#and spy will. well. he will bear witness and find Horrors

[birbwell]

more scout&bidwell brother content ft. a harrowingly long elevator ride

#tf2 #tf2 spy #tf2 scout #tf2 bidwell #birbwelldraws #yes i am Still a fierce proponent of this dumb headcanon #th hill i will die on!!!!! #bidwell was probably a wee lad when spy was around to woo their ma #i think. he'd recognize the name at least #just a matter of putting scout and bidwell and spy in the same place #scout and bidwell will 100% argue because scouts a little shit and bidwells too proud to admit he did anything wrong ever #and spy will. well. he will bear witness and find Horrors #... maybe ill clean this up one day but gfbdhgb have This for now

[ethereumhq]

Hours crawled by with rowdy partygoers, blissfully unaware of what was happening all around them. Every room was filled to the brim with possibilities, both good and bad, and some had even made their way to the final circle. The last task completed, costing them more than they had bargained for. At least they got away with their lives. Others weren’t so lucky. Tonight had been deemed a success. Hell was waiting.

8pm / Anger

The fighting was savage. Blood spraying across the walls in timing with every fist connecting to a jaw. Who knew that the promise of an answer would be enough to send everyone into a frenzy. To catapult the civilized world into nothing more than madness. They should have known. There were sharks in the room, preying on the weak, spying those who were much too pathetic to make it through the rest of the circles. And they knew it was over from the moment they made eye contact with a foreboding set of blue eyes. The kind that spelled out horror more obscenely than any scream possibly could. One moment they were taking in the gruesome battle before them, and the next there was a hand around their throat, a barely contained smile in their line of slowly blacking out vision. “Please,” they managed to whisper, and then there was no ability to speak at all. This was the end. They would leave the world to the sound of dull groans of agony, and a quiet whisper that everything was going according to plan. With one singular ripping motion, their head was removed from their body, flung around carelessly.

10pm / Heresy

Screams. A hammer. Nails. No one else in this circle will remember the horrors that they witnessed. They will not recall the cross that came bearing their fellow partygoer. But they, in their last moments of being alive, can feel every hit of the hammer, driving that nail into their palms, stringing them up against the wall until they transformed into art itself. They could see those around them, looking at the moment as if it were just a performance being put on. A show to be admired, and not a person in distress. Had they forgotten what happened to those who stood aside while Jesus was prosecuted? Did they not understand what happened to those who turned a blind eye? The stake to the heart finished any further thought of religion in a room where none could truly be found. God couldn’t see them, and God wasn’t waiting for them, either. Only Death held that kind of power.

12am / Treachery

“There you are!” His arm was heavy, muscles relaxed under the pressure of all he’d consumed that night. Ethereum, blood, drink, drugs… Well, he certainly hadn’t expected to find himself on the doorstep of the seventh circle—shit, he didn’t think he’d make it past Lust—yet here he stood, arm around the shoulders of the same masked companion he’d started the night with. Presumably the same companion, anyway. The halls were dark, his sight was double and all these damn masks looked the same after a certain point. “Right,” he leaned in to get a good look at the entry fee. They were the only two souls at the gate, each circle thinning out more and more as the night went on. “Shit man, I don’t know about this one.” 

But his companion did, and pressed the barrel of a gun to the young vampire’s back. Before the mostly innocent party boy could revoke his trust a gloved finger pulled back the trigger and an ethereum plated bullet exploded inside the immortal, who would live no longer. The killer tucked away the gun, grabbed the vampire by his boots, and dragged the body somewhere it wouldn’t be found until the time was right. Then they entered the seventh circle to have their question answered. Sure, they were being paid well for the killings, but knowledge was invaluable. They’d have that before they left the scene, too.

OOC: We’ve made it to the end (well, almost all of us)! As you can tell, there is something run amok at the Helloween Masquerade, and only time will tell what has been happening with these rather suspicious and well-timed murders. We aren’t going to leave you all hanging, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for more information.

Also, after a very deep, intense discussion, we’ve decided to forgo any masquerade outfit voting, and give everyone 100 points/posts to go toward purchases at the Armory. So, gear up pals, it looks like it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

#post: event

[cyanlastride]

the colorado kid has torn through my mind over the past several hours

i was scrolling through tv shows i could watch when i saw haven. my parents watched haven when i was younger, and i remember bits and pieces of it. i was surprised, however, to see stephen king mentioned in the show summary. i read my first king book, the gunslinger, long after my parents finished haven, and before the gunslinger i really had no interest in king. now, even though ive still only read a handful of his books besides the dark tower, i jump every time i see his name, or anything nineteen.

i watched the first episode of haven with intent for the first time, and after something like 6 ad breaks decided that tv was not worth my time. also, though the show was interesting it didnt feel like king, other than it being set in maine. obviously i am no expert of what does and does not feel like king as i swore that donnie darko was a king adaptation when i watched it recently, but whatever. a quick wikipedia search confirms that only the setting and the idea of the colorado kid are king-inspired, along with a couple of references to stuff like IT. still havent read or watched IT. at the end of the day im a dark tower fan, not a king-horror fan, and surprisingly the fanbases have relatively small overlap. anyways, while im on wikipedia, i decide to quickly check out the colorado kid page.

and of course, my eyes immediately spy out the words dark tower.

"The review of The Colorado Kid in today’s issue of today's USA Today mentions that there was no Starbucks in Denver in 1980. Don’t assume that’s a mistake on my part. The constant readers of the Dark Tower series may realize that is not necessarily a continuity error, but a clue."

and just like that, im hooked. you see, im the type of nerd that grinned like a fool when i noticed the name of the bus company in the dr sleep movie. i love finding the little references and connections to the dark tower, so much so that the entire reason why i bought and read fairy tale was because i thought the staircase on the cover looked like the eye of the crimson king. the dark tower reference ending up being much more mundane in that book, but i still enjoyed myself.

so i wasnt able to sleep because i want to find my special little dark tower easter egg just for me oh boy oh boy, and now ive spent at least that last 4 hours starting and finishing the colorado kid which has left me unable to sleep because i cannot stop trying to come up with theories and trying to figure out how the fuck a starbucks existing in denver in 1980 when the first one didnt open there until 1992 on our/kings(?) level of the tower has any fucking relevance to the colorado kid who we already know exists on a different level of the tower to kings level because im assuming the forwards/afterwards are canon like they are in the dark tower books.

also, completely separate to the dark tower relevancy discussion, my main question about the colorado kid is as follows: where the hell did he get the steak from? either my man has been carrying around a cooked steak in his suit all day including into the fish n chip place, or he got it somewhere presumably after the ferry, so on the island? there cant be that many places that serve steak on the island, and with how the setting is described i find it unlikely they wouldnt be able to track down a witness who remembers an out of towner ordering a steak to go. so he was most likely given that steak by someone, someone who knew him well enough to want to give him a steak to eat with his bare fucking hands and then either purposefully doesnt speak up when he is found dead or never finds out about his death. im also willing to bet that the mysterious steak-bearing stranger saw and moved the colorado kid after he choked, because seriously if you were sitting enjoying some steak on the beach cuddled up with a trashcan one why are you rawdogging your steak next to a trashcan two when you start choking are you not going to attempt to stand, or lean over, perhaps over the trashcan, to attempt to choke out your steakbit? let gravity do some of the work, and right into the appropriate receptacle no less? like seriously my man mustve been going through something when he started choking on his steak he just sat there chilling, completely unbothered. if he was in any normal "ohgodhelpmeimchokingtodeath" position when he died he shouldve been face first in the sand. so yeah the colorado kid one hundred percent met with someone who gave him a steak, watched him choke on it, and then sat him up against a trashcan and just left.

maybe it was one of the furries or vampires or whatever. they were having some sort of fancy dinner when jake and callahan showed up, right? was that steak or human? also i seem to remember their little "come watch the humans fuck up their world lol hehe 9/11" teleport door hallway having something to do with russian currency, not sure what the connection is there but my brain seems to think theres something.

last thoughts before i give up for the night: not bothering to factcheck this but i think the dark tower series was completed in 04 and this book's afterward was dated 05 so the whole of the tower is potential context here. also the stand is one of the few other king books ive read and i think boulder colorado is important there too? its either the target city for the good survivors or the place where the sheriff comes from, i think? or maybe its the city the katet passes through in wizard and glass? i dont remember anymore my memory is awful and its late. if the kid ever went todash we at least know he started and ended on the same level of the tower cuz of his wife. the starbucks thing is bothering me too, like why is it significant that hes on another level of the tower, and one thats so similar to our own like they have starbucks during the cold war but with the way they talk about airplane regulations im assuming 9/11 still happened so it cant be that different. im starting to think that king just said that to turn people who were miffed about colorado kid onto the dark tower to increase sales or something but he posted this on his blahag so like i really doubt that.

im boutta pass out, damn you king, damn you colorado kid

[lis-likes-fics]

Hey! Could you pls do fem reader x Lucille Sharpe, where y/n is a guest in her house and slowly their friendship grows to love? And maybe one day Lucille has a fight with Thomas and she kills him, y/n sees everything (also realizes that they used to sleep together) afterwards Lucille attacks her and they have a fight (just like with Edith), but they don't kill each other in the end. Happy end where they stay together

Lucille had taken you in quickly, she'd taken a liking to you and accepted you as her friend. Thomas was hesitant at first, he didn't know what to think of you, but he slowly grew fond of you as well.

Your father was very sick when you met them. A few months after, he died of his illnesses. You had nowhere to go. Your mother died when you were a child and you were left an orphan when your father bit the dust.

So Lucille took you in, inviting you into her home with Thomas as their guest. You were so grateful and life couldn’t have been better. Even if there were very strange...appearances in that house.

But life was good.

For a few months.

Then you found out about Thomas and Lucille.

You didn’t have feeling for him or her, but seeing them together gave you a weird feeling... Mostly when you thought of Lucille.

You weren’t into her. You would know if you were, right? So why did it hurt more that she was the one?

But you shouldn’t intrude. It was their life right? No matter how...disturbing.

You knew you shouldn’t intrude or spy or eavesdrop. Especially on your friends, that wasn’t right. You’d just stick to your own business, not bring up theirs. That’s right. You would worry about you, not them.

Or at least, you would have worried about you and not them.

But you couldn’t help yourself. You’d throw it in the bins of accidents along with finding out the siblings were in an intimate relationship that you would rather not think about.

They were just in the kitchen, they were just talking. You were first on your way for a cup of tea, but you stopped short outside of the kitchen when you heard them talking.

“Lucille, this is not wise,” Thomas tried.

“What isn’t wise?” She asked, tilting her head as she talked to him.

Thomas sighed, “If we let this continue, what would become of her, of you...of us?”

Lucille turned away, hesitant as she answered, “I’m not sure what you are talking about, Thomas.”

“Lucille, I think you know exactly what I’m talking about,” Thomas tried again.

What were they talking about?

Lucille turned around to face him, “Enlighten me.”

“Her,” he simply said, looking at her sternly, “You feel something for her. I can tell, I can see it. You aren’t like you used to be...”

Lucille had stopped completely, like she was debating something in her head, or trying to push the idea out of her head completely. You continued to watch silently, unsure of what was going on or how to react to it. You couldn’t pry yourself away.

Lucille shook her head, “I’m...I’m not sure who you are referring to.”

Thomas sighed again, “I think you are.”

She turned to him, looking up as she spoke, her a tone a little more lethal than before, “And what else do you think, Thomas?”

His mouth opened very slightly as he realized his mistake, taking a small step back as he mumbled, “Lucille...”

“No, Thomas. I want to hear it. What is it you think is going on with me? You think I’m distracted? I’ve completely changed course? You think I’ve lost track of what’s important? Or that I’ve gone mad?”

Thomas shook his head, continuing to step back as she advanced. He didn’t mean to start an actual argument, “No, Lucille, that’s not what I meant.”

She spoke, “Really? Because it really seems like that’s exactly what you meant.”

“No, you’re twisting my words,” Thomas tried, holding his hands out to calm her. She unconsciously grabbed for something, anything to have in her hands. Unfortunately, she had been cooking before the argument and was now armed with a knife.

“So you think I have gone mad? Over Y/N? Are you serious? After all these years, you think one girl is going to change us, Thomas?” Lucille said, continuing to advance on Thomas.

You covered your mouth, your breath speeding as you tried to stay silent. Thomas was backed into the wall now, his only shot was to try and calm her, “Lucille, please, calm yourself.”

She was right in front of him now, only an inch away. She tapped his cheek lightly with the knife, “Are you sure I’m the one who’s gone mad?”

Thomas didn’t answer, it didn’t matter what he said to her. Lucille’s hand shook slightly, her breath coming in strained pants as her own emotions shot through her in a speed she couldn’t comprehend.

She didn’t mean to. It was as if her body had a mind of its own, as if she was not herself. She was thinking over the argument, the truth in his words too much too soon for her to bear as she began to consider it. Maybe he was right.

She didn’t like being wrong. She didn’t want to be wrong.

But she didn’t mean for it to happen...mostly...

With one quick slice, she slit Thomas’s throat, the blood spilling from the deep cut and some of the blood spattering on her face and clothes. She inhaled sharply at the same time as you.

You covered your mouth, pressing your back against the wall before sliding down. A tear ran down your cheek at the horrors you’d just witnessed. You took in a silent, shaky breath as you tried to compose yourself.

You slowly looked over, trying to see the other side into the kitchen. Lucille was standing there behind the wall, looking down at her on the floor. Out of sheer panic, running on the adrenaline that had pumped into her veins when she saw Thomas die, she stood and ran in the other direction.

Lucille began walking after, following like a predator would her prey. “Y/N. Y/N, dear, please come back.”

You kept running, wiping at your tears. You had to find a hiding spot, a spot safe from Lucille. But where was that? Lucille knew the entire house like the back of her hand and she was still holding the bloodied up knife.

So you ran as far as your legs would carry you. “Y/N, please come back here!” Lucille called. You crouched down and hid behind somewhere, your hands searching for anything you could use as a weapon.

You pried some of the loose wood from the floor, the board splintering and becoming a messy stake. You clenched the makeshift weapon in your hold, holding it tightly to your chest.

You breathed heavily, looking over to see if Lucille had caught up to you. When you saw her coming up, your eyes widened. She struck at you with her knife, it stabbed into the wood just above your head and stuck there for a moment.

You used that opportunity to run again. “Y/N!”

You busted through the front doors, stopping momentarily at the sight before you. Winter had just arrived and it was the first snow of the season. You truly knew why it was called ‘Crimson Peak’. The red clay seeped from the ground and stained the snow red, creating the scene of a bloody field in front of you.

You looked behind you and ran outside, hiding behind the giant machinery from Thomas’s work. Lucille came bolting outside.

It was ridiculous to say, especially at a time like this, but she was strangely endearing in the way she looked. There was a strange, unsettling beauty about her. The unsettling part came from the fact that she was still blood stained and out for more.

“Lucille, please. You don’t have to do this,” you tried. You didn’t want to have to do the worst if she tried to kill you. You didn’t want to have to kill her. She made you feel so strange over the course of your few months here. She was your friend, and such a close one.

But why did friend feel strange to say?

She followed the sound of your voice, no matter how disarming it was. “I don’t want to,” she began, “But I have to.”

“Why?” You asked her, confused and conflicted.

“It’s my job, it’s the game. I took an exception on you...and look where it got me. Thomas is now dead, I only have you now. I should have no one after that,” she confessed, turning the corner to find you.

She struck you with the knife, but you blocked with your stake, running the other way to avoid having to fight. She chased you, but she didn’t exactly know why anymore.

You told her, “It doesn’t have to be that way! You don’t have to kill me! Please, Lucille.”

She stopped when you did, looking at her with sorrowful eyes. She shook her head, tears filling her eyes as she said with a slight growl, “I have to. This is your fault!”

She raised the knife above her head and you moved out of the way, booking it to hide again. Safely in a hiding place, you called, “What do you mean?”

She spoke, “You’re the reason I killed Thomas... He was right. I was distracted, I’m not in my right mind, and it’s your fault. I’ve gone completely mad, and I have no idea why.”

You stopped as you asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you have taken over my mind. I can’t do anything with you constantly popping into my head like some kind of plague meant to ruin me! What have you done to me? And why do I have to be the one you choose to toy with?” She asked. She’d fallen to her knees, weeping on the floor as her pump of energy had given out.

You slowly came from your hiding spot, watching her from afar as you said, “I didn’t do anything, or I didn’t mean to. I tried to keep my distance, especially after I learned of you and Thomas. I tried to stay out of your way, I tried not to interfere. I didn’t want to meddle in things I don’t understand. But it’s so hard to stay away from you, Lucille.”

She looked up at you, her breath coming in heavy pants as she watched you slowly come from your distance, moving cautiously closer. “You...you plague my mind just as I plague yours. And...I don’t know what that means.”

Lucille didn’t speak, she just watched as you moved closer. You eventually got close enough to hug her, so that’s what you did. “I’m sorry, Lucille. About everything. You don’t have to be alone. Please...”

She breathed irregularly, trying to think, to clear her head. You hugged her tightly, hoping for her to hug you back.

But you didn’t expect for her to thrust her knife through your back. You inhaled sharply and she yanked the knife out. You fell to the ground, looking up at her with a pain expression. “Lucille?”

She watched, trying to keep a blank expression, but she couldn’t. Any moment now and you would be dead. She sat and she tried to keep sitting, but she couldn’t lose you.

“Y/N. Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, her sorrow and regret sneaking up on her as she looked over you. “I’m sorry. You’ll be okay.”

You looked up at her, your hand pressing against her cheek. You gave a weak smile, coming to terms that you were a goner. “I’m sorry, Lucille,” you told her.

She shook her head. Your eyes felt heavy as you closed them, your body going limp. She shook her head again, “No, Y/N!”

She shook you and you didn’t respond. She took in a breath and picked you up, carrying you into the house. “I can’t lose you, too. Please, Y/N.”

~

You felt weird, your eyes opening slowly, fluttering open. You looked around the room, confused. Your eyes landed on a resting Lucille and you panicked for a moment. That’s when you saw the bandage wrapped around your stomach and back.

You looked at her again and blinked, trying to remember what exactly happened, why you were still alive. Lucille killed you, didn’t she?

She stirred when she heard you rustling under the blankets laid over you. She saw you and turned quickly, “Y/N, are you alright?” She sounded relieved, so happy that you weren’t dead.

You were scared at first, but hearing her voice and seeing her face seemed to be rid of all of that. This woman almost killed you, she tried to. But you somehow couldn’t muster up the sense to be at least scared of or mad and her.

All you could do was hug her.

Or at least, you tried to. You were interrupted mid-action by the immense pain in your back from your stab wound. “Careful!” Lucille warned you, looking at the blood spot on your back.

You held your arms out, embarrassed now. She hugged you back, desperately in need of one. You smiled weakly and sighed into the hug. Lucille broke down in tears and you followed after, both of you muttering multiple ‘I’m sorry’s to one another.

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m so sorry. This is my fault, I should never have touched you,” Lucille told you.

You shook your head, “You saved me, didn’t you? I’m not dead, so your officially forgiven.”

She pulled away slowly, staring at you as she gazed into your eyes. She missed looking in them. Her eyes darted to your lips and your followed. You couldn’t help yourself, and apparently she couldn’t either as her lips pressed against yours.

She held you carefully to her, pulling you tighter. You sighed, your hands tangling in her hair. After a moment, she pulled back, “I-”

“Don’t apologize. I loved it,” you told her quietly.

You did it again, kissing her softly. It was so perfect the first time, in a strange way, but it was even better the second. When you pulled away, you whispered, “I think I love you, Lucille.”

She sighed, hugging you closer, “I think I love you, too.”

~

Author’s Note: I really meant to get this done sooner...but procrastination’s a bitch, man. Thanks for reading!

#lucille sharpe x reader #lucille sharpe #thomas sharpe #crimson peak #fanfiction #tom hiddleston #jessica chastain #jessica chastain x reader

[everlarkficexchange]

A Simple Choice

Written by: @justajjfan​​

Beta’d by: @sunsetsrmydreams​​

Prompt 83: Katniss is whipped instead of Gale in Catching Fire, Peeta’s the one who’s there to take care of her after. [submitted by anonymous].

Prompt 116: Peeta braids Katniss’ hair to soothe her. [submitted by anonymous] 

