#i think ivie would have an interesting take on this

[userparamore]

I think Paramore becoming political is a good thing cause they have a massive influence and so far the stuff that they supported has been good but every time white celebs do these things, they need to do more extensive research cause how did they promote maxwell frost without finding out how much of a liar and zionist he is in 2023. The way that man was very vocal about his support for Palestine before he got elected but then changed and abandoned his support and proceed to make fun of the movement and like tweets about being pro of the opposing country was so fucked up. There will never be a perfect politician, the band sees a gen z congress person who is very anti white supremacy in Florida but white people always stop at the bare minimum with this type of stuff cause supporting maxwell can also be seen as supporting a country that is pro genocide

I hope they don’t bring out any more politicians on stage or massively support someone because you know that they want to do good things in this one area only. Maybe it’s why it’s hard for me to listen to “the news” cause I know that the message is coming from a good place but the first verse especially feels so reductive to me. That “war on the other side of the planet” line has the same energy as Taylor swift’s “shade never made anybody less gay” 💀 this is not only paramore cause phoebe bridges and muna were also seen with Maxwell and it's so disappointing to watch

as a non-american i'm gonna air my ignorance and be completely honest and say that i know nothing about who maxwell frost is. so just to clarify that, and if i seem ignorant on this topic, then you know the reason.

i do agree with you tho. there is a difficult line to balance when it comes to being political as a band/celeb. i think it was a good decision for them to go down this route, but like you said there has to be done in the right way after doing the right research. again as a non-american the idea of endorsing politicians is just a weird concept to me. american politics and politicians are so celebritized (if that's even a word). it's like we're watching a reality show and voting for who we want to stay on the show for another week. i would rather paramore focused on shining a light on or raising awareness on a topic than endoring politicians like you said. and i think hayley and her "abort the supreme court" t-shirts on stage, or them encouraging people to go vote are a good way to do it. (again this is the perspective of a non-american so please excuse my ignorance <- pmore reference intended)

i share your feelings about "the news" tho. i think it's my least favorite song on the album bc the message of the song is so easily twisted. acknowledging the war in ukraine while sitting halfway across the world, and then turning it back on herself in the form of a headache is... unfortunate. i understand what she's trying to say with the "turn on / turn off the news". that you can't disappear into the doom scroll. that you need to protect yourself sometimes. but i really don't like the encouraging to turning off the news- especially in a post-trump world and his "fake" news. it is almost like what the right wing does. they turn off the "fake" news. i don't want to be encouraged to not be informed. to not ask questions. to not check the sources. it's how you end up in an echo chamber, and i don't want that.

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @mimimar

Hi! I’m Michelle (Mimimar), an illustrator born and raised in Venezuela, currently based in Italy. I enjoy making colorful illustrations that reflect the things I love: fairy tales, fantasy, tenderness and queer (especially sapphic) stories. Occasionally, I also make paper dolls, comics and animatics. I have a lot of interest in book illustration and I’m currently developing my own stories that I hope to share as an author-illustrator someday!

Check out our interview with Michelle below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid, but it only became a hobby that I did almost every day when I was around 11. At first I only used traditional mediums, but I decided to make a serious effort to learn how to draw digitally when I was 15, and once I got the hang of it I never stopped!

I didn’t go to art school so all of my learning was done through studying the tutorials and resources that other artists generously share on the internet and lots of practice / trial and error.

How do you want to evolve as a creator?

I want to do many things but what I want to do the most right now is work on books! I want to make art for other authors’ stories and also my own stories as an author-illustrator. I want to grow as a storyteller and create art and stories that will really resonate with people emotionally. I’m always striving to improve my skills as well.

I also really love dolls, so working on doll box art or as a doll designer is something I would love to do someday. I actually have been designing paper dolls on my Patreon for the past few months, it’s been a fun project that is still ongoing right now!

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

Probably using a lot of purple! It’s my favorite color so I find myself using it a lot. If I can find a way to sneak a little bit of purple into an illustration or a character design then I will.

Congratulations on finishing your Ivy Comic! Did the outcome turn out like how you expected or were there some unexpected bumps along the way?

Thank you! It’s a project that I worked on very slowly in between other art because I wanted to really take my time with every spread and make each of them a fully detailed illustration. I thumbnailed the full comic before starting but I kept changing the sketch for the final spread until the very end! Overall I’m really proud of the end result. I sprinkled a lot of hidden details in every page that I hope some of the readers will notice. For example: the meanings of the flowers in each page represent what the characters are feeling in that moment, and the colors of their wardrobe become gradually lighter as the story progresses to represent their emotions, as well as the changing of seasons.

We’ve noticed that you have created some amazing cover art for TGCF. Is there another series you would like to do something similar with? 

That was another passion project that took some time to complete. Initially, I didn’t intend for them to be specifically covers, it was just a series of illustrations based on the 5 books/main arcs of TGCF. But since they were well-received and I had people telling me they wish they could use them as covers for their books, I decided to rework them into dust jackets for the english translation of TGCF!

I haven’t thought of any other specific series but I love doing cover art so maybe I’ll do something similar again in the future!

What’s your favorite part of your style? Why?

I’ve heard from other people that there’s a delicate quality to my art, this is something that I like a lot! I like pretty things, fairytales and vibrant colors. I think all of these things probably reflect in the art I make as well.

If there is one thing you want your audience to remember about your work, what would it be?

I hope that they remember how it made them feel. Feelings and colors are the two things I give priority to in my work. Most of the time I like depicting tenderness, softness and emotional intimacy. If that could reach the viewer and stay with them it would make me very happy. 

I make a lot of art with queer (mainly sapphic) themes because they’re the kind of stories I personally like and want to see more of, so whenever people tell me that my art has helped them in their journey to discover and accept themselves, or that they see themselves and their partner in my art, it is always extremely meaningful to me. When art that I made to give myself comfort can provide comfort for others, no matter how small, it reminds me once again that despite any hardships art is genuinely worth pursuing.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

So many artists! To name a few:  I love @sakizo’s amazing eye for fashion and detail,  @paneeps’ gorgeous style and striking colors,  the sweetness of @bevsi’s art,  @vickisigh’s pretty colors and concepts,  @idledee’s warm and heartfelt art,  @littlestpersimmon’s dreamy wonderful art,  and @loish has been an inspiration for as long as I can remember.

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing, Michelle! Be sure to check out their Tumblr blog over at @mimimar.

[starrywilliams]

guilty as sin? | abby anderson

“these fatal fantasies giving way to labored breath, taking all of me, we’ve already done it in my head”

warnings: masturbation, slight masochism, ruined orgasm, angst, perv!abby (a little), internalized homophobia (discussed in more detail below)

notes: no surprise my favourite ttpd song is the gayest one on the album, but guilty as sin? screams lesbian guilt i fear!!!! i’ve been writing this for over a month so i hope u guys like it 😭

cw: discussion of lesbian guilt & comphet - these are somewhat based on my own experiences with my sexuality and i absolutely!!! do not think a man can ‘cure’ a lesbian or anything similar to that. nor do i believe anyone should ever feel guilty for being gay. realising i’m a lesbian has been extremely freeing & dykes r the best x

wc: 1.8k

likes, comments + reblogs are greatly appreciated :)

the door slammed harshly behind abby as she stormed into her room. she pulled her jacket off desperately; her skin hot under its tight vice. she’d been in the gym, trying to work out her endless frustration of late, when you’d walked in.

you’d only said “hi" and smiled politely at her before setting your things down. but she felt her stomach churn, a black hole opening inside her. abby stood up, pulling the weights off the barbell and onto their rack. she grunted softly, glancing at you from the corner of her eye.

you’d started stretching, currently bent over as you touched your toes. her eyes drifted for an infinitesimal moment, locking onto the swell of your-. she looked away - wrongwrongwrong.

but then she looked back, her stare feasting on your body. she wondered whether you were doing this on purpose, trying to tempt her from across the room. she wondered if you knew her dirty little secret, abby picturing a smirk on your face as you mocked her for such indecent thoughts.

she didn’t want to feel this way. she didn’t want to feel the poison ivy swarming around her chest, getting tighter, tighter. the rash spread inside her; this invisible whip of lust lashing against her skin whenever your face appeared in her mind. well, had it been just your face maybe she wouldn’t feel like some depraved sinner.

now it wasn’t like abby believed in god, in a world where death and destruction infect every crevice you’d have to be mad to believe that any ‘god’ wanted its followers to suffer so greatly. but something inside her screamed every time she had these thoughts. these impure, twisted thoughts about you.

she didn’t know what made her feel like this. what made her resent you for simply existing; and what made her resent herself.

she recalled her teenage years, when manny had subtly suggested that owen liked her - so she was supposed to like him back, right? and she tried! she loved him even - but there was always that something, that feeling in her gut that told her that something was wrong, something about him that just would never sit right with her.

but all the other girls wanted a boyfriend too, and the jealousy was nice at first - she’d thought. after all, mel was the star student, a doctor in the making, her dad’s favourite; and nora was this freshly trained medical officer, and abby was- abby was just abby.

her dad began noticing her more too - previously too preoccupied with his firefly duties and his favourite student. now his little girl was slipping away from him, he finally began paying her the amount of attention she’d craved for so long.

before, their conversations had often drifted into talk of mel and her new achievements, or his hopes of a vaccine, or some animal he was tracking. never anything about his daughter’s life.

having a boyfriend made her interesting, it gave the other girls something to envy. which was a nice reversal, for a while. then her dad died, and she had become this object of pity. owen helped a bit, she supposed. he tried to distract her and keep her focused on their new role as soldiers, but she barely cared about him anymore. all she wanted was revenge, and with revenge, came you.

you were one of the gyms trainers, passionate about helping the members of the wlf stay fit and healthy! you’d helped her start lifting weights, squealed as she reached every milestone, and had remarked jokingly about just how much you loved her new physique.

it was innocent at first, the most being her brain going a little fuzzy when you’d bit your lip while spotting her; a slight blush when you’d hugged her a little too tight. then, once she and owen were finally broken up, these new pictures began hanging themselves on the walls of her mind. still, innocent, just slightly tainted with desire - the true nature of them still an avoidable matter for her back then.

when she could ignore the truth in her recent behaviour, abby loved spending time with you. after all, you were just really good friends! anyway, she’d had a boyfriend before so everyone knew she was normal, and absolutely not different, and she would never ever have to feel like an outsider.

yet it took a mere three months before she gave up on this foolish lie. she liked you, and as long as nobody ever found out, it wouldn’t matter.

but as her mind grew dark and twisted - joel a constant topic in her head as she obsessed over finally getting to enact revenge - her thoughts got worse in turn. she wanted you - filthily and desperately.

every gym session ended with another cold shower, a desperate plea for her body to stop and let her focus on the task at hand; a hopeless attempt to bury this ache into the ground; an endless endeavour to escape these urges for just one second.

but then she came back changed, every hair on her body endlessly erected with guilt. the way she’d killed him so mercilessly, the way it had done nothing to ease the pain, and the way you had tormented her mind ceaselessly throughout the entire trip.

maybe, had she never met you, she could’ve just killed him and been satisfied. maybe had you never offered to train her personally, she could’ve just stayed comfortable in that stuffy closet. maybe if she found the right man she’d stop feeling this way.

abby deemed such ideas unfathomable now.

owen made her feel nothing. being with him was like an eternal thursday, an endless wait for the week’s end and its pleasure to turn up at her door. every day she’d wait for some spark to arrive, the routine only becoming more and more tedious by the minute. but he helped her get people’s attention, which was enough when she was just abby.

but then she was abby anderson, top scar killer and isaac’s favourite. she got attention on her own, she was praised for her own accomplishments: people worshipped the fucking ground she walked on. but they didn’t know who she really was.

they didn’t know she liked girls the way she was supposed to like boys. she’d seen it in enough of those wlf movie nights - cruel jokes about anyone who even thought about being different. she’d heard the way people gossiped, “did you hear that they’re moving lesbians into the family unit? what a joke.”

they said it like it was something dirty, something egregious, something that she had to hate about herself. so she did.

but as long as she kept it secret, kept it locked away in her mind, maybe she’d be okay. after all, only your actions talk: it was the age old question really, if a tree falls in a forest and no one else hears it, does it make a sound?

abby fell back against her bed sheets, calloused hands pushing her cargos down to her ankles as she replayed the sight of you in her mind. bent over - she felt like you were trying to tempt her on purpose.

she felt like a heathen; staring, fantasizing, worshipping. her mind was bursting with the idea of every possible position she could put you in; head a chorus of every little noise she wanted to hear you make; eyes screwed shut as depravity filled her every sense.

she shoved her bralette up her chest roughly, fingertips dragging over her nipples with little mercy. she pinched them, the peach skin stinging underneath her touch.

she wanted it to hurt; wanted it to feel like some sort of punishment for her thoughts. but as her hips bucked into the air, a long whine dragging from her clenched jaw, she realised it needed to hurt more.

she imagined you, finding her like this. disgust burnt into your features - what the fuck was she doing? repeating your name like some subverted prayer, fingers harshly scratching along her stomach as she tried to make the pleasure feel more like pain, trying to induce some connection between the two.

if it hurt enough, would she stop? force herself to forget? could she torture this part of herself until it surrendered?

her hand slipped over the top of her boxers, a finger running tentatively over her clit through the now darkened fabric. she bit down on her lip, groaning against it as she pushed down harder and harder, attempting to break through the skin.

another finger pressed down, beginning to draw circles down on the throbbing bud. she jolted against her own touch, your head between her legs burning into her mind. your hands, trailing along her flesh - groping at her with little tenderness; tongue, swiping at her pussy with no intent of fulfillment: she wanted you to make her weep, smoke out her lungs with shame, deny her from gratification until all she could feel was regret.

she pulled away, only to cover her fingertips with her spit - diving under her boxers to continue with her corruption. abby let out a strangled sigh, hips grinding against her fingers as they toyed with her clit.

she moved a hand to her hair, knuckles stretching against her scalp as she began to pull her braid. she grunted, yanking even harder. she whispered your name: pained, hopeless.

she sped up her assault against her pussy, feeling that pit in the bottom of her stomach begin to grow. “pleasepleaseplease” her voice cracked as she begged, unsure what she was pleading for.

she wanted to stop, but she needed to try and make this feeling go away. she knew it would come back, it always did - but even five minutes free from your torment on her mind might save her.

her fingers kept going, drawing desperate circles against her weeping pussy relentlessly. the void was growing, almost consuming her entirely at this point. she thought of you laughing at her current state: a crying mess, pussy wet with perversion.

it was sick, really - how the idea of you hating her for this made her need even worse. you’d probably think it appalling: someone who was supposed to be your friend, now sat here burning at the thought of you.

a part of her wished that you shared this sickness. that you too let yourself be overwhelmed by the thought of sin. maybe you didn’t let the guilt swallow you whole - she hoped so.

but there was no point lingering in the what-ifs, they were far too fleeting.

her deft fingers quickened their pace, the ache all consuming. the climb began - a desperate jump towards oblivion. closer, closer. the flames scorched her bedsheets as her breathing hastened.

fuck, she hissed before reaching the apex with a scream of your name. a scream? a whisper? a thought? it didn’t make her actions any less deplorable.

her conscience grabbed pleasure by the throat as she ripped her fingers away, putting out the blaze on her hips like a cigarette crushed on the ground.

the desire imploded within the walls of her torso; scratching against her insides in the vengeance of her denial.

it was wrong; she had to stop it. yet still, the guilt poured into her lungs with no chance of resolve. she was a fool for thinking it would fix her. maybe next time it would work. maybe next time the exorcism would finally purify her.

until next time.

[rosemaze-reveries]

During an interview, the manor guests suddenly get a question about you. (Part 2)

hello hello! here is part 2 as promised. there are less characters than I hoped to write, but in exchange each blurb is a little longer than pt.1 !

part 1 can be found here

🦌🪼🤡🦎🪞🤕🕯️🎭

Q. Could you describe your relationship with (Y/N)?

🦌 Bane rubs his chin, tracing his memory. "Hm... Indeed, I'm familiar with that name. I'd suppose that's someone I knew when I worked for the DeRosses." He crosses his arms with a low, contemplative grunt, as if struggling to remember anything else. "I'd need a photograph." I happen to have a couple on hand, and he takes them gently. A long period of silence follows. After leafing through the photos for some time, he says: "I remember. They were always talking about marriage." With you? "Mm. I was never interested, but I never said no. Eventually I made them a ring from a scrap of iron. I hoped they'd stop visiting me if I satisfied them... It's too dangerous to come to the forest everyday." Then he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a ring of his own. "In exchange, they gave one back." He's been cherishing it all this time, even when he'd forgotten its origin.

🪼 Ivy - "I'm no stranger to feeling like I'm missing my other half, you know. That sense of loss is one of the only constants I have left. (Y/N) fills my emptiness, and without them it increases twofold." I open my mouth to ask, Do you think you could be soulmates? but then my eyes dart to the Yithian and I realize my mistake. Sorry, was that insensitive? Ivy is not amused with my implication that she might be interested in claiming (Y/N)'s soul. "My dear interviewer, I am a scholar, not a monster. Whatever you're insinuating, you're gravely mistaken."

🤡 Joker's face suddenly hardens, in spite of the fragile, twiddling-thumbs demeanor he'd shown me thus far. His hands ball into shaking fists and his lips purse, as if he's psyching himself up for a fight. Are you okay? I ask, preemptively guarding myself with my clipboard. Tears brim his eyes and the strength falls from his shoulders. He mutters out, "All I wanted was to be their sword and shield, their angel of light, and they left me out of my mind. Hahaha... Wanna know the biggest joke of all? I'd let them drive me crazy all over again."

🦎 Luchino's mouth stretches into a lazy grin. "That one's a cutie, eh? Had the pleasure of meeting them yet?" I shake my head, reminding him that (Y/N) is the focus of my current investigation. I guess his laidback attitude fooled me into saying too much. He promptly straightens his back, the smile fading. "Yeah... Yeah, from one researcher to another, I get the intrigue," he says. "But I can't say I fancy another guy using my love as a test subject."

🪞 Mary - "Do you take pleasure in nosing around a lady's private affairs? I'd expect more tact, even for an interviewer." The chill in her tone startles me. I sputter out something in my defense, but Mary huffs and waves me into silence. "(Y/N) is enjoying the privilege of being my right-hand. They're my favorite one so far, too. I dismissed the others without a second thought."

🤕 Naib - "On good terms." Wringing out any insightful answers from this man is tougher than I thought. In hopes of inspiring more of a reaction, I tell a small lie: When I interviewed (Y/N), they described a rather colorful affection for you... Almost immediately, Naib breaks eye contact and crosses his arms. But I still only get a guttural "Hm." in response. Can you confirm if this is true? I press. His answer is, once again, a curt "Hm." (Slightly more affirmative, I would say).

🕯️ Philippe - "My work has always stood as a testament to my love," he caresses the wax figure grafted onto his shoulder, "but shielding someone in life is a far greater challenge than honoring my losses. My worries are endless." Suddenly reminded of his sister's tragedy, I offer a sympathetic smile. Do you believe (Y/N) is in danger? Philippe returns my smile, though I can't make out the intent. "Of course. Evil lurks around every corner. At the very least, it won't reach them while I'm around."

🎭 Sangria - A fond smile graces her face as she recounts her memory. "It was clear to me after some time that I had disastrously entranced them." Then she adds, lightly, "I hadn't meant to, of course. At the time, I thought, I'm not looking for love—no, I'd had enough of it all—but soon, their smile would appear in my mind every time I sang. When someone gives you that much inspiration? You'd be a fool to let them go." She has a playful tone of voice, but I can tell (Y/N) means a great deal to her.

[straylightdream]

don’t blame you

𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭: xu minghao x stripper!f.reader

I would cross the line. I would waste my time. I would lose my mind. They say, "She's gone too far this time."

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: non-idol au, sugar daddy au

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut warning below.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.2k

𝐚𝐧: inspired by the Taylor swift song of the same name Let me know if you’re interested in any other boys stories mentioned in this. You can also fill out this form helping me pick songs for the other boys. here. The rest or the boys stories will be in my svt m.list.

here is my SVT taglist if you’re interested being add please fill out this form.

𝐟𝐞𝐞���𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: unprotected sex (mc is on birth control), choking, lingerie kink, hand job, stripping for money, talks of exchanging sex for money. Body worship, slut shaming (not by minghao), possessive hao, pussy whipped hao, creampie, mention of getting someone pregnant, named: baby, daisy

Living him made you feel like you were going insane. He made you feel things no other man had ever made you feel before. Things with him were absolutely intoxicating. He pushed you to things out of your comfort zone.

You broke every rule you had ever had before you met Xu Minghao. The number one rule you broke was, never fall for a client. Stripping wasn’t something you had always planned on doing. It just fell into your lap when you were down on your luck and broke. Since you started taking your clothes off for money you don’t have to worry about things that used to make you lose sleep at night. You don’t have to worry about affording rent or putting food on the table. You’re able to fully support yourself. You’re good at your job and you know how to make men spend their money on you.

Everything you knew was flipped upside down when a beautiful man named Minghao paid for a private room. From the very first hello you knew you were fucked.

What should have been a one time thing turned into him being one of your regulars. After your first show with him he popped up the following week and from there he just kept coming back.

You weren’t the only one who felt a connection. Minghao often told you how fascinating he found you. He loved getting to talk to you. The first few times he visited you kept it very professional. After a while he would spend big money to get you in a private room just so he could talk. He loved learning things about you. He was one of the only people in the building who knew your real name. He didn’t know you as “Ivy” your stage name. It didn’t take long for your visit to turn into more than just talking. The first time you kissed you felt like butterflies were fluttering in your stomach.

Often you would find yourself sitting on his lap topless just making out. You had no problem kissing him and dry humping him until you thought you might go insane but you told him you couldn’t have sex with him at work. You refused to have sex with him if money is involved.

“Do you actually like me daisy girl?” He refused to call you ivy. He says you remind him more of a daisy.

“Minghao,” you sigh with your forehead resting against his.

“Is that a yes?” His hands run up and down your bare sides

“Obviously.” You pull back, giving him a smile.

“Go out with me.” You don’t say anything, you just stare at him. You want to date him so badly but you know your job will always complicate things.

“What happens if I say yes?”

“I wait until you’re off at two and then I take you out to eat.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer we go out one day when I haven't worked. I'm either going to be covered in stage makeup or I’m going to be bare faced.” You didn’t really feel like putting on a different face of makeup to go out tonight.

“Baby I think you’re beautiful anyway you look,” he leans in and presses his lips to yours again. “It doesn’t have to be tonight. When can you be off?”

“I make my own schedule. I don’t have to work any day I don’t want to.” You know Minghao is serious about you and he isn’t just trying to play a game.

He rested his hand on your cheek, “you can tell me no, but I want to ask you something.”

“Ask away,” you smile.

“How about I take you out tonight? We can just get a late night dinner. It will stay fully innocent, but if you enjoy my company you pack a bag and you stay with me for a little while.”

“How long?”

“As long as you want to stay.”

Things between you changed forever that night. You finished up your private room with Minghao at midnight and you agreed for him to pick you up after work. He said goodbye and told you he had a few things to do and after work he wasn’t lying when he said he would be waiting outback for you. You found him sitting in an extremely expensive black sports car.

The first dinner you shared was nice. It was wonderful getting to fully know Minghao outside of the club setting. Your night stayed fully innocent outside of a kiss goodnight outside your front door.

Things with you and Minghao drastically changed that night. You weren’t officially together but it was clear that you were his and he was yours. You took him up on his offer and took a week off of work and just stayed with him.

Your first night in his expensive penthouse was your first time you ever slept with him. Something about Minghao always made you assume he was dominant in bed and you weren’t exactly wrong, but he was much more gentle with you then you thought he would be. You quickly learned that he loves having you lingerie during sex. He bought you so much expensive lace for you to wear. His favorite is crotchless panties. He’s bought you many pairs. He asks for you to wear them whenever you can.

Your nights of the club have started slowly going down. It was rare before that you would work less than six days a week, but since you often started staying at Minghao’s house more often than your own you now only work two days a week.

Since things changed with you and Minghao he still comes in occasionally, but not as frequently as before. You feel guilty now when he pays for a private room. He won’t take no for an answer when you tell him he doesn’t have to pay for your time now.

