#you become a bitter husk of yourself

[eternallog]

No fairytale ending for the night Just death and life

Frederick my D&D 5e warlock to an Undying, who may or may not be willing to abandon and sacrifice anyone to get what he wants (riches, power and filling the unending void inside) ((:

the guy himself

[cherryrainn]

husk x child reader that committed su1cid3?

KID .

; pairing ; husk & child! reader (platonic)

; note ; this is so sweet. i had so much fun writing this i love husk sm

; warnings ; mentions of suicide

you wandered into the hazbin hotel one day, a lost soul in a place meant for the damned. your little form stood out, and charlie welcomed you with open arms, her kindness wrapping around you like a warm embrace.

husk watched from his perch at the bar, his usual gruff demeanor softened by the sight of you. you chatted with charlie, your innocence a stark contrast to the darkness that surrounded you.

taking a deep breath, you made your way to the bar, your heart pounding in your chest. husk stood behind the counter, his sharp gaze fixed on the array of bottles lining the shelves.

you approached him cautiously, your steps hesitant as you climbed onto the stool in front of him. the worn leather creaked under your weight, a small echo in the vast expanse of the bar.

husk glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, his expression unreadable. "whaddya want?" he grumbled, his voice rough with disinterest.

you swallowed hard, the words sticking in your throat. "can i... can i sit here?"

he shrugged. "suit yourself."

taking his cue, you settled onto the stool, your feet dangling above the floor. the silence stretched between you, heavy with unspoken questions.

"what's your name?"

"husk."

"okay."

you stayed quiet for a while, until finally, you gathered the courage to speak, your voice barely above a whisper. "hi, husk."

he glanced at you, his gaze softening ever so slightly. "hey, kid."

you fidgeted with the edge of your shirt, searching for the right words. "i... i like it here. it's not so scary."

husk snorted, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "you think this place ain't scary? you got guts."

you shrugged, undeterred by his gruff demeanor. "well, it's better than where i was."

he raised an eyebrow, a silent invitation for you to continue.

"you know, living," you replied, your voice carrying a weight beyond your years.

the weight of your words lingered in the air, settling into a heavy silence. husk furrowed his brow, a subtle confusion etching across his face.

he took a sip from his drink, contemplating the depth behind your simple statement.

then, it clicked.

you killed yourself. that's how you got here.

he understood, or at least he thought he did. it all pointed to a life that had become too much to bear. husk had been around long enough to recognize the signs, even if you hadn't explicitly said it.

his gaze softened, a mixture of sympathy and understanding. he didn't pry; he didn't ask for details. some things were better left unsaid.

you decided to break the stillness that hung in the air. "soo, how'd you end up here?"

husk leaned against the counter, a hint of curiosity in his eyes. "well, i didn't exactly plan on ending up here. things just... happened."

you chuckled, finding solace in the simplicity of his response. "guess we both just stumbled into this place, huh?"

he grunted, a reluctant smirk playing on his lips. "guess so, kid."

[feyascorner]

5 | The Fangs Between Us

summary. When he had his cold hands wrapped around your neck, it felt as if they belonged to death themselves. And in that moment, you knew that even if you struggled against him, if he genuinely wanted you dead, you would have no power to push him away. You would have no choice but to let the grasp of death pull you into the ground, underneath the surface, into the unknown.

You realize that, perhaps, the Astarion you knew was nothing but a pretty lie.

warnings. angst, comfort, slow burn, reader is a bard, italics are flashbacks/dreams

pairing. Astarion x GN!Reader

parts. TFBU masterlist

a/n. 6.4k words?!!? 😆 whenever i write for this fic i have the constant urge to make him grovel out of nowhere, and to compensate, i make him even worse

“You were my first, you know.”

You raise both your brows, your eyes still trained on the lake stretching out to what seems like forever. The boulder beneath you feels cool to the touch against your skin. “Really?”

He nods, setting his book down to his lap. “Cazador, that crazy bastard, never let us drink from anything besides rats. We were strictly forbidden from humanoid blood because it would let us become too powerful.”

You squint at him. “...Well, what does it taste like?”

“Your blood?”

“Humanoid blood.”

He looks nowhere, as if he’s in thought, before humming, pleased at the taste that lingers on his tongue. “Exquisite.”

“That’s it?”

“Your blood was sweet, almost. Rat blood is terribly bitter, you see, and I only drank it for survival. But yours,” he grins widely. “I could drink nothing but yours for the rest of my immortal life, and I would never tire of it.”

Your face heats, and of course, him being him, it doesn't go unnoticed. He sets his book aside and shifts so he has one arm propped up next to you, his face dangerously close to yours. “I think you rather like the sound of that, darling.”

“It doesn’t sound…terrible,” you mumble. “Better than turning into a mind flayer, at least.”

His lips are inches from yours, so you instinctively tilt your head, allowing space for him to reach your neck. But his free hand reaches your cheek and tilts your head back, making you meet his eyes. It’s so close. So impossibly intimate that you pray he doesn't hear the way your heart pounds in your chest.“That’s not what I want right now, love.”

You nod slowly when his eyes flicker to your lips, and he’s pressed against you in an instant, your lips molding together as if they were made for one another. Even though you know they’re not, his arms feel warm when wrapped around you, and you bury yourself closer as if there’s even any space left between the two of you.

You know this must be a dream. But you’re not sure if you want to wake up at all.

But suddenly, your entire body feels terribly cold. Too cold, as if your very life is being sapped away from its roots, leaving nothing but a husk of a person behind. So you tear away, as much as you don’t want to, and see that you are no longer sitting before your lover. The spawn that nearly killed you in the alleyway is sitting in Astarion’s place, his teeth stained with blood as he smiles at you. Instinctively, you shriek and try to crawl away, but the sharp pain at your throat ceases your movement, making your hand fly up to the puncture wounds you’re sure to find.

Instead, you only find that your neck is sore from the bruises that bloom on your skin.

And as you stare at the spawn in horror, you realize that he’s not a random spawn. He’s covered in so much blood that you can’t even see his snow-white hair beneath the carnage, and all that stares back at you is a man who only resembles your lover. He lifts a hand, reaching sharp, maintained nails toward your face, and all you can do is brace yourself for what’s to come.

You just hope he ends the pain quickly.

The last tenday has been nothing short of hellish.

The walk home from Sharress’ Caress had been a deathly silence—one where you refused to look anywhere but your feet–-and even once you arrived home to the chaos between Shadowheart and Lae’zel unfolding right before your eyes, you only watched Astarion pace up the stairs as if nothing is wrong. Even as they yelled at him, asking what he had to say for himself, he’d only scoffed and shut the door to his room.

‘A man child,’ Shadowheart had called him. Lae’zel said her offer of skewering him with her spear was still available.

You hadn’t corrected her that time.

As you clearly had too many personal emotions, you swallowed your pride and decided to pass the investigation off to one of your companions. You gave the list of spawn killings to Gale, asking him to take charge of the investigation starting that very night. He didn’t ask why.

The days after that were spent in a blur. Aside from the nightmares that only seem to get worse, your life in the daytime is as it was before the bodies started piling up. You spend every waking moment focusing on rebuilding the rest of the city now that you have all the time in the world. Only without the workload did you realize how time-consuming the investigation had been, and without it, your life feels strangely dull. It’s not unwelcome–at least, not now, anyway.

And as another day passes in a state of mind that is not your own, you slump face-first into your mattress. 

You only ever seem to return home in the dead of night anymore. Construction runs through the clock, and by the time you’ve managed to say your farewells to the people in the city, the sun’s long past said its own goodbye. Still, you suppose coming home late is better than falling asleep outside.

The handle of your dagger sticks into the side of your stomach, and you fish it out, laying on your back as you examine the bejeweled blade. It’s a pretty little thing, no matter how many sleepless nights you’ve spent staring at the beauty of something that’s taken countless lives. Most of which were his doing, even if you’re racking up quite the number on your own.

You want to hate him, but you’ve come to accept that perhaps you’ve grown soft. Maybe you’ve been surrounded by warmth for too long and now find that the hate you were once so accustomed to has now rendered itself to mush. You’ll learn to hate him—that much you’ve sworn—but you don’t want him dead as he seems to do with you. You have plenty of reason to hate him, and a part of you does, but it’s not enough to rival his distaste for you.

He’s made it clear enough that you cannot hate him the way he hates you.

You pace over to your drawer and place the blade in the deepest corner, where nothing but shadows will know of its existence. As you push the drawer shut, you hope that the next time you see the dagger, you’ll have forgotten it had been there in the first place.

You hear the window in his room slide open and then shut closed again. And if you were anyone else, it would cause an instant panic, but you’ve grown accustomed to the sound of it opening each night. And while the responsible thing should be to let the others know that he’s sneaking out every other night, you can’t find the energy to. Your sentiments toward him may be mixed, but you don’t want the only lead for the spawn case to be taken away just because he was sneaking out like a teenager in their rebellious phase.

There’s a more selfish reason why you’re keeping this secret of his, though you plan on taking it to your grave. It keeps him from approaching you with the request to go hunting. With Gale and Shadowheart busy with the spawn and Lae’zel not to be trusted around Astarion, you’re the only one capable of following him to his weekly supply restock. But you doubt he needs much animal blood when he has others ready for him at the pleasure house, and if this is his only way of getting there, then so be it.

You’re not really sure how to feel about it. It’s not a nice feeling, though.

“There’s someone here for you.”

You look up toward the doorway where Shadowheart leans with crossed arms. She points toward the stairs, and you force your legs up despite their insistent soreness from the past few days. They ache, but you’d rather burst into flames than stand another second longer than you have to in this room. You don’t have the energy to assess the look she’s giving you as you pass by her shoulder.

The man at the door is one your intuition seems to recognize, but your mind comes up empty. The emotions don’t seem mutual, as he straightens his back the second he spots you.  “You.”

You glaze your tired eyes over his attire–one with the mark of the Flaming Fist proudly posted on his chest. He shifts, and you notice his short brown hair peeking from under his helmet. “Yes, me. You called for me.”

He clears his throat, blinking wide grey pupils with a hesitant glint. “I apologize for what I said the last time we met. It wasn’t for me to step out of line like that.”

You stare at him quizzically, unsure of who this man even is. He notices. “Wait, don’t you remember me?”

“...No?”

“I was at Roger Highberry’s murder scene! Yevir? I interrogated you for nearly an hour!” his jaw drops, and you somewhat make out his face from the blurry segments of your memories. All of which are not entirely pleasant, from what you can recall. The accusations thrown in your direction for being responsible for the murders were already cruel enough, but you remember how a fight nearly broke out between the two of you, making your lips purse.

You rub the side of your head to soothe whatever headache is sure to follow soon. “What do you want? Are you here to ask if I’ve been murdering people again?”

There’s one you might be so inclined to murder right now, just upstairs. Figuratively. Well, maybe…

“No,” he seems flustered, and you’d feel bad if it were not for your last interaction. “Like I said, I wanted to apologize. I was in no place to accuse you of something so horrid, and I did so without solid proof. I was—desperate and lost my composure.”

At this, your ear perks. An apology after the complete bullshit you’ve been through the past few weeks doesn’t sound bad at all. Still, your caution remains as you lift your chin, eyes lidded. “...You just came to apologize?”

“Yes. Ah, and–” he reaches into his pocket, scrummaging around until he pulls out a scroll wrapped neatly with a red bow. You arch a brow, and he holds it out to you. “My men were attacked last night at the pier next to the Blushing Mermaid. This is the file report I wrote up this morning.”

The Blushing Mermaid. Despite the hopes that had sparked with the conversation with one of Cora’s orphans, Shadowheart had come up completely empty after numerous visits to the tavern. She only mentioned a few brawls, which quickly had Fist rushing in or a couple of drunk smugglers, but that was it. By now, you assumed the tavern itself had no connections to the spawn murder sprees that increased in numbers nearly daily. Perhaps Roger Highberry had just been at the wrong place and the wrong time.

“We tried to talk to them—one, at least,” he continues as you let the scroll unroll on itself. “They seem to be looking for someone. They said they were only willing to listen to the ‘bard’---which I assume is supposed to be you.”

Your face hardens as you scan the report, acknowledging the details scribbled into the sheet in messy handwriting and the bags under his eyes to go along with it. “What were they looking for?”

“Another spawn, we think, judging from what we gathered before they became hostile.”

Despite how your heart sinks into your stomach, you swallow the lump in your throat and tear your eyes away from the report. Who else could it possibly be? And though you want to lie to yourself that perhaps, on some strange chance, this other spawn is someone other than the one residing right beside your room, you know it’s a foolish belief to pray on.

Astarion had tried to sacrifice all 7000 souls of the undead right before their very eyes. The ritual–if you could even call it that–-was mass murder. One he very nearly executed.

You were only unsure if the other spawn sought him out to reconcile or for something much bloodier. You’d likely bet on the latter.

“Have you shown this to the Duke yet?”

“No,” he admits, almost shamefully. “I couldn’t.”

He must be able to tell your shock because his face crumples. “There was someone among them. A friend. I thought she’d gone missing years ago, but…On this small chance that maybe she’s still there, I came here to ask…”

His fists clench, his gaze darting anywhere but your own with a hesitance you’ve become all too accustomed to the past few weeks. Still, they have a glimmer of hope as he swallows hard. “...If you’d be willing to help me.”

You can’t mask the way your eyes widen. He blinks rapidly and immediately reaches to dig around his other pocket, where he hauls out a bag that jingles with the contents inside. The familiar ring of gold. The sack itself is shabby, old enough to split open at any second, and it’s only the size of his palm, but he holds it as if it’s a fragile glass piece. “It’s all I have. I know I’m in no position to ask you for help, especially with how I treated you last time we met…but I’m desperate, and I know the Duke must trust you for a reason.”

“You want me to do what exactly?”

“Let me speak to her. Please.”

Almost instantly, you push the pouch back to his chest, eyes narrowing. “A vampire spawn won’t be the same person you knew.”

“I know. But surely, she would at least recognize me-”

“She’ll be different. She won’t hesitate to kill for blood. Not even yours, if she’s hungry.” This much, you know.

“I know,” he blurts louder. “Please. If I go to the Duke, he’s sure to raid the tavern, and she might get killed in the process. If I was the reason that she died, I don’t know—I can’t even—”

She’s already dead, you think. The words nearly escape your thoughts, but you bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood, sealing it shut.

“Her heart no longer beats for you.” Just give up, you plead. Understand that she is not the woman she was. You notice the irony of the statement, but it doesn’t stop you, desperate to prevent this man from making the same mistakes as your own.

“My own heart beats enough for the both of us.”

And perhaps it’s because of the glint in his eyes that feels all too familiar to your own. Or maybe it’s because of the way he appears on the brink of tears and the eyebags dragging at his skin. Or perhaps it’s a more selfish reason of your own. But regardless of what the reason is, the report crumples in your fist as you nod stiffly.

“We’ll do what we can.”

You swing the door shut harder than you probably should, but the sun feels too bright on your skin. And his imploring eyes only hinder your resolve to drift away from all that’s happening. You claimed you’d try, not that you’d produce results. It might be a selfish thing to do—ignoring a person in need—but does it matter, really?

Is it so bad for you to be selfish for once?

Gods, who are you kidding? You’ll end up helping anyway, especially after he came to ask you in person.

Thinking too long hurts your head. When you turn to climb back up the stairs, your heart nearly stops as you realize you’re not alone in the room.

Blood-red eyes bore into the side of your head, his presence almost nonexistent with how his chest doesn’t even move to allow him to breathe. He stands across the room, unmoving and still, as if time itself has stopped for the two of you. You suppose for him, it has.

But you know better now. At least, you think so. For him, time may be something irrelevant, but for you, it continues flowing, leaving no chance to catch up if you dare to fall behind. And you no longer want to chase the ticking hand of your own clock to attune yourself to his. He’s made himself clear, and you refuse to waste away precious years of your own life to mourn his. So, instead of gawking at him like a deer in headlights, you lock the door and pace up the stairs, barely brushing past his shoulders. You have half a heart to shove past him, but considering you barely manage what you did, you think better of it. 

The entire time, his eyes follow you like a hawk.

“What was that Fist here for?” he asks as you reach the top.

You don’t bother looking back at him. “...Spawns killed a few soldiers last night.”

A pause. “Surely that’s not all.”

“That’s all you need to know unless you plan on helping us,” you snap. You wish you sounded as cold as you would’ve liked, but instead, it comes out like a last-ditch effort, as he barely acknowledges the bite in your tone.

“Are we not discussing the very spawns whom I called my dear siblings for two centuries? It’s very much my business.”

“And you think those spawn—which you tried to kill for a bloody ritual, might I add— still consider you their brother?”

That shuts him up.

He doesn’t say anything else, and you take the opportunity to march straight into your room. Your chest swells in a pitiful pride as you force yourself not to glance behind you, admittedly relieved you were at least able to manage some semblance of a cold shoulder, even if it wasn’t as dramatic as his own. Ignoring him is childish and quite frankly, a bandage on a more significant wound, but even this feels like a small victory after his last words to you.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Hate me.”

“Yes. More than anyone.”

You try not to let your face fall by rubbing your temples with your thumbs again, soothing the headache that threatens to wrack your body. He’s drawn his line, and it’s time to draw your own.

Shadowheart, who hasn’t budged from where you last saw her, grins. Judging from her smugness, she must’ve heard you. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Me neither.”

She holds out her palm, and you weigh if you should even give her the report before giving in, placing it for her to read. Her eyes skim over the contents as you anxiously shift your weight on both legs. And eventually, she lowers the sheet. “I’ll deal with this.”

“But they’re looking for me. They won’t cooperate unless–”

“I’ll deal with this,” she repeats, folding the report before pocketing it into her pants. “Focus on repairing the city.”

“Shadowheart-”

“You entrusted us with this, and we plan to follow through. You’ve done more than enough for this city already,” she sighs. “And besides, we could use a bard around here.”

She gently shoves you toward your door. Despite your hesitance, she gives you an assuring nod and begins heading for the stairs, giving you no space to insist on offering your aid. You’re left standing idly in the hall, brows knitting together even as you reassure yourself that she and Gale are more than capable of handling themselves.

But then again, you’d thought the same for yourself. Clearly, after the night you nearly died and the nightmares that haunt you of that very same night, you’d been wrong.

You hear footsteps you’ve memorized as ones to avoid, and just as you see the tips of his white curls, you rush into your room, slamming the door shut behind you.

You need a drink.

“Haven’t seen you in days.”

You slump onto one of the wooden stools at the bar, rubbing at the soreness of your own shoulder from hours of hauling rubble and debris from more crowded parts of town where they could pose a danger. The other citizens who had worked alongside you trail in through the tavern door, laughing and cheering at today’s accomplishments as they sit across the tables. In an instant, the relatively calm tavern becomes rowdy and filled with life. Your eyes glaze over their victorious expressions as you respond. “Been busy.”

“You’re the only customer I don’t want to see, you know?” Alan wipes at one of his glass cups with a cloth. You wonder if he ever tries on his bartending uniform or if it just rots in the back of his closet. “Thought I finally got rid of you.”

“I bring plenty of business, so what’s to dread?” you offer him a lopsided smile, watching him as he pours your favorite beverage into a cup, almost routine-like. “I brought in plenty of customers when I performed here, too. If anything, I’d think you’d be grateful to see me.”

“I said I don’t like you as a customer, not an employee. I’d rather not watch the so-called hero of Baldur’s Gate passing out on my tavern floor.”

“Business is business,” you shrug, sipping at the drink. You reach for your gold pouch, but he shakes his head.

“You know you don’t have to.”

You toss him a gold coin anyway. “I want to.”

As you drink, you gaze blankly at the bard playing at the corner of the room, a crowd of half-drunken patrons surrounding him as they toss gold, hats, and even a shoe at them in applause. This only prompts the bard to sing louder, their fingers plucking at the strings of their lute. Of course, with the nature of the tavern, the song is rather ambitious rather than soothing, but it’s nice to listen to nonetheless. You watch as another bard, this one with a drum, perches next to them and begins playing in unison. The patrons clap louder to the beat.

A man sits next to you, ordering himself a booze before turning to watch the bards. You’ve never seen him around, but he seems comfortable enough, thanking Alan when he receives the drink. He gives it a sniff, then sets it down. “Nice song, no?”

Your eyes never leave the gleeful expressions of those listening, only recognizing moments later that he’s speaking to you. “Yes, pretty nice.”

“My daughter loved this song when she was younger. Even wanted to learn it herself on her flute,” he says, and a part of you wants to ask why he’s initiating conversation, but you bite your tongue. Surely most people come here to drink, not to talk with strangers? There’s a strange familiarity to him that you can’t put your finger on, and it’s enough to keep you intrigued. “She even wanted to be a bard at one point.”

“I’m assuming she didn’t become one?” you indulge him.

“She died before she could, unfortunately.”

You finally look away from the crowd and turn to him, face falling. And while you should console him, your instinct tells you that’s not what he needs. His face is solemn. Dull as if he’s become accustomed to the death of his own child, and it reminds you of the hopelessness of yearning. Any kind, really, whether it be yearning to love and yearning to care. “Was she any good at playing?”

He stifles a laugh. “Oh, she was the best. Could play better than half the bards at the circus a couple of months after I got her that flute.”

You sip at your drink again. “Being a bard isn’t the most stable of career choices when you’re alive and have a stomach to feed. Wherever she is now, I’m sure she’ll be free to sing all the songs she wants in this world.”

Perhaps your words may be insensitive, but he doesn’t look to take it that way, keenly listening to the song while you wager if you can afford one more drink.

“You know,” he says again. “Most people tell me that they’re sorry for my loss—or something along those lines.”

“Do you want me to say that?”

“No, I prefer that you be honest,” he shakes his head. “It’s refreshing.”

