#ravage of red lamp

[ariadne-mouse]

[samcat18]

This candela obscura party continues to absolutely knock it out of the park, character/party comp is fantastic and these players gel so well and bounce off each other, and the mysteries matt is presenting are really interesting?? Especially this one is such a who-dunnit, i'm fascinated 🤩

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

to leave the blood stay in the veins

monster!könig x f!rcursed!reader (no use of 'y/n') 6.6k words NSFW!

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT‼️CW: extremely NSFW, descriptions of gore, implied consumption of human flesh by a non-human monster, mention of necrotic curse, monsterfucking, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, knotting (no omegaverse), outdoor sex, ambiguous ending, pre-established relationship, 0% proofread, könig and reader are both fucking unhinged.

Day 01 of the Haunted Hoedown Challenge by @/inklore

taboo au (monsterfucking) + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into." + oh no i'm dating the town serial killer

There is a beast in the woods, and it leaves so little meat on the bone that not even carrion birds find value in the corpses it leaves behind.

It’s a strange town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, full of little sicknesses hiding in the corners, and you learned them well when you moved here. No one goes past the treeline at night. Hardly anyone is outside of home if they can help it. Tourists are the beast’s fodder.

Your boyfriend thinks it’s funny. 

König, under his ever-present hood–a not altogether uncommon sight in your town, people come here when they have something to hide, something they are uncomfortable with or find hideous in themselves, and he has given an unimaginable amount for you out of love–laughs, sharp in the tooth.

“Anyone dumb enough to head into the trees is dumb enough to die,” he teases, but there is an arrogance and a contempt swimming deep in his bloodshot blue eyes. 

“That’s coldblooded, but not wrong,” you tell him, from behind your own mask. Plain thing, blank in expression, modeled from the one from Eyes Without A Face. It covers the ravages of a curse, numb necrosis slowly spreading up your face through the years. “I still want you to get me a gun.”

“What’s a gun going to do against a thing like that?” he asks, tilting his head, the hood bagging off the curled horns that start at his temples and sweep back over his ears. “Something like that, you need silver. I’ll get you a knife. Big one. Nice and fucking sharp, Schatzi.”

The knife isn’t a comfort when the beast begins to hunt in town. It stalks from house to house, preying on people in their beds, their living rooms, their bathtubs–there is no rhyme or reason, not a whit of discernable pattern. 

Only teeth-gouged bones and viscera ground into wall, tile, and carpet alike. Your neighbor falls victim, and you watch the police from your window, flinching when a veteran officer stumbles out into the fall-frosted grass to vomit, sobbing and pulling his hair.

“It got Emil,” you say, still watching through your sheer curtains. 

König nearly cackles from your bed, lounging as he visits. “Good. Emil was a piece of shit. Depperte Fut.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, over your shoulder, before returning back to the circus in the yard next door. “‘Stupid cunt’ is a pretty strong insult. He was an asshole, but I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” you mumble.

“You don’t know all that much about your neighbors, Schatzi.”

You begin to rock side-to-side on your hips, the enormous silver blade König gifted you turning over and over in your hands, the point digging lightly into your palm. 

It’s insane, the way you begin to tell yourself that you’ve seen König’s face nearly everyday for the last two years—you can see it right now. He lies on your bed, pointed teeth gleaming under his split philtrum in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamp and the red-blue flash of the cruisers. You know there is a man under the hood, however odd and satyr-seeming.

And yet. And yet.

The blade digs a little too deep, drawing a curse-blackened bead of blood. König’s eyes burn into the back of your neck, and you can only guess his horizontal pupils dilate into black holes. 

Just quit your job. I’ll take care of you.

It’s a simple enough promise, and one you know König will keep, but not one you’re willing to make. You have few shreds of independence, hard-bought through years of fighting back against misfortunes and setbacks, and, no matter the depths with which you love him, you’re not willing to trade your shit wage on faith for love of a man. It doesn’t matter how helplessly besotted he is. 

It’s this molar-cracking grit that delivers you right to the beast. Because you were forced to pick up an extra half shift at the hotel to fold towels behind the front desk, because you needed the money, because you wanted to pay back your beautiful, bloodthirsty boyfriend for the ridiculous blade he begat you. 

The god forsaken thing lumbers down a deserted street, blocks from your little rental, and something fucking horrendous seizes you. It’s enormous, walking on cloven hooves and back-bent legs. Its arms are too fucking long, clawed, jagged. And worst is the skull, bleached white and glowing like a beacon in the dark, an enormous rack of brutally sharp horns dripping trinkets of bone and gold that glints in the street lamp it approaches. 

A horrible fact hits you. It’s not lumbering, it’s wandering. Putting a massive, craggy hand on fences and peering into houses, taking its time, evaluating. You swear you can almost hear it humming. 

You don’t know when your hand found the handle of the silver blade strapped to your belt under your coat, but the leather on the grip bites your palm with the force of your grip, a nauseous, cold sweat terror tearing apart your ability to think. 

It’s a primal fear, one that makes you want to protect your soft, vulnerable neck, even if the blood that warms it runs venomous. 

It’s a bad choice, but there are no good ones. When the beast lifts its head and scents the air, skull snapping your direction and shaking its grisly trophies, you run. You snap the huge blade off your hip and drop into a dead sprint, cutting between yards, trying to escape the horrendous bellow that reverberates through the bony chambers of the monster’s skull.

Choosing to run instead of freezing maybe bought you a few extra minutes before death decided it was time to seize your pulse in reclamation, and it hurts. The physical exertion it takes to bomb through the last stretches of suburbia before the forest closes in feels like you are breaking every bit of your body by forced choice, listening to that awful fucking thing chase after you. 

Your blade makes a slicing sound cutting through the air at your side, the monster’s hooves pound the dirt as it digs in and chases after you, but, good god, it doesn’t sound like it’s even trying.

You don’t dare look back, pushing your body past agony, your lungs shredding in your chest. You’ve never moved this fast, you’ve never run this hard for this long. Your body is TV static—hissing, popping, distant—and, insanely, the urge to cry drills into your eye sockets.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to fucking die, stupidly and dumbly and pointlessly, because you wanted to pay your boyfriend a stupid sum of fucking money, for a stupid fucking knife that he bought you on a stupid fucking joke. 

Two meters from the second worst decision of your life, the monster snaps out, rough hand between your shoulder blades, crashing you into the goddamned dirt. Your eyebrow splits on a tree root, your eyes roll in the back of your head, your hand stays manically tight on the blade, slicing your other arm. 

“Schaaaatzi,” the miserable fucking thing hisses, pressing that same hand between your shoulder blades, pinning you into the freezing dirt. 

Oh, god, no, it has König’s voice. It’s—it’s not him, but it has his voice, thin and washed out as low-hung fog, but you would know that voice. In hell, in high water, in the dirt with a massive, bark-rough hand grinding your skin raw through your coat—you - know - his - voice. 

Furiously, you slash the blade over your head, behind your back, screaming and digging your feet in the dirt. For a brief second, as you hack at the wood of the monster’s hand and wrist, you’re even able to push yourself off the ground by mere inches. The beast growls and shoves you back down twice as hard, knocking the wind out of you, spasming your hand open. The knife drops, and you begin to blindly try digging and dragging yourself away. 

“Stop…hurting…me,” the beast lows, still in your boyfriend’s voice, and you imagine a bathtub full of gnawed bones, a living room with scattered body parts, your kitchen smeared with blood like cave wall art, and you start to scream as loud as your lungs will allow, your mask filling with dirt in your horrendous and futile bid to escape. Bloody murder bellows, filled with rage, wanting to kill and consume and conflagrate.

If König is dead, you will take your pound of flesh. You will either die fighting, or win, and you will hack apart this freak-fuck’s corpse to burn in your woodstove to warm your home. You’ll mount its fucking skull on your front door, so anything else in these woods will know you won’t hesitate to make trophies of them either. 

Bone, warm to the touch, presses against the back of your head. When it breathes, the air is as hot as exhaust, almost scalding your back. “Schatzi,” it bids you slowly once again.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” it rips your throat raw to shriek it, reaching back and almost dislocating your arms to rip at anything you can. Your hands fall on the dressings attached to its horns, you tear off a vertebra, and a gold wedding band, and a bracelet of rave kandi in plastic beads. “IF YOU HURT HIM, I’LL YOU FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The head presses harder, driving your face into the dirt. There is something desperate in the pressure. It spits all at once, grating and wide in a voice you know better than your own, “You pissed off a fucking witch, because you ran out of riddles to tell her, when she was ransoming you to your arshloch grandmother. She never paid. That’s why you were cursed—no one gave a fuck. But I gave her my face for you, to stop it halfway, better than fucking nothing.”

Your rage freezes immediately, your chest heaving under the weight it presses down on you. 

No one knows that. Only König. He’s the only person who would know about his lonely and quiet climb up to the Scottish highlands. Besides you, and the witch, König is the only one who would know why his human face was distorted, malformed, made animalistic. 

“Lee?” you pant, unleashing part of his first name, the only one he ever tolerates. And, fuck, instantly the pressure pulls away, the skull rubbing against your back to soothe it.

“It’s me, Schatzi,” the slow voice promises, nuzzling you. There’s rustling above you that you don’t dare turn to see. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

A tinkling piece of jewelry lowers in front of your eyes, and you can see that it dangles from an enormous, ligneous finger. You’re being shown a sterling silver charm bracelet. You’re being shown your bracelet, the one you thought you had lost months ago. 

Your hand shoots out, wrapping around the finger, the peeling bark shearing off under your grip. You find instantly that you can pull yourself up on your hip, sitting, caged and protected under the beast’s massive body—under König’s massive body. 

He shifts back onto his digitagrade haunches, holding himself over you, still offering your bracelet. He shudders at your touch on his hand, and you imagine that he may’ve never been handled with kindness in this shape. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Because he fucking kills and eats people.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, staring dead into the hollow sockets of his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably, turning his head. “Why—you have me so fucked up—what have you been thinking—?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to—”

“Yes, I have to, fucker.” It’s impossible to wrap your head around the magnitude of what a simple secret and a silver bracelet has done to your understanding of the world. A complete unraveling—upheaval, utterly. 

You take the bracelet from his finger, on which it fits like a ring, and push it into your wrist, sitting up on your knees and grabbing him by the underside of his jaw. Though it puts you in his blind spot, staring dead center at the sinus dimples between his eyes, it feels like you have a mote of power over him. 

(If he were asked, he would say the power you hold over him could corrupt, absolutely. He would badly like you to ask someday.)

“Why are you—what are you? Have you always been like this? Or was this new, with the fucking witch? Are—Jesus Christ—why are—the monster isn’t supposed to come into town, why are you in TOWN?” you run off at the mouth, words stalling and crashing and fusing together as your thoughts overwhelm just how quickly you can speak. 

And up from that impossibly deep throat–simultaneously from the center of your brain, and from all around you all at once–crawls König’s pitchy hyena-laugh, edged, always, with cruelty. He butts the jagged end of his nasal cavities into your stomach, catching on the threads of your sweater. 

“Leshy, Schatzi, say it for me.”

Your hands pull his jaw closer, digging the bone into your stomach, wondering if he can feel the pressure of your deep breathing. Oh, fuck, you could crack. This is your König. You start to wonder how many of his perverse buttons you can hit, the part of you that felt shame for your attraction to what the world discarded as ‘ugly’ long ago removed from your emotional bank.

“Leshy,” you say, really leaning into the word, saying it deep in your chest. One of your hands travels the long length to the hinge of his jaw, gripping tight, directing his head to turn so you can meet one of his empty eyes. “Answer my fucking questions.”

The laugh doesn’t come this time. In its place is a near-violent whole-body shudder that wracks through you. 

“Old! Alwaaays been this way,” and even in the strange disconnect of his voice from his physical form, you can tell his arousal is eating away at him in big bites–clipping his speech, broiling his brain with body heat, “can’t remember ever being young, haa-haa. And why do you think I’m hunting in town?”

Another trap, a stupid pop quiz, wanting to test your knowledge of him, or a gotcha! to check your observations and what you had missed.

Your hands get tighter, and you pull his jaw open, marveling at the sharp grooves ground into his teeth, like nightmarish, ivory rook pieces, tall and straight in the dry sockets. His chest begins to heave, his breath fogging into steaming clouds over your hands, and, remarkably, it smells like nothing at all apart from pin needles and snow.

You’d thought you’d smell decaying flesh or rotten blood. The only blood you can smell comes from your own busted brow and sliced arm, crusting black on your skin and in the fabric of your sweater as it coagulates.

“If I was working on a hunter’s instincts, I would say that Schladming has become too good at keeping people out of the forests. Even during daylight hours. It cuts down on prey,” you say, ice cold and clean as a slit throat. Your eyes flick back up to the socket, surrounded by the feeling that those glass-blue eyes of his humanoid form are drilling into you. He’s waiting for you to hit the hook. “But I’m working on your logic.”

“Oh, yeeaah,” he drawls, his hips shifting, and you feel as if he would bite his lips in anticipation now, if he could. 

“Oh, yeeaah,” you echo him, “the logic of a fucking crazy asshole.” He feels like a huge grin, hands on his muscular, bunched, and flexing thighs. That detail is not lost on you. “You’re hunting in town because you’re pissed off. You reached a limit, and you got tired of sitting on your fucking reaction.”

You swear to god he moans a little. Just softly. It could be a breath, but you know him too well to dismiss it out of hand. 

“That’s good, Schatzi. I like that. I like that you figured that out,” he says, definitely panting in rhythm now, his fogging breath giving away the rhythm secondary. “People are looking at you too much. I don’t fucking like it when they look at you too much.”

That’s a sudden thought that had not occurred to you, and you lash yourself silently because it hadn’t. König has always been possessive of you. Jealous. Protective. And he held grudges in ways that could spark blood feuds and successive generations of death.

Like a curse.

It’s a testament to how fucking cracked and perfectly matched the two of you are that you start laughing, stroking his orbital bones in big, pleased pats, kissing the bridge of his nose. 

“Schatzi, please,” he groans, pressing into you insistently. “Promise you won’t tell. Promise me.”

“Why the fuck would I tell?” you laugh, losing track of your faculties, your very sense. What does it matter? What does it all even mean? You’ve found a man that loves you so deeply and truly and twistedly that he slaughters those who desire or deign you. You’ve found, and fallen in love with a man that would sell his face to save as much of yours as he could. “Who the fuck would I tell?”

