#manna fic

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: STEAK

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon/rape, abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, death mentions, Stockholm Syndrome, nonconsensual choking

Read after the cut

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Will forces the stiff brooch of your fingers to open, uncovering the flattened clot of meat and the grease sodden note within. The ink is still clear against the page despite your efforts to ball it up in your palm.

Will reads it, his eye line cutting zigzags across your questionable calligraphy.

“One,” he says, and you take a fumbling step towards the stairwell in want of sanctuary from that solitary word.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, throttling the bannister in your grip. “This is a good idea, right? This is how you prove to Jack that there’s human meat in the house. This is how you prove for sure that Hannibal’s the Copycat and the Ripper.”

You believe the doctor is wise enough to have cleared the basement of evidence in readiness for his guests’ arrival, and know not to bank on it to buy your way out of your imprisonment.

“I told you not to act without me,” says Will. “I should have known you’d disregard me at the first opening.”

His words are like a robber’s knife, going in and in with spiteful jerks.

“But I didn’t do it in the end,” you protest. “I changed my mind. I turned around. Jack doesn’t know anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. Go upstairs and wait for me in Hannibal’s room.”

Your chest constricts at the command.

“Why his room and not my own?”

Will’s lip draws back from closed white teeth, and the threat of him is ozone in the air.

“You know why. Go. And if you disobey me this time not even Hannibal will hold me back from what I’ll do, so don’t bother hiding under his skirts. Move.”

Made pathetic by despair you say, “Don’t do this. You love me, Daddy.”

"And you threw that right in my face. What's the matter with you?"

There is no trace of understanding in the boil of his gaze, nothing of the alliance you’d been so close to cementing behind Hannibal’s back. Whatever that was in its brevity has run from him like liquor from a shattered glass. You cannot pick up the shards, either of you. All that would come of it would be blood.

"You're crazy," you whisper, and Will lunges as though to snatch you up by your neck.

With a squeak you clear the stairs three at a time, crawling the top ones on your gut like a toddler, unable to walk.

You lock yourself into Hannibal's ensuite bathroom and stand heaving chlorinated air, your hands compressing your stomach. Through the freakish eye of your disorder your reflection in the mirror above the sink is a sweating gourd, grossly rotund.

You are surely no good for eating; perhaps that is the reason you will survive this new stupidity of yours, and no other.

Gripped by an awful tension you listen to the ambiguous noises of the occupants on the floors below, chuntering what prayers you remember to what Gods have died in place of the new.

Already you know the motions at work beneath you, how Will must lean into the ear of his friend to whisper of your duplicity, how together they will devise some way to have Jack take a premature leave of the house.

You’d known even as you'd thought to place the paper kiss of Judas in his pocket that you’d be whipped for it by means literal or otherwise. Yet you think you’d rather take leather to the back than be humiliated by sex, so personal and eroding an attack as you take it to be.

They wash you of yourself through such intimacy, your jailers, intend to complete your transformation into their loyal bride until, so wed, you lose the ability to hate them.

Suddenly you miss your parents with an acuteness that brings you to tears. Yet you'd been so scarcely consoled by either mother or father even as an infant that you realise with a choke of horror that it is your abusers you would go to for such love.

You sink down against the shower door, taking comfort in the pain of your spine taking the glass, a kind of penance.

An hour scrapes by, a second, a third. Footfalls rise under you, and doors clap open and shut in their frames.

Voices start up outside the locked bathroom with a suddenness that drives your teeth into your lip against the scream that would otherwise bring you to further shame. Silence is courage of a kind your impulsive nature rarely allows you to keep; it would not be so bad a time to hold it now, you think.

"She's hiding from us," says Hannibal on the other side of the door.

"From you," Will corrects. "Like a child afraid of nightmares.”

“The child she is. I'm surprised we haven’t found her under the bed."

Their mocking you is only the prelude to a harm of brutal extremity, yet you put your hands across your face until tears roll through your closed fingers.

A polite knock strikes the door above your head.

"Come out, Little One. If I must break in to get you out then I'll be far angrier with you then I am presently."

Hannibal’s voice is soft, almost humorous, and for this reason you doubt his rage could be greater if you’d spat in his eye with an oath.

Continuing in that same amiable tone he says, "I know you didn’t go through with your betrayal, which Will and I have taken into account. But you must come out to face us both. You’re adult enough for that."

You answer in a strained, percussive whisper.

"I can't."

“By force or by your own decision you must leave that room,” says Hannibal patiently. “It would degrade both yourself and us if you insist upon the former.”

Will remains silent, his disgust so loud as to speak on his behalf.

There is little aim in examining your options, being that both end with you under a man.

Exhausted, you accept that it was your very foot that tipped the bucket beneath the gallows and, in defeat, open the door.

You see Hannibal peering down at you with the visage of a cemetary angel before Will seizes hold of you, setting you roughly on your back upon the bed. He leans across you, making a lock of your arms in his own, and the stench of him—fish dinner, wood smoke, snow-soaked dog hair, and drink—buries you so densely that you feel like the same animal he is.

He presses his leering face to yours and there is still love in it, that of the autumn killing dream.

“Fight me if you want to,” he says. “Haven’t you figured out that’s what we want by now?”

“I see you’ve reverted to your previous role,” Hannibal comments as you rigidify in Will’s arrest.

“I never really gave it up,” Will answers. “Did you expect me to?”

“I did not, but I’m interested to know why you returned to it so soon. Were you so compelled by her suffering that you couldn’t restrain the urge to correct her mistakes, or were you grasping for a dominance you feared you’d lose through neglect of that power over her?”

Will’s eyebrows start a yard up his forehead.

“We’re both her fathers. That implies an equal standing, unless you’re feeling a particular impulse to submit.”

Hannibal’s gaze pours over Will like resin—searching—hoping for confirmation of an erotic inference.

“Can’t say that I am,” he says at last. “It’s never served me to yield. In the interest of my professional and personal endeavours I find myself needing to be in full control of all variables.”

"And yet she still slipped through your hands, or almost did. She would have sold both of us to Jack, and it's on you for trusting her to wander away from the table without making sure she stayed in her room. Are you losing your head, Dr Lecter?"

"No more than you are. You too left her alone long enough to form dangerous ideas and to act upon them, or near enough. We both hoped that she would develop loyalty to the family by now, and we've each found that hope shattered."

"You hoped," says Will, and he twists the cord of your arms for emphasis. "I doubted. But our problem isn't with her lacking the right emotions. It's that she still thinks she can cut us off like a teenage runaway whenever she feels like it. She's a brat. We haven't purged that trait, and if we haven't succeeded at this stage I doubt we ever will."

"Nevertheless we should persevere with our attempts to tame it, somewhat," says Hannibal dryly. "I believe it’s high time we begin."

Upon that verbal cue Will pulls a thick roll of packing tape from his pocket, brought with him from his home with the clear intent to use should such an event as this arise; he’d already been in doubt of your demure turn in behaviour and had kept his ears pricked for its merest change. That same knowing is in his eyes as he leans on you to tie your wrists together, near winding you with the force of his weight.

As soon as it lifts again you suck in a litre of air and begin to plead with them both.

"I know I shouldn't have done it, I know, I know, it was really bad, but I turned back, right? I did, I—"

"I should tape your mouth, too," Will says. "But Dr Lecter thinks that's a bad idea."

“Her airways must be clear,” says Hannibal with evident regret. “We can experiment with that notion in the near future.”

Thinking of his expensive toys you shudder deeply. A gag or bit between your teeth, the straps cutting the membrane of skin at your lips’ outer corners—

“No,” you say. “Please. Hannibal— Daddy—"

Will drags your head upright, and Hannibal stoops down so close that he could kiss you on the mouth if he were so inclined.

Instead he only says, “Through us you’ll receive absolution. You’d respect us far less if we withheld this from you.”

Then he touches your neck the way he did the day he’d asked how you would kill him, pressing gently down on either side of it until you thrash, light-headed, in the grace of his hand.

The flat gems of Will’s eyes watch, intent, and one of his arms twitches as if restraining the urge to pull the other man away from you, or else to him.

“Grasp her like this,” says Hannibal. “A slight pressure is all that’s needed.”

For an instant you are rendered unconscious, in a state of calm and terrible bliss. How they frighten you with the helplessness of falling into that space of not quite sleep, extending their control over not only your body but your wakefulness, as well.

You can’t deny you would have asked for this in more consensual circumstances. In your old life you’d watched a specific clip over and over you’d found of a pretty actress taken roughly in some false dungeon and had placed your own fingers around your throat until you came.

But in that video the performers had been subtly attentive to each other with gestures and murmured check-ins. Rather gentle, in retrospect.

It’s doubtful these men will ever ask for your agreement. They plunder and consume and have killed with the same irreverence; to ask if you’ll allow your own rape is illogical, a black sort of joke.

Hannibal removes his hand from your throat, then, and without hesitation Will’s takes its place, squeezing far tighter than is necessary to replicate the desired effect.

You go limp within seconds of this, your gaze roaming over the light feature above you as your body jerks with the spasms of an inexistent electrocution.

Without a hint of his previous trepidation Will slaps your cheek to wake you. You rouse slowly, unwillingly; it’s easier to be out than aware of him in his anger with you.

“No more,” you whimper. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it—”

“If you did I’d start again with something else,” says Will bluntly. “I’m tired of you pissing on every rule we set for you.”

Again he chokes you in and out of that cursed quarter sleep.

Observing, Hannibal says, “Penetrate her.”

"Gladly," Will replies, and with a nasty smile on his lips he lets himself free of his clothes.

You kick at him weakly, not daring to strike the groin or his belly lest you enrage him all the more. He throws your legs apart with ease and snaps the elastic of your undergarments, uncaring of the expense, which is vast.

Then with his hand a gorget around your gasping throat he perforates your resistance, his lean form a weapon of adrenaline. You flail in the maelstrom of him, buffeted by the strike of his palm dredging you out from each choking attack.

For him to have almost lost access to your body, to have been deprived of what is already rationed by his work— he’d love to core your innards with his knife and teach you through death what a bitch you’ve been to scorn him.

But then again perhaps it wouldn’t be a blade he’d employ; from the feel of him you think he’d use his hands.

His beautiful face is pale with a yearning for slaughter as he licks your skin of its taste. Weak from his fucking and the rounds of suffocation you sprawl, a boneless corpse hung upon his cock. Your cunt is a channel of aching.

Hannibal only watches this go on; you're vaguely surprised that he does not touch himself, nor does he say a word throughout the rape.

Only his eyes communicate their want— not for you, but for the man that takes you like a conquering soldier, wishful that he were the one to endure his power.

Will ends the act while you're passed out upon him, slowing to an idle stir of his hips as he fills you with white warmth. When your eyes are too slow to open he catches you by the chin and shakes you about.

"Why do you have to make us so ashamed of you?"

You should laugh in his face, call him a killer again, but you only cry limply, stung by the coarseness of his voice.

As Will stands Hannibal makes as if to have his turn.

"Don't touch her," snaps Will.

The older man stops at once.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

Nonplussed, Hannibal turns his head aside as though the angle will assist him to understand.

"May I ask the reason?"

Working up his zipper, Will says, "We aren't where we were with our friendship. The time erased from memory— I'll never get it back. You stole it from me, health and reason, too. I resent how little any of it’s affected you. You’ve lost nothing, and I think maybe you should.”

"I'd like us to begin anew," says Hannibal, and it occurs to you that he is pleading; he may as well be on his knees. "To progress from my misjudgement we can only advance and establish a new way of being."

Will’s mouth warps in a grim smirk.

"It's not that simple. You benefit from my presence here with you, and with her. You've orchestrated every moment of this relationship and feasted upon it like an emperor. For once I want to see you go hungry."

Astonished by the development of this conversation you glance at Hannibal, picking apart each mite gesture of stress in his composure.

"Very well,” he says. “I starved profoundly, as a boy."

Sympathy brushes Will's expression, buried quickly under hard disinterest.

"Then you'll survive."

He swivels to leave, ignoring the trembling heap of you on the bed, the piteous hand extended like the paw of a menagerie animal through the bars.

"You're going?" asks Hannibal.

"The dogs miss me. Winston keeps running away. Can’t let it happen again.”

"And when will you return to us?"

The rapidity of Hannibal’s questions, though spoken entirely without emotion, gives away his distress at being left so abruptly and in obvious discord.

"I'll be by in a couple of days," says Will. "Whenever Jack's squeezed me dry of all I’m worth."

He lets himself out of the house alone, coolly satisfied with his retribution.

In silence Hannibal approaches the bed to untie you and smooth your dress back down over your bare legs again. That he doesn't assault you even after Will has left and is unable to see the act fills you with an inappropriate hilarity. Of the two almost lovers Hannibal— the eater of flesh—is so serious in his submission to the other's desires that he enacts his will like a ritual, private, but nevertheless in hope of it being recognised.

He has you follow him to your own room and bids you to sit as he takes away each of your books and records to lock up in a cabinet along the hallway.

"You'll consume only what I decide for you until I see proof that you’ve learned from this evening," he says. "I think we’ll also return to regular therapy."

You don't argue, merely sit upon your mattress, a doleful waxwork, too stunned by what's occurred to offer a response.

"I read your journal," says Hannibal, suddenly. "There were some interesting ideas covered in even those short entries. I'd like you to continue penning your thoughts."

Stirring, you say numbly, "What's the point? My writing is awful. Even though it's just supposed to be a diary I can't stand hearing my own voice. I wish I was good at it, you know? Poetic, I guess."

It is odd to hold such a dialogue with the doctor after he conducted such sadism upon you through his friend. You are used to it, however, this domestic order of evil.

"Artistic skill comes with practice," says Hannibal. "A worthy exercise is to study a piece of work you admire and attempt to replicate it. For instance, you could take any sentence you like and rewrite it in the style of Nabokov or Dostoevsky to better understand their methods."

You pull a face.

"I don't want to be a mimic, though. I want my own way of writing."

"By breaking down the construction of literature and the patterns within it you'll begin to see how you can apply similar—though not identical—practices to your own work. All the greats have done so with those they admire."

Something of this conversation leads your mind on another track, one connected through the canon of a more vicious form of art.

"Dad," you say. "I'm the Lover's second muse, aren't I? That’s why you’ve involved yourself in the case. It's so obvious. I'm not just a distraction to the killer; he’s been interested in me long before you or Will ever met me. That's why the second wave of girls look like me, and it’s part of the reason why you agreed to accept me for treatment.

“The minute you saw my case and realised who I was you took me from the Lover right from under his nose just because you could. You didn’t want him to kill me before he finished creating enough dolls for him to show Will who he is. You knew I was the perfect gift for him."

Hannibal makes a militantly neat pile of the last of your books and brushes down their spines with his hand.

