”

thank you for reading !

[daylighted]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤGOTHIC HORROR! — vampire!dean

the most loyal of soldiers build their armies, expand their ranks. they do not get attached to their underlings. they do not find solace in you.

content warnings, devotion to the highest, unhealthiest degrees. slight emotional manipulation. blood & gore depictions. minor self h/rm, but not with harmful intent. bloodplay. nsfw elements & insinuations, undetailed. voyeurism? undetailed. bi!dean. nick saint cameo. i made up this vampire lore as far as i'm aware, so discrepancies to the media you know is purposeful!

dean was far used to the act of bleeding a person dry; it was you that was troubling him.

there came times in which he could not bring himself to take the victim out of their misery. it gnawed in the back of his mind, as they choked and spluttered on the blood pouring from their lips, that this life he’d carelessly taken had been cut too short. this one, his mind would tell him, was meant for something greater. 

and he’d singlehandedly snuffed that flame.

dean was far too old, now, to wallow in guilt or feel bad for actions he willfully chose to make. but if there was anything keeping him human, it was his conscience.

his mouth was still crusted with the blood he’d ripped from your throat when he brought his wrist up to tear into his skin. no blood naturally pumped through him anymore, but the accumulation of his immortality and abilities kept a supply cycling through him so that the body he inhabited did not wither or concave in on itself.

droplets as thick as cream and as dark as the richest wines pooled in the teeth marks he’d left on himself. his body was, for all intents and purposes, dead; he did not feel pain when he tore open his wrist, and he did not feel pain as it already began to stitch itself together. 

his unmarred arm slips beneath your upper back, raising you enough to cradle you into his chest. your eyes are as vacant as his must appear — death tended to get impatient, and steal the souls away before the heart finished its thrum. your breaths are ragged and thick with the blood pooling in your lungs. death’s rattle. he was here, then.

death always seemed to follow the dead. it was why genuine, true hauntings usually ended in death, too, for those involved. that place is cursed, the mortals whisper about the homes, the abandoned buildings, the decimated ruins of destruction, everyone dies there. 

it is lonely to die and be dead. sometimes the spirits or the creatures are impatient, and need something new to play with. sometimes, their conscience wakens from the deep slumber it typically stayed in, and reminded them that the people they feed from deserved second chances as much as they believed that they did not.

even in your semi lucid state, you struggle against him, trying to force your mouth away from the skin he presses to it. 

“don’t make this harder,” dean grunts, your struggles surprisingly strong for how little life essence still lingered in you. the adrenaline burst before your body gives, he imagines. it makes him more forceful. 

you choke and splutter, and he knows by now what his blood looks like on the skin of the lives he takes. yours, fresh and the color of ripe strawberries. his, thick and deep red, the color of decay.

there will be three minutes between your subsequent death and the revival. he does not have many that he sires, but each one was personable enough to remember these details. four of them, portraits lined on the walls of his dusty, towering home. portraits the only thing that dean has left of them, as they all unceremoniously left him when they realized how unhealthy it was to linger.

maybe you would stay. dean hoped that you did not.

he hears your heartbeat splutter out its last revs of life, and feels when your body becomes a heavier weight in his arms. three minutes, one hundred and eighty seconds, for him to look at you without you trying to claw through his clothes and pierce a vein. 

if you’d asked, dean would not know how to explain why he’d chosen you. there were many bodies that he left in his wake in the century that he’d been alive. there were exactly a handful now of ones that he’d chosen to keep. 

his first was because he was his friend, once. closest friend.

his second was because she was lovely, and he thought he might have loved her. 

his third was a child, and he torments himself about this one constantly.

his fourth was a mistake, by all accounts of the word.

his fifth was… you. pretty? yes. significant? he didn’t know. you had to be, or else his conscience would have stayed silent and slumbered on for another decade or so. but there were no indicators that you would have any impact on his life.

dean has always called it the shift, because the vampyr that had sired him called it such. when a soul slips away and the body is lifeless, and then suddenly, a jolt, as if what had been set free had been sharply snatched back. 

another wave of adrenaline pumps your heart back to life for a split second, enough to propel you conscious. 

dean lets you fall from his arms gracelessly. he takes a step back that is quick enough to instead be feet away from you.

this is the part that dean does not ever get used to. the rage. how angry the bonded are to have been spared. did they not know that dean did this for them? 

you look ravenous. it is no surprise that your speed is the first part of your new undead abilities that you tap into, when you launch yourself at him, fingers fisted tight and unwavering while you desperately try to claw at him. 

“don’t,” he repeats, fiercer this time, as he twists away before your teeth can sink into his skin, “make this harder.” 

he predicts the next words out of your mouth before they’re even spoken. “i am hungry.” 

hungry, and his blood, to you, would taste sinful and addictive. salted caramel and bourbon, a friend had once said, tracing his tongue over dean’s throat and sinking his teeth in.

it is always the shift of a new youngling vampyr that draws the memories of the others from the depths of his mind. if he isn’t careful, dean is going to end up doing something stupid — like writing them a letter, like calling, like…

you’re screaming, now. thrashing in his grip as if you were seizing, desperate to break his hold and gnaw the marrow out of his bones. 

he tightens his hold. snaps your wrist with nothing but a little more force from his fingers. that is what brings you to a halt. your broken wrist, hanging at an awkward angle. 

“behaving now?” dean asks, still keeping the hold on your wrist, only tight enough to feel the bones beneath the surface of your skin knitting together, the skin pulling taut. 

you rip your hand free from his, as if only then realizing the lengths of your strength. good. dean was not restraining you to hold that power over you, but mostly to keep control of the situation. it is best for the fresh vampyrs to discover their abilities on their own.

“what have you done to me?”

that one hits closer to home than dean wants it to. 

it does not strike as deep in his heart as it could; there are words he hears, still, from previous decades that remind him of his first four bad choices.

you would be different.

you had to be different.

trust does not start with secrets. but it is not something that should be handed out so freely. and so it is a conscious choice for dean to hold out his wrist in offering while still maintaining the physical distance between you two.

“it will be better if you drink,” he starts, his voice low and nearly apologetic if it wasn’t so self satisfied. “some things are hard to hear on an empty stomach.” 

it was the same, though, as it always was. dean, letting you feed from his wrist like someone starved, while he tried to piece together the sugared down version of what he’d done to you. he always puts so much strain on himself; rushing the time with those sired to him, attempting to speak coherently as if his mind was not thrumming with the effects of your venom in his system. 

you closed yourself off into the room of his manor that he designated for the freshly turned vampires. they were closer to being human than he was, and humans needed space for themselves.

the door was always locked to him. never once, in all five of his sired, had one of them invited him in. and so he spends a week outside of said door, listening in out of fear of what would happen if he did not.

he'd gotten chaotic with the one prior to you. reckless, impulsive. dean would not let himself make the mistake again.

at least he was busy in those moments that he waited on your reappearance. dean was never one to make use of his time, usually; he had forever, why would he clean the bookcases now when in his equivalent to a blink, they'd be dusty again?

he wrote letters. four letters. olive branches extending blindly into the dark. the ravens carried them away. the birds were the only ones who knew where they were, after all. like he'd never been invited into their space, his original underlings had never bothered to send a postcard, either.

that little fact hurts like a bleeding wound, in one instance.

it aches like a bruise, in another.

it tears him open, in terms of the third.

it feels like solace and healing, with the fourth.

perhaps they would take up the invitation to come back to the manor tomorrow, if only for a night. more than likely, they would ignore him, and continue to let him rot.

out of the seven days he'd lingered outside your room, it is now that dean finally opens his mouth to speak. he will not let you abandon him like the others.

"if you starve yourself in there, i'm not permitted to enter and lay you to rest," dean calls from the heavy wooden frame.

your silence on the other end is unnerving. dean is in the middle of opening his mouth to call to you again when your voice rings out, finally. "go to hell."

"i am also not permitted in there, either," he says back, with a little twitch of his lips. "you may hate me and be angry with me all you want, i will never deny you the human feelings you cling to. but your strength is important."

it's a conscious choice of words. calling it livelihood when there is no ounce of life left within you did not go over well with the others.

his ears strain, but he hears it. the padding of the bedspread dipping, the near silent, inhuman steps to the door, the harsh click and turn of the lock. useless, he wants to say, your invitiation is the only thing that keeps you from him. but there are little human things that every single one of his underlings still maintained. he was not cruel enough to take them away, too.

dean suspected that you'd look weary. seven days denying yourself what you wanted tended to do that. he does not offer his wrist this time, but he does nod backwards down the darkened hallway. "it is my due diligence to wean you off, not encourage the bad habit."

