#suffering the brain rot again

[taeiris]

the shadow monster

mind flayer will is an absolute most for season 5

here’s my take!

clear ver:

[joltrify]

*drops all of my experimental/unfinished B10 art* ALIEN TIME!!1!

[lilowoof]

ngl gamers, I think I'm gonna inevitably lose to the hormones and depression in the near future XD

Can't bring myself to be active cause I'm using a lot of energy to not vent post all the time. But fuck it, into the tags I go!

[quilleth]

Ok, break is over, work back in the office has started up again, and the brain weasels are doing cartwheels, so time for another WIP Wednesday ish poll!

For every vote a writing option gets, I'll write 1 sentence. For every vote a drawing option get, I will spend 5 minutes working on it (could be getting references, loose sketches, color comps, etc). For Other: You can make a suggestion based on past options, from my I want to draw Bingo, or from one of the writing prompts things I've reblogged either in the Writing Prompts tag or Ask Tag or Febuwhump/ Whumpcember/ the whumphoard

[diodellet]

sensible!dio, smacking downbad!dio across the face: TANGA NOT EVERY LANKY PERSON WITH LONG STRAIGHT HAIR IS JAMIL

(guess who saw the final round of alien stage🤡 guess who's emotionally wrecked🤡🤡guess who's gonna be comatosed once the final-final round drops🤡🤡🤡)

[illumwriting]

thinking about how tumblr dot fucking com nuked my original writing blog's url because it read sass as ass

[a-mere-shell]

never thought i'd be here in year of our lord 2023 reading and writing kingdom hearts fic with such fervent voracity i'm getting flashbacks to 2008

[traumacodedtransbitch]

breaking news: just had a full blown mental breakdown after so long of my mental health being terrible and ended up full on sobbing and calling my parents for a while

[wheneverfeasible]

Because I’m terrible and the plots won’t leave me alone, I’ve now got an idea based on this post about a demon who feasts on pain and suffering being a medical practitioner for the chronically and terminally ill and the patients fully loving it. And then my brain rot had to say “make it Steddie” because I’ve lost all control of my life.

—

cw: terminal illness, minor and major character death (with a happy ending tho)

But imagine it. Eddie is a demon, a low ranking one at that originally. He gets a job at a medical facility for the chronically/terminally ill. Over time at the happy and consensual feasting he really does become one of the strongest demons because he’s constantly fed to the brim and he even has human worshippers, not that they’re traditional worshippers.

No, his followers are little old senior citizens who slip him butterscotch candies and other sweets they’re not supposed to have, which technically count as offerings. They thank him for his work, because he does actually take care of their bodies as well and even listens to their life stories, which count as praise and worship. They love and are devoted to him and they bring in their friends and family who are suffering too and Eddie’s accidental cult grows.

One day, things change. A young man, an anomaly in his youth, is brought in by parents who no longer wish to be burdened by their disabled son. Steve just shrugs it off and moves in with a smile, seemingly fine with being abandoned by his parents because he dared to be anything other than perfectly healthy.

He puts around the facility in his terry cloth robe and slippers on some days, others he dresses up in polos and slacks or even jeans when he’s feeling more casual, and always with a smile on his face. He makes those around him smile and laugh too, and his cheeks get pinched and he’s slipped candies too and he listens to others’ stories and he seems happy and content.

But Eddie feeds on his pain and suffering all the same, knows that behind that smile is a young boy who was told he probably wouldn’t live to see 30, who listens to the older folks knowing he would never get to live a life like that. Eddie knows that sometimes Steve cries himself to sleep at night.

Over time, Eddie and Steve grow closer. Steve hadn’t believed that Eddie was a demon at first, had thought it all just a joke, until one night Mr. Wozniak was laying in his bed, and Steve hadn’t meant to overhear, but he was passing by and the door was cracked open.

“Will I go to Hell now?” Mr. Wozniak was asking, but he seems peaceful all the same, like the thought wasn’t the terrifying ordeal so many people thought it was.

“No, sweetheart,” Eddie was saying, but his voice sounds a little off, huskier, like…like brimstone sat in his throat. “I’ve never claimed your soul. It’s still your own. Go find Irena. She’s been waiting for you for too long.”

Irena, Steve knew from speaking with Mr. Wozniak, was his young wife who had died decades earlier.

“Will I get to see you again?”

Eddie’s long fingers reach out, his nails long and sharp, dark in a way that was not nail polish. He lightly and gently strokes the papery skin of Mr. Wozniak’s cheek. “You will be at peace. You will find the afterlife is so much more than this Good-vs-Evil rhetoric so popular in this plane of existence. Go in peace, my child, and should you wish it, perhaps one day we might meet again.”

Mr. Wozniak smiles at that, and he closes his eyes with a softly whispered, “Irena, I’m coming…”

A moment later, he was gone.

Steve watches as Eddie seems to grow smaller, appear more normal, and though he knows he should be terrified, he isn’t. Instead he continues on his way, letting the knowledge of more percolate in his brain, though by the next morning when news of Mr. Wozniak’s passing spreads and Eddie assures everyone that he passed away peacefully and in no pain, Steve knows Eddie speaks the truth and he realizes that nothing has changed. Eddie is still Eddie.

They continue to grow closer. He spends more time with Eddie, lets Eddie in fully on how much he hurts, and tells the demon that he wished things had been different and that they could have met under better circumstances.

Eddie tells him that he never enjoyed the taste of regret. It was far too bitter.

They fall in love, encouraged by their friends in the facility new and old, who don’t seem to care that he is a mortal with a short life expectancy and Eddie is an immortal demon lord. What is all that in the face of true love?

And then it happens, and Steve is the one lying in bed, knowing his time has come. He smiles up at Eddie and decides not to regret any of it, not wanting their final moments to be flavored with bitterness.

“Stevie,” Eddie whispers mournfully, and he’s beautiful. It’s not his full true form, but his eyes are a dark blood red, his teeth elongated into sharp fangs, and his pale skin veined with reds and blacks. Horns curl out from his curly hair.

“You said once that I get to be with my loved ones after this,” Steve says, still smiling, and he reaches up to cup Eddie’s jaw with a weakened hand. Eddie nods against him, and Steve wonders if all demons can cry, or if it’s just his. “Then take my soul, darling. It already belongs to you.”

Eddie flinches back, like Steve knew he would, because souls are not little things. Eddie had explained before, after everything, that he didn’t even actually deal in souls, that that wasn’t the sort of demon he was. Steve had asked if he could, on a technicality, and Eddie had paused because saying yes, any demon could, but souls were priceless. When you gave one up to a demon, you gave up everything. You would be theirs until the end of days. Eddie had said he wasn’t that sort of demon.

“Baby, no,” Eddie breathes now, shaking his head gently enough not to dislodge Steve’s hand. “You would be—”

“Yours,” Steve interrupts. “But I already am. You already own my heart. I now willingly give you my soul. All you have to do is accept it.”

And Eddie protests, at first, because Steve is giving him complete control over him for eternity. Steve gives it freely with open arms, and in the end, Eddie can do nothing but accept it. He tells Steve that he doesn’t know if demons have souls or not, but his belongs to Steve just as assuredly as his own heart does.

Steve’s final mortal breath is gifted into Eddie’s crimson mouth, full of peace and love and the understanding that this thing between them will always beat eternal.

It turns out that, whether it was still unknown if all demons had souls, Eddie was the sort that does.

And it also turns out that, when you’re gifted a demon lord’s soul, you become a demon too.

Eddie’s cult ends soon after, disbanded into non-existence. In its place, however, rises a new one that worships not just one demon caretaker, but two as Eddie is soon joined by another with floppy brown hair and sparkling brown eyes that for once smiles without hidden pain. They take care of their charges, gently coax them into eternal rest when it’s their time, and together prove that true love is forever.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Every time I think I am free of the hybrid brain rot he pulls me in again 😭

Warnings: fem!reader, dog hybrid!gyu, cat hybrid!reader mean dom!reader, desperate horny gyu, ?unrequited love, dry humping, somnophilia, handjob, cumming in pants

Kitty!you (ofc) lives with rambunctious but very fluffy big dog hybrid gyu who you try to avoid most of the time because he just doesn’t seem to get how big he is, still thinking he is a lapdog and ends up smothering you everytime he tries to cuddle or groom you. He is always hurt when you reject him and his trembling wet eyes give you pause but not enough to let him come near you

Until your poor owner runs into financial trouble and can't afford to keep the heating on as much as usual and you find yourself regularly getting too cold to sleep. Beomgyu seems mostly unaffected. In fact he seems to like the cold, his large normally overheated body welcoming the change as usually your owner will have the heat cranked up very high just for your sake, leaving poor gyu forced to splay out on the floor, limbs spread in all directions and touching the cool ceramic floor (the only cool surface in the house) with his tongue lolling out as he pants the heat away

You always turned up your nose at him, feeling like it's inappropriate for him to lay out like that, shirtless and with his privates barely covered by his thin shorts but when you had complained to your owner, they sweetly but firmly reminded you that he's only like that because the heat has been turned up for you and that if you want to keep your eyes from being assaulted by the sight, you can always put the heat down.

Of course you didn't. Instead you scoffed and muttered something mean about the digusting view, hurting the big pup even more but you didn't care.

Well now the tables have turned, and you're left freezing even under all your blankets while he is happily sleeping in his bed with just a thin sheet covering him up. Bastard. You can practically feel the heat radiating off him and you yearn for it so badly you might actually make yourself suffer through the inconvenience of being near him just to get to it

You try to hold off as much as you can but between your shattering teeth and numb hands and feet, you can't help yourself. You stalk towards his bed with your blankets, not bothering to ask his permission before you curl up into his side and cover your bodies with the blankets.

"Huh?" Beomgyu wakes up confused, a bit of drool seeping at the corner of his mouth from deep sleep. Ugh.

"I'm cold. You're warm." Is all the explanation you give him and beomgyu does not ask for more. He doesn't want to mess this up, just happy you're finally accepting his touch even if begrudgingly.

You groan as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you tighter against him, burying his face in your neck to take a big whiff before letting out a satisfied sigh.

"It's okay. I'll keep you warm, kitty." You ignore the way his deep, husky voice right against your ear and the way his large hands wrapped around your frame makes you feel. This all doesn't mean anything. You're just cold and he is basically a free heater.

You try to ignore the noises he makes in his sleep--his little whimpers, his garbled moans, even the little urgent whispers of what sounds an awful lot like your name.

You ignore the feeling of something hard pressing against you at night, you even ignore the sometimes small, sometimes harsh rocking motions of his hips against you as he cried and whines about something in his dreams, pathetic voice calling out for someone to "please, please, i'll be good"

You ignore the way that makes your body tingle and your underwear get sticky. This is all just to keep warm.

But what you can't ignore is the startled way he wakes up almost every night and rushes to the toilet, spending 15 to 30 minutes at a time in there and leaving you to freeze again. No, this simply won't do. This defeats the whole purpose of your new sleeping arrangement. What good is it to get all warmed up in his embrace, wrapped in his large arms, feeling his heated breath panted against your neck, if he will rip it away from you and leave you for the cruel elements to ravage and reclaim your body in the middle of the night?

So when he starts crying in his sleep again and his hips begin to rut against you, you move your hand between your bodies to take a hold of his hard member that has been poking you for countless nights.

It takes a few seconds of coaxing before he realizes what's going on, a few seconds of his moans almost reaching a fever pitch at the sudden unexpected stimulation, before he wakes up with a gasp, his already big eyes massive with shock at finding you with your hand down his pants and jerking him off.

"Kitty, w-what--" you cut off his slurring words with a twist of your wrist that leaves him keening.

"You think you're so slick? You think I can't feel you humping my ass every night? You think I don't know that you run to the bathroom to jerk this stupid cock off so i don't wake up covered in your dirty cum?"

"I'm sorry. Can't help it. You smell so good." He cries out pathetically, his hips moving to meet your tight fist as you jerk him off. "Please don't be mad at me. Please don't stop sleeping with me. I can be good, I promise. I'll do better. I think I'm going into heat. I'll tell master to take me to a heat center so I can get it out of my system and be a good dog again. I promise I am not a perv. I know this is bad. I know I shouldn't do this. I'm sorry--"

"God, do you ever shut the fuck up." You growl, bringing his face to your and kissing him roughly, and despite all his emphatic proclamations, he immediately opens his mouth and lets you push your tongue in, moaning and sucking on it like the perv he claims he is not. He chases after your lips over and over again, all while his hips never stop fucking your fist, until you push his face away to catch your breath, strings of saliva joining you wet lips.

"You wanna go to heat center and fuck a pretty little bitch? You think any bitch would let a sick mutt like you who lusts after kitties near any of their holes? That's disgusting." You don't know why you’re so mean to him but you know that the thought of him breeding a random bitch at a pay to fuck facility makes your blood boil.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm bad. Just don't want you to be mad at me." He cries, real tears dripping down his long lashes. "I'll do whatever you want. I'll use my heat toys every night before we sleep so I can get it out of my system and be good for you. Would that be better? Please?"

"No need." You tell him, acting nonchalant but burning inside at his desperate need to please you, thriving off of it. Fuck this is so wrong but it feels so good and you can't stop. "I'll deal with your problem myself. You can't help it that you're a sick little mutt. I'll take care of you but you have to keep this between us. Master can't know or he'll take me away from you to protect me."

He whimpers at the last part and shakes his head, fucking desperately into your hand as if it will be taken away any second. "I won't. Just between us. I'm not a bad dog, not dangerous, just... just..."

He trails off in a whine, looking at you in frustration, his eyes trying to convey something to you that you're not sure you want to know so you pretend you don't see it.

"Just needy. Right?" You tell him sharply and he gasps, nodding, his fluffy puppy ears pressed down to his skull anxiously. "Yes. So needy."

"I know. Let me take care of you. Let go for kitty. I know you want to. I can feel you drenching my hand like a bitch in heat." You chuckle, rubbing your thumb quickly over his leaking head, making his breathing pause and shudder. "Well, i suppose you are. So come on, cum for me, my little bitch. But keep it down, we can't let master see you like this."

"Yes. Yes, pretty. Anything for you." He whines, and you ignore most of it, just focusing on the way he bites down on his lip so hard it breaks the skin just so he can keep his slutty cries at bay as he cums, shooting long ropes of warm cum into your hand and his pants, soaking both in his release that goes on and on until all that is left of his is a slumped, sweaty, drooling mess in your arms.

"Fuck, what a mess." You scrunch your nose, bringing you hand up to show him just some of his milky cum covering your hand.

"I'm sorry." He slurs, barely conscious. "I'll clean up."

He tries to get up but you hold him down firmly. You're not going to let go of your free heater after all you've just done to stay warm.

"Just clean up in the morning." You tell him, wiping your dirty hand on his pants.

"But I'm all sticky and gross."

"Good. I want you to sleep in your cum so you remember how nice I am to a disgusting perv like you."

[teachailattes]

sweet mushrooms ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

tighnari x afab!reader

— ౨ৎ summary: at the time, it seemed like a good idea. something to tease him after he neglected you to finish his countless piles of reports and work. and the pretty glistening pink cap of the mushroom had been so so so tempting. but now, as the heat started to pool between your thighs, you were starting to think that this might’ve been a mistake.