-

Laying on his bed I’m nothing but a pair of black lace crotchless panties, you spread your legs wide exposing your already drenched pussy. “Touch yourself for me.” Silently you do as you say. “My daisy, what do I have to do to get you to quit your job?” He’s asked you this on multiple occasions but every time you tell him you can’t quit.

You slide your fingers through your wet folds. Rubbing your clit causing a soft moan to leave your lips. He stands at the edge of the bed still dressed in nothing but his dress pants watching you play with yourself.

“I need the money,” it’s not a lie. You’ve given yourself a very comfortable lifestyle by stripping.

“Let me take care of you baby,” he is intently watching you.

“I don’t exchange sex for money.”

“We wouldn’t be exchanging sex for money,” he says quickly.

“What would we be doing?” You pull your hands away from your wet core.

“I would be taking care of you and supporting you, and all I ask is for you to be open to falling in love.” He’s a fool if he doesn’t realize you’re already head over heels in love with him. It's been almost two months since you first got dinner together and you are indeed in love with him.

“Are you going to be my sugar daddy?” You’ve been tempted to try and find one in the past but you weren’t exactly keen on sleeping with an older man for money.

“I’m not an old man paying for your time. I’m thinking more of: I'm your boyfriend and I pay for you.”

“My boyfriend?” You arch your eyebrow at him.

“Do you not want something more with me than this game we seem to be playing?” You’re tired of whatever this is. You want to openly be able to love him.

“You better not break my heart.”

“I would never.” He unbuckles his pants and removes them and boxers leaving him standing at the foot of his bed fully naked.

“How are you going to explain to people your girlfriend is a slut?” You need to ask him. He needs to be prepared for what people will say about him being with you.

“Don’t call yourself that,” he says flatly. “You aren’t a slut, and I never want to hear you say that again.”

“What am I then?” He crawls over you. He pins your hands above your head.

“My daisy. You’re my daisy.” If you weren’t in love, you would be now. You’re speechless and don’t even know how to respond to him.

“I like the sound of that,” you whisper, leaning up.

He pulls away from you and sits back with his back against his expensive headboard. “Come here baby.”

You crawl over to him. Sitting on his thighs you start to pump his already hard dick. His lips slightly part as he inhaled little breaths. You've learned all the ways to make him fall apart. Focusing on the sensitive head that is already leaking precum. His hand massages your breast. He earns a moan when he tweaks your nipple.

“Have I told you I love you today?” he asked, finally speaking.

“I think so,” you can’t help but smile.

You continue pumping his length as his hands travel your body. One rest on your throat. He slowly applies pressure as you close your eyes. “I don’t want to share you with anyone else anymore.” Your eyes flutter open and you can tell how serious he is. “I want you to just be my daisy. Let me take care of you fully.” His hand still lingers on your throat, but no longer applying pressure.

“You’re gonna get bored of me. Men normally like the idea of me, but find me hard to love.” You last few relationships were disasters. Only one of them fully knew about your job, and the amount of time you would get into fights and he would call you a slut and throw your career in your face.

“You are not hard to love. I love you.” You often question what you did to deserve a man like Xu Minghao to love you.

“I love you too,” it’s rare you repeat those words back to him. You’re helplessly in love with him, but you still can’t be scare you’re going to get hurt. You’ve broke all your rules for him. Falling for him made you feel like you were going crazy, but that’s maybe how love is supposed to feel.

Without saying anything else you lift your hips. He realizes what you’re doing and helps slide his cock towards your welcoming pussy. Slowly you slide down his length. His hand still rests on your throat applying pressure every so often. One of your hands hold his jaw, keeping his looking right at you. You’re not normally rough with him, but you’re lost in a haze of desire.

“I only ever want to fuck you,” your moans are high pitched. “I don’t want anyone else.”

“I don’t want anyone to ever touch you,” his hand dips down between you and starts playing with your clit while you ride him. “I’m going to take care of you and I’m going to fuck you so good you can’t think straight.” You love when he gets like this.

“I’m so wet for you-“ you ride him like your life depends on it. His hand never leaves your throat continuously applying pressure.

Leaning back your hands rest on his thighs behind you. Moving your hips at a quick pace.

“Fuck-“ you moan.

“Your pussy was made for me,” he moans.

“Please kiss me,” you beg. Silently he accepts your plea. He pulls you closer to him by your throat. He releases his hold as your lips crash together.

“I wanna cum,” you whine with your lips ghosting his.

“Cum baby.”

Your orgasm washes over you with a blinding hot heat. Closing your eyes you lean forward and stop moving your hips. Minghao holds your hips and helps you continue to ride him while he chases his own high.

“Fuck-“ he moans as he paints your walls white. He doesn't think he has ever came that much in his life. If you weren’t on birth control he would be worried about getting you pregnant.

Pulling back slowly you sit up with him still snugly inside of you. The blissed expression on his face is absolutely beautiful. “I’ll quit stripping, but you have to promise me that you won’t break my heart.”

The smile that tugs at his lips makes your heart instantly swell. “I won’t ever break your heart.”

The two things you have learned about being in love is that sometimes you just have to trust the person who is in love with you. If you love someone sometimes it’s okay to break all your own rules.

@minghaosimp @kpoplover-19

[myerssimp21]

Tim Drake, Aphrodisiac Victim (YAN!Pt.1)

Romantic!Yandere!Batfam x fem reader. Part 1 Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

It’s easy for him to excuse it, easy for Tim Drake to pretend like he hadn’t intentionally fumbled the latest conflict with Poison Ivy. He could have done more to stop her, but when he discovered her plan and spent days pouring over the ingredients in her new concoction, the holistic quality of her potion calmed his nerves and quieted the anxious parts of him that screamed he would get caught. Ivy was known for several atrocities in Gotham, but she didn’t usually act as aggressively as Scarecrow or Joker with her toxins.

So when Tim Drake definitively concluded her newest potion wouldn’t have any adverse health effects, he was slower than he should have been when she whipped out the perfume bottle and sprayed it at him.

He’d been expecting this; what he hadn’t expected was Bruce yanking him backwards in an attempt to save him from the mist. The Batclaw shot out, aiming for the bottle in her hands but failing to retrieve it halfway through the delivery, the glass shattering on the ground and splashing all over the Bat and Tim Drake.

There had been dizzying action, and then only silence for a moment. Ivy had a shit-eating smile creeping onto her face as she began backing away, keeping her eyes on the two men trying to catch their breath.

“Gentlemen, it looks like you have the night off,” she said with a giggle as she continued to retreat, eyeing her escape route, “maybe make plans?”

“Pamela,” The Bat growls in a dark tone, his anger barely contained over how their mission had gone so wrong, “Give me the antidote.”

She turns to run away and he lunges forward to grab her before his knees buckle under him and he collapses to the ground, catching his balance and hearing her scurry off.

“Batman,” Tim says, feeling the weight of consequences of his actions as he feels his crotch begin tingling, “she doesn’t have one. I checked.”

The silence is palpable as Bruce evens out his breathing and pushes off the ground, using a nearby wall to steady himself, “We need to get to the Batmobile before it sets in.”

Tim shudders as Bruce places a giant hand on his shoulder, concerned both at how hard the big man is taking the dose and at how good the physical contact feels in this state. He hopes Bruce doesn’t feel pleasure at the slightest touch like he does; he’s frustrated since it was supposed to be just him.

Tim Drake was supposed to receive an accidental dose of Ivy’s new aphrodisiac. Tim Drake was supposed to stop by their darling’s apartment afterwards to relieve the strain in his crotch and the desire in his heart. It was supposed to be the best porno he’d ever see; getting the best angles for the cameras discreetly set up at her place earlier that month to rewatch later.

He knew Bruce was smart and Tim only hoped to earn forgiveness for this by making the best home film with you. He also knew Dick, Jason, and Damian would be grouchy he’d gotten to you first and it was entirely possible he’d get just decimated by your lack of interest altogether. Even though you and Tim had become close over the past couple semesters, he could tell you were reserved at times, just anxious or uneasy enough to pull away before anything with lasting complications happened.

The Batmobile had an autopilot feature which Bruce immediately enacted, setting a course for the Batcave. Wordlessly, Tim adds their darling’s apartment complex in as a stop, trying to not get shaky at the thought of getting laid in this state. It’s so easy to add it; all he has to do is press it from the list of saved priority locations in the portal.

“I had my suspicions,” Batman murmurs as he closes his eyes and lays against the headrest, trying to control the sensations in his body, “you wouldn’t have gotten sprayed at that range unless you wanted to.”

Tim says it before he can think in misplaced irritation, “Then why’d you get in the way?”

It’s embarrassing the moment he says it and Bruce says nothing in response, letting the silence sour in the air to make a point.

“What are you going to do?” Tim asks him, too aware of the growing urge to sink his dick into a warm, wet hole. The urge is going to be hard to wrangle enough to talk to her, let alone look normal enough to seem like a regular hook-up.

“I’ll manage,” is all Bruce says, and Tim hopes that means he’ll call Catwoman as soon as he leaves; he suddenly doesn’t like the idea of everyone tuning in at once to the live camera feeds as he tries his hand at seducing you. It feels like lots of pressure, and while Tim Drake is usually phenomenal at working under pressure, he doesn’t want to get rejected in 4k.

Bruce grips the steering wheel tight when the tingles begin in his crotch, trying to distract himself, “I have a change of clothes under your seat. Change before we get to her place.”

~

Bruce makes the call while he can, letting Damian know he and Tim were not going to be able to finish their patrol shift. Damian sounds unimpressed when he asks why and Bruce doesn’t answer him, hanging up.

Bruce goes to voicemail when he calls Jason, and his jaw clenches in irritation. He knows Jason holds more resentment towards him and might murder some criminals if made to do patrol on a night he’s supposed to have off, but Bruce can’t let Damian do patrol alone in the big city yet. He’s also a little concerned that Jason might murder Tim if he hears him with you, so getting him out on patrol is better for everyone.

After calling Jason two more times, Bruce gives up and calls Damian back, telling him he’d send Grayson over. Ever efficient, Damian is already dressed as Robin on the Batmobile’s call screen, his eyes narrowing in his domino mask.

"Father, your demeanor suggests trouble. What went wrong with Drake during the patrol?"

"It's nothing, Damian. Just a minor setback. We handled it."

"Minor setbacks don't usually disrupt patrol schedules. What are you hiding, Father?"

"I'll be back tomorrow morning," Bruce says, ignoring Damian's rude interrogation, "Make sure to stop by the GCPD to follow up with Jack Ryder on-" Bruce's voice falters as he struggles to remember what the story is; his crotch begins throbbing uncomfortably and he feels like the heat is spreading up his torso with each beat of his heart.

"On those cryptic messages left in the GCPD mailbox," Tim finishes for Bruce, leaning in to fit in the camera lens so Damian can see him too. Damian rolls his eyes.

"Your knack for evasion is quite the talent, Father. Maybe it's worth pondering why you choose partners if transparency isn't part of the deal."

With this scathingly cold delivery, Damian ends the call on a sour note. Tim would check with Bruce but their darling lives on the street they just turned down and his heartbeat has begun violently thudding in his chest and in his dick.

"Tim," Batman says firmly before Tim leaves the Batmobile, "stay in control. Scaring her off is not an option."

Tim's trying to not be sensitive about it because after all, it makes sense; if he comes off too strong and scares her, not only is he fucked immediately with Ivy's aphrodisiac coursing through his veins, but he will complicate things for the whole Wayne family. The other part of him, the part being drugged by Ivy's potion wants to whine in protest. How is he supposed to exercise control!? He'd never force himself on her but he doesn't doubt he might pass out if he doesn't find relief soon. As he exits the Batmobile with her apartment building in front of him, he just prays Jason is asleep and doesn't cockblock him.

You weren’t asleep yet. At 10 PM, you were drawing in bed, pausing at different parts in the pornographic video you were watching to practice drawing bodies. You couldn’t deny this way of practicing wasn’t tempting you to turn the lights off and rub one out with one of your vibrators though. They were recently charged, after all.

Not wanting to stop drawing quite yet but wanting the desire to build, you turn up the volume of the tv and make an effort to not pause as much. It felt good to feel a building arousal in your body and know you could use your toy as many times as you liked. It had already been about twenty minutes of you rotating out on your favorite pornography and hentai tags, working your brain up to arousal under the guise of practicing art. It honestly didn’t take much to get you feeling hot; growing sexual tension in your personal life made it easy to tap into. Maybe it was just that it never left your mind in the first place, and your mind wandered as your fingers snuck under the waistband of your shorts.

You thought of the recent weird vibes between you and Tim, the boy in your humanities course you sat near who was also in your social work course. You’d exchanged numbers early in the semester and at this point you’d met up for study sessions more than once. He’d always been a little flirtatious but you thought he was joking until he had leaned in the other day, hand finding purchase on your thigh as he murmured, “you drive me crazy, you know that?”

It was so generic you would have chuckled or rolled your eyes but the way he said it made goosebumps raise on your skin instead. His eyes were locked on yours and the sober intensity in them was not something you had prepared for, leaning away from him in sudden awkwardness even when you felt your cheeks burning.

Still, the thought of how he looked at you made you shudder when your finger brushed against your clit and your mind raced on.

Then there was your next-door neighbor, Jason. Tall and broad-shouldered, there's a casual confidence in the way he moves. His piercing blue eyes seem to twinkle with amusement whenever you shyly chat with him, like he's in on some secret joke. The black cat always at his heels chirps happily on his little patio table when you two chat, purring loudly and head-butting Jason at any given opportunity. Always, Jason makes his appearance shirtless, his eyes laughing louder at you every time you feel your face flush when he says something questionably flirtatious towards you. It's one thing to playfully flirt, but to do so while ripped and shirtless? How was your ability to articulate yourself around him supposed to have a chance?

You try not to look and act unflustered every time, but once your eyes lingered and you noticed scar tissue all over his torso, unable to tear yourself away from the sight. You'd apologized when he jokingly said you'd better take a picture, since you didn't want to seem rude checking out his scars and felt silly for getting caught staring.

"They come with a price, always," Jason remarked cryptically, suddenly making intense eye contact.

"Your scars?" You asked, afraid to say the wrong thing due to your social anxieties but leaning towards him from your bannister.

"No, my pictures" he replied with a smirk, his eyes twinkling mischievously while Alfred the cat chirped at his ankles again. Jason leaned across his bannister too, "But I've always believed in getting to know my neighbors. I think you and I could take that to a whole new level, don't you?"

"I-I think... that could be...nice," you stammered, your voice barely above a whisper. "Getting to know you better, I mean." You had looked away while trying to choke out these words, gathering your courage before meeting his gaze again. "I'm curious about you.. So maybe we could... explore each other sometime."

His eyes widened, his expression betraying a hint of genuine disbelief. A faint blush quickly dusted his cheeks, mirroring the warmth you felt spreading through you at his suggestion.

"Wow," he said, his voice laced with surprise and breathier than normal, "I wasn't expecting that, but... I like where you're going with this." The tone of admiration had given you chills at the time, praise kink activating at the new way he was regarding you. "I’m curious about you too, you know. Let's see just how close we can really get."

His reaction left you feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness, but you couldn't help but smile at his response. You hadn't seen him since then, a couple days ago, and you hoped your conversation would amount to something delicious one day if it was meant to be.

As you reminisced about Tim's intense words and Jason's forward suggestions, your fingers gravitated towards your clit, applying firm pressure as they glided up and down your labia before slowly easing into your pussy. You opted for two fingers, relishing the sensation of fullness they provided compared to just one. They pressed deeply inside you, and you squeezed around them exploratively, reveling in the feeling.

After relishing the fullness of your fingers, you pumped them a few times, a low moan escaping your lips at the intense sensation. Your eyes scrunched shut tightly as you imagined Tim's hand from the other day—how it had come to rest on your thigh, the way it had firmly gripped at you, igniting a desire to jump at the touch.

You visualized him inching closer to the point of no return, sliding his hand into your underwear, and letting his fingers work their magic right there as you both sat with your homework in front of you. Just moments ago, you would have been innocently reviewing new terms together, but then the thought of his touch would be obscenely irresistible. You pictured yourself moving your hips, eagerly responding to his touch and allowing yourself to make all the noises you had always been too nervous to make with others. You imagined he'd get antsy to fuck you after hearing the squelching of your pussy on his fingers. In your mind's eye, he would just barely find the self-control to pull his cock out from his pants before burying his length desperately as far deep as it could go in you.

As you finally reached for the vibrators kept next to the bed, the abrupt sound of knocking at the door shattered your session. Startled, you jumped up, hastily yanking your shorts back up and rushing to wash your hands.

With no peephole on your apartment door, you felt a twinge of unease as you hurried to answer it. When you pulled the door open, the sight of Tim standing there caught you off guard.

"Hey... uh, sorry to just show up unannounced like this," Tim begins, his voice slightly breathless. "I, uh, I needed to talk to you about something important."

He shifts uncomfortably, trying to suppress the nervous energy coursing through him. "I know it's kind of out of the blue, but... can I come in? It won't take long, I promise."

Tim's words come out rushed, his cheeks flushed with a mix of urgency and embarrassment, as he struggles to maintain his composure despite the powerful effects of the aphrodisiac coursing through his veins.

Without hesitating, you step aside, allowing Tim to enter. His presence saturates the room, bringing with it an air of tension and anticipation.

"Tim, what's going on? Are you okay?" you asked, your voice tinged with concern and uncertainty as you closed and locked the door behind him.

His eyes met yours with an intensity that made your heart beat just a little faster, unsure of what he was going to tell you.

"I couldn't stop thinking about what I said the other day," Tim began, his words coming out in a rush. "About how you drive me crazy. I... I don't know how to explain it but I felt like I had to come see you."

His confession hung in the air, heavy with emotion and unspoken arousal.

As he stood before you, his usually composed demeanor was replaced by an air of dishevelment. His hair was messier, and his clothes weren't neat like usual. There was a manic energy in his expression, a hint of desperation that sent a shiver down your spine.

"Tim, you seem... different tonight," you remarked cautiously, noting the wild look in his eyes.

"I couldn't wait any longer," he confessed, his voice emotional, "I needed to see you. I needed to be with you tonight more than anything."

The intensity of his gaze sent your heart racing, a sense of unease creeping over you as you began to comprehend the depth of his interest. Despite the warning bells ringing in your mind, you couldn't help but feel a flicker of something akin to surrender. You longed for him to desire you so intensely that he couldn't wait for a more appropriate time, practically begging you to spend a night with him like a lost puppy.

As Tim stood before you, his agitation evident in every movement, you couldn't ignore the tension in the air. Your gaze inadvertently dropped to the now noticeable bulge in his pants and you're captivated by it, unwilling to look away. You couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement at the undeniable evidence of his desire.

"Can you... touch me?" Tim's voice trembled with urgency as he made the request, his tone surprisingly gentle despite the underlying intensity. "You can set the pace, do anything you want, just... please, do something," he added, his words carrying a fervent plea while leaving the decision entirely in your hands.

The tension was thick but you couldn't say you were really surprised at this admission of interest. Regarding the boy in front of you, you pondered the consequences this could lead to. As far as you knew, Tim wasn't a frat boy or someone who could make your life annoying with spreading rumors about the type of girl you were at school. He'd only ever been considerate, kind, and genuine. No girlfriend that you knew of, and he'd definitely be the kind of guy who gushed about his partner if he had one, so you wouldn't be any sort of homewrecker. He always helped you with your homework, to a point where you barely needed to do anything but the minimum whenever he got involved in any of your projects or assignments. This in mind, you decided he deserved a reward.

Leaning in towards him, you place your hands against his cheeks to cup his face. His eyes are wide, the pupils dilated. You thought you heard somewhere that meant someone was in love. Staring into those blown pupils with a mixture of curiosity and arousal, you drew closer.

"Can I kiss you?" You whisper and he nods before you can even get the question out. You kiss him, noticing he seems to freeze up for a moment before kissing you back, pressing against your mouth harder. His tongue swipes against you, but before you let yourselves go any further, you pull away.

"Before things escalate, can we agree to keep it casual, keep us casual? I like what we have."

He seems so antsy, almost breathless, "Absolutely, yeah. I'm all in. No pressure."

Doubting his sincerity since he seems so gone off of whatever is happening to him, you hesitate, "Tim, I'm serious. I don't want you to agree just because of the moment or you're high."

You're staring into those dilated eyes of his in the beat of silence that follows, hoping he's really listening to you.

He looks back into your eyes, the frenzied look a little more under control. "I hear you, I'm on the same page. Friends-with-benefits, I'd love that." Notably, he doesn't deny the speculation of being high.

Nodding at the more clear communication, you went back in for the kiss, now letting his tongue enter and explore your mouth. After getting more clarity from him, you feel less tense and relax into his kiss, feeling his hand come up to touch at your hair as he takes more control of it.

Dropping to your knees when the kiss breathlessly ends, you kiss at his clothed bulge, pawing at it with a hand. Your eyes are fixated on the stricken Tim Drake above you, and he watches in awe as you deeply inhale. You can smell him through his pants and nuzzle your cheek against the bump in them.

Slowly pulling at the drawstring of his sweatpants, your fingers hook on the band and you pull them down till they're bunched at his ankles, hardly taking a breather from your kisses.

"Oh, god," he moans in a strangled voice, "You're so pretty down there."

His praise makes your cheeks begin to burn and your movements get a little more self-conscious, feeling marveled at. Moving your mouth against his bulge in his boxers, you find where the tip should be and roughly suck at it through his underwear. His body shudders, one of his hands fingering through your hair and grabbing it firmly and he hisses, "Play nice."

Feeling good about this now, you moan into his bulge at the choked tone you caused him, pulling his boxers down and kissing on his penis directly now. Lifting it, you craned underneath and kissed at his balls, licking a long strip up from them to the tip and swirling your tongue around his hole at the top. A loud moan tore through Tim and you felt him push his pelvis towards you more, the tip of his penis in your mouth beginning to inch further.

Graciously, you accept his bid, widening your mouth to swallow him completely when he pushes in. He's not terribly big but it's still a little hard to fit him in, the longer length causing it to bump into the back of your throat. He doesn't taste bad considering your previous experiences with oral. It was musty and damp like he'd just worked out, but the faint scent of soap and the neat pubes your nose was buried in told you his hygiene wasn't terrible.

Swirling your tongue with the movement, you experimentally go down on him to gauge his reaction. He moans loudly again and the sound is beautiful to you, doing it again in the hopes he moans nicely again. He does and you fixate your gaze up at him as you take his cock deeply again and his face betrayed how flustered he was, with his cheeks flushed and the look of a madman about him.

He's watching you like he adores you and when you make eye contact, his hips buck into your mouth and he whines, "I knew you'd be gorgeous swallowing my cock, you're taking it so well."

You look up at him in curiosity, so he thought about you like that? He'd pictured this?

"Fuck, I knew it. I knew you'd look beautiful on your knees."

You sense his thighs trembling and your hands come up to press against them, mouth obediently swallowing his cock.

"Oh," he chokes and roughly thrusts deeply, "I'm cumming- it's coming, swallow it all!"

He looks back down at you and then it comes as he moans loudly and crouches to push his cock as far as it will go down your throat, the overwhelming cumshot from the throbbing penis in between your lips threatening to spill out of your mouth. You always hated swallowing cum, and the hot orgasm spurting into your mouth is no exception. You feel your gag reflex threatening to make this night nightmarish but then it ebbs away as you focus on the fact the flow of cum is slowing down, on the fact this particular sensation will go away soon.

You can't lie he sounds and looks delicious otherwise, your eyes focusing on his flustered face that looks almost entirely delirious now. He's sweaty but the handsome face almost glows with liveliness, cheeks flushed and jawline trembling with emotion.

Gently, you slide his penis out of your mouth, sucking any remaining cum or spit off until you get to the tip, lightly swirling your tongue against his hole. When you finally pop off, his hand cups your cheek and he promptly drops to his knees, passionately grabbing your face and kissing you. His tongue wriggles into your mouth and you're surprised he's tongue-kissing you with the flavor of his cum fresh in your mouth still. One of his hands hungrily comes up to knead at your tit and you whimper as he harshly pinches on the end of it. Then he's pulled away from the kiss but his body is beginning to overwhelm you, crawling on top of you as you fall back onto your butt with your legs in front.

"Let me have you," he pleads, and you feel his penis is hard again and prodding against your thigh, "Please let me have you right now."