The slope of his shoulders relaxes, and he moves closer to you, once again shielding you with the massive bulk of his body, warming you in the cold air. Tucked under his chin, you can study the soft suede-like material of his body, how the bark covering his arms gives way to a ruff of dense, double-layered fur around his shoulders and his long, muscular neck. 

The rest of the muscle on him is horrendously hard, flexed like steel cabling under a layer of fat. There is something about this body that reminds you of the shape of the human one so well–long legs, a nipped waist, and flat hips built to strut and rock, all of it buttressing a broad set of shoulders.

You press your face into the ruff, pushing your fingers into it. Dear god, your hand goes deeper and deeper, and it just never seems to stop. His scent is–it’s almost familiar. He’s in there, somewhere–his musk, the metallic tang of blood seemingly sunken into his skin–but there’s so much more to it. Green, and earthy, almost like soil and moss. 

A sound comes from his body, like a house settling. A deep, broad creak. The trophies on his horns rattle together, clinking like dull wind chimes. “More,” he says simply, leaving you to figure it out. Simple enough.

Your hand drops from the ruff, tracing over his convex chest, down to his stomach. Another shudder, and he pulls those big arms around your entire body, a fuller, more protective hug than you’ve ever felt. 

“Schatzi–would you let me…” he breathes, a heaving sigh. 

Another laugh cracks out of you, hysterical, constricted by your mask. Why not? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve always been a woman that loves monsters. You, yourself, are one. You can’t find a reason to halt your hands, nor your body, nor his desire.

In an odd show of tip-to-tail, you push the mask off your face, and kick off your boots, going for your zipper. “Yeah. Yeah, honey, come on. Show me,” you urge him, pawing at his massive waist as you struggle out of your jeans. 

He groans and this obscene trill escapes his body–a low, rattling moan that travels miles through every cell of your body, his legs spreading wider. You laugh in delight and mania, watching rapt as his cock slides out of a sheath you hadn’t even caught sight of, his monstrous body a foreign land you hadn’t traveled yet, but, fuck, do you want to learn the lands well enough to call them home. 

It’s heavy in your hands, a little slick, and, childishly, you almost giggle (holy shit, that is a sound that has never left your mouth in your living memory, and yet, here you are). It’s hot, hotter than you expected, and a vulnerable shade of pale, like a plant slip. Oh, and it’s elegant, almost spiraling. He huffs as you stroke the length of it, pushing your fingertips into his sheath at the base. 

“I don’t think this is gonna fit,” you warn him, and it somehow feels as if you’re challenging yourself with the statement.

He takes it as a challenge for himself, though, and an aspiration to hold for you, “You are going to take all of it. I’m going to make sure.”

His massive hand comes to the back of your waist, finding your fulcrum without needing to search, pulling you off your knees to hold to beneath him. “You naked yet, or still fucking around?” he asks, breathing heavily, and you shove your jeans off the rest of the way. 

“You’re being a little bitch,” you snipe, a dumb swipe at reclaiming dignity after you realize you’re so wet that it slicks your thighs, having darkened the crotch of your freshly abandoned jeans pathetically. 

He throws another coarse laugh, haa-haa, shifting his massive body long, pulling you into place. 

It’s on you, then, to figure out the logistics. Somehow, it just works, even through layers of physical translation. Under your hands, he reads König, loud and clear. 

There’s a brief, flighty moment of terror as you rub the head of his cock between the lips of your cunt, rolling your hips to stimulate your clit against it. It is just fucking enormous, almost half again the size of his human cock. But then you grit your teeth, tipping your weight back so your shoulders rest against the dirt, bleak and unyielding ruthlessness seizing your mind.

You do not back down, you have never done it once in your life, and tonight is no different. 

His head lifts, bottom jaw dropping, and he bays as you push yourself down on his length. The sound crashes into you, rocking your entire body, and the stretch burns, but you buckle down. What are the people in the houses just at the edge of suburbia thinking? Has the fucking abberation that has been slowly killing its way through their number taken to a different form of punishment? Has someone unlucky fallen to its new tastes?

It cuts your mouth into a horrid grin. If they only knew that you were no victim at all, if only they had an inkling of the fact that you are a victor. That you are the hand holding this nightmare’s collar, and he attacks for the sake of you.

Inch by inch, a slow journey, he fills you, pressing completely against your walls, body shaking with the effort it takes not to thrust fully into you. Oh, what destruction that would result in, what a wreckage that would make of your body, what lengths he would go to not ruin you in such a fashion.

“Fuck–fuck–Liebes,” he mutters, just for you, the moment he is as deep in you as he can go, most of his length still outside of what your body can handle, pleading, “I can’t–I. I have to move. Please, meine Liebes.”

“Go. Go-go-go,” you answer back, almost frantic, too full and occupied, needing motion or you might split apart into atoms. The way he answers is instant, undeniable, desperate, rocking into you as if testing waters, going faster as if he finds them warm and welcoming. 

You lose yourselves to it, and your eyes threaten to roll back into your head, gripping onto the elbow of the arm suspending you, blood rushing to your head in an ache from the way you hang off him, forcing you lightheaded. Sap-like blood from where you’d hacked at him in rage drips down your arm, your waist, clinging to your skin in a way that feels permanent. 

He tenses all around you, panting, clouds of steam fogging the air over your head from his pants. Words escape him, leaving nothing but animalistic grunts, the grinding of his dry, exposed teeth as your desperate pussy sucks him deeper and tighter.

You’d taught him as a human to find your g-spot, to destroy your brain with a steady climb, and he doesn’t even need to search now, every movement pressing every inch of his cock into it, and unrelenting onslaught that makes you shake and nearly drool, being fucked like a sacrifice. 

König raps his other fist above your head and pulls out without warning, shaking his head and breathing roughly. 

You imagine brutally grabbing him by the scruff and biting his ear–what kind of punishment would that even be, no worse than a bug bite to him, more likely than anything else–for the loss of his cock. Mostly just an impulsive fantasy, too barbaric and stupid to actually act upon, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, and it feels like hell to be split open against him with nothing inside you.

Breathless–and naked, sweating, and trembling in the woods–you start to sit up on your elbows, cunt throbbing. "What is it? Are you okay?" you ask, your love for him–your fear for him–overwhelming even your damnation-worthy starvation. 

König, massive and so dark he's almost indistinguishable from the night apart from his skull, shakes his head again and puts up a clawed hand. Fine, the gesture says, and you’re realizing he’s beyond words now, but trying his best to communicate. Then he curls it into a loose fist and pantomimes masturbating and finishing.

"Christ!" But you’re laughing, tugging at a tuft of fur on his chest, spun out in your giddiness. It’s still him, you’ve already known, but to see it. To find him through this–this utterly new reality. "They teach you that signal in the forces?"

In his hollow sockets, twisting his body to watch you closely, he looks pleased with himself, ducking forward, bracing on his free hand to one side of your head as he nuzzles into your neck and breathes deeply.

He huffs, rough fingers running over your back, claws trailing the parts of your spine he can reach as he holds you, before he taps the side of your thigh with his other hand. At your eye level, he turns his finger in a slow loop. Roll over, maybe? It's worth a shot.

"Okay. Alright," you sigh, relieved. When you try to roll in his palm, he shakes his head and sets you down, pressing down against your body, pushing his arm under your ribs. With his other hand, he gestures a flat line on the ground. You ask, "On my stomach?"

Two knocks against the ground next to your head. Yes.

You stretch out flat over the frost-crisp grass, too hot to even register the chill against your bare skin, and König lowers with you, sliding the arm under you down to your diaphragm. With his knuckles, he taps your outer-thighs until they're drawn back together, and your breathing hitches when you understand what he intends.

With his legs on the outside of yours, he uses his free hand to run his cock up the length of your seam to tease your pussy, but he takes his sweet time with it. Impatient, you slide onto your knees with near-perfect timing, driving your entrance against his head, snarling with indignation when he bows away. "Fucker!"

He rumbles something almost humanoid, between a laugh and a gruff, trilling ‘rrrr’ you recognize as cousin to a sharp, challenging hum he makes when faced with an idiot comment in his human shape.

"Stop teasing me. I can't stand it," you try instead, turning to give him big eyes over your shoulder because you know that it works well on him.

He bends down and barely-barely nips the top of your ear, a startling move that leaves you perfectly inflamed all over again again. Greedy brat, it says to you, so pleased in the fact he is so desperately wanted. 

The feeling of him inside you is extraordinary. He lubricates in this state, but you hardly need it with the nearly absurd way you’re wet, slick down your thighs. You wonder if your cunt is glimmering under the dim moon and streetlamps, because he'd said that to you once. Heilige sheiße, you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever fucking seen, could just stare at how wet you get for me forever, he'd laughed during one delirious, marathon session of staying sunken between your legs.

He begins to rock his hips, growling quietly and pleased at the wet sounds of your of cunt squelching around him–another sound he enjoys, a marker of pride, how wet can I make my girl get–settling onto his forearm and pressing a little weight against your back. 

He rests his head across your shoulders, burying his snout in your hair, breathing in hard-bought bursts of restraint.

"Yes, honey," you almost seethe, loosening your body, giving up a little of your own iron will to become just a little lost in the feeling of him. You relax your walls in a bid to take more of him, breathing tight, voice pitching up into a plea, "Yes, baby, that's perfect. That's so perfect, keep going. Just like that."

He rocks a little faster, thrusts a little deeper, breathes a little harder. The hand around your waist shifts up to your breast, but isn't dexterous enough to do more than give it an encompassing squeeze. 

With your thighs pressed together, you feel as if your body can't stretch properly to take as much of him as you want (and you want all of him, every burning hot inch, fucking him so well that he cannot disappear into one of his miseries where he will not let you follow, because they all live in his head). 

He ratchets back his speed, tries a new motion with his hips. He rolls instead of thrusting, a more fluid movement, brushing your insides in new ways that leave your swollen clit screaming for attention and your eyes watering. You breathe in ragged pants, fingers digging into the turf over your head, trying not to rip it with the force of your grip by the fistful.

You might cum. You might cum. You want to cum, and you might, and he's so much deeper now, panting hot as fire against your shoulders. You can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench and dance, his horns cutting the air in swipes of agitation above you, and he is so much this way. König: bigger, sometimes bloodier, but always so, so amplified.

"Honey, honey, honey," you whine in a chant under your breath, trying to ground yourself, trying to encourage him. You squeeze your thighs together for the extra stimulation, but you know you’re going to orgasm from him alone, no extra assistance needed. You’re just greedy, you just want it all, but you want him the worst.

When he pulls out this time, you snarl loud and gnash your teeth, digging your dirt-packed nails into his unyielding skin. You were full to the brim and on the wire-edge of climax, and he is so suddenly fucking gone it's almost as abrupt as violence. 

"KÖNIG!" you shout, his callsign cutting from between your teeth like the desire to slit a throat, shattering the quiet around you both, reeling to find him with your burning eyes. 

He collapses onto his side, cock jumping and leaking, and he whines deep in his throat, pulling at you with the flat of his hand. Your thigh, then his hip, your chest, then his–more hand signals, a story-told like a man with a sucking chest wound needing saving. He snakes his arm under you again, whining growing deeper, and you understand.

You roll, throwing your thigh over his hip, tucking tight against his chest. You give yourself one second of feeling cool air against your overheated pussy before you take him in hand and direct him home, and his deep, slick slide into you knocks the air out of your lungs like a punch to the solar plexus. 

You’re only seconds away, and he can't be much farther, driving his head under yours to give you something to rest on that isn't the ground.

You don't utilize his offering, craning your neck as if you'll somehow get a glimpse of your connection from this angle–flat against him from belly to breast, resting your cheek and forehead against his heaving chest. His whine turns into a series of small, strangled howls and gasps as your voice crawls from whimpering to keening.

You’ve known you were going to cum, but you’re still somehow surprised with yourself at how quickly it's raced up, and how overwhelming it feels like it's going to be. You feel like you’re going insane.

His other arm wraps your ribs, too, squeezing you to him like you’re the only thing in the world worth keeping close, and damn him for it. You don't know why, but damn him.

"Cum, baby, cum," you instruct, gasping when you aren't clenching your teeth. You curl close to him, as close as your body will allow, spreading your legs as wide as you can. You drive back down into his thrusts, giving as much of yourself as you can, taking as much of him as you’re able. 

You want it all–everything–every little bit of blood and bone that's built him into a home he offers only to you. "Cum in me. I'm ready, I want you to cum," you demand, finding it truer than true, finding yourself right on the razor-edge.

The command is all it takes. Three hard thrusts, and he's buried in you to the base, punching the wind out of your lungs, and filling you to the point of what feels like impossibility with his spend. It forces you to finish as well, lighting you up like a lightning storm, swallowing him deeper as you cum and cum like you'll never be able to stop, soaking the both of you. 

You gasp a raw-throated howl, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, and you praise him as his cock kicks and kicks, emptying everything he's got to give into you.

A pressure builds inside you, beginning nearly unpleasant, until something just gives and his knot anchoring him to you feels right. 

It feels special and dazzlingly intimate, and you’re boggled, again, with the knowledge you’re the only person in the world that he's ever shown himself to this way. It’s just a thing you know in your marrow, an immutable truth, like the sun setting in the west, or the cruelty of witches without their wants.

You wind down, sweating and panting and filthy in each other's arms, and you rock against him,  holding him inside, clenching around him what little you can. You feel so wonderfully safe, so immaculately powerful, so stupidly, crazily, fantastically in love.

When your combined breathing evens, and the knot between you retreats, you groan when König shifts back into his human form, but only for the resituating you both have to endure. 

The body against yours is familiar again, and you’re dreadfully sleepy, though you want to clean yourself and eat. You crave something raw, something bloody. You hunger the way an animal hungers after a hard fuck. His spend drips out of you now that his cock's returned to normal, and it forms a trail of cooling wet down the crease where your thigh meets your ass.

You feel lovely.

König laughs, rough and spent, tucking hair out of your face and kissing your closed eyelids. "Holy fucking shit, Schatzi," he marvels, looking at you like you are the only god that has ever mattered. 

