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uncannyinthegrove · 1 month ago

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Chapter Six: No Fun For Party Crashers

Table of Contents

Chapter One

(Content warning for Course Language, Disturbing Imagery and Graphic Depictions of Violence)

Colton sat on the front step of a dead woman’s house in the woods, while the person he had tried to kill less than twenty-four hours prior looked for clues. At first, he was too busy gagging into the grass and keeping his head bowed between his knees so he wouldn’t pass out to really think about much of anything besides the horrible sight of that charred corpse tied to a stake in the backyard. However, eventually he had the hysterical thought that it was probably a good thing Yarrow hadn’t immediately accused him of committing the crime.

Of course, that only made Colton realize there was a non-zero chance that he had killed her. Maybe in one of this weird fugue states, such as when he had tried to kill that weird Yarrow character, he had hoofed it all the way up the mountain and burned an old lady to death and he hadn’t even remembered.

That made his stomach roil again, and a cold sweat broke out across his skin. The guilt and dread he felt sat like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach and some frantic part of his mind cried it could not be.

Given the number of times Colton had ended up in this state in less than a day, it was a wonder he wasn’t in the hospital. Well, it was a wonder he wasn’t in a hospital for more than one reason.

Maybe that was a selfish thing to think when, compared to Yarrow, who Colton had seen covered in their own blood and bits of brain more than once, he was living the good life. Heck, compared to their grandmother, who he might have burnt to death, Colton had no room to complain at all. How could he be worried about how he felt when he’d maybe tried to murder two people and had possibly succeeded with one?

The only thing he had going for himself was that he could remember trying to kill Yarrow. He had felt like he had been so nightmarishly small and trapped inside a corner of his own mind. Except even though it was supposed to be his mind, it had been turned into a strange and foreign place, a cavern echoing with hostility, cold and endlessly dark. It was his, but it was so devastatingly bloodthirsty that it made Colton’s skin crawl, made him recoil and retreat even further into that corner until it was all that was left to him. But he had remembered.

Colton had still been there, present for the whole horrific thing. He had felt the first impact of the hammer, and then the way bone had given. He remembered the icy rain on his face, and the fresh blood on his hands. He remembered control coming back to him in waves, and then receding again in a way that left everything just out of reach.

He remembered the shovel in his hands, the exhaustion as he’d dug. He remembered the fighting, the scrabbling, the surge of hatred that wasn’t his, and the unadulterated fury. Then, later, when his sore protesting body was pulled out of the cold water by intangible, irresistible intent, he remembered the cold of the stone in his hands, the sinking in his gut and the smug gloating celebration of the thing in his head and way Yarrow had braced for the impact.

It was, of course, so super freaking weird that the victim of Colton’s thwarted murder-spree was immortal, or undying, or stubborn like a dandelion or whatever it was they insisted they were. However, every time they got back up after Colton had felt their skull crack and crumble under his hands, he was filled with such a strong wave of relief that it bordered on gratitude.

Well. Alongside a dread and fear that it meant he’d try again, that he’d have to feel someone’s life violently wrenched away from them, he’d have to feel them struggle and then go limp and still all over again.

And the frustration, the bitter regret that wasn’t his.

It couldn’t be, even if it came from inside his own mind.

Colton wasn’t expecting anyone else to understand what it was like to become a puppet inside his own body and made to kill someone, or what it was like to realize that he couldn’t fulfill that sickening compulsion. To not even really be sure where the feeling was coming from, but clinging to the idea that it didn’t belong because he could not handle the thought it was his.

Even if Colton did it a hundred more times, even if Yarrow said it still hurt to get killed, just so long as they could keep getting up and he kept not really killing anyone, maybe he could get through this.

Under his breath, Colton began to chant that it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. It was whatever was in the woods.

If he had killed the old woman though, if maybe there was still more he didn’t understand about whatever was controlling him and he had somehow blacked out for it, or even just blocked it out of his own memories, then what did that mean for him? Worse, now that the person who was supposed to make this stop happening to him was also dead, his one hope that this could have all been turned into a very bad but forgotten dream had been stolen from him.

Possibly by the very thing that was using him to kill.

With that, the only person he could rely on was Yarrow and they were clearly still in denial that their grandmother was dead. They also had a messed up sense of self preservation. They hadn’t called the cops, and they hadn’t seemed too worried about sticking around for however long it took them to get their clues.

Then again, maybe as long as they were in denial, they wouldn’t begin to suspect him.

Colton leaned back, resting his head against the door frame in exhaustion while he contemplated what he was to do in the future. Honestly this, all of it, from the minute he had grabbed that hammer and lured a seemingly random guest out into the rainy night with the intent to kill them and bury them out there, had been over his head. And what? Now there was a weird forest spirit mind controlling both him and the dead, spells and seals and undying people who didn’t seem to understand the scope of the situation either, and witches getting burned.

All he had wanted was to stop smashing people’s brains out and to forget the horrible night had ever happened. Although Yarrow had been incredibly flippant with his attempts on their own life after the initial shock of it, they had also said some very worrying things about their family at large, and Colton was starting to wonder what they would do to him if he had killed the old woman. The last thing he wanted was to get cursed by some weird magic family, or worse.

Guiltily, Colton’s gaze drifted to the edge of the property, where the forest waited for him.

It would be dangerous to just run, he acknowledged. He had to remember that there was no guarantee he could get away from the forest’s control, and no guarantee he wouldn’t try to kill some other non-immortal. And if that happened, he’d be left spending years in prison with an innocent’s death on his conscience, rather than trailing after a supernatural anomaly.

He fiddled with the old string of bones and rock which Yarrow had slung around his neck. They’d insisted it wouldn’t hold out forever, and they had no reason to lie to him about that.

Unless they had been luring him all the way up here so they and their witch grandmother could bury him in her backyard, never to be seen again.

Colton swallowed nervously, his mouth going dry, and eyed the line of trees with a little more consideration.

Why had he trusted Yarrow enough to follow them all the way out to the back country, anyway? In fact, he wasn’t even sure that he had done it out of trust. Mostly he’d been consumed by guilt, haunted by the sensation of blood on his hands, and so desperate to make sure that it didn’t happen again he’d have done anything. In that sense, he thought Yarrow might have been quite cunning. They’d pushed and wheedled and bullied and guilt-tripped him into going along with them and Colton, not seeing any other option, had gone just settled all his hopes on the first solution that had been presented to him.

If there really was a whole world of things like Yarrow and their family though, then someone else out there had to able to help Colton. It wasn’t an ideal route since he really didn’t want to dip his toes any further into this bizarreness, and definitely didn’t even know where to start. There was a very good chance that he would just end up getting scammed by some online conspiracy theorist or new-age crystal hoarder.

But were the odds that Yarrow or their family would pull a fast one over on him that different from the odds that he would run afoul of some con artist in his own search for a solution?

He didn’t know. This was all too unfamiliar to him.

Colton slumped back from the tense lean he’d drifted into, as if he’d been no more than a hair’s breath away from lurching up and making a dash across the cluttered yard and back into the forest. Ridiculous. Even if Yarrow and their family were dangerous unknowns who might end up suspecting Colton of killing one of their own and violently assaulting another with the intent to kill, they were his best bet to navigating the whole new world he had been introduced to.

