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callooopie · 2 months

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The night, she calls me.. // Vampire!HOTD men

Come with me to the other side. Make the girl in black your bride — The Night // Aurelio Voltaire

It took all my willpower to not make this like a What We Do in the Shadows bit. No one asked for this either.. so that’s why I’m writing it. Is this gonna be a series of headcannons? No… no. No no… no no nono. I’ve started tooooo many writing projects I cannot… or can I 😏 (I actually can’t I have too many requests I need to lock in on)

Did you know what land you were walking on? Did you see the figure watching you from the top floor window? Was that a shadow you saw out the corner of your eye?

Davos Blackwood // Bloody Lord of Raventree Hall

A manor buried in the dark forests of Blackwood Vale, an urban legend surrounded the woods and the semi-ghost town beside it. Locals would talk of a figure that walked the empty streets at night, and the older residents would sometimes speak of an old estate once owned by a wealthy family that could be found in the heart of the forest. But no one has seen this place, or perhaps no one has ever returned alive to tell the tale.

The ever playful lord of Raventree Hall likes toying with his victims before they meet their bloody demise. If a fool ever gets lost on his land, Davos will follow them around in the form of a raven, acting as if he was leading them to the help they desperately called out for. Some would fall for it; the ‘guiding’ corvid that had brought them to this dusty manor. Little did they know, they wouldn’t be leaving that place.

He’s the type to make Raventree Hall look appealing and safe to the unwitting person, sometimes even playing the part of a humble boy who lives in his family’s old home. He’d learn all about a person as he feeds them food, bloody meat cooked to perfection for any human. Eat up, Davos would say, it’s a good cut of meat.. he’d hate for it to go to waste. Oh? The red wine tastes metallic? Strange.. perhaps a bottle gone bad?

He’d keep his lover human, not out of admiration of their humanity—but as more of a ‘pet’. The only reason Davos would turn a human into a vampire would be for his own entertainment purposes. It’s more fun when you can handle him and not pass out every time he does something. Plus, he wants the security of knowing you won’t be leaving him anytime soon. Forever stuck by his side, living forever in a world of night and pleasure by his doing and his doing alone.

Before you become his lovely lady, perhaps you’re one of those lost souls who stumble upon the estate. Either by poor luck or poorer fortunes, you catch the attention of Davos. He scares you from the shadows, setting candles alight with just a gust of wind, slamming doors and sending phantasms to spook you with howls and haunting steps, sending ravens and crows to caw and peck at you. It’s only when you get to the main atrium of the manor does he strike. A sinister smile on his pale face as he lunges at you from out of nowhere, teeth sinking into the skin of your neck as hands travel up and down your torso.

A master of shadows and tricks, Davos isn’t one to meet his adversaries head on. He doesn’t think they deserve his attention. He can deal with vampire hunters and celebrity ghost hunters with a wave of his hand from his bed chambers at the very top of the manor. He can make it as if ghouls are chasing around those idiots, birds seemingly attacking them on sight, if he’s feeling funny he might summon a demon or two. Why does he have the title of bloody lord? Well, he’s just a messy eater, and the corpses he leaves behind are unrecognizable from what they once were.

Jacaerys Velaryon // Draconic Prince of the Night

The picturesque village that the castle of Dragonstone sits next to has gained a plethora of tourists. However, no one has ever been allowed inside. From a mixture of local superstition, and simply because the wooden gates and doors will not open. Nothing can break, or even burn, the wood. Cursed or blessed, many have stayed away from that castle said to have been forged by dragon fire.. if local legends are to be believed.

Local legends also speak of how beautiful women are kidnapped from their homes and beds, never to be seen ever again. As a tourist, you believe you’re safe.. and you don’t really believe in those tales.. at least you don’t believe them until you awaken in a bed that’s not the hostel’s.

Jacaerys is a vampire who is easily bored. He wants someone who’ll keep up with him. A pretty princess to take care of and to simply sit like a doll, but also one who has a bit of wit and brain to them. Someone to go hunting with, or to fly around in the dead of night together. Someone to chase, someone to have intellectual conversation with.

A little more serious than a certain bloodthirsty lord, Jacaerys will turn his lover almost immediately. What’s the use in keeping you human and mortal? There is no use! Now you’re just like him, and you two can bond and be merry together in that lonesome stone castle. All the others he had spirited away were awfully dull, perhaps you will be different?

Like a dragon, he hoards his treasures. He’ll keep you close, too close almost. Jacaerys will hand feed you blood, lifting someone’s arm up to your mouth and praising you for dining on the thick liquid and flesh. He’ll hover near you, you two are royalty after all. It’s good for a prince like him to check up on his princess. He’ll dress you in gold and red fabrics, or maybe nothing at all! Jacaerys does like it when you’re only clad in gold and gems, sit yourself down on his mountains of treasure and make your nest; he’ll show he’s a good dragon who takes care of his mate.

A scholar of dragon magic, the only thing that can destroy his castle is what made it in the first place. Dragon fire. And dragons died out long long ago sweet thing (or never existed at all…). He’s perhaps the only one that remains! Believe whatever you will, Jacaerys will happily prove to you that dragons are real. And you believe it as you watch him transform into one to deal with trespassers who had somehow broken into the castle. Sure there’s ways in if your crafty enough, but what people don’t say is that there’s no way out once you’re in. The charred piles of bones that litter the treasure room are a testament to that.

Cregan Stark // Vampiric King in the North

Perhaps the only one out of the trio to be semi-normal. An urban legend surrounds the snowy mountains of a large wolf that leads lost wanderers to an empty yet warm and alive stone keep. It’s said if you stay for one night and leave the next day, you’ll find your way back to civilization. However, overstay your welcome and you won’t be heard from ever again…

Your car had broke down, and you hadn’t expected such a large snowstorm to sweep through. You’re on the brink of hypothermia, however you spot something in the distance. The howl of a wolf reaching your ears as the wild beast walks toward you. It almost seems to gesture toward you with its head, beckoning for you to follow. You’ve heard this legend, and so when you find yourself in the safety and warmth of a stone fortress you do your best to remain courteous and respectful. The plan was to leave in the morning, however when you try to open the large wooden door to leave—it slams shut on you before locking tightly.

Cregan likes your humanity, wishing only to learn from you. He would not covet you like a prize, nor would he treat you like a pet. To turn you without your consent? Unfathomable. If you wish to be turned, he would gladly do so at your request. Although he would tell you what you’ll miss, what you will be letting go of in exchange for this eternal life of coldness and blood. Perhaps it’ll all be worth it in the face of his love and companionship?

Teach him everything about you, and he’ll teach you all he knows. Cregan’s an old soul who’s lived more lifetimes than he can remember. He’s powerful, ancient; that uppity prince and cocky lord answer to him! He’s their overlord, they are his mere sons subordinates. All that aside, Cregan has vast collections of knowledge from throughout the ages. Although do remember, he scratches your back, and you will scratch his. Or he’ll show you what happens to those who’ve forgotten such an important lesson.

Unlike his underlings, Cregan can control his appetite for blood. He’s learned, and so he keeps a stockpile of it. Some of it ages like wine in a cellar, other bottles he keeps near and close. A special cabinet is reserved for special blood of course. What? You’ve never tried the blood of a priest? It’s heavenly.

Unlike the other two, Cregan lives more on red meats. Which he can get from almost anything. Although due to the coldness of the region, not many animals venture out. For a special occasion, you’ll find your plate full of fresh organs and fatty raw meat. A glass of thick red liquid right next to your plate. Cheers and eat your fill, it’s fresher than fresh. And who knows when an unsuspecting person will come up these mountains again?

#davos blackwood x reader #jacaerys velaryon x reader #cregan stark x reader #hotd x reader #hotd season 2 #hotd cregan #davos blackwood #jacaerys velaryon #house of the dragon #benjicot blackwood x reader #benjicot blackwood

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lostloveletters · 8 months

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Give Me Shelter, The Night Is Dark (Vampire!Michael Corleone x Reader)

Summary: Local superstition and a reclusive man offer you refuge when your parents grievously misstep in Sicily, putting your life in danger in more ways than one.

Note: Female reader, but no other descriptors are used. This incredibly self-indulgent gothic romance-esque idea came to me while I was half-asleep, and the time period is intentionally vague, but it’s not a modern setting (here's a little aesthetic tag for this fic). Do not interact if you’re under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 4.6k

Warnings: Major canon divergence. Canon-typical violence. Emotional manipulation. Vampirism, including non-consensual blood drinking and compulsion (in the context of it being an ability vampires possess and can use on humans). Sexually explicit content involving elements of bloodplay. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

You couldn’t remember what had brought your family to the village of Corleone, only that your father had promised you and your mother an extravagant Sicilian vacation. Three days of beachside paradise in Mondello, eating fresh seafood cooked to perfection and entertaining the antics of handsome men with scars that stood out like bolts of lightning against their tanned skin were hardly enough to sate your voracious appetite for the weeks of bliss you were promised.

Despite your attempts at bargaining to stay in Palermo on your own, your mother refused, insisting she’d be better off throwing you into shark-infested waters than alone with the men who came calling to your hotel. Some days of travel through the breathtaking Sicilian countryside later, you and your parents arrived in Corleone, a village that appeared all but frozen in time, as if decades had passed it by with no one any the wiser.

To your dismay, you found the selection of eligible men to spend your time with far more limited than in Palermo. The working young men were too tired from their labor in the fields or their trades to engage in foolish antics with a vacationing foreigner. The rest were mafiosi, as you gathered from the veiled comments and numerous euphemisms the older villagers used.

These elderly became your companions during your stay in Corleone, talking wildly with their weathered hands over coffee or wine. Filomena, a woman of nearly eighty years and fluent in English, lived in the house next to the one your family was renting. Her husband Gianni only left the house if absolutely necessary, and she considered him a burdensome hermit. Each morning, she fetched you to accompany her into town. Some days, you’d do little else than sit outside of a cafe on the sleepy main street, eating and drinking and gossiping.

Your Sicilian improved immensely in the near month you kept up with their chatter. Those women always had their ears to the ground, as far as knowing more about your father’s business in Corleone than you did. The vacation he promised you was little more than a gesture of confidence toward Don Manusco, a man notoriously difficult to meet directly with. That your father achieved this naturally generated interest in the village, as no one knew of him. When pressed for more information about your own family’s line of work, you answered what you knew, that your father invested, mostly in stocks, but occasionally in new business ventures.

You were privy to little else, much to the disappointment of your companions, who moved onto other topics of discussion. One woman’s son sought work in Milan and within three months of getting hired at a factory, married a Northerner, much to her displeasure. In contrast, Filomena’s daughter was cloistered elsewhere in the countryside, preparing to take her vows and become a nun.

Their superstitions, however, intrigued you most of all. A curse and blessing existed for nearly every conceivable situation. The most striking tale they spun regarded an abandoned villa about a mile past the rental house. Foreboding and hostile, its faded facade peeking out from thorny vines, it was once the envy of the village. At one point in time, though no one could agree quite when, the Don of another family lived there. He took in a strange young man, reclusive yet polite, wandering the countryside with two armed shepherds as bodyguards. He married a local girl, but the marriage ended tragically soon after the wedding. In a sudden blaze of fire and betrayal, she was killed. The strange man vanished not long after, and anyone associated with the villa—including the old Don Tomassino—were soon found dead or had disappeared altogether. Thus, no one dared approach it for fear of the curse surely cast upon the place.

Some of the gruesome murders in the vicinity of the villa could have been attributed to the tradition of violence Don Manusco carried on following Don Tomassino’s death. It didn’t explain the livestock dying of unusual causes, an older woman interjected. Even the land surrounding it was cursed, and the local shepherds knew better than to let their flocks graze nearby, explaining the abnormally tall grass and overgrown foliage that surrounded the villa.

