#it’s terrifying to feel alone but at the same time the thought of disappearing is comforting

[baffledandbewildered]

“Evi4 - can you kill me with the mace at some point?” Betty asks.

“Yes!” Evi says immediately.

It’s been an eventful week - few weeks, honestly - and - well. 

Betty’s been scared of the mace for a while now… it’s a terrifying weapon, and whenever Evi’s used it before she’s always skittered back, all nervous laughter and shaking hands - she remembers that weapon crashing against her helmet, Chips yelling at her to run, be afraid -

And she has been. It’s been months and honestly - she’s sick of it. Especially after what Chips said to her the other day, after Nara - Betty knows Chips is hurting, that they probably didn’t mean what they said, she understands that, she’s not mad - well. She is. A little. The feeling will fade with time, she knows, but for now…

“I want to know what it feels like,” Betty explains. It’s true, but also - I want to stop being afraid.

Evi giggles. “I understand!” And he probably does, even the stuff Betty isn’t saying out loud. He’s always been good at that.

“Should we - now?”

“Yes yes yes yes!”

To make room in her e-chest, Betty hands Evi one of her shulkers - it’s a far cry from where they were a few months ago, when anything left in the vicinity of Evi4 had to be carefully watched for fear of theft - it’s nice, to be able to know that Evi won’t take anything from her without it first being offered. It’s nice to trust.

Evi suggests setting her spawn here - Betty, once again, refuses - her spawnpoint isn’t too far away, and while it’s not the most secure it’s still better than, well - spawn itself. But Evi doesn’t take the refusal personally - Evi knows where her spawnpoint is currently, and really that probably says enough about how far they’ve come as a relationship.

Then she removes her armour, e-chests her gear, and Evi builds a short tower into the sky -

“Ready?”

“Yep!”

There’s not even time for the sound of their laughter to fade before the mace is crashing against her head and she’s gone, respawning in the deepslate box - she really needs to change her spawn point. 

Wow. That was - something. But not as terrifying as she expected - if anything, the tightness in her chest is from laughter. She picks up her communicator, still giggling - Evi’s complaining about how far away she is as she starts putting her armour back on.

Yeah. That wasn’t scary at all - it hurt, sure, but all deaths do and she doesn’t mind that so much - especially when it’s Evi, that’s…

“I’m kind of scared you’re going to kill me,” Betty had said, long long ago, when she was still alone and scared and felt she had no one to turn to.

And Evi had stopped her pacing of spawn, sword disappearing from her hand in less than a second. There’s not much Evi took seriously, or so Betty had thought at the time, but she looked… concerned, before her face brightened.

“I would never hurt a BettyisBaffled!” Evi4 said, grinning, dancing forward into her personal space a little.

“Oh!” Betty said. “Really? I - uh. Thank you?”

She hadn't believed it then. It took a while, multiple murder attempts on the people around her but never coming close to touching her before she realised Evi was telling the truth.

She’s still not sure why.

And then they became allies and then they became more and this time Betty offered her life - “You can kill me! I don’t mind -” … I kinda want you to.

(Yeah, Betty’s a little weird about the. Dying thing.)

And then one thing had led to another to another, to murder plots and engagement and secrets shared, and all that led to today.

The mace feels… like the same sort of power of a lightning strike, inescapable, deadly. A force of nature. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good.

Not something to be unreasonably scared of, and she giggles again. Wow.

She digs her way out of the room, through the tiny box in the wall Evi made himself so he could watch Betty and Nara kill each other - there’s still some of her and Nara’s blood on the floor, she notes - she really needs to change her spawnpoint, she keeps meaning to, Nara and Aster keep reminding her to and she keeps forgetting.

Then she flies back to spawn. Evi’s been rambling in her communicator the whole time, and when Betty lands in front of them they’re beaming at the sight of her - gods, Betty is so lucky. 

This is her fiance - the label makes her a little giddy. “Hiii - I love you by the way,” she says breathlessly, and Evi buries his face in his hands - she can see the blush on his cheeks and it makes her giggle, lean up to kiss him on the forehead before turning to the chest beside them.

Betty grabs the rest of her stuff she wasn’t able to fit in a shulker, then -

“Oh, can I have the heart back?” she says.

“Yes!”

Evi jumps up from the shulker box they’d been sitting on - they’re so much taller than her damn - then they’re leaning down to kiss her, and that’s hardly unusual but what has her gasping is the feel of the heart passing between their lips, travelling down her throat and settling along her collarbone with only the slightest flicker of pain as it joins the others.

She laughs. Wow. Wow.

Her fiance. Yep.

“I love you,” Evi says shyly, and Betty echoes it immediately, beaming.

Evi presses another kiss to her forehead, then is pacing spawn again - “Wait -” they say, spinning back to her. “Let me try to mace you again it won’t kill you I promise -”

Betty laughs. “Okay! With the armour?”

Evi nods rapidly, once again climbing the carpet tower. “Heartcount test!” Evi yells, giggling, then jumps -

Betty respawns in the deepslate box again. “What the fuck oh my god how were you on full health how did you die -” Evi4’s saying through her communicator, and Betty can’t stop laughing.

[itsnesss]

Anthony and Lawrence reader first time and getting caught by the dads

𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 | anthony larusso × fem!reader

summary | the request

warnings | lawrence!reader, intimacy (implicit/not overly graphic), first time, strong language, family tension and awkward situations

word count | 1.9 k

author's note | it would help me a lot if you liked, commented and reposted so that more people read what I write and don't forget to follow me, thanks ᡣ𐭩

You never imagined that your life would turn into a series of unfortunate events in a single night. What started as a special moment ended in the worst possible scenario: trapped, naked, and under the gaze of two of the most terrifying men in the Valley. But to understand how you got here, we have to go back a few hours.

Anthony Larusso had never been someone who caught your attention. To you, he had always been "Daniel Larusso's younger son," the kid who used to be a nuisance and who, years later, had changed. He was no longer the annoying child who got into trouble for fun; now, he was someone you shared jokes, movies, and, to your surprise, feelings with.

There was something about his awkwardness that you found charming. Even though you were the daughter of Johnny Lawrence, a man who preached "Strike first, strike hard, no mercy," you found something different in Anthony: sweetness, patience, and a contagious laugh that managed to disarm you.

It was an impulse. A moment when the two of you were alone in his room, the dim light casting soft shadows, and a movie playing in the background that neither of you was paying attention to. You didn't know who made the first move, but before you could stop to think, you were already kissing him. And then, the kiss turned into something more.

"Are you sure you want this?" Anthony asked, his voice a little shaky, his dark eyes filled with nerves.

You could have backed out. You could have thought about the consequences. But at that moment, there was only one possible answer.

"Yes."

The outside world disappeared in that instant. There were no pressures, no expectations, just two people learning together, discovering what it meant to give themselves to each other with clumsiness and care. Every touch was a reminder that this was new, but also that they were exactly where they wanted to be.

There were whispers filled with laughter, inevitable blushes, and mistakes that made both of you pause and try again with nervous smiles. But in the midst of it all, there was something undeniable: love in its purest, most innocent, and real form.

When it was over, Anthony was silent for a moment, his arm around your waist as you both caught your breath.

"That was…" he started to say, but then fell silent and let out a small laugh. "I have no idea what to say."

You turned to look at him, finding in his eyes the same gleam of disbelief that you felt in your chest.

"I think it was good," you whispered with a small smile.

"I think so too."

Your fingers were still intertwined with Anthony's as you both lay there, sharing a knowing look. His breathing was steady, but his heart was still pounding beneath your cheek. You couldn't help but smile.

You never imagined this would happen today. Not here, not now. And certainly not like this.

Anthony turned slightly, watching you with a mix of tenderness and wonder. His messy hair fell over his forehead, and you couldn't resist reaching up to push it back.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a whisper, his voice still trembling.

You nodded, feeling a pleasant warmth in your chest.

"Yeah… and you?"

"Yeah," he replied with a goofy smile. "I think so."

You both laughed quietly, unable to believe what had just happened. It had been clumsy, sweet, imperfect in so many ways, but absolutely special. Something that would belong only to the two of you.

Or so you thought.

Just as you were snuggled against Anthony, your heart still racing and a sense of tranquility settling in after the whirlwind of emotions, you heard the worst combination of sounds in human history.

First, the front door opening.

Second, the unmistakable voices of Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence.

"Thanks for driving me, Johnny," Daniel said. "Amanda and Carmen are out, and I didn’t want to leave Anthony alone for too long."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Johnny replied. "The kid’s probably watching his video games or whatever he does in his free time."

Silence.

Then, the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs.

And then, Anthony's bedroom door bursting open.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Johnny shouted so loudly you thought the windows might have vibrated.

You had never moved so fast in your life. In the blink of an eye, you were desperately searching for something to cover yourself with while Anthony panicked beside you.

"Dad! I… this isn’t…!"

"Anthony?!" Daniel’s eyes were so wide they looked like they might pop out of his face. "What are you doing with her?! Oh my God! Are you two…?!"

"Oh, for the love of—" Johnny grabbed his head with both hands, his face a mix of horror and fury. "Tell me this isn’t what I think it is!"

"Dad…" you started, hoping to calm him down, but the tone of his voice told you he was in no mood to be soothed.

"Are you telling me I trained you just so you could do THIS in Larusso’s house?!"

"Why is that your problem here?!" you shouted, feeling both offended and in a situation so ridiculous that you almost wanted to laugh.

"Because it’s Larusso’s kid!" Johnny pointed at Anthony, who was still trying to wrap himself better in the sheet, looking like he wanted to disappear. "Anyone else, but not one of them!"

"Hey!" Daniel protested, snapping out of his initial shock. "As if your daughter is some kind of saint!"

"That’s not the point, LaRusso!"

"Of course, it is!"

"No, it’s not!"

Anthony buried his face in his hands and muttered, "I’m going to jump out the window…"

You sighed.

"Dad, listen, this… this wasn’t a mistake. Anthony and I… we like each other."

Johnny looked at you, his face still red with anger.

"That doesn’t make it any better!"

"You can’t stop us from seeing each other," you said, crossing your arms.

"Oh, yes, I can!"

"No, you can’t," Daniel chimed in, looking just as disturbed as Johnny. "Because that would make this even more of a problem."

Johnny glared at him.

"Are you saying I should just accept this?!"

"No!" Daniel looked at Anthony with the same level of indignation. "I’m just as disturbed as you, trust me!"

"Can we talk about this with clothes on?" Anthony asked in a barely audible voice.

Johnny and Daniel shouted at the same time, "NO!"

After half an hour of yelling, threats, and painfully awkward speeches about "responsibility," "maturity," and "impulsive decisions," you finally managed to convince your dad that this wasn’t the end of the world. Daniel, on the other hand, was still in a state of denial, muttering things like, "Amanda’s going to kill me," and "This can’t be happening. My son… my baby."

Anthony, still red with embarrassment, glanced at you after the adults finally calmed down a little.

"Well… that was horrible."

You gave him a small nudge on the arm.

"It could have been worse."

"How?"

"It could have been at my dad’s house."

He was silent for a moment before murmuring, "Yeah, you’re right. Johnny Lawrence would have killed me on the spot."

You couldn’t help but laugh.

[ionlycareaboutyou]

-

[bixels]

It's crazy how Dungeon Meshi's manga can feel more cinematic and emotional than the anime to me, even when they're practically the same. Compared to the anime, this moment is such a heartbreaking gut-drop. The way Kui uses negative space and flat compositions to create a sense of horrific stillness is so key.

The way the text (Senshi's monologue) is sequestered to an empty corner of a panel or huddled away from the edge of its text box is not only a great way of showing Senshi's headspace (fearful, isolated, dissociating), but creates a visual representation of pause, as if you hold your breathe after each line. The first panel puts us directly in Senshi's perspective too (compared to in the anime, which puts us as an outside observer over Senshi's shoulder). The detail of the door and bricks so effectively implies that he stared at it for so long, waiting and hoping, that its image is burned in his memory. The wood grain, the brick arch, the number of rivets. The lack of dialogue in the second panel shows a moment of realization too –– "he's dead" (also a great example of the Kuleshov effect). And it's that pause that creates a beat and sets a great rhythm to his headspace, like a music rest: "He never came back." (oh god.) "I'm all alone." Finally, the third panel's negative space, cropping Senshi, shows how truly alone he feels. Without his family, the world ceases to exists. Under shock, he traps himself in a 1-foot radius, too scared to even perceive a world outside its boundaries; a world that can hurt him, kill him, make him disappear with it. There is only his body, the stone beneath his feet and against his back, his thoughts, and that awful bowl of soup.

Even though they're a series of flat images, there's an implicit reading of silence in Senshi's realization and horror. Kui influences your experience to slow down and take your time.

Compare this to the anime, which fills every shot with dialogue. The pacing is fast; we never get to sit in silence like we do with the manga. The horizontal frame allowed the boarders to add Senshi, turning the composition into an over-the-shoulder shot, which takes us out of Senshi's POV. They also added a zoom-out in shot one, which adds unnecessary energy to a very somber scene. The tightening on Senshi as a close-up reaction shot also dulls the moment. In the original panel, Senshi stares ahead at the empty space to his left as a shadow surrounds his mind. It not only shows how Senshi's senses are dulling and his world is shrinking (setting up panel three), but shows how terrified Senshi is of what's in front of him, how the air itself becomes pitch black and opaque, how Senshi is surrendering himself to fear. The pacing is understandable and necessary; this episode packed a lot of story content together. It's just a shame because it really (imo) deflated one of the most nauseating moments in Dungeon Meshi.

[thehoneybeestings]

Vi Sleep Headcanons

Word Count: 545

Content/Warnings: sfw, gn reader (no pronouns used), a little bit of angst just bc poor Vi has never caught a break in her life

A/N: so while i finish up the dancer!vi x dancer! reader smut... i wrote this up super quick last night in bed while my girlfriend was genuinely sprawled on top of me pushing me off of it but awwww my shayla ANYWAY, here is a short headcanon about what I think it's like to share a bed with Vi! enjoy!

Love, Bee ୨ৎ

୨ৎ Vi, who feels the safest when she's as small as she can get while she sleeps

୨ৎ Before you two began sleeping in the same bed, she'd try to go to sleep with her limbs outstretched- be it on her side, her back, or her stomach- but every morning, without fail, she'd wake up with her knees tucked into her chest and her arms wrapped around her own waist

୨ৎ After the two of you began sharing a bed, she'd start out curled into herself, cradled in your arms, and wake up starfished across the entire fucking bed

୨ৎ Vi, who I fully and wholeheartedly believe sucks at being the big spoon

୨ৎ As much as she'd like to feign that she's all big and tough- that she's supposed to be the one holding you- she sleeps the best tucked against your back, covers pulled up to her nose

୨ৎ (When she does try to big spoon, she burrows her head so far into your back that you end up turning around to hold her anyway)

୨ৎ Vi, who-despite pulling it right up to her nose before she falls asleep- always manages to kick the damn comforter off the bed in the middle of the night

୨ৎ She runs so hot at night that it doesn't matter; anything more than the top sheet and you'd sweat through your pajamas

୨ৎ Vi, who sleeps naked apart from her underwear (plain cotton hipsters; there's no way boxers are fitting underneath the tight ass jeans she wears like i’m sorry)

୨ৎ Vi, who hates waking up alone; in fact, she's terrified of it

୨ৎ You learned your lesson about leaving bed unannounced when one morning, you woke up before she did and decided to sneak off to the kitchen to make her a surprise breakfast

୨ৎ You're busy scrambling eggs when you hear her call your name from the hallway leading to your bedroom 

୨ৎ She rounds the corner to the kitchen, eyes wide and wild until they land on you, and she finally exhales

୨ৎ “Hey baby! I thought I’d surprise you with breakfast in bed; you like your eggs scrambled, right?”

୨ৎ “Yeah,” she'd breathe out. She still looked like she'd seen a ghost. 

୨ৎ You'd furrow your brow, worry creeping up on you. “You okay?” 

୨ৎ “Y-yeah, sorry. I’m good,” she'd reply, unconvincingly.

୨ৎ Your eyes wouldn't leave her as you moved the eggs off of the heat and made your way to where she stood with a hand on the wall to support herself

୨ৎ “Baby,” you'd coax, reaching out to tame a stray tendril of fuchsia; and she'd envelop you in her arms, holding on like you'd disappear if she let go

୨ৎ “Please don't leave without waking me first, okay?” She’d plead, her voice breaking.

