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wandaslovey · 2 months ago

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𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇’𝓈 𝓆𝓊𝒶𝓇𝓇𝑒𝓁

➺ pastor’s!wife!wanda x fem!reader

wc ~ 3.4k

a/n: i just finished watching love & death for the 4th time and it made me go absolutely feral for lizzie with a southern accent. i’m debating whether or not i want to make this a short series—especially writing a second part where i better establish the background of these two characters. let me know if you guys would like a part 2!

*not proofread*

cw: brief mentions of religious background, infidelity/cheating, forbidden relationship, legal age gap, established relationship, reader almost smokes a cigarette but doesn’t, punishment, [wo]man-handling, spanking, humiliation, inspection, finger licking/sucking, praise, mommy kink, reader is kind of a whiny brat in this fic (she’s really just overstimulated), and some fluff at the end

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ ୨♡୧ ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

you pace back and forth along the side of a red and white striped tent, kicking up some dirt and rocks as your feet drag. your skin feels like it’s tingling and your ears cringing at the sheer amount of sounds coming from the carnival you were currently at. you reach into your bra, retrieving one of the two cigarettes you had secretly stashed there unbeknownst to wanda. it was very unlike you—the smoking—but it was a nasty habit you picked up during your rebellious teen years. wanda had been trying to break you of it for months now. she’d gone as far as taking it upon herself to search through your things every time you two escaped to a town over to be together. any time she found a pack or a lone cigarette, she would throw it away claiming that her “sweet baby” shouldn’t be doing such a thing as “harming her own lungs.”

you hadn’t actually smoked one in awhile, but knowing you were coming here today, you stashed a couple in case you became overstimulated, which you now were. it didn’t help that you were already in a sour mood upon arriving here. wanda was all smiles and encouragement, happy and chipper to spend time with you. you weren’t sure why you were in such a poor mood, especially since you got to be with her, but at the moment you couldn’t care less about the series of events that may have drove you into this corner.

you pat your other breast, seeking the lighter but it wasn’t there. shit, you must’ve left it in your overnight bag or maybe in wanda’s car. with the cigarette hanging limply from your lips, you stupidly look around you as if there would be something around you to light it.

as you step out from behind the circus-like tent, you scan the small herds of people surrounding the area. there were so many families here along with couples and groups of young teens out with their friends. you hated being in places that were overly crowded. stepping out into this scene only made you feel worse and just when you were about to step back to your makeshift hiding place, you spot wanda walking rather briskly over to you. she was clutching onto the straps of her purse with two hands, her eyes intent on you as she made her way seamlessly through the crowds to get to you. normally, the look on her face would make you cower instantly, but you were in no mood to give into her dominating presence.

the cigarette that had been dangling from your lips was now stuffed back into your bra, your hands shoving themselves into the pockets of your t-shirt dress.

“now just where the hell did you think you were going? i’ve been looking all over for you, (y/n).” her southern accent bled into her words, which under different circumstances you loved, but right now that fact didn’t matter.

you cross your arms over your chest, taking a step around her as you attempt to walk away to blend in with the other crowds of people. she easily falls into step next to you, looking at you expectantly.

“i just needed a minute,” you say in a monotone voice, looking straight forward as you walk. clearly, she’s not sufficed with your answer. you count three, four, five steps before you feel her arm wrap around your bicep, her fingers curling tightly but not painfully as she pulls you back to the side, ducking around the corner of a carnival game tent.

“what is going on with you? you’ve been nothing but a fuss pot ever since i picked you up.” she uses her thumb and forefinger to hold your chin in place as you look up at her, her other hand still holding onto your arm. you feel your tough facade begin to crack, fissures seeping into your mind that made you want to cave and pout like the little girl you felt like right now.

“mm’fine wanda,” you mumble, looking at her pretty blonde cropped hair instead of her eyes. when you were in a mood like this, her eyes were the most dangerous place to look. those green orbs wielded more power than any god you’d ever been told to believe in.

“(y/n). look at me.” she commands, her fingers gripping more firmly onto your chin. she gently shakes your head back and forth until she gets the desired reaction and your eyes meet hers. you immediately feel a little more wobbly where you stand, her eyes all but piercing into your soul. “do not lie to me. ever. do you hear me little miss? i know something is going on with you.”

your bottom lip quivers slightly, jutting out into a pout and wanda watches your eyes widen and go soft around the edges, mimicking that of a guilty puppy. you hold eye contact with her for another second and all of a sudden the invisible cracks in your mind remold themselves. you harshly turn your head to the side, freeing your chin from her grasp. you didn’t want to give into her just yet.

“don’t wanna talk about it. let’s just go have some fun or whatever the fuck it is you’re supposed to do in this godforsaken shit show.”

you turn from her, already out in the midst of groups of other people before wanda can think about grabbing you again. from her place at the side of the tent, she watches you walk away, exhaling slowly to maintain her nerve before she catches up to you.

for the next hour or so, you go from tent to tent, playing the rigged games and forcing yourself to “have fun.” after being unkind to a couple of the attendants and giving her attitude for the last while, wanda was at her wits end. she had no idea what was going on with you and no matter how gently or forcibly she probed, you refused to tell her what was wrong.

it wasn’t until your final throw at a bean bag toss that she decided enough was enough. after hearing your “this was never my idea to be here” comment under your breath, she grabs your arm again, all but dragging you out of the carnival. there was a group of teenagers who stopped to watch you as you huffed, kicked and dragged your feet along as wanda pulled you wordlessly to the parking lot, but neither you nor she could care about that now.

she rummages through her purse with her free hand, angrily retrieving her keys at last as she unlocks the car. she opens the passenger back seat door, all but shoving you inside of it before shutting the door firmly behind you. she hurries to the other side, coming into the backseat with you.

a thick silence falls over the car, her eyes burning holes into the side of your face as you had yet to look at her. wanda wasn’t sure what to say—which approach would best get through to you in this moment.

“i’m going to give you one more opportunity to explain yourself before you’re in even bigger trouble than you already are.” her voice was artificially calm. anyone else would perceive her now as perfectly composed, but you knew better. you picked up on all the subtleties—the slight shake in her voice at the end of her sentence and her hands twitching ever so slightly. you had really pushed her today and you knew a punishment was inevitable. as you sat there in the silence of the car, you realized that subconsciously you were making today enormously difficult on purpose to earn her harsher hand. you were normally such a good girl for her, but today was about pushing buttons—and you really were overstimulated from everything at the carnival.

you glance at her from your peripheral vision, inhaling slowly as you begin to fidget with your hands in your lap. wanda’s normally impeccable patience had gone thin though, and when another beat of silence passed over the two of you, she was done waiting. she reaches over the middle seat, pulling your body till it was flush with hers. she lifts your legs over her lap, bending them in a slight awkward angle from being pressed against the side of the door. a gentle hand lifts your face, her fingers smoothing some of the frizz from your hair before she tucks the strands behind your ear.

“what happened to my sweet girl, hmm?” this time her voice was genuine and warm, her facial expression softening. she knew that paired with her sugary sweet sweetness and being wrapped up in her arms, you would melt. you could never deny the fact that regardless of your mood, you always wanted to be her good girl and to please her.

your pout from earlier came back full force as you began to feel a pang of guilt growing in your tummy. you had been unfair to her today, giving her attitude for no reason and denying her comfort at every turn. she deserved better.

your nimble fingers find the collar of her blouse and you fidget with the material absentmindedly. your brows pull together like you’re thinking hard about something as you stare at a random spot on her chest.

“i’m sorry, wanda,” you mumble, the edge of a whine in your tone. she strokes the back of your head, beginning to gently coax you into that fuzzy headspace you both love so much.

“well i sure do appreciate that, but an apology’s not what i asked for, is it?” you shake your head at her question, curling further into yourself to feel smaller in her lap. she easily adjusted her arm to support the new distribution of your weight while the hand on her other arm continued to caress the side of your cheek.

it was almost pathetic how easily you gave in to her touch. it had barely been a couple of minutes and you were already feeling much more compliant.

“i…it was just loud and bright,” you state simply in a small voice, offering no further explanation. you hoped she didn’t need clarification since you didn’t feel much like talking at the moment.

“the carnival? was my darling girl feeling a little overstimulated?” she asks sympathetically, tapping her finger against your cheek so you know to look up at her. your eyes slowly drag up her neck and her face until you’re looking in her eyes again. you nod once, your pout becoming impossibly deeper. she hums, a hand at the back of your head as she presses her lips against your forehead, planting a kiss there.

“i’m sorry sugar, mommy didn’t know. you have to tell me these things, honey. as much as i’d like to, i can’t read your mind.” she kisses your temple, watching your shoulders shrug in response to her comment. you wished she could read your mind. there were so many things you knew you needed to communicate to her that your stubborn refusal prohibited you from sharing.

“i really am sorry you were uncomfortable today sweetheart, that was never my intention. now i know for next time, right?” she pauses for a moment, noticing your line of sight was on your fingers that were still fiddling with her top.

“however, you did fail to communicate your needs with me despite the fact that i tried to get you to talk to me. on top of that, you were snotty and rude to not only me, but a few of the workers at the fair. you understand that is unacceptable, right?” she watches your head nod a few times, your eyes glazing over and she knows that right now, you’re her compliant little girl and you’ve already accepted your consequences.

“mommy’s gonna have to punish you. you understand why now, don’t you baby?” you nod once, but still clutch onto the collar of her shirt, your thighs pressing together as the word “punishment” passes through her lips. it doesn’t go unnoticed by wanda, but she chooses not to acknowledge it for now.

wanda gently pries your fingers from her shirt, maneuvering the both of you until you were face down across her lap. she had one of her legs crossed over the other so your lower back had a nice arch, your ass sitting higher in the air. she lifts your dress up over your rear, bunching the material at the middle of your back.

she hums to herself, her mouth watering slightly at the sight of your cute ass framed by your cheeky baby blue lace underwear.

“oh baby doll, you have the cutest, spankable cheeks, you know that?” the first teasing smack lands on your right cheek, already warming the skin. you groan at her question, feeling your panties dampen and the urge to press your thighs more firmly together.

“i’m going to spank you 40 times. i want you to count and say ‘i’m sorry mommy,’ for each spank. understood?” her hand caresses over the skin she just smacked, soothing the slight sting.

“yes mommy,” you reply, your voice muffled as your face was half pressed into the car seat. wanda purrs at your obedience, giving your ass cheek a squeeze. “good girl,” she murmurs, still rubbing your backside.

the first real smack lands on your left cheek, your body jerking slightly from the force. “one, i’m sorry mommy.” you breath out. you weren’t expecting her to start out so strong.

another blow. “two, i’m sorry mommy.” she measured the hit, ensuring she hit the same spot twice.

smack. “three, i’m sorry mommy.” you bite your lip, your core beginning to tingle.

smack. “four, i’m sorry mommy.” you feel your arousal continuing to wet your panties.

smack. “ffive—i’m sorry mommy!” you press your thighs together, only relieving a bit of the ache that was rapidly growing between your legs.

you hadn’t taken an inordinate amount of spankings, but you experienced enough that you knew that on average, the pain just surpassed the pleasure after about 18 hits. by the sixteenth one, your small pitiful whimpers turned to whines, and by the twenty-fifth the first low sob tore through your throat. tears were beginning to prick your eyes, threatening to roll down your pink tinged cheeks.

wanda pauses after the thirtieth spank, unable to ignore your increasingly squirmy little body. she could see your legs pressed firmly together, your body desperately trying to grind down onto her thighs. she tuts, tapping the back of your thigh in a silent command to open your legs. you feel a singular finger trace down your slit through your panties, the sticky feeling causing you to groan.

“oh sweetheart, look at you—all wet and sticky..” she trails off, her finger purposely rubbing up against your clit before she swipes back down to your opening. “you like it when mommy hurts you, don’t you?” it was mostly a rhetorical question, your arousal being evidence enough.

she brings her arousal coated finger up to your lips, which you eagerly suck into your mouth. you hum around the digit, swirling your tongue around it as any last rational thoughts you had turn to static.

“such a naughty baby. good little girls aren’t supposed to get so aroused by a punishment.” she pulls her finger from your mouth, a small popping noise emitting from the action.

“mommy,” you whimper pathetically, not quite sure exactly what you were begging for. you were past thinking clearly.

“shhh, i know honey. just 10 more spanks and then i’ll be done,” she runs a soothing hand down your back and then presses it down in the middle of your lower back. her last 10 smacks are just as harsh if not more than the other 30. by the end, the tears that been building in your eyes were spilling down your cheeks and you begin sniffling as your nose starts to run.

her hand carefully rubs across your now red, inflamed skin. she marvels at the sight. it was a bit sadistic, but she loved seeing the aftermath of a good spanking.

“mmm, i love it when you cry for me, baby.” her other hand finds its way into your hair, her fingernails gently scratching against your scalp. you melt into her affection, your body laying limply across her lap.

“let’s see how much more sticky sweetness is between these legs now, hmm?” she readjusts her hold on you, her leg propping you upright so your back is nice and arched again. her finger returns to your panties, finding them completely soaked through and ruined. you hear her chuckle amusedly before she presses the soiled material up against your opening, her fingertip just barely pushing into your hole. you let out shrill whine, your hips backing up into her touch. she shushes you, sliding your panties to the side and you all but jump as her finger grazes up against your unclothed pussy. she gathers the wetness there, drawing a line up and down your slit, taunting you. you bite down hard on your bottom lip, your hips wriggling under her touch.

“hush now… let me see.. ohhh, my listen to that.” you moan, her index finger sliding tantalizingly slow inside of you. you can hear your pussy squelching as she does so, your walls desperately clamping down around her digit. she wiggles it as far as it’ll go, her knuckles brushing against your clit. she does an experimental bend of her finger, your body jerking in response as she stimulates your g-spot.

just when you start to finally feel some relief, she slowly withdraws her finger. as she pulls it away, a string of arousal clings to her finger, connecting your went cunt to her before she pulls it far enough away that it disappears. she was going to have you clean it off, but the sight was too delicious to resist. she sucks her own finger into her mouth, cleaning off the evidence of your wetness. you swear you hear a small purr of pleasure coming from her, but you couldn’t be sure with your heart pounding in your ears.

she smooths your dress back over your ass, grabbing onto your waist and twisting you so you were now sitting facing her upright on her lap. she reaches up and holds the side of your face, a twinge of a smile on her lips as she notices your dismayed expression. she pouts sympathetically, stroking your cheek with her thumb.

“what did we learn today, (y/n)?” you don’t stop pouting as you answer. “to not be mean and to communicate my feelings..” you mumble, your expression solemn and wounded as if you had just been told the saddest thing. it turned out one of the most tragic things was having wanda tease you and then leave you high and dry.

“that’s right, sweetness. good job.” she smiles warmly, kissing your nose affectionately.

“you did so good for me, sugar. mommy’s very proud of you.” she smiles encouragingly, and despite how mopey you felt about being denied an orgasm, you glow under her praise and affection. you purse your lips together as you try to smother a smile threatening to cross your lips. wanda chuckles at this, playfully tapping her finger against your nose.

“i see that smile, little girl. you can’t fool me.” she attacks the side of your face with kisses, a wide smile now erupting across your face as you giggle gleefully.

“you’re gonna make my face all soggy—quit it!” you protest lightly, half heartedly pushing against her chest to put some space between your faces. wanda makes a mock gasp.

“i beg your pardon, missy? i can give you all the kisses i want!” she growls playfully through gritted teeth before she plants more sloppy kisses all over your face. you squeal and giggle, finding that moving your face around did nothing but give her new places to kiss.

you were so happy and content in your little wanda bubble. you never wanted it to pop.

#wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #wanda x you #mommy wanda #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff x smut #wanda maximoff x fluff

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after-witch · 9 months ago

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Death by Stereo [Yandere Chrollo x Reader] [Vampire AU]

Title: Death by Stereo [Yandere Vampire Chrollo x Reader]

Synopsis: You’re just a nobody living in a small town when a mysterious stranger with a leather jacket, good looks and a penchant for kissing your hand rolls in, just in time for the ever-popular summer carnival. Things are going great, until dead bodies start piling up.

