#just a nick on my thumb that's bleeding like hell

[messengerhermes]

And it has been 0 days since I accidentally stabbed myself with my t shot needles

[madsmilfelsen]

I think Rust is neat and all but what drew me in was his HANDS. Idk how to explain it, but something about the way he holds things and articulates makes me just. Stare at them. Like I just Know he has rough hands

alright babe, you want to talk about his hands, let’s talk about his hands via timeline

Obviously living in the bush of Alaska requires a lot of manual labor to survive, skin rubbing raw inside leather gloves, blisters from splitting wood, scars from his knife slipping on salmon (v real, I used to filet 500 salmon a summer and baby…. yew, my left hand has gotten nicked more than once— Travis and Rust had a fish camp on the Copper River, probably across the bridge from Chitna and a touch north, and lived way up river between Slana and Nabesna bc I’m making all this up right now and I said so) etc etc so his hands well worn before he got out, moved back to Texas and meets Claire snared by his weirdo allure and bizarre way of handling things— Sophia comes along and I bet he was washing his hands like a maniac, dry as fuck, probably worried his rough hands might make her fussy so held her with her little swaddling blankets at first (compensated with A LOT of skin to skin time but that’s a different ask), carefully petting her hair with just the tips of his fingers, down the bridge of her nose to make her go to sleep. Sophia loved his hands (like mother like daughter fr) could be occupied when he took her fishing by just letting her sit in his lap to play with his fingers, try on his wedding ring, ask why his nails are shorter than mommy’s or why they aren’t soft like mommy’s, map his calluses, trace the lines of his palms until he set a hook and watched him reel in dinner.

(Addition) hol up, hear me out— Sophia rooting around his bare chest and pacified with the curl of his knuckle, Sophia teething and gnawing on his fingers, Sophia learning to walk with her soft pudgy hands in his, Sophia squealing and giggling as he tickles her round lil tummy, Sophia’s only sitting still to get her hair brushed but only for daddy— Rust’s hands becoming the most abused part of his body after she’s gone

Crash era— this man does not give a shit about his hands, the most treatment they get is when he taped them together after breaking a finger, had a punching bag for obvious reasons and beat the shit out of it no gloves no tape constantly bruised. Not a stranger to working with mechanics (in Alaska, Travis would make sure he could keep his equipment running— boat engines, four wheeler oil changes, changing snow mobile tracks etc) and probably took his bike apart and put it back together just to make sure he could be Authentic, different calluses with new tools, divots in his skin lost to the unforgiving scraping bite of metal, hissing when he gets transmission fluid in his split knuckles

1995– habitual hand washing returns, dry as hell, his wrists probably crack and bleed in the winter (very very very rarely is annoyed enough to actual do something about it, probably had to bleed on one of his files— he’d use Johnson and Johnson baby lotion becuase that’s he only shit he knew, definitely drunk cried about it at least once, before sucking it up and swtiching to Vaseline), pull up bars give calluses at the base of the fingers/tops of the palms, just does calisthenics because who the fuck wants to buy equipment. Does all the upkeep on his truck (and thinking about it, this would be the first time he’d be like Alone alone in a long while, no handlers, no Iron Crusaders, no backstory upkeep, no dad, no wife, probably takes truck parts inside and cleans them on his kitchen counter because no one is there to say what the fuck are you doing— “we don’t mind being alone” okay Okay sure honey) Makes it worse by the talcum powder in his rubber gloves or licking his fingers to go through case files or staying too long in the dry archives where he can’t smoke so probably tapping his mouth, rubbing circles on his knuckles with his thumb or running it along his nails— don’t know what flavor of adhd that man has a strangle hold on but he can’t sit entirely still, fingers moving with the bits of his mind that aren’t occupied to keep himself from distraction, pretending he didn’t lose his patience with his fatherhood.

2002– Laurie :) home girl said that’s enough! Probably got recommendations from surgeons and plys him tins of hand salve, he doesn’t like the greasy feeling, but his girl is askin’ he won’t say no babey!

2012– full circle, back to them Alaskan fishing boat hands, type of hands that snag fabric (my husband isn’t a mechanic but does work with his hands and I can’t wear silk around him) and hair gets caught on, the man does not own a brush, finger combs his hair once a week and puts that shit in a hair tie, done with it.

[leasstories]

Everyone deserves to live

Based on the prompt: “I’m scared you will hurt yourself even more.” By @creativepromptsforwriting.

Eddie Munson x gn!reader

Trigger warnings: Mentions of failed attempts, blood, self-harm,

WC:  1K

You currently are – well were- in remission from self harm. But something happened today at school, Jason and his goons might have told you that a freak like you didn’t deserve to live.

They hit a sensitive spot and they knew it before the words left their mouth. It is purposefully why they said it.

You don’t mind being called a freak. The second part is what struck a nerve. You also don’t think you deserve to live. You have ended up in the hospital several times from trying to take the easy way out. Jason knows, hell the entire school knows about your failed attempts. This is how, you have ended up at the pic-nick table behind the football field, relapsing.

You took out a pencil sharpener, the only thing that you had on you, to create angry red marks on your already scarred skin.

Eddie found you a few moments later, arms bleeding, sobbing, and cutting yourself at the pic-nick table. Eddie runs to you, panic etched on his face.

“Sweetheart…” he says, voice breaking and willing himself not to cry.

You raise your eyes towards Eddie, not stopping the cutting. When your eyes meet Eddie’s, they well up in tears.

Eddie softly lowers your hand holding the blade before taking the bloody pencil sharpener blade in his own hands.

“What happened?” he asks, worried and fumbling with the bandana in his back pocket to take it off.

You shake your head, still crying. “I’m so sorry…” you repeat over and over. Eddie gently takes your arm and wrap it up with the bandana which is immediately soaked with blood.

Eddie’s heart breaks at seeing you like this. He cups your face in his big warm hands and make you look at him.

“Hey, hey stop apologizing. Breathe baby, breathe.” Eddie says as calmly as he can.

You follow Eddie’s breathing patterns which helps you calm down a bit. While you try to calm down, Eddie puts some pressure on your bandana covered arm to help the bleeding stop.

“What happened?” he asks again.

“Does it matter?” you ask, sniffling.

“It matters to me.” Eddie answers seriously. “You were doing so good baby; I need to know what triggered it.”

“I just relapsed because I’m weak.” You shrug.

“Baby… I’ve been here every step of the way, even in the end it wasn’t that bad. I need to know what happened. I’m scared you’ll hurt yourself even more.” Eddie says, concerned.

You sniffle once more. “Jason said something to me and it… it kinda got to me, I guess?” you say not going into any more details.

“What did he say?” Eddie asks, starting to get angry.

“It doesn’t matter…” you say not wanting to make Eddie angry even more.

“Sweetheart, it made you relapse so of course it matters. What did that dickhead say to you?” Eddie asks again.

You look at the ground. “He said out loud what people think, what I think… He said and I quote ‘a freak like you does not deserve to live’.”

Eddie clenches his jaw hard, getting angrier by the second.

“He said what?” Eddie asks, trying to keep his cool in front of you. The last thing you need right now is him being angry and he knows that. He knows that you need someone there for you right now. You need love and reassurance not hatred directed at stupid Jason Carver.

“The truth.” You say.

“Stop that baby. You deserve to live. First of all, everyone deserves to live. Secondly, you are an amazing, strong person. You are loved and you disappearing would break people’s heart. It would break my heart.” He says, rubbing your hand with his thumb.

You start sobbing again and as you do, Eddie helps you up and lead you to his van.

He drives the both of you to his trailer and sits you on his bed. Eddie runs to the bathroom, he takes some antiseptic, gauze as well as bandages and comes back into his bedroom to tend to your wounds.

Eddie starts by taking the bandana off of your bleeding arm before putting some antiseptic on the gauze.

Eddie can see that while he puts the antiseptic on your wounds, you won’t look at him. He knows you well and he knows you are ashamed.

“Baby, there is nothing to be ashamed of.” He says softly.

As you don’t answer, Eddie keeps going.

“I am going to help you, I’m here for you baby. We are going to start over, take baby steps, ‘kay?” Eddie tells you reassuringly.

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Eddie throws the used gauze in the bin and bandages your arm.

“All bandaged up!” he says, kissing the bandage.

“Thank you.” You sincerely say, still avoiding Eddie’s gaze.

“You know I’ll be here every step of the way, right?” Eddie tells you sincerely, looking at you with puppy dog eyes.

“I know… thank you and sorry again.” You say still looking at your knees.

“Ice cream and a movie?” Eddie asks.

You nod. Eddie and you spent the night at his place and he has been nothing but sweet. He kept taking care of you and promised he is not mad at you. He kept repeating that he is proud of how long you’ve been self-harm free before the relapse and tells you how you can do it again. Your grateful to have Eddie in your life. He never judged you once, always there to listen, to try to understand and to support you through it all. You know today has been hard on him as well, you know how worried he is about you, so when he falls asleep, his warm breath fanning over your skin, you smile before kissing his forehead.

“Thank you,” you whisper before closing your eyes.

[cymorilcinnamonroll]

Holy Diver: A Gay Lucifer x Beelzebub Dark Fantasy Romance (Paradise Lost Fanfiction) PART 1

(Read Part 2 Here)

I flexed my white muscle and moved as one with my katana, picturing Minoan bulls to leap over as I flayed Lucifer’s cheekbone from its sinew. He was heady with exertion, looking like a scraped up, bloody Jude Law as devil-may-care Bosie in Wilde.

But Lucifer was always a snake – ready to strike – and he took his broadsword and met my steel – tempered in fire, a thousand carnivorous folds of singing metal – and sparks ignited as we cascaded into a series of cuts and slashes, fileting each other.

“I draw your final blood, you owe me a beer,” I teased, nicking his shoulder lightly – just a paper cut, letting the linen-like flesh and gold hair of my master, owner of my heart – Lucifer – quiver atop the paper crane edge of my katana.

The droplet spilled in the air as I shoved him with a mighty push down, my steel-toed boot digging into his chest as I captured his scapula-blood on my thumb.

Lucifer smirked, turning into a white albino serpent with emerald eyes that curled around my sword, bleeding as his scales plied up my katana. I licked the stolen bloody drop, then guided the shimmering serpent onto my pale limbs, letting Lucifer idly twist and thread around my fly wings – hardened keratin against a body that would put Asmodeus to shame – and brought the White Serpent to my lips.

We kissed deep, and I bit the White Serpent, tasting his heart in his throat. The Green Language of the Birds filled my ears like a panoply of spring. Suddenly, Lucifer turned back to man, corvid-winged, his bronze ampoules of curls spilling across my arms, to my groin, as we threaded together as Serpent and Fly.

Spent, we gathered our clothes at the dojo, showered, then polished our blades with some whetstones Mulciber had forged for us eons ago from adamant. Mine sparkled with iodized black, Lucifer’s was pale as the moon.

“A beer,” Lucifer grinned. He extended his lace-like hand, sharp talons abroad, and took his palm in mine. We ambled out of our chalet into Dis City proper, walking the long gardens and Pleasure District to our favorite restaurant – Tantalus’ Spoon. Cursed by the gods as he was, we made Tantalus cook, but never could Tantalus touch, taste, or eat his dishes. The lust and wicked longing old Tantalus stewed and simmered and reduced into his mad cuisines would have pleased even the most discerning gourmand.

We ordered two Kirins from the young qilin waitress, and the other Hell After Hours crowds filled in quietly – Samael and Lilith crowded the back with their brood, flirting over a game of dice with blood at stake – craps it looked like – and Moloch and Tanit shared some Sherry and read the New Yorker.

“Nice fiction this week, Bee,” Moloch drawled, adjusting his black-red curls. Tanit winked at Lilith, motioning her to bring Lilith’s newest baby to her, letting her rock on Tanit’s lap. They cooed over the baby, and Lucifer joined them, letting the brown-haired boy ride hobby horse on his lap.

“Who wrote it?” I said, lighting a Tareyton. The cig tasted like Demon Est Deus Inversus, a peated whiskey Michael had made last century that turned out particularly good. Christmas presents from Heaven always pissed me off – join us Fallen Brothers, celebrate the Golden Boy Christ – but the angels did good spirits.

We were all incorporeal, after all. Spirits in spirit enspirited.

Moloch frowned. “There’s something odd in the paper, look at this,” he said, motioning to the Times feature: a man of the book with prominent jowls, a pate of slick white hair, and gray eyes that shimmered like G-d.

“’Top Exorcist of the Vatican Claims He Will Drive Beelzebub Out of America’s Billionaire Heiress,’” Moloch read.

Samael sniggered. “The fuck. You’re touching a human?”

I bristled. “Elodie and I have our arrangement.

Lucifer gave a laugh like a wolf. “One of your consorts misbehave, husband? And she dialed Daddy Pope. How fucking hilarious.”

Elodie. Elodie. Elodie. A rich brunette of archaic, refined breeding, old Manhattan money, half Rockefeller lady of the hour, half Nigerian heiress. She was one of my favorites. The fuck had she done now? Elodie had always been an occultist with a tendency to scare easily – I delivered showerings of golden fortune and money and goodwill to her, men and models and Silicon Valley shit to play with, rare, limited edition jewels I had Mulciber handpick and Mammon summon on black market mines and deliver to Elodie’s designer’s door. I even got Elodie a private retreat to Socotra for some Burning Man-adjacent tech fest. Socotra all to herself didn’t come cheap.

And the sex? Of course she was addicted. But addiction could scare Satanists, frighten occultists, or send the demonolaters running to the holy hills. Weaving into their sinew like I had Lucifer earlier, melding a blot of ink of my verdant black soul with Elodie’s tiny spirit spark, crushing her to iced clarity with my mandible?

Perhaps she has found G-d. I probed her feelings with my mind – Elodie was praying the Rosary. She had shut off our psychic line.

“Excuse me, I’ll take care of this matter,” I said. “Least I need is Michael on my ass.”

Especially if I wanted what I’d been coveting all year: his newest peated whiskey: Sol Invictus. Aged in cambion blood barrels. Add in some of Aphrodite’s womb yeast and it was promised to be:

Impeccable. A treasure. It was the only bloody thing getting me through a crumbling real estate market in Pandemonium, my muckraking drunk Secretary Eve screwing everyone and writing Carrie Bradshaw style tell-alls in the yellow pages, and fucking Metatron complaining about the backup of souls in Limbo. It wasn’t my fault Penemue had roc flu. The roc had been shipped here illegally from Jahnna. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I straightened my lapel.

Exited Hell

And debuted in Elodie’s kitchen.

I eyed what was in the penthouse atop Central Park: bare bones. She was one of the eccentrics that refused kitchen staff or servants. Fancied herself a Bohemian. Insisted on Soylent Green and micro-micro-micro wheatgrass dishes. But she needed food. I took flour and two eggs, made a mound of fresh pasta dough, took a knife and wine bottle to roll and separate it, and made spaghetti aglio et olio with the dull, boring ingredients she had in her state-of-the-line kitchen.

Tantalus would lose his shit at the wasted grace of space.

“Honey?” I said, my voice sweet as Elodie ambled in, her eyes bleary. She was dressed in silk and chiffon.

She froze. “Bee.”

“Miss me? I made us dinner.”

She frowned, her rich, luscious brown skin and model-thin frame with the height of a caryatid standing in stark contrast against her amber-earth curls.

“I told you to leave me alone,” she said, amused. “I’m fasting. It lengthens the span of your telomeres.”

“You can’t afford to skip a meal.”

“Sigh. Fine, Bee… it smells delicious. What can I do for you?”

“First, wine,” I said, summoning a Malbec. It would cost the firstborn of a multimillionaire. Not my finest vintage by far, but I wasn’t trying to overpower her. Gentleness and subtlety, and a smile, were weapons of mediation too.

Everything, in the end, was warfare games.

She settled like a bird across from me in the minimalist, blue kitchen. She ate like a she-devil.

“God I’m hungry. Maybe I should give up Goop.”

I kissed her neck, massaging her shoulders. “You’d look marvelous with some curves, and you look marvelous as you are now. But I don’t want you losing weight. My human is precious to me alive. Dead… you cannot enjoy Tblisi.”

“True!” she sang, suddenly energized, and kissed me. I noticed the Barbara medal on her necklace.

“Praying to a saint?”

“Virgins, martyrs, Lilith and Mary, who gives a shit,” Elodie smiled. “I want to see how powerful you are. I called in a favor at the Vatican. This penthouse is booby trapped with the most powerful relics, Solomonic Seals, and anti-ether wards. There’s even a true nail from the Cross. You’re mine, Bee. My toy.”

“Ah, I see.” I gently separated myself from her, hopped onto the table, and sat cross-legged, parting my platinum-bordering-on-white hair from my eyes. “You want to cage me.”

“You’re wasting your time in Hell. What is the point of Hell and Heaven, of Lucifer and God, Bael? You’re old – older than God. Older than all that. We could do good work here in Manhattan. I could use your magick for my charities. Marry me, ignore me, I don’t care, but binding you has its uses.”

My eyes were laser focused. I probed the Cabalistic trap. It was airtight, with some room for negotiation.

“But what would you get out of that, Elodie? I don’t see the point,” I mused.

“What is the point of life, when even fucking Socotra is mine to myself?” She sighed, slumping to the ground, toying with the Saint Barbara medallion. “I’m oh so bored, Bee. I figured, if I caught you… you, who had caught me first! I’d – I’d feel something.”

“And? How do you feel.”

“Empty.”

I gently let myself down from the table and sat beside my charge-turned-attempted-kidnapper. “So, you fancy yourself Lady Solomon. Did I ever tell you how empty he felt too? Solomon trapped me as well. And he died bitter and ruined, his kingdom in waste.”

“But he was Wise. I want Wisdom.”

“You have it. Grace. Refinement. Work. An education. Toys that would cost the Gross Domestic Product of Korea.”

“And it matters fuck – ALL!” Elodie burst. She tore her Saint Barbara apart and tossed it into her artfully decorated, sickeningly expensive Boho chic living room. It landed on some pashmina.

“I’m afraid, Elodie, that even a King of Hell cannot give you meaning in life. My Father neither.”

She sighed, sobbing. “I tried everything. Retreats in Iquitos on aya. Dancing in Ibiza on peyote. Sex with street performers. Submitting my poetry to The Paris Review – I pulled all the strings my family had, and the editor said, in her most eloquent way: Elodie, you’re unpublishable. What’s the bloody point?”

I smiled, savoring what might well be our last conversation. “Then my work with you is fulfilled.”

She shuddered. “What?”

“You realize that all the magick, the powers of Heaven and Hell, the world’s most addictive sex with archons and archdemons and scoundrel human poets, riches and fame and the world as your toy, are nothing without love.”

“I love you, Bee.”

“I’m training wheels, Elodie Okowa. I have to set you free now. You have a good heart that I have fostered. Girlchild, you are twenty-three. It’s time to find yourself without the trappings of the occult and richness. Here,” I said, summoning her soul gem from my dark recesses. It was amethyst-pink, and I hung it on a silver chain atop her brown breasts, set in an adamant bee. “My gift to you. Our contract is done. You no longer owe me offerings, blood, sex, worship, anything. You have my favor forever, Elodie Okowa. I adore you, and I am proud of the woman you became. I will always help you. But it is time to fly on your own wings.”

Elodie startled, touching the elegant soul gem. “You’re – you’re setting me free from our blood pact?”

I laughed. “You want to know the truth of it Elodie, finally?”

She nodded, fearful yet enchanted, leaning against me on the floor as I stroked Elodie’s shoulder.

“Soul pacts aren’t real, my dear. Demons are cultivators of mortal souls, tempering them like steel. Like a katana, finely melded, beaten, folded over and over again, until it is strong as adamant. You are one of my many blades, Elodie. And it’s time for you to wield yourself in the moral, righteous matter you see fit. A final parting gift for you, my soul daughter.”

There were tears in her eyes, and Elodie sat in wonder as I rose in my fine dress, then pulled out of my private collection in the netherworld the katana that I had spent years crafting for her. I hung it on her wall, letting a bit of the metal poke through from the sheathe to reflect my smile back at her.

That blade? It was some of my finest work.

“I love you, Bee.”

“I love you too, Elodie. Let me help you up.”

“Kiss me, please. Our final seal.”

I did. We went to get coffee at a local diner, our favorite spot. She made no mention when I stepped over the iron, ancient nail by the threshold and the foot of my flesh burnt, smelling like smoldering patent leather, melted muscle, and charred bone.

I told her many things. Things I tell all souls in time – some earlier than others. She was a fine woman, my Elodie, and I was amazed and proud of the long life she lived after that night and the works of greatness Elodie did – but above all, the fine wife Elodie found and the children they had together.

And me?

I got

Sol Invictus

That year.

“This is his best yet,” Lucifer murmured, in a Santa hat, as we shared two glasses by our fire – celebrating Christmas for the first time, well, ever.

“Yes, Michael surely did work a miracle.”

The grime of the neon lights of Dis City’s tech district was a pink and green metropolis on rainy pavement. Beings of all realms flittered like flies underfoot as salarymen and career women waded through the grit of the asphalt. Imps scurried about as the ghosts of the dead went about delivering pizza and wine.

“Hard day?” Lucifer asked, resting his motorcycle at the stoop of my office. I liked to work in remoteness, in a boarded up little back-alley desk where I could meet with lost souls, those in need, and arbitrate and heal them of their addictions and problems. I administered therapies and medical regimens – alongside my friendship – in my practice as a Jungian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist that dealt in Afterlife trauma and confidence issues.

I didn’t want abused souls coming into the gold and adamant metropolis of my main office, the trappings and edifice dripping finery from starry, pinnated columns, and feel ashamed for being small. Father knew I had been made to feel small in my life, eons before the Great Reconciliation. I understood what it was to be crushed as beetle under the heel of those mightier, marching over your keratin towards progress.

