#｢✘ ｣ visage ／ filling up the empty space .

[hittos]

𝐀𝐧 𝐄𝐲𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐧 𝐄𝐲𝐞 | 𝐘. 𝐎𝐤𝐤𝐨𝐭𝐬𝐮

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2k words 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: non con, forced breeding, mentions of cheating, mentions of bullying, abuse (lmk if I missed anything) 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Yuta thinks it's about time he gets even with his middle school bully. 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: this is 3 days late because uhh umm *runs away*

You stared in disbelief at Yuta’s redoubtable and imposing visage. He was nothing like the skinny, wimpy kid you used to shove out the way and degrade as you please. He was much bigger now, his shirt fit tighter and his biceps were noticeably bulging, a far cry from his old self.

You felt intimidated in his presence, all you could think about was how easy it would be for him to overpower you as opposed to back then, “how have you been?” His eyes still remain pure, though now embellished with confidence and self assurance. He seemed kind still even after all you did to torment him in middle school.

“I’ve been well and you?” you answered, beginning to feel antsy as you study his angular face in the warm light of some shoddy coffee shop a few blocks from where you live, you had to admit he had gotten handsome over the years, seemingly getting his life together while yours was falling apart.

“Do you live around here?” he asked, his eyes showing no sign of resentment or hatred towards you, it was as if his memory of middle school was erased completely. If you didn’t know any better you might have seriously believed that, but if he remembered you then he remembered what you did. All you ever were to him was a tormentor, so it simply isn’t feasible to believe that he could divorce the memories of you from the misery you made him feel in middle school.

“Yeah, a few blocks away from here, actually” you smiled politely, praying he didn’t notice the streaks of dried tears on your face or at least have the courtesy not to bring it up, “that’s such a coincidence, i just moved in also a couple of blocks from here”

“Then you should know there’s a place that serves much better coffee about 10 minutes from here, if you’re willing to walk farther” you chuckled awkwardly, wanting nothing more than to walk into the nearest ocean and never resurface again. You wish he would look at you like you’re a piece of gum stuck under his shoe, to yell at you or to call you every curse word in every language in the world, but he didn’t. He was polite and friendly, which only worsened the guilt you feel watching him talk to you as if you’re old friends.

“Why don’t you show me around the neighborhood sometime?” the way he said it so nonchalantly, you almost wouldn’t believe he was subtly asking you out. You tried to mask the fluster in your face, he was almost unrecognizable now compared to his former self, “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much” you drowned out the voice of guilt in your head saying you owe him that much, opting instead to stupidly remain loyal to the boyfriend you knew good and well was cheating on you as you spoke.

“Number 47” the barista called to the busy space.

“That’s me, see you around, Yuta” you rushed to get your order, relieved that the conversation was over.

“I can walk you home if-” you didn’t wait for him to finish before turning down his offer, “oh don’t worry, this neighborhood is very safe besides i’m sure you have a lot on your plate,” you grabbed the cup from the counter and hurried to leave the situation, opting out of adding sugar like you normally would

You were relieved you left before he could press you about walking you home, you thought as tears began falling freely from your blurry eyes, occasionally a heave or a soft sniffle would sound from you, filling up the quiet, dark, and suspiciously empty road. You made a silent prayer that you won’t have to see your boyfriend fucking the newest girl of the week on your couch when you get home. You don’t think you’ll be able to take it.

You wish you could leave him, but you couldn’t afford to get your own apartment. Your boyfriend never missed a chance to remind you of that. Each time you caught him, his eyes would be unmoving and his tone harsh, “what are you going to do about it? Leave me? You know you can’t take care of yourself, you’re too stupid to” he would say as he watched you cry. You hated him so much and unbeknownst to you, so did Yuta.

Your mind was so engulfed in grief that you didn’t notice you were being followed closely, you didn’t notice Yuta enter your building right behind you and you didn’t feel him as he silently stood behind you waiting for you to fish the keys out of your purse and unlock your door.

You sighed in relief seeing your boyfriend’s shoes were missing before a callous hand slapped itself over your mouth and pushed you into the apartment, the force causing you to fall to the floor. Yuta locked the door immediately before turning to look at you with chiling, dark blue eyes, “Y-yuta? What are you doing here?” your eyes widened in fear, he could just cum in his pants from the sight alone, you on your knees before him, fear stricken eyes trained on his unflinching ones. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“You know what i’m here for” he kneeled down to your level, caging your body between his and the cold floor, his clothed, hard cock brushing up against your panty-clad pussy, “get off of me” you struggled against his weight, but he only let out a tsk at your fruitless attempts and slapped your weaker hands away from his broad chest.

His hand traveled down between your legs and ripped your panties in half with ease, your cunt was quickly getting wetter as your body anticipated the oncoming intrusion of his impressive cock and his novel display of strength, your gaze was unbroken on his hand as it quickly fidgeted to free himself from the rough material.

One of his hands pinned both your struggling arms on top of where he’s laid you down, the other was giving his dick a few pumps before he used it to collect the slick from your drooling hole and spread it along the length of your slit, paying close attention to the way your breath hitched each time his leaky cockhead caught your puffy clit. He pushed his cock past the tight confines, soon being greeted with your sticky insides, “oh, baby, all this for me?” he chuckled bitterly, his breath hit your skin like lava, “not your stupid cuck of a boyfriend?” tears were already falling down the apple of your cheek as your hands made contact with his face, digging your long nails into the delicate skin of his jaw.

To your dismay, this did little to dissuade him, in fact, the pain washing over him as you drew blood from his pale skin seemed to only drive him wilder, judging by the unhinged glare in his eyes, “do your worst, baby. I can fucking take it. I’m stronger now, i can protect you” his hips thrusted into you forcefully, punching a scream straight from your gut.

“You’re a fucking…” you grunted as you tried with all your might to push him off of you, but he is nothing like the frail boy you used to push around and laugh at till he’s in tears, he’s much stronger now and he’s much bigger, in more ways than one, you note how his cock stretches you out deliciously, wider than your deadbeat boyfriend ever could, “...creep, I hate you”

His hips picked up pace, rolling into you smoothly, as smoothly as he could with you thrashing around, resisting his love and affection, “you’ve still got a venomous tongue, i see” his hand snaked around your neck, restricting the air flowing to your lungs, “that’s fine” his eyes darkened, sending a shiver down your spine and making you think maybe you said the wrong thing at the wrong time, “I’ll just have to fuck it out of you”

In the flash on an eye, your legs were pushed up over his shoulder, his cock suddenly reaching much deeper inside you, before you can even make a plea for a moment to adjust to his size in this new position, his cock pistoned inside you at lightning speed, his length assaulting your cervix each time he buried himself inside you to the hilt.

Who would have thought that little, puny Yuta could make you scream around his dick. The same Yuta who avoided your gaze like you were medusa is now inches from your face, gripping your jaw, forcing your tear stained eyes to look at his cold and confident ones as he fucks you mercilessly. Pathetic, bitchboy Yuta is now holding your legs in place as your pussy creams around his length, making your body shiver as he continues to pound your tiny, abused pussy.

“You have no idea how long I wanted to have you spread out for me like this,” his sloppy kisses littered your sweaty body as tears continued to flow down your eyes, you tried to thrash your head, escaping his kisses. He brought down his flat palm against your ass in a firm spank, your hole clenched deliciously around him as you screamed out again, praying that your neighbors could hear or that they had already called the police, “you owe me after all the shit you put me through”

You threw your head back, trying desperately to search for the sound of the police siren or the flash of red and blue lights, but all you heard is the sound of skin slapping skin and the sloshing sound of your tight hole being desperately violated, the only thing you see is the mob of sweaty black hair rocking back and forth with his thrusts and a pair of dark blue eyes, almost black, filled with lust looking down at you as if you are prey.

“I’ve been watching you for a few years now” he confessed, as he peppered unwanted kisses on your defeated face, “I saw the way that asshole treats you,” his eyes bore into your unfocused ones as a second orgasm washes over you, “I can treat you better than him and i can make you happy” his voice quieted down to a whisper, he wasn’t sure if you even heard him or if your mind checked out some time ago. 

“Y’know, you’re ovulating” he grunted in your ear as his pace got faster and sloppier, your eyes widened as fear began to fester deep within you, somewhere his dick had already reached. Suddenly, your will to fight him off was restored, unfortunately, he was on the cusp of cumming already, the adrenaline giving him more strength to pin you down, not that he needed it, to deposit his sperm deep inside your fertile walls. He ignored your pleas and buried his cock to the hilt inside you. With a final shiver, his dick shot out rope after rope of cum, painting your cervix white, “I’ve been saving up just for you” he whispered in your ear before kissing the shell of it.

The gravity of what just happened only settles when he has already pulled out his soft cock from your aching hole, “why did you do this to me?” you screamed at him, anger and sadness rushed through you, “I have dreams and a life, how am i supposed to do that with a fucking baby?”

“You’ll be my wife, I'll always keep you nice and pregnant for me” he smiled at you fondly, your jaw slackened in disbelief.

“You ruined my fucking life”

“And you ruined mine” he interrupted your outburst coldly, “guess we’re even now”

“I hate you, i hate you, i hate you” a final wave of tears burst from your eyes, his hand bringing you over in a hug, allowing you to cry on his strong chest, his hands rubbing soothing circles on your back.

“It’s okay,” he whispered more to himself than you, “pregnancy will make you kinder”

#yuta x reader #yuta smut #okkotsu x reader #okkotsu yuta smut #okkotsu yuta x reader #yuta okkotsu x reader #yuta okkotsu smut #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #x reader #tw noncon #cw noncon

[carionto]

It'll be "awesome", the Human said

(Continuation/conclusion to this)

____________________________

After the Coalition delegates had been mindblown enough, it was time for them to finally leave and have a nap. But Captain Knoslark had one more thing he desperately wanted to show them.

"So, like, we're a science vessel and we have three of the biggest reactors, right? Right. So, I wanna show you what we recently figured out we can do. C'mon, it'll be awesome."

Awesome - a word the rest of the Galaxy will soon learn to both admire and run for cover whenever a Human uses it.

With trepidation in their steps, and worry in their breaths, they followed the all too eager Captain, who was almost skipping and humming down the halls, dramatically pointing the way. His crew continued to not give him the satisfaction of ever acknowledging his theatrics.

"Once the reactors are in good enough sync, we'll reconfigure the Radiant Dusk to a circular shape and begin!"

Oh. Yeah. Of course their ships can also transform. Why not. The delegates have given up thinking there are things Human engineering can't accomplish. Also, good enough?

"Eh, don't worry about it, we overbuild everything, so a 1 or 2 percent margin of error is fine, most of the time."

They could not imagine themselves to be more worried. At least not until a few minutes from now.

"Captain, she's ready," Chief Engineer Tameki's tone changed to a total blank deadpan for the next words, "to transform. and. roll. out."

With childlike glee, Captain Knoslark tapped the big red button, specifically designed for his pad only, to begin the sequence.

Distant creaking of metal, anguish at the prospect of bending in ways nature never intended, and the unmistakable jolt of mechanical movement, despite the artificial gravity maintaining the same down throughout, once more instilled primal anxiety for the delegates.

The reactors wound up, turning the almost-buzz like feeling beneath their feet to a true all encompassing sense of absolute power. Three small stars at equidistant points along the now 4km in diameter vessel created a singular feeling of something imminent that should never have been possible. The Universe itself wanted to reject this possibility.

"We tried copying your mass field generators from way back when you did the barrier thing. Wanted to see if we could get close to Black Hole levels, there were some theories that time travels was possible with that kinda pull."

I don't think anyone would be surprised if they had succeeded, but, for once during their entire visit, the Humans said they couldn't get time travel to work. Celebration! Then the Captain kept talking.

"So what happened instead is we accidentally tore a hole in time-space, creating a sort of warp gate." He said with both joy and disappointment.

Then the Universe shrieked. A massive distortion in reality now struggled and failed to restore normality between the ring-shaped ship. Swirling coils of matter flickered in and out, ghostly visages of detonations on a solar scale. A sight never intended to be witnessed.

"Still gotta figure out how to set a destination to anywhere. Right now the only stable connection we can get is with massive gravity wells, so any celestial body with enough mass, smallest one is a red dwarf. Problem is the connection steers towards the center, so not really practical right now."

"If we try to point at empty space the gate just kinda wiggles and you end up getting spaghetti-fied on the other end. Still, once we get enough ships like this one around the galaxy, we'll solve that whole trips taking more than a few hours thing we got with the hyper drives."

At this point the delegates decided to be escorted away, as most had became a crying mess. One stumbled onto a automated cleaning unit and at this the Captain, whose mood had soured a bit now that his time as tour guide was over, rose back to heights unseen before. With his most official sounding, yet at the same time most joy filled tone ever, he declared:

"Sergeant Ying Zhao, issue an official notice. Today at 20:30 ship time there will be a grand ceremony for the promotion of Captain Stabicus to Special Envoy of the Galactic Coalition. Ready all relevant paperwork, and his new badge, and inform the chef to prepare a feast. We have done much today for the sake of Human-Coalition relationships, and so much more for the Radiant Dusk at Everest and her crew and staff. Tonight, we celebrate!"

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #story #stabby the roomba

[wonysugar]

sleepy | kim sunoo

synopsis : your cute boyfriend wakes up a sunday morning, still drowsy and not having fully processed that you left the city for a few days. he misses you a lot already and is right off the bat feeling all needy and sad now that you’re not next to him.<3

pairing : nonidol!sunoo x gf!femreader

genre : soft, cozy smut, fluffy domestic smut, oneshot

tags : heavily implied y/n, implied dom!femreader, pillow humping, while thinking about you<3, horny and needy sunoo, very heavily implied dom/sub relationship, sub!sunoo, some nipple play towards the end but it’s like two lines, hmm long distance, he misses you :(

warning : nothing :) this is one of my more cozy and soft works so have a blast!

word count : 912(?)

a/n : this has been in my drafts for so longg,,, just now decided to actually finish writing it so sawryy (still working on the hot rough lesbian phone sex with aeri + stripper whore sunoo guys stay tuned!!)

sleepy.

sleepiness was what sunoo felt right now, sleepiness was a feeling that he’d feel with you, as you two both woke up. usually, he’d open his eyes up to you, facing him as you’re deep in sleep, your mouth probably slightly open since you snore a lot in your sleep. despite how funny it may look to you, he’d find it a peaceful, and pretty visage, a painting that he would admire every inch and centimeter of. he was so infatuated with you, and he couldn’t get enough of showcasing that infatuation.

he couldn’t do any of that that day, though, as you weren’t next to him that morning. you organized a trip with your friends a few months back, and your flight turned out to be yesterday, so you weren’t even in the country. god, he knew he would miss you, but already? on the first day? the first hour??

he looked at the empty space in front of him, and he swore he could feel an empty space in his heart too, at that moment, a space almost as big as the one in the bed.

oh how he so desperately wanted to feel your skin against his, your fingers running along those curves of his that he knew you absolutely adored, your lips that he found so sweet, even with morning breath, kissing him everywhere on his face. his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, gradually going lower, down to the rest of his body. you getting on top as he’s squirming under you, letting out small giggles as you gently fall on him, cuddling him and teasing him about his hard-on, gently palming it as he whines.

before he knew it, reminiscing about your guys’ morning routine and everything that came with it made him get an actual boner. man, he really was missing you, a lot.

it didn’t take long before he sighed, grabbing one of the pillows next to him, bummed out and upset at the void he felt that was growing as each second passed by.

it’s not like he could even call you, it was about 8 'o'clock in the morning, he knew for a fact that you were still sound asleep. he’d have to take matters into his own hands and take care of himself for today, and probably for the next 2 days or so.

he hadn’t even realized that he started slowly grinding on the pillow he was holding between his legs before he felt the friction on his precum filled tip, his throbbing boner poking through the black boxers he wore to sleep yesterday. he was thinking about you, and how you’d take his cock in your mouth so well right now, telling him to stop covering his mouth so much because you “want to hear how good he’s feeling”, massaging his curvy thighs and ass as you take him whole.

he thought about how you sometimes call him your “pretty boy” as you’re fucking him slowly and gently in the ass, his back arched so well for you, because he know how much you like it when he does that. how he’d beg for you to go faster, and how he’d call you mommy at the end of every sentence he drowsily spoke, moaning out shamelessly as he feels you thrusting inside his walls. man, if the dildo you liked using on him wasn’t in another room, he would’ve grabbed it already.

he would have to settle, though. he quickly flipped the pillow he was humping and twisted it into a way that would make a hole, then took off his stained boxers, throwing them somewhere on the ground, he’d worry about it later. he immediately penetrated into it, his pretty dick twitching at the sensation of the fabric of the pillow, the softness of it reminding him of your own hands, imagining you jerking him off in front of the mirror as he sits on your lap, whilst you tell him to look at how slutty he was being for you.

it was embarrassing to him how quick you made him closer to climax, even while not being physically there with him, you drove him crazy, just the thought of you made him throb. he was whining, stopping himself from covering his mouth because he’s aware that you’d like hearing the noises that are coming out of him. feeling closer to cumming, he started thrusting faster, hearing your pretty voice in his imagination, telling him to be a good boy and to cum for you. he quickly pulled up his baggy black t-shirt and slid a hand under it, massaging his nipples and twisting them gently like you would, his moans getting louder as the minutes go by, his thrusts getting quicker and shorter.

that was the last thing he could do before he felt like finishing. soon enough, white and thick ropes spurt out of his dick as he accidentally moaned out your name one last time, he was cumming all over the white pillow with only, and exclusively, his girlfriend in mind. still thrusting into the hole, for good measure, he decides to

after minutes of heavy breathing and coming back to reality after orgasming, he actually felt a tad bit better about your absence. maybe it was just the post-nut clarity hitting, but it could also just be the realization that you’re gonna wake up soon, so he was gonna be able to talk to you. plus, he just made a whole mess like all over the pillow thinking about you, of course he would be satisfied.

so satisfied that he was planning on telling you all about it on the phone later.

#smut #female reader #enhypen smut #sunoo smut #sub sunoo #kim sunoo #sunoo enha #enha #enha smut #enha sunoo #enhypen sunoo #enhypen sunoo smut #sunoo enhypen #bottom sunoo #sunoo x female reader

[ecliptiz]

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 ╰► REMUS LUPIN

Summary; Small moments with Remus lupin

Warnings: Not a lot of dialogue, just disruptions.

Masterlist

THE MORNING greeted the dorm room with a tranquil serenity, as soft rays of sunlight pierced through the gaps in the crimson curtains.

The harmonious melody of birdsong filled the air, accompanied by faint murmurs of fellow students bustling their way to the breakfast hall.

Inside the room, a symphony of peaceful snores resonated, blending with the chaotic mess that adorned the space. Clothes were strewn about, laundry baskets overflowed with a mixture of clean and dirty garments, and papers intermingled with prank plans.

Wrappers of indulgent treats and empty water bottles littered the nightstand alongside two wands.