Your smile cuts sharp, and your fingers find his pulse point, tracing it thoughtfully. “You hungry? I bet you're fucking starved,” is all you say in return, eyes trailing the way his hand finds the charm bracelet newly returned to your wrist, touching it like a token.

It’s late and dark when you both manage to stumble your way back to your rental. He stays close, needy and soft, his hand on your hip, tugging you into his body when he can, careful of not knocking into the big, silver knife you’d placed back in the scabbard on your belt. 

The hood is back on his head, rolled up to his nose, and his split mouth kisses against your neck and behind your ear, his eyes closed like he endures a waking dream. You, in your own filthied mask again, allow it, craning your neck to give him more room, anchoring him with an arm around his waist in return.

It is late now, and the neighborhood is silent. Again, you wonder what the quiet lives inside must be thinking–whether they think the crimes have increased into a new field of brutality, if they are fearing and wondering what body parts they will find at the treeline come dawn. 

You know they will not leave the safety of their homes to investigate. They would be stupid to do something like that.

“That shower is going to feel so goddamned good,” you mutter, unlocking your door, and he nods against your skin.

“Oh, yeeaah,” he says, and the familiarity of the phrase makes you hum a laugh, shutting your eyes as you push through the threshold. "Get that blood off your skin before it stains. Your poor face, your poor arm. Poor Schatzi."

He splits off from you with a facsimile of a kiss–your masks pressing together at the mouth–and he pinches your ass before he takes off to the kitchen, his stomach growling, not even bothering to take off his boots.

You, however, kick off your shoes, and pull together clean clothes, heading toward the bathroom in the hall, the one with the big shower, in case he decides to join you.

Sleepy and content, you listen to his boots move heavily over the kitchen tile, the sound of the fridge door hissing snickt as he pulls it open, and shoves things around in his search for food. You nearly sway up to the closed door–why is it closed, you barely manage to wonder–your eyelids lead-weighted.

It takes only one thing to make them snap open wide, your back going ramrod straight. A dark smear, curling around the knob, around the edge of the door where it seams to the jamb.

Cold grips your lungs, sending your heart galloping painfully in the cage of your ribs, wondering if it really is copper you smell, or if it is a trick of your mind. The hall is too dark to tell if the swipe on the white door is red or black–if it is blood, if it is König’s or yours. 

There is a presence at your back, and enormous hands on the door on either side of your head, so fast you cannot tell if you were even able to blink before you saw his wide, scarred, and knuckle-broken limbs spreading wide across the wood.

Your hand finds the grip of the knife, looking at the brutal gouges you had hacked into his forearm earlier in the night, and you are thinking faster and harder than you ever have in your life, realizing in a terrible microsecond that you will have to make a decision–that you will have to choose what reality you are willing to live with, or that you are simply mistaken. 

Either way, you are moments from learning.

“Something wrong, Schatzi?” your boyfriend’s familiar voice asks, low and raspy, hot against the nape of your neck.

The laugh in his tone is cruel, and you can’t tell whether it belongs to König, or something pretending to be him.

tag-list: @alittleposhtoad @bitchoftoji @dotcie @kastlequill @miyabilicious @moths569 @parttimeprophet @pssytrux <3

[krethes]

@wolfstarmicrofic - day 2: sir - words: 296 - rating: m

"Oi, where th'fuck is the runner for 6? Heat lamp's gonna cook this shit to med rare and I swear to fuck I'm not remaking it because he's fucked off somewhere!" "Easy, cujo, I'm here, I'm here! Stop your barking." He looks totally unbothered, pristine, refreshed. Not sweating buckets like Remus. Jackass. "About fuckin' time."  Remus doesn't shove the hot plate across the shelf at him, but only because the au jus is too good to waste. "Go." The server, an infuriating man Remus tries daily to forget the name of, salutes him mockingly. "Yes sir." "Yes chef," Remus grumbles after him. He never calls him chef, does it on fucking purpose, flitting about in his uniform, his tight black trousers that show off his ridiculous arse and waist-clutching black shirt, that slutty little vest with the silver buttons. Buttons that Remus plucks off with his teeth not even a week later when the pot finally boils over. He's got Sirius up against the grimy bricks in the smoking alley out back, his shirt rucked up by Remus's hands, his mouth kiss-bruised and red, his face the prettiest shade of pink as Remus ravages his way down to the damp bulge in those sinful trousers. Sirius bucks when Remus noses there, when he digs his teeth into the expensive fabric, a muzzled bite. A warning. A promise. He looks up at Sirius, at the fucked-out look on his face, and the devil in him practically purrs. "Want me to suck it?" he asks, feeling Sirius's cock pulse under his palm. Sirius meets his eyes, steady on for the shambles he's already in, and the smirk on his lips could drive Remus to murder. He knows now he'd do anything for this fucking arsehole. Fuck. "Yes, chef."

[greetingfromthedead]

8. Death's Mercy

Series: Apple Blossoms Pairing: Knives x GN!Reader Word count: 3k

« Previous | Next »

The tent is filled with heavy breaths as the canvas doesn't keep out the scorching air, making the people, who are already in bad shape, gasp for breath. Sweat drips from their brows, fevers ravaging their meek bodies. It is hard to watch and even harder to ignore, but you turn your back anyway. The guilt gnaws at you as you set up the gas burner on a rickety old table and fill a pot with water you brought with you. Knives lingers next to you, watching as you go through some of the bags with your own supplies, pulling out vials and packets that you will need to prepare the venom. Carefully you start measuring powders and liquids into the simmering pot, the clear water turning cloudy as you add the ingredients. The man beside you steps back, but you don't look, instead just listening to the footsteps as they leave.

Knives chooses to walk to the other side of the tent. The lamps from last night are put out, and the dim light filling the space creeps in through the cracks of the canvas, turning the sunshine a dull orange. He watches the people lay on the mats with their faces red and swollen, yet their bodies appear starved and thin. Bandages peek out from under their tattered clothing, hinting at wounds that will never heal. He wonders if he looked as helpless and miserable as these people do. After all, from what you've said, it sounds like they are in a very similar condition than what he was in.

He doesn't even realize that he has squatted down next to an elderly man to get a closer look. The wrinkled face is filled with silent suffering, the bushy eyebrows in a deep frown as his whole face crunches in due to something he must be dreaming of. The man's eyes are closed tightly, lost in his own world. He is still tall, but age and famine have left just a skeleton behind. Suddenly his eyes shoot open, his gaze scanning quickly left and right before stopping on Knives's face. The old man grabs hold of his hand with surprising strength, the bony fingers clutching tightly.

"My son! You've come for me? Is it finally time?" The old man takes a deep and ragged breath before continuing with the same hopeful tone of voice: "How I have waited for you, night and day! Please take me with you to see the good Lord! Relieve me from this suffering and pain."

Knives is taken aback, surprised by both the request of the old man and being called someone's son. It feels like a blade twisting somewhere in his gut. He doesn't know what to say or what to do. His voice catches in his throat as he searches for words to respond, but you already kneel down beside him, shifting the old man's gaze from him to yourself.

"Doc?" the man mumbles weakly, clearly confused. "Help me."

"I will," you promise solemnly, putting a cup into his shaking hand that releases Knives's. "Drink this. It'll help with the pain."

Knives stands up again, taking a long step backward to watch as you take his place without looking at him. You seem so sure of yourself. Confident in your decision, calm in the face of someone who is clearly dying a slow and painful death. Your hands don't shake, unlike his, as you help the man drink from the cup, lifting his head just like you had done with Knives when he was too weak to do anything at all.

"Go clean your hands," you instruct him firmly, barely turning your head to speak to him.

Knives doesn't know what to do anyway, so he takes your advice and slowly walks away towards the table where he pours some of the distilled alcohol over his hands, watching as the liquid drips off onto the ground as he rubs it over his skin, his fingers still trembling from something he himself doesn't quite understand. He hides his hands in the hoodie's pockets, not wanting you to see them and not wanting to think about the reason they won't stop shaking. He still feels the way the man's fingers squeezed his, the desperate plea they conveyed. It reminds him of the way you had grabbed his hand earlier; you too felt desperate, but for very different reasons. The concern he recognized in your voice and eyes was the same you displayed while taking care of him. The same kind of determination to keep him alive.

It bothers him that you're taking over his thoughts again. You always worm your way into his mind. Everything you do threatens to drive him crazy. Every time he gets even the slightest feeling that he understands you, you do the opposite of what he expects. He watches from a far corner of the tent as you walk between the pot and the patients to administer each one some of the liquid that he knows has worm venom in it. Your expression is serious, yet every time you speak to one of the people here, he sees softness and kindness in your eyes. Your voice is comforting and reassuring, even if it is answering a plea for death.

After seeing the last patient, you return to the pot to add more venom to it, turning it slowly with the metal ladle until Knives comes back to your side.

"Would you stir this until it starts boiling and then bottling it?" you ask and point at some empty vodka bottles.

"Alright" Knives answers and takes the ladle from your hand.

"Thanks," you shift away to gather the supplies you will need from the different crates.

"What are you going to do?" Knives wonders aloud.

"Going to get them all cleaned up."

"What for?"

"Because their families will want to say their goodbyes before they go, and the people here deserve to go out with as much dignity as I can give them, and it helps keep safe those who aren't infected yet." you speak as you continue to pick up bandages and cloth.

"Isn't that a waste of resources?" Knives asks.

"Perhaps. But it's important to me."

"So you currently gave them just enough poison to help them sleep and not feel pain?"

"Yes. I don't want them to suffer anymore. They will get the chance to say farewell with as much comfort as I can provide, and then... I will give them the medicine you are stirring up. That way they get to pass peacefully and painlessly."

"Why not continue giving them what you just did?" Knives doesn't understand.

"Mercy." You sigh heavily. "If I continue with the same dose, it will kill them anyway. It will cause organ failure and damage their mind. Not to mention, we will need the venom to treat others. If you think I take any pleasure or satisfaction from this, I don't. I do what I can and what I am asked to do. You're welcome to think I am cruel."

"I don't," Knives says quietly, turning his eyes to the simmering liquid in the pot to avoid meeting your gaze.

The look Knives saw in your eyes for the rest of the night made a pit form in his stomach. He saw the helplessness and pain in them as you watched people come and go from the tent to say their final goodbyes. It was heartfelt and touching, but all he could focus on was your silent suffering. The weight of their grief and loss was almost suffocating in the space, yet you kept comforting both the dying and the ones left behind. Together with Jenny's help, you guided everyone through the difficult decisions and the burdens that come with them. No complaint left your lips, not even a heavy sigh as you carried the weight of their pain with grace and compassion.

It was a long night. You tried to send him away to go to sleep, but Knives refused with an indifferent scoff. He couldn't rip himself from this agonizing display: the suffering of humanity and their fragile bodies. One by one, he watched the weak flames die out, accompanied by the cries of those who are left to suffer despite what you call mercy. And if that wasn't enough, the same people came to thank you, tears still streaming down their faces as they expressed their gratitude for killing the people closest to them. Humans are strange. Perhaps they do take satisfaction in death and suffering. But your eyes will continue to haunt him. There was nothing but sorrow in them.

You returned to the inn together. You spoke no words, and neither did he. A heavy silence sticks to both of you. As soon as you enter the guesthouse, the receptionist stands up from her seat and addresses you, but as she gets no answer, she falls silent. Knives notices the tray of food in front of the innkeeper, clearly meant for two, untouched. You don't hear anything but the ringing in your ears. Your limbs and eyes feel heavy; your only goal is to go to bed and put this day behind you. While you continue up the stairs, Knives stops, first watching you leave and then turning to the woman behind the table.

"I heard… about the people," the woman says softly, hesitant with every word. "I got some food for the both of you. It's the least I can do. If you don't mind… would you take it with you?"

She grabs the platter and offers it to Knives. He looks at the tray and the woman, not suspiciously, but with curiosity. She offered breakfast too in a similar manner, free of charge. It seems strange to Knives; the usually greedy and selfish people in his head would never offer something for free.

"I will take it," he finally says, not with any particular emotion, before taking the tray and heading to the stairs. He stops on the landing without looking back. "Thank you."

By the time he makes it to the top of the stairs, the hallway is empty, and the doors to the different rooms are all closed. He walks over to the one that belongs to your room and is about to push it open when he hears sobs coming from inside. His hand hovers over the doorknob, unsure of what to do next, but he decides to pull away. With the tray still in hand, he turns around and leans his back against the metal that separates you from him. Knives feels like it is hard to breathe, almost like something heavy is sitting on his chest and closing their fingers around his neck. He still wears the mask, and he blames it for the lack of air, but he knows you wouldn't want him to walk around without it, so he makes do. He stands by the door, unable to shut out the way you cry.

"Excuse me," a small voice speaks up. Knives didn't even hear anyone approach. As he looks down, he sees an elderly woman. "This is the doctor's room, isn't it? I was hoping to get the chance to say thanks."

"Doc's not taking any walk-ins at the moment," Knives speaks calmly, still standing by the door like a sentry for the second time in one day.

"It will only take a moment," the granny insists.

"No. Not tonight. Anything you want to say now, you can say tomorrow," he stands firm, putting more gravity into each word. He isn't even quite sure why, but he refuses to have anyone walk in on you like this.

"Very well," the old woman says with a sigh, clearly disappointed, and heads back towards the stairs, where she stops and turns back. "You know, your eyes, my boy, they remind me so much of my long gone son's. They are the same pale blue of the early morning sky. The same as my husband's, whom I lost today. Thank you for reminding me of them."

Knives is shocked by her words and focused on the echoing footsteps on the metal stairs, the distinct click of a cane hitting the steps with each slow and deliberate movement. He doesn't even notice that your room has fallen silent. As you push down the handle, it sends a jolt through the rest of the door, alerting Knives that you're about to open it. He steps away and turns around to see your puffy face appear in the crack. He notices the wet stains on your sleeve where you wiped away your tears. You look around the hallway.

"Who were you talking to?" you ask him.

"Nobody," he replies, his gaze lingering on your face.

"Why didn't you come in?"

"I didn't want to interrupt." Knives shrugs one shoulder slightly, committed to looking as careless as he can.

"Sure, but you can interrupt me all you want; after all, it's your room too." You step more into the chamber, opening the door wider for him. "Come on in."