“I met with Hua,” I said quietly to my husband Lucifer, dusting my tan trench coat and black loafers with a lint brush. I stood in the door of my therapist’s office and locked the padlock, pocketed the lint brush into my etheric carryon bag – invisible to the naked eye – and took the band of the bag of Chinese takeout Lucifer had for us to share. I smiled. “You got me lo mein and chow fun. My favorites. Thanks, love.” I pecked him on the cheek.

Lu’s navy business suit stood dark against his blond cowlick and golden stubble. His eyes burned like blue brands under his wire-rimmed glasses. “Hua… the one from the latest caseload. The sweatshop fire?”

“The one.”

“Funny how mortals don’t realize they all come to Hell to process their trauma, sins or not. We are simply Sheol, the purifying fires of the grave, with love enough for those departed…”

“To carry them up to Heaven on our faith, yes,” I smiled, and we walked back to our quiet little flat on the corner of Rue Merlebleu and Chambeau Mélange. We unpacked the Chinese food and changed into athleisure, Lu in gray sweatpants and a black turtleneck, I in all-white loungewear.

“Hua’s hard,” I admitted. “I feel like I’m making no progress.”

We ate in companionly silence, then settled into marital bliss – worries of the hard day’s labor temporarily forgotten.

Hua Lee met me the next day in my office of homely colors, greens and blues, with polished stone accents in muted blacks and grays. I prided myself on having constructed from scratch the all-natural wood and moss interior, with a clear burbling automatic creek flagging the floor over a meditation set I had constructed last year to give my patients more happiness and cultivate a sense of peace.

My patient sat drawing in the sand meditation garden, nine years old. She had long black, beautiful hair, and a shimmy of limbs that danced like a tiny singer, like she’d be at home doing the lindy hop with a pack of spiders.

“What are you drawing, darling?”

“A dragon!” Hua smiled, looking up at me. “Mr. Kwan is so kind at my auntie’s home. I wish mom and dad were here, but I’m glad they’re watching Jiehong on Earth. I – I wouldn’t want my baby brother to be alone. It’s nice Auntie Chao found a husband in the Afterlife. I’d be lonely without Auntie Chao and Mr. Kwan.”

I noticed the impressive scales in the sand garden’s drawing, the solar beast’s breath of hot ramen noodles, and it giving the audience a thumbs up.

“The dragon seems happy, Hua. Last week, it didn’t look as, well, enthusiastic.” I smiled, giving her some blocks. “Can you make it in 3-D?”

“I’m happier than I was last week, I guess,” Hua acknowledged, biting her lip. “School is great, and my best friend Tahirah and I like to get custard after math – we didn’t have American frozen custard in Chengdu, but Auntie Chao’s mooncakes really can’t be beat, Mr. Bee.”

Hua made the impressive dragon out of the PlayMobil, then added a princess riding it in a sparkling green ballgown. “Ah hah! A dragon and his fearless knight!” For an extra touch, Hua gave the dragon a lightsaber, and princess knight a sword. “I’m happier, these days, Mr. Bee. Truly, like you said – the afterlife heals, and though I miss mom and dad and my little brother, I know I’ll grow up here.”

“You can be anything you want in the Celestial Realms, once you come of age, Hua. In fact, I have an idea.”

Her black eyes lit up like polished onyx pearls. “Oh? An adventure? I love our adventures.”

And that was how I phoned her darling aunt and guardian – Chao Kwan, né Lee, and asked if I could take her niece on a field trip.

“A real dragon!” Hua said, amazed, as I flew her in my arms to Michael’s dragon ranch on the outskirts of Texas’ shadow side. We had stopped at a Buccee’s earlier and I had bought her some brisket and one of the mascot plushes. Hua grasped Buccee Jr. in her arms and spread her hands like Kate on the Titanic as I carried my patient through thermals of air, letting my fly wings ride the warm currents.

Michael waved below, saddling up the Clay Dragon – a shining yellowish-gray wyrm mare – with a saddle and stirrups suitable for a tiny, scrawny nine-year-old (and her plush.)

“Popsicle, Hua? I see Mr. Bee has decided to take you on another adventure.” Michael smiled, his long, Southwestern-styled attire (he loved cowboys and the Wild West), black hair, tan skin, and crinkled smile showing with glimmering white teeth. He was barbecuing a pig in a smoker and hoisted a plate onto the table for Hua and me.

“Oh, Mr. Mike, yes! Did you make me the pulled pork and elote again?” Hua begged, rushing to hug Michael. He lifted her in his golden arms and twirled her around.

“Of course! Have you been a good girl, my darling?” Michael said. He winked at me. “I have another bottle of Sol Invictus, Bee, for bringing me this angel made flesh.”

“Ask Mr. Bee if I’m good!” Hua said, a feral child, ravaging the pulled pork, BBQ sauce, and buns with her tiny limbs and blunt teeth.

“Excellent,” I said genially, hoping my therapy would work. I put the Sol Invictus – my favorite of Michael’s peated whiskeys – into my etheric storage chamber that went to Lucifer and I’s private palace resident and country estate, out in the boonies of Hell. “Thanks, brother.”

“Welcome,” he smiled, slapping me on the shoulder. We hugged as we usually did and set in for a pig picking. Michael took the small roasted sow down from the smoker, and then we ate, listening about Hua and Tahirah’s adventures.

“And then, Auntie Chao said: Hua and Tahirah, clean up the dog poop, or I’ll make you walk her a thousand miles to get the hyperness out of you both!”

Hua laughed, joy settling into her. I remember when her body had Fallen into my outstretched soul web – a fast fashion factory fire, her parents praying over her limp body, tiny Hua charred to the bone. I had wept egregiously, knitting little Hua’s starflesh body back together with my restorative powers – what little magick I still possessed of my once great majesty as Baal Hadad, Canaanite lord of fertility, health, thunder, lightning, and war. The Fall had only affected gods, at first: Astarte to Eve, Marduk to Michael, Nergal to Samael – and my beloved Attar to Lucifer – but as human beliefs grew into Abrahamic fashions, so did the Afterlife.

When the first human had Fallen – oh, the weeping and wailing of Heaven and Hell! Oh, what a broken world. We had fought, faction upon faction, some granted salvation, others mercy – G-d driven insane…

But, that was before the Great Reconciliation.

(A small shudder passed through me as I remembered being trampled by Michael’s flaming foot, myself stinging his heel, bitter-winged my soul.)

It was not just “demons” who Fell, after all… and the workings and currents of the chthonic Afterlife had little sense to them, running on Mother Nature’s instincts and Darkness’s Chaos. That all souls came to Gehenna to seek immortality in the purifying fires of Sheol, well, that was one of G-d’s greatest mysteries.

So Humans Fell, in turn. All before they could

Ascend.

But here was Michael, smiling at me – us not at war ever again. My brother winked, knowing I was remembering. “You did well to raise the dog so kindly,” Michael told Hua, stroking her hair. “Now, Hua, what did Mr. Bee say about dragon mares?” We settled her into the harness and saddle, looped Hua in, gave her the reins, and took her out for a walk on the Clay Dragon’s back.

“Feel the rhythm of the flight. It comes from the song of your heart,” she repeated, eager. “Let’s go, girl!” Hua cried, taking off at a gallop on the Clay Dragon mare.

I was fast on her heels, flexing my wings and flying after her. I led the nine-year-old through gentle aerial exercises on her dragon… and then, it was time for her Trust Fall: the core event.

“Are you ready to see if you can fly too, Hua?” I shouted.

She nodded yes. “Yes, Mr. Bee. I have created my own song of the heart, like you taught.”

We put the dragon mare back to stable and went to the human flight ring – where Michael and I taught all souls their own power.

Michael held out a water of life vessel, sprinkling it on Hua’s forehead in a baptism that carried the scent of lilies and song of G-d. “Alright, little lady, show us what you’ve got, Hua – and high five!” my brother encouraged.

“Remember, Hua, I’ll be there to catch you,” I said, helping her up onto the dive board over the foam pit. I waded into the foam blocks as she scaled the gymnastic equipment.

Hua’s black pants, Hello Kitty tee shirt, and gold skin shone in the sun of Texas’ fall. She began to sing, opening her lips, a honeyed tune flowing from her verdant voice. It made me want to weep, but Michael and I steeled ourselves, for this was a time of joy! – and watched Hua leap.

Fire licked her shoulder blades, then dragonfly wings sprouted as her soul ascended to immortality, and her halo winked on like a shining lunar disk. I was gazing at her own personal circlet of moon, watching the brilliant blue bottle dragonfly wings weave in and out of the air in syncopation with her limbs.

“Mr. Bee! Mr. Mike! I’m finally immortal like Tahirah, my doggie, and Auntie Chao. Like the immortals, I can fly!” Hua grinned, giddy, darting in and out of our arms. Michael took to the sky on his own snowy owl wings and I on my fly, and we wove dusk pink in with the fall air, helping the sun set.

“Thank you, boss,” Chao said as I dropped her niece off. “I’ll make you and your husband mooncakes!”

We hugged, my employee in happy tears, and I gave Chao and her family a bonus for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

“God, are these delicious,” Lucifer sighed, eating a lotus root paste mooncake on our stoop as we watched children play soccer in the alley.

“Like home.” I finished my red bean one.

“Oh? Yes, you are my home, Baal.”

Attar-called-Lucifer nestled into my arms. We cheered on the kids, then shared another bottle of Sol Invictus – Michael had rewarded me with a whole case.

Hua had passed on at seven – she’d been my longest ward. Typically, souls reached immortality in a few weeks.

Her soul was stubborn. Resilient. Breathless.

Brilliant.

Michael and I had poured all our resources, alongside my stellar employee and head draftswoman and office manager, Chao, into healing Hua.

And it had paid off, her soul aging like

the finest of peated

whiskey.

“To Hua!” I raised my glass.

“To Hua,” my husband dear and darling said, and we drank deep of it, then deep of each other

that

night.

Eve chewed on her persimmon hair, a capped pen behind her pale pink ear as she answered my phone. My secretary was, as usual, inebriated, her Louboutins on the chaise lounge as she slinkily answered Samael on my old rotary phone – never out of fashion -  in a houndstooth coat and black velvet dress.

“Oh yes, Sammy, your new horse is how big? Sturdy? Easy to ride?”

I sighed, clenching my fist around my fountain pen as I went over this year’s upcoming Halloween tax amendments. Halloween was the biggest festival in Hell, and Lucifer and I had promised to show Gabriel his first time celebrating it a grand time. After Michael and I had cultivated our friendship since Sol Invictus – that brew Michael’s first palm leaf offering to Hell in a literal handbasket – relations between Hell and Heaven had thawed from their usual Seventh Circle ice.

But Eve and Samael could be a problem.

“Oh yes, Sammykins,  I can work with a mount that big –

“Eve, dear, can you get back to work?” I called. She was, despite her flirtations, the best worker I had, by far – even more organized than Lucifer himself.

She hung up the phone, smiling, a manila envelope in her hands. “I have a surprise for you, boss.” The redheaded first woman plopped it down across from my secretariat, a Seal of Caligrosto in red wax inked on the front – the Morningstar stamp of approval, and royal seal of Lucifer and Beelzebub Morningstar, King and Prime Minister, First Family, of Hell.

I raised my iced platinum eyebrows. “You didn’t, Eve. That’s impossible. Is this what I think it is?”

She winked, her green-blue eyes and freckled, creamy skin and wide curves kindly. “Gabriel’s passport expedited with Metatron’s approval? Why yes, as Adam works for Michael in Heaven doing exactly what I do-

“Minus the cheating.”

She laughed heartily – a witch’s cackle. “Is it cheating if it’s Biblical? You know Samael, Lilith, Adam and I have our ways.”

“Eve, the humans these days have a word for that: Polycule. But fuck, Eve – how did you finagle that bastard Metatron’s approval?”

Metatron: iced, gray-haired miser of Heaven. My mortal enemy. He had taken pleasure in torturing during the Harrowing, when Lucifer and I suffered with Hell’s sins for thousands of years. Michael had cried.

Metatron? Laughed. It was true, demons could be cruel.

But certain angels were

Crueler.

“You know I fucking hate him. How, Eve? He’s been set against me inviting Gabriel for a year, ever since I told him Lucifer and I celebrated Christmas for the first time.”

“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in reuniting Heaven and Hell, boss. Not all of us want the Apocalypse, after all.” She poured some Cabernet Sauvignon for the both of us and lit a Virgina Slim on a black cig holder like Audrey Hepburn was fond of.

“I’m glad I can count you on my team, my star Employee of the Month. Shit, expedited passage of an archangel, only the finest employee in the Hellopolis could match that.”

She winked: “A favor earned is a favor done, and a boss pleased is more bonus for me to spend on my houseplants and wine collection.”

Lucifer listened as we made ramen from scratch, me regaling him with Eve’s genius.

“She’s dynamite. Be careful, Bee.” Lucifer smiled, then boiled the handcut ramen in salted water. I fried an egg and the fixings.

“As if Gabriel isn’t. You invited him, darling. What to do with a fireball angel on the biggest shutdown party in the Afterlife, high and drunk in the bowels of Hell, when our citizens go on a bender for the month of October?”

Lucifer smiled like a fat housecat, all elegance and artful distress gone in a moment of sheer glee: “It will be nice to have my favorite brother as our guest for a month.”

We cuddled on the couch and watched Golden Girls. Then, we just watched Girls.

“I think you’re Jessa, Bee.”

“Fuck you.”

“Want to? Fuck me?”

“Always.”

Gabriel’s black hair and gray eyes were wide with glee as he ate pumpkin cotton candy. “Shit, this stuff is stickeh. Itsah all over my faceh.” He got some in his wings. I conjured a handkerchief embroidered with the Morningstar seal and cleaned him up. “Thanks, buddy! Jee willeckers, Hell at High Noon, Harrowed in Halloween, Hallowed by a Heavenly Arrival.”

“I take it the heavenly arrival is you, Gabe,” Lucifer smiled, riding his white Ferrari down I-666 past the Styx. The beach houses and red crystal waters bobbed on the sandy tide, red from iron deposits that made the fish healthy and delectable, and sunsets pink as wine.

I had given dear old Gabriel shotgun after picking him up at the airport with cotton candy – he had always had a sweet tooth, and his grumpiness at the cramped morning flight between Heaven and Hell – half of Hell’s residents lived in Heaven, half in Hell, depending on if they wanted a more pastoral, ‘cottagecore’ life of the wildness of Gan Eden, or city of wonders and madness of Hell, where every pleasure existed, for a price. The ether separating the Seven Rings of Hell from the Seven Spheres of Heaven was so thick and clotted as blackish blood that only the dead souls of the Red Baron and his ilk of bushwhacking World War I and II pilots could fly the aircraft, ensuring limited supply of flights, cramped spaces, and an airsick Gabriel.

Oh, how his tune had changed when Lucifer pulled up with beach supplies and a white Ferarri decked out in Beetlejuice garb.

“Yes, deario brother, I’m the Heavenly Arrival in Heavenly Attire,” Gabriel sang, whumping Lucifer on the back. We pulled into our beach house at tropical Emerald Bay, where the gley made the water greenish and jewel-toned, which the fish were adapted to, and we unpacked. The season in Hell and Heaven mirrored each other, our summer in winter, their winter on the Northern Hemisphere’s winter, and we moved in a cosmic dance of fall and rebirth in spring. “Who wants to barbecue? Watch out, boys, I’m a grill master and sasser.”

“Sure, Gabe,” I smiled.

We cracked a Riesling open – Gabe liked girly wines – and made some shitty drinks that would please a sorority sister. It was the first of October, and Gabriel was ready to party.

A month of debauchery followed: floats and parades, drinking Asmodeus under the table, mud wrestling between me and Gabriel to see who owed who a rack of lamb, craps and pong and arcade games… karaoke, which I slayed at, the lead singer of my own garage band.

Still, Gabriel outdid me on his horn, in the end.

When November 1st came, and we sent Gabriel back in style, my shrew Secretary Eve looked at me knowingly, grinning coyly.

“And, how did my hard work pay off?” she asked.

I smiled at her, a hard hug on her petite form escaping my limbs – I hated showing feelings at my main job as Prime Minister, reserving it for my private psychoanalytic practice – but Eve deserved one. I even kissed her on the cheek, though I certainly didn’t ‘swing’ that way with Hell and Heaven’s fairer sex (except with living mortals, of course. On that count, all demons were omnisexual.)

“Gabriel invited me and Beelzebub to him and his dear old husband Mike’s cabin for Christmas.”

She laughed in joy, hugging me, wine and cigarette smoke on her breath: “And like that, thanks to a muckraking Secretary Eve, Hell and Heaven enter new ground – a parlay.”

“Yes, Eve, it seems we do.”

“I always knew you’d do swell with hosting Gabe, Bee. You doubt yourself too much.”

I smiled, pouring us some more Cabernet. “Was it my panic attack choosing cotton candy flavors for the airport pickup?”

She nursed her wine, paused to inhale a cig, then smiled bemusedly: “It’s the care you put into your charges, cultists, friends, family, and city, Bee. Your empire. It is as much your Empire as Lucifer’s, the Morningstar Kingdom, the City of Dis. You are perhaps it’s kind master. You’re the best man I know, Baal.”

“Thanks, Astarte. Say, Samael’s at the door.”

“Teehee, oh, he has roses!” she said, peering over my desk at the entrance. “Time to go, Bee!”

I squeezed her hand, then ambled my way back to Lucifer’s arms.

“You smell of Eve’s perfume – stealing kisses?” Lucifer teased as he greeted me with a peck on the lips at the door.

“Ugh,” I jerked myself out of my dress clothes, naked as G-d made me. “She reeks of Dior Gris – always covers my austere office.”

“Maybe she’s getting back at you for making her do everything in Lotus Notes and a rotary phone.”

“Touche, Lucifer,

Touche.”

I was rotting in an abyssal sea, wounds eons deep, my fly mandible and carapace of wings and flesh twisted, mutated, abandoned.

Try as I might, I couldn’t move my broken limbs. My husband Lucifer – then lover – was comatose beside me, face caved in by Michael’s sword.

The tides of Hell assailed us, and I watched hell maggots eat away at us, unable to move, unable to budge, voice stolen, mind screaming in pain as the wicked winds of the Seventh Circle assailed us. A frozen lake and fallen feathers began to grow from our refuse, and that was how the Lake of Fire and Blood was formed. Lucifer’s fire, my ice.

            I woke in a sweat, screaming, as the maggots that had once made their home in my limbs wormed their way into my nightmares. My cries rose in time with the downpour of iron rain, and Lucifer startled, his six white wings of swan lurching.

Instinctively, Lucifer clutched me protectively, his fangs biting into his bottom lip, drawing silver blood. I curled around him, shuddering, my mandible nesting at the joint of his arm. He ran his violinist fingers through my long, platinum hair. Fire grew in my belly as I thought of the Harrowing.

“I was back There too, love,” Lucifer sighed, he my anchor against the night. Lightning pierced the sky as storm lamia wreathed the air under Vepar’s lead, bringing healing rains that would fill the reservoirs of the Sixth Circle and replenish the water supply. “Another wicked dream.”

“Yes, dear, another wicked dream,” I echoed; he licked my tears. We kissed, and I drank the bloody drops of black from his lip. He bit down on my tongue, piercing it, and we drank the healing ichor of each other. “Coffee, Eve lent me some Virginia Slims. I’ve grown to like them.”

“Yes, Bee,” Lucifer smiled, putting on his horn-rimmed glasses as we dressed in robes and slippers low enough to let our wings rest comfortably. “It will soothe.”

We held hands in the highest penthouse in Hell, in Dis City – our working apartments, far from the country outskirts where our palace and estate was – and admired the gleaming metropolis we had created together over the ages. “Are you ready to leave for Heaven tomorrow, for Michael’s cabin in the Shamayim, to spend Christmas with him and Gabriel?” I asked, swallowing the hazy memory of fear. Wicked dreams, indeed.

Lucifer squeezed my hand, then kissed my cheek – he was quite tall, but I was taller. “Of course, Bee. I’ve been looking forward to it all winter. It’s always hot in Hell, never snows like Gan Eden. I would like to see my old orchard.”

“Ah yes, the apples.”

“Yes… Michael says he tended them well, and Eve waters and prunes them with Adam daily.”

“Yes, I am sure they are majestic.”

“It has been so long since we have been allowed to roam Gan Eden – Heaven – on pleasure, not business reined in by Metatron’s asinine rules.”

Neither of us made mention of G-d’s living corpse:, blind, deaf, and dumb atop the Throne, that Metatron divined from with the holy flame of the Shekinah. Some things were better left unsaid, and Lucifer sacrificed much of his blood, sanity, and sleepless nights ruling from Erebus, making the black refuse of Hell into ether and matter that would grow crops, water, food, air, life, and make a hell of a home, or a home of Hell.

We went to go exert ourselves in the dojo, then made our usual eggs and toast for breakfast and played Mario Kart and watched anime, before a busy day at the Hellopolis. I brought my limited-edition Lord of the Rings trilogy omnibus to read at lunch, and Lucifer stole my worn copy of the Silmarillion from my nightstand. Sometimes, in secret, we roleplayed Mairon and Melkor…

“How is Hua, darling?” I asked her aunt Chao, my office manager. Eve and Chao were chatting by the water cooler as I helped myself to an espresso.

“Wanted me to give you this, boss,” Chao smiled, her rosy cheeks broad and jolly. Chao fished in her purse for a carved wooden fish on a leather thong, clearly evidence of an elementary school project. “In Hell, fish bring luck, as you teach us all at Soul Orientation, Bee, when us souls arrive. Bend your tall-as-fuck head down, and watch the mandible.”

I did, and Chao ran her firm, strong hands cross my hair in a motherly fashion – (and I had always longed for a mother, but for us sorry lot of angels and demons, we never had one) – parting it to tie the necklace into a slipknot.

“I love it, Chao. Tell Hua thank you.”

Eve smiled, pensive. “I have a feeling we will all need the luck, Bee.”