୨ৎ And your heart would shatter as you realized just how terrified she was of losing someone else

୨ৎ From that point on, you'd never leave bed without a gentle shake to her shoulder and a quick kiss on her forehead as you alerted her that you were leaving, but that you'd be back

୨ৎ Vi, who still has a hard time comprehending that she has a soft bed to sleep in at night, a fluffy comforter to abandon when she gets too hot, full nights of sleep without nightmares, and most of all, you to share it with

End ୨ৎ

[mydearestbeloved]

Chapter 1 [Draft]

Sung Jinwoo/Trial Player!Reader

CW: All hail traumatized Reader.

Inspired by @circeyoru ‘s “Future Power Couple”

[Masterlist🦋✨️]

The first thing you felt, opening your eyes, was confusion. You weren’t in your room anymore. Sunlight streamed through enormous stone pillars, bathing lush, towering vines and strange, vibrant flowers in a golden hue. The air was warm and fragrant, thick with the scent of damp earth.

But then came the second realization. You looked down, and your heart nearly stopped. Your hands were tiny, smaller than they’d been since childhood. You touched your face and arms, half in disbelief. You were in your body… or some version of it. And young.

That’s when the screen appeared before your eyes, hovering like a digital ghost.

[Welcome, Trial Player.]

The words glowed, taking a moment to sink in as reality wove itself together in a tangled mess of memories and feelings. Trial player?

You tried to call out, tried to make sense of it, but before you could, another line appeared.

[You have been selected to test this system.]

You exhaled slowly, swallowing back the panic that was building in your chest. “This has to be some kind of mistake,” you whispered, though you doubted anyone was listening. You knew what the system was, in theory. This was the same one that would one day be given to Sung Jinwoo, but there was something… off. This was not exactly how you remembered it from the manhwa.

[Your task: Survive, learn, and master the system.]

The words disappeared, leaving you standing alone, feeling like a newborn in a strange, hostile world.

---

The first few days were terrifying, every new experience both a revelation and a potential death sentence. You had no weapons, no training, and no idea what you were up against. For the first time in your life, you understood the gravity of true danger. Every rustling leaf or distant growl put your heart in your throat.

On the third day, a mission screen appeared.

[Daily Mission: Survive in the Gardens. Reward: 1000 EXP.]

“Survive,” you muttered dryly. “Thanks for the reminder.” You swiped the screen away, hoping that would somehow give you more clarity, but it only left you alone with the dense, humid silence of the garden.

Later that day, you stumbled upon what you’d initially thought was an oddly shaped log—until it moved. A giant serpent, its scales glistening, slithered forward, venom dripping from its fangs as it studied you with hungry eyes.

Pure instinct took over. You scrambled for anything you could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. Just your hands. As the snake lunged, something surged within you—warm, pulsing energy—your first brush with the power of healing. You didn’t know how you did it, only that it seemed to pour out of you.

The serpent’s movements grew sluggish, then frantic, as if something was going horribly wrong inside of it. Its scales began to bubble, and it convulsed before collapsing. You gasped for air, heart pounding, as the system screen appeared.

[You have discovered a unique ability: Healing Resonance.]

A “unique ability” indeed. You were horrified, stunned. Healing, but one that twisted life into death. Your first kill was as much a shock as a victory, and as you watched the system flash “EXP Gained,” you felt no thrill. Just numbness.

---

After days of testing the system, you quickly discovered that it was far different than the one described in the manhwa. Instead of the narrow focus on fighting, the system offered skills that were surprisingly... domestic. It felt more like a casual RPG than the cutthroat power-chasing game you’d expected.

“Learning, cooking, crafting?” you muttered, swiping through a menu that displayed an endless list of skills—farming, forging, language... the works.

[Your feedback is appreciated.]

The screen popped up just as you were gnawing on a piece of hard bread you’d somehow managed not to burn to ash. A feedback column appeared below, and you felt a strange thrill—if you could actually shape how this system worked, maybe you could make a difference. You started typing, ideas flowing faster than you could think them through.

Feedback 1: Focus on combat-related skills. Simplify stats for non-combat abilities.

When you pressed submit, the system chimed.

[Under review for final version.]

“Guess that’s all I can do for now,” you sighed, leaning back and staring at the list. You wouldn’t have minded the extra skills so much, except that every single one required you to “grind” by using it repeatedly. Which, in theory, was fine. In practice? Not so much.

Your first few attempts at cooking, for instance, had been… catastrophic. Who knew it was even possible to burn a boiled egg to a crisp? At least it still gave you experience points, but the system wasn’t exactly forgiving. Each skill was tied to a particular stat and vice versa, so for example, to raise Intelligence, you had to keep grinding away at reading, alchemy, crafting, and other mentally demanding tasks.

Then there was Learning, the one skill that seemed to tie everything together. It leveled up whenever you worked on other skills, making them just a fraction easier each time you made an attempt. Slowly, you felt the difference—your fingers became nimbler at crafting, your reading comprehension shot up, and even basic fighting maneuvers didn’t leave you bruised as often.

You sent in feedback about this too, suggesting that leveling up should provide points you could apply to any stat you wished.

[Under review. Changes considered for the final version.]

With each suggestion, the system stayed silent for a moment, as if it was actually thinking it over.

“Are you alive in there?” you asked, half-joking. But there was no response. Just silence.

---

The day you found the abandoned library was the first stroke of true luck you’d had since arriving. Of course, it had come with its own challenges—a plant-beast had nearly mauled you at the entrance. Your solution? A shard of broken glass, some sunlight, and sheer desperation. After you’d torched the creature, you barely had the strength to drag yourself inside, clutching your bleeding arm.

Inside, towering bookshelves covered in dust stretched into the shadows. You felt your pulse quicken—knowledge. In a world where you felt powerless, here was a place where you could gain some edge.

The first book you picked up was written in a strange language. As you stared at the unfamiliar symbols, another screen popped up.

[New Skill accessed: Reading. Level 1.]

You let out a laugh, maybe half from exhaustion, half from sheer disbelief. The reading skill allowed you to comprehend the text faster, though it started painfully slow. Still, as you worked through the book, something strange happened.

[New Skill accessed: Language. Level 1.]

The words were no longer entirely foreign. It took hours, but by the end, you had a basic grasp. After spending weeks working on other skills, you returned to study another language and found it easier than before.

“Thank you,” you muttered aloud, genuinely grateful to the system. You weren’t one to talk to thin air, but sometimes it felt like someone, or something, was there.

For the first time, the system responded, offering you an EXP boost for several skills at once.

“You’re feeling generous today,” you said. The system flashed without a word, but something about its silent response felt… thoughtful, almost. You knew it was impossible, but a sense of familiarity nagged at you.

---

As days bled into weeks, and weeks into months, survival became both an instinct and a grueling grind. Food was scarce, rations stretched thin. Every meal was a gamble—could you avoid poisoning yourself this time? Or would you suffer another failed attempt at cooking?

The creatures that roamed the Gardens were relentless. You’d nearly died several times, if not for a combination of sheer luck, your healing power, and a dormant instinct to survive that you hadn’t known was there. Fighting without real experience was an endless, punishing lesson, and the system had yet to assign you a class. But your healing powers were something you clung to, despite their double-edged nature.

Without them, you would have been left scarred and broken, bleeding from too many wounds to count. The system kept pushing you, relentlessly.

The deeper you went into the mysteries of this world, the more questions you had. Why were you here? Why you? The system itself, sometimes silent, sometimes so alive, only deepened the enigma. You couldn’t shake the feeling that being a beta tester wasn’t the full reason you’d been pulled into this reality.

But for now, you pushed the questions aside, bottling them up in a corner of your mind. Survival was the priority. If you made it out of these Gardens, if you gained enough strength, maybe one day you’d find the answers.

But until then, your only choice was to endure.

-----

Another day, another tight squeeze of survival. You were hidden under a rocky overhang, just out of sight, nibbling on unfamiliar roots and mushrooms you’d scavenged. Every bite was a gamble, a game of Russian roulette that determined whether you’d gain a bit of strength or be wracked with cramps, nausea, or worse.

"Come on, poison resistance,” you muttered to yourself, half-prayer, half-exasperation. Every new toxic bite, every close call, edged you closer to a skill level that might one day make these random edibles manageable.

The system pinged softly with an update.

[System Patch: Skill Cap Increase Applied. Unlocked Sub-Skills for Advanced Development.]

You let out a long sigh. So *that* was why skills maxed out so fast before. Every time you thought you’d mastered something, the ceiling just got higher. Now, skills you thought were perfected were open again for leveling, and any new experience points would feed back into their growth. Until you could level up again, the system would keep exchanging your experience for supplies—something that had kept you from starving more than once already.

But the sub-skills, the “updates,” had you intrigued. You’d noticed subtle effects of higher skill levels before, like how cooking had become more than just a way to sustain yourself. Now, you could create dishes that eased your fatigue or provided a bit of health. Forging was the same—your makeshift weapons had become a little sharper, a little stronger, and now, you could upgrade the stats of items that had already been made. Each skill was branching out into new possibilities.

But your progress slowed as the demands of survival grew harsher. Rations were limited, and you felt each calorie burned in your daily mission drills. The exhaustion crept into your bones, each strike of your makeshift spear against the thick-skinned creatures that roamed these grounds adding to the deepening ache. Just survive, you told yourself. The system seemed to listen, pushing you further than you ever thought you could go.

---

After months of grueling routine, the day came when the system presented a new challenge: the job-change quest. You knew what this meant. You’d read the manhwa a hundred times, could remember every detail of Jinwoo’s struggle. You expected a hard fight, but even then, you weren’t prepared for the reality—a Hydra.

When you first saw it, slithering out from the darkness, its scales glistening with a sickly, iridescent sheen, your breath caught. A single head was bad enough, but the Hydra had seven, each one dripping venom. Its eyes gleamed with a deadly intelligence as it circled, blocking any path of escape. You gripped your spear, willing yourself to be brave.

Stay calm. Think.

“Alright,” you whispered to yourself. “I just have to get it to bleed out… if I can even scratch it.”

The Hydra lunged. You sidestepped just as one head lashed out, venom spraying onto the rocks where you’d stood, sizzling with acidic fury. Your muscles burned as you darted away, barely managing to keep up with its movements. Every time you managed to wound it, its flesh began to knit together again, each laceration closing with terrifying speed.

Think. What did the library say?

The words from a musty old anatomy text swam back to you. The main poison sac, near the heart. You didn’t even know if you could reach it, but it was your only chance. As the Hydra coiled again, you let instinct take over, dodging its strikes until an opportunity appeared.

You gripped your spear tight, channeling every bit of magic into it, then aimed for the base of one of its necks. You struck hard, hoping to wound it enough to reach that poison sac.

Your powers flared unexpectedly, the reptile’s scales near the wound blackened as though they were aging, decomposing under your hands. It shrieked, flesh blistering as your magic intensified. The effect rippled through its body, slowing the regenerative process that had given it the upper hand. You sliced again, faster, your heart pounding, forcing your powers to speed up this, this decay. As you worked, you became aware of something strange—the Hydra’s flesh was rotting beneath your touch, its venom sac swelling under its own poison as it struggled to keep up with your relentless onslaught.

It took everything you had. With a final push, you drove your spear into the Hydra’s chest, deep enough to rupture the venom sac. The poison surged through its body, overwhelming its regenerative abilities. Its massive body convulsed, seven heads thrashing in agony, then slumped to the ground with a heavy finality.

You sank to the ground, gasping, drenched in sweat, your muscles shaking with exhaustion. Blood seeped from a gash on your arm, a painful reminder of the battle. Dark patches spread across your skin where venom had touched, a lingering ache warning you that your body was still working to purify it.

“System,” you rasped, half-delirious. “You’d better give me something worth it.”

A screen popped up in response, and you felt a weak grin pull at your lips.

[Job Quest Complete. New Class Obtained: Mage-Healer.]

Your heart pounded in your chest. Mage-Healer? You’d expected a standard healer class, something that suited your healing ability, but a hybrid class? That hadn’t been part of the original story. As the notification faded, a new title appeared beneath your class:

[New Title Earned: “Dreamer and Chronomancer, She”]

“Chronomancer…?” you whispered, the words tasting strange on your tongue.

Exhaustion weighed on you, but curiosity tugged at the edges of your mind. You remembered the way the Hydra’s wounds had slowed, how its regeneration seemed to freeze under your touch. It all clicked into place. Cellular death. Your healing wasn’t merely about restoring life—it was time itself, bending to your will. And the magic you wielded, the strange power that left the serpent dying on the first day you arrived, wasn’t just about healing either. You had boosted its venom production until it ruptured on itself, just as you had done now.

But what about ‘Dreamer’?

Your thoughts were interrupted by a faint chime from the system.

[Learning Skill: New Sub-Skill Unlocked.]

The notification sparked your curiosity, but the words on the screen blurred before your eyes. The poison was still in your system, and you could feel the fever building. As you closed your eyes to focus on healing, the faint ache from the venom made your body shiver.

When you opened your eyes again, a vision—a faint shimmer—hovered over your eye as your gaze fell on the Hydra’s lifeless body. It was a tiny magic circle, seemingly clicked in place when it found its target. Knowledge flooded into your mind, unfamiliar and clear, as if the system itself was feeding you answers. You could use the Hydra’s remains. Its venom, its scales… everything was a resource, a tool. With careful handling, they could be transformed into potions, armor, even enchanted weapons. You smiled, exhausted but exhilarated. If you’d gotten this far, there was no limit to what you could achieve.

“You know what, system?” you murmured, feeling a strange connection to the silent guide in your head. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

End Note:

Unedited Draft of [08/10/2024] - Chronicles of The Hanging Gardens, Part I

[justauthoring]

tears.

tears -> the blood of the soul; where the soul bleeds, you cry.

a/n -> okay can we PLEASE talk about that finaleeeee

pairing -> sanemi shinzagawa x f!reader

oddly, you're more afraid then you thought you'd be.

despite it all, you had believed you were prepared for it—the final battle. given that you'd been working towards this point since that fateful day you joined the demon slayers. years of training, of missions, of pouring blood and sweat and losing loved and cared ones that all lead to this battle.

and yet, you were afraid.

terrified, even, you think. if the shakiness of your hands are anything to go by, you'd venture to guess that yes, terrified sounded more accurate than just afraid. it feels like your heart hasn't stopped pounding against your chest since the hashira meeting nor that you've been able to properly catch your breath.

always short, always gasping—you're desperate for any sense of calm that won't come because the mind was cruel. and reality was even more so.

you'd faced death so many times now that you'd believed this one last, final time wouldn't matter as much. a necessary step that would decide fate once and for all. it was this last battle, you figured, that would decide who came out on top.

but maybe it isn't dying that scares you. yes, you think, it isn't that you're afraid of dying but that you're afraid of—

"i swear, none of those damn idiots will have the slightest clue on how to even begin training—"

it isn't abnormal for sanemi to come in complaining about something or another. what is odd is the tears he's faced with the second he walks in, lips left parted as he cuts himself off. the concern that floods his gaze is instant and all previous thoughts are gone from sanemi's mind as he rushes over to you.

"y/n?" his voice is soft in a way it only ever is with you and strangely, it makes your heart pound more frantically against your chest. "what's wrong?"

his hands are pressing against your cheeks, pulling your watery gaze steadily on his own. you feel your lip tremble and a shaky gasp pulls from your lips, beyond your control, the second your eyes focus in on his own.

you have half the mind to think that you should lie, that it's not fair to burden sanemi with your own childish fears. you do think it, but you lose your own battle the second you feel his thumb graze the skin of your cheek and take in the expression of worry and concern, blazingly present, in his eyes.

"i'm scared," you admit breathlessly. it's hard to admit, even to him, hard enough to even realize it subconsciously and the words feel wrong and like poison—yet, they're true all the same.

and your hands instinctively raise, pressing into him for any semblance of comfort you can steal from him. you haven't felt such terror since the day demons cruely ripped everything you hold dear from your hands—since you were coated in blood and forever petrified from the horrors of their corpses.

"i... i'm afraid of losing you."

it's a ghosted whisper—you don't want to say the words and put the pressure of that desperation on sanemi's shoulders. he has more than enough weight holding him down and you'd never want to add to it on purpose. but you're tongue is lose and your fear is blinding your rational thought and when he looks at you like that, you don't want to lie.

sanemi's hands are firm and never wavering, and as he cups your cheeks he forces you to refocus on him and solely him.

"y/n. y/n."

you stared at him with blurred vision, breath gasping and nails pinching into the clothe of his yukata; you grip him as if he'll disappear from your very touch that moment alone.

"y/n, look at me."

he's leaning, pressing his forehead against your own and swallowing your attention up so there's nothing but him to focus on.

"breathe," he guides, voice gentle but hoarse and rough. "you need to breathe."

you force yourself to listen. force yourself to inhale when he does, soothing yourself by following his movements until, slowly, the fog clears to allow you to see sanemi before you clearly. it still feels like you're short, still missing that last bit of air that would calm you, but it's better than it had been seconds prior and you savour the sanity of it completely.

