7-wonders

[7-wonders]

The way my jaw was DROPPED reading this. Vv dark but I enjoyed it a lot hehe

Your Delusion

Pairing: dark!Dream of the Endless x Reader Word Count: 4.8k words Warnings: NSFW, dubcon, somnophilia, fingering, oral (f!receiving), multiple orgasms, forced(?) breeding, swearing... A/N: This was to get me out of Writer's Block. Kind of worked? Dream is a bit (ridiculously) delulu in here. He's doing some mental gymnastics in here, and I applaud him cause same. Anyway, enjoy this strange, strange man.

You look so beautiful like this.

Wrapped in your sheets with your eyes so delicately closed, lips so delicately parted, breaths so delicately passed, you look like a dream. My dream.

And you shall always be mine.

No matter what you may believe.

Your rejection was a white hot burn in my chest, a clawing in my throat. The searing courses through my veins, but I know that I cannot blame you for what you had said. You meant only the best, you meant only not to worry me.

But you shouldn't need to worry. Not about such things.

When I saw you in that field, my field—Fiddler’s Green—I knew then and there that I could await our union no longer. I had to have you, I had to keep you.

You turned when you felt me near, and your eyes filled with confusion for just a moment before the recognition of my presence replaced it. You always knew it was me in the end. No matter how many dreams you dreamt.

“Dream lord,” you greeted me, with a smile so soft and true. Oh, how I love your smile.

I took slow steps across the green grasses beneath me, slowly approaching. “It has been a while since you have come here.”

I usually find you with the brothers of the First Story, or perhaps with Lucienne in the library. Other days, you would wander through other fields or amongst the waters of the Golden Rivers. But not then.

Then, you stood in the flowers of Fiddler’s Green. The very place we first met.

“How are you?” I wondered.

You glanced away. It was a shy little gesture, and a quick one at that. In no time, your eyes were back to me and it meant the world. “Better now,” you mumbled, placing your hand against a tree. “I almost forgot how beautiful this place was.”

Though I would usually acknowledge your words, I cannot help but to stare. “I have missed you.” I cannot always find time to see you with all the work I find myself caught in, but when I do, you never disappoint. It had been a couple of nights since last we saw one another, but it was a couple of nights too long.

“I missed you, too.” You said it as though you truly meant it, and that was all I needed. “How have you been doing?”

“Thinking.” I moved closer. There was still too much distance between us.

You tilted your head gently. “About?”

“Many things,” I shrugged. “But mostly you.”

You seemed almost taken aback by what I said, but you remain as kind as ever. “Me?” you chuckled—a bashful thing, really.

My eyes never left you. You're so beautiful, I mustn't ever look away. Perhaps I may lose you if I do…

“I can't keep you from my mind.” I watched as your smile faltered and your face shifted. “Every moment, I think of you.”

You tried to take a step back, but I grabbed your hands and held them within mine. I let the words spill, and I confessed what I had been holding in all this time. “You come and you go from my realm as you please. You smile and laugh as though any being could resist falling for the very thought of you. I look at you, and I know that what I feel is true.”

You looked away from me, down at our hands joined so firmly in one another. You close your eyes shut, and you squeeze them tight. “Dream, I don't think I understand.”

Then I would help you understand. You needed to know how much I need you, how much I crave you.

“I long for you,” I confessed. “Your beauty, your touch, your heart… And I can't keep from you any longer, my dear.”

I stepped even closer, the distance nearly squashed as I set my forehead against your own. “Dream,” your voice seemed so far away, so uncertain. But you mustn't feel that way.

“Be mine,” the desperation began to become clearer in my voice. “Join me as my wife and queen.” My thumb brushed the finger where your wedding ring would be placed. I would almost feel it now… “I shall protect you with my life and love you with all that I am–”

“No.”

The icy chill of your disagreement, the stern tone of your voice, it created a sour taste on my tongue that I deeply resented.

I did not break away from you, though my grip on your hands may have tightened a bit more than they should have. “What?” My voice is low, upset and full of disbelief. You pulled your hands from mine, and I knew that I had to let you or else I may have hurt you.

“Dream…” you sighed heavily, like it pained you. “I can't.”

My eyes fixed on you, and I thought you could see the sudden darkness in them. Perhaps you did, but it wasn't enough.

“Why not?”

“Look at you.” You gesture toward me, taking another few steps away to establish a distance that left me cold. Your voice was not as steady as I'm sure you hoped it would be, but it was firm nonetheless. “Look at me.”

Your hand slapped back down to your side. It was a defeated movement. Hopelessness filled you in the form of tears, and that's how I knew you cared.

“You are the King of Dreams,” you continued, “one of the Endless, the fucking—ruler of sleep and unconsciousness, who's been alive for eons.”

Your brows knitted together, and your hand reaches across your frame. “I'm some…human you've been talking to for the last year.”

I swallowed thickly, the sourness turning to a bitter agony. “Don't you love me?”

I sound pathetic asking, but I simply could not go another moment without knowing.

“Of course I love you!” you exclaimed, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. The leaves in the trees around us shook incessantly, yet there was no wind. Your voice was weaker when you spoke again. “How can I not?”

Hope filled me, if only for a moment. If you loved me so, then why do you choose to deny me your hand?

“But I can't have you,” you explained. “I'm mortal, you're Endless. I will die, and you will go on living for damn near the rest of eternity.”

If time was what concerned you, we could take it away.

“I can get you immortality.” I tried to step closer, but you stepped away.

You shook your head. “It's not mine to take.”

It was times like these where I wish you weren't so good. It was times like these where I wish you were more selfish, more possessive.

“Nonsense,” I disagreed. “If you were mine, the whole of the Dreaming would be yours.” You grunted with such frustration that my own crawled up my neck and into my teeth.

“Morpheus.” I still don't like the way you said it…with such a stern resolve, so bitter and broken. “I can't… I've heard about what happens to those who love the Endless.”

I nearly scoff. “Is that what this is about?” I shake my head.

If danger was what concerned you, I would quash the threats set against my love.

“As I said, I can protect you.”

“I'm not afraid for me,” you urged, “I'm afraid for you.” Oh, my love, you hurt me so. “You've lost so much, I can't hurt you like that.” You took tentative steps away from me, looking down and finding it so difficult to reach my gaze. “It is easier for you to let me go and move on, than to humor this ‘relationship’ and get the both of us hurt in the process.”

You looked up, despite the pain, and you moved forward to take my face in your hands. I must close my eyes to relieve the ache of you so close to me now. Oh, how deeply you cut…

“Forget about me,” you insisted, trying to smile for my sake. I could see how much it hurt you. “I know it's not fair, but it's how it has to be.” When my hands land on your waist, you drop yours from my face.

Reluctantly, you set your hands on my wrists and pulled them slowly away from you. Your voice was soft, wavery. You were trying not to cry. “I am not meant for you.” You take a deep breath in. “And you were never meant for me.”

I didn't know what to say. Though, I suppose it did not matter, for the next moment, you were gone. You left from the Dreaming, and you were lost from my sight.

But that was days ago. You have been avoiding me since.

But I've been there. At every turn, I have been there. And I know you feel me, you know that I am always there—lurking, watching, waiting.

You know it's me when you glance over your shoulder for the shadow in the corner of your eye. You know it's me in the shiver down your spine, the phantom billow of my robes as I ghost past. You know it's me in the faintest sound of breath out of sync with your own.

And I can tell that you know it's me now, in the walls of your bedroom while you lay fast asleep. You look so beautiful, soft and serene. To be in your dreams is one thing, but to watch you lost in your sleep is something else. To know that my realm has so much power, so much influence over something as perfect as you… If only I could watch you sleep forever.

Perhaps I could… but I shall not.

I don't understand how you were so sure of how deeply we did not belong, but I did know that you were wrong. Of course you're wrong.

We are meant to be together. We always were and we always will be. I am not prepared to let you go.

You worry so deeply about us, my well-being and yours if anything were to happen. But as long as there was a gap between us, we could never be together. If our eternal marriage wasn't enough to fill that, then I would just have to find something else.

Something deeper. Something more important than bands on our fingers.

And every kingdom needs its heir.

I shed my robes, the sky hidden beneath them as black as the darkest sapphires. My gentle steps are silent as I approach, the moonlight glinting on your skin now blocked by my frame.

Slowly, I sit on the bed beside you, and I cannot resist the touch of my hand against your cheek. You're so soft and sweet, especially when you lean your face into my hand. I smile, and I know you love me.

I lean down ever so slowly, and my lips press to your forehead. Your head shifts, a little keen against me. Oh, how you beg for my touch, my darling.

And I shall give it.

I remove the covers from your body, revealing you to me. Your shirt rides up your belly, exposing the soft expanse of your skin to me. I place my hand there, and hear you sigh. I slide down, my fingers caressing your skin until my hand dips below your shorts and presses to the cotton of your undergarment.

Your breath hitches when you feel my fingers against your clothed clit, brushing so gently, it's like a phantom touch. Still, you do not wake.

Spreading your legs for me, I cup your perfect little pussy in my palm and sigh. Just as I thought you'd be, warm and wet and waiting for me. I tease, stroking gently with my fingers to bring your arousal further. You squirm against my touch, but still you do not wake. You know I am here, you have no reason to fret.

I knew you loved me.

I lean down and kiss you, though you're so tired you do not kiss back. But that’s alright, you are all I need.

I pull away from you, standing once again and standing at the foot of the bed. I grab at the waistband of your shorts and pull them and your panties down your legs, pausing when you stir too much. When you no longer shift, I pull them off completely.

Oh, you are lovely.

My hands stroke the expanse of your smooth skin, and you sigh at my every touch. Your brows knit together, a far off focus in your dreamland. My fingers tease the seam of your sweet cunt once more, delving between your wetting folds to feel how hot you are around me.

You begin to stir again, but my hand to your stomach eases you. I do not want you to wake yet. Not yet. Soon.

Your walls clench around my finger, and I reward them with another. A tiny whimper slips through your lips. I massage my fingers in and out of you, deep and slow movements that coax more and more wetness from your cunt. My thumb presses to your clit, and your hips roll against me very slightly.