Lucifer and I took the Red Baron’s jet to the Shamayim. Gabriel was bouncing on his heels at the airport, corn dogs in hand as he rushed to hug us. Michael smiled widely, staying back with a trestle for our luggage, which Gabe helped eagerly carry.

“Christmas! Christmas! Oh, the holly and the ivy! Brothers, WELCOME TO HEAVEN!” Gabriel sang, magicking a string of holly crowns from his pocket for me and Lucifer, placing them on our heads before we could protest.

“Thanks, Gabe,” I smiled. Lucifer winced. Some wounds were still fresh.

“I love it,” Lucifer said. “Greenery. A tree. The best gift Earth has to offer.”

“That’s what I always say,” Michael smiled, and we departed for their cabin.

There was much mirth, drinking, snow men, and aerial snowball fights to be had – and, of course, beer, alongside National Lampoon’s Christmas – at Michael and Gabriel’s cabin.

Christmas morning came around, and Michael handed us our presents.

I got his new whiskey – Copernicus. But Lu?

Lu got apple seeds

From his old Tree.

Lucifer, not able to help it, sank to his knees, and was wracked with sobs – heretofore forbidden from visiting his old Orchard of Life, though Eve and Michael always sent him updates and pics and logs on text, and had set up etheric cameras so my husband could watch his precious apple blossoms, squirrels, and deer.

I rushed to him.

Michael hugged him, and Gabriel did too. We all held him.

“I thought you could grow a new orchard, Lu,” Michael said kindly, proud. “We love you.”

I touched my necklace, pensive like Chao had been.

Would I need it, luck?

“I can really go to my old orchard?” Lucifer asked Eve and Michael as we ate in a little slice of Italian coast in Michael’s favorite harbor in the Shamayim – the one bit of pocket of summer in Gan Eden. Michelangelo spent his days here, carving immaculate sculptures that never even graced Italy in the 13th Century – he was Michael’s personal artist. I admired the sea naiads frolicking that towered over Heaven’s Gate above the Lake of Memories Michelangelo had carved, with fishermen hauling in the day’s catch below their giant embrace, and souls that chose old age as their favorite appearance ambling about with spaghetti, gelato, and art supplies (Michael taught still life classes, after all, and his was the Heaven of Artists. Also, the most idyllic retirement-style community for old souls at heart.)

Eve checked her iPhone – my secretary was quite happy to be free of my rotary phone and office attire – she was in a red checkered sundress, peach lipstick, and straw sunhat. Eve smiled tenderly, squeezing Lucifer’s pale, elegant hand. “Of course, Lu. Metatron doesn’t control everything – we just give him busy work. Christ and Michael are mostly in charge, just like you and Bee in Hell.”

I winced. “I hate him. Metatron, I mean. Such a fucking ass.”

Michael laughed softly. “And I think his feelings are mutual. You two are too set in your ways, Beelzebub. Stolid, conservative, obsessed with soul economics – inflexible. Unbending.”

“The solid wood breaks, the green wood bends,” Eve said. She loved to misquote the Tao Te Ching, fancied herself ‘spiritual.’ Usually, I thought it cute.

But now it irritated me. Her and Michael assuming everything was swell and easy.

“I loathe him too, admittedly,” Lucifer murmured, scrolling on Eve’s phone to view his favorite orchard sparkling in snow, winter berries ripe on bushes as cardinals, robins, and sparrows harvested the ripened red and seeds. “But I need to see my Garden.”

“Then bend,” Michael said kindly. “Nobody wants the Apocalypse, Lu.”

I smoothed Lucifer’s Italian linen shirt. He looked like Lestat, and I was Louis, my husband’s blond hair dangling in spirals, his sharp smile against fangs. I kissed his hand, and he kissed mine. Finally, we were in the Garden of Eden – Lucifer’s old estate and orchard, where he had planted the wine bushes of Baruch and apple trees of Knowledge and Life long ago.

We sat in a little awning, under an angel statue, snow ripe on the land, bundled up in pea coats and stomping black combat boots, black jeans on underneath. We liked to match our clothes.

“It’s like being home, Bee.” He cried softly, in joy, taking pictures of the animals and plants with his phone. “Eve said I could garden.”

“It is your Garden, Lu. And Lu?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Anywhere you are, is my home.”

We embraced, tended the bushes with clippers, cleaned the graves of the angels that had died in the War – it was a veteran’s cemetery park now, where mystical poppies bloomed in autumn when the veil between Immortality and Eternity was thinnest, and those of the Great Far Beyond could stretch their mysterious hands across the Void to nudge their brothers of times long forgotten, harvest hearts, and friendship.

For all of them – we remembered. Asmodeus, Moloch, Samael, Gabriel, Michael. Me and Lucifer. Even Metatron.

We did not let our fallen brothers fade, and Michael and Eve still tended Veteran’s Park – once the Garden of Eden – and led field trips of Heaven and Hell’s children to teach them why we should never

War

Again.

“Do you think it was worth it?” Lucifer said distantly, tone icy. He got the faraway look in his eye that meant his torment and past Harrowing was haunting him.

I leaned down and nestled my head in the crook of his shoulder, then kissed his neck, biting slightly – not enough to raise blood. He moaned, leaning into me as I stood behind him, and we threaded our hands across each other.

I turned him to me, reassuring – “What, Lu, my angel?”

He winced. “I am no angel, Baal.”

“To me, Attar, it does not matter. Angels, demons, gods. Who gives a fuck. You’re beautiful.” I kissed him, and we fell together like fire and ice, kissing, plucking, fucking – Eve had cleared the schedule and closed down Veteran’s Park to give us time together for an amorous escapade, as we had done in Lucifer’s Garden long ago.

When I was inside him, cock heavy with seed, Lucifer looked up to me and smiled, cried. He kissed me hungrily as I pumped, fucked, and worshipped him – sucking on his nipple, running my claws and mandible down his treasure trail and chest.

“It was worth it for this. Carnal delight.” He said in my embrace as I climaxed in time with him, panting.

“Hyup – what? Eve’s fruit? Giving humans souls, virility and fertility, giving them immortality? Ha – ha – ha. Fuck Lu, you’re beautiful -”

He silenced my moans with kisses, rolled me over so he, smaller and tender, was atop me, a golden dove on Lady Esclarmonde’s Cathar tomb in the French Alps. He began to sing, once Heaven’s lead vocalist, a tender B’shem HaShem. I cradled him, staring up at the snow falling from the cloudy sky.

It steamed on our naked flesh, the snowflakes, and I thought

That I

Could see G-d.

Elodie had asked me to be her birth doula, a perfumed, red wax sealed letter arriving from her summoning circle on my Hellopolis desk. I smiled at the picture she attached – her and her wife, Alicia, and Elodie pregnant through a donor. Her stomach was just beginning to show:

“Dearest Bee, my oldest friend,” the letter began: “I have found myself with a little Bug, as I was once your Brood. Please, do me the honor of being Godfather and birth doula of my beautiful daughter: Bailah. P.S. – I’m writing a novel about you.”

My eyes steamed with tears at my beautiful foster-daughter, the purple bee gem shining proudly on her brown breasts above a white sundress. It was summer, then winter, then summer again, and in time, my daughter had courted Alicia, married, and was now

With child.

“What a marvelous idea Elodie had,” Lucifer said happily as we ate at Tantalus’ Spoon, putting on Hedwig and the Angry Inch with my garage band later that night. I was dressed as Hedwig, black-white wig on, bustier attached under a sparkling net dress, pink go go boots and perfume.

We performed, and Samael and Lilith applauded the most of all. Eve and Adam sat at the back with their gaggles of children playing – basically four wedded parents to the Broods of Heaven and Hell.

“Brava, Bee!” Eve crowed, giving me flowers. Asmodeus smiled, lazing idly in Eligos’s arms. They poured me some wine, toasting me.

“To the garage band!” the Demon of Lust and Wrath said, his dark blond hair shining, and Eligos gave me a lei.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts after the performance and we got out of the drag,” Lucifer sulked, dressed in a three-piece navy suit.

“Huh, well, I told you this morning,” I said, amused.

He undid his cufflinks, looking at the pineapples on my t-shirt. “Well, I was playing Baldur’s Gate and saving Karlach.”

“Ah.”

My meeting with Metatron was not going well.

Metatron’s gray hair and beard were brushed with fine oils, he looked like an old image of G-d. “Well, Bael. The taxes just won’t do. We need more capital gains tax on the markets of Hell.”

I grew icy, anger rankling my stomach. I gritted my teeth, arranging my manila folder of records. I took my elegant hands and turned to the graph showing bloating on the stock market in turn with the moves of more souls from Heaven to Hell: “Souls prefer, on average, the modern amenities of the Underworld, Enoch.”

“Heaven is austerity. Pure. We cannot modernize, we are pastoral, tourist-destination laden. It’s how we thrive, in tune with nature. If we raise the capital gains tax on expatriates, we can deal with the inflation.”

“And trample Hell’s stock market, yes? Fuck you sincerely, Enoch.”

He bit his lips, frowning. “My name is Metatron, oh Bael of Rot. I am the ascended prophet. I shed that name when I became the Lord of Hosts, Right Hand of G-d-“

“We all know your G-d is as much corpse as the Emperor of Warhammer 40k.”

“The fuck is that, Bael?”

“A – a tabletop game – oh fuck you Enoch, I do not agree to the trade!”

He cursed me out too, and soon we had drawn our swords, my katana against his broadsword, and were dueling as demon and angel. He pierced my flesh, I skinned his shoulder. Anger! Hatred! O Empire of Hell I must defend, against the swollen indolence of Heaven. I pummeled, toppled him, got him in a bloody Half Nelson, then kicked his shin in.

Metatron groaned, slumping. I wiped my hands off on my pants, then magicked away the mess – careful to let the blood show still in my triumph.

“Wait, help me, Bael – HACK. Is it – hack – really so bad for Hell to suffer in honor of the righteous Paradise, Heaven?”

I fixed my briefcase and put my hair back in a ponytail, my mandible tasting his fear on the air. “It would starve Hell’s lower classes, as I explained, Enoch. Do not test me again.”

Metatron, before I could react, ambled over and stabbed me though the back. It was my turn to slump to the floor. He took my briefcase in his angry hands, stormily threw my phone, Tareytons, Elodie’s invitation of miracles – to the Devil a Daughter – and stamped them under his flaming feet. He scowled at the burning invitation.

“Fuck, the letter, fuck you!” I couldn’t stand, could stand, up, fuck, barf, up, damn you, Enoch.

“I’m reporting you to Michael for this infraction. I know he and Eve hope we can stop the Apocalypse. I hope, for the sake of my sword through your cock and bladder, it happens, Fly.”

I grabbed the burning letter, but Metatron summoned Godsfire, and burned me to a husk, castigating me with every curse in the Bible. Psalmic ones, wrathful ones, an angel

Scorned.

I bled, burnt, and wept, thinking back to Elodie’s iron nail that made me feel utmost pain.

Even those that loved me

Hurt me.

(Gladly, Father G-d?)

Fuck

Metatron.

Elodie was waiting for me at a luxe Prenatal Yoga studio that Paris Hilton loved in Chelsea. We got lox bagels beforehand then went inside, my platinum hair bunched back in a messed, artful bun, my gray workout clothes on against my icy skin.

“Bee,” she hugged me. “Thanks for being my doula, and Bailah’s godfather.”

“Of course, Bug,” I said happily. My soul-bonded goddaughter was a fine, sparkling woman: her and her wife Alicia had started a wildlife action nonprofit that protected cloud forest in the Amazon, something she had fallen in love with on a volunteer trip. She was using her Nigerian heiress and Rockefeller money well.

Elodie’s brown eyes sparkled like black movie glass, and her lips were done up in a beautiful shade of plum paint. She was plump and pleasing, and I gently wiped some of the garlic cream cheese from her lip with my elegant handkerchief Abaddon had embroidered for me for my last birthday on April 21st. I forbid even Lucifer from celebrating, but everyone always insisted on tiny gifts.

Metatron’s anger haunted me, but I erased it from my mind, having told no one of yet another dangerous encounter with the blasted Voice of God.

I would not let him harm any of my humans, or my citizens.

Not even let Lucifer have a go at him.

Metatron: abrasive, testy, conniving. Me: plotting, quiet, conservative, fastidious. We were always like fire and oil, combusting. In truth, I craved I and Metatron’s weekly fights.

Blowing off steam is always, shall we say, pleasant.

“Breathe in, lower your pelvis, hold for five seconds, then push. Have your partner position you,” the yoga instructor said, a cute Asian woman with a whip of black hair and pink sports bra.

I helped Elodie into the position, my strong mind probing her uterus to Bailah’s soul: Bailah was joyful in the uterine fluid, her soul spark dancing in time with Elodie’s heartbeat.

There was nothing I loved more on Earth, Heaven, or Hell than children like Bailah and Hua!

“Thanks, Bee. You’re amazing,” Elodie smiled as we got cappuccinos afterwards. “Say, Bee, do you think, um, well… oh God, maybe I shouldn’t say it.”

She looked nervous, her face flinching. She toyed with her goddess braids. I steadied her hand in mine, squeezing.

“What is it, dove?”

She lowered her onyx eyes: “Well, erm, do you think I’ll be a good mother? As good a parent as you are to your soul-bond charges?”

I softened, remembering raising Asmodeus, Belial, Jophiel, and the other archangel-gods in Pagan Heaven – before the Angelic Gene Corruption, and we became angels – then some of us Fallen, hellbound.

“You’ll be a wonderful mother to an adamant daughter, Elle.”

I toasted her with my coffee silently, and Elodie smiled, and we

Drank

Deep.

“So, you’re basically having a daughter,” Samael smiled, eating a lemon meringue donut he had baked for me and Lucifer after inviting us over for a barbecue in honor of Lucifer’s birthday on the Winter Solstice. Almost a year had passed, and Elodie was due in a month. “That’s wonderful, Bee.”

“Yes, well, little Bailey – Bailah’s nickname - will be my goddaughter, technically,” I smiled, warmth flooding my bones and mandible. I carried around a miniature photo of her sonogram everywhere, took Elodie to all her appointments, cooked with Alicia in the kitchen every day to satisfy Elodie’s pregnancy cravings, was working on a set of wings for my little human angel –

And Lucifer was carving an oaken cradle.

Lucifer grinned, licking the lemon curd with his forked tongue – it got on his golden stubble: “I’ve never seen Bee this happy, Sam.”

“Oh, fuff! So much merriment, and I feel left out – Sammy stopped celebrating our births ages ago!” Lilith laughed, ribbing her husband. Her green eyes, olive skin, and black-purple curls under velvet horns and above ruby lips shone in the Tiffany lamplight like sin.

Samael ribbed her right back: “Lily, we have a brood of a hundred a day. And I cook you everything.”

“Heh.” Lilith licked some chocolate cookies she’d baked, then foisted them onto my husband. “Happy eleventy eleventh birthday, Lu.”

“Oh yes, you always insist on Eleventy Eleventh birthdays,” Samael laughed.

“It’s a nice tradition,” I said amenably, my husband and I, just like Samael and Lilith, Tolkien nerds. When we LARPed, Lilith was Eowyn and Samael was Elrond. Eve liked to be Galadriel, and Michael was Celeborn. Adam, well, took photos and handed out the weapons. I loved to be in Sauron armor I custom blacksmithed, but Lucifer was too lazy, and ordered Mulciber to forge his – he was more into woodwork.

We had broken our roleplay of Mairon and Melkor finally, out, in public…

“To Lucifer’s Eleventy Eleventh! I mean, uh, Melkor’s!” Lilith cheered, fixing us a round of espressos.

We all blew our party streamers, then Samael cut into a vanilla ice cream chocolate fudge cake.

We ate the leftovers later that night in our palace by the fireside, our new dog – Naberius – a hellhound par excellence, basking by the smoldering woodstove.

“This is fucking divine,” Lucifer said mid-bite.

“Good birthday?” I asked.

“They’re always wretched,” he sighed. “I hate growing old. I think I have wrinkles.”

“Lucifer, you’re immortally 24.”

“Pah.”

I held his face in mine, gazed intently at his flawless skin, then kissed his brow: “You’re a vain creature, Heylel ben Shachar.”

“And proud,” he said bitterly. “Hell needs more glory. Sometimes, I ache for my spear, to go toe-to-toe with Michael again. Say, you think he’ll at least spar me for some territory, some of Purgatory’s outskirts by the Cedar of Lebanon transplants? I could bribe Eve with more of my strawberry plants from our yard to make the arrangements-

“Chavah is my Secretary, not yours, Lucifer. Talk to Chao. If so, I’d have to fight Michael’s number two, the cotton candy fiend. The sugar high that archangel carries alone might make me drunk.”

“Gabriel oh Gabriel, blow your horn!” Lucifer laughed, then pounced on me. “No, Bee, if I am the most beautiful angel, then you are the most splendid demon.” We sank into each other like wine in a glass, and made love to each other’s

Hell.

The sparring match was arranged in a fortnight, and I almost missed it in case Elodie was going to break her water, but she still had two weeks left. Chao drank some Aquafina and was dressed in a pantsuit, and Eve was marking the ground in chalk, while Lilith, CEO of Hell’s Business Department, held an official List of Barter:

Michael flexed on the side, in golden armor. Gabriel was in silver, winking at us. I had my katana, Lucifer his spear… for shits and giggles, we were in our Silmarillion armor.

“Okay, up for negotiation is the Cedar Grove of Purgatory. Lucifer wants to garden in it, and says Michael is using the wrong manure.”

“He is,” Lucifer said solidly, brushing back his blonde cowlick, golden muscles twining: “It needs more phosphate.”

“I prefer less,” Michael opined, then lit a cigarette. “I yield nothing.”

“I claim everything,” Lucifer called. “Get in the fucking cage, Mike.”

“Sure thing, little brother.”

“I was first, twin.”

“But I’m taller.”

They laughed, then got in the ring. Chao set off the bell: “Testosterone-addled combatants, engage!”

Lucifer fell on Michael with swift fury, stabbing. Michael took his burning sword in a cutting motion and steel, ether, and spark met in blazing combustion, Lucifer’s swan feathers against Michael’s owl. Michael’s black hair and tan skin shone in the dusk of Heaven, a plum sky above as snow fell outside the facility in Gabriel’s riverine Sphere.

“I yield!” Michael said as Lucifer wedged his Satanic, Paradisiacal spear deep into the flesh of his left thigh, then wrestled Michael into a Half-Nelson. Michael’s gold blood spilled out, mixing with Lucifer’s silver. “Care to crush my head, brother?”

“That’s blasphemous,” my husband teased. “Alright, Mike – if Bee wins against your second, best two out of three, I get my trees.”

“Yes, well, they are still my trees as of now, brother.”

They shook hands, healed their wounds, then exited the ring to watch their husbands.

Gabriel and I’s match barely lasted five minutes – he was distracted by the cookies Chao had brought, and had a bulging belly of oatmeal chocolate chip.

“Sorreh,” Gabriel said to Michael, face stuffed again mid-seconds after the match.

Michael looked baffled: “Honey, why did you stuff your face before the match?” he hugged his husband Gabriel.

Gabriel choked on crumbs: “Hungreh.”

“Ah.”

Elodie’s water broke at five past midnight on Sunday, January 1st, 20XX.

When I held Bailah in my arms? All the suffering – of the Fall, of long hours poring over soul returns and property law at my desk, my fights with Metatron… even the old days when we had to carry out Father’s torture of souls, before he sunk, blind deaf and dumb, in an eternal metaphorical barrow?

All my Exile, my Fall?

Was worth it.

Bailah gazed up at us with newborn blue eyes, and I ran my fingers through her beautiful brown locks.

Elodie smiled, sweating, holding Alicia and Lucifer’s hands.

I set our baby Bailah upon Elodie’s beautiful brown breast to nurse, and picked out the baby dragonfly necklace I had spent nine months fashioning in my blacksmith studio, enchanted with a drop of me – Beelzebub’s – Fly blood to give them life:

“A gift of my soul to my goddaughter,” I said, weeping with tears of joy.

Elodie cried too, tired, ecstatic, and Lucifer smiled through tears.

I put the necklace on Bailah, settling it upon her tiny stardust flesh.

Like it, she shined.

Girl and Fly Out Drinking (Eve Interlude)

My boss Beelzebub was irked. He took his fountain pen and elegantly scrawled with his albino hands atop the morning’s ledgers: tax returns for Dis City, immigration papers, votes for the next Duke – all that was legal passed through the Prime Minister of Hell’s desk. But his mandibles under his icy platinum hair perked, tasting the air in disdain.

“Morning, Bee,” I winked, handing him his cappuccino. I took my flat white to my desk next to him. It read: “SECRETARY CHAVAH.”

“Morning, Eve. Darling – you’re late.”

I deflated, my strawberry blonde hair and freckles reflected in his Gucci glasses. Bee was in a Valentino dress casual outfit and gray slate Doc Martens with graffiti designs of little yellow lemons, a black streak in his long white hair. As usual, avant garde.

“Sorry, boss. Last night was hard. Adam spent forever going over the water main systems of Heaven’s Fourth District. And my rhubarb pie burned.”

Bee smiled, making a vermouth on the rocks – too early on Earth to imbibe, but it was always drinking hour at hand in Hell. He extended it to me as he poured a twin one for himself. “Sounds stressful, dear. Here, to soothe you. Fuck, these returns are taking forever. The Rent-An-Imp service Aym runs is operating on the black market – I need to deal with him.”

“Fucking Aym,” I smiled, clanking my glass with his. We worked in the belly of the Hellopolis, past Penemue’s Soul Return Department, past Samael’s Justice Department, even beyond Dumah’s Department of Hellgriculture, where he always put tacky redneck pictures of him riding his thunder dragons with AK-47s on the fucking hallway walls. Bee and I always joked about the idiotic pics. Trashy, tacky shit.

“Say, Beelzebub, you think the drudgery of office work in Heaven and Hell was G-d’s intention all along? Ineffable bureaucracy,” I mused.