Yet another woman claimed to have seen a demon or ghost in the form of a man wandering the villa’s grounds at night. Of course, she didn’t get close enough to take a good look, instead uttering Hail Marys as she ran into the local church to take refuge until her husband found her some time later.

Your mind drifted to the villa sometimes, this forbidden and mysterious monument to grief and superstition that seemed to cast a longer shadow over the village than the mafiosos who ran it. Like Don Manusco, who your parents were joining for dinner one evening, and Filomena insisted you join her and Gianni instead of eating alone.

The scent of stewing summer tomatoes with garlic and mouth-watering spices invited you inside the house, its windows open for hopes of cool breezes moving through. Gianni offered you wine and a simple antipasto spread of cheese and oranges to snack on while Filomena cooked dinner. Despite his reclusiveness, he somehow knew that your father’s dinner with Don Manusco involved more business than a friendly visit, the final chance for your father to seal what he hoped would be a lucrative deal with the mafia boss.

Two hours later, you sat across from Filomena at the small wooden table in their kitchen, filling your plate with the delicious meal she prepared. You ate silence while Filomena spoke, bickering with Gianni every now and then. As the sun set over Corleone, unease crept over you, though you chose to attribute it to the heat of the day and eating too quickly.

Until a commotion erupted up the street, almost deafening as it approached, finally arriving outside of Filomena’s house. Frantic Sicilian shouting mingled with rapid pounding on the front door startled you into dropping your fork. Filomena and Gianni shared a worried glance before both getting up from the table to answer.

Wailing.

Screaming.

Arguing.

All you found yourself able to do was sit in confused silence. When they returned to the kitchen with a few other locals, panic truly set in.

“You have to leave!” Filomena cried, pulling you out of your seat by your arm.

“What’s going on?” you asked.

“Your father’s a fool–”

Gianni shook his head. “A dead fool–”

“Your father should have never brought you here if he were going to try to cheat Don Manusco!” an older woman said.

Another cursed. “Selfish bastard!”

“Go! As far from here as you can!” Filomena implored.

A hard push toward the back door was the extent of the help you’d receive from the villagers of Corleone.

Blood pounded in your ears, your heart beating in time with your feet against the uneven dirt path that nearly tripped you up in your desperate rush to the rental home. You opened the door, scrambling upstairs in a frantic half-crawl to reach your room.

You shoved clothes and essentials into a bag, hardly paying attention to what exactly you were packing, just knowing you couldn’t flee empty-handed and hope to rely on the goodwill of strangers.

In the kitchen, you grabbed what you could from the pantry and shoved everything into a wicker basket. With just that and your suitcase in hand, you clumsily ran across the uneven countryside roads, hoping to find somewhere to take shelter for the night. Every rustle of leaves and animal cry sent chills across your skin. Just when you felt hopeless for a place to hide, you saw the abandoned villa's high walls, overgrown with vines and bramble in the distance. Superstition be damned, it was better than dying at the hands of a mafioso.

The iron gate was closed, but not locked. You held your breath as you opened it, sending out silent thanks to the universe that it didn’t release some otherworldly screech and announce your presence. Hardly visible in the dead of night, the villa peeked out from beneath the plants that had overtaken it. Even from a distance, it appeared as if the building were hollowed out somehow. It remained your best bet.

Superstition offered you refuge, as masculine voices drifted above the villa’s high walls, the structure still sturdy despite the general state of disrepair.

“Should we go in?”

“You sound as much of a fool as that old man. That place is cursed. Even if she were in there, she'd be dead anyway.”

Their heavy, rushed footsteps against the rocky terrain fell silent after a few moments. You sighed in relief, allowing yourself to relax just the slightest bit. Until you glanced back at the villa again, a new sense of dread making your stomach turn at the prospect of having to go inside the place. While you didn’t believe all of the rumors you’d been told over the previous few weeks, being in its presence unsettled you.

Then again, feeling unsettled in an abandoned villa was preferable to whatever would happen if Don Manusco’s men got his hands on you.

After a moment of hesitation, you approached the shadowy building, hoping your luck wouldn’t run out when you got inside.

To your surprise, the interior wasn’t as poorly maintained as the exterior. The furniture betrayed the wealth of whoever lived there previously, though they’d seen better days. Dark wood scuffed or splintered. Dull fabrics that must have been rich violets or crimson upon their initial purchase.

You walked into the living room, freezing upon seeing lit candles around. Someone was living there after all.

“Hello? Is anyone–” you gasped upon seeing a man standing on the other side of the living room, partially obscured by shadows.

Even in the cover of darkness, his features rendered you speechless as he approached. Handsome seemed too pedestrian of a word to describe him. His raven hair fell across his forehead with a deceptive boyishness. Brown eyes, almost black as the night itself bore into your own. His skin wasn’t nearly as tan as the villagers you’d met, but you supposed someone who lived in such a place was wealthy enough to not have to partake in the grueling manual labor typical of the area, the strong Sicilian sun giving its residents a healthy glow which he lacked.

“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly.

“The men who were outside before—I think they’re going to kill me,” you said, panic overtaking your senses as his face remained unmoved by your explanation. “Please, I didn’t know anyone lived here.”

“Why do they want to kill you?”

“I think my father tried to cheat Don Manusco. I don’t know all of the details, but if they don’t want to kill me, then they’ll probably—“ Your voice caught in your throat.

“You can stay.”

“I’ll leave tomorrow and find a way to get back to Palermo.”

He shook his head. “You have a vendetta out against you now. Getting back to Palermo so soon will be nearly impossible, especially if Manusco has allies there.” He watched in unreadable silence as hopelessness ate away at your resolve. “You can stay,” he finally repeated. “Don’t leave the villa. Not during the day, and especially not at night. You’ll be safe.”

“Thank you. I owe you my life.” You offered him your name, as a courtesy and as collateral. More valuable than anything else you carried with you, he could use it to betray you for his own gain whenever he wished. You prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

“Michael Corleone,” he said.

“Like the village.”

He smiled the slightest bit, his dark eyes shining an almost betraying crimson in the moonlight. Ethereal. That was the right word for him. “Yes, like the village.”

Your host led you upstairs, helping you with your meager belongings despite your insistence you could handle your small suitcase and a basket of food, which you left on the console table in the foyer. The villa had certainly seen better days, its plaster walls cracked, crumbling in some places. You would’ve used caution going up the stairs if Michael hadn’t been so confident as he ascended them.

He paused at the top of the stairs, glancing at each of the doors along the hallway. After a few moments, he seemed to settle on one, leading you to a dark bedroom, full of odd shadows that made you pause. It seemed otherwise better taken care of than the rest of the villa you’d seen up to that point.

“It’s just me here. I’m afraid I’m not the best homemaker,” he half-joked in response to your hesitation to enter the room.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s nice. I can’t thank you enough, Michael.”

He nodded. “I have insomnia, so you’ll see more of me at night than during the day. The cellar stays locked, but you can have the run of the place otherwise.”

You bid each other good night.

When he shut the bedroom door behind you, you collapsed onto the bed and cried into your pillow, both from heartbreak and exhaustion, until you fell asleep.

The following morning, you awoke to fresh bug bites on your arm–inflamed and itchy, though perfectly in line with each other, oddly enough. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and you supposed you’d rather deal with mosquito bites than whatever Don Manusco and his soldiers had in mind for you.

True to his word, Michael was nowhere to be found when you went downstairs to eat a breakfast of bread and hard salami. Again, not ideal, but you’d make do with what you brought with you. For the rest of the day, you explored the villa, acquainting yourself with your new albeit temporary home.

You found yourself with little to do to pass the time. Venturing out onto the surrounding grounds of the villa was hardly an option, most of it so overgrown you couldn’t take a proper walk. There were a few books in the house, but often you found your mind drifting to your parents, what their fate looked like and what could await you if Don Manusco found out where you were hiding. By the time you’d finally see Michael around in the evenings, you’d force yourself to stay up as long as you could to be in his company. Soon, your schedule nearly matched his nocturnal one.

Over the following weeks, you got to know Michael. At times, you couldn’t help but stare at him, but sometimes it felt as though you couldn’t do much else if you tried. He was a gracious host for how you imposed on him, showing concern for the bug bites you tried to hide from him. A good thing he noticed, as he brought you a cup of tea, a deep maroon color that he explained was a natural remedy from the village for the discomfort you were experiencing. A common occurrence that you’d been fortunate enough to avoid since arriving in Corleone.

“You’re not from around here either,” you said one night. “I can tell from your accent.”

“I’m from New York, but my father was born here,” he explained. “My last name is a mistake from when he immigrated.”

“Do you miss it?”

He was silent for some time, lost in thought before answering with a soft, “Terribly.”

“But you can’t go back.”

“No, I’m very sick. I wouldn’t survive the trip.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, your curiosity getting the better of you when you asked, “What do you have?”

“What I have is incredibly rare, there’s no word for it. Sunlight puts me in excruciating pain, and my appetite is abnormal.”

“How long have you been sick for?”

“Years. More than you’d believe.”

“You know, everyone in the village thinks this place is cursed. If you just talked to them, then they’d understand what was going on and maybe be able to help.”

“I can’t be around people. It’s not safe for them.”

“I don’t understand,” you said. “Are you contagious?”

He hesitated. “Not how you’d think.”

“No matter what you have, it’s not good to be alone,” you argued.

“You’re here now.”

“Only until it’s safe for me to go to Palermo and leave Sicily.”

He shook his head. “You won’t be able to leave. Not when a man like Don Manusco has a vendetta out against you,” he said, his intense gaze boring into you. Your chest grew tighter as he spoke. “This villa is the only place you’ll ever be safe.”

“Michael, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just know what he did to your parents…he and men like him have done to many others on this island, too.” Your silence perturbed him. He grabbed your shoulders, squeezing them gently, though his eyes seemed to blaze with fury. “I’m keeping you safe here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” you whispered, your voice nearly catching in your throat.

“Then what’s there to be afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s right, as long as you stay here.”

“I can’t stay forever.”

He hummed dismissively, not bothering to acknowledge your statement. You soon excused yourself to go to sleep, a sudden uneasiness settling in your stomach.

You awoke late into the afternoon the following day, judging by the amber sunlight that streamed through the broken shutters. Still, your limbs felt heavy, and your head pounded as if you’d hardly slept at all. A quick glance at your arm revealed twin bug bites on your wrist again, this time darker than the previous ones, leaving your skin tender to the touch.

Dizziness turned the room over when you sat up from the bed, and you nearly considered going back to sleep, if it weren’t for the hunger that ached in your bones.

You ventured down into the kitchen, relieved to find a pot of tea sitting out. You didn’t even bother reheating it, though the consistency was odd, thicker in its room temperature state. The texture didn’t deter you, as the more you drank, the better you felt, your dizziness and aches gone as the tea overflowed from the corners of your mouth and dripped down your chin, insatiable until there was nothing left. Wiping off your face, you went back up to your room and fell back asleep.

A knock on the door woke you up in the pitch black some hours later. You lit the candle on your bedside table before getting up to answer. You knew it was Michael, concerned about why you hadn’t joined him yet.

Just as you got up to answer, he opened the door, letting himself into your room–except it wasn’t your room. It was his, and you supposed he could enter whenever he wanted.

Frozen in place by his gaze alone, you stood still and silent as he approached, demeanor darker and more intense as his presence filled the room, as if his essence somehow intermixed with each breath you took. A citrusy sweetness with a bloodcurdling undercurrent of violence filled your lungs. Despite this, you felt no fear, but rather anticipation when he finally reached out and caressed your cheek, his hand freezing against your warm skin.