"that does not make any sense," you snap at him, your sharpened vision blowing the pupils in your eyes wide. you are trying to study the portraits hung on the walls. he quickly extends a hand, not crossing the threshold of your room, to stop you. "i do not want a tour of my prison."

dean's mouth quirks again. you remind him of himself, and his first love; second sired. "it is not a tour of the prison, it is a lead to the kitchen."

"what could you possibly have in there?" your words are fierce and vile, spat at him like they will somehow poison him. "the dead do not eat vegetables."

"the dead keep their blood cold and from spoiling in the refrigerators. do not try to explain to me what you know nothing about."

you stare at him for a long while before one of your feet steps out of the boundary. "i do not want to drink blood."

dean nearly snorts. he did not want to, either. "but the second i spill my blood, you will be clawing at me for a taste."

your pupils are still huge when they land on him. the hunger has been wearing you down; he sees it in your lack of inhibitions. he lets his hand fall when it is clear you will not take it. "but it is my responsibility to not let you become addicted, even though i know the temptation to tear my clothes off and tear into me must be unbearable."

"you have a lot of arrogance for a man who must force all of his playthings to stick around," you say, and it hits a little too close for comfort. he is glad that you did not take up his hand, because he might have lashed out.

he leads you down the hall regardless, this time in a silence that feels as heavy as lead. he breathes deeply, slowly, though it is entirely useless of a gesture. it'd been a long time since dean had to take ten deep breaths, to maintain his composure. while you and his others had your habits, he'd considered his long forgotten.

as he promised, the ancient kitchen is empty. the fridge is nothing more than a metal box on claw feet, the table coated in a thick layer of dust. the cabinets, once deep mahogany, were grayed.

dean grabs a wine glass from the cupboard and sets it on the dust coated countertop. he opens the fridge door and, lo and behold, there is a severed arm lit up like a halo in the center rack. if he was capable of it, he'd blush. how embarrassing to leave leftovers scattered around when he knew he had guests.

he shoves the fingers out of the way and closes his hand around a vial of blood instead. you would probably like it from the source better, but you would not like anything until he acclimated you off of his taste, and onto human blood.

another mistake that he has since fixed.

he pours the vial into the glass, and then shatters it on the edge of the countertop. the shard is what he uses to break the skin of his wrist, letting the blood pour in a slow stream into the glass too. less than how much you took from him a week ago, though still more than he should. he was bound and determined, it seemed, to let history repeat itself.

your control is better. the little one that'd turned, a week in, was still climbing over the counters and throwing furniture to get to the open wound in his arm. a week in self-proclaimed isolation had done well for you.

when dean turns, he holds the glass out. "won't be as good as you will wish for it to be," he says, his arms folding across his chest, "but it is a necessary evil, i assure you."

"i do not want this," you try to argue, but your voice is weak, and you take a sip anyways in the same breath. a sip becomes a long drink becomes the glass is emptied.

dean doesn't bother making a comment on it. you'd still poked an open wound earlier. grudges were more often than not held longer by those who lived forever. "we all do things we don't want to do."

"is that how you justify it to yourself?"

at least this time, you have the decency to regret it. it is easier to be kind to him when his blood is in your system. hard to be angry with when you want to devote your every breath to him.

dean is not in the mood to play tonight, though. his other bonded might come the next day. it was important to him that he was prepared for it, and not wallowing in the cruel words you weaponized against him without knowing how true they were.

"goodnight, beautiful," he says anyways, as he turns to leave.

he has never been good at denying himself indulgences.

you sense the stranger's presence before you see it. undead, like you, like the one who turned you. there is no heartbeat but there is a steady thrum of blood, still as a stagnant pond.

"interesting," the person says. deep voiced. heavy footsteps indicate big, heavier shoes, thudding hard on the hardwood of your room's floor. male, you imagine. "and here i thought he wrote because he missed me."

your eyes fly open, and there he is. you did not see much of the paintings on the wall, but that was the first, the one closest to where your room's door was. broad shoulders, tall in stature, and looking entirely too amused for your comfort.

sleep was not necessary for you, but it was peaceful, in a way, to imagine you still could. the act of going about your every day routine brought comfort that you hadn't imagined you'd feel lost without.

"who are you?" you ask, unable to tear your eyes from him. dark mop of hair. piercing light colored eyes that, too, have not left yours.

his eyebrows bounce, and the lift of his lips indents dimples into his cheeks. "i'm the first you."

the riddled, vague speech was becoming old and frustrating at once. "explain it."

"what, this whole situation? or what i mean?" he tips his head to the side, eyebrows raising even higher on his forehead, disappearing behind the soft, dark bangs. "words hold meaning, little fang. you live too long now to use them so uselessly."

the man from the painting is nearly as infuriating as the one who'd bitten you. "the whole situation. he is keeping secrets from me."

"because dean winchester does not know how to properly treat the toys he feels entitled to play with," the man's response is immediate, shrugging off the coat from his shoulders. "i feel the best place to start is the hall."

you sit up slowly in the bedspread, your expression twisting. "the hall?"

something akin to bitterness drapes across his face like a mask. "get up. there's not a lot of time between the flicker of the switch and him noticing the light is on."

riddles again. this time, you do not argue. instead, you clamber out of the bed and follow in silence behind him out of the room. right beside your doorframe is a light switch you both never noticed the presence of, and never noticed was always off.

he flips it up, and the hall lights golden.

peeling maroon wallpaper gives way to wooden boards. the trim is curling in on itself, deep mahogany exposing the pale splintered wood. but what somehow remains untouched, undusted, well kempt, are the paintings.

four large portraits evenly spaced along the side of the wall that your room is on.

a man, a woman, a child, a husk.

the one closest to you is identical to the man stood beside you; the same but younger. fresh clothes off of the rack, unmarred by the long life that you imagined he'd had so far, if he was truly the first.

the next is beautiful. warm skin that's golden underneath the hall's lights, curls spilling down her shoulders, a little smile on her mouth. on her shoulders rest the straps of a sage green dress that cuts at the cups and turns into picture frame.

the third is like a punch in the stomach. a little boy with terror in his glossed eyes, his lips parted like he was shuddering down gasps that did nothing to alleviate his panic.

the fourth used to be a man, you think. a long mop of brown hair, warm eyes. but the humanity ends there, and in its place is greyed skin, a vacant expression, dirty and thin clothes from a time period that was no longer.

"i don't understand," you breathe out, unable to look away from the sight laid out before you.

the man beside you straightens. "his best friend, his first love, his first save, and his brother."

it is a plain enough answer, but there's not enough detail to lessen the blow of it. there's a lot to unpack, and so you land on a starting point. your finger reaches out to tap the wooden frame of the first portrait. his portrait. "it's you."

"not really," the man says, stepping forward to brush a finger's worth of dust from the tops of the frames that you could not see. "he picked to preserve my memory from a time when i actually liked him. that has not been me for... hell, decades now."

you step forward to examine it better. the bottom of the frame is engraved. nicholas.

nicholas steps around you to stand in front of the woman's portrait. he dusts along the top of this one, too, with his finger. "cassie." his voice is wistful, memories and history you don't know built in between the words. "i imagine she will not be around today."

"what's today?" you ask, even though the answer feels so disconnected from you. here are people that the man who turned you — dean — cared for desperately, and now... you. how did a person even go about unpacking decades worth of history and find a place for themselves within it?

his smile is spread thin across his mouth. "a day of desperation for him, i imagine. it comes every decade or so, when dean feels the need to line his mistakes up and check in."

"is that what you think this is, nick?"

dean's voice cuts through the silent buzz in the hall, and your eyes shoot to the end of it, where he takes up the entire width of it.

"well, you certainly don't love us anymore," nick says back, that bitter smile leaking into his words, now, "that sentiment is made exceptionally clear when you make a fifth and then think of the others you subjected to this life."

you want to shrink away. you did not want to stay here, but being used as a weapon in their argument feels like poison in your veins. you did not know dean, especially did not know nick, but already you had become a thorn in the sides of both of them.

"don't spoil the mood before the others come." dean turns on his heel before he glances over a shoulder. his eyes land on you, and then nick's, and all it seems to do is rub salt into wounds you did not mean to make exist.

"you are a fool to think that cassie will show, let alone bring jude."

jude. the child, or the man who looked more like death than he did like a person?

dean's jaw visibly ticks. "i was a fool for thinking that, at the very least, you wouldn't show."