“Hmm, I suppose a dog returns to its vomit.” Bee smiled slightly, half-moon glasses shining atop his austere cheekbones, like he was cut from ice. “Say, Eve. Let’s get dinner today. Lucifer says I should socialize more.”

I smiled, shaping my red painted nails into finger guns, then pretending to shoot him: “Attaboy, Bee! Getting out of the office and out of board meetings! I’d love to.”

The day passed in its usual fashion – President Lucifer’s speech, Prime Minister Beelzebub taking votes, the Dukes and Kings debating, Judge Samael presiding. Dumah even handed out beer cozies from him and his wife’s side hustle – black camo, eugh. All in all,  terrible day.

I found myself fumbling a Pilsner into a beer cozy as we waited for the 6:00 clock dismissal alarm to blare off when the President, Lucifer, pulled it – The Devil Bee’s husband and eternal burning flame.

My boss rose, fly wings and elegant architecture of his bones standing out in contrast under the harsh fluorescent lights – some fucking building code required the hideous flashers. I preferred soft incandescent, and Bee? He loved the Zenn Buddhist darkness of Yin.

Bee lit a Tareyton as he idly played with the light on his desk: ON/OFF, ON/OFF, ON/OFF – I drank each time he let his nervous habit happen.

“Hmm, maybe I could help Adam with the Heaven’s water main systems if you like, I need to sweat-

I tossed Bee a Corona, his favorite. “Beer, then dinner, boss. Beer and dinner. No busywork, you crazy Fly.”

“Ha.” There was a sheen of sweat on his brow. “Right, Eve. Dinner. I could use a steak.”

We idled our way over to Positano on the Amalfi Coast, magicking our way across dimensions. The seabirds spanned a cerulean summer sky, and I got sea bass and pasta at Riviera, and Bee got his aforementioned steak.

“Fuck, it’s perfect,” Bee sighed, smiling, disguising his fly appendages. I had noetically magicked a green sundress and peach straw hat with a rose decal, gold slingback heels dangling from my tiny feet, and white tote bag slung to my side.

Bee lowered his shades, lit a Tareyton, and smiled. “Marriage is hard, ugh. Lucifer says he is doing well, but as the week grates on with this damn problem with Aym’s Rent-an-Imp black market deals… Lu thinks he’s going to have to use ‘Executive Perdition.’”

I froze in my spot. “On Aym? A demotion?”

Bee’s pale lips thinned – his strangely handsome, oddly angled face pursed. “Yes, well… I think it is necessary. Judgment and Punishment, and Efficiency and Passion, are the Laws of the Morningstar. And yet…?”

“And yet, Aym is one of your best friends.”

Bee smiled sorrowfully. “Yes. Thanks for listening, Eve.”

“No problem, boss. No problem. Don’t blame yourself Bee.”

“For what?”

“Any of it.”

“Aym is –

“The War. The Fall. I prefer Knowledge, after all.”

He smiled, genuinely – we all had ancient ghosts haunting us. Tenderly, Bee reached for my hand. I squeezed his, smiling.

“Hey, let’s get dessert,” I said.

“You’re a good friend, Eve. A lion among ladies.”

“And you’re a spider among flies, Baal.”

We walked off hand in hand, girl and her Fly, back to our husbands, back to the TV and domesticity, one in Heaven, one in Hell. We had a friendship that spanned Edenic generations.

Girl and Fly, out drinking.

[avastyetwats]

The way Charles hesitated gave Flint pause, as well.

He thought he felt something akin to emotional pain and a part of him wanted to ask, but it wasn't exactly the time for that and his mind couldn't stay focused on anything else but the pleasure for too long. Not when Charles had half of his cock in his damn mouth, stroking it with his tongue and grazing it with his fangs. A little more pressure and he'd likely nick it and make him bleed and honestly? That sounded really fucking hot. Making Charles swallow down his own blood along with his cum? Fucking hell, everything was pushing the redhead closer to an orgasm, but he didn't want to fall apart just yet. It was too fucking soon even though he'd be ready again in just a few minutes, but he wanted his first orgasm to be while he was buried inside of Charles, fucking him full of his cum and breeding his fledgling.

So when Charles pulled back, it allowed Flint to distance himself further from the edge. He watched as the blood, pre-cum and saliva all dripped down his chin, some of it hitting the ground and some of it following the curve of his neck and down his chest. He had half a mind to drop to his knees and lick him clean, but he didn't want to pull his cock away from his warm hand. He growled and fucked into it, meeting with his strokes and still combing his fingers through his hair before he suddenly took hold and tilted his head back, gazing down into his eyes. "No." He growls in response to his question, gathering what was on his chin using his index finger and pushing it back into his mouth. "I want to come inside of you, Charles. I want my first load to fill you until it's too much to take, until it's spilling out of you. I want you to feel thoroughly fucked and completely full." He explains in detail, bringing his finger that had just been in his mouth to his own lips, sucking it clean. "I want to breed you and make you mine in every single fucking way." And with that, while still holding him by the hair, he kissed him something fierce again, moaning at the taste of the human's blood, his own pre-cum and Charles' saliva.

He then pulled away when Charles looked down at his own lap for a brief second before moving to nuzzle his cock and fuck, did it make him twitch against the vampire's nose. Especially when he started begging to the touched and oh, he sounded so pathetic and so, so sweet. He even sounded pained and desperate and Flint could even feel it. His gaze softened once more and he nodded, loosening his hold on his hair and combing it back while kissing him softly this time. Far more gentler than the kisses prior as though conveying that he was about to give him what he wanted. What he deserved. Because he'd been behaving. He'd been patient and doing what Flint asked of him, so did he not deserve to be rewarded for it? As much as Flint enjoyed edging and teasing him, he knew when enough was enough and he did not want to torment him to the point of misery. So with a nod, he lowered himself to his knees in front of Charles and moved his hand out of the way so he could undo his trousers, encouraging him to lift just enough so Flint could reach in and pull out his monster fucking cock. Jesus fucking Christ. He scolded himself for that, but fuck, Charles was... very well endowed and he wasn't sure if that was another gift blessed to him after turning or if that was his size even as a human.

His eyes looked down and widened at the sight of it. "Fuck..." He breathes out in awe, fingers wrapped around his meaty flesh, hot to the touch and throbbing just like his own cock had been. But he was touching him as he so sweetly begged him to, stroking him slow and feeling at every inch of him. He moaned as he stroked him, watching his own pre-cum leak from the tip and he couldn't help but wipe it up with his thumb and bring it to his lips with another moan, savoring the taste of him. He withdrew his finger and leaned in to kiss him again, this one softer than the last only so they could taste each other. He wanted Charles to taste himself and fuck, he tasted even better mixed with his own pre-cum. He kissed him soft, slow and deep while stroking him all the same, his body starting to push against his. “Lay down.” He murmured against his lips, letting him go so he could rid himself of his pants. He couldn’t wait any longer.

The way Gates reacted to the news was priceless, and the way Flint laughed at him even moreso. He was enjoying this, until the fatherly quartermaster basically started insulting him. But this was how it always was. Vane was never one to shy away from a fight, and instigated plenty himself which made him a lot of enemies. Still. The way he was behaving toward him now made his eyes narrow and glare. His emotions were still on edge because of turning.

“ Careful. “ He growled with a warning of his own when he said no offense. But the way Flint so fiercely protected him helped ease his anger a bit. To think, he’d been looking after him the whole time unknowingly. The fact he’d had plans to turn him didn’t come as a surprise either, but it reminded him of his point earlier. Hr should have come to him earlier.

“ I’m not a fucking dog. “ He grumbled with a defiant cross of his arms. He could tell Flint found the whole thing hilarious. But he tried to keep his cool, for him. He wouldn’t kill Gates, for him, and he respected him too much to do such a thing.

He snickered as Gates mentioned dinner date, Charles calling after. “ And fucking. Don’t forget the fucking. “ He watched as the man visibly shuddered and even gagged which finally brought a laugh of his own from the captain. But Flint beckoned him over and he went to his side, lightly nudging one of the men with his foot, seeing if they were really out. He looked between the two. “ Good thing you heard them then. “ He nodded his head toward one. “ I’ll take the blonde. “

[slasherhaven]

Hi! Can you Do a Bo Sinclair soulmate imagine where the reader meets him while she’s with Carly, Wade, Nick, and the rest? Maybe where you feel your soulmates pain, or something. Sorry if this is too specific lol.

Bo Sinclair X Reader

Soulmate AU: shared pain and shared scars:

You had been friends with Carly for a little while now, which was how you got invited on the group’s road trip. You weren’t a massive fan of football and didn’t care much about the game you were going to see but you thought that getting away could be a little fun.

It was the night before the game when the group decided to camp out for the night and keep driving in the morning. After setting up the tents, you all sat around with drinks, talking among yourselves. 

As the group talked and laughed, you held your wrist in your hand, gently tracing the faint scarring with your thumb, an absentminded habit you had developed years ago. 

“Damn, they look nasty” Nick’s voice made you look away from the others and towards him, seeing how he eyed your wrists. 

“Leave her alone, Nick” Carly scolded her brother, already knowing about the scars you had received due to your unfortunate soulmate. 

“Are they yours?” Nick asked, completely ignoring his sister. You weren’t sure whether he was genuinely curious or actually trying to get under your skin. 

“...no” you answered honestly. 

“Unlucky bastard” Nick muttered before turning his attention back to his drink, like your conversation never even happened.

With everyone’s attention going back to more light-hearted conversation, you looked down at your scarred wrist and sighed. 

Carly had once asked you if you held any resentment for your soulmate, as have others in your life, and you had been perfectly honest with all of them. You held no resentment, you weren’t angry with your soulmate, you were nothing but sympathetic towards them. It wasn’t their fault that somebody hurt them like this, you just hoped that they had been able to get away from it.

Though, you doubted it. The injuries aren’t as frequent as they were in childhood, however they still occurred and they could be pretty bad. Once, you had even woken up in the middle of the night, bleeding from what looked like a knife wound.

“Here” Carly’s voice brought you out of your thoughts, making you look up to see her standing beside you with a smile. You returned her smile and accepted the can of beer she held out to you.

Opening the can, you hissed slightly as your thumb slipped and you cut yourself on the sharp metal, cursing your own clumsiness. You brought your thumb up to your mouth before lowering it again, taking a sip of your drink. 

- 

“Ah shit” Bo quietly cursed at the sudden stinging sensation in his thumb, it wasn’t particularly painful, just a shock.

He lifted his hand, noticing the slight cut on his thumb, and sighed. His soulmate must have done something stupid but he couldn’t find it within him to feel annoyed about it, not after everything he must have put them through.

He would probably be returning the favour pretty soon, since Lester had informed him of a group camping out nearby, they should be coming into town pretty soon. 

-

After the car broke down and everyone decided that there was nothing they could do to fix it, a man named Lester had offered to take three of you into a nearby town so that you could visit the garage there. So, you, Carly, and wade ended up walking into the town that Lester had left you on the outskirts on.

Walking under the hot Louisiana sun, you had to pull your jacket off and tie the sleeves around your waist. The three of you headed straight to the garage, which was easy to find, but found that there was nobody there. 

“Maybe there will be someone in the church?” Wade suggested, nodding towards the church at the end of the street.

“I’ll stay here in case someone comes back” you offered, thinking that the owner that Lester mentioned could be back any minute. 

“You sure?” Carly asked, not too sure about leaving you alone in a strange place. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” you shrugged.

Carly and Wade nodded before heading to the church to find somebody who could help while you waited at the garage.

You sat down on the curb, glancing around the street. From where you were sitting, the church was just out of sight but you could see the top of the Wax Museum in the slight distance. Ambrose was a small town, extremely quiet. It almost seemed empty, only the sound of birds flying overhead breaking the silence. 

After a little while of waiting, you started to wonder why your two friends hadn’t come back. Surely they would have found somebody by now and if they hadn’t you thought they would come to tell you that. You were just about to go looking for them when footsteps caught your attention. You looked in the direction of the church, seeing a man in a full black suit walking towards you.

You paused for a moment, just staring at him as he approached. It felt like the air was sucked from your lungs, like the earth stood still just for a moment. The strange feeling was all consuming, you didn’t notice the falter in his steps that suggested that he might have experienced something similar. The sensation reminded you of the description Carly had given you when she was explaining what it’s like to meet your soulmate. Though his casualness in his following question made you doubt it. 

“Can I help you?” the man asked with a charming southern drawl. 

“Do you work here?” you asked as you stood up, dusting off your shorts. 

“Own the place” he nodded before walking over to the garage and unlocking the front door. “Are you here with two friends? I didn’t catch their names” he asked, nodding at you to follow him inside. 

“Yeah, Carly and Wade. You saw them?” you nodded as you followed him into the garage, feeling some relief to be out of the harsh sun. 

“Said they needed a fan belt, I sent them up to the wax museum to kill some time before I could help them. Didn’t realise they left someone else waiting here” he explained. You frowned a little, it would have been nice of them to have let you know rather than just leaving alone on the curb. 

Shaking the thought away, you put another smile on your face. “I’m Y/n, by the way” you introduced yourself politely, holding your hand out for him to shake. 

“Bo Sinclair” he introduced himself and took your hand, giving you a firm hand shake. His charismatic smile remained on his face, something closer to a smirk than a friendly smile. His name spoken in that alluring southern accent. You simply couldn’t help but be a little charmed by him.

His smirk faltered for a moment as he glanced down at your hands, noticing the scars that wrapped around your wrists. He paused for a moment, holding your hand a little too long as his gaze lingered on the scars. 

Bo didn’t comment on it, so the small feeling you had that his man could possibly be your soulmate left your mind. There was no way he didn’t recognise them if he had the same ones. They were too unique.

In that case, you figured his staring was just because of the scarring. You had experienced people staring at them from time to time, wondering how you got them, but you never let it bother you. You weren’t ashamed of them. 

Bo plastered the smirk back on his face as he released your hand. He couldn’t help but catch himself stare a little. You didn’t hide the scarring like he did. Yours were also a little fainter than his, probably because you had them tended too properly unlike him and they healed better. The intense, all consuming, feeling from earlier and now seeing the scars so similar to his own. It couldn’t be a coincidence... 

“You seem a little over dressed for a mechanic” you commented to break the awkwardness, understanding the tension that had developed but the two of you seemed to move past it relatively easily. 

“I was at a funeral before you’re two friends crashed it over a goddamn fanbelt” Bo told you, irritation clear in his voice. You couldn’t blame him in the slightest. 

“Oh...I’m so sorry” you apologised on behalf of your friends, now feeling a little bad for dragging him away to fix up your car. “Who did you loose, if you don’t mind me asking?” you asked, hoping to be sympathetic without prying too much. 

“My mother” Bo told you, making you even more apologetic. 

“I’m so sorry...about my friends and that you have to fix our car” you frowned, feeling even more awful than before. 

“Ain’t your fault, darlin’“ Bo assured you, truly not seeming angry with you. 

You couldn’t help but blush a little at the petname, you just couldn’t deny feeling an attraction towards this man. Having felt an instant connection to him. It was strange, and you were already finding yourself a little longing, knowing you’ll have to leave once the car was sorted. 

“C’mon, let’s see if I can find that fanbelt for you” Bo’s smirk quickly returned as he gestured you to follow him further into the garage. “One of your friends told me what size you needed” he informed you as he started searching through his supply of fanbelts. “And...we don’t have it” he hummed.

“You don’t? What now?” you asked with a frown, having no idea what you were supposed to do now. Where the hell were Carly and Wade?

“Don’t worry, no need to frown, sweetheart. We have the rest of the delivery up at the house, we’ll have the right size for ya” Bo assured you with a charming wink.

“You could have lead with that” you chuckled to yourself, feeling relieved and trying to ignore the way he had winked at you.

“C’mon, we’ll go up to the house and get it for ya. I’ll get my brother to tow your car and we’ll get you all sorted” he told you, quickly putting you at ease and making you feel like everything was going to work you.

“Thank you so much, Bo” you sighed, giving him a sincere smile.

“It’s not a problem” Bo nodded. “We’ll take my truck, it’s just outside” he informed you, placing a hand between your shoulder blades as he guided you outside.

The two of you got into his truck and Bo started driving towards his house. Normally this would be something that you would be suspicious about but something about him put you at ease.

“Those scars of yours...they’re pretty intense” Bo finally commented on them, he needed to know what you had to say. “They yours?” he asked, reminding you a little of your talk with Nick the night before.

“No, they’re my soulmate’s” you told him, gently rubbing your wrists.

“You must have really ripped into him when you met them, huh?” he joked half-heartedly, something in his tone that made you curious.

“Oh, I haven’t met them...but I wouldn’t rip into them” you frowned at the accusation. “I’ve had these scars since childhood, which means they likely did too...it’s not their fault somebody hurt them. I’m not angry at them at all” you shook your head, clearly meaning every word you said.

“I’d be pretty pissed” Bo scoffed before his voice softened slightly, “but you’re probably a good person.”

“They were hurt by somebody, how can I be angry at them for that? I’m angry at whoever did it to them...honestly, I just hope they’re alright now” you confessed. “Just wanna give them a hug, y’know?” you laughed lightly.

“I hope my soulmate feels the same as you, they’ve probably been through hell because of me” Bo told you.

You weren't sure what that meant, of course. You didn't know what Bo had been through to worry about his soulmate's reaction to him like that but you were sure your soulmate had some similar concerns and you didn't want to pry further.

“They won’t be mad at you” you promised him with a smile.

Bo gave you a slight smile as he pulled up outside of his house, the way he looked at you leaving you curious. You couldn't quite explain it.

As Bo and you climbed out of the truck, Bo knew that you were his soulmate and that he couldn't let you go. A part of him had been relieved to hear that you didn't harbour any resentment towards him but he knew that if you didn't hate him now, you certainly would by the end of the day.

Still, Bo was selfish. He could let his soulmate, especially such a good one like you, slip between his fingers. You were his, and you had come home. He wouldn't be letting you leave any time soon.

[space-helen]

Back to Vegas - Chapter 7

Words: 1907

Pairing: Nick Stokes x Reader

A/N: There’s one more part after this! Thank you for all of the support to far it means a lot

CH1   CH2   CH3   CH4    CH5   CH6  CH7  CH8

_______________________________

Nick rested his forehead on your bed as he clutched your hand within his two as he listened to the beeping of the machinery around you. He’d been waiting around the hospital for three hours before he was allowed to come and sit with you.

It’d been nine hours since that point. Nine long hours of him sitting by your side as you slept and he talked to you. The Doctors said you’d pull through and would wake up in your own time but there was no telling how long that’d take and only you could decide that for yourself.

They’d told Nick in detail exactly what Hannah had put into your body but the only thing he took away was “You were extremely lucky to get Y/N here on time. Any later and the result wouldn’t be the same.”

The opening of the door had Nick sitting upright, he moved one hand but kept the other intertwined with yours. Greg, Sara, Catherine and Grissom all filled into the room taking various positions around your bed.

Catherine sat opposite Nick while Sara sat at the end of the bed with Grissom at her side and Greg took a seat not far from Nick. Nick angled his body slightly so he could see all of them. They instantly noticed his disheveled complexion and very red eyes from crying.

“We heard she’s going to make it.” Catherine was the first to break the silence

“Yeah.” Nick nodded to himself and looked at you before looking back at Catherine. 

“She’s strong Nick. She’s out of the woods.” Sara added as she looked over you. She could see the bruises littered on your exposed skin from the struggle and from the force at which Hannah had injected you, your hand that Nick wasn’t holding was also bandaged up.

“She still needs to wake up though.” his words were barely audible and his eyes began to tear up.

“Nick I know you want to stay by her side but you haven’t eaten in hours. Let one of us sit here while you get a bite to eat” Catherine tried to persuade the man.

“I have to stay with her. She stayed by me.”

“We really don’t mind.” Sara added.

“You don’t understand.” he looked around the room “She didn’t leave my side so I won’t leave hers. I know it’s not as severe but I just can’t. What if I leave and-” he stopped to try and compose himself by taking in a deep breath and letting it out.

“The case?” Grissom broke his silence.

Nick looked at the man with shiny eyes and nodded “Word has probably got around to you guys about a case Y/N and I worked that really brought us together. I think only Greg knows the extent of the case really and even I spared him some details.” He looked at you and started to rub a pattern on your hand with his thumb and he teared up a little but was able to keep his emotions in check. 

“To cut to the chase we ended up in a shootout. We were hiding together and trying to keep calm. Some punk found us and shot me twice, once in the leg and the other in the shoulder. Luckily the guy was shot down before Y/N was shot otherwise we wouldn’t be here now, either of us. She tried to stop the bleeding the best she could and just stayed with me and re-assured me I’d be ok while we waited for the EMT’s.”

Nick’s voice was starting to get wobbly and show emotion, Greg moved to sit on the edge of his seat and put his hand on Nick’s shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.

“She didn’t leave my side the entire time. She got her injuries checked out and that was about it. I nearly bled out, hell I was even dead for a short time in surgery. Y/N sat by my bedside for God knows how long until I woke up. After that she still barely left my side until I ordered her back to work. I didn���t want to tell any of you guys because I didn’t want to worry you.”

Greg moved his hand from Nick’s shoulder “We understand but you should have told us.”

“I know I know.” Nick took in another breath “She stayed with me through recovery and rehabilitation, I had to basically re-learn how to walk for a little bit because the bullet had torn through my leg badly. It’s all fine now. It really took me no time to build back the strength. There were a couple other incidents after that and then we were going on our first date.”

He sucked in a breath “I really don’t know what I’d do without her.”

The room stayed silent for a moment while Nick just looked at you, eventually he let go of your hand and he twisted for his coat which was laid over the back of his chair and rummaged through his pockets “I guess it’s just my luck.” 

He pulled out what he was looking for and clutched it in his hand “I was just about to ask her to marry me and everything. I nearly did last night but… I changed my mind because I wanted to tell you guys first. I’ve had this ring since way before we even came to Vegas.” a tear rolled down his cheek and his throat was sore with emotion “In hindsight I really should have just done it. Last night was perfect.”