— ౨ৎ cw: smut 18+ MDNI, sub!reader, dom!tighnari, aphrodisiacs, fingering, praise, he’s a lil mean, reader is slightly whiney

— ౨ৎ wc: 1442

you stumbled down the path to tighnari’s home, drunk on the idea of relieving the throbbing between your legs. it was late at night, so there were barely any forest rangers around to see you in such a disheveled state.

he smelt it as soon as you appeared at his door, the sickly sweet scent immediately surrounding his home but he didn’t think much of it until he turned from his desk and saw your blissed out expression.

“‘nari!” you exclaimed, making your way to his desk and clutching his arm desperately. “please please please help me…”

his face morphed into one of concern immediately as he pulled you into his arms and placed his palm on your forehead but even the slightest touch from him had you jolting and letting out a small gasp.

“y/n? what happened? what’s wrong?” he asked, quickly setting you down on his bed, the cool material of his sheets immediately relieving the uncomfortable heat that you were radiating. you squirmed around, trying to strip off the clothes that were feeling suddenly a bit too tight.

“it’s hot…” you whined. you shrugged off the sweater you were wearing, the one that tighnari had purposely given to you to protect you from the chills of the forest nights.

tighnari side-eyed the sweater that had fallen onto the floor and sighed, already having a feeling of what happened but wanting to hear it from your mouth.

“tell me what you did this time.” he asked with a hint of disappointment in his voice, his hands on his hips and his ears flattening.

“a mushroom! it was a…a pink mushroom!” you explained urgently before breaking eye contact with him out of embarrassment. “i…ate it.”

“you did what? it didn’t have white spots on the cap did it?” tighnari snapped, clicking his tongue but the slight ashamed nod from you had him seriously consider kicking you out right now. he knew you knew which mushroom that was and what effects it had because of your giddy “look ‘nari, it’s pink!” when you two had discovered it, so why would you willingly and consciously consume it?

“i knowww” you whined. the constant throbbing was becoming unbearable at this point and your head was becoming more muddled by the second. the only thing rotting in that muddled brain of yours was to relieve the aching pain. you could deal with the consequences and lectures later, you just needed tighnari now.

tighnari took one more look at you before starting to come closer. he was used to your antics already, but he really didn’t think that you would be this much trouble. he could certainly leave you in this predicament and have you learn your lesson by dealing with it yourself, but having experienced some unbearable heats before he wouldn’t want you to leave you to this suffering alone. and he loved you. that too. despite how many times you make him want to rip out his tail sometimes.

and so, begrudgingly, he gave you what you wanted.

with another click of his tongue, he took your hand and guided you onto his bed. you bounced on the soft mattress with a slight “mmph!”

he sighed again as he held himself up with one arm while the other found its way onto your waist. his touch sent shivers up your spine and you tried to arch into his touch, to feel more of it but he only held you down.

“calm down. you’ll get what you want. but you won’t learn your lesson this way.” he mumbled as he focused on the growing damp spot on the cotton underwear you were wearing.

when his finger pushed against your clit and started rubbing slow circles through your underwear you let out a loud whine and your hips immediately shook from the sensitivity.

“shh..you don’t want everyone in gandharva ville to know of your mistake now do you?” tighnari whispered into your ear as his fingers continued rubbing teasing circles onto your clit, pushing against the fabric.

“mm..!” you jolted, only causing tighnari to let out an amused chuckle at your predicament. you could hear the sloppy wet sounds at your pussy and most definitely could feel the stickiness pooling around your hole. you felt so hot, oh so hot.

“hm. what a mess.” tighnari mumbled, sliding down your panties before spreading your folds apart now and slowly inserting one finger. “maybe i should rewrite the ‘avidya forest survival guide’.…or maybe not since i doubt anyone would be as silly as you to eat mushrooms they know the effect of.”

“aah~! this is…” you can barely comprehend his words, completely blissed out from the feeling of his touch right against your most sensitive spot.

“don’t worry, you’ll feel better soon.”

you needed more. this was nowhere near enough. letting out a soft whimper, you grabbed at his arm and tried to quicken his motions.

“haah…aahn~! feels…so..good..mm!”

sighing, he let you set your pace as he added another finger. your mind was so fuzzy and it was like your senses had intensified tenfold. all you could hear was him, his scent, his heavy breathing next to your ear. you could tell he was enjoying this as much as you were.

his fingers reached a sweet spot inside of you and you cried out, body shaking.

“..’nari.. more~!”

“you don’t even know what you do to me sometimes.” tighnari breathed out.

you could feel the pleasure in your stomach start to increase and your legs shook as he continued to pound his fingers into your pussy.

“mm-! sooo hot…‘nari…’nari i’m gonna…” you moaned out, hand still holding onto his arm for support. by now, his eyes held a fire to it and he started to move his fingers faster.

“it’s okay. you can cum, you’re doing fine.” he praised, angling his finger up again into your sweet spot and his other hand started to rub at your clit again.

his praise mixed with his ministrations on your clit was what sent you over the edge.

“aaah~! mmm~~! ah! ‘nari..!” you leaned forward into his chest as you reached your peak, hand clutching on his arm to keep your shaking body stable.

“hah…so tight.” tighnari groaned, feeling you clench down on his fingers. he let go of your clit and wrapped his arm around you, bringing you closer into him as his fingers continued to help you ride out your high.

you started to push lightly at his arm when the sensation became too much and it had started to hurt.

“..sensitive..” you mumbled tiredly, collapsing into him. he got the hint and slowly brought his fingers out. you felt drained and the heat that was unbearable a few moments ago was slowly fizzling away now.

tighnari was breathing heavily as he leaned backwards with his other arm supporting him.

“oh jeez.. you’re quite something you know that.” he sighed as he lifted up his hand and moved his fingers to show you the wet strings attached.

“do you feel better now?” he asked, his expression softening.

you nodded quietly, the blush from your release intensifying with the embarrassment you felt seeing your essence on his hand. the intense heat was gone now and your head felt much clearer.

“what? nothing to say now?” tighnari quipped before smiling and leaning in to press his lips against yours. you melted into the sweet kiss, savoring the softness of his lips.

when you both pulled away, you directed your gaze to the ground. “sorry ‘nari..i got carried away.” you admitted.

“don’t worry about it, i’m used to you after all. if it really did bother me i wouldn’t be here with you right now anyway.” he said affectionately. “what matters is that you feel better now and it wasn’t anything serious. hm, although i do wish you would stop trying dangerous things just to get my attention.”

you looked back at him, beaming. so he did know! That’s your smart boyfriend!

“hehe, it’s fun don’t you think?” you giggled proudly, with your hands on your hips.

he scoffed. “i’m surprised you still have so much energy after all that. perhaps i should send you to cook meals the entire week.”

“whaaat? noooo don’t!” you whined. “okay i’m sorry, i’m sorry!”

“what i get for falling in love with you i suppose.” tighnari mumbled with a soft smile as he patted your head with his clean hand.

“awww! you’re so sweet! i love you more~!”

“if you do, then you better let me finish up my work.”

“bleh.”

— end ౨ৎ 

[child-of-the-danube]

I'm still in my Lilia brain rot era and I keep thinking about her and Agatha, and their dynamic and parallels.

Like, Agatha is a dick to everyone from the start, even Teen, but she's extremely chill and even, for her being who she is, weirdly respectful towards Lilia. Maybe it's because of the age, maybe it's because Lilia was the only one to show she still had true power when they first met, maybe it's because they share experience and persecution the younger ones don't truly understand, maybe Agatha just has a soft spot for those who are very clearly outcasts and weirdos.

The only sting at Lilia I can recall is calling her "Dory" in the last trial lmao

She never once questions or mocks her gaps. Hell, she said "we came to the right place" AFTER she saw Lilia scream her head off in ep2 over, to them, nothing. "Hmm, this bitch a lil bonkers, but that's exactly what I like and need :)"

She told Lilia that she couldn't take her power unless she's blasted with it - something she was certainly aiming for if the door didn't open and that ended up saving them in ep2 when she was using her ye old technique of being a menace. She may have told it to her only to get her in, but that's a big minus to her plan B.

When everyone had their hallucinations, Agatha didn't mock Lilia when she was, once again, "being weird". She believed her and reassured her in a soft tone that it was ok.

One interaction I found really funny is in ep3 when Teen asks about a sous vide machine and Agatha turns to Lilia with that "What the fuck is that? That wasn't around in our time" look

Usually when one of them starts spewing wisdom, someone will give a snarky remark, usually Agatha, but when they were talking about summoning a new green witch, Agatha let Lilia speak and was the only one who, at least somewhat, listened to her advice (50/50 but still haha). It was Lilia after all who was the first one to, tho reluctantly, agree to Agatha's idea of summoning a back up green witch.

Also the way Agatha looks at Lilia when she calls Jen out for giving Sharon only one dose of antidote when she had two glasses of wine. It's just so "mmm 😈 I like this one"

Agatha's first choice for "who could possibly play piano" wasn't Alice. Ya know the daughter of a rock goddess who would be the most logical choice. It was Lilia and I find that sweet and a lil funny too.

Lilia didn't tell Agatha's Salem story with judgement, even if she said "when Agatha killed her original coven". It was delivered as mere fact to explain the story.

Then when Evanora showed up and Lilia looks angry and almost disgusted at what she's hearing her say to Agatha. Even after Alice's death, she didn't jump on Agatha's back and accuse her. She let her be cause she was clearly distraught.

Agatha "I'm not drinking the poison. You can suffer but I won't!" Harkness jumped on Lilia and covered her with her own body in the latest episode when the sword was about to impale her. And then she let her do her magic even if it didn't seem to work as the ceiling was still falling and even if she thought tarot was bullshit. She trusted she knew what she was doing.

And the look they give eachother when Lilia reveals Rio is Death. Lilia's face reads as terrified, but more than terrified, she seems to have a moment of compassion. It's the look of "How deeply fucked must your life have been that the only one that ever showed you love and kindness is the one who everyone else sees as the bringer of pain?". Death broke Lilia's heart many a time, but in that moment she understood, she broke Agatha's heart too in even worse ways.

AGATHA LIKED HER! SHE LIKED HER FROM THE START AND RESPECTED HER! AND LILIA LIKED HER TOO, DESPITE THE INITIAL SUSPICIONS!!!

I need to know what her reaction to finding out Lilia sacrificed herself to kill the threat that was specifically after her will be. Will she brush it off and pretend she doesn't care to keep appearing stern and emotionless or will this be the thing that finally makes her realise people care for her? Cause Agatha has never had anyone, except literal Death, show her kindness, much less sacrifice themselves so she could keep living. And I find it beautifully poetic that the one other person Death has known well for centuries, who Death has acknowledged by name in that coven, was the one to do that.

Again, I'm aware that this is just my brain rot speaking, but Lilia was truly the MVP. She's the one with wisdom, the biggest experience, the one with seemingly most patience, the hype man ("Jennifer, look what you did", "It was all for you", "Don't worry, baby. We're cool"). Her trial is the only one where the rest was in fact not needed and was of no help. Actually, all they did was make it worse. The first three trials depended on teamwork. Lilia's was truly solvable ONLY by Lilia.

Anyways, Lilia mentally adopted Agatha and realised she truly was part of her coven and therefore worth dying for and I will never fucking recover 💔💔😭😭

[hemlock-dreams]

Your Peter gives me mayor gender envy, I wanna look like himmmm

Me too...me too...

Once again, thank you so much for all the thirst and kind words! My brain is rotting at super speed and I'm going to make all of your suffer with me. <3 <3

[philistiniphagottini]

Sticky Sweet

Back again with another hit banger because I currently cannot seem to escape this sudden, oral fixation that is rotting my brain. So now, you can all suffer with me, I will be disturbing the peace because I am a feral gremlin. I've already written something similar to this already with Blade that I already uploaded to A03 but I also needed to plague Jing Yuan with this idea as well. Please, feedback is appreciated and please for the love of god indulge my oral fixation I am going insane over here. Enjoy~

cw. smut, oral sex (fem receiving) clit warming ((like cock warming, but with clit instead)) somnophilia (it's very light and reader-chan does wake up during but still) MDNI

You awoke in the early hours of the morning to a pleasant heat simmering low in the pit of your stomach. Your eyelashes fluttered over your cheeks as you stirred, struggling to peel your eyes open as the warm rays of sunlight peeked beneath your bedroom curtain and kissed your warm skin. You were coaxed awake as a pleasant tingle rippled along the ridges of your spine, tickling your belly as your eyes finally snapped open. The sight you were greeted with made your stomach do flips. 

Jing Yuan lay beneath you between your plump thighs, lazing on his stomach like a cat on a lazy Sunday afternoon. His large, warm hands calloused by hundreds of years of combat curled around your hips, thick fingers sinking into the soft pudge of your stomach until it spilled between the splayed digits. His mouth was pressed flush at the apex of your thighs, lips shimmering with beads of your arousal as he trapped the pretty pearl of your clit between the bruised skin. You inhaled sharply, hips jolting in his grasp and blood simmering hotly in your veins at the debauched sight of your lover.

"Jing Yuan!" you exclaimed. 

A warm hum stirred in his chest in response, the vibrations feeling heavenly against the small, twitching bud of your clit as your nerves flushed to life. His eyes fluttered open as he peeked up at you beneath thick lashes, golden eyes smouldering like the hot embers of a forge as he continued to warm your pretty clit in the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. He coaxed your hips back down to the mattress, his thumbs brushing against the alluring v-line of your sumptuous body and making every hair on the nape of your neck stand to attention. Your head fell back into the comfortable confines of your pillow, heart pulsing so loud in your ears that you almost didn’t hear your own laboured breaths. You stared down at Jing Yuan in a daze, head dizzy and full of cotton as your groggy mind tried to comprehend what was happening. 

You would be lying if you said you weren’t pleasantly surprised with what you had woken up to. 

You carded your shaking hands through his thick hair, wisps of his silver mane curling around the tips of your fingers as you rubbed your fingers against his scalp. Jing Yuan purred in response to your gentle caress, throat bobbing as he swallowed the budding saliva on his tongue and let your taste linger to the back of his throat. You briefly wondered how long Jing Yuan had been at this, warming your exposed clit with his mouth and doing nothing else. You figured it must have been a long time, chest sticky with his cooling saliva and the wet seam of your cunt throbbing desperately for attention as the hot knot in your stomach winched tighter. Beads of your arousal dribbled down your quaking thighs as long locks of Jing Yuan’s hair pooled around your soft stomach, setting every single nerve in your body on edge and turning the tips of your fingers numb.

Your body twisted in the sweat soaked sheets beneath you, toes curling into the soles of your feet as your pussy pulsed, drooling and clenching around nothing as you were slowly coaxed towards a blissful release. The thing that was making your head spin so much was how Jing Yuan wasn’t even doing anything special with his mouth, just simply allowing your clit to rest against the slick muscle of his tongue and be soaked in the sticky strings of his saliva. You struggled to keep your eyes focused and prevent them from rolling into the back of your head. You swallowed around the lump in your throat, tongue feeling like lead in your mouth as you slurred your words like a drunken fool. 

