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humanpurposes · 1 year ago

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Sweet Dream

The Sandman AU

Her father means to summon and capture Death, but ends up with the wrong sibling. She becomes fascinated with their prisoner // Main Masterlist

Dream!Aemond x unnamed female character

Warnings: 18+, spells n shit, mild gore, death, lowkey Lima syndrome, smut

Words: 8000

A/n: For my fellow Morpheus and Aemond lovers. Also available to read on AO3.

Roderick Burgess had always been a terrifying man. In grief he has only become more irritable and less predictable.

The telegram came in the early days of July. She delivered the news to Roderick herself, while he was in his study. Her father did not like to be disturbed and he might have beaten her to remind her of the fact, until those fateful words slipped from her mouth. “Randall’s dead.” Shot down by a German machine gun at the Somme. In the end he had been one of thousands, his body buried in a neat line of tombstones somewhere in France, his name engraved on a plaque in the church at Wych Cross, ultimately unremarkable and indistinguishable from the other men and boys who had lost their lives.

But it was not so for Roderick. He let out a sudden groan and clutched his chest as though his pain was tangible and terrible. He shed no tears– of course he didn’t, but he gritted his teeth, crying out in fury as he dashed his hands over his desk, sending papers, books, fountain pens and empty whisky glasses tumbling to the floor.

She stood frozen, waiting for his hand to descend on her for being the one to tell him, but it didn’t.

When they held a memorial service for him, Roderick handed her a piece of paper, to read before the crowd of faces she didn’t recognise.

“Randall was our family’s happiness. He was the bravest, the wisest, and kindest older brother I could possibly dream of having.” Her hands and voice trembled as she read because she knew it was all a lie. In truth, Randall was like their father. They had the same short temper, the same stubbornness and the same cruelty.

But Randall being dead meant she could reinvent him.

Lately, she dreams of happier memories and looks back on them fondly, knowing they can never be contradicted or disproved.

While her father has dreamt of Death ever since.

It’s a brisk afternoon in October when a man in a suit, bow tie and bowler hat arrives at Fawny Rig. He clutches a leather briefcase in front of him and introduces himself as Dr John Hathaway, a curator from the Royal Museum, travelled all the way from London to this quiet corner of East Sussex. She leads him through the panelled halls of the manor, to her father’s study.

Roderick barges in behind them, in a shirt and waistcoat, already smelling faintly of whisky and waving his cane in her general direction. “Tea for our guest,” he orders.

She has the pot ready and strains the dark, reddish liquid into two delicate china cups while her father and Dr Hathaway settle on opposing leather sofas in the centre of the room.

“I take it you have reconsidered?” Roderick says.

“After our meeting at the museum… I know what I said, but–” Dr Hathaway takes an unsure breath. “I received a telegram this morning. My son, Edmund, his destroyer was sunk last week off Jutland.”

It’s a loss Roderick can share, even if he doesn’t really understand how other than a few quick words of condolence. “I lost my son, Randall last year. He was my greatest joy.”

She pauses as she reaches for the sugar bowl. She has never been under the illusion that her own existence has given her father any joy, but then what sort of person would she have to be to earn his respect? She places the sugar on a tray, along with the small jug of milk and the cups, and brings them to the small table between the sofas. The pair don’t spare her a word of thanks or even a brief glance.

Dr Hathaway’s hand lingers on the clasp of his case. “If I give you this, could you truly do it? Could you really–”

“Capture the angel of Death?” Roderick says. “I believe I could.”

She shudders unexpectedly. The old groundskeeper used to say a sudden chill meant someone was walking over your grave.

Dr Hathaway clicks open the clasp and takes out an aged, leather bound book. It has no title on the cover, just gold markings in square, geometric patterns.

“The Magdalene Grimoire,” her father mutters, his eyes wide in an ominous sort of wonder. “With the spells recorded in the book, we will see our sons returned to us.”

The next night is a full moon. She stands by the door with Sykes, welcoming men and women dressed in midnight blue robes to the manor and directing them towards the door that leads to the cellar. They’re all part of Roderick’s ‘Order of Ancient Mysteries’ which as far as she can tell is a cult of fanatics who still believe in witchcraft. They come to Fawny Rig once a month, to listen to her father read from so-called ‘spell books’ as though he is a preacher.

The fanatics pull hoods over their heads and descend the narrow stone steps into the cellar with lit candles grasped in their hands. Roderick leads the way, the book Dr Hathaway gave him tucked under his arm.

She shoots Sykes a concerned frown but he just shrugs. He’s paid to organise the household and guard Burgess’ collection of relics, not to ask questions. Questions are a dangerous game with Roderick.

She trails after them and shuts the iron lock on the door behind her.

The cellar is more like a crypt, an expansive room sprawling under the house, held up by pillars and arches. In the low candlelight she makes out a set of markings on the floor in the heart of the room and this is where the Order of Ancient Mysteries gathers.

The shapes and symbols are unfamiliar to her, painted onto the flagstones, twisting and curling over each other to form a circle. Roderick stands at the very edge of it by a brass lectern.

She watches, half hidden behind a pillar as they stand around the circle and Roderick opens the book, his desired page already marked and studied in the hours since it has been in his possession.

“Tonight,” her father says to his congregation, “we will achieve what no one before us has attempted. We will summon and imprison Death.”

His eyes meet hers through the shadowy space, heavy and sunken with age, grief and months worth of sleepless nights. They glisten slightly too.

He holds his hands out and looks down at the markings on the floor. “Here, in the darkness.”

The others echo his words, softly and melodically at first. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

And so the ritual begins.

“I give you a coin made from a stone,” Roderick says, presenting the object to the ceiling as though the eyes of God are looking down from the heavens, through the house and the earth, and drops it to the floor, inside the circle of markings.

“I give you a knife from under the hills.” He holds up a thin blade and lifts his other arm so the sleeve of his robe drops to his elbow. “I give you the blood from out of my vein.”

She winces but does not look away as he draws the knife along the skin of his forearm, until dark droplets begin to fall and stain the markings.

“I give you a song I stole from the dirt and I give you a feather,” he says, raising a white feather that almost seems to glow through the gloom, “pulled from an angel’s wing.”

And all the while the voices persist. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

He drops the feather and it drifts gently down, landing in the very heart of the circle.

The room is still and she holds her breath.

The feather starts to move. It twists in a circle and floats up, lurching and turning as though it’s being blown about by a breeze she cannot feel or hear.

The voices raise to an urgent chant. Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness.

She clenches her fingertips against the stone of the pillar. She tries to meet her father’s eye again but he is fixated on the feather flying above their heads.

He calls over the chanting, “I summon you with poison,” and the moment he does the feather flickers like the striking of a match. “I summon you with pain! I open the way! I open the gates! I summon you in the name of the old Lords, we summon you together! Come!”

A noise, like a cracking whip splits her ears. The feather bursts into white and golden flames like the flash of a camera. The heat of it rushes over her face and burns her eyes.

And from the flames a body falls to the floor.

It thuds as it hits the ground, silencing the voices save for a few gasps and murmurs. She feels the flagstones rumble under her feet, sees the edges of a black cloak spilling across the floor and a head of long silver hair trailing from its head.

This isn’t an illusion. Roderick Burgess has brought forth a tangible entity, plucked from God-knows-where, lying motionless on the floor. For a moment she wonders if he is dead, until she sees a slight movement in his chest, but even then she fears she could be imagining it.

She takes a few unsure steps to where Roderick stands and the man– he is a man as far as she can tell– is further revealed to her. She can see his face now, his pale skin, the angles of his jaw and cheeks, the curve of his lips, but beyond that she finds herself unable to look away from the jewel that sits where his left eye should be. It is a bright, deep shade of blue and dotted with silver specs, like the vast expanse of twilight when the stars are out but the sky is not quite black. The eye is framed by twisted, red flesh and a scar, slicing from his brow to his cheek. It takes her a moment to realise his other eye, closer to the ground, is closed.

The only other parts of him she can see are the tips of his fingers, clasped around a small pouch.

“Is this… Death?” she utters.

“That remains to be seen,” Roderick says. He points to the pouch. “Get that for me.”

She stares back at her father. How he can speak so flippantly when a man has been conjured, seemingly from thin air, is beyond her. But he glares back, his dark expression only more formidable with his aged frown.

So she steps forward and begins to lower herself beside the man.

“Careful, girl!” Roderick barks, “don’t break the binding circle.”

She stops and looks down, where her skirt is inches from brushing over the markings on the floor. She shuffles back and, with trembling fingers, reaches for the pouch. It’s not hard to take, the man hardly resists, twitching his fingers to keep it in his grasp. It feels wrong, stealing from someone too weak to hold onto what is his.

She looks into the jewel-like eye. Can he see through it? Perhaps it has something to do with the scar? Did he place it there himself, or was he simply made this way?

Someone snatches the pouch from her. She looks up at her father as he undoes the strings and peers inside. “Sand,” he mutters, and stows it away inside his robes.

“And the jewel,” he says to her.

She means to protest, but finds she cannot.

She avoids the markings as she leans forwards. She presses her fingertips beside the man’s eye. His skin is cold and firm.

She swallows her guilt and the nauseous feeling in her throat, nudging her fingertips into the socket. It takes her a few attempts, but she pries the jewel free, wincing when she feels it come loose. If he feels any pain he hardly shows it. His brow furrows but his other eye remains closed, and he makes no sound.

She stands and offers the jewel to her father.

Roderick holds it to the light of one of the candles, giving a curious hum before he pockets that too.

“Move,” he mutters to her, pushing her out of his way as he stands over the man. He tugs on the black cloak and it falls into fragments that fade away, like dust on a breeze. The man’s body is bare, pale skin running over details of muscle and bone. He shivers and twitches like he has a fever, but still he does not speak, or even let out a breath.

“We’ll let our guest recover,” Roderick says, “and then we shall make our demands.

They leave him there for days. He does not move, or ask for food or water.

She doesn’t dream in the nights since they captured their ‘guest’. In fact she hardly sleeps at all. Each morning she wakes, already exhausted, having felt like she’s only closed her eyes for a few brief moments.

Then come the stories in the newspapers. They call it ‘the sleeping sickness’. People all over the country, and in fact the world, have been plagued, either to not sleep at all or never wake up.

On a cold, drizzly morning, a stranger appears at the door to the manor.

She listens and watches from the top of the stairs, crouching by the bannister to stay out of sight as a man with choppy silver hair and pale skin strides into the entrance hall, with Roderick following closely behind.

“Do I know you?” her father asks, furiously.

“No.” The stranger’s voice is low and almost seductive. “But I know all about you, Roderick Burgess, and the being trapped in your basement.”

“You mean to intimidate me?”

She sees a flash of a grin and a pair of pale purple eyes through the wooden balusters.

“I am here to help you,” the stranger says. “There are benefits to keeping one of the Targaryens in your confinement.”

“Targaryens?” her father echoes.

“Did you think Death was the only one of her kind? Death has family. Destiny, Despair, Desire…”

“And who have I got?”

“Dream,” the stranger says with a smile that bares his teeth.

A shiver runs over her shoulders. She keeps her jaw tight to stop herself from reacting to it.

Roderick scoffs. “What good is a God who governs dreams?”

The stranger's voice darkens. “There was a saying in the ancient times of humanity, that said the Targaryens are closer to Gods than men. But they are not Gods. They are more than Gods. They are Endless.”

He tells Roderick of Dream’s vestments, the pouch of sand and his sapphire, both of which he says Roderick may manipulate for his own influences. He says the binding circle will not be enough to contain their prisoner, that they must construct a sphere of glass within the circle.

Most crucially of all, he says no one must be allowed to fall asleep in Dream’s presence.

“Why are you helping me?” Roderick finally asks.

The stranger runs his tongue over his teeth and smiles to himself. “Little family dispute, I shan’t bore you with the details. But for your sake, and for mine, he must not escape.”

He offers his hand to Roderick, who returns the gesture after a moment of hesitation.

Before he heads for the door, the stranger’s eyes trail up to where she hides. Her heart leaps with a sense of dread, like she’s seen something she wasn’t meant to.

