#the teeth close up is actually referenced from my own teeth!

[funnydishserver42]

Nothing Wrong About It

Here’s a (cheesy) mellodramattic comic I made a couple weeks ago that I’m really proud of. I apologize for the bad coloring; finding the perfect colors is really hard when you’re doing traditional art with limited options for colors, so you end up having to work with what you have. Which is why Mello looks like he got spray-tanned. (I put my soul into trying to make him not look orange with the colors I had, since I headcanon him with a more tan complexion, so please don’t attack me lol)

I hope this resonates with a lot of you! And I’ll be submitting this for the free day prompt for @mattmelloweek.

[novemberheart]

{overview} The two alphas in the pack are warming up to you and you can't help but feel the same

{warnings} a/b/o dynamics, fem reader, a bit of reader backstory, poly 141 x reader

Chapter 7 <- Chapter 8 -> Chapter 9

“Sweetheart, I want you to promise me two things.” John began as you started your walk back home. “Number one, if there's a question on this thing-” he nearly growled, holding up the envelope he was carrying for you. “that you don't want to answer, don't. Nobody's business if you don't want it to be, understand?”

“Yes, Alpha.” the title slipped from your lips out of instinct. You were so focused on your own embarrassment to notice the sudden rise in his body temperature, or the way he began holding the envelopes lower. “I’m sorry-”

“Don't be,” he insisted. “You can call me whatever you want, whatever feels comfortable to you,” he assured, causing your heart rate to slow. The title ‘alpha’ certainly fits the Captain. It also felt more personal- more intimate than John. You hoped the outside air would be enough to waft away the growing sweetness in your scent.

“What was the other thing you wanted me to promise?” you reminded.

“That you'll seriously think about getting chipped. If it's a hard no, I'll understand, but it's important to me- to all of us that we set you up to be safe should anything happen.” he requested.

The butterflies in your stomach were fluttering around at lightspeed. The alpha was close to you as you walked. The overwhelming urge to just tuck yourself under his strong arm so he could make good on his promises. A whine left your throat at the understanding that you couldn't touch him yet.

Alpha's were built to keep their omegas warm. Your omega was throwing a temper tantrum at the denial.

“I’ll stop pressing you, sweetheart. I apologize.”

You quickly realized he was referencing your whine. The sound made his stomach flip.

“No- I wasn’t whining at that. I'm not sure where that came from, to be honest.” you lied. “It's probably a good idea actually. It'll help me feel safer too.” you didn't know who had taken over your mouth. Maybe it was desperation. If you got chipped that would be one step closer to being his.

“Come on, pup.” You poked your head outside your door, peering at Simon as he shut the TV off and stood up from the couch. He winced a bit as he tested how much weight he could put on his leg. He stood still watching you with dull eyes. You quickly got up and trotted over to him.

“Do you need something?” you pondered.

“Time for your walk,” he smirked down at you, making his way over to the kitchen, where he grabbed his key card and a pack of cigarettes out of the drawer. He then grabbed a black balaclava and tugged it over his head. Your brows furrowed at the tease in his voice, but you complied heading back towards your room to grab a pair of shoes. “Need to get you walking shoes.” he ‘tsked’ eyeing your flats. There was a subtle limp in his walk and you could tell he was trying to downplay it.

“Do you need a cane or something?” you poked. He shot you a look, but his hand reached up and rested on the back of your neck, causing you to erupt in goosebumps.

“This’ll do.” he shot back, giving you a gentle squeeze.

“You like being outside don't you?” he observed, watching the way your breathing deepened and a glow appeared on your face as the sun hit it. You nodded your head.

“I grew up in a crowded city. Every summer break my parents would take me to the countryside to be with the rest of our pack,” you explained.

“Split pack?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you affirmed softly.

“That’ll serve you here.” Simon commented. “You already have experience being away from the majority of your pack, along with knowing how to manage the emotions that come with it.”

“For when you guys have to do your jobs?” you clarified. He sucked air through his teeth, then hummed in agreement. When you were at the Omega house you would lie awake thinking about it, growing anxious even though you had no relationship with them. Now the thought of them leaving wasn't an entirely negative one. You hoped that they wouldn't all leave at the same time. It would give you a chance to bond with those who stayed and miss the ones who left. “How often do you leave anyways?” you questioned.

“Eager, huh?” he gave the back of your neck another squeeze. “We never know. Sometimes we’ll go a few weeks without being called away, other times we’ll just be here a few days out of the month.”

“Do you all leave at the same time?” you held your breath.

“Sometimes.” he drew out. “That might change with you though, at least in the beginning.” he sighed. He guided you behind a large building, releasing your neck. He leaned against the side of it, pulling the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, rolling his mask up, and placing the cigarette between his lips. “You don't smoke do you?”

“No.” you nearly spat.

“Good, nasty habit.” he praised, lighting it. All was quiet between the two of you and you focused on trying to listen to the birds between the distant sound of gunfire, whirling machines, and shouting. “How’d you end up in an omega house?” he asked suddenly. He watched as you frilled up like a spooked cat.

“When I was fifteen my mom left us.” you began. You avoided Simon’s gaze even though you could feel the burn of it. “My dad reclaimed shortly after and along with that came a new pack. I didn't adjust too well.” you trailed off.

“Their fault or yours?” he questioned. You paused for a long moment mulling it over. You finally lifted your eyes from the tree line, merging with Simons. Cold and unreadable.

“I'm not sure. Mix of both,” you whispered. He got the last bit of cigarette he could before putting it out against the lid of a trash can.

“Tell you what.” he started. The grip on the back of your neck returned, as he headed back towards the pavement. “I’ll let you know whose fault it is after I get to know you a bit better.” he offered. You rolled your eyes, ignoring the slight sting in your chest at the memories.

“Hey, Peaches.” an instant smile appeared on your face at the familiar voice.

“Hi, Johnny.” you smiled up at him. You had just gotten back from your walk with Simon when John and Kyle came back to swoop you up for lunch. After they dropped you back off you were determined to finally finish unpacking.

“Need any help?” He asked, taking a seat in your doorway.

“Not really.” you sighed, looking over your horrible wrinkled clothes. “Thanks though, Johnny.” You smiled. He smiled back, getting himself comfortable by leaning against your doorframe. “Can I ask you something?” you asked hesitantly.

“Course, bonnie,” he replied instantly.

“How come you don't have an omega yet?” his smile remained on his face as he shrugged.

“I always wanted one, and I know Kyle has been thinking about it a lot lately, well, ever since Laswell had brought it up. I think the Captain was putting it off because he's a worrier. Simon is just a prick.” he whispered the last part, his eyes snapping over to the couch where Simon had passed out. You giggled, following his gaze. “I hope we didn't hurt your feelings, bonnie. I know Laswell wanted to pair you up with us sooner and we”-

“Rejected the idea?” You finished for him. He nodded his head- regretfully.

“Didn’t know it would be you though.” The smirk returned to his face, as his eyes drifted up and down you playfully.

“I don’t think Simon’s a prick.” You defended softly, wanting to change the subject. “He’s been quite nice to me. Well- all of you have.” You sighed happily.

The words he wanted to say were at the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back. The truth was you seemed rather oblivious to your impact. The closest way he could describe you was addictive. Your scent, your eyes, even the way you scowled when you didn’t approve of something. You had flipped a switch in the brains that had been dormant their whole lives. It wasn't just him either. He watched the way John eyed the clock and practically sprinted out the door when it was time to pick you up for lunch. He noticed the way Kyle picked out a deep, forest green shirt today because you had absentmindedly shared you had liked the color. Just the idea that you had been chosen for them. You had been selected with the intention to be theirs. And even though you still hadn't bonded with them or been marked, the prideful beta in him rumbled at the thought.

Instead of saying all that he settled with:

“Give him some time, Peaches. He’ll come around.” he snickered.

“If you say so.” you huffed.

“We should throw your things in the dryer, Bon. Can't have you walking around like nobody’s takin’ care of ya.”

It was dark out before you knew it. You had already eaten dinner, orange chicken with white rice. They didn't have a dessert, but Kyle quickly raced to the vending machine to get you a candy bar. You smiled, curling yourself deeper into your blanket.

All of you were together, for the first time since you had arrived. John is at the very end of the couch, with his feet up on the coffee table. Kyle lying next to him, his feet nearly on his lap. Johnny was also sprawled out, he and Kyle sharing a pillow. Simon sat stiffly next to him. His pain meds must be starting to wear off. You could always tell because an annoyed scowl would appear on his face. You were curled up on the other side of Simon, and you took it upon yourself to slowly inflate your scent. You weren't sure if he knew you did it on purpose, but you felt giddy when you saw his tense muscles begin to relax.

It was John's turn to pick what to watch- although he offered to forgo his turn if there was something that caught your eye. You politely shot him down, already feeling your eyelids grow heavy. He had settled on a ‘How It's Made’ episode about kayaks, safety boots, electronic signs, and cereals.

All in all, it was the perfect recipe for sleep. A pack that you were beginning to feel comfortable with, a calm voice on TV, a full stomach, and a soft blanket.

John watched as your eyelids began to droop. You were comfortable. He was pleased with how easily you had adjusted to their pack. He knows the first day wasn't easy- or what you had hoped for. If he could do it all again, trust him, he would. But here you were drifting in and out of sleep, the smell of warm peaches and vanilla filling the air. It made his own restless mind slow, and the ache in his temples dissipated.

“She asleep?” Johnny whispered. It was then he realized the show had ended. “Should we move her back to her room?” The Scot questioned, peeling himself off of the couch. He stretched, his back popping loudly.

“Best leave her out here with me,” Simon said all too quickly. Three heads snapped in his direction. “Fuck off,” he growled. “You want me to get better or not?” he reminded. They all agreed, not voicing any other theories about why he wanted you there with him.

Hi friends! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll see you in two days for chapter 9! 🧡

[peggyao3]

Relic - Pt. 16 "Destroyer of Worlds"

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: ✧ Dreams are messages from the deep ✧ A woman from the unknown comes to Feyd in his dreams and his nights become his days as he flees to the dreamscape to escape the nightmares that haunt his waking hours.

TAGS: Third person POV, she/her AFAB FMC, explicit sexual content, smut, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex, Porn with Plot, Feyd-Rautha's black cum and big cock, Praise Kink, Body Worship, angst/hurt and comfort, drama, fluff, plans within plans, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced abuse, Trauma, mentions of suicidal thoughts, Healing, Strangers to Lovers, falling in love, Vulnerable/ Emotional/Possessive Feyd, Feyd is a sweet baby who did nothing wrong and I WILL pamper him, nurture not nature, Stockholm Syndrome but in a consensual way, lucid dreaming, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, murder, teaching the universe about feminism, female rage, Frank Herbert would frown, No actually he would kneel in front of me, putting the science and the porn in sci-fi, angst with a happy ending

WORD COUNT: 4.3k

A/N: We're really getting there now 🥹🥹🥹 I'm so excited. And I'm very pleased with this chapter 🤭 I can't wait to hear what you think!

Reposted from my Ao3💕| Masterlist | Relic Masterlist

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

← Previous Chapter, Next Chapter →

Day 100

No guards frame the door that is tall and glinting back, just like Feyd had assured her. When she had approached it and passed through it several weeks prior, she thought it may as well lead to hell, but today she is certain of it. Except it won't be Feyd's hell or hers, it will be his.

And he will have no time for tricks.

With her gun of clear, shiny plastic raised in front of her chest, the relic enters Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's bath chambers.

The scented, herbal fog hasn't grown as dense and thick yet and the white, fleshy heap at the center of the tub fills out her sight at once. And unexpectedly, there is movement to the right, not a guard or a servant but Glugo who quivers in a damp basket near the wall.

While the woman's eyes are briefly averted, the Baron's shield flares up around his misshapen form at a flick against the massive, silver band at his middle finger. The smallest and priciest model on the market, Ixian technology.

"I expected my nephew," he drones, voice amplified by the vaulted ceiling but distorted by the shield.

"Hands on the pool edge," the woman demands, voice as cold as cryogenic vapor. Vladimir acquiesces, unable to reach for the transponder behind his ear. An invisible muscle ticks at his fleshy jaw.

"I hold audiences every Freitak," he attempts to jest, arms spread out in mockery as he adjusts them on the slippery edge. "No need to assault me in my own bath chambers."

A blunder, he realizes quickly as her face hardens with rancor. Not a molecule would fit between her clenched teeth.

"You're troubled because of what you saw," he concludes. "It was a mistake." Vladimir concedes all too quickly. His finesse seems to have evaporated along with the curling steam and he realizes he knows nothing substantial about the woman.

"Quite," she confirms curtly, closing in with slow, deliberate steps. The crosshair projected by her interface, only for her eyes to see, dances over the Baron's face, but she won't take any risks. At the center of the vaulted chamber, a generous distance separates them still, but she feels more confident in her aim.

Pulling a trigger is as easy as dropping a bomb. She should have it in her. Her kin have dropped bombs like rainfall back in the slaughterhouse warfare for oil and soil and rare earths.

The Baron gawks at the muzzle, an unassuming hole among glossy, alien plastic. His old eyes might be deceiving him, but he thinks he can see the inner cogs and channels shimmering through the surface, and a metallic component that doesn't belong.

A lasgun! She's either a maniac or an idiot! Or truly a relic of long-forgotten ages, like the sisterhood had said.

He could either deactivate his shield and die certainly, saving the palace and the capital from nuclear fallout, or he could take them down with him, his nephew included.

"You don't want to fire a lasgun at me, kid."

His voice booms and the Tleilaxu creature leaps out of its basket, hand-feet splatting across the damp tiles. Thank God, it flees out the door, the relic thinks. That tiny moment of inattentiveness is enough for Vladimir to flick the switch at the ring on his pointer, a special gift that was given to him just a few days ago, and just in time. Already, he feels safer.

"That's not a normal lasgun." Her attention is back on the Baron and she smiles knowingly. Vladimir despises the self-assured look of it.

"We can find a civilized solution for this," he declares with renewed confidence. Pretending to think, he sways his fatty neck from side to side. "I know my nephew has plenty to offer, so I don't see why we shouldn't be able to share."

She laughs out brightly, a sound like a whiplash across the Baron's heaving chest. "Where I'm from, there's the death penalty for abusers like you. I couldn't build an electric chair, so I brought something else."

"And what have you got there?" Get her talking, he thinks, beady eyes greedily darting for the door.

"Feyd's wedding gift."

"Feyd's wedding—?"

Thumb slipping over the back of the gun, she cocks the hammer.

"Did I understand that correctly? If you miscalculated, this test will cause an atomic explosion?" The memory of a few days prior fills out her mind, easing the terrible anxiety that now dampens her palms. "Yes, but I did not miscalculate." "Then why test it?" Feyd-Rautha had paced anxiously behind her and sized up the heap of towels stacked in the corner of her room, their outline blue and blurred by a softly humming Holtzman shield. "Better to be safe than sorry." "I'd feel sorry if you blew up my planet." "I wouldn't," she had responded with hardness and pulled the trigger. Doing so fires the bullet first, then a fine tuned laser beam from a smaller second muzzle, as light travels faster than matter and the bullet needs more time to reach its target. The double muzzle is calibrated to take the bullet's weight and distance from the target into consideration. Light may have no inherent mass, but photons do transmit impulse. And so the photons that comprise the laser beam collide with the Holtzman shield's nuclei and propel them into motion towards the body they are meant to protect. The beam's impact isn't hard enough to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, but just right to accelerate the nuclei. And by the time the bullet arrives at the crime scene too, its relative velocity to the shield is that of a slow blade. With a thump, the bullet had sunken into the stack of towels.

The door moves at her back and the only reason why she doesn't jump in fright is because she recognizes his footsteps.

"Wait, my darling."

The Baron could weep with joy at the sight of his dear nephew. Not who he had called, but an even more welcome sight. It was he who had given the boy everything; schooling for his cunning mind, planets to govern, blades to play with, toys to warm his heart and his cock with. Everything in exchange for a measly bit of affection!

Feyd-Rautha, dressed from neck to toe with not an inch of skin showing aside from his face and hands, loops his arms around his betrothed's waist, chin tilted and leaning against her temple.

"Let me do it." 

Vladimir pales, shuffling in the sloshing bath water as his nephew gently takes the gun from the cursed woman's hand and closes in like a starved viper. His chest rises beneath the full coverage of his suit.

Desperately, the Baron looks at the door.

"My dear nephew, you're falling for a hoax! Do you want to blow up the city?"

Feyd-Rautha stops, still several meters away from the tub. Vladimir seethes.

Anxiously, the relic observes the jittering path of the digital crosshair, weapon out of her hands and out of her control. As Feyd halts, the red mark settles on the Baron's pasty forehead. His aim is perfect.

"You want me dead, then come closer, at least! Look me in the eyes when you do it, my boy." The Baron's tongue flicks out, grey-pinkish flesh, to wet his bottom lip. He wants him so close that he can see the whites in his nephew's eyes before the city blows up. Stripped naked and unarmed aside from the poison needle in the signet ring on his pinkie, he feels more than ever like a heap of flesh, defenseless and abandoned and to his own surprise, it is the latter that hurts most.

Feyd-Rautha doesn't speak.

"Say something, boy! You've had more than enough chances to do this, but you didn't, and I'll tell you why." The Baron raises himself slightly, bulging chest emerging from the inky water. "You don't want to kill your own un—"

The echo of a bang ricochets off the vaulted ceiling and the Baron finds his head knocked back, vision filled with fractured red, his shield dissolved.

With his head rolled on the tub's edge, he can only see the ceiling, and something wet slips over his brow, into his blurry eye. Vladimir had always thought, when Feyd finally manages to kill him, he would ravage his body with blades, take him apart to the last organ, gorge on his flesh while it is still warm. It had almost aroused him.

But his nephew's final touch — denied. 

How cruel.

"You did it!" His betrothed's arms loop around his waist from behind, the embrace hard and stormy, her face against his spine. Feyd still stares in awe at the corpse of his uncle, massive, white flesh afloat obscenely in the tub.

"I did," he confirms, his voice hard, with tremors around the edges.

Feyd feels like he should perhaps burst into tears or yell, but none of the like wants to come out of his heart. The accomplishment might take a few days to feel real. What is entirely real, however, is the face of his darling as she slides to his front and cups his cheeks, overjoyed. The tears that his eyes are missing in his, shimmer distinctly in hers and before he knows it, she has tilted his face down to hers and pressed her lips on his, comforting and needy.

Anxiety melts under soft kisses and tears track down her cheeks, coloring their lips with salt.

"I see you've done us all a favor."

Feyd and his woman snap apart, staring in horror to the ajar door. A few steps into the chamber stands a figure swathed in black like a bad omen on the battlefield. The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam looks appreciatively at the corpse of Baron Harkonnen.

Even through the mesh of her veil, her sharp eyes perceive the wicked twitch of the na-Baron's hands around the gun.

"Hold still!" She commands and Feyd-Rautha's finger freezes at the trigger.

A pop-up blinks in the corner of the relic's interface, signaling the detection of the soundwave pattern she had picked apart a few weeks ago.

"What are you doing here?" The relic hisses, fingers screwed around Feyd's dangling wrist. She looks a tad haggard compared to when the Reverend Mother had last seen her, with a touch of madness in the eyes.

"My presence was requested by the late Baron and he was right to do so."

"Your presence?" Feyd's voice rings out in distaste, aiming for mockery but rage oozes from every strained muscle. The Reverend Mother sees in him a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

"I wasn't any less surprised than you are, Baron Feyd-Rautha." She tilts her head and with her moves the crass shadow thrown by her oblong headpiece. "That's how I knew the gravity of the situation. Your uncle was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. He had a feeling you were plotting something, so he requested my help, thinking I was the only one who could."

"But you are too late," Feyd barks, fingers clenching helplessly around the gun. "He's dead!"

"He is. And yet, I arrived perfectly on time." The Reverend Mother calmly crosses her hands in front of her body.

"You could have intervened and didn't?" Horror much bigger than when she had the Baron at gunpoint rises to the relic's chest.

"I must confess, I was… curious." Gaius Helen Mohiam waits but the younger woman remains silent. "How did you do it?"

The engineer laughs out, a sound that's shrill and unpleasant from her clamoring heartbeat. "Sure, I'll tell you and give away the single most valuable piece of information in the universe."

The Reverend Mother purses her lips. The truth is, she had made her decision the second the bullet had passed through the Baron's shield. That knowledge must die and not even reach the ears of her own sisters. Temptation brings out the worst in humans and careful plans are traded all too easily for short-lived power.

Perhaps Feyd-Rautha knows too, but he is a force they can control. The wildcard however has no place among them.

"This must not come out," the Reverend Mother declares, her tone a whiplash.

The glint in the wayward woman's eyes tells her everything she needs to know. The terrible relic is not horrified by the idea of throwing the world off balance. She embraces the potential of destruction like a tumor the flesh it feasts on. Thousands of years of selective breeding are at risk at the whims of one wicked catalyst.

"I think maybe it should," the relic snarks. 

"You're an abomination!" Mother Mohiam snaps. "You should have stayed in the ice like the fossil you are."

"You shouldn't have thawed me then. This is your doing!"

And this is why the Reverend Mother must undo it. "There is no place for you here," she coldly proclaims.

"Then watch me make one! I'll carve, dig and shoot a mold for myself and if I end up destroying something on the way, I'm not sorry."

"That I can see, and that is precisely why there is no place for you in this world."

Feyd-Rautha stands at his betrothed's side, a shackled guard dog watching the heated exchange between witch and scientist, between the present and the past which might become the future once more.