"Jing Yuan" you moaned, almost choking on a hiccup of pleasure. "So close. Gonna cum…"

The corners of Jing Yuan’s lips twitched in a smile as you raked your nails along the back of his scalp, trying to spur him into action. His movements were slow like molasses, his breath hot against the silky lips of your pussy as he slowly opened his mouth. You peered down at him with eyes just as dazed as your mind, crystalline tears threatening to spill from your eyes as he rolled the bud of your clit along his tongue, letting the tightly packed bundle of nerves melt on his tongue before he swallowed the twitching bud back into his mouth with an audible gulp. You threw your head back as stars wavered in your vision, the gentle suction of his lips against your clit enough to make you keen and drive your body over the edge. 

You whined his name as the hot coil in your stomach shattered into tiny pieces, veins flooded with white hot euphoria as your slick juices spilled from your core. You mewled with bliss as Jing Yuan lazily made out with your pussy, your ears burning red hot at the sound of his wet lips smacking together and a pleased moan rumbling in his chest. Your thighs twitched around his head, legs squished against his cheeks as he scooped up a mixture of your essence and his saliva before swallowing thickly. Your hips chased the warm feeling of his mouth as he dragged his tongue through your creamy folds, hair spilling around your fingers as you tugged on the baby hairs lining the nape of his neck. He let go of your slippery clit with an audible pop, the tip of his tongue continuing to tease the overstimulated nerves as he languidly flicked it with his tongue. 

"Good morning" Jing Yuan finally greeted; voice thick as sleep still clung to the edges of his tone. 

A warm hum bubbled up your throat as you petted his hair, eyes lidded and a warm smile tugging at your lips. 

"Very good indeed" you replied. 

A chuckle breezed past Jing Yuan’s lips as he placed a sloppy kiss over your messy pussy, enjoying the way you squirmed in his hold when his tongue gently lapped at your soused folds. 

"I just have one question" you mumbled under your breath, body still twitching in the aftermath of your pleasure. 

Jing Yuan hummed in response, signalling you had his attention even though he couldn’t tear his hungry gaze from the way your succulent pussy drooled around his tongue.

"Why?" you simply asked.

Jing Yuan pondered the thought for a moment, fingers drumming along your plump thighs and rubbing soothing circles into your body to calm the erratic beat of your heart.

"Your clit looked pretty, glistening like morning dew. I wanted it in my mouth."

You snorted softly, unable to contain your bouts of giggles as you fondly shook your head. You noted that Jing Yuan still had yet to release his grip on you, greedy hands kneading at your soft skin like a needy cat as he kept you pressed to the mattress with the majority of his bulk. His lips hovered over your leaking cunt, pressing so tantalisingly close as pleasure sparked in the depths of your belly once more. He shot you a lazy grin as he rubbed his cheek fondly against the inside of your sticky thighs, tongue swiping over his kiss-swollen lips in anticipation. 

"I think I may need to indulge you again."

[rel124c41]

BACK TO CHEST (SOUL TO SOUL). jade leech

Saprophytic organisms obtain their nutrients by breaking down dead organic matter.

tags: main character death (permanently tho?), dark magic, family dynamics, survivor guilt, established relationship, malleus’s unrequited crush on reader, & happy halloween

a/n: jade & floyd's mother's name siphon from @mochinomnoms

word count: 12, 802

When Malleus Draconia, prince of Briar Valley, overblotted, you were beheaded. 

Jade has been rolling that sentence in his head for the entire month. He has been trying to make sense of it. Like a student retyping a sentence, he changes it up every so often; when housewarden Malleus Draconia overblotted, you were beheaded; when Malleus Draconia, born January 18th, 202 centimeters tall, green eyes, a hundred or so years old, overblotted, you were beheaded; when Malleus Draconia, nicknamed Tsunotaro, overblotted, you were beheaded; when Malleus Draconia overblotted, Jade had to watch you be beheaded from Diasoma’s dormitory barbican. The facts do not seem real no matter how much he edits them.

Part of him deducts that it might be because beheaded is the wrong word. Beheaded implies decapitation: the head fully cut off from the body. You did not resemble a cleanly-made dullahan. The slashing, void magic Malleus Draconia sent out cut from your frontal bone diagonally down to your occipital bone. 

Jade hopes more fiercely than a child wishing on a star that it felt like a painful flick to your forehead than nothing else. He does not want to entertain the thought you might have been conscious, wondering when your hair caught fire as you suffered through incomprehensible pain. Visible brain matter stuttering with a few painful last thoughts as you were cut apart.

So, with that said, it has not really registered in Jade Leech’s own brain that you are really dead. He can find the words perfectly fine. He cannot find the meaning of that mysterious poetry, no matter how embellished or how nudely plain.

Which is why his brother has to say certain words to him real slowly. Make sure the meaning sticks. Elongating them, sometimes repeating, “Today’s (Name)’s funeral, Jade. You have to get up.” Which comes out as fuuuh-neeer-al, yooo-u, and uuuh-puh. 

Floyd has to repeat ‘get up’ four times because Jade refuses to. As he has been for the last month, he rots in bed. Luckily, Jade has always been an exemplary student so he will still be able to graduate his second year with all his high marks. Thank the Seven for small miracles.

“Cooome on, Jade. Jade, please, get up. Jadeee.”

Roughly, and then softly and sorrily, Floyd tries to shake Jade out of his pretend sleep. His brother has been doing that a lot – sleeping and then, not sleeping, but still laying in bed with his eyes closed. Who knows what is so alluring about the ebon made from flesh-shuttered windows. A week ago, Floyd had a thought that turned his stomach rotten. What if Jade has been sleeping so much so he can pretend he is still under Sea Slug’s spell, before anything happened?

He does not like to think about it. To be frank, he has been hating thinking this entire month. It makes bile poke its tiny fingers on the muscles in his throat, watching his mirror reflection lie somnolent in bed, looking halfway dead. Which is why Floyd shifts back to shaking Jade at a harsher pace – which he will eventually slow down again, feeling regret for being rough. 

“Jaaadiooo, waaake uuup. Jade. Jade Jade Jade!” 

Floyd wonders if he has to get Azul to assist him in picking up Jade. It is not that Jade puts up a struggle when getting dragged out of bed; it is just that his weight feels like dead weight and that makes Floyd queasy. He likes having Azul there. Azul dresses Jade; Floyd brushes Jade’s teeth. They both take turns taking cups of water and rinsing shampoo out of his hair.

However, Azul is not needed because Jade voluntarily opens his eyes a moment later. Dull, rusted gold and olive peers through black eyelashes. Lifeless eyes flicker, registering what the waking world is showing him.

Shoes that are worth a king's ransom crease because Floyd decides to crouch rather than kneel by Jade’s bed. His hair is neatly slicked back, gel fixating his black strand behind his piercing. Dressed in a simple black suit, Floyd gives a shy smile and whispers, “Hey.” Jade notices something that makes him close his eyes.

Floyd did his tie correctly this time.

“Hey, no goin’ back to sleep. Ya gotta get up today, Jade, c’mon. I’ll eat one of your mushrooms if ya get up. You can decide which one, whatever works for me. Hehehe, how does that sound? … Jade, please. Get up.”

“What’s the point?”

“Because you’re gonna be pissed at yourself if ya don’t. Ya gonna hate yourself more if you don’t get up.”

“Not possible.” Jade’s nose wrinkles when Floyd starts to run his fingers through his hair, combing back black hair.

“You have to get up today. If you do, next week, Azul and I’ll leave ya alone.”

“Leave me alone now.”

“Ya have to get up to say goodbye. Come on, (Name) deserves you there. You have to get up for (Name).”

Jade does the only thing that allows Floyd to know his brother is not a corpse - he sheds a tear. Dried-up, pruning corpses cannot shed tears. It comes with a double edged sword of relief and pain; Floyd watches the tear escape from Jade’s left eye, descending down over the bridge of his nose, and onto his pillow. 

Emptied of one of a thousand tears, Jade whispers back, tormented, “I can’t.”

In your absence, Floyd’s verbose brother has turned into a man of little words. As if the action of talking is just as strenuous as getting up. It is unnerving for Floyd who is so used to his brother talking so much. 

Grief shackles a body like an anchor. So used to swimming through life with dexterity, grief has tangled itself upon Jade like cutting, tangling fishing gear or stabbing, soda-can-holding plastic. Each limb is ten times heavier than it has ever been. His tongue is an iron paperweight.

And, Floyd knows. That weight has been crushing him too.

Floyd still looks towards your designated seat in Mostro Lounge by mistake. Waits with a heavy heart to see you sitting there, ordering one of their chocolate-or-caramel themed drinks. Waits for your voice to just suddenly be in his ears talking, asking about basketball practice or new menu items.

But, he has been brave for his brother’s sake. Which is why he requests, touching their foreheads together, “Then, get up for me. Get up for me.”

For the first time in the month, Jade brushes his teeth without help. He cannot manage to do his hair but Floyd gives no complaints, slicking his own hands up with opaque green gel.

Only one month after death, a body fully liquifies. Life deflating, the soft tissue starts to decay. Oval holes in the skin appear with the ease of stretched dough. Flesh’s solidity fails and melts like candle wax. In a month’s time, a cadaver is expected to expose its vulnerable skeleton. 

Against all physical laws, you have not rotted away like an apple attacked by fungi and bacteria. In fact, it would be appropriate to say you look alive. It is inappropriate though because of the downward, diagonal scar across your forehead. Magic keeps your body fresh but your grave-ushering wound remains.

They stitched you back up? Jade wonders which friend of yours had picked the top part of your cranium off the rain-soaked ground. 

Even though Ace and Deuce were the closest to you – both physically, you had thrown them out of the way of that slashing attack and emotionally, you had thrown them out of the way of that slashing attack –he cannot picture them picking it up. Neither Grim; paws are too small. Perhaps, aspiring not-yet-doctor Riddle Rosehearts had the guts in his tiny stature to scoop up the top half of your brain. Holding a hand under like one does with a napkin full of broken eggs, making sure nothing drips onto the floor. Jade grows too sick to think of the hypothetical of who stitches you back up. 

Jade only remembers shaking, cold due to the rain and the sight. A hand reaching up to his breast pocket to grab his magic pen. Then, Floyd grabbing his shoulders to stop him from making the awful mistake of firing a spell at THE Malleus Draconia. Jade forgets the rest.

Apparently, he screamed himself hoarse. Apparently, Floyd got a broken wrist from their tussle. Apparently, Azul knocked him out with a powerful sedative spell. Apparently apparently apparently. 

The following memory goes like this: waking up in bed the next morning, throat sore, thinking about what tea you might generously brew for him to fight off his evident illness. Usually in good health, Jade is a bit surprised that morning to wake up with a flu. Then, his world is torn apart. Then, Azul and Floyd explain to him slowly – they are always talking to him slowly now – why his throat burns. Not from bacteria-made illness, from screaming, from losing you.

Sometimes, just for a span of a few moments, Jade wishes another thing with childish ferocity — prays to a shooting star. 

He wishes he could have stayed in that peaceful dream — “There is no need to shed tears nor are farewells necessary! … A new world in which none shall ever experience the pain of loss!” he had said — that Malleus was bestowing upon them. I wish Malleus had succeeded in his overblot. With a similar vehemence, he wishes Malleus Draconia died. 

There is no graveyard on the northside of Sage’s Island. No one expects to bury a student. So, someone, perhaps Dire Crowley or your trio, has chosen to bury you just a bit off the hiking trails you and Jade use to venture on. A glade chosen by someone to put a coffin smack in the middle of, still on land owned by Night Raven College.

Your dead body rests ahead, laid in a virgin’s coffin. A tree line formed by an expanding corpse of trees marks a clean circle. Him, Floyd, and Azul come upon the funeral last. Right at the start of the column and rows of seats, Jade’s feet suddenly grow roots into the ground, on par with a neem tree which has the strongest taproot system. He is paralyzed by the sight: you, arms resting on your abdomen, laying in a fairytale’s glass coffin.

The casket is elegant beyond elegance. Silica sand dug from Al-Asim’s numerous deposits was smelted for the glass. Inscribed with gold, your name playfully stretches its arms across the coffin, bordering angels and swans kneeling before it. 

Your head rests on a pillow-bouquet. Speckles of white daisy, ivory white carnations, and eggshell white spider mums kiss your hair. The centerpiece flower is Easter lilies, though. Trumpet-shaped, with shooting stars of pollen branching out from the center of them, Easter lilies crowd the bouquet like purple prose in a literary work. They crowd around your resting, stitched head with delicateness. Another bouquet of identical pattern rests too in your hands.  

The fairytale ensemble makes you look like a martyr. 

You are not a martyr. Jade hates the very thought that that could become your legacy. Wrongly transcribed and reprinted, a publisher who does not know you writes you as martyr. It makes his stomach rot. Neither hero or villain, you are not to be idolized. Bread should not be broken in honor of you and wine should not be drunk in honor of you.

You were wonderfully simple, with flaws and strengths. Now, you are gone. 

“Jade, come. There is a spot up at the front for us,” Azul says softly and slowly. 

A gentle hand pushes on Jade’s back — Floyd’s hand. “They’re not goin’ to start without us.”

That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried that —! Jade, not really thinking well, rips himself away from his brother too fast. 

“Woah,” Floyd shouts like a cowboy whose horse has started acting erratic. His gold and olive-brown eyes flicker with concern. Once more, Floyd goes to put his hand on the back of Jade’s suit, only to feel more like he is touching stone rather than flesh. Hm?

Out of Floyd’s knowledge, students, close friends of yours, have started to turn around, and one of them happens to be Malleus Draconia — who makes direct eye contact with Jade Leech.

I can’t breathe. 

Eyes that shimmer like Sheecle’s green take their poisonous green hands, stealing oxygen from the eel-mer’s body.

Jade finds himself breathless. In his chest, his heart grows in weight tremendously. All of the hurt in his bones is pulled towards his center, acceleration like fire. Heavy as osmium. Heavy as tungsten. He feels like something is crushing him with a sleep paralysis-esque weight. Out of his nose, his last breath slithers away; out of his brain, all his thoughts file out of the building in fire-drill-fashion. Buh-bye, Jade! his thoughts wave as they go. His breath walks out like a scorned lover, never to be heard from again.

I can’t breathe. 

Suddenly, Jade’s motionless chest is grabbed by a wayward arm. His spine collides into a breathing, functioning chest. Over his shoulder, Floyd whispers to his brother, lazy drawl slithering in Jade’s ear:

“Follow along to my breathin’ pattern. Try-a match your breath to mine.”

The words are spoken carelessly, with a lazy drawl, but the intent is vigilant. Seeing his brother needing help, Floyd reacts. He holds him close enough to feel the bones of his ribcage. 

On Jade’s back, he can feel the rise and fall of Floyd’s chest — Floyd elongating his breaths to gather deep oxygen in the very bottom of his lungs. They come in slow, constant waves. An inhale causes his chest to expand. An exhale causes his chest to flatten. Each slow rotation hits Jade’s spine in measured breaths — that I’m supposed to follow along to. Match the tempo of. 