I can no longer control myself. I move onto my knees and hold your legs apart. I just want to taste you. And when my tongue meets the arousal seeping from your lips, a deep moan rumbles within me.

Such sweet honey you make all for me, only for me. I suckle around you, licking and sucking and tasting you with a growing enthusiasm. Your tiny whimpers are becoming moans, broken and needy as you keen into my touch. Your fists clench and unclench, your thighs try to close, your hips roll against my mouth. But I keep you steady, steady and still and open wide for me.

As I suck around your clit, I can feel you clenching around my tongue, which licks in and out of you and laps up your sweetness. You're so close, I can feel it, I can taste it. Your desperation for a release is a potent syrup on my tongue.

Your body shakes and your mewling moans fill the room when you come undone. You gasp, a pitchy, wonderful sound that makes me suck harder around your pulsing clit. You try to break away from me, but I only pull you closer, drunk on your taste and refusing to let up until I have had my fill.

It's a wonderful thing, watching you cum for me so deep in your sleep. I can see flashes of your dreams behind my eyes, skin against skin and warmth and passion and even brief images of me. I feel you tremble beneath me, shuddering and whimpering so sweetly.

I work you through your brief overstimulation, groaning around your pussy as your taste overcomes my senses. The intoxication is a precious salve to my hunger for you, but it does not last long. No, I will never not hunger for you.

And I soon shall never have to find myself starved of you either.

The next time you cum, your back arches off the bed and your mewls mix with your heavy gasp. When I hear the sound of your quickening heart and feel the tug of your slowly building consciousness, I pull apart from you.

Shh. Not yet. Sleep, my love. Soon you shall awake and see me giving you all that you desire.

I place my hand to hold your cheek, and your fluttering eyes steady once more as they seal shut in your returning slumber. And when all is right, I smile. Your slick allows my fingers to glide right through.

Perfect.

I move away, stripping the both of us until we're nothing but skin. The bed dips under my weight, and I pull your thighs over my legs.

Taking my cock in my hand, I hiss lightly. You've truly made a mess of me: hot and hard and leaking. I lean down to you, pressing my lips to the side of your face and dipping down into your neck.

“Don't worry, my love,” I whisper in your ear. “We shall be together.”

I line myself with you, and holding my breath, I thrust inside. Warmth blossoms along my body, and I shudder at the tight heat which welcomes me. “All of us.”

You whine as I push farther inside of you, going deeper and deeper until you've taken me all the way. A thick sigh heaves from my chest at the way you clench, and my hips stutter at the feeling. I pull back and thrust in once more, building a steady rhythm that grows with my passion and desperation for you.

You whimper and moan, squirming beneath me as you stir beneath the slumber I've placed you in. The images in your mind—our bodies, our lips, flashes and breaths—they mix like a cocktail that further my intoxication.

My thrusts are perhaps a bit too rushed for our first time together, but I cannot help it. You are better than I have ever imagined you'd be. I want to savor this, to take my time with you, to cherish each feeling and each taste and each sight…

But we shall have plenty of time for that in the future. Right now, I must ravage your body lying so pliant and willing for me.

I kiss your neck, taking the soft flesh between my teeth and sucking. You taste like flowers and honey, a precious taste I shall never tire of. I rut into you, listening to the sweet sounds of your slick along my cock, listening to your weak moans, your needy whimpers. I'm determined to make you cum with me as I rub your aching little clit with the pad of my thumb.

My need for you trumps everything else. I want nothing more than to bury myself as deeply inside of you as I possibly can and fill you with my love, a love that would take root within you and grow our dearest child. I hook my arms underneath your thighs and put you in the perfect position to receive it, chest to chest as I bury my face in the warm column of your throat.

“Oh, my love.” The words spill out of me as the pleasure grips my throat, and I thrust deeply inside of you. In the same thrust, your back arches off the bed and you actually shake in my arms as you cum around my cock, squeezing me so tight that I have no choice but to cum inside of you.

A rough groan tears through my throat and into your ear. As your tight pussy trembles around you, you gasp as the pleasure rips through you. I feel the harsh tug of sleep being taken from you, and you fully awake with me still buried so perfectly in your cunt.

You choke on my name, and the sound is so sweet that my hips stutter in a half-thrust that pulls a moan out of you. I smile, pulling back without pulling out and looking down at you. You're so beautiful like this, dazed from the pleasure, still coated in sleep with the confusion of it all.

“Dream,” you whisper again, your voice thick with sleep and something else. “Dream, what–?”

You don't have time to speak because I have already begun fucking inside of you again. I'm not quite done yet—I want to make certain that you shall carry my heir in your belly, certain that I shall claim you forever.

And I'm already so addicted to the feeling of your body. To be without it would be a crime.

With the relief of a release, I can focus now as I gaze down at you. My hips thrust in and out—a steady, quick, rough rhythm that has you moaning with loud and helpless sounds that are music to my ears. Your hands reach up, clenching my arms with an uncertain goal.

You struggle to speak, so driven by your lust for me that all you can do is form wordless words as I fuck you. You curse and swear, glassy eyes on me as I hold you close.

Suddenly, I pull out of you, and the most pathetic whine slips from your throat. I flip you onto your belly, spreading your legs and pushing your chest down as I enter you from behind. You welcome me, as I knew you would. My perfect girl.

“Hello, my darling,” I whisper through a groan after a particularly rough thrust. “Did you miss me?”

You mutter something of my name, and I smile.

“I missed you, too,” I say. I press my chest to your back, bringing my hand to wrap around your neck so gently. “But I shall never leave you again. And you shall never leave me.”

You try to say something but it doesn't matter. I pick up my pace, my strength. I hold you tightly and fuck into you with everything that I have. As my fingers circle your abused clit, you moan and gasp for breath as all the pleasure stacks on top of you, one right after the other.

“You're so good for me, my love,” I sigh. “You're always so good for me, as you sleep and as you wake.” Another whimper resounds.

I've longed for this moment for so long. This moment where you would be beneath me, moaning my name and welcoming me into your intimate warmth. Your body moves against me, seeking me out and shuddering under my touch as I give you everything you need. All the slick has built with the addition of my cum dripping out of you, coating me and the sheets below in white. The sounds we make together—the moans, the creaks, the smacks—it's a beautiful cacophony of sweet music. I could stay here forever, locked in this room with you and your body and your love, fucking you with all my passion and making love to you with all my heart.

Your hand reaches out to grab something, settling for the pillow, which you grip so hard, it looks as though you may tear into the fabric. The pictures in your mind have become so much more muddled. Now they're flashes of white, the vague movements of bodies and the vague sounds of groans. It's a mess, a beautiful mess of tangled thoughts and watered down cohesion.

Your moans shudder like cries when I pull another orgasm from your weak little body. As I fuck you through it, the pleasure becomes all the better as you go blinded by it.

“So perfect, my beautiful dear.” I pull out of you, and you sigh as I do, as if you think this is over. I turn you back onto your back.

My knuckles smooth gently down the side of your face as you stare up at me, your eyes glazed over. I kiss you, a deep, bruising kiss filled with all of my lust for you. It takes you a moment, but you kiss back. It's a wonderful feeling.

As our lips are joined, I join our bodies once more. You gasp into my mouth as my cock fills you once more. I trail my kisses along your jaw and back to your neck, painting you in love bites and taking you as mine.

My hips snap into you, my hands hold you tight, my lips lave along your skin. Oh, how I love you so. It shows in the way that I thrust, in the way that I sigh, in the way that I kiss, in the way that I hold you close to me. I can't let go.

A couple of stray tears slip down your cheeks, and I kiss them away. Poor thing, so full of pleasure that you're crying for it.

Without giving you much time to recover, my thumb is at your clit again. I've become utterly intoxicated with the sight of your undoing: the way you tremble and shake, the way you gasp and sigh. I love you.

And for a while, we stay like this, rocking and grinding and moaning into one another. The sight of our faces are drenched in utter bliss, and I bask in the moment. I can feel the beginnings of a second release prickling within me, and my steady thrusts begin to falter.

“I want to hear you say it.”

Your dazed eyes look up at me, your question interrupted by a moan. “Say–ah! Say what?”

“Tell me that you love me. As I love you.” I press my forehead against yours, rutting into you with all my strength as I begin to lose control. “Tell me, my darling. Tell me.”

“I…” You clench your jaw, arching your back as you struggle to speak through your pleasure. “Fuck, Dream.”

Your mouth is agape, and your eyes are closed so sweetly. But I need to hear you say it. I need it. “Say it.” My grip on your hip tightens, my thumb on your clit becomes more ruthless.

Lost in euphoria, you gasp and nearly choke on the words you give to me. “I love you.” You huff out a heavy breath, holding me tighter as your lips search for my skin. Their sloppy contact slides against me, wanting nothing more than to feel my skin against you. “I love you, Dream. Fuck, don’t stop, I love you.”

I sigh at the pleasure it gives me to hear those words on your delicate lips. “Again. Say it again.”

“I love you.” A whimpering sound mixes with a groan. “I love you, Dream.”

My fuse is running out, and with the way you tighten around me, I don’t stand a chance as my rough thrusts bring the both of us even closer to our highs. I can taste it on my tongue. The taste of your honeyed flower skin and your sweet arousal is my own personal wine.

My voice is barely a whisper in my haste. “Say it.”

“I love you, Morpheus.”

The dam breaks as I spill inside of you, shoving my cock as deep as I could possibly reach. Your gasp joins mine, and our sounds mingle with heaving breaths, your pitchy moans mixing with my deepened ones. You hold me as close as I hold you, and our lips slot together in the white noise of our ecstasy.

My hips continue their endless pursuit within you, desperate rolls thrusting within you just to make certain we’ve created our heir. For a while, I lay there on top of you, sparing you my weight but offering my warmth as I stay comfortably sheathed within you. Our gasping breaths have settled to gentle sighs, and you lay limply beneath me as you stare up at the ceiling. Contemplating.

When the time has unfortunately come to remove myself from you, I do as I adjust some hair from your face and kiss your forehead.