You wouldn't have preferred doing it mere feet away from your front door, especially since the crack under the door was a couple centimeters wide and anyone in the hall could probably hear you without effort, but the wild look in his eyes and the famished way he pulled at both your tits now made you want to indulge in such an animalistic fucking. Something was hot about the desperate way he looked, something enticing about the frenzied approach. You'd never seen this side of him, and the consequences of indulging with him in such a degrading way was far from your mind when his head dipped down and he tugged at the hem of your shirt. Helping him take off your shirt by lifting your arms, he wasted no time in shoving his face in your cleavage, nipping at the top of your breasts with his teeth.

Yelping at the surprising and slightly painful sensation, your hands come up to grip at his hair and he lays large wet kisses against your breasts, sucking at the skin there. You know he's gunning for hickeys and you whimper when he alternates between open-mouthed kisses and biting, arching and pressing your breasts further towards him.

His mouth pops off of them and he leans in, head over your shoulder as he fidgets with your bra clasp behind you. You turn your head as he fiddles with it and bury your face into his neck, inhaling deeply before kissing at it. He smells faintly of laundry detergent, but there's sweat and a slightly sweeter smell lingering on him, the sweeter smell hanging heavily in your nostrils and seemingly dripping at the back of your throat. It makes your head buzz a little and you pull away in a daze when he fails to unclasp your bra, your tits popping out of the thing when he pulls it down in frustration.

"What cologne do you wear?" You ask without really wanting to know right now, feeling your head spin after smelling at his neck.

"I'm not," he gasps, squeezing and pinching at your nipples freely now, and you throw your head back with a moan when he attaches at them with his mouth. He uses his tongue and teeth to alternate between nibbling and flicking at them with his tongue, paying attention to each side as he can. His penis is excitedly bumping against your thigh in his boxers and you kick your shorts off, groping at his bulge.

"Please," he says with need when he takes a break from your tits, and his hand now fumbles at his boxers. You see him pull his cock out from the hole in them and understand what he wants when he slides your panties aside, not bothering to remove them. His dick prods at you and his hips slowly move around, trying to find your entrance. Aroused and excited to feel him enter, you reach down to guide him in.

Then, you remember.

Groaning in annoyance, you gently begin pushing him off of you, "Tim, we have to use a condom. They're in my room."

He finally pulls off your tits with enough of your pushing, and he looks at you like he doesn't understand, a rabid look glinting in his eyes.

You smile, trying to make the best of it, "C'mon, it'll be more comfortable for us on the bed anyways."

Standing and realizing you feel uncharacteristically light-headed, you unsteadily make your way to your bedroom, feeling him grip at your hips while he follows. You apologize for the pornography still loudly streaming from your TV as you make your way to your dresser to get a condom, and his eyes quickly become glued to the visual stimulation, mouth opened slightly as he stared.

"Keep it on," he instructs when he notices you reach for the TV remote, "Keep it on and get over here."

You approach the bed where he sits on the end, and he opens the wrapper and pulls his boxers down to reveal his penis, hastily rolling the condom onto his length. The sensation of doing so seems to be much more stimulating to him than you thought it would, and he moans and whimpers as he pulls it all the way down. Once it's on, he grabs forward at your waist and yanks you down onto him, your breasts smashing against his face as you fall onto him. He's strong and you're letting him pull you around, straddling his lap and looking down at the needy man.

"Here," you say, reaching past him to grab your pillow and tuck it under his head, "There you go."

You smile down at him sweetly and he smiles back, kneading at your ass as you sit atop him. Leaning down to kiss him, you use a hand to reach down and guide his penis against your entry, pulling it to rub it up and down against you. His tip collects your aroused wetness and the movement become slippery as it slides with your lubrication. Just when you can tell he's getting antsy and about to whine, you guide it until you feel it at the tip of your entrance. Slowly, you sink down onto it and his grip on your ass tightens until it's almost painful.

"Oh," He moans, deeply affected. His hips are still as you let him slowly penetrate you until you're full with him and there's no more room in you to sink down further, "Oh, god, you feel so good."

"How do I feel?" You ask in curiosity, looking at him as he seems dazed with the sensation of your pussy. A sudden thrust upwards into you makes you yelp, his hard penis harshly bumping against your cervix. His eyes are closed as he collects his words.

"You're so warm and fluttering around me," he says, and it's true. You feel yourself squeezing at him at the sight of him, his relief evident, "I've never felt so good; it's like you were meant to have me buried in you."

His words are spoken with conviction, and you're processing it all when he thrusts again. It still hurts, but less now. Your head is spinning, but you catch onto his new rhythm and begin lifting your hips up, forcefully pushing them down on him in time with his thrusts.

Pained but aroused moans spilling from your lips in time with each thrust, you realize your tits are bouncing around in his face with your fucking, swinging around wildly. His grip on your hips tightens impossibly and you see his biceps flex madly when his muscles take over, overriding your own rhythm and violently making you meet his thrusts. The moans from his own mouth gets louder until they're louder than yours, his pace quickening at the sight of your expression above him. You look fucked out and in pain and he relishes in it, knowing the sound of skin slapping against skin is his own doing. He grits his teeth and pulls you all the way down on his length like you were when you got on top at first, shooting his orgasm into the condom but envisioning it shooting straight into your womb.

You hiss in some pain at this large and painful thrust, moaning at the distant feeling of his dick twitching in you. The base of his cock is nestled at your entrance and you feel the entire length of it throbbing in your hot pussy as he takes his time to finish.

"You haven't cum," he says through heavy breaths as he comes down and you know he isn't asking but stating his observation.

"It's still really hot," you admit, "I like how it feels when you cum in me."

Staring up at you, he brings his hands up to your ass again and lifts his hips to inch the both of you towards the head of the bed, reaching towards the bedside dresser and grabbing one of your vibrators, handing it to you. You're still impaled on him and gasp at the sensation of him jerking you forward with him on his dick. Now kneading rhythmically at your tits, he pulls at them like he was milking you, "Cum on my cock."

Wide-eyed, you realize he's perceptive and has noticed your vibrators when you came in.

His gaze is drinking you in, eyes less wild as he stares. When you hesitate, he takes the vibrator from your fingers and turns it on, placing it against your clit as you sit on him. You're impressed he knows where the clit is and you jump at the sensation of the vibrator bumping against it, feeling him thrust up with an overstimulated whimper when you jump.

"Tim," you gasp, "doesn't that hurt?"

"Don't worry about it," he hisses through gritted teeth, "I need to feel you cum on my cock."

So you focus on finding your orgasm, hyperaware of the hard rod resting in your secret place, tracing the sex toy along places near your clitoris and moaning in pleasure as you play with yourself. He whimpers every time you squeeze on him and you squeeze on him any time you find pleasure near your clit. His hands return to milking your tits and you remember that his condom is full of his cum, sloshing around deep inside you and pressing against your cervix. The fear of the condom breaking suddenly rushes you to your first orgasm and you gasp his name, feeling him twitch deep inside you as you repeat his name helplessly in your climax. He strains upwards and his lips catch a nipple, sucking harshly as you begin to come down.

"Keep it there," he growls when you begin to pull your vibrator away, "We're not going anywhere until you cum again."

"Tim," you whimper, "I can't."

"I know you can," he says, thrusting upwards experimentally. The movement makes the vibrator bump against your clit and you squeeze down on him at your own overstimulation, making him groan. He slowly and determinedly begins thrusting into you again, small tears forming in his eyes at the overstimuation.

His stubborn insistence on chasing your second high even though you're both beyond the edge only makes you more aroused and you rut against him. He's not thrusting fully, but more so bumping against your cervix in small movements and you're fraught with a visual of the full condom sloshing around. You wonder if he will cum again into it, if it will become so full with his semen it bursts inside you. This thought along with his steady breast kneading causes the knot to quickly build up in your cunt until it comes undone again, and your second orgasm hits in a fray of overstimulation and whimpering.

"There you go," he coos, legs underneath you twitching at your pulsing movements, "There you go, you did so well. You did so good for me, baby...you were meant for it."

You shudder at the sweet tone, being pulled down for a long kiss. His chest is sweaty, the space in between the bottom of your thighs and the tops of his is slick, and you're gasping against his neck when he holds you. The two of you spend a while in that embrace, regaining your breaths and recovering from the intense session. Your head rests against his collarbone until you stir, slowly lifting yourself off him and breathing through the feeling of his cock sliding out of you. When it's fully out, you collapse next to him on the bed, bringing a leg up to wrap around his as you both take a breather.

You know you told him it was no commitment, no feelings, no drama, but you can't deny yourself a cuddle session after sex regardless. He doesn't speak, but the silence is comfortable as you rest your head against the crook of his chest and side. The atmosphere in the room shifts subtly as the distant sounds of the television fade into the background, replaced by the incessant chirping of Tim's phone.

You can't help but notice the growing urgency in Tim's demeanor as he glances at his device, a furrow forming on his brow. Despite your reluctance, he rises from the bed, his movements hesitant yet determined.

Sitting up despite your whines of protest, Tim looks at his device in concern and reluctance, "I have to take this."

Your initial protest dies on your lips as you watch him leave the room, a knot of unease forming in the pit of your stomach. What could possibly be so pressing at this hour? The uncertainty gnaws at you, feeding into the growing sense of unease.

As you strain to make out the muffled voices from the other room, a sinking feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. The once familiar sounds of Tim's voice now carry an edge of tension, each word laced with frustration and urgency. It's a stark contrast to the comfortable silence you shared moments ago.

Your heart sinks further as Tim returns, his expression weighed down by an unspoken burden. The air between you feels heavy with anticipation, as if bracing for the inevitable.

"What's wrong?" you venture cautiously, already dreading the answer.

Tim's gaze flickers with a mixture of regret and resignation as he meets your eyes, his voice heavy with apology, "I'm really sorry, but something came up. I have to go."

Your mind races, trying to comprehend the sudden shift in the atmosphere. What could possibly be so urgent? Despite your efforts to remain composed, a wave of insecurity washes over you. Did this mean you weren't important enough to prioritize?

"...Really?" you finally utter, your voice trembling slightly.

"Yes," he reluctantly confirms, a guilty expression on his face, "I'm very sorry, but I need to attend to this."

Wanting to protest but knowing it would be more frustration than it was worth, you nodded slowly at the news, "...Okay."

He starts for the door, ""I wish I could stay, but I really need to go. I'll make this up to you, I swear."

As Tim heads towards the front of your apartment to gather his belongings and dress, you follow behind, hastily pulling on your shirt as you move. Despite the turmoil swirling within, you're determined to maintain a façade of composure, refusing to let the tears welling up inside spill over. The uncertainty gnaws at you as you watch him prepare to leave, a knot of anxiety tightening in your chest. You desperately cling to the hope that something truly urgent has come up, unable to bear the thought of him simply walking away after the intimacy you shared. You wonder if you'll be able to face him at school after this, but the thought is so overwhelming to you that you just try to focus on the present moment.

You swallow hard, forcing a tight-lipped smile as you bid him farewell, your heart heavy with unspoken words and unanswered questions. As the door clicks shut behind him, you're left standing alone in the hallway, grappling with the aftermath of his abrupt departure.

After a long moment, you decide that freshening up will probably help you feel better and you turn on heel to head towards the bathroom, the goal of brushing your teeth and washing your face the only thing you're ready to focus on in your sudden loneliness.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

@dakota-rain666 @tyga-stripes @obsessedwithromance

[purrassicjet]

Rat Grinder Redemption but they get assigned a "Bad Kids Trusted Adult" to make sure they're redeemed:

Ruben: Gorthalax (Starting off with my weakest. I'm pretty sure Gorthalax also has music ties from back in Freshman Year when he was introduced, so I think he can help Ruben take back his music. The Bad Kids also don't know many bard adults)

Mary Ann: Ragh (Ragh's boundless enthusiasm makes him very good at carrying conversations. He's not only a great Barbarian, but would take a genuine interest in Mary Ann's quorky pets and squishmallows. His enthusiasm has to become infectious eventually)

Oisin: Aelwyn (It was very hard to get Aelwyn to agree to make sure Oisin was redeemed, but after she was told she had to help teach him magic, she agreed. She trains him really harshly, lots of borderline unsafe sparring, but eventually they manage to get along by bitching about other people to each other)

Ivy: Sandra Lynn (Ivy is extremely vocal about how she is NOT pleased to have somebody supervising her, but Sandra Lynn takes no shit from her. Her tough love is just what Ivy needs, and slowly, to her own disgust, she starts to become attached to Sandra Lynn's no-nonsense attitude. Sandra Lynn is an incredible ranger and a great teacher, so Ivy has a hard time hating her for very long)

Kipperlily: Jawbone (Jawbone's already been working with Kipperlily for a while now, and he wants to see it through. Kipperlily is the most resistant of the Rat Grinders to being redeemed, but eventually, Jawbone's able to get back to where he was with her and help her improve)

All the kids spend time with Lydia, who knows what it's like to experience rage for a long period of time. She's very hard to dislike for very long, and they all warm up to her very quick. Mary Ann the fastest because Ragh talks about her all the time.

I'm not sure what adult would be assigned to Buddy. If anybody has any ideas, feel free to reblog with them!

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

what do the rouges think of cardinal?

OHHHHH What a lovely question <33

Since i've yet to write in Cardinal in a scene beyond his desk work- these might change.

Cardinal acts well- like a cryptic?? It's a complete coin toss how he will behave, if he will turn the creepy to 100% and speak in tounge's (its a mix of latin and greek) But when he DOES respond its through a heavy voice modulater.

However if you want specifics?? (also some extra lore of some rouges no longer active- both due to. Cardinals interference and BECAUSE I SAID SO)

Joker- They are a menace, never once humors his schemes- he knows the moment Cardinal gets involved his fun is ruined. Therefore he hates their guts. (Cardinal is reported 10x more brutal when faced with the Joker)

Scarecrow- Self proclaimed "Arch enemy" of Cardinal since hes never once sucseeded in drugging them, and he longs to know what would make the little bird sing. (Cardinal is said to have an entire pocket dedicated to backup rebreathers, usually lets the bats take over)

Riddler- LOVES Cardinal so so much- they are like best friends (no no they are not) Cardinal seems to enjoy his puzzles and he's able to pull out ones even the Batman would struggle with. Sometimes an informant for a good game. (Cardinal will admit, out of all the rouges? He doesn't mind Riddler- just with less hostages)

Harley- Thinks they are strange, even more strange than the bats. But more than anything concerning- their behaviors raise a ton of red flags but she doubts she can convince them to therapy, though it is her goal. (Cardinal is... unsure about Harley, she's changed- but memories are hard)

Ivy- Theres a mutual respect- Though out of all the vigilantes Cardinal seems to fear her the most, the last time being hit by her pollen they freaked out enough Harley made her give over the antidote. They definently fight, but she does try and hold back some of her more underhanded stuff. (Cardinals suit got several more layers after that incident)

Mr.Freeze- Reformed villain now, as a result of Cardinal. Aka when he first did his villain monologue to them- they had spoke (for the first time to ANY rouge) and asked to see his blue prints. A few years later his suit was fortified to help him live a somewhat normal life, and his wife had been cured. They got their life back. Leaving Gotham soon after, but he still checks in on ocassion (Cardinal never responds though, but they're happy with the updates- that he was able to help)

Catwoman- Annoying, but interesting for sure. It seems no matter how elaborate her scheme they always seem to pop in and just stare or even wave. The most interesting thing though? They never stop her. Certian locations she robs they will return the item (usually museums) but have never once tried to actually take her in. If anything shes half convinced they throw the bats off her trail, its interesting. (She never steals from anyone who cant afford to replace it, and honestly her stuff goes to a good cause-)

Clayface- Never became a villain- After his accident, Dagget had been shut down long before so Matt Hageb he had no accsess to the cream. With the help of his coworker (and future husband) Teddy Lupus he got the help he needed. Drake Industries came out with an amazing prosthesis program that helped construct a whole new face. Now Mr & Mr Lupus live in upper west side of Gotham where they now raise two daughters going to Gotham Academy.

Blackmask- Hates their fucking guts. People think Cardinal comes down on the Joker hard? They're practically suffocating Black Mask movements- buisness is failing and at this rate he's trying to put out a hit on the fucker. (The hates their guts is mutual)

Two face- Instead of going to the Manori trial- Harvey had an emergency call from a very panicky Bruce who suddenly had CPS knocking at his door about Dick. The delay finding a new attorney meant Manori was found with the acid and held for attempted assault while Harvey was scot free. He owns his own law firm now and has continued to be a close confident to Bruce and "Uncle" to the kids. (Cardinal cried when he first found out about Harvey, that he was okay- he thought it had been too late.)

Penguin- Cardinal is a pain in their ass, not as much as Black mask but still just enough that he doesnt hold back when attacking. The ONLY saving grace from absolute hatred is Cardinal outright refuses to fight any of his birds, and will even go as far as to save some of them when the bats are too careless to notice a penguin slipping off a roof. (Cardinal wishes Penguin would stop dragging actual penguins into his shit- even with guns they're just too cute)

[nicksbestie]

Nooks And Crannies - M. Sturniolo

a series

part one

Summary : You always seem to be somewhere in the bookstore Matt works at, never buying anything, just reading, and while Matt is technically not supposed to talk to customers for so long while he's on the clock, he can't help himself.

Warnings : none yet!

Word Count : 1048

Pairing : Matt Sturniolo/Reader (romantic)

A/N : a series from me!! what a shock!! i hope i can actually keep this going <3 i'm such a sucker for soft matt, so here is bookworm matt !

Matt sighed as he opened the door to The Ivy, but it wasn’t a sigh of dread.

It was one of relief, one of anxiety rolling off of his shoulders. He felt so lucky to have a job that he genuinely enjoyed and paid him enough to be happy and comfortable. His work really was like a second home for him. It was a smaller, yet gorgeous, bookstore combined with a coffee shop, and all of it really had a home owned feel, because they weren’t part of any corporate line. They paid better than the corporate line did, and because they were on a popular street downtown, they brought in a great amount of profit compared to some other smaller stores.

Matt was the type of person to cover anyone’s shift because he genuinely would love to be at the bookshop. The money was just a bonus for him. Matt was an organizer, someone who was neat and tidy, and the bookshop gave him the room to do that, and combine it with one of his favorite interests, reading. He had been working this job for almost three years, having started it as his full time job just after he had graduated from high school, and he couldn’t see himself ever wanting to leave. He and his brothers had a comfortable home with three combined incomes, and he was truly happy.

As he clocked in, he smiled at the customer patiently waiting to check out books, waving them over to his register. Checkout wasn’t his favorite, he preferred to be working between the aisles of books, but he did still enjoy it. He didn’t think that there was a single part of his job that he actively disliked, because it was very rare that he dealt with someone who didn’t want to be in there. That was one of his favorite things about working in the store that he did, because it was a form of retail, but it wasn’t really retail. Nobody was in there because they had to be, besides the workers. They were all in there because they wanted to be, and because of that, they were generally much nicer to the employees. 

Matt easily helped the person buy their books, complimenting the choices they’d made. Matt had read just about all of the best sellers in the shop, and continued to pick up the new books as they came in. He always struck up a conversation with everyone he checked out, regardless of how tired he was, or if he was having a bad day. He found himself really enjoying getting to share thoughts on his favorite books, give recommendations, and still get to enjoy the benefits of being paid for it. Sometimes customers would come back while he was working, and they would get to talk about their favorite moments of books that they had both read. 

Once the line behind the checkout had cleared out, many conversations later, many book recommendations given out, and happy customers leaving, Matt logged out of the register, letting a coworker take over to train someone new, and he went to go help unload more books. That was his favorite part, because he got to read the back of all of the books, see which ones interested him, and then because he was the one putting them on the shelves, he knew exactly where they were and could go buy them while he was off the clock. He had a rule. He never bought new books the day that they were delivered, no matter how much he really wanted to. Sometimes they could sell out very quickly, but he always waited at least one day before buying them, so that someone who didn’t work there and wasn’t there all the time like he was could get a chance at getting them.

The Ivy was a gorgeous little store, and it really felt like a cozy little oasis in the middle of a busy downtown area. He loved all of the small, almost hidden, spots in the store, near windows in the back. There was one space that was hidden by a sliding bookshelf, and there was a handle there, but Matt had never seen anyone figure it out. They often pulled on it instead of sliding it, and when it didn’t move, they assumed that it was simply decorative. Matt always stayed there during his break, as the bookshelves surrounding that little nook were double-sided, and he had more books to pick up and read. 

The Ivy drew people in, and once you sat in one of the comfortable seats by the window, you’d lose track of time, but it wouldn’t matter anyways, because you’d never want to leave. And no, Matt was definitely not speaking from experience. As much as Matt loved to help people find things that they would enjoy, stocking shelves really gave him some quiet time to just focus on his work and enjoy his surroundings. Matt was a people watcher. While he was stocking shelves, people simply ignored his presence. He didn’t take this personally, people often overlook the employees. This worked very well for him, as he got to observe people.

He saw all kinds of people. He saw couples who came in and bought books for each other, people who came in with headphones and a coffee and walked up and down the aisles, reading the backs of book after book, the little kids who came in and pored over the stickers and the coloring books, and the older people who flip through the magazines and never actually buy anything, but they walked out with a smile on their face. There were the regulars at the coffee shop that Matt saw walk through the bookstore portion, and the people who hung out over there as well. There weren’t a lot of regulars, but Matt tried his best to take notice of every person who came into the store. 

It wasn’t until Matt went to take his break that he realized he had missed someone, which wouldn’t be a shock to him normally, as the place was usually quite busy. But this time, as he slid the bookshelf to the side, there was someone already sitting in his usual chair.

taglist : @blahbel668 @mattsgirlfrieeend @69isabella69 @mayhem-72 @iculdstealurgf @iluvm4ttsturni0l0 @sturnioloslife @heartsforkarina @nervousrebelglitter @sturniclo @elliegrace-7 @mattsturnioloisbae @strnilo @dazsha19 @patscorner @hailee22sstuff @tworosesblackthorn

~ if you'd like to be added to my taglist, click here!

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[da-rulah]

In Cold Blood - Terzo x f!reader

Summary: Solitude had always appealed. Perhaps that’s why you took on this project… The thought of transforming a dilapidated old Victorian farmhouse into a sanctuary of your own, to live in peace and the romanticisms of a gothic home you fell in love with.

After the structural integrity of the house is replenished, you fill your days with DIY and decorating, bringing to life a house that had been frozen in time and left to rot for decades. You could enjoy the solitude of the land already, a few miles outside of a town plagued by disappearances and a fear of the dark. But you couldn’t escape the news of more missing people, nor the strange occurrences happening around your new home.

Were you imagining things? Or was there indeed a shadow haunting your sanctuary?

Rating: Explicit, 18+ MDNI Word Count: 19.6k (i'm back bitchesssss)

Warnings: Dark fiction, horror fic, mentions of murder, coercion, manipulation, obsession, masturbation (f), voyeurism, manhandling, threat and mild violence, dubious consent (later turns to verbal consent), oral sex (f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, blood, blood drinking, unprotected sex

Read on AO3 | Masterlist | Leave a tip

WARNING: This is a work of DARK FICTION. It is a horror fic, and contains mentions of violence as well as elements of dubious consent and manipulation. Please do not read if this is going to affect you negatively. You have been warned, and I take no responsibility if you choose to ignore the warnings and triggers attached.

a/n: well hello there. It's been a while, hm? Radio silence and then BOOM, a 20k word fic outta nowhere? Well, this was written for the wonderful @angellayercake's birthday, and she's been so kind as to give her permission for me to share it. I promise, more new content coming soon, and I'll be working on an update for The Mayor's Daughter ASAP! Happy reading, creeps...

“What’s the catch?”

The real estate agent blinked at you in confusion, as if you’d just asked her to recite the square route of pi to the 30th decimal.

“The… the catch?” she asked, “I don’t understand.”

“Well, it’s just so cheap, I have to wonder which closet the skeletons are hiding in…” you joked, knowing full well the skeletons were actually in the backyard under the headstones that sat growing moss and ivy for the last six decades at least.

