#or numb vampire/communism posting

[kedsandtubesocks]

all the trouble we’ve seen

Max Phillips x Witch!Reader

written for the PPCU x MCR WRITING CHALLENGE | prompt song: You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

summary: Max is in trouble, real deep shit after what he did at the office. So what’s gonna happen when you’re stuck baby sitting the most annoying (and handsome) vampire you’ve ever met?

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY MDNI. Canon divergent AU (Max doesn’t die) enemies to lovers, forced proximity, magical realism, supernatural themes, Bi!Max, imprisonment, blood imagery, death mention & discussion, asshole but kinda sweet!Max, angst angst angst, scent kink, vampire moments with blood drinking, dry humping, smutty themes & heavy smutty implied, use of pet names

word count: 4.1k

a/n: thank you to @sp00kymulderr for hosting this challenge I’m so happy I could participate & I’m incredibly sorry this is getting posted later than expected!! This fic try wouldn’t be here without @perotovar @hauntedhowlett & @pedgito who let me cry/scream & gave me the guidance I need, i love each of you & I owe y’all my life lol and to you, if you decide to read this - know I’m thanking you a million times

The last time you saw Max Phillips was over five years ago, and you had threatened to hex his ass to hell.

You just never thought you’d see him again, especially in the mess he’s in. Though, the horrifying scene before you is almost fitting for Max.

The restaurant had been a mess when you arrived. You almost felt embarrassed. Bullets scattered all across the floor. Blood splattered against the floor. The gunfire had erupted when the cops tried to take Max in only for them to realize their bullets weren’t working.

Now Max sits among the shells with his arms raised up high in surrender. The chaos settles in debris all around. He smirks horrendously coyly when he sees you.

“Thought I smelled you, little witch.” He grins and the glimmer of his fangs shine out.

You simply say nothing, frowning hard and unamused.

Charged with high crimes after changing an entire business into vampires, the warrant had been put out on Max weeks ago. It wasn’t just the supernatural community looking for him, but actual law enforcement. This sleazy vampire just got sloppy at hiding.

Yet Max doesn’t even seem bothered one bit when your kind placed him in the magical chain spell. You always admired him for seemingly cool under pressure unbothered ease.

Until now in the council’s courtroom as the sentence is given and you see a new side of Max.

“Death.” The high magistrate declares cold and unflinching.

You almost choke on an inhale.

Max’s face falls, the first move vivid and true reaction he’s shown this entire time.

Max’s eyes immediately snap to you, and you see it - a flash of crystalized fear.

You don’t even know how to react.

Two guards come and drag him away from the council room.

“Wait! Wait! You can’t fucking do this to me!? Do you even know what they’re gonna do to a guy like me in prison?!” He screams.

It’s all he says before the doors close and he’s gone.

They would send him to die.

The council deemed him too dangerous. Carelessly exposing the supernatural and being so blatantly cocky about it upset them. You just never thought they would be this harsh.

Your body feels numb. You don’t even move out of your seat. A solid hand against your shoulder startles you out of your daze.

The high magistrate stands besides you grinning softly, almost expectant.

“You must be glad he’s finally in custody.” She says.

You couldn’t fully say you were.

“Didn’t expect that verdict.” You truthfully tell her.

She sighs, weary. “The cases made against him were too much, and this last instance of turning so many innocents into vampires is unacceptable.”

You understood that. But death?

“Besides, you out of all of us know how much of a bastard he is.” The magistrate says, and a bitterness bubbles in your mouth.

Now wearily nod.

“Look, I know it’s a lot to take in, but the law is the law and he needs to be punished.”

She squeezes your shoulder before drawing you into a solid hug.

“Call me when you get home.”

“Yeah mom, will do.” You sigh, hugging her back.

But you don’t get much sleep that night.

The walk to the dungeon the next day isn’t too far. The sleek business-like building simply melts away once you get past the attendant. Immediately you’re transported into the hollow prison. The cold stone, the stale air, the rumble of ancient dangerous magic, all form an eerie atmosphere.

The ruins on the wall illuminate a path that guides you.

The dungeon, an ever changing landscape, is specifically a holding space before the criminals are arranged for their sentences.

Max’s arm stretches out from the bars before you even see him.

“Was wondering what took you so long to come see me.”

You almost want to turn around and leave. You don’t even know why you came.

But you walk to the front of the jail cell. Even among the bars, Max is so damn handsome it makes you angry.

“So, you come to laugh at me?” He asks, rubbing at his jaw.

You stay silent.

“Can’t even say I look sexy in this jumpsuit. Putrid green and white stripes aren’t my colors.” He scoffs.

You still can’t say anything.

This vampire now begins pacing around his small cell.

His eyes flicker to you sharp.

“Did they tell you about my cellmate? He’s out for lunch right now. But he actually used magic to kill his ex’s wife’s lover. That’s who your fucked up system thinks I’m as bad ass. I didn’t even murder people! I brought them back to life better than before!”

You swallow hard, unable to find your voice still.

It pisses Max off that he rushes to the bars and slams his hands against them. The magic of the barrier against the metal sparks to life, refusing to let him leave.

“Say something, witch!” He snarls your name, and it jolts your heart.

You don’t say anything. You can’t even say why you came. So you turn on your heels and leave.

Max’s laugh, bitter and loud, bounces off the walls and haunts you the entire way home.

He would have a month in a prison hold before the actual sentence came. In that month he would be under the watch of another magic user…

And of course he picks you.

Your mother tried to change the arrangement, but the criminal had the right of choice.

Now you stand in the bleak apartment as Max glances around the place scrutinizing it.

“Couldn’t they have at least set us up in like a Hilton or something? This looks like some shit ass studio college dorm looking place.”

“The little prodigy witch couldn’t even get special treatment, huh?” He sneers at you.

You glare back.

“Why did you even pick me? To what? Just torture me too?” You finally snap.

“Oh of course.” He bows, annoyingly ridiculous and smirking bright. “If I’m going out, I’m taking you with me.”

You storm out of the living room and slam the bathroom to sulk alone.

The small studio apartment was highly protected, a jail cell in its own right. Protective barriers would keep anyone leaving or coming in.

Then the final piece arrives for your month-long confinement.

One of the secondary magistrates comes to place a sigil on Max’s neck. The skin sears with the magic pressing into him, and he even hisses.

“What the fuck, I forgot how awful it is being human.” He mutters almost slurred.

His powers would be completely suppressed now due to the spell. Max is practically human now.

Now it’s just you and him, for one damn month.

“I’m surprised they didn’t leave a coffin here.” You dryly comment.

“Oo, kinky. I knew you had it in you, witch.” Max smiles.

“We should at least fuck, that’s all we might be able to do here. Plus it’d be for old times sake.” Max immediately offers, and you make a disgusted face.

“You haven’t even slept with me!” He argues absolutely upset. “If you do, I’ll make you see why you should’ve back then.”

He smirks, winking at you.

Back then - Romania.

It had been your first big aboard mission, and it was where you first met Max. Still so cocky and smug, you hate how effortlessly he charmed you at that college bar. He constantly purred at how he hadn't seen a witch as cute as you, except how unfortunate it was that witches' blood like yours smelled so bad he couldn’t stay near you long. Then you spotted Max fucking a waitress behind a bar and didn’t want anything to do with him.

Still don’t. So you simply decide to ignore him.

Most days you stay focused on your laptop letting Max talk aimlessly like an annoying podcast host with no listeners.

“You know what’s really evil? Why hasn’t Philadelphia Cream Cheese brought those good strawberry cheesecake snacks from the 90’s? Like, why are they withholding the goods?” He says lounging on the couch.

Ignore.

“Oh you think ignoring me is gonna break me? You’re cute, sweetheart.” Max scoffs.

Ignore.

He even starts a full lecture about the importance to the seductive nature of sales, and you put your headphones in.

Eventually when you start preparing dinner, and he’s slumped on the couch, this annoying vampire blurts out -

“I miss my mom.”

You almost think you misheard him.

“Guess getting closer to death makes you think of things like that. She would’ve liked you.” He continues. “She always said I needed someone good to keep me in check.”

He never once mentioned his mom.

“Always thought you were the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.” Max adds soft. “So damn smart and strong.”

Before grabbing the pasta you need to boil, his words freeze you.

“Should’ve run away with you. Wanted to.” He comments wistfully.

“No you didn’t.” You finally speak, and your voice creaks like a haunted house.

Max sits up immediately staring at you.

“I’m being serious.” His voice is unwavering just like his hard earthen eyes.

“Always wanted you. Always think I will.”

“You’re spewing bullshit now.” You flat out tell him. “I saw you that night with that waitress.”

Max sits up more. A hyper awareness rises in you, and you notice how thin the air feels now as the vampire moves to you in the kitchen.

“Besides, you always made it really fucking clear you couldn’t stand to be around me.” You add with a bitter bite.

“Little witches like you always smell so damn bad” - it’s like what he always said. You even repeat his words back to him.

Max stays surprisingly silent now, transformed into the deadly predator he is. Before you realize it you’re pressed against the kitchen wall at a dizzying speed. This handsome vampire stares down at you so close.

You aren’t afraid of what he can do. You know the spell is doing its job at suppressing him. But what is more dangerous is how badly your heart races.

His fingers run up against your chest delicately then to your neck where they stop.

“Only said all that because you drove me so damn crazy.” He mutters lower and hesitant than you’ve ever heard.

“Knew if I let myself even have one taste of you I’d never recover. I’d follow you forever.” He adds.

You swallow hard, barely able to breathe. Then you make the mistake of looking into his eyes.

You know his powers are suppressed. The magic radiating off him smells like a dusty room. Yet his eyes lock you in, almost hypnotizing you as if he was in his full form.

You can’t tell who moves first. You or him. It’s simply a collision of lips messily pressing against each other with Max instantly molds his body into yours.

He drags you to the couch in the living room. The boiling water sits on the stove overflowing. You can’t even seem to care. Not when he eats you out with a possessed consumption, a type of devouring that makes your eyes roll back into another dimension.

You’re surprised at how generous a lover he is, and how well endowed he is. It’s all delicious and good. You hate how much his kisses and heat melt into your bones.

You even hate how easily you fall asleep in his arms.

The next morning you’re still tangled in his hold.

“Haven’t slept like that in decades,” Max yawns groggily when he wakes up. “But that’s what a good fuck and pretty company to sleep with does to a man.”

You snort smacking his bare chest.

The mood shifts after that.

You and him watch shitty day time television together and really get into The Price is Right. You spend hours talking to him about everything and anything.

He also fucks you until your brain melts out of your skull and maybe even after that.

The days melt together and what’s worse, it feels natural falling into place beside Max.

“If we didn’t have all this…” he waves his hand around the room while you and him lie in bed together still not wanting to get up.

“I think we would’ve been good together.” Max muses.

You snort. “We would’ve killed each other.”

Max doesn’t say anything, instead lets his fingers just dance along your bare skin.

You’re about to ask him if he’s alright when he begins to cough. The cough started up last week. Now it sounds hoarse, getting worse over these past few days.

The binding spell is doing its job, keeping him suppressed, but it’s essentially draining him to the brink of no return.

That reality is now manifesting before you and terrifies you. So you’ve tried to sooth him, make him tea or even rub his back.

It’s a ominous awareness that seeps into the cracks of this facade you’ve been in.

“We should run away.” Max says suddenly the next morning after he fucked you senseless in the shower.

“What?!” You shriek.

“You heard me, witch.” He grins toothy. “We should run away, you and me.”

He nudges his chin at you, and your stomach flips.

Now you’re the one staying quiet as your mind scrambles like a frantic rat running from the light.

“Hello?!” He cries out your name, and his voice snaps your spine straight.

“So are you really just gonna let them kill me?!” The vampire snarls.

“You broke the law, like extremely. This is the punishment.” You fire back with a snap.

“You know what’s the real damn punishment? Being here with you. Knowing none of this will matter and...” he cuts himself off fast and glares hard.

You can taste what he’s going to say.

This make believe dream of living with him, of maybe having a life together is just a dream.

A contorted nightmare of what is to come.

You and Max avoid each other the rest of the day.

Until another coughing fit comes, and he collapses in the kitchen. It’s scary watching this suave powerful hunter wither away into almost a husk of who he is. You immediately rush over to help steady him.

Calling out his name, he’s barely in and out of consciousness.

You’re panicking. You know this is what would happen. He only has a week left before his execution.

But you can’t stand this. You don’t want to see him suffer. Not when you’ve felt the Max beneath his grimey jackass surface crust, felt his tender kisses, seen the bashful smiles he gives you, known the way he makes you feel-

So you lower your neck down to him.

“Max, do it.” You order.

“But what about…” he mutters through a wheeze.

“Don’t care. We’ll figure it out.” You firmly cut him off.

Max’s hands shake as he draws himself to you. He even places the softest butterfly of kisses against your skin.

Then he bites down.

His fangs aren’t sharpened so the piercing of his teeth into your skin makes you hiss, feels so much more animalistic than you would have thought.

Then the pleasure immediately washes over.

A honey syrupy warmth courses into your veins, and you moan feeling him suck at you, feeling his tongue lip out to your skin.

You don’t even realize Max has shifted, gained more strength, until your back hits the cold kitchen floor and your hands clutch onto him.

He slides his body between your legs and immediately grinds up against your core.

“Oh fuck, knew it. I knew you’d taste amazing.” He slurs watery as your blood fills his mouth.

You moan more clutching at him as your hips rise to grind against his more. It feels like you could burst out of your skin at any moment with this all consuming pleasure.

Max dry humps you more and you don’t care that you’re picking up a more frantic pace trying to reach your edge.

“Shit yeah, give it to me.” He commands, and your climax hits you dizzying that your vision goes out for a minute.

But you’re not the only one, Max groans loud, a punched out moan signaling his release.

“No one’s made me fucking come in my pants since I was a little bat. You naughty little thing.” He mumbles with a grin against your skin, kissing and licking away at the wound he gave you.

When Max lifts up from your neck, you swear his eyes flicker a shade of crimson.

Eventually he gathers you into his arms. A warmth has returned to his cheeks. You hate that this dumb vampire hasn’t wiped off your blood from his face and instead seems to wear it proud.

“Your blood is my honor badge, witch.” Max winks, and you roll your eyes.

Now the silence returns.

“I’ve wanted to ask…Why did you do it? Change all those people in the office?”

In his arms, you feel Max shrug.

“Why not? Humans are weak, easily broken. Why not give ‘em a shot to be better? If not, they're just food, like a walking grocery store for my kind.”

A dread sickness sinks into you hearing him talk this unbothered and slightly cruel.

“You were human. You couldn’t have always thought like that.” You say firm even as you your fingers trace against his.

Max sighs.

“Yeah that’s true. But love and life’s a bitch ain’t it.”

Curiously, you can’t help but ask what happened.

Max stays quiet. You’re worried this soft bonding bubble has popped.

“I fell in love right before I turned.” His voice takes that uncharacteristically soft somber tone.

Max tells you about the man he met and how the two of them vowed to be together. But then Max was changed, and his partner saw him as a monster. Then all the faith and love shattered right before Max’s eyes.

So, this existence has been a prison of its own for him.

“Then I met you, someone else stuck like me between the mundane and magical.” Max says and your heart jumps.

“You had laughed so damn loud at something the other witch with you at the bar said and it annoyed me. Didn’t think someone could be that happy.”

You’re about to snap at him until he continues.

“I wanted to annoy you as much as I could until I knew you inside and out.”

It’s a Max way of saying he wanted to be with you.

Something heavy and rusting settles in your chest and drags you down to a depth you don’t want to face.

“You still don’t know me.” You mutter.

“I know enough, know you aren’t the type that wants to be an apprentice magistrate, much less a high one. That sounds like what that mother of yours wanted.” Max comments, always seeming to just have the best ability at reading people and it makes you fidget in his arms.

And he’s right.

You never wanted to be a magistrate.

You have dreams of a beautiful occult shop, warm and inviting, getting to run it yourself with all the knowledge of magic you know. Binding and blending the supernatural with the everyday world - that’s what you dreamed of.

You even tell him this.

Max surprisingly listens to it all patiently.

“We could make it happen.” He suggests. “After all, I’m a damn wizard in business.”

That makes you laugh and he joins in.

But it’s a candy coated dream holding a truthful rot beneath all.

“There’s this saying I heard once,” Max says suddenly. “Life’s but a dream for the dead.”

“That’s…morbid.” You reply.

“But true.” Max shrugs simply. “Trust me, I’ve been dead long enough to know. Guess that dream might be ending soon.”

It’s that unspoken festering truth.

The end is approaching.

It now feels as if the prison chains around Max have possibly been around you as well.

What will you do?

Before you head to bed you notice the light from the streetlights casts a shadow from a window that crawls across the floor - it looks like jail bars.

That night you let Max drink from you again and go to absolute heaven. Because if this is your hell then why not taste the sublime even if for a little bit.

You feel more drained than normal, barely staying awake. Max softly reassures you it’s because he’s fed off you twice.

“Just get some rest honey, I’ll be here.” He kisses your shoulder and spoons you in his hold.

Wearily you slip into dreams of a hotel room down the street, where you and Max would escape to. You’d change your name and he’d change his. Max of course manages to negotiate a buy and you get your shop filling it to the brim with tarot cards and blessed candles. It’s your own little slice of heaven, and Max complains about it all the time. But you’re happy, and he stays right beside you.

And then you wake up.

Your mother, the high magistrate, actually is the one shaking you awake.

“What happened?!” She cries petrified and panicked.

Wearily you glance around and find more magic users and guards storm in and out of the apartment.

Max is gone.

Claw marks scratch against the door and the wood is broken open. He found a way out. Absolute horror crashes into you.

“Did you let him drink from you?! Answer me!” Your mom demands screaming your name.

You’re too terrified to answer. The silence is enough and your mom explodes.

“How did you forget?! A vampire drinking a witch's blood allows them to momentarily gain abilities to break seals and spells?!” She screams.

You had been so deep in this delusion… you hadn’t even thought of that.

Your blood runs cold.

That bastard had charmed you with all the suave of a slug. And here you are, left the buyer hoodwinked by the rotten lie he sold you.

All that’s left from Max is a single piece of paper written for you.

Life is but a dream baby…

Crunching the note in your hands, you set the paper on fire.

-

Your prison cell is more comfortable than others and you know that. Being the daughter of a high magistrate is like being the child of a president. You understand the privileged benefits that it brings.

But a cage is still a cage.

You’d be in this single waiting room cell of the dungeon for another day until it was decided where you would go for your crimes of assisting a fugitive.

Your mother is still trying to argue that you were under the influence of Max. In some way you were, but just not in the way she speaks of.

Just thinking about that monster makes your blood boil.

Down the hall of the dungeon, a faint clang echos like something hit the floor. Your guard curiously peeks down the dark shifting labyrinth

The guard’s eyes flicker to you for a brief moment, then he walks off to investigate the noise.

You don’t give it much thought and return to reading your book.

The new footsteps come clocking down the hall. They don’t sound like the familiar boots of the guards and you wonder if it’s someone from the magistrate’s court.

“You miss me baby?”

The air goes still.

Your reaction to hearing Max’s smooth acidic voice is visceral.

You throw your book at him.

“You fucker!” The emotions take over, volcanic and consuming.

He’s dressed in the nicest suit you’ve ever seen and covers his head from your book attack. But you also don’t miss the blood soaking his shirt, still lingering around his lips.

“Hey, hey, hey! Is that anyway you should treat your rescuer?” His face scrunched up in confusion is still as handsome as ever.

“You’re the reason why I’m here to begin with!” You snap.

He hushes you.

“You want us to get caught?!” Max seethes.

Before you can yell at him more, your vampire walks forward and kicks open the gate. The magic shimmers, a fluttering electric wave, then crumbles as the lock opens.

Max stubbornly walks over to snap off the binding spell on your wrists even though it faintly burns his hands as you notice the harsh sizzling sound.

He really is setting you free.

You’re almost too stunned to move now staring at him confused.

Max sighs annoyingly dramatic. “Baby, are you coming or what?”

He holds his hand out, eyes expectant, but there’s a glimmer of hesitation.

You don’t grab his hand, but instead rush forward to kiss him frenzied, not even caring there’s still traces of blood against his chin. It becomes a distorted but consecrated blood vow sealing. You’re thankful this dumb vampire is quick to react grabbing onto you with a fierce hold.

The guards would be coming soon. Max’s intrusion and your escape will be noticed if you don’t act fast.

But for right now, it’s just you and him.

And you think, it might be you and this vampire until the sun bleeds.

And as you place your hand in Max’s - you realize you’re more than okay with that.

[daydream-cement]

The Cedars Have Eyes Ch. 3

Characters: Larissa Weems x OC (Fern Rogers)

Synopsis: Life seemingly feels normal for a second.

Authors Note: Last chapters intensity was a lot guys. Let's dial it back with a healthy amount of healing smut. (Also, listen to this chapter to In A Week by Hozier. That's the vibe.)