There was a fog in the room that I had not noticed before—not a physical one, of course. It’s beginning to clear in the aftermath of our combined pleasure. Your eyes slowly find mine, glazed still but the clearest they have been all night. Now that the blinding bliss has settled and you’ve fully awakened, there’s a clarity you’ve suddenly gained. You take in the sight of my face and I smile down at you, brushing my thumb over your cheek.

“Dream,” you mutter gently, to which I hum. “What have you done?”

My smile grows. I place a kiss to your lips, one that you seem to have trouble returning. Hooking my finger under your chin, I ensure you see me as I speak softly, a gentle hum that I know you shall hear.

“No one shall steal you from me now. Not even Death, no one. You are mine and only mine.”

Your eyes are glossy now, unshed tears gracing them that I hope to wipe away. “Dream,” you whisper, holding onto me with a tight grasp that I embrace. You look like you’ll say something, something dire and important. Instead, you close your mouth and smile, the kind of smile that must be pushed for.

“I love you,” you whisper. There’s an undertone to it that I dismiss. You’re tired, that’s all. I know you love me, and that’s all that matters.

I smile, kissing you again with all the love in my heart. My hand on your waist tightens, and I must remember that you are human. Pulling away from your lips, I brush my finger over your bottom one.

“I love you, too, my darling wife.”

Nothing can take that from us now.

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#Claire recommends #fic rec!!!

[7-wonders]

“Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley on the lifestyle of Lord Byron (via timemarauder)

#if I was a time traveler one of the times I would love to visit would be the summer the Shelley’s and Clara spent at Lord Byron’s estate

[7-wonders]

Requiem

Michael Langdon x Reader (Mad Love Act II, Chapter XVI)

Summary: It's all led to this, and now, you have to face off against Michael to get your world back.

Word Count: 6.3k

A note from the author: This chapter is so, so dark. Sorry? Also, this chapter relies a lot on the she/her pronouns this story was first started with btw. (more notes at the end)

I noticed when posting this that it looks like the previous chapter didn't load a lot of tags. If you got tagged in this and are like "wait how did we get to the fight already?" you missed the last chapter! Click on the Mad Love Masterlist to read Chapter 35. :)

Content warnings for this chapter include graphic depictions of injury and death. Reader discretion is advised.

Mad Love Masterlist

Mallory warned you prior to leaving your room that the residents of Outpost 3 were all dead, murdered at the hands of Ms. Venable and her poisoned apples (you try not to dwell on your own poisoned apple experience). All the preparation in the world doesn’t prepare you for the shock of seeing two dead bodies, those of Coco and Dinah, in the large foyer of the Outpost. Shock turns to revulsion as one of Mallory’s friends and other witches yanks a knife out of Coco’s skull with little more than a wince. When she stands, she points the knife at you.

“She gonna help us?” she asks warily.

“She is.” Mallory turns to you, pointing first to the woman with the knife and next to another woman standing near the stairs. “This is Queenie and Zoe.”

You wave sheepishly. “It’s nice to meet you two.”

Zoe smiles kindly, but Queenie just appraises you with a look that says she doesn’t trust you. You can’t say that you blame her, though you wish she didn’t have a reason for this reaction. Mallory leaves your side to kneel in between the two dead women, and you watch as she takes a deep breath and breathes out onto Coco’s face before repeating her movements with Dinah.

It takes mere seconds for the two to shoot up, gasping for air and trying to get used to once again inhabiting a body.

“Welcome back,” Mallory says.

“What just happened?” Coco asks, her elaborate hairdo impressively staying put after all of that.

“You died. And now, you’re no longer dead.”

“Oh.” She frowns, rubbing at the spot where a knife sat moments ago. “Fuck, that sucked.”

“Are you going to explain why you tore us from our afterlives?” Dinah snaps, standing up.

“It’s time to fix this entire mess. To defeat Michael, we need all the help we can get.” Mallory eyes Dinah specifically. “From both of you.”

“You’re on your own with that shit,” Dinah declares. “I’m not here to defeat anyone.”

Maybe it’s not your place, but you feel like you can help to convince Dinah. You take a step toward here. “Please, I really think that—”

“How can any of you defeat me, when I’ve already won?” A voice, so familiar to you that it could be your own, comes from the stairs.

You almost don’t want to look at him. If you don’t, maybe you can remain in this stasis where you’re simply preparing to undo the apocalypse, instead of being faced with the reality that you’re about to fight your own husband, the man who, despite all of the horrors he’s committed, remains your love. When you do tear your eyes away from Dinah, you see that he’s not even taking notice of your presence. No, he only has hate-filled eyes for the Supreme.

Michael’s changed into a blood-red jacket, which makes it obvious that he was expecting this showdown to happen. Ms. Mead stands off to his left side, ever the small, imposing bodyguard. Mallory steps forward, along with most of the group. You can’t bring your feet to move, so you remain back with Dinah.

“You haven’t won,” Mallory says. 

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed the state of the world.”

Queenie scoffs. “At least the world can be saved. Unlike your bitch ass.”

Michael smirks proudly. “The seventh seal has been broken. Wormwood has fallen from the sky and turned the rivers to blood and fire. The bottomless pit has been opened and my swarms of locusts and scorpions have ravaged humanity. The world has been remade in my father’s image.”

When he speaks like this, of biblical imagery and prophecy, he turns into a person you don’t care to know. He turns into the Antichrist.

“Almost.” Mallory smiles. “Pretty sure he didn’t imagine a world where there were still witches, so you failed there.”

Michael finally takes in the full group, and his haughty demeanor falters when he sees you. Softly, he utters your name. “What are you doing?”

You swallow thickly, willing your voice not to shake. “I think you know.”

“I do. You’re going to betray me?

Mallory tries to grab your arm as you move in front of her, but you can’t be stopped now. “This is not betrayal. I’m doing this because I love you, and I can’t bear to be faced with the monster that you’ve become any longer. Now, we have a chance to save the world, Michael. Help me undo this mess.”

“Michael,” Mallory gets his attention once more. “Your father never commanded you to end the world in this way. Jeff and Mutt, the two that ran Kineros, were the ones who thought a nuclear apocalypse was the solution. They controlled Ms. Mead and gave her the commands to tell you that this was Satan’s plan. Satan was just happy to take credit when he realized that you were going to cause anarchy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Michael says.

“Is it? They told me so themselves, when I went to Kineros to ensure that Coco would be in this Outpost.”

He rolls his eyes. “This is such an obvious lie, I’m a little offended that you would think I’d fall for it. Right, Ms. Mead?”

Michael looks to his left, expecting to be backed up, only to see Ms. Mead with a look of bewildered shame on her face.

“Ms. Mead?”

“They—I do as I’m programmed,” she stutters. 

You gasp at the revelation. Satan didn’t come up with the plan to end the world like this? All of this could have been avoided?

Instead of being faced with the same reckoning, a look of absolute murder appears on his face. “I’m going to do what I should have done that day in the Murder House and kill you all personally.”

“Mallory,” Dinah calls, walking towards the Supreme. “You raised me from the dead so that you would have the power of voodoo on your side. But if you know anything about who I am, you know that the only choice I’d pick would be the winner.”

She comes to a stop just before the stairs, bowing her head respectfully. Michael raises a hand out to her, ready to welcome another acolyte. You throw Mallory a panicked look, but she’s barely holding back glee.

“You’re half-right, Dinah,” she admits.

“She needed the help of a powerful voodoo queen,” a deep Southern voice says. You turn and watch as a tall woman with long braids struts up to Dinah. “But that ain’t you, sis .”

“The former Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau,” Mallory whispers into your ear.

“To release me from hell, Mallory promised Papa Legba the darkest and most corrupt voodoo queen’s soul for mine. You’ll serve him well in my place.”

“You’re a fool, Marie Laveau,” Dinah spits. “You would have done no different if you were queen.”

“No!” Marie says, before disappearing in a puff. 

Not even a second later, she reappears behind Dinah wielding a machete. When Dinah turns to face her, Marie brings the machete down in one swing on her throat. Dinah gasps and screams as blood begins to gush out of her neck, falling to the floor and bleeding out in a matter of seconds. Nobody else seems to be affected by this, but you feel a little faint, and you hold onto Mallory’s arm to keep from collapsing.

“Out with the trash!” Marie declares. “Give Papa my regards.”

Michael, apparently having enough of this, nods to Ms. Mead. The android removes her hand to reveal a machine gun hidden underneath it. Though you want to say something along the lines of, “What the actual fuck?” Zoe says a word in what you assume to be Latin before you can.

Instead of shooting, Ms. Mead begins to shake and whir mechanically. Mallory uses Michael’s confusion to usher everybody back towards the open fire, where you watch as Ms. Mead explodes and sends Michael flying over the railing. He lands harshly on the floor below, staring in horror at Ms. Mead’s head next to him.

It’s only a matter of time until his horror turns to rage, and Queenie scrambles forward to grab Ms. Mead’s machine gun hand. When Michael rises, she rises with him, gun trained on his chest.

“Sorry about your little toy,” Queenie says before placing her finger on the trigger.

Michael turns to be met with a firestorm of bullets, more than enough to kill even the Antichrist. You scream in horror at the sight, his blood spattering against the wall as he falls and comes to rest against it, very obviously dead.

“Michael!” You try to stand, wanting to save him even though he probably (definitely) deserves what’s just happened to him. Before you can, Mallory pulls you to her.

“This won’t keep him down,” she assures you. “He’s too powerful to be truly killed. But this will buy us time.”

Though you don’t know if you believe her, you need to in order to keep from emotionally collapsing, so you nod. 

Queenie walks to Michael’s body, kicking his foot as she checks to make sure he’s dead…for now, at least. “Do we need his hair or something for this? Because I’m more than happy to rip off a chunk of it.”

“No. The spell only requires that we have something personal of his.” Mallory smiles at you. “And we have the most important person in his life here with us. As long as you’re still in?”

You force yourself to look away from Michael, closing your eyes and taking a couple of deep breaths to recenter yourself. Finally, you look at her again. “Of course, I’m still in.”