"don't be unkind in front of the baby vampyr, dean, it's unbecoming."

it was not unbecoming to you. uncomfortable was the better word for it. there was no comfortable way to witness an argument rehashing itself after decades of time elapsed.

you begin to walk through the middle of their argument, not making any sort of eye contact with dean as you brush past him. it is not your business, and you will not make it as such.

the men do not follow you to the kitchen. part of you is desperate to listen in, well aware that you can now. the other part does not want to get involved in their drama anymore than you've already become.

it would be easier to detach from them, you'd thought. but there was no easy way to unwind from around dean winchester when he'd sank his teeth into you. you just didn't know it yet.

dean does not know how this always happens, or he does, and it is just not something he wants to address.

nick was his first mistake. everything a vampyr creating a sire bond could do wrong, he did. he let nick feed on him whenever he wanted. he let nick become addicted. and then he let nick leave, knowing that nothing would ever be able to satiate him; no person, no experience, nothing. not unless it was dean. and it was made clear, the day that nick left, that dean was the last thing that nick ever wanted to see.

and yet every time dean got lonely, confined to his own solitude, he could send a raven and know that the only one who would come was nick.

cassie was successful in cutting dean off. was the only one that was, really. jude might have come if cassie hadn't declared herself his caregiver, and ran off with him in the night. it is wishful thinking at best.

sam...

he didn't think about sam if he could help it.

no matter what, though, dean ended up here, in this exact position. knelt on the soft mattress of his unused bed, letting nick sink his teeth into dean's shoulder, his throat, his mouth. blood coated his skin like a second layer. it didn't ever bother dean; nick always cleaned up after himself.

"a new one," he all but snarls into the curve of dean's shoulder. "do you think so little of me, of us, that you dare repeat the same mistakes you always end up making?"

he's a little heady with nick's venom working through him. there's a lot of it, too, because nick is incapable of stopping himself. he's starved until dean makes the decision to call on him, and so he does not hold back on the fixes he feels entitled to.

and dean could never be mad at him for it, because this is the monster that he created.

"it will be different this time," dean slurs around his own pointed teeth. the sired taste like nothing to him, but he's always finding himself lost in the moment, with nick. they were both gluttons, in a sense.

nick leans in to capture his mouth in a kiss that is more teeth than lip, puncturing dean's bottom one with his fangs and sucking on it. "you said that about sam," he dares to say, dares to, because there was an unspoken rule that no one could talk about sam, and only nick ever seemed to breach it.

"sam was—"

"a mistake," nick interrupts, lifting his mouth off of dean's. his eyes are pitch black, his mouth is stained and glossy red. still, as weak as it's making dean, his chest swells at the sight of the color staining his skin now. no longer so pale and death-stricken. "we were all your selfish mistakes, dean, and now sam is in the caverns—"

dean grasps at nick's throat with his fingers, pushing him backward, creating space. "enough."

"staked," nick strains out anyways, and maybe he would have kept pushing, would have forced dean to confront his worst possible choice, if not for the floorboard outside of the bedroom door creaking.

you, stood watching, mouth agape. it must have been quite the sight. two men, nearly naked, coated in the deep dark of one of them's blood.

not to mention how the conversation steered. nick had reacted the same way to hearing about dean's slip in judgement. black magic to restore as much humanity back to his long dead brother as possible, and then the turning process to try and prolong him.

black magic was never simple, and never gave without taking. sam was less than human, less than vampyr, and now permanently staked in a coffin in the caverns so that he could not tear through the fabrics of the world and destroy it.

nick's mouth curves upward in a bloody, toothy smile at you, which only serves to make dean grimace. you were not safe around him; not when nick was always the most possessive over what he deemed to be his sire. "little fang."

mortification shifts onto your expression now. as dean always could, he sensed the general sense of where your head was at. he always could with his sired. nick needed dean in every way he could possibly imagine, and still, it would never be enough. you were beginning to realize why dean was so adamant on breaking the addiction quick, because your head was beginning to swim with the same thoughts that tormented nick.

dean did not want him to invite you in here. for some reason, this felt too intimate and intense for you to be thrown into. dean was doing so good with you, keeping you at arm's length, close enough to get your fix until you were free from him, far enough so that breaking away would not be difficult.

it is to his horror that dean is the one to say it. "come in." it's barely a breath. it weighs a thousand pounds on his chest. "if you'd like to."

nick's gaze is a physical weight on him. it speaks a thousand words that he does not utter out loud. i told you so, it seethes in dean's ear, you are the same as us, as much as you despise it. addicted and foolish. desperate and needy.

it is both relief and torment that you turn the other way and leave. relief, because you still have a chance. torment, because the voices were right.

he was not a good man.

dean was going to end up hanging a portrait of you, too.

notes. lots of lore cld still be unpacked with this random au i threw together starting last night. so if u want a part two or something ... let me know hehe. i tried to make it as gothic as possible bc u know ... the title or whatev ... but if it's not good or it's too much MINDDDD UR BUSINESS ACTUALLY. anyways thank u for reading love u!

tags. @titsout4jackles @moonstruksandco @starzify @ultravi0lence14 @itzavahere @sagegreen17 @bruceewayne @jays-bonnie-on-the-side @deansbeer @blushpinkdoll @warpedless @sabrinasopposite @k-slla @deansbite @foolinthera1n @honeyryewhiskey @angelblqde @whyyouegg @bluemerakis @fallbhind @florchids @figthoughts @beausling @chevroletdean @mccartneyqp @bluestrd @sthefferrete @rubyvhs @tortureddarkstar @aileenunfiltered @frosttbitessam @theosaurous @blushpinkdoll

[libingan]

What would happen after Simon 'woke up' from the animal side, covered in the blood of bunny reader and his babies?

ykw, here’s a little extra something!

—wolf’s den.

the aftermath was a desolate stillness, a profound silence broken only by the occasional drip of blood hitting the cold, unforgiving floor. the room, once filled with the faint sounds of life and hope, was now a tomb of shattered dreams and irrevocable loss.

simon, drenched in the metallic scent of blood, slowly emerged from his primal haze. the fog of his instincts receded, leaving behind a clarity that was more painful than any physical wound. his eyes, now human again, took in the grotesque scene around him. the sight of your bloodied, torn body brought him to his knees, a hollow emptiness filling him where rage and despair would have been. he had not just killed his mate; he had destroyed everything he had hoped to cherish.

without a trace of realization or remorse, simon moved methodically. he lifted your lifeless body with surprising gentleness, his hands careful not to further mar your broken form. he carried you to the makeshift bed where he had once dreamed of a future together. your eyes stared vacantly into nothingness, but to simon, it didn't matter. he laid you down and smoothed your hair, his touch eerily tender.

simon's next actions were driven by a detached calm. he began to clean the room, removing the bloodstains from the floor and walls. each motion was deliberate, almost reverent, as if he were preparing for a ritual. the remnants of the pups were carefully gathered and disposed of with a grim efficiency. he didn't look at them again, his focus solely on you.

once the room was spotless, simon returned to your side. he dressed your wounds, binding them with care, though it made no difference. he spoke softly, his words meant for your ears alone. "you're cleaned up," he murmured, his voice devoid of warmth. "no more mess."

days turned into weeks, and simon maintained this macabre routine. he brought you food, though you could not eat. he talked to you, sharing stories of his past and his plans for the future, plans that you could no longer be a part of. he slept beside you, his arm draped protectively over your cold body, as if warding off some unseen threat.

to simon, you were still alive. he ignored the decay, the inevitable changes that came with death. when your skin grew pale and your body stiffened, he simply adjusted his actions, treating these signs as minor inconveniences. he spoke to you as if you responded, maintaining a semblance of the life he had stolen from you.

as weeks turned into months, the signs of your decomposition became impossible to ignore. your skin, once soft and warm, turned a ghastly hue, peeling and rotting away. the stench of decay filled the room, a constant reminder of your death. but simon remained unfazed, continuing his twisted charade. he cleaned you with the same care, ignoring the fact that no amount of washing could reverse the inevitable.

eventually, maggots began to infest your body, a grotesque display of nature's relentless cycle. they wriggled through your flesh, consuming what was left of you. simon, however, treated them as mere nuisances. he would meticulously pick them off, discarding them without a second thought. "unacceptable," he muttered coldly. "you won't be left like this."

the room, once a place he had hoped would be filled with the laughter of pups and the warmth of a mate, was now a scene of horror. yet simon persisted, driven by a delusional need to keep you with him. he ignored the reality of your rotting corpse, clinging to the illusion of your presence. his mind had created a sanctuary, a twisted reality where you remained by his side, even as your body decayed.

in his mind, he had everything he had ever wanted. you were his, bound to him in death as you had been in life. the outside world faded away, leaving only the two of you in this perverse sanctuary. simon riley, the man who had once craved something to call his own, had created his own twisted reality, a reality where you remained with him forever.

[talonabraxas]

Maha Kali ॐ Talon Abraxas

Symbolism

Kali symbolizes the death of the ego in the ultimate goal of human life in Hindu dharma — moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth). Kali is the embodiment of time (kaala) and the female form of Shiva (Kaala). Her name literally means “she who is black”.