“Ma’am… I’ve been very upfront about the state of the house. It needs extensive repairs and renovation, it has a graveyard out back, it’s way out in the sticks and the landscaping is overrun… What more could be wrong with it?” She rang out her hands nervously, chewing on her cherry red lips as you scrutinised her body language. You’re sure there was something she wasn’t telling you, but this was a perfect opportunity for you…

Coming off the back of a decent chunk of inheritance left by a relative you’d long-since forgotten, you needed a project. You’d always wanted to renovate a beautifully gothic home from the 19th century, and when you saw the listing for exactly that on the edge of a small town? Ideal. Perfect. Exactly what you wanted. The thought of being a little out in the country, surrounded by land and away from the bustle of the city you grew up in was all too appealing.

“It has a charm to it, don’t you think?” you smiled to yourself, fiddling with the dusty net curtains still hanging in the living room’s huge bay window.

“Uh… sure, yeah,” the agent agreed with reluctance, still so confused as to why you would be at all interested in this ruin that she couldn’t even show you all of due to the structural integrity of the floorboards.

“I’d like to put in an offer,” you told her, turning back to face her with a smile on your face.

“You… really? Oh, my god! Okay, great! Well, I’ll get the paperwork…” she sprung into action, suddenly full of an energy that could only have been triggered by the whiff of her future commission.

It would take some work, sure, but this place had the potential to be the perfect project and future home for you…

It took six months, but the structural integrity of the house had been stabilised by a team of builders you’d hired to take care of the place while you got your affairs in order and ready to move halfway across the country. You weren’t taking much; a lot of the furniture left in the abandoned house was part of the project and with a little restoration would be absolutely beautiful. You were ready for the work, ready to create a home that you could be so proud of and had your stamp on it.

Moving into the house was quicker than you thought it would be, with most of your furniture sold and donated. For now, you had to live out of suitcases until you had a bedroom and closet space that was clean enough to hang your things in.

At the very least, you’d cleaned and stripped the four-poster bed that still lay in the master suite, checking the integrity of the bed itself and noting how… pristine it seemed compared to a lot of the other furniture left behind. But this was made of expensive, dark mahogany wood – it was built to last, and so with a polish, a new mattress and sheets? You had a gorgeous bed to sleep in each night, taking a little bit of pressure off when you’d spent an entire day exhausting yourself over more renovations.

One of your first jobs had been landscaping in the graveyard. You’d felt pulled to the graves, wanting to give whoever was buried on your property a much more respectful resting place, rather than allowing them to be swamped by ivy and moss.

It seemed to be a family plot, probably the last family to have owned the home. Every stone had the same surname, dating back to the first of the deaths in 1904. What struck you as odd, however, was the nature of the stones themselves…

For the time period, you might have expected angels, cherubs, perhaps a cross or two. But whilst these stones were ornate and beautiful, they were not steeped in biblical references at all. Instead, the eldest stone had a decaying gargoyle sat atop it… Another, a ram’s head at the base. One had a stone skeleton laying above where the body would have been buried, carved into a slab of concrete as if it was protruding from the grave itself. You’d never seen graves like this before, symbols and carvings you couldn’t identify but had you on edge the minute you looked at them. But one of those symbols, you certainly recognised.

A pentagram.

Now, as a purveyor of the dark and mysterious, you hadn’t minded the thought of a graveyard in your garden. For goodness sake, you loved the gothic aesthetic, the dark and macabre had always called out to you. But to find these graves had a theme to them, a darker, occult theme… It cast a deeper shadow over the home you’d purchased.

Who were this family? Were they part of an occult? You were itching to understand the history, to uncover more about the lost family that let their home fall to ruin and their graves be overrun by nature.

But it had to wait, the renovations taking over to make your house a far more liveable abode. With the graves at least clear from nature’s extremities, you could come back to them another time to give them a proper clean, to uncover the names in full and potentially use the information to gather more with a trip to the local library or a google search.

For now, you had to get to cleaning room by room so you could begin stripping and re-decorating where it needed it most.

“…The Sheriff’s office have released a statement today to calm locals calling for more action in the string of disappearances throughout town. Last Monday saw the latest in the line of disappearances, 29 year old store clerk, Andrew Walton, taking the total up to 12 missing in the last nine months. Mr Walton was last seen on CCTV heading into the alley of the 7/11 where he worked…”

The radio news bulletin caught your attention as you were working in the master bedroom, stripping the already peeling wallpaper from the panelled walls atop a stepladder. You’d only moved in three weeks ago, and yet, the little radio you always put on to work to kept churning out the same story consistently – the string of disappearances in town that seemed to be getting more and more frequent.  

It would seem it was the town with skeletons in the closet, not your precious new home. The estate agent failed to mention that one…

When you first heard about it, you’d made sure the house was secure, with locks on the windows, every entrance bolted and sturdy. Being so far outside of town, you weren’t particularly worried since you rarely ventured from your home, particularly not at night when most of these disappearances seemed to have taken place. But it didn’t hurt to be safe...

Still, the thought that there may be someone out there snatching people for God only knows what purpose was a little unsettling. You could only hope the sheriff would do his job and catch whoever was behind the crimes soon – but it had already been nine months… All you could do was lay low, stay as far away from the potential risks of heading into town alone in the dark.

As the lunchtime bulletin ended, the radio began to play one of the top 40 songs you’d heard at least three times already today. Whilst it was repetitive, you’d learned the words, and found yourself singing along as you scraped at patches of wallpaper residue with your little scraping tool. You lost yourself to easily in the renovation tasks, the monotony allowing for your brain to whisk you away to distant worlds, like shooting your own music videos to the songs as you sang along.

Drifting so far off into your own thoughts is probably the reason you hadn’t realised the radio had actually cut out completely, and it was just you singing and the sound of the metal scraper to fill the silence… The batteries had died.

“Ah, shit…” you mumbled to yourself, stepping off the ladder and reaching for the radio you’d placed on the window sill. Upon closer inspection, you made the definite conclusion that it was in fact the batteries, and sighed in annoyance. Of all the things you didn’t think you’d need for a while at least, you would now have to rummage around in the unemptied moving boxes that were still stockpiled in the dining room, filled with ‘random crap’ from your ‘random crap’ drawers – the drawers every home has… You just hadn’t renovated enough of the kitchen to have a ‘random crap’ drawer yet.

Digging through the boxes, you pulled a tape measure, a pack of four highlighters with two missing, six bank statements dated four years ago and a set of tiny little wrenches from the collection, until finally, you found a pack of unopened batteries at the bottom of the box.

You fumbled with them, rushing to get them out and replace the dead ones in the radio so you could get your music back and get back to work. Just as you pushed the second battery in, the radio roared to life again, startling you with a sudden gasp. Your heart raced in your chest as you chuckled at yourself, laughing at how stupid you’d been to have forgotten to turn it off before you pushed the new batteries in.

But a sudden and much more frightening crash from beneath you had you jumping again within seconds, your grip on the radio faltering as it flew to the ground, the new batteries flying out at the impact and drenching the room in silence again.

Your head flew immediately to the old door to your left, the one that led beneath the house to the basement…

You don’t know how long you stared at it, your heart rate never calming down as your mind raced with scenarios. An animal? Old house falling apart? Ghost? Psycho killer from town? You had no idea what to think.

But you lived alone. No noise should be coming from down in the damn basement.

You stared for so long, you began to question if you’d heard anything at all. Perhaps your mind was playing tricks on you. But with a mental kick up the arse and a quick shake of the head to rid yourself of the fear, you marched over to the door to investigate like every stupid final girl in every horror movie you’d ever seen.

When you pulled on the string light, it buzzed and flickered before settling on a barely-there orange glow. Thankfully, it didn’t matter so much, the small windows in the house’s foundations letting in just enough light to deem the room visible. You could smell the must as you stepped down the wooden stairs, creaking under your feet as if some obnoxious special effects guy was dubbing the scene.

The movers had moved some of the restorable furniture you’d asked them to keep down here, stacking it in a far corner for you to come back to when you’d sorted the main structure and décor of the house. They were caked in a thick layer of dust, fingerprints from the movers clearly visible.

But nothing looked like it had fallen, there wasn’t anything broken or toppled over on the floor at all. The bang you’d heard had no source, that you could see. Even the cellar doors that led to the yard out back were still chained and bolted shut – you couldn’t blame it on a gust of wind, and upon first inspection, there was no sign of an animal somehow making its way inside either.

But to be sure, you walked through the clear space in the centre of the basement and over to the furniture pile of display cabinets, side tables, some chairs and a wardrobe you’d had moved from the master bedroom. It was one of your favourite pieces, that wardrobe. You planned to only clean it up and revarnish it, matching the ornate wood of the bed that had been kept pristine and you now used as your own. Even the mirrors on the door – oval shaped with dark ivy carved into the edges – were in fantastic condition. No scratches, just caked in a layer of dust like the rest.

A closer look proved there were no animals in the basement, no rodents or critters to try and ferry back outside. But what you did notice were the fingerprints on the brass handles of the wardrobe. Perhaps the movers had peaked inside – you hadn’t when you viewed the place. Maybe there were some old clothes still left behind from another decade?

Curiosity got the best of you, and you opened the door with a shriek of its hinges to find… nothing. The wardrobe was empty save for a few wire hangers that jingled with the opening of the door, and another layer of dust, albeit thinner, on the low shelf inside. But the dust was disturbed…

In the centre, there was a rectangle in the dust, as if it had been carefully wiped clean with absolute precision… It was about the size of a shoe box, but the dark grain of the wood stood out around the greyed and dulled wood surrounding it. Something had been in there for years, and had been removed…

Instantly, you blamed the movers. They’d gone nosing around and taken something they thought was valuable? Oh hell no. It got your back up immediately… You’d trusted these people, and they’d stolen from you? They’d be getting a phone call later.

Now pissed, you shut the door to the wardrobe a little harder than perhaps you should, the bang that sounded ricocheting off the stone walls of the basement.

That sounded like what you’d heard from upstairs.

You brushed it off, thinking nothing of it and instead looking up into the oval mirror of the door to check you’d left no damage to it.

But then you saw him. A man, in the dusty reflection standing in the far corner, the darkest spot of the basement. You could only see an outline, a silhouette. But one of his eyes seemed to gleam brighter than the other, the light perhaps hitting it just right. He was glaring at you, watching you intently in the dull reflection…

You shrieked, spinning in your place and slamming your back into the wardrobe behind you. Your chest heaved in panic, heart racing and breaths coming short and fast while your eyes searched the dimly lit corner and found nothing.

There was no man stood in the corner, nothing at all in fact. You were completely alone, your mind playing havoc on you in your heightened state of anxiety and anger. Even now, your heart was still hammering away, your lungs just beginning to regulate your breathing.

You straightened yourself up and wiped at your clothes that collected dust from the wardrobe when you’d slammed into it.

“Dumbass,” you mumbled to yourself, heading back upstairs quickly and slamming the basement door. You tried your best to shake off the anxiety, putting your batteries back into your radio and rushing back to the master bedroom to continue with the wallpaper scraping in the hopes it might put your mind back at ease. But for the rest of the day, you felt an anxiety you couldn’t shift, as if there truly was a man in the corner of every room you entered, glaring at you from the shadows.

It took a few days to get all the paper and residue off the walls in the master bedroom, careful not to mess with the panelling you wanted to sand down and keep as part of the décor. But for now, you could finally get onto stripping the paper in one of the other bedrooms, hoping to strip all of the paper from the upstairs in one go before getting around to sanding and replacing any panelling so you wouldn’t be spreading the dust into rooms you’d already finished and cleaned. There was method in your madness – strip everything down, sand, then clean.

The next biggest room upstairs had no furniture in it and was in the worst state, having been the room with the most extensive damage to the flooring and structural integrity. Builders had to replace the entire floor, and so had removed everything to do so. Apparently a leak in the roof – now fixed, of course – had caused irreparable water damage to the far corner, where they’d also removed the mouldy panelling and cleaned the remaining black mould properly and safely.

But now the rest of the room needed its paper stripped, so that’s where you found yourself. Your little radio blared the same station as always as you scraped away at the paper, making your way along the walls. It came off easier than the master bedroom, the damp of the room helping to already ease the adhesive from the plaster beneath.

As you moved to a section of the wall near the window, placing the stepladder on the floorboard, you heard one rattle beneath it. Having had the entire floor replaced, you’d assumed that every floorboard would be secured down. Perhaps the builders had missed one, but a few nails and you could fix that. So you moved the stepladder out of the way and crouched to inspect the plank that wobbled.

It had the holes in it where the nails should have been, and yet, there were no nails to hold it down… It was as if it had been secured and then pulled up again, except you couldn’t figure out why.

Curiosity got the best of you, and you pushed on one end of it to lift it from the structured beams beneath it. It opened up to a crawl space filled with fresh insulation and piping beneath the room. But when you pulled out your phone to flick on the flashlight, you noticed a rather out of place looking jewellery box had been hidden just to one side of the loose floorboard.

Instinct overruled you and you reached for it, pulling it from under the floorboard and wiping the dust from the top of it. It was a beautiful jewellery box, made of dark wood with an intricate baroque pattern carved into it and filled with some kind of gold resin. It had no lock on it, only a hook to keep its lid closed.

It made no sense to you… Why would this be under the floorboards when the floor was so new? Where had it come from? Should you open it?

And then your brain connected the dots. This box was the same shape, and a similar size to the disturbed dust inside the wardrobe in the basement. This had come from the wardrobe…

Logically, you concocted a story that maybe one of the builders had found it and wanted to hide it, come back for it later but forgot. But if they knew it was of value, surely they wouldn’t have forgotten it? And that patch in the wardrobe seemed too fresh, too pristine… Still, you had no other logical answer. You refused to believe it had magically found its way up from the basement and under the floorboards by itself – or even more horrifyingly, at the hands of someone else.

But you had to open it, right? You had to see what was inside, to see why someone would want to hide such a pretty little box at all. So you flicked the hook open, and slowly opened up the jewellery box…

You’d have to say you were disappointed. There were things in here, but nothing that screamed value at you, more like cheap and random items. There were some cuff links that you thought may have been silver, but were only sterling silver; a costume jewellery bracelet made of plastic pearls; a lipstick, worn down to within an inch of its life in a deep red shade; various little knick-knacks that together made absolutely no sense at all. The only thing that stood out to you as remotely unusual, was a watch.

This watch looked ordinary, something you’d pick up for cheap. It was broken, the glass cracked and the time clearly not moving on from 11:06 on the day it broke. It wasn’t branded, the clock face not diamond-incrusted or made of any real precious materials. But just under where the hands connected in the centre was a tiny little rotating set of numbers for a date, reading as 19/03/24 – just over a week ago. The watch had stopped working just over a week ago.

You couldn’t entertain this idea any longer. You stuffed the watch back into the box, slamming the lid closed and putting it back under the floorboards in the hope it might poof itself out of existence. You had to be imagining things, this wasn’t real. First, hearing noises down in the basement. Then, seeing the reflection of a man in the wardrobe mirror, only for him to disappear when you turned around. Now, finding a box of trinkets in the floorboards with items that were completely out of place for the time period of the old house.

You were being ridiculous, making up things that didn’t exist and had no significance at all. This must have been left by a builder, the battery being the reason it stopped, not the crack in the glass. There was just no way. No one had been by the house since you moved in besides the postman, and even he had quickly stuffed the mail into the mailbox at the end of your drive and run off quickly every time you caught him.

A creak in the floorboards in the hallway snapped you from your racing conspiracies, igniting your fight or flight response much like the noise in the basement the other day. This time you didn’t freeze, you stood up quickly and ran to the doorway to see if you could catch whatever was making the noise.

There he was again.

The same silhouette, a man stood in the hallway, backlit from the large window behind him and the sun streaming in through it. You couldn’t see his face properly, left in shadow but you could see those same eyes, glaring at you, watching to see if you would make a move…

Anger flared inside you, thinking you had an intruder in your home. You weren’t one to back down from a fight or go quietly. If this man was skulking around your house in broad fucking daylight, you were going to confront him.

“HEY! Who the fuck are you?!” you yelled from the doorway, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

The silhouette said nothing, instead stepping to the right through the door to your master bedroom. Without a second thought you ran towards the open doorway, grabbing the scraper from the floor where you’d set it down earlier as some kind of precautionary weapon.

“I said, get out of my-“ you stopped, frozen in fear. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing, confusion replacing the rage inside you.

Nothing.

There was nobody in here. And you made damn sure to check… No one behind the door, no one in the en-suite, no one under the bed… No one.

You were losing your mind. You had to be. Perhaps you had spent too long alone in this old house, maybe you needed to socialise, head into town and meet some real people instead of chasing shadows. This wasn’t healthy, all this obsessive renovation work. This was your brain telling you you needed a break, right? It had to be that, because you could come up with no sound, logical explanation as to why you were seeing a shadow man roaming around your house other than madness. None of this was really happening, this was simply a descent into insanity caused by too much isolation.

At least, that’s what you told yourself to quiet the pounding heartbeat in your ears as the fear crept its way inside, burrowing deeper with every strange happening you seemed to experience.

A day off was all you’d needed, time out of the house to escape the need to be working, to essentially touch some grass and speak to another actual human being besides the shadow you’d conjured in your head. You’d gone into town, done some shopping, sat in a local coffee shop… You’d met a lovely older woman in there – Amelie, a widow and life-long resident – who’d welcomed you to town, so excited to have a fresh and pretty face to say hello to.

Although, she had warned you to head home before the sun set… That you should never walk alone in the evenings, and should lock your doors and windows at night.

“He likes the younger ones,” she’d told you. “I’m no good, you see… He likes them young.”

That had chilled you to the bone… Perhaps the mad ramblings of a woman hitting senility, but already on edge after the last few days at home, it seemed to strike a nerve. But nothing could have prepared you for the look on her face when she’d asked her where in town you had moved into, and you divulged it was the old farmhouse on the outskirts.

Her cheeks had sagged, smile dropping instantly. She shifted in the chair she’d taken at your table, straightening out the skirt of her dress over her knees and avoiding eye contact. And then she clutched her necklace in her fist – a gold crucifix – as she reached to take yours in her other hand.

“You must protect yourself, yes? That house… Something is there. You must be careful,” she told you, her voice as stern as she could make it to hide the tremble of fear.

“I-I’m okay, really… It just looks old, it’s overgrown and falling apart but I’m working on-“

“No!” she yelled, turning the heads of other patrons in the coffee shop. Her grip on your hand squeezed tighter, her nails digging into your hand painfully. “You should leave, before it’s too late. Such a pretty young thing, you shouldn’t be there…”

You pried her bony, arthritic fingers from around your hand and gently held hers in both of yours.

“I’m okay, Amelie. Please, don’t worry…” you comforted her, but she seemed dissatisfied, her eyes wide as she conceded.

That entire interaction had sat with you for the rest of the day as you’d wandered through the local farmer’s market, picking up fresh vegetables to turn into a casserole for one tonight. It shouldn’t have unnerved you the way it did, such an elderly woman was clearly suffering the effects of an ageing mind and yet, with the experiences of the last few days? Her warning unnerved you.

You headed home long before sunset, and locked the doors and windows like she’d told you to. Did it make you feel any better? Absolutely not… But as you pottered around in the kitchen making the casserole you’d planned, slowly the anxiety started to ease, helped mostly by the music on your little radio.

You ate in peace, scrolling through your phone while you tapped your foot on the tiled floor of the kitchen. You didn’t mind these lonely evenings so much, having grown tired of the bustling city long ago. These days, the quiet of your own company was quite welcome, easily sinking into your own little world.

Even as you stood at the sink, scrubbing at the dishes, you were in your own world, humming along to another overplayed song you’d heard time and time again. You’d find yourself staring out the window in front of you at the sunset, the sky painted pinks and oranges and casting a tranquil glow over the little graveyard out back. Dusk was quickly approaching, the night drawing in as you cleaned.

Just as you placed your plate on the drying rack beside you, you looked out again at the graves, now like silhouettes as the sky turned to a deeper shade of bluey purple. But your heart dropped, every hair on your body standing on end.

The shadow figure. The same shadow figure… Stood out by the graves, looking down at them with its back to you. He seemed to be wearing the same thing as last time you spotted him; slacks, a black coat made of heavy wool that just passed his knees. He was just standing, staring…

You froze in place, watching… You felt paralysed, like you’d spotted a large spider on the wall, staring at it to make sure it didn’t move out of sight because losing it was worse than staring in fear.

It didn’t move, just standing there, staring down.

A rush of anger hit you out of nowhere – this fucker was trespassing on your property, scaring you stupid. You’d locked this prick out when you’d come home, and so he thought it was okay to skulk around your land, trying to frighten you?

Fuck that. No. Enough of this.

You wiped your hands on the dish towel to the side, instinctively reaching for the biggest knife in your knife block on the counter before running to the back door. You unbolted the top and bottom, and ran out into the evening with a surge of adrenaline.

“HEY!” you yelled, like you had when you’d seen him in your hallway, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”

The figure didn’t move, still staring down as you approached quickly from behind. You stayed back a few feet, clutching the knife in your hand and ready to use it should this fucker try anything…

“Answer me…” your voice shook with fear, no matter how hard you tried to keep it steady and strong. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing on my land?”

A dark chuckle… The shoulders of the figure shook with his laugh, and it only pissed you off more.

“Your land? Interesting…” the figure muttered, his voice thick with a heavy Italian accent and gruff like he hadn’t spoken aloud in decades.

“I-I’ll call the cops…” you threatened, “just leave and no one gets hurt.”

His head cocked up at that, turning to look over his shoulder. For the first time, you got a small glimpse at his face, and the eye that gleamed brighter than it should. He seemed to be smirking, as if this situation was somehow funny to him.

“You would hurt me, cara mio?” he teased, his eyes flitting down to the knife you held extended towards him. “I did not have you pegged for a violent woman.”

It caught you off guard, the way he spoke to you. Was he trying to belittle you? Make you question your own self-defense to weaken you? You wouldn’t let that happen.

“What are you doing here?” you asked him defiantly, ignoring his comments and still wielding the knife.

“Paying my respects,” he grumbled, as if he were annoyed by an intrusive question.

“Th-this is my property, and you need to leave. I’ve seen you in my house, and you need to go before I call the cops,” you repeated yourself, your voice shaking.

“Why did you buy this house?” he asked, frustratingly ignoring your warnings.

“None of your business-“

“It is my business,” he snapped, “This house belonged to my family,” he span on the spot, finally facing you. His expression was intimidating, his eyes – now visibly different colours – were boring into you, just begging you to try something. “These are their graves. This is their house. It does not, and will never, belong to you.”

“Well you might want to tell the bank that, Mr, uh…” his name escaped you, forgetting the surname that you’d uncovered weeks ago on the graves behind him.

“Emeritus,” he smiled sadistically. “Terzo Emeritus, and this house is mine.”

He took a step closer to you, and naturally you stepped back in fear. The grip on the knife readjusted with the second step he took, readying yourself to use it should you need to.

“But a pretty thing like you? I’m willing to share…”

“Don’t make another move…” you jabbed the knife forward a little, raising your voice in an attempt to appear threatening. “I know there’s some creep going around town, snatching people… And now you’re here, in MY house, threatening me?”

“I think I’m the one being threatened, cara mio…”

“SHUT UP!” you yelled. “Leave, now. Or I will call the fucking police.”

His hands, encased in leather gloves, shot up in a defensive pose, his smile widening sickeningly. He stopped approaching, but his morbidly beautiful eyes slowly scanned you from head to toe, taking you in, analysing. For a moment, you were locked in a stalemate, staring each other down. You thought maybe he was sizing you up, waiting for the opportune moment to strike like a predator hunting its prey.   

But instead of pouncing like you’d expected, he turned back around and knelt down before the graves.

“Penso che forse lei non è così affezionato a me come io sono di lei, non siete d'accordo? (I think maybe she is not as fond of me as I am of her, don’t you agree?)” he mumbled, as if the dead could hear every word. “Non temere, non lascerò che questa bellezza mi scaccia, i miei fratelli. Questa è casa nostra e imparerà a godere della mia compagnia. (Fear not, I will not let this beauty drive me away, my brothers. This is our house, and she will learn to enjoy my company.)”

“W-what did you say?” you stuttered, still wielding the knife. He looked briefly over his shoulder at you.

“Non vedevo tanta bellezza da più di un secolo, (I haven’t seen such beauty in over a century,)” he spoke to the graves again. “Non dal mio esilio e ritorno. (not since my exile and return.)”

You were growing more and more frustrated as he spoke his mother tongue to thin air, waiting for him to do something – even if that something were to force you to defend yourself. This was just… bizarre.

