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dragongirlpoet · 5 months ago

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Dark Signs 3

Summary: As Alucard grapples with his grief over what he has done, secrets are unveiled and graver foes awaken. Is it too late to save you? (Plot takes off months before *that ending* in part 2. Some parts are off-canon.)

This chapter is written in Alucard’s POV.

Themes: Dark fantasy, horror, romance, angst I Words: 4k

Warnings: MDNI. Horror, blood, gore, violence, religious themes, mentions of suicide, grief, depression, anxiety, slight smut

Pt 1 I Pt 2

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To the lovely folks who are holding out for part 3, thank you! 💛 Sorry I couldn’t put this out sooner.

@s-i-l-v-e @kawaiiskeletoneggsnerd @celly-fahrenheit @skychaser777

I tasted blood, cherry and salt.

And I wanted more, more, more.

We were tangled in each other, our bodies suspended in the cosmic cerulean of the deep ocean.

She was my salvation. Her kiss was my atonement. And her blood, oh her blood…it was a gift so heavenly. All my immortal life had desired only that very thing, and now that I had it, I couldn’t let go.

Every shred of my primordial essence — powerful yet cursed, now entombed in the marrows of her soul. My blood now flowed in hers, as her blood, mine. We were fused as one, we were divine.

My darling’s fingers traced the sharps of my jaw as she kissed me, our married blood spilling from her mouth, diluting the water. They formed red rivulets around us, as if in symbolic reverence that we were the almighty givers of ichor.

We were safe, entwined together in eternal damnation.

I love her. I love her so deeply that I’d doomed her with my blood curse, so I could have her by my side till the sun swallowed us whole. And for that, I’d forever fester in my blasphemous sin.

“Adrian…” she seemed to say, but the snare of the ocean strangled her words, slowed our every caress… as if time at all wanted to still for our undying love.

Oh what I would give to hear her voice — seraphic, like a birdsong, my name chaste upon her lips.

Her ivory chemise clung to her body like sculpted granite, her nipples just peeking through. They were for my eyes only. Yes…her being, her blood, her body…they all belonged to me.

But in that sacred moment, something felt…amiss. There were those jade-green veins, palpable under her eyes… they ran like fine cracks on marble, so like those on a delicately-carved statue.

Raven hair hovered around her tiny frame, resembling venomous serpents held buoyant by witchcraft. They were so in contrast to my gold, like the exact moment dusk bled into dawn.

There was the red rivulet again, this time saturating the white ribbons of her nightdress. They coiled around my arms, binding me to her. Not that I’d ever let go.

But I had to, for her lingering touch was frost impaling even my vampiric skin. Why was she so cold?

“Adrian…” again she seemed to call out.

Her eyes, despite being underwater, were wide open, the blacks of them bereft of the soul I once knew. She was pale. So pale. And she looked every bit the angel of death.

My angel…when did she slip from my arms?

Our fingers entwined one last time, before a sombre gloom dragged her under. Slowly she sank, like a fallen star ousted by the heavens, syphoned of its light.

But I’m right here, darling. Stay.

I willed all of my immortal power to reach for her outstretched hands, but my body was deadened, as if held prisoner by spirit shackles. Further and further she sank from me, and I so terribly wanted to tell her that wasn’t where she was supposed to go.

Words evaded me, as my tears had.

The hollow abyss seemed to rise up — impatient, almost — to receive its new sacrifice.

Blood gushed from her mouth — they were viscid, as if so thickened they had to be forced out or she would choke. The blood kept coming. They streamed out of the sockets of her eyes, running like bloody tears of the living dead.

They say that monsters like us lack the ability to fear, yet I’d never felt more afraid than I did then. The love of my life, drowning, dying, yet I could do wholly nothing. Alucard, son of Dracula — weak, worthless…

A fissure cracked her chest open, the cavity creeping wide to reveal her beating heart. Her human heart.

The blood kept coming.

“Come back to me…” I begged, the futility of it sickening me.

Still, she descended. I watched in horror as the godless ocean buried her in its oblivion, until all I was made to see was the compunction of my sins.

On her neck that I used to so lavish with kisses, lay the wounds only a wretch like me could inflict.

I did it. I killed her.

“Adrian…”

____________

I jolted awake.

A numbing despair perforated my insides, a feeling I knew all too well. I stared out the window through heavy eyelids, the red moon magnified by sweat teardrops trickling through my eyelashes.

For a long moment I just sat there, my lungs crushed by torment, my heart shattered by grief. I’d lost count of the nightmares that had plagued me over the decade…no, it’s been 96 years, Adrian. A century. A century she’s been gone.

What was I living for?

Memories I longed to forget writhed their way into my mind, forcing me to once again relive the hell that fateful night.

I had sat in the castle hall for days, her lifeless body cradled in my arms. My eyes burned from tears, and I wanted to die. I fed her so much of my blood, my immortal blood, still she slept. I summoned spirits, conjured the most powerful of magicks, still, she slept. My hope hanging by a thread, I fused my father’s sciences with my mother’s elixirs…still, she slept.

I was about to drive my own sword into my heart — the only one ensorcelled enough to kill a dhampir, when a familiar voice stopped my contemptible deed.

“Alucard! This place reeks of death, and here I thought we’d gotten rid of your father long ago.”

“Stop it, Belmont!”

“What? He may be pristine but his home sure isn’t. Alucard! Honey, we’re home!”

“Will you stop yelling?”

“Alucard’s probably busy shoving it in her, ha. I need to make sure he can hear me above their grunts and moans. Have you forgotten how loud you get, Sypha?”

“You’re disgusting, Belmont.”

“Alucard! Ah, there you are. In the hall, really? You two really are something. Do you have food? I’m starving. I…”

“Belmont.”

“Fine, fine. Beer is good as w…”

“Belmont!”

It took Belmont a long minute before he alas perceived what Sypha meant. My two dearest friends — immobile in silent trepidation, distress distinct on their faces.

“What happened, Alucard? Was she attacked?” Sypha was the first to speak. As always, her presence seemed to bring solace, but it dissipated promptly.

“I killed her, Sy…Sypha. She asked mmme… to…tto turn her, and I…I drank too much…I killed her.”

Mere speaking incinerated my throat, and it was then I’d realised I hadn’t stopped crying. I could scarce breathe through my wheezing, let alone enunciate words.

“I…I tried ever…rything, help me please…ppplease…save her please…”

Belmont, in a rare display of empathy, knelt beside us and took my hand in his. “We will find a way to save her, and we will not stop until we do. I promise.”

At his oath, I collapsed into Belmont’s arms. Anguish, shame, relief…they all coursed through my body — my face buried in his shoulders, weeping. Every emotion that I’d held in, all unfettered at the fact that I had someone, that I wasn’t alone to fight my battles.

“Fault yourself not, Alucard. She never would’ve blamed you.” Sypha’s voice was soft, soothing, enveloping us in a reassuring embrace. I fell apart completely.

A loud pounding at the doors disturbed our bittersweet reunion, arousing our every alarm. There seemed to be a clamour of sorts — yelling, mocking…definitely humans. Belmont took to receive the unusual affair, leaving a gap just wide enough to acknowledge a throng of men — bishops, priests and followers of the church.

“I don’t remember ever calling for your conceited services, Father.” Belmont sneered.

“It’s Father Caine to you, and I could hardly expect couth coming from especially you. Excommunicated and still, never learning the error of your ways…

I sense a great evil here…more so than I daresay…Dracula himself. Forgive our ruckus, for we, the good men, merely wish to rid the town of all that is malign…Hand the girl over, and all shall be well.”

Sypha and I exchanged uneasy looks. What was he talking about?

Belmont, entirely irked by the bishop’s pretentious drivel, was barely holding it in. “Take your horseshit hubris and shove it up your a…”

“Oh, but don’t you want to know why we want the girl? Not the speaker-magician…the dhampir’s lover.”

What?

The dastardly bishop, words of scorn and malice, continued, “She now has the blood curse of the dhampir, and something in that transformation awoke creatures of the night…dark, hateful creatures…ones that possess an ancient evil…It is easy. We exorcise and burn her body, and as I’ve said…all shall be well.”

Blood searing in my veins, I raced past Belmont, the parasite parish’s body dangling midair in my chokehold. Eyes bloodshot and fangs hungry, I crushed his throat harder. He let out pathetic struggles of breath, rosary still firmly clasped in his hand.

“Where is your God now, Father? If we are the impurity you so seek to vanquish, then what of the innocents you slaughtered unrepentently, all because they did not fit your cause?”

I thought of my mother, the Belmonts, the heathens who simply held their own beliefs…and most of all, I thought of my sweet angel, so kind and full of love…

“What the…” Belmont cursed when we were doused with buckets of Holy Water. The “Men of God” started chanting prayers, as if their contrived communion would somehow free their pious leader.

I let out a laugh.

“The absolute gall you have, Father. Despite my mourning, I shall grant you this last mercy. Command your men to leave and never again return, and I shall kill only you. Fail to do so, and I’ll rip the tendons from all your wicked hearts. After all, I am a monster, am I not?”

A few men flinched at my words, casting hesitant glances to the others, while some implored Father Caine to choose wisely. Such cowards.

The bishop shifted a little in my grip, a faint smirk splayed across his face. “M…ark my words, vampire. Dark times ar…are ahead…The girl must di…”

I tore his heart right out of his ribs.

He was right. I was a vampire. I was omni-sentient. I was a monster and a God all at the same time. The farcical impudence he had to order the execution of my beloved…Anyone who touches her will die.

With his blood on my hands, I felt my hunger creep in once again, ripping off the human mask I wore like a virtue. I needed to feed.

It wasn’t until Belmont started swinging his Morningstar than I realised the tumult that had ensued. “And God shits in my dinner once again…Alucard! Left!”

Veins palpitating from the heart I’d just consumed, I saw that the rest of the church, quite possibly under the predetermined order of the bishop, lit a pyre that massacred the foliage we used to read under, devoured the quince fruit trees we so loved to frolic around.

They will all die.

“Get back!” Sypha cried, mutating the fire into swirls that wavered to her bidding. She channelled them towards the men, trapping them in rings of flame. Out of nowhere, fire arrows flew in our direction, narrowly missing Sypha’s face. That was enough to send Belmont into a scalding rage.

His Morningstar cleaved through half of the men, dismembering some, dissecting others. My estoc weaved through throats and hearts, beheading some, mutilating others. The tragic irony of it all — the very men whose sole mission was to protect mankind, to do good, on an aimless rampage to kill because of a misguided prophecy.

And so the fighting went on for months, years... Night creatures, more members of the parish, vampires seeking a new world order…valiant efforts, alas they were no more than vermins effortlessly exterminated by us three.

We weren’t certain why they had kept showing up. Whether it was a curse set off by my turning her, or the fact that they simply wanted us dead…it mattered not, nor did I make it my business to find out. I was going to kill them all.

Sypha and Belmont had kept to their promise. Come hell or high water, they stuck with me, even moving into the castle with their son. We battled foes, and never once did they abandon their cause to revive the love of my life.

“Alucard, you need to seal her. Keep her somewhere safe, where no one but you can find,” Sypha had one day told me. I was no fool, I’d known they wouldn’t be around forever, and if I’d succumbed to my grief, all their efforts would’ve been in vain.

“Promise me that when she wakes, you two will look after our kids, and grandkids, and great-grandkids, and…” Belmont trailed off, seemingly stumped by staple discourse.

“They’re called descendants, you idiot.” Sypha rolled her eyes.

Managing a genuine smile I haven’t had in a long while, I replied, “I promise.”

“My lord.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to yet leave my reverie.

“My lord,” Centrio again addressed, this time with more urgency. There, bowing by the door, dressed in fine leather that I had gifted, stood the first human I’d turned after…her. I’d found him by the docks, and he was all but an emanciated vagrant on the brink of death. Perhaps it was the matyr in me, but I thought it more I had wanted to experiment…if he indeed turned, perhaps there was a way…

“The council is ready for you.”

Donning my guise of Imperious Vampire Overlord — terrifying, deadly, merciless — I made my way down to the great hall with my most loyal emissary. I clutched at the pendant around my neck — a vial forged with obsidian and laced with gold, encased with her blood. It was the only way I could feel her if she woke.

An excruciating sorrow once again took shape, like an enemy planting tiny splinters in my heart, except those splinters were tainted with the most malevolent of poisons, inching slowly to ravage my vital core.

“My lord,”

The council all greeted in unison, heads bowed in utter veneration. Men, women, young, old…I had sired them all. To have a contingency if I ever needed one, to delegate my task of finding a cure, to have some goddamn chatter in the forsaken castle…

“We’ve received word that the denomination led by Gwyth is storming in from the highlands of Brasov. They are…angered by the vampires you’ve sired. She thinks just because…”

“Just because what?”

The gathering fell silent, as if fearful to draw my ire. Good…that’s how I intended it to be.

“Tell me, Finnor, does your gallantry waver in my presence? If so, perhaps it was my oversight in appointing you General?”

“Forgive me, my lord. She thinks it’s a travesty that we, vampires a mere century old, are…” Finnor cleared his throat before continuing, “...exhausting all the human blood supply here in Braila. Some of our own have gone over to bordering cities, and they’re most displeased. She thinks that just because you’re… Dracula’s son, doesn’t give you the right…”

“Dracula’s son?” I scoffed.

“Did I not sire you all? If Dracula is my father, then does his blood not also run in your veins?

“Yes!” My council concurred in earnest.

Does that not make you powerful?”

“Yes!”

“Good! Then let them come. We will defend what is rightfully ours, will we not?”

“Yes!”

At that, they broke into a resounding cheer, half howling, the rest pounding staffs, swords and what have you on the marble floor. Contrary to the revelry below, I, worshipped like a God on my throne, felt wholly insentient. I cared not for war, nor truimphs, nor reign. If I’d created bloodthirsty monsters, it was merely a means to an end.

I wanted only one thing.

Was this how my father felt when my mother died?

“Kindly see to it, Centrio. I wish not to be bothered.”

“At your service, my lord.”

There she was — immaculate in white, clutching the garland of daffodils I’d made her, so detached from the pain I’d caused…I had all but little choice when I’d sealed her in the underground castle chambers. I had cast a spell so powerful, that save for the both of us, no one could enter, or find, our fortress in Wallachia.

Living in the castle without my friends, without her, seeing her lifeless body…it went on for months, years…I couldn’t bear it. Her lying there, bereft of a heartbeat, of a breath, broke me in ways I never knew existed.

And so I resolved to start over in Braila, it was the only way to keep her safe, it was the only way I could honour my vow to save her.

Cape dragging behind my lifeless steps, I trudged back to my study, thoughts once again lost in her. Innumerable letters I’d written, infinite words I wanted to say — all frozen and wayward like misplaced luminaries in an interstellar void.

What have I done, darling? I’ve created…abominations... so many innocent lives lost because of me…Will you still love me when you see what I’ve become?

“Adrian…”

I spun round, completely entranced by her voice.

In the doorway, against the crimson glow of the stained-glass window, wearing the white chemise just as she always had, awaited my beloved. It suddenly became daunting to breathe, my mind apprehensive to behold the sight.

“Darling? Is it really you?” I uttered, my words close to a tremble.

She said nothing, but merely moved to me with such litheness I was taken aback. Her steps were languid, like a lone willow swaying in a bleak winter tempest.

“H…how did you find me? You don’t look well, do you need to feed? Here,” I offered my bloodslit wrists to her. She pressed her lips to them at once, as though thoroughly acquainted with my gesture.

“I missed you so much, I…”

“Shhh…” she hushed, sinking to her knees.

Her hands made quick work of my trousers, and too soon had my entire length in her mouth. My cock twitched as her tongue lapped over the ridges of my growing erection, licking hurried circles around my tip.

“Fuck…baby…I missed you so fucking much…” I panted, pushing her face deeper between my thighs. “Ahhh…that feels so good…” and threw my head back, shutting my eyes, relishing in the absolute ecstasy of her eagerness.

Pumping my sex in rapid fervour, she took it further down her throat, sucking, constricting…the weight of my every burden reduced to an indistinct drone.

“Slow down, darling,”

“Yes, my lord…”

My eyes flew open. My lord?

From where I was, I alas saw it. The sable of her tresses ran an incomparable lustre to my darling’s raven. I flung the devil thrall into the windows at once, shattering the glass, red fragments giving way to golden gleams of the inconspicuous sun.

“How very dare you,” my voice dropping to a haunting hiss as I stalked towards her. “The audacity you possess to employ such pitious artifice…who sent you?”

The thrall quivered at my unrestrained wrath, straining to speak against the bleeding shards skewered in her throat.

“Y…you…did…m…my l..ord…”

I froze, the lunacy of my suffering clear as day. I must already be dead.

Refusing to bear the yoke of that truth, I instead directed all my shame and hurt at the dying vampire whom I’d sired.

“Why do you get to live, but she doesn’t? Why do all of you get to persist in endlessness, possess my blood gift, but she is doomed to sleep for all eternity? Why!”

All that remained was the anguished aftershock of my tirade, and the spurting of blood that had slivered their way to the soles of my boots.

“F…forrr…give me, mmy…lord…”

“I want you to listen closely. She transcends your every breath. You will never be her.”

I compelled my estoc to sever her head.

____________

I liked it out here. At times the ocean waves would susurrate, tonight it was a thunder against the cliffs. It offered a quiet respite from my heartbreak, the inane vampire politics, and the endless blood war of the undead.

My hair whipped in the frigid windstorm, yet I felt nothing. I was a lighthouse abandoned — hollow, crepuscular — fleeting through the years devoid of purpose. There were nights where I would see her in the middle of the violent sea — so alone, so tormented — does she know? I would cross oceans of time to find her.

Something snapped.

I remained still as death, my gaze shifting calculatedly to the untimely intruder foolish enough to trespass into my castle grounds. Their steps, though fairly distant and furtive, stood little chance against my heightened hearing.

The clanging of chains reached my ears long before my sword ensnared the metal. Holding it mere inches from my face, I studied the peculiar weapon — intricate weaving of iron, spikes flared at the tip…and that leather whip.

“Simon Belmont. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Save that garb for someone who gives a shit, vampire.”

I smirked at his salutation, perhaps a little more than necessary. “I see the Belmonts have a tradition.”

Unlike his forefathers, Simon had fallen out of favour with the Belmonts, insisting that vampires, regardless of their intent and relationship, are considered foe and should, at all costs, be exterminated with their bodies wrung out to dry.

“The odious horde you have sired are arrogant beyond their means. Do you not care for the turmoil they have caused? The innocent lives they have claimed?”

I no longer have the capacity to, I wanted to tell him.

“I come here not to befriend, or beg, or ask. Halt the atrocities of your vampires, or I shall finish what my grandfather so failed to do — kill you.”

“Are you threatening me, Belmont?”

Taking advantage of my affront, he wielded the Combat Cross — one I’d noticed too late — for it struck the pendant around my collar, barely missing my chest. I watched as the vial containing her blood fracture into pieces, her lifesource splattered and devoured by the earth below.

Seething, I lunged for Simon, teleporting behind him while coiling the Morningstar around his neck. He threshed around his imminent asphyxiation, blindly stabbing his dagger, attempting to find purchase on any of my organs.

The tip of his Morningstar however, managed to etch itself onto my arm, igniting an unsteady glow. It would not combust in me, for I was neither human nor demon. Still, a searing pain barelled through the recesses of my body.

I released Simon as he collapsed onto the ground, his chest heaving from the lack of air. Hovering my sword above his heart, I recalled the promise I had made to Belmont.

“This is a fight for another day, Belmont. Take your weapons and leave, for I have little forbearance for charity such as now.”

Flinging a shard of the Transmission Mirror next to Simon, he was pulled into its magic before he could contend. As the mirror engulfed him in its sorcery, he glared at me with such loathing I thought it incredulous I had loved his grandparents dearly.

But it was his last words ahead of being teleported that unnerved me, roused me back to the verity of that very moment — “I know what you’re searching for, Alucard.”

I stared at the spot where Simon was, now an insignificant mass of rocks, amongst them lay fragments of my obsidian vial.

An uncanny cold snaked about my heart. Clutching at it, the hammering intensified to a booming knell, in the same manner as nights where the parish would pound at my castle doors with boulders, clamouring to burn her. My breathing soon withered to a wheeze, then a gasp, and I fell to my knees.

Without the pendant, I could feel her no longer.

What if she woke? The indefinite dangers she would face outside the castle walls…Simon…what if he knew a way to find her…to kill her…

I was sickened with fear. Haste was of the essence, but the Transmission Mirror teleported at random — there was no telling where I would end up. Trembling, I raced to ready my stallion.

I was going back to Castlevania.

Pt 1 I Pt 2

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lotusdrops-world · 15 days ago

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Canvas & Cradles

wc: 1.5k

rating: explicit

tags: rafayel x pregnant reader, pregnant sex, established relationship, husband/wife, paints, fluff with smut, p in v, oral sex f!receiving, creampie.

cross posted on ao3 | sylus version.

The scent of linseed oil and acrylic paint clung to the warm air. Rafayel’s studio was a haven of creative chaos—brushes in jars, canvases leaning like dominoes against the walls, and the gleaming seawaves dancing with the wind outside the studio were playing in the background as white noise.

You sat in the center of it all, posed on a worn velvet chaise, a thin robe draped over your shoulders. The robe had slipped open, framing the swell of your belly, glowing with the soft blush of candlelight and the waning gold of the sun slanting through the tall windows.

Rafayel stood a few feet away, brush in one hand, palette in the other, white shirt paint-stained and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He tilted his head dramatically, squinting at you through one eye.

“Okay, but be honest, are you trying to seduce me or are you just naturally this breathtaking?”

You smirked. “This was your idea, remember?”

He clicked his tongue. “Yes, but you are the one sitting there glowing like a fertility goddess who just stepped out of a Renaissance fever dream. You’re ruining my concentration, cutie.”

You rolled your eyes affectionately. “You’ve already been staring for over an hour.”

“That’s because I’m in agony,” he said, placing a hand to his chest in mock despair. “Do you have any idea what it's like trying to paint you while you’re literally the most beautiful thing that’s ever existed?”

“Flattery won’t make me sit still longer.”

He grinned mischievous, roguish—and walked over to you, the tiled floor warmed under his slow, theatrical steps. “No? Not even if I tell you I’m immortalizing you? Preserving this perfect moment of motherhood, beauty, and ‘glowy hormonal goddess energy’ for future generations?”

You raised a brow. “Future generations?”

“Well,” he said, kneeling between your knees with that familiar smirk, “at least for our kid. So they’ll know how extra their parents were.”

You laughed, but it caught in your throat when he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the crest of your belly. His lips were soft, reverent. The humor faded from his face, replaced by something quiet, intimate.

“I mean it,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re… everything. Every shade I’ve ever mixed. Every curve I’ve ever chased with a pencil.”

Your fingers sank into his curls. “Raf, you’re getting sentimental.”

“Don’t make fun of me. I’m vulnerable right now.” He kissed your belly again. “I’m painting my muse while she grows a whole human. I think that earns me a free pass to wax poetic.”

You leaned down to kiss him—slow and deep, tasting the intimacy that had always lingered between you. When you pulled back, he exhaled against your mouth.

“You’re warm,” he murmured. “And you smell like paint and peaches. It’s driving me crazy.”

“You’re the one who said this was going to be a ‘wholesome art session.’”

“Cutie,” he said, grinning, “I’m an artist. I lie for a living.”

You laughed again, tugging him up by the collar of his shirt until he was hovering above you. His hands found your thighs, parting them with practiced ease, his eyes flicking between your mouth and your belly like he couldn’t decide which miracle to worship first.

“You’ve been sitting there for almost an hour. Can we unwind a bit?” he spoke gently, while his hands filled with paint that had already dried played with the hems of your robe.

“Absolutely.”

The robe slid further open, revealing the fullness of your breasts, the curve of your hip. Rafayel drew in a breath like he was seeing you for the first time all over again.

“You’re more than a muse,” he said. “You’re a masterpiece that keeps changing. Evolving. It’s not even fair.”

You let out a breathless chuckle, “You’re very dramatic today.”

“It’s the lighting,” he whispered, brushing his nose along your neck. “And the hormones. Yours and mine.”

You reached between you, fingers toying with the hem of his shirt. “Then take this off and stop talking so much.”

“Oh now you want me to shut up?” he teased, tugging the shirt over his head and letting it fall to the floor. “You didn’t seem to mind when I was reciting sonnets to your belly a minute ago.”

You pulled him closer. “I love your mouth most when it’s not speaking.”

His laugh rumbled against your skin, low and sweet. “I do love when you get bossy.”

Then, he pulled back slightly—just enough to kneel before you once more, eyes locked on where your thighs parted.

“I have to see you,” he said, breath husky, reverent. “I need to see what I’ve made mine.”

You laid back slightly, propping yourself on your elbows, robe fully open now. Rafayel dipped between your legs like a man approaching the altar of a cathedral, his hands coaxing your thighs wider, mouth already parting with anticipation.

And when he looked at you—slick, swollen, divine—it was as if he were looking at brushstrokes in motion.

“God…” he exhaled, brushing a thumb so gently over your folds you shivered. “Cutie, you’re... you’re glowing down here too. This—” he spread you open more, watching your slick catch the flickering candlelight, “—this is the center of the universe right now. Do you have any idea what it does to me to see you like this?”

He leaned in, tongue pressing flat and slow, tasting you like a sommelier savoring wine, moaning low in his throat. His lips moved over your core as if kissing a page of scripture. Every motion was languid, reverent, worshipful.

“You’re sweeter than I remembered,” he murmured between licks, voice rasping like charcoal over silk. “And I remember everything, cutie. The first time I saw you, you were standing by that gallery window, wearing that ridiculous linen jumpsuit you hated.”

He kissed just above your clit, making you tremble.

“I looked at you and thought—that’s it. That’s the line I’ve been trying to draw my whole life.”

You moaned softly, hips arching into his mouth as he flattened his tongue against you again, dragging it up slowly, deliberately.

“Every painting before you was a draft. A study. And then you walked in like light through stained glass and ruined me.”

Your breath stuttered. “Raf—”

“You’re art,” he whispered, now licking you in firmer strokes, his voice cracking under his own arousal. “But this? This is my favorite part. The wettest, softest proof that you’re real. That you want me.”