"good," he praises, brushing your hair away from your face where it'd fallen.

you shake your head; "sanemi—"

"it's okay," he assures, the words just a little too rushed in a way that causes you to blink. it gives you the momentum to notice the slight, barely noticeable tremble of sanemi's hands against your cheeks or the echoing breaths he lets outs himself.

your eyes widen and you step towards him.

"i'm scared too," he admits.

it's admission that means more than anything else could've. in all your years of knowing sanemi, he's always chosen anger and passion over calm and truth. he'd never ever admit to anyone that he, the wind hashira, was scared of anything—he was all fire and strength, racing into battle with skill he'd bled over perfecting and came out the other side a winner.

he had the confidence to boost it. never wavering in his own ability.

so his admittance of fear is enough to pull you from your own racing thoughts and focus on the fear he lets slip—if anything, for your sake.

"but this is what we're trained for," he reminds, fingers brushing against your skin—soothing and a constant, pressing reminder of his presence. you're more than thankful for it. "and it's our duty as hashira to defeat muzan."

you nod, slow, unsure. "i know," you whisper, "i know. it's just..." and your grip tightens, knuckles white and hands still trembling, gripping his clothes in your palm and trying to be as close to him as possible. "i don't want to lose you."

"i don't want to lose you either," sanemi breathes.

you stare into his gray, swirling eyes, lips pressed tightly together.

"i can't promise you we'll make it through this, but know that i will fight like hell to get back to you."

you blink, the tears welling as his words mean more than sanemi could ever possibly know. despite it's brutal honesty, those words are exactly what you need to hear in that moment.

because there is no other option. sanemi is right when he says it's your duty and you have every intention of following through, even if it lead to your death — but the sincerity in his voice as he promises to do anything in his ability to see you on the other side...

it's all you need to hear.

"and i hope you'll do the same."

"of course," you nod, not wasting a second before assuring him of that fact. you press your forehead against his own, lips hovering before his, and sink into him as much as you possibly can. "of course i will. i promise."

he's nodding, the words loss on him as he relishes in your presence just as much as you have been his.

and then, when his lips press against your own, you savour it — not because it might be your last, but because it'll be your strength to make sure it isn't.

[chevroletdean]

sibling!reader dealing with demon!dean headcanons (req.) ── ✮⋆˙

Pairing: None, just platonic Winchester!Reader (fem) and her brothers Genre: Angst, fluff To note/warnings: Hurt/comfort, grief (temporary character death, as in Sam and Reader think Dean died), canon level violence A/N: A great way to start the year is definitely getting a cool request by @midnight--raine! Tysm, dear, your praise means a lot to me <3 and I 100% agree, Demon!Dean is terrifying. Still my favorite arc ever, because I’m a sucker for the nitty, gritty, dark and scary, but yes. Credit & links: dividers ──〃★ request here

Sam’s heart breaks twice that day. For one, there is the crushing grief that comes with watching the life disappear from his brother’s eyes. Then the realization: How could he possibly tell his sister what happened? Dean’s death is tearing him apart, and he knows it will absolutely destroy her.

There’s no easy way to deliver the news. But, alas, he’s spending a good amount of time sitting alone in the Impala, Dean’s lifeless body in the backseat. The ride back to the bunker was the hardest ever, the silence nearly driving him insane. Sam is thinking back and forth on what to say, what to do.

He knows waltzing in, carrying the corpse is not an option. If anything, Sam doesn’t want her to see Dean like that at all. Though he figures she’ll probably want to see for herself.

She probably already knows something bad happened the second Sam enters the bunker. Of course she does, her brothers have trained her to stay alert 24/7, to look at her surroundings with a keen eye — Dean would be so proud of her people reading skill right now. Sam’s by himself and his expression… he’s devastated, though he tries to keep it together for her sake. It can only mean one thing.

It feels wrong right away. She can tell. It’s obvious when he doesn’t answer her questions. “Where’s Dean?” Silence. It speaks volumes. “It’s not funny, this is a dumb prank.” Sam still can’t bring himself to speak up.

She runs past him, straight outside to look for Dean, even when Sam tries to stop her.

Sam’s glad he thought of draping a jacket over Dean’s body before talking to his sister. She shouldn’t have to see her brother so lifeless, after all. This view alone, even just through the car window, is enough to traumatize her.

What happened isn’t his fault, but Sam still apologizes over and over again. He can just stand there and feel guilty while he’s holding her shaky form.

It’s not their first rodeo with death and while it doesn’t make it any less sad, her tears convince Sam even more that he has to fix this, somehow.

That night she can’t sleep. Nothing can console her, not even Sam. Though she is grateful to have him at her side.

It’s the same for Sam, honestly. With both of them restless, they dig through the library, they try to find anything to bring Dean back.

In the end, she’ll probably fall asleep right at the desk, her eyes heavy and sore from crying and reading. It’s not a peaceful slumber by all means, it’s more like her brain and body just shut down.

Sam carries her to her room, but the second he tucks her into bed and wants to leave again, she wakes and sobs again.

She’s terrified to spend the night alone, nightmares haunting her. If it were for her, she’d be up and in the library again, but Sam manages to make her agree to a compromise: She will try and get some rest and he will stay with her.

None of them get another wink of sleep that night, she’s staining Sam’s shirt with tears while he’s busy brushing his fingers through her hair.

The next couple of days are rough. The bunker feels like a graveyard, Dean’s presence is definitely missing.

She finds herself wanting to prank her brother like every morning — she’d always exchange his shampoo bottle with the ketchup bottle, shed secretly put a Celine Dion cassette in the Impala. Now, there’s no point for any of that.

Instinctively she grabs onto any piece of Dean she still has. She takes one of his shirts to wear, his scent still lingering in the fabric. She doesn’t touch the piece of pie in the fridge, which she’d usually steal, but she wants to keep it there, preserve it, just in case Dean will magically return.

When Dean’s body disappears, it’s like losing him all over again at first. He’s suddenly gone, again, and panic sets in. And it feels even more permanent. However, it’s also a glimmer of hope, right? He has to be somewhere, so is he alive after all?

Sam’s more reluctant to get his hopes up high. He’s dealt with heavy losses before. Seeing his sister motivated to find Dean is a double-edged sword. It’s the first time since Dean’s death that he sees her eyes sparkle again. But he’s also scared she’ll break down even more when this turns out to be another tragedy.

It’s because of that very reason that Sam’s working on this without telling his sister. He hates keeping secrets from her, he hates lying to her, but he can’t bring himself to feed into her delusions only for her to end up even more hurt. So, when he’s able to track Dean down, he’s not telling anyone.

It bites him in the ass. While Sam’s out trying to find Dean, Dean’s already on the way to find her.

She looks like she’s seen a ghost, honestly. Wide eyes staring at him and filled with tears. Suddenly all her hunting skills are out the window. She doesn’t care to throw holy water at him, she doesn’t think of nicking him with silver. Demons, skinwalkers, none of it exists to her in that moment. All she can think about is her big brother being back.

She jumps right into his arms, scolding him, whining and sniffling and hugging him with a death grip.

Dean’s quiet, eerily so, but that’s not enough to make her suspect anything just yet. Maybe he’s tired, maybe she’s confused, it’s so much all at once. She refuses to let go of him, afraid he’ll slip away again, so she drags him to the kitchen and happily presents the piece of pie to him.

Dean doesn’t even touch it. Hell, he’s not even looking at it.

She quickly texts Sam, letting him know Dean’s back at the bunker. Then, when she looks up from her phone again and sees Dean not eating, she’s starting to get doubtful.

Dean not digging into pie? Is he sick or something? “You okay?”

There’s a grin on Dean’s lips that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and it feels off. It feels dangerous. “Never felt better.”

The wheels are turning in her head and her blood runs cold. She didn’t do any of the routine checks. Why didn’t she do any of the routine checks? Sam and Dean have taught her better, but she was so caught up in the moment and…

Her phone buzzes and Sam’s reply is simple. ‘That is not Dean.’ Her eyes widen. ‘Demon. Get away.’

The three or four seconds she spent looking at her phone are what almost gets her killed. It’s plenty of time for Dean to grab the kitchen knife and aim it at his sister instead of the pie.

She manages to dodge, somehow, although Dean makes it sound like he just enjoys playing with his prey. As his eyes turn jet-black, she knows she’s in trouble.

“I’ll give you a headstart, sis,” he hums and even his voice sounds so twisted, so wrong.

“Headstart?,” she echoes. “Dean, please, you don’t wanna—”

“Ten… Nine…”

He absolutely wants to. Sam’s right, this isn’t Dean. Not their Dean.

She bolts out of the kitchen as fast as she can. The bunker is big, but the problem remains that they all know it inside and out — where can she possibly hide? Should she lock herself in the dungeon? Should she ditch the place altogether?

“Six… Five…”

Panicked, she just makes a run for it, not knowing where to quite yet, but knowing it had to be away. As far away as possible. She scrambles to find a weapon, anything to fend off a demon, though she hates the thought of fighting against Dean. Not only would she not stand a chance against her brother, she could never bring herself to harming him or his vessel.

“Ready or not here I come.”

She’s definitely not ready. He could’ve given her a minute, an hour, a freakin’ year, nothing could prepare her for such a chase.

Stupidly, she decides to hide in Dean’s room. It’s far from the safest option, but it’s where her feet have carried her. She can’t really think of any room in the bunker that could protect her from the demonic version of her brother, but here at least, she’s surrounded by happy memories, right?

She’s holding her breath, clutching Ruby’s knife in her trembling hand.

It’s only through a trick that she’s able to survive. Of course, Dean finds her, but she’s fast and able to (a) distract him long enough to make preparations and (b) then lure him to the dungeons.

Dean’s not dumb, he knows there’s a devil’s trap. But he didn’t know there were two of them. She’s haphazardly drawn one he didn’t see until he is standing in it.

Bless all the times she has cursed in the past. She has complained to Sam so often whenever he had forced her to practice drawing pentagrams. She’ll make sure to thank him for it later.

Speaking of the devil, Sam returns just a bit later. He must’ve broken several traffic laws racing back to the bunker, but between that and his sister’s safety, she obviously came first.

He thought she’d be pissed at him for lying to her, but she has a priority too right now: Turning Dean into a human again.

It’s definitely not an easy task. More specifically, it’s downright nauseating to witness the purification process. Dean’s clearly suffering, the pain must be agonizing, but they are able to heal him.

Dean’s back, and he’s human again and it’s all she could’ve ever asked for.

Now, for Dean? Shit, he won’t be able to look into the mirror for a very long time. He always sees himself as the family’s protector. His siblings are his world and to think he attacked his baby sister? It’s killing him.

He feels so guilty he’s not able to look her in the eyes, let alone talk to her or touch her.

Which is why when she hugs him, clinging to his form sobbing, he thinks he doesn’t deserve that kind of trust. His greatest fear is that she’s now scared of him. She’d have every right to be, he attacked her with a damn knife.

“It wasn’t you. It was your body, but not your mind. I mean, that thing comes up with all sorts of dumb things, but not that kind of dumb.”

He can’t help but chuckle at that, of course she’s already back to sibling banter. How she manages to pretend like nothing happened is beyond him.

The events stick with him for a very long time, they never fully disappear from his conscience. He wishes he could wipe the memory of your panicked eyes from his brain, but that image will still haunt him in his grave.

Something has changed though. His shampoo is shampoo and his cassettes are his cassettes. There’s always pie in the fridge and she’s not playing any pranks on him anymore.

It makes him feel even worse. Especially when she explains to him that she’d rather be nice to her pain-in-the-ass brother and have him alive than be mean and have him dead.

“You know one thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other, right?”

It almost sounds like she’s blaming herself. As if Dean’s death was her punishment for bickering 24/7. It’s not right, if anyone should be feeling guilty, it’s him. And he does. God, he does.

It’s very obvious that she’s more afraid of losing him again than she is of the monster he’s become.

He’s set out on playing double the amount of pranks on her then, in hopes of getting some normalcy back. Of reminding his little sister that he’s still here, he’ll always be there. He’ll always be her pain-in-the-ass brother that’ll look out for her and keep her safe and play pranks on her.

When one morning he finds his toothbrush in a jar of pickles, bristles soaked in the vinegar-y liquid, it’s a small victory. Her post-it note with a smug smiley drawn on it is a step in the right direction.

Dean Winchester Taglist (Put a green heart 💚 in the comments to be added to the Dean x Reader taglist): @ladysparkles78 @ariasong11 @winchester-whiskey @whormotional @spacecowgirl126

@zepskies @calibootsgirl @hot-and-confused @spookyfunhottub @berryblues46

@midnight--raine @emmy21842 @whichwitchwanda @foxyjwls007 @lyarr24

@whump-loverz @cassieriddle713 @ilovedeanwinchester4

Sam Winchester Taglist (Put a book emoji 📚 in the comments to be added to the Sam x Reader taglist): @s7nburn @whump-loverz

Please note: Ageless blogs will only be tagged in fluff and angst posts!

[aurorawritestoescape]

LOVERS ON THE RUN || 2,5k

Pt 3 of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang series

Tw: 18+ mdni, smut, angst, rough Joel/soft Joel cos I want it all, m!oral, injury(not reader), blood, cum eating, ball sucking, pussy grinding

Summary: it gets risky… and hot

A/n: hugs and kisses to @milla-frenchy for beta-ing and @iamasaddie for the gif <3<3

Series masterlist || Masterlist

*****

The sirens and gunshots are still ringing loudly in your ears as Tommy is driving Joel and you to a safe place. Yet you can only hope it’ll be safe.

You are sitting in the back of the car with Joel, still clutching the gun in your trembling hand, the other gripping Joel’s jean clad thigh as if grounding yourself to him. The bags with money are at your feet but you forgot all about them. Your widened eyes are fixed on the road. You don’t seem to be followed now but Joel taught you to expect the worst.

“Fuck! That was close!" you exclaim with a tint of hysteria in your loud voice, attempting to shout over the roaring engine of the car and your heart pounding in your ears. You're so high on adrenaline, fear and thrill that you feel invincible, almost immortal.

Tommy's nervous chuckle shows that he's on it too - the only drug that gets you off the best - escaping death with an armful of cash.

Just mere minutes ago you were standing on the brink of the precipice, one wrong move and you’d fall meeting your death. But destiny spared you once again.

“You two are fuckin’ lucky… I had that feeling.. couldn’t relax for shit. Came back and …fucking cops.”

“Thank you, Tommy.” You reach to him and pat his shoulder as he gives you a warm smile in the rear view mirror.

You glance at Joel and say with adoration and almost piety in your voice.

“And thanks to Joel’s number one rule.”

You and Tommy chant it together parodying his drawl, “Always have an escape plan!”

Joel smiles with a corner of his mouth. Your nerves alight, one glance at the man and you wish you two were alone so you could pierce yourself with his cock and ride him until your legs give out. Or suck him off, choking on his length and getting a new fix of adrenaline when you almost suffocate on his member.

But it’s not the place nor the time and Joel isn’t even looking at you.

His head turned to the window, his thoughtful gaze is sliding over the trees and streetlights you’re passing.

Finally the cloud of the high dissipates and you look at him. Really look at him. His forehead is glistening with sweat. He’s chewing on his lower lip and clenching and unclenching his right fist. He’s nervous.

Well he must be, you think, after what happened. Wishing to comfort him you scoot closer, bracing your hand on his chest and lean in to give him a kiss…

“Fuck!, “ Joel winces startling you by a sudden jerk of his whole body and in the next moment you feel the claws of something terrifying grip your heart.

“Where?” You ask with a shaky voice as your eyes are frantically searching all over his body.

He nods down and to the side and you notice his dark shirt stretched over his broad shoulder is glistening. His right arm, the furthest from you, is pressed tightly to his torso.

Your fingers dart to his shoulder but you stop and look at him, eyes screaming ‘What the fuck do I do, Joel?’ You’re frozen, trembling hands raised. You’d never raise them for the police like that but you’re doing it now, staring into the face of your biggest fear - losing him.

“ ‘s gonna be ok baby, don’t worry,” He says through clenched teeth.

The stupor you’ve been in disappears and your head whips to Tommy.

“Joel’s been shot! Floor it!”

*****

The next few minutes flew like a whirlwind of actions and feelings and at the same time dragged on like hours. When you finally arrived at some old abandoned garage you’d already done everything you could in the moving car.

Joel popped a couple of Oxys and now he’s sitting on a stool, shirt ripped off his shoulder exposing a bullet wound. You’re stitching him up, having sent Tommy outside to watch out.

Joel’s every muscle is taught, teeth clenched and he growls with every push of the needle through his skin. The sounds he's making don't let you concentrate. You feel sad for him but can't forget that he growls like that only buried deep in your tight wet heat.