You return to watching the bards, who seem nearing their piece's end. The man lifts his booze to his lips and takes a large swig. “You seem acquainted with loss. Have you lost someone recently?”

“To death?”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

You’re not sure why, but you feel that confiding in this stranger comes easier than confiding in your companions. The guilt eats away at you for being unable to trust the people who care for you most, but a stranger cannot judge you. A stranger does not know you, so they cannot see you differently for your thoughts. And most importantly, a stranger cannot pity you. “I almost lost them. But I didn’t.” 

He hums, telling you he’s listening.

“I saved him, I think. Well, to be honest, I’m not so sure anymore. I like to think I did, but I don’t think he thinks the same.”

“Why’s that?”

“I…” you trail off, looking into the half-empty cup reflecting your face. Gods, you’re a mess. “I took something from him to save him.”

“Money?”

“No, nothing like that,” you mumble, swirling your cup mindlessly. “I took his choice away.”

“I see. He must’ve not wanted to be saved, then, is that right?”

You don’t answer him. The air becomes silent again, but the soft tune of the lute, and even the bartender is no longer paying attention to anyone in the tavern, only watching how the bard’s fingers file through the strings. The only person who doesn’t seem distracted is the man beside you.

“Do you regret it?”

“Saving him?” you pause, and maybe it’s the drink getting to your head, or perhaps it’s the way the music seems to fade out, but the words stumble out of your mouth before you can even process them. “I want to regret it.”

From the corner of your vision, you finally notice that his booze is still filled to the top, untouched.

“Does Astarion regret it too?”

Realization dawns on you.

You can see them now—the fangs that peek out from the smile stretching across his lips. And yet, it is not a malicious smile that confuses you even more. It would almost feel genuine if you weren’t in such a vulnerable position, and immediately, you’re thinking of ways to defeat him with just a bottle of wine with your head still spinning. 

The door to the tavern swings open.

Lae’zel almost looks out of breath as she sprints to you, a sight you don’t see every day. “Come! They were ambushed.”

When you turn back to the man sitting at the bar, you only see a gold coin beside a full cup.

You don't have time to delay, as Lae'zel yanks out of the tavern.

You've never run faster in your life. But your mind remains elsewhere, unable to keep up with the speed of your body because it's too busy being stuck in the past. Do you regret it? Does he? Until now, before Astarion’s arrival, you'd been sure it had been the right thing to do to stop the ritual. And now, after hearing all the resentment he harbored toward you as a result, you wonder if it was worth it at all. If losing him was worth the ache you endure now. Before you can snap yourself straight, the memories flood in like a dam breaking open.

“Do you love me?”

“I do. I do love you.”

You don’t expect him to say it back. Not when he looks taken aback at how quickly you’d answered him, his eyes flickering with something you can only describe as a false sense of confidence overwhelmed with a glimmer of fear that means so much more. You know love is hard for someone who hasn’t felt it in 200 years. You know this and, therefore, cannot expect it from him right now.

He cares for you, and that’s enough.

He presses his lips to your temple, and you ignore the restless aching in your chest.

Did he regret being with you then? What did he regret? There's so much you want to know, but nobody willing to answer them.

Shame floods you as you realize you’re distracted, even in such a dire situation for your companion. One more reason to hate him, you suppose—not that you’re keeping count. There’s too much blood drenching your hands, sticky and weighing on you like a pile of bricks as you burst into your shared home in the dead of night, the unconscious body of Shadowheart slumped over your back. Gale rushes to the kitchen immediately for supplies while Lae’zel slams the door shut, shoving her sword against the wall.

“Give her to me,” the githyanki demands as she picks up Shadowheart like a sack of potatoes. The half-elf groans loudly, and you hiss.

“She’s bleeding, Lae’zel, be careful!”

“I’m always careful,” she snaps back and lays your companion across the dining room table. And finally, in the light of a few flickering candles, you can see the damage that’s been done.

A large slash runs through her pelvis to just below her chest, and you can hear Gale swallow the lump in his throat before desperately resuming his rummage through the cabinets for a healing potion. Even if he’s injured too, he doesn’t seem to notice. She’s bleeding—too much for you to handle but enough for you to keep your eyes glued to her pained expression. Even unconscious, the pain seems to seep into her dream as she grunts, gasping for her breath.

It was a mistake. You should have gone in the morning. You should have been with them.

“We used all our healing potions in the battle. We need to make more,” he reaches for the cabinet where he keeps most of his ingredients. However, as he begins grinding them together, he stops and whips around to Lae’zel. “Victims outside the Blushing Mermaid. They might come back for them.”

“For corpses?” you answer for her.

“For their blood, dammit! Their children were there, alive and afraid,” he hisses at the pain of his own injuries. “Please, go check on them in my stead.”

She glares. “Tchk. What a stupid suggestion. In this pathetic state that all of you are in-”

You push her toward the door with all that remains of your strength. “Go. We’ll be fine.”

Her brows furrow, but she scoffs, relenting. “Fine. This is the last time I clean up your messes.”

You know she doesn’t mean it.

Once she leaves, you’re hunched over Shadowheart, dabbling in your less-than-effective means of soothing her. You can only hear Gale, who keeps feeding her healing potions, but it’s not nearly enough if her groans tell you anything. She needs a potion of greater healing at best, and those haven’t been exactly plentiful in supply after most of the city’s potion shops were destroyed in the war against the illithids. Another thing you should have done is stock up on potions. But you’d thought your group had had enough—at least, sufficient for a few more battles.

He rushes into the other room, mumbling about making a potion from scratch.

You clutch at Shadowheart’s hand, praying Gale would hurry up to cease the way she writhes under the candlelight. All you see is the red staining her clothes.

When you think things can’t possibly get worse, you hear the top stair creak under someone’s weight.

You must be cursed by at least one god. You’re sure of it.

He looks nearly starved. Almost as if he hadn’t drunk in days—but surely he hadn’t been this bad just this morning? His face is pale, though it’s always been white as a sheet, and his crimson glare is glued to the blood dripping off the edges of the table like a harpy with their luring songs. You feel your stomach drop as you recall you hadn’t even had the guts to stare at him in the face, and perhaps he had looked this bad. Maybe that’s why he’d approached you in the first place and asked about the Fist—not to spite you in a taunting manner, but simply because he was starving.

Whatever happened to drinking from the ladies at Sharess’ Caress? 

You don’t have time to ask; honestly, you don’t want to know the answer either.

You’re convinced he might have fed off of nothing but the rats he loathes with how sunken his eyes appear from the bags forming beneath them. The overwhelming scent of blood must have lured him out. Even you would have plugged your nose if you weren’t so concerned over your friend's wellbeing, and it’s then that you realize what he’s truly here for.

Almost instinctively, you step in front of Shadowheart, hand going to reach for your dagger. You grasp at nothing but the air.

Shit.

His lips stretch into a dangerous smile. One that is not welcome right now. “Why the hostility, darling?”

“Go back upstairs. I’m warning you.” It’s just you, Gale, and an unconscious Shadowheart in the room at the hands of the hungry vampire, practically ravenous for blood. While you’re sure Gale could handle himself as long as he doesn’t succumb to his injuries, you have nothing in your possession but Shadowheart’s hand and a candle on the table. And on top of this, you’re unsure if you’ll be able to protect Shadowheart in the crossfire if a fight breaks out. 

Your mouth feels dry. You can taste blood in your mouth, but you only realize moments later that it’s your own.

Your mind flashes back to the spawn who nearly killed you mere weeks ago. They’d had the same simmering hunger in their eyes, keen to kill in favor of satiating the endless longing for blood. The same spawn managed to overpower you with such a drastic difference in strength, making you wonder what Astarion himself is capable of. He’s had decades more experience and killing—perhaps he’s even stronger.

No, he’s definitely stronger.

When he had his cold hands wrapped around your neck, it felt as if they belonged to death themselves. And in that moment, you knew that even if you struggled against him, if he genuinely wanted you dead, you would have no power to push him away. You would have no choice but to let the grasp of death pull you into the ground, underneath the surface, into the unknown.

“Oh, poor Shadowheart,” he taunts. “She’s already lost so much blood…”

“And she’s not losing anymore.” You don’t dare to lift your eyes from Astarion. 

The hammering of your chest, the quickening of your breath—they are all things that he does not feel. You wonder if he feels anything at all. You’re sure he’s capable of hatred, he’s capable of reveling in the blood of his enemies, and he’s capable of laughing as he stabs a blade into a man’s eye.

But you wonder if that cold, dead heart of his can feel anything but for himself.

“You look unsettled,” he mocks. “Shall I drink from her? She certainly wouldn’t survive in the state she’s in, though…it would be a bit of a waste, don’t you think?”

You taste blood again from how hard you’re biting your lip.

You’re not sure if it’s just the booze driving insanity to your head or the encounter with a spawn just minutes ago, but the look in his eyes makes your chest tighten. The hunger, the bloodthirst, and the sheer drive to satiate his vampiric needs are enough to make you feel like prey cornered by a starved owlbear. He doesn’t look himself. He seems more like the spawn who’d nearly killed you. And for the first time since you awoke to his fangs bared at your neck during a night at the camp, you see him for what he is.

A vampire spawn—a monster.

This is not your Astarion. In fact, he’d never existed. He’d never loved you, and while you believed his care was enough at the time, you think that might’ve not existed either. This is not the same man who reassured you in your times of need, praised your very being, and gazed at you with nothing but love as you excitedly showed him your new pieces of music. This is not someone who had looked utterly confused when you confessed you wanted more with him because he could not imagine being a priority to someone else. This is not the same man who you once called your lover.

Your lover would not choke you to the brink of death, with nothing but malice urging him on. Perhaps you stopped the ritual from taking his soul, but maybe something else had taken it anyway. And you’re finished making a fool of yourself, hoping he reciprocates a love he cannot give.

When he steps down the stairs, the butter knife that sat on the table seconds before, flies through the air.

Whoever this is, you decide you do you hate him. You’ll force yourself to forget what he was to you if you have to, the same way he did to you. And this time, there is no hesitance or lingering feelings behind your words that represent the weak, naive part of you that can’t help but hold onto memories that no longer matter.

You truly, utterly hate him.

The knife barely flies past his skin, piercing itself into the wall, and it relieves you of the tension that’s weighed on you for the past few months, like plucking a thread from a poorly sewn piece of cloth.

“I won’t miss next time,” you snarl, your words laced with poison and your glare filled with daggers. It's a tone you rarely use on enemies, much less your allies, but all you can think about is your unconscious companion lying behind you.

For once, he looks almost surprised. His eyes are wide, unblinkingly staring at the bloody butter knife that nearly sliced off the tip of his nose before drifting over to you. You heave, your chest rising up and down as you try to catch the breath that doesn’t seem to exist, and he raises both his brows. 

“Threatening me with a butter knife? Really?”

You've never threatened him at all, really. Not even when he first asked you for your blood. But now, even that seems like an afterthought.

“Go,” you spit.

He looks at the blood dripping wastefully on the floor, then at you. His face finally falls, but he wets his lips with his tongue glazing over his fangs, and it boils your blood enough to make you lightheaded. And though the breath you’d been grasping at comes back to you when he turns to disappear back upstairs, his parting words do little to ease the squeamish feeling in your stomach.

“I prefer this spiteful part of you far more, darling.”

You fight the urge to use the candle as a weapon next.

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[the-kr8tor]

May I have Bitter Orange in a ⭐ bottle please? The start of R and Hobie being handcuffed together before they turned, with R succumbing to the effects of the virus much faster than Hobie due to his spiderpowers, so for a bit he just watches his love become a husk of who they were before he too is a zombie?

*laughs evily* Yessss I've been waiting for a request exactly like this hwjsjwijsjaj hope you like it!

Pairing: Hobie Brown x fem! Reader/ Spider-Punk x fem! Reader

Word count: 3.2k (whoops)

Tags: Use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader (except for her clothing), description of illness, TW blood, CW injury, TW death, zombie AU, Zombie apocalypse AU. Angst, Hurt/comfort

A prequel to this one shot

Katy's one year celebration 🎉

The air is nice and cool on your face as you walk hand in hand with Hobie in the barren street. There's rows upon rows of abandoned houses, all in different stages of decay from both scavengers trying to survive and time itself proving to be the worst enemy. But it's on your side for now for it has given you infinite time to be with him.

Hobie's hand is suddenly on your scarf, fingers gingerly sliding the fuzzy material up to your chin. He smiles at you, the sun blindingly light behind him. Despite the apocalypse, he still looks just as handsome. He has new shallow scars on his chin where a stubble is slowly growing, hair a bit of a mess but beautiful nonetheless. You've once told him after a lucky find of one whole pound of chocolate pudding that he's apocalypse chic, that he makes the end of the world look good. To which he laughed and shoved a spoonful of chocolate pudding in your mouth. Compared to him you probably look like a mess, you wouldn't know, you've ignored mirrors ever since you ran out of shampoo a few days ago.

“What are you thinkin' ‘bout, gorgeous?” He tugs you closer to him, the crowbar hanging from his backpack clinks against the machete next to it.

“That I really need shampoo, and that you look unfairly handsome in this light.”

Chuckling, he intertwined his fingers around your own. It could mean death for the both of you if the undead suddenly lunges and he doesn't have enough time to take his hand away from you. But he thinks it's alright for him to do, to indulge himself to your touch since the entire place is empty save for a few dead cars and scattered luggages left by people.

“You should see yourself in my eyes, lovie, the greasy hair is doin' a lot for me.”

“Oh yeah? You like it when you pat my head and you get petrol on your hand?”

“We need petrol, d’you think if I bunch up your hair and squeeze it I can collect the oil?”

You nudge him playfully, “you're an ass.”

“Yeah, well, you're stuck with this arse.”

Your mind goes back to your friends and family you've left behind. “Do you think they're okay?”

“'m sure they are, Yuri's got them, and they have Ned, he'll whip them into shape. ‘sides, we're almost at James’, if I was them I'd stay there.” He adjusts his hold on his pack and guitar. “We'll find them.”

You smile, nuzzling his bicep for his own reassurance, knowing that he also worries for them. “You're right. They're probably doing better than us.”

“Yeah,” he pecks the crown of your head. “They're living like kings, I bet.”

You two stop in front of a large house, complete with white marble steps and tall roman columns. “James' dad never had taste, huh?”

Hobie snorts, “his son took all of it. C’mon, then.” He leads you on the porch, trying the door, wishing that it was locked because if it is it means that someone's inside, that they're surviving and waiting for the two of you. To his despair, the door opens without a problem.

Hobie looks back at you having the same expression. “It's okay,” you try to be optimistic, “maybe they left a message for us.”

He nods, “yeah, maybe.” Crossing the abandoned space, he takes his guitar from his back to strum a tune. When he doesn't hear stumbling or any rattling from anywhere inside the house, he continues forward, but his guard is still up. “We might as well get some supplies while we're ‘ere.”

“Yeah, there might be some left in here.” You give him a small smile. “How about we split up? This place is too big, it'll take us forever to comb over this place.”

Hobie considers it for a moment. The place seems pristine except for the furniture and cabinets that are picked clean, so he deems it safe. “Okay, just…” you walk to his side, rubbing his arms, smiling sweetly at him even though he probably doesn't smell the best. “...keep your knife close.”

“I will keep my knife close,” you repeat his words, “and I'll stay alert.” Poking at his chest, you peck the frown off his lips. “And you keep safe.”

He's still apprehensive, but he knows you can hold your own. Taking your face in his hands, he kisses you fully, smooching until you're giggling. “We’ll meet back ‘ere in fifteen.”

“Aye, aye, Cap'n!” You mock salute. “Any special requests?”

“Chocolates.”

“I said a request, not wishful thinking.” You tease, he has an urge to kiss you again.

“Towels, the nice fluffy ones.” You slide your hands away from him, to which he already longs for.

“Got it! I bet James has a ton of them.” You wink, knife in hand, walking away from him.

Hobie watches your retreating back, tamping down his anxieties. He searches upstairs, grinning at James' familiar room. His posters and messy floors remain untouched, the bed still looking like it was tossed around by a tornado. He almost cries at the picture frame on the bedside table containing his band's smiling faces plus you who's embracing him.

Turning the frame around, he takes the picture and pockets it to show to you. After rummaging James' room, he takes a few shirts and pants for him and you. He even finds a pair of silk pajamas that he knows you'll love. A piercing scream echoes around the house, he immediately bolts downstairs, heavy footsteps thudding across marble floors.

You're on your back, fighting for your life while the undead on top of you tried to get a chunk out of you. It all stops when Hobie's guitar connects to the corpse's skull in a sickening crunch of metal and bone.

You scramble away, neck and arm in pain. Hobie's wide eyes meet yours just as when the back door bursts open, revealing a whole horde of the undead. Panicking, he yanks you up, holding your hand, running outside to more of the shambling dead.

“Fuck!”

“Hobie!”

“Just hold on!” His hand is tight around yours, you try to run at his pace, panic in your veins, adrenaline in his.

It feels like you've been running forever, Hobie sees an opening hidden in an alley. He can climb on his own without a ladder but you can't. So he leads you towards the empty alley while the rotten, decayed corpses of once human beings run after you at full speed.

Hobie jumps to take down an emergency ladder, without missing a beat, he grabs your waist and throws you on the ladder. You climb, but the pain in your arm gets worse so you're slower but you still try for him.

The undead finally gets to the alley, you don't dare to look down. Once you're on the rooftop, you peek below to see him struggling to get up the ladder, he's halfway with a handful of zombies dangling on his leg.

You scream his name but it's too late, one of the undead has bitten a chunk of his leg as he tries to kick the former human off the ladder where he's desperately trying to climb to. You wish he didn't run out of web fluid, you wish the world didn't end, you wish the throbbing pain on your arm is just muscle spasm, but the warm crimson seeping out of teeth marks says differently.

With a sickly crunch, the zombie falls down the ladder and into the rotten horde. Hobie climbs up quickly back to you, hands immediately grasping on to you.

“Did it get you?!” You yell, still in denial, frantically checking in hopes that his boot saved him. Your heart falls into your stomach at the sight of broken skin, blood staining your fingers where you hold the hem of his trousers away to get a better look. You're frozen on the spot, tears clinging to your lashes. “Hobie,” you gasp, taking off your scarf to make a makeshift tourniquet around and above the bite. “Fuck—!”

“You okay?!” He does the same to you, heaving, ripping off your sleeves like a madman trying to find the secrets hidden in your skin. He prays that he finds none. His eyes widen, terrified, broken hearted, shaking his head, refusing the fact that you're infected. “No,” he shakes his head again, closing the torn up cloth around the slowly rotting wound. “It's just a scratch, love, y-you’re not—”

“Hobie…” you smile bitterly, eyes mirroring his own. He rips the hem of his shirt, using the cloth to wrap it around your arm, just above the wound in an attempt to stop the spread. He ignores the stinging pain on his leg. “Hobie, stop, it's—”

“We can still stop it!” He yells desperately, tying the cloth tightly. “It's just a scratch.”

“Hobie, please.” You hold his trembling hands, “it has been ten minutes.” He refuses, you squeeze his hand weakly, the virus already taking hold. Slowly killing you. “And—” with trembling hands, you show him the gaping bite on your neck, oozing dark decaying blood. He choked on a sob. “B-but there's a chance for you, your abilities might've made you immune—”

“No, if you're goin’, ‘m goin’” He stands up, not giving up on you. “There's a chemist’s ‘ere, maybe if w-we…” he puts on a brave face amidst the impending doom and rotten flesh that stings his nose. “Maybe there's somethin’ there.” Hand reaching down, you smile up at him, orange and pink hues from the sky dancing around your face. “C-can you get up?” His voice breaks, chest heaving. “I can carry you. Don't make me carry you, love.”

You slide your hand onto his own. “Hobie,” your voice is soft above the mindless groaning below. His eyes beg you to move. So you do. “Okay,” with a single word, you bring him hope.

With divided effort, you both make it towards the roof of the pharmacy. He was uncharacteristically silent the whole way, but his hand never left yours. His eyes never met with your wounds that's slowly festering. You feel it inside you, the fever, the virus that's eating at you, spreading throughout your body, gnawing at every bit of your warmth like a seed taking root. Hobie feels it too, he's terrified that you're experiencing it too. It's his worst fears came to life only because he wasn't fast enough.

Opening the creaky door, he hopes that it's devoid of the undead. Like he's not on the brink of eating flesh, he does his usual prep. He strums his guitar softly to attract any walking corpses waiting behind doors, when none comes out, he cracks the door wider. With his torch, he lights up the way. But he doesn't feel your presence behind him.

Looking over his shoulder was a mistake, he finds you hunched over the doorway, groaning quietly, nails clawing at the throbbing wound around your neck. That's the moment he knew that you'd go out before him. For the first time, he curses his gifts.

Slowly, he crosses the distance towards you, shaking hands grasping your shoulders. You're warm, incredibly warm. “Love?” He could cry, but he doesn't want you to see his sorrow.

You sniff, tears streaming down your face from the pain and the tragedy of it all. You've accepted that you were infected, but not him, you'd take the virus from him too if you could. “I'm s-sorry, so fucking sorry. I should've—”

“Oi, none of that, yeah? You're gonna be fine.” He says it to convince himself. “You'll be back on your feet tomorrow and by then we'll see Yuri and the others.” Nodding, he takes you by your arm, careful of making your wounds worse. There's blood sticking to his clothes, seeping through his clammy skin. He hates the fact that it was yours. Bringing you behind the counter, you almost keep over. “I've got you, I've got you.” He says it against your temple like a prayer.

“H-Hobie.” You sob, salty tears marring your pretty face. “I can't— it hurts.” The gnawing feeling gets worse, as if a chainsaw is ripping you apart from the inside. “It's so hot, I–I can't breathe.”

