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gurugirl · 11 months ago

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Can We Start Over | Ch. 5 The Coincidence

Series Summary: From the first day you and Harry meet, your relationship is beyond complicated. A one night stand leads to hurt feelings and then a job opportunity that you simply can't pass up is offered. But can you handle working for a man like him? rich!harry x plus size!reader | enemies to lovers

This is a 5 part series commissioned by @justfattiethings (thank you hon!).

Chapter 5. Summary: Things have changed for you and Harry but when you see him at a meeting, you are taken by surprise. It feels like destiny. Maybe this time things will work out for you two.

A/N: This is the final part to this series! Thank you everyone who stuck with the story and gave it a shot! Appreciate all the love!

Word Count: 12.7k

Warning: 18+ only, angst, smut, fluff

Can We Start Over? masterlist

Mr. Allen was on the phone again. He’d called you into his office but the moment you stepped in he got a call and told you to sit and wait. That it would only be a minute.

And it was only a minute. But then he got another call and now it was 23 minutes later while he was still yammering about some person who was just the worst.

You were used to it, though. Mr. Allen was retired so nothing was a rush for him anymore. Which also meant he held other people up. But waiting for your boss was the least of your worries.

His wife and her ever-changing personality was your biggest concern. She was, to put it mildly, a monster. And to make matters worse, she ran the whole household so you were often seeking her out for things. Mrs. Allen also handled her husband’s schedule and if he was running behind guess who got the blame. That’s right. You did. Every time.

And it was the same thing over and over again. You started your day trying to keep Mr. Allen up to task, failed, got reprimanded and degraded by a nasty human, held back tears and then took a long drive with loud music to clear your head with a quick stop for dinner, probably at a drive-through.

Needless to say, you were already planning on quitting. You’d gotten really lucky with Alfred. And even working with Harry hadn’t been as bad as it was working for Mrs. Allen and her husband. But you tried not to think about Harry if you could help it.

By the time Mr. Allen got off the phone he was running late for his physical therapy appointment. You got him moving along quickly and sent him on his way but not before Mrs. Allen started poking around and making comments under her breath.

“What was that?” You turned to look behind yourself at the wicked witch as she stood near the edge of the foyer.

“He’s late again.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“That is correct.”

She rolled her eyes, “What’s the point of having a personal assistant who can’t even keep the boss on schedule?”

You smiled, holding back your true thoughts, “Well, being as my job description doesn’t entail using physical force on the boss, which is what it would take to get Mr. Allen to keep on time for anything, I’m certain you’ll find that once again, this isn’t my responsibility.”

“Lazy,” she spoke under her breath.

You tilted your head and squinted your eyes at her, “That’s the last thing I am. Now, if you don’t mind, my workday is over. Have a good evening.”

You walked past her to go into your room to pack up your laptop and leave. You’d stay at your own place that night. You hated staying at the Allen’s house. Not only was the room they’d given you a tiny spec of a thing with no windows, no closet, and not even a single rug to cover the cold tile floors but being anywhere near Mrs. Allen made your skin crawl.

“I don’t know why we bother with the room for you,” she was standing in the doorway when you turned around.

“You really didn’t bother much with the room in the first place. That’s why I don’t stay here. My house has a better bed with a big window looking into my backyard. I just feel better in my own bed at night.”

You walked past her and held your breath so as not to inhale her disgusting, pungent perfume. You used to like the scent she wore. But now you loathed it. Whenever you smelled it, even on another woman, it made you queasy. You very much did not like Mrs. Allen.

You turned up the volume on your car radio the moment your front tires hit the road. You always looked forward to going home after work. This day wasn’t as bad as you’d had before and tomorrow you’d do it all over again.

And instead of stopping at a drive-through for fast food, you decided you’d stop at the grocery store and pick up ingredients to actually make something fresh.

Typically you didn’t cook. You didn’t have time for it. Picking up groceries would put you home at almost 8 pm. And then you still needed to cook so you wouldn’t be eating until close to 9 and then you could finally relax with a glass of wine and a good book or something trashy on television. Which was why drive-throughs were your go-to dinner plans. It meant you were home by 7:30 and dinner was already cooked. Not the best use of money and certainly not the healthiest way to live but you wouldn’t be doing it much longer.

You had a meeting to attend with Mr. and Mrs. Allen the following week that piqued your interest. It was for a piece of art that they’d been looking for. And someone found it for them. From an art dealer who was not too far away. You didn’t know for sure but you had a feeling. And you wanted to find out if that feeling was right.

Maybe you were a masochist and just wanted to pour salt onto the wound of your split open heart one more time. Or maybe you did have some hope that it was Harry and that maybe you could try and receive his feelings for you once and for all.

But it’d been just over 9 months since you’d seen him and you were sure he’d moved on by now. There would be no reason for him to still be pining over you the way you were over him. And what were the chances that it was him in the first place? You didn’t know but you needed to find out.

Yeah. You regretted what you’d done. Pushing him away like that. But once you’d done it, it felt like it was too late to go back. Maybe it was your pride. Or that little voice in the back of your head that told you men always leave and they always lie. That anyone that might love you would probably just disappoint you in the end.

But now you were in therapy and talking to someone opened your eyes to your self-sabotaging ways. You had been certain that the way you felt couldn’t be helped. That you were a prisoner to your trauma and all the hurt and that it was for the best. You’d been wrong, though. You could help the way you processed feelings and the way you responded when things got hard. You didn’t have to push away the notion that a man could love you or keep running away from your problems.

After picking up ingredients to make a nice little dinner for yourself you arrived at your cute house.

You loved the place. Loved the neighborhood. You found it a few weeks after you told Harry to leave your apartment. It wasn’t that far from your old place but you felt like it was good enough for a new start. At the time, you were ready to take the plunge. To move on. It was just a rental but it felt like your own place.

Though, not long after moving in you started feeling like getting rid of every trace of Harry had been a bad idea. You missed him. However, you didn’t recognize how you were feeling for him until you began therapy. The more you spoke honestly about everything and without any judgment, you began to peel off layers of yourself that you had unconsciously piled on to protect yourself. But that only wound up making things worse.

And one night, almost six months since you’d seen him, you decided to drive past his big, gated home. You still had the fob to his entry but of course, you wouldn’t use it. You only wanted to just drive past. To your surprise, there was a For Sale sign stuck in the grass in front of the gate.

You parked across from the house and tried to see if there was anything that indicated he’d actually moved out but seeing inside was impossible. You could see the top level of the house and that was really it.

The sinking feeling in your chest that you’d probably never see him again started to settle over you slowly. You’d moved away and blocked him from everything and then deleted his contact and now he was no longer living in the only place you knew where he might be. He was gone.

But then when you helped set up the meeting with the art dealer there was the smallest tinge of hope there. You felt like this might be your last chance. You had just been about to quit when Mrs. Allen gave you the number to an assistant of a dealer who had access to a painting they wanted. You never learned the name of the art dealer, only of the assistant who worked for them.

So you’d stick it out until after the meeting and then you’d give up your hope for ever seeing Harry again if it wasn’t him. And you’d also quit your job once and for all.

Of course, it’s not him. Don’t get your hopes up.

You had to remind yourself of that over and over again. The chances were slim that you would actually be seeing Harry.

Either way, you were looking forward to that meeting. Even if it wasn’t Harry, you’d be free of Mr. and Mrs. Allen once and for all after you quit.

But the days dragged on slowly. The only thing that was good about the time that led up to the meeting was the little secret that you were quitting. It was something you were excited about.

The morning of the meeting you woke up well before your alarm went off. You’d been unable to fall back asleep as you remembered the last time you and Harry slept together. The words he spoke to you that night haunted you every day since, “Want to make you feel so good. Want to make you smile, Y/n. Want to make you happy.”

You sighed. You hoped it was him at the meeting. You hoped there was still some way to salvage what you’d done. Hoped there was still something there. If it was him, that is.

Your entire morning routine had turned into a spa event. You turned on your coffee pot and then got into the shower, getting yourself ready for the possibility of anything and everything. You had selected your outfit days prior and put on a full face of makeup. You were going to look your absolute best.

And no matter what the outcome of the meeting was, today was a good day. Because at the end of it, you’d be a free woman. You’d never again step foot in the Allen house. You took all of your belongings from the spec of a bedroom over a few days so no one would notice. You rarely stayed over anyway so it wasn’t like you needed to keep much there in the first place.

You had a taxi take you to the Allen’s on that day. Because your plan was to quit the moment the painting was purchased and you weren’t going to be going back to their house with them after the meeting just to get your car. You’d get a taxi home. It was quite dramatic but you couldn’t wait to quit. Couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Allen you were done and then walk off. Only a few more hours.

When you arrived at the Allen’s your first stop was the kitchen to make Mr. Allen’s coffee (skim milk and stevia) and Mrs. Allen’s chai green tea with raw honey. This was always the best part of your day. Things were usually quiet, Mrs. Allen wasn’t raging just yet, and the morning light that came into their gorgeous kitchen felt peaceful. While the coffee was perking you brought Mrs. Allen her tea drink where you knew you’d find her and placed it down on its coaster next to her. As usual, she did not acknowledge your existence or even say thank you.

Mr. Allen was always cordial, however.

“Morning Mr. Allen. Here’s your coffee.”

“Thank you, Y/n. Have you seen my wife this morning?”

You smiled and stood next to his desk, “I just gave her some tea. Why?”

“I think she wanted to make sure we had wire information set up to pay for the painting today. She’s very set on making the purchase. Can you double-check we have everything we need?”

“I’m certain we have everything we need but I’ll definitely do a quick check.”

As you suspected, everything was ready to go. When you confirmed as much you went to find Mrs. Allen to tell her.

“Mr. Allen told me you wanted to make sure the wire instructions were ready and I just wanted to let you know that we’ve got everything we need and it’s all ready to go for when it comes time to pay.”

“Good. Now,” she turned to look at you, “this is a meeting we cannot be late for so I’d appreciate it if you could have everything ready for us so there are no delays. I don’t want any excuses.”

You nodded, stifling the small laugh before it could make it out of your mouth, “Of course, Mrs. Allen.”

But as always, Mr. Allen was dawdling. You did remind him of the meeting but he assured you he was going to be on time. He wasn’t. You weren’t surprised.

When it was time to leave he was still in his office in his slippers on his third cup of coffee talking to his brother about sports.

“I told you this is a meeting we cannot be late for. This is unacceptable!” Mrs. Allen was red in the face as she barked at you. Somehow, she always seemed shocked when her husband held things up. You didn’t know how it was possible that she was so surprised.

You blinked your eyes and sighed, “He doesn’t need to be at the meeting with us. I say we just go. He’ll be fine here by himself.”

She nodded and mumbled under her breath about your incompetence, “Tell him we’re leaving without him. I’m going to get the driver to pull the car around.”

You poked your head into the office and waved at Mr. Allen and he pulled the phone from his ear to look at you with his brows raised. As if he didn’t know what was going on.

“We’re going to leave now for the painting. You can stay behind. No need for you to be there. Okay?”

He smiled at you and nodded before getting back to his call. You knew he didn’t care. This painting wasn’t for him. It was for Mrs. Allen. It was something she’d been wanting. She’d just hang it up alongside the rest of her collection of exotic animal paintings and artwork.

The car ride was silent. Which you preferred. You tried not speaking to Mrs. Allen when you could help it. Luckily she wasn’t interested in having a conversation with you.

And 30 minutes later when you arrived, your mind was swirling with thoughts of what could happen and what probably wouldn’t.

Your nerves were all over the place. If you were about to walk into a room with Harry Styles, being nervous was warranted. You hadn’t seen his handsome face in so long and wanted so badly for it to be him.

It was unlikely. At least that’s what you kept telling yourself. No reason to get your hopes up.

You and Mrs. Allen got out of the car once the driver had let you both out at the front.

It was a public gallery so everyone could just walk in to admire the art. You noticed there were people inside looking at the sculptures and paintings as you followed behind Mrs. Allen toward the desk at the side of the room where a young woman sat.

“Hi. I’m Delia Allen here for a meeting to view the Ghaui piece.”

The young woman smiled widely, “Yes. Of course! Just follow me. We have it moved into a special viewing room just for you.”

If there was ever a moment in your life where you thought that one small step toward a physical room could forever change your life, it was this. What if he was there? What if he wasn’t?

The gallery wasn’t a large space but there were temporary walls placed around the room to act as dividers and a spot for more art to hang. You wove around the walls and into a hallway where the young woman stepped into a room with Mrs. Allen just behind her. You paused for a moment before stepping inside. This was it. It either was or it wasn’t.

Placing your hand on the frame of the door and taking a deep breath you breached the space to enter the viewing room and found that there was no one else inside. It was the painting that Mrs. Allen had been so keen on buying, hung up with lights aimed at it, a table and chairs.

You didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t this. You imagined someone would be inside the room waiting for you.

“The dealer will be right in. He’s finishing up something with someone else. Five minutes tops.”

The painting was of elephants in an African wildlife scene. It wasn’t your taste but you had to respect Mrs. Allen for her interests. If there was anything about her you could say you liked, it was her love of animals and how much support she’d given African wildlife sanctuaries. She’d also gone on many safaris (without Mr. Allen you learned) and helped fund conservation parks that helped employ people and protect the land and animals. Honestly, when you found out this was her thing you felt like you were looking at a different woman.

She was still a bitch, though.

“I thought this meeting was set up and ready to go, Y/n,” she turned to look at you. As if somehow the dealer running late was your fault.

“It is set and ready. The girl said the dealer would be right in. We just need to wait a couple of minutes.”

You didn’t look at her face as you responded. You were done looking at her face. After this meeting, you’d never have to look at it again.

“Sergi could’ve come if I knew this was going to happen.”

You rolled your eyes, back facing her as you looked over the lines and the paint on the canvas. It was a well-done piece of art.

When the door opened only a moment later you felt your heart stop for a split second, a chill ran down your face, over your shoulders, and through your spine as you slowly turned around when Mrs. Allen spoke, “Finally.”

Your vision grew spotty, like tiny particles floating around and mixing up the scene before you. Fuzzy like a grey screen on a television. You blinked your eyes to clear your sight as you looked at him for the first time in over 9 months. It was him.

And his reaction to you appeared much the same, with him pausing in the doorway, mouth agape, eyes wide.

“Hello? Are you the dealer?” Mrs. Allen was great at ruining a moment.

Harry’s eyes blinked as he shook his head and finally peeled his sight from you to look at the other woman in the room. He cleared his throat, closing the door behind himself, and stepped forward to Mrs. Allen with his hand out, “Yes. I’m the dealer. Harry Styles,” he shook her hand and then shot his eyes back to you, taking in your outfit quickly before moving toward you, his hand outstretched in silence.

You hadn’t moved from your spot next to the painting. You hadn’t closed your mouth or peeped a single word because you couldn’t. And even though you had a feeling that it was him before the meeting ever took place, the surprise and shock you felt was overwhelming.

It was really him. It was Harry. And you couldn’t believe it was him.

You placed your hand in his to shake and the moment was eternity. Your eyes pinned together, palms warm to the touch, searching gazes, and a million little thoughts dancing around your heads. It was real. He was real. You were real. The moment was real.

But of course, as Mrs. Allen tended to do she interrupted the odd reunion and began speaking, “Please go over the details with me. I think I’d like to know a little more and then we can talk price.”

Harry’s adam’s apple bobbed as he released your hand and straightened his posture and he handed a folder to Mrs. Allen and began to go over everything she might want to know.

Your heart was racing and you were unable to listen to anything he said regarding the painting. It all sounded like gibberish to you but you could hear his smooth deep voice as he spoke, and the occasional glance in your direction had your skin sparking in delight.

“Earth to Y/n,” Mrs. Allen waved her hand in front of your face and you slowly drifted from your reverie back to reality and looked at her.

“Jesus, it’s like herding cats with you,” she pointed, “Let’s get this part ready. Open your laptop.”

You reached into your bag and pulled out your laptop, placing it on the table so you could begin the wire payment. You looked from Mrs. Allen to Harry and then back to your screen as the bank sight loaded.

Of course, you had to log in and the internet connection wasn’t as fast as you’d have liked so Mrs. Allen let out an annoyed sigh.

“Always like this with her,” she looked at Harry with her arms crossed, “Slow. Lazy–“

“Are you serious?” Harry sounded perturbed. Aghast.

You looked from him to Mrs. Allen and the look on his face matched the sound of his voice as he looked at her with disdain.

“Of course I am. You don’t know her so you have no idea what–“

“I do actually know her,” he glanced at you softening his gaze. “Don’t speak about her that way or the deal is off.”

You blinked and smiled gently as you opened up the bank wire screen.

“What? You can’t treat me like this. I’m a paying client. I will walk out of here without this painting if you dare–“

“Then leave.” He looked at her with his brows raised in a dare.

She huffed and clutched her purse, “Fine. Just… do the deal, Y/n. I’ll be right back. I need to use the restroom and get some air. When I return I want this to be over with.”

She walked out of the room and slammed the door rudely and Harry stepped in front of the computer as you looked up at him, “Y/n. I can’t believe it’s you. Are you working for her?”

You stood up straight and nodded, “Yeah. It’s a disaster. I’m quitting as soon as this is over. It’s been my plan for a month.”

He smiled, “You’re quitting? Now?”

You nodded again, “Yes. As soon as this deal is complete I’m done.”

“Can I see you? Like, after this? Dinner maybe?”

You sputtered a tiny laugh. It was like music to your ears, “Okay. Why not?”

Harry grinned widely and pointed at the computer, “Let’s get this over with then. Push that payment through and let’s get out of here.”

There it was again, the blurred vision, grey and colored specs floating around you as if you were in the grey screen of a TV. You couldn’t believe it. Perhaps it was only a dream. Perhaps you were about to wake up and it was all going to have been just a wild dream that you’d never recover from.

You called the bank with a smile on your face to begin the wire transfer. Everything was set as you entered the details into the account on your laptop and spoke with the representative.

But of course, there was one thing holding the whole thing up. Mrs. Allen had to be there to verbally give the go-ahead to the man on the phone. You were not authorized.

So when she came back to the room and the payment wasn’t yet completed she was furious, “How can you mess up the simplest things, Y/n?”

“All you need to do is tell the man this wire transfer from your bank to the owner’s is authorized. You’re holding this up. Not her,” Harry spoke.

She pulled the cell phone from you with a sigh and spoke into the receiver as you smiled at Harry.

“There. It’s done.” She handed the phone to you and the transaction was finalized. Emails went out to all the parties involved in the sale with the receipt and you closed your laptop.

“Good. Now, have someone wrap this so I can bring it back without getting scratched.”

Harry nodded, “I’ll have Laira get someone for you and they’ll bring it to your car.”

Mrs. Allen looked at you and snapped her fingers, “You can go wait in the car for me. No need to have you standing around and gawking like an idiot.”

You stuffed your laptop into your bag and looked at Mrs. Allen, “Delia?” You made it a point to call her by her first name, which you knew she hated, “I quit. Working for you has been hell. You’ll go home without me as I’ve already made other arrangements. Tell Mr. Allen it was lovely to work for him. I’ll send him an email explaining why I quit tomorrow. Also, the agency won’t work with you again after I share details and proof of the way you treated me.”

Her mouth dropped open and the look of surprise on her face was quite hilarious as you pushed passed her with Harry following behind you.

You felt exhilarated and your heart was pumping blood through your body and your limbs rapidly as you smiled and made your way to the front of the gallery.

Harry kept in step with you as he waved at the girl at the desk, “Please help Mrs. Allen get the painting wrapped and put into her car. I’m done for the day. Call me if you need anything.”

You felt the warm air hit your cheeks when you stepped outside into the sun with Harry behind you.

“Y/n, I’m still kind of in disbelief that you’re here. I must be dreaming,” he turned toward you with a wide grin.

“I feel the same way. Like I’m just going to wake up and it’s all been a dream.”

“Pinch me,” he put his arm out and pushed his shirt sleeve up to his forearm, displaying the tattoos on his skin.

You laughed and put your thumb and pointer over his skin and gave him a good pinch and he let out a deep breath, “Do it again.”

You couldn’t stop the small chuckle that fell from your lips as you pinched him again and he grabbed the tops of your arms tightly, “Y/n I’ve missed you so much. I’ve wanted to talk to you so many times. I have so much to tell you.”

“Me too, Harry. There’s so much to say.”

He led you to his car and you both got inside. It felt so surreal to be climbing into Harry’s car with him, “Where would like to go eat?” He looked at you from the driver’s seat as he started up his car.

You shook your head, “I don’t know. Don’t care really.”

He nodded, “Yeah I don’t care either. Just as long as I get to go there with you. Okay, we’ll go to this spot I found some months ago. They have great crab cakes.”

When he pulled out to the street you looked at him, “New car then?”

He nodded, “Yeah. The lease came up on the other one and figured something different would be nice. I’ve had this for a few months.”

“And did you move?”

He licked his lips and glanced at you, “Yeah. Not long after you left. A lot has happened since you’ve been gone. I… did a lot of thinking about what I want in life and how I want to live it. The place was too big. Not sustainable for me any longer. Too expensive.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

He breathed out through his nose as he nodded, “I stopped dealing with stolen items. It was dumb of me to get involved in all that in the first place. I never started off being an art dealer with the idea that I would be wealthy. It began because I genuinely love the art world and discovering new pieces. I lost that somewhere along the way and you leaving like you did remind me of what was important in life. Money is not all there is.”

You were surprised to hear this. It made you wonder what else had changed.

The restaurant was a small, hip-looking spot. You had both arrived before the dinner crowd, it was still a bit early for dinner, but to you, it didn’t matter. You were with Harry again and even though you weren’t quite sure what to expect things were going better than you imagined.

You and Harry were seated at a small round table for two by a big window looking out over the parking lot. It wasn’t fancy but it felt amazing to get face to face with him after all that time.

“Y/n, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look incredible. I know I said it already but I really missed you. I hope you and I can keep in touch after this. If that’s something you wanted. It would mean so much to me to be able to see you again.”

You picked at the corner of the laminated menu that had been placed on the table in front of you and looked up at him, “Harry, I missed you a lot too. I regretted the way I ended things. Moving away and blocking you. I thought it was the right thing to do. I deleted every part of you from my life and by the time I realized it was a mistake I didn’t have your contacts anymore,” you shook your head as you looked into his eyes, “I’m sorry I did it that way. I’m sorry for walking away from you.”

Harry reached across the table and put his hand over yours, “I’m glad you did. Y/n, I don’t know if I would have had the kind of self-reflection and epiphany I did if you’d stayed. But you leaving like that made me rethink everything I thought was important. Made me realize that dealing in the black market and jet-setting all over the world to do something that goes against my very core… I hated it. I hated you leaving but it opened my eyes.”

“So you really don’t do any of that anymore?”

He shook his head, “No. Now I bounce around from gallery to gallery to view pieces and check the legitimacy, the provenance. I work for myself still but now I’m not making as much money. Which is fine!” He laughed, dimples digging into his cheeks, “It’s better this way. I sleep better knowing I’m doing things right now.”

“Where do you live now?”

“Like twenty minutes from here. Bought a regular-sized house with a garage and an ugly entryway,” he grinned, “But I love it. I love it because it makes me feel happy. It’s not so much to maintain. Had to let go of all the staff I had but other than that, I haven’t missed the income as much as I thought I would.”

You were impressed with him. You never imagined he’d stop dealing in illegal items because you knew the money was so good.

The waiter stood at your table and you both told him what you’d like to drink. A sparkling water with lemon for you, and a hot black tea for him.

“So you were working for that woman. She’s awful. How long did you stay with her?”

You laughed and shook your head, “I worked for the Allens for just over seven months. Hated every minute of it. She only got worse as time went on. I thought once she got used to me she’d lighten up be she was truly evil. Would just talk down to me and blame me for everything that went wrong.”

“Why did you stay there for so long?”

“At first I stayed hoping it would get better. You know you kind of get into a groove and can look past bullshit and then everyone starts to get used to one another. But that never happened. I tried to stick it out. But then of course I needed the money too. Well, on some level. The security of having a job is nice and the rent at my new house is a lot more than what I paid at my apartment. Figured I’d wait for the right moment. Then about a month ago I found out that Delia wanted to buy this piece of art she’d been wanting and she was going to go through a dealer and I was just about to quit. I really was but,” you shrugged and smiled as you looked down at the menu, “Though it would be funny if maybe you were the dealer,” you brought your eyes back up to him.

He squinted, his brows pulling in as he looked at you, “You continued working for them when you thought maybe I was going to be the dealer on the sale? So you could see me?”

You nodded and smiled, “I mean. Sort of. I really didn’t think it was going to be you but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just see. So I stuck it out. My plan was to quit the moment the deal was over. That’s why I was saying that at the gallery. It was like, one last thing, just to see if it was you and then I was done working for them.”

Harry laughed and pulled his lips into his mouth, shaking his head in amazement, “I can’t believe you wanted to see me. I was certain you were done and wanted nothing to do with me. I did go back to your apartment one day, maybe like two months later. But you’d already moved out. And you never responded to any of my texts or calls. Figured that was that. What made you want to see me?”

You tried not to feel bad how you ended things with him but it was hard not to, “I really did like you. It was just hard for me to admit how much. And then Brandy, my best friend, talked me into going to therapy. And honestly? Just talking about how I process things and my emotions with someone else helped me a ton. Helped me see how I self-sabotage. Anything that might make me happy, specifically romance, was a big block for me. I didn’t even realize it consciously. I think I knew I pushed people away when I didn’t need to. And I realized I did that with you.”

Harry nodded as he listened and the waiter placed your drinks down on the table before taking your orders for food.

It felt like you had so much to tell him and you could see Harry felt the same with everything he admitted to you. You loved listening to him and watching him as he spoke or the way he gazed at you as you recounted the last 9 months to him.