Catherine was soon standing up and moving around the bed and opening her arms to give Nick a tight embrace “It’s ok Nicky. She’ll wake up soon.” the woman could feel her own tears threatening.

Sara approached the pair in the embrace and joined in with Greg soon following and Grissom approaching the huddle and putting his hand on Nick’s shoulder. Grissom looked down at you before looking back at Nick.

“I really think she’s going to make it Nick. I know my words mean nothing but she’ll wake up, even the Doctors said that.” he tried to reassure.

The huddle was soon breaking up as Nick completely composed himself and flopped back in the chair by your bedside. Grissom and Sara had offered to feed Sam and go back to the lab to continue working the case and Greg offered to bring him some food before going back to the lab.

Catherine was the last to leave a short while after the others.

“I should head to the lab but I want you to know something.” She moved to the edge of her seat and grabbed Nick's hand from across the bed. “I could just see how well you were made for each other as soon as you walked in through the door. You know I’ve had my fair share of love stories and after a while you just know when someone’s relationship is heading for trouble or destined to be happy. You guys are made for each other.” She squeezed his hand and gave him a smile.

“Thanks Cath.” he mustered a sad smile of his own “That really means a lot.”

She stood up and grabbed her belongings “I mean it Nick. I thought she was pretty good when I met her but I think she’s an amazing woman now. I’ll catch you after my shift. Please message me if anything happens.”

The man nodded and made his promise to Catherine to message her if anything changed.

The room was not silent but after Catherine left it felt as if it was. He sadly smiled at you and leaned forward to give you a quick kiss to the cheek before leaning back in his chair.

It’d been long enough for Greg to stop by with food and Nick to eat and clean up before you woke up. Nick was getting comfy in his seat after using the bathroom when you began to stir.

“Y/N” his voice was full of enthusiasm and excitement. “You’re at the hospital.” he tried to comfort you knowing how weird it could be to wake up and not know where you are.

“Nick?” your eyes were fluttering open and trying to focus on the man “I feel dizzy. Where am I?” your words slurred.

“The hospital Darlin’. Let me go grab a Doctor.” he stood in a scramble and soon was returning with a Doctor who made him wait outside the room.

Ten minutes later he was back at your side. “Hey.” you weakly spoke

“Hey.” he lowered himself into the chair next to you and smiled. “How you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.” you admitted, there was a dull ache in your head and your body hurt all over. 

The man nodded in response and let a silence hang for a moment. “I was so worried.”

“I know.” you reached for his hand and curled your fingers between his. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m sorry for bringing you to Vegas in the first place.”

“Never apologise for that. It isn’t your fault. We did the right thing coming back and I don’t regret it. I should have just been more careful at the scene.” 

“You remember what happened?” he asked curiously, secretly hoping that you did so he didn’t have to recount the moments.

“Yeah. It gets hazy after she got me the second time and I have patches of memory of a car journey.”

He nodded sadly “Yeah. I rushed you here. I really thought I’d lost you. I don’t know what I would have done if I-”

“I’m here now. I’m ok.” you reassured the man “The Doctor said I needed to stay in for another couple of days to monitor me because they really don’t know what other effects the combination of drugs she gave me will have.”  He looked you in the eyes, relief and emotion present in his. “I love you Nick.”

“I love you more.” he said leaning forward to place a kiss on your forehead “promise me you won’t go alone to a scene again.”

“I promise.” you yawned and felt yourself getting tired.

“Am I really that boring?” the man teased

“Of course not.” you gave him a weak laugh “You look pretty tired and I could really do with a cuddle.” you admitted’

“Y/N I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why not?” you pouted slightly “Look here.” you started to try and shift over in the bed.

“Hey, slow down. It’s alright I’m comfy here.”

“You might be but that doesn’t stop me from wanting a cuddle.” you adjusted yourself over in the bed so he had some room “Get up here why don’t you.” you said tapping the bed.

“If we get caught-”

“I’ll take the blame.” the man lay down next to you and you cuddled up to his chest and let your eyes fall closed.

The man felt himself get slightly emotional when he wrapped his arms around you and brought you to his chest. He placed a kiss on the top of your head and rested his head down on the pillow. He couldn’t even begin to express the way he was feeling right now. A tear rolled down his cheek as he closed his eyes 

“Thank you for saving my life.”

Next Chapter

Tag List: (open)

Nick Stokes: @wanniiieeee  @pumpkinfriend

CSI:

[fallout-drabbles-n-stuff]

Lately, everything has been terrible and stressful can I please get some fluff between sole and a married romanced companion doing married couple stuff?

(Heyy, I recognize you from my Skyrim blog! Hope everything starts getting better, whatever is going on)

(This is one of those things where if ya'll want a little drabble with a specific character..just ask! This may be more of a romantic fluff thing because i don't really know how to specifically make it about them being married //although I am thinking of writing wedding Headcanons// but you get the gist.))

Cait:

•She never thought she would ever find herself here. Surely, she thought, she would've been beaten to death or overdosed before love ever would've been in the cards. So, it would be a vast understatement to say she's sometimes at a loss for words when she looks at you. Her wife/husband..damn that felt good.

•Often times you are privileged to the more tender side of Cait, the side of her that allows her to be completely at ease. During these times, she'll allow you to kiss some of her scars- her face flushing a furious red similar to one of her hair. She usually isn't the sappy type, but if you tell her that you love them as much as you love her..cue the waterworks.

•It's maybe not the romantic gesture, but she finds herself consistently sharpening your knives when you aren't around- placing them back in your knapsack before you get home. Partially accredited to her want for your safety and otherwise well being.

•If you have long enough hair, she sometimes will braid it in one of those fancy four strand braids..you know..to keep it out of your face for combat.

•Bunch of nights spent on the roof of red rocket sipping crappy warm beer but neither of you caring, much too invested in each other's presence to be picky.

Curie:

•She keeps a very strict journaling of her research records...she also keeps one detailing every little aspect of you that she loves. She isn't exactly sure why she started doing this, but..it quickly becomes a post-war like scrapbook of the two of you. The biggest picture with tons of little hearts around it is the one of the two of you on your wedding day.

•You can sometimes find her uncontrollably grinning whenever she takes off her lab gloves and sees her wedding ring. She doesn't dare ever take it off.

•The second you get sick she is there by your side, the whole "in sickness" part of her vows surely weren't just for tradition.

Danse:

•Just as you wear his, Danse never parts with your dog tags. Between them and his ring, they may as well be a part of him. Danse also has your initials engraved on the gauntlets of his power armour.

•Danse is surprisingly physically affectionate. As such, there are many instances where your ever so serious husband will stop you, running his thumb over your cheek before randomly giving you a chaste kiss. Afterwards he almost always follows the action up with something along the lines of "I'll never understand how I've became lucky enough to be able to call you mine."

•Enjoys you keeping him company when he works on power armour or weapons. Even if you have no skill in blacksmithing, he will insist that you join him. Just imagine it- a warm wasteland afternoon, Dogmeat laying out in the sun, some tune playing over the radio while a sweaty, tank top wearing Danse getting you to mod weapons with him.

Deacon:

•Deacon easily becomes very protective over you, who can blame him? His luck with marriage hasn't been the best...but then again..neither has your's. The more serious side of your relationship will always be the lingering fear of losing each other..it's good enough to make you hold each other closer at night.

•Late night snack breaks while the radio plays and the two of you dance around together is a must have for each night.

•You two are now formally known as the only married couple of the Railroad. Congrats.

Gage:

•Totally has gotten a tattoo of your name. Let's face it, you probably have one of his as well.

•Loves spoiling you as much as he possibly can without crossing the line as your "right-hand" man. Gangs can't know too much. Well, they already know you're married..but you know..

•Doesn't drink very often, matter of fact he used to despise it. However, he soon sees the merriment in it via drunken antics with just you in your own privacy. Oh, expanding upon this..it's sort of a morning ritual for the two of you to watch the sunrise and drink some nuka-quantum to get the day going.

Hancock:

•The people of Goodneighbor view the two of you like some cool political power couple. It's neat. With that reputation also comes your husband seeking your counsel in political matters, let's just face it, he sometimes needs some guidance on how to be more strict without breaking his "code".

•Serves as a wonderful listener. I know, bare minimum- but seriously, he is incredibly wise when it comes to everyday strife. Plus, there isn't anyone else he'd rather listen to than his sweet sunshine.

•Often presents you with lavish gifts that you probably don't want to know where he got the funds for. Doesn't matter.

Macready:

•He probably will have warned you a thousand times over before marriage but by marrying you, Duncan has to come into the big picture. So, marrying Mac means adopting yourself another little one and becoming your own perfect family.

•As such, a lot of the fluffier times have to do with all of you bonding. Be it making some strange wasteland alternative to pancakes in the morning or going out together to go shoot cans off the fence- life is pretty good.

•Mac becomes at ease whenever he feels completely secure. This will bleed over into every aspect of him, meaning you'll often times find him being less awkward with flirting with you and he also isn't as guarded.

Maxson:

•Although the two of you both uphold your duties to a tee, you always make sure to have time dedicated to the two of you. Regarding this, Arthur is completely in awe during the first few months of your marriage. He knew he wanted you, he just didn't ever imagine it would happen like this, plus being such a young newlywed surely puts an extra pep in his step.

•On some of the off days where he can just have you all to himself: he likes to play chess, take walks, and simply cuddle the hours away.

•I also believe it's worth mentioning that Arthur occasionally leaves you heartfelt love letters around where you'll get them. So even in the days he can't spend devoted to you, at least you'll have that.

Nick:

•Slow dancing? Oh hell yes. Slow dances in the agency to songs like "Easy Living" are a common occurrence for the two of you.

•You'll never doubt how much he loves you, I can guarantee that much. Nick is nothing if not a romantic.

Piper:

•Date nights spent enjoying some power noodles as she screws with the robot vendor.

•Also a repeat offender of leaving love notes for you to find. Only she gets embarrassed if you bring them up. She's happy you like them, but..don't say anything.

•Nat is also a part of the family. Just so you know!

Preston:

•Regularly finds himself admiring you, not in the strictly surface way either. He just can't get over how wonderful you've made his life from the moment you entered it.

•Garvey loves taking you for some safe wasteland foraging, maybe not the most splendid married couple outing but, eh, it works!

X6-88:

•If given the opportunity, he'll sometimes play some songs for you if you happen to find a piano that still functions.

•The whole "married" thing sometimes confuses him. He loves you, but is he supposed to treat you any differently? Probably not- but he still wonders every once in a while

[aliceindiamonds]

“I’m going to enjoy this…”

Ghostface x Reader (I mean, kind of…) Oneshot

Blood dripped slowly down the side of my face. The cut on my left eyebrow, though not that deep, bled surely and steadily, and the thin, crimson liquid caught on my lashes and blurred my vision.

Above me, the looming dark shadow seemed to twist and mutate with the red stain in my eyes. I didn’t know how long I had been down here, in this basement where the walls seemed to groan with torment, but the monster who had hauled me here hadn’t spoken this whole time.

I was dying. I knew that much. Of course, being here, in this place, meant being intimately familiar with the concept of death. I had died a hundred, a thousand times over. The pain did not subside. The pain did not become normal. I did not grow used to it.

The gash in my stomach was deep. By now, I was surely lying in a pool of my own blood. The figure above me had to know that I was dying too: their fourth and final victim. I had stayed hidden from them for so long, or at least I thought I had…

“P-please… Just kill me.” I begged softly, my voice cracking. Tears brimmed at my eyes and slipped past my waterline, mixing with my blood and descending in soft pink trails down my cheeks. My arms were trapped behind me, and a black, heavy combat boot pressed roughly into my stomach, agitating my bleeding wound and pinning me against the cold, filthy ground. The foot that held me down twisted slowly and deliberately, and I gasped from the flash of agony it unleashed. “Just kill me, please…”

The weight lifted from my stomach. I breathed shakily. But the instant of relief this granted didn’t last long and the dull, throbbing ache of the hole in my abdomen seemed to reverberate tenfold. I was bleeding more heavily now, the makeshift tourniquet that was his dirty boot removed.

The shadow bent their knees, lowering into a crouch beside me and a white mask came into view: a face distorted into a silent scream. I didn’t recognise him, and I knew the Entity must have claimed another for its sick games. “Now, now, doll,” a smooth tenor murmured, voice muffled but firm. “Why would I end our fun so soon?” From his sheath, he drew a shining silver knife that glinted even in the dim light of the basement. His hands were gloved in black leather, dulled by darkened, dried blood. “I’m not done with you yet…”

I whimpered as the blade approached, and I felt its sharp tip caress the side of my face. Down, down, down, down it traced, crossing the skin of my neck and the outline of my rounded breast. The shadow whistled softly, lowly, hungrily. “You’re some woman, doll. They don’t make them like you often…”

Whilst the knife trailed my abdomen lazily, his other hand followed it. His touch was gentle- featherlight- and it made me lightheaded that there was something undoubtedly enticing, something shameful and immodest, that made me feel… something alongside my fear. His hand halted above the puncture in my stomach, and I breathed quickly and unsteadily as he brushed the leather of his glove along the laceration.

Suddenly, he thrust a finger into my open wound.

I gasped, shrieked, writhed. Pain. Hot. Thrash.

My eyes, blinking and squeezing shut, unleashed a fresh wave of hot tears, provoked by the immense agony of his sick action. It was torture. Within me, his finger squelched until he withdrew, holding his hand up and examining it.

His black, gloved forefinger glistened in the dim light. A moment later, he used his thumb to catch the underside of his white plastic mask, which he lifted from his chin- just enough to reveal a sharp, masculine jawline and plump, pink lips. I gulped.

With an indecent pop, he sucked his bloody finger into his mouth and then released it. A drop of my blood trickled past his smirk. He swallowed slowly, pointedly, sensually and I watched, rapt, horrified, entranced, as the tip of his pink tongue darted out and licked the final remnant from his bottom lip. What in the hell was wrong with him?

“Please…” I whined, paralysed by terror, my voice shaking. “Just, please, kill me…”

The shadow man lowered his mask once more and pressed his knife tighter to my chest, reminding me of its presence. I felt its sharp edge nick the fabric of my blouse, encroaching on the flesh beneath. “Go on, baby,” the voice of the man seemed to groan; guttural and feral. The chill of the air and the tone he spoke in made me shiver. “Fuck, I love it when they beg…” The voice behind the mask was silky as it added, deliriously, “I’m going to enjoy this…”

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Everything Has Changed--Ch. 13

Chapter 13

Shaye

           I followed Nick up the stairs back into his apartment. Exhaustion still tugged at my limbs. On the way back, he’d forced me to eat two burgers and finish the soda. The sugar made me feel a little better, but I couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that something was very wrong.

           Nick walked into the kitchen and tossed the remaining burgers into the fridge. He leaned back against it when he turned around. “What is it you like?” he asked.

           I sank down on the sofa still piled with his pillows and blankets from the night before. “What do you mean?”

           “You had Jack and Coke in Osaka, right?”

           “Nick,” I sighed, feeling far too tired for this conversation. “You don’t have to go buy me alcohol. It isn’t the healthiest way of dealing with heartbreak, now is it? Besides, your mother would probably kill you if she found out her good Christian boy went to a liquor store.”

           He came around the counter and sat on the sofa at my side. He clasped his hands together so tightly that his knuckles were white. I was afraid he was going to make the busted ones bleed again.

           “Maybe it isn’t the best way, but forgetting for a while—for a night—might be good for you.” He turned toward me with fear in his blue eyes. “I’m really worried about you, Shaye.”

           I put my head on his shoulder. “I’m worried about me, too.”

           “A small one, then,” he said, holding up his finger and thumb. “One of those little ones you get on airplanes.”

           Nick Jackson was nothing if not persistent. “Fine.”

Nick

           It took thirty minutes, and I was a wreck the whole time Shaye was alone, but I stood in my kitchen with a glass in front of me completely confused. How was I supposed to make this thing? Were you supposed to just pour the whole thing in and then add Coke to fill it to the top? Was there a ratio or something that I was supposed to follow? I didn’t drink for crying out loud. I had absolutely no clue what the hell I was doing.

           Shaye leaned against the counter watching me. When I looked up, I saw a faintly amused grin on her face. She seemed to be enjoying the fact that I was completely clueless.

           “Want to help me out here?” I asked at last, wriggling the little bottle of Jack Daniels at her.

           She shrugged and walked around to stand beside me. Her fingers brushed over mine as she took the bottle from me, and I swear it was like an electric shock. I studied her as she pulled the glass and soda toward her. My heart ached deep in my chest. She still looked so effing sad.

           “It’s more an art than an exact science,” she said with half of a smile. “A bartender would tell you otherwise when they’re green, but the veterans can play it by sight.”

           As if it was second nature—and I suppose it might have been—she twisted the top from the bottle and splashed a decent amount in the glass. Just the smell made me feel ill, but I wasn’t going to say anything. It reminded me of Osaka and watching her sit on the bed in our hotel room, miserable and slightly buzzed while trying to force herself to eat something.

           The crack of her opening the soda can brought me back to the present. She picked up the glass and held it at an angle, pouring the liquid down the side. Huh, I thought with surprise, doesn’t fizz up when you do it that way.

           Shaye poured until the glass was about three-fourths full. If I had to guess, it was a third Jack and two of Coke. She capped the Jack Daniels, pushed the soda toward me, and opened my freezer, pulling a handful of ice cubes out to dunk into her drink. I watched her swirl the glass a time or two before taking a long sip.

           “It’ll do,” she said at last. For a moment, she stood there staring off into nothingness. Worry settled in the pit of my stomach.

           “Shaye?” My fingers itched to touch her. I had that overwhelming urge again, the one that demanded that I protect her from everything.

           And I’ll start with beating the living holy hell out of Kenny.

Shaye

           I’d gotten my mix a little off. More than a little. The alcohol hit me and flooded through my system faster than I expected, particularly given that I’d eaten not long before. I could sense the impending doom of intoxication. It was surprising how quickly I was yanked under. One moment I was standing with Nick at the counter in his kitchen and the next I was somehow curled up on his couch nursing what seemed to be a second—maybe third—concoction.

           “Okay, Shaye,” I heard Nick say from a distance. “I think it’s time to call it quits.”

           It took a moment to focus on his face. The first thing I noticed—the first thing I always noticed—were his eyes. They were so beautifully blue that I couldn’t put it into words. They were so much bluer than Kenny’s.

           Just the thought of Kenny Omega was enough to send a rush of pain through me. The good thing was that the alcohol dulled it, blunting the edges so that they didn’t slice me into ribbons. I felt something but I didn’t know what it was. In a way it seemed like anger, maybe rage, but it was painted through with an ache that was ever present.

           “C’mon, Shaye, I’m cutting you off,” Nick tried again, reaching out and plucking the glass from my hand.

           I pouted. “Some Jack and Coke will help, he says. Just a little bottle, he says.” I sat up, hands in my lap as I looked over at him. “And now he says, no, Shaye, you can’t have anymore.”

           “I never meant for you to drink the whole bottle at one time,” he insisted. “Especially now that I see you’re completely trashed.”

           “Not trashed,” I replied. “And you’re no fun.”

Nick

           I couldn’t tell how much of the flush and the redness in her eyes was from the alcohol and how much was left over from her breakdown earlier. If I had to guess, I’d probably say it was an even split. She sat there on my couch, cross-legged with her hands in her lap and her hair hanging into her face, and she looked miserable.

           This had been an absolutely horrible idea. I should never have suggested it.

           “I think it’s time you go to bed,” I insisted.

           She pouted. “I don’t want to.”

           I rolled my eyes. “Don’t make me drag you in there, Shaye.”

           “Promises, promises, Nick Jackson,” she said in return. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something but instead stopped, cocked her head to the side, and studied me closely.

           I was pretty sure I was blushing.

           “You look at me sometimes, Nick, did you know that?” Her voice had dropped, something dark in it.

           For some reason, my instinct was to put space between us. I leaned back against the arm rest. “I’m looking at you now.”

           She laughed and it made me dizzy. I couldn’t understand why. “No,” she tried again, sitting up on her knees. “You look at me. When you don’t think I’m paying attention. When you didn’t think he was paying attention. You looked at me. And I know exactly what you were thinking.”

           My mouth went dry. I’d never admit to a single soul that I’d watched Shaye, that I’d looked at her and thought of her as pretty and beautiful, how I’d felt some strange rush and surge of protectiveness from the first time I’d met her. I’d tried so hard not to or, at least, not to get noticed. But I guess I’d been very wrong about getting away with it.

           “You’re drunk, Shaye.” It was the only thing I could think to say. If she remembered any of this in the morning, I could always use that as an excuse. She didn’t know what she was saying.

           She was right next to me in half a second. It was like she came from nowhere. She sat back on her heels and ran her hand through her hair. Her lips curved up into a coy, murderingly beautiful smile.

           “You think I’m pretty.” I had to stop myself from blurting out obviously. “You like being close to me. Like in the park.”

           She wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t going to let her know it.

Shaye

           Something in my thoughts—probably the last little bit of my sanity—screamed that I should shut my mouth, take a cold shower, and go to bed. But the alcohol had loosened something within me. Some dam had broken and the only thing that I wanted was to say these things that I never realized I’d thought before.

           Nick sat there, still and with a poker face that he must have earned from years in the ring. I couldn’t tell if he even cared what I was saying. And I didn’t know why it was so vitally important to me that he did.

           “I know why you wish he’d broken up with me in Osaka,” I whispered as I leaned closer. “It’s because you like me, Nick. You wanted me for yourself.”

           Before I could act like I had any sense at all, I moved as close as I could and rested my forehead against his. “You want to kiss me, Nick Jackson.”

           One second bled into another. The world around was thick and hot and heavy.

           “And I want you to.”