“O-okay, I'll set you down ‘ere, get you comfortable. There's some fever meds over there. It'll help.” His hazel eyes pleads for anyone, anything that'll help you. He helps you sit down, and you immediately lie down on the cold tiles. “Do you want a blanket?”

“N-no,” you're hot and cold at the same time. “I don't know.” You look up at him, he sees the light in your eyes fading. “I don't feel so good, Hobs.”

Hobie could only look away from you, inhaling, exhaling but it doesn't feel like he's breathing right. He kneels down, setting his guitar next to you, palm placed on your forehead. “This is nothing, love.” He tries to smile, but fails. “Remember when you had the flu?” You nod weakly, “you were a fuckin' beast, you beat it on your own in just a few days.”

Even though you feel your heartbeat going faster and then slowing down in a weird rhythm like a heartbeat monitor going haywire, you smile for him. “I was, wasn't I?”

He rubs your bicep, under his touch, he feels your muscle twitch. “Yeah, you still are.”

You chuckle softly, tears sliding down your cheeks and into the cold tiles. “Okay, get me the meds.”

“That's my girl,” laying his forehead atop yours, he hopes that he'll take your pain away with the simple gesture, but it's futile. “I'll be back, I promise.”

“Don’t make me wait.”

Smiling, he squeezes your arm. “Never.” Standing up, he rummages through the entire place for the pills you need. Crouching down to check under the broken shelves, climbing up on the walls to get a bird's eye view, and all the while ignoring his own pain. It's slim pickings, but he manages to find a single bottle of tylenol that has rolled under a shelf, it's not enough, but it'll do.

With a victorious sigh, he quickly makes it to the counter, rounding the corner, he sees you wheezing, catching your breath and with blood leaking out from your eyes and ears. “No, no, no!” He takes you in his arms, making you sit up. “I've got the meds, love. Oi, open your eyes for me.” You crack one eye open tiredly. “That's it, good job.” He almost cries when you smile at him through the thick fog of illness.

“G-good job,” you murmur, he doesn't know if you're delirious or you're congratulating him for finding the medicine.

“Bottoms up.” He brings two pills to your mouth, to which you gladly take. Giving you his canteen, you drink most of it, downing the tepid water. “That's good, see, you're already gettin' better.”

You shake your head weakly, barely opening your eyes. “Thanks to you, Hobie.”

“Yeah, thanks to me.” He tries to joke but it comes out choked when blood still leaks out of your tear ducts. Sitting next to you, he now feels his temperature rise so he takes the same amount of pills as you.

You lay your head on his shoulder, hand shakily reaching towards his own. “I'm sorry.”

He almost breaks down at your apology. “Nothin' to apologize for, love.” Meeting your hand halfway, he intertwined his fingers with yours, you're cold now, frozen under his hold. “D’you want that blanket now?”

“Please,” you wheeze out.

Hobie obliges, taking a thick blanket from his pack and then draping it around you as if it'll protect you from the infection. “There, nice and cozy, eh?”

“Thank you,” he feels your crimson fall down on his collar. “For everything.”

“None of that, Y/N, please. None of that.”

“I still want to talk to you.” Your voice is soft and small. “I still want to stay with you.”

Hobie brings your intertwined hands to his lips, kissing each knuckle softly. “And we will be, after this—” a sob escapes from him. “After this, we'll be together, yeah? Just like how we talked about.”

“Forever and ever?”

His tears flow freely, “yeah, forever and ever.” After a beat of silence, he fears the worst. “Love?”

You cough, he sighs in relief. “Still here, Hobs, not leaving yet.”

“Not yet,” embracing you, he lays his chin atop your head, you're made comfortable in his hold. Home, you feel like you're back home in his houseboat, watching a shitty romcom while he rambles on about his patrol. You want to be back there again. He wants to be back there again. “Can I say somethin'?”

You hum into his chest, squeezing his hand tighter but your sickness, he barely felt it.

“I don't want to…” he could barely say it. “I don't want to kill you. ‘m sorry, I know we talked about it—”

You lean up, he's met with milky eyes, he knows you can barely see him now. “Then don't, I don't want you to—” you pause, clinging to humanity. “— to feel that before you go.”

Nodding, he kisses your forehead, crying, weeping into your skin. “I couldn't save you, ‘m so fuckin' sorry, love, ‘m so sorry.” He shakes, you gather enough strength to embrace him and bury yourself in his chest, letting his scent waft around you for comfort.

“Don't apologize, nothin' to apologize for.”

He sniffs, peppering your face with heavy weakened kisses. “Oi, don't use my own words against me.”

You smile against the rough leather of his jacket. “Can I say something?”

“Go,” he can practically see the countdown. “We have all the time in the world, love.” There's something warm leaking out of his eyes and ears. He's catching up to you.

You'd laugh but you can feel your life slipping through your fingers. “When we turn, I don't want us to be separated.”

“What do you propose?” He tries to inhale but he could only let out a sickening cough.

“Tie our hands together…really tight.” Your words fade away, but you still hold on.

“I've got rope here, I can do it now.”

“But I'll turn first, Hobie, I-I might—”

“It'll be my honour to be your first meal.”

“I'd laugh if we weren't dying right now.” Eyes too tired to open, you feel the rough rope around your wrist, and the unmistakable sound of a knot getting tied. You smile for the last time when you feel his fingers wrap around your own. “I love you.”

“How's that? Too tight?” He whispers close, he feels you slipping away, “Y/N? Love?” he breaks down when your hand falls limp around his own. “Not yet, please, not yet.” He holds you, rocking you back and forth like a babe needing to be held. Your heart doesn't beat in sync with his anymore. “C’mon, not yet, we still have to find the rest of the band, right?” His eyes cloud over, cold taking root inside his entire body. “Say somethin’, fuck!” He yells with all his might, “I love you, fuck, please wake up.”

Closing his eyes, he wraps you in what's left of his warmth. “Don't go, please.” Hobie pleads and cries until he can no longer breathe the same air as you. His last thoughts were of you.

[irkimatsu]

I love your Husk works! Could you please write one where fem!reader gets along with everyone and Husk doesn't even realize that he's catching feelings, but maybe on a night out with everyone, someone comes up and starts heavily flirting with her. Ends with confessions and sugary sweet tooth rotting fluff please. 😍

God damn, anon, do you have any idea how hard it is to wring a confession out of this man? I was going along at a steady pace and then I got stuck for hours! I genuinely hope you like slowburn, because Husk doesn't go from zero-to-love easily. I think he's gotten a nice start here, though. It's definitely fluffy!

Husk/Fem!Reader starting a relationship. Mentions of drinking and attempted sexual assault that Husk interrupts before things get too heavy. SFW, 2.8k words. Enjoy! I hope this is what you had in mind, anon! Thank you so much for reading my works!

Your first few months staying at the Hazbin Hotel have gone quite smoothly; as smoothly as anything there can ever go, anyway. Charlie took an instant liking to you - she takes an instant liking to everyone, so it’s nothing special, but still. She can be a bit overbearing, but you know she means well, and she’s grateful to have someone who doesn’t immediately write off her trust exercises from the start.

Still, after all the sharing circles and art therapy, you occasionally find yourself craving more “adult” fun, and that’s where Angel and Cherri come in. It’s not that you don’t want to be redeemed, but what could be so sinful about enjoying yourself a little? You’re not doing anything dangerous or drastic, no drugs and no getting involved with the wrong people; you’re just having fun drinking, dancing, maybe smashing up some abandoned property if the opportunity strikes. Charlie can’t get mad at destruction if no one cares about the thing you just blew up, right?

The bartender, Husk, isn’t nearly as keen on those nights on the town, but you’ve still managed to bond with him on nights where you prefer to stay in. He’s a surprisingly good listener underneath his gruff exterior. (Perhaps too good of a listener; you hope he keeps ignoring whatever bullshit you might have spouted off after one too many of his cocktails.) He also has plenty of stories of his own, mostly from the time he spent alive. When you could get him talking, he’d weave incredible tales of nightlife, both from his home city in Las Vegas and all the other places he’d visited in his life. He seemed especially wistful when talking about a woman he knew back then. He could talk for hours about all the famous sites he was able to take her to, all the songs he would sing for her, and all the starry skies he’d dance with her under.

“It’s not like I blame her for leaving. I’m the one who screwed it up. But being in love… it was nice while it lasted.”

You try to encourage him with the hope that he could fall in love again, but he shakes his head with a bitter smile.

“I lost the ability to love years ago.”

—-

Your friendship with Angel and Cherri is so different compared to your friendship with Husk, so it took a few months before you could have a night out with all three of them. Charlie is once again less enthused about the idea of you four going out to party, but you promise to be relatively well behaved.

You promise, anyway. You can’t make promises for Angel’s sake, and as much as you love her, you know better than to have any faith in Cherri.

You’re surprised Husk agreed to come to a sex club at all. He never seemed like the type to be into that sort of thing. You’re less surprised to see that he has no intention of flirting with anyone and is instead perfectly happy to sit by the wall and knock back shots as quickly as the bartender can pour them.

Couldn’t he drink himself stupid back at the hotel, though? Why did he even come?

Is it just you, or has he been watching you the whole night?

The hours tick by, and you, Angel, and Cherri become progressively more wasted. Angel is currently hanging off of a muscular bull demon - damn, good for him - while Cherri tells you about another resident who used to stay at the hotel before he tragically lost his life during the last extermination.

“He was such a fucking idiot that it was charming, ya know? God damn I should have gotten to know him better when he was still around! I heard this rumor about him and never even got to find out if it was true!”

As she speaks, Cherri catches sight of a cobra demon who is currently chatting up a cluster of punk girls.

“Well, damn… maybe I’ll get to find out tonight. Don’t wait around for me, I’ll find my way back!”

With that announcement, Cherri is gone, leaving only you and Husk with about a dozen bar stools between you. He’s definitely keeping an eye on you; there’s still liquid in his glass, and  he’s watching you instead of guzzling it.

What’s his deal? If he wants to spend the night with you, why doesn’t he just come over here? You decide not to go over there yourself; no sense in rewarding him if he’s playing mind games.

You instead turn your attention to a handsome wolf demon who has taken Cherri’s seat. “Drinking all alone, love?” he says, his deep voice smooth as butter. Right away this man gives you the air of a natural-born charmer who can win anyone’s trust within seconds, only to break their hearts within hours.

He’s hot, and you’re drunk. You’ll let him break your heart a little.

Your conversation starts normally enough, with low stakes topics like the music and the drink selection in the bar. You’re in no hurry to tell this man anything personal or leave this spot with him, but you’re enjoying looking at him and hearing him enough that you don’t mind being a bit of entertainment.

He bumps your knee with his at one point, but you pull your own knee away. At first he seems to take the hint, and time passes without any more advances.

Soon, however, he grows more bold.

“Why don’t we go somewhere else, baby?” he asks as he lightly squeezes your thigh. “Somewhere more private?”

“No thanks,” you say as you jerk your leg away, though the motion doesn’t make him let go. “I’m fine talking here.”

“You know this is a sex club, don’t you?” he says. His smile and voice haven’t changed, but somehow he seems much slimier than he did five minutes ago, and the strong paw gripping your leg that seemed so enticing in your head feels suffocating in reality.

“I’m not here for that, I’m just hanging out with friends-” You try to leave the stool, but the man throws his arm around your shoulders and pulls you in.

“Come on, babe! What did you think I was after by chatting you up like this? You’re not gonna leave me hanging, are you?” He’s holding you closely enough that his hot breath is hitting your face, and the stench of his cologne is making you gag. “C’mon, baby, I’ll show you a good time. You won’t regret this-”

“She said no.” Husk had somehow snuck his way to your side without you noticing, and was now glaring daggers at your pursuer. “Back off.”

“Who are you, her grandpa?” the wolf laughs, refusing to unhand you. “Or just a nasty old man who likes ‘em young?”

Your captor’s laughter is quickly interrupted by a high-pitched howl. His face is now adorned with four jagged, bleeding lines.

“What the fuck, old man?” he yells as he unhands you. Just as quickly as you’re unhanded, you’re grabbed again, this time by Husk grabbing your waist and pulling you away.

“I knew I fucking hated this place,” he growls. “Where are Cherri and Angel?”

You have no idea, but your first guess has you looking toward the sex rooms in the back of the club.

“Jesus Christ… they’ll find their own way home. Come on, we’re going back to the hotel.”

You don’t appreciate being dragged out of the club like a misbehaving child, but as the alcohol clouds your thinking, you can’t quite formulate a protest.

Considering how pissed off your admirer must be right now, maybe it’s for the best that you don’t stay.

—

The walk back to the hotel is blurry; if Husk had anything to say to you besides pissed off obscenities muttered beneath his breath, you don’t remember it. Your next memory finds you laying on the couch in the lobby, your head aching from a combination of a hangover and the time spent laying on the couch’s arm with your neck at a weird angle.

“What time is it…?” you murmur as your eyes try to adjust.

“About noon,” answers Husk from the bar. 

As you continue to look around the lobby, he appears to be the only one here. “Where is everyone?” you ask through a yawn.

“Angel and Cherri still aren’t back, but I’m sure they’re fine. Charlie and Vaggie left to give you some quiet. Alastor and Niffty…” Husk shrugs after their names, then falls silent.

You groan as you push yourself into a sitting position, one that has you facing Husk. He doesn’t appear to have anything to do, and is instead standing with his chin resting on his crossed arms atop the bar. An awkward silence falls between the two of you, giving you plenty of time to observe Husk’s body language, particularly the way his tail is lashing behind him while his ear gives the occasional twitch.

He is not in a good mood.

“Are you okay?” you ask. Your well-meaning question only seems to piss him off further; he answers not with a word, but with a growl. “Is this about last night?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists.

“I’m sorry I caused you trouble…”

“Wasn’t your fault.” His tail lashes even harder. “Just don’t worry about it, all right?”

You’re going to keep worrying about it until he stops looking so on edge.

“Thanks for getting me away from that guy last night,” you say, just in case you didn’t thank him in your drunken haze.

“Hey, it’s what a good bartender does. When you see someone starting shit with another patron, even if it’s not your bar, you take care of the problem. That fucker had no right to put his hands on you after you told him to cut it out.”

He may be gruff, but at least he has standards.

“Can’t believe Cherri and Angel left you alone in there… those two better not take you to anymore fucking sex clubs, you don’t need to be around shit like that…”

“I’m a grown adult,” you protest. “I didn’t want to sleep with that guy, but if I did want to get with someone at that club, that’s my business.”

Husk’s eyes widen for a moment, before he returns to his original dour expression. “Yeah… guess you’re right.”

“And what about you? You didn’t look interested in picking up anyone last night. Why’d you even come?”

“How do you know I wasn’t interested?” he shoots back. “Maybe I was interested in someone! Maybe I just… didn’t have the balls to go for it.” He stands up straight and shakes his head. “Look, can we drop this? Hang out in sex clubs if you want, I don’t fuckin’ care.”

He’s speaking with the tone of voice of someone who very much cares.

“I’m done with ‘em, though. You’re right, you’re an adult, you don’t need me hanging around like some fuckin’ guardian angel.” He pours a glass of clear liquid, and you expect him to down it himself, but he instead steps out from behind the bar still holding the full glass. “I overreacted last night. Shouldn’t have made it your fuckin’ problem.” He approaches the couch, takes a seat, and offers you the glass. “Here, one last favor. Drink this and I’ll get off your ass.”

You take the cup, wondering if for some ungodly reason he’s trying to get you to down straight vodka.

“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s water. That headache’s only gonna get worse if you’re dehydrated.”

You take a sip of the water, and after only a few swallows you’re already regaining a bit of your desire to live. “Thanks,” you say before taking another large gulp.

“No problem,” he responds. You expect him to return to the bar, but he remains next to you on the couch. His body language has gotten no less agitated. What is going on with him?

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doting on Angel or Cherri like this,” you observe before finishing the glass.

“They’re used to it, and they’ve got each other,” he says as he takes the glass from you. “You want some more?”

You shake your head, and he remains seated with the glass.

“You, though… I don’t know, something about that guy just pissed me off,” he says. “Even before he started touching you I didn’t like him. Bartender’s intuition, maybe? I’m still not over the awful feeling he gave me.” He sighs heavily. “I just… hate the idea of seeing you get hurt in a place like that. I know Angel and Cherri can take care of themselves, but you’ve never seemed as wild as they do, so I wasn’t sure…”

“Is that why you were watching me the whole night?” you asked.

Husk’s body jolts. “Shit, you noticed?”

“I kept looking over there wondering if you’d ever move from that spot, and if you weren’t actively drinking you were staring at me,” you said. “You weren’t subtle.”

Husk groans as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. I know you’re capable. I was just…”

“You weren’t there because you were interested in someone at all, were you?”

“I never said I wasn’t. I mean it when I said I just didn’t have the balls to say anything to ‘em. Instead, I just wondered… what I’d do if someone else asked ‘em. Knowing it’d be my own damn fault for not speaking up sooner. Trying to tell myself it wasn’t that big a deal if they went with someone else… until someone started flirting with ‘em, and touchin’ ‘em, and-” His body tenses as he growls, but relaxes after a moment. “Damn it, I haven’t had to do this in years...”

“Done what?”

“You know what I said about losing my ability to love years ago?” He turns his head and looks directly at you for the first time since he sat down. “...I think I’m remembering how to do it again.”

Things are starting to fall into place. “And the person who helped you remember is…?”

The slightest of smiles crosses his face. “Who do you think?”

You wouldn’t have guessed it before today, but it all seems so obvious in retrospect. He’d spent so many nights with you when he could have been in bed, just chatting with you or comforting you after a bad day. You’d really grown so fond of his smile, and Angel had told you before that he used to never smile.

But surely, you thought, he couldn’t have been smiling because of you…

“What am I even saying?” he asks as he turns away from you. “You died in the prime of your life, and down here you can have that prime forever. You could do so much better than a washed up old drunk.”

“You’re not washed up,” you assure him as you place your hand over his. “I think it’s great that you got to live such a full life! You have so many stories to tell, and so many talents… I bet there’s so much you haven’t told me yet.” You try to reassure him with a smile and a light squeeze to his hand. “So much you haven’t shown me, either. You talk a lot about when you were in a band, but I’ve never gotten to hear you play…”

“I haven’t touched an instrument in years,” he says. “I bet I don’t even remember how to play anymore.”

“Well, you don’t know if you don’t try, right?”

You don’t think you’re just saying that about instruments.

“It’s been such a long time… what if I screw up?”

You don’t think he’s just talking about instruments either.

“It can’t hurt to try. Maybe… maybe you’ll enjoy it even more than you remember.”

“Hmm…” He doesn’t seem fully at ease, but he hasn’t taken his hand back yet. “If I can get my hands on a saxophone, and I really haven’t forgotten how… sure. I’ll play for you.

…you just have to give me some time, okay? I’m not used to it anymore… especially with another person…”

“Take all the time you need,” you assure him.

He turns his hand around so he can hold yours back, and his smile seems to grow slightly. “Just gotta start slow… get used to things again…”

“You’ll be fine, I know you will,” you assure him. He seems content to leave the conversation there, but there’s one more thing you need to say. “Husk?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think I’ll be going back to that club. No point when I’m not interested in picking up dates anymore.”

He squeezes your hand. “Glad to hear it.”

[hypothermic-dream]

I

In the void where shadows whisper,

Where light refracts through fractured faith,

A silent dialogue—dissonant, distant—

Emerges between the echo of a god

And the ghost of a penitent heart.

Did I, in my spirals of doubt,

Unravel the threads of our covenant,

Or was it You, who, in the stillness,

Withdrew the breath of divinity,

Leaving me to suffocate

In the vacuum of Your absence?

Is this chasm a construct of my feeble mind,

Or an abyss You carved in cold indifference?

In my fervor, did I cast You aside,

A shadow burned into memory’s ash,

Or did You, with the precision of eternity,

Erase Yourself from my soul?

Was it my hand that trembled,

As I tore the veil of sacred communion,

Or did You shroud Yourself in the mist,

A distant star collapsing inward,

Swallowed by the gravity of Your own silence?

I wander through the labyrinth of my thoughts,

Tracing the contours of abandonment,

Each step a question, each breath a doubt—

Have I become the architect of my forsaking,

Or are You the silence that dwells

In the void of my unanswered cries?

In this dance of solitude and longing,

I am both the seeker and the lost,

Forever bound to the question that remains—

Have I forsaken You, my God,

Or have You, in Your infinite quiet,

Forsaken me?

II

It was I who first turned away—

A seed of doubt sown in the garden,

A whisper that became a storm.

From Adam’s trembling hand, I took

The fruit of knowing, bitter sweet,

And with each bite, I forged the chain,

A link of sin that binds me still,

Pulling me further from Your grace.

With every transgression, I carved the path,

A winding road of shadowed steps,

Leading me deeper into the night,

Where Your voice grows faint,

And my guilt resounds, endless, loud.

It is not You who has forsaken me,

But I who drift, a soul adrift—

The weight of sin heavy in my chest,

A burden I cannot shed,

For it is the mark of my own making.

In my pride, I built the wall,

Brick by brick of willful acts,

Each one a stone cast in defiance,

Until the chasm yawned wide,

And I stood alone, on the edge of despair.

I am the sinner, truly lost,

Wandering far from Your light—

It was I who severed the bond,

Since that first betrayal,

And with each sin, I grow more distant,

From the mercy I once knew.

III

And now, in the cavernous abyss of my own making,

Where the echoes of my sins resound,

I stand naked before the truth—

I am not worthy of Your mercy,

For I have woven my existence

From the threads of indulgence and deceit.

I bartered eternity for the fleeting taste of sin,

Each act a blasphemy, a betrayal carved in flesh.

