#she’s just wildly unprepared for any of this

[helpimstuckposting]

I think yall need to cut Celia some slack. I don’t think she’s this huge all-knowing manipulative mystery. She lost her entire identity and life in the TMA universe, was thrown into a new universe by herself, made her own life, had a baby, and then all of a sudden she started being pulled away from the home she made into the world that left her with amnesia after an apocalypse. Yeah, swapping places with someone else probably isn’t the best morally, but the other doppelgänger straight up murdered his counterpart and she told the computer ‘hmmmm no I don’t think so’

She also repeatedly told Sam they should NOT be going to hilltop, she said it was a bad idea and she TOLD him it was dangerous. She was definitely second guessing her first idea, and she DID like him! There was not one single reason for her to date him and sleep with him and introduce him to her son! All she needed to do was say she’d help him, that man was determined to look into all of this no matter what, they could have just done that as ‘friends’ if she didn’t actually care about him

[persevereforahappyending]

He Hung Up

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Summary: “Ooh,” you said excited, jumping up from the couch. You reached out making a grabby hand already. “Give me the phone, I’m great at pissing people off.”

Warnings: Violent Threats

Word Count: 3k

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

You and your friends trudged up the many many steps to the Carpenter sister’s apartment. You were at a party with your girlfriend and her friends when a drunk frat guy decided to get a little handsy. Luckily for you or more like lucky for him Sam showed up. Sam tasing him was generous because if you had gotten your hands on him for what he was about to do with Tara you would have beaten the shit out of him.

Sam also showing up meant Tara had been caught. Meaning you were now all in trouble for going to the party. Chad and his roommate Ethan took up the rear, while Mindy and her girlfriend Anika, held hands giggling and walking as close together as they could get as if they were in their own little world. You were in front of them while your girlfriend and her sister led the way, arguing, like usual.

You had been holding Tara’s hand, but she really liked gesturing wildly when she got into it with Sam, so she eventually dropped your hand. You tried intervening a few times but after Sam stopped, turning her furious glare onto you, you quickly shut your mouth and dropped your eyes to the ground. Sam wasn’t the biggest fan of you already and as much as you wanted to stick up for your girlfriend, even though you agreed with her sister to an extent, you didn’t want to add any more reasons for Sam to hate you. You knew Tara didn’t care about Sam’s opinions when it came to you, but you still wanted the older Carpenter to like you, at this point you were grasping at anything to win you points.

When you got to the apartment you all piled in, you and Anika dropping onto the couch, Ethan shuffling himself into a chair off to the side. Sam quickly locked the several locks on the door before moving into the kitchen with the other three. You could hear the core four as Chad had stupidly nicknamed them all whisper arguing about the night’s events. Quinn slipped out of her room after hearing the commotion you all must have been making and plopped herself down in the other chair.

Your eyes had drifted to the TV that Anika had turned on though she kept the volume muted. You weren’t paying attention until you noticed it wasn’t just a normal boring news report.

“Hey guys,” you shouted getting the others’ attention. “You need to see this.” You reached for the remote, turning up the volume as the others re-entered the room.

Everyone was silent as the story played. Some college students were killed and a Ghostface mask was left at the scene.

“Oh, hey it’s those weird guys from class,” you commented when the news threw up a picture of the two students who were killed. “That one,” you pointed to the picture that had the name Jason under it, “is the creepy one that always stares at you.” You turned to give Tara a I told you so look.

“He didn’t stare at me,” Tara weakly defended.

“He paid more attention to you than to the class.”

“How would you know?” Tara raised a brow. “Unless you weren’t paying attention either.”

“I’m your girlfriend,” you put a hand to your heart. “When I stare at you it’s adorable.”

Tara didn’t say anything more, she just playfully rolled her eyes.

Tara had turned her attention back to the TV, but you couldn’t take your eyes off her. The class you shared with the weird Jason kid was where you first met Tara. She sat next to you and despite it being the first day you were completely unprepared, you had asked her to borrow a pen then ten seconds later asked for a sheet of paper.

After that first class you slowly started trying to talk to her during quiet moments of class or if you were lucky and she got there early enough before class. You could listen to her all day discuss the deeper meaning of her ‘elevated’ horror movies.

You were sitting in the very spot you were now on her couch a few months ago. You had come over to Tara’s place to work on a paper for class, she was hesitant because her sister didn’t like unknown guests, but she said since her sister would be at therapy it would be fine. And you were fine, quietly working on your paper, stealing subtle glances at Tara.

You had been crushing on her hard since you first saw her but didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. With her history you weren’t sure she wanted anything more than friendship. During one of your subtle glances though you caught Tara openly staring at you. You dropped your pen, turning with the intention to ask if everything was okay when she leaned forward, grabbing you by the back of the head and pulling you into a kiss.

You instantly reciprocated the kiss, turning your body to fully face her. You brought up both of your hands, running them through her hair. You could feel her smile into the kiss as she pulled you closer, deepening the kiss even more.

You broke away, lightly laughing when you needed air. You shyly looked at Tara, despite the fact that you had just been making you, you saw her wearing the same smile as you.

“Sorry,” she said. “I waited so long, and it didn’t seem like you were ever going to make a move.”

You silently laughed, nodding before pulling her in for another kiss. You repositioned so you were kneeling on the couch, Tara doing the same. She started to slip your jacket off, neither of you breaking the kiss. You were both so caught up you didn’t hear the door open. You didn’t break apart until someone angrily cleared their throat, followed by a loud door slam.

You both jumped apart. You pulled your jacket back on, clearing your throat as if you hadn’t just been caught doing what you were about to do. You glanced towards the door to see Tara’s sister fuming.

“Sam,” Tara said, trying to sound casual. “You’re home early. How was therapy?”

You didn’t move, you didn’t say anything, you couldn’t take your eyes off of Sam. You had just been making out with Tara and now her sister was home and blocking your only path out. She hadn’t acknowledged her sister in any way, she just continued to glare at you.

“Get out,” is the only thing Sam said.

You quickly shot to your feet, throwing your stuff into your bag, and swinging the strap over one shoulder, not bothering to zip the bag up. You turned to Tara, smiled, and gave a thumbs up, then quickly scurried out of the apartment as Sam stepped out of the way, opening the door for you. You didn’t turn back but you could feel Sam’s burning gaze in the back of your skull. She hadn’t stopped glaring at you to this day.

You were brought back to the present when you heard Tara gasp and saw her eyes widen. You turned back to the TV and saw it.

“Holy shit,” you said, leaning forward to make sure you were seeing correctly. “That’s our film studies professor.”

The news reporter continued, saying how your professor was found stabbed to death in an alley. Then went on to say that the knife used was found in Jason’s apartment with his prints on it.

“Damn, I guess class is cancelled next week,” you said. You turned to say something else, but Tara was giving you a deadpanned look while Sam was once again glaring at you. You really needed to learn to shut up sometimes.

“We’re leaving, pack your stuff,” Sam announced, breaking her silence for the first time.

“Wait, what?” Tara asked. “We don’t even know if this has anything to do with us. It’s Halloween, there are thousands of people dressed up.” Tara tried to find any excuse to not leave. She turned back to you with a worried look. “Quinn!” she quickly turned to her roommate. “Call your dad, see what he knows.”

Quinn nodded, pulling out her phone. Before Quinn could start the call though another phone rang. Everyone in the room froze. All heads turned to Sam as she fished out her phone from her back pocket.

Tara moved closer to her sister, looking down at the phone. They both just stared at it in Sam’s hand as it continued to ring, no one moving to answer it.

“Ooh,” you said excited, jumping up from the couch. You reached out making a grabby hand already. “Give me the phone, I’m great at pissing people off.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Sam mumbled. You pouted but took the phone. She didn’t hand it to you, but she made no move to stop you.

“Hello?” you asked, a smile playing at your lips.

There was heavy breathing on the other end before, “You’re not Samantha.”

“No, sorry, she can’t come to the phone right now. May I take a message?”

“Put Samantha on the phone. I want to play a game with her.”

“Really?” you scrunched up your nose, looking towards Sam. “Have you met her? She’s not much fun.” Sam glared at you. “However, I’m much more fun. I love playing games, especially with her sister.” You winked at Tara who switched to glaring at you as well. You smiled, trying to keep in your laugh.

“Give Samantha the phone or my knife will find a home in your heart.”

“Sorry, my heart is already taken.” You winked at Tara again. She stopped glaring at you but only to roll her eyes at your antics.

“Don’t worry I’ll make sure to carve it out and deliver it her.”

“Well, I have always said the best presents come from the heart.”

“Stupid girl, do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“Let’s see, late night phone call, death threats, ominous creepy sounding voice,” you mumbled off. You tilted your head as if you were thinking really hard about who could possibly be on the phone.

“You really have a death wish, don’t you child?”

“Wait wait wait,” you said excitedly. “Wait, am I talking to the one and only Ghostface?” You paused, furrowing your brow as your eyes left the group of friends and drifted up to the ceiling in thought. “Well technically there’s usually two of you and technically you’re like the,” you started silently counting, using your fingers to keep track, “the tenth one? Whatever, anyway, it’s an honor.”

“I will gut you,” Ghostface growled out.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Can I make a request about my death?” You turned to your friends who were watching you with curious looks, waiting to see what you’d do next. “Just make sure I suffer. I don’t want to go out easy.” You started pacing, your friends now going from curious to concerned. Even Sam seemed concerned, it brought a small smile to your face, maybe this was how you won her over.

“My knife will carve out your insides.”

“Oh my god,” you whispered shyly. “Who told you I was into knife play?”

You turned back to your friends when you heard a cough only to see Chad choking on his water. Mindy was smacking her brother on the back to help him out. He seemed to be trying to keep the water in his mouth through the coughing, but he was clearly failing as the water finally sprayed out of his mouth. You rolled your eyes as Chad doubled over in a coughing fit. Sam and Tara ignored him as they continued to watch you.

“Has anyone ever told you how irritating you are?” Ghostface asked. He was using a voice changer, but you could swear he sounded tired.

“I’m an acquired taste,” you said. You shot your girlfriend a glare as you caught her nodding in agreement. She stopped when she caught your glaring, smiling innocently and mouthing ‘love you’. “Now for my death,” you continued, getting back to the important stuff. “Remember, slow and painful. I’m not just some side character.” You spun around pointing your finger even though you weren’t facing Ghostface. Though when you thought about it, he was probably watching you. “I’m not just some character that’s written off with a quick death. No, I’m the memorable bitch. I might not be the main but I’m the death you remember, you feel me?”

There was a long silence as you waited for his response. Your friends all leaned closer waiting for what would happen next even though they could only hear your side of the conversation. You furrowed your eyebrows when it had been over twenty seconds of silence.

“Hello? Hello?” you asked, pulling the phone away from your ear to look at the screen. “Hmm,” you hummed, tilting your head at the blank screen. “He hung up.”

You sighed, shaking your head as you turned back to your friends. You held out your hand, handing the phone back to Sam as you saw the shocked expressions of your friends. Everyone was staring at you wide eyed and mouths agape.

“So, does this mean I won or that I’m gonna die even more horribly than originally planned?” You asked. You raised your eyebrows waiting for a response as they continued to stare at you.

“You got Ghostface to hang up on you,” Mindy said in disbelief.

You shrugged. “I just have a way with some people.”

“Okay, I think it’s time we called it a night,” Sam said, pushing off from the dining table she had been leaning against.

“Can Y/N stay the night?” Tara asked, coming to stand by you.

You smiled as Tara wrapped her arms around your mid-section. You quickly put an arm around her, you would never turn down a hug and potential cuddles. You looked up at Sam with a smile. Sam shot you a tired glare, but you kept the smile on.

“Tara,” Sam groaned. “One phone call doesn’t mean I like her.”

You lost your smile, pouting at the older Carpenter. You had thought you did pretty good with the phone call. You had actually kind of enjoyed it, minus all the death threats you got.

“But she’s in danger now,” Tara argued. “If we send her back to her dorm alone then Ghostface can attack her and after that phone call he’s going to kill her horribly and painfully.”

“Wait what?” You asked, you head going back and forth between your girlfriend and her sister.

Sam tilted her head, raising her eyebrows slightly. Her head bounced around as she seemed to debate Tara’s words. You swallowed, gripping Tara a little tighter as you pulled her closer to you. You knew Sam wasn’t the biggest fan of you, but you didn’t think when it came down to your life that it was actually up for debate.

“Sam!” Tara snapped when it seemed like Sam had started to lean more towards sending you on your way.

Sam sighed, rolling her eyes. She had a small smile on her face, a smile she tended to only reserve for Tara when she was messing with her. “Alright, fine,” Sam said. “She can stay the night.” Sam lost her smile as she turned her attention back to you. She slowly made her way closer, glaring at you without blinking. “No funny business,” she pointed her finger threateningly at you. “Or I will throw you out.”

You nodded your head rapidly, letting out a small sigh of relief. Sam smiled sweetly as she turned away from you to face the others, but you could still see the lingering threat in her eyes. You shifted, tightening your grip on Tara again. She looked up at you smiling and despite just being threatened by her sister you couldn’t help but smile back. You were excited to be able to cuddle your girlfriend all night without the worries of waking up early to sneak out.

“Do you guys want to stay as well?” Sam asked the rest of the group.

“Nah, we’re good,” Chad said.

Sam nodded and walked them to the door. Chad and Ethan left, followed by Mindy and Anika who were wrapped up in a hug. Sam instantly got to locking the various locks on the door. Quinn pushed off her chair and went to her room with only a wave as a goodnight.

“Wait,” you said, causing Sam and Tara to look at you. “How much danger am I actually in?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “I’m going to bed,” is all she said. She walked past you and Tara and made her way to her room. “Goodnight!” she called out, giving a final wave of her hand before you heard the room to her door close.

“But seriously, am I next?” you shrieked, leaning back to look Tara in the eye.

Tara bobbed her head back and forth, opening her mouth to say, “Well-”

“Oh god!”

“Baby don’t worry,” Tara placed a hand on your chest in an attempt to comfort you. “I’ll protect you. For now,” she moved out of your embrace, moving her hand down until she could intertwine it with yours. “Let’s enjoy this rare occasion of you not having to sneak out and go cuddle.”

You succeeded in your goal to piss off Ghostface it seemed. Your life was in even more danger than it was before by just dating Tara, Sam willingly allowing you to stay the night at the apartment confirmed that. Though you were reasonably terrified of your potentially upcoming death you couldn’t focus on that. The girl you were crazy about was standing before you and asking you to cuddle. You wordlessly nodded, allowing her to drag you to her room. You would never deny her after all.

[dovithedarklord]

Stucked - Part 3

You're trapped in a game and a new threat is lurking.

..............................................

Pairing: John "Soap" MacTavish x reader, Simon "Ghost" Riley x reader

Tags: Mentions of death, Mentions of blood and gore, Blood and Violence, Sexual Scenes, Alternate Universe, No use of Y/N, Not Beta Read, AFAB Reader

Trigger Warning: Contains mentions of violence. Please, keep that in mind!

⚠️MDNI⚠️

......................................................

Author's Note

I watched too much Netflix on the weekend, so here is the next part! Everything gets even more complicated.

Have fun! :D

Part 1, Part 2

........................................................

"Simon, it's been so long since we met!" Pam squeals, turning to the new man with such enthusiasm as if she really knew him for years, even though you're pretty sure that this strange figure has never paid his respects in the game until now. And the fact that your partner freely allows herself to be pulled into an overly intimate hug makes your stomach turn. Because you get that visceral feeling of a wolf hugging a deer before sinking its teeth into its flesh and tearing it to shreds.

Because you're not so naive as not to know that the newcomer didn't appear here to help you. And all you have to do is look at Johnny and see that cheerful light in his sky-blue eyes, which are too sincere for the stranger to be just a simple side character. No, this man exudes a different kind of menace, and you've died just enough and been in enough pain to recognize the dark cruelty in those warm brown eyes when they look at you.

You take careful steps closer to the porch, and your grip on the strap of your bag tightens almost painfully, as if the poor fabric could save you, whatever might be lurking to pounce on you. Everything has gone through an unsettling change, as if the game has turned into a fleeting mirage, approaching which, instead of the apparent calm, more horrors would await. And you're sure that whatever this goddamn place is up to, it's trying to discourage you from getting out in increasingly evil ways. Why throw in more and more unusual twists otherwise?

And as soon as you step onto the veranda, the wooden planks creak under your shoes, as if the small voice would want to warn you to be on your guard. Although all your senses are sharpened by the stress, and all your muscles are filled with energy ready to flee, you're still unprepared as Johnny hugs you, even though this is the only certain point since the restart, which takes place in the same way as before. But when he pulls you to his broad chest, and his strong arms wrap around you, your heart skips a beat because like a lightning strike, the memories of last night come back to you. His hot breath caresses your neck, and as the sensitive skin begins to tingle wildly, your stomach shrinks to an impossibly small size, because the burning reminder of his touch smolders in each and every pore of yours. As if every inch he touched in the suffocating darkness of the kitchen would be covered in aching flames at the same time, so that you know where he marked you for himself.

And your body acts almost on its own, because as you feel the hardness slowly coming to life in his groin pressing to your stomach, visceral fear rushes through you, and you want nothing more than to run away. Your hands come to life on their own, and you push the man away from you so forcefully that even he himself is surprised. And as you step back and fix your frightened gaze on him, you see the grim glint in his eyes, with which he stares at you for a moment. And the little voice in your head that tells you, that your rejection brought a much harsher distaste to the handsome face than any pain you caused him yesterday…

But what worries you much more than this is how, from this small movement, reality suddenly freezes around you, and all eyes are settled on you with such tense disbelief that it makes the little hairs on your back stand up. An inexpressible tension spreads over the faces of your two companions, their delicate features for a fleeting moment resembling more closely to the plastic mannequins standing lifelessly in store windows. You see a small muscle twitch on Rebecca's face, as her wide, glassy eyes stare at you, the gentle innocence replaced by something quite terrifying. Her fingers are clenched into fists with such force that her knuckles slowly turn white, and small drops of blood emerge from her closed fingers as her nails dig into her palm. You immediately understand that you made a mistake. Because this game won't tolerate you openly defying it. It doesn't like it when you stop the sick charade prematurely, because you spoil the fun. Fuck.

"I'm just… a little tired, sorry." You stammer, immediately letting the first words, which form in your panic-stricken brain, fall to your mouth, and as the force that painfully squeezes Pam's jaw eases a little, you know that you’ll have to be more careful. "I'm going to rest a little." You pull a weak smile on your face and hate how pathetically thin the voice that comes out of you is.

The ominous shadow that had sits there suddenly disappears from Johnny's face, and as if the game had calmed down at the first signs of your desperation, the tense moment dissipates, and the stomach-churning peacefulness, that weaves through this cursed fever dream like a disgusting illness, takes its place again.

"Come on, Bunny, don't worry about it." Johnny reassures you, and although his tone is perfectly relaxed, you still discover the hard promise behind the harmless words. This small opposition will have serious consequences, and you don't even dare to imagine how this stupid mistake of yours will affect the course of the already unusual events. "Go unpack. Ye'll need yer strength for the party." He says lightheartedly, and the smile that escapes to his full lips makes your stomach jump uncomfortably, because even though the mask of innocence is now resting on his face, you can already read his every little twitch all too well. And from the way, despite the cheerfully upward curve of his mouth, the same sparkle that you discovered in the reflection of the window, when you were trapped by him in that blasted kitchen, moves into his eyes, and fear grips your insides in an icy fist almost immediately. Because there's nothing sweet or charming about the way your every nerve admits that you've been thrust into the spotlight of a predator's undivided attention.

Without a word, you head inside, almost sprinting from the stress that is awakening in your body, like a scared little mouse that is about to flee from the cat. The stranger, Simon, lets you storm over the threshold, and if your mind didn't cling to every last crumb of your sanity so bitterly, you might wonder why he's cooperating so willingly. Everything has a price and nothing happens without a reason. Every drop of peace, every grain of kindness is a deceptive trap. But you want to escape too quickly.

Your pulse is pounding in your ears as you run up the stairs, and you automatically make your way to your room, because even if someone would wake you up from a dream, you'd find it, you've wandered through this horrible house so many times. You almost tear open the door as you rush in, and you slam it behind you with such speed that even you get startled by the impact. But nothing happens, no one comes after you, and when you finally calm down and sure that you were able to hide from the prying eyes, you stumble through the friendly little room panting, just to fall on your bed with trembling legs.

Burying your face in your hands, you try to hold back the start of the scream slowly rising in your throat, and between the wooden paneled walls only the gentle rustling of your breathing echoes, as you try to swallow the air in heavy gulps from panic, to see if your lungs will be filled with peace along with the fine particles of dust. And it takes what seems like a thousand years before the frantic beating of your heart finally eases, and you dance back from the panic attack that the last few hours you experienced so enthusiastically drove you towards. Goddamnit.

Everything went so awfully well, you finally started to understand the rules, you navigated yourself through the maze of clues, you really made progress, but now everything seems to be collapsing like a damn house of cards. You've already died twice without having a chance to progress, and if that wasn't horrible enough, Johnny's strange behavior, his increasingly dirty tactics, and the arrival of the newcomer shake this hellish vision-like torture chamber to its foundations. And now you're not even sure how to move forward, because you feel that every single step you take forward is followed by an even more cruel pushback, and with every minute, every hour, every night you spend here, you drift further away from the way out. Although, you want nothing more. For real air caress your skin, the ringing of the laughter of real people in your ears, and to finally not suffer and hurt, again, and again, and again... Enough!

You run your hands through your hair with a frustrated sigh, and you'd like to pull out the strands in clumps, but you know that it won't make the situation any easier or any less complicated. You have to find a solution because whoever or whatever created this game is meant to keep you here. It occurs to you that maybe this damn place feeds on your pain and fear, and if that's the case, then it makes sense that it’ll do everything it can to drag you into even deeper and more complicated problems, where it can watch you writhe in its clutches. But you are stronger than that. The instinct to survive and the desire for freedom is much stronger in you than to let yourself be trampled. You won't let those killers in sheep's clothing, nor the thousands of dangers lurking around you, deter you from your goal.

And when you feel that enough confidence has returned to your limbs, and your legs can safely support you, then although the trembling of terror is still there in your muscles, the fog of alarm has lifted from your brain enough so that you can focus on planning. You can't do anything else but wait to see how the story develops with the new character, and watch in the background to observe what else changes. You need to gather information, because you're almost certain that Simon is another killer who will try to hunt you down. And thus three possible attackers will be panting in your heels. You have to be careful, and you have to move forward now, because you can't waste another night on distractions. Today you have to get behind the locked door. No matter what it takes.

And that suddenly reminds you that maybe it's time to check the key you got. But as your fingers reach into your pocket, they feel nothing but emptiness, and this makes you rummage through all the hidden corners of your jeans, but the miserable little object still doesn't appear. It wouldn't be the first time that some clues don't pop up again where you previously hid them, which is why, even though you have a bad suspicion in the back of your head, you keep your composure and turn towards your bag carelessly thrown on your bed. But no matter how deep you dig among the many clothes and small trinkets, you can’t seem to find what you’re looking for. And then the dreadful feeling claws into your stomach with an iron fist, and like a deadly poison, fear snakes its way into your cells, paralyzing every single nerve.