"Yes," he says. "I did."

Part of you had known it always, had sought out what detail of you raised you beyond the tossing out of the class of Rude to which you belong.

"Jack and Will know, don't they?" you ask. "They know who I am to the Lover."

"They've suspected for some time. Having looked at all the Lover killings anew it's become clearer still. Will chose to conceal this information believing you were not mature enough to bear so sinister a burden. I imagined you'd guess but preferred to allow that thought to develop without my interference and so cause you less harm.”

Your pulse is a drunken rhythm in your temporal membrane; you put your hands to your ears, uncertain how to be rid of a noise inside your own head.

“That’s why you weren’t afraid to speak so openly about the killer in front of me,” you say. “You were never lying about your theories, exactly; you were testing out alternatives to be sure the one you had was right.”

“Just so. Two of the Lover’s past victims were old classmates of yours; it was only missed because both girls had switched schools many times. One of them changed her name when she and her mother fled from domestic violence in her teens.

“The other you knew when you were so young I doubt you remember her, and besides, you were a lonely child and wouldn’t have thought of her as a particular friend. Most of the girls who have been killed are strangers to you. The Lover wasn’t such a fool as to play his hand too openly.”

Dazed, you spill back upon the bed, drawing the sheets over your eyes.

"All this time you've tried to make out you took me because you thought you could help me, but really it's because you liked the idea of me being yours and not his.”

Your tone—brash, accusatory—is met with unsettling calm.

"That's only one reason. The others remain to be true."

"You've put such a target on my back. The Lover knows exactly where I am at all times. What's stopping him from just walking in and taking me? Did you ask him to back off or something?"

"He is unaware that I appreciate the full extent of your importance to him. I left him under the impression that I was an admirer that enjoyed the notion of him toying with the FBI through you. But even if he concludes why we have housed you here the presence of Will and I here will discourage him from descending upon you.

“He knows that I would defend you, and how easily I could reveal him. Jack has offered us police surveillance, but I assured him that wouldn't be necessary. The likelihood of being observed is enough for the Lover to keep his distance for now."

Sniffling, you say, "You just don't want to make things harder for yourself."

"It wouldn't matter either way. The Lover will be apprehended soon, and my pursuits will continue as before."

You peer out from under the sheets with a bleak interest, unable to guess whether Hannibal still means to wait for Will to unveil the Lover's identity or if there is some other reason he resists excising the Lover's presence from his life.

A man as jealous as Hannibal surely cannot stand that this third party hungers so openly to take you to his bed and to the grave. You cannot quite work it out.

"Why aren't you more angry with me, anyway?" you ask him. "You're talking about everything but what I did, and you should be furious. You should want to give me away to the Lover. I don't get why you're so—"

"Your naughty behaviour is unfortunately an expected routine. Besides, you thought the better of your escape: while I'm displeased you even considered such an act I have forgiven Will far greater without reprimand."

Starting, you say, "Will? What do you mean?"

"I know that he suspects me as both the Copycat and the Chesapeake Ripper, and that he has already hinted at his suspicions to Jack. They were dismissed due to Will’s claims that they were caused by his recent illness."

Registering your alarm, Hannibal adds, "You needn't appear surprised. No doubt you've discussed my killings with him."

There is a gentle barb to this last statement that challenges you to lie.

"I didn't know he'd talked to Jack," you say carefully. "I never thought he would. Are you sure about this? What are you going to do?"

"I suspect a conversation will be had with Will when the time is right."

Though too polite to shrug there is something of the gesture in Hannibal's response.

"You're not going to stop seeing each other, are you?" you ask, getting down from the bed with a wince at the throbbing wound of your misused cunt. "You both hurt each other. You're not going to... break up over this, right?"

Hannibal turns from you, carrying your books off into the cupboard which he locks up with a silver key.

"It's in your best interest that we remain together," he says. "But you’ve already come to this conclusion, have you not?"

*

In the days that chase out that the shadow of that night you are disconsolate in the face of a third punishment: the withdrawal of all affection from Hannibal, who becomes as dry and distant a caretaker as your mother had likely hoped of him.

He turns his face from kisses, removes the tangle of you from his body should you attempt an embrace. Sensuality will not win him back after such hurt inflicted on the heart, this he means you to grasp.

Once you would have jigged for joy at the difference, but instead you find yourself feeling lonely and displaced, beginning to doubt that you are as invincible as you'd believed.

Yet you’re still allowed your incredible room, still given access to your designer clothing rather than made to go nude or in rags, yet you find you've become jaded by all this excellence, or else seek it in a more esoteric format.

To your humiliation you find yourself begging for the kindness you've lost one night you cannot eat a steak you know is surely human; something in the taste convinces, something in the colour of blood that flees the hunt of your knife.

"I'll vomit," you say. "Sorry, but I will. I can taste it in my throat. Please, I promise I'll eat dessert, I’ll lick the plate—"

"There is no dessert," says Hannibal icily, and he takes the dish away with a swipe of the hand so sharp as to almost break his code of elegance.

Shortly after, still hungry and secretly proud of your resistance to eating, you're summoned into the living room, stopping short at the sight of Hannibal with a red rope like a serpent coiled through his closed hand.

You recognise instantly the purpose in his stance, the meaning of the table carried to the chancel of the room, its surface polished so severely that you see your master in it upside down, his every detail there preserved.

"Undress," he says, "and lie down. Don't attempt to argue with me. I don't want to raise my hand to you today."

He means to bind you for sex, the rope entwined like bindwood around your naked torso, the lengths cutting obscenely into the flesh, this detail a torture of a uniquely psychological nature.

This has little do with dinner, you realise, but with your previous mistake, one so close to calamity that you may never cease to pay for having made it.

Dizzy with fear you pick off your clothes garment by garment, and lie down on the table on your belly, your chin against the mirror of its face.

"No," says Hannibal. "On your back. I intend you to be seen."

But he turns you himself, his hands under your loins and breasts, the rope already quick at work between them. You sob as he wraps you in a net of his creation, a beautiful fretwork designed to portion up your body in a mosaic of skin and string.

Will steps into the room sometime during the operation, his face like a cyclamen above the upright collar of his dark jacket, lovely and cold.

"What's this, a peace offering?" he comments as Hannibal steps aside to allow him a better view. "You can't regift something I haven't even returned, especially when I've been using it so freely. Try again, doctor."

You strain your neck to get a look at Hannibal's expression, which in a contained fashion seems determined.

"You begrudge me for pushing you towards your transformation," he says, "and yet you indulge in it with such delight. This anger only serves to deepen the fracture in this household; had we remained united as we were before she might never have felt compelled to leave. Your antagonism makes her feel unstable."

Will scoffs at the turning of blame upon him, ripping off his jacket in testy jolts.

"She asked me to tell her I love her. You know that she would never have willingly let that go if she didn't find herself so nauseated by another truth she had to swallow."

"Yet you've known that truth far longer than she," says Hannibal sharply, "and yet you chose to remain. Why did you dissuade Jack from investigating me in the end? Was it for her sake alone or was there something else that you stood to lose?"

The men—Will pacing, almost prowling, Hannibal rigid by the table—come so close that they could easily touch. At least one of them wants to.

"You think I'm still a porcelain trinket," says Will. "That I'd crack at the first length of distance between us."

"I know that you are not, but nor are you a solitary animal. Certainly you could hunt without me, but you'd think of those hours we claimed together and know the pleasure of it could never be recaptured alone. It would be a shallow play, a grasping imitation of what came before."

Will stares into Hannibal's eyes with such spite and fascination that you've never been more glad to be ignored.

"Your arrogance is in bad taste. You haven't even asked me to forgive you."

"Because I don't expect you to, and because you've not asked for forgiveness from me. I've killed for less than you have done, but all I ask is that you remain."

Hannibal reaches out and touches Will's face so lightly that only your proximity to the two men reveals that his fingers make contact. To your amazement Will allows this without turning away, even shifts his proud cheek slightly in Hannibal’s direction.

"So you miss me that much.”

"Yes,” says Hannibal simply. “I began this for you, Will. Never forget it."

Will smiles without teeth.

"You began this for yourself."

"I've never denied the selfishness of my desire. Can you own that of yours?"

The younger man sobers to ponder this.

"When I'm stranded inside the Lover's thoughts you're always what brings me out of it. You reveal him to be so weak. There's nothing beautiful in what he creates, only a desperation to be loved by those that never can. But in what you've done— I see the art. I saw it before I wanted to. I see it now with her."

He lays a hand on one of your trussed breasts, and a stone of pleasure rolls down the path of your imprisoned form. You regret that you cannot hate him so purely any longer, this beast that now knows what he is.

"I want to see you with her,” says Will suddenly. “When you're alone with her I know you can be brutal. I want to witness how you hurt her, and how you make her so devoted to you afterwards."

Hannibal steps in against you, his covered arousal against your despair.

“Join me," he says, but Will shakes his head.

"Not this time."

"Then tell me in plain words what it is you want."

Will stands by your head, looking across you into Hannibal's eyes.

With a foreign silkiness he says, "I want you to fuck her, Hannibal. Please."

A purely sexual thrill runs through the other man, and as you lie speechless in the fog of their joint sickness Will bends to murmur in your ear.

"I love you," he says. “Remember that the next time you try to run away.”

Then Hannibal slides you down the shear of his cock, plying your body under him like mud in a bully's fist, and all the while Will watches the act it’s not you he sees, but him.

[kinnenvy]

Hi! I’m just coming by to say I recently came across your qaf fics and I read them all while I was on a 30 minute work break. And holy shit I kind of hated myself for how quickly I read them because each one of them was amazing and I wish I would’ve saved them to slowly read through them and enjoy them. My heart absolutely melted and broke at Forward. Gosh that was probably my favorite one, it was so amazingly written and it was just everything! From angst to happy to smiling like an idiot to wanting to grab them both and shake them. And then Fifty took me for a spin of emotions! I mean Brian turning 50 alone makes me want to sob. But then it was cute and angsty even and then they talked! Fucking finally! And then the plot twist! obsessed!!!!! And Framing Ben….i mean, need I say more except DAMN. Needles to say, my lunch break was time well spent :)

😳😳😳😳!!!!!!!!!

this is so crazy anon thank you so much!!!!! thank you for reading them, i'm glad to know that you enjoyed them! and thank you for taking the time to send me this message!!!!! i will treasure it forever🥰🧡

[twola]

Chasing Waterfalls

Arthur Morgan x F!Reader  Smut (18+), MDNI

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link ➵ Next

Welp - this is an interesting one. A half-cooked challenge where some fic writers are inebriated? Perhaps.

To my dear @reddeaddufus - I feel slightly silly dedicating a piss kink ficlet to you, but actually this makes a ton of sense for us :D

cw: watersports, piss kink

“Can we stop up here?” You whine, pulling on Arthur’s jacket from your place on his mare’s rump. You’ve been riding for hours- your back is sore and bladder full, and it’s still another two or so hours before you reach camp. The moon has risen over the pines, shrouding the forest

Arthur looks back at you with an amused smirk. “You sick of ridin’ there, Princess?”

“We’ve been riding for hours, Arthur. I need to stop.”

“Fiiiine.” He complains but urges the mare off the road and a little further back into the woods.

Arthur swings down from the saddle and reaches up to take you by the waist, lifting you from the horse’s rump with ease, setting you down as if you were as light as a feather.

“Y’know, Princess, we’re gonna be back in a tent tryin’ to be quiet again in a few hours.” His hands move from your waist down, down to cup your rear through your skirts, squeezing gently.

“Mm.” You agree, winding your arms up around his shoulders - he did have a point. A knowing smile graces your features.

Your cowboy takes one hand, tilts the rim of his hat up, and leans back down to capture your lips in a searing kiss. His large frame pushes you backward a couple of steps until your back presses against the trunk of a large pine. 

The clicking of metal rings out in the forest as Arthur wrenches his gunbelt open and it clatters to the ground. The rustling of fabric against fabric, the wet smack of lips meeting echo in the night.

“Pretty little thin’,” he rumbles as he starts to hike up your skirts. You clutch at his shirt as you feel him grope for your bloomers, his greedy fingers catching the fabric and pulling downward as he suckles at the curve of your neck. You moan, loudly, enjoying the ability to do so outside of camp.

The syllables of his name drip from your mouth like manna. You pull one leg up as he works the fabric down your legs, then lift the other to step out of your underthings. He tosses your bloomers to the side and they disappear in the tall grass. You give a slight frown before he devours your lips again, pressing you against that pine tree’s trunk once more. You yelp into his mouth before melting into his embrace, and it’s an instant more before he spins you around to face the tree. He pulls you back half a step so that your arms stretch out to press against the trunk as he once again lifts your skirts.

“Think you’re ready f’r me?” He grunts into your ear as he bends you slightly at the waist.

“Always-” you pant, “I’m always ready for y-”

He presses into you and it’s a punch to your gut. Hard, hot, thick inches of him slide into your cunt and you moan like a goddamn whore.

“Oh yes, you are.” Arthur retorts, you can see his smirk in your mind's eye as he he gracious enough to allow you to grow used to his intrusion.

But not too gracious.

His hands clamp around your hips hard as he thrusts his hips once, twice, three times slowly before moving into a much more punishing rhythm.

It’s not long - it never is, until he’s able to bring you to the edge of orgasm - your cunt full of him and cleaved just enough to find pleasure. You bite your bottom lip as you come, trying to stifle the scream that bubbles up from your lungs.

“Ss-stop-” You stutter as he pounds into you, after your orgasm you feel like your bladder is going to burst. As if his steel-hard cock pistoning into your cunt wasn’t enough pressure in your hips, he shoves one of his hands between your legs, and his thumb parts your folds to find that bundle of nerves of your pleasure.

“Stop-  Arthur, I’m gonna-” You squeal and try to jerk away from him, but with the vicegrip he has on your hips, you’re unable to move.

It’s too much - his cock shoved fully up your cunt, his thumb furiously working at your clit, your knees shaking, it’s too goddamn much-

You try to push his hand away but moving him is like trying to move a brick wall - a brick wall hellbent on you being wrung out and left to dry. A groan escapes your mouth through gritted teeth, nearly pained - “No, stop, m’ gonna - you’re gonna make me piss m’self.” 

“Do it.” He grunts hoarsely, rocking his hips forward ever so slowly, even gently, compared to the assault of his digits on your swollen clit. The hand that was clamped near painfully around the curve of your hip bone starts gathering up your skirts, hamfisting them up above your hips so that your legs are bare as you lean against that tree.

“Wh-what?” You grit out, your eyes crossing as you unconsciously clench on his flesh within you.

“Let go.” Arthur groans, his cock twitching within you as he slides his hand upward slightly, so that his thumb rests above your pubic bone while his ring finger continues lazy circles on your abused nub, pleasure racked and overstimulated.