Days had passed since your journey into the underground chamber. You were still reeling on how your physical body never left Rowan or Larissa, but you had cut your hand in the dreamscape. You still had hundreds of questions, but life was feeling more normal as of late. The sleepwalking stopped. You could fully sleep through the nights without the seizures and without leaving bed to almost drown yourself.

Larissa's mood increased dramatically as well. You attributed it to a good nights rest and the decrease in stress. After you had awoken from your journey to 'the crypt', as you called it, you shared everything with Rowan and Larissa. The plaque you brought back was evidence of the journey being more than a brain injury.

Rowan had begun doing research into the name and Larissa had been speaking to some of the elder vampire alumni about the possibility of a crypt for original outcasts. The cremation portion was tricky. While the art of cremation is ancient, records say that it was rarely used in the United States until the 1870s. In the evenings, all three of you would meet to go over information you had gathered from the day.

The communication seemed to be better as well... except for the nightmares. When the sleepwalking ended, the nightmares started. Well at least you found them to be nightmares.

In the dreams, you would wake up feeling incredibly empty inside, like all emotion had been ripped from your body. You couldn't move. You were in a box. A casket to be more specific. Your eyes were open, but those who viewed your body didn't seem to notice.

There was Rowan. She had sunglasses on, but you could see her tear stained cheeks. Then came Larissa. Her eyes seemed void of there usual sparkle, red from the crying. She wasn't actively crying, however. She just seemed numb.

A voice came from the back, "Oh, she was just too late. There was nothing to be done..."

This dream has been on repeat for three days and you found it to be more disturbing than the sleepwalking or the vines.

You had been working hard to not let Larissa know. She knew that you woke up terrified, typically pulling you into her arms and drifting off back to sleep. With how interconnected everything you were experienced seemed to be, you didn't need Larissa to know that your death could be imminent.

What she didn't know wouldn't kill her.

------

Larissa's mood had been so jovial as of late that she even asked you on a date. It was mid-March and the students had been sent home for Spring Break, so she was determined to enjoy her kid-free and girlfriend-not-about-to-die time while she could.

You were both enjoying a walk in the woods, post lunch date in the greenhouse. Larissa would rather enjoy a walk with you arm in arm while the students weren't present, but you were too busy walking stooped over, identifying the small spring plants that were waking up from their winter's nap.

Larissa only watched you with a smile, happy to see you back to normal. After a mile or so, you stopped at one of the docks by the lake, sitting there together like you had when you first came to Nevermore. You were so content sitting there with Larissa. You leaned back so you were laying on the dock, looking at the sky. Larissa even laid back with you, enjoying the moment.

You turned your head to just watch her and all her beauty. Of course she noticed your staring, turning her head to look at you as well. She isn't smiling, however. Her hungry eyes glance down at your lips. You knew exactly what she wanted on this chilly spring day.

Larissa was on top of you in an instant, her lips pressed to yours. She wasted no time slipping her tongue in your mouth. It had been weeks since you were intimate and Larissa was ravenous.

She felt you up over your jacket causing you to laugh, “Maybe we should go back home…”

———

Her lips were on when you pushed the front door open, her hands clutching the sides of your face. You slowly backed in the front door, Larissa following closely after. She even shut the door with her foot, locking it when it was closed.

You shed your jackets from one another's bodies, leaving them on the floor. That was a clean up job for future you.

After the jackets came shoes, shirts and pants, shedding them with reckless abandon. You both giggled as you felt like teenagers, grabbing and pulling at each other’s clothing. Breathing heavy, Larissa pushed you back so you landed on the couch, “I’m grabbing the strap. Finish stripping.”

As always, you do what your told, tossing your bra and underwear to who cares where. She comes back, not wearing the strap, but dangling it from her fingertips. You would be strapping her.

Larissa straddles your lap, her kiss less desperate. It was gentle and slow, like she was savoring the moment. You began a wonderfully time consuming make out session. Your hands slowly drifted from her hips to her ass, your touch loving and gentle.

Larissa breaks the kiss to look at you, the most genuine of smiles gracing her lips, “I love you.”

You thought your heart could explode if it were filled with any more love and adoration for one person, “I love you.”

The gentle, loving kisses became more impassioned. There was no roughness, just increased depth and more wandering hands. You began pushing her onto the sofa next to you, wanting to progress into oral, but she knew what she wanted, “Please just fuck me… I need this…”

She stands, finally unclasping her bra and taking off her panties. This gave you time to adjust the strap to your body and take a seat on the couch for Larissa to straddle you again. As Larissa moved to sit on the strap, she inserted it herself, allowing a long moan to escape her as she did.

She slowly sank all the way down on the fake member. There was a long pause as she rested her forehead against yours. You could tell she was enjoying the adjustment to being filled through her deep breaths and closed eyes.

Larissa began moving first, slowly sliding up and down eliciting cries of pleasure from her. Her hands gripped the top of the couch behind you, her back was arching. This gave you the pleasure of her breasts directly in your face.

Larissa kept up the slow teasing pace. Your arms wrapped around her middle, your fingers splayed on her back, holding her close to you.

You had great sex with Larissa before, but nothing came close to this slow, methodical passion. This is what it meant to make love. Minutes turned to hours.

You had changed positions multiple times. Her straddling you became missionary so you could be the one providing her with a slow and deep fucking. In this position you had the pleasure of sucking and biting at her breasts leaving the deepest, darkest love bites you ever had.

From missionary went to fucking Larissa from behind. Larissa’s back was pressed against your chest as you fucked her, one hand was around her throat as the other gently rubbed at her clit.

Larissa had lost count of the orgasms. It wasn’t about that at this point. You both were looking for proximity and pleasure. The opportunity to hold each other close and feel good.

While there had been no direct sexual acts done unto you, the wetness from your legs was dripping. You felt as though you had cum ten times over just at the process of pleasuring Larissa.

You knew you were in your final strokes when Larissa’s body was tensing up. You applied a little more pressure to her clit, increasing the speed ever so slightly. This was enough to send her over the edge for a final time.

You released her from your grasp, tenderly guiding her spent body to the couch. The room had grown dark as you took up all the time in the world tonight. You unclipped the strap from your body, dropping it to the side. Knowing you were going to spend the night on the couch together, you grabbed throw pillows from the arm chair and blankets from a basket. This allowed for Larissa and you to cozy up together, your naked forms fitting together like puzzle pieces.

You enjoyed the feeling of your cheek pressed to her bare sternum, you could hear her heartbeat wonderfully from this position. There was no speaking for a while, but you knew she wasn’t asleep from her rate of breathing.

“I can’t lose you…” Larissa choked out, you knew she was crying now. Probably thinking too much about the events from the last couple months.

“I’ll always come back to you… Even if I have to pull myself from the grave and crawl home to you.” You didn’t know if this was reassuring, but it certainly made you feel better.

Link to Chapter 4

[belacqui-pro-quo]

Vampires have devoured our attention and left us the ghosts of public and civic and community life. Tech has sold us not only the capacity to withdraw but the logic of it, with the rhetoric – at least since the late 90s dotcom boom and the birth of online shopping and banking – that insists leaving the house, milling around, talking to strangers, going to your bank or the post office, or even eating out in a restaurant is inconvenient, unpleasant, unnecessary and possibly dangerous. Some of the justification for the withdrawal seems to be efficiency – the capitalist sense that time is money and you need to hoard the former so you can work incessantly to earn the latter. Another piece of it is the idea that the activities of daily life are so tedious and burdensome that you should try to avoid them. There are upscale counter-narratives that sometimes penetrate – think of baking sourdough bread during the pandemic, or knitting, or growing tomatoes, things that are not about getting ahead economically, but are about reconnecting to manual skills and activities, to seeing a process through rather than just getting the product, to slowing down rather than speeding up. In Zen training, just sweeping or washing the dishes can be an occasion for mindfulness, and being fully present – just doing that one thing with full attention, not being half there and half elsewhere – is an important part of the practice. Tech, by contrast, promotes ghosting your own embodied life and the systems that support it (though it also offers mindfulness apps you can install on your phone). The people designing and promoting and profiting off those technologies genuinely seem to both shun the turbulent, unpredictable world out there and to believe substitutes for direct and authentic human contact and experience are as good as the real thing – all the way down to virtual reality, virtual girlfriends and AI therapists. There is no shortage of actual human beings, but society is increasingly organised – in no small part by these merchants of withdrawal – to make it harder to connect, which becomes the justification for pushing these substitutes. We’re now in the midst of an international loneliness pandemic whose impact on mental – and even physical – health, as well as happiness, is now a subject of medical concern. If you object that we’re not in a zombie movie because there are no brain-eating cannibals, let me reassure you, there are. The corporations are devouring our attention, and chewing our lives down to the bone to get at our data. They have shown their ruthlessness in what they offer as long as they capture us and extract our attention, information and other assets from us. And the harm is real.

[butternuggets-blog]

hi! I just wanted to reach out and say that I love your fics and your writing style! do you have any favourite adow fics on ao3 that you could recommend? I'm obsessed with it rn but there doesn't seem to be too much content. Thank you and have a nice day!

Aw thank you! Well, I am on AO3 but I suppose since you've already found me I'll have to recommend some other people 😅

The Krays, but worse by @adowbaldwin

Complete! (Finally!)

CRACK MEETS CRACK

FABIEN AND BALDWIN, TWINS. WORSE THEN THE KRAYS. CORRUPTING THE WORLD SINCE THE WOMB.

Truth Untold by leilani21

Takes place after Time's Convert: As Diana and Matthew prepare to expand their family and release their scientific findings, a series of murders shock the creature community putting all on edge; vampires, witches, daemons..... and humans. Suddenly the Bishop-de Clermont's are thrust into the spotlight and Matthew and Diana are forced to defend once again, not just their love, their children, and their family but indeed the very future of all creatures. As old enemies come out of the woodwork, and new ones begin to show their true faces, the de Clermont's must prove themselves not only to the humans but to themselves.

WARNINGS: Spoilers a plenty, unless you have read all four books of the series. Also forewarning for graphic crime scene depictions and violence.

Fire Dancer by Seph7

Post-Time's Convert. Witches loyal to Peter Knox are still intent on find out what secrets Diana Bishop and those close to her are hiding in regards to the Book of Life. Unknown to Diana, Emily had spoken to fellow Seers about things she'd seen for the future of all Creatures, and after Peter Knox's death, his loyalists have mobilised to find out what these Seers knew in order to finally get their hands on everything Diana knows.

liked the way you numbed all the pain by @minim236

When a man died, it fell to his brother to take care of his widow.

So Matthew and Miriam married. He became Jason's stepfather, and she hates him. She hates how much he cares and how sorry he is.

or

Matthew and Miriam fall apart and try to come back together.

Family Line by @minim236

Fresh into marriage and life as a vampire, Marcus and Phoebe are happy and settled into a good rhythm.

Then someone leaves a baby girl on their doorstep.

A Million Pieces by @minim236

Jack meets the kindest human. He fears his base instincts taking over and harming her, but he cannot stop thinking about her.

Of Charcoal and Flame by MadHatter2019

Gallowglass de Clermont has stayed away for two years while his feelings for Diana fade. Having moved on from the woman he cannot have, what will happen when he returns and discovers the other half of his soul? Family complications and hilarity ensue as Gallowglass comes to terms with finding his mate at long last.

Baldwins Secret by @adowbaldwin

Diana preggo time walks right into the middle of Baldwin's human life

copy and pasted from my tumblr *

many grammatical errors as it was largely written on my phone at like 1am

[whump-card]

Sunless Lives Arc 3 contains themes of forced institutionalization, medical abuse, psychiatric abuse, and suicide. Because these are such common squicks and triggers amongst the whump community, I will be providing a surface-level summary of what happens chapter-by-chapter for anyone who needs to skip parts or the whole arc.

This post will be edited to add the summary of each part as I publish them, and I will reblog the updated version after each Sunless Lives post.

Take care!

Summary below the cut.

Part 21: I Will Get Better - Matthew wakes up, cured of his vampirism. He is at first mad at Simon for staying with him while he was a vampire, and they argue before coming to an understanding. Captain Isles and Amber show up. They want to send Simon to a psychiatric facility. Simon doesn’t want to go, but agrees when Amber implicitly threatens Matthew. Simon leaves with Isles and Amber.

Part 22: I Will Hear From You Soon - Matthew is alone at the clinic. He misses his dad. He goes through a physical, and asks how long vampire rehab will take. They don’t know. He is taken in a van to Fontain Fields. It’s surprisingly nice inside. A kind orderly gives him a pep talk.

Part 23: I Will Get You Out - In a therapy session transcript, Dr Mandal asks Matthew questions about the emotions he experienced as a vampire. Back in the present, Matthew gets out of Fontaine Fields around Easter. He reunites with his dad. Gina and Devon are there, and inform him that Isles has placed Simon under a conservatorship, and that Simon has attempted suicide.

Part 24: I Will Not Go - In a therapy session transcript, Matthew worries about being possessive and controlling when he’s around Simon again. Dr Mandal suggests that the possessiveness is a natural level of love and desire, and that Simon is competent enough that Matthew can let go of the need to control. Now we jump back to follow Simon right after he left Matthew. Isles and Amber put him in a car. Simon realizes he doesn’t want to go, but the woman in the car informs him that he’s under a conservatorship and doesn’t have a choice. Simon attempts to escape, but is drugged.

Part 25: I Will Wait - In a therapy session transcript, Matthew struggles with some self-hatred. Simon arrives at Fort Summerwhite, half-conscious from drugs. The intake process is violating and humiliating. He is pushed up against a wall by an orderly. A nurse is hostile to him. He meets Chett, a scary patient.

Part 26: I Will Make You Better - In a therapy session transcript, Dr Mandal suggests that Matthew consider his own health and safety, not just Simon’s. Simon has a session with Dr Deckard. Dr Deckard does not believe that Simon is not suicidal, asks invasive questions, and drives Simon into a panic attack. Simon learns Isles told the doctor personal details about Simon. Simon’s only comfort is that when he leaves the session, Chett is there - not so scary after all.

Part 27: I Will Be A Good Boy - In a therapy session transcript, Matthew talks about an altercation he had with another patient because he misheard the man’s name as Bowers. In another session with Dr Deckard, Simon has grown numb. Dr Deckard believes he is irrational, and threatens him with solitary. When he gets out of the session he is alone; Chett has been released, but not before warning Simon that he’d been keeping Simon safe, and Simon should be careful now. Soon after Simon is spooked by Reeder, the redheaded orderly, and he uses Simon’s reaction as an excuse to drag him away to a storage closet, along with another orderly, Hans. They proposition Simon for oral sex in exchange for favors, with no option of refusal. Simon makes a deal with them to get his own room and to stop being medicated. Afterwards, Simon asks them for a smartphone, thinking he can use it to find Matthew’s dad’s number. Reeder says he’ll see what he can do.

Part 28: I Will Not Bend - In a therapy session transcript, Matthew decides his attraction to Simon has nothing to do with the preybonding. Isles visits Simon, and is useless. The next time Reeder pulls Simon into the storage closet, Reeder demands sex. Simon tries to get away, but Reeder throws him down and his head hits a shelf, nearly killing him. To make it look like a suicide, Reeder force-feeds Simon pills and leaves him there.

Part 29: I Will Take You Home - Matthew confronts Isles about Simon. Isles surprisingly agrees to take Matthew to see him. They go to Fort Summerwhite. Dr Deckard complains that Simon shouldn’t see Matthew. Isles overrules. Matthew finally sees Simon, and he looks okay, but is heavily sedated and his hair has been shaved in order to treat his head injury. Simon apologizes to Matthew for cheating on him, and Matthew demands to know what he’s talking about. Dr Deckard tells them that Simon lies constantly. Matthew convinces Isles to take Simon home. They take Simon to Isles’ house, but once there Isles has a change of heart and kicks Matthew out, threatening to have him arrested.

Part 30: I Will Not Let You Do It Too - Isles tells Simon that Matthew doesn’t want him anymore. Simon is devastated. Isles takes Simon everywhere with him, and generally treats him like a child and a danger to himself. Simon knows he didn’t attempt suicide, even though that’s what everyone says, but he doesn’t remember exactly what DID happen. No one will believe him about the sexual abuse, either. After three weeks of living with Isles, Isles comes on to Simon. Simon goes along with it, thinking it will just be kissing, but Isles escalates and doesn’t stop when Simon asks him to. Simon smashes a lamp over Isles’ head and escapes the house. He runs through the city, eventually spotting/being spotted by a woman who directs him into an LGBT community center. The people there take care of him before leaving him alone with a phone. With no one to call, Simon dials Lara’s old number, then his mom’s, getting the disconnected message each time.

[thearmyprof]

Endless Sea, but the water is warm here Ch. 10

Rating: E

Pairing: Yoongi/Original Character

Word count: 6218

Chapters: 10/?

Genre: Modern Fantasy!AU, Idol!AU, Canon Divergent,

Warnings: NSFW, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Explicit Sexual Content

Overview post: https://at.tumblr.com/thearmyprof/endless-sea-but-the-water-is-warm-here/h8ruhjcuzs62

Summary:

Sometimes Eunha imagines herself living by the sea. She imagines herself sinking in sunbaked sand and Mina happily jumping in playful waves. She thinks there might have been a time in her own childhood when she visited the ocean. A time before her first visit to the realm of death. A time when she let the pull of the sun-warmed waters pull suggestively at her ankles. When she collected seashells. A time when she could take a big inhale and smell the salt water mixed with the smell of tide, the smell of life.

But daydreams and memories of oceans and sand always morph and twist eventually. The grey waters that ebb and flow with their own mystical tide, the river as vast as an ocean, are what Eunha knows. That river has no smell. She is well versed in the tugs and pulls of the water, urging her to continue her journey onward, out into that vast expanse of monotone darkness. There are some days where it almost feels easier to give in and let the river’s tide do what it wills.

Life is hard and dark until an accidental meeting on a train and an encounter her vampire landlord's ghoul throws Eunha's world colliding with Min Yoongi's. Does this become a fleeting career opportunity or the chance at a better life?

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45497923

Full Tags:

Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Vampires, Fae & Fairies, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Idols, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World of Darkness, Necromancy, Blood and Violence, Death, None of the guys though, or our two original main characters, Angst with a Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Magic, fae bts, Soft Min Yoongi | Suga, Protective Min Yoongi | Suga, Protective Bangtan Boys | BTS, Explicit Sexual Content, Sex Work, Single parent original female character, Softness, Soulmate!AU kind of, Mafia AU, referenced past traumatic birth (not explicit), soft adopted dad Yoongi vibes, Hospitals, referenced police, no jealousy, good communication, we believe in healthy relationships in this house even if the world is burning down

CHAPTER TEN.

Eunha doubles over her haegeum, resting in her lap, wracked with shivers, as she slips back into her body. Her toes and fingers are numb and she shakes uncontrollably, teeth chattering in her skull. The room is warm, almost hot, she notices vaguely but she barely penetrates past her frozen skin. She squeezes her eyes shut, willing her body to calm down and accept the heat.

“Oh good, you’re back with us,” a man’s voice says from somewhere across the room.

Eunha squints over, body still shaking, to figure out who is here.

Seokjin is standing in the doorway, hand holding onto a mug. His voice may have sounded casual, but the look on his face now is wrinkled in worry.

“I honestly didn’t fully believe you did magic until today,” he says. “I stand corrected.”

Eunha shivers again, body still trying to adjust to being back in the plane of the living. Her hands shake as she tries to settle her haegeum back in its case. Jin brings over a quilt, pale lavender with small yellow stars scattered across in a pattern, like a blanket of stars. The quilt rustles as Jin lays it over Eunha’s shoulders, the fabric whispers as it comes in contact with her skin. He brings the tea and sits cross-legged across from her on the floor.

Eunha sips at the tea, instantly feeling relief from the warmth of the liquid. The quilt is soft and warm, a comforting blanket of safety that envelopes Eunha in its warmth. The mug is heavy and smooth in her hands, solid and reassuring, and she’s happy to note her shaking has diminished. Jin watches her closely, concern etched deep into his features.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

Eunha nods, pulling the quilt tighter around herself.

“Yoongi is with his lawyer right now,” Seokjin continues, still softly, staring into the swirl of tea leaves at the bottom of his mug. “There are government officials are sniffing around. I don’t know what for. Yoongi will tell us when he gets home.”

“Mina?” Eunha asks, taking another sip of tea.

“She’s in the living room, reading,” Jin says. “She is so strong. You have done a wonderful job as her eomma.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eunha says, more to herself than to Jin.

“Well,” Jin says, slapping his own knee. “I do. I won’t pretend I know your life. Or what you’ve been through. But I think, considering just what I’ve seen, I know you are doing the best you can.”

Eunha huffs. “I don’t know if that’s good enough.”

Jin leans forward, his kind eyes locking onto hers.

“It is enough,” he says firmly. “You have been through so much, Eunha. You are still here. Remember that.”

Eunha nods, grateful for Jin’s words but still feeling the weight of her own inadequacy. Eunha lets out a shaky breath.

