#i have perpetually freezing hands too!!

[hungharrington]

I naturally run cold but currently idk my hands r colder than usual and I'm just imagining Steve's lil hiss wen I wrap my hand around him like it feels good but also "honey damn your hands r cold"

imagining the pure hilarity of reaching into his sweatpants during a makeout and like wrapping your hand around his cock and steve folding like a wet napkin, hips going backward as he goes ‘oh ah fuck shit damn your hands are cold’ and having to make it up to you bcos you get all pouty :)

[moondirti]

𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑, 𝐈𝐈 [18+]

familiar! ghost × witch! reader

you are a witch trapped at home by a devastating blizzard. ghost is the demon that answers your call. ( 2 of 3 /PREV )

DEAD DOVE. RATED E. HORROR EROTICA. 9K. – AO3 heed the warnings below and proceed at your own discretion.

warnings: NONCON. graphic depictions of gore. injury. cannibalism. blood licking. slaughtering + ingesting animals. violence. degradation. body horror. hypothermia. isolation. manipulation. corruption kink. religious imagery. dark!ghost. female reader. i know i said 2 parts total but now it's a 3er.

additional tags: groping. tit fondling. rough oral (male receiving). face-fucking. cum guzzling + eating. it’s all a little disgusting and not in the good way i fear.

𝐈𝐈.𝐈

The cottage is halfway buried under snow when you run out of firewood. 

It should come as no surprise, though you stare down your emptied closet like the ground opened up and swallowed your remaining reserve. Out of body, you fail to confront the cold reality that has already seeped into your walls, freezing the splintered wood of your floors, instead standing stock-still as your mind sharpens its critical edge. 

Only there is no one to direct your reproach to but yourself. Weeks ago, your rune casts had predicted a crippling whiteout, thus you set out to collect enough fuel to last you the season. Yet as night waxed on the third day of your efforts, and your hands started tearing bloody from splitting hardwood all on your own, that resolve debilitated rather quickly. Like sugar steeped in tea; your will to live was already in a decrepit state, and indeed, eagerly unravelled at the first sign of adversity. Suicidal, with hindsight. A passive play at death of which you were too fearful to try and seek for yourself. 

It did not seem like that at the time, of course. Rather, you justified the fatuous decision to stop (after cutting down a mere three trees) by concocting an estimate of how long it would be before you could venture out for more. Based on absolutely nothing but a desperation to curl back on your couch, sore but sheltered, you gave it one month. One month until the storm would abate. Of restlessness, fermenting in a prison you call home. To your distorted sense, four-hundred pieces of firewood seemed plenty enough to get you through it, despite admittedly lacking even a basic working knowledge of wood arithmetic.

Counting the days now, you’re almost tempted to laugh. Almost. The shroud of horror that newly accompanies death since Ghost’s lesson triumphs, after all. You are more terrified than you would have been a week ago. Still, you were not wrong – the firewood had lasted a month – only the weather does not seem to be looking up, and you’re trapped inside a quickly cooling cottage with no source of heat to get you to the thaw. The possibility of fatal hypothermia looms closer, more dangerous. Eerily relevant–

(Just a year ago, you watched a man die from the warmth of your ancestral home, face down in fresh snow outside the parlour room window. Your ageing mother had invited the pastor’s son over to help repair the stairs left unattended since your father’s death, and the man had called your fascination with the corpse morbid, nail between two teeth as he hammered down a wooden plank. 

No use starin’ at a dead man, lass. Not for a bonnie thin’ like you.

But you could not tear your eyes away from his mottled skin, the blue-black ends of his fingers. Even at his burial several days later, his face displayed the same, blank expression, perpetually cast by that winter’s frigid storm.) 

You imagine yourself passing in a similar vein. It will take longer, you think. You’ll be dying for weeks as your blood courses slower through you, iced by the winds that howl down your chimney. Protected, but not enough, by these walls you have been banished to live within. Unable to get even a glimpse of sunlight before shutting your eyes for the last time, the snow packed up to your windows effectively burying you without ceremony. A forgotten tomb. 

You wonder if Ghost would intervene, yet your speculation is brief. His words echo like he uttered them only moments ago. Fight or die. He has long established the volitional aspects of your relationship – he owes you nothing unless you ask, and if you do, then you would rather wish you were dead in lieu of what he asks for in return. No. He will merely watch as you take your last breath, satisfied that he was right, then scavenge your carcass for his next meal. Fated to wet his mouth like the picked off crow. A long-awaited feast.

Curling in on yourself, it is all you can do to bury yourself in clothes. Your vulnerability is often a fickle thing, you find, ebbing and flowing like seawater tides gradually gorging on their shore. There are periods you feel invincible; a being made of eternal magic, unmoved by the shifts in nature bid by time. Some sequoia, whose roots pierce deep into the earth and drink from freshwater wells unacquainted with human touch. A thing truly deserving of the title witch. 

Other times – these times being of increasing occurrence since the arrival of your familiar – you cannot help but to shrink back into a girl again. Raw and tender and emotionally volatile. Naked, sore lungs, as you’re pulled from your mother’s womb and forced to embrace the harsh cut of air. Ghost watches from his usual corner, a spectre practically pulsing with this voyeuristic game he likes to play. You know he’s figured out the predicament you’ve put yourself in, can feel yourself quailing at the discredit his judgement affords. The layers serve a dual purpose, then – for warmth, and to grant brief reprieve from his gaze on your shivering form. 

Three pairs of socks. A tunic, a fleece, a cardigan, and a coat. Skirts over your trousers. Gloves and a woollen hat. 

By the end, you have a hard time moving at all. Certainly not enough to cook, or to try tunnelling a way out of the window. No point in reading if you can’t practise your magic, either; so you mutter a quiet ignition spell over the charred firewood from last night, hoping it lasts even half as long, before collapsing on the couch and willing yourself to sleep. 

Only sleep does not come. 

Or, it might. Yet your mind is so occupied with your condition that it does not allow you to fully lose consciousness. You’re attuned to every particle around you, overstimulated in the worst sense, still subjected to an unsettling sequence of half-dreams. Brain flickering through pale mirages of dead crows, ice floes, of capsized rafts in arctic waters, their hulls resembling slabs of marbled meat. As you drown, you shout for help and pique at the sound of it echoing in real life, tangible enough that it shakes you awake. You nearly strangle yourself trying to wind your quilt tighter around your shoulders afterward, burying your nose in a pillow and cupping your cheeks with frigid hands. 

Eventually, time joins the distortion, and you have a hard time discerning whether it’s been hours or meagre minutes. The only indication is the way in which your body starts to ache with a pain so profound, it is as though you’ve been beaten. If you weren’t frustratingly cognizant of your surroundings the whole night, your first bet would have been to blame Ghost, or at least the threadbare couch you’ve been using as a bed erring too long now. Unfortunately, the true cause of your affliction is hard to misdiagnose; a violent, merciless shivering, your muscles made to tremble as if compelled to by electric shock. The teeth chattering kind – and it is exactly the rattle of ivory against ivory that serves as a makeshift timekeeper. 

Click. Click. Clickclick. Click. 

It must be two hours later when you bite your tongue and jolt completely awake from the pain, swathed in your quilt like the nesting doll that sat on your windowsill back home. Though the appendage bleeds, spreading metallic bitterness onto your teeth, you wonder for a brief moment whether you are alive at all. Foggy vision. Taut skin drawing lines down your cheeks from either corner of your eyes. When you squint, it tugs tighter, and you realise at one point you had started crying. It’s hard to tell without your nose hot and runny, or your lips swollen like overripe berries. Instead, you’re rendered to a shrivelled reflection of yourself, dried tear tracks setting the image in stone. The shadow looming above you seems to agree. 

“Not dead yet. But only just.”

You wish you could say his voice is any softer than standard. That the stars aligned, or that this is an ideal world where the antediluvian creature occupying your home has tapped into his small pool of pity. But he nudges your knee with all the detached amusement he prescribes to most things, like he can’t understand why you’re so easily affected by the cold. 

“Ghost?” 

“Almost exclusively.” He mocks.

The couch dips near your feet. You do not register why until he scoops an arm into your quilt, pulling you from warm refuge and onto his lap instead. It isn’t in you to fight, merely mewling like a feverish cat as you reach a hand out to the cushion where you once lay. Wiggling your fingers, kicking your heels. 

He swats your arm until it flops back to your side. 

“If only y’could see yourself like this. Bloody pathetic, pet.” 

“I’m c-cold.” 

“Not doin’ yourself any favours, then. This,” He tugs at the coat barely hugging your shoulders, stretched taut over your bulky layers. “off.” 

When you fail to listen, he takes the initiative for you, pulling it down your arms and towards some distant corner. You don’t miss it, necessarily – it hardly did anything to keep you warm – but you protest the loss as you would have done anything else; noisily, sniffing to suppress the fresh bout of tears spooling over your vision. 

“Think you exhausted every option, hm? All you can do is curl over and cry?” With his hands now at your cardigan, thumbs hooked under the lapel, you search his eyes for indication of what he intends to do. Ghost is difficult to appreciate even on the best of days, but now, without the handy glow of fire or direct stream of sunlight, he’s practically impossible. Like two mountains stood tall with no valley in between them, no line of logic exists that can explain his actuality. 

(And you’ve never been the logical type – there is no precise science to why goat fat and cumin work together to lure someone into love, or why you knew to stay away from the pastor who kept your mother company. Some things exist solely in magical proportions; limiting yourself to rational thought would be doing a great disservice to what they have to offer.

But confronting Ghost on a plane where he has the upper hand is a daunting task, so you stick to what rationale can place.) 

“What are you–you doing?” 

“Shut it.” He folds the cardigan around your hips, clasping a colossal palm onto the back of your neck. Though you’re used to being scruffed when he’s less than pleased with you, the purpose of this is far from dissatisfaction. You know it immediately. His skin, flesh, is warmer than anything you’ve felt in a long time. A quality of comfortable, penetrating heat that sinks into your nape and slowly works to defrost your marrow, your limbs, the icy film clinging to your brain. Your eyes roll shut almost instantaneously, body slumping forward to sink into his chest. Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, where the relief of warmth has not yet reached, you worry that he’ll push you off. 

He does not. 

Instead, his other hand slips under your fleece and tunic, smoothing over the knots of your spine to reach between your shoulder blades. There, his heat sinks to swathe your chest, and the weakly heart somehow managing to do its job, pumping blood that tickles your toes and fingertips. It drips down to your tummy too, where it weighs heavy like a tangible mass, and brings your pulse to the bud between your legs.

His touch there doesn’t last long; he pulls away only moments later, a tightness newly lifted off your sternum. One hand still kneads your nape, effectively keeping your face against his broad shoulder, but the other moves to collect your slack wrists together. It strikes you as unusual, sure, yet you’ve since surrendered your inhibitions for sake of survival. A cavewoman tradeoff. Your body purrs at the satisfaction of your baser instincts, happy to resort to this primitive state of impartiality, if only it means you’ll stay snug throughout the winter. 

Yes. If anyone were to ask you right then, you would have seen it as not only plausible but entirely necessary to stay like this for the months to come. Sated and secure and just a hint impassioned, content to doze off on the lap of your tormentor. Already halfway there, lashes fluttering as you battle complete oblivion. 

Only that isn’t what Ghost has in store, and he seems eager to break the illusion you hold in such high regard. 

He releases your neck, guiding you to sit upright upon his tree-trunk thighs. When you object by reaching for his hands again, you find that your own are securely fixed behind your back. Completely immobilised. 

Sensation slowly trickles back to you. Once numb, your skin now comes alive with frayed nerve endings, crackling, hair standing on its ends. What you find, alarmingly, is your place within a twisted example of the lesson Ghost has been attempting to teach. The lightness on your sternum not as metaphorical as you had assumed – rather, the bandages binding your breasts have been unwrapped to treacherously hitch your wrists together. The rough fabric excoriates the surface of your forearms. 

Your breathing accelerates. If you’d been freezing before, you’re thoroughly iced now. Shock races through your system and persecutes everything that lulled you into this position. Stupid, stupid, stu–

“Ghost.” You hiss. “Ghost. This is-isn’t funny.”

He doesn’t respond, rolling your top to reveal the soft stretch of your navel. It involuntarily retracts when he flits over your belly button, dodging the unwelcome spread of his fingers. Your body's way of protesting, for all you lean into his touch. Too tempting not to, really. Something in him burns; perhaps a furnace in place of his heart, or a piece of hell he takes with him wherever he goes. 

That primitive voice grows louder, whispering deceptively in your ear that it’s fine, let him touch you. So long as you stay warm. 

You shake your head as if to jerk the instinct off your crown. Lips pursed tight now, the hand on your belly slowly climbing up. Up. 

“Stop it. Stop this, I d-don’t want it.” 

“I know.” He says, pressing his thumb into your waist. It digs until it hits a rib, tenderising muscle. You’re a lamb on a spit, spun slowly, roasted over an open flame. How silly of you to lean into the burn. Short-sighted to decide that it’s better than the cruel press of winter. You’ll be eaten like this. 

“Then g-get the fuck off me!” You yelp, swaying on your haunches in a bid to knock yourself off his lap. Your arms are useless, but that does not mean you cannot fight. “I order you!”

That pulls a laugh from him. Or, what sounds like a laugh. As with everything, it’s his estimate of a human one, like the cicada mimics the bird; not as melodic, rather striking you with disgust so potent you feel your nausea reawakening. You might just hurl.

“And wha’ will I be granted in return? Nothin’ you have that’ll convince me to unhand you, pet.” Ghost rucks your tunic to your shoulders at last, exposing your bare breasts to bitter air. Though he gives them no time to pebble up, large paws enveloping both mounds and squeezing until your breath syphons from your lungs. “Haven’ seen a pair of tits in decades. Suppose you humans do have somethin’ going for you.” 

Your words startle in your throat. Nothing about it is pleasurable, nor does he intend for it to be. His fingers take your nipples; rolling, tugging, pinching. Nails dig crescent cuts into the darkened skin there, perhaps searching for blood. He certainly treats it as though blood is the aim, and you wonder whether you’re to be hung from your bust to drain onto his waiting tongue. Just as one might press olives, no care for their pulpy bodies but only the rich oil they produce. Grease to slick their pans, to moisten their mouths. 

You’ll be eaten like this.

“Stop, please.” 

“Wonder what y’would look like plump with milk. Nursing my litter, rounded out with another dozen.” He sucks his teeth, contemplative. “Body wouldn’t handle it, f’you ask me. Stronger women than you ‘ave tried.”

Have. It hurts to think about. Hurts more when the insult of his words truly resonates. Stronger women. That is to say you have been exiled for nothing. That with a year of solitude and occult practice, you are just as feeble as before. Is this why he ate your crow? To prove to you that he could? 

The tide pushes back out. In a great swell of loam and brine, your hatred crashes vengefully onshore. You muster all of it, dipping pails into the water and letting it weigh heavy on your shoulders. It is almost negligible, you find. You scarcely feel its burden when fuelled by a focused point to your antipathy. Your teeth stop chattering. You glare daggers. 

“Let me go.” 

Your final plea rolls over him like all the ones before it. “But you’re a witch, aren’t ya? Brew up a little elixir to pull yourself through the whelping. Maybe then you’ll realise how much you long to stay alive.” 

Your neck snaps back. Before you can think it through, you thrust your head towards his face. There’s a crunch, a dizzying moment of choked silence, then a hot burst of moisture down your face. For a naive moment, you think you must have struck gold. You imagine drawing back to find his mask sticky with blood, or tar, or whatever demons have thrumming through their veins. A raw testament to your resolve, if he should ever underestimate it again. 

But the mirage is as naive as your mother. Eventually the pain catches up to you. You realise the iron-tang at the back of your throat is not the dreg of satisfaction. The tears slipping past your lashes no longer wrought from misery. Everything, rather, an immediate response to the sore condition of your nose. Misshapen and swelling already.

Ghost hums. You hoped to see him grovelling in pain by now. The battered expectation somehow makes his condescension worse. 

“Good to see y’find your spirit,” His head tilts, bullying yours into remaining still, fingers knitted firmly in your hair. “but it’s misplaced.” 

Given his derision, you know not to rejoice when his other hand leaves your chest. Your shirt slumps lamely back over your figure as he lifts the edges of his mask, folding it over his mouth. In the dark, it’s difficult to map the nuances of his exposed jowls. There’s a pale curve there, a disfigured line here. Your sinuses twinge when your stare narrows, cutting through murk to place the shape of his lips. 

It’s futile. You have no way to jam the gaps; no way of knowing whether he’s all man, all demon, or a foul mix of the two. 

The one thing that glimmers with definition is the string of spit when he unlatches his jaw, long tongue striking like a wound-tight cobra. You would flinch if you could, eyes pruning shut, but his grip keeps you steady in place as he laves a forceful path up your chin. Tasting the metallic leak of blood, all the way up to its source. 

You see it coming. Still, you can’t help but scream when he works his tongue around your nose. Loosed bones shift under your skin, steadiness fractured, cartilage support dipping inwards against the assault. He groans, and in spite of your impaired sense of smell, you get a whiff of rot-hot breath. It must all be a terrible dream, you think. The hardened muscle pressing against your inner thighs, the viscous web of saliva stretched across your face. It’s cold and you’re sweaty, and everything about the past month – the past year – seems like it has been especially curated to torment you. You would wake from this any second.

He gathers the salty drips off your eyes, the blood, every grief coating your skin. Agony blinds you – so profound it takes shape, colour. You squirm in your binds, ragged shrieks ripping from your throat. 

It echoes even after he breaks away. If it weren’t for the sudden coolness of spit drying within your cupid’s bow, you would think he was still making a feast of you. 

“Tha’ got you to settle, hm?” 

You shake your head, exhausted. “You said–” 

“I said fight, or die.” He huffs. You let silence swathe your lips, pursing them as thin as you can manage without exacerbating your injury. “Yer fighting to die, pet.”

“I just want to be left alone.” 

“‘N’ what d’you think will come of that?” 

“It shouldn’t m-matter.” Your conviction sound hollow when spoken aloud. If he hears it, he uses it as an incentive to strip your top back over your chest. Like a hot wire pushed through your ribcage, his warm hands toast you from the outside in. It is in your best interest not to shiver in delight; though you are still dreadfully cold, and your injury makes it difficult to pigeonhole any alleviation to your pain. “You can’t-t-t defile me on the grounds of greater good.” 

Ghost laughs again. “Ain’ pretending this is for the greater good, pet. The world will thank me if one more witch freezes to ‘er death.” You’re yanked further up his lap. “I let you go, you’ve got four, five hours tops ‘till your heart fails. You wan’ to live?”

You shake your head, fervent tremors batting your pout. A nonanswer seems the only manner of resistance, now. “Not like this.” 

“Clever. Tha’ still tells me you do.” He pinches the knotted peaks of your breasts, twisting until you buck wretchedly onto his pelvis. “And I wan’ to spend my evenin’ playing with your tits. A fair compromise, then.” 

What sort of familiar makes the demands? You contemplate berating him out loud, lunging for the dirty insult to beat at his status like he did yours. With no room for taking the high ground, you will do anything so long as you can later say you bared your claws. So you do not wonder, for countless sleepless nights, if there was something more you should have done. You will be mean. You will go low. You will condemn him to a fate of eternal dissatisfaction, so that no matter how much he eats or kills or takes, he will always feel his stomach a gnawing pit. 

Though something tells you he will not succumb to scrutiny against his honour. There is no code for creatures like him, who floss their teeth with crow meat and pluck the nipples of girls who grant them shelter. Nothing to hold them to expect the conditions of their summons.

Perhaps that’s just it.

You stir. It feels much like magic, when an incantation rolls off the tongue just right and the air shifts to accommodate it. Your heart vibrates behind your sternum, power bloating your veins, ricocheting within your skin. If Ghost feels it, he doesn’t falter.

“Be sure, demon.” You rasp, drawing your intent taut in your chest like a bowstring. He hums but does not stop, kneading your flesh to conform to the creases and calluses of his hands. “Be sure that’s what you want. I could give in without further fuss and be like a docile rabbit on your lap. That way, you will have taken two things from me tonight.” 

The liquid of his eyes shifts quick. You catch its gleam in the little light, and it pleases you enough to deliver the rest of your covenant.  

“By the spell that brought you here, you are bound to do what I sacrifice for.” You pause a moment. “In exchange for the blood you have ingested off my face, you will dig this house out of the snow. And for my virtue, this one evening allowance of which you have already taken upon yourself, you will collect my firewood until the season clears.” 

Ghost makes an indiscernible noise from underneath. You can not tell if he is peeved or pleased, and the ambiguity shakes you. You expected some sort of acknowledgment or counter to your trick. Instead, he does not speak on it. No pitch or complaint, protest or taunt. 

He just sits there, pawing at your chest like a satiated dog. 

(And come morning, when your breasts are raw and tender to the touch, he tunnels the snow around your cottage and returns hours later with a hundred cedar logs for the kindling.)

𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈

She prefers him in the daylight

Sun floods her little home when it rises and keeps it bright until it sets. Whereas the dark plays tricks on mortal eyes, oil lamps flickering, casting shadows that always resemble something else. She likes training an eye on what he does in his usual corner; but come night, she can’t trust what she sees. Thus, her confidence strains. She flinches at every sound. Any movement will have her tucking deeper under her quilt. His empty-eyed stare glows more sinister, if anything is to be assumed by the way she will crack her grimoire open and mouth protective spells like prayers.

Perhaps she’s afraid she caused offence, that he mulls over a punishment to teach her not to make a fool of him again. Perhaps it plagues her that she cannot stop him if that is the case. He does not tell her that, already, the worst possible thing that can confront her has. Though of course she isn’t privy to it, it’s been a month since he decided against making a meal of her. Everything he does now is moderate in comparison. He’s being good. 

Good, yes. In the evenings, he will venture out to do her bidding. The timing grants her a few hours rest, then, and him an opportunity to hunt for his dinner. 

Good, because he waits until he’s a mile out to transform to his truer self. It is easier to strip trees of their branches and snap their spines when he stands over two metres tall. Not so easy to mend the fragile tolerance she’s gained for him, which is sure to shatter if she catches sight of his monstrosity. He eludes the possibility entirely, then. 