A muffled breath escaped the tangle of blankets, followed by the emergence of tousled sandy brown hair, gradually revealing a visage marked by weariness. Slumber clung to the young man's features, his brow furrowing and lips pursing in a sleepy haze.

Traces of healed scars adorned his face, lending a touch of character to his tired countenance. With a gentle groan, he stretched his bare shoulders and chest, the movement exposing his surroundings and the slumbering figure beside him.

Remus, his brown eyes heavy with drowsiness, surveyed the room, his gaze traversing the familiar contours of the other three occupied beds.

His gaze lingered on the slumbering form beside him, a fond smile gracing his lips as he delicately pulled back a corner of the blanket, revealing the peaceful face of his beloved girlfriend.

Her eyes fluttered closed in response to the intrusion of light, her features scrunching momentarily.

A soft chuckle escaped Remus's lips as he reached out, his thumb tenderly caressing her cheek, his eyes tracing every contour of her face with affectionate adoration.

With utmost care, he rose from the bed, making a conscious effort to be as quiet as possible. He traversed the room, heading towards the small closet to retrieve a cozy dark blue sweater, intending to ward off the slight chill in the morning air and cover his bare chest.

Returning to the bed, Remus was greeted by the sight of his girlfriend's eyes meeting his own. Her gaze, still heavy with sleep, held a gentle allure that captivated him.

He couldn't help but reciprocate her sleepy smile, his own eyes conveying a tender warmth.

A soft yawn escaped her lips, her eyes alternating between closing and reopening, as if trying to fully awaken. She lifted the blanket slightly, extending an unspoken invitation for him to rejoin her in the comforting embrace of the bed.

Without hesitation, Remus gladly accepted the silent invitation, slipping back into bed and drawing her close to him.

She nestled her head on his chest, finding solace in the steady rhythm of his breath and the reassuring beat of his heart. His hand ventured under her shirt, tracing gentle patterns on the small of her back, further soothing her.

Your fingers curled around the fabric of his blue sweater, seeking comfort and security as you snuggled closer to him. His warm hand continued its soothing motion, gliding up and down your back, eliciting tiny goosebumps that danced along your skin.

The steady rise and fall of his chest, coupled with his tranquil breathing, almost lulled you back into a peaceful slumber. The serenity in his presence washed over you, infusing a sense of tranquility into every fiber of your being.

In a voice coated with sleep and raspy with remnants of dreams, Remus broke the comfortable silence. His accent, thickened by drowsiness."How’d you sleep?" he inquired, his voice a comforting melody.

Not quite ready to engage in conversation just yet, you responded with a gentle hum, your hand absentmindedly toying with a loose string on his sweater.

Nodding against his chest, you released another soft yawn, allowing the embrace and the hazy morning to cocoon you in a blissful cocoon of warmth and contentment.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

IN THE serene atmosphere of the library, the scent of aged paper hung in the air, lending a sense of tranquility to the surroundings.

Nestled in a secluded corner, Remus occupied a table tucked against the wall, shielded by a bookcase that added an extra layer of privacy. His hands cradled a weathered, blue hardcover book, its pages worn with the passage of time.

Dressed in a maroon-colored sweater that draped loosely over his frame, Remus exuded an air of casual comfort. His perpetually messy hair framing his face as he rested his head in his hands, engrossed in the words dancing across the page.

Suddenly, the scraping sound of a chair being pulled back interrupted his focus. Looking up, his concentration shattered, as he was met with the enchanting sight of his girlfriend. She gracefully settled her book bag onto the chair, her hair cascading over her eyes.

Drawn to her effortlessly, Remus leaned forward, gently sweeping her hair back to reveal her beautiful face. The world around him faded as his gaze locked with hers, momentarily forgetting the books and the hushed whispers of other library patrons.

Their eyes locked, and a tender smile spread across Remus's face. "Hello, love," he murmured softly, his voice a warm caress in the quiet library. "How was your day?"

You returned his smile, the softness in your eyes reflecting the affection you held for him. "Long, but it's better now that I'm here with you," you replied- cheesily so, sliding into the chair next to him. "What are you reading?"

He held up the book for you to see. "Defense against the dark arts, some spells I’ve been interested in," he said, his thumb absentmindedly stroking the spine.

You reached out and took his hand in yours, giving it a gentle squeeze. "No need, you’ve always been good with those type of things," you said.

A soft blush colored his cheeks as he looked down, feeling a warmth in his heart from your words. "Thank you," he replied, his voice tinged with gratitude. "And how about you? How was your day?"

You leaned back in your chair, resting your head against the backrest. "It was alright, busy as usual," you said with a small sigh. "But seeing you here makes everything better."

Remus leaned closer, his lips grazing your forehead in a gentle kiss. "I feel the same way, my dear," he whispered, his eyes never leaving yours.

You released a contented sigh, your heart fluttering as you felt the warmth of his lips lingering on your forehead.

Glancing at Remus, you casually asked, "Heard from Sirius that James got into it with Snape during Hogsmeade yesterday... Did he tell y'anything about that?" A playful smirk danced on your lips as you raised an eyebrow, awaiting his response.

Remus responded with a dramatic gasp, laughter bubbling in his voice as he shook his head. "No, I stayed with you last night, and the boys have been kept in detention all day. Haven't had time for 'em," he explained with a smile, his eyes shining with amusement.

You chuckled softly, settling back into your chair with a shake of your head.

"Those two, can never stay out of trouble, I tell you. First, it's cursin' first years to dangle upside down in the common room, and now, fighting up a ruckus in Hogsmeade... in the Three Broomsticks," you playfully complained, shaking your head with a laugh, and looking at your boyfriend with affectionate amusement.

Remus playfully wagged his finger like a scolding mother, his laughter ringing through the air. "Naughty boys," he teased, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

You nodded in agreement, a smile playing on your lips. "Y'right, they've even infected poor Peter. Heard from a third year that Filch caught 'em trying to sneak into the Forbidden Forest for the fifth time," you recounted, shaking your head at their antics.

"Glad I had to tutor that day, saved me from a detention," Remus replied with a mock serious expression before bursting into laughter.

"Hmm," you hummed, getting your parchment and quill ready for your Potions work. Remus observed you for a moment before returning to his own book, both of you immersed in your respective studies as the peaceful silence enveloped you once again.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

YOU COULD FEEL the effects of the alcohol, a hazy fog clouding your mind as you swayed unsteadily across the makeshift dance floor in the Gryffindor common room.

A red solo cup was tightly gripped in your hand as you clumsily navigated through the crowd of people, trying to avoid the sights and sounds of couples entangled in each other.

Finally, you spotted an empty red chair and plopped down on it, your eyes scanning the room in a daze. A hand on your shoulder made you jump, and you turned to face a guy with sandy brown hair and warm brown eyes. "Y/N, c'mon darlin', that's enough drinks for tonight," he said with a slight chuckle at your wobbly state.

You wrinkled your nose in disgust and backed away, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "Do-don't call me that," you slurred, hiccuping slightly. "O-only my boyfriend gets to call me that."

Remus couldn't help but laugh at your drunken state, finding it amusing and slightly offended that you didn't remember he was your boyfriend.

He attempted to take the cup from your hand, but you pulled away, accusing him of playing tricks. Ignoring your protest, he gave you a gentle smile and guided you to a quieter area, away from the party's flashing lights.

As you both entered his dorm room, Remus focused his eyes now that the distractions were gone. He pulled you closer, his voice filled with amusement. "Y/N, I am your boyfriend," he chuckled, guiding you to sit on the bed.

In your drunken state, you shook your head with a slurred response. "N-nuh uh, my boyfriend has better hair than you, I'm sure of that." You plopped down on the bed, your words stumbling out.

Remus playfully scoffed, realizing that you were referring to the recent haircut he had gotten before the party. "I'm sure he does, 'love," he laughed softly, moving over to his closet to grab a sweater and a pair of sweatpants.

Returning to your side, Remus held up the sweater and bunched it up at the armhole. "Up," he said simply, guiding your hands up as he helped you remove your other shirt and replaced it with the sweater.

You mumbled incoherently, commenting on how warm it was as your tired eyes began to droop.

Remus smiled affectionately at you, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "There you go, all cozy now," he said, making sure you were comfortably settled on the bed.

He pulled the blankets over you and sat down beside you, his hand gently caressing your cheek. "You know, you're absolutely adorable when you're drunk," he teased softly.

Your eyes fluttered open, and a sleepy smile tugged at the corners of your lips. "I am not," you protested playfully, snuggling closer to him.

Remus chuckled, leaning in to press a gentle kiss on your forehead. "You are," he insisted, "and I love you just the way you are."

Your gaze softened, and you reached out to cup his cheek. "I love you too, you big softie," you murmured, your words still slurred from the alcohol.

He leaned in to capture your lips in a sweet kiss, savoring the taste of you. "Let's get some rest," he suggested, guiding you to lie down properly on the bed.

You nodded sleepily, curling up against him. Remus wrapped his arms around you protectively, pulling you close to his chest. Your breathing gradually slowed, and soon both of you were peacefully drifting off to sleep in each other's arms.

As the night went on, the party in the common room continued, but you and Remus were lost in each other's embrace, finding solace and comfort in the love you shared.

#keeperofthestars #harry potter #james potter imagine #sirius black imagine #harry potter imagine #james potter x y/n #sirius black #peter pettigrew #remus lupin imagine #Remuslupin #remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x y/n

[mggpleasedontlookhere]

a glimpse of maybe

summary: spencer never really got over maeve - no one can truly forget their first love... that doesn’t stop his best friend, y/n, from trying. 

word count: 1,464                                                                                        reading time aprox: 6 mins

warnings: themes of unrequited love, angst (my specialty)

a/n: first fic back! This can be read by anybody - no specificity in features, gender, etc. Please let me know if I’ve made any errors regarding this. 

masterlist

Jealousy is described as a white hot anger that burns behind your eyelids, paralyzes every muscle, and turns you as green as a swamp. Well, whoever said that must have been a complete idiot… or a lucky fool who has never experienced the depth of longing for someone you can’t have. 

Instead, coldness surrounds you and bites at your veins with ferocity. What they don’t tell you about is the constant emptiness that fills you whenever he looks behind your eyes to try and get a glimpse of her - if there even is one. 

Spencer disguised his grief well; longing stares that I believed were for me, but in truth, were the remnants of her. When he started to reach for my hands and suggested we hang out more, I should’ve known then. Maybe it’s partly my fault - maybe I fell in love with the idea of a blissful tragedy that was bound to happen. 

-

“Spencer, may I remind you that I’m the one with the PhD in Chemistry here. Don’t try to tell me about my own dissertation…” Spencer takes his bottom lip under his teeth with a sly smile, a subtle tell that he was about to protest. “...and just because I technically haven’t received physical proof of my degree, doesn’t mean I’m any less knowledgeable than you, Mr. 187 IQ.” 

He shrugged his shoulders and immediately raised his hands in defense. “I never said that,” he argued while I stared at him pointedly. “I’ll just take my three PhDs elsewhere–” 

“Here we go again with your smart-ass attitude,” I scoffed playfully, burying the smile behind my unimpressed visage as he took pleasure in making me laugh - a ghost of a satisfied and happy glint in his irises. I haven’t seen him so… normal until now. 

A butterfly stretches its wings inside my stomach as Spencer begins to regain a youthful color to his skin. A comfortable silence washes over us as our laughter dies down into nothing but warm glances shared between us. A much too familiar bubble swells in my chest and engulfs the space in my lungs, preventing air from reaching it. 

One. Two. Three new freckles strayed from the top of his eyebrows to the tip of his slightly tanned nose. The amount of times I’ve told this persistent man to put on some sunscreen is incredulous - I can already see the breaking of DNA from the abundance of UV exposure. 

At least he’s getting more sun - he’s going out more. That’s good. Yes… it’s good. You know what’s not good though? Skin cancer. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Spencer broke me out of my trance, throwing an old crumpled up post-it note at my face. 

He really needs to start cleaning up this place. His living room had turned into Oxford’s long lost library archive or a Barnes and Nobles’ recycling dump. Spencer hasn’t really fixed up the place since… 

I make a mental note to help Spencer spruce up the place once he’s ready - and to get him some SPF 1000 while I’m at it. What are best friends for? 

“I was actually just thinking about how much you must be begging for skin cancer,” I teased, taking the crumpled up note and setting it on the side table to cast to the garbage, later on. “But of course, maybe that’s something your three PhDs can defend you from too.” 

“Who’s the smart-ass now, Y/N?” 

“You’re right… we can’t have two smart-asses now, can we?” I sighed, relaxing further into the loveseat I sat in, tracing the stitching that lined the leather material. “Is that offer of you taking your business elsewhere still up?” 

Tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, he leaned forward with a cheshire smile and a look that was out-of-character for him. “Is that what you really want, Y/N? Cause half of my business practically includes you in it,” he admits. 

I suppressed the blush that was threatening to bloom on my cheeks. Averting my attention from his prying gaze. “I get it, Spencer. I’m the most interesting part of your life,” I half-heartedly joked; a part of me longing for it to be true. 

His lips quirked at my quick response, that bright glow in his eyes making another appearance.

Maybe this time, it can be true. 

“You look good like that, Spencer,” I commented with underlying hesitance. 

“Like what?” 

“...happy. Like you're happy.” 

‘I love seeing you happy… happy with me’ was what I really wanted to tell him. 

“I am happy,” his eyes subtly trail down from my eyes, to my nose, and finally, to my lips. “I feel nothing else whenever I’m with you.” 

My lips parted slightly in desperate need for air. In that moment, the mess of the room was gone, the sunscreen forgotten, and the mental barrier lifted. Heat swirled in my stomach and crept up my throat. The butterflies raced inside me with grace, leaving me lightheaded in the moment. 

“You’re only saying that because I’m the only one sane enough to keep hanging around you.” I attempt to brush off his suggestive tone, fearful of mistaking it for genuine interest. I tucked my hair behind my ears, grounding myself back to bleak reality. 

“You know for someone who’s almost has their PhD–” 

“–does have.” I interrupt. 

“...who DOES HAVE their PhD, you’d think you’d figure out to stay away from a guy who can only handle one person in their vicinity. What if I was a psychopath?” 

“I never said you weren’t,” I cut in. 

“Smart-ass.”

“Such a smart-ass,” we retorted simultaneously. 

We broke out into a gleeful fit of laughter, amused at our telepathic nature. The bubble in my lungs only continued to grow, only this time I wasn’t suffocating. I guess living for the hope of it all was enough to feel this way. It was then I decided that maybe the wanting was enough. 

I wish you were my smart-ass. Mine.

“You’ve always known what to say, Y/N,” he teased with a doting tone. 

I didn’t bother to hold back the loving grin that graced my lips and the admiration that poured out of me because in that moment it felt like he was mine to lose - and only mine to love. 

“I love when you smile like that - your dimple shows up just at the surface of your right cheek. That’s how I know I’ve really made you happy.” He presses into his own cheek, leaving a temporary impression of his finger. Something deeper settles into his eyes as his smile cracks subtly. “...Maeve had the same indent on her left cheek - one of her prettiest quirks.” 

And just like that, reality sets in. 

He may have been mine from the start… but I never really was his, was I? 

All at once, that warm bubble shriveled into nothing but a cold and sharp cacophony of hope that had been stricken down. My esophagus constricted around the razor-sharp words threatening to slip by my lips - a stinging sensation imprinting itself on the walls of my chest. 

I lost all focus, swimming around desperately in the concaves of my mind for some sort of solace. My mental attempts bore fruitless to the sharks, that were his words, endlessly tailing me. The emptiness and despair threw my body into an indescribable numbness - a contrast from the searing wetness that hid behind my eyelids. 

…silence.

All my impulses, insecurities, and irrationality formed into one, throwing away all sense of decorum and decency. I bit my tongue, immersing myself in the taste of iron to distract myself from the unpleasant thoughts. 

Why would you say that, Spencer? 

I wanted to scream, claw, and fight. I wanted to feel anything - anything else but this. 

Why is it never me?

But I also wanted to bring Maeve back. I wanted Spencer to truly be happy again. Not just for a moment of happiness… of love. 

Am I too hard to want (like the way I want you)?

Sometimes I wish I can turn you back into a stranger, Spencer. Only then I wouldn’t be yours just to hurt. But you were right though… I never want you elsewhere. I want you here, a blissful wound that I will willingly carry any day just to get a glimpse of ‘maybe.’ 

But I didn’t dare to say those words, not to him - never to him. My tears retreated back into their sockets as I embraced the numbness that came with reality. I flicked the post-it back into the expanding mess in the room, where it knows its place. 

“...of course, Spencer. I feel nothing else when I’m with you.” 

-

taglist: @rexorangecouny @howdycharlie @honeymilk-4 @linthebinbag @andreasworlsboring101 @ssareidbby @kyleetheeditor @fanofalltheficsx​ @jimilogy @lulwaxim @jhillio @m3ssytrash @haylaansmi @meowiemari @ashwarren32 @codyf3rnsupremecy @goldentournesol​

#spencer reid #Spencerreid #spencer reid Criminal Minds #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagines #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x fanfiction #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid oneshots #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid angst #Matthew Gray Gubler #mgg imagine #matthew gray gubler imagine #matthew gray gubler imagines #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler x y/n #mgg #mgg fanfiction #mgg fic #mgg x reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic

[the-eris-mc]

Our task in English today was creative writing so with The Crane Wives in my ears and The Life Series being my every thought I made this

(Jimmy waking up from dying in Limited Life)

THE CANARY CALL

A chill shot down his spine, a sudden gasp for breath as if he was pulled from the shadowed pit of death. The air was thick and cold. He awoke in a dark place, completely empty or so he thought. He knew it had happened again, oddly the faint light that did barely illuminate the space he had wound up in was not white, yellow nor orange but purple. a faint violet hue that seemed to come from nowhere. The silence was deafening, cut by only his desperate breathing. He dared not move, an eerie presence grew toward him and he could sense it. Paralysed by the ghoulish presence, his breathing grew faster by the second. The vague hue in the seemingly endless void turned to a warm yellow as the silence was pierced by a distant and warbled sound, the call of a canary.

The space flashed the purple colour once again as a gravely, celestial voice boomed ‘Our will be done!’. The floor beneath him seemed to give way although there was not a noise or debris or no evidence of a floor whatsoever he simply began to fall. Typically he would let out an immense anguished yell as he tumbled into the abyss below, however he knew this place all too well.

Flashes of his lives filled his vision: a warm-hearted man of teal hair and deep sea-blue eyes, clutching a poppy close to his chest while tears streamed down his face; Four rather striking young men, on the left a taller, scrawnier gentleman with a once neat moustache, short black hair and beady black eyes filled with rage and fear on his wrist a modern gauntlet of sorts, on his left a shorter young man with blonder hair, wings for ears, tall dark eyes and a crimson jumper he held a sword in front of him and a sense of guilt in his eyes, next to him a plumper man of average height stood with nothing but kindness in his eyes, the last man was more obscured than the rest he stood in a robe the same hue as the light in the void he fell from; Next a kindred soul with bright flames for hair, and bug-like vermillion eyes, pointed ears and a blue neckerchief proudly worn, his face washed with sorrow and rage then, like the others he was gone.