"It is a pity," the Reverend Mother continues. "But there will be more opportunities to continue this bloodline." She tilts her head, sharp eyes locked onto the relic through the shroud of her veil. "Kill yourself."

Her interface flashes red, a warning at the center of her vision. For a brief moment, all joy fades from her eyes, all hope, and to end her own life seems to be the only logical consequence — until the code sequence she had programmed weeks prior is triggered into action, playing an opposing sound pattern directly into her skull.

Sound waves meet in destructive interference and only a dull, sad ache behind her sternum remains.

Mother Mohiam grows cold with terror when the abomination remains unmoving and smiles.

"You're full of surprises." The Reverend Mother's tone carries a hint of begrudging admiration. Underestimating her is a mistake she won't make again. The woman whose only ability of notable importance seemed to have been prescient dreams had somehow bested her command. But it doesn't matter. There is never only one way to the goal.

Feyd-Rautha realizes that too, but a second too late.

"Kill her."

The na-Baron slackens and turns, soulless eyes holding no recognition. She releases his wrist. Terror devours her when Feyd-Rautha points the gun at her forehead. And just like before, his aim is perfect. A red glow, visible only to her, bleeds into her vision from between her eyes and she remembers.

He aims with the gun that is linked to her brain. The trigger clicks only half a second after she jams it via remote control.

No bullet breaches her skull and the relic stumbles away from her love who stares at the handgun in confusion, pulling the trigger three more times before discarding the weapon with a dissonant clatter. A muscle tics at his jaw, cat like eyes narrowing into slits and he reaches for his belt. Glinting steel emerges from its sheath, a hissing purr. Her betrothed prowls.

"Feyd, don't—" She pleads, backing away with quickening steps. There is nowhere to go, only the tub where she could hide herself behind the Baron's floating corpse. "It's me, you don't want to kill me. You love me!"

"He doesn't know that," Mother Mohiam coldly reminds her and the relic glares hatefully.

"You're destroying his life!" She sobs, stumbling over the steps that lead up to the bathtub and falling on her bum. "How can you live like this? You're the abomination! He will kill you in revenge, he'll blow up your whole planet!"

Her beloved towers right over her, head crowned by a corona of glowglobe shine, his chiseled features entirely calm, innocent.

"Do it!"

"I'm sorry," she cries. "I love you."

Feyd grabs her by the front of her shirt as she tries to roll away. She squirms and sobs pathetically, helpless with no further tricks up her sleeve, no hidden blade or gun, no voice of her own to wield against him or her.

The Reverend Mother raises her chin in triumph, but all of a sudden, there is movement at the door, at the unsuspecting witch's back.

Mikhail Kyelug comes flying through the door, sword flung out in a wide arch. Right after him sprints Lilia, with Glugo clutching her hand.

The Reverend Mother spins in surprise, lips open, but her words are severed along with her head, terrible voice silenced forever as Mikhail's blade cleaves through her neck and spine with an awful crack. The world spins together with her head. The headpiece comes off, giving away thinning, grey hair. Voicelessly, she curses that her last ever sight is Baron Vladimir's Harkonnen's bloated face, dead eyes locked with dead eyes.

Feyd-Rautha whips around from the racket, blade quivering in his clenched fist. The relic's nails have dug inky crescents into his wrist. For a moment, no one moves and three humans and one humanoid wait with bated breath for Feyd to drop the blade.

But the voice is no link to be severed by the wielder's death, it is a temporary alteration of the brain, and so Feyd's face remains empty, shark eyes glaring at the intruders. Mikhail sees it too.

"Back! Back I say!" He roars and barges like a bull. Feyd-Rautha releases the woman's shirt, facing the threat that is bound to crash into him with hissing metal.

Blades collide.

Lilia jumps over the Reverend Mother's corpse and dashes past the fighting pair to  collect her weeping Lady from the steps. Glugo's hand-feet splatter after her with haste and it picks up the discarded gun, cradling the devious, shiny thing protectively against its misshapen chest.

Glugo had known right away, when it scuttled past the tall, old witch in the hallway and she had commanded it in that terrible voice to leave, that she meant harm. So, it had ran as fast as it could and pulled at Lilia's hands and skirt, because Lilia would know what to do. 

The three of them huddle down in the corner, the relic crying into Lilia's chest. Glugo slips a quivering hand-foot into her palm but its milky eyes are aimed at the center of the room where its friend and Mikhail are grappling and grunting.

By the Sun, the na-Baron fights like a demon! His pupils are shrunken into pinpricks and his mouth is pulled apart into a gashing grin. Mikhail's armor is torn at the shoulder and black blood weeps down his armpit. Every next parry burns as if his muscles were about to tear apart and with the rush of pain comes a rush of clarity.

Fists, not blades. 

Mikhail drops his blood-slick sword and catches the na-Baron's wrist, stopping the tip of the blade centimeters away from his neck. Roaring, he shoves the na-Baron backwards until he collides into the wall and slams the taller man's wrist against the tiles, once, twice. Feyd's blade slips out of his twitching fingers and clatters to the ground as his lips skin back from glinting, black teeth in anger.

Mikhail doesn't hesitate. He drives his thick-knuckled fist into the na-Baron's guts like a battering ram. Wearing no armor, Feyd doubles up, spitting saliva across his own chest. Ringed hands grasp at Mikhail's chest plate, attempting to hurl the guard to the ground, but Mikhail's boot crashes into Feyd's pelvis and scarred knuckles find Feyd's soft cheek. Skin splits open and his molars sink into the soft flesh inside his mouth.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Feyd blurts out, choking on spit and blood, hands raised in the air as Mikhail's final blow cracks across his jaw. He lurches to the ground and rolls on his back in defeat, his eyes clear and wide in terror.

"My Lord," Mikhail pants, raising his bloodied fists in a shaky salute.

"I— I didn't—" Feyd's head turns to the corner where both women are huddled up, Glugo in front of them, clutching the handgun in one of its oily-black hands.

"My darling," Feyd rasps, spluttering blood. "I nearly killed you."

"It's not your fault," she sobs immediately and frees herself from Lilia's embrace. The pair meet in the middle and her arms whip around his neck, his around her waist and he squeezes her until he feels her very heartbeat against his own, convincing himself that she's still alive.

Their foreheads fall against each other and she gently cradles his aching jaw, thumb stroking under the bleeding cut on his cheek. Feyd-Rautha's long, lowered lashes cast shadows across his eyes and something dark and bitter flashes in them.

"No," she insists immediately and her tone forces his eyes back on hers. She won't allow him to hate himself for something he almost did. "We're alive and they're dead. This is our victory."

Next to Feyd-Rautha and his Lady, Lilia has rushed over to her husband, making an endearing fuss over the wound on his shoulder and his bruised hands. Deft fingers have unclipped the shoulder piece and tugged the cut fabric apart to inspect length and depth of the laceration.

"S'fine, my darlin'," Mikhail rasps with exhaustion and slings his good arm around her middle, pulling her into him to place mindless kisses atop of her head.

The relic peeks over Feyd's shoulder and unlatches one hand from her beloved, beckoning for the pair to come closer. "Thank you," she sighs with tear-thick voice.

Lilia confidently seizes the offered hand, thumb brushing comfortingly over her Lady's knuckles. Mikhail stands awkwardly behind her, one hand on Lilia's waist, not daring to touch the woman of higher standing so affectionately. "My Lady."

Feyd-Rautha releases his woman after all and turns to face his saviors. At once, the guard and the handmaid drop to one knee before him and lower their heads in devotion.

"Baron Harkonnen," they mumble in unison and a muscle twitches across Feyd-Rautha's cheek.

"No," he interrupts with grating tone. "Stand up!"

The pair obey, glancing up with confusion as they raise themselves. Feyd-Rautha regards them with a long glance and exhales deeply, then slowly kneels in front of them, pale head rolling forwards until his eyes are trained on the ground.

"Thank you," he says. "You saved her life, and mine."

"My Lord," Mikhail mutters, overwhelmed and looks to the Lady for help while squeezing Lilia's waist. "It was only our duty, eh?" He insists but that is hardly true. Not duty but friendship had hastened their steps and fueled his fists when they barged into the room.

Glugo can no longer contain itself and scuttles over on hasty hand-feet, mewling with worry as it flings four of its eight limbs at Feyd's chest, tugging on the thick fabric while pressing its misshapen pug face against his sternum.

Feyd winces when shiny plastic is waved about right next to his face and he tries to capture the gun out of Glugo's innocent, little hand-foot while cradling the creature's head with one big, pale hand.

"It's jammed," his betrothed reassures him. "Come here, give that to me, hm?" Gently, she grasps the weapon and places it back in its holster.

"Hush, hush," Feyd mumbles and allows himself in a moment of vulnerability to rest his bruised cheek atop Glugo's head while his darling softly squeezes his shoulder.

"It is actually Glugo who deserves your gratitude, my Lord," Lilia reveals and Feyd holds the glugging creature a bit tighter. "It came to me crying and begging and I knew you needed us."

Glugo doesn't know exactly why everyone smells so much of tears and joy, but it knows it did something right and that it is surrounded by the kindest beings it has ever known.

"I wouldn't go near," the relic remarks, stopping Feyd whose prowling footsteps have carried him closer to the round tub in which the fleshy, white mountain of his uncle's corpse still floats, unmoving. "He's radioactive."

"I won't," Feyd grates out, plush lips skinned back from his teeth in distaste. He feels none of the morbid fascination he had always assumed he would feel when his uncle is finally dead by his hands, only a grim, long-awaited sense of accomplishment. Turning his head, he finds Glugo tugging curiously on the dead Reverend Mother's dress. The poor thing does have a penchant for liver after all. Feyd clicks his tongue. "Don't touch that!" 

Glugo scuttles away and back to Lilia's outstretched hand. It will receive a proper victor's feast later, something more worthy of its bravery than an old witch's, rotting corpse.

"I want the bodies completely eradicated, both of them," Feyd demands. Lest they return as Gholas, a voice of paranoia whispers to him, but he is all too happy to listen.

"How?" His woman curls her arm around his middle and Feyd pulls her to his chest, inhaling the scent of her hair before he makes a decision.

"Burn it down," he rasps. "Burn down the whole wing."

In the afternoon hours, the citizens, guards and slaves of Barony are left gawking and gasping, faces turned in shock towards the colossal palace pyramid where vicious smoke curls from the very top, black claws against the crass, white sky. At the na-Baron's behest, no one is to extinguish the wrathful flames. 

Proudly, he watches it burn, the place that holds two decades worth of abuse. The biting smoke soars towards the stars, like the herald of a new age.

I am Time (Death), cause of destruction of the worlds, matured And set out to gather in the worlds here. Even without thee (thy action), all shall cease to exist, The warriors that are drawn up in the opposing ranks.

- Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

A/N: Killed the baddies with the power of friendship and science 🥹 (2 more chapter to come)

FEYD TAG LIST

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst, @gravesdiggergirl

[janeyseymour]

A Lifetime Full of Firsts

based loosely on two asks from anons... stages of falling in love and being domestic and shit.

WC: ~4.8k

In every relationship, there are numerous firsts. Some firsts, you expect: the first date, the first kiss, the first time you say I love you, the first time you have sex- and those are always memorable. And then are the unexpected firsts- and those are almost more memorable than the expected. 

The first unexpected first was one that you never saw coming to become a monumental moment in your relationship with Melissa Schemmenti. All that had happened was you got a new job as a second grade teacher at Abbott Elementary. You walked into the staff lounge to simply put your lunch away when you saw her for the first time. Your eyes were immediately drawn to the fiery red hair that cascaded down here shoulders in gentle waves. 

“Why you starin’?” Her voice came out deep. “Do I got somethin’ in my teeth?”

“N-no,” you stammered out. “Sorry. I uh, just really like your hair.”

“Thanks,” she practically blew you off. “Now who the hell are you?”

“I’m Y/N,” you answered softly. “I’m the new second grade teacher they hired.”

“Shit, I gotta work with you all year?” she groaned. She almost immediately took a disinterest in you. She didn’t like the vibe she got- a pep in your step, voice soft and demure. She suspected that you would be out of here before the kids even came in for their own first day of school, and if you weren’t out by then, the kids would eat you alive and you would be gone by the second week. 

“I’m sorry?” you squeaked out.

“Melissa Schemmenti,” the redheaded woman told you. “One of the other second grade teachers.”

“Oh,” your mouth formed into a bit of a frown. You headed over for the refrigerator and put your lunch in there. “Well, I hope you have a nice day.” And you head out.

That was your first conversation with Melissa Schemmenti, and it wasn’t a great one. It wouldn’t matter though. Life had a funny way of playing out.

During development week, you paid close attention. This school was no joke- you knew that. Growing up in the area, you knew the kids were tough. You knew that this school in particular had a decent amount of turnover every year. But you were determined to stay- make the difference for even just one student like your own second grade teacher had made for you. Janine Teagues, the other second grade teacher in your triad, was just as invested in the seminars as you were despite the fact that this was her third year at Abbott. Melissa, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. She made it very clear she couldn’t care less- busying herself in any other way possible.

Development week was over before you knew it, the weekend flew by, and the kids were beginning to file in. You glanced nervously at Janine, who just gave you an encouraging smile. Then you turned to look at Melissa, whose eyes immediately fell from your own. Was she watching you? You went to say something, but now the kids were actually coming to meet their new teachers, and you weren’t able to say anything more. Instead, you gave her a tight lipped smile. 

You survived the first week. And then you survived the second. Soon enough, October came, and you were still at Abbott. 

Melissa was clearly intrigued by you and your work ethic. Any other teachers who had tried to keep up with her Janine failed epically and been gone in the first few days. But you? You exceeded every expectation with such grace. 

Until you had to ask for her help. It really wasn’t even that big of a deal- the teacher who had the book your manual was referencing before you misplaced it. So, you found yourself hyping yourself up to go to her classroom and ask for help finding it. Finally, you mustered up the courage and were finding yourself knocking on her door. 

“Newbie?” she asked. You still hadn’t quite earned the right to be called by your name by the redhead yet.

“Hey,” you sighed out softly. “Listen, I really hate to bother you, but Janine isn’t here, and I need this book for a few days from now. I’d rather not be running around like a chicken without her head on Wednesday.

“What do you want?”

“The teacher that was here before me lost the book the textbook is referencing. Do you know where I could find it?”

“When do you need it?”

“Thursday,” you mumbled softly.

“Newbie, it’s Monday.”

“Yeah?” you cocked your head to the side just slightly. “I hate running around the day before though and feeling unprepared.”

The redhead maneuvered her way over to her desk before rifling through a few things. She produced the book you needed. “Here, just borrow mine. The last teacher in your room set hers on fire when she quit.”

“What?” you raised a brow as you took the offered book.

Melissa just smirked. “She was batshit crazy. Promise you won’t light my book on fire, newbie.”

“Promise,” you chuckled. “I’ll have it back to you on Thursday afternoon.” You raised the book in the air. “Thank you.” You turn to head out of her room and back to your own classroom.

“Hey,” her voice stopped you in your tracks. You turned to face her again, and this time she wasn’t wearing the usual smirk. She actually had an earnest smile on her face- like one she has when she’s chatting with her friends in the staff room. “You’re doin’ alright, Y/N.”

“Thanks,” you smiled back at her. 

As you left, you felt your cheeks burning just slightly, and you couldn’t wipe that dumb grin off your face. You didn’t know why she had you feeling so giddy- maybe it was because she actually called you by your real name for the first time, or maybe it was because her smile was one that could light up even the darkest of cities.

That was the first time you ever asked her for help, the first time she ever addressed you by name, the first time you fell in love with that smile of hers.

It took a few more weeks before she finally came into your classroom to ask for your help for the first time. It was silly really- all she needed you to do is stand in between both rooms to keep an eye on her class while she goes to the bathroom. But still, you were surprised she didn’t just ask Janine instead.

The first time you sat with her at lunch, it was not your day. You were running late, forgot your lunch on the counter in your apartment, spilled your coffee all down your front, and then you still didn’t have time to make a pitstop at Wawa to get a new coffee or lunch. So when you came dragging into the staff lounge with a whopping five dollars in your hand, a gigantic brown stain on your yellow shirt, and a frown, Melissa raised a brow.

“Not your day, Y/N?” your colleague asked.

You just let out a heavy sigh as you inserted a dollar into one of the machines. You picked what your vending machine lunch would be for the day before turning back around and going to head for the door. Once again, Melissa’s voice stopped you in your tracks.

“Y/N,” the redhead called again. You turned to face her, clearly unhappy and not in the mood. “Is that your lunch today?”

You just nodded. 

“Come sit,” Melissa waved you over to hers and Barbara’s table.

“I uh, wouldn’t want to impo-”

“Come sit,” the hardheaded woman told you again as she kicked out the chair next to her before standing up. She headed over for the cabinets and pulled out a paper plate. With a sigh, you took the seat next to her. Before you knew what was happening, your coworker was spooning out some of the pasta that she packed for herself onto the plate and was handing it to you. 

“Melissa, what are you doing?” you asked her incredulously, eyes nearly bulging out of your head.

“I already ate like half of it, and there’s still more that I won’t finish, so eat it,” she told you sternly. When her friends all raised their brows too, Melissa shrugged. “I ain’t going to cover her class if she passes out because all she had to eat today was a bag of Doritos.”

“Melissa, I couldn’t-”

“If you don’t eat it, it’s going in the trash,” she rolled her eyes. “So just take it, and enjoy it.” Then she made her way over to the coffee machine and was brewing a new pot. You took a glance in her mug, and it was entirely full aside from the few sips you had watched her take while she was standing next to you. A few minutes later, there was a steaming hot mug of coffee placed in front of you. Then, and only then, did the redhead sit down. When she noticed that you still hadn’t taken a bite of her food, she practically shoved the fork into your hand.

After the first bite, you groaned. This was the best pasta you had ever tasted. Melissa just gave you a smile as she reached over and stole the chips you bought. She opened them, popped one into her mouth, and then pushed the bag back in your direction.

“Thank you,” you had blushed through a mouthful.

Since that day, Melissa always made sure that you ate, and she was the first to offer up some of her lunch if you forgot yours that day.

The first time you realized you had feelings for her, you absolutely freaked out. You weren’t supposed to like her- your coworker. And yet there you were- falling for Melissa Schemmenti. You had no idea that she was falling just as hard.

The first time she kissed you, she had pretty much ambushed you- after a relatively hard day with the kids, on top of watching the idiot fifth grade teacher flirt with you mercilessly. You were just sitting at your desk trying to grade your second graders’ spelling tests when you heard her enter your room with the slamming of the door.

“Melissa?” you asked, clearly shocked that she was coming in here, and pissed. “What- what’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer, instead crossing the room on straight legs and kissing you rather aggressively. You were so shocked in the moment that you didn’t kiss her back. As she pulled away though, you only pulled her back in for another. You tugged her into your lap as her arms wrapped around your neck. Eventually, air became a necessity, and she pulled away.

“I’m so fuckin’ sick of watching Matthews flirt with you,” she stated as her green eyes turned dark.

“Matthews is an idiot,” you rolled your eyes. “Doesn’t ever pick up on the fact that they only person I ever flirt back with is you.”

“Dinner at my house tonight,” she told you lowly. She wiped off the excess lipgloss from your face before fixing her own. With a toss of her hair, she stood from your lap and made her way out of your room. You couldn’t help but watch the way her hips swayed.

The first time you said I love you, it wasn’t the way you thought that you would’ve told her. Honestly, the first time you said those three special words, you weren’t aware that you had said them. Or remembered. 

You were absolutely hammered during one of the happy hours after school. You don’t even really remember how you ended up getting as drunk as you did- you never got that bad. But with Melissa and Mr. Johnson practically feeding you shots after a particularly hard day with your students, you were on the verge of blacking out. So, as a dutiful girlfriend, Melissa took you out of the dive bar before you could make an even bigger fool out of yourself than you already had.

“You’re so pretty,” you had murmured the whole way home, a hand never far from her body. It wasn’t in any sexual way, you just liked being close to her.

She chuckled, that easy laugh that you knew meant she wasn’t uncomfortable with your actions. “Thanks, hun.”

Once she pulled up to your apartment complex, she ushered you inside. You had expected her to leave you, even in your drunk state. But instead, she simply guided you to the couch, wrapped you up in a blanket, and went on her way to your kitchen. Before you knew it, you were eating one of your favorite dishes of hers while she lounged next to you.

“You’re the best,” you smiled at her drunkenly.

She pat your leg with a soft smile on her face. “Don’t I know it? Now, why don’t we get you up to bed so you can sleep this off, and hopefully don’t wake up hungover tomorrow for work?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” you slurred out.

Green eyes were rolled as she hoisted you into her arms. She carried you up to your room, got you changed, and pulled the blankets over you. She kissed your forehead before going to leave.

“Stay?” you had asked meekly.

You heard her sigh, but your eyes were closed. “Give me a few minutes.”

On the verge of sleep, you felt the bed dip under you and warm, strong arms wrap around you. In an instant, you turned in her arms and tucked your chin into her body.

“I love you,” you whispered before giving into drunken exhaustion.

Melissa stiffened just slightly beneath you, but then with a sigh of relief, she reciprocated that emotion, a kiss being pressed to your temple. She held you like that through the rest of the night.

The first time you said ‘I love you’ and were coherent for it, it wasn’t a grand gesture at all. The two of you were sitting outside of her townhouse after a nice meal when you knew you couldn’t hold it in any longer. So, you grabbed her hand with a smile and breathed out those three special words.

“I love you,” you told her with the softest of smiles, the softest of eyes. Then you take a deep sigh of relief. “Oh God. There, I said it first. Now it won’t be awkward, because I know we’ve both been dancing around it for a while now.”