Jade closes his eyes so he can focus upon the rise and fall of Floyd’s living lungs. It proves difficult to hear the sound of breathing over the ringing in his ears, like detecting a single scent in a saturated perfume store. Earth makes itself into a curlicue of sensations. Amongst the raging riptide, Jade tries to grab his brother’s hand. Grab onto it and share the same breath. 

It takes a few moments, a continuous rise and fall. Deeper lungfuls of oxygen push at his spine; heavier exhales stir through his three-piece earring. In. Out. Jade is trying. In. Out. In. Out. 

He breathes in through his nose and out his mouth until he can complete the cycle of in and out with a skip between the steps. When he takes his first complete breath, eyelids fluttering open, he sees only the back of Malleus’s haircut and curling horns that hook up like antlers. As he studies ebony locks cascading into layers, Floyd whispers in his ear, “We don’t gotta go up. I’ll stay back with ya.”

A coward down to the bone, Jade nods his head. Well, not always a coward; he is quite a capable eel-mer. In this particular setting, he finds himself to be as cowardly as the lion in The Wizard of Oz. For this month, he has felt that only the worst traits of his personality have survived the aftermath of a torrential blot-storm. 

He lets Floyd push him down to sit at the last row on the right. Your friends in Savanaclaw and Pomefiore are in the back rows as you are not too close to either. Diasomnia and Heartslabyul are gathered close to the front. The remaining dorms are in the middle. 

Ebony locks styled into a jellyfish cut sit in the second row, left side. If Jade looks straight, he can completely dispel Malleus Draconia from his eyesight. Azul moves up to the front, perhaps to tell Dire Crowley or your friends that everyone in attendance, time to start. Jade is beyond grateful for the hand rubbing circles into his spine, as if the touch keeps his breath circulation working.

There are a few moments of talking. Deuce Spade shuffles a bit closer to hear what Dire Crowley is saying; Azul gestures with his hands and when passed a paper, passes it back in rejection; Grim, who now attends in Heartslabyul, starts to grow louder in volume but so far Jade cannot catch a word. Eventually, it is Riddle Rosehearts who stands up. In his hand, the paper that Azul recently rejected.

Even though it is given an introduction, explaining the contents, Jade would have known it without prelude. Off Riddle’s tongue, your poetry falls like a meteor shower, silver fish-tails stretching with warm tenor. The title and author already given, Riddle reads:

“In a sea of nightmares, I spy a rock

Smooth, with a thousand freckles of fresh rain

The maelstrom brings inky monsters and villains

When I place myself upon your shore, I stop drowning

Across the water, you and I are on a rock, braving the storm.”

You wrote a lot of poetry. You were never good friends with Rook Hunt though; you clashed a lot with Pomefoire, unable to make friends with them. Perhaps because your poetry and beauty is different. Not very often did you string words together amorously, rather the words were desolate. 

Your persona – the cultivated, embellished image of the artist you were – was always sort of tortured and damaged. That worst of you created poetry with the rigorousness of an inventory. This one Jade knows well – you wrote it for him. You were embarrassed about it but brave enough to tell him: “I wrote something. I feel … I feel it describes us.” 

He misses those nocturnally active times in the botanical gardens. Transcendent music playing between the spaces of silence, filling you with his feelings, sharing feelings like they were heat and you too were cold-blooded. Under a gazebo of stars on the edge of the universe, you once said. A pocket of paradise stolen was found in the moments creating and cultivating with him, you once said. It feels like a dream, you once said.

Jade stands up from his seat, not able to withstand hearing another word. This gross, wrong interpretation of your work feels like dirt and maggots grinding his mouth. It is not a poem meant for a funeral. Between Floyd’s knees and a chair, he squeezes himself tight to escape. 

Bystanders expect him to do just that: escape. Floyd anticipates it too. He takes those expectations and breaks them. In a domino effect, row by row, people notice Jade drawing closer. Murmurs start to rouse awake the sleepy, forlorn crowd. 

Undeterred, Jade walks closer and closer. When he briefly passes the second row, he lets his gaze flicker over to his left. Eyes pinched together in small slices, gold and brown irises catch just the briefest glimpse of rotating horns and a sharp nose. The curious quirk of Malleus’s lip has his heart electric with lightning bolts of hate. 

Across the water, across the wave, Jade approaches you on that lone rock. He is going to save you from the grave and help you weather this maelstrom. The divide between you and him in life and death is a thin, easily breakable glass barrier. 

“Jade,” Riddle questions.

Back to him, Jade responds, “You should sit, Riddle. Your words were very courteous but I have a few of my own to say. Can I ask you to forgive my gross impoliteness?”

“No,” Riddle fumbles with his words, “no, no it is quite alright. Go ahead … I’m - I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Your sympathy is much appreciated.”

The crowd watches on with gross intrigue, wondering what your boyfriend could possibly be thinking of or what his next move might be. Is it not obvious from your poetry – he is going to outstretch his shore towards you. He does this through violent action. 

Jade brings up a fist. Jade brings down a fist. 

Though it does not give easily, the glass still breaks in fractures. Triangles and rhombuses branch out from underneath Jade’s fist. Jagged, uneven connect-the-dots shapes make up a circular pattern that splinters from the point of contact. A little less than ten pieces fall into the tomb, landing on your ebony dress and bouquet. 

Steeling himself, Jade turns his attention to your face. Gloss from the glass makes you look angelic, like a shimmer of makeup glitter. Someone has painted your lips in a dark, blood red – (“I can’t stand bright lipstick! It makes you look like a clown. Jade, you’ll catch me dead before you catch me in dark lipstick”) – which boils up Jade’s month long, hidden away anger. 

His second punch causes glass to land on your dress like snow knocked off a branch, heavy with volume. The plummeting glass is also followed by a trickle of blood. Jade pulls back his bleeding hand, hooks it underneath a section of glass, and pulls it up like one might do with rotten floorboards. Glass pierces through the material of his glove, hitting bone. He grabs another part of the coffin, snaps it off like it is a mere graham cracker, and forms a fist with shrapnel of glass embedded in fingers. Fragile glass hovering over your face breaks and showers down like freckles. Steadily, he keeps punching and breaking off glass until none remains.

When he pulls back his right hand, the leather is thoroughly drenched in a red flood. Instead of spraying bloody water in thin sheets, it flows off his fingers like a spilled milkshake. Black and red combined, Jade adds the last color to the Snow White triptych. 

Avenging, he takes the bouquet of white flowers from your hands. The stems crunch in his harsh grip; the flowers sway in their downward descent. He brandishes them down by his thigh like one might hold a sword in the midst of battle. Nitroglycerin sweat bubbles and propane sweat pops on his palm. His black gloved hand catches fire, enveloping the bouquet in a blaze that rises vindictively up to his shoulders.

As the last bits of a fire spell, done without the conductor of his magic pen, start to shimmer away in ash and smoke, Jade lets the incinerated, curled inward, black flowers fall to the ground. He takes his dominant hand and slowly places it upon your cheek.

Soft. You are so soft. I should have taken off my gloves. His bleeding hand infects your skin with a new paint. Jade puts his thumb over your lips where someone has put clown lipstick on you. When your lips part slightly under his ministrations, no breath hits his thumb. 

His precious pearl, breathless. He wishes nothing more for you to open up your eyes and dispel his worries. 

“Jade!” Ah, it seems people are starting to come out of their stupor at the display Jade is presenting. He looks vexatious over his shoulder, briefly catching eye contact with Azul. “What are you possibly doing!” Jade also manages to catch his brother breaking comatose to stand up.

“There is no need to fret about me overblotting. I have a secure lid placed on my emotions. Unlike others.”

Hurt flashes in Azul’s eyes. Jade cannot stomach to check if his insult hurt who he intended it to hurt. Instead, he gingerly lifts you in his arms. Limp, you tumble into his embrace with gravity-obeying limbs. Your neck tilts back and your toes point down in Jade’s careful hold.

“Jade!”

This will prove difficult with both my hands holding them and no magic pen as a conductor. It is the only thought in Jade’s head as his brother shouts his name. Worry rarely crosses his twin’s face with such an intensity; most would judge it as anger. Ah, I am really being so impolite today. Sorry Floyd. The starting sparks of a teleportation spell start to pop around his shoulders and torso like fireflies. 

With a deep breath, Jade disappears in a supernova. 

More or less, Jade Leech has returned to being himself. Verbosely polite and formal; eager to lend a helping, subservient hand; jumping right back into the schedule he has: classes, duties for Azul, Mountain Lovers club activities, etcetera. He is a different picture of the man laying in bed, stricken with your absence; now, he has returned to the man he was in your presence. 

Is it because you two are reunited in presence? That old tale of Hercules and Meg, interlocked souls, finally touching again? Are you reunited? Azul cannot be certain that is true. Nobody has been able to locate your body since that day. 

Behind his glasses, Octavinelle’s housewarden traces the motions of his vice. He cannot see Jade’s expression, only scrutinizing over his back as he pens the order of a customer. It is a week after your uncompleted funeral. Azul’s stomach turns sick, watching Jade work effortlessly in Mostro Lounge, not knowing where Jade keeps your corpse. 

Corpse … All his limbs shudder at the word. It could be hidden under his own bedroom’s floorboards or locked away in Ramshackle with your three ghost companions. You could be anywhere.

Every thought Azul has on the situation makes it feel like salt and ice are colliding in his abdomen in a hissing burn. So, he decides to stop thinking about it. Which is why he is almost grateful when Jade comes up to him, distracting his mind from slipping into darker speculation.

Hand on his heart, Jade says, “Table Fifteen is requesting your presence. They have a question about one of our discontinued menu items – the salmon and lemon-ricotta pasta. I already divulged about the excess supply getting thrown out because of low demand. However, your presence was requested nonetheless.”

“Ah, thank you, Jade,” Azul says. It is just the distraction he needs before he thinks about anything more ghastly. Stock issues and dining will not haunt him with goosebumps and night terrors. He starts towards Table Fifteen.  

“Though … I can return and take care of it, if need be.” 

It is that odious sentence that gives Azul pause. Because that is exactly what the old Jade would offer, using a bit of rough, predatory treatment to de-escalate an issue. Same old Jade Leech, hiding a corpse somewhere on campus … who even knows if your body is on campus. 

“No … No, you are dismissed from the issue. Do whatever you please for the rest of your shift.”

“Very well. If you’ll excuse me.”

I have to go make preparations, Azul thinks as he goes to greet Table Fifteen. I don’t see it as necessary but, Azul glances one last time at Jade as the distance between them grows, Jade’s spine once again all he sees, I should prepare for the event of him overblotting.

Saprophytic organisms obtain their nutrients by breaking down dead organic matter. Fungi, bacteria, and water molds all have an exclusive diet of nature’s cadavers. In the simplest of terms, they eat death to sustain their own life. 

Not all mushrooms are saprotrophs. After all, mycorrhizal and parasitic and endophytic mushrooms have a different diet; it is just that a majority of the mushrooms one finds, one will find them living among them dead. As active decomposers, they refuse to let death be finite. As Jade opens his terrarium, chip-esque mushrooms that mimic the look of a body’s heat signals, he recalls fondly how saprotrophs are the easiest to cultivate. 

He takes out the turkey tail mushrooms, ripping them from their roots. Well, mushrooms have no roots but the image is still true. Turkey tail mushrooms are fascinating – they look so much like thermal heat vision, little branching waves of red, yellow, and white, thus making them look alive. And, they have a history of being used as medicine.

So vigorous with life yet bloated after a meal of death. 

Jade opens the book on his desk in the botanical gardens. People always chastised him for his love of mushrooms. If he had an affection towards flowers or perhaps even pretty yellow weeds, he supposes it would not be as frowned upon. He has always been this way, preferring the ugly duckling over the swan. You were of a similar disposition. 

Around his work station, an incense holder burns wisps of Worm’s Wort – which can dull the odor of anything. He flips through pages at a languid pace. From the window panes, moonlight slithers down a thousand maggots and makes their congealing home on Jade’s desk. Interlocking light lies down to rest as Jade stays awake into the night.

I’m so tired. The thought seeps in like a maggot in the ear of a cadaver. Numerous times, Jade changes his pair of nitrile gloves to rub at his eyes, warding off sleep. Moonlight maggots crawl over his skin.

It is only after his sixteenth failed potion (eighty-first if you count the others he has made in the past six nights after your funeral) with the wrong color, wrong texture, or wrong smell, does Jade’s head start to slip off his neck. On the verge of burning out, eyes blinking close, the desk rushes towards him like ground to a meteor, about to kiss his nose and face with pain, and – you catch him in your hand despite the smoldering sting of touching a meteor.

“You make and pick the strangest beds to fall asleep in. I can’t take my eyes off my Jade for a second, can I?” 

Jade blinks to see you resting next to him, forehead on your forearm which lies on the table. His cheek is warmed by your right hand which acts as a bridge between his flesh and the desk. Even though some of your hair is in the way and the left side of your face is shielded in the cradle of your arm, Jade can see it clear as day. There is no scar threading itself across your forehead. 

You give him a warm smile and Jade, who is a cold-blooded creature, replicates that warmth. The last exhausted fuses of energy left in him lift up his lovestruck lips. “Tired, baby,” you ask him.

“Mmmmh, just a bit. I have been at this for quite some time.”

“We should head back to Octavinelle then. Can’t have you knocking over a potion in your sleep.”

“No, no. Let’s stay here a little longer.” To bask in your presence, Jade needs that to a higher degree than he needs water or air. “Don’t go so soon.”

You are dressed in your school uniform. It has all of your soul’s idiosyncrasy in each article. Not really enrolled in Night Raven College, therefore lacking a uniform, you wear a leather jacket without pockets and a grid pattern collared shirt. The sleeves of your button-up gently pull away from being sandwiched by his cheek and desk. You busy yourself with brushing strands of black hair into its correct placement.

“Okay, okay. We can stay here for a while, but you’re definitely going to have a sore neck and sore shoulders in the morning.”

“Pamper me tomorrow?”

You hum, considering it. By now, most of the mismatched, colored tresses have been tucked gingerly behind his ear. You follow the diamond outline of a single sturgeon scale with your finger as you say, “If the price is right.”

Jade's smile grows stupid at that, showing just a sliver of his teeth. You always did like poking fun at his Octavinelle habits. Allowing himself to melt under your ministrations, he murmurs, “Anything for you.”

“Happy to do business with you then, Mr. Leech.”

You move the nail of your index along diamond scales’ edges, content to do as he says. Stay here a little longer under a gazebo of stars. Sevens, it might have been cheesily poetic what you said in the past, yet Jade agrees in totality with your poesy. The universe has collapsed, burnt away worries and responsibilities, and all that remains of creation is you and him. 

Jade lifts his face so the hand playing with his earring falls over his mouth. With pouting lips, he plants a field of kisses on your palm. Such a warm palm. Your hand smells of raspberries and whipped vanilla from a foam soap you were particularly fond of. Jade can even smell it over the Worm’s Wort. And, Worm’s Wort – that is meant to keep his potion-making a secret – is an overwhelming, astringent scent that blankets other smells with high efficiency. 