In my hedonistic descent, I forsook You,

Turned my back on the light, craving the shadows,

Where the pleasures of the flesh

Promised escape from the void within.

Yet the void remains, and I am its architect—

A being who chose the abyss over salvation,

Who sought solace in the very darkness I now curse.

I reveled in the hypocrisy of my desires,

Condemned in word what I worshipped in deed,

A human beast, all too eager to abandon the divine

For the filthy comforts of my own corruption.

I am no penitent pilgrim on a path to redemption,

But a hollow vessel, brimming with deceit,

A mask of piety shrouding the rot beneath—

The truth of my nature, hypocritical, vile,

A mockery of the faith I once claimed to hold.

Hell was not merely created for souls like mine,

It is the inevitable consequence of my existence—

A furnace stoked by the very sins I cherish,

Each flame a reflection of the lust I harbored,

The lies I whispered, the betrayals I enacted.

And in that inferno, I will not merely burn,

But be purified in the agony of my own making.

Let the flames consume this wretched husk,

For I am beyond redemption, beyond grace—

A soul who forfeited its place in the light

For the fleeting ecstasies of the forbidden,

A creature unworthy of the mercy

I so arrogantly spurned.

I deserve to be devoured by the fire,

To feel the searing kiss

IV

Though I am poised at the precipice of the inferno,

And my sins mark me for eternal damnation,

I still reach into the abyss for the hope of Your mercy.

This damned world has sculpted me from innocence

Into a creature marred by darkness and despair,

The test was crueler than I ever imagined,

For it is not the world alone but the very essence of my soul

That was twisted and broken by its trials.

Yet, despite the corruption, my true self remains—

A fragment of Your divine essence,

An innocent child, lost in this earthly purgatory.

The sins that plague me are but the scars of a test too harsh,

A testament to the world’s capacity to distort the pure.

In my weakness, I am crushed under the weight of temptation,

A vessel shattered by the very darkness I sought to escape.

I was a child of light, meant for celestial realms,

Yet this damned existence twisted me into a wretched form,

The world’s relentless trials, more than mere tests,

Unveiled the fragility of my being,

Reducing my spirit to a vessel of sin and hypocrisy.

This essence, born of Your divine spark,

Now wanders lost, marred by the very darkness

That was meant to be a mere shadow of its true self.

In the face of my wretchedness,

I am a mere echo of what I was meant to be,

Crushed beneath the weight of my own failings,

A creature caught between the celestial and the infernal.

Before the enormity of my failings, I am but a speck—

A soul yearning for the light of Your forgiveness,

For Your mercy is my last hope against the encroaching void.

I beseech You to see beyond the facade of sin,

To find within me the remnant of the child You created,

The soul destined for Your heavenly grace,

And grant me redemption in the face of my despair.

For in Your infinite mercy, I seek the light

That can heal even the most fractured spirit.

[prime-adeptus]

NOTHING IS LOST (YOU GIVE ME STRENGTH) – FUSHIGURO MEGUMI & READER

As minimal as this may seem, you wonder if he knows how much it means to you that he came. Your days have been lonely with you feeling increasingly out of touch with everything, but everything feels fine with Megumi by your side. Or, the one where you find your way back home.

TAGS.⠀gender-neutral reader; ambiguous relationship; childhood friends; aged-up au/canon divergence; brief smoking; angst & hurt/comfort; mental health issues, talks of death/suicide ideation, implied past suicide attempts; mild gore; near-death experiences; drifting apart and coming back together. hopeful/happy ending. SFW. 3,9k words

A/N.⠀my first work after so long and it's just a ventfic LOL sorry i have been looping phoebe bridgers and lorde for ages.

CROSS-POSTED ON AO3

For as long as you can remember, you’ve always felt things fervently.

One moment you’d feel euphoric, like you’re walking on air and nothing can get you down, but then everything crumbles and you’re left as nothing but an empty husk. It’s ironic how emptiness can feel so heavy, a constant weight on your shoulders, constant tugs at your heartstrings. 

Despite all the things you hate about yourself, there’s still one part of you that you’ll always remember with pride: there is no limit to the unconditional love you can give to people. It’s taken some time for you to decide you want to live and love as much as you can. 

But for some reasons you couldn’t fathom, these days, you feel as though your love is forced. Unnatural. Ingenuine. Like it’s just something you’ve gotten used to doing passively. Like you no longer believe, like you are living a lie. 

In a way, maybe you are. The longer you are surrounded by your fellow Jujutsu sorcerers, the more aware you become of how rotten this world can get. Plagued with death, unhappiness and turmoil on every corner, and with humans repeating the same mistakes, you’ve begun to believe that this is all hopeless. You’re well aware that it’s quite a pessimistic view to hold, but in the world that you are in, you find that it keeps you grounded. A realist. 

Or, as your beloved teacher Gojo Satoru would call you, a downer.

The sound of his voice referring to you as such makes you click your tongue in irritation. There’s not much you know about him, but the bitter part of you believes that  he  of all people should at least understand how you feel. You hold your position as a jujutsu sorcerer in high regard and with honour, but as time passes by, you’ve started to contemplate if it’s even worth it at all.

You wonder if people know that you weren’t always this way — as a child, you were bright-eyed and innocent, full of love for people and the world. Growing and going through life shattered it all, making you a husk of what you once were, and even now, you still don’t know who you’re supposed to be.

You lie and you cheat, tricking people into believing that you’re independent and fine on your own, but you are lonelier than words can describe.

And just what do you live for? You’ve survived time and time again by sheer instinct and reflex, but you still don’t know what your purpose is. You fight and you risk your life to keep other people safe at the cost of your wellbeing. Every day is a task to complete for the greater good, but what’s in store for you? You’ve grown distant from your parents — on your end, anyway; it’s difficult to read people — and your once close friends rarely contact you anymore. All you have are your peers, but you still feel so out of place among them. 

The cigarette burns between your fingers as you stare off into space by the edge of the river. At the mere age of nineteen, you feel as though you’ve lived several lives, all of which have harrowed you to no end. Nicotine flows in your system as you take yet another drag, wondering if this is what your youth was meant to be. Years of saving the city in favour of feeling like you’re wanted, needed should’ve made you feel happy. Yet here you are, alone in the streets of Tokyo, all because there’s nothing waiting for you at home.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” a voice says from beside you. It’s deep and quiet, almost monotonous, but you’d recognise the hint of concern anywhere. Megumi slightly grimaces at the sight of you exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“I don’t.” With a scoff, you put out the cigarette in the ashtray and turn to face him instead. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

He frowns. It amuses you how it seems to have been a permanent expression etched on his face since you were kids. You don’t remember if you’ve ever seen him with a different look, but that’s on you, you suppose. You haven’t spent much time with him for a while now. Time ages you and your weariness distances you from those you wish to stay close to.

When he doesn’t reply, you speak up again, “I'm trying.”

“I know.” He glances at you. As blunt as he sounds, you know he means well; that’s just the way he is. He looks like he has more to say but he doesn’t, instead opting to hand you a packet of your favourite mints. Any other time you’d take it as an insult, but you find yourself getting sentimental over the fact that he still remembers what you like. 

“Thanks,” you mumble, popping one into your mouth. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

The corner of his lips quirks downward for a split second. With a quiet sigh, he lightly flicks your forehead, not reacting at all to the indignant yelp you let out. 

“Where’s your jacket?” he asks in a chiding tone, though there isn’t any venom in it. “You’ll get sick. I don’t want you sneezing on me.”

“You always take care of me, though,” you grumble without thinking, putting on the jacket that was previously tied around your waist. Another beat passes before you realise what you’ve blurted out. Were you being too familiar with him? You’re not sure if he still wants to be friends after all that isolation you’ve been doing. You part your lips to apologise, but he interrupts with a huff and a flick to your forehead again.

“Shut up.” The pink flush on the tips of his ears betrays the irked expression he wears. You’re not sure whether it’s because of the chilly air or if it’s because he’s blushing, but it brings a smile to your face nonetheless. “Let’s go back.”

As minimal as this may seem, you wonder if he knows how much it means to you that he came. Your days have been lonely with you feeling increasingly out of touch with everything, but everything feels fine with Megumi by your side.

You were only twelve when you started seeing Curses everywhere you went.

You’d never been the type to get scared too easily, but there was something about those creatures that unsettled you to the core. They seemed horrifically disfigured and hungry, ready to pounce at any moment, and you could only be brave for so long. You tried telling your mother and your friends only to be met with suspicious and concerned looks. 

They thought you were crazy. You didn’t blame them for that. You never believed in the paranormal, so this sudden change must’ve been quite a shock. It wasn’t until two years later did you learn what they were and that you could exorcise them, somehow like they did in the horror movies. Your memory of your recruitment is hazy, but you did remember sitting with Megumi and Gojo in the car and asking the most questions you’ve ever asked in your lifetime. Your new teacher found it amusing; your classmate, however, did not.

Your mother didn’t seem to mind sending you to a boarding school. With an elaborate lie about your full scholarship told by Gojo, she’d beamed in joy and helped you pack your bags. She’d be too busy to actually notice your absence, but that didn’t stop her from sending a message to check in on you every once in a while. At some point, you stopped responding. Not because you were annoyed, but rather, you just didn’t have the energy to.

Ironically, for a school with quite a handful of staff and students, you never felt lonelier in your life. You stuck by Megumi’s side for the sole reason that he was the only one you felt comfortable enough to approach. You didn’t talk to him much, but he was good company and you came to consider him a friend. Eventually, he started approaching you as well, and you’d spend time together like regular friends would do. It felt nice to be able to be around someone and not have to explain yourself all the time. 

In hindsight, you think it’s your fault that you’re so distant from everyone now. You don’t quite know when it all began—the depressing thoughts, the near-uncontrollable impulses, the lack of care for your safety and well-being. Every time your teachers or a peer brought it up, you’d simply dismiss it as just a ‘hormone thing’ which seemed enough to make them stop asking. Megumi didn’t believe a thing. He doesn’t have to tell you for you to know that.

But what else could you do? You’re alone, and it’s not like anyone can help with whatever the fuck is happening in your head. Your mother got you in touch with professionals to help with your troubles, and even if she doesn’t say it much, you know she’s always worried sick and thinks you should just come home. You’ve been able to keep yourself in check since then, but with the sadness now mostly gone, you now have to deal with the void in your chest that plagues you constantly.

The forest surrounding the dormitories is quiet save for the leaves rustling in the wind and the cicadas chirping their evening tune. You’re not sure how long it’s been since your last official mission. You haven’t been good at keeping track of the time for a while now. But at the very least, you know that it’s been too long.

There’s no doubt Gojo had something to do with it, you think bitterly. Otherwise, you’d be as busy as your peers right now. If there’s one thing you hate about this place, it’s the fact that no one here ever really gives you a proper reason. You feel trapped, ignored, and maybe if you were more carefree you’d look past it, but you’re not. If they didn’t believe in your abilities, you’d show them; you don’t think being the underdog is that bad, after all. Maybe they’ll finally recognise your prowess and respect you.

With your heart pounding hard against your chest, you grab your ootachi and flee, letting your instincts guide you to wherever feels the most dangerous, exciting. The more rational part of you tells you that you’re going to be in trouble if you don’t turn back now, but you find that you really couldn’t care less.

You need to feel alive. You need to feel afraid, to feel something, anything. While you don’t mind resting, you also didn’t overwork yourself to the bone just to remain stagnant. You didn’t spend weeks training with every weapon the school had to offer just to let them rust. You didn’t hone your cursed techniques only to not use them at all. So punishment and criticism be damned, you��re going to do what you want whether people like it or not.

You find yourself standing in front of a dingy abandoned shrine in the woods. Unease settles in the air as you slowly creep into the light of the moon. It’s dim, incredibly so, but you can’t afford to be afraid of the dark now —you have something to prove, and you’re not going to let yourself be intimidated by something so childish. There are blood splatters on the cobblestone steps, both fresh and dried, and your grip tightens on the handle of your sword. Your instinct to fight rears its head within your body, adrenaline and the humane need to survive rushing through your veins, but you breathe and try to rein it all in.

You have to think.

(It’s quite ironic how for someone who doesn’t give a single shit about their life, you always fight your hardest so you can live.)

You take another step. A twig snaps beneath the weight of your foot. The dried leaves crunch and rustle like someone (or rather, something) is sizing you up, keeping itself unseen to take you by surprise. Incomprehensible gargled sentences echo from within and the stench of death and decay grows stronger. Even when fear starts to wrap you in its cold embrace, you walk through the gate and into the dark shrine. Your blood runs cold and your breath gets caught in your throat, but you force yourself to face the task at hand.

You’re met with a grotesque mass of green; all of its endless bloodshot eyes leer at you as its tendrils slither in your direction. Misshapen hands protrude from those tendrils and reach for you, taunting you with the blood and entrails stuck to their skin and nails, telling you that you are next. 

Not today.

An aura of black and purple coats your sword as you withdraw it from its sheath. It’s not the best space to utilise such a long sword—the shrine is somewhat cramped and is lacking in space for mobility, much less combat —but you grit your teeth and decide that you will adapt. Electricity crackles from your blade, and without any more hesitation, you charge. Its tendrils are faster than you had anticipated; they come close to wrapping themselves around your legs until your cursed energy latches on to them and forces them to disintegrate.

The curse glares at you in fury. You can practically hear your heartbeat as you slash through its tendrils, splattering the wooden floors with its steaming blood. A guttural growl leaves the curse and the air feels thicker; it’s getting hard to breathe and your vision is starting to fade. 

Am I going to die here?

There’s a sharp pain in your gut. The sword slips out of your grasp and blood sputters out of your lips. When you look down, you realise that the curse has pierced through you.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it fucking hurts.

But you can’t die here. Not like this, not without a fight.

Shakily, weakly, you put your hands together, breathe, and with the last of your strength, you fire a powerful blast that hits the curse square in the centre, making it screech in pain. Vapour rises from its form as it melts into the ground and eventually dissipates. A relieved sigh leaves you, but then the world spins, your body hurts even more, and before you know it, everything goes dark.

You fall into nothing.

(Somewhere not too far from the shrine, apprehension crawls into Fushiguro Megumi’s system.

He doesn’t hesitate. He follows the curse residue and he runs.)

You wake with a dull ache between your ribs.

The first thing you see is never-ending walls of white. There’s a generic decorative painting on the wall along with an old clock that tells you it’s a quarter past noon. Blearily, you realise that you’re in the infirmary, and judging from the soreness that spreads through your body and into your limbs, you’re still alive.

Somehow, you’re not as happy about it as you should be.

You feel like you’ve been through hell and back. In a way, you did. You’re too tired to regret your poor decisions from who knows how long ago, and you’re not a stranger to deliberately ignoring whatever makes you feel like shit. So you do just that all while staring blankly at the wall in front of you, hoping that you’ll eventually fall asleep again and forget. Maybe even not wake up until the month ends.

(You’ve come to a realisation that you don’t want to die anymore; you just want to stop existing for a while, get yourself together then come back when you’re ready. Like pausing a game or a video being played, you don’t lose the progress, but you sure as hell forget what the hell happened earlier.)

The door slides open. You contemplate pretending to be unconscious again, but your ears pick up heavy footfalls on the tiled floor and you decide maybe you shouldn’t. 

“Hey, Ieiri-sensei,” you croak out, weakly raising two of your fingers in a peace sign. “I’m alive and moving.”

She hums, amused as she makes her way over to your bedside. “Yes, you are. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit?”

“Good. You would’ve been dead if Fushiguro-kun hadn’t found you. Can you stand?”

She gently urges you off the bed, hoisting you up by the shoulders as you try to maintain balance after being bedridden for hours. Or days. Or even weeks. You’re not sure.

“You’ve been unconscious for three days.”

The concerning duration of your bedridden state goes completely ignored. All you can think about is the mention of Megumi. 

You would’ve been dead if Fushiguro-kun hadn’t found you. 

“What do you mean he found me?”

She smiles wryly. “That boy’s been worried about you. Ran off from Satoru as soon as he felt a ‘weird pressure.’ What were you fighting?”

You shrug and wince at how stiff you feel. God, you hate this. Your legs are shaky as she helps you walk out of the infirmary and on the familiar path back to the dormitories. The school is quiet, making you wonder where everyone’s gone for the day.

“Some curse thing. Had tentacles and slimy skin. It was gross.”

“Well, that thing punctured you right there.” She gestures toward your chest. “Surprisingly it didn’t hit any vital organs, but you still lost a lot of blood. Did you exorcise it in the end?”

“I did.” A beat of silence passes. “Am I in trouble?”

“Yaga-sensei’s suspended you for a month. Oh, Fushiguro-kun. Just in time.” She helps you sit on a stone bench as Megumi approaches, his fingers furling and then relaxing by his sides. “They still need some support when they’re walking, but they’re healing quickly. They’ll be fine..”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’m still in my thirties, silly.” She ruffles your hair affectionately. “Be careful, hm? Come see me if there’s anything else.”

As Ieiri-sensei takes her leave, Megumi sits down next to you on the bench. His brows furrow the same way they always do when he’s thinking of how to say something nicely. He opts for silence instead, eyeing you cautiously. It almost feels offensive, but it’s only then that you’re aware of the bandages that cover essentially your whole upper body, so you brush it off. If someone else were in your position, you’d be worried sick too.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him this visibly upset (well, for someone like Megumi anyway) over anything, and knowing that it’s because of you strikes you with a pang of guilt. With your lips pursed, you avoid his demanding look and glance at your hands instead. The bruises have almost faded away by now. Ieiri-sensei must’ve worked herself to the bone to patch you up.

“I’m not happy, Megumi.” Your throat closes up and your nose burns as the tears start to form and fall. “I’ve been trying to force myself to feel something. It didn’t matter what it was. I just hate being like this all the time.”

It hurts to cry. It hurts trying not to. Your state of mind is in tatters and you’re desperately doing your best to hold yourself together, but the way he’s looking at you makes you drop your guard completely.

“I know I’m surrounded by people, but I still feel so alone.”

Megumi doesn’t say anything. That’s fine, you think. The last thing you’d want to do is pressure him to speak his mind. He takes every word into consideration and thinks a lot by default, and if he’s still the same boy you knew all those years ago, he’d prefer to let his actions speak for themselves. 

“You didn’t have to come for me,” you murmur. “I’m sure you’ve got things to do.”

“No.” He pauses for a moment as if he’s trying to formulate what he wants to say into words that won’t feel like jabs. He huffs quietly. “I want to stay with you.”

Hearing him say those words practically has you melting on the spot, your heart fluttering as warmth rushes to your cheeks. You reach for his hand instinctively and with the slightest bit of hesitation, he responds by lacing your fingers together. 

“I’m sorry.” Your voice comes out barely above a whisper. You don’t know if it’s because you’re still exhausted or if it’s because you’re worried you’ll upset him somehow. Either way, it takes so much out of you just to talk anymore. “I’m trying.”

He squeezes your hand softly. “I know.”

“I say that to you a lot, don’t I?” you chuckle, leaning against his shoulder. I’m trying. You tell it to him every time you don’t have anything else to say, but it hardly feels true. Or maybe you’re just overly critical of everything you do, expecting yourself to reach certain heights before you consider yourself enough. 

“You are trying,” Megumi says. “Even now.”

You smile weakly. “You think so?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” He lets go of your hand and your heart sinks, wondering if you’d done or said something wrong, but then he gently flicks your forehead the same way he always used to do when you were kids. “I found you bleeding out on the ground.”

“Pretty gnarly, wasn’t it?” you joke, laughing nervously. He shoots you a glare that shuts you up immediately.

“We were worried about you,” he continues, ignoring your interruption. “I was worried about you. I thought you were going to die.”

“Is this the part where I tell you that all jujutsu sorcerers die at some point?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” you say meekly, “I didn’t know I was that important to you.”

“We grew up together.” You feel a slight weight as he rests your head on top of yours with a sigh. “You’ve always been with me. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t there.”

It’s unusual for him to be this open about his feelings; he’s never been the overly sentimental type like you are, so to have him be this vulnerable with you makes you feel like you’re going to burst. The cool breeze passes by as you hesitantly take his hand again, and for the first time in so long, you find yourself genuinely smiling. He cares about you. He loves you, despite what that voice in your head tells you otherwise. It’ll take a while for you to change or get used to knowing these things, but for him, you’ll do everything you can. You’ll live — if not for yourself, then for him. And as slow and tedious as your path to recovery may be, both physically and mentally, you think that it’ll be worth the endeavour because you’re not alone. 

You are loved.

You are loved by him, and for now, that is enough to quell every anxiety in the back of your mind.

You glance at him. “Wanna watch a movie later?” 

Almost imperceptibly, he smiles back. “Sure.”

(You never end up finishing the movie.

Halfway through, exhaustion gets the better of you, and you fall into a deep sleep on the bean bag you borrowed from the recreation room. When you wake in the morning, you’re sore and aching all over, but the blanket draped over your frame and the arm around your waist makes you forget about it for a moment.

With a content smile, you curl closer.

He’s still the same Megumi you’ve always known.)

[delopsia]

Streetlight Glow | Bob x Reader x Rhett

Word Count: 10,00 Cross Posted on AO3 Warnings & Notes: 18+, AFAB!Reader, shameless use of the one-bed trope, best friends to lovers, one(1) mention of a gun. 80% smut, 20% dumb fluff. Multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, questionable use of an old ring, road trips, taking Bob's virginity 🌷 Brief Summary: In which you go against everything best friends should be doing and become something more.

You've heard this radio song one too many times.

It's so overplayed that your belly tightens with a sickly sourness the second your ears catch wind of that dreadful tune. Top one hundred radio stations are cute until you're trapped in Bob's itty bitty car, forced to listen to the same set of songs. Over. And over. And over. Like some sort of modern torture, vying to drive you mad before you reach your destination.