Your girlfriend responded with a full-out belly laugh, and it shook you. It startled you. Was it too early to say those words?

“What?”

She just continued to laugh. “Hun, you said it first a while ago.”

“I what?” you gasped.

“Do you remember the last happy hour we went to?” she asked you with a smirk.

You grumbled. She loved to hold that day over your head. “Barely.”

“After I got you to bed, before you fell asleep, you told me. You’ve also been mumbling it in your sleep. So, I know you love me. I’ve just been waiting for you to tell me coherently,” your girlfriend laughed. Then she sobered slightly to look at you with eyes she only had reserved for you. “I love you too, mi amore.”

That night also led to the first time… that first time. And it was everything you had dreamed of and more. Melissa Schemmenti was a body worth worshipping. 

The first time you spoke of what your future might look like together was rocky- but it was nothing if not informative. She expressed that she wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of marriage, but kids were something that she was wary of. You expressed that you could see yourself marrying her if it all fell into place, and kids were a dream of yours. If they came along they came along. Melissa reminded you that the two of you wouldn’t just be able to create a life the way any straight couple would be able to; forcing you to blush furiously. Of course though, she said that if the timing was right and everything fell into place, it wasn’t off the table.

The first time you had tried to propose to Melissa Schemmenti was one that you’ll never, ever forget. Everything seemed like it was going perfectly- the kids were extremely well-behaved that day for both of you (something that quite literally never happens), the drive home and making dinner was pleasant, and dessert was almost ready. You thumbed the ring in your pocket, just about ready to drop down to one knee and ask her to marry you. But of course, the most important aspect of your day was ruined when you dropped the ring as you went to pull it out of your pocket. You thanked your lucky stars that you were able to locate it and recover from your fumble before she was aware that anything was happening behind her back. But now that you were in such a panic, you couldn’t ask her. So, you enjoyed dessert with the ring carefully placed in your pocket. And it was wonderful.

You figured you had recovered enough from your first fumble to be able to ask her as you were getting ready for bed that night. So, while she was in the bathroom taking off her makeup, you carefully pulled the ring from your pocket again and laid it on her pillow. That was almost a surefire way for her to see it.

You were wrong of course. While she usually rolled into bed, this particular time she decided to flop down and sent the ring flying behind the headboard. It landed with a particularly loud thud- one that made her furrow her brows.

Thinking quickly, you took off one of your own rings and stuffed it under your pillow. 

“Oh, dammit,” you groaned, ever the actress. “I knew I forgot to put that ring back on.”

“Sorry, hun.” Melissa looked regretful. “Let me grab it for you.” She goes to roll out of bed and move the frame away from the wall to retrieve your ring.

You were too slow to stop her, frozen in your tracks. She found the engagement ring that was meant to be hers and stood straight up with it, eyes wide and jaw just slightly agape.

“Y/N,” your girlfriend said lowly. “What is this?”

“A ring?” you desperately were trying to figure out how to get out of this predicament. 

“No shit,” she was quick to retort. “Who’s is it?”

“Mine,” you say quietly.

“Are you secretly married or something?” Green eyes turn somewhat dark.

“No!” you were quick to reply. Well, you had to come clean now. “Mel, it’s mine… for you. I was going to ask you tonight, but both times I went to, I fumbled.”

Your girlfriend’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean?”

You explained the earlier events to her with a sigh. “Now, can I please have the ring back so I can at least go to bed with some of my dignity tonight?”

Melissa handed you the ring with an expectant look. But instead of dropping down to one knee like she thought you would, you instead just put the ring back safely in its box.

“What are you doing?” she asked you. “Aren’t you going to propose?”

“Well, I can’t now,” you replied. “It has to be perfect, and that proposal would not be.” You slide back into bed and open your arms for her to fall into. She does with a frown on her face.

“Damn,” she huffed. “I could’ve been engaged tonight.”

“Well,” you chuckled as you pressed a kiss to her head. “You will be soon enough- when the time is right.”

“It’s a beautiful ring,” she complimented softly as she held up her left hand. “Damn! Now I wish I would’ve just put it on!”

The next morning, Barbara came flying into the staffroom to look at Melissa’s hand- she knew of your plan to ask her work wife to marry you. She all but grabbed her best friend’s hand, and the smile that she wore immediately melted away into a frown.

“Where’s the-”

“It didn’t go as planned,” you sighed softly from next to your still-girlfriend.

“What does that mean?” Barbara gasped. “Melissa Ann, did you refuse her proposal?”

“What?”

“Did you refuse her proposal?”

“She didn’t,” you chuckled nervously. “I flubbed it.”

“H-how on Earth would you have flubbed it?” Barbara asked you. 

You turned sheepish. “I dropped the ring twice… and then she found it.”

“I tried to get her to propose,” Melissa huffed. “She wouldn’t.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because it has to be perfect,” you sighed as you kissed her hand. “You deserve perfect.”

“What I deserve is for that ring to be on my finger,” your girlfriend still huffed.

She got it eventually. The third time that you tried to propose was perfect, and the rock sat on her finger beautifully. The first time the Abbott crew saw it, they nearly swooned. Barbara nudged her best friend lightly.

“Was it worth the wait?” the kindergarten teacher asked teasingly.

“Yeah,” Melissa whispered as she held her hand out to admire the new ring. “I’d say so.”

The first time that you decided to sit down to wedding plan did not go to plan. It was disagreement after disagreement. And of course, that led to you sleeping on the couch after you said something not particularly called for. But after that, wedding planning was civil and respectful, and the “Abbott event of the century”, as Janine was putting it, was nearly set.

The first time you saw Melissa in her wedding dress was probably the most untraditional way to see her in it. But then again, most of the things about your relationship were untraditional.

You had come home after your own fitting, and there she was- standing on the coffee table as her mother was attempting to do alterations her own dress. Barbara Howard, obviously assuming her duty as maid of honor, was holding pins for Mrs. Schemmenti. In an instant though, she was shooing you back out the door.

“Y/N,” Barbara scolded you. “What the hell are you doing here?”

You chuckled. “Barb, this is my house too, you know.”

“Well, yes, but I thought you knew she would be doing alterations to the dress!”

“I didn’t think she would be standing on our living room coffee table!” you argued. “I thought she would be doing it in the basement or our bedroom, so I was just going to avoid those areas!”

The kindergarten teacher huffed. “Well, please tell me you didn’t see her in it.”

You avert your eyes- you had seen her in it. And she looked stunning.

“You two are the worst, you know that?” Barb rolled her eyes.

You smiled though. “Yeah, we are. But at least we can be terrible together.”

The first time you said your vows out loud was to your future wife, on your wedding day. By some grace of God, you had managed to keep them under wraps, and she had managed to keep hers a secret from you too.

So, there the two of you stood, holding hands up at the altar and looking into each other’s eyes as you made lifelong promises to each other. 

Melissa’s vows were short and sweet like she was (despite the fact that she always appears to be an average height… heels be damned). She glossed over the fact that she never in a million years would’ve expected to be standing here today before promising you that she would always be there to make lasagna for your birthday, that she’d never love Jalen Hurts more than you, and that she’d do whatever it takes to keep you happy… even if that meant having to be the one to change the lightbulbs in the house because you were afraid of getting burnt. Her vows to you made you laugh, they made you cry, they made you fall even further in love with her than you already were.

And then it was your turn to speak your vows- ones that you had only practiced in your head because you knew she was always looming around the corner trying to hear you.

“So,” you chuckled softly as you turned to the audience. “As Melissa stated, it was not love at first sight. Not even love at second glance- at least on her part. But… we’ve made our way here.” 

Your friends and family had laughed at your light joke, and then you turned back to Melissa. “It may not have been love at first sight, but we’ve had a lot of other firsts happen in life… One’s that we may not have ever expected: the first time you called me by name, the first time we had to ask each other for help, the first time you ambushed me in the classroom to tell me about the feelings that you had for me, our first I love you’s… the ones that I remember at least-” you blushed. “The first time I tried to propose, and the second time, and finally the third time. I guess what they say is true, that the third time’s a charm.” Again, those that you had invited to the ceremony chuckled along with you. “I’ve cherished all of our firsts, and I always will. And now, here I am, ready to read my vows aloud for the very first time.”

You shook your hands out nervously before glancing at the woman before you. You spoke of promising to love her through the good and bad, the beautiful and the downright ugly, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And then you diverted from the traditional vows. “Melissa, today is the first day of the rest of our lives, and it’s one that we’ll truly never forget. But just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean that life is going to be boring. I vow to you that we will live a lifetime full of firsts- together. I’m not quite sure what those firsts may be, but I know that they’ll be just as meaningful and as memorable as the rest of our firsts. I love you.”

The rest of your wedding is perfect, and then the reception after is an absolute ball. It was the first night of the rest of your lives, as you had said. And while you maybe wouldn’t remember it all the next morning, you knew that the most important parts would always be held to your heart.

The first time that you really spoke about your future together as a married couple- adding kids to the mix, or maybe a pet, was… it wasn’t pretty. But after a bit of wearing her down, your wife (God, you loved that you could call her your wife) agreed that if she was going to be a parent with anyone, it would be you.

That led you to your first treatments. That led you to the first time you peed on a stick, for once praying that it was positive. It wasn’t. That led you to another round of treatments, another negative test. And after the third round, for the first time, the word “positive” was staring up at you. 

Melissa had just smiled at you softly and said, “I guess third time really is a charm for us.”

Your first pregnancy. With that, there were a lot of firsts. The first ultrasound and time you heard your baby’s heartbeat.The first time you experienced morning sickness. The first time you noticed your bump. The first time you had to buy maternity clothes. The first time that you felt the baby kick- the first time she felt the baby kick. There were so many firsts throughout all of that experience.

And now, here you are, holding your daughter, your first born, for the first time. Melissa is perched on the side of your hospital bed, looking at the two of you with such love in her eyes. For the first time, the two of you are mothers. It’s a feeling of love that you never knew before- you understand motherly love for the first time as you hold this beautiful little baby in your arms.

“This is the first day of the rest of our lives,” you whisper as you stroke your little girl’s cheek.

“We’ve already had a lifetime full of firsts,” she tells you softly as she brushes her lips against your temple. “I think we can handle another lifetime of firsts.”

TAGS: (and let me know if you want to be included!): @schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @thesamesweetie @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @gwennybriggs @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @sapphicxrat @a-queen-and-her-throne @sunsol-22 @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld

[myunghology]

can you see me, using everything to hold back?

summary — watching silly little romance animes with natsume, as he unexpectedly points out that you guys act like silly romcom anime main characters.

pairings — natsume sakasaki x gender neutral reader.

tw — NONE...??? i think ooc natsu a bit, established relationship also this is really short. i only promised a small fic ok 🙁

a/n — @lunavixia hey. (threat)

"It's almost 2am in the morning, I genuinely start to wonder how you got me to watch fruits basket with you." Natsume deadpans at you, looking up at your sitting figure while your attention was most definitely glued to the tv screen.

You crane your head down to face him, a slight pout on your lips. "I'm wondering that, too.." He sighs, before you move slightly sideways on the couch so you're aligned with him, as he was sitting on the floor right under you.

He sucks in a breath through his teeth, clicking his tongue playfully. "Come on, I know what you're trying to do. Quickly," He pats his shoulder as you let out a small laugh.

You roll your eyes playfully, before placing your legs on his shoulder as he let's out a sigh of relief, when you run your fingers through his hair afterwards.

The male's head pulls back by it's own instinct, making eye contact with you for a second, before he closes his eyes in bliss and smiles, before he opens his eyes once more.

"You remind me of Tohru.. A bit." Natsume whispers, as you tilt your head in confusion, before pausing the anime playing on your tv, and then looking back down at him. "Why?"

He hums. "It just comes naturally. Don't you realize? You're like.. A sweetheart when it comes to things like these. And you somehow never get mad at me when I'm acting like an ass. And lastly.. You're pretty just like her."

You pause, processing his words for a second, before smiling softly. "Are we already in this part of our relationship where in you actually speak your mind for once?" You tease.

"I remember.. When you used to hate me for like.. What? I don't even know what reason you had." He groans as you bring up what happened before you even started dating, letting out a sigh.

"I'm pretty sure I hated you because.. I thought you were wayyy too nice for your being. Maybe in a way that I was jealous." He hums, while you let out a laugh.

"Jealous of what? Me being nice?"

He shakes his head. "Nope. Being mean is absolutely free. I was jealous of people you were being nice to, I guess? If that's how you would word it."

Now it's your turn to hum in amusement, before leaning back onto the couch— earning a small whine from Natsume.

"Stop that, I wanna see your face. What's the point of me looking up if I can't see it?" He snarks, before grabbing one of your hands to pull you back to sit up again.

"You could look up at the ceiling for a change," You humble him, saying it as if it was a lesson he needed to learn: as he shakes his head in response.

"The ceiling isn't as pretty as you are. It's so plain.." He says matter-of-factly, before you brush his bangs out of the way with your fingers, making another smile creep up to his lips.

"You're a bit like a cat." You mutter.

He let's out a small laugh, "Are you referencing me to Kyo.. Or?" You shake your head, "No! You just act like one generally." You quickly defend, continuing right after.

"You look like one too. Specifically.. Maybe a Siamese cat? Your eyes remind me of them sometimes."

You mutter, tilting your head slightly to look at him better. "Actually.. Screw that. You look like your cats." A playful scoff comes out of your boyfriends lips as you say that.

"They are my children at this point, no?"

"Our children. But I guess you have a point.."

a/n — i can't read u, but if u want, the pleasures all mine.

[raichett]

Free

Scar’s got a selkie coat kept in a magical safe in his shop, hoping that its owner might come to retrieve it some day. Grian just so happens to be a selkie.

Content warnings: implied/referenced forced marriage with all that entails (i.e. non-consensual or dubiously consensual sex, etc.) but this is very much in the past and not between any character actually on screen, past murder, non-humans eating humans for their crimes.

This fic can also be found on AO3.

‒

FREE

As soon as the man walks into his shop, the bell above the door ringing with a double note that no non-magical human could ever make it produce, Scar knows who he is.

He’s never met him before, mind, but he’s been – expecting. Hoping, maybe, that there would even be someone to retrieve the coat still.

Scar slaps on his best grin, making his voice bubble up with energy as he calls across the store, “Welcome to Convex Curiosities, good sir!” He doesn’t add on the next part of his usual script – How may I help you today? – and instead gestures with his fingers to beckon the man up towards the counter.

The man hesitates, glances around at the shelves of items – as though Scar would ever put his coat there – and trails up towards Scar. His shoulders try to hunch, but then he seems to catch himself, squaring them again. He looks… worn, ill, his wrists too thin and stress lines creasing across his face. He has soft light coloured hair, but it’s dulled and unhealthy, gone from sandy to mousey, and his eyes are shifting and flittering, scanning around as though expecting an ambush.

Scar pulls the seal skin coat out from under his counter, the press of his fingers unlocking the magical safe below with blue sparks. He lays it on top, one hand resting on the silky fur, watching as the man’s breath hitches and he leans in, desperate, before he suddenly flinches back, because one never reveals a weakness to a potential enemy. “This is yours, I believe.”

The man – this poor selkie with his coat stolen, living a half-life of pain and fear – licks his chapped lips. He looks – gods, he looks crushed. He ducks his head, squeezes his eyes shut briefly, and says, still some fire left in him, banked though it is, “Well, at least you’re more handsome than my last husband.”

Scar blinks. Then his heart lurches, his throat closing and sickness swirling in his gut. “Wha – no, no, no!” he corrects, frantically. His fingers fumble a moment before he manages to shove the coat right into the man’s arms. “This is yours – this – this is yours. Take it.”

The selkie man grasps onto his coat with a white-knuckled grip, dark eyes wide and lips parted, looking shocked. Scar swallows at that face, at what it must mean for whatever nightmares the selkie is dragging around with him, but he steps back from the counter, putting more space between them and placing the seal skin coat out of his arms’ reach.

The selkie also steps back, curling his arms around his coat and clinging tight. He so obviously didn’t expect to walk away with it freely – hoped, perhaps, for an ignorant shop-owner and buying his life back. Feared the prospect of a knowledgeable one and the power that knowledge holds – the power to make this selkie bend to another’s will.

“She’s in the harbour,” Scar blurts out before the selkie can make his understandable escape. He feels that the other would want to know. “The – er. The woman who tried to sell that to me. Crab food.”

The man stills, eyes locking with Scar’s. “You’re certain?” he asks.

Scar remembers it quite well, actually. It’s not the first dispatch he’s ever done, and it probably won’t be the last, but it is the most recent. He puts another smile on his face, this one a bit truer, but he doesn’t hesitate to bare his too-sharp teeth to the other, to invoke his own inhumanity. “I might have taken a bit of a nibble myself before we sank her,” he admits. Cub, too, but his co-owner isn’t here today.

“She was my mother-in-law,” the selkie says abruptly. “She – she didn’t know, but. She definitely deserved it. If she had, I think I’d be married to her right now…” He shivers. “I mean, my husband didn’t die for no reason, and she was like that for years – and at the funeral…” He falls silent and clutches his coat tighter to him. “Should’ve saved a bite for me,” he says, eyes narrowing, lips curling back from his teeth.

Aaaaannnd – Scar’s not touching that with a barge pole, thank you very much. “Sounds like the whole family was a piece of work,” he says instead, which it does. “And congratulations on your widowerhood.” Hoping to bring a more light-hearted feel to the room, he pulls a white handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at the corner of his dry eye dramatically, waving it about with his hand after in an old farewell gesture. “Safe trip back to the sea, good sir.”

That pulls a huff out of the selkie, not quite a laugh, but headed that direction. The selkie then does something quite unexpected: he steps forward again, towards Scar.

“Your name,” he demands, not quite making it a question. His face is intense, but so animated compared to the resignation and misery of before. It’s good to see.

Scar tilts his head – why is the selkie sticking around? He should be running for the shore right now – but answers easily, “Scar.”

“Scar,” the selkie repeats. “Scar...” He smiles, then, small and rusty, an expression unused for quite some time – but still so pretty. He rubs his fingers over his coat, rocks back on his heels, and says, “Thank you, Scar. My name is Grian, of the North Sea.”

Oh, you’re far away from home, Scar thinks. But to say that would probably be rubbing salt in a wound. “You’re welcome. It was my pleasure, truly.”

“I’m sure it was,” Grian replies. “But still… thank you. I hope she didn’t give you indigestion.”

“She didn’t,” Scar confirms cheerily. “Though I cannot speak for the harbour crabs, of course.”

“Dinner is dinner, down below the waves,” Grian says. He takes a deep breath, white knuckles his coat again, and says, quiet but earnest, “Why don’t I buy you dinner some time?”

Scar’s mouth drops open a little, stunned.

“Not right now, obviously,” Grian hastens to add, clearly feeling the bite of something dark and sad and horrible nipping at his heels, echoed in Scar’s concerned face. “But maybe in the autumn, when we migrate back this way. I need – to see my family first.”

“I’m sure you do,” Scar answers, some meaningless silence-filler as a stand in for a response he’s not quite sure how to structure yet. Grian is a pretty man, no lie, but Scar has some decency in his heart, and as a veritable veteran of bad ideas, he thinks that rushing into anything with a newly-freed selkie would be one of them. “Um. Well, if you still feel the same way in a few months, you know where to find me!”

“So I do,” Grian says. He looks relieved, though, that Scar is refusing to try to pry his word out of him, not trying to spin it as a debt owed, leaving it an open-ended possibility. He smiles that rusty smile again. “Perhaps – perhaps I’ll see you again.”

“Perhaps,” Scar repeats. “Goodbye, Grian – may the stars be bright and the currents be kind.”

Grian’s eyes soften at the sea-folk blessing. “See you later,” he says, and leaves, slinging his coat around his shoulders, the bell above the door ringing as he steps out onto the street and is lost in the waves of people.

“See you later,” Scar echoes into the empty shop. I hope so.

[stormingfrost]

Wonders of the Invisible World 

Tags: Body horror, major character death, Implied/Referenced child abuse, original characters, pitch/sandy

summary: 

Through hundreds of years of strange things happening all over the world, finally someone sees. The Bennett family is now at the forefront of every children's tale - except, now, they learn that these tales are not only real, but much, much darker than they first thought.

For @rotg-halloween day four: castle 

Read it on AO3

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 /13

chapter four: Castle 

under cut

“So Santa is a giant Lovecraftian creature?” 

Jamie nodded. Uncle Andy sighed. Aunt Vivian looked at his mom, nudging her. 

“You alright?” Mom nodded, giving her a look that meant they would talk later. She held her new present, the one that Santa gave her last minute, close to her. It was still unwrapped

“He said he loved the children of the world,” Jamie said. The way those giant hands cupped him and Sophie… gentle and nothing short of caring. He was wondrous and terrifying. 

Jamie looked down at the baby tooth in his hand. 

The what-ifs were racing in his head. He saw the boogeyman. He talked to Santa. What if the tooth fairy visited him? He knew his mom was also wondering the same thing. She kept glancing at him, a worried look on her face as she looked at the gap in his mouth.

“What was the thing in the woods?” Jamie asked. Vivian froze. 

“I’m not sure,” Andy said. “Some sort of zombie? He was a boy. I saw his grave. He was fourteen when he died. We took him to the colonial cemetery, and he showed us his grave and then told us to…” Andy sighed, grief weighing him down. 

“He wanted us to end his suffering,” Vivian finished. “We buried him.” 

Jamie looked down. 

Not a monster. Instead, the monster was actually just a poor, suffering undead creature. 