Everything, even his nose, narrows down to you. It is not an unpredictable feat. Azul once said your voice drags him out of any task with the ease of a siren working to drown a sailor. Which is why he hears you clearly even as you mumble, “Oh, I have this poem I want to workshop with you.” 

Jade mourns the loss of your hand when you move energized. Leaning back in your stool, both hands fall behind you to grip under the seat. You throw back your head, conjuring all the verses up in your head. When you tilt your eyes to look at Jade, you have this grin on your face that balances on the fence of being sleazy with gross intent or being liberative with genius intent. Like you will either tell him you found a dead animal or you found the cure to cancer. He is all ears for whatever you throw. 

He is only thrown for a bit of a loop as you swing your feet to the side and leap off the stool. Not perturbed over your body but rather an article of clothes. The noose around your neck is a blood-red tie with a stark white pattern of skulls upon it, mimicking the look of cut-out paper snowflakes. Patterned by two distinct rows: skulls connecting forehead to forehead then skulls facing the viewer. It vanishes from his sight as your back faces him. 

Out of your mouth, poetry diffuses in the heavy, wet air of the botanical gardens. 

“Wake up. (your feet carry you out towards the stretch of cobblestone, then playfully, you turn and disappear behind large, flowing leaves and unusual flowers)

Door Death, I knock upon thee (“(name)?” jade springs up, a deep fear swimming through him because you are out of his sight)

I ask the eternal question (when he pushes back the large leaves and peculiar flowers, you are no longer in that same spot; his head moves on a swivel, looking for you)

Has my life all been a dream? (your voice carries on the eastern air)

Has all my life been a dream? (your voice carries on the western air)

The eternal question unanswered (pressure falls over his eyes and heart, where are you!)

Door Death, I knock upon thee (a finger taps his shoulder-blade)

Wake up.”

When Jade turns, your embrace retreating slowly, you are holding out a solitary Easter lily out towards him. The gesture plainly tells him to take it. A white trumpet-shaped mouth yawns at him, five or so tongues of yellow pollen sticking out. It looks so correct in your hold that Jade almost doesn’t want to accept it.

Heart knocking with lingering desperation, he takes the Easter lily in hand all the same. In replacement to his palm, he rests his knuckles to his avalanching chest, careful of the flower in his caress. Before he can comment on the verses, you beat him to the punch. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret; my Jade isn’t stupid.” 

He chuckles at that, eyes squinting with mirth.“Don’t I always say you should set your expectations upon higher platforms when with me?” 

“My expectation towards your stupidity or your intellect?” 

“Oya? I’d prefer the latter.” A teasing eyebrow is raised.  

However, you grow grim like this is a matter of life or death. You twine arms around his neck and ensnare him to lean down to your height. In your eyes, a maelstrom of mental unease rages and causes your hues to appear milky-gray with worry. Under the concern of your bruised eyes, Jade responds, “You think I’m making a rash decision? Or perhaps, one that is not fully educated. I assure you that I have rigorously studied this.”

Your mouth quirks. “I think you are choosing the wrong method.”

“Then, enlighten me please.”

You lean close to him, nose to nose. Unlike the sweetness of raspberries and vanilla, your breath is something foul. Cadaverine and putrescine scent that he can only compare to the smell of his mushrooms at peak rot. Jade cannot focus on the scent because your voice hypnotizes him. 

Slowly, you recite a song like it is poetry. “A dream is a wish your heart makes; when you’re fast asleep; in dreams you will lose your heartaches; whatever you wish for, you keep.”

Whatever dust of happiness is holding Jade’s lips blows away. The frown cuts his features. It takes a great deal for him to respond over the commotion of rain and lightning storming around in his ribcage; he only manages one word, perfumed in hurt and hate. “Him?”

Your next breath smells like mint.  He imagines it would be something lovely to taste in a kiss. “I trust him. He is dear to me.”

Hate and hurt dull Jade’s casual loquacity. “But he hurt you.”

“So have you.” Now only hurt remains on Jade’s tongue. You do not let him refute, listing off, “So has Riddle, so has Leona and Azul, so has Jamil, so has Rook, so has Vil and Idia, so has Sebek, so has everyone that has known me. What is one more scar?”

It is the harsh truth, Jade knows. Magicless and fragile, you have been in the infirmary as often as an alcohol back to the liquor cabinet. Nothing worse than scratches and one broken wrist, nothing like this, Jade wants to desperately argue but your eyes silence him.

“So please,” you continue. “Please, give him a chance … You know, I’m still so sad that I never got to arrange that joint club meeting – Mountain Lovers and Gargoyle Research Studies. I think it would have been a peaceful walk at night, looking out for mushrooms and gargoyles. 

“You two are so alike. It amuses me.” This truth takes its knife and thunders itself into Jade’s gut. Maneuvering with incredible dexterity, truth stabs into the eight tic-tac-toe regions of his abdomen, cutting deep red mouths into pallid flesh that tell him: yes, this is a truth. We love the same person. Jade does not voice this growing pain. 

“I assure you, it is beneficial to have full faith in me. Have I ever made a split -choice decision? Do I not map out everything ahead of time? Besides, failing to my weaknesses in magical areas is not something I’m inclined to do, my dear.”

“Consider it. Anything for me, right?” 

Ah, how villainous you are. To use his own words against him like that is a quality he both adores and loathes. Jade maneuvers the Easter lily so it sits in his hand like a cigarette. A loving hand raises up to one of the arms entwined around his neck, rubbing along the sleeve, as he slyly objects, “Surely you can understand my hesitation. After his -”

“I almost died –” Jade’s heart stops beating, fear is a powerful clog to all his heart’s arteries. You continue softly, “ during Azul’s overblot. What happened –”

“Let’s not talk about it. Just trust me.”

“Jade.”

“(Name).”

“No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream you wish will come true … Please, consider it for my sake.”

“... I will play around with it in my head … No promises that I won’t crush it like it’s a bug.”

The tone of the conversation turns light. “I hope the sound of it buzzing annoys you.”

“How cruel of you.”

“Ah, NRC has really rubbed off on me. I’m just too wicked.” A laugh breaks your lips.

“The worst. Worse than the worst. Vile.” Smiling with a mouthful of glass, shark-like teeth, Jade finally closes the gap between the two of you. The scent of mint too enticing and the sight of you too dopamine-inducing, he has to kiss your lips until you cry or moan. It is in his biological nature. 

The gazebo of stars rebuilds itself. Each cedar wood paneling falls back into perfect placement. Yours and Jade’s lip find all the old familiar spots of pleasure; first just lip fat smooshing together until you both in perfect sync open your mouths to each other. It might be seen as tedious already knowing the moves but Jade thinks it is a testament to how truly made for one another each of you are.

And, of course, he never allows it to get boring. Tongues like magma flowing in combining rivulets, Jade takes to moving his hands down past the curve of your shoulders to the side of your cheeks. He tilts your head in the opposite direction of how he moves his, deepening the kiss. 

You grip the back of teal strands and real pain ignites on his skin. Pain made by your physical grip. Jade follows along to mimic that harshly loving gesture. However, when he rests his fingers to cup the back of your head, he stumbles upon a scar line. A few inches above your nape. It lies like a jagged river cutting apart two pieces of land.

A warning bell blares in Jade’s mind. The sound causes him to break away. It is not buzzing though, like you were predicting. 

Night Raven College’s clock chimes twice, deep in the bowels of dark, interlocking hallways. It knocks on Jade’s skull and pulls him away. When he lifts his head off the desk, blinking at the sight of potions, his shoulders and neck are incredibly sore. 2 A.M. Two chimes after all mean 2 A.M.  The air is so thick with Worm’s Wort that he almost chokes on it. 

He does end up choking. Not on something as flowy as Worm’s Wort smoke. Rather, he chokes on something rather salty and dangerously watery. 

At 2:47 A.M, Jade Leech walks into the Diasomnia dorm.

At 3:08 A.M, Jade Leech walks out of the Diasomnia dorm, a deal made.

Floyd wakes up facing an empty bed. This is not entirely odd; Jade has a scheduled A period while Floyd opts to keep his first period free. With thick fog still lingering in his brain, it does seem a bit odd not to see Jade because for the past month he has remained in bed. But – Jade is doing better. What gives Floyd pauses is the lingering thought: did I hear Jade come in at all last night? 

Floyd is a light sleeper, always has been, so he should have been able to hear him at least enter the dorm last night or exit the dorm this morning. He doesn’t even think he heard a ladybug on the creaking floor; all of Octavinelle was unnaturally still last night like a graveyard. Before he can ponder longer on dead silence, his phone rings. 

What Azul hisses over the phone has Floyd kicking his covers like they have caught fire. “Tell me you know where Jade is. Tell me right now; where is your brother?”

From point A to point B, Floyd and Jade Leech’s dormitory to Mostro Lounge’s VIP Room, the distance is about eight minutes for a normal person. Due to their longer strides, Floyd and Jade can cut this measurement by two minutes while Azul takes the full eight. It takes Floyd three minutes to point B, as while Azul curses his ear and Floyd curses under his breath. 

Floyd knows it bad when dogmatic Azul does not scold him for walking through numerous hallways and his precious Lounge without a pair of socks, and it gets worse when Azul does not scold him for still being in his pajamas – an XL shirt with poetry in a downward pattern saying: “®, 40S & SHORTIES, BAD DECISIONS. GOOD TIMES., WORLDVIEW” with a pair of white striped, blue cotton pants – at nine on a Tuesday morning. Two Azuls speak in unison, one on the telephone receiver and one in front of him, “I think he has sealed it up with magic.”

It is a book. Just as Floyd’s hand had fallen on Mostro Lounge’s  VIP door, he had inquired why Azul Ashengrotto of all people was having such a hard time getting a single book open. A book is easy to open; a book sealed with magic should be easy too, for a mage of Azul’s talents. 

“Well, can’t ya just break it? It can’t be anything stronger than what we learned in Practical Magic?” Floyd disconnects the call as he talks; he does not need two Azuls in his ear. 

“If the charm was something from that course then of course. This is more on par with the third year Conjuration course … or Ancient Curses.”

Though only seventeen, one would think with the maturity etched in Azul’s features that he was nearing twenty-seven instead. He has a hand depressed on his face and his eyes drawn into a sharp squint. Behind the shield of his glasses, a dozen speculations and calculations dance like sparks of lightning. Floyd hates it as much as he is glad to see that incisive prowess.  

“But … it’s just a book about mushrooms.” Which is entirely true. The book that Azul’s stare is burning a hole through has written plainly on it: Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares. 

When considering current events, the title causes Floyd’s stomach to turn inside out. However, it is something Floyd has seen Jade read before Malleus’s overblot. It is just a boring book. A boring book that for some reason won’t open.

Azul verbalizes Floyd’s inner doubt, “A book that Jade left behind. A book that is not opening no matter what elementary magic I throw at it.” 

Left in the botanical gardens. Left there overnight when Jade said he was going to be right back after tending to his terrariums. Getting back into hobbies was a sign of healing from trauma, right? Floyd feels like the skin of stomach is not only inside out but being torched by fire.

“I‘ll open it. I’m on the same level as Jade. Can’t be too hard.” Just as Floyd starts walking up to Azul’s desk, he is stopped. 

“No! No … we shouldn’t risk your health if this takes something more to open.”

Vexation falls on Floyd’s face. His teeth displayed and brow crinkled, “Huuuh?” He stomps over to the desk. “It’s Jade magic. It ain’t gonna kill us.”

“No, but it might drain one of us. And,” Azul hesitates. But when Floyd slams his hands down on the VIP desk, determinate coals burn in his sky-blue eyes. He stares down Floyd without a single flinch. “And you run the fastest out of the two of us, so we cannot risk your energy.”

It takes a moment for him to back down. Reading the map of the plan on Azul’s expression, it comes to Floyd’s attention what exactly Azul is hinting at. “Fiiine.” Floyd’s dominant hand still crosses up to rest on his right shoulder. “Doesn’t mean I’ma be happy about it though.”

“Trust me, neither am I.” And he really isn’t. This entire situation leaves a bad taste in his mouth. 

On the ledge of Azul’s desk rests his staff. The octopus’s bulbous head keeps it steady on the surface. Authentic silver shines elegantly under the expensive lighting. Between the nest of curling tentacles, Azul’s gray gemstone sits, ready to be utilized. White gloves wrap around the sleek black handle.

When Azul holds his staff above the book, Floyd interrupts, “Ma called me two nights ago and said – (Floyd sits in his bed, stricken by the sound of his grown, emotionally shielded mother crying. The sound of her sobs feel so artificial in his left ear, like hearing a creature trying to mimic human speech patterns. Something so visceral wrong laced in the vocal cords of it. 

“Mama, Mama, what’s wrong,” Floyd pleads, about one breath away from grabbing a transformation potion and rushing to the Mirror Chamber. 

“Tell – Tell Jade to pick up his phone please – I just! I – auh – Floooyd,” his mother sobs. 

“Mama, he’s in class. He can’t pick up his phone right now. He’s in class. What’s wrong? Ma?”

That seems to soothe something in Narissa Leech. There is a slick sound of her wiping away tears, probably bringing talons under her eyelids and probably bringing her forearm across her nose. After a few tearful breath, she whispers, “He’s not sleepin’?”

“No, he went to his A period class. Mama, what’s wrong?”

“I,” she sniffles, “I had this awful dream. You and Jade were tiny and still sharing your bedrooms. I went to wake up both of you for breakfast but Jade wouldn’t wake up. I kept shaking and shakin’ him. It was like he was in a coma and just wouldn’t get up. He looked like a tiny corpse. 

“I kept calling for you and Dad, but neither of you would come help. My little baby. I kept trying to wake him up. I just tried and tried. Then, I pried his left eye open and ah!” His mother cries once more. “He looked so dead in his sleep!”). – and I haven’t been able to stop thinkin’ ‘bout it,” Floyd finishes.

It is very rare for either of the twins to show their fears. Fear is a delicious seasoning that gets you devoured in the Coral Sea. Though it wears a mask on Floyd’s face, fear is still evident in his voice despite the steadiness of each syllable. Sometimes friends can just measure how much fear the other has, even when it is not shown.

Azul frowns sympathetically. He has only really had his mother and step-father; worrying about a sibling is uncharted territory for Azul. However, if he had friends with a bond as close as a sibling relationship, it might be Floyd and Jade. It just might. 

It probably is not though. Probably.

“Since we were little, your brother has always been capable. Both in his magic and in his wit. Even … even in this instance, I doubt Jade will ever make a decision hazardously.” Which is exactly what worries them; Jade is brilliant, who knows what an odious mixture of intellect and grief could end up making.

Azul touches the octopus’s forehead to the cover of Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares. In reaction, the room explodes with the power of a violet tornado.

“Fuck,” Floyd shouts as wind body-checks him like a obese linebacker. 

Azul’s hat flies off his head. His glasses would risk being magnetized into the same wind-polarity if he tilted his face away from the shimmering violet. However, Azul does not wither even once at the tremendously powerful locking spell. The violet that stains his face like grape only hones him into the irrefutable fact that this is Jade’s magic. Despite being on the verge of being knocked over by it, the realization fills Azul with relief. 

