#some spooky moments and I didn’t guess all of the twists!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Fireborne Blade

high fantasy novella about a knight who’s planning to prove herself by retrieving a powerful fabled blade

follows her venturing into the dragon’s lair and facing it’s powerful magical effects, with a mage-squire who she doesn’t remember hiring

as well as flashback chapters of her past, preparing for this quest, an excerpts from archive records of other knights’ encounters with dragons

[witchywithwhiskey]

how about ransom and “i mean, i got what i wanted, didn’t i?” 👀🫶🏼

can't resist a dare

pairing: best friend!ransom drysdale x female reader

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), smut, oral sex (m receiving), cock worship, taking nude photos/sending nude photos, filming/recording/taking photos during sex, little bit of exhibitionism, come marking, come facial, light bdsm, size kink, dirty talk, praise kink, daddy kink, pet names (baby), aftercare, friends to lovers, revenge on a mean/rude ex

word count: 4,300ish

a/n: whoops, this ended up being longer than i anticipated 😬 but i loved the premise i came up with too much to scrap it and try to write something shorter so here we go!! i just loved the idea of best friend!ransom being a petty perv and reader being just as much of a petty perv 🤭 anyway i hope you enjoy!!! ♡♡♡

You never could resist a dare from Ransom Drysdale. 

The devastatingly handsome grandson of Harlan Thrombey had been your best friend since you were children running around his grandfather’s spooky old house while your families spent time together. Even though you were both grown adults, Ransom still knew how to push all your buttons, and he knew that if he dared you to do something, you’d do it. 

Which was how you’d ended up in the cramped bathroom on the first floor of the Thrombey mansion during Harlan’s May Day party, your body bent over at the waist and your arm contorted behind your back to take a photo of the tiny little thong you’d worn beneath your sundress. 

Ransom had dared you to take a photo of your ass and send it to your ex. You, of course, had risen to the challenge and accepted the dare. 

You hadn’t had nearly enough champagne to make you so reckless, but there was something about your oldest friend that brought out your competitive spirit. Ransom was the only one who could get you to do such things, but you enjoyed being pushed outside of your comfort zone. Plus, you knew your best friend wouldn’t make you do anything that would actually hurt you.

In fact, if you were honest with yourself, there was a part of you that was perversely pleased to be taking such an obscene photo of yourself while some of the richest families in Massachusetts milled around just outside the door. The thought of getting caught taking naughty pictures turned you on more than you wanted to admit, so you hurried up and took the photos. 

When you were done, you picked one you liked and sent it to your ex with a smirk on your face, thinking he should be so lucky as to see your ass one last time. 

Leaving the bathroom, you strutted through the party looking for Ransom, feeling smug about completing the dare. You caught his eye when you entered the library, and even across the room, you could see the amusement dancing in his crystal blue eyes. You made your way through the crowd with a pep in your step, but halfway through, your phone vibrated with a response from your ex.

You opened the text and wished you hadn’t.

Didn’t know you were such a desperate slut, but if you really need dick so bad, I guess I’ll let you ride mine, baby. I know you loved bouncing on it like a whore. 

Your expression twisted into a scowl, and you looked up at your best friend, who was suddenly in front of you. Hurt wrapped around your heart, a part of you feeling—perhaps unfairly—that Ransom should’ve known your ex would text something vile back to you. 

“I did your dare, are you happy now?” you hissed at your best friend, taking out all your hurt and anger on Ransom. You knew you were much more angry at yourself, and your ex, for his hurtful response, but your best friend was the safest target at the moment.

Annoyingly, Ransom looked unaffected by your fury, the satisfied smirk on his face never wavering even as you continued to glare at him. When he responded, his voice was a lazy drawl that reminded you he couldn’t have known the effect of his dare.

“I mean, I got what I wanted, didn’t I?”

Before you could stop yourself, you let out a frustrated huff and opened your phone to the text message you’d gotten from your ex, turning the screen to your best friend so he could read it. “Is this what you wanted?” you sneered, knowing full well your best friend wouldn’t react kindly to what your ex had said. 

You were so determined to show Ransom what he’d done, you didn’t even consider the fact that you were also showing him the photo you’d sent. At least, not until his blue eyes went a little hazy and his smirk widened into a full-blown grin.

“The dare didn’t include you showing me the photo,” Ransom drawled, his gaze flicking to yours, the look in his eyes making something hot squirm deep in your core. “But I can’t say I mind—you’ve got a gorgeous ass.” 

Heat rose in your face, and your expression twisted into one of impatient annoyance. “Look at the response, Ran,” you gritted out, trying not to let his compliment get to you. He was your best friend—he was probably just messing with you. But you were soon distracted from what Ransom had said when he finally looked at what your ex had replied.

A storm cloud settled over Ransom’s handsome features, his eyes narrowing into two slits and his mouth twisting into a furious scowl. You even thought you heard a low rumble, like a growl, emanate from your best friend’s chest beneath the din of the party around you. 

“Who does this little shit think he is?” Ransom fumed, grabbing your phone and clicking on the contact info. “Does this motherfucker think he can talk to you like this?” Your best friend’s gaze flicked to yours and something inside you warmed when you saw the righteous anger simmering in his eyes. “And where the fuck does he get off calling you baby?” 

Your mouth opened to answer him, but Ransom just shook his head in a way that quelled you. Instead, he grabbed your hand with his free one and began leading you through the party toward the back of the house. Your feet moved quickly to keep up with his longer strides, and he slowed a little so he didn’t hurt your arm as he tugged you into the backyard. Ransom walked briskly through the gate in the fence that separated the lawn from the forest. 

You knew the forest around the Thrombey mansion just as well as the house itself, with its trees and the occasional statues representing Harlan’s various mystery novels. You and Ransom had played in the forest plenty when you were children, and partied amongst the statues when you were in your teens and early twenties. It was the only place the two of you could have any privacy, and you had to assume that Ransom wanted seclusion to discuss what your ex had said.

At your favorite of the statues in the forest, Ransom pulled to a stop and rounded on you, mischief gleaming in his blue eyes. You could tell he had a plan. 

“Do you wanna show your shithead ex what he’s missing?” 

Ransom’s smile was sharp as a knife and you couldn’t help but be distracted by your best friend’s handsomeness, just for a moment. His slicked-back brown hair gleamed in the spring sunshine that trickled down through the leafy trees above, and his broad shoulders filled out his henley so deliciously, you almost forgot the question he asked. 

But then his words broke through your distracted mind and the grin that spread across your face was practically devilish in your delight. “What do you have in mind?” you asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of your feet as you stared up at your best friend with nothing but trust.

Ransom’s eyes darkened, his gaze dropping to your mouth for just a second before he met yours again. “Get on your knees,” he said, his voice low and gruff in a way you’d never heard before. It made heat pool deep in your core and you squirmed a little but didn’t hesitate to follow the order. 

The forest floor was blanketed in a soft carpet of dying leaves, even as new growth flourished around you, the sweet scent of spring filling your senses as you lowered yourself to your knees. Your eyes remained fixed on Ransom’s as your knees hit the soft ground, and though you knew the two of you were alone in the woods, it truly felt as though you were the only two people in the whole world.

You weren’t naive. You knew whatever your best friend had in mind to get back at your ex would be crossing one or two lines you’d never crossed with him before. But you trusted Ransom. You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. And, truthfully, a part of you that you kept hidden and locked away so much of the time wanted to cross a line or two with your best friend. 

So you sat on your knees on the ground at Ransom’s feet and stared up at him with all the trust you had in him no doubt written all over your face. You watched as his eyes softened and his mouth curved at the edges into a gentle smile, his expression filled with affection. It was so different to the hard or smarmy mask he wore in public—and even around his family—that you relaxed even further, knowing he’d take care of you even as you got revenge on your ex.

“Stick your tongue out,” Ransom murmured, his voice low and soft and nearly blending in with the breeze rustling the trees above you. His hand reached out and his fingers stroked your cheek, his smile deepening when you nuzzled into his palm before doing as he said. “Good girl, now look at me like you wanna suck my cock.”

A bolt of heat shot through you, nearly making you shiver as warmth bloomed, feral and unbidden, within your body. Ransom’s command was certainly crossing a line, but it felt like permission, too. For the first time in a very long time, you let the feelings you’d hidden away come rushing to the surface. The force of them surprised you, and you found yourself leaning into the arousal that swirled through your body.

With your tongue already sticking out, you let yourself sink into the desire you felt to suck Ransom’s cock and let it show in the way you were posed. You arched your back to stick out your ass and push up your chest, giving your best friend a good view of your tits in your dress. Letting your eyes go heavy-lidded with arousal, you stared eagerly up at your best friend.

You couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes darkened, his pupils blowing wide and his lips parting as he let out a heavy breath. He looked transfixed by you, and if you weren’t sticking your tongue out, you would’ve smirked at his reaction to you.

For a long moment, the two of you just stared at each other. Then, Ransom shook himself lightly and he held up your phone, swiping it open to the camera. You watched as he angled it the way he wanted, and waited patiently while he took a few pictures of you on your knees in front of him. 

When his eyes returned to your face, you relaxed your pose a little, expecting him to give you your phone so you could pick out a photo to send to your ex. Instead, Ransom gave you a considering look.

“Do you really wanna piss off your ex?” he asked, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that made butterflies stir in your belly even as more warmth trickled down between your thighs. A slow, evil grin spread across his handsome face that made your stomach flutter and your core clench. “Do you wanna show him what he’s missing?’

“Yes.” Your answer slipped from your lips before you really had a chance to think about it, but once it was out, you wouldn’t take it back. You trusted Ransom, you really wanted to get back at your ex, and, even more than that, you were desperately curious to see how far your best friend would take things. So you doubled down, giving him an evil smile of your own. “Yes, I do.”

Ransom’s grin turned a little smug as he looked at you with mischievous delight dancing in his eyes. The dappled light of the sunny spring day shifted across his face, and you sucked in a silent breath at just how handsome your best friend was. Your heart thumped in your chest, but you pushed the meaning behind that feeling aside and focused on the moment.

“Unzip my pants and pull my cock out,” Ransom murmured, his tone low and rough as gravel, sending a shiver down your spine.

Immediately, your eyes dropped to the front of your best friend’s slacks and you couldn’t help but notice the bulge there. A delighted smile curled the edges of your mouth. Ransom was just as turned on by you as you were by him. That knowledge gave you the courage you needed to do as he said. 

Your fingers fumbled excitedly with Ransom’s clothes as you pushed up his henley and undid the button and fly of his pants. You pushed them and his boxer briefs down over his hips, revealing the long length of his cock. It bounced free from his briefs and you sucked in a sharp gasp. He was so thick and long, your body clenched with the need to be filled just at the sight of your best friend’s cock.

Eagerly, you leaned forward, pressing your face to the underside of Ransom’s cock and inhaling the clean, musky scent of him. He smelled so good, you could feel your body react to your best friend’s cock, your pussy soaking your thong and making a mess of your thighs. Tilting your head back, you turned your heavy-lidded eyes up to Ransom, staring up at him while you nuzzled into his hard length.

“Yeah, just like that,” Ransom rasped, giving you an encouraging nod while his thumb tapped the screen of your phone, taking photos of you. “Look so pretty with my cock on your face, baby.”

A pleased smile curved your lips and your eyes closed as you savored the wonderful feeling of Ransom’s praise. It made your body warm even further, and you conveyed how happy it made you by pressing a soft kiss to the underside of Ransom’s cock. He rumbled an appreciative sound and when you looked up at him again, his eyes were the darkest you’d ever seen, his entire attention focused entirely on you.

You liked having Ransom’s attention and you didn’t wait for him to give you more instructions. Trailing your lips up the length of his cock, you pressed wet, suckling kisses to the velvety soft skin wrapped around the hardness beneath. You didn’t know which of you enjoyed it more—Ransom, with his face twisted into a look of pleasure and his chest heaving, or you, with your pussy dripping between your thighs. 

It seemed to take Ransom a moment to remember what he was supposed to be doing, that the point of you being on your knees was to record what you were doing to get back at your ex. He tapped the screen of your phone once, and when he spoke, there was something in his voice that made you think he was recording a video—a tenor of encouragement that made you want to perform.

“How d’you like my cock, baby?” he asked, a smirk clear on his face and in his tone. “Am I bigger than your ex?”

You wanted to grin and laugh—Ransom’s cock was much bigger than your ex’s. Instead, you curved your lips into your most vixenish smile and nuzzled into your best friend’s hardness like it was your most cherished stuffed animal. 

“I looove your cock, Ran,” you purred in a sultry voice, not having to try hard to show your appreciation for him. You pressed a kiss to his hard length and licked the underside of the head, wringing a grunt from your best friend. “You have such a big cock, daddy, way bigger than my ex—I don’t know how I’m gonna fit you in my tight little throat.” You batted your lashes up at the camera while you swirled your tongue around the tip, licking up your best friend’s precum. 

Ransom tapped your phone and moved it out of the way so he could look straight at you, raising one of his eyebrows in amusement. “‘Daddy’?” he asked, a delighted smirk curving his lips.

You stroked Ransom’s cock while you pulled back to answer. “My ex always wanted me to call him that, but it never felt right,” you said, making a face before you leaned forward again, wrapping your lips around the tip of your best friend’s cock and sucking on him lightly. Ransom grunted in pleasure.

“Keep going, baby, we’ll show that shithead what he’s never gonna have,” Ransom rasped, lifting your phone up again and tapping the screen while you took his cock deeper into your mouth. “Suck daddy’s cock, baby, be a good girl and show me how much you love my dick.”

You wanted to smile at Ransom’s filthy words, but instead you focused your attention entirely on his cock, bobbing your head on his hard length until the tip of him was pressing against the back of your throat. You’d never taken anyone as big as him, but you were determined to deep throat your best friend, so you relaxed your throat and pushed yourself. After a few tries, you took him all the way in, until his cock was bulging in your throat and your nose was pressed flat to his stomach.

“Oh fuck, jesus christ, baby,” Ransom shouted when you swallowed around him, your throat squeezing his hardness as you fought to keep him buried to the root in your mouth. Tears streamed down your face, and drool trickled down your chin, but you paid it no mind, focusing entirely on your best friend’s cock.

His big hand settled on the crown of your head, fingers flexing like he wanted to grab you and hold you down on his cock. Your pussy clenched at the thought, but Ransom seemed not to want to hurt you, so he simply bucked his hips a little, fucking your throat in short thrusts. 

“Shit, ‘m gonna come,” he rasped, his voice rough and strained in a way you’d never heard before. It made you squeeze your thighs together as more wetness flooded your already messy slit. “Baby, ‘m gonna come, holy fuck, your throat feels so fucking good, oh fuck.”

When his cock started to twitch, you pulled off and smiled sweetly up at your best friend. “Come on my face, Ran,” you panted, your voice breathy as you stared directly into Ransom’s darkened eyes. 

It took you a moment to realize Ransom’s hand holding your phone had dropped to his side, and the entirety of his focus was on you—just you. A pleased smile curled your lips while you pumped your best friend’s cock in your fist, squeezing the tip while he tossed his head back and let out a loud, pleasured groan.

Ransom came, muttering, “Baby, baby, baby,” under his breath, ropes of his come landing all over your face, joining the tears, spit and drool already coating your cheeks and chin. You opened your mouth, catching some of his spend on your tongue and humming happily at the musky taste of him. 

When Ransom tipped his head back up and opened his eyes to look at you, his mouth fell open in a helpless moan when he took in the state of you. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, his eyes roving over your face hungrily, like he couldn’t get enough of seeing you with his come on your cheeks. “You look so pretty covered in my come, baby,” he murmured, warmth and affection in his tone as he stroked your jaw, one of the few places on your face that wasn’t messy.

You grinned up at your best friend, pleased at his praise, though that didn’t stop you from teasing him. “Why don’t you take a picture, daddy, it’ll last longer,” you sassed. But once the words were out, you realized how serious you were about the suggestion. When Ransom raised his eyebrows in question, you whispered, “Use your phone—if you want.”

Ransom didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled his phone from the pocket of his pants and angled it above your face. “Smile for me, baby,” he murmured softly, and you couldn’t help but follow the gentle command. He took a few photos of you, sitting on your knees in the forest, covered in his come. 

Once he was done, he stowed both your phones in his pocket and pulled his henley off over his head, leaving him in a simple white t-shirt. You weren’t sure what he was doing until he started using the soft cotton garment to clean your face. He was gentle, wiping the come from your face and then clearing away your ruined makeup. 

Somehow, it felt so much more intimate than sucking your best friend’s cock and all you could do was sit there, your heart pounding in your chest while you let Ransom take care of you. His gaze caught yours, and you saw his crystal blue eyes were swirling with just as much emotion as was filling your heart, and something seemed to pass between the two of you—an understanding that something had changed between you.

When he’d cleaned your face to the best of his ability, Ransom tucked his cock away then helped you to stand, supporting your weight while he brushed the dirt and leaves off your knees. You leaned heavily against his chest when he stood up, his arms looping easily around you and you shared another silent moment, both of you smiling and staring into each other’s eyes.

It was you who ended up breaking the moment, asking the question that was making you burn with curiosity. “Are we really going to send those pictures and videos to my ex?” you asked, watching your best friend’s face for his reaction. Truth be told, you still wanted to get back at your ex for what he’d said, but since Ransom’s cock was in them, he had a right to a say in it.

He seemed to be watching you just as carefully as you were watching him. “Do you want to?” he asked, his voice toneless. He was leaving it up to you.

An evil smile spread across your face, Ransom’s lips curving into a smirk in response. “Yeah,” you said brashly. “Let him see what he could’ve had.”

“Just as long as you tell him who’s dick you’re sucking,” Ransom murmured, kissing your temple and pulling your phone from his pocket to hand to you. “I want him to know you’re my girl now.”

At those possessive words, you looked up at your best friend in surprise, but Ransom only gave you a look like you should know better.

Ducking your head, you hid an exceptionally pleased smile as you turned in Ransom’s arms and leaned back against his broad chest so he could watch over your shoulder. Together, you picked out the best photos and videos to send to your ex.

Sorry! Sent that to the wrong person. These are just for you. Oh and Ransom says hi. 

You couldn’t help but giggle when your ex immediately started blowing up your phone, taking great pleasure in blocking him. When you were done, you handed your phone back to Ransom to hold for you, since your dress didn’t have pockets, and you turned in his arms again. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you looked up at your best friend with a smile.

“So I’m your girl now, huh?” you asked, unable to let him get away with just a look for confirmation.

Ransom’s strong arms wound around your waist, holding you tight to his chest. “As if I’d be such a fool as to let anyone else have you,” he said, snorting to himself. “I’m not as stupid as your ex.”

“Clearly,” you said dryly, laughing at the unamused look he shot you. 

But then Ransom silenced your laughter with a kiss, his mouth slanting to yours perfectly. All at once, you let the emotions you’d bottled up for so long flow free, and you clung to Ransom as you both deepened the kiss. His tongue plunged into your mouth like he was staking a claim, and you answered him back with just as much fervor. 

It was less a first kiss and more a devouring of souls as the two of you made out in the woods of the Thrombey estate.

Finally, Ransom pulled away with a groan. “OK, here’s the plan,” he said with a huff, pressing his forehead to yours. His chest was heaving as he caught his breath, but he soldiered on. “We go back, tell everyone you have a headache and I’m gonna drive you home,” he said, pausing briefly to kiss you. “Then I take you back to my place and we don’t leave my bed for two days—maybe three.”

Laughing and nodding you pushed up on your tiptoes and kissed Ransom again. “Three, definitely three,” you agreed.

“Good girl,” he murmured, kissing you again.

 Before he pulled away entirely, though, Ransom caught your eye and you knew from the mischief sparkling in the depths of his gaze that he had another dare for you. You grinned eagerly. 

“I dare you to take off your thong and go back to the party with your needy little cunt dripping down your thighs for me,” Ransom rumbled, his voice deliciously low and deep and making you want to jump him right there in the woods.

When Ransom raised an eyebrow in a challenging look, your pussy clenched at the filthy dare, your whole body warming as arousal flooded through you again. You didn’t know what expression your face was making, but it made Ransom grin and press a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

“If you’re a good girl, daddy will give you a reward when we get to my place,” he murmured. 

But Ransom hadn’t needed to offer you an incentive.

After all, you never could resist a dare from Ransom Drysdale.

[genderlessdude92]

STICKS AND STONES

PAIRING: Alastor x Reader

SUMMARY: Y/N is shaken when Vox mocks her on live television with rude comments and even exposing her secret relationship with Alastor, too. Struggling with self-doubt, she feels inadequate in Hell's power-driven society. Alastor comforts her, emphasizing her unique qualities and their deep connection, helping her find solace despite the lingering hurt from Vox's comments.

WARNINGS: Established Relationship, Usage of Y/n, Usage of She/her pronouns, Major ANGST to major FLUFF in the end, Emotional Distress, Verbal Abuse, Hell and Demons (obv), Romantic Relationshiop kind of i guess idk, Mental Health, aaaand lmk if i missed anything!! ^^

NOTICE: please don’t copy or steal or translate any of my work or you will be haunted in your dreams and i will spawn something unpleasant at your porch the next day. But…thanks for liking my work !! >.<

Requests are open, Support is highly appreciated!

〰ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ..。.:*･ﾟ♫₊ ♪ *♬‧₊enjoy!~

The distant sound of a crackling fireplace filled the room, the occasional pop of a burning ember piercing the quiet. A soft, velvety couch sat in the corner of the hotel lobby, slightly rumpled from recent use, a testament to the comfort it had provided. Outside the window, the neon lights of Hell flickered in a dance of eternal night. Y/N, a fellow demon helping out the very hotel alongside her s/o, Alastor, known for her ‘bravery’ to date him, sat curled up in a blanket, her eyes fixated on the flickering screen of the television mounted atop the fireplace. It was a rare moment of solitude in the bustling halls of the Hazbin Hotel.

Her eyes filled with unshed tears as she watched the broadcast, Vox’s smug grin spreading across the screen. He was speaking about Alastor, her love, her rock, her everything. Of course, It didn’t bother her as much as before since he likes to bitch about him every once in a while. But then, in a sudden, cruel twist, he said it—

Her name…?

How could he even know her name in the first place—she isn’t an overlord or an overly known-demon. Alastor and her even tried to keep their relationship a secret for safety over the years.

Y/N’s heart sank as she heard the words that felt like a thousand knives. Vox’s voice grew louder, his smugness palpable through the screen. “And what about Alastor’s girlfriend, the one he’s been hiding from us all this time? Tell me, dear audience, what’s she got that makes her so special? A heart of gold? Maybe a brain of silver? Maybe even some spooky little radio powers?” His audience, a sea of demons, roared with laughter. Y/N’s cheeks flushed with a mix of anger and embarrassment, her eyes glistening with tears she was desperately trying to hold back.

Her thoughts raced as she replayed the words in her mind. Useless. Insignificant. The words stung like acid on her soul. She knew she wasn’t a high-ranking demon, didn’t have flashy powers or a grand title, but she had always believed that she had something to offer. That Alastor saw something in her that others didn’t. Now, as the room swirled around her, she couldn’t help but doubt herself in those beliefs.

