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halcyone-of-the-sea · 6 months

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TOWER OF BABEL (VII)

NAVIGATION || RAVISHING ALLURE MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER VIII

PAIRING: Nikto x F!Reader (Soulmate AU)

WORDCOUNT: 7.4k

WARNINGS: Angst, intense stalking & stalking behavior, talks of death/injury, toxic modeling standards/expectations, dark implications, symptoms & descriptions of dissociation, scar descriptions, etc. (Series 18+)

A/N: This is where some of the more serious/dark aspects come into the story involving Seraph's job and the pressures that are put on her. It's only implied in this chapter, but in the next, it'll be talked about more. Just to let you all know.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The day after your meeting, your gifted clothes came to the lobby of the penthouse.

You’d gone down with Nikto and picked up what you could, bags and bags of designer goods including purses, makeup, and jewelry. It was excessive—like Fedorov was trying to buy your silence; buy your affection so you’d cozy up into bed with him.

This job tried you every day, but that was a line you would never cross. Never.

Still, the items needed to be taken and packed for the trip regardless. Eyes would be on you from the moment this adventure from hell started until it ended in what hopefully was a peaceful fashion.

But you severely doubted it would be anything close to peaceful.

You take another gray dress and slip it into the garment cover, legs folded on the floor of your living room as you hum under your breath. Music wafts out from your record player, and you’re desperately trying to focus on the task at hand. Nikto reads from the couch.

“Have they called you yet?” You ask, not looking up as you slide the cover’s zipper, missing it once as your hand shakes unexpectedly.

The Russian responds with a slow and even, “Нет. No calls.”

You sigh, licking your lips.

No one had been telling you what was in that last gift at AMA—not even your mother. Aly had said it was probably nothing when she’d been briefly over to assist with the clothes, on a tight break in her schedule, but you weren’t too sure of that.

Pale eyes blink slowly, and a page turns. “No use thinking. Pack.”

“You make it sound like it’s that easy,” you huff, body leaning back and spine resting against your various rugs. The penthouse was warmer today, and you wear comfortable loungewear; shorts, and a dark baggy t-shirt. Your head shifts, arms out beside you. “How are you so calm about everything? My heart feels like it’s constantly going to break out of my chest.”

Your phone goes off on the coffee table, a short buzz that has to be either your mom or Alyona. Rubbing a palm into your right eye, you hear the bear grunt and close whatever he was reading, finding it pointless to try and focus if you continue to speak to him.

He stares for a moment, hidden face a mystery you long to solve. With a tap of his finger on his thigh, he explains.

“Training,” you blink, intrigued. Nikto seems to notice, tilting his head and looking down at you. “You are scared, Woman, yes?”

“Of course.” You had no trouble admitting it. “Anyone would be.”

“In military,” the air of the penthouse moves with the weight of his broken words, the rough bleed of vocals. You really did like his accent—it just added so much to his already intimidating form. Just a stack of bricks being constantly grated against one another. “We were taught how to become used to it—the adrenaline. Fear. In the end, it held little over many; failure was the only fear that never left.”

Your brows furrow, lips frowning. “You fear failure, Nikto?”

You expected a blunt refusal, quick words. But the man had been softening to you over the time you’d known him—if that was your own doing, or something more, you can’t quite tell anymore. Any talk on soulmates has feld you like a rabbit in a dark wood to shy away from the looming presence of something bigger; parties and scorned maniacs.

You still wonder if ignoring the gifts was the right thing to do. Would that make it worse? You think you’d read about that somewhere.

A trigger. But the stalker had already pushed one of those, hadn't he? What could he do that was worse than killing three men? Mutilating animals?

Nikto surprises you.

The man blinks, not looking away from your pleasing eyes—even now, your pupils were small with anxiety; he’d noticed how you adamantly avoided social media and the news, plastered with your pictures and the case. The window had never been opened fully since he’d been here, only a creak of natural light slipping from the crack of the half-risen blinds.

For a gruff beast of action, his eyes missed nothing.