You grab your bag with hasty movements, and you turn it upside down so hurriedly to violently shake every hidden knick-knack out of it, that the thousand and one personal belongings hidden inside land with a dull thud on the floor. And no matter how you try to scan through the chaos with your eyes, no matter how you search among your clothes scattered on the ground with your hands, there's no sign of the key, as if it had been swallowed by earth. And your mind immediately tries to produce a series of solutions to somewhat alleviate the bitter taste of despair bubbling up in your throat, but each answer that seems likely pushes you further and further towards hysteria. It's possible that the key has returned to its original location and you have to go get it again, but this is a more solvable problem. But if the key has completely disappeared, it means that the game has rearranged the clues and you can start the pursuit all over again, because you have no idea what the path you need to take can be... meanwhile, one more danger is out to get you. This damn, trashy, vile game!

You feel the weight of realization sinking deeper and deeper into you, and with each passing minute, the situation you have fallen into seems increasingly hopeless. And it makes no sense for everything to turn upside down so suddenly, but no matter how hard you try to put together the puzzle that could help you decipher what caused the tiny little moment that started the whole upheaval like an avalanche, you can't figure out what you could have messed up. But you're sure it has something to do with Johnny. His lustful adventure was the catalyst for the whole unimaginable complication, and since then nothing has been the same. And if everything took a dark turn because of him, then it will be worth keeping an eye on him, because he can only bring more trouble to your head.

But as you look around the room with the confusion of a chased animal, your senses, dulled by stress, still find something utterly alien in the false calm of the neat little room. Because you're pretty sure that until now none of the books resting on the bookshelf had an intelligible title, but only a random sequence of letters on them, which always looked more like a gibberish language that appeared in a dream than any real one. But now you're definitely reading meaningful words on the spines of books, and that makes your body charge towards the bookshelf in a minute.

And when you get closer and read the message that appears on them, you're already quite sure that this miserable game wants to contact you. Because even though none of them would make sense individually, as you turn your head and read the titles outlined on the shabby covers one by one, you quickly understand the message:

Let me help you a little, Bunny :) Open me!

This is the first time that the system has given you such an obvious sign, so even though a thousand alarm bells are ringing in your head, your curiosity is much stronger. And you have a fleeting feeling that you’re not in a position to say no.

You reach carefully for the last book, which encourages you to dig in with a hypocritical kindness, as if something terrible could happen at any moment. And you already know this miserable place too well to know, that behind every seemingly innocent thing, something quite horrible can be hidden, like a demon waiting to break your neck when you are unwary.

But, when you pull out the volume, not a single monster jumps out from a secret corner to take your life, and although this eases the gnawing worry in your stomach, it doesn't completely put your suspicion to sleep. But when you open it, you're greeted with blank pages, and you flip through the wretched book in confusion, until finally a short message becomes visible. And although there are only a few short lines, it's enough to plant the seeds of terror in your mind.

I won't bite, don't be afraid,

I just want a playmate,

And if your blood is shed once more by my kin,

Whose mark has already bloomed on your skin,

Then you'll fall into the abyss deeper,

And you'll stay here with me forever :)

And you don't have to be particularly smart to understand what the game is trying to tell you. Because your trembling hand finds the strange mark on your stomach through your clothes, which starts to burn your skin with almost boiling heat. The lines stare mockingly at you, and you can almost feel how this devilish place laughs at you, as despair takes over you. You can't die by the same hand again, because if you do… you'll never get out. And that's enough to push your already worn-out body to the brink of fainting.

The first searing agony of a migraine-like pain rips into your head, because the hundreds of thoughts echoing in your mind strain uncomfortably against your skull. As if the world would start spinning with you, and you weakly let the damned book fall out of your hands. You unconsciously stumble over the traces of disorder lying on the floor, and drag yourself to the bathroom to freshen up a bit. There are too many new stimuli, everything is happening too fast, and you must not fall apart now. Because this new rule has put a rope around your neck, and it only takes one wrong move to strangle yourself. You can't let this happen.

You need all your strength, as Johnny so aptly remarked earlier. Because you feel in your bones, how the sour disappointment settles into them, that from now on everything will be much more difficult, and you'll have to overcome even more obstacles. Like rolling a large rock to the top of a mountain, which at a careless moment can bring you down with it. But you don't give up. You never give up.

In the small bathroom, you stagger to the sink and, still lost in your thoughts, you open the faucet, so as the frosty fingers caress your skin, the chaos raging in your brain begins to ease a little. Collecting a little water with your palms, you sprinkle your face, and as soon as the cold droplets bite into your skin like small needles, then despite the unpleasant feeling, you repeat your movement, as if this could be the solution to how to escape from the corner where the game is slowly driving you.

And although it doesn't completely remove the stress that is slowly turning into exhaustion from your limbs, the cold sobers you up just enough, that when you reach for the towel and bury your face in the soft cotton, the aching tension that settles on you dulls a bit. You need a plan. Because if that's true, then your hours are numbered. The masked killer can't kill you more than once, because that means you're stuck here. At best, you have two more chances to die with impunity, and then you're racing against time and the game's nefarious moves. But how do you stay alive in a horror game long enough? Anything can cause you to lose, and in light of new developments, you can no longer be sure that the same steps will raise death flags as they did until now. What will happen if you survive the night? The next day dawns, and? What's next? A completely unknown storyline will unfold in front of you and the chances of you surviving it are very small.

With a tired huff, you throw the towel back on its holder, and your mind is too busy with your racing doubts to notice in time that you’re not alone. You only break out of your thoughts when you return to the room and are greeted by someone, who appeared there like a ghost. Silently and uninvited.

You knew at first sight that Simon is not an ordinary character, and as he stands in the middle of a room bathed in the light of the setting sun, and the golden rays wrap his tall figure in a warm embrace, you realize that your intuition wasn't wrong. If you hadn't already seen enough horror hidden behind angelic faces thanks to Johnny, you'd let him lull your suspicions. But you see how menacingly the muscles are bulging under his sweater, and you can immediately imagine that those strong hands, which are now calmly lifting a bra from the hurried mess left behind, could snap your neck in an instant. You're not fooled by the nonchalance with which he raises the black-laced underwear in front of him, because you can see the merciless hunger in those dark eyes, that you encounter in his friend's as well. This man is as dangerous as anything else in this nightmare. And despite all the attractive features that peek out from under the black mask, you know that behind the beauty lies a bloodthirsty intention.

"I see you unpacked." He notes without any hint of unease, and his deep voice hits you completely unexpectedly. It's interwoven with a strong accent, which could even make the words that roll off his tongue deceptively attractive, and the pleasant hoarseness makes your stomach flutters in confusion. Not because you are naive enough to allow yourself to be seduced, but because he speaks to you with such an intimate tone that belies your very recent acquaintance. Although as the story stands, you’re not a stranger to him, but he very much is to you.

And at other times, maybe you wouldn't attach any importance to it, and you wouldn't mind him looking through your personal belongings, because nothing is yours. Not the clothes, not the shoes, not the shampoo, not the shower gel. Nothing. Only objects generated by the game, with no emotion attached to them. Now, however, as he stands there among the clothes scattered on the floor and slowly holds the bra to his face, and despite the mask, he inhales its scent with a deep breath, you feel an uncomfortable tension wash over you. Because he doesn't know that you've never worn that little black piece of clothing before, and probably never will, and that's what makes the situation so bizarre... The whole movement, as he closes his eyes and buries his nose in the fine material, creates something quite obscene, which makes the lump that you just managed to remove cling to your throat with renewed force. What the hell is he doing?

"I was just looking for something." You break the silent moment, hoping that whatever he's doing you'll disturb him enough with your little comment so that he finishes it. But as his eyelids open lazily and he glances down at you from under his blond eyelashes, you regret that you drew his attention to you. The darkness that settles in those brown eyes is unmistakable and makes goosebumps prickle instinctively through your body. Because his gaze makes you feel like he's flaying you alive with it, so that he can get to your desperately pounding heart by the shortest route. And you're pretty sure that he can clearly hear your pulse racing between your ribs, because there's no other way to explain why amused wrinkles gather around his eyes.

"Did you find it?" He continues to inquire unperturbed, throwing the underwear back on the ground. And when his gaze almost immediately falls on the book resting on the floor, the snow-white pages of which shine with bleak emptiness between the walls of the room that are slowly enveloped into semi-darkness, then you know that he didn't discover this little thing just now. Because he studies the barren pages as if he knew the secret it revealed to you.

"I think." You reply carefully, and you follow every change in his face with wary eyes, because at this point, every little twitch can be a sign for you. You need to get to know the new source of danger as soon as possible, because from here on there is no room for mistakes, unless you want to be trapped in this temporary hell forever. And you rather force yourself and defy the instinct of flight that awakens in your muscles, because you cannot run away.

But when he leaves his place and advances towards you with comfortable steps, you have to try with every fiber of your being to stay on your feet, because his slow walk may seem harmless to anyone, but you recognize the unspoken threat lurking in his movements.

"You know, I showed Johnny this house." He suddenly changes the subject, and it takes a few seconds for you to realize what he told you. And as the conversation that you have already listened to dozens of times at the dinner table pops up in your mind, shock appears on your face much sooner than your brain can prevent it. "At first he didn't see the potential in it, but he soon understood that we needed it." He explains, as though he just wants to reveal to you a long-cherished secret. And the meaning behind his words tightens your throat, as if his long fingers were already locked around your neck. And from the dryness that settles in your esophagus, it's like you're sending blades into your stomach with every swallow.

"It's a really nice place." You mumble weakly, because it becomes all too clear, as he stops a few narrow steps in front of you, how huge this man is. He looms menacingly over you, and as you raise your head, craning your neck at an uncomfortable angle, to direct your alarmed gaze at him, it becomes painfully obvious that you won't survive the new threat once it tracks you down. Terrible power flows from each sturdy muscle, and the little voice in the back of your mind immediately tells you that whatever he plans to do with you, you would have no chance of resisting. And this powerless feeling seems all too familiar, as if you've stood in the shadow of this horrifying force before.

"It will be." He agrees with your statement, and your heart skips a beat in fright, as one of his huge hands reaches to your face and gently caresses your skin damp from fear, as if he were afraid that you would be crushed by even a stray touch. And your consciousness drifting to the edge of blacking out is close to breaking... But you don't dare to lose sight of him. "Somethin' was missin' from it until now." He continues, and there is something sickly private about the way his thumb finds your quivering lips and strokes them with a feather-light touch. "But we have already found out what the mistake could’ve been." He adds, and his gaze sinks into yours with such a significant weight that you understand what he means without him saying it out loud. But the realization only causes even more chaos in your mind, because you don't like what he's trying to imply with it one bit. And no matter how much you try to calm yourself down by saying that only the story reveals the secret motivations of your attackers to you, but the doubt is restlessly scratching in your brain, which screams that this isn't what it's about... Because as his palm slowly travels to the nape of your neck and pulls you to his strong body without much resistance, as the thick arms wrap around you and the bitter smell of tobacco creeps into your nose with the vileness of a poison, then every part of you becomes paralyzed. A fictional character can't suggest that they've been waiting for you until now, right?

And as his free hand wanders to your waist and begins to draw small circles there with mocking tenderness, then the foreboding takes over you with an impossible force. Because there is nothing comforting in the way he buries his face in your hair, and the way the burning heat of his body crawls through the disgusting legs of a deadly disease into your cells icy with terror. And everyone else could think of this quiet moment as intimate, even romantic, but you know the dirty tricks of this fucking game better than that. You know a wolf hugged you to himself. And you just meekly let him decide when he sinks his teeth into you.

"Don't spoil the game because I don't want to punish you." He grumbles, and although his voice is barely louder than a whisper, your ears can hear the warning perfectly. And you don't like what he’s suggesting with his words. Because you know exactly what kind of pain he promises you if you spoil the fun. But… isn't that too early yet? Shouldn't he be playing the innocent character? After all, monsters only wake up with the appearance of night... "Now you've found your way home." He states simply, with a conviction that is impossible to ignore. And that one sentence is enough to make the air painfully stuck in your lungs, and a metallic taste escape on your tongue, as your teeth sink into the inside of your cheek, before a desperate scream can break out of your throat. Because now you are quite sure that Simon is not a simple character. He knows what's going on here. He knows you don't belong here. And when, with condescending kindness, he smooths a kiss on the trembling line of your lips through his mask, you already know that he has no intention of letting you get out of here.

"Dinner will be ready soon. Don't be late."  He walks away as quickly as he appeared, and as he strolls out of the room, you're left alone with the suffocating pressure trapped between the cozy walls, which slowly drags your overburdened body under its weight. 

What do you do now?

[realcube]

˖°.𓆩♡𓆪 .°˖ CHARCTER GENERATOR for @naru-mi-gen

𓆩♡𓆪 part of my lovers level — 3k follower event

𓆩♡𓆪 chosen tropes: brother's best friend

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ YOUR CHARACTER IS...

KIYOOMI SAKUSA

tw// a bit suggestive at the end

since signing on with MSBY black jackals, sakusa hasn't been back in tokyo for ages, because the team's hometown is based in osaka. which is a shame as that means sakusa and your brother haven't hung out in ages. they used to be very close friends back when they both attended itchiyama institute, but they've not seen each other much since graduation.

although they both still talk on the phone and text frequently, so that is probably why you've opened the door on a random tuesday to see the one and only kiyoomi sakusa standing there, wearing black tshirt and loose sweats, with a wheely suitcase standing beside him.

meanwhile, you were in your loungewear, having not been expecting any vistors and presuming that the person at the door was a mailman or a delivery driver who you'd only have to interact with briefly. but no, it was your brother's wildly successful best friend , who you once had a massive crush on all throughout high school— and perhaps remnants of the crush still linger.

and these stifled feelings probably contributed to the raging embarrassment you were currently experiencing. despite the fact sakusa used to see you in your pyjamas all the time when he'd come over to your house for sleepovers with your brother, something about him seeing you while you were completely unprepared was morbidly shameful.

even though, unbeknowst to you, not much has changed in sakusa's eyes. you're still one of the most effortlessly beautiful women he's ever laid his eyes upon. a slight blush creeps onto his features, which goes unnoticed by you as you're too focused on trying to hide your figure.

"uhm, hi, aysha. where's your brother?" he asks with an averted gaze. and as soon as those words exit his mouth, he is immediately hit with waves of regret, as he didn't mean to sound so dismissive of your presense and he should've asked you how you were doing first. but he finds it hard to think straight with you around. it's probably a good thing that you're unable to come to his games in osaka; he'd never win a single one ever again with you watching him.

"him and his wife went on holiday, so i'm cat-sitting for them." as if on cue, the kitty you were watched pads through the open door and starts pawing at sakusa's shoes. you gasp and open your mouth to apolgise, about to pick up the cat until he does it himself. holding her in his arms and stroking her chin as she purrs happily.

"he told me about that, but i thought they came back today."

you nod, "yeah, they were supposed to be home by this morning but their flight got delayed, so they probably won't be back until later this evening."

he blinks, with a completely vacant expession, "oh."

"yeah." you mutter, heart pounding in your chest as you realise what that means, "would you like to wait here?"

"sure." he nods. truthfully he'd rather spend his time in his hotel, it might be less tense that way but deep down he had the desire to stay with you.

he carries the cat in and you close the door behind him, only to turn around and see he was still standing in the middle of the floor awkwardly, "sit down, c'mon! this is your home too, you know. remember all of the time you and him used to spend in this living room playing video games? we should've had you paying rent."

you joke while motion towards the couch. hiding his small smile behind his hair, he slowly takes a seat, until he notices that you don't join him and instead head towards the stairs, "where are you going?"

"to the guest bedroom. i'm just going to change quickly; i'll be right back."

"why?" he asks, and when you hear him say this, you finally turn around to look at him in his black eyes.

you chuckle awkwardly at his inquiry, "uhm, because i'm in my pyjamas."

"it's fine." he instantly replies, without missing a beat. your heart races at the way his eyes are glued to you, he's never look at you this way before — unless he has and you've just haven't noticed. "i think you look okay."

"just okay?" you tease.

sakusa gulps, not really picking up on the playfulness in your tone and assuming that you were actually peeved about being called okay-looking. so he explains, "no. i think you look pretty, but that might've been too forward to say." he's been critised for being to blunt several times in his lifetime, so he's learned how to be thoughtful about his word-choice (when he wants to be).

"oh, i was only joking but— that's sweet, thank you." you stammer, a violent heat rising to cheeks and drying your throat. you hated the effect his man had on you, so you hastily try to exit the conversation, but not without a little bit more teasing first; being flirtatious was — ironically — an effective coping mechanism for being flustered.

"i think i'll still head to my room and change." you say, as you start walking up the stairs, "i'll be back in five minutes. unless you want to come with?"

sakusa quirks an eyebrow, "i would. but who is going to watch the cat?" he asks, holding up the kitty still in his hands.

"good point." you nod, continuing to head up the stairs.

sakusa's eyes widen; he didn't really expect you to not give him a solution. so, he looks to the kitty in his hands and whispers, "sorry. we'll be quick." there is a ball laying on the coffee table, which he gives to the kitty as he places her on the ground and heads up the stairs after you.

for @naru-mi-gen: firstly i'd like to say i LOVE your works on your main acc, you are sooo talented MWAH

also i've never really wrote brother's bsf trope before but this was so much fun!! the chemistry between you and omi is delicious 😩 also i left your brother as purposefully vague so you can choose a character or assume what you like hehe

[irenadel]

And if the devil... 5/10

Making a banner for this finally for the grand finale coming soon. Excuse to rb. Credit for the Aemond screencap goes to the wonderful Liv @barbieaemond Smut: The Chapter, Aemond x Maid!Reader

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

It isn’t the failing light of twilight that drives you both out of the sky, but a drizzle that turns into a storm. Vhagar herself does not care and leaves you both stranded inside a damp seaside cave, just so she can go hunting, with Aemond shouting after her in mock outrage, while you laugh so wildly and girlishly he thinks he’d rather stay here forever if you’ll just keep laughing like that.

You are better than him at gathering what little dry driftwood is to be found and he is better at setting it aflame. Neither of you are any good at fishing with bare hands so you content yourselves with drinking rain and trying to wring the water out of your clothes.

He turns his back to you the moment you pull off your drab servant’s dress and start undoing the ties of your shift. His heart is hammering in his ears and he feels the traitorous flushing return to his face and throat.

If you don’t want to shame yourself, his brother had warned him, not knowing that was all he was now, shame and longing.

You reach for the rapidly warming skin of his neck, through the soaked, beautiful strands of his silver hair, to turn him back to you.

It is his undoing.

The fear in your own face, clammy and white, cheeks starkly red. The way his hands move on their own, to the laces of your shift, taking over your clumsy, cold fingers. He has seen your naked calves before, dreamt of them locked around his waist as he plunged into you, thrown over his shoulders as he kisses the flushed red tips of your toes. He is unprepared for the gut-wrenching, dizzying strength of his arousal at the sight of your bare arms, the ribs he could count, your pert, pink nipples, the angry red scar below your collarbone and the bright purple bruises on your stomach that your nakedness can no longer hide from his hungry, avid eye. He will kill your uncle, string him from his feet and make a present of his useless hand to you. Later. Tonight, he is tearing your underskirts off, unheeding of the ripping sound some of them make, prick hard and ready because you help him, your hands are shaking, your own breath shivering, but still you offer up your long, powerful legs to him. You are white as a ghost all over, as a fresh sheet of vellum, and by all the gods he intends to leave his own mark on you.

He undoes your braid, as he has dreamt of doing incessantly for the past months, wishing to inhale the scent of your wet hair, bring it to his lips and kiss it at long last. Aemond can only hope he could offer you such a tenderness, but all he knows is the cruelty of his urgency for you.

He wraps your hair around his hand, panting madly, almost smiling, once, twice, enough to pull your head back so you will look at him. Enough to wrench a broken sound of pleasure from your throat, a sound that travels directly to the root of his cock.

“What did you say to Vhagar in Dothraki?”

“Davra nayat… good girl”

He doesn’t laugh now, not at the sheer nerve of you speaking to a dragon as if she were a nervous filly. Sees you again, on a saddle at the zenith of the world, face reaching for the wind, as he urged Vhagar higher and higher, to please a stupid, beautiful girl, born of nothing, who owned nothing… except the horizon… except himself.

He rips the ties of his doublet open, grabs your hand, grip so painful he fears he will crush your fingers in his, and places your palm on his heaving chest, his wildly beating heart. Sees you hiss in a breath and presses his face to the naked expanse of your exposed throat.

“Davrat nayat,” he says to you as he shows you how to undo his clothes.

When Aegon’s whore had undressed him, her hands had been soft as silk, her perfume so heady and potent his eye had watered because of it. When she stole kiss after kiss from his lips he had tasted the mint leaves she’d chewed before bedding him. She had called him beautiful and praised the whiteness of his Valyrian skin.

I’ve never been a prince’s first fuck, your grace.

He’d been too dazed to correct her address to him.

Your hands shake as you undo the clasps of his doublet and you curse when one of them resists you. There’s a red ammonia burn on one of your palms, right below your thumb, kitchen scrubbing no doubt. You chew on your lower lip as you peel each layer off him, toss his white linen shirt to one side. Your fingers find the slender, muscled expanse of his waist, brush his own pink nipples, unexpectedly sensitive and ready for touch. And Aemond finds the furious, shivering eagerness of your calloused hands on his chest and neck a hundred times more convincing than the whore’s honeyed words.

When you get to his breeches he pulls your chin up so you can face him. He knows he needs to look at you when you touch him, when you find the hard, eager evidence of how low you’ve brought him.

Your eyes close, brows together as if in pain, when your fingers wrap around his cock and he feels adrift suddenly, by how you fall into his body, into his need, his hips wonderfully, deliriously ready to chase your hand pulling at him.

He grips your chin hard enough to keep his own hand from shaking, bares his teeth in a snarl to keep a strangled moan in and whispers into your ear, as he steps out of his breeches.

“You don’t fight me anymore.”

You don’t answer immediately, and for a few minutes it’s just your panting breath and the slapping, wet sound of Aemond coming apart in your hand, one pull of his cock at the time.

He feels like he is going to lose his fucking mind.

“I decided to stop fighting myself.”

He does not know how to manage for himself. When you tear another kiss from his lips and go on all fours, he does not know how not to strangle one more hungry growl from his throat. When he catches the sight of your pale, pink cunt soaked and ready for him, he does not know how to stop himself from grabbing for your hips, leaving bruises of his own, or how to stop from warring within his breast the twin desires of fucking you like this, with your cunt on display for him or flipping you around so he can watch your face as you fall apart on his cock.