“Good. Have you picked a time that will work to stop him?”

“I think so,” you confirm. After some internal deliberation, you think that the best way to get through to him is going to be when you had the big fight about the poisoned apple, before you stormed out and got yourself kidnapped by the witches. He wasn’t too powerful or too far gone with his father’s plan yet, but you were both in love with each other—albeit, you hadn’t actually realized it at that point.

“Alright. I’ll need you to focus on that, okay? Then I’ll say the spell, and we’ll be able to go back in time. We just need somewhere safe to cast the spell, somewhere with a large tub we can fill with water.”

You definitely found a room like that when you were exploring the Outpost your first couple of days here. “Okay. Follow me.”

Everybody stands, but hesitates when they remember the issue of Michael. If he’s going to come back to life like Mallory says, shouldn’t there be some safety measure in place to buy you more time?

Queenie sighs and rolls her eyes, realizing that she should probably be that safety measure. “Go,” she urges, readjusting her grip on the gun to ensure she’ll be quick to the trigger when Michael rises again.

Mallory darts forward to hug her quickly. “Thank you.”

“Enough with the sappy shit.” Even as she says that, you can see the affection in her eyes when she looks at Mallory. “Go!”

You do as she says and hurry up the stairs. Before you turn the corner, you allow yourself a moment to meet Michael’s open, lifeless gaze.

The hallways are much less of a maze than they were when you first arrived here, but the layout is still unfamiliar to you. After leading your group down what you thought was going to lead to the door you were sure contained the room with the tub, you’re met with a dead end. 

Sheepishly, you look over your shoulder at Coco. “I think I’m a little lost. Isn’t there a room with a really large washtub for laundry around here?”

Her eyes light up, and she lightly pushes you to keep you moving.  “Yes! We’re super close.” It’s going to take a bit to get used to her actually being helpful, you think as you follow her directions. “We’re going to go down this hallway here. Now, the weird little junction up ahead? Take a left and then it’s the third door on the right.”

Now you know where you are. “Thank you! I found it my first time going through the Outpost, but I haven’t lived here for eighteen months like you.”

You’re just about to turn left at the junction when a man appears from the other side of the hallway, jabbing a knife into your abdomen before you can even be surprised at the sight. You cry out, the pain sharp and sudden as he pulls the knife out of you with nothing but malice on his face. When he looks up at you, his scowl is replaced by a horrified shock.

“Oh my god, I thought you were—” He sees Coco, standing just behind you. “She was supposed to be you !”

Your shaking hands try to press down on the wound, but blood rushes out through your fingers, and your knees go weak as you crash into the wall. Down the hall, you can hear Mallory scream your name. She runs for you with Zoe hot on her heels.

“What the fuck did you do?” Mallory yells to the man, landing next to you on the floor and gently pulling your hands away so that she can assess the damage. By the way her lips start to tremble, you assume it’s not good.

The man that stabbed you ignores her, instead focusing on Coco. “You ruin everything!” he yells at her, lifting the knife once more.

Coco pushes him over the railing before he can do any more damage. He screams the whole way down, and Coco peers after him. “Sorry?” she calls with a grimace, no love apparently lost.

“This is…a lot of blood,” you note, watching your black dress becoming even darker from the rapidly expanding bloodstain. You’re also in a lot of pain. Fuck, you didn’t think being stabbed would hurt so much.

“It’s okay! It’s alright!” Mallory soothes; you can’t tell who she’s reassuring, herself or you. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to—I’ll heal you, and then you’ll be fine.”

Your heart is pounding from a mixture of fear and adrenaline. For the first time since your arrival to this Outpost, you’re truly scared. This is a different fear from when you were worried about Emily and Timothy being executed, or when you realized that Michael wanted to have a child with you. It’s even different from the fear of knowing that you and Michael would be on opposing sides now. This is primal—this is terror.

Mallory’s hands hover over your abdomen as she begins to chant in Latin, eyes screwed shut in concentration. Nothing happens, and as the seconds tick by, your entire body starts to go cold. It’s like somebody’s taken a syringe of ice water and injected it right into your veins. You become more faint than before, and decide that laying flat will probably be the best way to rid yourself of this feeling.

“Why isn’t this working?” Mallory cries in frustration, catching your head and placing it in her lap. Tears begin to build in her eyes as she tries the same breathing technique on you as she did Coco and Dinah to bring them back to life, to no avail. You cough wetly, and when you wipe your mouth, your hand comes away red.

The realization hits you then: you’re dying. The overpowering cold, being unable to sit up anymore, the faintness—your body is beginning to shut down against your will.

“Mallory, I’m scared,” you admit.

“I know. I’m sorry. I promise I’m trying.”

“I know.” You smile at the repetition even as you begin to feel so, so tired. Maybe if you close your eyes and rest for a moment, you’ll be able to get enough strength back to help you fight to stay alive.

Your eyes barely close before Mallory starts shaking you. “No, no, please don’t close your eyes!”

Marie Laveau appears at the far end of the hallway you first ran down and yells something to Mallory, but you can’t quite make out what she says over the rushing in your ears. Mallory takes one of your arms and Zoe takes the other, both working together to pull you down the hallway. You watch dizzily as Coco runs to Marie, your vision warping as the two disappear around the corner.

Mallory continues trying to heal you once they have you in the room where you’re meant to go back in time. Her hand, soaked in your blood, runs over your forehead comfortingly as she becomes more frantic in her chanting. Even Zoe tries to help, pressing down on your abdomen in the hopes of slowing the bleeding as she joins Mallory in spellwork. It’s becoming more difficult to hold on as you become weaker, the two taking turns making you open your eyes again.

“Please, please, please,” Mallory begs any and all forces beyond her power that might be listening.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, the effort to produce sounds near herculean.

“Don’t apologize,” she says sternly through tears, earning the smallest of laughs from you.

“Yes, ma’am.” Your hands shake as you feel around for Mallory’s, and you weakly squeeze when you find them. “I love you, Mal. I’m so happy I got to see you again.”

“Stop saying goodbye. I’m going to bring you back, this isn’t goodbye.”

For now, though, it is, and you both know it. When your eyes close this time, they don’t open again, and you feel yourself being dragged down, down, down, away from consciousness and life itself.

With your last remaining strength, you become introspective. You have so many regrets, so many words that you’re going to leave unsaid. You wish you had gotten the chance to actually complete the spell and go back in time, sure that you would have been able to change Michael’s mind. You want to thank Queenie and Zoe and Coco and Marie for their help, for believing that you can help fix the mess the world has become. You wish you could—

•••

Michael has had enough of witches on this Earth, he thinks as he blows Queenie’s head clean off her shoulders after coming back to life. She had been distracted by a body falling from two floors up—whose body it was remained a mystery that Michael didn’t care to solve—providing Michael the element of surprise. Even if she were still prepared, it wouldn’t have mattered. He’s too powerful for anything to stop him now.

Maybe he was naive to believe that a simple nuclear bomb or two could kill them. No, he was definitely naive. After all, Mallory knew that the world would be ending, and soon. That was more than enough time for her to gather her chosen forces and figure out a way to survive. He knows now that his path, the one that Satan had created before he had even created Michael, was always meant to lead to this. In order to truly inherit this new world and rule Hell on Earth, he must eradicate the remaining witches with his own hands.

But what to do with you? You’ve chosen your side for this battle, and it’s not his. He nervously hopes that you’re simply mad at him after how your last conversation devolved into a fight, that Mallory reached you at a vulnerable time and used that to her advantage to recruit you. Once he defeats the witches, you’ll come back to him and he’ll concede that he was perhaps wrong to bring up the idea of having a child at such an intimate moment. Still, seeing you standing in solidarity with the witches hurt, which is likely what the Supreme was planning.

When Michael makes it up the stairs, the reanimated voodoo queen blocks the hallway that he knows you and the witches have gone down. Grabbing a pouch off of her belt, she pours a powder into her hand and spreads it in a line in front of her with a chant.

“You shall not pass,” Marie declares with a smirk, wiping her hands of the powder. Michael juts his hand forward, prepared to rip her heart out of her chest, but an invisible barrier stops him. “You’re dealing with the HBIC now.”

He smiles ruefully. “Clever,” he admits. “Normally, that would work.”

He’s about to show that voodoo magic is no match for him anymore when his blood runs cold and his heart drops. At that same moment, he becomes aware of sobbing coming from far behind Marie. Though Michael’s never felt anything like this before, he can feel the certainty of what it means down to his very core: something’s happened. Specifically, something’s happened to you.

“Let me through,” he demands. Marie falters, taken aback at the fear in his eyes. “Marie Laveau, if you value your second chance at life you’ll let me through.”

She recovers from her hesitation with a haughty laugh. “Nice try.” 

Michael makes quick work of her with a simple snap of his fingers, snapping her neck and sending her right back to the Underworld. He’s just about to clear the barrier and figure out just what is going on when he feels a presence behind him. Rolling his eyes, he turns around to face this distraction as well and comes face to face with Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt, who was with you when he was shot. Surely she must know something about what’s going on.

“What’s happened?” Michael asks. The knife that Coco was prepared to stab him with goes limp in her wrist, and she gapes at him. “Where’s Y/n?”

“She was…Brock…” She weakly mimes a stabbing motion.

“No.” He feels sick at the mere implication. “No!”

Coco now the least of his worries, he runs down the hallway, the whole time hoping that it’s a mistake, that Coco misinterpreted what she saw, that the cold emptiness now residing in his chest is simply a fluke. The sobs that become more clear as he nears the entryway, however, don’t do much to reassure him.

“Mallory!” Michael gasps. 

The Supreme is on the floor with you in her lap, and for a moment, Michael can delude himself into thinking that you’re okay. The excessive amount of blood on the floor—your blood—and the unnaturally limp way that your hand is lying force him to face the obvious. Michael’s knees give out, and he falls to the floor harshly.

Mallory looks up at him, forgetting that they’re meant to be enemies right now. “She got stabbed, and—” a sob rips from her chest, “my healing spells aren’t working. And neither is Vitalum Vitalis. It should be working, Michael, I’m the fucking Supreme.”