She doesn’t trust him, not by the look or sound of him, but her father does. He follows the stranger’s instructions, ordering the construction of the glass sphere, to be welded around their prisoner as it is made. Finally, he arranges a rota of guards to keep watch over him, under strict orders to never fall asleep, lest their prisoner escape into their dreams.

The details of his face are etched into her memory, even after months, the angle of his jaw, the curve of his upper lip, the silver falling over his shoulders. If she could dream, she is sure she would dream of him. Instead she holds onto the flashes of images that appear before her waking eyes, the pale skin of his bare body against the floor, the stars in his sapphire eye, now kept locked away in her father’s study.

She knows Roderick has tried to bargain with him, and each time he returns from the cellar more furious than when he entered it. “He will not speak a word!” his voice bellows through the quiet halls of the manor. “He will not even look at me!”

When she dares to ask questions, Roderick glares at her and tightens the grip on his cane.

The stranger with silver hair was right about something, wealth and admiration have come to Roderick Burgess in droves since he acquired the Lord of Dreams. It’s something about the sapphire, or the sand, something she doesn’t understand, but their family comes across good fortunes, which is almost entirely spent on lavish parties to entertain Roderick’s ever expanding crowd of admirers.

She wakes with the sunrise, from a void and dreamless sleep. The manor is littered with empty bottles, full ashtrays, plates of half-eaten food, odd shoes and playing cards. Her father must still be asleep, which is odd. He is usually an early riser, even after a night of drinking.

A rumbling in her stomach has her heading through the entrance hall towards the kitchen, but she stops when she sees two men waiting by the door to the cellar– two of the guards her father has hired to watch the prisoner, dressed in smart suits with service revolvers just poking out of their jackets. They look restless, peering their heads round corners, shifting their weight on their legs, not wanting to step too far from the door.

“We can’t just leave,” one mutters to the other.

“I’m not staying down there with that… thing one second longer than I have to–”

“Good morning,” she calls.

They look at her in unison, and frown.

“Have you seen Noel and Mauirce?” one of the men asks. “They’re nearly half an hour late.”

The rotation of the guards. They take eight hour shifts in pairs.

Her eyes glance to the cellar door, opened only a fraction. “I could watch him until they get here,” she says, “if you want to leave.”

It doesn’t take them long to agree.

They leave through the front door. When she hears it shut, she finally lets herself reach for the handle to the cellar door. The handle is cold, untouched for hours at a time, and a little stiff. She pushes on it slowly, carefully, making as little noise as possible.

With the cellar door closed, she shuts out the light and warmth of the morning. A silent, icy draft drifts through the narrow stairway. She follows it down, all the way to the dull, eerie light of the main chamber.

The sight takes her breath away, the glass sphere, suspended above the ground, still within the circle of markings that keep his power contained.

He sits in the centre, still bare, his knees tucked into his chest and his hair falling around his face like a veil.

As far she knows, no food or water ever passes the threshold to the cellar, and the cage is never opened. How does he breathe? How does he eat? How does he not wither away? He just sits there, stoic, his face frozen in time like a statue, like the image of a god cut from marble, to be preserved and admired.

A man like that cannot be real, and yet there he is.

“Hello,” she says.

He does not react to her voice or the sound of her footsteps as she walks further into the chamber.

If he can even hear her. She wonders how thick the glass is, if sound can permeate it, or does he just hear the sound of his own breath echoed back to him, endlessly.

She comes to lean against one of the pillars, tracing her fingertips down the cold, rough surface of the stone.

“Are you really the Lord of dreams?” she says.

His gaze lifts and turns to her, just enough that she can see his chin, his nose, and a single violet eye. It is not like the stranger’s, it is far more vibrate, burning with with a silent fury that makes her heart flutter and her skin feel tight.

“I have not dreamt since that night.”

She knows it isn’t just her. It’s the sleeping sickness, the war, the cloud of darkness looming over the rest of the world.

“The groundskeeper has a son, he’s only ten years old. He’s been asleep for months now. He can’t even eat. If he doesn’t wake up, he’ll die.”

He does not react, but his eye follows her as she takes a single step away from the pillar, towards the sphere.

“This is my father’s– our doing, yes?”

Her eyes dip to his chest, to the movement of his lungs underneath skin and muscle, a steady rise and fall with a deep, patient breath.

“My father is a reasonable man, if you could give him something, anything, I am sure he would let you out.”

He tilts his head, until she can just see the point of his scar on his cheek and the edge of his empty eye socket.

He is simultaneously the most terrifying and most beautiful thing she has ever laid eyes upon. The low light only accentuates the harsh angles in his face, the ridges and lines in the muscles and tendons of his neck, torso, arms and legs.

She takes another step closer. “I would let you out, if I could,” she says quietly, like a secret.

He blinks softly, and when her eyes flicker to his lips she sees them curled into something almost like a smile, but not quite.

“Oh you would, would you?”

Her blood runs cold at the sound of her father’s voice. She whips her head around just in time to see Roderick marching towards her with his hand reaching out. His fist grips at her hair, and when she yelps in pain he hisses at her to be quiet. He drags her back up the steps, away from the cold cellar, to the warmth and the light, to the world without dreams.

She bathes before dinner, wincing as she runs her hands over the fresh bruises that mark her skin. Most of them are red, others are set deep and already turning a greyish purple.

Her father’s fury still rings in her ears. “Stupid girl! If he escapes he will slaughter us all!”

Leaning on her back is especially painful, it’s where her body took the brunt of his cane. She brings her knees into her chest, hunching over herself.

She hasn’t cried over her father’s cruelty in years, not since she was a small child. He’d always call her weak for it. Randall never cried when he was disciplined, because he knew, deep down, it was good for him. Perhaps she is simply not as strong as Randall was.

Her tears are hot and stinging in her eyes. She blinks and lets them fall onto her knees, to become the dew that lingers on her skin.

“Do you want to die, girl? Because it can be easily remedied!”

She doesn’t wear anything special, a white satin dress, with long, billowy sleeves, and applies some rouge to her cheeks, to make her seem more awake, more alive.

She reaches the bottom of the staircase as the clock in the entrance hall starts to chime. Five times. Marking the start of another shift rotation.

Two men appear from the hall that leads from the cellar, vaguely nodding as they pass her.

She can see into the dining room from the stairs, an enormous table set with silver cutlery and china plates, for just two of them.

The door to her father’s study is closed, obstructing the voices within. He’s arguing with someone.

Before she can stop herself, she’s walking towards the cellar. She tries the handle to find it unlocked. With one final look to the door to the study, she descends back into the darkness.

Two guards sit on wooden chairs by the entrance from the stairway, and immediately stand to attention as she walks into the chamber.

“Miss,” one of them calls, “you cannot be here.”

And she seems to have caught his attention too. He looks up from where he sits in the sphere, his forearm resting on his knee. His hair is pushed from his face, and his violet eye is wide, curious.

“This is my father’s house, I will go where I please,” she says, shakily, continuing until she comes face to face with the glass.

He stares at her, somewhat furious, but in a way she knows it is not meant for her.

The men behind her are muttering to each other, she doesn’t hear their words, but she hears their panic.

“It isn’t right for him to keep you here,” she says. “It isn’t right for him to think he can play with mortality. And I am as bad as he is for letting this happen.”

The tendons of his hand flex as he clenches his fist, his fingers restless as he stares at her, intently.

“If I let you out,” she whispers, “would you harm me?”

His face softens as his eye moves over her face.

He’s studying her, she realises. She imagines him noting the curves of her cheeks and chin, the shape of her mouth, perhaps the faint teartracks and the dark circles under her eyes.

What does he make of her, the daughter of his captor, the one who pried the sapphire from his eye? Roderick could be right, he might slaughter her the moment he is free from his cage.

“I would like to believe that you wouldn’t,” she says.

His expression gives nothing away.

Suddenly he shifts. His muscles tense as he comes to his feet and uncurls his spine to stand before her. Something about his movements are distinctly inhuman.

The guards behind her are shouting now, telling her to step away, calling for Mr Burgess. Their voices are inconsequential to her, muffled as though spoken behind a closed door. Her heart pounds in her ears. All she sees is him, the intense gaze of his eye, a wide palm reaching out and pressing against the glass.

She reaches up slowly, his eye growing wider with every inch she comes closer to touching the glass that separates them, but not quite meeting it.

His brow furrows as if to question her. Why are you hesitating? What are you afraid of?

She won’t be dragged upstairs again. She won’t be thrown to the floor with nowhere else to go. She will not suffer at the hands of Roderick Burgess any longer.

So she presses her hand to the glass.

Her skin is feverishly cold, her arms weightless. She can almost feel the shape of his palm through the glass, but not quite, like she is reaching for something she will never touch, clawing to the memory of a dream.

She can feel herself slipping into numbness, her eyes and her limbs becoming heavy. She presses her fingernails against the glass, silently pleading though she doesn’t know what for. An escape? An end? Anything.

His face is strangely gentle as he pouts his lips, hushing her, lulling her panic. She can feel her breathing and her heartbeat slowing, but it does not frighten her.

The glass shatters, her knees give way. She is awake enough to know she is falling, but too far gone to stop herself.

But she does not need to.

The world around her is silent– no, a gentle breeze drifts over her skin and whispers in her ear. Sunlight beams onto one side of her face and the other rests against bare skin. She feels a weight around her waist, something propping her body upright.

She tries to steady herself but the ground shifts beneath her. The arms around her only tighten their grip when she stumbles.

Finally she lets her eyes flutter open. They are in a desert, a vast expanse of dry sand, reaching as far as the eye can see.

Her head is moving with his breath, against his chest.

She tilts her gaze up, close enough that her lips barely brush over the base of his throat.

His eye is already fixed on her, holding her firmly in his arms, pulling her into him.

Wordlessly, he releases one arm from her waist, and reaches down, keeping his eye on her face. When he brings himself back up, she looks at his closed fist, where sand slips from between his fingers.

Her confusion must be visible on her face because he smiles softly at her, letting out a low “hmm” as he does.

She means to blink, but when she opens her eyes the world has changed again.

She lies face down against the ground of the cellar, dust and dirt pressing into her cheek, broken glass littering the floor around her.

She blinks again through the haze of sleep still clouding her vision. She makes out a figure in a long black coat with silver hair falling down his back. He stands over two bodies, lying lifeless on the ground, and stalks towards another.

Roderick is at the base of the stairs. He raises his cane and cries out as the prisoner reaches into his coat.

Her father’s voice fades into a spluttering, retching sound. Then he is silent. His body slumps to the floor with a gut-wrenching thud. When the stranger walks away, she sees her father sprawled out on the floor, blood spurting from his throat, seeping into his shirt, pooling on the floor around him.

She pushes herself up, leaning on her hands as her vision is blocked once again by a black coat. He stands over her, blood dripping from a knife he holds in his hand, his eye a brighter shade of violet than it was before.

He kneels beside her, taking her chin in his fingertips.

“Are you hurt?” he says. His voice is a hypnotic blend of soft and harsh, low and light, chilling in a way that sends a wave of warmth through her stomach.

She looks past his shoulder, where Roderick’s skin is turning from white to grey. “What did you do to my father?” she utters.

He jerks her head back to him. His expression is dark, lips upturned into a sneer.

Does he expect her to be grateful?

“My tools,” he says.

“You’re… what?”

“My tools. The sapphire and the pouch.”

The items that were stolen from him, that her father has now paid for with blood.

“Are you going to kill me too?” she says, digging her fingertips into the stone and the shards of glass beneath her.

He tilts his head and his lips twitch in a flicker of movement. His voice is barely above a whisper. “Tell me where they are. I will not harm you.”

Three men lay dead mere feet from them, and yet she finds herself wanting to trust him.

He offers her his arm as she stands, gripping at the thick, leather sleeve. Her palms are covered in small cuts from the glass, droplets of bright red blood pearling at the edges. He takes her wrists in his hands to have a look and tuts to himself.

“Quickly,” he says, moving towards the steps, leading her along with him, past the bodies of the guards, and the body of her father.