And, he reminded himself, if Yarrow had wanted to kill him, they already had the chance. He’d been unconscious in the backwoods quite a ways from where anyone would go and had clearly suffered a bad fall. If Yarrow had wanted to, they could have just done to him what he had tried to do to them.

But they hadn’t, and that probably said something.

Plus, to accuse him of killing their grandmother, they had to think their grandmother was dead to begin with, something which they seemed to believe was impossible.

Colton wasn’t as optimistic. He knew Yarrow’s family was weird weird, way weirder than the type of weirdness he could read on internet threads, so maybe there was viable reason to believe their grandmother was out there, riding around on a broom and cackling as she hunted down whoever had ransacked her house. The real question then was whose burnt body was tied up in the backyard.

Uneasily, Colton cycled back to the idea that Yarrow’s family was maybe not his safest bet. What if the old lady had done a kidnapping, and the house had gotten torn up in the victim’s attempted escape, and then the poor soul had become prey to some weird satanic ritual or something? What if she had killed someone, and they had just stumbled on the crime scene? What if Yarrow had figured that out, and that was why they had acted so calmly? What if they had sent him out to wait on the front step while they prepared for murder round two?

What was it they had said? Flesh sacrifices?

And who better to sacrifice than the person that had cracked open their skull twice? Who better than the guy being possessed by evil forest blood thirst?

Colton glanced towards the tree line again, gnawing on the inside of his cheek in nervous contemplation, brain buzzing with sudden panic.

Before he could second guess himself, he lurched to his feet.

For a moment he froze, half expecting Yarrow to burst out of the door and hit him with a bolt of magical lightning or something.

Nothing happened. No one shrieked and cackled and dropped out of the sky and told him he was going into the fire. Nothing.

Slowly he took a step forward, breath caught in his chest, heart thundering.

Nothing continued to happen.

Eyes wide, Colton decided that it was do or very possibly die. Like a spooked rabbit, he booked it for the edge of the forest and the trail they had come up on, vision narrowing and he’s ears roaring with a sudden rush of adrenaline.

Except that it was not the roar of adrenaline in his ears. It was the sound of a dirt bike, and just as he was clearing the last heaped up pile of scrap, a dirt bike ridden by a hulking, black-clad figure roared with sputtering, aggressive fervour into the clearing.

Immediately, Colton froze, considering whether swerving into the trees or turning back and maybe hiding behind the piles of junk was the best strategy. His hesitation cost him though, and the wavering momentum with nowhere to go instead sent him tripping over his own feet and skidding painfully across the rough terrain.

He winced, and tried to crawl away, tumbling backwards into an awkward crab walk that didn’t do anything for his speed or his injured hand, which had begun to pulse with a sharp and angry pain.

The dirt bike and its massive rider did not stop, charging towards him with a cloud of dust kicking up behind it. Just when he thought he was about to become roadkill, the rider slammed on the brakes so hard that the back tire kicked out to the side.

Colton stared at the scant inch between him and a painful collision with the vehicle, his brain still caught in a stuttering panic.

“Who the hell are you?”

He was not given much of a chance to answer as the rider swung off of their ride and kicked the stand into place in one fluid movement. While he was trying to remember how to form words and what the least incriminating thing to say to a person who had seen him running from the scene of a murder would be, they reached down, grabbed his shirt in a massively meaty fist that was covered in a dizzying array of black markings, and hauled him into the air.He dangled there in a stupor, staring at his own reflection in their sunglasses.

They shook him. “Whoever you are, you aren’t supposed to be here,” they snarled. Their face was well-defined, with a strong, heavy jaw, cheekbones like cliffs, and a nose that looked like it had been met with a blunt object one too many times. Their lips were painted a deep red and were peeled back to reveal teeth that were jagged and triangular like a shark’s. It was at once striking and spine-chilling.

Colton tried very hard not to whimper.

They shook him once, like a very large dog shaking a toy. He could practically feel his teeth rattle inside his own skull. The leather of their jacket creaked as their muscles flexed in what seemed like barely restrained fury. And then, horrifyingly, they stopped and sniffed. They leaned back from him, head tilting up to catch the wind, and inhaled long and deep of the pungent smoke which still meandered through the yard.

Colton’s heart sank even as they slowly angled their face back down towards him.

“Wanna tell me why I smell burning meat? Burning people meat?”

Normal people did not refer to burning bodies as people meat.

If Yarrow flipping out and having a rant while kicking him had shaken Colton, this was worse in a way that he could feel actively shaving years off of his life. By comparison, they hadn’t even done anything to him. Their tone alone threatened violence. Never mind how they were slinging him around like a chew toy. Also, Yarrow looked like the average hipster college student, and was easily shorter and slighter than Colton. This person looked like a pro-wrestler jumped up on steroids and a bone to pick with the world.

And teeth that could tear out a person’s jugular.

Quickly, Colton tried to deescalate the situation. “I’m so sorry—,"

Not good. The stranger’s head cocked to the side, and their leather jacket creaked ominously again. To Colton’s increasing horror, they crouched low, grip on his shirt unrelenting, and then abruptly launched across the lawn towards the door of the house like they were a massive wild cat.

Colton’s shirt jerked tight around his throat, cutting into his windpipe and making him gag from the force of it. His necked throbbed from the sudden whiplash, and his head spun. His vision danced with black spots as the mountain of muscle and aggression hauled him bodily through the house, not caring even a little if he collided with walls or furniture along the way.

He was pretty sure he could hear a weird rattling in their chest, not quite a growl, but something closer to how he thought dinosaurs would have sounded.

They barely stopped to take in the state of the ransacked back room, moving with a keen focus towards the door, which they hauled open with such force it was a wonder they didn’t take it completely off its hinges.

For a second, there was a dreadful, horrible silence. He tried to speak, to explain, but his breath was still being cut off. Hesitantly, he reached up, hoping to tap out, to get their attention.

Before he could even lay a hand on them, they heaved him up through the air and hurled him into a wall.

He crashed into it and pain exploded through his head and across his back. White sparks joined the blooms of black in his vision. Whatever breath he might have been able to draw with it no longer being choked out of him was knocked from his lungs, leaving him a gaping fish on the floor.

They turned towards him with a mechanical sort of motion that was so controlled, and so minute it somehow ended up being just as horrifying as their big threatening actions had been.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Each word was punctuated by the creaking of their jacket, and their heavy boots thudding on the floor.

Frantically, Colton tried to inhale faster, to talk faster. He twitched his body, torn between trying to lie very still and get some much needed oxygen, or to curl up into a very small and pathetic ball.

The light from the back door was blocked out as the looming, irate individual stopped in front of him. “You had better start praying to every single saint at the back door to hell that your answers are satisfactory. Because if they aren’t, what I’m about to do to you will seem like a blessing. You hear?”

“Please,” he tried mouthing, voice a near unintelligible rasp. “Please.” Where was Yarrow? Colton could have used a bit of that undying meat shield just then. Where were they?