Kali is said to live in cemeteries amid decaying corpses, reminding us that our world is nothing but a cemetery where all things that are born must decay and die. She wears a garland of skulls to show us that we too must cut asunder the skeletons in our closet. She gives us the implements for our own personal excisions. She drips blood while consuming all of creation. She reminds us that every minute is constantly destroyed in the cycle of time.

We must rise above this manifested world to see Her in her infinitude, just as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, that great saint of Bengal, saw her. He found in her “the benign all-loving Mother.” He felt in her breath “the soothing touch of tender love and saw in her the seed of immortality.”

Born of Vishnu’s sense organs or perhaps the composite of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva and the glory of the devas, she encourages us to come to our senses through teachers like Sri Ramakrishna. “You see her only as black because you are far away from her. Go near and you will find her devoid of all color….The nearer you come to God, the more you will realize that (God) has neither name nor form.”

Shloka/Prayer + Translation

Devi Mahatmyam, Chapter 4, v.17-20

Eapir hathair Jagathupaithi sukham thadaihe, Kurvanthu nama narakaya chiraya papam, Samgrama mruthyu madhigamya divam prayanthu, Mathwethi noona mahithan vinihamsi devi.

“Mother, you kill your enemies wishing happiness for this world. These asuras are killed so that they do no more sin and so that they will not reach hell, filled with disease. Killed by you, they will travel towards heaven.”

Dushtaiva kim bhavathi prakarothi bhasma, Sarvasuranareeshu yal prahinoshi sasthram, Lokaan prayanthu ripavo api hi sasthra puthra, Itham mathir bhavathi theshwa hithesu swadhi.

“Mother, your very sight turns all asuras to ashes. You only send your weapons at them to purify them and with the intention that even your enemies should reach heaven.”

Gadga prabha nikara vishuranai sthodhagrai, Soolagra kanthi nivahena druso asuranam, Yannagatha vilayamamsuma dindhu ganda, Yogyananam thava vilokayatham thdethath.

“The asuras stare at your face adorned with the cool crescent moon, the glitter of your shining swords and your spear.”

Dur vrutha vrutha samanam thava devi seelam, Roopam thadiva thadha vicinthya mathulya manyai, Veeryam cha hanthya hrutha deva parakramanam, Vairishwapi prakatithaiva dhaya twayetham.

“Mother, your pristine character brings to an end the bad characteristics of baser instincts. Your beautiful being cannot be imagined by ordinary minds. Your valor kills all asuras, showing mercy even to your enemies.”

[pininghermit]

Founder of Death, Keeper of Life

Pairing: Alucard x M. Reader

Summary: You looked at the spiked corpses in front of you with a spark of fury in your eyes. How dare someone disrespect death in this manner? Who dared to do so?

AN: idk what i'm doing. I haven't written in a while so a rough start.

What ailment made the God of death bawl like a child? What grief has lingered in his heart like an unplucked thorn?

Dressed in fleeting black robes, the creator of death was a solemn existence. Untouched by the misery yet bound by a sorrow unknown to any.

You looked at the spiked corpses in front of you with a spark of fury in your eyes. How dare someone disrespect death in this manner? Who dared to do so?

Cupping the decaying faces crawling with maggots you pulse your energy into the remaining pieces of flesh. In blink of an eye both the corpses are gone. Guided to your court where afterlife would be granted to them.

Surrounded by the stench of rot, urine, and blood you stare at the castle. Burdened by the air of unrest everything surrounding it felt heavy with despair.

Untouched by the grime surrounding you, your gown trails behind you as you step into the castle. Dracula was dead. You had seen to it years ago.

Could it be him? Son of Dracula. Could there be even a slightest chance of him being the one?

Perhaps years of ruling death had caught up. Made you into a weakling blinded by false hopes.

The one you looked for was gone. And you were the reason. You, the God of Death, had killed him with your own two hands. You had dimmed his life with your powers. Carried his cooling body to your halls and disintegrated his soul into the empty world.

Made him into the world. Started the cycle of life with your only lover.

Long ago when the world was young. The God of Death did not exist. The purpose and knowledge existed but not the way to get to that purpose.

In a world where you were next to him. Maybe it was what humans now know as living in bliss.

You knew him from your first moment. He was next to you in the void of nothingness. Your companion. His existence was the catalyst for your path as a deity.

He existed for you to understand love, understand loving, and for you to grapple with grief that you would bring to million others.

And so it came to be.

To initiate the cycle of life and death, the God of Death was tasked to sacrifice his joy. To pay for the grief of infinite, who would die, the God of Death was tasked to bear the grief unbound by the world.

So, the God gathered his lover in his arms and kissed him. Caressed his hair and memorized every pore of his existence in his heart. Cupped his face and with a dimming heart watched his joy leave him.

The precious soul of his beloved was broken into infinite pieces, blended into the world of living where the God of Death could not venture. Broken into pieces he could not combine even with his divinity.

Doomed to be separated for eternity, the God of Death came to be at the price of his heart.

But that tale belongs to a past long gone. Times have changed.

Surely your impulse of wandering in an unkempt mess of a castle was purely to punish the mortal who had dared to disrespect death in his own little graveyard.

A racing heart, irrational hopes were just a figment of your imagination you had come to live with.

Encased with a heavy silence, the castle rings with the echoing hoots of a wayward owl.

Would you remember him after years of separation. He won't look the same either way. The soul would be incomplete. Fates would never allow it.

All the excuses of your conscience fail to stop you. Your heart has already sensed him. A part of what you once remembers. Incomplete but yours.

Perched on a creaking chair he stares back at you. Alucard son of Dracula, as many know him as.

They look nothing alike. The past trapped in your soul seems to have been erased to have rewritten by him. The one you find most familiar in the wide world of your creation.

[adultish-momma]

Rose Thorns

Fighting monsters hits a lot different when the monster wears a face you know.

Funny how hard it is to break the cycle.

(Or the fic about Riddle's Overblot and the aftermath of that fight)

Warings!: gore, blood, violence, injury, near death experiences, parental abuse, controlling parental figure.

A/N: I found most of this draft in my phone notes app, so here I am bringing it to light. This one is a bit darker, but it's a scene I've had visualized for years now and needed to finally put down in writing. Please mind the trigger warnings. Again, this is a fic specifically about Riddle's Overblot and his Trauma Dump(tm) chapter, so if any of those scenes bother you in the offical game, do yourself a favor and skip this one.

And as always, if you think I've missed a warning, please let me know. Thank you!

They say that when you're knocking on death's door, the world looses its colors. Life quite literally seems to bleed out of everything you can see, leaving a grayscale mockery in its wake. There's probably a scientific reason for it, something to do with "primary functions". Some people wax poetic about the experience, weaving romantic words to paint a bleak moment with some measure of sense. There's lots of different interpretations of what goes on behind this phenomenon, this almost universal experience.

The rose garden had fallen into an ashy wasteland, grays and whites and blacks interrupted only by splashes of crimson red. Riddle's red hair, his glowing red eye, and the roses dripping with a suspicious red liquid. (The stench of copper and decay did little to disguise what that liquid could be). Even the Heartslabyul students that stayed behind to help knock some sense into their wayward leader were slowly draining of color, the looming shadow of the ink monster steadily darkening their bright visages.

Yuu wondered if the world looking so gray was new to Riddle, or if this is how his black and white upbringing had always altered his perception of the way things were.

The prefect wasn't supposed to be here. Crowley had personally escorted (read: dragged) them out in the initial wave of evacuation from the Heartslabyul dimension. But with so much panic going on, it was easy to slip back through the mirror. Easy to fight upstream through the crowd to return to the fight. All they had to think about was who was left behind, and suddenly returning to fight an impossible fight was an easy decision.

They thought of Trey and Cater, fighting for the life of their friend, two upperclassmen who accepted this random magicless student and monstrous feline (no matter what their motives might have been). They thought of Ace, Deuce, and Grim, facing yet another monster, this time with a face they recognized, with a face they respected. They thought of Riddle, a tyrant born from only knowing abusive love, angry and hurting and dying.

Choosing to come back and help was easy. What was hard was trying to figure out how to help.

The monster behind the House Warden roared, solidifying its inky shape the longer it fed on Riddle's magic. It was almost as if the giant caricature of the Queen of Hearts was using Riddle Rosehearts as a conduit for its own power. Wait... magical conduit... your magestone completely tainted with blot...

Holy shit his magestone.

The Ramshackle Prefect frantically searched the Overblotted form of the Heartslabyul Dorm Leader with their eyes, hoping to easily spot the stone. No such luck. They turned their gaze to their friends, hoping to let somebody know this battle changing, tide turing information. That's when they saw him.