“Michael,” you whispered.

“Don’t fight me, sweetheart.”

And you couldn’t. Not even if you tried. His eyes took in your face with a softness that betrayed his fondness for you. His lips pressed against yours, a chaste kiss to start, but it proved to be insufficient for him, as he claimed your mouth with the fervor of a man long starved for affection. His desire for you tangible as you kissed him back, allowing his hands to roam your body above your nightgown until his fingers brushed your thighs, pushing the hem up to your hips.

He laid you back on the bed, ridding you of your panties and slipping his fingers between your folds. “Tell me how it feels,” he said, his lips against your skin. “Tell me everything.”

Before then, you would have died rather than admit it to him, but at his urging, the dam broke. Of course your thoughts of him weren’t always innocent. Some nights, when you were sure he was elsewhere, you touched yourself to the thought of him. The confession slipped from your mouth so quickly that shame couldn’t catch you, not when Michael pushed his fingers inside you, the heel of his palm rubbing against your clit, denying you any sensation but absolute pleasure.

“I’ve wanted you since I first saw you,” he whispered, pressing desperate kisses into your neck. “You have no idea how hard it’s been for me not to–”

Your whine interrupted his train of thought, and a knife-sharp pain jolted through you when he sunk his teeth into your throat, breaking the fragile skin. His fingers curled inside you, a moan clawing its way out of you as you came, ecstasy pulsing through your limbs in waves that threatened to drown you in it. Spots clouded your vision and breath evaded you, the poignant scent of copper mixed with your sex made your head spin.

“Michael, I–” You passed out, though you awoke later, curled up next to him, your body sore and more fatigued than ever. You winced when you tried to move your head, a dull ache coming from your neck. “What did you do?” you mumbled.

“Sweetheart?”

“To my neck.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, petting your hair. “I got carried away. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”

“Me either,” you admitted.

He smiled, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. From then on, he was ravenous, and like a woman possessed, you gave in to him every time. Nights with him blurred together as thoughts of escaping Sicily and the danger that waited for you outside of the villa walls were almost nonexistent.

Some time later, though you’d largely stopped keeping track of the days by then, you realized your food supply was running low. Michael would go out at night and get some for you if you asked, though he never revealed where exactly he went. Still unsure of your safety from Don Manusco, you figured the farm up the road would be a good place to swipe some fruit from the orchard and anything else they might have lying around and not exactly miss.

The sun felt especially harsh when you went outside. Each step brought about unimaginable fatigue that made your bones ache. You hardly made it halfway to the farm before you had to rest beneath a large tree’s shade to rest your tired limbs and eyes.

“Excuse me, miss? Are you okay?”

You jolted awake, surrounded by a handful of elderly villagers from around the countryside. You recognized at least one of the older women as one of your old cafe companions in Corleone.

“I’m fine.”

The woman in question squinted at you. “Where do I know you from?”

“We’ve never met before,” you said, voice tight with panic. “I have to go. Goodbye.” You forced yourself up, using what little strength you had to return to the villa, ignoring their calls for you to wait. Exhaustion swept over you by the time you made it inside, promptly collapsing in the foyer. They had recognized you, and surely they had seen you retreat into the villa and were on their way to let Don Manusco know of your whereabouts. They’d be foolish not to with the price on your head.

Michael was nowhere to be found, and you worried that by the time you finally saw him that night, it’d be too late to tell him what transpired. Tears rolled down your cheeks as fear and guilt crept up on you. Your carelessness had put Michael in danger, too.

With no way of knowing how long it’d be until word got back to Manusco, you considered the layout of the villa, which you knew like the back of your hand, and the best place to hide if he or his men intruded in search of you.

In hindsight, the kitchen cupboard was a more obvious choice for a hiding spot, but it was the most your fatigued brain could come up with while you were panicked.

Your instincts had been right, though. The inevitable intrusion did come.

The voices that echoed through the foyer were the same ones from the night you first arrived in the villa. You kept a hand over your mouth, the other with an iron grip around the kitchen knife.

“Come on, Don Manusco isn’t angry with you. He just wants to talk,” one of the men called out.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” the other added. “He knows you didn’t have anything to do with your father’s schemes.”

You couldn’t take a chance on whether or not they were telling the truth.

Footsteps approached, growing louder with each passing second. You readied yourself for attack, until you heard a blood-curdling scream rip through the night and you dropped the knife in shock.

With all of the foolishness of your father, you opened the cupboard door. Blood pooled around the man’s head, a look of terror etched into his face, betraying his final thoughts. Your gaze lifted, and you stumbled backward, unable to comprehend the gruesome sight before you. If you hadn’t been watching Michael with your own eyes, you would have assumed an animal attack was responsible for the carnage at your feet. What more, after the initial shock wore off, an almost physical pull drew you to the spilled blood.

The villagers had been right. It wasn’t mere superstition, but reality, one more horrific than any of them could have fathomed. The unexplained murders, the livestock deaths, all by his hand. His illness a fabrication to conceal the true nature of his being, something unnatural that existed in the worlds between life and death with a hunger to match. He’d been feeding from you for weeks, allowing you to carry on believing lies. Of course you felt awful, constantly fatigued. You could only hazard a guess as to what was really in the tea you’d been drinking like a fiend.

You wished you could scream at yourself for your naivete, as if he’d help you out of the kindness of his heart and not expect something in return. Your willful ignorance of his odd behavior in exchange for refuge in the one place where you’d be safe from who you thought were the only men who wanted to harm you. But he saved you from Don Manusco and his men. He kept you alive. He could gain little from drawing out your death for so long. Unless…your eyes widened, and you looked at him in horror.

Michael spoke your name softly. “Do you understand now?”

“You–You’ve been making me like you.”

“I should have done it sooner. It’s the best way to keep you safe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“I guess not.”

He cupped your face in his hands, “Things won’t be that different. We’ll be together. No one will be able to hurt you.”

“How–How much longer until I’m–”

“As soon as tonight, if you’ll let me.” Sensing your hesitation, he pressed a bloody kiss to your forehead. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you whispered, overwhelmed by the urge to trust him, to commit to an eternity of all-consuming, reclusive violence with him. “I want to be with you. I want to be like you.”

His hands drifted down to your neck, his fingers digging into your pulse as he leaned in, his teeth grazing the half-healed wound he’d inflicted all those nights before. “I knew you’d make the right choice.”

#the godfather #michael corleone #michael corleone x reader #the godfather x reader #michael corleone imagine #michael corleone fanfic #the godfather imagine #the godfather fanfic

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skeletonsloverockcandy · 5 months

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Man, each year I get to it, I love the May 5th entry and what it means. I take something new from it each time. Like last year I noticed the sacrifices and efforts the Driver and the other passengers made to try and save Jonathan, a stranger to them, by showing up early, by giving him gifts, by blessing him, despite the danger that puts them in. Especially when Dracula, as the driver, points it out to the Driver of the first coach, what he was trying to do, and scares him by pointing out what he said (despite it being heard far out of normal earshot and over the sound of horses galloping).

This year though, I notice that, but I see some of the smaller details too. Like how the mountains are full of blooming fruit trees, and how we are so used to the “gothic” aesthetic we almost forget it’s Spring. How Jonathan takes notice and comfort in the view, despite the growing unease he feels because of the people around him. He is trying to distract himself from how scared he’s getting based on their warnings. Warding him from the Evil Eye.

"No, no," he said; "you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce"; and then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantry—for he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest—"and you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep."

I also take notice of this from the driver, as it’s almost a morbid gallows humor that he clearly knows to expect the wolves, and knowing what happens later, I’m sure the people here have a horrible fear of them, knowing what Dracula can do…and what he does to that poor mother later.

There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one.

We also get here what might be our first indication that the Count can control the weather to an extent.

They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us.

All I can imagine is Dracula in a fake beard now lol.

"You are early to-night, my friend." The man stammered in reply:—

"The English Herr was in a hurry," to which the stranger replied:—

"That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift."

But God, this must have been terrifying for the driver and the passengers. What would Dracula do to punish them for trying to escape him? Would he dare make an example in front of the Englishman right now, or would he grant them mercy to say nothing else as Jonathan is unsuspectingly led to his doom, so they think.

"Denn die Todten reiten schnell"— ("For the dead travel fast.")

The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile.

It feels like they’re all in on some sick joke that they know the punchline to, but Jonathan doesn’t, so with the dramatic irony, it feels like we the readers are the same peasants, trying to do anything to save or warn Jonathan but it’s already too late.

I also notice how quickly Dracula tries to shift the power dynamic with Jonathan, and have him doubt his sanity so soon, and he’s not even in the castle yet.

He drives him in circles to try and disorient Jonathan and make him feel even more lost, also keeping him out for far later and making Jonathan question if he’s dreaming or if what he’s seeing is real. I’d also bet more than anything that wine he offer Jonathan on the coach that Jonathan didn’t end up taking was drugged. Because it’s far easier to disorient an unconscious passenger in the dark than it is to disorient a conscious passenger. But he still does a pretty darn good job.

Then there’s the blue flames, which Jonathan doesn’t know how to react to as they seem supernatural and he doesn’t know how to rationalize it yet, so he takes it as if he’s dreaming.

This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.

Jonathan also has already felt the fear and nerves associated with the supernatural and superstition after what all of the townsfolk have told him, and later he tries to brush this off and rationalize again, try not to get too scared, but a part of him already realizes something is wrong.

Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear.

I also want to point this out, as it’s right before the wolves surround the coach, but it’s the second time a “dog” has been mentioned howling in the night, and with this evidence, I bet Dracula uses the wolves as a threat to keep the peasants and townsfolk in line, as he can’t munch down on everyone. But it shows how powerful he is and what a threat he poses. I wonder who the wolves kill in the night.

Also how Jonathan, as an Englishman where there were no more native wolves, can’t even imagine that’s what they were and thinks they are dogs.

And it makes sense now that earlier when Jonathan was getting out his good ol’ polyglot dictionary, how the two words mean the same thing.

"vrolok" and "vlkoslak"—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire.

As Dracula, as we see later, can transform into a wolf himself, and so there is probably less distinction between the two in this culture than we have tried to establish in the modern day.

Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same.

Ah, I wonder if this is an early indication that Dracula cannot be depicted through traditional means? Like how he can’t be seen in the mirror. Certain lights just, pass through him.

I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap.

We also see Jonathan taking an active and proactive approach, in this manner trying to be helpful and aid his (what he assumes human) driver. With these sorts of actions already, I can see signs of the man who will pick up a shovel to try and do what needs to be done. Who takes a knife and vows action, not hesitating.

He is polite right now, he’s on business. He doesn’t know what’s coming. But regardless, that person is still in him, and he’s capable of taking great action and doing great things for the sake of survival and doing what he thinks is right.

And Dracula commanding the wolves to stop as the driver, and the cloud passing overhead, I feel is like a subtle display of power and threat to Jonathan. He’s still playing pretend, but when Jonathan does figure out he was the coach the whole time, and he plays coy, the Count knows Jonathan will remember this threat, and it feels that much more sinister.

Jonathan still questions and thinks he fell asleep, as he doesn’t see how he’d have missed the approach of the castle otherwise, but I think he was awake because it was dark, and the count was intentionally taking him a winding and confusing path under a lot of fear. Though if he did fall asleep, I’m that much more terrified about how Dracula was driving him about, now secure in the knowledge that Jonathan would be thoroughly isolated and lost.

And the thing that nearly gives Dracula away twice as the driver is the strength of his grip on Jonathan’s hand, also lacing a subtle threat.

through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate.