He presses on your bladder with that strong thumb of his and it’s over. You cry out - half in pain and half in relief as that great pressure is loosed from your pelvis. Hot liquid pours from you, forcefully against the ground and you squeeze your eyes shut tightly against the sensation - heightened by the inches of flesh crammed up your channel. 

Arthur slides his hand down to let the stream run through his fingers before pooling on the dirt between your feet.

“Good girl,” he murmurs into your ear as tears collect under your eyes, and you couldn’t stop if you tried. His hips pulse forward jerkily once, twice, and he moans far louder than he ever has with you in the past, his dick splattering his spend into your cunt as your bladder empties first through his hand then pooling on the ground.

“I- I need -” Arthur pulls out quickly, and stumbles forward half a step. You feel his pubic hair against your rear, one of his hands wrapped around his softening cock, “M’ gonna- don’t be mad -” He rambles, and suddenly you feel warm moisture on the back of your thigh, trailing down your leg over your boot. He groans in satisfaction as you gasp breathily, eyes widening as rivulets of hot piss course down your leg. You tighten your grip on the tree to stay upright, your blunt nails digging into the bark until Arthur makes a choked-off gasp and the liquid peters off.

“I- uh,” Arthur pants as he straightens up.

“You…like that?” You glance over your shoulder as he steps away from you.

Arthur is sheepishly tucking his cock back into his pants, cheeks blazing red and his gaze unwilling and unable to find yours, “I…,” he buttons his pants with fervor, turning his head away to make himself even further from you, “I understand if you don’t wanna do this no more cause of-“

You spin around and grab at his fiddling hand once he’s finished buttoning his pants.

“I mean… I’m okay with it, as long as we wash up afterward.” You say, shaking your boot slightly, drops of moisture falling to the ground as you step away from the veritable puddle that was between your legs.

“Seriously?” Arthur finally looks up, skepticism plain on his face.

Half a smile comes across your face as you drop your skirts with your other hand, “Let's head on down to the river to clean up. I don’t want to feel sticky.”

Arthur’s frown remains, but he lets you pull him toward the forest toward the nearby river, he leans over after a few steps to grab his discarded gunbelt, throwing it over his shoulder.

Once the two of you reach the bubbling waters of the mountain stream, you let go of his hand.

“Think we could probably take a bath.” You start playing with the laces of your skirts.

Arthur looks around in either direction, knowing that the road’s river crossing is rather close to where the two of you stand.

“Yer not worried about gettin’ caught naked as the day you were born?”

“I mean… worried ain’t the word that I would use to describe it.” Your skirts drop to the ground, your skin completely bare in the moonlight below your waist.

Arthur’s lips crook up into a smile as he starts to unbutton his shirt.

[kirby-derb]

Now a Lil fic cause I can :)

College Au

The university library was packed with students drowning in the chaos of finals week, but the loudest table was undeniably theirs: John, Simon, Kyle, Johnny, and Alex—the group of friends who’d somehow become inseparable over their years at the university.

Price sat at the head of the table, glasses perched on his nose, surrounded by history textbooks and handwritten notes. His usual air of tranquility slightly by the paperclip chain someone (likely Johnny) had clipped to his sleeve. "You lot are hopeless," he muttered, flipping a page. "If you put half the energy into your studies as you do into being a pain, we wouldn’t be in here all night."

Johnny leaned back dangerously far in his chair, balancing a mechanical pencil on his nose. “Aw, lighten up, Jo-Jo. Finals are just fancy pop quizzes.”

Kyle snorted, typing furiously on his laptop. “Spoken like someone who’s failed two pop quizzes this semester.”

“Two?!” Alex chimed in, looking up from his notes on renewable energy that somehow never faltered. “That’s generous. I’d put the over-under at four.”

Johnny dramatically clutched his chest. “You lot dont know what its like bein in engineering, 90% of the class failed!”

Simon, sitting across from him, barely looked up from his physics book. “You’re not wrong, though. I saw his econ grade. It’s a miracle he’s still here.”

“Not everyone can calculate orbital velocity in their sleep, Si” Johnny shot back. “Some of us have to work with personality.”

“Right,” Simon deadpanned. “How’s that working out for you?”

Before Johnny could retort, Price clapped his hands together. “Enough! Five-minute break. I need to find some aspirin before you lot give me an aneurysm.” As he walked away the heard him muttering about something like 'I should just stay home, but noo I just had to go socialize- Jesus-'

As the group dispersed momentarily, the library’s old fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead. The building felt more tired than usual, and there was a stack of flyers on a nearby table announcing a fundraiser for the school, that no one had dared acknowledge yet.

Alex returned first, holding two cups of coffee. He slid one over to Kyle, who looked at it like it was manna from heaven. “Bless you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank the last working vending machine on campus,” Alex said, sliding back into his seat.

Johnny returned next, juggling a box of animal crackers he’d swiped from a study snack cart. He started flicking them at Kyle. “What’s the over-under on this campus even having vending machines next semester?”

Kyle caught one mid-air and munched it without looking up. “I’d say slim to none if we keep burning out the Wi-Fi like last week.”

“That was an accident,” Johnny defended.

“You crashed the whole system trying to run simulations for a catapult mate.” Simon said as he reappeared, a water bottle in hand

Price groaned as he sat back down, rubbing his temples. “I still can’t believe the dean called an assembly about that. You’re grown adults.”

“Technically,” Kyle muttered.

The five of them settled back into their seats, though the teasing didn’t entirely subside. Johnny, ever the jester, started crafting increasingly elaborate paper airplanes, one of which soared dangerously close to Price’s ear.

“John,” Price warned, not even looking up from his notes.

Johnny grinned. “Just testing aerodynamics!”

As they worked, the library’s clock chimed midnight. For all their jokes and distractions, the group’s camaraderie was palpable. Even with the weight of uncertainty hanging over the campus, they found ways to laugh and keep each other grounded.

Kyle stretched and yawned, closing his laptop. “Alright, who’s betting Johnny makes it through finals without another disaster?”

“No chance,” Simon said immediately, prompting another round of laughter.

🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️🎀

[ravenwraithe]

A Local Delicacy

or the fic where hobie stares at pav and misses all the vital information

(please pay attention to the tags ✨✨ no cw's for this one)

"Wha's this thing called again?" Hobie frowned at the small, inflated crisp looking thing.

'It's called a Pani Puri, stop being so difficult," Pav reached up to hit him on the head, failing not so miserably. Hobie wanted to laugh at his disgruntled face. It had been a hot minute since they had hung out. Plus, Miles could probably use a break after the entire 'destabilising the multiverse' debacle. Pav had immediately dragged them to a nearby stall stacked to the top of the colourful umbrella with these Pani Puris, while blabbering non stop about foot traffic.

Hobie supposed some things transcend universes. Like crowds. Stray animals in narrow alleyways. Rude people. Rude cops. His crush on Pav. Capitalism. You get it. Hobie was broken out of his thoughts by the stall keeper handing him a tiny leaf cup. It was 5 centimetres at most.

"What are these for?" Gwen asked.

Pav smiled. Hobie's heart skipped a beat. "For eating. You'll see." He answered cryptically.

"Thoda time lagega beta, abhi kate pyaaz khatam hogaye," The stall keeper started chopping onions at the speed of light, his knife clacking against the ratty wooden board.

"Koi nahi kaka, aap aaram se karo," Pav bounced on the balls of his feet, replying to whatever the stall keeper said, in his sweet voice. Hobie loved when Pav spoke Hindi, there was something so flowy about it.

"What did he say?" Miles asked. Hobie was curious too. He only caught the heavily accented 'time'.

"He said it's gonna take a few mins, he just ran out of onions."

"That cutting board does not look hygienic," Gwen said, as Pav manoeuvered everyone to stand in a loose circle around the vendor.

"Arey bahut saaf hai beta! Very hygienic!" The stall keeper nodded at her, now chopping coriander. Gwen went red. Miles burst out laughing.

Pav looked embarrassed as well, and Hobie wanted to just. Hold him. He'd settle for standing close to him as he tried to sputter out something.

"Bura mat manna kaka, aapko pata hai yeh videshi log kaise hote hain." Pav scratched his neck, flashing a winning smile at the vendor and Hobie felt something stab in his heart.

"Chalega chalega, badi hi gori dikh rahi hai, pata chal gaya yahan se nahi hai." The stall keeper said while arranging the dishes around. "Uske liye kam tikha dun?"

"Gwen, do you like spicy food? Miles?" Pav asked.

"Nope." said Gwen as Miles nodded.

"What about you, Hobie?" Pav turned to him, his deep brown eyes glinting something pretty in the late afternoon light.

"Sure, why no'." Hobie shrugged, a grin inexplicably tugging at his lips. Pav turned back to the man, saying stuff in lilting tones Hobie didn't understand.

The stall keeper nodded, and cracked open one of the crisps, scooping peas and potatoes inside it and adding the green liquid and onions inside it. He swiftly placed it in Hobie's cup.

"Tha's it?" Hobie was unimpressed. This little thing?

"No, bro, you gotta eat it to get more. Put it in your mouth all at once. Don't nibble at it, or it'll get soggy and get all over your clothes." Pav said, entirely shoving his own Pani Puri into his mouth like a visual example of what to do. Hobie looked at the Pani Puri in his cup for half a second more before deciding to fuck it and copied Pav, mouth closing over the stuffed crisp.

Flavours exploded on his tongue. The sweet tanginess, the crunchy onions and the spicy peas; it was nothing Hobie had expected it to taste like and nothing like anything he had eaten in his life. He chewed, feeling the bits of the crisp puri poking all around his mouth, but that was the experience. It felt otherworldly yet somehow fulfilling. Hobie automatically extended his hand for another one.

Gwen got hers, stuffing it in her mouth, with no small amount of trepidation visible on her face. It was valid, considering she started coughing the moment she chewed it, going 'hoff, hoff, hoff!' which Hobie took to mean 'hot, hot, hot!'.

"Goddamnit Gwen, how are you gonna eat dinner with us?" Miles said easily eating the puri without breaking a sweat, his Puerto Rican taste buds used to the level of spice.

Gwen glared at him, face red and sweat dripping. "Can't you cook unspicy food for me?"

"Mami will never let you in again if you eat like a white person,"

"I am white."

"Yeah, and?"

"Hooo- kaay! Calm down children! Gwen, we can go get a kulfi for you later. Miles, stop antagonising Gwen," Pav made a 'chop' gesture at them, shaking his head frantically.

The vendor had plopped another one in his cup and was holding another one in his hand waiting for them to finish bickering. Hobie ate it, only a few drops of the green liquid spilling on his fingers. And the next one as well. And the next one. This street vendor was so fast, the fuck? With only Pav and him at the stall, because Miles was busy with Gwen, the vendor seemed to make three for each one Hobie ate. Pav didn't look bothered at all, scarfing down every one as it came.

"'oly shit, Pavi, ask 'im to slow down, 'M strugglin' 'ere, mate," Hobie managed to speak in between the positive barrage of puris.

"No way, it's part of the vibe, dude, keep up," Pav was way more graceful, easily talking between the Puris, time seeming to favour him and him only.

"Seriously?" Hobie muttered on the tailend of a particularly large Pani Puri. Pav grinned again, his right canine getting caught on his own lip. Hobie was well aware that he had a staring problem, and if he didn't get himself together, Pav will be too.

"Okay, okay," Sometimes Pav looked at Hobie in a way that had him swearing his feelings were requited, and this was one of those looks that made Hobie wonder how he's still standing up straight and not a puddle on the floor like he felt on the inside. "Kaka, thoda ahistha dena, Hobie bhi yahan naya hai."

"Theek, theek, beta," The vendor laughed. "Apke aashiq ko impress toh karna padega."

Pavi choked on his Pani Puri. Hobie turned to him concerned, as he said something in 3 octaves higher than his normal voice.

"Kaka- aashiq nahi hai woh- hum bas dost hain," Pav said, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

"Meri beti bhi apne bf ko dost bolti hai. Woh dono bhi ek dusre ko aise hi dekhten hain. Usko lagta hai mujhe nahi pata lekin ham bhi toh aapke umar ke the," The vendor winked, and Hobie was sure this conversation was not about anything he could imagine. Why on earth would this random man be winking at Pav? "Aur hum yeh bajrang dal jaise vishwas nahi rakhte, pyaar toh pyaar hota hai na?"

"Ji kaka." Hobie could see Pav's blush that seemed to radiate because why else Hobie would feel flustered too? "Ahem," Pav looked at his wrist like he was looking at the time, except he did not have a wrist watch on. "Kaka abhi hame jana padega- chemistry coaching hai- kitna hua?"

"Itni jaldi? Theek hai, sukhi puri lelo," He said, handing over two flatter crisps. Without the liquid. Hobie felt it was easier to fit this in his mouth after all the other Pani Puris. "Sath rupay hue,"

"Kya kaka, angrez dekhte bhau badha dete ho? Main akele khata toh chalis ka hota," Pav said, his voice taking a complaining tone and Hobie was surprised to find him even more endearing.

"Beta, jab aap dhanda karoge tab samajh mein ayega, abhi apko coaching nahi jana?"

"Han, kaka, din dahade loot lo," Pav said, and Hobie got a sense of defeat from his slouch, as he forked over what Hobie assumed was the price of the Pani Puris. "Let's go, before uncle embarrasses me in front of someone."

"You paid money to your uncle?" Hobie thought it'd be easier to get around in Earth-50101 as time went on, but here he was, getting more questions and no answers as he hung around.

"He's not actually my uncle, I'm calling him that out of respect. It's a cultural thing, don't worry about it," Pav answered, grabbing Hobie's hand as he wove between the forming crowd. Hobie sighed, letting Pav drag him around, his hand warm in Pav's soft palms.

___

i have nothing to say.

translation (not literal translation bc then id have to explain a shit-ton of grammar, slang and indian pop culture to yall):

Thoda time lagega beta, abhi kate pyaaz khatam hogaye - it's gonna take some time, [I] just ran out of the chopped onions

Koi nahi kaka, aap aaram se karo - no problem uncle, take your time

Arey bahut saaf hai beta! - oh its very clean, kid

Bura mat manna kaka, aapko pata hai yeh videshi log kaise hote hain. - please don't be offended uncle, you know how foreigners can be like.

Chalega chalega, badi hi gori dikh rahi hai, pata chal gaya yahan se nahi hai. - It's okay, she looks very light skinned, [I] assumed she wasn't from around here.

Uske liye kam tikha dun? - should [I] make it less spicy for her?

Kaka, thoda ahistha dena, Hobie bhi yahan naya hai. - Uncle, please slow down [the pace], Hobie is new to this too.

Theek, theek, beta - Alright, kid

Apke aashiq ko impress toh karna padega. - [I know] you have to impress your boyfriend.