She brings him to the study, her hands shaking, bloody and outstretched before her. The door is wide open, a stack of papers thrown carelessly to the floor.

Roderick’s safe sits in a black cabinet in the corner of the room. She uses her fingertips to open it, wincing at the pieces of glass still stuck in her skin, but she swallows down the pain.

She guesses the combination on the first try. 1895– Randall’s birth year.

There, in the centre shelf, above the Grimoire, below a stack of banknotes, is the pouch of sand and the sapphire.

He reaches for the gem first. She turns away as he fixes it back into his socket, remembering the weight of it in her palm when she took it from him. She sees him reach forward again, but not for the pouch. He takes a hold of her wrists.

With no magic words or spells, he waves a hand over her palms. For a moment she sees a glow in his sapphire eye. The pain vanishes, so does the blood, the glass and the dirt.

She blinks a few effortless tears from her eyes. Tears for her father, tears of relief, she cannot place a cause.

Cold fingertips meet her skin once more, as the Lord of Dreams wipes her tears away, bringing her gaze to meet his.

He leans in closer, until his forehead meets hers. “Sleep,” he whispers.

She falls into him, to find herself wide awake, clinging onto him as she had done in the desert.

But they are somewhere else entirely. The sky above them is a pale yellow, like daybreak, painted with swirling grey clouds. The land here is… dead. Dead trees, barren mountains and hills, and in the distance, beyond a dried lake, is a castle of red brick, decrepit, falling into ruin.

“You see the damage that has been done to my realm?” he says. With her ear pressed against his chest, his voice is cavernous and she feels everything, the way his words drag through his throat. She feels his pain at being confined, the loss of his home and his creations.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“I do not forgive easily, that is why Roderick Burgess had to die. But you…” he pulls away from her so he might look at her properly, cupping the sides of her face and swiping his thumbs over her cheeks. “I do not need an apology from you. We are free of him now.”

“Is that what you think I wanted?”

He hums with tight lips. “I have seen your dreams, as I see the dreams of every mortal. I see them as clearly as you perceive the waking world. It just so happened that our dreams coincided.”

She had never dreamt of her father’s death and she had certainly never imagined that she might have played a part in it. But she cannot deny the weight now lifted from her shoulders. She will never have to earn his approval, she will never have to endure him again. She is free of him.

“Go now,” he says, “I am sure you have your own business to resolve.”

He releases his hold of her and brings his hands behind his back. As he walks towards the castle the world around her starts to fade. She can smell the musk of the manor, the lingering smoke of her father’s cigars, the distinct scent of a winter evening.

“Wait!” she calls.

The ends of his coat swish around his legs as he turns back to face her. “Yes?” he says, the corners of his mouth curling up into a small smile.

“I want to know your name.”

“I have had many names,” he says.

“And how would you have me know you?”

“Aemond,” he says.

She echoes his name, letting her mouth linger on the final syllable. “Will I see you again?”

He draws the tip of his tongue between his lips. “Perhaps,” he says.

When she wakes she is laid out on one of the leather sofas of her father’s study. She looks down at her hands, traces her fingertips down her face, now free of the dirt and dust.

She wonders if she might have dreamt all of it, the beautiful man in the sphere, the glass breaking, her father’s blood on the floor…

Her life is never the same after that. With her father dead, his estate passes to her. For the first time, her life is hers to do with as she pleases.

And yet she feels an absence, a hollow longing in her chest.

Her dreams come back to her since she set him free, and each night she dreams of him.

He only appears in brief moments, like lighting, bright and brilliant, but gone in a heartbeat, before she can truly see him. She sees the movement of a leather coat, flashes of silver, violet and sapphire blue. Sometimes she is met with darkness as a pair of lips ghosts over her neck with a contented sigh and a warm breath.

She cannot bear it.

As she lies in the empty manor house, she traces her fingers over her body, her lips, down her neck and her chest, underneath her cotton nightgown, to her navel and the pool of wanting wetness between her legs, trying to imagine they are his.

She pictures the way his hair fell around his face, the coldness of his skin, the curve of his lips. She imagines them parting in a small sigh, the sound of his breath, the way his chest hummed as she circles over her bundle of nerves. Pleasure sparks at first but it keeps slipping from her grasp.

She circles faster, harder, searching for a spot that will finally give her the release she craves.

She feels heat and a sheen of sweat settling on the surface of her skin, her breathing hitches, her hips twitch under her touches. The pleasure heightens, then fades.

With her eyes tightly shut, she spurs herself on with thoughts of him, breathlessly chanting his name into the empty space and cold air of her bedroom.

“Aemond… Aemond…”

Something changes.

The mattress shifts beneath her and a weight presses against her body, her legs, her stomach, her chest.

A hand clasps around hers, ceasing her movements, and bringing it to rest by her side.

She laments the loss of the friction against her bud, her pleasure pulled away from her, but in its place anticipation blooms within her.

When she opens her eyes he is above her, against her, hovering his face over hers so that all she sees are his eyes, one violet, one sapphire.

“You have my attention,” he says in a soft but unsettling voice.

A thrill ripples through her body.

She whispers his name on an exhale of breath, running her fingertips over his arms, tense and toned as his props himself over her.

But she is somewhat dazed, her senses numbed by fatigue and the echo of the pleasure she had been chasing.

“Is this real?” she utters.

Aemond leans further into her. She feels a weight between her hips and an unmistakable hardness prodding at her centre as he brings his lips to her neck, pressing a slow, teasing kiss against a sensitive spot of skin that has her body tensing and her fingers digging into his shoulders.

“Does if feel real?” he whispers against her skin.

How much has he truly seen of her dreams, her desires, she wonders? Perhaps she should feel some kind of shame, but she cannot, not when she is on the precipice of something bright, beautiful and damning. She can hardly stand being on the edge of it, having him so close but not close enough.

She wraps her arms around his neck as he teases her with his lips, crosses her legs around his hips, meeting his movements as he torturously grinds his hardening cock against her cunt, dripping with arousal, twitching and clenching around nothing at the anticipation.

“Needy little thing,” he mutters, dragging his nose along her neck as he comes to kiss the hollow of her throat.

His voice sends a shockwave through her body. Her hips buck against his, determined for relief as her fingers thread through the soft strands of his hair, and tug.

He lets out a quiet growl against her skin. A hand rests upon her thigh and trails up, bunching the hem of her nightgown to her waist and adjusting the other side.

He sits back, watching her with the same darkness and intensity as when he was trapped inside the cage, intrigued at the least, fascinated if she is presumptive.

The irony of being laid half bare before him and at his mercy does not escape her.

“I’ve heard you crying out for me, little mortal,” he says.

“You said you can see my dreams,” she says, “how?”

“Your dreams exist in my realm,” he says, “in The Dreaming. I see your dreams as I see the dreams of every other being. I feel them, as clearly as you perceive the waking world. But you…” he muses, settling his hands on either side of her waist. “You are incessant.”

She shivers and writhes under his touch, a pulsing heat settling within her.

She traces her hands over his, where they grip at her waist, along his smooth skin, the tendons and veins. His fingers are long and lithe. She knows they would feel so perfect, wrapped around her throat, stroking over her skin, pushing inside of her wet heat to coax her pleasure.

Aemond smiles to himself as though he can hear her thoughts.

He grips harder into her flesh and pulls his hips back, only to let his cock slide over her slick folds with teasingly gentle thrusts.

Every stroke pushes her closer and closer to the edge, but not enough to find release. She feels the frustrating want pulsing through her body, the coil getting tighter and tighter, her cunt clenching over nothing.

“Aemond…” she says with a breathless mewl, “please…”

“You really want it, don’t you?” Aemond growls, resting his forehead against hers. “Just feel how wet that empty little cunt is for me.”

Her eyes trail along the angles of his face, the line of his scar, the night sky in his eyes as he stares down at her, the gentle curve of his lips and how they settle into a soft expression.

Her gaze slips further down, over his throat, his collar, his pale, bare chest, the ridges of the muscles on his abdomen, the slight dip in his waist, the trail of silver hair to his cock, long, hard and flushed with need, transfixed by the way it moves against her.

She holds her breath each time he withdraws, stifling her whines into his mouth when he only keeps teasing her.

“I want it,” she groans, “I want you. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.”

He lets out a contented hum as he leans down to kiss her. The movements of his mouth are slow and consuming, claiming her with lips, tongue and teeth, wetness and warmth.

She holds him close by the sides of his face. In his violet eye she sees his hunger, his rage, his lust. In his sapphire, she sees oblivion.

And finally, he eases himself into her.

He fucks her delicately, dragging his cock through her gently, slowly, deeply. His lips ghost over her skin, her temple, her cheek, back to her mouth with light kisses and strained but soft breaths.

With a few deft circles over her bud she feels herself come undone around him. Her climax burns through her and she holds him closer for purchase, digging her fingertips into his skin as her resolve melts and her legs tremble around his hips.

Aemond doesn’t stop. He holds her against the mattress with a determined grip, fucking her through her peak until her pleasure settles and simmers once more.

Being kissed by him, held by him, fucked by him feels light a dream, that weightless, numb feeling of being between consciousness and sleep coursing through her limbs. It feels good, it feels deep, it feels perfect.

She cannot be sure how many climaxes he draws from her, she just feels him, his heat, his hands and his skin as he repositions her legs, guides her onto her front, brings her up to her knees, pushes her back down again, until she is a blissful, mindless mess.

He meets his own end when he has her face down on the bed, her face turned to the side against the pillow, his mouth on the underside of her jaw as he pounds into her.

“You’re doing so well,” she hears him rasp, “you’ve been so good to me… fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”

Her mind is beyond words and coherent thoughts. She utters the only thing she feels, the only thing she can think of, “Aemond… Aemond… Aemond…”

He stills his hips against her rear with a guttural moan, pressing his face against hers, squeezing her waist under his hands. He allows himself a few more shallow thrusts until he is spent. She feels his cock pulse within her, a warmth pooling, his spend dripping from her cunt once he has pulled away.

The weight dissipates from her back and for a moment she lies there, basking in the afterglow, feeling her chest rise and fall against the bed, the softness of her sheets under her fingertips.

She wakes to a gentle breeze running over her skin and slipping down her spine.

She allows her eyes to flutter open and recoils at the pale sunlight beaming through the spaces in the curtains.

She holds her breath.

She hears no sound or sign of life other than her own pulse.

She twists herself to sit up, noting that her bedsheets are neat and the hem of her nightgown is where it should be.

Is it possible that she dreamed it? She remembers it so vividly, but the mind has a way of playing tricks. Perhaps it was only a dream.

“Your dreams exist in my realm,” he had said. “I feel them, as clearly as you perceive the waking world.”

How do we determine what is real? she wonders as she pulls on a robe and goes to open the curtains. The morning floods her bedroom. It brings no warmth, but it brings light and life back into the room.

To dream is to live beyond ourselves, why should that be any less true than the world around me?

She seats herself before her vanity, reaching for the drawer for her hairbrush.

But something catches her eye, a glint of colour against mahogany wood, a small gem catching the sunlight.

She takes it between her thumb and index finger and brings it before her eyes; a sapphire, the size of a pearl, a deep and vibrant blue. Its edges are uneven and dull, uncut, as though plucked straight from the earth.

She turns it about between her fingers. It could be a trick of the light, but there is depth to it, a vastness within. The sapphire seems to capture the night sky, dotted with glimmering stars.

His was the same.

As the dazed state of sleep wears off, she feels the satisfied ache between her legs, the spots on her skin marked by him. She smiles to herself and holds the gem in her palm, this precious gift, this reminder, this promise from the Lord of Dreams.

Tags (comment to be added)

Sweet Dream taglist: @solisarium @sirenangelroyal @sabrinasstar @shygardengalaxy @aemondsfavouritebastard @wintrr13 @thedamewithabook @lexwolfhale @rainyforest777

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria

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spaceagebachelormann · 8 months ago

Text

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬

!!REQUEST REQUIREMENTS!!