“Thanks,” she whispers, looking down at her tea.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while until Mina wanders in, book in hand. Without a word, she settles down on Eunha’s lap, nestling herself under the quilt. Eunha smiles softly, running her hand through Mina’s hair. She feels a sense of peace settling over her, feeling the buzz of warmth of Mina’s soul vibrating through her chest and arms. She takes another sip of the tea, feeling the liquid warm her chest, and tucks Mina in a little closer to her body. Eunha looks over at Jin, who has a small smile on his lips.

As they sit there together, the sound of the door opening interrupts their peace. After a few moments, Yoongi peeks in through the open doorway, looking both relieved and exhausted upon seeing everyone comfortably sitting on the floor of the bedroom. His hair is tousled and he has dark circles under his eyes. Eunha feels a jolt of affection for him, surprising herself.

Yoongi sees them and his features soften into a smile.

“Hey,” he says, his voice gentle. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Eunha replies, giving him a timid smile. “Jin filled me in on what’s been going on.”

Yoongi nods, sitting down next to them and leaning his back against the bed frame. He looks at Eunha and Mina, then over at Jin, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. He runs a hand through his disheveled hair, the length of it falling back around to frame his face around his cheekbones.

“It’s been a long day,” he says.

Eunha nods. She feels Mina shift against her, and she looks down to see that her daughter has fallen asleep in her arms. Eunha gently picks Mina up and stands, being careful not to jostle her too much.

“I’m going to put her to bed,” Eunha says softly.

Both of the men nod and stand up, picking up the empty tea cups as they go. They quietly tip-toe out of the room, shutting the door behind them.

Eunha nestles Mina under the comforter on the bed. As she tucks her daughter in, Eunha feels a wave of exhaustion wash over her, but she knows she needs to stay awake a little longer. She can hear the sound of Yoongi and Jin talking softly in the living room. She feels like she owes more of an explanation. She’d walked into death today. They surely want to know why. She takes one last look at Mina before leaving the room, making sure that her daughter is sleeping soundly.

As she enters the living room, Yoongi and Jin turn to look at her. Both of them look tired. Eunha feels a wave of guilt crash onto her shoulders.

“Is everything okay?” she asks.

Jin clears his throat. “I’m going to head out now. We have a schedule early tomorrow morning. And a debrief about all of this in the afternoon.”

He waves his hands in the air to indicate what he meant by “all of this.”

“Night, hyung,” Yoongi murmurs, walking Jin to the door.

“Call me if you need anything, huh?” Jin prods as he puts on his shoes.

Eunha watches them from her place in the hallway. A pang of envy at their ease and familiarity with one another makes her catch her breath. She hasn’t had a bond like that with anyone since Daniel, a feeling amplified by her recent visit with him in death.

As Jin leaves, Yoongi’s shoulders sag as he turns to face Eunha. His body is tense and heavy like a leaden weight. His gaze is intense yet gentle, giving her a sense of security. His lips quirk into a sad little smile.

He takes a deep breath before speaking, the exhaustion etched deep into his voice. He asks softly, “What happened today?”

Yoongi leads Eunha over to the couch, careful not to touch her. She sinks into the couch beside him, feeling the weight of the day bearing down heavily on her. She’s careful not to sit too close, aware that Yoongi knows she can feel his soul now. She doesn’t want him feeling awkward or put upon.

She clears her throat, mind searching for a place to start. As she does, her eyes cast around the living room. Despite the minimalist nature of the space and the monotone aesthetic, it’s still looks cozy, lived in. An almost tangible sense of peace permeates the air. It’s like being in the eye of a storm, surrounded by quietness that speaks volumes. Eunha pulls the light blue throw that is folded on the back of the couch onto her lap, remembering the echoes of cold that wracked her body earlier.

“Thank you,” she decides to start with.

Yoongi makes a small choking sound in his throat, probably in surprise. He opens his mouth to respond, but Eunha cuts him off before he has a chance to utter any sounds.

“I know you don’t think you deserve thanks,” she says. “But you’ve done more for me- more for Mina-yah, than anyone has done in a long time. I needed- I needed this time to find my footing again. And, maybe, I don’t think I’m quite there yet. A lot still worries me. I don’t know what the future holds. But I’m feeling more awake and more rested than I have- oh, since I can remember, really.”

Yoongi’s jaw snapped shut somewhere in the middle of Eunha’s impromptu speech and after he knows she’s done, he nods his head slowly.

“I was about Mina’s age, I can’t remember exactly when, when I walked in the river for the first time,” Eunha says after a few minutes of silence.

This time, the choking sound of surprise from Yoongi is unmistakable. So is the little gasp he makes when he tries to suck in air in his shock.

“My uncle had flown all the way to America,” Eunha continues, “to train me. That was a big deal. My parents spent so much time preparing the house and cleaning and trying to prepare me. I didn’t understand then, but I do now, exactly how powerful he is and what that meant to my parents. He was- is the sort to train by throwing a pupil in the deep-end and watching them flail around until they figure out how to swim. I had been learning the symbols and been trained in music since I was a baby. But nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, prepared me for that first walk in death.”

Yoongi reaches his hand out then and lets it hover near Eunha, unsure if his touch is welcome. Eunha takes a deep breath and then grabs his hand, pulling it back to her lap. The familiar, welcome vibrations of his soul are soothing.

“It was terrifying,” Eunha whispers. “There were no souls, no other beings there. It was just my uncle, me, and the greyness of the river. But it called me. The river did. As if it were excited to meet me, to have me.”

Yoongi squeezes his hand around Eunha’s, sending a caring pulse through the soul connection. Eunha smiles down at their connected hands sadly.

“It ages you, especially when you’re that young, you know? That responsibility. That, I don’t know, that pull. Every single time I walk in death, I make a choice. A choice to not heed the call this time. A choice to ignore the insistent tugs of the water. A choice to live.”

“Oh, Eunha.” Yoongi’s voice is barely audible, cracking in pain.

“I’m sorry,” Eunha whispers. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all of this.”

“Not a burden,” Yoongi says firmly. “No more apologies, remember?”

Eunha nods, feeling grateful for his understanding. She takes a deep breath before continuing. She says, “I trained with my uncle until I was 13 years old. I had mastered the basics, I could walk through death blindfolded, and I was well on my way to the advanced spell crafting. Then my uncle had to go back to Seoul. I don’t know why. Something about his business here. I didn’t see him again until just before my 18th birthday, when he came back to finish my training.”

Eunha takes another deep breath and looks out the window. The night lights of Seoul are like stars fallen from the sky, twinkling and shimmering as they dance in the dark. The city lights shine bright and inviting against the velvety night sky, stretching as far as the eye can see. The view is breathtaking, Eunha thinks.

After a minute passes, she refocuses her attention back on their joined hands and the buzz of Yoongi’s soul. She’s positive now that she’s felt him like this, been allowed to have this, she will not be able to let it go.

“I wasn’t happy, with him being back,” Eunha says, her voice hoarse. “I didn’t want to train with him. I wanted nothing to do with death or magic. I wanted to be a music producer. I wanted to go back to Seoul, where I hoped I would fit it.”

She gives Yoongi a wan smile, looking at his face for the first time since they sat down at the couch. She can’t make eye contact though. That feels like too much.

“We fought. A lot. I felt horribly guilty most of the time. I was miserable. Or, well, I felt like I was the most miserable I could ever feel. Of course, looking back, it was not the worst. I was living relatively comfortably for a time. I was working part time at the local gas station after I graduated high school. We- Dan and I- we were saving up to move to Seoul, so I could be a PD.”

Eunha presses her eyes shut, pain flashing through her chest at the memory. She feels Yoongi give her hands a comforting squeeze.

“It wasn’t just a fight with my uncle. My parents were so disappointed in me. They wanted me to go to university and to train. I didn’t want either. Then, after that first year, there was- this incident- no, it was- well, I found out I was pregnant.”

This time, Eunha swallows, and a bright flush appears on her cheeks. The room is spinning a bit and it feels like she’s going to be sick. She focuses on the resonance of Yoongi’s soul where their hands connect.

She clears her throat before continuing with, “When it became clear I didn’t have any interest letting someone else raise the baby- my mom had suggested she raise her, we can’t have someone of our bloodline live outside the family. When they realized I had every intention of raising the baby myself and that I was going to keep avoiding my training, my education. Well, they cut me off. I think they were hoping I would come to my senses without any financial support. I didn’t.”

Yoongi huffs at her last sentences. He sounds more horrified than amused though. Eunha doesn’t look into his face again, afraid of what she’ll see there. Instead, her eyes remain fixed on their hands. Yoongi’s thumb is rubbing soothing arcs across the back of her hand. Small pulses echo along the vibrations of his soul.

There are lots of things Eunha doesn’t say out loud. The disappointment in her mother’s eyes the last time she saw her. Nor the last words her father ever spoke to her, “You’ll regret your choices.” Nor despite the guilt, fear, and sadness, Not the terror of bringing a baby into the world with no money, no family, no means of survival. But also not how Eunha felt the most hopeful and free she’d ever been. Of course, all of that was an illusion.

The silence engulfs them. Eunha lost in memories she’s not ready to say aloud, Yoongi not daring to interrupt.

“I’ve been running for so long,” Eunha says finally. “I’d gotten good at just putting one foot in front of the other. Until- until I was in that club and- despite everything- I don’t know. I can’t explain the feeling. I was worried for all of you, but I also was not worried for Mina. I knew she was safer with you, maybe safer than she’s ever been in her whole life. It made me feel horrible. I’ve done this to her. I’ve done this to you. To everyone around me. Just from putting one foot in front of the other.”

Yoongi stays quiet, watching Eunha as she sucks in her, trying to keep her composure. It’s slipping though. He feels his heart shattering into pieces in his chest, but not letting himself show his agony.

When Eunha’s breathing evens out, she says, “I feel safe here. And I feel stupid for feeling safe here. And then I feel guilty for feeling stupid. And I feel guilty because I keep putting everyone in danger. But I feel safe here and I’m so tired.”

Her voice breaks and she can feel tears brim over and fall down her face, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t want to break the stillness. Then all of the sudden, she’s buzzing, buzzing everywhere. Yoongi invades her space in the most welcome way, hugging her tightly to him. It feels like he’s everywhere. Eunha melts into the embrace, feeling the warmth of Yoongi’s body enveloping her. She feels safe and protected, like nothing could harm her as long as he is here, and she lets herself be lost in the illusion. She buries her head in his chest, inhaling his scent that is uniquely Yoongi. It’s a mix of musk, cologne, and something citrusy sweet.

Yoongi holds onto her tightly, rubbing circles on her back, humming comfortingly low in her ear. She sobs into his chest, letting out all the pain and hurt that she’s been holding onto for years. As she quiets down, she feels him place a soft, warm kiss on her forehead—not unlike how she settles Mina to sleep—and her heart bursts at the feeling of comfort and safety. She knows she’s never going to be able to let this feeling go.

When her tears run out and she finally pulls away from Yoongi, she feels lighter and freer than she has in a long time. She wipes away the tears from her face and looks up at him with a tentative smile. He returns it with a gentle one of his own.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

Yoongi tsks at her, gently pushing her hair behind her ear, and Eunha grimaces a little sheepishly. As she leans back, Eunha becomes conscious of how close they are still sitting, their bodies almost touching. She feels her cheeks grow warm, but doesn’t move away. She knows she must look a mess with her red and puffy eyes, but Yoongi only looks at her with warmth and understanding. For a moment, they sit in comfortable silence, just enjoying each other’s presence. Then Yoongi’s phone vibrates on the coffee table, interrupting their moment. He picks it up and frowns at the screen.

“I have to get this,” he says, standing up.

Eunha feels the loss immediately. Her skin almost crawls at the stillness, absence of the buzzing vibrations of Yoongi’s soul keenly felt. She wraps her arms around her middle to comfort herself. Yoongi steps away from the couch and goes toward the kitchen. His voice is low, his satoori thickening as he walks. Soon, she’s hearing the clanging of things in the kitchen and it sounds like Yoongi might be cooking something. Eunha feels an endeared smile tug at her lip.

As she waits for Yoongi to finish up his call, Eunha can’t help but let her mind wander. She thinks about the warmth of his embrace and how much it calmed her. It’s been a long time since she’s felt something like that, since she’s felt safe in someone’s arms. She knows that it’s dangerous to let herself lean so heavily on Yoongi, but she can’t help it. Somewhere in the last few weeks, he’s become an anchor.

As she sits there lost in thought, Yoongi emerges from the kitchen with a plate of food. “I hope you’re hungry,” he says with a small smile as he sets the plate down on the coffee table.

Eunha looks down at the food and sees that he’s cooked tteokbokki. The colorful array of sauce and rice cakes glisten in the light, coated with a thick layer of bright red sauce that drips from its edges. She can see flecks of sesame seeds and seaweed interspersed throughout the rice cakes. Her stomach growls at the sight. The spiciness tickles her nose, while the sesame and seaweed add an earthy and salty fragrance. The smell of the red sauce mixed with the rice cakes is heavenly, making Eunha’s mouth water in anticipation.

“I visited Dan today,” Eunha says, staring at the food in her bowl, as if telling the tteokbokki all her secrets. “I needed, I don’t know, I needed reassurance that what I’m doing now isn’t a mistake.”

She can feel the weight of Yoongi’s eyes on her, but she refuses to look up from the bowl in her hands. She can almost imagine him wondering what mistakes she might be making now.

“He warned me that there is trouble, but I guess we already knew that,” she continues.

“We can talk more about it tomorrow. Eat now,” Yoongi says, sitting down with his own bowl in his hands.

“Thank you, Yoongi. I’ll eat well,” she says as she starts to pick at the tteokbokki with the pair of chopsticks Yoongi handed her. The first bite explodes in her mouth, the spiciness dancing across her tongue. It’s delicious, and she can feel Yoongi’s eyes on her, watching her eat.

“This is amazing,” she compliments him between bites. Yoongi makes a small grunt noise to acknowledge the compliment.

They eat in comfortable silence, the sound of their utensils clinking against their plates the only noise filling the room. Eunha can feel her energy levels rising with each bite of food, and by the time she’s done eating, she feels re-energized and ready to face whatever comes next.

“Who was on the phone?” Eunha asks after she’s finished her last bite, desperate for a bit of normalcy.

“My eomma,” Yoongi says. “I normally call her on the weekend. She was worried because she hadn’t heard from me.”

Eunha feels a tightness in her chest and manages to say, “Oh.”

“She’d like you,” Yoongi says into his bowl.

Eunha watches the pink dust Yoongi’s cheeks. “Really?”

Yoongi hums in assent and then asks, “Are you done? I can put these in the dishwasher. It’s pretty late.”

Eunha nods and hands Yoongi her bowl. As Yoongi walks to the kitchen to wash their dishes, Eunha feels a sense of calm wash over her. She takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, feeling the knots in her stomach loosen. It’s not a feeling she’s used to experiencing.

When Yoongi comes back to the living room, he sits down next to Eunha. She can feel his warmth next to her and for a moment, she wonders what it would be like to just lean over and kiss him. She quickly pushes the thought away, knowing that it’s not a thought she should entertain.

“Thank you for dinner,” Eunha says softly. “It was delicious.”

Yoongi grins at her. “I’m glad you liked it.”

His grin brings back the thought she had just dismissed and suddenly nerves flood her whole body. She swallows and stands up. “You’re right. It’s late. I should, uh, I should go to bed. Good night.”

Then she bows at him, cringing at herself as she does it. She knows she’s gone bright red. So, she runs out of the living room, only slowing once she reaches the guest bedroom door. Once she’s inside the bedroom, a glance tells her Mina is still sound asleep. She turns to shut the door and softly bangs her forehead against the smooth wood in frustration. Well, that could not have been more awkward, she thinks.

~

Counselman Yong Songjin roars, pounding his fist on the table. His black tailored business suit fitting him perfectly, his black hair in a standard business cut staying perfectly coiffed, even as he bends over his desk in anger. His eyes glow red, betraying his vampiric self. He normally has such manifestations of his nature under control, but with the only other person in the room being his ghoul, he can forgo such niceties and let the mask slip.

Yong Suhwa nods solemnly and lowers her head respectfully. Her dark navy pencil skirt, sharp features, and the no-nonsense way she holds her body showing that her master’s rage is something she’s been used to for decades. “I don’t have an answer yet, Counselman. But I will soon. I’ll find out who is responsible.”

Counselman Yong sighs, pacing back and forth in front of the sky-high windows. He fumes as he looks at Seoul’s sparkling lights, as if they are all mocking him, as if the whole city is laughing at him. Counselman Yong takes a deep breath, his head spinning. He straightens his suit and strides back to the table, trying to collect his thoughts.

“This is insane,” he mutters under his breath. “I want the guest list for the dinner. I want to know who we invited that would dare betray us like this.”

He roughly runs a hand through his hair, lost in thought. “That video puts us in danger with the other covens. Find out who did it. And delete it from everywhere on the internet. I don’t care that it’s already trending.”

Yong Suhwa remains silent, her face blank. She knows her master and she understands this isn’t the time for words. She carefully shifts, already thinking of ways to mitigate this before all their hard work is undone.

“We already have the name of the guest who leaked the video,” the ghoul says, noting an email that just arrived in her inbox. “A businessman. A Kong Jakyung. Runs an import/export business.”

“Bring him here. Now. I want to know why he did this and then I want him dead,” the Counselman responds.

Yong Suhwa nods, already calling someone on her phone.

As Counselman Yong waits for the arrival of Kong Jakyung, he feels his blood boil with anger. How dare this businessman betray him and leak private footage to the public? Clearly, the work he’s been doing to either engender trust and loyalty or fear is not working as well as he’d like. He would have to up his game. And make an example of this Kong Jakyung.

Within the hour, Kong Jakyung is brought to the office, kneeling before Counselman Yong, his head hanging low in shame and fear. He’s an older man, still wearing a dark navy suit, despite the late hour. His face is gaunt, a bruise blossoming on his cheek. He did not come quietly. Counselman Yong stares at him coldly, his red eyes glinting in the dim light. He stands from his seat, towering over the distraught businessman.

“I have only one question for you, Kong Jakyung-ssi,” he states. His voice is as cold as his stare, giving life to the threat underlying his words. “Why would you betray us like this?”

Kong Jakyung flinches, his eyes flickering to Yong Suhwa before quickly looking back at the Counselman. “I-I’m sorry, Counselman. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

Counselman Yong scoffs, unimpressed. “Do not insult my intelligence with such blatant lies. You knew exactly what you were doing when you leaked that video.”

Kong Jakyung fidgets, his eyes darting around the room, looking for someone to save him. “I-I didn’t have a choice. They were going to kill me if I didn’t do it.”

“They? Who are they?” The Counselman demands, taking a step forward.

“I can’t say,” Kong Jakyung says faintly. “They’ll kill me.”

The room is deathly silent for a long moment before Counselman Yong says, menacing voice barely loud enough to hear, “And you assume I will not kill you if you don’t tell me everything you know?”

“Puh- puh- please!” Kong Jakyung wails. He brings his hands, palms together, in front of his own chest. “I beg you. I have a family.”

“You should have thought of them before now, I think, Kong Jakyung-ssi,” Counselman Yong states. “Tell me who instructed you to leak the video.”

“So- So- So Chongyul-ssi,” Kong Jakyung wails, prostrating himself before the Counselman. “So Chongyul-ssi told me to leak the video.”

Counselman Yong’s eyes flick to Yong Suhwa in question. She shakes her head, not recognizing the name, but her fingers are already dancing across her tablet.

“Is that all you have?” the Counselman asks the crying mess of a man before him.

“I swear, that’s all, I don’t know anymore,” the man begs.

“Very well,” Counselman Yong says.

The man slumps in relief. Then, faster than the human businessman can track, the vampire is upon him, yanking his head back and to the side by his hair. He strikes then, sinking his teeth into the Kong Jakyung’s trembling neck, the man’s blood spurting into his mouth. The businessman lets out a brief, pained scream, before his breath stops all together and his eyes glaze over. The Counselman doesn’t let up from his prey, draining every last drop of blood from him before releasing his head and watching the lifeless body collapse onto the floor with a thud.

Yong Suhwa watches calmly as the Counselman wipes his bloodied mouth with a handkerchief.

“Dispose of him, but make it public. I want an example made of him. People brought into my circle of trust need to know not to cross me,” the Counselman says, gesturing to the body on the floor. “And get me everything you can on this So Chongyul-ssi.”

Yong Suhwa nods, already typing away on her tablet. She knows what the Counselman wants—he wants revenge. And she will make sure to give him everything he needs to get it. As she works, she can’t help but feel a thrill of excitement run through her at the Counselman’s display of power. She’s been serving him for decades now, and she knows what he’s capable of, but there’s something about tonight’s events that make her heart race with anticipation.

As the clean-up crew comes quietly into the office to remove the corpse, Counselman Yong turns to his ghoul. “Also, we need to do something drastic to distract the public. We need a scandal, a diversion- who is famous now in Seoul? The bigger, the better.”

The ghoul lifts her tablet, tapping away quickly on the screen. “Politician, perhaps?”

“No, no, too close to us,” he says with a shake of his head. “A celebrity?”

“What about musicians?” Yong Suhwa says, clicking on the trends through the tablet’s Naver app.