Knives steps inside, his eyes moving over the dimly lit space. He notices the cloth you had around your face earlier. It lays on the carpet as if thrown aside. The space in front of the bed is littered with the contents of one of your first aid kits.

"I was going to take your stitches out, but…" you sigh, looking at the mess. "I'll clean it up."

"No." Knives says resolutely, capturing your gaze as the door closes behind him, leaving the room in darkness, except for the shaft of moonlight intruding through the window. He steps closer, the pale light creeping up over his body. He reaches out the tray of food.

"I don't…" you begin to protest.

"You need to eat," he interrupts you. "Do you need me to get creative with feeding you?"

He remembers how you kept pushing him to eat even when he didn't want to. You kept insisting, even threatening him. So he echoes your own sentiment, as it is the only thing he can think to do. You look up at his stern eyes and then back at the outstretched tray before wiping your face again and taking the food. With Knives's hands finally free, he pulls the mask off, taking a deep breath, but his chest still feels restricted. Uncertainty lingers on his mind; he shouldn't care about any of this. Not about the people, not about what you did, and certainly not about you. He should not take it on himself to cater to what you need, especially when you don't even want any of it. Yet he can't resist the itch.

While you go to sit by the small table, Knives walks over to the bed and squats down to pick up the plasters, bandages, and tools that lay about. He places each of them on the edge of the bed until he picks up the bag that used to hold them. He sees the ripped seam by the zipper, threads hanging out from the fabric. He carefully examines the bag, realizing that you must have used quite a lot of force while pulling at the stuck zipper, clearly frustrated by the events of the day. Knives adjusts so he sits on the floor, back resting against the frame of the bed. He doesn't know how to repair the bag, so he simply stuffs it with the supplies that escaped earlier.

You finish your share, only now realizing the ravaging hunger within you that was awakened by the delicious food in front of you. The rest is Knives's, but you can't help eyeing what's his.

"Go on, eat as much as you want," he says, looking up at you from the floor. He sits in the shadow, away from the puddle of moonlight on the floor, yet you see the reflection of his eyes shining back at you.

"I can't. It's yours," you protest.

"All you've done for as long as I have been stuck with you is make sacrifices. For once, be selfish; eat the food." You reluctantly pick up his food and take a small bite, feeling guilty for indulging in something you don't believe to be yours, but the heavy sorrow of the day quickly overwhelm those feelings.

"I don't understand," Knives finally admits. "Why did you waste so many resources to save me? I wasn't doing much better than the people from today, was I? Yet you pulled every trick you could for a sliver of hope. Why didn't you do to me what you did for them?"

"I don't know," you say, but Knives realizes the lie in those words. He chooses not to dwell on the matter for tonight. Silence falls over the small room again until you finish most of the food that's left, handing Knives the leftover apple, his fingers brushing yours as he takes it.

"About the sleeping arrangement," you begin, but Knives shakes his head.

"You get the bed. I'll take one of the mats we used on the way here," he insists, leaning his head back to look at the ceiling while taking a bite from the apple.

"No, I mean that it is a wide bed. There's plenty of room for both of us. I don't mind. I would feel bad if you gave up the bed just for me, unless you disagree with my proposal."

"Alright," he says almost dryly while chewing.

"Alright," you echo lightly, "I'll get ready for bed."

Knives doesn't look away from the ceiling as you pick up some clothes and head for the door to go to the shared bathroom at the end of the hallway.

"Also. Nothing about saving you was a waste," you say quietly before pulling the door shut after yourself.

Knives sighs deeply, unsettled by the mix of feelings bubbling inside him.

« Previous | Next »

You can check out the Apple Blossoms Masterlist for more info.

Did you like this? Go check out my MASTERLIST and drop a follow for any and all future projects!

[love-kurdt]

Don't Blame Me (byler): 6

word count: 5,568

warnings for this chapter: all hell breaks loose. check end notes for spoiler-related warnings. this is semi-autobiographical so pls be kind <3

in short: if you are emotionally or mentally vulnerable, please dni.

1.

In the yellow aura of the lamp on the nightstand, Mike sat on Will’s bed with an unused landline phone in his hand, stolen from El’s old room while Hopper and Joyce slept unaware. It had been a rough day; homesickness had ravaged him with the likeness of a Medieval plague. He’d put off calling Will, hoping he wouldn’t come off as too clingy or needy, but the more time passed, the lonelier he felt.

He checked his watch– 02:04. Not too unlikely of a time for Will to be awake. He decided to dial the number, their number, exhaling with a shaky breath as the ringback tone began, one dull beep after another.

“Mike?”

Relief flooded him at the sound of Will’s voice. Mike smiled, the tightness in his throat easing. “Hey, love,” he said, not even surprised at how easily the term of endearment escaped him, “How’d you know it’d be me?”

From the other end came a soft chuckle. “I have my ways. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah… well, no,” Mike confessed, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m just– I’ve been going through it today.”

“What’s going on?”

“This orderly, Brad… he’s an asshole. He’s homophobic, but it’s Hawkins, so I get it. But he’s always targeting me. For my long hair, tight jeans… talking about you.”

“Have you brought it up to anyone else?” Will asked, immediately concerned. Always offering up solutions. God, Mike missed him.

“No, it doesn’t really feel like it’s worth it,” Mike admitted, shrugging even though Will couldn’t see it. “Plus, Priya and I pulled a prank on him earlier, so… revenge was served.”

“Oh, I’m intrigued,” Will said, suddenly sounding a bit more awake. “What did you guys do?”

“He has this hand lotion that he applies religiously. It’s kind of insane,” Mike fiddled with the phone cord, grinning at the memory. “But we spiked it with mayo from the dining hall.”

There was a gasp, feigned outrage. “Michael. Really?”

“Yes, really! And we didn’t get caught, so… Brad’s gonna be using the Mystery Mayo Lotion™ until he realizes.”

“I cannot believe you,” Will said, sounding equally amused at the thought.

The conversation hung at a precipice for a beat, and Mike’s grin slowly faded as he remembered why he called in the first place. “Yeah… me neither,” he finally muttered, voice heavier now.

The shift was immediate. “What do you mean?”

“I feel like I’m counting every second until I can leave Hope Haven,” Mike elaborated, closing his eyes, the inside of his eyelids tinged an inferno red. “I know it’s for our benefit, but… it’s been hell on earth. I miss you. I miss our apartment. I miss being able to wake up next to you. It’s crazy, the things you take for granted until they’re gone.”

A soft laugh reached him from the other end of the line, warm as sunlight. “One more week,” Will told him. “Seven days, Mike. That’s nothing compared to how far you’ve come. And you have come such a long way, baby. I’m so proud of you, no matter how hard you try to downplay it.”

“I’ll believe you’re proud of me once I feel proud of myself,” he teased, though the insecurity still nipped at his consciousness. His counselor’s words about self-esteem and negative self-talk ricocheted in his mind. “Sorry, I know I sound like a broken record. But I’m always bracing myself for a relapse, or this sense that I’m fooling everyone.”

There was a pause, and then Will’s voice emerged, firm with affection. “Don’t say that. Don’t talk bad about my boyfriend.” Mike blushed at that. “You’ve shown up for therapy, completed every step, found that newspaper job, and you’re coming home with a plan. That’s major, Mike. Don’t let that little voice tell you you haven’t changed.”

“Tell that to the Vecna-sized voice booming in my Broca’s area.”

“Broca’s…?”

“The part of the brain where you hear your inner monologue. Priya was a pre-med student.”

“That makes sense. But listen, hon, remember who killed Vecna? That was you. You slashed his head clean off. Think about that whenever you hear that voice. You killed that son of a bitch.”

“Hell yeah, I did.”

“You’re almost at the end. You’ll be home before you know it, getting on my nerves again and hogging all the blankets.”

Mike laughed, a real, genuine sound. “I promise I’ll only steal half the blankets.”

They lapsed into a companionable pause, each savoring the reassurance carried by the other’s voice. Finally, Mike broke the silence. “I love you, Will. More than I can say.”

2.

“I love you too, Mike.”

As soon as he placed the handset back on its cradle, Will let the silence swallow him. He sank back onto his pillow, replaying Mike’s words. I love you, Will. Setting the phone aside, he whispered again, to no one in particular this time, “I love you, too.”

Then he realized how precarious his situation truly was. The mattress dipped beside him where Wyatt lay, skin half-exposed, his arm tossed carelessly off the other edge of the bed. Will’s stomach churned. The transition from speaking to Mike, brimming with adoration, to facing the reality of Wyatt’s presence felt like a slap of cold air. It wasn’t supposed to last this long. It shouldn’t have even started to begin with. Will needed some air, he needed to get out of there before his own Broca’s area sent him spiraling.

He stood and moved carefully toward the bedroom door, unwilling to risk waking Wyatt. Once he’d successfully slipped out, he headed towards the living room and flicked on one of the smaller lamps that stood wedged between the wall and the couch. He needed to do something, something to distract him, something to stave off the… whatever the hell this feeling was. This was beyond guilt. This was becoming existential, snowballing into something he could no longer control, a catastrophic event that could knock all three of them out in one fell swoop if he didn’t get ahead of it. If he even could at this point.

His wandering gaze finally settled on Mike’s well-worn copy of “The Bell Jar,” by Sylvia Plath, perched among battered paperbacks on their bookshelf. He retrieved it, running his fingertips over the wrinkled spine and opening to a random page. The familiar blue ink of LePens stained the margins, Mike’s cursive-adjacent handwriting sloping across the paper, filled with witty remarks, underlined phrases, and far-too-deep analyses that Will couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around. He pressed his lips together, remembering nights he’d watched Mike scribble, brow furrowed as he devoured Plath’s words. His eyes flicked over a particular annotation.

Shame is like a ghost– unsensed until it’s right behind you, haunting your every move.

Will snapped the book shut, his stomach twisting in knots. He couldn’t do it anymore. The sneaking around, the lying, the… cheating. He flinched then, realizing that this was the first time labeling what he was doing with that specific term on his own, and it made him nauseous. Tears burned the corners of his eyes. He didn’t want to lose Mike. He didn’t want to cause more pain. But he couldn’t keep running from this. Steeling himself, he carefully replaced the book on the shelf and let out a shaky breath. The tears finally spilled, falling down his face at a slow yet steady pace.

He eventually drifted back into the bedroom, each step feeling like a confrontation with his own conscience. Wyatt remained asleep, oblivious. The sheets rustled as Will slid under them, leaving a deliberate gap between his body and Wyatt’s. A storm of conflicting emotions churned in his mind. He cared for Wyatt, but not in the way he did for Mike. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Will’s Broca’s area taunted. But it was true; he couldn’t deny that his heart belonged to the man who had braved so many battles, both physical and mental, and was now triumphing over a new set of demons Will hadn’t known existed until he met them himself.

Will turned onto his side, facing away from Wyatt, eyes unfocused in the darkness. Tomorrow, he thought, I’ll end this. I can’t keep doing this. The decision solidified in his mind, even as sleep slowly overtook him. He exhaled a final trembling sigh, images of Mike’s smile drifting into focus. Though rest came fitfully, Will was determined to face the morning with the resolve needed to set things right.

3.

His eyes flickered open to daylight, or possibly the hazy light of midmorning. For an instant, he forgot where he was. The faded memories of his dreams evaporated as the present came roaring back: the worn comforter, the faint hum of suburbia outside the thin windows. And Wyatt. Wyatt’s arms had coiled around Will’s waist, pulling him firmly against his lean chest.

“Hey,” Wyatt murmured, voice still heavy with sleep, lips brushing Will’s neck. It wasn’t a question so much as an instinctive greeting.

Will’s heart jerked in conflicted response. But before he could speak or shift away, Wyatt cupped his cheek, guiding him into a kiss. Any words of protest caught in Will’s throat. In the stark morning light, the reality of Wyatt’s closeness twisted his thoughts into knots. He had decided, right before falling asleep, that this had to end, that he’d tell the truth. Now, his resolve felt just out of reach, momentarily overshadowed by warmth and lingering drowsiness.

Wyatt’s hand glided up the side of Will’s torso, drawing him closer. The contact felt unexpectedly intense, a last surge of fleeting intimacy that, despite Will’s tangled emotions, he couldn’t entirely ignore. Part of him yearned for simple comfort. He’d been so lonely without Mike. He pressed his palm to Wyatt’s shoulder, not quite pushing away, yet not drawing him in either. Their lips met again, gently, then with a deeper urgency.

In a matter of heartbeats, Wyatt shifted their positions. He propped himself above Will, one knee braced near Will’s hip. The mattress dipped slightly beneath his weight. Will’s breath came out uneven, and he wriggled slightly, pinned by the momentum of the kiss. A dull thud hammered against the wall, the headboard tapping in tandem with the pounding in Will’s chest.

He meant to say something, like a Wait, stop, let’s talk, but then Wyatt’s mouth was at his collarbone, and the sudden friction of their intertwined limbs made his mind go blank. The faint taste of morning on Wyatt’s lips, the slight rasp of stubble, it was all so consuming that neither heard the faint bang of the front door. Nor did they hear the footsteps getting closer, treading heavily down the hallway. Just as Wyatt leaned in for another fervent kiss, the bedroom door swung open. Will and Wyatt’s eyes flew wide as they turned, hearts hammering.

Mike stood in the doorway. He was back from rehab a week early.

For what felt like an eternity, the three of them simply stared. Mike stood shell-shocked in the doorway, eyes wide with raw devastation. He clenched his jaw; Will could see the muscles in his face twitch, like he was fighting back a scream. Then he turned on his heel without a word and slammed the bedroom door so hard that the frame rattled in its hinges.

Will shot upright, heart pounding. Wyatt scrambled to pull the sheets around himself, eyes darting toward Will. But Will was already yanking on a pair of pants and running after Mike. He heard heavy footsteps echo down the hall. You. Waited. Too. Long. It’s. Fucking. Over.

The moment Will stepped into the living room, he found Mike pacing back and forth, breathing raggedly like a cornered animal. Tears streamed down Mike’s cheeks, but his face was twisted in rage so fierce it made Will’s blood run cold.

“Mike–” Will began, voice shaky.

“Don’t.” Mike’s tone was lethal. He held up a trembling hand to keep Will at a distance, tears glistening on his lashes. “Don’t you fucking say my name right now.”