-> state the character, romantic or platonic, the format of the request, and a plot

-> do you have any specifics for the reader? blonde, poc, male, neurodivergent, etc? (please keep in mind i will write poc readers but i’m white so they may be a little difficult for me)

-> requests are preferred to be sent through inbox, but i can make dms work if needed

-> PLEASE ACTUALLY SPECIFY WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR REQUEST!! ITS VERY HARD FOR ME TO WRITE “____ x reader fluff” GIVE ME A PLOT LINE

!!WHAT I WILL WRITE!!

-> platonic

-> romantic

-> familial

-> any gender x any gender

-> headcanons

-> long fics

-> multi character

-> blurbs

-> poly relationships

-> x reader

-> i will only write cheating if it’s a character comforting r after being cheated on, not a character cheating on r

!!WHAT I WONT WRITE!!

-> smut (i’m 15)

-> yandere

-> most aus, ask about the specific au before requesting an au

-> incest

-> age gaps

-> canonical gay/lesbian character x a man (if lesbian) or a woman (if gay)

-> song fics

-> things about ocs

-> ships

-> sunshine x grumpy tropes, i’m horrible at this trope

character list

keeper of the lost cities

sophie foster, dex dizznee, fitz vacker, keefe sencen, biana vacker, marella redek, maruca chebota, tam song, linh song, wylie endal, jensi babblos, stina heks, elwin hesledge

chronicles of narnia

peter pevensie, edmund pevensie, susan pevensie, lucy pevensie, caspian

riordanverse

percy jackson, annabeth chase, grover underwood, jason grace, piper mclean, leo valdez, hazel levesque, frank zhang, nico di angelo, will solace, reyna arellano, rachel dare, travis stoll, connor stoll, thalia grace, magnus chase, alex fierro, carter kane, sadie kane

harry potter

harry potter, ron weasley, hermione granger, neville longbottom, luna lovegood, ginny weasley, fred weasley, george weasley, sirius black, james potter, remus lupin, mary macdonald, marlene mckinnon, lily evans, dorcas meadows, regulus black, barty crouch jr, narcissa black, andromeda black, bellatrix lestrange

ride the cyclone

ocean o’connell rosenberg, noel gruber, mischa bachinski, ricky potts, jane doe/penny lamb, constance blackwood

shadow and bone

alina starkov, malyen oretsev, genya safin, zoya nazyalensky, david kostyk, tamaar & tolya, nikolai lantsov

six of crows

kaz brekker, inej ghafa, jesper fahey, nina zenik, wylan van eck, matthias helvar

the outsiders

ponyboy curtis, johnny cade, sodapop curtis, darry curtis, steve randall, twobit matthews, dallas winston, cherry valance

the hunger games

katniss everdeen, peeta mellark, finnick odair, johanna mason, cinna, effie trinket

it (2017)

bill denbrough, eddie kaspbrak, richie tozier, stan uris, beverly marsh, ben hanscom, mike hanlon

the school for good and evil

agatha, sophie, tedros, hort, hester, anadil, dot, nicola, rhian mistral, rafal mistral, clarissa dovey, leonora lesso

the land of stories

connor bailey, alex bailey, red riding hood, jack, goldilocks

scooby doo

shaggy rogers, fred jones, daphne blake, velma dinkley, thorn, dusk, luna

little women

jo march, amy march, beth march, meg march, laurie

dracula

dracula, lucy westenra, arthur holmwood, john seward, mina harker, abraham van helsing, renfield, quincey morris, jonathan harker, the brides

frankenstein

victor frankenstein, elizabeth lavenza, henry clerval, adam frankenstein, justine mortiz, ernest frankenstein, the bride

dr jekyll and mr hyde

henry jekyll, edward hyde, richard enfield, gabriel utterson, hastie lanyon, lucy harris

phantom of the opera

christine daaé, erik destler, raoul de chagney, meg giry, carlotta giudicelli

a good girls guide to murder

pippa fitz-amobi, ravi singh, naomi ward, cara ward, connor reynolds, jamie reynolds, nat da silva

the mighty ducks

charlie conway, adam banks, lester averman, guy germaine, connie moreau, fulton reed, dean portman, julie gaffney, ken wu, luis mendoza, dwayne robertson

monster high

frankie stein, draculaura, clawdeen wolf, cleo de nile, abbey bominable, ghoulia yelps, operetta, rochelle goyle, spectra vondergeist, elissabat, clawd wolf, deuce gorgon, heath burns, jackson jekyll, holt hyde, kieran valentine

the powerpuff girls

blossom utonium, bubbles utonium, buttercup utonium, brick jojo, boomer jojo, butch jojo

david bowie

david bowie, ziggy stardust, jareth, thomas jerome newton, celliers

sweeney todd

sweeney todd, anthony hope, mrs lovett, johanna todd

the rosewood chronicles

lottie pumpkin, ellie wolf, jamie volk, ollie moreno, raphael wilcox, anastacia alcroft leblanc, saskia san martin, lola tomkins, mickey tomkins, binah fae

hairspray

corny collins, link larkin, amber von tussle, tracey turnblad, penny pingleton, seaweed j. stubbs

attack on titan

eren yeager, mikasa ackerman, armin arlert, jean kirstein, sasha braus, connie springer, annie leonhardt, bertholdt hoover, reiner braun, hange zoe, levi ackerman, erwin smith, colt grice, niccolo, yelena, onyakopon, zeke yeager

daisy jones and the six

daisy jones, billy dunne, graham dunne, karen sirko, warren rhodes, pete loving/roundtree, eddie loving/roundtree, camila dunne, simone jackson

doctor who bbc

ninth doctor, tenth doctor, eleventh doctor, twelfth doctor, rose tyler, jack harkness, mickey smith, donna noble, martha jones, clara oswald, river song, amy pond, rory williams, simm! master, missy/gomez master

miss peregrines home for peculiar children

jacob portman, emma bloom, millard nulling, enoch o’connor, olive elephanta, alma peregrine

good omens

crowley, aziraphale, ineffable husbands (poly), beelzebub <3, gabriel, ineffable bureaucracy (poly), nina, maggie, nina and maggie (poly), anathema

miscellaneous characters

sarah williams, bernard the elf, rodrick heffley, varian, lisa frankenstein, the creature (lisa frankenstein)

UPCOMING FANDOMS : what we do in the shadows, star trek, american horror story, torchwood, x-men, yellowjackets

#marlee organization <3

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januaryembrs · 1 year ago

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LAST KNIGHT IN SOHO | Steven Grant/Marc Spector x reader [4]

description: Dove wakes up in Steven’s apartment covered in blood for the second time this week with only one thing on her mind. What the hell happened last night?

word count: 8.7k

trigger warnings: death of a baby bird (sorry little pigeon you got fridged for the plot), blood, lots of blood on her skin but it’s washed off, Marc is mean, angst ville, talks of a dead body very briefly, Marc thinks about his mother

main masterlist | series masterlist

Marc remembered being young, when he was just Marc, not Marc and Steven. Before his mother was cruel, though that part seemed tainted, as if he couldn’t quite remember a time when she wasn’t. But he remembered being a boy, before the world felt heavy, and his eyes felt tired. He remembered Randall. He missed the boy he was allowed to be when he had Randall.

The day he was no older than ten when they played in the back garden, knees muddy, trainers scuffed, sweat on their backs from the blazing July heat. School was starting soon, and he remembered him and RoRo had been trying cram in as much time together as possible before they’d go back to only seeing each other in the evening when the sun had long since set and they had homework to do.

Randall had pink on his cheeks, having quickly wiped off the sunscreen Wendy had smeared on their faces, Marc felt his own temple burning. But he didn’t care. They were on their greatest adventure yet.

Dr Grant and his faithful assistant, Rosser, were on track to discover a long since lost Aztec artefact, inscribed on it the map leading to a hoard of gold and jewels. To the everyday person the boys were jumping around their yard in search of the spool of kitchen roll Elias had drawn on that morning, and their mother’s intricate and full jewellery box they’d promised to return once they’d ‘found the treasure’.

“Look, Rosser! Another clue!” Dr Grant called out, his small arms already grabbing his brother and near dragging him to a tree hanging low enough for the two of them to climb, “We’re getting close, I can smell it!”

‘Rosser’ tended not to say much when they would play their games, but his giggle was enough to spur Marc on to continue their venture. Marc gave him a boost up for his tiny hands to grab onto the thick branch, ignoring the way the leaves brushed in his face and tickled his nose in the hopes he could spend more time with his brother. Marc followed suit, pulling himself up to stand carefully on the wooden limb, already reaching for the next one. He could still remember the way his hands scratched on the rough, dry bark; the season had been particularly hot and had taken its toll on the wildlife, stripping the wood of its moisture to the core.

“If my calculations are correct, the last clue should be at the top of this mountain!” Marc said, holding his hand out for Randall to grab onto as he pulled him up. He was sure to only go for the branches strong enough to hold the two of them, knowing his brother was afraid of heights. But Randall went along with everything he did, even scaling mountains was no chore too big for Rosser and Dr. Grant. The two of them had been about to reach for the next branch already when they both heard the tiny peeping sounds.

“Marc, what is that?” Six-year-old RoRo asked, his chest puffing in and out from exhaustion having pulled his small body now a good ten feet off the ground.

“No, Randall, it’s Dr Grant, remember?” Young Marc whined, though his ears seemed to catch onto the sound of the chirping too. The boys’ eyes widened as they got louder, Marc carefully stepping on his tip-toes to see a bundle of twigs the next branch up. Sure enough, in between a knot of sprigs and fluff lay three tiny bodies of Sparrow hatchlings.

“By jove, Rosser!” Marc’s imitation of the fake English accent was endearing, but he knew Randall loved it when he got completely into character, “The Rare Amazonian Spotted-Dove! Maybe that’s the next clue.”

It truly had been complete chance that the nest had been so close to their next escapade, but Marc was creative when it came to their games. Randall’s chubby little hands reached up to grab the nest, not completely understanding what the fuss was about, near ready to tip the delicate bundle of twigs over to see the new find.

“Let me see! We’re going to be on the news, Dr Grant!” Randall played along, his digits wrapping around the edge of the nest, causing the birds to squawk in freight.

Marc was quick to pull his brother’s hands off the roost, pulling them away from the flora, “Gentle, Rosser!” He said with a kind chide, watching his brother's excited face descend into a sad pout, “They’re still babies, RoRo. You can’t touch them,” Marc whispered, as if to hide his break in character from their invisible audience.

“Why not? I wouldn’t hurt them,” Randall asked in his sweet young voice, his eyes still pining over the nest that was too far for him to see inside even at this height.

“Because if the Mom bird sees you holding them she’ll abandon them and they’ll die,” Randall’s face was struck with fear, looking up at his brother with glassy, russet eyes, clearly not expecting that answer.

“Why?” He asked in the most horrified of tones. Marc couldn’t help the way he held onto his brother’s hand the moment he heard it, ushering him to start descaling the tree so they could finish their game and go in for dinner.

“Dad said it's their way of making sure they only look after their own babies. If you touch them, the mom and dad bird thinks you’re the new mom and they stop looking after them,” Marc explained the best he could, though even he didn’t fully understand it either, just what Elias had been able to tell him.

“But that's horrible! That’s their babies,” Randall exclaimed, his tiny legs dangling off the bottom branch until he hit the ground with an Oomph. “We’d look after them then, wouldn’t we, Marc?”

“Right you are, Rosser,” Marc perked up with his faux accent, eager to take his little brothers off the birds and the idea of anything bad happening to them, “Good voyagers always protect the vulnerable,” Marc dusted his shorts off, straightening RoRo’s backpack and picking the sprig of leaves out of his hair, “And when danger is near, Dr Grant has no fear!”

Her eyes cracked open at the sound of bread popping out of the toaster, the smell of burning meeting her nose in a tang that had her wincing.

It was then she caught onto the fact she was not in her house at all. Nor was she in a bed the same way she had been the last time she awoke with little recollection of what happened the night before. The pain in her neck was instant, a crick in her back from being sat upright, slumped over and arse numb from hardwood flooring. It was then she felt the collar around her neck, tight enough she knew she had marks where it bit into her skin.