Kaka- aashiq nahi hai woh- hum bas dost hain, - Uncle- he's not [my] boyfriend- we're just friends,

Meri beti bhi apne bf ko dost bolti hai. Woh dono bhi ek dusre ko aise hi dekhten hain. Usko lagta hai mujhe nahi pata lekin ham bhi toh aapke umar ke the. - My daughter also claims her boyfriend is just a friend. They look at each other the same [way you do]. She thinks I don't know [about them], but we [adults] used to be your age.

Aur hum yeh Bajrang Dal jaise vishwas nahi rakhte, pyaar toh pyaar hota hai na? - I don't believe stuff like Bajrang Dal. Love is love, isn't it?

Ji kaka. - Yes, uncle. (in this case)

Kaka abhi hame jana padega- chemistry coaching hai- kitna hua? - Uncle, we need to go- It's time for my chemistry tutorial classes- how much [were the Pani Puris]?

Itni jaldi? Theek hai, sukhi puri lelo, - So fast? Okay here's your [aftersnack snack (that's that least complicated way to explain what a sukhi puri is)]

Sath rupay hue, - it's 60 rupees.

Kya kaka, angrez dekhte bhau badha dete ho? Main akele khata toh chalis ka hota - C'mon, uncle, y'all see a foreigner and increase the price? If I was here alone, this would have cost 40 rupees.

Beta, jab aap dhanda karoge tab samajh mein ayega, abhi apko coaching nahi jana? - Kid, when you grow up and have a job, you'll understand, now, don't you have classes to attend?

Han, kaka, din dahade loot lo - yeah, okay, why don't you just rob me,

Some context (you dont need to read this)

kulfi is an ice cream equivalent, usually flavoured with almonds, pistachios and saffron

beta literally means 'son' but its used to refer to any kid who's very young relative to the speaker's age; and also for jokes b/w buddies but that's a different thing

kaka literally means 'father's younger brother ie uncle', but can used to referred to any man who isnt related to you and is about the age of the speaker's parents; there are also other terms depending on by who and how you were introduced to the person

Bajrang Dal - an anti-societal group against religious and sexual minorities(as defined in the indian constitution, do not come at me with politics). Famous in pop culture for being vehemently against valentine's days and premarital eye contact (you think im joking)

The Chemistry Coaching thing is a big deal. Kids have great pride about which institute they go to. The institutes teach accelerated courses for specific competitive examinations, usually in an unethical way. It's considered kinda shameful if you don't go to one. (very dystopian, ik)

[thesandsofelsweyr]

BOY TOY

《 CHAPTER 1/2 // READ ON AO3 》

While the Bird's away, the Clown will play.

《RATING》 🔞 Explicit 《WORDS》 1,094

《PAIRING》 Joker x Jason Todd/Robin

《TROPES》 Hurt No Comfort, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

《WARNINGS》 Somnophilia, Non-Consensual Touching, Ownership, Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Genital Torture, Caning, Blood and Injury, Scars, Underage, Non-Con

《TAGLIST》 @aaliyah-wayne @ladytauria @betty-1880 @deans-spinster-witch @hlg8 @plantixst

Written for @dcdarkweek 2024

Day 2: Consent Issues: Somnophilia, Forced Orgasm (Ch. 2)

Day 3: Interpersonal Dynamics: Underage

Day 5: Power & Control: Ownership

Day 6: Graphic Violence: Stress Positions, Genital Torture, Caning

《NOTES》

This is a DARK FIC so please be aware of the tags!

There will be smut in Chapter 2. It will be my first attempt at writing M/M

If you enjoy the read please kudos, comment, and reblog 💛

《 READ ON AO3 》 (excerpt below the cut)

Exquisite. 

The sight before him inspires many words, but exquisite is the one Joker likes best. He sighs a contented sigh as his eyes crawl up and down the unconscious figure before him, from matted black hair to bruised and broken toes. His latest pair of Batman imposters had left the naked kid dangling by his bony wrists after their playtime was over, and Joker can’t help but think of this mutilated slab of boymeat as an offering, a sacrifice to him. Batsy’s little lambchop led like a sheep to the slaughter, and he’d been waiting, bib tied ‘round his neck, knife and fork in each hand at the ready. A slavering wolf cartoon about to devour his long-awaited feast.

Joker slips off his lavender gloves, finger by finger by bleached-white finger, while he stalks toward his ensnared prey. Toddy’s head hangs dejectedly between dislocated shoulders. Swollen eyelids swim in pits of purply-black bruises and hide behind a veil of stringy hair. His cherub face is puffy, streaked where tears cut tracks through the caked filth. Protruding ribs rise and fall as his lungs gasp for air, each coveted breath sucked in with an adorable wheeze. His toes are curled like a proper ballerina, desperately reaching for the merciful floor below. Fresh blood dribbles down his skinny arms from where the metal cuffs bite into that paper-thin skin.

Joker’s ravenous grin splits wider as his mind drifts back to his little bird’s last playtime. After the bogus Bats had beaten him silly, they’d stripped the jailbird of his orange jumpsuit and cut away his briefs before stringing him up for a flogging. That big brainless brute Blockbuster turned out to be an expert at wielding a bamboo cane, leaving the kid’s backside striped bloody, from the nape of his scrawny neck to the hollows of his knobby knees. Oh how his bird had begged while his skin was shredded to ribbons all over again! But that wasn’t the best part of the performance, no sirree. Before leaving the kid to his tears and fears, Catman had squeezed the baby birdie’s bruised balls in a gauntleted fist until he’d passed out from the pain.

And here they are now: his darling boy still sleeping unsoundly, brain still scrambled from the good Doctor Quinzel’s overdose of hallucinogens. Joker stops short before this tapestry of torture. Resisting the urge to trace the puckered ‘J’ forever seared into his boy’s delicate cheek, he instead takes a moment to admire the full expanse of his handiwork. When the Boy Blunder had fallen into his lap like manna from heaven, he’d been built in the Bat’s own image: a well-muscled adonis with a roleplaying fetish. But after months of depravity those bulging muscles had all but withered away. Now only pallid skin remains, hanging loosely from broken bones. Deeeee-licious!

Read the rest on AO3→

[lostdrarryfics]

Hi helpful folks. I’m looking for a shortish fic I read on AO3. It’s drarry. Harry comes into a corporate office run by Draco. His secretary is based on the competent secretary in Manna Francis’s The Administration series. The company makes some kind of sentient dreams - like pensieve memories that you can be anyone in. There is smut. Thanks for trying to figure it out!!

We believe you are looking for Dreams Made Real by oceaxe (4k, E)

Don’t forget to bookmark, leave kudos and comments!

[theseshipsshallsail]

Summary:

Did he know then, that Elio was already offering him a way out? Permission, almost, to preserve their perfect summer romance in amber. To pack his memories up in a neat little box until such times as he could look back and smile?

Shameless reblog because I've just had a lovely comment on this little series, and despite often forgetting that it exists, these fics are actually some of my favourites...

ETHEREAL

When he dreams he can hear the roar of the ocean. Smell the salt-tang of the waves that swirl between his bare toes. Feel the coarse sand whip at his reddened skin as the wind ruffles his hair. 

When he dreams, he can see him.

Elio.

His true self.

His sunlight in the shadows.

When he dreams, when he says I’ve been happy in B, he finishes his sentence the way he’d originally intended. 

I’ve been happy with you.

Did he know then, that Elio was already offering him a way out? Permission, almost, to preserve their perfect summer romance in amber. To pack his memories up in a neat little box until such times as he could look back and smile? 

Did Elio know himself it was an impossible task? 

That like Sisyphus, his upward struggle would be incessant?

So many wasted days. 

So many weeks, months, years spent grieving that which he’d deemed impossible.

You’ll be fine, he’d said in the moment, but when he dreams, it’s Elio who asks if he’ll be okay, and Oliver, knowing the truth deep down to his soul, who reaches out and cups his cheek, rests it there, unable to lie.

“I love you,” he says instead, thumb tracing light patterns over Elio’s evening stubble as trembling fingers rise up to capture his wrist.

His pulse races in his ears, Elio’s eyes a solemn promise when he parts his lips to speak. “I loved you, too," he says at length - always the past tense - and in doing so confirms the gentlest of nightmares are actually the cruellest.

“Elio,” he chokes out, threading his hand into those windswept curls to draw him closer, his other arm banding around his waist, hauling him into his lap. Three years may as well be yesterday in this maelstrom of emotion, and Oliver’s words fall woefully short of what he truly feels. What he’s always felt. Always will. “My Elio…”

Already, he can sense the illusion slipping away. Hear the sobs Elio doesn’t want him to see. Smell the train carriage as it waits to depart the station. Feel the lurch of turbulence as his heart breaks all over again.

But when he dreams, when his lips find Elio’s like a bee to nectar, the sweetness of his kiss freezes all other considerations on the landscape of his mind. A perfect Monet, he thinks, as Elio sighs the same plaintive sound he makes upon first stretching awake, opening his mouth to his. Soft and wet. His own personal manna in this self-imposed exodus. 

It’s not enough though - not nearly enough - and Oliver hugs him tighter until he can hear the gulls circling overhead. Feel the sun-warmed rock beneath the soles of his feet. Smell the peaches on Elio’s breath. Kisses him like a man starved until reality crashes back, squeezing his eyes shut until the very last second before whispering his own name between them.

Elio doesn’t get the chance to respond - he never does - and the bitter sting of tears stays with him long after the six o’clock alarm call.

[residenthesitant]

hey what if i wrote a passover fic

Title: Manna from Heaven Warnings: None Rating: Gen Relationships: Married Tubbo/Ranboo, Tubbo & Everyone Characters: Tubbo, Ranboo, Techno, Michael B, Foolish, assorted others Tags: Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Jewish Holidays, Pesach | Passover, Tubbo-Centric, Found Family Summary: One of the perks of having a rich husband, in Tubbo’s opinion, is getting to send out the fanciest, most over-the-top invitations for what is, essentially, a small dinner for friends and family. The size of the dinner does not matter. The amount of invitations being set out does not matter. The fact that Tubbo can commission a calligrapher to make ten overly-decorated and horrendously fancy cards to invite people to his home is what matters.

You are cordially invited to the Underscore-Beloved’s home on Friday at sundown for Passover. Contact Tubbo or Ranboo to RSVP.

Oh, gods.

Tubbo’s never hosted a seder before.

i wrote the world's most self-indulgent passover fic in the world for @mcyt-passover-event! read it on ao3 <333333

[gingerlee-holds]

On the Featherflake

This was at the suggestion of Hypah (Ms. SS2023 herself!). It was originally meant to be a simple info page, but I ended up inserting a tiny fic (?) about this character I made up named Eren Fernsby. I was imagining this eccentric little Victorian British twink, wearing little spectacles and messy black hair - I'm sure you can imagine the character in your head, you're a clever little cutie, I believe in you. I hope you enjoy the fic! Let me know if you'd like to see anymore from the character ("The Fernsby Journals" has a nice ring to it). I'm also in a rush because I have a lot of schoolwork, so that too.

Word Count: 711 Reading Time: ~5 minutes Warnings: Un-proofread fic lmao- not the usual level of "quality"- also a lot of feathers

The featherflake is a rare phenomenon, only witnessed by a lucky (or unlucky) few. 

The flake itself is nothing impressive. It's a small, white flake, resembling a snowflake from afar. However, upon further inspection, an observant passerby will notice key differences.

The most noticeable attribute of the featherflake is its size, ranging from 12 millimeters to 25 millimeters in diameter. Furthermore, their structure allows the flake to cluster, interlocking to form large piles.

If one were to look closer at such a pile of featherflakes, one would instantly notice this structure. Instead of a crystalline water-based design, it appears light and fluffy, similar to a goose feather. Indeed, the average featherflake has about eight "feather" structures connected in the middle to form a flake. This is another key difference: eight points instead of a snowflake's six.

The observer may even step a little closer, hesitantly picking a small cluster of featherflakes up to inspect them closer. The feeling of the feathers may tickle an exposed palm slightly, but for someone wearing mittens on a cold winter's day, one typically pays no mind. They aren't cold like snow is. For all the observer may know, feathers have fallen randomly out of the sky. 

Despite how uncommon this is, a featherflake event has happened throughout history, and many a prudent meteorologist has documented the event well. For instance, in 1744, then-amateur natural philosopher Eren Fernsby recorded the following in his journal on a particularly blustery November evening:

"How remarkable this all is! An act of God indeed, though instead of manna, He has brought feathers! For what end, I know not - this weather seemingly defies explanation. At 6:42, right when the sun had peaked from behind the hills, I was lying in bed, and I must confess, I did not wish to rise. The wind had been pressing at my windows so violently in the night that I had shuttered them tightly. However, when the sunlight began permeating my little room, I saw with surprise that my windows had been flung open! Grumbling with chagrin, I rolled over and held the covers over my head, cursing the sun for its horrible punctuality.

It may have been another hour when I awoke with a gasp. I felt something soft against my stomach, and upon observation, I saw it was a snowflake... made of feathers! Imagine my surprise when I looked around my room and saw the place teeming with them, covering every imaginable surface! Oh, what a chore to clean - or at least, that is what I would have thought were I not enraptured by the sight. I stepped out of bed, yet I severely miscalculated my bedsheet's location and fell onto the floor with an indignant yelp. Instead of an annoyed mutter, I let out a soft giggle. How very strange it felt! The troublesome little feathers had found their way into my bedrobe. And it felt extraordinarily tickly sensitive.

As I rolled about on my floor, attempting to untangle my ankles from the bedsheet, I only managed to agitate the flakes' positions, causing them to fly everywhere in my clothes in a flurry. I would not count myself as a particularly ticklish sensitive individual, but I must admit I cackled hysterically chuckled lightly at the feeling. The feathers swirled about in my robe, wiggling over my stomach, sides, thighs, and chest. I squealed and squealed. No matter how many times I squirmed, they continued their onslaught. It took half an hour to get rid of them! I was breathless, wheezing, blushing, and immediately began this journal entry. 

What possible cause could be engendering such a strange occurrence! I think I loved it It was very odd. I look forward to seeing this event again, if it ever does repeat, purely for research purposes.

Upon rereading this journal a year later, I have decided to add a post-script. At various points in this entry, I have broken decorum. If I ever choose to publish this journal, I must adequately expunge any and all unprofessionalism. I have an image to maintain, after all."

Mr. Fernsby (and later, Sir Fernsby) did indeed record other entries about other featherflake blizzards and other phenomena, garnering him wide acclaim. He always seemed to scribble out some parts of his journals, though.

Read the following entry in The Fernsby Journals!