A short while passed until the next visage appeared: Two rebellious young fellas, one all to familiar with his winged ears, crimson jumper and tall dark eyes this time he also wore a studded leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses, the other a funny soul also adorned in studded leather and a pair sunglasses, he had a longer darker head of hair with a glowing red stripe down the right side of his fringe and two antenna poking out of his locks. Both of them sitting on the edge of a bride laden with wheat

All of these, his friends, his fallen comrades, allies lost to the abyss. He grew weary and began to drift in a slumber until the next time he would awake in a brand new world.

#secret life smp #inthelittewood #watcher lore #watchers #3rd life #jimmy solidarity #solidaritygaming #last life #limited life #listeners #listener jimmy

[imagine-darksiders]

Fish Out of Water

Five Nights at Freddy’s - Security Breach

Daycare Attendant X Reader

Giant mer au. 

Summary: What you're looking at is...

Well, quite frankly, it's impossible.

There's a face hanging above you, Lovecraftian in proportion – taller and wider than you are long, with features about as adjacent to a human's as one could possibly get.

For the first few seconds, you remain frozen to your spot, unblinking, half expecting the grinning visage to fade away as sobriety takes you back into its safe, sense-making embrace.A pair of milky, white eyes peer down at you, hanging in the expanse of yellowing skin, like twin pools of alabaster paint.

 You'd hesitate to even call them eyes, but then, the damn things b l i n k.

Tags/Warnings: Mermay 2022, Giant Mermen, Amputee Reader, Amputation, Medical Trauma, Depression, Grief and Mourning, Ableism, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Minor Character Death, Car Accidents, G/T, Giant/Tiny, Explicit Language, Loss of Leg, Mental Health Issues

----

It still hurts sometimes. The leg.

Well, what constitutes for the echo of a leg.

'Phantom limb pain,' your physician informed you, 'Unsettling to be sure, but common and usually harmless.'

Harmless. You vividly recall tasting the bile on your tongue, and how you'd barely managed to withhold a bitter scoff as you sat there in that green, plastic chair whilst the spot below your right hipbone pinched and twisted around the ghosts of nerves that used to occupy the now empty space.

Physiotherapy was... disheartening.

Things you once took for granted, like standing up, suddenly became insurmountable tasks in their own right.

As the weeks dragged by, you acclimatised to the basic, clunky prosthetic limb provided to you by the hospital, and the whole while, your bitterness only grew until at last, after twelve, gruelling weeks fraught with despair, rage and terrible, numbing apathy, you were discharged from physio and hobbled right into a veritable slew of legal procedures.

Your paternal aunt had driven you back to the big, empty house on the outskirts of your home town - the house that had belonged to your parents not four, short months ago.

After just a few meetings with their solicitor and a signature or two... or three... the house was promptly handed over to you, along with a generous chunk of their estate.

A leg wasn't the only thing that drunk driver took from you on that warm, summer evening...

Still, you held no ill-will for the poor bastard. In the end, he too had paid the ultimate price.

You heard his funeral was a lonely affair.

The one you managed to put together for your parents was about as fine as you could make it.

Closed-casket, despite best efforts from the morticians. You don't think your mother would have wanted people to see her when she wasn't at her best, after all.

The hall was filled with businessmen and opportunists alike – former clients of your father's – all attending under the guise of 'friends,' and all terribly interested to know what the young heiress plans to do with the family business now that dear, old mum and dad have shuffled off this mortal coil.

The only real family who came was your Aunt, Lucy.

God bless her stamina, she had fielded the untimely questions in your stead. You were quiet for the most part, read a few words here and there, nothing particularly moving, but judging by the amount of people not-so-subtly checking the time on their Rolexes, short and sweet was probably the favourable route to go down.

In the months that followed, you underwent a metamorphosis of sorts, swiftly shifting from socialite to recluse.

Predominantly, it was the comments that rattled you; words whispered around corners after you hobbled by on your crutches, or murmurs you caught wind of over in the next aisle at the supermarket by gossipers who thought that a missing leg somehow equated to terrible hearing.

'Poor dear,' you heard on the daily.

'Such a shame.'

'Glad that wasn't me though...'

But perhaps the worst? 'Used to be quite the catch. All that money. But who wants to look after that for the rest of their life, eh?'

'Could hire a carer for her?'

Suddenly, you'd turned from a promising, young asset to everyone's missed opportunity.

Your parents lives had revolved around money. Their friends' lives revolved around money.

The revelation that in the eyes of the people, your value had decreased significantly with the loss of your leg was a laughable bagatelle... Until it wasn't. Until the remarks came too frequently and for too long. That stiff upper lip you'd inherited from your mother slowly began to wobble, and the walls your father had taught you to build were slowly chipping away, brick by brick. With every pitying glance, every morning that you woke up and peeled back the covers, every time you failed to distribute your weight properly and ended up taking a spill on a crowded street, you withdrew further and further into yourself, into the house, into the wine cellar.

Bitter and festering in a miasma of grief, you helped yourself to the reserves, down there in the dark with nobody but the spiders for company.

A bottle of 1959 Dom Perignon? Hideous aftertaste, but it helped with that phantom pain in your leg and the one in your heart.

And that was your wretched, little life, for several months following the end of your physiotherapy.

Eventually though, as is often the case with wittering aunts who don't know how to mind their own business, Lucy staged a one-woman intervention, all but hauling you out of the house by the arm and dumping you unceremoniously into her Aston. Damnable woman was a personal trainer. And a bloody good one at that. But it wasn't an exercise regime that was on her agenda for you.

“Darling, it's like watching a scorpion sting itself to death!” she exclaimed in that dramatic way that glamorous aunts often do, her scarf flying about in the wind as she sped aimlessly down the country lanes with the roof of the car retracted, “Of all my nieces and nephews, you always were my favourite.”

A bold-faced lie, but you'd appreciated her effort at the time.

“But you're ever so sensitive too, dear!”

Sensitive. A codeword used to describe the outcast who took more of an interest in artistic pursuits than seek to follow in the family business or other entrepreneurial exploits.

“It's a charming little cottage, your grandfather used to frequent with the gents from his fishing days.”

You realised right then and there what she was about to suggest. But you didn't offer up any protest. Not that there'd be much point. Your aunt had inherited the bullheadedness of her own mother, and once her mind is made up, there's little that can sway her focus, short of a chemical explosion.

“You know, Karen Blixen wasn't far off the mark when she wrote-”

“-The Deluge at Norderney,” you'd finished in a mutter, watching the neatly-trimmed verges flash by, there and gone in a moment...

“Well remembered!”

How could you possibly forget it? Any time Aunt Lucy heard of an ailment in the family, she'd come around, armed not with a packet of paracetamol or a cold compress, but with her favourite quote.

A pause ensued, and then the line you anticipated fell off her painted lips. “I know a cure for everything: Salt water.”

You had to endure her expectant gaze burning into you from the corner of her eye until you'd sighed, resigned yourself to your fate, and played along. “Salt water?”

Her response was instantaneous. “Yes! In one way or the other. Sweat, tears, or the salt sea.”

She'd half turned to peer over at you then, her fathomless eyes hidden behind those cat-eye sunglasses she always wore, even in the dead of winter when the sun was just a distant memory. You'd clenched your hands into the leather seats, hating that her focus wasn't on the road. Hating the whole car ride in general, really.

“I think.. a bit of time away by the sea would do you some real good, my dear.”

'But what good could an ocean do?' you wondered in dismissive silence. Certainly, it's true that the salt can help dry out cuts and abrasions and help the skin's tissue grow more effectively, but can it raise the dead? Can the properties of the sea rebuild a broken body, if not a broken soul? What almighty magic could the ocean offer someone for whom magic has been dead for a long, long time?

But then... what could you have possibly done in the way of protesting your Aunt's suggestion?

It was nigh impossible to win an argument against Aunt Lucy, even when you were at your most spirited. What hope did you have then, to argue against her with half your wit intact and a dark cloud hanging over you like smog from a factory's chimney?

“All right, Auntie,” you'd conceded, because to say 'No,' would be less sensible than waving a red flag in the face of a charging bull.

At last, her eyes had returned to the road and you relaxed minutely in the seat.

“Splendid, darling! Splendid! Oh, Daddy would be so happy to see the old place lived in again.”

The look of triumph on her face had eased some of your reservations. She liked to help, even if she did employ the battering-ram approach a little too often.

“I'll take you back to the house-”

You wager she'd have just kept driving until you agreed with her either way.

“-Derek can drive you down to the coast. He's been meaning to take the old Ghost out for a nice, long burn...”

Ah, Derek – the latest accessory that Lucy tended to dangle off her arm like a shiny bauble.

Volunteered for chauffeur duty, he'd pulled up into the driveway of your house just two days later in his pristine, white Royce.

And with a backpack stuffed with a few changes of clothes, your sketchbook and watercolours and of course, your clunky prosthetic, you'd settled tentatively in the passenger seat, offered him a polite word of thanks, and began your journey to the sea.

----------------

There are scarce few things in nature, you reason, that come quite so close to rivalling the splendour of a sunset over water.

You're perched precariously upon the precipice of a tall, chalk cliff, barely a hundred paces or so from the back door of your grandfather's rundown, ramshackle cottage that could use a coat or two of fresh paint to liven it up... maybe a fumigation... an exorcism...

Your legs – 'leg,' you remind yourself sharply – dangles over the edge of the cliff, heel kicking idly against the soft chalk beneath you.

Way down below, the sea swells and retreats gently from the rocks, back and forth and back and forth, wave followed by wave followed by wave.

'Aunt Lucy was right,' you huff with begrudging fondness. The bucolic sight is soothing, to a degree.

But there's only so much a nice view can do to relax the mind.

“God, that's pretty,” you drawl aloud to nobody but the open air before taking a long swig from the beer clutched in your hand. Three empty bottles are strewn about in the grass somewhere behind you whereas to your right, the prosthetic leg sits, unattached but constantly in your peripheral vision like a detested symbol of your missing piece – never coming close to the real thing, but trying its best to mimic a functioning limb.

You don't even notice that you've curled your lips into a sneer until the false is in your free hand and you're glowering hatefully down at the ugly, clumsy thing.

You couldn't really say what possessed you to start talking to it. If your parents were here, they'd roll their eyes and tell you to stop behaving like a child. They used to say similar things if they overheard you talking to your toys when you were very small.

'Only people who don't have any friends talk to inanimate objects,' your mother announced one day, peering down her nose at you, 'For goodness sake, don't let anyone hear you. People will think you're simple.'

You've kept your promise, at least. Even now, there's nobody around to hear you grumble matter-of-factly at your own, replacement leg.

“Everyone stares at you, you know.”

The leg, of course, doesn't respond.

“Tch.” Scoffing, you bring the beer to your lips again and grimace at the taste. “It's probably because they know you're just gonna break down in a couple of months, anyway. Then, they'll toss you in the landfill with all the... the other useless junk...”

In your misty haze, you'd swear that hateful leg gives you a condescending look.

“Fuck. You,” you seethe venomously, soft as a whisper but quivering like a leaf in gale-force winds.

It's perhaps the first show of real, raw emotion you've released since the funeral.

Fitting then, that it's here, when you're finally, truly alone, nobody but screaming gulls for company that you feel safe enough to let the proverbial walls come crashing down to the ground. The first flood of tears are a surprise and if it weren't for the way your vision blurs and warps, you'd accredit the moisture on your face to the waves that hurl sea-spray against the rocks far below you.

There are no silent stares out here, nor briefly stolen glances or excessive sympathy from well-meaning do-gooders.

Cheap beer from a petrol station mixed with grief and an unhealthy dose of repressed animosity for your situation make for one hell of an emotional cocktail.

Reeling the prosthetic leg back over your head, you turn to face the golden sunset, pinks bleeding like watercolour into reds and yellows as if some, great artist brought out his paints and decided to create a fleeting masterpiece that will only disappear in a few, short hours.

Then, with a shout borne of alcohol-driven acrimony, you thoughtlessly pitch the false leg forwards, hurling it clear over the side of the cliff and watching it soar through the air for several, glorious moments before inevitably, gravity does its job and the prosthetic begins to descend, down, down and down again, all the way to the ocean.

'.... Plop.'

… The resulting splash is wildly unsatisfactory.

Whatever catharsis you hoped to gain from ridding yourself of the embodiment of your disability doesn't come. In its place, you feel the telltale pang of regret shoot through your stomach, growing more acidic after you recall leaving your crutches back at the cottage...

“... You. Idiot!” you reprimand yourself, pinching the bridge of your nose and exhaling roughly through it.

The grass comes up to meet you as you flop over backwards with a heavy thud and fling an arm across your eyes, allowing the tears to spill from their confines and ooze in tiny rivulets down your cheeks and into your hair.

The beer bottles lay forgotten at the side of your head.

For several minutes, you content yourself to simply lay here on the cliff's perilous edge, knowing that eventually, you're going to have to drag yourself back up the dirt path on your belly, all the way to your grandfather's cottage where you'll need to make arrangements for a new prosthetic, not to mention compensate the hospital for the one you've just chucked into the sea like a toddler throwing her toys out of the pram.

Maybe your parents were right.

Maybe it is high time you grew up...

Sealing your eyes tightly shut, as if that would stop the tears from spilling, you remove your arm and stare up at the insides of your eyelids instead.

You could have sworn you'd already hit rock bottom when you woke up in the hospital bed to the news that your parents hadn't survived the crash, only to instantly learn that you'd lost a leg as well.

But somehow, this moment feels slightly more apt for the term.

Alone, misshapen, friendless and an orphan to boot, drinking beers and projecting onto a plastic leg?

This is bedrock. And it's your own, damn hand that's wrapped around the shovel that brought you here.

Way down below you, there's the sound of a particularly large wave crashing against the rocks. A few moments pass by in blissful solitude before the meagre light permeating your eyelids dims considerably.

You wonder, briefly, if the sun has at last dipped low enough on the horizon to bring about the coming night, or perhaps a cloud has simply moved in front of it.

The whispering wind sighs in your ears and whisks away your hitching breaths.

You ought to have known that peace is a fleeting thing, much like a sunset.

All of a sudden, you're jolted to attention by a loud clatter on your right that pulls a gasp from your lips and you fling your head sideways and lurch upright, eyes peeling open to land upon -

“What.. in the world?”

Reaching out with a shaky hand, you run the tips of your fingers along the hard, plastic casing of your very own, runaway prosthetic.

But... didn't you just...?

You cast a bewildered glance at the beer bottles nearby. Three utterly dry, one only half empty, spilling what remains of its contents into the soil.

… Right then and there, you absolve that alcohol probably isn't a healthy coping mechanism.

Still, at least now you don't have to drag yourself back to the cottage.

You aren't prepared to feel and hear the ground shudder underneath you, nor for the sky to tear asunder as if a growl of thunder had just boomed overhead.

“What the... Hell-!?” Your words die on the tip of your tongue as you finally decide to look up, and up, and further up still, until your neck is craned all the way back and your mouth drops open, incapable of stringing together a single, coherent sentence.

What you're looking at is...

Well, quite frankly, it's impossible.

There's a face hanging above you, Lovecraftian in proportion – taller and wider than you are long, with features about as adjacent to a human's as one could possibly get.

For the first few seconds, you remain frozen to your spot, unblinking, half expecting the grinning visage to fade away as sobriety takes you back into its safe, sense-making embrace.

A pair of milk-white eyes peer down at you, hanging in the expanse of pale, yellow skin, like twin pools of alabaster paint. You'd hesitate to even call them eyes, but then, the damn things blink.

Snapped back into your more sensible instincts, you recoil in horror as filmy eyelids sweep horizontally across the beast's sclera, serving as sobering proof that the thing you're staring at is indeed alive.

Throwing out your hands, you begin to scrabble backwards over the grass, kicking uselessly with one leg and at last, you suck down a lungful of air and unleash a scream so piercing, the gigantic face flinches back.

With the distance inadvertently created, you become all too cognizant of the fact that whatever this is, it is so much more than just a disembodied face.

Frantic, you catch a glimpse of its mouth that opens like a fissure splitting across barren ground, stretching impossibly wide until each corner nears the very edge of its round, flat visage.

Perhaps it should have come as a relief to you that in the place of nightmarish fangs as you expected, there instead sit a solid line of bristly, baleen plates, not unlike those you'd see in the mouth of a humpback or a bowhead. But a lack of conventional teeth does absolutely nothing to soothe the abject terror threatening to drown you under its icy waters.

“Ho-ohly shit!” is all you can muster, briefly giving up the mad, backwards scramble in favour of trying to get your legs underneath you, forgetting for one, crucial moment, that you have to stop referring to your legs in the plural...

You're too busy staring agog at the slender, sinewy torso rising up from beyond the edge of the cliff to realise that while one foot plants firmly on the grass, the other cannot, and as you attempt to heave yourself upright, you place far too much weight in the wrong hip and end up toppling over onto your side with a grunt of pain.

All at once, the sounds rumbling out of the behemoth raise in pitch. You peel your squinted eyes open again, only to shriek when you see the gargantuan mountain of an entity looming down towards you, that wide, terrible mouth emitting a long string of clicks and clucks that reverberate deep inside your chest.

Pointed, prehensile fins encircle its head and flop backwards to lay flat against its skull at the sound of your scream as the behemoth draws closer – too close for your liking.

“No! Stop! Get AWAY!” you yelp, torn between flight, fight and freeze.

What the Hell kind of cosmic being saw fit to end your life in such an unorthodox manner? It hardly seems fair.

You came out here to escape your troubles, not find newer, bigger ones.

'Nothing ever happens in that lazy corner of the country,' your aunts words cheerfully resound in your ear.

'Auntie...' You send her a quick and spiteful thought. 'You've got a really fucked up idea of nothing!'

Something huge, soft and wet prods at your intact calf and you let out another, desperate bleat, rolling instinctively onto your stomach and bringing your arms up to protect the back of your neck. Futile, perhaps, but this situation is hardly one that wildlife experts cover in their autobiographies.

Keeping the top of your spine covered against jaws that size seems fruitless in retrospect, but it's all you can think to do.

You aren't sure what's worse though - Having to keep the beast in your line of sight or not being able to see what's coming.

Cheek pressed uncomfortably to the grass, you crack open one eye and risk a glance up and behind you, only to instantly wish you hadn't.

Whatever the Hell you've come across seems to be fixated on your remaining leg, which is coincidentally the moment you discover that it has hands.

Four fingers and a thumb on each – eerily like that of a human's – but interspersed by a vibrant, orange membrane.

A webbed hand.

... Definitely aquatic then.

One of its appendages thumps resoundingly on the ground ahead of you whilst the other hovers curiously above your leg. Then, a single forefinger that looks to be even longer than you are extends forwards, nudging gently against your exposed limb, eliciting a flinch and a whimper from you in kind.