Good, because Ghost refrains from agitating her more than he already has. And his intention in doing so does not change that decency. 

That is to say, he hasn’t grown a heart. He does not care for the girl. But the passivity that necessitated his savagery has since come to pass. She’s grown claws. She fights for her say and punches through life with guile. Any more and he would be faulting her for it, like burning the meat he tumbled through mud to slaughter. It is down to him to take it off the roast, now, to revel in the succulent bite. He’s got her right where he wants her.  

With some brief tampering on his part – laying out the temptation like a breadcrumb trail into the woods – she broke her invisible vow not to ask him for anything. Has it not made her life that much simpler? Her hearth burns bright and warm everyday; she does not have to worry about keeping it lit for the remnants of winter. He picks cedar for its aroma, it's even char, and she would not have access to that if it weren’t for his ability to tackle the sturdy tree. All it took was her debauchment, the vitiating of character to match his. 

(And really, how debauched was it if she only endured his groping for one night?)

It isn’t too much to want, he thinks. 

She thinks so too. Or otherwise decides it's worth the risk. 

It is late into the evening and his dinner sits fresh in his belly, fire chewing away at the split logs he emptied into the pit earlier. The air is thick with cloying cedar and the mephitic scent of potion-brewing, his pet crouched over a bubbling pot. She has been at it for hours, the same nightly routine since she broke her nose. Tadpoles and feverfew and sage, chanterelle and wishbone and sand. Stirred, brought to a boil, thickened with spit. Then scooped out and smothered over her sore face. A modest poultice, turned cast, to help her mend correctly over weeks.

He wonders if she considered bothering him to heal her. He certainly can. But it appears as though she enjoys keeping her hands busy. Toiling through time, grinding away like water does the earth. In the aeons he’s been around, he’s seen mountains chipped away, rocks change shape, rivers bend over time – and it is always the same eternal petulance. Stubborn mediocrity built into something larger. Endurance over brute force. He doesn’t pretend to understand it, but he can recognise a reflection of it in her craft. 

But she is not eternal. Every mortal has their limits. 

Ghost sees the iron grow filigree in her eyes, calculations imprinting onto her resolve. When she stands and turns to him, he almost expects it. The past quarter hour has built up to this ambitious ask, whatever it may be, and he’s mapped every battle she’s held within herself over the course of it. She does not want like he does. It is only extraneous circumstance that would lead her to his service. 

“I started it later than I usually do.” She mumbles, lips twisting like maggots. The hollows under her eyes are prominent, both exhaustion and hunger trimming her down to a sorry state. “I need sleep, but this can’t be heated beyond a boil.”

His cock chubs up in his trousers, aching as an array of possibilities occur to him in that second. Would he split her cunt on his fingers? Would he make her set it down atop his tongue? Her skirt leaves much to the imagination, but he imagines it bright and faithful in his head. Darker on the outside than in, glazed with pellucid slick, and shrouded in a matting of hair. The thought alone funnels salivate to the underside of his tongue. 

He meets her eye, shoulders curving inward, poised to pounce. 

Then, her brow spasms, and the wolfish instinct unravels as fast as it materialises. 

No. He cannot push it too far, not when she asks for something so little. It took all her energy to come to him now. She will never consider it again if he exploits that beyond equal measure. 

So, Ghost stands, stalking over to the cauldron and his pet. He often forgets how small she is until she cranes her neck to look up at him, all owlish blinks and delicate fingers latticed together, anxious for his response. 

“I’ll wake you.” He says. The tension in her forehead ebbs immediately, eyelids sagging now that he confirmed her ingredients will not waste. Though she doesn’t move, and he makes her stand there until he determines on an appropriate return. 

Moments later, he wraps an arm around her. His hand finds the jut in her skirt, where it protrudes to lap over her arse, and squeezes around the fat of one cheek. Even with the layers separating them, she is supple like softened butter. She makes a sound like a trapped mouse, jumping to the balls of her feet. The noise doesn’t deter him; he holds it there until he’s satisfied his grip will bruise. 

“There we are.” When he releases her, she stumbles backwards to find her bearings against the cool press of the wall. Puts a safe distance between them. Yet her stunned silence is intoxicating, and he has to actively suppress the gluttonous urge for more. Nothing is sacred when he gets like this. “That’s us even, then.” 

She nods. It is a wonder she manages to sleep at all.

(Unfortunate that the potion to heal her broken nose steals stock from her kitchen shelves. Day by day, he’s watched her sacrifice her fungi and herbs to the cauldron, prioritising recovery over sustenance. Unfortunate that she is still unable to go out for more. The winter whips cruel and merciless winds for anyone who dares step out into its storm.

Unfortunate. But not moving enough. 

It is intentional silence on his part, then. For the day will come where she opens her cupboards to eat and finds them lined with dust.

And on that day, he will be there.) 

𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈𝐈

Ghost takes his meals outside. 

That is, when he comes back lugging a dead beast and a tree behind him. You’ll watch from the window as he places the latter to the side, sinking to his knees to feast on whatever he caught that day. It always varies: hares, owls, rodents. An elk if he’s lucky. Today, it is a fox. 

Your heart knots with pity, mourning for the mammal who cannot grieve itself. Eyes blank and jaw swung open. Its fur, which typically strikes as a vivid red, can only look dull when set by the blood it leaves in its trail, tangled in the entrails bursting from its belly. The demon never minds the hair, nor the carnage. He balances on his haunches and pulls his mask up, sinking his teeth into the softest parts of his spoils. 

Though no one holds you to the frosted glass – chanting look, you have to look – you insist on bearing witness. The gore never grows easier to behold; everytime, it is the same revulsion that stews nausea at the sight. But you sit and suffer it anyway. If anyone were to ask you why, you would be hard-pressed to find an answer. 

Perhaps it is to build a tolerance for nature’s brutality. Ghost’s lesson with your crow has carved an irreplicable torment within you, revealing the jeopardy you face should you continue down your meek path. Exposure therapy is good justification, then, when your personal improvement thus far has only wrought merit. Your magic begets greater effect. You feel your self-possession flourish your spirit. Even your familiar has staved off the trouble, and you can not ask for a greater success.  

But that does not capture the core of the matter. Perhaps that is to be found in him, instead.

Because when Ghost eats, his visage will fluctuate. You do not think it is something he’s mindful of. None of it looks intentional – he does not bid whetted talons or teeth, features that would aid him in gutting the fox. Rather, they appear like fish beneath a rippling brook. Swift, transient flashes of another form. 

He sucks down an intestine, and his burly legs stretch so the joints are equidistant. They snap backwards, digitigrade heels extending, before you blink and they’re human once more.

He laps at a puddle of blood, and his mask parts to reveal two ivory prongs that steadily grow from his head. They curl, winding around his temples as ram horns do, only to disappear as your arid eyes burn. 

He tears into cartilage, and his exposed skin flakes like charred wood. The liver; his torso extends and thins. The brain; his breath condenses to black ash, as yours would ghostly vapour in cold air. None of it permanent. All of it haunting. 

The first time you saw it, you chalked it up to phantasm. Lack of sleep, insufficient nutrition. Searching for monstrosity that would better connect to the horror unfurling before you. So you set out to observe. Incessantly. Again and again and again – validating what you saw, though you received confirmation upon the second instance long ago. Sure enough, each day he reveals different parts to a whole. Excrescent spines and lofty feet. Things that have been urging for a spot in the sun, pressing under his skin. 

It’s the nesting doll all over again. Little matryoshka faces, each opening to reveal a smaller version of itself within. If you are the innermost one, then Ghost is the sisyphean effort to close them over each other in descending order. Unfeasible. Too large to comfortably remain within his confines. The wood will eventually snap in your struggle, and all the painted pieces will scatter across the floor. 

(You remember him just then. Craggy charm and blue eyes. Crafty hand – the same to restore your mother’s staircase – whittling the doll when you suggested he couldn’t. He wore a cross no matter the day, a habit of his father’s doing, and the silver pendant would sway with the paring motion of his hands. Lustrous against tanned skin. No doubt forged by him, too.

He used to call you macabre. Though it was footling fun at the time, you can’t help but grasp at what he meant as you track the steaming slaughter outside.)

“Do you like it?”

Water rushes into a tin basin, its metallic clang a forceful, echoing percussion. The noise is insufferable, grating on your ears, but you would rather it than have Ghost tow the pungent smell of death into your home. With his back turned to you, he washes his hands and mouth of dinner’s remnants, faucet spitting frigid reserves into the kitchen sink. 

His head twists a fraction, pupils coasting to assess you in his peripheral. Small talk is not commonplace. In the weeks you have coexisted, you can count your conversations on both hands. They always seem to prefer the path of internal dissection instead, judgments flung at one another through glares and body language and not much else. 

“Be more specific.” He grunts, facing his task again. From your place on the couch, you can see the way he picks his nails for stubborn shreds of fat. 

“Fox.”

A sliver of pale skin, bared where his mask ends at his nape, twitches. “No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Ammonic. Greasy. Tough all ‘round. Slippery little fucks, too.” His voice is softer when he isn’t being caustic. Skipping over enunciations, the typical rumble in his chest quieted to a hum. “There are easier, more rewardin’ meals.” 

You imagine what he may be referring to. Of every creature on this earth, only one does not have the benefit of evasion. Predators are sheltered by hierarchical canopies, demons like Ghost so powerful that they do not have to watch their backs. Birds of prey have their wings, fish their slippery scales. Even deer – slender and pregnable – are granted fleet-footed instincts rivalled only by the Pantheon’s messenger himself. It is only you, human, that is condemned to spindling, slow inelegance. Perhaps it is why so many are intellectuals, worshipers, terrors – why you yourself are a witch, sapping nature for her wares of which you do not come by naturally. That is the way things turn. Assuming the offensive to offset one’s shortcomings.

And turn back again; your effort has only imperilled you further. There is a cannibal, a monster, a man inside of your home. And you beckoned him here. 

Even as the revelation occurs to you, you can’t stave your ambition. Of course you do not parley with Ghost for the sake of it. There is nothing this new knowledge grants. But since he left to do his day’s errands, your stomach has made its presence known. Opening up like an early grave, emptiness gnarled beneath a soil bed as with roots of a tombstone tree. Every moment, every word, you are reminded of its cavity. Too long, it says, you’ve ignored the pangs of hunger that seized this trench in an iron fist. Priorities, you would reply, as you surrendered food to brew your poultice. And so your nose is healed, great, but your shelves are empty and your head is faint. Hunger surplants the cold as your imminent killer.

“My mum taught me how to fix a good stew.” You begin, rolling your sticky tongue and tucking both hands beneath your bottom, cautious not to set this mousetrap off yourself. The pressure is grounding, at least; you match your breathing to the pulse you feel in your fingertips. “I trust it would be better than raw meat.”

A pause. Ghost’s spine straightens. Then, a panic. You’re thrown off your conviction when your chest flutters and you feel it in your brain. Where is that wily being? The woman who cheated her familiar into a season’s worth of labour? You feel as though you have regressed; screeching infant, lungs flaring with a rush of new air. You cannot face this, you think, but you’re already halfway out into the world. The sink squeaks off. 

You just pray your stomach doesn’t make noise in the new silence. 

“Is tha’ so?” He says, though does not turn to look at you just yet. 

“I could try.” The words bubble like bile in your throat. It is in your best interest to stay quiet. Say no more. He’s being ambiguous so you will reveal too much in turn. The game is transparent. You can see the water-worn rocks on the river bed, so clear it’s like they’re clasped between your hands instead. Yet– “If I had the ingredients for it, ‘course.” 

There. The lip of the cliff. How odd of you to see it only as you plummet towards a frothy scree. Ghost snaps, live lightning in heated air, or otherwise like the rocks that impale you on landing. In two strides, you’re cornered by a creature with scorn harrowing the space between its brows. You were stupid not to plan an escape route, stupid to arm yourself with nothing but flimsy subtlety. There was always the risk of it coming to this, you knew that. 

“You think y’can rummage for loopholes, hm?” He leers, eyes searing holes into yours. “A trick is only charmin’ on the first go, pet. More than once and y’start to stink of stale piss.” 

“I don’t–” 

He snatches your jaw, thumb and ring fingers digging an aching grip onto either side. Your protest warbles pathetically, dies, chokes you with its rot. It’s difficult, no– impossible to decipher what he's mad at. A small, fresh part of you actually hoped he’d see your cunning as artful. But it seems your station has come back to haunt you; another mortal whose brain cannot keep up with her heart. Even if one is in the right place, you will go about chasing it in the wrong direction. Artful is too shiny of a laurel, then. Trick, too, is being charitable 

“Do not play coy with me, girl. I do not take kindly to underhand deals.” Snarled right above you, spit spattering across your face. Your mandible squeaks, bone-deep pain flaring where he tightens the pressure around your face. Fox blood flavours his breath. There is a ringing in your head – shrill, like water in the tin sink. “If you need something from me, you will admit it and cope with the terms I have in turn.”

“I-I’m sorr-eeeee.” Your apology wheezes thin when he thrashes your head in place. It is either that or the relentless force on your jaw that tears a new world of pain down your neck. The tears are reactionary, then. Hot and foggy and not at all a sign of fear. “Ah- I’m sorry! I won’t– I didn’t mean to offend y-you.” 

“S’too fuckin’ late for that. You’ll follow through, before I take wha’ I want anyway.” He shakes his head. “Ask nicely for what y’need then, pet. Go on.” 

“Nothing! Nothing anymore, please. Jus’ let me go, Ghost.” Perhaps the universe disdains your insincerity, because in a hand dealt by its inexorable irony, your stomach buckles and purls a foul sound. Like it heard your words and protests the withdrawal, gurgling out loud to whoever will address it instead. 

And he does. He does. 

“You’re hungry, hm? That it?” He shoves your limp body onto the floor, dismissive of the pleas you now regulate to your feet, thrashed wildly to strike at his shin. Everything he does is callous, mean, agitated like the sulphur and magma that run thick beneath the earth’s crust. And though it is not your first encounter with a creature of that ilk – you have had your run-ins with over-excited men – the intentionality behind it has never been more flagrant. Ghost does it to hurt you. “Yeah, been neglecting you, haven’ I? Forgot pets couldn’ feed themselves.”  

“I’w scrounge somefing up mysef.” You struggle, speech impeded as he crushes your cheeks inwards. Pearl dust flakes your gums. 

“Should ‘ave thought of tha’ before. Even if I end up breakin’ every bone in that fine skull of yours, I won’t let up. Say it, then, you daft thing.” 

The scaling of your options is instantaneous. Even as your immediate conscious lags behind, activity lights the back of your head and cracks its way out of your mouth before you can catch it. It took weeks for your nose to heal, much less your skull. You’re consuming fuel quicker than you can replenish, running on a backlog of quick-burning fat. And all of it can be taken care of if you just give in, to what will likely only be a few hours of degradation. 

(Cavewoman. Primordial. Primitive impartiality, or survival of the fittest. The world has only come so far since then, and even within its concentrated civilizations, there is no aegis but for those who come up on top. You cannot expect your liberties to be met anywhere. That, you know too well.

But here, in this feral forest, at least you can use the violation to your benefit. At the very least, you will not be exiled, cast as witch for taboo of saying the greater word. 

You are already macerated on rock bottom. And at the barren abyss of all leasts, Ghost will not hang a cross pendant above you as he stomps it in.)

He must see the surrender wet your eyes, for the grip on your jaw lessens. 

“I am hungry.” You cry, finally, lashes fluttering shut so as to guard your tears. “I am hungry. This winter has dashed my garden and I do not know how to hunt. The cushions jab into my ribs when I sleep. I feel as though my stomach will consume me from the inside out, and I’m desperate. I am desperate, and I am so, so hungry. And I am asking for your help. Please.” 

If there was any part of you that still believed he would choose pity, it is muffled and killed. You hear the scratch of fabric as he undoes his pants. Final, failing. Rustled hand behind confines, stench of musk stiffening the air. For a few seconds, you opt to remain blissfully ignorant – keep your eyes closed and imagine that the presence before your face is something different. A purifying flame, tender cut of meat, a smiling face before things fell downhill. It all sounds too good to be true, and they are. Sooner or later, you tell yourself, you have to face the misery. 

So, you force yourself to behold it before he takes that upon himself. 

His cock is heavy. Fat and oversized, length not having suffered for its breadth. Ruddy where the head peaks from an uncut tip, hard already, but bowed under the weight of itself. If you had anything to expel, you would’ve done so by now. A thicket of hair fledges his groyne – a shade of dark that pales his scarred skin in comparison – and it reeks of sweat and miasma. 

He taps it on your cheek, prespend sticky and warm. You flinch as though you have been beaten. 

“Just one thing af’er the other with you, pet. Think this’ll give y’something to fix yourself on.” 

“I don’t– I’ve never–” His thumb hooks over your bottom teeth, prying your trap as wide as it can go. Drool slicks the cracked hinges of your lips. “Don’ know how.”

“Not what I’m lookin’ for.” He purrs, cruel humour gracing his tone. Somehow, it is not a reassurance as much as it is a snub. “Jus’ keep your teeth out of the way.” Humiliation washes your neck and ears, rush of blood like white river rapids behind your ears. It is the final swatch, trumpet to armageddon, before your ruin. You suck in a breath and bring your mouth to him.

Ghost meets you halfway, treating the crown of your head as an anchor to thrust forward. Immediately, you let slip his only rule, teeth snapping reflexively at the intrusion. You expect to be backhanded, have your hair ripped from your scalp in relation, or worse. It is a relief, then, when the only force you receive is a knock against your jaw. The rapping shakes your cotton-lined skull, snaps you out of your stupefaction, and you slack all muscles to accommodate his demand.

The mass feeding down your throat vibrates, an appreciative hum coursing through his body. “There you are, little jezebel. Look a’ you takin’ my cock so well.” 

You make no effort to glide your tongue along his veins. To make this pleasurable for him beyond what he takes for himself. True to his word, your familiar does not punish you for it. He knots his hands around your head and fucks your face, careless, cock rearranging the anatomy of your neck as it bludgeons a straight path down. You sway, ragdoll with the motions, knees rubbing abrasively across the floor as he slides you back and forth over it. 

Hypoxia spots your vision, lungs clenching furiously at the obstructed flow of oxygen. You would fasten it all shut, close yourself off from the world, but your eyes bulge a little at the edges, stagnant blood keeping them arid and open. It’s hard to dissociate. Hard to pretend that the steel-wool friction at the tip of your nose, the pendulum-consistent slaps on your chin, are not his pubic hair and balls searing unmistakable marks on your skin. And your series of gags are sloppy, lewd out in the confined air of your home. How could they be anything but damnation? There is no deluding the Maker. 

(No matter how fervently he tried. Marry me, proposed down on both knees. It’ll set this whole fankle right. We’ll hold hands an’ seek penance at the kirk before th’ceremony. My pa will officiate. Yer ma will be thrilled.)

Snot bubbles from your nose, cheeks slick with tears and wayward spit. When he batters forward, it amalgamates in the soft palate beneath your spasming tongue. When he draws out, he takes it with him, viscous strings of saliva bridging the gap. It streams down to your neck, glosses your lips, webs your lashes together. You feel buried beneath its stifling coat, set down into your grave at last. Maggots worm their way into the soft matter of your brain, eat away at the tissue until there’s nothing left but suffocation. Death. Throttling void. 

Your hands flail out, seeking an end to it, but all you find is Ghost.

He slows down once he nears his end. 

The bruising pace he set stutters, balls tightening against your submental. It catches you off guard because, for the past ten minutes, you accustomed yourself to the patterns of his push and pull. For every plunge, there is a retreat, where you will greedily feast on fresh air before being choked back down on his cock. It is a break of tide, an opportunity to paddle your way above water to clear sea-salt from your hollows. A bay to hold onto so you do not drown.

Until now; his forearms twitch and you’re kept in place, forehead squashed onto his mons. You panic, hold on your breath breaking. The heady scent of sweat sweeps over you, laced with the tart products of your mouth – saliva and blood from where your canine pierced your cheek. Prespend, too. The undiluted stink of him. Hair tickles your lips. Your cunt flares, sudden, slickening the chafe of your thighs, but the unwelcome arousal does nothing for you. 

He holds your head down and spurts his load into your gullet. 

There is no room to swallow. It goes in the wrong direction, then – upward – and out your nose. You squeeze your eyes shut, disgusted scream gargling around his throbbing appendage. Distress bloats your head, temples feverish and sweating, nails digging deep impressions into your palms. It’s futile. Useless. Nothing thwarts him but the last dregs of semen spitting out onto your tonsils, pumping himself dry until finally, finally–

Ghost pulls out. You collapse onto the carpet and hack up cum until your throat bleeds. 

The silence afterwards is mortifying, tension palpable enough to writhe up against. Drained, you’ve since pressed your cheek into the puddle of filth, urging pearlescent spend to seep into the fibres below. It'll be a nightmare to clean later, you process slowly. Perhaps you’ll use the bleach, and take the same sponge to your lips.

The monster above you tuts at the display, crouching to your level when you exhibit no interest in rising to his.  

“C’mon, sweet. Wouldn’t want to waste your dinner now.” 

But you’re too weak to lift your head. So Ghost gathers your hair, puppeteering – in a manner rather gentle for your assailant – until you can lap his essence off the floor. 

It tastes like raw venison. You snivel your thanks, and imagine it is exactly that.

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[kannouo]

Cold hands/feet

fandom: obey me pairing: demon bros & dateables x gn!reader warnings: none prompt by anon: stumbled upon your blog and just read your hcs about the obey me guys and halloween, your writing is lovely and fun<3 ! i was thinking, how do you think the obey me bros + dateables would react with a mc whose hands and feet get easily cold? like 'dawg who let this corpse out the morgue 💀' typa cold. and even if they wear socks or gloves, it never seems to help much. instead, it turns into cold sweat so now it just feels like touching a defrosting chicken (projecting on this one) anyways, hope you're having a lovely day/night. enjoy your next 24 hours :] A/N: ty for the request and the kind words <33 this was funny to write for as i actually have the opposite problem myself, i run really warm. some of these are considerably shorter than others, sorry.

LUCIFER

• Lucifer isn't a very touchy person. That and he usually wears gloves, so he'll take a much longer time to notice how cold your hands get than you might expect. The first time he notices would have to be when you initiate affection yourself, and he's in the right mood to just sit back and let you touch him.