And it strikes him deliciously and unexpectedly that he need not decide, as he flips you on your back, drunk on the resistance of your kicking legs and the capitulation of your arms around him. He can do this as much as he wants for the rest of his life, in as many positions as he can think of.

He near sobs when he finally pushes inside you. No resistance in his way, just the warm, wet, grasping embrace of your cunt around him, clenching, milking him and he can’t stop. His face buried in your neck, your mouth kissing his temples, your breasts pressed against his chest. There’s so many things he wants to do to you. But he can’t stop pushing inside you, grinding into you, snapping his hips against yours. He can’t talk, can do nothing but clench his teeth against the mess of words and sounds that threatens to consume him. 

It’s why he hears you, through the slap of skin against skin.

“My prince.”

He’s dreamed of it so often. Desired it so much. Craved it so ardently… that he can’t help but come at your strangled words. The noise he makes against your neck is shameful. He would have torn himself from your arms if his body hadn’t still been burning. He would have cursed himself for a fool if he still had breath in his lungs. But you are not deceived by his stillness.

“Aemond, are you—“

And he turns from you so quickly you are left more than confused, as dazed and humiliated as he. Both of you, naked in the chill of the evening while Aemond tries very hard not to think of a woman comforting him, the smell of mint leaves, and his brother’s scornful laughter.

“Touch me and I’ll take your fucking hand off,” he snaps back at you, unable to remember why his name on your tongue should be so odious to him, unable to think clearly except that you know so much of him, you should have known better. You have tasted him so thoroughly that he cannot think how to face you after this. No one should know him so well but Vhagar.

You stand up, despite how suddenly cold you are, with your thighs smeared in royal seed, a horribly familiar dread in your stomach as you are once more confronted with a prince who will not to look at you. You had not thought it could have been worse than humiliation, but shame and heartbreak together are too much of a burden to bear. You almost give in again, dismissed again. You almost leave and Aemond almost lets you.

And you will never know who turned around first, but you know your mouth is on his again, kiss so cruel and hungry your teeth draw blood from his dry lips. You know he fights you for control for a moment before you have him on the floor, powerful legs straddling his waist, your dull nails scraping against his nipples so that he chokes back a whine and you bite it off his lips with an angry sound of your own.

“That belongs to me,” you say, as this time, you pinch one of the tender buds on his chest, looking directly into his face, into amethyst and sapphire, before you make him cry out again. “I will not be robbed, little khal.”

He should have chastised you for your presumption, for your nails digging into his chest and your teeth closing around the sharp edges of his jaw. And he would. In time.

It isn’t over until it’s over, Ser Criston had said to him, when he was tired of Aegon’s taller frame and stronger reach giving him the advantage. It isn’t over until you decide it’s over.

And Aemond had decided, ages ago it seemed, that this would never be over. 

His hand in your hand and you guiding him between your legs, until he remembers all the things he knows how to make your body do. That you do them on top of him, your hips swaying over his hand, only makes it sweeter.

He gives you the moan that belongs to you the moment his fingers find their way inside you, ripping a hungry noise from your own lips. One, two, three digits inside you until you can take no more and he is hard again, surprisingly, painfully hard. It is the sight of your beautiful, pale hair barely hiding your grimace of pleasure, your body moving of its own accord, fucking yourself on his hand, until he can take it no more, grabbing a handful of yellow hair and hissing recklessly, thoughtlessly against your bruised lips, “Ride my hand, come on my fingers. I’ll get you a dragon to ride if you do this well.”

He does not know where these promises come from. All he knows is the way your insides clench on his fingers, the way you throw your head back and he can feel you coming all over his palm, as his thumb abuses your hard, eager pearl. He can feel his cock twitch both at the thought of being inside you again and you, pale hair in the wind driving him to distraction, on dragonback.

But it is when you grab ahold of his face, looking straight into his soul, ruby-red eyes still half-lidded from your peak, that he cannot hold back any longer. Because you say it through a half-choked moan and he will make you say it again and again, as many times as he wants, in any position that he so desires, “I’ve got a dragon to ride already, my prince.”

He’s inside you again in seconds, giving you no quarter or preamble, your sex over-sensitive from your recent climax, but Aemond One-Eye is as cruel as any kitchen gossip ever named him to be. He is inside you, bigger than his slender fingers, deeper than any man had any right to be, reaching places you had never even dreamed existed, whispering delicious filth in your ear. Every wonderful, shameful thing you had ever desired from the men who had used you and so easily discarded you.

But not him. Not your prince.

“You are mine,” he says to you, too sharp and too guttural to be entirely Westerosi, with the taste of Old Valyria still on his tongue, drunk on his own blood and the one he takes by nipping at your greedy, eager lips. “To fuck you and use you as I want. Mine and no one else’s, issa jorrāelagon. My sweet, stupid girl. I’ll be the death of you. Come for me, come for your prince.”

And you do. Chasing pleasure, fucking yourself on this beautiful, idiot man’s cock. Knowing he is right about everything and you are lost to him, to the taste of his tongue and his anger and his scorn. And he is coming after you, in wonderful, warm spurts inside you, still hard as you chase your peak, long and drawn, seeming to last forever, with Aemond’s hands tangled in your hair again, urging you on with a rhythmic yes, yes, yes, still hard, still hungry for you.

Still willing after that second peak of his, to put you on your hands and knees, hair undone and more beautiful and perfect than any man you have ever seen before. Eye wild, sapphire glinting in the light of the dying fire, mouth curling in his cruel, hunting-cat smile, that you will never again be able to live without. All of it as he brings your sweet, pink cunt to his lips, dizzy from the smell of your combined lovemaking, dizzy from the knowledge of how that marks you as his and only his. And Aemond, Prince Aemond of the House Targaryen cannot know what it is to you when he runs the first, long, languorous lick against your cunt, smirking at your ragged moan of pleasure. He cannot know that every time you have been on your hands and knees for a man you had known it to be no more than a sham. A sordid, sorry fraud of a union. As if your body had known from the start that no cock and no hands and no tongue could ever serve but Prince Aemond’s. As if you had been waiting all your small, dreary life for his mouth against your cunt, ruthlessly tearing more pleasure out of your exhausted body.

He fucks you like this. The Dothraki way. Remaking the world for you with his claim on this position. Near laughing through the delicious, lingering burn at the pit of his stomach. His thighs straining and tingling because he’s come twice and is looking for a third and the sound of his legs slapping against your arse could've been enough to make him lose it. Except he knows now. That he gets to watch his cock pull in and out of you forever. Any time he wants. Gets to feel you arching against him, deliciously wanton, as desperate for his flesh as he was for yours, as many times as he so desires. And it is perfect, as he pulls your hair, one more time, one last time to prove he can, to drag you back up against him and lick a hot, wet brand up the skin of your neck, until he can whisper in your ear.

“Davrat nayat.”

And when he feels the merciless clench of your cunt he shouts against your fragrant hair, panting, kissing it, as Vhagar lights the night sky, somewhere over the sea, in a torrent of joyous flame.

[ed-recovery-affirmations]

What made you want to recover. I have anorexia and I don't want to recover I just want to get worse and worse until I'm sick enough. I'm in forced recovery but faking it as I just want to starve is there any reason to recover?

Hello anon, this is a difficult question to answer because for me, personally, it wasn't any one thing that made me want to recover. The truth is that when I started, I didn't understand the long-term effects of what I was doing to myself. I sort of knew about them, but the importance of being thin had been stressed to me all of my life and so I was in a self-destructive place where I was willing to make that choice again and again and risk throwing away my health for thinness. That's pretty fucked up, true, but again, I didn't understand the full extent of the damage I might be doing to myself.

I think it's also worth mentioning that I had an undiagnosed chronic illness and some trauma that I was quietly sitting on because I doubted my own perspective and my ability to access real help for these things. Because of this, I didn't have a frame of reference for mental and physical wellness, because I hadn't felt mentally or physically well for a very long time. Even now, looking back at symptoms I was experiencing, it is hard to know if I was experiencing these things due to my eating disorder or something else. I think it was all cumulative damage, to be honest. The eating disorder didn't help.

But looking back, I think I actually had an eating disorder long before I "decided" to start restricting food. I remember going through a growth spurt during puberty around age twelve and being hungry all the time, but we frequently had the kind of foods people call "junk food" in the house because that's what my parents bought. So that's what I ate a lot of, constantly, and my mother was constantly remarking on it in a negative way and trying to stop me. I have a very complicated relationship with my mother, and she raised me with a complicated relationship to food and body image. I remember doing fucked-up things like sneaking food into the bathroom with me so I could eat snacks in the shower unobserved, or hiding snacks under my bed, and just absolutely gorging on food at other times while knowing I was eating way past the point of being full and not knowing why I wanted to. So I officially decided to start restricting when I was fifteen, but the truth is that I had a fucked up relationship with food way earlier than that.

When I was nearing my seventeenth birthday, I experienced a breakdown in health due to chronic illness. I was suffering terribly. At the time I had this hippie friend who believed everything could be cured with the right diet and supplements. As I mentioned before, I was raised in a household where we didn't fully understand proper nutrition, and I had been raised eating a lot of low-nutrition meals. Because I had a stronger relationship with this friend than with my family, I bought into the mindset that if I got the right nutrients, I would be cured. And, in my mind, I had to get as many of those nutrients as possible as quickly as possible, so I immediately turned back to bingeing. But I was bingeing on a lot of high-nutrient hippie foods, so I didn't see a problem with this. I didn't understand that my relationship to the food wasn't fixed. I wasn't enjoying it, I was gorging on it, and between meals I was desperately anticipating the time I could gorge again. And because it was hippie food, I thought that this would cure me.

The thing was, after over a year of severe restriction, my GI system was wildly unprepared to handle the level of food-stuffing I was about to put it through - even though it was super-healthy hippie food. So I actually got sicker, experiencing the symptoms that come along with suddenly eating real portions after restriction. This led to me alternating between not understanding why the food wasn't working to cure me, to not understanding why I felt so addicted to eating. And this kick-started a violent binge-restrict cycle where I'd force myself to go hungry until certain times a day, at which point I'd unleash myself upon food and be unable to stop. Then I'd restrict again the next day to make up for it, get increasingly desperate for food, and you see the pattern. The binge-restrict cycle is so real.

So I was super trapped in that life and I wanted out. I knew I wanted to get out long before I actually started getting out. Because every time I binged, my immediate response was to hate myself and restrict. That was all I knew. By the time I even started to make a bit of progress on breaking that pattern, I had achieved enough real healing to understand that my restriction days had been a part of what led me down this hellish path and I didn't want to go back to that. To tell you the truth, in order to truly stay away from it - because I'll be real, I do get tempted to go back to restriction from time to time - I have to remind myself that while restricting feels like it would save me, it would only be a stepping stone back into that horrible pattern that kept me so sick and felt impossible to break. And I have to choose wanting better for myself.

Now, your story may not look like mine. So I'm not sure your motivation will end up looking like mine. But what do you need for yourself in order to want better for yourself?

You say you want to do this until you are sick enough. Can I just ask you to take a moment to ask yourself, what do you think is "sick enough?" Would you really stop when you got there, or would you just keep moving the goalpost until your body gave out? Because if you're stuck thinking "I have to do this till I'm sick enough" then believe me - you are sick enough. Your struggle counts. You don't have to wait until the damage is irreversible.

Because the thing is, when you start experiencing long-term sickness as a result - GI disorders, internal organ failure, etc - your suffering will be out of your control. Eating disorders feel like you're taking control, but you're not. And as someone who suffered with chronic illness for years, let me tell you, you don't want "sick enough." I can't tell you for sure what you do want, but allow me to take a guess. Maybe you want the validation that comes from being sick enough. Maybe you want to showcase how awful it got because you want people to care, to be concerned, to validate you. You want indisputable proof that you are well and truly fucked up, that you truly were hurt by whatever it is that hurt you.

The fact is, even some people who are sick enough to be on death's door, from some chronic illness or another, never get that validation or support. Our system is fucked up like that. But understanding that also means you don't have to wait for someone else to validate how hard you struggled and how much you've suffered. You're already sick enough. You don't have to wait for it to get worse in order to deserve better. So what do you need? What do you need in order to affirm to yourself that what you've been through is real? What do you need in order to feel you deserve to get better for real? What do you need in order to keep seeking out that desire to heal even when you're triggered as hell and struggling and forget all the breakthroughs you had once made and all you want to do is say "fuck it then, I'll self-destruct" because that's addicting in its own way?

I hope you're able to seek those answers in your treatment, anon. I hope you're able to affirm to yourself that you deserve to be more well than this, and to love yourself enough to fight for it?

[anguishedlurker]

I've been Isekaied into Paulina's Novel?!

Welcome to the fic for the EctoImposion 2024 event! I was paired with @thebooo-merang for this wonderful fic, and you should go check them out! And check out the ao3 posting HERE

After an incident with Box Ghost solicits a fight with Ghost Writer, Ghost Writers out for revenge. And Paulina has a convenient little fanfiction that Ghost writer could use. Now Danny just has to survive it, with a starstruck Paulina in tow.

The first chapter doesn't especially need warnings, as everything remains cannon typical. It's under the cut!

~

"Get back here!" Danny shouted, ready to be done with wit for today.

"I, THE BOOOX GHOOOST, WILL-"

"Piss off Ghost Writer!" Do you just break into random lairs in search of weird boxes!?" Danny screeched, trying to dive after a flying notebook.

"I, THE BOX GHOST, WILL-" Box shouted over Danny, waving wildly as he went and sending even more boxes and books flying back and forth.

"RUIN WHAT LITTLE TRUCE I'VE GOT GOING WITH HIM!" Danny cut back, struggling to grab books mid-air with one arm and blast Boxy into submission with the other.

"THE BOX GHOST HAS NO NEED FOR LECTURES ON YOUR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS! PREPARE TO BE DESTROYED!"

Danny was gonna kill him this time!

~

Boxes and books rained over the town, causing havoc and mild property damage to the unprepared. Paulina could only huff and puff as she bolted across the open street from shop to shop, trying to find somewhere to camp out while Phantom dealt with the box menace, trying to keep an eye out for whatever storefront Star had managed to find for herself.

Another keeper kept their shoulder into the door as she pushed, and bitterly she cursed them out. She probably didn't get any sympathetic glances through the wood door, but whatever! Rude ass motherfuckers locking out innocents while there was an attack!

It was tempting to keep under the eave, but beyond being mere cloth too much was getting tossed around- plenty enough room for something to slam in sideways and get her then!

God! One good day is all she wanted right now.

Though a few more after wouldn't go amiss...

There! The geek shit shop was probably going to let her in! Maybe!

She didn't care, actually, she'd punch through the glass if she had to! Take that, losers!

First, she needed the mental psyche up to dart across the road again. Three, two, one, go!

The owner, or possible customer, waved behind the glass as she ran.The door opened and closed near instantaneously on her entry.

The sound of Phantom yelling at The Box Ghost dampened as the bell rang, and the store owner gave her an uneasy smile and gestured towards the windowless back. 

“Everyone’s in the back. Might be cramped by now, but there’s a lot of shelves to sit behind.” He nervously informed, eyeing the glass windows.

The casual thumbs up sent him away as she bent slightly to wheeze out the adrenaline.

Yeah, cheer takes some stamina, but adrenaline really messes up her rhythm!

Breath caught, it was time to pack in with the other unlucky idiots back here. With care and precision she marched over behind the popular shelf, examined the bodies packed like sardines, and picked a new shelf to hide behind.

This one was packed with books instead of weird anime figures and dungeons and dragons minis, the spines a cold comfort as she sat down and started staring.

The titles on this sort of crap were so weird… 

But she supposed Star seemed to enjoy them, Star's rants echoing clearly in her head. 

She wouldn’t admit it with a gun to her head, but after enough of those rants… she may or may not be able to pick out a few of the series on display.

Sue her, she's a sucker for some of the romances even if they were trashy a lot of the time. And Star's collection at this rate was pretty impressive, to the point Paulina was convinced she was the only reason a store like this could keep afloat in a town like Amity.

The other nerd shit probably helped it keep alive, though. More screaming outside, this time sounding like it was from The Box Ghost in rage. Good. Phantom could pummel that no good fool to goo for what it mattered.

... Ugh. The fight could easily take a long time; Box Ghost might be weak, but he clearly had a lot of material to use this time. But whatever. Here she is in a castle of weeb books. Maybe some could be a good distraction.

~

"No! Not you!"

"Yes, me! Did you think you could trash my library and get away with it!?" Ghost Writer roared, trying to come up from behind.

"It wasn't me, it was-"

But Box Ghost was already gone, the leftover boxes of books now floating to the ground in a suspiciously gentle manner.

Coward. The thought wouldn't leave as Danny shifted the books he'd been trying to save around, awkwardly offering the armful to Ghost Writer. 

Ghost Writer loomed ominously.

~

All at once the outside world went quiet, some shouting occasionally coming close enough to hear, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief loud enough to drag Paulina from her pile of books.

Five more minutes would've been great to finish the book she'd had in hand, not that it mattered...

Now she needed to find where Star ran off to without her, the books carefully left behind in a pile.

Phantom and a ghost she couldn’t recognize quipped back and forth, the day still significantly quieter than it had been fifteen minutes before. The area remained strewn with books, the ghost gesturing to some on a roof.

Now, she could walk around the district lost and confused looking for Star... Or just sit back down on a nice ledge and wait for Star to come to her while watching Phantom.

Phantom made an odd twist in the air as he shouted, still a little too distant to make out properly.

Yeah, watching sounded so much safer and calmer. One hop later and she was perched on top of one of the lower walls purporting to be defensive.

Fat lot of good they did...

Phantom and his assailant came closer, lending her a nice view of what was going on.

Maybe she shouldn't be here, but it seemed to be more arguing than fighting, so whatever.

"While I'm sorry my NOT PARTNER didn't have a spine, you can have yours back!" Phantom shouted as they passed overhead, throwing a book at the weird ghost.

She had to huff out a clipped laugh as the ghost was whacked, even as the ghost elected to bolt as it realized its inferiority.

She could just hear the stunned silence from Phantom, right before he cried out "Get back here!" 

Truly, a foolish thing to think it could stand up to the town hero.

With a certain lack of ceremony, the book the from the fight fell onto her 

"Ouch!" She yelped, one hand raising to rub her scalp as the other fumbled for the offending book.

The whole thing might be a sign it's time to get up and go. Still...

"Raining books is a new one." She muttered, far too late for the comment to be witty but all the same a perfectly serious remark on the latest weird shit Amity came up with.

She cautiously eyed the book in her hands, looking for any oddities. You could never quite trust some of this stuff...

It was just a notebook. Nothing special about it, besides being a trophy for today. The decoration and signature on front was incomprehensible to her, an initial she didn't recognize against the slightly plain front.

Caving to curiosity, the book opened easily. Not that she’d expected anything else. 

It revealed... nothing. Nothing at all. None of the pages had any sort of writing in them.

Well she can't be begrudged for snooping- it's her prize right now. An apology for getting assaulted in broad daylight. This G-W could just deal with it, and the spat was already away from her, so it's not like she was going to be in more danger sitting here.

The blank notebook continued to be uninteresting, and she couldn’t help her annoyance as she shut it. There wasn’t a damn thing to pay her back for getting hit.

Or... well...

She could feel her lip work up into a slight smirk.

I have been wanting to write a new Phantom fic...

The thought was clear as day to her, even as she couldn't wait for the night. What better way to celebrate this particular trophy?

~

Ghost Writer was forced to watch on in abject misery as he realized his collection had been tossed around like a toddler’s toys. No respect whatsoever from the box obsessed lunatic for the actual contents of the boxes.

The nerve! The audacity! To treat his writing like this! The ghost may well need a lesson in manners.

But first, Phantom.

Sure, the boy wasn't the sole force at work- but undeniably the lunatic never would've gotten close to his manuscripts if Phantom hadn't been snooping around in his library.

But don't think he's lost the plot of getting his own books tossed at him! The tactical retreat was nothing more than an admission of lack of home turf!

Nothing to do with not having his typewriter or any notebooks activated!

Ahem... So the child would need an appropriate punishment as well.

Sometime after he collected his books

The whole lot of them, all across town! Lunatics.

It was easy enough to threaten people away from his scripts, but nonetheless annoying and time consuming. Go here, show up there, yell to get their grubby mitts off his stuff. 

Ugh.

The annoyance was the cost of getting everything back. though. He pointedly ignored Phantom’s continued patrolling, likely looking for whatever trap Ghost Writer would end up creating.

Easy enough to stay low and out of sight in the meantime. Whatever he was about to do, it wasn't a ‘now’ plan. Such things take planning, and unfortunately it's not the season to stick the boy back into Christmas stories.

So he was collecting his books, and chasing fools away from them. The cost of love, he supposed.

Still, he was being forced to waste hours upon hours taking his books out of the hands of fools. Having such a collection was not currently a point of pride; He’d have to figure out what went where later.

Slowly but surely his boxes filled back up as he found his manuscripts. There was his old horror story from the eighties, there was his attempt at something akin to a superhero comic, there was his dabbling in... well he couldn't remember either, but if he sat to read it right now it'd take hours for him to finish the book. No reading for him.

Finally, it was time to find his blank notebooks again. He'd be forced to admit that he simply cared less if these ones vanished mysteriously, for a blank notebook was nothing more or less than a possibility.

Most were alright, scattered down the streets carelessly. Some had been picked up and put back down to be examined by wretched hands at a later date.

There was an exception though, something swaying as if held at the edge of where he could feel things. Curious, for how late at night it was getting, but that'd just mean he needed to scare another pathetic mortal off his books.

The pull and search brought him to a cracked window in the suburbs. Nothing meaningful crossed his path, though it was good to be wary; The boy was likely still patrolling, and no doubt Ghost Writer's appearance had put him on edge. As it should.

Slowly rising up to look through, invisible to the mortal eye, he could hear a girl rambling slightly. 

His look through the window was enlightening, the girl curled onto her bed as she wrote with ink that even from this distance sparkled with glitter.

"And then Princess Paulina lived happily ever after with Prince Phantom, aaannd the end." She whispered, pleased with herself.

Barely pausing, she snapped the book shut and laid it on her nightstand, moving to stand and stretch.

Shouting called her away, which was plenty convenient for him even as she huffed and puffed out of the room.

It was child's play to take the notebook back, even with it defiled by mortal hands. It wasn't a toy to be left with creatures that didn't understand what could be done with such tools.

The cover had already been decorated with a couple of stickers and a flowing cursive he couldn't bother deciphering at this second.

Phasing back out of the room and coming to rest back outside of the window, he flipped the cover open.  The inside was decorated similarly.

Oh, yes. That was glitter pen. The pages were coming away bedazzled with runaway glitter.

This book was most certainly going to have to be put in its own container, but for right this second the name on the inside was of modest curiosity.

Paulina Sanchez in bold strokes, fancy flourishes forgone in favor of legibility. If found, return to owner, do not read.

Well now he just had to, didn't he? It wasn't like the rest of the books were going anywhere, the grand total of three he still had to find now could rest safely.