Grim, lying haphazardly on the edge of the battlefield. Rosehearts must have flung him. His blue flames were flickering, small tendrils of blue slowly turning gray. He looked so unlike the lively character they've been rooming with the past week, now he looked small, vulnerable, fragile.

The flame in one of Grim's ears snuffs out.

They need to act. Now.

There's no thought behind Yuu's next move, not really, there's no time. People are going to die. And if Riddle Rosehearts lives to see tomorrow, he's going to live with being a murderer if they don't do something right exactly the fuck now.

Riddle had been defending himself from the mages in the garden. You know, the people who posed an actual threat to him. He never even registed the prefect on the sidelines. The red-head was not expecting to get physically tackled from his blindside.

Yuu is desperately trying to pin the very dangerous mage beneath them while simultaneously searching for his magestone. Ink coils around the boy, tightly constricting around his ribcage. Almost like a corset. And something pulses and glows just beneath the faux corset. They have their fingers reaching, pushing past all that insidious black and-

A scream rips from Yuu's throat, pain searing through their left thigh, and the previously grayscale world implodes with color.

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

Yuu has been having some strange dreams ever since they've arrived in Twisted Wonderland, but this one has to take the cake.

They watch as if through a sepia-tinted screen Riddle Rosehearts grow up under his mother's watchful eye. They see the moment he meets Trey and Chenya. It's almost like a movie, it even sounds as if Riddle is narrating his tragic backstory.

Something in them sparks as Riddle's mother berates him for eating that strawberry tart. Maybe it's just her tone, or the look on Riddle's face, or heck maybe it has something to do with their own shrouded past in their old world, but they can't just passively watch anymore.

"Shut up!" The words echo in the dreamspace, loud and commanding. Both mother and son pause, bewilderment taking over their faces. The voice of the Riddle they know now even quiets, and as the prefect steps in front of the young boy, everything in the memory comes to a standstill.

The Ramshackle Prefect begins arguing with Dr. Rosehearts, snarling and ferocious in their pursuit to protect the young Riddle of this realm. And the real Riddle? He's watching this all. He's watching how Yuu keeps physically blocking his mother from coming any nearer to his younger self. He's watching as the magicless student that publically humiliated him earlier that week, humilitaed him because they were able to keep their cool when he was not, he watches as they lose their composure. He hears them when they say:

"Rules are meant to keep people safe! But this? This is about control and abuse. It doesn't help Riddle, all it does is turn you into a monster."

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

Riddle wakes up with a start, eyes flying open and darting, hands twitching like he's looking for something.

"Riddle!!" Trey appears in his line of sight, breathless and shaking but looking relieved. Cater's bright orange hair also pops into view, but this upperclassman still looks stressed, looking between his House Warden and something over Trey's shoulder.

"Your back," Trey says, pressing hands against the sophmore's body to make sure he was, in fact, alright. "We thought you might never wake up."

"Wha-"

"Hench-human come on! This isn't funny anymore!"

"Shit this is so much blood, fuck my jacket's soaked through."

"Move over, we have to apply pressure to both ends of the wound."

"No shit Juice, but there's a fucking hole through their leg -"

"WAKE UP YUU! Please, please, please wake up"

Riddle doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see the carnage. He still sees them as they were in his dream-memory, strong and sturdy, able to withstand his biggest fear without a second thought.

But this is Yuu, his Yuu. So he turns around, because he needs to see them with his own eyes.

What he sees makes him want to vomit.

Ace and Deuce are crouched by the prefect's legs, the boys' jackets wrapped tight around Yuu's right leg. Jackets that are now more red than white. Grim is frantically pawing at Yuu's face, tears soaking into his fur. And Yuu?

Yuu is pale, paler than they've ever been. Lips turning blue. Their chest is expanding, thank the Seven, but just barely, and not as often as it should be. And shattered on the ground around them, some shards still lodged in their closed fist, is Riddle's black magestone.

Riddle watches, numb to everything around him. Eyes fixed on his broken magestone. He doesn't notice Trey trying to talk to him, doesn't register Ace screaming at him, he only comes back to when Cater loads Yuu up on his broom and takes off.

Riddle picks up on of the shards left behind, black, nasty, angry magic still faintly pulsing from the stone. Magic that almost killed him today. Anger that has been killing him his whole life.

Yuu saved him today, in more ways than one.

Riddle pockets the shard, placing it in his breast pocket, right above his still aching heart. A reminder of their sacrifice. A reminder to earn their sacrifice when they wake up.

And a reminder to look into all those Heartslabyul rules and maybe, just maybe, update them. Afterall, rules are there to keep those he loves safe.

[goldflinches]

swear by the dog (snippet)

Summary:

What is a death omen to an immortal? A friend.

And to an Endless? What it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

(or: a Barghest bears witness to the life and loves of an immortal.)

---

Square/Prompt: C2 - Creature: Barghest | @dreamlingbingo

Rating: Mature

Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling

Additional Warnings: Outsider POV (From the Barghest POV), Blood and Injury, Descriptions of Dog Bites, Hob Gets Better, No Dream In This Snippet (But We'll Get There Eventually!)

---

This is not their first meeting, the Barghest and this deathless human.

This hunting (haunting) ground was an old one and they are hardly new prey. But. Between the slabs of stones was a pile of rags, pungent with the dirt, sweat, and tears. A growl of hunger not been sated for a long time. A body that decays but refuses to finish the cycle. An delicious bevy of aromas. The pile turned to look with his large brown eyes, cloudy with exhaustion. The prey's eyes became clearer when focused on the Barghest.

Old prey, new prey, it does not mind.

This old human, this prey scrambles. The Barghest is a hulking thing, shadow and teeth lengthening with every step it takes towards him. The prey’s back hits one of carved stone slabs and the Barghest practically tastes its next meal. He raises his arm up in a panic (delicious, delicious panic) and the Beast sinks its teeth into it. Bites into meat of arm. Tastes blood, savors the meat seasoned with desperation.

Until the bite meets bone. Then an overwhelming sweetness overpowers everything. A wrongness at the heart of it. The Barghest immediately lets go, whining and spitting, shaking its shaggy head hoping to get the cloying taste out of its nose and mouth. All through it, the prey holds its ground, covered with blood, teeth bared in pain. The sourness of pain and panic is tempting but the Barghest knows better. A whine breaks from its mouth, the cloying sweetness stuck to its palette. Closes its eyes and A sound shuffling to its side. Hard breathing. A scent that loses its sharpness. A long moment where it is just the Beast and wrong, bad taste that keeps staying. Long, long moments where it lays on bloodied weeds and chews on the grass.

The taste stays and stays.

Suddenly, the scent is back. Dried blood atop freshly spilled blood, dried sweat mingling the sickly sweetness of life everlasting. A hand soothing its snout and another nudging something between its teeth.

“Come now, little beastie. Something to wash the taste out of your mouth,” the not-prey murmurs. Another, more forceful nudge. A whiff of a clean spring water makes the Barghest open its jaw incrementally, baring a bit of tooth. As a reminder. A sigh from the not-prey-anymore. “Yes, yes they’re very sharp little beastie. I didn’t forget you trying to take a piece my arm just a moment ago.” The cool water dripped into its mouth, clearing the taste and making it easier to breathe again.

[santoschristos]

Goddess Kali Sitting on a Lotus

Jai Maa Kali!

Symbolism:

Kali symbolizes the death of the ego in the ultimate goal of human life in Hindu dharma -- moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth). Kali is the embodiment of time (kaala) and the female form of Shiva (Kaala). Her name literally means “she who is black”.

Kali is said to live in cemeteries amid decaying corpses, reminding us that our world is nothing but a cemetery where all things that are born must decay and die. She wears a garland of skulls to show us that we too must cut asunder the skeletons in our closet. She gives us the implements for our own personal excisions. She drips blood while consuming all of creation. She reminds us that every minute is constantly destroyed in the cycle of time.

We must rise above this manifested world to see Her in her infinitude, just as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, that great saint of Bengal, saw her. He found in her “the benign all-loving Mother.” He felt in her breath “the soothing touch of tender love and saw in her the seed of immortality.”

Born of Vishnu’s sense organs or perhaps the composite of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva and the glory of the devas, she encourages us to come to our senses through teachers like Sri Ramakrishna. “You see her only as black because you are far away from her. Go near and you will find her devoid of all color. . .

The nearer you come to God, the more you will realize that (God) has neither name nor form.”

[candybowbeansies]

Red Spiderlily, 2

warnings/notes: northern duke!au. if you came here from part 1, you'll know this is dark. reader is married with (a) kid(s), and mentions of a pet passing of old age naturally, so reader recites an old dark fairytale made by yours truly(its the best i can do, im not good at it) from their youth to soothe their kid(s). Short af but darkly cute, and P/N means parent name aka Mom, Dad, Parent, etc.