'What are you doing?' you pose to it in your mind, 'Checking how lean the meat is?! Go. Away!'

Rather than adhere to your pitifully shrill, internal demand, the creature brings its face in close again, causing sea water to drop from its fins and sprinkle down all over you like a rain shower.

With your heart in your throat, you watch it study your leg for another, arduous minute.

Then, the quiet is dashed like waves on the cliff face when its monumental, blank-eyed stare swings around to lock with your gaze, its mouth splitting into a fluttery, but unmistakable grin.

The sight steals what's left of the air in your lungs.

'It's smiling? How is it smiling?' Smiling would have to mean it's feeling an emotion of some kind. But... what if this isn't a smile? What if this is merely how the creature bares its teeth?

Without so much as a lick of warning, the beast suddenly leans down, parting its mouth with a warble that only prompts a far less sonorous cry to leap clumsily off your lips.

You fly into motion just a second too late, dragging yourself forwards along the ground on your elbows... for all of a few, measly feet.

A solid line of strange teeth close gently around the collar of your old, woollen cardigan and before you even have another chance to shout, you're hoisted up off the ground, yanking fistfuls of grass out in your desperation to remain adhered to the earth.

“No!” you gasp, swinging helplessly from the crooning monstrosity's teeth as it peels itself backwards off the side of the cliff and begins to slide down into the deep, blue waters below you.

“This can't be happening!” you repeat to yourself over and over again, “This is not happening!”

Things like this simply don't occur. You have to be dreaming. Perhaps you've fallen asleep on the cliff and this is all just a big, terrible, beer-induced nightmare.

The world around you turns into a dizzying blur of colours, shapes and motion as your captor heaves itself backwards, dropping further and further back down over the edge of the cliff until you're no longer looking down at the ground, but rather the churning sea that sits in wait, far, far below your kicking leg.

If it drops you from this height, the water will rise up to meet you like a slab of concrete. You won't stand a chance.

It's only in response to the disastrous height that you stop struggling and your limbs lock into place as though they've been encased in cement.

Rhythmic puffs of hot, rancid air flow continuously from the creature's maw and envelop your senses in breaths that stink of fish and seaweed. Paralysed as you are by terror, you can't help but gag at the stench.

Once you get your first, proper glimpse of the beast carrying you, icy tendrils of dread slither around your neck until it seems you can't even take in enough air to properly scream.

A rawboned, yellow torso tapers off about halfway down the cliff and seamlessly blends with a long, fleshy tail that disappears into the waters below. You can't tell whether the shimmering scales are simply reflecting the last, dying embers of the sunset, or if they're really that vibrant meld of reds and oranges, highlighted here and there by swirling patterns of the most indescribable gold that would have turned Midas himself envious.

Gradually, as the creature lowers itself down from the cliff to join the rest of its body in the ocean, you're struck quite fiercely that it might have finally happened.

You may have actually lost your mind this time.

There is no rational way to explain why you're being accosted by a giant, ethereal mermaid. Now that really is crazy.

The water all around the beast suffers a massive displacement when it drops its upper body in amongst the waves, bringing its face – and by extension, you – just above the water's surface.

“Wh-what are you doing!?” you splutter at what you're hoping and praying is just a vivd figment of your imagination brought on by trauma, grief and alcohol. Maybe those beers had been laced with something, after all.

In apparent response to your squeaked question, the creature hums behind your head, sending your teeth clattering against one another before it promptly peels its teeth out of your cardigan and allows you to drop the last few feet into the water with a startled yelp.

Salty liquid instantly rushes up your nose and floods into your mouth as you choose the worst possible moment to cry out.

For several, disorienting seconds, you continue to sink further below the surface, the cold of the water shocking you into stillness despite being dragged down by your thick, woolly cardigan.

Though your eyes sting already from the salt in the water, you force your lids to separate and peer through the slowly dissipating bubbles at the murky depths beyond them.

There is something inherently human to feel such paralyzing dread that comes with being in an open body of water alongside a predator. You discover that dread all at once when your vision is filled with that enormous, round face looming just metres in front of you in the water, its eyes squinted nearly all the way shut thanks to the smile that stretches its cheeks to their limits.

Together, the pair of you hang there in the vast, fathomless ocean, gazes inextricably locked, perfect strangers from entirely different worlds.

Behind the monster, its immense tail zips sporadically through the water in unpredictable motions that remind you an awful lot like a cat twitching its tail.

Is that what this is? Are you just the mouse being toyed with before a giant sinks its teeth into your vulnerable neck?

The creature's smile begins to wane the longer you float there until its entire head abruptly spins inquisitively to one side.

It's only now that you finally start to feel the burning discomfort enveloping your lungs, and all of a sudden, an entirely different kind of panic sets in.

You haven't yet been swimming, not since you lost your leg. You never learned how to get by in deep water with a missing limb! And your heavy cardigan is already so water-logged, doing its utmost to drag you further towards the seabed in spite of the salt trying to keep you afloat.

All coherent thought is torn right out of you and replaced with the very rational instinct to seek out the closest route to safe, breathable air.

In an explosion of limbs, you start to kick and flail like a mad thing, reaching out with laden arms to pull at the water around you whilst your one, remaining leg jabs frantically out beneath you.

Sunlight on the surface is quickly fading, but some still filters through like gold dust, too far away to reach, and the precious little air you'd sucked down starts to leak out from between your sealed lips and nostrils in small bursts.

In your frenetic scramble for the surface, you miss the way the beast balks at your behaviour, parting its teeth and releasing a confused warble into the ocean, as if the hulking thing can't work out which swimming technique you're aiming for.

The helpless display must perturb it however, because the next thing you know, a soft, malleable snout is nudging underneath your thigh, coaxing you gently up a little faster. In response, your whole body tries to lurch away from its probing face, but the beast easily keeps up, guiding you to the surface with careful bunts and pushes from its flattened nose. You don't even register that it's incremental to your journey upwards until your head finally breaks through into the open air and you gasp raggedly, spluttering, floundering to put some distance between you and the monster.

Below the waterline, your unusual acquaintance gives your leg another, scrutinising stare, glugging thoughtfully to itself before its eyes light up and it turns its massive bulk around in the water, shooting off with just a single beat of its immense, billowing flukes.

You feel something large pass underneath you, disturbing the water, but you're too busy fighting off your cardigan to pay it much mind. With a final yank, you peel your arms out of the heavy fabric and leave the article behind in your wake, dooming it to the bottom of the ocean where it had tried to drag you not moments ago.

That finished, you swivel yourself clumsily about in the water until you spy your next objective: the cliff walls. You hardly care that the waves are hurling themselves up on the jagged rocks, you only care to get something solid under your foot as soon as possible and get out of the sea.

Spitting another mouthful of salty water, you begin your slow, arduous paddle towards the cliffs.

Time and again, your head dips under the waves and you have to kick and claw your way furiously upwards again, knowing that you're only going to tire yourself out if you don't keep moving in as straight a line as you can manage.

With every passing second, you wholly expect to feel the teeth of the almighty beast chomp down around your ankle and drag you into the drink once more.

As you start to draw within spitting distance of the rocks, you feel the strength behind the waves really pick up as they surge behind you with terrifying force.

Safety is so, tantalisingly close, if you could just keep -

- A watery howl reverberates through the sea around you.

Your assailant hasn't given up the chase, it seems.

Just as you'd feared, you feel those teeth upon you. But it doesn't aim for your leg, or any other of your dangling extremities. Instead, with unbefitting dexterity, that enormous head emerges from the water behind you and it slips its teeth around the elastic waistband of your trousers, lifting you slowly out of the water.

“Woah! Hey!” you squawk, attempting to squirm out of the undignified position while the beast swings its great, finned head around, carrying you away from the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

So, it didn't appreciate your attempt at escape. Well, what on Earth did it expect?

Dangling above the waves once more, you notice a shape moving to the surface and realise, with a jolt of panic, that it's the creature's hand, rising through the water to rest just below the surface, palm facing the darkening sky. It plops you down on your stomach in amidst those webbed fingers and draws its head back, waiting for you to spin haphazardly onto your back before it aims a gentle frown at you, teeth clacking together in apparent agitation.

It's all you can do to gape up at its face.

If you didn't know any better, you could almost imagine that you're being scolded by this behemoth of the deep.

From what you're gathering, the rocks are out of bounds.

“I.. I don't -... Please!” you blurt out, scrubbing at your face and smearing tears across your stinging cheeks, “Please, just let me go! I don't know what you want from me!”

You let your shout bounce off the cliff walls and watch how the beast's fins quiver in response to the noise, flaring with interest as it stares down at you in silence for a moment longer before it.... appears to heave a great, big sigh through its teeth, head sinking down to you once again, jaws peeling apart.

“No!” Cowering backwards against its curled fingers, you raise an arm to aimlessly protect your face, only to yelp in alarm as something tumbles out of the creature's mouth and lands with a wet 'slap' in its palm beside you.

When you chance a glimpse, you have to do a double-take.

It's... a fish? A half-alive trout, by the looks of it.

You can't help but stare openly down at it, your brows slowly drawing closer together as the slippery, silver fish gasps for breath in the too-shallow water gathered in your captor's palm.

Speaking of whom.. Above you, it lets out a croon, low and deep as it grins, seeming all too pleased with itself for some reason and casting expectant glances between you and its catch.

… What in the world does it expect you to do with this?

The silent question goes unanswered when the poor trout suddenly flops sideways and slaps its tail against your ankle.

“OH! EW! Ew, ew – heugh!” Grimacing, you nudge the fish away with the toe of your shoe, pushing it towards the edge of the gigantic palm. But just then, the behemoth holding you huffs a loud breath through its flaring nostrils and you snap your head up to eye it warily as it bends down to crowd into your space once again, forcing you to press your spine back even further into the cage of fingers surrounding you.

The fish had been halfway to freedom when it's suddenly plucked up between large but nimble teeth and, to your utter dismay, dropped right into your lap.

This time, your squeal of protest is much more emphatic and you shove the fish off your leg, squeezing yourself away from the face hovering in front of you, tilted to one side, as if you're the one confusing it.

Undeterred in its unknowable quest however, the giant hums anxiously and gathers the rejected fish in its teeth once more.

With a single chomp, the seemingly benign baleen that had once held you captive slices clean through the fish's body, leaving the head of the poor animal to fall uselessly onto the creature's palm once again, dead, unseeing eyes staring up at you where you sit with your hand clasped around your mouth, expression contorting into one of abject horror.

Tears begin falling in earnest now and your chest heaves in and out with each, shuddering breath you take.

With the other half of the fish still dangling by the tail from its teeth, the beast brings its head in close to you again and you blurt a cry of outright horror as it tries to press its mouthful to your lips.

Of course, you react as any sane person would to having a raw, dead fish-end so close to your tongue and nose.

You slap both hands over your mouth, squeeze your eyes shut and shriek out a muffled, “FUCK OFF!”

It responds by attempting to shove the 'gift' more insistently against your fingers, all manner of clicks and whinges spilling out of its bobbing throat.

Horrified that this is all feeling far just a little too real for you now, you turn sideways to try and escape, burying yourself into its clammy fingers and trembling around sobs that wrack you from head to toe and cause your chest to burn with the effort.

The last of the sun's rays finally disappear below the horizon, slowly turning the ocean around you a sinister and inky black. If you ever make it out of this alive, you don't you'll ever go near a body of water again...

Lost to your delirium, you don't notice the shift in the air and the breeze falling still... But your captor certainly does...

It can feel the vibrations shudder through the water, growing stronger with each passing second, and it can hear that deep, sonorous hum that travels along the waves like the roll of faraway thunder.

Disheartened by your refusal to eat, the behemoth reluctantly withdraws, swallowing the fish in a single gulp. No use letting good food go to waste. Then, it raises its head and turns its gaze out to sea, emitting a lilted croon in response to whatever had called it away from the tiny creature in its palm.

You finally notice that you're no longer being hounded by a dead fish and risk a glance up at the giant's face, surprised – and a little relieved – to find that its attention has turned elsewhere. But that relief is short-lived when you start to ponder over what has captured its focus.

Sniffling, you twist yourself around at the waist to stare out between the gaps in its fingers, even daring to put a hand on the membrane and pull it down a little to see.

And what you see turns the blood in your veins thick and cold and draws all the life out of your cheeks.

You'd thought the beast holding you was terrifying, but it pales in comparison to the monstrous entity rising like a monolith out of the deep before your very eyes, sweeping its gargantuan body through the waters towards you, silent and fluid as a ghost.

If the beast cupping you in its palm embodies daylight, then this gruesome atrocity must be its midnight counterpart. Polar opposites, but terrifyingly alike.

Where your captor's fins are bright and eye-catching, the creature looming towards you out of the darkness has a sail of the deepest indigo stretching from the top of its head down to the small of its pale, white back. It's face too is round as the moon, but the eyes...

You can't suppress a vivid shiver at the sight of those terrible eyes...

Like two, black tar pits that could swallow any light that tried to permeate them, save for the pinprick glow of two scarlet pupils hovering at the centre of each socket, somehow defying that very rule.

Below the waves, you notice dark, swishing shapes pulling the giant along, vast tentacles, eight of them, each one the length of a football field and roughly the width of a redwood tree and flecked with silvery speckles that resemble a galaxy blanketed with stars.

'Good god,' your mind supplies, 'It's part-fucking-cephalopod.'

The huge tendrils draw the newcomer up close to its fellow leviathan and it drifts to a graceful stop, blood-red pupils flicking down to you before returning to the other beast holding you hostage.

And then, it bares its teeth.

You barely manage to stifle a whimper.

Row upon row of sharp, jagged fangs jut from the top and bottom of its elongated mouth, gleaming in the pale moonlight that shines down from overhead as it hisses at its brethren, causing you to wonder if they're even affiliated at all.

Is it about to attack? It certainly doesn't look too happy from your angle?

But the beast holding you doesn't seem to be concerned, and instead, it suddenly lifts you up towards the other's face, eliciting a series of, 'No, no no's' that stream incessantly from your lips when you find yourself staring straight into that fang-filled mouth.

The new creature takes a second to peer down at you, its pupils glowing brighter with something akin to interest. It's a Hell of a thing to have that gaze searing into you, studying you, dissecting you with its blazing eyes.

... There's intelligence in those eyes...

In the next second, you flinch as it suddenly shakes its head from side to side and snaps its teeth at its softer counterpart, grumbling low in its throat and getting a click or two in response. To your untrained ears, they appear to be having a conversation of sorts, although what a pair of creatures like these two have to discuss, you don't even want to hazard a guess.

The smaller, brighter one ducks its head at a particularly sharp rattle from the larger beast, yet it still huffs out a response and lifts its other, unoccupied hand to place a slender finger against your leg.

Reflexively, you snatch your limb away from the touch and try to tuck it underneath yourself.

Ruby-red eyes drill holes into you as it falls eerily quiet, only the waves rocking gently against its hide make any sound. Then, after chuffing shortly at its opposite, the darker one holds out its enormous, webbed hand, crooking its fingers as if to tell the other beast, 'Hand it over.'

You're awfully certain that the 'it' in question refers to you. If it boils down to a choice between the two, you'd prefer to be killed by the beast without glowing, red eyes and a mouthful of shark teeth.

In response, your captor's orange fins flatten miserably against its head and it draws you close to its chest, but after receiving a withering glare, it concedes to hold you out once more, presenting you like a dainty morsel to the far scarier juggernaut, who wastes no time in extending its arm towards you.

No matter how much you might fear the beast to your back, there's no way in Hell you want to be anywhere near the one in front of you. You truly are stuck fast between a rock and a hard place.

Sinewy fingers, each tipped by claws as long as your hand, quickly eat up the distance between you and the newcomer. Gulping like that dying fish, you try to shove yourself backwards across the water-slicked palm beneath you, and you'd likely have taken a tumble right over the side if the approaching hand hadn't suddenly struck like a viper, propelling forwards and wrapping around you at a startling speed that knocks a wheeze out of your lungs.

“-Ack! DON'T!” you holler, but it's already far too late.

Like serpents, the fingers wind around your torso and leg, yet they leave your arms free, and you waste no time in trying to scrabble furiously against the solid bands of muscle constricting all around you.

“Get your hands... off me!” you demand shrilly, bristling like a cornered kitten and sounding about as intimidating as one too. The entity, however, hardly seems bothered as it lifts you close to its face and tips its hand, fingers unfurling until you find yourself sitting in the cup of its palm, where it swiftly places its thumb across your stomach, holding you still, content to ignore the feeble shoves you give to the heavy appendage.

To the rear of your odd trio, the yellow creature is croaking and mumbling through pursed lips, wringing its gigantic hands as if something has made it anxious, yet it draws close up behind its counterpart and keeps its eyes glued to the side of your face as you remain helplessly in the secure yet surprisingly cautious grasp.

The new beast doesn't squeeze you to a pulp, doesn't try to stuff you between those fangs or wrap one of its tentacles around your neck to choke the life of of you... Instead, after peering down at you for a few, awful moments, it turns about in the water and begins moving, not further out to sea, but towards the cliffs you'd come from. You barely have time to process this strange turn of events before you're suddenly tilted in its palm and brought up against a cool, clammy chest, pinned there by dextrous fingers as the beast stretches four of its prehensile tentacles up towards the top of the cliff. 

Incapable of escape, you watch in horrified fascination as the suckers on each limb adhere themselves to the walls and it begins to climb, hauling itself up and over the edge with you still clutched to its pasty chest.

You vividly hear the sound of glass smashing as its tentacle lands of top of the discarded beer bottles, but aside from twitching its frills at the sound, the behemoth doesn't outwardly react.

With slow, loping movements, it begins to pulls itself along the ground using its tentacles, perturbing you even further with the knowledge that it can traverse both land and sea.

Near-enough silent, its limbs swish through the grass and carry you up the slope, right to the back door of your temporary domicile.

By now, you've essentially given up attempting to make sense of the goings-on around you and resolve to simply remain still and limp in the creature's grasp, hoping for the best, but definitely expecting the worst.

Yet, as if the two entities haven't surprised you enough, you're further stupefied when the one holding you lets out a resonant hum and lowers you to the ground just in front of the back steps, by the door. It doesn't let go of you though, keeping you securely fastened underneath its thumb for several seconds, ample time for your initial captor to heave itself over the clifftop and drag its cumbersome body up to the cottage as well, chirruping as it catches sight of you again.

It's no surprise that the tentacled beast had an easier time lugging itself over the ground thanks to all its additional limbs.

With safety beckoning only a few feet behind you, you attempt to struggle against the thumb once more, but you soon go rigid as the creature of midnight blue lowers itself down onto its elbows, sending a quake through the ground when it makes contact with the Earth.

Holding your eye – because really, how are you supposed to turn your back on something that large and horrifying – it slowly extends its neck towards you, the wicked teeth inside its mouth prying themselves apart.

The sudden reminder of those very real threats hits you like a sack of bricks and you start to fight against its hold in earnest, batting at its thumb with clenched fists and choking out a desperate plea, “Oh, god! Please don't!”