The panic hit her like a freight train, her body jolting forward when she realised she was bound with her arms behind her back, tied to a post with a chain and cuff secured around her neck. Her breathing came out laboured, head whipping around to see who was the perpetrator that had bound her.

She was dragged back to the before. Before she’d escaped to London. Before she’d so much as turned twenty. Before. With him. The before, when she was nothing more than a girlfriend, a puppet on a string, his doll to control. The before she’d spent so long running from.

She missed who she was before. That girl was gone. Dead, like him. Maybe that's why she was so scared, how else does someone react to feeling a ghost draw near?

It wasn’t until her foot scraped loudly on the floor, an odd sort of grain crunching under her boot, that she was snapped out of her reminiscence.

Sand. There was sand on the floor. And beside her was a bed. She was secured to a wooden beam, thick and oaky, a woodsy smell ravaging the room that she would know like her own childhood home.

Steven’s apartment.

She had yet to relent squirming in her binds, her hands tugging at the thick leather, moving enough that she could tell there were another two sets of chains wrapped around her waist and legs, making them heavy to move, the clinks of the metal links meeting her ears much too loud.

The thing that made her stomach churn however, that wasn’t helped whatsoever by the smell of charred bread that overwhelmed her nose, was the smell of metal. A coppery edge that overpowered anything else the moment she took note of it.

Her clothes felt wet, clinging to her skin, the chains, the leather collar biting in her neck the more she squirmed, the whole room collapsing in on her.

She was tied up again. She was back in the house, back in the before. Her wings clipped, her strings tied. Her porcelain cracking.

Why was her top red? A dark red, a brown red, why was it wet? Why did the room smell of corpse, or was that her?

Blood. It was blood. More blood than she’d ever seen in her life. Except that night when-

“Hey! Hey!” She hadn’t realised she’d made a sound until she felt two hands grab her shoulders and she flinched, a bleat of utter terror echoing around the loft style apartment. She hadn’t realised the wood was cracking under her strength until the hands shook her slightly, their words going in one ear and out the other, “Hey, it’s okay! It’s just me-”

Her watery eyes snapped up to meet two hardened brown ones that stared at her in concern. Marc could tell the woman that looked back at him wasn’t fully there, as though she was surfacing from a dream, as if struggling to decipher a nightmare and reality.

“I know you’re confused, it’s okay-”

“Why is there blood- Marc, why is there blood- there’s so much blood, oh god,-” And he couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t wanted to change her clothes when she’d finally worn herself out, it had taken everything out of him to wrestle her to the ground after whatever that thing was inside her body last night took over. He still felt his thigh twinge at the thought of her teeth that were not at all her teeth, that had become long canines the moment she’s turned, the razor sharp kind that sunk into his flesh as Layla and Steven both gave him the signal to get her away from civilian people.

She had practically lunged at him spitting and hissing, yowling as he’d socked her in the jaw and tried knocking her out long enough to bind her. He hated himself for the way he hurt her, but one look into the abyss like eyes told him it wasn’t her. She would never want this, never want to hurt Steven.

He’d had no choice but to chain her up in Steven’s apartment until she came to her senses. He was worried she’d wreck the place, sure, but anything was better than her killing an innocent person who just so happened to cross her warpath.

“Alright, it’s alright, it’s mostly mine and yours,” He’d meant it as a piece of reassurance, but he was quick to realise it was not nearly as pleasant as he’d thought when her face dropped and her eyes widened.

“What?” She whispered, horrified, “What do you mean- what happened? Did the jackal come back? Am I dead- again?”

He watched her for any sign of realisation, that it was in fact her who had done this to them, but he only saw the fear in her wide eyes that implored him to say anything to make her feel okay again.

Marc said nothing for a moment, sighing to himself, his eyes lowering to where she gulped and pulled at the ankle collar Steven used to keep himself from sleepwalking. It had been the only thing he’d been able to use when he’d entered the apartment with her sleeping body in his arms for the second time that week, having to head to his storage locker for the rest of the chains.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll talk,”

She’d been scrubbing her hands for twenty minutes now and the damn blood refused to come from out of her nail beds. The shower had done her good, she’d used Steven’s shampoo and conditioner, and his shower gel that brought her some comfort as she felt he was with her with every breath she drew in. She smelled of him through and through. Missed him, yearned for him, wanted to hear nothing but her name from his lips, feel his arms wrap around her, hold her close.

Marc was not one for affection, she had noted. The two of them were more different than she could have imagined, the accent alone had yet to sink in, but the thing she missed most about Steven was his kind words. His gentle touches. The way he would always know how to make her feel better. Where he was soft, Marc was rough. A tough love kind of guy.

The closest they’d gotten to endearment was when he’d handed her a stack of Steven’s neatly pressed clothes for her to change into, even down to his boxers embarrassingly enough, and taken from her a sodden, blood soaked pile of her own to stick into the washer.

They both knew there was no amount of washing that would get the blood out. Marc put it in for her anyway.

It wasn’t until she was four bites into the toast he had made (burned) for her that she showed any sign of understanding as he talked her through what had happened.

Marc had purposely dodged the part where she had grabbed Steven and had been seconds from ripping his throat out, not wanting to upset her more than she already was. Things came back to her in ripples; fuzzy, distorted, vague. Like de je vu, as if she didn’t remember them until he said it, and even then it seemed almost like recalling a dream. The feeling of slashing and biting, animalistic noises coming from her throat, like she was seeing things through a stranger's eyes. That was not her.

Yet all she could think about was the fact the blood was still settled under her nail beds, no matter how hard she’d scrubbed it, no matter the fact her skin was raw around the keratin, probably bleeding again with where she had been so brutal. She struggled with picking at the site when she was nervous, her fingers were sore already from the assault.

Marc noticed how red they were, the butchered skin ugly and damaged, but said nothing. Said nothing about the blood that clung to her raw skin.

Possibly hers. But also the jackals. Marc’s- Steven’s blood from where she’d taken swipes at him.

She could tell Marc was downplaying the severity of her condition. She could tell by the way embers of guilt lingered in his eyes, concern clouding the corners of his coffee bean gaze, that he tried so desperately to hide with his natural cold stare, that it had been bad.

She could still see the way the shower water had dropped off her in waves of red, rolled over her tainted skin and had still yet to make her feel clean.

“Look, no one got hurt, we made sure of that.” Marc took another stab at reassuring her, the way her eyes glazed over as his spoke, detached from the usual spark of life they had and staring into nothing, “If anything, the way you took out those two jackals, you saved people last night,”

“That wasn’t me,” She mumbled, her gaze falling to her half eaten breakfast. She felt sick to her stomach, felt the barely chewed pieces of bread already churning and making their way back up with every breath. Every flicker of memory that came back to her, none of it making sense.

“Huh?” Marc’s voice was unnaturally soft, as he urged her to repeat herself, not quite catching her quiet words the first time.

“That thing wasn’t me- it wasn’t me that did that, it was Seth, he was in the room before- in the room where we got trapped- when Layla had left and- and Steven had been thrown through the window- and he- I don’t know what he did to me but everythings dark after he touched me- and-”

“Hey, look just breath, okay?” Marc grabbed her wrist, and she hadn’t even realised how fast she had been talking until his hand alone snapped her out of it, and she felt her eyes burning, her lungs crying out for air. She sucked in a deep breath through her nose, head snapping to look at him in the eyes for the first time all day.

Marc noted how cold her skin was. He’d noticed the way her skin looked gaunt, sunken. Sickly. As if Seth festered under her skin within the single day he’d had her.

They looked at one another for a moment, his eye brows curving upwards being the only sign that he wasn’t outright glaring at her.

“It wasn’t me,” She said again once she’d finally caught herself, voice weak and childlike, petrified.

“I know,” He says calmly, letting go of her. She looked at him again as if to check her was telling the truth, that he believed her, and seemed to comfort herself somewhat when she found he did.

As if a switch had flicked in Marc’s expression, he looked back to his own clean hands, clearing his throat and ignoring the way Steven was yelling at him from inside the body to let him talk to her. Telling him to just hug her for Gods’ sakes. Ignoring the way Steven was begging him to comfort her in any way.

“Look, I understand this thing with Seth is rough on you right now, but Harrow got the scarab while we were all trying to fix your… problem,” Marc said simply, and Dove fought the urge to not cry at the way it sounded as though he blamed her. “I’ve got an informant working on getting us a place in Cairo, chances are Layla’s already on her way over there,”

“Cairo?” Her body straightened at the idea of leaving the country unplanned.

“Yeah, Egypt,” She rolled her eyes at his dumb statement, standing to clean her still full breakfast plate.

“I know where Cairo is. I’ll have to call in sick for me and Steven for a couple days,” She said, dumping the cold toast into the bin and turning the tall brass tap on.

“Not Steven. The museum cut him off after the jackal destroyed the toilets,” Marc said, his eyes flicking to the spoon he’d used to eat his cereal, where he saw Steven frowning and pointing at him in the reflection.

“After YOU destroyed the toilets. YOU!” Steven sassed, shaking his head at the way Marc glared back.

“Shit! I can’t believe I forgot!” Suds sprayed up her arms as she spun back to look at Marc, “Steven’s fired? Is he okay? Can I talk to him?” She rushed, knowing Steven would be crushed to lose that job.

Marc sighed, running a hand through his hair tensely, “Steven’s not gonna be around for a while, alright? It’s better for everyone if I deal with Harrow, Steven’s not exactly got the hang of fighting,”

“I could do if you gave me a chance,” Steven snipped, sulking from his perspective in the metal.

“So I can’t see him? For what, a week?” She asked, a frown settling onto her features at the thought of it, “That’s not fair, I want to speak with him, ask him if he’s okay,”

“Look, princess, you’re just going to have to learn how to share, alright? Haven’t you got other friends to talk to?” Her face dropped, and he didn’t realise she’d yet to say anything until it had gone quiet in the small kitchenette.

His nut brown eyes cast up to hers, the sadness he found there slowly steeping into a bitter anger. Surely she couldn’t be so upset over not seeing Steven for a couple of days when they had much more important things to worry about.

That is until it dropped in his head what had gotten her so forlorn.

She had no one else. Just Steven. And now, just him it seemed.

A flutter of guilt washed over Marc’s chest as she put the plate on the side to drip dry and avoided his gaze. Marc couldn’t help but scoff at the fact she seemed to have only him, the same way he had no one else really, no one except Layla and even that whole mess was a dead rose that he’d been meaning to cull when he got enough courage to stop running from her.

And yet he couldn’t escape from the girl in his kitchen. Not when she made it so easy for Steven to stay, made it so easy for her to depend on him. He felt like shaking her silly and telling her to run as far away as she could, tell her he was an explosive waiting for a single wrong step to detonate and that he would take everyone out with him when he did. He wanted to tell her to stay away, leave him alone and never look back. And she knew it too. He could tell she knew he wanted her away, wanted her gone. That no matter how many brief soft glances she had caught, the slightest of kind touches, he wanted nothing more than for her to steer clear of him.

He was a rot, he was a virus and she was the forbidden fruit, young and vibrant and full of life that had already started wilting because of him. Because of his selfish mistakes, and his awful luck, and the disease that followed him long before Konshu and Harrow and any of this mess.

She was a delicate blossom, and he was nothing more than the weed that would choke her, kill her from the inside before she could realise she was in any danger. Because all of this, everything she’d been through the past two days that riddled her face with such malady was all his fault. It was all his fault, all of it.

“Look, just message me the flight details and I’ll meet you there,” She said with a huff, collecting her now red-brown stained clothes from the dryer and fighting the urge to cringe at the sight of the colour. Marc said nothing, what was there to say? He didn’t do comfort, and affection, getting her to take a deep breath was the extent of it. Wendy had taken everything soft out of him before it could bloom into knowing how to love, how to show someone you care.

So he didn’t. He let her leave in silence, staring at her with his cold gaze as she left. With not a single protest falling from his grimacing lips.