While so much did happen in those 9 months, you felt comfortable sitting at that small table talking to Harry about it all. Everything felt so familiar and nice with him. It felt like you were both exactly on the same page and this time around maybe you could really have something special with him. If he wanted the same thing as you.

“So you missed me? What did you miss about me?” Harry smirked at you as he took a scoop of the dessert you were both sharing.

“Hmm… I think I liked it when you were nice to me and vulnerable with me. Our late-night kitchen chats. How you took up for me with that one lady. And even today you did it again with Mrs. Allen. I think there were times when I hated you but mostly I liked you. And those things I missed.”

His smirk didn’t fall from his lips and it looked like he was holding back what he wanted to say.

“What? What’s that look?” You pointed your fork at him.

Harry laughed and looked down at the table before putting his eyes back on yours, “You didn’t miss… like my body or something?”

You laughed and grinned at him, “Oh my god, Harry,” you rolled your eyes and shook your head.

“I mean you have to admit, Y/n, we are very good together. Aren’t we? Like… just fit so well me and you.”

You inhaled and let your eyes trail over his features as you tried to keep the grin off your face.

“You’re insane.” You licked your lips.

“No, I’m not. You know it’s true. Tell me you’ve had better with anyone else and I’ll tell you you’re lying. You missed me but you also missed all those dirty little things I did to you.”

“You’re way too confident and cocky still,” you laughed.

“Am I?” His smile was something that always got you. The grin, the dimples, the crinkles at the edge of his eyes.

“What do you want me to say, Harry? That I missed little Styles down there?” You sputtered a laugh.

“Little? Is that what you’d call it?” He placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward closer to you, “You said otherwise when–“

“Anything else for you two?” The waiter broke the tension as Harry shot his eyes up to the man.

“I think we’ll take the check. Thank you.”

You laughed as the server walked away and Harry cocked his head with that smirk still plastered on his face.

The sun was beginning to go down as the check was laid on the table and you insisted on splitting it with Harry. He grumped about you paying anything at all but you weren’t taking no for an answer.

You were surprised you’d been at the restaurant for so long. Hours had gone by but it didn’t feel that long because you two had so much to talk about. So much lost time to make up for.

“So where do you live, Y/n? Should I drop you off at home?”

You bit your lip and shrugged, “Not too far from here. Off Coalfax and the interstate. Do you want to drop me off?”

Harry’s smile softened, “I don’t want to drop you off. No. I want to continue this. I’m not ready for you to disappear again.”

Swallowing you reached your hand toward his and rubbed your fingers over his knuckles, “Then you don’t have to drop me off. Come with me. I’ll invite you in.”

Harry stood up quickly, taking your hand in his as you both walked to the exit and toward his car. You laughed as he pulled you along.

“Coalfax? Just North of here?” He spoke as he started up his car.

“Yeah. Exactly. You’ll take a right on Coalfax. I’ll tell you where to go.”

Harry kept glancing at you and the smile on his face stayed throughout the entire drive. You were sure he was feeling the kind of excitement you had bubbling in your tummy. Still not quite sure of what to expect but nearly certain of what could happen.

Maybe you were jumping in too fast but maybe… just maybe the timing was exactly right. You couldn’t tell but you weren’t going to let yourself overthink it. That wasn’t going to happen with you anymore. You already regretted too much of what had happened with Harry and this time would be different.

Harry parked his car on the street in front of your small house and you both walked up to your door, “You’ve still got the same car,” he noted.

“Yup. Runs well. No payment other than insurance. Cheap maintenance. I love the old thing. Hope I never have to get rid of it.”

Harry followed behind you through your front door and you switched on the light before you felt his hand tugging at yours.

You turned to face him and the reality of everything was clear suddenly. You’d reconnected with Harry. The one man you couldn’t stop thinking about. Couldn’t stop replaying his words to you, couldn’t stop imagining the way he kissed you and took care of you.

“I can’t believe you’re standing here in my living room,” you smiled at him and Harry shook his head.

“I can’t believe I’m here either. I can’t believe I’m looking at you and that you were there today and…” he swallowed as he squeezed your hand, “I don’t want to scare you off, Y/n, but you have no idea how happy I am right now. How this all feels like destiny. Like we were meant to be here right now.”

You laughed through your nose, “I don’t really believe in stuff like that, but it doesn’t kind of feel that way, doesn’t it? Like another chance.”

He nodded, “Another chance. Exactly.”

“Do you want to sit? Or would you like some wine?”

Harry looked around the space of your living room. He hadn’t taken his surroundings in until then as he was too focused on you.

“Maybe a glass of wine. If it’s not too much trouble.”

You grinned, “Of course it’s not. Come. It’s in the kitchen.”

The light flickered on overhead as you flipped the switch and then opened your cabinet to retrieve the bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Y/n, this place is really nice. I like it.” Harry looked around as he spoke.

“I like it too. It’s why I moved here. Felt like home when I walked in to view it for the first time. It’s just a rental but it’s perfect for me.”

You placed the bottle on the counter and handed him a glass of wine.

Harry held his glass up, “Thank you for inviting me in and for humoring me with your kindness.”

You laughed, “Humoring you? Harry, I am fully genuine right now. I wanted to have dinner with you and I wanted you to come into my home. I’m not just being nice. I want you here.”

“I like hearing that.”

You both took a sip of your wine as Harry kept his eyes on you.

It was warm. Searing hot in fact. Harry was gorgeous and he was in your house and he was looking at you with those green eyes that had looked at you so many times before.

“Have you…” He paused as he placed his glass down and cleared his throat, “Have you seen anyone since? Like dated? Are you dating?”

You laughed at the way he fumbled his words. He seemed nervous suddenly, “No. I haven’t.” You placed your own glass down and suddenly felt that flutter of nerves, “And… I’m a little nervous to ask you the same.” You raised your brows at him.

He shook his head, “No.”

You nodded, “Surprised to hear that. But relieved I have to admit.”

“Why are you surprised?”

“Because I thought you’d have your pick. In fact even today when I thought there was a chance I might see you, felt like it was silly because surely you’d moved on and found someone.”

Harry’s brows stitched together, “I had a hard time feeling okay after that day when I left your apartment. Have actually never been so depressed and distraught over anyone before. I couldn’t just move on. Even when I started to feel a little better about it all. I just missed you so much. I know you blocked me on every platform out there. I got the hint when you didn’t text or call back. But I still missed you.”

You smiled, “And you’re not on social media at all. I did look but I kind of felt like if I did find you it wouldn’t have been good for me. I know I could have tried harder to reach out. I think I was a little scared of what I’d find.”

“What did you think you’d find?”

“That you were dating someone. I don’t know.”

The air shifted when Harry brought his hand up to your chin and gently gripped your face, “You’re the only woman I’ve had my mind on all these months. The only one I could ever think about. I don’t want anyone else.”

Your lips parted and you blinked your eyes as you took in his words.

“Do you understand what I mean? I don’t know if you feel the same way about me but just to know that you missed me and want me to be here with you right now means everything to me.”

“I don’t want anyone else either, Harry.”

“Does that mean you want me? I just need to hear it if it’s true, Y/n.”

You gulped and nodded, “Yeah. I do.”

The hand that held your chin released you and moved around to the back of your neck while his other hand landed on your hip and he pressed his lips to yours.

At last. At last.

You closed your eyes and drew your hands up to the back of his neck and moaned as he opened his mouth and you opened yours. Lips winding and smearing and pushing…

It felt like you were looking down at yourself, watching as you kissed Harry in your kitchen. And it was a beautiful sight. The two of you joined, grasping onto the other, hearts thrashing in your chests, bodies alight.

Harry’s grip on your side tightened, his fingers pinching around your clothes. The hand at the back of your neck squeezing and holding you in place as his lips slid against yours

You allowed yourself to be pulled in closer and moved your hand into his curls. You missed his scent. You missed his touch. His warmth. His care.

He parted from the kiss and moved his hand to your jaw, “Can we start over? This time, Y/n, you’re not going to regret it. This is it for us. Understand me?”

His words were almost a threat. Or maybe a promise. Both perhaps.

“Yes, Harry. I’m not going to regret it this time. I promise.”

He nodded, still holding you close, and then softly ghosted his lips over yours, “Because I can’t lose you again. I want this with you.”

You were gonna lose it. Everything was too much and not enough. You wanted him and you wanted to go slow but you wanted to tear his clothes off and feel him all over.

“I want you, Harry,” you breathed out against his lips as you clung to him, “I want this with you.”

You felt the vibration of his moan against your mouth as he dropped his lips to your chin and then along the curve of your jaw. When his lips pressed into the skin on your neck you gasped and hugged him tighter. His mouth drew your flesh in as he sucked a spot and then lowered to the curve of your shoulder and neck, suckling again at the skin where you knew it would be bruised.

“Fuck…” he whispered as he pressed his nose against your jaw, “Where’s your bedroom, Y/n?”

That was easy. The house was small. You led him down the hallway to your bedroom where you turned on your lamp and he began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Take your clothes off.”

You were surprised by his sudden command but you didn’t want to ask questions. The only thing you wanted was him and his hands and his body…

You pulled off your top before unzipping your skirt and kicking it down your legs. Harry’s eyes were dark as he continued taking his clothes off while he watched you undress.

When you were only in your underwear and bra he pointed, “Off. All of it.”

You swallowed and did as he said. Taking your bra off first and then your panties slowly as you used your bed to keep balance.

Harry was left in only his boxer briefs as he stalked toward you like a predator. You’d seen him in action before, you’d seen him a little dominant but this was different. It was like he had something to prove.

“On the bed, Y/n.”

You gave him a curt nod and sat down before scooting back into your bed. He climbed between your legs and moved your thighs apart, “You want this right? You want me? Want us?” He looked at you.

You nodded, “Yes, Harry. I do.”

That seemed like all he needed to know before he finally placed his lips on your chubby thigh, dotting wet kisses down and toward the soft inside near to your crotch and then he switched to the other side, kissing upward gently as he looked at you and then gripped the back of your thighs to push your legs apart, switching his sight from your face to your pussy.

“Y/n I missed everything about you,” he lowered himself, putting his stomach down onto your bed as he held himself over your core, “I know I only had you twice like this but I missed your body. Your smell,” he let go of your left leg as he pressed his fingers onto your mound and slowly dragged them downward, “The way your thighs part and how your skin looks right here,” he pressed a kiss over the spot right next to your labia.

But then he pushed himself up and climbed over you releasing your leg, his hands finding your breasts, “Your perfect tits,” his lips wrapped around your nipple, tongue laving over your sensitive bud and kissing over your soft skin toward your other side, lapping at your plush breasts before dragging his mouth upward to your neck, “Your skin, your voice,” hot peppered kisses up to your jaw until his mouth met yours again.

“Your mouth, this mouth,” he licked against your lips and pushed his mouth against the edge of yours and ran his nose against yours, “You. I missed you. Everything. Your heart and your laugh. I can’t do it again. I can’t go through that again.”

You felt his hands on your face, cupping your cheeks as he looked down at you, “Don’t leave me. Not ever again.”

You shook your head and lifted a hand up to his jaw, “Never. I don’t want to, Harry. I won’t.”

He grinned dreamily at you, his eyes wandering over your features slowly before he lowered himself down your body again, pressing his shoulders to the back of your thighs, and hooked his arms underneath to keep you in place.

The moment you felt his mouth on your core you clenched your eyelids closed and sighed. It had meant so much to you to have him loving on you, touching you, needing you. And Harry was the only man who’d ever worked an orgasm out of you with his mouth.

And even then, his tongue dragging through your pussylips and up to your clit, over and over again in a teasing, slow build it had you unwinding and unfolding for him. You wanted to give yourself to him fully. And that felt so good.

It felt good to trust yourself for once. To allow yourself to trust him. You could push past your feelings of inadequacy and thinking that no one would actually want you for you. Because that was a lie. You had been lying to yourself for so long and even though you knew it was your own hangup, it was hard to get past it. Until now. Because now you weren’t going to undermine yourself anymore. You learned it was okay to question motives but that it was also okay to accept kindness and love where it was offered.

You felt as he applied open-mouthed kisses to your clit and finally began to push over it, the pressure and the slide of his tongue right where you needed him had you moaning. Had you getting his face all wet.

Harry’s mouth and tongue worked at you strategically; slow teases of a gentle lap at your bud and then a harsh suck and flick to make you shiver. Every wet drag of his muscle against your clit drew you closer to your end as you gave in to the feeling.

And just like the other times he’d eaten you out you reached down to push your fingers into his hair and arched your back into him as a signal for him to keep doing exactly what he was doing. And he seemed to understand your nonverbal cue as he dug in and continued lapping and sucking exactly like you liked.

He watched your tits wobble and your body jerk and convulse as he kept his mouth suctioned to your pussy with his tongue wagging and slicking over your puffy clit until he felt you pressing his head down further and you coughed out a loud groan when your thighs started to shake.

His moans into your pussy vibrated through to your guts and it felt like you were going to explode.

“Fuck, Harry!” You were grinding yourself into his mouth and nose as you felt your release snap and you lost control of your volume and the sound of your voice and your limbs as he held you down so he could press broad strokes of his tongue over your pussy back and forth.

Harry closed his eyes and let you use his face and mouth to grind your clit on as you orgasmed. His cock was so hard; just tasting you and hearing your gasps and pleas of need had him spinning in the clouds. It made him happy to hear how good he was making you feel.

And that’s what he wanted the most. Was to make you happy. He wanted your smiles and laughter. He wanted you to enjoy his company and to feel happy with him. He wanted your heart and your soul and everything that made you who you were because he’d already decided he’d give you everything he could. His heart was yours already.

Ever since that day you kicked him out of your apartment, he hadn’t stopped thinking about all the things he did wrong. How childish he’d been with you. He hadn’t meant to fuck up so badly but he would make sure that his old ways were in the past. Now he was yours and he would prove to you that you could trust him.

When you gently released his hair and pushed yourself up to look at him he lifted with a grin, “Felt good?” His mouth and chin were glistening with you.

You laughed and nodded as you watched him slide his underwear down his sturdy thighs and toss them onto the floor. His body was even better than before. You weren’t sure why. Maybe he’d been hitting the gym harder. Or maybe it was just that now things were different. And you were seeing him in a different light. Looking at him in a way that you never had before. But you were still focused on his strong build and dark tattoos as well. That glorious cock, bobbing and heavy was all yours. You loved the way he felt inside of you and how perfect it looked hanging between his thighs like it was.

You sat up and got to your knees to adjust yourself and laid a palm on his thigh as you looked at him and licked your lips. He understood your hint as you moved your hand up toward his cock and he looked down at your fingers before placing his hand over yours, “We’ll do that later. Plenty of time to get to all that. I just want to make love to you, Y/n.”

“But you ate me out. I should at least–“

“No. Later,” he got to his knees and pushed you gently back to your bottom, “You don’t understand. I can’t wait one more second to be inside of you. We’ll have plenty of time for that other stuff but I haven’t had sex since in 9 months. If you put your mouth anywhere near my cock it’s gonna make me come too fast. A little out of practice,” he smiled with a small laugh as you laid your back into the mattress and he settled himself between your legs, hips tucking against yours.

You could feel his rigid, girthy cock slide through your labia as he rolled his hips down and up, wetting his shaft, “Want to fuck you now. Okay?”

You moaned and nodded. It was okay by you. You knew there’d be time for blowjobs later so you didn’t mind having him inside your cunt, stuffing you to the brim like you knew he would. There was plenty of time for all that, now that you weren’t going to be running off from him again.

“Want this cock, honey?” He continued rocking his hips. Sliding himself up and down, the tip of his cock collecting your arousal and pushing it up to your clit.

“Yes, Harry. Please.” You bucked upward to catch him at your entrance but he pressed your hip down and grinned at you playfully.

“Love hearing you say please. Such a good girl for me.”

You groaned when he wouldn’t push in right away, still teasing you with the drag of his thick shaft up and down through your labia and against your clit. The sound of it was lewd. Filthy.

“Please fuck me!” You whined.

Harry paused his motions, keeping his eyes on yours as he reared back and took his base in his palm to line himself up to your hole. He kept one hand on the inside of your thigh as he began to press himself inward slowly, the snap of his bulbous head entering you and pushing through your walls was the first act of confirming everything.

Confirming that this was it. That now you were connected and there was no turning back. That all the promises spoken were sealed.

You both kept your eyes pinned on one another as he bottomed out, balls tucked against your ass with a whimper from his mouth and a deep sigh of relief.

He slowly pulled back before inching his way back into the hilt and repeated his languid strokes as your wet pussy blossomed and opened wide for his girth until he was rocking down into you with a force that had your tits bouncing and harsh breaths punching from your lungs.

Harry’s strong abs clenched as his thighs flexed, working into you, exacting strokes deep into your cunt and skin colliding every time you felt the dip of his crown nudging into your tummy.

He sat back to his haunches, knees bent with the back of your thighs draped over the top of his. He watched as he sunk into you and pulled back to his tip, his shaft glistening and coated in you before he thrust back in until you were gasping and reaching for his arms to keep yourself grounded. To remind yourself of who’s cock was fucking you so good.

“Love this pussy, Y/n. You take me so well. So fucking juicy and plush,” he pounded into you, putting everything he had into it, muscles working and pushing him further and further as you bounced upward on the mattress every time he crashed into you.

“Hear that, baby?” Harry used a hand to squeeze at your tit, “Your bed squeaking, your pussy creamy and wet around me, those desperate whimpers from these pretty lips?” He pushed his hand up to your mouth, pressing his thumb to your bottom lip.

You moaned in response and nodded as you stitched your brows together in bliss.

“That’s right. That’s the sound of me fucking you and we’re gonna do it again and again and again. Yeah?” He spoke through clenched teeth.

You nodded, “Fuck! Yes, Harry!” Your words were punched from your lungs as he continued railing ito you, his hips rocking against yours.

Your whole being was lit up. From your racing mind to your tingling skin and toes, the bones that kept you solid, your pumping heart, and your pussy gripping onto Harry’s fat cock as he slid into you, back and forth, bumping through your inside walls into that hard-to-reach little dip that had you breathless.

Every stroke he gave you put you closer and closer to your second orgasm. The delicious emergence and unraveling of your end made you delirious.

When he leaned himself over you he thrust down harshly, pushing your thighs wider apart, the sound gushy and slick as he drove into you. You could feel his cock sliding through your guts and his pelvis grinding against your clit making you quiver.

“Oh my god…” you panted as you reached up for his shoulders where you could feel the taught muscle keeping himself up and aligned as he fucked into you, your back digging into the mattress underneath.

“Yeah? Feels good huh? Told you we fit together perfectly. Pussy deserves to be filled and stuffed every day. Want you to feel so good, baby…”

“It’s so fucking good,” your whimpered words were shaky and breathy.

“I know baby… So good… gonna give it to you every fucking day like this. Make love to you and treat you like a queen. Be so good to you…” his strained words were breathy as he was feeling the heat with you.

His lips pressed into yours and your brain short-circuited as you fell into that hazy, floaty space of ecstasy and need. Need for Harry and his body and his heart. Need for happiness with him. The need to feel happiness with someone you could trust.

When you sucked on his tongue and he rocked into you, keeping his hips smoothe against yours you began to whine and moan as your orgasm approached.

But then Harry stopped. He pulled back from the kiss and looked down at you with that evil grin you’d seen before and you gasped at the loss. You had just been on the cusp of coming.

He quickly pulled out as his own chest was rising and falling rapidly, his cock swayed and you pushed yourself up to see what was happening before he grabbed your sides and rolled you over to your tummy.

“Harry!” You yelped at the sudden maneuver and felt his palm land harshly on your bum. And then again and again. You jumped and crooned out as he issued your ass a handful of spankings to each side and then heard him moan when he kneaded into the meat of your bottom as if he couldn’t get enough of you. You suddenly felt him pushing your legs apart and fitting himself between them as he forced his hard cock back into your wet pussy, his heavy tip pushing past your small opening and you gasped at the suddenness of it all.

You moaned at the relief of finally having him tucked back inside. He slid through you smoothly, his hands holding your ass cheeks apart as he worked himself in over and over. You had your face smushed into the blankets as you sighed.

His hips rocked against your ass and you could feel him swiveling himself in every time his balls pressed into your skin, grounding himself deep through your tummy. The sounds he was making had you grinning. It felt just as good for him. He needed your body for relief. You were happy to let him get whatever he needed from you.

Slow languid strokes of his long cock, splitting you open with every thrust felt so good. It reminded you of how big he really was. How bulky and long his cock was as it disappeared inside of you and nudged its way into your depths.

“Stick your fingers over your clit, Y/n. Go on baby.”

You gurgled a moan and lifted your hips slightly to allow your right hand access to your pussy. And it was more relief. The feel of it all coming together was perfection. His fat cock taking up every inch of your insides, his tip crashing through your guts, the weight of him behind you and fucking you into the mattress, and your fingers on your clit, slipping and pressing��

Harry gave himself a moment to bask in the view of his cock spreading your vagina apart. He dragged a thumb over the spot where he was fucking into you, feeling himself move in and out, watching your pussy wrapped around him, glistening wet until he felt his balls tightening and constricting and your walls clamping down over him.

He could see your hips moving faster as you ground over your hand to get to your orgasm but then he pulled at your hand, moving your fingers away from your clit and you felt his chest against your back and his lips against the shell of your ear as he mumbled something you couldn’t quite hear.

It caught you off guard. The second denial of your orgasm. You angled your neck to try and turn toward him, “Harry, what?”

You felt him press his cock in hard, hips stilling against your ass, his lips pressed over your ear, “Put your fingers back on your clit but don’t move them til I say.”

In confusion, you slid your hand back to your core and he continued, “Good.”

He reared back and then thrust forward again, “Do you want to come, Y/n? Wanna come on my cock?”

You moaned a yes as you secretly slid a finger across your bud making you shiver.

“Then tell me you’re mine. Say you’re mine, Y/n, and I’ll let you come.”

You had no hesitation in telling him just that, “Harry I’m yours. I’m yours…”

“My girl. That’s right. Rub your pussy, baby. Get yourself off,” his breathy words were warm over your ear and neck as you began to slip your fingers back and forth to get you back to that spot that would have you tipping over the edge.

Then you felt Harry shift behind, his chest no longer pressed into your back as he started pounding into you, “Fucking come, baby. You’re mine now…”

You grinned in elation at his words and the way he sounded totally fucked out himself. Much like the way you were feeling. Like he was out of his mind with lust for you.

Every smack of his hips into your bum had you jolting up and you ground down into your hand, rolling your clit over whatever you could reach when you started to feel that melting, unraveling sensation. The electrical charge that made your pussy quiver and your back arch and your vision go white.

“There it is! Fuck!” Harry’s thrusts were harsh but every stroke felt like a sparking and exhilarating charge going through your body. His tip plunged into your cervix and fingers gripped your bottom harshly as you heard him choke out a loud moan.

“Gonna fill you fill you up baby… fuck… stuff you with my come…”

You could hardly hear your bed creaking and clanking as your ears began to ring and you gushed around Harry, your walls spasming and constricting around him tightly.

He moved into you, gliding in and out until finally his balls squeezed and pumped sperm through his cock directly into your wet hole. He stilled his hips as he whimpered a groan, throwing his neck back with his mouth dropped open, his cock throbbing inside of you, coating your walls with his come.

It seemed to last forever. He moaned and twitched, his body connected and pressed into yours as he drained every bit of himself into you. He pressed inward further, stuffing your pussy with his come, making sure every bit of it seeped through your cunt and soaked your insides.

He hadn’t had sex in 9 months. Jerking himself off didn’t do it like the real thing and when it was with you it was even better. The best. He hadn’t come so hard ever in his life he was certain as his body flushed in heat and his heart thudded wildly in his chest when he crumpled over your back, tucking his arms around you and kissing your neck softly.

You moaned quietly at the feel of him on your back. The post-orgasm glow was never so good before. It felt like you were in a different realm of existence, floating and glowing in bliss.

“You’re mine, Y/n?” He wanted reassurance. Which was understandable after the way you handled things the first time around. But this time was going to be different. You two were starting over again. This time with a better understanding of what the other needed, with a better understanding of yourself and what each of you needed to do to be a good partner. Things were different this time.

Harry pushed himself up and looked down at his sensitive cock still inside of you. He drew himself back and watched as his creamy come leaked from your hole and he pressed himself back inside. You felt him pumping himself in and out shallowly and turned your head to look at him. His eyes were glued to your cunt where he was fucking his come back inside of you. A natural urge he couldn’t deny.

When his eyes found yours and he finally pulled himself out, he helped you roll to your side as he laid next to you, his hand on your cheek and you placed your palm on his chest, “I’m yours, Harry. I was back then too I just didn’t realize it. Couldn’t admit it. But I’m yours.”

You both smiled at one another. His eyes were bright and clear and you could trust him. You knew you could. He made you feel so comfortable about yourself. Made you feel like you could make him happy and that he’d want to stick around for you. That he would make you happy in return.

He took your hand and pressed it harder over his chest, “I’m yours too. I was since the day I first met you. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful, Y/n. And I’m not letting go of you again.”

You grinned and pushed yourself up to his mouth to kiss him. You felt his palm slide down your side and to your bum, as he squeezed you, causing a laugh to puff out from your lips against his.

“Sorry, I love your ass. Feels so good in my hands. Just wanna bite it and stuff my face against it. Can’t help it.”

You rolled your eyes at him still grinning but when he swatted at your bottom your mouth dropped open in surprise.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady. When I tell you I love your ass, I fucking mean it.” He gave you another good squeeze to emphasize his words.

So you slid your hand down to his nipple and squeezed at it, “And I love your nipples and these tits,” you laughed.

Harry’s wide grin and dimples were suddenly hidden when he nuzzled his face into your neck and you heard him inhale deeply.

The afterglow with him was something out of a romance novel. It was beautiful and precious. Almost too good to be true.