“Okay. Um, let me…” Michael’s brain is fighting a war between shutting down from the agony of this situation and kicking into overdrive to figure out how to get you back. After a moment, he thinks he might have an idea. He tries to pull you out of Mallory’s arms and into his own, but she refuses to loosen her hold on you. “Mallory, I need to hold her.”

While he does need to be able to touch you for the spell, he’s not really asking for that purpose. He feels that he might soon lose his grasp on sanity if he can’t hold your body. No, he needs you as close to him as possible, to try and capture the warmth of your body so that he might remind himself that you’ve only just left, that he can still get you back. Begrudgingly, Mallory allows him to hold you, but she still keeps one of your hands in hers.

He’d like to say that it looks like you’re sleeping, comforting himself with the platitude most mourners claim upon seeing a body. He’d be lying, though, because he knows what you look like when you’re sleeping. The way that your face scrunches at the smallest sensation, how your eyes move under their lids and your mouth forms silent words when you’re dreaming particularly deeply, the intermittent light snoring that you swear you don’t do. If you were simply sleeping, he’d play the prince to your Sleeping Beauty and wake you with a kiss, revealing your amused smile and your fond gaze.

Now, there’s none of that. You’ve been dead for mere minutes, but already the signs of death are here. Your face is as slack as all of your muscles now are, making your cheekbones more prominent and your mouth hinge slightly open. A sallowness has started to take over your skin, and he finds himself tracing the apples of your cheeks in a futile attempt to coax blood back to the surface. He even swears that he can feel your body growing colder, just like he feared.

It takes Michael some time to remember what he’s meant to be doing. All of this grief and pain will hopefully be for nothing, so long as he can hold himself together for a little bit longer. He takes a deep breath, hesitating for a moment before dropping his forehead against yours. Tears are threatening to fall, and when he closes his eyes to try and hold them back, it only hastens their arrival. They roll, hot and thick, off of his face and onto yours, and he wipes them off with a silent apology.

Finally, Michael slips into a dissociation as he begins to walk between the realms of living and dead. He’s done this more than a few times now for varying reasons, becoming pretty adept at finding a soul and bringing it back to the living plane. The hardest part by far is always calming his mind enough to be able to attempt this in the first place; the fact that he’s been able to achieve it in this circumstance is a small miracle. 

Now that he’s in the so-called in-between, he begins his search. Every single soul has a signature to it, so as long as he knows who he’s looking for, he usually finds the rest of this process to be pretty straightforward. Since your soul is so near and dear to him, he’s expecting this to take a couple of minutes at most.

A minute passes, then another, as he tries to track your soul down. Michael begins to grow concerned; considering you just died, he shouldn’t be having to search this hard. There’s a complete lack of you anywhere, and he begins to shake as he’s faced with the increasingly likely potential that your soul is gone. But how? Why? With a chilling clarity, he knows exactly what’s happened.

His father has become displeased. Whether he’s had enough of your and Michael’s collective disobedience over the years—Satan holds a grudge like no other, after all—or your declaration that you would never bear Michael’s child or be the perfect wife that Satan had planned for you to be. He’s had enough, and now, he’s taken this opportunity to make good on the threats he first warned Michael about during the poison apple saga. He’s made sure that you’re out of the picture for good. If Michael knows Satan, he’s probably already picked out some girl back at the Sanctuary to be wife number two, and this time, she would be the most devout, demure Satanist who would never even think of going against Satan’s will.

But Michael doesn’t want another wife. No, what he wants is to lay here on the floor and die right along with you, following you into whatever afterlife you’ve found yourself in in the hopes that he can continue to love you there. How can he ever be expected to love another person that’s not you? What kind of a life is there for him to live if you’re not here to share in it?

“Is everything okay?” Mallory asks, reminding him that there’s another person in this room, one who’s going to feel her own devastation at this news.

“I can’t find her. My father…” He chokes on his own words, unable to actually say the fate that’s befallen you. Instead, he can only cry.

Mallory picks up on the context clues, and her face drops. “So that’s it? She’s gone?”

The nod Michael gives her is the most painful movement of his life. When Mallory collapses, he also forgets the pretense of enemies and allows her to fall against him. It’s mainly for his own benefit—were he not using Mallory for support, he would be in a heap on top of you.

They remain without words for a while. Distantly, he’s aware of Zoe talking to Coco down that damned hall, the two wondering what to do now. He hopes that they come up with an answer, because he has no clue. In his opinion, there’s nowhere else to go from here. Though he may not have physically died, his life has ended along with yours in this room.

“Were you telling the truth?” Michael asks finally, making Mallory look up. “About Jeff and Mutt?”

He almost doesn’t want to know, but before he can change his mind, she nods. “All they cared about were themselves. They were fed up with minor inconveniences—having to wait for coffee, traffic woes—and wanted to ‘wipe the slate clean.’ They thought that they could reshape the world to how they wanted, and they used a vulnerable Antichrist to do so. Ms. Mead changed her tune from magic to fire and blood because Jeff and Mutt were feeding her the commands.”

He so badly wants her to be lying, but even if he couldn’t sense her truthfulness, he has his own memories to rely on. How suddenly Ms. Mead suggested that world destruction was preferred to world domination (and that the two cokehead idiots would be the guys to talk to about that) had always seemed a little odd to him, but he simply went along with it, believing Ms. Mead to still be his trusted advisor. This revelation simply makes Michael cry harder until he’s almost matching Mallory’s earlier sobs. She puts her free hand on his shoulder in comfort. Though he appreciates the gesture, nothing can bring him comfort.

All of this pain and death and destruction has been for naught. Michael spent years chasing his father’s approval and doing terrible things, things that made him so sick to think about that he forced himself to compartmentalize them in order to not drown in his shame. He’s shirked friends, love, and basic morals, only to find out that his father didn’t even care if the world ended this way. No, all Satan wanted was power and sin, which he got in spades these past eighteen months. 

“How were you going to stop me?” he asks.

Mallory hesitates. “We…we were going to go back in time. There’s a spell that I found when searching through the coven’s grimoires to help with your Cordelia issue. I practiced it a few times before the bombs dropped, trying to figure out the right way to do it. Y/n was going to be both your personal tie and the one convincing you to stop the apocalypse. She had a time in place where she thought that you would be most willing to listen, to change your mind.”

It’s a smart plan, and it probably would have worked. After all, you likely know (knew, he’s reminded harshly) him better than he knows himself. As he thinks about the what-ifs, Michael realizes that this doesn’t have to be something that never happens.

“So, if you and I were to go back in time together, then we could change all of this?” Michael asks.

Mallory gapes at him. “You’re willing to give all this up?”

“What, this empty, decimated kingdom that I don’t even want?” 

In the eighteen months since the apocalypse, Michael had found that he was not suited for being a ruler—he didn’t like the pomp and circumstance, nor did he like people fawning over him. Still, he pretended to be the cold, uncaring king of this “New World,” because he thought that was what Satan wanted, that he was fulfilling the destiny that he was born to.

Now, there’s nothing left to fight for. The world didn’t even need to be ended, let alone in this way. He’s been nothing but a pawn to people his whole life—the Satanists, the warlocks, the stupid fucks that ran Kineros, even Satan himself. He’s done. Done with this stupid, useless path he’s taken, done with hurting everything and everyone, and done with bowing to the whims of anybody.

After all, what has he got to show for any of this? He’s been a good little soldier, doing unspeakably horrific acts and acting like he wasn’t affected, like he wasn’t the Michael that he was before the apocalypse. How did Satan reward him? By ensuring that he would never get back the one person in his life that he has ever truly loved, and who had ever truly loved him. 

“I can’t—I can’t live a life without Y/n. There is nothing without her. What do I need to do to help you?”

“Promise me,” she says. “Promise me that you will not use this second chance to end the world once again.”

“I just found out I ended the world for no reason, Mallory. A world that I was slowly coming to love, before Cordelia informed me that I needed to speed up the apocalypse plans I had been led to believe were created by my father. Before I was upset by people trying to convince me that blowing everything up was a bad idea.” Because of course, Satan would take credit for those plans if it meant that he would be closer to getting the complete chaos it would create. “Why would I try to end it again?”

Mallory searches his face for a moment before nodding. “I believe you.” 

She’s known him for long enough now to know his tells, and she sees none of them. Right now, he’s too much of a wreck to even consider trying to lie, not that he was planning on it.

Mallory slowly stands, but not before kissing the back of your hand and laying it gently on your chest. “Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael whispers to you, kissing your forehead. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m going to make this right.”

It takes strength he didn’t know he possessed to lay you down and let go of your body. Even as he walks away, going against every instinct and leaving you on the floor, he can’t take his eyes off of you.

Mallory climbs into the large washtub in the corner of the room, flicking her wrist and filling it with water. Michael follows her in, ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of sitting in wet clothes.

“Think of a time that you believe it will be easiest to completely stop the apocalypse before it goes too far,” she instructs.

There are many times in the past two years that Michael can see as a good time to stop the apocalypse. First, he’s tempted to go back to the beginning of this mess, when the witches killed Ms. Mead. Plans for the end of the world hadn’t even been drawn up yet, and he would have the added benefit of having Ms. Mead back. Plus, you wouldn’t have gone through the trauma of being kidnapped and forced to be the Antichrist’s bride.

It’s incredibly selfish, but the more Michael thinks about that avenue, the less he wants to take it. While it’s unfortunate how you came to know each other, he wouldn’t trade the way that you and he fell in love with each other for anything. But on the practical side, he wouldn’t have the influence that he has over important people and organizations were he to go back that far, and he needs that if he’s going to have enough power to keep the world from ending altogether. That’s off the table, then.

He wishes that you had told Mallory of your idea before being fatally wounded, because he probably would have agreed with your assessment. If it was any time after you moved in with him, he was already so in love with you that he could easily be swayed. What makes the most sense?

Finally, Michael has it. The time where he can be most effective at changing the fate of the world and ensuring there will not be an apocalypse by his hand, can remain powerful enough to not be usurped as Antichrist (for he’s sure that Satan will be very displeased by the change of plans if he finds out about Michael changing fate), and can still have you.