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: GATEAU

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon/rape, abuse, past child abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, death mentions (including of a young people), Stockholm Syndrome

Read after the cut

---

As the night goes on, made odd by the truths held above your head, Hannibal sends you into the kitchen for the wine Will has forgotten there as though you are his little maid to be so imperiously commanded. Grumbling under your breath you slope into that other room, thinking to spit down the neck of the bottle to lend it the flavour of your displeasure.

Your gaze falls first upon a vast chocolate gateau resting on the sideboard, its rich aroma stirring awake your appetite, the pangs of which you now rarely know.

At this you feel an acute disgust at your body’s failing. No doubt some human matter has found its way into this creation, likely by blood to bring salt to its flavour, but even if by a rare chance it hasn’t you cannot stand that you desire it after all the years you’ve abstained from dessert.

Still, even as you scorn yourself you reach with one finger across to the cake and scoop from it a curl of icing, shuddering as it glazes the roof of your tongue with its silken sin.

Guilt rides over you at once: the totting up of numbers, the phantasmic sense of weight already building on your bones. In a panic you smooth over the gap in the cake left from your burrowing finger with a nearby clod of icing, hoping it won’t be noticed when Hannibal comes to cut a slice for supper.

The kitchen door opens behind you, making you jump and wipe your guilty hands together as Will appears in the frame.

“You were taking a while,” he says. “Thought I’d check on you.”

“What do you care?” you reply with a haughty toss of your head. “You’re barely here anymore. Don’t pretend to give a damn now you’re back.”

Will shuts the door behind him and leans against it, his arms folded.

“I thought you wanted me to put my full efforts into this case.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should just abandon me.”

With an unpleasant laugh Will says, “I’m sure you and Hannibal get along just fine on your own.”

You think cynically of your elder captor assaulting you against his front door, biting at your flesh. A lean coyote in a gentleman’s clothes.

“You don’t like the idea of him fucking me when you’re not there, do you?” you ask, and Will shrugs, refusing you an honest reaction.

“I’m just aware of what I’m missing, that’s all.”

It occurs to you to question how often he thinks of rutting you in those elongated hours apart, or if it is only Hannibal that inhabits his mind in ire and yearning alike. Will may not have forgiven him the harm he’s done, but he certainly cares for him still.

Perhaps it is the homosexual angle of the romance that prevents him from viewing it as such; if only women have otherwise enchanted him what sense can he make of this new lust?

“Well,” you say, “if you want we can swap places. You stay home with Hannibal and I’ll play detective with the FBI.”

“Funny,” says Will. “I like our arrangement the way it is.”

You look at him doubtfully.

“So you’ve really never considered it? You and him together, the way I am with him?”

“I consider you and me together,” says Will, and he steps towards you, driving you against the kitchen island until its edge impresses a horizontal groove into your back. “How I’m starting to forget what you taste like.”

Your breath jars in your throat, and you’re ashamed by the airless, claustrophobic sensation of desire that his words elicit.

“What would Uncle Jack think hearing you talk like that?” you ask.

Will smirks.

“Not everything I do is for Jack’s approval.”

He loops an arm around your waist, his palm grazing your skin through the smoke of your dress.

“Maybe you should be thinking about him,” you say, wriggling against the hammerhead of Will’s forceful want. “I don’t think he’d put you and dear, dear Daddy onto the Lover case if he knew that you were raping me.”

“Are we?” asks Will, and there is laughter of such an easy cruelty in his eyes that you wonder how you ever thought him good.

“Yes,” you say. “You are raping me, even though you love me. Maybe even because you do.”

Your voice is frail with emotion, no longer teasing. Will touches your cheek, and even that light touch is something evil, knowing of your weakness for him.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he says. “Not about me.”

You shake him with both hands, unhinged with a sudden desperation.

“It’s messed up, but I’m right, aren’t? You love me. Say it. Just say it. I need to hear it.”

With an abrupt motion Will hoists you up onto the kitchen counter, your unmoored limbs flailing around him.

“How about I show you?” he says, and reaching up under the gauzy skirt he pulls your underwear down to your ankles.

How often he disappoints you, refusing to free you, refusing you the words you beg of him.

Will kisses you from your hardened mouth down your clothed body to your unclothed cunt, and his lips are like a roaming spark beneath which you flinch in revulsion and response.

Your hands weave through the thick of his hair, and you kick at his shoulders briefly before the motion of his tongue makes you still.

The sight of Will glancing up at you between your thighs, the stirring of his mouth against the bead on which he strings you out—

You moan, yet through you, as always, is the disgust of having your flesh expressed of its need like juice from a persimmon, that he to whom you’ve grown close engages in this incest, and has you indulge in it, as well.

No longer can you envision an existence with him where that element were not part of it, nor one absent of his envy.

Even as Will devours you it is Hannibal whose taste he seeks, hunting the remnant he’d left in you that morning against the shower wall, hoping there is some trace not rinsed down the drain.

Against Will’s claims you know there is some sleeping shred of him that thinks of the hand, the mouth, the carefully trained form under the designer suits, and resents that you—his subordinate, and unwilling at that—have experienced all in place of him.

You muse upon how it will be if ever Will gives in to the cravings of man, envision him shunting you off into some corner to observe as they make violent love like the dispute of brother gods.

This, in conjunction with the roll of Will’s fingers and tongue-tip upon you, conducts a new music of pleasure, and afterwards an anger that he has transformed you so utterly as to be this easily aroused.

Scuttling your hand across the kitchen island you feel for the wine bottle, toying with the notion of striking Will over the head with it, and wonder if you’ve gone as bad as him to feel joy at the thought of his red brains and the red wine of his warm blood across you.

You’d never do it, yet the thought comes back and back unbidden. Hannibal has beckoned it in with his talk of killing, the resurrection of the poorly buried dead.

It’s as your fingers wrap around the glass that Will says darkly, “Don’t you dare.”

His face is turned against your thigh, its expression stern, though not entirely serious.

“I wasn’t doing anything” you protest.

“You were thinking it,” says Will. “That’s enough.”

Then his jaws are on you again, and pleasure crushes you flat as though between the earth and a stone.

He loves you, you think, in the midst of it. The only man outside your family that ever has, and he has treated you with greater cruelty even than Leland Frost. Yet you cannot resist affection of any kind, and so as Hannibal rightly guessed it is no longer entirely unrequited.

Self-loathing takes over in your orgasm’s decline, and you push Will away with the soles of your feet, not wanting to sully your hands with him.

“I’m bored now,” you snap. “Take your wine in yourself.”

You thump down onto the kitchen floor, swerving Will as he reaches for you with a testy jerk of your shoulder.

“Little One,” he says, and then he corrects himself with your real name, so rarely heard from him now that you are touched that he thinks of its use.

Still you leave the room, finding yourself on the bitter verge of tears.

*

In sleep you have one of those particular dreams that read more of latent prophecy, a canon yet to give itself birth. In a scrub of forest you crouch over the nude body of a woman, pulling from the open mouth of her gut glittering organs upon which you feast with a scavenger’s appetite.

Will and Hannibal oversee this feast in approving silence, their figures a second darkness in the night.

Why they do not share in that meal you do not know; perhaps they have eaten already of their own kills, observing with full bellies as you follow suit.

It does not strike you in this dream to loathe the thing you do, for to eat is to survive, and so to meet the approval of your masters. With eagerness you crawl up the cool length of the cadaver, ripping up carpets of meat as you go.

Only when you reach the face, upturned to the dish of the moon, that you recoil with a spasm of horror and recognition of it. You know this woman, yet cannot in sleep recall her name, nor conjure the place from which you remember her.

“Did I kill her?” you ask, for this, too, you do not know.

“No,” says Will. “Not with your own hands.”

“Your proximity to her was enough,” says Hannibal. “All those who have been even in passive orbit of you may fall foul of death. We have told you this, Little One.”

You stare into the dead woman’s sunken eyes which appear in their stillness like replicas of glass.

“But if I didn’t kill her, and you didn’t either, then why am I eating her?” you ask.

“I fear you will go mad in losing those you love,” says Hannibal. “So you must consume and accept the dead as part of you, as I have. That way both mind and memory will last, if not intact then transformed as you are by the sating of your hunger.”

“It won’t work,” you say. “I don’t believe that. That’s your religion, not mine.”

“You’ll learn to embrace your madness, then. After all, each of us three would be consigned to an asylum for our habits by those that don’t understand us. But I would always understand you, Little One, no matter what condition your broken mind was reduced to, in the end.”

Then your captor’s hand presses down on the base of your skull until you're forced to lap at the dead woman’s blood.

You awake half hanging off the side of your bed, your body having mimicked the acts of your dreaming self as it has not done since you were young. In those years you’d often jarred yourself awake by attempting to speak aloud or to gesticulate to some ephemeral figure.

That you’ve resumed this abandoned habit disturbs you far more than the content of your dream, and in a panicked rush you start out of your bedroom into the hallway, turning not into Will’s chamber—which tonight is occupied by his sleeping form—but into Hannibal’s.

The door swings open under your frantic touch, and a startled figure sits upright in the shadows, as disbelieving of you having come to him as you are yourself.

“What’s happened?” asks Hannibal. “Are you feeling alright?

“I had another dream,” you say. “I’m scared.”

You find yourself sitting on the end of Hannibal’s bed, the first time you have done so willingly. His face is an amazed blank, unable to translate the meaning of this new and impulsive action.

“Your nightmares are likely a side effect of reducing your medication,” he says, at last. “I should have warned you. I apologise; it’s my mistake.”

With a hoarse laugh you say, “What do you have to be sorry about? Everything that ever goes wrong... you know exactly what to do. You take care of me even if I don’t want you to. You’re always so sure of yourself.”

Hannibal switches on the bedside lamp, his face solemn in the belt of its light.

“That is untrue. I have many flaws and failures; you’ve seen for yourself that I’m not always as in control as I’d like to be.”

The attack with the knife, he means, or his tampering with Will’s mind, both grave mistakes, so few of which have occurred throughout your stay that only they, of all, occur to you. That Hannibal is a killer, a defiler of flesh living and dead does not present itself despite its obvious nature, for even in this he is unerring, cunning and clean.

“I’m going to let you down,” you say. “You think you can fix me, and I know how hard you’re trying, but I’m not okay. It’s going to get worse.”

Hannibal runs your cold fingers between his own until they warm.

“You say this because recent developments are frightening you. Because you assume the good that will come of submitting to mutual love will not last. You would rather propel yourself into a fit of anxiety than permit yourself the slightest happiness.”

You turn him a look of reproach.

“You know why I can’t.”

“Because we are killers.”

“Yes.”

“But you love us still.”

Tugging your hands from Hannibal’s own you say, “If I did I’d be a terrible person.”

“We can’t help who we care for in this life. That you are able to love against the bounds of your morality isn’t evidence of personal failure.”

Yet surely it must be, you think, is in fact a marker of how greatly you’ve given in to him.

You say nothing of this aloud, however, only inch across the bed into Hannibal’s arms, kissing him in the hope of ridding your mouth of the taste of blood from your dream.

“There’s time for this tomorrow,” he says, gently, drawing away; clearly he thinks you’re seeking sex, an invitation you’re amazed to see him decline. “It’s very late, and I have patients to see in the morning. Rest now. You’ll feel better for it.”

You sleep nestled against him, his palm on your belly, which for once you neither mind nor think much of, merely consoled by his presence there with you.

*

The following week you are suspended between shame and self-pity, aware that you have fallen by a missing rung on the ladder of pious restraint into collusion with the men that you’re unsure you can arise from.

Will becomes as present in the household as work and commitment to his dogs will allow, the continued, quiet feud with Hannibal still complicating the evident need to remain at his side.

With you Will is tactile, sensual, smothering you with the weight of his covetous desire.

"You need to talk to him about what happened between you," you say to Hannibal one night, your head in his lap as he draws another portrait of Will as some tragic hero. "He's driving me crazy. I wish you'd just hash it out together or something."

"He's lost trust in me," says Hannibal in a tone of martyred sadness. "That can't be rebuilt inorganically. In time I hope his anger will pass."

It's on the tip of your tongue to suggest that he unburden all of his wrongs in one grand gesture, but thinking the better of it you return to placid silence.

This new method of survival you have taken on, though considered wise even in your early days of imprisonment, is so indistinguishable from genuine attachment that you could not confidently distinguish the two from one another.

Amy would be disgusted with the woman you've become, pining for the approval of predators, one of which has struck up a friendship with her own attacker. It is a dark blessing that through hypnosis she has forgotten this, will read of you in Tattle Crime and frown at the strange pang she feels at the notion of you shared by the named men.

In this way you become your own accuser, sparing no empathy for the difficulty of your plight. As others would judge you so you judge yourself, are brutal in the manner your keepers have sought to discourage.

Rebellion comes in strange forms, as of late.

You while away your days in windows frosted with the turning of autumn into its pale sibling, writing the first coherent entries of the journal you've long been unable to manifest. Your prose is clumsy, your handwriting without any particular art, but in this alone you gain some tangible accomplishment and distraction from your conflict.

Knowing Hannibal surely reads your diary you consider caution, but upon realising there are few secrets left between you both you write honestly and without fear of being bent across his lap.

“WEDNESDAY—

I haven’t been allowed to talk to my parents in so long that I can’t even hear their voices in my head anymore. I guess I’m realising that I’ve been picturing strangers ever since I came here, and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Do I even miss them anymore, or is it other, made up people I just tell myself I miss? Were they ever real to begin with?

They call it solipsism, the theory that nothing actually exists outside your perception. I read that it one of Hannibal’s books— George Berkeley was the name of the philosopher. I hope I spelled his name right.

Since I was little I had this fear that I was the only real person in the universe, that everyone else I ever met just vanished the second they weren’t in front of me. I still feel that way, I guess.

My bad memories are the only proof that I’m not alone, as much as I’m afraid—or sometimes find myself wishing—that I am.

I just remembered a day my parents took me shopping around Christmas one year. We went to this huge shopping center, and it was so busy and noisy that my Mom got really worked up and started snapping at everybody as if it was our fault the whole city picked that day to buy presents too.

I guess I did something wrong— maybe I wandered off, or I said something she didn’t like. But suddenly she yelled so loud everybody around us turned to stare at us except my Dad, who looked away just like he always did. Messed with his glasses. Pretended he saw something interesting in a store window when we all knew he hated shopping and was just dying to get out of there and go home to the TV.

Five minutes later Mom tried to hold my hand like nothing ever happened. Like she forgot what she just did, or didn’t realise that it upset me. Then when I wouldn’t let her take my hand she got mad all over again, and I could tell it hurt her feelings.

I’ve always wondered how she justifies those moments to herself, or if she shoves them down so far that she can just pretend she’s never in the wrong.

If I did imagine my mother, why would I make her that way?