Tag List

@mox-made-me-do-it​

@imagineall-the-fandoms​

@Waywardstrong

@lilred91​

@lakamaa12​

@maelleoute​

@not-that-kinda-gurl08​

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@lyly00​

@unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin​

@rdhester1987​

@thenerdybaker523​

[fics-of-culture]

Nightmares and Angels

Requested by anonymous

Summary: The littlest Winchester has been experiencing hallucinations and nightmares of her brothers covered in blood. Can a certain whiskey eyed angel come to the rescue?

Words: 2,123

Warnings: Blood, Hallucinations, Nightmares. Reader has PTSD. Possible misrepresentation of mental illness. (I personally don’t have many experiences with PTSD or hallucinations so take everything here with a grain of salt.) 

It was late. And you found yourself milling around the bunker. Again. Trying to find anything to occupy your time with in order to avoid going back to your room. You were positive that if you went to bed you’d have nightmares. You’d been having them a lot recently. Along with some other... issues that you’d yet to address. Today had been especially difficult for you in that regard. Your older brother Dean had been in the kitchen making dinner when you had another one of your ‘attacks’ as you called them. 

“You want bacon on your burger?” Dean turned away from the veggies he’d been chopping to face you. You were seated at the kitchen table, nose buried in a book and just enjoying your brother's company when he had asked. Being caught off guard by the question, you let out a little ‘huh?’ “The burger.” Dean repeated. “You want bacon on it or- Ah shit!” He exclaimed suddenly. You stood from your chair to check on your brother when you saw it. A steady trail of red streamed from his thumb onto the cutting board. Apparently Dean had nicked his finger while he was distracted. You froze in place. Images flashed rapidly before you as Dean grabbed a towel to stop the bleeding. You watched in horror as the blood seeped through the towel. Slowly, it continued to spread until it was running as a steady steam down his arm pooling around his shoes. You took an unsteady step back, priming yourself to run out the door when a pair of fingers snapped in front of you. Dean was staring at you with concern. Hand wrapped in a towel completely devoid of blood. “I said can you get me a bandaid?” Dean asked. Watching you curiously as you stood there. Shaking off your latest trance, you gave Dean a sharp nod before turning to locate your first aid kit.

It wasn’t always like this. Some days were just worse than others. You had gotten so accustomed to seeing your brothers steeped in blood that you had started to see it even when it wasn’t there. Your brothers didn’t know about this. No one did. And you intended to keep it that way. They always looked as though they had the weight of the world on their shoulders and you couldn't bear to stress them out more with your personal problems. You sighed as you wandered into the kitchen. It was empty now. Your brothers had gone to bed hours ago, meaning you could roam around freely without your brothers worrying about why you were up so late. Knowing you’d be awake for a while longer, you decided to brew some coffee. You were pouring yourself a steaming cup of coffee when you heard wings flap behind you.

“Is that for me? Oh sweetheart, you shouldn’t have.” Gabriel speaks in your ear as his arms wrap around you to pull the cup out of your hand. You roll your eyes as you turn to face him. You cross your arms as you stare at the angel who has been your best friend since he’d been ‘brought back to life’. A smug smirk graced his lips as he kept your beverage from you.

“Gabe, that drink does not have nearly enough sugar for it to be for you.” You sass him as you reach out to take your cup back, but he continues to withhold it from you. 

“I’ll tell you what, you give me a little sugar right now and you’ll get this drink back.” You cross your arms and groan in annoyance as the mischievous angel taps a finger to his cheek. “Come on hon, one little kiss and I’ll stop buggin’ ya. Besides, I’ve been gone for weeks! Don’t you wanna welcome me home?” It is true that he had been gone for quite a while. He and Cas had been working overtime in heaven trying to keep the lights on. Uncrossing your arms, you sigh in mock defeat as you step closer to give your favorite angel a kiss on the cheek. He lets out a dramatic gasp as you give him a quick peck. You turn your face slightly to hide the blush spreading on your cheeks. If Gabriel notices your sudden bashfulness, he doesn’t say anything.

“You only get a kiss because I did miss you.” You mutter quietly. Gabe gives you a soft, genuine smile. “Now can I have my drink back?” You raise your arms and make little grabby motions with your hands as you wait for Gabe to give your drink back.

“Hell no!” He basically shouts, showing no concern for the other sleeping tenants of the bunker. He swiftly raises his right hand and snaps the coffee out of existence. Your arms fall to your sides as you regard your friend with a look of betrayal. You open your mouth to whine at him before being quickly cut off. “You have any idea what time it is, sugar? You don’t need coffee. You need sleep.”

“You promised you’d give it back.” You said, giving Gabriel your best pout. Maybe your patented Winchester puppy dog eyes would distract the angel from the lateness of the hour.

“Honey.” Gabriel’s voice was suddenly lacking that playful tone from before. “I know you and the rest of the mystery gang are used to burning the midnight oil, but you need to take care of yourself. Are you guys even on a case right now?”

“No.” You muttered quietly. “But!”

“But nothin’ sweetheart. You gotta go to bed. Unless there's something you’re not telling me?” Gabriel had suspected that something had been up with you for a while, but damn if you weren’t a tough cookie to crack. You just huffed out a little sigh before saying goodnight to Gabriel and heading to your room. You were certainly not interested in explaining your lack of sleep to Gabe. You figured that you could probably get away with loading up Netflix on your laptop and staying up a bit longer, but Gabe was right. You desperately needed sleep. Chuck knows you’d been lacking it for the past couple weeks. You resign yourself to your fate as you get ready for bed. Maybe with Gabe in the bunker, the dreams won’t be so bad you think to yourself as your eyes slide closed.

-

Sam was suddenly woken to the sound of your screams. His bedroom being situated directly across from yours gave him the benefit of being the first one to hear your destress. In less than a second, your brother sprung up from his bed, blankets violently tossed to the side as he rushed toward your room. Once he was in the hall, he shouted once for Dean, but didn’t linger to wait for him. Instead, Sam burst into your room, shotgun in hand. Expecting some sort of intruder, Sam was caught off guard when all he found was you screaming and writhing blindly on your mattress. 

“Y/N!” Sam shouted your name as he rushed to your side. Jostling your shoulder in order to wake you, your brother watched in horror as your eyes opened suddenly, falling upon his face. Instead of his presence soothing you as he thought it would, you instead jerked away from his touch and let out a scream of what he could only describe as haunting despair. From your perspective, you weren’t seeing your sweet brother Sammy as you normally would. Instead, you watched as your brother’s face was covered in blood and contorted in anguish. Desperate to get away from this haunting image, you pulled away from his grasp and pinned yourself to the headboard of the bed. As far away from your concerned brother as possible. Vaguely you recognized that he was speaking to you, but you couldn’t pull away from your panic long enough to hear him. All you could do was stare at the blood pouring down his face, repeatedly jerking away from him each time he tried to touch you or otherwise get near you. A few moments later, you were curled into a ball on your bed when the door swung open once more. It was Dean. He stood there staring at you with a worried expression similar to Sam’s, apparently having heard the ruckus you’d made. But you couldn’t focus on that. All you could see was the copious amounts of blood dripping from what appeared to be a stab wound right where his heart was. Just like when Sam approached, you jerked away from Dean when he got near you. You were unable to do anything in this moment other than tremble and sob at the horrific images of your bloodied brothers before you. You truly tried to calm yourself, but nothing seemed to soothe you. And the presence of your brothers were just making your stress worse. You couldn’t get the picture of your blood soaked brothers out of your head. Subconsciously, you desperately cried out to the only being you thought might be able to save you. You didn’t even register the new presence in your room until you felt the bed dip. Your head jerked up, frantically searching for the new intruder when you saw Gabe. He wasn’t covered in blood or half dead. He was just your Gabriel. You let out a little cry of relief when you saw him. Instantly moving to crawl into his lap for comfort.

“Hey hon, what’s going on?” You hear him whisper as he wraps his arms around you. From your spot in his lap, you couldn’t see the confusion and worry on his face as he tried to figure out what was happening.

“I can’t- I can’t make them stop!” Your voice sounds pathetic to you as you speak frantically. Gabe runs his hand through his hair, not entirely sure what to do. 

“What’re you talking about? What won’t stop?” His hand falls to your head and he lets his fingers card through your hair as you whimper into his chest.

“The hallucinations! I can’t make them go away.” With your head buried in his chest, you don’t see the grim look Gabriel sends your brothers. Your brothers turn to share a look as if to say ‘Did you know about this?’

“What’re you seeing?” He turns his attention back to you. He kept his voice gentle as he spoke to you, not wanting to spook you more than you already are.

“Sam and Dean. Covered in blood. Oh God make it stop.” The trickster was positive he felt his heart break when you said this. He knew you’d been having some sort of problem that you weren’t sharing with him, but he never imagined it was anything this severe. And according to the shocked looks on your brother’s faces, they hadn’t known either. He sucks in a breath and steadies himself, wanting to be confident for you.

“Look again.” He speaks calmly. And you pull away to look him in the eyes for the first time since he arrived. You let out  a little ‘what?’ He’s patient as he speaks to you. “Look at your brothers again. It’ll be okay. I promise.” Hesitantly you do as he says. You turn your head to look at Sam and Dean as they stand helplessly in the corner of your room. Clearly unsure how to help you. To your shock, they looked completely normal. A little ruffled from getting out of bed so suddenly, but they didn’t have a speck of blood on them.

“Ho-how?” You can’t wrap your head around the sudden change. 

“A little angel magic. As long as I’m here, you won’t have to worry about those pesky images.” You let out a little sob as you hugged him with renewed vigor. Gabe cuddled into bed with you and when you seemed calm enough, your brothers left the two of you alone. Dean was grumbling a bit about leaving his little sister alone with the trickster but Sam just shoved him out of the room. You were sure that they were going to have a long talk with you tomorrow, but for now they seemed content to just let you relax.

“Gabriel?” He let out a distracted ‘hmm?’ as his fingers continued to comb through your hair.

“Stay with me tonight?” You spoke so quietly that if Gabe hadn’t been an angel, he wasn’t sure he would’ve heard you.

“Anything for you, sweets.” The two of you made your way under the covers. You laid your head on Gabriel’s chest and slowly allowed yourself to succumb to sleep. Knowing that for the first time in months, you would be getting a peaceful sleep.

[caffeinatedbraincell]

Hi everybody! Here's another short episode of fluff from my procrastinating brain. Enjoy :)

This fic is inspired by this Tumblr post by @fangirlshrewt97: 

Read on AO3

Nile sipped her iced caramel coffee, watching apprehensively as the argument that had started in the car snowballed quickly in the corner of the Krispy Kreme.

“It’s okay. Nothing beats the original glazed, anyway.”

“Shut up, Booker. What kind of donut place doesn’t have peanut butter donuts?”

“Andy, contrary to whatever the hell your sources are, peanut butter donuts aren’t a thing-”

“Yes, they are! I’ve had them before!”

“When, in 1920? That entire decade was full of bad ideas that have since been discontinued!”

Nile was about to step in and see if the situation could be salvaged without causing a right scene when her cell phone rang. The caller ID showed Joe’s name.

“Hello?” she said, moving away a little as the donut disagreement continued loudly.

“Nile, I need you to come pick me up right now,” Joe said tersely over the phone.

Nile was immediately on alert. Was everything alright? Had the safe house been attacked?

“Why?” she asked.

“Nicky is passive-aggressively doing the dishes he asked me to do six hours ago.”

It took a second for his words to register. Nile managed not to laugh out loud, but it was a near thing. Unfortunately, Joe seemed to sense her amusement.

“This house isn’t safe anymore!” he insisted. “Come and get me!”

“Joe- no. Nope. You guys have been married for 900 years! Figure it out.”

“No,” Joe hissed. “No ‘figure it out.’ Come and help me. You’re being an annoying baby sister.”

“Baby sisters are supposed to be annoying. Seriously dude, just talk to him. Apologize or something. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Joe exclaimed sarcastically. “He could whip out his longsword and murder me in cold blood, ever thought about that?”

Nile rolled her eyes. “Look, just… kiss him. Really well. So he forgets about the dishes you didn’t do.”

“That’s not how relationships work!”

“Yes, it is! With you two it is! Now hang up, I need to go prevent Andy and Booker getting banned from this Krispy Kreme, too.”

“Traitor,” Joe grumbled, before cutting the call.

Nile sighed. She looked over at the corner where Booker and Andy were standing out of earshot. Booker was gesticulating wildly, while Andy stood with her arms crossed over her chest, looking unconvinced.

It appeared none of the staff had noticed them, yet. And they clearly weren’t close to reaching any sort of consensus regarding donut purchasing. Nile rubbed her forehead in resignation.

Fine, she thought. I’ll go pick up Joe real fast. No one will even notice I’m gone. She tucked her phone back into her pocket and slipped out the door.

Back at the safe house, Joe frowned at his phone. Maybe Nile was right. Sure, Nicky had ignored him as he’d loitered by the entrance of the kitchen, instead focusing way more intently than necessary on scrubbing dried cheese from the bottom of last night’s empty pasta bake tray (in Joe’s defense, the tray had needed to soak more). But standing around trying to make eye contact wasn’t good communication, and it certainly wasn’t an apology.

Abruptly, the kitchen tap shut off. Joe winced. It sounded like the dishes were done. He took a deep breath, steeling himself to go back into the kitchen and face his husband. Regardless of what he’d told Nile, Joe knew he wouldn’t be subject to anything worse than a few more hours of judgmental silence, if even that. His Nicky was quick to forgive.

But when Joe re-entered the kitchen, Nicky had his back turned and was dicing something on a cutting board out of Joe’s sight. Joe sighed. If Nicky had moved straight from doing the dishes to preparing dinner, he clearly did not want to talk to Joe. Joe dawdled in the doorway, considering making a run for it and hiding under their bed covers until Nicky cooled off.

Suddenly, Nicky cursed under his breath. Joe snapped his gaze up, alert. A drop of red splashed to the pristine white-tile floor, followed by another, and another. Oh, Joe thought, feeling his heart rate start to relax. He must have accidentally nicked himself with the knife.

But the drops kept falling, and Joe felt something unpleasant stir in the pit of his stomach. The blood thudding in his ears started to get louder again.

“Cazzo,” Nicky repeated with feeling, reaching for a scrap of paper towel on the counter. The drops kept falling.

A cold sense of dread started to lace through Joe’s entire body. How long does a cut take to heal? he asked himself. The drops kept falling. How long how long how long…

The drops kept falling. A violent wave of vertigo washed over him, and Joe stumbled forward with a strangled cry.

At the sound of his voice, Nicky whirled around, eyes widening as he caught sight of Joe. “Hayati, what-”

Joe swiped a clean knife off the drying rack and sliced it across his palm. Nicky lunged forward, snatching the knife out of his hands and tossing it aside.

“Joe, what the fuck do you thing you’re doing?!”

Joe barely heard him over the high-pitched ringing in his ears. Nicky’s voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. Instead, Joe could only watch in despair as the skin on his hand stitched itself back together. His vision blurred with tears. The words echoed hauntingly in his mind: How long? How long did they have together? How long did Nicky have left? How long would Joe be forced to live without-

“Joe! Look at me!” Nicky grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and shook him, jerking him out of his spiraling thoughts. Dazed, Joe raised his tear-stained face in compliance. “Madre de dio…” Nicky whispered, raising a hand to cup Joe’s cheek. “Love, we need to get you inside. You’re trembling. Your skin is burning hot.”

Joe let himself be half-carried to their bedroom. Nicky propped him up against a pillow and moved to leave the room. Joe panicked.

“No,” he protested weakly, clutching Nicky’s wrist. “Don’t go.”

“I’ll only be a moment, hayati. Let me get you some water.”

“No, please, Nicolò…”

Nicky relented, sitting down on the mattress in front of Joe and studying the visceral fear in his eyes. “My god. You’re not okay.”

“Were you even going to tell me?” Joe choked out.

“Tell you what?”

Joe squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop it. Don’t be cruel, amato, don’t make me say it.”

Nicky furrowed his brow in genuine confusion. “Joe? Wha- what are you talking about? What’s wrong?” He took both of Joe’s hands in his and squeezed. “Talk to me, my love. Help me understand. What happened to you?”

“Not me,” Joe croaked. “You. Your hand. It’s not heal- it’s-” He splayed out Nicky’s palm between his own, scraping up every ounce of courage he had to look at it. He froze. “Wait.” He turned the hand over, running his fingers over the unmarred skin. “You accidentally cut yourself. While chopping. Where is the blood?”

“Joe, now you’re scaring me. I didn’t cut myself. What made you think that?”

“You cussed. And then I saw- I saw blood. Dripping onto the floor. There was so much blood, Nicky, and you kept bleeding…”

Several emotions crossed Nicky’s face in quick succession: pain, fear, confusion, worry, and finally, understanding. And then, profound relief. He huffed out a dry laugh.

“Yusuf, my beloved fucking idiot, did you by any chance happen to see what I was chopping?”

Joe raised his eyes to Nicky’s, bewildered. Slowly, he shook his head.

“Beetroot, Joe. An overripe beetroot. I was only alarmed because it was dripping everywhere and staining the nice marble cutting board on our counter.”

There was a suspended pause.

“Beetroot,” Joe mumbled, blinking languidly. “You’re not hurt? You’re not- you know, you’re not…”

“Mortal? No,” Nicky smiled, reaching out to rub his thumbs softly beneath Joe’s eyes. “Do you want me to prove it to you?”

Joe shook his head immediately, surging forward to press a frantic kiss to Nicky’s lips. Before Nicky could even respond, Joe pulled away, burying his face in Nicky’s shoulder and sobbing quietly with relief.

“Hayati,” Nicky breathed, bringing his arms up around Joe and pulling him closer. “Shhh. Joe, baby, it’s okay. We’re okay. I promise.” He turned his head to press a long kiss to Joe’s curls, rubbing a hand firmly up and down Joe’s back. “I have you, my all. I’m not letting go.”

Wrapped in the warmth of Nicky’s arms, Joe gradually managed to stop shaking. He mumbled something incoherent into Nicky’s shoulder.

“What was that?” Nicky asked, pulling back slightly.

Joe stared at the bedsheet. “I said I’m sorry for not doing the dishes when you asked.”

“Joe-”

“It feels like it would have been my fault. If- if something had happened to you.”

“Never, my love. You know better. Do not go down that path. I forbid it.”

“But-”

“Enough, Yusuf.” Nicky gently pushed Joe’s shoulders down onto the pillow, moving to sit next to him, back against the headboard. Instinctively, Joe transferred his head to Nicky’s lap. Nicky hummed in contentment, burying a hand in Joe’s hair and stroking softly. “You’ve worn yourself out worrying, haven’t you.”

“Hmph,” Joe grumbled into Nicky’s thigh. “And for no good reason, apparently.”

“There is never a good enough reason to see such devastation in your eyes as I witnessed today.”

“Don’t leave me behind, then.”

Nicky inhaled sharply, stilling his hand in Joe’s hair. For the millionth time, he wished in vain that he could promise Joe this. He leaned down to brush a sweet kiss to Joe’s forehead, hovering there with his eyes closed, willing his husband to forgive his helplessness.

“I love you,” Joe mumbled, already half asleep. “It’s okay.”

Nicky sighed, resuming the soothing motion of his hand in Joe’s curls. “Rest, my heart. I love you, too.”

Fifteen minutes later, Nile poked her head through the front door of the safehouse, looking around furtively.

“Joe?” she whispered. Receiving no response, she tiptoed further into the house. Nicky was standing at the stove, his back turned to her as he stirred something that smelled truly amazing.

Nile ducked beneath the counter to avoid being spotted. The least Joe could’ve done was be waiting for her outside. Then again, she hadn’t told him she was coming, so maybe this wasn’t entirely his fault.

“May I ask why you’re sneaking around, Nile?” Nicky asked, never taking his eyes off the stove. “It’s as much your house as mine, you know.”

Nile groaned in exasperation, standing up straight. “I’m not sneaking. I'm looking for Joe.”

“In there,” Nicky pointed a wooden spoon towards their bedroom. “He’s sleeping, but you can wake him up if it’s urgent.”

“Sleeping?” Nile asked in surprise.

“Yeah, taking a nap. Why?”

“Uh, you’re not…mad at him?”

It was Nicky’s turn to look surprised. “I don’t think so? Should I be? What did he do?”

“No! Uh, nothing. Nothing. I’ll just go…pick up Andy and Booker from the donut shop, then.”

“You left them at Krispy Kreme?”

“Yeah. They were taking forever to decide.”

Nicky chuckled. “Fair enough. Can you taste this for salt?” He held out a spoon of the divine-smelling stew.

“Oh, absolutely,” Nile grinned. Maybe this wouldn’t be a wasted trip, after all.

[enigma-im]

Wanted Dead or Alive

Prompt #10 

Subject: Weapon play Monster: Orc

            Orc hunts a criminal through the woods, get a little in over his head

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

He isn't subtle, not that one should expect an orc to be. Though thinking himself as being stealthy is cute, after a week of this it becomes less so. I'm almost tempted to confront him and get the meeting over with so I can be on my way. Still, this game hasn't grown tiresome yet. Perhaps a few more days, to test his patience a bit.

His limbering steps echo in my ears, making them twitch every time he interacts with a crunchy leaf or twig. At this point, I'm just curious if he knows I'm aware of him or he is just that stupid. Perhaps I give the man too little credit, maybe he is playing the long con. Make the enemy underestimate you. Though I don't believe him smart enough for that. Today though I assume he feels bolder, getting close enough for me to hear his breathing. Hear his heart fluttering around in his chest. His nervous beating catches my attention though. A new exploit I look forward to using.

He is young, and now I'm intrigued.

Hunters, especially bounty hunters, have a tendency to keep towards the older generation. Nothing against young adults, it just this career favors the experienced over that untried. The middle-aged have the triumphs of safe ventures under their belt, not likely to fret over the nerves of a hunt. this may explain his tedious stalking and loud as hell steps.