Will stopped in his tracks. He had never seen Mike so unhinged; eyes wild, face completely soaked, chest heaving like he was about to shatter into pieces. For a moment, Mike just glared at him, shaking so hard his shoulders trembled.

“How long?” Mike’s voice rose, thick with phlegm. “How long have you two been–” He choked on the words, jaw quivering as another wave of tears welled up. “God, I can’t even fucking say it.”

Will could barely speak above a whisper. “A little over two months.”

A strangled sob burst from Mike’s throat as he threw his hands up in the air. “Two and a half months. Months– while I was gone, living with your family, stuck in that goddamn facility, laying my soul bare in therapy so I could come back to you! I gave you everything, Will. Everything I fucking had.”

Will tried to step closer, but Mike lurched away, nearly stumbling against the couch.

“I was in group therapy,” Mike said, voice breaking. “Every day, I was coughing up my insecurities to a bunch of strangers, telling them how I hated myself, how I’d do anything– anything– to be a better man for you. And all that time, you were screwing him?” He made a harsh sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. “In our bed, Will. Our bed.”

Will couldn’t look away from the utter heartbreak in Mike’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he managed, though the words felt pitifully small.

“Fuck your sorry.” Mike’s tears kept coming, but behind them, a flicker of white-hot disdain burned. “You have no idea how many nights I prayed– prayed, Will, I never fucking pray– that I’d come back home to you and we’d fix everything. That you’d be proud of me for finally sorting my shit out. I kept repeating that stupid mantra to myself, one day at a time, because I thought that at the end of all this I’d be able to see you again and it would all be worth it. One day at a time. One day at a fucking– and then, I was called into the office this morning because, Awesome news, Mike, you’re getting out early! You’ve made such great progress and we think it would be good for you to go home now! And I was overjoyed, Will! Overjoyed! I was so excited to see you. I was blasting your mixtape the whole way. You know, the mixtape you made for me when we were kids fighting monsters,”– You taste top tier– “the one that I had in the car that you dropped off at Joyce and Hop’s just last week, all while you were actively fucking my best friend. Classy. Real fucking classy, William.”

Will could barely breathe.

“Where is he?” Mike said, unsettlingly low in his register. “Where’s Wyatt?”

Before Will could answer, Mike shoved past him, marching down the hall with charged purpose. Will stumbled, nearly losing his balance as Mike stormed into the bedroom. Wyatt was crouched by the bed, rummaging for his shirt on the floor. He froze when he saw Mike, face ashen, the t-shirt bunched in his hands. Wyatt raised both hands, as if in surrender. 

“Mike—”

“Shut up!” Mike shouted. “You don’t get to speak. You don’t get to say a damn word about this.” He took a few steps closer to Wyatt, who backed up instinctively. Will hovered at the threshold, dread gnawing at him. Mike’s crying turned desperate, each heave of his chest growing more uneven.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Mike demanded. “Did it feel good? Did you get off on it? Hell, maybe you even–”

Wyatt stammered, “I– it just–”

“I said shut up!” Mike roared, voice dying on the last syllable. “I trusted you. I fucking trusted you. And you… you were in my house, in my bed, with my boyfriend.” His tears glistened on his jaw as he let out an agonizing breath.

Wyatt flinched, trying to pull the t-shirt over his head. In the sunlight from the window, faint bruises on his collarbone stood out against his skin. Mike’s eyes flicked there, and his fury found fresh fuel. 

“What the hell is that? Are those bruises? Don’t tell me Will did that, he’s never been the type for bondage.” He paused then, eyes scanning everything and nothing as he thought. “Or maybe it was just me. Maybe I wasn’t enough for the kinky shit.” Wyatt’s face blanched, enough that Will finally noticed how gaunt Wyatt looked in the daylight.

Mike whisked around to face Will, tears streaming as he let out a harsh laugh. “You think I’m too fragile for that kind of thing, is that it? Am I fragile, my love?” He took a step forward and slammed the wall behind Will’s head with his palm. “Afraid I’ll SNAP?”

Will flinched, heart thudding so hard it hurt. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

“You… both of you… you make me sick. All the nightmares I battled in rehab, all the bullshit tactics I used to recover… I did that for us. And you just–” He hiccupped in an angry sob, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. “You just threw it away like it was nothing.”

Will’s eyes blurred with tears of his own. He wanted to hold Mike, to comfort him, but that was impossible now. Wyatt took a shaky step forward. “Mike, please–”

Mike swung around, eyes blazing. “Don’t.” He pointed a bony finger at Wyatt’s chest. “I believed in you. I believed in our friendship. But you… you spent months screwing the one person I loved most. And guess what? You look terrible, Wyatt. You’re literally disgusting… maybe the outside finally matches the inside.” The cruelty made Wyatt recoil; he swallowed thickly, clearly fighting back his own tears. But Mike wasn’t finished. He took a wide step closer, forcing Wyatt to stumble back against the bed. “Go ahead, go and die for all I care. Maybe it’s what you deserve.” 

Wyatt couldn’t meet Mike’s gaze. Will had inched closer, ready to intervene if Mike swung or lashed out again. But Mike just seemed to be collapsing under the weight of his own grief and terror. Eventually, Mike wiped at his face, chest heaving. He let out one last, bitter laugh.

“I hope you two are proud. You’ve destroyed every last piece of trust I had. I gave you everything– do you hear me, Will? Everything. And you threw it in my face.” Tears dripped off his chin, onto his shirt. His voice trembled so much the words almost slurred together. “Don’t you dare pity me right now. Don’t you fucking dare. I’m done being–” His tears came faster, half-blinding him as he tried to hold onto his dignity. “I’m done–” He pressed a fist against his mouth, trying to stifle the endless sobs that threatened to tear out of his throat. He couldn’t find the words to finish his sentence, so he stormed down the hall to the front door, grabbing his bag on the way. He yanked the door open and paused, turning back with tears still pouring down his cheeks, his body trembling.

“Have at it,” he said hoarsely, voice cracking. “You both deserve each other. I’m done… done.”

He slammed the door so hard that the walls rattled, and a moment later, the roar of his car engine cut through the fragile quiet.

Will stood rooted to the spot, trembling. In the suffocating silence that followed, Wyatt pressed himself against the edge of the bed, tears threatening to spill. Will could barely breathe, mind reeling with the aftershock of Mike’s screams.

And though Will longed to chase after Mike, to somehow fix the unfixable, his gaze lingered on Wyatt’s bruises– those dull splotches and the hollow look in his eyes. It was as if he were seeing Wyatt for the first time in months, noticing everything he’d willfully ignored. But there was no space for that realization now, not with the echo of Mike’s voice still ringing through the empty, broken home.

4.

Mike made a beeline for the first coffee shop he saw, desperate for a place to sit and process everything spinning in his head, or at the very least, some real fucking coffee that wasn’t the sludge he’d been tossing back at rehab. It wasn’t until he stepped up to the counter that he realized the barista, a slim guy with a cropped haircut, was watching him with recognition in his eyes.

“Mike?” the barista asked, blinking in cautious surprise. Mike stared back, unsettled that someone here already knew who he was. His thoughts were still tangled from the sight of Will and Wyatt in bed together, from the shouting and the tears mere minutes ago. 

“Uh…yeah.” Mike’s throat burned. “Do I know you?”

The barista allowed himself a measured smile. “I’m Matt. Will’s… ex.”

Suddenly, the adrenaline that had kept Mike’s head just above water vanished. It felt like fate had walked him right into a punchline he wasn’t in on. “Of course,” he murmured, fighting a half-hysterical urge to laugh. First he walked in on Will cheating, and now fate delivered him to Will’s ex in a random coffee shop. “Sure, why the fuck not?”

Matt cleared his throat, the light catching on the piercings in his ear. “I, uh, heard about you from Will. Something about rehab a few months ago. How did it– um– go?” The question wasn’t meant to wound, but it stung all the same. Mike let out a grim chuckle, gesturing vaguely at his disheveled clothes and the lingering shadows beneath his eyes. 

“How does it look?” he croaked, his voice gritty with a despair he could barely contain. “I just walked in on Will fucking my best friend, so I’d say rehab’s going fantastic.”

Matt’s expression collapsed into genuine dismay. “That’s horrible,” he whispered, leaning in so their conversation stayed private. “He and your… best friend? While you were– God, man, I’m so sorry.”

Mike exhaled sharply. “I should have seen it coming,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he believed that. Then again, maybe the signs had been there all along, invisible to him only because he’d been so wrapped up in his own pain. “I got out early because I was doing so well, and I walked in and there they were. Kissing in our bed.” He gave another bitter laugh that held zero humor.

Matt winced, then lowered his gaze. “So let me get this… straight, for lack of a better word. He left me for you. And then he left you for your best friend.” He paused. Then: “Jesus, man. That’s brutal.”

“You’re telling me,” Mike sighed. He noticed his reflection in the glass pastry display: a man red-eyed with sleepless nights, wearing the same shirt from the day before. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up disclosing his darkest moment to Will’s ex before he’d even told the rest of his own friends. Then again, maybe it was easier with a stranger.

Matt grabbed a paper cup, fiddling with the machine’s buttons. “You look like you could use a good coffee,” he said quietly. Steam curled up between them, momentarily softening the line of worry across Matt’s forehead. He slid the cup across the counter. “On the house. Okay? Just… take it.”

Mike cradled the cup as if it were the only solid thing in his world. The heat seeped into his palms and loosened something in his chest. “Thanks,” he managed, not trusting himself to say more.

“Will mentioned you were in a bad place before rehab,” Matt said, speaking slowly, as though choosing every syllable with care. “I was relieved to hear you got help. I– I hope you don’t let this screw up everything you’ve done for yourself.”

Mike stared into the inky liquid, swirling it in a slow circle. He thought of group therapy sessions, daily meditations, all the promises he’d made to himself in those dreary halls. “I’m trying,” he admitted. His voice cracked, and he felt tears threatening again, but he forced them back. “This just…doesn’t feel real yet. Or maybe it feels too real.”

“Yeah,” Matt said softly. “I get it.”

They locked eyes, and in that suspended moment, Mike felt a wave of relief, if only because he wasn’t alone in this mess. The last person he’d expected to find any solace with turned out to be the one person who understood exactly how destructive Will was apparently capable of being.

With nothing left to say, Mike dipped his head in a sort of tired gratitude, then turned to scout out a place to sit. He ended up choosing a table near the fogged-up window, where the bustle of the street was muted by the glass. He dropped into the seat and cradled the cup between his hands. This was the first time he’d told anyone what he had just witnessed, and of all people, Will’s ex was the listener. Life had a macabre sense of humor. Or maybe it just liked making jigsaw puzzles of people’s heartbreaks.

He lifted the coffee to his lips, took a cautious sip, and exhaled a breath that scraped his chest on the way out. The neverending conversation in his mind quieted just enough to let him think. It wasn’t clarity, exactly, but it was a starting point. Mike closed his eyes and let the swirl of aromas– roasting beans, foamed milk, and fresh pastries– calm the raw edges of his thoughts. 

At the counter, Matt was helping another customer, though he kept stealing glances at Mike, his brows knitted with concern. Mike acknowledged him with a weary nod, something that landed somewhere between thanks and a silent plea to keep this fragile space of understanding.

5.

Hours later, Mike took one last gulp of his now-cold coffee, but the caffeine did nothing to soften the chaos in his head. He stared out the window of the cafe at a neon liquor-store sign across the street. It had been nagging him through the corner of his eye, its flickering pink lettering drawing his gaze despite every sensible fiber telling him to look away. 

He closed his eyes, only for a moment, and all he saw was Will. Shirtless. Shocked. Sweatpants hanging low on his hips. And Wyatt. Staring. Startled. Skin covered in bruises no one could seem to explain. His body tensed as though preparing for a fight that would never come. Rehab’s lessons flitted through his thoughts, yet none of those words cut through to him. Not anymore.

His hands shook as he stood. He walked out into the late afternoon sun, blinking at cars rushing down the street. He told himself he could keep going, find a park or a bench, sit down and let this pass. Instead, his feet moved toward the neon sign like it was leading him home. The more he walked, the more his resolve withered, leaving behind a sick sort of excitement coiling in his stomach.

Inside, the liquor store had a rancid glow. Too-bright lights buzzed overhead, casting every speck of dust into stark relief. The kid behind the counter couldn’t have been more than a year younger than Mike himself. Maybe eighteen, twenty at most. Old enough to clock the sadness on a face, young enough not to care. The clerk leaned on his elbows, a GameBoy undoubtedly hidden behind the register. He hardly looked up as Mike wandered to the whiskey display.

The racks seemed to stretch on forever. Rows of bottles promised quick escape, the swirl of their dark liquid so familiar it made his mouth water. A voice in the back of his head insisted he should leave. But as Will had said the night prior… that voice had no power.

He reached for a middle-shelf brand that had accompanied many of his worst nights. Coffee, novel, lunch, novel, shower, letter to Will, The Painting™, crying, sleeping, repeat. He carried it to the counter, heart pounding, trying not to breathe too loudly. The clerk lifted his eyes from his game just long enough to mutter the total. Then he asked for ID. Mike pulled a battered license from his wallet without a word. The clerk stared at it for a second, maybe two,then mumbled, “All right,” and punched numbers into the register.

Mike didn’t know if the kid believed it or didn’t care, but he handed the license back with a perfunctory shrug. He bagged the bottle, said, “Have a good one,” in a flat voice, and resumed playing under the counter. Mike left with the whiskey in hand, a secret part of him perversely delighted at how easy it had been.

Outside, the city’s newfound chill pressed against him. Mike hunched his shoulders and walked three blocks to where he’d parked his 1988 Honda Accord. Even the sight of his car reminded him of his old life: nights of crying against the steering wheel, the tractor trailer incident, and driving to get the love of his life back. That was all so long ago, yet it felt like it happened yesterday.

He dropped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut behind him. The bag rustled against the console, a promise of oblivion. For a second, he stared at the steering wheel, breath unsteady. This is stupid. This is suicidal. The words floated through his mind, but he twisted the key in the ignition anyway. The engine rattled awake, and he headed out, searching for somewhere to hide.

Within ten minutes, he found himself in the Kroger parking lot, a sprawling patch of asphalt that seemed designed for anonymity. Few cars dotted the rows, and a massive delivery truck idled near the loading dock, lights off. He parked as far from the entrance as possible, away from any security cameras or late-night shoppers.