“Yes,” he grumbles, blinking away for a moment before his attention returns. “But it is…lesser than what you feel. Незначительный. Minor.”

A small smile flickers your lips, skull to the ground even as it aches slightly.

“I like it when you speak to me—it helps,” you mumble honestly. It wasn’t flirting, not really.

The Russian looks slightly confused at your sentence, but that doesn’t stop his shoulders from minutely tightening. You chuckle, shifting your head to the ceiling where your little bits of painted glass hang.

“Nikto,” you point upwards. “That one—the bird. What color is it?”

This was a game you’d taken a fast liking to. You’d point and ask the color; Nikto would answer.

“Red,” is his monotone reply after a glance. Eyes from behind his mask shrouded in dark paint. You doubted the face grease could come off anymore, the chemicals already bone deep.

“I thought it was orange,” you sigh. “I still can’t tell the difference.”

“Obviously,” is the dryly amused response, with you glaring without venom and putting your hands to the ground to help push you back up.

“Hey,” you try to hide your teasing smirk. “I’m getting better at it—”

Your voice is strangled off as a sharp inhale, eyes blinking rapidly, and your vision blurs in a moment of ricocheting pain flaring in the base of your skull. Snapping one hand to the back of your head, you strangle down a small scream, reducing it to a whimper of utter agony.

Neck bending forward, your mouth fills with saliva as your spine pulls in, yet you can’t even focus on that. You feel like if you even have a single thought, your brain will explode out of the back of your head.

Nikto startles, eyes widening, but he doesn’t waste time on shock. Feet already rush over at the slighted change in the air, a hand grasping the base of your neck tightly, attention snapping into place. Your breath puffs as your frantically moving face tenses and eyelids twitch. Your nerves were on fire.

The Russian watches, confusion and a certain unease striking him through his pounding heart. What had happened? One second you were speaking and the next your body was so steel-like it shook harder than he’d ever seen it.

“Seraph,” he barks, face close to your head, looking at the spot you grasp at with your visible knuckles, the sound of your gasping pants leaving his throat echoing with reverberations of unease.

Nikto pulls at the skin of your wrist, peeling your hand back before you draw blood, trying to assess what to do. He only sees it then.

It’s a rabid-looking thing, the scar. With your hair as such, your fingers stuck in the knots, they’re pulled back just perfectly to see it. Pale blue eyes stare unabashedly, struck dumb for a moment in their concerned sheen.

It spans from the base of your skull upward, a jagged bulge of healed tissue and fissures—the shade of skin is different there, hyperpigmentation just as Nikto had. Halfway up the back, the rough line breaks into two places, creating a ‘Y’ with the one nearest to the right stopping sooner than the other.

But it was deep. Deadly-like. An indent lives at the middle point.

For someone so in tune with the ways of the body, Nikto was horrified and fascinated at the very implication; how had you…survived this? Your entire skull might have been broken open from the force of whatever had happened, judging by the strength needed to achieve such brutality. Was this the injury that you’d been speaking about?

An overwhelming emotion takes him by the lungs.

Your body had scars just like his did.

Form curling even farther forward, your legs pull into you, and Nikto finds that at the moment, none of that even matters.

“Seraph,” he orders again, equally as urgent but noticed less sharp. His thumb curls your wrist to trap itself at your pounding pulse; running as if being chased by whatever nightmares he hears you whine from in your sleep.

You swallow down your bile with a clicking of your throat and a small cough, eyes stinging.

“Burns,” your lips whisper, lids closing firmly. “God, my head burns.”

It’s a brief thought—a small moment of slip-second thinking that had saved his life many times.

A chilled palm spreads itself over the back of your head, directly over the broken fracture of flesh, without an utterance of a word. The effects aren’t immediate; you don’t just calm down and stop panicking. But it helps. Like a light in the dark, it helps.