Then again, why would they help him? Immortal or not, if it was Colton, he would take one look at the furious stranger and he’d stay the hell out of their warpath. Yarrow had more than a few screws loose, but they’d definitely know enough to keep their head down until the dust settled. Maybe they were already scrambling out of one of the upstairs portholes and making a break for it.

The irate stranger crouched down and grabbed him by his hair, tilting it back sharply. “You look human. And you smell…” they inhaled deeply. “You smell foul. You smell like blood. You smell like graves. You smell like—“

“Hey! Smell this, lizard-face!” With an almighty holler, Yarrow, standing bold as brass at the base of the stairs, hurled a glass paperweight at the stranger.

It only just managed to clip the side of their head as they whipped around to look toward the voice. It knocked their glasses askew, and Colton was horrified to find that their eyes were also a bloody red. Not just the iris, but the sclera as well. Their pupils were tiny slivers of black in a sea of red and they narrowed even further the minute they caught sight of Yarrow.

“You,” they hissed, and if Colton thought they had been enraged before, he’d been wrong. Now they were enraged. He could hear the venomous enmity in their voice bubbling to the surface. They let go of Colton with a flick of their hand, like he was an insignificant bit of trash, and slowly rose to their feet, rotating on their heel to face Yarrow as they did. “What are you doing here?”

“Run!” Yarrow shrieked, eyes going wide as they connected with Colton’s, and then they spun and raced out of the room.

Without so much as a backwards glance, the stranger gave pursuit with agonizingly deliberate steps.

Colton wasted no time in taking Yarrow’s advice. Rather than head for the front door, which would have meant following after the other two, he bolted for the already open back door. It might have meant getting closer to the burnt body, but it seemed like the better option in terms of not joining the current tally of the dead.

He crashed out into the backyard, chest still heaving as he gasped for air, the fear barely obscuring the way his whole body protested.

Inside the house, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. Again, the closest he could liken it to was a roar, but no roar he could think of echoed or rattled in such a way. It was followed very closely by Yarrow’s name being bellowed like a curse, and Yarrow’s slightly more familiar voice shouting something indistinct back.

Colton did not linger to observe. He rounded the side of the house almost faster than his feet could take him, using his good hand to catch on the wall and keep him upright, although it made his ragged palm sting.

He was part way across the clearing when he heard Yarrow shout for him to start the bike.

His instincts said to keep going because the thought of slowing for even a brief moment seemed like a death sentence, but some small barely there voice of rationality told him under no circumstances was he getting out of there on foot while the stranger had a vehicle. Never mind that he had firsthand experience of the way they’d cleared the entire yard in one jump.

His hands fumbled as he tried to figure out how to get the dirt bike running, frantically scrambling to find the button before realizing it had a kick start. His experience with dirt bikes was limited at best, and it’d be a wonder if he could even drive it. He couldn’t think about that. He just needed to go, and to do so as fast as he could.

Yarrow collided with him, having made it across the yard in the time it had taken, and they smacked his hand out of the way and shoved onto it. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, we gotta go, she’s going to kill me!”

Colton didn’t argue, eyes darting against his will towards the gaping door of the house, where he could just see the enormous figure stumbling crookedly in their direction, hand on their head. He didn’t know what Yarrow had done to such a mass of murderous intent, but he wasn’t going to stop and ask. He simply clutched onto the back of Yarrow’s jacket as they revved the engine with a shriek of protesting metal and gunned it out of there.

—

It didn’t take very long for Colton to realize that Yarrow didn’t really know what they were doing driving the dirt bike, either. They roared through the forest, lurching over the trail like they were astride a bull at a rodeo, and Colton clung on for dear life while shouting for Yarrow to be careful. Even despite that, they managed to swerve the bike off the trail, collide with a fallen log, and send the both of them hurtling over the handlebars of the bike in alarmingly short order.

Colton groaned, levering himself out of the dirt unsteadily. It was a wonder that he hadn’t broken a rib, or a leg, or every other bone in his body. He was, however, covered in scratches that were a little closer to gouges filled with dirt and forest debris than he would have liked. His splinted wrist was not so splinted anymore, and he really didn’t want to think about what kind of state the bone was in. If he made it back to the real world and a normal life, he was certain the injury would haunt him for years to come.

“Hey,” he tried, curled in on himself like a feeble senior. “Hey, what was that?” He turned to find the source of their accident.

Yarrow lay in a heap on the ground, not moving.

Colton’s heart leapt with joy. Immediately he felt control beginning to slip like someone was gently pulling a blanket up over him, tucking him in to nap while it or they, or whatever, handled the rest.

Frantically, Colton scrabbled through the dirt for his temporary amulet, realizing that it had fallen loose when they had crashed. The loss of control sped up, and he kept getting distracted by the hungry need to go and wring that scrawny little freak’s neck. Just to make sure.

And maybe if he dismembered them, they wouldn’t come back. Or he could try fire.

His fingers flexed angrily in the dirt against his will, and he winced as they caught on the rough piece of shale attached to the string of bones with enough force to scrape his scabbed up palm. Just like that, he felt the tide of intent begin to recede, leaving him blessedly in control of his own thoughts.

He looped the macabre improvised amulet around his neck like a priest with a rosary.

Yarrow groaned where they lay in the dirt, apparently not dead after all. Colton watched, unimpressed, as they sat up gingerly to look around.

“Damn,” they said. “That was wild. I hate driving.”

“We don’t have time for that. Whoever that was could catch up any second now. Did you see what they could do? They were like some sort of superhuman. We need to go!”

Yarrow grunted and began dusting their clothes off and inspecting their body for other injuries. “Nah, don’t worry about it. She’s probably still back at the house, calling up the rest of the family.”

Colton’s frantic scramble to get their collapse bike upright stuttered to a halt. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah, Hollis is a bit hotheaded, and it’s a good thing we got out of there, but she’ll cool her head off now. She probably won’t think we’re high priority. And she hates me. She’d definitely rather deal with that corpse back there and finding my grandmother.”

Colton was confused, mind still reeling from the fact that he had almost been killed. Twice. Once by accident, sure, but still he had been uncomfortably close to death an unwarranted number of times. In fact, his tally of near-death experiences was creeping up on Yarrow’s own, and that was without any sort of invulnerability protecting him.

“Hold on… You knew her?”

“Oh yeah. That was my cousin.”

“That was your cousin?” Colton ignored the way his voice cracked in favour of contemplating doing the evil forest a favour and strangling Yarrow of his own volition.

“Sure. From my Ma’s side of the family technically, but we’re all Hursts. Just how it works when you join the old family tree.”

“How the hell was that your cousin? That was… that was a monster or something.”

“You’re telling me,” Yarrow laughed. “And they used to get her to dress up as the Easter Bunny. Let me tell you, getting the eggs from her was a nightmare. Probably a good thing I can take a javelin or two without going down. Well. Permanently.”

None of those words made any sense in the order that they had been presented to him, so Colton chose to ignore them entirely. “Why are they like that and you’re…” he waved his hands and Yarrow pointedly. “Like this?”