It had calmed him but also made him feel a bit guilty. He was scared of the poor boy. 

They were spending the night at Grandma’s. Sophie and Jamie got their own rooms, and so did Mom, but Andy and Vivian had to sleep in one, on two different beds that were perpendicular to each other. Jamie guessed that Mom’s room would’ve sat empty if she never married as well, but since it was given to her, they didn’t take it away after the divorce. 

He still remembered being angry at his grandparents. They didn’t support the divorce and nearly stopped talking to his Mom. They only started talking when they realized they wouldn’t see him or Sophie again. 

He sat the tooth under his pillow. He heard Vivian and Mom whispering. 

“What if she’s real? What if she takes the tooth?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

Jamie lay down, staring up at the ceiling. Ordinarily, he’d stay awake for as long as he could, waiting to catch the tooth fairy. After seeing a zombie, the boogeyman, and Santa, he was sure she was real. 

But did he want to see her? A little bit. He was sure she wouldn’t be anything like he expected. 

He turned on his side, staring at the door. Light drifted in from the hallway. 

A strong, unnatural drowsiness fell over him. He blinked his eyes open. The lull of sleep washed over him. 

And then he was awake again. It was dark. 

There was someone in the room with him, whispering. It wasn’t a familiar voice. 

“Left central incisor. Look at how he flossed!” 

Jamie grabbed his flashlight, pointing it at the voice. 

The woman looked towards him, a look of surprise on her face. She was mostly a bird-like creature, with legs like a bird and feathers covering her body. Her arms and face were the only human features Jamie could make out. Her wings flapped. 

“Hello,” he said. The woman shook herself. 

“Greetings.” 

“I knew you’d come.” The woman smiled at that. 

“Of course! You’ve got wonderful teeth. Shame about the memories though.” 

“Memories?”

The woman nodded and hummed, and then Jamie remembered his father. He shivered. 

“See? They are bad. Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t remember the bad things?” 

“I don’t know…” Jamie debated. “It’s a big part of my life.” 

The Tooth fairy dismissed Jamie’s words. 

“But it hurts you. Don’t you want to be happy? I wish I could go back and stop him. But I am not a creature of time. However, I am the ruler of memories. I can make you forget and remember anything I please. I control your perception of time and life.” 

Jamie suddenly regretted waking up. 

“Don’t mess with my head,” he snapped. The Tooth fairy clicked her tongue. 

“Foolish children shouldn’t talk to me like that. Now you’ve forced my hand.” 

Jamie got up. 

“No! Give my tooth back!” 

Then his mind went blank. 

“What would you like to remember?” Her voice whispered. 

“The names of planets? Your mother’s name? Your native language?” 

He couldn’t recall his own name. He looked at her in alarm. 

“Stop.”

“You should know better, after all you’ve seen. Don’t talk to me like that.” 

Memories flooded him. His mother. His name. His sister. His friends. The names of his teachers. The answer to the math problem that he forgot on the latest quiz. The details of the silver locket his mom always wore. The one time he gave a book report and tipped over his shoelaces. 

He slumped over, exhausted. 

“A pain-free memory is best, Jamie. Don’t worry. I’ll keep your memories safe. I have a palace where I keep them. They will be guarded and protected.” 

With that, she was gone. Jamie looked around. 

Then he grabbed the pillow, looking under it. He got twenty dollars from her. 

He looked back to where she was. 

Why was he angry at her? He couldn’t recall. 

Morning came, and he shuffled upstairs, to where there were warm pancakes and the smell of coffee. His mom smiled at him. 

“She’s real,” he said, holding up the twenty. “I talked to her.” 

“Did… anything happen?” Jamie struggled to remember their conversation. 

“She said I have nice teeth and I floss well.” 

“You got a twenty from her?” Andy said. “Right on, little dude!” Jamie shrugged. He still had that feeling. Like he was forgetting something important. But he couldn’t remember what it was. 

“Good morning, Jamie!” Grandpa said, coming up behind him. Jamie nodded, distracted. 

“What do you say?” Grandpa nudged him. 

“Dad!” His mom scolded. “Be nice.” 

“Well, we don’t want him to end up like his father, now, don’t we?” Mom got up in an instant, dragging Grandpa out of the dining room. 

“Wow,” Andy said. “That’s a new low for him. I’d be surprised if she talks to him again.” 

Jamie looked up. 

“What does he mean?” Andy sighed. 

“Your dad wasn’t nice. He was comparing you not verbally answering him to your dad’s abuse.” 

Jamie’s eyebrows scrunched together. 

“I… I don’t remember my dad.” 

Andy looked down. He looked at the twenty-dollar bill in Jamie’s hand. 

“Did the Tooth fairy do something to you?” He asked urgently. Jamie shrugged. 

“I dunno. I don’t remember a lot of the conversation.” 

Andy frowned. 

“Joyce,” he called. “Something’s wrong.”

[jawbone-xylophone]

Soooo this fandom has consumed me. Take this. It’s not a good intro, but the Link from one of the AUs in my folder demanded to meet Fierce Dad. So. Context: Linked Universe shenanigans, Fierce Deity was necessary, and in the aftermath it gets a look at my blindfolded Wild.

Game start.

-🧿⚔️🧿⚔️🧿-

“Oh…”

Whatever the Chain had been expecting, it wasn’t the way the Fierce Deity’s sword dropped an inch. Still expressionless, but in that moment entirely unguarded in a way the warrior god had never been, white eyes fixed on the blindfolded hero.

Wild’s head tilted minutely, a puppet’s approximation of a question. He did his best to emote when he could, but it always… fit wrong, like the taut creak of a too-tight tunic. “Yes?”

Warriors was hissing warnings from the sidelines that went completely unheeded, as the unchained god took a step forward, then another, well inside zweihander range, well inside arm’s range-

A gauntleted hand cupped Wild’s chin with a gentleness he’d only seen from the Princess, tilting him slightly like fragile pearl in the testing hand of the jeweler. This close, the deity’s face looked quite literally carved, the thin trail of wood grain crawling up lips and nose like ancient scars. When it spoke, its teeth flashed like white steel peeking from the scabbard. “You’re close. Not close enough, but… perhaps closer than you should be.” Glowing eyes narrowed slightly, woodgrain fingertips ghosting over the curve of a cheekbone, beneath the soft breath under his nose, as if blind.

“….I’m the Hero of the Wild,” he offered. “I died once. Is that what you mean?”

“You did what,” shrilled a voice that might have been Hyrule, but it was hard to focus past the intense attention of the blank-eyed god whose fingers were hesitating at the edge of his blindfold. Wild blinked (and blinked and blinked and blinked, data processing, data comparison) and let it linger, curious.

Stillness, for a long moment. Without looking away, the Fierce Deity’s helix blade twisted and thrust down firmly into the earth, quivering upright with a metallic hum as it freed its other hand to track the dip of his temple, his ear, wooden brow furrowing in a strangely organic way. “No,” it answered with more thought than breath. “You’re not a mask.”

Oh, he thought he understood now. Wild smiled, boyish and disarming and exactly what his Zelda wished he would do. “I’m not. I’m a weapon.”

(Distantly, in the background, he processed and stored for later the confusion of the Chain, worried voices, irritation overlying fear. There wasn’t anything to worry about.)

The deity’s hands went puppet-still for a moment. “Ah. That’s it, then.” A pass of attention down him, the feel of a gaze on his hip. “Not that?”

By this point the fingers on his face were just superfluous. Wild gave a very human sigh, nudged his head into the Fierce Deity’s bloodless hands. “Pull it up. Just…” An uncharacteristic pause, too many nanoseconds over the acceptable limit. “Don’t let them see.”

They were both weapons of the goddess. The Fierce Deity didn’t bother with reassurances, stepping slightly to the side to presumably angle him away before plucking the knot in his blindfold like the wing from a butterfly.

Wild blinked, lashes free for the first time in weeks, some part of him actually startled by the feel of sunlight on the bridge of his nose, skin hungry for it like new leaves in spring. He blinked, blinked again, the soft hum of some mechanism humming through his temple. It was… different, looking at someone like this.

The Fierce Deity’s eyes didn’t change, but he could see the blue glow of his own reflecting from its wooden cheekbone.

He was privately glad for the proximity, to be honest. It was less overwhelming to have such little information, eyes and hair and nose blocking out the view of the forest and its 187.5 species of tree, 100 species of bird, and 37.5 species of butterfly per square mile. He had no frame of reference for analyzing a thoroughly sealed god- and it was sealed, despite the way Legend was muttering darkly somewhere about charging in to rescue him and asking questions later.

It hummed, a strangely bright sound like a whetstone across good steel, before pressing his blindfold into his hands. “They will see regardless.”

“Not today.” He beamed- smiled, smiled, not beamed- in the easy, practiced way of Sheikah actors, something tried on until it warmed up to the shape of him like new leather boots. “We have monsters to kill and traveling to do, that’ll happen when it happens. I think the group is going to do something stupid if you don’t back up and possibly give Time back, though.”

It laughed, once, low and strangely warm like the sound of a woodwind, stepping back with a brusque gesture that had the helix blade ripping from the ground to meet his palm with a resonant hum. “A little fear is good for the heart.”

Smile curling into something more amused, Wild looked the chained god over head to toe with one last curious pass, and it slipped out before he could help himself: “Seal you later, Fierce Deity.”

Carved brows actually ticked up a fraction, the hand rising to its chin covering a steel-bright smile. “Watch yourself, bright eyes.” The fingers fit around the edge of its jaw, double-toned baritone trailing off into a hoarse gasp, and in the brief instant before Time doubled over Wild slammed his eyes shut like prison gates.

The bustle of the Chain closing in on them both was punctuated by the new knot in his blindfold, cloth and metal settling firmly over the bridge of his nose. Better this way, less information to filter as voices swirled around him.

(He blinked, and blinked, and blinked, and Saw the wireframe warp and weft of them anyway.)

[localplaguenurse]

I am just nosy, forgive me. Can you describe each one of your mutuals?

Buckle up people and prepare to get complimented >:3c

First and foremost, they’re all absolute sweethearts to me.

There are my irl friends, such as @wretchedshade, @granolabird, @siriuscitrus and @scales-of-stardust or beta as I usually refer to them. I share the same braincell with these people.

Wretchedshade has been my best friend since we were ten, we’ve been there for each other for 11 years. I initially got her into anime, and then she got me into jojo, and every once in a while we cry about Doukyuusei again. She’s a great artist and is really good at writing sad shit, which is why I write sad shit; to have the glory of finally making her cry. She kicked cancer’s teeth in a few months ago so it’s about goddamn time something good come her way and I WILL fight someone on that.

Granolabird is the dm for my dnd campaign, and like I said, absolute sweetheart, chaotic adhd haver (actually like most of my friend group is like this lmao we’re all queer and neurodivergent). Either way, we used to share thoughts on each other’s original stories, and we still do sometimes but it’s mostly just sending each other tiktoks/reels like “this you” or “this your oc.”

Siriuscitrus is usually pretty hyper, but also tries to be v considerate of everyone’s feelings. If you said that the McDonald’s employee put pickles on your burger when you said no, they’d probably be the one to tell them. They’re also scarily good at vibechecking people and told me I give “future he/they vibes” and like a week later I said “fuck you’re right oh my god.”

You’ve probably seen me and beta’s interactions on here or in the ao3 comments. We enjoy our like playful rivalry/enemyship. I like to torment tease her and she usually gets me back pretty good, it’s all in good fun. It’s also really funny to me whenever we meet up, I tell myself “you are friends with them for reasons other than fic so do not make it about fic” and then we’ll spend literally hours talking about and brainstorming fic ideas. It just Happens.

I’m also gonna add @memory-mortis into here because while we’ve not met irl I’ve introduced him to my friend group. Yet another sweetheart, love her art style a lot, and she was one of the first comments I got on ginkgo trees to motivate me to keep going. I was kinda worried about bringing him into my friendgroup because like if I’m not overthinking I am not thinking At All. I was super relieved and happy that she like IMMEDIATELY fit in with everyone so :D

For some of my other close but only on tumblr/ao3/outside my general friendgroup mutuals! (There are too many so I’m sorry if you’re not here it’s mostly people I interact with more regularly ;-;)

@crimson-ashes who I have occasionally with absolute love called my “askbox gremlin” because they live in my inbox. I need to stress this is affectionate because genuinely, I love opening tumblr and seeing I’ve got asks from them. They gotta stop posting Astarion though because I’m feeling So Tempted to play BG but I know my laptop would kill itself (joking).

@crystalflygeo and I know I’ve called everyone sweethearts but genuinely, she’s probably one of the sweetest people I’ve had the pleasure of talking to. She’s really wholesome (unlike her writing which is never gonna be a complaint in my book, good soup) and super supportive of other people.

@madamemachikonew who’s super polite and really kind. She’s also really creative/smart when it comes to referencing real world art and philosophy in her writing and integrating it into her own worldbuilding. I would have never thought to have done that, and it makes her writing very unique!

We don’t interact as much but @probably-doesnt-exist, @ethve, @euniveve and @ainescribe are such talented artists and super sweet, have literally made me screech and cackle with utter joy whenever they draw the characters from ginkgo trees. I rotate through which art becomes my phone’s lock/home screens.

This is long af but fuck it, I wanna brighten people’s days and I told myself to say “I love you” to my friends and family more, so consider this one big “I love you!” to y’all. It’s a pleasure talking to y’all!

[valentinoappreciator]

I DID IT

I finished the Vox fic!

Media: Hazbin Hotel

Rating: E for Explicit

Word count: 9537

Pairing: Vox / Self-Insert (female) Character

Warnings: Referenced / Implied rape, general abuse.

Tags: Valentino being a piece of shit, canon-typical violence, flirty Vox, bisexual Vox, smut (duh), light angst towards the end

Where else to read: AO3; username: TheWeirdDane; title: Tonight I'm Saying Goodbye Valentino

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

No one had ever proclaimed that Valentino was a gentle lover and a kind soul. Or, if they had, they had certainly never met him. 

“Vox!” 

Vox swivelled around in his swivelling chair. He knew that voice all too well, not to mention the tone of it. Valentino was pissed about something, and would no doubt make it Vox’s problem. 

“Yes, Val?” he replied, careful to sound respectful and polite. 

Not that Valentino showed him the same courtesy. No, instead, he sent a fist through the air and rammed it into Vox’s screen. Seemingly not caring for his own fist getting torn up by the shards, he only cared for hurting for a loudly groaning Vox. 

“I thought I told you not to complete the transfer tonight!”

He had fallen out of his chair and now lay on the floor by Valentino’s feet. Lifting a hand to his cracked screen, he groaned in pain. 

“Care to explain yourself, Voxy?” 

He grit his sharp teeth. Clenched his hands into fists as he got up from the floor. Valentino was a good deal taller than him, but he was determined to look up into his partner’s eyes. 

“I thought I would complete the transfer as soon as possible to give us more time to---”

“Don’t think, Vox, that’s my job. Your job is to do what I tell you to. Got it? Or do I need to make you understand?” 

Vox was half a breath away from punching those stupid glasses off his face, but thought better of it at the last second. He quite enjoyed being alive, and hurting Valentino was a guaranteed one-way ticket to actual death. 

“Got it, Val,” he therefore hissed through gritted teeth. 

“Then clean yourself up. I don’t want to be seen with broken merchandise.”

“We’re alone,” Vox exclaimed before he could stop himself, and immediately upon speaking the words, he feared for his life. But Valentino simply stood there, as if waiting for more. “No one is seeing us here, Val!”

Valentino scoffed before turning on his heel. 

“You better pray you’re right, Vox. Or I won’t be so forgiving next time.”

It took a few days for his screen to heal. A few days that he spent avoiding Valentino, lest he aggravate the pimp overlord further. However, when he still hadn’t seen Valentino after close to a week, he decided he had had enough. 

Valentino was working late somewhere. Not that Vox really cared; Valentino didn’t care for his work, so why should he then care for him? 

“Going out. Don’t wait up.”

He knew he didn’t owe Valentino a text, but through all their years together, he had been conditioned into notifying Valentino about every little thing, and as such, he didn’t dare not to text him. At the same time, however, he was scared of the consequences. 

He never went out. As in, never. Feeling obligated to be at Valentino’s every beck and call, he felt like he couldn’t allow himself even one evening off. 

But not anymore. Tonight, he was saying ‘goodbye, Valentino’! 

As expected, Vox didn’t get a text back. He took that to mean that Valentino didn’t care for him tonight, and even though he was used to that, it still made a knot of anger rise into his chest. 

Despite never going out, Vox had been eyeing a small bar on the corner of the street where he lived. It was one of the few bars that Valentino didn’t own, and as such, Vox felt safe going there. It was a fairly regular club. Not the kind where pretty girls dance in skimpy outfits for horny sinners, but instead there was live music. Somewhat old fashioned, it seemed perfect to soothe the ache in his soul. Whatever may be left of it. 

Dressing in navy blue suit pants and a white turtleneck sweater under a navy blue suit jacket, he went out. 

Lesser demons recognised him in the streets, and they all bowed or curtseyed, giving his ego a pleasant boost. His screen may still be suffering slightly from their last scuffle, but it was mostly healed by now. No one seemed to notice the more stubborn, minor cracks, for which he was grateful. As he made his way into the bar, he was formally greeted and shown to one of the front seats, which were reserved for only the most important demons. From here, he had a perfect, unspoiled view of the stage, where a band played soft jazz. 

“May I take your order?” 

He turned his head. The voice belonged to a short statured, somewhat chubby lesser demon. Her hair was flaming red, her eyes piercing blue. She wore glasses - purple frames - and a kind smile. She had black-and-white horns that curled around her ears. 

Vox noted how she hadn’t addressed him by his title, nor by his name, as was customary for overlords. It surprised him; he thought everyone in Hell knew who he was. Seems he was mistaken. 

Interesting. 

He gave his order, and she scribbled it down on a notepad before bobbing her head in a polite nod, then took the order to the bar. His eyes followed her as she went. There was a spring to her steps, and she giggled at the bartender. Taking a tray into her hands, she walked around amongst the other patrons, until she ended up by his table again. 

“And here’s your drink, sir,” she smiled. He didn’t immediately reply. He instead took the glass and swirled it slightly, the golden-brown liquid sloshing around lazily. 

“Didn’t you forget something?” he asked, inwardly snickering at the way she instantly panicked. Her eyes widened, and she hugged the now empty tray close to her voluminous chest. 

“I beg your pardon, sir?” she said, her voice a tad too high pitched. 

“I believe it’s customary to address an overlord by their title,” he explained, speaking slowly and peering into his glass for a long moment before fixing his gaze on her face again. Recognition flashed in her eyes a fraction of a second before sheer terror overtook it. It wasn’t something he should delight in, but decades of working with Valentino seemed to, unfortunately, have rubbed off on him. 

“Oh Satan, I’m so sorry, sir, I mean, Mr. Vox, sir,” she whispered, looking mortified. She hugged the metal tray so close to her chest that her knuckles turned white. Her face quickly turned beet-red. 

He snickered. 

“I-I’m new here. It’s my first day, and I don’t really know how this place works.”

“New to Hell, or new to this bar?” he asked, not quite understanding where the genuinity in this voice came from. He eyed her curiously, taking a small sip of his drink. 

“Both,” she replied, a polite but clearly nervous smile on her face. “I arrived in Hell just two days ago, and, well, bills don’t pay themselves. One would think that capitalism was a special sort of hell reserved for the living.”

He let out a sharp, short laugh. That felt... oddly liberating. 

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” 

Her nervousness seemed to dissipate a bit when he didn’t rip her a new breathing hole for not immediately knowing who he was. 

“But no. Capitalism is a hellscape all on its own. Not reserved for humans, it would seem,” she giggled. The sound was warm and bubbly, and he couldn’t help but glance at her before looking towards the stage again. 

“Enjoy your drink, Mr. Vox,” she said with a much more relaxed smile, “I’ll be right over by the bar, when you need a refill. I mean, if you need a refill, of course. I’m not saying you drink a lot or anything! I’m just saying that... uhm...” 

She laughed nervously, and all air was knocked out of him. 

“I think it’s better to go now before you say something you’ll really regret,” he hummed, swirling his drink while looking at her intently. 

“Yes, Mr. Vox, of course.”

She curtseyed and immediately left, her ears about as red as her hair. He looked after her, a lopsided, curious grin on his screen. 

Well, wasn’t she an interesting little thing? 

He sipped his drink slowly, savouring the taste. It burnt as it trickled down his throat, the sharpness of it ripping into his nostrils. As he drank, it was like his gaze was drawn to her every few minutes. The waitress. He didn’t know her name... yet. There was nothing that dictated that he couldn’t come to know it. 

But he had to be careful. He was an overlord; he couldn’t be seen mingling with the lesser demons. However... if Valentino could fuck - more like rape - the girls he employed, what was stopping Vox from enjoying a night with this particular woman? 

Finishing his drink, he saw another server on his way to his table, and he bared his teeth, waving him away. The server immediately turned on his heel to serve another table. With a satisfied grin, Vox looked for the waitress. When he finally laid eyes on her, he saw that she was giggling with the bartender again. She even put a hand on her arm, however briefly. It made an unpleasant heaviness settle in his chest, and while he didn’t want to examine it further, he did know why.

Somehow, for some reason, he wanted to bring her home with him. It wasn’t like Valentino ever put out, anyway. Not unless he was in the mood, never caring for Vox’s advances or needs. Suffice to say, he had some itches that needed scratching, and he had a feeling that this particular demon wouldn’t be opposed. But if she was into women... that would be a problem. 