“Musicians?” Counselman Yong eyes her, looking skeptical.

“Do you know BTS?” she asks.

The counselman grunts in recognition. His mind is already whirling with the ways this could work in their favor. “Do they have any connections to the other covens? I don’t want this mess putting more heat on us from the other families.”

“No, they are notorious for not working for vampires,” Yong Suhwa says, still clicking through articles on her tablet. “In fact, this might be a good way to kill two birds, sir.”

“Make it happen, make sure it can’t be traced back to this office,” he says with a sharp nod.

Yong Suhwa nods briskly, tapping away some more on her tablet.

After a few moments, Counselman Yong straightens himself, looking out the window at Seoul again. “I had been so looking forward to the work ahead of us. We have made so much progress. We can’t falter now.”

Yong Suhwa steps up behind her master. Her voice is low and gentle. “We won’t falter, Counselman. We will find out who did this and we’ll make things right. We’ll use all the resources at our disposal.”

She places a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him. “And as for BTS, they are one of the hottest acts in Korea now. Their popularity is skyrocketing and they have a massive international following. If we can get them involved in some sort of scandal that we control, it could be an effective smokescreen to divert attention away from the video. We need to make sure every detail is airtight; there can’t be any loopholes for anyone to exploit.”

Counselman Yong nods slowly, considering her words. “Yes, that might just work. But be careful. We can’t afford any more missteps.”

Yong Suhwa bows her head respectfully before stepping back to continue her work on the tablet. The room falls silent as she begins planning their next move. She quickly searches through the various articles and reports on the group, noting their weekly activities and other engagements they have coming up. Walking towards the door, her fingers moving deftly over the screen, jumping from social media platform to social media platform, as she plots out how BTS will take the heat off their coven.

As she departs, Yong Songjin resumes his pacing through his office. His fury still pumps through his veins like molten lava, igniting a fire in his soul that won’t easily be extinguished. He is not just Counselman Yong Songjin, he is a vampire whose wrath will rain down upon Seoul and make it bow before him or face certain destruction.

~

Yoongi sets his phone down next to his glasses on the bedside table before rubbing the bridge of his nose between his pointer finger and thumb. He knows he should sleep. Today was a very long day and tomorrow will most likely be just as long.

As he thinks back to the conversation he and Eunha had just had in the living room, he feels his heart splinter. Eunha and Mina both have already been through so much in their lives. Yoongi, with all his wealth and sway of public opinion, wish he could be more effective in protecting them.

Eunha had looked so small and vulnerable. He looks down at his own hands in his lap, remembering the feeling of her hands in his. Yoongi sits on his bed, closes his eyes, tilts his head back towards the ceiling, hitting the headboard as he groans, imagining what it would be like if he could just reach out and hold her anytime. If he could be the person to hold her.

He shakes his head, trying to push the thoughts of Eunha out of his mind. But they persist, creeping up on him like a vine until he can’t ignore them anymore. Remember the feel of her forehead against his lips, he wonders what it would be like to kiss her, to feel her lips against his, and his heart rate picks up at the thought. Yoongi remembers the softness of her skin against his own. Yoongi bit his lip, unable to stifle the small smile that formed on his face from the warmth that filled his chest.

Without thinking, he stands up from the bed and walks over to the window. The cityscape is beautiful at this time of night, but he can’t focus on anything else but Eunha. He imagines her standing next to him, her head on his shoulder as they both take in the view. He leans over and presses his forehead against the cool glass. After a moment, he turns away from the window and takes a deep breath, trying to calm the storm in his head.

He groans in frustration, throwing himself back onto his bed. He knows he should get some sleep. Yet, sleep eludes him. He closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, trying to push the thoughts out of his mind.

He decides to give up on sleep with his head so loud. He quietly leaves his bedroom and walks across the hall to his studio. If he can’t sleep, he might as well get some work done. The computer whirs on comfortingly after he presses the spacebar on his keyboard. The midis, too, blink on in anticipation of what’s to come.

As he begins to tinker with the different instruments and sounds on his computer, Yoongi hums softly to himself, lost in the music. His fingers glide effortlessly across the keys of the digital piano, trying out different sounds and adding layers of instruments until the song takes shape. He already has an idea of where Eunha can fit her own distinct sound into the song, a perfect blend of traditional Korean melodies and modern hip hop beats influenced by Western culture. All that was missing now was Eunha’s touch.

The hours fly by without him noticing, and soon he has crafted the perfect track. He leans back in his chair, exhausted but satisfied with what he has created. The restlessness that had plagued him earlier now seems to fade away, replaced by a sense of calm. With each note he perfects, he can feel his worries slipping away, replaced by a sense of contentment.

It’s only when the first rays of sunlight begin to creep into the room that Yoongi realizes how much time has passed. He stretches his arms above his head, feeling the satisfying ache in his muscles. As he gets up to stretch his legs, he feels a twinge in his back and groans, realizing he’s been hunched over his computer for hours. He takes a deep breath and rubs his sore neck before noticing Eunha standing at the door, her hair tousled from sleep. She raises an eyebrow at him, quirking her mouth into a small smile.

“Good morning,” she says softly.

Yoongi blinks in surprise before returning her smile. “Morning. Breakfast?”

“I’ll help,” she replies, nodding sleepily.

Yoongi nods, turning his computer back off after making sure everything is saved to the cloud. He turns back to Eunha who is still leaning in the doorway. He gives her another smile and, without thinking, reaches out his hand to connect with hers. His smile widens when she reaches out with her own hand without hesitation. He feels the wonderment explode in his chest as he says, “Okay. Let’s go.”

[alexanderpearce]

if ive had a Depression Day there r two options available for me at 1am; put on a wig and pretend im megan from sally face, or make incomprehensible posts about eddsworld or the vampire chronicles

[chibimyumi]

Kuromyu Q&A

Dear everyone, as promised, here are the A’s to all your Q’s!

PVs are usually carefully selected to show the best part in hope to convince people to throw the money at them, right? 💴 The Kuromyu 2021 PV was really showing the best parts without plot-consequential spoilers. None of the most awful scenes were in the PV.

Click here for all official Kuromyu 2021 PVs.

Tateishi explicitly said the following in this interview.

Host: ーーThis is the role that has been played by Mr. Matsushita Yuya and Mr. Furukawa Yuta until now. What are your thoughts about succeeding them as “the third generation”?

Tateishi: “During the rehearsal period I turned how fast I could absorb this role into my own body into a game. Even though there were limitations on how much time we had for rehearsals and how much we could communicate under of the corona virus measures, I wanted to do everything I could. For that purpose, it was necessary for me to know how the people who built this [role] until now played [Sebas], after all. Even though both Mr. Matsushita and Mr. Furukawa faithfully represented the Sebastian of the original manga, they also showed themselves as actors. While carefully learning from the Sebastian portrayed by those two, I also need to show my own interpretation, and the significance of playing [Sebas] by the [start] of the actual show. I want to present the world view of the “Kuromyu” loved by the many people in this new Kuromyu properly.”

Host: ーーAbout your role of Sebastian Michaelis , what kind of character do you think he is?

Tateishi: “He is omnipotent, is cool and has his gaps. Including his roots of being a demon he can be described using one word: “sneaky“ (laughs). While I’m reading the original comics and watching the anime, I started from how he moves as a butler, and explore what he’s like as a demon. Of course the way he speaks and his posture included. At the base I want to have his calm tone, and show this part that it’s reversely creepy “should he laugh.”

There are more asks about the reaction of the JP fandom, so I shall only be posting this one here, sorry other Anons (≽△≼)

【Edit:】I compiled a few JP reactions here in this post.There are positive ones, neutral ones and negative ones of course, but overall it seems overwhelmingly negative.

.......it was supposed to be this scene ⇊, but this Myu!Ciel ⇈ is wearing the eyepatch, so it must be Our!Ciel....

I also don’t know why that scene was necessary, not even through context of having I watched the full musical. I think it was just a desperate attempt to pander to Undertaker fans, because as everyone who’s read the manga knows, Undertaker’s role in this arc is pathetically small.

A.....4/10 I guess.

The song is called “perfect black” I think. It doesn’t sound bad, just very unimpressive. I just have the feeling that this sequence doesn’t really fit the atmosphere of the contract scene well because it is very rushed.

The total sequence was about 7 minutes, and here Sebas is summoned, frees Ciel, discuss all the contract terms, kills all cult members, Ciel returns to his normal attire, Sebas and Ciel get their character exposition of what the Watchdog is, Sebas is expositioned as the omnipotent demon butler, there is a recap of the mafia arc, Lycoris, Circus and Campania, Sebas defeats Undertaker, and swears loyalty to Ciel. Yes. ALL that happened in ONE SONG.

Something else that made me give this such a low rating is because it was basically a love-letter from the lyricists/songwriters to these characters. Sebas is constantly describing himself as one hell of an omnipotent butler who is “the perfect black”, and the entire sequence was just showing off how perfect he is....realllly boring. The music and atmosphere also don’t really give this ominous feeling that Kuro is supposed to have.

Past “Contract” scenes

I don’t like “The Most Beautiful Death in the World”, but “Contract” was memorable and impressive. At the time the writers didn’t know better so it’s in retrospect out of character. BUT, there was this silently approaching shadow that almost symbolised Ciel’s chance of being reborn into a much darker version of himself. It worked at the time, and it still works for people who didn’t read the manga.

Lycoris’ “contract” song was kindaaaa terrible because it sounded like a mashed together product and the lyrics were ABOMINABLE. HOWEVER, when performed well it was the first “contract” song that reflected the energy of Sebas’ summoning. Sebas ain’t some charming vampire to the rescue; he’s a drab of dark that’s gonna fucking devour a child, but he’s the best Ciel has got. It conveyed the characters properly at least.

Circus was a blast. The lyrics were retroactively inserted into the manga by Yana after watching that. The song was good, the atmosphere was loyal to Yana’s world, and that demonic scream of Sebastian at the end, easily one of the most memorable moments of ALL of Kuromyu.

Campania didn’t have a contract song, but DAYUM was that performance memorable ughghghgh 💖

The opening and ending of Kuromyu 2021 both focus on Sebas and Ciel indeed. The opening is as you can see in the PV, the forming of the contract which was in song. The ending however does not have a song unlike all past Kuromyus.

The instrumentals of the opening song was played (at least... that’s what I think it was), and the last line spoken is Sebas going: “Well then, I will be baking you a super sweet cake!”

Vincent and Deidrich don’t have an appearance in the musical, they were only mentioned in the exposition that there was once a Blue Miracle.

The best scene was Derek’s appearance! His actor did such a good job at portraying a “normal” boy who just had something REALLY off-putting about him, but until he revealed himself as the zombie, you just couldn’t quit explain what’s so wrong about him. Amazing.

The worst............. oh gosh don’t make me CHOOSE. Erm.... either the Harcourt getting diarrhea and sounded like a screaming pig.... or the unnecessary SebaCiel shoe-horning........or any of the MIND NUMBING expositions that were just repeating themselves or just straight up unnecessary. I guess the first two candidates are marginally worse... because they just made me want to run away in discomfort. The mind numbing exposition were just boring, but you could space out for a bit.

Related posts:

Full review Kuromyu 2021 - First day performance 05-03-2021 Live Stream, Ticket, and Proxy Service

Official PVs of Kuromyu 2021

Tateishi Toshiki (New Sebastian) at Academy Night G.

Full cast 2021 names

Full cast 2021 visuals

Kuromyu 2021 asks

[agustdiv1ne]

thank you + milestone!!

damn, never thought we'd get here, did we?

in all honesty, it's been a pretty shit year. march 'til now has felt like the same month on repeat with tiny tweaks to make it all so much worse. but i'm not here to complain about the worst parts of this year, i'm here to celebrate the best ones.

this was the year that i finally started writing, that i was finally spurred to open a google doc and just type away until a tiny work of fiction stared back at me. my first one was 1k words, a rant to get all of my emotions off of my chest with an idol as my muse. it felt...great, though it also felt a bit odd writing after being an avid reader for years. i always did prefer essays to creative writing, but this year definitely changed that perspective.

i wrote that first blurb along with another fic in late july, and in early august, i asked my friends if i should post them. om august 3rd, i changed this blog from a fic rec to a fic writing blog just like that. i regret none of it.

it's been nearly five months since i revamped this blog and i couldn't be more grateful for the support i have gotten from all of you, whether it be a kind comment, a like, a reblog, all of it. i never thought anyone would like my content, but i've been proven severely wrong by this community. from my irls that are on here, to my lovely mutuals and followers, to those i've talked to a lil bit on this hellsite, to the writers whose fics i absolutely adore, to those who have left a like or a comment on one of my fics, i want to say thank you from the very bottom of my heart ♡

have a happy and healthy new year! i love and appreciate every single one of you!!

though i'm painfully bad at writing letters and getting all sappy, i wanted to write them anyways hahaha let's goooo

to @hwaddict:

my irl best friend!! my partner in crime!!!! i love you sm carly, and there are not enough words in this world for me to describe the extent of my love. you have been there for me during my lowest moments, you've seen me cry, and i don't cry in front of many ppl. i trust you with my life and i'm so glad that we became friends back in middle school bc you are one reasons that spur me to keep going. i can't wait to see where life takes us and know that while i might not always be able to be there physically (especially with college right around the corner), i will always be there for you in any way i can be. again i love you and i can't wait to conquer next year with you ♡♡

to @hopejanaee:

hope!! hobi!!! one of my irls! though we just became friends earlier this year, it feels like we've been friends for ages. it's crazy how close we grew so quickly but i am so grateful to have you in my life. you never fail to make me laugh whenever we're together and you're so chaotic but in such a good way hahaha. you were the one who got me into writing with your own wonderful fics so thank yoi for that. i'm so happy that we became friends because you're so kind and caring and ahhhhhh i love u sm ♡

to @oikawasmilkbread:

we talked for like 0.2 seconds but you are so kind and hella cool!! it was nice having random conversations with you and i'm so glad you randomly dmed me bc i am shy and i have 0 idea how to start conversations with anyone lmao. i always smile when i see you in my notifs! i hope you have a happy new year!!! ♡

to @luthenia:

i know you're on hiatus but seeing you in my notifs always excites me hahaha. we never talk but you are so supportive of everyone in this community and i just wanted to shout you out for that! your memes are top tier LMAO and i can't wait for when you come back, happy new year ♡

to @starsforten:

we also talked for approximately 1 second but it was so fun talking to you about astrology stuff (virgo sun libra rising gang hahahaha) and those teuta matoshi dresses! you are so nice and easy to talk to and i hope your new year is happy and fruitful! ♡

i recommend every single one of these blogs for their amazing content!! i added some of my favorite fics as i'm a whore for great writing hahaaaa

@kinktae

waterloo — a masterpiece! taehyung is so bitter at the beginning and it's adorable seeing how y/n breaks his tough shell. loved this from beginning to the end ♡

hot rod — the 50s slang, the dynamic between hoseok and y/n...*chef's kiss*

@untaemedqueen

welcome to seoul land — werewolf!namjoon really got me going, 100/10 would recommend

graceful gods — this is one of my all-time favorites, greek god!jungkook has my brain going brrrr

@shadowsremedy + @therealmintedmango

support system — adorable!! this is a hybrid!yoongi fic i really enjoy, and the series isn't over yet! check it out~

@bratkook

tear you apart — demon!taehyung...holy shit. i was speechless

@tatertotthethot

the doms next door — THIS SERIES OMG, i've read each part at least five times already. taekook got me acting UP

scream (posted to @yandere-society) — a really cool take on the movie scream with jungkook, yandere fics don't always appeal to me but this one absolutely did

@ateezmakemeweep

broken — the immense ache i felt in my chest while reading this, but i loved both parts with a burning passion. san is so sweet in this :')

@atinybrew

dirty free for all — the ULTIMATE demon!san fic. the writing is absolutely immaculate and this is the first fic that had me blushing down my mf ARMS

rice milk lattes and bryophytes roads — another san fic admittedly because i'm whipped for san lol. anyways, this was cute and hot at the same time and best friend!yunho made my double biasing ass that much happier

@seacottons

pan — an adorable peter pan!hongjoong fic, it had my heart going achhfhsjfjsjf

sir kiss me — circus au with san holy hell i loved every twist and turn of this

@actuallythatwaspromise

bad romance — one of my favorite yunho fics ever, punk rock!yunho x nerd!reader has my entire heart

aurora garden center and desire ink — florist!mingi had me uwuing for the entire fic, this was adorable and i loved it sm

@yeonjuncore

every single fic on this blog is an absolute masterpiece, i swear

the devil's little angel — THIS IS ONE OF MY ULTIMATE FAVORITES, demon!yeonjun had me screaming and it was just so fun to read and i loved every single second of it so much that i've read it nearly ten times now. so go read it, you won't regret it!

the boy with the horns — another of my ultimate favorites (i told you, their writing is just that amazing), woodland fey!soobin just had me going so soft :(( i literally sobbed at one point, that's how invested i was

bleeding heart — the tension between vampire!yeonjun and vampire slayer!reader had me screeching

curtain call — i have a sad crush vampire!soobin

i love you, always — this felt so..bittersweet? taehyun loves y/n so much, i lowkey cried while reading this

@angelfic

the art of (mis)communication — i am a whore for both reconciliation and yeonjun, 100000/10 pls read this i beg of you

@angelictaehyun

growing pains — ahhh once again a yeonjun fic, my chest hurt a lil bit at some points but it was so sweet!!

@neovisioned

bed of spiderwebs — spiderman!mark has my heart screeching, i loved every second of it ♡

eddie ate dynamite — johnny suh coming for my throat yet again

cupid victorious — cupid!jaehyun :'))) definitely one of my favorites!!

@domjaehyun

quarantine chronicles — ok if you haven't read this or the part two yet then you're missing out big time!! the tension, the buildup, every single part of this fic was just *chef's kiss* but multiply thay by a million

all these years — every single moment of this felt so nostalgic and the ending was so sweet :')

@caiuscassiuss

muse — i keep going back to this one constantly, the angst in this phenomenal and i love artist!taeyong sm here

@neoct-zen

loverboy — HOT, AMAZING, I SCREAMED. the blurbs that accompany this are also top-tier i recommend reading each and every one!!

@moondustis

pink + white — i'm so soft for mark i stg, this was the cutest thing ever

@loviejaehyun

can't avoid this feeling — hockey player!mark is the best thing ever

all tied up — i just- screamed as i read this bc professor!jaehyun is too hot goodbye

@hopejanaee

incapable — this is one of the best yoongi fics i've ever read ngl, it's not completed quite yet but the parts that have been posted are top tier!!

breathless — THIS. I LOVED THIS. yuta is just so hfjshhfhshfnsn and i love this sm

@hwaddict

melting point — big boy mingiiii, 100/10 would recommend

@okayau

house next to mine — frat boy!yeonjun rly got me going, cute and hot at the same time ahhhhbfnsnnf

youth — ADORABLE, yeonjun's confession is peak i love it here

run away — how many yeonjun fics can i fit in this post? (answer: a lot) definitely one of my favorite harry potter aus!! it was awesome seeing how their relationship changed throughout the years and perhaps i teared up a little at the end :'))

@starrychannies

baby steps — ONE OF ALL-TIME MY FAVORITE FICS ON THIS SITE, every single part is so well-written and ahhhhhfhdhhf chan makes me feel some type of way

my stupid — another yeonjun fic! angsty but v cute at the end :')

@baekhvuns

this youth of craziness — 40k words of pure gold, this fic is absolutely one of my favorite san fics ever!!

replacement — prince!ten makes my brain go brrrr, i love how the y/n just speaks her mind here

@masterninjacow

untitled project — i saw soulmate au with mark and i knew would already love it, and i did! pizza boy!mark at that, amazing and i adored it

more amazing blogs!!: @galaxteez, @poutybinz, @lustjoong, @bloominghigh

these are just a few of the fics and blogs i found this year, find more on my fic rec blog @agustdiv1ne-recs!! (my thumbs are starting to hurt i'm so sorry bfjshfhsh)

wrapping up each month since august since that's when i actually started posting LMAO

☆ august

03: good enough — chan

03: bloodsucker — seonghwa

04: cutie — san

09: veloxrotaphobia — mingi

19: want — changbin

21: numb — yunho

100 follower special — i reached 100 followers towards the end of august, my first ever milestone :') also my first ever time taking requests, 'twas very fun ♡

☆ september

03: on camera — jungkook

☆ october

27: oh, worm? — namjoon

31: demon days — san

☆ november

10: a letter to my love — xiaojun

23: bad for u — jaehyun

27: home sweet home — yeonjun

☆ december

christmas bash 2020 — my brain went hey what if you did this- and i listened so here's 17 holiday fics hahahaa (not all of them are out yet but i'm working on it!!)

things i plan to release in 2021!!