Floyd’s violet nails scrap lines into Azul’s desk but Azul does not twitch out of his resolve. Papers lying on his desk go airborne. The housewarden grits his violet teeth so hard that he risks breaking his jaw, his mole stretching down with the shape of his grimace. 

C’mon, c’mon! Slowly, the tentacles on Azul’s staff start to unfurl from their comatose state. His gem stone and the octopus head remain fixed to the handle unlike the squirming appendages. Silver metal moves fluidly and wraps itself around the cover of the book like a starfish. 

Then, with a burst of brighter violet that fades away to nothing, chanterelle dreams and amanita nightmares reveal their faces to the two of them. Well, not to Floyd. Temporarily blind due to the atomic explosion, he is wiping his eyes with his knuckles, blinking away little spots of endless black and blinding white. Which is why for a vital moment, Floyd misses the look of absolute horror that paints Azul’s face.

“Th-This –.” As the tentacles of his magic staff congeal back into their normal state, Azul sets the handle’s end down on the ground. Uncoordinated, it tumbles to the ground just as Azul picks up the book, holding it close to his chest.

“Wha? What’s in it? Shit, this kills,” Floyd hisses, hunched over. A stray tear falls down Floyd’s left eye as he slowly straightens out. “Stupid Jade.”

With each page flip, Azul’s face turns a lighter shade of white. When a hand reaches out to grab the book, Azul slaps it with so much force that Floyd groans in pain. 

“C’mon, let me see,” Floyd whines. It is not a childish whine but more of a warning, he is going to get violent if Azul does not hand over the stupid book now. Floyd grabs the desk and leans over the top, trying to get a glimpse of whatever Azul is hiding. All he sees is paragraphs of text and a block where an image is drawn.

He does not get to know what the image is because Azul slams the book shut and demands with urgency, “Where is your brother, Floyd?”

A dragon’s treasure is guarded and hoarded with a shield-and-sword-heart acting as its knights. Malleus has found his treasure to have become his memories of you. If each recollection was a shiny ruby or bright diamond, Malleus puts them all in an isolated, inaccessible cache. In times where comfort is needed, he returns to roll a precious gem in his talons, moments of just you and him unshared with others playing in his mind. Right now, Malleus rotates a rose quartz.

This particular rose quartz was formed by magma crystallization as all are. The time period it was formed in was before you knew his true identity. 

You two are perched miles above the ground, on one of the eastern turrets of Night Raven College. You curl into your notepad as Malleus takes in the scenery. 

He took you up here by teleportation. You have improved in leaps and bounds from your first time being maneuvered about the earth by a teleportation spell. Unlike your first time, you only gag now rather than puke. After a spell (not performed by his hands) of dizziness, you two took your seats upon the roof. Meters in front of you lies a single gargoyle. Wingspan extended out and the spine facing you. 

He has already explained it to you in great detail, and you listened. Really listened. So used to be stared through, Malleus has recently been finding his ears turn pink at how you look at him. Tonight, he has cut off his presentation earlier than normal. Bashfully empty of words burnt out from your smoldering eyes.

Malleus welcomes the reprieve with gratitude. Chirping crickets and grinding graphite is the only music playing in his ears – though he can sometimes hear the jazz notes of you going no, no, that line does work, no, what’s another word for … no, too pretentious and has to keep himself from chuckling fondly.

Soon, the crickets find themselves without any further accompaniment; you have stopped writing. Curious, Malleus looks away from the stone he has been studying. His neck rolls. Rejuvenated, his pulse pounds in the taut muscles found in his throat at the sight of you. What a sight you truly are, unafraid to be here with him. 

You catch onto his unshakable staring. Tongue in cheek, pencil clenched in hand, you announce “I.” The pencil weeps under your strength. “I think I got it now.”

Malleus raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

You tap your pencil on the edge of your notepad anxiously. Then, taking a deep breath, you read your haiku:

“Apathy on stone

My prince, do not reveal tears

Gargoyle, keep your face.”

The look you give him is uneasy. He imagines you are anticipating harsh criticism, writing a poem on a subject matter he is so endowed in. Rather than criticism, the only thing in Malleus’s heart is a quick skipping beat.

You have such a way with words that it leaves his spellbound despite the unequivocal fact that you are very magicless. The words seem so knitted together for his especial heart. His own face of stone. However, knowing you do not know he is a prince, he considers the five-seven-five syllable poem and covers up his growing blush with one inquiry , “tears?”

“Because gargoyles are waterspouts. So, I wanted to layer an emotion to the functionality, the rigid job.” For a moment, you consider the poem in your hand then your mouth moves a mile a second. “Ugh! Truthfully, I wanted to say ‘a prince must never cry’ so it can keep the chain of commands like ‘keep your face’ but then the line would only be six syllables! Ugh, I hate haikus! I can’t write a single good one.” 

You look about ready to crumple up and toss the note away with hatred. It would not be surprising, you do this a lot. Enough to the point where Malleus has a collection of crinkled up poems — “If you want them, you can have them. They fucking stink though,” you had first bemoaned when Malleus first asked to keep your workshopping words. This one though, Malleus wants you to be proud of it.

“I happen to think it is quite beautiful, spellbinding almost.”

The way your eyes shimmer when looking at him leaves Malleus choking on the night air. He continues despite his temperature rising in his gut and nape.

“The first and third lines feel impersonal, but the middle line is soft. It is the gentleness sandwiched and withered away by the stone. Despite the cold exterior, there is a heart in there.”

The way you look at him — all the ways you look at him, but even more so now — has him falling helplessly in love with you. Stars blaze in your eyes like he has opened up the jaws of the universe and plucked your favorite part of the cosmo down for you. He would do so for you. He would do so much for you – divide the ocean down the middle, change the phrase of the moon, or tear the sky in two. Wounded so tightly across your finger that it surely cuts off circulation. You look at him so sweetly, bathed by the night’s glow. Malleus bites his tongue bloody to keep from telling you that you have the prettiest eyes. 

“That’s — That’s actually really a revolutionary way to look at it. I —,” you glance down at your work, “I really didn’t have the optimism to see it that way.”

“You should be more prideful of what you create. Your work too has a heart despite its cold exterior, even at its most tortured.”

“Stooop, I’ll blush.” You raise a hand over your eyes but a sleazy grin is underneath your fingers. You enjoy praise a lot.

“I am just being honest with you, Child of Man. You always asked me to be.” He pauses then asks, “however, may I inquire why use the word prince?”

“I don’t know. Don’t they seem regal to you at times?”

“Hm, there seems to be a resemblance.” 

“They remind me of you a lot. Regal. Ah, not that you’re a prince though … What’s that grin for? Don’t tell me I inflated your ego.”

“Nothing of the sorts, Child of Man.”

“Ah, whatever.” Despite your grumbled tone, you flip to the next notebook page. It is the first one he has seen you save rather than tear up. 

Rain pitters on the building, starting out soft like the languid pop of popcorn in a microwave. No, not on Night Raven College’s roof. Rainfall taps like fingertips on Diasomnia’s dormitory, and Malleus realizes it is time for him to put this rose quartz back in his treasure hoard. When his and Jade’s eyes meet across the room, his breath grows thorn in his lungs. Now is not the time to reflect.

From the towering polygon windows, the icy clouds heavy with rain are just barely visible through the shower sticking to the panes. Worser weather is certain to come like an expected guest. Malleus, tongue heavy, announces, “All that is left now is to retrieve their body.”

Diasomnia’s lounge has been cleared of all its furniture and rugs. Tables teleport away and rugs roll themselves up. Black leather couches and chairs are depressed tightly on the southern wall behind Jade and Malleus, blocking the entrance. Not that they are necessary barricades when the bombay blackwood doors are locked firmly with ancient magic. 

It is set in motion to take place in the lounge’s heart. The nook bordered by two grand staircases and twenty feet below where Diasomnia’s throne resides. Upon the cement ground, illuminated by no light, lies a circle of complex patterns and symbols made of thorns. In the middle of linking sigils, Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden stands with an apathetic, stone face. The same expression he had worn when he and Malleus made their contractual deal. 

He keeps his cards so close to his chest, you once bemoaned on your nightly ventures. Malleus remembers it well; you were reaching tear-out-your-hair hysteria due to cooking a meal for Jade Leech and not receiving a clear glimpse into his opinion. He’s impossible to read!  Your teeth flashed with frustration. 

It is an appropriate analogy. Like an experienced gambler, Jade knows not to leave his hands vulnerable to any ill-intent strikes. At first, he was incredibly suspicious of your kindness until evolution changed your kindness to a craving. With Malleus, Jade hides his cards behind his back and then shields them with an illusion spell to change the faces of the playing cards.

Making this shrewd deal was one of Jade’s finer moments. Like an experienced brain surgeon, he knows where to pull with roughness or push with softness in the intricate webbing of nerve-endings. Using survivor’s guilt as keen forceps and using his own signature spell as hooks, Jade performed a deal Azul would have been praiseful of. 

Which is why he will comply with the terms, because he has already prematurely agreed to them. Green eyes watch him pull black gloves carefully from his hands. He folds them once, pockets them, then unclips his magic pen from his breast pocket. A collision of two stars bursts in bright colors on the surface of Jade’s pen.

From out of thin air, you appear. You fall into Jade’s arm with all the grace of a dead body. Jade catches you in a dancer’s standard dip. Limp, your neck stretches as far as it can while dangling strands of hair point down at the ground like a thousand knives. 

He plants a gentle kiss on your cheek. Mourning and love mix in his heterochromic eyes. Jade takes to silently brushing away the pieces that cover up your forehead’s scar as if to almost say to Malleus who watches Jade lift you bridal style: look at what you did to them, look. 

Malleus’s otherwise imperative stare moves to a window. The rain is starting to get gradually heavier. When Malleus looks back, Jade is kneeled in the middle of the circle of thorns, as was pre-planned. The stone-faced prince of Briar Valley interlocks his gloves underneath the gem’s handle base instead of just holding it in one hand.

“No matter what you see or hear, your focus must never flicker from the Child of Man. A single interruption is a breakage in a dam of irreversible consequence. I ask you to heed these words carefully … Jade.”

“Of course.” Curt and clip, Jade’s confirmation is nothing more than contractual obligation. 

The vines from the head base to gemstone bring to shift. Two interlocked vines rotate in a downward spiral, dancing around one another. 

“Then, let us not waste another second.”

The spindle’s wheel starts to spin. Slowly at first, it moves at a pace where one can keep track of the mismatched sized spokes. Gradually, the spindle picks up pace. Inner spokes start to move in a heartbeat-esque pattern, up and down from long to short to long to short. Bombay blackwood twirls; the natural grain melts together into one smooth surface. It keeps picking up pace, twirling faster and faster. It is now impossible to distinguish where the spokes lie as they all melt into nebulous black. Accumulating to its peak, Malleus’s spindle moves so swiftly that it appears to slow down, moving counterclockwise. 

Wind picks up in Diasomnia as if a tornado is tearing through the stone ribcage. Malleus’s hair flies around him like ebon seaweed caught along a boat’s racing hook. The obsidian markings on his forehead stay relenting to the fierce winds, tight upon his increasingly crinkling brow. Behind his pointed ears, ebon strands whip back and forth with a vengeance. 

Jade’s and your hair move in tandem, blown in the same direction. Despite the discord around, despite when Malleus starts to chant, nothing tears his gaze from you. His eyes are intent on you like a mere blink would cause you to dissolve into seafoam. Despite the lighting hitting the ground, he keeps his stare. 

A breath later, the lounge is plunged into green. 

On the tongue of a stone bridge, Floyd and Azul appear out of thin air. Not entirely out of thin air though; around their shoulders, the shimmer of the transportation mirror into Diasomnia fades over their bodies. Rain smacks them in the face with a grievous scorn. Azul loses his footing temporarily but Floyd catches him by the elbow.

He pushes up his glasses, rain falls so hard and fast that they become more of an obstacle than a helper for sight. Getting drenched by the second, Azul stops with Floyd to watch the show of dancing lightning. “By Sevens, do you really think Draconia is overblotting again?”

Diasomnia staff and students in Mostro Lounge had started checking their phones as Floyd and Azul stepped out from the VIP room. Apparently, there was a storm brewing in the Diasomnia dormitory. Apparently, the main foyer was closed off and the vice-housewarden was evacuating students. Apparently, Malleus Draconia is overblotting a second time. Who knows if the information is reliable. All that is important is Jade was seen days ago, walking on this very stone bridge past midnight.

“I don’t care. I know Sea Slug knows where Jade is.” Floyd’s lips pull into a beastly snarl. “C’mon.” 

A cold sweat breaks on Malleus’s forehead. From the two connecting diamonds imprinted on his forehead, sweat drops. It trails down over his nose to his lips which are harshly breathing air in and out. 

Malleus Draconia has to minutely remind himself how breathing works as the tornado rips through Diasomnia like a savage bear. Pressure stomps on his chest with an iron boot. Through all his wild chase to keep oxygen in his lungs, he recognizes it not as pain but rather a deserved punishment. I’m sorry, Child of Man. It is an unheard sentiment; even if said, it would be torn from his lips and thrown yards away by the wind. 

There are many unheard sentiments chopped by the furious air. Most of them come from Silver, Sebek, and Lilia, behindthe barracked door, drowned out by turbulent winds. Harsh air chops up the syllables like a knife, turning them into incomprehensible poetry. The sentiments matter little until among them a single voice shouts, “JADE!”

Stricken, Jade tears his hell-bent gaze away from you. He does not answer loud enough to be heard over the maelstrom but the sentiment is still sincere. “Floyd?”

“Ignore it! Focus on them!!” Under Malleus’s instructions, Jade fixes the nucleus of his sight back onto you. A resurrection can only be completed with the kiss of true love. Without that passionate embrace, the body will lose the returning soul it momentarily holds. A true love’s kiss seals it back in the body. He waits for the predestined moment where he can connect your lips together with unwavering focus. 

“Just a little longer now, my love.” Jade’s lips pull into a lovestruck grin. “Soon.”

Among the wind, voices converse:

“Pry open the door!”

“We have been trying to!”

“Your hands are not broken or bloodied! You obviously have not!!”

“Malleus, this could kill you! This could kill you both!”

“ Malleus!!”

“Jade, you fuck!”

Azul shouts with all his remaining strength, “Jade, don’t do this!!”

A black star forms silently over Jade’s head. 

All of his life, he has been unapproachable. All of his life, people have found his teeth nightmarish and his eyes ghoulish. All of his life, he has waited for someone like you. You mean the universe to him; driven to the point where he would do something as forbidden as this. Malleus grips his staff tighter and Jade grips you tighter.

The black star is an abomination. Quantum processes work in rotation, lapping over each other like yin-and-yang. Ebony water shimmer in the middle of the black star while the outer ring strangles the air atoms with thorns. Atomic particles split into twos, going smaller than scientists thought possible, with the strength of the semiclassical, gravitational abomination. 

It thumps like a grotesque, wet heart and churns with the sound of visceral tearing. From the black thorns, the atmosphere collapses into blue-gray dust, destroying the atoms in its way. The black star gives a pained groan before it expels what it has taken.