Tags: @occasionalanimegeek just in case you're still interested 👉👈

"Oh, red spider lily, red spider lily, red spider lily, nestled protectively upon my loved ones grave, why, I ask, did you take them away?"

You recite the words from memory in a soft tone; the words of a dark fairytale from your youth. Snuggled up with your child(ren) by the loudly crackling fireplace, the blizzard outside the castle roaring, you continue;

"To protect them from Hell's rotten hounds, who would steal them and eat them, so that they would never again see the light of day."

You take on a slightly deeper voice. They were still sniffling, after mourning their little heart(s) out over a beloved old pet whom passed in the night, but they listened with rapt interest.

"Oh, keeper of death, taker of souls, how, from Hell's hounds, shall you protect them, as is your duty?"

You resume your normal voice, taking on a more serious soft tone. Little bright red eyes peer up at you; full of luster, full of spirit, full of love, full of intrigue, as you pause a moment for suspence. Red eyes, just like their father. A smile tugs at your lips as you recount, once more in a slightly deeper voice;

"I am a poison for all those who are decay, who lay in wait. Dyed crimson by graves blood, I render ill advances futile.

With me, little one(s), they frolick as they please, as I guard their every moments peace.

In time, little one(s), they will forgive, they will forget."

You continue on, their soft sounds of sadness ceasing;

"Then they follow my steps, each one a lurid hue, over yonder into the cycle to be born anew."

Then there's hope in those little red eyes, shimmering forth as you tell the end;

"So do not fret little one(s), as thereafter you shall meet them once more soon, as a flower, as a tree, as a boar, or as a wren; or as another being, as is their choice, when they live again.”

"So, we can meet them again?" your child(ren) pipe(s) up;

"As a tree? What kind of tree? Don't trees live a long time?" they ask, "What about a snowflake?" ever inquisitive, "But wait, that life would be too short, right?"

You smile, chuckling. “Life isn't simply about how long one lives." you begin. "Life teems with many great things; hellos and farewells, good mornings and good nights, happiness and sadness. These and so much more fill the soul." you explain, "It is about the story that is made, the tale left behind." another voice beginning behind you, his palms resting on either side of the seat;

"It is about each little detail remembered and the feelings they invoke, be it within someone who knew them, or another whom hears their tale." he recites, adding; "Thus, as your P/N told me."

You giggle. "Husband." you call fondly, tilting and upturning your head. "Love." he returns, wearing his handsome smile, placing a kiss on your lips.

"Blech. Ew." the one(s) in your arms comment huffily, but make no move to extract themselves from your warmth.

Just like the fairytale, you've long since forgiven those who had wronged you. They no longer linger within the confines of your mind.

Just like in the fairytale, you'd found hope after despair, lead over yonder towards the North, following beckoning prints of a gorgeous, lurid crimson hue.

Just like in that fairytale, you had closed one chapter and penned another; not of of futility, but of joy.

[lukeria314]

God has punished us…

The first signs of Gogol’s victims were not actual “omens” at all.

I discovered something fascinating: the “Decay of the Angels” themselves are, in essence, the celestial beings and their five signs.

In Buddhism, everything has an end, and with its arrival, both humans and celestial beings go through six cycles of reincarnation or descend into hell. The signs of celestial beings are divided into “strong” and “weak.”

Weak signs suggest that if celestial beings repent, confess, and bring benefit to humanity, a great turn for the better awaits them. However, strong signs of celestial beings foretell their death and imminent descent into reincarnation.

Each member of the “Decay of the Angels,” all five of them, was meant to die as part of the plan—whether this was intentional or not. They were each struck by fatal signs of “decay.” Each of them embodies one of these signs. For instance, the “wilting of the crown” is Fyodor’s sign: a magnificent wreath on his head, or flowers once worn there, begin to wither one by one. Fyodor loses his angelic and holy appearance. It is revealed that he is a mad old man, wandering for millennia, convinced that he is not a trembling creature but one who has the right. He believes himself to be God. But he is also convinced that he is doing something righteous. His floral halo wilts and fades.

In contrast, in opening of the fifth season, the flowers on his head bloom instead but then they immediately wither. Another sign is “I am not happy,” which belongs to Sigma: “I am tired of the place where I live. I used to live a stable and happy life, but now I seek danger and excitement.” He found a home, only for it to be entirely taken from him and plunged into chaos. But is it his physical home? Or perhaps the fragments of torn memories in his mind, which refuse to come together? Maybe the mess is in his head or in his understanding of what “home” is and what he was truly fighting for?

The third sign, “Dirty clothes,” belongs to Fukuchi: divine garments inexplicably get soiled and absorb all the filth around them. Once a savior of the world, an idol admired by all, whom the heads of states listened to, he turns into their greatest enemy, his hands stained with blood. He doesn’t hesitate to dye his green uniform—the color of life—crimson red with blood.

Bram Stoker’s sign is the “smell of the body”: a body that once naturally emitted a faint aroma now reeks of sweat. Yet, celestial beings once didn’t find this stench unpleasant and even liked to smell it. Bram Stoker, having lost all interest in anything, allows himself to be used and pays no attention to what happens to him or the world around him. He could sleep through eternity without a care. Once a king, Vlad the Impaler III, who cherished his daughter and flourished in her presence, has completely withered away and is no longer the man he once was.

Finally, the one who served as the “opening act” for their circus tent of eternal nightmares and broken mirrors, Nikolai Gogol, bears the fifth sign: “sweat under the armpits.” His two armpits, originally white, tender, clean, and hairless, suddenly began to produce enormous beads of sweat visible to the naked eye, with thick black hair sprouting from them. A pure creation of God realizes his own vulnerability. Out of fear that his head will be turned upside down under the pressure of others, he hides himself, defies God, and ceases to be that pure child of His.

By the way, I’d also like to mention that the title “Decay of the Angels” is incorrect because “天人” translates to “celestial being,” which is quite different. All angels are celestial beings, but not all celestial beings are angels.

[headlightsontonight]

rinse and repeat

it was like a monkey’s paw- everything dean had wanted years ago, when his eyes were clouded with innocence and his heart was relatively unscarred, save for a few here and there- distorted and ugly, a cycle begging to repeat itself and he just. he couldn’t, not again.

a family reunited, his brother by his side again. a home that didn’t move, a place he could return to. age in sam’s lines, the way he moved, his gray hair. home, safety, people to love and care for- everything he wanted, but not in the way he imagined.

and it would be fine, really, dean had swallowed much worse. this would be fine, except for him. a kid destined for evil, staring up at him with wide eyes, begging for absolutiondeathforgiveness. trust that he wouldn’t do harm, regardless of the tainted blood coursing throughout him, a reassurance dean could not give. hadn’t he gone through this once already? wasn’t that enough? wasn’t it obvious that he was a failure already, that he had failed to keep sam from turning to the dark side, to giving into his destiny all those years ago?

sam begged him to give the kid a chance, that they would do better this time, that dean shouldn’t be so quick to judge. cas had protected jack with his life, abandoning the two in favor of his new charge. and now dean was expected to pick up the knife again, trace the same scars, and watch another loved one succumb to his corrupt destiny again? to watch death and decay overtake another one of his children?

no. dean was not involving himself in this mess in any way other than cutting the evil off when it was weakest. he hadn’t developed any attachment to the kid yet, because that was what he was. jack was a baby, a child. and if dean was forced to watch another child he raised grow into darkness, to hate him and spit everything back out again, dean would break. he wouldn’t put himself under the rack, and expect to walk out human again. he knew better.

[goldlightwriting]

Changes I'd Make to Fire Emblem Engage

I've talked about Fire Emblem Engage a fair bit on my channel, so I think it's about time I delved into the alterations I would personally make to the narrative.

-The world of Elyos is themed around the cycle of time: each of the main nations are each based off one of the four seasons.

-Firine is spring, Brodia is fall, Elusia is winter and Solm is summer. In the center of the map is an island divided between Lythos and Gradlon, which are themed around day and night, respectively.

-In ages past, the central island was regarded as the home of the Dawn and Dusk dragons; the former held the power to usher new life into the world and help it grow, while the latter held power of death and guided souls to underworld where they entered eternal rest.

-The Dawn and Dusk dragons were once both revered by humanity, but over time, the people of Elyos came to worship only the Dawn dragons, while the Dusk dragons were feared and reviled.

-Eventually, a group of humans banded together to hunt and slay the Dusk dragons, believing that doing so would eliminate death from their world.

-Sombron was one of the few Dusk dragons who managed to escape slaughter by hiding away in the underworld itself when he was young. For years he remained isolated there among the souls of the departed, his hatred for life growing ever stronger along with his power.

-Centuries later, Sombron returns to Elyos and begins raising the corpses of the deceased as Corrupted. His goal is nothing short of the extermination of all life, as he believes life itself to be devoid of meaning.