He killed the engine but left the key in the ignition. The radio hissed with static before he snapped it off, preferring silence. Leaning his head against the seat, he stared at the roof for a long moment, the grocery store’s sign casting a faint reflection through the windshield. Then he pulled the bottle from its flimsy bag.

The label was collecting condensation, and the glass was cold against his palm. He twisted off the cap and lifted the neck to his lips, breath catching in his throat. The first gulp made him shudder. It tasted worse than he remembered, sharp and sour, but that didn’t stop him from taking another. Warmth crept through his chest, a kind of grim comfort.

All the rules from rehab hovered in his mind, bobbing up and down like buoys in a storm. But the storm was what he needed now. The storm was better than feeling so utterly betrayed and alone. He drank again, and again, until a haze settled over his thoughts. Everything became slow and slightly out of reach.

He thought about calling someone– maybe Dave, maybe a friend– Fuck that, he thought to himself. He tipped the bottle again. Liquid splashed the back of his throat. The warmth turned to heat, the heat to numbness. That was the point, wasn’t it?

Time drifted. He might have sat there for five minutes, or an hour. The Kroger sign swayed from side to side in its royal blue glory, and the faint rustle of wind rocked the car. Each swallow made his vision blur a little more. His thoughts spiraled, bouncing from Will’s infidelity to his own sense of worthlessness. He tried to push those memories away, but they returned with the persistent gnaw of a toothache.

At some point, he let the bottle slip into the cup holder, nearly toppling it. His head lolled against the driver’s seat. The world outside the windows smeared into indistinct shapes. He smelled his own sweat mingling with alcohol, felt his pulse hammer in his temples.

He didn’t notice the figure approaching until he heard a muffled thud on the passenger side. Through the haze, he saw a shadow move past the windshield. His heart gave a wild lurch, but his arms were too heavy to respond. Instead, he fumbled for the door lock, missing the latch as he tried to keep whoever it was out.

Before he could brace himself, the driver’s door flew open, letting in a gust of cold air that made him gasp. Then a hand, strong and insistent, grabbed his arm. He tried to jerk away, but his body felt uncoordinated, strings cut loose. His head spun, the parking lot lights streaking across his vision.

A voice barked something he couldn’t decipher. The grip on his arm tightened, and he was wrenched out of the car, feet tangling in the seatbelt. He couldn’t focus on the face in front of him; it was only a blur of shape and motion, the sound of ragged breathing and harsh words he couldn’t understand.

He stumbled, nearly falling onto the asphalt. The figure kept him upright with a force that bordered on violent. Dizzy, he blinked at the overhead lamp, its glow blinding him, his mind swirling with whiskey and heartbreak. He tried to speak, but only managed a slur of vowels. Then the world tilted, and everything went dark.

-

spoiler-related warnings: discovery of infidelity, relapse

-

previous part | next part

homepage

[pawseds]

Dear Hrodwyn

[843 words; a Lancer RPG fic]

06 SEP 5010u

Dear Hrodwyn Vorobyev, what to say to you? You have her eyes You have your father's name When you came into the world you cried And it broke my heart

Here, on this ice planet in its lonely orbit, life thrived.

As the sun's first rays carve peaks out of darkness, see how bones of copper and steel are nestled between treacherous mountains. See how they are buried beneath white snow and frozen in azure depths, weathered by the elements but preserved by solitude.

Quickly, before the sun parts with the land again, look how this metal skeleton twists along the planet's veins, the great frozen river. The river streaks blue and green across white, and with the sun's warm blessing, it brings forth minerals and algae, water and valour.

From afar, this planet is death. But closer, the river carves a path through the white void. The river carves life.

I'm dedicating every day to you Domestic life was never quite my style When you smile You knock me out, I fall apart And I thought I was so smart

Here, on the fringes of exploration and expansion, life thrived.

No one recalls when the first colonies arrived, but the winds remember what they came here for. It was not for the bones of metal, but it was for what the bones once were. It was for the red-hot core of energy housed within, the dying heart of a star.

See how greed tries to dig its venomous claws into the stars. See how, in greed's self-declared war against itself, it tears apart scraps of alloys, weapons of titanium, and frames of carbon fibre. It is a hunger that ravages; it is a hunger that tears its stomach inside out to house the mass graves of the first colonies.

It all ends like how it all first began: with silence. Life, innocent in ignorance, crawls out of the graves to start anew. No human remembers what they came here for.

The wind warns them in whispers, but it cannot control who listens.

You will come of age with our young nation We'll bleed and fight for you We'll make it right for you If we lay a strong enough foundation We'll pass it on to you We'll give the world to you And you'll blow us all away Someday, someday

Here, on footsteps that follow the river eternally, live thrives.

From dust, tiny specks come together like ants to form new colonies. Though humans have greed, they also have resilience, intelligence, and creativity. Observe how they dig through the snow with their own hands, wrangle with tooth and leather and stone, and explore for years to reignite the machines that first brought them here. Watch as they create tools with the guidance of ghosts. Watch as they teach themselves to walk, to run, and to fly once again.

What was first a single colony in the beginning has now scattered into multiple colonies -- some big, some small. The biggest colonies were grown on the secret to reawakening cores. Their strength fuels machines, their warmth radiates from hearths, and their light is a beacon from which cities are built around. But though their light welcomes all to hide from the frigid cold and dark days, the secret of the cores remain tightly grasped within the palms of handpicked engineers.

Cores are scarce and so are the cities that followed. In their wake, smaller settlements are nurtured around other sources of life: the geothermal energy volcanoes bring, the lamps and heaters machines bring, and the fresh food and water rivers bring. Trade routes are forged between these settlements, and when the first port to the rest of the galaxy opens in the largest city, the settlements begin crossing paths more and more like constellations across the ink-black sky.

But some colonies do not settle. Some continue to fare across the white void as their ancestors once did. Forever walking, forever migrating, these nomadic colonies follow the planet's orbit as they seek the longest days of warmth, the longest hours of light. The sun is their beacon, their core, so these colonies continue to follow it: living off the river that melts and freezes and melts, marching across the planet's equator back to where they began again and again and again. ⠀ Nothing changes from this never ending track. In these nomadic colonies, the scouts go scout for shelter and danger on foot, the hunters go hunt the feared and the fearing on machines, and the rest of the farers follow the path cleared through the snow.

Nothing changes until a settler hears the song of a farer.

Nothing changes until the settler, with her wit and her machine, joins the farer on his eternal voyage; and the farer too embarks on a new eternal voyage of walking in the settler's shoes and seeing through the stars in her eyes.

With time comes love, and with love comes life.

Yeah, you'll blow us all away Someday, someday...

Life learns, life changes, and life thrives.

---

I wrote this all the way back in 22 May this year, and here it finally is with some light editing! (Don't mind the grammar errors, it is late and I am tired lmao). I ported the Birdfam yet again into Lancer, in which Gavrill Vorobyev is, yet AGAIN, my PC! (I just really want him on a Swallowtail idk I think it fits him well) The biggest differences here is that he's 21 instead of 41, his wife Leyna is alive, his kid Hrodwyn was just born (coincidnetally, the campaign kicks off a day after), and he doesn't have thirty four mental illnesses.

I do not take credit for this worldbuilding! This planet is directly ripped off of the planet the Birdfam originally came from, which was from a 4e campaign. So it's my GM who came up with this; all I did was write about it here.

(i'm gonna throw in all the hamilton references i want FIGHT ME)

[that-irrelevant-ricecakeaddict]

OK but imagine heavily making out with Kim Seungmin (SPECIFICALLY THIS VERSION) and feeling that lip ring in y- nvm u get the point

This was a rlly rushed post let me feed my delusions rq 🤚

I'm not over 5 Star yet how tf am I supposed to deal with the upcoming October-november comeback--

(Suggestive content under the cut)

Seungmin sighs heavily as you pull him in by his collar for a kiss. He easily slid his duffle bag off his shoulder, moving his hands to slide around your waist. After a long day at his tiring job, your idol boyfriend was understandably exhausted. The new comeback had him working nonstop for an inhumane number of hours. His motivation for working so hard was coming home to your open arms and plush lips every day.

The two of you stumbled clumsily into your shared apartment, with Seungmin hastily closing the front door behind you. You guided him over to the couch, allowing him to lean his warm body against you as you continued kissing. It wasn't long before you started pushing your tongue past his lips, eager to go further. You wanted to ease your boyfriend's stress; you knew how overworked he was. But before you could deepen the kiss, a cold, metallic taste hit your taste buds.

You pulled back immediately. Seungmin tried to follow your lips, and furrowed his eyebrows at you when you just moved back even more.

"Why'd you pull stop? I was enjoying it..."

"I tasted metal in your mouth, Seungmin. Are you bleeding or something?"

The brunette gazed hazily at you for a few moments before it occurred to him what you were talking about. He grinned sheepishly and moved closer to the standing lamp by the couch, illuminating his face with light and allowing you to get a clearer look at him. A metallic glint on his bottom lip caught your eye, and you leaned in further. The cold, bitter taste on his mouth made so much more sense when you realised what it was.

"I got a fake lip piercing for the comeback album's photobook shoot...Guess I must've forgotten to take it off."

"...oh."

"Sorry, is it weird for you? I'll take it off--"

He was cut off by you smashing your lips onto his once more. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but chuckled into the kiss and settled his large hands on your back. Unexpectedly, you suddenly pushed your tongue against his mouth. Seungmin was even more surprised when you started sucking lightly on his bottom lip, specifically the spot where the lip ring was.

He whimpered at the feeling, his nails digging into your back. You, on the other hand, sighed at the cold tinge in your mouth. He looked so hot with that new accessory, how could you resist? You sucked harder on his bottom lip, drawing out a series of sighs and groans from your now shuddering boyfriend. Eventually you pulled away to give him a break.

A shiny string of spit connected your lips to his, making the lip ring look even more prominent under the lampshade's light. Seungmin's face was tinged with a light red blush, and he was still shaking a little, clearly still recovering from your sudden ambush on him. You made a mental note to thank his stylist for the new comeback.

Noticing the way you were practically ravaging him with your eyes, Seungmin chuckled lowly.

"So...you like the lip ring?"

"What do you think, genius?"

V delulu today yes

Fun fact I typed this while streaming it for my friend to watch he was taken aback but not surprised at my writing process 🤓

[beastinthebelfry]

Well, I failed miserably at my Halloween Challenge so have the last part of The Ravaging on account. Still working on the Halloween story, it's just going to be awhile before I post anything for it.

Ao3

A cold breeze bellows through the trees, heralding the end of another encounter. You look up, watching as the man and the female constructs grow farther away, the vines cradling you as you're lowered to the ground. You're amazed to realize just how far into the air you’ve been this whole time, the darkness and bio-luminescence playing tricks on your depth perception. 

The Vines set you on your feet, holding you up until they're sure you can stand on your own and only then do they retract. You stand in the darkness, willing your vision to adjust to the darkness, but no matter how long you stand there, the inky blackness is too thick to penetrate. You supposed you can stand still and let whatever monster that passes by catch you. That’s certainly not the worst scenario, but it's also not the most appealing. You’d like to explore. 

You’ve always wanted to go camping, or hiking off trail in the woods, but the very real possibility of being lost and cut off from civilization weighs heavily on you every time you consider it and so you’ve always talked yourself out of it. But here you can’t get lost. You're being monitored and there are any number of other people and creatures here as well, so you aren’t alone. This may be the only chance  for you to do something like this with this level of certainty. 

Perhaps the forest is wondering why you haven’t moved, or maybe the man in the bark is still watching you, either way, the darkness is suddenly chased away by the same bio-luminescent mushrooms. Blooming all around you, sprouting up the trees and along the ground they form a cocoon around you. You take a step forward to study them closer and more mushrooms sprout in the same direction. 

Testing a theory, you turn and take a step in another direction, watching as the spores bloom the same as before. You smile to yourself. “Thank you.” you say out loud and the leaves about you rustle in a light breeze. 

You stand at the center for a moment longer, determining which direction you want to take before choosing the right and following the glowing mushrooms until you come to a well worn trail where lanterns hang from wooden posts along either side. You step into the light of the lanterns and turn to watch the mushrooms recede the way you’d come. 

“Well well well, it must be my lucky night.” a deep voice like gravel sounds somewhere out into the darkness. The sound slides across your sensitive nerves and you shiver as your arousal spikes again. A chuckle reverberates through the trees and you turn abruptly trying to pick out the source from the darkness. “Here I am, searching for the perfect dessert to end our night and there you are, emerging from the forest like a gift from the gods.” 

You turn once more in time to watch them emerge through the trees. A werewolf of enormous size, even bigger than the one at the beginning of the night. Standing at, at least eight feet tall on his hind legs, his shaggy black hair is run through with silver and his piercing yellow eyes seem to glow in the lamp light. He licks his lips, taking you in from head to toe. It’s easy to assume he likes what he sees as his thick red cock rises to attention. 

“What’d ya say sweetheart? Want to finish the night out with a few old dogs?” he asks, taking a step closer. 

You nod dumbly, eyes transfixed on his leaking member. He chuckles again before he’s moving too fast for you to register, scooping you up and planting your back against a tree. 

“You flatter me,” he says. “Why don’t we have a little warm up before I take you to meet my boys?” 

You whimper, the feeling of his massive paws on your body overwhelming your senses. “Mmm please.” 

He hums, the rumbling sound traveling through your body where you’re pressed together.  “So polite.” he says, bending his thick neck and nuzzling at yours. You feel the sharp points of his teeth pressing against your skin as he lathes his tongue across your pulse. “You smell divine.” he tells him, his paws coming around to cup your rounded bottom. He hikes you up a little higher, the bark biting into your skin, but you barely notice as his heavy length comes to rest against you. 

The wolf shifts to one knee, hoisting you up and throwing your knees over his shoulders in one smooth motion. The display of power is intoxicating all on its own. You grip at the fur around his massive head as it settles between your legs. You hear the rush of air as he takes in a deep breath, letting it out with a deep rumbling chuckle. 

“Quite the adventure you’ve had tonight.” he says before flicking his tongue out against your folds. You gasp, still sensitive after everything that happened in the trees. 