And yet, Bob's fingers drum against the steering wheel to the beat of the music. Completely and utterly content with this strange new hell you've been shoved into. Even Rhett's humming along to it. Had never heard of this song before he climbed into the car, but has memorized it over the course of the past four hundred and something miles.

You couldn't ask to change the station if you wanted to; Bob reached over and played with the dial a few minutes ago, ciphering through endless static until he landed back on this god-forsaken station once again—the perks of being out in the middle of nowhere.

If Rhett doesn't land top ten in this rodeo, a raging bull isn't going to be his only problem.

It's the distant clicking of a turn signal that garners your attention. Hadn't realized you were looking down at the promise ring in your palm until after you drew your attention back to the road.

"Please tell me this isn't where we're staying," you mutter, leaning back into your seat as if you can possibly cram yourself into it and disappear entirely.

An ancient husk of a hotel, with its flickering 'open' sign plastered haphazardly in the window. Two lamp posts hang in the lot, and yet, their light has done nothing to fight off the velvety darkness that has long since fallen. It's only because of the headlights that you can see the grass breaking through the cracks of the concrete, so worn and weathered, that the painted parking lines no longer remain.

It's enough to send you high-tailing out of town, and yet, Bob's putting the car in park, "Rhett—"

"I know," Rhett's fingertip taps against something metal. "I know."

You don't need to turn around to know that it's his gun. A necessary evil that begrudgingly made its way into the trip itinerary after learning of where this rodeo is located. Though unarmed himself, Bob's head nods, and the door squeaks open without another word. You'd pitch a fit about this, but your choices are either to stop here or take over the driver's seat and hope you can stay awake long enough to find a better resting place.

On their own, your eyes drift back down to the ring in your palm. Dainty. A promise of a life together that your ex couldn't keep his word on. Leaving you with this dumb hunk of metal. Too cheap to pawn and not worth the years it's spent sitting in this old jacket pocket, waiting on the day you would wear it again.

"Hey, Rhett?" Your voice feels foreign in your own mouth. Too loud in this quiet little car.

In the rearview mirror, you can see his head lift. "Hm?"

"Can you make this disappear?" Open palm sliding to rest on the console, that damned ring sitting in the middle of it. Far too innocent for the memories it carries. "Please?"

Rough fingertips brush against your skin as he takes it from you, and suddenly, the ring seems to have shrunken by four sizes. Entirely too tiny in his oversized hand. A part of you reckons he could snap it in two.

"This is from that one guy, ain't it?" There's a bitterness to his tone that you very nearly forgot the sound of. The kind that only bubbles out of him when that old fling gets brought up as if he had his own heart broken in the process. You don't have a response, mouth devoid of another word, but he doesn't seem to need it. "I'll find a place for it."

The reception door swings open, Bob's hand now occupied by a thin, plastic keycard. A reluctantly welcomed sight that you're unsure what to make of. A bed to stretch out and rest in, but at what cost? A lumpy mattress? Bad neighbors? A busted car window come morning?

Roaches?

Ugh.

The car door is squeaking back open, and much to your dismay; Bob is already dishing out the spare keys, "second floor, room two o' one. It's the only room they've got."

Whoever decided that the stairwell should be outside rather than inside should be fired immediately. Metal creaks beneath your slip-on shoes, slippery, threatening to send you tumbling to the bottom at any given moment. You only carry one bag, some tiny thing you threw overnight essentials into, things that you wouldn't miss if you had to get rid of them. Yet, you've already caught yourself feeling as if you shouldn't have brought all these things inside.

The interior carpet is the definition of dizzying. Nonsensical white stripes stretching across navy blue only starts to bug you once you're walking down it. You know you're moving, but the endless hallway and repetitive pattern makes you wonder if you've wound up on a really fucked up treadmill.

Even worse, your room is all the way on the end. Leaving you to trod the entirety of the building, shoulder bumping against Rhett's, somewhat off-kilter.

"Talk about some fucked up carpet," he mutters, and you're pretending that you don't feel the way his arm is curling around you. Protectively cinching you into his side as someone's door creaks open.

If your heart doesn't quit hammering against your chest, you're going to be sick.

But you can't help it. Rhett's so warm in this chilly little hotel. Has yet to let you go, even after stopping at the door, thump swiping up and down against your hip as Bob fiddles with the keycard.

A shrill beep soars through the air, and suddenly, the door opens. Allowing you into your room, devoid of that migraine-inducing carpet, introducing you to a stained, yellow husk of a floor that you suspect was once white, a CRT television, and...

...

huh.

"Now, what made ya think we can all fit into a queen-size bed?" Rhett's chirping, head tilting, as if he doesn't quite believe what his eyes are showing him. Maybe if he shakes his head, a second bed will appear.

There isn't even a couch. Or a complimentary, uncushioned wooden chair, for that matter. The set of four indents in the carpet is your only hint that there once was a chair, or even a small table, of some sort.

Bob scratches the side of his head with the plastic key, only pausing to look at the numbers printed on the door as it swings closed with a heavy slam. Not designed for the luxury of silence, it seems.

Your head tilts, peering into the dark room to your right; hypothetically, that should be the bathroom, but as of right now, it might be an endless void that drops off into nothingness. Home to the monster that lived under your bed when you were six. Maybe even the one who used to live in Rhett's closet, the subject of his lunch conversations with you and Bob back in your elementary school days.

Rhett, once petrified of the dark, now the one to reach into the void, flicking on the light switch.

...on second thought, you would prefer the monsters.

Tiny black and white tiles coated with a yellowish substance that audibly sticks to Rhett's boots as he steps across it. The ripped shower curtain clings to a total of two hooks, poorly concealing the tub and the blackened scuff marks at the bottom.

Rhett lifts the toilet lid up with his boot. "Whatever y' spent on this place," his nose wrinkles as he speaks, "was way too much."

Thunder rumbles outside, as if mother nature herself has agreed with his conclusion. Beligerantly shaking the hotel, an ill-hung picture frame rattling against the wallpaper. The greater half of you expects the lights to entrap you in the total darkness of a power outage, but they remain as bright as ever.

In fact, they never flicker. Not even once, even as the storm begins to pick up. Droplets of rain patter against the window, hued by the golden glow of a streetlight hanging proudly outside of your room. An abstract portrait perfectly framed by stale curtains that refuse to budge, denying you the ability to close them entirely.

The black light in Bob's bag only confirms everything you already knew; half of the floor seems to light up the moment he flicks it on. Parts of the walls are stained in something you don't want to know the origin of, corners of the bathroom that you didn't plan on touching to begin with. Strangely, the bed is entirely clean, the new sheets sticking out like a sore thumb in this dated room.

Your shoes remain on, even as you slip into loose-fitting pajamas, unwilling to put your bare feet on this ancient floor, regardless of the inconvenience it causes. In fact, the only time they come off is when you climb onto the bed.

Rhett's standing at the foot of it, eyebrows knit together as his gaze flickers from the carpet to you, then Bob. "I reckon I take the floor?"

"Absolutely not," Bobby's beating you to the punch, nodding his head toward the open space to your left, "we can all fit."

You don't need to look to feel Rhett's questioning eyes, seeking your help in building a defense that you have no interest in. Instead, your hand idly pats the mattress, and it's the only answer that he's going to get out of you.

Maybe in another hotel, but certainly not this one.

The sigh that cuts through the air is the sweetest sound of defeat that you've ever heard, the corner of the bed dipping as Rhett swings his knee up onto it. And maybe you should switch sides with Bob because your eyes are already gluing to Rhett's bare chest. Old bull rider tattoo sitting proudly beneath his right collar, drawing your gaze down to the gentle swell of muscle.

You reckon you could get a nice handful of it if you were daring enough.

But it's too late to object to your positioning. Bob's already settling in on your other side, glasses clanking as he sets them on the rickety bedside table. His shirt still clings to his body, but his legs bump into yours as he shifts, a warm presence that makes you wonder what it would be like to tangle them together. And that's just as bad as if he was shirtless because now your mind is venturing into a territory that it doesn't belong in.

It's strange having him so close. Remnants of his cologne still cling to his skin, warm, sugary notes kissing your nose, and your selfish mouth wonders if his lips are just as sweet. If kissing him would be like walking into a hometown bakery, cozy and familiar, with welcoming arms that wrap you into a hug. 

"Y' know," Rhett's stiff as a board next to you, back flat against the mattress, staring up at the questionably stained ceiling tile, "this ain't how I saw this goin'."

A part of you supposes that you can't blame him, though. You can't move either. "What, didn't plan on sharing a bed with us like old times?"

Bob is the only one daring enough to move, rolling onto his side, to face you. "At least, in the old times, we all fit."

God, how old were you the last time you three shared a bed? You know must have been before you turned thirteen because Bobby still had those obnoxious green-rimmed glasses, and he didn't change them until the day after your birthday.

Rhett must be on the same page as you because the corner of his lip lifts. "It's inappropriate fer you three to be havin' sleepovers!" Speaking in his best, mocking tone of his momma.

"Ma was so convinced that we'd get it on the moment we were left alone," Bob snorts, "meanwhile, all we wanted to do was play pictionary and watch tv all day."

Your head tilts, internally grasping for memories that you haven't dug up in years. "You didn't even know what sex was until you were, what, fifteen?"

"Fourteen," he clarifies, knee bumping into your thigh as he shifts against the mattress, "and I only learned because of that health class we were required to take.

Rhett's chuckle vibrates through the bed and up your spine. "Y' should've seen the look on his face when we went to the restroom after."

You reckon it's the same look that sits on Bob's face right now. Lips tightened into a straight line, eyes a smidgen wider than usual, and you're certain he'd be a shade paler if not for the street light. Warm rays shine through the water-stained window, puncturing through the darkness, painting everything it touches with its golden hues—some strokes of yellow and brown, too.

Those brilliant shades arc across your skin, staining you with its color, and stretch to fade against Rhett's bare skin. The rise and fall of his chest making that old bull tattoo look as if it's bucking in a pool of liquid gold. You've lost track of how many times you've caught yourself staring. The amount of hours wasted, wondering about what it would be like to tangle your fingers in his hair. To kiss across the broad expanse of his chest, if his hands would roam down your back or curl around the back of your neck.

Lightning cracks. For a moment, the only sound in the air is that of your breath.

The heavy fist of thunder strikes the ground.

You don't feel your back leave the mattress, but you certainly feel the landing. The way Bob jolts into you. Rhett's big arm darts out to curl around the both of you, cinching you to his chest, damn near rolling Bob on top of you. Squeezing tight, as if someone has come to steal you and Bobby away from him. Muscles so stiff that he feels like a steel post against you.

Outside, storm clouds grumble as if to laugh, as if this is some sick joke they orchestarted.

"God," Rhett lets go of a breath, fanning out against your cheek, "had me thinkin' someone kicked the damn door down." His head tilts down, lips pressing into the top of your shoulder, where the collar of your shirt exposes your skin.

The world around you screeches to such a sudden halt that you can hear the brakes squealing. Their shrill protests bouncing around the inside of your skull until your ears begin to ring.

He just...did he really...why?

Bob's gaze meets with yours. Then Rhett's. It's strange. Him being without his glasses and all. Almost just as strange as it is to see his eyes so...wide. Like a deer caught in the headlights, as if he's the one guilty of kissing your shoulder and not Rhett.

Rhett's chest rises with a breath.

"I'm...I'm sorry." Voice strained, afraid to let go of the air in his lungs.

"No, it's..." you're speaking before your own brain can catch up, too distracted by the way butterfly wings tickle your lower belly to think. "It's okay."

What the hell are you even saying? You're friends. This isn't...you're not...this shouldn't be okay.

Bob's mouth finds the side of your jaw. A fleeting peck so quick that you only register it when he's gone. Deliberately turns his head down, avoiding your attention, as he mutters something that sounds like, "Gotta even it out, right?" 

It was here and gone so quickly that you're only beginning to feel how his thin lips pressed into your skin, leaving behind a coldness that wasn't there before. Far too real to match up to the hopeless wonderings that have frolicked in your imagination for so long. 

Something must be in the air. Maybe you've fallen asleep, collapsing into the warm embrace of your imagination, because there is no way that Rhett's chapped lips are finding the other side of your jaw. No, this must be a trick of your mind. You've thought about this too many times for it to be real. This version of Robert Floyd, the one who scoffs and presses a second, insistent kiss on top of the old one, feels too dreamlike. 

"Bobby," Rhett's whining, drawing out the vowels in that annoyingly pitchy tone that you so rarely get to hear. 

"You started it," Bob's muffled by another kiss. Incessant, one after the other, spreading across your cheeks. The scruff of Rhett's unshaven jaw. The sweetness of Bob's cologne, up close and overpowering your senses. Are you sure this is a dream?

"I did not!" The sudden pitchiness in Rhett's cry is too on-point. 

"Yes, you did!" You know that tone on Bob. Playfully accusatory. Breath puffing against your skin, so warm that the hotel air feels cold in comparison.

Their heads are rising. Neither realize how close they are until their noses ram into one another. Too headstrong for gentleness. Not when their giggles are dying down. 

Bob's breath catches. 

Rhett's eyelashes flutter. 

The room is too quiet for this to be a dream.

This is real, and it shouldn't be happening. The nagging of reality chastises you for letting it get this far, for telling them it was okay and not putting a stop to it at the second kiss. But your stubborn heart hammers excitedly at your chest, and your tired soul knows better than to let your shaking hands settle behind their heads. You know not to push their heads in.

Yet, you do it anyway. 

And their parted mouths find each other in the lightest embrace they can muster. Only lasts for three beats of your heart before they part, neither quite opening their eyes. The voice of logic asks why you did that. 

The voice of your heart wonders why their attentions are turning back to you. Why Rhett is leaning in so suddenly, and why you've considered that he may want to kiss you, too. Because his mouth is warmer than the burning streetlight, and he smiles into it like he's gotten everything he's ever wanted. 

You don't know when your eyes closed, but you don't need to open them to know that it's Bobby who kisses you next. Sweet and soft, like you're kissing a marshmallow and not your best friend. Then Rhett's finding you again, then back to Bob, and you're beginning to lose track of all these toothy, chaste pecks that never fail to stir up the butterflies in your belly.

"'s this what we're doin' now?" You can hear Rhett's grin in his tone, punctuated by your own daring venture, leaning up to catch his mouth again. "Kisses?" 

Bobby's nose bumps into your temple, close for no reason other than for the sake of it. "What else would you call these?" You think that might be a little bit of stubble you feel, scratching against your forehead, only makes you want to run your hands across it. "Lip locks, smooches, a touch of the lips as a sign of—"

Rhett's cutting him short, the remainder of those babbling words devolving into a smothered grunt. 

There's something off about this picture. You shouldn't be collapsing back into the mattress, smothered by the combined weight of Rhett Abbott and Robert Floyd. If this goes wrong, then how many years of friendship spiral down the drain? This isn't what friends do. 

Friends don't share hotel beds and kiss under the streetlight glow. The sins of your selfishness are illuminated by those gleaming rays, allowing your greedy gaze to eat up the way Rhett's hair falls into his face as he sucks at the juncture of your jaw. How Bob's guiding himself with his nose, finding a spot behind Rhett's ear that makes him gasp.

"I suppose this is what our folks were afraid of," Bob's muffled voice punctures the silence, "us in the same bed and all."

A chuckle draws out of Rhett's chest, so deep the thunder ought to be jealous. "The ol' tyrant of my house would be havin' a fit if he knew 'bout this."

The voices in your head are still crying for you to stop here.

But you've forgotten how to listen. 

"Who gives a damn," and before you can think twice about it, your hand is grabbing hold of Bob's shirt collar and yanking him in. 

There's nothing worth worrying about. Not when Bob's weight is fully settling on top of you, chests rising and falling in perfect unison. The short locks of his hair fall forward, tickling against your skin, his big, warm palms cradling your cheeks, the gentle bump of his chin against yours drawing a whine out of your throat.

He jolts, breaking away with a gasp, "Rhett—"

"Don't you worry 'bout what I'm doin'," is the only response Rhett gives before Bob is sucking in another breath of air. Squirming, as Rhett nibbles at the juncture of his sensitive neck, has already left a red mark in his wake. And with Bob's unfortunate reputation, it's sure to bruise by sunrise. 

Rhett's hands delve between your bodies, sliding beneath Bob's shirt, and that's all it takes for you to tug on it again. The three of you devolve into a tangle of limbs as you haul it over his head, exposing miles upon miles of milky white skin and intricately freckled shoulders. Tiny spots that you're racing Rhett to kiss. 

All it does is make Bob bolder. Defiant palms gliding up the sides of your waist, pushing your shirt up to expose your warm tummy to the chilly hotel air. Bold fingertips stop just short of your breasts, bumping into the swell of them for a fraction of a moment.

Rhett's calloused touch glides up your newly revealed skin, greedy for a feel of you. "'n here I thought I was rushin' y'all." 

"I didn't know there was a set timeline for this," Bob's leaning back, bumping into Rhett, as he fights to get a better look at you, laid out beneath him.

"There's going to be if you two keep talking," your eyes roll, pleasantly annoyed to find that they're still the same, even now. 

"Ain't gotta tell us twice, darlin'." And before you can process what Rhett has just said, he's planting a palm between Bobby's shoulder blades and pressing. Has him collapsing on top of you in the blink of an eye, falling right between your parted legs.

It's Rhett's hips that push him forward. Grinding into the soft fat of Bob's ass, simultaneously pushing the outlnie of Bob's half-hard cock into your core. You don't know if it's you or Bob who whimpers the loudest, a bolt of lightning jumping up your spine. 

That's... that's...

"Shit," Rhett swears, leaning in close, like he's worried someone will hear him through these ancient walls, "forgot you're still a virgin, Bobby boy."

"I'm begging you not to bring it up," Bob's choking through a stifled noise as your body rolls upward, his cock twitching so hard that you can feel it through your clothes. "Fuck—"

And there's more to that, but he's burying his face in the crook of your shoulder, breathing hard as your hands slide up his back. Rising up into the first, weary motion of his hips. Strange at first. Doesn't quite know what he's doing yet; not quite as fluid, a little too rigid. But Rhett's grunting beneath his breath, and you've got the sneaking suspicion he's learning fast. 

It sure feels like it. The heavy bulge in his sweats massaging against you, only drawing back to press into the body behind him, letting Rhett's instinctual thrust push him back in. Wondrously punctuated by the glisten of Rhett's teeth as he bites his lip, failing to hold back a groan. 

Oh, and their hands are wandering. Rhett's calloused palms finding their way to your thighs, dragging up until he bumps into the hem of your shorts. Bob's fingers dare to rise and dance across your breast, feeling the way you fit into his grasp. 

"'s an awful nice sight," Rhett muses, and now he's reaching beneath your shirt, too. Rucking it up to expose your chest, thumb fondly drifting over your nipple. Sends you jolting, knees knocking into Bob's sharp hips.

"You're one to talk," you don't realize it's you who's talking until the words are already out of your mouth, unhindered by the sudden yank on your clothes. Tugging the thin t-shirt over your head suddenly exposes you to them in your entirety. 

They're falling over each other. Shoulders collide, and heads knock together as they dip down. Rhett's hot mouth wraps around your nipple. Bob's tickling tongue guides him down your collar, taking his time to shower your neglected breast with his attention, softened gaze never once leaving your face. 

Your palm clamps over your mouth, back rising up off the bed. Oh, this is...this is...

Bob's whine cuts through the air. Has the utmost audacity to bat his lashes at you and pout. "Wanna hear you." His hips buck forward, knocking a noise past your lips before you can think twice. 

You're in so much trouble.

But you can't dwell on it for longer than a fracture of a second because their attentions are already migrating. Working their way down your belly despite the limited space they've given themselves. Bob's shoulder bumps into Rhett's chin, growing closer and closer together until they're snug against one another, forced to stop just shy of your shorts. 

Your thumbs are hooking into the hem of them before you can think twice. Had only intended to draw off one article of clothing at the time, but Rhett's helping hands tug your underwear down, too. Not an easy task when your legs are split around Bob's hips, forcing you to draw your knees up to your chest. Can't imagine the kind of view you must give them, just trying to get the material past your heels. 

"Now wait a damn—" Bob's squeaking, batting at the hands yanking on his sweats. "Rhett!"

But it's already far too late because Rhett's shoving them down his thighs without a second thought. Heavy cock springing from its confines, so heavy and long that it struggles to stand upright, knocking into his hip instead. It's only because of the streetlight that you can see the thin vein running along the side of him, some dumb little quirk that you shouldn't find so endearing.

Rhett has yet to notice the apparent monster that's unwillingly made itself known in the room. Too busy messing with his own pants to look up and pay attention. Until a wayward glance damn near reels him in like a fish on a hook.

"Jesus, Bobby," he breathes like he's caught up in a goddamn trance. "Why'd ya never tell us y' were hung like a goddamn horse?"

Your daring hand reaches up.

"Forgive me," he's sucking in a sharp breath as your warm fingers wrap around his cock, feeling the weight of him in your hand, "I was waiting to tell you over a candlelit dinner somewhere in Paris."

You don't know what Rhett is up to until your hand is drenched in chilly lubricant poured from a bottle you don't recognize the origin of. Slickening the glide, squelching far too loudly for how delicately you spread it across him. Such a simple touch that draws the sweetest whine past Bobby's parted lips, so unused to the sensation of a hand that isn't his own. 

Rhett's big hand encompasses yours. Squeezing tight as he guides Bob's cock down, thick length sliding through your folds. It's against everything a best friend should be doing, and yet, it feels so good—a twinge of excitement twirling up your spine from this alone. 