Well this is just scary knowing how trapped Jonathan becomes later, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hear the outside world, and how the outside world might not be able to hear him, and how he’s already acknowledging that.

The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked?

He already is expressing doubts and fears, he isn’t ignorant of what situation he might be in, and it’s only later when he tries to rationalize with the count and is given the comforts manipulation of food and sleep, that he tries to dismiss these fears and take the Count at his word.

Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor—for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor!

Okay, this is just really cute. Mina said You passed the Bar, you Deserve to call yourself a Solicitor Jonathan <3

Also explains a lot that Jonathan is a fresh faced baby lawyer who just passed the bar and needs this assignment. He’s probably hoping that after this pay day he can marry Mina and have enough for them to start making a life together. Also says a lot for Dracula’s strategy to him to get someone young, inexperienced, and unfamiliar with the area, who might be seen as “expendable” so that Jonathan’s sudden “disappearance” might go unremarked by those in charge (though Mina would notice).

I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning.

Again, those early signs of doubt and fear from Jonathan, showing his unease already at the situation. We did not deserve to be clowning on him so much when this book club first started. It’s not his fault he’s not genre aware 😔 I’m sorry Jonathan.

And when Drac does show up to open the door:

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone.

I wonder if he’s like that because he needs to be invited into places to be there, so if it’s almost like a supernatural hold of importance for him to offer the same thing. Almost like a subtle joke or curse with the knowledge that after Jonathan enters, he won’t be allowed to leave of his own will

holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.

I also like how all the clues are there, and since Jonathan has written them down and taken note of them, the expression on them must be some of the things he’s piercing together about his own fears as well that he’s afraid to voice aloud or in his journal, because if he voices his suspicions, they might become more real to him.

The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking

See? He knows what’s up, he’s just afraid to say it.

I also didn’t pick up that Jonathan’s room is octagonal for some reason. I wonder if there’s any reason for that or symbolism with the 8 sides?

Also the letter from Mr. Hawkin’s feels very ominous in retrospect knowing what’s coming and how Dracula will treat Jonathan:

"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters."

I feel like Dracula knew to take advantage of that, and also this feels like him basically reading the menu for an ideal victim once his business is said and done, so I get shivers, brrrrr.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.

I also like that while Jonathan is describing Dracula, he notice his hands. And I am also struck with how little it is brought up that he has hair on his palms, and I can see the more wolf-like nature of this vampire mythology. I wonder if Bram Stoker intended for werewolves and vampires to be the same thing in his novel? They are certainly compared and have similar powers and weaknesses, so it’s possible I guess.

Also Dracula has corpse-breath lol. Nasty.

I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves.

Ah ha! Also the first foreshadowing we get for the importance of dawn and dusk in the novel, as we know later how important timing becomes for our protagonists, so seeing its affects already make me smile at the recognition of the signs so early.

"Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!" Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:—

"Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter."

And ah, an iconic line. Though I just get second hand angry and uncomfortable at Dracula’s insistence that he’s a “hunter” 🤢. God I just hate him haha.

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!

And literally Day 1 of being in the castle and Jonathan is already questioning his sanity and piecing things together he’s afraid to even voice in his journal. This is the second time in as many days he has already wished that those around him find this journal and laments should anything bad happen to him. It creates the impression of one who knows they’re walking into danger but must go on anyway.

But I love Jonathan so much, and I definitely really like the May 5th entry, and it does so much work to set up what happens later.

#dracula daily #dracula #Dracula daily may 5 #Dracula may 5th #jonathan harker #count dracula #re: dracula #dracula meta #my post #original post #Skele talks #skele talks Dracula #long post #skele analysis #Dracula analysis #mina murray #mina harker

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wileys-russo · 10 months

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✨ leah williamson masterlist ✨

☼ fics;

house wife

dancing in the street

face masks and horror films

mrs williamson

mrs williamson ficlet (2)

ignorance is bliss

ignorance is bliss ficlet (2)

green eyed snake

small intimate interactions

small intimate interactions ficlet

handyman

handyman ficlet

insensitive

spontaneous

put a ring on it

cold snap

wined, dined and dipped

love is blind

forget me not (2)

the royal box

a deals a deal

mascot

☼ blurbs;

step by step

top golfer

teenage love

skin on skin

jorts

heels

work wife

lucky charms

sore loser

big swing

sidetracked

garden gnome

the ick

narcissist

horror movies

mrs williamson

mario kart

hobbies

early mornings

tech fleece

eight legged attack

3am serenades

happy gas

bubble wrap

drill sergeant

portugal sunsets

an hour of sleep

i can't sleep

left unsupervised

4am wake up

topless

the bet

one of your girls

legacy

superstitions

the new number six

under strict instruction

lock down

gossip

something silver

plucky

little golfer

just like mummy

stupid hat

rivals

the look

two wheels

#leah williamson x reader #leah williamson #woso blurbs #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso x reader #woso

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peonysgreenhouse · 6 months

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-`♡´- kisses + the 13 flame-chasers

summary: what it says on the tin!

tags: flame-chasers x gn!reader, griseo's is platonic of course, fluff, lots of kissies.

i. kevin kaslana

kevin’s last try at love had left him unable to touch anything living, his body now colder than ice. he craves the contact he once was able to give and receive freely, but to sacrifice his own body in pursuit of the MOTH’s goals was something he was more than willing to do. but even the icy-hearted first flame chaser has his moments of weakness. in those moments he’ll grab your tie, or the end of your skirt and bring it up to his lips, inhaling the scent he was never close enough to know, and wonder how warm your skin felt underneath.

ii. elysia

elysia adores everything about you, and she wants you to know how much you are loved every moment she is with you. she places kisses to any place she can reach, but more than that she loves watching your reactions. so human, so beautiful. it’s not rare to end up with her rosy gloss all over you.

iii. aponia

aponia likes listening to you breathe. underneath a tree in the tall grass, your head in her lap. it’s one of the few times she feels she can live in the present. the future is the farthest thing from her mind as she leans down and places a kiss to your forehead, telling you to go to sleep. she doesn’t command you to do it so, but with her soft humming, you soon drift off. aponia kisses your eyelids, then, and prays for your dreams to be pleasant.

iv. eden

her lips taste of the finest wine; how could you not get intoxicated after kissing her? the high of eden’s performance doesn’t wear off for hours, and she loves to perch you up on her vanity and kiss you until she’s satisfied… and eden is hard to satiate. out of all the endless riches she has amassed, you are her favorite treasure of all.

v. vill-v

the great magician loves to woo you with her performances. look down into their hat and when you see nothing inside, she’ll tilt your chin up and give you a quick peck.

the expert likes to ramble off her ideas for projects — you’re the only one allowed in their lab. it’s not often they get excited about things, but with you there she finds that old passion for inventing return in spades. when you aren’t looking, she’ll place a lingering kiss to your temple, whispering out her thanks.

vill-v loves you wholly, with every part of themself.

vi. kalpas

you’re one of the few who has gotten to see under kalpas’s mask. his skin is fair, sunken pale eyes tired and angry. it’s the first time he lets you see underneath that you finally get to kiss him. his teeth are bared, and he threatens to kill you for standing so close. but when your lips touch his own, all feigned malice melts away, and he pulls you into him hard.

vii. su

his kisses are featherlight, as soft as a summer breeze. as busy as he is with his work, he will always find pockets of time to spend with you. even if it’s just as small as kissing your cheek before he leaves for work, he will remember your loving eyes, the way the morning light made your skin glow, your small smile… yes, this is one memory that will follow him forevermore.

viii. SAKURA

SAKURA always looks for you after battles. she is covered in bruises and cuts that will leave ugly scars later, but she needs to know you’re okay; that the one person left that she loves is still there. she ushers you someplace quiet and hums, a familiar song that she once sang to RIN and patches you up. you tell her of an old superstition that you once heard, and she takes it to heart. SAKURA doesn’t let you go until she’s placed her lips against every future scar, promising you that next time, she’ll keep you safe.

ix. kosma

try as he might, he will never be able to figure out what you’re thinking. when you reassure him that you like him, he wonders if you mean in a way that he can sit close to you. it’s easier show him what’s on your mind, tilt his chin up and plant a sweet kiss to his lips. kosma will think about your touch for a long time, one hand touching his lips and the other balled into his tunic. he hopes you’ll kiss him again and again.

x. mobius

mobius tastes sickeningly sweet, you sometimes wonder if her lipstick is laced with poison. when mobius kisses you, it is needy, her lips moving hard and fast against your own, pressing you against her lab table. when she pulls back, you’re seeing stars, and she grins at you like a predator. you can’t help but think if this is where you die, it wouldn’t be so bad.

xi. griseo

mama aponia tells griseo that kisses are reserved for people she loves. and so she gives mama aponia a kiss on the cheek before she goes to look for inspiration. today, you are her muse, and you sit for hours as she paints every color that she sees in you; each one unique to you. once you’re done, she tugs your sleeve and tells you to come look. you tell her it’s beautiful, and she kisses you on the cheeks as thanks.

xii. fu hua

hua fights with her fists, and so the bruises left on her knuckles are forever rosy, never allowed to fully heal. when she spars with you, she never goes easy, and you’re face down in the dirt after only one round. she notices the deep purple of fresh bruises on your hands, and places a kiss to each one, praising you for trying so hard.

xiii. pardofelis

pardo loves all things shiny, but she’s found she doesn’t mind being paid in kisses from time to time. she purrs as you take her cheeks into your hands, kissing her all over the face. felis can’t help but laugh at the way it tickles, falling forward into your lap and nuzzling into your neck.

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tojiphile · 1 year

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ALL FAIRYTALES HAVE A HAPPY ENDING + GOJO SATORU

a/n. comfort fic. non-canon compliant. slight angst but happy ending of course <3 pre-established relationship with satoru, kissing, cuddling, words of affirmation.

most nights, satoru comes home late. when you first started dating him, it used to worry you. his absence plagued you with thoughts worse than cheating. you’d spend hours wondering if your boyfriend was still safe, praying for him to just be alive.

now, you’ve come to understand—he has a role, a part to play, a cog in the machine that makes the world run, that allows it to survive. still, that didn’t mean you had to like it.

now, on most nights when he’s back home late, you’re able to crawl into your side of the bed, and go to sleep. you stir when he joins you, cuddling up into you and pressing a kiss on your forehead. “you’re home?” you’d sigh into his neck. “i’m home.” he’s reply, whispering sweet nothings in your ear until you fall back asleep.

but tonight is different. you’re not one for superstitions (satoru proves them all wrong), but you can’t help but feel a sick sense of dread in your stomach. something was wrong. you ate dinner alone in front of the tv, flipping through channels. you stopped when you saw the news.

“this just in: shibuya is under attack! as of 7:00pm, shibuya has been placed under lockdown by a mysterious invisible wall. government officials are looking into the situation now. our sources tell us that the civilians trapped are crying for help desperately, all looking for one satoru gojo.”

you freeze.

“if anyone has any information on the situation, please call the hotline below…” the announcer’s words faded away as all your intrusive thoughts raced through your mind, your heart hammering in your chest. where was satoru? was he okay?

hands trembling, you reach for your phone and dial your boyfriend. it rings exactly three and a half times before the call ends. you call again, and again, and again, but he never picks up. so, you ring the only person you can think of—kiyotaka ijichi. satoru might jokingly insult the man sometimes, but all in the times you’ve been worried, kiyotaka had answered your questions, trying his best to remain calm, giving you answers as to where your boyfriend was.

he doesn’t pick up either.

you pace the living room. you know that satoru can handle anything. he was a living reminder of it. even in the times he’d come home, battered and bruised, he’d give you that same cocky grin, pointing his thumb at himself and declaring, “i’m the strongest!”

so you try your best to calm down, breathing deep breaths. whatever this was, satoru would come home. you just have to take a shower, go to bed, and when you wake up, he’ll be right there next to you, warm and inviting.

and you do just that. but as you lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling full of little glow in the dark stars that satoru helped you stick up, you couldn’t fall asleep. this was different somehow, you could feel it.

you return to the living room after pouring yourself a glass of wine. but just as you’re about to sit down, you hear the jingle of keys, a heavy sigh, a click, and the front door swings open.