The door to the lobby creaked open, the sound breaking the silence like a gunshot. She didn’t look up, her eyes glued to the TV, unable to tear herself away from the mockery. But she recognized the footsteps approaching, the ominous thuds of Alastor’s steps against the carpet. His shadow fell over her, but she remained curled into herself. She remained silently panicking about Vox’s comments. She remained letting her breaths go wild with their pace.

Alastor paused for a moment, his eyes scanning the room before landing on her. He noticed the way she clutched the blanket, the way her eyes were red, and the TV’s volume turned up a bit too high. He sighed, his tail flicking in annoyance at the screen, and walked over to her. He knew she didn’t like confrontation, but he also knew she had the strength to face the harshness of Hell itself, and hell isn’t fair, anyways.

"Y/N," he said softly, his deep voice cutting through the cacophony of the TV. She didn’t look up at first, but when he gently placed his hand on her shoulder, she turned to face him, the seamless-before tears spilling over her cheeks. He sat down beside her, his expression a mix of concern and arrogance just from Vox being on the TV.

And just the TV being on in general.

"Hey," Alastor began, his hand moving to gently wipe away the tears with his thumb. His touch was surprisingly tender, a stark contrast to the hardened exterior he presented to the world. "What's going on?"

Y/N took a shaky breath, her voice quivering as she spoke. "It's Vox. He said..." She couldn't bring herself to repeat the words, the pain still fresh.

Alastor's eyes narrowed, his gaze flicking to the TV before returning to her. "What did that prick say?" His voice was calm, but the anger simmering beneath was unmistakable. Nonetheless, not forgetting about his dear S/o, he shifted the way he was sitting so he could face her.

Y/N took a deep, shuddering breath and recounted Vox's cruel words, each syllable like a dagger twisting in her chest. Alastor listened, his expression growing stormier with every sentence. He could feel the heat of his own anger rising, but he kept it in check, focusing on her instead.

When she finished, the tears subsiding just a little bit from letting it out, he pulled her into a tight embrace, his powerful arms enveloping her trembling form. "You know I don't give a damn about what that glorified karaoke machine thinks," he murmured against her hair, his voice a soothing rumble, “And you shouldn’t either. He’s a clout chaser, and you know that.”

Y/N nodded, trying to hold onto his words like a lifeline in a stormy sea of doubt. But the damage was done. She couldn’t shake the feeling of inadequacy that clung to her like a second skin. She pulled away slightly, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "But he's right, Alastor. I'm not like you, or any of the other high-ranked demons here. I don't have flashy powers or a title that makes people fear me. What do I even contribute to this place?"

Alastor's expression softened, although his grip on her tightened slightly. "You contribute more than you think, my love," he said, his voice gruff with emotion. "You have a heart, a soul that hasn't been corrupted by the endless cycle of damnation. That's more than most demons here can say."

He took a deep breath, his eyes searching hers. "And as for your powers, they're not about flash or fear. They're about comfort, about healing. You have the ability to soothe the most tormented spirits, to ease the pain of those who are lost. That's something no one else here can do. You're special, Y/N. Don't ever let anyone make you feel otherwise."

The TV continued to blare in the background, Vox's voice now just a dull buzz as Alastor leaned in, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. "You're not useless," he whispered fiercely, his eyes burning with a passion that surprised even her. "You're my other half, and this hotel, this whole godforsaken plane of existence, would be a much darker place without you."

Her heart swelled at his words, the warmth of his love wrapping around her like a blanket. But she couldn't shake the doubt that had taken root. She tried to smile, but it came out wobbly. "Thank you," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the TV. "But I just don't feel like I deserve all this praise."

Alastor's eyes searched hers, his thumb brushing over her cheek. "You don't have to feel like you deserve it," he said, his voice firm. "You just have to accept it. And more importantly, believe it." He paused, his gaze intense. "Because I do. And if that's not enough for you, then I don't know what is."

Y/N sniffled, her eyes filling with fresh tears. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice cracking. "I just don't want to hold you back."

Alastor sighed, frustration momentarily flashing in his eyes. "That's not what this is about," he said, his voice a gentle rumble. "I don't need a high-ranking demon by my side to feel complete. I need you, just as you are." He didn't want an apology; he wanted her to see herself the way he saw her.

Standing up, he offered her his hand. "Come on," he said, his voice softer now. "Let's get you to bed."

Her hand slipped into his, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet. His room was a sanctuary, a place where she felt safe and loved despite the chaos of Hell outside. She followed him down the hallway, the TV's noise fading behind them.

Once inside, Alastor helped her into bed, his movements careful and considerate. He knew she was fragile in that moment, and he didn't want to add to her pain of how overwhelmed she was.

After putting on some fresh night wear and doing some hair-care, (please be cannon), he sat beside her, stroking her hair gently as she curled into his side, her head resting on his broad chest. His heart beat a steady rhythm, a comforting metronome in the quiet of the night.

For a while, they just sat there, the TV forgotten, the words of Vox nothing but echoes in the back of their minds. Alastor’s touch was a balm to her soul, and she felt her breathing slow down, the tightness in her chest loosening. She listened to the steady thrum of his heart, feeling the warmth of his body seep into hers.

He leaned down and whispered into her ear, his voice a gentle lullaby that chased the shadows of doubt away. "You're perfect, just as you are," he said, his breath warm against her skin. "You don't need to be anyone else. I fell for you, all of you, not some ideal or some position."

He kissed her forehead softly, a gesture that spoke volumes more than any grandiose declaration. "Now, close your eyes," he murmured. "Let's get some rest."

Y/N nodded, feeling the weight of his words sink in. She closed her eyes, allowing the comfort of his presence to wash over her. His hand remained in her hair, the strokes growing slower as she drifted towards sleep.

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END NOTES: I write this in 20 minutes at 2:00 am because i felt bad that i haven’t posted a fanfic of Alastor in over a month… 2 months. I’m sorry. HOPE YOU LIKED IT???!!!!! :D

-Genderlessdude92

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MASTERLIST

Me after seeing that you didn’t…l-leave a like a-and didnt repost if you think it was just that good and d-didn’t share any c-comments about my f-f-f-f-fanfic…? —>

[theragethatisdesire]

cabin in the woods - eren x reader x jean - 18+!!!

part three of our polyverse woo! i wanted to write something intense for spooky season, but not like, a slasher fic, and you know eren would have the biggest primal play kink ever so here we are. the besties have been in their little poly relationship for a year and this is their anniversary trip <3 (and they're just so cute i need to put them in my pocket). enjoy what @fictional-d-supremacy and i came up with and....i don't even know what else to say. i love this one, prob in my top 3 of all time, i just love poly!erejean <3

pairing: eren jaeger x reader x jean kirschstein

wc: 9.5k (good lord)

DISCLAIMER: this post contains MATURE CONTENT that is intended only for those over 18. if you are a minor, please do not read below the cut.

*deep breath* CWs: primal play (for some people, it may read as dubcon, so please familiarize yourself with what this means, you are responsible for your triggers!), consensual sex, established relationship, use of names (pet, baby, angel, princess, slut, bitch), breeding kink, biting, fingering, oral sex (fem and male receiving), anal play, anal sex, double penetration, mlm (eren and jean are in an established relationship and kiss at one point), degradation, objectification, multiple orgasm, threesome, bi!eren, bi!jean, dirty talk, creampie, polyamory

OKAY now that that's out of the way.....have fun babies!

-

There’s something about the crisp autumn breeze drifting in through the open windows, twisting through Jean’s Jeep with the same rhythm as the car itself winding up the side of the mountain, that sends a vicious shudder down your spine. You try to roll your window up to fight the chill, but Eren whines from behind you and thuds a heavy boot against your seat in protest.

“You said if I let you have shotgun, we could keep the windows down the whole time.”

“It’s freezing!”

“But I get carsick,” Eren grumbles, glaring at you in the rearview mirror. Jean sighs in a tone that sounds a lot like exasperation, reaching over to turn your heated seat on.

“Better?”

“A little,” you smile softly at him, laying your palm over the warm hand he rests on your knee, “are we almost there?”

“It’s just around this corner,” Jean assures you, hazel eyes flitting back over to the gravelly, curving road. You take a moment to admire him: strong brow, regal, elegant nose, pouty lips that you know to be soft from experience. The simple knowledge that Jean is yours, yours to kiss and touch whenever you want, is enough to send a thrill through you. Your moment of adoration is cut short by Eren throwing his arms over the seat, digging his hands into your shoulders in a rough massage.

“You’re going to love this place, babe,” Eren says behind your ear. The buzzy excitement thrumming through his voice makes a small grin tug at the corner of your mouth; Eren’s moods are contagious more often than not, and he’s been miraculously cheerful all day. “Mama Kirschstein’s got the hook-up.”

“You’re still calling her that?” Jean rolls his eyes, “she’s been telling you to call her Jane for the last eight years.”

“Are you sure she doesn’t mind us coming up?” You eye Jean nervously, reaching up to squeeze one of Eren’s larger hands for reassurance. “I know she had a bit of trouble, y’know…”

“When I told her it was our anniversary, she offered us the house for the weekend. I didn’t even ask,” Jean veers left onto a narrow dirt path, “I know it took her a minute to come around, but she adores you now. I promise.”

“She’s always adored me,” Eren adds unhelpfully, ruffling your beanie and consequently wrecking your hair, “but I guess she was able to find room in her heart for the both of us.”

“Eren, stop it– ugh, thank you. What has got you in such a good mood?” You turn over your shoulder to look at him, practically brimming with energy. Eren’s always despised road trips, yet he’s been the picture of eagerness all day.

“Just excited to spend some time alone in the woods with my two favorite people, what’s so wrong with that?” Eren grins widely at you, sharp canines glinting in the early afternoon light. Something about his smile seems…not insincere, more like overly sincere. It’s not at all out of the realm of possibility for Eren to have some grandiose, ridiculous surprise waiting for you in his suitcase, or for him to simply be bouncing out of his seat in anticipation of all the weekend away, anniversary sex you’re about to have. You chalk it up to one or the other, ignoring the strangely stern look Jean shoots him.

“Oh my god!” You cover your mouth to muffle the excited squeal that comes creeping up your throat upon sight of the cabin. The “cabin” turns out to be an isolated, sprawling home with several wings, beautiful beyond your wildest dreams. Massive slabs of stone make up the columns supporting an overhang that covers a ten-foot-tall door, the garden beds on either side of the walkway have been manicured to perfection, and there’s a winding stone path that leads to the back of the house through a covered walkway that connects the main house to the garage. It’s practically been ripped out of Architectural Digest. “It’s like it’s not even real.”

“Kirschstein money always gets the panties dropping,” Eren scoffs, practically kicking his door open the moment the car rolls to a stop, “I forgot how nice this place was.”

“Shut up,” Jean grumbles, rolling his eyes at Eren before setting his adoring gaze on you, “you like it, princess?”

“I love it,” you gush, jumping out of the car to get a better look, bag forgotten in the trunk. You can hear the boys bickering about luggage somewhere behind you, but all you can focus on is the vast nothingness around you, the sleepy chirping of cicadas in the trees, and the warmly lit home that belongs to you and your two gorgeous boyfriends for the weekend. Who says no one ever had it all?

“Are you excited?” Eren comes charging up behind you, arms encircling your waist and lips pecking every square inch of your neck he can reach.

“I’m so excited,” you giggle, shoving him off so that you can run to Jean and throw your arms around his shoulders, “thank you both so much—oh, we have to call your mom and thank her! Can we? Please?”

“In a bit,” Jean chuckles, scooping you up into his arms so you can wrap your legs around his waist, “don’t you want to see the inside first?”

“Yes–”

“I don’t know, Jean,” Eren saunters over, something mischievous flitting over his face that, if you were any less drunk on raw excitement, you would know immediately not to trust, “she may want to get a look at the woods before the sun goes down. What do you say, baby? Wanna go for a hike?”

“Eren,” Jean says, a very thin note of hesitation in his tone that you, in your giddiness, stampede right over.

“Just a quick one, Jean? Is that alright?”

“However long you want, angel,” Eren answers for Jean and smiles at you charmingly, entirely ignoring Jean’s widened eyes.

“Let’s do that,” you whip your wide, happy eyes back to Jean, a pleading grin on your face, “and then you can give me a tour of the inside. I just want to get a few Instagram pictures before we end up not putting clothes on again for the entire weekend.”

Jean smiles at you, some odd combination of endearment and something darker that you can’t quite make out—pity?—crossing his face. “Anything you want. Drop the bags on the porch, Eren? I’ll take her out back.”

Eren’s grin grows impossibly wider, a little glint in his eye. “Be right there.”

After your awkward, giggle-filled struggle to monkey-climb from Jean’s front onto his back without dropping to the ground, Jean, arms hooked firmly under your legs, walks you around the house, identifying little points of interest as he goes. He points out his childhood rope swing, tattered and still dangling from one of the massive oaks in the front yard, a few flower bushes that he remembers helping his mom plant. You can feel the swell of your heart in your chest as Jean walks you through his memories, snorting to himself when he recounts the tale of Eren nearly choking to death trying to hold his breath in the hot tub and growing misty-eyed when he points out his grandparents’ initials carved into a wooden bench in the garden.

You reach a point of the property where the meticulously groomed grass gives way to fallen leaves and patches of barren earth, a visible line between civilization and nature. A small wriggle from you lets Jean know you’re ready to hop down, and he bends at the knee slightly so you can slide off of his back.

“It really is a beautiful property,” you tell him earnestly, “I can’t thank you enough for bringing us here.”

“What’s mine is yours,” Jean, in that heartbreaking way of his, looks down at you like you’re the only thing he could ever want for, “you know that.”

“Still. Thank you.” You have to consciously focus on your breathing; you wonder if Jean knows he has this effect on people, if he knows that the way raw love lays itself bare in his eyes chokes whoever’s in his line of sight.

“It’s as much a gift for me as it is for you,” Jean leans down to nip at your ear, two large hands finding their way around your waist, “I’ve got you both away from work, out in the middle of nowhere, all to myself…”

“Jean!” It comes out as a clunky, airy giggle, half of the letters still jumbled in your throat where the breath is caught. He smirks against your neck, sinking his teeth in here, licking over a sore patch of skin there. The mountain breeze follows in his wake, kissing over the wet spots he leaves behind and raising goosebumps on the back of your neck.

“Getting started without me?” Eren’s voice startles you, makes you jump in Jean’s grip. Jean responds to your flightiness by spinning you on your heels and pressing your back to his chest, arms locked firmly under your breasts and head tucked onto your shoulder.

“We were waiting for you,” you answer, letting your eyes graze over Eren appreciatively as he approaches. As long as you’ve known him, autumn has always looked good on Eren. Something about the decaying colors around him makes his eyes that much more vibrant, the glow of them in the late afternoon sun almost reminding you of a predator at night, tucked behind bushes. Big cozy flannels only make his frame look broader, and the curl of his grown-out bangs around his pink ears makes you want to pinch his cheeks.

“Didn’t look like you were waiting,” Eren eyes Jean in annoyance, but the curl of his lip gives him away.

“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Jean counters, planting a sloppy kiss on your cheek.

“Where else would I be?” You laugh, shoving him back from you. Eren and Jean’s eyes meet, some dangerous, tangible glimmer passing between them. “What?”

“Nothing, angel,” Eren whistles, spinning you around yet again and locking your shoulders underneath his arm, beginning to walk you into the woods, “don’t you worry your pretty little head.”

“I’m not worried,” you roll your eyes, letting him drag you further into the forest, “you guys are just being weird.”

“Are we?” Jean’s arm comes sneaking around your waist, “I don’t think we are. Do you, Eren?”

“Not at all,” Eren shrugs, pulling out his phone, “looks like we still have two hours til sunset. That seems like enough time for a hike, don’t you think, Jean?”

“Oh, that’s definitely enough time.”

You tilt your head up, a slight scowl indenting your forehead, flitting your eyes between the two of them. They’re hardly paying attention to you, staring at each other in a way that you’re not unfamiliar with. That explains the oddities of their behavior today; typical boys, just excited to jump into bed later. You barely contain another eye roll, instead opting to let them have their teasing fun and focus on the grandiosity of the forest around you.

The canopy is tall, taller than you would have expected; it feels like the dwindling population of leaves above your head is in a different world than the crunch of their fallen comrades under your feet. That pesky breeze is still there, keeping your nerve endings jumpy with the ever-present chill, but the warmth of the colors around you almost makes up for it. Everywhere you look seems to be on fire, yellows and oranges and reds blending the landscape together into a closer approximation to an abstract painting than a scene out of nature.

Easily half an hour ticks by as you stroll, all three of you having fallen into a comfortable, contemplative silence. You don’t miss the way Eren’s hand will occasionally drift from your shoulder to the back of your neck, ghosting over the skin and running through the baby hairs there, making you shiver. Jean follows suit, his arm around your waist slipping a bit low once in a while, palm cupping your ass and squeezing appreciatively. You ignore them both in favor of taking advantage of the beautiful scenery, but you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t affecting you. That familiar warmth curls in your stomach, molten and hungry, and the tips of your fingers twitch in your pockets, aching to replace the fabric that surrounds them with skin.

Eventually, you all reach a picturesque clearing with a gorgeous overhang, and you see your opportunity.

“Wait, stop right here,” you finally break the silence, squirming in the boys’ arms to snag your phone out of your back pocket, “this is perfect.”

“Instagram time?” Jean tries and fails to keep the bored tone out of his voice.

“We only have, like, five pictures together, and we’ve been together for over a year.”

“That’s not true,” Eren protests, “I have an album full–”

“How many of those pictures are share-able?” You cock a knowing eyebrow at him.

“Um, probably like…two.”

“My point exactly.”

Through a bit of manhandling and arguing over who should hold the phone, you make out with at least three usable selfies (the boys refused to entertain your self-timer idea), which far exceeds the amount of photos you expected to leave this trip with.

“Why don’t you let us take a few of just you?” Jean suggests, reaching for your phone with an honest smile and giving Eren a subtle nudge.

“Really?”

“Sure,” Eren jumps in, nodding and smiling along, “a few pictures of our pretty girl out in the woods on our special trip.”

“And it would be cute for your Instagram, right?” Jean adds, patting you lightly on the bottom.

“Okay,” you agree, too thrilled at their sudden interest in your quest for a nice Instagram post to think too much into the way Eren’s tongue swipes along his bottom lip, the way Jean’s holding your phone so tightly his knuckles are turning white.

“Just walk out that way, there you go.” You can hear Jean’s voice, with a strange little tremor to it, growing quieter behind you when Eren ushers you off in the opposite direction. You leave your phone with Jean, alternating between a little jog and a walk away from them, moving further into the clearing and keeping your back to the boys.

“Was that cute, or stupid?”

Your nervous giggle echoes in the clearing, the rustling of leaves the only answer you receive. You make a few different poses, feeling a little silly but willing to endure it in the interest of getting a couple of nice photos. You notice the distinct lack of sound around you, how for just a moment, it feels like the universe consists of just you, Eren, and Jean, alone in these woods and miles from any other human. It hits you that that’s not entirely untrue; the last house you’d seen had to have been fifteen minutes before you’d gotten to Jean’s driveway.

You call back to them, wanting at least a little feedback and, honestly, beginning to feel a bit creeped out by the uncharacteristic silence ringing in your ears. “Are they turning out good?”

Nothing.

“What the hell?” you finally whip back around to face them, stomping your foot petulantly, “are you two like, messing with me?”

When you turn to meet them, however, all the fire in your throat dies out as quickly as if a bucket of ice water had been tossed on it.

Jean and Eren are smiling at you, which wouldn’t be too odd of a sight, if it weren’t for the threatening glitter in their eyes, the way Eren’s tilting his head ever so slightly to the right. You’ve never seen an expression like this on either one of them, never seen something so…dangerous cross their faces.

“Run.”

“I’m sorry?” You scrunch your nose at Eren, confused. His smile only grows wider.

“Run.”

“Run?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot,” Jean shakes his head disapprovingly, eyeing you down through the streaks of sunlight bleeding into the clearing.

“Forgot what?” Your words tremble as they make their way out into the still air. They’re your boyfriends, the men that wake you up with feather-light kisses and hoist you onto their shoulders at concerts, so why are your fingers beginning to shake?

“About that little book of yours we found,” Jean answers, cocking his head. “Surely you didn’t think we’d forget, did you?”

“No, I know she remembers,” Eren grits out through a clenched jaw, bristling under the soothing palm Jean runs over the back of his neck.

The memory hits you like a train. Coming home to find Jean and Eren hunched over a smutty novel of yours, blushing furiously and frowning in concentration. Confronting them only to find out they’d stumbled across the primal play chapter, that they’d noticed that these pages in particular looked a little well-worn. Jean had asked you if you would ever try it, Eren had raised his eyebrows when you admitted that yes, you would absolutely live that fantasy out if given the chance. Your face had burned as you nervously giggled, brushing the idea off in the sense that it was unrealistic to act out such a scenario in the middle of the city.

But you’re not in the city now. You’re in the forest, alone with your two boyfriends who are looking at you like they might rip you to shreds.

“No,” you murmur, so quietly that if the woods weren’t so still and silent, it wouldn’t have reached their ears, “I–I didn’t…I remember.”

“There it is,” Eren says, eyes glinting at you and arousal practically dripping off of his words as they make their way to your ears, “knew you did.”

“Weren’t lying, right? You wouldn’t lie to us, would you, pet?” Jean’s voice is steely and sharp with the implication that you had better not lie to him.

Words are lost on you amidst the thundering of your pulse in your ears, and you simply shake your head back and forth slowly. Some survival instinct from deep in the recesses of your brain tells you not to take your eyes off of them for a second, has every muscle in your body twitching. Despite the uneasy adrenaline coursing through your veins, a firm knot of arousal has taken hold in your lower stomach, simmering and spitting in excitement from the hungry looks on Eren and Jean’s faces.

“We’ll give you a ten second head start,” Eren says, dragging his eyes over your frame and licking at his bottom lip, “just to give you a fighting chance.”

“Sound good?” Jean tilts his head, raising an eyebrow at you. You know this is your moment to laugh this whole thing off, to return to the cozy interior of the cabin and put your feet up, have some hot chocolate, be kissed softly and held gently between their two strong bodies. This is Jean giving you an out, if you want it.

“Okay,” you agree, fingers fluttering nervously by your side.

“Good girl,” Jean nods approvingly, clenching and unclenching his fist, “ready?”

You nod back to him, knees shaking under your frame and a cold sweat breaking out over the back of your neck.

“Then fucking run,” Eren growls, grinning feral and wicked in the afternoon sun.

To your own surprise, you turn on your heel almost instantaneously, tearing off into the woods as fast as you can. The boots you’ve decided to wear are certainly not built for speed, but the thick soles are perfect for carrying you over the rough terrain, supporting your ankles and keeping them from twisting as you sprint through the woods.

You veer left, suddenly realizing that everything around you looks…the same. There’s no identifying markers, no path back to the cabin, no way to tell one tree full of decaying leaves from another. It brings you pause, your feet coming to a halt. It strikes you that you hadn’t been paying very close attention during your initial hike through the woods, and that even if you tried, you aren’t sure what direction will lead you back to the cabin. Eren and Jean have actually trapped you out here.

The crushing realization nearly makes your heart stop. You’re unable to suspend your disbelief enough to remember that these are your boyfriends chasing you; the only thought your brain can hold onto is that you’re being chased, and that you need to run.