You cried out softly as he sucked your clit into his mouth, groaning like a man starved. He didn't rush—he savored. Between every flick of his tongue he murmured praises, confessions, tiny worships.

“You taste like something I’d die to paint, but never share.”

Your legs began to tremble, hands clenching the velvet beneath you. He looked up, lips glistening, chin slick with your arousal, and smiled against your heat.

“You want me now?” he murmured.

You nodded, breathless. “Need you inside..."

And then he rose, pressing his body against yours once more. His hands cradled your hips, your belly, freeing his cock from the restraints of his trousers, hard and heavy between you.

He guided himself to your entrance, sliding in with one long, slow push. You both gasped at the depth, the fullness. One of his hands never left your womb.

“Let me leave one more memento before I finish the piece,” he said again—but this time his voice was trembling with raw, unfiltered adoration.

When he moved inside you, it was a rhythm of worship. Slow, unhurried. Like strokes of oil on a canvas he never wanted to dry. His mouth brushed against yours in quiet pulses, his murmurs soft as paint on linen.

“You’re a living sculpture. I still can’t believe I get to keep you…”

As much as you want to tell how much he means to you, words are stuck in your throat. The long drag of his cock around you, your tightness memorizing each thrust makes you feel dizzy, feel needed.

“This body, this soul—this is the best work I’ve ever helped create.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer until your foreheads pressed together. His thrusts grew deeper, still gentle but filled with a hunger that reached past flesh and bone.

“Raf… ‘m cumming…hah…”

“M-me too, princess. Paint your cum around me…”

And one finally thrust got Rafayel shaking on top of you. When you both finally came undone—shuddering, clinging, whispering each other’s names—it felt less like an ending and more like the finishing stroke on a masterwork.

Minutes passed in warm silence. Rafayel pulled the robe back over your shoulders, wrapping his arms around you as you curled into him, the baby nestled safely between you.

“I’m keeping this canvas forever,” he murmured, brushing your hair back. “But even it won’t do you justice.”

You smiled, tired and full. “Guess you’ll just have to keep painting me.”

He smirked. “Deal. But next time, I get to pose. Nude. With a flower crown.”

You groaned. “God help me.”

“Cutie,” he said, kissing your temple. “You married a menace. No take-backs.”

And with that, you fell asleep in the arms of your artist—his paint-streaked fingers still wrapped around your hand, your body resting in the quiet, sacred glow of love and new life.

#love and deepspace #lads rafayel #rafayel x reader #rafayel x mc #lnds #lads #love and deepspace fanfiction #qi yu #rafayel love and deepspace #rafayel x you

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veneralice · 2 months ago

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art credit: @sesamefruit on x / twitter! all credits to the artist!

divider credits: @cafekitsune ! all credits to the original creator of the divider!

seaborn soulmates / rafayel (m.)

in a cruel twist of fate, it is the god himself who becomes the most fervent worshipper. after lifetimes of looking for you, rafayel has finally found his beloved bride once more - but this time, it is him sinking to his knees to chant your praises, not the reverse. (20.4k words)

content warnings: maybe ooc-rafayel idk i’m still an inexperienced writer, me making up lemuria lore as i go because my ass wasn’t playing the game when god of tides came out (also i’m clueless about lads lore), mc as an independent character called michaela (pushing my wlw agenda with her and simone fr), kind of dubious consent???? (past!reader worships rafayel and acts very self-sacrificing so uh? idk? i’ll note it just to make sure) (also drunk rafayel initiates some skinship but reader shuts it down because you cant give consent while youre drunk yall), they fucking, p in v, switch!rafayel (bc we all know it’s canon /j), some biting, some scratching (rafayel’s back bleeds), overstimulation (fem. receiving), violence (blood and cutting is involved in deity worship), is it stalking? 💀 (he keeps tabs on reader in the same way he kept track of mc in-game before they met), idek man, let me know if you need more content warnings 🙂‍↕️, kind of inspired by @poisonf0rest bc i read her siren rafayel fic and saw god and immediately decided i had to write a raf fic myself, so honorary mention of them LMAO (pls read their fics they are so fucking good)

A thousand moons and a thousand suns have risen and fallen on the waves, but none compare to the sight of you entering Rafayel’s court. You are the only celestial constant in this life from that day on, the planet around which Rafayel’s immortal life spins. How humorous, that mortals are so below Lemurians that they are not even worthy of appraising their worship, but it is a mortal bride that weakens the god of the tides.

You are radiant, ephemeral in your beauty. There is a certain kind of delicate balance in your mortality, a rose so ethereal before it withers. Your skirts, although handmade and of unparticular material, a sign of your lowborn upbringing, part to reveal the soft skin hidden beneath, an image that makes Rafayel’s fingers twitch in yearning. He has never envied the land-walkers their bodies, not once. But at the sight of your clay-formed body, loved and created by the earth, he finds himself straining for the shape. Your feet land on the coral floor as if the ground there had been prepared for your stride, blessed by your existence.

It’s not love at first sight, certainly not. But it feels like brushing your fingers over a book and knowing the story already. It feels like helplessly wandering into the trap out of your own volition, although you know that trap will bite. But you let it. It creeps in, the sweetest kind of death you could imagine.

Like poison, the first taste of you condemns Rafayel to eternity.

“Your divinity, we have brought you your sacrifice,” the priests chant, the human part of your procession. The Lemurian guards accompanying them cast them a dubious glance. Not every sacrifice is deemed appropriate, but it is not like the world beneath the waves would balance itself without the human’s worship. A necessary evil, an ugly truth. Their sacrifices are not acknowledged, but appreciated nonetheless. A god feeds on what is given, no matter how all-powerful they are. Even blood as soiled by the human world’s elements is sustainable. “Your bride, your blood, your heart. We have brought you your sacrifice.”

When you walked in, your beautiful face had been angled upward. Even the most stoic of people are forced by the frescoes set in the wall to halt and wonder, because there is nothing else in this world that compares to the sea’s creations. Rafayel’s court was closed in by a dome, decorated with mosaic illustrations of the kingdom’s history. Painted in with elegant whorls of blue, white and red, the image depicted here showed the creation myth of his people, rising from the foam on his fingertips. You had looked straight at that painting, ignoring the gaggle of eyes that had looked on, feasting on the sight of you. But at the call of your entourage, you lower your gaze, meeting his straight-on.

There had never been a feeling so violent seizing him than in that very moment. He wanted to crush you. He wanted to own you.

He wanted to know you.

Rafayel is not the first monarch to hold this court in his blue-scaled fist. He is also not the only one whose heart has ever been stirred for something that could wreck this empire forever. It feels like being hunted, heady and dangerous and addicting. In your eyes lies a future more enticing than anything the seven seas could ever offer him. This is damnation.

What a powerful heart that frail chest must contain; secured only by the soft bones that would willingly give way to his monstrous hands, protected only by the warm flesh surrounding it. Rafayel is the king of sirens, monarch of the abyssal deep, but it was your song that drew him in. He wonders if the prayers you had dedicated to the waves tasted as sweet as your lips looked.

The soldiers surrounding his throne stepforward, signaling the silent message until here and no further. But Rafayel has already risen. Not registering the court which sinks to their knees as they pay their respects, he draws near enough that he could grasp your hands, tucked away in your companion’s crook of his arm. You lowered your head, obedient supplicant as you are. “Court of clay, I accept your sacrifice,” he announces, breathless. He doesn’t care how giddy that makes the humans, how his court begins to whisper. A scandal, an outrage. He only sees you. Not able to hold himself back, he reaches forward to cup your chin - you are shaking, an information he shouldn’t delight in, but does - and your gaze is steady, certain. You are a docile little lamb, not afraid of the knife about to fall. He could crush your right then and there; he could snap your neck if he wants to.

That was his first mistake. Gods have always been unmade by the most simple of human emotions, a fact every single predecessor had heeded. He should have struck you down where you stood, before you could lay the seeds of destruction. But Rafayel doesn’t heed his instincts. There is nothing else in the world anymore but you. Your eyes search his face, taking in every detail, as if the roles were reversed and you were the executioner who was gently lowering him to the chopping block. He imagines your hands roaming his body as you prepare him for certain death.

Deep inside his cold, scaled body, under the layers of divinity and immortality, his godly heart skips a beat.

Rafayel is coming undone, unravelling at the seams. It is only a matter of time until he dissolves into the sea, cupped by your gentle hands, until he finally disappears.

Later, when night draws closer and washes the world in darkness like a paint dissolving in a glass of water, he accompanies you and the bridal party to the rooms you will be residing in for the near future. Gentle, gentle fingers in his hands; you are ashamed of being able to touch him like this, and he notices it. Rafayel angles his head so he can look at you. Although this is nothing but a fancy dress-up of the matter at hand, which means your death at the end of this foolery, the sacrifice is still honored. That means becoming familiar with the heart that will soon bolster his powers, immortalized in him forever. It’s an excuse, of course, but it’s what his mind settles on as a reason for trying to commit your existence to memory. Your eyes are swimming around, looking like the schools of fishes that lounge around in his stronghold. Taking everything in. His own are obsessed with gazing at every inch of your face; soon, it will become more familiar to him than his own. “Your name, supplicant,” he says, breaking you out of your trance. “You have not given it yet.”

Your answer is quiet, and he has to lean even closer to actually hear it. Your female companions, who will wash you and prepare you and celebrate the wedding with you, are chattering behind him to the point of annoyance, but the excitement is understandable. The syllables of your name take physical shape as they go through him, and Rafayel finds himself closing to his eyes as he listens to the melody of your words. Settling in. Taking root. “But you may call me as you wish, Your Divinity,” you demure. Someone has trained you well in the niceties. “I am honored to become anything that you desire.”

“Bride of blood,” he says, and his treacherous fingers finally begin to wander. The supple flesh draws him in, and he adores the way goosebumps claim your skin. He is quite cold-blooded after all. And you are oh, so warm. Human bodies are so confusing and strange that Rafayel can’t help but wonder what moves them. The unreliable skin that gives way too easily to the lightest of bites, the awkward bones that bend at the simplest of angles. As Rafayel chases the muscles running down your arms with his fingertips, you turn your wrist so he can seize it, as if you know what instincts he is following. An instinct as old as time. Life was created when intuition turned into contact, after all. You watch as the deadly king of the abyss stares at your flesh as if it was a wonder to behold. As if he is not the father of all miracles.

Soft, soft flesh. Brittle as wood worn out by the water. Rafayel does not relinquish his hold on you as he speaks. “Bride of clay. You have already become what I desired. You are welcome to ask any wish of me for the sacrifice you will accomplish. Let no one speak that the ocean’s court is ungrateful to your service.”

“I would never imply otherwise, Your Divinity.” Your cheeks are aflush with your humanity, heating below his touch in reaction to being so close to the object of your worship. You do not seem like a typical, blushing bride. He has already taken notice of the harsher, roughened way you admonished your bridal party earlier. Often times, the brides sent to him are scared, chosen at random, unprepared for what the sacrifice means. Often times, it means that Rafayel chooses other brides, casting over the human’s lot. Every year they visit, fighting to compete in their adoration with other worshippers, not realizing that they cannot compare. But you are true in your faith. There are scars feathering all over the palms of both your hands where you have drawn blood to cast into the sea. A moon-shaped indentation, where the lunar priests of the sea (as his worshippers are called above, named for the moon’s strained effort to become one with the sea) brand themselves after ascending to their positions, is situated in the hollow of your throat, right above that precious collarbone he could snap like a coral branch. You are calm, clear-headed.

You could not have been more perfect.

He tugs you along, deeper into the cold water. You do not complain once. The court to strangers is built like a maze, intended to confuse and rattle. A safety measure that is laughable. There is no one who’s might parallels the god of the sea. But Rafayel had taken care to implement it nonetheless, to protect the weak, even though the most vulnerable Lemurian could still overpower the weakest of humans. It is why it so unsettling that you stir him like this. He has loved nothing else on this earth than he has loved the folk of the water. He angles another look at you, suspicious.

The moonlight makes every edge of you luminous with beauty. From the tips of your lashes, to the curves of your features, down to the shape of your human body. It is normal to experience attraction. You were very comely, after all; it wasn’t only Rafayel’s head that had turned to follow your every move. During your presentation, even the most cranky of attendants had lit up with pleasure at such a delicious sight. But he wonders if this means more. He shouldn’t be so attuned to you, shouldn’t be so drawn in by a first encounter. Fate had such a funny way of working its motives. Its cruelty and its humor affected the happenstances of all beings, even gods like him.

The doors to your room have already been affixed with a pair of guards. They are armed with lances, sharpened at the edge to stab through even the most enduring of scales. Warriors of the sea are trained to handle even the most extenuating of threats. Rafayel dismisses them at once, and they stand aside, each taking a few steps away to grant the party their privacy. They will return to their post when Rafayel has left. He gesticulates with his free arm that the women may enter; your companions mouths shape oohs and aahs of wonder as they step inside, but you remain where you are. Your warm hand still lies inside his, a fact that makes his fish-blooded heart tucker inside his chest. “Forgive me for this presumptuous question, Your Divinity,” you say then, affixing your gaze to his face. A face of polite pliancy. He can almost imagine you leading the prayers in the rooms of your faith, the prideful upraised head looking to the sea. “But might there be a fountain which we can use for our prayers?”

“Praying to what, when all your prayers have been answered?” Rafayel swipes a thumb over the blood-darkened veins inside your wrist, the blood you wish to cast into the waves in the same manner as starlight spills over the endless sky. Your skin is as malleable as sand. He wants to dig in, a primal urge from when Lemurians still hunted humans for sport. Some still do. “You may ask the guards to show you to an appropriate location to perform your prayers. But you have already become a symbol of faith, bride of clay. You are being rewarded as such.”

You dip your head in acknowledgement. “I have, Your Divinity. But it does not mean I should stop dedicating myself.”

He stares at you, hard. You are going to die for your faith. That precious little thing you seem to guard so weakly inside your mortal chest will be ripped from you like a human child is torn out of the womb. And yet here you are, asking to dedicate yourself to the very faith who will murder you. Piety is a wondrous thing, and it has moved you so far that you have surrendered to your own sacrifice, but is it really piety that is making you go through the motions of something as superfluous as prayer, when the very act of sacrifice is the highest religious duty you could fulfill? “What an interesting bride they have brought me,” he says, and you lower your gaze, the picture of humility. “Pray, then. As long as you meet me after you do.”

You hum in response, and he watches as you finally rejoin the women already appraising the room. One of them, a younger woman who shares the curve of your jaw and the color of your hair, reaches out to grasp your hand. You free it almost immediately to brush over her hair, a startlingly gentle display of affection in comparison to the chiding you subjected her to earlier. She must be family, though she does not share your beauty.

How confusing to be jealous of a simple gesture like this. How idiotic to yearn to be in that woman’s stead. Rafayel turns his back on the bridal party, before he can do anything that could tarnish his reputation.

Rafayel finds you where he guessed you would be. Your blood is still dripping into the fountain as he approaches you, the thick drops submerging quickly as they fall, like tears of pearl. It was once said, a myth unfurling in the motions of history due to the fascination other creatures often felt at the people of Lemuria, that his folk cried pearls, a myth they had been hunted for. “Wasteful, don’t you think?” he quips at the sight, but his touch is gentle when he takes your hand into his own. “Spilling blood when you will spill so much more when we are wed.”

“Nothing performed in service of the sea god is wasteful, Your Divinity,” you answer calmly. The supplicant at your side, not the family member he saw yesterday, sends you an alarmed look before she lowers it. You questioned the words of a god, an action most people would never even dare. Had you been anyone else, your bones would have already become the fishes’ supper. Even if you had been part of this court, such a comment could still have costed your head. But Rafayel feels himself begin to bend, turning over in your scarred palms. For being the most powerful entity roaming this planet, he feels as though you are the one holding all the cards. “It may not be worthy, but I beg you to accept our meager offerings to you. It is an honor to live in the light of your divinity.”

A memorized answer, devoid of anything personal. It is not the answer he craves, and he wishes to tug at your hair, to tear the secrets you carry in your heart from your head. It is a gruesome instinct, supped on the desire that is beginning to grow inside his heart. “Come with me,” he says, and then, addressing your companion, “You may remain here. I wish to become my bride’s acquaintance.”

The companion lowers her head in pliancy, but she seems nervous, apparently not trusting herself to formulate words in answer. Not because of his presence, perhaps. Rafayel has the inkling that it is you who’s distressing the bridal party. Something mysterious is unfolding in front of his eyes, and he itches to know more. He turns to offer you his arm, and you hesitate, shying away from the fact that he is an immortal being that is worshipped by everything the waves washes ashore on. But you take it, your warmth as shocking as the flash of lightnings the rainstorms sometimes inflict on his domain. Rafayel begins to walk, directing you to the royal gardens.

The weather is much nicer today. The sunlight fights to flood the scenery wherever it reaches, creating shadows of myth. Power is appearance. This court has been designed in a way to strike both fear and awe in hearts untouched by the heavens. You turn your head as far as it reaches, taking in the sight in the same way you had admired the ceiling yesterday. You must have an eye for art. “Tell me about yourself, daughter of clay,” he says, using the address most non-humans utilize to respectfully interact with an unknown land-walker. You whip your head back around to look at him. Today, your face is kissed by the sun, the lovely light enunciating every feature, every trace of the ancestors who had loved the idea of you so much that they willed you into existence. The sight rips into him like a shark bite, and for a moment, he finds himself envying whoever created humans. They had been much more adoring and obsessed with their work than he has, and it is reflected in the creation of you. “And none of the faithful derision today. I do adore being admired, but we are to be wed, and I wish to know whose heart I am going to consume.”

“Faithful derision,” you repeat, clearly taken aback by him reducing the faith of the sea to a simple piece of doggerel. Most of humanity’s prayers go unanswered, after all, expected from an existence so frail it could be wiped out with the smallest of tsunamis. “You mock me so, Your Divinity. Very well. What is it you wish to know of me?”

How have you managed to bewitch me, you evil thing? Rafayel thinks, but does not say. The urge to consume not just your heart, but you in your entirety has still not left him, even after a cold night of serious self-reflection. He has never realized how much desire could blur into hunger. “Who raised you?” he asks instead. “Who were you before you came here? What is it that made you become the lamb to my slaughter?”

Your eyes glaze over, an unidentifiable emotion he only manages to glimpse before you veil it over with the distanced civility you employ to interact with him. “I never knew my father, but my mother is a shepherdess above the sea,” you answer, slowly. The words are chosen carefully. “My mother used to be a priestess, but she was released from her duty when she had me. I was born of sin, you know. A lunar priestess is supposed to remain unwed and untainted, but she became pregnant with me. I am absolving both my mother and me of that taint.”

What a human belief, Rafayel thinks. To categorize love and coupling and touch as something sinful. As if the simple act of dedicating yourself to another wasn’t the holiest experience one could live through. The wax and wane of desire is as holy as the kneel of prayer to a Lemurian, which live and die for love. Above all else, it is the connection to someone else that could be the most well-guarded treasure a Lemurian could ever possess. But humanity’s civilization keeps its own rule, and to laugh about their beliefs would mean disrespecting you, so he only responds with, “I am sure the taint you speak of does not exist.”

“You are kind to say so, Your Divinity.” You do not sound like you believe it. Your words are, like nothing else, an act of worship. But perhaps it is because you understand him that you accept the answer, and that means something to him: to be understood as he is. He guides you along until he reaches a pavilion in the middle of the garden. You sit down first, a distance away from him in the spirit of propriety, but Rafayel is done acquiescing to your silly human rules. He sits near enough that your knees knock against each other, and as he cages you in like a hunter would circle his prey, he takes hold of your hand again. A bone-deep ache has claimed Rafayel, an ardor he never knew he possessed. It is taking hold of him, surging up in him like a wave. It is more than just your body he craves, something that runs deeper and hotter than the center of his own existence. “There is something you are hiding from me,” he tells you, watching as your eyes darken. You do not like being perceived, and the realization almost makes him laugh. “I will not make you tell it. You are free to do whatever it is you wish. But you fascinate me, daughter of clay. It is rare to enrapture a god’s attention, you know.”

As the night before, you roll your wrist in his hold so he may grasp it properly. Perhaps you search out his touch in the same manner as he does yours. Your fingers graze the flesh of his thighs as he lowers your hand to his lap. “I will get in over my head, Your Divinity, if you keep complimenting me like this,” you say. It makes his lips quirk into a genuine smile. Clever human, to play along like this. Your pulse thrums below his fingertips, the rhythm addicting. A true siren song. “I may overstep myself. That would not befit me at all. I am here to be free of sin, after all.”

“You are free already.” Rafayel’s fingers trace patterns into your skin, lower and lower. He unfolds your fingers for you, stretching them as far as they go. The scars on your skin are hypertrophic and ugly, but they fascinate him as much as every inch of your body does. They tell the stories of experiences and lived memories. Each one contains another secret he wants to unveil, a pearl he wants to claim as his own. “And we are to be wed, aren’t we?” His fingers curl over your own, and then you’re holding hands, intertwined in all manners of fate. Rafayel leans in, close enough to make you uncomfortable, close enough to kiss you. You don’t lean away. “There is nothing sinful about being betrothed, or what you do in the name of love. You are mine now, daughter of clay. All mine.”

For the first time since you have arrived here, you smile, your teeth gleaming like knifes. He feels it cutting into his chest, cutting away at his restraint. Although Rafayel is part of a species that is the apex predator of all predators, hunting and reigning over all that lives and breathes, in this moment, it is you who becomes the huntress.

How easy it is to climb a throne. How easy to be torn from it.

In the following days, he feels that tear at his existence in everything you do. Your allure only grows with every minute spent in your vicinity, and finally he has grown so needy that he absolves you of your prayers. Instead, he makes you worship him in person, and the time blurs into eternity, the noose at the end of the road long forgotten.

Rafayel spends afternoon tracing the traces of your creation; every bone, every tendon he explores with the devotion of a fervent prayer. Your fathomless eyes, glinting with the knowledge and the plans you keep hiding away from him, draw him in like the bait at the end of a fishing rod, and even though he knows it’s a trap, he lets himself be caught. Three nights before the day at your wedding, he finds himself caught on the sharp hook as he submerges into a bath with you.

You are not naked, but it almost seems like you are with the way the fabric of your dress begins to cling to you as the water kisses your skin. The shivering claiming your human bones create little currents in the pool, the water much colder than the ocean that surrounds this make-shift castle. Rafayel presses you closer to him, and then his face is in your hair, breathing in deeply. You both have long stopped caring about the rules of polite society. Rafayel has not allowed you to. Every touch, every word, every smile has made you more pliant, until finally you have even allowed him to partake in your ablutions before the wedding.

Every sacrificial bride of the sea god is supposed to take a bath before her wedding, washing away her past so that she can present herself in her most purified state. Most times, the bridal party is asked to help her with that, but Rafayel has stolen that role. It is the single most blasphemous thing one could do. But he is a god, and it is him who dictates the rules, delivers the scripture. All it took was a jut of his lip, the allusion of a pout, and you had caved immediately.

And now you were here, in the curve of his arm, your ear hovering above his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, pounding as loudly as the waves crashing on the beach, the sound susurrating inside your very soul. You breathe in deeply, shaking. This is the most divine thing you have ever experienced, something your mortal shell never thought it would be able to feel. “Sweet conch shell,” Rafayel murmurs in to your ear, shocking you to your core. “I’m sure you know that we have to step in even further to be able to perform the purification.”

“Just a second, please,” you speak through gritted teeth. This man vexes you in the most alluring of ways, and you cannot help but acquiesce to his every whim. You know your pleading falls on deaf ears, though, because Rafayel’s immediate reaction is a smile so mischievous it borders on schadenfreude, and he is already tugging at your shoulders in an attempt to submerge you further. You try to stand firm, even though your determination is crumbling. “It’s cold. It’s really cold.”

“Hmmm.” Rafayel nips at your ear, then your throat; you shudder violently enough for the water to splash. In the silence of your private little bubble, it almost sounds like an explosion. It makes your eyes snap open, as if preparing itself to fight or flee. Never had you let a man so close into your proximity. The village had always been ripe with gossip-mongering and backtalk. Your mother, although the most honorable person in the world to you, had been a demonized figure, to the point where your own worship had made you cull out the presence of men. No one had ever expected you to follow in your mother’s footsteps. No one had expected you to become a bride worthy of the sea. The simple pleasure of his ministrations floods your cheeks with hot blood. “See, I already warmed you up,” he teases, mouthing the words against your carotid artery. Speaking the words directly into your heart. You are guided much easier now, the water sloshing as you are pulled in. “I’ll take care of you, my pearl. You’re with your god, aren’t you?”

With your god. You turn your face toward him. Rafayel’s fingers tug at your lower lip, and you watch as his eyes zero in on the flesh; he is weirdly entranced with the way your human body works, the strange reaction it elicits from him. It is something you have become accustomed to in the past few days. His nail is sharp enough to draw blood. “See, that wasn’t so hard,” he coos, mocking you outright. But his fingers are shaking. It’s you who’s got him wrapped around your little finger, and that feels both emancipating and sacrilegious, a conflict so confusing that you do not know where you have to draw the line. You don’t even want to draw a line. When you had joined the faith of the waves, the image you had conjured during prayer had been ephemeral and fleeting, as changing as the sea. Not in your wildest dreams would you have been able to picture a man, a deity as flawless as Rafayel. His beauty kills. It constricts your lungs and tugs at your heart, as if falling into the maw of a great beast. The still water does nothing to take away from your hypersensitivity to his proximity.

Mortals aren’t made for divine dalliances. You burn too easily. But here you are, playing with fire.

You aren’t delusional enough to think he loves you. You are clay-born, after all. Rough and hastily assembled, none of the precision that the sea god had employed to give birth to his people. You are dazzling in the same way as a fire is dazzling: a short burst of destruction that is as awe-inspiring as it is revolting. But even you can recognize that he is attracted to you, and to a simple servant of the faith, that is quite enough. You are basking in whatever affection he grants you, any scrap at all.

Although you are still on the cusp of youth, old enough to yearn but young enough to grasp the moment, you had never in your wildest dreams conspired of something like this ever happening. Love just wasn’t on your cards. You had your sister, and your mother, and your faith, and that was truly enough. It was fulfilling to the point that you had felt untethered to the earth, free from the judging glances of the village, free from all the expectations the convent placed on you. Living and breathing and becoming one with the sea. If you had died tomorrow without ever having glimpsed the miraculous sea god you had entrusted yourself to, you would have died happy anyways. It was as simple as that.