The wolf chuckles, vibrations rumbling through you. And then he’s devouring you, rough tongue lashing across your clit, still so sensitive from every adventure so far. A growl rumbles deep in his chest and the feel of it vibrates across your nerves tipping you over the edge as he dips his long tongue in to lick up the slick that gushes from you. 

The wolf hums. “The old man rarely takes more than one offering, you must have put on quite a show to draw their attention. Lucky us, they decided to let you go before the end of the night.” he unhooks your legs from his shoulders and stands, cradling your body to his solid, furry form. “No one seeds a mortal better than the Green Man himself.” he licks his muzzle obscenely and you shiver at the sight. 

The wolf maneuvers you around in his arms, then steps back into the treeline where he emerged before. As you move away from the lanterns, the darkness swallows you up, but the wolf clearly has no trouble seeing, his footsteps nearly silent through the underbrush. 

Experience so far has taught you that there is nothing to fear here, that you're safe, so you hunker down in his arms, his warmth fighting off the chill of the night. You're soon rewarded for your patience as you catch a faint glow in the distance. As you move closer, the glow grows brighter and you can hear the crackle of fire and the low murmur of deep voices. 

The wolf steps through the brush into a clearing, drawing the attention of four other wolves sitting around the fire. They’re all about the same size, in varying shades of gray and brown, white around their muzzles and streaked through their fur. 

You just barely manage to hold on to what remains of your dignity as they each stand, towering over you, even in the first wolf’s arms. 

“I hope you're all still hungry.” he says to what you can only assume is his pack. “This one was blessed by the old man himself.” 

“They took more than one?” a russet brown wolf asks, the shock clear in his voice. “She must be something special.” 

“She tastes divine.”  

There’s a cacophony of growls around you then, each wolf responding with a low rumble that sets off your nerves like someone holding a vibrator to your clit. You feel your body come alive, tingling pricks against your skin peaking your nipples. You clench involuntarily, breath stuttering. 

“That’s his doing.” the wolf holding you explains. “The sensitivity will eventually wear off, but until then, you’ll feel everything more acutely now.” 

As if to emphasize the point, you feel him press his thumb against your folds, sinking the meaty digit in. You gasp, clenching around him, body shuddering at the intrusion. 

“Please.” you moan, willing them to understand what you need as words fail you. 

They laugh. “Of course sweetheart.” a stocky gray wolf replies, stepping forward, his one eye is a crystal clear blue, a scar running from his brow over his left eye, the lid closed. 

“Get her ready quickly.” the first wolf says, letting the gray wolf pull you from his grip. His thumb pops free and you groan in disappointment. “The night is almost over and it’s going to take all of us to satisfy her.” 

You don’t resist, letting them manipulate your body, feeling boneless and heavy with arousal. The gray wolf carries you to the other side of the fire, where a wooden contraption sits, metal chains fastened to the bottom. He lays you on your stomach on the padded surface, knees braced on an outcropping on either side. You feel the cold weight of the cuffs against the skin of your wrists and ankles. 

“She’s ready, boss.” one of them says and you peer over your shoulder watching as the wolf who brought you here steps up behind you. He grins, flashing his pearly white teeth and for a moment the haze of lust dissipates enough for you to consider how handsome he is. And then just like that the thought and all thoughts are gone, arousal rushing through you at the feeling of something thick pushing at your entrance. 

You’ve had a very interesting night. Thick cocks galore, but there’s something about this, right now that feels different. The stretch is more intense, lightning shooting across your nerves. You grab on to the edge of the wooden structure, nails digging in. The wolves howl and laugh around you watching you tremble with each thrust through you.

Words are lost to you, the only sounds you can manage are animalistic, grunts and groans and whines. You’d be embarrassed if you could even think that clearly. 

Your first climax among these beastly men hits you so fast and unexpectedly that you scream, shrieking into the night like a banshee. Laughter erupts again but you can barely hear it through the rushing in your ears, your body never leaving that pleasured plateau as the “Boss” continues to fuck you through another and another. 

When he nears his own end, he bends over you, pressing your body into the wooden beam, hips pistoning into you with short, powerful strokes. Your screams are swallowed up by his howls as he unloads inside you. You can feel his cum gushing out around his thick member. 

Eventually he pulls free, stepping away to let the next wolf have his turn. It’s much the same as before. At no point have you become desensitized to these intense sensations. Each wolf fucks you in their own way, slow and deliberate, fast and rough. It’s all different and yet all the same, a steady unyielding wall of pleasure building inside you until you feel like you can’t breathe. 

You’ve long since stopped screaming, whimpering now as exhaustion sets in. But even then you don’t want it to stop. You feel like it’s not enough, like it’s never enough. They rotate again and again, taking turn after turn. At some point you lose track of who's using you. 

As the blue hour rises around you, the “Boss” takes his turn again, his thrusts, slow but powerful, as if he can feel the magic that kept you suspended in bliss beginning to fade with the coming dawn. 

You feel his rumbling chuckle against your back as he leans against you, nuzzling at your neck. “Give me one more, sweetheart.” he growls against your ear. You whimper, clenching down around him. “That’s it, a little more.” Your final climax rolls through like a warm summer breeze, you stretch and curl into it savoring it like a cat in a beam of sunlight. 

There’s movement around you, the chains fall away. You're lifted from the bench, warm soft fur a soothing balm to you over sensitive skin. You carried somewhere not too far away where you're wrapped in warm, soft fleece. And then there are people there. People in matching charcoal jumpsuits, surgical masks over their nose and mouths. There’s a logo of some kind embroidered on the left breast, a swooping elegant M. 

One of them asks you if you can stand, if you need assistance walking. You push to your feet, steady yourself and when they're satisfied you won’t fall over, they lead you along the lantern lined trail from before where groups of people are walking along with other jumpsuit clad people. 

You breach the edge of the forest into the clearing where private ambulances with the same logo painted across the side sit waiting. Medical personnel filter out to meet the crowd, passing out water and evaluating anyone who seems a little too out of it. You spot the pink haired man from before limping toward an ambulance as a stretcher passes with the sulking man with the tree people, a blissed out smile beneath the oxygen mask. 

“Congratulation,” the automated voice from before sounds through the early dawn hours. “You have survived The Ravaging.”  

[nightsandreala]

something short i wrote in april for reala day 🥺 post-canon (kind of au?) fic where nights finds a nightopia based on a mall and gets reala a stuffed animal (it’s very unserious). can also be read under the read more lol 🤭 thanks for reading

For most Nightmarens, collecting things was almost instinctual. They would take bits from each Nightopia they ravaged: any Ideya the dreamer possessed was the first and foremost goal, of course, but they would also take pieces from the world’s landscape, any effects that happened to strike their interests. NiGHTS certainly wasn’t any different— in only a matter of decades the elegant nighttime garden scene that made up their lair had become absolutely trashed, cluttered with anything and everything they could find during their daily searches through Nightopia, the dark grass and cobblestone walkways littered with out-of-place seashells and jewels and stones of all shapes and sizes. Stray feathers and scraps of cloth and linen formed makeshift nests among beds of thorny vines; out-of-place flowers, long since plucked from their original lands, decorated the heads of stone-carved statues. NiGHTS’ things weren’t so much trophies as other Nightmarens claimed their possessions to be, just things that made their lair feel more ‘theirs’— it was the least they could do, a lair and whatever was inside it was the closest any Nightmaren could really get to owning anything, and even so, their lairs could be destroyed by Wizeman just as easily as their bodies could be.

Right next door, however (or at least as ‘next door’ as lairs could be in a world as twisting and turning as Nightmare), was quite a different room: Reala’s. Reala, as far as NiGHTS could remember, had always kept his lair the same way from the very beginning: red and black everywhere, making up a majority of the room from the checkered floor to the backing of Reala’s majestic throne. Jagged spires of rock lined the outside of the ring, but he made sure that not even a pebble strayed out of place if they happened to crumble. The three blue-flame lamps flickered on eternally at a steady pace, keeping a constant, comfortable level of warmth and low light. Reala’s room was always immaculate, and he had prided himself on that fact in those days, had tried to use it as an example of how NiGHTS should have kept their own space. Of course, it never worked.

“It’s so… empty, though,” they would argue, shifting uncomfortably in the seat of Reala’s throne, “You don’t have anything, it’s like you don’t even live here!”  

They would offer their twin some of their own trinkets, or perhaps sneak some in when he wasn’t looking (only to have them promptly returned soon after). And Reala, time and time again, would explain, “Everything we need, Nightmare gives us. All of your… things aren’t necessary.” 

NiGHTS would never admit it, but when they made that sudden decision to leave Nightmare behind, all their things did seem unnecessary. Maybe they had forgotten how fun it was to be able to collect things, living the way they had for so long— wandering between dreams without settling in any one place for too long, residing in the nearest tree or riverbank or warm, grassy field. With no permanent place to come back to, nowhere to keep things after their journeys ended they had learned to travel light, with only their own outfit and their flute, really, and it wasn’t as if that took up much space (none at all, actually, they would simply summon it when they wanted it and wish it away when their performance was through). More important than the lack of storage space, though, was the need to stay hidden, to not leave a single trace or clue as to where they’d been, should Reala be sent looking for them.

Those days, at long last, were far behind both of them now, though. And NiGHTS wasn’t going to be a minimalist ever again.

A majority of their house’s decor were the results of NiGHTS’ newest hobby— traveling to new Nightopias not in search of Ideya, not even in search of food or building materials for the house or anything remotely useful in Reala’s mind, but in search of things. Human things, at that. They had explained the process with a joy Reala couldn’t comprehend, about how they’d found a Nightopia fashioned after some kind of Waking World market, full of different shops, full of various items, empty of any dreamers. They had come home that day with as much stuff as they could carry with only their own two arms, absolutely beaming with delight.

“It almost reminded me of how humans used to dream back when we were still… you know, hunting,” they’d said, offering a vague hand gesture as they spread out their items on the floor to show off to Reala. “Remember? How they were always dreaming about castles and markets and feasts and all that?” 

Reala couldn’t help but smile— perhaps humans were still just as disgustingly greedy even now, but he had to admit that outrageous human desire had always made for fun dreams. The two of them had crashed many a royal banquet in centuries past, made quick work of the dreamer’s Ideya and then spent the rest of their time making even quicker work of tables of dreamed-up food, helping themselves to tastes of the Waking World that simply couldn’t be found in their regular meals of Third-Levels. 

NiGHTS had spun a similar tale of their adventure that day: “It was bigger than a castle, I think, and it had these staircases—“ They were all but flailing their arms about at this point, in a wild attempt to replicate something, “—that were moving! All the shops were inside, and each one had different things… look!” 

They had gone back several times since then, always returning home with arms brimming with whatever piqued their interest: soft and warm things to cover their bed with, small and colorful things to line their windowsills. Anything and everything in-between. Reala had to admit that their room was neater than their lair had been, at the very least. And, knowing Reala’s dislike of trinkets, they only ever brought things home for themself. Except for this particular day, when they’d merrily entered Reala’s room and tossed him… this.

“…What is this?”

“It’s a cat,” NiGHTS told him, like he already should have known. “Well, y’know, a stuffed one. I would have gotten you a red one, but pink was the closest they had.”

Reala stared at the object in his hands, soft plush material looking out of place in his rough, calloused hands and sharp yellow nails. A cat? That was the creature Clawz was supposed to resemble, if he recalled correctly. But this didn’t look anything like Clawz, save for the little triangle-shaped ears and sewn-on whiskers, maybe— and he doubted that, in pretty pink fur and black plastic bead-eyes, it looked much like its Waking World counterpart either.

Reala tried again. “But what is it, what is it for?”  

“Well, it isn’t for anything, really, you just have fun with it. I felt like you needed something like that, y’know.” NiGHTS lightly tossed their own ‘cat’ (theirs was a nice shade of light purple) in the air and caught it again, switching it between hands like a basketball. “But you could use it for a pillow, maybe. Or you could use it like this!”

Reala, too distracted and, admittedly, slightly enchanted by his new acquisition, completely missed NiGHTS winding up across from him, and only looked up just in time to be met with a faceful of stuffed animal. He reacted a second too late, clumsily swiping at nothing but air with an annoyed grumble. NiGHTS hesitantly reached for their cat, gathering it back into their arms with a hint of shame. “…I could keep yours if you really don’t want it, Rere.”

Reala tested the plush again. It would make a nice pillow. And it was soft, easy to hold and squish and knead his claws into. He could see himself becoming used to it, really, just having something for the sake of having it.

“No, I suppose I’ll keep it,” he told them, rubbing the cat’s ear between two fingers. “Just as long as you don’t bring me any more. I don’t need my room ending up looking like yours.” 

NiGHTS grinned, tossing their cat upwards again. “Fine! I’ll only get them for myself, and then I’ll have more to throw at you.”

…And just as long as he could hit them back soon enough.

[boygina-philosopher]

You've got my body, flesh and bone

Feat: Scout/Medic

Meta: MLM - one shot - mild injury

Tags: body worship, kisses, transman scout, knife play, fear play, safe and consensual but absolutely not sane, giving head, bottom scout, top medic, fur coats, references to Venus in Furs, divine gore, flaming June, Pygmalion reference, god/worshipper, neck kissing, grinding, dacryphilia, religious imagery, hairy scout pussy got me acting devout, the god worships his followers,

the nude body, to the eye of Ludwig, was pristine. not in the prudent manner that it was not touched carnally, but rather, pristine because the sacredness of blood hadn't been spilt out onto his hands. when in the hands of surgeon, what was sacred? the now exposed viscera of the flesh was no longer sacred to any god now that it was tainted by human intervention, but in the moment, medic was the god now, and what was sacred to him was grotesque. Medic will treat the pristine body with the handling one would give to a lamb, and draw out the divine blood of scout.

The scout lay idle across from The Medic, upon a red velvet couch most definitely stolen. Draped in sheer coral fabrics, scout was naked, save for a thick fox-fur coat. He warmed his arched feet by a warm amber light, emanating from a green and gold lamp.