“Can you stop?” you mumble under your breath.

“What?”

“Your growling?”

“Why?” He asks and growls again when you make another stitch.

You shrug and feel him staring at your face, reading you.

It doesn’t take him long, never does, and you hear a soft chuckle coming from the pits of his chest. You glance at him, meeting his narrowed eyes and a shit eating smirk.

“Dirty girl, soakin’ your panties while your man is sufferin’, huh?”

“I’m the one who’s suffering here,” You reply earning another chuckle from him. “And I’m not soaking anything”.

“Should I check, baby?” He smirks tilting his head to the side.

“Jesus, Joel,” you whisper trying to hide that he’s right.

“Don’t call for him yet. I ain’t dead”.

You freeze with a bloody needle hovering over his skin. You can’t see it anymore, your vision gets blurry with tears. You try to hide your face from Joel leaning closer to the wound. But he notices.

“Hey,” he cups your face with the hand he can use, pulling you closer to his face and wipes your tears away with a calloused thumb.

“I’ll be ok, baby.”

“You don’t know it”.

“I do. It’s just a graze”

“No, it’s not. The fucking bullet went through you! You were bleeding so much and.. and …”, you cut yourself off suffocated by the fear.

“Hey,” Joel says and grabs your shoulder, “You stopped it. You did good, ya hear me?”

“Yeah,” you mumble, glistening eyes downcast.

“Look at me,” he asks gently, his gaze is warm and comforting, “Thank you, baby”.

You jerk your head in a nod and a tear falls down on his hand.

“I’m almost done.”

You continue your work in silence.

When it’s done and his arm is secured in a makeshift sling, you take some water from the car to clean yourself off the dark crimson blood. Joel’s blood. Then you start carefully wiping away the red off his big hands and can't help but imagine the world where these hands can’t hold you anymore, can’t wipe away your tears, can’t make you come, can’t be kissed by your loving lips. The wave of panic covers you whole again and you burst into tears.

Immediately embracing you with his healthy arm, no matter the pain he must be in, Joel holds you close kissing wherever he can reach, your hair, eyes, nose, cheeks. No one would believe that this big brutal man could be so gentle and soft.

“I’m s-sorry”, you hiccup after a few minutes of crying on Joel’s healthy shoulder. Your body is still trembling against his and you hate yourself for letting your fear get the best of you.

“Shh.. it’s ok, sweetheart. I’m here. We’re safe,” Joel whispers, pressing you closer to his naked chest peeking from his ripped shirt.

“We aren’t safe, Joel. Not after today.”

“Always have an escape plan, right, baby?”

“You think it’s time? Did we save up enough?”

“Yeah, baby. Enough for us and for Tommy. Can’t wait to see you in that micro bikini you promised me,” he groans in your ear and you quietly giggle. You press your cheek to his broad chest and furrow your brows in thought. You love this life, always have, but you can’t deny that your luck has run out. Going on will be like driving your car towards the edge of the cliff at full speed. With a pang in your heart you realize that it’s time to take another road while you still have each other.

You straighten up, check Joel’s shoulder and arm again and then look deep into his eyes. He notices myriads of thoughts swirling in your mind, wraps his heavy hand around the back of your neck and lightly squeezes.

“If you need somethin’ to calm down…?”

“I can’t smoke now… need clear mind.”

“I ain’t talking about weed, baby”.

“What then?”

“Oh, think, sweetheart. What always helps, huh?” He moves his hand to your face and his thumb brushes your lower lip.

You look confused, head tilted to the side, until he pushes his thick finger into your mouth. Your eyes sparkle with excitement while you’re sucking on his thumb.

“Good girl. C’mon now. Get on your knees.”

He pulls the finger out and you lower yourself kneeling between his legs.

“Sure I won’t hurt you?”

“I’ll be fine. Take what you need, sweetheart,” he replies, spreading his thighs wider for you.

Your heart sings and pussy tingles as you slowly open his jeans, tug them down to the middle of his hips and pull out his soft heavy package.

You press your cheek to his warm crotch and feel his cock twitch. You don’t do anything for a few moments, just breathe in his musk and purr into his soft lightly trimmed hair. Joel’s petting your head and you sink into a trance, as he holds you close.

When you’re ready for more, you start leaving open mouth kisses to his inner thighs, balls, shaft, tip. With every touch of your lips, you feel him grow bigger, stiffer, harder and you can’t help but whine feeling yourself gush. So you start grinding your clothed pussy against your booted heel, desperate for any pressure.

You look up at Joel with your doe eyes, full of devotion and love and he groans, scooting closer to the edge of the seat.

“Go ahead, baby. Suck on it. It’ll calm ya right up.”

You know it will. So you take his already hard cock in your hand and latch on the fat tip. Your eyes flutter shut as soon as precome hits your tongue. You hum as you lick it off him and then take his length deeper into your hot mouth. In a few moments you’re already drooling around him, soaking his cock with your saliva while your warm palms gently caress his heavy balls.

“Fuck… yeah, baby,” Joel groans making your pussy ache with need.

When his cock is nice and wet you pull your mouth away replacing it with your hand and bend lower to suck on the velvet skin of his sack. You trace its seam with the tip of your tongue and take a ball in your mouth. You roll it with your tongue and then suck. Joel’s huge fist clutches your hair, not too hard but enough to signal you to keep going. You suck one into your mouth, slurp and lick around it and then part from it with a pop.

“Hnggg…That’s my girl,” Joel praises you through growls when you start working on the other ball. Your hands aren’t resting, one clasped around his long cock, sliding up and down from the girthy base to the throbbing head, as the other caresses the other ball.

You’re burning up with arousal and not being able to contain yourself, you grind, grind, grind your aching pussy against your heel.

Joel lightly tugs at your hair to get your hazy half lidded eyes to look at him and chuckles when you do,

“Shit, look at ya. Already gone just from suckin’ on my sack.”

You let go of his ball with a pop and his cock twitches in your hand. A clear drop beads on the slit and you lick it off, not tearing your eyes from the man.

“Yeah, now onto the main course, sweetheart,” he groans with a smirk.

You smile back, licking your lips as your hand returns to his sack.

“Don’t hold back, Joel. Please.”

You don’t think it’s possible but his gaze turns even darker, completely obsidian with lust, his cock is throbbing as you’re holding it at the base.

“Ya got it, baby”.

His hand, soft and gentle just a second ago, grabs your hair tight and pulls you closer. You gasp as your lips smash into his warm head but you don’t hesitate to open them and take more and more of his cock, until your nose touches his dark pubic hair. Your throat is trying to accommodate his length, eyes are welling up with tears, fingers gripping his thighs. He fills you so well that all the fears are quickly pushed out of your head by him. You nearly suffocate on his thick cock, squirming between his thighs but he’s holding you tight.

“Keep it in, baby, ya doing so good…”

Your throat contracts around him and he pulls you off with a curse. You cough, swallowing air, drooling all over yourself while he’s holding you by your hair like a dog on a leash.

“Gonna make me come too fast… lemme enjoy this mouth of yours.”

Your mind has already shut down, all your actions, senses, emotions are focused on pleasuring him.

Your mouth is on his cock again, tongue pushing on the underside as you slide up his length and swirl it around his fat head. You’re drunk on Joel, his taste, sounds, scent, his essence is inside you, around you, everywhere. He’s your whole world and they almost took him from you. Angry tears roll out of your eyes while you hollow your cheeks and bob your head up and down, in control of his pleasure but completely under his power. You feel his cock stiffen and then it starts pulsating in your mouth. You take him deeper and drink his cum as Joel is spurting it generously right into your throat. With another roll of your hips against your boot you come, moaning around his length in your mouth, seeing stars behind your eyelids. When he discards of the last drop of his seed, he coos over you,

“Oh, baby, did your little pussy come already?”

Not waiting for the answer, Joel roughly tugs on your hair again, dull pain making you whine, lifts your head off his softening cock and finally sees your face, stained with fresh tears.

“Fuck, baby, c’mere,” he pulls you up on your feet wincing at the pain in his shoulder. You immediately push your face into the crease of his neck, trying not to hurt him, breathing him in. He turns to you and his lips find yours. You kiss each other, desperately and feverishly, like it’s the last time before your old life ends and you meet a new beginning together.

Joel holds you tight one second and in the next his arm falls and his whole weight slumps on you. With his name on your trembling lips, you see his eyes roll back and then close.

*****

Thank you for reading! 🌸

Comments and reblogs make me very happy and help to spread my work!💖

Series Masterlist

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[villainsandvictimsalliance]

So many lonely people on Kaiju No. 8 had found companionship with Kafka.

He's the personification of support. A senpai, a role model, a hero, a friend, a cadet, a reliable worker, even a crush. He's someone you can trust and someone that wants to be there for you. Even the comedy relief guy or the saviour of the day!!

In the latest manga chapters he was a plushie for a little girl.

There's Reno who lost his entire family. Kafka took the role of the senpai with him: guide and teach the guy, talk with him, show him how to survive and inspire him. Reno met a genuinely good guy that was openly offering his help and friendship, so he went back to thank him and do the same. Hey, your dream is not over, Reno said. What did he get in return? Kafka sacrificing his life for him, telling him to run, giving up the most important thing in his life for Reno.

There's Mina, who is terrified of being alone. She found a personal clown in Kafka, yes, but he was also the boy who helped her keep her hope and made things easier. He would always go with her to the shelter during a kaiju attack, even if he was in another school. He told her she didn't have to kill kaijus all alone. He promised to be by her side. Mina was thrown into a world of giant burdens and expectations, where her failures could mean death and destruction. Kafka saw her not as the weapon she was, but as Mina.

Hoshina was constantly disrespected, overlooked and ignored. He gave Kafka a chance because he reminded Hoshina of himself. For his troubles, Hoshina got a guy that would work hard to reach his expectations, that would rival him, that would call him first thing and spend all that time worried and would apologize before turning into a kaiju to save their lives. Kafka became a friend of sorts to Hoshina through hard work and respect.

Kikoru was used to all types of reactions from the people around her, but not to the level of worry and pride and trust Kafka gave her. It was not for show, he was completely open and sincere in his feelings. Kikoru you're an asshole, Kikoru you're amazing, Kikoru pleaseeee take care of yourself, Kikoru I won't disappoint you, Kikoru you have my permission and gratitude if you kill me if I ever lose control, Kikoru I trust you to finish this battle.

The first thing Kafka did during the second part of the recruitment was support Aoi and Haruichi during their subjugation of a kaiju.

He saved Minase's life by partially turning and risking his life for it. He saved Iharu and Reno that day against No. 9.

Narumi told Kafka that only they knew the weight of the burden they carried for being there the day Isao Shinomiya was killed. Freaking Narumi, who wouldn't share that burden with anyone else.

Like it was noted by his boss while he was still part of the Cleaning Corps, Kafka would do his job after complaining, but he'd do it perfectly and do it again if asked to.

He's reliable. I know I said it before, but he is.

In a world where anyone can die any minute, in the Kaiju Country, Kafka is a presence you don't want to vanish. It's what Mina says: everything is easier with him around, anything is possible.

When in the first chapters Kafka tells the little girl to not be afraid because he'll go and everything will be okay— the girl thanks him. In the anime, the little girl even asks Mina to please not hurt the good kaiju. Once people have met him, they don't want him to go. They'd do anything for him not to go, not to die. When Kikoru saw him losing control and remembered her promise, she decided that she'd rather believe in him 'til the end. When Isao was about to disappear, he thought about Kafka and said he'd leave things up to him too.

Isn't that what it means to be a hero? To be able to say "leave it up to me" but also trust others to help you when you need it? Inspire people to support you because you supported them first?

The only thing scarier than the kaijus is to be left alone in the world— and Kafka fights that.

[gilbertscurls]

Treat You Better ➵ Matt Sturniolo

summary: matt could treat you better than your current boyfriend. he's sure of it.

It’s raining, of course.

Matt pulls his hood tighter around his face, eyes cast down as he trudges through the wet pavement on his way to class. The rain isn’t that heavy, just a slow drizzle, but it feels heavier with every step, like the sky is mocking him. The world around him feels gray, blending into the dull ache he’s been carrying for weeks now, ever since you started dating him.

Matt clenches his fists in his pockets, trying to shake the thought away, but it clings to him, relentless. It always does.

He imagines you now, sitting in his car, laughing at some joke as the two of you drive to class together. He picks you up every morning, without fail. The perfect boyfriend.

And Matt? Well, Matt walks alone.

He can picture it so clearly: the way your eyes crinkle at the corners when you smile, the way you throw your head back when you laugh, like you don’t have a care in the world. He can almost hear your voice, light and carefree, filling the silence of the car, a sound that he’s only ever heard from a distance.

Because you’re not his.

In his head, though, you are. In his daydreams, in the moments when he allows himself to think about you—and God, does he think about you all the time—you’re his. You’re sitting next to him, your hand in his, your head resting on his shoulder as you talk about everything and nothing. You’re his, not some guy who doesn’t even seem to appreciate what he has.

Matt kicks a loose rock down the road, watching it skid along the pavement before it disappears into the gutter.

He hates that guy. Not just because he’s your boyfriend, though that’s a big part of it. But because Matt knows—he knows—that he could treat you better. He knows that when you’re feeling down, he’d be there for you in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t let you hide your pain behind that brave smile you wear so well. He wouldn’t just brush it off like it’s nothing, the way your boyfriend seems to do.

Would he hold you when you’re feeling low?

Matt shakes his head, trying to clear the thoughts that are starting to spiral. It’s not his place. It never was.

He stops at a red light, watching the cars pass by, and his heart sinks when he sees a familiar car pull up to the intersection. Your boyfriend’s car. And there you are, sitting in the passenger seat, looking out the window with that same distant expression you sometimes get when you think no one’s watching.

Matt bites his lip, hands tightening in his pockets. He knows he should look away, should keep walking, but he can’t. Not when you’re right there, so close yet so far away.

As the light turns green, your boyfriend’s car pulls forward, and Matt watches as you disappear down the street. The rain continues to fall, soft but unrelenting, and he’s left standing there, alone again, wondering how he ended up here.

He doesn’t even remember when he started falling for you. Maybe it was that day in biology class when you partnered up for a project, or maybe it was when you started hanging out more with his brothers and him, laughing with Nick and Chris in a way that made Matt’s heart twist with something unnameable.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now.

Because you’re not his.

But, God, if it were him, he would love you in a way that would make you feel like you were the only person in the world. He’d hold you close when you felt like everything was falling apart, he’d be there for the big moments and the small ones. He’d make sure you never had to feel alone again.

Matt swallows the lump forming in his throat. He’s never been good with these kinds of things—feelings, emotions, letting someone in. But with you, it’s different. With you, he wants to try. He wants to let you in, to show you the side of him that he hides from everyone else, the part of him that’s terrified of rejection but even more terrified of missing out on something real.

If only you weren’t with him.

Would he say he’s in love?

Matt snorts bitterly to himself. He doubts it.

Sure, your boyfriend’s got the car, the looks—everything Matt doesn’t. But does he love you the way Matt would? Does he even know how lucky he is to have you?

Matt kicks at another rock, his heart heavy in his chest.

You deserve more than someone who treats you like a prize to be shown off. You deserve someone who looks at you like you’re their entire world, someone who holds you when you’re feeling low and doesn’t just brush it off.

And if it were him, Matt knows he’d do all of that. He’d love you with everything he has.

But he’s not him. He’s just Matt, the guy who walks to class in the rain while you ride in a car with someone else. The guy who’s stuck on the outside looking in, constantly playing a game he’s destined to lose.

Reality ruined my life.

The thought hits him hard, sinking into his chest like a stone. Because no matter how much he dreams about what could be, no matter how many times he imagines you being his, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re with someone else. Someone who, for whatever reason, has what Matt wants more than anything.

But Matt keeps walking. He always does. Because that’s all he can do. Keep moving forward, even if it feels like the weight of unspoken words and missed chances is dragging him down.

Would he treat you like I would?

The answer is no.

Matt knows that. But you don’t. And that’s what hurts the most.

With a heavy sigh, he turns the corner, his mind still spinning with thoughts of you and what could have been, the rain falling around him like a reminder of all the things he can’t control.

And he keeps walking.

tag list: @stuwniolo, @sturnobsessedwh0re, @matts-myloverboy, @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut, @lizzymacdonald06, @asherrisrandom, @sturniolowhore69, @faith5drpepper, @emely9274, @psychologyloverfr, @lovetaylorrussellgrr, @conspiracy-ash, @helpimateenagerinlove

[13knowge]

Hi. For a long time i thought this was pretty weird (?) but after doing more research i found out that many people shared it and it made me pretty happy, i found a part on the internet pretty funny and i want to have fun too.