☆ sunflower — jimin

☆ cross — yeonjun

☆ landslide — seonghwa

☆ nice save — san

☆ red — hyunjin

☆ a secret series (that will be revealed once i plan everything) — ateez

☆ 4 unrelated secret fics oOoOoo — will i reveal them? you'll just have to wait and see ;)

there will definitely be more posted! these are the ones that are going to be my priority at first, but my imagination is always churning so expect a lot more :)) check out all of non-secret wips here!

i hit 500 followers a couple days ago! i nearly screamed when i saw that LMAO. thank you so much for liking my content because i work hella hard on it :') sometimes i feel like i don't deserve y'all really, but @hwaddict will yell at me if i say that so ig i take it back hfhshhdhg

a post for celebrating this milestone will come as soon as i finish up the rest of my christmas fics!! sorry that i'm so slow :( (hint: my requests will be open, so look out for it!)

so yeah!! that's it, sorry for the painfully long post (i'm sorry to my thumbs for typing this whole thing out </3). thank you to everyone who read this far!! i hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year, and in the words of txt's cover, fuck 2020. may 2021 be a much better year for all of us!!!

much love,

ashlee ♡

[aion-rsa]

Midnight Mass Is Creative, Bold, and Flawed Horror

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This review contains huge spoilers for Midnight Mass. Don’t you dare even think of reading one word before you watch.

Mike Flanagan, the maestro of horror responsible for Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and this spooky season’s entry, Midnight Mass, has always taken a novelistic approach to storytelling. 

The man knows his way around a jump-scare, sure, but he excels in crafting deep, rewarding themes, richly drawn characters, and ornate dialogue. It’s what has drawn him toward adapting novels from horror legends like Shirley Jackson, Henry James, and Stephen King. And it’s perhaps what’s even given him the courage to take on a task as bold as the follow-up to The Shining in Doctor Sleep. Flanagan isn’t afraid of weight; he trafficks in it like a young Jay-Z.

Midnight Mass is his latest weighty endeavor, but unlike its predecessors, it nearly buckles under the heft of its ambitions. Midnight Mass is a story about faith, death, remorse, forgiveness, and human existence itself. It grapples with the biggest of questions, the most unsolvable of mysteries. It ruminates on these topics with the grace of a passionate scholar and the repetitive, faux profundity of a dorm room stoner alike. There are long stretches of the series, particularly in early episodes, where you’ll forget that you’re watching a horror series altogether. It is both a feature and a bug. It will either keep you glued to your TV or turn you off completely.

Midnight Mass takes place on the fictional Crockett Island, a thinly populated, vaguely New England community impacted by an oil spill that decimated its once profitable fishing industry. Most of the townsfolk are Catholic and awaiting the return of their elderly priest, Monsignor Pruitt, who traveled abroad on a missionary trip to see the Holy Land. While they wait, Riley Flynn (Zack Gilford) returns via ferry after a four-year prison stint he served for murdering a young girl in a drunk driving accident. 

Also newly arriving in the “Crock Pot “ is Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), a mysterious young priest who arrives to temporarily shepherd St. Patrick’s church in Monsignor Pruitt’s absence. As Riley reacquaints himself with his family and the town he left behind, while simultaneously trying to overcome his feelings of guilt, lack of direction, and loss of faith, he reconnects with Erin Greene (Kate Siegel), another former resident recently returned to Crockett after the dissolution of an abusive relationship.

Like Flanagan’s previous Netflix series, the supernatural terror on display almost comes second to the real-life horrors showcased in Midnight Mass. Every night when Riley goes to sleep, he sees the blood-coated face of his young victim lying on the pavement. The town drunk is continually forced to confront the young girl that he paralyzed in a hunting accident. Erin wakes one day to find the child she is pregnant with missing from her womb. A father is forced to confront the resentment he feels for his wayward son. A daughter watches her mother’s mind deteriorate. These stories are human and can be painfully relatable and Flanagan mines them for his most emotional and scarring material. While more traditional monsters and gore earn scares in later installments, Flanagan keeps the audience uneasy early on with everyday horror stories that can keep you awake at night in a way that vampires never could.

Ah yes, the vampire. Or should we call him the “Angel?” Midnight Mass’s big reveal is that Father Paul is really a de-aged Monsignor Pruitt who encountered a vampiric creature while on his pilgrimage. He is given eternal life, but cursed with a hunger for blood and the inability to withstand sunlight. Pruitt brings the Angel back with him to Crockett, mostly because he wants a second chance with the dying woman that he fathered a child with many years ago. If he can give divinity to the entirety of Crockett in the process, then that’s a plus. 

It’s a fantastic concept — a holy man that interprets vampirism as divine intervention, playing upon the more horrific elements of the bible and really digging into the “drink my blood, eat my flesh” aspect of Jesus’ last supper — but it is slow to reach its chaotic conclusion. By episode four it’s clear to the audience that Pruitt is using his blood to heal folks like Leeza (Annarah Cymone), but you’re forced to watch as the characters catch-up. 

Midnight Mass is thankfully only seven episodes, but really feels like it could have hit its main story beats in four. That’s in part due to the mountain of monologues delivered by every character. They’re mostly beautifully written and well-acted, but when they come one after the other after the other, they begin to have a numbing quality. That’s why Riley’s portion of the story works so well. Riley spends his time confronting his faith and guilty conscience in one-on-one AA meetings with Father Paul, some of Midnight Mass’s most arresting scenes. 

Midnight Mass is bursting with ideas that get in the way of telling a simple creature feature, some of them more intriguing than others. Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) grapples with being what appears to be the only non-Christian on the island as his Muslim son warms to the idea of exploring Christianity. It’s a plotline that could sustain its own series and ultimately ends in a moving way. That said, the story between Joe and Leeza never actually pays off in a way that warrants Leeza’s showstopping speech about forgiveness. Also, the last-minute reveal that Pruitt fathered Sarah (Annabeth Gish) feels too tacked on amidst a busy finale to land properly. 

However, none of this is the fault of the actors. The performances here are uniformly excellent and the earnest delivery of the material helps ward off accusations of purple prose. Linklater and Samantha Sloyan, who plays pious villain Bev Keane, could have easily gone off the rails with cartoonish depictions, but they keep things grounded and realistic. 

Sloyan in particular deserves recognition for creating such a contemptible character that never goes too over-the-top, instead feeling like an accurate representation of the judgmental crone of your parish. These performances are all accented wonderfully by Flanagan’s liberal use of captivating tracking shots and a score comprised of religious hymns that can flip from life-affirming to creepy on a dime. 

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Midnight Mass can be long in the tooth, overly ambitious with its theological and existential musings, and not particularly frightening at times. Still, it makes up for it with memorable characters, ace performances, and scripts dripping with heart and compassion. While it’s base concept could have more than sustained a limited series, Flanagan packs this thing with so much to chew on, for better or worse. Qualms aside, you cannot help but be bowled over by the ambition and technical craft on display. Though it certainly features too much speechifying, this is Flanagan’s most thought-provoking material yet and a welcome addition to his expanding horror tome. 

Midnight Mass is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Midnight Mass Is Creative, Bold, and Flawed Horror appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3o2CdSD

[theyearsiturnedintoaghost]

Hello, Is This Thing On?

Hi! (as mentioned above). Do people still use this thing? I have no idea. Years ago, and I do mean YEARS ago, I had one of these. I didn’t use it for much, just reposting things, following humans I’d met in online communities, a ‘celebrity’ here or there, sometimes screaming about shit I couldn’t control into the void that is the endless scrolling interweb, and being pointless in wasting my time between classes, work, and twenty-something. Regardless, my previous tumblr had minimal followers, made minimal impact, and that was okay. It was honestly just a nice place to sort of hide in plain sight. Still be part of a social world without actually having to do much. This was also pre a billion other apps and social media outlets to express yourself or scroll mindlessly at a million other pointless things that people were posting to make you giggle or even just stop for a second and think.  

Clearly, the point of this, back then, felt like something I would use to help propel my writing career. Turns out, it did not. I did not write much, if at all. And most of the time I think it was because I was scared nothing was as good as any of the other stuff I was reading from people I liked, and thought were so much cooler and smarter than me; I still feel this way all of the time, but I do realize this was me being nervous, small minded about myself, and completely unconfident.  

Unfortunately, I am still most of these things a lot of the time, but recently, after getting fired from a job, having my heart broken by pretty much everyone on the planet, especially a few specific people, cancelled by all of my friends (?) - this is a thing btw. (It’s not as awful as being cancelled publicly, but it does still ruin your life, mindset, confidence, and overall physical and mental wellbeing) Getting a new job, hating it and feeling like I was going no where, and missing out on living a life I felt proud of and that I was actively participating in, I decided maybe I should just try to write it all out and see what happens. 

To be frank, I expect nothing of this. I can’t fathom a world where anything I have to say truly matters to people because lets be real - everyone has this own shit and everyone is going through so much all of the time.  And we all think we have something new, quirky, interesting, and important to say.  And in a world that constantly shoves perfection down our throats and works so hard to make each of us feel completely inadequate to every Kardashian, Beyonce, Grande, etc., it’s hard to really think that anything I have to say will matter to anyone; at all. 

(I also hate that all of my ‘perfectionist’ people were female, but maybe it’s harder to compare to Golden Boys when you are a female. Either way, there are many boys/men/theys/thems that are put on a pedestal and made out to be perfect out there, as well, and they deserve that notation as well. I just have no points of reference off the top of my head, so please forgive me; I am trying to do this in a stream of consciousness type thing.)

I mean, the truth is, I’m a fucking mess. I’m 33, single, living at home, afraid of my own shadow most of the time, and spend about 98% of my time alone. I pay for a phone plan that I literally only use to send memes to my two sisters, and that’s about it. I rarely receive texts, invites out, or even calls to make plans for something.  And while a lot of this is my own doing - again, I did cut off most of the world after I realized I was sort of the joke to a lot of people - it’s still kind of pathetic, and entirely uncool.  I am not a socialite, or someone cool and trendy, and to be honest, I kind of never want to be.  

Which is a semi-false statement, because years ago, when I had one of these previously, I sort of hoped it would work out and that I could write and be ‘cool.’ Whatever the fuck that means.  But now, years later, I’m honestly beyond glad I am not cool; not in the slightest. Maybe that’s making it to your 30s? Maybe the trade for having to create a daily routine of lathering up my body with like 9 different versions of FDA-Approved-Vampire-Juice on my skin to prevent me from looking any older than I already do, you in turn get to have a brain that finally realizes... having a ‘normal’ life is honestly pretty cool? Normal is clearly subjective here as everyone is normal, famous, notoriety, or not; They’re all still humans and people with feelings, thoughts, and emotions. This is a hard thing to realize when you see stadiums full of people screaming at Harry Styles (Boom! found a male perfect in this scatterbrain) or hundreds of paparazzi lined up to take photos of every person on a red carpet wearing clothing that costs as much as my student loan debt (Which sidenote, is VERYYYYYY much). It’s hard to fully realize that maybe some of those people who became ‘icons’ never really knew what they were getting into when they signed that deal with the Devil to make them seemingly immortal; especially in a world with the internet where everything can exist forever (or until the world explodes, clearly).  But maybe getting into my 30s and removing myself from most social media outlets, even listening to the news, or caring about whatever fucking popular haircut was in this season (it’s always bangs, and I’ve already made that mistake. No thanks), that I learned to realize - the truly most important people in your life are the ones that stick with you when it’s tough. When getting out of bed is so hard your limbs ache and you cry every morning on your way to work, at your desk behind your computer screen hidden in a corner, or in a bathroom stall during your lunch break. The normalcy that comes with realizing your prayers to ‘just make it to five o’clock,’ are heard and that you are just so thankful for that that you don’t even desire the innate feeling in most of our egos to stand out, be seen, ‘Make it’ in a way that lets people notice we ‘succeeded.’ Maybe this only comes with the realization of how nice it is to go to a grocery store braless and unnoticed. 

Maybe this is also something I, and so many of us in this point and shoot viral world, are trying to still learn. 

Sure, a lot of days I still crave being able to make a perfect Pintrest project, practice my Late Night interview with Letterman where I sound funny, charming, and likeable to all walks of life, or recreate a recipe from the New York Times website so great that The Barefoot Contessa finds out through word of mouth, and comes to my basement hide out, and offers to give me, a fellow barefoot loving bitch, her title and crown along with a glass of wine and a kiss from her husband, Jeffery. We’ll both laugh at how lovely it feels to be Barefoot ladies who understand that wanting ‘fame’ or ‘recognition’ in your twenties is only really a pathway to destruction by your 30s. 

And this is not exactly something that I learned easy.  In fact, I spent most of my twenties destroying my body with drugs - plenty of hard ones - and alcohol - various kinds of the same things - in order to numb my brain from the sadness that is just... being young, lonely, scared, unsure of yourself, and nervous that all of your hopes and expectations for yourself in your ‘dream life’ are too much for what you and your actual self will ever be capable of ever becoming. That I would never become the comedian I dreamed of being, or sing the perfect song in front of a crowd of admirers, or write that best selling book to tell everyone who thought I was nothing they could go fuck themselves. It’s something I still have to remind myself, and my brain and ego, that are most likely things I will never do because those are lottery dreams.  And people you know don’t actually win the lottery. And at the end of the day, I am people you know. And sometimes it breaks my own heart to realize I may never feel that rush of making a crowd laugh, or creating a piece of art that makes someone feel seen, but as Pam, from The Office said, and I am paraphrasing, ‘there is beauty in ordinary things.’ And I think reminding myself of that as I sat on the beach this summer and watched a dad teach his son to surf, and how happy they both were when he got up, gave me that brief feeling of... being okay. I won’t lie, I did cry a little at this realization at that moment, and I am slightly teary now as I write it, but I think I’m not ashamed of that because being normal means I get to feel things as I do, in that moment, and that is something I think I lacked in my desiring-bigger-flashier- twenties; actually being present in the world and your place in it. Even if that is just as small as being kind to a random person on the street.

I think that is why everything I felt I wanted to write never came out correct.  It never came out ‘Perfect.’ And that was my problem for most of my life, even up until today, I’m afraid that I am a perfectionist in the ways that are preventing me from becoming... me. I’m still fearful that I am too late in ever ‘accomplishing’ anything I ever dreamed. I doubt I will ever actually write a book. I’m unsure I’ll ever make a decent living. I am beyond doubtful I am ever going to be loveable to someone whom I also want to love back. And maybe I’m a little scared that I’ll never have a kid, or that if I do have a kid, I’ll never be a decent parent. And I’m still working on breaking the cycle of thinking something has to ‘sound’ or ‘be seen as important’ to be meaningful. There is beauty in the ordinary. I’ve started to make it my mantra. Spoken in my head every time I see a teenage couple holding hands walking in town, a father holding their baby close to his chest, a woman dressed in a power suit striding through an office building or city on their way to make their own careers or push equality further. I’ve started to dream of how actual normalcy makes the real changes. How every 4th grade teacher has a chance to change some kids life.

Clearly, a lot of these personal fears I have about myself not being ‘enough,’ or doing something good enough to become successful at it and build a life out of it, are monotonous fears and privileged middle-class complaints. I’m aware they may not resonate with anyone, anything, or mean much more than just being an online public diary entry to my own meandering thoughts, but, still - I finally felt like I had to try.  

So here it is, the whole truth on how I let myself become a ghost for years. 

I hope someone will stick around while I just... try to explain it all, figure it all out, and hopefully make sense out of even being whatever a human who is hoping to grow even means. Hopefully, something here will resonate with someone else and we can create our own little weirdo corner of the world where we’re not seeking more than just trying to be honest with ourselves and what it means to be human.  Even if that means just posting a recipe for banana bread (thank you Gwen Steffani for keeping me able to spell Banana), reposting random memes about how we all want to scream for 30 seconds and feel better, or sad-girl diary entry posts about how I ruined my own life a million times over.  Oh, and maybe I’ll give you tips on how to stain your wood deck, because I spent my day doing that yesterday and basically, Home Depot is calling me to be in their ADs. 

But at the core of it all, lets be very real, it’s hard to be human in so many ways. And I’m just hoping this connects with anyone. Especially any of us who wished we were different - in any way.

xoxo

-K

[covairecity-promo]

~ WANTED CHARACTER! ~

❝ I’ve dug my grave, made my choices. ❞

Name: Alden Fields

Species: Werewolf

Age: 120

Sexuality: Pansexual

Prisoner 

Face Claim:  Milo Ventimiglia

✑ BACKGROUND: Some men go to war to defend their country, to bring a sense of pride to their family and honor to themselves. Alden went to war to escape his life. The broken home in Iowa - he was born in in 1898 - was difficult enough to look at, let alone live in with two brothers, one younger sister, an abusive father and a mother deteriorating like the peeling wallpaper. When he was 18, old enough to enlist, he left the slanted structure with nothing but a few things on his back and the promise he’d return to save his fellow siblings. Living in his home had felt like hell and surely the war couldn’t be any worse than what he had already endured. Safe to say, he was wrong.

He quickly found himself shipped overseas and landing in the deepest trenches. The bloodshed and disease that spread throughout the muck was more than most men could handle. It was only natural that Alden adapted to his environment and numbed most of his feelings and emotions to get through the day, if he wasn’t shot and killed that is. Two years into his term something changed, something happened to the man that was more natural for his blood than the ways he had adapted to the life into which he’d thrown himself: he changed from a human into a wolf.

Keep reading for full biography & visit our group!

Alden had never known he was a werewolf. His relationship with his father and mother wasn’t commendable and they certainly didn’t talk about their dark little secrets. He didn’t know his father’s abusive actions were the result of rage from the primal characteristics that surged beneath his skin, that his sexual rampages were a cause of the moon’s influence, and how he always seemed gone the day of the full moon. Alden discovered all these truths the hard way when his skin ripped apart and his human form was shed for that of a wolf. His werewolf gene had been triggered late and all his comrades around him had paid for it.

A fleet found him three days later in a trench soaked with blood and littered with bodies, and thought his squad had been ambushed. But Alden couldn’t let his enemies take the fall for what he had done. He confessed that he was the one at blame, frantic and terrified by his own actions. His fellow soldiers condemned his confession as war trauma babbling, and so he was carried off to be examined by numerous doctors till the next full moon when all doubts were erased. While Alden wanted them to cure him of this alarming disease, the army had different intentions: they had before them a super-soldier, a man who could take a bullet, be ripped and torn by sharp wire and resurface alive. A creature that could devour fleets; they used him as a weapon, even going as far as making him bite other soldiers to amass an indestructible army.

Alden hated it, being treated like an animal and set loose on others like a wild dog. Towards the end of the war he made a run for it, condemned for fleeing his post and hunted by the government. It was only years later that he was found, captured by the Germans who found identification on him and revealed him to be a U.S. soldier. Not long after, they discovered something wasn’t right when he was forced to stand among other soldiers and a fire squad. He was the only one left standing.

Bleeding and barely conscious, holding but a heartbeat, he was taken to the nearest concentration camp and offered up to the sadistic scientist held there to assess the indestructible creature they’d happened to find. It was there in Auschwitz that Alden met the infamous Josef Mengele who was very interested in the wolf’s heredity and genetics. The doctor’s order was to utilize whatever Alden had, and find a way to weaponize it or him for military purposes. But first, Alden suffered a great many tortures if not for the sake of sating the man’s curiosity, than to test his endurance.

The “treatments” on Alden ultimately physically severed his conscious connection with his werewolf side. Meaning simply—when he shifts under the full moon, he has absolutely no control over his actions and no thought process. He is merely a wild wolf till morning.

It wasn’t till the war had nearly ended that Alden was released. Or rather, stolen. He thought he had been rescued by a human SS officer that worked around the labs Mengele’s patients were contained in. It was only later the man’s true intentions were revealed. He was a hunter, but not the hunters wolves typically encountered, no, this man was a collector. He hunted breeds to add to his own personal display. To him, Alden was a toy soldier, beautifully broken and a delight to behold. Held in the remnants of an old warehouse were cages, holding thought to be mystical creatures, anomalies and the abnormal. Most were just freaks of nature, creatures born with different genetic structures that added a head here or tail there. Alden became something of a pet to this human, confined in a small cell constructed of silver and made to abide by the man’s rules and forced to take part in his games.

For 76 years Alden was part of this collection until the hunter’s son sold him in 2020 to Covaire City so he could acquire enough money to purchase a vampire to starve and force to bite him in order to gain immortality. He has remained locked away at the slave castle ever since…

✑ PERSONALITY: Alden has been fighting a war his entire life. He encountered his first battlefield in his childhood home, his father would cast the first strike; his younger brother would fall. He found his second battlefield beneath barbed wire, looming above the trenches. The loss of his connection with his primal side has a direct cause into the wolf falling into an omega status in Covaire, aside his lack of money. He has no ability to communicate with a pack. He will never experience the full moon like the others, his veins run hot and his vision becomes clouded till the dark of night consumes him. Alden has lost a part of himself he can never retrieve. He has lost those he loved: his brothers and sister. Loss is a casualty of war. After the actions of the Hunter Alden settled into bitter submission, he doesn’t fight the cages he’s put into as much as he did before. But there is a fire in his eyes, a call for a rebellion. Given the chance, he would not hesitate to strike those who have kept him captive. He’s numb to most emotions, distant, quiet. The years of abuse he’s endured have made him distrustful and hesitant around others. His words are simple and crafted, made to please the ears of the masters and mistresses they find in a way that cannot be misinterpreted. To most prisoners he is somewhat kind; he feels like all those kept in the Chateau are prisoners of war and does what he can to make their circumstances more bearable. Few ever get close with the wolf however, the Hunter taught him one grave and horrific truth: the beast inside him, unleashed during the full moon will attempt to murder any of those close to him, friend or foe.