• You're sat facing him on his lap and move your hand up to gently caress his face. It was just meant to be a sweet gesture, and it certainly wasn't anything to provoke him to jerk his head away in momentary surprise.

• "Lucifer?" You say his name, a little concerned at his reaction. He was just staring at your hands.

• "You're freezing," he stated, then met your eyes again. "Is the fireplace not warm enough for you?"

• Until you explain it's just naturally how your hands feel, he will assume that the House of Lamentation is somehow still too cold for a human, and that you, for some reason, neglected to tell him this whole time. Even when he understands the situation, he's still likely to bump up the temperature on the thermostat just in case.

• You might have felt hurt by his initial reaction to literally move away from your touch, but he reassures you he was just surprised. He doesn't actually mind it, he just wasn't sure if that was how human hands were supposed to feel.

• That, and Lucifer runs cold too. Even colder than you. You're unlikely to notice early in your relationship due to the gloves, but he perpetually feels like he's been out in the cold for far too long. You ask if it's "a demon thing" and he gives you a strange look.

• For all I've said about him not minding, do not put your cold ass feet on him if you're in bed together. You'll lose your Lucifer's bed privileges until you can prove to him you've learned from your actions and promise not to do it again.

It's a surprisingly peaceful evening in the House of Lamentation. You sit with your DDD in hand in front of the fireplace, mindlessly scrolling through your socials when you suddenly feel something freezing touch the back of your neck. You lurch forward in shock, rubbing the afflicted area as you spin your head around to catch the culprit. There stands Lucifer, a pleased smirk on his face as he casually fits his glove back on his right hand. "Lucifer!" In a split-second decision, you jump up from the couch and begin to chase after him, hand outstretched. If it's a war he wants, then it's a war he'll get.

MAMMON

• Notices pretty early on. If he still hadn't developed feelings for you by the time he noticed, he'd likely react a little too dramatically and make some sort of comment about how your hands feel like ice and will threaten you not to touch him again.

• He deeply regrets that choice of words later on though. Even if you are cold enough to make a weirdly convincing dead body, that doesn't mean he wants your affection and attention any less, but it's not like he'll tell you that straight up. He'll try to get you to start touching him again with vague (or what he thinks are vague) hints and just hope you catch on and give him what he wants.

• If you don't, he'll frustrated eventually. Will literally grab your hands and place them on his face so you're cupping his cheeks, grumbling the whole time about how stupid you are and how he has to do everything for you.

• "I thought you didn't want me to touch you again." You smile, running your fingers through his hair. He sputtered.

• "W—well, that—" He huffed and bit the inside of his cheek, shooting you a half-hearted glare. "—Whatever! That was a long time ago. Things change! And— I mean, I'm sure you've been wantin' to touch me this whole time, right? I'm just... bein' considerate."

• It's best not to call his bluff. He'll get embarrassed and pouty.

• Like Lucifer, is also lowkey concerned for your health, and isn't sure if it's normal or okay for humans to be so freezing all the time. He'll still complain all the same when the thermostat is turned up and tries his best to find a workaround, like buying you fuzzy socks and gloves to keep you warm instead so the temperature can go back down.

• Obviously, this doesn't work and just makes your hands and feet cold and sweaty. He concedes that he'll just have to deal with it.

• A perfect target for pranks using this. Suddenly shove your hands up his shirt or place your feet on his bare legs. He has such dramatic and whiny reactions but ultimately won't do anything about it — denying you affection is far more of a punishment for him than it is for you.

You sit, confused, as Mammon holds both of your hands in his. He cups them together and breathes into them, then rubs them against each other like you would do to keep yourself warm in a freezing climate. The only problem is, you're in a room with several functioning heaters. "...What are you doing?" You finally ask. He glances up at you, then goes right back to what he was doing. "I'm tryin' to help you," he says. "This'll warm ya right up, won't it? Then Lucifer can turn the thermostat back down. I'm basically boilin' alive in here!" That definitely isn't how this technique works, but... he seems too determined to stop now.

LEVIATHAN

• Same.

• Levi's hands are usually pretty clammy, but they're also always cold. If Lucifer's hands are "been outside for too long" cold, then Levi's are "freezing death-grip" cold. He doesn't even really notice it, as the rest of his body runs equally as chilly.

• It's an understatement to say Levi isn't all that into touch. It makes him extremely nervous, and the most he'll ever be able to muster without panicking internally is resting his head on your shoulder or intertwining your pinkie fingers together. Because of that, he either takes a very long time to realise or just doesn't at all.

• It's also pretty difficult for him to discern how cold your hands are when they're against his skin, which is just as frigid.

• He's unlikely to notice on his own. He'd only really figure it out if one of his brothers made a comment about your hands being freezing cold that he happened to overhear. Afterwards, he'd ask you if it was true, and would just nod and be like "huh" when you explain. Overall he doesn't care, because he can't even tell.

• Since you don't run cold in the same way he does, it still startles you whenever he puts an unexpected hand on your shoulder. It'll take some time for him to believe you when you say you only react like that because of the shock, and at first he ends up feeling bad and locking himself in his room whenever you jump away from his touch.

"Levi..." You frown, kneeling down in front of the Avatar of Envy, who is curled up and hiding his face from you. "You just surprised me, that's all..." You really hadn't intended to upset him. He tapped you on the arm to get your attention and the sudden chill made you flinch a little, that's all. But he seems to have taken it in the worst possible way. "N—no, I get it..." Levi says with that same defeated tone you were so used to from his self-deprecating monologues. "O—of course you wouldn't want to be touched by an ugly, yucky otaku like me..." "Levi, come on..."

SATAN

• Satan realised by pure chance. In the library together, you walked alongside him as he chattered away about any books he thought you might enjoy. Pulling one out from the nearest shelf, he handed it to you, telling you to read the blurb and tell him what you thought. You unintentionally brushed your hand against his as you did so.

• He didn't react immediately, waiting for you to finish skimming over the back of the book. Only then did he bring it up. "Are you cold?"

• Confused, you replied. "What?"

• "Your hands feel cold," he said. "If you are, I could lend you my jacket? I don't want you getting sick."

• As tempting and sweet as that offer was, you shook your head and explained your hands were just like that. To that, he nodded his head, apologised for assuming anything, and then proceeded to insist you take his jacket anyway. It's a romantic fantasy of his.

• He absolutely tries to buy you gloves, thicker socks and/or shoes. He's confused but understanding when you say they don't really work, and honestly doesn't mind as long as you reassure him the coldness of your hands and feet doesn't really bother you. He just doesn't want your hands to be achy and stiff all the time.

• Otherwise, he doesn't mind it. He'll hold your hand, kiss the back of your palm and allow you to be affectionate with him all the same. He might try to encourage you to shove your hands up Lucifer's shirt though. Just once.

• Don't do it to him though. Demon form instantly.

• Surprisingly, Satan usually doesn't care much about feeling your cold feet on him if you're cuddling together either, but it might irritate him if he feels it in the middle of the night when he's too tired to be fully logical.

"Satan, there's no way I'm doing that," you say as you stare down the demon in front of you, unimpressed. "He'll kill me." "He'd kill me, not you." You roll your eyes as you realise Satan clearly isn't giving up on trying to convince you to 'prank' Lucifer by shoving your hands up his shirt. With the amount of layers the first-born has, you aren't even sure if you'd be able to if you tried. "...If you do it, I'll take you to that cat cafe you liked." You eye him suspiciously. "...The one with Luna?" "The one with Luna."

ASMODEUS

• Asmo runs pretty warm. He has to, with how he spends hours out clubbing in the cold climate of the Devildom wearing as close to nothing as he can possibly get without being accused of public indecency. So you being cold to the touch is a bit of a shock to him.

• He had been begging you to let him do your nails all day until you finally caved. But just as he took your hand in his, he hesitated. "Darling, you're freezing. Why is that? My windows are all closed."

• "Oh... no, my hands are always like that."

• He pouted. "Poor thing. Well, once I'm done with your nails, how about you spend the rest of the day holding hands with dear old Asmo, hm? That should warm you right up! ♡"

• Insist all you want that it doesn't bother you or that you can't even feel it, he'll just act like he doesn't hear so he can continue to use it as an excuse to be all over you.

• It actually isn't that bad though. Being naturally warm, pressing your hold hands against his skin actually feels super nice, and he's always the one initiating it. He's impossible to scare by randomly putting your hands on him, too. He'll just react with a smile and a dirty comment.

• He'll buy or fashion fingerless gloves for you to try in the hopes it might be a little less suffocating than ones that cover your whole hand. They do work a little better, but you may or may not find them uncomfortable depending on your preferences.

• He keeps asking you to touch his back because he likes how your cold fingers feel against his skin, but only do so if you're prepared for him to let out a very exaggerated moan to embarrass you. Can and will do that shit in public.

You lean against Asmo, one hand under his shirt and resting against his side and the other clasped in his own. Every now and again he ducks his head down to place a kiss against your knuckles before resting his head back on your shoulder. The quiet added to the rare peaceful and serene moment, but just as you let your body relax... "Asmo!" You snatch your hand away when you felt him start to move your wrist further down his body. He giggles as you shove at his shoulder. "Honestly! You're insatiable! I'm leaving!" "No, no! Baby I'm sorryyy!~"

BEELZEBUB

• When Beel feels your cold hands brush up against him for the first time, he doesn't even ask questions in the moment. He straight-up drops his jacket on you right away and apologises when you nearly tumble to the ground from the weight of it.

• Beel is another one who will be very concerned. From what he's heard, humans emit natural body heat, and he's only ever heard humans be described as "cold to the touch" when they've been out in bad weather for too long or if they're dead. And he knows for a fact you've been inside all day, so... Are you dying, MC?

• He tries to believe you when you say it's natural and nothing to be so worried about, but he just can't help it. His hands are calloused and rough from centuries of playing sports, so he's hardly bothered by the chill of yours and will just hold them whenever he can to try and "warm you up".

• Is convinced that eating warm food and drinking hot beverages will help. Even if you don't actually feel cold, he might still insist you drink the hot chocolate because he's uneasy.

• He's overprotective by nature. If you can get him to loosen up and stop fretting, he'll apologise for having worried so much. He doesn't want you to be annoyed with him for overreacting about something you're so used to and consider totally normal.

• Is totally fine with you placing your hands or feet on him. He doesn't even react most of the time. You're convinced he can't feel it.

"Beel, honestly, I'm fine..." "But..." He glances between you and the cup of tea in his hands. He can't look at the drink for too long though, or he starts to feel the urge to chug it himself. He can't do that — it's supposed to be for you. "Please? A hot drink is always best on a cold day." "We're in a heatwave..." You sigh, unable to argue any further. Giving in, you take the cup from his hands. "Fine, I'll drink it. But I'm telling you, there really is nothing wrong."

BELPHEGOR

• To be blunt, he isn't a fan.

• He's been right on the cusp of falling asleep only to be startled awake by your freezing hands and feet touching him as you crawl into bed way too many times. He isn't against you cuddling him completely — you're still a good cuddle-buddy, in a "cold side of the pillow" way — but he would like you to keep your hands above his clothes and your feet to yourself. Thanks.

• Aside from Mammon, he's also likely to complain about the thermostat temperature being turned up by Lucifer, which in turn causes Beel to complain on his behalf. He keeps waking up after long naps all sweaty and hot... eugh.

• On the bright side, him being too warm means he'll suddenly switch up on your cold hands. Suddenly, he loves the feeling of them against his skin, and needs you by his side to cool him down while he sleeps.

• Joins Satan in encouraging you to shove your hands up Lucifer's shirt. Do it. Just once. Unfortunately for Satan however, Belphie is a little traitor, and will also go behind his back to tell you to do it to him right after.

• A complete hypocrite. If you pull the same stunt on him he'll make the most exaggerated pouting face you've ever seen and go complain to Beel about you. If you look at him while he's doing so, he'll give you a shit-eating smirk when Beel isn't looking.

• Gets you matching fuzzy socks. He knows they don't really work in keeping your feet warm throughout the day, but asks you to at least keep them on when you two cuddle, so you can match with him and he can avoid any rude awakenings.

The fourth-born had been absent for not five seconds when Belphie scoots over on the couch to whisper in your ear. "When Satan comes back," he pauses, stifling a yawn. "Shove your hands up his shirt. Like you're going to do to Lucifer." You give him a look. "Why would I do that?— And I never agreed to do it to Lucifer." "It'll be funny," he grins lazily. "Look, he's coming back. If you don't do it, I'll grab your wrists and do it for you, you know..."

DIAVOLO

• Diavolo doesn't just run warm, he runs hot. Almost uncomfortably so. Never expect to be able to cuddle with this guy without getting sweaty.

• When he first feels your cold hands, he either assumes humans are just naturally so frigid or goes the Lucifer route and does everything he can to increase the temperature of RAD and the palace to prevent you from being so cold. After one absolutely sweltering day at RAD, you asked Diavolo what was going on and why it was suddenly so blisteringly hot.

• "I raised the temperature as much as I could to make it more comfortable for you!" He flashed you a big, proud smile. "Come now, let me feel your hands. It should be better for you now, yes?"

• "Ah... why are they still cold?"

• He means well, really, but he's very confused. He becomes more understanding once it's explained to him and thankfully turns the temperature back down. You swore all of your classmates were seconds away from murdering one another just from the humidity alone.

• It's not like you have the guts to do it anyway — and if you did, Barbatos would stop you — but in case you were curious, he also doesn't react to the feeling of you suddenly putting your hands on him. Like Asmo, he actually thinks the chill of your fingers is quite nice.

• He might offer to hold your hands in his whenever you're sat next to him because he's fully aware of how warm he is in comparison to you. It warms you up and feels pretty good.

RAD student council meetings are usually quite dull. Unless they were in preparation for some kind of event, in which case you could expect the opposite problem — all the brothers would be bickering amongst themselves so loudly that it felt like all the energy had been drained out of you by the time you returned home. Today, however, was on the quiet end of things, and you were just waiting for it to be over. You sit next to Diavolo, cheek resting on your hand as you idly tap the table with the eraser end of your pencil. "MC." He nudges you a little. Your head shoots up, momentarily afraid he had realised you were zoning out, but he meets you with a smile and offers you his hand. Wordlessly, you place your free hand in his and he gently clasps his fist around it. Student council meetings are dull, but at least you have Diavolo to share little moments like these with.

BARBATOS

• Another man with gloves here. He knew about your cold hands from listening to the others or observing the jokes you'd play on them using it, but he's unlikely to have any personal experiences with them until much later.

• He honestly doesn't care that much. However, if you feel your hands starting to ache or go stiff, he'll hold them in his own and breathe into them to warm them up. Either that or he'll give you his own gloves for a period of time. They're already warm from him using them, so it's actually pretty nice.

• Is one of the only demons to be reasonable about it. Everybody thank Barbatos.

• Won't interfere with you suddenly putting your hands on anyone or shoving your hands up their shirt, unless it's Diavolo, obviously. He thinks their reactions are amusing. It isn't even worth trying to do to him though, he's impossible to catch off-guard. That, and his hands are also pretty cold, so he can and will do it right back.

• Encourages you to do it to Solomon and will protect you from the sorcerer's wrath afterwards.

• Not to repeat myself, but once you two further your relationship a little more, you'll discover he also quite likes the feeling of your hands on him. He isn't one to show it physically, but he'll let you know how pleasant he finds it if he's in an affectionate mood.

• Not a very cuddly person — mostly because he just never has time for it — but on the rare instance you two cuddle, he won't care much about you placing your feet on him but will pretend like he's mad about it to tease you. He'll get up and refuse to return until you literally beg for forgiveness, at which point he smiles and tells you he never truly minded, but since you asked so nicely he'll come back to the couch with you.

Spotting Barbatos in the kitchen completely focused on his baking would usually be a sign to leave him alone as to not distract him. But for you? No, it was the perfect opportunity to strike. He didn't look up as you enter the kitchen and sneak up behind him, and just when you think you may finally have the upper hand— —He grabs your wrists before you can land your hands on his skin and meets you with a smile. "Ah, MC." You pout, but he isn't moved. "How nice of you to join. Since you clearly aren't up to anything important, how about you lend a hand by fetching me some ingredients?" ...Mission failed.

SIMEON

• I have to imagine that Simeon knows a little more about the human body than most of the demons. So when he holds your hand for the first time, his first thought isn't "they could be hypothermic," it's just "oh, they have cold hands."

• He honestly doesn't mind or even really say anything about it. The most he'll do is lend you his coat on a colder day and tell you to hide your hands inside the sleeves to keep them warm — but then he's just left in that revealing body-suit thing he has, so he gets freezing instead.

• Simeon is a pretty affectionate person, so if you try to stop yourself from directly touching him too much because you know your hands are freezing, he won't be pleased.

• He places your hands back on his face, tilting his head to plant a kiss on your palm. "How much will it take to convince you I enjoy your touch?"

• To be honest, that's a pretty dangerous question to leave entirely up to you, but do what you will with it.

• You know how his shoulders and hips are completely bare for some reason? If you walk up behind him and trace a finger along his shoulder or just grab onto his hips, he jumps and does this cute shiver. He won't scold you for it, but he does get embarrassed and quiet if you do it in front of other people.

"Simeon?" You tap the back of his head. It's still early in the morning, yes, but you have to get up soon. Lucifer would have your head if you two miss a day of RAD, but your angel seems particularly sleepy this morning, as nothing seems to be waking him at all. He was the last person you would expect to have this sort of problem with... "Simeon..." You lower your hand and place your palm on his shoulder, watching him shudder from the cold. "Get up." Finally, you see him blink. He looks up at you, a yawn on his lips as he speaks. "Good morning..."

SOLOMON

• He has a spell for that.

• No, I'm serious, he does.

• It's up to you whether or not you trust this mystery concoction he gives you and tells you to drink because it will, somehow, make your body run warmer. He reassures you it's supposed to be a dark purple. It's nothing to worry about. Believe me.

• For the sake of these headcanons, I'm going to assume you have any sense of self-preservation and don't take drinks from strange wizards.

• Solomon's hands are very cold as well, but he insists they used to be warm when he was younger. You think, perhaps it's symbolic of him slowly leaving his humanity behind as the centuries go on? Either way, you both are menaces.

• If the brothers thought you were bad with shoving your hands up their shirt, wait until Solomon gets in the mix. He'll use magic to somehow enhance the freezing cold of his hands and make them shriek because it's so cold it stings. At least they love you enough to let you get away with it, though. I cannot say the same about Solomon.

• He's banned from the House of Lamentation because he had the bright idea of trying to do it to Lucifer. Any chance of making a pact with him is thrown out the window. Good job.

• It's a bad idea to try doing it to Solomon for the sole reason he will not stop until he gets his revenge — and like I said, he'll make his hands so freezing they hurt to have against your skin. Your best bet is to go to Barbatos for protection because, again, he thinks it's amusing, and his millennium-long grudge on Solomon has still not fully dissipated.

"...What happened?" You blink up at the sorcerer in front of you, who is dangling upside-down from a tree just outside the House of Lamentation. From the ropes hanging him there by his legs, you guess it must have been Lucifer's doing. He gives you a sheepish smile. "Well, since you were hesitant to do Satan and Belphie's prank on Lucifer..." Your eyes widen as you realise what he's talking about. Surely he didn't— "So, I did it instead." "..." "My lovely apprentice will let me down, won't you? Ah— w-wait, hold on! Don't leave me here!"

[syoddeye]

kinktober - day 25 - borrowed clothes

soap x f!reader | 880 words cw: and they were roommates, references to masturbation, pervy thoughts a/n: if you lived with soap, he would never wear a shirt. and i stand by that. summary: johnny borrows a shirt. banner by @/cafekitsune | kinktober list

You can’t decide if the universe is cold and uncaring, or extremely bored and too interested in torturing you specifically. Regardless, every day, it fucking tests you.

No. That’s unfair to the neverending, bleak void of space. 

John MacTavish tests you. Every. Day.

Well, he tests you on the days he’s at home in your shared flat. Sure, his direct deposit never fails, and you enjoy peace and quiet when he’s gone, but the man’s insufferable when present.

Cabinet and cupboard doors? Open. Dishware? Half of it’s missing. The couch? He hogs it. He spreads those thick legs, wears tight joggers, and puts those muscular thighs on display. An arm slung over the back. He barely moves when you join him, and there is always some part of him touching you.

It’s sick and twisted that he’s infuriatingly handsome and seemingly clueless about it. It’s devastating that picturing him crawling on top of you is the only way you’re able to get off anymore. Door locked, music on, vibrator on a too-low but quieter setting—eyes shut and ears open, listening to him meander around your flat while you imagine him bursting through the door to dramatically take you. God, you come so hard, hand glued to your mouth.

It doesn't help that he’s perpetually shirtless.

He’s constantly on the move and complaining that he’s warm. It’s hard to not stare when he enters a room. His broad shoulders stretch out wide, muscles firm and thick beneath his skin. Dark hair covers his chest and dusts his arms, always shiny after his morning runs and near-daily push-ups. Rugged and imposing, the kind of body that just makes you want to climb. You want to smash his face between your thighs, yank him by the mohawk, and sit on those stupid, hot shoulders. Drown him until he cries uncle.

But today, you can’t stand it anymore. He's elbow-to-elbow with you, tidying the kitchen, still damp and glistening from the shower and clad only in a pair of sweats.

“Johnny?”

“Mm?”

“Do you…mind,” you stare out of your periphery at the size of his hand compared to the sponge he’s holding. “Putting on a shirt?”

He stops. “Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

The sponge drops onto the counter, and he leans into your personal bubble. “Ye sayin’ a man cannae be comfortable in his own home?”

You grit your teeth and focus so as not to let your gaze drop to the pec right next to you. The scent of soap wafts off of him. You want to lick—

“Well?” 

“Maybe I don’t want to be subjected to a half-naked man every moment of my day.”

A second passes in silence. Then another. The corner of his lip curls, and he raps his knuckles on the counter, chuckling. “You’re a tricky one, hen, but I s’pose I can oblige ye. I dinnae ken if I have anythin’ clean, but…”

“Not my problem.” You hiss through a clenched jaw and return to furiously scrubbing the oven.