Rating: Mature 

Warning: Mention of whipping 

A/N: My plan is to post each chapter (7 in all) daily so thank you @everlarkficexchange​ ; @javistg​ and @xerxia31​ for always being so accommodating and generous with your time. A special thank you to my beta and bestie @sunsetsrmydreams​. 

~~~

Chapter 2

Dad and I make a great team working harmoniously alongside each other and it’s not hard to notice the difference in him in the short space of time. He seems less pressured and the warm smile I remembered as a small boy has returned. Whether in the kitchen or serving customers, I’ve realised just how connected I am to this place.

I delight in friendly conversation but avoid answering any questions relating to The Hunger Games which most of our customers respect. What I enjoy doing the most is preparing for the morning ahead and kneading fresh bread dough in the back room has become a tranquil sort of therapy for me.

In the mindless quiet, I can block everything out giving me time to sort the shiny stuff in my head until I’m left with what’s real. This might not be a proven method of mind-therapy, but it works for me most of the time by sifting through all my cluttered thoughts so I can make better decisions for me and my future.

And I need that now more than ever.

Mother, in her usual meddling ways was quick to invite the Cartwright family to dinner and insisted Delly and I go out for a walk alone to get to know each other. As it turned out, she’s good company and I enjoy having someone to talk to, although she does most of the talking herself.

Now we meet almost every evening.

Delly’s a nice girl, just like mother said and I know I need to start thinking about a lot of things especially my future, but she keeps hinting at speeding up our friendship and I don’t think committing myself to her in that way is something I’m ready for.

In the few weeks Delly and I have been seeing each other, things have moved rather quickly from our casual walks after dinner. She’s pretty and sweet but I’m only fooling myself into thinking I could ever let another claim my heart.

Each time our lips meet, I close my eyes tight and imagine it’s someone else I’m kissing. I feel awful but I just can’t stop imagining grey eyes and a dark braid.

I’ve tried talking to Delly, suggest we slow things down and just get to know each other as friends, but she makes a habit of changing the subject at the slightest hint.

Far from being pure and the shy girl my mother claims her to be, Delly has on more than one occasion, suggested we move up from chaste kisses under the moonlight to something more intimate. Her hands always seem to wander, telling me how good she can make me feel once I let go of my inhibitions. But each time she brushes her fingers against my belt buckle, I quickly step away and end the night abruptly with my ‘it’s getting late’ excuse and walk a very disappointed Delly home.

Any normal hot-blooded male would have easily jumped at the invitation and I can almost hear my brothers smart arse remarks telling me what an idiot I am and saying something crude like ‘try before you buy’ or ‘never look a gift horse in the mouth’, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I always imagined my first time would be meaningful, not just some frivolous teenage romp at the slag heap.

Maybe I am a complete idiot.

***

Hoping to gain some reprieve from the mounting list of questions in my head today, I busy myself by preparing the rest of the dry ingredients for another batch of baking but the unusual noise level coming from outside is becoming a distraction.

When I hear raised and panicked voices, I wipe my hands on my flour-dusted apron before covering everything on the bench with a clean cloth and head towards the shop front.

Walking through the swinging doors, curious to see what all the commotion is about, I see my parents peering out the shop front window speaking in hushed tones and so engrossed with what’s happening outside, they haven’t even noticed me entering the room.

“What’s going on out there?” I ask, and they both startle at my words.

Dad turns to me first, his face noticeably pale and pauses to swallow before speaking, “Jake Blacksmith came by a minute ago and he…umm…said Head Peacekeeper Thread has ordered everyone out to the square,” he answers, taking a quick glance towards my mother who stands stoically and uncharacteristically silent.

“Thread is claiming he caught a traitor trying to sneak back into the district to spy for the rebels. The punishment has been set at fifty lashes,” dad finishes with a harder swallow and a noticeable sheen of sweat covering his forehead.

The image of Thread using his whip to tear into flesh from the back of some poor citizen while everyone in Twelve is expected to bear witness to his cruel and barbaric form of corporal punishment, sends a cold shiver up my spine. 

Since he’s arrival, our new Head Peacekeeper was quick to impose strict laws forbidding practically everything his predecessor Harvey Cray conveniently overlooked…for a price. Now, anyone caught disobeying these laws usually find themselves tied to the newly-erected wooden post in the town square without trial or appeal and the punishment is always the same.

Being flogged within an inch of your life is Thread’s answer to law and order and the brute even insists on inflicting every lash on his unfortunate captives himself.

The first citizen of Twelve to feel the sting from the Head Peacekeeper’s cat o’ nine tails was Zed Palmer, a tailor with no male heirs to take over his business. That, along with severe arthritis in his hands meant he could no longer work to pay the hefty taxes now enforced and those who witnessed the flogging were grateful Zed was dead well before his fifty lashes was reached. Most disturbing was Thread not being satisfied until the last lash was counted.

I hope whoever this unfortunate citizen is, their suffering too will end long before the count to fifty is reached.

I move closer to the door and watch mother step out onto the street to join Delly and her parents who are in deep conversation while more people leave their shops and head towards the town square in hurried steps.

“A traitor?” I huff and shake my head in disbelief as I watch Merchants lock their shop front doors obeying Thread’s authoritarian command. “I doubt anyone in their right mind would want to come back if they had the chance at freedom,” I tell dad. “They should have kept running as far away from here and never looked back,” I add, expecting him to agree with me but he stares into the distance and offers nothing in response.

A moment of awkward silence falls between the two of us and the strange look on dad’s face gives me pause, but I let the weird feeling pass. As I turn to step back into the kitchen and carry on with my work, he speaks in an afterthought manner, “must’ve had a good reason to risk it all,” he says looking at me strangely, but I don’t say anything and give him a nod acknowledging his comment at least. Still, it doesn’t alter my way of thinking. If there was a choice between freedom or here…?

No…nothing would be worth it.

I take another glance outside at the passing townsfolk all walking in the same direction towards the town square like a herd of frightened sheep. But my attention is more centred on mother who stepped outside to speak with the Cartwrights and are conversing in lowered voices, sending the odd stare my way.

That cold shiver I was feeling earlier returns and it runs through me like ice.

I wave politely to the Cartwrights, but they ignore my friendly gesture and after a few brief seconds decide to join the rest of the Merchant population gathering in the town square.

What could be more horrid than being forced to witness a fellow citizen of Twelve…or anyone for that matter, whipped to a pulp?

I try to block the image from my thoughts. I’ve seen enough horrors to last me a lifetime and I’m a little disappointed Delly’s parents seem eager to join the growing crowd.

Delly gives me a half-smile as she continues to speak with my mother and the looks I’m receiving from them both increases my uneasiness.

I can’t shake this feeling of dread and turn back to dad who’s staring out in the distance, his facial expression looking lost. “Something isn’t right,” I mutter under my breath, and even though I spoke in a hushed tone, I know dad heard me.

“What is it you’re not telling me?” I ask, knowing if anyone is going to give me a truthful answer, it will be him. Dad’s straightens his back and shoulders almost immediately and when his eyes meet mine, his chin begins to tremble.

“Dad?” I ask, holding in a shaky breath.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, dad looks away from me and gives my question a moment’s pause before nodding, almost as though he’s giving himself permission to speak.

“Jake said Katniss disappeared with her family and the Hawthorne’s a couple of days ago and everyone thought they’d escaped to the woods to join up with the rebels, but she was caught trying to sneak back in this morning…alone. She’s tied to the whipping post. Fifty lashes.”

I stand dumbstruck. This can’t be true.

“No…Jake’s mistaken! He must’ve heard wrong!”

The curtains in Katniss’s room have been drawn for two days now and I haven’t heard her scream out in the night. I just assumed she and Gale—

I clear that image from my mind as I try to process everything in my head and look out to see my mother shouting at dad to shut up and what a worthless idiot he is while Delly stands in silence, watching me.

Over my mother’s angry and verbal abuse, dad continues to speak, “I wished to God he was wrong but Jake saw Katniss being dragged up on the wooden platform and I have no reason to doubt him. He’s a good, hard-working honest man and wouldn’t make something like this up.”

This I know to be true.

Dad reaches his hand to my shoulder, but I don’t feel the touch as the world around me starts to spin and I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m so caught in a daze I don’t even know if I’m still breathing or if my heart is beating at this point. How I managed to step outside without tripping over my own feet is beyond me.

I need to get to her.

Delly breaks her silent stare and rushes towards me with a look of determination on her face and reaches her hand out to try and stop me, “she’s not worth risking your own life Peeta…think about us!” she pleads, and her words hit me like a ton of bricks.

Us?

Was it her intention to keep me from knowing what was happening to Katniss until it was all over? Is that what they were all trying to do? I can understand my mother wanting to keep me from rushing to Katniss…but Delly?

I brush past Delly ignoring her pleas to stop. I can’t even bring myself to look at her right now and only get a few steps away before mother is in front of me, grabbing a firm hold of my arm and blocking me from running to the square.

“Let go of me!” I say through gritted teeth, as anger starts to build up inside me.

“You’ll kill us all by drawing attention to yourself and for what? She’s nothing but Seam trash!” My blood boils and just like Delly’s words, I don’t let the venom spilling from mother’s mouth stop me from getting to Katniss.

Mother wouldn’t understand…nobody would. Despite everything, I made a promise to protect Katniss and I know she’d do the same for me.

“I forbid you to go! Your future is with Delly not that dirty whore in the square getting exactly what she deserves!” she yells but I yank my arm away from her tight grip.

“My future is not for you or anyone else to decide…it’s mine!” I shout defiantly.

“You’re a fool! She’s as good as dead already!” I hear mother yell as I run towards the square.

***

I silently curse my legs for failing to get me to the square any faster and when I finally reach the cobble-stoned ground, I’m feeling ragged and short of breath.

Crack!

Don’t let it be her! Don’t let it be her! I repeat those words over in my head as I try to catch my breath and refill my lungs with much needed air.

Crack!

I hurry my steps…breath be damned and as I approach the sea of faceless people both Seam and Merchant standing side by side to watch the sickening spectacle, I begin to push my way through.

Hands reach out to stop me and I hear their gasps and pleading whispers not to venture any further, but I need to see with my own eyes.

Crack!

I feel my blood drain from my body, but I continue to edge my way closer to the wooden platform and as I do, my legs begin to weaken as soon as I reach the first step. Climbing the next two seems like I’m moving in slow-motion and when my eyes lock on the gruesome sight before me, I cry out her name in a pathetic wail.

“Katniss!”

What has he done to you?

My heart plummets at the sight of her limp body, hanging like a piece of butchered meat. Her hands are bound together by a thick piece of rope tied to a large hook above her head. Katniss’ braid is messy and mattered with loose and bloodied strands of hair covering her bruised face and when my eyes look closer to her bare back, rage envelops and I almost lose what little is left of my self-control.

The shirt Katniss wore has been ripped in half exposing the upper part of her petite frame including her breasts for all to see. The raised marks and torn flesh from the countless number of lashes she’s already received, seeps with so much blood I swallow back the bile rising from my throat.

I was too late to save her.

My eyes well up from tears rolling down my cheeks and I gasp for breath between my uncontrollable sobs. I shut my eyes tight praying this is a horrible nightmare and I’ll wake up in my bed, walk the usual steps to my window and see her alive and pacing about in her bedroom. But when I open them again, there’s no mistake.

This nightmare is real.

I feel my legs start to buckle from beneath me and I slowly kneel to the ground to stop myself from falling. I don’t know how to fix this…what can I do? She shouldn’t be here. Dad said she ran away.

Why did she come back?

Endless questions whirl around my head consuming me along with the grief and the realisation I’ll have to live the rest of my worthless life knowing I failed in my promise to keep Katniss safe.

Loud voices bring me back to the now just in time to see Thread’s arm raised, poised and ready to inflict another lash to her lifeless body.

Even in my grief-stricken state, the feeling of deep loss and sorrow is overtaken by a sudden rush of strength and courage from within and it propels my body forward to block Thread and his whip from finding their mark.   

‘No!” I cry out. This Capitol brute will have to go through my dead body first before I let him touch her again.  

“Well, well, well…who do we have here?” Head Peacekeeper Thread remarks loudly and when I look up, I see him grinning with mutt-like eyes staring down at me.

“Looks like this traitor scum has a bedfellow eager to play white knight. She must have some hidden talents worth risking your life for,” he suggests crudely, wiping the sweat and blood from his face with the palm of his hands…Katniss’ blood.

The distinct sound of Peacekeepers heavy tread come barrelling towards me, then hands roughly try to pry me from where I lay clinging to Katniss.

“Can’t you see she’s dead!” I yell, shoving their hands away to stop them from breaking my protective hold over her body. “She’s been punished enough. What more do you want from her?” I shout to the point of hysteria, not caring if my question will be answered with a lash to my back or a bullet to my brain.

“It’s the other Victor, Peeta Mellark, sir,” a voice I recognise answers from behind me. My eyes dart slightly to the left and even through the darkened visor of his white peacekeeper’s helmet, I know it’s Darius Jackson, one of a dozen or so decent soldiers stationed here in Twelve, clearing his throat and standing at attention.

“He’s also the youngest son of the town baker, sir,” he adds.

Head Peacekeeper Thread storms over to Darius and barks out a chilling warning, “you speak one more time without my permission Corporal Jackson, and I will take great pleasure in cutting out your tongue and feeding it to the jabberjays. Do I make myself clear?” Thread emphasises loudly.

“Yessir!” Darius is quick to respond as he stands at attention.

“Now I don’t care who he is, get him off this platform! I’ll deal with the gallant knight once I’m done here,” Thread orders and Darius obeys, saluting him first before stepping towards me with his head lowered.

“He can help you keep count while he waits his turn,” Thread adds coldly, as he inspects the leather handle of is whip.

Keep count?

I have no idea how many lashes Katniss received before I got here and the thought of counting them down much less being forced to watch helplessly as Thread carries on with her punishment is more than I choose to bear.

I jostle with Darius and the other two peacekeepers who stepped forward to help him pull me away from her body. It takes all three peacekeepers to overpower me and pry my hands away forcing me to separate from Katniss.

Weakened by my struggles and overtaken by grief, they drag me away and all I can do is cry out and tell Katniss how sorry I wasn’t here to protect her and that I’ll always love her. Just as those words leave my lips she moves and moans in pain.

She’s alive!

“Stop! Please! I’ll take the rest of her punishment!” I scream, finding a new source of strength and scuffle myself free from the heavy-handed grips of the peacekeepers.

“Whatever you think she did…whatever the count, I volunteer to take them all. Just let her go!” I demand and as my words ring out, loud murmurs coming from the crowd distract Thread for a moment before turning his attention back to me.

“How very noble of you,” Thread snickers. “But your request is denied. This runaway whore was sent here by the rebels and she refuses to disclose her mission and the whereabouts of her leader’s hideout. Now move knight!” he commands, and when I don’t budge he raises his arm and I instinctively throw myself over Katniss to shield her and the pain is instant.

Crack!

The pointed leather straps strike my shoulder blade before I have a chance to brace myself for the blow. Even against the fabric of my shirt, the lash rips through the worn calico barrier as if it were made of paper. My skin underneath feels like I’ve been stung by a nest full of tracker jackers…but I don’t budge.

With clenched fists I try to ignore the painful stinging sensation and the warm, watery feeling that is probably my blood trickling down my shoulder and stay on top of Katniss’ body to block Thread from getting to her.

“She doesn’t know anything! She’s not a rebel spy!” I yell at the top of my voice, pleading with Thread to stop but when I hear the distinctive cocking of his pistol I know my desperate pleas are about to be silenced with a bullet.

“You’ve tried my patience long enough knight. Obstructing a Peacekeeper from carrying out his duty and interfering with a prisoner’s sentence is punishable by death and you are guilty as charged!” Thread bellows and the gasps and murmurs of discontent from the crowd grows louder.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” an all too familiar voice shouts out from amongst the crowd and I’ve never been happier to hear his gruff tone.

Daring to look, I see Haymitch with hands raised, step up to the platform and inch his way closer to me and Katniss. If he is disturbed by what he sees, he doesn’t show it and keeps his eyes pinned on the Head Peacekeeper.

It takes Thread a split second to shift his pistol from the direction of my head, to our mentor’s instead and I’m holding onto my breath in trepidation of what may happen next.

Katniss murmurs something then moans in pain from her bloodied wounds as she tries to move and my attention falls back on her. But all I can do is gently stroke the only place I know Thread’s lashes haven’t ravaged.

With shaking hands, I stroke her hair and push a few loose strands away from her face before bringing my lips to her ears to hush her, “shush…it’s going to be okay. I won’t let him touch you again,” I whisper, hoping she can hear me. My only focus now is calming her as best I can so I start to comb my fingers through her hair while silently praying Haymitch can get us out of this hellish mess.

“I don’t think President Snow is going be too pleased when he hears what you’ve done to one of his newest Victors,” he tells Thread who keeps his pistol aimed at Haymitch’s head.

“Stripping you of your command would be my first guess. I’ll let you do the math as to what my second guess would be?”

Whatever game Haymitch is playing at to set us free better work because right now, I’m not feeling confident as he stares down the barrel of Thread’s pistol.

The Head Peacekeeper lowers his weapon just long enough to grab Haymitch by his jacket, bringing his face so close to Haymitch and of all the things to cross my mind at this crucial point, I’m wondering if he can smell the alcohol on our mentor’s breath.

“My allegiance is to General Maximus Jackson and I answer only to him not that old fool in the Capitol,” Thread informs him, then shoves Haymitch back raising his pistol towards his head again.

Haymitch unperturbed, regains his footing and straightens his jacket, “oh, so Maxy Jackson is your boss? Well, it’s a small world after all,” he remarks flippantly.

“Your General and I are old drinking buddies and we go way…way back. I’m sure he won’t be too thrilled when he finds out you’ve whipped a Victor within an inch of her life,” he quips to Thread who glares at him with displeasure in his eyes.

“Now who do you suppose Maxy reports to…huh?” he pauses just long enough to take a breath and when Thread isn’t forthcoming with the obvious answer, Haymitch supplies it for him.

“I’m gonna take it you’re still working it out in your head but let me help you out here. President Coriolanus Snow…that’s who. He’s probably watching us from the Capitol. Eyes and ears everywhere you know,” he says, waving his hand randomly about the square.

Thread takes a quick look around the square then turns his attention back to our mentor, “my men caught her sneaking under the fence. She’s a rebel spy!” Thread yells but Haymitch is quick to respond to his preposterous accusation.

“Katniss Everdeen may be a lot of things but a rebel spy isn’t one of them! Everyone around here knows she hunts outside the perimeter for wild game…technically illegal yes, but she’s done so out of necessity to help feed her family. She sells whatever’s left at the hob, which you and your peacekeepers seem to have overlooked while enjoying the fruits of her labour with the fresh meat you buy to fill your own stomachs,” Haymitch reminds Thread, and I hear voices from the crowd bravely agreeing with our mentor.

“We all know you’re a smart man, but have you taken a moment to think what the consequences you alone as Head Peacekeeper will be expected to pay if you kill Snow’s Victors, not to mention how all this will impact on our mutual friend, the General? I think the best thing you can do for yourself right now is to let them both go and pray the girl doesn’t die from her injuries,” Haymitch strongly advises.

Silence fills the square as the crowd hold their collective breaths and wait for Thread to react and just when I think all hope is lost, Haymitch gives it one last-ditched effort to free us.

“The President had Cray removed…permanently, what makes you think he won’t do the same to you?”

The colour on Thread’s face turns a scorching red but he tries to remain unaffected by Haymitch’s comment. No matter who gave the order, Cray was relieved of his command the day Thread and the new troop of peacekeepers under his command drove into Twelve in their heavy-armoured combat vehicles.

Cray’s disappearance is a grim reminder of the absolute power President Snow holds over every citizen including his peacekeepers.

No one is safe…not even a Head Peacekeeper.

The silent tension is immediately broken when a peacekeeper rushes up to the platform, panting heavily and carrying a radio transmitter device. He salutes nervously first then informs Thread that General Jackson is on the other end wanting to speak with him without delay.

Thread snatches the device from the out-of-breath peacekeeper’s hand and strides to the corner of the wooden platform. Even from this short distance, his General’s voice can be heard shouting from the other end of the device. After a much one-sided conversation, it ends in less than a minute.

The order for everyone, including us to clear the square, is bellowed out before Thread marches off the platform and into his armoured vehicle where it speeds back towards the peacekeepers barracks.

I untied Katniss’ hands from the large hook the moment Thread finished barking out his order and when she flops into my arms and begins to whimper, my first thought is to cover her half-naked body with my apron which starts to blot with blood. 

There’s no time to waste and with Katniss safely in my arms, I start to make my way off the platform in long even strides. Haymitch is there to guide me carefully down the steps before we make our way through the gathered crowd who strangely offer me sympathetic looks as they move to the side giving me a clear path.

This in itself is a strange occurrence but I don’t have time to analyse. There are some things I want to ask Haymitch but before I get a chance to open my mouth, he’s in my ear.

“That sadistic bastard! Thankfully for us Thread’s not too bright,” Haymitch claims. “Now listen to me very carefully boy and don’t ask questions…there’s not much time,” he begins, looking cautiously over his shoulders.

“I could wring that hot-head Hawthorne’s neck. He knew sweetheart would never leave without—” he stops mid-sentence, clearing his throat. “Nevermind…none of that’s important right now,” he adds and although our mentor is talking in riddles, one thought sticks in the forefront of my mind.

If Gale Hawthorne was responsible for this in anyway and by some slim chance we cross paths in the near future…he’s a dead man.

“Take Katniss back to your house and stay there until I come for you both,” I go to protest, not exactly sure why I think it would be a bad idea, but Haymitch speaks again before I have a chance to utter a word.

“Don’t argue with me! Things are going to move quick from here on end, and I need you both ready and in the one place when all hell breaks loose. Just stay alert!” he emphasises strongly. “Your house is the safest place for both of you…no listening bugs there, I’ve made sure.”

Be ready; stay alert; no bugs; when what happens? I don’t have a clue what any of that means and maybe it’s best I don’t…for now.  

What little he does tell me, I already figured out for myself. Without Katniss’ healer mother and sister Primrose, who escaped along with the Hawthorne family, there’s isn’t anyone in Twelve qualified to attend to her wounds, but when Haymitch mentions sending someone he thinks could help, I’m quick to refuse the offer.

I won’t let a stranger near her.

“No! I’ll take care of Katniss myself,” I interject. “I know you have connections in the black-market, and I don’t mean Ripper. She’ll need the right kind of medicine and I’ll pay double whatever the going rate is…more if need be. Tell them to name their price and I’ll pay it! Just bring me everything you can lay your hands on, anything to fight infection and something strong for the pain,” I instruct with urgency as we make our way out of the square.

I may not be a healer, but I know the basics and keeping wounds clean is the first step to healing. That much I learnt from Katniss.

Haymitch taps me on the shoulder and I wince, my body reminding me of the single lash I received from Thread trying to protect Katniss.

“Keep your money boy. I’ll get you everything sweetheart needs and if she lives through this, it will be a bloody miracle,” he says before hurrying off, and the insides of my stomach twists with his response.

She has to live.

#Springtime Edition 2020 #submission #justajjfan #prompt 83

[ffii-book]

Final Fantasy II Labyrinth of Nightmares Part 2: Hunters of Transient Dreams, Chapter 5

“Maria!” Firion drew Maria to him, cradling her gently against his chest as if she were a small animal. She was so overcome with joy that the only thing Maria could do was sob out Firion’s name as he held her against him. Guy looked over the two of them, choking back on his own emotions as he bore witness to the gesture of genuine affection between two of his best friends. Hilda and Minwu allowed the three of them to regain their composure before debriefing them on their current circumstances.

Deist had been the first country Palamecia had struck. Due to its close ties with Fynn, the survivors of that initial onslaught had immediately rushed to the aid of Fynn and Hilda. Hilda had marshalled the remaining forces into a rebel army under her leadership and they had hunkered down under the partially standing remains of what had once been the Royal Palace of Deist. It was a location of strategic importance as Deist was on the southern tip of the continent and allowed the rebel army to spy on the movement of Palamecia forces.

Hilda had sent out a squad from this army to retrieve Gordon, and by extension, Firion and his friends.

Firion opened his mouth to express his gratitude for the Princess’ timely rescue. “Princess Hilda, you have --”

She cut him off before he could continue. “You should express your thanks towards Minwu, not myself. It was his skill with magic that allowed us to retrieve your wandering soul.”

Firion forced his attention to the man in white in the corner of the room. “Thank you, Minwu.”

Minwu nodded in return.

“That man...” Firion mused, thinking of his most recent opponent. “He was a mage too. But his magic was evil.”

“You are referring to Count Borghen? I’ve had several reports concerning him from several of our forces stationed around the world. But Firion…” Princess Hilda trailed off, her regal brow furrowed in thought.

“Yes?” Firion responded.

“This is something that goes beyond magic as we understand it.”

“Beyond magic?”

Hilda turned to Minwu, allowing him to take over the explanation from there.

Minwu began explaining to Firion about magic, something he had devoted his life to mastering. Magic was a power derived from God; it was supposed to be a power used for the benefit of mankind.

However certain parties had learned that if they approached that training with a specific, powerful force, the magic could be warped into something malignant.

Firion interrupted Minwu’s lecture. “What was this powerful force?”