The thudding of footsteps approaching shakes you out of your realization, has your feet moving at lightning speed the second you hear it. You don’t slow to look over your shoulder to see which one of them it is, just let your feet carry you far away as fast as you can manage. It dawns on you that the feeling coursing through you, bringing warmth to your face, is some unbelievable mixture of fear and arousal.

You can’t tell the color of either feeling apart, can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Maybe they’re bleeding into each other, a symphony of passions ripping their way through every cord of muscle in your body, through every electrified nerve ending as you run away from what you want more than anything in this moment.

The footsteps behind you begin to fade, and as your breathing gets heavier and harsher, you realize you won’t be able to keep this pace; your best shot is running hard in short bursts and stopping to rest in between. You reach another clearing, much smaller than the one you had started out in, and lined with an assortment of bushes and a fallen tree. Just as you hunch over to catch your breath, you hear the return of those stomping footsteps, far behind you, but there all the same. The sharp pain ricocheting through your chest is warning enough to stop you from running again, and your eyes dart around in a panic, finally honing in on an area of the brush that looks thick enough to conceal you in your dark clothing, if you strip out of your light purple flannel.

As the footsteps draw closer, you hurriedly dive into the tangle of leaves and branches of the brush, ripping your flannel off of your arms as you go. You wince at the scrape of thorns and sticks on the soft, bare skin of your arms, but claw your way deeper, crouching down to conceal your body and twirling on your tippy-toes to peer through the leaves into the clearing.

It’s Jean, tall and imposing as he marches into the clearing. His chest is heaving under his shirt, hair mussed from running through the autumn wind. You marvel at him, so large and threatening, eyes blown wide and flicking from one area to another suspiciously, looking. Looking for you.

“Pet?” Jean whirls around, a small smirk tugging at his lips. “Are you hiding from me?”

You don’t dare make a sound, positive that your heart is pounding so hard that if someone looked at your neck, they’d be able to see the frantic push and pull of your pulse through the skin. Jean surveys the area, narrowing his eyes at the brush where you’re hiding, but miraculously, turning his head the other way. You need to keep moving, especially considering that you’re so close to Jean, but with the increasingly small distance between you, there’s no way that you’ll be able to quietly sneak out of the brush. Just as you’re formulating a plan to wait and see which way he runs next, so you can run in the opposite direction, Jean’s eyes catch on something that makes your breath hitch.

“Uh-oh,” Jean exhales, stepping closer to you and crouching, his grin growing darker. When his hand comes back into your line of sight, you nearly gasp, one hand flying to the naked top of your head. He’s holding your beanie, grinning down at it. Hardly another moment passes before Jean’s eyes flicker to you, darkening as soon as you make eye contact through the leaves.

“Shit,” you breathe, scrambling back onto your hands and crawling desperately through the branches and leaves behind you, grimacing as a particularly sharp thorn scratches deep into your cheek.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jean laughs cruelly, jumping over the fallen tree trunk and towering over you as soon as you’ve escaped the brush. You stumble to your feet, but Jean’s quick, snagging you by the elbow before you can run off.

“Jean, please,” you gasp, looking up at him with wide, panicked eyes. It occurs to you that now that you’ve been caught, you’re not begging to be let go of– you’re begging to be held. Now that you’re so close to him, face to face with the shine of sweat on his collarbones, the rise and fall of his broad chest, your arousal is tangible, pumping through your veins thick like honey. You wet your lips, feeling the source of your panting move from your lungs to your core.

“Oh,” Jean’s bottom lip pushes out, “what’s the matter? Want to be my little princess again, is that it?”

“Uh-huh,” you nod frantically, looking over your shoulder and then Jean’s to see if Eren’s approaching to spoil your plan, “please Jean. Want to be your princess.”

“Aw,” Jean hums thoughtfully, cocking his head and looking down on you with pitying eyes for just long enough that you smile softly in relief, feel a rush of anticipation shoot through you. Unconsciously, you tilt your chin up, expectant and ready for him to catch you in a kiss. In the next instant, he’s gripping your arm even harder, with a jerk that makes your eyes water. “Too bad. You’re not my little princess out here.”

Your heart drops to your stomach, a clammy sweat breaking over your skin. Just as you’re about to plead one last time, Jean gives you a cruel smile.

“Eren! I’ve got her!” Jean shouts into the woods, turning his head over his shoulder to help the sound carry.

“Jean!” Your betrayal and frustration make your voice hoarse. Jean leans in to you, grinning wickedly.

“If I were you, I’d run. He’s not going to be nearly as nice as me.”

You wrench your arm out of his grasp, turning on your heel and darting further into the woods, grimacing at the feel of your wetness soaking through your panties. Jean’s footsteps are quick to catch up with you; or, at least, you think they’re Jean’s. You’re not going to break your stride to chance a look. You can’t outpace him, but you’re small and nimble enough that you think you may be able to outmaneuver him. You zigzag wildly through the trees, and it seems to be working, as Jean’s footsteps grow softer and softer behind you. Your lungs burn and your eyes water viciously, but you don’t dare relinquish the small distance you’ve managed to put between yourself and Jean, forcing your aching muscles to push harder and harder.

Suddenly, you spot it: a treehouse, with a little wooden ladder dangling from the bottom. It sounds like Jean’s footsteps are far enough behind you to afford you plenty of time to scramble up the ladder, at the very least to plan your next move. It wouldn’t be so bad if he saw you, either; the treehouse, as derelict as it may look, affords a nice sheltered spot for Jean to corner you in…

Your feet make the decision before your mind has the chance to catch up, and you’re beelining towards the treehouse, approaching it quickly. When you step on the first rung of the ladder, you feel the porous, rotten wood give a little underneath your weight, but the pounding of footsteps approaching urges you on. You make it two more steps up when one of the treacherous wooden rungs snaps under the pressure.

“Shit!” You squeal, clutching the ladder harder in an attempt not to tumble to the forest floor. You persevere, looking forward to whatever could await you if the boys were to follow you up to the treehouse. Two more steps up and you’re halfway there, but a pair of strong arms lock around your waist and pull you towards the ground with a harsh yank, ripping a yelp from your throat.

“Not a bad try,” you instantly recognize Eren’s voice, but what you don’t recognize is the rasp to it, the gravelly, dark tone, “but you didn’t really think you could run from me, did you?”

You thrash so violently that you think you must have hit him, because he drops you suddenly with a hiss. As soon as your feet hit the ground you take a few blind, wobbly steps in the opposite direction, only to run smack into Jean’s chest. You look up, wide, watery eyes blinking at Jean as your dizzied brain tries to grasp onto what’s at hand. You’re caught. They caught you.

“Going somewhere?” Jean sneers, grabbing you by your wrists and whipping you around to face Eren. The sight you’re greeted with has you squeezing your thighs together, a thick swallow sliding down your throat.

Eren’s eyes are blown wide, the bottomless black of his pupils nearly eclipsing the beautiful green you’re used to admiring. There’s a little sheen of sweat covering him, making him almost glow in the late afternoon light, and the veins in his neck are prominent with his heavy breathing. He runs his tongue over the now-split portion of his lip, courtesy of you, smearing a bit of blood over his mouth, and drags his eyes along every inch of you like he isn’t quite sure where he wants to start.

“I thought I told you to run,” Jean says, hot and taunting against the shell of your ear, “but it didn’t look like you tried very hard. Almost makes me think you wanted to be caught.”

“Of course she did,” Eren answers for you, stepping forward to run a thoughtful thumb across your cheek, making you flinch when he brushes over a cut on your face, “you want to get fucked, don’t you?”

You’re not sure what to do, whether you should nod your head enthusiastically or choke out a stuttered word of confirmation or maybe bite back; you feel frozen, overwhelmed by their looming figures and the fiery hot adrenaline still pumping through your veins. Eren decides for you, rubbing his thumb over your lips, and shoving it into your mouth. A coppery taste washes over your tongue, and you realize it’s your blood, fresh from the cut on your face. You suck his thumb in obediently, let him fishhook his thumb in your cheek, tugging your mouth this way and the other. Eren spits right in your mouth, nearly missing and splattering it all over your chin and cheeks.

“Nasty little bitch,” Eren snarls, shoving his mouth to yours.

What he does to you can barely be described as a kiss; it’s more like Eren devouring you. Teeth clack together, his tongue shoves into your mouth so violently you nearly bite down in your surprise. Eren sucks your tongue into his mouth, groaning low and hungry when you whimper.

“You taste good,” Eren murmurs hurriedly into your mouth, biting harshly on your lip and grinning against you when it makes you whine, “can taste the blood from that cut on your cheek.”

Jean stutters out a groan from behind you, his restraining grip on your wrists tightening. You feel his mouth begin to venture down your neck much like it had before, but his teeth are more demanding as they sink into your soft skin this time, more intent on taking, on marking you. One of Eren’s hands finds its way to your chest, grabbing harshly at your breast through your shirt. The ache of his strong fingers makes your back arch towards him, a breathless gasp leaving your lips.

“Show me,” Eren pants, finally backing away from you and ripping at your tank top, yanking it towards your head. There’s a shiny mixture of saliva and your blood staining his chin pink; shamefully, it makes a fresh rush of heat fly through your body, makes the wetness collecting between your thighs that much more prominent.

“We’re outside–” you try to protest, but a corrective slap to your ass from Jean shuts you up.

“No one’s around,” Jean says, mouth back on your shoulder as soon as Eren’s removed the offending garment from you, “it’s just us.”

“No one’s going to hear you scream,” Eren voices what you’re thinking with a nasty grin, bringing a hand to each of the cups of your bra and gripping the plush fabric hard enough to turn his knuckles white, tearing the connective fabric with a loud rip. 

“Eren!” You squeal in surprise, practically jumping in Jean’s arms.

“That’s it,” Eren groans, leaning down and lathing his tongue across a deep cut above your right breast, something you hadn’t noticed in your fearful escape from the bush earlier, “let me fucking hear you.”

Jean’s got your wrists contained in one of his large hands, not minding the swing of your ruined bra around each of your arms, reaching his other hand around your waist to fiddle desperately with the clasp of your jeans.

“Eren,” he says sharply, drawing Eren’s attention to the fact that your pants are still on. Eren smirks.

“Pick her up,” he answers, voice gravelly. Jean lifts you off the ground, your back pressed to his chest, feet dangling in the air. Eren rips both of your boots off, tossing them to the forest floor. Still pissed about your bra, truthfully, you jerk a foot out harsh enough to hurt him if it should make contact, trying to keep your movement spastic enough to make it look like an accident. Eren dodges and looks at you murderously, returning to his full height to grab your chin harshly.

“Did you just try to fucking kick me?” His forehead is pressed nearly to yours, voice low. Busted.

“You tore my bra.” Your voice has none of the conviction you were trying to find in the depths of your chest, coming out breathy and weak. A sound that can only be described as a snarl rips from Eren’s chest.

“Yeah, I fucking did,” Eren smacks your cheek just hard enough to stun you, make sure you’re really listening to him, “we caught you. Understand that? We’re going to do what we want with you because you’re ours. Keep smarting off, and I’ll rip your panties off next and shove ‘em in that bratty mouth of yours. Got it?”

Speechless, you nod desperately, squirming as the heat between your legs begins to grow unbearable, that tacky, sticky arousal surely beginning to leak down your thighs at this point. Eren makes quick work of your jeans and your underwear, hissing appreciatively as your panties stick to the wetness between your thighs.

“You’re so wet, pet,” Jean reaches around to swipe his hand through your folds. That alone is enough to make your knees buckle, make a wanton moan slip out from your lips.

“I–I want– oh.” You try and fail to articulate a sentence, cut off entirely by a loud groan when Eren’s teeth sink into the supple skin of your breast. Eren grins around the mouthful of flesh he holds between his teeth, raising his eyebrows at how riled up you already are.

“Pitiful little thing,” Jean chuckles, voice husky, “look how bad she wants it.”

Jean reaches down and shoves two fingers straight into your slick cunt, ripping a strangled moan out of your throat. Your hips buck into his hand of their own accord, desperate, tinny whines and whimpers leaving your mouth in quick succession. The stretch of Jean’s fingers is so welcome after all the build-up, that you don’t think you could put it into words if you tried. On behalf of your useless mouth, your body makes a great show of trying to show them just how good their attention feels, rolling and rocking into their touch, no matter how harsh.

Eren digs his fingers into the fat of your hips, your thighs, your ass, gripping you close to him and biting into whatever flesh of your upper body that he can reach as hard as he can, surely coming close to drawing blood. They aren’t the type of bites that require suction and the lathing of a tongue to soothe and leave hickeys; no, these are the type of bites that bruise on impact, little purple half-moons of teeth marks decorating your arms, shoulders, and breasts.

Jean coos in your ear approvingly each time your hips cant towards his hand, seeking more and more friction as the knot in your stomach tightens with each curl of his fingers. You can feel him pressing into your lower back, hard and promising, and your pussy flutters around his fingers at the thought of being split open by him, by Eren, by anything more that they’re willing to give you.

“Want to fuck her,” Eren huffs, “she close?”

“She’ll cum soon,” Jean affirms, licking through the shell of your ear delicately. You revel in the way they talk about you as if you’re not here, as if you possess no consciousness worthy of interacting with. You feel stripped of your higher thought processes, reduced into some pathetic, pliant creature only in search of pleasure– and you love it.

“Please,” you attempt to beg, only to be silenced by Eren’s long fingers wrenching their way down your throat.

“Stop talking,” Eren grumbles around a mouthful of your flesh, “pets don’t talk, do they?”

That draws a heady whine from you, your hips twitching forwards into Jean’s hand eagerly, a blatant attempt to pull forth the orgasm that’s been brewing between your hip bones for the last five minutes. Jean chuckles at your struggles, works his fingers just a bit faster.

“Go on,” Jean whispers, “it’s just us out here. Be as loud as you want, pet. We’re going to need you good and wet, so go ahead, cum hard for us.”

“C’mon, what are you waiting for? Fucking cum already.” Eren echoes Jean’s sentiment from your breasts, licking at another smear of blood just under your nipple.

Your body thrashes in their grip, begging for and yet resistant to the overwhelming waves of pleasure wracking through it. Loud squeals escape from your full mouth, even from where Eren’s got your lips stretched wide around three of his bulky fingers.

“Let us see what you can do, pet,” Jean murmurs, thick and warm against your ear, “just for us, come on.”

With one more vicious curl of Jean’s fingers, your back is arching violently, a muffled scream echoing into the canopy of trees around you as your release hits you hard. You can feel the wetness smearing between your thighs, feel the effort Jean’s exerting into keeping you still and in one place as you buck against him. Eren growls in approval and sinks to his knees, biting harshly into your thigh before sucking your clit into his mouth. That only serves to make you fight harder, the overstimulation getting the better of you.

Eren’s only able to lap at the sensitive folds between your legs for a moment before your twitching thighs threaten to knock him in the head, jerking closed of their own accord. Eren chuckles and smacks the inside of your leg a few times, rising to his feet and smirking at you.

“You squirming? Too much?” Eren sneers, gripping your jaw in his hand and forcing you to keep your half-lidded eyes on him. You push against his grip as hard as you can to shake your head no, earning yourself a pleased glimmer amongst the darkened green of his eyes. “More? You want more?”

When you nod frantically, Eren grins so wide his canines wink at you in the setting sun, flits his gaze over your shoulder to meet Jean’s eye.

“Get her on the ground.”

Jean complies, forcing you to your hands and knees in the dirt. Something about being so exposed, bare and open for them in the ground like this, has your blood running hot in an entirely new way. Neither of them have taken so much as their outer layer off, pinning you between them like…like their little pet. You can feel yourself grow even wetter; it may as well be dripping down your thighs at this point. You hear one of them kneeling behind you, can feel the head of a cock swiping through the mess between your legs.

“So fucking wet,” Eren hisses from over your shoulder, grabbing at your hips and kneading the skin. A hand comes to your chin, tilts your head up.

“Open up, pet,” Jean says, biting into his bottom lip. Obediently, you drop your jaw, tongue out, and blink up at him invitingly, more than eager for the weight of him in your mouth. Jean groans at the sight, slipping the tip of his drooling cock onto your tongue. You swipe your tongue over the tip, eyes rolling back at the taste of salt and sweat and Jean. Jean wastes no time in pushing to the back of your throat, tapping your gag reflex.

Any hope you had of suppressing the cough that threatens you when Jean pushes into your throat is ripped away by Eren shoving himself into you from behind, pushing you an inch too far down Jean’s cock and making you retch.

“All stuffed full of cock, aren’t you?” Eren grunts, driving into you and setting a brutal pace off the bat. You’re powerless to do much else besides squeal and whine around Jean’s cock, punctuating your muffled moans with the occasional gag when Jean taps the back of your throat.

Jean spits several times into the palm of his hand, never losing his pace thrusting into your mouth. If you had any more presence of mind, you’d frown up at him questioningly, but any doubts about his intentions are resolved when he leans over you, spreading his spit over your asshole.

“I want to take her too,” Jean says to Eren, who leans down to spit directly on your only unoccupied hole, lubing you up, “get her ready.”

Eren only offers an affirmative grunt, circling your hole a few times before pushing his thumb in up to the hilt; you’d taken them both only last night, so you don’t require all that much prep, but Eren’s thick fingers are a shock all the same. You squeal around Jean, who shushes you and runs his fingers soothingly along the crown of your head. You lean into his gentle touch, only for him to tighten his grip around the tangled wreck of your hair and shove you down onto his cock harder.

“Told you you’re not my princess anymore,” Jean chuckles darkly above you, driving his hips forward to the same rhythm Eren pounds into you from behind, “not out here.”

Eren’s been busying himself preparing your asshole, up to what feels like three fingers, but with the girth of Eren’s hands, you can never be sure. To have every bit of you full and used is an out of body experience; it’s not something you don’t experience regularly with the both of them, but to be taken so brutally out in the open, to be fucked in such an animalistic way, nearly shuts your brain off.

Eren gives you a few final thrusts before pulling himself entirely from you, causing Jean to follow suit and leaving you empty and whining. You’re tugged to your feet before you can even begin to form a sentence to beg for them back, stumbling in the crunchy leaves under your feet. Eren scoops you into his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist to keep you firmly pressed to him.

His cock drags along the folds between your legs, and he presses his forehead to yours, short, heavy breaths leaving him in huffs.

“Ready, pet?” Eren mutters into your open, waiting mouth, “ready to take what you were made for?”

Before you can offer anything more than a half-hearted plea, Jean is pressing into you, the all-consuming stretch of him rendering you mute. Eren never stops boring his gaze into yours, something sparking and spitting and wanting in his eyes, demanding more from you. He drinks down your squeal of surprise, spreads your ass cheeks open so Jean can get at you deeper, digging into depths you rarely find yourself aware of.

“She’s still so tight,” Jean growls, sinking his teeth into your neck, smiling around the mouthful when you moan wantonly.

“Give him some more, hm?” Eren, forehead still tacky and stuck to yours, grabs for Jean’s hand, angling it under your mouth. Through your desperate little hiccups of pleasure, you understand; you spit into Jean’s hand, opening your mouth so that a thick line of drool can slick his fingers up further. Eren grins, evil and satisfied. “Good job, pet.”

Jean uses the saliva you’ve given him to wet the last few inches of himself, pushing in to the base with a loud groan. You can almost feel the tangible eye contact they exchange; they love to look at each other unraveling when they’re inside you. “Your turn.”

Eren—no, Jean?—digs his fingers into your hips, making you whimper at the thought of the bruises sure to follow his grip, slides his cock into you slowly and forcefully, like he’s proving a point. The stretch of him– no, of both of them inside you, isn’t anything new, but in this setting, after all the build-up? You’re wailing, openly, your cries echoing off the trees as you thrash in their firm hold, overstimulated and overwhelmed and overpleasured all at once.

“Sh, sh,” Jean shushes you sternly, pinning your head back against his shoulder with a firm fist to the nape of your neck, “take it, don’t fight it.”

“Feel so fucking good, pet,” Eren says gruffly, giving a tentative half-thrust and making all of you moan, “like you’re fucking made for taking cock.”

“She is,” Jean coos, beginning to rock into you in the same easy rhythm as Eren, “just look at her. Not one thought behind those pretty eyes.”

He’s right; your eyes have glazed over entirely, mouth hanging ajar as they take and take and take from you. You can feel an orgasm quickly taking shape in the pit of your stomach, wrapping around itself and squeezing, threatening to pull you under. You’re so blissed out you can’t even be sure of what you’re feeling. Full, exposed, primal, half-conscious; all of those words surely would make the list if you could pull any of them to the front of your mind at the moment.

Your thighs are quivering around Eren’s waist, tightening viciously around his hips as they drive into you, suspending you between two walls of hard muscle. You know your cunt follows suit when Eren groans loudly, jaw dropping slightly.

“Feels good, doesn’t it? Slutty little thing,” Eren grunts against you, eyes flicking back and forth between you and Jean, “begging to get your cunt filled like a bitch in heat.”

“That is what you want, isn’t it?” Jean practically whispers into your ear, words wrapping around the knot in your stomach and holding it together, “want to get bred, don’t you, pet?”

Eren’s eyes go wide for just a moment, his gaze fixated on Jean. You can feel him pause briefly, twitch inside of you, and then before even a full second has passed, Eren’s determined scowl has twisted his face again, and he’s hammering into you like his life depends on it.

“Is that what you want?” Eren demands of you, eyeing you.

“Tell him,” Jean says to you, like the devil on your shoulder, “tell him how badly you want it. Go on.”

“I–I–” The tears running down your face collect in your mouth, making you hiccup and spit and choke on your words. Eren grabs your face fiercely, forcing you to look at him.

“Say it,” Eren snarls, “tell me you want this slutty pussy stuffed full of cum, our cum.”

“I want your cum,” you whimper pathetically, words stuttering and tripping as they spill from your swollen lips, “want to be full of it, want to get bred.”

“Fuck,” Eren nearly throws his head back, somehow moving his hips faster. Your legs dangle uselessly beside him; every muscle in your body contracts and relaxes wildly as your orgasm sinks its claws into you, threatens to pull you under. The only things tethering you to your body at this point are Eren’s eyes on you, bright and feral, and Jean’s hands around your hips, keeping you in place for them to pound into. You can feel the tidal wave coming up in your throat, your moans and whines growing more and more frantic, your head feeling lighter with each passing moment.

“Such a good girl– good little pet for us,” Jean slurs, hips beginning to falter in their rhythm, “show us how bad you want our cum, let us feel you–fuck–”

“So fucking good,” Eren laughs almost hysterically as you finally snap and cum around them, slapping your face lightly and egging you on, “there she goes.”

Every nerve ending in your body feels like it’s on fire, little shocks of electricity flying down your limbs and making you jerk and flail and contract. You can feel your fingers digging into the skin of Eren’s biceps until they meet something wet and warm, and you know you’ve drawn blood, but you’re spiraling through rapturous pleasure so intensely that you couldn’t release your grip if you tried.

The way you tighten viciously around them has Jean falling over the edge right after you, his hips stuttering and coming to a still pressed against you. He tugs your face to the side, pulling you in for a sloppy, honestly disgusting, kiss, panting heavily into your mouth and mouthing around praises that he’s too spent to fully pronounce. You can feel Eren’s eyes on you both, feel the way his thrusts are starting to grow more frantic. Jean turns your face to meet Eren’s gaze, resting his head on your shoulder.