Anyway, I think this whole solipsism thing is why I don’t buy Hannibal’s idea of absorbing life, even if it’s just a symbolic gesture. If I can’t see you then you might as well be dead, so really the thought that something would be left of that person after their heart stops beating makes no sense to me.

Only my dreams are real. Realer than I am. But if they’re repeating what Hannibal keeps telling me then what does that mean?”

"FRIDAY —

“I spat out some of breakfast into a napkin today. Daddy Hannibal took me upstairs and hit me with some kind of leather flogger till I said I was sorry. I wasn’t, though, and he knew it. He told me I’d never get to go to nice places with him if I kept behaving in that way, and that would be the real punishment.

I keep forgetting that’s what he and Daddy Will want at the end of all this. To take me out of the shadows of this house into their light.

Haven’t they thought about how weird it’s going to look to everybody? What will they tell people? That I’m their daughter? Their inappropriately young girlfriend?

They’ll have to take me somewhere nobody knows us and no one really cares. Places we can be different people except to ourselves. But maybe we’ll become the people we pretend to be. I’d like that to be true.”

It’s as you’re finishing this particular entry that you overhear voices in one of the many hallways— Hannibal’s, and that of Jack Crawford, who’s been invited to dinner again. Perceiving a hushed secrecy to their dialogue you return to your talent of eavesdropping and sidle up to the nearest door.

It’s Jack you hear first, partway through some muttered sentence.

“—Heard about the fibre sample Beverly picked up on in Lillian Greyflower’s file.”

“A thread from a hospital gown,” says Hannibal. “Yes. She had Turner Syndrome and was undergoing frequent medical checks to monitor her health.”

“She wasn’t the only one,” says Jack. “Bryce Mulligan was struggling with Kidney Disease, Anaïs Foreau was a premature birth— all the Mask Murder victims had conditions that affected their weight and height in some way. None of them were much over five foot tall.”

So these are the details Will did not wish you to know, cautious of spooking you with the implications of the discovery. Your illness is the reason for the Lover’s interest in you: as many differences as there are between you and his first set of victims this is the one great likeness to have drawn him in.

“The killer’s first muse herself was in poor health,” says Hannibal, “and with stunted development for her age. I suggest you search missing persons records for a white, blonde female under the age of eighteen, last seen accompanying an older male family member; I believe she disappeared around the time the Mask Murders began. Look specifically for girls with growth disorders, genetic, and chronic conditions.”

“We need to narrow down a state,” says Jack. “The murderer is clearly a travelling man.”

Then, clearing his throat, he adds, “Speaking of the Lover, have you—”

Hannibal intercepts the question briskly.

“Not yet. As things are now I couldn’t possibly disturb the peace by announcing such unpleasant news. I will attempt it as soon as I can.”

Lost as to the meaning of this abrupt turn in the conversation you strain your ears, frustrated when the men’s voices lower so far as to become incoherent. Only Will’s footsteps approaching behind you compel you away from the door.

“Stop it,” he says. “You want them to catch you like that?”

Turning around, you stick out an irreverent tongue at him.

“Who says they were going to catch me?”

Will scoffs, scarcely masking his amusement.

“Quit screwing around. Go sit at the table. We’ll be eating soon.”

The dinner you find awkward in the deliberate avoidance of the Lover case, small talk expanded into impossible complexity across the courses. Having seen death in its multiples you are both angered and entertained by the senselessness of your fathers thinking you too delicate to endure what you have learned.

Jack’s hesitation you understand, being that of the three men only he thinks you wholly innocent. Your keepers, however, are purely concerned with avoiding the resulting unseemly outburst, and in this you are reminded that no matter what affections you’ve developed to protect yourself from a prisoner’s despair a prisoner you still are.

Glowering at them both under your lashes you crush a slice of ‘fish’ under your fork, watching it take the shape of the tines. It’s as you’re observing this process that an idea occurs to you, brought on by the visitor in the room. A chance to communicate to Jack that he dines with a cannibal, that he has eaten of the same people for whom his officers seek justice—

Stuffing the morsel of fish into your cheek you say, “I’m full. Can I be excused?”

Jack glances at Hannibal, his brows angled, and you realise that he discerns something overfamiliar in your tone or body language he isn’t sure enough of to interrogate.

“You’re free to leave whenever you like,” says Hannibal. “Enjoy your evening.”

“Thanks for joining us,” says Jack, and you offer him a weak smile before rushing out into the living room where your journal and ball point pen remain.

Tearing a leaf out of the back you write

‘TEST THE MEAT!!! IT’S HUMAN!” in a hasty scrawl and spit the fish you’d kept from dinner into your hand.

Your heart clatters in your chest like a train across some treacherous road as you dart through to the hallway. On a rack hangs Jack Crawford’s overcoat, the pocket of which you intend to deliver your grim parcel to.

This is the answer to the question of your freedom, the sole proof required to unlock the criminal mystery of the Copycat.

Upon reading your note Jack will take this meat to the lab where all forensic discoveries are founded, and in the makings of its DNA will realise what creature he has dined with, and what he has been tricked to eat at his table.

He will get you out of this house, give you back to your parents and end this horror you’ve been bent to fit by moulding hands. Hannibal will be imprisoned or institutionalised, perhaps Will too, if he’s discovered to know more than he suggests of his companion, or if your relations are found out.

There will be no more men and women eaten in the grand house of death, and no more will you be abused and infantilised, or forced to take your fill.

Things will be as they were before your abduction, a known unhappiness which from having lived before you know that you can bear.

Yet even as you reach into Jack’s pocket the negative aspects of this plan suggest themselves to discourage you from this rash and unplanned act.

You think of the Lover’s crimes going unsolved and continuing around you, closing in until you too are taken and locked into a doll. Even if the killer does not dare to capture you in your infamy there are the choking attentions of the press to think of, the humiliating questions as to what you have been made to do as concubine to your insatiable men.

Leland Frost would likely make some comment on it, as thoroughly as you’d attempt to avoid him, his eyes bright with a jilted humour.

“Guess you’re not my girl anymore, cher.”

“Shut up,” you whisper aloud. “I never was.”

The cold grease from the meat soaks the skin of your fingers, and your stomach turns over at the smell of it.

All your doubts have surely been injected by Hannibal’s hypnosis to dissuade you from escape, for even as you dismiss those that have already come to mind more follow, each more unpleasant than the last.

After all, these previous concerns assume the success of your attempt to rally Jack to your side. He has been groomed by Hannibal to think you mad, and a conniving lunatic at that, one poised to invent scandal and atrocities abound if it means you’ll be released from treatment.

Upon discovering the note and meat making filthy his beautiful coat Jack is unlikely to follow the command you’d penned there; rather, with a pitying look, he’ll deliver it to Dr Lecter, bringing down, unwitting, another brutal lesson from your keepers upon you.

But even should Jack believe or humour you and process the sample as is your design there is no likelihood of Hannibal submitting quietly to arrest. He is a killer, and as such will fight every man against him until none stand.

Then he will turn upon you in whatever fashion he decides, and the attempt will be for nothing, one you may not even live to regret.

The risk of failure is not worth the pursuit, you decide, and resign yourself to retreat from the hallway and from the temptation of hopeless escape.

As you turn into another room you collide with Will, who has followed you from the table.

“Sorry,” you mumble, and attempt to sidestep him, your full hand held partially behind your back.

Will takes you by the shoulders, pushing you lightly up against the nearest wall.

“Wait,” he says. “I know you’re up to something. You’d better admit it now before you’re in even more trouble. Don’t bother to lie; there’s no reason for you to be loitering out here unless you were doing something you’re not supposed to.”

When you don’t answer his gaze falls to the fist tightened upon your shame, and the set of his mouth steels.

“You’d better show me what you’re holding,” he says. “Let’s hope Hannibal’s feeling more forgiving than I am.”

[dagger-n-ravvi]

Chapter Two: Ever-So-Patient

Jade and Floyd satiate their food cravings. Azul finds their method of doing so to be rather alarming.

Warnings: The graphic eating of raw eggs, public blowjobs, 69ing, mildly dubious content (on Azul’s part)

Previous | Next Chapter | Fic Index

A03 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46007587?view_full_work=true

The brothers make their way out of the lounge, and into the kitchen. Floyd grabs all the eggs he can find out of the fridge and stacks them grumpily on the table. Jade watches distantly as he flicks open the first carton and swallows an egg in one gulp, shell and all.

“Ahhhhh…” he sighs, expression smoothing into relief as he takes another. Jade sits down beside him, plucking an egg out of the carton for himself. He hesitates for just a moment as something in the back of his mind suggests that he should…cook this first. Be civilized…

He swallows the egg as Floyd did. He has no gag reflex in his eel form, and only a very slight one as a human, so it goes down easily. The smooth shell feels unbelievably satisfying as it rolls down, easing the emptiness in his middle with blissful, nourishing weight. Eagerly, he takes another. 

"We're...we’re not off…are we?" he asks, feeling lightheaded as takes a third. The crunch is soooooooo satisfying. And then the yolk sliding down…wonderful. Like manna from heaven…

"Hmmm?" Floyd crunches through the shell of his next egg before swallowing. His throat swells briefly, and a dribble of raw yolk leaks from the corner of his mouth. "I dunno. I feel weird, but not sick like Azul said. Not enough to see the nurse, prolly."

"I don’t know. He might be right," Jade admits, swallowing a fourth egg. “These are so good…why do we ever bother cooking them…” He looks over to Floyd, suddenly overcome by an urge to lean on him. So he does. He rests his head on Floyd’s shoulder, sliding over in his chair until he nearly falls out of it. Floyd grumbles irritably, but doesn’t shove him away like before. 

“You are so weird…”

“But you love me anyway~” Jade sings, taking in Floyd’s comforting scent. “You know… I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.” The admission makes his cozy new pillow pause in surprise before eating the next egg.

"You? Stay in bed? HA. Maybe you ARE getting sick." Floyd licks the yolk off of his chin before grabbing another. Jade whines at him, and Floyd hesitates with the egg halfway to his mouth.

“You have arms. Get your own.” 

Jade whines again, clinging to Floyd’s arm with both hands and pleadingly opening his mouth. Floyd breath catches in his throat at the unfairly adorable display. His hand trembles slightly, and then he rolls his eyes, then pops the egg into Jade’s waiting mouth. He swallows it with a dull crunch, and a sing-song hum of satisfaction.

“Thank you, big brother. May I have another?”

“No. This one is mine.” Floyd pouts, shoving it into his mouth before Jade can use cuteness to beg him out of it again.

“How cruel… How could you be so cruel to your only living brother?”

“You want another? Give me space in your room for my clothes.” Floyd grins, seeing a chance to expand on his territory.

“Absolutely not.”

“Wha!? Why not?”

“My space is my space. Not Floyd’s,” Jade says primly.

“Then I ain’t feeding you!” Floyd shoves another egg into his mouth. He refuses to look at his twin’s big, begging eyes…

He glances down for just a moment and sees Jade pouting at him and nuzzling forlornly against his arm. “Stop it…”

“Nnnnn…” More pouting and faint, pitiful whining.

“No.”

Little snuggles continue. More whining, more pouting. 

“... Okay one more.”

Azul stares at them from the doorway, mouth open in silent shock as he watches them eat. A full three dozen raw eggs. They might have eaten more, but that is literally all they had in the fridge. Something is VERY wrong with both of them, and all he can do is pray it isn’t contagious before he has to buy up the island’s entire egg supply.

Floyd finally pushes Jade away and he wanders off with a disappointed grumble, but Azul manages to cut Floyd off before he can disappear too. Jade might have escaped, but Floyd won’t! 

“Nurse. NOW,” he insists, pointing to the gooey and shell-flecked remnants of his and Jade’s ‘dinner.’ “I’ll walk you there, come on.” 

“Noooo!” Floyd gripes, finding himself getting dragged unhappily into the hallway. “I’m tired! And my feet hurt. And my back. Wanna lay down…” He rubs his eyes. Azul notices that they’re bloodshot, and have dark circles underneath them. Is he not getting enough sleep?

“Floyd, I can’t have an epidemic spreading through my dorm on finals week,” Azul sighs, dragging Floyd into the campus hallway. “I need you to behave for me. What do you want in return for a few moments of your patience?”

Floyd freezes when Azul asks what he’d have to do for him to behave. “Suck me off,” he says bluntly, without any hesitation at all. Azul flinches, looking around to see if anyone heard that, but thank Seven, the hallways are empty. Their fellow students must all either be outside enjoying the sunset, or cooped up in their rooms cramming for the upcoming exams.

“Suck you off? SERIOUSLY?”

“Yeah.” Floyd plants his feet right outside the nurse’s office and crosses his arms refusing to move. Azul groans, noticing distantly that even though Floyd isn’t out of breath, he’s sweating enough to make big, dark blotches on his shirt. Fever maybe? 

“All right. Yes, but only AFTER we’re done here. Deal?” If Floyd is sick, then getting up close and personal with him will all but guarantee that Azul will catch it too, but so be it. He’s not exactly in a position to refuse. 

“No. Right here.” Floyd follows him into the empty infirmary. “C’mon Azul~” 

Azul freezes as Floyd comes up behind him and inhales deeply, nuzzling his nose into his hair. “Azulllllllll, you smell so good…” His hands creep underneath his shirt to palm his chest. Azul flinches, panicking lightly. Shit. What is the only thing that might be worse than an epidemic spreading through Octivanelle? The wrong person walking into this VERY PUBLIC space and catching him halfway through a blowjob. But if he turns Floyd down now, he’ll likely just head back to the dorm…

“You smell good too,” Azul purrs, eyeing the nurse’s office. It’s not a lie. Jade and Floyd both have a faint, brine-and-ocean-air smell that he assumes is unique to transformed eelmers. There’s a sweet, oddly enticing topnote on the scent now. It’s pleasant, like perfume with a touch of musk in it. “Come here then, if that’s really all you want.”

He pulls Floyd toward the office, hoping he can get him inside and lock the door before he gets it into his head to start taking off his clothes out here…

Floyd purrs in his chest and happily follows along. His pants are tight… soooo tight… he fumbles at his belt and shoes, kicking off one outside the office door, and the other inside.

“Isn’t it fun? The idea of getting caught…” Floyd whispers as Azul pushes him onto the exam bed.

“NO.” Azul locks, then double-locks the door with magic.

“Awww… I wanna see who would be ballsy enough to try and blackmail us~” Floyd deliciously runs both hands down his stomach, then slips his fingers into the waistband of his pants and pushes them down. The bulge of his hardening shaft shows perkily through the fabric of his octopus patterned boxers and he smiles giddily. That would be incredible… Azul’s mouth stuffed full, panicking as someone walks in~ Azul wouldn’t be able to say anything because obviously there would be a dick in his mouth, but Floyd would make sure that the fucker walks away from interrupting them with TWO broken legs…

“I have no desire to get caught by a stranger while in coitus EVER,” Azul shudders. He rapidly walks past Floyd and opens a drawer, flicking through thermometers, tongue depressors…ah. He finds a handheld biomagic medical scanner and turns it over in his hands…then swears under his breath. He has no idea how to use it.