-Sombron amasses a following by granting power and a degree of immortality to those loyal to him; effectively, he can halt the decay of mortal flesh, ensuring that his faithful will live until the day he brings about the end of all things, however many ages that may take...

-A fearsome war rages between Sombron and the Dawn Dragons. While Sombron is able to kill a few of them during his initial return, the rest band together and put up a solid defense against him.

-To turn the tides of battle, Sombron begins having half-dragon offspring with some of his followers. He raises and trains them to be effective, efficient warriors and killers, capable of slaying even full-blooded Dawn Dragons.

-Many of Sombron's children fall in battle, but he views these losses as acceptable, considering that they die bringing Dawn Dragons down with them. Eventually, only two of these half-dragon offspring remain: Veyle and Alear.

-Soon, only a single Dawn Dragon remains: Lumera. In desperation to stop Sombron's vile ambitions, she enters the underworld herself and calls out the souls of the departed for aid. Her prayers are answered by the spirits of noble heroes and warriors from realms beyond her own.

-Lumera uses her power to place each of these noble souls into enchanted rings, thus creating the Emblem Rings. The rings have the power to grant the spirits' strength unto those who wear them, allowing Lumera and her followers to turn the tide against Sombron.

-At some point during the war, Lumera encountered Alear, considered the 'runt of the litter' among Sombron's offspring. After failing to meet their father's expectations, Alear was left wounded and abandoned on the border of Gradlon.

-Lumera took pity on Alear, infusing them with Dawn Dragon energy to heal their wounds.

-After witnessing Lumera's kindness firsthand, Alear eventually resolves to fight on her behalf. As Alear was a relatively unremarkable warrior, though, they were given one of the mightiest Emblem Rings of all: The Ring of the Hero-King.

-With Marth's strength and Lumera's forces at their side, Alear eventually fought their way through the legions of the Corrupted to face Sombron. The two dealt each other grievous wounds, forcing Sombron to retreat and Alear to fall into a centuries-long slumber.

-The opening cutscene removes Alfred, Diamant, Ivy and Timerra, since it's basically just a fake out to trick players into believing we're opening in-media-rez.

-Since that day, Veyle has been working alongside Zephia, her human mother and one of Sombron's most devoted followers, to set her father free.

-The roster of Emblems Rings available in the base story now include: Tiki, Robin, Chrom, Hector, Alm, and Azura. (I'm making Robin and Chrom their own separate rings.)

-This may be a touch controversial, but I would personally make it so that the Emblems are permanently bound to their chosen partner. I realize this would heavily alter and even limit gameplay to a fair degree, but the tradeoff would be that Emblem spirits would have deeper bonds/connections to their canon partners.

Below is a list of how I'd rearrange the "canon" Emblem partners. Please note that this list is NOT in any way, shape or form influenced by game balance, mechanics, or meta builds. Skills and abilities could be reworked as needed, but frankly speaking, that's not my area of expertise. I'm just trying to fit the Emblems with arguably more thematic partners. (17 in total)

Alear: Ring of the Hero-King (Marth)

Vander: Ring of the Holy Knight (Sigurd)

Framme/Clanne: Ring of the Azure Twins (Eirika for Framme, Ephraim for Clanne)

Alfred: Ring of the Shepherd Exalt (Chrom)

Celine: Ring of the Caring Queen (Celica)

Diamant: Ring of the Burning Lion (Roy)

Alcryst: Ring of the Saint King (Alm)

Ivy: Ring of the Singing Princess (Azura)

Hortensia: Ring of the Ashen Demon (Byleth)

Timerra: Ring of the Plains' Champion (Lyn)

Fogado: Ring of the Sage Lord (Lief)

Veyle: Ring of the Fated Heir (Corrin)

Mauvier: Ring of the Radiant Hero (Ike)

Anna: Ring of the Princess Exalt (Lucina)

Yunaka: Ring of the Dawn Maiden (Micaiah)

Lindon: Ring of the Master Tactician (Robin)

Saphir: Ring of the Relentless General (Hector)

[talonabraxas]

Ma Kali ॐ Talon Abraxas

Symbolism Kali symbolizes the death of the ego in the ultimate goal of human life in Hindu dharma — moksha (liberation from the cycle of rebirth). Kali is the embodiment of time (kaala) and the female form of Shiva (Kaala). Her name literally means “she who is black”.

Kali is said to live in cemeteries amid decaying corpses, reminding us that our world is nothing but a cemetery where all things that are born must decay and die. She wears a garland of skulls to show us that we too must cut asunder the skeletons in our closet. She gives us the implements for our own personal excisions. She drips blood while consuming all of creation. She reminds us that every minute is constantly destroyed in the cycle of time.

We must rise above this manifested world to see Her in her infinitude, just as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, that great saint of Bengal, saw her. He found in her “the benign all-loving Mother.” He felt in her breath “the soothing touch of tender love and saw in her the seed of immortality.”

Born of Vishnu’s sense organs or perhaps the composite of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva and the glory of the devas, she encourages us to come to our senses through teachers like Sri Ramakrishna. “You see her only as black because you are far away from her. Go near and you will find her devoid of all color….The nearer you come to God, the more you will realize that (God) has neither name nor form.”

'Om Krim Kali'

[saltydogsmut]

do you think that the questionable burial route won’t be much different than decay despite Andrew choosing to see his decision to stay with Ashley as a personal choice (based on mutual trust) rather than forced on him? I’m not sure what to make of it either, the issue of the dynamic between “Andy and Leyley” is also acknowledged in both routes (in burial it is through Andrews asking implicitly if Ashley finds Andy more fun “am I no fun anymore?”),

(also another question: do you think the Ashley we’ve seen has been “Ashley” or “Leyley”)

Tldr; I think the routes will be different, even if the results may be the same. I think the questionable burial route could lead to death of at least one of the graves siblings, or a bad end where they more or less perpetuate a cycle of misery and become their parents.

---

[Meta wise: The thing about nemelei's v/ns is there's always a more or less good ending somewhere in there, even if it's not what the protagonist thought they wanted going into it. Doing what the protagonist thinks they want leads to more complications down the way, and your choices to follow through on it can lead to more pain. I think through other nemelei works you can see they are pretty critical of the idea that love innately leads to a happier life.]

And while decay has the more ominous start, I don't think it's going to be a guaranteed bad end (death) just for going down that route. Even as they kill each other it's clear they still hold deep affection for each other. Decay is more them falling into their bad habits, Andrew back into blaming Ashley, and Ashley back into breaking her promises to Andrew. It's possible we'll never get the "best" ending this route, but I think a small relapse in their behaviours is expected and shouldn't doom us entirely.

Decay and non-questionable burial have a more obvious sibling tone, but on questionable they may try to disguise themselves as a married couple. I feel Julia is going to be a major part in either case. I feel if you disguise yourself as a couple it'll definitely throw off any possible links to the past, not that they should have many people looking for them, but they are in a stolen car right now and who knows if that assassin was chatty. So maybe being a couple is "easier" at least superficially. You might get to avoid certain dangerous scenarios that you wouldn't be able to as siblings. That being said I think Julia will show up and if you're a couple that's not going to go well. Maybe you'll have to kill someone who is genuinely not a bad person for once. A scenario you might avoid as just siblings at the expense of other dangers which Julia may try to hide you from. Even with all the bad blood, I don't think she'll want more of her childhood friends dead.

But disregarding all of that, non-questionable burial is the only route where we still have a psychic vision remaining(assuming you can't overcharge the amulet). And I think we may need it to save Andrew from the demon's control as we get to see what that hand thing is. Even if we can meta game and go get the items in another route without the characters knowing why, the player will need that vision. Of course it may just be for seeing how your chosen ending plays out and allowing you to go back to pick another option.

But speculating on the future is easy. Onto the second part.

---

This question is more complicated.

I think to Andrew, the issue of Andy and Leyley comes down to power. Andy is a childhood moniker Ashley throws out when she wants to elicit a certain response from him, support and potentially affection. To Andrew its a reminder that Leyley practically owns him and he has to do what she says or she'll send them both to prison, ruining their lives. But even with that, he can't deny that he enjoys following her whims because most of the time they are enjoyable, at least more than what he'd be doing otherwise.

When he's throwing out "am I no fun anymore" in burial, it's to avoid talking about why he's so giddy and treating her like a girlfriend. Him using it is to distract her.

To Ashley, she's always been herself. There's no distinction in her mind, but acting more childishly has always been an effective way to push Andrew into behaving more like "Andy" and forcing him to take care of her. The only reason she has a distinction is because Andrew has made one. Because its about power for Andrew and Ashley, calling him Andy and him not reacting negatively is her way of checking in with him to see if she needs to do damage control or not, at least recently. Before it was her way of being childish and trying to get him out of a bad mood and play around.