He’s gone for a few minutes. Long enough that you clean a section well enough to stare at the vague blob of your embarrassed face. Maybe you ought to put yourself out of your mystery and start looking for a new flatshare. 

This time, when he returns, you keep your eyes forward.

Until he clears his throat. “Like I said, nothin’ of mine’s clean, so I had to make do…”

With an exasperated sigh, you glance over to see what he’s on about and freeze. A glob of cleaner slops onto the ground from where it leaks out of the oven. Yeah, me too, you think distantly.

John’s gone and taken one of your shirts from your things. He went into your room, probably rifled through your wardrobe, and stole a shirt. And not just any shirt, but a ratty, shrunken shirt you’d bought as a joke on a girl’s trip years ago. You hadn’t ditched it for purely sentimental reasons, and now, his nipples stand at attention underneath the worn, whisper-thin fabric. His arms strain the babydoll sleeves. It cuts off above his navel. The top tufts of his happy trail stick out.

The words ‘Female Body Inspector’ stretch across his chest.

Maybe you died, and this is your hell. Or heaven. Hard to tell.

Your mouth dries. “Where–Did you get that from my room?”

“Hope it’s alright. Picked somethin’ I didnae think ye’d miss.”

Rising to your feet, you strip the long rubber gloves off your hands and toss them in the sink. You swallow and run your tongue across your teeth. You slowly close the distance, staring dumbly at the man in front of you. Fuck. Were you really doing this? An old silly shirt’s the catalyst?

He grins, his voice deceptively soft. “You’ve gone quiet again. See somethin’ ye like?”

“Johnny, if you’re amenable to it, I’m going to ride you to the River Styx and back.”

His brows shoot up. His eyes gain a wild glint. “Oh?”

Some responsible part of your brain implores you to see reason and remember how sleeping with your housemates is generally a bad idea. It shuts up when you see him twitch in his sweatpants.

“Mhm. My room in two minutes. Leave the shirt on.”

[diejager]

could you maybe do more of the Phoenix series or is that discontinued? But if you're still working on it can you maybe do something like monster TF 141 use hunter as a heater? Ik if it doesn't make any sense but like monster TF 141 are on a mission and its horribly cold and they're actually cold so hunter just walks up and turns into a phoenix? and just starts heating up the room 141 is in. idk I just have had this idea in my head for a while

Cw: human heating, tell me if I missed any. Note: Nope! It’s still on going, well, at least the original Au of the Phoenix hybrid!reader spinoff.

“I’ll have a bloody word with the tosser who sent us here,” Soap hissed, body wracked with tremors as he breathed into his mittened hands, hoping that the small bit of heat would warm him just a bit more than the failing heating system of their Siberian  safehouse.

They had planed to rest and warm up their temporary residence while Price took Ghost and you to survey the area, all warmly covered but mostly immune to such cold temperature. A dragon rarely needed anything other than the beating fire in their heart, kindled and powerful; a wraith, long since dead, had no worry about feeling cold or warm, only hunger and anger; and a phoenix, whose body was stuck in a perpetual cycle of life and death, had no fear of being cold when they were an embodiment of life’s fire. 

It was only natural that Price took the only people who could withstand the harshness of Siberia for a long and careful inspection when the others would freeze and shake in their thick boots and warm coats. They safehouse looked old, surfaces covered in a thin layer of dust, shelves filled with canned food - both expired and unexpired- and walls and floors as frozen as the loud winds blowing against the thick windows. It wasn’t much of a surprise that something would malfunction, the soviet era building left to appear rotten and forgotten to fit it’s intended use, and it seemed to lack any sort of upkeep. 

“We’re freezing our arses off in here!” Soap growled out, leaning closer to Gaz’s side to steal more warmth from under his wing, the soft feathers all ruffled, “Can’t even-”

Crunch

The two perked up, hands immediately reaching for their weapons, bodies tense and ready for a fire fight until your head popped in, huffing about the melted snow soaking your clothes. They jumped to their feet, running to your side for a lick of warmth that oozed off your skin. You froze at the grabbing hands, pulling you to the cold sofa and pushed under a mass of groaning and moaning bodies, happily soaking in your fire.

“Let me- ” you squirmed between them, shuffling out from under them to stretch your arms and back.

The four watched your neck crack with a wince, flames erupting from your feet, wild and bright embers licking at your skin until it engulfed you in a fiery blaze. It was both too hot to touch and too strong to approach, a fire that would threaten to burn if they touched you. It worked to protect you from an early death while you shifted into the majestic bird you were, a gentle flame in the form of orange and yellow feathers, softer than any silk and warmer than any suns. 

In your place stood a phoenix, lashes fluttering while your flapped your wings, stretched backwards to scratch the itch from the lack of use. You cooed, preening under their awed expressions before you flew back in your prior position, body heat growing hotter and hotter, strong enough to warm up the entire room. 

“Thank you, Hunter,” Gaz smiled at you, a sweet and grateful grin that made your feathers shyly ruffle up.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @angelcakes-22 @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @mul-pi @danielle143 @beau-min @makayla-666 @urfavsunkissedleo @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @luvecarson @petwifed @randominstake @heartelysia @jggykhug09090 @haven-1307 @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @call-me-nyxx @sans-chara @cod-z @sweetnanah @aldis-nuts @thigh-o-saur @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce @sobbingnshtting

[redvexillum]

Well, this was just asking for a companion piece to my other two story C☆CKWARMING and ROUGH S☆X, so thank you for that. I dedicate this story to @kewpikayo. Listen, I dedicated yesterday's story to your wife, it only makes sense this story should be dedicated to you - after all, Dew & Kew FOREVER! 💖

TAGS/WARNINGS: f!reader, human!alastor, alastor is dom, reader is sub, pain kink, reader is masochistic, alastor is sadistic, bad BDSM etiquette, no safe word, no after care, blood play, biting, spanking, rough ☆ral s☆x, p in v, c☆m outside, c☆m eating, implied period-typical racism

✨️ Companion piece to C☆CKWARMING and ROUGH S☆X. This story is the origin of where it all started. ✨️

A low, irritated growl simmered in Alastor’s throat as he watched you—Daddy’s sheltered little girl—stumble back, arms flailing as the load you carried slipped from your grip. You landed unceremoniously on the ground, the papers and boxes you’d been carrying spilling around you like fallen leaves. The sight was exasperating, yet all too familiar; he wasn’t sure whether to sigh, sneer, or simply walk away. 

Instead, he felt his left eye twitch as he forced his grin wider, an increasingly tight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Each muscle in his face strained against his better judgment, but he bent down, begrudgingly extending a hand to help you up. 

And there it was: the way your cheeks bloomed crimson as you looked up at him, hesitantly taking his hand as if touching him was some kind of privilege. 

Under normal circumstances, he would have thrived on this—the adoration, the bashful flush, the clear admiration in your eyes that so many others had shown him. The mere idea of having another fan should’ve filled him with smug satisfaction. But not this time. 

No, there was one pesky fact that dulled the thrill. 

From the beginning, breaking into the radio world had been an uphill battle. The station was his dream, and to make it a reality, he’d had to secure an investor. But with his humble roots, Alastor had needed more than a charming smile; he needed money, power, and someone with influence willing to back a stranger like him. And so he’d found himself entangled with a wealthy patron—a man who agreed to fund him… under one condition. 

He had to hire you.

You. 

His patron’s clumsy, insipid little daughter, the perpetual thorn in his side. Each time he thought he’d seen every mistake a person could make, you’d invent a new one, blundering through tasks with astonishing incompetence. His nerves frayed more with every passing day as he forced himself to breathe, to smile, to tell you gently that "everyone makes mistakes." The words tasted like rot in his mouth. 

Alastor considered himself a patient man. A forgiving man. But everyone has their limits. 

And you, quite simply, were his. 

He took a slow, seething breath, plotting as he felt the spark of a plan take root. If he could get you to quit on your own, perhaps he could still keep the funding—maybe, if he played his cards right, he could even sway your father to his side without the added irritation of watching you trip over your damn feet every three steps. 

So he began to freeze you out. Day after day, he kept his distance, watching from the corner of his eye as you struggled on, hoping his chilly demeanour would drive you away. But you were far too talkative, your relentless cheer slipping through the cracks of his carefully crafted mask. Every time he steeled himself to ignore you, there you were, talking at length about how much you loved his show, how much his puns and wordplay made you laugh, how his humour lifted your spirits. 

The way your eyes sparkled when you praised him—it should have been satisfying. Instead, it was infuriating. 

Yet, against his better judgment, he found himself responding. Something in the glint of your smile made his guarded grin relax, if only for a moment. Begrudgingly, he’d join in, rolling his eyes at your endless enthusiasm but unable to entirely dismiss it. It was as if you were some parasitic creature, a leech drawing life from him, clinging on with no intention of letting go. 

And he endured—patient, calculating, waiting for you to tire of him. 

But then came the last straw. His beloved broadcast, his dream, was starting to slip through his fingers. Listeners dropped off, each patron he had worked tirelessly to convince backed out one by one. Every investment vanished like smoke. And with it, his patience thinned to a knife’s edge, fraying with each setback. Months of self-restraint, of resisting his baser urges, of refraining from any “extracurricular activities” in favour of keeping his show alive, felt like sacrifices crumbling underfoot. 

And he blamed you. 

Though in truth, your mistakes weren’t drastic enough to ruin his business, but they were enough to tear away at his sanity: the times you forgot to pick up his dry cleaning, spilled coffee on his meticulously crafted script—one he knew by heart—or neglected to take his typewriter in for maintenance, forcing him to painstakingly handwrite his next segment. Small annoyances, but they added up, each one tightening the coil of irritation within him. 

Today, though, something snapped. It started with a simple spill, water glistening on the polished wooden floor of his office. As you bent down to hurriedly wipe it, your hand brushed against his glass vase, sending it crashing to the ground in a cascade of shattered crystal. The shards sparkled around you, a mocking reflection of the life he felt slipping into chaos. 

In one swift movement, he had you pinned against the wall, his hands braced beside your head, his body pressing close. He could feel the heat radiating from you, his knee slipping between your legs, lifting just enough to keep you fixed in place. The room felt smaller, the air charged with something he couldn’t name, something that sent a thrill down his spine as he watched the flush creep up to your cheeks. 

“I have never met anyone as clumsy and foolish as you,” he murmured, his voice low, menacing. Though his mouth held its trademarked grin, his eyes burned, dark and narrowed, a storm barely restrained. 

“Ah, u-uhm,” you stammered, your eyes darting away, body trembling before him. 

“Look. At. Me.” His fingers caught your chin, tilting your face up, so your gaze was locked with his. 

Deep down, Alastor knew he was risking everything. You were untouchable—Daddy’s little girl from a family of wealth and power, far beyond his own background. He knew what one accusation could do, one tear sent running back to your father. His dream, his work, his station—he could lose it all before he could snap his fingers, hah! 

But right now, the months of mounting irritation, of resisting every impulse, of pushing down every dark urge—none of it seemed to matter. 

“So-sorry, s-sir,” you whispered, a helpless apology on your lips. And at that moment, something snapped within him. The rush of power, the slight tremor in your voice, the glimmer of fear in your eyes—it was intoxicating. 

His fingers itched with desire, a pulse of longing, dark and primal. 

He wanted to choke you, see the life dull from your eyes, kill you. 

It had been so long since he’d indulged, felt the thrill of being in control, of bending someone to his will. Slowly, his hand slipped down, brushing along the column of your neck, fingers tracing the soft, vulnerable skin. 

Just a small squeeze. Just a taste.

The moment his hand rested there, he felt the rapid beat of your pulse beneath his fingertips, sensed the quick rise and fall of your breath. Your pupils widened, darkening with something that wasn’t just fear, and he nearly laughed at the realization. 

You were… enjoying this. 

“Was it all on purpose, dear?” His voice dropped to a dark murmur, lips just a breath away from your ear, close enough that he could feel the heat of you. “Did you want this to happen? Have you been fantasizing about this with me?” His leg shifted, pressing upward, his knee sliding dangerously close to the warmth of your core, your skirt sliding higher as he held you in place. 

There was no escape for you, nowhere to look but at him, and he could hear your heart pounding louder, a heat blooming that had nothing to do with fear. The line between his anger and desire blurred, each breath he shared with you pulled him deeper into something he couldn’t resist. 

“Did you want to be punished by me?” Alastor’s voice was a low, dangerous purr, his fingers pressing into the side of your neck as he held you there, watching your every response. The softest moan slipped from your lips, unbidden, and his mouth curved into a slow, wicked grin. 

“Oh, dear,” he murmured, clicking his tongue in mock reproach. “How utterly deviant, depraved, you are.” He leaned closer, his lips barely grazing the edge of your ear. Every sound, every whisper, heightened the tremble in your muscles as your body gave in to his hold. 

Alastor felt the thrum of his own pulse, a deep, carnal need that was building to an undeniable point. He’d known desire before, but never this tangled web of control and raw hunger that he felt with you pinned so willingly beneath him. 

To his dark amusement, he felt the tightening in his pants as he took in every inch of your flushed, submissive form. You were an enticing little thing, and now, the line he’d never meant to cross was beginning to blur. 

A tempting thought crossed his mind. “If I fulfill your desire, will you fulfill mine, dear?” His voice was a low, velvet promise as he pressed his knee firmly against your core, feeling the heat of you even through the fabric. His grin grew, an expression laced with a dangerous delight. “How utterly sinful you are, hiding that desire under a mask of innocence.” 

“I-I would do anything you’d like, sir,” you whispered, breath hitching, your hands glued to your side.

Keeping his eyes locked with yours, Alastor pulled back, though he didn’t allow enough distance for you to look away—or see the intensity of his arousal pressing through his trousers. 

“Let me give you what you want,” he murmured. “One good, hard fuck, and I,” his voice turned sweet as he tilted his head, his gaze narrowing with intent, “want you to quit for good, after ensuring that Daddy keeps his generous funding for me.” He brushed his fingers along your cheek, a mockingly gentle caress. “What do you say, dear? Do we have a deal?” 

You hesitated, looking into his eyes, the flush of your cheeks deepening as your lip caught between your teeth. “Hard f-fuck?” you stuttered, voice soft yet bold, your fingers hovering near his chest before you finally dared to touch him, briefly tugging at the lapels of his jacket. “You don't find that strange?” 

Alastor didn't care how unusual your desire was. As long as he got what he wanted at the end, that was all that mattered to him. 

The end always justified the means. 

A dark laugh slipped from him, and he tightened his grip, one hand sliding up to tangle in your hair, fingers pulling enough to tip your head back as he leaned in. He pressed himself against you, his hardness now unmistakable against your stomach, his lips grazing yours in the lightest, tantalizing tease. 

“Eyes on me, darling,” he commanded softly, releasing his hold on you just enough to let his thumb trail down your lip as he took a small step back, watching you. “Now,” his voice dropped to a dark whisper, “strip.” 

To his delight, you hesitated, only for a heartbeat. Your cheeks flushed in that shade of pretty pink he found almost as irresistible as your trembling compliance. But then, slowly, you began undoing the buttons of your blouse, your fingers shaking slightly as you slipped the fabric from your shoulders, baring yourself to his gaze. 

Heat surged in his veins, not only from the sight of you, but from the delicious power thrumming in his veins. This wasn’t just about pleasure. It was control, a feeling as heady as the thrill of holding someone’s life in his hands. 

But tonight, he was going to savour every second of holding you in the palm of his hand. 

As your clothes slipped away, one by one, you stood bare before him, your skin glistening in the dim light, the cool air teasing your erect nipples. He stepped closer, the sharp click of his heels against the polished wood. “Someone might come in, dear; are you aware of that? I left the door unlocked, after all.” His voice dripped with sadistic glee.

Your breath hitched, and your gaze flicked nervously to the doorknob, before you paled, realizing it was indeed unlocked. You had no idea that his workers had all quit once they heard wind of the investors backing out. 

Yet, you stood your ground, your eyes meeting his with a potent mix of fear and unyielding resolve. There was a trust there—a dangerous, intoxicating trust—that he knew he didn’t deserve but was all too willing to take. 

“Kneel,” he commanded, and your knees hit the floor without hesitation. His lips curled into a wicked grin as he closed the distance, his hips thrusting forward enticingly. “Show me just how much you want it, dear.” His voice was sultry and low, coaxing you into surrender. Your fingers fumbled with his belt and pants, pulling them down to reveal his half-hard cock, thick and waiting for you. 

You inhaled sharply, before you pressed your lips to the tip while looking up at him, waiting for his next command. “Open your mouth,” he ordered, and you obeyed, “Tongue out,” he added, and your tongue slipped out from your lips, eager to please him. 

With a firm grip on your hair, he guided your head forward, forcing his cock deeper into your mouth. A low, primal groan escaped him, echoing off the walls of the office. It had been far too long since he’d indulged in such raw pleasure, and the thrill of having complete control over you heightened his arousal. This was not the gentle foreplay he was used to; this was a deliciously crude act of dominance that made his heart race. 

He couldn’t help but imagine how his mother would disapprove of his treatment of you. But you craved this, wanted him in ways that thrilled and terrified you both. It felt like a dark dance of power—a beautiful, twisted exchange that neither of you could resist. 

With each thrust, he lost himself deeper in your warmth, the sensation of your soft, wet mouth engulfing him driving him to the edge. He revelled in the control he wielded, in the way you surrendered to his desires, your submission stoking the one lukewarm drive within him. 

The best part of this exchange? He was going to remain on top, remain in control, remain in power, both in the deal struck and the way he devoured you. 

When he called you depraved, a deviant, your heart sank. Deep down, you knew it was true; your desires were unconventional, perhaps even strange. You had been with other men before, yet none had ever come close to scratching the itch that Alastor stirred within you. 

Every word he spoke about you rang true. Yes, you had a crush on him. Yes, you often found yourself lost in naughty, impure thoughts about him. Still, you yearned to keep those thoughts hidden, for working for him had become the highlight of your months. 

For once, you felt needed, desired, and useful—feelings that seemed to vanish the moment you returned home, where you faced the disappointment of your parents after yet another failed meeting with a suitor. The worry etched on their faces suggested they feared you might become a spinster.

The thought of Alastor wanting you to quit stung. It felt as if your dreams were crumbling around you, and the realization that he didn’t reciprocate your feelings hurt more than you cared to admit. But if you could have him for the first and last time, you wanted it to be an unforgettable memory. 

What Alastor would never realize was that you would never allow your father to withdraw his support from him financially. You loved his show genuinely, and you wanted to see him succeed and thrive. You believed in him wholeheartedly, confident that one day he would achieve the success he deserved, so he wouldn’t have to bargain for your father’s backing. 

As his hot, heavy cock filled your mouth, you felt a rush of heat flush through your body. You gagged slightly when the tip pressed against the back of your throat, a combination of pleasure and slight panic washing over you. The salty taste of him overwhelmed your senses, and you glanced up, seeing Alastor’s eyes closed in pure ecstasy. His fingers gripped your hair, the pressure varying as he slowly rolled his hips, the head of his cock brushing against the roof of your mouth. 

Each time you choked on him, you felt the violent twitch of his cock, and a small, heady low moan from him. It seemed he relished the sounds you made, and you focused on creating a tight seal around him, sucking with all the enthusiasm you could muster. But the bliss was abruptly cut short when he pulled your hair, yanking you off his cock. A glistening strand of saliva connected the tip of his cock to your lips, then fell, leaving a tiny droplet on the floor. 

“Messy girl,” he teased, and you could see the hard anger in his eyes fade, replaced by a gleam of something more raw and animalistic. He was enjoying this, and your heart raced at the thought. “Always making a mess of all my things.” His gaze flickered to the shattered vase on the floor, but thankfully, none of the fragments had reached where you knelt. “What do you have to say for yourself?” 

Your shoulders jumped as you looked up at him, your voice trembling. “I’m so—” But before you could finish, he thrust his cock back down your throat. You gagged again, tears springing to your eyes as you grasped at his thighs for stability. 

The struggle for breath was real, but Alastor didn’t relent, pushing deeper until your vision blurred from the lack of air. You fought to breathe through your nose, panic mingling with arousal. Just when you thought you might pass out, he finally pulled back, leaving you gasping for air, your body bowed low as coughs escaped your lips, mixed with tears and saliva spilling from your mouth. 

“I should punish you, shouldn’t I?” Alastor purred, his voice smooth like silk as he sauntered over to the single-seat couch in the corner of his office. His cock stood proudly, glistening with your saliva, an inviting sight that made your heart race. He patted his knee, an invitation that sent a shiver down your spine. “Come.” 

A flutter of excitement mixed with trepidation filled you as you quickly stood up, your legs feeling slightly unsteady as you approached him. When you reached him, your stomach flipped with a blend of curiosity and uncertainty. His gaze roamed hungrily over your body, settling on your slick folds, and he hummed a low note of approval. Slowly, he extended his hand, sliding a finger between your inner folds before teasingly flicking your sensitive clit. 

A sharp gasp escaped your lips as you doubled over, almost collapsing onto his lap. You could see the wicked glint in his eyes as he observed the slickness on his finger before bringing it to his mouth, tasting you. “Hmm,” he hummed, a smirk played on his lips. “Lay on my lap, stomach down.”

Your mind spun with a mix of confusion and apprehension. You complied, laying across his lap, your gaze dropping to the floor, heart racing. You felt the heat of his hard cock pressing against your side, and his hand began to stroke the gentle curve of your ass, sending sparks of desire coursing through you. 

“Have you ever been punished before, my dear?” he asked suddenly, his tone teasing yet serious. You hesitated, unsure of how to respond. “Have you ever been spanked before?” he corrected himself with a soft chuckle. 

Confusion clouded your thoughts as you shook your head. “N-no, my mama and papa never laid a hand on me like that,” you admitted quietly, unsure where Alastor was going with this. 

“Ah, it all makes sense now,” he mused, his hand continuing to caress your ass, fingers grazing your drenched folds. The teasing touch was just enough to send waves of heat pooling in your core, igniting a desperate need within you. You wanted him to delve deeper, to flick your clit until you were begging for release. 

“Let me give you a lesson on what we do to spoiled princesses,” Alastor remarked, his voice dripping with mock cheer. 