The sound of a cellphone ringing had both you and Harry lifted out of the sweet moment. He sat up, “It’s me.”

He hopped out of your bed and you watched as he crouched down to his pants where his phone was in his back pocket. His strong back flexing as he pulled it out and then stood up to answer the call.

“Hello?”

You frowned as you watched him disappear into your hallway, still nude. Turning to look at the clock on your side table you noted that it was paste 10 pm. You wondered who was calling at the late hour. Couldn’t have been work. What could be so important that he had to leave your side after he’d just given you the best orgasm of your life?

“I’ll be there! I’m booking a flight as soon as I get off the phone. Yes..”

You could hear him pacing and talking. You picked up most of what he said as you sat silently on your bed waiting for him to return and explain himself.

“I missed you too. I can’t wait to finally meet her. I know. Me too.”

You slid off your bed and pulled a t-shirt from your drawer to put it over your body as he ended the call with an I love you.

Harry walked back into your room with a huge grin, “My sister just had her baby!”

You smiled at him widely as he took three long-legged steps toward you, his cock swaying as he was still completely naked before he wrapped you in a tight hug, “Today is like the best day I’ve ever had. First you,” he kissed your cheek, “Now my sister...”

You laughed when he twirled around with you and then he let go, a sudden look of realization on his face, “Come with me to London. I want everyone to meet you!”

You blinked your eyes and stuttered your words, “Are you serious?”

He grabbed your hands, “Dead serious. Come with me. It’s not like you have to ask off for work. We can go for a couple of weeks. God, it’d be so fun, Y/n. Me and you… My mom’s going to love you.”

Your head was spinning from everything that had happened that day. From the moment Harry walked into that room at the gallery to now having him standing naked in your bedroom asking you to take a trip with him to see his family and his sister’s new baby. But, spinning or not, there was no part of you that would turn down the offer.

“That sounds amazing. I’d love to, Harry.”

He pulled you in for another hug and pressed his face into your neck, “This is going to be so good, Y/n.”

You laughed as he squeezed you tight and then his hands cupped your cheeks, “Now, let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll book our flights. Yeah?”

You nodded as your cheeks burned hot when he pressed his mouth to yours again.

It was a funny thing to you. That the first time you had sex with Harry the post-orgasm afterglow was interrupted by a phone call. And this time another phone call had broken the moment too. Except things were not the same as they were then. Now you knew who Harry was. You trusted him and this time everything was going to be different.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this!! xoxo

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brekwrites · 7 months ago

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Moon’s deterioration as depicted in the thumbnails

So, I don’t claim to know what’s going on in the current SAMS arc bc I truly have no idea, but I have seen some people mention some of the glitch effects and how Moon has gradually acquired a purple glow and thought it was interesting. So I went back through the thumbnails and noticed some stuff that I’m gonna dump under the cut. Fair warning, this is long.

So, starting all the way back with the ep where Dark Sun gives Moon an ominous hint and then fucks off:

Dark Sun drops this info, which he already knew and could have revealed at any time, and keeps it purposely vague so there’s still some confusion and no immediate action taken. Then he gets in his purple portal and fucks off.

The delay in him giving the information and purposeful vagueness almost make it seem like he’s stalling for time so Ruin can complete his plan, but we know he’s not actually working with Ruin because they don’t interact until later, and even then he’s using Ruin against his will as a pawn more than anything else. If he’s not working with Ruin, he must still have something to gain from his plan working; either the death of the creators, the death of Solar, or both.

After this, Ruin’s true nature is revealed and yadda yadda:

These are both action packed thumbnails with big shocking reveals, and I want to use them to illustrate a point. Despite the fact that there’s lots of stuff happening visually, there’s a difference between these thumbnails and this one:

The thumbnail for the episode with Solar’s death has a big heart monitor/heartbeat symbol. Also, Solar is glowing a slight purple color as he fades away (and missing two fingers). I’m not entirely sure if either of those facts are significant, but I do think the heartbeat symbol is.

After Solar’s death, the next big plot points are:

Dark Sun planting the idea that Moon’s proposed way won’t bring Solar back, but there’s another way that will, and then telling Eclipse that method and jamming a chip in his head to 1) slow him down and keep him from bringing Solar back too quickly, and 2) keep Moon from being able to sacrifice him for the equivalent exchange method.

So, Dark Sun just planted the idea of bringing Solar back, while also ensuring it only happens when and how he wants it to. Considering he also took measures to make sure the events leading to Solar’s death occurred in the first place, this is interesting.

While this is happening:

Moon talks to his old self, which punches him right in the insecurities and kickstarts his obsession with keeping his family happy. It also gives him a connection to Old Moon that he didn’t have before, which becomes more of a thing later.

While Moon is doing this:

Molten steals Ruin, so when Moon wakes up he realizes he’s lost the resource he was using to research ways to bring Solar back. On top of that, he finally realizes what exactly bringing Solar back will entail—a sacrifice. And he’s just lost the most morally justifiable person he could’ve sacrificed. So he loses it.

In this episode, Moon breaks down bc he’s been pushing himself to bring Solar back. He misses him and just wants to see his family happy and whole again. He’s also upset about the fact that he’d have to kill someone to get Solar back because he DOESN’T want to do that.

When Eclipse wanted to kill Ruin after finding out he’d build him, Moon told him no and specifically said who are we to decide who lives and dies. This was right after Solar’s death, and he still didn’t want to kill him. Now, he has a logical reason to do so and is STILL incredibly conflicted about it. He’s crying and breaking down like he knows he’s already lost Solar for good because he lost Ruin, who is one of his only options for bringing him back. (Also, it's possible that he knows deep down that he wouldn't be able to bring himself to sacrifice him even if he was there, or that his family wouldn't want it.) After this breakdown...

Moon has the hallucination/waking dream where he sees what could have happened if Solar survived, which is the beginning of the end for him. After this, he struggles to figure out what's real and takes a turn for the worse. And here, in the first (lore) episode Solar has been in since his death, we see the little heartbeat symbol again.

Meanwhile, Dark Sun rescues Ruin, sticks a chip in his head, and sends him back knowing that Moon won't be able to use him to bring back Solar. (Also, Ruin is glowing and flaking like Solar was, but his glow is teal. Teal seems to represent star power, possibly, because it's often there when Lunar uses it and it's present in the thumbnail of the later episode where Moon uses it. Not sure if this is relevant tho or if it was just a fun design choice here.)

Moon is starting to lose it, decides he'll do what he has to do to keep his family happy regardless of whether they actually want it and even if it makes them hate him. This is also the first time we start to see the glitchy imagery used in the background.

Importantly, this is when his actions start to contrast his earlier feelings. He decides to bring Solar back by any means possible and to sacrifice Ruin, which he specifically did not want to do before.

After he makes this decision and realizes Ruin is back, he goes to recapture him, initially with the intent to use him as a sacrifice. When he finds out he can't, he's livid. This is the first time we've seen him act on the violent impulses he's had, and it's also the first time we see the eye on the darker half of his face hidden.

After that, Moon starts to gradually get... purpler. Here, he's surrounded by it, but not really purple himself, and both eyes are normal as he keeps up the facade around his family.

But Eclipse gets a glimpse of what's actually happening when he goes to get evidence for Earth. Moon threatens him, and he reveals the Dark Sun did something to him, too, so he also can't be used as a sacrifice. This is when Moon sets his sights on Bloodmoon. Even more glitch imagery and purple shading that's starting to creep across his body, little red corruption lines on his face, and once again his left eye is obscured.

Once Sun realizes just how bad things have gotten, he starts to plan against Moon. Here, Moon is fully shaded purple and both eyes are obscured. (Maybe possibly because this is technically Sun's mental image of him, and Sun isn't entirely sure what he's dealing with yet and doesn't know what Moon is thinking?).

Then, in the episode where Moon sees Old Moon, he's finally glowing. As Old Moon grabs him, the eye on the lighter side of his face glitches. Also, we see the return of the little heartbeat symbols because this is the first episode where Moon sees the hallucination of Solar, even though he's not in the thumbnail. This picture is also good for contrasting Moon's typical color pallet with his purple-hued one.

Moon resists the advice of his conscience and goes to harass Eclipse. He breaks his fingers (noticeably the same ones Solar was missing), which is arguably the cruelest thing he's done yet (considering he choked Ruin, who murdered his friend, but he ripped off Eclipse's fingers when this version hasn't done anyone any bodily harm and was helping Earth). He's still glowing purple, and his shadow shows TWO red eyelights.

Once Sun captures him, their conversation is at least somewhat civil, even if it's not great. Moon is still glowing here, and we see one red eyelight on the dark side of his face, but his light eye is normal. This is also another episode where his conscience argues against him in the form of Solar, and he struggles to rationalize what he's doing.

After escaping and fully committing to being the villain, he's glowing an even darker purple and both eyes are glowing red.

When he tries to kill Bloodmoon, he's still glowing purple, and his eyes are still glowing red. This is also where he realizes he doesn't care if he hurts Earth (hence no normal eye on his lighter side). He admits that he was bluffing a bit before when he said it, but not anymore.

Finally, Dark Sun convinces Moon to go with him. He's still glowing purple here and one eye is glowing red, but the eye on the light side of his face is normal. This makes sense, because we see him fighting with himself over what he did in the beginning of this ep. He allows Dark Sun to remove the chip and even suggests for a moment that they could be brothers, which I feel speaks to how much he does want his family deep down, even if he says he doesn't.

While we can't say for certain that the removed chip was Old Moon, I think it's a reasonable theory considering they've started talking about the chip in relation to Old Moon and how Monty said he'd need to make a replacement chip, which Dark Sun also mentions. Once the chip is gone, Moon feels free of his inhibitions, which would make sense if Old Moon was trying to stop him and fits the eye imagery. Finally, I think it's interesting how Dark Sun is glowing yellow in this thumbnail and how he's been depicted with red irises on white sclera, while the corrupted half of Moon's face is depicted as red irises on presumably black sclera. Parallels, and all that.

So, yeah, I think it's a good bet that whatever is going on with Moon was Dark Sun's goal all along, although idk for what purpose. Also, I'm not sure if he did anything to Moon, either by giving him a virus/program or by triggering some of his hallucinations, or if it was the situation itself (which he engineered, but not completely) that caused Moon to snap without any direct interference. Either way, I think that Moon is being taken over by 'the Purple,' and that whatever it is, it's beneficial to Dark Sun's plans.

Finally, one last thing I noticed is that the Purple is not just Moon indulging in his more destructive tendencies alone, because he looks perfectly normal during the rage room episode.

So I do think that this is likely something more than just Moon himself falling off the deep end. That definitely doesn't excuse his actions, but it does suggest that there might be something more going on and he might not be fully in control of himself.

#meblog #tsams #sams #sun and moon show #the sun and moon show #sorry guys this one is a doozy #and most of it's obvious but I wanted to yap #and yap I did

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anderscim · 2 years ago

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another david chiem-related train of thought (wow i totally am NOT obsessed with him)

huge incoming tangent warning

as well as major ch2 part 1 spoilers

(take this theory with a grain of salt)

just wanted to talk about david’s plan in ch2. though it had a bunch of flaws, it was probably better than any of the other options the group had

okay i’m not a david apologist or anything but let me explain my train of thought—

there’s really only a couple of ways you can take action in a situation like that:

do nothing and all of the secrets get revealed. given the fact that a lot of these secrets are specifically written to incite emotion (trauma, anger, etc) it’ll likely stir a hell ton of conflict all at once as people inevitably scramble to identify who’s secret is whose and will probably lead to a worse predicament

someone actually gets murdered before the deadline. true, the secrets won’t be revealed, but they would be trading a human life, which for obvious reasons can’t work out

everyone reveals whose secret they have, and what they are. we can already know from j/arturo and arturo/eden’s situations that having someone else reveal a secret that you’re holding close to your chest will make people react very emotionally—and will just make more conflict

or, like david’s plan, have everyone reveal what they know about their own secrets. in that case, each person would be able to explain the context behind their secret so there’s less likely of a chance they’ll be confronted for it when it eventually gets revealed, and in some cases trauma dumping can actually be good therapy for some people.

however… that’s about where the benefits end for david’s plan. it’s honestly just as risky as the others; for example, some of the cast have secrets that are horrible and seem irredeemable regardless of context. additionally, there’s cases where people retaliate especially if it’s a secret that the person holds very close to their chest / that they’re really sensitive about. we see as much for a lot of scenes in chapter 2.

but the thing is… though it is incredibly risky, it has a slightly higher chance of working compared to the other methods. in a more “better than the alternatives” sort of context.

even if david recognized that he’d essentially be gambling with this plan, and knew he probably wouldn’t get the best outcome possible (in fact i think he was aware it probably wouldn’t work), he likely decided to ignore that and roll with it anyways—besides, a 5% success rate is better than a 2% success rate.

so really, the only place where he would’ve “lied” was the way he promoted his plan. in order to get the ball rolling, he had to present his argument in a way that made the plan sound foolproof—which, given the holes the plan had, wouldn’t work unless he covered up all the possible risks and convinced everyone to blindly have faith in him.

fortunately, with his speaking skills, he could probably pull that off quite well. which leads to what happened in ep4 onwards

also, i don’t think he could’ve intentionally lied about his secret during that moment (although him slightly modifying it is possible—i’ll explain that later). whit likely never reached out to david about his actual secret so he didn’t know for sure what it was.

but the thing is, everyone else’s secret, though written in a way that took out crucial context and painted them in a bad light, was at least somewhat based on an actual occurrence, portion of their identity, and real information.

david’s secret is the most vague and was written in a way to attack his purpose and what he personally (secretly) believes his actions to entail. but, unlike everyone else, there’s no concrete occurrence, action that he’s done, or any specific detail in that secret that connects him to manipulation. additionally, his is the most open-ended. i’m going to assume guessing a secret like that would’ve been very difficult

given david’s behaviors and dialogue as well as some subtle details about his preferences and such, it’s very likely that he has depression and was desperately trying to hide it in order to keep his optimistic image. so for him, it would make more sense for his secret to be something related to depression—which is probably why he said what he said in episode 4.

that being said, i think he did half-lie a little about what he believed to be his true secret in order to preserve his image.

note how he specifically says “family history of depression.”

this is a really subtle wording detail, but david only claims there was a tendency for depression to run through his family—he never says that he has depression himself.

as a similar example—though this may just be me—if my family has a tendency to develop certain cardiovascular diseases, though it does increase the risk that i may develop the same disease in the future, it doesn’t necessarily mean i have that disease.

david likely used this same philosophy, and by saying that depression “runs in his family,” he’s subtly implying that he doesn’t have depression (though admitting he has a higher risk for it).

and like what i said before, i’m 90% sure he’s actually struggling with depression—but he decides not to admit it here in order to keep his own “optimistic leader” image.

(and don’t get me wrong, i don’t think the family history of depression is a lie—just the way he expressed it was kind of… intriguing for me)

i may be wrong about all of this, especially that last part because that may just be my own overthinking and assumptions influencing me 😅

so as always, feel free to refute literally anything i said and i will listen.

and again, please take this with a grain of salt

#danganronpa despair time #drdt #david chiem #bagel’s train of thought #i swear i’m not a david apologist i’m just trying to find ways to logically explain his actions because i’m a little delulu /hj #but seriously i do not think he’s as manipulative as he presents himself to be in ep11 #anyways. thank you for coming to my ted talk #okay this blog is literally all just gonna be rants about david chiem 😭#i swear i’ll do other characters. i swear #i just like psychoanalyzing david too much #fanganronpa

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depressed-sock · 9 months ago

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It's Colder in Hell (Wishing you were there!) (2649 words)

Treat For Elle_Weird. Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Zaeed Massani/NB Shepard Characters: Zaeed Massani, Shepard (Mass Effect) Additional Tags: Mistaken Identity, Stranded, Bad Intel, Alternative Universe- mercenaries, Shepard would just like to say My Bad, Short Shepard Supremacy, Engineer Shepard, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Prothean Technology Shenanigans, a series of unfortunate misunderstandings lead to this, It did not help that Shepard's friends kept making it worse Preview:

Audio crackles to life from a comn unit several decades old.

“It’s just going to be a routine check Garrus. It’s not like the ancient Prothean Technology is just going to magically activate because I stepped in the wrong place.”

“Shepard, I want you to take what you just said to me and repeat it back to yourself slowly. Then I want you to remember how this whole mess started in the first place.”

“… I just jinxed myself, didn’t I…”

“Oh you definitely did. I’ll start making preparations for your funeral.”

A loud sigh can be heard under the static.

—

Zaeed Massani above all else was always going to be a Merc. He’d made it his job, carved it out in others blood, tamed it in his own, and kept to it like there was nothing else in the galaxy that could satisfy him. He’s done everything and anything… but it’s times like this where he seriously begins to contemplate just fucking retiring rather than putting up with any of this bullshit.

It’s like these people don’t think he wouldn’t know a bad job until it bit him in the ass.

He glares down at the datapad that’s been handed to him, a faint sneer pulling at his lips in disgust as he reads exactly what his client wants.

A kidnapping job. Or as it’s been so nicely written, a “Retrieval” mission. Not exactly something new or extraordinary in his line of work. He’s done jobs like this a dozen times over. So really it’s not the basic terms of the job that are the problem but the target that has him wondering if this slimy fucker really thinks Zaeed is that stupid.

“You want me to go after Commander Shepard.” He doesn’t make it a question because the contract itself is pretty fucking clear. They want him to go after the most fucking dangerous individual in the entire fucking Galaxy. The person whose got several bounties and about a dozen life sentences on their head. Whose leash had been held tight by Alliance Military and the Council until they’d cut themself free in a bloody display of power.

Commander Shepard is a name that’s whispered in fear by the powerful and in awe by every single lowlife thug in the galaxy. And this fucker here wants to hire him to kidnap the Commander Fucking Shepard like it should be the easiest thing in the Galaxy.

It would be one thing if it was a hit. That he would at least have a fucking chance in hell of maybe accomplishing (and shit maybe he’d survive it too) but fucking kidnapping?

He’d rather eat his own goddamn gun than deal with the absolute nightmare that would entail trying to hold them down long enough to deliver them back into his clients hands.

“You don’t think you can handle it?” The Illusive Man himself huffs softly, bringing a cigarette up to his lips and inhaling it like he didn’t just ask Zaeed to go on a suicide run. He’s had to have already gone through a list of Mercs before he got to Zaeed because Zaeed’s good but he’s nowhere near the best.

The best just so happens to be the target the Illusive Man is pointing him towards.

#mass effect trilogy #zaeed massani #nb!Shepard #commander shepard #my writing #fanfiction #spec reqs 2024

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ahundredtimesover · 9 months ago

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I loved the newest chapter and I think this was the largest stepping stone for a new arc in their relationship because before they were boss x assistant purely by the books (they strayed away sometimes) but after the scene (which was my favorite) of oc helping jk go through the thunderstorm and holding onto him while he’s having his anxiety attack, and also telling him she’ll always be there to help him in the future in case it happens again, they are now in a new territory where they genuinely know something more personal about each other. I have a feeling that this scene is going to be used again and really set up what the future of their relationship will be.

I’m also dying to do know more about jk’s mom bc I know she has a way bigger role than he’s letting on😣

ANDDDD namjoon🤭 im so excited she met him and researched his company because IF she does decide to go work there, it’ll be such a good change for her and she already loved the library so much and she helps so much w the decor aspect of the company, she’d fit right in. PLUS knowing how she thinks, there’d be no “romance” between her and joon since she doesn’t really like office romance minus jk. But I’m just excited to see her do something for herself and not be held back because life is only so short

AND the endinggggggg… im not as mad as other people because i got the feeling that JK didn’t move away as a form of breaking her heart or trying to put a boundary between them:

“He looks at you in panic, in apology, in fear, as if he’d had some sense knocked into him, as if he awakened from some spell that pushed him close to you, only to realize that that’s a place he can’t go. “

I think this part is essential because it shows us (to oc) that he looks apologetic to back away as if he didn’t mean to, but it’s a reflex. We know he doesn’t have a good history with relationships re:chaerin and he’s been living the life of a bachelor for years now, so finally feeling more than sexual attraction to someone who has proved to him that she is there for him in the emotional aspect too?? Yeah I’d run😅

I know there’s going to be a lot of angst before they finally stop being idiots but honestly, her being the assistant to him is definitely a huge barrier and idk much about South Korea work environment but I think that’s a huge power imbalance? (Even if I don’t think so because we already know oc runs him more than he runs her🙄) and it’d be frowned upon. Granted, I know they’d keep their relationship a secret in the beginning, but when they are finally a full fledge couple, she won’t be his assistant anymore, so I’m so excited to see what’s to come.

Oc already shot her shot, now it’s in jk’s hands, but I fear he’ll cause some issues before he finally comes to terms with it😑😑😑

But thank u Mimi for this story I love it so much, it genuinely gives me the feeling of reading a kdrama script because of how detailed it is and your world building is surreal🫶, I can’t wait to see what’s more to come of this story

AHHHH I LOVE THIS ASK SO MUCH BUT THIS IS A FAVE PART:

he’s been living the life of a bachelor for years now, so finally feeling more than sexual attraction to someone who has proved to him that she is there for him in the emotional aspect too?? Yeah I’d run😅

YES YES! Like, it’s one thing for him to think the feeling isn’t reciprocated, but to realize that it might be and what that would entail, it’s like, SHIT WHAT DO I DO!

The thing with this story - as reflected in OC’s, JK’s, Mr Ri’s Yoongi’s experiences - is that love isn’t straightforward and neither are relationships. We already know that JK and OC like each other but it’s not that simple. People deal with things that hinder their feelings from being expressed properly and received the way they intend. Things aren’t easy and sometimes they shouldn’t be. Like you also say, there’s going to be lots of angst before they stop being idiots and that’s what I intended as well 🤭 hence that idiot to lovers tag

On your point about SK work environment, I did search that such relationships are looked down upon (but idk someone can enlighten the audience hehe) but I tried to stray away from that (tho I’m not a proponent of it haha) which are both why I show how the MCs are so against it and are adamant about their boundaries. But at this point they just can’t resist each other but like I said, idiots. 😅 there’s Srsly like, a whole other aspect to the entire story that I’m not sure if u guys are ready for 🙃🙃

But we push on! Thank you so much for reading and sending this (love love hearing your guys’ analysis and theories and stuff) 💕💕

#mimianswers #fic: iwyts

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shushiyuii · 2 years ago

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Atlantic Runaways [Part 8]

Notes: Hey! It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Maybe you’ve forgotten about me, never know but I’ve reappeared from the void for a short while to deliver this!

I’m too sure if I’m going to be returning any time soon, I’m still thinking about a lot of things and I have a lot of things going on personally

Originally the finale was supposed to include all of what was written in this fic and including what else I have planned but I think it’ll be better to drag it out a bit first.

Edit: realised this was part 8- oops-

Warnings: Mentions of soft vore, past traumas of drowning, actual drowning, sobbing, nightmares, neglect, mistreatment, potential mentions of death and one very unreliable narrator. If I’ve missed any please let me know!

Words: 5.4K+

[...]

“Tommy…”, Wilbur looked down upon him with a solemn expression, his features dull despite the difference in height. He looked ominous, dangerous like how they had first met all those months ago.

After the incident of him nearly dying, Tommy had these recurring nightmares that always plagued his mind. It was quite frightening the first couple of times it had happened, though he grew accustomed to them, always preparing for his demise at the end of the road.

Tommy looked indifferent, neither bothered by Wilbur’s words to attempt to burade him. Though it was different this time around, Wilbur did not seek to intimidate him or scare him. He only stared at him.

“I think you understand what is yet to come.”, the copy looked off to the side as if he seemed saddened, yet no emotions displayed on his face. Tommy let out a breath that had been caught in his throat.

“What do you mean?”, Tommy stood anxiously on his toes, fearful of what could come of this dream, he didn’t want any surprises at the moment. Yet for some reason, guilt rose to his subconscious.

“I believe you know what I am referring to, lower your guard. I will not harm you despite what you believe.”, though he didn’t stand down. But what could he be talking about? He wasn’t entirely sure.

“No, I don’t. Want to explain, bitch?”, he teased. Yet the vision remained in place, no movement or expression shown. Typically, Wilbur would respond with his own remark or call him a child. Nothing.

“You understand that you must confront your emotions, do you not? If not now then your emotions might get the better of you by the time you manage to set foot in the place your dream takes place within.”.

So that was what the vision entailed, so it wasn’t a nightmare. It was another one of the weirder ones.

Tommy looked away from the vision to his bare hands, his vision blurred as his eyes unfocused and his mind corroded his thoughts. As if the sun had just dawned upon him. It was today, and soon everything could change for the better or worse.

The vision moved, its claw-like finger placed under Tommy’s chin, bringing him out of his thoughts. It showed more expression, showing a mask of the Wilbur he knew, copying him with a mask of concern.

He leaned slightly into the claw as it moved to his cheek, he appreciated the comfort despite everything. He wanted to be calm, yet despite being asleep he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his very veins. Already anxious about what was to come.

“I-”, he took a moment to pause. “I know, but- What if big dubs just leaves me? I don’t want to believe he would but-”, he sobbed. “I’m just scared, I guess- What am I supposed to do? I promised to get him out, escape and-”,

He took a moment to pause.

“For some reason, I just want things to stay the way they are. I’m happy, I can see Wilbur whenever and spend time with him, I got a job to support my dad, and I got my best friend. Everything I need-”,

“But that is simply selfish.”, the vision interrupted. Tommy only looked away with a guilty expression, he knew that he was being selfish. He’d never act upon those emotions. After all, Wilbur had been in captivity for so long, day by day he got weaker.

Tommy could tell the mer wasn’t happy just staying there, always putting on a show just to make him smile. He shouldn’t doubt Wilbur, having gone so far as to save his life and continue to care for him.