Maybe she was into men and women, like himself? 

He sighed.

Maybe, if he asked, he would actually know. 

So, he got her attention and waved his empty glass. She immediately grabbed the tray, hopped down from the stool, and weaved her way through the crowd to get to him. 

“Yes, Mr. Vox, what would you like?”

“Your phone number, please. Along with a refill. As you predicted,” he grinned. 

At first, she looked stunned. Her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape, she wasn’t far from a fish out of water. 

“My...?” She trailed off. 

“Your phone number,” he agreed. “And another drink. The same as before, if you please.”

She blinked rapidly, but then, a second later, it appeared that she got full control of the situation, turning the tables a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

“I’m afraid the best I can do is my name and another whisky, Mr. Vox.”

He grinned widely. She reached for the glass. 

“I’m all ears, miss...?”

“Miss Cassiopeia,” she hummed as she bent over to take his empty glass. Vox might not be the most well-versed in waitressing, but he knew that she didn’t need to bend down that far to retrieve it. It did, however, mean that he got a proper eyeful of her cleavage, and if anyone was happy about that, it was him, and his cock. 

“Miss Cassiopeia,” he repeated, tasting her name. “A pleasure.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Vox,” she practically purred, and once again, all air was knocked out of him. 

When she didn’t move back to the bar, he quirked an eyebrow and smirked. 

“My drink...?”

“Oh!” She blushed deeply. “Yes, of course, right away, sir.” 

She put the glass on the tray and hurried back to the bar. He followed her with his eyes. When he saw that she was glancing back at him, he nodded politely. Even from all the way over here, he could practically feel the heat radiating off of her. 

She came back just a moment later, with two glasses on her tray. He sent her a quizzical look. 

“This one’s on the house,” she smiled and put one of the glasses on his table. 

“And the other?”

“That’s just yours, sir.”

“And here I thought you were buying me a drink,” he said, feigning disappointment. She laughed heartily, and the smile appeared on his screen all by itself. 

“Do I need to buy you a drink, Mr. Vox?”

“That all depends.”

She shot him a puzzled look.

“On?” she eventually asked when he didn’t elaborate.

“On whether or not you’re free tonight.”

“Well, no, obviously not.”

He managed to feel deflated for all of four seconds, before she continued. 

“I’m working all night, and--- oh! Oh, you meant like...”

She blushed again, and now it was his turn to laugh heartily. He patted her hand without second thought as she moved to put the other glass on his table, but the touch seemed to startle her, because she immediately withdrew her hand. It happened fast enough that she spilled half the contents of the glass all over his pants. 

Immediately, that same terrified expression that she had had upon him presenting himself was on her face again. 

“Oh! Oh no, Mr. Vox, I’m so sorry,” she gasped, putting the tray down on his table and fetching a bunch of napkins from her apron’s front pocket. She began dabbing at the stains, and, try as he might, Vox couldn’t help but suddenly feel very warm. She was so close, frantically trying to clean out the whisky stains on his pants. He felt like he was paralyzed; he sat completely still, simply looked down at her as she scrubbed so desperately. 

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered without making eye contact. “I didn’t mean to--- you startled me, sir, and I--- I mean, it’s not your fault, of course, I just--- I’m a bit clumsy, and---”

“Miss Cassiopeia,” he then said firmly, but gently, careful not to raise his voice, “it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. It’ll wash out, and if it doesn’t, I’ll just buy another pair.”

She finally looked up at him, and his heart ached slightly when he saw her eyes getting wet. Poor girl would probably get fired for this if management determined it was her fault. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he insisted, softening his voice. “It happens. It’s just a pair of pants.”

“But they look expensive,” she whispered, looking mortified, and took his hand when he offered it to her to help her to her feet. Although he did like seeing her on her knees in front of him. 

“Perks of being an overlord,” he smiled. “You can work off your mistake if you feel so bad about it,” he then added without thinking, or without really wanting to add that. With his tone of voice, plus the insinuation, it was clear as day what he had said between the lines. 

Her already big eyes widened even further, and Vox was eternally grateful that he couldn’t blush, because he certainly would have if he could. 

“That was a joke, Miss Cassiopeia. Please, don’t take that seriously. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled, and although she did look relieved, there was also a part of her that seemed... almost disappointed. He couldn’t tell if it was the sagging shoulders or the downcast gaze, but there were definitely signs.

Highly curious. 

An awkward silence stretched out between them, before one of the bartenders screamed out her name. 

Cassiopeia startled and quickly grabbed the tray. 

“Again, I’m so sorry, Mr. Vox, sir,” she said hastily, returning to the bar. Once more, he followed her with his eyes, and frowned when the bartender looked to be giving her an earful. Cassiopeia nodded fervently, but it was clear that it wasn’t for fun. When she quickly glanced back at him, it was clear as day that she was on the verge of a breakdown. 

Vox didn’t really know why he cared. It wasn’t like this woman was anything to him. They didn’t know each other. They were only barely on a first name basis. But something inside him twisted unpleasantly at seeing her being scolded so harshly. It was painfully familiar.

He got up from his chair and strode towards the bar. 

“Is there a problem?” he asked the bartender, managing to keep his voice in check. 

“Mr. Vox, sir, I deeply apologise about Cassiopeia’s clumsiness,” the female bartender said. He didn’t like her voice, at all. It was way too slick and ass-kissing. She did have some kick-ass ram-like horns though. “It’s her first shift on her own, but she’s clearly not fit for it. I can have her trained further, or even fired if you---”

“That won’t be necessary,” he interrupted. They both stared at him, Cassiopeia with fearful eyes and the bartender with surprised ones. “I overstepped her boundary. That’s hardly her fault.”

“But, with all due respect, Mr. Vox, you’re an overlord, and such behaviour isn’t acceptable when serving someone of your standing.”

“Do you want me to make a big deal out of this?” he asked coolly. “I can take it up with management, but what do you think they will say to you when they hear that you didn’t train young Miss Cassiopeia adequately?” 

The bartender suddenly got very pale. She swallowed heavily. Vox could almost hear it, even over the soft jazz that was still playing. He leaned his arms on the counter of the bar, and a frisson of delight ran through him when she took a step back. Everybody here - well, maybe aside from Cassiopeia - knew that he was close with Valentino, and thus, they probably figured that he had the same violent, unpredictable tendencies. He didn’t, but she didn’t have to know that. 

“I don’t think they would come for her, but rather for you,” he hummed. “But... I can save you that kind of trouble. I am, after all, an overlord. If I say it’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Y-Yes, of course, sir, Mr. Vox, sir, thank you,” she croaked. 

“Good. Now, Miss Cassiopeia,” he said and turned to Cassiopeia, stretching out his hand, “will you do me the honour of sitting with me?” 

She was pale, but seemed to liven up at his question. She took his hand, albeit hesitantly.

“Of... of course, Mr. Vox.” 

He gently pulled her towards his table where they sat down. 

“Whisky?” he offered and pushed the full glass towards her. “It’s on the house.”

She laughed nervously. 

“Thank you, but I don’t drink on the job.”

He nodded slowly. He could understand that. 

“A wise choice, but you’re not on duty any longer. You can have the rest of the night off. I’ll see to it that your pay isn’t docked.”

She stared at him, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He nudged the glass with an elbow. 

“Unless you want a soft drink instead?” 

“No! I mean... I mean, no, whisky is perfect, sir. Thank you.”

“Anytime,” he smiled, finding that his smile was painfully genuine. 

She took the glass and a sip, and grimaced. Vox couldn’t help a soft chuckle. 

“Phew, it packs quite a punch, doesn’t it?” she laughed. 

“So, what’s your crime?” he eventually asked a few hours later. She was a few drinks in, but didn’t appear intoxicated whatsoever, quite like him. 

She raised an eyebrow. 

“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” she hummed, piquing his curiosity. 

“What landed you in the lust circle of Hell?”

She shrugged and took a long swig of her glass of water. 

“I was... promiscuous as a human. Worked in a whore house controlled by the mafia. Guess the big guy upstairs wasn’t happy about that.”

Vox snorted. 

“What is he happy about, really?”

“Damn good question, Mr. Vox,” she chuckled. “Unconditional loyalty to your fellow humans, I guess? Redeeming qualities? Hell if I know.”

Vox chuckled and sipped his whisky, admiring her. She was awfully pretty, with her chubby cheeks and piercing blue eyes. Her long hair was collected in a high ponytail that she had slung over her shoulder. The tip of the ponytail tickled her cleavage, and although he tried not to be a pervert and a sinner, it was difficult not to look. 

It had been a long time since he had been with a woman. The last many years had been spent with Valentino - a man - yet he was confident he knew what to do with a woman’s body. Obviously, a few main parts were very different, but on the other hand, many parts were the same. 

He was busy mulling over how to ask her to go home with him, when she gently nudged his am. He looked at her, blinking a few times. 

“They’re closing the bar,” she announced. “We have to go.”

Well, wasn’t that convenient timing!

“Would you mind terribly if I took you home?” he asked as they got up. He put down more than enough bills to pay for their drinks; he didn’t like being cheap. 

She didn’t immediately answer, instead just stared up at him, mouth agape. He chuckled, gingerly taking her hand. It was so warm and small in his. 

“No pressure, of course.” 

“No, I would... I would like that, Mr. Vox.”

“Great. I don’t live too far away, it’s easy to walk.”

“Perfect,” she hummed. 

Vox sent the bartender a cheerful smile before they exited the bar and walked towards his home. On the way, he slid an arm around her waist. Initially, she tensed, but it only took a fraction of a second for her to relax. Then she even leaned against him, wrapping her own arm around him. 

They looked at each other. She was blushing and very warm, even through his turtleneck, and his heart was absolutely hammering. Good thing he wasn’t currently monitoring his heartbeat, lest he alert the entire block about his elevated heart rate. 

Was there any way to misinterpret what was going to happen? He hoped not. But on the other hand, he hadn’t picked anyone up in decades. The rules for hooking up could have changed a million times! For all he knew, he could’ve been given off signals of ‘do you want to look at my stamps collection?’ all night. Which, in this case, wasn’t some twisted innuendo. 

However, when they reached his apartment, and he opened the door to let them inside, she stayed close to him. Her hand stroked slowly up and down his back, and she only reluctantly pulled away when he turned around to close the door. 

“Do you mind if I lock the door? You never know what kind of freaks live around here.”

“And here I thought you could afford to live in a respectable neighbourhood,” she chuckled. “Sure, go ahead. I also wouldn’t want to be interrupted.”

He raised an eyebrow, clicked the lock closed. Now, that was an interesting choice of words. 

“What, exactly, would they interrupt us doing?” he asked in a low voice, and oh, her blushing was adorable! 

“N-Nothing incriminating,” she quickly replied, looking up at him with wide eyes as he inched towards her. Eventually, he had her pressed back against the door, one hand on each side of her head. His breathing was uneven, but he tried to camouflage it with a hum. 

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question, now does it?” he murmured, leaning closer, pressing his lithe body against her more plump frame. “That only makes me think you have something... naughty in mind.”

She choked out an embarrassed sound, averting her gaze, and he laughed good-naturedly. 

“Which is exactly what I want as well,” he revealed before pushing off the door with one hand. “So, if I have mistakenly given off vibes of, I don’t know, stamp collections, then now’s the time to bolt.”

“But you locked the door.”

“Guess you’ll have to stay, then. Stamp collections and all.”

She laughed, pushing off the door as well, and suddenly, she was way too close. He could see the small clumps of mascara on her lashes through her glasses. He could see the pores in her skin. 

“Good thing I’m into stamp collections, then,” she murmured, and he inhaled sharply. 

Please be joking.

“I don’t... actually have a stamp collection,” he confessed, suddenly feeling incredibly warm. 

She giggled and swatted his arm gently. 

“I’m kidding, you silly! I’m not here for a stupid stamp collection. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, though, of course.”

He drew a deep sigh of relief. If he could sweat, he would’ve wiped his forehead. But her choice of words was, once more, very intriguing. 

“Then what are you here for, Miss Cassiopeia?” 

She swallowed heavily, the action practically audible.

“I thought that much was obvious, Mr. Vox,” she murmured, her voice wavering slightly, stroking a hand slowly up his arm until she reached his shoulder. 

A surge of warm, crackling electricity went through him. 

Oh fuck. 

She slid her other hand down over his other arm, eventually reaching his hand, where she laced their fingers together. 

Oh double fuck.

“Dance with me?” she asked quietly, looking up at him from under her lashes. 

Now it was his turn to swallow hard. 

“I... don’t dance,” he confessed, his voice a mess of sudden static. 

“You could... start to.”

She was already starting to move rhythmically. Very slow, giving him all the time in the world to pull back if he didn’t want to do it. Strangely enough, however, he didn’t move away. Pulling him in the direction of his living room, which was quite spacious, she giggled softly. 

“You can’t be a worse dance partner than my ex.”

“Are you willing to bet on that?” he chuckled, tentatively putting his hand on her waist. She shivered slightly, and blushed a beautiful, deep crimson. 

“No reason to. I know I’d win.”

He laughed heartily, and it felt good. Liberating. He could laugh with her, and it felt natural. It wasn’t a forced chuckle between gritted teeth, but an actual, warm sound from deep in his stomach, bubbling out from his speakers. 

They stood like that for a little while; simply swaying gently from side to side, standing close to one another. 

Vox wasn’t used to this. Whenever he was... intimate with Valentino, it was hard and rough, almost violent sex. He had gotten so used to that kind of intimacy that this, what he was currently doing with Cassiopeia, felt alien. Good, absolutely, but alien.

“Do you... want me to put on some music?” he offered after a few minutes. The silence was eating him alive. 

“If it’s not too much to ask.”

“I’m the one offering,” he chuckled, riffling through his many, many playlists before finding one fitting for the current scene. Soft jazz, not unlike the music they had been playing at the bar, started drifting from the speakers strewn around the living room. 

Being a tech geek had its perks. 

Cassiopeia hummed softly along to the music as she swayed her hips, taking a few steps to each side now and again. Vox didn’t know what to do, but he did his best to mimic her. 

“And you say you don’t dance,” she giggled, looking up at him. 

“Is this considered dancing, though?” he asked with a breathy laugh. 

She snickered, and then did something so ballsy that Vox froze for a second; she untangled their fingers so that she could move both arms around his neck, pressing them close against each other. He inhaled sharply. 

“I hope this is okay,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against his chest. 

He didn’t have the breath to answer.  

His hands hovered over her shoulders when she shoved herself against him, before sliding down over her body, eventually settling on her lower back. She exhaled shakily, and he couldn’t help but smile. Seems like he wasn’t the only one affected by this. 

The music was soft and gentle. It almost felt like it enveloped them, caressing them tenderly as they moved through the living room at a wonderfully slow pace. Like a lover’s touch. 

Vox was completely at a loss for words. Not that he thought this moment needed any words, but he would like to be verbally prepared, just in case she asked him a question or something. He wasn’t used to not having a good comeback, or a witty retort. It was scary, yet he found that... with her, it was okay. He felt safe in assuming she wouldn’t laugh at or mock him. Not unlike some others.

“You’re warm,” she mumbled, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

“Hmm?”

“You’re warm,” she repeated. 

It was true; he was incredibly warm. His server must be overheating. 

“Maybe you should... undress,” she mumbled, rolling her lower lip between her teeth. He inhaled sharply. 

Oh fuck. 

“You know, if you want to see me naked, you only have to ask,” he chuckled, stroking her lower back through her dress. Her face went bright red. 

“I-I didn’t mean--- that’s not---”

“But, I sense that you’re too innocent and nervous to be so forward,” he teased and pulled back. She put her hands on her face, laughing in embarrassment, but peaked between her fingers when the sound of him shrugging out of his suit jacket reached her ears. 

It was so cute and endearing that he couldn't help but laugh as he neatly folded the jacket and placed it over the backrest of the couch. 

“Do you think I should take this off as well?” he continued, tugging at the hem of his white turtleneck sweater. 

She nodded. 

“If you want to ventilate yourself the best, I think it would be the optimal solution.”

With a wide smile, he grabbed the hem and tugged. He struggled slightly with pulling it over his screen, but when he finally succeeded, Cassiopeia stood right in front of him. He jumped slightly. 

“Well, hello there,” he chuckled, throwing the sweater over his jacket. 

“Hello,” she said quietly, looking up at him. Her arms once more slithered around his neck, pulling them close against each other again. Surely, she would be able to feel his heart throbbing aggressively against its confines when they were this close, and surely, she would think it silly! 

But if she did feel it, she said nothing. She instead came closer and closer with her face, until her lips pressed against the edge of his screen. He inhaled sharply and nearly choked on the influx of air. He stood completely still as she kissed the slim edge, barely even breathing. His eyes closed slightly, and subconsciously, he pushed against her lower back, trying to get her closer. 

She snickered, but it sounded out of breath.

“Shut up,” he mumbled light-heartedly. 

“Not saying anything,” she quipped back. 

Well, he couldn’t deny that. 

He focused on her lips; soft and warm and perfect, they pressed against every inch of the edge of his screen, until she had covered it all. It wasn’t often that he mourned the fact that he had no physical lips to kiss with, but now was one such time. He found himself longing to taste the sweat on her flesh, the skin of her lips. Longing to kiss her, to feel her heated skin against his own mouth. 

But alas, it was part of his punishment, he reckoned. 

Each touch of her lips sent a warm crackle through him, leaving him panting like a dog trying to ventilate itself. 

“Still feeling too hot?” she asked quietly, and her hands started a slow, achingly slow, descent down his body. Sliding over his arms, they soon touched his abdomen and sides, but when they tentatively, almost hesitantly, began working the belt of his suit pants, he almost blacked out. 

He nodded, managing to stay upright by holding on to her. 

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Yeah, still feeling too hot.”

“You need some proper fans, then,” she murmured, pulling the belt from its hoops and folding it over his turtleneck on the couch. “Maybe some... more air, as well,” she continued huskily, popping the button and pulling down the zipper. 

A shudder jerked his body. 

“You’re being a tease, you know that, right?” he laughed softly, lifting a hand to the back of her head. Her hair was so incredibly soft. He carded his long, claw-like fingers through it, loving how the strands slithered between his fingers, much like sand. 

“I’ve never teased a day in my life,” she claimed, an underlying laugh tugging her voice a pitch higher. 

“That’s a bold lie if I ever heard one. You’re a natural at this.”

She giggled, but the sound faded when she reached a hand into his pants and took a hold of him. She gasped softly, whereas he groaned, trying to stifle the sound. 

“Oh, it wasn’t just the alcohol that was packing.”

He barked out a nervous laugh and put a hand on his screen. 

“Shut up, oh my goodness!”

“Not if complimenting your cock gets me this kind of reaction,” she giggled. 

In his mind, he knew that her touches wouldn’t stop at her simply grabbing him through his underwear. Yet, somehow, he had completely thrown the next step out the window. So, when she began stroking him, he could have sworn he blacked out, even if it was just for a second. 

“Fuck, Cassiopeia,” he grunted, gripping her hair tightly. She gasped sharply, and he was already letting go again, thinking he had hurt her, when she asked him to please, don’t let go. Quirking an eyebrow, he tryingly resumed the tight grip, and she made the prettiest, most adorable moan he had ever heard. 

“How... how far do you want to go tonight? Maybe that’s a good thing to ask before we get too carried away.” Why was his voice so staticky already? She was barely touching him!

“As far as you want. I’m prepared to go all the way.”

Oh fuck. She was going to kill him with this, wasn’t she? 

Up until now, he had been a hundred percent convinced that he was primarily into the rough, hardcore BDSM style sex. But, the more they bantered, the more they teased each other, the more he started re-considering that. Maybe he had just thought that because that was all that Valentino had ever shown him? 

He needed to get that out. Before it became too obvious, and she would dip. 

“I’m... not really good at tender sex,” he blurted out, stroking his claws through her hair once more. 

She didn’t bolt. She didn’t look at him weird. On the contrary, she smiled gently, stroking his monitor with her free hand. 

“It’s because of Valentino, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice soft. 

His eyes widened. 

“He doesn’t treat you right, Mr. Vox. I’ve seen your screen. You try to hide it, but I can see the cracks.” 

He shouldn’t let her talk to him like that. How dare she! He was an overlord! She was a mere lesser demon! But… she was right, of course. It was because of him. 

“Don’t worry,” she continued, retrieving her hand from his pants, “I’ll take good care of you.” 

He knew she would. He trusted her, for some bizarre reason. He couldn’t trust anyone, but her… her, he felt like he could spill his soul to. 

He let her drag him towards the couch where she made him sit down with a singular, gentle word. Swallowing hard, he looked up at her, his pants and underwear now down around his ankles. She smiled at him before straddling his lap. He groaned softly, automatically putting his hands on her thighs. They were shielded by a pair of tights, and he wished he could touch her skin. He didn’t feel like he could ask that of her, though. Not yet, at least

Her body weight on him felt positively heavenly. He leaned his head against the backrest of the couch, forcing his breath calm and even. 

“You don’t have to hold back with me, Mr. Vox,” she whispered, and began rolling her hips down against him. Slowly, as if testing the waters. He inhaled sharply, his claws digging into her thighs, which subsequently made her moan and shudder. 

She closed her eyes a sliver, and Vox could’ve sworn he had never seen a more beautiful and alluring demon. Was she, perhaps, an actual succubus? They were as dangerous as they were  exceedingly rare, so what was the chance of him meeting one on his first proper night out? It was highly unlikely. 

“Cassiopeia,” he groaned, unable to not buck his hips up against her. She gasped softly, then purred, looking down at him. 

“Yes?” she asked huskily, stroking the sides of his screen and pressing herself flush against him. 