The sunset holds a captivating sight as I set up camp. With the tent pitched at the peak of dusk and fire burning bright I settle with my dinner. Some dried meats and nearly inedible bread. Not a meal meant for a queen or any such royalty but one fit for an outlaw. All I need now is some wise-cracking henchmen and I will truly be worthy of such hateful praises the good folk spit my way.

As I mindlessly nibble on the stale bread I hear my friend lumber about again. He fidgets with some leave before ceasing his extremely loud actions. Seems he is also settling for the night. As he has grown bolder with his nearness I feel that tonight is the night he will make his assault. I smile into my food at the thought. I have been eagerly awaiting our meeting ever since I first heard his steps.

Waiting has always been one of my strong suits; patience is truly a virtue. This virtue pays off tonight as I fight off rest in my tent to finally catch eyes with the ever 'talented' hunter. I pinch my skin and wiggle my fingers and toes to keep awake. This buffoon might have fallen asleep, I think as midnight approaches. I swear if that idiot leaves me waiting again I will-

A snap of a branch stops my inner monologue. The annoyance gets ghosted by anticipation as the sounds get closer. When I hear his labored breathing then do I shut my eyes and feint rest.

The tent flap is gently brushed aside as the orc enters. I can hear the soft steps the come nearer. I can almost taste his nervous energy in the air, his sweat suffocating the space. Each little step ramps up my heart, almost convinced he could hear how excited I am to finally meet him. His breath ghosts over me, the barely noticeable sound of a blade being taken from its sheath echoes in my ear. He takes in a large inhale before I leap from the bed.

I catch him off guard, knocking the blade from his hand as my own startles him back. He falls to the ground with a thud, landing on his rear before I force him on his back. I straddle his chest, keeping my knees on his bicep. My knife rests at his throat, a wild gleam in my eye as I finally look upon the vermin who has been stalking me.

My first thought is of his attractiveness. I was correct in assuming he was young, perhaps at the limit of my guestimation but still considered youthful. He is definitely well above age to be wedded, nearing his more trying years. His facial hair is cleaned kept, close to his chin but still full. His hair has a similar cut, kept shaved close to his head. It's an unusual look for an orc, most I've met have had long flowing locks decorated with braids and beads. He is outside the norm on many fronts it seems.

"Well, handsome, we finally meet," I tease. The man doesn't answer, instead snarling at me as if that would will me to get off him. At my unflinching gaze, he takes to lifting his arms, trying to roll my knees off him. I press the blade closer to his throat, nicking him a bit. As his blood trickles down his throat his efforts cease.

"If you wish to kill me then get on with it already," the orc growls out. He holds my gaze, glaring hard with a brave front.

I scoff at him," you assume I wish to murder you?"

"Of course," he tsks, "What else would a criminal do with a bounty hunter?" I snort at his words, too amused with his confidence when he says 'bounty hunter'. He is hardly worthy of the title but it's still adorable.

"A criminal could do a lot of things with a bounty hunter such as yourself. Especially such a handsome one," I grin. His brave sneer twists to subtle confusion. My grin widens at the sight," something wrong about what I just said, orc?" for the first time since he has shown up he looks away, nibbling on his lip as he does. I'm almost convinced to say he is blushing. The sight thrills me, empowering me to grab his face and point it back towards mine.

"Such a handsome, rugged face," I stroke my thumb over his lip, guiding the flesh away from his teeth," clearly haven't seen many fights. Your face holds no scars unlike your kin normally does. It makes me curious if the rest of you has any battle wounds." I trail my thumb over his tusk before going lower to the wound on his neck. I roll my knees off his arms, wiggling down his chest so I can lick the blood off of him. His body stiffens, his neck going taunt. I can't help but sit up, meeting his confused face with a grin.

"What are you doing," he asks. I don't bother answering, instead, looking down at his shirt. He has forgone armor, having only normal clothes on. A light-colored shirt with laces at the top is all the keeps his torso safe. Either he is smart enough to wear this in the hopes of silence or stupid enough to enter danger with no protection. I notice a bit of chest hair poking through the top. Investigating further I trail the knife from his collar to the shirt. The tip of the blade flicks the laces, cutting it easily. Out the corner of my eye, I see the orc's hands raise slowly.

"Don't think about it," I dig the tip of the knife into his sternum, twisting it slightly. His arms fall flat, his body still stiff as I continue. I shred the top half of his shirt, parting the fabric with a interested quirk of a brow. His chest is broad, strong, and littered with hair. Burly man. Curious, I pet a finger down his chest. I investigate his torso, parting the clothing more to find his nipple. The pebbled nub is barely visible amongst the forest of hair. I can't help but lean down and take a lick. The instant my tongue touched him his stomach clenched, his heart beating loudly against his ribs.

"What are you doing," he asks again, this time with a strain to his voice. Once again I don't answer. I sit up, looking up at his extremely conflicted face. I pass him a grin before sliding down his body again. Resting over his lap I rip the rest of the shirt in half. The sound of the shredding fabric makes him jump, bucking his hips into mine by accident. Still, I feel a bulge against my ass. Though not fully hard enough to tent, it still holds notice. I grind into him, feeling his semi-hard cock. Meeting his eyes I grin smugly. He turns away with another blush.

Now too interested in his growing erection I slide over him once more, revealing the ties to his pants. Grabbing the knife again I take to unfastening him. The laces fall apart easily, his bulge helping the fabric part. I pull his clothes down to his thighs, completely lost at the sight of his cock resting against his stomach. He is just as hairy as the rest of him.

"Well isn't that a sight," I purr. Nearly drooling I grab him in a loose fist, holding his hardening member in my hand. I feel the weight of him in my palm, my crotch throbbing at the view. "Not the smartest of the bunch but you are gifted in other places I see," I tease. I look up at him, grinning at his flustered face. His hands are clenched at his sides making the sight more fulfilling. I think I'm quite taken with this orc.

Grinning from ear to ear I decide to lay on my stomach between his sprawled legs. I rest my arms on his stomach, his erections nestled against my shoulder close to my cheek. The knife hangs lazily in my hand, the tip indenting the skin on his hip. I think for a moment, listening to the uneven breathing of the orc below me.

"I like you," I nuzzle against his cock with my cheek," not many catch my attention but you are very different from the hardened warriors I've met before. I think I might keep you."

The orc huffs," as much as I'm flattered by your admiration I have to decline the offer." I snort, leaning back a bit to press a kiss to his cock. He grunts at the gesture, his thighs twitching.

"That’s cute you think you have a choice," I grab him, slapping his cock to my cheek before pulling the skin back to press a kiss to his tip. His eyes nearly roll shut. His stomach, along with his thighs, clenching. "Yea, your mine now," I lick up his shaft before letting him go. As his cock rests back against my shoulder he chokes on a whimper, seeming to fight it off at the end. It was damn cute of an attempt.

I look to my knife resting against his body. Holding it firmer in my hand I raise it over his stomach. He tenses for a new reason, the worry almost palpable. I press the tip firmly into his skin, enough to breakthrough. He grunts as I trail it down, making a bleeding line.

"The orc who stalked me for weeks, it's almost flattering," I joke as I continuing carving up his stomach, " the orc with no armor, short cut hair, and a huge dick. It feels almost like a gift." he grunts and twitches, watching me slice into his skin. His lack of thrashing and fighting is nice, his precum dripping from his tip is more so. A grunt of pain sounds more like a moan of pleasure when I dig just a bit deeper on the next line. I pause in my assault, looking up at him with a sly grin. He blushes once more, turning away with a guilty look. "Kinky, cute, and strong. It must be my birthday," I laugh.

I sit up, looking down at my handy work. My name scrawled across his stomach is a view to behold. The orc even looks down, rolling his eyes before he falls back to the ground. His hips roll, his tip poking at my neck reminding me of my previous task. I switch my attention, sighing gratefully at his leaking cock. The sight would make a nun faint, perhaps even make his own kind weary. The orc cut up with a criminal's name now tattooed onto his skin with his pants torn around his thighs and his cock about to be in someone's mouth. Oh, what a sight he makes.

I admire his cock some more, even taken with the view of his balls. The bloodied knife trails down his hips to his thighs. I use the flat part to lift his sack, leaning down to press a kiss to them. His musky scent is prevalent now, almost dizzying. I carefully slide the knife out from under his sensitive anatomy before applying it to another sensitive area. His most pronounced vein is the perfect spot to trail the tip of the knife against. I keep full attention on my blade as his cock twitches against it. Be a waste to ruin the fun before it got to finish.

"Woman, have pity," the orc growls out. I almost forgotten about him, way too focused on admiring the way his prick jumps and throbs, dribbling drool down its shaft. Beautiful.

"Hmm? You need something," I rest my cheek on my hand. I wiggle his cock using the flat of the knife, watching as a drop of precum slides onto it. He grunts again, trying in vain to hold his hips back from bucking against such a dangerous weapon.

"Cease with your teasing," he snaps. His tone is demanding like he has any say in how I give my attention. I glare up at him, he glares back. It is almost adorable to see him try to be threatening, especially when I'm the one holding the knife. With a fighting grin, I lift the knife up, raising it well over his cock. His glare fades as worry takes its place. His eyes bounce from me to the knife, a fearful question attempting to leave his lips as his body fights against itself to sit up and run. With a flick of my brow, I bring the knife down.

The knife cuts through the air towards his scrotum, barely missing it as it punctures the ground below. The sigh of relief is amusing, as well as the sight of the knife hidden between his legs. I look from that to him, almost baiting him to snap at me again. Instead, a chuckle erupts from his throat.

"Please, you wild woman you, will you please make me cum," he smiles. The toothy grin is precious; heartwarming and panty-dropping. I fall for his plead, grabbing his cock and stroking him. The sigh of gratification is loud.

I admire the way his stomach twitches roles as I jerk him off. The drying blood on his stomach is beautiful against the letters. A thrill of satisfaction rolls through me at the possessive statement. He is mine now.

Growing more giving with the pleasing tones of his rising groans I take his tip into my mouth. I clean the precum off him, slathering him with my spit before taking him further in. his back arches as a cry rips from his mouth. I see his hands raise up to grab me but fall back down into fists. I give pity, reaching over and letting him grab a fistful of hair. He pets a strand from around my face before grabbing his fistful, guiding my head along his cock.

His cries and whimpers thrill me. I palm his balls as I bob, racing him to his finish as quickly as possible. I want to taste him, to feel his load jet down my throat. Just the thought of it makes me needy. He pulls my head up to his tip before he quickly thrusts his hips upwards. He uses my mouth for his pleasure, using me to reach his end.

With a few more thrusts he slams my head down onto him. I choke at the suddenness of having my throat clogged. The forceful action is forgiven as he treats me to his cries of peaking pleasure. His load spirts into my throat. I swallow it, gulping around him as I take all he gives. He keeps my head down while he slowly relaxes. Soon letting go and falling lax to the ground.

I sit up, wiping the bit of drool and seed from around my lips. I grin up at him, watching his relaxed face. I take to standing up and looking at the mess I made. His shirt is ripped down the middle to present is broad chest, my name carved into his stomach. His pants are kept around his thighs just above his knees, the knife still resting between said clothing and his balls. His cock rests flaccid on his hip, covered in spit and cum. Now, this is a sight I could treasure always.

I finally meet his eyes as I once again admire his body. His grin is lazy but relaxed. He reaches a hand up to me, asking me without words to join him on the floor. I agree, falling to my knees beside him. He grabs my shoulder, forcing me down into a kiss. The sudden action is alarming, especially after what I've done to him. His lips are soft, the tusks are strange, and his taste is similar to that of ale.

"Thank you," he mumbles against my lips.

"For what," I ask, stealing a kiss before he could answer.

He scoffs," For what? For everything you have done. I would have never guessed that something as threatening and terrifying as you would be so damn sexy."

"Kinky bastard," I laugh. He laughs along with me, wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me to his side. He tries to tease a finger under my nightshirt but I stop him.

"Not tonight," I scold playfully.

"then another night," he asks hopefully. The idea of a future night like this is nice. Though some errands have to be ran first before that.

His ruined shirt is removed along with the knife that still rests between his legs. We find ourselves resting on the floor though a perfectly good cot sits inches away. Shortly after he falls asleep, worn from the night he had. I give him one last look before sneaking out of his arms.

The light shines through the tent entrances as morning comes. I watch as the orc comes to, groaning as he wakes. He starts to lift his arms but finds them bound together over his stomach. His confusion grows as he notices his feet bound in the same fashion. The orc quickly looks around the room settling his sights on me with a sneer.

"What are you doing," he asks. I look him over lazily, twirling our knife in my hand.

"Saying goodbye," I answer before adding," for now." he glares, beginning to fight against the ropes as he sits up.

"Like hell you are," he growls. I watch him try to wiggle his hands-free, knowing he wouldn't be successful just yet.

"relax, I said for now. You think I'm going to claim you then ditch you. That's just trashy," I scoff," no, I just have some things to take care of before I can whisk you away, or whatever a lovely way of saying that is."

"So you are just going to leave me here defenseless till you come back," he snaps as he continues fighting the binds.

"Course not. I want you alive when I come back," I walk towards him. He ceases his pointless struggling as watches me with frustration and anger in his eyes. I can't help but cup his face, leaning in to peck his lips. His anger fades but frustration still stands proud.

"Don't go," he grumbles. His tone makes my heartthrob. I pet his cheek once more before lifting the knife to catch his attention. He sits up, excited at the prospect of being untied. Instead of doing just that I toss the knife across the room. The weapon sticks into the ground, standing up just in the corner of the tent. He growls once his attention falls to me.

"I have some things to deal with and I don't need you following me so here is what is going to happen. First, I'm going to leave then you are going to crawl to that knife and get yourself free. By then I'll be long gone but don't fret. In one week I want you to meet me by Spearhead River near Hartford. I will set up camp there and patiently await your arrival. Is that clear," I ask. He doesn't answer, keeping his anger despite all I said. "I said am I clear," I say louder. He slowly nods.

I give him one more smile and a kiss before grabbing my things and leaving. At the tent's entrance I give him one last longing look. I'm going to miss that handsome face.

"You better be prepared when I find you, there is going to be consequences," he threatens with an amused sneer.

"I look forward to it," I blow him a kiss before stepping out of view.

A week later I sit in my cabin reading near candlelight. The storm outside rages, tinging against the glass with great vigor. I try to invest in my story, ignoring the pang of anxiety nestled in my chest. It's hardly been a day since I've come home but the fear of being rejected is fierce. That night was hardly something that anyone would come back to. It was very demeaning and emasculating, I imagine. Though he never rejected my advancements and seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed it doesn't really mean anything. It's not a given that he would want to come back.

As my mind wanders I hear the clap of thunder, startling me from my wanderings. The sound wasn't like the ones before, too close and deep to be thunder. Before I can think more about it the sound echoes again. This time I know where it's coming from. A new fear sits in my stomach as the door rattles on its hinges. It bangs again and again until the door swings open to slam against the wall.

The silhouette of a tall man fills the archway, the lightning brightens his features just briefly. The sight is thrilling, erasing the fear from before.

"Found you," he purrs.

"So you have."

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

It took a lot to stop myself from writing more on this. i kind of like them.

Last weekend! almost done with all the prompts, just two more left.

Complete Series

Check out my Archive | Masterlist | Main Blog

[dreamlover31]

Love Will Find a Way: Chapter 6

As Rafael stood in a state of shock over Alexa’s unconscious body, he felt an arm graze across his shoulder. When he looked up, he saw that it was one of the EMTs, after stepping aside to let them do their job, Olivia stood beside him. As the EMTs worked on stabilizing Alexa’s wound and hooking her up to an IV, his mind was racing with harrowing thoughts of why was this happening, he had finally found a woman who he could be himself with, who made him smile every time he saw her and maybe someday spend the rest of his life with. Now, here she was, being loaded on to a gurney bordering on the ledge between life and death, as they wheeled her out of the room, he ran after them.

The line of SWAT team members and even Rollins and Carisi were a blur as he followed them out in front and on to the waiting ambulance, when one of the EMTs tried to prevent him from getting in he glared at him with a piercing look and said:

“Listen to me…that there is one of the bravest women I have had the pleasure of knowing and there is no way in hell I’m leaving her side, now get the hell out of my way!”

The man stepped aside and let Rafael in the ambulance where he sat next to Alexa, he immediately took her hand and held it in his own, during the ride to the hospital; Rafael placed small kisses on Alexa’s knuckles as he spoke to her.

Over and over, he kept talking to her, telling her not to give up that she was a fighter and that he would stay at her side no matter what, upon arriving at the hospital, they brought her out of the ambulance and made their way inside. It was a race against time to get her into the ER, the head EMT relayed orders to one of the nurses that they had a gunshot victim and to prep OR stat, when they reached the double doors that lead to the trauma ward; the ER doctor stopped Rafael but as he tried to push him out of the way, the doctor grabbed him by his shoulders and told him:

“Sir I’m sorry but you can’t go in there, when Ms. Duvall is stabilized I will inform you when you will be able to see her”

Rafael knew there was nothing he could do for her but let the doctors do their job, reluctantly he nodded and walked down to the waiting room, as he dropped himself on the couch like a piece of dead weight, the color from his face disappeared and his body felt like it had been drained of every ounce of energy. He stared off into space, unaware that Olivia and everyone else from the squad walked into the room, they looked at him with sympathetic eyes at the empty hollow shell that was once Rafael Barba. Carisi was the only one brave enough to walk over to him and lightly shook his shoulder, as he slowly made his way back to reality, he looked at Carisi and in a monotone voice said:

“She’s in surgery now…the doctor told me that he’ll give me an update when she’s stabilized”

“Ok…is there anything we can do for you; does she have any family we can call?”

“She uh…hasn’t spoken to her parents in quite some time…and she doesn’t have any other family other than the people at the shelter”

“Alright…how about I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you”

After he left the room, Fin, Rollins and Dodds followed his lead; Olivia was the last woman standing. She felt conflicted about going over and giving him a shoulder to cry on, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt as to what had occurred. I should have done something…I should have tried to help…a few moments go by when she decided to take the plunge and console one of her best friends next to Alexa, as she sat next to him; she placed her hand on his shoulder and looked at him sullenly. He turned to her with a look of exhaustion as he was trying to hold back the tears that started to prick his eyes, Olivia could see that he was trying to be strong for not only himself but Alexa, but still; it never does anybody any good to keep your emotions locked up.

“It’s ok Barba…you don’t need to keep it bottled up inside”

At that moment, he broke down and started sobbing:

“How can this be happening? How could she be so reckless…what if…what if she doesn’t make it…oh god”

“Hey…she is one of toughest women in all of Manhattan…if anyone can pull through this it’s her”

Time seemed to be at a standstill as Rafael and the rest of the team waited anxiously for any news on Alexa’s condition, he began pacing back and forth across the room while he swept his hand over from his forehead through his hair. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the doctor came in and asked for Barba.

“How is she doing?”

“The bullet went through and nicked an artery but we were able to stop the bleeding”

“Can I see her?”

“Well she’s still unconscious but yes you can see her”

“Thank you doctor”

After he escorted Rafael to her room, he stood in the doorway and stared at the grim sight that laid before him, she looked fragile and pale. Slowly he made his way towards her bed and sat in the chair next to it, other than the rhythmic beeping from the heart monitor and the smell of antiseptic; silence ultimately filled the room. Then Rafael leaned forward and once again held Alexa’s hand, while he gently stroked it with his thumb, his gaze ran towards her colorless and lifeless face.

“Alexa…I know you can hear me. Please come back to me…I can’t imagine not waking up and seeing your beautiful face or hearing your sweet voice. I need you…I love you”

Tears started to stream down his face as he kissed her hand, it was then that he heard a small moan, at first he thought his mind was playing tricks on him but after a few moments he heard it again. He turned to face Alexa and his face just lit up as he saw her slowly open her eyes, he stood up from where he was and leaned beside her; he displayed acts of affection as he stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.

“…Rafael”

“Yeah cariño it’s me…I’m here”

“What happened?”

“You saved Olivia is what happened…you stopped a madman from killing her and got shot in the process”

“Is everyone ok?”

“Yeah they’re fine”

“Did you mean what you said…that you loved me?”

“You heard that huh…of course I did, I love you with every fiber of my being…I never want to be without you”

With what little energy she could muster, Alexa smiled sweetly at him as Rafael leaned forward and placed a small kiss on her lips.

“I love you too Rafi”

Tagging: @madpanda75 @madamsnape921 @southern-magnolia @laceybellerain @teamsladsandgents @karens-imagined-world @itsjustmyfantasyroom @glimmerglittergirl @misssirenlove @youreverycolor @thatesqcrush @tropes-and-tales

[subwalls]

WHUMPTOBER 2021 - 4/30

No. 4 - TRUST FALL “Do you trust me?” | taken hostage | pushed

Also available on AO3!

 Sapnap’s day starts off with his shitty apartment flooding ankle-deep in unidentifiable monsterly fluids, which sucks.

 It’s not as dangerous as that one time the whole building came alive and tried to eat its residents, but it’s definitely messier, which is arguably worse.

 This is the kind of thing most people usually take as a sign from the universe that they should go over to a friend’s place and sulk for the rest of the day. Anyone who’s survived more than a week in this clusterfuck of a city knows to trust their instincts on that—which usually means getting the hell out of dodge.

 Unfortunately, Sapnap has kind of garbage instincts.

 Oh, they’re fantastic at keeping him alive, sure. He’s coming up on his one-year anniversary of being here, and he’ll definitely be celebrating that at one of those dubiously legal and definitely non-human bars, but the fact that he’s      still     here, squelching through monster goop and all…

 Sapnap wrinkles his nose as he sidesteps the still-twitching corpse in the lobby. Some idiot with an organ graft from the End, probably, which explains the goop seeping into everything. Shouldn’t the drawbacks of End tissue be common knowledge by know? Specifically the fact that it implodes at the first hint of water?

 Most apartment complexes these days have sprinklers installed on the doorstep for the explicit purpose of enforcing their dumb Huma-only policies.