Before you could utter a word, you felt a sharp slap against your left cheek. The sting radiated through you, a mix of pain and unexpected pleasure that made tears prick at your eyes. You stifled a cry, fingers clenching at his pants in a desperate bid for control. 

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his tone devoid of any sympathy, only curiosity. 

You nodded vigorously, the truth washing over you. 

“Excellent,” he replied, a smirk curling at his lips before he raised his hand again, delivering another sharp slap to the same spot. The pain was intense, yet thrilling, and you felt a tear escape, rolling down your cheek as your body reacted in ways you never thought it could. 

Before you could beg him to stop, you felt his fingers plunge deep into your core, rubbing and massaging against your walls. A sharp gasp escaped your lips, quickly morphing into a heady moan as your body instinctively wiggled, seeking more of his touch. The slick sound of his fingers squelching inside you mixed with your cries, blending the initial pain into a dizzying rush of pleasure. 

Suddenly, an insatiable hunger ignited within you. You hadn’t realized how exquisitely pain and pleasure could intertwine. “Please, sir, m-more,” you mewled, unable to hold back the desperate need spilling from your lips as you turned your tear-streaked face to meet his gaze. Your heart raced, overwhelmed by the heady blend of emotions and sensations. 

Alastor’s fingers stilled inside you, his eyes darkening as they traced over your expression, drinking in your vulnerability. The corners of his lips twitched with satisfaction, and you felt the heat of his cock twitching insistently against your side. In a swift motion, he withdrew his fingers, pulling you up and manoeuvring you to straddle his lap. 

Blood rushed to your head, the dull ache of arousal amplifying every sensation. Your breath hitched as you felt the thick tip of his cock pressed against your entrance. With a firm pull, he sank you down onto him, filling you completely to the hilt. 

A scream tore from your throat, a mix of shock and bliss as the delicious stretch enveloped you. Tears streamed down your cheeks, mingling with the sharp, heat of pleasure as his cock throbbed against your walls. The arousal only mounted as Alastor leaned back against the couch, his mouth slightly parted, eyes fluttering shut in bliss. 

Moments later, he opened his darkened eyes. His fingers released your hips, and he commanded, “Move.” 

You hesitated, adjusting to his size, then began to lift yourself up, savouring the emptiness he left behind before sinking back down onto him again. The rhythm felt exhilarating as you rode him, bare and exposed before his hungry gaze. 

His hands found their way to your nipples, fingers grazing your sensitive skin, teasing your areolas with gentle circles. The electric pleasure shot through you, urging you to move faster, each rise and fall sending jolts of pleasure through your body. As you sank back down, he pinched your nipples hard, the sensation exploding through you. 

A sharp cry escaped your lips, mingling with a wave of decadent arousal that crashed over you. Desperation consumed you as you began to grind against his hip, your clit pulsing with need, craving attention, longing for the release that only he could provide. 

“My, you certainly do handle pain in quite a strange way,” Alastor said, his breath coming in heavy, lust-filled gasps as his hips jerked up against you. “Though—hah—I can’t say that I dislike it,” he murmured, a wicked grin spreading across his lips. 

He pulled your body forward, pressing his face between the soft, inviting curves of your breasts. His hips took full control, pistoning his thick cock deep inside you. Each thrust sent shockwaves of pleasure rippling through your body, rising in a staccato rhythm that matched the desperate cries spilling from your lips. His teeth sank into the tender flesh of your breast, and you felt a delicious blend of pain and elation that blurred the lines of your pleasure. 

Your fingers dug into his shoulders, clinging to him as he bit down harder, his hunger for you evident in the fierce way he held you. Finally, he let go, his breath hot and ragged as he revealed his lips stained crimson with your blood. 

Your heart raced as you looked down, seeing the deep teeth mark oozing with warmth. His tongue flicked across his lower lip, savouring the taste of you as he pressed you even deeper onto his cock. A deep, throaty moan escaped him, the sound raw and primal. 

His eyes glinted with a dangerous hunger, and he bit into the underside of your breast once more, drawing another cry from your lips as his cock throbbed insistently against your walls. Instantly, the world flipped, and your back hit the cold floor, the shock sending sparks of mind-numbing pleasure coursing through you. Alastor's every bite left a blazing trail of sensation, a heady mix of sharp pain and bliss. His teeth glistened with crimson, and he began to thrust into you with desperation, each powerful movement sending waves of euphoria radiating from your core. 

It was overwhelming—the way he drilled into you, the way his hips slapped against your clit with a relentless intensity. The wet sound of skin against skin filled the air, mingling with the cacophony of his moans and your cries. Just as he sank his teeth into your other shoulder, you felt a blinding rush of pleasure, a bright flash that took you over the edge. You shattered around him, your body convulsing in waves of pure bliss as he continued to thrust, driving you deeper into ecstasy. 

Sobbing with a mixture of overstimulation and overwhelming emotion, drool trickled from your lips as tears flowed freely down your cheeks. You clung to him, the intense heat of your orgasm washing over you in a torrent. When he finally withdrew, Alastor positioned himself above you, pumping his cock vigorously, each stroke pulling a raw, primal growl from deep within him. The gleaming head of his cock pointed toward you, dripping with unsatisfied lust. 

With a low, guttural sound, he released himself, spurting hot, milky liquid that mingled with the crimson of your blood, swirling together into a beautiful shade of pink. The warmth splattered across your face, your neck, and trickled down the curve of your chest, marking you as his. 

When he finally let go, he gazed down at you with a mix of desire and admiration. “My, how pretty,” he murmured, his voice thick with lust, his eyes glazed and wild with an unquenchable hunger. 

Your heart raced at his words, and you lay still, the remnants of your orgasm still pulsing through you, each throb a reminder of the heat and sting left by his bites and slaps.

You didn’t dare speak as you waited for Alastor to gather himself, bracing for the inevitable moment he would fire you. Instead, he did something entirely unexpected. With a slow, deliberate movement, he traced his cum, now mingled with your blood, transforming into a light pink hue across your bottom lip. The sight sent a shiver down your spine, a mix of fear and something more debased stirring within you. 

He then penetrated your mouth with his finger, the salty, bitter taste flooding your senses. You could taste the metallic tang, and a whisper of disgust escaped your lips as the awful flavour overwhelmed you. 

“I expect to see you tomorrow,” he murmured softly, his gaze locked on your lips, hypnotized as he pistoned his finger in and out of your mouth. Each movement was both gentle and demanding, making you feel utterly exposed. “Perhaps I underestimated your usefulness,” he continued, pressing down on your tongue, forcing you to swallow around him. “If you don’t come, I’ll assume you quit.” 

As he withdrew his fingers, glistening with your saliva, he brought them to his own, licking them clean with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes boring into yours with an intensity that made your heart race. The way he savoured you, relishing the taste, ignited a forbidden thrill deep within you. 

“Understood,” you managed to say, your voice hoarse yet tinged with submission. The soft addition of “sir” fell from your lips like an offering, and the way his eyes darkened in response sent a jolt of excitement through you. 

His grin stretched wider, a predatory gleam flashing across his features, making you feel like prey caught in the gaze of a hungry predator. You were trapped, utterly captivated by his dominance, and yet there was a part of you that craved it—craved him.

And deep down, you knew you would let him devour you whole, wouldn’t you?

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[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 2: Tiger's Eye]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.7k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @arcielee @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus, more in comments 🥰

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The taxidermied tiger head hangs above the fireplace in the sitting room, its jaws agape in a perpetual roar and its eyes polished spheres of metamorphic rock the color of dusk. Daemon shot it in Burma years ago—valleys of saturated green earth, mountain ranges like a crooked spine—shortly after opening his third black opal mine in Australia. You stare at the disembodied creature and she stares back, a silent scream, a doomed eternal terror in her tiger’s eye gaze: Help! A man is killing me. A man is taking me from where I belong. A man is nailing me to a wall so all the world knows he is the one whose bullet severed my aorta, filled me with hemorrhaging blood until I sank down, down, down.

You say, still looking at the slayed beast: “Did we really have to bring that with us?”

Daemon glances over as he fastens his cufflinks, onyx with red beryl in the shape of a three-headed dragon, the Targaryen family crest. “I’m sure you’d prefer a finger painting from that Italian tosspot you’re so enamored with. What’s his name, Pizarro?”

“Picasso. And he’s Spanish.”

“Even worse.”

You turn to Daemon, and you can feel yourself wilting, becoming pitiful, vulnerable, needy. “Where are you going?”

He smirks as he stalks past you. “Wherever I want.” Then he passes through the doorway and out into the hall, flanked by the ever-grim Edward Rushton, black suits and polished leather shoes.

It’s midday on April 12th, and you and Fern are now alone in the Targaryen staterooms. Laenor is down on F-Deck enjoying the Squash Racquet Court with his new Parisian companions, Rhaenyra is in the Reading and Writing Room with a group of ladies led by the Countess of Rothes, and Dagmar has taken Draco…somewhere. Meanwhile, your sweet-tempered maid is flitting around making beds and collecting empty cups and soiled linens. “Fern?” you call.

She peeks out of Draco’s bedroom. “Yes, ma’am? Do you need something?”

To leap overboard and swim back to Ireland. “Would you like to take a stroll around the Promenade Deck with me? Breathe some fresh air, look for dolphins and whales, have lunch at the Verandah Cafe?”

Fern is apologetic in that soft, skittish way that she has. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I have to finish cleaning the rooms before Dagmar comes back.”

She doesn’t say why—that would be insubordinate—but you know. Just like on the family crest, the dragon has three heads: Daemon, Draco, Dagmar. All must be appeased lest their fire turn you to ash. And Fern lives in terror of the gaunt Scandinavian tyrant. “Right. I understand.”

“I should be done in an hour or two. When you return from your walk, I’ll make you tea.”

“You’re too kind.”

She is confused. “It’s my job, ma’am.”

“Still, I’m glad you’re the one doing it.”

Fern smiles, small and hesitant. “Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy your walk.”

Outside on the Promenade Deck, the sun is bright and the wind brisk, just warm enough to forego a coat, black mink or white ermine or grey rabbit or reddish fox, pelts harvested, creatures butchered. Your dress is a cheerful yellow, as if attempting to conjure the golden-haired magic of the Targaryens, their willfulness, their invincibility, their habit of bending the world’s truth in their hands until it snaps. Yet none of them are here with you; you are alone, you are unnecessary. As you walk, you pass women reading novels on teak deckchairs, children playing with spinning tops and dominoes under the watchful eyes of fathers and governesses, men smoking cigars as they debate business and politics and which gemstones they should purchase for their sweethearts. You have to get away from them.

You take the Grand Staircase up to the Boat Deck, the highest level of the ship, and to distract yourself you count the covered lifeboats that are stowed there. This does not assuage your anxiety; you see only twenty, and while you have made a practice of avoiding sailing and therefore are no expert on the issue, this does not seem like enough. You go to the railing—about as tall as your waist—and lean over it as you stare, thoughts troubled and brow furrowed, into the wild, uninterrupted blue of the North Atlantic, five hundred miles from the coast of Ireland. To your left is a man painting a sheet of paper clipped to an easel, a palette held in his hand, viscous globs of color from small silvery tubes. Seventy feet below where you stand is the sea, thrashing against Titanic, a wood-and-steel intruder. You lean a little farther over the side of the ship. The water is cold, you imagine; cold, deep, dark, silent.

If I fell in, this would all be over, you think. No more Daemon. No more anyone. The only people who would miss me are my parents, and they’ll never see me again anyway.

But no; you cannot abandon Draco. He’s a piece of you, even if he doesn’t know it. You cannot allow him to become a monster.

The viola player peeks out from behind his easel. “Not thinking about jumping, are you?”

You gasp, startled, and then cover your face as you groan. “Why are you always out here?!”

“Aw, fancy rock lady needs a member of the perpetual underclass to malign,” he says as he adds brushstrokes to his painting. He has procured a suit somehow—black, slightly too big for him, likely stolen—to better masquerade as a first-class passenger. “What’s the matter, rock lady? Did your servants not put enough sugar in your tea this morning? Did they tug a little too hard as they brushed your hair?”

“You’re not well mentally. You need a straightjacket.”

“I’m not the one about to throw myself into the Atlantic Ocean.”

You glare at him, bitter, defensive. “I wasn’t going to jump.”

“Then what were you doing?”

You can’t answer; you wring your hands and press your lips together so tightly they ache, watch dark smoke billow from the nearest funnel, coal shoveled into blazing furnaces, treasures of the earth extracted like teeth and consumed.

“Hey, I didn’t, um…” The viola player lowers his paintbrush, repentant. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you.”

You ask to change the subject: “What are you painting?”

“People,” he says, grinning, then turns his easel to show you. It’s a father holding his daughter so she can look over the railing and pointing to show her something out in the waves, dolphins, perhaps. His work is excellent, you are surprised to see: wispy curls of hair, irises alight with emotion, shadows and wrinkles and cheeks ruddy from gusts of wind, imperfections of reality.

“It’s good,” you manage once you’ve gotten your bearings.

“And of course you’re shocked.” He points to a scuffed brown leather portfolio resting against one leg of the easel. “I have plenty more, if you’re interested.”

You open the portfolio. There are men worriedly counting coins, women waiting on park benches, children beaming as they feed ducks or tend to their dolls, people giggling and scowling and burning up with clandestine longing, people sipping drinks in smoky pubs. In the bottom right corner of each painting is a moniker for the subject: Crystal, Big Red, Sunshine, Baron, Carnation, Tiny, Mars, Archer, Harpist, Pennies, Henry VIII, Belfast Belle. Unwittingly, you smile to yourself. “You give them names.”

“I watch people, but I don’t usually talk to them,” the viola player explains as he dabs thick oil paint on the paper clipped to the easel, treated to resemble the texture of linen. “I like to catch them unawares. Keeps the moment genuine, truthful. Otherwise they start acting for me.”

“Why paper instead of canvas?”

“Easier to travel with. Lighter and less bulky.”

You recall what he told Daemon at O’Connell’s Bar back in Galway: Well I’ve played all over Ireland, sir. All over Europe, in fact. You gingerly slide his paintings back into the portfolio and tease: “Who do you think you are, Picasso?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. His sand-colored hair trashes in the wind that blows off the ocean, salt and mist. “I am under no such delusion. I’ve met him, though.”

You gawk at the viola player. “You’ve…you’ve met Pablo Picasso?”

“Yeah,” he says casually. “In Barcelona. I love his Blue and Rose Period stuff. Now he’s doing some weird cubism bullshit.” The viola player shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s his art, he can paint what he wants. But I prefer something a little more…real.”

“I do too,” you confess. “I went to Paris once with my parents. I saw some of Picasso’s work in a gallery, but he wasn’t there at the time. I bought a few paintings.”

“Which ones?”

“Mother and Child from 1905. Flowers from 1901.” You hesitate. It’s a bit scandalous. “Blue Nude.”

But the viola player neither cringes nor makes a joke. “I remember that one,” he says softly, watching you. After a moment he asks: “Are they hanging in your rooms?”

“They’re in a trunk. Daemon doesn’t like them.” And the animosity in your voice is an act of treason, however small. You glance around for Daemon, Rush, Dagmar, Rhaenyra, Laenor, and thankfully find none of them. You avert your eyes, ashamed. A husband you hate, and fear, and obey, and lie awake at night conspiring how to please.

There is something that ripples across the viola player’s face—sympathy, distress—and then he resumes putting the final touches on his portrait of two unnamed passengers. “Do you paint?”

You laugh. “Very badly.”

He offers you the paintbrush, saturated with a reddish-gold color like dusk. “You can help me fill in the man’s scarf. That’s hard to fuck up.”

Your jaw falls open.

“That’s hard to mess up,” he amends.

Smiling shyly, you take the paintbrush and add a few tentative strokes to the scarf. The viola player accepts the paintbrush when you forfeit it.

“So besides making awful paintings, how did you spend your time back in Galway?”

Reminding my father who he is. Taking long walks through the fields with my mother. Sitting in the garden wondering how my life went so wrong. Trying to stop my only child from becoming a demon like his father. “I read a lot. Mostly Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, and Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?” he echoes, amused. “Recite some for me.”

You take a moment to decide on a passage.

“Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.”

“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” the viola player says, much to your amazement. He’s a thief holding a third-class ticket, and yet he’s learned. This is rare outside the blue-blooded aristocrats and the titans of industry. Fern can barely read and write.

“Where were you educated?”

“The world,” he replies, grinning.

“And the world included lessons on Shakespeare?”

“Sure, sometimes.”

“Alright then, let’s hear an excerpt.”

He considers this, tapping the handle of his paintbrush against his lips. Then he says:

“My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,

Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.”

“King Henry VI,” you say, admittedly impressed. “I didn’t know poor people read Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare’s plays were written for everyone, fancy rock lady. Standing tickets at the Globe cost pennies.”

You study the viola player as he paints, feeling a bewildering combination of curiosity, amusement, fondness. “What’s your name?”

He pauses as if he’s not sure what to say, then gives you a sly, crooked grin as he replies: “Picasso.”

Now a steward is approaching, and the viola player is alarmed, perhaps anticipating being revealed as a fraud and dragged back to the third-class accommodations; but the steward is only passing by with a tray full of champagne flutes, offering them to illustrious passengers as they stroll the decks. You take two glasses and he continues on his way. You down one flute in just a few gulps and offer the other to the viola player. He smiles politely but does not reach for it.

“Thank you, but I don’t drink.”

“Really?” Have you ever met a man who doesn’t? You can’t think of one. And you are suddenly aware of how quickly you finished your champagne—unladylike, improper, but surely no great disgrace in front of this audience—and how yearningly you’re already glancing at the second glass, carbonated amber, fool’s gold.

“I’m not someone who can stop at just one or two,” the viola player says. “I’ve learned that about myself. Tried to fight it for a while, turns out acceptance is easier. I hardly even miss booze anymore.”

“How long did you fight it?”

“Ten years.”

You are caught off-guard. “What? How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

Since he was thirteen? Can that be right? “We’re about the same age,” you say instead, taking a distracted swig from the glass that would have been his.

“Yeah,” the viola player agrees thoughtfully.

You finish the champagne and hand both glasses to a passing steward. “I should go,” you tell the viola player. “I don’t know where Daemon is on the ship, and…” I don’t want him to see us. I don’t want him to hurt me.

“Sure. I get it.”

“Good luck with your painting.”

“I’ll make one of you next,” he promises, and you’re certain he’s joking.

You smile and turn to leave. “Whatever you say, Picasso.”

You walk towards the Grand Staircase that leads back down to the Promenade Deck. As you pass the Gymnasium, you steal a glimpse through one of the windows and see them inside: Draco giggling as he rides the electric horse and yanks gleefully on the reins, Dagmar beaming as her gnarled, arthritic hands hold him by the waist so he doesn’t slide off.

You lay your palm against the cold glass, separated by a few steps that might as well be miles, wreckage peering up through the darkness from the bottom of the sea.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fern helps you dress for dinner: a glittering gold gown, a tiger’s eye amulet from Burma. Laenor has brought a companion, one of the Parisians he’s become so well-acquainted with, a count’s son named Hugo. As Laenor is preoccupied, Daemon escorts Rhaenyra to the First-Class Dining Saloon down in D-Deck. They meander together, her arm linked through his, murmuring gossip about the other passengers and snickering contemptuously. You trail behind them, feeling invisible, a sun that casts no warmth.

All around you are other first-class passengers descending the Grand Staircase: Benjamin Guggenheim and his mistress two decades his junior, John Jacob Astor and his pregnant eighteen-year-old wife, railroad tycoons Charles M. Hays and John B. Thayer, steel industrialist George Dennick Wick, the glamorous Countess of Rothes, the newly-wealthy Margaret Brown, the eminent journalist W.T. Stead, the White Star Line’s managing director J. Bruce Ismay. But your gaze keeps drifting to Macy’s department store owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, neither young, neither beautiful, and yet so evidently devoted to each other. You wonder how that feels; surely nothing like a bruise, a reproach, a back turned to you in the marriage bed.

On the A-Deck landing of the Grand Staircase is the viola player, his horsehair bow gliding over four thick strings to loose an energetic, jubilant song, standing there in his suit that no one else notices is too big for him because they don’t really see him at all. He is less than a fixture of the ship; the first-class passengers marvel at the glass-and-wrought-iron dome overhead and the Neoclassical clock on the wall and even the bronze cherub statue at the base of the steps, but the flesh-and-blood machinery of Titanic wears a sort of camouflage, unremarkable and interchangeable, uncomfortably human. The viola player gives you a wink and a quick, subtle smile as you pass by him, and you smile back. And for a moment, it is like you have a friend aboard the ship, a groundswell of fleeting joy, gratefulness, peace.

Dinner is oysters, salmon with hollandaise, corned ox tongue, chateau potatoes, asparagus soup, Waldorf pudding, other things that you pick at without much interest. You miss Lough Cutra Castle, you miss your parents, you miss Ireland, you miss your life before Daemon Targaryen stalked into it with his ever-glinting green eyes and his talent for making you so desperate to satisfy him. Instead of eating, you mostly drink champagne, draining glasses of it until your cheeks are warm and your thoughts hazy. You look around for the viola player, but he never appears in the First-Class Dining Saloon. Instead, the five-piece string ensemble that welcomed you aboard Titanic yesterday is playing Alexander’s Ragtime Band.

Daemon has invited a guest to share your table, chief designer of the ship Mr. Thomas Andrews. He is gracious and even-tempered, exactly the sort of man Daemon likes to entrap and enchant and have his way with. As you drown in champagne, Daemon tells Mr. Andrews about surviving a hurricane while mining Larimar in the Dominican Republic, domesticating a ring-tailed lemur in Madagascar (Daemon had named it Aegon and kept it on a leash), getting lost for three days in the Australian Outback and resorting to eating snakes and dingoes, bludgeoned to death with rocks and roasted over campfires. Rhaenyra observes all of this with a proud, radiant smile, encouraging Daemon with nods and oddly girlish giggles. Laenor, meanwhile, is chatting with Hugo and paying little attention to anything else. He and Rhaenyra have three young sons back in England, though they resemble Laenor Velaryon far less than they do Harwin Strong, Viserys the Duke of Beaufort’s former Master of the Horse and Rhaenyra’s rumored lover. The virile, dark-haired Harwin Strong was killed last year in an unfortunate riding accident, whereupon Daemon rekindled his previously strained relationship with Rhaenyra in the interests of helping her cope with the loss. As it turned out, Daemon’s niece had grown up to be much the same as he is—daring, sarcastic, charismatic, incorrigible—and as if you didn’t have enough difficulty winning his affection before, now you must compete with his kindred spirit, a golden-haired wildfire only a few years older than you and who Daemon can delightedly torment his estranged brother with by capturing her in his orbit.