After a minute, the chill seeps into your bones. It goes deeper and deeper, the large grip of Nikto’s fingers stuck into your hair perhaps a little harder than they needed to be, but you weren’t about to complain at the pressure. After two minutes, your panting slows to a small ragged wheeze—feeling like a sick duck as your beady eyes finally open. You see the unblinking pale orbs directly to your right almost immediately after the abyssal dots go back to wherever it was they came from.

He doesn’t speak; you didn’t expect him to. Nikto was arrogant, prideful, but he never spoke unless he knew he had something he needed to say. A blunt hound who never hesitated to bark, but only when he could see something was up in the tree.

When you’ve seemed to calm down, the hand on your wrist leaves with a brush of rough gloves to the skin, making you shiver. You notice the hastily tossed material of the matching product, belonging to the other limb, near your knee.

Cold fingers. Cold hands. A corpse would be jealous, but you’d never felt so thankful.

Nikto studies your face rapidly, and your raspy voice levels out a meek, “Sorry.”

Barely visible brows furrow tightly, almost disgusted. You perhaps misinterpreted that expression the wrong way, because just as you’re about to rush into a wild explanation as to why, how, and every excuse you can give, you’re once more taken off guard today.

Bulky arms circle your waist and under your vibrating knees.

With a sluggish reaction, you blink rapidly as you’re settled against the hard Kevlar of his chest—kept firm in his grip. Your legs hang, hand stabilizing yourself on Nikto’s pec.

“What did I say?” He asks heavily, looking down at you as your shock bleeds away to focus on how to calm your heart. “Seraph?” Nikto prompts, his fingers digging into your clothes.

You try to think, stuttering, “You don’t like it when I apologize.”

“So do not,” the Russian grunts, clenching his jaw out of sight. His words are low, and he rolls his shoulders. “That is the end of it.”

He sets you down on the couch, sinking into the multiple plush pillows. You feel weak—limp. Not looking into the man’s eyes, you curl your hands around your waist, leaning back and being careful to not hit your head on the back.

Nikto watches with hidden concern.

“Explain,” he utters, not moving an inch from in front of you. It’s a minute or so before you can find the words. All the Russian does in that time is shift his arms over his chest—fix the stance of his feet. You can feel his eyes like a knife, but you can’t feel how his brain is on high alert; vigilant to any pain that may be hidden from him.

“Happens sometimes,” you whisper, one vibrating hand coming up to lightly run over the back of your skull. You trace the scar softly, feeling the pulse underneath. “It’s just… sensitive.”

Nikto’s eyes narrow.

After a pause, where it’s obvious you feel some sort of embarrassment judging by your avoiding gaze, the great beast sighs long. A slow blink makes his dark lashes up and down.

He hated how he despised that look on your face.

Moving, Nikto sits beside you, leaning back with a grunt and extending an arm behind you on the hardwood of the couch’s frame.

“Tell me. I want to know.” You side-eye him, knees pulled up to your chest. It has a distance to it, your focus. Everything feels like it’s underwater.

“It’s not a good story,” you force a broken huff, smiling wobbly. Numb eyes don’t waver over the lines of your face.

“No,” Nikto bluntly says. “I did not expect it to be. Nonetheless…” he trails. “I am asking if you are willing to answer.”

It wasn’t like you were against saying what had transpired, but there was a lot of history there—so much. The event had happened when you were young, so many years had passed to a point where the mental pain of it had dimmed to all except the consequences. The aftermath.

This was a give and a take; you consider yourself a fair person.

“How did you lose part of your finger?” You turn it around, licking your lips and staring at his neck. The man’s body stills at the question.

Nikto slowly loosens a grumbled scoff. But it isn’t a feral thing. Perhaps he was even impressed that you had the forethought to gain something of his story when you’d already told so much of yours.

He reminds himself once more, not dumb.

“Very well,” Nikto’s head tilts like a wolf, his knee hitting the place where your feet hang over the edge of the cushion. He looks you up and down as his finger taps the wood behind your head. “Second year with PMC. Operation in far-off country—we do not care to remember which anymore.” You listen, heart calming with every scrape of vocal cords. Nikto explains slowly, thinking over every word carefully as his vision trails to rest at your nose. “Hostile hiding under floorboards.” The Russian rolls his shoulders. “I was reaching down to grab at the hatch; it confused me because it was partially open.”