Vivid memories of that dead-eyed fish spring up unbidden in your mind's eye.

You... don't want to die. Not like this, at least.

Your parents were ripped away from you against their will, through no fault of their own.

You never realised how badly you want to be in charge of your own fate until now. The very thought of being chewed on as nothing more than a snack for this wretched, undiscovered sea monster turns your heart to lead.

Through bulging eyes, you can do nothing but watch on, morbidly transfixed as a slimy, pitch-dark tongue creeps out from between the creature's barbed teeth and begins to slither towards you, prompting a string of curses to dribble off your lips.

Stuck with nowhere to go and almost seeing double from the panic fizzing in your brain, you clamp your eyes shut and dig your fingernails into its fleshy thumb, waiting with bated breath...

A sudden, unexpectedly damp sensation swipes against the bottom of your damaged thigh and you splutter out a gasp, flinging your eyes open to see the grotesque tongue ghosting over the scarred tissue that mars the bottom of your stump.

Pulling a face, you give the fraction of a limb a twitch and jerk your opposite leg across to kick feebly at the creature's encroaching tongue.

“Hey! Stop that!” The reprimand hardly comes out as anything more substantial than a meek whimper, but the creature does draw its tongue back behind its teeth with a huff. You have no idea what kind of bacteria live in that saliva, but an infection is the very last thing you need right now.

The beast pulls itself away and you're filled with an almost insurmountable urge to weep with relief when it finally, finally peels its thumb from your stomach and begins to tilt its palm forwards, allowing you to slip off onto the back step on your rear, gaping up in shock as it pulls its hand away again.

Free at last but still aghast at the thought of turning your back on not one, but two, aquatic deities, you shuffle backwards up the step until your spine hits the door behind you with a loud 'clunk,' rattling it inside its flimsy frame.

One of the darker beast's tentacles begins to approach and you snap your head in its direction, wondering if you could get to the key beneath the mat and unlock the door before the twisting appendage reaches you... but once again, it seems your apprehension is unfounded. A small flash of white catches your attention, half hidden by narrow coils, and as you stare, the beast raises the limb a little closer to you, then drops its captured item by your foot, slowly retracting the tentacle once its deed is done.

You blink owlishly down at the object.

It's your prosthetic leg.

“I...” But words more compounded than single-syllable vowels fail you.

Why would they return this? You'd almost forgotten all about your missing limb, deeming it comparatively mundane when seen next to a pair of colossal, otherworldly beings.

Movement, again, this time a flash of yellow and orange has you raising your eyes just in time to see the ichthyic creature all but shove its counterpart out of the way in its haste to stoop down and thrust its face out towards you, and before you even have the wit to lift your arms in some sort of meagre defence, it's enormous, red tongue darts out and slaps wetly against your chest, dragging a rough line up over your throat, face and hair and leaving a delightful trail of slobber behind as a parting gift.

The urge to vomit becomes increasingly difficult to ignore. It wasn't so long ago you watched that mouth devour the lower half of a trout, bones and all. Spluttering incoherently, you raise your hands and swipe the creature's saliva out of your eyes, shooting it an exasperated glance that goes utterly ignored.

With a roll of luminous, red eyes, the paler of the two grabs the smaller beast by its wrist and begins the arduous task of dragging it down towards the edge of the cliff.

Before they leave however, your initial captor offers you one last, longing glance, then it turns to let itself get tugged along by the other creature, and with a quick swish of tentacles and flukes, the two of them vanish over the side and leave you wonderfully, blessedly alone on the back step, wondering whether to call the police, animal services, or the nearest mental health unit.

#Fnaf #Security Breach #Sunnydrop/reader #Sun/Reader #Moondrop/reader #Daycare attendant #Daycare attendant x reader #Mermay 2022 #merman #mer au #giant merman #Reader #amputee reader #amputation #medical trauma #depression #grief and mourning #ableism #alcohol #alcoholism #minor character death #car accidents #g/t #giant/tiny #language #mental health issues

[capricious-bastard13]

Dressed with Temptation

AO3

Mature Mild Sexual Content, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Masturbating in a Confession booth, Implied Sexual Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Religious Guilt, Sometimes you masturbate to 9-foot-tall Vampire Mommy Sanji, And the next you're fucking 9-foot tall Vampire Mommy Sanji's pussy

They came as a quartet. Walking down the streets in their hooded figures. Mysterious and captivating.

And in the centre of them all is a walking sin incarnate.

“Ask for forgiveness yet our Father has already forgiven. We must pray and plea humbly and meekly, not demandingly, be aware of the mistakes, of the sins we have committed, and we will be heard. Forgiveness is to be given to those who are repentant.”

“Amen.”

Zoro gives the crowd a firm nod. Lifting his hands up, palms toward the sky, he asks for the people to stand from the pews and kneel upon the kneelers, together, he says loud and concise, they pray with knowledge of the mistakes and sins they have and yet to commit for the day.

Taking a step back, he gives room for another priest to stand in front of the podium, hand holding the bible, finger pressed upon printed words.

The doors slam open, casting afternoon sunlight into the centre hallway. Shining light upon the backs of four new arrivals. The sun casting them in a holy light, their silhouettes pronounced and vivid.

These black hooded figures take measured, careful steps into the threshold. Everyone is quickly turned to look at them, eyes wide and following every movement, listening for every rustle of fabric, their mouths moving, voices whispering. Mouths and words poorly hidden by cupped hands and lingering looks of wonder and flabbergasted opinions.

They walk with their backs straight, air poised and holding the idea that they are above the people looking at them. The fabric of their outfits dragging against the floor, the most eye-catching of them all is one who stands in the middle, with a black wide-brimmed hat, covering most of their visage, entire skin covered in cloth that could put a nun’s dress to shame. It gives prominence to their figure, each step led forward by the hip, one long leg after another. The sound of a heel on the floor rippling through the air.

Who is this? Who are they? Who is he?

Heels clicking as they walk, heads turning this way and that, the pews are filled and so they continue walking. Zoro’s gaze is quick and swift to settle on the empty space at the very first row and the person in the middle seems to notice too.

Yet still they take their time making their way through rows upon rows of benches. As if they want the people to keep looking at them, keep them captivated by the motion of their bodies.

Stopping just before the stage, the figure in the middle tilts his head just so, peeking upward through the cover of his hat and dark lashes, he meets Zoro’s gaze with a smirk to cherry red lips. A wicked glint in his eye.

Swallowing, Zoro meets the gaze head on, watching as the group of four turn and make their way to the empty pew, taking their seat primly and promptly.

The priest at the front’s own gulping swallow is loud enough that it seems to have snapped him out of whatever trance he’d been in with watching the quartet enter. Licking his lips, he brings his bible up closer to his face and continues reading. Voice shaky for a moment as he tries to get his bearing back.

Zoro keeps his eye lain on the group, following the line of the man’s frame, the curved cinch of his waist, the long line of his crossed legs to the point of his high-heeled dress shoes.

The man moves his head once again, taking a peek at the priest, glancing at his way before lowering his head, covering his eyes, the rest of his face. A bashful, coy sort of gesture that has Zoro feeling like he’s been punched in the stomach.

Grasping the cross slung around his neck, thumb stroking on the lines of the cross, pressing the pad of his thumb deeper, imprints it to his skin, his mind chanting for control. To ignore the temptation.

In the darkness of night, the cover of the dark, he rests his weight on his knees, lets the stinging pain of pressed weight upon flesh and bone remind him of the present. Palms clamped tightly together, eye closed shut. Jaw clenched as he prays, his mind seeking for help, a sign, forgiveness.

Unbidden however, flashes of the day burst in colour in his mind, flashes of long legs covered in cloth, as if teasing, taunting him to take the fabric away, to see just how long, how unmarred those legs are.

Milky white skin, a smooth face, and bright, mesmerising blue hues stay at the forefront of his mind. Consuming all other thought until it’s the only one remaining.

Then comes the images of a small waist, held in his large hands, his fingers digging bruises into white flesh, painting them red and purple and a glorious black. Lips dragging across supple skin and leaving indents of his teeth upon them.

“Forgive me, Lord,” Zoro whimpers into the night.

Moonlight shining through stained glass windows. Jesus knelt with his palms together, looking upward to the heavens above, his expression pleading as holy light is cast upon him. “Forgive me.” The priest hisses out, shutting his eye tightly until dots of colour are all he can see.

A creak. Small and nearly unnoticeable causes his ears to perk up in attention.

Apologising profusely, he takes his time in turning to see who had come to him at such an hour.

Greeted by that familiar wide-brimmed hat, his breath wheezes out of him, knees weak as he slowly pushes himself up to stand, moonlight silhouetting the towering man’s stature.

Lifting his head up, Zoro’s breath comes out in a silent whine. Blue irises glowing in the dark, so stark and hypnotising as he’s look down upon.

His lips are plush and just like earlier, a wondrous vivid shade of red, dark and glossy, looking smooth to the touch.

His outfit shows off his collarbones, skin just as supple in his thoughts, unmarred and a delicious white. “Father,” his voice is melodic, a singing voice, tone gentle in the night, yet raspy like gravel. Confident and poised, he takes a step forward.

Still leading by the hips, his steps are just as measured as it was before, the fabric sliding as he takes his time with the motion of putting one foot forward, the fabric glinting—silk just like the surface of his skin. For a moment, he can’t help himself but wish for the dress the man is wearing to have a slit on the side, to catch himself a glimpse of the newcomer’s leg, see the length of it entirely, to get a peek of his calf, his knee, his thigh.

Deep breath in, he grasps at the cross hanging around his neck, rubbing his thumb on the surface of Jesus crucified, craved on and lacquered wood, grounding himself to the present, pull him away from the temptation trying to wrap itself around him.

Hand balled by his side, Zoro tries once again to take a deep breath in only for the exhale to come out stuttered and broken. Heart pounding loudly in his chest, the echoes of heels clicking mixed with the drumming beat of his heart the only sounds he can hear.

“Father,” the man coos out almost pleadingly, this time much closer, “I have something I must confess,” he’s getting closer, and Zoro's thoughts are empty, images instead play on a loop in his head. That voice a sin itself.

“Help me,” the taller man whispers, “please,” it comes out as a whimper, steps halting just less than a metre away and from this distance, Zoro can clearly distinguish the difference in height between them. Tilting his head back to be able to keep his sight on that bewitching profile. Blue eyes aglow, begging.

“Yes,” he says without thought, “My child, you must repent.” Words familiar, mouth moving on muscle memory alone, his voice strangled in his throat, sounding foreign to his own ears. But the man smiles down at him, beaming at him, teeth showing and eyes crinkling adorably.

“Thank you, Father.”

The words are murmured into the air, seduction dripping from ruby red lips and pearly white teeth. It takes everything within him to keep a level head.

Chanting comforting words in his head as he leads the towering man to the confession booth, heels once again clicking. He does his damnedest to not let thoughts go astray.

Yet with a blink, all he can see are long, long legs and warm hands cupping his face, thumbs stroking his cheeks as the man lifts him up under his arms just to give him a kiss. To have his lips pressed against that plush pair, resilient under the touch, bouncing with each draw as if Zoro hadn’t just kisses, licked and bitten down on it.

A shiver wracks his spine, makes his shoulders tremble vulnerably. Chanting to himself, reprimanding himself of allowing such thoughts rob him of breath and faith.

Shaking his head, he moves his gaze back to his new companion as they make their way to the confession booth.

He opens the door to one side of the booth, gestures with a numb hand for the man to enter who squats down and gingerly takes his hat off before entering. Blond hair, blond hair resembling that of molten gold, glinting in the dim light of the church, from gold to silver under the sparse moonlight.

When he closes the door, he finally lets himself give a sigh of relief, thanking God for giving him the strength to endure and persist away from the hands of temptation.

Then, he opens the door to the unoccupied side and closes it before he settles.

Taking one more fortifying breath in, he slides the little window open, a hand placing itself daintily unto the small ledge of space from the other side. Nails well cared for, long, lithe and no doubt nimble fingers, he wonders how deep it could reach, if it’s enough when the man pleasures himself. If the man laps around at his own fingers, if the pads press down on his tongue and caresses the back of his throat.

Digging his nails into his palm, he forcibly snaps himself out of it, keeps his hands clenched and on his lap. “You may speak, my child.”

“My name is—”

“No, no. You do not need to speak your name. Just of your sins, my dear. Anonymity is important, we do not judge a person by the sins they have committed.” Zoro doesn’t let the man finish. No, he doesn’t want to know what it would be like to taste the other’s name on his tongue, to let it coat his palate and slide down his throat. Reprimanding himself once more; Zoro is still quite the weak man to have fear over another’s name when he shouldn’t. Shaking his head, he continues, “Now, we are in the presence of the Lord. Honesty is rewarded here.”

“I see.” The nameless man mumbles, the hand that the priest is in view of balling into a loose fist. An audible sigh followed immediately by pregnant silence.

Zoro takes this time to look for something to ground himself with, the familiar motion of rubbing his thumb up and down the length of the cross appallingly losing its power in the face of this coquettishly tall man.

“Father,” the voice mewls, and it does something to Zoro’s stomach, swooping as if he’s been pushed off the ledge of a cliff, heart stuttering in his chest suddenly, “Father, I have sinned so terribly.” There’s a plea to his tone, he can picture the man pouting his lips as he has spoken, eyes glassy with held back tears.

As calmly and collectedly as he can, the priest replies, “Your sins have been admonished, dear. You simply must confess to them. The first step to for Lord’s forgiveness is admittance.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The man hurries to agree. When he speaks next, his voice is crisp and clear, body turned to the wall separating them, he can see the fabric of his dress through the little window, close to the opening and it would only take so little for him to reach out and finally get a touch—“My sin, Father, are thoughts. Unholy thoughts, ones that shouldn’t be present, especially to an unwed man such as myself.”

Zoro swallows whatever it is that’s lodged itself in his throat, tongue dry and lips cracked, a heat enveloping him swiftly, unexpectedly.

He closes his eye shut tight at the heat rising between his legs, a bulge just so beneath his robes.

The confessor continues, breathily and low, a secret for the two of them. “Father, I think of you. And your hands, your skin pressed against mine, your lips bruising my flesh, I want you, Father. To put your hands on me, whisper filth into my ears, make me scream—”

“Enough!” Zoro is panting, sweat accumulating on his back and nape, entirety of his face flushed hot and beading with sweat. He pushes to a stand, turns to look at the wall between them. “I do not need to know the details of your—your tempted thoughts, your allurement. These are details unimportant.”

“But Father!”

“I said enough!” He surges forward, pushing himself into the wall, words hissed between clenched teeth, “You are bewitched! The devil has taken hold of you! You are not repenting; you are spreading your disease!”

“Father, I beg you! I merely wanted to repent! Confess my sinful thoughts! Please! Help me.”

His trousers are so incredibly tight, sticking to the surface of his thighs, pressed against the hardness between his legs, his abdomen tight and pooled with immense heat. His hands are shaking as he reaches down and squeezes himself. The words bouncing around his head, the images vivid, the breaths shared between them within his grasp he knows it.

“Please, Father.” The man sings enticement into his ears, his being. Squeezing himself harder, a tingle travels up his spine, pleasant and earth-shattering. Finally with a growl, he slams open the door and opens the other side.

Without hesitation, he grabs the man by the arm and pulls him out, his bent legs stumbling and falling to the linoleum floor. When he looks up, his eyes are still aglow, brilliant in their shine, it calls out to him.

As they stare at each other, seconds ticking, his breathing the only sound in their surroundings, those cherry red painted lips stretch into a languid grin, canine teeth glinting under the coloured shade of moonlight, predatory and excitement dancing in that grin alone.

When the man stands up to his full height, Zoro doesn’t stop himself from looking up, eye dragging downward the entirety of the person in front of him. His fingers are quivering as he reaches out, palms clammy with cold sweat.

Gasp escaping when he finally gets to feel the fabric for himself, soft and smooth just as he thought it would be. Looking up once again, the man leans down and uses his fingers to trace the priest’s jawline, tip of his forefinger resting under Zoro’s chin as he tilts his head up higher.

“Touch me, Father.” The man hisses between them, teeth growing just a tad longer, much more prominent now than it was before, “Absolve me of my faults, of my mistakes, of my sins.”

“Of course,” Zoro readily replies, his thoughts escaping him, jumped out the window as lust takes the forefront, desire trembling in his fingers as he's bunching the skirt of the dress up, he places his hand against skin; it’s cold to the touch yet it doesn’t deter him, trailing upward until he can rest the cup of his palm on a knee.

Grinning back at the other, he lifts the skirt higher, up and over his head. There’s a gasp of surprise from the bold move and it spurs him on even more. Standing like they are, Zoro is delighted, simmering with energy to be face to face with the man’s crotch, his hands trailing up and down his legs, squeezing with a groan at the strength hidden in his thick thighs.

Swallowing down pooling saliva, he bends down just a tad, puts his lips upon white flesh, chaste kiss planted on the thick of a thigh, before he laps his tongue over the skin, groaning deep in the back of his throat at the taste he’s given, salty and tangy with sweat but sweet with whatever product the man had bathe himself with. The scent flowery yet easy on the nose. He thinks of roses and lavender oils, a filled bath with petals upon a tranquil surface.

There’s a weight of a hefty hand resting on the back of his head over the cloth of the dress draped over him, and it gives him that incentive to bare his teeth and bite down hard, spine electric with the dulcet gasp he’s greeted with, letting out a delighted noise at the marks left.

He switches to the other thigh, drags his lips across the inner side of the thigh, presses the dryness of his lips into supple skin before replacing it with sharp nips and nibbles.

Just like with the marked thigh, he licks a stripe up this one, his grip on the flesh tighter and digging deeper, biting down even harder.

The knees between his frame jolt and shudder with the force of it. The hand on his head gripping cloth and short hair alike.

“Yes,” the taller hisses satisfied.

One more, he tells himself, one more squeeze then he’ll finally allow himself to give the present of straightening his posture, of being levelled with the other’s quivering abdomen, presented with lacy undergarment trapping a pretty flushed thing. Wet and damp at the tip, leaking continuously, so enticingly. An unbidden chuckle escapes the priest, warmth of his breath causing the hardened length to jolt and shake. “So pretty.”

“I know,” the man replies confidently, knowing of the power, of the delightful lull he used to pull Zoro in so easily. “Just for you, Father.”

The priest gives pause, his face just centimetres away from diving in when the sentence clicks and registers in his head. His stomach is in knots. His mind coming to a halt, reminding himself of where he is but he wants this, wants to drown in it, to choke on the cloying allure, to let the temptation hold him by the throat and squeeze him dry.

Instead, carefully, he leans his forehead against a tight stomach, nosing at the trail of dark blond hair at the navel. “Zoro.”

“What?”

“My name, call me Zoro.”

“Of course,” there’s a smirk in the tone, “Zoro.” The priest shudders at the attention, body wracked with electricity just from the voice alone. Such power in something as simple as being called by his name, the tease in the cadence of his tone, the feather-light control being held back in his tone.