Word count: 17,510

Notes: yandere, vampire AU, descriptions of dead bodies, some violence, gore, abuse

Thursday

Is there anything more wearisome than a small town? Small towns grind you down so slowly that you don’t realize your feet have been eroded into useless nubs before it’s too late, and you have nowhere to run, even if you had the inkling to get away.

A small town has its charms, as they say--but it has its burdens, too. You know all the faces, but all the faces know you; some of them have even known you since you were just an ultrasound picture carried dutifully in your mother’s purse, pulled out at coffee shops and book clubs.

They know when you got your first period (age 13, in the middle of gym class--you were wearing white shorts); when your first boyfriend dumped you (at the school dance, right before he made out with the third most popular girl in school); what colleges you applied to, and later--why you dropped out (your dad got sick) and how he was doing (not so great but getting better) and where you worked, how you liked your coffee, and all these impersonal and personal details that made up the monotony of your life.

It was a trap, this small town life. A faux bubble of intimacy that your parents embraced, but you’d never fully believed. Because despite knowing so much about you, no one here really knew you. They could tell you that you looked just like your mom at her age; they could sling down a mug with your coffee order without you opening your mouth (black, 1 sugar, 1 cream, no milk)--but they didn’t want to hear about how much you wanted to travel; how much you wanted to see.

Did it matter? You weren’t getting out anytime soon, anyway.

Like all small towns, yours had a claim to fame. While others might boast being the hometown of some B-list celebrity or the site of an all-you-get-eat seafood festival, your particular small town had one edge over the others: a summer carnival right on the beach, designed to appeal to nearby tourists who came to much larger, resort-friendly beaches for the summer season.

The tourists loved to flock here on that singular summer weekend, pretending they were enjoying a quaint local carnival where they got drunk on cheap beer and sampled funnel cake until they puked. And if the locals hustled them as much as possible, overcharging for drinks and parking and sightseeing maps, was that so bad? Small towns needed to leech off new blood once in a while, after all.

The carnival was four days long--Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday was, of course, the grand finale. There was a massive fireworks show on the beach, a huge concert with local and sometimes vaguely familiar bands. A lot more booze traded hands on Saturdays, and the beach was lit up with more than just fireworks; the local volunteers always spent the next week picking up cigarette butts and discarded joints in the sand.

The carnival can be fun. Although like anything that happens every single year in a small town you’ve lived in your entire life (save the one year of college you managed before your dad’s test results came back) it gets wearisome.

Still--you go. What else is there to do? Besides, you’d be stupid to deny that it’s more fun to spend your summer weekend wandering the carnival, riding a few rides, speaking to people, than to sit at home or pick up an extra shift at the diner.

That’s why you’ve wandered into the carnival today--Thursday. Thursday is your favorite day of the carnival, because it’s the most quiet, relatively speaking. There are tourists here, sure, but they’re not rowdy yet. Not as overcrowded. There aren’t gaggles of kids running around with lobster-red faces and arms because they’re parents didn’t understand the necessity of sunscreen; there aren’t groups of women traveling in packs with matching sunglasses and hats, enjoying a summer break away from their rich and distant husbands.

It’s mostly locals on Thursday. People like you, bored coffee shop workers with nothing better to do on a Thursday evening.

Or people like Jake Jenson over there, currently aiming a colorful dart at a row of balloons in one of many carnival games that would hustle drunk tourists out of their money this weekend.

Jake was the town drunk--a title he gave himself, and others were only too happy to oblige him. He stuck to himself most of the time. During the carnival, he won as many carnival prizes as possible, and traded them to tourists with shitty aim for beers or cigarettes.

And over there--the early birds. They’ve come three years in a row, you think from somewhere in New York. They’re attached at the hip, constantly rubbing their noses together like some twee movie couple, and you’ve heard them complain that the boardwalks in their part of the country are a lot more “authentic.’

Sure, there’s the familiar faces, but unfamiliar ones, too. An older gentleman and his wife, who walks next to him more slowly, with a cane. He’s balancing a plastic plate with a fresh funnel cake in his hand. They’ll find a bench to sit down and enjoy it, maybe people watch, like you.

It’s time for one of your favorite games: making up stories for the various tourists you probably won’t ever see again. This couple--this is the last trip they’ll take together, because the wife got an awful diagnosis, and they’re spending what would have been the rest of their retirement savings on the dream vacation she always wanted to take. They met during the war, decades ago… he was a soldier and she was a nurse, and he hurt his leg, maybe, and wound up in a field hospital.

It would have been terribly romantic.

Your eyes shift away from the couple and onto a few other new faces.

Maybe that’s why you liked the carnival. It was nice to look at new people and imagine where they came from, what they did. The kind of life they had, which was surely more interesting and worldly than yours.

With people watching in mind, you abandon your bench in front of the games and head deeper into the carnival, weaving yourself in between snack and ticket booths, stepping over large black cables that kept the rides running.

Dusk had already settled in, and the warm glow of the summer had been replaced with a deepening sense of evening. The carnival lights had already begun to play against the darkening sky, creating that magical atmosphere that couldn’t be replicated during the day.

You don’t notice the stranger at first. It’s dark, the lights are a bit dizzying, and there are plenty of people simply wandering around and taking in the sights. What’s one more stranger, when over the course of the next few hours and days, the summer will be increasingly filled with them?

But this particular stranger shows up in the corner of your vision and immediately strikes you as… odd. He’s just standing there.

Watching you. Staring--right at you. What the fuck?

He’s wearing all black, and there’s some sort of scarf or cowl over his face. His eyes look impassive but there’s something awful in them, even in the brief glances you get from catching him from the corner of your gaze.

What a creep.

It sours the mood, and you decide to leave, or at least take a break and shake off whatever out-of-towner decided to pull off his best edgy horror movie impression to creep you out. It wouldn’t be the first time a tourist behaved like a jerk, or a weirdo, especially if they’d be drinking.

Something about nighttime at the carnival made people go wild.

So you head away from it all, from the couples trying to win stuffed animals, from the giggling shrieks of people on rides that spun them upside down until they wanted to puke. And maybe you should just head right home, but it’s not fair to waste a night of good weather.

Cool, but not too cool. Pleasant. The moon is out and the stars twinkle overhead.

Heading out on the dock might be nice. Tourists don’t bother with it, at least not on Thursday, when the beach isn’t lit-up and there’s no particular reason to head out this way.

But you’d been to this beach in the evening before; you weren’t scared of the dark. By contrast, you liked the way the beach sounded at night. The water moving in and out, slow and sure. The occasional sound of wildlife splashing in the water. And the din of the carnival behind you, all rainbow lights and indiscernible human happiness.

Your joy is cut off by the sound of footsteps. Your heart leaps in your chest and your hands slam into your pocket instinctively, fumbling for your keys. Fuck, how were you supposed to use these in self-defense again? Put them between your fingers?

Your heart hammers and you slowly turn around, squinting as you make out a figure approaching you in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” a voice calls out, penitent. “Did I scare you? I’m trying to get reception.” The man wiggles a small silver object in the air, raising it above his head. A small LED screen lights up and your heart rate begins to calm, slowly but surely.

After a few beats, he sighs, and shoves the phone in his pocket.

He turns, apparently to leave, but then looks back at you. “Are you all right? I really didn’t mean to startle you.”

You swallow, lick your lips. Feel stupid for the keys in your fingers. He seems nice enough. A typical tourist. “Um, yeah.” You laugh, an empty sound. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy tonight.”

The moonlight doesn’t give you a clear view of the man’s features, but you can see him tilt his head a little. “Jumpy?”

The keys in your pocket rattle when you let them go, and pull your hands out to point back towards the carnival. The man follows your finger with an almost studious interest.

“Someone was following me, maybe? Or he just seemed a bit creepy.” You laugh again, a habit ingrained after years of dealing with men in odd situations--defuse, tread lightly, always. “He was staring at me, but I couldn’t see his face. He had a scarf over it, I think.”

The man in front of you hums in acknowledgement after a moment. He almost seems a little amused, which is both irritating and relieving in its own way. You were just being silly, jumpy, overreacting, weren’t you? Maybe the guy wasn’t even looking at you in the first place.

“Can I walk you back to the carnival? It doesn’t feel right to leave you here alone.”

Ah, no, you think. Sure, the man in front of you might just be a tourist in search of reception, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. This is how people get murdered. Or attacked. Or like, hoisted into white vans and never seen again.

“No, that’s okay. I was going to stay out here longer and look at the stars. I’m going home soon, anyway.” Not a complete lie, since you did really want to go home. Something like this is usually enough for most people to take the hint, right?

The man doesn’t turn around. Instead, you see the shape of his smile, lit only by the moon in the sky above.

“You want me to walk you back to the carnival,” he says simply, and offers his arm out, like some kind of old-fashioned gentleman.

Oh. Of course you do. What were you thinking, staying out here on the dock at night? Mosquitoes would eat you up, anyway.

You smile in return and take his offered arm, stepping lightly as you make your way back to the carnival with a complete stranger.

Only by the time you make it back to the threshold of the carnival, which seems to be eaten up by the darkness surrounding all of the twinkling lights, he’s not really a stranger, is he?

And as you get closer to the carnival, the natural darkness of the beach gives way to an abundance of artificial lights that allow you to see him better. He’s cute--no doubting that, with dark hair that frames his face, and a bandage around his forehead. Maybe an accident, or an unfortunate birthmark.

Even if you weren’t familiar with most of the town’s residents in one way or another, you’d know he was an outsider from the way he’s dressed. A slim motorcycle jacket and dark jeans… not the type of guy that hangs around here for long.

As you stop at the border of the carnival, he asks where you live, and you tell him--”around.” He admits that he’s only in town for the carnival week.

“I figured,” you say lightly enough.

He raises his eyebrows. “Is it that easy to tell?”

You put your hands into your pockets and look around you.

“I mean, it’s a small town, right? Everyone knows everyone, after a while. A new face stands out pretty easily.”

His smile is charming. Practiced, but charming. Or maybe being practiced is how it’s so charming in the first place. “That makes sense.” He considers you for a moment. “You like to watch the tourists, then?”

You shrug and gesture with your chin towards a mom with a toddler clinging to her hand, pulling her along towards one of the games with enormous stuffed animals.

“I like people watching, I guess. Sometimes,” and as you’re saying it, you don’t know why you’re telling him this so openly. “Sometimes I like to make up stories about people I see. Like, where they’re from or what they do or a backstory like they’re from a movie or whatever.”

Your cheeks feel suddenly, stupidly hot. Christ, you meet a handsome stranger on the beach and your first major conversation involves you admitting you make up stories about people? You’ve got to get out of this town more.

But he doesn’t seem like he’s judging you. If anything, he looks interested.

“And what would you imagine for me?”

The question is unexpected.

“I think…” You try to force your mind to wander like it does when you people watch organically. What would you imagine, if you came across him walking around the carnival in the evening? He’d be on his own, surely, maybe his hands in his pockets. Quiet. A soft smile on his face, maybe?

“I think you’re some sort of… librarian. Or a curator. A collector?” You shake your head, unsure of exactly where you want to go with this one. “The point is, you’re traveling around the country, looking for things to add to a museum or library or something like that. And you came across an ad for a summer carnival and thought you’d take in some local culture.” You gesture towards the carnival--the lights, the crowd of people, the humanity on display. “But walking around here makes you feel lonely. So you walk down to the beach in the hopes of distracting yourself. Only,” you add, with a cheeky grin. “To come across the most amazing small town waitress in 100 miles standing on the dock like a weirdo.”

He doesn’t smile at your story. Not exactly. Instead--and you look away when you notice, feeling too rude for staring--his eyes widen just a smidge and he purses his lips in a thoughtful way.

“My name is Chrollo,” he says. “May I have yours?”

Chrollo is kind of old-fashioned, you decide. Perhaps you were more spot-on than you realized with your story.

Maybe you shouldn’t give your name. But there’s a giddy feeling inside your chest. Something akin to what you used to feel when you were a teen and you snuck out in the middle of the night for bonfire drinking parties.

I mean… a handsome stranger in a motorcycle jacket who escorted you back from the beach wants your name? You’d be stupid to say no.

So you give it.

At that, he finally smiles again.

“Well, then,” he says softly, saying your name in such a way that makes you hope he’ll say it again in the future, “I hope I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Help! Someone help me! For God’s sake!”

Jake Jensen cried out these words as loudly as he could--as clearly as he could, with booze slurring his words and making his mouth all mumbly. But he wasn’t loud enough. No one heard him. Not over the music and delighted screams of the carnival.

He had been chased away from the beach, past the dock, into a little storage shed used for kayaks rented to tourists during the summer. His worn out body protested with every movement, his lungs hacking from years of cigarettes.

His attackers, who blocked the door frame, said nothing. They only looked at one another, silent words passed between them, and the taller of the two grinned in the darkness.

Jake Jensen died screaming.

Friday

You tell yourself that you’re only sitting here on this bench, munching on fresh hot popcorn, because you had a hankering for carnival food. Definitely didn’t come here in the hopes of seeing a certain someone. You tell yourself this even as your eyes dart here and there, looking for any sign of the not-quite-a-stranger from last night.

The sun has just set, and it’s a bit hard making out faces in the glow of the early evening. There are a lot more people here tonight, a new wave of tourists drowning out the familiar faces. Not that the locals shy away from the carnival--you spot your former best friend from high school, your old math teacher, one of the regulars at the diner… Jake Jensen isn’t in his usual spot at the games, but maybe he’s sleeping off a hangover. He never misses a summer carnival.

“Hello again.”

Oh--you choke on your current handful of popcorn just as Chrollo appears suddenly in your line of sight, hands in the pockets of his motorcycle jacket, a casual smile on his face.

“Hey,” you say, coolly, like you didn’t just nearly spit chewed popcorn kernels in his face when he approached. The silence between you doesn’t last long, but you fill it anyway. “You um, want some popcorn?”

But when you hold out the now half-filled container, Chrollo only looks at it curiously. Like he’s never seen popcorn before or something? But then he takes a small handful and pops it in his mouth. Chews--but he might as well be chewing broccoli, for all he seems to enjoy it. Oddly, he watches you while he chews, seemingly studying your face. Did you have popcorn in your teeth?

Better to fill the silence again.

“Well, what do you think?” You ask, grinning, popping another handful in your mouth. “It’s my favorite because it’s fresh, and that booth actually uses real butter. Not the fake oil stuff.”

Chrollo hums in agreement. “I see. I thought that tasted like real butter. Thank you for sharing.”

You decide on the spot that you’re going to make the most of this evening, popcorn-in-teeth or no. So you shrug and give your best smile. “No biggie. Buuut… you will owe me.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh? And what will I owe you?”

It’s your turn to hum as you look out towards the carnival, scanning past the numerous faces, the booths, children running with balloons and sticks of cotton candy. “A ride on the Ferris wheel once it’s properly dark would be nice.”

A snort, though his nose. “I think I can manage that.”

He offers his arm again, and you take it, not minding how old fashioned it was. Somehow, despite his jacket, his sleek hair, the hint of motorcycle oil mixed with cologne, old-fashioned seemed to suit him.

Lots of things seemed to suit him, actually. You learn this as the evening wears on. He’s great at carnival games, choosing only a select few that he claims to be an expert in. He wins you a few stuffed animals that you pass on to little kids, save a smaller teddy bear that you can shoved inside your purse.

You learn other things, too. Like, he’s a great listener. He lets you talk--about yourself, about the town--and doesn’t interrupt or tell you that you talk too much or make it clear he’s not listening to a thing you say. He even asks you questions, which shows he’s actually listening, and not just thinking about other things and waiting to ask you to go somewhere “private” like some other guys.

It’s nice, surprisingly nice, to find someone from out of town who’s so thoughtful.

The line for the Ferris wheel is always long once the sun goes down, and you’re one of the last rides of the night.

When the carnival worker locks the bar down over your waists, you kick your legs and wait for the strange rush of adrenaline and pleasure that comes with the Ferris wheel. It’s a beautiful sight--all colored lights contrasted against the night sky, whisking you high into the air and giving you a view of the entire carnival and the ocean beyond.

But your body always reacts to the imagined danger of being carried so far away from the safety of the ground, and when the Ferris wheel reaches the top and begins to circle over for the first time, your stomach lurches and you gasp.

“Are you scared?” Chrollo’s voice is low--you could swear he’s teasing, but there’s something else in there, too.