He stood again, kissing the tips of his gloves and pressing them to each headstone, save for one on the end. Why he missed that one, you weren’t sure, but you couldn’t focus on that right now. He seemed to be saying a goodbye, as if he were actually going to leave upon your request.

“Until next time, bella cosa (pretty thing),” he bowed his head a little and began to walk towards you, giving you a wide berth but keeping his eyes trained on you at all times. You figured he was simply making sure you didn’t try to stab him as he passed, walking himself out of the gates of your land and a little ways down the street before he turned back to you, and blew you a slow, calculated flying kiss.

As he continued to walk away down the lane that stretched towards town, you quickly glanced back at the graves, noting now that the names did indeed all share a common family name.

Primo Emeritus. Secondo Emeritus. Copia Emeritus. Terzo Emeritus.

Your eyes widened. You were sure that was the name he just told you belonged to him? That wasn’t possible… Such an unusual name, and he’d made no mention of being a ‘Terzo Junior’, or ‘Terzo the second’. And it was the only grave he didn’t plant his kiss to…

You span around in the grass beneath your feet, looking out down the lane you’d just seen him walking down and yet, he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the fields that lined the lane into town, and the road stretched with no bends for at least two miles, no obstructions at all. You should be able to still see him walking, running even if he had chosen to. He hadn’t had time to vanish like he had, in mere seconds.

Your head whipped back to the grave – his grave? – before you shook your head of the nonsense that he might well be some kind of spirit who can appear or disappear in the blink of an eye. These ‘occurrences’ were nothing more than fuel for a spooky story around a campfire. None of this was true, you’d just… lost sight of him, or misjudged the view of the road. Something, anything, had to explain this away.

But it didn’t stop you from bolting back through the garden and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind you with the knife still in hand and bolting the door shut, heart thumping in your ears.

You slept with that knife under your mattress that night.

His face haunted you, both day and night. No matter what you did, or how you tried to refocus your mind, to fixate on only your renovations, you couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. In the few days since the incident by the graves, you were questioning your sanity more than ever.

Had that even been real? Was he real? He couldn’t possibly be… The way he disappeared in an instant every time you saw him led you only to the conclusion that you’d lost your mind, officially. You must have concocted this spectre after seeing his name on the grave when you’d cleared the landscaping around them. You told yourself that over and over again.

That became harder to do though, when you’d spot him out by the graves again not even a week after the first time. You’d been installing some small curtains to the window by the kitchen sink for you to hide the site from view when you’d spooked yourself at the mere thought of that night, and yet there he was again.

You stared in shock, frozen and motionless, as he turned his head towards the house, looking it up and down, before his gaze settled on you in the window. He raised his hand, but before he could gesture a wave at you, you shut the new curtains and obscured his view, darting out of the kitchen and hiding in the dining room still full of packed boxes.

Your heart pounded as it always did when your imagination ran away with you and spooked you like this. You shook your head, told yourself to snap the fuck out of it.

But then you saw him every evening.

Always by the graves, always turning to wave at you, no matter from which window you were watching him from. You did your best to hide, to ignore it and tell yourself he wasn’t real. You just had to keep going, to continue your work and maybe find a good psychologist in town one of these days.

This plan of wilful ignorance was barely working, but what else could you do? Giving this apparition any kind of attention would surely only make it worse, whether he was a figment of your imagination or a genuine ghost from the past.

Ignoring him was hard. There was such a large part of you that wanted more information about him, to learn where he’d come from, why he haunted you. He was intriguing, if terrifying. The face that followed your dreams, both day and night, was starting to become all too familiar, all too comfortable. If it weren’t for that ghostly white eye of his, he’d have quite a charming face. His glare wouldn’t seem so dark if it wasn’t pierced by the white glow, and perhaps he wouldn’t be so threatening… Home invasion and grave haunting aside.

Still, you did your best to continue as normal. The renovations continued, and before long you had stripped every room upstairs of the aged and withered wallpaper that desperately needed replacing. Finally, you could start decorating to your own tastes – starting with your bedroom.

After a trip to the nearest hardware store, and a delivery of wooden slats, you got busy creating the wainscoting that was to run along the bottom three feet of the wall in your bedroom. The idea was to panel it, and then paint everything a beautiful deep shade of royal purple. The hardwood floor was going to be stained a dark shade throughout the entire upstairs, but you’d managed to source a stunning Persian rug in a purple that matched the aesthetic you were hoping for. The furniture – the items you’d had moved to the basement – were already perfect for the room, matching the bed that had also been left behind. You’d chosen gold metal accents to replace the handles on the wardrobe and chest of drawers, and sourced lamps and trinkets in the same gold to match.

After no longer than a week, you’d completed the room with a mix and match of modern and Victorian gothic aesthetics. Frankly, it looked like a Pinterest board – but it was so inherently you.

When you’d laid the finishing touches to the room, you stood in the middle of it, proudly looking around with a wide grin on your face at the beautifully finished space. That estate agent couldn’t see the potential of this house, but you had the second you stepped foot inside. And whilst it was only one room, the rest of the house still just the bare skeletal bones of a home, this was a huge victory.

“I like what you’ve done with my bedroom, bella cosa (pretty thing).”

Your body stiffened at the sound of his voice, coming from the doorway behind you. You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head and willing for the nightmare to stop. You hadn’t heard him, you were imagining it. You had to be.

Except, you heard footsteps behind you, on the hardwood floors. His shoes clacked with every step, slow and deliberate as if he was taking in his surrounding, inspecting your work. When you braved opening your eyes, that’s exactly what he was doing.

He really was here.

“Grazie for keeping my furniture, cara mio. I was always fond of it, and you’ve given it new life,” he said, ogling the wardrobe as he dragged his gloved fingertips along the edge of the wood.

“And purple, too…” he span on his heels to face you, a warm smile crossing his dark features, “My favourite colour.”

“How did you get in here?” you asked, voice shaking as you watched him look around the room.

“I told you, cara, this was my house. I know every entrance and exit there is,” his mismatched eyes settled on you again, “even the ones you don’t.”

He was lying. There were only three ways in or out of the house, and they were all locked – bolted, latched, even the cellar doors in the basement were chained shut.

“This is not your house,” you argued, spitting the words through grit teeth. “You need to leave. I will call the police.”

His eyes darkened again, a veil of threat overcoming him.

“And I told you, this has always been my house.”

You weighed your options. Your phone was on the kitchen counter downstairs; if you were fast enough, you could run down to it and out the back door before he caught you, calling the police as you ran along the road into town. If you didn’t fuck it up, you could even lock him in, taking the key from the back door and locking it shut behind you, leaving him gift wrapped for the cops.

You just had to be quick.

And you tried, you really did. You bolted out of the bedroom, running down the length of the long hall towards the top of the stairs. You hadn’t heard him behind you, his shoes making no noise behind you and so you imagined he’d been left stunned by your sudden departure, giving you a head start.

So you hadn’t expected a pair of large, strong hands to grip you by the tops of your arms at the top of the stairs, and slam your body into the wall. A sharp pain radiated up through your spine, but you cried out in fear more so than pain when you realised he’d trapped you, palms flat against the wall by your head and arms encasing you.

Instinct had you closing your eyes, squeezing them shut and waiting for the next blow, or for this nightmare to end. You could feel a cool breeze against your cheek as you turned your head away from the man trapping you, as if his breath were ice cold.

“Look at me, cara mio,” he ordered, his voice deep and slow. You whimpered beneath him, trying to plant yourself flat against the wall to get as far away from him as possible. “Per favore, I want to see you.”

You wanted to deny him, but his silence said he’d wait for an eternity until you did. And you didn’t want to find out just how aggressive he could be, if given the chance. So slowly, you opened your eyes, looking at him through your peripheral vision before you turned your head ever so slightly.

His face was so close to yours, hovering above you. His eyes flickered across your features, like he was looking for something, or maybe mapping every feature and committing it to his memory for some nefarious reason.

This close to him, you couldn’t stop yourself from doing the same… You avoided his eyes, noting instead how his skin seemed pale for an Italian man, but soft and smooth without a single imperfection. His jawline was chiselled, like you’d cut your palm if you tried to slap him. He had frown lines in his forehead that came with a life of frustration, yet forked lines from the outer corners of his eyes that came with a life of happiness; neither made him look haggard, yet showed he wasn’t quite as youthful as you.

Despite his pale complexion, his lips remained a soft pink. They were full, parted as you both silently examined each other up close. That breeze you felt was most definitely his breath, which you’d expected to be warmer but given the situation, perhaps it was your fear adding to the chill.

Running out of features to scan, you landed on his eyes; the eyes that haunted you more than any you’d seen. At first glance, the colour mismatch was disconcerting. It would put anybody on edge, perhaps make them wonder if he’d fallen victim to some kind of accident or birth defect but the more you stared, the more you fell into them. You couldn’t place why, but they seemed older than the rest of his features, holding more wisdom than you might have expected.

“Are you real?” you asked him, logic and reason battling against the very real fear that you were imagining him, that he was some kind of spirit that haunted his family home you’d never be rid of. But you’d felt him. His hands had been the ones to throw you against this wall, his body was imposing on yours as he trapped you. He was solid, flesh and blood. But there was an innate and visceral fear that something was wrong.

At your question, his eyes met yours, and his lips quirked into a playful smile.

“I am very real, cara mio,” he assured, taking his hand from beside your head and wrapping his gloved fingers around your wrist. He lifted your palm, gently laying it flat against his chest. “Can you not feel me?”

You could. He was solid, like you’d now discovered and you could feel his heartbeat beneath his shirt. Still, something felt wrong. He had no body heat like a normal living man through a simple cotton shirt should, and the heartbeat you felt was significantly slower than it should be.

“Who are you?” you whimpered, palm to his chest without even an attempt to remove it.

“I told you who I was. Terzo Emeritus.”

“J-junior?” you asked him. His brow creased in confusion, missing what you were asking entirely. “Terzo Junior? The grave, it… it says Terzo.”

Now he understood, sensing your confusion and chuckling lightly at it.

“Just Terzo,” he told you, gentle grip still on your wrist. You could pull your hand away if you tried, and yet, you kept it in place as if his own slow heartbeat was somehow reducing your own to a more comfortable pace.

You were at a loss for words now, brain running far too quickly to settle on something suitable to say to him. But at least now you had grown aware of your palm still settled on his chest, prompting you to rip it from his grip expecting him to put up some kind of resistance, to which you met none.

“What do you want from me?” you asked him, unable to tear your eyes from him in the same manner you’d torn your wrist from him.

“Perhaps only your company,” he shrugged slightly, raising an eyebrow in suggestion. “To exist with you, here.”

“This is my house…”

“Sí, so you keep saying.” A beat of silence passed as you thought of what he was truly asking, what that even meant.

“I want you to stay away from me,” you insisted, finding a shred of strength within you. Terzo took in a deep breath through his nose, letting it go as he studied you.

“I don’t think I can do that, cara mio,” he sighed. His admission had tears forming in your waterline, a new fear that you wouldn’t be able to shake this man’s seemingly growing obsession with you. All you wanted was peace, solitude and an escape but you’d fallen into a web, and the spider was crawling towards you agonisingly slowly.

You took a few deep breaths, each exhale shaky. You just wanted him to go, to leave you alone. Maybe this had been his house once before, but it was yours now, and he couldn’t stay here. He already seemed infatuated with you, if the way he looked at you now was anything to go by. His eyes drank you in like he was a starving man, and you were the ripest of fruits for him to devour.

“Please, I just want to be left alone…” you begged, tilting your head back against the wall and letting the tears fall as you squeezed your eyes shut, suppressing a sob in your chest.

Silence descended, and suddenly the weighted oppression of his presence vanished with a swift breeze. Even with your eyes shut, you could feel he wasn’t entrapping you anymore but when you opened them, you saw he wasn’t anywhere near you at all.

He’d vanished again, faster than a snap of your fingers.

And you were left wondering if any of that, once again, was real or a fantasy of your own making. You were so sure you felt a solid body, a real heartbeat. You weren’t a scientist, nor a paranormal specialist but you would assume if he was the spirit of the man buried in your back yard, you wouldn’t be able to feel him in such a way.

But now he had vanished, the feeling he left with you felt very much like an oppressive presence, a lingering energy. Now he left you with the anxiety of another visit without warning, another appearance to trick you into believing your delusions were true.

You expected to see him again.

Another week passed, a surface layer of anxiety lingering persistently. All you could do was focus your attention on your project, doing your absolute best to continue as normal. Now you had finished the master bedroom, you moved onto the upstairs bathroom, which had needed gutting and refitting.

You’d had a small team of plumbers in to replace the pipes through the house just as you had electricians to rewire the place before you’d moved in, and until now, all you’d had was the bare bones of a shiny new bathroom. You’d installed some counters with a new sink, the gold hardware matching around the bathroom. The marble top was a beautifully tasteful black with gold veins to match the black wood of the cabinets.

Even in here, you stuck to your darker aesthetic. The walls were painted a beautiful matte black, the floor tiled with black and white squares. It took you all week, two of those days on tiling alone. But it was something to focus on, a room that you knew would be frequently used and so needed to be finished now your bedroom was complete.

When it came to adding the finishing touches, it felt like the cherry on top of another beautifully made cake. Your house was quickly turning into a showroom, a place that could be featured in home renovation magazines had you been willing to open it up.

But already, you’d had one too many visitors in your home for your liking…

By the end of the week, you were exhausted – more so than usual. The anxiety of feeling watched, monitored, stalked was taking its toll on you, and you needed some respite. For all you knew, Terzo Emeritus could show up at any moment to frighten, repulse and excite you. It was weighing heavy, and your mind was just as spent as your body was.

As you headed to bed that evening, you allowed yourself some self-care in the bathroom you’d now finished. The point of renovating this house was to enjoy it, right? So why deny yourself that…

You filled the new clawfoot tub with hot water, brimming with bubbles and scents that had you falling into a state of total calm before you’d even sunk into it. Your tiny little radio joined you in the bathroom, tuned to a station that played nothing but classical, and on a bath shelf you’d bought you rested some candles, a book and a full glass of red wine to enjoy as you pampered yourself.

Sinking into the water, you relished in the feeling of being submerged in its warmth. Almost instantly, the tension in your shoulders melted away, eyes closing in bliss as your head slipped back to rest against the tub’s edge. You couldn’t help but let out a hum of satisfaction, the relief and pleasure accumulating in a soft moan.

As you let your body relax, a noise caught your attention; a floorboard, creaking just outside of the bathroom door. Your eyes shot open, your body reacting and freezing in place. However when you let your eyes roam over to the mirror above the bathroom sink, you saw him…

By force of habit, you’d left the bathroom door ajar, a small gap just large enough to be able to see that ghostly eye of his in the dim hallway, and the outline of him peeking through the door. Your heart rate hammered in your chest as it always did when you saw him, but you remained still. For now, he wasn’t making any kind of move, and he didn’t seem to be aware you had seen him.

But he was definitely there, watching you as you bathed. It was violating, invasive, perverse… And yet, you did nothing about it.

Instead, you sank further underneath the bubbles, reaching for your wine glass with your eyes trained on the mirror. You took a sip, relishing in the taste and releasing another satisfied moan as if putting on a damn show for him. What possessed you to do so, you had no idea, but he’d been tormenting your mind for weeks now – why couldn’t you do the same to him?

Reaching for your loofah, you dunked it under the water and sat upright, back exposed to him. You stretched your arm out, running the loofah along your skin in a slow and deliberate manner. You were careful to never expose yourself too much, but to tease with the expanse of pretty, bare skin to conjure enough suggestion in his mind that would leave a man desperate to see more.

When you ran the loofah up the length of your leg just above the water, you heard the floorboards creak again, like he was fidgeting on the other side of the door. You checked in the mirror to see if he was still there, and he most certainly was, but you were having the effect on him you hoped for.

Perhaps you stretched it out a little longer than necessary, running the loofah over your body more than needed but you were making your point. Your wicked little mind was ticking over, aware he could only see what you wanted him to; your shoulders and head above the bubbles from behind. Do you dare to cross the line…?

Perhaps the thrill of being watched was having an effect on you too, because you came to the conclusion that yes, you did dare to cross the line.

You lay back against the tub again, using the loofah now to run across your shoulders and down between the valley of your breasts, which the bubbles were barely covering in your relaxed position. You trailed the loofah further down, reaching over your stomach and between your legs.

Your breath hitched in your throat as you brushed the loofah over your core, now realising that washing yourself so intimately – and being watched while doing so – had aroused you more than you’d first thought. A flash of pleasure had you squeezing your eyes shut again, and you couldn’t stop yourself from grazing over your centre with added pressure, hips rocking in the water.

Before long, you abandoned the loofah all together, and from where he was stood, Terzo could see it float and bob up to the surface which had him drawing only one conclusion; you were definitely not just washing yourself.

You worked slowly, methodically. It had been so long since you’d let go like this, since you’d last touched yourself at all and you wanted to savour it, to enjoy it. You were in no rush, working your fingers in gentle and slow circles over your clit under the water. The moans that you let slip weren’t at all restrained or controlled; for all you knew, you were alone, right? So why would you hold back?

 It was impossible not to keep checking the mirror, to make sure he was still there and every time, he was. You couldn’t help but let your imagination run away with you, picturing him entering the room, kneeling down beside the tub and reaching his hand between your legs for you. You pictured him taking you from the bathroom, into the bedroom and having his way with you, dark, handsome and brooding as he always had been.

You imagined his hands beneath his gloves, his bare fingertips tracing patterns into your skin, his full lips trailing kisses down your still wet body. What did he look like under those layers of his? How would he feel under your own fingertips? How would he feel inside you?

But Terzo made no such move. Instead, he watched silently from the shadows, and each time you caught that glimpse of him your hips bucked towards your hand until eventually, you couldn’t hold back anymore and allowed yourself to fall over the precipice.

Your orgasm was powerful, thanks to not only the lack of self love recently, but also, the arousal of becoming an exhibitionist. It rippled through your body like the water around you, and had you crying out wordlessly as you sank further into the water up to your chin. You hadn’t felt so good in a long time, and it worked perfectly to relieve the remainder of that tension in your body.

As you came down from the orgasm, you dared to glance back at the mirror only to find that he’d vanished. Another little disappearing act, only this time, you found yourself free of the anxiety that usually came with that, and instead smug with the knowledge you might have got one over on him for a change. You’d teased him to a point that he couldn’t tear his eyes from you until it was over, and for a moment you felt truly powerful. At least, if he were real… and not a fantasy you’d concocted for yourself. There was still the very real possibility that all of this was just your own madness and loneliness, and you were just now starting to lean into the delusions as a form of self-preservation.

For a little while longer, you stayed put in the tub, enjoying your book, the rest of your wine and the music in the background. Of course, you kept checking on the mirror to see if maybe he’d return for another look, but nothing. It was twisted, the way your stomach drooped in disappointment each time, but you brushed it off. You were sure before long, you would see him again – whether real or fictional.

Once you had finished in the bathroom, draining the tub and rinsing the suds away, you floated back into your bedroom wrapped in a bathrobe and ready to sink into bed with your book. You pottered around, changing into some pyjamas and crawling under the sheets when a glimpse of colour caught the light beside your bed, earning your attention.

Hanging from your bedside lamp was a pendant, and most certainly not one of yours. They were stored in a jewellery box atop the dresser, not hung on display like this… but it was beautiful, and you reached over to lay the charm in your palm and inspect it properly.

It was simple, yet elegant. The charm was shaped like a water drop, except the stone was purple; perhaps amethyst or a rarer sapphire but it caught the light exceptionally. Surrounding it, were smaller stones that resembled diamonds, but your knowledge of precious stones couldn’t confirm whether they were in fact real, or if this were costume jewellery. It didn’t matter though, it was beautiful as it was, sparkling under your bedside lamp.

You had no idea how it got here, but you could hazard a guess. It had been left for you like a gift, delicately placed in a position that would get your attention. There was only one person it could have come from, and as you played with the unusual pendant under the light, you began to realise that maybe he wasn’t the figment of your imagination you were trying to pass him off as…

The next morning, you had a revived energy, a spring in your step from a decent night’s sleep. The time spent on self care seemed to do the job, relieving the stress enough for you to be ready to tackle the downstairs living room next. Truthfully, your new found vigour may have also had something to do with a large part of you giving in to the idea that Terzo was not a fantasy, he’d been very real this whole time.

You still had no idea who he was, or how he was a real person. You were beginning to think that perhaps spirits did walk the earth, just by how he seemed to appear and disappear on a dime. But you remembered the heartbeat, the solid chest under your palm…

There were so many questions. Who was he? A descendant of the family this house once belonged to, and rested in your garden? How does he keep getting in? He mentioned entrances you might not know about, but you’d searched thoroughly, or so you thought. Was he obsessed with you? Stalking you?

Was he dangerous?

His behaviour was most definitely shady – people don’t just come and go in other people’s homes as they please. But you’d never reported him, no matter how much you’d threatened it. To begin with you’d hoped the threat of calling the cops would be enough to deter him, but he always came back. And at every opportunity, he could have done something to hurt you, yet never did. Even last night, you were in a completely vulnerable position. And whilst peeping on you in the bath was absolutely a violation and a crime in itself, all he did was watch. And you let him.

His existence was confusing, but you’d surrendered to the notion that he did in fact exist; and honestly, that in itself was quite freeing. It felt like some kind of weight had lifted, and it made beginning work on the living room easier to stomach.

This room had suffered in the years the house sat in decay. The old windows had made way for black mould to grow around it, and whilst you’d had the windows replaced since, the mould was still present. Your first job was to clean the walls and potentially replace some of the floorboards, if the moisture had taken hold of the wood.

Armed with a bucket of diluted bleach and a sponge, you got to work scrubbing at the walls and the large window sill that you were planning to convert into a cosy nook; a perfect place to sit and watch the world go by, book in hand. Your little radio sat on the mantelpiece of the stunning fireplace you were going to bring back to life, blaring out the same cycle of tunes you were used to now you’d tuned it back from the classical of last night.

You let yourself zone out as you scrubbed at the mould, singing along to the radio now you knew most of the songs blaring from it. It was a wonder you weren’t sick of them yet, but you still hadn’t got around to unpacking your record player that was supposed to have a home in this particular room. First, you had to finish it though, of course.

As one song ended, the radio host announced a lunchtime bulletin. By this time you were only half listening, fixated on the satisfying cleaning job.

“It’s 1pm, you’re listening to 108.3fm – here’s your lunchtime bulletin. Police have made a shocking discovery after the disappearance of 25 year old Amanda Riley just three days ago.”

Your ears perked up at the news, now getting your attention. Another one? This was concerning, terrifying even. And now they’d made a discovery?

“Human remains were discovered just outside of town in a wooded area yesterday, which police have now confirmed are that of Amanda. Family members formally identified the body, and police have given a statement to locals urging caution and vigilance. Sheriff Ansel had this to say…

“‘We believe Ms. Riley’s murder to be connected to the string of disappearances in the area in the last few months. The victim was found with all her personal belongings still on her person, including wallet, cash, ID and mobile phone, however when the family came to formally identify the body, they noted that the only thing taken from her was her unusual pendant…’”

Your blood turned cold. The hand still scrubbing at the wall froze in place, and slowly, you turned to look at the radio as if it was speaking directly to you.

“‘The pendant is recognisable as a purple amethyst in a teardrop shape, surrounded by smaller white diamonds. While the item is valuable, we believe that the killer may have taken such a personal item as a trophy, which could be part of their M.O. Still, we are urging the public to please keep an eye out to see if we can trace this item, either in pawn shops or perhaps being sold online. We ask that you not panic, and please get in touch if you note anything suspicious. Thank you.’”

Your hand dropped the sponge back into the bucket of diluted bleach, drifting up to your chest where that very same pendant was sat against your skin. You’d put it on that morning, barely even thinking about it, just because you liked it.

But he’d given it to you. Left it out in the open for you, like he was proud of it. He’d given you a dead girl’s fucking necklace. And there was only one way he could have got it…

You stood up, running into the kitchen and colliding with the sink before your body displayed it’s disgust by vomiting violently. All those unanswered questions, and yet, one of them had been answered.

Who was he? A murderer.

As you coughed and spluttered your breakfast into the sink, your mind raced. She wasn’t the only missing person, just the first body to have been found. There were others. So many others, for nine months. Thirteen missing people, one of which found dead with this fucking necklace missing.