He waited until the door was shut before the plate went hurtling towards the wall, the delicate ceramic exploding on impact.

She had gotten all but ten minutes down the street before his (Steven’s) phone buzzed with an incoming call, a picture of the two of them in the museum stockroom lighting up the screen.

Marc huffed with effort, his fingers scratched from where he’d been cleaning up the porcelain chips with his bare hands, but he couldn’t deny the way his heart leapt when he saw her face, worry overcoming him. She was mad. She was angry at him, upset with how he’d spoken to her. And could he blame her? And yet she still called. That meant it was serious.

“Hello?” He accepted the call with an irate tone, just to make her sure how much of a bother to him the action was.

“Marc-c,” She hiccuped, and he could tell she was crying. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel his pulse spike from fear. “Marc, I’ve killed it, it’s dead- oh my god, its neck-”

Fuck.

“What? Where are you?” He asked, already on his feet and heading for his jacket.

“Marc, it’s little neck- fuck what have I done?” Fuck, what had she done? He knew he shouldn't have let her out of his sight, he was supposed to protect civilians not set off a hellhound into the wild with no leash on her bloodthirst.

“Send me your location- it’s gonna be alright-”

“I’m outside,” She sobbed, cutting him off with a low mewl of sadness, “Can you buzz me in?”

Great. Steven’s apartment, which was already a hotbed for Harrow’s followers, was now about to become a crime scene. What the fuck was he about to let through those doors?

This was all on his hands. He had given her over, let a monster take over her soul and use her as he pleased. Killing and maiming included.

Yet he did as she asked, because who else would she go to? The phone cut off as soon as he did, telling him she was likely in the elevator. Sure enough, two minutes later and he heard a forlorn knock at his door.

Taking a deep breath in and preparing himself for whatever it was he was about to see. Gods above what if she’d killed a kid? The thought of it made his stomach churn.

He opened the door with a stoney expression, his eyes immediately finding two bloodshot eyes looking back at him sorrowfully, a small sniff coming from her wet nose before she gave a short mewl.

“Marc, I’m a fucking monster,”

Fuck. Fuck she’d killed someone, gone feral like she’d done last night and he hadn’t been there to stop her because of his stupid pride. This was all his faul-

It was then he realised she was clutching something in her hands. Her hand cupped in front of her, as if keeping a bug from escaping, latched together tightly with something inside.

He looked from her delicate hands to her face, still sniffing and whimpering, eyes huge with fat tears.

She opened her hands, seeing his confused eyes, to show him the damage, awaiting her trial from the man she’d been so angry at she hadn’t been watching where she was walking.

There, in her hands, a frail, near skeletal frame of a pigeon hatchling. It was barely a few days old, its beak too big for its face, its skin dark and ugly, fluff where feathers eventually would be covering its leathery undercoat in patches.

Its wings, if he could even call them that, were bent at awkward angles, its tiny neck snapped in two as if it had been mauled.

“Why are you showing me a dead bird?” Marc said with a cold stare, his voice just as biting. The word ‘dead’ had sent her into another sob by the time he dragged her back into the apartment.

“I was so mad at your stupid arse that I-” She seemed to choke herself with the thought, “I wasn’t watching where I was going- and I” She hiccupped again, “Heard a crunch and-”

She presented him with the tiny victim again, watery eyes never leaving the chick that was quite clearly since passed. Marc huffed, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion. He couldn’t catch a break from this girl and her tears. He wished Steven hadn’t gotten so attached to her, that he would be able to just up and leave her in the dust, wished she hadn’t been such a good friend to his alter that she had never gotten so wrapped up in all of this and he could simply tell her to grow up and that shit happens, birds die all the time, that if it was on the sidewalk it was probably already abandoned and she put it out of its misery quickly. He wished he didn’t find it so difficult to be cold to her, that a cloud of guilt didn’t hang over him for the whole thing.

Perhaps that's why he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, or perhaps it was the way Steven was glaring at him from the kitchen sink, waiting for him to tend to the girl as he would if he would just let him have the body. And seeing as that wasn’t going to happen, it was down to Marc to do so.

He felt her semi freeze at the contact, unable to miss the way her skin was cold to touch as it had been all day. “Do you want me to have it?” Marc held out the other of his olive hand’s, his bruised knuckles seemingly fitting as she carefully dropped the bird in his palm. She sniffled under his muscled arm, her hands out infront of her as if to not know what to do now he had the creature.

“Be gentle with it,” She murmured.

Its dead you fucking idiot. I don’t need to be gentle; is what Marc would have snapped, had she been anyone else. Yet the emergence of the words in his sour brain only revolted him. She knew it was dead. She knew it. He didn’t need to tell her, to see her cry harder.

She looked up at him expectantly, and he gave her a barely there nod. ‘I will’ He seemed to say without words.

Letting go of her he went to find an empty shoe box to put the corpse in, knowing he would likely flush the thing as soon as she left.

He heard her run the sink to wash her hands, scrubbing at her already raw nail beds the same way she was when she’d seen the blood. He’d already noticed the way she’d pick at herself, pulling off flesh as if the pain of it was nothing compared to what it was she was feeling inside. He didn’t have the heart to comment on that either, he knew what it was like to have the demon come from within.

“You’ll give it a grave?” She asked, wiping her wet eyes with sore fingers, one of which bleeding once more from her washing. Her eyes looked at him guiltily, imploring him to fix it, fix it Marc. Depollute this awful body of mine that seems to ravage everything it touches, even innocent baby birds, no matter how ugly they were.

He nodded wordlessly again, and she seemed to quieten down for a moment, though she fidgeted in her place as if to not know where to put herself. Marc wasn’t dumb, he knew she was probably waiting for a hug, the fawning and pining that Steven would shower her in by now. He writhed internally, knowing what she expected of him, watching her pitiful frame cowering in on itself, waiting for him to give her something.

“You should probably get going, I’ll bury it later,” He said huskily, his eyes avoiding how she bit her lip to stop herself from crying again. Get out, he was saying nicely, go bother some other depressed man with enough on his plate already. She nodded quietly, turning on her heel to head back towards the door for a second time that day. She felt stupid for coming here, she felt instantly as if he was annoyed at her for bursting back into his apartment in floods of tears, but as he’d already established - she had no one else. No one except a man who hated the sight of her and shared a body with her only friend. She felt even more stupid for expecting anything else from him. Even more angry at herself for taking up so much of his space.

Slouching in his, Steven’s, clothes, she shuffled towards the door, face burning at the way she felt his cold eyes on her back, no doubt ready to lock the door the moment she left to ensure she stopped bothering him.

Maybe it was the way she looked so broken-hearted as she left, or the way she was still sniffling, or the way Steven had gone back to glaring at him through the surface of the bathroom mirror, shaking his head in utter fury that he’d let her go alone when she was so clearly distraught.

Marc sighed, a grunt of annoyance building in his throat as he reached over the back of the sofa for the soft blanket Steven kept for their movie nights. He said her name, her real name not Steven’s sweet nickname for her, and it had her whirling on the spot at the rough edge to his tone. Moving to her with an almost frustrated scowl, he threw the blanket to her stunned figure, heading towards the kitchen cabinet.

“What are you-” She uttered, catching the blanket fluidly and stammering, frozen in her place. Quickly wrapping the blanket around herself, of course she’d noticed how cold she felt, how her body had seemed to die and wither since Seth had taken her. She wouldn’t be surprised if her skin began to rot and discolour any minute now.

“I’m only doing this to get Steven to stop heckling me, understand?” He snipped, pulling out a medical box and producing a box of blue plasters. “You have no idea how infuriating it is to have someone telling you what to do inside your head all day,”

They both froze at his poor choice of words. Of course she knew. She’d spent all morning in a state of shock that Seth had so easily taken over her every movement, puppeteered her as if she was nothing more than a Barbie, and here Marc was complaining as if her being manipulated by the God wasn’t his idea in the first place.

His jaw went slack, the look on his face the guiltiest she’d seen yet. He seemed so caught off guard by his own mouth, bobbing open and closed as if looking for the words to say sorry, a concept clearly unnatural to him.

Maybe it was the way that for the first time he didn’t seem cold and distant, he seemed human in his expression, he seemed so shocked and unlike the stoic face he usually held. It was perhaps the slip of character, and she was sure she’d never see such a face again, but the sight of it made her burst out laughing through watery eyes.

She was sleep deprived, still moneyless from when her date had stolen her purse, likely to be kicked out of her apartment any day now seeing as her rent money was gone, had nothing to eat for the foreseeable future, had an ancient Egyptian God playing house in her body and going on killing sprees, had an entire cult of child murderers looking for the two of them, and yet this was what had made her crack.

“I’m-” Marc started, only to realise she was laughing, genuinely laughing though he pinned some of it was probably just sheer mania from the stress. “Stop laughing at me,” He growled, throwing the plasters into her free hands that peaked out from under the blanket.

“Sorry-I’m sorry-” She cackled again as he huffed and turned around, busying himself inside the fridge, looking for something for her to eat, “I’m sorry- just your face-”

“Shut up or I’m going to Cairo alone,” Marc snapped, though he tried to fight the slight smile that teased at his lips hearing her biting her tongue to hide the giggles, making herself at home on the sofa.

“Steven would never let you,” She muttered, knowing full well he could hear her. His eyes flicked over to her as she started peeling back the paper and applying the plasters to her raw digits, her face concentrated and much less miserable than she had been.

She was right. Steven would never let him. Nor did he think he could leave her with Seth alone if it came to it. She’d burrowed under his skin like a stray dog that had followed him home, wanting nothing more than a companion, someone to bathe in the horridness of reality with.

Marc only hoped she didn’t get too attached when he inevitably drove her away, made her feel as disgusted with him and he was. They were on borrowed time before she was all Steven’s again. And he hated the idea that she was never his, never his friend. That she’d never lust over him. That the only time she’d ever looked at him with such affection in her eyes was when she’d thought he was Steven.

She was not his to enjoy. Which only made him feel all the more selfish for feeling so grateful she’d stayed this time.

English people were simply not made for heat. No matter the amount of sun cream, cool packs or ice lollies they consumed, they were simply not adapted to hot weather.

Egypt was mind-blowingly gorgeous, she would give it that. Marc had let her have the window seat, pretending to not know why she’d made such a fuss about where they sat, but he couldn’t deny seeing her practically vibrating in her seat, nose pressed to the glass to get a better look of the country upon crossing the border, hot air puffing up the tiny glass with her close breath.

“Look, Marc, look!” She said, not drawing her face away, simply reaching out behind her to grab his arm, “The sea, it's so blue,” And it was. The royalest shades of cobalt lapped at the beachy shore surrounded by archaic buildings that seemed revamped for modern life. The entire city was a buzz of activity, only made more enticing to watch by the vibrant colours that ran through it as well. A pier plunged out from the beachfront, its canopy providing chunks of new hues among the lapis blue water; cloth of cardinal red, canary yellow, aubergine purple covering citizens from the harsh weather. The lush greenery that covered the earth where roads and buildings had yet to trample over it was a sight to behold in itself, the grass only getting darker and thicker the closer to Cairo they got.

“That’s Alexandria,” Marc said, as she drew back from the window to look at him with wide, excited eyes, “Named-”

“Named after Alexander the Great in 331BC after he liberated them from the Persians,” She cut him off, eyes guilty when she realised through her history fogged brain that he had been about to speak. She would have apologised had he not given her a small nod, and had she not seen the tiniest of amusement in his eyes, “Sorry. You don’t work at a museum and study Ancient Languages and not get excited by this stuff,”

“Ancient Languages?” Marc asked, for once not a tone of annoyance or disgruntled coldness. Since the incident with the bird (which Marc did in fact bury, only it was in the park near his house since he didn’t have the heart to remind her he didn’t have a garden) he seemed more patient with her. Less outright mean every time they spoke or so much as looked at one another. She pinned it down to being pitiful for her big, naive heart and tendency to get upset by the smallest things like dead birds. She pinned it down to sorrow, real women didn’t cry like a child over something like that. Birds fall out of their nests all the time, she was the only one immature enough to blubber over it. “I see why he likes you so much,”

Her ears perked at that. “Steven?” She asked, in a practised innocent voice as if she wasn’t desperate for more information immediately.