Your body lightly turns his way, the side of your skull meeting the hard build off the inside of his forearm. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath, getting everything under control again one second at a time. As if a book, you turn the pages of Nikto, painting a picture of his tale, oblivious to the way his eyes are stuck on your face. His arm stays completely still for you.

He longs to look at that scar again, and he can’t understand why.

“...Large knife came up through the wood. Cut it off and damaged the others near it. It is numb most days. Barely can tell I still have finger. Very inopportune, but all was not lost.”

“What wasn’t lost?” You hum, sighing, and open your eyes again. The Russian’s gaze darts away.

“I killed him,” he says numb-like, a vicious smirk in his voice. “In the end, it was only us who could tell the story, yes?”

“Does it hurt?” You change the subject back to his scars, liking how his forearm acted as your pillow. You could feel his tendons as they pulled.

“Sometimes,” Nikto shrugs at your quiet question, thighs over the couch cushions. “Like all the others. Natural.”

He doesn’t need to ask if yours do.

You dwell on what he insinuates about his body—the scars you already thought he’d have; why he wears that mask.

“I fell,” you share, not letting a long silence linger. Nikto’s feet shuffle on the floor, but otherwise, like a waiting cat, he was completely beholden to your soft voice. “Far. Cracked my head open on a rock.”

There’s so much more to it—but this is the version you always tell everyone. It’s less…complicated. Gets you less looks of pity, even if you’re not sure Nikto is the type to do that.

The large man hums, nodding. He wants to know more; he’d have to look into it further on his own. “You are lucky to be alive after an injury like that.”

“Yeah,” you whisper, lips twisting. “Lucky.”

Your skull pulses.

“But, anyways,” you wave a hand, locking gazes. “Thank you.”

Nikto’s knees crack as he stands, moving away; his heat leaves. Hands situating themselves at the collar of his vest, the Russian’s throat rolls with a noise of acceptance.

“It is my job. Do you require anything?”

“I think I’m okay,” you admit, feet delicately moving to the rug on the floor. It’s back to packing, pushing this to the back of your mind just as you do the remembrance of his fingers tight in your hair; tight at your wrist. Nikto’s hard voice in your ear, saying your angelic title.

Your throat clears itself, blinking, as you stand.

The man takes it as lightheadedness, one foot moving closer. Your hand raises, and he stops. A small chuckle moves out of your mouth, side-eyeing him with a crinkle to your lids.

“I’m okay, Nikto. Trust me, please.”

He sighs, fingers twitching. But he doesn’t grumble any blunt vitriol, he just watches. Always watching.

Your spirits are lightened by his presence.

Brushing down your t-shirt, you close your eyes and shove away the memories, tiny tingles of pain still present as they go up and down your spine.

“Now, we have to get to work,” you brush past the episode, used to them. “It would be helpful if you lent a hand, Big Guy.”

Your joke leads to a huff, fingers taking back their book from the table—all in Russian script, so you didn’t know what it was—and a roll of eyes.

“That is not my problem. Your clothes, your parties.”

“The parties you’re going to have to go with me too,” you smirk, eyes glimmering as you grasp your phone, flipping it over to turn it on and look at the text you’d received. “I hope you like suits.”

Pale eyes widen before a growled Russian sentence wafts over the music from the recorder. You laugh, already knowing the contents of curses and refusals. He was so much like a child sometimes it takes you aback. A brute, utterly refusing what was in front of him and owning a short fuse.

“Oh, calm down,” you blink, signing into your phone. “I’m good at finding clothes as long as you tell me colors and shades. You’re in the best hands in the business, Nikto.”

“Do not say it like that,” he barks, eyes narrowed and his body moving forward to pass you, most likely to go back to your bookshelf and return the book, seeing as he’d get nowhere with it now. “I do not want your hands, Whelp.”