Minwu took a moment to gather his thoughts before quietly answering Firion’s question. “To deny God is an act of intentional malice. It invites the eyes of the Devil, and allows one to gain access to evil, supernatural powers.”

“Evil, supernatural powers?” Firion exclaimed.

As Minwu’s words turned over in their heads, Firion, Maria and Guy thought about Leon and Elma. They had only indirectly seen signs of potential possession in Leon when they had come across the mutilated corpse of Leon’s beloved dog Perry. Elma, whom they had faced directly, had seemed possessed by something intent on taking Firion’s life.

“Could it…” Firion trailed off, trying to order his thoughts in a calm and rational manner. “I mean, surely the malice of one man couldn’t destroy the world so quickly? Or cruelly?”

“You are correct, Firion.” said Princess Hilda. “I cannot help but feel that Emperor Mateus is not our true enemy. That there is another, more powerful, force working in tandem with him.”

“But Princess Hilda,” Maria asked in the small voice that could have come from a child, “How can anyone beat that kind of power?”

Hilda shook her head. “I don’t know.” she said. She straightened,determination glinting through her eyes as she continued to speak. “I don’t know. But so many young people, from all over the world, are coming to me. I can’t let them down. I refuse to fail, even if I am the only one remaining able to fight.”

Maria felt a sudden kinship with this woman before her. Like Hilda, Maria had suffered loss when her parents had been ripped from her in an instance. It wasn’t quite the same as your romantic partner being stolen from you before you could even begin to enjoy marriage, but Maria’s womanly heart ached for the princess even so.

At that moment, Gordon entered the room in brisk indignation. His eyes briefly slid over Firion before blatantly ignoring him to turn his ire fully on the princess, making it clear that Firion,and his earlier interference, had offended Gordon.

“Hilda!” Gordon barked, marching directly in front of her.” Hilda, I demand an explanation. I’ve been informed that I have been removed from the battle corps. I am in perfect health. I have every intention of returning to the front lines immediately-”

Hilda cut him off with an imperious gesture of her hand. “You have proven yourself inept with command, Gordon,” she told him coldly. “I will not allow you to abuse the soldiers under my care any further. The front lines have suffered enough rescuing you from your own foolhardiness, and I will not reward that loyalty by allowing them to bear the consequences of your selfish behavior!”

“But…” Gordon retreated momentarily, the wind briefly taken out of his sails before his eyes lit back on Firion. It allowed him to gather the indignation to muster up a counter riposte to Hilda’s claims. “It was them!” He accused, pointing at where Firion, Maria and Guy had gathered around each other. “If they hadn’t interfered, I would have had Count Borghen! I was willing to die if it meant killing him as well!”

“Silence, Gordon.” Hilda ordered, regal grace adding power to her command. “The point in victory in battle is to live to see it through. There is no meaning in holding your life so cheaply. Accusing these people of interference when they were trying to save you is wrong.”

Hilda paused, looking at Gordon with implacable eyes. “I heard about Mai, Gordon.”

Gordon said nothing.

“I heard he loved you.”

Gordon stiffened at the observation, but continued to say nothing.

“I have been informed that he took a direct hit of cannon fire meant for you.”

Gordon continued to remain silent.

Hilda regarded Gordon before continuing in a tone of quiet finality. “You will not participate in any future battles, Gordon.”

Gordon immediately began to protest but it was clear that Hilda had no intentions on hearing him out. She bowed to Firion, Maria and Guy before exiting the room.

Prince Gordon stood there fuming after being lectured, and Firion struggled to find the words that wouldn’t offend the second son of the Kashuan Royal Family. After all, what sort of commiseration could a commoner offer in speaking to a prince? The effort was in vain; Gordon shot Firion a glare before turning on his heels and stalked out.

“You’re being rude, Your Highness!” Maria called out. Unlike Firion, she had no problem in speaking her mind.

“Maria!” Firion began to chide her, but faltered. After all, she had only said what he himself was already thinking.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Minwu stated quietly from where he had stationed himself in the corner of the room. “Prince Gordon is desperate to earn forgiveness from Princess Hilda.”

“He is?” Firion asked, looking into the mage’s gentle eyes.

“When faced with the spectre of death for the first time, Prince Gordon was paralyzed by his fear and found himself unable to fight for home or freedom,” Minwu explained. The mage chose his words carefully, painting a picture of Gordon’s turmoil and grief. He had been in Fynn, celebrating the marriage of his brother to Hilda, when the dark clouds of Palamecia’s power grab had covered the world.

Gordon bore witness to his brother and his father taking up arms against an enemy too strong for them to obtain victory. His mother and her retinue were chased down and slaughtered for sport by enemies in thrall of their own capacity for violence. He heard Hilda’s pleas for help but bound by his own horror, Gordon was unable to breach his terror to bring himself to act.

By the time he was able to gain even a modicum of mastery over his fear, Gordon stood alone in a desolate wasteland.

“He abandoned his family to escape,” Firion fought to keep his tone free of any judgement, even as he felt his own anger rising at the evidence of the Prince’s cowardice.

“He didn’t have the strength to fight back,” Minwu emphasized. “Not then.”

The three of them turned Minwu’s words in their heads like it had been a solemn incantation.

“That’s why…” Firion didn’t finish his thought as he thought about Gordon’s compulsive drive to defeat Count Borghen at all costs if it meant that the rebel army would have gained significantly from such a victory. Gordon’s motivations were suddenly clear to all three youths.

“Do you think Princess Hilda is able to forgive Prince Gordon?” Maria asked Minwu.

Minwu did not give an answer; he hid his eyes underneath his white hood and it made his expression inscrutable. There was only silence, and the heavy air that had somehow become the new normal since the world went to war two months ago.

#final fantasy ii #final fantasy 2 #Final Fantasy

[nad-zeta]

Match up (｡◕‿◕｡)

mg Hi 😅

I read through some of your matchups and I love them! So I like to ask one myself now. It’s my first time actually asking for a matchup so I hope im doing it right.

So I’m a 5'3 female and I’m cruvy (proud of my curves) long dark blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. The mbti test said I’m a INTJ but I doubt it😂. I’m pretty shy and quite around strangers but once I opened up after some time I’m really funny, sarcastic and I like to play pranks on my family and my friends. I have a strong personality and I say what I think and state my opinion but at the samw time I cry pretty easily (you could say I’m a crybaby 😅). I’m always there for my friends when they need help or advice. In social situations I get really really nervous and my voice gets shaky. I hate injustice and will always stand up for the people I care about. I would say I’m kind, nice and polite in front of strangers but very quiet. I can get stressed easily and I am not a pleasant person when stressed. I get angry and pissed of real quick. I curse a lot… Like everyday but it gets worse when I’m stressed or annoyed 😅. But anyways I love music, I especially love to sing (I kinda sing every day 😂). I like to read, right now I a book about solved and unsolved crimes, besides that I lile to watch Netflix. I prefer a quiet relaxing night watching Netflix or reading a book over go to parties. I love to learn new languages at the moment I learn dutch in school. I really love history, true crime, horror, languages and psychology. After school I want to either study History or criminology. I absolutely hate group projects but if I have to work in a group, I always take the lead and can get quite bossy. I had a rough childhood I don’t trust men easily because of some things that happend and I’m scared of getting hurt once I fall in love. Oh and I’m pretty clumsy, I don’t get hurt everyday but at least three times a week or so😂

Ooff I didn’t wanted this to be so long😂

Okey, I think that’s it ☺️ I apologize for my english it’s not my first language 😅. Take your time ☺️ you don’t need to hurry

Thank you so much. I really look forward to the matchup☺️😂 And I wish you a nice day (or night)

Hi hi, love! Hope you are doing well, thanks so much for the request! I hope you enjoy it! Hehe sorry for taking so long! I had so much fun writing this up for ya!

So I Match you with…………… Mitsuhide 

The first time Mitsuhide saw you, he was captivated by your long blond hair and blue-grey eyes. Like all this boy wanted to do way play with your hair…. And that was exactly what he did. After war council, when you were named as the new Oda princess, he walked up to you and took a stand of your long hair between his fingers and started twirling it. It was so sold and silky. Of course as per the standard procedure for the sneki boi he started teasing you while playing with your hair, which made your face break out into the most beautiful blush. TBH Mitsuhide didn’t mind that you were shy, in fact, he loved it, as every day he would run into you and tease you mercilessly just to see your facial expressions… He would always smile his sneki boi smile at you when you would try your best to make conversation with him, he couldn’t help but tease you a little for the way your voice shook out of nervousness.

It took you a while to warm up and get talking to the people around you luckily for you, Mitsuhide took you under his wing. He would always be there to back you up whenever Hideyoshi would suspect you, or scold you. One day as Hideyoshi was micromanaging you yet again, Mitsuhide popped out of nowhere to come to your aid. He knew you weren’t a spy and that the reason you never really spoke much, was because you were shy. Hideyoshi was convinced the nervous shake in your voice whenever you interacted with him was because you were scared of him finding out your true identity. It wasn’t until you started tearing up midway through yet another accusation session, that the mama bear realised that you weren’t a spy, but a sweet kind shy girl who was just too nervous about being put into a new situation and having to interact with new people. 

At the sight of your tears, Mitsuhide gave Hideyoshi an icy glare and led you away to your room. “Its alright little mouse, there is no reason to be shy or afraid of us, much less of the mother hen,” He then used his sleeve to gently wipe away your tears while giving you a small pat on the head

It was also then when he announced that he was your new teacher. Nobunaga had put him in charge of you to make sure you would get well adapted to the castle life and the runnings of things, as you see Nobunaga had also noticed that you were a bit shy and wanted to make things a little easier for you. Especially after he had witnessed you breaking out into tears at Hideyoshi’s scolding session. Honesty what was this Mitsuhide going to do with you, you were honestly just too cute.

Mitsuhide taught you everything from a few fighting moves, to subjects such as Politics and economics. As the two of you spent more and more time together, this sneki boi just couldn’t help but fall madly in love with you. You were truly a curious creature, he even loved how clumsy you were. Your clumsiness even had mama bear worried for you, as you were the type to trip on flat ground or accidentally bump yourself against the sharp corners of tables. It was also due to your accident-prone clumsiness that the Kitsune would insist on holding your hand whenever the two of you would go out to the market together, especially after a certain incident. 

It was a warm sunny day, and you and Mitsu decided to take a break from your economics lesson and go into town for some tea. You were happily chatting with Mitsuhide when all of a sudden you tripped over a small rock. You tumbled forward and fell straight towards the road. As you looked up, you saw a horse, headed straight towards you, and your life flashed in front of your eyes. You squeezed them shut and braced for impact. Yet the fall never came, and you were never trampled by the oncoming horse. You curiously opened one eye to see two extremely worried golden orbs staring back at you. Mitushide had caught your waist and snaked his arms around you, and your body was now flush against you as he cradled you protectively in his arms, “Just what am I to do with you, my clumsy little mouse.” He smirked down at you, and you broke out into the biggest blush, the two of you were so close, and your heart was beating out of your chest. Mitsuhide released you from the warm embrace and wrapped his large hand around your smaller one while smiling at you, “This way, I can protect you from your own clumsiness little one; honestly, I can’t believe the mother hen through a sweet, clumsy little mouse like you could ever be a deadly assassin.”

As time passed, you found yourself opening up more and more the Kitsune, and soon you revealed your true personality to him. It happened one day as he was teasing you over a cup of tea. What he didn’t expect was for you to make a playfully sarcastic comeback, this boi was shook. Finally, it was your turn to smile triumphantly at the small blush now forming on Mitsu’s cheeks. “What is it Mitsu, you like to play with fire but can’t take the heat.” Mitsuhide recovered quickly, and soon the two of you were playfully flinging sarcastic comments at each other, he really enjoyed this side of you. What he loved, even more, was that it was a side that you showed him and him only. The more he discovered about your personality, the more he fell head over heels for you. Like how you enjoyed pulling pranks on people. 

The two of you often teamed up during banquets to prank your new warlord friends, it wasn’t uncommon for the two of you to be caught in fits of laughter at a prank well executed. The oda forces were always shook to see Mitsuhide genuinely laughing and smiling whenever he was around you, but honestly, he couldn’t help it, you were absolutely hilarious. Your jokes had him clenching his stomach in uncontrollable laughter, who would suspect that such a shy little creature would be so full of delightful surprises.

Honestly at this point, you were also head over heels for sneki boi, after what had happened in your past, you were scared and hurt and it took you a long time to trust Mitsuhide, but you knew he was the one. This Kitsune managed to sneak past the wall you had built around your heart and made himself right at home. At this point, Mitsuhide thought he had seen every side of his beloved mouse, but boy was he wrong. 

As the two of you were walking hand in hand to your favourite tea house, a shopkeeper had waved Mitsu over to talk business. You gave Mitsuhide a reassuring smile and said that you would sit over on the bench across the street and wait for him. He was a little reluctant, but after you gave him a reassuring smile, he decided to solve the problem as quick as humanly possible, so that he could get back to giving you his undivided attention. You sat down on the bench and looked up at the sky when you heard some lesser warlords talk about Mitsuhide. You strained your ears to hear what they were saying. They were busy speaking very poorly of the man you loved and were busy spreading false rumours. You honestly hated injustice, especially when it was aimed towards those who you held dear. 

You stood up and walked over to them, you gave them a piece of your mind, when things started to escalate. Mitsuhide heard the commotion, and when he turned his head to look for you, he found you pissed off and swearing at the group of men. His eyes widened, he had never expected such language to come out of his dearest mouse’s mouth. Although soon his shock morphed into a curious smile, that was just like you, to surprise him with something new out of nowhere. He walked a bit closer intending to pull you out of the situation, when you had confessed your love for him during the heated debate with the men. HE was shocked, you loved him?

After regaining his composure from the sudden confession he sneakily made his way up to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. When the men had spotted the kitsune they ran for the hills, it was one thing talking badly about him behind his back but to his face… They knew Mitsuhide was a dangerous man, and they definitely didn’t want to make an enemy of him. You were so confused at the men just running off when you felt Mitsuhide wrap his arms around you, “Could you repeat that last statement you had made little mouse, I’m afraid I was too far away to hear it correctly, as I think my ears have been playing tricks on me.” You were now blushing profusely, you slowly turned around in his arms, not daring to look him in the eye when you muttered a small “I love you.” You didn’t even have time to react when this boy had your lips captured in a heated kiss. As he pulled away, he whispered those words you had longed to hear from him for a long time “I love you to my precious clumsy beautiful little mouse.”

The two of you made the cutest couple, and Mitsuhide would spend every moment of his free time with you. He loved learning new things about you, like how you would sing every day. He loved your voice, and how that soft, soothing melody would fill his room and instantly wash away the exhaustion of his day. Often he would just stand and listen to you softly sing as you worked and he would let those soft words piece through him and melt away his tiredness before moving on to his next meeting. Other times he would trap you in his arms and gently stroke your hair while insisting you sing a song for him. 

When he found out you were a fan of criminology and used to watch and read books about crimes and unsolved cases he was over the moon. His speciality was basically solving puzzles and stopping bad guys that wanted to hurt his friends. You loved It when he would tell you stories of his latest mission uncovering the assassin’s motives and stopping them, you even managed to give some input as to where potential evidence could be hidden. Mitsuhide loved the way your eyes lit up when he would tell you about past missions he worked on, that was particularly tricky. Finally, he had found a woman that loved him for him, who had an interest in his life and that never judged him but accepted him with open arms.

Both of your are creatures of comfort and quiet, so it is not uncommon for the two of you to be nestled up in each other’s arms each doing your own things. You would rest your head on his chest and read while he would have his chin propped up to rest on your shoulder, while his arm was snaked around your waist as he would write his reports. Ever so often, he would give you a sneaky little kiss in between his writing.

Often you could be found with your head resting in the crook of sneki boi’s neck as he spends hours and hours just pulling his fingers through your hair. You would tell him all about your day, or the latest book you had read and he would listen intently absorbing every word. It wasn’t uncommon for these quiet moments to turn into a tickling match with him playfully tickle kissing you after you had made some hilariously sarcastic comment flung towards him 

Other potential matches…………….. Masamune 

I hope you enjoyed this love! 

#akechi mitsuhide #ikesen mitsuhide #mitsuhide akechi #ikemen sengoku mitsuhide #matchups #match ups #ikesen matchup #matches #mitsuhide matchup #submission

[hvlfwygod]

spies | chase & ben

summary: their first night in Bonavista, Ben and Chase decide to try sharing a dream again to see what they can discover

Chase opened his eyes and looked at the vast arrangement of stars before him that always met him when he dreamed while wearing the pendant. He looked over at his companion, a little less than enthused to be sleeping next to him once again in the physical world, as well as to be sharing his dream space with him. They hadn't tried to dream together since the first time, in Quebec, which was now two provinces and a ferry away. Chase had tried to access the glimpse into the world of the hag, but when he came upon it, he found that he wasn't able to understand it, as though the people in his visions were speaking a language that his mind could not comprehend, let alone begin to decipher. He couldn't fully make out any appearance either, as the movements of the people were shoddy and jerky, as though coming through from an antenna with poor reception. Ben had no luck on his own either, apparently, and so they were joined at the wrist, in hopes that their previous luck with getting information while using this method together might repeat itself.

Chase took a large step away from Ben to show that he wasn't going to try to hit him again. "Are you lucid?"

Ben kept his eyes closed for a moment as he felt himself emerge into the dream space. He'd fallen under almost immediately, having skipped his now normal window for sleeping in order to try to find more information with Chase. He'd tried on his own but had no luck. Every time, the town before him had been shrouded. It was like walking through a halfway completed painting. He was there, the world was concrete, but in a constant silhouette.

Now that they were there, sleeping inside the town's borders, Ben was hopeful that they'd finally start getting some answers. They were still mostly moving in the dark with a shitty flashlight and he was eager to figure out how to get this over with as soon as possible.

Ben opened his eyes. Already, the stars seemed brighter. He let them take his tension away and clear his mind. Chase was there a moment later. Ben eyed him, noting he had stepped away. Ben did the same, walking ahead, wasting no time. "Lucid."

Chase followed after Ben, matching his stride as he approached the place that seemed like the edge of their space, as though this was not the expanse of the mental world and instead a physical place, keeping them inside as much as it kept the Hag out. Chase thought of it almost as a snowglobe, and stared out into the fog-like space past his vision. The space shifted, taking shape before them, and they saw the town once again, as they had when Ben first found this space. The shape moved again, showing the lighthouse, as it had the last time. "What did we want to look for this time? Who bought the lighthouse? Where the thing that summoned her is?"

”Both?” he offered, looking out into the town. They’d very briefly walked a few of these streets earlier, but they hadn’t gotten close to the lighthouse and it was here before them in perfect detail. Ben put his hand against the spot that seemed like the edge of their space, and the lighthouse suddenly was closer. He moved his hand away. “Should we try to go inside?”

Chase’s heart hammered in his chest. The last time he’d been close to going into the lighthouse, he’d been called away, and saw... He pushed the thought away, telling himself that it was all just a dream, and that he was protected now. He nodded and licked his lips. “Yeah, sure.” He thought about going inside, and they passed the threshold. He took a step closer as he looked around, tense as his brow furrowed. The space was open but rather empty, with a few trunks and a desk pushed to one corner, and Chase looked to the staircase, a feeling of dread coming to him along with the feeling of knowing they had to go up there. “Up we go?” He focused on getting them to the next level.

Ben nodded. The lighthouse seemed... off, and Chase seemed more nervous than he’d been the entire journey. Ben was trying to keep his cool, or at least seem calmer, not sure if their combined emotional state would disrupt what they were able to see. Once they both agreed to go upstairs, they were. Everything felt strange and unpleasant and Ben recoiled.

Chase looked around the lighthouse, wringing his hands nervously. A fixture with what looked like a circle of brass bowls hung above them, and Chase knew that this is where the lights would shine. "Don't look at that." He frowned and looked out one of the windows. "It blinded me before." He squinted and tilted his head, staring out toward a misty fog that seemed to cling to the glass, with black dots that seemed to radiate some sort of energy. The longer he looked at them, the more the pattern that they were in seemed familiar, and he realized with a jolt that they were the constellations that he would stare at whenever he slept. Black constellations on a milky white sky, almost a negative version of where they were standing. He felt sick and licked his lips again. "This is... something's wrong here."

Ben followed Chase to the window, feeling a chill creep up from the floorboards, travel along his legs, slide over his spine. He shivered as he gazed outside, watching the world melt into... He didn’t have a word for it besides a nightmare. They were standing on the other side of a nightmare, gazing into it. Ben felt sick, but at the same time, compelled to reach for it, like he was longing for some truth inside the horrors. “Is this her? Like... her... powers?” He thought talking about her too much might summon her, so he spoke quietly.

Chase rubbed the side of his neck as he looked out. "I think... so?" He focused on what was happening and willed himself to take a step forward. The outside twisted, and they were no longer in the lighthouse suddenly, but out on a colourful street, gazing into a window, then inside the window they were looking into, in a small, somewhat messy room, where someone was was making soft, restless noises in their sleep. Chase looked to make sure that Ben was still with him, chest full of relief when he saw that he was. "This is..." His voice was barely above a whisper. The edge of their dreamscape was now out the window they were just looking in from, first a foggy sky with black spots, and then images that caused Chase's heart to sink with dread. "This is who she's targeting."

It was like stepping directly into a cold body of water. They were submerged into a vast, terrifying darkness, speckled with the sleeping person's fears. He glanced away from the nightmare, looking down at his hands. He and Chase seemed to be faintly, faintly golden. Morpheus's protection seemed to be keeping them safe, unseen. Ben could not bring himself to relax, though, despite this. The sense of danger, of doom and death, was everywhere.

Ben moved back, and they shifted somewhere else. Another bedroom, this one immaculately clean, and a child crying out in their sleep. A complicated darkness bearing over them, bleeding onto the bedsheets. Ben turned his head away. He remembered his own nightmares, how encompassing they'd been, how damaging. Was this town experiencing them, night after night?

Chase swallowed as the dream moved around him. He felt heavy and cold, like something was weighing him down. A sudden panic took place as he realized that this was not a weight on his chest, as the times before, but a constriction from anxiety. He took a breath to calm himself and then rubbed his eyes. He took a step forward when he saw the child, but the room shifted again, to a couple, both with dark over them. Chase clenched his jaw. "She's here. She with all of them." He wasn't sure if he was saying these thoughts out loud or in his head to Ben. "We should... What did we want to see? Let's just go, we can go to the lighthouse in the morning."

Ben didn't want to watch anyone else plagued by nightmares, so he almost agreed, but he shook his head. "Try to focus on something else. We need to find this man, we need to figure out what summoned her and— They were back in the lighthouse, and the door downstairs was opening. Ben tensed up, unsure if this was a dream coming for them, or if they were somehow witnessing the waking world undetected. Ben looked to Chase. "Think that's him?" he whispered, almost mouthed with no sound at all for fear of being heard.

Once back in the lighthouse, Chase stared at Ben, his heart thumping in his chest. He thought about his eyes, and saw them, and exhaled a sigh of relief as he realized that he was dreaming. He nodded slowly at Ben, and turned, thinking about taking them down the stairs when he saw her; two yellow eyes gleaming as they stared at him, razor sharp teeth forming a grin.

Chase felt his heart stop. It was a dream, he told himself, and his father’s pendant would protect them, and there was no way that she could be looking at them. He couldn’t breathe. She was looking at them, something told him, she was using whatever magic that they were to spy back at them. His chest tightened, and he heard footsteps coming up the stairs as the hag cackled. “Spies!” She called out. “Spies! Spies!”

Chase grabbed Ben’s arm and forced them back, forced them out of there, tried to force them awake.

Ben felt Chase lagging behind him; he was already at the bottom of the steps and he was still above. Ben saw the outline of a man in shadow, now sitting at his desk, smoking, opening mail. All Ben needed was a name.

Something cold passed along his back and moved up the stairs, but he ignored it. Ben got closer, and the man didn't notice. He tried to see the man's face, and just saw shadow, but he got no reaction so he figured he was safe. He turned toward the desk, trying to make out the scrambled letters...

"Spies! Spies! Spies!" Ben was back upstairs, the hag's laughter bouncing off the walls.

"She can't hurt us, Chase," he said as a hand closed around his arm and pulled him backward. "Just go somewhere else, just—" 

Ben woke up.

#ben x chase #benchase8 #ben #spies

[kirishwima]

Brief OC list and info bc I plan to talk about them more frequently~

I’ll seperate them by fandoms/Universes :D

BNHA:

* Ayrinn and Leo: They’re both UA high students, Ayrinn has a mermaid/siren quirk, she’s a real sweet gentle girl and people at school nickname her the ‘Ocean princess’. Leo has a cat-quirk, and is a bit of a wild card, an absoloute chaotic neutral. She’s got the biggest crush on Ayrinn but refuses to admit it lol

* Hoshiki and Kaida: These are the kiribaku twins from my fic ‘Endings Beginnings’ , they’re Kirishima and Bakugou’s kids. Hoshiki is a shy gentle little boy, whilst Kaida is a fiery little girl with an explosive and bubbly personality.