But this was life-changing. Altering. You were experiencing an out-of-body experience, mythology come true. After all those years you had thrown your love into the universe, the universe was reaching back. You were spinning off axis, losing sight of everything but Rafayel. He was the new epicenter of your existence.

You jump as his fingers trail the naked skin of your arms. He settles on your hips, the touch so electrifying that you bite the lower lip he is still so fascinated by, staring at it as if it were a treasure he discovered at the bottom of the sea. The moon behind him outlines his shape in silver and white, making him seem more like an apparition than an actual person. How fitting, when you have been fantasizing about him all your life. “We should perform the purification now,” you whisper, but Rafayel is still lazily drawing patterns into the flesh of your curves. “Certainly,” he drawls out, every syllable enunciated in the abundant leisure only a god could possess. Your nerves feel like they are on fire. “In a minute.”

“Your Divinity,” you caution.

“Raf-a-yel.” He pronounces the words slowly, but with a deadly intonation. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Say it. Say my name.”

You look at him, unsure. He looks just as much the deadly hunter he is sometimes depicted as in the murals. Before humanity had started building shrines in honor of the sea god of the abyss, they had painted warning signs about him, about the quick and bloody death he delivers. Some sailors still caution against all interaction with the creatures of the sea, their doom-calling stories a fresh batch of nightmares every time you hear them. The way Lemurians used to drag their willing prey beneath the waves, where they watched as the light left their eyes. What remained of them were the last bubbles of air as they rose to the surface. You cannot say his name, not with your tainted tongue. Not with the bastardry you carry in your veins. Not when you are deceiving him for the sake of your sister. But … “Rafayel,” you whisper.

You should feel scared about the way his lips curve into a smile. Beneath the most beautiful skins still lies the deadly bite of a venomous snake. Somehow you don’t think it’s fear that spikes the speed of your heartbeat, though. It’s not adrenaline that makes you angle your face upward so Rafayel can nuzzle your neck, and you almost buckle at the swipe of his tongue. Tasting the salt on your skin, the earth you came from. “Here, I purify you,” he answers. “I’ll lick you clean.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s what the scriptures meant, Your Divinity. Rafayel,” you hastily correct. He had frozen in his motions, but resumed nipping at your skin when you had added his name. The cold water was doing absolutely nothing against the fire racing inside your veins.

“Don’t care about the scriptures.” Rafayel draws up, pulling you with him. The languorous stretch of his figure forces you upward, and following his guide, you wrap your arms around his neck until you’re flush against him. His eyes darken at the press of your breasts against his chest. You screw your eyes shut at the delicious pressure, the way your nipples had brushed against his skin. How easy it is to throw all caution into the wind. You were losing sight of everything you built, in the name of love. “My word is law. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, Rafayel.”

He almost seems to purr at the sound of his name, easily pleased. It’s a deeply unhuman sound that should make you shrink away in fear. You screw your eyes shut as his lips trace the shape of your cheeks, inching closer to your mouth. “My name sounds so delicious on your tongue,” he whispers against the corner of your lips, bordering on a kiss. “If only all your prayers had been like this. I would have flooded all the ports and claimed the land just to have you.”

“I am yours,” you tell him, and you mean it. Rafayel grips your hips hard enough to draw blood, and he doesn’t need to tell you to know what he wants from you. You repeat it, again and again, telling him you belong to him, until Rafayel shuts you up with a kiss that tastes of both sanctity and sin, and the poison he pours into you is so decadent you almost don’t realize it’s killing you. You forget that at the end of this, it will not just be his kiss consuming you whole. You welcome the knifes and the sharp teeth and let Rafayel devour you.

The night passes then with the two of you trading kisses in the dark, small touches bordering on disgrace. You bend so many of your rules that at the end of the night, you’re not sure whether your virginity is sacred after all. But Rafayel never asks you for it, and you both remain clothed, although the bath has made you drip all over the floor. Inside the enormous bed that Rafayel claims as his own, you watch the sun rise as his fingers trace your ears, your collarbones, the shape of your body. It feels intimate in a way that is devoid of sex. It almost feels like Rafayel is the supplicant and you his deity, with the reverence he dedicates to touching you. “You do not need to be purified, bride of blood,” he says, addressing you like he did on the day you met him. Once again, it is a sign of respect. A sign that although he doesn’t understand your beliefs, he still wants to adhere to them because you treasure them. “You are flawless as you are. I chose you because you are everything I want.”

Although your sight is already blurring from tiredness, you make an effort to look at him. “Even though I am human?”

“Despite everything,” he tells you. “My heart sings with the presence of you.”

The sincerity of that statement dizzies you. You fall back into the blurness, feeling light as a feather. Never in your life before have you experienced a joy as profound as this; you have seen the face of God, and God has looked back at you. He is only looking at you.

“You do not have to do this, you know.”

It is the sister who speaks. Rafayel turns over the ceremonial knife, staring at it as he strains to hear the soft voices in the room behind him. Technically, he was eavesdropping. It was a breach of privacy, of course, but there was the matter of intention; he had come to see you, to fall into your lap as you told him about the human world, to allow himself to be reduced to a lover at the beck and call of a mere human like you. The days were beginning to slip away like sand in an hourglass, the wedding inching closer with every passing second. He had been trying to identify where the pit of dread inside his stomach came from when he heard your sister speak up, a feat so rare that he had forced himself to stop behind the door before she stopped. Your bridal party was composed of the most annoying people in the world, all of them paling in comparison to you in both faith and creature, but your sister guarded her words like a clam her pearls. And now, when she finally spoke, it was to deter you from marrying at all.

Rafayel hears something shift. You must have sat closer to her. “Do not say those words,” you hiss, a tone he has never heard you take before. “Do you forget how easily it is for a human to lose their head down here? We are already on thin ice.”

“I’m serious. You do know we could all die anyways, right? How can you be so calm? I feel like I’m about to go insane!”

“Then keep it together!” The answer is too loud, a cat mother snapping at its young. The anger in your voice is palpable. For a moment, the silence claims the room alongside the tension created by the secret conversation, but then you speak up, much calmer. “We either die together for this treason, or I die and you will live to tell my tale. In either case, it’s fine by me. I don’t care about my own life, but so help me god, Alia, if you even think of ending this ruse I will send you above water myself. I’m your older sister. It is my duty to think of you first.”

Treason. Rafayel’s fingers skim the edge of the knife. Blood pearls at the tip of his fingers, the sight of it as nauseating as the thought of a possible betrayal by the human world. Already, the world above them has started to leave them behind, with their experiments of gunpowder and weaponry. More and more patrols return decimated, the serving soldiers reporting death and violence. Complaining, pointing fingers. It’s no secret that the bridal party at court has become somewhat of a group of hostages. And hadn’t Rafayel already known that you were hiding things?

But he thinks of the way you let him cup your face in the sight of only moon and sky, how your eyes glint with the unspoken tenderness between the two of you. It was easy to lie with words, but your souls sing to each other. You both know it. There is something tucked away inside your human heart that belongs to him and him alone, something that makes Rafayel forgive you for every past and future grievance you could possibly muster against him. There is something every living heart wants for itself, and his heart wants you. The metaphorical knife sinks and sinks and sinks into his chest, slamming into bone, stuck there like Rafayel is stuck on his throne. Forever a hand-width away from everyone else, even his happiness. Just then, your sister whispers, “You love him, do you not? You have already given him your heart.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you gently reprimand her. Rafayel closes his eyes; the hand twisting the knife is rough and scarred, but familiar. He imagines taking that hand to aid it. Stab here, he wishes to say. Just a little deeper. I permit you. Only you. “This plan isn’t going to work, and I don’t care. I’ll take them down with me if I can. If I’m dead, I can’t be blackmailed, can I? I don’t care whether I die, as long as you live.”

As long as you live. Rafayel thinks of hearts, and the consumption of them, and of weddings and happy endings. He tucks the ceremonial knife away, his insides cold with the grim certainty of what he is going to do.

Later on, Rafayel will not remember the way his wedding had crashed and floundered into flames. He will not remember the sharp sting of betraying his own people, how his power had bled and bled. It was always so gruesome when gods fell. They weren’t destined for tragedies of this scale.

The only thing Rafayel will be able to commit to his recollection is how stunning divinity looked on you. He will forget the way his home had tasted, how the blooming kingdom of Lemuria had seemed to explode with colors, how the laughter of his folk had accompanied him everywhere. The only thing left will be you, your radiant face and your warm, warm tears, as warm as blood, sparking a fire in even the coldest of deep sea creatures. It should make him curse your name.

And yet he cannot forget you.

He looks for you everywhere, at every time, in every moment. The way your smile looked like the warm rays of the sun as they broke through the rain-heavy sky. The way the sound of your steps seemed to echo like the drum-like rhythm of his heart. He races after people who seem to have just the right hair color, who seem to share the shape of your eyes, who remind him just too much of you, only to realize that it wasn’t the person he was chasing after. You are haunting him. In every waking moment, in every dream that tortures his sleep, it is always you.

The resulting soul-devouring longing has turned him into quite the artist. When Lemuria fell, it took everything with it. Every painting since then he has ever drawn up fails to compare with the real thing, and he is terrified by the idea that he is forgetting how his home looked like. Already the details begin to slip away from him, becoming eroded over time. What remains crystalline is the imagine of you. Devilish you, crux of Lemuria you. It torments him to love you, but what torments him more is the loss of you. He had never been prepared for this possibility. He had never even considered what giving his heart away would look like.

And yet, he would do it again, and again, and again. Selfishly, egotistically. What he wouldn’t give to be able to make you smile again. In his most desperate nights, he strains himself to remember the way you used to laugh, the sound more heavenly than any music ever composed on earth. Even the falsification of the sound still manages to bring him so much peace that Rafayel stills his hands and abstains from painting another death trap. Although revenge has become the new mistress of his heart, he doesn’t love her as much as he will ever love you. It is the memory of you that makes him halt, makes him grant mercy to a possible victim. That, and the everlasting fear it is your blood he could be punishing. Your wish had been granted, after all - it was your sister who had lived and witnessed the death of a civilization, your sister who had escaped all culpability.

It was one of the most earliest memories he managed to commit to his brain after the atrocity that was the destruction of Lemuria. He had dug your sister’s grave with his bare hands. He had never even known her, not closely anyways, but it was your blood running in her veins, your love that had raised her. After so many years of searching and retracing his steps, he had finally found the village you had been born into. But by then, his bride had disappeared, and your sister had grown old waiting for you, and she had barely been able to squeeze Rafayel’s hand before passing on peacefully. That had hurt him in an entirely different way. Here was someone, who loved you and missed you just as much as him, who would understand how severely the loss of you had impacted him, but then she went and died. A cruel fate, as usual. But he did not regret finding her. For a little while, someone had been able to share his grief. And for a little while, that had been enough.

In his worst nightmares, Rafayel dreams he will never see you again. He will live and die for his love, but it will not matter. The bond that connected your souls stretched on into nothingness, past the place where living beings could reach, and you have already passed onto a place he will never see, because you’re an angel and he’s going to hell. Whether he believes it or not, he has betrayed his people, his court, his duty. There was no redemption, no way to come back from that.

Sometimes he resents you for it, so much so that his soul grows heavy with the anger he carries within. He stares at himself in the mirror for hours, trying to claw off the Lemurian mark that bonds you to him, but then he dissolves into sobs. He is hollow of you, a carved out corpse, a mermaid drowned. An oxymoron, like he was. He loves you so much that he convinces himself the pain is worth it; he convinces himself that he can survive this.

He becomes a renowned artist, his paintings a manifest oh the emotions he tries to overcome. But in every single one, his muse remains the same.

Like divine intervention, it is his paintings you admire when Rafayel finally finds you again.

He almost doesn’t trust his eyes. After all, this is not the very first time he has chased after a mirage like a traveler lost at sea. The back that is turned to him is not as scarred as yours was, and the curls of your hair are tucked away in a neat coiffure that almost makes him look away; you had hated to have your hair up. His favorite part of the morning routine you both established was when you had let him sneak into your rooms, and you had let him brush your hair until it was smooth and silky to the touch. But then you cock your head at the painting, and Rafayel sees your face, and he almost buckles.

The moon pales in comparison of the sight of your face twitching into the amazed expression at the painting before you. The sharp teeth remember him of your knife-like grimaces, the ones you used to grace him with when he saw a little bit too much of the truth inside you. There is a horrifyingly familiar birthmark where your brandmark used to identify you as one of the most devoted priestesses of the sea’s faith. You are as beautiful as the day as he lost you, as stunning as the day you had walked into his life.

He stumbles into Thomas, who steadies him with an appalled noise. The rest of the world falls away as Rafayel drinks in the sight of you like a man completely parched with thirst, as if he might die from it. You’re staring at a rendition of how Rafayel had imagined you might look in a bridal gown. His legs carry him forward, and never has the burden of walking on earth hurt him as much as now; he feels that knowledge tearing at him, clawing away at every protective measure, before he even reaches you. Every step is razor-sharp and painful, a conscious memory of what he sacrificed to roam the earth for you. He already knows before you meet his eyes. Your eyes are as clear and amazed as the day you had been brought to him.

You have no idea who he is at all.

It had already been a weird day. You had woken up to your face wet with tears, but as you touched it, you couldn’t for the life of you remember what you had dreamt about. There was only the disturbing feeling that were was something missing, something you couldn’t live without. You had laid in bed for a very long time, your hand placed over your heart, before your bestfriend and roommate Simone had burst into your room and told you to ‘get your ass up before we miss work’.

In the subway, the feeling hadn’t subsided. Beneath the bones of your breast cage, your most vital organ sputtered and stuttered, strangely arhythmic. The thing wasn’t very reliable, anyways, and you already had monthly check-ups to ensure it wasn’t fucking you over and you could continue your work. And then sometimes, it performed miracles. So many times you had woken up in a hospital bed after having passed out with the certain thought that you were going to die, but every time your heart had won out, like it loved battling death and beating the shit out of it every time. It had mystified Zayne, your childhood friend, to the point where he had suggested setting up a field study for his university studies, but you had firmly declined. You didn’t want anyone else to know about this freak heart, thank you.

Work itself had passed by quickly either way, and you had almost passed over the opportunity of going out with your friends. But Simone had wheedled at you and whittled your rejection down until it turned into acceptance, so now here you were.

Staring at this stranger.

He almost looked familiar. In another life, perhaps, you would have walked up to him and struck up a conversation. You had a special weakness for pretty boys, even though you knew even the most beautiful of predators are still deadly. But you had sworn off men after college, the short dalliances that had sparked up remaining unfruitful, so you thought it was for the best.

But the look in his eyes was so heartbreaking.

If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he knew you. He seemed to be looking at you like someone who he had believed dead had magically been brought back to life and returned to him. When you finally mustered up your courage to approach him, because he had been staring at you for quite a while now, the gorgeous man had turned and left. You quickly lost sight of him, which made you frown.

You were a Deepspace hunter, one of the best. You usually don’t lose track of your prey, especially not pretty ones like him.

It didn’t matter. You never saw him again afterwards. Your fake vow of chastity remained stable, even after the countless club nights Simone dragged you to and even after Tara’s desperate pleading to please, pretty please let her set you up with someone. You declined every time. Not because you were stubborn, but because there was a hollowness inside you that starved for tenderness, something so unreal you were sure you were never going to find it. There was a beast encaged by your veins and bones, starving for the scraps of affection. You had fed it and fed it and fed it, to the point where at the end, you were the one who had been left unnurtured, so you had abandoned the search.

You had never once thought it would find you instead.

There were times when the timing seemed almost too suspicious. The appearance of a fake account perceiving your social media posts. The feeling of someone keeping watch of you. Not following you, but checking in on you. The knowledge that someone was looking out for you, but every time you turned the corner, what greeted you was the sight of a whole lot of nothing.

It’s Wednesday night after Simone’s shift when the doorbell rings. “Did you order in?” you ask the girl, but she shakes her head, the freshly washed hair whipping around like a flag in the wind. “Maybe it’s Michaela?” she theorizes, and you shrug. You’ve met Michaela before; she was Xavier’s hunting partner, a competent hunter that was sure to rise through the ranks. You hadn’t realized that Simone and her had become so acquainted, though. You were definitely going to needle Simone about that.

You went to open the door, but it wasn’t Michaela standing in front of it. Instead, a delivery boy that looks like the most bored employee you’ve ever seen holds out a packaged bouquet to you. “Please sign here, miss,” he says, and holds out a board where a paper has been pinned to it. You scan it quickly to confirm it’s actually for you, then give him the signature he requires.

“Who was it?” Simone appears in the hallway, scrubbing away at her hair. You are momentarily distracted from the bouquet and stare at her instead; you always scolded her for walking around with wet hair. “Is that a bouquet?” she asks before you can say something, her voice amazed. “I thought you were a chaste nun and all that!”

“I’m not dating anyone!” you immediately defend yourself. But your heart is racing as you pass her, and you quickly walk to the kitchen counter where you reach for the scissors in the drawers. Simone rejoins you and watches as you free the flowers from their paper cage.

It is the prettiest bouquet you’ve ever received. Nestled inbetween baby’s breath and foxgloves, water lilies in full bloom reach upward, filling the kitchen with their dizzying fragrance. Simone begins to sneeze almost immediately; she is violently allergic to foxgloves. You, on the other hand, breathe in deeply, almost light-headed with the violent longing the flowers fill you with.

You stare at the flowers for a very long time.

After almost an hour of theorizing and reaching to no conclusion, you place the bouquet on the windowsill in your room where it can be seen from the street. It’s intentional, because you are almost sure that the feeling of that watchful stranger was not just a feeling. Maybe it was a secret admirer or something. But your heart was at peace with that knowledge, and the feeling that encapsulated you was as familiar as a dream; a dream where you are loved as you are, with every inch of your being. You sleep deeply and restfully for the first time in a very long time.

As someone rounds the corner, he angles his eyes upward to stare at a certain window. He passes by here almost daily, just to see whether you were sleeping and taking care of yourself. Worrying about whether when the lamp burned deep into the night, it meant you were overworking yourself or haunted by nightmares. Reassured when the light was off and your shutters closed, because it meant you were home and sleeping. When the shutters are open, he doesn’t even bother to pass by this street, having learnt quickly it meant you were on a business trip of some kind. He has quickly become resentful of your vocation because of how much it drains you. But today, he sees the bouquet he sent you, proud on display on the very windowsill he is able to see from below here, so far away from you.

Almost unwillingly, because he has yet to relearn the motion, his lips curve into a smile. Rafayel walks home, his heart as light as it never has been before. Well, maybe once. Back when the waves were still the emperors of the world. When love meant a certain, moonlight-illuminated face.

It doesn’t take long for Rafayel to re-enter your life under the guise of a part-time job. A bodyguard, for a painter. The joke almost writes himself. But you couldn’t deny how you had clapped your hands in joy when you saw him again, the pretty face with no name you had seen on that day of the art reveal. You let him seduce into the worst side-gig ever, which might as well have been a babysitting job instead of a bodyguard position.

You learn that he’s a recluse, famous painter with the weirdest quirks. You’ve never met a man as strange as him. He was immature, and whiny, and a brat. Most times, you were too exasperated to handle him, despite the ridiculous amount of money he was paying you (the dude was rolling in money) and the bonus of getting to see his gorgeous face every day for free. Sometimes, though, when you are careless, your heart jumps to your throat when your fingers brush. Other times, when you watch him paint, you have the counterproductive urge to grasp his face and kiss him until you’re breathless. You cannot understand it. You don’t know where the instinct comes from. But it runs deep in your blood, a calling as old as time.

Simone calls you a horny freak, almost guffawing when you meekly admit to having developed a crush on him. And hey, sure, maybe you were a little horny. (A woman gets quite desperate when her only sexual encounters were the reliable appendages of her own hand.) And sometimes you did want to jump Rafayel’s bones until you were sure you (or him) wouldn’t be able to walk for a least a week. But it’s not what stirs you when you look at him. Deep inside your heart, something yearns for Rafayel, something that’s even hungrier than the beast you call your own heart.

You’re never sure what will overcome you. On most days, where Rafayel mooches off the vacation days you get from Deepspace hunting and calls you in to watch him live his life, your cravings run on the need of wanting to touch him. You want to ruffle your fingers through his hair to discover whether it’s as soft as it looks like. You’ve even candidly wondered what it would be like to hug him while he sleeps; Rafayel often falls asleep on his own job, curling into a sleeping position right in front of his unfinished paintings, the elegant fingers unfurling around his brush. The need to touch him can get so severe that you brush your fingers over his hand as he sleeps, just to satisfy it; it feels like fire grazing your skin, as dangerous as his Evol. You never tell him about anything of this, though, even though you know the secret is burning you.

Sometimes he looks at you as though he can tell exactly what you’re thinking. Like now.

He looks up before you can tear your gaze away. You had been staring at him for a little too long, admittedly, but he was looking downright ethereal today. You had almost collapsed on his porch when he had answered the door. The man was already a threat because of his looks, but he had opened the door looking like he fell right out of the bed and walked to the door without doing anything. The sight of his sleepy face and frazzled hair was doing a number on your heart. He claimed he’d already had breakfast and had laid out a plate of pancakes for you (not prepared by him, of course, the man was too lazy to stand in the kitchen without incentive), then gotten straight to painting. You were fantasizing about what it would be like to wake up in bed with him, to wipe away the sleep from his eyes and kiss the eyelids, when he caught you red-handed. “What, do I have something on my face?” he quips, and you jerk upright.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“You’re looking at me as if I sprouted another head. I’m not an alien, you know.”

“Technically, you are. Aren’t you?” You blink at him, the question innocent. Rafayel rolls his eyes, though, as if he had both expected your stupidity but had hoped you would overcome it. “Lemurians are from the ocean, idiot,” he retorts, turning back to his painting. He was swiping away at another creation, something that looked like the abstract rendition of a hurricane on the sea. “Last I checked, that was still on earth.”

Well, he got you there. Before you could think of a smart response, your phone rings, bringing the conversation to a halt. Rafayel clicks his tongue in annoyance; he likes to be the center of your attention and has often hidden your phone during work hours just so you couldn’t distract yourself. As someone with the attention span of a goldfish, you had rebelled pretty soon. You turn your attention to the device in your hands and read Simone’s name on the display before you answer the call. “Hello?” You drawl out, gaze still fixed on Rafayel.

“Where are you?”

“Working. At Raf’s.” You don’t miss the way Rafayel straightens up at the nickname, looking like the satisfied cats he often chases away due to his hatred of them. It’s your turn to roll your eyes; he was easily pleased. At the same time, his simple joy at a nickname makes your heart soften. Although his dramatic flair ensures that he is never taken seriously, deep beneath it all, you have come to realize that Rafayel is a genuinely tender person. And who are you to judge for being needy when it comes to affection? “I told you that this morning. You know, when you were in bed with Michaela.” As far as you knew, they weren’t dating, since Simone claimed Michaela had only slept over yesterday because they had stayed out late, and she had refused to let Michaela walk back home in the dark.

“Do not say that out loud,” comes Simone’s buzzing response from the other end of the phone, and you momentarily hold your phone away as you cringe at the sound. You put it back just in time to hear her add, “I do not need the fish-man to know about my private business, thank you. He’s an employer after all.”

“Everyone knows about your fat crush on Michaela.”

“Well, how about your fat crush on…”

“NO!” you shout down the phone before she can speak it out loud and ruin your life. You manage to startle Rafayel so strongly that he topples from the chair he was situated on; you wince and turn around guiltily, not wanting to deal with the consequences of that. Simone had almost given away your secret feelings for the man currently painting his heart out on the canvas. “Alright, point fucking taken. Is that why you called me? To bully me?”

“You decided to bully me first! Anyways, I called to let you know that they emergency-scheduled you for this afternoon. Something about you being familiar with that no-hunting zone.”

You narrow your eyes. She was probably talking about the suburb north of Linkon that had just recently been declared a no hunting zone; they were still carrying out evacuations from the area, although majority of the place had been abandoned ages ago due to a factory accident. You often ran patrols there and had been the one to notify the agency about the rising threat-level which had ultimately led to the declaration of it now being a no hunting zone. Still, it must be pretty serious if they scheduled you without checking back with you first. Jenna usually didn’t take advantage of your willingness, since you often offered to cover shifts for your colleagues.

“When?”

“7:30 at the subway station. North exit. You’ll patrol alone, but I can join you if you want to.”

“No, that’s fine,” you answered absentmindedly, already racking your brain about what could have happened and how you could get there. Perhaps another luminivore? But you had cleared out a nest of wanderers just a week ago…

You barely remember to say goodbye to Simone before you whirl around to face Rafayel. He’s still on the ground, pouting, his full lips jutted at you in irritation. “Let me guess,” he grumbles. “You’re gonna abandon me again. Forget aaaaall about me on your fancy wanderer-hunting job.”

“Rafayel,” you sigh. He always got vexed about this, the fact that you had a life aside from basically being his handbag that he carried everywhere. Rafayel doesn’t even like public appearances, and rarely appears often enough where the necessity of a bodyguard was warranted. You step towards him and offer him your hand so he can let himself be pulled up, but he turns his face away like a child. “Don’t be like this. I’ll literally be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, will you? And what if you get another emergency? And what when your free days are over and you have to go back to your regular work? Since you’ve managed to forget to text me every time you’ve been busy, I’m assuming you’ll check back with me as soon as sharks have started walking on land.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

Rafayel turns his head to glare at you. It’s the only thing your register before the world is flipped upside down in a rapid whorl of colors. Rafayel has taken hold of the hand that had intended to help him and had pulled you down. The movement is so swift and sudden that you squeak in indignation before you can remember your training, but your fight-response dies down as soon as Rafayel leans over you, his hands pinning yours over your head. You could easily free yourself if you wanted to. You were a Deepspace hunter, for crying out loud. But it’s Rafayel who’s pinning you down, Rafayel whose lovely hair is as blue as the swirling sea, his eyes capturing you like a predator hypnotizing its prey. “You’re a liar,” he tells you. It’s an insult, but your skin tingles as if the word was a caress. You squeeze your hands into fists in his hold, and he grips your wrists tighter, as if he can imprison them. As if he can imprison you. Rafayel’s eyes are as hard as flint, and you recoil from the real anger inside them; he’s never looked at you like this, never. The air is thick with tension. “You humans always lie. You’ll leave me and forget about me.”