"Y' ain't fixin' to believe how long I've thought 'bout this," Rhett sounds like he's on another planet. Doesn't fight as you take hold of his wrist, guiding his lube-slicked fingers between your legs, right to where you crave his attention most. 

He doesn't need a lick of guidance from there. The rough pad of his finger presses daringly against your entrance, gasping with you as he slips inside. 

"'n by the feel of it," his eyelashes flutter at the way you clench around him, some involuntary little movement that makes your knees feel weak, "y've got it as bad as I do."

Bobby shifts, throbbing length dragging against your clit a smidgen harder. Such a strange sight to see his flushed tip between your legs like this, rubbing up and down in languid motions, so distracting that you damn near forget that Rhett's hand is crammed between your bodies. 

At least, you forget until his finger curls upward. Stroking against a spongey little bundle of nerves that makes you squeal. "Rhett!"

Wordless, he chuckles, a second finger dipping inside to join the first. Shallowly working his way in and out, only focusing on tormenting the one spot that makes you squirm. Your hand flies down to grab hold of his wrist, head tilting back, trying your damnest to ignore the way Bob traces his nails up your naked sides. A distant tickle that makes your back rise up off the bed, unsure if you want to lean into it or squirm away. 

It's hard to ignore how easily Rhett's working you open. Two wonderfully thick digits growing to become three, stretching you wide and so, so much bigger than your own. You don't know how you'll ever satisfy your cravings, now that you've had a taste of the real thing. The way his knuckles catch on your rim, how his gaze fixates so heavily on the sight of your cunt taking him in.

As quickly as he appeared, he's drawing away. Leaving behind a certain kind of coldness that can only be thwarted by him. 

"God, you're such a pretty sight," Bob marvels aloud, a certain sort of sparkle in his eye that wasn't quite there before. And there seems to be more he wants to say because his short pink tongue is darting out to wet his lips, already parting with the beginnings of another sentence. 

But Rhett's hands are appearing on his naked hips, squeezing the bone there, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't notice the way some of his fingers glisten with your wetness. Catching in the light as he nudges Bob forward. 

"Jesus, Rhett—" Bob's knee slides against the comforter, struggling to keep up with the way Rhett's pushing him forward. "What're you doing?"

You've already got a pretty good idea of what your beloved cowboy is up to, your hand already reaching to wrap around his wet cock. Guiding him between your folds. Selfishly pausing to enjoy the final drag of his cock head against your clit, on its way down to where you're aching. 

"Oh." He murmurs dumbly, sucking in a shaky breath as he squints up at your face. Never has been able to see far without his glasses. "I-is...is this okay? Are we...?" 

"Only if you want it," you don't know why you're whispering, too focused on running your thumb over his slit to do much else.

Rhett's chin comes to rest against Bob's shoulder, peering down at the sight between your legs, then flicking his attention elsewhere. It's the kiss he plants on Bob's cheek that soothes his nerves because the tension melts from his shoulders in an instant.

Weary, Bob's head nods as if he needs to affirm it himself, too. "Okay..." the gears in his head are spinning a hundred miles a minute, but again, he's drawing a blank."I...don't know what I'm..."

On their own, your fingers guide him to press against your entrance, and from there, Rhett's got the rest. 

"Jus' like this," he murmurs, biceps flexing as he nudges Bob's hips forward. 

Pressure blooms. Your head falls back against the pillow. This doesn't feel real. There's no way you two are taking your best friend's virginity. But there's no way a dream could recreate the ache as his head slips inside you. 

"There y' go...nice 'n easy," Rhett's deep grumble is something else entirely. 

Bob's eyes squeeze shut, barely muzzling a whimper that sparks a heat in your lower belly. Can feel yourself grow wetter around him as he gradually pushes inside. The stretch is enough to make you reach for the sheets, squeezing them tight in your fist. Doesn't necessarily hurt per se, but God. You could have never anticipated this. 

But he's slowly disappearing inside of you, inch by dizzying inch, and the bed is dipping as Rhett moves to settle next to you. Big chest on full display, the golden glow of the streetlight drawing your eye down his gently toned belly to where his cock rests against his hip. Thicker than Bob is, a glistening pearl of precum collected at his tip. 

You can't help but reach over and take him into your hand. No, you've waited far too long to deny yourself the simple pleasure of spreading the clear fluid with your thumb, ears blessed with the sound of Rhett's breath catching.

All the while, Bob's hands find themselves braced on either side of you until he's finally confident enough to let himself lay against you. Soft lips find your jaw just as he bottoms out, not an inch of him left to take, his hips flush with yours. 

"Ain't you two jus' somethin'," he's rolling onto his side, head snug against his pillow, and you reckon this is what a Greek god would look like down here on the mortal plane. Long hair and soft muscles, wrapped up in a cozy golden glow, smiling in a lazy sort of fashion that only ever looks good on him, "lookin' at me all doe-eyed."

But you can only focus on him for so long before you start to grow impatient, squirming, jostling Bob inside you. "You can move, Bobby,"

Obedient, he does just that, rising up onto his forearms, caging your head between them as he draws himself back. Only by about an inch, maybe two, before gravity reels him back in. The upper side of his cock already dragging deliciously against the nerves hidden along your walls. 

He's learning too quickly for his own good, pulling out a little quicker, less hesitation in his hips as he figures out what he's doing. Knocks the breath right out of your lungs, keening in your throat. There's something about getting fucked by your best friend while the other one watches that really does things to you. 

"Fuck," Bob's cold nose nuzzles your cheek, so close that you struggle to get a look at his face, "You feel so good, oh my god." 

And he'd be babbling if he weren't whimpering like the cutest thing you've ever seen. Blindly guiding himself across your skin until his lips bump into yours, but he's too far down to kiss you properly. No, he's got to draw himself up a little higher, biceps trembling as he pulls himself upward, and—

"Bobby!" Stars sparkle in your vision. 

Distantly, you think you catch the sound of Rhett chuckling.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Bob's chanting under his breath, a dainty whisper of your name chasing it, your lips clashing for the briefest of moments, "'s that it?"

"Right there," you blurt. Can't keep a damn word on your tongue for longer than a millisecond. "Keep—keep doing that." 

And he does. 

Oh, he does, and you fear you might float right out the damn window and up into the stars. Legs rising, squeezing his hips, some obscene, wet noise punctuating the slick glide of him. Only worsened by the way he leans back, peering down at where you're split open around him, just enough of a shift for him to knock into those nerves a little harder. Mushroom tip kissing them over. And over. And over. Sends your pussy fluttering around him like a goddamn butterfly.

"Shit, I can feel—oh," and you're so thankful that he collapses back into you because your hands are aching to roam the war, freckled expanse of his back. Blunt nails digging into the meat of his shoulder, draws the faintest whisper of a hiss from his lips. 

There's a hand on you that isn't Bobby's. Calloused. Wet fingers trailing down your side and into the pocket of space between your and Bob's bellies. Crawling down, down, down. Between your parted thighs, devilishly rough fingertips pressing to your clit. 

"Rhett—" your strangled voice hardly leaves your mouth. Legs twitching around Bob's hips as those damned fingers start to spiral against you. It's not fair. He's figuring you out far too easily. Makes it so much harder for you to open your mouth again. "Stop." 

Bob's head pops up. Wide eyes peering up at you, rhythm stuttering to a slow. 

Delirious, your head shakes, "not you." 

He doesn't say a word, but he's drawing himself back onto his haunches. It does nothing but give Rhett more room to torment you, even if his fingers have already stilled to a halt. You'll never understand how they manage to give you the same damned look, furrowed brows, and tilted heads, like two puppies trying to figure out what you're asking of them. 

"Can't yet," you choke. It's so hard to find words when Bobby's still rolling into you, balls gently smacking against your ass. "Wanna..." you're trying to motion with your hand, but all you can manage is to flail your palm in Rhett's general direction.

But Rhett's figured you out. You know he has because his eyebrows rise, incredulous. "Wantin' both of us in the same night, huh?" 

For a moment, you think you've won. His hand draws away as he moves to sit up, instead opting to tangle his hand in Bobby's hair and pull him in for a kiss that you hear more than you see. Wet lips smacking together, Rhett seeming to groan purely from Bob's little whine. 

He's close. You can feel it. The way he's twitching inside of you, spontaneous motions of muscle that have no right to spark a fire within you. Burning up into your chest, eating away at the oxygen in your lungs. Rhett may have given up on getting you close. He may be sidling up behind Bobby again. But he might as well still be tormenting your clit, because that heat is spreading, and a familiar coil is beginning to tighten, clamping down around Bob's throbbing cock. 

Rhett's big palm slides down Bobby's chest. Doesn't stop until he can pinch a perky little nipple.

Bobby yelps. And it's like he's been kicked back into gear because his hand is dipping between your legs, thumb stroking up your soaked folds, picking up right where Rhett left off. Rubbing feather light spirals into your clit. Shouldn't be enough contact to satisfy you, and yet the faintness of it all is somehow too much. 

"I'm—I'm," he's stuttering, head shaking back and forth like he can fight off the feeling bubbling in his lower belly. 

You should stop him here. You don't have anything to clean up with. If he cums in you, it's going to be in you for the whole damn night, making a mess of you, your clothes, and the sheets. And yet your legs are tightening around him anyway, ankles locked behind him, and you're nodding. In the same damn boat as him. "Uhuh." 

His whimper cuts through the air. Pretty blue eyes rolling. The only reason he doesn't collapse on top of you is because of the arm Rhett's coiled around his waist. Hips stuttering to a sudden halt. Shoves you over the edge before you can think twice. Back arching up off the bed, cumming around his spasming cock with a cry you're certain the whole fucking building hears.

But clarity doesn't come to you. 

There's no dawn of realization as your muscles quit twitching. Your shaky inhale does nothing to put out the embers still raging deep in your bones. Isn't a hint of sudden overexposure as you pry your eyes open, weakly smiling up at Bobby's sweaty face. You don't mind them seeing you like this at all.

Gingerly, Bob leans back, taking his time as he pulls out of your cunt; the muscles there still clenching around him, even if you can no longer feel that you're doing it. He barely has the energy to settle beside you, a warm arm resting across your stomach, pressing chaste kisses to your shoulder. 

In the back of your mind, you think you can feel his cum spilling out of you. 

"Shit, Bobby," Rhett murmurs, a wayward finger rising to push it back inside; you can't imagine what that must look like, "made a fuckin' mess."

The only remark he receives is Bob's half attempt at a grumble. Not his fault that you defiantly pulled him deeper, rather than push him away. But he does have the strength to reach for Rhett's forgotten cock, half hard and still just as flushed as it was before. Seems to know what he's doing when he flicks his wrist because Rhett's entire body jerks.

Your foot kicks his thigh, "still not done, cowboy,"

"You're somethin' else," he chuckles, with the faintest shake of his head, like he can't believe what's happening, "both of ya, actually." 

But first, it seems he's got something else in mind. Rubbing up the inside of Bob's knee, breaching into the territory of his pale thighs, not particularly thick but just plush enough to grab a handful of. Squeezing, kneading the fat between his big fingers. 

Bob's idle hand keeps stroking him. Slow ups and downs that work him back up until Rhett's leaking into his palm, angry red tip demanding attention. You have to roll onto your side to get a better look, the show only stopping long enough for Bob to lick the pad of his thumb, bringing it back to massage over the engorged head. 

A beat passes. He does it again.

"If y' wanted to taste me, all ya had to do was ask," Rhett's fighting to speak through his grin, and you're primarily certain he's joking, but there's an undertone of seriousness hidden there, too. 

That's all Bob needs to hear. "So come up here, then."

And who would Rhett be to deny him? Climbing up to straddle Bob's pale chest, leaning forward to grab hold of the headboard, his other hand guiding his cock to that cute, waiting mouth. Greeted with a shy kitten lick at first, unfamiliar with the ropes. 

Your jaw aches just looking at the size of Rhett. Can't imagine what it must feel like for Bobby when he hesitantly parts his lips, taking him in, heavy on his tongue.

He's still new to this. Can't take very much into his mouth before he starts to gag, but his hand works what he can't fit, the corners of his eyes glistening with fresh tears. Whining his frustrations, breathing hard through his nose.

"There y' go," Rhett's sucking in a breath, "fuckin' fast learner, ain't you?"

It's impossible to reign in your laugh, "You're telling me." The mess between your legs is a testament of its own, sensitive and aching, whether it be craving from more or exhaustion, you can't tell.

"Eager as hell, too," Rhett's eyes roll; you wish you had a camera to capture that sight for the rest of forever. "Shit." 

All Bob can do is whine. Mouth too full to do anything else, trying his best to lift his head and take more of Rhett's cock, even with the fingers tangling in his hair, trying to pull him back. Lips struggling to stay closed around him, knocked loose by Rhett's slow thrust.

"That good?" You murmur, so fixated on the sight of him that you've forgotten everything else. 

It sounds like he tries to hum a little "uhuh" in response. Muffled, racing all the way up Rhett's sensitive spine. Has him jerking away with a gasp. Gripping the base of his cock with his fist like he's trying to chase off the twinges of sensitivity. 

"Did I do something wrong?" Bobby's tone is frail. One loud noise, and it'll shatter into a million tiny pieces.

Rhett's breath slides between his closed teeth on its way back out. "Complete opposite, actually." A beat passes, and he's on the move again. Sliding down the bed, his hands coming to settle on your hips, squeezing lightly.

It's hard to tell if it's you or Bob who yelps. But one way or another, you've found yourself face down on the mattress. The whole damn world spinning around you, struggling to catch up. Has he always been that strong, or are you actually dreaming these things up?

"Chris above," Bob mutters, "since when were you able to do that?"

Rhett's not done. Lifting your hips until your knees slip beneath you, propping your ass up for him. "Y' wrangle enough calves 'n eventually it becomes second nature,"

You can't believe what you're hearing, blindly kicking with your foot once more. Miss. "Are you really comparing me to one of your cattle right now?"

"A mighty cute one," a wet noise emanates through the room as his cock smacks against your cunt, "if that makes it any better." 

So long as he doesn't give you any ear tags, you suppose.

Maybe you've bitten off more than you can chew because, from the moment he nudges into you, one thing becomes painfully clear. He's so much thicker than Bob is. Stretching you even wider, has to pause to slick himself with lube because even with the obscene mixture of Bob's saliva and cum, it's not enough. 

"Still so fuckin' tight," he hisses, grabbing a greedy handful of your ass. You don't know if you're tight or if he's just big, splitting you wide open, forcing the air from your lungs, eating up every bit of space you could possibly offer.

Thunder rumbles. The streetlight flickers like a candle. Off, on, off, then on again. Wind howls outside of the window, seems to be squeezing through the cracks of the seal because you don't know where else that cool breeze would be coming from. But it's no match for the heat radiating off Rhett's big chest, snug against your naked back as he presses kisses to your shoulder. Still pressing into you. Inch by devastating inch. Until his hips are flat against your ass, not a centimeter between your bodies.

You'd try to lift your head if you weren't fighting to keep it attached to your shoulders. Feels like it's about to spin right off your shoulders. 

"Y' alright?" Rhett's asking so gently, infuriatingly, sets a half dozen butterflies fluttering in your belly. 

As if this is an appropriate situation for them to be showing their flashy little wings. 

"Move," it's only one word, and yet, you damn near have to strangle it out of your throat. 

Rhett doesn't need another ounce of encouragement. Pulling himself back with all the power and confidence of a man who knows what he's doing. So thick that he hits those little nerves without the slightest effort, strikes them hard as he snaps back into you. Balls smacking into your oversensitive clit. His soft grunts nearly washed over by the smack of skin on skin.

"Bobby really did a number on ya," marveling aloud, so focused on the mess made of your pussy that you can feel the warmth of his gaze. Sticky cum audibly squelching inside of you, about to be so, so much worse once he's done with you. 

But you can't think about that right now. Not when he's kissing up your spine, forearms bracketing your hips, keeping you from sliding up the bed and away from the heavy punches of his cock. "Y've no idea," kiss. "How much," another kiss, groaning under his breath. "I've wanted this." Kiss.

Your head tilts, peering over your shoulder, straining for a look at his flushed face. "You been dreaming 'bout fucking us, cowboy?" Taunting. A little too confident for someone split open on his dick.

"I'm the reason all our folks were worried," he's taking it all in stride, leaning back, sweaty chest glistening in the light as if to give you a show, "still waitin' to wake up 'n learn this is all a dream."

He leans off to the side. Feeling around, digging through the pocket of his discarded pants. Produces something shiny. Enough to make Bob's breath catch, but far too small for you to see what the hell it is. 

And he sets it right against your ass. Metal so cold that it's the only thing you can think of. Round. With a little—

"Oh my god," you gasp through a whimper. Suddenly have the strength to rise onto your forearms, trying your damnest to defy the laws of your body and turn your head all the way around. "My promise ring?" 

"Y' told me to do somethin' with it," he grins, downright devilish. An idle hand reaches below your belly, feeling around. 

"I told you to make it disappear," the fight leaves your tone the moment his fingers press to your clit. What strength you have fades from your body in an instant, suddenly unable to think of anything but the motion of his fingertips. "Christ, Rhett." 

Next to you, Bob seems to have stolen your energy, moving to sit up, unable to rest and watch any longer. You can barely see the way he sidles up next to Rhett, soft cock pressing into his thigh, kissing at that pale, sweaty neck, defiantly sucking a mark into the skin there. Seems to match the one Rhett left on Bob's neck earlier.

Rhett twitches inside of you. Keening in his throat. Doesn't realize what he's just knocked into. Electricity bolting up your spine. Arms going weak. So sensitive all of a sudden, pussy spasming around him. Driven by the spirals of his fingers and the sweet grunts that kiss your ears.

"Rhett," you're collapsing down into the pillow once more, writhing. Panting for a breath you can't catch. "fuck, I...I—"

His hips stutter. "I know it," breathy, rhythm quickening with an urgency you recognize too well, "c'mon, cum 'round my cock, doll."

You don't know where it's come from. All at once, your nerves are on fire, and you're shaking from head to toe. Biting into the pillow. Fighting to keep quiet as he fucks you, fat cock head rubbing against those little nerves over and over and over. You're gonna...you're gonna...

It washes over you like an ocean wave on a serene afternoon. Slow. Starts with a twitch in your foot and boils higher. Tightening like a vice as you cum around his cock. Mewling into the open air, head spinning. And yet you're just conscious enough to feel the stutter of Rhett's hips. Cumming inside of you with a guttural groan that rumbles deep into your bones. Think you can feel him twitching, throbbing as he pumps you full. Only adding to the mess they've made. 

A mess that you have no idea how you'll clean up.

But for right now, you don't have much energy to be thinking about that. Because Rhett's collapsing into you, smothering you into the bed, and Bobby's coming down, too. Forming a big, sweaty pile on top of you. Arms wind around you. Kisses pepper your skin. It happens so quickly, and yet, you already don't know where they start and end. 

And they're warm. 

"We've made such a mess," Bob giggles, the tip of his nose bumping into your forehead. 

Yes, you have. But all you can think about is squirming backward, stealing the heat radiating from Rhett's naked body, hugging someone's arm to your chest. You don't think you'll have the strength to move in the morning. Or the day after that, for that matter. 

Frankly, you don't think they will be able to, either. 

---

A part of you expects to wake up to the crushing reality of regret. That someone has had time to simmer on what happened and has decided this isn't what they really want. That it was just a heat-of-the-moment thing. A mistake made over some well-timed hormones and poor thinking.

Not one bit of you expects what you're actually greeted with. 

Two sleepy bodies. Kissing up on you. Whispering sweet nothings into your ear as they bicker and fight over who gets to kiss your lips. Heads knocking together. Messy hair poking up in every direction as they struggle for dominance. Each stubborn in their own, adorable right.  

It's not until later that you realize they're just as serious about this as you are. 

It happens some time after Rhett bends Bobby over. Bob's inexperienced but eager tongue drawing an orgasm out of you before you've truly adjusted to the sight of him between your legs. Drooling. Whining as Rhett drills into him from behind, neglected cock bouncing between his pale legs, struggling to keep upright. 

You reckon this is what you looked like last night. God, just the thought of it makes you sore. 

Fresh tears spill down Bobby's face. Overwhelmed but too into it to stop, as his trembling body collapses on top of you. Lips still slick with your wetness, shuddering like a leaf in the Wyoming wind. Muttering weakly for Rhett not to stop. Leaning into your hand as it tangles through his hair. 

He's cute, like this. Trying his damnest to keep up with Rhett, leaning on you to keep himself from falling apart at the seams. With his flushed cheeks and pitchy noises. So loud and unlike him. Confident when it's just the three of you. Unashamed to babble for Rhett to cum in him. Doesn't fear the cleanup that will involve or the short amount of time you have to get out of this hotel, lest they charge for another day.

No, you don't realize until after they both tumble on top of you. Heaving chests and tangled legs, pinned up against one another like sardines in a can despite the ample room available.

"Can I convince you two to get breakfast with me?" Bob's soft voice kisses your ears with its appearance. "I'll buy."

And all Rhett does is laugh. Loud. Hearty. The kind that makes his head tilt backward, curls bouncing. "Oh, so now y' wanna wine 'n dine us." He grins, palm coming down to lightly smack Bob's ass. Knocks a surprised whimper out of him. "Got that a lil backwards, Bobby."

Bob's eyes roll; he should have seen that remark coming a mile away. "I'm offering you free food, you dumb cowboy."

"Hey now," Rhett's still chuckling, the prettiest noise you've ever heard, "I never said I wouldn't take ya up on it." 

Two pairs of blue eyes turn to you. Each glistening with their own form of excitement and hope that you've come to recognize over the years. You know it better than you know yourself. How Bobby offers you his every emotion on a silver platter. The way Rhett fails to hide the soft fondness reserved for you and Bob.