I'm not very good at English but i tried my best getting a little help.

So, these are my favorite OP characters and some headcanons i have of them of how they are when they are in love or in a relationship.

CW: SFW / KINK

Kaido

Kaido in love can get pretty scary, he knows he's scary and uses it to make fun of you. He also invades your personal space.

When he is drunk he seeks physical contact, sometimes he doesn't measure his strength and you get to feel a bit of discomfort to his grip.

He doesn't care if his subordinates are present or not when he shows his affection towards you, he likes to show you off.

His way of flirting is to take you on his ship to accompany him to eliminate his enemies, he wants to show you how strong he is and the respect his crew has for him.

In intimacy he likes to use intimidation and point out how small you are and that he could tear you apart if he wanted to.

Rob Lucci

He definitely chases you everywhere, no matter where you go, he will follow your footsteps wherever you decide to go. You will never be out of his vision. It's not that he distrusts you, he trusts you wholeheartedly, it's just that his favorite activity is to always be with you even though he recognizes that you need your "space".

He spies and reports on every person who approaches you to know if they are to be trusted. Regardless of your opinion, that is up to him to decide.

It will be better for everyone's sake that no one dares to even draw a tear from you or else he will commit the most violent and bloody murder. Eventually you will realize that this person has disappeared.

He doesn't show you affection in front of others, for him that's too private, but he also doesn't bother if it's you who shows some kind of affection, in that case, he doesn't ignore you.

When it's just the two of you alone, he never lets go, he's a cat that climbs on top of you to lick your neck.

During sex he has absolute control over your body, he knows perfectly where to touch you and how to make you go crazy. He uses his hybrid form to leave marks like scratches and some bites.

On special occasions he likes to be treated as a pet and to wear a collar to dominate him and follow your orders.

Shanks

He is very attentive and dedicated, he treats you with great delicacy and gentleness. Very gentlemanly.

He will always give you the best of the best, you will never be disappointed. He looks for the best treasures to be your property.

He will make you laugh many times, he is a very funny man, especially when he is drunk.

All the time he is talking about you. Even when he fights with his enemies, before finishing them he presumes that he has to leave quickly because he has to kiss someone.

He recognizes your strength and independence but is secretly terrified of something bad happening to you.

In a drunken state is when he is most sexually active and becomes a complete stranger, he is very wild. He has a fetish for smells and is very aroused by the contact when both are sweaty. In the midst of this activity he likes to talk dirty.

Sir Crocodile

It must be a miracle when he says something nice about you. He is not very affectionate, it is very difficult for him, sometimes it seems that he is not even interested in you.

He is a man of very few words, he has peculiar ways of letting you know he loves you and makes sure they are unique and special.

He does not like you to get involved in his work. He will keep the relationship very private and would expect you to do the same.

He is very jealous, as soon as someone wants to flirt with you, Crocodile squeezes your waist with his hook.

He doesn't like to murder people when you are present, he thinks it's something you shouldn't witness.

Although he thinks Buggy is an idiot, he is one of the few people next to Mihawk that he feels safe for you to be with.

When it comes to sex he is rough and gentle at the same time. He makes sure you feel comfortable. After that he feels more open to express his feelings and tell you how much he loves you.

I had a lot of fun writing this hahahahaha, hope you like it <3

[ohbo-ohno]

merry christmas @luminousbeings-crudematter, here's the ghoap x reader purge au! (a week and a half after you posted about it... im so sorry)

5.7k, mind the tags <3

cw: ROUGH NONCONSENUAL SEX in all caps, pwp, under-prepared/painful anal sex, some pretty intense fear stuff, people covered in blood and referenced violence (it's a purge au lol)

Your hands tremble where they’re tucked close to your chest, blood sticky and thick between each finger. You feel coated in it, like someone has taken a brush and gone over every inch of your skin, painted you in red.

It’s in your mouth. You can feel the warmth of it on your tongue, the taste of iron sickening. You tell yourself that maybe you bit your tongue, that it’s not really your ex Phil’s blood coating your teeth.

Your thin pajamas are hardly any protection against the chill of the night air, less so with how soaked they are. The stench of piss is heavy in the air, a mixture of yours and his, but you don’t have time to go back inside and change.

You’re running on pure instinct, an animal urge deep in your mind insisting you run. You’d always thought you’d have more of a flight instinct than fight. Despite how you feel now, how your legs itch to carry you as far away as possible, the cooling corpse left behind tells you the truth. 

You stumble into the wall, a wave of nausea knocking you off balance. There’s a trail of red left behind as you use one hand to balance yourself, the other held protectively over your heart. 

Your security system - cheap, but usually enough to let you sleep through the Purge - is completely destroyed. There’s no chance of it protecting you, and the bust in windows will let anyone on the streets see your vulnerability. You’ll never feel safe there, and you can’t shake the need to run.

There’s no chance of any of your neighbors helping you. There’s some neighborly camaraderie between your floor-mates, but that all disappears on Purge night. It’s every man for himself, every year, without fail. You know that. You even think the same as them, pretend no one else exists when that siren goes off every year. 

But now, shaking and terrified, you wish you could knock on a door and see it open. Hear the security system disengage and see a familiar face, beg for help and thank them on your knees.

It’s a nice fantasy. Reality is less kind, seeing you shake with a dawning chill as you manage to shoulder open the door to the stairwell, cringing when it slams behind you.

The cold cement is rough on your feet, and a distant part of yourself worries about slipping - your feet are slick with blood, and you can hear yourself leaving a trail of footsteps. You don’t try to slow down, holding tight to the metal railing and shuffling down the stairs.

You’re halfway down the first of four flights when the door on the next floor opens, a large figure stepping into the stairwell. Your stumble to a stop before you even register that you’re not alone anymore, and you’re backpedaling before you even fully realize.

He’s big, his face covered in a red skull mask. From your vantage point you can see his hair is shaved into a mohawk, and he’s shirtless with only a pair of gray sweatpants on.

He’s drenched in blood. Even more than you, and you feel like you’re drowning in it. If you’re painted in blood, someone took a bucket and dumped it on this man. You can hardly see any unmarked skin, and you wonder for a split-second if the skull was once white.

There’s an audible grin in his voice when he calls up to you. “Look’it you, bonnie thing. You tryin’ to run?” He steps to the side, leaving a wide open space for you to pass him to the next staircase. You’re frozen where you’re leant against the railing, hardly able to breathe. “C’mon, give it a shot.” 

You listen, scrabbling further back and all but throwing yourself up the stairs on all fours. You’re only the need to get away, an innate fear that tells you to get as far from the blood-soaked man as quickly as possible. You swear you hear him laugh as you launch yourself up the next flight, panting already.

There’s no safety found in going up though, as hardly two flights later you’re tugged to a stop by your instincts alone.

Standing above you, hardly six feet away and blocking the door he must’ve just come from, is another giant. This one fully clothed and with a white skull mask, somehow bigger and more intimidating than the man you can hear coming up the stairs behind you. You can’t see even an inch of skin, black gloves on his hands and mean black combat boots reaching nearly his knees.

There’s a moment, before the chase ends, where you contemplate jumping over the railing. There’s no going up, there’s no going back, and you can’t even begin to imagine what these two men want with you. The only thing that keeps you from throwing yourself over is the fear that you wouldn’t die on impact, that you’d be left injured and even more vulnerable to these men.

You’re not sure you could’ve tried that plan had you even wanted to, because the moment it forms fully in your mind a pair of thick arms wraps around you, and a heavy weight forces you to the ground.

You cry out at the sudden shove, palms scraped raw against the cement. The man behind you covers your body completely - his knees bracket yours, his hands rest on either side of your head, and there’s no part of the back of you that isn’t cloaked in him.

He doesn’t say anything as he ruts against you, the blood from his chest soaking through your tank top and making you cringe further away. You can’t stop the quiet stream of whimpers as you try to shrink into the stairs, try to get away from the beast behind you. He doesn’t care, only drops more of his weight onto you and pantomines fucking you.

You can feel the outline of his cock through his pants, as thin as the clothes both of you are wearing are. If you weren’t wearing your shorts, if he tugged the waistband of his pants down, he’d be inside of you.

The thought makes you tear up, makes you want to slam your head back and try to knee him in the balls, makes you want to fight.

But all your fight is gone. It died with Phil and your security system, and you’re left only with a weight in your bones that makes you wish you could sink through the floor. 

The hard plastic of the skull mask presses to the sensitive skin of your cheek, biting into the fat there. You can see the gleam of bright blue eyes in the sockets, the creases at the edges that tell you he’s smiling.

“You gonna fuck her here for the first time?” The white skull asks, voice deep enough that you hardly register the words. Your eyes are jerked to his form and it makes you shiver to see him sitting on the top of the staircase you’re pinned to, legs spread wide as he stares down at you with a cigarette between lips exposed by the tilted mask. You feel like a sacrifice, thrown to the stairs of a temple for a god.

“Can I?” The man over your shoulder pants, accent roughened from his own movements. You can’t tell if the wetness between your thighs is piss, blood, or an even worse option. You bite your tongue to hold back a whine, wince at the burst of iron in your mouth.

The man above you tilts his head, smoking blown into the air. “You fuck her here, you won’t get to go again on the roof. Don’t need you gettin’ spoiled.”

Your nails dig into the concrete, folding beneath the pressure as you shake beneath the red skulled man. He whines over you, like a petulant kid being told no for the first time, but goes still against you. That alone has you blinking open damp eyelashes, watching him from the corner of your eyes.

“Alright, I’ll wait,” he pants, chin resting on your soldier. “Give ye some time to get ready, huh lass? It’ll be easier for ye then. Just think about what we’ll do to ye, how good it’ll feel to get properly fucked, yeah?”

You sob when he grinds one final time against you, your hips pushed into the harsh edge of the stairs. 

He’s dragging you up after that, hardly letting either of you stand fully before shoving you up the stairs. You can’t catch your balance and let out a small cry as you fall back to your knees, mouth twisting in pain at the unforgiving surface against your naked knees.

You flinch when a gloved hand grasps your chin, tugging up until you’re forced to look towards the white skull above you.

You’ve landed between his feet, a boot on either side of your body, and if you’d moved forward even another half foot, you’d have face planted into his lap. 

Your heart skips a beat when you realize you’re making eye contact with him. The dark brown of his pupils blends almost seamlessly with what must be black paint smeared around his eye sockets, and the only reason you even realize you’re locked in a staring contest is the way the light reflects off the whites of his eyes.

You don’t have time to try and move away from him on your own (or, more accurately, to throw yourself backwards and pray you didn’t break something falling down the stairs) before a pair of bare hands are shoving you up from beneath the armpits, making you almost squeal as you jerk in the direction you’re forced.

“Up, c’mon,” red skull grunts, hands flitting from one part of your exposed skin to the next as he herds you upstairs. “Need to get inside ye, kitty, fuckin’ walk.”

You sob as you stumble up the stairs, the top of your foot scraping painfully against the concrete. You glance over your shoulder just in time to see White stand to follow you two, but you’re nearly sent sprawling again when Red only shoves you all the more harshly.

“Pl-please,” you manage to gasp, shoulder roughly bouncing off the wall. A glance up tells you you’re two full flights away from the rooftop. “Please, I don’t know what you want, b-but…” You can hardly talk around the sobs floating in your throat, choking you. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”

Red groans as he tugs you nearly off balance, the sound echoing off the walls and full of what you can only describe as hunger.

“Fuck, haven’t even gotten ye naked yet ‘n yer already beggin. Knew ye’d be perfect for us.”

You can hardly see through the tears in your eyes, the rest of the trip up to the roof all gray with streaks of red and black. You can’t focus enough to try and get away again, can’t get enough of your panic under control to fucking think.

The red skull catches you when you almost go careening over the rails, one broad hand catching you by the chest and gripping.

He groans, you flinch. “Fuck, cannae wait to get my mouth on these.” He pinches with his whole hand, your breast going sharp with pain on every fingertip. You whine, flinching further against his chest and trying to shrink away.

“Keep movin’, Soap.”

“Aye,” Red - Soap - pants, and you can practically hear the saliva gathered in his mouth when he swallows. “C’mon, kitty, only a little further.”

The blood on your hands has dried by the time White is shouldering open the door to the roof, your hands itching and the red flaking away every time your fingers twitch. The night air is a cold shock, just jarring enough to tug some reason back into your brain.

Soap doesn’t stop his herding until you’re far enough from the door for his partner to block it with an old metal chair, the back tucked under the door handle. You tuck your hands beneath your arms, shoulders curled in in an attempt to preserve warmth.

You wouldn’t have expected the night to be so cold. Half of the street is burning - flames painting the sky, giving you the exact opposite impression of the biting chill you feel. There are dozens of people in the streets, carrying guns and axes and chainsaws and all sorts of other weapons you can’t see. You feel bile rise in your throat when you realize the dark pools reflecting flames in the street are blood, not water.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Soap grumbles, and you don’t have any time to think before his mouth is pressed forcefully against yours, tongue shoving at your lips.

Your eyes are wide open, unlike his, and you make a shocked sound high in your throat at the sight of his maskless face. You can’t really see what he looks like with the way he’s pressed against you, but it’s a shock nonetheless.

You keep your lips pressed tightly together, no matter how much his tongue prods and tries to force its way into your mouth. You feel more than hear him laugh against you after a few long seconds, and one of his massive paws comes up to cradle your jaw pointer finger against your temple and thumb under your chin.

He stops trying to force himself between your lips after almost a minute, instead shifting to just… licking your lips. His tongue paints wide across your mouth, soaking you in his saliva. He’s almost scarily determined in the way he accosts you, his grip tight on your face as his other hand shifts to bruise your hip, covering what feels like the entire bottom-half of your face in his spit. You can’t help but grimace, trying to pull away from him, but he’s pressed too close.

“Can’t fuckin’ wait to be in ye,” he pants, breath warm and wet against your cheeks. “I know yer gonna squeeze me just right, bonnie, can tell already.”

“Please,” you say, voice weak. “Please, don’t, I don’t want you to-”

His groan is guttural. “Ye wanna know a secret, bonnie?” His voice is quiet between the two of you, bright blue eyes boring deep into yours when he pulls back. To your endless frustration, he’s handsome.

He leans close, whispering so low that you almost have to strain to hear hum. “That’s what makes you fun. Wouldnae be draggin’ you up here if ye wanted it, could get you any other night of the year for that. But it’s Purge night, lass… so you go ahead and fight as much as ye want, yeah? Just makes it more fun for me.”

You can’t help but sob at that, fat tears streaming down your face as he maneuvers you. You feel disconnected from your body as he forces you down to the ground, your soft belly left exposed when he pushes up your tank-top to cup one of your breasts, a whimper crawling out of your throat at the way the gravel presses into you.

You feel his breathing grow heavier as his hands move down to your shorts, shoving them off your hips and leaving them loose around your calves, completely disregarding your pitiful attempts at crawling away.

“Poor thing, been stuck in these the whole time? They fuckin’ reek, bonnie, no offense. That his piss or yours?”

You shake your head against the ground, face twisted up in acute humiliation. For some stupid reason you don’t want to even begin exploring, you find it necessary to whisper, “H-his.”

Soap hums, and you curse yourself inwardly when the humiliation is slightly alleviated.

“Get ‘em off her,” the white mask says, and you can’t help but jump at the sound of his voice. He’s sat on a large box only a few feet away, leaning back and relaxing, looking for all the world like he’s settled in for his favorite show. “Don’t want anythin’ of his touching her now.”

The sound Soap makes at that is animalistic, a snarl coming from deep in his chest that makes you flinch as he all but tears the shorts from your body. You wince at the wet splat of them landing several feet away.

You force your forehead into the gravel when your knees are forced wide, a rough hand and another pair of knees spreading you.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” you can’t help but beg, voice trembling. “Please- god, please don’t-”

“Fuck,” he moans over your shoulder. “Yeah, keep goin’, lass.”

You sob at the feeling of warm skin against your bared behind, his thick length slotting itself smoothly between the slightly spread lips of your pussy. Your eyes squeeze shut and it takes all your willpower not to keep begging.

He slides himself back and forth against you for a few long breaths, using online the slight slickness from a mixture of piss and blood to get some friction. But to your immense horror, it only takes a few moments for the sensual movement against your clit to have your body preparing itself.

The slight wetness at your hole might be a betrayal, but it’s not nearly enough to ease the way when he pushes inside of you with no warning.

You nearly scream, a high sound of pure panic and pain when it feels like you’re being split in two. Somewhere off in the distance, you hear someone laugh. Right above you, Soap groans.

He’s buried himself to the hilt inside you before the pain has had any time at all to fade, and he’s fucking into you hardly a second after that.