Yarrow blinked at Colton dumbly. “What do you mean?”

They said it with such bafflement that somehow Colton felt liked he’s asked something very stupid. “Never mind. Actually, why didn’t you do anything? You could have explained what was going on! Maybe we could have gotten some help?”

“Oh. Well,” Yarrow started, and then began to pull a sheet of paper out of their jacket. “Hollis is what you would probably call the family fixer. Sort of. They clean up messes, along with some of our other cousins. They’ve all got their own specialties. Hollis’ specialty involves hunting people down and then making sure that said people can’t be found by anyone else ever again. You know how it is. They take their job pretty seriously and for now you’re quite the liability. Once they found out about your whole deal and this forest, they’d take the obvious path. Which I am pretty certain you would not like very much.”

Colton’s belief that Yarrow’s family was not the benevolent solution to all his problems was immediately affirmed. Any family that had fixers whose entire responsibilities involved erasing anyone on their bad side was not to be trusted. “The… obvious path?” He asked, despite being fairly certain he knew what that meant.

“Sure. Turns out Gramma had notes on what this thing she had sealed all the way up here is. The seal got broken when she left, I guess, so it needs to get redone. We already knew this, which is why we went to go find her. Problem is; this thing has, like, I dunno, latched on to you. Thus, the easiest way to deal with this would be to toss you in the cave where it originates, and then seal you both in. Obviously not great for your well being and daily life.”

Colton breathed in slowly and then exhaled just as slowly. He did this a few more times, realized it was doing nothing to alleviate the anxiety building behind his sternum, and promptly sat himself down on the ground and buried his face in his hands. A moment later, he felt a consoling pat on his back that did nothing to help calm him down or make him feel better.

“So you’re saying I’m…I guess patient zero? There’s nothing you can do but quarantine me and forget about me?”

“Bad metaphor.” Yarrow chirped. “That’s not really how quarantine works. It’s more like you’re contaminated medical waste that isn’t good for anything, so we bury you where no one can get harmed by you and then forget about you.”

“Great. Just great.”

“Hey, relax. I said I’d help, didn’t I? Sure, you don’t know me, and yes, things have been rough and maybe I don’t have a great track record, but I did say we would sort this all out. I think I’ve got a solution.”

Yarrow did not have a great track record. Yarrow was a train wreck. A loose cannon ball. Yarrow also seemed less immediately inclined to murder Colton than Hollis was, and had even gone up against their murderous tyrannosaurus of a cousin to get him out of there mostly intact.

Colton squinted at Yarrow suspiciously. “Does it involve moving to another country and never leaving my house in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of freaky bone chimes?”

“No. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I could commission some for you if you want and we could do that? Do you have money for that sort of thing?”

“No.” Colton worked at a motel and took stray college courses where he could. His family was a victim of an economy that kept the working class firmly beneath its boot, and the only prospects he had was to work until the day he died and hope that his health held up, or he dropped dead of a heart attack on the spot because he probably wouldn’t get to retire.

“So we’re sticking to my plan, then.” Yarrow patted him on the back again. “Trust me, it’ll be fine. All we gotta do is roll up to the cave, have a bit of chat, and then get you to kill me. I mean, that’s all stuff we’ve pretty much done, so it won’t be hard.”

“I’m sorry. Run that by me again?”

“Yeah!” Yarrow shifted so that they were seated in front of Colton and began to draw with their finger in the dirt. “This is how I understand it. See this ring here? This is the cave and the area directly around it. And this,” they drew a much larger circle around the smaller ring, “is the forest where the seals are, right?”

Having no idea where Yarrow was going with this, Colton just nodded.

“Anything within the smaller circle is in the ‘infection range’, to use your metaphor. That’s the cave, or the spring where you had that weird experience. Because you got too close to it, it infected you. But, because of the seals in the forest, once you left its immediate reach, it couldn’t control you anymore.”

“Wait, infect me how?”

“How does anyone get infected by anything? It’s in the air, on surfaces and so on. But only within a certain proximity. I presume that before grandma sealed it, its range was the entire forest.”

“So… you’re saying it’s the medical waste that your grandmother contained and disposed of?”

“Eh,” Yarrow see-sawed their hand through the air. “You could say that. I guess. If you had to.”

“But… why? What does it want?”

“Want? Who can say?” Yarrow shrugged. “You’d have to ask it. Maybe this is just its biological imperative. Well, I will say it's probably been trying to kill me because it senses I’m related to Gramma. Us Hursts are a bit conspicuous. Presumably, if it was here all along, minding its own business, infecting people, luring them into its reach and then, I don’t know, consuming them or something, but Gramma sealed it away? It's probably feeling pretty spiteful.”

There were still a lot of things that Colton had questions about. “So why do we need to go talk to it? And why do I need to kill you?”

“Well, my thinking is this: you’re carrying its virus around. That’s how it can control you now that the seals are down. Normally we’d just throw you away like the aforementioned medical waste to so you couldn’t cause any damage. But we—“ Yarrow pointed at their chest, and then at Colton, “—don’t want that. Obviously. Therefore, the best thing to do would be to make it so you don’t have its germs on you anymore.”

“So you want to cure me?”

“Well, not quite. This is where the metaphor breaks down. Normally to heal a sickness we’d have to give you medicine, or antibiotics, or a vaccine or whatever. Kill the infection, stimulate the immune response, or something to that effect. I don’t know how to do that. I’m not a doctor, or scientist or pharmacist. And quite frankly, it would take a lot of time and effort when the obvious solutions would be to… you know,” Yarrow drew their finger across their neck in a visceral display of the easiest solution. “Do away with you. But! What if we could just convince the germs to go to someone else? And then, since they have a super special awesome mega powerful immune system, they could fight it for you?”

Truthfully, Yarrow’s unhelpful allegories were only muddying the waters. “Um, couldn’t I just get infected again by being there?”

“You’re really love to nit-pick, don’t you? This is where the conversation comes in. It’s just a matter of word play. A little skulduggery, as they say. We offer it a trade. A sturdy individual like yours truly to do its bidding and give it a grand tour beyond its nexus point, and in exchange, you get to go free. Obviously, we don’t tell it the part where you kill me and thus trigger my secret dandelion powers, wiping it out in the process.”

Yarrow seemed entirely convinced they could communicate with this thing. Colton wasn’t so sure, but conceded that he had less expertise on the matter. Still, there was a point of doubt he couldn’t just let go of. “So, so let me get this right: you’re going to sacrifice yourself to make a deal with it?”

“I mean, it’ll suck, but it's not really a sacrifice on my part, is it?”

It wasn’t really for Colton to say whether that was true or not, and anyway, he had another question. “Are you sure that’ll work? I don’t see how you killing its… germs is going to solve the issue?”

“I’m chopping off one of its limbs. And then we can reseal it following these instructions I borrowed from Gramma without worrying about it giving up on its main body and taking over your body entirely.”

That had been a fear of Colton’s the minute he had first realized he was being moved against his own will. He’d done his best to ignore the possibility that he would never get his autonomy back, and that he’d be a prisoner in his own head eternally, or eventually that’d he’d be overwritten entirely. “I’m sorry? Did you just say it was going to take over my body? Like, completely?”