The situation seems so silly, but there’s something urging you to take it seriously, something in Rafayel’s eyes that tugs at your heartstrings. You feel like a deer in the headlights, yearning for the approaching car. “I’d never lie,” you tell him after a few moments, unsure where the words are coming from. “And I’d never leave you.”

Rafayel scoffs, and you feel the embarrassment creep up on your face. Well, it’s not like you were the one who initiated this ridiculous situation! But you cannot help but feel this isn’t a joke. You scan Rafayel’s face, but he’s as unreadable as the calligraphy of a foreign language, unavailable and unreachable to you. “How can you be certain?” There’s a tang of anxiety to Rafayel’s voice, a tone so disquieting that you feel desperate to get rid of it. The urge is strange, but not unwelcome. You think for a long time before you tell him, “I can’t be. I’m only human, after all. But I mean it with all my heart when I say I would never intend to.”

Rafayel’s eyes visibly soften at the words. It’s a confusing, mind-muddling reaction. Although your relationship to Rafayel is indescribable by words and constrained by its professional setting, you would still be able to claim that you had grown close enough to realize this was an extremely uncommon reaction. What’s even more confusing is when Rafayel lowers himself to tug you closer; you fit like puzzle pieces as he cradles your head in the hollow of his neck, holding you against his heart. You return the embrace with a racing heart. This is everything what your touchstarved brain had asked for and more. You turn your face to tuck it into the crook of his neck, and the man above you sighs with what sounds like content. After a few moments, he finally releases you, his arms unfurling like the petals of a flower. He’s still pouting, but he looks appeased. “Go, then,” he says, sitting up and crossing his arms. “But don’t expect me to miss you or anything!”

Like a sea creature that’s washed up on the beach, unable to breathe air, you gape at him. Meanwhile, Rafayel dusts himself off, as if nothing ever happened. He goes straight back to his art, sparing you not even a glance as he says, “Be sure to lock the door behind you, will you? I really don’t want Thomas to crash in whenever he wants again. I like my privacy.”

That damned fish!

This is the shape your relationship takes on, the constant push-and-pull between tearing each other apart and digging into every crevice you can reach in the other. What has started as a simple crush is starting to drive you insane, what with how Rafayel begins to take advantage of how familiar you both become. It’s on a night like this where he makes every effort to blur the lines between you two, like colors mixing and washing over each other, creating something new. It’s the middle of the night, and you should really be in bed sleeping before your newest mission in the morning, and yet you’re standing in front of the art gallery in the middle of nowhere. Thomas’ face looks like a tomato. He’s been blushing and apologizing for at least ten minutes, begging you to forgive him and spewing excuses about how he absolutely couldn’t call anyone else. He pawns Rafayel off like a discovered item being handed in to lost-and-found, abandoning you to your new task so he can hush back inside and hide the fact that a) the artist in question being discussed in there is drunk out of his mind and b) he’s pulling the Frenchest exist ever known to humankind, having slipped out the backdoor that is supposed to be reserved for the staff. You stare at the label that marks the closed door as such long after Thomas has left you, ignoring the whiny little sounds Rafayel is making. Asking for your attention, probably. Eliciting a very different kind of response in both your pissed and tired mind, but also your easily excited abdomen.

How did you even get here?

“Can you pleaaaase stop staring at that door and stare at me instead? And I made all that effort to look pretty, too.”

Your eyes snap back to Rafayel, momentarily distracted. “Surely you didn’t dress up for me, mister,” you huff, although you did take note of his attire. It’s an elegantly cut suit and tie, the cuffs of his shirt studded with something that looks like glinting stars in the dark. As you step closer, you realize that the buttons are not buttons, but rather pearls. From Rafayel’s left ear dangles an ear ring, a silver fishing spear that seems to pierce through the earlobe. “Because you best believe I didn’t agree to be dragged out at the ass-crack of dawn to pick you up just because you can’t hold your liquor.”

“I can hold my liquor!” Rafayel complains. You want to muster up a snarky response, but then he grabs your calf and falls forward, his head coming to rest on your thigh. The proximity is making your breath catch in your throat. “That was just …. a lot of piña coladas. They were just so delicious. It’s not my fault.” The drunkard at your feet squishes his stunningly beautiful irritating face against your leg, looking up to catch your gaze as he pleads you to swallow the lie.

You are robbed of speech.

It’s one thing to have an unrequited crush. It’s another thing to live with it. And then it’s something entirely different to have that crush used against you. Rafayel’s cheeks are red from intoxication, his eyes lidded, seemingly in a haze. But his hands are steady, goal-oriented. They feel their way along your legs, up to the hollow of your knees, until finally Rafayel digs his fingers into the back of your thighs and closes his eyes.

If anyone knew how fast your heart was racing right now, you’d never live to hear the end of it. You are shy and overwhelmed and in love. Before you can embarrass yourself even further, you take Rafayel’s hands into yours and pull him, the sound of your blood rushing in your ears reminiscent of the way the thunderous waves crash on Whitesand Bay when it storms. “Let’s get you home,” you hear yourself speak as if from a distance. For once, Rafayel is obedient. He nods eagerly, wrapping both his arms around the one you offered him, and you manage to find your way back to the main street as you round the art gallery and hail a cab.

The driver looks as tired as you are. The meter, calculating the price for the amount of distance travelled, sets a ticking rhythm for the drive. As you settle in and buckle up both Rafayel and you, the former uses the chance to inch closer to you. You direct your gaze to the roof of the car, thinking, dear god, please help me survive the ride back home.

Because this is just plain torture. It takes Rafayel five minutes, tops, to fall against you and hide away his face against your throat. His breath comes more steadily now, not as erratic, and he’s still got the scent of coconut syrup and rum on his breath, but beneath all that, he smells like the Rafayel you have come to know. That strange smell of salt and paint and mint, the latter being part of the perfume he prefers to use. He’s close enough to bite through your throat if he wanted to.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t terrify you. The lack of fear ought to be a warning sign, but all you can think about is how lovely it would be die on those teeth, like the drowned sailors crushed to pulp as the waves throw them against the cliffs over and over again. You curl your fingers to your fist in your lap, willing yourself to endure it. In the darkness of the cab, every touch seems amplified.

“Missed you,” Rafayel mumbles then, almost making you leap out of your skin. He hadn’t been loud, but you’re growing incredibly hypersensitive to his every mood. His lips brush your skin as he speaks. “Thought you wouldn’t come.”

You slightly turn your head to create some life-saving distance. Your heat is threatening to jump right out of your chest. “Of course I would come to get you, silly fish,” you whisper back. Through the window, you see the cab cut by the city, drifting through its streets like a snake through a flower field. Even in the middle of the night, Linkon City doesn’t seem to sleep. You try to fixate on the sight outside, instead of the man beside you that was threatening to make you lose your grip on sanity.

Rafayel grunts, then shifts his position. As he sits up, his hand falls into your lap, and with an ease you usually only ever see him exert on his brushes, he claims your hand for his own and turns it over. He presses a thumb to your palm, the touch light, but something feathers in your muscles. Your hand twitches. “You sound so sure,” he sighs, sounding petulant. He doesn’t believe you.

When finally the sight of Rafayel’s humble appears on the horizon, Rafayel manages to step outside the cab without falling over once. In the time it takes him to step outside and stand up-right, you’ve already paid and thanked the cab driver, who only nods and speeds away as soon as the door to his vehicle closes. You watch for a few moments until the cab merges with general traffic and then disappears, then turn back to your drunk, pouting companion, avoiding your eyes as if the eye contact could be embarrassing to him. For being so touchy in the cab, he sure has some nerve of acting like this. Without another word, you enter the passcode to his door, and Rafayel slips inside.

The studio looks like a mess. Clearly, nothing had been cleaned or tidied up before someone left to attend their oh, so important event. There is paint everywhere, even on the couch you know costs more than an entire year of your salary. You avert your eyes and press your hand on Rafayel’s back; you would talk about that tomorrow. The studio usually was a representation of Rafayel’s mental state. Whatever bothered him, had exploded into the artful reorganization of his home. “Quit pushing me,” Rafayel nags at you. He winds around so that he can free himself from your touch, then glares at you as if this was somehow your fault. “I can walk on my own.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll take yourself home, too.”

Your voice comes out too harsh. You know it as soon as you close your mouth, but Rafayel has already flinched. “I’m sorry,” you say as you try to soften the blow, and it feels ridiculous. Why is it you who has to apologize right now? But you continue speaking as if compelled, because you can’t stand the thought of hurting him, of him thinking he meant nothing to you. He doesn’t answer, so you step closer, intending to make him look at you so he’d see that you’re being earnest. That’s not what happens, though.

What happens is that Rafayel’s hands find your shoulders, and you’re about to ask what he’s doing, and then the only thing you can feel is the shape of Rafayel’s full lips crashing against yours, swallowing your words. It’s not even an actual kiss, too messy to be actually deemed one; his teeth clack against yours, grazing your lip painfully enough that you’re almost sure he’s drawn blood. But then he re-angles his face and Rafayel is actually kissing you, tasting you, stealing the air you breathe. Your brain shortcircuits. For a second, you forget why you’re here, and your fingers act faster than your mind does, gripping onto Rafayel’s shirt so forcefully you almost rip the pearls off them. Thankfully, your brain snaps back to reality almost immediately, and you push Rafayel away before the realization that you had been tasting his sinful tongue can actually hit you. That would be an information your brain would deconstruct later. “You’re drunk,” you exclaim. It is the most difficult thing you ever had to do, tearing yourself away from Rafayel. His face is the very picture of longing, an expression that makes you want to eat him alive, bones and all. But you did it anyways, because it would not be fair to him, and this is something that would have to be discussed when he’s sober. “Come on, Raf, I’ll take you to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.” His fingers haven’t left you. They wander up the sides of your throat, digging into the space beneath your jaw, forcing you to angle your head up. Like this, he almost looks like the deep-sea predator he is. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes that seems to reflect your own hunger, a kind of starvation that will not leave a single scrap of you to scavenge. If you’re not dangerous, he will drag you into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. “I want to make you feel good and make it up to you, please, pretty please. You’ll let me, won’t you?” He tugs and tugs, unrelenting. His wicked lips are shaping his typical pout, his favorite expression of getting you to do his bidding. He almost gets away with it, too, and the only thing keeping him from kissing you again are your quick hands, placed on his mouth before he can even think of capturing your mouth again.

“Raf, I will not take advantage of you while you’re being drunk!” you exclaim. It’s unbelievable how his face grimaces into the most heartbroken expression ever, just because you refuse to be the villain here. It physically hurts, to see him in so much anguish. You quickly spin him around so you don’t have to see his face, directing him to his bedroom. “You can make it up to me tomorrow,” you say tentatively. Secretly, you hope he will forget all about this, and you’ll never have to talk about it all. You’ll file away the kiss in your secret drawer inside your mind palace and polish the memory until it physically deteriorates, like it’s your last dinner on death row. You’ll make that memory last. Because you know he doesn’t love you; you had just been a warm body who had been kind to him at the wrong time.

“You’re so mean.” Rafayel sniffs, but this time, he comes more willingly. In the bedroom, the atmosphere has almost returned to its original tranquility, the silence enveloping you both seeming to sober him up. The bed feathers, creaking as Rafayel falls into it, but then the only sound left is his quiet muttering as he continues to complain about your attitude. He falls asleep like that, grumbling about how you would regret not letting him kiss you, how he could make it worth your while. He almost looks innocent like this, his face relaxed and devoid of his usual dramatic flair. It smoothens out the deeper he falls into sleep, sinking further into the mattress, looking like a pre-Raphaelite angel in a painting. Peaceful. Neutral. Entirely ethereal. He’s so surreal, you wonder if you might not be imagining this moment, the way you imagined him doing other things to you as you laid awake at night.

You fan your burning face, wondering what exactly had Rafayel intended to with you. It only adds on to the maladaptive daydreaming you dedicated your time to every day, ever since the fish-eyed king who called you his bodyguard had stolen your heart.

You stare at him for a very long time, until every ethereal feature of him is burned into the back of your eyelids. Your heart is light as a feather, floating, yearning. It sings his name in a steady pattern, synching almost naturally to the breath that stirs in Rafayel’s chest.

From then on, there is a current of tension underlining every interaction.

It’s not on purpose, of course. You just can’t help yourself. Every single nerve is on fire, at the beck and call of your favorite painter’s whims. You twitch when your fingers accidentally touch. There’s an involuntary gasp whenever he comes near, a sound tugged out of you against your will. You would have never thought that love would feel like a thousand fireworks going off at once. Soft, resounding explosions going boom, boom, boom in your chest.

You are so very conscious of Rafayel. Your heart jealously guards every moment you share with him.

Amor vincit omnia, famous poet Virgil once said in his own works. Love conquers all. Poets have to describe it like that, for emotions to be so consuming. It’s supposed to be a fun little tale, a nice piece of text, to be read and enjoyed. It’s not supposed to be something that happens to you, in the most violent way possible. Rafayel, although his own empire has been laid to rest centuries ago, his claim on the throne long faded, has succeeded in conquering you after all, heart and soul.

But, spoiler alert: you do not talk about what happened. In fact, you make every effort to escape the conversation whenever Rafayel tries to bring it up.

Why, you ask? Well, that’s something not even you can answer. Your friends have grown intolerable with frustration, to the point where Simone has staged an intervention to get you to fess up and confess to Rafayel. (Michaela, finally dating Simone, had planned an entire powerpoint dedicated to the benefits of admitting your feelings to someone. Which is ironic, because it was Simone who had finally gotten her shit together and told Michaela about how she felt.) Even Zayne, uninterested in your love life and its endeavors, had chipped in with his own opinion, which you had quickly ignored, because Zayne was the only mentally-sound, responsible adult in your friend group, which meant unresponsible you didn’t want to think about his advice at all.

It probably has a lot to do with how Rafayel is the epitome of perfection in your eyes, and you are nothing. You know it’s completely idiotic to think of someone as flawless, although Rafayel, being a sea creature of mythological background, might be a little closer to fitting that description than a human would. But you do. He is tender and attentive and all-encompassing. You refuse to lose him like this, to lose him to an unrequited crush that he had nurtured on a whim because he had been intoxicated.

No, you’d rather dance around it and be able to stay in his vicinity. Even if it kills you to be the outstander in his life forever, you’ll sacrifice yourself for it.

Unluckily for you, Rafayel is entirely fed up with sacrifices.

To say the door was closed would be to put it gently; it crashes into the hinges as Rafayel shuts it in front of your nose, cutting off your only route of escape. The evening sunlight paints him in a rosy hue that only adds on to the weakness your heart feels when you see him. He is exquisite. “We are going to talk about this,” Rafayel states, crossing his arms in petulance. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Ah, I’d love to, Raf.” Your lips quirk into a nervous smile. The memory of those arms wrapping you up in their embrace is so powerful, it manages to spike your blood with adrenaline. You theatrically check your wristwatch, then point at it, as if Rafayel needed some kind of extra confirmation that you were out of time. “But I really have to get to this meeting, and I already told Simone that I would…”

“Nope, don’t care.”

“But I…”

“Nooooope. You want me to say it in Lemurian?”

“Raf,” you groan out. “Don’t be like this.”

“Me, not be like this?” It seems as if you’ve missed some kind of signal in his communication, because suddenly Rafayel draws up, taut as a bowstring. There is a palpable taste of anger on your tongue, like a shark tasting blood in the water, and the realization dawns on you that you probably shouldn’t have answered him like that. “You’re really one to talk. You know, I thought we were finally getting closer. But you can’t even look at me properly! Have I done something to you?” His eyes are unhappy, glassy with emotion. It tears at you. His anguish has always been like a knife in your gut, disembowling you like a fish being gutted.

Your breath hitches. Yes, you have done something to me. You’ve ruined me. All I can think about is you, and the way your smile looks like the first streak of warm light at the break of dawn, and how even your annoying jokes make me float with joy. You’ve done something, alright. But all you say is, “No, of course not. I mean, no you haven’t done anything. I like spending time with you.”

“Then, what is it?” Rafayel has stepped closer. You instinctually step back, craving distance from him so that your heart won’t explode in your chest, but it seems like he has had enough. He ignores your attempt at evading him and grabs your arms, shaking you like a child would its toy. You look up at him, helpless. “Please. I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you.”

“Don’t say that, please.” Your voice is meek. You cannot believe he is even saying those things to you, that he could possibly replicate all the feelings in your heart, both the light and the dark.

Rafayel sucks in a breath, as if the words were a slap to his face. “Does it disgust you? That I feel like this? Because if you don’t want me to take liberties, if you don’t want me to bother you, then that’s all you have to say. I promise I’ll go back to any role you want to cast me in, as long as we go back to what we were, and you will talk and laugh with me again.”

What even is this moment right now? You are dizzy with emotion, incapable of producing speech. In all your wildest dreams, never once had you thought that it would be Rafayel begging for even a scrap of your attention. It was always in reverse, the natural order of things. You shake your head, appalled at his words, heady with them. “You can’t possibly feel like this,” you manage to say through gritted teeth. “You can’t possibly feel like you’re the one being pushy, when all I’ve done is ruin things between us. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. I knew you did it because you were drunk, and I’m not mad at all, but I should have been the responsible one, and now I’ve ruined everything.”

“Ruined everything?” Rafayel’s voice is ripe with incredulity. When you finally gather courage to look up, you see Rafayel’s face suffusing with blood, although you can’t tell if it’s in anger or frustration. You don’t understand that in reality, Rafayel has spent his entire existence living in devotion to you, praying to you, deifying you. There is a split second where you both look at each other, completely silent, but then Rafayel’s painter-roughened fingers circle around your wrist and guide you back into the studio.

There are art supplies strewn everywhere, littered on every surface, but the actual paintings have been draped in curtains, hidden from view. Sometimes, even the most talented of creators gets shy about his works, and you’ve never once pushed him or teased him for it, respecting his privacy. But now you’re standing in the middle of his domain, his one hand still gripping your flesh, the other curling around the soft fabric that hides his art. “Then believe this,” he scoffs, and before you can protest, he rips the curtain off to reveal what is beneath.

You are robbed of speech.

That day in the gallery, your eyes had been cloudy, blind. You never once thought to stop about whether Rafayel had a muse that he venerated, something he enshrined with his paintings in an effort to cage in the feeling. Like the visionary described in Plato’s allegory of the cave, you are stumbling towards the light, blinded by the grace Rafayel utilizes in everything he shapes and touches.

Blooming all over the canvas is a rendition of you, floating in the ocean, kissed by the sunlight straining to reach you in the depths of the water. You almost reach out to feel the brushes, each stroke of the paintbrush a loving word, a compliment to your existence. Rafayel has painted you with the loveliness of an artisan completely entranced with their source of inspiration. There is an unspoken language of love woven into the material of the canvas itself, every color, every shade fondly handpicked to highlight your radiance. The drawing of you is glowing, basking in Rafayel’s attentiveness, completely wrapped up in his adoration.

“This,” Rafayel speaks up at your side, leading you back to reality, “is how I feel about you. I worship you.”

“Worship me?” You are breathless. It’s an impossible feat to tear your eyes off of the craftsmanship, but you manage to do so. The sight of Rafayel almost knocks you to your knees anew. His gaze is so full of warmth that for the first time in years, your heart is expanding, feeling full and hungry at the same time. Rafayel takes your hands in his, pulling them towards him. “You sound so shocked,” he laughs gently, the reaction so untypical for him. You let yourself be guided closer into the circle of his arms, into your safe haven that Rafayel represented for you. “Is it so hard to believe that I love you? There is no one else I’d want to kiss, no matter whether I’m drunk or sober. I dream and think of you all the time, and I hate it, trust me. Did you really think there would have been anyone else that could take your place in my heart?”

You are still adoring the painting, but when you angle your head back to look at him, Rafayel is already looking at you. It’s a soul-connecting look, the kind that reaches deeper than his eyes, the color of them ressembling the star-speckled sky reaching to kiss the pink waves. He is literally cracking open inside his chest so that you may look within, so that you will believe him. There is a memory at the edge of your consciousness, something that washes the saltiness of the ocean and the strangely sweet taste of divinity over your tongue, something that you cannot recognize yet. But what you can recognize is the heart inside Rafayel’s chest, so similar to your own, even hungrier than yours possibly could ever be. “Say it in full,” you plead with him, just to hear it once more. To realize that this incomparable man, more legend than reality, in all his heavenliness and gracefulness, belongs to you. That although your heart has always been the most insatiable creature alive, it has finally found a twin that matched its voracity. “Say you love me.”

Rafayel’s hands come up to cradle your face, cupping it like one would hold their most precious treasure. He is looking at you like a devotee who has seen his salvation, like you are the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s the look of love you’ve always, always wanted directed at you. “I love you,” he says, sounding entirely to exultant for a moment like this, his voice like the bells of heaven. It is utterly unlike your sassy crush, the man who’s outwitted you countless times, who always tugs a laughter out of you whether you want it or not. This is someone else, someone who’s set fire to the earth just to dig you out of its ashes. “I will love you until the day I die and if there is another life after this one, then let me love you in that one too, in all lives that may yet come.”

You screw your eyes shut then. You are blinded by joy, amazed at what just a single string of words can do to you. There is a key turning in the lock inside your chest, something that opens up a tsunami of emotions inside you. I love you. I love you. I love you. “Rafayel,” you whisper, and then you stumble forward at the same time as Rafayel tips down, and you collide like stars. When Rafayel finally kisses you, it tastes of cosmic dust and red strings of fate and it tastes like eternity. Your hands reach upward, seizing at his clothes and shoulders, until finally your fingers claw at his cheeks and you are probably hurting him. Neither of you cares. You fold around each other until no one can tell where you stop and he begins.

Rafayel groans into the kiss, a sound of such profound relief that you almost manage to stop kissing him just to laugh. There is no opportunity to do that, though, as Rafayel keeps dragging you back for another kiss, and another, and another. “My pearl,” he gasps against your lips, and you swallow the sound eagerly, lips moving against his like the tide crashing back into the shore. There is a loud crash as Rafayel moves backwards; you are momentarily distracted and look downwards to see the palette having strewn all its paint and contents all over the floor. In the heat of passion, you had completely forgotten your surroundings. “Whoops,” you murmur, not feeling sorry at all. It makes Rafayel burst into laughter, and for a moment, you are two idiots stumbling in the dark, two boats in a storm.

Holding on to another.

“It’s so typical of you to make a mess when I’m trying to be romantic,” he whines, becoming your unserious Rafayel again, love of your life Rafayel. You brush a lock of his storm-blue hair aside, and he tilts his head until his cheek is fitted against your palm. “You exist to sabotage me, admit it.”

“You admit something first.” Still love-drunk from the kiss, you swipe your thumb over his cheekbone, the touch electric. “When did you paint this? Do you really like me for as long as I have liked you? Because if I’m being honest, I’ve been having the most embarrassing crush for the longest time. Simone can tell you all about it.”

Rafayel dips his head, looking at you straight on. “You have no idea,” he tells you, entirely honest. He looks as if he can tell that your heart is racing, like he’s speaking the words into your veins, carried to your heart with the steady pump of your blood.

You step closer to him then, the need so primal you feel your entire body shivering. The urge is so tantalizing that you threaten to choke on it, succumb to the threat that Rafayel’s love poses. He is a walking siren song. “Help me understand then,” you whisper. “You’re always so chatty. Chat to me now.”

“But I’ve done all the talking, you know.” He pouts, the expression entirely bratty and so Rafayel-coded that you can’t help but giggle. The corners of his own mouth twitch, clearly pleased by the reaction, the sound the only symphony in his ears he likes to hear more than the swell of the ocean.

Your arms come to wrap around his neck, and you slot together like puzzle pieces, every rib fitting into the hollow of Rafayel’s chest. It feels like you are made for each other. You place your lips on Rafayel’s ears, your own only hearing the rush of the ocean, the sound of your blood racing. “Tell me, please, Raf,” you whisper. He shudders violenty, a reaction that reaches deeper than evolutionary instinct. His hands find their home on the dips of your curves, every finger digging in. “I want to hear about every single thing inside your head. Always.”

“You are unfair.”

You kiss the curve of his ear. “Of course I am. I’m the human that stole your heart.”

Rafayel’s lips are seized by a helpless smile, an expression you’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if he’s reminiscing about a secret that you don’t know, something that feathers along the edge of your memory. But he answers you nonetheless. “But there was no theft, my love,” he purrs. It’s the sound of pure, languid affection, the kind that wells up from the depths of one’s heart. “I’d give you my heart again and again and again. You can tease me all you like, but in truth, I’d sink to my knees whenever you’d like and worship you forever.”

Your lips part in astonishment. You don’t miss the way Rafayel’s eyes zero in on the reaction in hunger. “You were right, you shouldn’t talk,” you stutter then. “Your words are gonna go right to my head.”

“And it’s such a pretty head, too.” Rafayel’s lips begin to chase the soft slopes of your face, tracing a fiery path across your cheeks. It is unbelievable how such a simple act unravels you, how you are going to explode beneath the simple touch of Rafayel’s kiss. You almost preen beneath the ministrations. You angle your head to entangle him in a kiss, but this time, it’s him who moves before your lips can touch. “Let me prove it to you,” he whispers, the words itself as soft as a kiss. It’s a dangerous promise, an even more dangerous game. “Please, pretty girl, let me prove it to you, show you how much I adore you. I’m all yours. Let me show you, I beg you.”

You bite your lips. You’re pretty sure the bar is in hell, but this is the single most attractive thing a man has ever done for you. Here he stands, his heart on a silver platter presented to you, his entire being at your whim. You are heady with power, dizzy with the implications. But at the same time, you have never felt so safe. You are in the palm of Rafayel’s hands, safe and comfortable and oh, so loved. “Show me,” you tell him, biting your lip. “Please, Raf, show me.”