From the inky depths of a black star, wisps of smoke start to seep down like water from overhead greenhouse hoses. The plumes of cloud hiss with head-splitting volume. Slowly, those misty clouds spiral back into a congealing mass. A split tornado swirling back into its original shape. Smoke tightens and arrows down before erupting into a cloud over your face. You swallow it; from your eyes, to your nose, to your ears, to your mouth, you swallow all the mist until there is nothing left in the collapsing air. 

Perhaps you are not swallowing; perhaps it is entering.

Jade watches intent each centimeter square of your face with glassy eyes. He waits until each wisps of vapor diffuses into the very pores of your skin. When the air is clear of the smoke, he brings up his right hand to move hair that has fallen over your features.

Onto the skies of your lips, Jade Leech whispers his heart. “I love you. I cannot live this life without my heart and soul. Come back to me; where you belong, my love, is with me.” Under a gruesome black star, he kisses you. 

It is an unreciprocated kiss. When kissing a corpse, one should never expect to be greeted with tender amorous sensations. This is why Jade does not despair when he feels nothing, suctioning your lifeless lips in two kisses before pecking harshly for the third and final kiss. It is alright – he can have his real kiss soon – because the black star is killing itself. 

Collapsing air closes in a snap. Leftover blue-gray powder hangs in the air like dust particles seen from the sunlight’s rays. Slowly, green light starts to slither away, dimming in quanta measures. All is so tranquil; even the tornado winds bottled in the lounge start to dim away. Then, like your heart is trying to jump from your chest, you start to hyperventilate in Jade’s arms.

“(Na-Name) … (Name),” love washes over Jade’s tongue. You twist violently in his arms, throat and chest pounding up and down with irregular breaths. Like a cornered prey, your eyes are wild with confusion. “It’s okay … I got you. You’re safe … Oh, you’re so beautiful. My love.” 

Neck rolling back, seizure-like eyes go white and you cough out a mushroom-shaped cloud of blue-gray dust. Black blood drips down your left nostril and trails like a tear off your cheek. Exhaustively, your chest continues to punch in and out with air that misses their connection in your lungs by centimeters. If you do not find a way to breathe, you will surely die a second time. 

Not that Jade would let that happen after just getting you back. Jade maneuvers you with ease. He moves your back so it lies on his chest and whispers,  “I know it will be difficult but follow along to my breath. Feel it go in … out … in … out … in … out … there, there … out … in … good, so good.”

Your chest beats wildly like the tempo of a metal song while Jade’s chest beats with the measured drum of rhythm and blues. Ungloved skin rests, fingers spread wide, on your chest. Each groove of each other’s bones are felt. Past the layers of muscle, skin, and clothes, your lungs touch together in a kiss. Jade depresses his chest on your back, bending you into a hunch. His words are almost delirious.

“I love you. I love you so much. I love you, please see it and believe it. I would do anything for you, (Name).”

Slowly, the tempo of your lungs start to dim like the lightning, green lights, and wind do. Jade moves his hand from your chest to your left shoulder. He depresses his lips on your neck, holding onto you painfully tight. 

“ … Right where I want you to be again. Be here with me. Be awake with me. I love you.”

You capture your first real breath as the door to the lounge bursts open.

You turn, eyes wide as saucers. Behind you, Jade’s timid smiling face greets you from your eternal sleep. Another string of black blood drips down your face, this one coming from your right nostril. Your brows creases then flattens out, recognizing the face after a moment of hesitation..

“Jade?”

In response, Jade smiles with all his teeth.

Separate from you two, Malleus lies on the floor. His own heart and lungs beating erratically, panting like a dog on a smoldering summer’s day. Lilia may put his hand on his shoulder to try and vanquish the tidal wave of breathlessness but Malleus shrugs it off. His staff is knocked by his side from the explosion of the black star collapsing. Malleus uses it to push himself up on his knees. 

His heart floods with relief and love at seeing the sight of you breathing in Jade’s arms. Besotted beyond belief, he whispers lovestruck, “Child of Man.” Then, the calm expression melts off his face and reveals panic. Because that is not –!

“Jade!”

Floyd breaks into the room like a storm; shoulder-checks Sebek who is trying to reach Malleus; jumps over the furniture that prove to be useless barracks. “Jade,” he shouts again when he notices his brother has yet to turn away from you. 

Their eyes find each other across the room easily. It is incredibly hard to see in the Coral Sea, biological and environmental factors working double-time together to ensure they stayed in the middle of the food chain. Their shared beacon of gold keeps them tethered together in the sea and on the land. No one else, not even their parents have an eye similar to theirs. That’s my brother is what that single ring of gold means.

Floyd can recognize Jade as such even now at the worst of times. However, a marginal note is stapled onto the thought. That’s my brother and, right now, I’m terrified of him. It is an odious thought. Sevens, Floyd can feel the tap-dancers of bile make their merry way up his throat at this very moment. What keeps them tethered together feels more like a chain than a security line to use.

“Bad decisions, good times,” Jade reads off his t-shirt. “Hm, Floyd?”

How can he speak so calmly with that in his arms? Perhaps, that too is part of why Floyd feels goosebumps on the back of his thighs. A prey or lower predator has signals receptors to recognize danger. A cat shows its fear in a twitching tail; Floyd wonders how he must be showing his own fear. Call it animal insight but a part of Floyd knows deep down, that is not you in his brother’s arms. 

“Ja-Jaido.”

“Florido.”

Do this for me, Jade’s eyes seem to implore. Ah, you asshole, Floyd’s eyes respond. 

He walks forward through a graveyard of thorns. “They probably can’t walk that well. Gotta be winded.” Floyd outstretches his left hand; Jade’s eyes squint in gaiety and your own gape wide in curiosity. The grip Jade has around you is protective.  “C’mon, get up.”

“Thank you, Floyd,” Jade says, placing his hand on his brother’s. 

[theincognitomoth]

Wild Side

Pairing: Mr. Wolf x Fem!Reader (Stablished relationship)

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 5731

Warnings: Rough sex, mild language, bitting, scratch,ing knotting, praise kink, male!dom, fem!sub, first person POV.

Sinopsys: During a mission gone wrong, Mr. Wolf goes on a wild frenzy and ends up hurting his girlfriend. Out of guilt, he isolates himself in a dirty apartment, all the while his sweetheart is determined to prove he has nothing to feel Sorry for.

Since the Night Howlers' incident, Wolf refused to come out of his room. He also refused to let anyone else in, except for Snake, and he refused, above all else, to see me- And that stung far more than the bite mark shaped like his teeth in my forearm as I applied the flower scented infection cream.

Three months ago Diane came with a mission for us. It was simple at first: find a couple of missing citizens. But soon the conspiracy web spiraled so further down that mind controlled guinea pigs and a butt shaped meteorite sounded sane in the same sentence. 

Those people were targets of a cult- The Naturalists, they called themselves. They believed that the root of suffering came from the modern world. A normal group with this belief might have organized a hike or camping trip but, crazy bastards that they were, thought themselves justified to take people off the streets and inject them with a brain altering drug: The Night Howlers.

That cursed little purple capsule was the reason my boyfriend refused to see me, even after two weeks of the case closed.

During a chase he was shot with the substance. Even now my stomach ran cold when I remembered the look in his eyes- Desperate at first, and then feral mindlessness. He chased me prey, my heart pounded in my ears, all my blood going to my legs telling me to run, run, run. It was still a blurry memory, the way his fangs buried on my skin. It was sheer luck that saved me that day, and I dreaded imagining the other outcome. But whatever horrors my mind came up with, I knew Wolf's was much worse, leaving him to rot in his little den of misery. 

With a heavy sigh, I put on my clothes and marched out of the apartment, standing in front of Wolf's door yet again.

“Moe?” I knocked and waited for a response that never came.

This everlasting silence would drive me mad.

“I know you can't- won't see me right now, but could you at least say something so I know you're not dead and rotting on the other side of that damn door?” 

My words were harsh, I knew, and the corridor echoes made sure to slap me in the face with them. For his sake I kept those words in. I knew he was suffering, I tried to be patient, but the sting with each day of deathly silence left a bitter taste in my mouth and I had to let it out before it made me sick.

“I'm getting tired of this- I know you feel bad for what happened, but I swear, I'd rather get bitten again than for you to play dead. Please…”

I was certain my plea would fall on deaf ears until the door locks creaked. My heart was beating in my ears like drums, my eyes burnt from not blinking. The door opened to reveal a dark room, cold and smelling like an old pantry. Snake stood on the other side, looking at me with a frown deeper than normal. He was much better at hiding  his worry than me. 

“Go easy on him,” He said, slipping out of the door and holding it open.

“Is it too bad?” I whispered.

“Would be easier if he wasn't such a drama queen.” 

I forced out a chuckle.

“Thanks.”

“Don't mention it, just… Get him out of that damn apartment.”

A difficult mission, one I didn't know if I was up to, yet had to grab this precious small chance.

I walked into Wolf's apartment and closed the door behind me.

Some people prefer winter nights over nice summer days, but the state of his apartment was absurd. I adjusted my sleeves to cover my hands as the AC turned a city apart into a tundra, its blue glowing numbers being the only light source letting me see broad shapes. Wolf sat in the corner of the couch, wrapped around an old blanket with his face hidden in it. How much time did he spent day after day like this?

One of many food packages scrunching under my foot as I made my way towards him. His ears perked up for a second before laying flat against his head again.

“Moe…” He flinched.

I sat on the couch, arms length from him.

“Can you look at me?” The knots in my chest tightened further as the seconds stretched without a response. “... I miss you.”

Finally, thank Heavens, finally he looked up at me, those big sad eyes resembling an abandoned puppy. He stared for a short while, before sifting his focus to my forearm, covered by the long sleeve.

“Does it still hurt?” He asked, voice quiet.

“No.”

“Did you get an infection?”

“I didn't.”

“Scar?” 

“None.”

“Good.” He let out a shaky breath. “I've missed you too.”

There was a glimmer of the ‘him’ from before the incident when he smiled at me- My old Moe. But I blinked and it was gone. I reached for his hands into the blanket cocoon, but he winched away, covering it up with a chuckle.

“I haven't trimmed my claws in a while.”

“Since when do you trim them?”

“I- uh, started recently.”

“Moe…”

He shook his head, leaning further away from me with a frown.

“Stop. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He struggled to find words. I knew that angry look, but it wasn't aimed at anyone.

“Like you're the one who hurt me and not the other way around.”

When he stood up, so did I, keeping a distance as I followed him to the kitchen, littered with full trash bags that didn’t smell, for they were full of plastic packages and cans instead of real food.

“Come on, it wasn't your fault.”

“Yeah, there are blood stains on my shirt that say otherwise.”

He grabbed a kettle and put it on the stove to boil and took one cup of instant noodles from the almost empty cabinet. Shrimp flavored, Moe's least favorite.

“You weren't in control, they shot you with a Night Howler.”

“And I went after you instead of the cultist, how do you explain that?”

Over the weeks, that question plagued me too and I came up with a few theories. Maybe he chose to chase something that smelled familiar, or his animal brain saw me as easier prey, since the cultist was bigger. Whichever reason, not a part of me believed he acted from malice.

“Look, you don't need to try and justify or rationalize what happened there. I don't blame you one bit.”

“You should.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

I tried to remain level headed, but I didn't know what else to say to make him see reason.

“Why? Why the hell are you so angry with yourself when it was the crazy cultist that drugged you?”

“Because I liked it!”

The kettle whistle was the only sound in the room as I was left speechless, mouth agape and dry. I only realized how tense my shoulders were when they dropped heavy on my sides.

“...What?”

Wolf let out a deep sigh, turning off the stove and leaning against the counter. He wasn't looking at me.

“I liked it- not hurting you, not ever. But when that guy shot me with the Night Howler…” He rubbed the spot on his neck where the drug hit him. “It was like- like I had been wearing a tie squeezing my neck the whole time and the Night Howler cut it loose.”

His eyes sparkled with something familiar, that same shine from when he went through a heist plan or talked about a new driving maneuver he pulled. But as soon as that spark came, he met my eyes and it was gone.

“You can't be serious,” I shook my head. “Did you actually buy into that naturalist looney's idea?”

“It's not- look, I'm not saying I want to run around like a rabies crazed dog.”

“I sure hope so.”

It wasn’t the answer he hoped for, I knew, but it wasn’t what I expected him to say either. Something about those eyes begged for me to understand. For all that it’s worth it, I tried.

Wolf took a moment, pouring the hot water on his noodles.

“Wish I could explain it better. I haven't been able to sleep right after what I did to you, but at the same time, when I close my eyes and remember the way it felt to run around without a thought in my head, it was… free, and real and…”

“Wild?” 

He opened the lid of his instant noodles with a small chuckle, poking at the shrimp pieces with a plastic fork.

“Yeah, wild.” He took a sniff of the thing, face twisting in disgust, then put it down on the sink. 

Silence weighed on the apartment while I tried to make sense of his words. The way he spoke wasn't much different from those cultists and I couldn't use the excuse of indoctrination on him. The great leaders didn't talk Moe into buying their idea, he felt it on his skin, so much so that even the bite incident didn't stop him from missing that brief moment of brain off wildness.

Maybe the naturalists weren't so off. 

“Would you do it again?”

“The night howler? Nah, too risky.”

“But you miss the feeling.”

It wasn't a question, and the way he lowered his ears showed he knew it. I tried to relate in a way, imagining what it would be like if I could never again eat my favorite food, run in the rain or go downhill on a bike. What would be like if I had a snippet of the highest high of my life only to know I could never experience it again? What would it be like if I had a tie squeezing around my neck, only loose enough to suck in shallow breaths?

Miserable, that's what it would be like.

“Moe…” My heels clicked on the silent apartment as I approached and touched his shoulder. “I can't in my right mind say you should do drugs,” I said with a straight face and he chuckled. “But I don't want you to feel like you're suffocated either. Maybe we can find a middle ground, loosening the tie without ripping it off.”

His ears perked up a little and he looked at me with those puppy eyes that got my heart in a claw-like grip.

“Really? After what I did, would you still want to help?”

“Of course I do. What happened wasn't your fault, and I don't want you to feel suffocated.” I reached for the fluff on his cheek and Moe leaned against my hand. “I love you.”

I barely finished my sentence and his arms wrapped around me, squeezing my waist, firm and gentle, even if I wouldn’t mind having the air squeezed out of me. His head rested against my shoulder and his tail wagged fast.

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

The familiar weight of his head on my shoulder melted the tension I walked with for the past weeks. I missed the way his fur tickled my cheek and the way his tail brushed against my legs. If helping him tap into a semi-wild state was what it took to keep this, then becoming a goddamn adrenaline chaser suddenly climbed its way up my list of priorities.

Minutes passed in our much needed embrace before I gathered the willpower to pull away, earning a small whine from him.

“Okay, Moe. If I'm going to help you, we are doing this right.” I walked up to his fridge where a little white board with a couple of markers was glued to the door and picked the red one, writing ‘Mr. Wolf's wild list’ on the top. “Let's start with the ideas.”

Wolf crossed his arms and leaned against the counter with a smirk.

“Not wasting any time, I see.”