You felt dizzy, like a wave of vertigo hit you in an instant. You hobbled over to the fridge, clutching at the kitchen counter to keep yourself steady and rooting around for a bottle of water. Your hands shook as you unscrewed the lid, taking a sip to rinse out your mouth as you stumbled back to the sink to spit. You took another sip, this time swallowing and trying your best to focus on the sensation of the cool water trickling down your throat. But your head was too busy.

Trophies. He was taking trophies? Why? This sick bastard must enjoy it, he must relish in his kills, wanting something to remember each one by. What else had he taken…? And then you remembered.

The box under the floorboards.

You slammed the water bottle down on the side, a jet propelling out onto the work surface from the force. Before you knew it your feet were moving of their own accord, up the stairs and down the hall. You were unsteady, tripping into the walls as you walked. You needed to know, but you didn’t want to.

Stumbling into the bare room, you fell to your knees with a hard smack where the floorboard was loose. Shaking hands lifted the plank, reaching underneath to check the box was still there; it was. You pulled it from its hiding place setting it down on the floor while you racked up the courage to open it again.

In one quick motion, you unlocked the latch and flung the lid open like ripping off a band aid. All the items were still there, just the way you’d left them, including the watch that had made you question them in the first place. It looked like it could have been vintage, save for the date wound to March of this year.

You looked at the collection of random items; the watch, the cuff links, the old red lipstick, the cheap bracelet, a skeleton key, a tiny used bottle of perfume, a red comb, an old butterfly hairpin, a daisy pin badge, a rusty swiss army knife, a fountain pen and a vintage zippo lighter.

Twelve items.

With the necklace, that made thirteen. Thirteen items. Thirteen victims. Thirteen trophies.

“I should have hidden them better, eh?”

The sound of his voice had your body stiffening in fear, skin instantly peppered with goosebumps. You hadn’t even begun to think about confronting him or having to see him. You weren’t sure what you were going to do yet, but you’d have hoped to have time to calm yourself down and think rationally about your options.

But you were going to have to do this ad-hoc.

“I don’t often make mistakes, bella cosa, but when I do… They haunt me. I suppose my kindness is coming back to bite me on the culo (ass).”

He sounded surprisingly calm for a man who’d just been found out to be a serial killer. It unnerved you, and no part of you could figure out his next move. You were a sitting duck.

Slowly, and carefully, you stood up, turning around to look at him. Part of you worried if you startled him with sudden movement, he might strike like any predator would its prey.

He was stood in the doorway, leaning up against the wood with his hands buried in the pockets of his slacks, coat pushed back behind them. He looked far too casual, his face hinting at neither anger nor humour – nowhere on the emotional spectrum.

“Kindness?” you asked, ruminating over his use of the word. “There’s no kindness in what you’ve done.” Perhaps it was dangerous to speak so ill of the murderer in front of you, but you couldn’t help yourself.

His neutral expression darkened in a warning glare, his chin tipping up so he was looking down on you, adding to his intimidating aura.

“Not everybody deserves kindness, cara mio. Some deserve far less,” he challenged, pushing himself off the doorframe and taking slow steps into the room, keeping a distance from you still.

“No one deserves that…”

Terzo scoffed, looking off to gaze out of the window and shaking his head as if what you said offended him in some way.

“So now you know,” he shrugged, looking back towards you, his hands still shoved deep in his pockets. You kept an eye on them, mind racing with all kinds of possibilities – he could have a weapon of some sorts hidden from view. You needed to be on your guard. “I suppose you will report me now, sí?”

There was a playful glint in his eyes that you didn’t miss, like he was taunting you, waving a red flag to a bull. If you said you were, would he attack you too? But surely he couldn’t simply take your word for it if you said you wouldn’t either… Truthfully, you weren’t sure what you were going to do. Your only instinct was to run – fast.

You let his question linger in the air, far too much silence going by as he watched you, assuming you’d frozen in fear. He hadn’t expected you to dart towards the door, your only goal to get downstairs and out of the house as quickly as possible. So when you did exactly that, he watched for a split second, anger snapping inside him.

You barely made it out of the room before you felt a sudden force slam you forwards and into the wall of the corridor. A scream erupted from your chest, blood-curdling and gut-wrenching to anyone who would have heard it – but out here? No one would. How he’d moved so fast, you had no idea, but he had both of your wrists behind your back, and his whole body weight held you tightly against the wall.

“You are leaving so soon?” he asked, leaning in to speak directly in your ear as you writhed under him to try and escape, but his grip was too strong even without him putting seemingly any effort into it. “I was just getting used to you living in my house…”

“This is MY house,” you growled, gritting your teeth and avoiding his eyes.

“Then why should you want to leave? Are you scared I might hurt you, cara mio?”

Tears spilled from your waterline, giving away your fear and distress. Of course you were scared he was going to hurt you. He’d already hurt so many…

When he received no answer from you other than a sob in defeat and the stilling of your limbs as you gave up fighting his grip, he manhandled you until you span around, your back now against the wall just like it had been the other day.

“Th-this isn’t real… You’re not real…” you whispered to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut in the hopes you might wake up from your nightmare. You did not.

“I’m quite real, cara. We’ve been over this, no?” he lifted your wrist again like he had the other day, this time settling your hand delicately on his cheek and holding it there with his much bigger palm. “See?”

His gentility confused you, and when you opened your eyes, you saw a strange softness in his face. For a moment, you almost thought his expression was one of admiration. It didn’t matter what it was, but you couldn’t look away. This man – this serial killer – was being so gentle with you, his eyes cast over you like he was utterly obsessed with you.

“Why?” you whispered, more tears spilling over your cheeks. Still, you held his, despite his grip on your hand lessening ever so slightly. You wanted to understand, talk him down maybe just enough to let you go. You wanted to appeal to the softness you saw in him.

“I have no choice,” he said flatly, almost with a hint of shame. But that only crossed the wires in your mind more.

“I… I don’t understand.”

“I choose them carefully… They are not good people, cara. They have ruined others lives, even taken them and I-“ he stopped himself, looking down at the floor in shame. Your brows creased together, trying to piece your thoughts into coherency.

“It’s always a choice,” you started to argue back, softly so as not to raise any more rage within him in such a precarious position such as the one you found yourself in beneath him. But his head snapped back up nonetheless, his hand gripping onto yours and throwing it back down beside you. He kept you caged beneath him still, hands planted firmly on the wall.

“I assure you, bella ragazza (pretty girl), there is no choice. It is me or them.”

Slowly, he raised his head from where he’d stared at the floorboards between your feet. His eyes watched you closely as he tilted his head back a little, and his lips parted until you could clearly see two very white, very sharp fangs protruding from under his top lip.

For a moment you didn’t react at all, calculating what you were seeing. His hands hadn’t moved, so he hadn’t put them in himself. You’d seen him so many times, and up close too, and never saw them before… They had to be real. He had fangs.

“That’s impossible…” you whispered, “there’s no such thing as-“

“Vampires?” he finished your sentence for you, “I’m sorry to shatter your illusion of a perfect world, cara mio, but I can assure you, there certainly is.”

Finally, your survival instincts kicked in, adrenaline pumping through your veins almost in an instant. You shoved your hands against his chest and pushed with all the strength you had, trying to get him away from you, to preserve yourself. All this time you had felt like prey, and it had been instinct all along. You were prey.

Your shove did nothing. He remained unmoving, like stone encasing you against the wall. You thrashed your arms around, trying to escape him but it was completely useless. You were already trapped, and at the mercy of a real vampire.

“I’m sorry, cara mio, but you will not overcome my strength nor my speed. This is useless, I assure you.” His voice had no hint of patronising, instead of genuine sorrow. It felt as if he knew he had to kill you now, but he didn’t want to kill you. You gave up, your fists balling up against his chest as you lay your head back against the wall, out of breath and sobbing as you accepted your fate.

“Please… don’t kill me, Terzo…” you wept, head lolling forward to look into his eyes for what you thought might be the last time.

His brow was creased, his lips parted in horror as he looked back at you. He raised his gloved hand and wiped at the tracks on your cheek. “I don’t wish to kill you, cara mio… You understand, no? I must kill to stay alive, but not you – never you.”

You barely registered what he was saying before you were shooting questions at him again, needing to know more, to understand why he chose those people. Why he kept their trophies…

“Why them? Why did you choose them? They were innocent, just like me. Why did they deserve that?” you sobbed, your chest heaving as he held your cheek, still caging you against the wall.

“The girl they found? What the polizia (police) don’t know is she was behind the wheel of an intentional hit and run a few years ago. The store clerk a few weeks back? You do not want to see what was on his hard drive. All of them, vile humans. There is more evil in this world than you could possibly fathom, tesoro. They even tasted different…” he shrivelled his face in disgust, “but it keeps me alive, and my conscience semi-clear.”

The shock of his revelation did nothing to help your racing heart or foggy mind, processing everything far slower than you would like in this tumultuous situation.

“Suppose that was true, why do you keep their things?” you prodded further – there must be some part of him that enjoys it. Even if only the fact he were proud of removing scum from the earth, if that were true.

“Because I carry their souls with me… No matter how evil, they are people, and I take their life. Each one is a burden, and I must never forget that.”

There was genuine sorrow, genuine regret there. You could see it. But it changed nothing, he was still a murderer, a monster. And you were still trapped underneath him, literally backed up against a wall and inches away from deadly threat.

“But… it’s sick, Terzo! They’re kept like trophies, like you’re proud of what you do to them!” you protested. He hollowed his cheeks in annoyance, becoming more defensive as you accused him.

The hand that wiped your tears lowered to your neck, his fingertips tracing along the chain of the necklace you had yet to take off, until it reached the unusual pendant, where he played with it against your collarbone.

“And yet, you still wear it. You had time to take it off, if you were so disgusted by it. But here it is, looking so pretty around your… beautiful neck,” he sighed, his eyes roaming hungrily over the exposed skin he so clearly wanted to puncture and drink from. The fear in you started to rise again, your pulse that had just started to settle raising. More hot tears fell over your waterline as you took a deep, shaky breath.

“What… what do you want from me?” you pleaded, your voice trembling and squeaky. His eyes flickered up to yours, fingertips still playing with the pendant, grazing the skin so gently it left goosebumps. You would never admit to the thrill his touch seemed to be giving you, knowing what you know of him now.

But Terzo leaned in further, his hips meeting yours and pressing you further against the wall. The hand that had been keeping you caged against the wall all this time dropped to your waist, holding you just enough to send a wave of curious gratification through your abdomen. He was close enough that your noses would touch, should he tip his head down to you. You could feel his icy breath against your face again – a symptom of his state of undead, you now understood.

“I want you to love me, tesoro…” he confessed in a whisper, watching for your reaction.

“I only fear you,” you defied, unable to admit the curiosity his request sparked.

“Are they not the same?” His eyebrow arched up in question, waiting for your response. But honestly, you had none. You were dumbfounded, wondering what on earth he meant by that. Of course they weren’t the same, nothing about love and fear are the same. The attraction you had felt towards him in recent encounters was fleeting; a right place, right time kind of attraction. It had nothing to do with him, and now knowing what he was, it could never be him again.

Terzo understood your silence to be an internal monologue, a debate in your own mind. He pressed further, illustrating his point.

“Let me ask you, tesoro, does the thought of me make your hairs stand on end?” his fingertips grazed along the length of your collarbone, the grip on your waist squeezing slightly, “Does it make your stomach fill with the flutter of butterfly wings? Does it make your heart beat like the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings?”

You couldn’t deny it, but those were markers of fear as well as love. It didn’t mean they were synonymous. You refused to answer him.

“I can hear it, you know…” his hand flattened against your collarbone, “The pounding in your chest, the rushing of your blood through your veins. I hear them, working so hard when you are near me.”

Terzo leaned into your neck, his nose brushing against your jugular so tenderly as he breathed in deeply, enjoying your scent to the point of near intoxication. Little did you know, it was that scent that drew him out of hiding in the first place. He simply couldn’t stay away from you, and when he saw where the scent was coming from, saw your sheer beauty, he understood why you smelled as tempting as you did.

“Fear smells just like love to me, tesoro. It adds a sweetness to your already saccharine scent. Just like nectar appeals to a honey bee, you appeal to me much the same,” he continued to nuzzle his nose against your skin, his breath fanning over your collarbone. Every so often in his clumsy, inebriated state his lips would gently tickle the skin, sending a rush through you that now you were certain he could smell. “That nectar can be turned into honey, no? I wonder if I could do the same for you…”

You bit your lip, looking up towards the ceiling in an attempt to avoid his eyes that frankly were too hypnotic for their own good.

“They are all markers of fear, Terzo…” you whimpered. You felt his breath as he chuckled against your skin.

“Then tell me why I can smell the sweetest honey already pooling between your legs, cara mio…”

Your head snapped down to look at him, and you met his eyes already waiting for you, a smirk on his lips. You wanted to deny it, to slap him, to push him away from you but what was the point? He was right. There was no denying it. He could smell you.

The shame you felt, letting a monster like him have such an effect on you, was astronomical.

“Please…”  you pleaded; for what, you weren’t sure.

“What is it, cara mio? What can I give you?” he asked, straightening up and again cupping your cheek with his gloved hand, still holding your waist, still pressing his hips to yours. His lips were so close, all you could do was stare at them until you snapped yourself out of it, looking him directly in the eyes.

“Everything.”

It took no longer than a heartbeat for Terzo to process your answer, before his lips attached to yours so fast and hard you felt his fangs scrape against your bottom lip. A thrill zapped your core, and your balled up fists against his chest gripped the lapels of his coat to bring him impossibly close. You succumbed so quickly to him, desperate to feel his lips against yours.

While you were sure this feeling was not love, it was certainly not fear either. ‘Infatuation’ felt closer to the truth, borderline obsession just as Terzo had exhibited towards you. But denying it was futile now, and so instead, you leaned into it. The pair of you desperately held onto each other, kissing as if this was the only way you could get oxygen, and you’d been suffocating without each other.

Terzo started to move, trailing his passion down to your jawline, underneath your ear and down to your neck. Your heartrate quickened again, knowing that his mouth near your neck could go only one of two ways. Both options seemed to excite you in equal measures…

“W-will it hurt…?” you asked him, as you felt his fangs graze against your skin lightly, like he was holding himself back.

“Just for a second…” he panted like a dog laying out in the sun. And he wasn’t wrong, the pain would be momentary, his fangs emitting a small amount of venom that acts as an anaesthetic. That wasn’t the problem, and it wasn’t what stopped him in his tracks. “But I can’t…”

You cupped his cheeks, lifting his head to look him in the eye again. “What’s wrong?”

He looked as if he were in pain, his face screwed up in utter agony. He kept shaking his head, like he didn’t want to say it, like he was hiding a secret that would break him just to say aloud.

“If… If I do this, I might not be able to stop,” he whined, “and even if I do, how could I ever let you go after tasting you?”

You searched his eyes, saw the pain and the uncertainty in them. He truly didn’t want to hurt you, and right now he looked more vulnerable than you would think a creature of the night was capable of being.

“When you moved in I couldn’t leave you, I couldn’t stay away… And that was merely your smell, Tesoro. I’m afraid if I taste you, I could never leave you alone again.”

His admission floored you, and as much as the idea of giving yourself over to him willingly seemed to appeal to you, the rational part of your brain was still working enough to understand that that was a line that should not be crossed just yet.

“It’s okay… It’s okay,” you told him sincerely, comforting his distress before bringing his lips back to yours and resuming your heated exchange. Perhaps someday you would allow him that taste, a way of committing deeper than you could possibly comprehend at this stage. But there was a reason for the phrase “blood pact”, and it didn’t originate with the exchange of open wounds between two mortals.

As enthralled as he was in your lips, feeling your pulse beneath them tempting him, Terzo had to push the thought to the back of his mind. He couldn’t lose himself to the temptation so soon. He’d frighten you away if you saw him so feral, and he couldn’t let you disappear like everyone else in his life – not the only woman to ever have smelled so divine to him. Only he knew what that meant, that pull…  You were it for him. His obsession was unavoidable, you were his promised love.

It happened instantaneously for his kind, but for you? It would take time for you to see it, to feel what he felt. Human sense of smell was nowhere near as powerful, and so you could never know just by his scent that he was the one for you, the soul on the other end of the red string tied around your wrist.

To rid his mind of the temptation, he focussed on the moment at hand. His intense grip on your waste drifted over your hips and to the backs of your thighs until he was lifting them, using his hips to ground you against the wall so you wouldn’t fall. It was as if you were weightless to him, his inhuman strength making such light work of carrying you further down the hall and into your bedroom – his bedroom – until you both fell onto the bed.

No part of you thought for even a millisecond of stopping him, an intense need for him screaming from within you. You pushed his coat from his shoulders, diverting to his shirt buttons as soon as he began pulling at his sleeves to rid himself of the heavy wool. In no time at all, his chest was bare to you, peppered with dark hair that you’d expect from a man of Italian descent. You pulled him closer to you, reattaching your lips desperately.

His gloves disappeared as you kissed him, and you couldn’t help but flinch at the touch of his cold skin on yours, his hands sliding up under the hem of your shirt to hold you. He paused for a moment, searching your face for any sign his touch wasn’t welcome.

“Just cold…” you assured him, running your fingers through the dark locks of hair that had fallen over his face as he hovered above you.

“I, eh… sí, mi scusi, I am cold to the touch…” he apologised, a wave of insecurity flashing through his expression.

“I don’t mind,” you smiled sweetly, pulling him down with your hand woven into his hair and kissing his insecurity away. He regained his confidence, grip returning to your bare waist under your shirt and tightening with gratitude at your reassurance.

The way he kissed you was like worship, like he valued every second you allowed him to touch you, to be with you – and as he slowly began to undress you, his worship continued. He started with your shirt, pushing it up your abdomen and peppering the skin with more kisses as he exposed it. Over the curve of your breast peaking from above the cup of your bra, you felt the low rumble of a groan against your chest that was suppressed as he buried his face into your flesh. He was so gentle, so calculated in his motions and it was driving you crazy already.

Once your shirt was finally above your head and discarded somewhere to the side, he pulled the straps of your bra down, kissing along your shoulders and down your arms until he reached behind you to unclasp it. Your breasts bounced before him, and he immediately began to leave open mouthed kisses over them, laving his tongue over your nipples as they stood to attention under the chill of his lips. His free hand worked at your other breast, kneading like he was making the finest ricciarelli biscuit dough.

You couldn’t help the soft whines and hums that left your body as he worshipped you, hips rolling under him in a desperate attempt to feel something more. You wanted him so badly, already overcome with desire.

His hand came to rest on your hip, squeezing and he continued to suckle at your breast. His fingers dipped easily into the waistband of your paint-smeared sweats – one of several pairs you alternated when working on the house renovations. Before long, he was dragging them down your thighs, his cold knuckles grazing at the skin and sending a pleasurable shiver down your spine.

Terzo was taking his time without wasting any. He knew what he wanted, what you wanted, but he spent just enough time working your body, lavishing it to build anticipation. But before long, his kisses began to travel south, leaving a path of wet little marks down between the valley of your breasts and your navel until he was tracing the hem of your underwear, daring to run his finger along the sensitive skin.

It took a formidable amount of strength and restraint to keep your hips as still as you did, and even then, you were wriggling under his touch. But when he could tell you were growing restless, he wrapped his arm underneath your thigh and lifted it above his shoulder. Naturally, you spread wider for him, giving him complete access to your covered core where he could see so clearly the stain of arousal.

He was so close to you, the scent of your sweet honey so intoxicating. You could never understand how divine that scent was with your own human senses, but to him? It cemented itself in his memory. He knew that after today, he would never forget it. He didn’t want to rush, but frankly, it was getting impossible to resist a taste.

He lifted the hem of your panties and pierced the material beneath it with his fangs, easily tearing it away from your body before he pressed his nose to your mound, and took in a deep inhale. He growled between your legs, the vibration and exhale teasing your nerves until you were clenching around nothing.

He could wait no longer, his tongue reaching out to lap between your folds in one slow motion. He savoured the taste on his tongue, making sure to collect as much honey as he could for a truly overwhelming taste. You watched as his hips rocked into the bed below him, his hands tightening on your thighs. His tongue felt cold too, but the pressure was so welcome, a wave of euphoria passing through your core.

Expertly, Terzo used his whole mouth to bring you the pleasure he thought you deserved and yet, not once did you worry about the sharp fangs he’d used to strip you. He had the ability to retract them should he need to, and for this particularly delicate activity, he did just that. But his lips and tongue worked together to have you moaning at every lap, hips rolling underneath him.

Your hands found their way to his hair for purchase, tugging at the roots every time he sent a surge of pleasure through your clit. He loved it, moaning with you as if he too was close to an orgasm. Both of you had lost yourselves to the moment, completely enthralled in lust.

Terzo was becoming more and more desperate to have you finish on his tongue. Each pretty little sound he caused only made him want to hear more, and as you grew closer and closer to orgasm, you sweetened with added hormones that drove him wild. He unwrapped a hand from around your thigh and easily slid two fingers inside, not bothering nor needing to tease with how your body already gave itself over to him. He curled his fingers inside you, a shock of pleasure forcing your back to arch from the mattress as he found the perfect position.

His pace increased with every moan he elicited, the tension in your lower abdomen growing until you were on the verge of snapping.

“T-Terzo… Please,” you begged him. He chuckled darkly as he buried his face deeper within you, his nose adding to the equation and making your hips writhe until finally, that tension inside you snapped.

He didn’t stop, holding you down with inhuman strength as you erupted in cries of bliss. Your muscles contracted, thighs trapping his head in place and fingers pulling painfully at his hair.

Terzo slurped at your core, not letting a single drop of arousal go to waste. You tasted different as you came, the rush of hormones adding something so damn addictive that it wasn’t until you physically tried pushing his head away in oversensitivity that he snapped out of his trance, his head jolting up to look at you with his mouth and skin shimmering. He looked completely feral, his eyes wide, and you watched as his fangs returned with a snarl of a hungry animal locking onto its kill.

Your heart jumped in your chest; out of fear or lust you couldn’t be sure. But he heard it, the irregular thump as you lay vulnerable and weak beneath him. It only served to make his erection twitch in his slacks… Fear was a powerful feeling, and mixed with lust it was one of the most erotic combinations.

He crawled his way back up your body, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before diving into a punishing kiss that knocked any remaining wind out of you. You could feel his length pressing into your hip, and while you were certainly already struggling with exertion you wanted nothing more than to know how he’d feel inside you.

So you reached between you both for his belt, fiddling with the buckle as you kissed him. Taking the hint, he kicked his shoes off over the edge of the bed, and when you’d managed to undo his belt and slacks, he helped to kick them with his underwear passed his knees to follow suit. With him bared to you and pressing into your hip once again, you could feel just how endowed he was, and just how ready for you he was.

“You are so beautiful, cara mio…” he mused between kisses, his cold fingertips trailing down your neck and arm, then back up. “And you can’t ever understand how exquisite you taste.”

“To an extent, I can…” you teased with a flirty smile, “I can taste myself on your tongue.”

He stared down at you for a moment, until realisation finally settled and his lips curled into a devilish grin.

“Tu sei una tentatrice, amore mio… (you are a temptress, my love…)” he whispered, lowering himself to your lips once again.

As you both lost yourself in another steamy kiss, you couldn’t help rolling your hips up to meet his. He hummed into your mouth, understanding that you wanted him completely, and reached between the two of you to grip himself. You spread your legs a little wider to make it easier for him, feeling how he prodded at your entrance once he’d lined himself up.

“Are you sure, amore?” he stopped to ask, and you nodded, biting your lip to contain the smile as you cupped his cheeks. With your permission, he slowly pushed forwards, filling you slowly as he glided through your slick. You fought to keep your eyes open, if only to watch the look of bliss that overcame his face – and boy was it worth it.

He looked so ethereal, like his pale skin had been carved by the finest of Greek sculptors in marble burdened with the curse of perfection. The chill of his skin did nothing to quell the burning heat of yours, finding the perfect balance.

“You’re so… warm,” he moaned, burying his face in the crook of your neck while he enjoyed the feeling for a moment. “Sembra fottutamente incredibile. (feels fucking incredible.)”