Those are the magic words. You didn’t even need to plead. Before a single ‘please’ has left your mouth, Rafayel’s lips once again crash into yours, and this time, he kisses you properly. His tongue, as commanding as his personality, tastes like a weirdly enticing combination of cherry coke and ocean salt; there is a loud, embarrassing squeak that escapes you when Rafayel’s teeth drag over your lower lip, but the sound quickly changes into a drawn-out moan when he gently sucks on it. He releases it with a groan of his own, and his eyes, like mirrors to his soul, reveal the depths of his hunger. “God, you have no idea what I’d do for you,” he gasps out, his brain working faster than his own mouth, the words hurtling from some part in his soul he has been jealously guarding. You are his only vulnerability, the only one. “What I have been looking for all my life. Light of my life, my love, my pearl. Need to show you.”

“Show me what?” You’re so drunk on his kisses, you’ve already forgotten what Rafayel requested from you in the first place. He tugs you in the direction of his bedroom, and you follow with a scary compliance. Maybe all those stories about the sailors drowning at sea had more than just a kernel of truth to them. Who wouldn’t throw themselves into the waves, for a chance to experience Rafayel’s experiences, even if it was only mere seconds? Your haziness chases you into the bedroom; your head is still spinning when he pulls you down into the luxurious bed you’ve always mocked him for. Suddenly, all that space begins to make a lot of sense. You spread out on the bed entirely too easily, unfolding beneath Rafayel like the blossom of a flower.

He sucks in his breath, his chest rising rapidly. Even though you are dizzy in your stupor, your brain still registers with a delight that it’s not alone in its sensation. You are doing this to him, you are undoing him just as much as he is you. The knowledge is so sweet that every inch of your body seems to sing. “Show you how much I love you,” he says. “Never gonna make you doubt me again. You’ll never think about anyone else after this. No one will ever love you like I do, I promise.”

The promise sounds entirely too harrowing for the romantic atmosphere you had been cultivating since the reveal of the painting in the studio. You almost sit up. Not too argue against him, but to question where the need for the promise came from; after all, you’d be just as ready to prove to him that no one in your life would ever come close to the reign he held over your heart. But then Rafayel bows over you, and you’re entirely engulfed by his shadow, and Rafayel’s hands are carving their way out to your abdomen.

It almost makes you shy. You’re not a blushing virgin, but you’ve never let anyone into your body in this way, not like this. You’re afraid that Rafayel’s gonna get inside and seize evey cell of your body for him, and he’ll settle in your bones and your marrow and your blood, and he’ll stay there forever. It’s a delicious fear, a kind of anticipation that makes you peer into the void, listen to its call. You want it so bad that your own fingers dig into the way-too-expensive fabric of Rafayel’s blankets, tearing, anchoring. Finally, finally, his lips kiss their way down the shape of your hip bones, chasing their way to the edge of your jeans. “May I, please?” He asks, his voice laced with desperation, the picture of a petitioner.

You look down at him, at this siren bewitching your body and spirit. Although he looks like something straight out of a pornographic movie, you don’t think you’ve ever seen anything this beautiful. Rafayel was like the most ethereal pictures, his lovely features carved out with the tender carefulness that makes even stone seem soft. His eyes are hopeful, open, trusting. You are falling in love with someone more divine than your mortal mind could have ever conjured, your every dream come true. “You better,” comes the weak response from you.

It’s all the consent he needs. Rafayel all but tears the pants off of you, his hands chasing flesh, craving connection. “Thank God,” he moans, and you almost think he’s enjoying this just as much as you are, more than you are. You watch his own hips buck into the soft mattress, chasing the mock-sensation your pussy would offer him, and you clench your thighs so hard your kneecaps almost pulverize. He grinds into the blankets, the torment of his own desire seemingly making him delirious, but his touches are determined, measured. Your curves fit perfectly into his hands, the elegant painter fingers gripping into your ass to angle you to his liking. “I thought I’d die without ever tasting you again.”

Again? You repeat in your mind, thinking you misheard. But Rafayel doesn’t permit you to think. Another pull, another tug, and then his treacherous mouth is around your core, kissing you through the cotton, mouthing around the shape of your pussy. You cry out, more in surprise than pleasure, but that quickly changes when he begins to drag his tongue across your pussy in a long, languorous swipe that makes your insides twitch wantonly. “Get those panties off of me or so help me god, Rafayel,” you manage to push out between gritted teeth, your own hips flying up to chase his touch. His grip is unrelenting, pinning you back into the mattress. “Weren’t you gonna prove something to me?”

Rafayel’s answer comes in a purr. “Your wish is my command, beloved.”

He pulls your panties to the side in a swift motion, placing another kiss on your clit. “Fucking hell,” he seems to mutter in amazement, and you’re not sure you were supposed to hear that. A mere moment later, Rafayel digs in like a man starved, moments away from the death sentence. You are not just a death row meal: you are the entire five-star course. You cry out entirely too loud as Rafayel plunges his tongue into you, the flexing muscle angling up to trace the soft, sensitive spot you chase with your own fingers when pleasuring yourself. You have no idea how he knows that, but you have no time to ponder as his left hands begins to trace circles around your clit, bullying the bundle of nerves with the pencil-roughened pads off his fingers. “Raf, oh my god!” you gasp, the sound dragged out of you in the same steady rhythm as his tongue pumping into you.

“I’m your god,” comes the moaned response, the sound’s vibration making your insides twitch in response. His fingers don’t let up, the ministrations steady, slowly picking up in speed in tandem with the coil of pleasure tightening inside your belly. You are twisting like a snake, your body shortcircuiting. “Say it.”

“Rafayel.” You are suprised in the coherency you fathom in expressing his name; your mind is already blurring at the edge, falling apart in soft colors like the confetti inside a kaleidoscope. “You’re my god, Rafayel, mine all mine.”

“Yours,” Rafayel keens. You notice the admission make him almost feral; he immediately puts his mouth back to work, slurping your essence in the most obscene manner. You are way beyond proprieties, way beyond embarrassment. All you can hope for is that he catches you at the end of this, as he hurtles you past the point of no return, the death-drop on a scary rollercoaster. You almost scream his name when he sucks your clit into his mouth, nursing on the spot like he’s going to die from thirst. The flick of his thumb makes you come undone; you fall back into the mattress into oblivion, shaking out of existence as Rafayel’s skilled tongue continues teasing your slit until you push him away, over-sensitive. “Stop, stop, stop,” you chant, the words slurred around the mind-blowing effects of your orgasm. Your tongue is heavy, your throat scraped raw. Did you scream that loud? “Can’t, Raf, can’t anymore, stop. So sensitive.”

“But I wasn’t done,” he whines out. His fingers still chase after you, even after you hastily sit up, dragging your unwilling body up the bed. He crawls after you, looking deliciously pathetic, his stunningly beautiful face pulled into a heartbroken grimace, as if the world was going to end if he couldn’t keep you eating out. There’s an unmistakingly large tent inside his thousand-dollar-designer pants, one that makes your mouth run dry again with hunger.

Heavens have mercy, you’ve never wanted to suck someone off so bad. You wonder if his pretty eyes would roll back into his head if you took it deep enough into your throat.

You don’t get to fulfill that wish, though. Rafayel pounces on you almost immediately, your sight taken over by his beautiful face as he kneels over you. His hips knock aside your thighs, demanding entrance, and you open up to him too easily. “Wanna make you feel good,” he begs you, but you’re too distracted with how delicious his kiss-swollen lips look. You trace your thumb over his lower lip, watch him as his mouth chases to suck on it.

He almost gapes when you place your thumb into your own mouth, tasting yourself. If he didn’t look so fucking attractive like that, you’d have laughed.

“You’re killing me,” he admits. Despite how vulnerable that sounds, he doesn’t hesitates at tearing at your legs until you’re laying below him chest to chest, ignoring the way you squeak at being manhandled into position. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Now you laugh. “I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m definitely not trying to kill the person I love.”

His face softens. It’s that expression you’ve begin to adore, categorized in your mind palace which is entirely dedicated to being a shrine for Rafayel. It doesn’t matter that he’s the one submitting to you at the moment, wrapping himself around your finger. It’s you who’d move all the seas in the world just to be with him. “I love you more,” he tells you, and he sounds earnest. “I love you so much more. Here, I’ll show you.”

The kiss he places on your lips is entirely too sweet for the debauchery his lower half is committing. While his teeth gently tug at your lips, begging for entry, his hips have begun to grind against your pussy. You mewl into the kiss, the sound quickly swallowed by Rafayel’s greedy tongue as he curls it around your own, tasting you, tasting him. There’s a string of saliva connecting your lip when he disentangles from you, and you’re too busy staring at it to notice the way he stares at you like you’re the single most important thing in his world.

He’d die a thousand times just to live through this night once more.

You’re only pulled out of your thoughts by the realization that Rafayel has begun tugging off his clothes. You quickly mirror him by shedding the last of your own, tugging aside all the fabric until you’re as bare before him as the day you’ve been born. You feel a little self-conscious, but to him, you must look glorious: this time, you visibly see the way his chest expands with the sheer joy, the admiration that drowns out all the color in his eyes. “Like what you see?” you tease him, but there’s an edge of nervousness tainting the words. You’re literally offering yourself up to him like a sacrificial bride.

“I adore you more than anything,” he answers, his voice reverent. His fingers shiver with tremors as they brush their way down the curves of your breast, enveloping your waist until you’re snug in his grip. It makes you blush; he’s looking at you as if he’s seizing up every detail so he can paint you anew, the devotion only a painter can muster up for a muse he loves. “This is the single greatest thing I have ever experienced.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You haven’t been inside of me yet.”

His eyes darken then, returning to their sinful mischievousness. “No, I haven’t,” he retorts, and then he pulls you towards him, the head of his cock nudging aside your labia, knocking at your entrance. You yelp, and he snickers like the bastard he is. “May I come in?”

“Fuck you,” you tell him, breathless. It was supposed to be a harmless insult, your usual banter with Rafayel that most often ends up in you guys thinking up the most creative “your momma” jokes until you guys dissolve in laughter.

This Rafayel doesn’t. “You should not have said that,” is the only warning you get, before Rafayel drags you down on his cock, sheathing you entirely on it. Your back arches off the bed as if your heart was trying to escape your chest; the intrusion is so sudden that the nerves in your brain spasm before you register there’s something kissing your cervix. Not possible, you think. Not fucking possible. He can’t be this big.

Oh. Oh.

Rafayel bundles you up in his arms and pulls back his hips just to snap back into you with the deadly precision of a predator who’s killing its’ prey. This time, you’re fully conscious of the scream you let out, your insides squeezing the living hell out of Rafayel’s dick in a desperate attempt to contain him. The only thing that amounts to is him being spurned on; you turn your head to the sound of Rafayel’s sinful moans flowing into your ear, tingling right down into your abdomen. “Rafayel, slow down”, you manage to squeeze out, but at the same time, you raise your hips to meet his every thrust, your eyelids fluttering at the same time as the rapid rhythm Rafayel sets as he pounds you into the mattress.

“What was that, my pearl?” Slap, slap, slap. The lewd noise of his Rafayel’s balls smacking against your entrance makes your toes curl in delicious pleasure, and you wind around in his hold, sobbing from how good he makes you feel. His cock cruelly bullies into you, your cervix screaming up through your nerves every time the circle of muscles makes contact with his cockhead. Your fingers claw at his back, desperate to steady themselves somewhere, anywhere. You barely even register the fact that there’s blood dripping from where your nails dig in; you’re too distracted by the fact that the pain you’re inflicting on him only seems to make him fuck you into the mattress harder. “You want me to go faster?”

“Can’t,” you wail, feeling incredulous by the fact that sex can illicit a response like this in you. You’ve severely underestimated how much everything changes when you do something with the person you love. “Can’t, Raf, it’s too much, too much.”

Rafayel’s only response is to ignore your begging. He frees a hand from where it’s digging into the mattress above of you to balance himself and cradles your face in it easily, angling your face up so you look at him straight-on. “Wish I could stop, my angel, but I’m obsessed with you. Need you to cum all over me, mark me as all yours so I can never run away again. Can you do that for me, sweet thing? Cum for me, please?”

“Raf,” you whine out, the tell-tale sign of your orgasm approaching muddling your mind again. How exactly does he expect you to form a coherent thought when he’s fucking you like it’s his last night on earth? Your fingers search for purpose, gripping into his shoulders, weaving a cradle around his neck. He bows then, kissing you like his life depends on it, never once stopping his rhythm of fucking into you. “Gonna cum.”

“You promise?” he whispers against the curve of your lips. He angled his head, instead kissing his way down your throat, swallowing the sound of your heartbeat screaming his name inside your veins. Every thrust claims your soul more and more, until you’re nothing more than a prisoner to his love. “Please, my seastar, I can’t fucking take it. Need to cum with you so bad.”

“Pleeeease.” The sound is a single cry, hollowing out your chest as you hug him closer. Rafayel bites into the soft flesh of your shoulder, and you interlock your legs behind his back, seeing white. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. His bite feels like the soft brush of a kiss, violence mingling with lust. “Come with me, Raf, I’m coming, coming, coming.”

Your orgasm washes over you like a tidal wave. You arch off the mattress, weightless for a moment; Rafayel continues to fuck you through it, chasing his own release as the most lewd moans tumble from his lovely lips, which are probably going to haunt you and your daydreams forever. His semen mingles with your release, the messy sound making you hide your face in the hollow of his neck; you slap at Rafayel’s chest when he doesn’t relent, almost wailing when the pleasure gets too much. Your heart feels raw and cradled at the same time; Rafayel doesn’t pull out when he falls off from you, instead pulling your leg with him so that you’re locked in an embrace while you both lay there, panting like animals who’ve been chased. For a long time, no one says anything. There are no words for the way your souls have converged. You’re almost not sure whether what you did even can be called sex. But then you feel Rafayel’s cum drip out of you, and the blush that rises to your cheeks reassures you that yes, it still is sex.

Rafayel squeezes your hips, hugging you against him like someone would a teddybear. “I love you,” he drawls against your still naked skin, kissing the raw teeth marks he left behind on your shoulder. You sigh out, a sound of pure contentment. Your heart still feels like it’s on the tip of your tongue. “Love you more,” you tell him, but Rafayel, stubborn as always, shakes his head. He kisses you into silence, hands cradling your face gently as he angles you upwards to receive his kisses. “Never,” he murmurs into each one. You don’t argue with him. As the moonlight bears witness to the whispered love declarations you speak in the dark, the two of you curl around each other until you’re an indistinguishable tangle of limbs, cuddling into each other like cats bathing in the sunlight.

You fall asleep like that, head pillowed against Rafayel’s chest as he props you up against him. He continues to mumble compliments into your hair long after you’ve fallen asleep, thousands of words of adoration he’s had to keep to himself in the years that have passed waiting for you.

It’s finally his turn to become your worshipper. Finally, finally, Rafayel’s hearts soars with happiness again. The sea always returns what it takes. You have washed up on the shores of his life again, mate of his soul, love of his life. And this time, he’s never going to let you go.

#ૢ་༘࿐ ALICE IS DAYDREAMING #the entirety of that sex scene was written while listening to kalamantina by saint levant because i needed the inspiration LMAOOOO #how the fawk do you write sex scenes #the way it took me weeks to finish this because i was procrastinating it so bad LMAO #like the inspiration kept hitting me and then i sat down and BOOM. writer’s block #this fic was also kind of practise in the sense of me getting back into writing #so there might be some awkward phrasing here and there or a lot of words repeated #wanted to get it out anyway tho bc i love raf! and i need feedback on my writing to get better 😭#lnds rafayel #l&ds rafayel #l&ds #lads #lnds #lads rafayel #love and deepspace #love and deepspace fanfiction #rafayel x reader #lads rafayel x reader #lnds rafayel x reader #l&ds rafayel x reader #rafayel fanfiction

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meinkatzchen · 3 months ago

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Can you tell us some interesting facts about your oc?ฅ⁠^⁠•⁠ﻌ⁠•⁠^⁠ฅ

I'm a little sick…again- so I don't have any new art, I'll answer questions!

I don't know which facts are interesting and which are not, but here are some about Mist! (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) I mixed up all the facts from different stages of her life at once. ♡ If you divide her story into 3 periods (btd, btd2, tpof), which would correspond to tarot cards, then she would have: Death, Chariot, Moon; ♡ She doesn't like/is afraid of mirrors:

Mirrors show objective reality, and not an illusion created by the human mind. And Mist doesn't like to see the results of her mistakes, which she can see in the mirror. She doesn't like to see scars on her body, she considers them ugly.

♡ Her nickname(Mist) was chosen because of her full name and because of her demeanor + appearance. Initially, I chose it because of the light milky haze that is present in the scarlet pupils. She had friends who affectionately nicknamed her like this. On the Internet, she often signs herself as "Mooncat"; ♡ She's almost immortal but can really be killed completely if you really try; ♡ If the sins were carved into her skin like in FC5, they would be Pride and Lust;

♡ She doesn't have the magical ability to hide her ears and tail, so in everyday life she often uses special hairpins/hats for her cat ears/harness for her tail to hide them; ♡ Between btd2 and tpof, she had a red Toyota GT 86. But Mist is such a bad driver that the car once couldn't handle such a shitty ride; ♡ It seems that she has developed good intuition, or insights that helped her foresee something bad, but because of this, she is a little paranoid; ♡ Her favorite color is scarlet/red; ♡ Her voice is high-pitched and soft at the same time, purrs when she feels good and calm (voice example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKy4INHSERQ&ab_channel=Monetochka-Topic); ♡ Has an increased appetite and accelerated metabolism, eats any meat, does not disdain to eat even human flesh. She especially likes the rich metallic taste of liver; ♡ This is more of a headcanon from other people, but I really like it: she has an average mental intelligence, but a high emotional one, which makes her a good manipulator and observer, but a bad strategist; ♡ Studying at the University of Law helped her find holes in the law so that many of her cult's actions were legal; ♡ She is very tactile! She loves to touch others, quickly closes the distance if she wants to gain trust or trusts the interlocutor. She loves to touch different objects and smell them, feeling the texture, temperature, shape, smell, exploring the world through touch and smell; ♡ Very talkative, ready to support absolutely any conversation and talk about all sorts of topics; ♡ Of all possible hobbies, her favorite is: playing games, computer and real (like hide and seek). Sometimes she conducts streams in which she plays in videogames, communicates with the audience, fools around; ♡ Despite her bloodthirstiness and cruelty, she is very sensitive and protective of children, teenagers and women who cannot protect themselves. In such, she sees a reflection of her past self and can become their protector herself; ♡ She doesn't mind becoming a mother :3 but in that case, she will be very protective, overprotective;

♡ Her unique melee weapon: balisong (butterfly knife).

In addition to what I wrote above, I have this small sketch with information

#ask

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thecordelialetters · 8 months ago

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Homelander x Vampire! Reader

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Summary: There's nothing that taste better than the blood of the strongest supe in the world. Warning: Fem! reader insert, smut, explicit sex Wc: 1,778

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Since you developed them at the age of 8, your powers were a blessing and a curse. Gifted with an immortal indestructible body, the speed that rivaled A-Trains, and the strength of a thousand men, you had one flaw, your insatiable thirst. As a young girl who knew nothing of control, you tore right through your parents, ripping them limb from limb and sucking them dry. You've gotten a lot better at self-control since then, though the memory still haunts you. Starlight, or Annie as you knew her from her childhood was the sweetest girl you ever met. You had known her since she was a little and babysat her when her mom was away. The ball of sunshine always asked to see your fangs ( not that her mom knew until Annie was older ) and loved riding on your shoulders while you ran. She would ask you to throw her up and down, always falling into a fit of giggles, before making you chase her through the house.

You saw Annie all the way to adulthood being a loyal friend by her side when she joined the Seven and even after she met the boys and her boyfriend Hughie. As much as the spineless man annoyed you with his nerdy tendencies and sweaty smell, he was good to Annie. That's how you end up in the Vought Tower as a double agent. Ashley was the one who found you, she saw some articles about the good deeds you had done a few years back and wondered why with powers such as yours, you had flown under the radar. You could hear her voice in the meeting room introducing you. "Homelander this is Night Crawler, she would make a great member of the team, her abilities include super strength, hearing, and speed." You could smell her blood pumping and her heart rapidly beating under the scrutiny of Homelander's eyes. Pushing the door open with one hand you strode in head held high while looking around the room.

"Hello, I am Night Crawler." Before you could say any more the sweetest aroma hit your nose making you close your eyes and inhale deeply. What is that smell... It was sweet and musky enough to make you feel yourself salavate. When you opened your eyes to look at the direction of the smell your gaze landed on... Homelander.

"Well Night Crawler... what else can you do? Other than the basics." You drew your fangs out and dashed behind him wrapping your hand around his waist. He turned around the retaliate but you were faster and blinked in front of him. "Interesting...very interesting." Homelander hummed while his eyes ran up and down your revealing costume. Your costume consisted of a black spandex suit where the shorts stopped right under your butt and the top had long sleeves with a v cut down the middle. Your leather boots went all the way up your thigh leaving a sliver of skin. It was simple but effective, though Butcher thought you could stand to show more skin. "I've decided. Congrats Nightcrawler, you've made the team." He flashed a dazzling smile showing off his pearly whites. "In fact let me give you a tour of the building, as the Seven's leader it's my job to show around the newbies." Ashley went to object, but her face was met with a large red gloved hand. "Come, Nightcrawler." He commanded. You scurried after him, the scent of his veins luring you closer. Homelander gestures behind him "So as you know back there was the team meeting room, we meet there every now and then to discuss missions, stats, new marketing promos etc." Moving his hand forward, towards the elevator "Each person on the team has their own suite, mine is up here, the biggest one, since I'm the leader." Okay seems like overcompensating but who knows. The two of you stepped into the luxurious surprisingly small space. The air was suffocating; you felt like he was planning something. The ding of elevator made you jump. "Ladies first." paired with that same fake smile. You nodded and walked forward and felt him pressed on your back hard. "Come on little lady, we have lots to see and do." You looked up at him towering over your frame. "Of course sir." As you followed after him you felt your throat run dry. Shit you didn't think this meeting would run so long. You tried to distract yourself with thoughts about anything, counting how many lights where on the wall or clawing your hand at your side. "Did you hear me? Are you even listening?" You could tell Homelander was yapping about something or boasting about his saves and was annoyed that you missed the whole speech. But your mouth was watering and your head was pounding. You looked up into his eyes, gazes met. Homelander furrowed his eyes. Earlier your eyes were a bright green and now they matched those of crimson rubies. You felt your fangs poke your mouth. "Sorry," you blinked rapidly to come back to your senses. "Well then...come on Ill show you your room." He swiftly turned, cape trailing behind him. You felt like you wouldn't last any longer, you needed to get into your stash. You had asked Ashley to fill your fridge with donated blood, all you had to do was wait Homelander out. "This is where you'll be staying." He swayed his arm across as if to say "You've probably never seen a place this nice before". The room was very...stereotypical of what was thought of as vampires. Black and red colors were splattered through the room, it looked as if you stepped into a victorian gothic home. "There better not be a fucking coffin in here." You whispered to yourself. Homelander chuckled at your comment. "Do you do much...sleeping?" He cocked his head to the bedroom, strolling in as if this was HIS place. You could feel your hunger surging, if he didn't get out in the next 2 minutes you where going to go crazy. Next thing you know Homeland is by yourside, hands on your shoulders. "You know, I think I know what might help you rela-" He was cut off when you spun around and jumped onto him, legs wrapped tightly around his mid section. One of your hands wrapped around his jaw, the other one holding his shoulder for balance. You bared your fang and bit. It was the sweetest blood you ever tasted. It was like a delicacy and you couldn't stop, hunger clouded your mind. You kept sucking, relishing the feeling on your tongue. Your legs and hands squeezed tighter as if it would keep the blood coming.

Homelander stiffened, what the actual fuck. Here he was trying to get in the new girl's pants but not she was sucking him off, and not in the way he intended to. But he was getting lightheaded and turned on. The feeling of your lips on his neck, core pressed so close to him. He let out a strangled moan. He felt himself stiffening, suit a little tighter than usual. Eventually satisfied you let go, lapping up any extra spills with your tongue. Realizing what had happened and what position you where in you looked at Homelander ready to apologize. He couldn't help himself and slammed his lips on yours. The feeling of you sucking his neck was euphoric. His hand grazed your side, gentle like a lover. Before grabbing your neck and holding your body out. You hand grabbed his to release the tension. "What the fuck was that." You flashed your fangs towards him. "I need blood to sustain myself. And you have the best kind." Your smile was bloody and sadistic. It opened something up in Homelander. It was what he needed. Someone like him, you wouldn't mind his bloodshed you'd probably embrace it. He liked that you thought his blood was the best. I mean of course it was the best he was the strongest person in the world. He brought you closer to him, letting you stand on the ground.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚NSFW BELOW ⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧

Since you developed them at the age of 8, you're powers were a blessing and a curse. Gifted with an immortal indestructible body, the speed that rivaled A-Trains, and the strength of a thousand men, you had one flaw, your insatiable thirst. As a young girl who knew nothing of control, you tore right through your parents, ripping them limb from limb and sucking them dry. You've gotten a lot better at self-control since then, though the memory still haunts you. Starlight, or Annie as you knew her from her childhood was the sweetest girl you ever met. You had known her since she was a little and babysat her when her mom was away. The ball of sunshine always asked to see your fangs ( not that her mom knew until Annie was older ) and loved riding on your shoulders while you ran. She would ask you to throw her up and down, always falling into a fit of giggles, before making you chase her through the house.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚NSFW BELOW ⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆⋆｡‧

"In that case. Continue." He stepped back slightly to undo the top of his suit and pulled it all the way down, letting his cock spring out for the bottom, slapping against his stomach. You were the worst double agent, but you were doing this for Annie, why not have some fun. You leaned against him, feeling him pressed on this stomach. You kissed his shoulder, opposite hand running down his chest. "So smell so good." His hand gripped your waist harder. You bit into his shoulder as he lifted you once more, legs going around his waist. His cock rubbed up against you, mouth moaning in your ear. You moved towards his neck again and bit the other side. Releasing your lips from his neck you pressed them against his, smothering the red liquid against him. He was such a passionate kisser, way better than any man you've ever dated. You broke the kiss only to shed your suit, blue eyes scanning every inch of your body. It was like you were the perfect specimen, not a flaw in sight, utterly beautiful. "I knew you'd be a great addition to the team." He said. You smirked in retaliation before sauntering to the bedroom. He followed, like a lost puppy and their owner. The bedroom was the same black and red color scheme, black silk sheets covered the bed, surrounded by dark wood furniture. There were red and white spider lily bouquets placed in vases throughout the room. There were way too many ornate vintage lamps. But the details didn't matter to you, not when Homelander was rubbing himself up and down your slit. He kissed your neck in a similar fashion as you, before slamming his hips against yours. There was no need to be soft, you two were the strongest in the world, and the sounds definitely proved it. The best rocked with each moment, the wood creaking from the pressure. He cried out loud as you bit his chest. His cock was pulsing as pushing in and out of you. He slammed into you again, the tension of the bed finally breaking and falling to the ground but that didn't stop him. Your pussy clenched around him. He grunted in your ear speeding up slightly before releasing his hot cum deep in you. He rolled off you and the two of you laid there panting filling the silence. You turned over to him with a smile, fang pushing out the bottom of your lips. "Again?"