MAIN || PLOT || SPECIES || CHARACTERS || EVENTS || APPLY || MOBILE

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, November 24 - Wednesday, November 25

Willow : I don't think you wanna help. I think you just wanna slay the demon, then go-- La la la Giles : And I think your sympathy for his plight has blinded you to certain urgent facts. We have to stop this thing. Willow : Ok, unfeeling guy. Giles : Willow, that's not fair. Buffy : (Running to the kitchen.) I have to baste.

~~Buffy Episode #64: "Pangs"~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Chosen to Give Thanks (Buffy/Spike, unrated) by debris4spike

Pining (Willow, Xander, Buffy, T) by badly_knitted

A Late Welcome (Spike, Willow, T) by madimpossibledreamer

And the Devil Will Drag You Under Chap 5/? (Buffy, Dexter xover, M) by frogfarm

Reversed Roles (Buffy/Angel, T) by casangcls

The Hunter pounds on the pathetic soldier (Riley, Buffy, T, SPN xover) by Bl4ckHunter

Tasty and Hearty (Willow/Spike, M) by MMonster

Expectations (Buffy/Kendra, T) by SunflowerSpectre

Numb (Buffy/Angel, T) by Aaronlisa

Juste un café noir (Buffy/Faith, unrated) by malvydaina

The hardest choices (Buffy, Glory, T) by Stand with Ward and Queen

Let Me Count the Ways (Buffy/Spike, unrated) by Zab Jade

[Chaptered Fiction]

Apology for Declining an Invitation to Dine (Part 1 of 2) (Buffy/Spike, M) by eurydice72

Nothing Is Finished, Chapter 4 (Buffy/Spike, M) by stuffnonsense

Faithful Will (Part 1 of 3) (Buffy/Spike, T) by thewiggins

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These Violent Delights, Chapter 34 (Buffy/Spike, E) by Touchstoneaf

Hellmouth Hurricane, Chapter 13 (Buffy/Spike, M) by sandy_s

What Goes Around, Chapter 8 (Buffy/Spike, E) by celtic_goddess

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Time After Time - Dawn's Light, Chapter 8 (Buffy/Spike, E) by MissLuci

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[korpuskat]

Summary: He stands at your doorway like a vampire; he could push you out of the way, force his way into your home. He doesn’t. He stands and stares at you in the darkness, the last of the sunlight fading behind him until the brightest thing on your horizon is the reflection off white latex. There’s a tenseness to his shoulders. A head tilt- so very slowly to his right- is the only communication he gives you. Rating: Explicit (sexual content, Michael is Michael) WC: 10,828 Warnings: Lemon, threatening/controlling/inappropriate/intrusive behavior from Michael. >Chapter 1 >Chapter 2 >Chapter 3 >Chapter 4   >Chapter 5 >Chapter 6 >Chapter 7 >Epilogue

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The morning light slides through your blinds, but you’ve already been awake for hours. Sleepless again.  You lay in bed still, not even hunger willing you to get up just yet. It’s been three days- three days of guilt and anxiety and the endless pit of despair knowing what you’d done.

He was gone. Michael Myers who you had bathed and fed and tended to and wanted was gone. Gone with your kitchen knife, your bandages on his wounds. He’d wanted something from you. You suppose he’d gotten it. Why else would he turn on his heel and leave unless he had nothing else he wanted from you?

A bird singing outside your window drives you from your bed. It’s too chipper, too joyous, the sun too bright. Didn't the rest of the world know? You don’t bother changing, don’t bother brushing your teeth. Too-bitter coffee brings an artificial life to your bones, helps to break up the painful heaviness around your eyes. You do not think of the extra cup you had made three days ago, do not think of sipping coffee so serenely in the living room with him. You do not feel the empty ache in your chest for the lost relationship you had thought you had with a mysterious, masked stranger.

You make yourself watch the news. It’s penance, watching the woman with your staticky connection. Her lips are painted a perfect crimson as she recounts a string of murders the next town over. Gruesome, her lips form, vicious stabbing. The rest doesn’t matter.

You caused this.

You could’ve left him there in the forest and no one would’ve known. He'd be rot and bones and a bad memories. You’ve killed people now. All because you didn’t want to see him bleed out. Your stomach churns, self-hatred threatening to boil over.

You still don’t want him to bleed out.

He didn’t kill you. He thought about it- you knew well enough. The long moment in the kitchen when he had the knife pressed against you, the hatred and something else deep in his eyes. Some part of him wanted to drive the blade between your ribs. Something stopped him.

You want to know why.

Why? Why had he stayed in your house for so long when he killed everyone else? Why not leave as soon as he was patched up that first night? It haunts you. Had he wanted to kill you that night, too, when you’d woken to him in your room? You need to know.

You might never get the chance.

The police arrive. It’s not officer Windsor. A white man with dark stubble and a detective’s badge waits at your door, his uniform is pressed and clean, a long tan coat fends off the chilly air. He greets you with a stiff “Afternoon.” His eyes are blue-gray, perceptive and piercing, but they have no hold on you. Not like-

The detective is seasoned and dripping with saccharine-sweet words. He clears his throat, speaks with cloying deception. “We’re double checking on some information. Mind if we talk a while?” His voice sparks a pain in your head and you resist the urge to press the heels of your palms against your eyes. He can read people like cheap novels- the way he squints when he looks at you, taking quick glances at where your fingers pick at the hem of your shirt.

He’s reading you now. He knows you feel guilt, there’s a tightness around his face that betrays his doubt. He’s right, of course. You meet blue eyes and dare him to guess the extent of your crime. You have regrets- but you can't justify spending the rest of your life in jail. Can't justify betraying him, as much as you hate what he's done. You answer his questions, No I haven’t seen anything, and Yes, I heard about those murders. You’re too tired, too carefully holding onto your last thread of sanity to tell if you’re even remotely convincing.

Maybe he just thinks you’re in shock. Maybe you are.

A sickly sweet smile follows, curls over his face; It splits his cheeks, ruffles the dark remnants of a beard, shows too much teeth. Fear doesn’t even register to you, the detective is just annoying now. You long for the muted expressions you’d gotten so comfortable with. “Mind if I look around your property? Won’t take long.”

It doesn’t matter. You’d already scrubbed the blood from your floor, his mark from your underwear. Every trace of him in your house has been obliterated. You shrug and motion out towards a marker just before the trees. It’s old and worn down, flanked on each side by dilapidated fence posts that had collapsed long before you moved in. “My yard only goes that far. Mr. Morton owns everything else around here.”

The detective nods and wanders around for several minutes. You watch from your porch and drink your coffee, willing the pain between your eyes to cease. You don’t know what he hopes to find or why he was onto you to begin with, but you hope he gives up soon. Or just arrests you. The sooner this is over the better.

You look again to the woods, out towards where you’d first seen him, leaves wind-swept over his prone form. You wonder just how far from your house you had been when you’d found him. Would there still be a blood pool there? You hadn’t known who he was- you want to go back to that so badly. You took care of him as a good Samaritan. That wouldn’t stop the police from locking you up forever.

Good intentions and all that.

When the detective is done poking through your bushes, subtly peering through your windows, he circles back around to you. He smiles again- but you know he found nothing to be so happy about. “Call if you see anything.” He gives you a card, with his contact information in fancy, tiny, black font. “And try to get some sleep.”

You try for a grin, but from his grimace you don’t think you quite make it. He drives off and you’re left with the strange feeling of having to go back inside. It's not right to be in there. The knob turns and you almost expect to find him lurking in your shadows again, lingering just around the corner into the kitchen or living room. It's empty.

It should be comforting that you’re home alone. That you haven’t seen him since he left. There’s no strange man who stands in your bedroom, who presses his hand to your throat like he owns you.

You haven’t changed the locks. You look through the hall in vain hope to find white latex lurking peeking out from the laundry room, to find him standing, waiting at the end of your bed. Sitting in the comically small couch and watching television.

Somehow, it only makes the house feel lonely. Empty. Before it had been snug and cozy. You rip up the business card, feel the satisfying resistance of the paper and let it tumble away into an indecipherable pile of letters.

The news is still playing when you step into the living room, the anchor moving on to some story about gas prices. You don’t really care. But watching a screen is a good way to pass time, an easy pass to disengaging with reality, so you sit and you finish your drink and you wait. All you have now is time.

You sleep and dream of pale, white faces and the ringing of blades. Your mouth is dry. The TV drones on- a police procedural taking up the air time.  You blink, feel your eyes burn from the incomplete nap and get your bearings; it’s just after dark, which given November’s preference for short days, doesn’t mean much. The couch had left your legs numb from being bent to fit on it and you stumble into the kitchen, hissing when the numbness faded to pins and needles.

You turn on the water and cup your hands, drinking freely and pressing your cold fingers to the bags under your eyes. You'll need more coffee soon. The rushing water is nice to listen to- you close your eyes again, press your forehead to the faucet. You couldn’t sleep like this, standing nearly upright in your kitchen, but it’s nice to imagine. Pleasant sounds can’t help you. The knob squeaks as you turn off the tap. Nothing can help you except

A static fills your mind- and you know. Life springs back to your veins. You're frozen in place only a heartbeat. The blinds over your sink rattle- you grab at them, pop the thin metal out of place as you peer into the growing darkness. No, no, not there- Your heart races. You don’t know how but you know-

You twist the front door open, the light of your living room illuminating a long rectangle over your porch, the stairs, and out onto the yard. And at the very end of the yellow-white light are the tip of someone’s boots.

Michael stands just beyond the stairs; the light makes it to the edges of his toes and not one inch further. Your knife is gone. He’s empty handed- but you know better than to think him unarmed.

Anticipation vies with anxiety for correct reaction, both making you feel lightheaded, dizzy. It’s all you can do to stand in your doorway, to cling to the door itself. The prey instinct in your head screams out again. You won’t run. So you stare into the depths of his mask- completely hidden in the shadow and he steps forward. That electric fear starts up again- you force it down and watch as he climbs your porch’s stairs two at a time.

You field of vision narrows down to the wide expanse of blue fabric stained with something from your nightmares. You’d laundered it so nicely, getting rid of the worst of the bloodstains, only for him to get more. A long bright red streak is splashed from his right shoulder to his left hip. There’s larger stain in the fabric just above the waist, the blood soaked in deep and already dried- a slash in the coveralls where the fabric is frayed. It smells different when the blood is fresh. There’s no mistaking why he’s bloody this time. He is no victim, no sweet and strange old man in need of help.

Your eyes slide up him, taking in each splatter that was your own doing. Spots along his collar that you can’t imagine how they originated- and dotted over the left cheek of his mask. You can’t see him through the latex, but that itching, radiating power seeps through his clothes. Even covered in blood, that need to kill follows him.

He stands at your doorway like a vampire; he could push you out of the way, force his way into your home. He doesn’t. He stands and stares at you in the darkness, the last of the sunlight fading behind him until the brightest thing on your horizon is the reflection off white latex. There’s a tenseness to his shoulders. A head tilt- so very slowly to his right- is the only communication he gives you.

You should've run.

“Okay.” You step away from the door, holding the wood open for him. He looks at you- and you wonder what passes through his head. He must know you’re insane. You can’t explain it, either. His presence is unnerving, makes your breath catch as he steps into your home- but that bloodied slash on his abdomen concerns you. And that’s just the core of it, isn’t it? He’s covered in other people’s blood and you care first about his own.

The door closes behind him and before you can consider the consequences, your fingers dance along the frayed edges of the coveralls. You feel his inhale, his belly tightening against your fingertips. It’s a good feeling, the life under his skin-

It’s hard to reconcile; the joy you feel at knowing he’s okay enough to walk, and the disgust knowing what he’s doing- what he’s done. The guilt, that you let him do it. You look up to his mask, as though expecting anything other than the aged, warped latex and the heavy sounds of his breathing.

Your hand falls away, and again, you stare through the darkness of his eyes. The air between you prickles. You breathe out, “Guess I have to patch you up again?”

He leads you down the hallway. Something compels you to follow. You don’t understand why you can’t leave him- you have no sympathy for murderers,  no desire to associate with those who attack for no reason. And yet. You wring your hands.

He walks through your bedroom as if it were his, no hesitation, no interest in looking around this time. He stops in your bathroom. The shoes come off easy and he drops them to the side, sitting almost casually at the side of your tub to peel off his socks-

You suck in air through your teeth. He walks on it like its nothing. Bastard probably doesn’t feel pain. His right ankle is swollen and nearly glowing pink. You sink to your knees onto the bath mat- Michael tenses, but relaxes as you take his foot in hand. You roll up the hems of his pants leg, about halfway to his knee. If it hurts at all, he doesn’t show it.

You wish he would; you’d rather know and stop than hurt him. But you rotate his leg as best you can and hope you're gentle. “When did this happen?”

You look up, stupid enough to expect him to answer. Okay, try again: “A while ago?” You pause, “Recently?”

He still does not answer. His cooperation has disappeared with your knife. You frown and touch the skin; it’s warm. You don’t know near enough about soft tissue damage. “I need to look this up.” You start to stand-

He pushes you back down to you knees with only one hand. He catches your wrist and brings it up to the zipper of his coveralls . It’s tacky, your knuckles brushing a dampness to his shirt. Nausea fills your head, but Michael’s eyes, hidden in shadow, compel you. You drag the zipper down. The metallic noise is muffled, altered in the blood.

His bruises have healed considerably, his chest a mottled yellow-green, but a purple tinge remains to his lower ribs. He doesn’t move through it all. Your hands shake, but the confidence of repetition lets you push it off his shoulders. Because he’s sitting, the dirtied cloth of his coveralls pools at his waist. A sadness settles in your chest and you touch the brown bandage on his left shoulder. Underneath, the wound is messy and irritated. Of course, he hasn’t been caring for himself.

You peel the rest of the sleeve off his arm-  the bandage for the stab wound near his shoulder looks relatively clean, but the slash at his wrist is missing its bandage entirely. You frown, want to scold him despite his overwhelming presence in the air. The skin on either side of the half-picked scab is soft. You rub your thumb over it. It’s not right.

A murderer shouldn’t have skin so nice. You shouldn’t want to kiss his hand- dirty and blood-soaked as they are- so you look at his burns. They’re better than the last time you looked, the salve having set in deep. The least burned areas actually looked like skin again, with only minimal smooth scarring. You don’t think he cares about that, though.

You move to the other sleeve- and curse as you find an open wound. The coveralls peel away slow and thick- the blood already smeared on his arm coming away with the same texture as his clothing, dotted and lined down his bicep. The skin itself is jagged and ripped- You don’t have your kit with you- it’s out in the living room. You look around; one dark, unused hand towel sits on the corner of your bathroom sink. It’s not far, but-

Michael’s hand finds your wrist. His grasp is uncomfortable, but not yet painful. You know very well that could change. You don't know if whatever had stopped Michael from killing you before still stays his hand.

“I just want to get that towel.” You point at it with your as of yet free hand. “To clean this.”

The hand tightens, pulling a wince from you- the tiny bones of your wrist aching as he drags you back to the wet sleeve. “Michael,” you hardly breathe, “please.”

His hand stiffens, but does not hurt you. A sickening mix of horror and warmth spreads through your abdomen; if you weren’t so close, you might’ve missed the way the jumpsuit tightens around his waist, the heavy exhale that follows. it’s wrong. He likes that- you don’t know what part. Saying his name? Begging? Your pained look? Revulsion crawls on your skin. Despite whatever physical response his body gave, he doesn’t let go of your hands. You pull your lips tight and take hold of the bloodied fabric again. Only then does his grip loosen and fall away.

You pull it all the way off, over his wrist and ruined hand. The long, smooth burn also looked better- but very far from healed. It was simply too deep to get much done in the few days he was away- considering how little care he showed to his own wounds, you’d be surprised if it ever healed without your touch. The guilt returns and you wish so badly that you could go back.

His fingers are another matter. The bandage is filthy, covered in dirt and dried blood- as is his hand and the rest of the burns across his palm. You turn his hand in yours and find only the grime caught under his nails, the black stains of something you can’t identify. You hate him, but you hate yourself more- because underneath it all is that stupid, insufferable feeling of sadness. You wanted him to take care of himself- not so he’d leave you alone, but so he wouldn’t be hurt.

You peel away the bandages over the remains of his fingers- and thankfully find a perfect outline of the bandage beneath. His skin is untouched and clean in satisfying rectangles- the edges of which are still sticky from the tape. You grimace, but inspect the stumps themselves. There’s drainage- but it looks no different than the gunshot wound had before his latest escapade.

And finally, just above where the upper part of his coveralls gathered at his waist, you find a long slash- smooth like the knife wounds to his right arm. Fuck. It’s old. Entirely scabbed, dried blood twisted into the gray hairs that descend from his navel to somewhere below his belt line. You touch his skin there, his stomach flexes under your fingertips. That’s not good. His skin is warm to the touch, the scab yellowing at the edges, an unusual crust along the coagulated blood. It’s already closed, there’s not much you can do now- but your meager googling of infected wounds looked unpleasantly similar.

The new arm wound weeps blood, scarlet running smoothly down his arm. How long ago had he lost his knife?

You look to him, find his mask already peering down at you. Your hands rest idle in your lap.  What else he wants you to do is lost- with him sitting you can’t do much else, you’d already inspected and removed all his bandages. You needed your kit now-

Michael stands and hooks his fingers into the waist of the coveralls. You realize what he’s going to do as the cloth is already falling. Your cheeks burn. You avert your eyes, but it doesn’t stop what you’ve already seen. His cock is half-thickened, still velvety and soft-looking even as it twitches once, beginning to lift up. You want to touch him, to taste him. You can’t.

Won’t.

He waits- and you still don’t understand him. He could force you. You’re all too aware of that fact- that he could hold you down and do what he wants with you. Maybe he just likes to see the color in your cheeks or making you squirm. Would he use you, or make you writhe for him? The traitorous voice in the back of your head- the one you smother down at every chance whispers They’re not mutually exclusive. That brings a new wave of tingling heat between your legs.

He steps out of the coveralls- and steps into the tub, turning away from you. Blood splatters on the white porcelain, but you take your freedom. You gather his discarded clothing- but the burning gaze on you makes you hesitate before leaving the bathroom. “I’ll put these in the wash again. And I’ll get the first aid kit.”

Michael gives you no affirmation, but does not stop you as he turns the knobs for your shower.

You dump the clothes in the wash with just a touch too much detergent- and you stripped off your shirt. Blood had seeped into the cuffs, small drops marring the front. The November air crept into your laundry room, brought goosebumps down your arms, a familiar tightness to your nipples. It didn’t matter. You turned the machine on and, half-naked, moved back through the living room to get the restocked first aid kit you’d left on the coffee table (the empty plastic sack sat just under its legs, abandoned) and your phone. You’d hardly remembered to charge it- but you google quickly ankle sprain care.

The sound of rushing water makes you lift your head. You hope he remembers not to scrub. You read from the web page as you return to your room. The sound of the water changes- no longer running from the faucet but from the showerhead- the noise high pitched and more diffused. You need to wrap his foot in a good position. There’s a tightly wound compression wrap at the bottom of your red medical bag- that would have to do. Who knows if you could actually make Michael fucking Myers wear a compression wrap.

The sound of the water changes again- back to the heavy thumping of the tub faucet. You enter the bedroom- and from the still-open door to the bathroom, you know he’s not showering anymore. Your dresser is just out of line of sight from the bathroom, but it doesn’t stop you from grabbing the first top you see instead of searching for something better. It’s a tank top- which if you’re going to be cleaning up more of Michael’s wounds, it’s fine.

You grab the hand towel you’d seen and brace yourself. You’d hoped to find him testing the water; showering was fine with wounds like his. Not amazing with an open one, but not the worst. Instead, it seems he’s only rinsed himself under the showerhead- the worst of his grime already washed away, an actual flesh tone returning to his hands instead of the black-brown of dirt and old blood.

Instead, he lounges in your tub that’s too small even for you, and almost comical with how his uninjured leg is folded up, his knee poking out of the water, the injured right ankle extended over the edge of the porcelain, hanging somewhat uselessly. But more concerning: something is laid neatly against the wall in a warped pile of white latex, haloed by dark, dirty synthetic hair. You step into the bathroom- and look at him.

He’s found the stopper to your tub and it fills slowly, steam rising around him. You’d seen him nude before- he’d intentionally surprised you the last time you got him to bathe. It’s different now. Peril still lingers in the air, his working stormy eye glints dangerously beneath his eyelashes; a chill runs down your spine. You could leave him, let him handle himself.

You know what he wants- what he keeps wanting. You can’t understand it. But you want to. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t killed you. What choice do you really have? You wanted to know why and there's really only one option.