…

“I just want him to stay…”, he turned back and hugged the finger. Though it only felt hollow of what wasn’t there, he just wanted touch or comfort yet whatever the vision did had no effect to comfort him. He was alone.

“You allow these intrusive thoughts to plague your mind and judgment, and you contort to them as though they are correct.”, Tommy only nodded. He was letting his worries get the better of him.

“Tommy, understand this. You will be just fine, you know it. And if you’re still worried. Simply speak to Wilbur, he will understand”.

And the dream faded away.

[...]

“Boo! Stop hitting me with the fucking shell!”, Tommy let out a groan at the two of them arguing, placing a pillow on top of his head in frustration. Rather than waking up to his best friend cuddled to his side, he woke up to nothing but yelling as the two argued over a game.

The game was Mario kart of all things.

It wasn’t long until their race had concluded, Tubbo celebrated his win with a loud victory screech as Ranboo let out a sigh, third place. He was surprised that Ranboo was good at the game considering he had only been a mer for what he believed was a couple of months.

After celebrating his victory, Tubbo had come to annoy Tommy with his clingy side. Throwing himself onto Tommy’s side as he let out an ‘oomph’ sound before glaring down at his best friend, not entirely thrilled to see him active so early.

“G’morning Big man! You excited for today?”, Tubbo smiled. Tommy nodded with a small smile, indeed excited for the day. As much as he’d appreciate more sleep after recent events, it was better now than never.

He didn’t want Wilbur to suffer any longer than he had to. Picking up his confidence, he sat up and gripped the pillow that had fallen off of his face before plunging it into Tubbo’s face as revenge.

Tubbo was quick to try and repel the attack, only to fail and grasping for aid from Ranboo. Yet Ranboo did not aid him in his time of need, looking with a sick grin as he watched his best friend get attacked, it was revenge for not only Tommy but himself.

His laughed pleas were no use and eventually tuckered out in surrender, taking a moment to get back his breath. Tommy smirked in victory that he shared with Ranboo. Then standing up for the first time, excitement flooded through his head as he turned to his closet to gather some clothing.

His room was still a mess after his expansive research of crumbled notes that filled the room, along with discarded coffee cups and mess across his desk. Though the other two didn’t appear to mind the mess.

It was bright and early, roughly 5 am to be exact. Tommy didn’t quite appreciate being awake at such an early time but it was necessary for the plan. After all, Ranboo couldn’t exactly shift into a giant mer inside of his house.

He picked up his usual shirt, a pair of denim shorts that had a pair of pockets and a pair of bright red sandals. He went to change into the bathroom as the other two went downstairs to join his dad and friends for breakfast.

After changing, he could taste the air that smelt of waffles. He smiled, rushing downstairs to grab a bite as he was quite frankly starving. He was greeted by his dad’s beaming bright smile, who held a plate of waffles topped with whipped cream and strawberries.

Tommy was quick to join at the breakfast table, taking his dish before almost scoffing it down like a wolf. His father let out a hearty laugh as he sipped his cup of coffee, he had told his father of the half-baked plan in the middle of the night and was happy to help.

Yet, his father looked a little tired from the lack of sleep, the coffee to help prepare him for the drive to the beach and work. He felt sorry for his dad, but thankful nonetheless. His father was indeed the best after all.

[...]

Their car was a decent couple of years old, having been around as far as Tommy could remember. It was a comfy car, a dark green one. Tommy listened to the purr of the engine as he leaned against the window.

His father’s gaze focused on the road ahead, in the back Tubbo talked away with Ranboo about the bright weather and potential waves. It was surprisingly sunny out despite it being the early hours of the morning.

They were headed towards a more isolated beach that wasn’t too far from Tommy’s home and the waterpark. And plus, it was a beach that had a lovely view and Tommy spent a lot of time there as a child.

It was rather calming, Tommy could almost sleep if it weren’t for the excitement of what was to come, he was really looking forward to it all. He imagined how Wilbur would react to seeing the outside world, wait-

What would Wilbur even look like as a human? How would he even react to a pair of legs? Would he be able to swim or walk? He’d have to ask Ranboo about it when he retrieved the necklace as Ranboo really only knew the effect of it.

Phil began to slowly ease into the breaks, parking the car to the side as he pulled up the handbrake, he didn’t want to lose the car to slipping down the car after all. The purr of the engine came to a sudden halt.

Tubbo was the first to exit the car, slamming the car door and rushing to the trunk to grab Tommy’s surfboard that was being borrowed. Tommy was the second to exit, taking in a deep breath as he closed his air, taking in the taste of the salty sea.

Though, his moment was interrupted as he could hear something banging from the car door. Turning back to see Ranboo struggling to open the door, pushing his body against it in an attempt to get it open.

Tommy tried to hold back a laugh but a snort escaped him, shaking his head in an almost humiliated way but meant no harm by it. He opened the door for his new friend, only to send him flying to the floor as he fell out the door.

It caused Tommy to burst out laughing, holding his stomach as he laughed his head off. Ranboo was quick to scramble back onto his legs, his cheeks flushed in embarrassment without the protection of his mask.

Tubbo was quick to inspect on the moment, letting out a few giggles in the process. He then gripped Ranboo’s wrist and dragged him towards the shore, Tommy looked back to check on his dad who was smiling and waving at him.

He smiled back and turned back towards the beach, it’d been a while since he’d been here. It hadn’t changed at all during the years, almost as if it were never changing. He reminisced of the memories he held on the very sand he stood on, many memories were made here.

Despite wearing sandals, he could still feel the sand between his toes. The Sun shone brightly as it always had, his bright blonde hair reflecting in the sunlight, making it seem as though it were glowing.

His thoughts went back to Wilbur as he took a step forward, with each step would be a literal step forward in the plan, every step would lead closer to Wilbur’s escape. His slow steady steps on the boiling sand soon turned into a sudden sprint.

Tubbo was always swimming into the ocean with the board, his friend always was the type to be pulled into the sea, sometimes he questioned if Tubbo had more of a connection to the ocean than he did with his mer heritage and all.

Ranboo awaited by the shoreline, the waves flowing under his feet. He swore he could see more mer-like features on Ranboo as he drew closer. His legs were adorned with scales as though they could turn to a tale. He was preparing to shift back.

Ranboo went to reach the back of his neck, but he halted as he saw Tommy continue to run towards him. He was tackled into a hug, Tommy embraced the mer tightly. He was really thankful to Ranboo for all he was doing.

Despite barely knowing Tommy, he was willing to help him and Wilbur with the escape. And he owed a lot to Tubbo too, if it weren’t for him then he and Ranboo would’ve never met. Ranboo wasn’t quite the wrongun’ he assumed him to be.

He would have to repay them for their kindness soon, what would Ranboo and Tubbo even want though? He’d work it out eventually. Tommy then pulled away from the hug with a huge smile on his face.

Ranboo returned the smile, then again reached to unclip the necklace, falling into his palm. He looked back to Tommy as his face went into panic, Tommy was quick to reach out as he went to reassure him but Ranboo quickly retreated into the ocean.

It took Tommy a second to realise that Ranboo did not want to crush Tommy as he turned into a giant, rather stupid of him to attempt to go after him. Soon, Ranboo stood before him or well, gazed down upon him.

He now had the opportunity to see Ranboo closer than he did the other day, he was an orca mer that wasn’t as big as Wilbur but still fairly gigantic. Ranboo’s hair colour had changed to match his tale, though his eyes remained the same.

His cheeks looked as though they were covered by freckles, one side with darker freckles and the other looked white. Ranboo’s gaze looked unfocused as one of his claws laid on his forehead, though he shook his head and turned back to Tommy.

Shifting must’ve had its side effects, he couldn’t imagine changing from a smaller size to a gigantic one, mustn't have been easy. Ranboo looked a bit uneasy, his movements cautious as his claw reached out towards Tommy.

Tommy reached out his hand as the necklace was dropped into his palm. The necklace had a black and white spotted shell, surrounded by pearls. It was quite beautiful. He grasped it gently yet tightly in his hand, this was the very thing that would grant Wilbur his escape.

He placed the necklace in his shorts pocket, smiling at Ranboo as he turned to leave. He was ready, ready to get Wilbur out, the day was finally upon the two of them. Wilbur would finally get his-

“Tommy!- Wait!”, a giant claw gently grasped his waist, halting him in his run back to the car. He turned back to Ranboo who held a worried look on his face as the claw gently let go, letting out a shaky breath Tommy walked back to the same position as he was.

“Sorry about that, but I still got to explain a couple of things. Right?”, Tommy had been so excited that he didn’t even know how the artefact worked in the first place. It was rather stupid of him to wander off like that.

“Okay first things of all, how to use the amulet; The mer in question must be underwater, the shift will happen there. The mer must put on the amulet like they normally would. Also, word of advice, shifting for the first time can be kinda- funky. So be prepared in case Wilbur needs help.”.

“Your friend won’t be adjusted to the change right away, he won’t know how to walk properly with a new set of legs. Also, in case you’re worried. Mer forms come with their own sets of clothing. Anything else you want to ask?”.

Tommy paused to see if he had any questions, but couldn’t seem to think of any as Ranboo had explained clearly enough. It appeared that everything was prepared, he could only hope the plan would go just as smoothly.

“Nah, I’m good. Thank you, Boo. Really, I fucking owe you one. A big one. See you soon Big man! I’ll make sure to bring back the necklace soon!”. Tommy then turned back to the car, rushing to make his way to the car.

[...]

Tommy had prepared everything he could think he’d need for the escape plan, he brought a spare towel to help Wilbur dry off, the amulet, and his phone in case of emergencies, and was really all he needed.

A sigh escaped from his lips, with each minute that passed, he couldn’t help but feel more anxious. Closing his eyes as he leaned back into the car seat, he had no idea as to why he was panicking so much, it was simple enough.

Thinking back to his dream though, would his emotions really get the better of him? He knew that he’d been acting strange but he didn’t believe that it would have such an impact. He concluded it was better to bury the coffin until it was dug up again.

Phil had stopped the car, looking at his son with worried yet tired eyes. His father was also quite nervous as most likely, his son could get caught and endangered. Not only that but he was involved with the entire thing, the literal escape cab.

“Are you alright, mate?”, his father gently placed his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance. Tommy bit down on his tongue anxiously, not enough pressure to hurt but enough to make himself aware of how anxious he must’ve looked.

“I’m fine Dad, Just a bit nervous y’know?”, his father gave him a soft smile as he pulled Tommy into a hug. It was a bit awkward due to the car seats but Tommy appreciated it nonetheless. After separating, Tommy grabbed onto the car handle and opened the door.

Grabbing his stuff from the trunk. Step by step, he walked into his workplace.

Tommy got ready as he usually would, but in the pocket of his wet suit was the necklace.

He was ready. Though, as much as he’d love to tell Wilbur of the plan as soon as possible. It’d definitely be better as a surprise, he thought.

His sports bag in hand, scanning his keycard to allow him entry to Wilbur’s enclosure. He hesitated for a moment, standing in the doorway as he took a deep breath. Giving himself a moment to get his acting game ready.

“Wilbur! I’m here!”, Tommy called as loud as he could to the mer. Tommy planned to be a little more annoying to the mer than usual. Maybe then Wilbur would catch onto his plans, he’d reveal them either way.

Tommy stood still beside the tiny pool, at least tiny for Wilbur. He waited for about a minute or two yet he got no response from him. He bit his lip as he sat down, looking down into the water for any indication of movement, he didn’t want Wilbur to scare him again.

He waited another couple of minutes, but still nothing. So, he called out again. “Wilbur! Are you there?”, he grew increasingly worried. Was Wilbur okay?

Normally, he would’ve been here by now.

He waited again, but still nothing. His breathing began to grow heavy as his heart rate increased. Worried for the mer. Instead of calling with his voice, he splashed the water as he did in his training, hoping to get a response.

He waited again.

…

Tommy looked down at the water, gulping down nervously. Then, the still water began to sway, and soon Wilbur emerged from the water. There were no splashes of surprise, just the water that dripped from Wilbur resurfacing.

He let down a breath of relief as he stared up at Wilbur. The mer had a soft smile, though his eyes looked groggy as though he had just woken up. “Good morning, Toms- You’re here early, aren’t you?”.

Tommy was quick to reach into his bag and search for his phone, pulling it out to see that it was 8:12 am. His shift had started about 10 minutes ago. “Yeah, it’s one of the early shifts.”, he smirked. Wilbur only nodded his head, letting out a yawn as he barred his sharp teeth.

Tommy rolled his eyes and got up, he made his way to the freezer that held Wilbur’s food supply. Grabbing as much as he could carry and brought it to the mer. “Here’s breakfast, you prick.”, Tommy placed the fish beside him as he sat on the edge of the pool, his feet submerged in the water.

Wilbur leaned himself beside Tommy, looking tired as he laid his head on his scaly arms. He still faced Tommy with the same smile, eyes soft and tired yet they looked happy to see Tommy. He felt comforted, unlike how he did in his dream.

With Wilbur nearby, he leaned onto Wilbur’s arm. Nuzzling it softly as he took in a tired breath. Despite being so excited, he was still tired from waking up very early. He appreciated the warmth that radiated, some comfort after everything.

The two sat still for a moment before Tommy stood up, grabbing the fish and feeding Wilbur like he normally would during his routine, though he made sure to grab more fish than he normally would. He didn’t know what would happen if Wilbur turned human.

During that time, Wilbur had woken up fully and began to speak to Tommy like they normally would, falling into their usual banter. “I really don’t believe you’re 6’3. You’re tiny, one of the smallest humans I’ve ever seen!”.

“Dickhead! Of course, I’m 6’3! You don’t even know how tall that is for humans! You barely see any other humans besides me!”, Tommy stomped his foot in the water, causing a splash like a child would’ve done.

“I’ll have you know I’m-”, he paused. “I think I remember the humans saying I was over 40 feet? Maybe even larger, not too sure though.”, he let out a laugh. Tommy didn’t underestimate that, Wilbur was gigantic after all. He let out a playful scoff.

After the scruffle, Wilbur looked as though he wanted to say something yet seemed to hesitate. His eyes weren’t staring at Tommy directly, too caught up in his own mind. So, Tommy took it upon himself to speak first.

“Wilbur, you okay? You look like you got something to say. Big man.”, Wilbur’s gaze turned back to Tommy as Wilbur licked his lips. For a moment Tommy thought that Wilbur was thinking about storing him, although he wouldn’t mind the idea. But there the plan was still in effect.

“Yeah, yeah- I’m fine. Just, are you okay? You’re acting a little… off? I don’t know just something is telling me somethings wrong and-”, he cut himself off with a shake of his head. His gaze turned to one of concern, “You know, you can talk to me. Right?”.

Tommy’s eyes were soft as his hand went to the pocket of his wet suit. He stood up, amulet in his grip as he met Wilbur’s gaze. The mer looked worried, concern gracing his features. He leaned in closer and looked ready to listen for whatever Tommy had to say.

His lips couldn’t help but go upwards into a cheeky smile, as he spoke the words he’d been preparing to say all morning. “Wilbur… How would you like to finally get out of this hell hole?”. Wilbur’s gaze turned to a shocked expression.

“Tommy, wait- Toms, you don’t mean?”, Wilbur looked dazzled with many different emotions; Shock, relief, happiness, all sorts of things. Tommy could only nod with a smile.

He’d finally be free.

[...]

Wilbur stared down at the tiny amulet in his palm, such a small piece of jewellery would allow him his escape, his freedom. He’d waited over a decade for this moment. And finally, his moment had come.

And he had nobody else to thank besides the small human boy who stood beside him. Words couldn’t express how thankful he was, he’d only known Tommy for such a short time, a couple of months at best.

At first, when he met Tommy. There was only distaste as Tommy was simply just another human. He thought that Tommy would be like every other human he had met, some of them weren’t bad per se in Wilbur’s time but some never showed sympathy or just treated him as an animal.

Tommy was the first to treat him like an equal. It took time and Wilbur saving the boy’s life in order to communicate with each other but it worked out in the end. And now, the two of them had grown close.

The young boy had also gone through quite a bit just to get Wilbur his freedom. And now everything was falling into place, access to his freedom was now literally within the palm of his hand. If he could cry, he’d be sobbing with tears of joy.

“Just like that- Wait- Wil? Were you even listening?”, Wilbur snapped out of his daze. His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, he should be paying attention. Though in all honesty, he wanted to chirp happily out loud and reach out for the tiny boy in front of him. He was just really happy.

Tommy didn’t seem to mind though, despite his attempt at an angry glare; The boy let out a cough as he continued. “As I was saying, you basically just put the necklace around your neck and you just shrink and be human, I guess.”, he explained though he sounded uncertain.

His fins flared ever so slightly at the uncertainty. Despite his excitement, he was still a bit fearful of everything. He was nearly grown up by the time he got captured so after a bit of work, he knew he’d handle himself in the ocean just fine.

He remembered how to hunt, he tried to practice it in his small enclosure on occasion. He wondered how different the waters would be in the ocean, what it will feel like to be free in the ocean waves again.

Just, what bothered him was he wouldn’t see his pod ever again. And despite freedom being was he wanted, there was a certain anxiousness that came with the escape. Which couldn’t really be blamed, it was only natural.

Not only that but he was nervous about becoming a human, well he wouldn’t necessarily become a human. But it would be close enough.

Taking a breath of air, he nodded his head to Tommy. He wondered what it’d feel like to be human. To be around the same size as Tommy, would he be taller? Or shorter? What would it feel like to have a pair of legs?

It’d certainly be different nonetheless.

Despite his nervousness, It flooded him with a new kind of excitement. What would it be like to walk around, run with his legs? He’d be able to see Tommy much closer than he used to, they’d be the same size rather than Wilbur being a gigantic predator.

He grasped the necklace in his palm, determined to get the whole transformation progress over with and escape. A part of him was also excited to see Tommy roughly the same size as him, being able to hug him as tight as he wished without worrying about crushing him.

He took a deep breath of the air, despite not needing to do. Submerged in the water, his dry hair was now soaked in the water. He swayed his tail to the side, only for it to collide with the wall. He was really looking forward to escaping from the cramped place.

The amulet in his grip began to glow a dim light, magic sparkling from it. He began to do as Tommy instructed, bringing the amulet towards his neck.

As he did so, bubbles began to surround him. He felt strange, dizzy and tired despite being filled with energy moments ago. The amulet that would’ve never fitted around his neck, was now secured around his neck.

He looked down, no longer his scaly brown tail with white spots. It was replaced by a pair of human legs, he was now human instead of his gigantic mer self. He let out his breath that had been held the entire time.

Only to realise that he couldn’t inhale the surrounding water without his gills. He panicked, flailing his arms and new pair of legs in an attempt to swim, only for the pool to drag him down further.

The water that he once inhaled was now burning at his lungs, he couldn’t breathe despite his lungs begging for him to do so. He was drowning as his vision blurred. His mind wandered to Tommy, is this what the boy felt when he had saved him?

He was in agony.

It felt horrible, the water dragging him into its depths. It was once home, now it sought only to kill him. It was terrifying, and to imagine a gigantic predator in the water. That day he saved Tommy, after all that torment. The boy must’ve been terrified.

He was terrified.

As black spots began to fill his vision, something in the water changed. Despite being “human”, he could still feel the changes in the water. Using some energy to look upwards, he could see the blurry figure of something coming toward him.

He reached out towards it, the figure struggled but eventually, it grabbed his wrist and pulled him upwards. Soon, he emerged to the surface, clinging to the figure that had saved him from the water. He coughed out the water, his throat sore.

The grip on him was a bit weak, yet secure. Wilbur was safe, he let out a sigh of relief. When he opened his eyes, he was met with a soaked Tommy. His eyes widened as he realised that Tommy had been the one to save him as he had done long before.

A smile was brought to his face. Tommy swam with a bit of struggle towards the edge of the pool, Wilbur attempted to help but he was still flimsy with his legs.

Eventually, the two of them managed to pull each other onto the tiled floor of the area rather than the pool.

Wilbur let out a series of coughs as he adjusted, despite having inhaled air before. It felt different, more potent or something along those lines, unusual but not unnatural. His arms attempted to hold him upwards yet felt weak. He assumed it was because of the transformation.

Beside him was Tommy, panting heavily and leaning over the pool. Wilbur felt shaky and nervous, he turned himself so he wasn’t pressuring his arms and sat down as Tommy did and finally looked at his pair of legs.

His legs felt unnatural compared to everything else, he no longer had a tail instead it was like he had two tails (It was the closest comparison he could make). The new joints were unusual to move, and wiggling his toes was also a weird sensation.

He was mesmerised by his new limps, using his arms to lift his leg towards his face to observe it curiously. He attempted to bend his knee with success, letting out a yelp as he did so. It was hard to believe the pair of legs were his, that he was human.

He turned quickly at the sound of laughter, beside him Tommy was staring at him. His mouth was covered by his hand as he attempted to muffle it. Wilbur’s ears felt less sensitive than before, yet now with his new size, he was able to hear Tommy perfectly fine, maybe even louder.

Wilbur’s eyes widened at the realisation, that it was indeed a reality. That he was roughly Tommy’s size which meant… Wilbur pushed himself towards Tommy, clumsily embracing him into a hug.

Tommy let out a yelp as he collided with Wilbur, unable to support his weight as his back fell to the floor. Wilbur was on top of him, embracing him as tightly as possible. Despite laying on the cold wet floor of the facility, the hug wasn’t unbearably uncomfortable.

…

Tommy smiled, adjusting the hug so the two of them sat up. Tommy hugged back as tightly as he could, it felt strange to be able to hug Wilbur like any other human. But he was happy, happy that Wilbur could escape.

Wilbur readjusted the hug for Tommy to lean on his lap, his hands moving from his back to his soaked hair. Wilbur began to play with the wet blonde curls, it felt nice as Tommy leaned more of his weight onto Wilbur, relaxing.

Soon they’d leave, but for now. They just wanted each other’s company.

#shushi stuff #mcyt g/t #mcytg/t #dsmp g/t #shushi's writings #tiny!tommy #tw vore mention #tiny!phil #atlantic runaways au #tiny!tubbo #sizeshifter!ranboo #sizeshifter!wilbur #giant!wilbur #i don’t remember how to tagggg aaaaaa #I’m gonna run away now and pretend I don’t exist

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tokiro07 · 2 years ago

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Undead Unluck ch.150 thoughts

[I Said ‘War’, huh, Good God, Y’all]

So last week I said that I figured Billy was going to be the next threat, but in retrospect that was pretty dumb of me: Creed’s CO literally just showed up to tell him he was leaving his men to die, and I didn’t even try to think of any justification for why he’d be there?? Well, I did, but my best guess at the time was that he killed the previous Undecrease to force the ability onto Creed and justify abandoning him, but the truth is far worse and much more entertaining - he’s not abandoning him, he’s PERSONALLY LEADING THE CHARGE TO KILL CREED AND HIS MEN

As it turns out, Creed’s squad was basically just a scouting team that was always meant to be killed because of their knowledge of Disc, as presumably the circle is meant to be kept small and whatever team is being allowed to retrieve it and live is more valuable I suppose

This also makes Creed’s tragedy a bit clearer: it wasn’t just that his men were abandoned, it’s that he was explicitly betrayed last time around. I figured being left behind meant that Creed lost to Billy, but Billy’s employers betrayed him too and both of their squads got wiped out, leaving only Billy, Creed and Tella alive to team up and seek revenge. The only question now is how Billy’s Unfair activated and how it made this already terrible situation any worse. My guess is that Billy and Creed got into a shootout with undecreasing ammo then ended up taking out their employers together

Either that or Billy took Disc in that moment and fought them off himself, with Unfair being a separate issue. Whatever happened, I’m getting the feeling that the reason the Union ended up with Disc in Loop 100 is because Billy personally gave it to Juiz as a show of good faith, as clearly neither Creed’s country nor Billy’s employers got it in the end

Creed’s recruitment was also a bit faster than I expected, but while Tozuka only ever really tells the story one event at a time, there’s usually smaller interlocking parts, and this is no exception: showing Creed that his men are safe while his country betrays him gives him ample reason to justify his recruitment while also transitioning perfectly into him fighting back against his country

Come to think of it, Rip once told us that Creed’s goal is to establish his own country. Obviously we don’t know what that would entail, but being betrayed by your homeland seems like the perfect inspiration for an idea like that. I wonder if the idea is to create something like Outer Heaven from Metal Gear, where soldiers’ lives are valued. That said, Creed seems to explicitly want to decrease the number of wars in the world (he’d really enjoy Cipher Academy, I think), so unlike Big Boss who wants to keep the world at war so that soldiers are always needed and appreciated, Creed would probably aim for something more ambitious: becoming such an overwhelming military power that no one would dare oppose him or engage in petty squabbles...Actually, I guess that makes him Ozymandias from Watchmen more than Big Boss, huh? Though I’m just putting words in his mouth right now, so let’s not jump to any conclusions right now

[Note: Whoopsie, misremembered Rip’s dialogue, thank you to @wickedsick for pointing it out: Creed’s goal wasn’t to establish a country, it was to “take control of nations.” This implies that he wanted to take over the world, which still makes sense contextually; if he’s running the show, he doesn’t have to worry about higher-ups stabbing him in the back. The end goal is likely still to stop wars, just now instead of being a deterrent like I thought, he’d literally be the one in control of whether or not conflicts can even happen at all]

It also doesn’t seem like he’s going to go down that path in this loop anyway, now that he’s working for Fuuko and not Billy; remember, Under’s structure was upheld exclusively by mutual interest rather than a unified goal, and Billy’s goal of defeating God necessitated putting together a strong military force, which of course interested Creed. Here, though, Creed’s men have been momentarily saved and he has the ability to put an end to the fight that threatens them, and once that’s over he likely won’t have a home to return to, so he’ll join Fuuko who wants to make a home for him. Just like Void and Sean, Creed is going to learn to actually consider Fuuko his friend and feel loyalty for her cause, and this time his squad will be with him to back him up