Daemon is saying, his elbows on the table and miming clutching a massive gemstone in his palm: “As a famed French fashion critic once wrote, The jewel, which is so well adapted to a woman’s adornment, is a combination of the riches of nature and art.”

“Not just any fashion critic,” you say without thinking, the champagne parting your lips before you can reconsider. “Charles Blanc. And I’m the one who gave you his book, remember? It was one of my wedding presents to you.”

Everyone turns to stare at you, as if abruptly being made aware of your existence. Laenor and Hugo appear puzzled. Rhaenyra is frowning with disapproval. Mr. Andrews nods politely. Daemon, after a moment, chuckles in that low, rolling, sardonic way that he does.

“Yes, dear, you certainly did. Clearly it made an impression.” He looks to Mr. Andrews. “You’ll have to forgive my wife, good sir. I’m afraid she has a weakness for champagne.”

“Don’t we all?” Mr. Andrews replies diplomatically.

“The truth is,” Dameon says as if he’s confiding in the shipbuilder; and yet there’s an exhilaration he can’t entirely disguise, a malicious triumph, proof of the power he has over you. “She’s petrified of sailing, has been for years. And this journey…well…it’s been quite an ordeal for her. But under no uncertain terms was I leaving Ireland without my family. Where I go, we all go.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your rattled nerves, Lady Targaryen.” Mr. Andrews’ eyes are soft with pity for you, a neurotic and illogical woman, tortured by her own nature. “Is there anything I can say to alleviate your fears? Have you been on a ship that’s run into trouble before?”

“No, no sir, I just…” You push through the warm, amber-gold fog of the champagne to explain. “I’ve never been able to stop thinking of all the water beneath us, and a ship…even one as large and luxurious as Titanic…it seems too vulnerable to me. One puncture and we all go straight to the seafloor.”

“That’s why I built Titanic with watertight bulkheads that go up to E-Deck,” Mr. Andrews says, smiling reassuringly. “There are sixteen total, and the ship can stay afloat with several of them flooded. This is meant to contain any possible breach in the hull.”

“Oh, how ingenious!” Laenor exclaims. “Hugo, isn’t that extraordinary?”

Mr. Andrews continues: “Truly, Lady Targaryen, I have built you an unsinkable ship. You have nothing to worry about here on Titanic.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Daemon agrees.

“And there are lifeboats, I suppose,” you say. “Although…I didn’t see very many up on the Boat Deck. What is their total capacity, I wonder…?”

“Over 1,000 souls, ma’am,” Mr. Andrews replies.

You are horrified. “That’s half the people onboard.”

“Yes,” he concedes. “But as I said, Titanic cannot sink.” Again, he smiles blithely. “Besides, in the event of an evacuation—engine failure or damaged propellers or some such thing—the lifeboats would only be needed to ferry passengers from Titanic to the vessel we’d hail to rescue us with the wireless telegraph machine. The lifeboats were never intended to be able to hold all the passengers at once, that would be absurd.”

“Impossible,” Daemon concurs. “What on earth would necessitate a swift and total evacuation?”

“What about an iceberg?” Hugo says as he eats a heaping spoonful of Waldorf pudding, vanilla custard mixed with nutmeg, apples, walnuts, and raisins.

Mr. Andrews titters patiently, as if this is the most ludicrous thing he’s ever heard. “No iceberg could damage Titanic enough to flood more than three bulkheads. And we have lookouts employed to spot them and sound the alarm so we can turn in time. Icebergs are not a concern whatsoever.”

“Très bien!” Hugo declares, redirecting his full attention back to his Waldorf pudding.

Mr. Andrews looks to you, his voice kind but patronizing. “Do you feel better now, Lady Targaryen?”

“Much better,” you lie.

“Good. Then no more worrying. And no need to drink yourself under the table either.”

Daemon says with a derisive snort: “Well, she is Irish.”

Everyone laughs; everyone but you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the Targaryen staterooms, Rush is waiting by the door to take your coats. Laenor and Hugo bid everyone goodnight, then depart; Rhaenyra, seemingly reluctantly, takes her leave as well. She and Laenor have separate accommodations as they always do while travelling, not unheard of among first-class passengers but also not helping to dispel the rumors concerning her sons’ parentage.

Dagmar is perched on one of the sofas like a falcon on a branch, her talonlike fingers knitting a forest green blanket for Draco. Your son, meanwhile, is sprawled on the sitting room floor and at war with Fern, who is trying to coax him out of his shoes and day clothes and into his pajamas.

“Draco, please, my love, it’s time to get ready for bed now—”

“I want to go back to the Gymnasium!” he screeches, wriggling out of her grasp. From the sofa, Dagmar chuckles as if this is charming behavior, a portent of superb athletic fitness, perhaps. “I want to ride the horsey!”

Fern is exasperated. “Darling, the Gymnasium is closed, no one is allowed to use it any more tonight. But I promise you’ll be able to go back tomorrow—”

“No!” Draco shrieks. “Now! Right now!”

Fern finally manages to slip off one of his shoes, and faster than anyone can stop him, Draco draws back his hand and slaps her across the face, open palm, a sharp crack in the air, and of course he’s too young and too weak to do anything but stun her, but he won’t be four years old forever.

One day he’ll be able to hurt people. He’ll be able to break them, bruise them, ruin their lives.

“No!” you shout, then bolt to Draco and drop to the floor to hold him by his frail little shoulders, firm yet careful not to harm him, no scratches, no bruises, no pools of trapped blood that will ache with violent memory. “You never do that! You don’t hurt people! You don’t hit women!”

“Mam?” Draco whimpers, his lips quivering and tears shimmering in his eyes; and he almost never calls you that, he almost never acknowledges you as his mother at all. But he knows, he must, this proves it. “I’m sorry…I won’t do it again…please don’t yell at me…”

Immediately remorseful, you embrace him, and Draco clings to you as he sobs. Fern is watching you with huge, frightened eyes; then they flick to someone standing behind you.

Rush grabs you by both arms and wrenches you away. You yelp in shock and pain; Dagmar swoops in to take Draco and vanishes into his bedroom, glaring at you over her shoulder, frigid lethal fury. Fern is covering her mouth with her hands so she won’t scream.

Rush hurls you to the carpet and backs away. When you look up, Daemon is standing in the doorway of your bedroom, orange dusk-like light spilling out from behind him.

“Come here,” Daemon says, beckoning you with his right hand.

You are terrified; you are shaking. “No.”

“The longer you wait, the worse it will be.”

“No,” you say again. You glance at Fern, but she can’t help you; she turns away, stifling a cry with her palms. The room is spinning, your thoughts are slow, your skull aches with rhythmic pulses like blows from a hammer. You peer up at Rush, blinking blearily. “Do you like working for a man who beats his wife?”

Rush doesn’t reply; his face is grave but otherwise unreadable. Fern curls up on the floor, shaking her head. The taxidermied tiger head roars silently from above the crackling fireplace.

Daemon says from the doorway: “Dear, I’m losing my patience.”

There’s nowhere else to go. You crawl towards him, then at the halfway point stagger to your feet. Daemons steps aside so you can cross through the threshold. He closes the door and locks it. You stare at him, swaying a bit, your hands hovering in front of you. You’re trying to figure out where he’s going to hit you, but he’s good at not letting on, and you’re drunk. You guess stomach, but it’s your face, just like Draco struck Fern; his open palm sets your cheek on fire and rocks your head back. You lunge for him, fingers clawing and knuckles jabbing at his ribs. Sometimes you fight back and sometimes you don’t—occasionally he finds it endearing and leaves you alone, more often it exacerbates the situation—but tonight you are overwhelmed with wrath for this man who has taken everything from you, your home, your parents, your son, your future.

You shove Daemon into his writing desk, then he pins you to the wall, slides open a drawer of the desk with his free hand, pulls out his gemstone-studded dagger and lays the blade against your windpipe. And you scream, because for all his roughness and his threats Daemon has never done this before. No one appears to rescue you; no one would dare.

“You will not correct Draco,” Daemon says. “He is my son, and I will deal with him.”

You seethe, teeth bared: “I don’t want him to be like you.”

“Think about it, dear,” Daemon hisses, the blade cold against your throat. You can feel it stinging, a thin slice like a papercut you’ll have to cover with makeup tomorrow. “We’re on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. If you were to take a tumble over the railing, who could say if it was an accident or a suicide or a crime of opportunity committed by some third-class scoundrel? There would be nothing to investigate. You would be gone, and that would be the end of it. Draco is past the fragile years of infancy, he is healthy and he is fierce. Your father’s quarry is already under the control of my managers. What do I need you for now? Why the fuck would I tolerate any further obstinance from you? Your usefulness has come and gone. You stand on the thinnest of ice. One wrong step, and you’ll find it splintering beneath your feet.”

He lifts the dagger away and strides out of the bedroom. You stand there in the tawny lamplight like a sunset, trembling all over, gasping for air, your hands flying up to your neck. When you check your fingers, they are sticky and copper-smelling with a small amount of blood.

He could have killed me. I think he wanted to.

There is a tall oval mirror by the bed, its frame gilded and glowing in the ochre lamplight. You stare at yourself, tears flooding down your cheeks, a gold dress worth more than you are. Everything you own is Daemon’s. That will be true for as long as he lives.

You flee out onto the small private deck attached to your rooms, through the back exit, and into the labyrinthian hallways of B-Deck. You run towards the stern of the ship, dodging stewards who ask if you need assistance and men sauntering back from the First-Class Smoking Room after dinner, puffing on their pipes and their cigars, nursing stout glasses of brandy to keep them warm. When you break out into the open air, it is bitterly cold. The ocean is a vast lightless void; you could mistake it for nothingness if it wasn’t for the thunderous rumble and salt spray of the waves. Your gleaming gold dress billows around you as you sprint to the metal railing that encloses the stern, grip the top rung with shaking hands, stare down into the roiling depths churned by the propellers.

Where can I go? There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere else to run to.

“Hey,” the viola player says; you recognize his voice immediately.

You turn away, not wanting him to see the swelling on your face, the traces of blood at your throat. You are heartbroken, you are humiliated. You agreed to marry a man and now he’s ruined your life. You wrap your bare arms around yourself and sniffle, shivering, swiping tears from your eyes.

After a while, the viola player says cautiously, realizing you aren’t in the mood for disclosures: “It’s cold tonight.”

“Obviously.”

He takes off his black wool coat, presumably stolen like the suit he wears underneath, and offers it to you. “I have more layers on.”

“I don’t want you to be cold.”

“Please shut up and take the coat, okay?” You accept it and put it on, and instantly you begin to feel better. The viola player asks gently: “Does he hit you?”

You shrug, petulant like a child. “Sometimes I hit him back.”

The viola player sighs, but he’s not just disappointed; he’s saddened, he’s pained. “Look, I know what it’s like to get knocked around. That’s why I left home.”

You remember what he told you when you first realized he’d followed you onto Titanic: I have family in New York City. I left home and haven’t been back in years, and I think now’s a good time for a visit. “Why would you ever want to see them again?”

“Things are different now. I’m older, I’m not afraid to walk out and be on my own, I’m confident that I can advocate for myself better than before. And they aren’t all bad. I have…” He hesitates. “I have two brothers and a sister in New York, and I miss them.”

“What are their names?”

“Um,” he stops to think. Clearly he’s making them up. “Arnold, Henrietta, and Dean.”

“Do you actually have siblings or is this some sort of metaphor?”

He laughs. “No, they’re real. The names might not be, but the people are. Want to see your painting?”

“You were serious?”

He carefully pulls it out of the brown leather portfolio he’s carrying under one arm. And if it’s supposed to be you, he’s failed, but still the image is mesmerizing: a young woman—too beautiful, far too beautiful—glancing over at him from where she was pondering the waves under a clear midday sky, her hair in disarray from the wind and her eyes fearful, an oil-paint snapshot of desperation, defenselessness, wonder, hope.

“It’s very nice,” you say at last. “But I don’t look like that.”

“Yeah you do.”

You examine the bottom right corner of the painting to see what he’s named you. You skim your thumbprint feather-lightly over black cursive letters, drawn with the smallest of brushes. “Petra,” you murmur.

The viola player says self-consciously, as if hoping you’ll approve: “It’s Greek for rock.”

You smile faintly. “I know what it means.”

“Oh, fancy rock lady took Greek lessons in school.”

“Of course I did.”Greek, Latin, French, Irish Gaelic. You muse softly, still studying the painting: “Petra and Picasso.”

You don’t have to look at him; you can hear the grin in his voice. “Guess we’re friends now, huh?”

“I’ve never had a poor friend before.”

“Well, firstly, you can’t call me your poor friend. That’s offensive.”

With great unwillingness, you surrender the painting and give it back to the viola player. “I can’t keep this. I’m sorry, I want to. But Daemon might find it.” And then he’ll push me overboard and I’ll be dinner for the sharks.

He tucks the painting safely into his portfolio. “I’ll hold onto it for now.”

“Forever, you mean.”

“You might not always have to worry about Daemon.”

You share a dark, horrible truth: “I’ll never be free of him.”

“We’ll see,” the viola player replies, undaunted.

We’ll see.

[xiaowhore]

you're a pain in the neck. (literally.)

premise. in which you make a nuisance of yourself in every train ride you share with scaramouche. (inexplicably, he doesn't stop sitting next to you anyway.)

note. we pretend i didn't disappear for months :D enjoy

Neck pain has been increasingly common in Scaramouche's life these days.

The cause of which is sleeping peacefully on his shoulder, snoring softly as the train rattles past. The way you remain deep in slumber despite the constant lurching is impressive, but your knack for unwittingly making yourself a menace to society is even more spectacular.

Scaramouche takes a deep breath—Kazuha always did advise him to be more patient—yet the moment he does, tufts of your hair curl against his skin. A flush rises to his cheeks, body caught between freezing in place and jolting out of his seat, but he digs his fingers to his thighs and wills himself to dispel the urge to shoot upright, in fear of...

In fear of what? Shocking you awake?

Nonsense. He's never been that considerate.

(Still, once the tension bleeds from his body, he lets his shoulders drop, fitting your head snugly against the crook of his neck. He grabs your phone from your loose grip, tucks it securely in your pocket, and allows himself to stare at the dark circles beneath your eyes.

He can let himself worry for a bit.)

--

“What's wrong with you?” Kazuha's concerned gaze settles over Scaramouche's hunched figure, slumped miserably on the desk. His head is craned in a particular angle, and Childe, obnoxious as he is, had erupted in boisterous laughter when Scaramouche entered the lecture hall tilted the very same way. Unfortunately, Scaramouche had been too sore to swat away Childe's phone as he took a picture of him in a zombie filter.

“Got a crick in my neck.”

Kazuha frowns. “Did you sleep badly again?”

Scaramouche scoffs in defeat. “You could say that.”

The next time he sees you enter the train, you're drenched.

You make an effort to dry yourself, wiping rainwater out of your hair with a handkerchief and packing your wet jacket in your bag, but you're still undeniably soaked. Some passengers don't bother to hide their distaste, scooting away to other vacant seats as they shoot you a scornful look. Others aren't so cruel, offering packets of tissues and initiating small talk over the worsening weather. Scaramouche watches as your apologetic expression turns into one of gratitude, sheepishly admitting to the nice aunties you forgot to check the forecast.

Scaramouche doesn't quite give you a spare towel or send you a reassuring smile, but he broods silently from where he sits beside you, scowling at the impudent lot now sitting far, far away. Insolent fools, tactless jerks, ill-mannered garbage—a barrage of insults fly in his head, ones he has learned not to verbalize lest he gets in trouble for his crass mouth again.

When the train pauses to his stop, he pulls out a foldable umbrella from his bag, still seething. He hands it out to you, not making eye contact as he's still glaring at the woman giving you a side-eye. “Take this.”

“Uh...?” Perplexed, you hesitantly accept it. “But...”

“It's fine.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder, walking toward the sliding doors. “So don't come here drenched in the rain next time.”

He doesn't get to hear your response as he speeds off.

--

“I'm an asshole.”

“Is this your moment of self-discovery?”

“Congratulations.”

Scaramouche's eyebrow twitches, but he's much too panicked to make a snarky quip to fire back. It's his fault for picking the wrong people to talk to, anyway—Heizou is a smartass and Xiao has a perpetual stick up his ass. He should've confided to the empathetic Aether instead, or to Venti who gives surprisingly good advice when you least expect it.

“So what made you realize it?” Heizou bites down on a pork cutlet, apparently finished with his daily quota for pissing him off and now fulfilling his obligations as a friend. “Did something happen?”

“Does it have anything to do with how you arrived soaking wet to class?” Xiao adds, poking the tofu on his plate.

“Perhaps you tried stealing an umbrella on your way here?”

“You got it backwards, dumbass. I gave away mine,” Scaramouche scowls.

“That sounds like you did a good thing, then. What's wrong?”

The way he gave it away so roughly. The way he said you could use it so condescendingly. How he'd forgotten to offer words of comfort, no matter how painful or awkward for him, because he'd been so absorbed in pointless matters. How he'd completely ruined his chances of being friends with you by acting like an indifferent jerk.

All because he was too embarrassed to say he's worried you'll catch a cold from the rain.

--

When Scaramouche takes the train the way home, it's him who's dripping rainwater everywhere.

Karma had gotten his new umbrella stolen from the rack, it seems. He just bought it from the convenience store, damn it.

So now he stands by the doors, too reluctant to go any further inside the train. His wet sneakers squeak beneath his feet, hair sticking uncomfortably on his forehead. His shirt clings to him like second skin, and the only thing retaining his modesty (because of course he falls prey to downpour the one time he wears a white button-up) is a heavy sweater vest soaked in water.

“So much for telling me not to come here when I'm drenched.”

A small towel drapes itself over his head, and Scaramouche quickly turns on his feet. Your mouth is curled into a grin when you step to the spot by his side, but not unkindly—you aren't here to mock him or return his cruel words.

Scaramouche grabs the towel sitting atop his head, drying his hair with it. As he does so, you make no move to leave even with plenty of vacant seats remaining unoccupied.

“... Aren't you going to sit?”

“Hm? No.” You're already holding onto a handrail, staring ahead.

“...Why not?”

“I'm keeping you company.”

???

“Oh, and your umbrella.” You fish it from your bag, holding it out for him to take. “Cute pattern, by the way.”

“Wha-” he's about to say ‘what are you talking about,’ but then he sees the cute star print, the gold sparkles bright against navy blue, and his hair rises on end, face flushing a deep red. Nahida was the one who packed it for me...!

“...Cute.”

“I heard you the first time,” he grumbles under his breath, accepting it from your hand.

An endeared smile crosses your face, one that he doesn't see as he stuffs the umbrella into his backpack.

I wasn't talking about the umbrella.

Scaramouche has always made it a habit to take the train before rush hour, but his report is due today, and so he slept for a grand total of two hours last night just to finish it. It wouldn't even be two hours if he hadn't slept through his alarm, but he wishes he'd woken up earlier; if it meant he could've avoided a crowded train, he could stand to lose some minutes of sleep.

“Can you move a bit?”

“Ow, ow...”

“Sorry, I stepped on your foot!”

“I hope nobody comes in at the next stop...”

Scaramouche empathizes with the last remark in particular, because he really couldn't handle it any more.

Presently, he's staring at the ceiling, praying for divine intervention. His neck is starting to hurt but he forces himself to face upwards, otherwise he would...

“This is tough, isn't it?” You laugh awkwardly, your chuckle turning into a wince when an elbow digs to your side. The train car is packed at full capacity, and you wouldn't be exaggerating if you were to say you felt like you were drowning in a sea of people.

“That's a massive understatement,” Scaramouche replies, wishing for death.

“Sorry. I can't go any farther than this.”

“It's fine.”

Actually, nothing is fine.

Scaramouche is trapped against the wall in the farthest location from the exit, surrounded by people from all sides, his stop is two stations away, and he has no idea how he's going to swim all the way through the doors.

Oh, and he's caged between your arms, pressed against your body, and feeling very much like a pervert for sniffing your scent, but it's simply impossible not to smell you at this close proximity (however, it's entirely his fault for thinking you smell good and trying to pinpoint what cologne you use).

Your head is resting on his shoulder, and Scaramouche learns quickly this position is a lot more embarrassing when you're conscious. And fuck, this time he can feel you breathe directly against his neck, puffs of hot air blowing on his reddened skin, and he can only hope for the best you can't sense his racing heartbeat.

You're too goddamn close, even though he can tell you're exerting your utmost effort to create some distance between your bodies. Your arms are straining pushing on the wall just so you wouldn't crush him under your weight, and as much as he should appreciate it, he can hardly think straight over the sound of his pulse in his ears. He's hanging precariously over the edge, and if he crosses his limit, he might just pass away on the spot.

Hell, if he so as much looks down, he's close enough to kiss your forehead, and-

He really shouldn't be thinking about that right now.

So yeah. Scaramouche may look like an idiot facing the ceiling, but at least he isn't at risk of cardiac arrest.

It's fine. This is fine. I'm one stop away. I can survive this. Just a little more.

But the gods above must hate his guts or something because the train screeches to a rough halt at the station, the car rattles violently, and you're squirming underneath him, his hands instinctively wrapping around your waist to steady you, but your head moves to look up at him and-

Scaramouche very nearly astral projects to another plane when he feels your lips graze against his chin.

“Hey, you okay?! Did you hit your head on the wall or something?”

He feels like he did. He's so dizzy and the world is spinning around him, but at the same time you're the only one he can see. This must be unhealthy, Scaramouche thinks, and he wonders how much blood has rushed to his head, coloring his cheeks bright pink, and if he can die from losing too much blood this way.

“Kuni?”

How do you know my name, Scaramouche isn't sure if he really says it, mind still whirring with thoughts, and oh god his hands are still on your waist-

“Your umbrella had a name tag...” You squint at the neon letters displaying the current station, “Hey, your stop is here, isn't it? Excuse me! Coming thro....”