“Yeah. You know, give up on its main core and start over with you. That’s why Hollis would have dumped you in there and sealed you with it. It's like if a salamander lost a limb, but instead of regenerating the limb, it just regenerated its whole body from the lost limb instead, and let the old body die. Or whatever. Maybe it wouldn’t die, it’d just have a shared consciousness and it could hop around between the bodies. But that’s beside the point. We are not letting that happen. We’re going to torch the limb so it has no choice but to stay in its body, and then we’re pulling a fast one on it while it is confused.”

“So why hasn’t it done that before? Transfer consciousness or whatever? Actually, why hasn’t it just left? If the seal is broken? Couldn’t it just go?”

The look Yarrow gave Colton made him feel both stupid and angry that he felt stupid.

“Obviously, it couldn’t because of the seal. And obviously, it can’t just get up and walk away. And why would it want to? That’s like asking you why you don’t just leave your body behind and find one that doesn’t want to kill me.” They provided no further justification for their certainty.

Colton waited for his irritation to subside, and in its wake, he found himself turning those words over in his head. “Are you saying the cave is like its body?”

“Yeah, pretty much. And the forest was like its hunting grounds. A clam upon a rock, eating anything within reach.” Yarrow shrugged as if this was all a matter of nature and the circle of life.

And, in a way, Colton supposed it was. Unfortunately, that did not make him feel sympathetic to the things’ situation, and he sure as hell wasn’t inclined to cooperate for that reason alone, not if it meant turning into some mind controlled puppet. “So weird,” he muttered under his breath.

Yarrow nodded. “Yeah. I’ll tell you what my father told me when I was a kid: don’t try to fit it into a box of mortal reason and logic. It’ll only make your head hurt. Sometimes you’ve just gotta accept that things work the way they do, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.”

Basically, don’t think about it too much. Well, Colton was sleep deprived, mortally afraid for his life and bodily autonomy, and his everything hurt. He’d been in a brawl, chased by zombie animals, rolled off a cliff, hiked through the woods while injured, been assaulted by what he had concluded was a dinosaur trapped in a woman’s flesh, and then been in a crash. Yarrow’s plan seemed like a shot in the dark, a fool’s hope, but, according to them, it was that or death.

In the end, turning off his brain was surprisingly easy. “Alright,” he said, bewildered but resigned. “Let’s go… give it a try?”

Yarrow beamed at him radiantly, as if he’d just agreed to go to a concert with them, and not as if he wasn’t putting his life and well-being in their hands. “Excellent choice! You won’t regret this, I promise!”

—

If Colton had been expecting a battle against all the zombies and minions of the entity which had thrown his life so far off course, à la video game standards, before at last facing off against the final boss, that wasn’t what he got.

Yarrow insisted that it was because it was still daytime, and even supernatural brain control beings needed rest, but that only made Colton eye the deepening shadows of the forest with unease. By the time they navigated their way down the mountain trail and he took them back to where he remembered that strange spring had been, it was approaching suppertime. With the end of summer and the shortening days, the shift in daylight was obvious. In no time at all twilight and its gloom would darken the forest again.

Ironically, the place they ended was very picturesque. It was still rugged, as was typical, but the trees were older and more spread out, the moss on the ground was thick and vibrant, and the general undergrowth was not quite as inclined towards ripping people’s flesh off of their calves.

That area of the forest was eerily hushed, however, as if every forest creature had long since learned to avoid this spot. Colton had not noticed how ominous this felt before, back when he’s hiked along with out a single clue. Then again, he’d probably been listening to music, or his job trying to find and clear a decent hiking trail had kept him from noticing. And later, when it had been too late, he had been so completely out of it that his memories were still a blur even weeks later.

“Alright,” Yarrow whispered from where they had pressed their back against a tree to peer around it at the crevice in the rock and its gentle trickle of fresh water. “Alright. You remember the plan?”

As if they hadn’t been going over the plan the entire way back. As if Colton hadn’t frantically dwelt on this plan, certain it was going to go horribly wrong immediately, and that things would not to end well for either of them. “What if it just traps us both here forever, and I just keep killing you over and over and over again until I die?”

Yarrow glanced over at him, eyebrows rising high incredulously. “Dude, that would be so messed up.” They glanced back to peer at the spring as if that was that.

Of all people for Colton to have ended up relying on, he wished that it had not been this one.

Then again, this far into the game, there really was no point in going back.

Nervously, he fumbled with the amulet around his neck. He’d tied it there even more intensely than it had been, but he still found himself nervous that it would suddenly stop working. He was afraid it would be overpowered by his proximity to the thing, or the string would snap, fall away and leave his mind to the mercies of an entity that saw him as little more than a tool.

If it even thought of him at all.

He wasn’t sure how he felt that thing which had used him for its own violent purpose might not even really be aware of him. What if it didn’t know or think of him as someone with thoughts, a life? If it had been hostile, if it had looked down on him, that would have been one thing. But if Colton was less than an afterthought, nothing more than a matter of convenience, something to be otherwise apathetic towards… if it couldn’t conceive of his rage and indignation and fear? What then?

“Hey? You ready?” Yarrow hissed, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Oh. Um. No.”

Yarrow blinked and stared with an expression Colton found rather condescending. “Oh. Should I wait?”

The sigh that escaped Colton was exhausted, and in the space it left behind in his chest, he felt the vague urge to cry. “No. What would be the point? Let’s just get this over with.”

“Okey-dokey,” Yarrow confirmed, and swung dramatically out from behind the tree. “WE COME IN PEACE!” They shouted at the top of their lungs, making Colton jump from the abruptness of it.

Again, Colton did not know what he had been expecting. Maybe he had thought the ground would begin to rumble and shake, that the rock face would split open and an army of zombies would burst forth. Maybe he had thought some impossible to comprehend vision would manifest before them and it would come down to the flip of a coin whether he could keep his mind from fracturing into a million and one little pieces.

This was not what happened.

There was a long moment of silence, and eventually Yarrow caved and called out again. “Hello? We come to negotiate!”

At this, the horrible, mangled squirrel from the night before appeared on top of the rock face. Only, in the light of day, it just seemed sort of gross and pathetic.

“Oh,” Yarrow commented. “Hello.”

The squirrel tilted its head to the side inquiringly, and that was apparently all the signal Yarrow needed to begin.

“Greetings,” they declared once more, and then said something in a bunch of different languages. “So basically,” they said, switching back to English, “I came to make a deal with you. This guy is just a normal fellow. Bit squeamish. Very boring. Small town guy, with big dreams of making it as a star in the big city. Low key kinda wants you to leave him alone.”

That wasn’t true. Colton had never said anything about wanting to be a star. Yarrow had mentioned something to the effect of lying to the creature to coerce it into going along with their plan, but Colton didn’t see how painting him as a guy out of an eighties feel-good film was necessary. Nor did he see the need for the commentary on his personality.

“He can’t have murder on his record, you know? And I can’t have you hunting down anyone else related to me. There’s already one innocent person burnt to a crisp up at Gramma’s house. So I propose we find a solution. Compromise. Work out a deal that leaves us both satisfied.”