Marc laughed, somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle, “Yes, Steven. Who else?”

“He likes me?” She asked, secretly hoping the optimism wasn’t shining in her eyes like the sun reflecting off the waves below them. It was.

Marc caught the girlish, excitable glee in her face at the sound of his alter’s name. It was obvious how smitten she was with Steven. He had seen it even before he knew her, before he had messed up his alter’s life. Messed up hers. The two of them were skipping around the feelings they so undeniably had for one another. Even Layla had seen it the second she met her, the puppy dog look she got in her eyes when she saw Steven so happy to see her, the gentle touch his rough hands held her with, the way the two seemed to gravitate around one another as if moved by an orbit of their own, joined by atoms no one else seemed to have.

But Marc knew it wasn’t his place to interfere, knew Steven would be so angry beyond belief if he was the one to tell her how he felt. And besides, he was sure they would have time to figure it all out without him in the way when he handed the body over to Steven for good, when he could watch them be bumbling idiots once more from inside the body.

“You’re his best friend. Of course he likes you,” Marc recovered his slip up smoothly, only feeling half guilty when her face visibly dropped and her chest deflated.

“Oh, right.” She said, straightening herself back into her chair, the elation dissipating from her face. How could she have been so dumb to think otherwise?

Marc knew he should say something, knew he should try and comfort her in some way but he didn’t know how. Which was how he felt about her most of the time anyway, unable to escape even now the thought that she’d much prefer it if he were just Steven. Not Steven and Marc. Steven would have known what to say.

“You alri-”

“Where’s this friend of yours meeting us?” She cut him off for a second time, her attention back on the window, her eyes scanning over the Mediterranean sea as it blended into the land, Alexandria slowly becoming Cairo.

Marc could have laughed and yelled at the same time. The only time he’d bucked up the courage to extend a hand of friendship to her she cut him off unknowingly.

“He’s not, he’s booked us a car to use and a hotel room to share,”

Share would be an understatement. It had been two days since they had checked in, only to discover Marc’s friend had wildly gotten the wrong end of the stick when Marc had asked for a room for two. One queen sized bed, a fancy ensuite and a tiny balcony later, Marc had been pacing the room, pissed, as he hung up the phone with the hotel lobby.

“They said the double rooms are fully booked, and unless you got enough cash for two singles, we're sharing.” He huffed, throwing his phone onto the bed where she sat, eyes wide and looking up at him with an innocence that had his heart jump into his throat.

She had got to stop looking like that if he had any chance of leaving her for Steven to have entirely to himself.

She shrugged, looking behind her at the huge, luxurious bed, much bigger than the double she had at home and made with the softest Egyptian cotton sheets she’d ever felt. “I don’t mind sharing. I’ve slept at Steven’s before,”

“He took the sofa, remember? Sharing a bed is a whole other thing,” Marc dismissed, moving to grab one of the pillows and move it to the red loveseat in the corner of the room.

“You were there?” She asked, her face pulling into a shy smile as he tossed her a look over his shoulder.

“Huh?” The agitated frown was back, one that had been missing the entirety of the way there.

“You could see me, see what we were doing?” She asked again with a bashful pull at her lips. She found it odd the idea of an outsider watching in on the time she spent with Steven, as though she were entirely herself with Steven in a way she wasn’t with Marc. Yet from that spiralled another thought, she was herself with Marc in a way she wouldn’t allow in front of Steven; vulnerable, emotional, scared. She would never let Steven know any of those things, knowing how much he worried over her. She hadn’t even told him about getting robbed by her date yet, conscious of how much he would fret.

Yet she had let Marc tend to her that first time they met in the museum, when she was bleeding out onto the beautifully polished marble. She had begged him to not leave her the day she’d woken up to find herself rather dead. She had let him console her when she’d arisen tied up in his apartment. Let him wash her clothes, make her breakfast. He’d been the first person she’d called when she’d found the bird.

She felt safe with both of them in entirely different ways. Safe knowing Steven was always there to cheer her up, to dote on her over every tiny thing she did. He was always bringing her little keepsakes that had made him think of her, bringing her the cinnamon rolls she liked from the bakery on his street on the days he knew she was running late and would have gone without food. Always walking her to her train stop even though it was entirely out of his way. Making sure she was having enough breaks at work, eating her full lunch. He remembered everything she ever told him, even the time she’d mentioned the anniversary date of her dog’s passing, he'd remembered it to the very day and given her a sympathy card and a bunch of flowers. Her favourites of course, that too had only been brought up once.

She felt loved by Steven, felt safe and cared for in a way she knew was beyond friendship. Yet she could only hope and imagine what anything more than being loved like this felt like. What kissing him, touching him in a way that went beyond what they had would feel like.

And to have such a raw feeling for someone spectated on turned her stomach oddly. She thought she’d feel more intruded on than anything, but she simply felt indifferent. It was only Marc afterall.

“It’s like I’m watching a movie, kind of. It’s more like I’m watching over his shoulder but I can’t do anything to stop him unless I really try to take the body,” He explained, though the way his shoulders tensed up had her guessing he didn’t like to talk too much about it. Marc seemed the anal type to want control over his life, and to have someone take the reins in front of him sounded torturous.

“Is he here now?” She asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of seeing him again, “Can he hear me?”

Marc fought the urge to grunt in annoyance (that was entirely annoyance, and not at all jealousy) at her eagerness to see Steven. “Not right now,” She slumped for the second time that day, “From what I understand, we can either be co-conscious which is when he can hear and talk to me or he can just go away if he wants to. Go quiet, make it so I can’t feel if he’s watching me,”

“Huh,” She said with an intrigued look, “Well, it must be nice to never be lonely, I guess,”

Marc was ready to snark something back about how Steven was possibly the biggest pain in the ass when he was spouting off nonsense inside the headspace, how he had still yet to stop fawning over the way she looked, filling Marc’s head with a mix of his own thoughts as well as Steven’s running commentary about how her every movement made her “something out of the films, you know, like one of those actresses on the big screens, like MariIyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor, but entirely in her own way better, you know what I mean, Marc?”

It drove him insane, and he was glad Steven had taken a stand of silence for whatever reason, and left him to at least have a few days to himself.

Of course that hadn’t stopped Marc from noticing just how softly beautiful she was, but he was glad of the silence nonetheless.

And happy to have her to himself, but that was by the by.

He stopped himself from snapping at her that the reality of having someone in your head 24/7 talking to you and nagging your every move was a thousand percent more frustrating than being lonely, but then he guessed he’d felt lonely his whole life; grown used to feeling alone. Trying to protect Steven from the awful reality of what happened to him as a child, keep him from knowing what a failure he actually was, what a curse this body was, to know someone and never being seen in return. He realised it was lonely, and lonely was draining.

And he watched her eyes soften, a sadness shining through them, not intentionally but a glimpse of her soul Marc had never seen from her, as if she truly envied having someone there for him at all times. And Marc realised maybe having Steven wasn’t the worst thing to have. He could be entirely alone with his own mind, his own thoughts. He could have been entirely alone throughout his childhood, entirely alone with Wendy and her cruel hands.

Steven was annoying most days, but Steven was needed.

“I guess,” He muttered, turning back to setting up his bed on the plush sofa that he already knew would murder his back. Sighing, and fighting back his usual moody tone, he chanced a look at her, only to find she was already staring at him. It made his stomach turn to know she watched him when he didn’t know, “You know, you’re not alone, right?”

Her face hardened, eyes flicking away from his in a way that screamed she felt caught in an inner turmoil, surprised that Marc had seemed to almost read her mind, “I never said I was alone,”

Marc rolled his eyes at her pushback, wishing she wouldn’t make it so difficult for him to be kind for once, “I know that but,” He chewed over his words, “You’re not alone, you got that?” He sounded annoyed despite the fact he’d tried to rein in his demeanour, “You have Steven, and me,” Her expression faltered at that, and he was sure to turn back to rearranging the sofa cushions before she could give him anything more to admire about her. “And, you’know, Layla’s got your back through all this too, so you know. You’re all set really,” He cleared his throat, a few beats of silence. He thought that would be the end of it, that she would simply move onto something else.

He heard her stand off the bed, not thinking much of the movement other than the soft sound of her sock-feet crossing the hotel room. He froze when he felt two arms wrap around his middle from behind him, her face burying into his spine.

“What are you-”

“Don’t ruin it,” She said, her voice muffled by his body, her hands tightening around his toned waist as if worried he would pull away, “Just let me-” She nuzzled closer into his beefy back, taking a deep breath of his scent, “Thankyou,” The woman mumbled, but he still heard it.

Two large hands came to rest over her forearms that squoze his midriff, letting the girl soak into him, lean on him, take all of him in entirely in a way he’d craved from someone for so long.

Not hugging Steven. Hugging him. His friend. His Dove, too.

Marc said nothing, a small smile pulled at his lips that felt almost foreign on his permanently bitter face.

His Dove, too.

Tag lists:

LAST KNIGHT IN SOHO TAGLIST

@shirukitsune @s-u-t @ahookedheroespureheart @willowseason @imonmykneessir @acceptedbyace @broadwaytraaaaash @mythicalmo @stevenknightmarc @avery88 @fandombrackets s @thelostlovedone @raythecomputerart @nyctophile-moon-child @unknownduck0 @emily-roberts

PERMANENT TAG LIST:

@greeneyedblondie44 @liadamerondjarin @pedrosgirlx @andy-rocks @musicartmayheminmyheart @howlerwolfmax @ciarra–mae @lou-la-lou

MCU:

@blackcat420

#marc spector x reader #steven grant x reader #marc spector fanfiction #marc spector imagine #moon knight x reader #moonknight imagine #moonknight x reader #steven grant fanfiction #steven grant imagine #jake lockely fanfiction #khonshu #oscar isaac imagine #oscar isaac x reader

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riggerbison · 1 year ago

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*skips in like I've kept up with this like I said I would*

Okay, so I have actually been feeling like my dash is a bit dead especially during the week...which could also just be that I'm a bit busy lately and haven't been able to check it as much but even checking my fellow close mutuals blogs and show tags (a shock that I'm doing that I assure you) there hasn't been too much I have found to keep my queue full. So, I figured why not go back through some of my favs that I didn't give the extra love to over the last few months by doing this. Also, I've gotten a few new followers (hi, hello, welcome to the chaos) and figured why not possibly put some amazing things in front of y'all that you might have missed or not seen because you've come to us at this hellsite only recently.

So without further ado, here are the lovely creations that crossed my dash in April through July that I just couldn’t stop staring at. Will be setting up my queue to give all these sets some more love that they deserve. Thank you for continuing to share your gifts with the fandom!

Asian drama’s

The Known Artifacts of Zone 16 - Moths of Memory by @oswlld

Fuji x Phleng + Fire & Water by @hup123hup123slapslap

Akk's journey, BL SIde Dish Menu, & Akk x Ayan Kisses by @chinzhilla

Pansexual Coded - Thai Characters by @sparklyeyedhimbo

Theerapanyakul Main Sons + Mama , Vegas + Name Meaning, Kim Barbie, & KP Scenes + Video by @spicyvampire

Our Skyy 2 + quotes by @taeminie

Puen x Talay + This Love & Pat x Pran + Won't Say I'm in Love by @morkofday

The Villian that is Vegas & Vegas Barbie by @thoresque

Porsche x Pete + Besties & Tankhun the Icon by @kinnporsche

Kinn Pantone & Porsche Pantone by @moerusai

First x Khao + Your World, My World by @dropthedemiurge

Kinn x Porsche + sun, moon, stars by @kinnsporsche

Gun Guntaphon + purple by @sollucets

Ink x Pa + Pink by @akingyouniverse

Akk x Ayan + Rainbow by @pranink

Misc

Endure & Survive & Henry x Sam Burnell - If my brother is dead... by @taiturner

The 99 + discord profiles by @jakeyp

Imagine Me & You + lesbian pride by @cobiesmlders

Pride Dinos by @pimsri

Shadow & Bone + guide to the ships by @taoargents

Ted Lasso + Forgiveness Quote by @anya-chalotra

Jamie Tartt + Bisexual Poster Boy by @lemoncupcake

Kaz x Jesper + Quotes by @christophernolan

teen flicks 101 by @obligatorymain

bisexual nick nelson by @revengeofthesiths

the crows + If I had a kruge... by @alinaastarkov

Joel x Ellie + Ivy by @claire-randall

Joel + blorbo status by @arthurpendragonns

Jesper x Wylan: A summary by @yenvengerberg

Steve Harrington + Dancing in the Dark by @ladyhawke

Max Mayfield + colors by @clarkgriffon

#cc appreciation #queue the love 💛

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queenofsliferred · 5 months ago

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001 - the askewniverse

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Favorite character: DANTE

Least Favorite character: TS Quint! Fuck you! even worse in the fucking director's cut, i swear lmfao

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): - Dante/Becky - Dante/Randal - Gil/Julie Dwyer - Dante/My OCs :) - Randal/Liv :)

Character I find most attractive: d-dante...