“i’m home.”

satoru stands in the doorway. he looks too exhausted to move. there’s dried blood on his face and his eyes are glowing a vibrant sky of blue. you drop your of glass of wine, not caring as it shatters to the ground and race to your boyfriend. as you approach him, he finally lets his guard down, eyes returning to their normal hue.

you wrap your arms around him, clasping him tightly as you press your head into his chest. you can’t help the hot tears of relief that spill as you mumble, muffled by his clothes, “welcome home.”

he pulls you in, squeezing you tight, as if he was trying to mould the two of you together so you would never have to leave his side. he hugs you in all his despair, because you were the only reason he still fought.

after suguru passed, satoru lost the will to live. he fought, yes, he fought. but battle after battle, the bloodshed was never worth anything. there was no joy, no happiness because there was no love left to lose. he fought a good fight, but if he had lost, he would have stopped fighting.

but now, here, with you in front of him, holding onto him like he’s everything you’ve ever needed packed into a man-sized box, he knows that in your eyes, he’s more than just a figure of greatness. gojo satoru is simply a man who has wants and needs and flaws and feelings.

so for you, who sees him for him, he fights. everyday, he fights to come back home to you, to take you in his arms and hold you tight. he wants to press his body against yours and feel your warmth, and he doesn’t want to let it go even as he sees the morning light.

he kisses the top of your head and whispers, “i promised you i’d come home. i don’t break my promises. and after all…”

you can feel him smile into your head, “i am the strongest.”

(extra:

at his cheeky comment, you give him a firm whack on his buttocks, and he yelps in surprise, pulling away from you.

“mean!” he pouts, “i just got back from a long fight and won against the king of curses! shouldn’t you, my lovely girlfriend, be taking care of me?”

you shoot him a glare. “i thought you died! don’t play around at a time like this!”

he chuckles, “aw, was my poor baby worried about me?”

satoru wraps you up in another an embrace, but as you’re about to return he hug, you let out a yelp as he throws you over his shoulder and says, “let me take care of you now!”

you try to squirm out of his grip, but he’s holding onto your waist tightly. you can only see his ass from this point of view but you yell at him anyway, “i hate you!”

a smile. “i love you too.”)

#tojiphile #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen comfort #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru comfort #jjk

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chernabogs · 6 months

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ERLKÖNIG

Inc: Malleus (/Reader later on), Reader/Prefect, Lilia, Silver, Sebek, Ace, Deuce, Grim, and a lot of fae who should not be in this dimension yet somehow are. Wc: Roughly 9k (Currently sitting at chapter 2/23). Warnings: Violence, reference to war, kidnapping, rituals that fae allegedly did in mythology (wild), psychological horror, body horror (not until much later), and the boys are fighting... a lot. Relies heavily on ancient Celtic and Welsh lore (Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer, and Oisin I owe u my life) Summary: Your first encounter with the fae was not in Twisted Wonderland, but rather on the coast of a village your grandmother once lived in—where stones bit into your bare feet and the water poured into your lungs as you were pulled to a world so different from your own. It was by cunning alone that you managed to escape, having since pushed those memories aside. But the fae do not forget—not even when you cross dimensions once more—and as Beltane looms, the time for collecting is near.

Chapter 1 (Prologue) below the cut. Check out the work up to chapter 2 here!

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side.

- La Belle Dame sans Merci, Keats

19??, Dunhill, Ireland. October.

There is an unsettling truth behind the superstitions we hold. After all, why else do we face horseshoes upright, or close our blinds when the sun begins to set? We did not learn to play mute when we hear our names get called at night for no reason, nor did we discover on a whim that blackbirds circling are harbingers of ill outcomes.

Your grandmother was a woman of superstition. Because she lived in Dunhill, Ireland, you very rarely had the opportunity to see her growing up. This didn’t mean that you weren’t occasionally shipped out to arrive at her doorstep for a few weeks at a time over the summer months.

Your memories of her appearance are mostly flashes of the few moments you saw her. Knotted joints on her body, silver hair hidden behind a headscarf she always wore, and the way her shoulders would stoop with each shuffling step she took. What you remember more vividly was the way she acted when the two of you went out. Her trembling hands—Parkinson’s, you think your parent may have mentioned—would always press an iron nail into yours to put in your pocket before you departed.

“They like to wait on the coastlines,” she had murmured when you asked why she gave this to you. “And they’ll like you the most.”

She would not offer any further information, nor would she let you out until the nail was securely tucked away. Despite how slowly she would move on your many walks along Benvoy Beach, you never once failed to miss the way her sharp gaze would always be fixated on the unruly seas beyond.

She dies when you’re ten years old. Her funeral is a vivid affair. Your grandmother’s humble home has been transformed into a centre of traffic within a matter of hours since her passing, barely giving your family a moment to breathe despite catching the red-eye flight earlier that day. People you have never seen before shaking your small hand and offering their condolences. The strong fragrance of unknown flowers and cheap perfume fills each room, suffocating out any last semblance of your grandmother that may have still lingered. It feels more like they’re spitting on her memory than honouring it. You know your grandmother—she is, was, a quiet woman, and not one for all this pomp and circumstance.

Perhaps this is why no one notices when you sneak out and down the rocky hills.

You slip on several rocks and scrape up your hands really good by the time your feet hit the familiar sandy beach below. With the way the sun is beginning to set, the waters seem to be a wine-red color, swirling in their chaotic fervour to reach the earth you stand on. You pause to take several breaths before kicking your shoes off and stepping forward into that hungry sea.

Your parent will be furious at you for dirtying up your formal garb, but this isn’t at the forefront of your mind right now as your eyes slide shut and you stretch your arms wide. You feel the wind rush along your body and the fragrance of salt overtake you as you spill your grief into the vast waters, letting it mix and swirl into that abyss for a moment of catharsis.

It’s when the wind carries the scent of something pungent that your eyes snap open again. The foulness is brief, and for a moment you write it off as simply a byproduct of the ocean, until it returns again stronger than before. It smothers the brine and has your head turning to look around for the source. You look over your left shoulder at the empty beach around you. The sun continues to set, and your gaze tracks the path of a gull flying overhead before you look over your shoulder once more.

This time, someone is waiting.

There is an unsettling truth behind the superstitions we hold. The reason why we are scared of things that try to look like us, why we try so hard to ward them off, is because we know that anything that wants to be like a human certainly has no good intent in their heart. This is the case for the figure you see standing on the beach.

They’re wearing the same dark funeral garb you had seen the others in your grandmother’s home wearing. A wide-brimmed hat sits upon their head to conceal most of their features, although you can see scarlet hairs peeking out, and their hands appear to be clasped behind their back as they stand stoically ahead. Despite the winds that bite at your cheeks, not a single scrap of fabric on the figure’s body moves. It’s as though they’re cut from a painting and placed in real life.

You both observe each other in silence. You can feel your body locking up as your mind chants to you wrong, wrong, wrong, over and over again like a mantra. Your right hand drifts down to your pant pocket—you did not take a nail with you before you left the home.

They like to wait on the coastlines, and they’ll like you the most.

Your breath catches in your throat.

The figure smiles—black, sharp, and not quite human.

Something in your gut tells you to run and you, even as a rebellious child, do as you’re told. Your body twists around to scramble towards the rocks as your feet slip in the wet sand. You completely discard grabbing your shoes in your haste to get away, fully accepting the agony that the stones ripping into your soles will bring as consequence.

You don’t get very far. Whatever is on the beach with you is far quicker than you will ever be. Within moments of you turning, its cold fingers dig into your shoulders. You scream—cry—as the figure leans down and the pungent aroma of rotting fish emanates with each breath it exhales. You thrash and twist in its grip until you face each other, and you lock eyes with her.

She looks exactly as she did the last time you saw each other. Same knotted limbs, same silvery hairs, same stoop of her shoulders.

She stares down at you. The wind whips the loose strands of her hair around her face, and her eyes are the cloudy blue of the dead as something begins to claw in your mind. You watch as her thin and cracking lips form the syllables to your name—but it’s lost to the roar of an ever-cacophonous sea. The ground surges up around you, wrapping thorns—thorns? —around your legs. They bite into your skin, draw ruby gems from beneath your frigid flesh, and when you lift your head again, your grandmother merely continues to wear her blackened smile at the sight.

You cry out once more, but just like your name, your pleas are stolen away by the winds.

Everything lasts all but a few moments before the sea finally reaches what it has been clawing for.

#twst fanfiction #twisted wonderland fanfiction #malleus draconia #lilia vanrouge #twst silver #sebek zigvolt #malleus/reader #malleus x reader #twst x reader #enjoy the sneak preview of the first 5 chapters lmfao #fellas is it dumb to use media as a promotional material? :/#anyway i just want to write about. fae doing things they shouldnt #and the fae in twst seem too bloody nice so im pulling on dimensions #in mythology they can dimension hop anyway so <3 not breaking any logic LMAOOO

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pomefioredove · 2 months

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Noble Bell ; prologue

what if you were sent to Noble Bell College instead?

type of post: (possible) series characters: rollo (barely mentioned), original characters additional info: reader is gender neutral, this is largely my own vision, I wrote this all in one sitting and it shows LOL, word count: 3.1k author's note: after several failed drafts, I decided to just write my thoughts on noble bell as a story. do tell me what you think and if I should continue, if you have the chance!

prologue | the king of truands, 1 | the king of truands, 2 |

It appeared as if, for all its hundreds of years of life, very little of Noble Bell College had changed.

The original face, or what is left of it at this time, is almost indistinguishable from the prints of great artists who lived when the City of Flowers was still but three parts of one whole. If it were not for her clothes, those great banners of cotton which hang from her walls and surround her like the ruffles of an unflattering dress, that which cradle the insignia of a college in wine-colored hands, that pointed fleur de lis in gold, Noble Bell College would be the very picture of her younger self.

The halls which extend from one end of her body to the other like the grotesque wings of a pigeon were added after the University, which had once been confined to its own division on the left side of the River Soleil, had consumed the island of the City, that which had, at one time, cradled twenty-one of these magnificent buildings, and now had only one. Noble Bell became a skeletal reminder of its medieval past.

Now, what was once a ground of solemnity and penance, and other ancient things, had given a painful birth to a different sort of self-punishment, that of academia. Noble Bell dawned its new clothes and its new name, and became a home of scholars, a place of enlightened thought. The island that had once been a sanctuary for the sacred became its final resting place. The College was built over hallowed ground.

The body of the Gothic building had gone, in some parts, untouched, however, the later additions, done in the style Haussmann some hundreds of years after, coil around her like the chains of a falsely accused prisoner, or the noose around a beggar's neck.

Statues on the face, neglected, crumbled into dust. The colored glass in the lecture halls were replaced with white windows for better light. Every hundred years, some haughty new headmaster would consider cutting down the building herself, and putting something new and ugly in her stead.

Nothing would ever come of it.

It is important to note, dear reader, that though the past of religion and superstition had been abandoned by the scholars of Noble Bell in pursuit of the enlightened future of thought, with it went only the body, not the soul.