“Yeah,” you say, breath catching as you're brought back closer to the ground, only to be whisked away again. “Of course. What if something goes wrong, and I fall off and break my neck?”

Chrollo tilts his head. “You’d be dead.”

You can’t help but grin. He’s so to-the-point sometimes. It’s charming in its own way, although you can’t exactly describe what “its own way” means with Chrollo. It’s like he stepped out of some old fashioned film but also came out of a cooler city. A biker who carries around an embroidered handkerchief, or something like that.

“And I don’t want to die, hence--the stomach flipping.”

Chrollo looks ahead, then, taking in the view as the Ferris wheel carries you over again. “No? How long do you want to live, then?”

The snort is involuntary. A philosophical question on the Ferris wheel--not exactly what you expected from tonight. But maybe it’s not so bad. He’s good company. And Chrollo looks earnest in his question, too, which makes you feel guilty for snorting in the first place.

Maybe it’s the lights of the Ferris wheel that dazzle you; maybe it’s the way being on the Ferris wheel at night makes you feel like you’re in some wonderful haze of a dream.

Whatever it is, you fling your hand into the air, towards the carnival, towards the stars.

“Long enough to achieve my dreams,” you breathe out, earnest, almost sing-song. “Whatever they might be. I haven’t figured them out yet.”

Chrollo turns his head to look at you. His eyes almost seem magnetic against the night sky, with the lights of the carnival playing in them.

Then, as the Ferris wheel brings the two of you down towards the ground, you see him. The man from yesterday, with the cowl over his face. He’s looking right at you, and it’s no mistake or figment of your imagination.

Your head swivels to the side and you grip the bar of the Ferris wheel until your knuckles hurt. You jerk one hand out and point to the stranger on the ground with a trembling finger.

“There--look! Look!”

Chrollo takes a moment to respond, and follows the sight line of your finger.

But now--there’s no one there.

“What do you see?” He asks, clearly unknowing that the object of your terror has vanished into thin air.

“The man… the man from yesterday. He was right there. I swear.” Your chest hurts; fear hurts.

Unbidden, Chrollo pulls you close to him, and you let him hold you tight.

“You’re all right. I’m here.”

He holds your chin in his fingers. “You’re safe, do you understand?”

The fear in your chest seems fuzzy now, like it had almost never been there in the first place. How silly of you to be scared, when Chrollo was right here. It doesn’t even seem strange that he’s touching you so intimately, does it? So you nod--yes, yes, you understand.

Chrollo smiles.

“Let me kiss you,” he says simply.

And you will. Of course you will. What else would you want to do?

But as you lean forward, eyes already closing, he pulls himself away.

“Wait.” You blink, head clearing, and he continues, words slow, careful. “Would you like to kiss me?”

Now, you think about it. Maybe it was too hasty. But the lights of the carnival are beautiful and Chrollo is beautiful, and he’s been so thoughtful all day, and now he’s here, holding you, promising to keep you safe from carnival creeps.

A summer carnival is the time for a flirty romance, after all.

“Yes,” you answer, simply. “I would.”

Chrollo’s finger strokes your chin as you lean in and share your first kiss on the Ferris wheel, glittering lights and carnival music dancing in your mind.

The wife died first. Too quickly, but perhaps it was all the alcohol in her system; $1 margaritas at a local watering hole on a Friday night did nothing to make her more agile when being chased by predators while running in black city heels that had no place in a small town carnival.

Well, to the dying woman’s credit: it was the heels and alcohol and the sliced tendons in her ankle. Taut wires cut through her flesh like butter and she was down for the count, crawling, sobbing, begging for her husband, for God, for anyone to help her.

No one did.

Those pitiful cries, too, were cut down by a wire pressed into her throat; silencing her vocal chords, yes, but spilling blood over her neck that was as pretty as a sight as anything to those watching her choke and scrabble her hands against the ground, eyes wide, gaping, wondering--how is this happening to me?

The margaritas may have hindered her before her unfortunate ankle accident. But they did make her blood taste sweet and tangy. Metallic, rich, with a twist of lime. All that was missing was a miniature umbrella.

This joke was said aloud, once everyone had a taste of her. A few laughed, blood on their teeth.

Her husband didn’t seem to find it funny, but perhaps he was more preoccupied with his own current slow death. An arc of his blood spurted into the air--”Don’t fucking waste it, Uvo”--before a greedy mouth latched onto the wound, beginning to suck him dry.

The husband, like the wife, would be shared.

Soon, though, there would be no need for sharing.

There would be enough for everyone to have their fill--and beyond that.

There would be enough to gorge.

Saturday:

Three people are dead.

You didn’t know them know them, but the shock is still there, making your hands tremble a little as you pour morning coffees and deliver plates of steaming eggs and overcooked bacon to tables of locals and tourists in almost equal measure.

Jake Jensen is one of those people. The identities of the other two are unknown--”Due to the state of the bodies, no identification could be provided at this time,” said the sheriff, above a rolling news ticker that had been on the diner’s singular TV all morning--but they might be a couple. A man and a woman.

People die all the time. Sure. But… dead bodies are not often found in your small town, where gossip typically revolves around couples breaking up or a local store not putting up enough holiday decorations to appease the older crowd.

Yet now, in one morning, there are three.

Jake Jensen, who was found near the beach.

And an unknown man and woman (John and Jane Doe) who were found in a wooded area near the carnival.

“Mighta been a bear,” says one of your regulars, gnawing on a piece of his burnt bacon. He liked it that way.

“I heard they were drained of blood!” Your head--and others’ too, you suspect--turns to the voice. It’s not a local. Someone who’s far too dressy for the diner, sipping on a coffee they brought from home while they sample your diner’s less than stellar fruit salad option. He’s oblivious to the stares, to the eye rolls, to the immediate dismissal that his outsiderness earns him. “Two puncture wounds on the neck. Heard it from a cop while I was walking in this morning.”

Someone murmurs a joke about vampires and the locals chuckle, then go back to their coffee, their eggs, their eyes now and then glancing up at the old TV screen.

Your eyes roll, too, but then you wonder.

If they were murdered--and it’s an if, of course, because it could have been animals and Jake Jensen could have gotten so plastered that he fell off the dock or something, murders just don’t happen in your town--then… could it have been that creepy guy from before? The one who’s been following you around the carnival?

Shit, maybe he was waiting for the chance to get you alone, so he could drag you off to the dock or the woods and slit your throat. The thought gives you goosebumps, and acrid coffee tries to climb its way up your throat, before you swallow it down.

It was a good thing you had Chrollo around for the past two days.

And you’d be seeing him again tonight.

They weren’t canceling the carnival--it brings in too much money. And while a part of you is all sore and soft for poor Jake Jensen (who was never mean, just drunk) you try to brush it away. It’s sad. But life is sad.

You don’t want to be sad tonight. You want to look nice--for Chrollo? He wasn’t the first out-of-towner that had flirted with you, that you’d flirted with back. He was the first one that you’d ever genuinely looked forward to seeing again, though.

So.

You want to be wearing your best smile when you meet Chrollo again tonight.

And you can’t do that if you’re thinking about Jake Jensen’s body washing up on the beach or if there’s a small, tickling question dancing through your mind--

What sort of animal leaves two pretty little puncture wounds on the neck?

You sit on the same bench as before; the bench, in your mind, where you and Chrollo have taken to meeting up these past few days.

There’s no room in your stomach for popcorn tonight, though. Or rather, there’s room--your stomach growls--but you can’t imagine chewing anything rich, hot and buttery right now. Your thoughts flit between horror (poor Jake Jensen, one time, when you were younger, he helped you fix a flat bike tire) and romance (Chrollo’s lips on yours, warm, the breeze tickling your neck, the lights of the Ferris wheel twinkling around you).

You feel bad for wanting to enjoy tonight. But that’s not fair, is it? Another small town tragedy: caring too much about someone you didn’t really know as anything more than a passing familiar face that you can’t even focus on a hot date.

Fuck.

“Daydreaming again?”

The evening sky above you is a wash of deepening colors, devoid of actual sunlight but clinging to the last vestiges of it like a child refusing to let go of his mother’s hand on the first day of school.

He’s holding up a stick of bright pink cotton candy in one hand, while the other arm is offered for you to take--the contrast between his leather jacket, the ball of fluffy sugar he’s holding, and the way he sometimes acts like an old timey gentleman out of the movies is enough to make you smile.

Perhaps there’s bitterness in it, because as soon as you’re standing, Chrollo regards you with a measured look.

“Are you all right?”

Well. You don’t want to ruin your evening, but it would be stupid to pretend everything was all sweetness and sunshine, wouldn’t it? It’s better to get it out of the way.

“Sorry, it’s… I don’t know if you saw the news?” He says nothing, and you continue. “Those people that they found dead this morning.” Your lips press together. “I mean, the guy--I knew him, sort of? Everyone did. He was drunk all the time, yeah, but he wasn’t a jerk about it.”

Chrollo hums.

“I can imagine that would be shocking for you to hear.”

Your smile is shaky, and you nab a piece of cotton candy from the stick and shove it in your mouth. The sweetness contrasts awfully with the words that pass through your lips. “For you too though, right? I mean, it’s not every day three people turn up dead at some small town carnival.”

Chrollo raises an eyebrow in a way that seems to say that he is not particularly shocked by the news.

“Shit, really? What are you in your non-touristy life, a mortician or something?” A sudden realization washes over you, that Chrollo has an entire life outside of you and these carnival evenings; he has a past, and family, and friends, and a job. Hopes, dreams, the whole nine yards.

“Something like that,” he says. When you move to apologize, he shakes his head. “It’s alright. I’m not terribly shocked by these things, I suppose, because of what I see in my day to day.” He looks at you a little curiously. “But I can see how it would rattle you.”

You open your mouth, but you don’t know what to say. Sugar sticks to your teeth.

“Come on.” Chrollo drops the cotton candy into a nearby trash can, and leads you towards a row of carnival games. “I know what might take your mind off things.”

For once, you’re glad to see the carnival games; the fast-paced spitting words of the barkers trying to hustle money from kids and couples, the sound of darts popping balloons, the triumphant music that plays before the obnoxiously difficult water shooting game.

You’re even glad to see the tourists in all of their Saturday glory, which isn’t so much “glory” as it is a sort of restlessness. Saturdays were always a strange day at the carnival; the last middle day before the grand finale. An unusual mixture of sleepiness, anticipation, and a buzz that held everyone together until tomorrow.

Strange day, strange faces. Some stranger than others. Staring up at the bell at the top of the Test Your Strength game is an exceptionally tall man with wild dirty blonde hair. By the size of his muscles, he might just break the game, which hadn’t been replaced in the many years you’d been coming here in the summer.

You tug on Chrollo’s arm and point the man out. “What do you want to bet the carnie will try to get him not to play? He might just break the thing…”

“I don’t doubt it.” Beside you, Chrollo snorts, but doesn’t linger on the man as he leads you further into the carnival.

The two of you walk, and talk. About nothing and everything. He asks you to come up with stories for a few tourists, and you do. Light ones. It really does take your mind off things. At some point, Chrollo buys you fries, which taste slightly sweet; probably cooked in the same oil as the funnel cakes.

You dig in your heels in front of the fun house, but Chrollo shakes his head, and won’t go in.

“Are you scared?” You tease. At night, the fun house was all lit up, and the clowns painted on the front had a ridiculously sinister air to them.

But Chrollo doesn’t smile or laugh. “They make me dizzy,” he says, quietly. There’s something behind his words, but you don’t know what. A medical problem? A bad experience? You apologize and then he does smile, shaking his head, at himself, or you, you’re not sure. “Think nothing of it, dear.”

Dear.

You want to hold onto that bit of affection like the sky holds onto the sunset on summer evenings. At least as long as you can, which tonight, seems to be until Chrollo takes you on the Ferris wheel again.

This time, he holds your hand as soon as the attendant locks the bar down. Your fingers interlock and squeeze and it sends butterflies rushing through your chest. What was there to worry about, to think about, when you were sitting next to him?

It takes a few turns around the Ferris wheel to remember what you were supposed to worry about, because on the trip down, your stomach fluttering from romance and gravity alike, you see him: the strange man. The stalker. The maybe-serial-killer-on-the-loose.

He’s standing still in the crowd walking here-and-there around the Ferris wheel, couples intent on getting in line, children running from tired parents as they beg for another carnival game.

And he’s staring straight up at you.

You don’t think this time. You grab Chrollo and point straight down and practically screech out the words: “There! He’s there! Look, look--look!”

And the stars must be aligned, because Chrollo actually sees him. His grip on your other hand tightens and he pulls you closer to him as you make your way back around the Ferris wheel and the man goes out of sight. By the time the two of you are at the top again, the stranger is gone.

Your goosebumps remain.

“We should talk to the police,” you murmur, a quiet, scratchy whisper.

Chrollo turns towards you. You recognize the look. The “Do you really think the police will do anything about this?” sort of look.

“I’ve been thinking…” You squeeze Chrollo’s hand and he squeezes back and that’s all you need to keep going. “That maybe he might have something to do with those people? The ones they found this morning?”

Chrollo’s eyes widen just a little. It’s both comforting and worrying to see him look taken aback, even if it’s only a bit.

“I heard…” You feel stupid saying this. But you shouldn’t feel stupid, not with Chrollo. He hasn’t given you a reason to feel like you can’t tell him things. “Someone at the diner today said they were found with puncture wounds on them. I was thinking, maybe… like an ice pick? Or a screwdriver or--I don’t know. But maybe they were killed.”

“Perhaps he’s a vampire,” Chrollo offers, voice low, lips curled into a smile, and your face must reflect the flash of offended shame that rushes into your chest, because he immediately apologizes. His sigh flutters against your cheek. “Well. He wouldn’t be the first killer to prey on crowds or small towns, would he?”

At least he didn’t say you were crazy to connect the two things, vampire joke aside.

He keeps you close once the ride is over, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ll inform the police,” he insists, when the two of you finally stumble on a pair of deputies patrolling the carnival. He leaves you standing next to the Test Your Strength game, where the carnival barker has agreed to keep an eye on you. It made you feel like a child, but for once, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing--to be watched and protected.

You watch, biting your nails now and then, as Chrollo and the deputies talk. In the end, they shake his hand, and you feel cool relief in your stomach. The police will know what to do with the information. If this guy’s a killer, they’ll catch him. If he’s not, well. The carnival was almost over, and you wouldn’t have to worry about him much longer.

Things will be normal soon.

When Chrollo returns, you take his arm without hesitation, but this time he begins to lead you away from the carnival.

“I was thinking,” he says, “that we might go for a walk. Get away for a bit. If you don’t mind, that is.”

You don’t mind at all.

“Do you like trails?” You ask, steering him towards a trail that leads from the beach to a popular hiking spot for locals. “It’d be a bit more private. As long as you’re not scared of the dark.”

Chrollo chuckles. It’s a warm, dark, rich sound, and it sends a delightful thrill right through you.

“I’m not if you aren’t,” is all he says, and that’s enough for you to point out the way.

Thoughts of dead bodies and stalkers fade away with the carnival, whose sights and sounds fade bit by bit as you and Chrollo leave the beach and begin making your way into a wooded area with a paved hiking path lit on the other side by electric trail lights.

“I’m surprised to see these,” Chrollo says, quietly. He pulled his phone out at the start of the trail to give the two of you more light, though the trail lights were decent enough, especially since you’d been up here more times than you could count.

“Mm,” you murmur. “Locals come up here all the time at night. Especially teens. Usually to make out and stuff.” Chrollo gives you a look and your cheeks hit up, but you don’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to know about your high school escapades. “They added them to avoid the inevitable lost-teen-in-the-woods-at-night rescue scenario, I think.”

“Clever,” he says.

The waterfall is loud when you’re this close; so loud you can’t hear anything in the moment but your own thoughts, which have grown louder and louder somewhere between the hiking trail and this popular waterfall spot. So popular that it’s lit with a flood light near the top--supposedly a teenager slipped in one night and drowned in the shallow pool, though you’ve never been certain if it was a true story or not.

Regardless, you’re not sure you want to stay. No--you know you don’t want to stay.

This is a bit much, is what your thoughts are starting to scream. Chrollo is nice, but you don’t really know him, do you? And you just walked somewhere alone with him in the dark after being surprised by a maybe-stalker, the day that three people were found dead around here.