* Toshi: Toshi is Todoroki and Midoryia’s kid, named after All Might. They’re really close friends with the twins, especially with Hoshiki. They’re an absoloute chaotic little thing, with Todoroki’s deadpan humor and Midoryia’s self-sacrificing traits lol

MYSTIC MESSENGER:

* Gin: Gin’s my mysme girl, she’s 23 years old, has a twin brother and an older brother, and that’s about as far as her family extends to. In my AU she ends up with Seven since that’s who her personality best fits with, but she also becomes really close friends with Zen.

* Keith: Gin’s twin brother, they’ve been raised in an orphanage until they were around 10, when their older brother’s family adopted them. He’s pretty much inseperable from his twin sister, since they’ve been through a lot together. He’s a really quiet, grumpy kind of guy lol

* Alexis: Keith and Gin’s older brother. His parents adopted the twins and he soon became the best big brother, always caring for the two kids. He’s 6 years older than them, and when their parents passed away, he immediatly adopted a fatherly role towards the twins, even though they were all adults when it happened. Just a really sweet caring guy really

OTHER UNIVERSE/INDEPENDANT FROM FANDOMS:

* Matt and Jay: Some of my oldest OCs, Jay is a little menace of a person, really guarded and closed off. He ran away from home as a teen and ended up stumbling at the coffee shop/bar Matt works at when he was 19. He started working there and Matt soon fell for Jay, and helped him break down his walls. Matt’s a tall, big awkward guy, but he doesn’t have a single mean bone in his body, he’s just a teddy bear full of love to share :’)

* Alice: My oldest OC, they’re an Absoloute Little Shit. They’re blind, but can make out vague shapes at most; either way this doesn’t hinder them, they’re a really go-with-the-flow kind of person. They’re grumpy and angry over something almost constantly, but are a fiercly loyal friend. They can always be bribed with pizza (the more toppings on it the better). 

* Oscar: Alice’s cousin and the only person they honestly get along with. He’s a very patient gentle guy, a couple years younger than Alice. He’s really shy so he doesn’t have many friends, and well, with someone like Alice constantly hanging out around him it’s hard to make any really lmao. He doesn’t mind though; he’s happy to have the people he already has around him.

* Arthur: He’s the OC I talk the least about tbh, because...well honestly I forgot about him for a while lmao. Arthur’s an alien, but after observing Earth all through his childhood, he came to love humanity and decided to try intermingling with them. So he came down to Earth when he was (in human years) 15, and has just been vibing with us since then. He camouflages himself as an angelic-looking teen with big blue eyes and fluffy blonde hair, but if you pull up the bangs over his forehead, you’ll notice he has a third eye in the middle of his forehead, something he can’t camouflage. He has a couple odd powers, and he’s insanely gullible, but overall a sweet caring kid lol.

* Angie/AJ; My newest OC! Angie was your average teen, when one summer when she was 16, she went on a camping trip with her friends. Your cliche horror trope happened, and a killer chased them all, killing her friends one by one until she was the only one left. With her wits, she managed to trap and kill the murderer. She never got over it, and growing up she vowed to clean the world of all shitty people....so she ended up becoming a serial killer herself. She looks real sweet and innocent at first glance, which is how she’s able to fool her victims. (She’s inspired by this song tbh)

* Alex (Spy girl) and Georgie (Hacker girl): Also OCs I haven’t developed very well, but long story short Alex and Georgie work in an undercover organisation where the less questions you ask the better. Alex is a field agent, working missions and asassinations, whilst Georgie is her girl-in-the-chair; a brilliant hacker that uses her skills to make sure Alex makes it through her missions safely and successfully. The two are dating, although Alex can get really posessive and over-protective over Georgie sometimes; Georgie can’t blame her though-no one working in their line of work is ever 100% sane, now are they? Georgie’s as sweet as can be, but she hides a menace, whilst Alex just lets all her emotions show, even if they can change as quickly as the wind.

I’ll be updating this post with any more OCs I may have (which trust me...I do lmao, I’m just still working on naming & developing plenty of them), so if you’d ever like to talk about/ask anything about my OCs, you can find their names and some info here!

P.S: Please...do talk to me about them ill love you forever lol ;-;

#burrito talks #oc #original characters #bnha #mystic messenger #AUs #OC list #Burrito's OCs #i think ill tag my ocs as that! 'burrito's ocs' #anyway if yall wanna talk about any of my babies hit me up id love to discuss them more <3 #ill reblog an OC ask list later today too :D #kiribaku #tododeku #burrito oc

[kittae]

Nocturne (M)

Pairing: Yoongi x reader

Words: 9.2k

Genre: Smut, a dash of greek mythology, fantasy, male nymph!Yoongi

Warnings: Graphic sexual descriptions, magical intoxication, virgin!reader, unrealistic depictions of sex inside water

summary: The world, human as well as divine, would rather forget about a shocking scandal that occurred amongst the gods, and so they also forgot about the beautiful, but cursed creature that had been conceived through said event. This caused him to live a solitary life, one where the gentle breeze through the leaves, the chirping birds in the trees, the koi in the springs and the fireflies in the night established the only form of companionship. And then, he felt your eyes on him

A/N: FUCKING FINALLY! this fic has been long overdue, as i have been tweaking and rewriting this since last year! I’m very happy i can finally share this with you guys. Since this is a different approach, some experimenting with my writing style, i hope it doesn’t disappoint and that you can still enjoy it! 

special thanks to @vankoya and @tayegi for reading it over and giving me advice! @trbld-writer , @thules , @sydist ( stella idk if you’re still active on tumblr rip :( ) i’m sad the collab from which this fic originated never happened, but i’m dedicating this one to you guys! 

MASTERLIST

You never knew air could hurt until the moment it burned through your lungs as you sprinted as fast as your feet could carry you and then some. You ignored the burning acid rising up your throat and stomach, the twigs smacking into your face and the thorns scratching at your legs, rushing to just run empty-headed with no sense of direction or where you wanted to go, as long as it was away. To say you were lost was an understatement.

What else did you expect, dashing barefoot through the night and into the woods with the moon and the stars as your only guide and light source. Every few minutes, you could hear wolves howl in the distance, your nightgown sticking to your damp skin when you broke out in a cold sweat on top of the hot one induced by the long run. It sounded like they weren’t too far off, and you started to wonder if you’d really chosen the right option out of the two you were presented with.

Burned alive at the stake or ripped to shreds by a pack of wolves?

You’d never believed in the tales and legends of your town. They were often even more ridiculous and fantastic than the fairytales you'd grown up with. Yet, it could’ve been one of the reasons why they accused you of witchcraft. That, and the fact you knew your way around healing potions and herbs. When you had managed to cure a child who was on the verge of dying from a severe illness not even the best doctors knew what to do with, you had gotten the label practically slammed onto your forehead. But you know what they say; no good deed goes unpunished.

They came for you in the night, forcefully breaking down the door of your humble house with the intention of making their way to your chambers to capture you. To make you their prisoner and most probably torture you all night to force you to answer questions you didn’t know the answers to. However, you were always one step ahead. The barricade in front of your door didn’t serve to keep them out as much as it did to buy you some time. Time to climb out of your window and escape from the back. Time to bolt towards the only place you knew they would never follow you.

The haunted forest.

The people loved to pass on tales, tell the stories their parents had told them whose parents before them had shared with them, and so on. Legend has it that this forest was structured like a labyrinth and harbored an ancient soul. One that somehow ensured anyone who ever dared to enter the forest never came back out. No, people didn’t come here. They haven’t for centuries, until you. Then again, you weren’t one to believe in old wives’ tales, especially not those told by the same mouths that accused you of witchcraft.

The forest appeared harmless enough aside from the usual threats of wild animals and losing path. There was no sign of the air bearing the suffocating pressure the townspeople often spoke of, nor was your vision clouded with thick fog rising from the dirt. None of the horrors you’ve been told were present in these particular woods and this only motivated you to rush deeper into them.

When the flickering yellow lights and loud, threatening shouts of the torch-bearing crowd seemed to have died out behind you, you knew they went no further when you did.

All sounds had turned to silence aside from your panting breaths in the air and the dull sound of your feet hitting the soft soil, and finally, you deemed it safe enough to catch a breath.

Another spine-chilling howl pierced through your nerves, and even though your feet were sore and chapped, twigs and stones occasionally digging into the bare soles, you found yourself striding the opposite way of the sound that made your skin crawl. The more distant it became, the more you found yourself relaxing, the pace of your restless steps turning languid as the realization you'd probably escaped death twice tonight started to kick in. You felt exhausted, if not from the long run then surely caused by the whirlwind of emotions you got put through in the last couple of hours, the adrenaline rush finally dropping and leaving your body to be completely spent. You wanted to lay down so badly, sleep for a bit and recover your strength, and when the woeful cries of the canines had come to fall completely silent, the thought started to feel all the more tempting.

The moon stood tall and bright, its beauty seemingly only reaching your eyes now you were no longer focused on surviving the night. With its perfectly round shape and white glow, you were almost tempted to believe in this thing called magic, this thing your fellow villagers prosecuted you for.

As on cue, a small swarm of fireflies emerged from between the flowerbed a few feet further, emitting a comforting and warm, yellow glow that lit up your path like little stars. Slowly treading through the field of blooming bluebells, a hundred more tiny lights appeared in the air and surrounded you. You must've disturbed them by stepping through the flowers, but what a sight it was! What tragedy it must've been if the villagers got to you and you'd never have witnessed this indescribable beauty. And just when you'd convinced yourself this had to be the most breathtaking phenomenon you'd ever behold, you heard it.

Suddenly accompanying the nocturnal silence came a mesmerizing melody, humming from the distance and weaving through the forest to reach you. Those tones of allure and love incarnated were spellbinding; composed to fog the minds and feast on the hearts that listened to them. The little flying lights seemed to change formation, forming a long luminescent ribbon as they followed the sound. Afraid to lose your tiny stars and incredibly drawn to the foreign song in the distance, your feet were moving before you could think about where they were going. The music filled your head until there was nothing else left, your heart swollen and bursting with an inexplicable desire, throbbing with a yearning unknown to you. You felt what could be described as entranced, thoughts about how strange and suspicious it was to hear such soft and lovely melodies in the middle of the night, so deep into the forest, not once crossing your mind. You could only take in the swaying notes, leisurely being carried by the midsummer breeze, hushing you and convincing you not to question why they were there in the first place.

Your little lights unexpectedly came to a stop, where they left their ribbon formation to spread themselves out and float over a small spring a little further down. The sound of a gasp falling from your lips got interrupted by your breath getting caught in your throat first, your hand promptly covering your mouth when your eyes grew the size of the moon above you. There, waist deep and naked in the spring, was a man so beautiful you finally started to wonder whether this had all been just a very vivid dream. Hiding behind the nearest tree you could find that was broad enough to conceal your shaking body, you leaned against the stem to steady yourself as your knees turned weak and trembled in shock, trying to calm your hammering heart that threatened to break through its cage.

Still, you couldn't seem to tear your gaze away, even when the sight before you pained you so mercilessly you thought you'd collapse. Never in your life have you witnessed such sublime beauty before, such majesty exuding from a person as if he might as well be a fata morgana.

The silver beam of the moon paid him absolute tribute, his slender muscles and tightening tendons a kind of delicate strength rippling underneath a coat of untouched, unsullied ivory as if he was bathing in the white splendor of the moon instead of the dark waters of the lotus lavished spring it was reflected in. His hair matched the shade of onyx the night carried and the contrast with his skin was that of the one between the sky and the moon.

Although you were facing his back, you felt like you were being watched. Being watched as you were watching him while he continued to scoop up palms of shimmering moonlight, the droplets making his pearl pale skin illuminate an almost blinding brightness in seemingly utter ignorance of your mere presence.

The soft clattering of the small waterfall into the spring continued as undisturbed as ever, as if your heart hadn’t just plummeted to your stomach, your body stiffening up entirely at a foreign voice calling out to you.

“Would you have yourself standing there behind that tree and spy on me for the rest of the night or will you at least show yourself?”

The voice sounded lovely like the melodies that brought you here, soft and clear and more than slightly enthralling, in contrast to the words that made your blood run cold. Screwing your eyes shut, several bated breaths passed for you to register the question, and another five to remember that you were being expected to answer it. He’d seen you. The tension was thick in the air as you felt his eyes on you the same way you’d been scrutinizing him only moments ago, even through the with thick bark covered stem that concealed your shaking form. You felt like you couldn’t move at all, even if you wanted to. Your heart went frantic inside your chest, almost painfully so while you stayed put behind the tree that was the only thing that currently prevented your legs from giving out underneath you. You had to stay there, pretend he couldn’t see you, call bluff.

“Are you afraid?” the same soft and tender voice asked again, speaking directly to your hammering heart and tempting it to give in, “I promise, i bear no intent of hurting you.”

You drank those words in like sweet nectar, letting them sink into your soul to stir longing and curiosity there, swaying your screaming instincts telling you run once more that night to make place for a more comfortable feeling. How could such magnificent beauty, in any way, be something bad?

“Let me lay eyes upon you, too.”

The warm honey of his voice trickled down your chest with every word, clearing the last of your doubts. While words still could not find their way to your throat, your feet dared to take a single step away from your vegetal hideaway, revealing the white of your dress and the colour of your hair to this perfect stranger. Not so much fear, but rather bashfulness held you back from approaching the delicate beauty of this raven haired vision. Silly old you, in your ripped and dirtied nightgown, hair tousled and tangled and still bathing in sweat. Were you allowed to present yourself like this in front of such a stunning man?

He did not ask a second time, disregarding the fact he never asked in the first place. Instead, he carried on creating embellished melodies identical to those that led you here, soft hums on pink lips like the morning dew on a blushing rose. They tugged at your heartstrings and beckoned you closer. Your little firefly friends appeared as if they were dancing, no longer only hovering over the surface but swaying back and forth on the notes as they surrounded the pale male. Their yellow light threw a soft and subtle warmth on the cold hues of his skin, making the sight all the more alluring.

Again, your feet moved on their own accord, even if you were already planning on telling them to do exactly that. The moss underneath your bare soles felt soft and cool, soothing the stinging scratches the twigs and brambles inflicted on your skin as you were running earlier. Excitement stirred inside your stomach the closer you came to the white lotuses in the spring, and most importantly in the middle, the fairest of them all. A pleasant haze resided inside your head, buzzing only with a lingering desire to listen more closely, to see more vividly.

Sooner than expected, your toes had reached the edge of the spring, only needing to dip down a few inches to feel the wetness of the clear water. You didn’t realize how you were just standing there, mesmerized as you never let your eyes wander away from the bathing man in front of you. If you’d thought he was enchanting from afar, you needed to reevaluate your standards because up close like this, his ethereal face and glistening, naked torso only a mere few feet away from where you were standing, you were scrambling for the right words to describe him.

“Hello, sweet maiden.” The raven beauty finally faced you as he spoke, creating gentle ripples in the water as it carried his body effortlessly when he came even closer, looking up at where you stood at the waterside. “Will you tell me your name?”

With his head slightly tilted to the side, he waited for you to answer him once again, sparks of curiosity gleaming in his dark eyes but you did not want to speak, you only wished to listen. To hear him speak and sing, oh how you longed for the sound of his voice the moment the last word has left his rosy lips in a question. To all the gods in the heavens, the stars in the skies, you wished he would soon speak again. You’d been so focused on his voice, you momentarily forgot about the words it had formed and when you did remember, you realized you could make your wish come true by giving him what he asked for.

“My name…” You spoke for the first time in a long while that night, a night that seemed to have lasted two lifetimes by now. “My name is ____.”

Your throat was dry and your lips were dryer, your tongue coming out for just a second in a reflex to wet them. Your voice was slightly hoarse from both the physical and mental exhaustion you’d been put through and you winced at the sound. It was in stark contrast with the honeyed tones you’d been clinging to since the moment you’d heard him sing them.

“___.” He repeated, his eyes following the movement of the flash of pink darting out between your lips and his gaze lingering there long after. Your name felt foreign when formed with his lips, like something that sounded so beautiful could never belong to you. He seemed to like the weight of it on his tongue, if the small movement of a single corner of his mouth curling up was anything to go by.

You nodded slowly, your own gaze fixed on either his rosebud lips or his dark eyes on yours. You couldn’t quite decide.

“Will you join me, ___?” The perfect stranger, feeling more familiar with every word he spoke, proposed as he let his hands wade through the water in an invitation. “The water feels very pleasant.”

You seemed to be unable of doing anything else than dumbly nodding your head at everything he says, but your mind went truly blank in beholding such a sight, the fizz of inexplicable desire ever present. In that moment, nothing else but this man existed for you. It was more than just simple infatuation as you knew you would give your life to be with him, without hesitation.

You were about to plunge into the pool, nightgown and all, when your ears registered a series of disapproving clicks coming from the tongue of the radiant man in front of you. The skin between your eyebrows creasing slightly, you silently wondered what your mistake was.

“Bathing is not done while still wearing garments, now is it, sweet ___?” He answered your unspoken question without intent of getting response to his own, his dark gaze critically gliding over the dress concealing your curves and contrasting with the suggestive twist on his lips. There was no maliciousness to be detected in those slightly scolding words, spoken so gently you could have taken them as the caressing words of a lover.

Heat flushed underneath your cheeks, your eyes briefly cast at the ground for the first time within his proximity. Nevertheless, your hands eagerly moved to your shoulders, fingers hooking around the hem to let the gown slide down your hips until it was a pile of white fabric, bundled around your feet. Unexpectedly, you no longer felt shame underneath the scrutiny of his eyes when you stepped out of the discarded dress, your bare body for him to examine and approve or disapprove of.

“Slowly now.” He murmured as your pointed toes made the first transition from dry land to wet water, the rest of your leg following as he silently but thoroughly took in every inch of your skin, every little freckle and blemish there was to observe.

He waited until you had fully entered the pool, the bottom half of your body underneath the surface but still very much visible albeit a little distorted through the clarity of the water. Your breasts were only half immersed, nipples steadily growing harder underneath the cool temperature while the swell of your bosom peaked slightly above the surface.

For a few moments longer, the dark-haired beauty let his gaze linger there before slowly making its way up to your face, his eyes boring deeply into yours as he whispered, “Exquisite.”

A million wings appeared to flutter inside your chest and stomach, butterflies and hummingbirds, upon hearing that single word meant only for you. You couldn’t keep a dazzling smile from curling around your lips, your heart about to burst out of its cage in pure euphoria, especially when he graced you with a smile of his own. It wasn’t as wide or as exuberant as yours but it was all the more blinding, lighting up the darkness of the night as it still mirrored the same wantonness. You so wanted to please this man.

“This night has caused you much distress, has it not?” He hummed with a hint of compassion in his voice as he brought up his hand to let his fingers lightly brush over your temple and you did not question how he knew. “Allow me.”

One large and elegant hand curled into the curve of your waist, gently pulling you closer to him, while the other formed a cup with tightly enclosed and slender fingers to scoop up the spring water much like you’d seen him do before. He brought it to your naked shoulders to wet them as well, emptying it onto your skin before smoothing the water over with the palm of his hand to wash off the dirt.

“How does that feel?” He asked when he felt your muscles tighten only slightly with every touch of his hand.

“Truly refreshing.” You sighed in contentment, your body relaxing when it got used to the cold water. All the stress your nerves had endured that night slowly dissipating and making place for a strange kind of excitement that had started stirring in the pit of your belly.

A satisfied, but soft snicker tumbled from his lips. “I apologize if my hands are a bit on the cold side.”

“They say that if your hands are cold, it means your heart is warm…” you mused softly, as if you weren’t aware you were speaking your thoughts aloud. Suddenly, you’d become so much more comfortable around his bewitching persona.

“Is that what they say?” He hummed, amused, smoothing down your hair as he sweeped it to the side, baring your neck and all the while not taking his eyes off yours.

“I don’t know...I might have just plucked thoughts from my mind.” You boldly stated, feeling less like strangers the more he touched you, the more you spoke. You wished you could touch him, too.

You were hesitant, however, since you had never touched a man while bearing such impure intentions, such sinful thoughts in mind. Never have you been touched this way in your life, either. It awakened a craving inside, one that felt very strange to you. Exciting, yes. But strange. The unfamiliarity of it kept you from acting on your desires...

“You must be thirsty, are you not?” he pulled you out of your pondering thoughts as he plucked a half-open lotus from its leaf to fill it with fresh spring water, holding it in front of your parted lips. “Drink.”

Your own fingers gently closed around his slender ones cupping the flower, the petals soft and cool against the flesh of your lips as you let the liquid flow onto your tongue and against the dry walls of your throat. It tasted sweet on your tastebuds, too sweet for what you’d expected to be just plain spring water. You’d never had anything like it before. There were hints of honey and nectar, a floral delight you could not get enough of so you drank eagerly until the flower was once again empty.

When the last drop graced your tongue with its exquisite taste, leisurely trickling down your throat, your chest suddenly felt light as a feather. It glowed hot with a golden warmth, like the sun had liquified and you’d swallowed all of its light. You felt what could only be described as unadulterated euphoria, all doubts and fear that might have been lingering up until now evaporating as you looked at the perfect face in front of you. You noticed a dark strand atop his midnight shining hair, curling up as playfully as the corner of his mouth and this time, you did not hesitate to reach out and briefly touch it, gently twirling it around your finger.

He did not mind you playing with his obsidian locks and resumed his ministrations as before. His lean fingers lingered longer than necessary on less innocent parts of your body as he continued to bathe you. Cool hands wandered from your shoulders to your arms, from your arms to your waist, down your waist to your hips until his arms were wrapped around you like vines around a tree. A certain line had been crossed between the both of you without you even realizing it, but when your chests as well as your pelvises touched skin on skin, you found your sanity back the same time you lost it.

Not for the first time that night but for very different reason, your breath hitched in your throat when one hand found the curve of your belly, further descending at an agonizingly slow pace only to come to a halt when you wanted him to continue the most.

In an act of slight desperation at the thought of losing his touch, your hands came to lay upon his shoulders, aiding you in pressing your body closer against his until not even a single strand of hair could escape from between them. You opened your mouth to speak, only to close it again when you found your mind absent words, but filled with this craving you no longer feared.

You held the moon in your arms, his eyes shimmering like stars as they captured yours, a smooth palm coming up to cup your jaw tenderly. When he slightly craned his perfect neck and dipped forward, his lips but grazed the shell of your ear in a whisper.

“Give voice to desire and i shall see it satisfied.”

A delightful shiver crawled down your spine upon receiving those words, his cool breath tickling the sensitive skin of your ear and the sensation shooting straight to your core, hot and yearning despite being enveloped by slightly frigid water.

“Thoughts of being touched by your hands plague my mind, but,” your fingers wandered along the curves of his shoulders until they occupied themselves by tracing the cavities of his beautiful collarbones. “I have yet to experience a more intimate caress of a man… Nor have I ever had the pleasure to...pleasure.”

Once again, you surprised yourself with your unexpected boldness. Usually, such words would kiss burning heat upon your cheeks but in this moment, you felt shameless. Your objective the only thing of clarity in your foggy mind, it fueled your imprudence beyond belief. You would fall to your knees and beg if he would will it so. During your life within the small village, you had already prepared to see it to its end a spinster. No man you had ever encountered had grasped your attention in that sense. They were either dumb, a pig, or both. Not to speak of all other things they could be, or rather, could not.

This man, however. You barely knew him but this very man before you defied any premade judgments and prejudices you’d convinced yourself of, about the male species. He was elegant, attentive, almost fragile. So much different from anything or anyone you’ve ever known.

“Your experience or lack thereof matters not, sweet ___.” He smiled against the skin of your neck, his small nose feeling ticklish as he brushed it along the curve. “I would see you tasting the many delights the body has to offer.”

When he pulled back, separating his lips from your skin, you released the breath you didn’t know you were holding in a slightly disappointed sigh. They had barely touched you, but you already found yourself addicted to the way they felt. The disappointment did not last, however, for the sublime beauty of his face was only a hairsbreadth from your own.

His lips all but brushed against yours as your eyes locked, dark pools of night sky with flickering stars inside of them staring down into your soul and all of its harbored desires. The hand still cupping your jaw shifted a little, only to smooth a single thumb down your bottom lip. “Let me serve them to you.” His voice still like a silk ribbon wrapping itself tightly around your heart as he spoke.