He opens his eyes and nods. “I have it.”

“Okay,” Mallory says with a hopeful smile. “Focus on that as hard as you can, place us both there.”

It’s all he can think about now, but he does as she says and recreates that time in his head. The sights, the sounds, the smells. How your hand felt in his, and the brightness of your smile. The possibilities that, at that time, seemed endless. Mallory holds her hands out and Michael takes them, feeling their magic bouncing off of each other like sparks from two exposed wires.

“Balneum infinitum. Dona salui conductus.” Mallory repeats the chant two more times, the water bubbling around them furiously and turning darker with each word.

Michael knows even without Mallory’s instruction that he’s needed to say the last part of the spell, and what that last part is. Just before they submerge themselves under the water, their voices join together to cast the most important spell of their lives.

“Tempus Infinituum.”

•••

Endnotes: Wow. I thought this would be a particularly tough chapter to write, but as I got going, the story flowed easily. I think because I've had this scene stuck in my head for so long! My FBI agent is definitely concerned by how thoroughly I read those "what happens to a body after a person dies" articles.

ALSO the Jeff and Mutt thing is canon!

Anyways, I'm gonna go watch some cute animal videos to feel better. Take care of yourselves, alright?

@ajokeformur-ray @iamavailablesstuff @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @nsainmoonchild @redroses07

@xo-angel-ox @littleangel4996 @iamlivingforturner @thatonehumanbeing05

@codycrazy @love-on-the-murder-scene

#michael langdon #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon x reader #american horror story #ahs imagine #american horror story imagine #michael langdon imagines #mad love musings

[7-wonders]

My weekends have largely been for writing lately and my typical writing soundtrack (classical music) has begun to influence my daylists.

#chat with claire

[7-wonders]

Hate to Say (I Told You So)

Michael Langdon x Reader (Mad Love Act II, Chapter XV)

Summary: A moral victory gets completely wiped away by the horrors of your life. But fear not, because help is (finally) here.

Word count: 5.3k

A note from the author: I wanted to say "A HOT NEW BOMBSHELL ENTERS THE VILLA" in my summary but figured I shouldn't because I'm trying to keep the tone very serious. The pace of this chapter is pretty fast-paced to keep up with the pace of the show—the chapter starts right where Episode 3 of Apocalypse does. It's so nuts to think that we're finally almost done. As always—hope you enjoy, and remember that likes, comments, and reblogs make my world go round!

Mad Love Masterlist

“There’s really no need to thank me,” you say emphatically to the two Purples sitting before you. 

“You’re the only reason we haven’t been executed. You saved our lives,” Timothy insists.

“I did what anybody would do.” You shoot a pointed glance at Michael, who stands at his desk across the room from you. “What anybody should do.”

The walk to the chamber where you could hear Emily and Timothy pleading for their lives simultaneously felt like the shortest and longest length of your life. It seemed as though with every step you took, the hallway grew longer, like you were in some kind of waking nightmare. Still, you pushed on, for nothing could stop you…except for the sharp bang of a gunshot. That did physically stop you for a couple of seconds as you tried to figure out what just happened. 

Immediately, you feared the worst—that you were too late. They can’t be dead, you thought before your brain reconnected with the rest of your body and you realized that you could move. It can’t end like this. You broke into a run, cursing the slight heel of your shoes as you tried to beat time itself to the scene of the crime.

Instead of what you were expecting, which was the two lovers lying dead in a heap, Ms. Mead stumbled past you with her hands cupped over her abdomen. You watched her go with wide eyes, leaking some sort of white fluid on the floor as she did. Ignoring her for now, you finally made it to the door and mentally prepared yourself for what you might see.

Inside, Timothy was collapsed into a heap but groaning and trying to get into a sitting position, while Emily was cowering against the wall. Neither of them had any bullet wounds, but the muscle of this Outpost stood over both of them, cocking the hammer back on the gun that was pointed at Emily.

“Stop!” you yelled, three sets of eyes looking at you.

“On whose orders?” The Fist demanded.

“The Cooperative’s.” It certainly wasn’t often that you invoked your privileges as wife to the Antichrist, but if there was a better situation to do so, you hadn’t found it yet.

They stared you down, so you channeled Michael the best you could, stepped closer to them, and refused to back down. Finally, they sighed and lowered the gun. “Fine. Get them out of my sight.”

You fell to your knees the moment that you knew you had won, wrapping your hands around Timothy’s arms and helping him to his feet. Once he was up and able to balance semi-steadily, you held out a hand to Emily. “Come on, let’s go,” you said softly, ushering her up from her spot curled up against the wall.

They followed you out of that small chamber in a daze, holding onto each other tightly. You wished you had had the foresight to grab a couple of blankets to cover them as you walked with them back to relative safety, but you hadn’t known that they were going to be executed in only their undergarments.

“That’s it?” Emily asked in bewilderment when you stood in front of Timothy’s room, the room closest to where you had all been. “We’re okay?”

You nodded. “Take all the time you need to decompress, but I would like to see you both in Langdon’s office when you’re ready to talk about what happened.”

Emily let out a relieved sob and let her head fall back against the wall in relief. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” You nearly choked on the words, undeserving of any such gratitude, and hurried away.

It was all you could think to say at the time, and now you’re here, sitting before them being lauded as a hero when you neither want nor deserve it. Why should you feel proud of such a label, when you’ve been unable to stop the monster responsible for all of what has befallen the world beyond your small act of rebellion?

“Not that I’m not grateful, because truly, I am—we both are,” Emily says, gesturing between her and Timothy. “But why save us?”

You remain silent, having no real answer for them beyond what you’ve already said, which is that it was what any person should do. Since this is not the old world, and doing things out of kindness is no longer the norm, you know that this doesn’t seem like a truthful answer. Michael saunters towards you, laying a firm hand on Timothy’s shoulder. For once, you’re happy for his theatrics, as it gets their waiting eyes off of you.

“I’ve been charged with finding the seeds from which the future of mankind will blossom. It’d be grossly irresponsible to allow a minor infraction to keep out a viable candidate,” Michael explains. “The stakes are too high.”

“We still have a chance at the Sanctuary?” Timothy asks, borderline incredulous. Not that you blame him.

“You didn’t break any rules,” you assure.

Michael nods in agreement. “Trust me, you have nothing to worry about. Now, I would encourage you both to get some rest. You’ve had a long day, and your interviews are scheduled for tomorrow.”

They get up from their respective chairs, planning to do just what Michael says and fall into bed. While Timothy goes for the door, Emily hesitates, and after a moment of internal deliberation, she takes your hands in hers. “I know I’ve said it a hundred times already, but thank you,” she says yet again. The sincerity in her tone and the earnestness in her eyes are almost too much for your guilty soul to bear.

“You’re welcome.” You accept her thanks begrudgingly, knowing that she would feel entirely different if she knew the truth about you and Michael. “You deserve a chance, both of you do.”

Michael has a proud smirk on his face when he turns to you after escorting them out of the office, though you’re not sure why. His plan didn’t exactly go the way that he was planning, and you’re the reason for it. Michael’s never been fond of changes outside of his control, and the stranger who’s inhabited your husband’s body for eighteen months is almost obsessive in ensuring that his plans play out how he intended. In fact, you’re expecting to meet his ire rather than what you’re greeted with.

“Well, well, well.” His smirk widens into a smile as he takes a seat next to you. “Look at you, taking charge! I’m proud of you.”

“Fuck off,” you snap. After a moment, you mutter, “But thank you,” because you’re not above praise.

“How did it feel? Knowing that you were in charge of their fates?” His eyelids flutter in some sort of ecstasy at the thought of the power that comes with what you believe to be an immense burden.

“Awful. My hands are still shaking.” You hold your shaking hands up to illustrate this. Now that the adrenaline has started to leave you, you’re exhausted. There’s nothing to hold you upright anymore beyond the knowledge that you’d much prefer falling asleep in a bed instead of on this uncomfortable couch.

Michael tsks, taking one of those shaking hands and caressing it in his own, steadier hands. “From what I could hear, you did well.”

“What can I say, tried to channel you.” He chuckles, and you can’t resist the urge to lay your head on his shoulder. You really are tired, and that means that your normal safeguards telling you that this isn’t wise are gone. “I thought you would be mad.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know, because I ruined your fun.”

“No. You could never. You just…made me pivot. I’ve always loved that about you—how you keep me on my toes.” He kisses your forehead. “You should get some rest, too.”

He’s right, unfortunately, so you stand from your seat. When Michael doesn’t follow, however, you look at him in surprise. “You’re not coming?”

“Not right now. I’m supposed to speak with my father tonight.”

It’s not disappointing, per se—you’re not going to complain about getting to spread out in bed—but it is a little upsetting to be reminded once again of the influence that’s completely warped and corrupted Michael. “Okay…goodnight.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” That old, familiar nickname hits home, and you swallow the lump in your throat to steel yourself against the muscle memory of asking Michael to come to bed, a whole different lifetime ago.

Sleep comes to you easily thanks to the exhaustion of the past couple of hours, though you’re a little wary as you feel unconsciousness claim you. Ever since the bombs dropped, you’ve been plagued by nightmares. Most of the time, you feel like you deserve it, like it’s a burden you must shoulder as punishment for your station. You fear them, the horrors that you typically see when you close your eyes. But tonight, at least, your dreams contain far less screaming and torment than usual.

The next few days pass in a manner far more boring than your first 24 hours in Outpost 3. There’s little work for you to do, and the strict way of life here makes it impossible to find anything exciting. While you’re tempted to continue interacting with Emily and Timothy, the first people you’ve felt a bond with since the end of the world, you know that that’s extremely unwise. To allow yourself to get close to anyone, but especially people who are, for all intents and purposes, innocent, can only bring misery to both parties. You don’t think you can take that sort of heartbreak, so you make the decision to stay away.

There are only two events that break up the monotony of your stay. The first is a security breach, although you suppose even that’s nothing too out of the ordinary here. After all, the Outposts only have the absolute basic levels of security, and the survivors that have been left to face the elements of the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape are nothing if not inventive. The other is something that is out of the ordinary, especially here in Ms. Venable’s draconian playland. 