He vaguely remembers your hands pushing him forward and the crowd parting obediently to make way for him when they see his face becoming visibly ill. The rest passes in a blur, and when Scaramouche finally comes to, he's already outside the train station.

For a brief moment, he stays frozen. Then by the corner of his eye, he notices the shopping center.

He stares at the pastel decor from the cosmetic store, approaches the vanity mirror, and if possible, his mind turns even more blank.

A faint kiss mark is stark against his chin, the same color as the lip tint you wear everyday.

“I'm not going.”

Venti sighs, disappointed but not surprised. “You never go to drinking parties with me. Why do you always head straight home after class?”

“Reasons.” Scaramouche closes his laptop and slides it inside his bag, making quick work of packing his things. “In your case, I'd advise you to go less. Being an alcoholic isn't a good look.”

“My liver is strong,” Venti insists, a cheeky grin dancing on his lips. “But seriously, what's up? Don't tell me you have a secret girlfriend you meet up with after class?”

“I was starting to think the same thing,” Aether pipes up, matching curious looks with Venti. “Or maybe you have a boyfriend? Either way, what are they like?”

“I have neither,” Scaramouche grumbles, coming off more pitiful than spiteful. “And I'm coming home early today because Nahida wanted me to get something for dinner.”

“Ehh, that's boring.”

“You're the ones making assumptions by yourselves!” Scaramouche snaps, treading towards the door. “I'm leaving. Don't call me to pick you up when you're wasted, it's Xiao's turn this week.”

“Okay, enjoy your date~”

Scaramouche doesn't even bother replying.

--

You get on the train scheduled for 4:15 everyday.

It's not that Scaramouche deliberately researched this information; he really did just catch the same train rides by chance. Over time, he began to recognize you as a familiar face, and eventually, he even became your headrest.

Not by choice, but he supposes he just has to live with it.

It's not that Scaramouche intentionally takes the same train so he could see your face. At least, that's what he tells himself as he silently pressures the retail cashier to scan his items faster and practically flies out the convenience store to rush for the train.

He glances at his wristwatch. 4:11. I'll make it. He breathes a sigh of relief, and checks the shopping list Nahida texted for good measure. Curry mix, milk, a carton of eggs...

A notification sound rings from his phone.

‘Sorry for the late notice, could you get pudding for dessert too?’

Shit.

Panic flares in his eyes and he spins on his heel, returning to the convenience store. Do I sprint? No, it's still not humanly possible to buy pudding and go back in four minutes... But I could try. Wait, wasn't there a line of customers behind me earlier? I'd still have to wait in line.

Finally, he stops running. This is stupid. Why am I working so hard just to catch this train, anyway?

Before he could even properly sulk about it, Scaramouche bumps into someone hurrying for the train. “Oh, sorry! I wasn't looking-”

Much to his surprise, your face comes into view when he looks, chest heaving for breath. You look like you've been running for a good while, hair in disarray from the wind, the reading glasses perched on your nose askew. And that's how Scaramouche knows you're in a real hurry, if you didn't even have the time to put on your contacts.

“It's okay,” Scaramouche quickly replies, stepping aside out of your path. “The train is still there, don't sweat it.”

He turns to the convenience store, mood lifted. I got to see them, so I guess this way is fine, too.

--

When Scaramouche returns from shopping, he comes back to a strange sight.

“Huh?”

“What are you looking at?”

Good question.

Why was he looking at your figure, still waiting for the next train to come by?

“No, well...” The plastic bags in his hand crinkle when he tightens his grip on them. Scaramouche blinks repeatedly, trying to see if you'll somehow fizzle out of existence if he closes his eyes enough. “You definitely could've made it in time for the train, so why are you still...”

Your lips stretch to a small smile. “I didn't.”

No. You definitely did.

You were at a distance where it'll only take three minutes max to reach the train even if you walked the same pace as a turtle. So why...

“Your face can be surprisingly expressive sometimes, Kuni. You're practically a walking question mark right now.”

“Ku-” He stops himself from speaking before his voice could crack.

“Sorry, you don't like me calling you that?” You're tilting your head at him, putting on puppy eyes. Oh no.

“...No. It's fine.” Damn it. Aether was right—he really is a softie.

However, he's still busy pondering. Sure, it's a stroke of luck and Scaramouche won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but why didn't you take your usual train? You were even running towards the station, arriving with wind-tousled hair and disheveled clothes.

“I was waiting.”

Scaramouche blinks. “For what?”

You stare at him in disbelief, like you seriously can't believe he doesn't know. That's when Scaramouche notices some things about you are a little different from earlier.

Your hair is fixed now, no strands randomly sticking up in the air. Your clothes are neat and tidy too, creases patted down. Your glasses are gone, and Scaramouche isn't sure if it's just his mind playing tricks on him or the color of your lips appears more vibrant from earlier.

He flinches when a sigh escapes you. But then the frown on your face is replaced with a dazzling smile, exasperated but fond.

“Who do you think I'm waiting for, dummy?”

BONUS: A look into the future.

“Has anyone ever told you your chin is really sharp?” Scaramouche grumbles under his breath, movements heavily restricted when your arms are wrapped tightly around his torso and the edge of your chin is stabbing his neck. Cooking breakfast proves to be a lot more of a challenge when a koala is clinging on his back.

“No,” you chirp, grinning ear to ear as you watch him stir the pancake batter over his shoulder. “Has anyone ever told you how cute you look in an apron?”

Scaramouche glowers. “No.” If a living person actually did, they wouldn't be for long.

“That's good.” If possible, you squeeze him even tighter, nuzzling against his face. “I want to keep the adorable Kuni to myself.”

“Disgusting.”

So he says as he leans his head closer when you peck him on the cheek.

Some things just never change, he guesses.

[whumpitisthen]

Two whumpees who are scared of each other:

Neither of them want trouble

They are both so afraid of being near the other they avoid each other constantly

They flinch away at the slightest touch like one person and their mirror image

They are strangers, they do not trust each other, they have been burned too many times in the past and they will not be burned again

They stare at each other from a distance, not daring to actually interact

They want to avoid a fight so bad that they won't even say a word

Whumper loves seeing them together because it's amusing how similar they are

Their uneasiness around the other is promptly forgotten when Whumper arrives

Whumpee can't have friends; Whumper doesn't want them to, and we all know what happens when Whumper sees Whumpee doing something they don't like

If hungry enough, they can be bribed with food to spend time in the other's vicinity

Non-human whumpees?! Two puppy boys being very nervous with pulled back ears and big sad eyes hiding behind their owner's legs

One Whumpee lives here and in theory should be more confident than the other one, seeing as they aren't the one in a strange unknown place. That confidence flees as soon as the Other Whumpee takes even a single step in their direction. They do not want to fight, they just want to keep an eye on them at all times.

They flinch back and the other one flinches back too. They cannot stop doing this

Caretaker basically has to pretend with each of them that the other doesn't exist. If they mentioned that their counterpart is in the room right across from them, Whumpee would not be able to sleep.

They sleep as far away from each other as the room they are kept in allows, backs to the wall, staying awake until they can't anymore

I think Whumper should collar them and bind them together with a short length of chain. For enrichment purposes... For me

One of them starts to finally unwind and gently tries to connect with the other. The other does Not react well. They are both scared again

One Whumpee has a lot of scars — must be a fighter -> scary

The Other Whumpee has no scars — must be a Really Good fighter -> scary

Whumpee looks just like the Other — must be just as desperate and unpredictable/their whumper must be just as bad/they must be at a similar level of strength as them, no guarantee to win if fight breaks out -> scary

One whumpee is scared because they have been tortured into perpetual fearfulness — the other has never been tortured, but sees how bad Whumpee has it, and being the newest addition to Whumper's collection has them just as terrified

Whumper forces them to interact. The forceful, scary nature of their meetings sets back their otherwise slow natural warming up to each other by miles, having the worst kind of counter effect. Seeing the other reminds them of that time Whumper made them sit and hold hands for hours with the threat of punishment if they disobeyed

They both escape. They see each other across the street. They freeze and stare, thrust back in time, stuck in their old frightened and cautious headspace. Their caretakers are perplexed.

[mikichko]

⛔ this blog is 18+ !! minors and ageless blogs please dni ⛔ part of adoptive parents!ghoap x reader inspired by this tiktok cw: afab!reader, series revolves around a child so be mindful!

“i’m sorry i’m a bad kid miss”

johnny freezes midstep at the unmistakable sound of zachariah’s voice. not too far from your classroom’s door, he comes to a full stop. the hallways are empty now, his arrival delayed by trouble at the coffee shop, which makes it easier for zach’s voice to carry down to him. he stiffens as the words register, not missing the wobble in his son's voice.

there’s no way you’d be telling zach, his son, that he’s a bad kid.

he wills himself to breathe deeply, inhaling sharply as his feet carry him silently to your classroom. he understands that his son requires extra handling. that his behavior and temperament when worked up are an adjustment to all those involved. but that doesn’t give any of them the right to attach such foul words to his boy. he has to pause a step before your doorway, taking deep silent breaths to ease down his temper. his hands flex inward, blunt nails pressing firmly against the calloused skin of his palms before he attempts to release the tension in his body. he has to keep it together and not cause a scene in front of his son, no matter how disrespectful he’s being treated.

what he doesn’t expect, is to find you knelt before zach. you have your back turned to him, focused completely on zach as you hold his face in your hands. and though he can’t see you, he can certainly see zach. his little boy’s face is covered in red splotches, his eyes watery, and his eyelashes wet as he blinks rapidly trying to hold back his tears.

“sweetheart,” you stoke your thumb across his cheek, catching a tear before it has a chance to fall. “you are not a bad kid.” zach presses his lips together at that. just like he does when simon tells him that clover will tell him if zach feeds her his vegetables again. or when johnny tells him that they can turn the frosting pink with strawberries, like he doesn’t quite believe him. 

“where did you get that silly idea from, love?”

zach takes a breath, tries to, but a tremble shakes his small body. you stroke his cheek once more, speaking in a low comforting voice, “it's okay sweetheart. take your time. we’re not in any rush” he bites his lip, nodding slowly before he closes his eyes and tries for another breath, much steadier this time. 

he doesn’t meet your gaze when he opens his eyes. instead, looking down as he talks, voice small, “everyone says im just a bad kid.” the trembling starts up again as he continues, “and you’re so nice to me.” he stops, another shaky breath rocking his body, “and i want to say sorry for being so bad even though you’re so nice to me.”

johnny’s been out of the service for years now. he thinks that he and simon have adjusted to civvy life as best as they possibly could, after everything. and yet, right here right now, he can feel soap stirring from his hibernating state. he thinks of seven inappropriate acts of violence he can perpetuate against the staff members of the school before he reels himself back in. he wants names. of every single person who had the gall to say something like that to his son. would like to see how they posture up when someone their size, possibly larger, meets them face to face. 

for a brief second johnny wonders if you knew about this. had you said this to zach before?

the thoughts are wiped from his mind as he sees how your spine goes rigid. your shoulders tense, body unmoving but your hands stay soft and gentle for his boy. it’s only for a moment, then you ease up again, your back moving as you breathe deeply. he doesn’t need to see your face to confirm your innocence. not when he can see so plainly the way you hold his boy’s face as if you’re cradling the world’s most precious thing in the world. the way that you murmur reassurances as his tears fall and his body shakes, your fingers wiping away salty tears before they even leave their dewy mark on his skin. 

“my love,” you start sweet and soft, “there is no such thing as a bad kid.” one of your hands moves to push back his hair, damp as a result of his tumultuous state. “do you know what the nice thing about being alive is?” zach shakes his head, lips still pressed tightly together but breathing a little easier now. “it’s everyone’s first time.”

you scoot forward a bit before you sit back on your heels, lowering yourself even more. “no one knows what they’re doing, especially not you! you’re only five!” zach shudders out a breath, nodding and johnny finds himself nodding along with him. he’s not a bad kid, for god’s sake he’s barely even five. he’s still learning what being a kid really is.

“do you remember when your daddy and papa first got clover? clover didn’t follow the house rules, right? but clover wasn’t a bad dog, she just didn’t know what the rules were. she was just learning.” the tears have stopped falling now and zach breathes better, albeit a little snotty, as he nods along to your words.

“you’re not a bad kid zachy. not at all. don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.” you continue to stroke across his forehead and cheeks, zach’s eyes flutter as you soothe him. “ you are an incredible kid and i’m so glad to have you in my class. it’s not a chore to be nice to you sweetheart. it’s one of the easiest things that I do. I promise.”

the words aren’t even out of your mouth before zach launches himself forward, with no warning. his small arms wrap over your shoulders, using the strength of his whole body to hug you. he whispers something to you that johnny can't make out. you simply stroke his back and remind him how happy you are to have him here. he’s doing his best and that’s all you could ever ask of him.

and johnny can see that you’re doing your best. that you are doing more for his son than any other educator in this entire building, hell his entire academic career, had ever done for him. it untangles the knot of anger that sat at the bottom of his stomach, replaced with something softer, warmer. his skin pricks up, goosebumps spreading across his arms and hair standing on end as he watches you console this boy who he loves so much and is raising as his own. he knows for a fact that you would never speak such ill words to his child. that if anything, you’re the shield that protects him from that and worse. 

he takes a few steps back from the doorway, collecting himself before heading back, making sure his steps are heard. he knocks on the open door before stepping into the classroom, still finding you knelt on the floor but with zach in front and not wrapped around you. already, the redness is fading from zach’s fair skin, eyelashes still wet but with no new tears clumping them together. “ah sorry, was I interruptin’ something?”

you look over your shoulder at him, your small smile widening into a grin. “mister mactavish! right on time. I was just talking with zachy about what a good boy he’s been these past couple weeks.” you turn back to zach, and he giggles before you rise to your feet, no doubt a wink exchanged between you both. “a great improvement indeed mister mactavish. I think that warrants a reward, don't you?” you flash him a blinding smile.

johnny would give his son all of life’s rewards if he could. he knows how good his son is. but as he looks over at the sight of his son, his boy, leaning into your hip, looking at you as if you hung the stars, he can’t seem to find his voice. he simply nods. 

“alright zach,” you pat him on the head, “go on and get your stuff so you and your papa can get back home to your daddy. alright?” another nod and zach dashes off to get his backpack and jacket from his hook.

johnny clears his throat, his voice finally finding him, “thank you.”

you blink bewilderedly at him, “what for?”

“reminding him he’s not a bad kid.”

your eyes widen just a fraction before you let out a small laugh, “ah, so you heard.” you break his gaze, looking over where zach is collecting his belongings. when you look back at johnny, your eyes have softened, “you don’t have to thank me for that mister mactavish. I meant what I said. he’s a wonderful kid. we just have to keep reminding him of that. especially when no one else will.”

[delusionalbitchinthehouse]

I'm on a roll with AU these days, so. Cowboy AU ! Outlaw Dewdrop x Sheriff Swiss...with a twist.

It's been a long fucking day. Very fucking long. Swiss' back aches as he leans back into his seat, blinking when the lines of barely legible handwritting still swim in front of his eyes, even now that he's looked up from all the paperwork.

Yawning, he looks around his office, lazily blinking. A light breeze brushes his face, making him frown and glance at the half opened window. Hadn't he closed it ? Swiss tries to recall, hours blending together in his memory. Maybe he didn't, maybe he forgot.

Once he's locked it, Swiss snatches his hat, delibarating between popping to the saloon or just staying home.

"Be the sheriff, they said, it'll be fun, they said," he grumbles, making his way downstairs, "they just forgot to mention the fucking paperwork."

It's all fake complaints, though. No matter how much paperwork makes him want to hang himself sometimes, Swiss loves this town, loves taking care of it, protecting it, acting for the people that make it such a bright and homely place.

Plus, he rocks the hat he was gifted when he became sheriff. That thing is probably his most prized possession.

Once in the kitchen, Swiss makes a beeline for the nearest bottle, in dire need of a little something to clear the fog in his brain from answering letters, approving or denying demands and signing what needed to be signed for hours.

The bottle leaves the shelf too easily, snatched with too much strenght for its weight. Swiss frowns, looking down at the bottle. It's three quarters empty, which doesn't sit right with him. He's sure, absolutely certain he left it more full than this.

All at once, Swiss becomes keenly aware of his surroundings, his senses sharpening in an instant. Noticing things he hasn't prior.

The rim of the bottle is still wet, a stray drop clinging to the neck, not having had time to reach the bottom. A glass is missing on the shelf. The memory of the window he thought he had closed flashes back in Swiss' mind.

His hand flies to his holster just as the distinct sound of someone cocking their gun breaks the silent, followed by a voice.

"Touch that gun and i'll have to scrub your brains off the floor," it says.

Swiss freezes, slowly raising his hands on either sides of his head. He hears steps, then a hand relieves him of both the guns he carries, as well as the knife hidden in his boot - quite the predictable place to keep it, Swiss will admit.

"Turn around," the voice orders then.

Swiss does, half smiling.

"Very rude way of starting a conversation, don't you think ?"

"Who says I want to talk ?"

Swiss groans as he takes in the man facing him. Long hair, mismatched eyes, sharp features, a scar tugging the right corner of his mouth up in a perpetual smirk ; a familiar face, one plastered on every available wall of every town.

Dewdrop, wanted for a baffling amount of crimes Swiss can't be bothered to remember, dead or alive. Reward : Swiss can't remember that either, with how often it changes.

The outlaw amongst the outlaws.

Swiss raises an eyebrow.

"Well, you see, people love chatting with me, so I just assumed you were as dying to hear my voice as the others."

Dewdrop scoffs, though he's smiling, a thin, sharp thing that reminds him of a blade. The fucker is holding a glass of Swiss' liquor in the hand not gripping the gun.

"Sorry to disapoint, sheriff, but if i had the time to sew your mouth shut, I would."

Swiss tilts his head.

"Rude. Almost as much as drinking my stash away."

Dewdrop downs his glass, maintaining eye contact the whole time, carelessly setting it on the nerby table with a satisfied smack of lips.

"You have enough liquor to drown in it, I'm sure my share won't be missed."

Swiss almost doesn't catch the quick way Dewdrop's eyes rake over him, up and down and up again, pausing momentarily at the silver of belly exposed by his raised arms. Almost.

"What I do miss are my guns," Swiss huffs, eyeing where they've been unceremoniously shoved under Dewdrop's belt. The outlaw takes one out, examinating it with an approving hum : they're very nice guns, well-cared for. Then he puts it back, still at his own belt.

"You'll miss a lot more once i'm done."

Swiss' eyebrows climb up his forehead ; there is a vague innuendo to be made, he thinks, but between the tiredness still weighting on his shoulders and the way his eyes keep stubbornly falling on Dewdrop's lips, he can't find a way to phrase it. Instead, he props his hip against the end of the table opposite to the one Dewdrop stands at.

"So you, a famous outlaw, master of escapism, came to this...tiny town and decided to ransack the sheriff's house ? You won't find nearly as much as you're used to."

The look Dewdrop gives him then, feels like being flayed open, exposed raw to prying, piercing eyes. It takes all of Swiss' carefully crafted self-control not to flinch away from it. When Dewdrop takes a step toward him, he can't help but tense, smile less easy, more strained.

"Oh but you see, sheriff, i pride myself in being nosy. Some might say it's a flaw, I say it's a very useful thing. I have keen ears, you see. I hear a lot, and I love rumors."

The barel of Dewdrop's gun presses against Swiss' chest. The outlaw is fully grinning now.

"And, you see, people say the Multi-Faced Thief - you know the Multi-Faced Thief, don't you sheriff ?- didn't die in that trainwreck years ago. Some say he's still alive, mascarading as a simple civilian, maybe even a figure of authority, hoarding the goods he stole, or aquired thanks to his thievery. "

Swiss swallows, his smile widening. Dewdrop is clever, ruthless, ambitious. He can't help liking it. There's no point in bullshitting him, but Swiss decides he can't give in without fucking with him a bit.

"And why are you telling me that ?"

All the air leaves the room when Dewdrop leans forward, so close his nose almost brushes Swiss'. It's crooked, Swiss notices, the bridge a bit wonky, probably broken once or twice. His fingers twitch above his head with the sudden and irrational need to touch it.

Swiss can barely breath, waiting, Dewdrop's eyes flickering over his face, searching. Pausing on his plush lips for half a second too long.

"I think you know why. You've gone soft, Multi. It was easy sneaking in. Disarming you."

A chuckle escapes Swiss as he drops the act, entertained by this guy's audacity. His confidence. Instead of shying away from the gun, he weights against it, sure to leave a dent in his skin. His eyes darken in the dim light ; oxygen can barely find both their lungs in what tiny sliver of space there's left between their faces.

"I'll admit, I dropped my guard. Didn't expect a pretty thing like you to stumble into my house. Try to steal from me. If we'd met a few years ago, I would either have put a bullet between your eyes or taken you for a ride."

Up close, Swiss is at the front row to see Dewdrop's pupils expand, his chest rising and falling quickly. Despite that, he doesn't lose sight of his objective, something Swiss admires quietly as he's shoved a few inches back by the push of the gun.

"Yeah, well. Here you are today, distracted and gunless."

Swiss nochalently raises his, mirroring Dewdrop's position, barrel against his narrow ribcage.

"You were saying ? Looks like I'm not the only one who's losing focus, mmh ?"

He watches in amusement Dewdrop's cheeks clolouring with both anger and embarrassement, his mismatched eyes flicking down to his belt, where only one of Swiss' guns is left.

"So, we're in a bit of a dead end, but i'll make you a deal, yeah ? You leave, and you leave fast, without doing this town any damages. In exchange, i'll let you have this," Swiss drawls, slipping a hand under his collar to tug on a richly ornemented pendant, one that always stays concealed under layers.

Dewdrop's jaw falls open at the sight of the Multi-Faced Thief's most famous prize, the hold-up of the century. Swiss waits for his answer, grinning, watching rubies reflecting in wide eyes.

"Why...would you offer that ?" Dewdrop manages to choke out, stunned.

Swiss laughs lightly, slipping the jewlery off his neck and onto Dewdrop's, still not letting go of it, precious metal digging in his palm.