You could only nod once, your jaw slightly slacked, before he tenderly captured your parted lips with his own in a chaste kiss. Those pink cushions felt cool and soft, small but plush as they performed the lightest of movements against the delicate flesh of your lips.

A tickling sensation arose inside your chest where the tips of his fingers drew downward lines until they rested atop your sternum, the small space between your breasts where the swell of your soft mounds already grazed the sides of his digits. His other hand, momentarily forgotten about when his lips touched yours, still laid resting a mere few inches above the small hill of your burning core. The water did nothing nothing to cool it down, as it ached desperately for his touch, right there. You did not know why you wanted his long, slender fingers inside of you, or whether it would even feel good. You just knew that you needed them there, have something to fill up the throbbing emptiness between your legs.

You chose not to speak your desires, fearing that if you would separate from his lips, they would not find their way back to yours. Instead, your hand slid down your own waist until it nudged the arm that was squeezed between your hips. Your fingers trailed along the edge until they found his hand, only to envelop it and guide it further south.

His digits disappeared between your thighs, clenching when you felt his lips curl into a small but satisfied smile against your own. The tips but grazed your hot sex, the feeling slightly ticklish against your sensitive lower lips. In all honesty, you had explored your own body on multiple occasions in the past. You had touched yourself like you imagined a man would if you would ever invite one between your sheets. You were what the people back in your village would describe as a ‘sinful woman’, yet you had never paid it any mind since they had condemned you for much less. Your fingers had been where this enthralling stranger’s were in this moment, but the sensations they enticed were incomparable with those you had induced by yourself.

A gasp tore from your mouth, your eyes fluttering shut in delight from the shock of a single pinch around your swollen, little nub. A lighthearted chuckle tumbled from his lips against yours, briefly pulling you back to reality after the surprise of this foreign pleasure.

You had half a mind of asking him to seize his teasing, right when a finger spread your fleshy folds, allowing the cold water of the pool to titillate the raw and vulnerable skin of your entrance for a brief moment. An almost inaudible hiss slipped from your lips and he took that opportunity to slip his tongue past them. The slickness of the muscle tentatively exploring the crevice of your mouth matched with that of your slit, a fresh flow of arousal coating the digit rubbing shallowly between your folds. Every movement, however small, brought a slight shift in the water with it, tickling and simultaneously relieving your blazing hot core.

Spreading your legs, you widened the space between your thighs in a silent request for more. One your angel of seduction picked up on immediately, judging by how his single digit that was yet a teasing spark mere seconds ago, suddenly turned into a scorching wildfire when it fleetingly prodded at your tight entrance before breaking through the barrier of hot flesh when it penetrated you for the first time.

The feeling was not completely unfamiliar, considering you had also simulated penetration with your own fingers in attempts to pleasure yourself long before this encounter. But just like the fleeting caresses, coming from his touch instead of yours, it was a whole different experience entirely.

Your mind was high on pleasure already and you found it hard to focus on the steady rhythm your tongues were dancing to together, barely grasping the reality of the fact that his perfect lips had still not left yours. All while that one long and slender finger was slowly pumping in and barely out of your wet crevice, your inner walls greedily sucking around the digit. Your head was filled with a haze, pink and sweet and thick like fog, yet your senses had never been this sharp, this heightened before.

The quiet mewls spilling from your mouth directly onto his lips had slipped past your attention, but had only grasped his all the more. He interrupted the breathtaking kiss for a moment, briefly taking your bottom lip between his teeth in the gentlest of a nibble, before slightly opening his eyes in a half-lidded gaze. The sudden absence of his lips slightly alarmed you, causing you to mirror his expression when you looked up at him, your chest slightly panting from the exertion of the kiss.

He said nothing while his ministrations carried on, content to watch your facial features scrunch up in pleasure, making a soft groan filter past his lips as his teeth dug into the bottom one to keep him from gasping at such a sinful sight.

“Aphrodite would be struck by envy like a tree by lightning if she would ever catch sight of you, my darling.” He murmured distractedly, watching as the pace of pants entering and leaving your parted lips increased with that of his finger still rubbing your walls. “Do not worry, for i will never let her wrath find you.”

Having trouble making sense of his soothing words, you still let his voice comfort you as you searched for your own through the labyrinth of overwhelming thoughts and sensations. You came up blank, save for a single question, difficult to formulate in between frantic pants and gasps, mewls and moans when his finger reached unexpected places with a particularly well-aimed thrust.

“Y-you never told— told me your n-name,” You managed to get past your lips with great effort before he stole your breath altogether when he diligently added a second digit inside of you, doubling the fullness, doubling the brain-blistering pleasure.

Another one of those satisfied smirks graced his already striking features, and you managed to catch it right before your eyes screwed shut and you threw your head back in pure ecstasy, registering the sound of his voice when he answered, “You may call me Yoongi, my beautiful maiden.”

“Yoongi!” His name rolled of your tongue in a sigh annex a moan when the two fingers inside of you worked as one to rob you of any thoughts save for that single word. Your forehead sought support against his shoulder as you could not keep your hips from rocking onto his hand, trying to get the maddening pleasure of his defined knuckles deeper into your tightening core.

“I would hear you speak my name in such a manner for all eternity,” Yoongi let you know, a strange expression marring his beautiful face while he seemed to be missing yours, his free hand once again coming up to gently pull your chin up under a feather touch.

His eyes caught yours for the shortest of moments before your lips connected as if they had never been separated. You were overjoyed, back to being devoured as before, but the feeling was short-lived when his fingers abruptly disappeared from the snugness of your hot walls, leaving a woeful emptiness behind.

A soft whine sounded from within your throat, but you could not find the strength to pull away from the mind-numbing kiss to form a real complaint. Choosing not to break the kiss as well, Yoongi answered in similar fashion, a playful and reassuring groan echoing into your mouth while your lips molded against each other like melted wax. Slowly backing you against the edge of the spring, the grass tickling your naked shoulders, his hands slid from your hips and underneath the back of your thighs.

You did not expect to be lifted up so suddenly, so when your feet no longer touched the muddy ground of the spring, a surprised squeal became smothered against his lips as you braced yourself with your hands on his until you found security back in the form of soft moss and grass underneath your backside. When Yoongi broke the kiss once more, your confusion only intensified.

“Would you lay back for me, sweetheart?” He requested in the softest of tones, the heat that never left your cheeks flaring up tenfold as you looked down at the raven haired cause of your demise. He appeared extraordinarily sinful, presented between your legs as he was still waist-deep inside the water while you did as he said and laid back into the comfortable bed of vegetation on land.

“W-what will you-” You started, curiosity getting the better of you as you still attempted to peak down, your weight supported by your elbows. Before you could formulate the whole question, one of your legs found rest on top of one of his perfectly sculpted shoulder while his lips left a trail of slow, wet kisses along your skin.

He started at your calf and worked his way up until he reached your inner thigh, gentle sucks and nibbles littered across every available spot, the more north he traveled, the more the leg he held trembled with anticipation and sensitivity. All the while, his eyes were hooded as he focused on mapping out every hill and valley. When he reached your mound of Venus, his gaze found its way back on your face, which expression was dazed with the feeling of a thousand buzzing nerves humming in contentment at the pleasurable prickles he left behind across the entirety of your leg.

“The first delicacy i will serve you, sweet ___.” he murmurs, planting a chaste peck next to your groin and having you shiver at the proximity of his mouth near your sex. Never, not even in your wildest fantasies, would you have imagined a man’s lips so close to your lower ones. You’d heard stories of women and their husbands, where they had been requested to perform oral pleasure on their partners… the women as the performers, mind you, you had always thought it a strange but intriguing concept, like a special service. Nevertheless, you had always written it off as a way for men to feel superior to their spouses. You had not even once thought about the possibility of the men as the performers, despite your critical mind. Assuming that this man, this miraculous person, is going to do to you what you had heard women were expected to do to their husbands… With the roles reversed, what did that make you? What did it mean?

Your thoughts were rudely interrupted when a slick wetness glided along your hyper receptive slit, quite shallowly at first as he but licked a long stripe on the outside where both your outer and parts of your inner folds were bared before the caresses of his wet muscle. Just this simple action, knowing the more sensitive of skin has not yet been reached, already has you reeling in rapture. Two of his fingers spread your lips apart, revealing the soft, velvety tissue, so vulnerable and delicate to his touch.

Another soft groan, bordering on a whine, willingly slipped from Yoongi’s beautiful, swollen lips as he took in the sight of the treasure between your legs, needing a moment to take it all in. The moment was indeed exactly that; a moment. It did not last long before he dove face first into your hot center, eagerly lapping up your essence, richly flowing from the crevice of your tightness. The experience was entirely ludicrous, a fleeting note that if you had thought his fingers felt divine before, this was launching you directly into the heavens.

A strangled moan forced its way out of your lungs when his tongue curled around your little nub, hot and swollen with want, and his lips followed suit to suck not so gently as you would have expected him to, nor would you have wanted him to. Your whole body staggered, back arching from the ground and your head thrown back in utter disbelief of the insane onslaught of pleasure he was inflicting on your poor virgin vagina. Your fingers found shelter in his midnight locks, tugging at the strands and accompanied by your lips, a waterfall of lewd moans mixed with chants of his name with a mind absent thought, you appeared as if gone completely deranged.

Your delectable noises and the urgent tugs at his silken hair moved Yoongi to lose himself further into the devouring of your begging mound, paying special attention to your red hot clit as it made you spout particularly delirious nonsense when he did. You tasted absolutely palatable on his tongue, the nectar of the lotuses bland in comparison in his modest opinion, and the more he licked, the more he sucked, the more your own nectar flowed.

You would have considered him a man starved, not taking note of the context, considering how desperately he buried his face between your legs to lap up every single drop. He enjoyed it so much, he was almost disappointed to see you topple over the edge much too soon for his liking. You did so bathing in sweat, muscles tensing up and white blasting behind your tightly screwed eyes as you sobbed an attempt at his name, your fingers clenching around your angel of sin’s locks as if they were reigns. Your skin glistened with the exertion of pleasure rather than the water from the spring, your body steaming in the cool night air as your first orgasm attacked your every nerve. Never had you experienced anything of the sort in your life before, a feeling as though you were possessed. Maybe the people in your village did have a point.

Panting in aftermath, small sighs and gasps of lingering disbelief continued to fall from your lips, your eyes widely staring at the stars above you and your hazed mind trying to make sense of what had just occurred. Yoongi licked a final stroke of wetness across your slit, making you hiss in sensitivity and having him snicker mischievously in response. Your hands fell limp and slided from his hair to lay uselessly next to your weak, spent body.

He carefully pulled you back into the water, hands guiding your hips so you would slowly slide down the edge without hurting yourself. You had trouble finding your balance, your legs still wobbly and weak and your mind drunk on the bliss of a hard climax, but he made sure to support you well with his arms locked around your waist and your chests pressed together.

“Well,” He started, a smug smile plastered on his almost marble-like face as he studied your delirious one in amusement, “Did you enjoy your first course, sweetheart?”

An incredulous laugh found its way past your lips, your forehead resting against his as you couldn’t keep the stunned smile off your face, “That was...was....It was…” You shook your head and giggled softly, not for the first time that night unable to find words that matched with what you felt.

“Agreed,” Yoongi chuckled, pecking a soft kiss on your cheek that made you want to curl into a ball, “If you still have an appetite, we can move on to the next one.” He proposed, the tone in his voice tempting and promising.

“Consider me a glutton, then,” You bravely stated, a daring look in your eyes and an accepting one in his when they met again, “For i will be hungry as long as there are courses.”

His thumb fondly smoothed over the skin of your cheek as he looked at you like you were a dream. “Oh, sweet ___,” He sighed in wonder, “If only.”

You wished to ask him If only what? but you did not get much chance to when his lips were back on yours in an instant. This time, they moved with a purpose, an untamed craving that came from deep within. His arms dropped from your waist to settle on your behind instead, his large hands squeezing your asscheeks as he pulled you impossible closer to him. The hardened buds of your nipples grazed his torso and even the smallest of sensations like that made a shiver trickle down his skin, raising goosebumps on his arms that had nothing to do with the nightly breeze.

A strange object dug into your hip, your eyebrows creasing slightly as you let one of your hands descend into the water to identify it. Heat flared underneath your cheeks, your eyes wide in realization when your fingers closed around a hard, meaty shaft, attached to the god-like man in front of you. You have seen many a manhood during your life in the village, especially when the men got drunk and liked to boast with their cocks. Not that you had ever thought they had anything to boast with. You had never touched one before, however, feeling the weight of Yoongi’s in your hand, it felt nice. You felt excited, the nervousness somehow never breaking through. Not once during your encounter with your beautiful stranger since you had entered the water with him, had you felt nervous or scared. Despite this being your very first sexual experiences with a man.

A soft moan broke through your pondering thoughts, making you remember the fact that you were still holding his hardened length in your hand. Closing your fingers around the shaft a little more tightly, you attempted a hesitant stroke, making his hips respond immediately by bucking into your hand further, so you did it again. Gaining more confidence, you tried experimenting with varying pressure, smoothing your thumb over the head like he’d done with your bottom lip and earning a delicious moan from his lips. Within a minute, you were getting the hang of it, even finding enjoyment in the action as you watched various expressions cross his beautiful features. Mesmerized by the sight, you lost track of the vigor of which you were pleasuring him with, too absorbed in the way his lips parted for drawn out moans and furrowing eyebrows.

You had not expected a hand coming down and joining you underwater to halt your ministrations so quickly, panting breaths hot against the nape of your neck where Yoongi’s head laid to rest for a moment.

“Your enthusiasm leaves me in awe, sweetheart,” He chuckles breathlessly into your ear, “but it is time for me to serve you once more.”

Your heart leaped in your chest when his hand left yours to lift up your leg, hooking it over his arm to keep your thighs widely spread as you stood in the pool of water. Your back still rested against the edge of the spring, making it easier for you to keep your balance. His free hand replaced yours that was still wrapped around his girth, his hips nestling between your own as the head of his cock kissed your wet entrance.

The anticipation picked up the pace of your breathing, your chest heaving quickly as he brushed the engorged tip between your slick folds, collecting your arousal to make it nice and slippery. His eyes found yours again after both sets were temporarily staring mesmerized into the clear water, watching the distorted image of your actions through the ripples of the pool. A single nod is all it took for him to get permission to enter you, tentatively guiding his length inside your tight core, your walls mercilessly clenching around him. Whether it was to try and push out the foreign object or suck it further in, you could not tell. There was a screaming, nagging pain when you took in more of him, his girth significantly more broad than the two fingers he had used to pleasure you before. It felt like small tears on the inside, and the uncomfortable feeling lasted until he was sheathed to the hilt.

“How do you feel?” His breath staggered as he asked the question, his arms and legs shaking with sheer effort to keep still inside of you.

“It’s… quite alright.” You answered in all honesty, the pain ebbing away steadily as your tightness grew accustomed to the intruding thickness of his shaft. “Go on.”

Yoongi nodded, lips softly moving against your own in an attempt of soothing the awkward feeling of the first strokes inside of you when he slowly started to move his hips, coaxing you through the pain. It hurt no longer, although the feeling was not exactly to be described as very pleasant. You had started to miss Yoongi’s mouth on your little nub, but were surprised by the replacement of pain with pleasure after a few seconds of getting used to the stretch.

“Oh!” You exclaimed when a slightly sharper thrust hit a spot deep within you that had your eyes roll back for a moment. Uncomfortable grunts turned into delighted moans when the repeated movements started to feel good, making you feel full and satisfied instead of tolerating a painful stretch. “Yoongi…”

The sighed out moan of his name was his cue to take it up a notch now you were no longer uncomfortable, but receiving pleasure out of the way his hips snapped up and buried his cock deep inside. He pulled your leg up just a little higher, only to plummet himself deeper than he’s ever gone, the head of his cock hitting your inner sweet spot directly. Judging by the way your voice raised in pitch as well as decibels, he knew he’d aimed well. With this newfound angle, Yoongi continued to pound into you with a steady rhythm, hitting that spot over and over until you were a mess with your fingers tightly clutched into his hair once again, a warbling mess unable to form coherent words. He could not keep from moaning either, the feeling of your tight walls holding his cock in a vice-like grip and milking him for all he’s got.

“Y-Yoo-oon-gi!” His name left your mouth in sounds pulled apart by the powerful thrusts making you bob up an down and steal your breath, a pathetic attempt of a warning.

When he added pressure on your neglected little nub, sparks practically flew from your skin. You were tumbling head first into your second orgasm that night, dangerously fast for someone who has never experienced one before. It was all too much, too overwhelming, too sensitive and powerful and you let the tears stream down your cheeks as you could feel yourself reaching your peak, the knot in the pit of your stomach almost painfully tightening while Yoongi continued to rub your clit diligently.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” He cooed, giving you adoring kisses on your lips, your cheeks, your neck. His breathing was heavy as he, too, neared the edge of his release, “Let it all go for me.”

You could not hold back even if you had wanted to, so you did as he said and let go with one last choked back moan, one last swallowed sob, one last pull at his precious head of obsidian hairs. This climax knocked the wind out of your lungs, your clit on the brink of painful overstimulation but also not wanting him to stop the rubbing while you came all over his thick cock, still thrusting mercilessly into you in a less controlled rhythm compared to before. This announced the fact that Yoongi, too, was at his limit as his grunts and moans rose in pitch and frequency, your walls hot and wet and tight as they pulsed around his length until he could not fight it anymore and erupted inside of you, coating them in a layer of his hot, white, sticky seed. He kept you close to him as he filled you up until not a single drop was left to spill. He slowly slipped out of you when he went soft again, but held you inside his embrace for a little while longer so you could both relish in the afterglow. You listened to each other’s heavy breathing, soft sighs and relieved moans as fingers lazily caressed skin, soft kisses landed on the first patch of skin they could find. It was intimate, close, like you had forgotten you had been strangers at the beginning of the night. It felt like you had known each other your entire lives.

“You are divine,” Yoongi sighed in utter bliss, gently brushing your mussed hair back much like he had earlier this night, planting another adoring kiss on your lips, “my sweet ___.”

You wished you could revel in this warmth, this love, forever. With your head far up in the clouds above, you had nearly forgotten about the question that had burned on your tongue since you first laid eyes on him.

“I must ask,” you started, hesitantly, as you worried your bottom lip between your teeth, “are you human?”

A silence fell, but it was not uncomfortable. It was expectant, innocent. You watched the way his eyes never seized to shimmer like stars as he mulled over his answer while lightly caressing your face with the tips of his fingers.

“I can not say that i am.” He finally answered, a light huff leaving his slightly curled up lips.

“I never thought you were.” You admitted. “Then, if i may, what are you? Are you an angel?”

An adoring smile giving you a peak of the slightest bit of gums spread across his face, a beauty you were sure you could never get used to even if the heavens would grant you an additional thousand years of life. “I’m afraid I am quite a bit older than the angels that you know, sweet ___. My heritage goes back further than the existence of your God.”

You looked at him expectantly, knowing there was more to his identity, his story. Noticing the curious gleam in your eyes, he continued.

“My father was a lover of the beautiful Goddess Aphrodite,” He sighed, not out of exasperation but more so out of a strange kind of acceptance of the story he was going to share with you, “she was rather fond of him, you know. He wasn’t handsome but he was beautiful. A delicate beauty that seemed to make the moon look bleak in comparison.”

“You are much like your father then?” You carefully inquired, a soft smile encouraging him to go on.

“In terms of looks at least, i suppose,” He smiled back, letting you know it was alright to ask questions, “I have never met my parents, personally. I only know their story, since it is also mine.”

“What happened?”

“Aphrodite wished to keep him for herself exclusively. She was not possessive of nature and was content loving each and every man that appealed to her the same. For some strange reason, with him, she felt differently.”

You listened intently, intrigued by the tales of which you’ve read about in books you secretly stole from the town’s library from time to time. Gods, Goddesses, Aphrodite...lovers. It was all true.

“He fell in love with a Naiad, a water nymph from Megara. Her name was Yiloise.”

“Your mother.” You understood.

“My mother.” He confirmed with a small nod of his head. “Does that answer your question?”

You nodded back slowly, amazed at that single fact , “So you are a nymph…”

“I am. Does that repel you?” He teased.

“On the contrary,” You suppressed an excited giggle. You had never thought nymphs and other mythical beings to exist up until you’d slept with one. “What happened to the Goddess Aphrodite, though?” You wondered out loud.

“That, my sweet ___, is why i am here.” Yoongi explained, a slightly sombre expression casting a shadow on his radiant beauty, “In a fit of jealousy, she punished my mother by taking me from her after she gave birth to me, only to banish me to this forest forever. I was meant to waste away here for all eternity.”

Having not expected such a tragic turn of events, you fell silent. You pitied him, even though you tried to fight it, and he picked up on it.

“Do not feel sorrow for me, sweetheart.” He gave you another reassuring, soft smile, halting the welling tears in your eyes from spilling past the border. “I am not alone. I never am.”

“I do not wish to leave you.” You told him, your voice but above a whisper as your heart felt crushed by a stone at the mere thought of being separated from this exquisite being.

“You will never have to.” He hushed you, his soft lips pressing a familiar kiss to yours and lifting the weight from your chest instantly. “I will see to it.”

As you melted away in each other’s warm embrace within the cold spring, time seized to exist as all that mattered was that he was yours and you were his, and you forgot about the village, about the wolves, about the world. Your only wish was to stay by his side, forever.

And so another never returned from the haunted forest, fallen into the clutch of the ancient soul it harbored.

#bts smut #yoongi smut #suga smut #bts scenarios #suga scenarios #bts #suga #yoongi #min yoongi #yoongi scenarios #bts imagines #suga imagines #bts fanfiction #suga fanfiction #suga oneshot #bts oneshot #yoongi oneshot

[bald-tales]

Witness Protection at the Bears Den - part 10 to 15