#homelander #homelander x reader #homelander x you #homelander x y/n #homelander x oc #the boys #the boys homelander #smut #fanfic #the boys tv

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yanderestarangel · 2 years ago

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✦ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 | 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐊1 ✦

TW: afab anatomy, eat out, v!sex, mommykink, fingering, pet names, bottom and top versions, mutual fingering, no pronouns used other than "you".

ASHRAH, KITANA, NITARA, SAREENA.

She likes to be your good girl, giving you kisses while being needy, she needs your attention, she would look at you with a smile on her red and shiny lips, a sign of mischief, her fingers would make patterns on your skin, while she rubbed even more on your body.

"-Please, I was a good girl, right?" - you both knew the answer, and yes, she had been a great girl.

She soon saw you between her thighs, your tongue circling her swollen and completely wet clit, she moaned loudly while holding the strands of your hair, you could see her face contorting with pleasure, while several moans came out of her mouth.

She simply loves being praised by you "my princess" "babydoll" "my baby girl" "my girl" "my queen" she will grind her hips into your mouth even more if you say her favorite pet names while sucking her. "-Yes... Fuck yes (Y/N) I'm your girl Mmm- just yours."

She will grab the sheets and lean in even more so you can put the tip of your tongue inside her, her eyes were begging you to just fuck her more intensely, one, two or three fingers - she just wanted to cum with you, scream your name.

While her free hand was on her own breast, massaging her hard nipple, it was an image that you could immortalize forever, she was yours, totally yours and she would beg day after day to have you with her.

You stuck two fingers inside her pussy, making her arch her back and tremble, holding onto you even tighter.

"-Please- more, I want to cum, please" she moaned loudly, while her hair fell in her face, the strands stuck to the gloss she always wore, her breasts bounced with each rhythm of your tongue and fingers, reaching the sweet spot her quickly. You gave her wetness a teasing slap, massaging your thumbs just past the soft, plump flesh of her pussy, it was a slap that sent even more waves of pleasure through her, as you finally got on top of her - your lips met. in a raw kiss, the sweet taste of herself mixed with saliva, while you went back to hitting her pussy with your fingers, while her thighs tried to close, but you didn't let her, and she obeyed, she just wanted to be your pretty girl and cum however you want.

MILEENA, SYNDEL ,TANYA, LI MEI.

She likes to dominate you, to see you tremble beneath her while she has fun with you, fighting against the overstimulation she does to your clit, whether with vibrators or hours of her time between your legs, she provokes you to the point that you squirt but she doesn't stop. around, while she takes you to the heights of pleasure.

Tender and sensual sex is also well accepted by her, with the two of you enjoying the water that cascaded down from the shower, she glued her body to yours, your breasts touched in a soft fiction, and her hand went against it. with your wet pussy, smiling sideways as he whispered in your ear:

"-Such a wet little thing for mommy... You make me even more in love with you, you know that?" She bit the nub of your ear, while biting your neck, but that time you surprised her also taking your hand to her intimacy, making her moan, it slowly became a lusty competition of who would make who cum.

Her fingers curled inside you, as she kissed you even more intensely, your hands explored every bit of her soft flesh, taking one of her breasts to your mouth - while she continued working on your pussy and you on hers, your eyes met, a sparkle of lust and love was seen for you, she loved you and loved that you were such a brat for her sometimes. "-Fuck (Y/N) you make mommy so wet..." she whispers as she pulls you to get on your knees for her, making you remove your fingers from inside her with a loud pop, you didn't need to hear it twice, the sight of her dripping pussy made your tongue automatically go against the dripping heat she offered you, every lick, every swirl of your warm tongue on her swollen clitoris made you see a different expression of lust on the part of the woman, the woman who you chose to love and worship.

©YANDERESTARANGEL 2023

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cowgirlcherrie · 2 years ago

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❍ ACERBUS ! ━━ ellie williams.

⤹ pairing: vampire! ellie x slayer! reader

synopsis: the undead is restless, and an immortal blood sucker arrises for her last dance on earth. Beholding a slayer who has greater plans to lower the blood hungry vampire back into the ground

content: 18+ MDNI! blood mention. death/ talks of death. violence. betrayal. gaslighting. manipulation. hunting/killing. v similar to buffy the vampire slayer. kissing. talks of sex but not directly smut, smut adjacent honestly. vampire! slayer! abby but strictly platonic to the reader. L-Bombs. betrayal. weapons (no guns just daggers n stakes). Ellie is super damon salvatore + katherine coded in this. food play(with cherries). biting. sub-ish loser! ellie. Toxic/dark! ellie

Adficio. To weaken, discourage. To damage or to break.

Adficio was your finger. Coated in the saltiest vibrant red, gooey, and thick. Liquids dripped down the sides of the cushioned flesh and flowed never-ending through you. It tasted metallic, iron pulsating through the liquid; and salty, overly salted. Your tongue ran over the edge of your finger at your paper cut. It stung miserably but you had to get back to work.

As if it wasn’t already late, the sun setting with a musky burnt orange across the sky peeking through the rounded church glass windows of the artifact museum you were ecstatic to go home. Excited to take the warmest shower until the water was scorching hot against your skin and sleep comfortably in your queen-sized plush bed.

You weren’t expecting any more customers this evening, especially with recent town curfews due to mysterious deaths you were preparing to leave right after the key twisted in the lock. With 20 minutes left until closing, you finished dusting off the case of the bookshelf, putting the cream coffee-tinted paper (with your blood still tinting a corner) away into the hefty black book with gold embedded in the spine.

It was an interesting piece of literature, somewhere amongst the lines of old-town supernatural lore and purely fiction but you loved it. It made you hungry, yearning for just a bite wanting more, wanting to sink your teeth into your own flesh. It was important and delicate thin papered copies; and faulty legal documents about a vampire who was rumored to live forever. Pictures; missing from the pages with the name scribbled out in white out. No gun, no knife, no magical life-threatening injury could kill her and she was forever cursed with the pain and treachery to live forever. Although you knew it wasn’t real you still felt yourself being a conspiracist and empathetic. Almost remorseful for the forever young vampire who didn’t ask for a life of immortality. Everything was a little unfair, even for the mundane.

A bell chimed, signally that someone had walked into the museum. Thick-soled boots against the dark wood, creaking beneath them with every step. Shunned light on a lanky and average-height girl, drenched in black from head to toe. You naturally ignored her presence, that was what the bell was for; for questions and giving you the excuse to actually be bothered. So you continued your lonesome activities as proceeded. Picking up your thick wool scarf, wrapping it around your neck in loops; turning off the monitors, and locking the registers.

DING!

Ellie hit the bell with a toothy smirk on her face. Eyeing your figure almost as if you were a bakery-crafted treat as Ellie ran her tongue against the tip of her pointy canines.

“Hi”

Just Hi? You scrunched up your face in confusion at the girl’s rather awkward and sudden intro, her voice was raspy yet soft n direct but she kept her communication clear. If you were being honest she looked dead. Skin pale and drained of any colors besides her cheeks and the root red on her lips, sunken circles around her green ember eyes. She didn’t even look real.

“We are about to close so any prolonged question can wait until tomorrow.” you confessed, keeping it short and sweet, as the girl in front of you only frowned.

You turned your back for a second, reaching into the mini locker behind the desk to grab your coat and your keys, pulling the fabric closer to your chest, when amidst the silence —

DING!

Ellie hit the bell again, making you groan as you turned slowly to look at the auburn-haired girl showcasing a sarcastic smile before reverting her face to a serious expression.

“I am Ellie, and you…you look like you can help me” Ellie whispered sweetly; playfulness rang in her voice as she looked down at the black book that are on the counter. Drool almost dripped out as she looked at the book with her lips parted.

“Did you miss the part where I said we were—”

“Closing soon, yeah yeah I got it. Don’t care, Listen I just need this book and I promise, I’ll be out of your hair” Ellie pleaded bringing her hands up in a prayer position as she gave you a pout. Slowly gliding her ring-coated fingers against the book, making you rush to pull on it from the other end.

“Sorry not for sale! This isn’t a library”

“But it’s…fiction, right? You can make another one” Ellie pulled it into her more, her hands slightly overpowering the grip you had on the book.

“Rules are rules, nothing leaves this museum if it’s not rented”

“So what I am hearing is I can have it?”

“For $100”

Ellie gasped.

“For free? thanks!~” Ellie gave one final tug loosening the book from your very hands and pulling it into her chest.

“I’ll be back! [HEY!] Don’t worry! Don’t stress probably not with the book! [That’s stealing!] Not if it’s rented! Thank you for your help!” Ellie shouted as she bolted out the door, sticky fingers webbed around the book as she ran out.

Making you let out an exacerbated sigh at the odds. You were so going to get fired.

Adiuvo To help or to aid, to assist

If someone told you that the museum book thief would be your girlfriend you would have told them they were lying. It’s been 3 months since the two of you met; 2 that you have officially started dating, although it didn’t feel like it.

Ellie was more secretive than you thought. A mansion to herself where she lived alone which was oddly dark and gothic, you were for certain she would have caused a black paint shortage. Her house was emblematic of a period piece from the 19th century almost a screenshot of a fragment of time. The only odd thing was the mirrors being covered in every corner. A black satin cloth draped over the gold ribbed mirrors almost stapled there with a DO NOT TOUCH!

Ellie hated pictures, she hated phones and settled on a rather outdated Blackberry where she really could only text and make important calls.

Ellie also disappeared often during the day, you only ever really saw her when it was rainy or pushing 8 pm. She’d go ghost on a sunny day but made up for it by pampering you with gentle kisses until you were coated in purple at your neck.

For all of her cons; sins and flaws; aka the disappearing act she made up for it every time. She made it impossible for you to leave. Caging you in by gifting you things that only a fool would leave behind. She gave you a gift of a dainty necklace, as her hands rubbed against your neck to your shoulders placing it right at the center, locking the clasp, and begging you to never take it off. Ellie’s hands didn’t move from behind you when she gave you the necklace that night. It was almost as if she tempted to choke you with it until you listened to her. So you nodded, grabbing onto the little charm, before bringing up a hand to your nose; scrunching your face up at the weird smell the necklace was emulating. Almost like rosemary, thieves, and rotting onion. But you didn’t ask questions, you couldn’t before she whisked you away with a brief kiss to your lips, nibbling at your moisturized lips.

“You love me, right?”

You loved her. With all your precious human beating heart you loved her. Loved her so much that you allowed her to get vulnerable with you that night in the bedroom.

Bashful yet bitchy and sarcastic Ellie became demonic, rough, and perfectly submissive. Ellie was a sucker for fruits. The one human food that didn’t make her stomach queasy and the only thing that could satisfy her cravings for your blood. Preferably all red to enhance the eroticism of the taste.

Ellie found passion in draining the juice out of cherries, swirling her tongue over the plump treat poking her fangs out, before dipping her head down gliding the juices amongst your neck from her tongue.

Ellie repeated this action again. Taking the gentle cherry and squeezing it over your neck, swirling its juices onto your skin with her slender fingers before chewing it whole. Licking her finger tips as she swallowed the fruit whole tossing the pit to the floor.

Ellie watched as your neck dripped the dark crimson liquid, rushing to lick it up; before any of it reached your sheets to leave a fresh splosh stain of red. Ellie was drunk off of the sight of you. Licking over you like a lollipop as her tongue scraped your neck, getting close to your ear.

Ellie lost control.

between the bittersweet taste of the cherries, your fresh and loud perfume it was driving her crazy. Ellie thought her head was screwed on tight, but smelling the scent of one she would call her lover Ellie wanted to do nothing more than cover you in her own. Mask you from the world, hiding you away in greed and hunger.

Her hands gripped at the sheets, fist balled up as she masked a moan struggling to do so when your hand was in her pants. Ellie unfolding like a red lace satin ribbon until she was nothing but a soul. Climax rising deeper…and deeper. You were rubbing up and down in between her folds as she shuttered to hold herself up. Your fingers wet and covered in her juices enough for the wetness to fill the room with a simple pat.

Ellie took the initiative to dig her own hand in between your sleep shorts, mirror your hand motions as the lewd sounds escaped your lips in pure appeasement. Clawing at her back like a cat with your freehand.

Ellie was heavy breathing as her pitch got louder and higher, hips bucking as her hair clung to her forehead in fits of sweat.

Ellie turned into nothing but a moaning mess that night. Shrouding her head in your neck pampering kisses until she couldn’t control the cobra shake of her sharpened fangs pricking her tongue, offsetting her tastebuds. No, she couldn't.

Ellie's mind was shouting a mixture of no's and yes's as she tried to pull away only for you to pull her closer. Ellie let out an animalistic growl muttering an oh fuck before she sunk her teeth into your neck.

“Fuck…wait” Ellie moaned out. She was glad you couldn’t see her face, eyebrows furrowed but her eyes a deep red as veins started to crawl through her skin preparing her to finish off the feed.

Ellie knew if she fed off of you she wouldn’t be able to stop. Until you were one of her, a vampire and your beating heart stopped. Like Ellie needed you, she needed the book; she was going to complete the prophecy.

It starts with you, her perfect pawn.

You tasted like a rich pomegranate in the summer, Ellie’s fangs pulsating as it was deep in the flesh on your neck. Shaking your tender flesh in between her teeth like a dog.

Ellie didn't draw blood but punctured the skin, wincing at the sound of your skin separating between her fangs through her gentle ears. You pushed her away squeezing your eyes closed in pain. Skin pulsing and stinging as her mouth left your neck.

“Ow!- did you just…did you just bite me?”

The redhead stopped, freckles coated a red flush amongst her pale skin, Ellie rambled a hundred sorries. Like a deer gone hunting the cherry juice stained her chin and around her mouth as if she had been messy eating and playing into a ruby lipstick. Stumbling and tripping over her feet as she rushed to put her shoes on and head for your front door as you shouted her name behind her.

Her hair was frazzled, her leather jacket discarded, and her fly unfortunately down.

Leaving you in a mess of saliva and cherry juice; with a pulsating bite mark in your kneck.

48 hours and a complicated reddit search later, with Ellie out of your hair; due to her shame and embarrassment was enough time for a blonde hair slayer to play witness protection.

You were steadily growing frustrated at the repetition of the doorbell ringing as the person on the other end was hitting it like a childish teenager playing ding-dong ditch. Rushing to the door slamming it open to be met with a tall buff blonde who was giving you a perfect smile. Likewise to Ellie, she was notably pale, the color drained from her face almost fading away to her hair making her look like a stoned statue. Thick raybands on her eyes as she held up a terribly condition detectives badge.

“Sorry to cause a disruption, but are you y/n?” The girl spoke up, leaning into her one arm that was posted up against the door creating a distance before the two of you.

You remained silent pushing your knit cardigan closer to cover up your chest in the nippy pre-winter air.

“I’m Abby, Abby Anderson and I believe you know someone who is being a threat to this town.”

You froze, eyeing Abby in front of you as she dug around into her leather jacket pocket, plucking out a very old square picture. Placing the picture face down into your hands allows you to unveil it as if it were a gift. Curiosity got the best of you, aching and throbbing fingertips as you vastly whipped it over to view your lover. Your heart felt as if a chain wrapped tightly around the delicate artery feeling as if the wind had knocked out of you. It was Ellie. Your Ellie but this time she was wearing Victorian clothing, a white blouse peeking through as it was a perfected headshot photographed with just the right amount of dusting and age. She was the missing piece of the book. The name scribbled out it was all her -- the book was all hers.

“I don’t…” you begin flipping the picture back over and putting it in front of Abby, with your hand out “I don’t know who this is. . .”

“I knew you would say that”

Abby snickered as she looked down rubbing her boots against your welcome matt,

“I think its time we chat. Could I have a glass of water please” Abby sends a smile as you prepare to turn your back on the blonde in front of you

Abby was always ahead. Ahead of Ellie, ahead of you, she had been hunting for years. After an accidental bite forced her to succumb to vampirism, life only got hard. Abby shrouded herself away finding comfort in putting down ruthless bloodsuckers who had no better job than to compel humans and make them into a tasty blood margarita. Abby didn’t want the same fate for you. Watching Ellie like a hawk; perhaps a stalker. It was all for a good cause. Ellie was awfully sloppy with how she carried the people she fed from. Sinking her teeth into an innocent being as she drank…and drank until their bodies fell cold and limp against the pavement. Ellie let out a sly moan in satisfaction as she watched the life get sucked out of her victims. The blood dripped down her chin, blood-drunk as she laughed in satisfaction as she licked the blood off of her fangs, and from around her lips being careful not to waste a single damn drop.

Ever since you got in the picture, Ellie’s sloppiness got worse than normal, her drinking patterns have gotten sloppier, and parts of her brain toyed with her. As she strolled the streets at night looking for her midnight snack, sucking the salted liquid through her fangs with her luscious eyes closed, fluttering against the tip of the apple to her cheeks. Ellie saw you. When her eyes closed she pretended that they were you, hell she would never actually do this to you but she couldn’t get your toxic scent out of her mind. Moaning into the neck that she feeds whispering your name as her fangs dig in deeper and suddenly she loses all control, killing the being in the process. Ellie was deeply flawed; allowing a human to get in between the priorities of her stone-cold heart, but whatever she wanted she was certain she would have.

“I think you have to invite me in first, it’s impolite for me to walk into your wonderful home without permission” Abby confessed, lying straight through her teeth, she didn’t care what was right or wrong she just needed permission or else she wouldn’t be allowed in.

Deja vu hit you, remembering how Ellie made the same statement the first time she came over to visit you apart from the museum.

“You may come in”

Acerbus Bitter, gloomy, and dark.

Vampire.

That was a word that was enough to make your stomach curl up into a million knots.

The cold ones.

No one could have prepared you to put your girlfriend to rest. The person who you saw forever with, wanting to get married and have a couple of children too, was all nothing but a lie and impossible. It was so refreshing to you, like a kiss of air, and nature healing itself, but slowly your emotions and your joy turned into a rotting flower, decaying along with all of your emotions tinted black. Over the course of a few weeks, you’ve sharpened your knives and coated your doors in some kind of vampire repellent given to you by Abby. The blonde has taught you how to hunt and detect vampires, the power of the stake, and what unfinished business Abby had with taking down Ellie.

Ellie on the other hand, you haven’t seen in a few days. Maybe it was because you were distracted; the auburn girl turning to nothing but a whisper and rattle of the leaves, spiraling into another one of her disappearing acts.

Now you stood at her very own tombstone, which seemed rather distasteful; bless you, but you were trespassing. Trailing behind Abby like a lost puppy as she took a hammer, drawing back her arm to slam onto the lock that was Ellie’s above-ground grave. Abby came up with a bright and elite plan on how to trap Ellie back at the museum, but the two of you couldn’t have done it without the weapon that knocked her into a stone coma for ages. No, it doesn’t kill her, but it would slow her down and freeze her until it was time for her to be brought back; which would be never. You thought it was beautiful, fresh marble and sleek black with roses surrounding the front entrance into her small 4x4 square, which the main entrance was blocked by a gate — with a hefty lock which you assumed was where Ellie’s casket had been placed.

“The roses are fresh, I think it’s best if we hurry” Abby whispers, matching the tone of the wind that was spirling above the two of you.

Abby took her hands dragging them down at the lock which opened the gate to Ellie’s tomb. The inside was barely lit, with unlit candles surrounding Ellie’s coffin that had the lid wide open with chains dangling from it. Modern-day gothic– and eerie to the touch. As you took careful steps walking around it; it seemed almost impersonal. You wanted to cry and shrivel up, that the way you’d been living for 3 months was a lie, running your hands around the perimeter of her coffin as if you were looking down at a body inside. But there was nobody and you knew the worst would have to come for Ellie to soon return to her rightful place. Abby however got right to work, brushing past you to tap every corner of the brick, reaching for Ellie’s casket, and digging through the built-in cushions. Abby grunts until she stops when her fingers prick a sharp tool.

“Ow!... I got it” Abby hissed as she pulled out a thick and sleek shiny silver dagger with Latin scriptures engraved into the handle and metal of the knife. Abby briefly wiped it against the leather, twirling it in her hand before taking a bag of mercury and dipping the tip of the knife into the material. All you could do is watch, stake in the back pocket of your jeans that was covered by your jacket.

“So what now?” you pushed, putting a hand on your hip.

“We get the fuck ou—-”

Abby stopped talking briefly pulling you into a shadow, blocked by a pillar making you go unnoticed.

“What are you—”

Abby shushed you, reaching a hand up to cover your mouth as you now heard what Abby was hearing. Strong, sloppy footsteps, walking into the tomb as the gate to the entranced creaked.

The stranger groaned before letting out a sniff into the air.

“Y/n I know you’re here.” Ellie croaked, her voice slurring as she limped towards her own casket hovering over it with a loud creak as your body shook beneath Abby’s gentle touch.

“The cats out of the bag babe, fuckin’... let’s just talk c’mon” Ellie pleaded as her boots squeaked against the floor as she was visibly pacing.

You shook your head as Abby briefly turned your body around whispering to you.

It’s the only way.

With that Abby pushed you out from the hiding spot making you let out a yelp as you stumbled onto the floor in front of Ellie. She looked demonic, unreal almost. Blood dripping down her chin spread against her chest, and her hair was a filthy mess. Her once-green eyes glowed a sweet red under the pale moonlight as she watched you crumble on the floor trying to stand up.

“There you are~” Ellie teased as she took a few steps towards you making you crawl back.

“Thought we were gonna have to play hide and seek glad you’re so smart” Ellie taunted as she turned around kicking over a few candles surrounding her casket.

“What did you do?” You shouted, groaning as you used the nearby wall to push your weight up.

“Who did you kill?”

Ellie laughed. You frowned; disgustedly watching as Ellie only laughed at your panicked state. She thought your fear was funny, she could smell it off of you.

“Why? You scared?” Ellie jabbed tilting her head with a really? expression on her face.

Ellie reached her arm out for you to take which you stared at as if she was infected, so she took it back rolling her eyes. Ellie slid off her leather jacket and threw it onto the floor at your feet giving you a perfect view of her spaghetti-strapped cami and the tattoo on her arm.

“I think of you when I feed you know…as my teeth sink down into someone so innocent, like a deer…”Ellie began as she walked towards you slowly making you walk backward moving away.

“Get away from me” you gritted taking the stake out from your back pocket and crossing it over your front pointing side up.

“Ooh~” Ellie teased as she walked even closer until the stake was lined up with her heart. “What are you gonna do, kill me?” Ellie whined giving you a false pout similar to when you first met her in the museum and she stole the book.

“Not even a kiss goodbye?” Ellie taunted, as her body hovered over yours pressing deepening to the stake that was carving into her shoulder.

“Only you could hurt me like this, god what are you doing?” Ellie whispered, with that the waterworks came through as you started to cry, sobbing viciously letting out cries of “get away” as she was in front of you.

“Shh…Shh…Shh” Elie started grabbing at your arms with a firm hold from the base of your wrist gripping tightly. “Don’t cry” Ellie comforted you as she kept one arm around yours holding the dagger and another one up at your temple to which she leaned in giving you a kiss on the cheek staining your cheek with blood. Not her blood or your own but someone else, making you cry even more.

“I don’t- I can’t…we’re over Ellie” You cried out, sniffling in between sobs as your head dropped in defeat.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. . . I’m sorry for what I did. . .I can’t control it, you know that right?” Ellie took a large gulp as she backed away from you shaking out her hands. Ellie was suddenly getting nervous, panicking at the way you were crying. “I just get these urges, I only feed when I want to feed off you so I don’t hurt you. Babe, please listen to me”

“I have to kill you.” You dropped the bomb as Ellie’s sudden panicked state turned defense; she was getting angry and hostile. “I let you into my home…I let you kiss me, I let you fuck me and you didn’t think once to tell me who you really were”

“How is that fair?”

Ellie was numb, staring at you; her lover with a deadpanned expression on her face, deprived of any emotion, she was being straightforward “If you are gonna kill me don’t use that it’s not gonna work” Ellie spat, backing away as she walked over to her coffin staring down at the white cushioning inside. Finally wiping her chin with the back of her hand.

“You’re gonna let me kill you?” you inquired, lowering the dagger by your waist as you watched Ellie watch over her own coffin.

“Only you. Because I know eventually you’ll miss me and take it out and set me free.”

“You don’t know that” you shook your head.

“But I do, I always do” Ellie took the initiative to reach into the coffin similar to how Abby did when the two of you first entered the tomb, patting the bedding as her eyes scrunched up in confusion as she looked away from you.

“Wait where is it”

You knew what she was looking for.

“Y/n what did you do with the dagger that was in this coffin…god what is that smell who is in here with you” Ellie was growing pissed off; anger nagging at her as she was looking control again, fangs poking out on instinct as she grew hostile within the room.

“It’s just me…”

Ellie shook her head closing the coffin. “No someone else is here I can feel them”

“Ellie…it’s just me” you whispered, trying to convince her as best as you possibly good. There was no way she would buy it, but you could lie your ass off and hope she wouldn’t sniff out the hound.

“You can’t kill me with that, I say you just go for it and let whoever took the main piece finish me off”

“Ellie I can’t—”

“I love you!”

You froze, you were her lifeline her weakness. The tether that kept her together as your soul was indefinitely embedded in her own. I love you, so sentimental and meaningful you didn’t wanna use it lightly and in this moment you knew she wasn’t using it against you.