Medic crouched to the ground beneath his apostle, scout's legs slung lazily over the other's shoulders. The lamp above medic's head gave him a holy glow. they were both gods in their own rights, devout to one another like the holy union of the soul and mind. Medic carved this man from stone and brought him up with him to the heavens. Medic caressed his ample thighs, smooth and real, yet hard as marble. Beyond the reach of his very nose lay scouts cunt, noticeably throbbing and glistening wet, forested with dark brown hair.

scout moaned gently when medic rose up and away from his aching heat, pulling the older man closer with his muscular legs. medic chuckled in crackles and leaned down towards the scout's neck, open and inviting, for no one else. should he take this hint, sink his teeth into the flesh, it would mark the beginning of a holy rite. of course, he took it. Medic scraped his teeth along the supple flesh, eliciting a gasp from the muse. Today, medic would bring forth much more from the other, awarding him with worship for being such a patient disciple.

"keep going, please doc." scout's breath hitched ever so slightly, biting down on his girlish pink lips. so much for patience. he deserved this treat anyways.

Medic licked a stripe along the hot muscle running from scout's jawline, down towards his clavicle. Suckling and peppering kisses along the pink skin, watching his Galatea shiver where his mouth was not. Oh, to condition him to associate the cold with needing medic. to associate everything with how medic makes him feel. Scout was noisily huffing as Medic threatened to bite clean into his throat. clean would not describe the scene, medic would ravage him. the younger man shook and trembled when Medic dragged a scalpel from an unknown area, bringing it to his chest and dangerously close to his skin, tacky with sweat.

"You can't keep me like this. it's not fair, fucking gut me."

Medic groaned and his stomach flexed with arousal, a current sent straight to his cock.

"I would love nothing more." medic huffed. "but for now, I'd just like to drink from you."

"would'ja now?" scout smirked below him, so annoyingly smug, well aware that he held just as much control as the man above him. Scout threw a curvy leg above Medic's shoulder, prying him down towards his cunt.

medic grinned evil and sly, dragging the flat side of his scalpel along Scout's skin until he relented. He dropped to his knees, (a stupid idea, given that medic's knees would usually pop out of their sockets,) and brought the sharp blade towards the other man's thighs. a stripe of blood in an instant invaded the still air, the smell filling medic's mind, as if he were a piranha. Scout's pleas fell silent on the ears of the man below him, lapping up the red-hot blood. Medic already knew what Scout wanted.

"I wish to carve you open from below, straight up and into your throat." medic crooned to his statue of sex, who, in return, moaned in a high-pitched tone.

through several more shallow cuts, medic felt his appetite could not be satisfied by these small morsels. scout was caught in another tangent, and interrupted when Medic licked along his aching cunt.

"woah-ahh! holy shit..." scout flung a fur-clad arm to his own face, shuddering as medic worked his tongue over his clit, standing hot at attention. Scout bit into his hand, attempting silence for once. currents of painfully acute thrill jolted towards his nipples and each throb from his cock burned him brighter.

Scout ground gently onto Medic's mouth, chasing the high of orgasm. He keened and moaned freely into the air, arising from his chest sang praises and pleas for more. his eyes here glossy with involuntary tears. Medic payed no mind, fucking him deeper with his tongue, rubbing along his cock with his thumb

"F-fuck, 'm gonna-hah! faster! pleeease-!" scout was nearly yelling at this point, squirming his hips, digging his wet cunt into medic's face, messy hair clinging to his sweaty forehead. he loved seeing the man let go like this, so ready and hopeful to rip him apart and use him. Scout loved the way how everyone, especially medic, told him to shut up, knowing that they couldn't deny how behind closed doors, his very voice brings them to their knees, lapping up his sexual delights.

Medic sped up his pace, and Scout's legs spasmed over his shoulders, crashing into an orgasm whimpering and sobbing. loud moans filled the fiery golden room, ecstasy evident through the drenched bottom half of medic's face.

"c'mere, let me finish you off." scout panted through the thick air, humid with sex. unceremoniously, medic lifted himself up, wiped his face with a silk handkerchief, and leaned over scout. he grazed his fingers over scout's nipples, drawing out a hiss of post-orgasm overstimulation.

scout led the other man closer to him, laying his knuckle-y hands on Medic's erection. Medic threw his head back, leaving it in the air as he coaxed his cock free from his britches.

scout sat up just a bit, with Medic's cock cradled betwixt his soaked folds. slowly, medic thrust forth, grinding his cock into the other man. He growled hungrily into the nape of the other man's neck, face drowning in soft furs. he whines a bit, attempting to catch up to a neon release, orgasm.

every one of scout's breaths was capped with an overwhelmed mewl, tears dripping limp along his flushed cheeks.

medic shouted out in pleasure, gripped with the primal electricity of orgasm. Scout threw his heavy arms around the neck of Medic, shouting his name like scripture. they came at once, singing of their sacred bodies with pants and moans, silenced by the clasing of mouth together.

medic looked up at Scout, by now now with drying tears, and kissed his face tenderly. scout looked red as a beet, wide-eyed as if the act of kissing was more lewd than what they had been doing.

[ariadne-mouse]

sorry we pulled your fiancé through a portal doorway hole to another dimension yeah we absorbed him into the void and left a little bit on your hand sorry

[ravenbirdyyz]

lava lamp

paring: oblivious!gerard way x drug addict!user

summary: surroundings are bright and colourful your insides feel like jello, more a lava lamp to be exact, will gerard realise and help?

warnings: drug use, self harm, angst, needles, getting high, smoking, weed, bad Spelling, use of y/n, mention of puke.

A/N: hai!!! this is my first post on tumblr. minors dni!! this includes heavy angst and drug use everyone experiences stuff differently! I have never done drugs so it isn't perfect. I am writing my about me as you read this x_x . you: purple. gerard: red. other: green.

Gerard had gone out with frank a few minutes ago giving you the chance to get high before he came back home.

as soon as you heard his car pull out of the driveway you perked up from your spot on the couch and ran to yours room.

scavenging through your drawers to find your stash, you found the ziplock bag and pulled it out. you had what looked like about 4 ounces of weed left. you grabbed it and put it all in your grinder deciding you would get more later.

grabbing the paper as you finished grinding your leftover stash and rolling it into a cigarette. you walked into the bathroom ang locked the door and opening the windows, you grabbed a lighter and lit the cigarette before taking a drag. the smoke filling your lungs before you blew it out and coughed.

immediately feeling relaxed after your second drag. as you put it out you let the smoke go outside the windows before leaving the bathroom and walking to your backyard, giggling at the birds eating the seeds you left out earlier.

you felt hungry. so you went to go get food. what tho? a sandwich, bag of chips? oh I know! leftover pasta from yesterday. you only had to reheat it. you grabbed it from the fridge and put it in the microwave for 8 minutes. accidentally pressing the 1. 18 minutes you didn't realise and went to sit down and watch TV.

it had been a while and you smelt something burning and saw smoke coming from the microwave. you got up and opened the microwave door. it was burnt.

you groaned and immediately felt upset. deciding to just eat a bag of chips. you sat in your room after eating them. you felt exhausted and passed out on the bed. waking up after who knows how long.

finding gerard still wasn't home you felt even more upset. "is he cheating on me?" "he said he would be home soon!" "am i good enough for him" before you knew it. you found yourself standing in front of the mirror insulting yourself.

. . .

you broke down as you stared at yourself. blade in hand. your arms bleeding. filled with cuts. trying to stop the bleeding but you just made the cuts deeper. you dropped the blade. you fell to the floor. ravaging through under the bathroom sink for your needle. you know you washed it the last time you used it.

you had the needle in your arm. injecting the heroine into your bloodstream. you felt nauseous. you laid down and stared at th3 ceiling. everything was colourful and bright. you barely heard the front door opening and gerard calling your name.

"y/n! are you asleep?-"

he froze at the bedroom door as he saw you laying next to a needle. fresh cuts on your arm with dried blood. staring at the ceiling. he walked over to you and sat you up. you finally realised him and felt shocked

"you told me you stopped.."

"I'm sorry."

"I- I'm. I'm staying with frank..while you sort yourself.. out"

"gerard- wait-"

you heard the front door open and close and his car drive off. you grabbed your phone and called your dealer.

"I need alot more. at least 30 ounces."

"that's enough to last you a week? and it's going to cost alot."

"I need it. how much is it."

"550."

"shit..alright"

. . .

who knows how long it's been, since you downed nearly 2 bottles of alcohol. injected yourself with the heroine. you laid on your floor. getting lost in yourself.

it was all too much, the white powder left on your bench for who knows how long. the spoon, lighter, the needle laying somewhere in your house. the headaches the next morning, the alcohol bottles left broken, or empty around yours and gerards your apartment.

you had to face it. he left. because of you. your addiction. you knew he wasn't coming back anytime soon. or was he?

you barely heard the front door open and gerard appear from the hallway. he stared at you in shock. you didn't know what was happening, you couldn't see, your breathing was erratic.

the last thing you heard was your name being screamed.

Gerards pov.

i finally had left franks house to go check on y/n it had only been maybe 3 days since I left for them to figure themselves out. bad decision gerard.

as I pulled into the driveway and got out, locking the car, grabbing my key. damn key never worked. I jabbed it into the door and pushed it open.

silence. dead silence

I walked down the hall too the kitchen, seeing a mess on the bench then a mess on the floor. . . then a pale looking y/n. oh.

the mess, the needles, the powder on the tip of their nose, the gross smell of vomit lingered. before my eyes fell to your face.

Oh. My. Fucking. God

their face. it was so pale. cheeks sucked in. hair was a mess. a puddle of drool beneath them. oh God. the foam. it was a unsettling sight. greenish gray foam falling out of their mouth.

"what the fuck happened here?"

I couldn't stare any longer. I knew they were in pain. I grabbed my phone and dialed 000/911.

"oh God it's horrible. please hurry"

I left my phone on the bench, I rushed to y/ns side. so unsettling, but I couldn't handle staring at my partner. who looked half fucking zombie I should've never left them alone.

it had been a few minutes before the sirens came into ear distance, the front door opened and the people took them, they would be fine, right? right.

. . .

it had been weeks. at least and you were still passed out on the hospital bed. until late at night gerard got a phone call. you had finally woken up.

gerard immediately got out of bed, snatching the keys and running outside. locking the front door and hopping in his car. trying not too speed, it felt like hours (15 minutes) before he arrived, he parked and got out the car, rushing to the hospital doors, buying a visitor ticket and getting in elevator.

he dreaded as he walked towards your room. he pushed the door open and saw the once again, unsettling scene before him. you were hooked up to wires. tubes going down your nose, leading down your throat. he felt sick knowing it was partly his fault.

your eyes widened and tried speaking but nothing came out. these dumb tubes. you kept trying.

"n-ot. your- fault..please- com-e 'ere.."

the rest of the day was filled with hugs, and sobs.

hurrah I hope this was good for a first time post!! let me know if u want a part 2 :3

[peskyrequeskys]

Neopronouns for a TangoTek Fictive

With Themes of Fire, Decked Out, Blazes,

Redstone, Ancient Cities, Mysteries, Music,

Hearts, and Rancherduo.

Fire/Fires/Fires/Fireself

Burn/Burns/Burns/Burnself

Crack/Crackle/Crackles/Crackleself

Spark/Sparks/Sparks/Sparkself

Card/Cards/Cards/Cardself

Game/Games/Games/Gameself

Dungeon/Dungeons/Dungeons/Dungeonself

Frost/Frosts/Frosts/Frostself

Ravage/Ravages/Ravagers/Ravagerself

Nether/Nethers/Nethers/Netherself

Fortress/Fortresses/Fortresses/Fortressself

Smoke/Smokes/Smokes/Smokeself

Blaze/Blazes/Blazes/Blazeself

Red/Reds/Reds/Redself

Dust/Dusts/Dusts/Duself

Redstone/Redstones/Redstones/Redstoneself

Observer/Observers/Observers/Observerself

Dropper/Droppers/Droppers/Dropperself

Dispense/Dispenser/Dispensers/Dispenserself

Hopper/Hoppers/Hoppers/Hopperself

Button/Buttons/Buttons/Buttonself

Lever/Levers/Levers/Leverself

Lamp/Lamps/Lamps/Lampself

Echo/Echos/Echoes/Echoself

Deep/Deeps/Deeps/Deepself

Skulk/Skulks/Skulks/Skulkself

Sensor/Sensors/Sensors/Sensorself

Ward/Wards/Wardens/Wardenself

Ancient/Ancients/Ancients/Ancientself

City/Citys/Cities/Cityself

Lantern/Lanterns/Lanterns/Lanternself

Myst/Mystery/Mysteries/Mysteryself

Search/Searchs/Searches/Searchself

Secret/Secrets/Secrets/Secretself

Clue/Clues/Clues/Clueself

Note/Notes/Notes/Noteself

Hymn/Hymns/Hymns/Hymnself

Song/Songs/Songs/Songself

Disc/Discs/Discs/Discself

Tune/Tunes/Tunes/Tuneself

Melody/Melodys/Melodies/Melodyself

Harmony/Harmonys/Harmonies/Harmonyself

Jukebox/Jukeboxes/Jukeboxes/Jukeboxself

Love/Loves/Loves/Loveself

Heart/Heart/Hearts/Heartself

Heartbeat/Heartbeat/Heartbeats/Heartbeatself

Adore/Adores/Adores/Adoreself

Canary/Canarys/Canaries/Canaryself

Ranch/Rancher/Ranches/Rancherself

Soulmate/Soulmates/Soumates/Soulmateself

Mine/Mines/Mines/Mineself

Coal/Coals/Coals/Coalself

Revenge/Revenge/Revenges/Revengeself

Goat/Goats/Goats/Goatself

Horn/Horns/Horns/Hornself

Double/Doubles/Doubles/Doubleself

❤️/❤️s/❤️s/❤️self

💕/💕s/💕s/💕self

🔥/🔥s/🔥s/🔥self

⛓️/⛓️s/⛓️s/⛓️self

🗝/🗝s/🗝s/🗝self

[deramin2]

Meme for Candela Obscura Ch1 E2: Ravage of Red Lamp

Me watching The Horrors.

ID image 1: Ryan Bergara of Buzfeed Unsolved uplit with a flashlight in a dark room. Caption: I'm starting to emotionally shut down. ID Image 2: Shane Madej of Buzfeed Unsolved uplit with a flashlight in a dark room. Caption: Great. Love to hear that. End ID.

[your-enby-antihero]

Ravage of red lamp? Also holy shit that book prop in the prologue I want to own it :0