Yeah. A bit much might be an understatement. You should really get back to where there’s more lights and people and civilization in general. If Chrollo is a nice person (and he is, you insist, you’re just being smart!) he won’t mind.

“I think we should go back,” you say, but Chrollo can’t hear you. So you cup your hands around your mouth and lean closer to his ears. “I think we should go back!”

You expect him to nod and take your arm and lead you carefully down the lantern-lit trail, perhaps still using his phone to guide the way. Instead, he takes your chin in his hands--you move to jerk it out, you’d rather wait until you’re back at the carnival to kiss again--but his grip is impossibly strong.

“It’s all right,” he says, and it’s the strangest thing, you can hear him so clearly despite the roaring waterfall just a few feet in front of you. “You know that you’re safe with me. You don’t want to go back yet.”

How strange. How silly. Why did you want to leave, when you just got here? You didn’t even show him the best part yet.

“Come on!” It’s your turn to pull him along as you carefully walk the path leading to the front of the waterfall, which has already begun to soak water through your clothes.

“Is there a cave?” Chrollo asks--and again, you’re struck by how easy it is to hear him, despite the water rushing down in front of you.

“You sure know your way around local watering holes,” you jest.

He merely smiles. “I travel a lot.”

With that, you grip his arm tighter and run through the waterfall, shrieking in delight. Both of you emerge on the other side soaked; you, grinning, and Chrollo, looking around with interest.

The inside of the cave was lined with endless rows of fairy lights, courtesy of a local high school group. They had also brought in the two couches--used leather, frayed and flecking, but good enough for a hang out. When you were younger, there were only folding chairs; which were great for sitting, not so much for much less.

“Do you like it?” You ask, then feel stupid. Why do you care so much what he thinks of some local hang out spot, especially one you hadn’t been in for ages? The same reason why you’d spent all day telling him about your daydreams, about small town memories, bits and pieces of local lore that he didn’t brush aside but seemed to enjoy hearing.

Chrollo was so different from the others you’ve met at the summer carnival.

Maybe that’s why your heart begins to beat fast the moment you catch his eye again. His skin looks almost dewy in the glow of the lights, thanks to the water; his eyes shine, reflecting a soft, warm twinkling glow.

It’s just the two of you. No tourists, no locals, no would-be stalkers. Even the carnival itself seems far away; the lights blocked from view by the rushing water and canopy of the forest, even the wafting smell of popcorn and stale beer was long gone out here.

It was just you and Chrollo in a cave at the end of the evening.

But… it didn’t have to be the end of the evening, did it?

You ask him, this time.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“I do,” he says. “Very much so.”

This time, your kiss is tinged with the tang of river water.

Five bodies lay scattered in the grass. Young men, young women. Teens that had been giggling and stumbling through the forest, flasks of pilfered whiskey in their bags.

Now some dead and going cold, their limbs twisted, their mouths open in silent screams.

Two were still alive, whimpering, weak hands beating against monsters’ chests as open mouths hungrily lapped up their life blood. They had screamed, all of them, but no one could hear them in the woods--over the water.

“This is a lovely spot,” said a woman, brushing back her blonde hair. A bit of red gore had stuck to the strands and she tsked at the sight of it. “The waterfall adds a nice touch.”

The man hummed, and stuck his hands in his pockets. The slightest touch of red showed on his lips; like a woman pressing her lipstick-covered mouth onto a bit of tissue to get rid of the excess.

The carnage made him indifferent; the whimpers of the dying, even more so. But as he looked around at the carefully placed lights on the trail, the way they flickered against the waterfall and its hidden cavern like delicate stars, he smiled.

“It came highly recommended.”

Sunday: The Final Day

Chrollo was in your bed last night, and you thought he’d be there in the morning. But when the sound of birds pulls you delightfully out of a restful sleep and you blink your eyes open to dappled sunlight through your blinds, you realize that the bed is half-empty.

Just you and the sheets and the leftover smell of Chrollo--cologne and, more faintly, sweat and sex.

You freeze, listening for the sound of someone meandering about an unfamiliar kitchen. He could be up and about already--making coffee or breakfast. The image of him serving up a plate of bacon and eggs almost makes you laugh.

But the apartment is silent, save for your breathing, the sound of a clock ticking in the living room.

Your heart lurches and shame pricks at the back of your eyelids. He fucked you and ran, didn’t he? Just like the others, just like--

But just when you’re about to give into the temptation to scrub yourself all over with hot water and erase every trace of Chrollo that ever existed in your presence, you see it: a piece of paper, torn from a notebook you keep on your dresser. Carefully folded over and placed on the side table next to the bed.

Your name is on it, written in a surprisingly beautiful, scrawling hand.

Curiosity and leftover shame-tinged dread curl together in your stomach as you sit up and slowly pick up the note.

Dear--

Your heart lurches again, for a different reason this time.

I apologize that I did not give you a proper farewell. I had an urgent matter to attend to. Forgive me, won’t you? We will see each other tonight, I hope, for a memorable and unforgettable evening.

Of course he didn’t fuck and run. He wouldn’t do that. And tonight would be--well, memorable and unforgettable, just as he said.

The pitter-pattering inside your chest takes on a new delightful cadence as you get yourself ready for the day. No work--you had Sundays off, thank God, maybe literally, for that. It was a shame Chrollo didn’t tell you where he was staying; presumably, the only hotel in town. But maybe he was at one of the B&Bs or was shacking up at a room for rent.

It would be nice to see him in the daytime, too.

But he didn’t, so you’re left with nothing to do but flick on the TV and make yourself a cereal bowl. Well, that’s wrong. That’s not the only thing you could do. You could go to your parent’s house and help out your mom; she could use a break with caring for your dad.

But… was it wrong to be selfish, just a little, for just one day? You didn’t want to see Chrollo tonight with something unpleasant sticking inside you, on the potential chance that your dad was having a not-so-great day.

It was better to approach your last evening together with a sunnier attitude.

Although you don’t really have a choice, because the first thing you see when the news returns from a commercial break is a giant banner scrolling across the screen: TWO MISSING TEENS FOUND DEAD AT LOCAL WATERFALL. POPULAR TRAIL CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

In the background, the sheriff recites familiar lines about respecting the privacy of the dead, about putting the full energy of the police force into finding the investigation, about how there is no need to panic. He says that it may not have even been foul play.

Somehow, you don’t believe that. You just know.

Sugary cereal seems to lodge itself inside your throat. You were just there. You were just there, kissing Chrollo, holding his hand, and now two teenagers are dead and lifeless and, and--

And if it was that same man… the one who was staring at you, stalking you… how close did you and Chrollo come to dying last night?

Tears prick at your eyes and you grab your purse. Maybe you would spend the day with your parents, after all.

You should be more excited to see Chrollo. And you are, truly. But between the news this morning and the dull realization that this would be your last evening together ever, it’s hard to feel too enthused.

Chrollo would be going home after tonight. Tourist trap over, no need to stick around. Something childish in you thinks: maybe I can convince him to stay a little longer. And if he stays a little longer, he’ll see how nice it is here (it’s not) and maybe he’ll want to settle down (he won’t).

Oh, how stupid. It’s like when you’d meet the endless stream of New Best Friends every summer weekend as a kid, and you’d beg their parents together to extend their vacation.

It wasn’t going to happen. You’ll never see him again after tonight, and you’ll go your separate ways, and that’s that.

Reality sucks sometimes.

You’re still stuck in the dreary shit cloud that is reality when Chrollo’s now somewhat familiar footsteps approach you on the bench. The bench, your spot--your spot? As if you and Chrollo had anything that could be called an actual relationship that warranted the use of “your” plural.

You shake your head, hoping it shakes those silly childish delusions, and force yourself to smile.

Chrollo, to your surprise, doesn’t smile back.

Instead, he leans down, and takes your hand. His eyes roam over your fingers like they’re something special and it makes your stomach flutter stupidly.

“You seem a bit sad,” he says, bringing your knuckles to his lips for a kiss. The way that makes you feel is something you love and hate in almost equal measure. It’s not fair, is it, that he makes you feel this way--when he has to leave, and you’ll never see him again.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that you will part ways after tonight that makes you speak freely.

“I’m just sad that you’ll be leaving.” He blinks at you, and turns his head a little. “That we won’t see each other after tonight,” you clarify.

You expect him to nod and agree, and perhaps say something trite but comforting, like, “We’ll just make the most of it.”

Instead, he gives your hand a squeeze.

“We don’t have to part, you know.”

It’s your turn to blink. A silly, little-kid-in-you hope does a twirl. He could stay--and this could maybe, possibly, in some far off millimeter of a chance, turn into something more serious than a summer fling. “You could extend your vacation? Your job would do that?”

Chrollo finally smiles at you.

“My life is flexible. But,” and now he pulls you up so that you’re standing. It’s a fluid, easy gesture for him, almost too easy--he’s stronger than he looks. “I was thinking that instead of staying here, you would come with me.”

The world around you is not silent. The carnival is always producing an eternal cacophony of sounds--screaming patrons hung upside down on the more thrilling of rides, cheery carousel music, laughter, popcorn endlessly beating like a fast paced drum, everything and anything all mixed together into a swirl of sound.

But it might as well be silent, because you feel like all you can hear is your heartbeat in your eyes for a few stretched moments.

“What? You’re not serious.” You smile, too, but it feels fake. Like it’s plastered on and cracking underneath. There’s a brief thought--maybe he means, like, for a weekend?--but you instantly know that’s not what he’s talking about.

This is too much, too fast. Too out of the blue.

Chrollo looks at you in a way that almost makes you uncomfortable. Like he wants to see something inside you that you’re keeping for yourself. Then that gaze is gone and he’s smiling softly, charming, a little bittersweet.

Bittersweet is familiar territory, and the ringing in your ears fades in favor of a carnival barker offering 2-for-1 prizes on the Test-Your-Strength game.

Chrollo’s voice cuts through it all, jovial, unassuming.

“We can talk about it later, if you’d like. Let’s go enjoy the carnival a bit more before the concert.”

That would be nice.

“I’d like that.”

And you mean it--you do. You shake your head and let Chrollo intertwine his fingers in yours, and it doesn’t take long for his question to fade away from your mind as you weave in and out of the crowds.

If you weren’t so distracted, so disarmed, you might have noticed an uncomfortably familiar figure clad in black watching the pair of you intently.

The Ferris Wheel worker should have kicked you off several spins ago, but Chrollo had slipped him a twenty as he buckled the safety bar down. It’s nice, this extra time with him--it’ll be the last time you ride the Ferris wheel together, after all.

What did it say about the state of your love life--or your life in general, actually--that slipping a carnie 20 bucks made your heart soar (and twist, and ache) even a little bit?

The night is prettier from the Ferris wheel. The world, too. Up here, you can’t see the grit and grime. The fermenting candy apples littering the ground, dropped two days ago by careless kids; the too-drunk couples arguing about whether they should stay for the concert or not; the exhausted carnival workers smiling hard no matter how much they get yelled at for their rigged games.

All you can take in from up here is the broad vantage point. Crowds and happy sounds--squeals and music interplaying above crowds of people, including a growing crowd on the beach in front of the black stage, waiting for the concert to start.

Chrollo’s grip on your hand tightens and draws your attention back to him. Even he looks more beautiful from up here, with the rainbow lights of the Ferris wheel playing on his face.

“I’ve enjoyed our time together,” he says softly.

Ah, you realize. The extra spins were for the inevitable “we’ll never see each other again but it was a blast” speech. You knew it was coming. Doesn’t make it any less bitter in your mouth. But what good is holding bitterness against your tongue?

“Me too,” you say, and it’s not a lie, even if you hate the way the conversation must end. You try to focus less on the sourness and more on the sweet that came before. After all, Chrollo was… well. Handsome, yes, magnetic, yes. But more than that. He seemed thoughtful. He listened to you prattle on about yourself and your small town, and he didn’t even make fun of you for knowing so many local stories.

He was good in bed, too, wasn’t he? You blink and realize you don’t actually remember all that much about last night, except that he wasn’t there in the morning. Vague snatches rush through your memory. You remember his mouth on your lips, his hand trailing against your skin, removing your clothes. You remember his mouth against your neck, then this teeth, nipping, and--

It’s all fuzzy. But you weren’t drunk. So why--

“Have you thought about what I said?” He asks, and once again you’re pulled away from your thoughts, although this time you’d like to focus on them. Why couldn’t you fully remember last night?

When you don’t answer, he raises his eyebrows.

“About coming with me,” he says, a bit louder, as if you can’t hear him over the carnival din.

You let out a soft puff of a breath, then, and force yourself to focus on the current conversation. For now.

“You’re serious?” You don’t mean to sound so flippant, but you do. Chrollo frowns, just a little, and you feel like a bitch for it. “Sorry. I just--I didn’t know if you really meant it.”

“I am,” is all he says.

You didn’t like the idea of the conversation headed towards Chrollo leaving, but you like the idea of him genuinely asking you to come with him even less. Partly because you know you never could, and partly because there’s some small, stupid, fantasy-of-your-hair-blowing-in-the-wind-wearing-a-leather-jacket-on-a-motorcycle part of you that wants to say yes.

“Chrollo, I can’t do that. I have a job here. A life.”

Chrollo doesn’t let go of your hand, but you can sense the way his muscles tense.

“A job at a local diner slinging hash browns,” he says, voice dry and almost hurtful. You must look offended--are you? You can’t tell--because he turns a little in the seat, trapping you with his gaze. His voice is earnest now, drawing you in.

“Don’t you want more out of life? The ability to pursue your dreams--to figure out your dreams?” One hand goes to your cheek, and his knuckle brushes against your skin. “You could travel. See so much more than your little town. Imagine it.”

An image starts to build in your mind. Unbidden by you, but there, somehow, nonetheless. Of you riding behind him on a motorcycle, holding onto his waist as he takes you wherever you want to go--wherever he wants to go, together. Life would be wild and unpredictable, but easy and fun and--

“My family,” you murmur, and Chrollo seems surprised that you’ve spoken.

His lips press thinner. “You could write to them, call them. No matter at all.”

Whatever fantasy has built in your head gets swept away and the Ferris wheel finally comes to a stop. The seat rocks back and forth and the bored (but $20 richer) carnie lets you off. Chrollo helps you as he’s done every time.

You wait until he’s escorted you away from the Ferris wheel to turn and address him.

“Chrollo, I can’t--” You try to find the right words, but there are no right words. “I don’t know you. Not… really. Not enough to give up my life here.”

Chrollo is quiet. He considers you, turning his head a little. You feel awful--maybe you should just end the night here, on this shitty, sour note, because you’ve probably ruined the rest of the evening anyway. You wish he hadn’t asked again before the night was over, but there’s no way to fix it now.

You’re ready to leave, to bite your cheek so tears don’t come. You’re prepared for Chrollo to say something low and insulting, to dismiss you, because why should he waste another minute on someone who would rather stay here in this shitpot of a town than--

“Come along,” is what he says, finally, holding out his hand--to your utter confusion. He still wants to go to the concert? With you? Now?

But you take his hand anyway.

“It would be wasteful to end our evening early and miss the concert.”

His grip is harder than it has been, but maybe you’re imagining it as he pulls you along, weaving in and out as the crowds grow larger and a little more drunk the closer the pair of you get to the beach.

This doesn’t feel right, suddenly. He’s upset, that’s why he’s holding you so tightly. Or maybe you’re upset and imagining it. Either way, it doesn’t feel good. Your primal gut instincts are telling you that it’s better to cut your losses and leave now, then to spend the night with a flipping stomach.

“Maybe I should just go home,” you yell over the crowd.

Chrollo stops, and you stumble forward a little, but he catches you in both arms before you make an ungraceful acquaintance with the ground. The hand not gripping your own gently grasps your chin and he leans in, not quite kissing you. His breath smells off, like rust.

“And miss the grand finale?”

You should insist on going home. Everything’s gone shitty. It’s too crowded and the music will be too loud, and Chrollo is clearly irritated with you--

“Come to the concert,” he whispers, and none of that seems to matter anymore. Of course, you’ll go to the concert. What else would you do?

He keeps his grip on your hand as you walk onto the warm, crowded sands of the beach, even though you have no intention of leaving.