“Look at her, Eren,” Jean shakes your face a little for emphasis, “needs cum in both her holes, not just one.”

As if to emphasize his statement, Jean pulls out of you, a gush of his cum joining the mess between your legs. Eren throws his head back and groans, nods urgently.

“Said we’d stuff her full, right? Breed her? That’s what she wants, isn’t it, pet?” Jean sneers, landing a smack to your cheek.

“Uh-huh,” you babble mindlessly, body trembling with the force of the aftershocks of your orgasm, “p-please Eren, breed me, I need it–”

“Gonna cum in you,” Eren pants, grabbing your hair so hard you wince, “can you take it? Take all of it ‘til you’re bred and full of me?”

“Yes,” you whimper, nodding against him, “yes, please, I–”

“Give it to her,” Jean’s fisted his hand at the nape of Eren’s neck now, pulling all of you so close that you’re drinking down each other’s breaths, “she’s worked so hard for it, give her what she needs.”

That’s all it takes; Jean’s encouragement has Eren spilling inside you with a lengthy, choked groan. With what little energy you have left, you pepper soft kisses along his neck, knowing how his muscles must be burning with how they’re twitching under his skin. Eren’s fingers are digging into you so hard it hurts, already aching, but you let him cling to you, ride out his orgasm as Jean threads his fingers through the hairs at the base of Eren’s neck soothingly.

You all stay this way for a moment, Jean supporting the majority of your body weight as Eren begins to sag into you, arms wrapped tightly around your waist. The breeze swirls by, leaving cold kisses on every inch of your bare skin, reminding you that you’re out in the open, making you miss your sweater.

“Guys?” You speak feebly into the crisp air, blinking sleepily.

“Holy shit,” Eren laughs breathlessly into the crook of your shoulder, pulling you close to him in a sticky hug, “that was–”

“Crazy,” Jean agrees with a disbelieving chuckle, helping you down onto your shaky legs.

“I am…very naked.” You point out weakly, swaying on your sore thighs. Jean’s quick to slide an arm around your shoulders and tug you to him, while Eren wrangles his hoodie over his head to offer you.

“There’s not another house for five miles in either direction,” Jean assures you, lifting your arms so that Eren can pull his hoodie over you, “wouldn’t ever let anybody see you like this, you know that.”

“Better?” Eren, still a little winded, tugs the hoodie down around your thighs, looking you over. He swipes a thumb across the cut on your cheek, an impish smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We really roughed you up, didn’t we? I’m sorry, angel.”

“I liked it.” Your eyes are already falling shut; you barely have the energy for a sleepy smile when Eren presses his lips to your hairline. Jean scoops you up into his arms; all the cardio that he does at the gym is making itself known.

“Was it good, princess? Have fun?” Jean murmurs against your forehead.

“So much fun.” You open one eye to see Jean and Eren glance at each other, see the spark of love between them. It comforts you; even amongst the near-constant shivers wracking through your body, the warmth of their presence and the steady rocking of Jean’s steps lull your eyes shut.

“Thank god she ended up running just about to the backyard,” Eren huffs from somewhere to your right, still sounding very much like he hasn’t caught his breath, “I’m fuckin’ beat.”

“It’s because you don’t do enough cardio, bro.” You can hear Jean’s insistent eyebrow raise and visualize Eren’s answering eye roll, chuckling to yourself in Jean’s arms.

“Cardio’s for bitches, I’m bulking right now–”

“Did you listen to anything the team trainer said in college? Honestly–”

“That was three years ago–”

Somewhere amongst their arguing you doze off, letting yourself go limp in Jean’s arms. When you wake again, Jean’s walking you up a flight of stairs, angling you this way and the other to avoid hitting your head on the railing. Jean flits his eyes down towards you and acknowledges your consciousness with a soft smile, carrying you into a bedroom and sitting you on the bed. Wordlessly, Jean and Eren go about their usual routine of cleaning up after a particularly rough session: Jean runs a bath while Eren fetches some antiseptic for the scratches on your face and arms, Eren nearly gets distracted when you start running your fingernails through his hair but Jean gets you both back on track, somehow fitting all three of you in the largest bathtub you’ve ever seen.

Before you know it, you’ve been scrubbed clean, all the grime gone from your skin and the twigs pulled from your hair, and sandwiched between Eren and Jean under a heavy duvet.

“All better, right?” Eren murmurs against your forehead, pressing a kiss to it.

“All better,” you hum, nuzzling into his chest, “but I don’t want to waste the weekend. We’re only here until Sunday– do we really need to nap?”

“I threw dinner into the smoker while Eren was drying you off,” Jean says, words floating over your shoulder from where he’s curled up behind you, “we have at least two hours ‘til it’s cooked through properly.”

“And you need a nap,” Eren grins mischievously, “you had a big afternoon.”

“I’m not the only one,” you giggle up at him, “I heard you wheezing on the walk back.”

Eren scowls, only to have the furrow in his brow smoothed over by Jean’s thumb. You watch in awe as he instantly melts into Jean’s palm, such a volatile man so easily soothed by a gentle touch. As Eren’s mood begins to settle, you feel the atmosphere in the room change; the blankets feel just a bit heavier, the rise and fall of Jean’s chest against your back quells your breathing into the same rhythm, and the circles Eren’s thumb is rubbing into your hip have your eyes beginning to flutter.

“Naps for all three of us,” Jean says, leaving no room for argument, "I set an alarm. I won’t let you sleep through the weekend, I promise."

Something about the warmth and familiarity tucked under the covers with the three of you has your mind ambling on towards sleep, even after your weak attempts to protest. As you drift off, you can hear the quiet, wet noises of Jean and Eren exchanging a goodnight kiss above your head, feel the reassuring squeeze of their arms around your waist, the brush of lips against the nape of your neck, the tip of your nose. There’s a little murmured “I love you” from each of them, and though your mouth wants to form the words to respond, all you’re able to manage is a soft, contented smile as you drift off.

[mrprettywhenhecries]

run rabbit, run [g.t]

Gator Tillman ✘ Win Lewis (OC)

✝︎ w.c. 3.7k words ✝︎ a/n. I wanted to write a few spooky oneshots for kinktober, focusing on kinks I've never written before, and this is (hopefully 🤞) the first of three. ✝︎ tags/warnings. canon x oc pairing, fem!oc, predator/prey, hair pulling, spitting degradation, spanking, rough sex, unprotected p in v sex, outdoor sex, creampie, slight gunplay (if you squint) ✝︎ credit. barbed wire divider {x}

After a disappointing corn maze, Gator proposes a more thrilling game and Win is all too willing to play.

[ masterlist • win bio ]

“Oh my God, that was so lame,” Win exclaimed, though she wore a grin on her face as she and Gator stepped out of the corn maze, the sound of screams and laughter punctuating the night air behind them.

“You can’t tell me you weren’t scared,” Gator scoffed, slinging an arm around her shoulders when he noticed her shiver and pull her thin jacket closer.  “You screamed your head off and hid behind me every time someone in a mask jumped out at us,” he pointed out, scowling as some teenagers pushed past, nearly running into him.

Win jerked her chin defiantly and shot him a sharp look.  “I’m not saying I wasn’t scared,” she huffed, “but there’s a difference between a cheap scare, like a jump scare and true terror,” she insisted, leading Gator toward the exit, the scent of popcorn and sweet roasted pecans from the food carts nearby surrounding them.

“You’re the only person I know that actually likes being scared,” Gator snorted, stopping to get Win a caramel apple for the road.

“It’s not that weird,” she huffed, climbing into the passenger seat of his truck.  “As long as you’re not in any real danger, it can be pretty exciting.”

“Guess that makes sense,” Gator mused, twisting his key in the ignition.  “I’ve heard fear can be an aphrodisiac too,” he added, glancing over at her pointedly.

“Oh, you’ve heard that, have you?” Win laughed, freeing her treat from it’s plastic wrapping and giving it a taste.

Gator tilted his head, lifting a shoulder in a half shrug, though a smirk played at the corner of his mouth.  

“It’s not like I didn’t have fun though,” Win added, laying her arm across the console to thread her fingers between Gator’s, smiling softly when he gave her hand a squeeze.  “I just wished it would’ve had more… ambience.”

Gator nodded to himself as an idea took root.

“What’re we doing here?” Win asked, sitting up straighter in her seat as Gator turned onto the lane to the ranch.

“Just gotta grab a couple things from the house real quick,” Gator answered cryptically, pulling up in front of the dark farmhouse.  “Be right back,” he assured her as he threw the truck in park and jumped out, hurrying up to the porch and disappearing inside.

A minute later, the front window on the second floor lit up and Win could see Gator’s shadow moving about his room.  It only took him a few more minutes before the light switched off and he was back out the door and striding toward the truck, carrying something in his hand.  It wasn’t until he yanked the door open that Win realized what it was.

“Is that a paintball gun?” she asked, unable to keep the incredulity from her voice, noting that he’d only grabbed one.

“Yep.”  Gator answered simply, stowing the gun in the backseat and tossing Win his heavy camo hoodie.  “Put that on,” he instructed, climbing back behind the wheel and turning the truck around. "You're gunna need it."

“Gator, what are we doing?” Win huffed, though she shrugged off her jacket to pull the sweatshirt over her head.  Gator’s scent still clung to it and she took a moment to bury her nose in the soft fabric, breathing him in.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he replied, wearing a smug grin.

He didn’t drive far, their destination only a few miles from the ranch, and Gator pulled off onto a narrow dirt path nestled between a patch of woods and a corn field, parking just out of sight of the road.

“Now are you gunna tell me what we’re doing?” Win asked, peering out the window as Gator cut the engine, excitement prickling her insides.

“Well, you said you wanted to be scared,” he answered, turning to look at her, his lips curving impishly.

“I did say that,” Win mused, wetting her lips, anticipation bubbling in her stomach.

“I thought we could play a little game,” Gator continued, arching an amused brow at her from under the brim of his cap before pushing his door open and grabbing the paintball gun.

“And what sort of game would that be?” Win asked, hurrying to follow him, thankful for his hoodie as she left the warmth of the truck cab, though the trees helped to cut the wind some.

Gator checked something on his gun before answering, stepping into Win’s space to smirk down at her.  

“I’ll be the predator... and you’ll be the prey,” he drawled, watching her through hooded eyes.  “I’ll even give you a two minute head start.”

Win swallowed, her eyes darting to the gun in his hand.  “You’re not gunna actually shoot me with that, are you?”

Gator shrugged.  “Not if you’re quick enough.”

The condescension in his voice made her squirm, annoyed at how much it turned her on.

“And what exactly are you gunna do when you catch me?” she asked, stepping closer, a challenge flashing in her stormy eyes.

Gator’s lips twitched, pleased at her choice of words.

“Guess you’ll just have to find out,” he drawled, the promise in his heavy lidded gaze sending heat pooling low in Win’s stomach.

“Ready for your head start?”

“You better give me the full two minutes,” she warned, and Gator started a timer on his watch.

“You better get going,” he exclaimed, and Win took off, sprinting for the treeline, glad for the cloudless sky and the nearly full moon hanging overhead.

Even after passing under the cover of the foliage, the night was still light enough that she could easily see the path ahead, though it occurred to her that that would only make it easier for Gator to see her as well.

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath, stopping to scan her surroundings–she needed to find some place to hide, and quick.

She could feel the seconds slipping away and though she knew it was only a glorified game of hide and seek and it was only Gator hunting her, her heart fluttered like a rabbit’s, hammering against the inside of her ribcage while her pulse thundered in her ears, the adrenaline flooding her making her feel alive.

Spotting a large bush growing next to a cluster of trees a few yards away, Win hurried toward it, dropping to her knees to crawl under its branches just as she heard Gator’s voice in the distance.

“Your two minutes are up, Winnie!  I’m comin’ for ya.”

The crunch of Gator’s boots grew louder as he approached and Win shrank back further into the bushes, holding her breath and hoping the shadows were deep enough to obscure her.  Somewhere overhead an owl cried and Gator stopped mere feet from her hiding place, his head swiveling, searching, and part of Win itched to jump from the brush and take him by surprise, turning the tables just to prove she could—but then she’d lose the satisfaction of being caught.  

And for once, she wanted to be caught.

But that didn’t mean she wanted to make it easy for him.

After what felt like an eternity, Gator finally moved on, holding his gun at the ready.  Once he was out of sight, Win slipped out from her cover, hesitating long enough to crane her head the way he’d gone before sneaking off in the opposite direction, picking her way carefully through the underbrush.

Confident she’d lost him, she let out the breath she’d been holding and began moving faster, less carefully, thinking to double back toward the truck when a loud snap–almost deafening in the silence–echoed through the woods and she froze, her blood running cold as she looked down at the broken stick beneath her foot.

“Fuck,” she grimaced, straining to listen for Gator’s footsteps over the rush of blood in her ears, foolishly hoping he’d been far enough out of earshot to have heard her blunder.

Two sharp cracks ripped through the silence, exploding bright green against the tree next to her and a startled cry burst from her lungs, jolting her into motion.  Without a second thought, she took off sprinting, realizing too late that she was being forced out of the woods and toward the cornfield.  If she turned to run along the drive between the two, his next shot surely wouldn’t miss–for all of Gator’s shortcomings, marksmanship wasn't one of them.

Breaking out of the treeline, Win leapt headlong into the corn rows as she heard Gator fire off another couple rounds.  Though the dry corn was harder to move stealthily through, it was better than no cover at all.

Angling her body to maneuver through the narrow rows, the brittle corn leaves whipped against her face, forcing her to slow and it wasn’t long before Gator could be heard behind her.

“Where are ya, Winnie?” he called, whistling for her like a dog, and she could practically hear the smug smirk playing at his lips.  “It’s no use tryin’ to hide.  You know I’m gunna find you.”

Win stopped, gasping for breath, and turned to listen for the rustle of corn as Gator stalked her, trying to get an idea of how close he was, which direction he was coming from.

“C’mon Win, we both know how much you want me to catch you.  For such a feisty bitch, you sure like it when I have you helpless.  Bet it has you drippin’ just thinkin’ about it,” he drawled, using the barrel of his gun to part the stalks as he prowled the rows, searching for her.

A harsh gasp left her lips as she caught a flash of movement to her right and Win quickly clapped a hand over her mouth and dropped, crouching low, hoping Gator would be more focused on what was ahead of him rather than scanning the ground.

“When I catch you, I’m gunna fuck you like the little whore you are, right out in the middle of the woods–”

A soft groan caught in Win’s throat at the thought, desire pulsing through her, but as much as she wanted it, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.  After all, the chase, the mounting tension, only made it that much hotter.

Keeping an eye on the spot she’d seen movement, Win began to creep forward slowly, circling Gator’s position as she fought to avoid rustling the stalks too much, hoping his own movement would mask any sounds she made. 

“How long you plan on keeping this up for?” Gator called, stopping once more to scan the field, tilting his head to listen.

Win grimaced, her jaw clenching as her shoulder brushed against a stalk, the leaves rustling loudly in the sudden silence and Gator’s head snapped toward her.

“Gotcha.”

Giving up on stealth, Win scrambled in the dirt for purchase, pushing herself up to make a break for it, Gator right on her heels.

She could hear his breath loud in her ears, or was it her own?

For one brief moment the moon shone brightly overhead before she was back in the woods, the moonlight filtering down in patches amid the shadows.  Not daring to look back over her shoulder, she weaved through the trees, her heart pounding hard in her chest.  For a moment she thought she might outrun Gator, not quite as fast as he once was back before his football accident, until she tripped.

Catching a large root just right with the toe of her boot, time seemed to slow as she went sprawling, arms windmilling uselessly before landing hard on the ground with a grunt.

“Shit–” she hissed, hastily pushing herself to her feet, but it was too late.  

“Freeze.”

Something pressed into Win’s back between her shoulder blades and she froze, lifting her hands in surrender.

“Good girl,” Gator murmured behind her, his breath fanning across the back of her neck, sending a shiver racing down her spine.

Gator slowly circled her, a smirk tugging at lips.

“You ready to give up?  You put up a pretty good fight, but let’s face it, I’ve got you cornered, sweetheart,” he drawled, peering down his nose at her, radiating smug satisfaction as he trailed the muzzle of his gun between Win’s legs, his lips twitching as she squirmed.

There was a look in his eyes that thrilled her, that made her burn for him—her cunt aching for him to fill it.

“You gunna answer me?” he prompted and Win swallowed, slowly nodding.

“I give up.  You win,” she said, hanging her head so Gator couldn’t see the flash of defiance in her eyes.

As soon as he stepped closer, letting his guard down,—thinking he’d won—she struck, knocking the paintball gun from his hands and they struggled, tumbling to the ground.

Wrestling frantically, kicking at the dirt and leaves, the two rolled, grunting and panting, until Gator came out on top, his cap knocked from his head and his slicked back hair falling in his eyes as he pinned her by the wrists.

“Shit—“ he gasped, catching his breath as he held her still, hovering over her.  “Shoulda known you wouldn’t go down that easy,” he breathed, a pleased grin twisting his lips, turning pink from the cold.

“That’s my firecracker,” he chuckled, his heavy lidded eyes roaming her face.  “It’s so much hotter when you put up a fight,” he drawled, leaning in to kiss her deeply, his tongue demanding against hers and Win groaned as his cock throbbed against her hip, trapped beneath his cargo pants.

Gator echoed her moan as their tongues clashed and Win bit down hard on his lip, his moan turning to a hiss of pain.

“Ow, Jesus—“ he hissed, releasing one of her wrists to gingerly touch his lip, a trace of blood staining his fingertips, though a ghost of a smile curved his lips at her display of defiance.

“Now you’ve really done it,” he drawled, running his tongue along his bottom lip.

Win’s breath hitched as Gator sat up, his fingers fumbling at the button of her jeans, hastily working them down her hips along with her thin panties.  As soon as the chill air hit her bare skin, she gasped, but Gator only grinned, his gaze dropping to her exposed sex.

“Fuckin’ knew it,” he groaned, admiring the way her folds glistened wetly in the moonlight, dragging two fingers between them to gather her juices before lifting his hand to show her, pulling his fingers apart to watch her slick stretch between them in silvery strands.

“You’re fuckin’ drippin’, Winnie,” he drawled, pressing his fingers to her lips till she opened her mouth to suck them clean, moaning low in her throat at the taste.  “Looks like you’re enjoying this as much as I am.”

Win could only nod in response, swirling her tongue around his digits.  Gator’s head fell back with a groan as he palmed himself with his free hand – his cock beginning to strain painfully against the stiff fabric of his pants.

“Shit, you’re like a bitch in heat,” he muttered, swallowing thickly, and Win pulled his fingers from her mouth with a soft pop.

“Jesus Gator, you gunna fuck me or just talk about it?” Win huffed, her eyes flashing impishly.  “You’re supposed to be the predator, right?  Devour me,” she breathed, pushing up to her elbows as she held his lust drenched gaze.

“Fuck, I love you,” he breathed, rocking back on his heels to roll her onto her belly and hoist her onto all fours before fumbling his cock free, hissing at the cold.  Win gasped as Gator pressed between her shoulder blades, forcing her face down against the ground, ass still in the air, and her cunt throbbed at how easily he manhandled her.

“Be a good girl for me and stay still,” Gator grunted, grabbing the fat of her ass to part her cheeks, pursing his lips and spitting against her puckered hole.  Win gave a jerk, half pushing up, Gator’s name on her lips like a warning until her gave her ass a sharp swat, the palm of his hand stinging from the impact and Win gave another jolt, gasping in surprise.

“What’d I say about staying still?” he exclaimed, grabbing her hips to pull her back into position.  “I ain’t goin’ in that hole, so calm down,” he added in assurance.

“You better fuckin’ not,” Win muttered, but lowered her head obediently.

Gator grinned, caressing the red welt he’d left on her ass cheek before pausing to spit again, biting his lip as he watched his saliva roll between her folds to mix with the sticky arousal that was already practically dripping down her thighs.

Gripping his cock at the base, he guided the tip to her entrance, groaning as he pressed into her tight wet heat, watching raptly as she sucked him in, her greedy little cunt stretching around him like it was meant to take his cock.

Win echoed Gator’s moan, pressing her forehead to the ground as she arched back against him impatiently, urging him deeper, feeling every vein and ridge as she squeezed around him.

“Oh fuck– eager little rabbit, huh?” Gator panted, thrusting sharply the rest of the way, forcing a breathy gasp from Win’s lips as he bottomed out.  “C’mon, I know you can take me better than that,” he taunted, condescension dripping from his words as he thrust sharply into her again, tightening his grasp on her hips to hold her steady as he began to pound into her, his fingers digging into her flesh hard enough to bruise.

With each swift rut, Win’s body bounced forward with the impact, the lewd rhythmic slap of skin against skin filling the air, competing only with their heavy breaths and moans.

Digging her fingers into the earth, her cheek pressed to the cold ground, Win had never felt so deliciously helpless, so like an animal ensnared by its captor, unable to fight back even had she wanted to.  With each thrust, each jolt of her body, Gator’s cock dragged against that sensitive spot inside her that made her head swim, and she moaned, his name tumbling from her lips deliriously, uncaring about the noise in their seclusion.  She barely even felt the sting of the cold against her exposed flesh.  

“Fuck, Win—“ Gator groaned, almost a whine, his pleasure swiftly building, compressing the spring in his gut til he was afraid it might snap.  Tangling his hand in a fistful of her hair, he gave a sharp tug, forcing her head up as he leaned over her, his lips close to her ear.  

“Who owns this pussy?” he hissed, his breath hot against the curve of her jaw.

“You do—!“ Win gasped, the pain in her scalp mixing with the pleasure that coursed through her, hovering just out of reach.

“Damn straight,” Gator grunted, gritting his teeth, his movements growing jerky, desperate.  “You gunna be good and cum for me?” he asked, the strain in his voice evident.

Win tried to nod before remembering his grasp on her hair and she winced.  “Fuck, yes, please—“ she begged, wetting her lips, and it was all Gator needed to hear.

Desperate to push her over the edge, he released her hair to awkwardly wrap his arm around her, slipping his hand between her legs to search for her clit as he rut into her frantically, rubbing sloppy circles against her bundle of nerves.  The effect was nearly instantaneous, the added stimulation pushing her off the ledge and into the deep end, and Win came with a keening cry, her body tensing violently.  

“Shit, Win, fuckfuckfuckkkk—!” Gator echoed, falling headlong with her into the abyss, his hips stuttering as Win clenched impossibly tighter around him, milking him dry with each deep thrust until he finally stilled, cock still twitching as her walls pulsed and fluttered around him with the after shocks of her climax.

Panting heavily, he dropped his head to her shoulder with a ragged breath, his arm around her the only thing holding her up.  Despite the cold, sweat beaded on Gator’s forehead, his shirt sticking to him beneath his coat.

Win, however, trembled beneath him and he hastily pulled out of her, watching his spend seep from her spent hole for a moment before pushing it back between her folds with his fingers and pulling her panties back up.

“Can’t lose any of that, huh?” she chuckled weakly, pulling her jeans back up while Gator hastily tucked himself back into his cargo pants, still wet with their combined fluids. "Love the thought of you filled with me," he murmured. 

Once dressed, the two of them collapsed to the ground together, Win fitting against Gator’s side as if she was molded just for him, seeking any warmth she could find and he pulled her closer, pressing his lips to her forehead. 