Because Andrew is such a control freak the reminder of the time he has no control, even when he brings it up himself, pisses him off. Even if he knows she's not trying to exert control consciously and it's her way of introducing play, he still accuses her of using it as a way to get out of promises and piss him off intentionally.

To Andrew, Leyley is a bratty liability that does whatever she wants and he has to coddle her and put up with her whims to keep his life going. The trinket causing visions is yet another tool of control to him, one he doesn't have access to in the non-questionable route and thus, will always put stress on him because he can't just use it for himself. He has to rely on Ashley. I feel that too is going to be a crucial factor in his behavior, as even that small doubt that he can't use it and must rely on her really sours his mood.

He wants to be free to leave at any time but then make the choice to be with her. I think even fake marriage would be too far for Andrew because then he's not "free" to leave and would have to get divorced first. For Ashley however marriage means Andrew can't leave, and that's all she wants. She doesn't care if she has no control (yet) just so long as Andrew doesn't leave her. If that remains unaddressed then the friction could definitely tear them apart, no matter what route they're on.

[sadlvrgrrl]

𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐍 (.𝐢)

an aemond targaryen love story

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵(?), fluff

𝘸𝘤: 1449

prologue

・❥・

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚 𝐒𝐧𝐚𝐤𝐞

(one year later)

The Stranger calmly made his way through the bloodied aftermath of a brutal storm, collecting the souls of the fallen. Their crimson blood stains the ground, becoming a haunting reminder that death will always be the inevitable outcome, an inescapable part of the cycle of life.

As he made his way from corpse to corpse, two men remained oblivious to his presence as they continued to speak amongst themselves. He recognizes them, having encountered the two before in the midst of another battle, how could he not forget when they had dragons. One of them perches on top of a hill, and like a hawk, he scouts the area for his next prey.

“Orcs,” The Stranger overhears The Sea Snake utter, “they are truly nasty creatures, bred for violence and destruction. With their brutish strength and savage temper, they relish on bloodshed and chaos. Their presence alone is a grim mnemonic of the darkness that lies within the hearts of some,” he paused, his dark eyes gazing out to the red mess they have created. The smell of blood lingers like mist, and smoke wafts in the air like fog. Gruesome remains of humans, horses, orcs, and wargs litters the battlefield. “We were truly lucky enough to have The Warrior guide us through this battle.”

“Where did they come from?” the other inquired, his eyebrows raised with interest. He was physically identical to The Sea Snake, but shorter and heedlessly ambitious. The Stranger also noticed that he was quite fond of inquisition.

“They are not native to these lands, hailing from Middle-earth.” 

“Middle-earth?” he questions next. “What are they doing venturing this far North?”

“I do not know,” was the response, “for now, let us pray they were the only ones.”

“Father!” came a call from Laenor Velaryon, the dragon rider. His voice was laced with urgency. “A cave has been discovered, just to the north of here.”

The Stranger, now done with his task, turned his attention to the three men, his curiosity piqued by their recent discovery. He stood quietly, listening intensely.

“A cave?” the inquisitor, Vaemond Valeryon, repeated. “And who can this cave be home to?”

“Why don’t we have a look for ourselves, brother?” The Sea Snake did not wait for a response and set off, heading towards the cave. The Stranger follows close behind.

Corlys led the men into the cave cautiously. As they move deeper into the darkness, a foul odor hits them.

“What’s that stench?” Vaemond coughed and retched. “Smells of death!”

The Stranger gave the convulsing man an offended look. It is not he who smells of death, it is the decaying of the corpses. ‘Just wait till I come for you, Vaemond Valeryon, then you can tell me who smells of death.’ he grumbled in his head.

“Quiet. I hear something.” Corlys spoke. They stood still, their attention drawn to a faint sound of movements in the darkest corner of the cave. Corlys, being the leader, slowly approaches the area, his footsteps creeping carefully over the rocks and dirt. His eyes strained to catch a glimpse of anything amidst the darkness. The Stranger peaks over The Sea Snake’s shoulder, a familiar face comes into view.

The Warg Slayer.

She looks worse than when he last saw her. Her body was extremely frail and sick, with skin so pale yet soiled with dirt. The panic and fear on her face was visible, her body tensed. She was breathing heavily with short and frantic breaths.

It was a shocking and unsettling sight for the three men and The Stranger. She looked so trapped and helpless, like a small, frightened animal, and her only form of comfort was the brittle skeleton she clung tightly to.

Corlys was the only one to make a move. He approaches the girl, his footsteps slow and measured.

“It’s alright,” he spoke softly, leaving a short distance between the both of them. “I mean you no harm.”

The girl gave no response, but Corlys was determined to help her. He continued to approach, and the closer he got, the farther away she tried to be, but the wall wouldn’t let her go any further, so she chose to hide her face behind the skeleton in solace, like how a child would hide behind their mother for comfort.

“It’s alright,” he repeated. “Please, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.” The others watched nervously as The Sea Snake went to bend a knee and reached out a hand towards the girl, her knuckles color white with terror as she gripped the skeleton tighter. The Stranger can see the wariness leaked out of Vaemond like vapor. He knows the knight wanted to call his brother back, but they both knew his pleas would go unheard.

“You’re safe now, little one.” Corlys whispered, his tone light and soft. Slowly, the girl’s head peeked from behind the skull, staring at the hand held out to her. Fear still lingers in her eyes, but she starts to calm. Her grip on the skeleton loosens as she slightly moves her own hand to his. With a gentle smile, Corlys carefully pulls the girl upon her feet.

“That’s it…I got you.” The Stranger watched the scene unfold before him. The Sea Snake’s tone was soft and soothing, and the Warg Sayers allowed herself to be held, allowing the warmth she had longed and forgotten find her once again. Then suddenly, the tranquil air was shattered by an orc storming into the cage with a savage battlecry, attacking and killing the scout who was standing guard. Laenor responded quickly, with one swift strike, the sharpness of his blade decapitated the orc’s head, but the sudden intrude startled The Warg Slayer, causing her to stumble back in fear. Within her haste, they all looked on in horror as she fell and hit her head on a rock, falling into darkness.

Corlys rushed to the girl, carefully cradling her into his arms but her body fell limp. His dark eyes widen as he follows the blood trickling down her head in an eerie manner. He instantly turned and rushed out of the cave, carrying the unconscious girl in his hand. Blood was spewing out of her at an alarming rate, and he knew he had to act fast.

“Corlys!” Vaemonds yells out, trailing after him with Laenor in tow. The Stranger lurks nearby, looming over The Sea Snake and The Warg Slayer. “And what do you think you are doing with that girl?” Vaemond's eyes filled with wariness and disgust as he stared at the injured girl in his brother’s arms. He couldn’t understand why Corlys wanted to risk his own safety for a stranger who could be dangerous. The fact that they had found her alone in a cave clinging onto a skeleton was enough for Vaemond’s suspicion and mistrust to fall upon her.

“She needs to be treated, quickly.” answered Corlys, his voice determined.

“How?” Vaemond grills on, falling into steps with his brother. “We are miles away from any neighboring lands.”

“I will take her,” chimed in Laenor, “I will fly her to Driftmark on Seasmoke.”

The offer had brought a glimmer of hope to Corlys as he was quickly overtaken with relief. Dragonback is the fastest way to get the girl the aid she needs, and in need is needed. Both men ran to the said dragon, who was standing proudly and towering in the distance. The Stranger admired him. The creature was a sight to behold, colored in pale silver-gray. Still young, but very nimble in the air. Laenor climbed atop his dragon smoothly. The mighty beast then lowered himself close to the ground for Corlys to hand the limp girl to Laenor’s waiting arms.

"Fly with haste, my son,” Corlys said. “Let this girl live on, and see the light of another day.”

And with those words, they shoot towards the burning sky, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Corlys watched on even after they had vanished into the fire. The Stranger remained a few moments more.

“Why are you saving her, Corlys?” The Sea Snake sighs, exhausted from hearing his brother’s relentless questioning.

“She is a child, Vaemond.” he answered. “It was the only right thing to do.”

But The Stranger saw into The Sea Snake’s soul, there was a pull he knew all too well from long ago. It was the same pull he had felt when he had first met The Warg Slayer long ago on a night he will never forget. And then, just as he had then, he quietly left.

Task once again fulfilled, but this time, his arms empty.

(𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒆𝒅...)

a/n: hiii again, i apologize for the wait. i have been dealing with personal issues but i am slowly getting better! this chapter is longer than i expected it to be so i hope it didn't bore you. also, aemond's first appearance is coming up in the next chapter :)

happy new years !!

hoping that 2024 brings many joyous memories <3