“You’re saying that now,” you tease, pointing with your free finger. “Everyone says that before they have a taste of—”

“Quiet.”

You laugh, spine lightly bending forward, and Nikto’s back turned to you to where you can’t see his face soften at the sound. His body unconsciously loosens, orbs gaining a distance that has nothing to do with his condition. Your existence is a curse to him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

It’s only after you’re able to calm down, the Russian putting his book away with a large hand, when you finally look down at the text you’d gotten.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

‘I sent you a gift and you didn’t even open it?’

Your face freezes mid-smile.

‘I’m giving you everything you wanted—you didn’t open the letter I gave you in the grocery store, either, did you? I waited for hours for you to show up! Hours for you! I’ve waited YEARS to be near you! I love you more than anything in my life and you’re ignoring me? How can you do that when I’ve risked so much? Please, Seraph, I love you but you’re breaking my heart—I’m trying so hard to be kind to you. Please, don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Это любовь с первого взгляда! Я не могу жить без тебя!

I’m trying to forgive you, my Сладкая, I promise. I’ll always forgive you, but let me show you how much you mean to me.’

Images pop through, scent quickly as your glee stiffly drops like glass to the floor. You’d never felt yourself go so still as when you’re halfway through the block of text and you see yourself at the grocery store, alone, and Nikto’s shadow disappearing around the aisle. More—so much more. You in AMA...in…in the photoshoot wearing nothing but the lingerie, skin on full display.

Your eyes flood with tears, jaw open.

He had been in that fucking room. He’d been there when your manager had brought in the dead birds—he, he had…

He’d been right there.

You can’t speak, you’re only looking down at the continuing barrage of photos.

Outside of the Consulate building, walking down the street, talking with Aly on a girls outing from months ago. Your phone vibrates with every one, quivering hands already moving but now more so. Like a rabbit being hunted down. It shows an escalation—the more you see the closer this freak was getting in each, slowly slinking with vile intentions until the last.

An image of the direct back of your head, a hand reaching, and almost touching, exactly where your scar lives.

You’re going to vomit.

The entire device is snatched by gloved fingers.

Nikto glares in confusion, ears twitching at every buzz of your phone. “What is wrong with—”

The man is suddenly more wound up than a dog under a noose.

Rushing past, you only reach the kitchen trash can two seconds before your bile rocketed from your mouth, heaving what little you’d managed to eat of Nikto’s cooking into the bottom with a tight sob.

Nikto’s hand holds the thing—reading, looking, with dead eyes. Dead eyes that gradually become enraged with a certain type of anger that breeds in silence. The skim, a ruthless finger tapping the screen and dragging the conversation back to the top before he stares. He stares and stares and stares at the pictures. At you.

The way you live your life, oblivious to the threat right behind you. Stalking closer.

Nikto can’t remember a time he’s felt so angry at an enemy before. Not just an enemy, no, an animal. This wasn’t like the rules of war, this was for pleasure; for a selfish need. He knew how to keep himself separate—had to for his sanity—but this was something no one could not get wrathful at. Even him.

He hears you wretch, vomiting into the trash just below the island where he’d made the both of you lunch, the choke of your sobbing breaths. The sounds make his hands tighten over the phone, to smash it to pieces like a toddler with a block castle.

And then the device buzzes one more time as Nikto silently finishes reading the first text you’d been sent.

‘Don’t worry about the bodyguard, Seraph, I can take care of him, too. We can finally be together, just like it’s supposed to be.’

Nikto is hitting the call button before his brain catches up to his finger.

Slotting it to his covered ear, he breathes like an afflicted hound, eye buggy and chest rattling with air. Panting echoed from behind his mask, the hot breath moving back to warm his slashed and burned flesh.

It picks up on the second ring, but nothing is said. No words from the other end.

In the corner of his eye, Nikto sees you hyperventilating. The former soldier speaks entirely in Russian, slipping back into his native tongue as easily as he slips into violence—it is nothing more than a slide of sandpaper.