The students of Noble Bell began to look upon their history with pride, rather than disdain, and thus the construction on the lady ceased, and the reconstruction started up. In some aspects, it was too late; the medieval glass had already been sold and repurposed into bottles which floated at the surface of the Soleil, the stone turned to dust and carried into the wind.

This romanticized past was tainted with a bitter guilt, one that struck even the proudest of freshmen when they met the eyes of the statues which guarded the building and her history. A sense of possession consumed the heart of the student body, and, thus, a gate was built. It was sanctuary no more.

A romantic would tell you that it is the love of the people that kept the heart of Noble Bell alive.

This is not true; it is guilt.

To the wise man, the realist, the freshman who feared the eyes of the statues, the traditions that carried on were as meaningful as digging up a rotting corpse and putting it on trial. Without the superstition, it was a delusion, a pathetic attempt at absolution for the sins of the scholar and the printing press.

Enlightenment became repulsive to him.

What was in the hollow halls of the Haussmann was never alive, and what had survived the purge of time and man was hidden in the bell tower for few to touch.

To the wise man, the only absolution of sin was through the fire.

Your heart wakes you before your body.

That is to say, the feeling of dread, of knowing you are somewhere you shouldn't be, comes before the biting cold and the splinters pressing against your back.

The inky water surrounding you in three directions (the fourth being the stone mouth of the river) nearly cradles you back to sleep. Your rest was quite comfortable. You can't remember the last time you slept like that.

Your mind is the very last to wake, and it is what finally forces your body up in a sudden jolt, uneasily rocking the boat which had become your manger.

You grip both sides until it steadies, which gives you enough time to adjust to the dark.

One thing becomes quite clear: This is not where you fell asleep.

Then, another: This is not what you were wearing before.

The delicate fabric, hand-dyed in wine and blood red, is like nothing you own. Where had these come from? Surely, not your closet.

And, more worrying: how did you get in them?

Take a moment, if you will, to look beyond the black water of the river: next to you, on your right, is a stone embankment, with a short ledging that extends only to a single flight of stairs. The wall is so high you cannot see above that.

Now, look behind you: there is one fabulous bridge, also of stone, arching above the water in a mesmerizing pirouette. Warm light spills from its sides and dances on the inky waters below.

Ahead of you is only more river and stone.

And then, on your right again, is screaming.

You had heard screams before, but none like this. This is bloody murder, save me screaming, the sort that makes you jump and run to its source without thinking first.

You climb out of the trembling boat, the sound of your footsteps scuffing against stone following you across the landing and up the steps.

Yet again you are stopped.

Rising above the embankment of the river as if ascending to heaven itself, reaching through the thin evening clouds and into the stars, are two magnificent bell towers.

Your steps slow, and then stop at the peak of the stairs to admire the body of the building, illuminated by street lamps and candlelight, blanketed in a fog of distant laughter.

You have never seen such an unearthly sight.

If not for the screaming, you could have spent days there.

But you are motivated once more to follow the strange sound, and, perhaps, find out where on earth you are.

Like a princess in a tower, the building is guarded by a rather impressive gate, not done in the style of the place itself, but sightly nonetheless. If it were not already left open and vulnerable by some obvious human error, you might not have found a way in.

The sound of your footsteps follows you across the stone, and you stop at the base of a staircase that would have led you to a set of inhuman wooden doors.

And... there is a goat.

A pretty, white little thing, with a bow around its neck.

it turns to you as you stop, and it makes that same screaming noise, and then bounds off around the corner of the building and into another, attached at its side.

"Wait," you say.

Though, your feet move before your mouth, your mouth before your mind, and you suddenly find yourself following this odd twist of a white rabbit.

The delicate thing leaps through an opening in the side, and you climb in after it, chasing it down open-air hallways that remind you all too much of an old monastery.

The goat bleats. "Wait!" you say. "Where is your owner?"

It bleats again, and it almost sounds like a laugh. How strange...

You tumble down corridors and halls, turn corners, ignoring the sound of laughter and cheering that is growing ever so close, and, all at once, you stumble out into the warm light of a party, crashing into something cold and metal. The goat disappears in the crowd.

Everything is silent.

You can see nothing but feet from where you fell, and a hundred hems of wine and blood red. Your clothes.

"Who is that?" someone asks.

"They weren't at orientation,"

"How could anyone be late? That's never happened,"

"They don't look like a student of Noble Bell..."

Student? So this is a school?

"You," a voice says, much colder and sharper than the others, like a winter breeze. "Get up."

You are in no place to disobey.

You stand, uneasily, and, much to your displeasure, every head in the crowd is turned towards you. Whispers dance amongst the students, glances are exchanged, looks ranging from confusion to disdain.

There is only one face you cannot see. At one distant end of the courtyard, there is a stage, dressed in reds and oranges, and on it, four actors. They are as still as the crowd, seemingly having abandoned their play in favor of the mysterious stranger.

The person in question, then, is actually below them, whispering something quite loudly, but you cannot make it out at this distance.

"Your name?"

You turn back to the wintry voice.

This man, you notice, is dressed differently from the others. He's in all black, from his boots to the cloak around him, even his hair, which flows around his shoulders, is as inky as the cold water of the river you had woken on.

"My name?" you ask.

He scoffs. "It is a simple request,"

"Shall we return to the mystery?" a weak, artificially high-pitched voice calls from the front of the crowd. "I'd like to see the mystery continue!"

"Quiet, Gregoire," the man in black snaps. "Now, who are you to come so late?"

"Late to what?"

A few murmurs ripple through the stillness of the crowd.

He sniffles, turning his nose up at you. "You do not know where you are?"

"No,"

Someone begins to whisper. "Do you think they're from-"

"Quiet!" he demands. "This is clearly not a student of any arcane academy I know of."

"They're wearing our robes!"

You look down at yourself. You'd almost forgotten about that.

The boy narrows his eyes. "How did you get here?"

"I don't know. I woke up on a boat,"

He sighs. "What part of the city are you from?"

"...The city?"

Another moment of whispers and stares. The crowd seems to have all but forgotten the play happening at the mouth of the courtyard.

The man in black puts his hands on his hips. "Yes. Now, what division are you from? The old university? The Ville?"

"I, um... none of those,"

"The outskirts, then?"

"No. What city is this?"

His brow furrows, and he crosses his arms. At the very least, he no longer seems angry. More... thoughtful.

"What country are you from?"

You tell him, and he huffs.

"There is no such place. None that I have heard of,"

The same voice from earlier returns. "Perhaps we should wait until after the mystery has concluded-"

"Gregoire!" the man in black snaps, "We know it's you! Quiet, for once in your life!"

"...Very well,"

He grumbles, massaging his temples, and then turns back to you. His eyes are as sharp and focused as his voice. They're dark, almost black, with the faintest gleam of red. He's wearing a lot of eyeliner, you think.

"Come with me. If you are telling the truth, then you will have nothing to fear,"

"There is no such place,"

"That's what I said!" the boy exclaims, swiping the atlas off the desk.

The headmaster of this school is old, much older than you are imagining now, thought perhaps it is not the fault of age, but of weariness.

"Control yourself, Monsieur de Neige," he says, looking longingly at the book whose pages are now scattered across the floor.

The boy grumbles, giving you a nasty side-eye.

"What will we do with them?"

"What else? They will stay here until we can find an answer. I will reach out to my colleagues at the other arcane academies and see if they have any council,"

"Stay here?" he snaps, standing from his chair with such force that it goes flying backward, narrowly missing you from where you're standing against the wall.

"They are not a student of Noble Bell. They are a stranger! Who knows what they might-"

"Now," the headmaster sighs. "I know we are a... private institution. But a long time ago, this building was a sanctuary for outcasts."

He grits his teeth. "I am not willing to risk the safety of the building or its students for an act of pity. You should know that I take my duties as vice president of the student council quite seriously-,"

The corner you'd been backed into was starting to feel tighter and tighter. If not for the conversation, you'd-

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the heavy wooden door of the office opening, but a sliver, and something white just outside.

Your eyes widen. You glance between M. de Neige and the headmaster, and, in the throes of their heated argument, you slip out into the dark hall.

"You," you say, putting your hands on your hips.

The little goat bleats. It doesn't seem very guilty.

"You led me there on purpose, didn't you? To create a diversion? What did you want?'

It stomps and scuffs its hooves against the stone floor, and with another little bleat, it turns around itself to show you something.

Your eyes soften.

There are two apples on the floor beneath it, both bruised and wrinkled, but good nonetheless.

"For me?"

You stoop forward and take one of the browning fruits off the cold, dirty ground, and slip it into one of the wide pockets of the robe. The goat chuffs, clearly pleased, and not even you can help but smile.

"Let's go, then, shall we? I want to get out of this place,"

The hallway is pitch black, the moonlight subdued by clouds and softened by the thick windows, but you can still make your way around quite easily.

You start heading in the direction you came, your new (and only) friend in tow, when the sound of footsteps scuffing against stone follows you.

You turn, eyes wide, expecting M. de Neige, or worse, but there's only a flash of gold and then quiet.

"Who's there? Come out, now, or... my goat will gouge you!"

The little animal stares at you, mouth hanging open in bewilderment, but it seems to work, anyway.

A boy, taller and thinner than M. de Neige, comes out from around the corner with his hands held up. Even in the dull silver light of the hall, you can make out the color of his eyes. Green. His hair is blond and reaches his chin, and is rather unkempt, curling and sticking out at odd places. His straight bangs are clearly cut by his own hand.

"My-my apologies. I did not mean to frighten you. I was only curious,"

You sigh. It's the voice from the orientation festival, the one M. de Neige called Gregoire.

"Well, don't be. We're leaving," you say. "Now... which way is out?"

"There are more than one, if you know where to look,"

You narrow your eyes at him and he goes pale.

"I-I only mean that there are many ways out into the streets, but you wouldn't want to be alone in the city after curfew,"

"I think I can handle it,"

"It's unsafe,"

"Is it?"

"Veritably,"

He doesn't seem to be lying, at least. You let your arms fall to your sides with a sigh.

"But I can't stay here. This feels like a prison,"

"It may," he nods. "It is stone walls all the same. But you don't have to stay here. The dorms are but a short walk away."

The goat bleats, and you agree. You're not sure whether you can trust this man or not, yet.

"What's your name?"

He seems to stand a little straighter, almost eager to talk about himself.

"I am the author Pierrot Gregoire, whose mystery was presented in the courtyard this evening,"

You seem to recall his voice again, his back turned to you in the crowd, as if he were infinitely more interested in his play than the commotion.

"I remember you," you say, sticking your hands in your pockets. You feel around the apple you'd put in there earlier. "Sorry I ruined it."

"The people were losing interest either way," he sighs and hangs his head. "My poor mystery..."

You glance at the little goat, and it chuffs back, nodding its head towards the end of the hall as if telling you to make a break for it while he's distracted.

You can't bring yourself to.

"Here," you say, handing him the shriveled apple. "We're even, then."

Pierrot's entire disposition changes; his face lights up with a childlike joy that makes it seem as if he'd completely forgotten about his woes, and he cups the apple in his palm with reverence.

"Oh... thank you," he says, finally. "I will take you to the dorms."

The evening had grown cold and windy since your spectacle in the courtyard.

The robes, at least, are warm enough to keep you comfortable, although you feel a pang of sympathy for the poor goat, who has only its fur, and, in a way, for Pierrot, whose robes look worn and beaten and strangely burnt.

"You can stay with me in the spare house," he says.

"You don't stay in a dorm?"

"My housewarden threw me to the streets months ago,"

He says it merrily, with that same smile, but there's an underlying sense of bitterness. You don't ask about it again.