Booze, sweat, and popcorn. That’s all you can really smell now, surrounded as you are by crowds of people jumping and swaying to some rock band you’ve never heard of before; but no one really cares what the music sounds like on a night like this, when alcohol has been flowing and summer is at its peak.

Even Chrollo seems to be enjoying himself, although he’s not dancing. Just holding you, his arm around your waist, pressing his lips now and then to your forehead.

You feel bad. That must be why there’s a pit in your stomach. You were being rude to him. Of course he’d ask you to come with him--if he’s the type to live so freely, he wouldn’t think twice about making the offer. He just doesn’t understand what it means to be rooted down, willingly or not, the way you are.

You can’t hold something like that against him, so you don’t.

Instead, you sway to the music, hips bumping against Chrollo now and then. Maybe after this, he could come back to your apartment again, for one last…

All thoughts in your head are stomped into the stand when you spot the strange man with the cowl in the crowd. He’s standing stock still while everyone around him jumps and dances and flaps their drunken arms.

And he’s looking right at you.

“Chrollo--” There’s no time to waste, and you grab his arm and jerk him towards the direction of the stranger.

But he’s gone. He’s just fucking gone. Cold terror seizes your chest.

“What is it, love?”

The nickname doesn’t even register.

“That--the man--the guy from before--he was there.” Your voice begins to tremble, frightened tears welling in your eyes. “Can we leave? Please?”

Chrollo pulls you closer to him and you feel dim comfort as he wraps his arms around you and presses his lips against your head. But he doesn’t tell you that of course, we’ll leave, of course, I’ll get you somewhere safe, of course, let’s talk to the police.

“Hush.” One hand begins to pet your hair. “Not much longer now. It’ll be over soon.”

“What do you…”

Behind Chrollo, you see another familiar face. Vaguely familiar. The tall man with wild blonde hair, the one who looked like he could snap the Test Your Strength Game in half if he really wanted to--he’s standing still, like the man from before, while everyone jostles happily around him. He’s not looking at you, but that doesn’t make it any less unnerving.

Your eyes dart over the crowd.

There are others, standing still. Others who seem out of place immediately, either because of their appearance or something awful you can’t describe. A woman with pink hair looking impassively as she scans the crowded beach, keeping her body perfectly still. A man with long black hair and something shiny and thin strapped to his shoulder. A woman with blonde hair in a smart black tailored suit that no one in their right mind would wear to a summer night carnival concert. Others, too, all out of place and making you want to be anywhere but here.

And then in a few blinks, they’re all gone. Like they were never there.

Dizziness overtakes you, along with a strange sort of fuzzy fear. Is this what a heart attack feels like, maybe? No, it’s just panic. Understandable but undeniably awful panic.

“Chrollo,” you manage, voice shaky. “Something’s wrong. There’s people, they seem--it’s---I don’t know how to explain, we should--I think we ought to--”

Chrollo doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns you around, keeping you in his arms as he makes you face the stage.

“You’ll miss the concert,” he whispers in your ear.

Helpless irritation courses through you. Who cares about the concert right now? You have half a mind to ask him why he’s not listening to you, but that impulse is gone the moment you see the tall man with blonde hair and impossibly large muscles leap onto the stage.

The guitars and drums come to a confusing, stuttered halt. The lead singer, clad in an oversized black t-shirt with a skull on it, looks like he wants to throw his guitar at the intruder.

“Dude, what the fuck, we’re playing up here, you can’t just--”

Even from your vantage point, you can see the large grin the blonde man sports on his face as he raises his fist and knocks the lead singer’s head off with a single punch.

The body remains standing for a moment before collapsing without grace onto the stage. Blood spurts from the wound, spritzing high enough that it sprinkles the faces of those closest to the stage.

There’s a noise from the crowd that almost, for a moment, sounds like a burst of startled laughter.

And then the blonde man leaps onto the corpse, opens his mouth until it’s gaping far too wide to be human, and begins to suck on the headless neck like a crawfish.

It’s that moment when people finally begin to scream.

Your head jerks towards one of the screams, and she’s there--the woman with the pink hair. Latched onto someone’s neck while blood dribbles from her mouth and the person, eyes bugged out, cries out in wordless pain. His body is cross-crossed with strange cuts, like someone pressed him through a sieve.

You spin around, looking away from horror, only to see it again: the man with the long hair swings something out--a sword?--and strikes someone’s arm clean off his body, then pins that person down and begins to suck at the spurting blood.

That’s not all he hit. The person in front of them, a woman holding two drinks, staggers to the ground. Half her face slides off, revealing bone and brain. Lukewarm beer and gore meet the ground together.

You’re not entirely sure if you said Chrollo’s name, or when he let you go, or what you should do. All you know is that when you finally pull yourself together enough to look at him, he’s simply watching the events around you like a boring television show.

Like people aren’t screaming and running and bumping into you. Like blood isn’t flying. Like you aren’t seeing things that you’ve only seen in shitty horror movies.

He’s in shock. Fuck. So are you, maybe? But it will be up to you to get the pair of you to safety, so you grab his arm and shake him hard.

“Chrollo! We have to go! Now!”

He doesn’t move. You shake him again, and he finally looks at you.

He smiles, and holds out his hand, ignoring your jostling.

“You’ve had time to think about it, haven’t you? Will you stay with me?”

Oh, he’s definitely in shock. That doesn’t stop the impulsive words that flee your mouth as quickly as the people around you are trying--some not successfully--to flee the beach.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind. Let’s go!”

You don’t register what’s happened until you’ve hit the ground. Someone finally ran smack into you, and something--their elbow, maybe--strikes your head, hard. Pain blossoms in your knees and the side of your head when you hit the ground, then explodes when someone steps right on your hand.

There’s a feeling of lost gravity when someone yanks you up--Chrollo--but when you’re on your own two feet, he’s not there anymore.

You call his name. Once. Twice. Three times, four. He might not be able to even hear you over the din, if he’s nearby. Maybe he got swept away by the panicked people. Maybe his shock wore off and he ran to get help. Or ran--and left you.

There are a few moments where you almost run deeper into the crowd to look for him. A stupid thought. But then the wild, shock of fear inside you turns to complete ice and you’re not sure of anything in the world because he’s there.

Standing in front of you.

Close enough to touch.

Your stalker. The man with the cowl. Only the cowl is down, now, and his mouth is covered in a smear of blood. He smiles at you, and it’s not a nice smile at all. His smile grows wider, and you have to blink several times to realize what you’re seeing.

He’s got fangs.

Two of them, red tinged. Sharp enough to puncture your neck.

They’re vampires. Actual vampires. Actual, damn bloodsucking vampires.

There’s a brief, panicked thought--where’s Chrollo?--before your flight kicks in, and you’re scrambling through the crowd like everyone else. You stumble, of course you do. Over bodies, some dead, and you almost fall flat on your face when you make it off the beach and your ankle rolls on the uneven grass-covered ground.

If you were thinking logically, you might have run to the car park, and hopped into your car. You might have run in the direction of the crowds thinking the same, and gotten lost in them.

But there was no logic. Only pure primal panic, the realization that you people were being murdered all around you like animals, and you were one of those animals because one of the monsters was chasing you.

You didn’t dare to look back to see how far away he was; you just knew, deep down, that he was following you now. Running wouldn’t work: you couldn’t run forever, not with the pain in your ankle, and he’d catch up with you even if you weren’t panicked and in pain.

You had to hide. But where? The carnival was all lit up at night, and the beautiful lights that had been fun to see just a day before now made you want to scream. He could see you, just about clear as day, no matter where you ran.

Unless you can find somewhere to hide inside.

It’s this thought that pushes you to dash inside the fun house, sneakers pounding on the silver ramp leading into the entrance painted over like a mouth devouring any children who enter.

The stillness inside startles you more than anything else. The lights are on. The music is playing, quiet, delightful. It’s hard to hear it over the dulled screams coming from outside, and from the awful, pounding rush inside your ears.

You follow the short hallway until it leads to something which you’d forgotten about; but it wasn’t your fault. Panic made you stupid, and you hadn’t actually been inside a fun house in years.

The glass maze. All-see through panels that you’d smash into on an ordinary day, much less this one, where your mind is fried from panic and adrenaline keeps your body from coordinating properly. You smash against the panels a few times before you see it… something, behind you.

No. Not something. Someone behind you. Or near you. Or far away.

You can’t tell exactly where this person is, because of the fucking glass maze, but the fact remains:

He’s there--he’s here--he’s going to get you and kill you and it will hurt so bad.

You scream, at some point, and it’s dumb because the sound simply bounces off your current glass predicament and hurts your ears.

Maybe panic pushes you through, or maybe you’re just good at completing mazes when you’re in fear for your life; whatever the reason, you make it out. You stumble through a hallway made of rollers that nearly send you sprawling, until you’re at the end of the hallway.

A small red spiral staircase, barely usable for adults, is your only hope.

You don’t try to be quiet now and the metal stairs clang under your feet as you run up them, feeling dizzy, feeling like this might be the last thing you ever do in your short, stupid life.

The second floor isn’t entirely enclosed. It opens out onto the carnival in the front, and there’s a slide to take you down near the end. The wall behind you is covered in a series of mirrors--the kind that make you tall or short or wide or impossibly thin.

It’s not the mirrors that catch your eye, though. It’s what’s down below.

They’re all down there. The monsters from the beach. All covered in various amounts of blood and gore. Splatters. Smears. Like they’ve all gotten into different scrapes--killed people different ways.

All of them have blood around their mouths.

Fear rings in your ears. You want to wake up, more than anything. This is a nightmare and you want to wake up.

You don’t wake up.

Instead, you hear a metal clang.

Then another.

And another.

Someone is coming up the stairs.

Thoughts dart here and there, but there’s nowhere for them to go. If you go down the slide, well. There’s a gang of monsters waiting to kill you down below. If you stay up here, well. There’s still a monster waiting to kill you.

The metal clangs again, and again, and again.

He’s coming up the stairs and he’s going to kill you. You’re going to die. Today. Now.

Warm urine runs down your leg and thoughts come, too quick to really process: Mom-dad-school-work-never-did-anything-my-childhood-dog-that-one-time-we-went-to-Canada-to-visit-my-aunt-I-kissed-a-boy-under-the-bleachers-I-forgot-to-tell-dad-I-loved-him-yesterday-I-I-I--

It’s not the monster with the cowl who comes walking up the landing of the stairs.

It’s Chrollo.

It’s like you blink and you’re in his arms, clinging to his shirt and sobbing like a child. He presses a kiss to your hair and you realize, gratefully, that he doesn’t look hurt. No blood on him, no scrapes, no bruises.

“Thank God you’re here. Thank God you’re okay,” you say, reflexively. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”

Chrollo pulls you tighter against his chest, and murmurs, “God? An interesting choice, my dear, considering…”

You aren’t even really listening. You’re just happy. Delirious, even. Chrollo’s here. He’ll help you. You can make it out together. Somehow.

There’s an almost giddy sort of hope in your chest--until you hear the metal stairs clang again. And again. And again.

You whimper stupidly and pull on Chrollo’s arm.

“We have to get out of here. Somehow. I don’t--maybe we can distract them?” Your eyes glance down at the monsters below you, who only seem to be watching more intently. The man with the blonde hair, which is now caked in blood, has an awful grin on his face. You imagine you can see his fangs, even if he’s too far away for you to properly make them out.

Chrollo doesn’t move. Shock again? Or he sees them, too, and knows the two of you won’t make it a step off the slide before being attacked.

The footsteps on the stairs stop. You look behind you, and your bowels clench at the sight of the monster with the cowl, pulled down, that same small, mean smile on his face.

Your hand tightens on Chrollo’s arm. A sentimental, if selfish, thought: At least I won’t die alone.

Chrollo turns, too, and looks at the man who’s been haunting you for days. Looks at the monster who has already killed people and feasted on their blood; at the creature who will now undoubtedly kill the both of you. Lovers for only a few days, but forever in death.

Chrollo sighs, and inclines his head towards the man.

“Wait a moment, will you, Feitan?”

There were many things you might have said in this moment. Eloquent things. Meaningful things. Things borne from inner betrayal and horror and anger. But all that comes out of your mouth, which gapes ridiculously, is:

“Huh?”

And then something clicks, and realization dawns like a morning you don’t think you’ll live to see. The idea comes naturally, somehow. Borne of a childhood reading books and watching movies about vampires. Bloodsuckers.

Your head turns, and you look over towards the wall of mirrors. You’re stretched thin like taffy about to break, your features a jumble in the dirty, cheap material.

In the mirror in front of Chrollo, which should make him ridiculously short, there is nothing at all.

When you look back at him, your eyes wide and pupils blown, he’s no longer the person you met a few days ago; the person you took to your bed, the person you were lamenting leaving. The person who kissed you and made you feel good, inside and out, if only for a while.

He’s a vampire.

“I advise you not to run,” he says quietly, if not, perhaps, a bit sympathetically.

You do, because you aren’t a fucking moron. Though you don’t make it far, as it doesn’t do you any good to run towards the staircase. You run right towards the other monster--Feitan--who grabs you with ease.

He’s faster and stronger than he looks. Maybe they all are. Your body and brain don’t care about that, though, so you struggle with all of your might.

In response, your arm is deftly twisted behind your back and you expect this monster to stop, you expect your arm to meet its natural resistance while you struggle.

He doesn’t. It doesn’t. Your arm snaps and the pain is so sharp, so sudden, that your vision goes blind for a few seconds. In those few seconds, you scream.

When you’re aware of the world again, there’s still the pain. Sharp and awful and renewed every time you jostle your body in any direction.

Chrollo, walking up to you, hums in sympathy.

“I know it hurts, dear. But this is what happens when you don’t listen to my orders. Do you understand?”

The strangest thing (and in a world where the man you fucked last night is currently standing in front of you with fangs, that is saying something) is that Chrollo’s expression is not wild or monstrous at all. If you thought about it, and you’re having a hard time thinking with the pain of your arm and fear of impending death, you might say he looks hopeful. That you will understand. That you have learned something.

And you have. You’ve learned that he’s a liar, that everything he ever said and did was just to keep you around long enough to literally eat you, that he has no morals, no empathy, that he’s not even a person.

“I understand,” you manage, voice tinged and weak with pain, “that you’re a fucking monster.” You spit at him. Or try to. Your mouth is too dry to manage more than a stringy dribble that sticks to your chin.

At this, Chrollo sighs. He shoves his hands in his pockets and frowns.

“You didn’t speak so crudely to me earlier this week.” A little smile. “Last night notwithstanding.”

Bitter tears well up in your eyes. It was all just a game to him. Cat and mouse. Every smile, every thoughtful word. Every kiss. Your bodies pressed together, his mouth on yours--

“I didn’t know you were a… a… fucking vampire earlier this week.”

Chuckles, from down below. Feitan, behind you, snorts.

Chrollo doesn’t look angry, but you can feel a flash of it ripple through the air. It quiets the chuckles. Feitan tightens his grip on you, and the flash of pain makes you groan and slump forward.

“Regardless,” Chrollo says, “respect must be maintained. I expect you to refrain from these little outbursts. Do you understand?” There’s still a tinge of cooing sympathy in his voice--it makes anger bubble up in your chest.

“Fuck you.” This time, the spit flies, and hits his cheek.

The gestures are slow. Unassuming. He wipes the spit off with the back of his hand. He wipes the back of his hand on his pants. And then he nods at Feitan.

Feitan’s hand reaches around your throat and when you glance down, you see that his nails grow. And sharpen. Sharp enough to cut, sharp enough to--

He drags his hand down your collarbone, and you feel the awful, deep sting of it before you see the blood spill out from your flesh. It coats the bare skin between your collar and the top of your shirt like some sort of morbid camisole.

You cry out, you shriek, but he doesn’t let you go until Chrollo gives him another nod. You’re shoved towards Chrollo, who doesn’t grip you, but merely lets you stand, swaying, in front of you.

When you finally get the courage to look up at him, his pupils are blown up like a shark’s.

“I’d like you to stay put this time,” he tells you, voice deeper, richer, at the sight of your blood. “And not run away from me. I’d like you to listen, and refrain from being… impulsive.”

He leans in, and the scent of rust hits you, but this time you know what it means. “I could make you do it, you know. I don’t have to ask.”