"Breakfast sounds good," and unknowingly, you've sealed your fate. 

Not that you mind. Of course. 

 The drive takes twice as long as it was supposed to. Not one of you can keep your eyes on the road for longer than a few hours at a time. Too eager for kisses and fleeting touches and the shy, awkward giggles that come with crossing into this unfamiliar territory. Cramming yourselves into the backseat for an uncomfortable but cozy nap when the road becomes too much to handle.

When you were kids, your attachment issues were horrible. Not one of you could go without the other. Bobby sulked and refused to socialize with anyone who wasn't the two of you. Rhett raised hell when he was placed in a class away from you and Bob. Your entire week would be ruined if you couldn't go out on one of your adventures with the Abbott and Floyd boys. 

You'd thought those issues had faded with time. A sort of thing melted by maturity and the understanding that separation would not be forever.

You were wrong. 

When it comes time for Rhett to part ways to get ready for the rodeo to start, your heart defiantly aches. Isn't helped by the number of kisses he showers you and Bob with, the way he refuses to let go of your hands until the very last second. It's dumb, and it's childish, and you can't help it. Emotions are hard to handle. Especially ones that have been pent up for several years.

So you and Bob glue to each other. Share the same gasp when Rhett bursts from the chute. Unable to breathe as that beast of an animal bucks and twists through the air. Fighting with everything it has to get him off its back. The crowd roars for a cowboy they've never seen before and shoots to their feet before the buzzer sounds. 

You don't see him fall off, but Bob catches sight of him bounding out of the arena. Disappearing once more, mixed in with the other riders. There and gone in less than a minute. All that driving done for such little time in the limelight. The only confirmation he was really there is when his name soars up onto the scoreboard.

He doesn't appear again until after the rodeo. When you and Bob stand idly by the parking lot, ears pricked for the sound of his voice, unsure if you're in the right place or not. These rodeos are never the same. Sometimes the riders come out into the parking lot. Other times, they wind up on the far side of the stadium, where they have no reason to be.

It's the clank of spurs that give him away. Moseying out from behind a gate, 

His name still sits on the scoreboard, occupying the second-place slot. Got knocked down a peg by a bull rider with a hell of a ride. He should be cussing. Scowling that he almost had it, he'll do better next time and won't be beaten out by dumb luck. But that version of Rhett doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Because he's running. Arms wide open. A big, dopey grin on his scruffy face as he downright jumps on you and Bob. Spinning, dragging you two along with him like he's just won the lottery. Streetlight casting a perfect, golden glow on his handsome face. 

He steals a kiss from your lips before you can register it. 

Then one from Bob, too. 

"Are you alright?" You're blinking. Once. Twice. But the illusion never fades; it's as real as you are.

All Rhett can do is grin. "Never better."  But the corner of his lip twitches; knows exactly what he's doing.

"You're sure?" Bobby's falling right into his trap. Forever blind to the antics of a dumb cowboy.  "You only act like this when you win."

"But I did win,"  Rhett beams, far too proud of himself, as he opens his mouth and says, "I got both of you, didn't I?"

...

huh.

Bob's groan resonates from the very depths of his soul. Eyes rolling. "Oh my god."  Physcially needs to turn and look away, as if the very sight of Rhett pains him.

A smile bursts out onto your face. Truly don't know what you were expecting, all things considered. "How long were you working on that one?"

Rhett's grin grows impossibly brighter; you reckon the streetlights are jealous of its shine. "Stole it from the fella in sixth place, actually." 

And with a wink, he starts to walk. On a one-way track to the car, he doesn't need to look over his shoulder to see if you'll follow or not. He knows you will. You all know it.

It will take twice the amount of time to get back to town. But as you and Bob stumble after your shared cowboy like a pair of too-eager puppies, you can't help but wonder if the home is where your boyfriends are. Wherever that may be.

Even in run-down hotels out in the middle of nowhere, as much as you may complain about it.

[hoshinoyozora]

The Immortal’s Feelings

🖤 Pairing: Yandere! Malleus Draconia x Female! Reader feat. Silver

💛 Word Count: 0,7k+

❤ Warnings: -

[Edited]

Do not re-upload my writing to another website or use it without my permission. Also, don’t ask for a sequel unless I like the story enough to write one. Please reblog so other people can see my stories!***

I’m not a psychology student, but I think it’s interesting how (forced) transformation can affect human psyche. Then again, my depiction won’t be perfect considering I’m someone with neutral feelings nearly all the time (at least enough until some people close to me call me emotionless lmao).

“Why did you become a knight, Silver?”

You sipped the tea calmly and gracefully; an act that was enough to make the majority of people here acknowledged you as their queen, but never enough to make them accept you. At least, all those tedious lessons about table manners paid off somewhat.

“Because I want to repay my father and His Majesty’s kindness.”

“I see.” you mused, putting down the cup on the saucer with a soft clink. “So, I guess no matter what I do, you’ll always be loyal to him, huh…”

Silver gripped his knees.

“You are the queen, so I’ll still obey your orders.”

“Anyone can obey me, but not everyone can be loyal to me. That’s probably the first thing I’ve learned since my… coronation.”

You hated that word. It sounded too noble, too posh, too heavy. As if it was something you should be honored with, rejoiced over. It might be better to rule over the people who hated you rather than live among them, but it didn’t make the experience any less unpleasant.

“I won’t lie and say that what he did was right, but fairies tend to love intensely.”

“And humans love freedom. They need it, even. But, at the end of the day, I’m just an artificial fae, aren’t I?” you sneered. “Even humanity feels alien to me now, like a concept too abstract for me to understand.”

The last part came out more as a heartfelt confession than a bitter remark. Sometimes you woke up and felt a deep hollowness inside your chest, as if someone had ripped your heart out and left you as a husk. Or a robot, because you were still functional. Yes, you did your duty as a queen and a wife; a routine that was as normal as sleeping and eating now. There were times when you experienced any kind of emotion too, and you quickly forgot the reason behind it. Why were you happy? Why were you sad? It didn’t make any sense. Your brain had overpowered your body at this point, and what was left of your heart was used to accommodate the petty offense over an insult, perceived or not.

Back then, you would’ve called it embarrassing. Nobody should be sensitive enough to attack someone just because they forgot to greet you. But now, you’d made great use of Malleus by ordering him to publicly humiliate the offender. Something still caught you from committing a worst act, though, and you weren’t sure whether you should be relieved or not. Whether it was your lingering humanity or the warnings you’d gotten from people who deemed themselves important enough to not embarrass yourself.

And yet, Malleus was happy. Proud, even. Although you’d learned it was much better to use him than defy him, anger would resurface and remind you that asking for his help was similar to needing him. Then, memories of him forcing you to marry him and transforming you into a pathetic, subpar version of himself would spark all the forgotten feelings, only for them to disappear when you tried so hard to remember why you hated Malleus in the first place.

It was a confusing event all around, and your husband, with his limited knowledge of human psyche and the effect of your transformation, chalked it up to ‘mood swing’. Still, it did change your attitude to everyone else and led them to look at you the same way they looked at Malleus; with fear, and probably less respect.

After all, you were nothing without him.

But then, you spotted Silver helping his sparring partner from the ground and remembered that humanity was about helping each other. At least, that was what you thought, until you heard his explanation.

“… I have nothing to say, Your Majesty.” Silver admitted shamefully.

You closed your eyes and sighed.

“Of course, you don’t. You’re just a human raised by faes. You know about humanity as much as I do.” You waved your hand dismissively. “Now, leave. I want to be alone right now.”

You heard the chair scrape against the stone masonry, but you didn’t bother to acknowledge his respectful bow. It was only after he went inside the castle, did you open your eyes and peer down through the balcony.

A few mortal servants and knights scattered here and there, and you wondered whether you could sway this minority group to join your side with your experiences as a former human.

[super-paper]

:re your tags about body motifs in bnha got me curious about something. I can think off the top of my head several examples of how this applies to the trio, and a couple more about how this applies to AFO. But can I ask you to expand on how the eye motif is present in AFO specifically? The hands and mouth are obvious, but I can't say I've ever picked up on the symbolism around eyes when it comes to him. Well, unless you're referring to that scene with the sensors in Tartarus. But I'm curious if there's more that I missed, and since I'm a slut about themes and symbolism (and the eye theme relating to the todofam in particular), I would love a deep dive into it and how they're connected, if you don't mind sharing, of course 👀 Really love your meta btw

Thank youu~!

Yea, the eyes def receive less focus overall compared to the emphasis placed on AFO's mouth/hands-- but I feel that AFO's association with eyes is still pretty important even if they don't get as much focus, and the rare scenes where we -do- get to focus on his eyes + his relationship with eyes do a lot for his character.

↑ Breaking down AFO's character design to its barest essentials, you can see Hori more or less designed his "true" appearance with these three elements in mind: mouths, hands, and eyes. A perpetual mask-like grin, the stigmata marks to both hands, and completely blank white eyes. Hori uses the composition and lighting in his art to further emphasize these aspects, usually by placing focus on one part/motif at a time-- AFO is essentially introduced to us in pieces, bit by bit, body part by body part.

I would say act 1 focuses primarily on his hands, while act 2 shifts to focusing on his mouth/smile. The final act is where we finally start exploring AFO's relation to eyes-- and imo, Hori chose to focus on AFO's eyes last b/c AFO's eyes seem to be what connect him to his humanity and """true""" feelings:

Panels that emphasize AFO's eyes specifically are almost always tied to Yoichi! It's a neat and completely loaded little detail. In what's heavily implied to be the aftermath of Yoichi's death, we suddenly shift from obscuring AFO's eyes to obscuring his mouth-- the total reverse of how he's typically depicted during flashback scenes. His eyes (and tears) receive all the focus. The narration doesn't match or address what we're actually*seeing* in a fashion that's eerily similar to the way that Tomura narrates over the deaths of his family. There's a lot of set up here already, and I'm looking forward to see how it all ultimately pays off.

And if eyes are ultimately the motif that ties AFO to his humanity, then the lack of eyes throughout Act's 1 & 2 also feels intentional.

Blank eyes are also a design trait he shares with Twice (i.e. "Guy whose own quirk drove him to insanity and completely wrecked his sense of identity/individuality") and Sir Nighteye (i.e. "Guy whose quirk lets him see into the future of others, and the future he saw caused him to fall into despair and become a bitter husk of his former self")-- both characters are depicted w/ blank eyes for 90% of their screen time, but "gain" pupils during key scenes. Twice stands out in particular, bc Hori starts consistently drawing him with pupils immediately after he's able to verify his identity and overcome the trauma associated with his quirk.

Also worth mentioning: Jin kicks off his entire arc talking about the importance of knowing who you are and lamenting about the pains that come with losing sight of yourself/no longer being able to connect with or trust others, and he completes his arc by affirming that he knows exactly who he is and dedicating his heart completely to others. Nighteye's entire arc is about smashing past his fear of the future and the fear of change while *also* learning to value Mirio and Izuku as individuals instead of merely viewing them as vessels for OFA. Both arcs are very much relevant to AFO's whole deal as a character/antagonist and the overall theme(s) of MHA as a whole. Twice and Nighteye serve as semi-heroic foils to AFO who manage overcome the same shortcomings that AFO implicitly struggles with, specifically because they allowed themselves to care about others-- So imo it's neat that these three all share this particular design trait!

they're also the two characters whose deaths have the most narrative impact outside of Yoichi and Nana/The Shimura Fam (whoops)

The final act has also been placing more and more emphasis on how a person's eyes look when they finally get to be their best selves and follow their dreams, and how they sparkle and shine when they think about their origins and their hopes for the future (and I've talked about how this contrasts with Tomura's fairly dead-eyed expression whenever he talks about his "dreams" of destroying everything before (link!), so I'm pretty pleased that the narrative is now calling attention to how a person's eyes look + making the total lack of ~shine~ in Tomura's eyes a very intentional thing).

AFO addresses this directly-- on the surface, he appears to be echoing Touya's desire to be "seen" and expresses resentment that people aren't looking at him. But where Touya longs to be seen in a way that truly validates his humanity and reason for existing, AFO instead wants to be "seen" as something completely devoid of those human qualities. Dabi wants people to see Touya, Mysterious Shigaraki X only wants people to see "AFO." He wants to be a looming, mythical figure who blots out the sun itself-- and when people look towards their future, they should only be seeing a path that ends with him and him alone:

This sequence will never not be thematically relevant

Tomura, Himiko, and Touya all desire the basic human connections that are associated with Hands/Mouths/Eyes. Even as they continue to lash out and use their respective motifs in increasingly violent/self-destructive ways, their core desire never changes. The desire to be touched gently, the desire to be spoken to like a normal girl, and the desire to be truly seen-- that longing for human intimacy (and who they ultimately seek understanding/intimacy from) betrays what their true desires are more than anything else.

AFO shares the same body motifs as the hero and villain trios, but he's a corrupted version of those motifs and represents what hands/mouths/eyes are capable of at their absolute worst. AFO doesn't truly "see" others. AFO doesn't see people as individuals, he only sees them as extensions of himself or as bit-part "roles" to be played out in his increasingly off-the-rails real people fanfiction. AFO doesn't want people to look to the future or even attempt looking beyond him. AFO doesn't want anyone to see what lies behind his shadowy mask and the AFO persona. AFO counts on society to avert their eyes from problems and pretend they don't see, so he can swoop in and play the benevolent savior to those who have been abandoned. AFO doesn't want anyone to see "Tenko," he only wants them to see "Shigaraki." Et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Anyway--!!

There's also the underlying implication that AFO wants everyone to have eyes that are just like his:

Blank. Empty. Completely devoid of spark and soul, pushed past the brink of total despair, with no hope whatsoever for a future.

[hirschkuh-im-traum]

Your scent

smells surround us everywhere and each of us has our own. a smell can tell as much about a person as the decisions they make in their life. the main thing is to understand the smell rightly. smells are especially important in hell. they're like the second face. so what do the inhabitants of the hotel smell like?

.・。.・゜✭・Charlie・✫・゜・。.

The first scent of her that you smelled, when you first came into the hotel and found yourself in Charlie's tight embrace, was the smell of an apple. This essence follows her whenever she goes. It isn't the smell of baked apples, but fresh cut fruits. The smell is strong, and like with most of inhabitants of the hotel, firstly her smell enters the room and then she herself. When Charlie places her hands on your shoulders and squeezes you tight because you've done her exercise good, you can smell polyfloral honey, chestnuts, bitterness of almonds. But like all the demons there is something unpleasant in her scent. You feel the hellish smell from her — the smell of sulfur and iron. The odour becomes stronger when the princess goes mad; the scent of red crunchy apples turns into overripe fruit smell, sickly-sweet and putrid. But mostly of the time Charlie smells like a good August apple, and somehow her fresh scent invigorates you and your friends.

.・。.・゜✭・Vaggie・✫・゜・。.

Her scent is almost imperceptible. When she comes up to you, or when she passes you by, the air stays clean, as if nobody were here. But the essence becomes cognizable, when Vaggie stays around you. Your nose need time to catch that slight scent. Vaggie smells like rain and stones, like steel and silk, like clouds and feathers; fresh, thin, light. It is like a clean white pillowcase, washed long ago but untouched. You lean closer over her to draw in more of her barely perceptible aroma, but Vaggie frowns at you with an awkward smile and walks away. The fragile scent disappears the second she leaves you alone.

.・。.・゜✭・Sir Pentious・✫・゜・。.

He always uses a strong cologne, pungent and old-fashioned. You don't like his habit to use so much perfume, because it covers his natural hell smell. But once you had a chance to know his natural scent. That day Cherry Bomb came to the hotel, and as Sir Pentious becomes very nervous every time he sees her, hastening to her, he stumbled and fell. His top hat rolled to your feet. You took it by its brims and swirled in your hands. You felt warmth radiating from the hat. Without thinking you wanted to try it on, but when you approached it to your head, your nose smelled something. Machine oil, scorching bitumen, slight tread of rust or copper, dry scales skin, old parchment... It was hot-brown and dry smell, that made you think about the things Sir Pentious could create with his mind and hands. But the top hat was harshly taken away from your hands. You looked up and saw Sir Pentious putting his hat on his head with an annoyed hiss, "Don't touch elsssse's thingssss, (Y/n)" And then he ran (creeped?) to Cherry happily waving his hand.

.・。.・゜✭・Angel Dust・✫・゜・。.

He smells sweet, very sweet, and you feel it the most when Angel huges you tight and presses you to his fluffy chest. It's the most aromatic part of him. You breathe in the sweet, orcid pink smell. It's like powered sugar, there is something vanilla, milky and berrish. It is impossible to break away from him. But sometimes Angel, after the whole day of absence, comes to the hotel exhausted. He smiles weakly at you, and weakly hugs you. Then you feel he is saccharine. His usual scent has turned into something twisted, lustful, opiumly, dopey — the scent that drives demons insane and makes you feel dizzy. You know it isn't the aroma of Angel, he is the carrier of it. You lift your head to face him and say, "C'mon, Biscottino, I'll fill the bath for you, bring you your popsicle, and not a soul will ever find you under the warmth blacket I'll cover you up with." His look becomes soft and he let you lead him to his room.

.・。.・゜✭・Husk・✫・゜・。.

Strange. You're sure, Husk doesn't smoke, but still somehow you can smell a slight scent of tobacco coming from him. This astringent essence is mixed with the aroma of his favourite liquor; it's smooth, deep, dark. And of course he smells like a kitty. Soft fluffy scent calms you down even more than his supporting words. You press closer to him when he asks you if you're alright. You are not. He stands moveless for a while, and then you feel a soft paw petting your head. You sniff and recognise tender badian smell. To feel his scent is like to sit in front of a fireplace enjoying the warmth and pleasant smell of burning firewoods. So homey and cosy. "C'mon, kid. Chin up." You take a slight step away making last deep breath. Old postcards, borrowed bills, ice for cocktails. "Thank you," You say. You really feel better now. Husk frowns at you with an uncomprehending smile. "Well," His voice is velvet and low, "Do you wanna drink?" You smile at him and nod your head.

.・。.・゜✭・Niffty・✫・゜・。.

The little demon smells like all the chemicals she uses in cleaning. Her hands became permeated with the smell of soap, floor and window cleaner, washing powder. The odour is fresh but acid. But if you sniff good at her hair or her cheeks, you'll notice a sweet-sour scent. A scent of a lollipop. A lollipop from your past. Your past from the earth life, from your childhood. The little chaotic demon makes you revive your memories with just her tart multifruit scent, that almost makes tears forming in your eyes. Then Niffty looks at you innocently, puts her tiny palm on your cheek in a way if she was a somnabulist. The squeaky-soap smell of her hand makes you come back to reality. You blink, she takes her hand away. "Don't be a mess," Says the girl and jumps off your knees. You follow her moving away figure with your eyes trying not to forget the candy tart smell.

.・。.・゜✭・Alastor・✫・゜・。.

He's the owner of the most sharp, bitter, astringent scent. In his scent mixed all his sins and the things you can't imagine him without: blood of the killed and dust from the bookshelves, flesh of his victims and smell of spices from the kitchen, suphur stench of hell and loneliness of woods. Rich, strange, captivating due its plenty smell. You can't help yourself taking deeper breaths to take his aroma wholly, when Alastor is around you. You know some salty scent comes from his clothes that were soaked with blood countless times, and you wish to perceive his clear and natural smell. Twilight forest, mahogany, musk and fur, damp soil, blood. That's what you inhale, when you make a cautious slowly breath leaning closer to his neck. Alastor's untied his bowtie and undid the top couple of buttons. He sits at the bar sipping his favourite whisky. "Dear, what are you doing?" Alastor asks with husky tipsy voice. "Cognizing you," is your answer.

*. ⋆ ✧.·:·.* ☽ ･ ｡ﾟ･ ☾ *.·:·.✧ *. ⋆

p.s.

yeah i didn't want to write until i take all my exams, but today i passed my last test, so i feel myself a little bit more free now, so here i am with a little headcanon (*＾＾*)//

the next thing i'll write will be the third part of ma poupée, so stay tuned~

[noemilivv]

Hi! I just saw your post of the Hazbin hotel mashup! Can I have mine? I have to say I’ve been binge reading all of your works, they are really good!

My name is Melody

Pronouns: I don’t mind pronouns, any is fine but most people use she/they for me

Personality: I would say I’m shy and quite at first but when you get to know me I become very loud, energetic. Practically become the sunshine character + golden retriever in books, my friends tell me anyways. Which I see it. I also become really sassy overtime but in a kind way? I don’t know how to describe it, I become sassy to the person when I know them really well. I’m also very sarcastic as well

style: My style changes a lot to be honest, haven’t quite figured it out. But I would say my style is mix of romantic, dark and light academic and cottagecore

love language: physical touch is up there but when I know that the person close to me that doesn’t like physical touch (example: my friends), I show them my love for them by gift giving but hand made

hobbies: drawing, painting, poetry, reading, pottery, archery, writing

Interests: heavy on fantasy (Merlin BBC, Doctor Who, The hobbit, Lord of the rings), anything mythical, Greek mythology, true crime, history

appearance: I have a medium length butterfly cut, black hair but red is in there as well. You can see the red only when the sun hits my hair. I’m 5’3, dark brown eyes and Carmel skin

Dislike(s): rude people, people who does not have any manners, bitter food, really spicy food I only can take mild spice 🥲

Like(s): books, animals all kind, nature, sweets (I’m a sweet tooth person), all kinds of music it all depends on my mood, stuff animals, flowers, all kinds of potatoes (hash browns, chips etc)

Hopefully that’s enough information, sorry if it’s a lot! Take care of yourself and have a lovely day/afternoon/night :]

AAAA i love hearing people binge read my stuff and enjoy it, so tysm!!💕💕 i didn’t get what gender you preferred so i hope what i picked is okay but here is my pick for you…

Husker !!