“I wish I could kiss you.” It was true; everything within him yearned to kiss her, make her unravel in his arms. 

She smiled and let her fingers dance over his monitor. 

“It’s okay that you can’t,” she said, her voice soft and brimming with warmth. Slithering around him, her voice enveloped him in a tight and wonderful embrace. “You can make me feel good in other ways.” 

Electricity surged through him, forcing a shudder to jerk his body. Oh that he could, indeed. 

Retrieving his hands from her lower back, he put them on her breasts instead. She sighed contentedly, looking at him with half-lidded eyes. 

He squeezed her breasts, looking intently at her, and moaned when she once more began rolling her hips against him. His cock bobbed, as if seeking to press itself up into her. 

“Cassiopeia,” he groaned again, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, and despite wearing - presumably - a bra under her dress, he could feel them harden. 

“Please, call me Cassy,” she whispered. A slight tremor had taken up residency in her voice. She leaned in over him, her face hovering mere inches from his screen, her hands on the backrest of the couch. 

“Is that what your friends call you?”

She smirked. 

“Something like that.” 

He chuckled, and decided that her clothes had to go. It would only be fair; he was stark naked, after all. Thus, he slid his hands under her dress and to her back where he fumbled with her bra. To her credit, she didn’t laugh at him or make a snide comment about his lack of skill or finesse. She simply looked at him, stroking his screen slowly with her thumbs. 

When he finally wrestled her bra open, she slid the straps through the sleeves of her dress before pulling the bra off and dumping it on the couch cushion next to them. He glanced in its direction, noting its purple lace and red floral pattern, and looked back at her. 

Despite being naked, he was still very warm. He definitely needed a new ventilation system. 

Stroking her breasts under her dress, she mewled softly and craned her neck, leaning her head back. As she exposed her throat, Vox groaned deep in his chest, once more cursing his lack of lips. He loathed his inability to kiss her pale skin, to mark her so prettily. 

“It’s okay, Mr. Vox,” she whispered, as if reading his mind. “It wouldn’t be very professional, anyway, to sport love bites at work. People would ask questions.”

“You can drop the title, for now.” Although he did like how it sounded, coming from her lips. 

She shuddered, exhaling deeply, and then yelped when he pinched her nipples. Not too hard, of course, but enough to send a shiver through her. 

“Now who’s the tease?” she giggled. He smirked. 

“Not me.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled warmly all the same. 

“Yes, you.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” he claimed, tugging at her nipples and relishing the sharp sound she made. 

“F-Fuck, Vox,” she gasped, sliding her hands to his body where they grabbed tightly, her nails digging into his bony shoulders. 

“Do you like that?”

“Fuck, yeah, I really do.”

Spurred on by her enthusiastic consent, he continued tugging and lightly twisting her nipples for a good while, every now and again squeezing her breasts instead. He made sure to commit every single second to his primary hard drive. Every sound she made, every way she squirmed, every glance she sent his way - it all went to his secret hard drive. 

Having paid good attention to her upper body, he was practically desperate to move lower. 

“Can I... touch you elsewhere?” he eventually asked quietly, stroking his thumbs soothingly over her perky nipples. 

“Please,” she whined, her voice tight. 

“Take off your tights, please.” 

“So polite,” she said, breathlessly, and got off of him for long enough to roll her stockings down, revealing a pair of panties that matched her bra. It drove him insane, and if he could have drooled, he probably would have. 

“Those, too, please.”

She smiled at him through her long lashes, and followed his wish. Putting her tights and panties on the couch, she finally sat back down on him, and he was eternally grateful that he wasn’t the only one who moaned at the intimate skin contact. 

She could now slide her slick folds over his hard cock, and she didn’t waste any time in doing so. Promptly, he shuddered and dug his claws into her thighs, leaning his screen back against the couch. She mewled. 

“Touch me,” she suddenly whined, and Vox immediately obeyed. 

Pushing a hand between their bodies and between her legs, he was careful not to nick her sensitive flesh as he stroked her clit. The second his fingers made contact, she shuddered, squeezing her legs together. 

“Vox,” she gasped, opening her legs again. He moved his other hand to her hip, caressing her, while continuing to stroke her clit. 

“Is that good?” he croaked, feeling as if he could combust any second. 

She nodded eagerly, grinding into his hand while also rubbing her folds over his cock. She was so incredibly wet, and despite his limited knowledge of female anatomy, he knew that was a good thing. A very good thing, even. 

“I want you, Vox,” she then whispered, making his heart skip a beat or two. “I want you inside me.” Without wasting any more time, and without waiting for him to make a move, she lifted herself onto her knees, guided his cock to her entrance, and sank down onto him. 

The second she engulfed him, Vox moaned throatily. His hand on her hip curled tightly, and he had to move his other hand to her other hip as well, to avoid injuring her private area. 

“Cassy,” he gasped, his throat feeling tight and dry. Warmth surged through him, and a shudder made him thrust up into her, subsequently pulling a sharp moan from her lips. 

“Vox! Give a girl a warning next time,” she giggled, but then moaned when he did it again, just to tease her. She felt... she felt... oh hell, there were no words, were there? She felt amazing, obviously, but she felt better than amazing. She was drenched, but tight around him, and combined with the warmth of her pussy, he was fairly certain that she had the ability to fry his hard drive, not to mention his servers. 

“Fucking hell,” he groaned, relaxing his grip of her hips. His cock throbbed repeatedly inside her, and every jerk made a soft mewl escape her. Her eyes were halfway closed, her mouth agape. 

“I’m going to move,” he said, fighting to get the words out in the correct order, and she nodded. 

“Please do,” she whined. 

His mind was reeling. How could a lesser demon feel so good? How could she make him feel better than he could remember ever having felt? Maybe it was the thrill of being with someone new, someone he likely wouldn’t see again. Maybe it was simply because what they were doing was so soft and tender. 

Vox kept his promise and began thrusting up into her. Slowly, steadily. Each move, her cunt gripped him like a vice. Each move, his cock throbbed inside her. He could practically feel every inch of her insides pulsate and flutter around him, and it drove him to the edge of insanity. 

She grabbed his shoulders tightly, whining needily for every thrust and looking at him through her lashes.

“Fuck, Vox, that feels so good,” she whimpered, clenching around him when he pulled back. As if she didn’t want him to pull back, although they both knew he was going to plunge into her again, and again, and again. There was no way he could stop now. 

“It really does,” he agreed with a shaky grunt, squeezing her hips firmly and throwing his screen back in ecstasy when she mewled. 

This was insane. How could anything feel this fantastic? It should be a sin! Which, well, it already kind of was...

Good thing he had never really cared about sins or their so-called consequences. 

Cassiopeia leaned in over him once more, pressing her lips to his screen over and over again. Each kiss made him more and more aroused, until he couldn’t help but push hard up into her. He had wanted to take it easy, had wanted for this to be soft and tender, but with the pleasure forming tight knots in his stomach, it was getting increasingly difficult. 

“You’ll make me come at this rate,” he whispered and laughed breathlessly, pressing her down against his lap while thrusting up into her. Each thrust pulled a sharp moan from her. 

“Oh no, what a travesty,” she giggled and began kissing his neck. This made his heart skip a beat. He inhaled sharply, his hips pressing hard up against her. In response, she bit his neck, and he moaned loudly, automatically throwing his head back and thus exposing his throat even further. He was trembling something fierce, his heart beating aggressively.

She quickly pulled back, a deep blush adorning her face. 

“I-I’m sorry, Vox, I didn’t mean to--- I doubt Valentino would appreciate you having love bites from someone else...”

“Let me worry about him,” he almost growled. “You just worry about feeling good.”

“That’s not hard,” she smiled, tentatively leaning in to kiss his neck again. He shuddered, and his thrusts became harsh. “Easy, Vox, easy,” she gasped, smoothing her hands over his chest. “We have all night.”

“I-I can’t stop,” he gasped, groaning deep in his chest when she began rolling her hips again, meeting each of his thrusts. Her hands on his chest, and his hands on her hips, they were so close to each other that it was hard to figure out where one started and ended. Her scent was all over him, enveloping and embracing him. It was intoxicating. An expensive perfume, no doubt, that only barely covered her natural aroma, which became more and more prominent as the minutes passed. He could smell her arousal so easily; warm and heavy and heady, it made his head spin. 

“Do I feel good, Vox?” she whispered, stroking his nipples and collar bones. 

“You feel amazing, Cassy,” he moaned. His orgasm was imminent and inevitable, but he didn’t want it to end already. While knowing that he had several rounds in him, he didn’t know about her. And if there was one thing he didn’t want, it was for this to end prematurely. 

She smiled, a dazed, stupid smile that made his heart flutter. Butterflies flapped around in his stomach, and he wanted so desperately to blame it on the alcohol. After all, it had been a while since he had had this much to drink. However, he had a feeling he couldn’t write it off as inebriation. 

She then had the audacity to ask a question that very nearly fried his servers and made him shut down. 

“Do you think you can come for me?” How could she sound so innocent and soft when asking such a thing?

“Fuck,” he croaked - he couldn’t say much else - and closed his eyes, focusing solely on the way his stomach jumped and pleasure coursed through him. His hips stuttered for a few seconds before pushing ruthlessly up against her, making her gasp. 

“Yes! Yes, Vox, that’s it, that’s it,” she cried out, wrapping her arms around his slim neck and pressing herself flush against him. “That’s it, don’t stop, oh fuck!”

Vox didn’t intend to stop. On the contrary. He kept drilling into her, his moans growing louder and louder, sharper and sharper, until he suddenly, without knowing what exactly had been the tipping point, knew that this was the point of no return. 

“I’m going to come,” he growled, slamming up into her while at the same time pushing her down on him, eager - no, desperate - to get as deep as possible. 

“Yes,” she whispered on a shaky exhale, “yes, come in me, Vox, please, I need it...”

Hearing her voice so tight and laced with wanton need, Vox couldn’t hold himself back. 

He shuddered before tensing, his entire body going rigid, and he came in her with a loud, throaty groan. 

“Cass--- Cassy,” he groaned as unbelievable, white-hot euphoria sloshed through his cords, making him see binary code that made no sense. His claws dug into her hips, no doubt leaving marks, and he felt light as a feather. He arched his back against her, and despite being so close to her, he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He heard her needy voice, but couldn’t string the words together into something coherent. 

And then it was over. Far too quickly, the sensation of weighing the same as a feather was replaced with one of feeling like a slab of concrete dropped into the ocean. He sagged back against the couch, breathing hard and fast. 

On top of him, Cassiopeia continued to grind against him, desperately seeking her own release. She was now leaning back, her hands on his thighs for support, rolling her hips desperately. 

“Let me help you,” he slurred, reaching a trembling hand down between their bodies, and fondled her clit again. She mewled loudly, and her body went taut for a few seconds before going limp. A loud, high-pitched whine tumbled over her lips, increasing in volume the more he touched her. His other hand’s claws scratched over her thigh, and he watched her face intently as he did so, careful not to be too harsh and tear open her skin. 

“Vox!” she suddenly cried out, and Vox knew that she, too, had passed the point of no return. 

“I’m here,” he growled, stroking her clit a tad faster and harder. “I’m here, Cassy. Can you come for me?” 

“No fucking doubt,” she whispered, and the corners of her lips twitched upwards in a light smile. 

“Then do it,” he said, carefully digging his claws slightly into her thighs. 

That seemed to be what she needed. 

With a gasp, then a long string of something that could potentially have been his name, he felt her cunt clench tightly around him, before fluttering rapidly. She let out a loud whimper, and her body went stiff. Her eyes were closed tightly, but her mouth wide open. 

“That’s it, Cassy, that’s it,” he praised, continuing to stroke her through her orgasm, “look at you, being so good for me.”

She sobbed out a sound he didn’t know how to interpret, and thus, he gradually slowed down his merciless stroking, until she grabbed his wrist, jerking his hand away. 

“No... no more,” she whispered, out of breath and barely able to get the words over her lips. Yet, she was smiling, and her voice was light and airy. 

“Okay,” he whispered, withdrawing his hand to put it on her hip instead. He caressed the flesh soothingly. “You did so well, Cassy.”

Cracking open one eye, she looked at him. 

“You did all the work, Vox.” 

“It was a pleasure,” he assured her, sending her a warm smile. 

She smiled back before slumping against him. 

“I could sleep right here, right now,” she proclaimed, already yawning.

He laughed softly, still trying to catch his breath.

“I do have a bed, you know. It’s big enough for the both of us.”

“Hmm, no. No bed. Only couch,” she giggled. 

He shook his head with a chuckle. 

“We’re going to the bed, whether you like it or not,” he said and gingerly pulled out of her. She whined, and he had to agree; it was so much better to warm his cock in her. But alas, it was necessary to detangle themselves to go to bed. 

“Fine,” she whined and was about to get up, when Vox lifted her under the knees and her back. She hummed, nuzzling her face against his chest. 

“You’re strong.”

“I’m an overlord, what did you expect?” he chuckled and carried her upstairs to his bedroom. Once inside, he carefully laid her down on the massive bed before snuggling up close to her. She moaned softly and offered no resistance when he pulled her back flush against his chest. She stroked his hand as it lay on her stomach, and sighed deeply. 

“That was incredible,” she whispered after a moment of silence. 

“Do you think we’re done?” 

Another moment of silence, then an incredulous laugh. 

“Can you seriously go again already?”

“Again, I’m an overlord. I’m not bound to the same restrictions as you peasants,” he snickered, sliding his hand from her warm stomach and down to her sticky cunt. 

“Peasant. Wow, that’s rude,” she giggled, but hummed in pleasure when he began touching her again. 

“Like you don’t want another round,” he teased, slowly stroking his fingers over her clit, and relishing the shiver that went through her. 

“Easy, Vox, let a girl rest.” There was a teasing lilt to her voice, making him more relaxed about continuing. The more he touched her, the harder he got, until his cock pressed against her lower back, his heart beating incessantly and quickly. 

“Rest is for the weak.”

“Well, then I’m the weakest peasant you’ll ever see,” she yawned, but nonetheless turned on her other side to look at him, touching his screen gently. She was smiling; something that made Vox very happy, for reasons he didn’t dare examine. 

“Do you want it, though?” His voice was soft, genuine. “I don’t want to force you.”

“That’s very considerate of you, Vox. Yes, I do want it.”

His heart rate picked up as he moved on top of her. She looked at him with those big, gorgeous blue eyes, and suddenly, his throat was tight and dry all over again. 

“Tell me if it hurts or anything,” he said quietly, guiding his cock to her entrance. She was still wet - or maybe again? - and as such, it was easy to slide inside her. She moaned softly, closing her eyes a sliver and grabbing the pillow under her head. 

“Vox,” she whispered, and there was something in the way she murmured his name that made the breath hitch in his throat. It was so soft and delicate. Intimate in a way he had never heard it said before. It made him swallow heavily. 

“Cassiopeia,” he whispered back, smiling when a full-body shudder went through her. She didn’t correct him, didn’t tell him to call her ‘Cassy’ again, and he appreciated that more than he had the words to articulate. 

He grabbed her hands with both of his, lacing their fingers together. She moaned softly, closing her eyes fully. 

Vox began pushing inside her, as deep as he could, until she made the smallest, softest whimper, and he met resistance. Then he pulled back, slowly, until just the head of his cock was inside her. The way her pussy clenched around him was delicious, and it took all of his self-control not to slam back inside immediately. 

“Please, don’t tease me,” she murmured. 

“I’ve never teased a day in my life,” he grinned, taking her words from earlier and using them against her, making her snicker. 

“That’s a bold lie, Mr. Vox.”

“I’m nothing if not bold.”

“That you are,” she sighed, the sound turning into a pleased whine when he slowly pushed back inside her. 

This time, there was no rush. Having gotten the worst craving out of his system, Vox actually managed to take it slow and easy, like they had initially agreed upon. It felt absolutely amazing, and he could’ve sworn that this kind, tender, gentle lovemaking rewired his system in real-time. The only thing he regretted was that he couldn’t kiss her. He wanted to so desperately, but it was impossible with his screen and lack of tongue, not to mention lack of lips. 

“You’re amazing, Cassiopeia,” he said softly, rolling his hips gently. 

“You are, too,” she whispered, looking up at him with such sincerity in her eyes that it stole his breath away. “I don’t... want tonight to end.”

He swallowed hard. That was the thing, though, wasn’t it? It would have to end at some point, and he would be forced to go back to Valentino and his abuse. 

“Me neither,” he mumbled, a thick, sticky ball of emotions lodged in his throat, leaning his screen against her forehead. It was the closest thing to a kiss they could come. 

It would have to suffice. For now. 

[unpunishablelamb]

Animal Impulses (Kai Anderson x Reader)

First Kai fanfic i guess?! I really tried my best to keep him as canon-accurate as possible plus i’ve noticed there’s an alarming lack of fanfics for him?! +my requests are open

NONE OF THIS REPRESENTS MY POLITICAL OPINION!! This is his character and i think erasing the most problematic aspect of his character would be wrong.

TW: manipulation, referenced physical abuse, drug abuse, animal abuse, misogyny, redpilling uhhhh lmk if i missed any

“Assume the position, pinky up”

The words seem all too familiar coming out of his mouth now.

She has heard them often and yet she was sure she would never get tired of them.

They caused some kind of muscle-memory trigger in her and she was sure that even if she would have wanted to, she couldn’t have denied him.

Almost like a Pavlov dog she thinks while chewing on the inside of her cheek until it bleeds, to hide the grin that threatens to give away her amusement.

Without hesitation she interlocks their pinkies, smiling softly at him.

She knows he likes this kind of smile, not aggressive, not too open, no teeth, just pretty.

Animals would bear their teeth when they felt frightened, Kai had reminded her.

And fear was weakness.

“You’re smart enough to know that you were born to serve” he speaks, his voice almost irritatingly loud in the absolute quiet of the basement.

His brown eyes seem black.

They didn’t allow an escape, they would see right through her if she would try to lie or back out.

She had learned that lesson the hard way.

“You know i’m loyal to you” her smile unwavering, and she truly meant every word.

She would have said the same without being under Kai’s pinky oath, without him being in the same room.

She meant what she said and she hope that he knew.

“Good girl” he praises and his black-hole-like eyes seem to drown out the dim light of the room.

She had always had an ambivalent relationship with the dark.

Whether it was her hiding under her blankets in the pitch black as a little girl when she was scared of the monsters the night had created, or getting lost in Kai’s eyes to a point where she struggled remembering her own name.

He picks up his glass of leftover, non-poisoned coolaid and takes a sip from it, watching her closely with his unblinking eyes.

They always seemed empty no matter what he did, whether he was praising her for her good behaviour, disciplining her, killing someone, fucking her.

(rest is on ao3 cause i don’t like posting actual fics to tumblr cause i’m scared america is gonna deny me my visa or whatever)

[vriskaenergy]

Ampora letter holder complete! though i doubt ill be putting much in it for now 😂 this took abt a month and two weeks. (including time to fuck off and play disco elesium) mostly acrylic paint on wood; the bottoms have washi tape. 'ampora brainrot made manifest' or alternatively, 'neuropathy vs hotglue vs all these goddamm beads'

symbolism choice explanation under the cut

Ok so Eridans level: that main piece with the hope symbol being overtaken by smth eldritch was the idea that kicked off this whole piece. representative of him 'going grimdark' (or pretty close). pile of treasure, wizard statue, and column taken directly from his intro and view of his room. added a few wizard refs with the scroll and book, the wand referenced from cannon. treasure map references Vriska, and hence his Flarp days where he would get all this treasure.globe with a bleeding rainbow = his genocide plans, the gun some contraption Vriska made ( peep the eight dots). Pisces symbols on the 'floor' of it to 1) make it look kinda like a royal hallway and 2) if Vriska got a a reference fef should have one for him as well.prominent women in his life. thats all here.

Cro's level: one hundred and ten percent influenced by @casanovasadmiral 's Cronus. car featured is inspired by the 1950s pontiac chieftan, but with a more futuristic sound board thing on the dash. the amphora pouring lighting was also inspired by them. records thrown in there, a spiderweb over old wizarding stuff. designed the guitar myself, after an old electric guitar style. quadrant symbols instead of music notes <3

dualscar's level: ok so he gets the most nautical themes for having lived on the sea / actually sailing vs eridan = only 'seen' on a working ship for flarp purposes, doesn't swim (according to feferi). if cronus has sailed before ill eat my own left foot (cannon cronus ofc). hes got a nautical compass, with crossed cannons in the middle (in tattoos this means military service) i decided on the shark bc while they had seahorse lusii i think the amporas are overall shark-like, esp in the teeth. hes got the condencese's symbols/chains handing off of him, symbolic of his service. the amphoras pictures depict whats in them; from left to right: grapes = wine, sugarcane = rum, wheat = whiskey. then we've got gyblob lifting up a black pearl, known for mystery. and lightning striking behind that in the form of his sign. you cant see it too well but it has silver paint on the lightning as well

the large amphoras spilling ribbon have the Aquarius constellation on them.

now onto making a Maryam and a Captor piece...

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2023 - Day 4 - The Shadow of Death

Happy birthday to meeeee!

This piece is canon. I finally let Kamaria loose as a whumper for once!

Taglist: @painful-pooch

Masterlist

No. 4: “I see the danger, It’s written there in your eyes.”

Contains: whumpee turned whumper, lady whumper, mild gore, blood, murder, stabbing, past genocide, referenced fire, trauma, fantastic racism

.

.

Kamaria moves like the shadow that people call her - though they don’t know her, only what she leaves behind. Most think she’s a man, because they can’t imagine a woman doing what she does. Others swear she must be a ghost, since no one has ever actually seen her. 