part 10  It was still pretty quiet in the Bar next door to the Barbers shop. It had just gone past 8.00pm and Bart was washing up some glasses when a huge guy walked in, taking up the whole door frame. Bart had never seen him before, but he could certainly fit in at this bar.  He obviously had been spending way too much time in the gym. Although he was wearing a dark suit, it was obvious that muscle, not fat, was beneath it. He had a dangerous look, and something told Bart he wasn’t after a drink.  “What can I get you?” asked Bart, putting his glass drying aside.  “Just some information,” the stranger said. He produced a photograph, “you seen this guy around here?”  Bart felt his adrenaline start to rise. The photo looked like the kid next-door. Yes it was him alright. “Can’t say I have,” replied Bart – trying to hide his nervousness. “He doesn’t look the sort to come in here,” Bart tried to suggest.  “Friend of mine said he may come in here. I’d be grateful if you’d give me a call if you do see him.” The beefcake handed over a business card – Roberto Alverez it read. “His parents are worried sick about him; concerned he may have fallen in with the wrong crowd.” He tried to smile.  “Yeah! Ah sure, if I see him, I’ll give you a call,” Bart lied.  “You do that.”  And with that Alverez left the bar. Bart took a deep breath, then picked up the phone….he had to warn Ken – and fast!  “Shit! That was Bart. Reckons his had a visitor looking for Bret. How did they find out where to look so quickly?” said Ken as he hung up the phone.  “Well it’s pretty obvious there is a leak at my end,” replied a shocked Dan. He went to the window and carefully peered between the closed blinds. He couldn’t see anything. “What did he look like?”  “Bart said he was a big muscle-bound goon, as bald as we are. Gave him a name – Roberto Alverez.” Replied Ken.  At that moment, the bound and gagged Bret started to moan. He had a look of horror on his face.  “I think Bret knows this guy,” said Ken. “Maybe we should hear what his got to say.”  Ken took the huge ball gag from Bret’s gaping mouth. As soon as it was loose, Bret started to babble; ‘you can’t let him find me!’  “Ah! There he is!” said Dan, still watching out the window. “Just came out of the Laundry on the corner. Mean-looking mother…. Getting into a dark coloured Ford. Guess his leaving- for the moment anyway.”  “So Bret, you see why this work on you has to be done. They will find you eventually – we have to make sure they don’t know it’s you when that happens.” Ken said calmly.  “Alright! Your right. I know what these guys are capable of…..are you sure if I let you do this to me, I’ll be safe – for good?” asked Bret, obviously shaken, knowing he had no other options now.  “Trust me. Already your on the way to looking like someone who fits in at the Bears Den.” Ken said, pointing at the mirror that Bret was facing.  Bret’s mouth dropped; he hadn’t noticed the changes in his body. It must be what ever their pumping into him. He had noticed the restraints had been tightening, but now he saw why. His stomach was no longer flat… in fact, all his life he never been able to put on any weight – now he was blowing up big time. He had a round gut forming under his chest restraint, and he felt like his shirt was shrinking. As he went up he noticed his neck had thickened, and through the beard that had steadily been growing on his face, he could see his face had taken on a bloated look. “What the fuck?”Said Bret. “That’s not me – no way this can happen so quick. And the beard! I’ve never been able to grow anything more than a few chin whiskers…..this is weird!”  The added chemicals designed to make Bret more co-operative, were working, Ken thought to himself. They weren’t as powerful mind controllers as Ken had used on Lucas or Jerry – he wanted Bret to see his transformation to completion; it might be more fun!  Ken spoke first, “Now see what’s possible? This is the best way to throw those guy’s off the scent. Besides, at least you’re starting to look more of a man than a kid.”  Something inside Bret agreed with Ken. He’d always hated looking so young for his age.  “And this way, you can have Ken change anything you want. Plastic surgery is pretty permanent and definitely not as effective.” Added Dan. “Now listen Ken. I think it’s safe to leave you and Bret for now; I’d better try and find whose the spy, before we have any more trouble. I’ll be back a little latter – hopefully with some answers!”  “Sure Dan! Bret’s fine now, aren’t you boy?” Ken replied. “I think we can get rid of the restraints – his going to be enjoying this from now on I think.  Part 11  Dan was back at his desk - it was just coming up to 10pm and the offices in his building were quiet. Dan was going through the personnel records, something his new promotion permitted. There had to be a leak this end, he thought. There was no other answer. Hang on….. he suddenly got excited; of course, it had to be him! There on the screen was the obvious answer; Patrick Giovedi. A young, skinny guy that Dan had never got on with. He was working in their Accounts Department and would have had access to most of the files. Looking up his work history, there was no clue to his involvement. Only just turned 21, he’d been given a complete FBI clearance, though he’d only been working here for only 12months. What convinced Dan was his family history. Grew up in a tough neighbourhood – the son of an Irish mother and Italian father – put himself through school, attended North Hills College before attending NY University. ‘North Hills’ was the same college Bret had been peddling his drugs! Co-incidence? Dan didn’t trust co-incidences too much. What nailed his suspicion was a file photo of a young Patrick riding his bike in his old Bronx neighborhood. There he was outside a mens tailor shop; Tony Alverez Tailor. The bald-headed goon looking for Bret at the Bear’s Den was called Alverez. Must be a relative – maybe a father that owned the Tailor shop. Patrick must have known the Alverez’s, Dan thought to himself; it’s the only answer to why this guy had found Bret so quickly. Dan dialed the number of Kens’ Barbershop.  “Hey Ken! Look I won’t be able to make it back tonight – I’ve got a lead! Can you put Bret up for the night – I’ll be around tomorrow………..Yeah! You’ll be safe tonight….sure….have fun!” Dan hung up the receiver. Ken had been more than happy to accommodate Bret for the night. Already, he was well and truly looking like he was a regular at the Bear’s Den!  Ken had just finished washing out the hair dye when Dan had rung. Bret’s newly acquired beard was jet black, certainly a change from his former blond coloring. Ken started to dab at the beard with a brush he’d dipped in another mysterious bottle. Bret’s beard was a full beard that Ken had left thick at the chin and above his top lip. The sides he’d trimmed down short. He continued to run the brush through the chin whiskers and moustache, leaving the sides and cheeks alone. Bret could now see the black of the beard being bleached wherever the gel was brushed on. Ken decided to run the brush through more vigorously now. As the gel dried his beard was beginning to look more white than black. Again Bret’s beard was washed and dried. Ken now began to brush something else through the part bleached areas. It was a very thick, dark gel. “Just something to make you look a little older,” said a grinning Ken. After twenty minutes, the gel was washed out. Bret saw what Ken had meant about looking older! His tache and styled chin whiskers had a lot of gray showing through.  As the hours had ticked by Bret’s transformation into a biker Dad was becoming more and more obvious. Bret had even started to get off on the changes that were happening to him – thanks to the drugs still being pumped into his body. He was no longer the skinny college nerd that had entered the barbershop, earlier that night. His body was much fatter. His neck had grown wider, a generous double chin, had appeared, hidden by the grey beard. His whole face had taken on a bloated look. His eyebrows were dark and thick now, his eye coloring no longer blue, but brown, thanks to coloured contacts. Bret’s stomach was now a round beer belly stretching down to his lap. His chest was bigger with his pecs forming definite manboobs. His whole body was now covered in black hair mixed with silver-gray here and there. A real contrast to the smooth look he’d come in with. Piercings now adorned his nipples. Four large hoops swung from the left ear making the lobe stretch down under their weight. Bret hadn’t been too willing for the metal, but the drugs helped convince him.  “Now it’s getting late, I think that will be enough tonight,” said Ken. Bret was beat after all the work done on him and all the drugs pumped into him over the past five hours. He was sure ready for some shuteye. “First let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.”  After Ken had put Bret to bed in the spare room above the shop, he waited for him to go off to sleep. He knew he’d not wake up thanks to a little tonic in his hot cocoa. Ken began to apply an oil over Bret’s face. In a few minutes it would dry and shrink. Then Ken would apply another layer. This was his radical plan to help age Bret, beyond his 28 years. The oil would cause premature aging. Ken made sure the layers would be more on his forehead and around his crows feet. Next he applied a small weight to each nipple ring. Then he applied a vacuum cylinder to Bret’s rather average sized cock. He took a needle and injected it into one of Bret’s balls. As he pushed down on the plunger the testicle began to inflate. He repeated this with the other ball. They would be stretched latter after they had grown, like his cock would. Ken plunged another needle into the base of the dick. He connected the vacuum to a small machine that would then operate the vacuum all night. “Sweet Dreams Brett,” said Ken, giving him a kiss on the lips before retiring himself  Part 12  Hey Ken! Anyone home?” Dan called as he let himself into the back of the shop with his own key. It was nearing 3 in the afternoon.  “And just where have you been?” replied Ken as he came down the stairs from the apartment above.  give him a sedative about an hour ago. He didn’t wake up feeling too good. ”Can I take a  look?” asked Dan.  “Sure thing.”  Dan wasted no time going up to the bedroom where Bret was in. About 5 minutes latter Dan was coming down the stairs supporting a groggy Bret.  “Sorry I’m so late. I’ve made progress on our mole. One Patrick Giovedi, works in our Accounts department – bloody weasel!” sneered Dan.  “Coffee?” Ken asked as he went to a sideboard to pour himself a cup.  “Sure! Would kill for one.”  “I hope not,” smiled Ken as he poured a cup for Dan.  “So how’s our patient?” asked Dan.  “Had to amazing Barber, Ken,” smiled Dan as Ken came to give him a hand. “He wanted to get up – seems pretty out of it still.”  “Let’s put him back in the chair,” replied Ken, “I need to work quickly on him with this company snitch on our tale.”  “What more can you do? This is amazing – I mean the whole package is unrecognizable as Bret.” Said Dan carefully placing Bret in the chair.  “Not enough! Got to do the attitude and personality adjustments for him to be totally believable. Without it he will expose who he really is for sure.” Said Ken as he worked some switches at the back of the chair and the large TV screen came to life. “Bret was pretty freaked out this morning when he woke up – I mean who wouldn’t be? He started saying we were turning him into some freak, that we had no right”  EARLIER  Yes indeed. When Bret awoke that morning he felt terrible. He slowly came to only to find this sucking cylinder on his dick. He quickly removed it and couldn’t believe his eyes. His modest dick was huge – well over 12 inches, and his balls were like melons. His mind was trying to figure what had happened last night. It wasn’t a dream after all.  Just then Ken had entered the room. “Ah! Your awake sunshine.”  “What the hell! What have you done to me?” Bret spat at Ken  “I thought you would like all the enhancements,” replied Ken. “Here take a look!”  he then said producing a large mirror.  “Ahhhhh………..no…it can’t be! You made me into an old fuck like you.” Bret screamed. His face appeared to be years older and with the gray-black beard made him unrecognizable as a 28 year old. His sagging breasts had huge weights attached to the nipple rings – no wonder they felt numb.  “I’m getting out of here, I don’t care what the mob does to me; it can’t be worse than what you fuckers have done.”  “Just relax Bret. I know it’s all a bit much to take in at first – but you’ll get use to it. Remember – it’s for your own protection!” Ken replied suddenly producing a chloroformed rag.  Bret tried to free himself but Ken was still fitter and stronger. It wasn’t long before Bret passed out.  Back in the Barbershop Ken was busy making Bret more co-opperative.  “I don’t want to be like you guys,” Bret said groggily as he focused on the swirling patterns in front of him.  “Sure you do, Bret. Relax and focus on the screen in front. You’re feeling so good now. You love the new you….  “No way…I don’t want ….I can’t stay like this….I have to get awayyy….”  “No Bret. You only hear the sound of my voice. Concentrate on the patterns. They are relaxing you aren’t they Bret!” Ken softly and evenly spoke into Bret’s ear.  “Yes, they are relaxing… but I have to get away from here….I…I…”  “No Bret. Listen to my voice,” Ken continued, “you like my Barbershop, you like the changes we are making to you. You are looking more of a man than before – more mature, rugged.”  “I like being in your Barbershop….” repeated Bret.  Ken continued to work on Bret. He’d decided it was best if he forgot about his former life – safer as well.  Dan kept watch, keeping an eye on the street out front of the shop. He was extra careful not to be followed this time.  After about an hour and three injections, Ken said he was finished for now. “He’ll still need follow up work, but when he awakes he’ll be a different guy altogether. He will be an old, mature biker bear, ready to show us his nice big cock.”  Dan look at Bret’s naked body. His cock was certainly big, but the width now was like a beer can. “Maybe that size head deserves a nice big ring.”  “Just what I was thinking,” replied Ken. With that he got his piercing cart and went to work giving Bret a nice gold PA through his huge piss hole and ensuring it was permanently closed.  “Now for some finishing touches,” smiled left Ken to his fun working on Bret.  Ken as he went to the counter and took a bottle of one of his potions. “I want this dude looking so different from his former self even his own mother wont recognize him.” He proceeded to paint the sides and back of Bret’s bald head with the green goop. “This will quicken the hairgrowth, so his male pattern baldness will be obvious. It will make him look even older.”  The stubble had just started to appear on Bret’s head except on the top and crown where Ken had permanently removed it.  “Listen Ken, I have an idea to set up Giovedi.” Dan said, coming over to watch the process and fascinated at how thorough Ken was. “Give me a few hours and I’ll be back.  Have that television ready, I think Giovedi needs an attitude adjustment!”  “Sounds good to me,” laughed Ken.  Dan  Part 13  Ken heard a tap at the rear door to the shop. He’d been cleaning up after his time spent on Bret. “Dan! Your back! Who’s your friend?” asked Ken as he ushered Dan and a young, skinny guy into the shop.  “Ken, this is Patrick. Patrick Giovedi.”Dan answered introducing his firm’s accountant.  The guy looked very nervous, especially now that Dan had locked the rear door.  “Patrick, nice to meet you,” Ken said, “so what can I do for you?”  “I don’t know why I’m here actually – I mean I was practically dragged down here.” Patrick answered giving Dan a distrustful look.  “I told him it would be in his best interest to come down here to meet you.” Dan responded.  “Yeah! Sure – forced more like it.” Said Patrick.  Then Dan put a hand on the accountants shoulder and pushed him towards one of the Barber chairs. Patrick realized there was some guy in the nearest chair, he seemed to be asleep. “Take a seat and we’ll explain why you’re here.” Dan said, practically pushing him into the chair. He then whispered something to Ken, who then went to the control panels at the back of the first chair that Bret was sitting on, still unconscious.  “Now Patrick. I’ve noticed how your always looking at me – I think you’ve got a thing for a real man and I’m the kind of guy you’ve been looking for.” Began Dan.  Patrick’s eyes went wide, he could hardly believe his ears, “What the hell. Are you insane? I’m no faggot and if I were, I definitely wouldn’t be interested in a old, fat fart like you. Where in the world do you get off calling me………..wha…” Before Patrick could finish the chair was spun around. “What the fuck? Cried Patrick as he felt a leather strap go around his chest.  “Shut it,” Dan said “or I’ll shove my cock up that virgin arse of yours.”  Stunned, Patrick stayed quiet long enough for another restraint to go around his ankles.  Suddenly a TV screen in front of him came to life. It seemed to be a series of patterns and flashing shapes. Patrick tried to turn away but Dan had his head in a vice-like grip.  “Yes Patrick, I think your going to enjoy Ken’s entertainment.” Dan whispered into the ear of Patrick. Gradually his attempts to stop looking at the screen lessened till finally he was at Ken’s mercy.  “Now Ken, the full treatment. Can you make Pat a full-blown queen.?” asked Dan  “Your wish is my command, but what’s your plan?”  Dan went on,” I want our snitch here to be totally discredited but those his working for. Once they see what he is into, I don’t think they’ll be dealing with him in future. Now I want him particularly into straight cock.”  “Sounds interesting – I’ll give it my best shot.” Replied Ken.  He began to go through some DVDs as Dan went over to Bret’s chair. “Shit Ken! What have you done to our other guest?”  “Not bad if I do say so myself.” Answered Ken.  “Bloody amazing, I’d say,” Dan said. He was looking at the hair growth around the sides and back, a perfect male pattern baldness specimen. The hair was very noticeable now, grown out to a number one length and coloured dark grey with some silver showing through to match his beard. The top of his bald head seemed darker tanned with signs of ageing and sun damage. His face appeared to be even older then when Dan had left, the result of Ken’s desire to make this guy totally unrecognizable.  As Ken inserted a DVD into a compartment on the side of the television he asked, “So how old do you think he looks?”  “At least 60!” answered a still stunned Dan. “No one will ever believe this is Bret Williamson.”  Meanwhile, Ken turned his focus to Patrick. He was now completely hypnotized – the screen in front now showing occasional pictures of naked, athletic jocks.  Ken set up two syringes and injected the first into Patrick’s left arm. He then went on to say, “Now Patrick – can you hear my voice?”  “Yes.”  “Good. And you’re starting to feel very relaxed?”  “Yes.”  “You’re going to feel even better soon. As you watch the screen you feel more at ease and comfortable with what you see. Your beginning to enjoy the photos of the men, it’s starting to make your cock rise.”  Dan noticed the kid’s bulge developing in his crotch. He watched fascinated as Ken worked on the new ‘client’. There were no plans to alter his memories just his sexual preferences. They would have some fun with this one – he deserved it.  LATER.  “Bart have you met Patrick?” Ken announced loudly as he and Dan brought Patrick into the Bar. It was just after 6 pm and the Bar contained a few regulars. They had finished there work on the kid, and on Bret who was sitting in a dark corner still a little zonked out. Jerrt was sitting with him both drinking some heavy gainer beer.  “Well, Pat we don’t get many like you in here?” chipped in Bart offering his hand.  Patrick refused to shake it, even though he couldn’t take his eyes off Bart’s body. As usual the bartender was wearing no shirt and just a tight pair of black, leather pants.  “The names Patrick, and I’ve never been to a place like this before.” Patrick replied, but feeling his cock hardening.  “How about a drink – help you relax?” asked Bart.  “Well…I suppose I could have one before I go.” Stammered Patrick.  Suddenly he was conscious of pipe smoke, all around him. Ken had lit up one of his special blends. “Hope my pipe isn’t bothering you son?”  “Yes. Actually it is bothering me….it kind of smells…..you can’t…..” Patrick tried to speak but the smoke encircling him was making it hard. He started to feel at ease, why was that. He took a long gulp of the beer.  “Take another,” Bart pushed the drink into Patrick’s hands. He felt he should. He started to feel he should do anything this guy asked.  “So Pat! Still want me to stop smoking my pipe?” asked Ken putting a firm hand on Patrick’s shoulder.  “No. No, it’s fine. I’m getting use to it.” Replied a much more amiable Patrick. It wasn’t long before Patrick was on his second drink. Ken suggested Bart have a break, giving him a wink. Bart went around to Patrick, grabbed his arm and said, “why don’t we get to know each other a little better!”  Feeling a little light-headed and confused, Patrick went with Bart.  “Quick Ken! Go get your camera; let’s get a snap of the happy couple,” said Dan.  Within a half hour, Patrick was all over Bart, totally oblivious of having pictures taken. He had his shirt off and before long, was sucking on Bart’s huge cock – PA and all.  The next day, Patrick was back at work totally unaware that he had been straight up until yesterday. He couldn’t remember much about last night but he definitely wanted to return for some more action with Bart. The phone suddenly disturbed his daydreams. It was his cell phone. “Hello!  “It’s Alverez. We haven’t heard from you for a while. Not trying to get out of our little arrangement are you?”  “No…of course not. I’ve had no new information.” answered a frightened Patrick.  “Well keep an eye on that ‘faggot’ boss of yours. He won’t suspect you, and I’m sure his still in contact with Williamson.”  “Sure…but I’ve got to be careful…” then Patrick stopped as he realized Alverez had hung up.  It was just nearing 5pm when Dan came up to Patrick’s desk. “How about coming with me for a drink? You made such a good impression at the Bears Den yesterday- thought you might like to come along again. I have to check up on one of our recent client relocation in the same area, so your welcome to come along.”  “Ah! Sure, thanks…..I was finished up here anyway.” Responded a shocked Patrick. What great luck. Now he might find out where they have Bret stashed and finally get Alverez off his back.  As Dan and Patrick drove to the other side of town, Dan noticed a dark sedan following. He knew Alverez was probably watching him. Perfect, he thought to himself.  As they entered the Bears Den, Bart immediately came over and gave Patrick a kiss. “Great to see you again Pat. Here – have one of my ‘special ’frosties. Dan left the bar to see Ken, leaving Patrick in Bart’s capable hands.  Watching out the Barbershop window, Dan saw Alverez head straight into the bar. “Right on cue,” said Dan.  Ken was already heading to the bar via the rear door.  Roberto Alverez had no time for ‘ fags ‘ and here he was in this sordid bar a second time. He quickly scanned the room, which seemed to be busy already. As he passed a notice board he did a double take. There in the middle were the photographs that Ken had taken of Bart and Patrick. Alverez felt sick. He always thought Giovedi was a homo. No wonder he was coming to this bar. “Can I buy you a drink, son?”  “What?” Alverez found himself looking at the huge gut of the very man he was looking for, Bret Williamson. “No, just looking for a friend…” he quickly replied, feeling totally repulsed by the old farts appearance.  When he spied Patrick at the bar seemingly enjoying himself with the other guy in the photo, Alverez quickly left. As he climbed into his car he dialed a number on his cell. “No leads I’m afraid. Giovedi is a liability. Yes! I understand, I’ll take care of it.”  Alverez hung up and started the car.  Chapter14  A FEW DAYS LATER.  Patrick was scared. He had tried to contact Alverez, unsuccessfully each time. Something had changed. He knew he was a liability as he knew of Alverez’s involvement with the mob. In fact, their families had grown up together in a tough city neighbourhood. That’s how Alverez had first approached him about becoming an informant….even though he knew it was dangerous – the promise of easy money – well now Patrick wished he’d never gotten involved. He knew his life could be in danger. That’s when he decided to confide in his new ‘boyfriend’ Bart. Bart had insisted he tell Dan everything, but Patrick knew he’d be in big trouble with the authorities.  Of course Bart had been briefed on the whole story so he knew which way Dan wanted to proceed with this poor excuse for a man. “Jerry! Mind the store – I’m going next door.”  Said Bart as he took Patrick’s arm. “Ken will know how to help, his an expert at creating disguises!” continued Bart. Patrick decided this guy knew best – he trusted him, but what did he mean by disguises?  “Listen to Ken, Patrick, it’s your best hope”. Said Bart as he sat on one of the waiting areas chairs. They had been in the Barbershop for a good half hour, explaining everything to Ken. Patrick was sitting in one of the Barber chairs, Ken resting against the counter.  Ken had been trying to convince Patrick he needed a radical makeover to escape the mob.  Suddenly there was the sound of the lock turning in the rear door. It was Dan, whom Ken had previously contacted.  “So Patrick – you’ve come clean finally.” Dan said, approaching the chair.  “Look, it’s not my fault. I was forced in………..AHHHHHH!” Patrick didn’t finish, Dan slapped him hard across the face. “That’s for the 2 people we lost. You’ve nearly cost everyone at ‘New Beginnings’ their job. And now you want us to save your sorry arse?”  “Please! I’ll do anything you want, please don’t turn me in……I’ll never survive in prison – the mob will find me.” Pleaded Patrick with tears streaming down his face.  “In that case you will do everything we tell you, agreed?” asked Dan.  “Agreed”.Patrick said trying to stifle his sniffles.  Ken came over to the chair, “then we have to work quickly and you must do as I say?”  “Yes! Anything you say.” Patrick was beginning to feel less frightened. How bad could a makeover be? He was just relieved at Dan not going to the cops.  “Well first thing is to make you blend in around here if we’re to look after you – Dan! How about a beer? This could take some time!”  “Count me in.” said Dan.  Ken went out to the back room, ensuring Patricks drink was the one with the growth building steroids. Handing the drink to Patrick he said, “if your going to hang around here your going to have to drink a lot of beers – it’s the only way you’ll never be found.”  Patrick thought it a strange comment – how can beer help hide me? Maybe behind a beergut perhaps he mused to himself.  “Now then, I think you need quite a bit of work, your hair hasn’t seen any cutting lately, has it?” Ken said running his hand through the long, dark locks of hair at the back of Patricks head.  “No, I kind of avoid haircuts – my hair is so thin, I never like what they do to it.” Responded Patrick, now looking in the mirror at his hair.  “Well boy! Having it longer doesn’t make it thicker,” Ken went on grabbing a pair of heavy-duty Oyster clippers, “Let’s start with the length.”  As the sound of the clippers being fired up filled the air, Patrick started to worry. The teeth met his front hairline and began to take the hair down to a quarter inch. Patrick couldn’t believe his eyes as the clippers cleared more and more hair from the top of his head, only stopping just past his crown. He took a huge gulp on his beer, as if for courage, but found himself enjoying the taste. Dan caught a signal from Ken to grab a few more.  Within a few minutes, all the length on Patrick’s head was gone. He certainly looked different, but he didn’t really like it – he’d had long hair ever since his early teens.  Ken turned the clippers off. Examining the top of the head he then said, “Your getting a little sparse on top, your not going to be able to pull off a HnT or recon. Maybe we should shave it all off.”  “No! Please don’t shave me bald, I’d look terrible.” protested a worried Patrick.  “Shut it, boy! Remember, who’s the boss now.” Dan suddenly interrupted.  “Sorry, I know but I’ll put up with any other haircut, just don’t take all my hair off.”  Patrick said easing his tone a little.  “Okay. I won’t shave it all off,” Ken continued, changing the guard on the clippers, “I’ll do one of my specialties instead.” And with that he brought the clippers to the hairline again and drew them slowly through the remaining hair and in their wake, only white skin remained. Patrick went to complain, but saw Dan get up towards him.  As Ken continued the clippering Dan could now see Ken was indeed giving the boy one of his specialties – an MPB cut.  As Ken turned off the clippers, he asked, “So how do you like it so far?”  “You said you weren’t going to shave all my hair off!” Patrick said as tears began to form in his eyes.  “You said any haircut. Besides – you’ll still have hair this way, and you were on the way to male pattern baldness anyway. I’m just speeding up the process.” Ken smiled as he went to his counter to get some of his special hair removal ingredient.  Patrick couldn’t believe how different he looked already. Ken had just removed the last of the permanent hair depilatory gel, which he’d left on extra long. Patrick could feel a definite tingling on his scalp. There wasn’t a single hair to be seen- no shadow, just a ring of long, black hair around the sides and back. He looked so old – so freaky, and this was permanent.  “Drink up Boy! You’ll soon like the changes.” Laughed Ken, noticing the look of shock on Patrick’s face.  “Now for the rest of the hair,” and he took another attachment, switched on the clippers and commenced to run them up from the base of the neck to the crown, pushing Patrick’s head forward. Now with his chin pressed against his chest, he couldn’t see the results. He could feel the heat of the blades stripping him of all his hair. But, hang on – was that his cock twitching. He couldn’t believe he was starting to get a hard-on. His head was spinning a little – it must be the beer! He thought to himself.  When Ken had finished, Patrick was able to look at himself in the mirror. His dark, long locks were gone, but he wasn’t bald, Ken had left him with a fairly thick band of hair framing the bald skin on top. Suddenly, a high pitched sound started up, his head was pushed forward again, and Ken was going up the back of his head again, this time, only trimming the edges and blending it into the thicker hair.  When he was finished, Ken showed Patrick the finished results in a hand mirror.” See! I did as you asked. Any style except totally shaved.”  Even though he was angry at Ken, he was starting to feel more relaxed. As he looked closer, he was starting to think he was going to be safe from Alverez and at the same time, escape the hands of the FBI. Maybe it was worth the new haircut!  Part 15  “Patrick! I think it’s time for a little payment for the trouble you have caused Dan,” Ken purred into Patrick’s ear.  “What do you mean.” Asked Patrick nervously  Ken began to lower the back of the chair. He noticed that the beer was definitely having an effect on Patrick’s body, he was developing a large beer gut on his skinny frame already.  “I just want to make sure, that, your extra popular with the customers around here.”Ken smiled. And with that he attached a large cylinder to Patrick’s now exposed cock. He hooked it up by a tube running to a small compressor unit. At the same time, he attached two smaller cylinders to each nipple and again attached each to a tube on the compressor.  As he turned it on, the sudden noise and sensation made Patrick jump.  “I’m not having any of this freaky shit!” Patrick said going to get up out of the chair, but as he looked down he stopped himself; what had happened to his stomach – he’d always been skinny, now he had this large jutting beer-gut. This was just what Ken needed. The delay gave Dan enough time to restrain Patrick, while Ken gave him an injection.  “That will relax you boy. Dan! Give our boy here another beer.”  Patrick slouched back into the chair. “WH…….?”  “Yeah! The paralysis drug I gave you reacts real quick!” said Ken.  Dan brought the beer over. “Now open wide,” said Ken as he forced the mouth open. “Dan – I think our friend here is a little parched.”  Dan began to pour the brew slowly down Patrick’s throat – to prevent gagging. Patrick was unable to move. He felt the beer going down his throat, but he couldn’t move. When Dan was finished, Ken asked him to bring the remaining special labeled Beer in his fridge. “your going to get a real thirst for this brew young man,” responded Ken, seeing the fear in Patrick’s eyes. Patrick had to admit he was already getting to love the beer despite never being a beer drinker before.  Ken and Dan had been working on the company snitch for nearly 4 hours now. Ken looked up from his work to see Bart coming through the rear door.  “Thought I come and take a look at how your getting on. Brought you some sandwiches too in case yo….. Jesus! Is that Patrick? “ Bart suddenly said noticing the figure in the chair.  “No. This is Kell.” Smiled Ken, finishing up with a small metal trolley he’d been using.  “There is no longer a Patrick Giovedi. This bears name is Ken O’Halloran, ‘BeerKeg’ to his friends.”  “No kidding”, whistled Bart. “I’ve got to hand it to you partner, this is your best work yet!”  Dan nodded in agreement as they looked at the transformation in front of them. The pasty, skinny Italian had been remade into a huge, hairy, monstrously built Irish Biker  Still naked in the chair, Patrick’s belly was more than a beer gut now. It measured over 50 inches, and his now obvious manboobs were sitting on top of the huge stomach. His nipples had been stretched and were the size of silver dollars now, both nipples hanging even lower after heavy weight, gold rings now adorned them. Bart couldn’t stop looking at the giant cock – as thick as a beer can and over 13 inches long. He now had severe male pattern baldness , with only a ring of red hair around the sides. It had to be a 7 on the Norwood Scale. His face seemed bloated, he now had a few double chins, his skin had no real tan, he seemed a lot fairer – more Irish than Italian. He was wearing a walrus style moustache that covered his top lip. It hung down the sides of his mouth and curled at the ends. It was a luxuriant red also – obviously dyed, as this guy looked like he was over 50.  His eyebrows were bushier, and the same color red as the rest of the hair on his body. And that too was luxuriant – all over his back and chest, that sort of hair would require a lot of wax to see smooth skin again.  “There is still a bit of work to do to him yet…… just to teach him a lesson.” Said Ken waving some smelling salts under Patrick’s nose. He started to stir, slowly at first – then he began to moan.  “ What happened? I feel like a truck ran into me.” Patrick said suddenly realizing where he was and that he hadn’t been dreaming.  “You’ve been out for hours, your bound to feel a bit groggy,” replied Ken. “Ready to see the new you?”  As Ken spun the chair around a piercing scream filled the Barbershop. Ken added, “Not to your liking, Beerkeg?”  “Fucking hell….what the? I’m not me any more. I’m so fat! I look older than you guys.  I never agreed to this, I mean it can’t be legal?” yelled Patrick as he tried to struggle against the restraints.  Dan spoke first. “Your lucky we didn’t turn you in to the cops, or better yet, Alverez”.  Ken had switched the TV on and the swirling patterns started. Patrick tried to turn away but found himself starting to relax, his eyes starting to glaze over.  “Now for some reconditioning,” said Ken. “A little dumbing down is warranted here…….What the fu…..?  Ken was suddenly startled by the sound of the back door being ripped off it’s hinges.  The big, bald frame of Tony Alverez was stepping over the smashed door. He’d been snooping around…..he knew there was something fishy about the Bar next door, and when he’d heard this scream coming from the Barbershop, he ran down the back alley – gun drawn.  “Hands up! That means you in the chair as well.” Barked Alverez.  Bart, Dan and Ken did as they were told, only Patrick couldn’t as he was still restrained and transfixed by the hypnotic screen in front of him.  Going over to the chair, Alverez repeated the command, then noticed the restraints, “What’s going on here? What are you fags doing to the fat guy?  “Oh, that’s just Beerkeg,” replied Ken. “He likes a bit of rough play when he has a haircut.” Ken smiled.  “Why is he looking like a zom……at the televisio…..those patterns are….” Alverez had made the mistake of turning to look at the screen that Beerkeg was staring at.  “Don’t anyone try anything……..funny…..” Alverez tried to say.  “Come here and take a seat, son – you look tired!” said Ken getting Dan to help him carefully remove the gun from Alverez’hand. They directed him to another chair being careful not to turn his head.