The squirrel clacked its jaw and fumbled its tiny, horrible little paws.

“That wasn’t you?” Yarrow reiterated. “Good to know. I didn’t think it was. Didn’t seem like your MO.”

The creature shuffled and twitched.

“No, no, no. Don't celebrate yet. You’re probably mistaken. That wasn’t her. But don’t worry. My cousin is here, so they’ll figure all that out in no time.”

The squirrel stood erect, holding still and alert.

“What? Nah, relax! We didn’t tell her anything. No reason to drag other people into this, am I right? And trust me, you don’t want to test her. She’s not as open to conversation as I am.”

The squirrel flicked its filthy, bedraggled tail through the air.

“Yeah, I promise. This is between you and me. And Colton. But he’s just kinda here to look miserable and evoke sympathy from you.”

The squirrel canted its head to the side again.

“The terms? Well, I’m glad you asked. In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t die. Convenient, isn’t it? You send your least undead soldier to murder me and I just keep getting back up. But it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, I’m related to the very woman who got you in this situation. And you probably know what our family is like.”

Was the squirrel using telepathy or something? Colton glanced back and forth between Yarrow and the decomposing critter in bafflement.

Yarrow continued. “And you can’t just make me your puppet on account of that. Got those good genetics going for me. But! What if I told you I was willing to chauffeur you around a bit? Let you take a peek at the outside world. I was on a bit of a backpacking trip myself, before you waylaid me. I don’t mind picking up a companion. We can take in the sights, get some fresh air, work out a meal plan, whatever you’re looking for, all in exchange for this one measly human’s release.”

It was hard for Colton to tell how things were going when he could only understand one side of the conversation. All he could do was wait, which was a challenge.

He wanted very much to say something. Beg, maybe? Do whatever he could to plead his case, to demand a justification for why his life had to get turned into a horror story? But he was, as Yarrow had said, just some normal guy. What did he know? The last thing he needed was to make the whole situation turn against them by opening his mouth. He might not have liked it, but he had agreed to let Yarrow handle the negotiating. His job was to shut up and not draw attention to himself until it was his turn.

“What? No way! Too good to be true? You gotta learn to trust people a little. Yes, okay, alright, I know my Gramma came in and ruined your whole spot, but that wasn’t me. I’ll have you know, I’m the troublemaker of the family. New ideas for a new generation, you know how it is. I really think we can work something out. Blood feuds across the ages are so passé these days—no! No, I’m not saying your feelings aren’t valid. I’m just saying, what’s it really getting you? You’ve been skulking around in these woods when you could be making up for lost time. And who knows when this chance might come again. My Gramma doesn’t leave home very often.”

There was a long stretch of silence where Yarrow and the squirrel made a freakish amount of eye contact and Yarrow nodded their head occasionally. Colton continued waiting on tenterhooks for the verdict, startling at every twitch either of them made.

Eventually, Yarrow clapped their hands, apparently having reached some kind of conclusion. Colton flinched.

“Alright,” Yarrow proclaimed. “It’s a deal. Things are back to business for you here. But also you get to hitch a ride with me instead of Colton, and he goes back to living a boring, average life. Everyone wins.” They glanced at him and winked.

He wished they hadn’t. “We’re good?” He questioned disbelievingly, trying not to look at the squirrel too much in case his expression betrayed him.

Yarrow nodded enthusiastically. “Yup. Things are shaping up nicely. We’ll have you back to normal in no time at all.”

For someone making a ridiculously dangerous gamble, Yarrow sure did not seem particularly anxious. Rather than having the effect of inspiring similar confidence in Colton, he only grew more nervous in the face of their flippancy. He swallowed dryly and lowered his eyes. “So. What now?” He asked, voice barely a croak at the back of his throat.

Yarrow patted him on the shoulder. “We’re going to go up there, get closer. It’s gonna work its magic. And then,” they shrugged. “Shazam!”

“That’s, uh, a little vague.”

“Right. Well, I’m not entirely sure what this is going to look like.” Yarrow glanced over their shoulder towards the squirrel. “Things might get a little… funky town.”

“Funky town? What do you mean? Why? What’s going to happen? What do I do then?”

“Chill. I’m just saying I’ve never done this before. It is hard to say how the entire process will end up going down. If things get wild… I dunno. You do your thing, and if you can’t, clear out. The family will probably figure it out if things go bottoms up. Hollis is nearby too.”

“The one who will kill me and shove me into that whole as a solution?” He glanced at the crevice in the rock, which was small enough that he would have to be turned into little tiny chunks to fit into it.

Yarrow lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “By that point, I’m sure you won’t have to worry about it.”

“You say that, but what if they’re like, super mad? Like, so mad. As in, I’m going to use my freakishly sharp teeth to tear your face off, and I’m going to pry your ribs open with my bare hands and make origami out of your entrails mad?”

“You’re exaggerating,” Yarrow laughed. The pitch and length of their laugh was not reassuring, but before Colton could press them any further, they grabbed his arm and began dragging him up to the rock face and the squirrel.

The dreadful creature darted down the jagged edge of the rock so that it perched at eye level with them where they stood in the cold run off of the mountain spring. It twitched and jittered and up close it was even more disgusting to look at, with ribs poking out and its flesh saggy and dry on its frame, and all the bugs writhing under its skin, chewing it down to a skeleton.

Colton ducked his head, eyes focusing on the burble of the spring water, on the rapid fire beating of his heart, on the shaking of his hands and the staccato rhythm of his breath. He felt like a puppet in his own skin, and not because any unfathomable entity was controlling him, but because the suspense was building to a ringing crescendo in his ears and muting out every thought in his head.

Yarrow made eye contact with him and smiled, wide and relaxed. And then they head butted him and his vision flared in time with the jolt of pain that crested over his head.

Only the pain did not fade.

It ruptured.

It exploded like a pustule of oozing sick and washed down over him, hot and nauseating.

Colton’s stomach seized, and he dropped to his knees and retched, even as he wanted to scream.

There were wasps in his head. He hadn’t realized before, but they were angry and buzzing and tearing open his skull.

He collapsed even further, falling into the water, barely managing to keep his face clear of it. It was too cold and too hot all at once and it felt like knives against his skin. His vision danced in doubles, the colours seeped of any saturation.

In black and white, he watched Yarrow’s face and neck and chest twist and tear and morph into the gnarled branches of a tree. Only the tree was not right. It was made of tears in reality and human sinew, and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The branches grew even as he watched and he thought he could hear screaming following in their wake, horrified wails that split through the air in unspeakable lament.

Colton couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Every part of him quailed and whimpered and shrunk in on itself. He squeezed his eyes shut, at the mercy of the pain and the chaos.

And then he realized rather abruptly he had gone deaf. There was a hollow ringing in his ears, but he could no longer hear the horrible voices, or anything else for that matter.

He couldn’t feel anything either. Maybe the pain had fried his nerves.

He blinked open his eyes and saw that the world was as it should be, as he had known it all along, except that Yarrow was standing in a daze, staring wide eyed up into the forest canopy.