Character I would marry: DANTE

Character I would be best friends with: i like to imagine randal as my big brother figure but i think he'd roast me too hard and i'd cry lmfao. probably elias in all honesty.

A random thought: we need more non-randal fuckers in the fanfic community i wanna read oc/canon that isn't randal focused ;o;. it doesnt even have to be dante man i will take shannon hamilton x oc just SOMETHING A LIL DIFFERENT YKNOW WHAT I MEAN...

An unpopular opinion: why does so much of the clerks yaoi suck. you guys are writing my ships all cringe smh.

My canon OTP: Dante/Becky despite what clerks 3 said

Non-canon OTP: Dante/MEEEEEEEEEE

Most badass character:

Pairing I am not a fan of: Dante/Veronica?? she's too good for him idk gshdfghfgshfd

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): hi randal who was written more and more stupit each movie post-clerks animated!!!

Favourite friendship: Dante + Randal feels so... organic and shit man the stuff in clerks 2 makes me emotional. but not saying jay and silent bob feels wrong.

The Ask Meme In Question

#view askewniverse #ask game

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thedisabilitybookarchive · 11 months ago

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'The No-Girlfriend Rule'- Randall, Christen

Disability Rep: Anxiety (MC), ADHD (SC)

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Comedy

Age: Young Adult

Setting: USA

Additional Rep: Queer Fat Female MC x Lesbian POC Female LI, F/F, Transgender SC, POC SCs

For more information on summaries, content warnings and additional tropes, see here:

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witchthewriter · 2 months ago

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𝑭𝑹𝑶𝑴

Please tell me that there's people who love From just as much as I do??

I am definitely writing about the characters. This has become one of my favourite shows this year. I wish it was more well-known!

So I will be writing for:

Boyd

Kenny

Fatima

Randall

Jade

Kristi

Victor

Julie

Donna

And a lot of these will be platonic! But some will be romantic as well 𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡˚♡

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conradscrime · 2 years ago

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Albert Fish

March 30, 2023

***Trigger Warning: Lots of graphic nature and abuse of children***

Albert Fish was born Hamilton Howard Albert Fish on May 19, 1870 in Washington, D.C. to Randall and Ellen Fish. Randall was 43 years older than Albert’s mother Ellen, and was 75 years old when Albert was born. The pair had multiple children together, with Albert being the youngest.

Albert began using the name Albert as a child, named after his dead brother so that his peers would stop calling him “Ham & Eggs” a childhood nickname he despised.

Many of Albert’s family members suffered from different mental illnesses. Albert’s mother, Ellen, had what was known as “aural and/or visual hallucinations.” Albert’s father, Randall, had a heart attack and on October 16,1875 he died when Albert was only 5 years old.

Ellen, being overwhelmed with her husband now gone placed Albert in the Saint John’s Orphanage where Albert was abused regularly. Albert would later begin to enjoy the pain he endured at the orphanage, the beginning of him experiencing sexual pleasure during pain or inflicting pain.

In 1880, Ellen got a better paying job and was able to get her son back from the orphanage. In 1882, Albert had begun a relationship with a boy who introduced Albert to drinking urine and eating feces. Albert also began visiting public baths where he could watch young boys undress.

Albert also began to write obscene letters to women who he would see their names in classified ads in the papers.

In 1890, at the age of 20, Albert moved to New York City where he was a male sex worker and began to rape and molest boys, most of whom were under the age of 6. In 1898, Albert married a woman named Anna Mary Hoffman, who was 9 years younger than him. This was an arranged marriage Albert’s mother had set up. Albert and Anna had 6 children together: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John and Henry.

In 1903 Albert was arrested for grand larceny and incarcerated in Sing Sing. Albert later said he had gone to a wax museum with a male lover once and became fascinated by the bisection of the human penis, which led to an obsession with sexual mutilation.

In 1910, Albert met a man named Thomas Kedden. It was said that Thomas was intellectually disabled. The two began a sadomasochistic relationship, it is unclear whether Albert forced Thomas to do any of the acts. After 10 days, Albert took Thomas to an old farm house where he tortured him for two weeks, tying him up and cutting off half of his penis.

Albert’s original plan was the kill Thomas and cut up his body. Albert feared he would be noticed if he tried to bring Thomas’ body back to his house, so he poured peroxide over the wound, wrapped it in a Vaseline-covered handkerchief, and left him $10.

Albert never contacted or tried to contact Thomas again and does not know what happened to him after that.

In January 1917, Albert’s wife left him for another man who had been boarding with them. Albert was then left to raise his children on his own, saying that his wife had taken almost everything they owned with her.

Albert often began having auditory hallucinations, once wrapping himself in a carpet saying he was following instructions from John the Apostle.

Albert began to self harm by embedding needles into his groin and abdomen areas. After he was arrested, the X-rays showed that Albert had at least 29 needles in his pelvic area. He would also hit himself with a nail studded paddle and would put wool covered in lighter fluid into his anus and light it up.

It was never reported that Albert ever abused his own children physically, however it is said that Albert would encourage his children and their friends to hit him in the buttocks with the nail studded paddle.

Around 1919, Albert had stabbed an intellectually disabled boy in Georgetown. Fish claimed he would go over intellectually disabled or African-American people because he did not think they would be missed.

On July 11, 1924, Albert saw 8 year old Beatrice Kiel playing alone on her parent’s farm in Staten Island, New York. Albert offered the little girl money to come help him look for rhubarb. Beatrice was about to leave the farm when her mother chased Albert away. Albert later returned to the Kiel farm where he tried to sleep in their barn, but was discovered by Beatrice’s father.

During 1924, Albert was suffering from psychosis and claimed God was commanding him to torture and sexually mutilate children. Three days after the Kiel’s, Albert murdered Francis McDonnell on Staten Island.

Francis McDonnell

On July 14, 1924, 9 year old Francis McDonnell was reported missing when he did not return home from playing with friends. A search began and his body was found, hanging by a tree in a wooden area near his home.

Francis had been sexually assaulted and then strangled with his suspenders. His left hamstring had been almost entirely stripped of flesh. Albert denied responsibility for this but did say he planned to castrate the boy but heard someone approaching so he ran off.

Francis’ friends told police Francis had been taken by an elderly man with a grey moustache. A neighbour also claimed to have seen Francis with a similar looking man walking towards the woods.

Anna McDonnell, Francis’ mother, said she also saw that man earlier in the day, claiming he had been coming up the street mumbling to himself and making motions with his hands. Anna said the man appeared faded and grey, this description eventually leading to “The Grey Man” nickname Albert was dubbed.

Francis McDonnell’s murder went unsolved until Grace Budd. Albert denied the charges until March 1935, after the trial of Grace Budd’s murder, where he admitted to killing Francis and another boy, Billy Gaffney.

Billy Gaffney

On February 11, 1927, 4 year old Billy Gaffney was playing in their apartment hallway with two other boys, ages 4 and 12. When the 12 year old left, the two smaller boys disappeared.

The 4 year old, a boy named Billy Beaton was found on the roof of the apartments. Beaton said that the “bogeyman” had taken Billy Gaffney. Gaffney’s body was never recovered. A man named Joseph Meehan, a motorman on the Brooklyn trolley eventually recognized a picture of Albert, claiming that was the man he saw on the day Billy went missing.

Meehan claimed the man had been trying to quiet a little boy on the trolley. The boy was not wearing a jacket and was crying for his mother. It was found that Albert had been working a few miles from the location Billy was taken at the time.

Albert later confessed he had taken the boy, tied his hands and feet, and gagged him. He burned his clothes and left. The next day he went back with his tools and whipped Billy, cut off his ears, nose and slit his mouth from ear to ear. Albert also gouged out his eyes, and drank his blood. Albert cut off the head, arms, hands, legs and feet, and threw them in sacks with stones, throwing them into water.

The rest of the boy Albert took home with him and ate. Billy’s mother travelled to Sing Sing to ask Albert about her son’s death but he refused to speak with her. Albert began to weep and asked to be left alone. After two hours of asking questions through his lawyer, Billy’s mother gave up and was not convinced he had killed her son.

Grace Budd

On May 25, 1928, Albert saw an ad in the paper by a young man who wanted work. The young man was 18 year old Edward Budd, who lived at 406 West 15th Street.

On May 28, Albert went to see the Budd family in Manhattan, claiming he wanted to hire Edward but was really planning to tie him up and mutilate him. Albert introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from Farmingdale, New York. Albert told Edward he would take on him and his friend Willie, and would come back for them in a few days.

Albert never showed up a few days later, sending a telegram that apologized to the family, setting up a new date for when he would return.

When Albert came back, he met Edward’s little sister Grace, who was 10 years old at the time. Albert knew he immediately wanted to take Grace instead of Edward, so made up a story about going to his niece’s birthday party, asking Delia and Albert Budd if Grace could come along with him.

Albert took Grace to an abandoned house, a house he had previously picked out for his next victim, before his plans changed and he took Grace instead. Albert murdered Grace Budd and claimed he ate her after as well.

The police arrested a man named Charles Edward Pope on September 5, 1930 for the murder of Grace Budd after his estranged wife accused him. He spent months in jail and was his trial began on December 22, 1930. He was found not guilty.

In November 1934, an anonymous letter was sent to the Budd family, claiming that whoever wrote the letter had murdered Grace and detailed how they had tortured her and then taken 9 days to eat her body. The letter did say that Grace had fought back, and that the writer, who was obviously “Frank Howard” had let Grace die a virgin.

The letter eventually led police back to Albert Fish, who did not deny the murder of Grace Budd. He actually told police his original plan was to kill her brother, Edward. Albert claimed he had no intention of raping Grace, but when he was strangling her he had two involuntary ejaculations.

This was used in trial to determine Grace’s kidnapping was sexually motivated, and it avoided the cannibalism.

Albert’s trial for the murder of Grace Budd started on March 11, 1935. The trial lasted 10 days, where Albert pleaded insanity, claiming he heard God telling him to kill children. It was said that Albert was a “psychiatric phenomenon” and that there was no other individual in medical records who had this many sexual abnormalities.

The jurors all believed that Albert Fish was insane, but they believed he should be executed anyway. So they found him sane and guilty and he was sentenced to death by electrocution.

Albert Fish was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair in Sing Sing. It was said that Albert had actually helped the executioner position the electrodes on his body before he died. He last words were, “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

According to a witness, it took two jolts before Albert died, and rumours circulated that it was due to the needles that he had inserted into his body for years. These rumours turned out to be untrue, as it was claimed that many individuals in the electric chair take more than just one jolt to die.

After Albert’s execution, his lawyer, James Dempsey said he had Albert’s final statement, which was multiple pages of hand-written notes that Albert had written hours before his death. When journalists asked Dempsey to say what Albert had written, he replied, “I will never show it to anyone. It was the most filthy string of obscenities that I have ever read.”

#solved #Crime #true crime #murderer #child #albert #fish #serial killer #new york #UNSOLVED MYSTERIES #mystery

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