“Hey…shhh don’t cry, I love you”

You had no time to prepare, lost in her lustful green eyes, pupils dilating at the sight of you. As Abby snuck behind her, stabbing Ellie in the back making the both of you let out a gasp. Ellie looked down to her chest seeing the dagger poking through the other side of her body. Black blood pooled out and meshed with her black camisole. Ellie tilted her head to look at you, who had your arms steady around her shoulders so she wouldn’t tip over. Your Ellie gave you a faint smile. Your fear-stricken face, eyes wide as you looked at Abby who paced around Ellie to see if the dagger even worked.

“H-have…fun”

“What?” you jabbed, face scrunching up in confusion. Ellie didn’t look afraid to die, hell she knew you would need her. Her words slurred as she was slowly succumbing to an endless slumber.

“Have fun, my blood is….blood ‘n your veins…I’ve put…I put my blood in your tea. Good luck being a vampire baby fangs”

Baby fangs.

Abby shouted NO! Behind you, but it was far too late. Ellie took out her hidden arm revealing a similar dagger to her very own; raising her arm up reflexively to jab it into your own neck as your blood started to pool out. No, it wasn’t going to kill you permanently. However, it would trigger a death into human you and allow you to become what Ellie was. What you tried so hard not to be.

A bloodthirsty vengeful vampire.

You panicked at your slow-beating heart; transcending you into a state of permanent drowsiness and immortality. Beats moving slower and slower as if your heart was put in a freezer locker and your body was chilling over. There was nothing you could do, it was too late. Tears pricked your eyes as a salty clear tear dripped down your face as you felt yourself lose consciousness collapsing on top of your already stoning lover. She betrayed you, the sneaky sly fox was ahead of you. A wolf in sheep’s clothing

“I told you I loved you.”

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the-most-humble-blog · 19 days ago

Text

For the Love of God Heed My Words...

I Have Discovered the First Verified Alpha Vampire. His Name Is Gregory Abbott.

---

This is not a joke.

This is not a conspiracy.

This is a declaration of paranormal fact.

You want proof of vampiric immortality?

Forget castles.

Forget coffins.

Forget Vlad the Impaler.

I present to you:

> Gregory Abbott.

The man who released “Shake You Down” in 1986...

And still looks like he could seduce your girl and out-sing God tonight.

---

I. Immortal. Confirmed.

I saw this man’s face in the Super Hits cover photo.

Then I saw his current photo.

> Nothing changed.

Not his jaw.

Not his hairline.

Not his eyes, which contain ancient knowledge and zero forgiveness.

This is not normal aging.

This is bloodborne glamour.

---

II. Watch the Video. If You Dare.

Go watch the “Shake You Down” music video.

The voice? Mesmerism.

The rhythm? Pulse magic.

The delivery? Sexual hypnosis coded in falsetto.

Don’t just listen.

Observe.

> The way he looks into the camera like he knows what you taste like.

The way his skin absorbs time instead of reflecting it.

The way your mom still remembers how she felt the first time she heard him say:

“I wanna shake you down…”

---

youtube

---

Yeah.

You felt it too.

This was in the fcking 80's!!!

---

III. But Here’s the Creepiest Part...

Nobody talks about him.

Nobody questions the agelessness.

Nobody asks how he still looks better than your gym-rat boyfriend in 2025.

> That’s not obscurity.

That’s vampiric cloaking.

He’s not hiding.

He’s just moving undetected through weak minds.

And I’m breaking the spell.

---

IV. The Signs Were There All Along

Let’s tally:

Flawless grooming for over 40 years

No public scandals

Sexual power that increases over decades

Voice that sounds like it can infiltrate dreams

Clothing choices that haven’t aged because he hasn’t aged

This isn’t nostalgia.

> This is immortal pheromonal warfare disguised as R&B.

---

V. If I Go Missing…

Let it be known:

I revealed the truth.

I named the immortal.

If I vanish, it wasn’t coincidence.

It was glamour retaliation.

> Gregory Abbott didn’t want this secret out.

But I’ve already said it.

The glamour is broken.

Now you know.

---

⚖️

This post is protected under comedic folklore doctrine, psychosexual commentary, and immortal truth disclosure. Any arousal, nostalgia, sudden desire to slow-dance, or urge to Google “Gregory Abbott 2024 photos” is a known effect of Blacksite Literature™. You are not enchanted. You are under surveillance.

---

🧠 QUOTE REBLOG PACK™

> “He didn’t age. He evolved.”

“Gregory Abbott is Dracula in silk pants and a wireless mic.”

“Shake You Down was never a song. It was a spell.”

“Your girl knows. Your mom knows. And now? You know.”

“Don’t play the song at night. That’s how he finds you.”

---

📡 CALL TO ACTION

Reblog if you’ve ever felt weirdly turned on by a man older than your father.

Reblog if you felt something stir the moment that falsetto hit.

Reblog if you’ve seen the glamour — and refuse to be silenced.

Reblog if you know the vampires walk among us, and they wear satin.

Legends are based on fact. I bring this to you at great personal risk***

---

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hailturinturambar · 3 months ago

Text

Flaws at Dusk.

Pairing: Elrond x Galadriel

Word count: 3.116

Request: “Mine. Yours, friends to lovers Elrondriel smut?”

Author's Notes: English is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes or confusion. Requests are open, check the information before requesting. We're here again for Elrond and Galadriel. Damn, how can I not love these two? This one's for everyone who's wondering what could have happened after that wonderful kiss.

Warnings: 18+, MDNI. Unprotected sex, p in v. Oral (female and male receiving.) Masturbation. Passionate sex. Elrond being a passionate sub. Anguish.

Summary: Eregion has fallen. All that remains for the surviving Elves is to move on. High King Gil-galad has ordered a group of Elves to follow him back to Lindon. When Galadriel and Elrond stay behind to help the others, unexpected feelings begin to surface.

This story can be read as a second part of this one, but also independently.

Galadriel could still taste the blood in her mouth. The death in her chest. The memory of the battle that had devastated Middle-earth, and nearly cost her her life. A memory of Sauron's return and the defeat of those Galadriel loved most. Honestly, Galadriel had never wanted to wake from her sleep of death. The memories were too painful to bear.

Like all Elves, Galadriel carried many sorrows with her, many anguishes in her chest. And most of all, she remembered the golden times in Valinor, when joys seemed eternal and death so distant. Times when her beloved brother, Finrod, was still alive.

She no longer longed for immortality. Galadriel finally understood Eru's gift to Men. Living forever, after so much pain, so much loss, was not a blessing. But a torture, a punishment. Men, at least, could rest in eternity, on paths that only Eru knew.

For centuries, Galadriel resented the Valar, judging them for all the evils of Middle-earth, for all the times they failed to stop Morgoth from bringing death and destruction. And she cried out to Mandos, that she might suffer no more.

That her family might not be destroyed, that her brother might return to her. That her beloved husband might not be brutally torn from her.

She wished for all of this, in secret, hidden in her own pain. Pain and anguish that she endured alone. Committed to living another day, fighting another battle against the bearer of all her suffering, Sauron, the Dark Lord.

Ages passed before Galadriel understood that, despite everything, her suffering was never in silence, that there was still one more person who cared about her. Because there was Elrond, when she lost her family, when she lost her husband. He was always by her side.

Only Elrond in all Arda could understand the depth of Galadriel's grief. And he did not abandon her, even when she returned to Lindon and defied Gil-galad, and refused to accept the blessing of Valinor. She was too furious to realize it at the time, to understand how much Elrond cared for her.

It broke Galadriel's heart, deeply, when Elrond discovered that she had lied about Halbrand, about the Rings. Galadriel was horrified, she feared that Elrond would see the true version of her. Broken. Vengeful. Beyond repair. Trapped in her grief as deep as the Silmarils of Earth and Sea.

Although she would not admit it, Galadriel knew that the only way to find peace, to achieve forgiveness for all her mistakes, was to sacrifice herself. She entrusted Nenya to Elrond, because she would pay that price. For all of Middle-earth.

But Galadriel did not know that Elrond, her most beloved friend, would be a great fool. Because to Elrond, no matter the cost, he would not sacrifice Galadriel. He would fight to the death for her, so that they would have a chance.

She had seen that determination in Elrond's eyes when they had met again, when he had seen her imprisoned by Adar. When Adar had exposed her as a prize, as a dirty bargain for the fate of Eregion.

Elrond could not bear to see Galadriel suffer at Adar's hands. He would not let her. Perhaps the Valar were the only ones capable of judging the hearts of Elves and Men.

Galadriel had never felt such despair as she did at that moment. She was the only thing standing between Adar's army and the Elves of Lindon, against the destruction of Eregion. She alone could decide the salvation or ruin of the Elves.

Because Adar would never give up. He was incapable of stopping, of putting an end to his thirst for eternal revenge against Sauron.

When Elrond looked at Galadriel, she knew he would not keep his promise. That he would choose her above all else. Galadriel, however, could not blame Elrond. Because not even she, one of Gil-galad's most trusted commanders, would be able to sacrifice Elrond. Hadn't she sacrificed enough?

The Adar's camp was the point of no return for them, Galadriel thought. Alone in the hands of the Enemy, Elrond and Galadriel were completely exposed, without a way out.

And in that putrid tent, steeped in evil and cruelty, Galadriel realized that Elrond meant more to her. Wearing his armor, like a true elven warrior, Elrond had never looked more beautiful to her. So majestic and delicate, yet so strong and courageous at the same time.

Galadriel blamed herself deeply when she felt Elrond's lips against hers, because it felt so right. So unexpectedly good. And she kissed him back, because she never wanted him to leave her. Galadriel loved Elrond, but she feared feeling that love. She could lose Elrond as easily as she had lost so many.

She had not cared when Sauron had wounded her with the Morgoth's Crown. Was this the price of peace, then? It was a fair price, Galadriel thought. She was determined to make amends, even if Sauron would never give up the fight. For he might have regained the Nines, and she might have died in the fall. But he would never have Nenya.

Galadriel still remembered the feeling of when her body hit the forest floor, when her spirit tried to fight bravely against the rot of the wound, the evil that Sauron had imbued into her soul, into her essence.

Then she could hear his voice, Elrond. By her side, fighting for her to survive, for her to heal from all the pain, from all the loss, so that she would live one more to fight.

Galadriel forced her eyes open, suspecting it was night again. She felt as if she had always waking up at the moment Sauron had wounded her with the Crown, still too haunted by the fight. But she was safe now.

High King Gil-galad gathered a company of Elves to return to Lindon, so that all would be warned of the destruction of Eregion and the return of Sauron. All the wounded were to remain behind and guard the new refuge.

“Sauron is with the Nine. And he holds his power over the Seven.” Elrond muttered, enraged. “How do we know he will not come for her? For Nenya?”

For hours, Elrond and Gil-galad argued, until the High King gave in and allowed Elrond to remain in the haven with Galadriel. She was grateful that her friend has staying. He was the only one who made her feel safe now.

When she first awoke, Morgoth's rot showed Galadriel the truth. Celeborn was lost, forever. She had finally discovered the reason for the emptiness in her chest that never seemed to close. Her love was gone, and she could no longer live trapped in her hope.

Outside the tent, Galadriel heard footsteps. Always noisy like an Orc, even when he was trying not to wake all the Elves. Galadriel smiled, knowing that Elrond was there to see her once more, to make sure she was safe.

“Galadriel?” He whispered, stepping into the tent.

“You know you don’t have to check every day, don’t you?” Galadriel laughed at Elrond’s frown, extending her hand to him.

“I’m sorry, my friend.” He said, defeated, walking towards her. “I’m just concerned for your safety.”

Oh, she knew he was. Elrond had always cared so much for her. She wondered, now, if that kiss had been something he had wanted for much longer.

“Elrond?” Galadriel whispered uncertainly.

He looked at her, sitting on the makeshift bed. Concern shone in Elrond's clear eyes. He quickly took Galadriel's hand, intertwining their fingers.

“You can talk to me, always.” He said comfortingly.

“Did it have any meaning to you?”

Galadriel's voice was barely above a whisper. She was so embarrassed, she felt like a little girl in love. And she certainly hated feeling that way, even more so if he didn't feel the same.

“What, my dear?” Elrond brought his free hand to Galadriel’s face, bringing her eyes to his.

“Why did you kiss me, Elrond?” she said harshly.

Elrond stammered, unable to answer such a direct question. How Elrond could face an army of Orcs with ease, yet despair over a question, Galadriel could not understand.

“I needed a plan, you know,” he replied, but his voice was shaky. “I couldn’t leave you alone in that tent.”

“But was the kiss necessary?”

“How else could I distract Adar and his Uruks?” Elrond countered, standing up, his back to Galadriel.

“Was it just for that?” She asked. She wanted to scream at him, beg him to finally be honest with her.

Elrond didn't answer. His hands were stiff at his sides, as if he didn't know how to disguise the discomfort he was feeling. How could he talk about the feeling that was burning in his chest without ruining everything that existed between them?

“No. It wasn’t just that.” Elrond sighed, his shoulders slumping.

“Why then, Elrond?” Galadriel said, standing up.

Her hands reached for Elrond’s shoulders, forcing the taller Elf to turn toward her. Tears streaked Elrond’s summer-gentle face. He is afraid, Galadriel thought, that he will lose me forever if he is honest.

“I am in love with you, Galadriel.” Elrond replied in a broken voice, his eyes closing. “Since the moment I met you.”

Galadriel smiled, feeling tears streaming down her face as well. This was what her family had been through, wasn't it? The fear of starting over after losing a great love. A love that had seemed so wrong to Fëanor.

“Do you love me, Elrond?” Galadriel asked.

“I do love you.” He replied.

Elrond was exposing his heart to Galadriel. So that she would decide that for him, if they could finally be together, surrendered to the love they felt. To the feeling that suffocated Galadriel's chest, as much as it suffocated Elrond.

It was up to her to decide whether she would let Elrond contemplate her flaws at dusk. Let him then decide whether he was willing to love that broken part. Artanis was in the past. Galadriel was what remained.

“I don’t know how I can love you, Elrond, without some other way.” She sobbed, closing her eyes.

Elrond smiled, bringing his hands to Galadriel's face, as when they were in Adar's tent.

“I love you, Galadriel. And I love everything that’s left of you.”

Before Galadriel could open her eyes, she felt Elrond's lips against hers. That kiss still felt so right. The Valar were granting Galadriel a second chance, and she would not let her sadness now be greater.

Galadriel kissed him back, wrapping her arms around Elrond's neck. She felt as if the light of Valinor shone against her face once more, as if she had achieved true peace.

Because Elrond's love was all she needed, all she was missing. He kissed her passionately, breathlessly, as if he wanted to drown in her until they were one, until they were joined not only in flesh, but in spirit.

“Will you stay with me?” She whispered, breaking the kiss.

“Do you love me, Galadriel?” Elrond murmured against her lips.

“You know I do.”

She gasped, losing herself once more in Elrond's lips, in everything that involved his presence. Because Elrond was intoxicating to her. His touch, his taste, the way he kissed her, as if nothing else in all of Arda mattered more to him than her.

Galadriel's hands reached for Elrond's curls, losing herself in the feeling of having him so close to her. Galadriel was tired of the armor he wore in the refuge, she wanted to be completely with him. As it should always have been.

Galadriel pulled away from Elrond, who looked at her in confusion. She smiled, reaching out her hand to him. Elrond smiled lovingly at her, letting her guide him to the bed. He would do whatever she wished, whatever she asked of him. The glow of Galadriel's golden hair mesmerized Elrond. He was sure that peace looked a lot like her.

Elrond sat on the bed, and Galadriel smiled at how accepting he was of her taking control of everything. He wouldn't say no to her, would he? And she knew it. Galadriel's hands reached for Elrond's elven armor, calmly removing it piece by piece.

Elrond did nothing, just watched Galadriel undress him, helping her take off what was left of his armor. For the Valar, he was more beautiful than she had imagined. Galadriel held Elrond's face, kissing his lips lightly.

When he tried to kiss her back, she pulled away, kissing Elrond's neck passionately, her hands gripping his brown curls. Elrond groaned, feeling Galadriel's tongue against his ear, before returning to kiss his neck. Elrond was like a jewel in Galadriel's hands, and she was molding him to her will.

Without removing her kisses from Elrond's neck, Galadriel pushed the Elf's body back onto the bed, sitting on his lap. Elrond's hands reached Galadriel's waist, his sighs encouraging her.

She let her lips lightly brush against Elrond's, who sighed at the loss of her touch. Galadriel ran her hands against Elrond's chest, removing his tunic, the last piece of clothing he had left. Elrond's hands reached Galadriel's waist, tightening her dress, but she bit his neck lightly.

“Don’t be so impatient.” She whispered.

Galadriel's kisses trailed down Elrond's collarbone, her nails lightly scratching his chest. Elrond groaned as Galadriel knelt in front of him, never breaking her kiss. He would be lost if she continued to love him so carnally.

But Galadriel was more than willing. Because Elrond was all she wanted. Elrond's hand reached into Galadriel's golden hair, groaning as her lips enveloped it. May the Valar forgive him, but he was even more in love with his friend.

Galadriel moaned against Elrond, satisfied by his groans. Galadriel would not waste another second with him. Elrond's grip on Galadriel's hair tightened as his tongue continued to tease him, her mouth never leaving him. Even without knowing Valinor, Elrond knew that only the greatest of blessings was being granted to him.

The movements of Galadriel's mouth intensified, and Elrond knew he could not be strong for much longer, even if he was half-elven. Galadriel could crush his spirit in that moment and he would not care.

Galadriel let her nails wander over Elrond's thighs, feeling as he cum undone against her mouth. Satisfied, she let him recover, trailing kisses up his stomach. Elrond's curls were plastered to his forehead, and she smiled passionately at him.

“Elrond.” She moaned, kissing him once more.

Elrond, panting, was quick to return the kiss, almost desperate. This time Galadriel did not stop him from pulling her dress, only stopping the kiss so that the dress was thrown on the floor of the tent.

Within seconds, Elrond was wrapping his arms around Galadriel's body, bringing his lips to her neck. Intoxicated, yes, he was being intoxicated by Galadriel's skin. Kissing and biting her neck passionately.

Galadriel sighed, holding the curls she loved so much. Elrond's kisses, just like hers before, traveled down her body. A flowery tongue, he was indeed. Elrond adored Galadriel with passion, with tenderness. But also with hunger. Kissing her breasts, kissing every patch of skin she had allowed him to touch.

Galadriel would let him make her his, she didn't care. She was choosing Elrond, she would no longer spend eternity alone. When Elrond held Galadriel's thighs, kissing her where she needed him most, she moaned Elrond's name.

She was back in the Land of the Valar, the Undying Lands. Before, she had not known this salvation in Valinor, but she was reaching with Elrond's lips. Her legs were against Elrond's face, but he did not stop kissing Galadriel, giving her as much pleasure as she had given him. She deserved everything. She deserved to be loved completely.

Galadriel tugged at Elrond's curls, moaning again. It was as if her chest was on fire, as if she would succumb to that passion at any second, as if she would shatter at the slightest touch from Elrond. She was sure she would never forget the sensation of feeling his lips.

“Elrond!” Galadriel moaned, her long golden hair sprawled across the bed, sticking to her sweaty face.

Elrond smiled at her, kissing her face, blinded by his passion, by his love for her. He couldn't get enough of her. He really was in love, Elrond thought.

“Mine?” He whispered, caressing her face.

“Yours.”

Galadriel kissed Elrond, pulling his body against hers. The kiss in the tent had felt right, but this? This was everything she had been looking for for so long.

She moaned, feeling Elrond against her, her legs wrapped around his waist. Galadriel's nails scratched down Elrond's back and he groaned against her lips.

It would be ages before Galadriel would overcome that feeling, that sensation. The eternal desire to consume Elrond, to be his and his alone. She felt so good against his body, feeling how complete they seemed together, how they seemed remade by each other's hands.

Elrond pulled his lips away from Galadriel, looking at her fondly, completely in love with her. With the woman she was, with who she had become. He was not afraid of her mistakes, he loved her for her mistakes, with all her flaws. He accepted her, completely.

And she knew it, now. Elrond reached for Galadriel's hand, lacing their fingers together. When he brought her hand to his lip, kissing where Nenya is, Galadriel gasped, her eyes closing against the emotions that were sweeping through her.

“Galadriel.” He whispered against her ear, intensifying his movements.

Galadriel didn't care about anything else. All that mattered was this moment. The two of them together. She arched her body, hugging Elrond, as if she could get closer to him, as if she could make him even more hers. But wasn't he already completely hers?

“Elrond…” She sighed, almost singing his name, moaning even louder.

And Elrond had no more control when he felt Galadriel pressing against him, cumming undone against him. He moaned Galadriel's name, letting himself join her, euphoria taking over both of them.

Galadriel opened her eyes as Elrond lay beside her. She was panting, but the warmth in his chest was comforting, even. She brought her hand to his face, Nenya's cool touch making Elrond open his eyes.

“Elrond?” Galadriel whispered, caressing his face.

“Yes?” He smiled, kissing Galadriel’s hand.

“Will you stand by my side, until the bitter end?”

“Until our souls are taken to Mandos, my dear.”

Elrond whispered, kissing Galadriel again. And she knew that they would be okay. That not even Sauron, or all the wars in Middle-earth, could shake Galadriel's love for Elrond.

I hope you enjoyed it. Reblogs, comments and likes are always welcome! And please don't copy my work or post it anywhere else.

tag: @valar-did-me-wrong @redrosesandcharmingsouls

#the rings of power #trop #the lord of the rings #lotr #elrondriel #galadriel #elrond #galadriel x elrond #trop fanfiction #rings of power fanfiction #books #my writing #writing prompt #fic prompt #my prompts

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bluestar22x · 9 months ago

Text

The Fallen Warrior: Prologue

Pairing: Jaoel (Joel Miller) x OFC!Eva (Prologue)

Other Characters: Sarah, Thomas (Tommy Miller)

Summary: His memories of them are like clips from a highlight reel

Rating: 18+ Series

Word Count: 6,700(ish)

Warnings: AU, butchered biblical lore for the sake of the plot, fowl language, violence, blood, smut (unprotected p in v), mild description of birth, death, grief, brief mention of SA and manipulative relationships by evil angels, mentions of suicidal thoughts, an almost attempt at suicide

Author’s Note: Thanks to @almostfoxglove for making the lovely moodboard for me!

xxx

The story of Adam and Eve is unarguably one of the most recognized stories from the Bible, if not the most. It tells of the first man and woman, and how they loss their immortality in exchange for tasting the forbidden fruit, lured by the snake that was Lucifer into yearning for its knowledge.

But Joel knew the truth behind the tale. The fruit was not a fruit at all, and the snake was not Lucifer, or even one of his minions.

No, the snake was love, and the fruit was pleasure.

Centuries later, he still dreams of them.

The memories containing them clipped like a highlight reel that he helplessly observes as he slumbers most nights.

It freshens the festering wounds on his soul; renews the agony he would do anything to numb permanently.

Almost anything.

He never would wish to forget the beginning. He only longed to erase the pain at the end.

Have you heard of Lucifer and how he and his aligned angels rebelled against God? How God banished them from Heaven for it and created Hell to be their prison?

Like any prison, Hell was not inescapable. Lucifer was able to influence humans from below, and his fellow fallen angels managed to slip through the exits, the gates of Hell, every once in a while. They influenced the humans, turned them from the light, from God, and the most sinful of the humans were punished too.

Their souls were sent to Hell, and with time, they became demons, Lucifer's minions. These demons were easier to summon to Earth, and became the biggest threat to humanity by sheer numbers.

God's angels were sent to Earth regularly to combat them. He also had a son who sacrificed himself in the hopes of saving as many souls as possible. The fight was still fairly matched.

Usually light and darkness balanced out, but every once in a while, usually when the fallen walked the Earth, darkness threatened all.

One of these times lasted decades. And in those decades the fallen fell into temptation, as were their natures. They saw the beauty of human women and sought them out, taking pleasure in them, tasting them, whether or not they were willing. Whether or not there was deception involved.

Inevitably, offspring resulted from these unions. Nephilim. Giants in the Bible, but deceptively human in truth. Dangerous all the same. They were overpowered and seen as a threat to humanity, so they were exterminated from the Earth.

A flood of blood was left in the wake of the war against them. Not since Lucifer's rebellion had the light been in such turmoil, for no matter how monstrous the nephilim were at times, they were still the children of their brethren.

Archangel Jaoel had been one of the many who struggled with the morality of the slaughter, advocating for imprisonment instead. But Archangel Michael, the leader of all angels in Heaven, God's right hand, held a zero tolerance. As far as he was concerned, nephilim were too big of a risk to let live. Better they die and let God and Lucifer decide where their souls ended up.

So all of Heaven's angels fell in line with his orders, even Jaoel.

Eventually the blood stains faded from his ethereal hands.

It didn't matter. He still remembered their faces.

There were many centuries of peace before the next battle between good and evil commenced. Demons were rising again in massive numbers, and many angels were sent to Earth to protect humans of interest. Humans that were important or going to be important someday.

Jaoel was amongst the angels sent down to play guardian angel, to his dismay. He was an archangel. He'd played messenger before, but never babysitter. He was a warrior. He wanted to fight, not stand around and observe a human for days on end in case a demon sought to extinguish their life.

He couldn't even comprehend how the human he was assigned could be important. Eva was a sheep farmer, living in the forest in seclusion, unusual for a woman of her time, but she had no qualities of a leader.

She was quiet, naturally so since she hardly ever interacted with other humans except to trade. She was soft, too emotional for her time. She mourned the animals she hunted; she sobbed for the lambs that never got to take their first breaths. She lived in her own little bubble, content with not knowing the outside world.

What demon would bother an attempt to corrupt her or take her life? They had no reason to harm a shepherd; no way to draw her towards the dark. Jaoel wasn't sure he'd ever seen a human so pure. Her eternal light an endearing companion to her God-given beauty. Her dark curls and rich bronze skin.

Her allure was sly, slinking slowly into the recesses of Jaeol's mind, igniting something deep within him that had never been awakened before. He felt it every time Eva talked kindly to her woolly wards. Every time she smiled. Every time she laughed or sang, her syrupy voice lulling him into temptation.

He was compelled to know her. For her to know him. He introduced himself to her as a human vagabond in need of work, using her kind heart against her, forcing proximity. She hired him and he began to help her mend fences and care for her sheep under the ruse. He had a lot to learn, but Eva was a patient teacher.