“Booo…boring, but I get it.” Floyd sighs, idly kicking his legs and clinging wistfully to the fantasy. Azul should trust that Floyd will keep him safe~

“Not boring, practical.” Azul goes back into the drawer and finds the user manual, resisting the urge to groan when he sees that it’s literally an inch thick. The school nurse should really be here to do this. Is that man EVER at his post?!

“Azulllll….” Floyd growls softly. “If you aren’t gonna to play, then I’m gonna leave…”

“Ok, ok…” Azul tucks the scanner into his back pocket and walks back over to him. “Don’t be so impatient.”

Azul leans forward and presses a deep kiss between Floyd’s teeth, lightly running his fingers through his hair. At the same time, he lifts the manual behind Floyd’s back and opens it one-handed, flicking through pages with his thumb and looking frantically for operating instructions. If he can slip out of here without going further than kissing and heavy petting, he very much will. Floyd hadn’t taken his earlier deal, after all… 

Floyd sighs into the kiss, relaxing for just a moment before vigorously kissing back. His arms entwine around Azul’s body, greedily squeezing his ass and thighs. He breaks the kiss just a moment later with a tight, needy gasp. “Feel that…?” He grinds his pelvis into Azul’s with a low moan. “It’s waiting for you~“

Oh, Azul does feel that. He can’t NOT feel it, but Azul is no stranger to splitting his concentration between half a dozen tasks. He lightly traces Floyd’s lower lip with his tongue before capturing his mouth in another kiss and crawling onto his lap to grind against him, flicking through pages all the while. Is literally half of this wretched manual just the warranty agreement?! He would normally be impressed, but at the moment he just needs to know what buttons turn the damn thing on!

A little grumpily, Floyd pulls back from the kiss, and traces Azul’s swollen lower lip with his thumbs. “Whatcha doing?”

Azul gently takes one of Floyd’s thumbs into his mouth, suggestively folding his tongue around it in a slow, sinuous lick. Floyd’s breath stops, and a warm shiver rolls through the pit of his stomach as sucking pressure rolls over his skin. So warm, so soft... ‘oooohhhhooo… you absolute slut…’

Azul’s eyes flick away from the manual for just a moment to stare up into Floyd’s as he pops the now-wet thumb out of his mouth. “I’m getting ready,” he murmurs and tries to lean forward for another kiss. Floyd accepts this… for a second. And then he impatiently flips Azul over and pins him to the exam bed. Azul makes a surprised squeak, flailing and then gasping as kisses and feral nips are pressed to the underside of his jaw.

“Liar… you’re reading a stupid book.” Floyd chuckles in his ear.

“W-whhhh, F-Floyd?!” The manual is whipped out of his fingers before he can even think to hold onto it. Floyd tosses it over his shoulder, where it hits the far wall, and falls out of sight behind the desk.

“You are sick and I wa- HHH!” He arches as Floyd paws open his belt and all but tears open his pants. “I’m trying to find out why!”

“No more finding out,” Floyd drags Azul’s pants down his legs, leaving them bunched up around his ankles. “No more ‘why’.” He nips at Azul’s bare thigh, hard enough to break the skin and teach him manners for being distracted during sex.

“AGH! MUST YOU?!” Azul yelps, and Floyd soothes the bite, gently lapping up a few drops of coppery blood. He licks higher, creeping closer to Azul’s crotch before a wad of inconvenient underwear fabric gets in his way. Slowly he blinks, tracing the outline of Azul’s body underneath his tight fitting boxers in a somewhat dazed state.

‘Smells good… why does he smell so good?’ He barely has the presence of mind to pull Azul’s underwear down instead of tearing it off. Painting softly, he leans down and gives his cock a long, ardent lick. 

“If I…if I do you…” Floyd gives Azul’s cock a sloppy kiss, then probes teasingly at the slit with his tongue, “then you… do me…”

“Whh-HNGHHH!” Azul arches, fumbling weakly at Floyd’s head as he digs right in without a word of warning. Oh, oh, OH- His bared backside and thighs feel blisteringly vulnerable and chilled. He presses a hand over his mouth and glances desperately at the door. It would just be PERFECT if that worthless nurse decided to come back and do his job right as THIS is happening. At least he’ll have to unlock the door first, so that might give him some time to react...

In spite of his anxiety, or perhaps even because of it, his body is cheerfully responding to the attention. It’s been a few days since he had time to do anything sexual at all, and his skin feels traitorously needy. The resulting conflict leaves him lying frozen under Floyd’s enticingly-scented body, cock hardening and breath coming in short, shaky gasps. 

Floyd flicks his tongue against the head of his cock, then suckles it generously, savoring the flash of salt as precum beads at the tip. He hums in pleasure as it hardens, and lifts his mischievous, mismatched eyes to glance back at Azul’s face…and then rolls his eyes with an irritated sigh. He’s staring at the stupid door again instead of enjoying himself…

“Oi… you don’t wanna attract attention right? I got an idea, but you gotta lay the back of your head here.” Floyd reaches forward and taps the center of the pillow at the head of the exam bed. Azul swallows hard. Will it be faster to wrestle himself out from under Floyd than to just let this happen? Likely not, and even then, he doubts he’ll be able to get an angry, horny Floyd to hold still for a medical scan that he still has no idea how to perform. So in the interest of getting through this quickly, Azul does as directed, moving his head to the indicated spot. 

“I thought you wanted me to suck YOU off,” he protests weakly. “Did you change your mind?” 

Floyd kicks off his boxers, then flips around to straddle Azul’s head with his knees, letting his large, and fully erect cock cheerfully smack him in the face.

“Nah… I just thought if your mouth was occupied, you wouldn't be screaming so much.” Floyd snickers, crouching forward over Azul’s legs and giving his cock a fond lick to let it know he hasn’t forgotten about it. “And now you can’t see the door, so you won’t keep getting distracted by iiiiit~”

Dear god, this has really gotten out of hand. Blushing furiously, Azul takes the offered dick into his mouth and rolls his tongue over it, tilting his chin up and down to awkwardly move it in and out with the pillow pressing restrictively into the back of his head. Human bodies and dry-land limitations…if they were 69-ing underwater, it would be much less awkward. He has to mostly use his tongue, and he’s getting clumsier…the more Floyd distracts him…with his own mouth… 

Floyd sinks down to try and make Azul take him deeper. “C’mon Azul~ you're getting clumsy… I thought that mouth could do almost anything…” he taunts between licks.

“Hrrrk?!” Azul blushes harder, with a touch of offended pride this time. He wraps his arms around Floyd’s hips and jerks him down, holding his breath and swallowing around him. Floyd gasps mid suck, shuddering with pleasure. Hoping to surprise him into a fast orgasm, Azul thoroughly suckles Floyd’s shaft and rolls the back of his tongue beneath the head of his cock, before he literally bench-presses Floyd’s hips upward and draws him back out of his mouth with a dark chuckle. 

“Ah! Azul!” Floyd gasps, squirming as cold air curls over his dick. 

“You’re trying to get more out of me than we bargained for. You’d better be INFINITELY patient for me after this…”

“Ehe… what deal? I didn’t shake on-HHHHHH!“ Floyd gasps as Azul swallows deeply enough that his tongue peeks between his teeth and his nose brushes lightly against Floyd’s pubic mound. ‘His mouth can do almost anything.’ The nerve… 

‘Fuck Azul! Soo good! So good!’ Floyd moans. It’s so much but he wants…wants to make Azul come first! He redoubles his efforts, bobbing his head and sucking noisily while laving the shaft and head with his tongue. Azul shudders underneath him, choking lightly. Despite Azul’s initial bit of skill, it’s not much of a contest to see who can get who off first. In all things, Azul makes up for his lack of endurance with tricks, planning, preparation and fancy toys. In a spontaneous one-on-one, he has as little chance of holding out against Floyd’s endurance as a snowball does of staying frozen in a lit oven. It’s almost adorably soon when he comes, pushing Floyd out of his own mouth with shaky arms and an overwhelmed gasp. His core muscles flex and he arches up into Floyd’s chest, gripping his hips so tightly that it leaves the imprints of his fingers behind.

“F-fuck-” he whimpers, feeling overwhelmed by scent, sound, and feeling as Floyd noisily drinks up his release like a man dying of thirst. He even swirled his tongue as an added cherry on top!

“Haaahhh… ok… ok, now finish me off.” Floyd sits up and flips around, sitting across Azul’s face and shoulders. He tangles his fingers into Azul’s silvery hair and thrusts back inside. 

“Gugh-!?” Flinching from the overstimulation, and then the RUDE hair pull, Azul narrows his eyes and pushes him away.

“Noooo…You feel so good… c’mon… c’mon!” Floyd urges, desperate to reach climax himself. Azul rolls his eyes, then allows Floyd’s cock back into his mouth, and sneakily casts a spell. Deep, resonant vibrations immediately curl over Floyd’s entire length, rolling through the shaft and over the head as though an invisible vibrator has been pressed inescapably to his skin. 

“FUCK!” Floyd screams as he instinctively thrust down. “Oooooooh… cheater, cheater… fuck, I love it…”

Azul holds him in place, only lightly licking at the intrusion and smugly letting the spell do all the work. He chuckles to himself, feeling victorious…right up until the point where Floyd grinds down, and comes. 

It tastes completely wrong. Heavy, rich, sticky, and A LOT of it. It’s also oddly cold, which seems even stranger given that Floyd is sweating like his skin is on fire. This is all much more like what he’d expect from Floyd’s eel body than from his human one, but that shouldn’t be possible if he’s taking his potions! Azul flails underneath him, trying to push him off and wincing as Floyd’s fingers tangle more firmly into his hair. He has half a mind to bite him for being this rude, especially when the cool liquid overflows his mouth and pours down the sides of his face in a horrible, gooey mess.

‘LET ME GO!’ He chokes as some of it slips down his throat, and wrenches his head out from under Floyd’s body, tearing his hair out and losing his glasses in the process. He rolls off the bed and onto the floor, coughing and gagging. Spit and thick, pearly cum drips from his face and mouth in shimmering, gooey ropes, nearly making him throw up and add his lunch to the awful mess.

“Are. You. HAPPY NOW?” Azul spits, curling his fingers into a fist. The vibration spell kicks up a notch, giving Floyd absolutely no time to rest or catch his breath as Azul wipes his face off and clumsily yanks his pants back on. Where did his glasses go…?

“HAAAAAAHHHHH! Uh…uh huh…nuhhhhhh~” Floyd moans as he collapses onto his stomach and the dizzying smell of sex fills his awareness. He holds himself, hips twitching and vision fuzzy as Azul plucks his glasses out of the puddle beneath his head and wipes them off. So good, so good, so goooooooood~ He shakily grabs the pillow off the exam bed and shoves it between his legs, rutting into it with delirious satisfaction. Thank Seven. Azul can only imagine if Floyd grabbed him again. He… doubt he would maintain the ability to walk given how Floyd was treating the pillow.

Azul irritably straightens his bent glasses, jams them back onto his face, then staggers behind the desk to pick up the user manual. If Floyd doesn’t want to cooperate, then he’ll DISTRACT him long enough to find out why he’s suddenly so insanely horny on top of EVERYTHING else. He flips through the pages, absently maintaining the vibration spell and listening to Floyd’s moans, just in case he works himself up to the point of passing out. He wants him distracted, not dead.

“Finally! Who puts the user interface diagram on page seventy-three?!” He retrieves the scanner from where it fell beneath the bed and switches it on…

[love-bokumono-fics]

Fresh Crops! July 1 - July 7, 2024

This week's newest fics and chapter updates for Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons on AO3!

A Wonderful Life - by Aqueird; WIP, 1/?, 1.4k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: A Wonderful Life, DS Cute Relationships: Cody | Gordy/Chris, Cody | Gordy/ Original Character(s), Pony | Aya | Jill/Rock, Pony | Aya/ | Cody | Gordy, Chris/Wally | Suarii; Characters: Pony | Aya | Jill, Original Characters, Cody | Gordy, Chris, Hugh, Wally | Suarii Additional Tags: Cheating, Implied Sexual Content, Established Relationship Summary: Chris needed a distraction: “Something to cope. Life can hit you unexpectedly, so you either let it lay you down or you hit the ground running. And if you can’t run, you find something to lean on” Gordy eyed her for a long moment without moving from his position on the bed. “So, you’re leaning on me?” He asks more like a statement. Chris fastens her buckle tightly, “I’m walking with you.” Chris and Gordy have a conversation about an upcoming gallery opening.

Her Voice Within - by syavwits; WIP, 11/?, 23k

Rating: Not Rated; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Back To Nature Relationship: Claire the Farmer/Gray; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Pete the Farmer, Gray, Rick, Kai, Cliff, Doctor | Trent, Mary the Librarian | Marie, Karen, Popuri, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Elli | Elly, Manna, Duke, Doug | Dudley, Old Ellen, May | Mei, Stu | Yu, Zack, Won | Huang, Anna, Basil the Writer, Saibara, Harris, Gotz | Gotts, Kano, Louis the Entomologist | Chuu, Greg, Barley | Mugi, Aja | Adge Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Romantic Soulmates, Soul-Searching, Mystery, Mute Protagonist, Found Family Summary: It's not that Claire can't talk, she sometimes speaks yes, but only when she really put all her energies to do it. Then there's Gray, the stoic guy with the famous resting b*tch face, he doesn't want anything to do with anyone, everyone, even the new girl although she's… cute. While Pete tries to save his farm, he also confides in Claire and asks her help to search for his unknown childhood friend, his first love, who apparently is one of the girls in Mineral town?!? Will Claire manage to find Pete's long-lost Best friend? Will Claire find what she truly desires in her second chance at life?

Tumblr Posts for A Wonderful Life Characters - by actaeoncross; WIP, 54/?, 62k

Rating: Not Rated; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi Fandoms: A Wonderful Life Relationship: Multiple Characters x Reader; Characters: Celia | Seperia | Cecilia, Cody | Gordy, Daryl, Flora, Gustafa, Lumina, Marlin | Mash | Matthew, Muffy | Molly, Nami, Rock, Reader Summary: A collection of Tumblr posts for A Wonderful Life Characters x Reader prompts.