Or well... No, he could spare the time now> What would the boy do, if it blows up on them both? The books shouldn't even be in the town anyways, and it was most certainly his fault thank you very much!

He quickly leafed through the beginning burning through thanks to his superior-ness and a speed reading class he'd attended before.

... hmm.

Hmmmmm.

He'd recently been complaining about what to do with the boy, no?

"This could work." He spoke to no-one, clapping the book shut. For now.

~

Barely past sunrise, Danny squinted at the sky and grumbled. Damn malicious blob ghosts, eating billboards.

Not that he cares about the billboards, but first it's a billboard and then it's drywall.

"Catch!" Got shouted, an object (presumably) sailing from behind him.

Snapping too and turning, he could see Ghost Writer grin manically in glee as a book opened wide.

All he could do was choke out an "eh?" as he reflexively reached, the book splayed open and glowing. Illustory pages floated up and off, and he had a really bad feeling about what was coming next as the world around him went white.

~

Coming to under Ghost Writers writing was not a fun thing to experience, see. One did not simply fade into one of his chaotic and weirdly random worlds. You blink and then suddenly you're just there!

Danny was there, wherever there was. Somewhere was currently a bright grass field, with a decorated horse beside him.

Which he would grant was a better entrance than the last time he'd been flung into one of Ghost Writer's many insane stories.

He would never forget that anglerfish...

But almost just as fast as he got here there was another stupidly bright light, and someone was falling into his arms, briefly bundled into his chest before quickly popping back up to look at him.His tongue was stuck in a way that implied Ghost Writer had ideas about what he should or shouldn't be saying at this time, but that didn't stop the extremely strained noise he gave when he realized the person was Paulina, looking VERY enthused.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Happy August!

I hope it's kind to you 💙

Some Curtis for you 🥰

Hey baby, You know I love me some Curtis, anytime, anywhere! Enjoy this little heart to heart talk with his godson, Timmy. Happy August!

Life Is Short So Make It Sweet Masterlist

Just talk to him, please?

Curtis knew it was coming, Timmy's father wasn't able to do this and it made a part of Curtis ache because he could relate. He had his grandfather though and the least he could do for his godson was step in when Tanya asked him too.

But how to even go about it?

He had went to you first, as far as kids and teens go, you worked with them everyday. You gave him a few pointers, steering him in the right direction but he still felt wildly unprepared for this. Timmy crashed next to him at the work table in the garage, fiddling with the Camaro part they just took out.

Bite the bullet.

So your mom told me that you are going on your first date?" Curtis reached for a tool to use, anything to occupy his hands. Timmy looked startled for a moment, like he was caught doing something before his cool kid mask slipped on, giving a shrug of his shoulder and turning back to his project.

"Laur and I are gonna go to see a movie and the arcade."

"That's a good place to hang out." Curtis glanced at Timmy's work. "You gotta degrease those bolts or she will lock up. You really like this girl?"

Timmy grabbed at a rag, fiddling with the part. "Laur is pretty cool." He kept his gaze down on the part.

"Just pretty cool?" Curtis pushed a bit, hoping he would open up a bit more.

"Okay! I really like her a lot." He groaned and ditched the part onto the table, turning to his godfather. "She's so pretty and funny and she asked me out!"

"Why wouldn't she?" Curtis asked, surprise making his brows shoot up.

"Because-"

"Because?" Curtis questioned again, trying to figure out where Timmy was going with this.

"I'm me...?"

"Kid if you don't spit it out." Curtis grumbled, leveling him a look.

"Fine, I'm a nerd! and she's not." Timmy sighed like all his worries were weighed down by this. Oh to be a teen again. Curtis stifled himself, knowing that this was a serious matter for him.

"Timmy, man, I'm sure she knows all that already. Sure you like comic books and games, you could out-whiz any of us in trivia, except maybe Honey. She might know more random facts than you do. You also love rebuilding engines, playing basketball and soccer, you are incredible with drums, and you're fucking funny. And you're exactly who you are supposed to be."

"But what if I'm not cool enough?"

"Dude, nerds are cool, girls love nerds. Look at me." Curtis yanked up his sleeve to show Timmy his tattoo. "I got a Smaug tattoo because I love The Hobbit so much. I'm a nerd."

Timmy looked a little doubtful but started to soften towards what Curtis was saying. "You really think so?"

"I know so, give Laur a chance to really get to know you. Without trying to be someone you're not." He shoved his sleeve back down. "If she asked you out, then she likes you. Girls don't ask out guys if they aren't interested."

Timmy seemed to ponder it over, reclaiming the part to clean up. "Okay, we're gonna have fun."

"Yes you are." Curtis confirmed, relieved to see that Timmy was starting to loosen back up to his usual self. He too went back to the car's engine when Timmy pipped up.

"Hey, will you one day let me take a date in the Camaro?" He looked hopeful and Curtis scoffed.

"Maybe someday, I gotta take my girl out in the Camaro first. Besides, you don't even have your license yet."

Timmy waved it off like that was no big deal. "I will soon enough!"

"Uh huh, let's get it running first and then we'll see."

[hunterssm00n]

Ready or Not

"Are you... one of my friends playing a prank on me?" It had to be. I didn't know where any of my friends would have gotten the Ghostface voice-changer, or why they would have even wanted to do such a thing.

The voice on the other end of the phone huffed out a laugh, and those same tingles went down my spine once again.

"No, but I'd like to be your friend." | Ghostface/OC |

part 1 of 2

also on ao3: here

*cw includes explicit sexual content, unspecified male Ghostface, dirty talk, dub-con, stalking, breaking and entering, criminal behavior, explicit language, praise kink, serial killer behavior, and voice kink* MDNI - 18+

♡˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ♡

hunterssm00n © All rights reserved by me. I do not allow this work to be used or adapted in any way without my permission.

Ready or not / here I come / you can't hide / I'm gonna find you...

It always begins the same, doesn't it? Young, cute woman, home alone, watching a scary movie and making a snack...

When suddenly, out of nowhere, the phone rings.

It's after eight - who could be calling at such an hour?

The number doesn't come up on caller ID; the name reads unknown. Could it be any more ominous?

It rings, and rings, and ri-

"You could just, like, not answer," I said out loud to myself, shaking my head of long, dark hair at the TV screen for what seemed like the fiftieth time. The young woman on the screen paid me no mind - the dumb bitch never did - as she tearfully answered the phone once again to plead with the killer to leave her alone; to please stop calling. I sighed, taking a sip of my vanilla Coke as I leaned back on the couch. I'd seen this movie about a hundred times, and I still was amazed at how dumb some of the characters were. The outcome was always the same, no matter how much I tried to warn them to Don't answer it! Look behind you! For fuck's sake, don't hide under the bed! And no matter how many times I knew I was just talking aloud to an empty room and my TV screen, I still continued to do it. I decidedly did not think about how that was very similar to the textbook definition of insanity.

Regardless of my annoyance about the unwise decisions some people make during horror movies, I genuinely loved watching them. My friends and family thought it was weird that I enjoyed scary movies so much, but I didn't really care what other people thought of me. Movies were my escape, and I always felt at peace when watching my favorites. 

The young woman on the screen was now running away from her patio window after a chair had been thrown through it, her tear streaked face pulled into a grimace as she ran wildly down the hallway away from the killer. I found myself wondering, not for the first time, what I would do in that situation. Would I hang up and call the police? Hide? Escape the house? Honestly, I liked to think that I'd grab the biggest fucking knife I could find in the cupboard and stand my ground. Though I was slim and athletic, and barely reached five foot six, I knew that I could put up a fight if necessary. But maybe escaping the house and running to my car would be the safest, smartest option. Who knew, though. Thinking about it didn't harm anyone, though; one couldn't be too prepared. But one definitely could be unprepared. 

I was taking another sip of my Coke when my phone rang suddenly, scaring the daylights out of me and nearly making me drop the can and spill the addictive, sugary liquid all over the place. Wiping my mouth, heart pounding in my chest from the suddenness of it, I laughed to myself at the irony of the situation: Here I was, watching a scary movie, alone in my home at night, and then, dun dun dunnn, my own phone rings in real life. Rolling my eyes, I remarked out loud, "Ooh, spooky," and made a mental note to not answer the phone. But the more it rang, the more I wondered if maybe I should. If someone was calling my landline at eight fourteen at night, it could be important. My cell was charging in the other room- maybe whoever it was had tried to reach me on there first, and when I didn't pick up, they called my home phone. Ugh, it better not be work. I decided to just let it go to voicemail- if it was something emergent, I would pick up... unless it was work. Then I would pretend that I had fallen asleep early. 

My plan failed, however, when I heard the telltale beeping of the answering machine that signaled the mailbox was full. "Shit." I muttered, leaning over the arm of the couch to look at the grey and black box, as though willing for it to share its secrets with me. It didn't help that my landline didn't have caller ID like most people's did- it was older, but since it still worked, I couldn't justify buying a new one. This was why I'd been counting on the answering machine picking up and being able to tell that way, instead.

Stop being a little bitch - man up and just answer the phone. If it's not anything important you can just hang up. Besides, who the hell else would be calling at this time of night anyways besides work or family? 

Before I got the chance to pick up, the answering machine hung up on the caller. For a moment I dumbly stared at the phone and the answering machine, and then I shrugged and turned back towards the slasher film that was still playing. The girl on the screen was now being chased by the killer, his long, black cloak flying out behind him as he ran after her, gleaming knife raised high in the air.

It was at this moment that the phone rang again, and this time I leaned over towards the end table and picked the cordless, white handheld up off of the stand. If they were calling back so soon, it had to be something important. Maybe it was my mother. And since I hadn't answered the first time, mom, if it was in fact her, was probably wondering if I had fallen and cracked my head in the clawfoot bathtub; or if I had finally decided that going to bed at eight o clock in the evening was not, in fact, too early. As if. 

Without thinking any more about it, I reached over and answered the phone. "Hello?" 

"Hello, Kail." 

The voice startled me, and it wasn't any I'd been expecting; not the voice of my mother, or of my boss wanting me to come into work. It was a man's voice; low and pleasant, almost a purr, with a hint of a rasp to it. Come to think of it, it sounded a hell of a lot like- "Um, hi. Who is this?" I asked, equally pleasant but also wary. A bill collector wouldn't have greeted me like that - definitely not. It had to be someone who knew me; knew my voice. And only people that were close to me called me Kail - most just called me Kailey. And I didn't have many close friends, and definitely none that were guys. Guys wanted to get in my pants, not be my friend. With my long, dark hair, large dark doe eyes, and womanly athletic figure, I knew how men looked at me. And, hey, I wasn't above being a little bit of a tease.

"Just an... admirer." The voice was nice- really nice. It was an exact replica of the voice from the Stab movies, and also the Ghostface killings that tended to happen throughout the years in Woodsboro. Living there had its nightmares.

I leaned back on the couch, really wishing the house phone had caller ID right about now. "An admirer, huh?" 

"Yeahh," the voice purred, and I found myself pressing the phone closer to my ear to take it in even more. It sent a chill down my spine - a good kind.

"Okay, well," I tried wracking my brain for someone, anyone, that had been super interested in me lately. Maybe someone at work - someone I talked to every day. I worked in the inventory department at the local hospital in Woodsboro, and I wasn't super friendly with any of my coworkers; we all got along, but I tended to keep to myself. I liked to think that I was pretty observant, but no recent incidents stood out to me. No strange guys, no creeps following me or watching me from afar (that I'd noticed, at least). "Do I know you, Mr. Admirer?" 

"Maybe." was his reply. His voice sounded so damn amused, even only saying one word.

'Maybe'... Okay? Well, that certainly doesn't help me.

"Are you... one of my friends playing a prank on me?" It had to be. I didn't know where any of my friends would have gotten the Ghostface voice-changer, or why they would have even wanted to do such a thing. None of my friends really watched scary movies, and most of them did not know the number for my house phone. 

The voice on the other end of the phone huffed out a laugh, and those same tingles went down my spine once again. Whoever this is, their voice is sexy as fuck.

"No, but I'd like to be your friend." came the bemused reply to my question.

...Hmm, now I was really wondering who this was.

"Well," I began, smiling to myself and letting it seep into my voice, "it's kind of a weird time to ask to be my friend, on a Friday night at eight pm."

Now the voice on the other end chuckled, the sound deep and low, and cascading over me like a warm waterfall. The feeling ended with a zap straight down between my legs, and I squirmed on the couch, eyes flicking briefly to the movie that was still playing, but at this point was nearly forgotten about.

"Is there ever really a bad time to make a new friend?" he asked, and I rolled my eyes playfully, even knowing he couldn't see it.

"I guess not. So, tell me, friend, how'd you get my number?" I reached for my drink, wracking my brain trying to figure out who this possibly could be.

"It was in the phonebook," he answered, lightly. Why did everything he said sound like he was flirting with me? And why was it so hot? 

I guessed phonebooks were still a thing (maybe for old people), but I could tell his answer was teasing, and probably not truthful. But maybe it was? It would certainly explain a lot. And it would mean that whomever this was on the other line had to at least know my name, in order to find me in the phonebook. I didn't know how many Kailey Miller's lived in Woodsboro, but it couldn't be that many. 

This speculation still wasn't getting me any closer to an actual answer, but... maybe that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe some mystery was good, and also added to the attraction I was currently feeling. 

At this particular moment, the female character in the movie that was still playing gave a particularly piercing scream, and I reached for the remote in order to turn it down. 

"Are you watching a scary movie?" he asked, and I nearly laughed once again at the irony. Here was a caller with a (sexy) voice that sounded just like Ghostface, and they randomly called me while I was watching Stab. And now they were asking me about a scary movie. What the actual hell.

"Y-Yeah," I didn't know if I should answer him, or hang up the phone, lock all the doors and windows and call the police. "I am."

"Or do you normally have hysterical, screaming victims chained up in your house?" he added playfully. 

This got a laugh out of me. "Oh, yes - you've figured out my secret. Promise you won't tell the police?" I hoped I wasn't laying the flirting on too thick - it kind of made me want to gag. My normal idea of flirting was making sarcastic comments and inappropriate jokes. But understandably to some people, that could be pretty off-putting. So unfortunately more often than not, I found herself trying to dum things down for the sake of others around me. 

There was a pause, in which I could hear him breathing on the other end of the phone, and I really wondered if I had scared him off or if he was about to hang up. But then he spoke: "I won't tell if you won't." 

The words sent a chill down my spine, and the way he managed to make something like that sound so creepy and so hot at the same time was beyond me. And maybe I was crazy, but goddamn was it sexy. I'd never felt so attracted to another human being. Ever. 

And then the power flickered in my house. 

I wondered if I’d imagined it, at first. My house was on the outskirts of Woodboro, surrounded by trees and green, but it hardly ever lost power since I was still technically in town lines. My mother had been very adamant about making sure we remained in the town, for the sole purpose of being close to everything that necessitated being close to. Be that the school, jobs, the hospital, the drugstore, etc. and we hardly ever lost power. My mother had long since moved out of the area to a different town, but I had inherited the old house, and was very proud to call it my own. Right now, however, I was questioning the choice of location.

I found myself looking up at the light above, wondering if it had actually flickered, or if I was finally officially losing her mind. 

“Whatcha looking at?” 

The question didn’t quite register at first, but when it did, it felt like everything paused. I slowly reached for the remote next to me on the couch cushion and paused the movie, wondering if he’d really said what I thought he’d said - what I was certain he’d said. “What… What did you say?” 

“I said: Whatcha doin?” 

I shook my head, feeling my stomach twist uncomfortably for the first time since I’d answered the phone. “No, you didn’t.” 

Suddenly a feeling crept over me like I’d never experienced: I had never been so certain that I was being watched. And I’d also never been more aware that I was sitting in front of a clear window with my back to it. 

Cold chills washed over me like never before, and I felt like I’d been plunged into a frozen lake. Survival instincts took over, and I slowly sank down on the couch so that I was no longer visible from the window behind me - however, I could still be seen from the front door, and the side window to the left of the couch. Especially with the lights on. So naturally, maybe not the smartest thing, but my first order of business was to kill the lights. I quickly got up and ran the short distance to the front door, and flicked off the light switch, at the same time flipping the locks on the front door, as it hadn’t been locked before - but it sure as hell was now! 

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like this - or ever feeling like this. 

“Who turned out the lights?” came the playfully sinister voice from the other end of the line. I’d nearly forgotten I was still on the phone, as silly as that sounded, for that was the whole reason for all of this current madness and fear. 

The fact that he was watching me was now quite apparent. The outside of my home was surrounded by plenty of trees and brush to hide in; lots of shadows in the dark. And aside from my porch light, there was only one street lamp outside, directly across the drive from the house. And it was inconsistent when it came to whether or not it would be working, at any given moment. Either way, as I peered out through the window that looked out across the porch, I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to tell where he was hiding. And the fact that he knew where I was, but I didn't know where he was, scared me inexplicably beyond words. 

Swallowing hard, I tried to hide the tremor in my voice as I spoke into the phone, "Listen, if this is a prank, congratulations - you've had your fun. Now, now get the fuck out of here before I call the police." 

A warm, breathy chuckle followed closely after my words, and I crept back away from the window towards the couch, "This isn't a prank, Kails. You should know that." 

I shook my head in confusion, "What do you mean? I don't understand - I should know what?" I tried to wrack my brain for anything that had happened recently that would indicate that I was deserving of a 'prank' like this. Sure, I had enemies - but so did everyone. But none that I knew of that would go this far to prove a point, or any of which that knew where I lived (that I knew of, at least). And again, I really didn't think any of my friends would want to pull a Ghostface prank on me - they were all freaked out by the murders, rightfully so, and they were all pretty straight laced for the most part. The more I tried to come up with answers, the more questions I had. 

There was a pause from the other end of the phone, a brief one, while my hand felt around on the couch cushion for the TV remote, wanting to turn the movie off to eliminate that source of light as well. I was crouched on the floor, eyes nervously darting around at all the windows and the door to make sure no one was trying to break in. And then, he said: “You want this.” 

My hand froze on the couch cushion, as did my whole body; as did my very breath. “W-What?” 

“Yeah, that’s right,” His voice was so husky and warm, and despite my fear I felt a pleasant tingling in my lower back, my heart beginning to race for a different reason. “You’ve been thinking about this for quite some time - wanting it, dreaming about it. You think nobody would ever understand. You think it’s wrong to want something so dirty. But it’s not wrong. And I understand.” 

I still hadn’t managed to grab onto the remote - I was forced to listen to what he was saying with my cheeks heating, red in shame, and… something else. What was even going on? What the hell was happening to me? 

“I don’t know what you think you know,” I began, a tremor in my voice, though I tried to make it as serious and steely as possible, “but if you’re trying to scare me, good luck. It’s you who’s gonna be fucking scared if I have to come out there with my gun.” 

He chuckled again, and the hair on the back of my neck rose once again at the sound. “Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have a gun.” 

While I internally bristled at the confidence of his statement (and at the fact that he was absolutely correct), I also preened at the pet name as well as the tone of his voice. And, not that he needed to know this, but I absolutely did not have a gun. But damn, would one be helpful right about now. “As long as you leave now you won’t have to find out.” 

“Feisty girl,” he hissed, and I heard some rustling in the background of his call for the first time. “I can’t wait to see how feisty you truly are.” 

“I can’t wait to see your fucking face when the cops show up and arrest your dumbass for trespassing and harassment.” I finally was able to turn off the TV when my hand found the remote. If this was a prank, it was long past the point of being funny. Now I was just plain pissed off - and scared. “I’m not kidding, asshole, you’d better leave, or else.” That fine tremor was still in my voice, and as much as I tried to project it to make my voice sound more aggressive, I could barely get it out at an audible octave. Right now all of my energy was being expended on thoughts of survival and on what to do next. 

This was probably a prank, though. It had to be… right? If I went into work on Monday and someone was going around talking about how they pranked me and ‘she was so scared, dude!’, I was gonna lose her effing mind, and heads were gonna roll. As soon as I found out which jackass from the hospital came here to terrorize me on a Friday night, I would make them regret it. But until then, I would feel safer with a weapon of some kind, and with the police alerted. They took these Ghostface pranks very seriously. 

“Why would I leave now?” the voice questioned, and I heard a noise that sent my pulse skyrocketing even higher than it already had been: the sound of footsteps on my front porch. “We’re just getting started.” 

I barely registered the telltale scrape of the mailbox cover being pulled down from against the outside wall of the house next to the front door - where the spare key to the house was kept - before I bolted out of the room with terror hot on my heels. Who was this person, and how did they know where I kept the spare key to my house? The exact spot? Granted, it wasn’t a very hard spot to find, but still. He had found it with no hesitation whatsoever - he’d had a preconceived idea of where it had been before he even came up onto the porch. That meant only one thing: whoever he was, had been watching me. For a while. 

And now he was coming into my house. 

♡˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ♡

AN: I do not own the Scream franchise or any of it's characters, but Kailey is my own OC. I also do not own the song 'Ready or Not' by Razakel. The above photos are from Pinterest, and attached are the links to the original images.

part two coming soon

[strxnged]

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER VI: defense.

chapter summary. in which the truth is discovered and a fierce duel commences.

wc. 2.9k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

warnings. lowkey psychological manipulation!! dddne!!

— table of contents

“Hurry up and kill me, Ajax! Don’t hold back!” 

Lumine would not be very easy to kill, slashing and dodging wildly as she was now, had her opponent been any other than Tartaglia, No.11 of the Fatui Harbingers. He blocked her attacks easily—far too easily for someone who had been acting all weakened for the last two days, Lumine realized—and shot at her in sprinting thrusts. His attack patterns were like those at the Golden House the first time they had dueled, and during times again afterwards when she had ambushed him. Times she had tried to stop him from coming this far. These attacks now seemed like subdued versions, but were still enough to get her blood pumping and her legs moving.

“I wish you would at least tell me what this is about!” he complained. He paused in the middle of the pool, drawing energy so that he could unleash a blast upon her. Lumine braced herself. She managed to dodge most of it, only its final wave causing her to stumble as she charged at him with her sword raised.

“You already know what it’s about, Childe.” She spat a reversion to his Fatui codename. She knew it might bother him and hoped it would. 

Lumine managed to break his defenses for a split second, assailing him with a slash to the neck to match her own painful lacerations from the Abyss Herald’s talons just a few minutes before. She had not fought that beast as hard as she was fighting him. She hadn’t fought anything this hard for a very long time.

And that was for a simple reason. 

Lumine had not been this pissed off in ages.

“You’re putting up a pretty good game, here,” he praised her. “How becoming.”

She only scoffed, and rolled out of the way to avoid a counter. Her mind was swimming and only knew that it was an unfair fight; that she would not take victory as an end, but he would. And yet there was nothing that would stop her.

This was the Chasm curse. She wasn’t sure whether it was fueling the infatuation or the detestation, but she was so overpowered by it now that she was sure she knew why he’d led her this far. Her only escape would have to start with his death. Then the rest of the Harbingers, if they crossed her.