“I am going to watch the life bleed from your eyes,” he grinds out. “And then I’m going to make your corpse wish it had been set on fire instead.”

Nikto hangs up, tossing the phone to the coffee table and making a mental note to get Yaromir and Galina to trace the number. Stomping over to you, your body was away from the trash now, hand to your mouth.

“I’m okay,” you say hurriedly, tears tracking your cheeks. “I’m okay.”

“You are not,” Nikto wishes he could go to the shooting range—wishes he could spar and slam someone down to a wrestling mat. He needs flesh under his fingertips.

The Russian’s chest is wide and rising with the pulse of untamed lungs. The bulge of his pecs stuttered over their course and the old scars he carries itch under the barrier of his gear.

Growling, the man clenches his eyes shut, shaking his head to the side firmly.

But there was something about the implication of you being threatened that made Nikto need to feel the weight of his service weapon in his grip. To feel the recoil of a bullet being sent into someone. A nameless figure; a silent phone call.

Nikto scoffs, rolling his neck and shoulders.

Thinking like this was making him reckless.

“I guess I should have told you about the letters, then,” you taste bile on your tongue, images swirling in your head—paranoia was firm. Suddenly, every memory was tainted. You gag on your saliva, coughing.

Nikto doesn’t respond to the self-deprecating comment.

Once more today, hands move to touch you, pulling at the space under your arms and lifting. Blinking, you’re moving around when your feet are flat on the ground—hands going to rest on the edge of the counter behind you.

Nikto’s hands stay stuck at the meat of your limbs, great head tilted. Eyes lock on the tear tracks spreading down your skin, and he pauses.

A thumb slowly pushes at them, spreading the liquid along your flesh as your blurry vision stays at his neck. With a shuddering inhale at the unneeded attention, your head lightly sags forward—connecting with Nikto’s chest.

He tenses, looking down at you from the corner of his eye.

After a minute, his nose releases an unheard sigh, and his arms lower to his sides.

Nikto lets you rest there as long as you need.

—

You’re in the bath tonight, and Nikto listens to the water sloshing as he pushes the envelopes around from inside the lockbox.

It was safe to say you hadn’t gone back to packing.

That woman, Alyona, was here—she’d made a big fuss about the texts before she’d taken you with her and led you into the bathroom to clean yourself up. You were both in there now—talking. Nikto wasn’t going to act like he wasn’t eavesdropping; he didn’t care if your friend or you knew it. It was mostly about the parties, the talk, and the Russian could understand that Alyona was trying to occupy your mind.

His mission was more important.

You’d passed him the box and watched as Nikto had retrieved the letter from your coat pocket. The former soldier had already called the investigators and promptly told them to arrest Sergi, or they would have him to deal with—there hadn’t been time to respond before he’d hung up and smashed his phone to the nightstand of your rented room. The resounding echo had made both parties in the bathroom go silent for a minute before hesitantly starting back up.

And now, there was the scratchy English script of a stalker in his hands. He felt disgusting even touching them; he was glad he’d put his gloves back on. A permanent sneer was stuck to his hidden face like a curse, eyes narrowed.

Standing, the man trades weight from his thighs as he reads the letter that had been stuck in your jacket.

‘My Сладкая,

This is the one-hundredth letter I’ve written to you, though you haven’t been sent all of them yet. I’m still waiting for you to notice me, and I’ve grown disquieted by your response to the way I disposed of your three guards. Was that not what you wanted every time you looked at me?’

Nikto’s hand comes up to rub at the fabric over his neck, digging until he feels the bulge of his scar against his fingertips.

‘I thought you would be thankful, but now you have that man following you everywhere. He took your doves from you—the doves that were supposed to make up for the misunderstanding about the dead men. You looked beautiful with the red fire moving over your face that day, you know? It caught every curve and the softness of your skin perfectly. Here—I even took a picture for you to enjoy as I thoroughly have. I hope it brings you the pleasure it brought me to run my lips over your holy image.”