Every thrust forces a grunt from your throat, the entire weight of him slammed into your back each time his balls smack against your clit. Your face is twisted up in a grimace, your whole body racked with pain that your assaulter couldn’t care less about.

“Fuck, kitty. Yer squeezin’ me so good, such a good girl, shit-! Knew you’d be ti-tight as a vice, fuck, but didn’t know you’d be squeezin’ me so tight I can hardly move.”

Your whine is plaintive, his moan is filled with pleasure.

“Yer gettin’ so wet for me, bonnie. Ye like this, huh? Bet you like it just as much as I do, gettin’ thrown around and takin’ advantage of. That it, kitty? Ye like being forced?”

You sob and shake your head against the ground, crying all the more when sharp pebbles dig into your cheeks.

“Naw, I think ye do. Why else’d you be- fuck, squeezin’ me like that?” 

“Cause- because-” you try, but you can’t get the breath in to get more than a single word out.

“Huh? Cause- cause-?” Soap mocks, his voice pitching up to mimic you as he plants himself deep inside you, grinding his hips against the meat of your ass. “C’mon, kitty, tell me why. Go on.”

“Cause I want you to stop!” You cry, balled up fist slamming into the gravel. You can’t help but whine ow when the sharp rocks poke into your skin, and Soap’s laugh shakes your entire body.

“Good,” he whispers, breath hot against your ear. “Squirm all ye want, lass. I love it when you fight.”

You can do nothing but go limp beneath him as he begins fucking you again, his pace somehow faster and even more relentless. It’s a small mercy that there’s no fight left in you, that you can’t give him any more pleasure. 

It certainly doesn’t stop him, though. Despite the fact that you’re doing your best impression of a dead fish, Soap pants and moans against your shoulder like you’re the single best thing he’s ever slept with. His cock is painfully hard inside of you, and his pace never once slows.

He’s loud when he finally comes, the sound of his orgasm clear enough that you know he’s thrown his head back to the sky. You can only whimper as he rolls his hips against you, working the last spurts of cum out of his cock and into your unwilling body. 

“Fuck,” he sighs in your ear, sounding far more satisfied than he has any right to. “Good girl, kitty. You were perfect.”

You sniffle beneath him when he slowly pulls out, both of you groaning at the sensation. He gives you an almost perfunctory pat on the ass, and stands to walk away. You manage to open your eyes and focus just in time to see him slide to the ground in front of his partner, leaning against the wall.

“Yer turn,” he sighs. “Warmed her up good for you, Lt.”

Despite the hatred boiling in your gut, you can do nothing but lay limp on the ground and watch as his partner stands, cracking his neck and moving towards your prone form. 

You want to run, you want to fight, but you can only watch the executioner come closer and wait for the metaphorical axe to fall.

He crouches by your head first, grasping your chin and pulling up until your torso tries to follow to alleviate the tension. He stares deep into your eyes for a long moment, and you find that it’s impossible to even tell where his pupils are with no real lighting. You feel like you’re truly looking into the empty eye sockets of a skull, no man and no mercy to be found.

“You’ll call me Ghost when I fuck you,” he rumbles, thumb stroking over the scrapes on your cheek. He doesn’t wait for a response, simply hauls you up by the shoulder and turns you onto your back. 

He’s rough with your limbs as he shoves your legs together and up, his forearm banding across the backs of both of your knees and holding them to your chest. You whimper and wiggles as best you can, but the bruising blow against your thigh is enough to have you gasping and stilling.

“Don’t fight,” he warns, and you feel his gloved fingers running up the crack of you. “You’re hurtin’ enough as it is, and I’m not gonna help. You wanna make it worse too?”

You shake your head, unsure if he can even see you through your legs. He doesn’t respond, and hums when he swipes two fingers through the liquid gathered between your lips.

You whine when those fingers move further down, a fresh panic creeping in when he presses around your back hole.

“You should be glad Soap fucked you so good,” Ghost drawls. “He gave you all the lube you’re gonna get.”

You feel like an animal when you whine again, unsure of how to even begin trying to speak. You yelp when a thick finger slides into your hole, completely disregarding any resistance and forcing its way in until it’s buried to the knuckle. Your cries go ignored.

“Quit squirmin’,” Ghost scolds, pulling his finger out to smack your ass before shoving two back in. “You’re fine.”

You’re not, you’re terrified and hurting and upset, but none of those things matter when Ghost only coaxes more of your slick and Soap’s spend to your unused whole so there’s less resistance. 

The only blessing you have is the fact that you can’t see more than the outline of Ghost’s figure with the way he’s got you positioned. You try your best to close your eyes and float into disassociation, and while you can’t fully manage it, the fact that you can’t see his face - his mask - helps you distance yourself from what’s happening.

The moment you realize this is of course the moment it stops being true. 

He seems to decide you’re ready after scissoring three fingers inside of you, hefting himself up so that he looms more fully over you. You can only whine as you feel the movements of him unbuckling his belt, feel the weight of him slap against your slightly spread cheeks.

Fresh tears fall past your lashes as you stare up into the fathomless darkness that are Ghost’s eyes. There’s nothing there, just a cold empty skull prepared to ruin you.

You don’t even have the energy to beg.

The stretch of him inside your ass is five times worse than Soap was. There’s no natural lubrication, and nowhere near enough synthetic lube either. Your hole feels like it’s on fire, the stretch white hot as he gives you no mercy.

You’re not even fully sure what you’re babbling as he slowly sinks to the root, only aware of the pain and fear and panic sitting heavy in your heart. You fear you’ll choke on your tears, head jerking back and forth.

He sighs when he bottoms out, heavy barrel chest forcing your knees past your shoulders. Your hips strain, just another pain from the endless abuse.

“There,” he grunts, patting your thigh when you go limp from it all. “Stay nice and still now, just need a place to dump my cum.”

Upsettingly enough, that hurts. The idea that you could mean nothing to this man is somehow worse than the thought of him having some other twisted feelings for you, your hormone-addled mind deeply insulted. 

His thrusts are long and slow, each one pulling nearly completely out before slamming back in. The sound of your skin slapping together is embarrassingly sexual, and a distant part of you is aware enough to pray that no one nearby had heard your screams and cries.

Ghost is near silent as he fucks you, the opposite of Soap. You can only hear the occasional grunt when you squeeze him because he’s inches away from your face - you can even feel the occasional gusts of breath when his hips start working a little faster. 

There’s nothing you can do but lay limply beneath him and take it, just a vehicle for his pleasure. You almost manage to float away, to pretend none of this is happening or has ever happened, when his free hand moves from your thigh to the top of your cunt.

You nearly squeal when he rubs your clit, the smooth leath gliding over your slick bud. Your eyes fly wide open, back arching as much as you can with three hundred pounds of man holding you down. The loud laugh from several feet away only makes you writhe more.

“Make her squirt, Lt!” Soap shouts, his voice carefree.

“Shut it, Johnny,” Ghost grunts, voice roughened with pleasure. You don’t even have time to focus on the fact that he’s just told you Johnny’s name, far too preoccupied with the tidal wave of pleasure rushing towards you.

You have no idea why it happens. You’re never quick to come - almost every single partner of yours has complained about you taking so long to get off, it’s been an Issue in several relationships. 

So it makes absolutely no sense that after hardly a minute of rough circles against your clit, you’re clenching down on the cock in your ass and moaning loudly as your orgasm overtakes you.

The natural clench of your body only makes the pain worse, a sharp spike of it running up your cunt and making your moan shift into more pained sounds. Ghost only moans in tandem above you, his thrusts becoming slightly less even as he lets your orgasm coax out his own.

You sob when you feel his cum paint your insides.

Unlike Johnny, Ghost doesn’t pull out after he comes. He lets your legs fall limp on either side of him, just barely managing to catch them for you before you slam your ankles to the ground. He leans his torso over yours, elbows resting on either side of your shoulders while you do nothing but wait beneath him.

He’s sweat off some of the makeup. This close, you can see hints of pale skin in the sockets of the mask. There’s nothing to read in his eyes, but that flash of skin tells you he’s still a man.

You swallow, trying to work moisture back into your dry mouth, and whisper, “Will… will you let me go now?”

You know it’s more likely he’ll kill you. It’s what you can only imagine happened to all those bodies in the streets, what you know happens to tens of thousands of women every year. 

So it’s not a surprise when he doesn’t answer you verbally, instead covering your mouth with his palm and pinching your nose shut with his fingers. 

Your eyes flutter shut after a moment, lungs tightening already, and all you can hope is that suffocation is a quick death.

———————————————————————

You wake, gasping, in a dark room. 

You’re lurching forward before you’re even fully aware that you’re awake, coughing loudly and gasping when it feels like your throat is bleeding.

“Oh, poor thing,” you hear a familiar accented voice coo, and a moment later there’s a warm hand patting your back. “Yer alright, deep breaths.”

You jerk back from Soap - Johnny - as soon as your coughing is under control, scrambling back on your palms and staring at him with wide eyes. He only grins at you, looking for all the world like any other normal man in his sweater and sweatpants.

He got changed at some point - these pants are clean. He’s not wearing his mask either, and you’re struck dumb by how non threatening he manages to look.

He also changed your clothes - or Ghost did, maybe. You try to cover your chest with one hand, but there’s no hiding the fact that you’re completely naked. 

Johnny only laughs at your attempted modesty. “Been starin’ at them for hours, lass. Ye’ve got nothin’ to hide.”

That’s… horrifying, and does absolutely nothing to calm you down.

It’s then that Ghost rises from a chair, stepping forward and making you aware of his presence. “Calm down, Johnny. We don’t want her panickin’ this early.”

Soap fully pouts, tilting his head at you before glancing up at his partner. “I haven’t even done anythin’, Ghost. Was just sayin’ hi, tha’s all.”

Ghost snorts, gripping Johnny’s mohawk and tugging back until the other man sprawls back on his ass. “You know how you are, pup. Give your kitty some space.”

Johnny listens, crossing one leg beneath him and bending the other close to his chest, looking casual as can be. Meanwhile your heartbeat only gets faster, and you wince when you happen to lean too far one direction and feel a throbbing reminder of what these men did to you.

Ghost steps forward again, crouching just out of arm's reach. You realize he’s not wearing the same skull mask as before, but a balaclava with a printed skull pattern instead. His eye sockets are unpainted, and you’re shocked by how such little things make him look so much more human. 

“You can calm down. Long as you behave, nothin’ much worse’ll happen to you.”

You find yourself almost comically not-comforted by that, and can do nothing more than stare at him with wide eyes. 

“Where…” Your voice cracks, so you swallow and start again. “Where am I?”

It’s Johnny who speaks up. “Our place. We finally brought ye home with us, kitty.”

The world feels like it’s slowed around you, and your eyes drag from one kidnapper to the other. You have to swallow again to work any moisture into your bone-dry mouth.

“Is the Purge over?”

The creases at the corner of Ghost’s eyes are painfully obvious with how pale his skin is, and you shudder at the thought of him smiling.

“Been over for… what, five hours now? Somethin’ like that.”

You can’t fight the tremble in your voice now. “Then… then you have to let me go.”

Ghost’s head tilts, the creases get deeper. “Do I?”

You nod with as much conviction as you can - which is almost none. “You can’t keep me here. You’re breaking the law.”

Ghost leans closer on the balls of feet and you lean further back, your spine pressing into the wall behind you. “Are we now? And who do you think will stop us, pet?”

“The- the police. Someone will report me missing, they’ll come looking.”

“Oh? And you think they’ll come here?”

You nod as best you can, and jump when Ghost laughs. It’s low and quiet, only a few beats, but it’s like gasoline thrown on the small fire of panic in your mind.

“You have no idea where you even are, and you think they’ll find you? I hate to break it to you doll, but you’ll be lucky if they look for you for a week. You have any idea how many people go missin’ after the Purge?”

Your breath is quickening. “So that’s it? You’re just going to… going to keep me here, forever? What are you even going to do?”

His laugh is sharper, meaner this time. “We’re gonna do a whole lot more of what we did last night, pet. Keep you as a little cocksleeve, a pretty thing tucked in the basement just for our entertainment. Ain’t that right, Johnny?”

You manage to tear your eyes away to look at Soap and see that he’s nearly salivating, having inched closer and closer and shifted so he’s knelt behind Ghost. There’s a feral spark in his eyes that has every hair on your body standing straight up.

“Yeah, tha’s right. Don’t worry, lass, we’ll make sure yer never lonely. Might even stay the night with you, cuddle up in the winter. Bet ye could keep our cocks nice and toasty in the cold, huh? Gonna let us use ye as a little heater?”

“A heater, a mattress, a fleshlight… your future’s lookin’ bright, sweetheart,” Ghost drawls, mockery dripping heavily from the cruel words.

Your eyes dart back and forth between the two men and their predatory stares, your heart racing against your ribcage.

It’s not a conscious choice for you to launch yourself towards them, reaching out and clawing your sharp nails down Soap’s face with a feral scream that tears your throat to shreds. 

Even as Ghost throws you off and forces you to the ground, you vow to fight these men to the end. You’ll kill them both if you have to, leave them dead and wander however many miles it is back to your apartment.

Ghost only laughs when you shout this in his face, and you scream as you lunge forward, just managing to catch his masked chin between your teeth and bite.

With your fight instinct back in full force, you’re ready to make their lives hell.

[attic-club-sandwich]

How They are Handling your Disappearance Pt. 3

MC Returns

Ahh you guys i'm so glad you are enjoying this little series! I wasn't expecting so many of you to like it! But as requested by many, here is part 3 where MC returns to the present day timeline and reunites with the 7 brothers. This is a bit of a lengthy one because like... we are home! It's a little less angsty, a little more happy this time haha. Anyways, please enjoy! Reblogs and feedback are appreciated as usual!

Read Part 1: Brothers

Read Part 2: Side Characters

Word count: 3,057

Rating: T, slightly suggestive.

Taglist: @amberrskiies @obey-me-posts @sassykattery @delphi-dreamin @bite-sized-devil @flemmingbamse @a-hidden-gem @otomefoxystar @siofrantic @todothedodo @ihatecorns @exrellian @vernith @sus0daddy

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rose divider by @/firefly-graphics

It feels like it has been forever since the day that you went missing, but the brothers never gave up their search. How could they when you were out there somewhere, possibly alone and scared? The thought of their little human wandering around the unknown gave them the motivation they needed to keep going. But after a long day of once again searching the Devildom up and down with no results, the brothers are settling down for the evening.

Lucifer

The Avatar of Pride is in his room getting ready for bed after a long day of searching for you. 

His wings are terribly sore from flying all day, so he lays on his bed sprawled out on his stomach, allowing his feathery wings to stretch out behind him.  

He rests his head in his arms, and sighs.

Yet another day of searching, but no results. 

Suddenly, he begins to feel a familiar tingling sensation of magic in the air that brings goosebumps to his bare arms. 

Before he had time to process what was happening, a flash of light filled his room, practically blinding him. 

After a few seconds, the light dissipates and there you are, standing in its place. 

Lucifer forgets all about his aching wings, and jumps up from the bed. 

At first, he hesitates, terrified that you’ll disappear again at any moment. 

“M-MC…? Is it really you…?”

His crimson eyes are wide as he takes in your appearance. 

You appear the same, but he's confused by the horns that now rest on your head, as well as a few other demonic attributes.

Just where did you disappear to?

Your face scrunches up and your eyes fill with tears. “L-Luci… yes, it’s really me.” 

Suddenly, his arms are around you, a million questions in his throat but unable to speak.

You whimper, taking in his scent. He smells freshly showered, the smell of his soap sending a wave of comfort crashing over you. 

“Luci… I missed you so much…I’m so sorry…”

His shoulders begin to tremble and he tucks his face into the crook of your neck. 

You feel wetness on your skin as he begins to cry. 

Have you ever seen him cry before?

Just how much have they all suffered while I was gone?

Your arms wrap themselves around his neck and you squeeze your eyes shut. 

You stand there in his arms, his wings wrapping themselves around the two of you protectively. 

He will never let you go again. 

After a few moments, he pulls away, staring into your eyes.

“MC, the days I've spent searching for you were endless… but never once did I give up. I’m very glad that I didn’t. Every second was worth my time.”

Suddenly his lips are on yours and you accept his kiss greedily. 

Kissing him was the confirmation you needed that you were home. 

“MC, please forgive me. You can tell me the details later, but right now I just need you. I need to know you are here and…real.” 

He spins you around, guiding you to his bed so the back of your legs hit the edge, causing you to fall back. 

He hovers over top of you, his crimson eyes full of love, adoration, and desire. 

You giggle through your tears, placing a hand on his cheek. “I love you so much, Luci.”

He smiles, tucking a stray hair behind your ear.

“Words alone cannot express my love for you, little one.”

You give him a peck on the lips again. “We have a lot of time to make up for you know… where should we start?”