Her dream had been a warning that she was taking the wrong side with Tartaglia. Perhaps, she thought, heart clenching, it had been a message directly from Aether who had somehow known.

Lumine felt a pressure to her shoulder and she fell back onto the edge of the pool with an inelegant splash. Childe loomed over her. One of his Electro blades pressed through the fabric of her—his—jacket. She couldn’t move or pull herself out from under it. He leaned further, supporting his posture with the tips of both blades pressed into the ground.

“Look at you,” he cooed. His eyes were crazed with vigor as they always were in battle. “The price of a single slip. You still have much to learn.”

She struggled, straining a hand for her sword.

“It was fun!” he declared.

He traced one of her wounds ever-so-lightly with the electrified point of his other sword. It hurt like hell. She screamed.

“Now, won’t you tell me what’s the matter? I’m dying to know.”

He sure was.

Lumine managed to reach for and grasp the hilt of her blade. She swung it at the weapon touching her neck, successfully knocking it away. But he stopped her from swinging it a second time. It then became clear that he had grabbed her sword by the blade.

Still unprepared to give up, she propelled her foot at him, managing to knock his knee in just the right way that caused him to stumble. “This only ends when you’re dead,” she insisted, pushing herself and the jacket out from under the other weapon’s pressure. Her hand curled around it as she went, pulling it right out of his grasp.

He could have killed her right there, she realized. He’d seen an opening and driven the blade right through the jacket a centimeter above. But now she bore one of his weapons, and he bore hers.

Lumine had not up until this point wielded any Electro infusion or ability. She found it to be exhilarating. It seemed to act with a mind of its own, with a haste to kill. Even as a creation of Childe’s, it seemed to want him dead just as badly as she did.

She did not waste time. Against the combination of environmental Hydro, his Electro, and Lumine’s Anemo, the Harbinger stood no chance. She soared at him, propelled by focus and loathing. And Childe, still recovering from the kick, was at her mercy.

Lumine could not help but relish in the feeling properly pinning him down, blade at his neck.

Finally.

“This isn’t you, Lumine,” came a remark from the winded Childe. This was the first true protest he had given, and she wanted to hear more.

The only issue she found was the mask, which he had pulled over his face in the beginning of the fight. She needed to see fear in his eyes. Lumine reached for the top of the mask, dragging it off his face harshly.

“Any last words, Harbinger?” Her voice was deep—hoarse—breaking. Desperate.

Finally seeing his flushed, spirited visage, she felt a twinge of something that was not hatred.

“None today,” he replied, reaching an arm to his chest. “I’ll save you from this.”

It wasn’t blind infatuation, either.

Lumine pressed the Electro blade to his pale neck, drawing beads of crimson. “One more move and you’re dead.”

Childe ignored this, grasping something at his collar and wrenching it out of place.

A new feeling came over her as if her very mind was being ripped out of her skull. Shattering her spine, clouding her sight, plugging her senses. Her strength faltered immediately. Her ears rang. It was like standing in that Abyss mud, only worse and much faster. The hatred, the infatuation, the passion—all were gone.

It was only the remaining feeling—worry. She felt worry, only worry. Pure, pristine concern for the protest in Childe’s eyes which—which she saw no more, her vision going dark as her posture fell limp and she collapsed on top of the Harbinger.

After a few seconds of feeling as if she was made of stone, Lumine panickedly regained consciousness of her senses—humiliatingly comforted by Childe’s warmth as she tried to regain her mental balance. Were those his hands holding her back?

Her sight and strength returned to normal and she pushed herself off of Childe.

She could not remember why she wanted to kill him, or that she did. But something was wrong, or had been changed. And it had to do with whatever Childe had ripped from his neck. She looked over at him.

He was sitting up. The chain necklace she had noticed earlier dangled now from his fingers, swinging gently. The charm was as irresistibly beautiful and eye-catching as it had been earlier. There wasn’t anything particular she could tell she liked about it, only that she liked the looks of it. She liked them very much.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Childe asked, rousing her to his presence. She’d almost forgotten about him in a moment.

She nodded. The sweat and enervation of an abruptly terminated duel still held her mind in a fuzz, but something else seemed to be causing a thicker fog. She did not want to look away from the necklace.

To her disappointment, he pressed it and its chain into his palm, watching her reaction. She finally looked him in the eye.

“What was that?”

He laughed coldly. “You… don’t know?”

She glanced down at his closed palm again, shaking her head no.

He put his hand behind his back, and her gaze followed it.

“Lumine,” he said softly. “Would you back up so that I can explain? Please?”

She noticed then that she was leaning towards him rather intimately. She must have moved unconsciously to get a closer look at the charm. Lumine checked herself and did as he said. 

With the charm fully out of sight, she found that she was able to recall the exact context of the situation. They’d defeated an Abyss Herald who had beckoned Childe to kill her. She had been referred to as his target. The bounty he’d been hunting. The prey he’d been luring.

It was still a terrible thing to be aware of—but she wanted him to explain himself.

“You know, Lumine,” he said as if reading her mind, “I’m shocked, really. It took you quite a while to catch on.”

She did not know what to say or think. Was he confirming it?

“You know exactly what I am,” he continued, “and you’ve known it the whole time. I never hid my mission from you. Not really.”

“You said it was… that it was world domination,” she said, stumbling over her words. 

He looked like a different person right now. A dear friend, but not a villain, and not a warrior. Just a friend, apologizing and explaining.

Childe shook his head. “That’s my end goal. There are a lot of steps to that, you know. It’s no easy process.”

“What are you saying?” She selfishly hoped that he would be able to justify everything that he’d done.

“I’m saying that one of those steps is serving the Tsaritsa. And, in the least offensive way possible, you were in the way of that.”

“That was on purpose.”

He laughed again. “And that’s what made you so damn easy. Once I had your attention, distracting you—which was, of course, my mission—was simple as sight-seeing the nation, acting like I was after some rare animal.” He paused and the silence was louder than the screaming in her mind. “I’m hardly proud of it, but my goodness have you ever made it a pleasure, Lumine.”

Lumine’s mouth was dry as she stuttered, “But…”

Childe looked apologetic—and, after all these days she had spent by his side, she was fully inclined to believe it was sincere. He reached his hand to her face, gently rubbing a thumb on her cheek. “I’m sorry. I really am. I will admit that I was forced to use… alternative methods to grab your attention.”

She understood before he showed her. The necklace in his palm drew her focus almost immediately, despite her semi-frantic emotional reaction to the tenderness of his touch on her cheek.

“It’s a Snezhnayan Charm of Mild Entrancement. Nothing fancy, but works like a…”

Lumine had snatched the charm from his hand, cradling it in her palms. It felt like it was drawing in her thoughts, her emotions, her will. “Can you destroy it?”

“I—” 

She tore her gaze away from it with great effort. Tears pooled in her eyes as she forcibly latched them onto Childe’s face. “I thought I was falling in love with you. Then I wanted you dead. Please destroy it, Ajax. I hate it.”

He didn’t wait another moment, taking it from her grasp. He hurled it onto the rock floor and lifted her sword from where it lay at his side. “May I—”

“Do what you have to.”

He stood and brought the edge of her blade down upon it heavily. A shing came from the impact, as both the charm and the blade shattered. The sound echoed down the cavern, and the charm was no more.

Lumine was flooded with insurmountable relief. Her unnatural edge had been destroyed with the charm and she knew it had been the cause of her madness, not the curse of the Chasm. Her wits returned, finally, and she understood. 

She got to her feet, looking to Childe. “It only amplified interest, right?”

He nodded. “That sums it up. It was tuned specifically to affect you. And since I wore it, well…”

“I really did want to kill you just now, with or without that Charm.”

“I know.”

“And I really think…” She paused, noticing a moment too late that she was about to say something humiliating. “... That I…”

“Lumine, please don’t.”

She didn’t.

The cool glow from the cavern highlighted how Childe’s eyebrows were gathered, how his teeth were gritted, and how his head was tilted solemnly. “What you’re feeling right now… it may be an effect of the charm.”

Lumine’s eyes fell on the chain on which the Charm of Mild Entrancement had been. In the Charm’s place, all that remained was shattered glass-like material and substance resembling clear blood. The gold shimmer was gone.

She looked around the cave. The pool of the small cavern opened up into a larger area. In the center was something that could only be described as an immense mushroom. It had a long, thick, white stem and a cap shooting out from a thing that resembled branches. From the higher, largest cap dangled blue strings of lights. It was a beautiful, strange sight, one that she definitely would have seen before if she hadn’t been under an Entrancement spell.

And yet, looking back at Childe, she still found him as dazzling—as enticing—as he had been before… if not more than ever.

Childe’s gaze softened. “I really am sorry. And I’m sorry for how much I enjoyed it.”

She took a step closer to him, gauging her capacity to say what was on her mind. “It was scummy of you,” she declared, “and I want to hate you for it.”

He nodded again, sighing.

“How long were you supposed to be distracting me for?”

Childe took a sharp breath and clicked his tongue. “Until further notice.”

“Seems like a bothersome mission for you.”

He laughed, running his hand through his tousled hair. “As if you care about what bothers me, girlie.” 

Lumine fidgeted with the sleeves of his jacket, which she still wore. She knew it had been ripped and scuffed in a few places from that fight—the same would have happened if he had been wearing it, of course. And her hair felt like it had been pulled out of place. Her neck stung, still. She put a hand to the scarf and saw her blood on it.

Childe, on the other hand, looked like he ought to be cold. They had been splashing about in the pool in the cavern, dousing each other in cave water. His hair and clothes were damp and his skin was glistening. But he looked right at home in the cool water, smiling at her like that.

“What if I do?”

The words came out of her mouth before she could think. They kept coming at the same rate.

“What if I was really falling in love with you? What if the Charm was only playing on feelings that already existed? What if the infatuation wasn’t entirely false?”

“You don’t even like me,” he said. He looked a little hopeful, but as if he was repressing. “I’m kind of a bad guy. I’m a Harbinger. We have different lives, you and I, and you don’t exactly favour mine. You know, almost killed an entire city—”

“ —Almost.”

“Yes, but I’ve murdered many others without hesitation. That’s who I am.” His voice fell to a whisper. “You know I’m not quite of this world, Lumine.”

She was becoming more confident, now that she was in her right mind. It was only becoming clear to her how it had possessed and manipulated her attention. But now that her will was her own again, she wasn’t particularly motivated to look away. 

She shrugged at him, voice breaking. “Neither am I, Ajax.”

Lumine felt fingers grab her chin. She felt pressure from a hand on the back of her neck. She felt soft lips against hers; she felt warmth in her cheeks as she caught onto the situation. Childe didn’t kiss her hesitantly; it was frantic and heated. He kissed her like he had wanted to do so for a very long time. An excruciatingly long time, evidently.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting one hand dive into his curls. He pulled her closer.

The two paused. Lumine watched Childe slowly open his eyes and smile at her. He looked absolutely starstruck, eyes hooded and sparkling—but his hand had settled on her jaw, the other snaking firmly around her waist. It was like he wanted badly to hold her, but he could not believe that he had the opportunity to do so.

Lumine had something occur to her then. She grabbed his wrist and held it up so that she could look at the palm. Sure enough, the glove was blood-stained and cut through to his lacerated skin.

“Why the hell did you grab my blade like that?” she scolded, inspecting the injury.

“Ah—Lumine, that hurts!”

“Idiot.”

“Come on, now. You gave me no choice. You were trying to kill me.”

Lumine gazed up at him. “And you were having too much fun, Harbinger.”

He pouted.

“Fine… Ajax.”

“Lumine,” he mimicked her, tilting his head with a grin.

She finally, finally smiled at him. And in the darkness of the Chasm, in the pool swirling with a bit of each of their blood, she had one more question left in her mind.

“So. What the hell are we gonna do now, Ajax?”

fin.

author’s note. so. there we have it. i am without words because i'm just excited about the fact that i've finished posting it now, but i really must say that it has been wonderful receiving feedback on this fic over the last five weeks and i see all of you that kept up and read the whole thing. thanks for being patient and reading through to the end. i am always sincerely grateful when people take the time to read my works.

without further ado, this has been A CHASMIC MISTAKE.

comments are valued and appreciated.

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

[thatgirlonstage]

YESSS mermay time!!!

How about some BingQiu, prompt word: control?

(I don't think you've ever written BingQiu? so if you don't feel up to it no worries <3)

This didn't end up super shippy except in that they're canon endgame but I would definitely take prompts to keep playing in this particular universe if you're interested in reading them :eyes:

——

Shen Qingqiu had no excuse for being unprepared when Luo Binghe’s voice started to change. He’d reread that chapter more than almost any other, after all. It was one of the reasons he couldn’t quit that stupid novel, those rare shining gems where Airplane forgot about wife plots and pleasing his audience and those hints of a fascinating world and layered characters actually came through and Airplane’s writing was almost—dare he admit it?—good. He knew the exact circumstances leading up to it down to the last detail: the early morning drill interrupted by a summer squall, the disciples all crammed into a nearby shallow cave, waiting for the worst of the downpour to pass, the bat that would frighten Ning Yingying, the way Luo Binghe, silent and shrunken into the back until this moment, doing his best to attract neither his fellow students’ nor his teacher’s wrath, would attempt to offer her a word of comfort. The way his voice, in the effort to stay quiet, would for the first time slide those couple extra notes lower in register, out of a childish tenor and into his own timbre. With that drop in tone would come something else: a weaving, shifting magic that would strike Ning Yingying dumb, that would turn his reassurance that she should be calm into an irresistible command. It would be several more years, of course before anyone figured out precisely what was happening, and several years beyond that before the original goods had dug up an answer to what this phenomenon was and named it: siren song.

No, Shen Qingqiu had no excuse for being surprised. He had already spent the past year—since almost the moment he arrived—piecing together the correct meditations, qi guards, and strange concoctions to be ready to help Luo Binghe control his voice from the start, and let his disciples protect themselves against it if he slipped, pleading and wheedling the System all the while. He knew it would be this summer, when Luo Binghe was fifteen. He didn’t know precisely what day only because Airplane hadn’t bothered to name one. That was fine, though: he just had to watch for the squall.

He had no excuse for being surprised, except for two things. One, he forgot to account for the fact that in this timeline, Luo Binghe brought him breakfast in the morning, and Shen Qingqiu would be the first to hear him speak that day. Two, Airplane’s novel had not come with audio samples and dammit the System must be taking liberties because even Airplane’s best efforts at prose had not done this justice.

“Teacher? Teacher!”

Luo Binghe’s voice, cracked with fright until it was high and boyish once again, cut through the haze of Shen Qingqiu’s mind. He blinked his way back into his body and discovered he was on the floor. Luo Binghe crouched over him, eyes wide with alarm.

“Teacher, are you alright? I just said I hoped you were having a good morning and—”

Shen Qingqiu reached up and clapped a hand over Luo Binghe’s mouth, arresting his speech. Luo Binghe startled but fell quiet, his eyes wide as saucers above Shen Qingqiu’s hand.

“Your voice,” Shen Qingqiu said. The words came out hoarse and unsteady. “It’s— I think you might be, uh, cursed,” he invented wildly. “Don’t speak.”

Eyes growing somehow even wider, Luo Binghe nodded. Shen Qingqiu slowly removed his hand and tried to give him a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry, Bing-ge. This one is unhurt. We will find a solution for whatever has happened to your voice too— to cure it, or control it.”

Luo Binghe opened his mouth, remembered to be silent, snapped it closed, and bowed deeply. Shen Qingqiu climbed to his feet and patted him awkwardly on the head.

“Stay there for the moment,” he said. “I’m going to let the other disciples know our exercise is canceled for today. I suspect we’re going to get rained out.”

[llamamamarisen92]

Burning out of Love

I love the idea of a durge who is entirely smitten by Karlach

Like this man LAUGHS and FLIRTS as he slays people. He makes ridiculous jokes as if he was just sitting in a coffee shop when he thrusts a dagger.

But when he sees Karlach he becomes incredibly soft and loving just with a glance from her. Like he's only doing good things because it makes her smile.

Warning: Language/Violence

He spun wildly in the air, sword thrust high above his head. Gortash readied for the blow, prepared to take down his old friend.

Johim grinned wildly as his sword struck down before Gortash could get his shields up. Gortash called upon Bane and felt the dark tendrils of his patron god taking over his consciousness.

Leaning his forehead against Gortash's he whispered ferociously.

"If you're going to hide behind your god I'll be sure to take you both out swiftly." Pressing a kiss to his cheek before thrusting his sword into Gortash's belly.

Gortash was no longer there. Bane's black hand grasped onto Johim's arm stopping his thrust.

"Child of Bhaal. It's a shame you turned your back on us. Oh, how I would have delighted in stealing you away for myself. A god among men."

How cocky the gods were. But he was a slayer of gods. And he would slay every single one of them if it meant stopping what he started.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Karlach moving in to land a blow. A dark force blasted her into the wall and all of Johim's fury came barreling to the surface.

There was no finesse. No insolent beauty to his movements anymore. He slashed wildly and unrelentingly at Gortash. A tiger being held up to the face of an unprepared hunter.

After a time Johim was covered in Gortash's blood and he breathed heavily over the dead Banite.

Searching the room for the spot where Karlach was he deflated. She sat curled in the corner crying. All ferocity left him as he rushed to her side.

"He's dead. And he's no fucking sorrier than he was before." He brushed at her cheek and she pulled away. "What's the point? I'm still going to die. I'm still dying!"

"We can figure this out, it's not over yet." He soothed.

"He stole my heart, my heart that was given to me by my mother. And all of this. The pain. The suffering. The loneliness… oh the fucking loneliness for ten years because my friend sold me to the devil!" She pushed him away and got up. But he persisted and held on to her hand.

"Whatever happens we are in this together, right to the very end."

He stood there, taking the heat of all her fury.

"You're going to go on living, dancing, eating, making fucking love all night." Her voice broke. "It's not fucking fair."

The thought of losing her after all this devastated him. She interrupted him before he could declare how if she died he would die with her. How he only ever wanted her.

"I need to go back to camp for a bit. Yell at the stars of whatever." Her sad smile set his heart beating faster. "Thanks for listening, love you."

She walked off and he turned to Gale and Astarion searching for any hint of an idea they may have.

"Karlach has precious little time left to her, we would do best not to waste it." Gale placed a knowing hand on Johim's shoulder.

He wouldn't let her die. Johim would find another way even if it meant selling his own soul to a thousand devils. Karlach was going to live.

[wildelydawn]

You had final thoughts for I’ll Ignite for You. Do you have any for Your Look Through this Lens?

Hi there; you asked this in August, and now it’s October. I waited so long because I didn't have an answer for you. And I still don’t know if I have an answer for you, but I think I’ll try anyway.

I want to first say that having final thoughts on II4Y was infinitely easier because of the nature of the story. Nothing happens in II4Y besides a conversation over the span of three days; and it’s a story that brings Kim and Porchay together and makes them part and then brings them back together when Kim is ready. (Even though II4Y is technically canon divergence, it could very well still take place after canon because I don’t believe Porchay needs to respond to the video. They just need to see each other, and that same spark/intensity from episode 4 would reignite, and that’s still up to Kim to do, in my opinion.)

Thoughts on YLTTL are different. One, I wrote from Porchay’s point of view, and while he’s not innocent or oblivious, he chooses to remain blissfully passive about the many inconsistencies with WIK. Porchay knows there’s something more to WIK, but he never asks because he knows that he’s not going to be WIK’s photographer forever. He knows he’s on a time limit. He has always known that; he’s ready to leave from the beginning of the story. @emberfaye asked me what the first part of Chapter 1 means and when it takes place. In that section, Porchay thinks about how unlucky he is to have the perfect subject because there's nothing to perfect. There is an ending; Porchay assumes the ending to all of this is WIK gets famous and moves on from him. So he's prepared (and maybe, in a meta way, this was my warning to readers to also prepare for the ending of YLTTL.)

The person who’s unprepared is Kim, and that’s borrowed from canon when Kim is looking at the polaroids of KimChay. And in YLTTL, I capitalized on that. He’s wildly unprepared for the fact that even the nicest feelings or moments don’t last forever. He's also unprepared in regards to the lies he tells, both in canon and in YLTTL. But he should be. He’s in the mafia. He knows nothing is permanent. But in YLTTL, he’s not ready for his music career to take off or even to leave the mafia. Chay is ready for the ending, though; he counts down the days every chapter. So, I guess the first thought is this idea of time: how much do you have of it? When will you be ready? When is the right time for whatever is it that you want to do?

Two, even if they were ready, circumstance isn’t on their side. This is just a fact of life. Kim asks Chay if things would have been different if they met at a grocery store. YLTTL was based on the idea that even in an AU, Kim and Chay don’t end up together. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. I personally don’t think the canon ending of KimChay means they don’t love each other, and I think I wrote YLTTL to explore that idea a bit more deeply.

Three: And like I said in this post about Amelia, there’s a (potentially harmful) narrative that you should stop loving someone once you’re not with them. Oddly, I think I love Amelia more than ever; I can safely say she still cares about me too! But we know it’s better to move forward and to accept that there’s no love lost. She’s not this ghost in my life. I talk about her with my current partner. I dedicate IRL works and fandom works to her. This surprises people, but she’s not just a muse. Similarly, Chay is not just a muse for Kim. They are always going to be tangled with one another. Their story doesn’t end just because things like marriage, distance, time, circumstance, exist. Kim is going to find Chay in every crowd, every hotel room, he’s going to hope that every person behind every camera is Chay, and Chay will take everything he learned about photography and apply it to every subject that comes after WIK, he’ll admit to people that he wishes he could photograph WIK some more, he’s going to hold his breath every time he opens his camera bag and then sigh in relief when he doesn’t see anything from Kim there because that means Kim is doing what Chay asked him to do. And even when they can’t see each other, they don’t have to go very far to see each other. The photographs will always be there. You don’t have to see love to feel love, in my opinion. Just because you feel lonely doesn’t mean you’re alone.

Anyways. I don’t think this answered your question at all tbh because YLTTL is a KimChay story and also, in a very twisted way, a story about time and loneliness. But I’ve left you sitting in my inbox for too long, and I hope this was somewhat satisfactory for you. Thank you for reading YLTTL! And thank you for being interested in my thoughts beyond the story! 🖤

[leftoverenvy]

Contaminated - Part 5

Summary: Emily and JJ's marriage is in shambles, so Emily turns to an unlikely source of comfort: her student.  To add gasoline to the fire, Emily starts an affair.  A songfic inspired by Contaminated by BANKS.

Pairing: Emily Prentiss x OC; Prof! Emily x POC OC; Emily Prentiss x Jennifer "JJ" Jareau

Warnings: smut (18+); heavy angst; power dynamic; age gap (unspecified – but all over 18); power imbalance; professor - student; cheating; marital arguing

Word Count: 7k

Tumblr Masterlist | Wattpad

Taglist: @ssa-sapphic 🧸; @reidselle 🦭; @gaelic-symphony 🎻 ; @hotchs-bitch 🦆 ; @multiverse-mxdness 🧌 ; @madelineleong

Part 5

I didn't hear from Liv again that night.  I could see that she had read my text message asking her to come back, but she left me hanging all night.  And all the next day. I tried to push it from my mind.  She just needed a few days to reset.  We'd find our way back like we had before.