“So, that was pretty fun,” he chuckled, looking down at her.

“Mhmm,” she hummed, glancing up at him through her eyelashes, his body heat not quite enough to chase away the chill that had seeped into her from the ground.  “Next time I wanna hunt you though,” she teased, shivering.

Gator snorted.  “Not a chance,” he replied, shaking his head, briefly wondering where his cap had fallen, the tip of his nose and ears growing numb from the cold.

“That’s not fair,” Win huffed lightly, snuggling closer, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in.

“Yeah it is,” Gator countered, frowning slightly at how she trembled in his arms.  “C’mon, let’s go back to the truck and warm up, and we can argue more about it when your teeth aren’t chattering.”

Win rolled her eyes, but nodded, letting Gator help her to her feet.  Crouching to snatch his hat and tug it back on his head, he grabbed his paintball gun from where Win had knocked it from his hands.

“Ready?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her close till they got to the truck. “Ready,” she agreed, clinging to him as they walked.  “But don’t think our discussion is over,” she warned lightly. 

“You just wanna shoot me with a paintball,” Gator snorted.

“Maybe,” Win conceded with a grin.  As much as she enjoyed being his prey, she couldn’t deny how much she liked the thought of hunting him next time.

✝︎ taglist. @super-unpredictable98 @heartbreak-sandwich @sailorskunk @thecatkingsthrone @thecreelhouse

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[jgmartin]

Subject 21

In light of Spooky Season, I thought I'd share the updated draft of Subject 21: a horror story about a bunker at the end of the world, and the terrifying entity contained within it.

I watch the sunset bleed.

Its outer edges drip like molten gold, and I hear the hiss of steam before I ever see the clouds rising from the arctic snow.

“Told you,” Raens says. He stops short of me, slings his rifle over his shoulder and folds his arms. He surveys the sunset like it’s a regular occurrence – an everyday thing. “There’s a reason this place is under lockdown.”

“So it’s true,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “No one’s left for three years.”

“Not a soul.”

I look back at the sun and a pit of unease grows in my stomach. The shape of it is all wrong. It’s pulsing, throbbing like a living thing, like some monster born of science fiction. “What about the guy I replaced?” I ask. “They let him leave, didn’t they?”

“Lentley?” Raens scratches the stubble along his jaw. “Suppose so. Flew him out last week, airlifted the kid home in a body bag.”

I wait for the punchline, for Raens to crack a smile and slap me on the back, maybe chide me for being so gullible, but instead he sighs, gazes out across the white expanse. “Got a wife?” he asks me.

“Not yet.”

He nods to himself, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

“You’re cut from the same cloth as him,” Raens says, words sharp as the arctic wind. “You’re an extra in your own story. No loose ends. No one to raise hell if you vanish. Same as Lentley. Same as the rest of us.”

“I mean, I’ve got family,” I protest.

“Sure,” he chuckles. “We all got family. The question is, do they give a damn about you?”

The question stings. It stings because I know the answer, but I can’t bring myself to put it into words. It’s enough to strangle our conversation before it ever gets a chance to breathe, and we spend the next hour standing silent in the fading glare of the sunset.

This is my life now, I realize. Watching over a compound at the end of the world, trading small talk with a sergeant twice my age.

“So,” Raens says, clearing his throat. “How much did they tell you about the bunker?”

I swivel my gaze, squinting through the gathering dusk toward a concrete sarcophagus rising from the snow. There’s a door in the center of it. Its blackened steel is covered in thick gashes painted in shades of rust.

“Not much,” I admit. “Just that it was off limits, and that I'd get court-martialed if I so much as stepped within a hundred yards.”

He smirks. “Figures.”

“Guess I'll go ahead and ask the obvious – any idea what's down there?”

Raens scrunches his brow, lips parting as if he’s about to speak but can’t quite find the words. It takes him a moment. When he finally finds his voice, it’s distant, hollow – somehow even emptier than the gray of his eyes. “Nightmares,” he murmurs. “That’s what they’re hiding down there. Weapons more terrible than you can imagine.”

My stomach twists as Raens’ looks to the bleeding, molten sunset. The implication is clear.

“Jesus,” I breathe. “Is this… Are we doing this to the sun, then?”

He shakes his head, thumbing toward the bunker. “No. Not us. That’ll be Dr. Cornel Thales, Chief of Research and Engineering on this frigid rock.”

I know the name. I'd heard it mentioned by the pilots when they shipped me out to this winter paradise. Thales was a genius apparently. Not your garden-variety savant, but the kind old comic books warned us about.

“I don’t get it. How'd he manage to weaponize the sun?”

"That ain't the real sun," Raens explains, looking toward the darkening sky. "The real one’s somewhere beyond those clouds. It’s later than you think.”

I tilt my head, studying the pulsating weapon on the horizon. “How's he build something like this, though? It’s incredible.”

“Theories float around. They always do. Some of the troops think Thales made a deal with the devil, others think he ain’t properly human.”

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Raens slips a pack of smokes from his parka, slides one between his lips. “I don’t get paid to think. You smoke?”

“Not lately.”

“Smarter than you look.”

He lights up, and for the first time, I’m realizing how ancient the man looks. His eyes are bloodshot, his face lined like a roadmap to exhaustion. I figure the last time he got a decent sleep was somewhere between the invention of the wheel and the fall of Rome.

“Never used to smoke,” he tells me, pocketing his lighter. “Bad habit with no real upsides, but then I got posted here and it was like I needed something – anything to look forward to.” He breathes out a plume, sucks it back through his nostrils. “Cigarettes became my breath of fresh air. Ain’t that funny?”

My mouth dips into a frown, unsure if any of this is funny.

We stand like that for a while longer, gazing across a white glacier shimmering beneath a molten sky.

“So, this is it,” I say, breath fogging the air in front of me. “You and I are just what – guarding some mad scientist until they ship us out in our own body bags, then?”

Raens’ lips twist into a smile. “Nah. We ain’t bodyguards. We’re tripwires for what Thales has down in that bunker.”

“Another weapon?”

He shakes his head, a haunted expression creeping onto his face. “Weapons are tools. You point ‘em at bad guys and the bad guys disappear, but what Thales has is different. You can’t aim it. Can’t control it. It doesn’t answer to us, and I doubt it ever will.”

A shiver crawls up my neck. “You’re talking about this thing like it’s alive.”

He shrugs. “Maybe it is. I’m not sure concepts like life or death even apply to it, though. What I can say is that it’s powerful. Powerful in a way that’s damn near impossible to describe.”

“If it’s so great, then why doesn’t it just break itself out?”

“Figure it doesn’t want to.”

“Huh.” The wind howls past us, carrying a haze of snowflakes toward the bunker. “This thing got a name?” I ask.

“Subject 21,” he says simply. “Word is, it’s practically catatonic. Never makes a fuss about anything. Barely even moves. Just stands in its cell and stares holes in the wall – sometimes literally, if you trust the radio chatter.”

What he’s describing sounds so absurd, like something out of a sci-fi novel. "Does it even breathe?” I say, half-joking. “Or is it beyond that, too?”

The sergeant ashes his cigarette with a tap of his finger. “If it feels like breathing, I suppose it could manage it. That’s the thing about S21 – what makes it so terrifying. It doesn’t have to do anything. It has no rules because it makes the rules, and all of us are just toys in its sandbox, ready to be played with whenever it pleases.”

I swallow. “The hell is Thales doing with this thing?”

“Killing it,” Raens tells me. “Or at least, trying to. He figures S21 is just sleeping, but he’s convinced it’ll wake up one day, and when that happens, we’ll all be royally fucked.”

Ice slithers through my veins.

“Imagine the Big Bang in reverse," Raens continues grimly. "Everything that ever was, wiped clean, with not even ashes left to mark our graves. That's what Thales believes is waiting for us on the other side of S21’s catnap.”

My chest tightens. The thought of this unfathomable creature being less than a mile away, locked up in a bunker beneath the ice feels surreal. Incomprehensible.

“So let me get this straight,” I say, thinking aloud. “This thing is powerful beyond all measure, liable to wipe out humanity the second it wakes up, and we don’t have the first idea how to stop it. What the hell is it? The damn devil?”

Raens grins. “If only. Probably be easier to deal with I’d wager.”

“You’re kidding. What’s worse than the devil?”

Raens squints toward the horizon, a far-away glint in his eyes. “You ever wonder what happened to God?”

“God…?”

“Sure. Jesus takes one for the team, then God just ups and vanishes, doesn’t he? There’s no sequel to the Bible, not even after a few thousand years. Strange, ain’t it?”

“Haven’t given it much thought,” I admit. “Always saw religion as more of a metaphor than literal history.”

“Well,” Raens says, his voice heavy with finality. “Now you know better.”

He steps off, trudging over the hill.

It takes a second for my mind to catch up, and then I’m scrambling after him, moving as gracefully as a newborn giraffe under my six layers of winter kit. “Hold up – are you saying Subject 21 is fucking God?”

The old man gives a noncommittal grunt. “That’s the troops’ theory, but they’d tell you the moon was made of cheese if it made for decent conversation. Anything to pass the time.”

“And what do you—” I catch myself, the words freezing on my tongue. “Right. You don’t get paid to think.”

Raens taps his temple, a wry smirk playing on his lips. "Quick study. And I might not get paid to think, but I still sneak in a little here and there – off the clock, of course." He winks, and it might be the most human he’s ever looked. “There have been... incidents. Might lend some credence to the gossip around the barracks. It all started when—”

A clarion cry rings out, stealing Raens’ attention. He scowls, pulling back the sleeve of his parka to check the watch on his wrist.

“Something wrong?” I ask, peering warily across the snowdrifts.

“Not yet,” he says through gritted teeth.

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

Raens catches the worry in my face, and he sighs. Claps a hand on my shoulder. "Listen, kid. This is your first day on the job, so I won’t rush things. Not like I did with Lentley. Just try to enjoy the ignorance while it lasts."

I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off.

"Trust me,” he says, and the words fall from his lips like a judge's gavel.

We keep moving. Our boots crunch through the snow as we make our way toward the watch-turnover location: a crooked radio tower a mile out, its steel frame glinting in the glare of the false sun.

“So, these weapons,” I press, still hungry for answers. “Have any of them of so much as put a dent in S21?”

“They aren’t for S21.”

“Then who—”

A bone-rattling screech tears through the air. Before I can wheel around, Raens is already tackling me to the snow, shoving my head to the powdery cold. “Shh!” he hisses. “They’re coming …” He scans the darkening sky as if searching for enemy aircraft. “How’s your shooting?” he whispers.

"Damn good.”

I reach for my rifle, but he grabs my wrist.

"Keep it on safe. Last thing I need is you punching me full of holes. Still got half a pack of smokes to finish.”

“I’m a marksman, Raens. I ain’t gonna panic.”

He chortles. “Yeah, you and every other asshole here. Shooting a bullseye through a dick hair doesn’t mean squat though, not when you’re—”

His words drown in a cacophony of noise. It crashes down from above us, roaring with the fury of creation itself. I roll over, hands clamped to my ears as pressure builds in my skull like a kettle ready to shriek.

Raens staggers to his knees next to me, tears streaking his wrinkled face. He’s pale. Trembling. Yet despite it all, he's grinning in a rictus of ecstasy – the sonuvabitch is laughing. “Heads up!” he bellows.

Light explodes through the clouds.

All at once, the world ignites, burning brighter than a solar flare. A host of winged creatures descend from above, wreathed in emerald starfire, blowing trumpets that could shatter mountains. I raise my rifle on instinct.

Too slow.

They blitz past us like avenging comets, hellbent for the bunker.

“What’s our play?” I shout over the din.

Raens holds his tongue. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, and my heart seizes. Thales’ false sun has risen high, pulsing with cosmic rage. Molten rays tear away from its surface, hurtling toward the winged host like the spears of wrathful gods.

The creatures try to evade.

They dip and weave faster than lightning, but it’s no use. The arrows snap through the air like guided missiles, finding their marks and engulfing them in screaming flames.

One by one, the creatures fall.

It's like watching a meteor shower, and I can't help but marvel at Thales' brutal brilliance. It only takes the weapon a handful of minutes to clear the sky; to render the invaders little more than cinders in the wind.

As the last of them dies, I’m left shaking in a snowfall of ash.

“Those things …” I choke out, my voice strangled by awe and horror.

“Looked familiar, didn't they?" Raens answers, and somehow, it's like he's discussing the weather. “The one’s with all the eyes tend to throw folks for a loop, but they’re all part of the same host.”

I swallow hard, tasting char and infinity. “Are you saying they were …” The word sticks in my throat, feeling almost too blasphemous, too dizzying to speak.

“Angels,” Raens confirms, joints popping like gunshots as he gets to his feet. “That’s our best guess, at any rate. They’ve been making the rounds every couple weeks, back since Thales got his hands on Subject 21. Tricky things. Never fall for the same weapon twice.” Raens says the last bit as if he’s giving them some kind of begrudging respect.

“Angels …” My voice creaks like timber. “We just slaughtered a hundred angels?”

Raens snorts. “Wouldn’t bet on it.”

He nods at the field before us, covered in white feathers stained black with soot. To my shock, the feathers begin to quiver, pulsing with inner light. They rise slowly as one, hanging for a heartbeat before rocketing skyward, piercing the clouds and leaving pillars of radiance in their wake.

As the last of them vanish, Thales’ bleeding sun shrinks back beneath the horizon, blanketing us in the shroud of night.

Raens helps me to my feet. "You alright?”

“… I’m alive.”

"Not what I asked. Lentley was alive too, right up 'til he wasn't.” The old sergeant pats snow and soot from my sleeves. “Look, this job's a mindfuck, I know that – we all do, but it's still the job. You okay or not?”

My pulse is rushing so fast it hurts, goosebumps the size of dimes are peppering my skin, I'm drowning in existential dread, baptized in cosmic horror, and my ears are ringing like church bells, and …

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

He claps my shoulders, squeezing with rough compassion. “Kid, I might not be the brightest of the bunch, but I know my troops. And you? You're a long way from fine.”

I take a breath, and it feels like my first in years. “This just a nightmare, right, Raens? Some Sunday School trauma clawing its way out of my system?”

He pays me a mournful smile, and it tells me everything I need to know.

“Christ,” I breathe, anxiety seizing me. “We just cremated half of heaven back there …”

“Told you already, those angels ain’t dead.”

“Does it matter?” I sputter. “We’ve probably got front row seats in hell thanks to that shitshow. I mean, you can’t just torch angels, Raens. There’s gotta be rules about that and … and …”

I trail off. Fear’s got me by the throat, the weight of what we’ve done crushing my last coherent thought.

We’re damned. All of us, irredeemably damned.

But Raens doesn’t seem to care.

He pulls a fresh cigarette from his pack, lights it on fire. “Thought you didn't buy into all that religious stuff?”

“Guess I’ve just had a spiritual awakening.”

Raens looks me over: at my mess of hair, my desperate eyes and my shaking knees. He looks at all of this and he laughs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do it – throw back his head, crinkle his eyes and howl with amusement. Showcase genuine joy.

Somehow, I hate it. It’s like this whole thing is a joke to him, some cosmic hazing ritual for the new guy.

“What’s so funny?” I demand.

“You are,” he says, giving me a light punch on the arm. “Spiritual awakening? Fuck me. Lentley fed me the same line, and it killed me then, too. You two really are cut from the same cloth.”

The way he’s beaming at me, I wonder if this is the first time he’s felt happy in ages, and it seems wrong to derail all that – to take it from him, but I need to know.

“I never asked… but how was it that Lentley died?”

The sergeant’s smile fades. He turns away from me, wipes something from the edge of his eye and starts carving a path toward the radio tower. “Same as any of us do,” he says with a rattling breath. “Slowly over the years, then all at once and far too soon.”

“That ain’t much of an answer,” I say, following after him.

“Maybe not, but it’s all you’re getting.”

Moonlight seeps through the clouds, stretching our shadows as we trudge through the snow. When we make it to the tower, Raens unslings his rifle with an exhausted sigh before sparking a fresh stick of nicotine. I slump down next to him.

“I got one more question,” I tell him.

“Shoot.”

“Thales. What’s his angle on hating God? He some kind of militant atheist or something?”

Raens grins, amused. “That’s funny. Thales might be the most God-fearing Christian you’ll ever meet, now that you mention it.”

“How’s that work?” I say with a frown.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s a Christian doing trying to murder God?”

“Ah.” Raens takes a moment to consider the question, his wrinkled face lit up red beneath the tower, cigarette smoldering between his calloused fingertips. “Guess he’s doing it for the same reason any true believer does anything,” he says, lifting the smoke to his lips. “…Cause God told him to.”

The arctic wind kisses my cheeks, ruffles my hair, but all I can feel is the machine-gun rhythm of my heart pounding against my ribs.

I watch Raens tap ash onto the snow, watch him take another drag and I’m stunned by how calm he is. How relaxed. A thousand questions are pinballing around my skull, but for him this is just another Tuesday.

My eyes find my gloves, still blackened with soot, still stained with the cremains of heaven itself, and all I can think about is how much I wish I could stop thinking.

“Something on your mind, kid?”

I glance up at the sergeant, throat dry. “Yeah,” I croak. “I think… I think maybe I’ll take you up on that cigarette after all, Raens.”

He gives me a knowing smile, weary eyes twinkling beneath the starlit sky. “Figured you would,” he says, reaching into his parka with a sigh. “Folks typically do.”

[ashersbraincell]

Just had the most terrifying nightmare yet, one of those stereotypical ones that actually incorporate both real life events twisted into optimum trauma factor scare and topped off with a dusting of sugar(your traditional spooky stuff)

I will try to retell it, but first

TW: bodies, trauma, school trauma, second hand embarrassment, sleep paralysis, nightmares, night terrors(?), being chased, body horror, physical abuse, bullying, fear of the dark, fear of heights, hyperventilation, hyperventilating, false awakening, being stared at, being watched

Okay, so first thing I remember is that, for some reason, in this dream-universe it was required of all school graduates to complete a day of chaperoning the youngest(a year 7, I live in Britain). So I’m chaperoning this kid, I think his name was Liam? Something with an L I think. Looks, kinda familiar? I’m not sure now. I couldn’t recreate his face now if you asked me to imagine it clearly but in it was still much clearer than most dream characters.

Well anyway, we check in with the head of the school(who, again, looked familiar but I don’t think I actually knew her irl. Perhaps she was a mashup of all the female teachers I’ve known that had long-ish white blonde hair. Well anyway, she sets us off for the day. I find myself actually somewhat compassionate for the kid, which I guess was expected since, again, in the „dream universe” the reason this was required was to build compassion and kindness or something.

So there were two moments when my school trauma(bullying), particularly showed up. Once, just, seeing that familiar hallway. With the Nurses office and all(personal detail, won’t make sense but wanted to add it for myself). Then, later, there was a more elaborate moment. So it’s breaktime, and this kid meets up with his chubbier, glasses friend(/not negative just the two descriptors I particularly remember. He was also blonde like Liam but his hair was slightly more bowl-cut shaped).

Said friend has a bottle(for some reason, one shaped like those gas tanks? It was huge) of alcohol. Naturally, I caution them but I’m too timid to overstep my boundaries. Doesn’t matter though, since lessons start up again and. The crowd comes(another trauma, my school had major overcrowding to the point that it became dangerous oftentimes when breaks would end especially). I get lost in the sea of people, and start completely panicking/crying/hyperventilating when I feel some guy just, grab my hair and yank it continuously(didn’t happen specifically back then, but I had many other experiences of being physically abused in those crowds, shoving, shoving against walls/door-frames, kicking, etc).

It cuts to later when I’m apologising for just, blanking out like that but the aforementioned blonde haired lady is forgiving. Later, it is lunchtime and I loose the kid again, I assume among the masses of people though this time I don’t think it was any more scary than just being a crowd(don’t think any more physical abuse occurred). So I’m looking for him everywhere and eventually remembered that some kids would gather in classrooms to eat(this didn’t actually happen, again, dream-universe thing), and check until I find him and sit down.

They are, unsurprisingly drinking alcohol. At some point I HAD reported that so I wondered how they weren’t caught. Somehow, H(again, personal detail, stands for a name I OBVIOUSLY dont want to disclose) was another chaperone for some other kid there at the time, which is suprising how much of a general red flag he is as a person. But I try to put up face and just, make it to the end of the day. But, eventually we start watching cringey tik toks to make fun of them, and an old one of mine comes up(though I’ve had cringey tik tok accounts that I am mortified by, this one wasn’t an actual one I’ve had, again dream-universe thing. Not necessarily a trauma but it is a fear of mine that someone could find the ones that DO exist so another point for realism horror ig). Obviously I’m so distracted by this that we proceed to be 10 MINUTES late, and that’s apparently my last strike.

Now here is where I think my brain ran out of material to torture me with, because things get more, if not in an extremely bizarre way, „traditionally” nightmarish. As I take the walk of shame to the library, slowly transforming into a librarian, the kids’s, all the kids’s eyes have become nothing but bright red circles in a fashion that would almost the cartoonishly ridiculous would it not have had the immersiveness of the dream. All staring. And they’re droning, all in unison, something I don’t remember. I’m dream universe, I was aware of this being the consequences of failing my mission, being sentenced to working as the librarian at that school forever.

Later cuts to me in the car with my mom, talking about my „demotion”, ig. I mention the fact that the blonde haired teacher lady ACCUSED me of drinking the alcohol myself and that being the reason for my lateness, since I was much too embarrassed to admit to what actually happened. I, of course fervently denied the allegation as it was obviously something I’d never do. To which she patronisingly continued to not believe me, „reassuring” that it was „understandable” for someone my age. A statement, much to my disappointment and disbelief, my mother echoed. She would not believe me either. The whole thing had very „fallen Angel” vibes so I guess it had that going for it in the metaphorical department

Then, for some reason, we were walking through and out of an apartment complex, one of many in a line, though this one had a straight line on path towards a bridge…over a completely dark abyss. A huge one, too. Apparently, this was a normal occurrence of getting home every day(one could make out the end of the bridge, and it didn’t look particularly damaged, but it sure as hell wasn’t sturdy(it was one of those hanging rope ones). We start going through, and I just hear this bellowing howl from within the abyss. We begin to stagger back, obviously, but out of the corner of my eye, towards the edge of the abyss, on a sort of shore, I notice a…mass? No, a body. It’s really pale, white, like completely with a greyish hue, and curled up in such a way I can’t make out a head, but I wouldn’t be suprised if it was bald.

I am horrified, instinctually so. Like I just, KNOW that it will begin to chase us and something HORRIBLE will happen if it should get to us. As I begin to audibly go into hysterics(ie „oh god, oh god, what the fuck, oh god” etc) it begins to move, jerking in in-human ways, as I sprint for it. At first, my mom has the idea to try to duck behind and hide behind some of the apartment complex’s walls, (they were irregular, not lined up smoothly, with a section pertruding forward in the middle of each one) but I just knew it wouldn’t work. In hindsight, I thought my screaming had already set off it’s instincts and it was after us anyway. I eventually let go of my mom’s hand, and keep running. At this point, I was already like, half-dreaming, half-imagining it, as I was already gradually waking up so I kinda just had a „man, fuck this” moment and fully pulled myself out of the dream.