Pierrot brings you to a small, dark building at the very edge of the island. Once again, you are surrounded by inky black water.

"Here," he hums, lighting a single candle as you walk in. "It's not much, but better than the sewers."

"You've slept in the sewers?"

He shudders. "I don't want to talk about it,"

Once an adequate amount of candles are lit, he pulls up a chest for you to sit on, and takes a seat on the floor across from you.

You sigh, letting out the stress and tension you'd been carrying in your chest in a single breath.

It felt much later than it truly was.

"That is a pretty creature of yours," he says, nodding at your goat. "Does it have a name?"

"Hugo," it says.

Both you and Pierrot go silent.

Then, finally, you shout.

"You can talk?!"

#noble bell college #<- for organization #noble bell #queued

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mollyrolls · 2 months

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all shades of blue; hinata shoyo

track 10 / now playing / track 12 : ̗̀➛ weatherman collection

Broken bottles shine / just like stars, make a wish anyway. / Just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house / that was darkened for days. / Been thinking you probably should stay.

tags: gn!reader x timeskip!hinata, established relationship, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, mentions of blood and alcohol, happy ending.

wc: 2k

an: this one is dedicated to the lovely @nectardaddy, because wine-drinker hinata is so canon that it literally changed the original idea i had for this song. I'm proud of this one :)

Superstitions are a funny thing. You don’t necessarily believe in them, but you pick up the penny anyway, avoid cracks in the sidewalk, throw the salt over your shoulder. They feel too simple to avoid.

Superstitions make it easier to explain away the shitty things that happen to you, rather than letting you spiral into despair about what you’ve done and why you deserve it.

Superstitions also have a lot to say about the broken glass you find lying around your feet, your glass of wine long gone.

Some people would say that it's a sign of demise and betrayal. Others claim that wreck and ruin are just around the corner. Most people would agree that it’s a sign of heartbreak.

Regardless of what they have to say, you have a mess on your hands that you are too paralyzed to fix. Your mind is screaming to move, get towels, do something, but all you can do is sit and stare.

Maybe on a better day, you could ignore it. Chalk it up to a shaky hand or a loud noise from the movie playing in the other room. Wipe away the spill, brush the glass into the trash, and forget that it happened.

But today there’s something about this mess, ruby liquid spilling and staining the floor, bleeding out like a wound, that makes your heart ache and renders you useless to the world. A sense of foreboding sends a chill down your spine.

You barely notice your boyfriend crouching next to you, examining the damage and trying to fix things. He’s not looking at the mess on the floor but rather at your body, turning your hands over in fear of cuts or scrapes.

And you're not quite sure what it is, maybe shock, maybe a cut, maybe the sudden feeling that everything is too much for you to handle right now, but the pressure building behind your eyes is bursting before you feel it start.

One measly tear drops, landing cleanly on the back of his hand. That single tear seems to worry him more than the glass ever did, and the emotions flooding his eyes are overwhelming: worry, fear, relief, panic.

“Are you okay?”

Hinata is a lover. He might as well be the personification of it. His love is unconditional, abundant, no one is too insignificant to get a piece. It’s one of your favorite things about him, but it's also the thing that causes most of your despair.

Because you are not like that. Yes, you love him, but nowhere near as easily or openly. Your love is not explosive and all-encompassing, but quiet and steady, falling into the background. Sometimes you wonder why he sticks around at all, when he could easily find someone that can give him the love that he deserves.

You’ve never voiced your concerns to him, somewhat worried that he’ll realize you’re right and leave you in the dust. But more realistically, you know he’ll deny it. And that hurts worse.

You don’t think he’d understand how you feel, to no fault of his own. Going above and beyond in everything he does is in his blood.

You forget he’s like that because he also knows how it feels to not be enough.

So when your thoughts get to be too much, you box them all up and push them under your bed. Waiting for a night alone where you can cry and mourn and worry. He’ll come home and soothe you like he always does, but you vowed a long time ago to never let him know the worst of it.

“Are you okay?”

You hum distantly, letting Hinata continue his examination. When he finds a small cut on your finger, he’s immediately up and getting you aid. All you can do is stay in your position on the floor, pathetic, like a dog waiting for their owner to return.

He’s gentle when he cleans the wounds. Apologizes when the saline stings, like he’s responsible for the pain. Kisses your finger after wrapping the bandaid.

Once he’s done, he settles back on his heels, kneeling before you. He cups your hand in his, a warm and sturdy presence you drink up.

It’s quiet, movie in the other room muffled. Quiet moments with Hinata can often be overwhelming, but that might be due to the circumstances you find them in. Him waiting for something you can’t provide, an impossible persistence that’s somehow never overbearing.

And it’s hard. It’s just another way that you’re not enough for him. He deserves someone who can open up, share what they’re feeling. Someone who can care for him the way he cares for you.

“Hey- hey, what happened?”

You didn’t feel them start, so the tears rolling down your face are unwelcome. Blinking them away just produces more and you can’t make them stop.

“Are you upset about the glass? We can get a new one.”

You chuckle horsely. “No, that’s fine.” Prying a hand from his, you scrub at your eyes, hoping the sting will keep you from unraveling. Hoping to feel anything but this unbearable sadness.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s stupid.”

He stays crouching with you, tracing the lines in your hand. “I’m sure it’s not.”

His finger settles at the topmost line, smoothing along the sloping curve, finding the path easily in the depths and grooves.

And he stays sitting with you, letting the wine seep into the floorboards, just waiting until you’re ready to share.

At times like these, you resent your boyfriend and his patience. You know he’ll wait until he gets an answer. As more time passes, the more guilty you feel.

Finally, you sigh, resigning yourself to a truly miserable conversation.

“Do you know what they say about broken glass?”

He shakes his head no, brows pinching together just slightly. You don’t like seeing him worried, especially not over things like this. Like you.

But in his funny way of showing up, he squeezes your hand to keep you going. You feel your pulse humming beneath him.

“Some people think it’s a sign of heartbreak. If you break a glass, there’s something bad about to happen in your life, like losing a job or breaking up with someone. And I know it's stupid, but I just got scared.”

The admission leaves you breathless. He just hums. Lifting one hand to trace the curve of your jaw, the other hand never leaving yours. He won’t let you look anywhere but his eyes and all you see is raw devotion.

Instead of some grand speech, some large gesture about how much he loves you and he’d never leave you, he just stays. Admiring you in this moment, the luminescent bulbs of the kitchen lights casing you in warm light.

After a while, he lets go of your face and picks up a shard of glass sitting next to you. Thinking as he turns it over in his hand.

“It’s not stupid, but I don’t think it's true. I’m not going to let your clumsiness dictate that we’re over.”

He raises the shard of glass up to you, letting the light hit it.

“I think that it's how you look at it. You don’t have to let it be heartbreak, but maybe it’s something that gets a new life.”

“How?” You whisper, fearful you’ll shatter the moment with even a breath that’s too heavy.

“Anything you want. We could put it back together, use it as stained glass, throw it away, make wishes. I’ll eat it if you want.”

“Don’t eat glass, Shoyo.”

When you laugh, he looks at you. His shoulders drop, relieved you’re no longer crying.

“Okay. I won’t.” The relief is palpable in the air and it makes breathing just a bit easier. He’s always made things easier.

“Can I ask you something else?”

You nod, voice too caught in your throat to say anything.

“Why did this upset you so much? Did you think I wanted to leave?”

And in one soul-crushing move, he shrinks into himself. So insignificant you might have thought he was just breathing. But you love quietly and steadily and know his mannerisms like a second language.

“Did I do something to make you want to leave?”

The idea makes your mending heart shatter once again.

It’s your turn to grab at him, cupping his hands in yours and bringing them close to his chest. The proximity feels right.

“No. Never.”

“Then why?”

A simple question, one that makes you feel like you’re drowning. Because he sounds so gutted, an indiscernible voice crack that only the most attentive would pick up on. And you have to disappoint him once again with your answer. You know it’ll turn into him comforting you, like always, when you need to be the one there for him.

But you’ll do anything to make him happy again, and right now that means sharing the truth.

“It's just… sometimes I feel like I drag you down. You love everyone so easily and it's so hard for me. You don’t get enough from me, so why should I keep you here when you deserve so much more?”

He sits there, letting your words soak into him. While you’re waiting for the final blow, to your surprise he laughs. A wholehearted one, one so joyous you can’t help but laugh along, even if it's strained.

Once his laughter subsides he sighs, your name a whisper on the wind. “You think I don’t get enough love from you? Really?”

You nod, not sure what else you can do.

“Then I must be doing a horrible job at showing my gratitude. I feel so loved by you it can be overwhelming.”

You can hardly believe the words he’s saying. They hit you like a shock to the system, turning your world inside out.

“But I don’t do anything crazy or romantic like you. Does that not get to you?”

“Not at all. I don’t want to be with another version of myself, and there’s not a gesture you could make that would mean more to me than you coming to all my games with my name on your back. Having you in my corner is more than I need.”

You hear the words he’s saying, but your mind and your heart are at war. He’s breaking down your walls without even trying but your brain refuses to accept it.

“Don’t you ever get tired of having to do so much for me?”

“I like taking care of you. Don’t say that like it's a chore or a burden. It makes me feel wanted.”

He answers all your questions with ease, never once diminishing you or making you feel wrong for asking them.

And bit by bit, piece by piece, you’re starting to believe him. Hinata has taken up the jagged pieces of your heart, reached into the darkest parts of your soul, and brought them back to life.

Just to drive it home, he pulls you in closer, resting your head against his chest. His heartbeat is strong and steady, racing just a bit faster now that you’re so close.

“I want you to tell me if you feel like this again. I can’t believe I let you go on so long thinking you were anything less than enough. You’re-”

His voice falters, and he changes direction.

“Let’s make a wish, okay?”

He picks up a shard of glass and carefully places it in your palm, covering it with his. You’re protected from any jagged edges or loose flecks by the expanse of his hand.

“You can’t say it out loud though. Or it won’t come true.” You warn, right before the words fall off his lips.

His radiant smile peeks through, shining a few rays down to illuminate the scene before you.

“I wish that you’ll always be by my side and that you’ll keep loving me the way only you do. Nothing can take that away from me, broken glass or anything else.”

When his golden eyes meet your gaze, it’s like you’re falling in love all over again.

And sitting here, crouched on the floor with your lover, admiring a broken shard of glass, you’re glad he’s here.

#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #hinata shoyo #hinata x you #hinata x reader #hinata shoyo fanfic #hinata fanfic #hinata angst #hinata fluff #mollys bookshelf #mw.hinata shoyo

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diana-thyme · 1 year

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The Ultimate Deity Journal Guide

Similar to my grimoire guide, this is a guide on deity journals.

What Is A Deity Journal?

A deity journal is a journal dedicated to a deity. It’s filled with information, offerings, devotional pieces, etc. If you like journaling or can’t give other physical offerings (like food, libations, etc.), it’s one of the best offerings out there.

What Do I Use For It?

Usually deity journals are physical journals and notebooks. Binders and folders work as well. I have seen deity journals online, using things like Notion or Google Docs. Those are a little harder to format, but are great if you don’t have a notebook or aren’t a fan of physical journals.

So, What Do I Put In It?

Devotional Artwork

Devotional Playlists

Pressed/Dried Flowers or Herbs

Prayers

Devotional Poems or Stories

Myths

Recipes

Stickers

Experiences or Dreams

Photos

The Basics (Name, Epithets, Domains, Family, Associations, Holidays, Symbols, Sacred Days, Sacred Animals, Etc.)