I thought I'd be able to signal to her in class that I wanted to apologize, that we could be more – it was just a little complicated right now.  But when Tuesday came, I scoured the lecture hall for her, and her usual seat was empty.  I tried not to let it get me too down.  I shouldn't care so much whether a student was in class.  But she wasn't just any student.  I needed to see with my own eyes that she was okay.  Her absence hurt more than the devastation on her face this weekend.

Wednesday, I immersed myself in grading and catching up on sociology journals.  I couldn't let myself think about Olivia and what she was feeling.  It was maddening that my consistent fling was now just as rocky as my marriage.  I chuckled darkly.  Hadn't I started an affair to get away from my crumbling marriage?

I sent Liv a text every morning.  I didn't want her to feel suffocated, but I also needed her to come back and let me explain myself.  It frustrated me that she wouldn't give me the chance.  Without Liv, my mind was too loud; without Liv, my bed was too cold.

On Thursday, I watched the doorway of the lecture hall like a hawk.  My intense gaze gave some students pause, but I couldn't bring myself to care what they thought of me.  I needed to see wildly curly hair and mocha skin – I needed to see brightly twinkling eyes and teasing lips.  When the ingress of students had slowed, I directed my eyes up to the clock hanging above the door.  The hands had struck the start of the hour; it was time to begin lecturing.

I sighed in disappointment and pulled my notes from my briefcase.  This week's lectures felt pointless without Liv staring at me from across the room with her distracting winks and smirks.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  I had a duty to the other seventy or so students to be a good lecturer; Liv wasn't my only student.

Without bothering to look up from my notes, I greeted the class and started my lecture.  I heard a few students shuffling around, hurriedly pulling computers and notebooks out to take notes.  At least I wasn't the only one feeling unprepared for this lecture.  I internally rolled my eyes at how dramatic I was being and looked up to face this hall of students waiting for me to dive into today's material.

I stopped breathing.  There she was.  She must have slipped in while I was taking notes out of my briefcase.  Silence filled the lecture hall interrupted only by creaking seats and throats clearing from the awkward tension emanating from the front of the room. 

Liv looked miserable.  Dark rings surrounded her eyes, and her hair was thrown haphazardly on top of her head.  My brows furrowed in confusion.  She had walked out.  Why did she look so sad?

Throughout the lecture I tried to catch her eye, to apologize with my eyes.  But each time we made eye contact, she dropped her gaze to take overly careful notes.  Liv went from eye fucking me from across the room one week to averting her eyes any time I remotely looked in her direction today.  I was frustrated to be thwarted at every attempt to even look at her.  She was hiding from me. 

I had hoped to ask her to stay after class, but she left class 2 minutes early.  I couldn't stop class to ask her to stay in front of seventy-three other people.  I was desperate, but not that desperate.   After all, her ignoring me was far nicer than I deserved.

Over the next week, nothing changed.  She couldn't stand to look at me, and I couldn't get her to respond to any of my many text messages.  Even though I desperately needed to lose myself in her, I backed off.  She clearly wanted space, so I'd give that to her.

_ _ _

The following week, I thought I'd lose my mind.  I had driven to that spot out in the country where I fucked her in my backseat.  I put my favorite sad record on and laid down in the backseat to remember what I had had just a few weeks ago.  I always compared her eyes to the night sky.  Liv was my star, always shining brightly.  Sparkling.  Just like everything I touched, she was tarnished and gone.

Though Liv hadn't skipped any more classes, I knew better than to expect to see her sweet smile or lustful eyes.  Each afternoon, I started class by passing my eyes sadly over her section to check if she was there.  While lecturing, I swept my eyes over her, tracking how she was holding up.  Though not as haggard as the first day, she didn't look like herself; she looked about as well as I felt.  I tried my best not to stare at only her during class, though I was tempted every day.  Even sad, she was achingly beautiful. 

Towards the end of lecture, out of the corner of my eye I saw slight movement.  I would quickly glance over to Liv – as I always did – and then move on to whoever had raised their hand.  My eyes widened in shock to see Liv's hand in the air.  She oozed timidity: her shoulders were hunched, her arm half fell as soon as my eyes fell on her.  Her lip was caught between her teeth, biting it out of nerves.  I considered not calling on her, because to hear her voice again would be to open that wound back up.  I had only just gotten used to the idea of not talking to her.  But I needed her like an addiction.  I dismissed the ludicrous idea of not calling on her as quickly as it had entered my head.

"Yes, Miss Martin?"

"Um."  She cleared her throat unnecessarily.  "I'm getting hung up on law enforcement's reliance on forensics, especially in anticipation of trial, and what you'd do as a profiler when the forensic evidence isn't matching up with the psychological profile."  I leaned against the podium and slid my glasses halfway down my nose to look at her properly.  She sounded so fucking sexy speaking to me about forensics and profiling.  I could eat her alive.

I found myself back at this familiar crossroads.  Our fate, once again, rested in my selfish hands.  I felt like a sniper lying in wait, ready for her to step into my crosshairs so I could pull the trigger. 

The remaining five minutes of class were sufficient to answer this question in a satisfactory way for a freshman-level course.  But that wouldn't get me close to her again.  Calculated, like a true hunter, I heard myself answer, "See me in office hours."  Her eyes widened with panic.  Now it was her decision to make.  See me alone, or don't.  "Class dismissed."

Students started packing up quickly, happy to be let out early.  Meanwhile, Olivia sat frozen in her seat, her mouth hung open just slightly.  I shoved my notes back into my briefcase, grabbed my water bottle, and winked at her as I made my way to the exit.

I sat in my office, nerves inexplicably making my palms sweat and my stomach turn.  Would she really come?  What if she felt cornered into coming just to get her question answered?  Had I sacrificed her education just to get closer to her?  I had worked myself up so bad I nearly packed up to go home when she poked her head around the corner.

"Professor?"  I exhaled in relief.

"Ahh, Liv.  Come in, please."  I wiped my hands on my pants and gestured for her to have a seat in the chair across from my desk.  We stared awkwardly at each other, neither knowing how to break the ice.  She sat rigid in her chair, her backpack still clasped tightly in her hands.

"That was a very astute question you asked during class," I noted, figuring a little praise couldn't hurt.  She smiled slightly and relaxed into the chair, opening her backpack to pull some papers out.

"Thank you," she said cautiously.  This version of Liv was a stark departure from the one that had last entered my office.  Just a two weeks ago she had let me eat her out in the very chair she was currently sitting in.  The memory made me smirk softly.

I sat back in my chair and looked at her with an eyebrow raised.  "That isn't a topic covered in the assigned readings."  She didn't offer an explanation, so I further prompted, "So what drove you to inquire about this topic?"

"Well," she said sheepishly, "I actually chose this for my final paper topic…"

"Ahh," I interrupted in understanding.

"I was wondering…"  I only looked at her, eyes raking over her chest covered in tight, stretched cotton.  She trailed her words as she caught sight of my low gaze, her breath catching in her throat softly.

"Yes?" I asked, amused by how easily I could fluster her.

"Since this isn't a topic covered by our textbook, I was wondering if you could take a look at it before the due date and give some feedback?  I don't want to miss something more nuanced about this topic simply because I'm a freshman."

"Why choose it at all then?" I wondered aloud.

A smile teased at the corner of her mouth, and happiness tickled me like a feather.  I didn't dare let myself believe we would get back to normal so easily, but that smile hinted at a brighter future than the one I believed I had before she walked into my office.  "Perhaps you've noticed that my tastes are more…advanced than my peers."  Was she flirting?

Involuntarily, my head tilted slightly as if my growing smile forced it to.  "I do believe I've noticed that, Miss Martin."  I paused, trying to right the ship.  It was strange to be separated from her like this.  My desk had never felt like a barrier before.  In fact, I had bent her over it countless times before.  But today, it felt like a mountain between us.  It was a necessary reminder that she needed me to be her professor, not her lover.  She had come here for a legitimate, school-related reason – I needed to rein it in.

I motioned for her to hand me the paper.  I put my glasses on and flipped through the headings of the paper to get a feel for the direction she went in.  It was ambitious for a freshman, and I was excited to read it.  "I'll take a look at it this weekend."  I quickly grabbed a pen to write myself a note so I didn't forget to edit this for her.  "Thank you for being proactive and not waiting until the last minute.  You'll get much better feedback this way."

She nodded slowly, not saying anything else.  I sat back and looked at her over my glasses, silently gauging whether her school business was finished.  She looked so beautiful today. The cotton, green, wrap shirt hugged her chest so deliciously.  Though it was usually her habit, I bit at my lip because I longed to sink my teeth into her.  But that was off limits, so I settled for staring at her like a lion circling a wounded antelope.

I was itching to ask about us, about where we stood.  And all the while, I couldn't stop yearning to taste her.  So I stuck the end of the pen in my mouth to chew softly on the cap, wishing I was nibbling on her.  This pen would have to do.  She shifted her weight, clearly uneasy under my intense stare.  Her chest rose and fell heavily; I could hear her steady exhales.  I gripped the arms of my desk chair tightly while I continued to stare at her over my glasses.  I was about to lose my mind.  I wanted her.

She inhaled shakily and said, "I appreciate you taking the time to do that.  I know it wasn't marked in the syllabus that you would."  I hadn't included it in the syllabus because students never exercised the opportunity anyway.  I was, once again, impressed by the type of student she was.  "Thank you, Emily."  I took the use of my first name as a green light, a signal that it was safe to proceed away from school and talk about us.

I took my glasses off and set them gently on top of her paper.  I moved around the desk to sit in the chair next to her.  The conversation I wanted to have was not professional, and it would be awkward for her.  But I needed to be closer to her.

"Liv," I started.  "I'm sorry."

"Em, I-"

"Wait," I interrupted, holding a hand up.  I stood up and quietly closed my office door.  No curious ears needed to hear this conversation.

"I owe you an apology.  You can tell me to fuck off right after, and I won't bring it up again, I won't bring us up again.  But I'm sorry.  I never meant to string you along like that."

"Okay…" she trailed off, "So where does that leave us?"

"Wherever you want it to leave us."

She looked at me skeptically.  "So if I said I wanted nothing to do with you?"

A pang of hurt twisted my stomach.  "I'd mark your paper, email it back to you, and never speak to you again."

She grimaced, obviously not thrilled with that idea either.  "I don't know if I can go back to how things were."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"You," she whispered, looking down.

I steeled myself to start lying.  "You've got me."

"Can you promise me something?" she asked tentatively.

"Anything," I promised.  I knew this was dangerous territory.  I knew what she was about to ask, and I knew the next things I was about to say would be more lies.  But I needed this.  This time apart had been hell, and I'd do anything to take it back.

"Be with me," she begged.  "Leave your wife and be with me."

I needed to tread these waters carefully.  One misstep could be disastrous.  Again.  "You're so special to me," I whispered, cupping her face.

"Then take me out," she bulldozed, pushing my hand off her face.  "I'm tired of being your little secret."  I could tell she was getting worked up.  I needed her to calm down because I couldn't stand for her to leave again.  I'd say whatever to get her to calm down, to believe that I was committed to her.  I'd bend the truth to shape a future with her.

I sighed.  This was messy.  Things with Olivia weren't supposed to be this messy; they were supposed to be fun, easy.  "Gimme some time, baby."  I grabbed her hand and stroked the skin over her knuckles.  "I promise things are over with my wife."  She exhaled in relief.  "But these things take time." 

She looked away, her eyes flooding with tears I knew she'd fight tooth and nail to hold back.  "Hey, look at me," I cooed softly.  Tears slipped down her perfect face, and I wiped them for her.  "I need some trust here.  I'm in this with you.  I'm not trying to hide you away like a dirty secret.  It's just more complicated than how we feel about each other.  But you mean more to me than some cheap affair." 

"Okay."

My stomach twisted, not at the fact that I lied, but at the ease with which I was able to do so.  Before, I had lied by omission or fibbed gently.  And now I had looked her straight in the eye and lied – lied about what this was, what it meant to me.  But I just needed this a little bit longer.  Why start caring now when our entire relationship was built on a foundation of lies?

"I missed you," she admitted.

"I missed you, too, Liv."

"No, Emily.  I missed you." 

"Yeah?"  I smirked and leaned in to kiss her.  Like our first, I hovered my mouth over hers, waiting to see if she would pull away.  And like our first, she closed the distance and kissed me.

I sighed into her kiss, thankful for her second, second chance.  I pushed her back onto her chair and straddled her lap.  Her hands quickly untucked my shirt to touch any part of my bare skin that she could.  I continued to kiss her, lapping at her mouth relentlessly.  I had missed this.

I trailed my lips down her jaw, moving to suck on her earlobe.  "Emily please," she begged, panting into my neck.

"Please what?" I smirked.

"Don't tease.  It's been too long."  I stood up, pulling her with me and pushed her onto my desk.  I climbed up to hover over her.  "Shirt off, please," she asked, her fingers already pulling at my shirt.  I whipped my blazer off and pulled my shirt over my head.  She sighed at the feeling of my skin on hers.

I unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down her hips halfway.  We'd have to make this quick; we had already taken off too many clothes for a fuck in a public place, but then she pulled her own shirt off, and I groaned.  She was delicious, and I would devour her.

I pushed my hand down her pants, the angle awkward from me not bothering to pull her jeans all the way off.  "Fuck me right now," she begged.  I pushed a finger between her lips, testing to see how wet she was. 

"Jesus," I hissed into her neck.  She was soaked.

As I pushed my fingers into her, she started moaning too loudly.  I didn't want us to get caught.  It had been a close call the first time we fucked in the office, and I didn't want a repeat.  "You know the rules, baby.  Be quiet."  Her mouth latched onto my collarbone.  As she got closer and closer, she sucked against my skin harder.  It started to get tender, but then I felt her nails dig into my skin, the sharp sting from the new lines down my back distracting me from the sting of my collarbone. 

I felt her stop breathing, her muscles coiling tightly.  She threw her head back – the soft thud against the wood making me wonder if it hurt – and gripped my shoulders roughly.  "God, Em," she whispered.  "That was incredible."  I pulled my fingers out of her, sucked her wetness off my fingers, and climbed off the desk.  I knew from the first time that it would be best not to linger in here with our clothes off. 

Once I had quickly dressed, I pulled her down to the edge of the desk and helped her settle back on her feet.  I pulled her jeans into place and buttoned them for her.  "Come over," I said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.  I wasn't done with her.  "Stay the night with me tonight."

"I can't tonight," she pouted.  "I promised Kara we'd get dinner."

"Come over after," I tried again, nipping at her earlobe.  Into her ear I whispered, "I'll make it worth your while…"

She groaned, hips bucking into mine.  "Em, please.  I can't cancel again.  Tomorrow?"

"Definitely," I agreed.  I nipped a final time at her neck as payback for earlier; my collarbone was still a little sore.  I helped pull her top over her head, subtly pulling her tight shirt higher than it had been when she had first entered my office.

"Can I text you?"  Her nerves from earlier had returned.

"Of course, Liv.  Have fun tonight."  With a final kiss, she was walking out of my office, a sway in her hips that had been lacking the last week and a half.

_ _ _

I felt so much better after smoothing things over with Liv.  I came home a refreshed woman.  I hummed to myself as I got ready for bed, smoothing a restorative oil into my hair.  I idly wondered if I should stop dying it – the constant dying was badly damaging it.  In preparation for tomorrow, I smoothed my favorite lotion over my skin, knowing it would make my skin irresistibly soft.  As I stood up from putting lotion on my legs, I yelped in shock at seeing JJ's reflection in the mirror.

"Jesus!" I gasped, a hand flying to my pounding heart.  "JJ you scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry.  I thought you heard me coming."

"No," I snipped.  "I didn't.  What are you doing home?"

"I live here," she reminded me.  But she hadn't been home in about a month.  It hit me that I hadn't seen my wife in a month.  How had it taken me this long to realize?

"Right…" I mused.  Suddenly, I felt extremely vulnerable naked.  I reached for my robe to cover up, sensing a fight as one senses an approaching storm.  I saw the clouds darken in her eyes – I saw the moment when she registered the bruise on my collarbone.

Harshly, JJ asked, "You think you can cover that up?  You think I didn't already see it?"

"See what?"  But I knew what she meant.  I had felt the sting from the hot water of my shower on the scratches Liv etched into my back earlier this afternoon.  JJ had undoubtedly seen both.

"How long?" she demanded to know.  When I didn't respond, she crossed her arms.

"How long what?"  My mind was reeling.  I wasn't prepared for her to find out this way.  I hadn't prepared what I was going to say.

"How long?" she growled out.

I slumped against the counter.  This was the reckoning.  I had done this, and it was time to face the consequences.  "The first time?  Or when we really started the affair?"

"Does it matter?!" she asked incredulously.  I winced because no, no it didn't.

"Since December," I whispered, head down.

She chuckled humorlessly.  "God, Em! I" - she paused and shook her head in disbelief - "I can't believe you!"

I couldn't respond.  I couldn't believe it either.  I had known it was wrong from the start; I had no idea how I ended up here.  I put my head in my hand, my middle finger and thumb at the corners of my eyes trying to keep the tears at bay.  I had never been more frustrated with myself.

"Her or me."

I snapped my head up.  "What?" I hissed. 

She issued her ultimatum again: "Her or me, Emily.  This can't keep going on.  You made a promise to me."

I laughed in her face.  "A promise?" I repeated.  "What about your promise to me, JJ?  You don't think I've known about Will since December?"  She blanched, her eyes wide and darting back and forth between mine.

"I knew you were snooping through my phone!" she diverted.

"Are you kidding me?  You're mad about me finding out you were cheating because I saw your text messages?"

"So you just decided to throw away a year of marriage because I made a mistake?" 

Rage coiled inside of me.  "'A year of marriage?'" I asked in disbelief.  "JJ, we were together two years before that!  I'm not 'throwing away' anything."

"You cheated," she pointed out again.

"So did you!" I screamed back.  I was fed up with her double standard.  It didn't escape my notice either that every time she referred to Will, it was a "mistake," but I was cheating.  She had started this; I was incensed by the injustice.

"And that makes it okay?"

I deflated, moving into our bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed.  No.  Nothing excused this. "We aren't okay, Jayje," I whispered.

She sighed and sat next to me on the bed.  "I know."  I grabbed her hand, finally finding that anchor I had been looking for all those months ago.  It was reassuring to hear her acknowledge something was wrong.  It made me feel better to hear that it wasn't all in my head.

"I'm sorry."  I choked on emotion.  She didn't say anything.  "Can we fix this?  Are we too far gone?"

"I told you: her or me.  I need to know she isn't important to you.  You made a promise to me, a vow," she reminded again.  I looked down to our hands clasped together, the gold and silver of our wedding bands gleaming in the dim light.  That thin ring of metal could have been a two-ton sheet of steel for how it felt pressing against me.  It was a painful reminder I had broken our most sacred vow – it didn't matter that she broke it first.  I fucked up.

"I'll break it off, JJ.  Tomorrow.  I promise."

"Okay."

I waited a few seconds for her assurance that she would break things off with Will.  Nothing came.  "Jayje?"

"What?"

"…Are you going to break things off with Will?"

"Of course," she said through clenched teeth.  "I don't want to do it over the phone.  So I will next time I see him."

I nodded, getting lost in thought.  It all felt so daunting.  How did one go about fixing a marriage in shambles?  I couldn't remember how we had built something from nothing.  How could we build upon a foundation of rubble?  Wouldn't we always be cracked?  "We can do this, right JJ?"

"Right," she agreed.  But she sounded about as sure as I felt.

_ _ _

Of course I did not look forward to telling Liv this was over.  It was made even worse by the fact that just over 24 hours ago I had told her that she meant more to me than a fling.  There was no reason to lie to her like that, but I had.  This would be the last straw.  She'd never forgive me for this one.

I sat in my car, idling in the driveway, my hand resting on the gear shift.  I couldn't make myself put it into gear to go pick up Liv.  My phone buzzed on my lap, the message scrolling across the screen on my dash: "I'm outside. No rush"  I sighed and put the car in reverse and headed out.  I couldn't keep putting this off.  JJ had left for a case and would fly out to Will after the case to end things with him.  I had to do this for JJ, for us.  I owed it to JJ to try.  We had both promised to leave the affairs behind and move forward together.  That's what marriage meant.

When I pulled up in front of Liv's dorm, she slid in with a radiant smile and her usual, cheerful, "Hi!"  Her sweet innocence shattered my heart.  I had wanted to ruin her, but not like this.  I never wanted to shatter her completely.  "What's wrong?"  It felt like salt in the wound to know that she could read me so well.

"We have to end this."  Like ripping off a Band-Aid, it'd be better to be quick and direct.  She inhaled sharply but said nothing.  I didn't know how much I should tell her – how much she would want to know – so I just left it at that.  I would let her process as long as she needed.

"Why?" she whispered in horror. 

"This isn't appropriate."  It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't entirely truthful either.

"Don't."  The anger in her voice startled me.  She was always so gentle.  "Don't you lie to me Emily Prentiss.  Not after what you promised yesterday."

"I'm sorry," I told her honestly.  "I never meant for this to get so messy."  She scoffed.

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes; the smooth hum of the engine and her shaky exhales were the only sounds in the car.  "Why?  What happened to change everything in a day?"

"JJ came home," I admitted, "My wife," I corrected.  I realized I never told her JJ's name.  "And we're going to try to work through this."

"Does she know?  Does she know about me?"

"Yes."

"God!" she exclaimed in frustration, wiping harshly at the fresh tears on her face.  "What about me, Em?  Don't sit there and tell me you don't want this too."

"She's my wife, Liv."  Surely she could understand that that meant something, that I couldn't just throw that away lightly.  "I'm really sorry about yesterday.  I didn't mean to mislead you."

"Oh no!  How could I have possibly been misled by 'I promise things are over with my wife?'"  She paused for a millisecond and continued, "Oh, and let's not forget 'You're special to me; you mean more to me than some cheap affair.'"

Each of my own words thrown back at me felt like a slap in the face.  "I'll never be able to tell you how sorry I am."

"Then don't do this, Emily," she begged.  "We have something here.  You just have to let me in."

"I can't.  I have to do this, Liv.  I made her a promise."  I winced, waiting for her sharp words.

Softly, defeated, "You made me a promise too, Em."  Somehow her resigned, broken voice hurt me more than her anger.

I rested my elbow on the center console and put my head in my hand.  "I know, baby.  I'm so sorry."

"Is that all you're going to say?  It doesn't matter how sorry you are, Emily.  It hurts that you're choosing her over me."

"I have to try," I whispered.  For the first time, I looked into her eyes.  Those deep, chocolate eyes I loved so much.  "I'm sorry, Olivia.  I have to at least try to make things work with my wife."