“The sooner we figure out what can help you, the sooner we can implement it. So come on, ideas.”

He closed his eyes with a hum, scratching his chin.

“Pulling out a stunt with the car always gets me going.”

“Dangerous driving, then?”

“It's only dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, sweetheart.”

I stared at him, unamused for a good three seconds before sighing.

“Fine.” Against better judgment, I wrote ‘crazy driving’ on the board. “But only on empty roads.”

“Fair enough.”

“What about hiking? It's in nature.”

“Eh, I don't know. Not really a nature guy myself.”

“Really, Moe? No nature in the wild list?”

Wolf chuckled, shaking his head.

“Well, when you put it like that… Maybe I can give running around the mud and get eaten by mosquitos a go.”

“What a lovely way to put it, babe.” I wrote 'touching grass’ on the list with a green marker, drawing a little mosquito beside it.

“Okay, what else?”

Doodling a couple of stars, I waited for new ideas. When he told me nothing for a good thirty seconds, I turned my full attention to him; his tail wagged a little bit, but hung low, the clawed finger tapped against the counter in steady clicks.

 “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, I know the room is pretty dark but I'm not blind.” I placed my hands over his bouncing leg and tapping finger, the movement stopping. “You can tell me.”

He took his sweet time with it, eyes running through the corners of the room and looking away after the split moments he met mine.

“Promise you won't get mad.”

“Okay… I won't get mad.”

“And promise you'll say no if you're not absolute, one hundred percent sure of it.”

“You’re making it sound like you want to commit a crime.”

“Not far off my alley. But no, it's not a crime, it's… Not gonna lie, it's pretty damn embarrassing.”

Embarrassing. This was the man who played the suave thief like second nature, so when he looked at me like a punny teenager about to ask the cheerleader to the dance, scared of my rejection, what else could I do other than swoon?

“I never knew you had shame buried under that white suit of yours.”

I waited for his smart little remark so I could answer with a comeback heating up on the tip of my tongue. It felt nice, familiar, our back and forth.

“Yeah, that's what you do to me.”

My witty come answer turned to ash in my mouth, leaving my tongue heavy; And while my head scrambled for coherence and my knees for composure, Wolf chuckled and put his hands on my hips,thumbs running up and down sending a wave up my back and making my hairs prickle.

“I want you,” He whispered. “When you walked in, your smell almost made me forget why I hid away to begin with.”

The Moe I knew was a flirt, yes, but in a way which felt like he practiced his lines in front of a mirror. A great actor, no doubt, but still an actor. This was different, it was raw. He spoke without a filter and it made my back arch. I squeezed his shoulder, crumpling the fabric of his messy shirt.

“I want you too,” I leaned closer, breath fanning over the little furs on his muzzle. “I missed you, Moe. I missed you way too much.”

Harsher than what I was used to, his hands squeezed the flesh of my hips, and I could feel the tip of his sharp claws through my jeans.

“Sweetheart, I need you to be real with me now and only say yes if you really mean it.” A gentle hand tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want you to be part of my little list.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I want to try something different, a little more… loose.”

The only thing stopping the heat that ran up my spine from getting to my head was the ever present suspicion.

“Loose?”

“Yeah, you said I should loosen the tie,” His grip on my waist tightened and he pulled me close enough to feel his hot breath brushing my nose. “And I want to loosen it with you.”

Little impressions I had from the time we spent entangled in the sheets suddenly became much clearer. The way he held me by the waist, kissed me, touched me- Aside from being fantastic and melting the tension from every muscle, left me with this itch in the back of my mind. Be it a scowl on his brow or hands that squeezed me too tight just to let go two seconds after, what he did to me never felt complete. Now I had the confirmation to my suspicions: He held back every time.

Morbid curiosity allied with the growing fire in my stomach, making me wonder how much I could take if he didn't.

“I want to try that out too.”

“Really?” His smile widened and he gave my hips a small squeeze. “It's not just because of me, right? Because if it is-”

I cut his rambling by the root with a peck to the lips.

“I'm a big girl, Moe. I know what I want and I mean what I'm saying. And what I want is for you to take off that leash and burn it-”

In a blink, he had me on top of the balcony, body pressed flushed together as he invaded my mouth in a kiss that left me light headed.

He took his lips away from mine and before I fully made sense of what was happening, began kissing my neck.

“Just tell me to stop and I will,” he said between little kisses and small nibbles. “And if I hurt you, punch me in the throat.”

“Hm, yeah, I can… I can manage that.” 

Pushing words out became quite the task when he was making me gasp and sending  shivers through my nerves. I held onto his head, looking down as he worked his magic on my skin, tucking my shirt's collar down to give the same treatment as my neck. While Wolf busied himself with that, I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling a hardening volume against my inner thigh.

“Already?” I smiled, scratching behind his ear.

“Hm, just missed you so much.”

His hands moved from my hips to my thighs, squeezing them like stress toys while leaving an open mouth kiss on my cleavage. I tugged at his head, and when a breathy moan left my lips, he growled against my skin.

“How much do you like this shirt?”

The sudden question snapped my attention back to him. He looked at my long sleeve shirt as if it was his worst enemy.

“What?”

He squeezed my thighs a little harder, claws poking my flesh.

“The shirt. Is it a favorite of yours?” 

“Why- no, not really.”

“Good.”

The fire that ran through my blood when he tore up the shirt with his teeth and claws was enough to make my face melt off. My mouth hung open with no words uttered as he kissed between my breasts, before pulling away to stare at my lace bra.

“Hm… Not this one.” Much gentler, nimble fingers unclasped the hooks behind me, letting the bra slide through my shoulders while he looked me in the eye with a cheeky grin. “This one I like.”

“...I'll keep that in mind.”

“But I like these even more.”

His attention focused on my breasts. He took one in his hand and kneaded it gently, before making me groan with a harsh squeeze. His grip loosened the same moment and he kissed the finger prints on my skin.

“Too much?”

“No, no, just a little sensitive. It’s been a while.”

“It sure has,” Another gentle kiss traced the reddish marks, trailing up to my pulse. “We can do it the nicer way, you know.”

There he went, offering me an out again when my desires were set in forgetting all restraint. In response my eager hands worked around his shirt, soft fabric hiding even softer fur beneath it. Maybe I was the wild animal between us.

The rumbling of his laugh vibrated against my neck.

“Or not.”

His hands returned to my tender breasts, previous gentleness gone as he squeezed one while feeling the other’s weight in his palm. The pain didn’t phase me. Sure, there was a sharp moment of agony, but in less than a second it became laced with strange pleasure, before fully dissolving into it, like a cold shower after a full day walking in the sun. 

My own hands stayed occupied, tracing my fingers over his spine, glazing my nails against his skin, and fully sunk into him when Moe took one of my nipples into his mouth, threatening to bite it down. He didn’t, I knew he wouldn’t go that far, but the possibility was enough to get me shivering.

He nibbled, sucked and played with my hardened buds until I was pulling at the hairs on his neck with enough strength to rip them, and by the end even the breeze from the air conditioner made me whine. He moved back a little, a gleam of smugness in his eyes as he looked over his work of turning my flesh into a personal canvas with purple and red marks. Those eyes that never looked more dangerous met mine and I almost came undone right then and here.

“Awn sweetheart, you’re crying?”

Overwhelmed tears stung my eyes, my entire body, especially my face, feverish.

“N-No. I’m tearing up, it’s different.”

“Well, un-lucky for you, you’re way too pretty like this.” He held my chin a little too forceful, making me stare at the predatory gaze of his. “Now I wonder what’s like if I do make you cry.”

My gasp got cut short when Wolf threw me over his shoulder like a fat shack of dollar bills and walked towards his bedroom, making me yelp when he squeezed my butt followed by a less than gentle bite.

I tried to look at his face while balancing myself.

“When did you get this strong?” 

“Always have been, just needed the right motivation.”

The bedroom was as dark as the rest of the apartment, his familiar scent all around when he threw me in the bed, right in the center of a nest-like pile of blankets and kissing down my lips.

“Comfortable?”

“Yeah, I could fall asleep right now.”

He let out a breathy chuckle, one finger pulling my pants.

“You can try, don’t think you’ll be able to. But if you get close to falling asleep…” With a swift movement, he lowered my pants to my thighs. “I’ll just have to get you on the edge again.” He slid my pants down all the way and kissed under my belly button. “...And again…” His lips stopped at the hem of my panties, fingers coming up to touch the soaked spot between my legs. “... And again.”

Threat or promise, he already left unable to catch my breath. My watery eyes admired the sight as much as the blurriness allowed it, my hips buckling against his fingers while the bastard grinned.

“Hell, Moe. You want me to beg?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it, but now that you offered…”

Leaning back on the pillows with one arm over my face, I groaned.

“You’re such a jerk.”

“Hey, don’t be mad. I’m just messing with ya, beautiful.” 

“Oh, aren’t you a jokester? This is torture-”

A jolt went up my spine when he dragged his fingers along my slick, teasing me through the panties’ fabric. Wolf’s breath hovered over my over sensitive clit before he gave it the much needed attention with an open mouth kiss that if on the lips would leave anyone drenched. I held myself back from locking his head with my legs when he moved away to slice my panties off, my fully nude form barely affected by the cold room because of how he made me burn.

Moe kissed me, the softer and passionate approach meeting the pace of his fingers teasing my entrance and smearing my clit with my own wetness. For a moment he got me thinking he had given up on our little experiment, but horny little me simply walked into a trap, only noticing when he grabbed my hips and flipped me into my stomach. I tried to use my elbows for support, but Moe pushed me back down and lifted my hips, leaning over my body, pressing himself flushed against me and whispering.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to have you like this, bent over letting me see everything. And you look so pretty. Always so, so pretty for me, sweetheart.” 

His husky whisper tickled the back of my ear and I couldn’t blame myself from the moan he dragged out of me. I needed him now, before this drove me to wild madness. And maybe that’s what Wolf was trying to do- To turn me into a crazed and unleashed beast. By the way I pressed myself against him, without a single rational thought, he more than succeeded.

“Just fuck me,” I demanded.

Growling, he dug his hands into my hips, grinding the rock hard cock against me, staining his pants with my slick.

“Last chance to back down.” The sound of his voice was followed by the unzipping of his pants.

“I think I’ll combust if I do.”

Wolf chuckled, one of his hands spreading my lips for him while the other guided his thick length to my entrance and made me gasp and grab at the sheets. It took a total of three slower thrusts before he picked up a crushing, brain melting pace and made me forget the time of the day, the place and my name. He held me by the back of the neck, and by the stings of pain coming from my back and shoulder, I could guess how many marks I would have by the end of this- and God, I didn’t care. If anything, it ripped more unrestrained whimpers and cries from my throat.

“You sound almost as amazing as you feel,” he said, voice breathless against the back of my ear, his arms wrapping around my waist and holding me like a vice. “Damn, sweetheart, so pretty, so good for me, my good girl.”

“N-Not fair, that’s my- Oh, God!- that’s my line.”

The unforgiving pace grew even more savage, cutting out my moans with each thrust.

“But you like it too, don’t you? Screaming so much my ears are ringing.”

“Sorry-”

“Don’t be.”

Although he reached so, so fucking deep into me, that wasn’t the end of it. No, not with Moe like this, not with the swollen base as a delicious reminder, slapping against me everytime he moved.

His groans grew more fanatic, he barely pulled out, rutting against me right before his knot slipped inside in a stretch that might be painful if I wasn’t soaking wet.

Hissing, Moe held me flushed against his chest and my hands held onto his forearms for any semblance of structure. He could only rut against my heat and I could only moan at the over stimulation, so close from being a mess in his arms.

“Mine,” He groaned, nibbling my ear. “My perfect girl, taking me so well.”

“M-Moe…” My body twitched, tears rolled down my eyes into the sweat stained sheets. 

Wolf licked a red mark on the crook of my neck.

“Hm, I knew you would look even more beautiful crying for me.” His voice came out in huff and puffs of hot air on my already burning skin. His rutting became relentless, the tip of his cock bullying my cervix, trying to invade everything, tear me apart, merge into me, and by God, I would let him.

It didn’t take long for me to feel the familiar euphoria rush through my veins and tie knots- how ironic- around my stomach. Barely mustering the strength to moan and cry, pitiful wails echoed back to me, and my unleashed lover didn’t trail much better, his own voice hoarse and desperate.

My climax didn’t knock at the door- no, no, no, it came bursting through it, making a mess and all around as I clawed at Wolf’s forearms like a beast and was left shaking and gasping for air amidst low whines. He kept his pace, mindlessly chasing his own high, making my overstimulation all the more wrecking.

Two more minutes of harsh slapping sounds went by before the sights of his orgasm finally appeared to relieve my shaking body. Claws dug in my hips with a possessive grip, his jaw was so tense I could hear the sharp teeth grind against each other and for a moment it seemed he wanted to merge into me before his grip loosed and I felt the familiar warmth floating my walls and leaving no empty creeks.

Fast movements died down, his head resting on my shoulder followed by a heavy and content sigh .I could finally catch my breath.

“Are you okay?” Wolf asked, kissing the marking on the back of my neck.

In my head I answered ‘yes, fantastic’, but babbles left my mouth instead of words- At least he found it funny. 

Gently, he flipped me on my back and laid me down, kissing my temple and pulling my putty self closer.

“Fantastic as always, sweetheart. I didn’t think you could get any better and you still impressed me.”

I met his eyes, a smile playing on my lips. His fur never looked more messy, inviting me to pet and try to even it out. I did so, and Moe leaned against my hand, but that sweet, blissed out smile died the moment he laid eyes on the bite mark on my forearm. My heart squeezed for him as he took my arm like it was made of glass and stared at the red teeth scars.

“Moe, it’s not-” 

“I know.” He kissed the bite mark, lips lighter than butterfly wings. “But I’m still so sorry. Even after this, you’re still doing so much for me, I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

My hand scratched behind his flat ear.

“Well, if you’re so keen about it, I would love it if you finally got out of the apartment.”

He scoffed, but I kept going.

“I’m serious. I know you feel guilty, but locking yourself up as if you committed a crime is not doing any good to anyone. Hell, if I was the one who went crazy and bit you, it wouldn’t be an issue. You might even be laughing about it.”

Proving my point, he let out a breathy chuckle.

“See?” Despite the wobbly limbs, I shifted on the bed, bringing his head to my chest and placing one leg over his waist. “You’re not bad, Wolf.”

Hesitant hands moved up my back, holding me closer, and my worries were eased once I heard his tail wagging against the bed.

“Thank you, I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Of course you’re right.” He nuzzled my neck and I could feel his smile. “And you’re right about leaving the apartment too. My nose is starting to itch and I would rather eat cardboard than those shrimp flavored noodles again.” 

“How about we go for a walk and get a salad after?”

He looked at me like a little kid who got told no at the toy store.

“Fine, a walk and ice cream. But after that we're deep cleaning this place.”

“Hmm, yes. You’re definitely too good for me.”

Wagging his tail, he leaned in and kissed the purple bruise on my neck. I knew his self blame wasn’t gone, hope as I might, it might never fully be, but we would take it one step at a time. And besides, exploring this new, unrestrained side of him- of us- wasn’t bad at all.

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