He wants the taller man to suffocate him, whether literally or metaphorically, either are too enticing that he wants it both. Salivating with the thought of it. Burying his tongue around a tight, fluttering muscle, heat wrapped around his tongue as he tries to chase it, to get in even deeper.

Letting out a guttural groan at the thought, the hand on his head pushes him forward, nudges him closer to cool skin, and he lets it, giving the tip of a leaking cock the most tentative of licks, hesitant yet eager as his tongue touches the slick coating the opaque fabric.

Through the lacy panties, he laps up at the length of it, shivering at the drag of his tongue against damp cloth, the hand on his head trying to goad him even further.

A hand wandering down, Zoro grits his teeth and tamps down the shudder that wracks through his being as he palms his own erection, sucking on the leaky, flushed tip in front of him, his other hand grasping tightly, grounding himself with every squeeze and bruising grip he gives the thigh standing strong beneath his hand.

Swallowing down the whimper as he grabs himself through the fabric, the roughness of the cloth giving him much needed friction, a spot on dark robes growing damp with roll of his hips into the press of his palm, precum gathering and pooling into a single spot.

Mouthing at the head, lips nibbling through opaque cloth, he savours and drinks in the taste, the smell captivatingly delicious. A gasp from above gives him the courage to pull on the underwear, the only sound in the still air as he frees the man’s erection, cock as long as his forearm, skin white as porcelain with a pretty pink tip, drenching heated skin wet, veins prominent and pulsing.

Dragging the garment down further, he swallows, breath taken in the face of the other’s entirety. Saliva pooling in his mouth, hunger consuming him, an urge, a want, a need coursing through his veins.

The priest gulps down his gathering saliva audibly, trying to imagine himself swallowing down the cock he’s presented with, the heavy weight of it on his tongue, the way the head would hit the back of his throat and he most likely hadn’t taken the man down to the base yet. Just the idea of it makes him desperate, thoughts frantic.

The skirt of the dress pulls up around him as the other’s panties drop to the floor, pooled around heeled feet and slender but strong ankles. Looking up, Zoro feels like he’s on his knees as a sharp-fanged smirk meets his gaze, nails scrape against his scalp carefully, gently, leisurely.

Then it moves to grab him by the cheeks, the fat of his face squished in his one hand as the man steps out of the dropped fabric, taking a step back to lean himself down and be within reasonable eye level with the priest in his hand.

His blue eyes glint in the dark, glowing brighter as his smile spreads wider. Moving his hand from his face, he trails a forefinger down the length of his tensed neck, tapping a long, manicured finger against the vein throbbing beneath tanned skin. Adam’s apple bobbing when the priest swallows, eyes locked with the other’s.

Zoro’s mouth gapes, his tongue moving listlessly, running over his teeth and the warm insides of his cheeks. There’s a name in his head, dancing beautifully, gorgeously, and it rests just on the tip of his tongue yet he can’t seem to say it, still trapped in the other’s steady gaze.

The man takes a small step forward, his breath warm as it hits the stunned priest’s face briefly, then he tucks himself close to his neck, hot air caressing his skin, the shell of his ear. “Do you know my name?” He sings into his ear, calling out to him, pulling him in even deeper.

Shaking his head before the move even connects with his brain and the man leans back to get another look at him, his tongue dragging over red luscious lips and fanged teeth, “Sanji.” The man—Sanji murmurs into the space between them, “Call me Sanji, Father.”

Sanji’s lips nip and nibble at his neck, his breathing picking up as he buries his face into the space, nosing at his vein. A tongue licks up from the juncture between shoulder and neck to the spot behind his ear. “Father,” he mumbles, “Zoro.” Moving back down, a pleasant shiver runs down his spine at the sensation of teeth hovering over his skin, pressing but not puncturing. A hand grasps him by the back of his head, as the other rests itself upon a protruding Adam’s apple, feels the way it jumps and bobs with every shallow swallow.

“You smell exquisite.” Sanji says with a moan, his teeth pressing down harder, “I want you on my tongue, Zoro,” with a hissing breath, Sanji opens his mouth and digs his teeth in, canine breaching through skin and flesh and into a living vein.

Zoro goes lax in his hold, his eye fluttering to a close as he lifts his hand up to rest on blond tresses, fingers tangled and clasped loosely. Sanji’s hips sway in the air as he drinks, his own eyes heavy lidded with each gulp. Lapping a tongue up at the open wound, he pulls back to look at the priest, his cheeks a beautiful red and his eye blackened with lust.

With a smile, Sanji surges forward, their lips meeting.

-------

With hair made of pure gold, soft like silk, it gleams beneath the moonlight. There is only one god, he asks for forgiveness.

Zoro closes his eyes shut tight, forming indents on the centre of his palms, digging into his skin and singeing through the sinews of muscles. His knees ache as he rests his weight upon them even more, teeth grit. "Father, forgive me," his voice rings out in the silence of it all, ringing in his ears.

Sanji's presence heavy despite the lack of his being in the room.

Jesus stays prominent above, eyes bloodshot and glistening with tears, palms forever bleeding, a crown of thorns he carries, skin wrinkled from the sun, tattered by the conditions he endured, feet rooted still. Never had Zoro resented the fact of being a mortal man.

The newcomers had swept in their village like a storm yet never left like one. Rather they stayed. He'd held himself in his hand in the dim and darkness of the booth with purring temptation on the other side, anonymity ignored.

Head hung below the earth, he'd hissed Sanji out of the church, watched as red-soled heels left phantom prints on the marble floors. Sanji's hands that waved in goodbye, is anything but a wave nor a farewell. Each long, lithe digit coming down onto his palm, gloved hand that showed off sharp nails, counting down until no more fingers remained, his voice tingling like a bell. "Goodnight, Padre Zoro."

The first thing he did once he got back into his quarters is bathe, rubbing skin red than tanned, raw yet filthy still. Sanji's being settling deep, deep underneath his skin, piercing into the marrow of his bones. He'd held himself for a second time in one night, nails digging into skin until he bleed in retribution.

"For I have," Zoro presses his palms even tighter together, Jesus looking down upon him in disappointment and disgust for his descendant, so easily ensnared in temptation, straying further from the path.

The newcomers had swung open the doors, walked down the aisle, with collarbones on display and a slit that revealed a leg.

Skin pale and porcelain, limbs graceful and dancing. Eyes blue and piercing. He is not a god to be worshipped.

The night is dark yet his Father looks upon him, brows knitted together in pity for the mortal man that he is, swayed and pulled in the direction the Almighty Father doesn't want him to. "Sinned." The cross between his hands burns his flesh, marking him for eternity in shame and reminder.

Sanji reclines in a bed of pillows, a four-poster bed with opaque veils draped over them, twined and twirling, trailing unto the carpeted floor. Plush, peach lips resilient against the nail he's biting down on, fangs peaking underneath.

Yes, Zoro is just a man.

Nail raking down, bleeding him raw and black. Sanji is not a god to be worshipped, rather ravished.

Golden hair made like a flame in the candlelight, scent sweet like cherries and addicting like whiskey. He's sworn off a lot of things in his life as he grew older, and his muscles spasm in contradiction of body and mind.

Head thrown back and legs raised high, his hand a contrast to the other's. Fat and muscle and flesh spilling between the thickness of his fingers. Tongue coated and thick in his throat, sweat dotted back and blood bled black. Sanji sings and Zoro finds himself falling further, swaying and stumbling down the path deeper into unfamiliar yet well-known. A habitual thing. An intimate space.

Thighs press themselves between his head and fingers thread through his hair, Zoro is just a man determined to please. Feeding on the praise and a job well done.

The sun never rises and he doesn't stop, content in the muffled tumult of his surroundings. Gaze ablur and as opaque as the decorative veils, he watches with a haze as Sanji grins at him. "Good boy," his lips red and dripping, Zoro surges, mouth panting and tongue too heavy, letting himself be slotted into place. A safe space.

Sanji hums, his words into his mouth, giggling and laughing in delight, music like a lullaby.

The sheets are body-warmed, heats shared. Slick and moist with sweat, it slides and sticks to the skin. He lets himself be led, laid onto the bed and wrists bound, thighs trembling and feet searching for purchase. In the flame-wrapped walls, blue eyes pin him down and ardor holds him in its arms, clenching, pulsing, tightening as it chokes the air from his lungs. Feather-light trails leaves his body quaking, weak and needy.

His knees burn as he shifts more weight onto them, eyes fluttering open in fear as he looks toward the heaven. Cherubs float in their ivory thrones, held aloft with their haloed wings, big eyes staring him down.

Zoro hisses through clenched teeth, breath coming out in harsh pants as Jesus keeps his pitied gaze steady.

A shiver wracks through his chest as Sanji rests on him, body twisting, hips swerving, his chest out of reach and his mouth of celestial-reach. "Please," he whispers, blinking, lashes wet and clumped, a hand cradles his jaw, a nose traces his ear, lips flutter above his skin.

His body locks, flesh punctured, ecstasy in his veins flowing out of him.

In the end, he tears his eyes away, his chest laboured with the weight of his wrongdoings. Habitual. "I have sinned." Jesus keeps his gaze, despondent as coloured statue nailed to the wall.

Drawing back with a moan, Sanji's tongue darts out to lick away the blood coating his lips, stained crimson and tainted with Zoro's scent; flavour.

"You're so good to me," he purrs, grinding, a whine escaping him as Zoro buries deeper, "So, so good to me."

He nods, tugging at chimeric restraints until his hands are gripping, bruising. "Just you."

#ZoSan #My Writing #One Piece #Priest Zoro and Vampire Sanji #Inspired by RE8 but Sanji is Lady Dimitrescu #I forgot to post it here last year #Can't believe it's been ALMOST an entire year since I wrote this fic honestly

[envihellbender]

Mike as a Flesh avatar

Mike Crew appeared to most as he always appeared: around five feet tall, pale skinned, blue eyes, black hair, eerily thin, and with a very distinctive Lichtenberg scar. He stared a lot, wasn’t massively pleasant, but all in all polite enough that no one particularly thought about him. Sure, they noticed and remembered him but mostly for his distinctive scar and they tried not to stare too much because they were always taught not to. As always this was something Mike was remarkable at manipulating, but instead of using his helpless appearance to lure he made sure that his visage was something people would definitely not forget if they were fortunate enough to be allowed to live.

When using his abilities the first thing that changed was his scar, it sparked and came to life as it slowly began to cover more and more of his body. Soon it became clear that it was clinging to the nerve endings and ensuring that Mike’s nervous system glowed through his pale skin. Next, his skin hardened and paled, it was as if he had developed an exoskeleton, pure bone covered his body and it itself was twisted in vibrating pulsing set of nerves. He enjoyed the bones the most, the way they were hard and sharp, the spaces in between them where there was pure emptiness filled with disgusting soft flesh. Next he enjoyed the nerves, how they could betray a person, cause agony when they were perfectly fine. Overactive nerves could drive a person to insanity, they could trick a person to feel something so intently even if they were perfectly fine in every other respect.

That was what Mike was most skilled at, using people’s body’s against them. If you saw his body at its most powerful, it was almost certainly too late for you. The first thing he would do was you’d feel pin pricks all over your skin, nothing too painful, just enough to itch and irritate. You’d stretch, massage, itch, but it would still be there. When you went to doctor they wouldn’t be able to see anything wrong with you. They’d do x-rays, MRIs, blood tests, everything they could and every resulted show that everything was normal. They’d diagnose you with something like fibromyalgia and give you Gabapentin to make you go away… but it would never stop. In fact it would slowly get worse and worse. Maybe six months in the pin pricks would become burning, it would feel like your skin was tightening and your body was covered in friction burns but no part of your body even looked sore. You’d go to the doctor again and beg for them to help, they’d give you antidepressants and offer some CBT.

Eventually, perhaps, you’d see Mike Crew again. Maybe he’d be normal this time, a small young man with a distinctive scar, or if you caught him at the right time maybe he he’d be the being of bone. You’d know instinctively he did this. Something inside you would tell you he caused your skin to feel as if an iron was pressed against it, like it was blistering and burning from your flesh. He’d have an infuriating little smirk on his lips because whilst he wouldn’t remember you personally he’d recognise his victims anywhere. You’d try to follow him, and maybe he’d let you. The only place you’d end up however would be in the palace of the one who holds his leash, the King of Bones himself. Of course if you end up there you’d be stuck in the labyrinth of rib cages and tibias, wandering through them whilst your body simply burned. At least here it was visible, at least you could see your skin blistering and burning to a crisp to expose your nerve endings which now you could see them you knew they were sparking like fork lightening, had they been doing that the whole time? You ask yourself as you slowly lose the ability to control your limbs. Eventually you join the piles of ash upon the floor that you had mistaken for dust.

#envi writes #Mike crew #Roleswap au #the flesh #entity swap au #the Magnus archives #tma fic

[mkcannothelpyou]

Chrysos (Perfumer-Pallas)

AK/Kinktober 2023, Day 5: “Muzzle”

Lena is true to her word. That is truth Pallas clings to.

Candid is the cage; in Pallas's sight, she feels by eye her numb jaw enveloped, enclosed, metal mesh that allows no more than a finger through. —Hum for me. You can hum for me, can't you, dear Pallas?

Yes, there is a thawing quiver, the slightest, all Pallas may sing with in her seized throat. Yes, I can hum for you.

Next is the belt; a circlet to a buckle nestled below her nape to a circlet again, a perfect loop that completes itself about her neck. —Morning dew, peppermint, shaved ice showers…

A simple tune, an idle tune, a symbol of Lena the mind is liable to relive on its own no matter how far removed. Hum of her, now. Setting sun, jasmine, honey flowers…

Then is the orbit; fingers brushing through hair again and again, a garden pathway laid along the midway of her head, strap running over the ears and under the horns. —Hm-hmm… hmm…

Extol her, Priestess of Minos. Elevate her. Close your eyes and become as devout. There is only one whom you worship in a cage. Hm-hmm, hm-hmm…

—Very good. How about we give you an offering, now?

Her eyes fly wide open. No, that isn't right. She makes the faintest shake of her head, strains her gaze to tell of this. Lena listens, caresses one caring hand down through the valley of her horn and up to the top of her head, just shy of her crowning blossom. The other, to an uncorked bottle.

—Drink, Pallas. Be revered.

This bottle was to be given in libation, yes, but the libation was to be hers to give, was it not? Mead, sweet and deep in the low of their surroundings, drips thickly from a bottle stopped only by the thumb of the one Pallas had thought herself below. It trickles through the cage, coats each curve and straight it touches and hangs between the spaces.

The altar does not serve the devotee. This is wrong. Pallas shakes, the hint of life willed into her jaw too slow to cry it. She is not this. —You don't mean to insult me, do you? How cruel to make a worshipper beg, Pallas. Drink.

It is the scent of sunset, and Pallas is frail in her attempt to inhale deeply. Lena's visage swims in her eyes as glazen as an emptied vessel.

A touch. Pallas's head is tilted back, far back, pushed up and up and up from beneath the tip of the muzzle until Pallas's eyes meet the sky as far back as she can go, and Lena's voice sinks in husken command. —Speak to me, priestess. Tell me where you stand.

Stinging direct, lights waver. Sunset. Pallas cannot help but extinguish her vision. This is the dark of prayer, yet it is only right she obeys, only right. Pallas cannot extol herself, elevate herself, but the sound of the perfumer and her senses enclosed in nectar drag her open, force her to heed devotion she has never known before. The slightest formation of a fledgling icon's whisper. "Where do I stand?"

—Stand over me, and tell me.

It dims. Pallas opens her eyes once more, and over her does Lena stand to blot out the light, force down the muzzle that throws Pallas's head back, continue to enchain Pallas beneath her in gilded wine that spills, deep past the sides of her collar and the hollow of her throat. Lena bids that libation bathe her.

Pallas is sacred. Tears fill her. She is lowly here, a venerated symbol that must beam, a Helios below her hand. Yes, she is demanded.

"I am above you," she croaks, in the catalect of one forced to take flight on broken wings. "Worship me."

Lena smiles in satisfaction and obliges her, pokes a single finger through her cage, puts an offering to her lips.

This time only, it ruins her.

The taste of honey.

#BDSMKinktober #arknights #perfumer #pallas

[lorei-writes]

Roots of Deception

Chapter II: Aqua

Chevalier & OC (OC Chart: Esther); pre-relationship Blank period* Summary: A visit to seal the deal. Or is there more to be said between the lines? Wordcount Estimate: ~1.5k Other chapters: Masterlist

*- action takes place between the last chapter of a -- yet to be made publicly available -- long-fic, and its epilogue.

Chapter titles aren't completely random, by the way.

Posting schedule: Thursday - Friday (you are here) - Saturday - Sunday, 9PM GMT+2

Content Warnings: food, drowning

“I’ve marked the page for you,” she insisted, although there was nothing to insist on. Her feet remained firmly in place, her eyes boring into the space between his shoulder blades right until Chevalier turned around to face her. “I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t have a proper bookmark on hand, but… it shouldn’t have caused any damage.”

Page one hundred fifty four; […] The Countess retained little trust. Reputable be her name, noble be her mind, and praised be her ambition, she lost any regard she once held for human hearts. [...]

Evening. Perhaps it was a little too late, but even so, Esther stepped out of the guest room, the book clutched to her chest. Bambi whimpered on the other side of the door, scratched against it, both defeated and deflated after a long day. Truth be told, had he been any less responsible in his duty to protect her, he’d already doze off by the hearth, the tiny hands of Lady Marianne having smoothed his charred-like coat a time (or a few) too many.

“I’ll be back soon,” Esther assured, to another scratch. With a heavy heart, she turned on her heel, and marched further into the dark corridor.

Her footfall gained a company of its own, its echoes reverberating through the hallway, multiplying and splitting upon meeting the walls, the hard stone floor a mirror sending out a distortion of what it saw. Portraits shifted in their gilded frames, various ladies and lords gossiping between themselves, winking and snickering while nobody watched. They whispered, ate food from the still life, ventured out into barren landscape cliffs basked in soft dawn light, all just to freeze, stop mid-laugh whenever Esther’s gaze slid across them. Her brows furrowed, her steps stilled. Her eyes lingered on the visage locked in oil paint, the woman in question seemingly answering her gaze. The brushed-on lips quivered into a grin, a shiver sneaking up Esther’s spine. She resumed walking, her mind set on finding Chevalier’s room, and doing so fast… Faster, and even faster the longer she watched.

The door flickered near the end of the corridor. Esther hurried, book clutched firmly to her chest, the sound of her steps weaving itself into thundering clouds above her head… But then, she stopped, the brass knob staring at her questioningly. Just a couple paces, nothing more, and she’d reach it. Esther took a deep breath, and this time soundless, walked again.

Knock.

No reply.

Knock.