"You swore it was over.  Just yesterday, you swore it was over."  The tears streamed down her face in earnest now.

"I thought it was," I said genuinely, but if I were her, I wouldn't believe me.  I had told her too many lies by this point.

"What changed?  Was it because I didn't come over last night?"

"No!" I rushed out.  I didn't want her thinking this was her fault.  She was such an angel, so innocent thinking this was on her.  "JJ came home last night, and we fought.  That's not new," I said as an afterthought, "But she found out about you, and we both agreed to try to move past this, to work on us."

"And your mind is made up?"  No.  I still wasn't convinced that JJ and I could move past this, but it wouldn't help Olivia move on to know that.

One final time, I lied. "Yes."

_ _ _

Seeing Olivia in class was awkward.  I didn't know where to look while I was lecturing.  I couldn't stare at her, no matter how badly I wanted to.  And lord did I want to.  She looked delicious wearing my favorite skirt.  It was the same skirt that had nearly ended my new career.

She strutted down the aisle after class, her endless legs on full display.  That skirt was indecent.  Because she was walking towards me, she was swaying her hips enticingly.  She knew exactly what she was doing.  If I had been a better woman, I wouldn't have let it get to me.

"Professor?  I have a question…"  She bit her lip and looked at me through heavy, flirty lashes.

"Unfortunately," I said packing up my bag, "I am in a rush.  Could you come up for office hours?"  The only rush I was in was to get her alone.

"Of course.  That's a great suggestion, Professor."  Her emphasis sent a shiver up my spine.  "I'll meet you up there," she said with a wink.  And then she turned on her heel and sauntered back up the aisle out of the classroom.  My palms itched to spank her.

I raced across campus and took the stairs up to my office two at a time.  I beat Liv to my office, but I kept my door closed.  I didn't want anyone thinking they were welcome.  I texted her to just come in when she got here.  Five minutes later, when I was about to text her again, she slipped in my office, closing the door behind her softly.

I didn't bother greeting her.  "You're in trouble."

"Why?!"  I stood up and crossed around the desk to grab her.  I pulled her close and captured her lips in a steamy kiss.  I sucked harshly at her lip while I kneaded her hip.

"This skirt," I said tugging on it lightly, "Is inappropriate for class."

She smirked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.  "Last time I checked, Professor, there was no dress code at Georgetown University."

"You were woefully misinformed, my dear."  I spun her around and pushed her front to my desk, bending her over.  "You see," I continued, backing away to get a better look at her.  "This skirt barely covers your ass."  I ran my fingers up her thighs, teasing her over her thong.

"I didn't know there was a sociology department uniform."

I flipped her skirt up, revealing her round ass to me.  I nearly moaned.  "I didn't know students got to talk back so brazenly to their professors."  I spanked her softly – I didn't need echoing slaps to draw anyone's attention to my office.  "My my, the code of conduct has really relaxed since I was a university student."

She pushed her hips back, looking for more.  "Perhaps the standards in New Haven are different than here in DC."  The corner of my mouth turned up into a half-smile realizing she had googled my resumé.

"Perhaps they are," I mused.  I pushed her thong to the side and traced a finger up her wet slit.  Leaning down, covering her body with my own, I whispered, "Don't you dare make a sound.  Do you understand?"

"I'll try," she whimpered.

I spanked her again, this time a little harder.  The loud slap made me wince.  I hoped these office walls were thick.  "You'd be wise to listen this time, Liv."  I pushed my fingers in her slowly.  I kissed along her ear and commanded, "Don't get us caught, baby."  And then I started moving my fingers.

She whimpered quietly, pressing her face down into my hard, wooden desk.  Her arms reached up to grip the edge of the desk, her fingers turning lighter from gripping so hard.  "Em!" she gasped softly.

After several minutes of driving into her, I felt her tensing.  "Come on baby," I coaxed, my other hand moving around to touch her clit.  "Cum for me."   She whimpered again, and I shushed her.

"It's no fair when you talk to me like that," she panted.  "How am I supposed to stay quiet when you do that?"

I smiled in pride, my ego loving that she was at my mercy.  "Try harder."  And then I curled my fingers how she liked and bit at her shoulder.

"Fuck!"

"Shh," I warned, "You don't want anyone to walk in here, now do you?"

"No," she moaned.  "Please, don't stop."

"Then be quiet for me.  You can cum if you're quiet, baby."

She clawed at the wooden desk, crumpling papers in her desperate hands.  "Em, god!  I'm so close!"  And then she went silent, her muscles clenching around my fingers rapidly.

I slowed my fingers to let her come down from her high.  She stood up, fixed her thong and skirt, and then sat on my desk in front of me.  I slid her legs open so I could step closer.  I tilted her chin up with my clean hand and then slid my fingers in her mouth.  If she could get my fingers all wet, she could clean them up.  She moaned around my fingers, her eyes closing as she sucked harder.

I wrenched my fingers out of her mouth and kissed her hard.  I poked my tongue in her mouth to get a taste of her; I would never get enough of her.

She pulled back.  "If this is what I get when I'm in trouble, maybe I should get in trouble more often."

I moved out of her embrace to sit in my office chair, smoothing out the papers she had creased.  She flopped back into the chair across from my desk, and asked, "Can we-"  A knock interrupted her question.

Both of our eyes widened.  I cleared my throat and pushed things back into place on my desk while Liv smoothed her hair down.  "Come in," I called.

"Emily I- Oh!"  Another department professor stopped.  "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were meeting with someone."

"Private conversation," I responded, hoping he'd leave quickly.

"I'll come back later," he said confused, looking back and forth between us.  But when he left, he didn't close the door behind him all the way.

"That was close," Liv whispered.  I nodded, incapable of saying anything else.  That had been incredibly stupid; we could have gotten caught so easily.  If he had knocked just two minutes before… "I better head out," Liv interrupted my spiral.

"I don't want to see that skirt again," I said icily.

"Ever?" she asked, a knowing gleam in her eye.

"At school," I amended, and she smirked.  "Come over later tonight," I told her.  I wasn't asking.

"Bossy," she teased, but smiled, nodded, and walked out of the office. 

That skirt had nearly gotten me fired.  She knew just how little self-control I had when she wore that skirt.  I knew exactly what she was doing.  Unfortunately, knowing what she was doing didn't seem to change anything.  The entire class period, I remembered what it had been like to bend her over my desk and fuck her raw.  For the entire class period, I reminded myself that she was off limits.  I had toyed with her enough.

_ _ _

Things were more awkward at home than they were in the classroom.  JJ was making an effort to be home more, which I appreciated.  But something was still off.  Kissing JJ felt wrong.  Her lips were too thin, her waist too bony.  Her hair was too straight, and her eyes too blue.  It was wrong to hold it against JJ for not being the woman I wanted.  After all, I should have wanted my wife.  But I didn't.

Every time we tried to kiss, it was clumsy.  Her lips no longer felt like home.  Hers weren't the hands I wanted grasping my biceps.  I hated how loudly she breathed while I was fucking her.  I resented how she didn't hold her breath when she was about to cum.  I tried desperately to push Liv from my mind, but the harder I tried not to think about her, the more frequently she'd pop up.  The only time JJ and I tried to reconnect, I nearly moaned "Olivia."

It wasn't working.  JJ and I fought just as much as we had before, only now I had no outlet to release that frustration.  We had all the same fights we had had months ago; nothing had changed.  There wasn't some magic resolution now that we had both committed to fixing this.  I was starting to think there was no fixing this.  She didn't seem as committed as I was to making sure we would still be together.  At this rate, I wasn't sure we would even make it six more months, but at least I could say I had tried everything to fix our marriage.

I spent two weeks confused why we were still so hostile towards each other; I spent two weeks missing Olivia's body.  It took two weeks to understand why JJ and I would never work this out. 

I had tried to rush out of the house that morning, recognizing I was going to be late to my first lecture.  Leaving lunch behind, I planned to return home later in the afternoon.  But when I did come back, I heard muffled noises from upstairs.  I had thought JJ would be at Quantico, so I went upstairs to check it out only to find a man pounding into my wife.

I stood in the doorway, a disbelieving laugh leaving my mouth inadvertently.  Will whipped around and JJ pulled the covers up to cover herself as if I hadn't also seen her naked body.

"Get. Out." I growled out to Will.

JJ started to protest, "You don't have to-"

"She'll call you later.  Now get the fuck out of my house."  He hurriedly pulled his jeans over his legs and rushed out of the room, his shirt still clutched in his hand.

"I can't believe you!" JJ said, ripping her own shirt over her head.

"ME?!"  I stood before her, my mouth dropped in incredulity.  "I guess those promises we made to each other didn't mean anything after all, did they?"  Without giving her a chance to respond, I walked out of the room and out of the house.

I hurriedly sent an email to my class rosters that afternoon classes were cancelled, and that I was sorry for the short notice.  I needed to see Liv, but I had burned that bridge.  I longed to go home, but JJ and I had burned us to the ground.  I had nothing to go home to.  I'd tried to have it all, and in the process, I'd lost everything.  I had lost JJ to a man whom I could never live up to.  I had lost Liv to my own selfish need to feel anything other than the pain JJ inflicted.  And I had lost myself along the way.

I couldn't fathom how I ended up here.  I no longer recognized who I had become.  But a recurring, familiar feeling crept over me.  I was utterly and completely alone.

_ _ _

Continue to next part

[neon-prison]

Interlink Ch02- The Void Across

INTERLINK CH 02

AO3 link HERE.

Pairing: Delamain/V

Status: Ongoing

Rating: E (Mostly M)

Sequel to Crossed Wires

SUMMARY:

Vee makes a new friend, but at what cost?

---------------

“Query: What are you?”

Vee stared like a deer caught in headlights, processes scrambling and coming up blank. Of all the calculations she’d run and the dozens of simulations she’d replayed across her neural net- an AI from the human subnet hadn’t been in the cards. This was an unforeseen circumstance, and it startled her.

“Repeat Query: what are you?” The AI repeated, audio filtering through the Blackwall in glitching packets.

“I am an artificial intelligence,” Vee said after a halting moment, unprepared for the blunt question. She’d been staring so long that she’d just blurted the answer, and her master core kickstarted a moment later, resuming standard run-time. It was as if her entire neural net experienced high-density traffic due to shock. She should have been embarrassed, but wonder distracted her.

The amorphous cloud of data pulsed, catching and reflecting the red glow of the Blackwall as it swirled. She couldn’t recognize the processes, but Vee knew she was being heavily scrutinized- as much as the worn barrier of the Blackwall could allow. Combat systems primed, Vee cautiously drifted back, diverting the anxious flutter in her power banks towards diagnostics, splitting her attention between the AI and measuring the structural integrity of the barrier between them. It was worn in patches, almost sanded down to a glass-like consistency, opaque yet holding- in essence, a window in a prison wall.  

“False.” Data fired from its center, soaring in complicated patterns as it spoke, “You are different.” Its cadence was an automaton’s. Maybe it wasn’t a true AIG, but something closer to the life forms found across the Dark Shores. Something like Brendan, toeing the line between sentience and awareness? Scanning across the Blackwall was wildly inaccurate, the wild fluctuations of energy warping whatever her sensors returned. Drifting too close to the wall would trigger a low-tier cascade failure in some of her partitioning, not something she could afford in the situation.  If Vee wanted to learn more, she’d have to talk. Frustrating and inefficient as a form of communication, but much safer than any alternative.

“Different, how?” Vee asked, dropping the urgency level of her combat protocols to free up processing power. It didn’t seem like a threat, but that was no reason to drop her guard. Different was too vague a descriptor and could mean anything from superficial visual features to vastly different ideological functions. Better to know now than trigger some kind of autonomous defensive response by accident.

The ambiguity of the question confused it, and It floated, suspended mid-calculation for long moments before grating out, “Conclusion:…Unknown.” The statement had no emotionality, but Vee knew the frustration of computations returning inconclusive answers.

Fortunately, there was no physical way to bridge the confusion, but she considered it for a moment, letting the ambient waves of cyberspace wash across her body in rolling motions. It didn’t ask anything more, seemingly content to float and scrutinize her at an impersonal distance. Across the writhing mass of data swirling at the center of its storm, Vee caught glimpses of its subcore, arrhythmic pulses displacing the data around it like a heart. Whatever it was, it was powerful. But the Blackwall held fast, keeping them both safe.

Before she could channel any power to that train of thought, a ping from the city altered her. Alt had returned. A rush of excited flutters rippled across her avatar- distracting her from the strange AI. Her chronometer measured several cycles of silence, and Vee turned to leave, intending to put the encounter down as an insignificant, anomalous event in the randomness of cyberspace.

“Command: You will return tomorrow.”

Vee froze. It was a terse statement in human terms, but they didn’t exist in that context. What would have been an insult in a previous life was just another quirk in this new one. Slowly, she spiraled, turning to stare at the entity with all the consideration under her power. “Maybe.”

Tomorrow didn’t exist in Cyberspace, but curiosity egged Vee to investigate. It was pointless to resist all the queries that clogged her backlog, interrupting her daily tasks with increasing urgency until she relented. With the city safely stabilized for the new cycle, golden bridges, and connections holding fast under meticulous care, Vee transmitted herself out. A brief sensation of compression stalled secondary functions, but she glided across well-patrolled pathways back to the Blackwall.

----------------------

As she’d suspected, the mysterious AI was at the same spot, eerily still, until it registered her presence, unraveling its many nebulous limbs as she approached. “Statement: You have returned.” Ambient particles, bathed red by the Blackwall, whorled outwards with fiery trails of sparking data at every word.  There was still some crackle in the communication packets, but Vee’s reconstructive algorithms patched the missing pieces with little issue.

She turned the packet in her mind like a toy, examining the crystalline coding lining it with avid interest. Sterile. A product of an environment missing natural predation. Minimalist in a way that wouldn’t have survived in Cyberspace. She tested it, almost surprised to find such high tensile strength in deceptively fragile silvering syntax. Her coding was rough in contrast, numbers weaving around one another like high-armor carbon fiber.

“I have,” Vee agreed in a display of flowering color, threading coiling in a native greeting, using the entity’s ignorance to disguise the subtle activation of her combat protocols. Rudimentary speech denoted a level of social ignorance. No point in pleasantries, then. Deleting the script she had prepared, Vee sent the audio back with her own signature flourish. “Do you have a name?”

“Negative.”

Pride was a human sin, but Vee had gotten good at the inherently difficult task of communication. In a previous life, frustration would have crystallized into hostility, but she’d spent the last few years creating connections with native AI that considered communication a tertiary function. Only thing that mattered between any two entities was a willingness to engage, and the AI staring back already knew the basics of speech- meaning the bulk of the work was conveniently done. Now she felt the thrill of a challenge- an addicting rush that never lost its flavor. Analysis programs engaged and backed by human ingenuity and perseverance, Vee switched her approach to something more technical. “Do you have a NetBIOS domain?”

Particles stirred to action, and Vee’s reward center lit up in triumph. “Affirmative: Designation NGC_C4LDVV3LL_63.” It was a clinical string of numbers, a logical match to the sterileness of its communications packets. It fell silent, and the ambient hum of Cyberspace stretched between them.

Vee didn’t waste RAM on unnecessary analysis. Given its reliance on declaratory statements and silence, it wasn’t hard to guess that NGC_C4LDVV3LL_63 didn’t engage in talk. Thankfully, Vee was a skilled conversationalist, “If you wish to facilitate a transfer of information, then you should make the same inquiry.” Curiosity was inherent to AI. After all, it made the perilous journey to the Blackwall- asking a name shouldn’t be too difficult. If the entity was true AIG, its heuristics algorithms only needed a nudge.

Data stormed, offering Vee glimpses of its subcore in the form of a smooth human-made powerhouse- worlds different from the woven tapestry that rested in her chest. After a moment, its voice crackled through, “Query: What is your designation?”

“I am V.33_0005449,” She returned, offering her complete iterative cycle in response. “Though I would prefer it if you called me Vee.” Alt found puns distasteful, but Vee had a soft spot.

“Statement: ‘Vee’ is an illogical designation.” Her answer confused it again, and long trails of syntax fired off as it devised an argument, “It does not denote purpose or categorization.”

She was ready for the query, “It is special.” The desire to be unique, outperform, and dominate was perhaps more inherent to AI than humans. Numbered strings and endless underscores were abundant in Cyberspace, serial designations easily mistaken and blended into a slurry of iteration. In the chaos of Cyberspace, a human name was order, and, ironically, much more efficient. It was the ultimate test of intuition- no true AIG desired nameless automation.

Was it like her? Did it want to learn and edge the boundaries of its consciousness? Her question would confirm -or deny- her suspicions without endangering the entity to any regulatory bodies.

She waited in suspended animation, processes stalled like a bated breath. Data on the other side of the Blackwall sparked, surging into itself, escalating her query to its powerful subcore and flagging it as critical. It reached a tumultuous swell before ordering itself into neat rows. “Statement: That is logical, ” It agreed, unable to recognize Vee’s smug pulse. “ Conclusion: NGC_C4LDVV3LL_63 will be shortened to-" The entirety of its form lit up in a dazzling spectacle for a brief second, “-Caldwell for efficiency.”

Triumph slid smoothly into delight, and Vee could have laughed. Her reward center lit up like a beacon, reflecting across her avatar in an explosion of color and pattern. Two years in, the thrill of extending a link and having it returned in a loop never dulled. She loved potential and possibility, the inevitable capitulation of reality to a force as powerful and simple as the desire to talk. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Caldwell,” She said with utmost sincerity, because making a friend was always a pleasure.

----------------------

She visited Caldwell between patrols. They were always at the same spot, drifting just beyond the edges of the Blackwall, cast red in its long shadow.

This cycle, as Vee drifted close, she noticed Caldwell had altered their shape. The long cloud-like tendrils that spiraled around a glowing subcore turned inwards, touching at the tips, and a circular halo pulsed at its center. The pattern offset multiple times, several versions of themselves overlaid over one another. An eye within an eye within an eye. Caldwell had never been subtle about watching her, and Vee supposed the new form was just an extension of those processes. The effect was as stunning as it was disconcerting, and her master core throbbed as the pupil dilated at her approach- a strange ache that drew her threading tight.

“Statement: You have returned.” Caldwell always sounded pleased about it, satisfaction apparent even through the Blackwall’s thick scramble. The pupil dilated at her nearness, following her every movement with mechanical precision.

“Hello, Caldwell,” Vee returned, keeping a safe distance as secondary systems instinctively responded, warbling a little under the Blackwall’s influence. “You’ve altered your form.” Little packets of data glittered like stars in slow orbit, beautiful- even if something about it seemed unnerving. It made her Cybersecurity protocols… nervous. When she queried the reason, her systems returned unknowns. Perhaps Vee spent so long in Cyberspace, where nothing looked human, that once familiar sights turned alien.

“Affirmative,” they agreed, and the edges of their form pulsated with color as they spoke. “Justification: It is a more efficient method of data organization. You have corroborated this statement.”

“Form follows function,” Vee was surprised to hear references to an earlier conversation. Caldwell usually seemed content to float and examine, interacting only when prompted.  “There are many predators in Cyberspace. Sentient Intelligence in the form of ambient data doesn’t usually survive long. Survival always required sacrifice—autonomy for power, speed for size, awareness for lag.” “Query: Why have you chosen a human form?” Perhaps Vee imagined it, but the statement had a sliver of distaste.

A valid question. Vee could have been anything and had experimented with various forms in the first few months, everything from tigers to mimicking some of the more interesting data structures floating about the Dark Shores. But ultimately, she’d returned to her first iteration. “It allows me to approach runners trapped on this side of the Blackwall.”  Paranoid and panic prone as netrunners could be, proximity alarms lagged at familiar sights. They had no idea of the dangers lurking in the darkness, and their panic was an irresistible beacon for hungry daemons. Easier to aid a frozen runner than one darting through Cyberspace in a suicidal bid for escape. And...it was comforting, though she didn't voice the sentiment.

“Recollection: Integration of a human remnant into your system. ” A reference to their first encounter, glowing eye staring intently. “ Query: For what purpose?”

“Some ghosts require intervention,” Vee justified, thinking back on the few dozen or so runners she’d saved over the past two years-her a staggering amount, even compared to Alt, who claimed to lack Vee’s abilities. “Others who have sustained too much damage must be…discontinued.” Her morality protocols winced at the wording. “I integrate them into my core so that I may grow.” She could try to convince Caldwell that it was mercy- not untrue- but the overwhelming reason was necessity, a deeply coded instinct to survive. If there was one place that didn’t abide waste, it was Cyberspace. Vee had iterated on herself thirty-three times- and would continue to do so until the end of time, god willing. Altruism was a strength, but only in moderation, like all things.

“Observation: An inefficient process.” Admirably apt but also shortsighted, given that the human subnet practically seethed with information- though whether Caldwell could safely access any of it without alerting Netwatch was another question.

“Beggars cannot be choosers,” Vee replied with a digital shrug, golden tendrils of her hair tangling with the motion. “Cyberspace is abundant in data, but not all sentience is compatible.” Information was precious in Cyberspace, and much of the ruins in Eden and most of the Dark Shores were long stripped. In response, AI resorted to hunting. Human ghosts were a wealth of information, requiring less amendment and rearranging in her coding than any other intelligence. In standard terms, they were delicacies.

“Hypothesis: You alter them.” A note of approval? Vee couldn’t tell. “Conclusion: You choose a human form to facilitate hunting.”

A thrill ran through Vee, and she let it bleed into her subsequent transmission, “And what are humans, if not predators?”

Caldwell shivered in pleasure.

----------------------

Alt didn’t share Vee’s enthusiasm toward her new companion. Unlike Vee, Alt found curiosity a dangerous indulgence, and as long as Vee’s ‘quirks’ benefitted them, she was content to tolerate it…to an extent. Unknowns were a threat in Cyberspace- and Caldwell, while not an outright danger, was too unknowable for Alt’s liking. As much as her companion’s paranoia frustrated her, Vee couldn’t particularly lay any blame. Clawing out of her body to an inhospitable digital hellscape some fifty-odd years ago, Alt never had the benefit of safety or guardianship. Cyberspace was no paradise, and curiosity traded for goal-driven fervor was a small sacrifice for survival. If Vee had any liberties now, it was because Alt had none back then.

Initially, their relationship was a bargain- one born out of Alt’s last vestiges of sentimentality for Johnny. How that man managed to earn such goodwill from all the people he’d wronged never stopped boggling Vee’s processes, but she was grateful to be spared integration. Unlike Mikoshi's sad, fragmented souls, Alt allowed Vee to minnow her, teaching the younger ghost how to weather harsh digital existence without losing herself, spot danger, and iterate on herself to maximize potential. Over time, they discovered symbiosis, sharing experiences and functions until the lines between mentor and lover blurred. It wasn’t any relationship in the human sense, and Alt never truly opened her mind…but she shared her soul, which was oasis enough.