Lucifer gives you a mischievous grin. “I have just the thing in mind, darling. Something that has been long overdue.”

Mammon

Mammon returned to his bedroom shortly after arriving home. 

He had to check on his ravens who were also out searching for you while they were gone. 

His wings were sore as shit, and all he wanted to do was shower and go to bed. 

But you are more important. 

Throwing open his window, one of his ravens glides down to greet him. 

“Damn, ya didn’t find anything did ya?”

The raven hangs its head sadly, and Mammon sighs.

“Thanks anyways, I appreciate the help.”

Suddenly the raven begins to flap its wings wildly, cawing at something behind him. 

Mammon spins around, and his golden eyes widen in shock when he sees just who is appearing in the middle of his bedroom. 

It was you, clear as day. 

He’s speechless, unable to find the right words even though he’s been playing them on repeat in his head since the day you left. 

“Mammon!” you shout with tears in your eyes. You begin to run towards him, but he meets you halfway, scooping you up into his arms and spinning you around.

He sets you down again, and hugs you snugly to his chest. 

“MC…I… Shit. I-I missed ya so damn much…” he says with a shaky voice. 

You inhale his scent as he hugs you, which smells of sweat and leather. 

You’re home. He’s your Mammon. Finally…

“Mams, I’m so so sorry… I’ll explain everything I promise…”

He pulls you away from him, his golden blue gaze staring intensely at you.

“Damn right ya will! But for now…I don’t care..I just… I need ya so bad… I mean this can’t be real, right?”

You give him a small smile, taking his hand in yours. 

“I’m real, Mammon. I promise.”

His tanned skin is flushed as he pulls you with him to sit on his bed, hoisting you up onto his lap. 

He can’t hold back anymore as he plants a firm kiss to your lips. 

You accept it eagerly. 

Your tongues intertwine briefly before he pulls away, breathless. 

“I love ya MC, I’m so sorry I couldn’t do a damn thing…” 

You silence him with a kiss to the forehead. 

“It’s not your fault, Mammon. Please don’t cry…”

He notices your own lip quivering, and let’s out an amused snort through his tears.

“Don’t you go cryin’ on me either!”

His long, slender fingers run through your hair and you sigh.

His lips are on yours once more, a low growl rumbling in his chest. 

You can sense his overwhelming desire threatening to take over.

“Mammon’s got ya now, treasure. You’re safe with me. I’m never letting you go again.”

Leviathan

Throughout the search, Levi has been exploring every inch of the Devildom waters. 

From seas to lakes, he still could find no trace of you. 

Levi heads back to his room, a towel around his waist after Lucifer forced him to strip in the hallway so he didn’t track water through the house. 

Once he’s dried off and dressed again, he sinks down in his gaming chair, sighing as his aching limbs are finally able to rest. 

Tears welled up in his eyes, disappointed that he let everyone down again. 

Especially you.

I’m so useless, he thinks. 

A stray tear rolls down his cheek, and he wipes it away with his arm. 

A flash of light appears before him, and it sends a tingling sensation up his body. 

Wait a minute…that’s…!

His eyes are wide and his mouth gapes open as he looks up to see you standing there right in front of him.

“M-MC, I-Is it really y-you?!” Of course he’s a stuttering mess, but he can’t believe it.

He doesn’t know when he stood up, but suddenly you are slamming into him, wrapping your arms around his torso. 

“Yes, Levi. It’s me.” you sob, burying your face into his chest.

Your voice has him melting in your grip. 

He finally fully embraces you, burning his face into your hair. 

Your scent is slightly different,  and he can smell other demons on you. 

This sends a wave of envy over him, but he ignores it. All he cares about is that you’re home.

He, however, smells of the sea. 

“Levi, I'm so sorry… I promise I’ll explain. I just really need you right now. I’ve missed you so much…”

Leviathan only nods, his shoulders trembling from the sobs that are escaping him. 

You stay standing there wrapped in his arms, gently rubbing circles on his back. 

After some time, he calms down. 

His eyes are red and puffy and his face is swollen. Your heart aches for him. 

Suddenly, he grabs your hand, leading you over with him to his bathtub. 

You climb in together, and you sit in his lap. His tail curls around you, holding you in place. 

“M-MC…can I um, k-kiss you?” he asks, his tear stained cheeks becoming flushed. 

You nod eagerly, and he places a soft, gentle kiss to your lips. 

Your lips are the same as ever, soft and sweet. 

Levi is overwhelmed with affection for you. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” he mutters, rocking you gently in his lap. 

He peppers your face with kisses and you giggle, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

“I love you so much too, Levi. I’m so glad to be home…” 

He rests his head on your shoulder, purple strands of his hair tickling your cheek. 

“Please don’t leave me like that again, MC. I-I was so scared…”

The tremor in his voice causes fresh tears to form in the corner of your eyes. 

“Never again, I’m staying right here with you.”

Satan

Satan steps over the pile of books on his floor before flopping down onto his bed. 

His bedroom is in quite the disarray due to his last tantrum. 

He can’t help that he’s just so damn frustrated!

They’ve practically searched the Devildom inside out, and still… nothing. 

He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest as he stares out the window, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. 

He almost doesn’t notice the burst of light filling his bedroom. 

The air was practically vibrating with magic when he spun his head around to see the silhouette of a figure in the blinding light. 

He squints, trying his best to make out the form. Once the light dissipates, an unfamiliar feeling washes over him. 

Satan thought he’s finally experienced every emotion in his lifetime of being in the Devildom. 

But what he feels when he sees you standing there in his bedroom is indescribable. 

He gasps, immediately jumping up from his bed and hurrying over to you. 

Your eyes are locked on him, and he thought he noticed you flinch the moment he approached you. 

“MC… are… you okay? Where in the Devildom have you been?”

His voice is soft, but it trembles slightly.

He doesn’t expect answers right away, of course. 

Not when you are standing here in front of him for the first time in what feels like an eternity.  

You nod, trying to wipe away your tears. “Satan… It’s me. I-I’m home.”

The sound of his name leaving your lips after so long pushes him over the edge. 

He pulls you into his arms and he squeezes you tight, finally allowing his tears to fall. 

“M-MC… I'm so glad you’re home safe… I was so worried about you…”

You relax against his chest, finally processing the fact that this wasn’t the past version of himself.

After a few moments, you sniff, pulling away from him to gaze into his eyes. You notice a scar on his cheek, still healing from a recent fight he must have had. 

You gently trace your fingers over it, and he winces. 

“I’m so sorry Satan…the pain that I must have caused you all…” 

He shakes his head, glancing away. 

“I’m just so relieved you are home, MC. I don’t believe that whatever happened was your fault.” 

His fingers run through your hair and he kisses your forehead. 

“Can I…kiss you?” you ask, your cheeks flushing slightly. Normally you wouldn’t ask, but it’s been awhile. 

“Of course, kitten. But just know if you do, I may not be able to hold myself back from you much longer.”

You give him a smirk, and press your lips firmly to his. 

To finally kiss your Satan once more. 

He slips his tongue past your lips, and you groan. 

When you pull away, his emerald eyes are shining with passion. 

“Every book I read told me how to find you, but they never mentioned how to handle your return.” 

He moves you to his bed with him so you are straddling his lap.

“But I don’t believe I need any instruction as to what comes next. I love you, MC. Please allow me to express the longing I’ve felt for you all this time.”

Asmodeus

Asmo had made his way to his room for the evening with the overwhelming urge to climb into his silk bed sheets. 

But first he really wanted a bath. The thought of the warm water soothing his aching joints was very pleasant to him right now. 

He had made his way into the bathroom to start the water, the noise of the faucet drowning out the sound coming from his bedroom. 

Asmo thought he heard something, and he lifted his head to the door that connects from the bathroom to his room. 

He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. 

Was that a flash of light just now? Is it storming?

He furrowed his brow in confusion, and stepped slowly over to peek through the door. 

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. 

There you were, standing right there in his bedroom. 

Your eyes were wide and looking around, still processing where you had appeared. 

Asmo gasps, forgetting about the bath and hurries over to you. 

“M-MC?!” he shrieks, pulling you into the tightest hug he’s sure he’s ever given. 

You begin to cry, tears falling down your cheeks and onto his shoulder.

“Shhh, MC. Don’t cry now, darling…” he coos, but his own tears are escaping him. 

He holds you close as you cry together. 

“Asmodeus…is… it really you? My Asmo?” you whimper. 

He’s confused by what you mean, but he doesn’t question it for now. 

“Of course my little lamb, it’s me. You’re home now…”

You sniff, pulling away from him slightly. “I’m so sorry Asmo, I swear I didn’t mean to leave you guys like that…”

Taking your hands in his, he shakes his head. “No no, hon, don’t blame yourself for this. I know there’s a very good reason, but you can explain later to all of us, okay?” 

You nod, wiping your eyes. 

“I was just about to get a bath. Would you care to join me, MC?”

The thought of taking a bath with Asmo right now feels…unreal. 

You couldn’t believe you were finally home with him. 

Smiling, he leads you into the bathroom. 

First, he steps out of his robe, and your face flushes. 

You’ll never get over how beautiful he is. 

Then it’s your turn.

You shiver as he begins to undress you, his fingers brushing over your skin. 

He smiles softly as he notices the goosebumps that begin to form on your body. 

“I’ve missed this so much. Let me get a good look at you, darling.”

His eyes tear up again as his eyes travel over your body, still in disbelief that you were standing right there with him again after so long.

“I need all the time I can get with you right now before my brothers find out you’re home.”

He takes your hand and helps guide you into the bathtub. 

You sigh as the warm water envelops you and he places you in between his legs with your back to him. 

You feel his arms wrap themselves around you and you blush.“I’ve only been dreaming of this moment with you, MC.” Asmo murmurs, attaching his lips to your shoulder. 

You whine as he continues to kiss up your neck. 

“I love you so much, Asmo…”

He smiles into the crook of your neck as he holds you close. 

“My dear, if anything came out of your disappearance, it’s how much I realized that I love you. Please, allow me to show you…”

Beelzebub and Belphegor

The twins were always together nowadays. 

They were both getting ready for bed in their room after their long day, neither of them wanting to speak about the disappointing results of the search. 

Belphie hugged his pillow to his chest as he climbed into bed beside Beel. 

He was struggling to stay awake, but he had a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Of course, being his twin, Beel felt it too. It wasn’t hunger, or anything like that… It was…

“Belphie do you feel…”

Before he could finish, a burst of light filled the room, temporarily blinding them both.

The sensation of magic through the air sent shivers down their spines. 

Once the light dulled, they glanced up through squinted eyes to see… you. 

Wait, is that really…?

Despite the dull ache in their bodies, they both jump up.

“MC!” their violet eyes are wide as they gape at you, still trying to decide if this was real or a cruel hallucination.

But you seem just as surprised as they are. 

Suddenly, you feel yourself being pulled into a strong embrace. 

Belphie is squeezed into the hug next to you, and you both glance up to see Beel with tears streaming down his cheeks. 

“B-Beel… Belphie…I’ve missed you both so much…”

You sob, burying your face into Beel’s chest.

Belphie finally allows his tears to fall. I’m so lame, he thinks.

How dare you make him cry like this?

But he’s so happy. So relieved. 

Beel begins to move you both towards his bed, placing you right between him and his brother. 

You whimper as you feel their arms wrap around you. 

The thought of being able to do this again with them never even crossed your mind. 

You feel Beel nuzzle his face into your hair. 

You smelled…different. But there was no denying your familiar scent and it made his mouth water.

Belphie yawned, burying his face into your shoulder. 

“Beel and I had each other, but MC… you are our missing piece.”

His twin nodded, placing a soft kiss to your forehead. 

“Belphie is right. It feels right again with you here in between us.”

Your heart was so full. 

You smiled wide as you kissed both of their foreheads. 

“My boys…I love you so much.”

As you laid together, they took turns littering you with kisses and whispering sweet nothings into your ear. 

The feeling of their lips and their hands on your body has your head spinning, and you whisper their names between breathless gasps. 

After sometime, Beel turned towards you, a glint of mischief in his eyes. 

“I’m feeling a bit hungry…but for something different. How about you Belphie?”

Belphie immediately sensed where his twin was going and flashed him a smile back.

“I’m all of a sudden wide awake. What do you say you join us, MC? We want you to ourselves before we have to go back to sharing you.”

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

on the flipside what about fuckgirl reader that falls for steve? maybe billy and eddie are after her too? 🫣😳🙈

Request by anon. (I hope you like this anon, I haven't written anything like before so it's a little bit soft and sweet)

mdni.

❤️

Steve is fast asleep beside you. It's early morning and you should be tired but you've been having trouble relaxing, ever since you had that small epiphany last night.

You liked Steve. You really liked Steve. This was just meant to be incredible sex and then the two of you would move on. Maybe you'd date Billy or that cutie Eddie Munson. Your fling with Steve was meant to be no strings, just like the rest of your relationships.

There was something about Steve that made you soft and eager for more of him. You wanted to know everything there was about Steve, you wanted to wake up every morning and find him beside you and fall asleep beside him every night.

This feeling was dangerous, you had never felt it before but Steve's sweetness, his kind and loving nature had brought down all of your walls. You had fallen deeply for him.

Steve moans as he wakes up, when he catches you staring and a warm blush coats his cheeks and he pulls you close to him so you're flush against his chest. You would never get tired of this feeling.

"Hey beautiful, you aren't leaving are you? It's cold out and I'll miss my sweet girl. I'll be lonely in this bed by myself" you giggle and press a kiss to his lips.

"I have a shift soon but I don't have to leave yet" you're perfectly happy to cuddle into his chest and stay here all day if you could.

Work comes calling eventually and when you leave a sleeping Steve it's like your heart is aching at the very thought. This was ridiculous. You'd see him tonight.

But it didn't stop you missing him as soon as you left.

❤️

Billy hasn't left you alone since you started your shift at the local library, he's been bugging you for the last half hour and normally you'd flirt back with him.

But now? Now the thought of flirting with Billy turned your stomach. Steve's handsome face would flash through your mind and you ignored Billy.

All you could think about was Steve. Did he even feel the same way? This was new territory for you and it was terrifying, how could you open up about your feelings when you were scared that Steve would reject you.

"Come on babe. Let's have some fun" Billy smirks and you shake your head as you return some books to their original place.

"No, I think you should leave me alone Billy" you snap and he backs off, holding his hands up.

"What's up with you? Don't tell me you're actually faking for a pretty boy like Harrington?" He snorts and the disdain in his voice irritated you.

"So what if I am? He's amazing so you can go to hell with that stupid attitude of yours" Billy holds up his hands looking stunned.

"Whatever. I'm out of here" he storms out and your brief a sigh of relief. That relief is short lived as you realise that the feelings you have for Steve are stronger than you thought.

Maybe you really did need to tell Steve how you felt?

❤️

It's late when you head back to Steve's, you had been plucking up the courage to talk to him all day and had avoided seeing him until you knew what to say.

The perfectly planned speech you had came up with disappears as soon as you see Steve. He's poring over lessons for his kindergarten class, trying to think up fun things to do that were also educational.

He had been working as a teacher for two years now and you knew it brought him a lot of joy.

You also knew that he was serious about having a whole brood of his own and for the first time you imagine having a child of your own with Steve.

Instead of scaring you, like thoughts of the future usually did, the very idea filled you with so much longing.

Instead of your carefully thought out planning about what you're going to say to Steve, you merely take a deep breath and settle on his lap.

His arms around you felt like coming home and you knew without a doubt you wanted this for the rest of your life. "Give me two minutes babe then I'm all yours" he assured you but the next words out of your mouth had his complete attention.

"I love you Steve. It's crazy because I've never been in love until now and I understand if you don't feel the same but I just needed to say it"

The look of shock on Steve's features melts away to a blissful smile.

Steve softens. "I'm crazy about you honey, I love you too and I know this is all new for you but we'll take it slow, we're a team and we'll do things together" he strokes your cheek and the elation you feel is incredible.

Together. You liked the sound of that.

[icarusflewsworld]

Rhysand & Cassian & Azriel X OC

Hello, here is the chapter 5 of a fanfiction on the world of Acotar where our three favorite Batboys are the mates of a single woman.

I hope you like it! Please feel free to comment and telling me what you think of the story, it would make me very happy. In any case, thank you for reading ❤️❤️

! Don't forget to read the previous chapters ! : Here

Happy reading!

Chapter 5

Morning came far too slowly for the Illyrians, who had been unable to sleep at all, unable to keep their thoughts away from the pretty blonde haunting them. Was she all right? What happened to her? Why did she go out alone so late at night? Where did she go? 