The truth is, plenty have seen her. They just haven’t lived to tell about it. 

Tonight, her heart pounds a bit harder than usual as she makes her way through the compound. This mission, as far as her father and Ethorcon are concerned, is just yet another removal of a leader in Kedosa’s army to help their next attack be more successful. It’s nothing special. 

But for her, tonight is personal. She knows this particular unit. She knows what their leader did.

The two guards pacing close by the Colonel’s tent fall dead quietly, one with a slit throat and one with a knife protruding from his chest. She needs privacy for what’s coming next. Retrieving the knife and wiping off blood on her skirt, she strides toward the large tent and throws open the flap.

He’s asleep, as most are at this hour. Kamaria walks closer, boots silent on the hard-packed dirt, until she’s staring down at the unsuspecting monster. So smug, even in his sleep. Uncaring of the hundreds of lives he’s completely destroyed.

Well, two can play the game of monster.

She wakes him with a stab to the arm. Normally she doesn’t mess around - one stab in the heart or slice through the throat and she’s done. It’s just a job, just something she has to do to survive and to work towards her revenge. But this time she takes a mild pleasure in watching him flail awake with a yelp and find himself looking into the eyes of The Shadow of Death. 

It’s fitting, she supposes, that her eyes are all that can be seen when she dons her hood and mask for a mission. The green eyes of her father. The one feature of hers that can be definitively tied to the man who trained her for violence. 

The Colonel breaks from his surprised stupor and reaches with his free arm for the gun propped on the other side of his bed. Kamaria whips a second knife out from her hip and drives it down into that arm, pulling a strangled cry from him.

Weakling.

“You murdered my people,” she murmurs, leaning down closer to him, her weight on the two knives still embedded in his arms. 

“Wh-...what?” he gasps, eyes wide. “What, what people? What are you talking about?”

She twists the knife in her right hand and he cries out again. “The Vaya of the forest. You led the raid on their village, back when you were still a Major.” She still doesn’t know who raided her own village, but she’s known this man’s name for three years and she’s been waiting for this day ever since. “You burned their houses and fields. You slaughtered them in their own homes. You killed women, children…” 

She’s starting to get caught up in her own memories, in flashes of fire and desperate screams. Days after she’d seen her own village destroyed in the same way, she and Arran and Madhis had been hiding in the forest and had smelled the smoke and heard the screaming from a distance. At first she thought she was having another nightmare. It turned out she was witnessing someone else’s.

“You helped to destroy an entire race, a peaceful race, and for what? Because your king demanded a tiny piece of land for himself?” She twists the knife again, eyes flashing. 

He chokes out a laugh, raising his head off the bed a little, attempting to get brave. “You’re saying you’re one of those uncivilized creatures?”

Gritting her teeth, she yanks one knife out, allowing blood to begin flowing freely, and places the tip at his throat, instead. “Whatever it was for, whatever you thought you were going to get out of it…you were wrong. You don’t get to live to see the end of the war.”

“It’s an honor to die serving my king.”

“Dying on the battlefield, perhaps. Dying in bed, not even dressed properly, writhing pitifully under the hands of a Vaya woman? Not so honorable.”

As soon as she moves the knife from his throat he tries to make a grab for her, but she doesn’t give him the chance. The blade slips back into his flesh, this time just underneath his ribs. He screams, and she waits until he’s done to pull it back out. To his credit, he does attempt once again to lunge for her despite the injuries, but she just slices at his hand and plunges the knife into his thigh. 

“I am going to make sure you die, but I am also going to make sure you have plenty of time to think about what you’ve done while you die.” She had so many other things she wanted to do to him, to make him hurt. She wants to set his tent on fire, give him a taste of his own medicine. She wants to set this whole compound on fire. But that would result in punishment for herself, and her stupid brain would paralyze her if she was near a fire of that magnitude, anyway. 

She could still make him hurt more, though. But to be honest, now that she’s here, she finds she doesn’t really have the stomach for it. Killing is one thing. She was desensitized to that a long time ago, when she was still a teenager. But torture? She’s on the receiving end of it far too much to find pleasure in doling it out. Her goal now is exactly what she said - make sure he takes some time to bleed out, but can’t be saved if someone finds him before he succumbs. 

Removing both knives with a jerk, she thinks of the screams echoing through the trees, of the orange glow that lit the night sky, and stabs him one more time, in the stomach. Then she calmly wipes both blades onto his sheet and replaces them in their holsters. 

He’s either in too much pain or already losing too much blood to even look at her, much less make any more snide comments. She stares down at him for a long moment.

“Goodbye, Colonel. Polind na terreva ti suptor si na pletaja qe ti syo.”

The Shadow of Death turns and walks out of the tent. 

Later, when she sleeps, she dreams of fire.

.

.

Vaya interpretation - "May the Earth see you as the blight that you are." It's a Vaya curse that essentially means, "I hope you don't rest in peace."

[arcane-vagabond]

7 for your couples please x

Hey, Nonny!!

7. How often do they say “I love you”?

Let's see...Hangout will do it when they're in the heat of the moment or alone, kind of lost in their own little world together. Otherwise, they're a couple that will show each other versus tell each other.

Guke is very similar in that respect where they'll do it either in the heat of the moment or behind closed doors. They're another couple that will show versus tell.

Japper will scream it for everyone to hear lol They don't care who hears, they're saying it loud and proud, as often as possible. It's almost disgusting.

Bradley and Birdie will kind of whisper it to each other, even when they're alone. Birdie always gets shy when she says it or hears it, so it's not uncommon for Bradley to use that to his advantage to come up behind her while they're at a social gathering and whisper it in her ear just to get her flustered.

Bob will tell Bunny as often as he thinks she can handle it. As we know, Bunny has had a rough past, and so the idea of someone actually caring for her is new and sometimes uncomfortable for her. Bob takes it in stride, always there to reassure her of his feelings. She'll tell him every night after they've blown the candles out for bed.

Bob and Sugarplum are like Bradley and Birdie, I think. Bob loves to tell Sugarplum, and while SP doesn't get as flustered as Birdie, she's more likely to smile and hide behind her hands or coffee cup than say it back in the moment. She's been known to sneak up on him and kiss his cheek though, murmuring a quick "I love you" in his ear before scampering off and leaving our winter sprite blushing like a mad man.

Bradley and Boots are an interesting pair. Bradley figures out what the word "love" means and uses it all the time when referencing Boots. He loves the way she smiles. He loves the way she runs her fingers through his hair. He loves the way she brushes her teeth. When Boots finally says it back to him, it's all Bradley wants to hear. He asks her to say it over and over and over and over and over and over until Boots finally has to put an end to it. It's like that every time she dares utter the three little words. You can be sure that after she says them, Bradley will grin and follow up with "again."

Jake and Bug are cute once things get worked out. Jake will always smile at her fondly from across the room, mouthing the words at her, smile growing bigger as she looks away, flustered. He'll be sure to sweep her away for one too many dances as he tells her over and over again as he twirls her around the dance floor. Bug will kind of say it out of the blue, I think. I'm not sure Jake is ever expecting to hear it when she tells him because it's usually when he's making a fool of himself in some way like the time he slipped in the mud while they were out promenading.

Now, Jake and Moonie...man. Jake will tell Moonie every chance he gets, declaring it for everyone to hear. He'll look her dead in the eye, making sure to have her attention as he tells her. He'll tell her first thing in the morning when they wake up. He'll tell her as he's walking her home from getting groceries. He'll tell her as he's driving her around, hand on her thigh. He'll tell her as she walks into the house drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. Moonie is embarrassed at first, but starts saying it back, albeit a little more quietly.

Ship Ask Game with My Characters!

[nervouslaughter05]

Stars to Comfort a Lonely Moon

C/W: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kissing, Angst, inspired by "dont look for me in the sunset when I die", inspired by the song "It's Called: Freefall, really sad and angsty, kinda happy ending?

A/N: I'm so sorry this is the first work I bring to the fandom, but this has been living in my head for the past week and I finally decided to crank something out for this today during some free time I had. "Grizzly", the woman in this piece, is an OC I made who is very near and dear to my heart. I have a fic (that's much happier) in the works at the moment that I'll begin to share once I've gotten some decent headway on it. Chapter one is actually almost done! So maybe in the next few days?

Also, please heed the tags and comment below any you find necessary.

Last chance to turn away. I will be completely honest when I say this wrecked me a little to write. Considering you've stuck around this long, enjoy the piece.

Recommended listening: "It's Called: Freefall" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Inspired by this TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bejadoodles/video/7203248315381714182?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7195436189938271790

Called to the Devil and the Devil said

Hey! Why you been calling this late?

It's like 2 A.M. and the bars all close at 10 in hell, that's a rule I made

Anyway, you say you're too busy saving everybody else to save yourself

And you don't want no help, oh well

That's the story to tell

Death was something Ghost had come to accept as something normal in life. 

With the horrors he’d seen, the people he’d lost, the stories he was told, it wasn't exactly unusual. 

He didn’t rush into danger trying to die purposefully, but it was definitely something where if he were to be injured gravely he wouldn’t complain at the prospect of dying.

At least, that’s what he had told himself for years. 

Upon joining the 141, this was still true. 

After Las Almas where he had dragged Grizzly, unconscious, from the bullets pelting down around them and guided Johnny, injured, through the city, this lessened slightly.

After sharing a quiet moment with Grizzly when they had to hunker down in her father’s house in Alaska, this faded to a murmur. 

After the first time they kissed, this evaporated.

That’s what made right now so terrifying. 

Because suddenly he was actually wanting to live, wanting to claw his way from the grave just to keep breathing crisp air through his broken lungs. 

Seeing her sent a sharp stab of something he didn’t want to name through his chest. She was limp, blossoms of red unfurling from beneath her glove covered fingers. He stumbles, collapsing onto one knee onto the dirt.

“What do you think of the idea of looking at a sunset to remember someone who’s died?” Grizzly asks, leaning back on her hands from her spot sitting in the grass. 

He glances at her from his peripheral vision, shrugging. “I’d rather have someone look at the moon.”

She turns her head to look at him. “Why’s that?”

“It stands out like a sore thumb and despite that, it’s alone.”

Grizzly shuffles, trying to raise her upper body up. He gets back to his feet, limping to her prone form in the grass. His other leg gives out this time, sending him back to the ground. Ghost doesn’t care–he crawls to her, shifting so he is sitting upright against a rock in the middle of the clearing with her cradled in his lap. She breathes shakily, hand clutching at the red seeping through the fabric of her shirt. 

With her free hand, she reaches for one of his, tangling their fingers together. Then she pulls back, tugging off her glove with her teeth and prompting him to do the same with a weak whisper of his name–not the callsign, but Simon. Her hand is small in the grasp of his own, somehow still not nearly as calloused and rough as his own. 

His own wounds are forgotten in that moment and the stabbing pain in his head is pushed away in favor of the sensation of her fingers against his.

The woman fell silent, a thoughtful expression slipping onto her face. Eventually, when Ghost was sure she wouldn’t say anything, she murmurs, “Then look for me in the stars.”

He is silent, looking up at the night sky.

She waits a moment before continuing, words equally as soft as before. “So the moon won’t be alone anymore.”

Night was fallen, covering their forms in the gentle light of the moon and the harshness of the shadows around them.

The moon hung in the sky, stars twinkling into existence around it. They blur together in his sight, and that’s how Simon realizes he’s actually crying. The moisture dampens his balaclava, making it stick to his skin uncomfortably. 

The hand clutching her side reaches up to his mask, tugging on the edge of the balaclava resting on his neck. Simon doesn’t hesitate, tugging the balaclava off his face and mussing up his hair in the process. The blood flooding from her wound is slowing down, leaking in a lazy stream now. 

She smiles up at him, looking behind his head at the sky. “The stars are out.”

Simon chokes back a sob, nodding his head, his free hand cupping the back of her head. “So’s the moon.”

Ghost looked over at her fully, eyes trailing over the way the light of the moon fell over her features. Her eyes shone in the darkness, filled with a depth he wanted to drown in. She looked at him with nothing but honesty. It tugged at something in his chest, stirring the grieving beast inside of him. 

“What if the moon wants to be alone?”

“Simon,” she breathes, breath going shallow as she winces. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, pulling her close as a fog begins to settle over his brain. It urges him to sleep, to close his eyes and fall into the abyss. “Don’t.”

It’s all he can manage to say past the choking lump in his throat. She seems to understand, grasping his shoulder to pull herself up. Hand still grasping his own, she brushes the other over his cheek, cupping it in her palm and resting her forehead against his. He holds her close by the hand on the back of her head, helping to keep her upright. 

“Simon,” she says, voice full of reverence. “The moon won’t be alone anymore.”

“It doesn’t,” Grizzly replies easily, looking back up at the sky. “The way he acts says the opposite.”

She looks back at him again, gaze soft. He meets her eyes, that feeling stirring in his chest again. It chips away at the walls he put up, spilling through the cracks. 

“But the stars won’t shine,” Simon tells her, holding her as close as he can. 

She chuckles again, breath ghosting over his lips. “The stars only shine so long as the moon does too. They can’t be-” She winces again. “Can’t be separated.”

One of his hands reaches up, bare palm against her cheek as his thumb strokes underneath her eye. She leans into his touch, tilting to lay a gentle kiss against his skin while holding his palm against her skin with her own. Ghost doesn’t know who leans in first, but before he knows it, his balaclava is shoved over his nose and their lips are slotted together. 

It’s soft and tender to start with. 

Then that ugly thing in his chest rears its head, pressing him to hold the back of her head and kiss her harder. 

Grizzly responds in kind, hands roughly grasping at his shoulders. 

She falls back onto the grass, his body over hers as he worships her with his touch.

“No?” Simon questions, wishing that he could just mold their bodies together. 

“No,” she affirms, eyes starting to drift closed. “Never.”

He hums, and she nuzzles closer. 

The blood–hers, his, it doesn’t matter anymore–is sticky on his clothes, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

“And the stars could never shine without the moon,” Grizzly growls against his lips.

He swallows the sound of her voice, staking a claim on her from the searing kiss. He takes and takes and takes and she just lets him, taking and taking and taking in her own way. They were both broken and hurting, granted at different levels, but still were coming together in a clashing of emotion. 

It burns and soothes the ugly thing in his chest, nourishing and depleting his soul at the same time. 

Her hand falls from his cheek, eyes fluttering nearly shut as the rise and fall of her chest stills. He can feel the own aching in his body fading into a numb sting, eyelids as heavy as her body in his arms. Simon exhales, breath dispersing in a puff of white into the cool air. 

The darkness swallows him whole, except instead of painful it’s gentle. 

He doesn’t fear it–just like before–but because of different reasons this time. 

The embrace is welcome, because he knows that there’s someone waiting on the other side. 

A/N: I'm sorry for putting you guys through this

[writing-to-nobody]

Recollection

What if, when Annemarie needed help most, Ophelia had been there?

Content warnings: domestic violence, implied/referenced sexual assault, narrowly averted sexual assault, graphic violence and injury, stitches, referenced animal death and disemboweling (nongraphic)

Rating: M

Words: 5,827

I.

It was too late for this bullshit. That was the thought at the front of Ophelia's mind as she stomped up the walkway to her brother's front door. She rapped her knuckles against the heavy wood and waited a couple of seconds. Then she tried the doorknob. It was locked, of course. Probably bolted, too. 

With a grunt of frustration, she made her way around the side of the house to try the back door. She expected to find it locked as well, but to her surprise, it swung open easily. Perhaps locking it had slipped his mind, just like the meeting they'd had scheduled for the better part of a month. 

"Thomas!" she shouted. Her voice echoed through the house. For a few seconds, there was no response. She was about to call again when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She made her way toward the stairway, passing through the kitchen on the way. There was a broken plate in the sink. She frowned. 

"What do you want?" Thomas said flatly. 

Ophelia spun to face him. His expression was cold and closed off, the corners of his mouth turning down ever so slightly in irritation. Well, she was plenty irritated, too. 

"Really? You have to ask that?" she snapped. "We were supposed to meet an hour ago to decide what to do about Moretti."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Just shoot him. You're capable of doing that on your own, aren't you? Now, if you don't mind." 

There was a creak from the stairs.

Thomas's head whipped toward the sound. 

"Hey!" Ophelia snapped. "It's not my job to take care of your fucking messes. If you'd just killed him when you were supposed to—" 

Thomas turned back to scowl at her. "He's not worth my time. He never was. You take care of it."

Ophelia stared at him incredulously for only half a second before returning the scowl with a fiercer one of her own. "I'm not your servant. I'll just tell our grandmother you couldn't be assed to meet me." 

Thomas gritted his teeth. He muttered something under his breath. Ophelia thought she caught the word 'bitch,' but couldn't hear anything beyond that. 

She crossed her arms. Then, she caught sight of a pale, painted face peeking around the edge of the stairs. Her expression must have reflected her confusion, because Thomas turned again to follow her gaze. 

The face vanished, and Ophelia heard someone running up the stairs. 

Faster than she would have thought possible, Thomas chased after them. 

Puzzled, Ophelia followed at a more cautious pace. 

She heard a thud, and then a high-pitched shriek. 

Alarm spiking, she dashed up the stairs to find Thomas standing over the fallen form of a woman. 

At a glance, Ophelia hadn't recognized her, but now, a faint memory of a name came to mind: Cheshire. She was Richard Cheshire's daughter, wasn't she? What was she doing here? 

"I told you not to leave the room," Thomas said in a low, threatening voice. 

Ophelia heard the girl yelp and realized Thomas had his boot on her ankle. 

"What the hell is going on?" she exclaimed. 

Thomas hissed out an irritated sigh and looked back over his shoulder at her. "This doesn't concern you."

"Like hell it doesn't," Ophelia said, anger pushing through her confusion. "What's she doing here?" 

The girl's gaze flicked up to meet hers. Her eyes were wide with terror and pain, but she didn't say a word. 

"It's no concern of yours," Thomas insisted. "Why don't you just run off and take care of Moretti?"

"Why don't you finish what you goddamn started?" Ophelia snapped. 

"That's what I'm trying to do," Thomas said. "So if you don't mind…" 

"I do mind, actually—" Ophelia started to say. 

Thomas lifted his boot from the Cheshire girl's ankle and turned to face her. In the blink of an eye, he'd drawn a switchblade. 

She scoffed. "Oh, what? Are you going to—" 

Thomas lunged. 

With a gasp, Ophelia brought her arm up to deflect his attack. Too late. She felt a blinding pain on the left side of her face. She stumbled back against the wall. 

In a heartbeat, Thomas closed the distance between them. He pressed his arm against her throat, cutting off her air, and pressed the tip of his blade to the fresh wound on her cheek. 

"Never question me again," he snarled. 

Ophelia stared at him in horror, one eye wide, the other squeezed shut to combat the flow of blood down the side of her face. Was he going to kill her? Her own brother? 

Her thoughts returned to a quieter time: the two of them playing in a treehouse overlooking a creek. She'd gone to take a peek over the edge of the railing. Then, she’d felt hands on her back. The next thing she knew, she was falling. She'd been lucky to escape with only a broken arm. 

So, in a way, hadn't she always known this would happen? 

Thomas lowered the knife. He stepped back. Turned around. 

She heard an awful, ragged gasp. 

Then, he crumpled to the floor. 

The Cheshire girl looked down at where he lay, a kitchen knife clutched in her hand, the blade red to the handle with fresh blood.

II.

"I'm tired," Annemarie pleaded. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded hardly louder than a whisper. 

The door was locked. She was trapped. Her heart thudded heavy as footfalls running away. Away. She had nowhere to run. She couldn't get away. 

Thomas stepped closer to her. "You ought to lie down then," he said. His arm snaked around her waist. His hand came to rest over her hip. It felt like a threat. He forced her toward the bed. 

She stopped a foot away from it and spun to face him. "Thomas, I just want to sleep." She hated the way her voice was shaking. There had been a time when she would have rather died than show fear. Now she knew there was something worse than death. 

Thomas shushed her and leaned closer. He pressed his lips to her neck. 

Suddenly, a voice echoed through the empty house, calling Thomas's name. 

Growling under his breath, Thomas pulled away from her. "Stay right here," he ordered. Then he stomped toward the door. 

For a moment, the only thought in Annemarie's mind was to obey. If she didn't, the punishment that followed would surely be worse than whatever he was already going to do to her. 

Then, she remembered that she'd left the back door unlocked when she'd gone out to water the flowers on the porch that evening. Suddenly, escape seemed like a real and shining possibility. For the first time in nearly a year, her heart beat faster not with terror, but with hope. 

She started toward the door, then remembered something. Backtracking to the nightstand, she drew out the long kitchen knife Thomas kept there. Running her fingers along the handle, she shivered. She rushed to the closet and found a coat large enough to conceal the knife in. Then she tiptoed to the stairs, heart hammering loud enough that she feared it might give her away. 

She was halfway down the stairs when the wood beneath her feet creaked. She froze. The argument paused for only a second before the visiting woman started shouting at Thomas again. 

Annemarie continued down the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could. She paused at the base of the stairway to take a few slow, deep breaths. Then, she carefully peeked around the edge of the bannister to see if there was any way she could make it to the back door. 

The woman spotted her. She tried to duck behind the bannister again, but Thomas's head turned before she could hide. 

She turned to race up the stairs, back toward the room, knowing that it wouldn't matter even if she reached it. She couldn't lock herself inside. Thomas always had a key on him. 