Esther turned the knob, and pushed the door open; as expected, the room was lit, and not at all empty. Between the sofa in maroon quilted leather, oak bed, the imported carpet, and blinds that somehow seemed to be taken straight out of a sea-side cottage, what stood out the most was a tall bookcase, filled to the very brim with foreign volumes. Esther sighed – to no surprise, Chevalier stood with his back towards her, eyes scrutinising the various titles.

“It wouldn’t hurt to say ‘Come in’, ” she grumbled to herself, just to be answered by silence. Well, factually speaking, it indeed wouldn’t hurt him, so what was the point of even mentioning that much. Esther shook her head, and changed the topic, “I apologise for brining your book back late.”

“Leave it on the bedside table.”

“I’ve marked the page for you,” she insisted, although there was nothing to insist on. Her feet remained firmly in place, her eyes boring into the space between his shoulder blades right until Chevalier turned around to face her. “I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t have a proper bookmark on hand, but… it shouldn’t have caused any damage.”

He extended his hand towards her. Esther did not wait to pass him the book.

“I’d also like to thank you for considering my request. Lady Marianne was much easier to calm down than during her last visit to the palace,” she went on with her chatter, cautiously glancing at the walls.

Page one hundred fifty four, a neatly folded handkerchief separating it from page one hundred fifty five. Chevalier unravelled it slowly, a barely visible crease forming between his brows.

Esther continued, “We took a stroll through the orchard. Seems like lady Lavigne’s considering investing into cider, the apple saplings are sure to wield fruit in… perhaps four, to five years.”

Their eyes barely met. As indifferent as ever, Chevalier folded the handkerchief back, and put it in his pocket.

“The spine of the book was not damaged this time, but you’d do well to remember not to mark the pages with something this thick, simpleton,” he remarked.

“Understood.” Esther turned on her heel and took a step towards the door, her hand already resting on the knob.

"Is Bambi not with you?”

She looked over her shoulder. “He was tired, so I left him in my room.”

Something flickered over Chevalier’s face, gone almost before it appeared. “The last –“

“I remember,” Esther interrupted, her fingers pressed against her throat. Her lungs felt tight, but even so, they still breathed. Despite or through her hesitation, she pushed the door open, Chevalier striding towards her. “Oh?” She did not stop, not for a moment.

“The last meeting has been delayed.”

Esther didn’t question him any further, even though she found it hard to match his pace. It was… much preferable to being on her own, as laughable as Chevalier might find it.

Night shifted to dawn undisturbed, just to shed the last remaining shadows in presence of the sun itself. The breakfast had been served, yet… Esther excused herself fast. Her stomach grumbled quietly as she lay back down on the bed, not quite upset, but clearly not thrilled either, not a single laid out dish being something she could safely eat. Blue cheese, fried vegetables and meats, raw fish – perhaps if eggs were not seasoned so spicily she could smell it without even trying to, she’d take a risk! But alas, she had to satisfy herself with a cup of tea, and then… leave, Lady Lavigne not sparing her even a single glance, unlike Lady Marianne. Esther winced at the thought alone –

“Woof!” Pointy ears pointed at her, further supported in their inquiry by the big, curious eyes.

“Thanks, Bambi. You always get it,” she laughed and patted his head, the dog climbing into her lap. “Hey, hey, you’re a bit too big for tha –”

Knock.

Esther ushered Bambi back down onto the floor. She smoothed out the covers, ran her hands over her blouse and skirt.

“Yes?” she asked, the door creaking open. Lady Marianne peeked inside.

“Mommy said she is going on a walk, and that Prince Chevalier is coming too, and I too,” she mumbled, all of her attention directed at her shoes. “Esther, will you go with me too? I don’t wanna go…”

“Of course.” Esther stood up immediately. “And Bambi’s going to accompany us, hm?”

Bambi barked; Marianne laughed; river hummed quietly, water reaching up to slither against the fortified banks. Esther watched carefully as the girl chased after the dog, kicking off clouds of dust with each sharp turn she took, just for the both of them to duck between the trees on the other side of the road.

“Princess, the dragon is retreating!” Esther cheered after them. She averted her eyes for but a moment, Chevalier and Lady Lavigne’s silhouettes moving further down the orchard path. Orchards; the vineyards; the winery itself; the storage facilities; finally, sampling, she revised in her head.

“Esther, Esther!” little Marianne called, skirt held in both hands as she bolted towards her.

“Yes, Lady Marianne?”

“Can you and Bambi play with me tomorrow too?”

Esther fell silent for a moment. The official reason for their visit was… verifying the validity of the exclusivity offer broached by the Lavignes’ regarding supplying the palace cellars….

“I’m afraid I do not know,” Esther offered with an apologetic smile. However, that much seemed to only upset Marianne.

“Why?!” she roared through uneven breaths, face read from exercise and covered in sweat.

“Prince Chevalier is very busy, so he may want to go back tomorrow, and I and Bambi will be going with him,” she explained, wincing internally at what, or much rather why, she had to phrase things this way.

“No! I want you to stay! Esther, stay! I like playing with you best!”

Esther crouched down. “Don’t be sad, Lady Marianne. If all goes well, we will see each other plenty, really.”

“That’s what all those uncles mommy told me not to talk to say! And then they don’t visit! Or visit much! Much! Much! Later! And then we don’t play!”

“Uncles?” Esther asked, desperately trying to hold back a frown. Alas, it was not enough – the girl covered her mouth with her tiny hands, black eyes opening wide as she realised that she said something she shouldn’t have. Little Marianne shook her head fervently. She swirled around. She neglected to lift her skirt up, still holding her lips sealed, and broke into a dash. Just forward, forward, just right alongside the bank –

“Marianne, no – !”

The water splashed. It bubbled as if boiled, lurched and heaved, but… Nobody came up.

Esther got to her feet. She ran, fingers pulling at the clasps holding her capelet in place.

The garment fell to the ground. Esther dropped her bag.

She jumped off into the river after Marianne.

--

Series Tag List: @nuttytani

#chevalier michel #ikepri chevalier #ikemen prince chevalier #ikepri #ikemen prince #ikemen series

[dnangelic]

"I have something to show you, Daisuke." Vertin said as noticed Daisuke had entered the suitcase. She had asked him to stop by if he had the chance, and she was glad he did. She smiled, and motioned for him to follow her through the different halls of the suitcase. Finally, she stops infront of a room that at first glance doesn't seem too different from any other room by the door alone, but once she opened it and motioned Daisuke inside, he could see the uniqueness of the room. The entire wall and part of the ceiling was glass, and the room was neat and open, with distinct work benches, and a few easels and canvases set up, some covered and some not. "I found this atelier while exploring more of the suitcase. It's yours, if you'd like a place to show your creativity." This was Vertin's present to him. "You can decorate it however you'd like, either with what you create or what Dark steals. If you ever run out of supplies or need something, I can get it for you."

(happy birthday to the best boy)

whatever it is , for him to have been especially requested , it had to be really important , right ? briefly , he can't help but wonder if there was trouble of some kind . maybe vertin had discovered another precious object or artwork that was to be targeted once more by the infamous phantom thief , or maybe everyone was about to hold some kind of super serious strategy meeting ... the details and finer considerations of which would most certainly fly over his head and dizzy him . maybe he was about to receive a scolding ; a final , formal request to halt .

instead --- it's dark's very own observation that soothes him out any fast-developing anxieties . ( would someone with something that serious to share really be making a face like that ? ) never-mind the difficulties daisuke had at discerning vertin's seemingly subtle displays of emotion in the first place . it was true that her brow lacked any evident troubled twist , and rather than any sort of grim shade that so often accompanied the rain of a storm , a faint light remained in the warmed glow of her visage instead .

so he follows . and then he enters , his eyes widening with each step ; his heart and his soul alike filling with a sense of ever-more wonder . it was a greenhouse of creation ; a miniature paradise for any aspiring , amateur artist . when daisuke can once more bring himself to speak , his voice echoes about the glass , his person whirling about . ' f-for me ?! ' and for dark as well ? an entire room was too much , wasn't it ? he had already become accustomed to and more content with his vague coming-and-goings , taking to whatever quiet and obscure spaces the wing within suggested of him ...

and yet , how could anyone have ever resisted something like this ?

he could have never refused , dreaming immediately of welcoming and inviting others the same way that vertin had welcomed and invited him . the hand splayed over his heart does nothing to quell the long-growing pound in his chest , nor does he hide the flush and broad smile lingering on his expression even after he transforms .

' thank you , ' to grant them something like this on their shared birthdays ; how grand , and how moving . wasn't life just like this empty room within the suitcase ? something waiting to be filled with beautiful things ; something that contained something immensely precious already , vertin standing before them . dark steps forward to lift her hand with a delicate respect , his second palm still kept close over the space of his chest . ' we'll be sure to make good use of it . though , as the bringers of your troupe already , we could never ask you to run those sorts of measly errands for us . instead , miss vertin ... all we ask is for you to bring yourself here on occasion . '

truly , they could have asked for nothing more .

' allow us the opportunity to celebrate and impress you the way you have us , sometime . ' it was only with someone like this in mind that they could continue to do their very best , after all --- working hard to be worthy of witness . to steal an audience's breath away . ' merci . grazie . danke . visit us soon , and we'll show you just what we've done with the place . '

#*･ﾟ⊰ ANSWERED. ⊱ #REV1999. #puppetmuseum #omg i didnt expect a vertin bday gift at all... YATTA #this is soooooo sweet.... lo-fi art chamber fOR THE BOYYYS #vertin's so sweet too 🤧 'if u need smth i can get it for u' dark: stop Right There- #that's THEIR JOB #ldnjlgkjskdgjkj #ANYWAYS tysm for sending!!!

[apexulansis]

" I don't care. Look. You fucked up. I don't know how. Or maybe I fucked up. Point is -- look. "

Crossed fingers gesture at the picture Two's optics project onto the wall of his flat. The image is clear -- it's a picture of a bipedal organism , standing upright. And then another. And another. Several more, dated weeks apart from each other.

A clatter fills the empty room. It's the sound of Two throwing the dead data drive he pulled from out of a KASMAR computer, clanking as it hits the table the android sits against. His arms fold, and he puffs out a cheek.

" Alright. So I believe you now. Guess KASMAR is more interested in kariio than I thought. Better question is why and what the fuck do we do about it. "

Ardaka's reactions tended to skew wildly from totally apathetic to effortlessly easy to read, rarely in the spaces between. He was long used to hiding how he honestly felt about a thing (kariians were nothing if not amazing at spotting lies) but he'd spent more time in the last two thousand years with his visage hidden behind a mask than out. In addition, nor was he playing a false guise with his mates. There wasn't a need to hide any expression, and his reflex to Two's statement — You fucked up — is clear distaste, the skin around his nose's pit organs wrinkling perceptibly. There's a likewise visible twitch to his lips, although he manages to train himself from curling them back the way they urged to even as his temper suddenly flared.

Those three syllables felt like nails on a chalkboard. It made him want to grimace. Before he can verbally respond, his eyes flick towards the projected image.

They were typical of what other species tried to portray in the early stages of documenting kariians. That, he understood quickly. With little time spent on wondering as to what he was looking at, Ardaka only had more time to feel unsettled. His pupils narrowed into tighter slits, the mane along his neck bristling with discontent and unease. His tail lashed restlessly, and the pang of the instinctive fear he always felt upon trying to be figured out without his want has him react with more hostility than not.

“Was my word not enough?” The Hunter gave a scowl, smothering the slight hurt he felt alongside the anxiety. “You think I don't know what being tracked feels like? You needed hard data before any consideration? What, am I too stupid and organic for you to take seriously?”

#COMMS. #precognitor #IC: A RESTLESS UNIVERSE. [ARDAKA] #hes trying SO HARD not to take ''you fucked up'' as a personal attack rn

[carmenlire]

Been Like This Part I

read on ao3

Alec walks into the bar and the weight on his shoulders seems to weigh a thousand tons, pressing down, and vaguely Alec wonders if he shouldn’t just go home and collapse into bed. Maybe then he’d finally feel weightless, if just for the half hour it takes to fall asleep.

But no, there’s something that’s pushing him into Hunter’s Moon tonight. Alec carries a strong dislike for most people– all those except for the precious few in his inner circle– but right now he feels a want– a need– to be around others without expectation.

He doesn’t necessarily want to talk to anyone. Really, just the very thought is exhausting, seems beyond his capabilities after a long week of talking to people constantly, ten hours a day, all the more tiresome when the conversations are nothing but impatient entitlement on their side and aggrieved irritation on his.

Distantly, he thinks that it should probably be a little worrying that his job, his dream that he's worked so hard for, is nothing but another source of annoyance and anxiety now.

It’s quiet for a Thursday evening. There’s just a smattering of people in the place. A couple plays pool on the far end, a group of friends are having a raucous time at a table in the corner. Alec smiles a little when one of them shouts something unintelligible just for them all to start laughing.

Alec can’t help but think that, from the entrance at least, it sounds so genuine.

Making his way to the bar, he has his pick of seats. There’s a woman at the end, a small collection of empty margarita glasses keeping her company. Alec figures that he’ll have his own assortment of glass soldiers standing watch by the end of the night.

The stool he chooses has scuffed leather when he pulls it out. It’s a little worn, light scratches here and there. Still, it feels wonderful to sit and to know that he doesn’t have to get up for however long he wants.

Truly, work has been exhausting this week. So many customers, requiring Alec to run in a dozen directions to put out a hundred fires. A cold is going around that’s left him short staffed the past several days. His bean supplier canceled his order without notice, leaving him in a serious lurch this morning.

The voice of the customer who yelled at him just a couple of hours ago-- because he made her plain iced americano without milk-- is still ringing in his ears.

Flipping the sign over to closed this evening had felt like nothing short of a victory. Letting the two remaining staff go home early to clean up by himself had been relaxing even if it had taken the last little bit of energy he’d managed to conserve.

There’s something soothing about being alone in his own space– Alec’s built Lightwood Coffee and Co. from the ground up. It’s his baby first, last, and everything in the middle. The couple of hours it had taken to clean up, go through inventory, and prepare for tomorrow had been the best part of his day, really.

Still, it was exhausting, the simple tasks that had once been filled with passion and excitement. Everything was so dull now, so rote.

In the back of his mind, Alec worries if it’s the coffee shop that’s lost its shine or if it’s just his life in general, color leeching out of everything he touches.

His thoughts have been maudlin all day, really for the past few months.

And now, here at Hunter’s Moon, Alec has no grand plan except to have a few drinks and try to not be so human for the rest of the night.

Something not quite a person, but not so far gone as to actually betray what he feels like– a little off center, stretched a little too thin, trying a little too hard to put on a convincing visage of responsible, perfectly functional adult.

Alec zones out for a few minutes before the bartender makes his way over to him. His overall expression is mildly standoffish, though his face is neutral as he stills in front of Alec and asks, “What can I get you?”

There’s no smile and Alec’s left with the vague feeling that nothing he could do or say would phase the bartender. Alec can relate.

There’s no offer of a menu and Alec doesn’t ask for one. “Can I just get an amaretto sour, please?”

The bartender’s brow raises imperceptible but he just nods, replies, “Sure thing,” and is turning his back before Alec can say anything else.

The drink’s placed in front of him just a moment later and at the first sip, Alec relaxes. It’s good– damned good.

Alec isn’t one to drink much and he’s never been to this particular bar before, though he passes it every day on his way to work. If the drinks are this good every time, then he might just need to become a regular on those days where he wants to blend in with everyone else and disappear for awhile in a simple pleasure.

The first drink is gone in a few efficient swallows. Maybe Alec should be concerned at how easy it’s gone down but it feels like the first time all week that something’s been able to give him an ounce of ease.

The bartender makes the few steps over to him, pauses but doesn’t say anything, just looks at Alec with that brow raised in question.

Alec nods.

The second drink is just as smooth as the first, the sweetness with the slightest bitter note hitting just the right spot.

Idly, Alec wonders if he’s going to get drunk tonight. Truth be told, he’s not much of a drinker. He enjoys the odd night out with Jace or Izzy, has been dragged into a poker night at Simon’s place a time or two where the bottles of cheap wine seemed to pour endlessly.

Still, he doesn’t make a habit of it. Well aware– too aware some might say– of how slippery of a slope these things can be, an underlying paranoia always keeping him in check. Just in case.

It’s during the third amaretto sour when someone sits a seat down from him. Alec doesn’t pay much attention, nothing more than to hear the rough scrape of a stool sliding over the floor, an impression of another man settling in after a day of work.

Briefly, Alec wonders if the other customer’s day was as grueling as his. He finds a well of sympathy at the notion.

Deciding to give the stranger the discretion he’d want, Alec’s attention shifts to other patrons. Crossing the line into tipsy, he’s an eager if apathetic people-watcher.

The group of friends in the corner have found a deck of cards somewhere and are having– what sounds like– an amazing time. Alec would like to imagine that they do this every month, in a similar way to the way he attends his poker nights, the weekly movie nights he has with Jace and Izzy.

It’s a warming thought for all that it strikes a pang of loneliness.

The movie nights have been a bit hit or miss lately. Izzy has been swamped with grad school and Jace is spending so much time with Clary that he’s rainchecked more than once.

Alec skipped a poker night a couple of months ago because one of his evening staff called off and one thing led to another and he hasn’t been to Simon’s since.

Once the streak was over, it was too easy to keep ghosting, the fatigue that’s been riding him into the ground making it too easy to beg off.

And, well, now Alec feels like something has slipped through his fingers, like he’s lost a chance, like he– well like he shouldn’t, can’t, just pick things back up.

It’s absurd, he knows. He’s been friends with Simon since college. Life happens.

Still. Alec has a deep, innate fear of being presumptuous, of overstepping bounds that he didn’t even know existed.

Simon hasn’t (re)extended an invitation and so– Alec doesn’t go over.

The coffee shop takes so much of his attention and it’s become matter of habit to simply go home at the end of the day.

It’s part of the reason that he decided to walk into this bar tonight. Alec isn’t adventurous or spontaneous. More than that, though, he had needed a diversion, felt the need for something else itching just under his skin, tickling his ribs.

Alec’s not one for flights of whimsy but the idea of breaking up the monotony had wiggled its way into his head sometime this morning, in between scalding himself on the edge of a tray of scones and getting berated for not having elderberry syrup. He needed to get away and for once, the idea of slipping into bed after a shower hot enough to burn his skin just didn’t seem like enough.

Maybe it’s the itch for diversion, a desire to not be so alone manifesting as a sad man drinking alone at a bar with nothing but strangers for company.

Alec still feels like it’s better than the alternative, though, and decides not to think about what exactly that says about him or his piss-poor excuse for living lately.

Throughout the past hour or so, Alec’s butt has grown numb and his back aches something approaching awful. These stools were not ergonomically designed and Alec’s a little too tired to keep from slouching in a way that’s a little painful and definitely damaging to his spine.

He lingers over the third drink until it’s watered down, trying to simply exist in a moment that he tells himself he wanted.

If he’s being honest, it’s not really satiating whatever inclination he’d had. Now Alec is still just as tired but the alcohol is already leaving him with a headache, leaving his head feeling the kind of fuzzy that just vaguely pisses him off.