They'd wandered outside for hours, examining every inch of earth, rummaging under every bush, analyzing every human mind in the city near them, but nobody saw her and they didn’t find her anywhere. She simply disappeared. They try to reassure themselves, remembering that she'd told them she was used to going out that late but they couldn't help worrying. If she was indeed their soulmate, she was the woman of their lives and they couldn't bear to lose her now. She was human, weak and fragile, and this world was full of dangers. Anything could have happened to her tonight. 

Rhysand was lying widthwise on the bed, his feet dangling over the side, his hands clasped behind his skull and his violet eyes glued on the ceiling. He didn’t move since he let himself fall there earlier when they'd finally given up on the idea of finding Luxiana. After hours in the snow, watching Cassian and Azriel lose a little more control every second, he'd decided to give up and to come back to the Archerons' house. He had to keep a cool head for his brothers, but in truth he was as panicked as they were. In truth, he'd hoped she'd be back at the Archeron mansion, but she still wasn't there. He remained motionless, but his heart pounded and his body vibrated. He wanted to be close to her, he needed to be. He'd written the letter to the queens after coming back, but had to force himself to concentrate and stop deviating his thoughts to Luxiana. He didn't know what it felt like to meet his soul mate, but all the things he was feeling right now were both terrifying and magnificent.

Cassian was pacing up and down the room. He had the impression that this was all he’d been doing since he'd met his soul mate. He didn't really know how he'd react or how he'd feel when it happened, but now that he did meet his mate.... Hell, it had only been a few hours since and he'd already gone through every possible shade of emotion. In fact, Cassian had never felt so much. He didn't really know what it was, but he could have sworn that whenever it came to his soul mate, the sky felt like it was falling on his head. He was bubbling over with worry, concern, anger, doubt, but at the same time, joy and excitement. Many conflicting feelings fought fiercely inside him and he was filled with many doubts and questions, but it didn't matter, because the only thing he wanted was to see Luxiana again. And they'd lost her. 

Azriel sat in a corner of the room, leaning against a wall, staring straight ahead into the void. His shadows rages around his figure and everywhere else, searching for her, searching for his soul mate. If she passed under the shade of a tree, if someone uttered her name in a dark corner of the city, if she whispered near a piece of gloom, if a piece of her white hair caress the darkness, if the sound of her laughter echoed not far from his shadows, he would find her. All his abilities and power were deployed, but even so, he still didn’t hear from her. Where the hell was she gone? If something happened to her while he didn’t even have a chance to get to know her, Azriel would never get over it. He had a right to happiness and he was sure she could bring it to him. She was his key, his solution. 

So when the first rays of sunlight broke through the bedroom window, Rhysand, Azriel and Cassian didn't even try to understand. She'd said she'd be back at dawn, it was dawn and she still wasn't there. It was time to start looking for her again.

“She didn't come back, did she?” Cassian asked his brother, knowing full well the answer to that question, but also knowing that if anyone had to know about things before he did, it was his brother, who had planted spying shadows all around the property.

Rhysand stood up in the positive hope of an answer, though he also already knew it was negative. 

“No,” growled Azriel, leaping to his feet.

Their chests were crushed under worry and anguish. Cassian ran his hands through his hair then, unable to resist it any longer, threw himself at the bedroom door to open it. He didn't even need to consult his brothers about what to do; they had to go in search of their soulmate to make sure she was all right, and this was obviously also very clear in the minds of Azriel and Rhysand, who followed him without question.

Their fists were clenched and every muscle contracted, giving them a robotic gait. It was utter nonsense to feel a hurricane of overwhelming emotions like this, yet if the three Illyrians didn't have to move to find her, they'd curl up in a ball somewhere and try to calm down. 

So when they left the room, almost running in the corridor, to go down the stairs, they petrified on the spot in the middle of the steps when they saw Luxiana crossing the hall alongside Feyre.

The three Illyrians widened their eyes, only to be instantly relieved by the young woman's presence. A weight that had been on their shoulders disappeared, and did so much good to them, that they were finally able to take a deep breath. That said, confusion soon set in. The three glanced at each other in surprise and accusation. Azriel's shadows had not noticed Luxiana's presence. Rhysand hadn't felt her return with his power and Cassian hadn't heard her come in. How the hell was that possible?

Their gaze returned to the woman who was probably their soulmate, and their breaths remained trapped in their throats. She was divinely beautiful. She changed into a pale yellow petticoat that matched the flowers of the same color on her corset. Her hair was gathered in a large, high, slightly undone bun, from which strands escaped to fall across her face. She was radiant, with no dark circles or traces of last night's outing. She looked so pure and innocent that the three brothers would never have dared approach her under normal circumstances, with their blood-soaked hands and the danger that constantly surrounded them. But with this woman, they had no choice. She was their soulmate. They still had to verify the information, of course, but their bodies, instincts and spirits were in no doubt about what this woman was to them.

Luxiana set her eyes on them, freezing in the middle of the hall, stopping to smile at what Feyre had just said and making her dimples disappear. The three black hair males were electrified from top to bottom, unable to breathe normally, paralyzed under the young woman's bewitching blue pupils, which were the only things they could think of now, their minds going blank. 

When the blonde noticed the three imposing Illyrians, stoically standing in the middle of the stairs, she let out a loud exclamation of joy as she made a little jump of excitement. She smiled again with all her teeth as she detailed them. They were downright sexy and she was glad to see these beautiful creatures in the mansion, it was a good difference from cold Nesta and apathetic Elain. Her gentle, friendly smile made the heads of the three Illyrians turn. 

“Hello,” said the blonde in a soft voice, coming towards them almost at a run. She bounded up the few steps to them, leaving a jaded Feyre at the bottom of the stairs. She stopped right in front of them, clasping her hands behind her back, her dimples digging her cheeks in the most adorable way possible. “Did you sleep well?” 

She was glowing. It was the only thing the brothers could think of. She was so sunny and cheerful that she seemed to glow. She looked so innocent, for God's sake none of them could make her dirty with the atrocities they had committed. 

“Not as good as if we'd spent the night with you,” replied Cassian, as he was the first to come out of his torpor. 

Luxiana's eyes widened before she realized what he just said. Her cheeks flushed and she rolled her eyes at his answer, which nevertheless pleased her. She loved having succeeded in charming the commander of the Armies of the Night Court. Her smile grew more shy. 

Luxiana's cute expression made Rhysand's chest vibrate. Cassian's heart missed a beat and a smile of pride sprang to his lips, while the sight of the blonde's expression drew an involuntary growl from Azriel, whose chest was awash with possessive feelings. 

“How was your night?” asked Rhysand, hoping to get some information about her escapade. “Was it pleasant?”

Luxiana winced, wrinkling her nose at the memories. She'd cried a lot last night. She'd had to tell her family of heart that she was leaving them to follow Feyre and protect her. Then she smiled, remembering that she'd felt someone following her last night. Three people with wings flying invisibly beside her. It was them, she had no doubt about it. She didn't know why they'd followed her, but she'd been proud to have sown these three fae warriors so easily. 

“Much less than if I'd spent it with you,” Luxiana replied, mimicking Cassian's tone and echoing his words.

The Illyrians had to summon up all their self-control not to start jumping like children at the joy they just felt at what she just said. Though, her annoying way of remaining mysterious about her occupations only made them seethe inside. 

“Be careful what you say in front of Amarantha's whore, he might turn it against you,” Tamlin spat in disgust as he and Lucien entered the hall.

Rhysand tensed with his whole body, but tried not to show that Tamlin's words were having an impact on him by smiling haughtily. He lifted his chin and puffed out his chest, giving himself a superior air. Rhysand hated that nickname and the memories that went with it. His two brothers' fists clenched until they were white, as they couldn't bear to hear their friend and lord spoken of in this way, especially not after the atrocities he had endured for fifty years under Amarantha's control. They glanced threateningly at Tamlin and were about to hurl a scathing retort, but Luxiana interrupted them. 

She glanced at him sideways, not even considering him enough to turn back to him. “Be careful where you walk, you might step in the shit that comes out of your mouth.” 

Rhysand widened his eyes, then smiled, his chest lightening. Was she defending him? 

Tamlin gritted his teeth and wanted to take a step forward, but Lucien at his side held him back by the arm. “You're defending the wrong man. You don't know what he's done, all the atrocities he's committed,” the redhead interjected with a grimace of disgust, pointing at Rhysand with his chin. “How cruel he is! How the members of his court are the most violent and detestable beings!”

The little blonde's face contorted cutely in anger. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips pursed as her fists clenched. Maybe these men were cruel, but she didn't care. It was thanks to one of them that her best friend had survived, and that was all that mattered. “I know what he had to do instead of your high lord and that's more than enough for me,” replied the pretty blonde with a fierce anger that surprised everyone. 

Feyre huffed, “He could have done it differently, been nicer.”

Luxiana gritted his teeth. She loved her best friend no matter what, but she couldn't let her believe such silly things. She turned entirely to face her best friend, crossing her arms as if she were using her body as a shield to prevent bad words from reaching Rhysand.

When Rhysand noticed it, he thought he was imagining things, but his heart began to beat wildly in his chest. Cassian's eyes sparkled, she had guts and he loved that. Azriel's jaws muscles were pounding, she was unconscious, putting herself in danger by not necessarily provoking creatures stronger than herself. 

“Oh, you think so?” Luxiana gasped. “And that without putting yourself in more danger than you already were? Or attracting even more of that madwoman's insanity to you?” 

“Rhysand chose to work with Amarantha,” Tamlin defended her. “He did horrible things for her and because he wanted to. He's responsible for…” 

“It doesn't matter,” the blonde interrupted authoritatively, slicing the air in front of her with her hand. “if Rhysand had not been there, Feyre would have died under that mountain and that woman would still be in power because you couldn't even get your brainless ass to help her, so shut up. You shouldn't even be allowed to open your mouth, you don't even deserve to be able to touch Feyre, or to love her.”

Tamlin snarled and half-transformed into a beast - blond hairs grew on his cheeks, forearms and the backs of his hands, while sharp claws took the place of his fingernails - to take several menacing steps towards Luxiana. The three Illyrians tensed, ready to intervene, but Feyre held Tamlin back by placing his hands on his torso.

“You don't know what I've been through under the mountain,” growled the blond, pointing at Luxiana and stepping around Feyre. “That man you're so keen to defend is just a traitorous little whore who betrayed his whole country.” 

Luxiana saw red. He dared to position himself as the victim in all this? A smile emerged on her face. A cold, menacing, creepy smile that paralyzed Tamlin for a second. Lucien’s face turned white, while he took a step backwards, surprised to see so much madness on the face of such a pretty, innocent young woman.

“You bastard,” she blurted out with terrifying calm and coldness. “How dare you talk about him like that?” She began to walk slowly down the steps towards Tamlin with an air of assurance, confidence, but creepiness.

Tamlin shuddered. That girl seemed completely crazy.

Luxiana was mad with rage. She hated Tamlin, she hated him, and it was beyond belief how angry she was with him. She hated Tamlin because he was just like her. He had failed to protect Feyre just as she had. The hatred she felt for Tamlin wasn't for Tamlin, it was for her. So she certainly wasn't going to let that dirty bastard denigrate Rhysand when only Rhysand had managed to help and save Feyre. He'd won Luxiana's loyalty. 

The air entering Rhysand's lungs caught in his throat. His whole body vibrated with a strange warm sensation he'd never felt before. Someone was defending him. She was defending him. It was the first time anyone had defended Rhysand. Even as a child, he'd always had to fight for respect; he'd never been defended by anyone. After all, he was the lord of the night court, he was the shield of his soldiers, the pillar of his court, the one who defended his friends, who sacrificed himself for his family, but today, she, a fragile human, stood up for him without fear. His heart missed a beat.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” screamed Tamlin as he pounced on the blonde, her face flushed with anger, trying not to look intimidated by the death glare in the Luxiana’s blue pupils.

Feyre and Lucien had no time to move when their two best friends were already facing each other. Tamlin's claws were raised, ready to bring them down on Luxiana. The three Illyrians reacted without even consulting each other. Cassian slid in behind the blonde with mad speed, wrapping his arms around her belly to pin her back to his chest and lift her up, taking a few steps backwards. Azriel's shadows rushed in waves to grab the lord of the spring court's wrist and immobilize him in mid-air, while Rhys placed himself between the young woman and Tamlin. 

“Let go of me!” spat Luxiana, mad with rage, her face now distorted with anger as she realized Cassian had caught her. She struggled, throwing her fists and feet into the void in front of her, hoping to reach Tamlin, while Cassian took yet more steps backwards, pulling her further away.

The hatred boiling in the veins of the three Illyrians was painful and explosive, but it was different for all three of them. 

Cassian was mad with rage, how could Tamlin, that dirty rat, traitor personified, have dared to speak of Rhysand in this way, but above all, how could he have dared to want to hurt this young woman? His soul mate. 

Azriel was almost out of control, but it wasn't because of Tamlin's lack of respect for Rhyand, it was because of Luxiana. Was she crazy? She was just a fragile human and had thrown herself head first at a powerful fae without a second thought. 

Rhysand tried to keep his posture straight, confident and cool, not wanting to show how much he could care about what happened to Luxiana, but damn it, if they'd reacted a second too late, she'd have been hurt and it would still have been his fault.

“Get out of here before we rip your head off,” ordered Rhys in a sharp voice.

His power buzzed in his muscles, just waiting to be unleashed on Tamlin and tear his limbs off. Ever since his betrayal that had cost the lives of his mother and sister, Rhysand had wanted to make Tamlin pay for his behavior, but the hatred he now felt towards him for just wanting to hurt his soulmate was driving him even crazier. It hurt to hold back and he didn't even know what good conscience was stopping him.

Tamlin gritted his teeth and was about to say something, but Feyre stepped between him and the murderous gaze of Rhysand, Cassian and Azriel to pull her husband back towards the exit, but he couldn't move until Azriel had finished breaking his wrist with his shadow. 

Lucien grabbed Tamlin and pushed him towards the exit, hurried out of the house.

Feyre froze in the doorway for a moment, then half-turned, pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb as she closed her eyes. Eventually, she opened them again to cast a jaded, slightly irritated glance at her best friend before also leaving the house without a word. 

Luxiana's heart ached at the sight, feeling bad for having acted impulsively again, but she felt so much anger. At herself.

Rhysand, Cassian and Azriel were able to relax when the three faes from the Spring Court disappeared from their field of vision. The violet-eyed fae and the blue-syphoned Illyrian half-turned to Luxiana, still in Cassian's arms, to give her a surprised look. 

For Rhysand, surprise was mixed with admiration, for Azriel it was mixed with anger. Cassian's grip on Luxiana's belly would loosen slightly, but the young woman still couldn't touch the ground, her legs and arms dangling in the air. Cassian just couldn't bring himself to let her go. 

She crossed her arms, squinting as she gently glared at Rhysand and Azriel facing her. “Did you see the way he talks about you? You should have let me smash his face, he deserves nothing but that.”

Rhysand raised an eyebrow, still staring at her strangely, but a smirk emerged on his lips. He turned fully towards her and took a few steps in her direction. “Are you defending my honor, Miss?” His voice was more playful, admiring and confident than he would have liked to show her, but he couldn't hide his excitement. “And for what reason? Everything they say is true, you know.”

Luxiana frowned, recoiling with her head hitting Cassian's torso. “Oh, but I couldn't care less about all the atrocities you've committed, my lord.”

The three Illyrians widened their eyes.

“I don't care if everything that's just been said about you is true, the only thing that's certain for me is that you saved Feyre’s life and from that moment on, you earned my complete loyalty. So no matter how horrible and cruel you are, no matter if you're the most evil fae in this country, I'll defend you and your honor until my body won't let me or until you do something bad to Feyre that outweighs saving her life.”

She was breathless from the stream of words that had poured from her mouth and which she hadn't been able to hold back from saying with glaring determination and sincerity. Her bun was now even more undone, the strands of her hair hanging around her face giving her a wild look, but it was the brilliant gaze, with which she pierced Rhysand, that made her the most beautiful woman in the world in his eyes. No one had ever protected Rhysand, not like this. Some people had protected him physically, but no one had protected his honor, especially not by being a fragile young human. 

Azriel burned with a mixture of anger and admiration. She was a brave little woman, daring to defend a powerful fae twice her size, but above all she was completely mad and suicidal. If they hadn't been there to protect her, she'd have been injured and might even have died. Azriel broke out in a cold sweat; his soul mate was completely unconscious and had no instinct for self-preservation. He was going to have to be very careful with her. 

Cassian tightened his grip around Luxiana's belly. His body hummed with admiration. She had so much guts. She was so brave to have thrown herself headfirst against a fae twice her size and at least thirty times more powerful. And the bright, life-filled look in Rhysand's eyes warmed her heart. She apparently had the gift of warming them from head to toe in more ways than one.