It was too late by the time he realized he'd gone too far; gotten too close, fallen into the trap many angels had before him. He'd convinced himself they could be friends, all the while the passions of human copulation dangerously plagued his daydreams. He knew enough of it, the science behind the physical act, to have a picture of it in mind, to understand it, though not the emotions and sensations linked to it.

He wished to experience it all with her, rational thought slowly losing its battle.

A battle that swiftly came to its pathetic end on a late summer morning almost a year to the day after he initiated their first interaction, six from the day he was assigned as her protector.

That day a demon made an attempt on her life and she'd witnessed his wrath in full glory as he easily plunged his angelic blade in its chest, smoky gray wings exposed for her to eyeball in great detail before he hid them away belatedly.

She was not afraid as he feared she would be, only grateful that a divine being was there to save her.

"Will you be leaving, now that the threat has been extinguished?" she inquired, her expression trained with the intention of hiding her warring emotions.

"I do not know," he answered honestly, allowing himself to brush his smooth fingertips along the contours of one of her cheeks, to touch her for the first time.

He drew in a sharp breath. Her skin was softer than he'd ever imagined.

Her warm brown eyes fluttered shut to his quiet affection finally expressed. She shared it with him.

"So what now?"

What now indeed. Was the demon her only threat or was there more to come? How soon would he be called back home if she was safe?

How much longer did they have?

Jaoel didn't want to wait to find out.

He pulled Eva to him, an iron grip on her upper arms, crushing his lips to hers with a ferocity that combated his inexperience. She melted in his hold, absorbing all of his need, accepting it, expressing her own in the form of a sweet moan that reverberated in his sensitive ears and etched itself permanently into his cerebrum.

He kissed her over and over again, unable to get enough of her divine taste. Years of longing, and she was finally his.

As he was hers.

Without spoken word they both expressed their yearning for more through those desperate kisses and touches to every part of each other they could easily reach without parting.

Eva slowly stepped backwards, leading him like a mythical siren into her home, a cottage perfect for two.

In the dim light of the stony dwelling they began to peel off their clothing, peppering kisses to each other's newly exposed skin as they did so.

"Have you ever done this before?" she asked between heaving breaths, her tone lacking judgement.

"Never," he replied, a drawn out groan accompanying his words as her right hand skimmed tantalizingly close to the waistline of his underwear, too close to the hardening bulge in his pants.

He could feel a heat blooming over his cheekbones. He had often prided himself with knowledge. To be as unsure as he was in their situation was humbling.

Eva smiled widely and placed a hand along his bearded jaw. "I will show you then."

He watched intensely as she removed his last garment then reached out for his right hand and guided it down her body, over the tops of her bared breasts and her soft stomach, not hesitating when his hand found the nest of dark hair between her hips, and only stopping when his fingers glided into her folds with her direction.

She was so warm and wet, more inviting than he could've hoped.

She gasped at the touch she'd instigated, swinging her head back, and Jaoel felt his stomach swoop at the sight of the sinful strain of her neck. He tugged her closer and sucked a bruise onto the skin over her vein there, and she hummed happily, basking in his affection.

"That's it," Eva murmured breathlessly. "Let what you see and feel guide you. I want it all, Jaoel. Everything you want. Everything you'll give."

With some men it would have been a dangerous promise, seen as permission to reveal their darkest desires, ones that shined a light on their cruelty, but she knew she could trust him. That he would take care of her. She'd known him well before she knew what he was, and what he was didn't matter. Only who he was. Her Jaoel. The man who tended to her sheep as attentively as she did. Who ate her every word. Who had never judged her for thinking out loud.

He hissed at her vow and rested his forehead against hers. "I want you all around me. I want to know exactly how it feels. But first I want to see how it feels."

He cupped her firmly where she'd left his hand and she got the message, silently showing him where her sensitive nub was and how to use his fingers to elicit a response from her.

He was mesmerized by what resulted - her quickening breaths, the unrestrained moans that tumbled out of her mouth, the pounding of her heart that sounded like thunder to his supernatural ears. Sweat glistened on her skin as she rocked herself into his touch, trying to get herself there faster, a desperate look on her face.

He found her hole with his index finger, without her help, and hooked it inside her, and that was what did her in. Her breath caught and she mewed into his face, slumping in his muscular arms as she did so.

"Faex!" she panted. "Are you sure you haven't done that before?"

Jaoel hardly heard her question, too caught up in the instant replay rolling in his mind. He'd always thought Eva was beautiful, but she was even more so when she came. And those sounds that she'd made, the way she'd leaned on him after, he'd almost been unable to control himself. He was aching so badly for her that it was all he could think about.

He messily covered her mouth with his and easily scooped her up off the ground, taking full advantage of his superior strength. She threw her arms around his neck and held on tightly as he pushed her up against the wall of the cottage's main room, ignoring the hardness of the stone pressed into her spine to focus on his, grinding her heat against his ready cock after securing her legs around his hips.

They worked together to ease her down onto him as he slowly pushed up inside her, not stopping until he was covered to the hilt.

The sensation of being confined by her warm, slick walls overwhelmed him. A feverish instinct he didn't know he had took over, urging him to drive into her repeatedly, seeking friction as she raked her delicate fingers through his thick wavy hair, encouraging him. "That's it. That's it. Jaoel!"

He'd set a pace not too fast or slow, but it didn't matter. There was no way for him to hold off long enough for her to come again, not with how good everything felt, even as it bordered pain. Not with how she writhed against him and whimpered.

"Can't take it anymore," he grunted out.

"Don't then," she gasped.

Several more deep snaps of his hips into her and his body stiffened as he filled her up with his seed. He shut his eyes as it happened, fully embracing the ecstasy and relief that paired perfectly with his release.

When he opened them again his eyes met hers, and they beamed at each other. His heart wanted to burst at the unabated joy in her expression. He knew he loved her then.

He set her down gently on her feet again and kissed her more sweetly than before, dipping two fingers into her heat as he did so and thrusting them in and out in the same manner as he had with his cock. Eva submitted, clinging to him as he wound her up again.

He didn't stop until she was crying out his name.

He'd been out with a bow and arrow hunting unsuccessfully for deer all morning the day his life unfathomably changed.

Jaoel arrived back home empty handed but not displeased. He and Eva still had plenty to eat from his last hunt and the garden, so some time alone to sort his thoughts on the back of a horse was reward enough.

His peace did not last for long when he discovered the cottage vacant of all life. Fear struck his soul as his mind drew the worst conclusion. That Eva had been discovered by his brethren and ripped away from him less than a full year after they first indulged in the passion that came with romantic love.

But then he remembered the spring nearby that ran tepid warm, the pool she loved to bathe in, and recalled her wishes to be in it.

But if she's there - Jaoel thought, freezing at the implication of her going there alone.

He dropped his bow at the door and raced for the cave where the warm body of water was contained. It was a little ways into it, but not so much so that darkness impended his sight - or anyone's for that matter. The sunlight still shone through.

He sucked in a deep breath of simultaneous relief and trepidation as he made out her naked form in the pool, arms bent over the edge with her forehead pressed to the backs of her splayed hands.

"Eva," he called out hesitantly.

She lifted her head to peer over at him and her shoulders relaxed at the same time as a corner of her mouth curled up. "Knew you'd remember. I wanted to wait for you, but it got to be too much. I wanted to make sure I could still walk here."

He kicked off his boots and sat beside her on the edge, letting his legs drop into the pleasantly warm liquid she was sitting in. "When did you start feeling the pains?"

"Almost immediately after you left," she informed him. "But not soon enough to flag you down."

"The whole morning?"

She nodded and he pulled his lips into a thin line, a subtle grimace. "I'm sorry, mulsa. If I had known I'd have never gone out."

"You couldn't have known," she said with a hitched breath. She tensed up and dug her nails into the gravel surrounding the natural pool. "You're here now."

Jaoel turned to place a hand on her shoulder in support as she rode out what people in later times would call a contraction.

"I should've alerted the midwife days ago when the baby dropped," he stated aloud.

"That was not my wish," she hissed.

It had been his.

When Eva had conceived his child in mid autumn the previous year, only a couple months after they began their passionate relationship, Jaoel had feared her being struck down by Heaven's army, but then she'd come up with the ridiculous idea of doing this on her own, no medical back up if something were to go wrong, as they did fairly often in her time, and then he'd feared that more.

She didn't like the local midwife though, and he had to admit he understood why. She was not very sympathetic and wasn't afraid to lecture her patients when they didn't perfectly follow the rules she had set in place, including a zero tolerance for manual labor outside the home. That included herding sheep.

The stern elderly woman would probably have an aneurysm if she knew Eva had forgone a bed for a pool of water. Water births were not typical, but a town friend had told her about the practice once when she was halfway through her pregnancy and Eva hadn't given up the dream since.

She'd been so determined to give birth in the spring that when Jaoel had brought up his concerns she'd pushed back. "Let me do it alone then!" she had shouted.

And he had gently turned her head to look him back in the eyes. "Not so long as I breathe."

The idea of being there through the entire birth was daunting, but he would not leave her without someone to comfort her and help usher their child into the world.

A child he'd once dreaded, but now nervously awaited.

It was not like he hadn't understood how he'd gotten Eva pregnant. He'd known fully well what repeated unprotected copulation with her would likely lead to, but she'd made him feel invincible for a time, and she'd wanted a family long before he entered her life. The combination of his recklessness and her care free attitude about it had made her pregnancy only a matter of time.

At the beginning he couldn't share the happiness she felt because he'd seen first hand the cards that were dealt to nephilim. He'd dealt some of the cards himself, to mostly mature ones who had actually deserved it, but still. It would be hypocritical to think his child would be above eradication; that his fellow angels would leave them alone just because he was the father.

Eva would not let him stay detached. She convinced him to voice his concerns and to forgive himself for obeying his orders. She'd convinced him that they were safe at the farm for now, and when they weren't they'd move on. That it was going to be okay.

Then she'd pressed his hand to her swollen belly as the baby kicked and he'd lost all reason once more.

He thought of that tiny foot nudging against his palm through firm skin as Eva's contractions increased in strength and closed in on each other.

She clutched at him through it all, like he was a log floating down river rapids. Her salvation.

He held onto her comfortingly, drawing small circles on her back until she pulled herself away from him, towards a rock shelf on the north side of the pool, a shallow spot.

"Baby’s coming," she panted out, sitting up against the side of the pool and already bearing down with her whole body, her eyes squeezed shut.

All the lambings in the world couldn't have prepared him for this.

He followed her, kneeling in the water before her and nodding. "I have you both."

He did his best to stay stoic and encourage her as she worked to move the baby out of her, listening to her body, pushing with the contractions. He felt utterly helpless and impressed by her strength all at once as he waited with his arms open, at the ready.

He wasn't sure exactly how long it took, but one moment his arms were empty and the next he was holding an infant in them - their daughter.

He raised her up out of the water and studied her little face in wonder as she starred back up at him intensely. He could already tell she was going to look so much like her mother, but those dark brown eyes, those were all him.

The observation made his breath catch and he found himself transfixed, locked in that moment with her. Just looking.

Then she scrunched up her face and began to wail.

Jaoel thought he'd seen everything beautiful to see in the universe, but witnessing his daughter's first breath, first cry - a life beginning, one created out of the love he and Eva shared - he'd never seen anything more beautiful outside of his father's throne room.

“It’s alright, babygirl, you’re fine,” he soothed automatically. “Wanna meet your mama?”

He glanced over to Eva and her face lit up. She gestured for him to hand over their daughter almost desperately and he did so carefully so not to drop her back into the water.

A look of awe passed over Eva’s tired face and she started sobbing, her head pressed gently against her daughter’s.

“Are you alright my love?” Jaoel asked, concerned, touching the elbow of her right arm.

She nodded vigorously. “Yes, it’s just…she’s perfect, Jaoel. And she’s ours.”

The disbelief in her shaky voice made him smile. “Yes, she is. And she's just as perfect as her mother.”

Jaoel had never felt such overwhelming joy as he did then, not since standing in front of God himself, and even then it was a different kind of thrill.

He figures years later that he should have known better than to settle into it.

Everything is fleeting.

Jaoel.

One word, his name, and his world greyed.

He'd heard it said behind him, but he didn't want to turn around. He wanted to keep looking forward, watching his five year old daughter innocently play in a field of dandelions, not a care in the world.

He knew that voice. It might as well have been an axe.

"Jaoel, what have you done?" the voice hissed, outrage barely contained.

He swung around then, meeting eyes with a woman nearly his height and in a dark green tunic and sandals. Her hair was a stark pale blonde and her eyes were ghostly blue. Icy, just like her attitude.

"Jophiel," Jaoel said. "What are you doing here?"

"Gathering everyone," Jophiel replied. "The fight is over for now. The demons are controlled. The humans are safe. Or so we thought."

She jerked her head in his daughter's direction.

"She's not dangerous," Jaoel told her firmly. "She's just a child."

"Of course she's dangerous!" Jophiel screeched. "I can feel her power radiating out from here. She is an abomination!"

"She is mine!" Jaoel growled, taking a step forward, chest out. Furious and terrified but refusing to show the latter. "She is no abomination. You've shed enough blood. Leave us be."

"You know they won't do that," said another quieter, subdued voice.

Under other circumstances Jaoel would've been elated to hear it, but it that moment it pained him.

"Thomas," Jaoel whispered.

He craned his neck to see him to his right, dressed in a tunic as well, his cream. He looked younger than Jaoel by six years, around twenty-six years old based on human aging, but it was an allusion. Heaven's angels didn't age. Only the fallen, and even they aged very slowly.

Thomas was as close to a brother of blood as angels could get. Jaoel had been in charge of training him right after the lower angel had been created. They'd spent hundreds of years fighting the dark side by side. They'd cared about and trusted each other more than all their other fellow angels.

Jaoel had no idea where Thomas would fall in this argument. Thomas was as loyal to Heaven as he'd been and even if he did side with him, it meant he'd be banished from Heaven too. Most likely killed, if not thrown into Hell with the rest of the fallen who would eat him alive for not having sided with them, with Lucifer, when they rebelled.

For his daughter's sake he wanted Thomas on his side, but for his brother's sake he wished he'd never shown up.

Thomas looked torn. He had never agreed with the zero tolerance rule for the nephilim either. He'd slain one, a teenage boy, under Jophiel's direct orders once and had been haunted by it for decades. The boy had shown signs of delinquency but nothing atypical of a human his age. He'd begged for his life. Jophiel had promised a tortured death if Thomas didn't do it himself. She'd cornered him.

She'd never tried it with Jaoel before because they were both archangels, but in that dandelion field she changed that. There was a reason Jophiel had brought Thomas with her. Most likely she'd had her suspicions after Jaoel stopped checking in with his siblings, giving updates.

(In hindsight, it had been a poor decision, but he'd been afraid a fellow angel would see through his lies, the stories he made up to cover that he was no longer just guarding Eva.)

Jaoel could see what Jophiel was trying to do from a mile away.

"You belong with us, Jaoel," she stated stiffly. "I am not completely heartless. Let us dispose of her. Thomas will do it, quick and painless, and then you can come home. I will forgive your transgressions, convince Michael to give you a pass."

She only didn't want to face one of Heaven's most powerful warriors, fallen or not. A lesser angel would've never gotten any ounce of mercy.

"Over my dead body," Jaoel spat out, pulling his blade from one of his coat pockets.

"This won't end well for anyone if we fight him like this," Thomas told Jophiel. "You're a better leader, but Jaoel's a better fighter and he knows all my tricks."

Jophiel huffed, clearly not pleased that he'd pointed it out but smart enough to know not to be bull headed about it. "You're right. We need back up. Come along."

She spread her stunning golden brown wings that spanned ten feet and flew away without further do.

Thomas lingered, unable to look Jaoel straight in the eye.

He sighed. "Of all of our siblings, I'd have put you on the list of least likely to be tempted by a human woman. You've put me in an awkward position, big brother."

"I'm sorry," Jaoel said honestly. "It just happened. I cannot describe how I got here. Why she's here. But look at her, Thomas. Please."

Thomas glanced up, obeying, and Jaoel shifted to see what he was seeing.

His daughter, standing still in the middle of the field with a beautiful blue butterfly clinging to her tiny index finger, her chocolate eyes bright and curious.

When he turned back to Thomas he saw a softness in them. "She is beautiful," his brother admitted. "If it were up to me she would live. You wouldn't be forced away from this place. But alas, it is not my decision. If I argued, I'd be cast out too."

The last two sentences sounded bitter, an aged rage in the words, and Jaoel knew he was thinking of the boy.

Jaoel shook his head. "I'm not asking you to rebel. I'm asking you to disappear, busy yourself. Find a wayward demon on your way to gather others for our execution. Stay out of this."

Thomas gave him a small, bittersweet smile. "Always looking out for me." His expression turned solemn. "Even when I fail you."

Jaoel's stomach dropped and he realized then that Jophiel had never mentioned killing Eva, even though the mothers of the nephilim were always executed as well.

"No..."

"Jophiel has been observing you all morning," Thomas told him. "She waited until you left and struck herself. She found me after, said there was one last evil for me to dispatch. A nephilim. She never said it was your daughter. But she did say she already killed the mother."

Jaoel backed a few steps from him. "No...no...you're lying. Jophiel's put you up to it."

"I wish it was one of her elaborate plans, that I was lying. But I'm not."

"NO!" Jaoel snarled, charging forward to grab a fist full of the fabric just under his neck. "She can't be dead!"

"Take your daughter and run, now." Thomas said, more pleading than commanding. "I'll bury her."

"No! You're lying! I'm not leaving her behind."

It couldn't be true. She was his one. His soulmate, as the humans would say. Denial was all he had to keep himself from falling apart.

Thomas sought his eyes out. "Look me in the eyes, brother, you know I'm a bad liar."

Jaoel didn't want to, but he did, and he regretted it. There was no lie in his eyes. Only painful truth.

Thomas saw the change in his expression. The anguish. "I'm so sorry." He went to cup his face but Jaoel fell to his knees.

Thomas was already gathering him up and helping him back to his feet as soon as he hit the ground. "Go. Save your daughter while you still can. She won't take long."

He might have as well shoved a blade through his heart, it would've hurt less. But Jaoel knew Thomas was right. He had to leave with his daughter now. He couldn't go back to bury Eva. He couldn't go home to say goodbye.

Tears blinded him. "Bury her by the oak tree next to the barn. She loved lying in the shade there on sunny days."

Thomas gave him a curt nod. "It is done."

Jaoel started for his daughter on trembling legs.

"Jaoel," Thomas called out after he got a few feet.

He glanced back at him. "Her name was Eva."

"And your daughter's?" Thomas inquired.

"Sarah," Jaoel answered. "It was her grandmother's name."

He didn't waste anymore time after that, racing towards Sarah without checking if Thomas was leaving. He could take care of himself. Sarah could not.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" she asked, frowning at the way he'd rushed to her and at the pain in his expression.

"Daddy can't explain now," he told her, trying not to choke up. "Dangerous people are coming here. We have to go."

Her eyes rounded with fear. "What about Mommy?"

"I sent someone to get her," Jaoel replied. It was vague enough not to be a lie.

He would tell her the full truth later, after they put distance between them and Jophiel.

"We're going to fly to escape them," he said, trying to mask his grief as much as he could. "Come quick."

Sarah lit up. She had always loved flying. Flying made everything better.

She jumped into Jaoel's waiting arms and wrapped her arms around his neck as he unfurled his wings. She stared at them in awe as she always did, then Jaoel launched off the ground.

He flew her far away, not sure where to go, only knowing that no matter where they went, they'd never be safe for long.

The morning light shining through the open bedroom window of the abandoned cottage Jaoel had set up as a safehouse just before her birth bathed Sarah in gold as she slumbered, a sight that soothed Jaoel's ravaged, aching heart.

Finding out Eva was dead had been painful, telling Sarah the news had destroyed him.

She'd fallen asleep from utter exhaustion after all the tears she'd shed, but despite how weary Jaoel was, he'd been unable to catch any sleep himself.

He was too worried about his siblings finding them. Was too caught up in how open ended everything felt. He'd never be able to tell Eva goodbye. Would never have any idea what her final moments were like. He could only hope Jophiel had been merciful about it; something that had never been her strong suit.

He'd spent most of the night pacing or leaning on the door frame to the bedroom, watching his daughter, the rise and fall of her chest and the sound of her heart beating the only things keeping his despair at bay.

Then a striking blue butterfly, of the same species as the one that had been on Sarah's finger in the field flew into the room on a wind and landed softly on her forehead.

Something about its choice of a resting spot made Jaoel recall how sometimes butterflies were used as messengers by those who have passed on, and his breath hitched as he realized that Eva had died before the butterfly had settled onto their daughter's finger. That blue had been her favorite color.

"Eva?" he whispered. It couldn't be, could it? Was the butterfly a message to him?

It immediately flew off, back to the forest beyond the cottage, and Jaoel knew that was the answer to his question.

It gave him some solace.

She was still around, even if he, a fallen, couldn't see her.

It was almost mid morning and Sarah was still sound asleep when the door to the cottage quietly creaked open. A human would've missed it, but Jaoel didn't.

He dug out his blade from his coat and crept towards the main living space, every muscle in his body tensed in preparation for a fight.

He'd expected Jophiel or one of her closest allies to be waiting for him, but he found Thomas instead, standing by the fireplace.

"Thomas, what are you doing here?" he hissed. "How'd you find me?"

"I know you better than you may think," Thomas answered, the left side of his mouth quirking up slightly. "Luckily Jophiel has not cared to."

"You were supposed stay away," Jaoel told him, a flair of anger in his chest over his brother putting himself at risk for him. "You cannot be here long or you'll be cast out too."

Thomas approached him and lifted his right hand to squeeze his shoulder as he met his eyes. "I am staying. For far too long I have heeded their every order, sacrificed my morality in the name of their laws, for a father who has not let us see his face for centuries. I'm tired of cowering, brother. I am standing my ground. Your lover has been laid to rest, the animals rehomed, and you will not protect your daughter alone, no matter where we must go."

Jaoel felt tears stinging his eyes once more, and to his surprise Thomas' eyes were shining too.

"Thank you," he said, his words nearly getting caught in his throat.

There was no use arguing with Thomas once he'd firmly drawn a stick in the sand, so he accepted his help. It felt good too, the burden on his shoulders feeling slightly less heavy with his beloved brother pledging to be there.

He yanked Thomas into a spontaneous embrace and his brother flinched, caught off guard, but soon relaxed into it and patted his back.

"Daddy, who is he?"

Jaoel backed away from Thomas to turn to Sarah, who was standing just outside the door of the bedroom, staring at the younger angel curiously.

"Sarah, this is Thomas," Jaoel replied, glancing to him before meeting her eyes. "Your uncle."

For years Jaoel and Thomas traveled all over the world with Sarah, fearful that if they stopped moving their brethren would catch up. It kept her safe, but also built frustration up in her as she aged. She wanted to be with other children, to learn in the same environment as they did. She got tired of being so isolated, so cooped up. As much as she loved her father and uncle, they weren't enough. Safety was not enough.

She was just a teenager being a teenager when she crept out of the cabin they were staying in while they were both sleeping, having the intention of hanging out with a few other girls in the village for several hours.

She was just a teenager, fourteen years old, when she healed a serious head injury one of the girls acquired while they were flitting around the forest like nymphs of myth in the night.

It was an unfortunate matter of circumstance that an angel that hadn't even been searching for her sensed her power when she used it and found her before Jaoel and Thomas could.

They met her friends first, bawling and clinging to each other, hardly able to spit out enough intelligible words to let them know what had happened. They'd seen things their young human minds couldn't grasp and witnessed a girl their age being slain. They'd be haunted by it for the rest of their lives.

As soon as they got the location Jaoel was racing through the thick treeline to find his daughter, legs pumping as hard as they could, faster than any human's but still not fast enough because he was already too late. He knew that, but he was compelled forward anyway.

He found her on her back, innocent brown eyes open and empty, staring blankly up at nothing. Her shirt was caked with blood that was beginning to dry. There was a stab wound to her abdomen, one clearly made by an angel's blade.

Jaoel dropped to his knees and gathered her already cool body into his arms, holding her close, his head in the crook of her neck.

"No, no, come on, come on babygirl, wake up, wake up!"

He was rocking her body, in total devastation, when Thomas caught up. He fell to the ground at the heartbreaking sight before him, weeping alongside his brother.

They did not notice the ugly grey moth that fluttered down to sit on Joel's hunched back, by his right shoulder, a symbol of what he'd become.

Thomas was burying Sarah just outside the cabin but Jaoel could not bare to help. Instead he was sitting in a chair in the bedroom she'd been occupying just a few hours before, flipping his blade between his calloused fingers.

He paused to point it at his heart and tried to muster up the strength it would take to shove it in, knowing there would be prolonged pain if he did it wrong. But maybe that's what he deserved, subjecting Eva and then their daughter to the wrath of his family. It had been selfish. He should have stayed a distant observer. Saved Eva and moved on.

"Jaoel."

He flinched and his eyes darted up to see his brother standing in the doorway.

"Don't do it," he pleaded. "We can heal together. We can find a new home."

"I cannot go on without her, Thomas," Jaoel murmured, struggling to breathe as he spoke. "Go."

"You would leave me to fend for myself?" his brother asked.

Jaoel wanted to punch him for it. "You're nearly as old as I am; you can take care of yourself!"

Eyes downcast, Thomas nodded. "You are right. But I wish not to. I have already buried a niece tonight; do not make me bury you too."

Bastard.

Jaoel wanted nothing more than to end the unbearable weight that had fallen over him since he'd found Sarah's body, but the hand gripping the blade loosened its hold without his consent and it tumbled to the floor.

For as much as he was in pain, he could not leave his brother to mourn alone, to live alone. Not when he'd fallen because of him.

Joel Miller wakes up from the dream turned nightmare and swipes at the sticky tear track on his cheek.

When will it end? He wonders silently in the dark of his second story bedroom.

He can't help but think, far from the first time, that maybe he should've used the blade after all.

xxx

Latin Translations:

Faex = shit

Mulsa = honey

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Tagged: @harriedandharassed

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Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

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#Joel Miller #The Last Of Us (HBO)#Joel Miller Fanfic (Mine)#X Reader #TLOU AU #The Fallen Warrior Series

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