Spells/Rituals That You Want To Or Have Done With Them

Offerings And Devotional Act Ideas

Journal Prompts

Magazine/Book Cutouts

Hymns

Shopping List (Things You Want To Buy For Them)

Fabric Scraps

Letters To Them

Divination Readings With Them

Coins Or Other Currencies

How You Celebrate (Or Plan To) Holidays Or Sacred Days With Them

UPGs

Altar Plans (Drawings Or Descriptions Of Altar Ideas)

Incense, Herb, And Oil Blends

Drops Of Wax, Wine, Etc.

Seed Packets

Blessings

Charms

Charm/Spell Bags

Travel Plans (Places You Want To Go For Your Deity)

Maps That Remind You of Them

Sigils Dedicates To Them

Superstitions Related To Them

Research On Their Birth Place

Devotional Jewelry Charging Station

Affirmations Dedicated/Influenced By Them

Small Sticks Or Branches

Book Annotations

Divination Techniques Related To Them

Relationship Goals (Better Communication, More Signs, Etc.)

Their Associated Rune/Tarot Card/Etc.

Teas And Tea Blends

Folklore/Mythology Entities Related To Them

Vision Board

Goals

Diary Entries And Rants

Taglocks

Paper/Straw/Etc. Dolls

Doodles

References/Further Reading

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izvmimi · 4 months

Text

summer masquerade - yuuta x reader

cw: long-distance relationship. canon-compliant. one mention of underage drinking. reader without cursed technique but can see cursed energy. reader implied to be of african descent. assumption that yuuta speaks limited english. a/n: a masquerade is the act of spiritual performance, often to chase away spirits or for political commentary. this starts in the time yuuta spends overseas in africa traveling the continent

A hot summer afternoon, years now in the past, Yuuta Okkotsu first sets eyes on you through the veneer of dust kicked up by frenzied footsteps, soulful ululations and the beating of drums that seemed to never cease, but you’ve been watching him long before he notices you, or at least demonstrates that he’s noticed you. Out of a clay bowl, you’re sipping on palm wine despite being clearly underage, but your parents are far at the other end of the crowd and will not notice, and once you’re deep in the brush, in the less strictly governed remote village where superstition and ritual reign, you’ve decided those kind of silly rules don’t really apply to you anymore. After all, you never want to come to these events, but you come from a family that honors tradition despite living in an ultra-modern mansion in the capital, and thus your presence at the masquerade is indispensable.

But Yuuta Okkotsu’s is not.

The two of you find yourself locked in an unspoken standoff of some sort. It’s difficult to read his expression, but his large dark blue eyes are looking straight at you, barely squinting in the hot overhead sun. You try to discern what he’s saying with his look, if it screams Stop looking at me versus I invite you to speak your mind, before deciding your next move, but it’s quickly evident that your only chance to answer the question is to ask. You hope you don’t look hostile because that’s not your intention in any way but he sticks out terribly, like a sore thumb, with his slightly bronzed but still pale skin, straight dark hair and his hoodie despite the sweltering heat.

He’s clearly a foreigner. It’s not good for foreigners to be at these types of masquerades. Bad juju, you think.

You tut to yourself then sip your drink one more time and decide to approach, wondering if the two languages at your disposal including English, will be sufficient to communicate. Most foreigners understand some English, after all. Yuuta doesn’t learn this from you until years later, but the first time you met him, you’d started wishing you were more worldly, so that you could speak to him in his native tongue, and he would tell you that he wished he was better at yours.

The then-teenager watches you approach with the type of curiosity one offers a person who is not yet a threat but can potentially be. From the way that you’re looking at him, you’re not hostile, and your smile is polite, but it’s not all the way warm, although he can imagine that you do have the capacity to smile warmly, to the right people.

“Hi,” you start. Your voice is honeyed sweet, and he doesn’t reply immediately but his facial expression goes from disaffected to flustered quickly, as though he didn’t actually expect you to walk up to him despite your visual exchange. You tilt your head slightly, wondering if he doesn’t speak English, but quickly you hear another voice next to you.

An older man, African but clearly not your countryman, and he raises an eyebrow at you. You’ll learn later that his name is Miguel, despite being from Kenya, and you won’t ask more details past that.

“Can I help you?” He’s also speaking in English, with a slight British lilt to it. You blink, surprised, then look back at your age-mate then back at him.

“Are you two together?” you ask.

The two of them immediately appear to not be on the same wavelength - one says yes, and the other says no - and you anticipate that it’s like this often. You soon find out that you’re right - Yuuta recounts that those years touring Africa with him were sink or swim, where he was more of an unwitting, hapless intern, rather than a lauded apprentice.

The way Miguel says no at the same time Yuuta says yes makes you giggle loudly, probably due to the warming of your skin from palm wine and your appropriately low tolerance, and Yuuta’s face seems to warm as though empathetically, the blush in his own cheeks less subtle.

Yuuta blushes often, even now, and it will forever be one of your favorite things about him.

“Are you from this village?” Miguel asks. You technically are, but you’re technically not, in some ways as much of a foreigner as they are. He’s information-gathering, clearly, and it intrigues you, but it’s not the only thing that does.

Your eyes draw quickly to the younger person’s hands.

“Yes, but remotely,” you reply to Miguel, then point to Yuuta’s left ring finger.

“You have a contract, don’t you? With a spirit.” you ask, and that simple question is where it all begins.

At the time you knew nothing about cursed energy, nothing about the world Yuuta lived in, that Miguel lived in, that you were just on the periphery of, but one thing was true. You could see spirits, ever since you were young and you could see a particularly strong one, emanating from that ring. Formless, but present and unmistakable. Yuuta looks at you with surprise.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies in accented English. You don’t argue with him, instead turning to the dancers. The masquerade in their elaborate costume has started to whip at people’s feet and many are clearing the compound in fear and laughter. The three of you do not move. There are no real spirits here, aside from the one that is linked to Yuuta Okkotsu.

“I always knew they were frauds,” you joke as you watch the being that’s supposed to dispel evil spirits not turn one glance in your direction. Yuuta doesn’t understand your joke from the furrow in his eyebrow but when he looks at you now, it’s with curiosity rather than apprehension but you’d rather know more about him. He’s the real deal.

—

Miguel doesn’t get as much useful information as he can about your clan as he hopes when your family welcomes him like long lost brethren in your compound in the city just a week later. Yuuta listens intently and speaks carefully, and you wonder how much of it is his personality and how much of it is a language barrier. Miguel drinks all of your father’s finest beer and asks you to fetch groundnuts like you’re his own daughter and it annoys you, a joyous reprieve when your parents ask you to take Yuuta out on the city and come back in a couple of hours. Trailing a Japanese boy on the timid end whose heart and soul is impossibly linked with a monster is not what you’d intended on this summer, but it remains one of the most memorable summers of your life.

He tells you about Rika over skewered suya from the street merchants, and you don’t bat an eyelash as you chew, and tease him about her.

“Will she eat me if I’m too nice to you?”

“Rika doesn’t eat people,” he defends. The spooky monsters of your country are always hungry - eating adults, kids, children, the like. You nod, popping the cap of a bottle of soda on the edge of a table. You miss and pout, and Yuuta, to your surprise, takes it for you, repeating the motion but successfully.

You look at the underside of the cap and lament the lack of prizes. Yuuta watches you drink the soda, and neglects his own malt drink.

“You can keep being nice to me,” he mentions before the night ends, as though the reminder is crucial, as if it hasn’t been hours since you made your joke. Miguel doesn’t hear him, drunk and boisterous, thumping your father’s back a little too hard. Yuuta’s attention is back to his companion before he can notice that your cheeks are warming again, and this time not from the alcohol.

—

Yuuta leaves your country, then soon your continent and you don’t think you’ll ever see him again, just wisps of him every time you see a vengeful spirit in the distance and pray that it behaves before you call onto your family to dispel them, but months pass and you receive that first email.

He’s awkward with his words, a few of his phrases don’t make complete sense and you can tell the thesaurus is up in another internet browser as he asks you how you’re doing, but you reply kindly just the same, and he’s better through text, better still through video chat.

Yuuta starts off telling you little, but soon he doesn’t skimp on the details of his frankly terrifying life and in some ways you wish he would, but Rika protects him and he’s strong in his own right. You learn of all his friends, deaths and not; you learn of all his triumphs and his failures. Your heart flutters with every email, mostly because you're glad he's still alive.

That's just part of it.

Yuuta comes to see you again when you’re on the cusp of turning 21, and it’s the second time he’s come to see you, but the first time he’s come alone, without Miguel flanking, without the pretense of dispelling spirits and getting stronger.

He’s there for you, and only you.

You no longer live in West Africa but instead in Europe, in a small apartment that you’re lucky to afford while furthering your education, and your Japanese is now middling but enough to make him laugh.

He still speaks to you in English, improved over years of vid and voice chat.

“Happy birthday” is whispered over lit candles and followed by your first real kiss.

—

Rika doesn’t eat you, regardless of how kind you are to Yuuta over the next few years.

The day before your wedding, you press your forehead against hers and thank her for protecting him all this time, you thank her for meeting him first. She doesn’t make a single sound, but as you press your hands against her monstrous face, you can feel the wetness of her tears before she vanishes. You’re unsure if she’s just as thankful for you as you are for her, but you love her just the same.

You touch down to the country where you first met just hours later to begin the traditional portion of the wedding and your father asks Yuuta to bring his ‘village’ - Gojo, Miguel, Maki, Toge, Yuuji, Megumi and Nobara, among others, touch down before the end of the night.

Yuuta does not like the taste of palm wine but chases it down with the taste of your lips by the end of the ceremony, which he finds much sweeter.

—

Your wedding band sits in the same spot as Yuuta’s childhood promise ring, one enveloped by the other. You hiss as your ring finger slips and you accidentally drop a box, Yuuta’s faster reflexes catching it before it makes it to the ground.

“Shit, sorry,” you pout and he smiles, patting your cheek gently.

“Just be careful okay, sweetheart?”

You’ve lived in Japan for three years now, settling in two years before you got married and now moving from your first home to this new one. Housewarming gifts abound and are waiting to be unpacked, and you and Yuuta have been working tirelessly to organize everything before your friends burst into your house and ask you why there are boxes settled as high as the ceiling in one corner of your living room.

You glance at Yuuta as he tries to decide the best position for his katana, holding it in his right hand. Finding your way over to rest your chin on his shoulder, you whisper in his ear,

“Let’s take a break, actually.”

Yuuta turns and looks at you, a gentle tilt of the head appraising how serious you are before he chuckles to himself.

“You know, Maki will literally not let us hear the end of it if this place is messy when she gets here.”

Despite this, he’s following you to the couch which is the only piece of furniture you have set up now. The two of you plop down and Yuuta sighs in relief, and soon you’ve rearranged your positions, and your head now lays in his lap as he pets your hair.

A moment passes where the two of you relax, your breaths synchronized as your pulse slow, and then suddenly Yuuta speaks.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” you ask. Your eyes flicker up to his, and he leans down to look at you more closely, a soft smile on his face.

“For approaching me first.”

You blink, then laugh.

“It’s been over a decade.”

“Still thankful,” he replies. You stop, your gaze steadying as you look at him, your heart rate picking up in speed, your soul calling out to him again. There’s an unspoken standoff of some sort, once again, but Yuuta moves first this time, his lips pressing to yours.

If you hadn’t approached him that day, the ten years of your life would have been different. Your chin tilts upward as you kiss him more, your hands cupping his face, then wrapping around his neck.

“I love you.”

Neither first nor in any way expected, but true nonetheless.

#yuuta x reader #yuuta okkotsu x reader #daydreams: jjk #mimi's notes

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