Symbolically, the first step for differentiating between Creed 100 and Creed 101 is the belt of rubber bullets that Fuuko designed for him: he’s gone from being a ruthless killing machine who would even kill children for his goals to a hero in the war on God who won’t kill needlessly. Sure, rubber bullets deal a ton of damage in the real world, often bad enough that they make you wish you were dead, but A) they’re fighting soldiers who are trying to kill them so this is definitely more merciful, and B) it’s fiction, they might be special rubber bullets with different properties than real ones, so everyone will be fine anyway. The real world implications of rubber bullets is not relevant, the point is that Creed is no longer killing anyone

Also I love that Isshin 12 is holding Creed up on his shoulders, which I suppose might also be a symbol of how Creed is no longer a lone soldier working for someone else out of convenience, but rather a team member who relies on the help of others. “If you’re gonna master your ability, you oughta complete the process on your own. Gettin’ weak help from a weak Negator ain’t gonna be enough...” That’s what Creed said to Top and Chikara in the Spring battle, but not only was he beaten by Fuuko with the help of Sean, likely the weakest Negator in the entire series, but now he’s getting help from Isshin, a strictly supportive Negator. Sure, he’s also getting help from Yusai, who can KNOCK DOWN TREES WITH THE AIR PRESSURE OF HER SHEATHED SWORD (what a woman), and the enemies are being pinned by Void’s Unavoidable, but if anything that just strengthens my point: Creed is now officially a part of a team, and he’s better off for it

Moving back in time a little, Billy finds Tella still panicking, his cheeks most definitely torn and bleeding from his futile attempts to scream. Billy calms him down and is able to overcome Untell by listening to Tella’s heartbeat and feeling the changes in his body temperature, which is just about the gayest god damn thing I’ve ever seen. Can you imagine being a human lie detector but the method requires you get all up ons the other person? And the relief Tella clearly feels hearing Billy’s voice and knowing that Billy will understand him even if he can’t talk. That’s romance if I’ve ever seen it, and we’re on chapter 150 of Undead Unluck, the schmaltziest Jump manga I’ve ever read. You can’t tell me they’ve never explored each other’s bodies

The main issue I have with Billy already determining that the Union are the good guys in this scenario is that it means there are no Negators for him to use Unfair with, unless he pulls the same thing he did on Top and Chikara during Ragnarok and starts talking shit to everyone else to get their powers, but I’m not sure he’d even know to do that. Creed seems like an easy one since they’re already enemies, and Sean’s enough of a wimp that he wouldn’t take much convincing, but the rest are a little tougher. “Billy shot Haruka in the last Loop” would certainly work on Isshin 12, but to what end? Unbreakable is only good for builders and crafters, not really for a soldier. Unseen would be really cool for Billy to have, though, since he’s blind and literally wouldn’t be affected by Unseen’s drawback, though I guess the question is whether he’d be able to turn it off; is the activation “closing one’s eyes” or “not being able to see”? I expect we’ll find out

Also it just occurred to me that this is a new Billy, not Billy 100; either Billy did not retain Unruin long enough to survive Ragnarok, or Ruin’s an idiot and Unruin doesn’t actually allow one to make it to the next loop as he thought. Billy did imply that might be the case when he noted that the Union had never faced Ruin in a previous loop, but it’s also possible that Ruin just got himself killed in other interesting ways previously. We still don’t know the mechanics of Unruin, so there’s lots of ways it could go, but unless there are two Billy’s running around now, I think it’s safe to say that Billy 100 did in fact die

A few small notes to round off the chapter:

CONTINUITY ERROR IN THE CHAT!!! Ch.147, we see Tella’s back multiple times and he doesn’t have a ponytail, but he VERY CLEARLY has a ponytail in this chapter, which we also saw briefly in ch.145. During 147, I thought maybe I’d misseen something in 145, but this chapter confirms that Tella does, in fact, have a ponytail. Phew, puts my mind at rest

Once again, Ichico’s soul just pops out of her body when she sees Disc, so I guess that’s just her thing now; her soul leaves her body whenever she’s shocked. That said, the expression on her body and on her soul are completely different, but I think we can take the soul’s expression to be how she really feels: she and Nico are both super excited about this rad flying saucer

Yusai stopped to take a drink after her attack succeeded, and now that she’s seeing Disc, she’s trying to take her gourd out of her mouth, but because of Undraw, it’s stuck and she’s just pulling on her lips, which is honestly just a really funny image

Sean is cowering with Yusai, which makes me wonder if he had already gone to her side earlier. I hope they’ll have some kind of dynamic going forward, but I also don’t want them to be TopxIsshin 2.0 since Yusai already got married and had kids in Loop 100 and I don’t want whoever that guy is to get cucked and lose his kids, that just seems cruel

The paneling for the Union here is just really good: Void, Yusai and Sean are standing atop the Unbreakable shields, so they’re positioned highest in the panels; Creed is slightly lower, sitting on the very tall Isshin 12′s shoulders, so they’re a bit lower than Void and positioned below Yusai, but still higher than Ichico and Nico, who are standing on the ground in the third panel. It’s subtle, but it helps you understand where everyone is in the space, and I always appreciate that kind of thing

It looks like the entrance to Disc is under a little temple on top of it, though I wonder if that’s the cockpit or just the door; I kind of wish we could have seen Fuuko and Gina enter it and explore a little, but that doesn’t seem too important right now. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of it later, but I could also see it being relegated to an omake. Actually, I’d like to see the schematics of the Union’s base at some point too now that I think of it

It’s pretty fitting that Gina is helping Fuuko pilot Disc since they were introduced together in the previous loop, though I’m not sure she’s totally relevant to it aside from that. Aside from Gina keeping Fuuko safe from gunfire on the way, I wonder if there’s any greater significance to Gina being present for this particular event?

We just made a big show about Creed using nonlethals against enemy soldiers, how the hell is Fuuko going to use Disc without KILLING EVERYONE??? I get the feeling she’s not just going to be able to scare the military off with recon lasers

As always, this was a great chapter, and I’m so excited to see what’s coming. Disc had a great showing in the fight with Gina, but it was so short, and definitely could have been used in the Season battles, so I’m glad it’s getting an opportunity to shine again! That said, I’m kind of expecting this to be a bad news situation; things have been going really well for the Union so far, I don’t think there’s been a single hiccup so far, so I won’t be surprised if there’s a drop coming

Whether it happens next week with Billy or Ruin or someone stealing Disc from under Fuuko’s feet or a few chapters from now in the interim while we’re waiting for the 2010s Negators to awaken, I’ll continue waiting for the next installment with bated breath! And rumor has it that we might be getting some news about the anime on the 25th, so keep an eye out for that too~

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews

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daisyachain · 1 year ago

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It’s hard to unpick Rictor’s character from the stereotypes each writer slaps on him. We’re still going to try. While he switches from inward-direction to outward-direction from Simonson to Niecieza, he’s consistently volatile and anxious. He’s sceptical of the authorities but fond of his teammates. He’s mature, worldly, and leaderly, but often overconfident. He loves his family and he can’t stand them. Overall, he’s a once-bitten-twice-shy teenager who will preempt anything that could hurt him. When that fails, he blows up and/or bails.

Based on this I’d say he’d be the type to know fairly early on that he likes guys and to decide also early on that he’s not going to. Rictor knows his family is the perpetrator and target of violence, he’s aware of his responsibilities as the eldest son. It’s an easy choice to simply be heterosexual as part of the job description. He engages in romance like he’s clocking in. Unlikely to impossible that he never met a guy he didn’t at least like a little between ages 15 and 19. That’s irrelevant, though, because at that point he had a girlfriend and it was already set in stone that he was not going to bring the storm (and possibly bullets) down on his head that actually being gay would entail.

Come to X-Force era, Rictor is still loyally pursuing Tabs and Rahne, clubbing with the ladies, I think there’s also a one-off gag of him flirting with a New Warriors gal. He’s quite good at the task he’s laid out for him—oh, and he also becomes Shatterstar’s babysitter by sheer accident of chance. Sam and Siryn both have the leadership instinct and do keep an eye on him (Siryn in particular), and Rictor as the older brother figure takes care of him out of obligation as much as anything.

One thing leads to another, and it’s in X-Force that Rictor is actually confronted with something frightening: it’s easy to just Not Be Gay when the choice is not to pursue guys who don’t like you anyway and might kill you (at home before getting kidnapped). It’s a lot harder to refuse advances when they’re being willingly offered you by someone who a) you already like b) you have power over in a way that makes it safe. Star is exempt from the kind of baggage that Rictor would expect, he’s naive, he’s dependent on him, he’s the most manageable possible option for a boyfriend and he’s in Love.

That’s why Rictor freaks out and runs away; I don’t think it’s consistent with his character to have his awakening in the X-Force era. I do think that it makes sense for Star to be the offer he can’t refuse. Any other time he’s committed to compulsory heterosexuality as a way to minimize risk to himself (in the same way that he’s committed to ditching), but at that time in that place with that person, there is no threat and no reason not to accept Star’s feelings (and thereby his own). The cost-benefit equation comes up in favour of Being Yourself for the first time ever, and Rictor knows there’s no going back once he has a taste of what he wants.

All that is to say. XForce era Rictor isn’t realizing things about himself, he’s fully aware of what’s going on, he’s in fact fighting hard to forget about things he already knew.

#‘what am I going to go to a Cable for? to tell me I’m gay? miss me with that shit I’m straight I am straight’ - Rictor in Loeb/Polina #kelsey liveblogs comics

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hallowedmuses · 2 years ago

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discord chat: friendly feast

SUMMARY: Nadia, Murmur, and Honesty meet and befriend a hungry new entity native to the Empty. TRIGGERS: Mentions of torture, depression, PTSD, and trauma WRITTEN WITH: @offallenfeathers (Seir, Murmur, Honesty), @ofbrokenhalos (Courage, Zophiel, Devour), @hallowedmuses (Tenacity, Nadia)

SEIR & HONESTY: Seir was having a good time at this party. After Dagon's speech, more than a few people had congratulated him and Tenacity for their new-ish roles as the right hands to Dagon's kingdom. For Seir, he'd been a right hand before a long time ago, and even this role, he and Tenacity had been doing it for months before it had been celebrated. They didn't mind. He still enjoyed the party regardless. They drank and had conversations with a few different groups before they made their way over to the tables where Honesty, Courage, and Zophiel were waiting for them. "What's on the menu for today?" he asked as he looked over the table's massive array of food.

Honesty had gotten up already to greet her brother. She slipped around Seir and beelined for Tenacity. "Ten!" she said excitedly before throwing her arms around him. "Congratulations on the new position. I missed you."

TENACITY: "I don't know but I know I'm on the menu for tonight," Tenacity giggled. He was still delightfully buzzed which is how he liked to be. He beamed as his sister threw her arms around him in greeting. He hugged her tightly and didn't let go for a while. He'd been to the Empty a handful of times now and he was hoping the more times he was here, he'd remember hugging her like this instead of cradling her dead body on the battlefield. It was getting easier to push those images away and remember the newer ones in their place. "Thank you," he smiled and finally let her go. He'd been a Right Hand before but working for Dagon's kingdom was a different experience than working for Levi's had been. He had good teachers though. "I missed you too. Are you guys enjoying the party? We planning on doing a little dancing later?" He asked the troop as he did a little shimmy.

COURAGE & ZOPHIEL: Up until this point, Zophiel had largely dominated the conversation with a discussion about his latest artifacts search. Courage tried to keep up but he got lost somewhere in the words. Zoph seemed excited to talk about it so Courage nodded along thoughtfully like he understood what was going on. He was a little relieved when Tenacity and Seir showed up at their table. Courage was already overstimulated so he didn’t get up to hug his brother, but he did offer a wave in greeting. “Hey, man, congrats,” he smiled. He wasn’t really sure what Tenacity’s new position entailed, but his brother seemed happy so Courage was happy for him. Dagon seemed like a fair person to work for even though Courage didn’t really know what her job was either outside of the help that she provided in the Empty. “Dancing?” He looked out onto the dancefloor. There were a lot of people there and they were all standing pretty close together. Too close. “No, I don’t think it’s for me.”

Zoph raised a brow when Courage remarked dancing wasn’t for him. He remembered Courage used to love that sort of thing and he was pretty good at it. But a lot about Courage was different these days. Everything about him seemed more reserved so Zoph didn’t question it. “I might bust a move or two with enough drinks,” the young angel grinned.

SEIR & HONESTY: Seir smirked when Tenacity said he was on the menu. "You absolutely are." Seir kissed his cheek and squeezed his ass for good measure. He watched carefully as Honesty got up to hug him, making sure it wasn't too much for his lover.

Honesty held the hug for as long as she could. She hadn't been having a bad time exactly. Seeing Zoohiel had been nice since this was the first time she really got to see him since the war. She didn't know half of what he was talking about, but she asked a lot of questions to try to educate herself on his interests. He seemed more than happy to answer. If Tenacity hadn't shown up, she was sure he wouldn't ever stop talking. She shrugged when Tenacity asked if they were enjoying the party. It was a little overwhelming, but she liked not being alone. She glanced at the dance floor along with Courage. She knew what his concerns were. Even sitting here made her feel a little on edge, but she was managing. If someone she knew was there it'd be a little easier. "Maybe?" She answered. "I don't think I really remember how to dance though, but I could try to relearn it."

TENACITY: Ten smirked at Seir's friskiness. He had a lot to look forward to tonight but until then he was going to do his darndest to make the best of this party. "Thanks, brother," he smiled at Courage. "It feels good to be doing stuff again." Tenacity hadn't experienced the same torture as his siblings but he definitely experienced stagnation while life moved on around him. All three of them were now trying to figure out how to integrate themselves.

He noticed Courage's hesitation about dancing and it pulled a bit on his heart strings. Courage had been always been sort of a spitfire. Ten remembered how his brother used to eat, drink, and be merry with the others in his unit. By the end of the night he usually had everyone on the dancefloor and was leading them in festive circle dances. Tenacity didn't push the matter onto his brother any further though. Tonight wasn't the time or place to push anyone out of their comfort zone. They were out of their zones just by being here. "That's fair," he smiled. "My dance moves are a little outdated, but Seir here is a trailblazer from what I hear. He taught me the Cupid shuffle. Have you guys seen that one?"

COURAGE & ZOPHIEL: Courage nodded when Tenacity remarked that it felt good to be doing something. "Yeah, I get what you mean." He was still struggling with what his purpose was now or if he even had one but it was nice to be doing something that wasn't an endless battle sequence or drowning. He was still trying to figure out what he even liked doing these days and he supposed learning who he was again was a good enough purpose for now. "Cupid has a dance?"

"Oh! The Cupid Shuffle!" Zophiel perked up. "That's advanced stuff." Zoph had a touch of the ADHD so following songs with instructions was advanced for him. "Definitely one of those work your way up to it songs. The macarena though?" He gave a chef's kiss. "That's a nice one."

"Macaroni? I thought that was a food. It's a dance too?" Courage questioned. Too many words looked the same but meant different things. It was like learning about cream pies all over again.

SEIR & HONESTY: Honesty nodded along with Tenacity and Courage. Having things to do helped. It also just helped to have people around. She had to be particular about which people they were, but she felt like there was less chance to be hurt if someone else was around to help her keep the darkness away. The darkness wasn't always about a lack of light either. Belphegor had given her a home where she was allowed to keep the lights on at all times, but even then there could be so many shadows, and more lights only created more shadows. Sometimes, she would just sit in the corner and shine a flashlight in every direction to make sure the Void wasn't in there.

Seir gave a nonchalant smile when Tenacity said that he was a trailblazer. "I've made some moves in my time, but we'll hold off on some of the advanced moves for later on. The Cupid Shuffle is a great dance to start with."

"Cupid Shuffle?" Honesty repeated. She tried to imagine what that entailed. She pictured in her head the way that Cupid used to follow Belphegor around before the war. She still did follow them around, but it was different back then. She seemed to move more in unison with them like they were a unit now that Belphegor understood their feelings for her. Honesty felt a little more nervous about the dance when Zoph said how hard it was. She might've still been willing to try it, but not with so many people around. If they were all doing the same dance and she messed up, it might throw everyone off.

Seir saw the look on Honesty's face and shook his head. "Zoph, don't go scaring them off of a dance just because you can't pay attention. It's actually really easy, Honesty. They have children do it in schools. The song itself tells you how to dance to it. I'm sure Zoph can do it too if he tries. Maybe helping Honesty with it will help you do it," he suggested. Zoph was a good kid, and he tried to help where he could despite his hyperactive nature. Seir hoped his helpful nature might get him to focus for some time. "Or maybe you'll hear the song, and you'll be able to help Zoph with it." He shrugged. There was no telling with these kids.

"I think I wouldn't mind it then if it's not too hard. I can follow instructions pretty well." She was sure she could follow the group in doing it too if it was as easy as Seir made it out to be.

Seir nodded. "Then we'll try it at least once. If it's not for you, we don't have to worry about it. We'll find something for you to groove to." He chuckled when Courage called the macarena macaroni. "Macaroni is a food. It's a noodle in a U shape. It's also an old term we used to use for being fancy and stylish, though I don't recommend using it like that anymore. It's mainly just for the food now. What Zoph mentioned was the Maw-caw-ray-nah. It's also a simple dance. Dummed down it's basically just moving your hands to different parts of your body to a beat and then shaking your ass. The song Macarena doesn't come with instructions. It's actually a song about a girl who cheats on her boyfriend when he got drafted to the army, but the meaning isn't as important as the fun beat of the song and the dance that's easy enough for anyone to pick up. In most cases, you can actually dance the macarena to any song. With some practice, you could even dance the macarena while you're doing the cupid shuffle. The Cupid Shuffle is all feet, and the Macarena is all hands and hips."

Honesty shook her head. "I think just one of them at a time would be better for now."

TENACITY: "Hmmm, that you did," Ten grinned as he remembered dancing with Seir at Vamiel's wedding and then again at Cuphegors. He certainly could move. He chuckled when Zoph remarked that the dance was hard. "If Lucifer can focus enough to learn a few dances, you can do it too," he promised the crew. He nodded with his head toward the dancefloor where Lucifer and Mazikeen were absolutely showing everyone up. It appeared that Lucifer's pride trumped his ADHD. He sighed pleasantly when Courage brought up macaroni. "Seir's also great at making that," he nodded. It was a good comfort food. "We can have some the next time we spend the night here." He wouldn't have minded trying either of the two dances at their disposal. Seir's hips didn't lie and his feet glided on the floor like butter so Tenacity was sure he'd have a great time watching and participating no matter what. "If I had to put money on it, I'd say the Cupid shuffle. Might as well do something named after a friend."

COURAGE & ZOPHIEL: Courage glanced between Seir and Tenacity. He’d forgotten quite a bit. Mostly, he couldn’t figure out if they’d started dating before the war, during the war, or if this was an after thing. He supposed in the end it didn’t matter. The way they looked at each other told him enough. He chuckled when Tenacity remarked that if Lucifer could do it, so could they. Courage glanced at what he now recognized as Lucifer on the dancefloor. His form was much different than what Courage remembered, but the personality was very much the same. Lucifer tended to be all over the place unless he was passionate about something. When Courage knew him, that something happened to be rebelling. Now, it appeared that something was dance. “Macaroni sounds nice,” he nodded. “But that dance…the macarena…sounds like a strange thing to make up a dance to. I’d rather see this shuffle.”

Zophiel rolled his eyes when Seir told him not to scare everyone off. He’d given them a fair warning that he wasn’t good at dance so if he stepped on Seir’s toes he wasn’t going to feel too bad about it. He was mostly just glad to see that his friends were willing to try something. So much about the dead was different these days but they seemed eager to learn and Zoph liked eager learners. “Cupid shuffle it is then,” he concluded. “Should we see if some of the other Virtues want in on this?”

SEIR & HONESTY: Honesty watched as Lucifer and Mazikeen danced. She didn't really know much about Mazikeen. As much as people tried to keep her up to date on what she missed, it was still hard to keep track of it all and who everyone was. Even Lucifer himself looked different now, and it wasn't always easy to recognize him in a crowd without someone pointing him out or him doing something to make himself stand out. The biggest difference right now though was how his face didn't seem to carry the weight of the war while he was dancing. She didn't know if it was the person he was dancing with or if dancing was just fun for him. Probably both. He looked like he was having a good time at least. She wondered if she'd ever get to that point of ease. She felt a little jealous of them for a multitude of reasons between the ease and joy they seemed to have and also just the comfort they seemed to bring to each other. It made her sad and guilty to think of Gabriel and how she'd pushed him away. Maybe if she had just pushed past her fears, she could've had what they were having too, but she knew that wasn't a possibility. Like relentless weeds, memories of torture overgrew thoughts of potential happiness. Dancing turned into the back and forth of battle, and someone was on the ground bleeding. She stared at the mental illusion silently until a question was presented to her. She didn't entirely hear it, but she looked up to try to figure out how to respond. "Hmm? Yeah." She nodded. "What?"

Seir had been a little more aware of the conversation, but he'd also been keeping an eye on the three virtues he was with to stay aware of if any of them needed help distancing themselves from certain triggers. He'd noticed Honesty getting quieter and her eyes losing focus during the conversation, but he hadn't wanted to startle her by drawing attention to it. There was no need to make her feel bad for getting a little lost in her own head. "We were just talking about inviting some of the other virtues to join our dance training."

"Oh," Honesty refocused herself. Dancing with family wouldn't be so bad. At least she hoped so. "That's a good idea. Maybe they can help teach us too?"

Seir shrugged. "Sure." It wouldn't hurt anything whether they were dancing with them or helping him teach the class. "Maybe we can call Beel over too to help Zoph learn the steps." He wondered if the boys focus would be better or worse with Beel teaching him, but it would've been entertaining to watch. He would've suggested Dagon too, but he imagined she'd be pretty occupied tonight.

TENACITY: Tenacity noticed when Honesty's eyes glazed over. Or rather, a more accurate thing to say would be that he could feel the numbness wash over her. That was the strange thing about being a depression demon; he could feel those things in others now. If he was going to be cursed with feeling, he would've preferred being cursed with feeling the whole spectrum of emotion like Dagon. At least then he would know and feel other's happiness too. There would be balance.

He was glad when Seir disrupted her thoughts and brought her back to the present. When she zoned out like that, she looked more...dead. It reminded him of the way he'd found her body after the initial blast following Belgirel's death...so many bodies. He blinked the image away as he grabbed a glass of champagne and discretely knocked back a mystery pill (well, a mystery to everyone but him) with his drink. "I hear Humility is a phenomenal dancer, but she won't admit it." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Between you and me, my goal is to get her to own it by the end of the night." He chuckled when Seir mentioned looping Beel in on the dancing too for Zophiel's sake. "That's not a half bad idea," he agreed. He looked around to see if he could spot any of his siblings or Beel. They all appeared to be scattered around the ballroom. "I see Milly and Prue over there," he replied as he stood up. "It looks like Charity's talking to Beel so Seir you can probably grab the two of them. That leaves Nessie, Patience, Abby, Dil, and Chastity. Does anyone see them?"

COURAGE: Courage nodded his agreement that their siblings could probably teach them. If they made it out onto the dance floor tonight his family was big enough that he wouldn't feel like he was surrounded by strangers the whole time. It was less suffocating that way. He grinned when Ten mentioned getting Milly to admit she was a good dancer. In the time that Courage had been dead, his siblings leaned very deeply into their Virtues. This left them pretty stagnant and unable to really live. They'd been untethered from their virtue thanks to Gabriel's help but they still needed some prodding at times to step out of their comfort zones. He needed some help doing that too. Maybe they could brave their fears together tonight. "I'll help," he agreed. He looked around to see if he could spot any of his siblings. "I see Dil and Patience. Dil might take some convincing but I think I can get him. I'll meet you guys back here." Courage got up from the table and started crossing the room to go talk to his brother.

ZOPHIEL: Either Seir was out to get him or out to make his night. Zoph wasn't sure anymore, but he didn't object to bring Beel aboard. He'd never object to that. "Milly could probably outdance Lucifer if she wasn't too bashful. And the funny thing is Lucifer would probably be immensely proud of her for doing it." That was probably half the reason she didn't. He looked around the crowd. "I see Abby. She's going to take some work to convince too." Abstinence didn't just abstain from sex or drinking or what have you. Sometimes she abstained from fun. But Zoph was sure he could convince her to join. He finished off the rest of his drink before excusing himself from the table to talk to Abby.

SEIR, HONESTY, & MURMUR: Seir paid attention to the way Tenacity tensed. It looked like he was managing okay so far, albeit with drugs and alcohol, but he wasn't overdoing it yet. Seir let him be, though he gave his side a squeeze to let his partner know he was there for him, and he could always come up with some excuse to get him out of there if he needed him to. Thankfully, both Honesty and Tenacity seemed to come out of their harsh disassociations. "You're going to need all the luck you can get if you're hoping to get Humility to admit that," he chuckled. "Maybe try baby steps, and just get her to not look down on her own dancing at first." It was a lot to expect her to be as proud of herself as they all were. He started looking around the room for the other virtues along with Tenacity. Tenacity was right that Charity was talking to Beel. They were eating at another table. It was a shame that Zophiel didn't have to invite them himself. That would've brought it's own humor, but they would've been waiting ages for Zoph to be able to get his words out. "Alright, I'll be right back." He tilted Tenacity's chin up to give him a kiss and a gentle ass squeeze before making his way over to Beel and Charity.