Given a moment to compose himself, he began to slowly rock his hips back and forth, gritting his teeth from the sensation alone. You would be the first to admit that he, too, felt incredible inside you, reaching places his fingers had only moments ago and sending waves of a dull pleasure through you once again at the embers of your last orgasm were being stoked.

His hand gripped your thigh and lifted it around his waist, obtaining a better angle and something for him to grip onto to stop his mind spiralling into sheer madness. Already, you were so difficult to resist; temptation was calling to him in the form of your steady, yet thundering pulse where his face lay against your neck. But if he lost himself, lost control like he was so terrified to, he was afraid resistance would fail him.

It was like torture. How could he feel so incredible pumping his length inside you while simultaneously experiencing the physical strain of holding his thirst back. You were his, he’d decided that long ago. But to truly make you his, all he would need to do was to give in, to sink his fangs into the skin he was peppering with kisses. He felt like a recovering addict desperately trying to resist as someone waved a hit under his nose. In some ways, that was exactly what he was.

But not yet. It was too soon. He had to resist for now, to let you make up your mind without ancient ritual influences before he allowed himself to truly make you his. He couldn’t bind himself to you, only for you to walk away when it all became too much, or hell forbid, you found someone more human to settle down with.

Instead, he focussed on the pleasure filling his cock as he pistoned in and out of you. He focussed on your pretty moans, and the way you clenched around him. He focussed on kisses to your neck instead of bites, groaning against your skin as he indulged in you. But too easily he lost himself, and soon he couldn’t help but drag his tongue from the bottom of your neck, to right underneath your ear.

You loved how it felt, completely oblivious to just how close you were to becoming a meal to him. To you it was simply another thing to drive you wild, and when you once again wrapped your fingers in his hair, your other arm pushing down on his back to pull him against you, you had no clue you were making it so much harder for him.

He kept suckling, licking, even nipping so gently at your neck – so fucking close to what he truly wanted as his instincts began to take over. He fought them as hard as he could snarling at himself in warning but still, you were oblivious to his internal fight and mistook his anguish for noises of pleasure.

Truly, he hadn’t meant to let it get this far; but when the sharp tip of his fang grazed just a little too close to where your pulse thundered against his tongue, and you writhed under him with a targeted hit to your g-spot, he nicked your skin just enough to draw the tiniest spec of blood… He hadn’t even noticed, your scent already filling his nose that he didn’t sense it intensify just a fraction until it was too late, and he’d laved his tongue over the graze.

It all happened too fast, then.

You were mid-moan when you felt an excruciating pain where his tongue had just been, the noise catching in your throat with a sudden choke. Your fingers naturally tightened in his hair, and your nails dug into the cold flesh of his back as a scream travelled its way through your ribcage and you couldn’t help but let it out. Your back arched and your muscles constricted, but Terzo’s hips never stopped and now that he’d got a taste of you – a real taste – he growled a visceral growl that you felt rumble in the pit of your stomach.

If he thought you’d tasted good between your legs, this was the most intensely delicious thing he’d ever had the pleasure of tasting. Such pure, untainted blood coated his tongue, dribbling down your neck as he ravished it. He’d known this was dangerous, that one bite would bind him to you for eternity after the first whiff of your scent when you moved in. But now that he’d tasted you, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he’d fought so hard to stave off.

“T-Terzo, you-“ you tried to stop him, remembering how pained he’d looked when he explained why he really couldn’t do this, but it truly was too late. All it took was one drop. He cut you off with a hand clamping over your jaw, his other holding your hip in place with bruising force.

His hips never stopped, every sensation he felt only pushing him to fuck into you harder like a rabid monster. In that moment, that was exactly what he was. In that first split-second, he frightened you. You saw the side of him he’d tried so hard to hide, and coupled with the pain in your neck, your body flooded with adrenaline – which of course, only added to the sublime taste of your blood.

But like he had promised, the venom acted fast. The pain ebbed away into nothing but a sensation of being prodded and sucked at. Still you held onto him tightly, unable to deny that this was possible one of the most intimate feelings you’d ever felt, and the pleasure started to stack up.

Even to a point, where the rush of blood through the two puncture wounds in your neck became a pleasurable experience. You’d have trouble explaining just how, but it felt unbelievable, like a massage that tickled and sent endorphins flooding your mind. Little did you know, that was also the venom coursing through your body. But it didn’t matter, because coupled with Terzo’s cock thrusting against your g-spot it was the most glorious feeling in the entire world.

As you barrelled closer to a second orgasm, Terzo ripped his fangs from your neck and looked down at you beneath him. He had a look in his eye that was so predatory that you knew immediately you belonged to him now, whether you liked it or not. As luck would have it, you did like it; very much. That obsessive look, that ownership turned you on to a point that had you squealing for him beneath his hand.

Quickly, you reached your peak for a second time, holding him so tightly you thought that maybe even you would draw blood with your nails in his back. Just as that second burst of pleasure coursed through you, Terzo reattached himself to your neck, drinking in the newly sweetened blood that a rush of hormones created for him. If you could imagine the most expensive, and decadent wine you had ever tasted, it wouldn’t hold a candle to the taste of your blood to him right now.

Suddenly he lurched back again, this time removing his hands from your body and holding himself up, only to dive in and sink his fangs into the swell of your breast as it bounced with the force of each of his trusts. Again, you were met with pain the flooded your body but mixed with the high of your orgasm, you could only scream in pleasure. He drank from you again, kneading at your other breast as he too hurtled towards an orgasm.

The pain subsided quickly thanks to another dose of his venom, but he continued to drink from you, prolonging your euphoria just long enough for him to finally and violently reach his own high.

He erupted inside you, his head throwing back as he growled and lost his rhythm, pounding sloppily into you with each twitch of his cock. In your post-orgasm haze, you witnessed the look of bliss on his face, seeing for the first time the distinct red that coated his lips and dripped from his fangs down to his chin. He looked manic, but holy shit it was intensely erotic.

With the small amount of strength left in you, you sat up just enough to push your lips to his. You don’t know why you did it, or even that you had until you could taste the metallic twang of iron on your tongue. Terzo collapsed into you, wrapping his arms around you as he rolled to the side, taking you along with him. With the mess he created of your core, he slipped from inside you, now simply intent on holding you close while he processed that you were kissing him, despite being tainted with your blood. But it grounded him, and slowly, his orgasm subsided and his mind cleared of its fog.

Your kiss came to a natural end, the pair of you exhausted, and without a word you lay yourself on his chest, not bothering to wipe away the smears of blood around your own mouth as you caught your breath.

“I’m so sorry…” he whimpered, pulling you tighter against him and obscuring your view of his face so you wouldn’t have to witness the shame that settled there. You didn’t have the energy to speak, instead hoping that the circling of your thumb over the cool skin of his chest was enough comfort for now to show him you didn’t mind, that you’d wanted that as much as he had.

You let some time pass, calming yourselves down in each other’s arms. His grip on you lessened as the minutes passed, and eventually, you were able to look up at his face. To your shock and heartbreak, you noticed his cheeks were wet with something other than blood – Terzo was crying.

“Hey…” you soothed, shuffling further up the bed to hover above him. He covered his face with his hand, hiding himself but you pulled it away, cupping his cheek and swiping at the tear tracks. “No, no no… Stop this, it’s okay.”

“Mi dispiace tantissimo, (I’m so sorry,)” he cried, “I hurt you. I did the one thing I should never have done…”

“Shhh,” you hushed him like a newborn who couldn’t sleep, “I wanted that, remember? I told you you could.”

“You don’t understand, I… I have bound myself to you, and now, when you leave… it will devastate me,” he sobbed, staring straight up at the canopy of the large bed, unable to look you in the eye.

“What makes you think I will leave?” you asked him gently, still gently swiping his fresh tears away whilst fighting your own.

“Amore mio, I have lost everybody I have ever cared about,” he told you, finally looking you in the eye. “I have either outlived them, or watched as they turned their back on me. And now I have selfishly bound myself to you, knowing that I cannot ever let you go.”

His admission broke your heart. You certainly had no intention of going anywhere, the bond you now shared with him feeling strangely cemented and more intimate than any you’d had with another. But in the end, time would come for you just as it had the rest of his family, lying under the earth of your own back garden.

“How does someone… become like you?” you asked tentatively, absentmindedly, playing with the chest hair the covered his pecks.

Terzo’s brow creased in confusion. “Why would you ask such a thing? I couldn’t condemn you to a life like this…” After all he’d been through; the killings, loss, isolation, and even the exile he’d faced decades ago when the townspeople discovered what he was… He couldn’t put you in a position like that. He didn’t want you to become part of the dark legend of the Emeritus house, another spooky story passed from generation to generation to tell around campfires for years to come.

“Just tell me, how?” you pressed. He sighed, laying his head back on the pillow and staring back up at the canopy.

“You would need to drink the blood of my kind,” he stated simply, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “I could not ask that of you. The process is not an easy one, and to become like me is to be condemned to a life of heartache.”

You thought for a moment, acknowledging his concerns but deciding that whilst that had been his experience, it didn’t need to be yours. Not with him beside you – neither of you would need to be lonely ever again.

“I’m so sorry you’ve felt that heartache, but I believe that the two of us together could avoid that.”

He raised his head to look at you again, examining your face for a moment while he contemplated what some kind of future might look like with you.

“Perhaps not yet, I understand. But Terzo, I will prove that I intend on going nowhere. And when you feel like you might be ready to trust that, I’ll be waiting,” you promised him, cupping his jaw and stroking your thumb gently over his cheek. “Until then, I can be your very own personal supply, hm?” you smiled, “You won’t need to take a life, so long as you have me little and often, right?”

“You… would do that? For me?” his eyebrows creased together in question, truly in disbelief you would offer him such a thing.

“Mhm,” you nodded, “I mean as long as every time feels as incredible as that,” you giggled. “And besides, you’ll get a decent meal at least once a month,” you joked, lightening the mood a little with a cheeky smirk.

Terzo rolled his eyes with a laugh that vibrated his chest beneath you. He shook his head at the absurdity of your offer, no matter how technically practical that sort of arrangement would actually be to a man of his kind.

“Oh, amore… sei davvero una tentatrice (you really are a temptress)…” he grinned, leaning up to capture your lips in a sweet, blood-stained kiss.

A/N: Huge thank you to @her-satanic-wiles for beta reading! If you'd like to leave me a tip, you can do so here.

If you'd like to read any of my other works, you can find them here.

[syntheticavenger]

On My Mama - Three

A special thank you to @mrsmischief209 @flordeamatista @negronispagliato for helping with language translation and @cocobutterqwueen for cheering me on with the plot!

Santiago 'Pope' Garcia x Female Reader

Tyler Rake x Female Reader

Andy Barber x Female Reader

Jax Teller x Female Reader

Word Count: 4.2K

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, language, breeding kink (brief), jealousy, angst, mentions of divorce, co-parenting.

Summary | Being a single mom with a complicated relationship with your ex-husband makes for an interesting summer after a school event and an unexpected errand puts you front and center with some eligible contenders for your attention.

“Mommy, look! They have horsies!” Mia squeaks, pointing as Santiago holds her close so that she doesn’t tip over, mesmerized as a horse gallops by the big window. “Daddy, do you see the horsies?!”

“I do see them,” Santiago agrees, kissing the crown of her head affectionately. “We have to finish the tour, mini.”

Sister Catherine Francis stands next to you, the school administrator smiling at the sweet moment between father and daughter. Admittedly, the tour has been impressive. Beside the stables, there is an auditorium, a gym, a play area much larger than the one in her current school and the student to teacher ratio is much smaller than you thought.

“Mrs. Garcia, I know you have some reservations about our school as Mr. Garcia told us,” Sister Catherine begins, her Irish accent strong. “I assure you, Mia will have the very best of care here at St. Mary’s. The curriculum here is outstanding and our students go on to Ivy League universities and abroad.”

“Curriculum,” you repeat, seeing her nod, anticipating your response with a tight-lipped smile. You’ve been peppering her with questions the entire tour, ever since she had mentioned she was pleased that Santiago had reached out weeks prior, calling you by your former last name, ignoring that you had mentioned that you were divorced.

Your cell phone vibrates in your purse, mumbling an excuse to step away for a moment as Sister Catherine approaches Santiago and Mia to discuss the details of the stables, asking Mia if she would like to know the names of all the horses.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sorry if I caught you at a bad time,” Tyler apologizes, your mood improving at the sound of his voice.

You’re grateful for the reprieve, even more so that he’s called you directly.

Santiago looks over his shoulder as you turn around, your back to him. He’s far away enough that you hope he can’t hear you.

“No, it’s fine, I’m just out with Mia,” you answer. “How are you?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m good.”

After a pause, Tyler laughs, the sound making you smile.

“Listen, I’m being a total idiot about this and I’m sorry. How would you feel if I picked the place to go to dinner? I promise you’ll have a good time.”

“I think that would be fine. Should I be worried?” you ask.

“No? I mean, I hope not. How does Saturday sound? Seven?”

“Seven works,” you agree, taking two steps away from Sister Catherine. “Enough time to find a sitter.”

“Seven it is. We can meet there if that works?”

“Sure. I’ll see you at seven.”

“Perfect. It’s a date. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

When you hang up, you notice that Santiago is closer now, Mia still in his arms as he looks through his phone for a moment. Sister Catherine clears her throat at the interruption, making you look up from your phone.

“Did you have questions regarding any of our curricula?”

You hope that doesn’t mean to be pushy, but it sounds that way, the nun clasping her hands in front of her, waiting for your answer.

 “Mia is five. She’s in kindergarten and doing well,” you counter, trying to keep the irritation out of your voice. “College is a few years away.”

“She’s a very intelligent young lady. We would nurture her intuitive nature, develop her into a strong young woman who would be readily accepted at any university of her choosing. You must start now, in her formidable years, to make sure she is strong.”

“She’s already strong.”

Mia runs over to you when her father puts her down, clinging to your legs as she bends her head back, looking into your eyes.

“I like it, Mommy!” Mia announces.

“You like what, sweetheart?” you ask carefully, Mia raising up her arms for you to pick her up.

She settles into your arms, leaning over to whisper in your ear.

“I like the horsies.”

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” you ask, her head bumping against your cheek as she nods quickly.

“I want one, Mommy. Can I have one?”

“Horses are expensive, baby,” you tell her gently, Santiago standing close by to smooth down her hair.

“We can talk about it over lunch, hmm? How does that sound?” he asks, giving you a cool smile before he turns to the nun. “Sister Catherine, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate the hospitality and the graciousness you’ve shown me and my family.”

“It is my pleasure, Mr. Garcia.”

“We haven’t made a decision,” Santiago says carefully, looking in your direction as you hold Mia close. “But I’m sure either way, we’ll be in touch.”

“Of course. It was nice meeting you, Mia,” Sister Catherine says, Mia leaning over you to shake her hand.

“Bye!” Mia chirps as you force a smile, knowing that this isn’t the right time to say any of the thoughts that have filled your head.

“Thank you,” you reply to her, the nun nodding with a gracious expression.

“Of course, Mrs. Garcia.”

🌙

Mia chews on a piece of chicken, cut up expertly by her father as she colors on the paper placemat. 

Santiago leans back in his chair, sipping his glass of wine, silent as he glances from his daughter to you. As much as your irritation has grown, you know better than to argue in front of Mia. You’re also aware of the stare that he’s giving you, like he has more to say than he is letting on.

“I’m sorry for the surprise,” Santiago murmurs, placing his glass back down on the table. “I should have told you.”

“Yes, you should have,” you answer back quietly, Mia still coloring, playing you no mind. “I know you want what is best for our daughter, but I wish you would understand that this would be a big change for her.”

“Of course it would. No more cafeteria food, no overcrowded classrooms, more attention on our precious daughter. I fail to see the flaws in St. Mary’s.”

“She knows no one there. She’s made friends, she has her own little social calendar now. She’s happy.”

“I’m happy,” Mia recites with a giggle, drawing a squiggly line in purple crayon.

“She’s five,” Santiago recites back to you. “Young enough to make new friends, build new relationships and settle into a new school.”

The server interrupts with the next course, lingering a little longer to ask Santiago if he would like something else, her arm draped over the chair. You pay her no mind, knowing that he won’t let this particular subject go, no matter what distraction there may be in his way.

“I think we’re fine for now, thank you,” he declares with an air of annoyance through a tight flash of teeth.

“I’ll be nearby if you need anything,” she says, moving away from him.

Still within earshot, Santiago’s eyes level with yours, looking down at his plate and then to Mia, who has switched to a green crayon, drawing what looks like two boxes on top of each other.

“A frog,” Mia announces to her parents, coloring diligently.

Before you have a chance to argue, his gaze settles on the server who is still close by, turning back to you with a disapproving stare before he finally speaks.

“Mira a Mia, nos tiene a nosotros igual con el mundo a su alcance.”

He raises an eyebrow after, his words settling as you frown, Mia’s head snapping up at attention.

“¿Que... mundo?” she asks her father, looking at him suspiciously, your eyes rolling as Santiago smirks, lifting her out of her chair and onto his lap.

“I forgot how smart you are, mini,” Santiago murmurs against her, moving his wine glass away from her as she reaches for it. “That’s not juice. Let’s get you your own drink.”

The nickname isn’t lost on you, Mia leaning against her father, rubbing her eyes. Mini, meaning a mini version of you, something he’s called her since before she could talk.

When the server finally moves away, Mia slips off of her father’s lap, running to you as she moves from side to side.

“I gotta potty,” she announces loudly, your finger going to your lips to remind her to lower her voice as she takes off running.

Independent as you know her to be, you also know she’s fast, following behind her. You know she has no idea where she’s going, mumbling out an apology to the tables that she passes, narrowly missing a server with a tray over their head.

She stops in her tracks, pointing as you reach her, following her direction.

“It’s Abel!”

True to her word, Abel is sitting across a table in a booth with a well-dressed woman, who you assume is Abel’s mother. She doesn’t fit the description of Abel’s mother, someone whose name Melanie has dragged through the proverbial mud. This woman, in her black pantsuit and perfectly coiffed hair doesn’t look like she would be an absent mother, especially the way she talks to him.

It is Melanie after all, you think, herding Mia toward the restroom. She’s not exactly known for liking many people, let alone someone who is that close to Jax.

“I wanna say hi,” Mia protests, looking over her shoulder before the door closes. “Mommy, let’s say hi to Abel.”

“After you go to the restroom, I promise we will go say hello to Abel and after you wash your hands.”

“And we sing the ABCs!” Mia reminds you, running into a stall and locking it.

It feels silly to think about Jax, especially with how the day has played out. Santiago’s surprise tour to St. Mary’s and your upcoming date with Tyler. Your plate is full and you haven’t even told Santiago about your date.

If you even want to. You don’t even want to know how many dates he’s been on. Not that he’ll ever tell you and you’ve never been bold enough to ask. A flicker of irritation moves through you when you remember Abel’s sweet little face, dejected after being dropped off without a gift. You know that it didn’t matter that he didn’t have a gift but children mimic their parents and their societal standards.

“I’m done!” Mia says, after stopping the multiple flushes once you remind her to not play in the bathroom. 

Dutifully she recites her alphabet when she washes her hands, the suds flying around the sink while you prepare the paper towels for her to dry her hands like a servant.

“Can we say hi now?”

“Yes,” you agree, Mia bolting out the door.

You stop in your tracks when Mia greets Jax loudly, seeing him sit across from the well-dressed woman. He’s traded his well-worn kutte for a button down shirt and black slacks, his hair slicked back, unaware that you’re close by when he scans the restaurant for any sign of you.

“Mommy!” Mia says, waving to you. “She’s right there.”

You tug your dress down when you walk toward them, Abel giving you a shy smile, Jax giving you a slow smile.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Jax says with a smile. “Mother daughter lunch date?”

“You could say that,” you respond, Mia eyeing the paper placemat that Abel is working on.

“You have to color the boxes,” Mia orders, your arm going around her to remind her of her manners gently.

“Abel can color them later,” you tell her softly, Mia shrugging as Abel starts to color in the boxes.

The woman smiles and you feel a sense of intruding on their time, quickly giving them a nod before slowly turning Mia back toward the direction of where you are sitting.

It’s family time, you predict, Jax giving you a curious look as you make a move to give them some space.

“Leaving so soon?”

“I wouldn’t want to impede on your family time,” you tell him. “Good to see you and Abel and nice to meet you…”

“Nice to meet you too,” the woman says with a grin, Jax raising an eyebrow before you march Mia back to the table.

🌙

“Busy schedule?” Santiago asks, seeing you fire off a text to one of the moms in the group text over a snack rotation schedule mix up. The drive back as been quiet thus far, ever since you’d gone back to the table and he had already paid, holding Mia’s tiny purse that she had insisted on taking everywhere.

“Just ironing out some details.”

Mia is fast asleep in the backseat, Santiago licking his lower lip in thought.

“If you need a sitter on Saturday, I’m sure I can have my mother watch Mia.”

“Are my conversations not private anymore?” you question, seeing a smirk play at his mouth.

“Big hallway,” he responds. “Your voice carries. And you didn’t answer my question. Do you want my mother to watch Mia?”

“I’d prefer to think about my options and for you to not eavesdrop on my conversations.”

“I told you. Your voice carries.”

You shift in your seat. It’s uncomfortable to know that he heard what you were saying, even more unnerving is that you feel guilty.

“Or you were listening. I don’t ask you about your personal life.”

“No,” he agrees with a shake of his head. “I’d answer anything you’d want to know. You know that.”

You sit in silence for a moment, your street coming into view.

“You want to date, I say go for it,” Santiago continues. “Would it make me a little jealous to know you’re scouting out potential men to find a partner? I’m human, aren’t I? I’d be lying if I told you I don’t think about how I should have put another baby in you. Those sounds you make for me, conejita… I crave them and no one can ever recreate it, nor have they come close.”

You try to move when he places his hand on your bare thigh, his hand warm as he slides it up toward your dress.

“So you’ve tried,” you shoot back, hating that you can already feel yourself reacting to him.

“Does it matter?”

“When you’re trying to surprise me with a quick decision on a private school that I was not given a chance to even think about? No,” you answer, placing your hand on his. “I’m still upset with you.”

“I didn’t say she had to go. It needs to be a decision from the both of us. I’m asking you to keep an open mind.”

“I will once I can keep a clear mind.”

Santiago smiles, a text popping up on his screen. Another woman, your eyes looking at the notification.

“Guess your calendar is packed too,” you shoot back, getting out of the car when he parks. “Not making a decision on the school yet. But we aren’t sleeping together.”

Santiago laughs, shaking his head in disbelief when he gets out the car to take Mia out of her seat.

“My flight leaves in two hours so I’ll put her to bed and you can take your time with your decision,” he informs you.

🌙

Settling Mia into her bed, he heads downstairs, finding no sign of you. Your phone is on the counter, a notification popping up as he hovers over it.

It’s a single name, one that he raises an eyebrow at.

Jax.

Even more curious is what he reads as he hears you come back down the stairs.

Not my wife. She’s my lawyer. 

🌙

It’s daunting, fingers wrapped around the wood, breathing harder than you ever thought. You’re aware that your last movement was less than graceful, afraid to step over the line, your hips moving to try to get into the right position.

“Do you want some help?” Tyler asks, the burr of his voice sending a tingle down your spine.

“Yes, please,” you answer, his warm fingers on your elbow, flexing your arm back and forth slowly. 

The sweet smell of sawdust gives you the urge to sneeze, the loud clink of beer glasses when someone hits a target and the raucous roar when someone doesn’t hit their mark gives you a sense of ease. There’s no need for perfection or expertise.

He’d met you at the door, your shyness on display when he held the door open for you. It wasn’t your first choice for a date, but your only comparison was the upscale restaurants that Santiago would take you to. Either way, you’re excited to try something new, the ax hard to throw but the adrenaline rush when you throw it is entertaining.

“It’s a flick of the wrist,” he instructs, standing behind you, his body a solid wall of muscle when you take a step back accidentally, trying to make sure you don’t disqualify yourself.

“It’s a quick throw but you’ve got to move with purpose, focus on where you want it to go. Ready?”

When you throw it, the ax sails through the air, hitting the top of the target. Not that it matters, you finally got it to stick, celebrating that you were able to hit something, rather than have it bounce off the wall.