 Sapnap, with his Netherborn lungs, counts himself lucky. He looks Huma,      is    legally Huma, and can hold his breath when the sprinkler douses him. So his landlord’s none the wiser.

 Probably.

 Eh, if he was going to be evicted for that, it would’ve already happened. Work comes first, and if Sapnap’s lucky, he’ll be too worn out to even notice if they’ve cleaned up the mess by the time he comes back.

 He pats the left side of his face, checking that his eyepatch is in place like it should be, and walks out into the thoroughfare of SMP City.

 Immediately, the world drops out from under him. Sapnap whirls around, reaching out for the wall that should be right there, but the thin clouds slip through his fingers without so much as a whisper of substance.

 The wind forces his good eye shut. He forces it open again, squinting, all too aware of the warmth smoldering in his chest. His vision blurs weirdly in a way that could’ve been from wind pressure or because he’s been out for longer than he thinks. After a few seconds of blinking furiously, it clears.

 Oh. That’s not the sky.

 That’s the void.

 Those are two very different things. One is up, and the other is… well. All around the city, truthfully; it swallows the ocean and heaven alike into the dragon’s maw, marking out the abyssal boundary of where the other worlds bleed into this one.

 It’s part of what makes commute in and out of the place troublesome, because too-big vehicles that get too close end up attacked by the aforementioned dragon—not that anyone’s every seen the whole breadth of the thing, just an errant wing or tail that swings up to demolish a plane or ship, black scales iridescent against the darkness.

 The fact that Sapnap is standing on a platform in the middle of this beast’s territory is, as they say, Not Good.

 Leaning over the edge, Sapnap sees no support holding up the square of rock he’s somehow ended up on. It’s just floating over the misty emptiness. Looking up yields nothing of note either; he must be pretty low in the void if he can only see the wispy fog instead of the surface.

 Something silver flashes at the edge of his vision, and Sapnap ducks out of the way of a shattered blade. His cheek flares, and he slaps a hand against it, wincing.

 The metal tumbles into the void. Sapnap pulls his hand away, and blinks at the smear of blood left behind.

 “GREETINGS,” bellows out from somewhere overhead. A long scythe of a blade lowers from the fog, and Sapnap backs up to the edge of his floating rock as its tip comes to a gentle rest over his throat.

 “Why am I here?” Sapnap demands. He slouches backward, sticking his hands into his pockets like the perfect image of a begrudged student. If it’s to hide the trembling of his arms, that’s a secret between him and the phone in his pocket. “Who are you?”

 “I AM UNKNOWN, COLLECTOR OF DIVINE INSTRUMENTS, PROSTHESIS MADE BY THE GREATER POWERS,” the voice booms. “I AM HERE TO COLLECT YOURS.”

 “Uh, divine what now?” Sapnap says. He presses his thumb against the cool screen of his phone, making sure it’s facing towards himself so the light doesn’t bleed out. “I don’t know what those are. You’ve got the wrong person.”

 The scythe jerks upward, nicking open his chin, trailing up his face.

 And comes to rest directly over his eyepatch.

 Sapnap stills.

 “THE ALL-SEEING EYES OF THE GODS.”

 “What about them?”

 “YOU HAVE THEM. OR SO I THOUGHT,” the voice adds, and the scythe withdraws a little. “I DID THINK YOU FELL FOR THAT TRAP TOO EASILY FOR A TRUE WIELDER… IT WAS EITHER YOU OR YOUR SYNDICATE FRIEND, THEY SAID, AND THE FANG HUNTER IS MORE TROUBLE THAN I’D LIKE.”

 Syndicate friend. Fang hunter.      Dream.     Sapnap's heart plummets to his heels, but he tries to keep an even keel. “Who’s they?” he asks over the sound of his phone unlocking. As subtly as possible, he drags his thumb across the screen.

 “AH, NOW THAT WOULD BE TELLING, WOULDN’T IT?” A low cackle rolls through the fog like thunder, ruby light flashing faintly in the distance. “OF COURSE, IF YOU GIVE ME WHAT I WANT, I WILL GLADLY TELL.”

 “You… want to take the Eyes,” Sapnap says, slowly.

 “I DO.” A metallic      click     echoes overhead, and two more scythes descend, grinding against each other in a thin shriek of metal on metal. “BUT IF YOU ARE NOT THE ONE WHO WIELDS THEM…”

 Inhale, feel the air warm in his throat, embers into flame. “What’re you gonna do,” Sapnap says, “kill me?”

 “AND WASTE SUCH A RESOURCE? NO, NO. YOU ARE BEST KEPT HERE,” Unknown says, amused. Another blade comes low, and clinks against the phone in his pocket. Sapnap freezes. “GO ON. ASK YOUR FRIEND TO SAVE YOU. CALL THEM HERE. THESE THINGS ARE ALWAYS EASIER TO NEGOTIATE FACE TO FACE.”

 Well now he doesn’t want to do it.

 Sapnap snorts, and a tongue of flame washes over the back of his teeth. “I’m not going to be your good little hostage,” he spits.

 “BUT YOU ALREADY ARE,” says Unknown, and the scythes all turn to slam into the rock.

 Ruptures tear across the surface of the stone, and Sapnap swears as he quickly shuffles onto the biggest piece. The edge crumbles away; far below, the fog shifts. A dull purple glow starts to brighten in the abyss, a tell-tale sign of the dragon waking, and Sapnap throws himself at the scythe in preparation to climb up the weapon-limb if he must—

 His vision      sings.    

 Suddenly, the world takes on a blue tint. Everything jumps into high-definition, and the fog might as well not exist, and Sapnap can see the arching crimson light of a      fucking Blood Breed     looming above him, Unknown is a      Blood Breed,     Sapnap doesn’t stand a chance even if he can read out the letters of their true name from the red aura surrounding them—he looks away, and notices for the first time the golden threads spanning the width of the void, glittering with magic.

 In the back of his mind, he registers that he’s looking at the spell that stopped the Great Collapse, the one that saved the worlds from folding in on each other into utter destruction.

 The rest of his mind is a little busy      screaming,     though.

 A displeased snarl rips through the air as another set of scythes cleave down towards him, and Sapnap exhales a spout of flame that slows them down only barely enough to dodge.

 “OH,” says Unknown, “OH, OH! IS THAT AN EYE? YOU      DO     HAVE ONE! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD HIDE THE GODS’ GIFT LIKE THAT—YOU MUST LET ME HAVE IT, HUMA, IT IS WASTED IN YOUR SOCKET!”

 Sapnap shouts, “You can take it over my dead body!” and throws himself at the ground when a blade tries to cut him in half at the hip.

 “GLADLY!” Unknown dives, now, their nebulous aura now a very clear and vivid blood-red glare into Sapnap’s vision, ruby light spinning down their bony weapon-limbs like latticework.

 Sapnap doesn’t flinch, and even swings his head upward to let the Eye watch and watch and watch—thinking      this is what I go through for you     with only half the bitterness he really feels—which is the only reason he notices the other one.

 Two Blood Breeds in a single day. Fan-fucking-tastic.

 A blade pins him through the shoulder in a burst of hot-eyed pain, but the rest all      miss     as a thin red string wraps around Unknown’s limbs and yanks them upward, into the low-hanging mist.

 Sapnap blinks. He can still see them, thrashing against a thread that yanks Unknown around like a plaything before throwing them aside. It’s connected to the second Blood Breed, which is descending towards him now.

 Okay, okay, it’s fine, he has a little time. A Blood Breed’s weakness is their true name, so if he can just extract that, he might be able to… burn it, or something.

 Sapnap takes a deep breath, gives his vision the middle finger just so the other end of the Eye can see it, and then focuses      hard     on that deep red aura.

 For the most part, it’s just a storm of crimson, red and red and ruby and blood, but Sapnap keeps      looking     and his one working eye whirs like a machine as it narrows, cutting through the noise, piercing down until he can see the heart and the core and… at the very end, a thin string of letters in a language he shouldn’t know.

 The All-Seeing Eye of the Gods pours it all into his head:       red red crimson-winged elder ⍊𝙹╎ᓵᒷ↸╎⍊ᒷ ᓵ∷ᔑℸ ̣ ╎リᒷ ⍑||!¡╎ ̇/ᒷꖌ ℸ ̣ ᒷᓵ⍑リ𝙹ʖꖎᔑ↸ᒷred blood red red war red—  

 “Tech—” he begins, and promptly chokes as a hand slaps over his mouth.

 “Shush,” says the Blood Breed, calm as anything, quite suddenly right beside him. “Yeah, I got there in time, of course I did. Hey, you’re Sapnap, right?”

 Sapnap tries to melt him on pure force of will alone.

 “I’m gonna let go of you now. Maybe don’t be rude and expose me in front of an idiot like that, alright?” The Blood Breed exaggeratedly steps back, and Sapnap immediately flings himself to the opposite side of the very tiny floating rock they’re standing on. “Great, cool, nice talk. Not awkward at all.”

 “What do you want?” Sapnap demands, bristling.

 “You don’t recognize me?”

 Sapnap pauses. He gives the Blood Breed another once-over, taking in the plush red cape and royal garb. Looks at the name again. Nothing rings a bell. “Should I?”

 “Eh. Guess not. We’re a little short on time anyway, so introductions can wait, I guess.” As if on cue, the void begins to rumble. The dragon must be      inches     from rushing out.

 Sapnap waves his hand through what he’s sure is a gear of light blue energy rotating in front of his face, trying to tell his friend to let it go. He doesn’t want him to watch him die.

 The Blood Breed interrupts him with a hand on his wrist. “Hey. Do you trust me?”

 “Hell no.”

 “Smart,” the Blood Breed says, and shoves him off the edge.

[punsandfuturekingsmen-archive]

//If you go to read this, also consider reading Splatter’s original version here!

A lot of the events are very much the same as they are in that piece, and the dialogue parts are pretty much word for word since it’s from Splatterlewis’s perspective! I just added a bit from Arthur near the end and here and there, and just played around with describing things haha.

~

He thought that might be the end of it, or at least he thought he knew what to expect next, given his own history with his own Lewis.

So when the next flash didn’t involve trucks or fights with tree yokai, he felt confusion fuzz at the corners of his brain. No… it was somewhere deep and dark. He wandered in some kind of stupor, filled to the brim with a hundred thoughts and feelings, all of them cutting at his skin like knives and a rage that continued to burn in his chest. The rest was vague to leave an impression, but it still stabbed at him as he stumbled along.

But even in the haze he wandered in, he noticed when something began to stalk him from the shadows. The signs of their presence were clear: the area seemed to shift green and bleed it from the earth and sky. Smoke filled every nick and cranny, thick enough to choke on by any who might need to breathe.

He felt himself pulled from the daze with a snap. Something about the spirit set off alarm bells in his mind and left the hairs on his arms and neck standing on end. The smoke and the green consumed everything, the shade just right to remind him of somewhere else. His brain fired on all cylinders, trying to remember anything Vivi might have said that could help him. All that came to him was that this was something powerful. Something dangerous.

He still couldn’t see it in the smoke, but he could feel the weight of its presence. He called out for it, shouting into the green void an almost challenge. Seeing the cave’s greens made him wonder, and he asked if it came to finish what was left of him. The cry reverberated around him in the emptiness, seeming to ricochet off smoke.

The feeling of something dangerous grew stronger, rocking against him like a crescendo in a song mourning his end. But he didn’t want to end here, and his hands ignited with shimmering violet-pink flames. His eyes darted around the whole of the place, searching for movement.

A laugh alerted him, though the aura of power from the thing that found him might have done just the same if it hadn’t. A voice old as time and antique in accent spoke. The tone was something that itched at his skin..

       “Boy, I have never met you… Lewis, is it? Such a lovely name, for a lovely soul… So full of fire, of power, and rage. Why would I wish to drive you to hell, when you are the key to my freedom?”

He could feel himself heating up. The fires in his hand seemed to brighten until they blurred the air at the edges of each flame. His hair felt warmer, and shades of pink glistened and reflected off green smoke from where it was now glimmering, ready to ignite.

A clarity struck him, that this was not what he’d met before. It was something greater.

“Show yourself!” He called for the thing, teeth flashing in a grimace. Anger bubbled at the notion of being scared by this thing. By it trying to intimidate him. He was not about to lose, not after everything he had gone through.

But then they obliged.

The skeleton that moved into view was verdant, a hue of green that was deep and dark. Scant remains of decaying flesh still hung from putrid bones, and each piece that lingered had names endlessly scrawled, carved and etched into every inch of skin until they nearly lost meaning, but did not overlap. A cloth kilt and robes hung from its form and swayed with the steps it took, barely clinging to the emaciated remains of the creature and worn in places to threads.

On the head of the skull was a carving. One that recognition pricked at him distantly for. It was the one he’d seen on Lewis’s head for years. But this one, blackened as char and cracked, seemed to give off a shadowy aura, absorbing the light to nothing around it in way that made it seem to glow. It had never looked like that on Splatter. Or… not that he knew of. But what did he really know?

The memory seized him again. “Such a demanding tone, for someone about to lose their soul… You have a fire in you, a fire I need. And you will give it, aye?”

He felt a flash of pride, or protective fury, and he pointed to the creature with a fist wreathed in fire and a glare Mrs. Pepper would have been proud of (the thought hurt as it struck him).  “You can never have my soul, I refuse. No one can have it!”

The skeleton moved in a way that divulged something of its thought of what he had said, but he didn’t have the moment to process it. The corruption that hung in the air seemed to thicken and shift, forming blade-sharp arrows, tainted and green. He barely moved out of the way as they streaked by. A few sliced holes in his already damaged shirt, a testament to how close they managed to get to striking him.

With a growl that twisted his face in a snarl, he returned fire. But as the flames blasted over the creature, it stood there, taking the attack without flinching. It laughed, even at it stumbled back from the force, seeming wholly unfazed.

The shock after seeing what his fire could do held him still, and it was enough for a return blast from the skeleton to strike true. The bolt crashed against his chest, the pain hard and heavy and making him double over with a wheeze. He gasped for breath as if he needed it, clutching at his bruised chest and stomach.

The creature seemed amused and its tone held danger, a promise of a cruel fate. “You have no idea who you fight, boy…. In life, centuries and centuries ago, I was once known as Professor Hean Feramin. A genius of studies of names and their power and origins, as well as medical studies… But now, in death, I am known as ‘The Splatter Man’… Do you have any idea the number of people I have killed? The souls I have claimed and the power I wield…? The hordes of monsters that followed me, and respected me, their king?!”

It laughed again, something deeper, and with a flare of green smoke, a quill formed that he took between thumb and forefinger. It twirled with a flourish as it brought a skeletal hand up as if to write on a chalkboard, stroking the tip of the quill against the empty air.

Where it scratched, letters formed, Large and flamboyant in a way letters often were when they began a chapter of a book, like fanciful olden English. Each letter that adorned the air became red, droplets of it falling off and towards the ground.

L.

His head began to spin, and he stumbled.

E.

W.

He didn’t realize when he hit his knees, but he was on them now, the energy to return to one knee felt like it took all he had. His stomach lurched and a sense of exhaustion burned at his eyes.

The Splatter Man held the quill as if poised for the next letter, but instead he twisted the quill against his palm and crushed it to nothing, blood dripping from his hand where it had been before fading.

Hands laced behind his back, the Splatter Man approached. He could see even more names along the pallid skin, burned in or cut in jagged lines. The skin on his face was gone, and he could see fire-red embers aglow in the sockets, sizing him up. He felt something touch his feet. Something scaly and thick, and the sound of hissing told him what it was.

“Are you starting to understand? I can use your name against you, I can learn any name by staring… And everyone’s’ name holds their soul, their strength… And can be manipulated… Hold still now, and welcome the warm embrace of death. You will free me from this prison.”

He was down on his knee, fighting for that will to stand again, hissing through his teeth at The Splatter Man. He could feel blood soaking the tatters of his shirt, spilling red in thick rivers from what once had been the scars of his death. They were open now, weeping blood until he was slick with it. Weakness had sunk into his bones. His thoughts slipped to his name, but they quickly snapped back as a boney hand found the front of his shirt, gripping the fabric tight. He was sure of one thing.

The Splatter Man was preparing for the kill.

The thought ended nearly the moment the hand lifted, hoisting him easily into the air.  He gagged, choked on blood and agony, and looked down at The Splatter Man, panic seeping in and turning everything icy. He was aloft, feet not touching the ground.

Fear crept along his spine. A fear he’d only felt once before.

It made him sick.

He could hear the way a smugness threaded the chuckle of the Splatter Man. He watched, limp in his hold as his free hand twisted, and a dagger formed, hilt curled perfectly to his hand. The gemstones along the hilt glittered with the green light, and the runes also etched almost seemed to glow in their reflections.

He realized what the intention was, when the dagger raised back with the hand.

It came forward at an unnatural speed, piercing his chest over his heart so hard he felt sure he was about to cave inwards. He screamed, screamed as he felt like he was being torn asunder, screaming louder than he thought himself capable. Blood seeped around the blade and it ripped another cry from hi as the dagger twisted, cutting deeper, opening the wound ever further. His chest was on fire and his voice gave out as his scream reached a climax, even his own ears ringing with the sound. The tendrils of corruption magic began to ebb towards the new wound, and he felt slithering along his clothing, before seeing the snakes he’d only heard and felt. They also pressed against the bleeding wound in his chest, and a sound escaped as it seared, the curls of his shirt at the edge of the blade blackening from the heat.

“Ah, you have some fight in you. Good, I will need that… You will free me from this purgatory. This prison. And I shall reclaim my throne… The death left in my wake will be unlike anything this world has ever seen, and you will help me, boy. Your essence will be mine.”

The torture burning him turned to lava, melting through the wound and his veins and then melting down to the organs and viscera. The sounds he thought he would make were gone now, rendered to silent convulsions. He could hear something, and he swore it was his soul, creaking and shuddering as agony struck blows that threatened to crack it in pieces.

But he grit his teeth, jaw squaring, and a snarl crept along his face. He couldn’t end here. Not when…. Someone needed him. Someone….Vivi.

Vivi.

VIVI.

VIVI! HE HAD TO PROTECT HER!

HE HAD TO PROTECT ALL OF HIS FRIENDS!!

A second wind surged through him, his heart beating fast and wild as his eyes widened. Gold light reflected off the bone in front of him from them. The skeleton paused.

“NO! I SAID. THAT. I. REFUSE!!”

His fingers stiffened on one hand that he reared back with, and then he jammed it forward, letting them force their way through the bones of the Splatter Man. His fingers searched blind, until he felt something. It felt rotted, soft and dry like the withered husk of a jack-o-lantern left out far past Halloween, and his fingers squeezed it to his palm.

The Splatter Man flinched as he did, yelling himself, and then howling as his flames returned, glowing violet inside the skeleton’s chest and hungrily eating at the thing left in his hand.

The Splatter Man summoned things, things that snapped at his body and slashed at his skin. Magic that pounded against him with bruising, bone breaking force. But he didn’t let go. He didn’t falter. His eyes stayed focused on his task, and his hands stayed tight around that heart as the flames began to grow and eat. He held on, determined with every fiber of his being, fighting tooth and nail for every inch over what felt like eternity locked together.

But inch by inch he gained traction, pushed further. The Splatter man’s eyes widened, a grimace taking it and a trickle of fear seemed to stitch itself to the edges of his expression. He could hear it in his voice, the slightest way it quavered even with his anger.

“What the hell are you doing?! You will destroy us BOTH YOU FOOL! What is keeping you from giving up the ghost?!”

He ignored him, hissing in his fury like a skillet of oil. His fire crackled and popped within the other, and he grabbed the Splatter Man’s wrist with the hand not in his chest, holding tight. His voice was a battle cry.

“Because I have REASONS TO COME BACK! I will use YOU!”

His hand on that rest continued to move, shooting forwards at lightning speed. He dug his fingers into the bone of the skull in front of him, grip crushing and bones creaking at the sutures. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he held on, and pulled at the energy of the Splatter Man.

The Splatter Man seemed to realize what was trying to do nearly the moment he started, and he tried to pull back, retreat with fervor. The blade in Lewis’s chest came out, spraying them both with red so red it was black and bright red from the arteries and purple that glowed. It all saturated their clothing until they dripped with his blood. But he didn’t falter. Didn’t once blink.

Well. Lewis didn’t falter. He probably would have.

The Splatter Man screeched.

“Release me!”

“Never.”

The fire in the Splatter Man’s was glowing brighter, white hot as it lashing out in heated waves like solar flares. The skeleton screeched, something high pitched and bone grinding, and he just leaned closer feeling vitality running through him, strengthening him.

He screamed one last time, and then his skull gave way beneath Lewis’s other hand, crumpling inwards like dried paper beneath a vise grip.

Purple and green light flashed, and Lewis fell the short drop to his feet, and then his knees. He panted for breath, clutching his chest, but watched with a sense of satisfaction as the skeleton crumbled, falling to pieces on the earth in front of him, a hallowed husk.

But with that power came a price, and he could see it seeping into the tips of his fiery hair, that curved just over his eyes. What had been pale shades of embery pink was now shifted, flickering green. Thoughts were flicking through his head over what the Splatter Man had meant and triumph at defeating him, even if he was exhausted by the effort. He could feel the power now, pulsing through himself.

Clambering to his feet, he rubbed at his face, before looking up, and seeing the same emblem that had adorned the skull of The Splatter Man, hovering in the air. It still glowed as it seemed to hum, before it arced forward, making him jump. It slammed against his forehead and he screamed as it burned, melting, burning through his flesh and then further into the bone of his skull and just a little further still until the imprint was etched into him, unmistakable for what it was. It continued to burn and burn and tear at him and—

Arthur woke up screaming, hand going to his forehead and chest where blood had started streaming down the side of his face and torso, down along his side where he was still pressed into the grass. His fingers turned slick as he held them against his forehead and shirt and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking so hard he convulsed where he lay.

He couldn’t die. But at this point he almost wished he could.