Since it was announced two days ago, all anybody in the Outpost could talk about is the Halloween masquerade ball to be held tonight. To you, it certainly doesn’t sound exciting. Standing around in the library drinking water and talking is already Outpost 3’s daily routine, so you don’t see how adding costumes is going to suddenly make it fun. But the idea of getting to do something new catches on with the residents like wildfire, even with Emily and Timothy, who find you when you’re exchanging Frankenstein with Stephen King’s The Stand (maybe a little too on the nose for the current state of the world, but it’s difficult to find a book in this library that you haven’t read).

“Are you going to come?” Emily asks.

You try not to laugh because you know that, if you were in their position and starved of entertainment for so long, you’d probably be acting the same way. “Oh, probably not.”

“You should! It’ll be fun.”

The telltale sound of a cane against the floor sends a rush of chilled goosebumps down your arms. The one and only matron of this Outpost joins your little group, inserting herself in between you and Timothy.

“Hello, Ms. Venable,” you greet semi-politely, which is the most that you can manage around her.

“Emily is right, you should join us,” Ms. Venable says, a smile on her face. “It’s sure to be a scream.”

“I’m sure it will! Unfortunately, we’re very busy making our final selections for the Sanctuary, so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to make it this time.”

“Well, just know that the offer stands.”

“Thank you. I’ll be sure to let Langdon know as well.”

Ms. Venable’s fake smile falls off of her face as she levels her gaze coldly with Emily and Timothy, both of whom are still facing the full brunt of her wrath for escaping their fates. She returns the way that she came, sending a Gray stumbling out of the way to avoid getting in her path. The moment she rounds the corner, you turn back to them with your lips pressed together to keep your composure.

“Your idea of fun involves Ms. Venable?” you say, taking care to be a little quieter than normal in case she’s eavesdropping.

“No,” Timothy admits, “but we’ll still make it fun.”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” you say after a moment of consideration.

Emily grins, satisfied by this answer. “Yay!”

While such events don’t exactly appeal to you right now, you can’t deny that it might be amusing to at least stop in and check out, if only to see what costumes everybody comes up with.

You broach the topic with Michael after his last interviews are concluded and you’re in the room designated as his (Ms. Venable had given you two separate rooms upon your arrival, since nobody in the Outposts knew that you were married). “I don’t think I’ve seen a group of people so excited about a mandatory Halloween party since I was in elementary school,” you say, falling back on the bed and sighing in relief at finally getting to rest.

“Trust me, it was all I heard about in today’s interviews.” Though you can’t see him, you can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “I'm certainly not sad that we won’t be attending.”

You look over at him, (surprisingly) a tad disappointed. “We won’t?”

“You can’t tell me that you want to spend a couple of hours conversing with Dinah and the Vanderbilt girl.”

Your nose wrinkles, because no, you don’t. “I suppose you’re right.”

Michael kneels on the floor next to the bed, bringing his face level with yours. He smiles at you softly as his eyes map the familiar planes of your face. “Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve had you all to myself, no interviews or selections.”

Pretending is dangerous, you know. After all, you pretended like Michael wasn’t as close to ending the world as he truly was, and it led to you failing in your mission to try and stop him. But beyond watching him play with people’s lives (which is the new normal with him), this trip has been the closest to normal that you’ve felt in a while. You’ve shared meals without fighting, he’s laughed at things you’ve said and vice versa, and you’ve felt…kind of comfortable with him. When you lay your hand on his cheek and rub your thumb against the soft skin of his face, you pretend that this is your Michael, not the Antichrist, looking at you with his big blue eyes.

And when he presses his lips against yours, you pretend like you don’t remember why you’re supposed to tell him no.

Michael moves onto the bed with you, laying your back against the pillows while he straddles your hips. You gladly pull him down on top of you, removing your hands from his face to do so. He’s all over you, from your sides to your thighs to your breasts to your face. Your tongues tangle together, but rather than a fight for dominance, it’s a dance where you’re both equal partners. Loving him, and being loved by him, in this specific way is intoxicating, and you’re happy to turn your brain off for a bit and just feel.

“I want to run something by you,” Michael mumbles between kisses. It’s weird that he wants to do this now, when he’s grinding against you and your fingers are working at undoing his pants, but whatever.

You swallow down a moan and nod. “Okay.”

“This is the last Outpost we have to visit before we can focus on creating our new world out of the ashes of the old one.” His lips go to your jaw, and he begins to suck and nip at the underside of it. “What if we got started on it early, with just the two of us? Ushered in this new world with new life?”

Arousal has completely clouded your mind by this point, and you have to fight to fully take in Michael’s words. It takes another few moments to really understand what he’s said. Now, your stomach is tight for a whole different reason, making you go still. “What are you suggesting?” you ask, hoping against all hope that you’re wrong.

He pulls away from you just enough that he can meet your eyes. “I’m suggesting we have a baby.”

“What?”

Your shock is misinterpreted for surprise, and Michael smiles. “I know, it would be a big change, but can’t you imagine it? Our future. We’d be a family, and our baby would be the very best parts of us and our love.”

He’s right—you can imagine that future, one where you’re a mom and Michael’s a dad, proud parents of a baby with Michael’s cherub features and your eyes. It’s such a vivid picture in your head that it feels like it was meant to be, and you find yourself lost in it as Michael continues to verbally paint your future parenthood. For a moment, you feel like you want it as much as Michael does.

A door slams downstairs, pulling you back to yourself and reminding you that that’s not what you want. Like, at all.

Panic begins to thrum under your skin, making you laugh nervously as you try to wriggle out from under him. “Michael.”

He doesn’t answer, too caught up in his fantasy. “Plus, you can’t deny that we’d make a cute kid.”

“Michael!” He pauses to look down at you, and you use that opportunity to slide away from him. Sitting up on the bed, you grab a pillow and hold it in front of you almost defensively. “Where is this coming from?”

He looks down bashfully and grabs one of your hands. “The timing, us almost being done with the Outposts and, by extension, the old world, had me thinking. An heir would be such a fitting way to bring about this new age on Earth. It just feels…right.”

That word, ‘heir,’ sends alarms blaring in your mind. Michael styles himself as king because that’s the title that his father has bestowed upon him, the title that he only believes himself worthy of so long as his father does. For him to use a term like ‘heir,’ typically associated with royal and noble houses, can only mean one thing. 

Your blood goes cold at the realization, bile trying to creep its way up your throat. Hesitantly, you pull your hand away. “Your father’s the one that brought this up, didn’t he?”

He shrugs, not seeming to care that he’s once again letting Satan dictate every aspect of his life. “He mentioned it, yes, but the idea is all mine! So, what do you say? You wanna have a baby?”

It’s obvious that part of him genuinely enjoys the idea of having a child. You can see his excitement, and hear his dreams in the way he speaks of your shared potential future. But the other part, the one that’s all Antichrist and therefore the part that’s completely taken over him, sees a child solely as a means to an end. A way to secure his father’s bloodline and cement their rule on Earth. You wouldn’t submit anybody to that fate, least of all a helpless child. 

With your mind made up, you meet Michael’s eyes and shake your head. “No.”

“No?” His brow furrows, taken aback from hearing this answer from you. 

“No! I won’t bring a child into this fucked up hellscape of yours.”

Michael’s smile falls. “Yes, you will. Maybe not today, but you’ll come around.”

“That’s a pretty bold assumption.”

“Is it? After all, our contract says that we’ll have a child within five years. We’re three years in, and time is only ticking.”

“The contract?” you gasp in shock, reeling back from the bed. “You’re really bringing up that stupid fucking contract right now?” 

You can’t believe that after all these years, all the progress that you made individually and as partners (progress that was, of course, shattered with the press of a button), he’d betray you and bring up the very document that made you feel so much like a prisoner when you first met him. Though you try not to, your eyes don’t listen to your will and begin to well with tears.

Michael remains unmoved by your emotional display and instead attempts to explain. “I only do to remind you of what’s expected of you, of both of us.”

“Fuck you, Michael. I will never have a child with you.”

His eyes steel over as he clenches his jaw. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”

“I guess we will.” 

You charge a path to the door, praying that Michael doesn’t stop you. Somehow, he has enough sense left in his brain to remain where he’s sitting, simply watching you throw open the door. Before you leave, you look back at him. 

“Tell your father what I’ve told both of you before. If he wants your wife to be some perfect little Satanist that bows to every one of his, and your, whims, then he’s going to have to kill me and find you another poor girl to force into marriage.”

 With that, you slam the door and walk down the hall toward your own room, tears blurring the path in front of you.

It’s only when you’ve locked the door and can feel the sturdy wood behind your back that you allow yourself to actually break down. Sobs rip loudly from deep within your chest, and you slap a hand over your mouth to try and muffle the sound. You’d hate to interrupt the Halloween party currently taking place below you, and you’d hate even more for people to come and ask you what’s wrong right now. If they did, you know what you’d say. That everything is wrong, from the clothes that you wear to the way that people act, and that the past eighteen months are like being the unwilling lead in a horror movie.

Those words can never be spoken aloud, because there’s not a single person alive that would understand them beyond Michael Langdon. Unfortunately, the Michael Langdon that you knew is dead and replaced by the spawn of Satan that’s always been lurking inside of him. Sometimes he does a good job of playing the part of Michael Langdon, a good enough job that it can momentarily fool you. But the demon will always rear its ugly head, reminding you again and again that you’re truly alone in this world. 

It feels a little childish to throw yourself on your bed and cry yourself to sleep. But in this situation, you think it’s warranted.

You’re eventually ushered back to consciousness by the feather-light touch of fingers brushing your cheek. It’s a struggle to unglue your eyelids after they grew stuck together due to your drying tears, and you hesitantly pry open one eye to glance at what, or who, has woken you up. Upon making a positive identification, you groan and drop your head against the mattress.

“I hate this dream,” you grumble.

A soft laugh comes from next to you. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“Tell me anyway.”