You scoot the bath mat flush to the side of the tub, already predicting spills onto the tile. You watch him as you return to your knees. It’s weird, being eye-level with him- so close to him without his mask. The last time…

Your neck burns in memory; ghostly teeth scrape so slightly against the column of your throat. You set the red bag aside and focus on the washcloth.

Michael follows you with his eyes- they’re cold and flat, something still unsated and hungry deep inside. The beast is quiet now, but its presence has not left. He holds you with his gaze- intensity alone bringing a wetness to your eyes. You can’t wash him if you don’t look away- so you break to the thin lines of his lips, surrounded by silver hair; it’s grown out some. Did it itch under the mask? You want so badly to know- his nose is crooked from a fight, the scar splits his cheek. You follow it like a map up to his milky eye, which still centers on you, unseeingly.

But under his eyes are heavy bags. You can’t distinguish how much of that is age and how much is exhaustion, but if the shape at the end of your bed for the two mornings he had been here was any suggestion, he must sleep very little. Has he slept at all since he was here?

You touch his cheek. Your finger slides perpendicular across the thin scar before you can understand what you’re doing. His stubble scratches at your hand.

Eyes bore into you. The predator lurks under his skin, hungry jaws waiting for you to venture too close. You look to his chest to center yourself- the still-running water rises slowly up to his ribs. The infected wound on his abdomen sinks beneath the surface, you want to scold him. You know he won't listen, won't give you more than a head tilt.

You turn off the water and dip the towel into the tub. The water’s already discolored. You start at his right hand. You’re careful, squeezing water over him like a shower before wiping- so very gently, not wanting to disturb the sealed scabs. The grime clings to his fingernails and cuticles, deep in the wrinkles and scars of his hands.

You move up his arm, your cleaning less hostagely and more reverent; you hold where no bruises mar his skin, you’re methodical in your approach, swiping each angle before moving on. You bite your lip at his shoulder. You don’t want to get another wound infected. Sweat sticks to his skin, so you rinse him- soaking your rag entirely and letting the water run freely over his chest and back. You’d don’t dare to rub too close to the delicate gunshot wound of his shoulder or the long, red line of the knife wound.

You move closer to his neck- and for a torturous moment, his jaw clenches. The emotionless cover of his face fades to a red hot second of suspicion. You’re too close to his throat- he knows how easy it is to kill, how delicate and thin the skin is; he knows the joys of crushing and cutting. The trust you’d formed is fragile, a single wavering thread-

You squeeze through the hot rag, into the breadth of his shoulder, just below the juncture of his neck. Whatever sharpness that remained in his body cracks, shatters under your touch. His eyes widen, brow raising in a pleasant surprise- before dipping back down. The tension bleeds from his jaw and his lips part softly as he exhales long and slow. Pride swells in you- and you squeeze at the back of his neck.

You feel the shudder across his body- the momentary mix of confusion and pleasure across his features before he can reign himself in. Had nobody ever rubbed his shoulders before? Sadness slips through your mind, and you twist, reach to fit both arms behind him. His guard comes up again. It doesn’t completely fall as you dig into his left shoulder with your thumb, rubbing along his spine. His eyes are cat-like, nearly closing as you massage his shoulders, working out long-forgotten knots and every sore place left from his hunt.

He doesn’t quite close his eyes, still watching you from under his lashes, but the devouring presence inside him retreats for the moment, and that’s good enough. You work down along his spine, pressing into each muscle and with each tired, slow dip of his eyelids, you truly wonder. Fifty-five years he’s lost. Sanitariums are not by any means the most social, the most growth-inspiring places. Especially ones from half a century ago. Had he… ever been touched like this?

Not just bathing- for surely he had to bathe somehow. You find a tense spot just below his sixth rib on the right side. You break it apart with your thumbs, work it back to smoothness. You’d tended to him when he woke up. Had anyone ever… been kind to him? Had they only seen the sister-killer?

You swallow. It’s what he was, though. A murderer. The hands you’ve washed and bandaged have taken life. He needed this care fifty years ago, not now. Still, you can't push the idea of what he would be like now if he'd had a loving touch.

You withdraw from behind him and he relaxes- truly, relaxes- back against the edge of the tub. You take his other hand and begin washing again. You clean his intact fingers with precision, scrubbing the dirt and filth and revealing how nice he could look. The wound on his hand was extensive- you only rinsed it, and carefully place his hand on his chest, out of the water.

With his torso soaking, you move down to his legs. You can get the hard one out of the way first- and lean over his extended right leg to reach the left. You still find no injuries to his legs- aside from the obvious sprain. You hold his thigh, dragging the cloth over the thick muscle there- lean and soft with age, but firm below the surface. You press into his flesh there, following down the lines of his thigh and are justly rewarded with the same long, slow exhale. You don’t dare venture all the way around his leg.

It doesn’t matter. You move down to his knee, begin to rub at his calf. His right hand slips down over his belly, settling between his thighs. You hesitate. You seek his eyes out again- and though they’re as soft as you’ve ever seen them, the threat lurks just beyond the surface.

You try not to look.

The incessant ache between your legs won’t let you ignore it entirely. You move to his right leg and start again at his thigh. And as you peer at the shape of his thighs and where they join to his hips- his fingers are wrapped around himself. He’s hard, just under the water line; it’s thicker than you expected and curves upwards with a touch of a lean to the right. He isn’t stroking it. The head is red and full, a soft, milky string floats just beyond it.

You’re disgusted.

You want him.

You realize your hands had stopped cleaning him of their own accord. You sneak a glance at his face again; he’s keeping hold of his damnable control. But you know he noticed your fascination- you hate yourself more. You clean his injured leg and take care with his calf not to agitate the joint. Not that you can tell if you do any damage- Michael might as well be a statue for how little he shows you. You begin to lean away-

He shows you more. His hips shift in the water, sending tiny waves through the tub- and even from where you sit, you can see. He still won’t stroke it. He just holds it, his fingers spread evenly along his skin. He stares at you. He wants you to look at him, but you don’t know what more he wants. If he would only talk-

No, you know what he wants in the end- what he’ll eventually take from you. But you don’t know what he expects you to do right now. You hold his foot in place as you dab at his swollen ankle. You stop after that. You bathed him. There was nothing left to do. Well.

The bottles at the corner of your shower draw your attention. You swallow thickly. That was too intimate. You couldn’t. He wouldn’t let you, you were sure- but your fingers itch at the idea of scrubbing shampoo into his hair, maybe even into the curls of his quickly growing beard.

You liked that idea more than you should.

His head tilts slowly, and you imagine the waves of his white beard soapy and bubbly. It draws one corner of your mouth up, you don’t bother hiding it from Michael’s view. It feels forbidden. Wrong. So you think of what that other Michael Myers might be like.

His eyes tighten and relax too fast to decipher. Was it curiosity at your odd smile? Anger? Arousal?

You look between his legs. He holds too tight- a stiffness to his fingers. Maybe he likes it like that- tight and slow- but you can’t help but feel there’s something else at hand. You shouldn’t. You joy fades- and you see him squeeze a little more. You wince, imagine the heavy pressure like that against yourself. It can't be enjoyable- no, there's something... wrong.

The water is tepid at best now and you dip your fingers in. His wrist is bonier than you expect, but you curl your fingers around his forearm. You meet his stormy eyes. They’re unreadable- clouded gray and seeing through you again. You wish he would speak to you, just to make this easier. You lick your lips, and pull on his wrist- hardly more than a suggestion. Your voice is low and quiet, pleading, “Michael.”

They focus on you. There’s a challenge behind his eyes now. You couldn’t make him stop, nobody would make Michael Myers do anything. You lick your lips again, breathe out slowly. You’ll lose this game either way.

The words are foreign in your ears, “I’ll help you.” Your exhale is shaky, “Just, let me bandage you first.” The black of his pupil swells, nearly consumes the blue-gray entirely. From parted lips, he inhales- you draw your hand out of the water. “I’ll put your clothes in the dryer, and then,” Your lip trembles, “I’ll help you.”

You were always going to lose this game. Might as well be on your own terms.

The laundry room is silent, long ago the washing machine played its jingle to a missing audience. You move the laundry over, not even checking if the blood had come free. Everything about you was shaking.

Could you do it?

You had to. There was something wrong about the way he’d touched himself- squeezing too tight. His knuckles had begun to blanch. Pressing his thumb down just below the head. Like he-

Like he wanted it to hurt.

Your hand hovers over the dial on your dryer. You don’t know what to do with that. Was he... trying to hold back? Trying to make it go away? Did he just like that? You can’t imagine what goes on in his mind- you can’t get a single word out of him, let alone understand how he ticks.

You don’t have a choice now. What makes Michael Myers do what he does is beyond your pay grade, but you were fairly sure lying or betrayal would not restore your place as favorite. Or whatever it was that had made him decide to haunt your house instead of gutting you.

You’re starting to think he just wants to fuck you. It wouldn’t be so bad if he were anyone else. You feel... something for him, something softer than you want to name for an infamous spree killer. But there’s still worse:

If all he wanted was to fuck you, would he kill you after?

At least then you’d know for sure what set you apart.

The dial turns with satisfying clicks. You couldn’t escape this now. The dryer starts.

You’d re-bandage him, and then you’d find out for sure.

Your stomach flips, you want to flee- and yet you think of gray eyes. There’s something captivating about him- for all the danger he embodies, the horrible deeds you can’t even think about, you want to know what his world is like. You want to understand how he could hold a knife to your ribs and decide not to kill you, but still return covered in someone else’s blood. Such a dark and terrible fascination.

There’s no more time to buy. You hold your breath and return to you room.

He’s not in the bathroom anymore. He sits, dripping wet, on the edge of your bed. His head is tipped down, staring into his hands and at the white latex mask. You blink, swallow hard and close the door behind you. You want to meet his eyes again, want another chance to decipher whatever he holds inside, but you can’t.

Shivers roll across your skin in waves, and you pass by him without peeking. At his face or anywhere else. It’d be too much- you’d vibrate right out of your body, break down crying and hysterical.

There’s a murderer in your house. You’re going to help him- help him-

You dig your fingernails into the harsh red material of the first aid kit’s bag. The white vinyl plus design is peeling and cracked. You want to pick off every speck until there’s nothing left. But you grab a fresh towel and turn.

He’s already watching you. Hungry, piercing- and cold. Your legs go numb- you nearly fall, catching yourself against the counter. He’ll devour you whole, leave nothing left- an empty void in the middle of your room, threatening to suck everything you’d ever known into the abyss that gazes back at you. He sets the mask beside him without breaking your connection.

You step forward, trusting your memory of the room to bring you to him. The only movement is how he turns to keep his eyes on you. You break away to open the kit and place it on the corner of the bed. You don’t have to look at him if you’re bandaging him. You start with the new slash to his arm; the warm water made the cut slow to close and it still weeps gently at the front. You can see the real shape of it now: a ripped, split-skin thing without the gentle tapers of Michael’s knife injuries, uneven enough to make it hard for the skin to meet together again. You can’t imagine what sort of weapon made such a wicked wound. You dot some antibiotic ointment on a rectangular bandage- and sigh in relief that it’s long enough.

His gunshot is the only other wound that’s still actively draining. You cut another gauze pad and remind yourself you need to check it tomorrow. You wouldn’t get him to go to the hospital, but at least you could keep his bandages clean.

You steal a glance at his cheek- and find the skin glue still holding his mouth together, turning grayer with the dead skin stuck around the edges. That was normal- you’re pretty sure, at least. Just like a scab, it would let go bit by bit when the wound had healed and shed a layer. You look away before you were trapped again.

His missing fingers were the only remaining wound that you worried about reopening or draining. His hand is pliant, when you pick it up, relaxed and neutral for you. Aside from the damage, his hands are rather nice; worn with age, but it seems time spent away from society kept his off hand uncalloused, the flesh of his palm soft and warm. You can’t even really fault the slowly closing burns. You know on his right hand there's a new roughness forming across his fingers, a tiny blister from years of disuse dissolving into a murderous rage of weaponry. You like this hand better.

With medical scissors you snip two more gauze pads into the same shape as before and tuck them carefully around the remains of the fingers, taping the gauze down and sealing the wound.

There’s one last thing to do. From the kit you dig out one pristine, tightly rolled, tan cloth. You close your eyes and sink down to your knees.

Don’t look at it, you whisper in your head, don’t look.

You’re trembling as you take his foot. It’s still warm around the joint and fat with swelling. “Might hurt,” you warn him. You shift his foot up into the correct position and unwind the compression wrap. You start it around his leg, a single loop stuck to itself, then form smooth alternating figure eights between calf and the sole of his foot. You want to look to his face- maybe you could tell pain in his eyes this time, but- don’t look up.

The wrap ends in a velcro strip, designed to stick anywhere on itself. You hold it for a minute, but try not to let the wrap loosen too much. Sticking it feels impossible; Michael has no other wounds that need attention. You waver-

Fingers thread through your hair. You gasp, struggle to breathe as they slide from the top of your skull down around your ear, down under your chin, warm against your skin. He doesn’t make you look up, just holds you there. Reminds you of your promise. You press the wrap down. Only then does he tip your chin. You pinch your eyes closed.

He waits, trails the odd callous on his thumb across the joint of your jaw. He waited forty years to escape, he’s not going anywhere now. He urges you up by the chin and you blindly follow. You shouldn’t trust him.

You make it up to your feet; your fingertips can just reach his knees. He traps you between them, shaking like a leaf in the wind- his hand under your chin the last connection to the world. His left hand finds the back of your still-clothed thigh. Three fingers trail up to the curve of your butt, cupping it in his palm. You whimper, slap a hand over your mouth in shame.

The hand leaves you chin, clamps vice-like around your wrist and you do cry out- and he hauls you forward. Your eyes snap open, your body folding, grabbing his shoulders to accommodate him pulling you up- onto his lap. His eyes catch yours, and you can’t look away.

Your legs are tucked neatly beneath you on either side of his thighs, parted wide enough you know he could touch you through the thin fabric if he wanted. For now, your pants and underwear protect you. But not entirely, his hands have wound up at your waist. The angle’s all wrong, but you feel him. Hot, hard, long against your belly. His cock is pressed upright between you you're so close. It twitches and you whimper, instinctively grabbing at his shoulders again- only in the back of your mind remembering to be careful of his wounds.

You want to look away. So close, you can see the layers and patterns in his blue-gray eye; cyan ringing the pupil, gray radiating out in splotches. The other eye is milky blue, glassed and unseeing- more wrinkles have formed around it than the other. And both are unreadable, deep and yet, empty, like a well that's long ago run dry. There’s no emotion betrayed, not a hint of empathy or compassion for your racing heart, the shivering of your spine, the burning tears that threaten to bud at the corners of your eyes.

You want to kiss him. It’d be almost normal- kissing was something normal people did. But he's too intense, too powerful. It’s too intimate- your core tingles, wants to know what he fingers would feel like. His left hand finds your hair. Nails scratch along your scalp so pleasantly- your eyes drift closed again.

He twists, your roots burn- eyes coming open with a startled gasp. He wants to be read now: the meaning is clear as he peers down his nose at you. He wants you to look at him.

The hand still at your waist slides up, a shiver making you flex against him as his palm pushes up your shirt as he moves, but keeps going. Through the tank, he cups your breast again. You squirm, the warmth of his skin soaking through the fabric. You didn’t have to see his face last time- didn't have to watch as he tips his head to watch as he pulls your shirt down. You can't help the weak gasp you give, can't help the way your thighs draw together at his sides when he looks back up to you and locks you back into his gaze.

His skin is burning. The heat of his palm does not dissuade the cool of the air from drawing your nipple into a bud.  Just the curve of his hand around your breast has you wanting to close your eyes again- and is rewarded with a warning tug at your hair. He squeezes so gently at first, testing the softness of your flesh- before there’s a near imperceptible glint to his eyes, the smallest tightening of his brow. Fingers dig in, repeating the same action he had before, drawing from your chest outward- each of his fingers catching on the stiff peak.

Your mouth opens in a muted cry. He never looks away, doesn't return to admire your chest in the way men do, doesn't stop to see what he’s doing. He traps your nipple between that oddly calloused thumb and forefinger. And just holds it there for a long moment.

A need has settled need inside, thick and aching. You don’t want it- and yet your legs hold close to his sides, hips trembling of their own accord. You squirm in his grasp which only makes him tug softly at your sensitive nipple. It draws a whine from you, the shocked inhale pulling at it again. You want him to stop, to get it over with, to say something; you want him to touch you. Instead he sits there, your nipple pinched so delicately- waiting.

“Michael,” your voice is hoarser than you expected, husky and close to breaking. “Please.”

The grasp in your hair tightens, you wince- and he pulls your head back. You gasp, sputter, stare up at your ceiling and see gray moving before you. His short hair rubs against your cheek- and you scream. Pain lances through your shoulder, his fingers rolling your nipple. You dig your fingernails into his back, scraping across what you can reach.

His teeth dig deeper, and there’s nothing the hand on your chest can do to distract you. You hit weakly at his side- he kills people- he fucking kills people- he could rip out your fucking throat. Leave you to bleed out across him, that’s how you’d help him. He was only here to drag out killing you and-

He lets go. You cry, hot breath panting over your shoulder, his tongue slipping out and dancing along your skin. Blood beads to the surface and he chases it, drinking it down before sinking his teeth in again. He huffs against you, his fingers leaving your chest to grab behind you. He digs five bruises into your ass and pulls you forward again- his hips lifting against your stomach.

He doesn’t moan. He pants and sighs and huffs, but utters no vocalization as he grinds against your stomach, bites into your neck, just below your ear. You tremble and hang on for dear life, clinging to Michael's broad shoulders. When you cup the back of his head, he nips your chin, almost purring. He pulls back long enough to admire the art he’s made of your skin; he’s half-lidded, his lips parted- and the silver-white of his beard shines crimson.  His grasp on your hair adjusts and he’s attacking the other side of your neck. Teeth scrape down your throat, before he bites just below your clavicle.

His hips roll against you again and you thank the small mercies, that you don’t have to look at his cock with your head wrenched so far back. You wouldn’t be able to handle it- because despite the agony his mouth brings you, the warmth between your legs lingers. His cock presses against you and you can feel him, feel the size of him so close to where you truly need it. Your body just thinks he’s rough- that he likes to leave marks. The thought alone has your thighs clenching together again; you’ll be covered in bruises and bite marks well above the collar to even modest sweaters. He is marking you.

You tremble and fight the urge to slip your hand between your bodies to give yourself some relief.

All at once, he stops. The rolls of his hips cease- and you hate how much of the motion between you had been your own doing, your own futile attempt to find stimulation where there was none. His breath is hot on your neck as he turns and gives a nip- dragging a thin stretch of skin between his teeth as he pulls away.

He stops panting before he even comes back into view. Aside from the pink to his cheeks, the swelling of his lips, and the empty black void of his pupils, it would be hard to tell what he’d been doing. The scarlet stain across his mouth is more telling. His hand in your hair loosens and you peek down. The damage itself is too high, but the thin rivulets of diluted blood and saliva pooling just behind your clavicles, the errant brushes and smears from his beard- not unlike a painter’s- tell you enough.

He could’ve ripped your throat out. The hand leaves your ass- and you’re aware of just how hard he’d been holding you. Michael’s fingers dance along the long expanse of your throat, tracing each sensitive spot he’d left in his wake. Admiring his work.

His hands leave and grab the backs of your thighs. You startle, grab at his shoulders again just in time for him to lift you. He stands, seemingly unbothered by your weight, and sets you down on your feet. Blood rushes in- and you weren’t even aware your legs had fallen asleep. He lets go, and without his support you sink back onto the edge of the mattress.

He’s nude. The idea comes unbidden and finally, finally you can press your thighs together, seek rudimentary stimulation to relieve the ache. You can’t imagine what he wants- he could’ve cum how he was before, biting at you and thrusting against your stomach. But he looks down at you- if there’s any clues to his thoughts, you can’t piece them together through the heavy fog of pain and fear and arousal. He’s nude, and his fingers catch the dark hair of the mask still set on the bed- and stalks out of your bedroom.

You’d never realized just how quiet he could be.

It takes a moment to process. Michael has left you, hard and unfinished (and so were you, but you… couldn’t). And he was hard, so very hard and you want. You look to your shirt- and find a cooling wet spot smeared just below your navel. Had he been close, or was he simply that eager? Both options have your thighs shaking, one traitorous hand slipping between to press against yourself.

You needed to calm down. You needed to calm down so, so much because you can’t do this. He wasn’t killing you, for whatever reason- which was apparently something more complicated than needing something to fuck. But your attraction to him is so… broken. So wrong and taboo and god, you could see the coldness in his eyes (when you can even see his eyes). He’s evil. And you want to feel his fingers probing inside you- they’d get so deep, they’d absolutely fill you with how big they are- instead of just using you as leverage against his dick.

You grind the heel of your palm against your clit. You’d get yourself off later. Not now. Not with him.

The door opens again. You pull your hand free.

His face is gone, as is his body.

You blink and stare into the empty eyeholes of the mask once more. His head is tipped slightly downward and you suspect he saw what you had been doing. His coveralls are wrinkled, but mostly clean. He crosses the room in easy, measured strides. Heat radiates off him. The dryer had gone off.