Fingers crumble the side of the letter, creasing it. Not once do they delve into the envelope to look for that picture. If he had the choice, Nikto would rip this entire thing into little bits.

‘I think it’s time that we meet—alone, Сладкая. I’ll be waiting tonight at the café for you, so we can run away together. And start this life together. I think it’s time. Yes. I will ravage you with all of the beautiful things in life; jewelry, dresses, makeup, my body. It is mine, isn’t it? You? You’ve told me with your eyes, so why are you still ignoring me? You look at me every day. I look back—you love me! I know you do! Why are you still being such a—’

It falls off into nothing but rabid script; illegible even to Nikto’s best abilities. The letter is saturated with something—spots of the paper pulling in on itself with droplets off…

Nikto stills, disgust and insult moving in his gut. There wasn’t any DNA on the box, but they certainly had some here.

Dropping the letter into the lockbox on the nightstand, the man takes the top and rams it shut with a rattle of the nesting dolls on the upper shelf. Nikto removes his gloves and tosses them into the garbage bin.

Stalking to the bathroom door, he moves on instinct. Ever the animal.

Knuckles rasp to the wood. Conversations halt once more.

“Seraph,” he eases, accent tight. “You are well?”

A bead of silence, the moving of water.

“Yes, Nikto,” your voice is still shaky, but it comes out from under the door.

Nikto stares at his feet, blinking. With a grunt, his feet shift and he forces out, “Good. You will call if you need us.”

It wasn’t a question.

Moving back, he nods to himself firmly, shaking out his right hand—he can’t seem to stop being on edge. Every creak, every shadow of your decorations moving, made his eyes dart to them, honing in as if behind the scope of a rifle.

Nikto brought his hands to the side of his skull, pushing in. You were messing with his head, he tells himself again. The moments of dissociation were becoming more frequent as of late, and he could feel it in the back of his mind even now. A glaze over his brain that made everything feel like it was worlds away from him—it was sharp and sure of itself. Words jumbled, ‘I’s came out as ‘We’s, things were lapsed from his brain; important things. Moments of confusion—aggression. Leaving you behind in a grocery store at the flip of a coin. Snapping at you in real anger when you were just curious.

He can’t do that. He can’t lose his grip.

From inside the bathroom, your eyes stay locked on the door, your head resting on the wall behind you as your skin soaks in the claw-footed tub.

“I don’t know if this is good for me, Aly,” you confess lowly, eyes shifting back to the wall ahead of you, a little black and white ceramic fish on a shelf. Candles let off the scent of linen and pine.

Alyona sits on the stool a few feet away, watching your face worriedly.

“Солнышко,” she starts slowly, “we both know it isn’t. It’s going to pass—I can’t hope for more than that.”

It’s like a repeating record—It’ll be okay, just keep strong, push through.

It wasn’t Aly’s fault; she’s involved in this too.

“Is Nikifor worried about you?” The woman’s head perks, her lips twitching as the orbs inside of her head soften.

“Seraph, you don’t have to change the subject—”

“Truly,” you move a hand up from the water and rub at your face. “Really, Aly, I need a distraction. Please, just…talk. You know I love to hear about the two of you.”

She sighs, looking to the wall. After a moment, she chuckles, head tilting down. “Yes, he’s worried. He worries about you as well. You have a home with us, little Солнышко—I want you to know that, yes?” Alyona brings a hand to your cheek, pinching in good nature.

You shuffle away in mock annoyance, lips twitching.

“...I know, Aly.”

“Good,” she huffs. “I would not be a good friend if you didn’t. At least that brute is taking care of you, it seems.”

“He’s a good cook,” you ease out. “You should try it sometime.”

Gray eyes blink at you, shocked. “He got you to eat a meal?”

“You’re saying it like I never do,” you chuckle, eyebrows pulling in as the dimmed overhead light shines down on your avoidance of the problem at hand.

“No, it’s not that,” Aly’s eyes rove with unseen emotion, her concerned heart gaining a smidge of affection for the man outside of the door, whose shadowed feet can still be seen pacing. “I am…glad, Seraph. Food is always the way to someone’s senses, eh?”