Sugar and Spice - by Chibimiie; WIP, 64/?, 173k

Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Animal Parade Relationships: Chase/Molly the Farmer, Angela/Luke; Characters: Molly | Hikari, Angela the Farmer, Chase, Luke, Kasey the Farmer Additional Tags: Slow Burn, oh god how do you tag fics, mentions of eating disorders, alternating povs, Friends to Lovers, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, bumped up the rating because i honestly should have a little bit ago, burn so slow it's honestly a simmer, Mutual Pining Summary: Wanting to get away from past hurts of the city, sisters Molly and Angela decide to respond to a flyer advertising an abandoned farm on the faraway island of Castanet. Leaving behind their closest friends and brother Kasey, the two take a chance and move to the tiny island hoping for a new chance at life.

And two Not Safe For Tumblr stories by Thefallen1986, with NSFT Titles.

[antimony-medusa]

Fic Recs April '23

What did I read this month? As ever, it's mostly going to be Dream SMP, but I wander outside the fandom ocassionally, and we've got some QSMP and 3rd Life this month! You can keep an eye on my Ao3 bookmarks if you ever don't want to wait the full month, but here's a shor tlist (I tried to keep it short) of especially fun/intersting/good things.

The Fics - Oneshots

Human condition by InsomniWillow Fandom: QSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Alexis | Quackity/Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Tallulah, Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson | Philza Tags: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Developing Friendships, Human/Monster Society Length: 1/1 chapters (this might be a multi-chapter though), 3,515 words

New to Qusadilla Island, Ordinary Guy Wilbur Soot brings his tiny daughter to the new school that's opened up. The school that is FULL of terrifying players and their kids. This is just super cute slice of life fluff and it's a fun setup to see Wilbur go "oh god, that's a demon, that's a shark god, is that Philza Minecraft?????" while he's trying to remain chill for his daughter.

where you hide your heart from me by 75hearts Fandom: DSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Alexis | Quackity/Wilbur Soot Tags: Pogtopia, Suicidal Thoughts, Wingfic, Wilbur Soot Is Not Okay Length: 1/1 chapters, 2,223 words Just gonna grab the summary for this one cause it's perfect.

“I’ll fucking kill you if you pull a single feather,” Quackity says. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Wilbur says.

-

or: in Pogtopia, Wilbur preens Quackity's wings.

They're SOOO prickly and the situation is just two people full of broken edges hitting off each other, and you want it to be better, and at the same time this is the only way it could be.

you think they'll make it? by honeyblock Fandom: DSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Niki Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, Niki Nihachu & Jschlatt, Niki Nihachu & Wilbur Soot & Jschlatt Tags: Alternate Universe - hadestown Fusion, Niki Nihachu-Centric, niki as orpheus and wilbur as eurydice, implied/referenced suicide. Length: 1/1 chapters, 7,968 words

Niki breaks into Hadestown to try and get Wilbur back. And then she meets Jschlatt, and then she goes spare. Oh man this is a beautiful and lyrical setup, and then Schlatt is just so odious and hateable, ad then Niki getting furious enough to take on a god is So Satisfying. Delightful.

Manna from Heaven by ResidentHesitant Fandom: DSMP Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Ranboo/Tubbo Tags: Married Ranboo and Tubbo, Domestic Fluff, Pesach | Passover, post-canon, slice of life, Found Family Length: 1/1 chapters, 3,152 words

Tubbo hosts his first seder. This is just a joyous slice of life with the whole community coming together to celebrate passover. A glimpse into other traditions for me, and full of love for the characters and for judaism. This fic is so happy. It's canon to ME. I love it.

take this life and hold it by the hand by Odaigahara Fandom: DSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Technoblade & Philza, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Philza Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crow Hybrid Philza, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Happy Ending, Inspired by that video of Kestrel Dad. Length: 1/1 chapters, 2,292 words

Technoblade is just having a perfectly normal day with his family (who are polar bears) when his friend the crow shows up with— Phil, is that a BABY? What are we gonna do with it? And what does it eat? This is just so so funny. Techno and Phil are both so helpless with a tiny baby, they don't now how to feed this little one, at one point a dead mouse is put on the baby's face and everyone looks at him hopefully. It's so funny.

The Fics - Longfics

The Musketeers - SBI AU by Anarchy_and_Piglins Fandom: DSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Wilbur Soot & Tommyinnit & Technoblade & Philza Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, 3 Musketeers Fusion, BAMF Everybody, Tommyinnit Angst, Philza Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Humour, Emotional Hurt/Comfort Length: 2/4 chapters, 8,086 words

TommyInnit is on a mission of vengance to kill the man who murdered his father, with only his dying words that a man named Philip d'Athos is responsible. Philip, meanwhile, is trying to figure out who's impersonating musketeers. They are on a direct collision course in 17th century France. I'm sure this will go well.

missing or obstructed by skelew Fandom: Hermitcraft, 3rd Life Rating: Teen Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationship: Grian & Rendog, Grian & GoodTimesWithScar, Rendog & Martyn InTheLittleWood Tags: Post 3rd Life, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Watcher Lore, Amnesia Length: 4/? chapters, 13,890 words

Grian is back in Hermitcraft but he can't forget what happened in 3rd life. Unfortunately everyone else has forgotten what happened. Everyone except Rendog, who he remembers very strongly as his enemy. This one started as a character study and you can tell, it's very deliberate and mediative with the characters, and it's just slowly growing through the questions of what they do now, and what they do with these relationships they have to people they care so much about and also those people don't remember it.

See How They Run by Aard_Rinn Fandom: DSMP Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Tubbo & Tommyinnit & Ranboo, Technoblade & Philza Tags: Alternate Universe - Borrowers Fusion, Rescue, Captivity, Dark SBI, Dehumanization, Non-consensual touching (nonsexual), Tubbo-Centric Length: 3/3 chapters, 10,590 words

Benchtrio are Borrowers, and Tubbo gets caught by Emduo! Man, this starts with Tubbo falling into oil and not being able to climb out (he's eventually rescued by Emduo), and it's honestly terrifying. I really felt like I was a tiny creature clinging to a spoon. It continues to play with the fact that Tubbo is just so TINY and defenceless.

wasteland by chrysalizzm Fandom: DSMP Rating: Mature Warnings: Major Character Death Relationship: Dream SMP Ensemble Tags: Alternate Universe - Heroes & Villains, Hurt/Comfort, Disillusionment, Morally Grey Characters, Political Corruption, Systemic Bigotry, Unreliable Narrator, Alternate Universe - Superheroes & Superpowers, Mind Control, Bittersweet/Open Ending, Multiple POV, (and more! It's a series) Length: 11/30 fics, 72,431 words

MASSIVE sprawling superhero epic digging into power issues, morality, villainy, cohersion, sexism and other 'isms, marching towards an inevitable end. It all ends in tragedy, but oh my god the journey there is so rich and beautifully drawn. Each fic in the series is a different spot on the timeline and you see characters from so many different POVs, as events come into greater focus and you realize what the fuck HAPPENED to break people like that. This is very much a fic to read while spamming the sobbing emoji in the chat with a friend, but oh man I have to see how it all comes together and if ANY of my guys make it out. I don't know if any of my guys make it out! :SOB:

sharp temporary walls (the long-term cliff edge of the world) by Odaigahara Fandom: 3rd Life SMP Rating: Teen Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Relationship: Grian & GoodTimesWithScar Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Memory Alteration, Corpse Desecration, Animal Death, Friendship, Horror, Angst with a Happy Ending Length: 1/3 chapters, 5,042 words

3rd life is down to two players, but they're both hurt. They decide to wait and heal before a final fight. The world waits around them. Just the tone of this one is so eerie and creepy. The world is just so silent and malevolent, while Desert Duo tries to heal, while also knowing that it all ends in death. I'm not gonna spoil it but what happens when Joel's dogs show up looking for their master is SO GOOD and SO BAD at the same time.

And They Were Ghosthunters | TNT Duo AU by commaclear Fandom: DSMP Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationship: Alexis | Quackity/Wilbur Soot Tags: Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Fish out of Water, Alternate Universe - Angels and Demons, Happy Ending Length: 21/21 chapters, 46,984 words

Wilbur Soot is a demon who's tired of being bored in Hell and decided to go to Earth, where he gets a job on a Ghost Hunting show run by a guy named Quackity. Surely he has lots of oppurtunity for sin here! Two problems though: Quackity is really cute and might actually be a genuinely good person and Wilbur is falling for him, and Love is toxic to demons. This one is legitimately so very funny and such a fast read. I sat down to read the first two chapters and then i looked up and I'd read 46k.

catbag by supinetothestars Fandom: DSMP Rating: Teen Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence Relationship: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Philza & Tommyinnit, Tommyinnit & Tubbo Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes & Superpowers, Villain SBI, Hero Tommyinnit, Child Abuse, Truth Serum, PTSD, Secret Identity, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort Length: 5/? chapters, 30,665 words

Okay so the summary for this one was:

Suspected of betraying the Hero Guild, Apprentice hero Tommy (A.K.A. Blindspot) is put under Security Protocol Catbag: a locked-on noise cancelling mask equipped with truth gas. His mentor, Dream, calls it a necessary teaching tool.

Meanwhile, SBI wants to know why their least favorite loudmouth little Hero has suddenly stopped talking.

And I read that and I was like "supinetothestars is going to get me back into reading tommy-centric superheros", and it's happened. It's so good, the characters are so thoughtful (and feel way more like canon characterizations vs fanon), and they run up against each other in really interesting ways. Wilbur is a paranoid bastard in a way that feels realistic and canon! The superpowers are interesting and interestingly played out (tommy's power is he can make himself unnoticeable!) and the relationships are adhering to tropes enough that they're like, oooooo, what happens next, I have a delightful suspicion, but they are pulled off well enough that they still feel fresh. It's really good.

Double Down by Onelituli Fandom: DSMP Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death Relationship: Dream & Tommyinnit & Tubbo, Ranboo & Tommyinnit & Tubbo, Dream & Sapnap & George, Tags: Alternate Universe - Imawa no Kuni no Alice | Alice in Borderland Setting, Rated for Language and Dark Themes, Mystery, Flashbacks, Slow Build, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Grief/Mourning, No Villains just Antagonists, Bittersweet Ending Length: 11/13 chapters, 67,663 words

Oh man how even to explain this one. The Dream SMP ensemble is imprisoned in this post-apocolyptic setting where they have to compete in challenges to win cards. The higher the suit of the card, the harder the challenge. And people will die, they are dying, the challenges are killing them. They don't know why they're here or who is making them do this, but all they can do is try and make it together despite a structure that keeps trying to turn them against each other and destroy them. This is structured with lots of flashbacks and mysteries, and the mystery of what HAPPENED to these people is ever-present. And how on earth they possibly make it out of this challenge with even one person alive. This one is such a mystery, I don't know what's HAPPENING but I want to KNOW. And that's it for this month! I'll see you next time!

[not-sewell]

@ava-du-mortain, my beloved, tagged me to post 10 songs i've been into. so here goes:

songs i've been vibing to this month, in no particular order

1. All Things End by Hozier

the heavenly chorus. that's it. that's all.

2. Sunflower by Tamino, Angèle

this song, the music video everything makes me feel downright unwell.

3. Left Right by Abdullah Siddiqui, Ali Sethi, Maanu & Shae Gill

i'm just such a hoe for Ali Sethi and Shae Gill's pair and i'm eternally grateful to @zeesqueere, my dear friend, for sending me this.

4. Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein by S. D. Burman (performed by Geeta Dutt & Mohammad Rafi)

it's a very Mona x Nate song and i'm stuck with a Mona x Nate fic idk what else is left to say

5. Adiye by A. R. Rahman (performed by Sid Sriram)

well. i have one A. R. Rahman song zooming through my brain at any given time.

6. Khabar-e-Tahayyur-e-Ishq by Ali Sethi

Ali Sethi + Ghazal (specifically, ones with the themes of mysticism) has my body, mind and soul, friends.

7. Ay Hairathe by A. R. Rahman (performed by Hariharan, Alka Yagnik, Mohammed Aslam & A. R. Rahman)

OKAY SO I LIED. i always have multiple A. R. Rahman songs zooming through my brain at any given time.

8. Unnai Kaanadhu Naan (Live) by Berklee Indian Ensemble

this version of the Vishwaroopam song fucks severely. that's all.

9. What Colour Is Your Raindrop by Tajdar Junaid

this has exactly my kind of sentimentality to it, so... 🤷

10. Hoyto Tomari Janya by Sudhin Dasgupta (performed by Manna Dey)

again, this is has got a very Mona x Nate vibe, and i'm stuck with a Mona x Nate fic. :))

tagging (and pls ignore if you've done this already skfjks): @zeesqueere, @brightpinkpeppercorn, @bengalifairy, @serenpedac, @amlovelies, @ottobooty

[shame-is-a-wasted-emotion]

20 questions with author: my edition.

Thank you so much @special-bc-ur-part-of-it for tagging me. And I am tagging (of course I will be happy to read any body's list. So invite yourself and play the game) @rockitmans ,@kirakiwiwrites ,@hkvoyage , @fallevs

1. How many words do you have on ao3?

11. 2 are wip so 9 actually.

2 What is your ao3 word count?

187,023

Well that's surprising!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Glee Klaine for now. Just them. I could write for charlie/nick .

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

5.Do you respond to comments? Why and why not?

Hmm some of mine are hit by kudos . So we'll see.

1. One step closer(86)

2.living haphazard (29)

3.juliets boudoir and Paris of my childhood (23)

4.A cradle is an art(20)

5.Warm milk? Really?(18)

I do every single time. I get comments very rarely so it's like a manna.

6.What fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None. May the one I started writing yesterday. But as of now, none.

7. What fics you wrote with happiest ending?

I am a sucker for hurt/comfort. So almost every fic. Maybe this one:

These are fully husbands fluff.

8. Do you get hate on your fics?

Fortunately nope. I got one which was weird but it's not a hate. The fandom is so sweet.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've never written one. I wanted to do. I want to do a wedding night fic. And further more .

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written?

None. I know I'm not adventurous. But I am thinking of a klaine(maybe with brittana) and rwrb crossover..

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I can't per se say it was stolen. I hear someone collecting random fics like mine and other amazing authors and posting on their website.(do you remember that @datshitrandom ?)

12. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not aware of. But I would love to. I'll let Google translate my fic and have fun ;)

13.Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope. But I would love to.

14.favourite all time ships?

Klaine are my first babies. Alex/Henry are great too.

15. Wip you want to complete but doubt you will?

The first ever fic I wrote One step Closer. I have to clear up all the grammar shit cause I was worse back then.

16. What are your writing strengths?

The flow. If I write, I can write so much. And the picturization. I guess.

17.what are your writing weakness?

Vocabulary and grammar. No way I can save myself. I need a beta mostly.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I love that. Google translate always gives a helping hand. Though I know a little French, English and tamil,I have to use Internet.

19.First fandom you wrote for?

Klaine.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

I've got a lot.

Thank you so much for asking. It was fun