Had the sneaking feeling it COULD turn out to still be right behind me towering over my bed(I was turned towards the wall) l, so I did many a reality checks, a double-reality checks to make sure I was fully awake and wasn’t in for another round via false-awakening. I wasn’t.

Dude, when I tell you it was fucked up. One of those nightmares you wake up hyperventilating from. Eurghhh

[horrortino]

WHOOPS I started this blog and disappeared 👻 My bad! Work has been kicking my ass, and then I got sick 🙃 But!! I’m better now and here with a few recent horrors I’ve watched, and a few of my thoughts.

1. Five Nights at Freddy’s - 4.5 ⭐️

I went and saw this in theaters the day it came out. In fact I got off work early just to do so LOL. I really liked it overall, it was fun and goofy. The story we got of Mike Schmidt’s life was pretty interesting, and I liked that it combined quite a few elements from several of the games. My only critique was that it wasn’t as scary as I had hoped, but also I do realize that a majority of FNAF lovers are probably children so it had to be a bit tamer for them. Also Matthew Lillard? Delectable.

2. SCREAM - 5⭐️

A classic. One of my top favorite horrors. It has everything I want: blood, violence, clumsy killers, silly characters, and of course, Matthew Lillard. It has an insane amount of quotable moments, and it’s entertaining all around. Also, is it me, or is it insanely homoerotic sometimes? That, of course, rounds it to a full 5 stars.

3. The Craft - 4.25⭐️

I had never seen this one, surprisingly. I know I would have loved it as a teenager. The fashion in this movie is iconic. It’s not really horror by my standards, but it does have a few ~spooky~ moments. Mostly, it’s a coming of age movie for weird girls. It had Skeet Ulrich in it, which I had only ever seen in SCREAM, so I was like, holy shit it’s Billy Loomis. He has a way with playing terrible, horny high school boys, I guess.

4. The Boy - 4.25⭐️

Even if I gave this a 4.25 I LOVED this one. The twist was something that I caught on to, but was still so satisfying. I only docked it a bit because of the ending. It just…did not give me what I wanted from this film, but that may just be personal preference. *Vague but possible spoilers* I mayyy blame this movie for my rediscovery that I really, really like masked slashers. If I was Greta I might have stayed in the house. Idk. 👀

5. Brahms: The Boy 2 - 4⭐️

This is the sequel to The Boy, and it was definitely a good one! However because of a couple characters and sort of changing up the origins of The Boy, it didn’t quite make it to GREAT. Worth a watch, for sure though. Some of the reviews were pretty harsh for this one but I certainly didn’t think it was bad. If dolls creep you out though, steer clear 😂

ANYWAY, those are my thoughts! I kind of fell out of reading this last month, but I’ve got several horrors lined up so hopefully I can get a few more books finished by the end of the year. I’ll probably also post these movie quips every once and a while and just share a few I’ve been recently watching.

Lots of love, ya boy Val

[breakerwhiskey]

050 - FIFTY

Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey.

Transcript under the cut. For more episodes, click here.

[click, static] (siren sounds) [click, static] Can you hear that? (siren sounds) [click, static] There’s um—there’s a tornado. There’s a goddamn tornado. [click, static]

When it first sounded, I thought it was an attack siren, like the ones they used to play for school drills. When we’d have to hide under our desks and clutch onto the table legs like that would save us from a nuclear bomb.

[click, static]

I don’t know who they thought they were fooling.

[click, static]

I can’t believe I’m in actual fucking Kansas and there’s a tornado. It feels too cliche to be real, somehow.

[click, static]

Everything I know about tornadoes, I know from The Wizard of Oz. (chuckles) That’s really not fucking helpful at the moment, is it? I don’t have Toto or ruby slippers or a basement to hide in.

I can’t remember anything about what you’re supposed to do in a tornado other than going into a basement. But the siren started going when I was on the road and like I said I thought I was—I thought we were, you know, under attack because its the same goddamn noise, um, but then I—I saw in the distance—and you know, there’s nothing around me. I pulled over obviously but I don’t know if I should be driving away or if I should be looking for a bridge or an overpass...I think there’s something about bridges. They’re either the worst place to be or the best place to be.

[click, static] Really fucking helpful, I know. [click, static]

I’ve already gone on a journey to a strange land, you know? That’s what the world feels like—like waking up in technicolor after being in black and white but...um, the reverse I guess. If I get caught up in the tornado, do you think I’ll go back? To the way that things were?

[click, static]

Back? I don’t know what I’m saying. Back where? I didn’t travel anywhere, there’s nothing to go back to unless I can figure out a way to invent time travel and stop whatever it was that happened.

[click, static]

I keep thinking about hell. In the sense of...is this hell? Sometimes I get that feeling of unreality, the strange sensation that I’m somehow outside of myself, looking at myself from just off to the side. It’s gotten worse since I left Pennsylvania. Maybe I really should look in the mirror more often. I barely even use the car mirrors, it’s not like there’s other drivers to be aware of, and maybe that’s the problem, there’s so little to be aware of around me that I feel hyper aware of me.

[click, static]

But what if we died? What if we died when we were trying to get away and all of this has been a kind of purgatory, a terrible punishing afterlife from a god with a twisted sense of humor?

[click, static]

Never mind, I’m just wigged out. The sound of the sirens is, um...it’s spooky, you know? Eerie. I guess that makes it a good warning system for tornadoes and potential nuclear threat because there’s something in the sound that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

[click, static]

It’s rattling me, somewhere deep down, in some hind brain that triggers my fight or flight. The tornado is still really far away and...

[click, static]

I thought—I thought I saw a tornado, but I can’t—I can’t see it anymore, but, who knows, maybe the emergency system is just malfunctioning but the sky looks so terribly gray, a kind of gray that’s got a little bit of green to it, like the atmosphere itself is feeling sick.

[click, static] I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. [click, static]

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb: From internationally bestselling author JULIE JOHNSON... a bewitching new standalone romantic comedy set in magical Salem, Massachusetts!

GWENDOLYN GOODE LIVES A CHARMED LIFE.As owner of an occult shop in downtown Salem, Massachusetts she’s accustomed to all things odd and otherworldly. But when a bloody animal sacrifice is left as a warning outside her place of business, the police seem to think Gwen might be the target of some truly evil-doers. Suddenly, her sunny existence is riddled with danger in the form of crazed pagans, rogue employees, and nefarious henchmen. And there’s only one man who can protect her until the storm passes...

GRAHAM GRAVES HAS NO TIME FOR WITCHY NONSENSE.Not in his love life, and definitely not in his line of work. Despite the ever-present oddities of his hometown, the private investigator and acclaimed police consultant prides himself on staying objective in every case that comes across his desk. That all changes when Gwendolyn — a woman who gets under his skin like no other — finds herself in the crosshairs of dangerous criminals. Graham is determined to make her safe, even if her presence tests his steely resolve. But as their mutual dislike sizzles into unexpected attraction… he becomes even more determined to make her something else: HIS

BAD LUCK CHARM is a total standalone romance of 450+ pages, featuring cameos from a fortune-telling parrot, a modern day pirate, and a coven of well-meaning octogenarians. With characters that leap off the page and plenty of spooky twists and turns to keep you guessing, fans of Johnson's previous Boston Love Story series in particular will adore this blend of heat, humor, and suspense.slow burnenemies to lovers grumpy/sunshinewitchy vibes zany side characters small town charmspicysuspenseful laugh-out-loud funny 

Review:

Gwendolyn Goode is the owner of an occult shop in Salem, Massachusetts, she’s friendly, sunshine and sweetness personified.... unless it comes to Graham Graves, the attractive private investigator who Gwen had a crush on since she was 10 until she overhears him telling her best friend he thinks girls like her were freaks and didn’t want to be set up on a blind date with her and now they treat each other but ice. Gwen goes out of her way to avoid him as much as possible, but it’s kind of hard when his best friend is dating her best friend.  Graham suddenly comes into her life again when she becomes the main target in a case, and this time it seems Graham is not backing down or letting her bolt from him like she normally does. Graham is here to stay and to make her finally acknowledge the chemistry between them, if she’d just give him the time or day. Gwen believes she can’t be in a long term relationship, she can’t have a serious one after her childhood, but somehow Graham wants nothing more than to prove to her that he’s here to stay, and he’s been hers since the moment he met her... he’ll just have to find a way to not only convince and prove it to Gwen but to also help her catch whoever is killing animals and people and is targeting her. This was a really sweet romance mystery story and I liked how much Graham worked towards proving Gwen that he was going to be there for her and how serious he was about their relationship. He really won her over and I thought it was really cute how hard he tried and how he did call her out on her tendencies to push people away and withholding herself from having serious relationships because of her fear of getting hurt. He really went above and beyond in getting Gwen to realize that he was very serious about her and that he cared so much. Overall, really cute! 

*Thanks Netgalley and Johnson Ink, Inc. for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[cattatonically]

Jon's Spooky Corpse Conundrum - A.J. Sherwood (Jon's Mysteries, book 3)

Synopsis

I’ve investigated some pretty strange cases in my life, but I have to say this is a first. A corpse—a murder victim—has gone missing during the middle of an investigation, and no one has any clue where it went. Psy is called in to clear the investigative team, make sure they’re not an accomplice. It’s a four hour drive outside of Nashville, to a place famous for being haunted, so none of us are particularly eager to go.

And then we arrive on scene and I see who we’re dealing with and I want nothing more than to turn around and go right back to Nashville.

This case is complicated and strange, and absolutely nothing is as it seems at first glance. Even with my eyes, it’s going to take some digging to get to the truth.

My Thoughts

This book is emotional overload – but in a good way.

When a really crazy case takes Jon and his team out of town, he runs face first into the man who hurt him deeply by leaving – his father. But it’s an encounter that needed to happen, resulting in conversations that needed to be had.

If the previous book was more character building, this one was geared towards character growth. Jon repairs his relationship with his father, and also starts mending some of the broken pieces of his relationships with his other family members, too. He has hard conversations and confrontations – which are not his strong suit – and he comes out the other side of them a little chipped, but with glue and gold paint in hand for the repairs.

Some of these conversations where a long time coming, and the timing was just right. And as Jon rebuilds his relationships, others around him are also growing and being nurtured – especially his relationship with the step-father he didn’t know he had. But of course, it can’t all be family emotions and hard conversations. The body if a deceased murder victim is missing, and the investigation is, well, off to a spooky start.

As per usual with one of Jon’s unconventional mysteries, nothing is quite as it seems. What was once thought of as one mystery quickly leads to two, which just opens up a whole new can of worms. Thankfully, Jon doesn’t quite put himself in the line of danger like he has previously. Instead, he and his team were far more invested in solving the mysteries, and assisting with the case.

But that doesn’t mean the twists and turns along the way aren’t nerve wracking in their own right. I was on the edge of my seat for a few moments during this book. And I’ve come to learn that I need to just let it all play out – if I try to hazard a guess or solve the case along with our rambunctious crew, I ended up getting all twisted myself.

I’m still thoroughly enjoying this series, and a peek at the author website promises other books adjacent to this series that I can’t wait to dive into!

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 10: Scream VI Pt. 1

[This is from 2 days go because my power went out Sunday night.]

Writing this in the dark because my power is out. My power almost never goes out here, which tells me how bad this storm is. It should be done by tomorrow morning, though, which I guess is good.

I was watching Scream VI and I only have about 10 minutes left, but that’s not going to be possible without power or wifi, so I’ll have to finish tomorrow. A few thoughts on what I did see (very few since my computer battery sucks and I don’t know how long I have to write here):

It’s definitely better than Scream V. Too long—I really don’t think any slasher needs to clock more than an hour 45 minutes—but consistently entertaining with very good set pieces and a strong set of new characters.  This is probably the only scream movies I’ve seen that legitimately scared me in parts. And it actually managed to get real humor in there, which, as I’ve mentioned, I think many of the installments struggle with. I think moving to NYC was a smart move, not dissimilar to moving Halloween H20 to California: the core franchise elements stand out more when you see them still working in a different environment.

My favorite scenes were the attack in the apartment—even though I was said to think I was seeing Quinn go, because I liked her a lot, and the death of Mindy’s girlfriend was pretty upsetting, more sad than scary at the end—and the scenes on the subway. The apartment attack was well put together, had a great mix of comedy—and comedy from something other than meta, but from the juxtaposition of the group camaraderie and the scariness of Ghostface—and horror, and was, as I said, actually truly scary to me. I’m afraid of heights so watching them have to cross a ladder to safety over a tall drop was very, very nail-biting stuff. Similarly, the subway scene made such good use of the new setting. Being stuck in a subway car with absolutely no way out between stops is very unnerving, and the number of people can be blessing or curse very easily. All the different horror franchise homages in the background costumes was Scream at its best: meta and spooky at once.

This film rectified one of my biggest issues with Scream V, which is that it should have just been a reboot and its original characters really just dragged the story down. It tried to be too many things at once, and it didn’t trust its new cast enough to let them shine. But the thing is that they are a good cast! They are good characters! I am invested in the “Core Four” and their new little friends filled in the suspect/victim seats well. This film didn’t need Sydney, and Gayle’s role was fine and a good size. I’m still mad that they killed Dewey, but at least without him, Gayle is freed up to be more nefarious. Still, she didn’t do that much in this, ultimately. It was a glorified cameo but she got some good lines and good moments, and I’m fine with that. Same with Kirby: I really liked that they brought her back, connecting the original trilogy with the Scream IV bridge, and the new trilogy. Small scenes like her and Mindy talking about scary movies made the film… warm, something I could feel affection towards. And I think for the most part, the movie understood that. Not actually killing off either of the twins, for example (I looked up spoilers), or Gayle, not actually having Kirby be the killer: these were feel-good choices, about crafting a franchise you want to come back to because you want to be with the characters again, not because you want to see the next big twist. It makes me feel hopeful for Scream VII.

The twins really came into their own in this movie. I liked the Chad/Tara romance and Mindy I thought hit a better, more consistent footing than in the previous film, where I wanted to like her more than I did.

I’m glad I took a break before watching this but I’m also glad I saw it. It left a much better taste than Scream V. I would say my rankings are Scream (1996), Scream IV, Scream VI, Screams 2 and 3 (I feel like they’re roughly equal) and Scream V.

Okay, my computer is at 55% which means it will fade FAST. Gotta save everything and power down. I’ve never lost power for this long before so I’m a tad worried but I guess it won’t matter if I’m asleep—which I should be anyway.

[twistedtummies2]

The Devils I Know - Number 8

Welcome to “The Devils I Know!” For this spooky time of year, from now till Halloween, I’ll be counting down My Top 31 Depictions of the Devil, from movies, television, video games, and more! Today’s Devil proves that the fast-food industry is the most evil thing in the world. Bua ha ha. Number 8 is…Sadao Maou, from The Devil is a Part-Timer!

It’s been a spell since our good pals from the very weird world of Japan paid a visit on this countdown, hasn’t it? I went over a couple of anime-style Devils in the Honorable Mentions, and believe me, there are plenty more out there…but out of all the different takes on the Demon King one can find, there’s really only one that I felt was worthy of placement in the top ten. That is Satan, a.k.a. Sadao Maou, from “The Devil is a Part-Timer!” Based on the light novels by the same name, “The Devil is a Part-Timer” is a semi-dark comedy anime series. I say “semi-dark” because, for the majority of the show’s runtime, it’s pretty much pure silliness. It doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, most of the time, and just about every second there’s something new and crazy to make you giggle and smile. However, at it’s heart, the show is a story about demons, angels, holy warriors, and the freaking Inquisition, so…yeah, it can’t be completely funny ALL the time. But even in its more dramatic moments, there’s usually something in the mix that sort of punctures the pomposity, bringing things back to a comical place. The show recently got its second season going after a several-year hiatus, and I’m happy to say it’s still just as goofy and weird and generally fun as its first season, even if the art style has undergone a slight face change. The plot of the series begins in an parallel world to Earth called “Ente Isla.” In this fantasy landscape, the Devil himself – Satan – attempts to, of course, take over the world. His plans are foiled by the half-angel hero, Emilia, so Satan and his most loyal general, Alciel, flee through a portal to our own world, with Emilia in hot pursuit. This is where things get daffy, because upon reaching the “real” world, these characters have to deal with real world problems on a mundane, low level: the Devil ends up getting a job at a fast food restaurant, his nemesis works at a service call center, both have to live in apartments and deal with bills and coworkers and all that jazz…that’s really where the humor of the show comes from. These fantastical characters being thrown through the ringer in some of the most drab and utterly ordinary positions a person can find themselves in. Satan – who goes by the alias “Sadao Maou” to try and fit in – is an interesting twist on the Devil. I keep hearing people refer to him as a misunderstood character, but I don’t really think that’s the right terminology for him. He meant everything he did, as far as I can tell, and what he did was not necessarily very nice. However, there is a sympathetic edge to his character: the whole reason he tried to take over Ente Isla was because he wanted to make that world a better place for his own kind. It was a noble ideal, but…well…perhaps being a demon, he went to extreme lengths to try and achieve this goal. He admits that he feels the power might have gone to his head, and that he really didn’t fully understand what being human was really like. The great irony is, now that he’s stuck in such a place as he is, he’s gotten to understand humanity on a different level, and even though he still wants to take over the world, it seems to have created a conflict in him. He’s no longer interested in hurting people, and he actually does his best to protect and help people whenever he can. As a result, he becomes a more enigmatic character: we can usually guess what he’ll do, the real question is why he’ll do it. And, of course, he’s freaking hilarious. I think the best way to describe Satan in this series is that his priorities are a complete mess: he’s somehow both a total drama queen and one of the most laid-back characters of the whole bunch at the same time. He’s given to grandiose speeches and has a flair for the dramatic, but it usually comes out in a hilarious way: giving a big monologue while wearing nothing but his underwear, naming his bicycle Dullahan and referring to it as his “royal steed,” and talking about promotions and sales at the restaurant like he’s fighting a great and glorious war. Then, in direct contrast, he’ll just be completely dismissive when Emilia tries to kill him, or when a corrupt priest is trying to make a monologue of their own, or when he’s doing something incredible like holding up an entire building with his magic. It’s that weird sense of taking everything and nothing completely seriously at all that I think makes him so amusing, and it really describes the entire series in a nutshell: nothing is sacred, except when it suddenly is. In the original Japanese version of the show, Satan is voiced by Ryota Osaka. Most people would know him best for the role of Marco in “Attack on Titan.” I, personally, know him best beyond this series for playing Ex in “Grimms Notes.” Osaka does a good job, of course, but in my opinion, this is a series where the English Dub is MUCH better than the original. It’s just so much FUNNIER, in my opinion, as the voice actors are given a lot of liberty that leads to some really hysterical line reads, ad-libs, and performances overall. At the same time, the moments of drama feel even more impactful in the English version; these actors really give it their all and every scene and line hits hard. In the Dub, Satan is voiced by Josh Grelle; he’s also an alumni of Attack on Titan, having played the role of Armin there. He’s also the voice of Tokoyami from My Hero Academia. Whichever version you choose to watch, the series is a riot, and if this campy craziness sounds up your alley, you should definitely give it a try. Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 7! HINT: “SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!”

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Happy Oct. 1 and the start of Halloween! Please enjoy this spooky inspired Nessian fic! :) 

It had been an accident. A complete and absolute accident. Cassian had agreed to host a mini Halloween party at his loft apartment. They would order food in, play some drinking games, maybe binge some horror movies. It was going to be fun, and Cassian simply wanted his place to look the part. So he had bought those fake spiderwebs and hung them from the lamps and across the curtains. He bought some fake skulls and plastic pumpkins to set about the living room and kitchen. 

And he simply thought it would be funny to draw a pentagram on the floor. It looked just like in those cheesy Halloween movies, and he knew Azriel would get a kick out of it. He even set some candles around it to really make it look the part, and he couldn't help but put on his best 'spooky' voice as he said some words he'd read in one of Rhys' musty books in his library, some language he'd never heard of but sounded cool. He didn't think anything of it. 

And that's how Cassian ends up with a woman standing in the middle of his apartment. 

Cassian has no idea who she is, but he can’t deny that she is breathtakingly gorgeous. Her golden brown hair is braided up into an intricate crown, a few wisps of hair falling against her temples and framing her face. It brings out the cut lines of her cheekbones. She’s wearing a form fitting dress, the black fabric hugging her curves and arms before it flows into a deep blue at her feet. But Cassian’s eyes get stuck on her eyes, as dark as night as they pierce into Cassian’s own. 

"I am the Goddess of Death, Princess of Decay,” the woman says, her voice seeming to boom and echo in Cassian’s apartment. “Who are you who commands me?"

"How did you get in here?"

The question seems to give the woman pause, and she blinks at Cassian for a few seconds. Cassian watches as her head tilts slightly, her eyebrows pinching. 

"Excuse me?" the woman asks. 

"I mean my front door is locked so I'm just confused how you got in here."

"You summoned me."

"I summoned you…?" 

Cassian takes in where the woman is standing, right in the middle of the pentagram, her too dark eyes, and the way power seems to radiate off her in a way that rumbles in his own bones. Finally, his brain catches on. 

"You're a demon." 

The woman crosses her arms, her weight settling on her left leg. She raises her eyebrows at Cassian, her face cold and unimpressed. It pretty clearly reads ‘no shit.’ 

“I summoned a demon?” 

“Are you asking me?” 

“I summoned a demon,” Cassian mutters, mostly to himself. 

“What are you expecting? Congratulations?” the demon-woman quips. “Look, just tell me what you want.” 

“About that…'' Cassian starts, clearing his throat awkwardly and rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “I actually didn’t mean to summon you. It was an accident.” 

“Is this a joke?”

“Unfortunately not. But I don’t need anything from you, so I guess you can just go back to wherever it is demons live.” 

“That’s not how it works. I’m tied to you until you banish me.” 

“And how do I do that?” 

“You don’t know how to banish me?” 

“I just told you I summoned you by accident. I’m not even sure how I did that.” 

The demon-woman closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh through her nose like she’s trying to stay calm. Cassian can’t help but wonder what would happen if she doesn’t stay calm. Would she attack him like demons in movies? Are the representations of demons in movies accurate? Would it be rude to ask her? After a moment, the demon-woman takes a deep breath and smooths back her hair before settling her eyes back on Cassian. 

“So, let me get this straight,” the demon-woman says. “You summoned me by accident, you don’t actually have any biddings for me to do, and you don’t know how to banish me.” 

 “Yes,” Cassian replies, chuckling sheepishly. 

“Great,” the demon-woman mutters. “I was summoned by an idiot.” 

“But I can Google it,” Cassian promises. 

It turns out, Google isn’t that helpful when it comes to actual demons. Cassian tries various different searches, but all that he’s able to come up with is a bunch of television and movie references, a Buzzfeed article comparing different celebs to demons, and a weird article about making deals with the devil. Luckily, he is able to find a local witchy shop that’s only three blocks down from his apartment. Unfortunately, they’re closed and don’t open until the next morning, so he and demon-woman are stuck together for the time being. 

He had moved to the sofa when he started his Google deep dive, and the demon-woman had stepped gracefully out of the pentagram to sit on the opposite end. She hasn’t said anything since their initial talk when she appeared, and Cassian can’t help but steal glances her way out of the corner of his eye. She looks like a queen the way she’s perched on the cream colored sofa cushion. 