[theonyxpath]

Lost Lineage — The Faceless (Tortured Ones)

Pain is one of the great motivators in human history. Make someone uncomfortable and they will constantly strive to improve their position. Light a fire under anything living and it will instantly run, jump, crawl, climb, do whatever it can do to get away. The Faceless may have been among the worst experiments conducted in the name of warfare, but within their statuesque countenance they bear pain with the stoicism of sheer rock.

As much as constant agony is certainly something that can drive a soul deeper and deeper into Torment, it is also eternal and incontrovertible proof you are alive. The singing of nerves gives proof to a Promethean’s place among humanity, a common feeling which is in great supply in the trenches of the Western Front.

The Faceless seem outwardly to be the very model of calm and placid contemplation. Inside, they are eternally burning and experiencing the death throes of thousands of undying nerves. This constant grief drives the Faceless to seek solitude, even from each other. Faceless tend to avoid throngs where they can, preferring to observe humanity’s path in unobstructed contemplation. They are obsessed with understanding the reason for their suffering through understanding the suffering of others. While this can express itself in a Tortured One being moved by those who show selflessness and courage in the face of personal agony, it can also drive them to inflict great pain upon others in search of surcease to their constant suffering.

Their name is well earned as the Faceless’ features are those of stern, mud-golems. Their outward shell is hardened and blackened mud which cakes the internal tangle of limbs constantly burning in a putrid, self-contained vat of deadly chemicals. They are hulking and square in stature. The eyes of a Tortured One are deep set holes that they have personally bored into the cracked lines of their faces during their agonizing creation with their thick fingers, their mouths are thin, fissured slits that are painful to move. They can show no expression as their hardened surface does not lend itself to great movements of the face, they cover this up by donning large gas masks that cover their entire head, giving them their title.

The first Faceless was brought into being by accident. A lightning storm in France struck the ground where a mass of bodies, killed by chlorine gas, lay buried in the mud. The resulting reaction caused vaguely human shapes to rise, roaring in agony, from the ground. Those who witnessed it whispered among their ranks and word soon reached their superiors of the Entente and Central Powers alike. While the officers dismissed these tales as the rantings of fear-addled minds, Mortal alchemists working in the research and development labs of both sides pushed for these techniques to be refined and used, creating an army of new soldiers to take the place of those who lay dismembered on the scarred earth, their bodies killed by the gas, blown apart by shelling and churned among the mud.

By slowing the circulation of gas masks to front line troops, the alchemists ensure an ample supply of sites to create the Faceless and bolster their ranks. The alarming convergence of death and chemicals lead to staggering numbers of these Faceless appearing in even greater numbers than other Lineages. Their numbers trigger Firestorms across the various battlefields, and though some are seen as unnatural instances of devastation, most are assumed to be part and parcel of the Great War’s seemingly endless bombardment of artillery fire and chemical death.

The first of the Faceless are deployed to the trenches in Ypres where they had fallen. As more are created, they appear on various fronts. Sometimes, Faceless are deployed on opposite sides of the same battle line and tales circulate of hulking figures storming across no-man’s-land, able to withstand huge amounts of fire without stopping their maddening charge. Only artillery and highly concentrated fire can stop them in their tracks.

Though they do not often speak, Tortured Ones are often fluent in multiple languages, from English, French, and German to Algerian and Hindi. To the eyes of a shell-shocked soldier, they appear to be immensely large, dirt caked men, but the more inquisitive immediately realise that these Created are not one of them, leading the Faceless to regularly move from trench to trench to avoid difficult questions, often switching sides to try their luck elsewhere. What the Faceless know for sure is that this is the one place where they can roam with any sort of freedom. In a city or small village, they would be instantly recognizable.

Faceless regularly possess ragged scraps of uniforms of both sides that they mend into a hodge-podge covering.  As one of the few beings able to move between the opposing trenches of the war, they can be turned to the purpose of spying or spreading rumor and misinformation among an enemy trench, a feat that either side could benefit from.

Given their multiple perspectives, they often suffer from confused loyalties, it is not uncommon for German and Austrian dead to mingle with British and French in the mud of the Western Front. In the dirt, all are equal. Their differing points of view can give Faceless a bizarre and unique perspective on their plight, though they may not deign to share it with their comrades in the trench.

Faceless have a special disdain towards Frankensteins. Not so strong as a hatred, just a general distaste. Their prattle of suffering and their misfit, outcast state would wrinkle the noses of most Faceless if they bore noses beneath their masks. Not only do most of them have trouble relating to anyone who simply talks so much about themselves, the idea that so many of the Wretched chose to be here of their own volition, seeking some sort of bloody awakening or epiphany is anathema to their pain. What the Frankensteins truly suffer, so far as the Faceless are concerned, is an ugliness in scarring that dominates their life. This is not nobility, but narcissism.

Of all Created, they identify most closely with the Tammuz, particularly as many of their number may have been dug out of their birthing mud by the shovels of Tammuz engineers. The Faceless have a strange respect for people who quietly get on with their job and lack pretention. The Tammuz do not assign station and rank upon themselves, they find their truth in labor and a hard day’s work. They appreciate the simple beauty of a job well done. When a team of Tammuz are lengthening a trench or laying barbed wire, you will often find a Faceless watching over them. It is not clear if they have taken to guard them or if they simply find a strange catharsis in their toil.

Creations

The Mascot

Filthy Hamish is a regimental mascot. He has been adopted by the men of the 1st Lanark Militia due to saving their captain’s life simply by walking in front of him during an attempted advance. The men huddled behind him all the way back to the trench.

“He’s so dirty the bullets can’t pierce him!” they joke. What they don’t know is he’s the one who keeps ripping the legs, wings and heads off of the messenger pigeons sent to their trench. He doesn’t say much, but he watches the other lads very closely.

The Carer

Fraulein Marta is the den mother of her dug-out. She was found by the German Army in the remains of a medical outpost. Some of the men say they didn’t have the heart to shoot her, others say shooting her didn’t work. One oversized uniform and pickelhaube helm custom made by Oberjager Christoph Feldstein was enough to secure her place as an enlisted man. She has been known to treat the wounded though her care can often be a bit rough.

The Refugee

After wandering from the field, Grand Pierre joined a refugee train heading west. His observation of the families dispossessed from lands they cultivated for generations unnerved the others at first, but he was invaluable in warding off the vultures who preyed on the homeless and starving people fleeing the French countryside. After helping a family pull their dead child from the ruin of their farmhouse, he not only carved out a burial site himself but stood vigil during the modest ceremony the poor girl could be afforded. The family noticed him shedding yellow tears, which escaped from his gas mask and sizzled and smoked on the exposed, blackened mud of his chest.

The Homesick

Rajesh is not sure where he’s supposed to be, but it isn’t here. A voice in his head is calling him to head east; east through the German line and off to a home he only understands from flashes in his mind and memory of a language he doesn’t remember learning. He gathers a small team of men and women and listens to their stories of home. The blistering, humid summers of India. He feels he remembers with clarity his muddy flesh baking in the midday sun as he tended to a small herd of animals, one of whom could fit inside his hand. What he remembers most of all is the peace of it all. He promises to return these people home safely and concocts a plan to do it. They can call it desertion all they like. What are they fighting for if not to save home from this horror? And what is home without these people in it?

The Equestrian

Horses seem to have lost their place in war. Now they don’t carry soldiers, they carry crates. Phyllis on the other hand is more than capable of carrying horses. She sees those poor beasts left to die in craters. Discarded by their owners, shot even. She sees herself in the tragicomic reflections cast by their long, humorless faces. She sees a beast of burden staring back at her from every deep puddle. The others of her kind carry supplies now. They dig trenches and soak up fire. How long will it be before their masters ride them into battle? Well, all she can do is try to save something from this mess and it seems to her that the horses are the only innocents in this field.

Humour: Chlorine. The humour of the Faceless guarantees them internal torment as much as their exterior ensures they can never fully express that suffering. It imbues them with inner fury and almost insane, thoughtless bravery but can make them prone to acts of self-sacrifice. The fastest way to cease their torture is to end their existence after all. While this is one of the traits that ensures their Lineage’s temporary nature, it is not the only one. Their pain drives them to seek out the focus of their Pilgrimage with incredible, single minded dedication.

As much as their lack of physical expression makes them seem almost emotionless as statues, the internal burning of their humour also gives them a brooding, gruff aspect. Most Tortured Ones speak only when spoken to or, even then, at the uttermost end of need. They use words sparingly but observe and contemplate.

Their large size and formidable strength and toughness makes them physically intimidating and their rivals often shrink from them when confronted. Even the hardiest of Uratha would think twice before rushing headlong at a Tortured One without knowing what he was or what he might do. Most of the time, their quiet, brooding nature sees them easily confused for large, dirty soldiers. It is when they are found among the civilian population they truly stand out.

Bestowments: Living Wall, Chem-Shell

Faceless Bestowments

Living Wall: Your outer layer is hardened like stone and both bullets and blades alike ricochet off of your hide. Any that penetrate often simply become lodged within as part of your monstrous structure. If rolling dice to defend or evade attacks from simple melee weapons or firearms, the Faceless may reroll any failed dice, but must accept the result of the second roll.

Chem Shell: Channeling their inner rage, the Faceless can sacrifice part of themselves to create a hardened, explosive shell, fused with Pyros and deadly chemicals. The Faceless spends 1 Pyros and loses 1 Health level as it uses part of its own body to create this shell. It can then project the shell to a point it can see up to 100 feet away and detonate it. Alternatively, it can be placed somewhere like a conventional explosive. The blast destroys objects and structures caught within it and inflicts 10 aggravated damage on anyone within a 20ft radius. Anyone who survives the blast suffers from the Poisoned Tilt (see Chronicles of Darkness p. 286).

Stereotypes

Frankensteins         They do not understand suffering. Galateids     At least they know themselves. Osirans        All knowledge, no drive. Tammuz      Kindred spirits, tools of another kind. Ulgans Proof there is more than flesh and pain. Unfleshed    If only these had been more numerous we may have been left in peace. Extempore A place to hide the shame of your life.

#Onyx Path Publishing

[psyonia]

Speaking of Natsume being annoyed by Russian stereotypes: She is REALLY FUCKING ANNOYED. While Russians are by no means oppressed, she still finds these tropes to be lazy and bad writing and has not consumed 90% of Western Cold War media (or any Western media with a Russian in it) because she is tired of seeing the same damn thing over, and over, and over, and over. Russian spy femme fatales. Giant 6′9″ buff men named Ivan who only know alcoholism, anger and violence. Everybody wearing ushankas while riding bears shirtless in the Siberian winter. At this point she considers stock Russian villains to be as overdone and as badly done as stock Nazi villains, and anything with a Russian spy in it she will not watch unless it’s personally vetted by any relative of hers that isn’t her grandfather (the reason for this we’ll get to in a sec). Yes, she’s a spy herself, but oftentimes the writers know as little about spying as they do about Russia.

Particularly, she’s annoyed by an in-universe trope of the “evil Soviet Psychic.” Psychics are often featured in media as the most powerful spies of the Soviet regime, which--let’s be real, if fantasy psychic powers existed in the real world, this is what would have happened. But as stated in the family history, Psychic children were taken from their parents at BIRTH in order to serve the regime. The last child was stolen in fucking 1991, just before the Soviet Union fell. And Natsume doesn’t think that the horror of this has been covered enough. Not one single piece of Western media has ever depicted these children as victims, only focusing on how they were warped to do horrible things for Edge Points. And, fuck, even Russian media tends to demonize these Psychics a lot (I have a general headcanon that European and American views of Psychics are both not great), ignoring the fact that many of them were actively resisting and trying to escape. The fact that Psychic spies are so often featured in this way is what underlies a lot of her frustration.

Nikita, on the other hand, isn’t bothered by Russian stereotypes in Western media at all. In fact, he finds them hilarious. He’s watched every single shitty Russian spy movie and most likely played a drinking game with it, and he honestly just can’t stop laughing. Natsume doesn’t understand this because for her, there’s no such thing as So Bad It’s Good, so she fails to see why anyone would find humor in something that is poorly executed. But Nikita, on the other hand, sees these stereotypes as just harmless fun…even though Natsume might point out that the fun is being had at his expense. To him, however, what’s important is not accuracy but whether the story creates a narrative that fulfills its objective. And hey, whether or not the narrative does fulfill that objective, it’s still a win win. If the objective is just to have a hammy movie with wild adventures and cheap thrills, then he doesn’t mind if Russian stereotypes are used to achieve it. Buuuuut if the intent is to create a serious narrative yet these stereotypes are employed, he can still laugh at how badly the writer failed to achieve their objective as well.

Curiously, in spite of having been taken himself by the Soviets’ program, he doesn’t find the evil Soviet Psychic trope to be entirely offensive. This is due to his complicated relationship with other people who were taken; while he himself has escaped the brainwashing, he struggles to find community with other Psychics in Russia because of just how many of them are still brainwashed by the regime. For him, “evil Soviet Psychics” are very much a reflection of actual reality, because of everything he witnessed--and, well, some of the things he did too. And while it is concerning to him that this trope deflects attention from the horror that was wreaked upon Eastern European Psychic communities, he strongly believes that victim narratives about these Psychics shouldn’t be the only ones. 

#headcanon. || NATSUME #headcanon. || NIKITA

[mareshmallow]

Second Time’s a Charm? pt II

(pt i) (pt iii) (pt iv)

"Mare?" Gisa asks softly. "I'm sorry, I never--"

"No, no, it's not that Gee, I just..." I trail off. "I don't think I want to go the dance," I say in a small voice. "I'm just so tired and I have this headache--"

"Stop," Gisa says firmly but not unkindly. "Don't you think I can tell when you're lying?" She takes my hand and leads me to my bed. We both sink down into my mattress with our combined weight and I make a mental note to save up some money for a new one.

"Tell me what's really going on, please?"

So I do.

She listened patiently, even when I tell her about sleeping with Will. I hesitated on that but she had nodded her head, indicating for me to continue. When I had finished I felt as if a crushing weight had been lifted from my chest. I'd kept this to myself for so long and telling someone was a relief.

She wraps her arms around me and I bury my face into her shoulder. I wrinkle my nose at the brush of her hair against it and pull back.

"He hates me right?" I ask her, already knowing the answer. She chews on her lip as she thinks. "Hate is such a strong word. He's hurt and confused. I mean, you have been messing around on him."

"So what should I do?"

"Tell the truth," she says like it's the simplest thing in the world. I let out a snort. "Are you joking? Ha ha, that's funny Gee."

She gives me a serious look. "No, I'm not joking. Tell him the truth, he deserves an explanation and you don't deserve to have to hold this in all the time. If he cares about you then he'll see past it. I mean, we all make mistakes and it's not like you were seriously dating," she shrugs.

I can't believe I'm actually considering this. Why am I considering this? Would he still be angry and me, or even worse? Would he actually forgive me? Or would he storms out of the caf all dramatic-like? I used to tease him about his fondness for theatrics.

I jump when Gisa taps my shoulder. "The dance starts at six and it's five o'clock now. You should make up your mind quickly cause I need to know if I'm gonna do your hair or not."

I glance at the clock, steeling myself for the possible consequences of my choice. But it had been made and there was no turning back now.

***

Instead of curling it like Gisa wanted to I made her straighten it. She thought high school dances were a big thing and that everyone looked like they came out of a Teen Vogue magazine. In actuality it was a bunch of smelly kids in a confined space with too-loud music and drugs being passed around.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't be wearing a costume at all, but Shade had always been insistent on it. He was going to the dance as well, trying to get the most out of his senior year. I would be seeing his girlfriend tonight as she was coming with us. Instead of convincing me to act as proper as possible, he told me that she used to pull shit like that too. And that she would be absolutely delighted to wreck havoc. I mean, what else did I expect from this girl my prankster of a brother to have? He went on to tell me how last Halloween when he stayed over in her dorm room, her roommate helped her pull a little trick. Her roommate was supposedly "out" while they watched a horror movie together. Diana did this knowing full well that Shade was terrified of those but too proud to admit it. When they went to sleep, her roomate had attached strings to a doll that resembled Annabelle. She played some "low chilling music," as Shade put it and some audio of a creepy child.

So that was the story of how Diana now has a recording of Shade screaming at 3 a.m after waking up to a "possessed" doll. To top it all off, there's also some footage of him running out into the hallway in his underwear. That of course resulted in some confused and angry university students. It's no surprise that I asked her to send it to me. Hello blackmail.

Shade had wanted me to be a bear again because of his oh-so-clever nickname, "Mare Bear." But I declined and instead chose a female Zeus. I thought that being able to fry anyone that bothered you and being King of the Heavens would be awesome. The fact that I had a beautiful costume didn't hurt either, though it was kinda cheap. It was a white pleated dress (courtesy of my mom) with a thick plastic "gold" belt and a circlet of leaves as a crown. I added some bracelets and necklace as well, taken from Gisa's collection.

It was an odd mismatch of clothing but I didn't mind. The sound of a door slamming has me running out into the hallway to find Shade there. His debate meeting must've ended early. The question must be apparent because he shrugs. "They needed the school to be clear to set up the decorations. Plus everyone wanted to get home early." He tosses his jacket on the bench near the coat rack knowing full well mom hates when he does that. Shade looks me up and down while stroking his chin. He frowns at the dress. "What?" I sigh. "Did you expect me to dress up as an animal again? You can't trick me again this time."

"I was hoping."

"Are you and Diana doing a couples costume?" Please say no, please say no. I wouldn't be able to take that level of cringe.

He looks at me strangely and I raise a brow. "What did I say?"

He clears his throat looking very much uncomfortable. "You know she hates it when we call her by her first name," Shade murmurs.

I make a sound of agreement. I'd forgotten that. And her last name. But Shade being two steps ahead of everyone answers, "it's Farley, and thanks for being such a good sister and remembering basic facts about my girlfriend."

I roll my eyes. "Why does she hate her first name anyway? Traumatic childhood nicknames?"

Shade doesn't laugh like I expect him to. Instead he darkens and my smile falls. "Shade?"

He shuffles his foot on the floor and I watch as he chooses what to say. "It's not my place to say why," he says carefully. "Just please don't call her that."

My mind spins with questions that I know will remain unanswered. I nod anyways. He places a hand on my arm. "Relax, no need to be so somber," he says cheerfully. Despite the tone I can sense the sadness beneath. Typical Shade, he was very much like Kilorn in the sense that they both never wished to linger on the dark moments or memories. I decide to humour him and drop it. For now of course.

"So, couples costumes. Yes or no? For the love of god, please say no."

He flicks my nose. "Too bad cause it's happening." I groan. If they were gonna be all lovey and mushy I was so out. "How the hell did you rope her into this anyway? I thought she was pretty uptight."

Shade shrugs. "You should bother to spend more time with her."

"I already have."

"You've seen her like three times."

"Yeah, whatever." Truth be told, I didn't mind seeing Dian--Farley again. She seemed cool though a little uptight. But Shade was smitten with her so making an effort wouldn't be the worst. "What's the unfortunate duo you've chosen to replicate?"

"Steve Trevor and Princess Diana from-"

"I know what movie they're from," I cut in. How could I not? Real classy of them though. It was a little funny how she would be an Amazon warrior and I would be her supposed creator. Was that weird? Probably.

"She chose it, obviously, but I'm not mad. I get to be a handsome spy so I'm glad I got an easy costume," he replies flashing a smile which I assume is the very one that got Farley interested. I bat his face, pushing him away. We both laugh and the sound draws Gisa out from our room.

"Can you guys hurry up? Have you even looked at the time for goodness sakes?" she sighs with exasperation. With her hand on her hips and the stern expression she looks so much like our mom. Without even realizing it Shade straightens up then scowls at himself for doing so. I however remain in my slouched position, the very one Gisa hated. She was all about posture.

I put my hands up in surrender. "Alright, mom. And for the record, it's not me, it's Shade who's gonna be late."

Gisa smirks at me. "Aw you really think that? There's no way mom was gonna let you take the bus there, not when it's this late. Shade's your ride so if he's late, so are you."

I look at Shade and he has to wits to scramble away before I can think to push him. "There's no time to make yourself to look pretty so hurry your ass up!"

"I was naturally born pretty so don't worry it won't take long!" he shouts in response. I blow out a long sigh disguising a chuckle. Gisa is less cautious and tries and fails to hide a smile behind her hand.

"Language, Mare," I hear my dad's gruff voice call out. My lips purse. "Sorry," I reply, though this time softer.

Shade joins us after a grand total of ten minutes. Before I can think to make a remark he speaks. "It was hard okay? These pants are tighter than they look," he grumbles. I scan his costume with a suppressed smile."Actually they look even worse," I laugh. My comment is returned with a scalding glare and I jump away from his shove and run ahead to the car.

He follows hot on my heels. "Does it look that bad?" he asks with a note of desperation in his voice. God, he was way too obsessed with his vanity. I'd never seen anything like it. I tug on the door handle. "Could you open the car? We're already late."

"Not until you tell me the truth."

"I did. The pants look weird but the rest is fine. Let's go now."

The doors open with a soft clicking sound and I swing in the front seat. Shade winces. "What?" I ask, doing my best to keep the annoyance from showing. He scratches his head awkwardly. "Um...could you sit in the back today?"

"Why.." I trail off. "Oh," I say in a small voice.

"Yeah...sorry."

I got in the backseat and was silent on the drive to what I assumed was Farley house. Or wherever she was staying.

***

So it definitely wasn't her house.