"I'm tired of carrying this old thing around, and i'm already plenty rich. Do we have a deal ?"

Greed is always a bad influence, Swiss would know. It's currently shining in Dewdrop's eyes, surely thrumming in his veins. But he's not stupid, either.

"Right. And the real reason....?"

Huffing, Swiss yanks on the pendant, grinning from ear to ear.

"The real reason, is that i'll have a good excuse to hunt you down. I'll get this back. I'll catch you. I've missed the thrill of the chase."

It's not much of deal, more like a threat, or maybe a promise, but it's clear by the look on Dewdrop's face that he's game. Incapable of resisting the challenge.

"If you think you're up to it, it'll be my pleasure to prove you wrong, sheriff. It's a deal."

Swiss let go. They're still holding each other at gunpoint.

"My weapons, or you're not walking through the door," he warns.

"Windows would do," Dewdrop snarks back, though he does toss Swiss' second gun and knife on the table. His eyes flick up to Swiss' hat, hand twitching.

"Unless you intend to take me up on the ridding offer, I suggest you don't take that. You know the rule," Swiss smirks, earning an eye roll.

"Not tonight," Dewdrop breathes, slowly backing up toward the window, still aiming at Swiss' chest.

He's halfway through it when Swiss calls back.

"I'll see you soon, Dew."

The outlaw throws him a daring look, scarred cheek pulling with how wide he smiles, and it's the last thing Swiss sees before he jumps off.

Alone in his kitchen, Swiss laughs.

This will be fun.

[yannaryartside]

WE NEED 5 SEASONS

Okay I need to vent a little. Please indulge me

This is for this article that says the 5th season is up to Storer.

Storer said they filmed most of season 4, and some things still need to be filmed. So we will have s4 next summer, and we don't know if there will be a 5th one.

I could put my hand on fire to my belief that we will have 5 seasons. Mostly, because regardless of the importance of showing “being trapped in negative patterns” that was s3 for multiple characters, is not gonna be a satisfying conclusion if all those patterns are resolved in one season.

Realistically, i would not make sense.

Even if you think Claire is Carmy’s salvation, this graceful, perfect angel that came to serve Carmy’s redemption, and when they get together, everything will be fine (that narrative sucks ass, by the way, is perpetually insulting to everyone that had ever had a mental illness to suggest them they only need to fall on the hands of someone that ignores all their defects and are determined to please them). You could believe this is all about self-sabotage, and Carmy will wake up next season, apologize to Claire, save the restaurant by ex-maquina magic, and get his happy ending. Yeah, that will be 4 seasons of a conclusive story and an objectively terrible narrative. It is also very insulting to every person who has a romantic partner who struggles with addiction and/or mental illness to tell them they need to be this fairy tale of a person who is Claire to bring "peace" to their partner and basically solve their life. Fuck that. I refuse to believe they are doing that on purpose.

But if they put the “sleigh of hand” and Carmy has to realize that his emotional dependence on Claire is toxic and only contributed to his depression and disassociation, since you spent all S3 pulling him in that direction, making him believe that is what he wanted/needed, you are going to need a whole season for him even to “scape the illusion.” All of this will align with the Bear having to close, Syd potentially leaving, and starting dating Luca. So, S4 is going to be the “wake-up call.”

S5 should be the season of creating new patterns. Carmy will get into therapy. Syd will come back. The two will create new recipes and work on the menu (collaboration, vulnerability). They will realize they have true feelings for one another. Each character will move towards the place they are gonna end up with.

If you created a whole season about "being in the freeze response" and another two previous seasons of extending trauma and bad coping mechanisms, you are gonna need more than one season to fix that; mental wellness is not like that; it should be treated like something that requires more time combined with efforts.

Not to mention, if SydCarmy is indeed happening, you have spent 3 fucking seasons creating distance between them. I also feel like so much of Sydney's life (to her and to us) is trapped around Carmy's issues, and it actually would make more sense for her to realize being with Carmy is too taxing for her, regardless if she had the most realistic tools to actually help him to grow.

You also had not given Sydney a proper arc to grow from her insecurities and follow her dreams. She still seems to be as insecure of her own skills as when she came in, because Carmy insist on creating a menu based on his trauma. Regardless of his good intentions and the beauty of their connection, she will leave the "bear narrative" as if Carmy is the closest thing she had to a chef David, as if Carmy was the monster she needed to endure to "grow" or "decide better." Fuck that.

[adverbally]

A Shot Right Through Into a Bolt of Blue

Written for the @steddieangstyaugust prompt “Temporary Character Death” | wc: 605 | rated: T | cw: temporary character death, vomiting | tags: AU, canon-divergent, what if Steve took Eddie’s place, pre-relationship, canon-typical violence and gore, hopeful ending | title from “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order

Keeping this one short and sweet so I can post it while it’s still the 11th in my time zone 😬

———

It’s not a surprise to anyone when Steve insists on staying with Dustin for their mission back to the Upside Down. The kid is like a little brother to him, and Steve’s mile-wide protective streak isn’t about to let him out of his sight. They’ll balance each other out, he argues. The brains and the brawn. It just makes sense.

So Eddie goes with the girls and tries to throw Molotov cocktails like he’s done this before. He stands there and watches Vecna burn and feels something like pride, like a promise fulfilled. This is for Chrissy.

But then Dustin comes on the radio, hysterical and incomprehensible, and any thoughts of victory are erased.

By the time they get there and find Dustin kneeling in the dirt with Steve propped up in his lap, Eddie’s stomach is in his throat and he’s shaking from running all the way here and he just knows they’re too late. It’s like reliving the horror of Chrissy being broken apart right before his eyes.

Unlike before, Eddie doesn’t run. He does something even worse.

He freezes.

He stands there uselessly as Robin tries to comfort Dustin while he wails on the ground. Her eyes are dry but there’s no light behind them, her spirit snuffed out with her platonic soulmate’s death.

He watches Nancy take stock of Steve’s injuries with her typical no-nonsense attitude, finding the spots where he’s bleeding the most, using her belt as a tourniquet, trying to figure out some way to fix this.

Eddie should offer to do CPR or apply pressure to Steve’s wounds or even just pull Dustin into a hug and make sure the kid can’t see any more of the horrors surrounding him. He just can’t make himself move.

His eyes are glued to Steve— the demobat bites covering him with blood, the way his body is limp under Nancy’s efficient hands, the lack of tension in his perpetually furrowed brow, the beloved nail bat that has rolled just out of his reach.

At least his eyes are closed. He must’ve known at the end that it was coming, shut his eyes to save Dustin the memory of his vacant stare—

Suddenly, Eddie is spinning around and lurching to his knees as he retches into the gravel.

He knew Steve, is the thing.

As horrible as everything was with Chrissy, they had only spoken for the first time that day. But Steve… He had time to get to know Steve, saw how kind and brave and real he could be, talked with him about the kids and how utterly fucked up this whole situation was. He wasn’t just Harrington anymore, complete with a derogatory snarl. He was Steve.

Maybe it was stupid to start falling for the first cute straight boy who was nice to him for a couple of days. It wouldn’t be the stupidest crush Eddie ever had. Sure, the chances of it going anywhere were practically zero, but Eddie Munson is nothing if not stubborn. He thinks he would’ve seen it through, at least became a friend to Steve and soaked up his sunshine from a distance.

But as Eddie empties his guts onto the ground, he is suddenly aware that now Steve will just be Steve forever. Not “sweetheart” or “Dad” or “Coach Harrington” or any of the things Steve might have dreamed of. Not Eddie’s friend. Definitely not something more.

Eddie’s not sure if the tears that sting his eyes are from throwing up or from grieving those possibilities.

Then suddenly Nancy is yelling, “I think I feel a pulse!” and they become tears of relief.

[dreamerinthemoonlight]

Spring Date HCS (Kaeya, Diluc, Albedo)

I always love it when spring finally comes around. Even though the grass where I live is almost perpetually green (like wtf??!! How can it be freaking Christmas and some of the grass is green?!!!), I love seeing the trees start to bud out. And the sun. Having the sun out more is nice too

Under the cuts, spring dates with Kaeya, Diluc,  and Albedo

GN reader

cw: slight mention of after hours fun. Not much because that’s a different set off head canons entirely, but it’s there

Kaeya

His first suggestion was to go drinking

Of course the answer was no, not happening

So instead you’re walking around on the Mondstadt version of a mall date

Kaeya seems like he’s the type who looooves PDA, so he’s always holding your hand

Or maybe you’re holding his hand because he’s definitely the type to tease you with little touches that are designed to turn the date very R18 by the end of the day

To be fair, he really doesn’t have to try that hard

He’s hot and charming and he uses it to full effect

In the evening you two climb up venti’s statue (Kaeya is a charmer and will happily go the extra mile. Probably made you a pretty staircase else style to get up there too hehe)

You sit and he pulls you closer so that your head rests against his chest

And the two of you want the sunset from the best seats in city

Diluc

Have you seen this man’s voice lines?

The guy is sweet as hell (10/10 would date)

He picked you up, right on time and had roses waiting. Really nice ones because he can definitely afford them

Instead of staying in the city, you two went out on horse back

Brought a picnic lunch

But most of the time is spent riding and talking. Or riding and not talking. 

The both of you are just happy to have a day off with no real itinerary

Just let the wind lead

So around lunch time you guys find a nice spot-- preferably slime free, but Diluc doesn’t have any problems clearing a spot for you if the spot is nice enough’

You eat lunch and continue just handing out

Really date day is the day that both of you can just be you

You watch the sunset while you’re out

And when you get back into the city he walks you to your door, gives you a goodbye kiss that might turn into more but shhh

Albedo

Last but not least

Our favorite Mondstadt nerd

It’s not on Dragonspine

You put your foot down on that one. No freezing on a spring date

You also handed off Klee to Kaeya archons save us all so the two of you have time alone

I’d say it’s a work date, because his work is basically being as curious as possible, but really, his focus is on you

He can’t stop being curious

But he’ll spend the entire time studying you, figuring out what makes you laugh and smile and then work on doing those things

He seems like the kind who remembers all of the small stuff

If you told him your favorite flower, that’s what he brings you when he picks you up or greets you at the foot of Dragonspine

After that you go exploring

Not unlike with Diluc, but with Albedo your wandering has a distinct purpose

For some reason the desire to know is just there when you’re around Albedo

Not that you’ll complain, not when his attention is on you

If your hair is in your face, he’ll tuck it behind your ear, letting his fingers linger on the edge, feeling the skin only he gets to feel and feeling a certain amount of satisfaction that your his

Even if he doesn’t talk much, he listens. He’ll respond when need be, but he really does love to listen

While you’re out, you eat a picnic lunch he packed and then continue walking around

Instead of taking you home that night, he brings you up to his cave in Dragonspine

It wouldn’t be the first night you’ve spent there and it beats the noise of Mondstadt city in the spring

And there’s no one to hear if you decide the two of you want to do some more intimate experimentation

[pigeon-behavior]

What are some things to look for with accounts that post a lot about their pet pigeon? Like what can I look for to be sure the pigeon is being treated properly and not being abused/stressed for views? What are common questionable things you see accounts like those doing?

That is a REALLY good question, thanks for asking!

My take here probably won't be comprehensive, but I will at least try to give you a starting point to go off of.

Here are some red flags in pigeon social media content:

1. They have cross species content. A pigeon should not be interacting with any other species besides people on video. Nor in real life, honestly, but we're talking social media crimes. No other birds- not even ringnecks- and CERTAINLY no mammals. It's dangerous.

2. This can be a little tricky for the less experienced, but watching how someone interacts with their pigeon is key. Do they force interaction? Do they respect their bird? Is this light-hearted teasing that the bird doesn't mind, or are you looking at a freaked out animal? Or a freeze response? If you're not sure, ask around for opinions you trust on behavior. Sometimes it is the only way to make learning leaps.

3. Stupid decision making. You will probably know it when you see it. Bringing a pigeon outside with no harness. Talking about the freedom of birds and how they need to free fly outside. If it Seems like hawk bait, it probably is. (I don't mean that they do this on purpose, they don't. They are are in utter denial about deaths by hawk and their ability to prevent them by simply keeping their birds contained)

4. This one depends, but if you ever see content of a pigeon being held so that the general public can pet it without it being able to get away - usually a bad sign. I saw this connected to a very small rescue once and it was pretty appalling. These are touch adverse animals - you can't do that. And on that note-

5. Any form of advocating for 'struggle-cuddling', or holding the animal still until it stops fighting you, is a HUGE no. It is one of the fastest ways to learned helplessness, and also for some reason rampant advice in this fucking community. I'm bitter about it, obviously.

6. They shit on all breeding. It's not necessarily a sign of neglect but trust me, these are not people you want to be around.

Now, some GOOD things to look out for:

1. Excellent housing. You want to see a wider-than-tall space with a lot of solid perches not caked in 3 inches of gray-green cemented poop. Poop happens. They are birds. It gets dirty. But the cement is neglect. That took time.

2. They interact with their birds respectfully. Even if they might get a little silly with them, you won't see these birds getting squirrely and shying away. Consent does matter here.

3. They have primarily ethical breeds. The range of ethical is pretty wide here. But something like an extreme modena or extreme MOF (modern old frill, NOT the same as the classic old frill) might still show up in a regular loft, and that's okay. They need a home.

4. If they breed, they have some kind of plan. You might not even see it, but occasionally breeders will talk about what they want to do with their breeding project. And their plan shouldn't be fucking stupid. TRLs plan? Stupid. That isn't how breeding Works. So, someone with a brain in their head about this stuff.

5. Someone who is willing to euthanize an animal. Making a creature continue suffering through amputations or other surgeries that are too extreme for it... It isn't ethical. A pigeon can't survive long term with only one leg. We know this. Anyone who is trying to pretend differently is perpetuating suffering.

6. Someone who socializes any baby pigeons properly. That means no hand-raising, no people imprinting. Parent raising. Socialization techniques vary and most are valid.

7. Care more about the bird than the content they make. The bird shouldn't be a toy they force into situations for views.

Generally, just try to pay attention. Don't be afraid to ask someone you trust about what they think of an account. It can be hard to break out of the little echo chambers that start to form, but thinking critically about stuff like that will absolutely help you in the long term. Exposing yourself to better information and cutting off the bad stuff will advance you a lot farther.

A real quick body language lesson for you, on how to tell if a pigeon is comfortable.

A pigeon frozen in place, refusing to move, is not a happy pigeon. Their eyes may get wide and tight, their posture may be slightly tucked in and hunched. It can be easy to mistake them as a little sleepy if you don't know what to look for.

Sleepy don't look like that. Sleepy is loose posture, puffy feathers, squinty eyes, fluffy forehead, raised foot. Some or all of these.

Another sign of discomfort is more active defense. It might look like display dancing, but this bird is telling you to fuck off. They tend to dance and hop around more trying to avoid you, their necks will be stretched out really tall, their heads will dart around, they will interrupt themselves mid-coo to run away.

These are birds who are confident enough to tell you to go away, but still freaked out. I saw a video from a prominent rescue last week of such behavior where someone was "playing" with this poor guy who was totally boxed into his rescue crate with nowhere to go.

Pigeons need an exit route during intense interactions with us. You can't box them into a corner so they have nowhere to go.

A pigeon that WANTS to wrestle or what have you will not flinch away from you like this, or freeze like a rabbit. If you are wrestling and you pull your hand away, the pigeon should run up to your hand again if you offer it from a distance. If you are petting the pigeon, the pigeon should lean their head down, or groan, or nesty grunt, or puff their feathers up, or try to preen you!

This got a little long, but I genuinely hope that was helpful to you. And again, great question.

If you like my posts, please consider tipping me on ko-fi!

[auncyen]

continuing this even though it's not supposed to continue, what is self-control

-

You were supposed to be on bed rest. Healing Craft had made recent advances like Body Craft (unsurprising, with how the two are linked), but while your arm could be quickly set and mended, healers are leery of using large amounts of Craft near vital organs unless it's life or death, so after the Head Housemaiden herself read your energy to make sure there wasn't any life-threatening, the best treatment for a concussion and bruised ribs was… rest. She told Mira herself to make sure you get plenty of it, and Mira always was a stickler for the rules, especially when it came to healing and getting better. You expected Mira to herd you back to bed when she caught you sneaking out of the infirmary. (You thought it was night and everyone would be asleep; apparently it was just evening and the Housemaiden in charge of the infirmary just took a break for their dinner. Being laid up in bed had messed with your sense of time.) But Mira looked up at you with a sad smile and gestured for your arm, resting it across her shoulders. "If you feel dizzy, lean on me. You want to see Siffrin, right?"

"Yeah," you sighed. "Thanks, Mira."

You made your way up to the third floor with Mira, taking a break once on the stairs when you got too dizzy and she had to brace you from cracking your skull on the steps. She started to chew her nails, anxious, so you gently took one of her hands and squeezed it.

"Ah! Thank you…"

You both sat in silence for a moment. Neither of you seemed to know what to say, and you were still trying to get the spinning feeling in your head to settle down. You were glad most of the Housemaidens were at dinner, so no one was trying to step over you.

"How's Bonbon doing?" you asked as your mind strayed to them. They'd been at your side when you were first helped to the infirmary, but after you first went to sleep, they left, and you hadn't seen them since. You hoped they realized you'd get better. Sure, any future head injuries could be riskier for you, but you weren't going to be trying to get injured.

"…They're scared," Mira said, squeezing your hand herself this time. "They had a nightmare about going back to Bambouche and finding their sister still frozen. She shouldn't be, everyone else is fine now! But with what happened to Siffrin…"

Your heart sank. Siffrin froze after the King was defeated, something that shouldn't have happened when the King was responsible for the Curse. It was upsetting and confusing for everyone, but especially for a preteen who last saw their one family member slowly freezing, yelling for them to run. "And M'dame hasn't figured out what caused it?"

Mirabelle shook her head. "She's frustrated. I am too. I figured out how to cure others of the Curse, at least if they hadn't been frozen too long! But every time I've tried with Siffrin, it's the same result--as soon as I feel even a little of Siffrin's energy come back, it's gone again. It's like the Curse on Siffrin is perpetuating itself somehow, or…" She shook her head.

Or it had been too long. You wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all, that Sif had fought to save a country that wasn't even their own only to be consumed by the Curse, and then you realized you were crying and rubbed one eye to ward off the tears before Mira could notice. She did, though, and leaned over to hug you.

"I'm going to keep trying!" Mira promised, her own eyes watering. "I'm definitely not giving up!"

"I know you aren't," you said. "And if you can still feel Sif in there, that's got to be a good sign, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

Good, good. You needed to hold on to that. "I just wish there was something I could do to help too."

Mira frowned at you. "You've already done so much, Isabeau. I'll help you see Siffrin, but then please rest, okay?"

"Alright. I don't want to worry you."

With most of the dizziness passed, Mira helped you back to your feet, and you both visited Siffrin.

He was still in the large hall where you'd fought the King. You knew from the Houses in Jouvente that this hall was used for House-wide gatherings, like part of the festivals for Housemaidens to show how they'd changed. You…weren't sure they'd be doing festivities in here, at least not until someone figured out how to free Siffrin from the Curse. Because there had to be a way.

Siffrin was right where you'd left him: on his knees, his body slumped in such exhaustion it looked like defeat, even though he'd just helped win the fight against the King. You felt the guilt stab between your bruised ribs. Something had been wrong that day, and you'd known there was something wrong, and you'd let him put you off until 'after the King'.

Logically, you couldn't have known they'd be frozen even if you won, and it's not like they froze because you didn't talk. The Curse was due to the King. Siffrin's feelings had nothing to do with the King, and that awful man had disappeared. But.

You couldn't forget how distraught Siffrin had been right before he'd frozen.

Mira tried once again to unfreeze Siffrin. She knelt in front of him, placed her hands on his frozen ones, and then clapped firmly, one-two-three. She placed her hands back on his and shook her head. Two minutes passed as she regathered her energy, and then she clapped again, three times, focusing her Craft with each clap.

On the third round of three claps, she sighed, then jolted so quickly that you rocked yourself where you sat, your head swimming at the sudden movement. "Siffrin?!" This time, instead of reaching for their hands, she cupped their cheeks, peering at them.

You couldn't tell what she'd seen at first, but when you realized, your heart pounded. His mouth was still smiling, but now the lips were slightly parted. The sigh hadn't come from Mira.

"Sif!"

"See, they're here, I just need to, I'm not doing something right--" Mira tried Lovely Moving Cure again, and again, and again, always clapping in rounds of three. You weren't paying attention to her, too focused on Siffrin. You didn't think about how the clapping had become frantic, about how she wasn't taking the time for cooldown, you were just focused on Sif's face, hoping you'd see next time they moved, hoping they'd stay moving--

But then Mira sagged, slumping against his frozen frame from Craft exhaustion. "Mira!"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm fine, I'm…" Her shoulders shook. "I'm sorry, Siffrin, I'm sorry…"

You peeled her off of Siffrin so she could cry on someone a little softer, even if your ribs protested the extra weight against them.

"At least… at least they're smiling," Mira said when she was a little calmer. "People keep talking about how getting frozen didn't make them dream, just made one thought stretch out forever. Siffrin was so upset, but, but…" Her voice wavered. "They must have realized just in time that we did win, and you'd be okay. I'm going to figure out what I'm doing wrong and cure them. But at least until then, they're happy."

"…Yeah." You were glad she was looking down, still trying to regather herself after the tears, because you're not sure you could have looked her in the eye. Was Sif really happy, just because he was smiling? He'd been…blaming himself for you getting hurt, and saying he was going to get Mira or Odile hurt next… had he thought of something genuinely happy? Or had he just thought, 'at least I won't get them hurt'? Because that wasn't right at all. It was self-blaming, it was wrong, he hadn't done anything wrong, he'd locked up in the fight but it was a fight no one could ever have been fully ready for or should've had to fight to begin with, and you had to bite the inside of your cheek before you thought about it too much and cried yourself.

Mira was strong and determined, and she had M'dame Odile and other Housemaidens trying to help her figure out how Siffrin had frozen to fix it. She'd cure Siffrin, and then you'd hug Sif show him at a close but still respectful distance that you were fine and make sure they knew what you knew, that the King was the only one to blame for you getting hurt. Until then, you hoped you were wrong about what Sif's one thought was.