“So,” Cassian drawls into the silence. “Do demons eat? I can order pizza.” 

The demon-woman turns to him, one eyebrow poised. The look sends a shiver down his spine. He's not entirely sure it's out of fear. 

As it turns out, demons do in fact eat, as Cassian learns. He also learns that this particular demon prefers her pizza topped with veggies and that her name is Nesta. 

“Have you always been a demon?” Cassian asks, taking a bite of his pizza slice. 

“Seriously?”

“You’re the first demon I’ve ever met. You can’t blame me for being curious, sweetheart.” 

Nesta’s eyes snap to his, a scowl pinched across her lips. The expression pulls a smile across Cassian’s own face, which only makes Nesta’s eyes narrow more. Cassian’s fingers itch to reach out and smooth the lines between her eyebrows. The desire is so sudden that Cassian busies himself with grabbing another slice of pizza out of the box to distract himself. 

“First of all, don’t ever call me sweetheart again,” Nesta starts. “And to answer your question, no. I haven’t always been a demon.” 

“Then how did you become a demon?” 

“I made a deal.” 

“Was it worth it?” 

Something passes over Nesta’s face then, like ghostly fingers leaving a haunting trail against her skin. Her spine straightens like steel, and when her eyes meet Cassian’s again, there’s a guardedness to her expression that speaks volumes yet leaves Cassian with even more questions. 

“Most days,” Nesta replies simply. 

~ * * * ~

The witchy shop is decidedly less spooky than Cassian had envisioned, but perhaps that’s just his biases and what movies taught him coming into play. He expects cobwebs and weird animal parts in slimy jars, and maybe a black cat that screeches at him when he steps inside. Instead, there’s an aisle dedicated to herbs and another dedicated to crystals. He squints at the black scrawled writing of the placards declaring what each crystal is for. He supposes it would be a bit too easy if one just said ‘banishing demons.’ 

Nesta sighs loudly from over his shoulder when he picks up a candle to smell. When he glances her way, her arms are crossed and that scowl from before is back plastered across her face. Slowly, he turns back around and sets the candle back down on the shelf. 

“Do you mind?” Nesta quips. 

“Alright, alright,” Cassian acquiesces, keeping his voice down to avoid attention. Another thing he learnt last night was that only he could see and hear Nesta.

He heads for the counter of the shop where a young woman is arranging jewelry in the display case. As he approaches, the woman looks up and offers him a friendly smile. Cassian tries to offer one back, but he’s sure it must look more like a grimace. Once at the counter, Cassian clears his throat, shoving nervous fingers through his tangle of hair. 

“Hello,” Cassian starts awkwardly. “This is probably a weird question, but you wouldn’t happen to know how to banish a demon, would you?” 

“Do you have a demon problem?” the shop worker asks. 

“Something like that.” 

“Well, is the demon powerful?” 

Cassian looks over his shoulder to Nesta, raising a questioning eyebrow at her. In response, she merely smiles. It’s all teeth and the exact opposite of innocent. It stirs something deep in his gut. 

“Very,” Nesta bites out.

Cassian turns back to the shop worker. “Very.” 

“Wait,” the shop worker replies. “The demon, is he here?” 

“She,” Cassian corrects. “And yes.” 

“But how did she get past my wards?” 

Cassian’s gaze follows the shop worker’s own, to the silver trinkets that twist and clink together softly above the shop’s door. He can hear Nesta’s scoff at the suggestion, and he doesn’t need to be looking at her to know that she’s rolling her eyes. 

“It would seem they don’t work,” Cassian offers sheepishly. 

The shop worker gapes for just a moment before she turns on her heel, pushing past the beads hanging over the doorway to the backroom. When she returns, she has a box of crystals that she sets down on the counter, a bundle of herbs labeled ‘sage’ and a folded up piece of paper nestled on top. 

“You’ll need to draw a circle and set these crystals around it,” the shop worker explains. “Make sure you charge the crystals under the full moon and don’t wait. Do it the next day. That’s when they’ll be the most powerful. Burn the sage to cleanse and say this incantation, and you should be free of your demon.” 

“Great,” Cassian exclaims, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “I’ll take it.” 

After paying and gathering his items, they head out of the shop. Cassian feels lighter already. They have a plan. Plus, the fall weather today is gorgeous and that always helps to lift his spirits, the cool breeze and canopy of yellow and reds above their heads. It definitely helps that fall and Nesta look amazing together, the golden rays of the sun bouncing off her hair. Cassian can’t help but offer her an easy grin as they walk side by side. 

“See? That was super easy. We’ll have you banished before you know it.” 

“And when’s the next full moon?” Nesta asks dryly. 

Cassian startles slightly at the question. He shifts the weight of the things he just bought to one arm and digs his phone out of his pocket with the other. A quick Google later, and Cassian takes in the date glaring back at him on the small screen with a frown. When he looks back up at Nesta, she’s staring back at him unimpressed, clearly already knowing the answer. With a roll of her eyes and what sounds to Cassian like a muttered ‘idiot,’ she takes off ahead him back toward his apartment. 

It’s going to be a long two and half weeks. 

-- 

And Cassian simps the whole time for those two and a half weeks. And there’s feelings. And Cassian makes a deal of his own to save Nesta’s soul. And they live happily ever after. 

[showrunnerihardlyknowher]

26 for the prompts? perhaps w the cat n mouse lads :3 (also look danny i did it i sent a prompt are u proud)

I...actually don't remember what the prompt was for this one, but I'm 87% sure it was "I'm not that scary, am I?"

So fine since y'all keep asking for 'em, here's more of the cat and mouse bois. Shoutout to @gabbydafurry and an anon for finally giving them names.

--

“C’mon.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I said no.”

“I’ll make pollo asado for dinner, we can eat it together while we watch!”

Aaron sighed and rubbed his hands against his forehead, trying to ease the dull throb that had yet to wane over the past two days. His headache certainly wasn’t being helped by the constant badgering of his...roommate, for a lack of better words (as well as being a title so eagerly self bestowed by the cat in question) but much like many of their other interactions, his resolve was starting to wear thin. Usually, he was able to hold his ground for at least a week until he was bribed into giving the other some type of social interaction with the promise of his favorite foods. Today, however, the poor mouse just wanted a moment’s peace free from knocking on the walls or calling through the cracks until he answered, and if that meant watching some stupid movie then fine.

Plus, Lucas did know how to make some incredible Mexican food.

“...fine,” Aaron conceded after a pause, the pressure behind his eyes giving him a sharp pang before fading to its usual ache, almost like his own body was projecting how horrible of an idea this was.

As soon as the mouse slipped out from behind the curio, he came face to face with the massive grin of the cat mere inches away from the opening. Seeing the grin only split wider when he was fully in view of the other normally would have instinctively sent a shiver up his spine, it was kind of difficult to be intimidated seeing how Lucas had strangely contorted his body to lay on the floor between the curio and the bookcase. Most cats seemed to be fairly flexible, so it probably wasn’t too uncomfortable for him to be so bent and curled up, but he definitely lost some of that hunter’s prowess with his back twisted sideways and one leg leaning against the shelving.

In a flash, Lucas had managed to untangle his strange positioning to instead be crouched on his knees, now looming over Aaron in a way he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to. He flinched back when his hand started to reach out towards him, fully intending to scoop him up to dizzying heights without a second thought, but the appendage stopped just short of touching him at all. Instead, he dropped his hand palm side up and waited, smiling all the while. At least he was getting better at remembering Aaron’s explicit request to not be grabbed without permission, though he did always apologize with a sheepish look and some little treat whenever he forgot.

Once Aaron climbed onto the awaiting hand that radiated a delightfully intense warmth into his already aching muscles, Lucas was already jumping up a chattering a mile a minute about how much the mouse was going to love the movie he picked out, how dinner would be ready soon, how he wasn’t expecting him to actually agree to watch a scary movie with him since he never seemed like the type who would be into that sort of thing but--

“It’s a scary movie?” Aaron interrupted, the noise finally registering beyond the headache. Truthfully, he tuned a lot of what the other said out for almost every conversation, not that it ever seemed to make a difference. Yeah, sorry, I’m a bit of a chatterbox, he admitted once, but it’s less weird talking to someone who doesn’t respond than to talk to yourself, right?

Debatable.

Lucas tilted his head and snorted. “Uh, yeah? That was one of the first things I told you about. You know that one actress who’s in almost every one of those Christmas movies we watch, who’s always the jealous best friend?” Aaron has no idea who he was referring to given that he never absorbed anything from those stupid romance movies he was boarderline forced to watch, but nodded anyways, “Right, this is supposed to be her big break out role, or something. It’s the first thing she’s doing as a lead actress, and you know, good for her! I’m glad she’s getting out of that typecast she’s been in forever. Horror probably wouldn’t be my first choice for her, but I guess since she has those singing vocals it could carry over to being a scream queen. Kind of like when--”

And Aaron was out of the conversation again.

Lucas continued to drone on about the actress’s entire film career, or at least that’s what the mouse was assuming he was doing when he occasionally zoned back in to pick up a stray word here and there. The headache he had been staving off to the best of his ability was starting to come back with twice as much force as it often did in the later days. He probably could have just asked the other for some aspirin, maybe even some cold medicine as that was no doubt what this bout of illness was turning into, but asking the cat for anything was always out of the question. Of course, Lucas tried to sway him numerous times into thinking it most certainly was not and that he could always ask for whatever he needed, never to his avail. Aaron was indeed willing to prolong his suffering if it meant not having to stomach the dreadful embarrassment that would come to being indebted to the feline, no matter how insignificant.

Unfortunately, he was only setting himself up for failure in thinking this “agreement” would be providing him any sort of relief. His headache was treading dangerously close into becoming a full fledged migraine and the flashes of light and screams from the television would not be doing him any favors. His only saving grace was that, after he had been settled on the couch and Lucas scampered off to get the dinner he promised, the cat turned off every other light possible to, as he put it, really get them in the spooky mood!

The smell of the food was delicious and nauseating. His stomach both wanted and revolted at the idea of anything filling it, which would only serve to worsen his headache no doubt. Damn it all, he wanted to throttle both himself and this illness, the first for agreeing to watch this stupid movie when he was already feeling under the weather, the second for preventing him from getting his half of the deal. These movie-dinner dates deals were the only reason Aaron continued to stick around, even if he thought the torment of being forced to watch awful romcoms in exchange for a hot, homemade meal was a little unfair. No, that wasn’t entirely true, Lucas was a freaking culinary genius as far as the mouse was aware. It was a wonder why he wasn’t majoring in a cooking field.

“I’m not hungry right now,” Aaron lied when Lucas had asked why he wasn’t eating. “I’ll try some later.”

The cat looked at him strangely before shrugging. “Alright, just let me know. If you don’t like it, I can always make you something else.” There he goes again, offering things he knows the other can’t accept. At least he could let it slide this time as he had no appetite to think of any other dish.

Lucas finished his own meal in silence, completely fixed on the television as the opening scene carried on, introducing the canine main character that Aaron did, in fact, vaguely recognize. This was fine, he figured, the dark apartment coupled with a painfully slow movie, a warm body moving to curl up behind him as it so often did during these deals, he could probably get a few moments of real rest in before the credits rolled. As much as he loathed to admit it, the cat was actually rather...comfortable to be forcefully cuddled by. He wasn’t like other movie goers that needed to make a comment on every character’s decision, steady breathing and the occasional purr helping the mouse slowly relax.

That relaxation was cut short as soon as the romcom actress tore her tiny avian neighbor to shreds by the end of the first act.

Aaron had hardly been paying attention to the storyline up until this point, something to do with the girl being bitten and experiencing insatiable hunger lately. The sudden carnage of the otherwise trusting little prey creature made both of them flinch in surprise, though Lucas was quick to laugh it off. From then on the mouse’s unwavering attention was glued to the screen, but not by his choice. A chill ran through him each time she claimed another unsuspecting victim, always a prey animal, and ripped them apart with her teeth and nails like a starving animal. The way the tiny’s incredibly realistic viscera was slurped into her bloody mouth made him queasy, all too easily imagining himself in their shoes.

Eventually, her hunger became too strong and she began attacking fellow predator species as well. Ripping into throats and soft bellies was far messier than snacking on a tiny creature in three bites, making her feast all the more gory. While the violence still unsettled him, it was a touch more bearable now that he couldn’t picture his own body being mangled between the teeth of a predator he thought he could trust. Speaking of…

The mouse gulped and risked a glance behind him at the other who had hardly moved, save for a few jolts and snickers whenever a particularly good jump scare managed to startle him. It didn’t go unnoticed that every time Aaron had physically reacted to a sudden screech or attack, the cat would curl just a little bit tighter around him, hiding a laugh behind a rumbling purr. He wanted to believe this was meant to be an act of comfort and not something equally as nefarious as the canine plotting her next kill. Regardless, Lucas was equally transfixed on the movie, except he seemed to be enjoying every minute of the horror aspect. His tail would flick in interest during the high tension scenes, even more so when a chase sequence was underway. It made sense, considering that was his favorite game to make Aaron play.

Whatever the case may be, the mouse couldn’t help but be unnerved tenfold that the other had the audacity to enjoy a fictional movie he was interested in seeing. The last thing the mouse wanted was for Lucas to get any more ideas when it came to chasing him around the apartment, much less awaken any sort of primitive instinct to maim his prize after it had been captured. To this day, it remains a deep seated fear in the back of his mind that every time the cat cupped his hands over him, his teeth would be quick to follow. Natural instincts were hard to shake for a reason when it came to prey animals such as himself, he could only hope the same wasn’t true for predators.

His imagination was running rampant, enough so that he completely missed how the movie ended. Something about a cure, something about being put down, whatever. The only thing on his mind was the morbidly hilarious thought that if Lucas were to go feral like the canine, would he eat him raw or would he cook him up in another fantastic dish?

Aaron jumped when Lucas moved to sit up behind him, only now registering the credits scrolling across the screen. He stretched a bit, the quickly fading warmth that had been surrounding the mouse making him realize just how tight the other must have been snuggled around him. How did he not notice?

“Wow,” Lucas said, pursing his lips. “That...was one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life.”

That wasn’t the reaction Aaron had been expecting him to have, but it was certainly better than to hear him go on about how it was a brilliant masterpiece. He got up to flick the lights back on, still laughing as he recounted each poorly written scene and cheesy effects. “I mean, oh my god, right? The mail man saved everyone? Seriously? I actually feel bad for making you watch that, you totally have dibs on the next movie night.”

He turned around to look at the mouse who was still huddled tight on the couch, wide eyes glued to the screen even if it was just names moving along with ominous background music. Lucas gave him another quizzical look, smirking.

“C’mon, even you have to admit those tinies had zero survival instincts. Like, who goes up to a rabid dog and asks for directions? I get suspending my disbelief and all, but they could have made it just a pinch realistic. This is so going to tank her acting career…” The cat shook his head and moved closer to the couch so that he stood right in front of the television, finally drawing the other’s attention to himself. “Hey, you hungry now?”

Oh, absolutely fucking not. An hour and a half of being tensed up gave no relief to his aching muscles and now that the lights were back on, so was his pounding headache. His stomach rolled, the nausea a mix of dizziness and disgust from the special effects. He didn’t even want to think about food, he didn’t want to be out in the open anymore, and he most certainly did not want to spend another minute in the cat’s company right now.

“S-sure…” Aaron finally squeaked out. He just needed Lucas out of the room, distracted somewhere so he could make a break for it. In some instances, he would have just darted off whether the cat saw him or not, but that always resulted in a game of chase that had a 50/50 success rate, the other loving it anyways. All he wanted was some peace and quiet to rest up and heal and not think about how easy it would be for the other to bite off his head whenever he felt like it.

Lucas stood there for a minute, studying him, and just when Aaron genuinely feared he was going to pounce, he flashed an innocent smile. “Cool, just give me a couple minutes to get it heated up.” And with that, he disappeared into the kitchen.

Aaron decided to be bold and waste a few precious seconds of his head start to collect himself. Deep down, he knew he was being ridiculous. Lucas had been nothing but kind to him. Aloof, but still kind all the same. But as a prey animal that spent the better part of his life living in walls and stealing to survive, trust was a risk he simply couldn’t take. There was hardly any benefit to keeping up this con if the end goal was simply to eat him. For all he knew, though, Lucas was nothing more than a merciless sociopath that was willing to milk every ounce of fear he could before chowing down. A sociopath obsessed with romantic comedies and wore an apron when he cooked and had begged Aaron for two months straight to tell him when his birthday was so that he could make him a miniature cake.

...okay, so maybe Lucas wasn’t a sociopath, but that didn’t mean he was trustworthy. Evolution gave him sharpened fangs and agile reflexes for a reason and the mouse was not about to find out what it was like to be on the receiving end of those one day.

With his head as clear as it was going to be for the time being, sans the dull throb behind his eyes, the mouse finally pushed himself up to make his way over to the couch arm. Slowly, as to not overwork his stiff joints, he climbed his way down to the floor and skittered under the couch for a little extra protection. Strangely, he noticed that he didn’t hear any noises coming from the kitchen just up ahead and when he stopped by the doorway, he couldn’t see anyone either. Losing track of the massive cat should not be possible, especially considering this was a one bedroom apartment and there was literally nowhere else for the feline to go without coming back through the entryway. Aaron should have taken it as a blessing, but of course he couldn’t leave well enough alone.

He proceeded to be daring and come out from under the couch completely to peek into the kitchen, confirming it was empty. Again, that shouldn’t even be possible for Lucas to slip out without having to directly pass the living room to go somewhere else. Unless he had, which would mean Aaron missed him somehow. He had been in quite a deep thought process on the couch...but he could have sworn he was only collecting himself for a minute!

The answer became glaringly obvious when the mouse took a few hesitant steps back and turned to retreat under the safety of the couch, only to come face to face with Lucas. He damn near jumped out of his skin, slamming his back against the wall in an effort to gain another inch of distance between himself and the face taking up his entire view. Really, this was nothing too out of the ordinary for the cat, he loved to sneak up and pounce whenever the opportunity presented itself and Aaron wasn’t too obviously close to heart failure. What made his heart stutter, however, was the fact that Lucas didn’t look like...well, Lucas. There was no smile, no warm eyes, no words being talked a mile a minute about nothing.

No, there was just a frowning cat with his ears pinned back and pupils slit, stalking closer with a terrifying rumble in his throat.

Instinct overtook him as soon as he saw the other’s lip twitch, trying to dart under the couch for safety and having his path immediately blocked by a hand being slammed down, claw out. Aaron couldn’t even yelp, the bile in his throat threatening to turn into vomit if he idled around too long. So, he didn’t. Instead, he turned on his heel and scampered in the opposite direction with the cat hot on his trail. He very nearly dodged a swipe, Lucas hissing that his blow didn’t land while Aaron only tried to speed up his sprinting. They circled maybe half of the living room, the mouse weaving under furniture while the cat knocked into them in an effort to jarr his prey into taking a misstep.

It worked, unfortunately, when Aaron took a sharp turn at the bookshelf and caused Lucas to clip it with his shoulder. The small bump did nothing to deter the cat on his hunt, but the two books that came tumbling down were enough to make the smaller skid and trip to avoid being squashed under the novels. He ended up twisting his ankle awkwardly, stumbling flat on his face while the momentum of his running made him roll twice until he landed on his back. Despite being winded and the additional pain in his leg, he knew there was no time to waste, trying to pull himself. It was too late, though. The cat was already on top of him, hand coming down to pin him under his palm while only his head poked free from between his fingers.

That cold, terrifying face came nearer, eyes tunnel visioned on its prize. Oh God, Aaron would give anything to have the other Lucas back right now. He’d watch a thousand sappy movies, do a date night for every meal, actually move into his bedroom like the cat had suggested he do a dozen times. He wanted...fuck, he wanted his friend back. What he thought was his friend, anyways. Not this killer, not this predator who was baring his teeth and was now mere inches away from biting off his face and--

The growling above him broke off into a snort shortly before turning into a full blown laugh. Aaron wasn’t sure when he had closed his eyes in preparation for his certain death, but when he dared to open them and blinked away the budding tears, he saw that smile he had been wishing for again. Kind and warm, just like eyes, and it was like Lucas had never even taken the form of a starving hunter in his life. Like he hadn’t been moments away from devouring his beloved roommate.

“Oh, come on,” he howled with laughter, “You can’t be serious! That movie actually scared you? I mean, I thought you looked a little freaked out by it, but wow!”

The movie...so this...this wasn’t real. Lucas was just pretending, just playing a prank on him. He thought that the movie had simply wound him up and made him jumpier than usual, no different than watching a zombie flick and popping out from behind a bush at your friend later on.

Except it was different. It was different in the fact that zombies aren't real, but predators are. Predators didn’t need an excuse to go feral and maim and consume their tiny cohabitants, they simply could by the laws of nature. And yes, it may be illegal and have several laws in place to protect prey species, but if no body was ever left behind, who could say if foul play was involved? That was the whole plot point in the otherwise dull movie they sat through together, the reason why the woman was able to avoid suspicion of her sickness by feeding on tinies that could only be reported missing at most.

Lucas’s laughter had tapered off, still clearly enjoying himself. “Alright, note to self, no more horror movies.” Finally, he released Aaron from under his hand to sit back on his haunches. “Man, I really didn’t think you would scare that easily, especially from a B-movie like that. Anyways, are you actually ready to eat now? I put your stuff in the oven so it would reheat better, but it should be done by now….Ronnie?”

Aaron hadn’t moved an inch since he was originally pinned, not even after the hand had been lifted off of him. He just stared up blankly at the cat, trembling and wide eyed, unable to do anything as the rapid succession of events sunk in. The cat’s humor died down a little, smile hesitating.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist, you know?” He shrugged a little sheepishly. “You didn’t even notice when I came back so I thought...I don’t know, it was funnier in my head. I almost broke character and started laughing before you ran!” With still no verbal response, Lucas reached out a hand. “Aaron? You good? Come on, I’m not that scary, am I?”

The reaction he got probably wasn’t what he was hoping for with Aaron suddenly scrambling to push himself away from the outstretched hand that might trap and tear apart his limbs. He gave a sharp squeak, managing to find his footing only to come crashing down as soon as he took the first step, his ankle noticeably swollen by this point. His cry of pain was muffled into a desperate grunt, trying so hard to drag himself away as a last ditch effort to avoid the same fate as the bird and the squirrel and the mole in the movie.

Lucas gasped. “Oh, Ronnie, your leg!” Both hands were reaching for the mouse now, aiming to cup around him and scoop him up before they surely put him out of his misery. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I didn’t...oh my God, I hurt you.”

Yes and no. In truth, Aaron had been the one to hurt himself by making his body move in ways it physically shouldn’t. But that didn’t change the fact that Lucas had shown his true colors. Perhaps in hindsight, that wasn’t a fair assessment, as he really did think he was playing a harmless little joke on a skittish friend. The pain came from knowing that the cat could turn feral, though, no matter how genuine he was being. There was still clearly an instinct within him, one that knew how to hunt and bare his teeth and hiss, one that knew deep down where they both ranked on the food chain. It hurt in knowing everything he thought about his friend, everything that kept him from really letting down his walls like the other so desperately wanted, was right. Cats and mice were not friends.

“Get away from me!” Aaron shrieked when the hands came too close. Though they withdrew quickly, he didn’t bother to watch if they would move again as he forced himself up to stumble back to his nook behind the bookshelf.