His left hand catches under your chin- just as he had done before. You expect him to tilt your face up to look at him, but instead find panic in your veins as he closes his hand around your throat. It’s not a threat- it’s a reminder. You work with him, let Michael push you down on the bed, only half laying on it- everything below your thighs hanging over the edge.

He stands over you, straddles you across your stomach, and presses one knee to the mattress- over your forearm. He adjusts and traps your other arm in the same way. You lie very still, staring up into the cracked, expressionless latex. Even holding you so close and letting you see his face so intimately, did he really prefer the mask? You guess he was done with his mouth.

He holds you still with his hand pinned to your neck. With the right-

He pulls the zipper down again. He withdraws himself, and you have no choice but to look with him just above you. Michael is already a large man, and his cock is scaled to proportion. With him above you, he wraps his fingers around the shaft, stroking himself in one long, tight stroke. Blood pushes to the tip, darkening into a full red, a shiny drop of precum beading. You whimper, head hurting from how tight your brow knits together.

Your arms are trapped at your sides, just under the backs of his thighs. You can't even push him away. A squeeze against your jugular reminds you to keep your eyes open. You focus on his mask, on the deep-set pain of your shoulders and neck, agitated by his grasp.

“Michael.” His fingers tighten- a nail scratching at a new sore spot has you wincing. He pulls faster, the rasping sound of skin on skin so close. Pants come quickly under the mask- and you want to see his face again. It’s all wrong. You shouldn’t want to see those cold, empty eyes or the blood lingering in his beard- what did he look like now? Would his gaze be clouded and far off, does he bite his lips?

It’s hard to breathe with his weight on your ribs. You have just enough range to press your fingers between your legs. The need doesn’t abate- burning hot under your touch. It should be him, should be his rough, exploratory touch. Michael’s hand twists under the head- and his legs twitch. A noise muffled under the mask-

His cock twitches- the hand at your throat tightens again. You pinch your eyes closed.

Your throat burns and warmth splashes over your chest, something hits your chin. Air whistles through the nose holes of the mask, something wet slides along the side of your throat. Your bite wounds sting, set alight by- by-

You dare to open your eyes again. His hand slides smooth across his cock, slick and shiny with cum, more still leaking from the tip. Through it all, he doesn’t stop, hips rocking into his palm. Milky splatter sits between your breasts and higher, beyond where you can see. It cools quickly, turning tacky and strange against your skin, stinging harshly.

Michael sighs, long and low, and finally his wrist slows and stops. His chest heaves, the mask tilts back and you can see just a touch more of his neck as it rides up. The burn around his neck has paled, and you watch how his neck moves as he breathes.

You shiver, mouth hanging open as the heat of your skin dissipates. Your right breast is still out, the nipple pulled tight. Michael pants- and finally looks down to you. The mask is blank, betrays nothing of the face underneath- and it sweeps over your face. You feel the tears caught at your lashes, the blush heavy on your cheeks- and who knows what he’s done to your neck. Blood and spit and cum drying on your skin.

His hand loosens finally, the corners of your vision returning in waves. On your belly, just past the end of your sternum, his cock softens and smears across your skin. You feel disgusting- and you need to take care of your neck. Fuck, they were going to get infected- Michael’s incessant lapping and sucking had surely made you sick, if his cum settling over your neck hadn’t. And that was very quickly becoming itchy and uncomfortable, you needed to clean up so badly.

You pull at your arms, just trying to get Michael’s attention so he’d move on. He’d bitten and played with you, even finished himself on you- he had to be done now. You’d fulfilled your part.

The mask stared down at you, so gently canted off to his right side. His chest still heaves in deep, slow breaths. His fingers trace across your skin, reverent and silent, the hand at your neck making you wince as he touches something sensitive.

You try shifting again, and this time tap at his butt. You just needed him off- “I need to clean up.” You say, voice harsh and strange in your throat.

He still doesn’t move. And to think you were sure he was past this belligerently uncooperative stage and onto something at least a little more engaging than his unresponsive staring. You move, twisting until your arm begins to slide under you- even though it makes you arch up against him,  you free one arm. With the extra space, the other arm comes out easier.

You raise your hands to inspect the damage at your throat- he’s fast. The shape before you catches your wrists, curls forward over you to push them into the bed. His grip is painfully tight, huge hands squeezing the delicate bones of your wrists. His breathing is slow and steady again, the darkness behind the mask too heavy to understand what he wants from you.

He squeezes until you’re gritting your teeth, lashing under his weight, tossing your head back and forth- and above you, the latex creaks as he tips his head. You blink away tears, real distress taking root deep inside. There’s a hot moment where you think he won’t stop, that’s all he needed after all. He'll snap your wrists and then your neck. And as your eyes begin to widen, your jaw going slack, the first inhale for a scream catching in your chest-

His grasp loosens again. Barely holding on, the mask swivels to the other side. He presses your wrists to the bed once more- and you take the hint. When he lets go of your sore wrists entirely, you don’t move. Michael tucks his cock away, not bothering to clean up at all. He hovers there, still half-sitting on your stomach, the bed dipped under his one knee on the bed.

You stare up at him. The angle only emphasizes his height, the power he holds over you- physical or otherwise. The heat still has not left your pants, despite the real pain that lingers in your wrists and neck. It’s hardly different than him almost choking you out the second day he was here, you remind yourself.

You hate what he does to you, you hate yourself. Fear and arousal and pain leave you dazed and all you can do is fixate on how tall he is, the width of his shoulders, the scars that hide beneath thick, blue cloth. You wish he was anyone else and more than anything in the world you wish he would touch you.

Instead you’re stuck, hips pinned under his, covered in his cum. He steps back, slides off the bed, still looking down at his handiwork. The need inside you feels monumental, a sickly slickness slipping into your underwear. Touch me you want to scream. If he just did it, without you having to focus on your useless conflict-

If you could just know what it was like,

Hands settle at your hips, warm and slow and oddly delicate. Hope burns inside you and yet-

Michael does not strike you as particularly giving. Unless he could get hard again, doubt overtook your mind. For good reason. His hands turn hard- but not malicious. He holds you- and hefts you up into his arms. You squeal in surprise, your arms coming around Michael’s neck again as he rounds the corner of your bed, and supporting your weight with only one arm, peels back the covers to your messy bed.

You tremble, unsure. He was comfortable jerking off onto you while sitting above you, but wants you in bed? He sits with you still tucked to his chest- and scoots into your bed. He lies down flat on his back, fully dressed in his coveralls and mask, and pulls you, still curled onto one side, against his chest. He reaches with one hand and drags the blankets back up, awkwardly pooled around you.

And then, he just lies there. His breathing even and slow, and you can’t tell if he looks to the ceiling or to you. You frown, more confused than anything. Your skin is still sticky, things you don’t want to think about flaking off each time you turned your head. And worse, the liquid need rooted deep inside still lurks- and you can’t, just can’t, deal with it here. You push against him to sit up- and huge hands settle on your lower back, just above your hips.

His fingers- asymmetrical, it’s so strange- press into your skin, sliding just under your thin shirt. He says nothing, does not move in any other way. You lick your lips and press your luck. You push back further, nearly making it upright-

Before his hands are vices around you, forcing you back down with unquestionable authority.

“Michael,” You complain, but only get the pointed flexing of his hands in response. You sigh- and shift on him. Pain sinks around his fingertips and you can nearly feel his eyes narrowing. “At least let me move? Your hip is biting into my side…”

A long moment passes, before he sighs, a puff of warm air sliding under the mask. His hands relax again. You resettle over him, settling onto your stomach- if he wanted you on top of him for the night, it was your best bet for sleeping soundly. You end up almost straddling one thigh, with your left leg between his- but he’s too tall and you settle with your head just below the white latex of the masks’ chin.  

You want to take a bath. And yet… your ear presses against his chest. Warmth radiates through his clothing into you. His heart is strong, steady- an endless march song that’s all too easy to get lost in. His palms are nearly burning against your skin, and yet without the dangerous threat to them, there’s something else.

He kills people. But he won’t kill you. The train of thought alone makes alarms ring in your skull. There’s a tenderness- or at least as tender as Michael Myers can seemingly manage for as emotionally disconnected as he is. Or was that all you projecting onto him? There had to be something genuine inside him. He’d come back. Maybe... you were just useful.

You close your eyes and count his heartbeats, the rise of his chest, the soft, muffled noise of his exhale. He is a mystery, and yet inside him his heart beats on like everyone else. Rhythmic and continuous, lulling you down into the easy hold of sleep.

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[sidesandsanders]

Please don't deprive us of the sinful vampire headcanons

This is written under the idea that you’re the boys’ willing thrall. So you live in the castle, and “belong” to all of them (in both a food source sense and a romantic sense) communally.

Logan:

- He has a whole schedule set up so that you can feed the castle without getting hurt or sick. He factored in some of the other residents’ innate unpredictability, but for the most part, it works.

- When it’s his time, he tends to drag you off to the closest secluded place. As long as the door can lock, it’s a viable option in his mind.

- He pins your upper arms to the wall with his hands, and your hips with his. He bites precisely into the vein on your neck. The whole experience is quick, controlled, and methodical. He knows exactly what he’s doing at it shows.

Roman:

- Roman actually prefers drinking from your wrist, the veins are easier to access and it feels a tad less dirty. He has a signal if he gets a craving in public, he’ll pull your hand up to his mouth and kiss the back of it. Normally he’d lean down, so if he pulls you up to him, it’s his way of asking permission.

- Enthrallment is integral to his foreplay. All it takes is a glint of red and gold from his eyes to get you begging. It tends to be less intense if you’re just doing a routing feeding, but if there’s time he will absolutely initiate something more.

- He’s the exact opposite of a messy eater. He absolutely refuses to waste even a drop of what you’re so kindly gifting to him. It feels disrespectful to him, and he wants to savor everything you’re offering.

- He will absolutely bang you on the dining room table, lace and velvet tablecloth and all. Logan hates it, but doesn’t know how to approach the topic, so he just lets it happen.

Patton:

- He drinks mostly blood substitutes, a weird mix of egg whites, coconut milk, crushed iron and vitamin D supplements, and a few ground herbs. But if you offer, or catch him in a moment of weakness (or hunger), he would have a very hard time saying no.

- The most timid out of all of them about it, even more than Virgil. But the idea of feeling your flesh flushed and red under his fangs is far too tempting to deny, and even if you haven’t fed him before, he finds himself guiltily fantasizing about it when he lets his mind wander.

- He frets about you. Vampire saliva is a numbing agent and induces clotting post-feeding, but he still offers you herbs and other home remedies to speed things up.

Virgil:

- Virgil fucks in the mausoleum, the graveyards, his coffin, whatever gothically aesthetic places he can think of.

- The most likely out of all the vampire boys to lose control and pounce. He’s still not quite used to craving blood, and he’s usually too anxious to ask outright, so unless you bring it up he’s probably gonna forget that he’s even hungry until he sees you and can’t help it.

- He usually grabs your arm and pulls you off to his room or the castle’s (empty) mausoleum, and you can’t miss the way his hands and voice shake as he tremblingly explains what’s happening.

- When you tell him it’s ok, he pins you to the ground, unable to hold back. When his fangs are just barely grazing your skin, he’d whisper into your ear in that low tone that makes you weak in the knees.

- “You smell...amazing.”

Deceit:

- His fangs are long and go deeper into the skin than the rest of them, so he spends the most time on aftercare. That snake tongue is good at getting the numbing/clotting agents into hard to reach crevices, so he takes the time to lick at your wounds and help them heal.

- He’s also the one who enjoys it the most. It’s not sadistic, exactly, but he likes the power. The idea that you’d willingly offer your flowing lifeblood to him, that you trust him of all people to put you in danger but still keep you safe.

- He kisses you afterwards. He tastes like a strange mix of sugar, campfire smoke, and your blood. It’s not unpleasant, just new.

- He disappears soon after. He’ll offer you his arm and bring you somewhere in the castle you recognize, usually a comfortable plush chair in the library, and kiss your forehead before dropping you and heading off. If you look on the table next to you, he’s left a small stack of books he thinks you’d like.

Remus:

- He has never lost control of himself in his life, because he never had control in the first place. He won’t pounce on you in hunger like Virgil or Patton, but he will pick you up and make you into an impromptu snack whenever he gets a craving.

- If anyone walks in on him feeding off of you, he will hiss and growl until they leave. He’s possessive in a way, if he wants to bite you, then he will, and nobody is allowed to interrupt, because it’s his turn.

- Hands everywhere. He can’t keep still, it’s hard enough keeping his teeth situated relatively comfortably in your shoulder, so he settles with grabbing and squeezing at your body wherever he can get ahold. If he’s particularly in the mood, he might stick his knee in your crotch so be prepared.

[derangedsilence]

Azusa Mukami

Permissions

Please feel free to check any of the Sakamaki Bros.’ permission lists.  It’s pretty repetitively the same.

Singleship per verse, please feel free to participate in the plots as appropriate, etc.

*Additional warning for those less familiar with Diabolik Lovers: Azusa in particular could be more upsetting than many are comfortable with.  Azusa will often engage in SELF-HARM among other things.  You have been warned.

Biography / Stats

FULL NAME. Azusa Mukami ALIAS. Bandage Guy (Ayato) AGE. Appears 17-18 || Actually significantly older BIRTHDAY. October 28 GENDER & PRONOUNS. Male, he/him ORIENTATION. Heterosexual SPECIES. Vampire, former human OCCUPATION. High school student of the night school known as Ryoutei Academy. 3rd year in More Blood, 1st year of the college branch if assuming time has passed.   RESIDENCE. Mukami residence, Japan

HAIR. Black EYES. Grey/Purple BUILD. Slim HEIGHT. 5'7'' (170cm) TATTOOS. None PIERCINGS. None. ADDITIONAL MARKINGS.   Deep scar across the bridge of his nose, scar on lower left cheek, scar on the back of his neck. OTHER. Left-handed

ZODIAC. Scorpio  ALIGNMENT. Chaotic Pain  POSITIVE TRAITS.  Polite, helpful, gentle NEGATIVE TRAITS. Timid, uncontrollable, forceful

BIRTH PLACE. Japan? NATIONALITY. Japanese? PARENTS. Karlheinz (adoptive father). SIBLINGS. (Adoptive) Ruki, Kou, Yuma. EXTENDED FAMILY. None, technically. EDUCATION. High school (likely several times over) NOTABLE SKILLS. Knife knowledge, use & collection, the ability to handle Kanato better than most, being more stubborn and dominant than you in his quiet way  LANGUAGES. Japanese, English FAVORITE FOOD. Shichimi togarashi

"IMPURE” VAMPIRE. Inhuman strength, increased speed, vision, hearing, and smell. Fast healing, but not as fast as a pureblood.   TELEPORTATION. Capable of teleporting instantly. OTHER. Azusa can fly during a full moon and displays extreme endurance/resistance for pain. WEAKNESSES. Unlike purebloods, regular vampires do not possess their own magic.  Purebloods can “borrow” that for them using their own abilities, but it’s not quite the same.   DISLIKES.  Being unwanted and not needed

Appearance

[*Credit: Appearance section pulled almost-directly from the Dialovers Wiki.]

Azusa has grey eyes and black hair with lighter gray tips.  The longest point in his hair reaches down to his chin, with long bangs that go right past his eyes.  The bangs are parted with one piece in the middle and the rest on either side of his head.  In the back of Azusa’s hair, right on his neck, he has his hair cut straight.  The rest of it looks messy and curly.

He has a pale complexion with a noticeable scar on the bridge of his nose.  He has a scar on the lower bottom of his left cheek and on the back of his neck as well.  There are bandages around his arms and one around hisneck.

He usually wears a white sweater with sleeves usually around his upper arms with diamond patterns on the left and right side and belts on the bottom parts of the sleeves.  He has a long-sleeved blue shirt underneath with a darker blue bordering the top.

His school uniform consists of the black school blazer with the left arm rolled up showing the bandaged arm and a black vest with a white dress shirt underneath and a blue ribbon and black tie.  He wears the usual black uniform pants with black boots.  He also wears a maroon beret and sometimes holds a long white bandage in his hand.

In LOST EDEN, Azusa’s uniform consists of the dark red school blazer over a purple waistcoat with a white dress shirt underneath.  He wears the black school scarf in the ribbon style with a circular brooch attached to it.  He wears black pants and tall white boots to accompany his uniform.

Personality

A clingy, timid and polite young man whose soft nature contains an extreme sadist and an extreme masochist wrapped up into one.  He enjoys being injured to the point of harming himself.  Despite how soft and controllable he may seem, he’s actually extremely difficult to handle and does as he wants to his heart’s content.

Azusa speaks very slowly and often politely, rarely if ever using a demeaning nickname or insult.  He has never used a demeaning nickname or insult to Yui herself!  

He frequently tries to hurt Yui because he honestly believes she’s a masochist and deserves to be happy by being hurt.  He truly believes that it helps her feel alive and gives her purpose, like he feels when he experiences pain.  He also uses pain to numb emotional distress and will do the same for others.  Azusa has a warped view of physical pain as one of the greatest pleasures.  

Azusa thinks being unwanted is far worse than being dead.

History

CHILDHOOD. Azusa’s early life was spend wandering the streets as a beggar.  Three street urchins named Justin, Melissa and Christina would often find and beat him up for any reason they could think of.  Eventually, when they hurt him, Azusa started to express enjoyment.  He felt like the pain was proof he was alive and he was useful to someone, somehow, such as when the children took their frustrations out on him.

Eventually the three children were killed for trying to steal from a noble’s mansion.  When Azusa learned of it, he despaired because no one would be able to beat him up anymore.  Azusa was eventually brought to the orphanage.

At the orphanage, Azusa was frequently beaten by other children.  Azusa followed Ruki around often so that he could be beaten along with Ruki, much to Ruki’s disgust and initial confusion, but eventually he began to treat Azusa like a little brother.  Yuma was one of the first people who refused to beat Azusa and showed him kindness.  Yuma eventually introduced him to Kou, and all four became friends.  

When they attempted to escape the orphanage, it went south.  The resulting mess ended with Karlheinz turning the four into vampires in return for their service.  Azusa hadn’t minded the orphanage the way the others had, but he didn’t want to be separated from his brothers.  He’s loyal to Karlheinz for giving him a way to not be separated from his brothers after the escape went south.

CURRENT. The Mukamis have made themselves known to Eve and must make the choice to continue to attempt to become Adam themselves, assist in one of the Sakamakis becoming “Adam” for their “Eve”, or steal her away for themselves and truly betray Karlheinz.

Verses

Brief summaries of the verses for Azusa along with potential links for those less familiar with Diabolik Lovers but still want to interact with him.  For the sake of keeping things clean, encouraging community-wide and cooperative storytelling in roleplay, and not letting things get too crazy, verses will be limited.  More may be made over time as needed.

Summaries:

| DL Anime | DL More Blood Anime | Haunted Dark Bridal | More Blood | (Coming Soon)

VERSE - MORE BLOOD RIVALS

*This verse will be typically be the default, 'main verse'. In this, it is assumed that Yui Komori is staying at the Sakamaki household with some version of the first game having taken place.  The second game is included with the idea that Yui stayed with the Sakamakis. Whether one of the Sakamaki’s, Azusa or one of his brothers winds up obtaining Eve, Azusa’s life continues.

Verse Details | Tag: #V; AZUSA; MORE BLOOD RIVALS

VERSE - MORE BLOOD

A verse where More Blood has certainly occured and Yui did not (at least initially) stay with the Sakamakis and instead is currently living with the Mukamis or was, until recently, still living with the Mukamis.  Rivalry abounds and attempts to procure Yui are likely.

Verse Details | Tag: #V; AZUSA; MORE BLOOD

VERSE - MISC.

Posts that could take place in the Sakamaki or Mukami verses but involve duplicates (whether Yui or others) in the same scene in a manner that would be hard to pass off as typical flow for those verses.  Also includes nearly ANY time fellow characters are staying at the mansion, otherwise we’d end up with verses of 20+ additional characters hanging out in the Sakamaki villa.  

Verse Details | Tag:#V; AZUSA; MISC

SITUATIONAL VERSE TAGS

#V; AZUSA; UNIVERSAL

Posts that can easily be assumed to have occured in either verse, typically answering asks, etc. that aren’t directly related to events unique to their timelines.

#V; AZUSA; WHAT IFS & #V; AZUSA; ONESHOTS

Likely reserved for one-off threads exploring a “what if”, a romantic meme that would otherwise be inappropriate, etc.  If a meme doesn’t quite fit with one of the existing timelines, it’ll get one of these.

Trivia

Usually refers to Yui as “Yui-san” or “Eve”

Names the wounds he repeatedly inflicts on himself after Justin, Melissa and Christina

Avid knife collector

Weak to heat

Is able to sleep standing up

Tags

THREAD / WRITING TAG: #echoes in the halls; azusa

HEADCANONS:  #hc; dialovers; azusa

IMAGES: #itt // azusa mukami

MUSIC:  #music; dialovers; azusa