Realization hits you again, and it hurts even more this time. That night, on the dock. And on the Ferris wheel. And how many other times he’d told you to do something, feel something. What was really you, and what was him?

And now, despite all this, despite the scent of blood in the air and the wails of horror coming from the beach, he wanted you to listen to him? The audacity of vampires--it might have been funny, if you were in the mood to laugh.

“Like hell,” you mutter.

Chrollo breathes out through his nose. Impatient.

“I don’t believe I heard you, dear.”

You look up at him, gaze sharper. Heart sharper.

“Like. Hell.”

The slap you give him is weak. You’re surprised your good arm even managed it, all things considered.

But the shock of the act that ripples from Chrollo to Feitan and even down below is what gives you a few microseconds to escape, to run, ears ringing from the pain of your jostled broken arm, and throw yourself down the slide.

You don’t have a plan. How could you? As soon as you get to the bottom, you’ll just run. Run and maybe die but maybe you’ll get away, someway, somehow.

You don’t get more than a few steps before you fall. Not fall, exactly. Trip. You trip over something that shouldn’t be there, something taught and thin. A wire?

You see, from the corner of your vision, the woman with pink hair yank her hand backwards and the wire that shouldn’t be there slices deeply into both your ankles. Blood seeps through your socks before you even hit the ground.

Your ankles burn and bleed, and new sparks explode behind your eyes when your broken arm smacks the ground at the worst possible ankle. You think you scream, but it’s hard to tell, over the pain.

Chrollo and Feitan jump down from the second story of the fun house. It should break their ankles--it does not.

Someone turns you over on your back with their boot and you’re left staring up at the sky, ink black and throbbing with stars. It was such a pretty night, before all this.

Above you, Chrollo and Feitan look down with decidedly different expressions. Chrollo regards you coolly, with no real expression on his face; it’s like a porcelain mask, indifferent, never-changing. Feitan, on the other hand, is smiling--he’s looking not at you, exactly, but at your blood.

It’s Chrollo who speaks.

“I would like an apology for your behavior.”

If your eyes were not safely attached to their retinas, they might bug out of your face entirely. You are laying on your back with bleeding, mangled ankles; your arm is broken, flopping, useless; a collar of blood adorns your neck. Vampires are standing above you, fangs at the ready, having already spread carnage through an entire beach of concert-goers.

And he wants an apology?

You want him to go away. To not be real.

You want your mom, and your dad, and your childhood bed with covers big enough to hide you.

So you shake your head, helpless, like an infant lying on their back.

Above you, Chrollo says your name. Sternly. Just once.

When you muster up the words, you taste copper. You must have bitten your tongue after tripping.

“F…fuck you.”

Stupid words, you know. But you’d rather your last words be this than pointless begging. Now that would be stupid, begging for your life in front of grotesque creatures who want nothing more than to devour your blood.

Somewhere above you, a gruff voice says, with a hint of glee in his voice:

“Want me to do it, boss?”

Your eyes dart around, but you can’t see anyone else. Even Feitan seems to have stepped back, leaving you with no one but Chrollo in your line of sight.

Chrollo tilts his head a little, considering.

“No,” he says, finally. “Feitan will handle it. I appreciate your methods, but you might break something a little beyond repair.”

Whoever spoke chuckles, but doesn’t disagree.

The words reach you, but you don’t take them in for a slow moment.

Break… break… what else can they break, what else can they possibly do--

There’s a weight above you. A dark one that smells of blood and metal. It’s Feitan. He blocks out everything else, just for a moment, staring into your eyes with their big pupils and blurring tears.

When he pulls back, you see him move, but don’t know what it means until you feel an explosion of red hot pain in your hand--the hand you slapped Chrollo with. Your fingers crunch and break and you try to pull your hand away, but Feitan’s boot keeps it pinned down, grinding his heel until you shriek so loud that you think the inside of your throat will blister.

Time itself is hot and painful. You’re not sure how long it goes. You’re only sure that when you try to move your mangled fingers, they don’t move. Hot, thick pain shoots down them and it makes you stop trying to get up.

It’s not like you could run, anyway.

At some point, you hear a new sound. Sirens in the distance. Police? Ambulances? There’s no hope in your chest, no thought that they’ll save you. Even if they got here in time, the monsters would kill them.

Somewhere above you, Chrollo talks, though his words sound like they’re being spoken through water.

“Take care of them, will you? We’ll meet up near the waterfall before we head out.” A question from someone. A pause. “Yes, I’ll handle her.”

The voices fade away. Either because they’ve walked away, or you’re finally going to die from the shock. That might be a mercy compared to whatever grisly end Chrollo has in store for you. Is this how he planned for you to die, after all? Or was it meant to be swifter? You might have screwed it all up with your running and spitting.

Before Feitan broke your hand, you might have been proud of the spitting. Now you just wish you’d let them kill you quick.

Finally, Chrollo returns to your line of vision. He’s a bit blurry from your tears, from your pain. Probably a bit from your blood loss, too.

He kneels down next to you, and you tense. Even tensing hurts, and you whimper.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

Beside you, Chrollo coos. A soft, sticky sound. He takes your broken hand and your voice wants to shriek, but all you can manage is a strangled cry. He kisses your broken fingers like a gentleman.

“Kill you? Of course not.” He presses a last kiss to your mangled hand. “I do want to see that sweet girl from before.. the one who daydreams about strangers and holds onto my hand so tightly on the Ferris wheel.” An indulgent look crosses his face and he gives your broken fingers a painful squeeze that has you groaning.

“She’s still in there, no doubt.” His thumb brushes against your cheek, pushing away the dried salt of your tears. “Buried under fear and pain and newfound knowledge, no doubt.” He smiles nostalgically. “But those can be remedied with time.”

He’s crazy. I mean, you know he’s a vampire, sure. But he’s also fucking crazy.

“I want to go home,” you croak. Even though you can’t reason with crazy. “Please. Please.”

His eyes blink down at you. How old is he, anyway? Centuries? Longer? To him, you must be nothing. Insignificant. Ridiculous.

He doesn’t mock you, though. He only continues stroking your cheek with his thumb. “I’ll be your home now, wherever we go. And we will go so many places.” There’s some sort of dulled excitement in his expression that turns your stomach. “And from now on, you’ll do what I say, won’t you?”

Tears spill over your eyes, trickling down over his thumb. You don’t have the energy or the lack of survival instinct to say no. But you won’t say yes, either. You can’t.

“Well. I can make you obedient, if you’d rather be stubborn.”

You’re about to ask--”What?”--when he kisses you, shutting you up entirely.

You’re afraid to move. Your lips tremble against his, thinking only of death--of his fangs. His lips move and brush against your neck, and a mocking forgotten memory of last night flashes through you. He kissed your neck last night, too, a wet, sucking kiss that had your toes curling. Your toes curl now, too, out of fear. The blood from your ankle makes your toes slick inside your shoes.

And then his fangs sink into your neck and hot, searing pain shoots through your entire body, masking everything else. Your ankles. Your broken hand. Your brutalized arm. The cut on your collar. None of them matter compared to this pain, which is not localized at the sight of the bite but spreads throughout your bloodstream, making it impossible to think of anything but how much it hurts.

You’re dimly aware of your screaming. A helpless sound you heard from countless others tonight. Your legs kick, and you realize, vaguely, that you can’t really feel them anymore. They hurt, yes, but there’s a numbness behind it. Are you really moving them at all?

There are more screams now--from the beach. You don’t know how you know, but you do. It’s like you can see it in your mind although you’re flat on your back in front of the fun house with a monster draining you of blood.

The world spins as you imagine how the first responders must be dying right now, while you’re dying. Are they wishing they never responded to the emergency calls? Are they thinking about their families, their friends, and their little dogs, too?

Chrollo’s mouth is against yours again, and you taste yourself on him. Bitter metal, still warm. He’s blurry as he pulls back and bites against his wrist. What should be vivid red blood is dark and ugly--dead. He hovers his wrist above your mouth and the substance drips onto your lips. It’s cold, vile.

A final insult before you die, making you drink this nasty stuff. Vampires have a sick sense of humor.

But what did you know about vampires, anyway?

You black out as Chrollo murmurs something above you.

At least, you think, this is finally over.

You do not wake up in heaven or in darkness, either.

You wake up in a man made clearing, sitting against a tree, with a blanket draped over you. In front of you there is a fire, not roaring but alive enough in the night; a pot with spilled chili lay on the ground. Behind the fire is a camper van with its door wide open.

The corpse of a man is propped against the door of the van, keeping it open. His mouth is slack and ah, he’s not dead yet, is he? There are two glaring puncture wounds on his neck, but he’s still around. His fingers twitch and seem to register you with tired eyes, that drift from your face over to the far end of the camp.

You follow the look, and oh. There are two dead teens piled next to the fire. Already drained, already dead. His children, you think.

The world seems to come into more focus then.

You are, as far as you can tell, alive. You’re propped up against a tree. It’s night time. The people--the monsters, the vampires--are here, in this campsite. Some of them glance at you once they realize you’re awake, but no one says anything.

Strangely enough, you’re not in much pain. Soreness, yes. But you should be in agony. Your hand feels okay--sore fingers, but no longer blinding pain, and you can bend them almost normally. Your arm, too, feels sore but mended. Your hands reach up to your collar, your neck, but there’s no trace of the wounds except a thin scar on your collar and two small bumps on your neck.

How did it heal so fast? Did they bring you here to hurt you again? Keep you like some sort of blood bag?

Your eyes travel down to the blanket draped around you. It’s heavy, comfortable, and stained with blood.

You jerk like you’ve been electrocuted and throw the soiled blanket from your body.

Someone nearby laughs. “Picky princess, huh?” You vaguely recognize the voice--the tall man with wild hair. The one who knocked a man’s head off at the beach.

Just as renewed panic begins to awaken inside you, Chrollo appears from seemingly nowhere.

“You’re finally awake, I see.”

You shrink against the tree, and look around. Could you run into the woods? Were you still in the trail by the beach? How far could you run?

Chrollo smiles, and sits down next to you like this isn’t horrifying or unusual at all. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. There’s nowhere to go.”

Your throat is dry and your words stick to your mouth several times before you can speak.

“Where… are we?”

If you’re close enough to home, you might still get out of this. Somehow. Find a gas station or a rest stop and beg for help.

“Far away from that little town, I assure you.” Chrollo jerks his head back and you finally see the row of motorcycles parked near the campsite. “We won’t stay here for long. We rarely do. Just long enough for you to get healed up, this time.”

Which means he plans to take you with him--with them. For how long? And where? And why? Why take you? Why not kill you, why not drain you dry in front of the fun house and leave your corpse for survivors to find?

You could ask all of these things, but you’re not sure you want the answer. Instead, you give the only answer your mind can manage, which is to curl up against yourself and cry.

“I want to go home.” You whisper, out of practicality more than anything. Your mouth is so damn dry.

“None of that,” he says, a little sternly. His expression softens when you flinch, and he brushes the hair from your face. “Don’t waste your breath on such a silly sentiment. You’re not going anywhere I don’t want you to go.”

“You said you didn’t know me well enough to leave with me,” he continues, pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek, then a warmer one to your unwilling lips. “You said you hadn’t had time to figure out your dreams. Now, you can take all the time you need for both of those things. We’ll have eternity, after all.”

Dull, cold horror pools in your gut.

Eternity.

“Did you… am I… did you make me--”

Your hands shoot to your mouth, to your teeth, feeling for fangs. But there’s nothing new inside your mouth, unless you count the awful cotton dryness that blankets your tongue and teeth like film.

He smiles indulgently, and you hear someone nearby snort.

“No.” A pause. “Not yet, not quite.” He smiles at your ignorance and takes your hand away from your teeth, giving it a kiss that feels like mockery even if you get the sense that he isn’t trying to make fun. “That may come later, if you behave. For now, I’ve made you…” Another kiss, this time with a smile on his lips, as he seems to debate on what to say. “… let’s say, mine.”

You shiver. From fear, and from cold.

Chrollo presses another kiss to your lips, until he can shove his tongue in between your teeth and run it against your own. You taste yourself on him, still, that rusty taste. It makes you gag, and he pulls away.

“You must be cold. I don’t want you catching a chill so soon. Why don’t you go sit in front of the fire and warm up?”

You shake your head, wanting to spit out the taste in your mouth, but not having the courage to do so.

He watches you for a moment. Calculating, cold. He makes you think of an animal, in this moment. An animal thinking on what to do when his prey does something odd in the wilderness.

“Go sit in front of the fire,” he tells you.

And without wanting to, without meaning to, you do. Your body jerks up and you walk over to the fire, with its spilled chili and corpses left in its wake, and sit down.

It’s like before, at the carnival, but different now. There’s no warm suggestion, no soothing manipulation. Only an order that you obey, and that’s that. When you try to push yourself up, you find that you simply can’t make your body do it. You can flex your fingers, your toes. You can move your arms up and down. But you cannot, in any way, stop sitting in front of that fire.

“I’d prefer you to do things willingly,” Chrollo says from his spot near the tree. “But I don’t mind giving orders either, love.”

Love.

You’re not sure he knows the meaning of the word.

But neither do you.

Despite the fact that there are two dead kids and their dying father just feet away from you, you find the fire comforting. It’s warm. It’s bright. It’s everything that the monsters around you aren’t; and you aren’t one of them, not exactly (not yet, your brain screams, he said not yet) and maybe you can cling to that. Cling to your humanity, to get you through this.

The fire crackles in front of you. At some point, Chrollo sits down, and offers you a bowl of chili that they must have set aside for you before knocking the pot down.

It’s lukewarm, and a bit bland. The dying man wasn’t a great cook. But you eat it, slowly, carefully, while Chrollo watches with an almost serene expression on his face. Like watching you eat was the most endearing thing in the world.

Above you, the night sky watches the scene with indifference.

#yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere #afterwitch writes #this fic is my baby /wraps it in a blanket

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dearieshima · 3 months ago

Text

“THE DOLL… ITS ALIVE!”

✦SUMMARY

╰┈➤ Your boyfriend, as clumsy as he is, foolishly wins you a doll at the county fair that will forever change your life. #KINKTOBER2024

"Take it," he growled. "Take, every, last, inch!" His hips slammed into yours with every pronounced word of his command. "Gonna pump this pussy full. Flood your womb with my seed."

✦ C.W

╰┈➤ dubcon/noncon, murder, character death(?), groping, trueform!sukuna, double penetration, plushie humping, mental illness, face riding, aphrodisiac, brief cum eating, slight voyeurism, degradation, praise, missionary, 7k+ words, yuuji is aged up to 20+years, slight yuuji x reader, hair yanking, is this cheating?, rough sex, unprotected sex

If you could travel back in time, to that fateful night when your fingers first brushed against its soft, cursed fabric, would you change a thing?

It was October 5th. The sky had bruised into twilight, and the air was thick with the mingling scents of roasted chestnuts, damp earth, and the faint trace of winter creeping in. Yuuji, your boyfriend of six years, had been excited about the fall fair, dragging you there with promises of funnel cakes and dizzying rides. His enthusiasm had been infectious, and despite the chill creeping into your bones, you’d followed him willingly, smiling even as the cold bite of evening settled into your skin.

You had just stumbled out of The Gravitron, disoriented from the spinning madness, your body instinctively finding its way into his as you tried to steady yourself. His arm slid around your waist, a familiar warmth, but somehow, your eyes managed to focus on one singular object.

It was a plushie, nestled amongst a sea of cheap carnival prizes. It was a humorous parody of Sukuna Ryomen, The King of Curses, reduced in the form of a rounded plushie. It was small and unassuming, its plump shape clothed by his robes. His beady red eyes gleamed under the booth lights.

The legend of Sukuna Ryomen was no light-hearted tale. He was a god of destruction, a bringer of chaos, feared and revered. Some said he could twist reality itself and turn the world inside out with a flick of his finger. But here he was, reduced to a toy, the weight of his name no more than the weight of stuffing inside its fat body.

It shouldn’t have been so easy to win it. But it was. Yuuji, smiling like a fool, had thrown the basketball without a care in the world. The booth attendant handed it over, his frown contrasting Yuuji's grin, beaming as he turned to press the plushie into your hands.