“Aaron, wait!” It was a fruitless request and Lucas knew it as he didn’t even try to stop the mouse from disappearing behind the furniture back into the walls. It would only make matters so much worse. “Aaron, please, you’re hurt, just...at least let me help you. Please. I...I’m so sorry! It was an accident, I promise!”

The cat shuffled closer, leaning down in hopes that the other could at least hear his pleas better, could hear how sincere he was trying to be. “I would never hurt you, Aaron. You’re one of my best friends. Look, it was a stupid prank and I’m an asshole and I’ll never do it again, just please come out. Just let me know if you’re alright?”

It didn’t matter how hard or for how long he tried, Aaron was long gone within the walls.

[misterewrites]

Mystery at the Salt-Irons

Hey everyone! E here with a new chapter! kept you waiting huh? Haha sorry it's been a busy few weeks. Nothing serious but I had to keep starting and stopping this chapter so it threw me off but it's here, it's ready and I hope you enjoy it!

I have some special guests in this story, some ocs made by my friends because you know what I can so I will and honestly, they were really great oc ideas guys. so keep an eye out for @hains-mae and Biz_fantasist  OC(I don’t know if she has a tumblr but it’s late so I’ll edit it later) 

That's it for me! I hope you are all stay safe, keep your loved ones safe, wash your hands, wear your masks, push to give everyone the vaccine cuz this is getting ridiculous. I hope you have a great week, thank you for reading. I deeply appreciate and feel free to share it with your friends, give me feedback. Reblog and comments all that fun stuff! Thanks and I'll see you soon!

Here’s the chapter over at Ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/85394095

Here’s the story from the beginning if you’re curious what this is about

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30599756/chapters/75486005

and here’s a list of all my work both original and the various fandoms I write for

https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrE42/works

Summary:  Finnrick is called to solve a mysterious case as per his job as the city's only Private Investigator wizard but as he sinks deeper into the case, the more it seems that something is happening behind the scenes. Of course with an old friend in town and dark magic surrounding the case, Finnrick is as busy as ever. Ain't no rest for the wicked.

-----

The Salt-Iron Flats weren’t anything special on the surface: An unassuming apartment complex on the north side of Newton Haven, the only thing most people remembered about the place was how the price tag hurt their souls.

Of course, unlike the general housing market, the Salt-Irons (affectionately referred to by the locals) actually had a very reasonable reason for fetching such a high rate: The salt and cold iron baked into every single brick that formed the building.

If you weren’t in the magical know, you’d think it utterly insane that you’d be forced to pay such a large amount of cash because some weirdo decided to make a new age artistic statement with bricks. Of course, if you are aware of the greater community at large, you’d knew you were paying the insanely large sum because someone decided to make the Salt-Irons the single most protective location in the city.

Most mortals have forgotten their history, their lore and collective knowledge passed down throughout the generations: Why their ancestors used to place lines of salt in front of the door and windows, why the elders always suggested to the braver, recklessly youthful family members to carry iron whenever they ventured through the wild.

Outer beings were repelled by salt and iron. No one really had an idea why fae, angels and demons weren’t fond of salt or iron and there's been plenty of arguing about the subject but all in all the fact remained they did not do well when faced with either.

That was the main reason Finnrick didn’t find himself in the north side of town often.

Well that and the zealous Gate Keepers. Those guys were freaks but between them and the Salt-Irons being the only supernatural community up here, Finn never got a case from the area.

Until today.

The Salt-Irons were great at protecting you from any outside threats that wished you ill will: It didn’t protect you from anything you decided to bring in with you.

It was five in the morning when Finnrick got the call. The M.R.R.D representative didn’t have much to offer beyond the address and floor but he thanked her all the same.

Finnrick yawned tiredly, stretching the tension out of his neck while he sipped his coffee. He let out a sigh of relief as the sun slowly rose into the sky.

The Salt-Irons was a twelve story tall building painted a ghastly pale green that made Finnrick sick just looking at it.

“People are paying how much to live in that shade? I’d ask for discount if I were them.” Finnrick laughing to himself, making his way into the apartment complex.

Luckily the interior was much nicer than the outside: Everything was well kept and cleaned. Not a single speck of dust in sight and the wooden stairs didn’t creak when Finnrick placed his foot on them.

Which was good given Finnrick needed to go up seven flights of stairs.

Finnrick wheezed a little, wiping the sweat from his brow when he reached the seventh floor. He glanced down the hall one way then the other as he began to search for room 707 which basic deductive reasoning suggested should be around the corner.

Finnrick crushed the empty foam cup and tucked it into his coat pocket as he made his way to 707. It was a simple wooden door and immaculately spotless just like the rest of the place. He rose his hand and gently rapped on the door.

No response.

He frowned, checking if he was still alone in the empty hallway and rose his hand towards the door frame.

His eyes glowed with a blue energy as he whispered softly “Revelis”

The door gleamed with a bluish hue for a moment before fading away without a trace.

No protective spells laced over the frame so the only thing Finn had to worry about now if it was locked.

He tried the knob, unsurprised when it swung open silently.

“It’s not breaking and entering if someone’s expecting you” Finnrick justified to himself as he pushed the door in.

He nearly staggered backwards: The air tasted thick and foul like something had been left rotting inside. His skin prickled with anxiety, a chill running down his spine with each step he took further in.

Finnrick took deep, calming breathes while doing his best to ignore the bitter taste that seem to cling the air within.

He noticed the trail of footsteps, perfectly preserved in what appeared to be black dust leading deeper into the living room.

“Hey da! You here?” Finnrick called out, carefully stepping closer “You and ma still married?”

There was a deep grunt of acknowledgment before a voice responded “Sorry son, we’re divorced now. She got custody of you.”

“Well fuck. I guess I’m going to be eating kale and poorly cooked spinach for the rest of my life.”

Garrus Valka was not in fact Finnrick’s father, adoptive or otherwise. He was actually one of the highest ranked officers of the Magical Rapid Response Department: An elf clocking in at 200 years old with richly tanned skin. His bluish gray hair was slicked back in his preferred style. Garrus’s had his back turned to the detective but Finn knew his sliverish gray eyes were deep in concentration as he took down notes about the surroundings. His beautifully inhuman features were marred with a scar on the right side of his face: burnt skin on his cheek, healed by time and various surgeries. An old war wound though Finn never got the full story.

He was dressed in typical M.R.R.D fashion: Dark blue windbreaker, jeans and a blue shirt with the words “Powered by coffee and spite” splashed across the front. His Winchester rifle was slung across his back, ready for any action that may befall the elf.

“Drift.” Garrus greeted teasingly while offering a hand.

Finnrick gave it a playful shake “Da. So is mom here or she trying to smite pigeons again?”

“THEY TRIED TO STEAL MY HOTDOG!” Garrus’s partner Eden screamed from another room “I SHALL BRING MY GOD’S WRATH UPON THEM!”

“You know when they mean justice.” Finnrick called out “I don’t think they mean against winged rats.”

Eden chuckled darkly “You know not their sins.”

“Okay.” Finnrick nodded despite the fact she couldn’t see him “If you say so. What happened Da? Aside powerful necromancy.”

“Powerful necromancy” Garrus replied cheekily “and missing persons.”

Finnrick rose an eyebrow “Persons? More than one?”

“Two: A father and son. Richard Charles and his son Richard Jr. Recluses it seems. Neighbors hardly saw them. Mostly kept to themselves.”

Finnrick pursed his lips thoughtfully “Any magical abilities?”

“They’re not on records if that’s what you mean.” Garrus answered “Never signed up in the academy, not registered with The Council. If they were practitioners they didn’t tell anyone.”

“So what was the spell? I just smell the remnants of spookiness.”

“Hadn’t noticed the rest of the room huh?”

Finnrick frowned before finally getting a good look at the rest of the room: Every inch of the apartment was blanketed with the same black dust that he found in the entrance way. Inches and inches of the substance and that wasn’t the strangest part.

Everything was bent at different and odd angles: chair with crooked legs, the wall clock warped and twisted, the fridge leaning like someone folded it in half. Floorboard reached for the sky and walls split inward.

There was a common misconception about magic. Most people thought spell casters, especially wizards, could command reality to their wills. That magic was capable of impossible feats and it was as simple as snapping your fingers.

The truth was all magic, ranging from divinity to free range nature, was performed on a micro scale. Practitioners did not alter reality but rather shortcut it. Throwing fireballs was as simple as rapidly heating the air until it combusted. Turning invisible was less about vanishing completely as it was bending the light around you to not be seen. Magic was rooted in reality and imagination. If you had the magical strength to perform the magic, the magic often followed your lead.

Of course there were spells that required much more than magical hand and willpower. Powerful magic, like summoning outer beings or raising an army of zombies, required both time and materials. Magic was like any other energy: you needed enough of it to perform what you wanted. The human body could only generate so much magic without dying and resting was necessary to replace any expended in the use of spells. Materials were guidelines for the spell. Feathers for anything with flight, ash for fireballs etc etc.

The other thing needed was to gather energy and store it for the spell’s use. There were different ways to achieve this: Wands, talismans, potions were basically magic soups. The most efficient way to gather energy was the wizards preferred way: Circles.

Finnrick eyed the room closely this time, murmuring under his breath about angles and trajectory. Garrus paid him no mind, well familiar with the private investigators methods.

“If this went like that” he gestured to the wall clock “and that went here.”

Finnrick glanced about, carefully walking about as if worried he was going to step on a landmine.

“Here.” Finnrick found himself staring at a spot in the middle of the room “Ventus.”

He gestured with a hand and light breeze filled the room. It brushed away some of the dust covering floor, revealing the outline of a half melted metal ring.

“What is it?” Garrus turned curiously

“Spell circle. The source of the explosion. I’m willing to bet it’s custom made. Copper, steel. Maybe some bits of tin couldn’t stand the surge.”

“No iron or sliver?”

Finnrick shook his head “That’s for containing or repelling monsters. Necromancy is more about drawing in the evil entities. Or sucking out life.”

Garrus sighed tiredly “Don’t touch?”

“Only if you want to live to see retirement. Might have some pent up magic ready to blow outwards.”

“Understood. I’ll call in our guys. I’ll let you know if something comes up.”

Finn nodded gratefully while pulling out a vial and motioning to the elf “Mind if I do?”

“Be my guest, you might find something we’d miss.”

Finnrick smiled gratefully before scooping up some of the dust and sealing it within the vial.

“Take care Garrus, stop fighting birds Ma!”

“Flying rats!”

-----

The cafe was lively despite being early but that was no surprise given it was Mother’s. Mother’s was the single best food establishment in all Newton Haven and if anyone disagreed, they were allowed to have their opinions.

They were also allowed to be wrong.

Finnrick paused in the doorway, breathing in the scent of well cooked eggs and sweet lemonade. The pop and sizzle of heated grease brought a sense of comfort to the hard working private investigator.

“Finny Drift!” Maddie Copperstone called from behind the counter “How’s my favorite customer holding up?”

Maddie was 40 years young with tastefully curled dark brown hair. Human, little on the short side but fierce. She wore a simple red blouse and jeans, both stained with flour that the apron around her waist did not prevent.

Finnrick bounced over cheerfully, reaching over the counter to give the matron the biggest hug he could muster “I’m good Maddie. Working a case.”

Maddie’s brown eyes searched his face carefully “You always working Finny. You resting as much?”

“Scout’s honor.”

Maddie let out a disbelieving chuckle “You weren’t ever a Scout.”

“Honorary scout after I stopped that bear from eating them.”

“Thought it was a giant raccoon.”

“Yes but people don’t take giant raccoon seriously. He here?”

Maddie clicked her tongue disappointingly but motioned to the booth at the far end of the establishment “Rest.”

Finnrick rose his hand in surrender “After.”

“Never you mean!” Maddie shouted after him.

Amos Frye hadn’t changed much since last he was roaming around Finnrick’s neck of the woods: Handsome with soft gray eyes that reminded Finn of gathering storm clouds. His long black hair was tied in a messy bun held up by a golden pin, a braided strand hung loosely near his face. His beard was much shorter than what Finnrick remembered though he noted the unkempt split ends indicated that Amos hadn’t trimmed it in a few weeks. His iconic dark red sleeveless jerkin and black jean combination would look ridiculous on a lesser man but had allowed the monster hunter to show off his muscular frame. His brown skin was a bit more pale than usual so no doubt Amos had been operating at night lately.

“Finnrick, you cheeky bastard! I am so glad you came!” Amos beamed happily, his various bangles and bracelets clinking together in equally joyous celebration as the two shook hands.

“Amos! Happy to see you.” Finn beamed brightly as he slid into the booth across his old friend “Why though? Family trouble?”

Amos’s joyfully gleam turned dark for a moment.

“No. Have you…?”

Finnrick shook his head quickly “Not a word. Sorry, I hadn’t meant to…”

Amos waved the apology away “No worries cuz. I understand why you’d think that. Coming across the pond isn’t a spur of the moment thing and Os has always been the black sheep of the family. I suppose no news is good news.”

“Right.” Finnrick cleared his throat awkwardly “So what’s the trouble? I doubt you’d call me up for a nip and chat.”

“Rightly so.” Amos confirmed, reaching into the bag at his side and pulling out a folder “Hunting business as usual cuz.”

That made sense: Amos was the latest of a long family whose specialized business was monster hunting. The Fryes had been striking at things that went bump in the night for centuries ever since the first Frye defended the folk of some underground society.

Amos was an average wizard if Finnrick was being generous. That was not a slight against his old friend, it was a matter of fact: Amos spent most of his time honing the physical aspects of his profession which was obvious given the size of his arms. Any spells he knew were purely for defensive or preventive measures so he often communicated with Finnrick for higher quality and complex spellwork.

Finnrick took the folder from Amos and began pouring over its contents.

Most were quickly scrawled notes Amos had noticed about his quarry: Long sliver hairs, canine in nature. Large paw prints found in the areas it had been sighted, far too big to any natural wolf. Wulfvur and werewolf were hastily written and as quickly crossed out. A pattern of hanging out in wild areas, often forests and swamps.

There were pictures too: flashes of sliver, blurs of fangs and muzzles darting in and out of camera frame. It was always a distance away, sprinting deeper into the wildness. It was hard to tell from the photos but Finn guessed it might’ve been 10 feet tall at the very least.

“Why we hunting wolves now?” Finnrick asked curiously.

Amos flagged down the waitress “Contract given to my pa. It was hanging around the marsh lands of the jolly old isles. Someone wanted it gone.”

Something wasn’t clicking with Finn “and you followed it here? From England?”

“Nah cuz” Amos gave a cheeky grin “I tackled it through a portal and found I illegally crossed into America.”

“Ah.” Finnrick nodded in understanding “Fae.”

“Fae?” Amos frowned thoughtfully “I thought that too but I never heard of any snarling wolfie breaking into homes and snatching out wee younglings in them old folktales.”

“Fae are weird.” Finnrick shrugged “Their whole shtick is not making any sense. I had to expel a cat the size of a bus once. Double decker tall.”

Amos whistled in appreciation as he scratched his bread “So fae. Slippy fellow as you can tell. Whatcha recommend?”

“What’s the contract?”

“Banishment. It’s looking like wolfie ended up in the wrong part of town.”

“I think you mean next town over. Fixed a pattern yet?”

“Not yet but I wasn’t looking for one.” Amos admitted “Thought I was tracking some mutant. Fae changes a lot. Magical circles?”

“Easiest way to catch it.” Finnrick agreed “Sliver for sure. Iron would hurt it and based on your files, it hasn’t done anything than thin the local wildlife population. No need to anger mister big bad wolf.”

“Good call. I got some talent to handle a few circles but tracking is not really my speed.”

“I’m on a case but if you swing by the M.R.R.D, maybe they’ll loan you a wizard.”

Amos let out a disappointed sigh “I need to take care this sometime this year Finny. Bloody bureaucracy probably set me back a month at least.”

“There’s always Jaime but she’s pretty busy at work.”

“Jaime huh?” Amos smiled mischievously “I haven’t talked to your sister in a long time.”

“I will curse you.” Finnrick playfully threatened “And not no simple hex either. I’ll make you bald.”

Amos gasped dramatically, clutching at his hair protectively “You wouldn’t dare mate.”

“Shinier than the sun.”

“Okay, okay” Amos conceded “I’m kidding. She’s with Casey anyway. Good couple. Cute couple. He still hopelessly selfless and she still trying to fast track her way to power?”

“Yep.”

“You gonna fix that?”

Finnrick shook his head “It’s their lives. Their choices.”

“Idiots.” Amos chuckled “the lot of them.”

“All you need is love?”

“Spoken true the gospel of my land.”

-----

A few hours later with a brainstorm session completed and a promise to help out the next day, Finnrick left Amos to his work and continued with his own.

It was noon now and as the sun rose high in the sky, Finnrick found himself at the Grimyard.

The Grimyard was the premiere spot for all things magical in Newton Haven: Rows and rows of shops specifically catering to the magic community. The streets were paved with century old cobblestone and the buildings here were various hues of faded brick and mortar. It was easy to get lost in the Grimyard if it was your first time as the Grimyard did not spread out, it stacked downward. Layers upon layers of the Grimyard were actually underground to allow those with issues against the sun to sell their goods and services at all times of the day. Don’t let the dark fool you, anyone with worthy talent or product was here in the Grimyard.

Normally Finnrick would wander around a bit, checking out the various businesses and protective wards around the mile long patch of land but he was on the clock and the sooner he began to figure out what was going on, the sooner he could stop it.

Luckily for him, his destination was right here on the top floor of the marketplace. Specifically furthest back corner.

Knightly Ore was ran by the Knight family. Originally they only sold rare metals and ores which were necessary components for some of the more complicated magicks. At some point the owners expanded into selling more alchemical materials and eventually brewing potions, salves and such for a fee.

Despite decent business, it was the most rundown building in this part of the Grimyard: Broken window shudders with the paint faded down to the original shade when the business first opened decades ago. The humble black door was crooked and creaked whenever it moved

Finnrick knew the owners fairly well but here wasn’t here for them. He was here to see their son.

He pushed past the building, ducking into the alley that led to the lot directly behind the shop.

“Halt!” A voice called out “Who seeks the Brewmaster of the Grimyard?”

“It is I, Finnrick the detective. I got money and I need work done”

The Brewmaster was Theodore Knight, an incredibly talented alchemist who didn’t have the same opportunities Finnrick did: He was pretty tall for his age (14 or 15, Finnrick lost track once or twice) but clearly a teenager given his short lavender hair had a few strands dyed red. His eyes were an unnatural pale blue, paler than the blue of the sky. He wore the usual attire Finn often found him in: A sleeveless dark blue hoodie with a fist sized red gem clasped in front just under his neck and a lighter shade blue t-shirt. He wore black finger-less gloves gripping his brown messenger bag slung around his shoulder. A matching brown pouch hung around the waist of his gray cargo shorts and his brown boots were kept clean despite his place of business was in an alley behind his parents shop.

Theo jumped out from a hidden shadowy corner of the lot “Finn, whatcha got for me now?”

Finnrick reached into his pocket, showing the eager teen the vial that held blacken dust within.

“That’s it?” Theo scoffed, rolling his eyes “I was expecting something…...cooler.”

He took the vial and raised it to the sun. Theo gave it a rough shake and watched it carefully for any properties the strange substance would display.

Theo frowned, clearly unsatisfied by what he saw “You brought me ash? Plain ash? It’s your money but even I think it’s a waste.”

“It’s ash?”

Theo shot the detective a look that screamed how obvious it should’ve been “Yes, ash. Thicker than what I’ve seen but ash all the same.”

Finnrick bit his cheek thoughtfully.

“Look Finn, you know my rates. I dunno what you want me to do but standard fees apply.”

“I’ll paying double.”

The Brewmaster’s eyes narrowed suspiciously “Double for ash? What’s so special about it?”

“Oh nothing." Finnrick pretended to look disinterested “Aside it was taken directly from a crime scene: Necromancy and cast via a half melted spell circle.”

It took Theo a minute to allow the implications of what Finnrick said to sink in. His eyes shifted from suspicion to wild excitement.

“Really?!” Theo clutched the vial like it was his first born child “Necromancy really doesn’t like many alchemy processes. It’s not going to be easy for me.”

“I know right?” Finnrick grinned impishly “It’s almost like I’m going to have to pay double for it.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to….” Theo pouted unhappily “Ha freaking ha. Okay smart guy, pay up.”

Finnrick handed over 50 gold. Theo took it eagerly, his eyes lightening up with glee.

Theo paused for a moment, his face turning oddly serious for a teenager.

“It might take me awhile depending on what you want.”

“I want to know what’s in it. Necromancy requires specific ingredients. After that it’ll be easier to track the seller.”

“And the buyer!” Theo blurted out excitedly “Smart.”

Finnrick ruffled his hair playfully “I wish I thought of it. You keep this up and you’re going to run me out of business.”

“I’ll text you when I have something.”

“Pleasure as always Theo.”

“It’s Brewmaster.”

-----

It was 2 in the afternoon when Finnrick made his way back to the Salt-Iron. He stood outside the complex, tossing the remains of his pizza into his waiting maw and crumpling the can of soda he was drinking before tucking into his coat pocket.

“What’s this?” Finnrick asked, utterly confused by the crushed foam cup he pulled from within “Oh right my coffee. I’ve been really at today.”

Finnrick wiped his hands clean and made his way inside the Salt-Iron once more, mulling over the details of the case as he ascended up the stairway.

Blacken ash cast by a spell circle. Both father and son missing with no indication where they went too. Recluses and rarely seen. Necromancy within a threshold.

It was hard to tell how deeply the father and son were involved in spell. Someone who had access to the apartment was behind it no doubt. Spell circles were the most consistent way to cast magic but they took time to build, set and channel energy. You didn’t build a spell circle without knowing exactly what you plan to do with it.

The nature of the magic was also a mystery: Dark magic had various applications and not a single one was good. Finnrick hadn’t much experience with that branch of magic but there was nothing logical about the aftereffects: Ash spread throughout the apartment, clinging to everything like a second skin. There was no signs of an outward blast given that nothing bent in the same direction. Everything in that room decided to twist in whatever wayit felt like. If the spell was supposed to draw in something then chair legs and wall tiles would’ve been pulled directly towards the circle.

“Curiouser and curiouser Alice” Finnrick spoke to no one in particular.

He was on the fifth floor when he noticed something odd.

Finnrick raised an eyebrow as the skies outside the window darken, black and stormy.

A thunderstorm it seems.

Finnrick peered out the window, glancing upwards to see what was going on.

Dark clouds swirled directly overhead. Rain began to lightly drizzle as the skies boomed. Thunder and a moment later lightning trailing across the gathering storm.

A thunderstorm that formed directly above this building.

Without warning.

“Well that’s not ominous.”

Finnrick made the mistake of leaning closer to the window, peering around to see if he could see where exactly the storm was coming from when it happened.

“Watch out below!”

Finnrick noticed three things in that moment: First, was of course, someone shouting to watch out below. Second was the distant sound of claws scratching something wooden, the walls perhaps. Lastly was the thudding of something falling down quickly and towards him.

Finnrick rose his hand, pivoting on his heels in time to see something crash into him.

It wasn’t much of a contest: Both Finnrick and whatever slammed into him broke through the fifth story window and went sprawling into a freefall.