As a first date, you’re still glancing at your phone as Laurie sends you pictures of Mia, feeling guilty for all of five seconds when you realize that he’s probably done the same. You feel oddly comfortable in a flannel shirt and jeans and a pair of sneakers for a first date. You’d gone through your closet while Laurie had come over to watch Mia, with it being Andy’s week with Jacob and she was more than happy to watch her as Santiago’s mother had last minute plans.

As a rule, you don’t engage with any questions she has, especially since she’s always hinted that you had made a mistake with your decision to separate and then divorce.

It was a good thing they were your decisions.

Your decision now is to try to not focus on how handsome Tyler looks when he focuses on the target, hitting the target each time. You’re aware of his politeness, the way he doesn’t get into the personal side of your history with your ex, keeping it light with Mia and Hunter and to your interests.

For the first time in a long time, you talk about yourself and your hopes and dreams.

And Tyler listens.

You don’t want to compare, nor do you want to put either of them on a pedestal but there’s something about the way he lets what you say sink in, nodding slowly and taking the social cue of when he can share his own thoughts and ideas. There is no fighting for dominance in a conversation, something that you aren’t used to.

“What?” he asks you after taking a sip of his beer.

“Nothing,” you answer quickly, realizing that you’ve been staring at his tattooed arms and how he smiles.

It isn’t the time to admit that you’ve been appreciating his physical form as well as feeling seen and heard.

“Ax throwing is harder than I thought,” you admit, stretching out your fingers.

“Does it hurt?” Tyler asks, reaching out his hand to you, placing your hand in his. “Sometimes you can get a splinter.”

He examines your hand, his fingers running along your fingers and palm, closing your hand into a fist and then unraveling it to hook your fingers over his, his lips brushing against your knuckles. At the contact, your face heats up at how gentle he is with you.

“Not a scratch or splinter from what I can see,” he says with a nod, looking into your eyes. “I’d say that’s a win.”

-

“I thought about leaving. Taking Hunter with me, moving to a new city and just starting over,” Tyler tells you while you walk along the pier. “It made sense to me, you know? Clean slate, we didn’t have to look back. Then he entered kindergarten and I watched him come out of his shell that I thought he would never break out of and I knew that I couldn’t do that to him.”

“What about private school?” you ask, seeing him shrug off his jacket as he slows his steps, placing it over your shoulders. You’re instantly warm, smelling the faint cologne left on his jacket. “Thank you.”

“I thought about it,” he replies, continuing to walk beside you. “I moved a lot as a kid, went to few private schools here and there but I never like I fit in. Didn’t think Hunter would either. Why do you ask?”

“I thought about St. Mary’s but…” you trail off, focusing on the waves that crash against the shore in the moonlight. “I think she’d miss her friends.”

“They’d miss her.”

“I don’t know,” you sigh. “I want to make sure she’s well adjusted. I want to make sure that she’s happy and healthy. She’s made so many friends and I hope that I make the right decision for her.”

“Have you ever felt like you haven’t?”

Shaking your head, he nods in agreement.

“Then you’re making the right decision.”

“I feel like I could be better.”

“Oh?” he questions. “How so?”

“There’s always room for improvement.”

“Even now?”

His curious expression makes you stop, looking into his blue eyes for a moment. There’s a vulnerability there, a softness that sends a slight flutter to your stomach.

“No,” you answer. “I can’t think of any improvements on tonight.”

“I disagree,” Tyler responds, pulling his jacket that is around your shoulders closer to keep you warm, pulling you toward him slowly. “I can think of something.”

He lowers his head to kiss you and you meet him halfway, his lips on yours, soft and warm. You don’t want it to end, even if you know at any time you’ll both pull away. 

His cell phone vibrates loudly in the pocket, your soft groan barely audible when you break the kiss.

“Did you want to get that?” you whisper, Tyler kissing you again before you can ask him again.

“It’s the sitter. I think I owe her some overtime.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” you apologize, Tyler holding you close by holding onto his jacket.

“Worth it.”

🌙

“You kissed him?” Laurie whispers, eyes wide as she perches on the couch. “Shut up, you did not.”

“I did,” you confess, covering your face. “On the first date? Is that even allowed?”

“Of course it is! I fucked my first college boyfriend on the first date. This is tame. Tongue or no tongue.”

“Laurie!” you hiss, breaking out into a fit of laughter. “This is absurd. I can’t believe I’m talking about this. It was one date.”

“One date where you went ax throwing with a giant. Not just any giant, by the way. Tyler Rake. The man is an enigma. I can’t tell if he hates the PTA or genuinely enjoys it.”

“I didn’t ask,” you say dryly, Laurie finishing the last of her wine. Your phone vibrates next to you, a message popping up that you check quickly before she notices.

Happy you made it home safe. Thank you for a great night.

“So… was he a good kisser?” Laurie questions.

“Do you ask this of everyone?”

“No,” Laurie replies honestly. “I’m asking because you’re my friend and I don’t have many of those because most people annoy me. You went on a date. That’s a start. How do you feel?”

“Weird.”

You don’t know how to explain it. It feels like you’re keeping a secret, even if it isn’t one. You’re a single woman, even if you don’t feel like it sometimes. Santiago is gone, jetted off to Spain for a trip. Probably with one of his companions, something you won’t ever ask about, even if he says he’s an open book.

It’s complicated in a way that it doesn’t need to be and you know it.

Laurie is right. This is a start of something. Maybe not anything that you know but enough to make you begin thinking that you deserve to be selfish for a moment, to think about what you want.

Whatever that may be.

“It’s okay to play the field you know,” Laurie says, getting up from her seat, picking up her wine glass to take to the sink. “It’s not a bad thing to make sure your bases are loaded.”

-

When you check on Mia, she’s fast asleep, buried under the covers with her favorite teddy bear at her side. Next week will be Santiago’s week and the pangs of longing already begin, even though she’s right next to you when you sit carefully on her bed.

Two more weeks of school and then she’s done for the summer, your baby girl going full speed ahead into the first grade once the summer is over, something you aren’t ready to comprehend, let alone even want to think about.

“I’m proud of you,” you whisper, smoothing back her hair as she snuggles against her pillow. “I love you.”

Getting up to leave her room, you scroll through your missed messages, noticing one from an unknown number.

BBQ next Saturday. Adults only – Alcohol is provided. See you there?

You’ve seen the number before, scrolling through your phone to find a message where the number pops up again from a message confirming attendance at a school function.

Andy Barber.

[spooky-pop]

What made you decide to have Ivy be an unexpected child instead of a planned one?

Hmmm I've gotten asks like these several times over the last few weeks and I'm going to just answer this one, only once, and then leave it at this lol. Because realistically there isn't much to my choice to make them have an unplanned baby, sometimes that's life and you take it as it comes. And to me, I like having a story that has bumps in the road that characters can work together to overcome.

In my AU, Ivy was unplanned and her egg arrived during the period of time where Branch and Poppy had been together for some time, and are now in the depths of their wedding planning. Also, like many others in this fandom, I'm a believer that troll eggs can come from love at its purest form. And that's all it takes, when two trolls are so in sync and love and understand each other deeply, they can create an egg through love and magic. I think that Branch and Poppy were so in love during their engagement, the reality of becoming partners for life and the excitement of what's to come, those feelings manifested into love in the form of an egg. In my story, kids were not a topic they had thought to discuss because so many other things were requiring their focus and attention. Ivy sort of happened and they handled the cards they were dealt. It was another challenge to face but they were doing it together, like they always have.

And because I've seen this around also- just because they had a surprise baby it does not mean they would love her any less or be ashamed to have her, and nobody in their circle would be disappointed in them. Their village has their back through it all, and are happy to support them through any and all of their challenges.  That's really all there is to it. And coming from me, an "oops" baby myself, I just think making it happen this way is relatable to me. 🤪

It makes for an interesting story and I love it for the drama and the emotional aspect.

[spatialwave]

Angus Tully is your tutor. Run with it.

𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫. (fem!reader)

part 2 —>

pre-calc wasn’t your strong suit, it never was, but you’d be damned if it you would let it get in the way of being accepted into an ivy league—harvard preferred. you would be the first of your family to go to college and being sent to an all all-girls private boarding school was already taking quite the chunk of change out of your parent’s wallets. you had to make your time worth it.

but a d+ wasn’t going to cut it. a couple girls from your class had tried to tutor you, but with giggling and gossiping taking reign, it was a bust. you couldn’t concentrate on raising your grade and your teacher had grown desperate because he saw your potential.

that’s when they decided that maybe a boy from barton would be a good fit.

when they shared the idea you wondered how on earth the teachers ever thought it would be a good idea to ask a boy to tutor you. though, you assumed whoever they chose would be someone, for lack of better words, stuck up. a boy so focused on his own grades and getting extra credits, that you would be nothing more than a check mark on a box.

then you met angus tully and you realized you were so wrong.

he was handsome, tall and lanky. had big brown eyes that made you shiver anytime he glanced in your direction. you were a flustered mess around him, but you was certain it came off as seeming unprepared for tutoring sessions rather than being nervous because of him. you had to breathe slowly when he was sitting next to you, your text book open as he explained algebra to the best of his ability.

he had told you how he wasn’t top of the class, but compared to your level of knowledge he was incredible. if only you could concentrate, instead of your eyes fixating on his fingers as they traced the sentences in the textbook, or how he pursed his lips when he’d think over a problem.

you noticed every little detail about him in your first tutoring session, by the second session all you could do was admire him. you hardly learned a damn thing.

“did you hear me?” the voice broke into the daze you were in. your eyes had been fixated on angus’ lips as he spoke and you quickly perked up, clearing your throat.

“uh—“ you spoke softly, looking down at the textbook and your blank assignment sheet.

“you were staring at my lips, weren’t you?” he asked, your eyes darting to his face as you noticed the smirk he wore. god, there was no escaping this.

“what? no, i wasn’t.” you protested through a nervous laugh, feeling your heart beat quick against your ribs, “that’s silly.”

“it’s okay, i try to look down your shirt sometimes.” angus’ voice was low as his lips twitched in amusement.

your mouth parted in shock, your eyes darting down to spot a couple of buttons on your school uniform had popped open.

“your brave for admitting that,” you murmured, trying to hide the smile that dared to show on your lips as you let your gaze focus on the textbook.

“and you still won’t admit you were looking at my lips,” he teased you, turning in his seat slightly to look at you better. his brown eyes scanned over you, hoping that his interest was obvious.

you turned your gaze back to him, watching him with slightly narrowed eyes as you tried to form proper thoughts in your head. it’s like you were malfunctioning because all you could do was look at his lips again. thin, yet naturally pouty.

it was a blur—you hadn’t even realized you kissed him until you pulled back, your lips tingling and lips slightly parted in awe. you looked at angus and you were delighted to see how flustered you had made him.

his cheeks had dusted pink and he was pressing his lips together in a thin line after licking them, having tasted the cherry lip balm you had been wearing.

“i was staring at your lips.” you admitted, chewing coyly on your bottom lip as you watched angus closely, eager to taste his lips again.

“can i get a proper look down your shirt?” he blurted.

“oh my god,” you whined.

[ratgrinders]

anyways ivy embra post because on god if she wont get the scenes in canon ill imagine it myself

Ivy and Oisin were friends in middle school. Oisin was still scrawny and hadn't had his growth spurt yet and Ivy hadn't yet gotten her braces taken off. They meet each other in some group project or club or whatever, the setting doesn't matter, but what happens is you have these two children with the inherent shittiness of middle schoolers who maybe haven't had the easiest time making friends because their passive aggressiveness is too aggressive, their barbs not hidden. And they act the same way with this new, kind of nerdy looking stranger they meet and find a kindred spirit. All of a sudden you're 12/13 years old with an outlet for all the shittalking about your classmates you want. You stick together like glue, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of you two because they all fuckin suck anyway, and you finally found someone who isn't a wuss and can give as good as they take.

Oisin gets better at hiding it though, being raised by a long family line of evil dragons who have had to hide their connections in plain sight will do that to you. Ivy never lost that edge around her though.

The first day of classes Freshman Year at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, Oisin's met with this group of randos, they seem competent enough, the tall sad one seems nice enough if a bit of a pushover and the small one with the ponytail seems to have her entire academic career planned out already. She's intent on the name the High Five Heroes, it's a pun, get it? Because there's five of them. But Oisin won't go anywhere without his best friend. He pulls Ivy over, and Ivy isn't having the best luck finding a party (she insults them saying why would she want to join a party with any of these losers anyway, when they're put off by one pointed comment too many). Oisin tells the others they could do well with a fighter, that they're sticking together. The tall one, the gnome, and the kobold don't seem to mind (or don't care), but the halfling seems to have swallowed a lemon. "Well, there's six of us now which throws off the entire point of the name, but that's fine! I don't care!" (she's stubborn and doesn't want to change it).

Ivy and Kipperlilly clash CONSTANTLY. Kipperlilly's specific brand of Type A nerdiness and uptightness clashes horrifically with Ivy's specific attitude of not giving a fuck and chronic need to get under people's skin. And yet, Kipperlilly's barely concealed rage and passive aggression leads that same realization Ivy had back in middle school, of having finally found a kindred spirit. If there's two things Kipperlilly and Ivy have in common, it's their initial impression driving most people away, and their need to externalize this jealousy and bad feelings as hatred and disdain for others. They LOVE gossiping. Ivy's always down to be a hater.

Corsica Jones, the fighter teacher, sees Ivy come in on the first day of classes, bow in hand, and is immediately reminded of the sister she lost, who is still missing. Every time she trains Ivy on her stance, on basic hand-to-hand, she's reminded of the times she taught her sister the very same things. She's worried, because Ivy always seems so closed off and not very engaged, so full of rage. Unfortunately Corsica's attempts to reach out and forge a connection are stopped in their infancy when instead the barbarian teacher takes an interest in her. "Well, at least she has support from someone on the faculty, even if it isn't me."

It's Oisin that kills her. They always go off as a pair anyway, and Oisin may have been acting off recently but who is she to judge a bit of anger. But a quick stab to the back, one Choice later, and all Ivy can think about is rage.

After the Mountains of Chaos, Ivy's disdain becomes Venomous. Suddenly its not fun gossip but outright Hatred, its saying words maximized for cruelty directly to the person's face, because there's a kind of sick vindication in hurting the people who rejected you for so long, even if they may not deserve it. She and Kipperlilly don't get along anymore, snide comments and petty jabs devolving into screaming matches and insults. She proposes the name Rat Grinders with Oisin, because her stubbornness at refusing to change the name isn't endearing anymore, and there are six of them, did you oppose me joining the party that badly? It's a bit funny to see her so worked up over a stupid party name, that kind of earnest childish straightforwardness of the High Five Heroes makes her gag. The Rat Grinders is a funny inside joke, and Ivy is not comfortable engaging anymore without that layer of irony. For some reason, it doesn't feel good in the same way to hurt Kipperlilly like this, it just leave a knot of frustration that rankles in her stomach, because why does she care so much??

When Lucy dies, she doesn't remember much. She remembers the realization at the choice she'd made, and the rage that followed. Afterwards, though, was a deep all consuming bitterness. Of course she wasn't coming back, little miss goody two shoes never had any intentions of following through and left the rest of us with the fallout. She never expected otherwise, and she refuses to mourn someone who did not give enough of a shit about them to come back. She doesn't think about how Lucy helped her bleach her hair, how she braided Lucy's in return. How Lucy's birthday was coming up and she bought her new clothes, how that bag will stay unopened in her room now.

When she dies on the floor of her high school gymnasium, desperately defending every callous insult she's made with her dying breath, her last moments are spent locking eyes with her best friend, who is looking on in horror. She thinks back to a similar scenario, last year, when that same friend saw her dying and did nothing. She thinks back to them in seventh grade, trading childish insults without any real weight. And then she doesn't think anything at all.

[ivystoryweaver]

hi ivy, congrats on 1k! 💕🎉 i was wondering if u have any hc's on how the mk system would take care of u when ur sick? currently dealing w strep myself & it sucks. hope this is okay if ur still doing these & that u have good day! 🩷

You're Not Alone

@suresnips Once upon a time you were sick and I left you there, with no Moon Boys to comfort you... Jake is gonna have words with me. Thank you so much for the congratulations, you are so sweet! Long overdue, but I never leave an ask unanswered

Word Count: 700 Content: sick you, mentions of food, domestic life, slight mentions of Marc's past, not beta'd

Marc has been on his own for years, and even when he was young, he had to fend for himself.

He knows how to take care of himself, having shivered through fevers in the roughest neighborhoods and parts of the world - sometimes on the run.

Believe it or not, Marc is the one who really doesn't want you to feel alone when you're sick. He doesn't always know what to say or do (he does, actually, but that's his self-loathing talking), but he'll sit with you.

Marc doesn't like the doctor - he was raised hiding things from professionals and he's conditioned to think they don't actually care, but since he doesn't want you to feel alone, he will always make sure he's there to wait with you.

He's traveled all over. He's a survivor and he's picked up all kinds of useful knowledge from his journeys.

Marc knows lots of little tricks, like how peppermint or lavender oil can be diluted and rubbed on your feet to bring down fever. He also knows oils and tinctures for all kinds of symptoms, such tightness or spasms from coughing, or simply to help you rest.

Since Marc doesn't know what to say sometimes, he will want to touch you. But occasionally, having a fever means you do not want to be touched - or at least not held.

This is why both of you find it so soothing when he rubs a balm into your chest or oils onto your feet. His dark eyes lock onto yours and you can see straight to his soul

Marc is steady and calm when you're sick. He doesn't want you to feel that what is wrong with you is your fault - you really feel loved and supported, even when you have "just a cold."

Steven is a caring, observant person: cordial to those who dismiss him, professional to rude bosses, sympathetic to friends and mindful and proud of the places he occupies

He even talks to Gus and makes sure he has everything he needs.

So he is going to notice the second you're feeling off.

"Getting sick, aren't you, love?"

"What? No, I'm just tired."

By that evening, you're burning with a fever.

Steven ushers you to bed, letting you know he stopped by the store on the way home. He is prepared.

Steven knows which tea will soothe your throat or settle your stomach. He understands just the right amount of honey or lemon you need, and how long to steep the tea leaves.

Even if you don't prefer tea, he knows how to make it taste good enough to warm you up or settle you.

Steven is vegan so he knows how to substitute ingredients or some interesting places to order takeaway. He'll encourage you to steer away from foods that will only exacerbate your symptoms, like fried foods or too much dairy.

He loves to take care of you, dote on you, bring you trays of things, prop up your head with an extra pillow.

He'll place a washcloth over your forehead and cover you with an extra blanket while you suffer.

He'll read you to sleep if you like, but he will miss you so much while you're down and out.

He's an exuberant puppy when you're better.

Jake helps you get things done.

You're out of it for a few days or a week? All good - bills are paid (if you share them), laundry is done.

Don't feel like calling out of work or making doctor's appointments? Jake takes care of it. You're not to be bothered.

He's going to help you zone out.

He'll make you smile, play your favorite record, watch movies with you on the couch.

He's gonna sneak you junk food, tbh. Steven's teas and soups are so wonderful, but after a few days, there's just that one food you want because you're kinda feeling sorry for yourself?

That's Jake. Snacks and movies and lightening the mood.

And - it's Jake Lockley. He's definitely going to try to feel you up during a movie. Once your fever breaks anyway.

“But I look awful,” you halfheartedly protest.

"Never, mi amor. Just relax."

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clipsverse SWAP AU! for fun! character elaboration under the cut because it gets kind of wordy:

selina's deal is pretty straightforward: she has the typical “saw parents die as a child" backstory, but she’s obviously not a millionare so she’s operating out of some kind of condemned underground parking lot... somewhere. authentic gotham grunge i guess. she’s a functioning alcoholic and i am obsessed with her. she's a hardboiled detective like batman, but tends to be a bit more cynical - sort of like if rorschach from watchmen was a normal person and also didn't hate sex. firefly is her "guy in the chair" similar to what alfred is to batman in canon, minus the surrogate parent part, obviously. public opinion is pretty split on if the bat is a man or a woman under there. i don't really have swap ideas for the robins ironed out, but i'm thinking that cass and stephanie are her robin and red hood equivalents (cass being dick, stephanie being jason). cass would have an allblack bird theme going on, so she might be "crow" or "blackbird" instead of robin. dunno what stephanie's red hood rendition is like. purple hood? i'll figure it out eventually.

bruce’s parents are alive, but he has a terrible relationship with them and with his own wealth so he mitigates the guilt complex by dressing up as a cat to steal and redistribute resources to people who actually need it. he could probably do that in daylight but there is something very wrong with him. i don't think his dumb slutty playboy persona is entirely genuine even without his parents' deaths, but he does lean into it more and incorporate parts of it into his vigilante persona over time. i think this version of bruce is just generally very lonely under the surface. he tries to be normal in his daytime life and he's very bad at it - theft aside, in a certain sense being the cat(man? woman?) is his own break for freedom; he felt a need to plunge himself far into the deep end of what normal society calls a 'freak'. ...writing it out like this, we're probably lucky he didn't start killing people. fortunately batman isn't really that kind of guy in any universe.

meanwhile on the other side of the rails: ivy! her deal is slightly unformed right now due to the fact that the hatter and the joker also swap places in this au - so the hatter is a dangerous, evil mastermind intent on controlling gotham to suit their whims, and the joker is... just a harmless silly little guy. yeah. i don't have swap-hatter's exact personality ironed out yet, so detailing his and ivy's dynamic would be difficult, but i can say that while she is his loyal second-in-command at his table of advisors, she is also plotting against him. ivy is a consistent loner in both mainline cv and here, and while she doesn't have the same tumultuous, antagonistic, emotional relationship with him as harley does with the joker, she is also frankly not interested in being his number one until the end of time. she wants to do it herself and she wants to do it right. this is an ivy who, in lieu of her own world-altering gift, is scraping tooth and nail to successfully supersede the most powerful entity she can her her hands on. the hatter is blissfully unaware of this - we can't all be perfect.

harley, for her part, is very tame in comparison. she mirrors ivy's canonical backstory pretty closely: an esteemed scientist studying stem cell relations who was denied funding, mocked, and forced to experiment on herself to prove a point, unwittingly connecting herself to a worldwide hive-mind of plantlife. this version of harley, while still dressed as a scientist, is far more surface-level emotionally volatile than mainline ivy, more impulsive and irrational, and probably willing to lean much farther into the classic poison ivy reputation as a villainous seductress, to varying degrees of honesty and success. it takes ivy an incredible degree of patience and control to maintain the mental and physical balance she strikes with the green, and this version of harley has far less of both. she lets it use her body as a conduit of earthly rage and she lets the poison infect her skin and organs until mottled and decaying. she's not unhappy, but she's not exactly stable, either.

jonathan is a mysterious, faux-sleazy lounge singer who lost his left arm to a snake bite infection as a child and thereafter became obsessed with the symbolism of the balance of life via games, tricks and questions - winning and losing, birth and death, etc. the ouroboros is a common symbol in his theatrics. he possesses a certain degree of social confidence that the mainline jonathan has never quite been capable of - while he doesn't have the same fervent need for attention as edward, he takes a compulsory delight in the mental influence he achieves on small crowds and will employ many avenues to get ahold of it. he's certainly not outgoing: he keeps almost entirely to himself offstage, uninterested in fame outside of his show persona. unlike mainline jonathan who views the scarecrow as a genuine self-inflicted diety, this jon sees his persona as more of a mantle or responsibility that he must take on in order to discover new truths about the world. like his canon counterpart he is asexual and uninterested in sex, but i imagine that he has less qualms about leading people on as an act to get what he wants from them. he's not terribly famous in his singing career, but he's become a bit of an underground legend for his resolute 1920s-inspired style and occasional genuine debonair charm.

edward in comparison is not nearly as ritualistically compelled as mainline scarecrow, but he’s far less cagey about his own machinations and his mental relationship to them: he lives in a tricked-out barn somewhere on the far outskirts of gotham, and he spends his time as a propmaster creating elaborate saw-trap-esque haunted houses and escape rooms to invoke panic in his “guests”. he wanders the halls of his own houses along with the guests, repairing and tinkering, or just scaring the shit out of them. he also makes a genuine living by making and selling cosplay props and other related objects online; he's developed a bit of an internet presence through this channel, though he's not as fixated on it as the mainline riddler would be. he still craves spectacle and attention, but he's more of a "quality over quantity" guy according to his own standards and is rarely happy with the work he creates, hence the endless roundabout of creation and reinvention.