It takes a moment for you to work up the courage to actually speak your thoughts. “Because it reminds me that you’re gone.”

The mattress shifts. “Open your eyes.”

You really don’t want to do that, because you know what the result will be. After all, you’ve had dreams along this storyline before. Dreams where you’re taunted with your innermost desires, dreams that feel so real that you wake up expecting them to be fact. They never turn out to be real, though, and you’re dreading being faced with that same disappointment once more.

But hope is cruel, and it’s tantalizing. In the end, you’re no match for hope.

Instead of being greeted by nothing but air when you finally open both eyes, someone is still sitting next to you on the bed. You take in their black wardrobe first—a long-sleeved black dress, with a matching cloak fastened around the neck. Next is the hair, beautiful dark waves, with a golden headband nestled among them. Finally, you meet a pair of warm, brown eyes that twinkle with excitement.

You sit up abruptly in shock. The breath gets caught in your throat, and you have to work to make a sound. Even when you can, your voice comes out shaky and unsure. “...Mallory?”

A familiar smile spreads across her face. “Hi.”

Your hand has come up without you realizing it, and it hovers now above Mallory’s shoulder. Though you want so badly to touch her, you’re sure that the moment you do, she’ll dissipate into thin air like smoke. You don’t know if you can handle that kind of heartbreak, not after what you’ve just been through.

Mallory takes your hand and intertwines your fingers with hers. In your grasp, you can feel the muscles of her hand flex, her skin warm and real against yours. A sharp gasp rips from you, tears already falling once more (you’ve cried so much tonight) when you raise your gaze to meet hers once more.

“Oh my god, Mallory!”

She says your name with just as much tenderness and awe, her voice a balm on your bruised and battered soul. It’s another second before you’re being pulled into a welcomed, bone-crushing hug. You meet her with the same level of enthusiasm, holding onto each other as though, at any moment, forces will try to rip you apart. The forces of the universe can try any tactic possible, but they’re guaranteed to fail. Your best friend is back and in your arms against all odds, and you’re never letting her go again.

“How the—how—you—” Mallory waits patiently for you to remember how to speak. “You’re here. And you’re alive. How are you alive?”

“Witches don’t die easily.”

“I can see that!” You pull back from the embrace just enough so that you can look her in the eyes and be reminded of the fact that Mallory really, truly sits before you now. “I’ve missed you so much, you have no idea.”

Her face somehow softens even more than it already has. “I’ve missed you too.”

While you could spend hours in silence and simply enjoy her presence once more, there are explanations to be made, ones that, in your mind, simply can’t wait. “I have so many questions.”

“Ask, then, and I’ll do my best to answer.”

You work to untangle the jumbled mess that your thoughts have become. “How are you here? I’m talking the whole process, from surviving the apocalypse to somehow traversing a nuclear wasteland and coincidentally ending up at the same Outpost we’re visiting.”

“To make a very long story short, when you called me that day that you and Michael fought, I knew that we were running out of time. His anger sped up the process of the apocalypse by months, which meant that I had to speed up figuring out how to stop him. While my research in those ensuing weeks was fruitful, there was no chance of actually having enough practice to successfully execute any sort of plan by the time the bombs dropped. So, I pivoted. I’d work as hard as I could, right up until the end, while also knowing that I had key members of the coven in place to help me after the nuclear war.”

“Your coven survived?” you ask hopefully. An army of witches would do a lot to help right now.

Her face twists in pain. “Michael would have sensed it if an entire coven survived the apocalypse, so I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life. I sent the girls home on a ‘break’ and told them that I and a couple of their teachers had to go meet with a European coven. They got to spend their last days with their loved ones, which is a small comfort to me.”

“I’m sorry, Mallory.” What you want to say is that you’re sorry that this happened, and that you’re sorry that the man you’re fated to love is the reason why. If you get started on that path, though, you know that you’ll be apologizing for hours about things that, at the end of the day, aren’t your fault (even though they feel like they are). Instead, you give Mallory a tighter squeeze and hope that it accurately conveys all that goes unsaid.

Mallory clears her throat, lifting a hand from you briefly to swipe at her wet eyes. “Anyways. I took only those who I knew would be a great help to me when the time came. Two of my friends, who also taught with me, and I went to ground. Bayou mud carries intense healing properties, and it kept us safe for eighteen months of hibernation, for lack of a better term.”

You’re mildly horrified at the fact that Mallory and her friends basically buried themselves alive, but Mallory continues before you can say anything.

“Then, an older student who comes from a very rich family volunteered to help. I wiped her mind of her identity as a witch and ensured that she would be here, in Outpost 3, so that we would have as many on our side as possible.”

“Who…” you trail off. “Coco!” That’s why her name sounded so familiar! Mallory had likely mentioned her to you in passing during one of your many conversations after she assumed the title of Supreme.

“Yep.”

“Is she always so…” you pause, trying to think of a nice way to phrase what you want to say. “Bitchy?”

“Before she came to Robichaux’s, yes.” She grins cheekily, and you feel your heart twist at how much you’ve missed seeing that. “Hence the bitchy attitude here.”

“Was Outpost 3 just a lucky guess?”

Mallory shakes her head. “No. I knew that Outpost 3 would be Michael’s crown jewel when it came to the Outpost project. He was never shy in his hatred of warlocks and Hawthorne—he hated both of them almost as much as he hated Cordelia. It made sense that he would choose this as his final stop. He wanted to prove to himself, you, and Satan that he was nothing like the boy that first arrived here years ago.”

“So, you sent a spy here and took as much help with you as you could. What’s your plan now?” How are you going to get us out of this mess? you want to ask.

She turns serious. “Before I tell you, I need to ask you something.”

“Anything,” you promise.

“I’m going to ask you to stand with me and against Michael. And if you can’t do that because of your soul bond with him, I understand. In that case, though, I need to ask you to stand aside so that I can do what I need to do.”

There’s no need for any sort of deliberation, nor is there any hesitation in you. This answer comes just as easily and surely as one from mere hours ago, only this time, the result is the opposite. “Of course, I’ll stand with you.”

She sighs in deep relief, apparently worried that you were going to turn her down or, worse, side with Michael. “I’m so glad to hear that.” 

Mallory begins to explain her plan and your role in it, one that you’re happy to play. You’ve been forced to be a bystander for too long, and now, you refuse to let that be your identity. You want your world back, and with Mallory and her witches at your side, you feel confident that this is how you win.

///

Tag list: @thatonehumanbeing05 @xavierplympton @hecohansen31 @codycrazy @love-on-the-murder-scene @michaellangdonswhore @nsainmoonchild @aftertheglitterfades @iamlivingforturner @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @angistopit @littleangel4996 @xo-angel-ox @ajokeformur-ray @iamavailablesstuff @redroses07

#reblogging for no reason in particular #definitely not because the next chapter is out in a couple days and I want to make sure you’re caught up #mad love musings #michael langdon x reader #Michael langdon imagine

[7-wonders]

no stevie nicks, i CAN’T sail through the changing ocean tides and i CAN’T handle the seasons of my life

[7-wonders]

I cannot stop watching this tiktok it kills me

#things that make me smile #<<<bringing back this tag because I need it #and maybe you do too! #chat with claire

[7-wonders]

what if i just rest my eyes for a second

#*admiral ackbar voice* it’s a trap!

[7-wonders]

if anyone finds out when this permanent feeling of fear goes away please let me know

[7-wonders]

The First Omen gender reveal promo

[7-wonders]

well maybe you should figure that out before reposting someone elses artwork

#no fr #one time somebody reposted all of my fics on Wattpad with a simple ‘by @7-wonders on tumblr’ #WITHOUT EVEN ASKING #they did this to a bunch of AHS writers too! #it was terrible to find that out and to fight to get it taken down #(I had to contact Wattpad directly because this person would not take it down)

[7-wonders]

I have to work late tonight so I’m tempted to just stay up, wait for Dead Boy Detectives to drop at midnight, and watch the first couple episodes

#chat with claire #the sandman #dead boy detectives

[7-wonders]

#i laughed way too hard at this

[7-wonders]

you know how in books and fanfictions and movies it's often the women who swoon over the men?

our lovely throuple would be the opposite. dream and hob would treat y/n like a god/goddess, worshipping the ground they walk on

they're yelling at a man, maybe even starting a fight, because he was harassing them or someone else? pure heart eyes from the other two, with a bit of fear because fuck they're strong. (maybe a little turned on too because fuck they look hot)

they're just chilling on the couch, reading, in a hoodie and sweatpants, completely relaxed? most beautiful person they've ever seen

they're dressed up to the nines in a suit or a dress to go to a ball? they can't take their eyes off of them the whole night

I just love seeing men who are absolutely whipped and so in love with their partners🥰

THOSE TWO ARE SO WHIPPED ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY 😂

You are Hob and Dream’s new religion, they will be on their knees praying at your alter every night. You could do no wrong in their eyes (even when you threaten a man’s life when he made a snide comment towards Hob and Dream)

When you don’t feel great/beautiful/handsome? All they see is your radiance and will tell you endlessly. Wrinkles? Pimples? Stretch marks? Fat? It doesn’t matter you are their deity to worship. And when you do dress up? These two can’t keep their eyes or hands off of you.

The best part of all of this? When you reciprocate the affection. When you tell them they’re handsome and beautiful, when you showering them in compliments, they literally form heart eyes. They can’t believe they have someone in their life. They literally fall more and more in love with you

#totally fine and normal about this #definitely not sitting at my desk losing my mind

[7-wonders]

So excited for Dead Boy Detectives if a resident of the Dreaming makes an appearance I will LOSE IT

#this is a threat #chat with claire #the sandman #dead boy detectives

[7-wonders]

My thoughts: I liked it, didn’t love it. I had to take a break when there was like an hour left because WOW that is a long movie and also I felt like that was when the story started to dip. I’ll probably watch the second part, but it’s not something I’m desperate to watch immediately.

I’d like to inform the council that I’ve finally given in and am watching Dune for the first time

#chat with claire

[7-wonders]

I DO obsessively read peoples tags when they rb my art

And, yes, I DO kick my little feets and giggle when I get compliments