Slowly, Colton shifted. He coughed and gasped, and dragged himself to his knees, and then to his feet, using the sheer rocks to hold himself up.

What was he supposed to be doing again? Oh. Right. He had to kill Yarrow. He had to end it. What was he supposed to use as a weapon? How was he supposed to kill them? He glanced at the wall of rock underneath his hand and then back at Yarrow’s motionless, unresponsive face. They were the one who had come up with the plan, Colton assured himself, before grabbing the back of their head.

Did he even have the strength left?

He smashed their head into the rock again, and again, and again. In the silence, all he could hear was the ringing in his ears and the horrific sound of their skull cracking and caving once more, the most sickening beat he’d probably ever hear.

Distantly, he wondered if this was some kind of messed up fate.

Eventually he pulled his hands, sticky with gore, out of their hair and watched them drop into the water, limp.

Was he supposed to have felt something?

And then came the shaking and rumbling. The rock face split open with an almighty crack that broke through the quietness blanketing his ears. The trees shook, groaned, and toppled as the water surged and bubbled, smashing out onto the banks of the brook, where the forest debris vibrated and jumped along the forest floor.

Colton stumbled, staggering away from Yarrow and the sight of the upheaval. He staggered and tumbled to the ground, but didn’t stop. He dragged himself backwards as far as he could get, narrowly avoiding getting crushed by a heavy branch as it crashed down where he had been seconds prior.

And then, abruptly, it all came to a stop. The world went still and quiet again. Not the same quiet as before. Just a normal sort of silence. The only sound that really disturbed it was the sound of his panting, panicked breaths.

—

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, but eventually he realized it was getting dark; shadows shifting from the softer shades of evening into something gloomier. With it came an unforgiving chill that picked at his sodden clothes and settled obtrusively against his bones.

The real question was how long he was supposed to wait, or how he was supposed to know what to do next. Was this the part where he got up and walked away and left it all for Yarrow or their cousin to handle?

Had he just killed someone who was supposed to be undying?

“Holy shit!” Yarrow surged out of the water with a suddenness that broke through the pensive lull.

Colton screamed.

Yarrow screamed.

Colton screamed louder. At some point, he could no longer tell if he was screaming, cursing, crying, or laughing.

“What the hell?” Yarrow shouted. “Why’d you leave me face down in the water? That sucked!” They stood up and sloshed towards Colton, heedless of the scene of destruction which lay all around them.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Colton yowled as he scuttled away. “What the hell happened? Did it work? What the fuck was all that?”

Yarrow stopped. “You know,” they sniffled, swiping bloody wet hair off of their forehead, “honestly I’m not even sure what happened. One minute you’re shaking in your boots and the squirrel is saying all kinds of crazy stuff about what it’ll do to me if I screw it over, and the next thing I know, I’m this close to drowning.” They held up their hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “

“That’s it?” Colton asked, unable to believe they could not recall anything of the unadulterated mayhem their actions had caused.

“Well, there was a weird bit in between. I swear I was playing a game of twister with some sort of weird spider crab ghost thing, only it was made out of the prettiest crystals you have ever seen. Do you have any idea how messed up it is to play twister with a crab?”

(To Be Continued)

#uitg #uitg colton #uitg yarrow #fiction #writing #strange fiction #original writing #original fiction #horror fiction #horror writing #long form content #uncanny in the grove #oc Hollis #UitG Hollis #oc yarrow #oc colton

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the-travelling-witch · 6 months ago

Text

𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌

nonnie asked: lately i noticed many writers writing about reader kissing character's face while wearing lipstick and therefore covering them in it and i found it so cute and then started to imagine your om!ocs and the modern au guys (…) being covered in lipstick kisses too […]

pairings: my genshin modern au guys (xiao :: scara :: aether :: kazuha :: heizou :: venti :: childe :: diluc :: kaeya), my obey me ocs (dantalion :: valefar :: stolas), my twst oc (cheron) x gn! reader

warnings: these lipsticks are not smudge-proof

a/n: as said i might write a full thing for one character when i have the chance but considering i have 13 characters here and i can only think of so many scenarios, i’m writing a few paragraphs each for now ^^;

original ask

modern au || dantalion || valefar || stolas || cheron

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐀𝐔

𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

It had been a busy week in which you hadn’t seen much of each other, so when you finally made it to Friday evening, you were overjoyed to see your boyfriend again. Needless to say, when the door swung shut, the first thing you did was flutter some well-earned kisses across his face, not even bothering to take your make-up off. So when Xiao spotted his reflection in the mirror, the flush on his cheeks wasn’t the only rose colour decorating his beautiful complexion. While you watched his blush darken, he couldn’t meet your eyes in the mirror and you giggled to yourself as you watched them snap to you when you pulled the neckline of his shirt out of the way and planted a final kiss on the base of his neck.

𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

It was your day off, so for once you weren’t out of the house before Scara, instead getting ready at the same time as him. You made him his usual morning coffee to go after he slept over, since he straight up refused to drink anyone else’s, and kissed him goodbye. Not long after he arrived at the piercing studio, notifications started blowing up your phone and you skimmed the furious string of texts, laughing to yourself. Apparently, Xiao hadn’t said anything about the smudge on the corner of his lips, leaving Heizou and Venti to have a field day when they came in, teasing him relentlessly even after he wiped it off. As for the accusation that you did it on purpose, who was to say…

𝐀𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

“Do you still need the make up remover?” Aether asked from outside your bathroom door. You’d both just gotten back from an outing with the others from the piercing shop, staying longer than you initially intended. But that was what always happened. Venti could be very convincing and the group was too much fun to leave early. “I’m done, but I didn’t notice you wearing any makeup earlier,” you admitted, opening the door to let your boyfriend in. “Well I wasn’t,” Aether sheepishly laughed, rubbing the base of his neck. And then you saw it. Faint traces of colour decorating his temple, cheek, the corner of his mouth and even the parts of his neck and chest not covered by his shirt. A shade that very closely resembled the lipstick you applied before going out. “You might be a bit of an affectionate drunk.” “Oh my— I’m so sorry, Aether,” you apologised, quickly searching around for some cotton pads and wiping the lipstick off his chest, trying not to linger on the thought too much. “Don’t worry, I thought it was cute,” he assured you, his warm smile seemingly lighting up the room. As you leaned in to clean his face, he took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss from you as well. “You should wear it more often, it looked very pretty on you.”

𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐇𝐀 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

Kazuha had come over for lunch, as he often did, taking a break from his coworkers between the plants, sketching if the time allowed for it. When you both had to return to work, you pressed a sweet kiss against his cheek and then rushed to help a customer. And while neither one of you noticed the colour dusting his cheek, the others sure did and wasted no time pointing it out, though all their teasing comments seemed to bounce right off of him. He wiped the stain away before any customers came in, laughing off how he hadn’t noticed at all. “Of course you wouldn’t notice,” Heizou agreed, a knowing air about him. “After all, you’re way too busy making heart eyes at your florist to even think about looking anywhere else for a second.”

𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐙𝐎𝐔 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

“Hey honey, could you help me with something real quick?” You called your boyfriend over as you finished applying a new shade of lipstick you bought. As Heizou strolled up to where you were standing, you turned towards him with a smile. “What do you think? Do you like it?” “The colour looks beautiful on you,” he easily replied, sending you a flirtatious wink. “Though I’m not sure if it’s really the colour or just you being gorgeous that’s causing it. Now what did you need help with?” Wrapping one arm around his neck, you pulled him in for a kiss, making sure to firmly plant your lips against his. If your boyfriend was surprised at all, he masked it well, easily melting into the kiss. As you pulled away a little breathlessly, you grinned. “Just wanted to see if it’s really smudge-proof, though I guess it failed in that regard.” You traced a finger around the faint trace of colour on his lips as Heizou took the tube from you and applied the lipstick with pinpoint precision. Turning to you, his olive eyes were gleaming with mischief as he chuckled. “I think we should run a few more tests, just to be sure.”

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈 Piercer/ Tattoo Artist

“This one’s for the song you wrote for me and this one’s for bringing me my favourite coffee without me asking,” you mused, studying your boyfriend’s face covered in pink-hued gloss marks. Somehow a kiss to the temple had ended with you caging Venti against the couch, fluttering a dozen kisses all over the skin you could reach. “Ehe, what can I say, I’m just the best boyfriend ever,” he giggled, tracing his fingers down the contours of your face in return. Then, something in his expression changed and you prepared yourself to shut down whatever idea he was about to propose next. “Maybe I should think about getting one of them tattooed? On my shoulder or so?” “Don’t you dare.”

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄 Idol

Ever since you had caught a lot of heat from Childe’s manager for accidentally letting your boyfriend leave with a mark decorating his collarbones, you were very cautious of leaving any visible stains on him, even if it was just makeup. Still, you found ways to work around this little inconvenience. There was one time you signed off a little post-it note you left on the fridge for him, wishing him good luck for a performance, with a lipstick stain. After seeing his reaction of childish glee, it became a staple in your relationship. Then again, whenever Childe came home from work with his makeup still on, he never failed to press a big, fat, lip gloss stained kiss on your cheek, chuckling like the menace he is when you make a show of wiping it off.

𝐃𝐈𝐋𝐔𝐂 Club Owner/ Bartender

Diluc had seen his fair share of shameless make outs during his time at the Angel’s Share and normally he just turned his head the other way, not sure why people would enjoy slobbering all over each other. Well, that was until he met you anyway. Though he’d like to think he was more composed than the intoxicated people at his club, whenever you pressed your lips against his, he thought he might get drunk off of you. He swallowed hard when you pulled away, mind still trying to process what was happening as his eyes tracked the movement of your own kiss-swollen lips, not hasty to wipe away the traces of you against his skin.

𝐊𝐀𝐄𝐘𝐀 Model

Kaeya actually revelled in it whenever you leave any type of mark on him, as long as it didn’t lead to a scolding from his manager. Whether it was something more durable like a hickey or something easily wiped off like a lipstick stain, Kaeya always looked very smug about it afterwards. After all, the marks were a testimony to the events that transpired previously, and what could he say, Kaeya enjoyed those very much. Even more so considering he knew his way around a makeup bag, confidently picking out shades that looked gorgeous on you and even more gorgeous when they were smudged around the corner of your lips and over his skin. In his opinion, every photo of the aftermath was more stunning than any of his cover shoots.

𝐎𝐛𝐞𝐲 𝐌𝐞! 𝐎𝐂𝐬

𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍 Majolish Owner/ Devil Style Chief Editor

You walked in on Dantalion getting ready, his attention that was previously on his reflection in the vanity mirror flickering to you when you entered. His plush lips, curled into a loving smile, are painted in a flattering shade of red and your gaze was trained on them as you came to stand in front of him. “Are you trying a new shade? It suits you well.” “I am. I’m glad you like it,” he hummed, tilting his head in contemplation. “I wonder…” Cupping your cheek in his palm, the demon leaned towards you and you instinctively closed your eyes as his soft lips pressed against yours with purpose. As always his kisses made a part of your brain short circuit and you blinked at him dazedly for a moment after you parted. There was a satisfied gleam in his bright eyes as he wiped at your bottom lip with his thumb, studying the red stain he left. “As expected, it’s an even lovelier colour on you, my flower.”

𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐀𝐑 Casino Owner

“Little lamb, come here for a second.” Valefar was no stranger to finding your lipstick smudges at the rim of his drinks or wiping smudges of colour and gloss from his cheek before leaving for the casino after you gave him a kiss goodbye. He didn’t mind, found it cute even, but as he regarded the pink stain on the collar of his white dress shirt in the lounge’s mirror, he knew it won’t come off with a quick swipe of his thumb. It wasn’t a big deal, he kept spare shirts in his office, but Val wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to fluster you. “Care to explain yourself?” You were halfway through stuttering out a sheepish apology when Valefar backed you against his desk, keeping you pinned to him with a hand on your back. Intense amber eyes keep contact with yours as he leaned down to suck a noticeable hickey on the same spot his collar would be, knowing your clothes barely wouldn’t be able to hide it. “Debts should be repaid, wouldn’t you agree?”

𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐒 Popular Streamer

It was a pleasant day in the Devildom, as pleasant as it could be in a realm without the sun anyway, pulling the two of you out into town. While strolling from apparel stores to gaming shops, you passed a café you frequented and decided to stop by for some refreshments. As you pointed around various shop displays, you had the sinking feeling that your drink emptied faster than usual. And when you spotted the colourful stain that had transferred from your straw to your boyfriend’s lips, you caught the culprit red- handed (or rather red-lipped). When confronted he merely chuckled playfully before swooping in to steal a kiss on top of your drink, staining them with more of your lipstick and thereby destroying the evidence. (His straw also became more colourful as he offered you his drink as compensation.)

𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐂

𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐍 Prince of Hell

When Vil gifted you a set of lipsticks and glosses from a campaign he was part of and had no need for, you accepted them gratefully. You just finished sorting through all the shades and trying out a pretty shade of red, when there was a knock on your door and Cheron sauntered into your room. “There you are,” he grinned, charming without even having to try, before pulling you close and stealing the air from your lungs with a kiss. For someone who claimed to not be interested in ferrying more souls to hell, he sure seemed intent on trying to kill you. “What’s this you got there? Vil’s new collab?” “Right you are,” you paused, peering around him to the lipstick tube in your hand and chuckling as you read the shade name. Pressing another kiss right onto the middle of his cheek as payback for his usual schemes, you took in the red matching the colour on the corner of his lips. “Don’t you think it’s a beautiful colour, Cherry? It does match your hair and eyes. Maybe I should start calling you that.” There was a dangerous glint in his crimson eyes, clearly aware of the red staining his face, as he swiped his thumb under your bottom lip where the lipstick left a smudge as well. “You have a lot of nerve marking the Prince of Hell.” His grin showed off the points of his fangs more clearly now, clearly amused at your little stunt, taking a step forward and walking you backwards towards the edge of your bed. “That’s fine. If you can handle the consequences, that is.”

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