First then I thought of when you said you have ‘sunshine + golden retriever’ energy was AAA HUSK ‘grumpy + sunshine’ duo and I just about screamed because I fucking live for that shit LMAO

When Husk first met you, he instantly likes you, you were quiet and chill which was a contrast to pretty much everyone at the hotel

But then you guys got closer and started dating BOOM it was like a smack in the face!! Within the blink of an eye, you were this energetic and talkative person! Husk didn’t mind by any means, he was just shocked

Husk doesn’t mind physical touch in small segments, but the fact that you think he is worthy of a gift? He doesn’t understand, but he accepts the gift, even if it’s something stupid

Also your hair matches his color scheme, so I thought that was cute :3

Ya know how Husk takes Angel and dances with him in that one part in ‘Loser, Baby’ in E4, yeah, you too do that shit all the time

[residentmara]

k

When did it happen?

When did the dark fall away... into this?

The dark fell away. The world fell away.

Outside of Arcaea, nothing exists.

She moves her lips, but no atmosphere carries her words.

Nothing is here to vibrate. Sound has gone.

What she sees is... a blurred and strange plane.

It’s as if moving her eyes bleeds space itself.

As if I wasn’t meant to see this.

I thought, for a while, about returning. Perhaps if I’d considered that more seriously, as soon as I

came here, I might have still been able to go back out.

But now, I’ve become lost.

No...

Being "lost" still carries a sense of "place", doesn’t it?

Up, down, left, and right—in fact, the common and cardinal directions...

Those no longer exist. Rather, they stopped existing quite a while ago, and it simply hadn’t

completely registered to me until now... And on that subject ("me"): I don’t believe "I" exist any

longer, either.

You see, my hands have gone. My feet have gone. My legs have gone. My tongue has gone.

Perhaps I’ve become only my eyes, and some lingering shadow of my brain.

That said, that’s... going...

I find that it doesn’t take long to start feeling as if your mind is tearing apart once your motions and

senses have been stripped away. I need to focus—something the god of this world apparently

never did.

......

...Hm.

Yes... the reality created here was truly thoughtless... a design without a blueprint.

A vague impression.

There is earth. There is daylight. After daylight, the night sky and the stars within it.

After that, who knows? You didn’t, evidently.

Honestly...

You. What did you want out of this place? Why did you take me here?

Why did you hide whatever I was before?

I WAS something before. You’ve snatched whatever that was away.

......

Did I die like the others?

Did I die like the girl who loved her brother? Did I die like the girl in red?

Do you think I was afraid of that, perhaps?

This... ha.

What am I meant to take from this? Well?

What am I meant to take from being trapped in this thing that you manifested for yourself?

It was for you, wasn’t it? A paradise... an escape, maybe. How did you do it? Does it matter?

What matters?

...I’m fraying again.

It’s nonsense.

Ha, I... really understand it now: why she hates this world.

Anyone who figures this world out should want to see it gone.

Maybe you think you saved me? You never saved me. Even if you had... it seems I’ve damned

myself, haven’t I? What for?

What do I DO with this?

Charon...

Charon isn’t here, right? Is my body here? I want to—

Let me...

LET me vanish... Why did Charon STOP me then? Looking back—

Am I looking back?

Are my eyes still here?

I can’t see it.

Where was I?

No, no, no.

No, no, I really can’t return?

I can’t get out of here?

I can’t move?

No, really, I can’t?

I could bite through the entirety of my nails, if I still had them.

You know...

Although you might have crafted me from one...

I am NOT a husk.

I feel this. I do not WANT this.

Can you hear my thoughts?

I wanted NONE of this.

I wanted to KNOW.

KNOWING means THIS?

There is NOTHING—

......

...Knowing it’s nothing...

It feels like scum is building in my stomach... Stomach? Stomach? And... where are my hands?

Right... I lost them...

——

You cannot call this light.

What exists around me is indescribable.

I think, when I left the ruined world and entered the Void, I welcomed the dark.

It was different. It wasn’t blinding. It wasn’t "obvious".

Light, darkness: basic things I’ve seen in countless worlds.

The light is warm and welcoming; the darkness is frightful and unknown.

But still, I wished to know the dark.

......

I felt it implicitly, and learned it soon: that this world was made as a sanctuary for a weak heart.

But that is not me.

I am not the weak-hearted person who created this refuge.

And if I had created it, I would have done it better...

Charon showed... shows that.

I marched ahead into the dark because I wanted to find a better truth.

However, the truth is as bitter and merciless as I’d always assumed.

I’ve been in this state for too long to count. I have lost the minutes and hours.

And every so often I will see it again:

Light—true light—in the distance.

......

Perhaps it has been guiding me.

I wouldn’t admit this, to anyone.

It’s like a loss: relinquishing myself to what I’ve long criticized.

However, I feel it for certain: that light is now beckoning me.

That light of the old world is shining, and wants me.

And in that light I find deliverance...

......

Fine, then. I will take your hand.

As I near it again, I feel my fingertips more, and I swear that I can see my breath.

I think I’m going to return.

If I do, I don’t believe I will take the truth with me.

I will not forget it, but I will surely leave it behind.

I believe it, don’t I?

I could do the job better than that god.

But, I will need hands again for it first.

I shouldn’t simply think or talk that I might be better. I’ll do it. I will.

But really... I am not swelling with pride as I escape here.

Instead, take this as revenge.

I’ll change this world, or craft a better one.

You’ve left this one broken so badly. Isn’t anything possible?

I think so.

No...

I know it.

I know it.

[justaholycorpse]

“The Giant and The Bird”

||König x gn!reader||

PART THREE

a/n: this is the final part of this story(unless y’all want more)! i have a few posts that need to come out after this so keep an eye out for those when they do. On that note: enjoy the slightly different writing style and aesthetic

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Days had continued to pass by like a blur, days bleeding together as you slowly carved into a husk. You had become a different person, detaching from your team and the man you once called “My Giant”, it wasn’t because you were hurt that he forgot about you or because he spent so much time with that medic. You just remembered your place within the team, you are meant to be a soldier, not someone who falls in love with their coworkers. Price knew it better than anyone else on how you were feeling about the sudden change, the old medic had been sent to another team due to them needing him which unfortunately caused you and your team to gain a less than optimal medic. She barely did her job and flirted with him. Which didn’t sit well with you, you were his bird not her, you helped him with his social anxiety when it got too much for him to handle alone. She barely knew how to say his name correctly, you memorized every single way to say it, you memorized everything about him. It was taxing on you, constantly trying to put on a brave face for your team, trying to convince them that you are alright and that you didn’t need more time to yourself. You’d rather hear bombs and gunfire than hear your own thoughts or the way his warmth felt next to you, he was always so warm no matter the weather. You’d rather drink acid than remember how safe and warm in his arms any time he hugged you or how his voice sounded when he said your name. You wanted to forget, just for a moment, everything about him; however it was next to impossible when he was what kept all the evil in the world away. You took a deep breath before knocking on a familiar door, it was late but you had things to say, things you kept quiet about. It ate away at you. Your knuckles met the door three times, soft knocks seeming too loud for this hour, shuffling as someone got out of bed.

She opened the door in his shirt. His sniper mask hastily pulled on to hide his features, you felt a rage bubbling in your veins. ‘I need to speak to König.” You demanded, not wanting to deal with her. ‘Sorry, uhm, who are you?’ Her voice cut through your thoughts, earning her a glare. ‘König. Now.” Your eyes focus on him, you could see his body go tense, you could almost hear him gulp in what seemed to be fear. You took several steps away from the door so he could make it out of his door and stand comfortably within the hallway. ‘Walk with me.’ You commanded, turning on your heel and making your way to the front door, his foot steps following you outside. You could feel the tension between you and him, his warmth a foreign feeling now, especially with the freezing night air. You pointed him to a bench that was probably stolen by Soap to “liven up the place”, which he sat on without protest. ‘We need to talk.’ You stated the obvious, cutting though the almost bitter silence. ‘About what?’ He looked at you though his lashes for a mere second you swore you’d melt, but he looked at his fidgeting hands.

‘The text.’ You finally spoke after some time, you felt yourself growing nervous. You hated to make his anxiety spike but this, here and now in the freezing cold, was one of very few times you’d spike it intentionally. ‘You deleted it when I started texting you. Why?’ Your adrenaline was the one thing keeping you warm while he sat oh so far away from you, he didn’t answer, he didn’t dare look at you. ‘König. Why did you delete the text.’ You watched his chest heave a heavy sigh, he was trying to find the words to tell you why but it never came, words failing him yet again. Silence fell over the both of you for what felt like eternity, another deep breath from the giant man, swallowing his nerves the best he could but his hands still shook. ‘I did not want to hear what you had to say,’ His words cut though you like a dull knife, words caught in your throat as he continued. ‘You do not feel the same I assume so rather than continue to play a game, I deleted the text.’ He drew a breath, almost bracing himself for the inevitable time bomb about to go off. ‘I am happy with her. You cannot change your feelings now.’ You blinked back tears. ‘What?’ Was the only word that spilled over your lips, you felt a crushing weight on your chest. ‘I was going to tell you how much I fucking love you.’ Anger held you in a debilitating grasp, his head whipped up in shock, he saw how tears welled in your eyes and how your brows twitched. You let out a bitter laugh, ‘For fuck sake, König, you immediately assumed I didn’t feel the same? You didn’t even let me fucking speak. You tell me how much you seemingly ‘love’ me but you wasted no time in getting between her fucking legs. Have you ever considered the fact I do love you?’ Anger spilled from your being, shaking from how much you’re letting out. He looked at you with shock, watching you pace back and forth while letting out every emotion you’ve hidden and shoved away. You would angry, who wouldn’t be? He moved on so easily while you sat in your room, tracing your fingers over your arms the same way he did, you stayed up night after night just hoping he would come back. He never came back for you no matter how long you’ve waited, how much you cried and prayed to whatever god is looking down at you. He was so quick to get over you.

‘Did you ever actually love me or was it a stupid fucking game? Did you ever, in your whole god damn life, that maybe just maybe you should’ve wait for me to finish talking? I’m guessing you didn’t because you moved on so fucking quick that it makes me get whiplash. You never actually loved me, did you?’ You stopped your pacing to look at him, he was on his feet now trying to find a moment to cut into your ranting but like a fish out of water, his mouth opened and closed no matter how many times he tried to talk. You shoved him back, anger and tears clouding your vision as you pushed and pushed, throwing a few punches at his stomach and chest. You let out little sobs here and there, bitterness cracking as sorrow seeped into already deep wounds. ‘I fucking loved you, hell, I still love you but you’re already with Miss. ‘I’m so much better than you in every little way’ fuck sake.’ You took steps back as you searched his eyes for anything left of his so called love for you, anything that remained you of the giant you loved before. There were glimpses of that man, but they were far and few between, König finally got the chance to speak, words flooding out of his mouth like a sorry symphony. You tried to listen, you tried to find a reason to forgive him but one question burned behind your eyes, cutting him off you began, ‘So your first thought was ‘let’s go fuck the new medic to make him jealous’? Why not just fucking text me if you didn’t want to talk to me?’ You forced him to think but he searched your eyes yet nothing came. No words, no sounds, only the soft sniffles and panting from you.

‘You really didn’t love me, did you?’ Your words stung to say and for him to hear, it was a heavy bombshell to drop, your shoulders slumped as you nodded. ‘Right, sorry. I forgot that you are exactly how people describe you, a heartless man.’ You glare up at him, it was his turn to cry now but for some reason it felt good to watch him crumble under your gaze. You had finally made him cry, you finally made him feel bad for how empty he suddenly made you feel. ‘I hope she can take care of you the way i took care of you. I doubt she can but don’t come crawling when you realize she only wants you for your dick.’ You snapped, wiping your face before turning and leaving him in the frozen night, hearing the door of your bedroom click closed let you finally let it all out, breaking down as you slid down to the floor. It was over.

[darkdevasofdestruction]

Hello! I gotta tell you that I read your recent Husk x reader fic and I AM IN LOVEEEE!!! I absolutely love it! I keep constantly going back to re-read it!! You’ve truly put your all in all in that fic!! So I’m here’s my question or questions lol. Can you write more based off that fic? IF NOT THATS FINE AS WELL!! I’m just curious, like would Husk and reader tell the everyone about their relationship? Would reader stay at the hotel even if she is an overlord? Would she involve herself in the fight now? UGHH I JUST HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS I CANT EVEN COMPREHEND THEM!!

(If you don’t feel comfortable with this ask/question PLS ignore me! 🙏 I’ll understand if you do lol [also this is my first ever ask on this app, I’m so nervous 😖])

Dont forget to take care of yourself first! Mentally, physically, emotionally, etc! 🫶

Hii! Thank you so much for all the kind words, you made me so happy!!! And I am beyond excited that you liked the story! <3

Secondly, don't be nervous to send asks, darling, you are very much welcome here, and I'm sure all creators are of the same mind <3

As to answer your question - I don't know if I'll write an actual part 2 for the fic (And if I do, I'll probably have to wait for at least Season 2 or so, to get more relevant plot)

However, I can answer your punctual question, and any other thing you'd like to ask about it! (In DMs also, if you feel more comfortable that way ^^)

So, to the question "Would Husk and Reade tell everyone about their relationship?" - They kinda already know.

Alastor brought Reader to the Hotel and was the one to tell her of Husk's existence and position as his vassal/Hazbin's bartender. Angeldust knows the story, and being Husk's friend, he'll easily realise the correlation between Reader having all characteristics mentioned, and Husk's sudden radiance and bliss. That, and Husk will trail around Reader's pretty dress 24/7.

Charlie and Veggie would realise immediately, as soon as Reader's hand is hooked to his arm, and she makes him laugh. They can spot a couple from a mile away, and though Charlie would most likely be the type to throw a celebration party, Vaggie would calm her down immediately and things are fine.

That only leaves Sir Pentious, who silently gushes over how cute they are, and would start asking them for advice, to court Cherry also (and succeed)... And Nifty is just Nifty haha.

---

Second question is - "Would reader stay at the hotel even if she is an overlord?" and the question is - Sometimes. Basically, she would stay where Husk wants to stay. She has her own pretty home, in a rather chill and safe neighbourhood, but the Hotel has Husk's friends, and socialising is important. However, she hates Heaven and doesn't want to ascend - In that regard, she's terrified Husk would become an Angel, and they'd be separated again. On another note, dates at Reader's home are the sweetest and most romantic~ <3

The Third and final question is - "Would she involve herself in the fight now?" and the answer is - HELL YES. She died a violent death, she is spiteful and bitter on life and on death, and most of all, she is angry at Heaven for denying her, over a measly thing as having a high self esteem and loving herself and life above the limits. If possible, if any being threatened her, her love, her new idyllic life and her friends, she will go livid. Though she hates how abominable she looks, like a monster - She would not hesitate, a single second, to rip their wings apart and bite their throats off. She almost hated how she enjoyed carnage like Alastor did - It must be that she got desensitised to the horrors of Hell, and how meaningless life is, since they can just respawn, but she is driven by love and hatred. Her only crutch, for a long time, was Rosie, who gently introduced her to the madness of Hell, and their new life; She taught her how to continue her human life fashion and elegance, while also protecting herself and navigating the machinations of deals and raising above all those lesser than her. Consequently, after Husk was kicked out of the Overlord seat, it was her who took his place, recommended by both Alastor and Rosie. Needless to say, most of the others were pleased to have someone mentally stable and with no vices that could ruin the meetings or deals.

I hope you had fun reading this, and that it answered your questions! I'm always open to answer more, or chat about it <3! Have a lovely day, dear!

[jimmyjims]

Day 6: In Another Life

Zelink Week 2023 ~ @zelinkcommunity

The night had been rough for Leon, Zelda noted. Distracted, tense, pained. The thoughts that took her companion away from her became her enemy. She must defeat them to restore who she once knew, but it would be difficult, she knew. Whatever happened in the Temple of Spirits, Leon was changed. He no longer wore the smile that made her stomach flutter. She shuddered, remembering the day he had walked into her bed chambers in the castle with tears that stained the papers he held in his fist.

With a heavy heart, the worried Princess tapped on his door with the knuckle of her finger. She hoped he hadn’t gone to sleep yet, despite it becoming late into the night. The cold air combined with her consternation sent chills across her arms, making her hug her cloak tighter. She licked her lips and opened her mouth to call him, but a sudden pain in her chest dissuaded her. Ignoring her own remarks about etiquette, Zelda pushed down on the doorknob and peeked through the sliver she allowed herself. An empty house. Zelda’s heart began to race as she rushed into the small residency and frantically searched for a man that was too big to hide.

The stairs. She made her way up the steps that led to the roof, her back sweating despite the bitter chill of the night. Wrapping her cloak even tighter around herself, Zelda stepped onto the roof and scanned the area. Leon was standing at the edge, overlooking the town that was glowing from the many candles that lit the streets. There was no way he couldn’t have noticed Zelda walking to his neighboring home.

“Leon,” she called out. He remained rigid, no noticeable effort to answer. More angry than anxious now, Zelda walked closer to him with clenched fists.

“Turn around!” she shouted, tears threatening to fall. She should calm down, but the feelings of helplessness that have been pent up for the past weeks had finally evolved into anger and frustration at Leon. He finally peeked at her from over his shoulder, his empty stare startling Zelda.

“What is wrong with you? You’ve been like this for too long, refusing to tell me what happened at the temple. Why?” she cried, feeling empty. “You have hardly been taking care of yourself after what happened. You almost died, Leon!” A small twitch of his ear.

“I was worried sick seeing you on that bed for days, not knowing what was wrong and having to go on my own to find answers, and I still do not have answers! And now, I am sick of seeing you brood and refuse to tell me why. I am sick of feeling hopeless, unable to help you feel better. I am sick of feeling my heart break every time you look away. I am so sick and tired, Leon. I am tired!”

Zelda’s chest heaved and she could feel her tears dripping from her chin. Whatever coldness she had felt that night was gone, replaced by her outrage. It was hard for her to tell his expression through the tears that clouded her eyes. Her lips quivered and she fell to her knees. She wept and sobbed into her hands, her body trembling with every emotion that swirled in her heart. Her throat ached and she slowly began to feel empty, emotionless. Her anger and sadness slipped away through the tears that left her eyes and left her as a husk. Remaining still on the frigid roof, Zelda lost the hope she had to regain what she once knew.

Whatever happened next became a blur to Zelda. She remembered his footsteps as he walked past her, the final sliver of hope lost, as she heard him leave her alone on the roof, and feeling as though she was holding her own corpse. With her touch grown so cold, it was for sure that others would agree she had lost her life then. For what was it to be alive without love?

~~~

Zelda awoke with a start from the dream of another life, a nightmare in which she had lost her love. To her relief, the real Leon was sleeping soundly next to her, his hand holding hers. The events from the dream had been nearly the same as the truth, except that she remembered being lifted and carried down the stairs, his footsteps soft to avoid disturbing her. She recalled the feeling of blankets replacing her cold, stiff cloak and his warm fingers brushing aside her hair. She remembered his reassurance as he placed a kiss on her wet cheek and placed himself between her and the edge of the bed. She wished she had said something to him but her voice was spent from her cries. Instead, Leon smiled weakly and kissed the tip of her nose.

Smiling at the memory, Zelda lightly squeezed Leon’s hand and studied his face. Relaxed, content, pleasured. Despite not sharing words after her breakdown, she could feel his sweet nature returning. How she had missed him dearly. She stroked his hair until his eyes fluttered open. His eyes trailed from their joined hands to Zelda’s tender smile. His lips parted slightly as he brushed his thumb across her jaw, causing a knot to twist in Zelda’s stomach. She felt warm again, but this time it wasn’t from anger or frustration. Zelda moved closer to him until she was resting her head on his chest. She could hear his heart pounding as she wrapped her arms around him. She wanted him to feel safe before she asked him again.

“What happened in the temple, Leon?” she asked in a whisper. His eyes squinted and he held his breath. Despite her nightmare being untrue, Zelda still felt his hesitation. Why was he keeping this from her? In another life, he had ignored her pleas and decided to end what they had. What would his decision be in this life?

“I saw something I have feared my whole life,” the small voice of Tradi broke through. “I saw myself.”

Pulling away from Leon, Zelda scanned his face in confusion. How could this kind soul fear himself?

“I saw what I was cursed to be: a monster,” he continued, slowly. “I was reminded of my place in this life and of the danger I pose to you and to Hyrule. I’m sorry I never told you about this. I was trying to keep you safe from the thought of me posing a threat to you. I tried to push you away because I realized that my love for you puts you in terrible danger and I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to lose you.”

Hurt by his secrecy, Zelda stared at him in disbelief. The past year she had known him, there was never a sign from him of being a monster. Whatever he had seen at the temple must have been an illusion…right? Zelda looked away and thought of every moment she had shared with him. She had only ever felt safety and comfort from his presence, so why was he insisting that he was cursed to be a monster? No, this was a lie told by the spirits that inhabit the temple.

“Leon, listen to me,” Zelda said, her tone making him flinch. “You are not a monster. You are Leon, a young man from Moura Village who protected the Princess of Hyrule from the monsters that chased her in the Lost Woods, a young man who accepted the vow to keep Hyrule and the Princess safe from the evil that threatens them, a young man who helps others without a second thought, a young man who shares his beautiful smile to all, a young man who risks his life for the kingdom and the Princess who loves him.

“Leon, every day you prove that you are not a monster. With every glance, every smile, every embrace you give me, you prove that you are not cursed. Leon, your love is proof enough.”

He was crying. His tears were staining the pillow they shared and his hair was sticking to his face. No matter how many times her dream played in her head, she would never forget what the Leon of this life had finally realized.