Honesty kept a lookout for her other siblings too. "I think I saw Chastity going towards one of the private rooms with her boyfriend." Given that her sister was the representation of chastity, it was hard to imagine they were getting up to anything inappropriate to witness, even with her tie to her virtue being broken from what it was, but Honesty didn't want to risk being wrong about that. She also just didn't want to disturb their private time together. "I don't see Nessie, but I'll walk around and see if I can find her. Maybe she's outside in the garden." Despite having a plan of what she was going to do, she stayed in place while everyone went their separate ways. It was only once the last person had walked away that she got up. It felt darker somehow when she wasn't with people she knew. The crowds around her felt like waves she had to wade through. She shivered from a cold that didn't exist and wrapped her arms around herself while she looked for her sister. Nessie turned out to be hard to find in the crowds. She kept walking until there was a twinkle of light in the darkness, a pair of voices that had only recently become familiar to her, but their sound guided her outside through the garden. There was a path of straw that led straight to Murmur and Nadia. Honesty felt relief, forgetting her quest to find her sister, when they seemed to brighten up the space around her, even as they argued.

"I told you it wasn't going to fit under that branch," Murmur huffed as he picked up the decapitated head of the straw goat. The goat looked more like a giant table now.

NADIA: The demon grimaced as Murmur picked up the head of the straw goat. "That branch was stronger than I thought it would be." She glared at the tree for having the audacity to decapitate her goat. As her eyes focused away from the gnarly branches, she spotted Honesty approaching them. A witness to their bumbling attempts. Now, that was embarrassing. "Hey Honesty," she waved. "This isn't what it looks like. Normally, we're experts at goat relocation," she explained. "I think Cupid just put in a few more trees to spruce up the place for the event," she snorted at her own joke and turned to look at Murmur. "But, there are silver linings..." She pulled at her satchel where she kept her snacks and some other important items. This time, she pulled out a paper-mache snake crown and a sash that read 'Kingdom of Sloth' in the Kingdom's colors. She handed the sash over to Murmur before placing the satchel next to the nearest, non-offending tree. "It's easier to get the accessories on now."

MURMUR & HONESTY: Murmur rolled his eyes when Nadia glared at the tree. It wasn't the tree's fault they'd run into it. He turned the goat's head around and lifted it up over himself to put on his own head. The goat head was massive, and he disappeared in the straw. He couldn't see Honesty as she approached, but he could hear Nadia. He giggled within the goat head. "Hehe, hay." His hand peaked out from the side of the goat's head, just below the ears, so he could wave at Honesty too.

"I . . . don't really know what this is supposed to look like," said Honesty. She remembered Nadia had told her about the goat tradition they had in the land of the living. They apparently had a tradition of burning the goat, but she thought they'd decided against destroying it. "Maybe the problem isn't that you're not experts at goat relocation, and more just a problem of you two working together."

The goat head moved up and down as Murmur shrugged. "I think I work well with her. She just doesn't work well with me." Despite that claim, His hand that was outside of the goat caught the sash Nadia put in his hand. He climbed out of the goat. He looked back at it with a little disappointment. "It's too bad we don't have a reason to use it as a Trojan Goat." Honesty looked at Nadia for help understanding what he was talking about while Murmur transformed into a raccoon. He carried the sash in his mouth while he climbed up the goat. He put the sash over the goat's neck. "Okay, but how do we get the head to stay on again."

NADIA: She was the picture of offended when Murmur claimed that the issue was with her. "I'm sorry only one of us is a stubborn old goat and it's not me or straw boy over here." She patted the goat's straw leg. "We're too young." She recognized the confusion on Honesty's face when Murmur brought up the Trojan Goat. “It’s a reference to an old battle story,” Nadia explained. “The Greeks were trying and failing to enter this one city called Troy for the better part of ten years. In a last ditch effort they constructed a huge wooden horse, hid some soldiers in it, and left it at the front gates of the city. They acted like they were retreating so the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night, the Greek soldiers crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army. It's a solid battle strategy but honestly if the goat was made of wood and hollow inside, I think I'd just put snacks in it." She grinned up at the goat. "I bet it would hold a lot of snacks."

She was a little jealous when Murmur transformed into a critter and scurried up the goat. She always wished she had that ability but she wasn't a full blooded fallen angel like he was. She glanced at the goat head and then back up to where Murmur was seated. "I know a few spells to mend it but I'm going to need you and Honesty to hold the goat's head in position and preferably straight because I need both my hands."

MURMUR & HONESTY: "All I'm hearing is that I'm very mature for my age." He shot a wink in Honesty's direction, but she didn't seem all that enthused about it. "And you wish this guy was more stubborn." He patted the goat's side. "Maybe if he was a little more stubborn about holding himself together, his head wouldn't have fallen off." He knew it wasn't really the goat's fault. They shouldn't have kept pushing it when it's head got caught on the branch, but neither of them were really taking the blame here.

Honesty felt curious about the story Nadia was telling. There were so many minute details that just sounded like they had to be exaggerations. After ten years, an army's best strategy was to construct a horse and hide in it, and that idea somehow worked. She felt like she would've cared more about how dishonest of a tactic it was in the past, but she didn't have that tie to her virtue anymore. Sometimes she forgot that wasn't there anymore. She knew that Gabriel had done something related to disconnecting the virtues, but she also felt like her virtue had been ripped out of her sometime during her torture. Her virtue had been both a blessing and a curse, but it was also both of those things to have it gone. "And the Trojans didn't find anything suspicious about the fact that the Greeks just . . . stopped fighting to build a horse?"

"I think they had a bit of a pride thing going on," Murmur cut in. "They were so sure that nothing could get to them behind their impenetrable wall, it probably just didn't seem like the Greeks could really do anything to them with a horse, and they thought they were deserving of a prize or something like that. It's kinda like how the Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. You could probably ask Athena for more about the Trojan war though. She knew the guy who had the idea for making the horse."

"What's a Titanic?" She felt like she was constantly out of the loop, but the only way to get in the loop was to ask a ton of questions.

"It was a ship. A really big one. They thought it was unsinkable and then drove it through cold waters, and it got sunk by an ice burg that it ran into. There's a whole movie about it. The main guy looks like Lucifer used to when I was a kid. The Trojan War has books and movies about it too if you want to get into those."

Honesty nodded. She'd have to remember to look into those things later. "Okay, I can help with that," Honesty agreed. She picked up the goat head and started lifting it towards its neck. Murmur reached down to help pull it up and they shifted it into place. "Is that right?"

NADIA: "Oh, yes, very mature. Like moldy cheese," she remarked in the driest tone that she could muster. She patted the straw goat. "You take that back! He's perfectly fine. We just need to bring him in for a little surgery. It's fiiiiine." She turned to the goat. "You're going to look great." They'd get this goat fixed up as good as new for his photo ops.

"I think I'd be a little cocky too if after ten years you still couldn't get through the walls I built. But yeah, it wasn't their smartest move and it cost them their city." She nodded when Murmur mentioned that Athena would be a good firsthand resource. The nice thing about all of them being immortal was that you could always find someone who was actually there to give you the story. "Oh, I love the Titanic. We should watch that one the next time we're here. We can invite Cupid and the other virtues too because they'll be mad if they missed a rewatch of that one."

Nadia moved a good distance away to get a far away perspective of the goat. "A little more to the left..." She gave them a thumbs up as they shifted the head into position. "Perfect. Hold it right there." She hiked up her dress and shimmied up one of the massive goat legs where she positioned herself at the point where the neck met the rest of the body. "I missed the last few leg days..." she breathed as she did her best to anchor her legs and free up one of her hands. She recited a spell that sounded entirely made up but surprisingly it worked. The hay around the neck spread upward until it was interlaced and intertwined with the hay from the neck. It looked almost like the hay was crocheting itself back together.

Once the work was done, Nadia jumped back down and landed safely on her feet. "There," she grinned. "Good as new." She brushed her hands on her dress to smooth out the skirt and get rid of some of the hay stuck to it. "We just need to put the crown on and move it the goat to that clearing over there," she pointed to the patch of cobblestone near the entry to the party. "And he'll be ready for pictures." Thankfully, there were no more trees for the goat to lose its head on between their current location and the cobblestone patch.

MURMUR & HONESTY: "So I'm a blue cheese then. You just don't have the class to enjoy me," he said proudly, holding his head up high. Honesty didn't really understand what cheese had to do with a class, but the interactions between the pair were entertaining. Everything after death tended to feel so dreary, but Nadia and Murmur were so full of life and energy. It made her feel like she had a little more of that too. She held back laughter as they continued to argue. "He's not perfectly fine," Murmur countered, "but you don't have to sound so offended by it. He can have flaws." He turned to address Honesty. "If you're going to be around Nadia, you'll find she does that a lot where she gets overdefensive if you say something negative about someone or something she likes, especially if it's about Beel." He looked back at Nadia to make sure she didn't take that as him being harsh. "Not that defending people you care about is bad, but assuming the people you care about are perfect and have to be seen as perfect might end up hurting you and them." He just didn't want Honesty to get caught in a situation where she might offend Nadia by being too honest about how she felt and hurt her new friendship. He knew that the virtues were no longer bound to their virtues like they used to be, but he didn't know how much of that still stuck with Honesty regardless. And more importantly, saying all of that made him feel like he'd sound smarter and more mature in front of Honesty too, thereby adding to the evidence of his maturity to prove Nadia wrong. It wasn't like that stuff came from his own head. He'd just heard other people say things like that, but Nadia didn't need to know that.

Honesty hadn't really thought that deep into Nadia's defensiveness despite what Murmur thought. "But the goat can't speak for itself. It might not be alive, but I think it was nice of you to defend it when it can't. It seemed like Nadia wasn't implying that it was perfect because it had no flaws. I think she felt like your words had a negative connotation, and she can correct me if I'm wrong to assume that she was only defending that the goat is perfectly fine even with its flaws. She just doesn't want you to look down on its flaws, especially when it can be fixed." She looked back at Nadia. "But I'll try to be aware of what I'm saying about the people you care about. Courage always tried to get me to be more aware of how my honesty can hurt people." She didn't so much as remember having talks with him about that as much as she remembered a sort of feeling about it, a desire to live up to his expectations about not being confined to her virtue. She wasn't anymore, but the cost had been far greater than she imagined.

Murmur saw the distant look in her eyes. He fidgeted and looked uncomfortable with situation, so he tried to force the conversation onwards. "Yeah, I guess you have a point. Sorry. Maybe we could have a massive movie watch like at a movie theater. We could invite anyone who's comfortable with the themes of the movie. Just give out a list of potential triggers before they come in. The Titanic might have more than a few considering it was a tragedy of a ship sinking. A lot of people died, and there was a lot of panic of the passengers. It might not be safe for viewing."

Honesty had to be aware of her own triggers, and she could think of how scenes of a ship sinking might terrify her. "Maybe it'd be okay as long as there are people there with us." She wanted to see the film, and she didn't want to be held back from being a part of things just because they might scare her. She couldn't just avoid her triggers all the time. She shifted the goat's head into place as Nadia instructed and with Murmur's help. Once Nadia was done, Honesty took a step back to admire the work. Murmur held his hand out for the crown, so he could put it on top.

NADIA: "You're right. You are like blue cheese...an acquired taste," she replied as she stuck her tongue out at him. "Lucky for you, I have a refined palate." She raised a brow when Murmur felt compelled to warn Honesty of her defensiveness. She hardly thought any of her comments thus far warranted that kind of warning. She was aware that the people she cared about were flawed. But despite their flaws, they were trying their best. Did she agree with the way her dad handled the secret about Belphegor? No. Did she understand why he did what he did? Yes. Her dad's choices always held some kind of logic to them. She was just sure if others took the time to understand that logic, they wouldn't be so rude. Of course, she didn't go out of her way to pick fights about it. Most people understood that it wasn’t exactly polite to air your grievances about the Prince of Gluttony to his daughter. The only time she really pushed back was when someone else deliberately started pushing first. "Murmur, darling," she began drily. "Social etiquette says that if feel compelled to warn someone about my sensitive feelings, you should do it in private." How the public perceived her was none of her business. She didn't want to be a part of this conversation. "Thank you, Honesty," she smiled as the Virtue tried to salvage the massive bag that Murmur just fumbled. "That's exactly it."

She nodded her agreement that some of the thematic elements of the Titanic might be triggering. Most of the movie was just the love story between the two main characters, but the last quarter of the movie was pretty graphic. “We can post a list of triggers so people can decide if it’s for them. Declan, I think, was already working on something like that. He’s got them posted to the inside covers of books and DVDs.” He might’ve already compiled the list for the Titanic which would save her and Murmur some time. “We can also come up with a list of alternatives. The movie isn't really as important as hang out with friends is. I think the theater is booked out for the next few days though.” There was an approval process for larger watch parties. “The Lost Boys are watching the Fast and the Furious franchise.” She remembered because she’d been trying to convince Lette to come. “But I think they’ll be done by the end of the week.”

Nadia handed Murmur the crown so that he could place it on the goat’s head. The smaller straw goat that Belphegor made for Nadia was currently seated beside her satchel and it was wearing the same costume. “Perfect,” she beamed. “I’ll take front if one of you wants to take the back. We can move him into position and then get something to eat. All of this exercise has made me very hungry.”

MURMUR & HONESTY: "So you admit you like me then?" Murmur grinned. He knew most of the time that his relationship with Nadia was complicated. They weren't related, not even in the sense that Beel and Nadia were related, but they had similar experiences. Murmur hadn't been that much older than her when she was born relatively speaking, so they'd grown up together. They were like siblings to an extent, and they had all the arguments that siblings tended to have, leaving outside people questioning whether they actually liked each other or not. Sometimes he himself questioned it too when the teasing and arguing got especially out of hand. "Sorry," he apologized.

Honesty felt a little uncomfortable getting caught in the middle of their argument. It wasn't just because of their fighting but the topic of it. Again, it felt like a reiteration of what she'd been told before about how she needed to be careful about how her honesty affected people. Murmur seemed to have trouble with that too, but being a creation of honesty, she could understand why he would feel the need to say what he did without going behind Nadia's back to say it. It made her feel nauseous thinking about it. She wished she didn't have that connection to the virtue, but it was her name. She didn't know how to not be her name, even if that name hurt her. She didn't even know what else she could be called. Maybe she could ask Lucifer about it. He'd changed his name after all.

"I think that's a good idea," Honesty agreed as she came out of her own head. A ship sinking sounded like it would involve drowning, and she knew a lot of people in the Empty had trouble with that, herself included. Having lighter alternatives would be good for them.

As Murmur took the crown and put it on the goat's head, Honesty picked up the back half of the goat. "It might be better if I carry it, so you two don't argue over it. Maybe Murmur can just keep an eye out for any obstacles.

"Aye aye, Captain," Murmur said with a salute still in the form of a raccoon on top of the goat. It was a good lookout spot.

NADIA: "Hmmm, yes, but probably not as much as Ruby does," she winked. Did she think Ruby and Murmur had a crush on each other? No. Maybe. The behind my father’s back friendship was very Romeo and Juliet of them, and Nadia was a thousand precent sure Cupid would agree with her. Just like she was a thousand precent sure Dagon would tell her to leave it alone. Still, after Murmur had just dragged her personal business up, Nadia didn’t feel too bad bringing his personal business up. She nodded and waved a hand at his apology. They were even.

Nadia worked with Honesty to get the goat into position. It was much easier now that there were fewer obstacles. Once the goat was settled, Nadia stood back to admire the work. “Alright, gang.” She pulled out her phone and motioned for Honesty and Murmur to come stand beside her. “Selfie time. We did the hard work. We should be the ones to take the first photo with the goat.” Nadia would tag it on her socials and that would be all the invitation that the others inside the party would need to come out and take a photo.

MURMUR & HONESTY: "A win's a win," Murmur grinned. He could tell that Nadia was trying to insinuate that something more intimate was going on between him and Ruby, but he wasn't really bothered with it. Her dad never really liked him, and Murmur hoped that rumor would spread if only to make him a little more annoyed. Even if he wasn't annoyed, that would show growth on his part, and Murmur felt like that would make Ruby happy too. It was a win win situation, so he let Nadia roll with it. "But yeah, of course Ruby likes me more than you do. She has better taste." He stuck his tongue out at her.

Honesty relaxed a little more as their arguing became less uncomfortable and more sibling-like. It made it easier to work with the two of them to get the goat in place. "Selfie?" Honesty asked as she moved forward in the direction Nadia indicated. She knew what photos were now, but she didn't know all the terminology associated with it. She wasn't sure how a selfie was related to photos.

"They're just pictures you take of yourself," Murmur explained.

Honesty nodded. "So if you take pictures of others, they're otheries?"

Murmur giggled. "They are now." He reached down to her hand and made her hold up two fingers. "That's a good pose for the selfie."

Honesty frowned at the hand gesture. She didn't understand it, but she tried to fit it to her interpretation of it. There were three of them, so she held up three fingers and smiled for the picture.

NADIA: "Oh, is that what you tell yourself? Okay, honey." She grinned. She enjoyed teasing him about partners. Nadia had plenty of siblings, but Murmur was the closest thing she had to a near sibling relationship as far as she'd seen. Of course, her observations were based on how her uncles and the Spiritus family behaved.

"Otheries, I like that," Nadia agreed. She got the camera ready as Murmur helped Honesty come up with a pose. Honesty held three fingers, Murmur had his original pose of two, and Nadia opted for the middle finger so now they were posing as 1, 2, and 3. Nadia snapped the photo before relaxing into a more natural state. She showed the photo to Murmur and Honesty for approval before positing it to all her social media platforms. "There. That should be enough advertisement for our friend here." She patted one of the goats legs. As she did so, her tummy grumbled. She really was hungry.

"I've got some snacks in my satchel back at the tree base," she replied as they started walking back that way. "We can finish those off and then we can head down to the kitchen for more. I can show you guys the escape tunnels in and out of there." They weren't really escape tunnels. They were just utility corridors for the staff to use, but thinking of them as escape tunnel was cooler.

DEVOUR: For countless millennia, he had been bound by the chains of his tyrant sibling, the Void. But now, finally, he was free. Several months had passed since the Void’s death. Sadly, the Empty didn’t transition to one of his kin after that. Instead, the power passed to his sibling’s killer, Belphegor. He had no idea what a Belphegor was so instead of introducing himself to them, he stayed on the fringes of their society, watching from afar as they went about their daily lives. It was a strange and foreign world to him, but he found himself fascinated by it nonetheless. He wasn’t sure what to make of them yet. They seemed to care for their people, but it was hard to say whether that benevolence extended to those who were not the Children of God.

His plan was to observe from the shadows until he had figured them out, until he had a better understanding of their customs and their ways. But fate had other plans once he learned there was to be a celebration tonight. It had been so long since he had participated in anything remotely resembling a celebration. And there was the promise of food, something he had not tasted in what felt like an eternity. He was always starving. He could feed and feed and feed and still that hunger was never satiated. He’d been made with the inability to taste which wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t keenly aware of what he was missing. Once, long ago, before he was locked away, he’d been introduced to the concept of taste. It was only one instance when he actually tasted something, but he’d been craving that high ever since. Perhaps he’d find it again at this party tonight.

At first, he observed the party from the treetops, taking in the festivities from a safe distance. This was fairly easy for him because, you see, he was nothing but inky shadows. He had no form and blended perfectly with the darkness. As the night wore on and the partygoers grew increasingly raucous, he found himself drawn closer and closer. He watched as the speeches were given, the music played, and the people danced. And then, finally, the moment he had been waiting for: the announcement that it was time for food. He crept closer to the door, his shadowy form blending seamlessly with the darkness. He watched as the people walked past him, their arms loaded with plates and bowls of steaming food. He was almost drooling at the sight of it all. But he dared not venture too close. He knew the risks of being seen, of being caught. And so, he remained in the shadows, stealing bits of food whenever he could. He retreated out the door as soon as he thought someone noticed him. Thankfully, no one followed but it was too close of a call. He’d been too bold for his own good.

He was just about to retreat into the forest when he noticed a group of children moving some kind of object across the garden. They weren’t doing a very good job of it. He debated just leaving them to it but then one of the children mentioned having food in her bag. And then, miracle of miracles, said child actually left her bag unattended. It was an open invitation, and he could not resist. As the children slipped away, he dropped from the tree and made a beeline for the bag. He rummaged through it frantically, his hunger driving him to madness. And then he found it: the snacks the little girl had mentioned. He tore into them, devouring the contents of the bag with reckless abandon. So reckless it seemed because he did not notice nor hear their little footsteps as they made their way back to his tree.

MURMUR & HONESTY: "I tell myself the truth," Murmur confirmed with a nod. He was pleased as they all had different poses. If someone looked at the picture, they probably wouldn't understand what it meant, mainly because it didn't really mean anything. He looked up at the goat once they finished the picture. "I hope the people here join in the game." It would've been nice to see them getting into an event like this, but even if they didn't, everyone coming to see the goat would be nice too. Belgirel had put in a lot of work on this too. "What kind of snacks did you bring?" he asked Nadia as they started walking back. She was lucky that he hadn't stolen any of her snacks already. Luckily for her, he'd been distracted by the goat.

Unluckily for her, something else had gotten to those snacks first. Honesty was the first to notice. She was hypervigilant, and half the time after her death, she was always scared of the shadows and kept thinking she saw something in them. Only this time there was something really there. She didn't scream, scared of drawing its attention towards them while also just being frozen with fear. Instead her hand reached out to grab the person nearest to her, which happened to be Murmur. Her hand tightened around his, nails digging in. It looked so much like the Void. She didn't know what to do or how to react.

Murmur felt Honesty's reaction before actually seeing the creature. He sucked in a breath from the pain of her nails. "Ow." He grimaced. He tried to pull his hand away, but she was locked on tight. She wouldn't even look at him, and she looked like a deer in the headlights. He waved a hand in front of her face, but she was still staring straight ahead like her life depended on it. He followed her gaze, and at first he didn't see anything. He thought the tree was just casting a dark shadow until he saw how much the shadow moved. "What is that?" he asked. He took a step forward, but Honesty wouldn't let him get out of her arms' reach.

NADIA: She was certain that at the very least people would want to take pictures with the goat as they left the party for the night. It would take a few parties for this trend to take off fully, but eventually the goat’s attendance at parties would be almost mandatory and expected. She patted it one last time as a farewell before they started walking back toward the tree. “I got all kinds,” she grinned in response to the question. Her bag was spelled to go deeper than expected. “I could probably put a candy factory to shame. But I’ve also got savory treats in there if you’re in the mood for something salty. And I’ve even got a bunch of stuff for the dead to eat in there.” Nadia couldn’t eat those, but she always came prepared. She managed to cool off a few meltdowns in Dagon’s kingdom just by giving the person snacks. She figured the same could apply here so she always made sure to carry snacks for the dead too. Food was always a good comfort tool.

Unfortunately, it appeared someone was already helping themselves to a good dose of comfort. Nadia didn’t really stop to think before she reacted. This was mostly because she assumed the big ol’ blob stealing her snacks was Belphegor. She’d seen them phase through the Empty and there were rumors that they could do other things with their form so it wasn’t an outlandish assumption. “Belphegor, you thieving banshee!” She made a beeline for them. “There better be some snacks still left in there for us! It was hard work curating all of that!” She stopped abruptly as soon as she was close enough to register their energy and realize her mistake. The massive shadow of darkness eating her food wasn’t Belphegor. It was…it was…actually she didn’t know who or what it was. Her breath caught in her chest as she stared at it and it stared at her. “You, uh…I…um…hi?”

DEVOUR: He looked up from his precious horde of food only when the shouting started. One of the children was heading right for him. He recognized her. She was a frequent visitor of the Belphegor. It looked like she thought he might’ve been the Belphegor. She realized she was mistaken fairly quickly given how much her strides had slowed down. She looked at him and he looked at her. There was terror in her eyes, and he did not like it. Just behind her, he could see the two other children that had been with her. They also looked terrified of him. His form sagged a little at the thought. He’d spent most of his life in fear of one thing or another. Mostly, he feared his brother’s temper. The Void was gone now, but some of his other siblings were just as testy. He found it hard to be around them. But he was also too afraid to be here with these strangers.

He still remained as inky blackness but the darkness that was his form shrunk little by little until it was not so intimidating. He pulled his shadowy hands out of the satchel and gingerly held out a turkey leg to the child. It was the only offering he could make. He’d eaten everything else in the bag. Perhaps if he gave her this last bit, she would let him go free. He didn’t want to harm them, but he also didn’t want to be taken prisoner either. Not again. Never again.

MURMUR & HONESTY: Murmur was a little scared. Honesty's reaction to this thing was really what scared him more though. He knew that she'd been through a lot. He'd never seen the Void, but he'd seen some of the powers Belphegor got after killing it. What this thing was doing was pretty similar to those powers. He didn't think it was the Void, at least not at its full power. He was pretty sure it would've already tried to kill them if it was, but it was clearly something similar to the Void. That didn't mean it was as bad as the Void though. Since it wasn't attacking them, Murmur felt like it must've thought that attacking wasn't its best course of action. Murmur pulled his hand away from Honesty's so he could step towards it with Nadia. At the very least, it wouldn't have been right of him to let Nadia go towards it alone.

Honesty wasn't as open to believing this thing might not have bad intentions, and she didn't have Murmur's level of curiosity. There had never been anything good that came from the Empty before Belphegor saved them. She couldn't stop Murmur from moving forward, but she hid behind him as he approached the being.

As the creature shrunk down, it furthered Murmur's belief that the being meant them no harm. If it lived here, he guessed that it had probably been hurt by the Void too. Maybe it was one of God's or the archangel's creations that got sent in here like the other dead. It seemed almost as scared as Honesty was, and the offering it gave was most likely an attempt at self preservation. "It's okay," Murmur assured it. "We're not gonna hurt you."

NADIA: Nadia’s heart pound in her chest as she observed the being. It was like looking into the being that she could only describe as intangible night. There was a saying out there that if you gaze into the abyss long enough, it gazes right back at you. Nadia could feel it’s gaze upon her but it did not make her feel cold or scared. It made her feel sad. Darkness couldn’t posture but everything about the way this darkness held itself suggested that it was more afraid of her than she was of them. She tore her eyes away from it only for a moment once she felt the warmth of her friend at her side. He seemed to understand that this creature did not mean them harm.