The second your fingers closed around it, the world shifted. The fair’s noise faded, the laughter of children, the creak of rides, the announcer’s barks, all muted as if the world tilted and you were thrown into another realm.

A chill crept down your spine, despite the comforting warmth of Yuuji beside you. His presence felt distant, as though the cold night air had placed a barrier between you. It wrapped around you, thick and suffocating, but no one else seemed to notice.

Yuuji glanced over, noticing your faltering smile and the goosebumps rising on your bare arms. You were wearing a sleeveless black dress, and the night had begun to cool. Without a word, he slipped off his jacket and draped it over your shoulders, its weight grounding you as if you were beginning to float.

"Come on, you need to eat something. It'll warm you up," he said, gently steering you toward the concession stand, the warm scent of fried food greeting you.

The smell of powdered sugar and warm dough made your stomach growl, and within a few minutes later, you both sat at a small, secluded table. You had forgotten you had pocketed the Sukuna plushie into your back pocket as you sunk into the worn bench. It gave a small dying breath.

Yuuji sat beside you, his smile softened. "Did you have fun today?"

"Yeah," you murmured, snuggling into him. "Tonight was amazing."

He chuckled, draping an arm over your shoulders and pulling you closer, his body radiating warmth. "I’m glad," he said, resting his chin on the top of your head. "You’ve got quiet back there. Are you okay? Still cold?"

"Just a little," you admitted, tucking yourself tighter against him, your right ear against his throat, feeling the low rumble of his voice, warm from talking and the corndogs he’d eaten.

His thumb traced gentle circles on your arm. "Are you sure?" he asked softly. Then, cautiously, "is it... your mom?"

You hesitated, a brief flash of the sad woman crossing your mind, but you pushed it away. "No, it’s not that. I’m just tired." You forced a smile.

Yuji’s arm tightened slightly around you, his thumb pausing for a moment before resuming its soothing motion. He didn’t press further, his quiet concern clear in the way he held you. "Alright," he whispered, so softly you would have missed it if your ear wasn’t pressed to his throat. His chin came to rest against your head once more, and you both sat in comfortable silence, the world fading away around you.

A few minutes passed with you both looking at the distance before you both got up, preparing to return to the night. You felt self conscious as you might’ve ruined the end of the night with your own set of problems, but as you moved, a sharp pinch made you jump. It came from where the plushie you'd stashed in your back pocket. You laughed, swatting Yuji playfully.

"Yuji!" you accused, smacking him on the arm.

He recoiled, rubbing his arm. He was wide-eyed and bewildered, almost clueless as to why you had just hit him. "What? What did I do?" he pouted, rubbing his arm.

You rolled your eyes, realizing he may have been trying to lighten the mood. Appreciatively, you nestled closer to him as you both walked to the parking lot.

If you had looked closely, you might have noticed his hand still resting innocently at your waist, the other deep in his sweats, never having moved from its place since you stood.

October 6th

The next day, a low-grade fever crept over you. It wasn’t much, but it was still a fever.

You laid snuggled under the covers, an empty box of tissues on your nightstand and your Sukuna plush peeking out from behind its pile of crumpled tissues that marked your misery.

Minutes later, Yuuji entered the room, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. He’d already changed into his workout clothes, a gray tank top and black basketball shorts. His eyes quickly found you, curled up in bed, shivering slightly. He walked over and placed a hand on your forehead, wincing at the warmth. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“I don’t want to get in your way,” you replied, managing a weak smile. “I’ll be fine, I’ve got…” You groped around until your hand slipped beneath Yuuji’s butt to retrieve the badly treated plushie. “I've got Sukuna, King of Curses, to protect me.”

He sighed but smiled, leaning down to kiss your forehead. “Alright. Rest up. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” you said softly. “Love you.”

He paused, smiled over his shoulder, halfway out the door. “Love you, too, babe.”

And then he was gone.

The house fell silent except for the low murmur of the TV and the fading echo of Yuuji’s footsteps, followed by the creaking door. You were alone now, left to your thoughts.

You held the Sukuna plush above your face, playing absentmindedly with its four plump arms. It was strange. Sukuna was known to be the most evil man who lived, but he reminded you of Yuuji in a way. Well, in terms of looks, anyway.

You were drawed out of your thoughts when you heard a soft shuffling of slippers dragging across the wooden floor with a faint, sticky sound. Your mother entered, frail and unsteady, her eyes clouded, holding a bowl of steaming soup. “I made you something for your cold.”

You set the doll aside. “Mom, you really shouldn’t be cooking,” you said, gently taking the bowl from her trembling, bony hands and placing it on the nightstand.

Her brow furrowed, eyes darting nervously around the room. "Yuji said the same thing before he left, like I can’t take care of my own daughter. I’m your mother." Her voice cracked, then softened, taking on a childlike lilt. "I’m supposed to take care of you."

You opened your mouth, searching for comforting words, but before you could speak, her tone shifted, sharp and sudden. "I know you lived with my mom during your teenage years, but she’s not your mother. She’s not. I gave birth to you– I sat on that bed for twelve, fifteen hours. Not her! Me," Her voice crescendoed, then fell to a whisper, trembling. "Not her..."

You held your breath, knowing it was best to let her rant. Your mother, the saddest woman you knew, had given birth to you young, been through two divorces, and by the second, she was lost to drugs. When you were twelve, she overdosed, slipping into a coma, and you moved in with your grandmother. She never fully recovered, neither physically nor mentally. Her eyes were murky, as if her life was constantly flashing before her eyes, reminding her of what a shit parent she'd been to her only child. It left her desperate to be part of your life, and you let her move in when you were twenty.

“I know, mom. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry,” she grumbled, her voice thick with irritation. She moved to sit on your bed but stopped when she felt something soft beneath her. Lifting herself, she frowned and picked up the Sukuna plush she had nearly squashed. Her expression softened. “Oh, who’s this?”

“Yuuji won it for me at the fair yesterday.”

Her lips curled into a smile. “I remember how much you loved your dolls and plushies. You had them all around your bed. And that, that um, that one doll Botan bought you for your tenth birthday, the one you were obsessed with…”

“The black cat with the big eyes?” you said, the memory surfacing. Botan, her second husband, was a kind man, the kindest you’d known. He bought you the plush cat for your twelfth birthday because you always wanted a real one, but he was allergic. Your mother had thrown it away after they divorced, convinced he was cheating. She’d promised to buy you a real cat. A month later, she slipped into her coma.

“Yes, yes, the big eyed one,” she said, a glint of fondness in her eyes. “It scared me half to death one night when you left it in the kitchen. I came down for water, and all I saw were those two big eyes staring at me in the dark,” she chuckled. “But this one looks like Yuuji, how cute.”

Her smile softened, and she carefully placed the plush by your pillow before standing up. She reached out and ruffled your hair gently. “Alright, I’ll let you rest. Make sure you eat your soup. It was a lot of trouble making it.”

With a soft sigh, she turned and shuffled out of the room.

You glanced at the bowl on the nightstand. The soup was watery, mostly filled with large, uneven chunks of carrot, the chicken and noodles sparse. Still, you ate it, knowing it wasn’t the taste that mattered, it was the effort.

Finally, officially alone, your mind drifted again. Yuuji.

You had met in freshman year, bonding over shared pain. He had just lost his grandfather, and while your mom had left the coma by then, the damage she inflicted on you had already finished crumbling.

You had been together for so long, but the foundation of your relationship had always been built on trauma. Yuuji had begun to grow past his grief. Instead, it motivated him to live fully and seek, in his words, a “proper death.”

You, on the other hand, still lived in the past and grew nervous each day that he may leave you in his, in his new pursuit.

Though, Yuuji wasn’t the type to string anyone along. He wasn’t that kind of person. You were his first everything, and he was yours. He knew you were still suffering, and he grew an obligation to help your mother. Because of that, he stayed.

You felt embarrassed, and at the moment, you resentee your mother for making him feel that way; tapped.

You coasted back to the present, turning over and idly playing with Sukuna’s arms. He really did look like Yuuji. Was that the reason he picked it out for you?

You shook your head, rolling over on your side, tucking the Sukuna plushie in between your breasts as you drifted to sleep.

October 10th

Fuck, why did it look so much like Yuuji?

You positioned yourself on top of your plushie. Although soft, most of its design was embroidered onto the fabric skin, like the plushie's eyes, hard to the touch.

You both haven't fucked in ages, with Yuuji being busy as a college athlete.

You felt the plushie's softness envelop your lower half as you began to grind against it. The fabric was surprisingly responsive, almost as if it were alive beneath you. Your hips moved in a slow, sensual rhythm, building friction between your clothed sex and the plushie's plush exterior.

The plushie's soft, yielding surface seemed to mold perfectly to your body as you straddled it, its plush exterior conforming to every curve. You ground your hips against the toy faster, panting with need as delicious friction built between your clothed sex and the plushie's inviting surface.

Your nipples hardened into stiff peaks, poking against the fabric of your top. Unable to resist, you reached inside your shirt and grasped them, squeezing the sensitive buds between your thumb and forefinger. "Ohhh… mmm… yes..." you whimpered quietly, mindful that your mom was asleep just next door.

The plushie's embroidered eyes provided a delightful contrast in texture, their slightly harder surface perfect for grinding your clit against.

Lost in the sensations, you tugged impatiently at your clothes, desperate for more direct contact. Finally managing to throw your shirt aside, your fingers kneaded the supple flesh of your breasts, rolling and pinching your nipples until they ached deliciously. Unable to resist, you ducked your head down and captured one rosy peak between your lips, suckling greedily. The wet heat of your mouth sent sparks of pleasure racing through your body, drawing a needy whimper from your throat.

Rocking your hips faster, you chased the building pressure between your thighs. The plushie's surface rubbed deliciously against your clothed sex, the fabric of your panties growing damp with each passing second.

You circled your sensitive bundle of nerves, teasing yourself with feather-light touches before increasing the pressure. Each stroke sent jolts of electricity coursing through your veins, stoking the fire building low in your belly. Desperate for more, you slipped your hand into your panties, fingers gliding through the slick folds of your pussy.

You plunged two fingers deep inside your aching core, pumping them in and out in time with the sway of your hips. Crude squelching noises filled the room, mingling with your breathy moans and the rustling of the plushie's stuffing. You inner walls fluttered around your fingers, aching to be filled.

You bit your lip, muffling a scream as ecstasy crashed over you. Your pussy spasmed and clenched as you gushed, soaking through your panties and dripping onto the plushie below. The soft, plush fabric absorbed your juices, the toy growing warm and damp beneath you.

You let out a shaky moan, looking down at your mess. A minute passes by before you reluctantly get up on shaky legs, your body still trembling from the force of your orgasm.

You pad naked to the bathroom, where in the shower, you languidly soap up your curves, replaying the intense moment in your mind. After thoroughly cleaning yourself, you step out and dry off, feeling refreshed and satisfied.

You wrapped the plushie in a towel to contain the mess and carried it to the laundry room, tossing it in the washing machine along with some detergent, setting it to run a hot cycle.

October 18th, 9:20pm

You stepped into the dim kitchen, your thoughts fixated on grabbing a snack. Across the room, your mother lay motionless on the couch, the low hum of the TV casting flickering shadows as she slept. The silence settled, and you reached for the cabinet handle, but the moment you opened it, something tumbled out with a sharp thud against the sink.

Startled, you jerked back, your heart racing as you peered down, half-expecting a rat to scurry from the shadows.

But in the sink, drenched in the pooling water, was your Sukuna plush, its pink hair dark and matted.

October 24th

At last, Yuuji was beside you in bed, the soft sheets barely a barrier between your bodies. You lay facing each other on your sides, close enough to feel his breath on your skin. Your lips met in a slow, lingering kiss. Until he broke it.

"Mmm," Yuuji groaned, his body trembling with need. "I hate how it's staring at us."

You glanced over your shoulder, following his gaze. The Sukuna plush sat on the nightstand, its large red eyes fixed on the two of you. Turning back to Yuuji, a sly smile tugged at your lips. “Performance anxiety?” You purred, your voice low and sultry.

Before he could rebuke, your thumb caressed the side of his face, fingertips trailing down his jawline as you pulled him in for another searing kiss. Yuuji melted into your touch, his lips parting to allow your tongue to slide against his. He tasted faintly of sake from earlier.

Yuuji's hands roamed your curves, squeezing your hips as he deepened the kiss. His hardness pressed against your thigh, evidence of his desire. But then he opened his lidded eyes and caught sight of the Sukuna plush watching you both. Frowning, he broke away, drawing a frustrated groan from you.

"Really, Yuuji?" you whined, trying to pull him back.

"I don't know, something doesn't feel right about that guy," Yuuji muttered, reaching over to flip the Sukuna plush face-down on the nightstand. He paused before flinging it softly across the room all together.

Satisfied, Yuuji turned back to you, his eyes dark with lust. He tangled his fingers in your hair, tugging you into another passionate kiss. Your bodies molded together as the kiss grew more heated, hands exploring and caressing. He grabbed the sheets before raising them over your heads.

Halloween Night

You sat on the edge of your bed, slowly rolling the red stockings up your thighs. The fabric hugged your skin snugly as you adjusted them, pausing to glance at yourself in the mirror. Halloween has finally come. The costume party you'd been excited about for weeks was just hours away, and you’d decided to dress up as Little Red Riding Hood. Her dress was secured around you with needles, as you did last minute shopping and they were out of your size. You hid the pins with the cheap red cloak that draped over your shoulders, falling just past your waist.

You were paired with the lace-trimmed stockings you’d found online. The outfit was cute but with a hint of edge, just the way you liked it.

Nobara and Megumi were supposed to pick you up soon, and the three of you planned to make an entrance. Megumi was the wolf and Nobara was the grandma. Yuuji, on the other hand, had opted to stay home. He had a big game tomorrow and needed to focus, so he’d promised to hold down the fort and handle the trick-or-treaters, along with your mom if she wasn’t already resting in her bedroom. You had teased him earlier about his dedication, but he just grinned, saying he didn’t mind.

As you turned back to the bed, you frowned, realizing that one of your stockings was missing. Your eyes scanned the messy bedspread, then drifted to the floor. Maybe it had fallen off when you were getting dressed. You leaned over to check under the bed, and sure enough, there it was, and there it was, wrapped around your Sukuna plush like some kind of weird little hostage.

You frowned, reaching down to grab the sock when, out of nowhere, you felt a sharp smack on your backside.

"Yuji!" You yelped, startled, before whirling around to see him standing there, toothbrush in his mouth, a playful smirk on his face.

“Be safe, okay?” he mumbled through the foam, tapping the toothbrush against his lip. “And make sure you don’t split up with Megumi.”

You rolled your eyes, tossing the Sukuna plush back onto the bed with a sigh. You couldn’t help but smile at that, shaking your head. Megumi was like the reluctant guardian of your little trio, always making sure you didn’t get into too much trouble. “Alright,” you said, glancing at the clock on your nightstand. 6:09 p.m. You still had a little time before they arrived.

“I’ll be back by eight,” you promised, pulling on your red boots and smoothing out your dress. “Don’t wait too long.”

Yuuji stepped forward, toothbrush now forgotten, wiped the foam from his face with the back of his hand and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, as he always did before you or he left. “Alright, just be careful,” he murmured, his voice a little softer than before.

You smiled, feeling a little flustered under his affectionate gaze. You headed toward the door, your hand resting on the knob, when his voice called out to you again, making you pause.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he added, grinning like a dork. “I love you.”

You turned slightly, looking over your shoulder with a teasing smirk. “I know,” you said, leaning against the doorframe, enjoying the playful banter between you two.

Yuuji pouted, crossing his arms. “Say it back! What if I die tonight?”

You raised an eyebrow, suppressing a laugh. “Die? From what? The neighborhood kids in bed sheets pretending to be ghosts?”

He gave you an exaggerated look of concern. “I might not have the candy they wanted! They could turn violent, y’know.”

Shaking your head, you walked back over to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, tasting the minty toothpaste. “Love you, Yuuji. And if you’re still up when I get home, maybe I’ll give you something sweeter than candy.”

8:25 p.m

You entered the door with thunder. You’d been carrying lots of food left over from the party. Knowing the college students like you both were, food was a valuable object. You could feel your stomach twist if you had to go one more day with instant noodles.

What bothers you more is that your boyfriend hasn'rvcome down the stairs to help you put the food away after you slammed the door, a sign of frustration.