It was a hotel where I guess she was staying for the week, or as Shade told me. She was off for week from university and decided to visit. Her family lived in Churchill, Manitoba near Hudson Bay so she was pretty far from home. I wonder if she ever misses her home.

"A Canadian, eh?" I tease him. He cringes at that. "Please don't," he says at the same time Farley makes a low sound of annoyance. We both whirl around at the sound. And there she is, coming up from behind the car to the hood where Shade and I and been standing. "For your information, we are known to be very peaceful people. Except for when someone assumes the only two words in our vocabulary are 'aboot' and 'eh.' So unless you want to choke on a bottle of maple syrup in your sleep, I suggest you shut it," she says sweetly. I let out a laugh and so does she. "Good to see you again, Farley."

She shares a look with my brother and I can tell they're having their own silent conversation. "A pleasure to see you again as well, Mare," she replies after dragging her eyes away from Shade. I can't help but roll my eyes. Yeah I was so sure.

We all get in the car, Farley taking the front seat which assumed was hers when she and Shade were together. Too bad it was mine every other day.

The drive wasn't as long as I'd thought it would be. But still, I was late. I checked my phone for the time. 6:45, it read. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering and to refrain from cursing. I'd already texted Maven after finding a bunch of missed calls and texts that got increasingly more panicked. Because of the delay we wouldn't be able to go over everything and I wouldn't be able to check if everything would work. It would be a hit or miss now.

Thankfully we pull up in the school parking lot. Unfortunately it's full. I let out a long sigh. My fingers uncurl from my dress after I used them to keep from digging them into my palms. The scars were beginning to fade and I didn't feel like undoing all that.

Shade senses my unease. "How about I find a parking spot and meet up with you guys later?" Farley opens her mouth to interject but he insists. "Seriously, it's fine. It'll take me a few minutes."

I don't question him. Instead I offer my arm to Farley. "Not the Barrow you wanted to walk in with tonight, huh?" I grin once we start walking. Shade drives off behind us. Farley takes my arm. "A shame," she sighs.

We enter the main foyer to be greeted by Evangeline Samos and her girlfriend, Elane Haven. They were both on student council, or rather should I say the president and vice president of the school. They made sure to point that out at least three times a day. Evangeline and Elane step forward to greet us. They wear smiles that somehow turn even harder when they turn on me. "Mare!" Evangeline exclaims. "How unfortunate it is to see you again."

I laugh coldly. To a passerby it could look friendly. "The feeling is mutual, Samos. Now do us a favour and move."

As I go to sidestep her she blocks me. Her pitch black gaze settles on Farley who is no longer smiling but giving her a glare that could kill. "You must be Shade's new plaything," Evangeline says. "I'm his ex, Evangeline Samos." Next to her, Elane shifts, visibly uncomfortable.

Ah there it was. The dreadful words. It was true, Evangeline and Shade and been a thing for a hot minute before she cheated on him with Elane. I assumed there had to be more to the story that Shade refused to tell me. The relationship had been purely physical I was sure, but some nights I would find Shade looking through their photos together. I knew he loved Farley now of course, but he'd told me he was upset because he knew Evangeline wasn't what she appeared to be. Or whatever that meant. The girl standing in front of me was grade A bitch.

Farley's hands tighten into fists. Suddenly I was nervous for Evangeline. I'd seen Farley throw a few punches before and the aftermath had not been pretty. Not to mention Evangeline wasn't someone to underestimate. I tug on her arm still linked in mine. "We're going now. Have a terrible day you two," I smile with false sweetness.

We storm past after throwing our entry tickets on the table. Up ahead are kids dressed in zombie costumes snapping a picture at a booth. We walk past them as we make our way to the music room where Maven, Thomas and Kilorn were waiting for us. The music room was Maven and Thomas's second home after the computer lab. Unfortunately that had been locked so this was the next best thing. Plus it was on the second floor unlike the lab.

Farley looks around to check for anyone following us, or a teacher coming to stop us. But the coast must be clear because she doesn't panic so neither do I. The music room comes into view but the door is closed. I peer inside but there's a black cloth covering the window. I knock quietly, three quick taps. There's a moment of silence before I hear the lock click. Even then it only opens enough for a sliver. I push it open. "Relax it's just me," I announce to the seemingly empty room. I hear collective sighs of relief. Kilorn and Thomas emerge from their hiding spots.

"Where's Maven?" I ask, looking around. "Oh yeah, he's with his brother, remember?" Thomas replies sounding confused. I curse softly. I'd forgotten about that. Cal was here right now. At least I could apologize and explain. Then we could go our separate ways. "Right, so when is he gonna show up?"

"Right now actually," Thomas says looking up from his phone. "He's on his way."

"Great." At least something was going right so far.

"Shade's on his way as well," Farley says. "No need to fill me in, Mare. Destruction is a specialty of mine," she smirks. I smile back. "Don't I know it," I murmur, remembering that particular incident.

Kilorn walks up to me for a hug but I slink away. "Sorry but you're sick, and I hate sick people," I tell him. He laughs but it dissolves into a fit of coughs. Immediately I become concerned. "Seriously, why didn't you stay home?"

"A question I find myself asking as well," a voice says behind me. I spin around to find Cal and Maven in the doorway. Cal stares anywhere but me. Whatever, he could be a petty pain in the ass if he wished.

"How did you open the door?" Thomas asks, directing his question at Maven. We all ignore the tension in the room. "It was partially open already. You guys forgot to lock it," Maven explains looking between me and Farley. "A mistake," I shrug.

"Anyone could've walked in," Cal points out. I exhale harshly through my nose before facing him. "Yes, but unfortunately it was just you. Now hurry, we don't have much time. Maven, he needs to go."

Maven stops his brother from a sure foul response with a look. Then he turns to me, pleadingly. "Please let him stay. He already promised not to say anything." I scoff at that. "Sorry, but his promises don't mean much to me."

"Oh yeah sure, I'm the one to blame for this," Cal snaps. I glare at him and he levels me with his own. "You are not supposed to be here," I tell him slowly, making sure to enunciate every word. Maybe this time he can get the message.

"Oh please," he scoffs. "You should be glad someone's here to participate in this kiddy prank of yours. Seriously Mare, I didn't expect you to orchastrate something this dumb"

The room went even quieter. Oh that was it. I was simultaneously ready to beat his ass and cry in frustration. Even Cal looks surprised at himself. The hurt must be showing because he steps closer, all anger replaced by regret. "Mare," he says softly reaching for my arm. I pull away.

"Maven is everything set?" I ask him. Maven looks at me, startled. His eyes dart between his brother and I. He nods once the fog clears from his mind. "Um, where's Shade?" he asks, looking around.

"Right here," I hear Shade say also by the door. I groan. "What the hell is with everyone and these dramatic entrances? If I'd known I would've made an effort."

Shade doesn't respond but rather glares harshly at Cal who has gone pale. Uh oh, he was in protective brother mode. "Where were you?" Kilorn asks with a smile that doesn't meet his eyes. "You left me in the middle of a soap opera and it's not even that good"

Farley is the one to get him to calm down. "Let's take a walk," she says, tugging on his arm. As they shuffle away I see Farley turn her head and mouth, 'be right back.' I think I might've spoken too early when I said everything was going fine.

"Okayyy," Thomas drags out. "Can we get started now? Maven and I want to get to the haunted house before it closes."

"That's a terribly romantic date," Kilorn says. "Nothing says 'I love you' like being trapped in a space with possible demonic spirits."

Maven rolls his eyes. "Don't tell me you actually believe in that stuff, Warren."

"Of course I don't," Kilorn scoffs. He was a terrible liar and Maven knew it judging by his amused expression.

I clap my hands together, shattering the moment.

"Okay, Maven, Thomas, you guys know what to do. After you get back, text me." They nod and Maven salutes. "Yes ma'am." Before he leaves he plants a kiss on my cheek. "For good luck," he explains. I give him one back. "Come on lovebirds any day now," Thomas calls out. He was used to this. We all knew it was purely platonic. Well everyone except Mr. Tiberias Calore the Seventh who looks away. He could think whatever he wanted. I didn't care.

"See you guys soon!" Maven shouts as they walk away.

Cal goes to follow them but I hold out a hand to stop him. I accidentally brush his chest and snatch it back as if burned. He pretends to ignore it. "Where do you think you're going?" I ask him, eyebrows raised. He has the sense to keep his mouth shut. "You agreed to my plan which means you follow my orders. If you don't like it then you can leave."

"Then it's a shame I'm not going anywhere," he replies evenly. The words ring with a double meaning.

"Shade and Farley are already together so you can go with-"

Kilorn doesn’t even look up from picking at his nails. "You better not say my name."

I inhale deeply. "Fine," I snap. "You're with me. Kilorn, it's time." He hops off the table and winks at me as he passes. Oh god he set me up. And I could already guess which little redhead he had his orders from.

Without warning I follow him and Cal scrambles to follow. He blessedly keeps quiet as we make our way to the caf. Or more specifically the door leading to the stage, except we only needed to get under it. We were responsible for providing an exit from the caf if we needed to avoid anyone in the room and get out quickly.

(Part Three)

#second time's a charm pt ii #chelsea writes shit #chelsea's fic pt ii #fic2stac

[mdwatchestv]

Everything I’m Going to Watch In May: MAYbe!

You guys April was a good time, and luckily there is almost nothing I care about watching in May (editor’s note: this turns out to be utter bollocks) so you will have plenty of time to catch up on all the sweet sweet goodness of April . And I have a LOT to say about the April premieres (and even some of the March ones I just now got to! You see I DON’T completely abandon shows that fall by the wayside, I only do that with MOST of them.

The Terror - This was on the March list that I finally got around to, but wanted to report it is excellent! A chilling (literally and figuratively) classic horror tale of hubris, colonization, and polar bears.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Also from March, this could double as the alternate title for The Terror. This show is so purely enjoyable and this season boasts Tony Hale, Lucy Punch and Nathan Fillion amongst the guest cast. Expand your vocabulary and witness something truly unfortunate.

Legion - Legion is quite simply unlike anything else on TV. I can't believe Marvel has allowed this strangle little idea to grow into such a giant weird, beautiful, butterfly. I mean the first episode has an interpretive dance battle. C'MON.

The Last OG -  Tiffany Haddish continues to be a force of nature.

Killing Eve - Guys if you take one thing away from our time together, let it be to watch Killing Eve. If you have a TV list going perhaps on your phone, or gmail drafts, or in a beloved notebook - delete it all and write this at the top. A darkly funny spy thriller with on the money performances from Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh, I cannot say enough about it. Perhaps the only spy genre content with realistic female characters. This show has brought me to life, it is the light, it is the way. I know I have a lot of lights and ways, but this is the ONE.

Howard's End- As a fan of the book this mini-series is a very pleasant visitation to the world of Howard's End, but I'm not sure how well it works as a standalone adaptation. Great cast though!

Rellik -  siht hctaw t'ndid i

Westworld - Pretty much exactly what you would expect from season 2 of Westworld. If you are so inclined I have chosen to engage in a recapping of this season which you can check out here. I got theories, yes I do.

Handmaid's Tale -  This season has been getting rave reviews, and Elisabeth Moss continues to be masterful (as is Ann Dowd, eternal love). But to be honest I am losing my appetite for viewing extreme violence against women through a male lens. The writer and director of the two episodes were men and it shows. As the series veers away from it’s source material, I find myself losing the desire to continue to engage. 

Now here are some things for you to watch on Netflix in May!

Friday May 4th

Dear White People  (Netflix)

Although season one didn't quite capture the same magic as the movie, when it's jokes landed they landed hard. With season 2 going after the alt right ("what's wrong with being white?" etc.) it promises to continue to be equally cathartic and cutting. Also Lena Waithe in season 2!

The Rain (Netflix)

This is a Danish YA series about an apocalyptic future where a virus or contaminate in rainwater has killed almost everything and everyone! There is nothing better than well-executed sci-fi about dystopias populated by teens so I am tentatively here for this! Also look cool and say you watch your YA with subtitles.

Friday May 11th- Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist (Netflix)

YOOOOOO this is a miniseries about the Pizza Bomber Heist case, which, if you do not know about it already, is WILD. If you are a true crime lover chances are you already know about this one, and are already rejoicing accordingly. One of the most bizarre, twistiest, turniest cases ever, if you like true crime even an iota this is can't miss. 

 Saturday May 12th - Patrick Melrose (9pm Showtime)

I am usually super skeptical of these kinds of shows where it's clearly a leading man wanting to do some kind of tour de force role, but Benedict Cumberbatch has consistently proven himself to be an interesting actor (as long as he has his natural accent), so in this case I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt. However just one whiff of anything too self aggrandizing and I am outtie.

Sunday, May 13th- Little Women (8pm on PBS)

Although I can't imagine this will approach the greatness achieved by previous adaptations, I would be remiss not to inform you gentle people that there is a new Little Women miniseries. #AmyLyfe

Friday, May 18th - 13 Reasons Why (Netflix)

Minnette help me I had literally typed the final word of this blog (it was Andromedon) when Netflix announced the season 2 date of 13 Reasons. Season one was by no means perfect television, but my god was it bingeable. I poured that show into my eye holes faster than you can say 'welcome to your tape'.

Wednesday, May 30th -Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)

Titus Andromedon.

Well, I, for one, welcome our new Netflix overlord.

XO MD

#martha writes #everything im going to watch #tv recaps #tv gifs #tv schedules #tv reviews #13 reasons why #westworld #killing eve #the rain #evil genius

[gladiolus-mamacitia]

(FFXV) Creature of the Night; Chapter 2.

Gladiolus Amicitia x F!Reader

| Kidnapping | Blood Warning | Mild Body Horror | 2,565 Words |

This is the story of Gladiolus and the secret he has hidden from you all these years. Your normal life is behind you, compromising your safety. 

Tagging: @roses-and-oceans @atarostarling @sonsoflucis @demidemon09 @major-artery @mistressoli @itshaejinju @mandakatt @hypaalicious

Music: In The Woods Somewhere - Hozier 

Gladiolus told you everything about his condition. You took the liberty of doing research of your own as well, as you wanted to be prepared for anything. Gladiolus was your partner, the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, so you were willing to go the extra mile to adjust now that he promised not to hide anything from you. You knew that his senses were heightened; his vision during the night being impeccable, hearing so sensitive he could hear the drop of a pin, and being able to smell you from a mile away- which he often joked about in the past.

He healed rather quickly, too. You remember he had nicked himself on accident with the pocket knife he sometimes carried, and by the time you had gone to retrieve the first aid kit and came back, it was as if the skin had never been broken. Gladiolus was strong, thanks to years of vigorous training, but you never knew the exact extent until now. You had watched him and the others spar on various accounts, so seeing him launch Noctis and Prompto across the room simultaneously was unsurprising. But to witness him lift the Regalia without breaking a sweat when the tire went flat? This was ridiculous.

There was no known cure for lycanthropy, as his ancestors had discovered when the curse was first introduced to their family, but there was a weakness: pure silver. It burned his flesh whenever he came in contact with it, which explained that one silver knife that had gone missing some months ago. Gladio revealed that he had secretly tucked it under the mattress on your side of the bed, wanting you to have a fighting chance should he turn in front of you and he was unable to control himself.

You learned that lycans trypically transformed completely on two occasions: under a full moon and during self defense. The transformation from human to wolf was painful and the species would lose all sense of rationality, being driven by either bloodlust or rage.

When you asked why Gladio would disappear for days every couple of months, his face went red. Your own cheeks heated up when he told you that when a werewolf reached maturity, they would undergo something called a “heat”. Going into heat was a time where something biological inside drove them into a sexual frenzy with only one goal: to breed. He, however, would lock himself away, preferring to suffer than to get some unwilling – or willing- girl pregnant. It was also against his family’s code to spend heats with those they were not mates with, their concept of “mates” being the equivalent of asking for your hand in marriage.

You loved him dearly, and he loved you just as equally, but both of you knew that now wasn’t the right time to tie the knot and make it official.

When it was time for the next full moon, Gladio insisted that you kept as far away as possible, but you refused.

“Baby, please,” he quietly pleaded.

“You swore not to hide anything from me, so let me see you as you are.”

You watched anxiously through the high window of the chamber that your beloved man was contained in as he turned from human to beast. Althought a werewolf of his maturity could turn without going berserk, Gladio was not like his father and sister. It was during these times that his lycan instincts overtook him, becoming unpredictable. Much to your surprise, Ignis showed up that night. That was when you learned that him and Prompto had known about this for the longest time. As for Noct, well, he was made aware of the Amicitia Gene at a young age.

A couple of months passed and then his heat neared. You were determined to put an end to his suffering, firmly grabbing hold of his arm before he could walk out your front door.

“Gladiolus, you know that I love you more than anything. So please, stop doing this. Stop putting yourself through this torture,” you pleaded.

“Y/N, I can’t. Dad’s said-”

You gave his arm a sharp tug, pulling him closer and leaning up to brush your lips against his and smirking at the slight quiver they had. “Your dad doesn’t have to know,” you purred.

How could he turn down that sensual vice of yours?

Neither of you left the apartment for a few days, the shield brushing off every noise complaint that came to your door and having his way with you. From how intense it was, it was a miracle that you didn’t end up pregnant, thank the Astrals. You did end up with numerous scratches and wobbly legs, though. The days that followed after his heat passed were probably your favorite. Gladio would become this clingy and cuddly teddy bear, always nuzzling against your or holding you close.

“Gladdy, what are you doing?”

He shrugged, burying his nose into your hair and wrapping his arms around your waist. “I need you to smell like me.”

“What? Why?”

“So that other guys know you’re mine.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to smell it,” you giggled.”

He gave you a smug smile, “Can’t be too careful.”  

You now reached a point where you were now accustomed and comfortable with his condition, having even made the breakthrough of being able to be around him when he was in his full lycan form without him harming you. With you there to put him at ease, he no longer had to spend every full moon in containment. Having put your trust in one another without inhibition, it truly strengthed your relationship. His family had already loved you, but when they learned of how committed and devoted you were regardless of what he was, Clarus gave you his blessing: although human, you were welcomed as officially a part of their pack.

A year had gone by and all was well.

But no one knew of the storm on the horizon.

After work, you decided to pick up some groceries before you finally made your way back to your apartment. Gladiolus would be coming home in an hour, so it gave you just enough time to start the dish and for him to arrive before it was hot and ready. You were halfway through sorting your purchases when you suddenly felt a presence behind you. A rag was pressed tightly over your mouth and nose before you had the opportunity to turn around, another arm wrapping around you to hold down your arms and prevent you from thrashing. You screamed against the fabric, a sweet scent fillings your lungs with every labored breath and making your body grow weak. Vision beginning to fade and muscles failing, your body eventually went slack against your attacker and you lost your grip on consciousness.

When Gladio came home, he knew something was off. Your belongings were here and the door was unlocked, but you were by no means in the apartment. He pulled out his phone and called you, only to hear your ringer coming from under the table where he found your phone. Something inside him screamed that you were in danger, and he believed it. Gladio’s breaths came out labored as a million emotions swelled in him. He stormed out of the apartment, finding it harder and harder to hold back the wolf within.

When you finally came to, your head was throbbing and your ears were ringing. The room that you awoke in was dimly lit, only granting you a few feet of vision and detecting some movement in the darkness.

You were tied to a post, tight ropes binding your wrists and knees to the pole that kept you upright and standing. With your mind still clouded from the drugs, your efforts to wiggle out of the restraints were futile. Footsteps echoed around you, panic mixing with your sluggish senses. You looked around, your vision swaying a bit with every quick turn of your head.

“Who’s there?!” you cried out, “Show yourself!”

Your captor stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself to you at last. You didn’t recognize this man, but from what you could gather from the way he was dressed, he must have been a part of the hunter’s guild.

“ ’Bout time you woke up, girly.”

“Wh-What is all of this…?” You squirmed in your bindings, the haze finally lifting and all alarms were blairing in your head.

“You’re gonna talk,” he spoke in a rough voice,” and if you refuse to talk, you’re gonna scream.”

He circled you, fondling something between his fingers. You stayed silent, glaring daggers at the hunter. He must have been a spy of some sort, trying to jostle some information on the prince from you.

“I’m not telling you anything,” you hissed.

He smirked, stopping somewhere behind you. “I know you won’t. Not willingly, at least.”

Intense pain suddenly blossomed in your side as he swung a fist against your torso, making you let out a cry of pain. The man came around to your front and threw another punch, this time into your abdomen and knocking the wind out of you.

“Where’s you werewolf boyfriend?”

He knew about Gladio? That was what he wanted? Your brows furrowed in confusion as you gasped for air. Your chest heaved as you finally caught your breath, stars lingering in your vision.

“I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about,” you lied.

“About a year ago,” he slapped you across the cheek, making you scream,“ I saw you riding on the back of a giant wolf in the middle of the god damn street.”

“F-Fucking hell…. Th-That wasn’t me!”

He chuckled to himself, slapping you again. “I kept an eye on you all this time. The wolf had a scar over his eye like the one your boyfriend just so happens to have. So I know I’m right. And the real kicker? He’s the prince’s bodyguard, imagine my luck!”

You shook your head as the sting numbed your face, desperately holding on to the charade. “What the hell are you t-talking about?!”

The man gave another punch to your side, this time higher and cracking something. A shriek of pain was ripped from your throat at the sensation, every slight movement feeling like a thousand needles being pushed into your flesh.

“Now,” he continued,“ I’m going to ask you one more time before I switch to Plan B. Where is the lycan?”

“….. G-Go screw yourself,” you hissed through gritted teeth.

The man sighed and shrugged, rubbing his knuckles before they suddenly came in contact with your jaw at full force. The taste of iron filled your mouth, your head spinning with the sting and ache of the impact.

His attacks were relentless, demanding over and over the location of Gladiolus, but you never succumbed. No matter how much agony you were in, you needed to protect him at any cost.

You were now sprawled across the floor in your own blood, restraints gone and lungs struggling to fill themselves with air. Your vision had blurred together and there was no more strength left in your body. The man gripped your hair and lifted your head up as he looked down at you.

“Stay awake, now. We’re still waiting on your man.”

“I-I’ll…. never t-tell you where he is,” you said in a broken whisper.

He laughed as he released you and gave you a kick, making you groan in pain and clutch weakly at your stomach. “You don’t have to. Lycans are very protective of their partners, so he’ll be here at any moment. I just had to give him a little incentive to show his true colors. He’s a monster.”

“N-No… he’s n-not..”

“Yes, he is. Just wait till he gets here.”

Your vision had cleared just enough to watch him draw his gun and load the object he had been handling earlier into the ammo clip: silver bulltes. Your body cried out in protest as you struggled to pull yourself upright, but you had lost so much blood that your arms immediately gave out. If Gladio were to really show up, there was no way he’d walk away from this unscathed. And your grip on reality was slipping through your fingers, meaning you’d be unable to help him. Fear spiked in you at the sound of creaking iron and strange howls from beyond the walls.

You prayed that whatever it was, it was deliverance.

The door to the room suddenly burst open, making you flinch but unable to scream. The single dim bulb that hung above exploded, shrouding the room in total darkness. Several gunshots rang, but from the sound of it, not meeting their mark.

“Wait… no, you’re not-”

Your captor’s startled voice was cut off by the sound of blades slicing through flesh and something slumping to the floor with a wet slap. Everything was silent for a moment until footsteps suddenly approached you. Two leather clad fingers pressed against your neck, searching for a pulse. Gladio hadn’t been the one to find you, but it was too dark to distinguish exactly who this person was.

“W-Who…?”

The stranger cursed under his breath, gathering you into his arms and brushing your blood matted hair from your face. Your already strained breaths stuttered as you recognized the voice of your savior.

“Please forgive me,” he begged.

The next thing you knew there was a finger being jammed in your mouth, willing you to keep it open. A gasp left you as you tasted fresh blood on your tongue and lips, but it wasn’t your own. You tried to shut your mouth, but he held it open with his thumb holding down your bottom teeth. Everything started to spin and your insides suddenly felt like they were being twisted and stretched. The sound of your pounding heartbeat filled your ears as something inside you started to change, your vision going from black to white to red and black again. You were carefully lowered onto the floor once more, your body breaking into full-on tremors.

It was all so overwhelming, eyes wide open with a scream begging to ring out as your muscles sporadically tensed, relaxed, and tensed again. Soon enough it became an all-numbing sensation, you body having gone into shock. There was only one thing that you felt at the end of it, and it was the need sate your desperate thirst. Once your body ceased its convulsions, he sat you up and held his wrist to your lips.

“Drink. Now.”

“N-No,” you whimpered with the turn of your head.

He forced your mouth open again, pressing his still bleeding wrist to your lips. The first time he bled into you, it was repulsing and the effect was the definition of torture, but the moment his blood met with your tongue a second time…

It was like a healing elixir, the sweetest of honeys that sent shocks of pleasure through your body and quenched you. With a new awakened hunger, you gripped his arm and drank hungrily until satisfied. After what seemed like minutes later, you finally detached from him. Your head spun and your nerves tingled pleasantly. Amidst your drunken haze, you leaned away as your canines started to sting.

“I-Ignis…. what did you do to me?”

#supernatural au #tw blood #tw body horror #tw kidnapping #ffxv #final fantasy xv #gladiolus amicitia #gladio x reader #werewolf!gladio #noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #ignis scientia #my writing