Her features softened as the darkness shrunk to something that was more human sized. After a brief moment of contemplation, it offered her a turkey leg as a boon. Nadia nodded to her friends, indicating that she was okay. She extended her hand to take the offering. Sure, this creature could be playing a trick on her, but she didn’t think it was and she was going to trust her gut on that. If she was wrong…well, it was a big mistake to harm a Duchess of Hell. To her relief, the darkness did not pull her in or harm her as she got closer and took the offering.

“T-thank you,” she stammered and took a respectful step back toward her friends. She stared at the turkey leg for a moment before biting into it. “Hmmm, it’s still good,” she smiled and gave the creature a thumbs up. “I…are you still hungry? My friends and I…we were just about to go down to the kitchens to eat.”

DEVOUR: The hesitation was clear on all of their faces. They did not know what to make of him. Truthfully, he didn’t know what to make of them either. He was relieved when the little raccoon boy said they weren’t going to hurt him, but could they be trusted? It looked like they were trying to determine the same of him. The smaller of the three beings seemed to indicate with her head that she believed him. Still, he fought the urge to jump backward as she stepped forward. Their fingers brushed together as she took the turkey from his hands and they both stepped back in unison, giving each other space and distance. He observed her as she tasted the meat. Would its flavor determine his life or death? He certainly hoped not. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to taste the meat. It smelled divine though. But the food in the bag was tricky. He’d been able to taste some of it, but not others. He had similar experiences at the party too while he was loitering in the shadows. Anything meant for the dead had no flavor to him. But the stuff of the living? Now that…that was blissful.

He was pulled out of his reminiscing when the youth made a strange gesture with her hands. He didn’t really understand it. Was she signaling an attack sign to the other two? They made no move to come after him. Still, he’d taken too many risks today. He was about to make a run for it when she asked him if he was hungry. He was always hungry for more, it seemed. He’d been down by the kitchens before. Mostly late at night when no one was around. There was a lot of food there but much of it was in its raw form, and he had yet to learn how to get it from its raw form to its final delectable and truly complete form. But he imagined with a party this big, the kitchen was overflowing with complete, intricately made meals. He supposed one more risk wouldn’t hurt.

With some effort, he willed his form to shift into something that resembled a child of God. He borrowed a lot of features that he’d seen on the beings that called themselves Lucifer and Asmodeus. The darkness that was him took on the shape of a tall and strikingly handsome man. His chiseled jawline was framed by a neatly groomed beard that added to his rugged yet sophisticated appearance. His hair became a light blonde color, worn in a tousled style that gives him an air of effortless cool. He spent a lot of time observing and practicing this transformation just in case he ever needed to blend in. All of that practice paid off because the transition was very smooth.

What he failed to practice was speaking in their tongue. He opened his mouth to form the words that he wanted to say, but they came out as nonsense at first. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I…I don’t want to impose…” he spoke. The words were accented strangely. He’d have to keep practicing to sound more like them. “But food is always appreciated. I haven’t tasted anything like this in many millennia.” He paused to look at the satchel in his hands. It was completely bare now. He held it out to her. “I’m sorry…” he apologized in a voice that sounded both ancient and young at the same time. “I’ve eaten everything here.”

HONESTY & MURMUR: What the hell was wrong with these two? Both Nadia and Murmur were so close to this thing, and Honesty couldn't make sense of it. They didn't know what it was. It came from the Empty, so she would've thought they wouldn't be so ready to trust it. It could've been an act to lure them in. She shook her head back at Nadia in contrast of her nodding. No, this was not okay. She tried to will her into seeing that, but it didn't seem to have any use. She waved her hand across her neck when Nadia invited the thing to come eat with them. Even if she wasn't terrified of this thing, she was sure plenty of the other guests here would be.

Murmur wasn't so unhinged where he couldn't see the dangers of what they were doing. This . . . creature was something from before Belphegor. They didn't really know if it was a danger or not, but it didn't really seem like it wanted to harm them. He tried to give Honesty a look to reassure her that they were being complete idiots about this, but she didn't look reassured. "We don't have to take you down there," Murmur added, to both reassure the creature and Honesty. He didn't think it wanted to go near big crowds the way it was lurking in the shadows. "We can just grab some more food and bring it back up."

As the being began to shift into something else, Honesty took another step back while Murmur stared in amazement. So it wasn't just some sort of mindless creature then. Realistically, it wasn't like this was what their natural forms looked like, aside from Nadia. It wasn't that unlikely that this thing could look like a person too. He was kind of hot, at least in Murmur's eyes. Honesty was still terrified of him. It didn't matter that he'd changed his form. It made it feel more like a trick to her, and like he was using that to get closer to them. His words scared her more. They sounded wrong and not entirely real. "Are you going to eat us?" she asked, scared that he might actually be willing to eat everything and everyone if they didn't get him more food.

"I mean only if you want to," Murmur added with a smirk, unable to help himself. Honesty smacked him on the side of his head.

"He doesn't mean that."

NADIA: Nadia could see the nervousness written on Honesty’s face. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous too, but she knew hunger. She lived in a kingdom devoted to it. If this creature was going to eat them, it would have done it already. It was hard to convey that through looks alone though so Nadia placed her hands behind her back and opened her palm. She pushed down on her open palm with her thumb and a sigil that was previously invisible lit up. That same sigil appeared on Honesty and Murmur’s palm. It connected them mind-to-mind like a magic walky talky. It’s all right, she spoke mind-to-mind. If anything goes wrong, we’re only a few paces away from the party and there are a few hundred ways I can contact my dad. It’ll be a million against one in a manner of seconds if this thing tries something. Besides, it wasn’t like Nadia was going to allow herself to be lured into the woods. She wasn’t Gretal. They’d stick to their home territory, at least for now. If things went well and she made a new friend here today, she wouldn’t rule out exploring his home later.

He kind of reminds me of a spider, She observed as the creature became confused and scared of her thumbs up gesture. You know, one of those ‘they’re more afraid of you then you are of them’ situations. Her eyebrows rose as the being began to change its form to look more palatable to them. Man, that’s not fair. Even he can shapeshift. He’s kinda hot though so I’ll forgive it. Apparently speaking didn’t come as easily for him. It sounded like he had cobwebs in his throat. It sounded like he hadn’t spoken in a while. She wondered if he was the only one of his kind or if there were more. “I’m told that’s a common experience here,” she replied apologetically when he said that it had been a while since he’d tasted anything like this. “But we’re hoping to change that.” She took her satchel from him. He truly did seem sorry for eating all of it. She believed him.

She tried to keep the conversation light and pleasant. If you treated people kindly, they usually returned the favor. “It’s all right. I’m glad you got some joy out of it. Food’s always been a comfort of mine. Like Murmur said, we can bring some up here if you don’t want to go down to the kitchen.” Being in the kitchen would bring them closer to the party, which would be safer for the trio but perhaps this being wouldn’t feel as safe. She gave Murmur an exasperated sort of look when he began flirting with the being, but her features turned more jovial when Honesty smacked him. You deserved that, she told him. Also, you’re like a twig with two berries. A snack more than a meal.

DEVOUR: This form was strange to him, but it would appear that at least two out of the three found comfort in it. Perhaps the third would warm up to it. He certainly was. It would take some getting used to, but he needed the practice. He pondered the offers presented to him. "I would like to go with if that is okay," he replied in his strangely accented voice. “I have been to the kitchen before. I..." he shook his head. "I do not understand it. I have watched but..." he shook his head. He did not understand the process whatsoever. "Will you show me?" He wanted to learn their strange methods. Perhaps he could replicate them so that he'd no longer have to steal. Of course, he'd still have to make these delectables in private. There were more than a few of his siblings who would shun him for trying to be like these three. He did not know what they would do to him, but some of them were as harsh as the Void.

His eyebrows bunched in confusion when one of the children asked if he was going to eat them. “No, you don’t taste like anything,” he replied to the dead one. Much like food made for the dead, the dead themselves tasted like nothing. The Void had fed the souls to him once and out of desperation, he took them. But he had no desire to do so again. The act of eating them was too tedious and there was no pay off for him in the end. He hadn’t tried the living, but why would he when there were so many other things he could try and so many other things that they could show him? “You…” he cleared his throat, taking long pauses between words. “Have shown me great kindness. I…” He hadn’t experienced kindness in a very long time, and it made him emotional. “I do not wish to offend you.” Confusion shown on his face when one of the children replied that he could eat him if he wished. He did not understand the offer. “If eating one another is a custom in your culture…you may eat me.”

HONESTY & MURMUR: Honesty appreciated it as Nadia performed a spell to let them speak in each other's minds. She didn't really feel comfortable talking in front of this creature as they were. She hadn't known how much it could understand, and she was scared to say too much in front of it. She still didn't really feel like it was all right like Nadia was saying. Things can go wrong so fast though. When she'd died, there hadn't been enough time to save everyone, including herself. All it took was the right injury, and people could die in seconds. And we don't know what this thing is capable of. What if it's as strong as the Void was? What if we die before anyone gets here? I know you guys will just end up here again, but me? I'll just disappear. I'll be in the dark again.

Murmur could tell that Honesty was really scared. He put a hand on her back and started rubbing it comfortably the way his moms used to do when he was scared as a kid. Like Honesty had said his moms had been one of the ones who died after death. They were gone now forever. He didn't plan on letting that happen to Honesty too. Well, we'll just make sure that doesn't happen then. Like you said, if we die, we'll just end up here, so I'll protect you. Knight's honor. He would've saluted, but he didn't want Honesty to feel like he was giving too much of their conversation up to the creature. And besides, if you're worried about it's power, Belphegor shouldn't be too far away either. If it takes something of a similar power to defeat him, they should be able to. And they can hear us everywhere, so they should be able to get to us quickest.

Honesty relaxed a little. She was still nervous about all of this, but Nadia and Murmur were right that all of the strongest people they knew were not that far away, and she'd experienced a few times just how much Belphegor could hear. She wondered if they already knew about these creatures, but at least for now, she trusted Nadia and Murmur to keep her safe. She still planned to keep a safe distance from the creature. "You can come with us," Honesty agreed, deciding that it would be better to have the creature closer to where help could come for them if they needed it.

"Yeah, we can show you. Nadia's an expert on it. She's been working with Belphegor to help the dead be able to eat things they can taste again." He could cook too, but he was average at it, and he hadn't tried to cook the food for the dead, so he wasn't experienced with it like Nadia was.

Honesty was more relieved by the fact that she wouldn't taste like anything to this creature. It still didn't mean this thing wouldn't try to kill her, or her friends. It also could've been lying. Since death, she couldn't tell as easily when people were lying, and this thing felt even more like a mystery. Her fear and paranoia over this thing also clouded her judgement. She was overly cautious no matter how she tried to look at things.

Murmur was the opposite. He grinned as the creature offered to let him eat it. "We do eat each other a lot in our . . . culture, but you're not going to offend me if you don't let me. It's more of a . . . reciprocated thing. We only do it if both of us want to do it to each other."

NADIA: She gave Honesty an empathetic look. She could understand why the Virtue was hesitant. She had more to lose here than they did. She nodded her agreement when Murmur reassured Honesty that they wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If anything happens, the two of us will fight and you run toward the party and alert the others. Sure, people would be upset with her and Murmur if they died but they’d both just end up here in the end and that wasn’t so bad. She was glad when Honesty eased a little. Nadia couldn’t read emotions, but something about the being before them and the way it held itself felt genuine to her.

“You’ve been to the kitchens before?” Nadia hadn’t noticed this being there before. It must have been pretty stealthy or perhaps it just showed up when she wasn’t around. Either way, he was kind of growing on her because he had a lot in common with the people of her own kingdom. They, too, were also stealthy in manners of food theft. She nodded her agreement when Murmur called her the expert. “It’s my day, night, and weekend job,” she grinned. She was going to be running a few cooking classes here and she wanted to invite Honesty, but she didn’t want to do it in front of this creature. It felt rude and like she’d be excluding him. If he wanted to, she could probably teach him how to cook too, but it would have to be off the clock. If Honesty was afraid of him, other people would be too so she couldn’t have him come directly to her class. She’d figure something out eventually. “Come on,” she gestured with her head for everyone to follow her. “I’ll take you guys down the staff entrance so we can avoid the crowd.” She began walking toward the side entrance.

She snorted as Murmur continued to flirt with the being. “He means that in a non-violent way. It’s a pleasurable feasting. But before we get too deep into the customs of our culture, perhaps we should know your name. I’m Nadia, Duchess of Gluttony, and these are my friends Sir Murmur and Lady Honesty. What do we call you?”

DEVOUR: The child who was dead seemed to be the one that was most afraid of him. He did not blame her. If the Void was willing to torture its own siblings, he could only imagine what it did to strangers. He shifted on his feet. Perhaps he should’ve given the turkey leg to her. Maybe if he learned to cook, he could make something for her too. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to apologize for the Void, but he did. “I—only a handful of times,” he lied. He went to the kitchen almost every night. But he didn’t know if it was wise to admit that. He wasn’t sure what a job was but from the glowing recommendation that the young male child was giving on behalf of the smaller blonde child suggested that food was her specialty. She had the air and confidence of an expert.

“Thank you,” he remarked as they agreed to let him join their expedition. He was nervous and excited all at once, but he minded his position and kept his distance from the dead child of God. He did not wish to cause her further distress. He listened to the beings describe their customs. “A pleasurable feasting?” He wasn’t sure he understood. “Is it because you regenerate?” He’d seen some of them get injured before and the wounds closed up fairly quickly. Still, he wasn’t sure that was too pleasant. He nodded when the young girl, Nadia, introduced herself. “Nadia, Duchess of Gluttony.” He tested the name on his lips. “Sir Murmur.” A nod at the gentleman. “Lady Honesty.” He nodded but did not meet her eyes for he did not want to see the fear in them. He tilted his head to the side in an expression of confusion when he was asked what he preferred to be called. “I am the absence of taste. Or, perhaps, I was once.” It was what some of his siblings wished he would remain. But he’d tasted from the fruits of their trees and he could not go back. “I’m not sure what I am anymore. You may call me as you see fit.”

HONESTY & MURMUR: Honesty still wasn't fond of the idea of just abandoning Nadia and Murmur to their fates. She didn't want them to die for her, but she also didn't want to experience what would happen if she died again. She didn't think she could talk Nadia and Murmur out of this though, so going with them seemed like the best option.

"And you didn't get caught?" Murmur asked, impressed. He was usually pretty stealthy himself when he tried to be, and it was a quality he admired. It was actually pretty surprising to him that Belphegor hadn't caught onto him. He wondered if Belphegor even knew he existed. He knew that Belphegor could hear just about everything in the Empty, so it was hard to imagine that they wouldn't know about him, but he'd never heard them mention this guy. Of course, maybe they were worried about reactions like Honesty's. It was probably best not to worry anyone about it if they could. "We do regenerate, but that's not what it's about." He could tell that this guy wasn't going to understand them if they were too subtle about it. He was kind of like how Belphegor used to be. "We don't so much eat each other as we do . . . taste each other. There's certain parts of our bodies that feel good when you touch them in the right spots in the right way. You can use your hands to do it, but using your mouth, and more specifically your tongue, on someone lets you taste them while you're making them feel good. If you do it right and make them feel good enough, they'll make a fluid that you can either swallow down or spit out at your discretion. If you want to try it out sometime, I'd be happy to try it with you and show you how it works. I could bring some food, and we could try-"

"Okay, that's enough of the sex education," Honesty snapped, glaring at Murmur. She already didn't want to be around this thing. She could only take so much of hearing Murmur flirting. She didn't really care about him explaining what sex was, but making her hear about him with something that seemed so much like the Void made her nauseous. She wanted to get this over with, and she could do without Murmur being so horny. He just shrugged and bowed when the creature addressed him, tossing a wink in his direction. Honesty still looked frozen as she was addressed. The creature avoided eye contact with her, but she couldn't take her eyes off of him. She was looking for any sign of deceit or harm. There wasn't any, but she was too scared to stop looking.

"The absence of taste?" Murmur asked. That had to be a strange experience, and it looked like he was tasting now, or he had been before they took food away from him. "But if you care a lot about food, maybe your name could be eating related." He liked the idea of getting to name someone. "Her dad's already Gluttony. But there's not many similar ones I feel like you could make names out of. Gorge? I don't think I like that one for you. It just feels like I'm calling you George with an accent. That's boring."

NADIA: She got the vibe that he’d been to the kitchen more than a handful of times but she didn’t say anything. If he really did manage to go undetected that was pretty impressive. As long as he remained harmless, she didn’t plan to snitch on him. Now that she knew he made visits to the kitchen, she’d leave some stuff for him when she could. “Murmur for the love of Hell…” she sighed and rubbed at her temples. He wasn’t just flirting anymore. He was straight up propositioning the man. Thankfully, Honesty cut him off before he could go any further though Nadia wasn’t sure how much further one could go without offering a demonstration right then and there. “At least you offered him food beforehand.” That was the nice thing to do when you wanted to eat someone out. You had to make sure they ate first.

She smiled and nodded at the man encouragingly as he repeated their names back to them. It was interesting that he had no name himself. He was a construct. But then again what was a name if not a construct to begin with. “Murmur already thinks you’re a snack, so Snack is a good one. But it sounds a little too close to snake and that’s my mom’s mascot.” Dagon wasn’t her mom, but it felt too complicated to get into that right now. She paused for a moment at the door to the staff entrance. “What about Devour?” she asked as she swiped her card to unlock the door. She entered the well-lit corridor and motioned for the others to follow her in. The sounds of the party could be heard one floor above them, and she found that to be soothing in its own way. It was like being part of the crowd without being overwhelmed by it. “That’s how we found you and it’s a pretty badass name too.”

DEVOUR: He was quiet for a moment as he debated what he ought to say. Some of his siblings would've demanded he say nothing. They very well could cut his tongue out for just talking to these three. But these children were disclosing information about their families so perhaps it was safe to tell them about his own. If he bothered to look deeper within himself, he might've allowed himself to see that he was also telling them this information because he wanted to keep them safe. There was an innocence to these Children of God that he had not seen in a very long time here in the Empty. Innocence did not last long here. If he did not tell them what lurked in the shadows, it was possible that the shadows would find them unguarded. "It's possible my siblings know where I disappear to, but if they do they haven't said anything," he allowed.

He listened intently as the young male, Murmur, described this pleasurably feasting. To taste one another but not eat each other sounded like quite the test of wills. "Ah, I see. So the goal is to get to this fluid? That is the meal?" Fascinating. It sounded like both the feaster and the feasted received some kind of reward in the end. All of their food so far tasted phenomenal so what must their fluids taste like? "Yes," he grinned. "I think I'd like to try."

He kept up his pace with the children as they walked toward an entry point he hadn't seen before. He wasn't sure what a snack was but it sounded like a kind of food he wanted to try. He wasn’t sure what a snake was either. “So, you are not a Child of God?” he asked when Nadia mentioned a mother. The Children of God had no mother, and she radiated an energy that was different from the two beings before her. What was she?

As she door opened, he could hear the sounds of the party above them. Walking down the corridor was an experience he knew he’d struggle to put into words for Echo later. It was like being a part of the party…a part of their mysterious world. Their music was so beautiful even when it was muffled. And based on the fragrant smell of food just up ahead he knew she was leading them down the right path. “Devour…” he repeated the name. “Devour.” He nodded after a moment. “You may call me Devour.”

MURMUR & HONESTY: When Murmur had asked him about not getting caught, he'd meant that he hadn't been caught by the staff here or by Cuphegor themselves. Honesty had understood what Murmur was asking too, but the creature's response made it seem like getting caught was more of a concern with their siblings than with the rulers of this realm. "You have siblings?" Honesty asked. She'd known that he gave off similar energy to the Void, but she hadn't considered the idea of them being siblings. That would've made her more scared if it didn't sound like he was concerned about his siblings doing something to him. "They aren't . . . around, are they?" She glanced around, but if they blended into shadows so easily, she was scared she wouldn't be able to see them easily.

"What are they like?" asked Murmur. "You said you were the absence of taste, right? So what are they? What was the Void?" Murmur had a lot of questions, and so did Honesty. Thankfully, they didn't throw out every single one they had all at once. They both knew too many questions could be overwhelming, but Murmur was more than a little excited by his answers. He wasn't perturbed by Honesty or Nadia's reaction to his explanation of eating out. He personally felt like he was being helpful by explaining it to they guy. It sounded like he experienced so little of life, and as much as Murmur wanted to hook up with him, he didn't want to feel like he was tricking him or trying to push him into something he didn't understand. He was like a virgin. He probably was a virgin if he didn't understand eating out. "The goal is mainly to make each other feel good, but the fluid, cum, is the signifier that you are doing that." Murmur grinned as he agreed to his offer. "Great! I'll show you a great time after we get some real food in you."

Honesty had to hide her face in her hands from the embarrassment of being around Murmur when he was like this. At least for now, it distracted her from her fear of the creature they were traveling with. "How are you just like Andras?"

"I learn from the best?" He answered with a grin. "He'd be proud of me." Honesty didn't feel like that was really a good thing here. "Technically, neither of us are children of God," he said as he indicated at himself and Nadia. "Her mom and dad are at that party, and my moms are . . . well one's basically dead, and the other one is double dead, but we're basically like . . . children of the community. There's more than a few people who look after us as if we were their children." He smiled when Devour seemed to like then name they'd picked out for him. "And how do we call you, Devour?" he asked, though he wasn't asking about his name. "You don't have a phone, right? Is there a way we can get in contact with you when we want to see you again?"

NADIA: She stiffened slightly when he mentioned his siblings. The way he spoke about them sounded a little bit like the way Ruby spoke about her father. Her sister also did things in secret with the hopes that her dad wouldn’t find out because she was afraid of what he might do if he did. It sounded like Devour held the same fear in regard to his siblings. She held onto her questions as Honesty and Murmur asked their own. Devour already seemed a bit skittish. If they went into interrogation mode, they might scare him.

She bit back her laughter when she saw Honesty’s secondhand embarrassment for Murmur. It was kind of sweet. At this point in her life, Nadia had witnessed Murmur embarrass himself so much that she hardly felt embarrassed on his behalf anymore. If you think this is bad, you should see him hit on the wood nymphs, she giggled through their mind connection. “If you’re still feeling a little hungry afterwards, just let me know,” she grinned innocently. She could feed him any which way he’d like. Maybe one day they’d show him the buffet that was an orgy.

She nodded her agreement when Murmur explained that neither of them were Children of God. “We’re more like…the Grandchildren of God though I wouldn’t even claim that title.” They were asking Devour a lot about his history, so it was only fair to exchange some of their own. “I’m from a subspecies called Lilim. We’re the children of fallen angels who mated with a being called Lilith. Depending on the strength of our angelic linage, some of us end up here in the Empty when we die so you might see a few of them walking around. Like Murmur’s mom, my biological dad’s is frozen in a state between life and death. And my biological mother hasn’t been seen in centuries. But my adoptive parents are here. The party we’re having is for the person that I, really we, choose to consider mom.” She knew she wasn’t the only one who considered Dagon in that way. Honesty had mentioned that she’d felt that way about Dagon too when she was alive. And Dagon cared for Murmur pretty similarly too. “Her name is Dagon. She’s got the snakes in her hair. She took over Belphegor’s position as the Demon Princess of Sloth. And the person that I choose to consider as my dad, his name is Beelzebub. He’s the Demon Prince of Gluttony. They’re very nice. I’ll introduce you sometime.” Nadia had enough sense to know that none of her family members would be too thrilled with the risk that she and the the others took on today but once they got to know a little bit about Devour she was sure they'd like him.

DEVOUR: “I have seven, but they are not here currently. Most of them do not venture into your territory.” Though there was talk of changing that. The dead were not native to this land even if their God placed them here. And after being under one oppressive being who kept them locked up, some of his siblings weren’t too keen on sharing land. They wanted their home and land back from the perceived colonizers. He hoped they wouldn’t do anything. They were vastly outnumbered. And having observed some of the older Children of God and the power they held, Devour could already tell that the fight would be bloody. He didn’t have it in him to fight after centuries of torment. He just wanted to eat. “They, too, are the absence of things such as sound, light, smell, touch, form, happiness, and thought. The Void…” his voice flattened as he tried to control his fear. “It was a pit of cruelty and the absence of empathy.” And I’m glad that it’s gone. He was afraid to say it out loud for fear that even in death the Void might hurt him. But his eyes showed enough.

He nodded when Murmur elaborated on the goal of the activity. “I look forward to trying your cum and I will repay the favor.” He was surprised when Nadia offered him seconds. He did not know why these beings were so generous to him, but he appreciated their kindness. It had been such a long time since anymore cared to be kind to him. “Thank you,” he replied with genuine gratitude. “I will.”

As they moved forward down the corridor he listened to the Children—Grandchildren—of God explain their origins. Fascinating. One was the offspring of two Children of God and the other was the offspring of a Child of God and another being. “Lilim. Yes, I believe I have seen a few.” He tilted his head to one side as she described how she’d chosen her other family. Community children. That was a new concept to him. He didn’t know it was even possible to designate familial roles to someone who wasn’t your family. Granted, for most of his life he didn’t have anyone except his siblings, but that was changing now that the Empty was free from the Void. He glanced up to where the party was still ongoing. So, this was for their chosen mother. And their chosen mother was someone who was taking over the Belphegors previous position. Things were making sense now. He’d seen the snake haired woman in the Empty a lot and she did appear to be close to the Belphegor. “Dagon. I’ve seen her too. She and the tall blonde one…they are prescriptive.” He thought they might’ve seen him more than a few times, but he always fled before he or they could confirm anything. He considered her offer as they stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. “If they are like you then yes, I would like to meet them someday.”