He’s still debating between ordering a fourth drink anyway, staring into the dregs of his glass, when he hears a voice from his left.

It’s smooth, just a little low. “Penny for your thoughts, darling?”

The gentle tease in the words makes Alec smile while still looking down where he's tracing a scratch on the bar. Without quite being aware of it, he murmurs, “I’m not sure if they’re even worth that much.”

Sighing��� with more than a little bit of drama to attest to the cup or two of amaretto he’s downed– Alec looks up just to blink, the sight before him arresting.

The man who’d asked the question is wearing an easy smile. His eyeliner is just barely smudged at the edges. His blazer is a deep maroon and the shirt is unbuttoned enough to share a tantalizing stretch of skin.

He looks friendly, Alec can’t help but think.

Waiting until Alec makes eye contact with him, the man’s smile deepens just enough to crinkle the corner of his eye.

“Well, I’m sure that’s not true.”

Warmth simmers in Alec’s chest at the quick rebuttal. He finds himself smiling, in turn. “And what makes you so sure?” Alec can’t resist asking with a raised brow.

To most anyone else, the question might come off as surly, combative. Luckily for Alec, it’s taken as it’s meant– a little too genuine with humor to cover the worst of it.

The stranger gives him an obvious once-over, lifts his own martini glass in a semblance of a cheers. “You’re too handsome for them to be worth any less,” the stranger replies, a not-so-subtle wink serving as punctuation.

Alec can’t help a laugh at that and the shyness strikes them both.

This certainly isn’t what Alec imagined when he walked in here. It’s unexpected but. . . not unwelcome, he decides after a moment of internal musing.

Choosing to blame the liquor, Alec leans a little closer to say, “Then your thoughts must be worth a fortune,” and he’s gratified to get a surprised laugh in return.

“If only everyone thought the same, darling,” the stranger. He hesitates a bare moment before reaching out a hand for Alec to shake. “My name is Magnus. Who might you be?”

Alec doesn’t hesitate to return the handshake, sliding his hand against Magnus’s.

There’s no shiver, no sharp intake of breath. No, Alec just shakes Magnus’s hand, feels the easy warmth against his own, the suggestion of a callous against the edge of his palm.

“Alec,” he offers after a long moment of the two of them just holding hands, not moving. His voice is low, hoarse around the vowels.

The bar seems quieter than it did a moment ago. Behind them, there’s still the din of conversation, the clacking of pool balls across the room. The chorus of a terrible Top 40 hit from 1997 is just barely audible.

Right here, Alec feels more in tune to the moment than he has in– perhaps longer than he’s comfortable admitting.

“Alec,” Magnus repeats. In his echo is both a statement and a question. Alec doesn’t know the answer to either so he just says nothing.

Magnus’s thumb sweeps gentle once, twice, over his knuckles before he lets go.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Alec says, latent confidence in his tone.

“Likewise, I assure you.” Magnus crosses his arms over the bar, head turned toward Alec.

His expression is hard to read for all it projects interest. The small smile at the corner of his lips has yet to fade. “What brings you here this evening, Alec?”

The question is to be expected. Alec still has to take a moment to find his answer.

He debates blatant honesty with pulling a punch or two. It might be nice to confide in a stranger, though Alec’s never quite known where the line should be drawn for appearances.

After a few moments of silence where Magnus doesn’t seem to grow annoyed or impatient or disinterested, Alec settles on being a bit more honest than he might otherwise be.

Alec is just this side of tipsy and unlikely to ever see Magnus again after tonight. Maybe giving oxygen to the tangle of weeds growing in his chest will help him. If nothing else, he supposes, it can’t hurt anything. If Magnus listens to whatever the fuck he has to say and runs for the hills, then at least Alec will be able to close out his tab and go home and forget this ever happened all the sooner.

Mirroring Magnus’s pose, Alec slumps a little more over the bar. His gaze flits from Magnus’s shoulder, to his pocket square, up to his mouth, and finally to his eyes.

Magnus’s eyes are a deep brown. Alec knows they hide more than they reveal. If he’s not mistaken though, warmth in the form of kindness lurks in them.

“I think I hate my job and everyone annoys me. I’m so tired and nothing helps. I feel– stuck, I think, but hell if I know what to do about it.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything for a moment, though his expression has shifted into something surprised but not unpleasantly so. Gently, he offers, “You and every other thirty year old, I’m sure.”

Alec grimaces. “Is it supposed to be this pervasive, though?”

Magnus laughs and this time it’s almost caustic. “Unfortunately, Alec, I don’t think it can be any other way.”

“If you tell me that’s just life, I won’t be responsible for my reaction.” Alec’s voice is dry, though he can’t keep the very real kernel of resentment out of his voice.

Now it’s Magnus’s turn to grimace. “I wouldn’t dare, darling, believe me.”

For some reason, Alec does.

He reaches for his glass, drinks the watered-down remains, places it back down and feels the sounds of glass hitting wood somewhere in the hollow of his ribcage.

Nibbling on his bottom lip, Alec wonders if he should ask the question burning the tip of his tongue. Like most of his decisions tonight, it boils down to might as well.

“Does it get better,” he asks, genuinely curious. “How?”

Magnus tilts his glass in a slow circle, seemingly captivated by the way vermouth and gin catch the light. His words are slow to come.

Alec’s torn between surprise that Magnus– who after just a few minutes introduction, had given the impression of having all the easy answers Alec’s desperate for– is taking his time to find the right words and appreciation that he would take a stranger’s question with the gravity Alec needs right now.

“I don’t know if it gets better,” Magnus admits and seems chagrined to do so. “I think it gets easier, though.” Taking a quick sip of his martini, Magnus gestures towards Alec. “Worries over something might ease just for something else altogether to take its place. You might become confident in one area just to decide to reach for something new or more or different. Once you conquer something or wrestle it into submission, the next thing grabs your attention. And thanks to past efforts, current issues won’t seem quite so dire. At least in my experience.”

Mulling over Magnus’s words, Alec finds himself nodding along. “I guess I can see that,” Alec admits. “Doesn’t really make me feel better right now, though.”

Magnus’s expression turns sympathetic. “I understand, darling. Anything particular with work and the general populace or just overall disgust at the end of a hellish week?”

Alec actually takes a minute to think about it. He’s a little surprised to realize that, “It’s really just general tiredness, I think.” He doesn't mention that the general tiredness has been his constant companion for the past few months.

Humming in commiseration, Magnus nods absently. “The end of the week does tend to make everything that much worse.”

Alec snorts a little. “Now that I know full well.”

The two sit in companionable silence for a few minutes.

Alec’s decided not to order another drink. The conversation with Magnus has him feeling more energized and awake then he was just a few minutes before and he doesn’t really want to add any more alcohol to the weird, unsettling mix of tired and maudlin that’s trying to settle in his stomach.

The abrupt sound of Magnus’s empty glass hitting the bar pulls Alec from his brief reverie. He looks over to see Magnus studying him, eyes intent but the curve of his mouth is pure invitation.

At least to Alec’s amaretto-soaked mind.

In the time it takes to blink, Alec’s meeting Magnus’s gaze. He can’t decide what he’s seeing– interest? Challenge? Pure polite humoring?

Magnus swings his chair to the side until he’s fully facing Alec. Resting his left arm on the counter, Magnus tilts his head to the side. “I don’t pretend to know everything you’ve got going on or the severity of it. What I do know is that I can offer a distraction. If you’re willing?”

Alec blames both his alcohol blood content and the way the light hits Magnus’s earring for the way he turns in his chair, too, leaning in far too close for someone of such short acquaintance.

He blames his well-established lack of any sense of self-preservation in the face of a pretty man when he replies, voice low and rough and just a touch too soft, “Do you want to fuck me, Magnus?”

He’s close enough to truly appreciate the way Magnus’s eyes widen at the words, to feel more than hear the small little intake of breath, to see the way Magnus’s eyes dip to his mouth for a second that lingers.

Magnus doesn’t pull away, though, and so Alec doesn’t either.

The space between them can be measured in heartbeats; a slow, steady pulse of temerity.

Magnus’s voice is low and rough and just as soft as he eventually replies, “I don’t think so, Alec. Not tonight, at least.”

Alec finds a world of possibilities in the curve of that smile.

Alec thinks that some part of him must feel the sting of rejection, the humiliation of presumption. It’s hard to feel any of that, though, when Magnus is still watching him with that same mix of bemusement and patience and interest, like he might not know Alec now but he doesn’t mind staying long enough to get a better understanding.

Blinking slowly, Alec allows himself to truly study Magnus.

He’s handsome and Alec likes the glint of intelligence in his eyes, even at so late an hour and after a few drinks. Magnus has been nothing but kind, a welcome respite, a breath of fresh air.

“Okay,” he breathes, his own smile growing into something tangible. “What kind of distraction did you have in mind then?”

Something in Magnus’s posture relaxes at the question, a tension easing out. He nods once, as though resolute, and stands up.

Alec moves his chair to keep Magnus in front of him until his back is to the bar. Magnus holds out a hand and Alec takes a moment to appreciate the way Magnus’s rings emphasis the slimness of his hands, complementing his dark nail polish.

“A distraction demands a change of scenery.” Magnus nods his head back towards the front door of the Hunter’s Moon. The light in his eye is one part challenge, two parts whimsy.

(Alec doesn’t know it now but it’s another part hope with the smallest streak of uncertainty.)

“What do you say, darling?”

Alec places his hand in Magnus’s without a second thought, the only thing running through his mind is the surety that he doesn’t want to let whatever this is ghost over him. He doesn’t know what it is but it feels fleeting– for once, for the first time since he maybe opened the coffee shop, Alec wants to reach out with both hands and hang on for dear life.

He’s halfway to standing, when he realizes, “Oh shit, we need to close our tabs.”

Magnus laughs, something gentle and teasing. He waves Alec’s concern away. “Don’t worry; It’s already taken care of.”

Alec frowns a little, wondering, but Magnus’s pull is irresistible.

He waits for the bartender to shout them back when he realizes that they’ve left without paying. Alec doesn’t hear anyone calling out and when he looks back, the bartender is just picking up their empty glasses with a roll of his eyes.

It’s the most expression Alec’s seen on his face all night.

Deciding not to worry about it, Alec turns back to where Magnus is leading him out of the bar.

Magnus’s hand is warm and when he looks back to make sure Alec’s still with him, his eyes shine with the same warmth that’s been directed at Alec all night.

Alec squeezes the hand still holding his. “Lead the way.”

#will i ever write part 2 it's anybody's guess #malec fic #my writing #been like this

[makibeni]

Ch. 19 -I Trust You With All I Am

Kobeni walked up the last few steps to the floor her modest apartment was situated on. The springtime sunset she'd espied on her train ride back from her date had given way to the darkened canvas of early evening night, eagerly awaiting a bedazzling of starlight. Date... She was finally calling it that, in her head at least, a small comfort she'd permitted herself in lieu of her success. She pulled the keys from her pocket as she approached the door, absentmindedly performing the same robotic motion she had every day since moving here, but this time she hesitated. Her fingers glid over an unfamiliar surface and a bubbly smirk grew across her face. She stopped, and pulled the object to her face. A small cuttlefish key chain Makima had pointed out to her as a souvenir on their way out of the aquarium. She gently pressed it against her palm, releasing the memories trapped within and filling her hand with a radiating warmth.

With a renewed vigor she opened her door and took a step inside, wrapped up in comforting blankets of reassuring thoughts. She spun on her heels and held the keys close to her chest before removing her shoes, methodically replaying all the day's events in her head. Her memories were normally scattered, their edges frayed by the serrated claws of her anxieties, colored in melancholy hues of bitter reality, languishing in the shade of glittering what-ifs, conjured up only to mock her, an endless parade of her failures plastering over the slight and scant spatters of joy. This was different. A scorching sunspot, choking out the darkness around it with it's radiant light, unmarred by gloom and insecurity, the angelic visage of Makima, her Makima, her beloved angel, diving down from the heavens to pull her from the darkened pit she had been languishing within. It was her blessing, in the face of all her other ills, it was permission to simply be happy.

She turned back into the darkened room, the first rays of moonlight catching on the edges of her apartment. She reached her hand for the light switch, but something caught her eye and stopped her dead in her tracks. A rancorous glow that overtook the space around it, as if draining all but shadow from it's presence. Kobeni's arm fell limp by her side, swaying with a melancholic apathy as the glint of momentary elation receded from her eyes. This wasn't anxiety, not yet anyway, it was resignation. She bit her lip, and sealed her eyes shut as hard as she could, pushing down wayward tears by force, clenching her fist with enough force to crush the imaginary catalyst of her anger gathering within. It wasn't fair. Why? Why now? Why couldn't she just have one day.

The indignation gave way to despair, as she dragged herself over to a nearby chair and sat down, burring her head in her hands, as much to hide herself away as anything. She was wretched from her solitude by the dissonant buzz that creaked from the glowing rectangle, the meager comfort provided by the emptiness she'd wrapped herself in being torn away and leaving her exposed. The pit in her stomach grew, a discordant ball of angst writhing like a bed of worms, trying to consume her from within. She slowly stood up, her body moving while her mind screamed at her to stop, pleading against every motion she was nonetheless taking, as she made her way over to the table.

Five missed calls all from the same number, all from... her...

There were only a handful of reasons she ever called, if she had a rough day and needed an emotional punching bag to degrade and make herself feel better, Kobeni was always first on that list, but she usually gave up after one missed call, and followed it up with a text trying to dunk her head in a thick sludge of guilt for failing to provide her with an adequate outlet. Two calls usually meant she wanted something, venom and bile masquerading as half heated efforts to rekindle a broken down relationship based entirely on the expectation she was owed something for the labor of putting up with Kobeni for as long as she had, one reluctant reply from erupting into a spiral of guilt.

Five calls was different, it meant this was something more urgent, something that couldn't just be scowled past, and plastered over with vengeful spits of guilt in the aftermath. Kobeni wracked her brain, trying to figure out what might happened as the dread clambered up to her throat, stealing the air from each breath. Suddenly the crescendo hit, as all the built up anxiety finally found a focal point and coalesced into an anchor, pulling her down from the inside. Her eyes reluctantly swiveled across the table and noted the lightened load in her wallet as her sickening revelations stared at her with contempt. All the money she'd been absentmindedly spending, the drinks, the lunch dates, the aquarium, all slowly eating away at her meager budget, before her family went to withdraw the usual amount she was expected to send and found the account empty.

The phone rang again, for the sixth time tonight, and she extended a trembling arm towards it, her gaze affixed to the wall as she already recited the entire impending barrage of insults in her head. She lifted it to her ear, unsure if she even uttered a noise to follow the tone, the sensation of falling overtaking her body.

"...Is everything alright?"

Kobeni's eyes went wide as a shock of color returned to her face. That was... Makima's voice...

"M... M-miss Makima??"

A playful giggle escaped the other line

"We're girlfriends now Kobeni, you don't have to keep adding 'miss' to the front every time"

"R-Right! S-sorry..."

There was a slight tremble in her voice, as shock and relief washed over the quivering mound of angst she was burred under just moments ago. It felt as if she'd been lifted from the mire of despair and placed gently upon a cloud where she and her seraphim could spend their days gazing longingly into each other's eyes.

"U-um, d-did you need something?"

There was a brief pause, just long for some of the comfort of Makima's angelic presence to be wicked away by insecurity.

"I wanted to let you know I got home safe... and hear your voice again"

Through the tangled up binds in her chest she could feel her heartbeat, the euphoric shock of being wanted nearly causing it to give out for a moment.

"...Kobeni, what's wrong?"

"W... what do..."

The pounding in her chest continued, but now spurned by worry. It wasn't so much that she was surprised Makima had noticed, more that she had hoped she would have overlooked it, or recognized the cry for apathetic comfort, a facade she could cling to just a little bit longer.

"...h-how did you know something was wrong?"

She muttered, stalling, yearning to be whisked away again to somewhere she didn't have to think about her problems anymore.

"It's in your voice, now please, tell me what's wrong."

It sounded like she was running out of patience, and the 'please' didn't soften the blow much. The words felt like a biting accusation, beckoning her to confession.

"W~well... u-um..."

She was hesitant. Fear welled up inside of her, clogging her throat and refusing to let words pass by it. She didn't want to talk about this, she didn't even want to think about it. But she couldn't lie, and she couldn't avoid such direct question, against every instinct in her body trying to stop her, she took the step forward, towards Makima's light, and spoke.

"I-I joined Public Safety because m-my parents... I-I need to help pay to get my brother through collage a-and... I d-didn't have enough to send this month, they must have checked the account and saw it was empty."

"I see"

Another uncomfortably long pause hung in the air, Kobeni wasn't sure if or what to interject with, quietly trying to swallow the lump that had built up in her throat. She tried to listen to the line, see if she could pick up any faint sounds to indicate anything but a scornful glare coming from the other end, but it was being drowned out by the growing ringing in her ears.

"Alright, I'll take care of it"

"T-take care of what?"

It was rhetorical, there was only really one thing she could have been referring to, but...

"Do you trust me?"

The question felt loaded, like some deep introspection was called for, but she didn't have much to deliberate on, internally or externally. This was Makima, there was only one answer her mind could produce.

"Yes..."

"Good, then get some rest and I'll see you at work tomorrow"

"B-but..."

Her interjection fell flat, Makima had said her piece, and Kobeni could feel her usual reassuring smile from the other end.

"...thank you..."

The tone sounded, indicating the call had concluded. She put the phone back down and anxiously stared at the screen, still awaiting the call she was sure was impending. The familiar buzz sent a creeping dread cascading down her back but when she looked all she saw was a text from Makima.

[ Good night . . . ]

She stared at it for a few minutes, the rolling tides of emotions within her having finally warn each other down leaving her feeling nothing but vaguely empty. Kobeni slid her hand into her pocket, pulling out the set of keys she'd left there earlier that night. She looked at the key chain, still filled with pleasant memories she wasn't yet ready to relive, before crawling into bed, clutching it in her hand and drifting off to sleep.

#makima x kobeni #kobeni #makima #chainsaw man

[missedstations]

“Forefather” - Glenis Redmond

for David Drake, enslaved potter-poet from Edgefield, SC                                                                                                                                                                                                                  When the landscape does not bear black blooms I reach my arms back for one who flares with instruction. Read what he wrote on Edgefield pots: "This is a noble churn / fill it up it will never turn." From my childhood home a mere seventy-three miles' ragged stretch from Piedmont to Edgefield separates us, I make him out through one hundred and fifty-five years through the muck and the fog of pale deceit. I let my fingers touch his clay brilliance. See him, a solid figure, a South Carolina son, a Literary Father with no daguerreotype. I conjure his visage in both verse and vessel. Through the whorls of his fingerprints I walk along the loops and ridges, Sit between the lines of his etched couplets. Press ear to the hum of hardened clay. Hear him say, "Empty yourself. Pry these tight spaces open. Listen to the mountains and valleys I withstood."

#Poems #Glenis Redmond #Forefather