“Yuuji!” You screamed, hearing your voice echo off the walls. Nobody answers back. You didn't bother with your mom. Usually around this time, she took her pills and was out for the rest of the night.

What bothers you more is the bowl of candy, untouched, still overflowing with vibrant wrappers, sat on the table, mocking the silence that filled the house.

You cursed under your breath, assuming he’d gone to bed early again. Irritation bubbled inside your throat, but as you ascended the stairs, ready to scold him, the bubbles in your throat exploded, replaced by a scream that tore through the quiet.

There, sprawled across the floor, was your highschool sweetheart, his lifeless body drenched in blood. The crimson pooled around him, staining the hardwood. But it wasn’t the blood that froze your heart.

It was the figure standing over him.

The hulking presence loomed over you, its naked form towering and imposing. Pink hair spiked wildly, framing a face that was both beautiful and grotesque. One side twisted and deformed, while the other was almost handsome. There was something else in his hair, a sort of white foam that looked like stuffing.

But it was those piercing blue eyes that truly captured your attention – cold, calculating, and filled with a hunger that sent shivers down your spine.

Four inhuman arms emerged from its shadowy frame, each marked with jagged black patterns that pulsed with dark energy.

And two massive twin shafts stood at semi-attention, donning the same black markings on his arms. The weighty orbs of his testicles swung heavily between his muscular thighs, swollen and churning with virile seed, ready to unleash their pent-up load.

You could feel its gaze boring into you, as if it was sizing you up like a predator stalking its prey. A distant, hazy recognition sparked in your mind – you had seen this creature before, in the darkest corners of your memory. And now, it was here, in the flesh.

He began to walk towards you but his feet snagged onto your boyfriend's body.

Sukuna stared down at the unmoving carcass indifferently, as if it was a mere log in the way of him reaching you. He simply pushed the body to the side with his foot, thighs carved as if made of marvel, and made his way towards you.

"No... No," You whimpered as he closed the distance between you.

As you stumbled back as it advanced, closing the gap between you with slow, powerful strides.

Your feet became tangled, an unavoidable result of the intense fear coursing through your veins. The room seemed to tilt and spin around you, and before you could react, you found yourself falling backwards.

Sukuna was quick to respond, his reflexes lightning fast compared to your panicked mind. One of his powerful arms shot out, grabbing at your flimsy dress held together by pins. The delicate fabric ripped easily as you fell, leaving you completely exposed and vulnerable before the imposing figure of Sukuna.

His eyes devoured every inch of your body, taking in the sight of your lacy lingerie barely concealing your most intimate parts. The flimsy bra did little to contain your heaving breasts, your nipples clearly visible through the sheer lace. And your panties... They clung to the curves of your ass and the swell of your pussy, leaving very little to the imagination.

"Leave me alone!" You cried out, crawling on all fours. He grinned and reached down, gripping on your hair firmly, almost painfully so, as he yanked you closer to his throbbing cock.

The thick, musky scent of his arousal filled your nostrils, making your head spin with a dizzying mix of terror. His other hand pressed the leaking tip of his cock against your trembling lips, smearing them with his salty precum.

"No...--" you whimpered before he forced his massive girth past your lips. Sukuna's cock stretched your mouth obscenely, the bulbous head pushing against the back of your throat. The bitter taste of his precum coated your tongue as he slid deeper, making you gag and splutter around his thick shaft.

The intoxicating taste of his precum flooded your senses, igniting an uncontrollable ache between your legs. With each passing second, your body betrayed you further, your pussy growing slicker as you found yourself eagerly sucking him of your own accord.

He watched you intently, a wicked grin spreading across his face as you lavished attention on the tip of his cock, lapping at it like a woman dying of thirst. A guttural groan escaped him as he wiped away the saliva that dribbled down your chin. Throwing his head back, he surrendered to the sensations, one hand tangling in his hair while the other gripped your head tightly. For the first time, he spoke. "That's it. Quit acting so shy."

His fingers dug into your scalp as he began to thrust forcefully, driving his cock deeper into your throat with each harsh movement. There was no mercy in his actions, only a primal desire to claim and dominate. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you struggled to breathe around his thick girth, but still, you couldn't bring yourself to pull away.

His grip on your hair tightened, holding you in place as he pistoned in and out of your throat. The wet, vulgar sounds of your sucking filled the room, mingling with his grunts of pleasure. He was close now, you could tell by the way his thrusts became more erratic, more desperate.

He halted inside you, his heavy balls slapping against your chin. Your nose was buried in his pubic hair, the musky scent filling your lungs. Sukuna held you there, letting you struggle and sputter around his cock before cumming down your throat. You had no choice but to swallow every last drop, your body shuddering as the aphrodisiac effects of his seed sent waves of unwanted pleasure crashing through you.

"Swallow."

After what seemed an eternity, he finally withdrew, allowing you to gulp precious air. Thin strands of saliva and pearly seed bridged your bruised, swollen lips to his glistening, throbbing shaft. He rested the weighty length across your flushed cheek, still pulsing and oozing aphrodisiac essence from the engorged head. It trailed down the thick veins of his cock, painting your face with his musky fluids.

You gazed up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, panting softly, a wild, desperate look in their depths. Something primal and hungry sparked within you. It finally came to you that this man, this... thing, was the king of all curses.

Sukuna's voice was a deep, velvety purr that seemed to caress every inch of your skin. "Just look at you, so utterly wrecked, so desperate for more of my cock, just from having it in your mouth." His fingers traced along your jawline with a feather-light touch, a mockery of tenderness.

"I wonder how utterly destroyed you'll look when my thick shaft is buried to the hilt inside your tight little cunt." His words dripped with a dark promise as his hands roamed possessively over your your.

Sukuna's iron grip on your hair sent searing pain through your scalp as he yanked you down the hallway, your screams echoing off the walls. As you entered you and Yuuji's shared bedroom, you passed Yuuji's crumpled form, catching a glimpse of his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. A flicker of hope ignited within you - perhaps there was still a chance to be spared from being ravaged by this beast.

But Sukuna remained utterly unmoved by Yuuji's condition. With a casual flick of his wrist, he sent you tumbling onto the bed, your body bouncing slightly on the rumpled sheets. You immediately scrambled backwards, putting as much distance between yourself and the demon as possible.

Your efforts were futile. In a blur of motion, Sukuna lunged forward and seized your ankle in an iron grip. You thrashed and kicked, but he easily captured your other leg and effortlessly wrenched your legs apart, positioning himself between your thighs.

Sukuna's hands roamed possessively over your soft curves, his touch both tender and rough. "So soft, so delicate. Like ripe fruit, just waiting to be devoured," he purred, fingers digging into the pliant flesh of her thighs. "I remember when you used to play with me, moving my limbs however you wanted. Did it excite you, having that control?"

You shivered. His words transported you back to the weeks before, when you would idly move the stuffed limbs of your Sukuna plush. How was he alive? Big?

Newer flashes of memory surfaces, ones of where you carelessly tossed him, or accidentally sat on him. Yuuji performed all of those actions, and now he laid unmoving on the floor. What if Sukuna sought revenge for those thoughtless acts?

Sukuna's hands roamed hungrily over your curves, tracing the flare of your hips, the taper of your waist, before roughly palming the heavy weight of your breast, pushing them together. With a sharp tug, he rent your bra asunder, the flimsy fabric tearing like tissue paper. Your breast spilled free, soft and yielding as they followed the curve of your sides, like melting butter on a hot pan.

Sukuna's fingers sank into the pliant flesh, kneading and squeezing with bruising force. He enveloped your entire breast in the hot, greedy clasp of his palm, thumb flicking mercilessly over the pebbled peak. You grunted as his roughness.

Suddenly, a wet heat engulfed your nipple. You gasped, realizing a mouth had formed on Sukuna's hand. The tongue swirled and lashed the sensitive bud, suckling hard and drawing the tender flesh deeper. Jolts of painful pleasure shot straight to your core as it's teeth grazed the delicate skin, nipping sharply before his tongue soothed the sting.

Sukuna's other set of arms slid between your thighs, a finger brushing against your clothed sex. He could feel the scorching heat emanating from your core, the dampness seeping through the thin fabric. A wicked grin spread across his face as he realized just how affected you were by his touch.

"Mmm, already so wet and ready for me," Sukuna purred, his voice a deep rumble.

In one swift motion, one hand clasped together your ankles in one palm, spreading your legs wider. The other clamped down on your panties, bunching the fabric in his fist.

With a sharp yank, Sukuna tore your panties clean off, baring your glistening sex to his hungry gaze. His eyes darkened with lust as he took in the sight of your slick folds, already flushed and swollen with arousal.

Sukuna's tongue slid out, licking his lips as if he could already savor your sweet nectar. In one fluid motion, he laid on the bed, positioning you above his face. Your dripping sex hovered inches from his mouth, the intoxicating aroma of your pussy filling his nostrils.

He gripped your hips firmly, holding you open and exposed for his hungry gaze. You could feel the scorching heat of his breath caressing your sensitive flesh. Sukuna's fingers dug possessively into the meat of your thighs, keeping you spread wide.

"I'm going to feast on this pussy," he growled, his lips grazing your inner thigh. "Ever since you came on my face, I haven't been able to stop thinking about tasting your essence. Sweet, compared to how slutty you were."

You have barely any time to remember before he yanked your hips closer, burying his face between your legs. He dragged the flat of his tongue along your slit, savoring the first taste of your arousal. You cried out, fingers tangling in his hair as he moaned against your flesh.

"Fuck, you're so sweet," Sukuna rasped, his voice rough with desire. "So fucking sweet."

He dove back in, sealing his lips around your clit. At the same time, he thrust his tongue deep inside your tight channel, fucking you with the slick muscle.

"Ah!" You cried out, your thighs clamping around Sukuna's head as you tried to squirm away from the intense pleasure. Sukuna growled, the vibrations making you see stars.

His strong hands gripped your doughy hips, holding your frame firmly in place. With a sharp smack, he struck your pert ass, the crack echoing through the room. A vivid red handprint bloomed across your rear. "Interrupt me again while I am feasting and I will have you writhing and screaming on my tongue for hours on end."

"'M sorry... 'M sorry!" You whimpered, though your mind felt foggy, thoughts scattering like startled birds.

His tongue continued to swirl and tease, leaving hot, wet strokes over your quivering flesh. He zeroed in on your throbbing clit, circling it with the tip of his tongue before his lips secured around it again. He suckled hard and fast, sending jolts of electric pleasure racing through your core. He alternated between flicking the tip of his tongue against your clit and taking it between his lips.

"Mmmph! Oh, oh god!" You moaned, your back arching as you rode his face. Your hands fisted in his hair, pushing him closer. "Please don't stop... Please don't stop!"

Sukuna showed no signs of slowing down, his tongue plunging deep into your soaked folds, stroking along your velvety walls. He plunged two thick, calloused fingers knuckle-deep into your tight, slick heat. Your velvety walls clenched greedily around the intrusion.

Curling his fingers just so, Sukuna rubbed insistently against that spongy patch of nerves, stroking and massaging until your hips were shaking against his face. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth as he feasted on your weeping sex.

You babbled incoherently, hands fisting in his dark hair. Your thighs clamped around his head, trapping him against your spasming core. "Ah... Ah!"

With a final, well-aimed thrust, he sent you flying over the edge into pure bliss.

Your back arched off the face as a silent scream tore from your throat. Your pussy clenched around his fingers like a vice, gushing your sweet nectar onto his tongue and chin as he eagerly lapped it up. Wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over you, leaving you boneless and panting. Slowly, he pulled his sticky fingers coated in your essence and brought it to his softened lips.

As he licked his fingers, he gazed at you with renewed hunger, as if the taste of you had an aphrodisiac effect too. He knew you were completely at his mercy now.

In one swift motion, he pounced, his powerful body pressing you down into the mattress. With a firm grip on your ankles, he hoisted your legs up and back until they were folded nearly in half, your knees nearly touching your shoulders. The lewd position left you completely exposed and vulnerable to his desires.

"There, now you're open and ready for me," he growled, the bulbous head of his thick, veiny cock prodding insistently at your tight little entrance. You let out a sharp gasp as he began to push inside, your slick walls stretching obscenely around his girthy intrusion. It felt like you were being split in half as he slowly sank deeper, igniting a raging wildfire in your core.

"Ah! S-Slow down! It's too much!" you cried out, your fingers digging into his muscular chest to push him away. Your body betrayed you, inner muscles fluttering and clenching needily around the hard shaft impaling you.

He paused.

Then a ungodly grin spread across his face. With a flex of his powerful hips, he withdrew almost all the way until just the tip remained inside your quivering heat. You felt something else prod your entrance and your heart dropped.

With a brutal thrust, he slammed back into the hilt, heavy balls slapping lewdly against your upturned ass. He had managed to stuff his second cock into your tight hole.

Your back arched off the bed, a silent scream tearing from your throat as he stretched you to your absolute limit. Electric pleasure crackled through your nerves with each deep, punishing stroke as he set a ruthless pace, pounding into your sopping cunt with animalistic abandon. Obscene squelching noises filled the room, mingling with the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh and your wanton cries.

"Let this be a lesson to you, girl," he groaned, relishing the way your velvety walls gripped him like a vice. His hand gripped your cheeks, puffing out your lips. "Tell me what to do with my cock, and I'll return it twice-fold."

He could feel every inch of your tight heat clenching around his throbbing shafts as he pounded into you mercilessly. The wet, obscene sounds of your coupling filled the room, driving him wild with lust. He wanted to ruin you, to claim every part of you and make you forget about any other man.

He grinned at the thought. "Your boyfriend would lose his fucking mind if he saw you like this," he growled, voice rough with lust. "Stuffed full with two cocks, moaning like a bitch in heat, surrendering to me so easily. Are you ashamed?"

He reached down to roughly grope your bouncing tits, fingers sinking into the soft flesh. He pinched and tugged at your sensitive nipples, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core. The synchronized sensations of his hands on your breasts and his cock pounding into your dripping cunt were driving you wild, pushing you closer and closer to the brink.

"No," he chuckled. "No. I don't even think you have a single thought in that pretty little head besides how good it feels to be used like a cheap whore."

His lewd words only stoked the flames of your desire higher, your inner walls gripping his plunging shaft even tighter. You could feel the pressure mounting deep within you, winding itself into an knot.

"Take it," he growled. "Take, every, last, inch!" His hips slammed into yours with every pronounced word of his command. "Gonna pump this pussy full. Flood your womb with my seed."

Abruptly, he altered the angle, the bulbous head of his manhood grinding against your G-spot with every powerful thrust. That extra stimulation was the final push you needed to tumble over the edge. A guttural moan tore from your throat as your climax hit you like a freight train, your body quaking and spasming as rapture overwhelmed your senses in relentless waves.

His cocks pulsed and throbbed inside you as he neared his own peak, stretching you deliciously with each twitch. With a guttural groan, he buried himself to the hilt, his hips pressed flush against yours. You felt the first hot spurt of his release paint your inner walls, followed by another and another, until you were both gasping and trembling from the intensity of it all.

He collapsed on top of you, his weight pinning you to the bed as you both struggled to catch your breath. For a long moment, there was only the sound of your mingled panting filling the room. After a long, blissful moment, he rolled off you, his semi-erect cocks slipping out with a lewd squelch. Immediately, his thick seed began oozing from your well-fucked pussy, trickling down to your quivering asshole.

Your eyes fluttered and rolled to the back of your as exhaustion overtook you. Sukuna gazed down at your ravaged body, admiring the finger-shaped bruises and glistening sheen of perspiration coating your skin.

He leaned down, licking a long stripe up your pussy, savoring the mingled taste of your juices.

His eyes suddenly flicked to the shadowy corner. "Uraume, you little pervert," he grinned.

Uraume stepped out from the shadows, a wicked grin on their face. "I couldn't resist coming to welcome you back to the world, my lord Sukuna." Their eyes roamed over your cum-splattered body, and followed the trail of stuffing on the floor.

"I was wondering when you would come back from that humiliating curse."

Sukuna sat up, not bothering to cover his nudity. "This girl happens to be a descendant of one of my brides. I take great pride in my women."

"Yes, I can see," she said, eyeing Yuuji's body. "She served you well, my lord.”

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