It didn't matter anyway. She tripped on the last stair. She fell hard on her hands and knees. A second later, she felt Thomas's boot collide with her ribs. She fell onto her side. Immediately, she rolled onto her back and got her arms beneath her, trying to scramble away while keeping her eyes on Thomas. 

His boot came down on her ankle, wrenching a sharp cry from her throat. 

"And just what do you think you're doing?" Thomas asked, his lip curling with disdain. 

A moment later, the woman appeared at the top of the stairs. Annemarie paid her no mind, her attention still on Thomas. 

"I told you not to leave the room," Thomas growled. He ground the heel of his boot down on her ankle. 

Annemarie yelped as pain shot up her leg. 

"What the hell is going on?" the woman shouted. 

Thomas looked away from her, back at the woman. "This doesn't concern you." 

Annemarie flinched. Anyone would have cowered from the ice in Thomas's voice. The woman would undoubtedly turn and flee down the stairs, leaving Annemarie to her fate. 

Except, that wasn't what happened. 

"Like hell it doesn't," the woman growled. She looked down at Annemarie. "What's she doing here?" 

Annemarie's gaze darted up toward the woman's face. When their eyes met, her blood ran cold. There was no question that she was a Fazzari. Her eyes were the same frigid blue as Thomas's. Only…there was something different there: a flicker of emotion Thomas had never shown. 

"It's no concern of yours," Thomas said. "Why don't you just run off and take care of Moretti?" 

"Why don't you finish what you goddamn started?" the woman demanded, glaring at Thomas again. 

Annemarie felt fear threatening to choke her. Didn't the woman see she was just making him angrier? He was going to kill them both if she kept this up! 

"That's what I'm trying to do," Thomas said with a sidelong leer at Annemarie. "So if you don't mind…" 

Annemarie could feel bile rising in her throat. Unwelcome memories crashed over her: Thomas's hands like ice on her thighs. A knife at her throat. Pain. She cast another desperate glance at the woman. 

Please, she thought, though she knew it was pointless. Please don't leave.

"I do mind, actually," the woman snapped. 

Suddenly, the pressure on Annemarie's ankle vanished. She whimpered in relief, only for her next breath to catch in her throat as the glint of a knife caught her eye. Thomas wasn't looking at her, though. He was looking at the other woman. 

The woman scoffed. "Oh, what? Are you going to—" 

She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence before Thomas struck. 

Annemarie flinched. She could see in an instant that the woman would be too slow, and sure enough, blood bloomed from a fresh gash that stretched from her jaw to her brow. Annemarie was not a squeamish person, not by a long shot, but her stomach churned as the woman stumbled back against the wall. 

Thomas was on her in a heartbeat, pinning her there. 

Time seemed to stand still. 

Suddenly, all of Annemarie's panic, fear, and disgust consolidated into a single thought: it's now or never. 

She rose to her feet silently, blood pounding in her ears so that it was all that she could hear. She stepped forward. 

Thomas was focused on the other woman. He didn't notice her until he turned around, and by then it was far too late. 

Gritting her teeth, she drove the sharpened kitchen knife between his ribs, into his lung, and pulled it just as quickly out. 

Thomas's eyes went wide with shock. He dropped like a sack of rocks. 

Annemarie stared down at him as he struggled to draw a breath. It would be fitting, after all this time, to see him helpless, struggling, terrified as he realized he was dying. But something in Annemarie had other plans. 

Without a thought, she dropped to her knees and raised the knife over her head. She brought it down. Hot blood spattered her arms. Roared in her ears. Flecked her cheeks. Again. Again. Again. Throat raw. Eyes stinging. Face stinging. Heart fast. Loud. Loud. Blade glanced off rib. Blood through fingers. 

Once more, and she stilled, knife plunged deep in an unmoving chest. Her shoulders heaving. Her head slumped. Breathe. Breathe. She was still breathing. 

Her hollow gaze drifted toward empty blue eyes, fogged over with death. How long?

She raised her eyes. 

That's when she caught sight of the woman, still standing there, watching her. Frozen. One eye wide, the other swollen shut. Blood dripping off her chin onto her checkered blue shirt. 

Annemarie rose to her feet, clutching the knife, and stepped over the corpse in her way.

III.

Ophelia stood, frozen in horror, one eye glued to her brother's body, the other on fire, hardly aware of the blood still streaming down her face. There was blood coating her shins and boots now, too, and flecking her thighs. That blood wasn't hers, though. It was—had been—Thomas's. 

Her gaze flicked finally to the woman kneeling beside Thomas's unmoving form. She was drenched in red. The button-up shirt beneath her coat had been white, once. Now it was crimson. Her face, her hands, crimson. Even her hair was dripping the stuff. None of it hers. The only parts of her not painted red were her eyes, wide, hazel, and distant, as if she was blind to her surroundings, seeing something far away. 

Then, with a jerking motion, like a puppet on strings, she stood and stepped over Thomas's body, knife in hand.

IV.

The single step brought her face to face with the woman. Well, nearly. She was quite tall. Annemarie had to look up to meet her eye. 

She was standing so close that when the woman inhaled, she could feel the brush of her chest against her collarbone. 

She could kill her too, with how still she was standing, like a deer in headlights, but she found she didn't want to. Exhaustion was settling over her like a thick blanket. The adrenaline was wearing off. Her ankle hurt and her legs felt weak. 

"You're welcome," she mumbled. 

Then the world spun away. The knife clattered to the wooden floor. It was over. She was free. With that realization, she gave herself willingly to the fog.

V.

On instinct, Ophelia threw her arms around the woman as she began to fall. She winced as she felt blood seep between her fingers. 

"Fuck," she breathed. She glanced between the woman and Thomas's unmoving body. "Fuck. Fuck." She lifted the woman into her arms—she was dreadfully light—and stepped over her brother's corpse. She stumbled into the master bedroom and, setting the woman on the bed, she rushed to the bathroom. 

The second she caught sight of her face in the mirror, the room started to spin. She shut her other eye. "Okay," she breathed, "okay." She turned away from the mirror and opened her eye again, searching through the cabinet until she found a first aid kit and a washcloth. 

Soaking the cloth with hot water, she wiped away the blood from the shallower part of her wound, then dabbed gingerly at her cheek, where it was deepest. She grimaced. It wasn't deadly, but it sure as hell was going to need stitches. 

She found some antibiotic cream in the kit, but no needle, and nothing she could use as sutures. She knew where Thomas kept his sewing supplies, though. She grimaced. That would have to do.

VI.

Annemarie gradually became aware of a muffled swearing in the adjacent room. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes just a crack. Her whole body felt sore: her arms, ribs, and ankle especially so. 

She rolled onto her side, grimacing at the damp, cold feeling of her clothes and the way her hair stuck to her face in several places. It took a couple of seconds for her to orient herself and remember what had happened. 

Her eyes grew wide, and she practically threw herself off the bed, stumbling to the hallway to confirm what she already knew. 

She expected to feel something when she saw the body. Triumph, maybe, or relief. Instead, she was numb. He was dead. That was indisputable. From the looks of it, she'd stabbed him well over a dozen times. So why didn't it feel real? 

She walked over to his body and kicked it once to see if that would help. It didn't. The sight of his empty eyes staring up at her just made her more unsettled. 

She returned to the bedroom and looked around. She'd never see him here again. He couldn't threaten her anymore. That was good. So why didn't she feel better? 

She heard a voice from the bathroom again. Mumbling. She couldn't make out the words. Ducking back into the hall, she retrieved the knife from where it had fallen beside Thomas's body before approaching the bathroom. 

She peeked through the doorway to find the woman with the familiar blue eyes looking into the mirror, lips curled back in a grimace. She had a needle in hand and was using it to stitch up the side of her face. Every time she pressed the needle into her skin, her jaw clenched and she muttered another swear through gritted teeth. 

Annemarie leaned against the doorframe. "You're still here," she remarked. 

The woman froze. 

At this angle, Annemarie couldn't see her reflection in the mirror, but she imagined she must have looked a fright. Not that the other woman looked much better. "Nasty gash, you've got there. Done a fine job of patching it up, though. Have you done this before?" 

The woman watched her warily in the mirror for a moment longer. Then, she seemed to decide Annemarie wasn't an immediate threat and returned to her stitching. "Once or twice," she mumbled. 

Annemarie watched her finish up the stitches, impressed by the steadiness of her hands. "You're a Fazzari, aren't you?" she asked. 

The woman cut the thread and dabbed at her cheek with a washcloth. "What gave it away?" she asked dully. 

"Your eyes," Annemarie said. "They're just like Thomas's."

The woman flinched. 

"Well, they were," Annemarie continued casually. "Seeing as he's dead and you might be working with one from here on out." 

She waited for some reaction, but the woman was still and silent. 

"So, was he a distant cousin…?" she prompted. 

"My brother," the woman said stiffly. 

A chill ran down Annemarie's spine. "I didn't know he had a sister." It occurred to her suddenly that the woman could have easily killed her when she passed out in the hall. "Can't imagine you were very close, seeing as you let me live," she remarked cautiously. 

The woman's gaze met hers in the mirror again. "What did he do to you?" 

Annemarie flinched. "I don't know what you mean," she said after a moment.

"Right," the woman said. She turned to face Annemarie and leaned back against the counter. "You stabbed him fourteen times. He was dead after five. Did you realize that?" 

Annemarie tried to sound casual as she said, "I wasn't keeping count." 

The woman frowned as best she could with half her face. She nodded and pushed off the counter. "All right, then," she said. "So, are you helping me get rid of the body like that, or do you want to clean up first?" 

Annemarie blinked in surprise. Well, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Give me thirty minutes? Got a lot to wash off. You understand." 

VII.

Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed, eyes closed, listening to the shower run. She couldn't bear to step out into the hall. She knew she was going to have to confront Thomas's body again shortly, They'd have to figure out something to do with it. Never mind the blood all over the hall. 

She looked down at her legs, still caked with dried blood, and felt nothing. Not sadness. Not regret. Not even relief. The horror that had gripped her as the Cheshire girl drove her knife into her brother's body again and again had receded, leaving numbness and exhaustion in its wake. 

Her face stung terribly and she still wasn't sure if she'd have two eyes once she'd healed. She hadn't been able to open her left eye to check. That was probably a bad sign. 

On top of that, the night was far from over, and this was just the start of her troubles. She couldn't tell her grandmother what had happened. She'd kill her in a heartbeat if she knew she'd just stood by and let her favorite grandchild die. So, she'd have to lie. If they left even a drop of blood anywhere in the house, there was a risk of her being found out. 

Maybe it was pointless trying to hide it. Maybe she should just accept that her life would end with Thomas's. There was something kind of poetic about it: coming into the world together and leaving it together as well. No matter what Thomas had done, there had always been a connection between them. Now, she felt like the thread that bound them had been cut and she was free falling. 

The shower shut off. 

Ophelia stood up, crossing her arms. Could she fit Thomas's body in the trunk of her small car? Would that cause even more problems? She wondered if he had a tarp somewhere they could wrap him in to keep from getting blood everywhere. They already had enough to clean. 

The bathroom door creaked open. 

Ophelia looked toward the sound. 

The Cheshire girl was standing in the doorway, a towel wrapped tightly around her thin frame. She met Ophelia's eye warily. Then she glanced downward. 

"You should clean up, too," she said. "You've got blood all over."

"Right," Ophelia said, looking down at her shirt. The left side was bright red with her blood. "Great," she sighed, fumbling with the buttons. The blood had soaked through to her bra, staining the medium gray a deep ruby, but she supposed she could cover that with one of Thomas's shirts.

She examined her shorts for any traces of blood and, to her displeasure, found a few flecks across the front. Unfortunately, she doubted any of Thomas's pants would fit her. Hopefully no one would notice in the dark. 

She looked toward the bathroom again and saw the Cheshire girl still watching her. Her heart skipped a beat. 

"Um. I'll." She pointed past her, at the bathroom. "Get cleaned up and let you get dressed." 

The girl nodded and stepped aside. 

Ophelia shuffled past her, into the bathroom, and grabbed a cloth to wash off her legs.

VIII.

Annemarie walked to the dresser and picked out some practical clothes: long sleeves and pants in case they decided to dump the body someplace in the woods. She figured that would probably be the best choice. It was a warm night, and the ground would be soft. The trees covered so many acres that if they picked the right spot and buried the corpse deep enough, no one would ever find it. 

The biggest problem would be making sure that the house was spotless. Even minute traces of blood could give them away if someone decided to do a thorough search of the place. She'd just have to make sure she was somewhere far away before that happened. 

Keeping an eye on the bathroom door, she dressed quickly. Before she'd been sent to live with Thomas, she wouldn't have given a second thought to someone seeing her in a state of undress. Now, the mere notion made her stomach churn. 

For better or worse, the Fazzari woman seemed to be taking her sweet time cleaning up. On one hand, it gave Annemarie plenty of time to get dressed. On the other, she was getting antsy waiting. 

She looked around the room for something to do. The bed was covered in blood, of course, where the Fazzari woman had laid her down. She rolled up the blanket and made a note to dispose of it after they'd taken care of the body. 

The carpeted floor was speckled red leading from the hallway, and that was a whole other can of worms. Not to mention, the bathroom was a mess as well. Getting all of this covered up would be a nightmare. However, seeing as she didn't trust any of the cleaners she knew not to rat with the right incentive, she'd have to figure something out. 

Finally, the Fazzari woman stepped out of the bathroom. Her legs and torso were clean and her face was no longer gushing blood, so it was a marked improvement from earlier. She was still missing a shirt, though, and given Thomas's leaner build and the fact that his sister had breasts and he had not, Annemarie rather doubted one of his shirts would fit her. Maybe one of his larger coats would do the trick. 

The woman glanced at the rolled up bedspread and her eyes followed the trail of blood toward the hall. She grimaced with the right side of her face. 

"We can worry about that after we get rid of the body," Annemarie said. She strode toward Thomas's closet, unwilling to waste time by standing around chatting. She found his coats on the left side of the closet and selected one that looked large enough for his sister. She held it out to her. "Here. To cover up. Do you know if anyone will be coming around looking for him tonight?"

The Fazzari woman stared at the coat for a couple of seconds like she wasn't sure what to do with it. Then she shook her head. "No," she said. "We were supposed to meet up to discuss—" 

"Moretti. I heard," Annemarie said. "Put the coat on, please. My legs aren't going to hold out all night."

The woman's one working eye widened. "Oh, right! Sorry!" She took the coat and put it on, buttoning up the front to cover her blood-soaked bra. 

Annemarie ducked into the bathroom and returned with a couple of pairs of latex gloves. "There's a tarp in the garage we can wrap the body in for transport. Do you have a car?"

IX.

"Maybe if we sort of scrunch him up," the Cheshire girl suggested, eyeing the trunk of Ophelia's car doubtfully. 

Ophelia shifted her weight nervously between her feet. "I don't know," she said. "If we get any blood in my car, my grandmother will definitely know I was involved. Besides, won't it seem strange if Thomas's car is here and he isn't?" 

The Cheshire girl shook her head. "If we have to get rid of his body and his car, it'll be one more thing they can trace back to us. They have no reason to suspect you'd be involved; why would they check your car? Besides, this thing's a hunk of junk. It'll be much easier to dispose of than Thomas's car."

Ophelia didn't point out that she did need her car for a few things. It seemed like the least pressing issue at this exact moment. "Okay," she said reluctantly. "Now we just have to get him into the trunk, find a dump site, get rid of the car tracks, clean the house—" 

"You're thinking too much," the Cheshire girl snapped. "Just follow my lead."

X.

"Do you know where you're going?" the Fazzari woman asked nervously. 

Annemarie rolled her eyes. "No, I just thought I'd take an aimless drive down a back road with a corpse in the trunk."

"Just making sure," the woman muttered defensively.

XI.

"Fuck!" The Cheshire girl stumbled, not for the first time that night, and leaned heavily on one of the shovels they'd brought. 

"Are you all right?" Ophelia panted. She wasn't sure she could go much farther, carrying Thomas's body all by herself, and her accomplice was in no position to help out. 

The girl nodded. "Just a bit farther." she said through gritted teeth. 

XII.

"I can do this. You're tired—" 

"Like hell I am." Annemarie drove her shovel into the ground like she'd driven the knife into Thomas's chest. She wasn't weak. She wasn't weak. She might have forgotten that, for a time, after nearly a year in captivity, but she remembered now. 

"Okay," the Fazzari woman sighed. "If you insist." 

"I do," Annemarie snapped. 

XIII.

"All right. That should be deep enough," the Cheshire girl called from the top of the hole. 

Ophelia looked up, but it was too dark to see anything more than a silhouette. "Are you sure?" she called, leaning on her shovel. She was sure her exhaustion showed in her voice. She'd insisted on taking over the digging after a certain point. She could climb out of the hole. Her accomplice could not. It was that simple. 

At least, it had seemed simple at the time. Now she wasn't so sure. Her back was in agony and her arms hardly had enough strength left to lift her shovel. On top of that, sweat and dirt had been running down her face for hours now. The left side of her face was on fire and she was almost certain her stitches hadn't held. 

"It'll have to do," the girl called down. "Toss me the shovel and get back up here. I don't want to have to bury you too."

Ophelia held up the shovel, and her accomplice took it. She looked up at the edge of the grave. It seemed unreasonably far away. "Fuck," she breathed. 

"Are you coming out? I really will bury you." 

"Yeah," Ophelia said. She swayed on her feet. "Just a second."

"Need I remind you we still have an entire house to clean when we get back?" 

Ophelia groaned and began to scale the wall. The dirt was soft and crumbled far too easily beneath her fingertips, but eventually, she reached over the edge. "God damn it," she hissed. Would she have the strength to pull herself back onto solid ground? It didn't feel like it. 

She felt something brush past her face to grab the collar of her coat and pull.

"Come on," her accomplice said in a strained voice. "We haven't got all night." 

Physically, the help the girl provided was negligible. She couldn't have weighed much more than a hundred ten pounds soaking wet, but the moral support was enough to give Ophelia one last burst of energy. She scrambled over the edge of the grave and collapsed, panting, onto the ground. 

"When you're quite finished," the girl said. "Can you help me roll him in?"

XIV.

"I can help—" 

"If you stand up now, you're going to topple back into the hole, and then I really will bury you with him," Annemarie said impatiently. 

It took a while to fill the grave back up with dirt, and a half hour longer to catch and gut a rabbit to leave nearby in case someone came sniffing around with hounds, but eventually, they got back on the road. 

"I'm definitely going to have to get rid of this car," the Fazzari woman groaned. 

Annemarie glanced at the clock on the dash. "That might be the least of your worries." 

XV.

"Leave the coat and boots outside," the Cheshire girl instructed. "The more dirt we track in, the more we have to clean up." 

Ophelia groaned as she shrugged off the coat. After tonight, she wasn't going to move for a month. "Whatever you say, Ches," she murmured. 

"What?" the girl looked up from where she was patting dust off her long pants. 

"Oh, um…" Ophelia brought her gloved hand to her head, smearing dirt across her temple. "Sorry, I'm tired, and I never caught your name—" 

"Annemarie," the girl said in a clipped tone. 

"Huh?" 

"My name," she said sharply. "It's Annemarie." 

Ophelia blinked her good eye. "Oh," she said. 

Annemarie nodded and straightened up. "Take off those boots. Didn't you hear me?" 

"Oh! Right." Ophelia kicked off the boots, then followed Annemarie into the house. "I'm Ophelia, by the way." 

"That's nice," Annemarie said flatly. "Can you get the bleach? It's in the laundry room."

XVI.

"The hallway's clean," the Fazzari woman sighed. 

"Well, now you're tracking dirt on the carpet," Annemarie grumbled. "Would you go—" She looked up from the spots of blood she was cleaning, only to see that the woman she was addressing looked dead on her feet. The gash on her face was red, swollen, and dirty, and her one good eye was half-closed with exhaustion. 

Annemarie stood up and put her hands on the woman's shoulders. She steered her into the bathroom and gestured toward the edge of the tub. "Sit," she said. "And don't fall in." 

She grabbed a clean washcloth and ran it under some warm water, then turned to the woman and began to wipe the grime off her face. 

The woman winced. "I could do that, if you want to get back to cleaning." 

"Shut up," Annemarie sighed. "The sooner you're cleaned up, the sooner you can help me put this mess behind us." 

Aside from the occasional grimace, the woman didn't protest further. 

XVII.

"Well. That's that, then," Annemarie said. 

Ophelia gave a single, tired nod. 

"Mind giving me a ride before you ditch that car?"

XVII.

"Are you going to be all right from here?" the Fazzari woman asked. In the light of dawn, Annemarie could clearly see the right side of her mouth turn down in apparent concern. 

Annemarie snorted. "Me? I'm not the one who has to lie to my family about where I was last night." Or explain away what's soon to be a very noticeable scar, she added to herself. 

That only seemed to make the woman more concerned. "What about your father? Can you reach out to him?" 

Annemarie's whole body tensed. "My father," she hissed through gritted teeth. "Is the reason I was in this mess to begin with." 

"Oh," the Fazzari woman said softly. 

"Yes." Annemarie opened the car door. "Goodbye, now." She stepped outside. 

"Well, if you ever need anything—" 

Annemarie slammed the door and began to walk away. Then she heard a creak behind her. She hazarded a glance back over her shoulder to see the Fazzari woman reaching across the car to roll the window down via hand-crank. 

Her irritation made way for amusement, followed shortly by surprise. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that way. 

"If you ever need anything," Ophelia said, "Look up Willoughby's Gardening Supplies."

Annemarie raised an eyebrow. She gave a slight nod of acknowledgement, then turned and walked away to find some place to curl up and pass out. 

First, she would rest. Then, she had work to do.