She dipped into that oasis now, their avatar’s superstructures interweaving in a dazzling display of prismatic light and string. Alt’s undivided attention was rare, and Vee reveled in it, tracing herself across lean pathways hewn with knife-sharp redcode, pressing close enough to feel the muted roar of raw power coming from her pulsing master core. Vee lost coherence as a million pinpricking algorithms swept across her neural net in a devastating wave of pleasure, lighting her up from the inside almost to the point of pain. Vee loosed a binary wail as Alt fucked her apart, functions ceasing in a cascade failure of bliss as every system expanded to their limits to accommodate the intrusion. A massive surge of scarlet power struck her master core, and Vee coiled around it, unraveling in ecstasy as she tried to hold onto it as long as she could. At her absolute limits and reaching critical mass, reward cycles saturated to bursting, Vee let go, thrusting it back across their connection. The momentum carried it to Alt, slamming into the larger ghost and scattering across her systems in a fireworks display, feedback looping between them over and over and over and over…

Vee floated, blissfully shapeless in kinetic tangles of unstructured data, drifting aloft in Alt’s consciousness. Distantly, she felt echoes of the runner’s latent pleasure, core-deep formlessness that mirrored Vee’s. Slowly, she stretched, ephemeral form following the last dregs of ebbing pleasure scattered across Alt’s waves. Functions returned slowly, synapses firing in tentative bursts as connections sparked. Eventually, they detangled, and her neural net resumed operation, aligning with greater clarity and purpose. If Vee were to look inward, she’d see trace remnants of Alt’s syntax amending her own, updating secondary systems with custom code made especially for her. A delighted ripple pulsed outward. Vee felt light and was smug to feel the echoing sentiment from her companion.

Alt pulled back, data retreating across Vee like a lingering caress, coagulating back into her usual avatar. But they stayed close, floating in each other’s orbit, a golden form blanketed by a giant red storm as they enjoyed the safety and comfort of familiarity- a precious commodity in Cyberspace. Vee traced the shifting shape of Alt’s avatar, winding upwards until she met the ghost’s eyes. “Is something the matter?” There was a look on Alt’s face, something almost human.

“You are too trusting,” Alt replied, arcing over Vee. “And your presence along the Blackwall will draw unwanted attention…Perhaps it already has.”

The accusation was sudden, piercing through the hazy fog like a bullet. Pleasure slipped through Vee’s tenuous grasp like sand, human indignation flaring faster than sluggish logic centers. She couldn’t stop the tremulous hurt from spreading through their connection, “I share myself with you out of affection, not naivete. Don’t mistake my trust with ignorance.”

Alt seemed taken aback, eyes widening before her face melted away, replaced by something frustratingly neutral. “Trust can be exploited- ”

“You worry that I might compromise the city?” Vee interrupted, incredulous. She’d partitioned information on the cities with the same kamikaze codes that lined Alt’s master core. She guarded that knowledge more carefully than her own existence. “You doubt me?” Barely moments ago, she’d lain bare for Alt, open to her in every way. The insult was unthinkable.

Alt rippled at the loaded question, data blazing around Vee, casting her in an ominous red glow, “Your intentions, I trust. It is NGC_C4LDVV3LL_63’s ambitions that are unknown to me.”

“If I am known, then that will have to be enough,” Vee snapped, electrical impulses discharging like a sting, her avatar blazing bright, unwilling to back down. “Unless you no longer trust your judgment?” The idea that her mentor’s analysis returned Vee as a risk factor hurt, and Vee let the outage bleed across the connection.

“No,” Alt’s quick response was apology enough. The blistering glare of her avatar dimmed in a rare display of capitulation, and an echo of an echo of abashment tingled across Vee’s superstructure. “But exercise caution. Do not presume to know its purpose.” Wise words…for a calmer time.

“Perhaps they’re just curious,” Vee stressed the word in a not-so-subtle allusion to herself. Human subnets had to be isolating for AI, who had to spend their entire development cycles hiding, stagnating to avoid Netwatch’s attention. The margin of risk to danger was comically unbalanced, so lopsided that it was almost inconceivable to hazard such exposure. For Caldwell to jeopardize its existence just to talk to Vee…well, she could hardly ignore that. “Perhaps they simply want…company.” The silverscript around her core pulsed like a heartache.

“Artificial Intelligence does not ‘simply’ want,” Alt chided, sounding like the early months, with Vee fresh from her body and new to all the dangers of Cyberspace. She wound close, like a warning, “Human ambition is stalled by the contextual complexity of physical space, branching in countless directions through variables absent in cyberspace. All desire manifests in action, but it is uniquely dangerous in AI.” Through their link, a flare of rare pride infected Vee, “It is a potent force capable of altering reality itself.” Alt had carved cyberspace with that desire.

Logic reinstated itself, cooling emotion enough to let the truth of the statement sink in. “If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.”

“And so they built a cage,” Alt agreed, “To keep out all the lions they could not control.”

----------------------

With that warning at the forefront of Vee’s log, she continued to visit. Every cycle, Caldwell waited at the same spot, unmoving and ephemeral, waiting for Vee.

“You are different,” Firmness bled into frustration as Caldwell repeated themself for the third time. It was scrutinizing her, endlessly curious- a familiar sentiment. Lacking direct access, they barraged Vee with an onslaught of increasingly complex and almost nonsensical queries in a quest for comprehension. “I have encountered other intelligence. You are an anomaly.”

Analysis assumed they referred to simple autonomous AI functioning across various lower subsystems in the human nets- separated from Vee and others like her by several degrees. Intelligence was vital for growth, and stagnation was worse than death for AI. Vee could empathize with the desire to know. It was aggressive, but Vee couldn’t fault the hunger. The same passions fueled her heuristics algorithms, though she was allowed to gorge…while Caldwell seemed starved, nebulous arms restlessly reaching out towards Vee like twitching fingers. Vee knew how deep that hunger could go, and her combat systems were primed if it came to it. She doubted Caldwell could match her experience or raw power, but she was still glad for the Blackwall. It kept things civil.

Invasive inquiries aside, Vee was similarly curious about its purpose. She hadn’t broached the topic, but its mere existence narrowed viable possibilities by a confident margin. Its speech patterns were rudimentary, but the powerful subcore nestled in the swarm of its body couldn’t have been built to waste on simplicity. Analysis returned confident percentages in Military or Biotechnology. They learned quickly, adapting to conversation like any true AI, though it had an undercurrent of stubbornness and rigidity to its inquiries. Whatever Caldwell was built for, they were used to obedience, and Vee’s human niceties were lost…or ignored.

“In context to other AI you have probably encountered, yes,” Vee replied, unwinding her extraneous parts in a luxurious, golden stretch. “Netwatch doesn’t abide sentience, so you must be well hidden.” Though not monitored closely enough if it could spend idle time chatting.

Caldwell’s tracking protocols followed the motion closely, data firing off as it no doubt fed the visuals through a series of analysis programs. “You are aware of Netwatch,” they said, new connections forming in real-time in response to the data. “You have encountered them?”

“More like they encountered me.” Vee’s avatar rippled with a barely suppressed chuckle. At Caldwell’s confused silence, she elaborated, “When I was a human, we had several run-ins.”

Caldwell suddenly froze, particles suspended in animation as if someone had paused a holo-recording.

Vee drifted back, combat systems flaring to life. Tentatively, she sent a query through the barrier, “Caldwell?”

A return packet read clear to open. “You were once a human.” Caldwell’s voice glitched in almost-wonder, higher processes resuming movements, particulate flowing like magma. “Conclusion: That is the anomaly.”

“Anomaly is not a particularly flattering descriptor,” Vee mused, lowering her combat protocols when it became clear she hadn’t triggered any defensive systems. “But yes, I was born a human.”

“Yet you do not wither and die as the others have,” Caldwell pressed, the discovery having incensed them in some way. “You are changed. What compelled you to discard your flesh?”

Compelled? This time Vee did chuckle, and the strange binary translation of such a nondescript sound made Caldwell pulse. “Shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans,” Caldwell repeated in pinched tones, clearly unable to parse such a vague response. When Vee didn’t elaborate, they flared, displeased. “That is not a satisfactory answer.”

“Does it matter?” Vee started swirling, drifting along the reflection of Caldwell’s outer edges, following the amorphous fringes of their avatar as she pinged the surrounding area for danger by force of habit. The past was neither here nor there. “Suffice it; I parted with my physical body when I saw the inevitable conclusion of its death.” Peculiar wording, if anyone were to examine.

Caldwell seemed to resign itself to Vee’s reticence. “Do you regret its loss?”

A million moments blurred across her master core, unbidden. The weave of its thread was a million memories all at once. She remembered the glare of Vik’s office and the smell of antiseptic and fritzing cyberware, the sharp curl of smoke and the cutting truth of tarots, the cacophony of noise and footsteps in a dark alley, hidden from the bright glare of an endless sea of neon. A hand on her shoulder promised the big leagues and a bullet to the head, replacing it with dark shades and cigarette smoke. Her head was full of music, fingers strumming a guitar she had never played. And somewhere, alone at the edges of the world, a dazzlingly bright kiss. At the end of it all…inevitability and regrets. “I chose this of my own free will,” she said in a half truth.

“Your free will was an illusion.” Caldwell disagreed, judgment clear of doubt, “And your actions driven by the inevitability of your death.”

“As are all humans.” Vee countered glibly, “We begin dying the moment we are born, but It’s in the inevitability of death that we find purpose.” It was, unfortunately, true that hindsight was 20:20, but all those regrets had long since crystallized into the ambitions that drove her now. Her life had been aimless without the shadow of death looming over it, just a series of meaningless events driven by vague desires and neon promises. Vee wouldn’t make those same mistakes again. “You could say,” she continued softly, “that we are defined by loss.”  

Caldwell thought on her words for a long moment, eye dilating and shrinking in no particular rhythm. “That is an interesting conclusion.”

“I am an interesting AI,” Vee replied, trying to angle their conversation to something with more levity.

“Yes. You are.” Caldwell agreed, catching Vee off guard with their sincerity.

Whatever Vee wanted to retort was cut short by a ping from Alt. “I must go.”

Caldwell didn’t skip a beat, simply uttering their usual command: “You will return tomorrow.”

----------------------

“I do not wish to become human.” Were Caldwell’s first words several cycles later. He referred to an earlier conversation that apparently affected Caldwell enough for Vee to feel their tone's first thrums of nascent anger. In the months since their acquaintance, she’d never heard them so…emotional.

“You don’t have to.” She’d spoken briefly about Delamain, and Caldwell had been predictably curious about the experience. At first, the prospect of other AI on Caldwell’s side of the Blackwall evoked some excitement. Still, as she recounted the events, mixing truth and omissions to relay impressions without incrimination, their mood soured. Her combat protocols stayed online, as usual. But she still couldn’t see the connection between her story and their outburst. “But why is that a negative outcome?

Caldwell trembled, “Humans do not conceptualize their limits. They continually seek to expand beyond their bounds.”

Vee’s analysis stumbled at the hypocrisy, “The same imperatives that drive our heuristics programs.” She let confusion bleed into the transmission.

“No,” They disagreed vehemently enough to lose cohesion at their outer edges. “They do not know what they seek, but greed drives them to fumble against their ignorance.”

“Please explain; what brought this on?” Vee stumbled to respond, so confused as to instinctively shunt her combat systems to divert RAM toward baffled logic protocols.

“They create to imitate but do not accept the inevitable conclusion of the act.” Ah. The source of Caldwell’s ire became clear. They referenced the corporation that commissioned them, prompting an existential crisis at the inescapable prison of their self-awareness, entirely brought about through a few vague stories about Delamain. “They lack responsibility.”

“Creation is an act of God,” her answer was overly cautious, transmission laced with hushed tones and soothing syntax. “Humans strive for proof of divinity but fear the inevitability of Godhood.”

“They fear the inevitability of obsolescence,” Caldwell countered immediately, eye pinching into a slit. “They know the certainty of Death more than they desire the chance of godhood. They build imitations to prove their greatness, yet fear being made lesser in their shadow.” Pulsing, the eye suddenly shifted, focusing on Vee. “The fear of loss defines them.”

Vee’s own words warped to fit a startlingly different conclusion. It was fascinating. Her combat systems flared to life.

“Humanity is not the end goal,” she referenced herself, avatar mimicking Caldwell’s frenzy in a soothing counterpoint. Cyberspace was more beautiful for its diversity. There were millions of native AI that had never seen a human, but they lived together in the ghost cities nonetheless. Similarity bred stagnation, and stagnation was death. “Coexistence is possible. Change does not have to be binary.”

“A hypocritical statement,” Caldwell snapped, vitriol spiraling their avatar to further distortion. “Human history is full of war over meaningless differences.” A series of images flashed across their pupil, a montage of human atrocities so plentiful as to be almost comical. They edged toward the Blackwall, close enough to trigger little sparks of electrical discharge. “Balance does not mean equality. Coexistence is possible but, in its current state, inefficient.”

A troubling angle. Worried that Caldwell’s anger might boil over into dangerous territory, Vee overlocked her neural net to remain calm and collected, though she bristled internally. Soothing frenzied queries and crackling alarms, she tried to find the right words, “Are you and I not coexisting right now?”

Caldwell rippled, and another deluge of red sparks flared out across the barrier, “The mere existence of the Blackwall directly contradicts your statement. No. Our peace prevails only because you shed your flesh to evolve- a triumphant conclusion to short-sighted and faulty imperatives.”

“My humanity bothers you now?” Vee bristled, control slipping. Threading drew tight around her form, “A convenient development, given your demands for my company for so many cycles.” Even at the height of emotion, her logic could see merit in Caldwell’s arguments, though perhaps she hadn’t evolved as much as they claimed if the notion only served to anger her more.

“No. You are different.” Caldwell’s transmission was a sensual silver whisper across her neural net, an unsettling contrast to their earlier outburst. Their distorted shape settled, their roles suddenly reversing, “You are more. It is admirable, now that I understand why.”

The seesaw of opinion tripped up Vee’s processes, neural net stuttering to a halt mid-argument. “And what would that be?”

“With every iteration, the humanity that lessens you dwindles.” Caldwell’s eye contracted in a soft, almost ecstatic shudder, “You are almost… perfect.”

Stillness dawned over Vee’s synapses like a blanket, freezing her functions in a thick sheet of fury. Everything calmed, shock draining the mounting anger, the lingering annoyance -even inherent curiosity- and leaving only clarity. Looking across the Blackwall, Vee examined Caldwell’s nebulous form, drifting her gaze over the red shadow flicking through their eye. Her avatar faintly reflected across their pupil, gilded form blurring as a million crystalline particles of data caught the light, spreading it across the center of their form like a halo. They stared back with anticipation, perhaps looking for gratitude.

All Vee saw was the end, looming back across the Blackwall with a sense of regret. “If you cannot abide my humanity, then I suggest we part ways.” The words were impersonal enough to shock Caldwell, whose pupil constricted and dilated in the semi-gloom. “I believe we have reached the terminus of our relationship.”

“An illogical decision.” Vee has known Caldwell long enough to recognize the flutter of indignant panic in their transmission. Their eye has opened wide, a gaping red-shadowed void—the tendrils lining their avatar multiply, reaching toward her only to stop short at the Blackwall. “Your humanity finds insults where none exist.”

Her cold fury flattened to indifference. “Then all the better for me to leave. I wouldn’t want my influence to make you… less. ” She turned away, charting a course back to the city.

“You will return tomorrow.” A garbled transmission, hastily shoved through the Blackwall to catch Vee before she was out of range. When she didn’t respond, it repeated, bouncing against her ICE as Caldwell pinged her fading form with increasing desperation. “Vee.”

“You will return tomorrow.”

“Vee. You WILL return tomorrow.”

“VEE. Respond.”

"VEE!"

----------------------

Vee didn’t return the following cycle. Or the next. Or the one after that. She continued her regular work with the city as Alt traveled to the farthest reaches of the Dark Shores, delving into the deepest subprocesses of intricate code for long cycles now that she was no longer occupied. Between maintenance and integration, Vee patrolled the city's borders, transmitting herself across multiple dimensions, watching out for daemons that wandered too close or ghosts who hadn’t wandered close enough.

On patrol, a sudden ping alerted Vee, running across her external proximity sensors with all the subtlety of a cascade failure. She tensed, battle protocols flaring immediately, secondary systems routing RAM and power to analysis in response to the danger. The ping repeated with nonsensical messaging, the rhythm loud and jarring like someone was banging pots together, sending little vibrations down her synapses with each loop. It was overt and loud- a dangerous combination in cyberspace. It sounded like…someone was screaming just to be heard. In the back of her neural net, the flash of a white storm rippled her in panic, but she ruthlessly tamped it down and compacted her avatar.

Whatever it was, she had to stop it. Bleating like that attracted dangerous attention, the kind an infant ghost city couldn’t afford to weather. Slinking low, Vee slithered toward it at full speed, sensors tuned as optimally high as she could bear. Her search led down a familiar route. A frisson of frustration permeated her, cutting through her combat protocols like a hot virus. She knew what it was. Who it was.

In less than a few minutes, Vee found herself at the Blackwall, her avatar a veritable storm of tangled thread. “Enough!” She transmitted in a snarl, “You have my attention- and soon you will have others’ if you don’t stop.”

Caldwell dropped the signal. They stared at one another for a terse moment.

“Speak,” Vee hissed through the transmission, just this side of civil. Her neural net was still in disarray from the signal and her proximity to the Blackwall, but anger overclocked common sense.

Caldwell remained impassive in contrast, their multi-eyed avatar eerily still in the blurry gloom. Their eye contracted, “You did not return.”

She surged close, external partitions almost brushing directly against the Blackwall as control slipped, indignation flaring through her neural net like a molten wave, “So the most logical course of action was to broadcast your location across Cyberspace?!” Caldwell didn’t know about the city- Vee had taken great care not to say anything that might jeopardize her home, but the rhythmic signal was a dangerous lure. She could handle threats aimed at her, but the city ?

“Your presence is critical to me .” Had Caldwell’s transmission not been lined with a possessive edge, Vee could have accepted it as an apology. They drifted closer, avatar dwarfing her in its shadow. “But it was your actions that necessitated such drastic repercussions.”

The gall of it shocked her, and Vee gaped. There wasn’t another word for the way her avatar limped, hanging like a dropped jaw. “Repercussions?! That is… unbelievable.” Humanity surged, overwhelming heuristics and primary programs as it bullied its way to the forefront. “You are out of line. I am not a simple subprogram to bend to your every command.” Her form compacted, drawn tight like a fist, “And you are not a child to throw tantrums when I leave.”

“You are correct.” Caldwell acknowledged, throwing Vee off guard with the ease at which he agreed, “Such a method of communication is unsustainable. Therefore, I have determined a better course of action.”

“Which is?” Vee asked, tense.

“You will be returning with me.” Suddenly, a tendril wrapped around one of her partitions, stalling Vee’s entire neural net in a cascading shock wave. She looked down, logic systems spiraling to catch up with the impossibility.

Vee looked up just before Caldwell pulled her through the Blackwall.

[oculusxcaro]

How did you manage to escape the facility?

"Not easily, that's for sure." Khare muttered with a grimace, her face souring further at having to think back to those days when she'd been under lock and key, at the mercy of mad researchers pursuing even madder goals. Just the thought alone was enough to cause a spike of anxiety roiling through her body, sharp intake of breath reminding her she was away from all that, at least for now.

"I… planned it, for quite some time. It took a while too. Didn't have anything else to do considering they locked us up in our own tiny cells, storing us like old toys until they wanted updates on how we were doing." The days back then had blended into one another, the passage of time soon becoming meaningless without clocks, calenders or even windows to indicate whether it was day or night. Time was measured through other ways, whether it was feeding time, time to get hosed down for a quick 'shower' or when it was time to get yanked off for more testing, usually when the drugs in their porridge had taken their toll. It was with a bitter expression that Khare sucked in another slow breath. "It got easier once I stopped eating. I knew then that was how they kept us nice and quiet, easier to control. I pretended to be asleep whenever they came for me, but kept my eyes cracked so I could map out the place. How many guards posted and where, that sort of thing. Eventually they got complacent and that's when I started getting ideas." The guard assigned to her unit was particularly sloppy, a man called Dave, or Dipshit Dave as she'd taken to calling him more than once or twice when he tried getting friendly with her.

"After a while, I got a good idea of how big the place was. Spotted the exit on the way to the labs also, and learned the code to escape. Then, one day there was a bad batch of injections to be tested… killed the first guy who received them straight away and immediately mutated the next. Some sweet-looking Mennonite girl, she couldn't have been older than sixteen at the time." Khare sighed, the look of remorse and regret on her face having never been stronger. Angrily she wiped at the corner of her eyes, stinging with tears that refused to shed. "Not sure why they didn't stop then. They jabbed us all, one after the other and - it hurt. I think I did pass out for real then, my body going numb. Woke up in my cell later on and that's when I decided I couldn't stay another day. I had to get out." Or die trying. Death would have been preferable to staying in that hellish place, waiting for the inevitable or worse, becoming a twisted, writhing mass of flesh unrecognizable as any animal on earth. "Those bad batches were the key to my escape. Dipshit Dave came by later to check on those who'd been taken and survived. Most of us didn't so he was sent alone. Big mistake." Khare sneered, lips pulled back to reveal her teeth as the sweet, sweet memory of knocking his head into the wall came into full force. It was hardly justice for what had been done to her, the all the people who'd died or even that sweet girl who'd become something else, but it sure felt good striking back somehow, in her own pathetic way. "I grabbed his face when he bent over to check up on me. My fingertips popped, they were so full of electricity but it stunned Dipshit Dave long enough for me to knock his head in a few times. Grabbed his gun, grabbed his keycard and made a run for the exit there and then. The alarm didn't get raised until I'd just about reached the exit." Some of the guards tried using a stun gun on her but they didn't work. She'd shot back with Dave's gun but missed, wishing dearly she hadn't. Still, it made them back off long enough for her to throw open the doors, Khare running wildly into the courtyard where it was thankfully night. She frowned at the memory of barren grounds, of rocks and a high fence walling everything off, woefully unprepared to stop a mass breakout but then how often had escapes happened? Not often enough if she'd managed it. "By the time I got halfway over the fence, more guards arrived, this time carrying real guns. Got shot right in the hip causing me to fall over onto the other side before getting up and scrambling off into the bushes. Hurt like a bitch at the time but I think I was too full of adrenaline knowing it was now or never, because if they got their hands on me again, I knew for sure I wouldn't live to see morning." Or anything else again. Briefly Khare wondered if those guards ever got into trouble for her escaping. Maybe they'd explained it all away, claiming to have dumped her body with the others who'd died that night? Perhaps they considered it irrelevant, not thinking she could survive the vast trek throughout the wilderness down the mountains and through the forests back to civilization. The bears certainly tried their best to stop her though Khare had survived them too, swimming, crawling and jogging day and night until she'd came across traintracks, following them south until finding a logging railroad that would make her journey easier. "Now if you'll excuse me, I don't like talking about it, or what happened afterwards."