His brows knitted in confusion. “Phone?” He wasn’t sure what that was. There were no easy ways to reach one another here. The only people Devour really had to talk to were a handful of his siblings. “The Void cut off most ways of communicating here though The Empty can get you to me. But before I tell you how, I need you to promise me one thing.” He looked at them with upmost seriousness. “I’ve seen the wardings at the edge of your land. You must promise to stay within them. You cannot seek me in the forest. Do you understand?”

HONESTY & MURMUR: "Seven?" Honesty asked with horror. One of the Void was enough, but the idea of seven of his kind sounded terrifying. She was a little relieved to hear that they didn't venture into their territory, but it didn't make her any less scared of them. Devour had come all the way out here after all. What if the others did too?

Murmur found himself more intrigued by the list of Devour's siblings. "You and the absence of sound seem like you'd make up Nadia's dad together. He's always hungry, but he's so quiet when he moves that he scares her mom all the time without even trying." It was hard to imagine how some of the absences worked though. The absence of form sounded a little like the demons of hell who didn't fall from heaven and weren't born from Lilith. They didn't have full forms outside of Hell and could only go to earth if they possessed someone. "The absence of happiness sounds like Dagon's whole kingdom. They're all severely depressed too." He didn't think they couldn't experience happiness, but they were deprived of a lot of it. "And the absence of touch sounds like Valefar. She's not exactly my mom, but she took me in after I lost my moms. Whenever she touches someone or something she cares about, it turns to gold, so she tries not to touch anyone." It didn't stop some people, like his mom or Nadia's dad, from getting turned to gold though.

"And we already have the absence of thought right here," said Honesty as she patted Murmur's head. "Are you sure this isn't your sibling?" She felt like it had to be with how much he kept opening his mouth to say the worst things. It felt like a bad idea for him to be talking about Dagon's kingdom like that. He didn't seem to learn anything from how he'd talked about Nadia just a few minutes ago. Both Honesty and Murmur got a little quieter when Devour mentioned the Void. Murmur knew the Void was a sensitive subject for Honesty, and he watched her to make sure she was okay. For Honesty, her empathy outweighed her fear of Devour. She could tell by the way he talked that he must have had a horrible time with the Void too, even though it was his sibling. "But the Void's gone now, and it can't be cruel to us anymore," she said reassuringly to both Devour and herself.

She felt like she was going to be sick as Nadia also offered herself up as a meal for Devour. "Nadia, not you too. . ." she sighed.

Murmur couldn't help giggling as Nadia joined in with him on the offer. "I look forward to tasting yours too."

"If you want to kill me now, ceasing to exist doesn't sound that bad at the moment."

"She doesn't mean that." Murmur put his hand over her mouth, worried that Devour might take her seriously. He didn't think Devour wanted Honesty to die, but he could tell that the creature struggled to understand them and might take her words as a genuine request that would make her happy. Devour seemed to be doing most things that he thought would appease them.

Murmur could tell they were getting close to the kitchen now. The smells of cooked food were so strong. He'd eaten already, but his tummy still rumbled. "Asmo?" he asked, assuming that's who the tall blonde person was that Devour was talking about. "Or maybe Raphael. Or Ramiel?"

"Not if it's someone perceptive," Honesty muttered. She didn't remember a lot of what he'd been like before the war, but he didn't seem all that perceptive now. She mainly just heard him whining about how his best friend wouldn't come see him. "But I doubt he's going to know which one it is by their name anyways." How was Devour supposed to know who was who.

"Oh right," Murmur nodded. "Does he look like this?" He changed his form to look like Asmo, "or like this?" and then he looked like Raphael, though only for a moment before he was back to himself. It felt unnatural being in those forms. "Yeah, they look like this." He held up his phone. "I could give you mine and then-"

Honesty snatched his phone out of his hand before he could hand it off. "It's honestly too complicated to explain right now." It wasn't her only reason for stopping the hand off, but it really was complicated. She practically had to take a whole class on how to use those things, and she still didn't really understand them.

Murmur frowned. He tried to grab his phone back, but Honesty kept it away from him. He planned to steal it back when she wasn't paying attention, but he was perplexed by Devour's demand that they make a promise about not going into the forest. "No, not really. Why can't we go in the forest?" They would've already struggled to get through Belphegor's wardings keeping them in, but he wanted to know what they were supposed to be avoiding.

NADIA: She raised her brow at the mention of seven other siblings. That was definitely a lot more than expected. She wondered if Belphegor knew about them. They had to given how connected to the Empty they were. She didn’t know how much they knew but she knew this was an opportunity to gather more information for them. Perhaps if they collected enough history, the consequences of their actions tonight wouldn’t be so bad. “Are there anymore creatures out there like your siblings and you?” she asked.

She smiled and nodded her agreement when Murmur remarked that Devour and the sibling that was the absence of sound were similar to her dad. “It’s pretty funny,” she grinned when he brought up how that combination of things often led to her dad scaring the shit out of Dagon. She gave a look that conveyed I mean, he’s not wrong when he remarked that Dagon’s kingdom sounded like the sad guy. “They’re on the mend though,” she threw in. Perhaps his sad sibling would find something to bring him joy too. Maybe they could help him. “That’s how our parents got stuck in that state between life and death. They’re frozen in gold,” she added for context.

She bit back a laugh when Honesty remarked that they had the absence of thought here with Murmur. “You beat me to the joke by like half a second,” she giggled. Her smile faultered when he brought up the Void. She got the sense that despite being the Void’s sibling, he did not have a good time under the Void’s rule. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, Belphegor isn’t anything like that. They struggle to understand some things about emotion from time to time, but they are not cruel.”

Her smile returned when Honesty started complaining about the flirting. “I’m being hospitable,” she grinned. She nearly choked on how sincere Devour’s promise was that he looked forward to the activity. It reminded her a lot of Belphegor before they had Asmo’s grace. She was pretty sure if she could just get Devour to meet with Bells, they’d get on swimmingly. But for now she at least got him to agree to meet with her parents. “They’re very much like us,” she grinned. “I’ll let them know and maybe we can set up lunch one day. My dad loves any ol’ reason to cook.” He might not be pleased with this one but he’d understand.

She wasn’t surprised Devour had seen Dagon around. She spent a lot of time in the Empty with Belphegor and their twin. Nadia couldn’t help the pang of jealousy as Murmur began to change his forms to try to pinpoint who the other person was. That was a talent Nadia did not possess as a half breed. But that wasn’t Murmur’s fault so she pushed the feeling away. “Preceptive sounds like Raphael. They’re an Archangel. They along with my mom have an ability to read emotions. Sort of like the opposite of the Void. I imagine my mom must’ve felt your hunger and thought you were my dad.” If he kept hiding in the shadows while he was hungry, he probably ran the risk of Dagon’s snakes coming at him because they thought Beel was messing around. Or Dagon might bring it up to Beel that he was being weird hiding in the shadows. Nadia smiled at the confusion that might cause.

Nadia gave a tiny applause at the quick speed at which Honesty snatched the phone from Murmur. Death had not dulled that reflex at least. Phones were a hard concept to pick up and there were still a lot of security risks. They’d have to go with some of the older methods of communicating. “We can leave you food with hidden messages at a designated drop off spot. One of my Knights did that with his sister after the war and it worked out for them.” She raised a brow when he remarked that they had to promise to stay away from the forest. Nadia wasn’t going to lie. She’d gone down to where the wardings were. They were pretty impenetrable. “I’ve heard my parents talking about what’s beyond the wardings. They said something about God’s wasteland. Creatures that he scrapped. Is that what we should be avoiding?”

DEVOUR: “There are all manners of creatures here, but none quite like my siblings,” he replied. He had yet to meet any that were more than beasts. He listened as Murmur related his siblings to things that were similar in his own world. It would appear their lands were not all that different. “The intangible is known to do similar things,” he remarked when they brought up the quiet footed sneaker. “But I do not feel his energy here tonight,” he assured them. It saddened him to hear about an entire kingdom that lacked a certain degree of happiness like his own sibling. He hadn’t seen that particular sibling in a very long time actually. He wondered if perhaps the Numbness was dead. “I’m glad to hear they are healing from their troubles.” If the Numbness was alive, perhaps they would heal too one day. His brows furrowed in concern when they brought up the Child of God known as Valefar. “And what of her favorite food? Does that turn to gold too?” That sounded heartbreaking.

He chuckled when the small one joked about Murmur possibly being one of his siblings. “He still has too much forethought to truly be the thoughtless,” he replied though he did not meet her eyes as he spoke. “The thoughtless would not remember they even met with you once you are no longer in his presence. He’s harmless as long as you keep your wits about you. Though, I don’t think you’ll see him much. He will likely never be able to follow the path here without getting distracted.” His eyes finally met the small ones when she remarked that the Void could no longer be cruel to them. He nodded softly before averting his gaze once again. His attention turned to Nadia as she began her defense of the Belphegor. He wasn’t sure what to think. “The Void seemed to believe they were kindred spirits…” he remarked. His sibling had been obsessed with the Belphegor, but if they truly were Kindred then the Belphegor would’ve have just continued the Void’s torture cycle. They hadn’t…at least not yet.

His brows rose when Honesty asked to be killed. Up until this point, she seemed very frightened of that possibility. He nodded in confused understanding when Murmur remarked that she did not actually mean it. That was a relief. He had the stomach for a lot of things, but violence was not one of them these days. “Will you get in trouble?” he asked when Nadia remarked that she would set up lunch and let her parents know. He did not want any of them to be brutalized for his transgressions.

He observed Murmur attentively as he changed from form to form. He knew most of these individuals could manipulate their forms, but he rarely saw it occurring. Most seemed to stay in one stable, comfortable form. “Raphael,” he nodded in confirmation. “They were the other.” He was utterly fascinated when Nadia explained why it felt like those two were staring right at him when they looked into the shadows. “Empaths,” he marveled. “I did not know such creatures existed. And they are close with the Belphegor?” To have something be the antithesis of everything his brother was and to have those people be the closest to the Belphegor. Perhaps there was merit in what Nadia was saying about the Belphegor. Still, he couldn’t shake all of his fear. Meeting the Grandchildren of God was one thing. He could downplay the encounter to his siblings if they found out but meeting the Belphegor was both frightening and hard to downplay.

He glanced briefly at the thing called the phone. He was going to examine it when Honesty took it away. Apparently, there was a learning curve to it. He trusted her judgement on that front. He nodded in agreement with Nadia’s idea about hidden messages in the food. “There is a small creek near the edge where our lands meet yours. It’s still within your boundaries. You may leave food there and I will come to collect it and meet you appropriately. Should you need me more urgently, you may place your wishes and manifestations in the pebbles near the creek and toss them into the waters. The Empty will carry the message to me,” he instructed. “Your parents are right. There are creatures in there that are dangerous, but none more than some of my siblings. I do not wish to frighten you. Not all of us are like the Void, but there are some among my ranks who do not like the noise. You must promise me you will never go into the woods,” he urged again. It was clear that their promise was perhaps more important to him than any food they might have to offer.

HONESTY & MURMUR: Devour's response was both a relief and a concern for Honesty. She was glad that there weren't too many things out there like the Void, but that didn't mean the other creatures were any less dangerous. At least the others didn't seem to be here either.

"Dagon will be glad for that." Murmur didn't think Dagon would've been happy about someone else sneaking up on her, so he hoped the intangible kept their distance. "Yeah, it's a slow progress, but the same goes for most of the people here. We're trying to get them all help, but you can't expect progress that fast." It was possible some of them wouldn't actually improve at all. Some of them had to be kept asleep for the fact that they just couldn't handle being awake. "It's a little complicated." Murmur rubbed the back of his neck and frowned as he thought about how to best explain it. "She can eat, and a lot of the food she eats is really delicious, but the way her curse works matters more on how much she values something or cares about it. She likes a lot of foods, but she doesn't really . . . care that much about them. I know you haven't had a lot of food you could taste, but back where we're from, we have these things called comfort foods. They're not necessarily our favorite foods, but they're foods that usually make us feel good, and, well, comforted. They might be different foods at different times too depending on your mood, so for Valefar, she tends to be careful about what she eats. I don't think she really has favorite foods anymore. Once it becomes a value to her, it does turn to gold, and she can't eat it anymore. She usually eats something different every day, so she can't form attachments to the food." It didn't stop that from happening sometimes though. He'd seen her get halfway through a meal before it turned to gold. She didn't feel like eating for a while after that. "Luckily, it's not like she has to eat. If she doesn't eat, it doesn't hurt her, and she can find other things to comfort her, like shopping. Or she'll just spend some time with her siblings. She can't touch them, but it keeps her from feeling to lonely just to be around them."

Honesty felt sympathetic to Valefar as Murmur explained her condition. She had heard about Valefar's curse, but while it had sounded sad originally, she hadn't really thought that deeply about it. To not be able to be touched by anyone you cared about did sound lonely. She couldn't recall what Valefar had been like before she died, but she imagined the change to not being able to touch anyone you loved was a hard one. She hadn't considered the fact that it didn't just extend to people either. You couldn't get comfort even from food from how Murmur described it. Honesty had been picking on Murmur a lot, but this also made her aware of the fact that he could never have gotten so much as a hug from her either. She wasn't going to give him a hug herself, but she felt bad for him, at least until Devour said he had too much forethought to be the thoughtless, and Murmur gave the most prideful grin. "Maybe a distant cousin then," she allowed.

While Honesty was uncomfortable when Belphegor was around, it wasn't because she thought they were personally like the Void. It was just because they carried its energy. "From someone who has been around them both, they're nothing alike. When I was alive, Belphegor was a healer. They still are. All the Void knows how to do is hurt people. Belphegor might not have understood a lot of their own emotions or others, but they always tried to understand. They've been spending so much time trying to help everyone here in the Empty, and if you want to see how loving they are, just watch them with Cupid."

Murmur thought about it for a moment. Would they get in trouble? Probably. Valefar tended to get more upset about those kinds of things than Dagon and Beel did. She'd probably give him a stern talking to, but it wasn't anything too bad. "They might give us a lecture about talking to strangers from the Empty, but it's not like we aren't adults. We can make our own decisions. We used our best judgement to figure out you don't mean any harm, and we didn't get hurt, so no harm no foul, right?" he shrugged. If they had gotten hurt, that might've been a different story. "We'll be okay. Even if they do get mad at us, they're just looking out for us because they love us."

Honesty nodded when Devour asked about Belphegor being close to Dagon and Raphael. A lot of her memories weren't entirely there anymore, but there were some things she remembered. Because of how close she'd been to Dagon, it was easier to remember the other two. "Yeah, a lot of the healers are empaths. Belphegor was kinda the odd one out on that, but it didn't stop them from being one of the best healers. Raphael's one of their older siblings, and Dagon's their best friend."

Honesty recalled the creek he was talking about. She didn't usually get that close to it. Something about the water was off-putting to her. It had a similar energy to the Void, and sometimes she felt like it was watching her. It didn't help that it was at the edge of the boundaries Belphegor had made, which made it feel even spookier. She wasn't sure she'd be too keen about going there again, but if Dagon and Beel were there, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. She would've felt a little safer that way. She was getting a little more used to being around Devour too. He was starting to feel less like a monster and more like a person. It seemed like he did care, and he didn't want them doing anything dangerous either.

Murmur was curious how the water would get the message to Devour, but he thought he might just get to witness how it worked when they'd go to do it. He wondered what kind of creatures were out there. Surely if Devour was so nice, maybe some of those creatures would be just as nice too. He was excited by the idea that he might get to meet some of Devour's nicer siblings too. If they looked as good as Devour did, he didn't think he'd mind too much if some of the meaner ones roughed him up a little either. It sucked that he wasn't supposed to go into those woods. Being told not to only made him want to do it more.

"We won't," Honesty promised, and she meant it. She had no reason to ever want to go out of the safety she had now. "After today, they'll probably treat us more like Zoph and have someone keeping an eye on us at all times, so we don't do something like that."

NADIA: She nodded, grateful that there weren’t too many beings out there like him. The last thing the Empty needed was more things that could hurt the people here. Granted, seven siblings was a hefty number. That was the same amount as the Demon Princes of Hell. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. If Belphegor let them meet with Devour a few more times, maybe they could get a grasp on the level of power of these beings.

She smiled when he voiced concerns about Valefar’s ability to eat her favorite foods. He’d fit in very well with the Kingdom of Gluttony because they, too, were concerned about that. Her smile faded a little bit when Murmur began to describe the limitations that Valefar’s curse placed upon her. “We’re working on finding a cure for her curse, but we haven’t had much luck. In the meantime, my Uncle Asmo gave us these,” she pulled out a plastic skeleton hand from her satchel. “It’s not much, but we use them to give Valefar assurance and high fives.” She demonstrated by patting Murmur’s shoulder with the skeleton hand. “And sometimes to annoy her.” She used the pointer finger of the skeleton hand to give Murmur a wet willy. “It’s the least we can do,” she giggled.

“Too much forethought to be the Thoughtless. Amazing. Well, at least you still have object permanence, dear,” she grinned at Murmur. She nodded her agreement to Honesty’s defense of Belphegor. “I’ve never met the Void, but I grew up with Belphegor, Bells—that’s what we call them. They’re genuine. A little cranky at times, but I think that’s cause I overwhelm them. Still, I know they love me. Our family fucked up and kept a lot from them about the Void. For a while, I didn’t think Bells or my mom would forgive any of them, but they did because family is important to them. The wellbeing of this place is important to them. Keep watching and you’ll see,” she promised.

She took his question into consideration. There was a likelihood that they would get in trouble, but she didn’t think it would be terrible. Belphegor could ban them from the Empty, but she would wear them down in time. Being banned might be a fitting punishment for her and Murmur but it wasn’t really fair to Honesty to lose her friends after having lost so much. It wouldn’t take too much work to get Belphegor to see that and relent. “Yeah, I’m sure there will be consequences, but they’ll be mild. We were stupid but we were smart about it,” she reasoned. “I don’t really like keeping secrets from my dad. It’s better if we come clean to them than if they find out by another means.”

She smiled as he marveled at the ideas of empaths. She could see that it appealed to him that there were beings out there that were the opposite of the Void. “They’re Belphegor’s top advisors,” Nadia said proudly. It was proof that Belphegor and the Void couldn’t be Kindred. The Void would never surround itself with empaths. “And Belphegor’s wife, Cupid, she’s the angel of love. Her existence makes love of all kinds possible.” She didn’t think the Void was capable of love, but Belphegor was not only capable of it, they were married to it.

Nadia tried to visualize the creek. It took her a moment, but she was able to recall its placement. She nodded at Devour’s instructions. Pebble messages in case of emergency and food for all other messages. They could do that. She wasn’t surprised that not all of Devour’s siblings liked the new arrangements. In a way, the dead did not belong here, but they hadn’t chosen this as their final resting place. God had. However, in Nadia’s opinion, if they weren’t meant to be here, the power of the Empty would’ve gone back to the next in line in the Void’s family, not to Belphegor. “We’ll keep our distance from the woods,” she promised. “Are there any particular siblings of yours we should absolutely steer clear of?”

DEVOUR: He listened to Murmur describe Valefar’s affliction. It sounded terrible and extended far beyond the reach of just not being able to eat her favorite meals. It sounded like a truly awful existence, like one of the Void’s designs. “I do not understand,” he replied. “Why would their Father God make them like that?” Devour’s knowledge of God was limited. The Void had ensured they had very little information about God or his children. All that Devour knew was that the Children of God existed and at some point they started appearing in this realm in droves. It was not long after that that all of them became enslaved by the Void. He observed the plastic hand as Nadia pulled it out of her satchel and explained the sentimental value behind it. “I’m sorry, I ate the other.” He seemed to get smaller, as if he was afraid he would be punished for his transgression. The hand which he’d eaten had no flavor and he really had no way of making up for what he’d done. Thankfully it appeared that his transgression did not seem to sour her mood.

He tilted his head as he observed the two teasing the young male. Their words could be construed as harsh, but their delivery wasn’t. He did not really understand their bond for he did not have a similar relationship with his siblings. His siblings words and their delivery of those words were always matched in cruelty. He listened quietly as the two provided their testimonials about the Belphegor. Perhaps they were right. The Void’s judgment couldn’t be trusted. The way it saw things was always twisted. Perhaps it saw more of itself in the Belphegor than was actually there. The Void was no healer nor was it capable of forgiveness when you wronged it. He nodded his agreement. He would have to keep watching and see for himself.

He appeared relieved when they remarked that their punishments would be mild. He had a hard time imagining that, but they seemed confident in their answers. It would appear that they were raised to be honest despite knowing that there were consequences to that. Someone out there either made them feel safe enough to be honest or scared enough to never lie. He hoped it was the former rather than the latter. “I apologize for any trouble, mild or otherwise,” he offered.

He was surprised when Nadia brought up that the Belphegor was married to an angel that represented love. He had a hard time wrapping his head around that one. The Void would never marry a love entity. He was pretty sure the Void had no idea what love—platonic, familial, or romantic—even was. It seemed obsessed with the Belphegor, but Devour did not think that was love so much as it was a claim of ownership. “My sibling would have never been capable of such a thing. You’ve given me much to sort out,” he agreed. “You can tell them I mean no harm. If, after this, they wish me to stay off their lands I will do so.” He wasn’t ready to swear fealty to this new ruler, but he wouldn’t disobey their wishes.

He nodded, satisfied with their promise to keep away from the woods. He thought about her question carefully. He had conflicted feelings when it came to many of his siblings, but it still felt wrong to talk ill of them. Instead, he decided to just provide information. “The darkness does not like all of the light and color you’ve brought with you. The odorless finds the smell of this place overwhelming. The incorporeal longs to have substance, but I don’t think there’s anything in your lands that can give him what he wants so he’s likely to stay away. They are not always terrible, but your world is overwhelming to them,” he explained as gently as he could.

HONESTY & MURMUR: Murmur squirmed when Nadia put the skeleton hand in his ear. He snatched it away from her before smacking her on the back of the head with it. Honesty took it away from both of them. "He didn't originally make them like that. Val used to be able to touch people just fine. She actually was very touchy. She loved physical affection." Honesty wasn't there when Valefar's curse first started though, she didn't exactly see what happened, and Dagon didn't tell her all of the details.

Murmur didn't know all of the details of the curses either. He was just a child when he started, but in the midst of the trio, he was the only one alive when Valefar's curse started. His mom was one of the first of Valefar's knights to rush to her aid when she'd turned the first person to gold. They hadn't actually known what was going on or the fact that simply touching her would condemn them to a life as a golden statue. They'd simply thought their prince was under attack. For a while, they still didn't understand what happened. A lot of them thought it might've been a delayed result of the fall. Some of them thought that one of Valefar's enemies put a curse on her. Being a child who'd lost his last remaining parent, he was confused during a lot of that time, and it wasn't until Lucifer's curse came to light that Murmur really started understanding it. "God's a lot more like the Void. He didn't care about them. He just wanted to punish them for disobeying him. They went against him, and he made them suffer for it. He's not a good guy, but I guess he's gone now at least."

Honesty still had some reservations about Devour. She wasn't going to say she trusted him completely, but she was more relaxed around him now. "It's okay," she nodded. She wasn't really scared of whatever kind of discipline they might receive from Dagon and the others, though she was worried about how her siblings might feel. She had kind of disappeared after walking away from the group. "I'm sure they'll appreciate that." Like herself, she didn't think Belphegor would necessarily believe that statement on its own, but Devour's actions would speak louder than words. "I think as long as you don't scare the residents, you should be okay." Honesty frowned at Devour's description. She felt almost bad for them. They didn't choose for anyone to be here, and she knew what it was like to feel so overwhelmed, but the Empty was a big place. there was plenty of room for everyone.

NADIA: She gave Murmur her most offended scowl when he smacked her with the plastic hand. She was about to go rummaging for the other plastic hand so she could do battle when Devour remarked that he ate it. "It's alright," she assured him. "We have a reserve back home." She'd find one that Val already turned to gold and enact her vengeance upon Murmur with that one.

She nodded along when Honesty explained what Valefar was like before the curse. Nadia didn't know that Valefar because her aunt had been afflicted with the curse since before Nadia's existence. She did hear stories though that suggested Aunt Val was very affectionate before everything. "He's an awful being." Her voice shook with emotion, not just for the curses God had dealt out but also for the unforgivable things he'd done to her dad too. "If there's anyone that's Kindred to the Void it would be Him."

Her features softened once again when Devour apologized for the trouble he felt he was causing them. He apologized quite a lot for things that weren't his fault. "Don't worry about us. We'll be okay. Are you going to be okay when you leave here?" The Void was gone but he still seemed like he was afraid of something out there. He was choosing his words carefully when it came to talking about his siblings which was fair. Nadia was also choosing her words carefully when deciding what to reveal about her family.

She nodded when he remarked that his siblings were overwhelmed by their world. "My mom gets like that too sometimes. She picks up more than she wants to with her abilities and it can hurt her or others." Nadia had been instructed to not tell anyone under any circumstances just how Dagon's depression manifestation was being kept in check nor how she was able to get in and out of the Empty freely. But she could reveal other things. "We have wardings designed to create safe spaces and quiet zones for people like her." Nadia touched the door frame to the kitchen and activated the warding in question. "Maybe my family can find something that can help damper the effects of our existence on your kin." That way maybe Devour's family would be less cranky and he wouldn't be so scared. "You don't have to decide now though." He'd only just met them. She was sure there was a lot of trust building that still needed to happen before he fully believed in their benevolence. "It's just food for thought, I guess," she grinned. "And speaking of food..." she pushed the doors to the kitchen open. "I'm starving. Come on, let's see what we can find." / END

#discord chat #discord: nadia #discord: tenacity #discord: murmur #discord: seir #discord: honesty #discord: courage #discord: zophiel #discord: devour

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