Your lips twitch, but the weight on your chest remains. A tense pause grabs the both of you.

“I wish you were coming with,” you have to admit on a stiff tongue. “Ever since I first got here, you’ve been with me for all of it—the parties especially.” Your open mouth stutters. “Aly, I don’t think I can do it again by myself. All of those people; what some of them expect from me, it…it’s just…” Getting choked up, you move a hand to your mouth, covering it. From behind the flesh, you mutter, “I can’t do it again, it’s just the same as staying here, as a matter of fact, I think staying would be better.”

“You need to think rationally,” Aly shakes her head, getting closer to take your hand in both of hers. She squeezes, her top shiny in the light as it moves. “Nothing is worse than staying in this city. The man outside the door agrees. It is the safest option for you, even if,” Alyona closes her eyes, looking away as she opens them. She never finishes her sentence.

“I don’t want to,” you fight a whimper. “Aly, we tried so hard to get out of them sending us like meat.”

But there’s nothing that the woman can do to you when you say it like that, and even her expression gets far away. Alyona’s eyes blink fast, getting glossy before they avoid your eyes for the rest of the night.

“I’m sorry, My Seraph. I’m so, so, sorry.”

And that’s all that can be said.

When night comes, you don’t think you sleep at all, and by Nikto’s pacing of his room, the occasional pause to peek his head through your doorway, neither does he.

—

The time to leave came far quicker than you could anticipate as the days blended. Chelyabinsk was nearly a three-hour drive if you went the fastest route, and in the time before it, you and Nikto hadn’t spoken much about the letters. They’d been taken by the investigators the next day, along with your phone, for testing and tracking. While you’d been given a new device, it was a tiny thing that died more times than not; you had three contacts—Alyona, Nikto, and your mom.

You’d been assigned a driver by AMA for the trip, and thus, the all-black vehicle had arrived in the small hours of the morning as you had finished a hurried call to your matriarch.

“I’ll be back soon, Mom,” you’d explained. “Business. I’ll keep me busy.”

She had said it was a good idea like everyone else. Aly and you were the only ones to know the truth. Dread was a fishhook in your throat, but the fear of staying here was just as prominent. Those pictures haunted your mind.

“Nikto,” you ask, grabbing one of your suitcases on the street with a grunt. “Can you…?” The item is taken and easily lifted into the trunk. “Thank you,” your voice breathes out a sigh into the early morning air.

You hadn’t been to Chelyabinsk in a long time. Your brain knew that it would be most of the same—you needed to be careful of who you spoke to and how you did it. While regular crime was only moderate, corruption and bribery was your main problem when entering the place. You were on Allurement’s payroll, would your CEO’s influence be enough to stop anyone from trying anything with you?

If you stuck to where you were told to go, you should be fine.

Along with yourself and Nikto, photographers and media know-hows would be tagging along; makeup artists and stylists. A team of people who mostly refuse to look at you at all, only a few familiar faces among them.

But, thankfully, only you and your guard would be in this car.

“You can get in,” Nikto comments, blinking at you in the dark street, the lights of the car and the penthouse behind you all you have to differentiate between shades of black and gray. Your eyes had been constantly narrowed so you could try and see better. “I will load the rest.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” you smile sheepishly, “I’d like to stay out until we leave. I get fidgety when I’m in the car for too long.”

His shoulders shrug, taking another of your bags from the ground. “Very well. You will eat on the way there, then.”

Your eyes blink, attention pulled back from the shadow of a man walking across the street, raising hair on your arms.

“What was that?” You tilt your head.

Nikto huffs. “Eat. On the way there.” He raises a brow. “You need breakfast.”

“Oh,” you at your neck slightly. “Sure, yeah. But what about you? Do you want me to turn around or something so I won’t see your face?”

“No need. We ate as you dressed. Packed the remaining for you.” You’re brushed past, the purse around your shoulder connecting with Nikto’s thigh as his boots clop over the concrete.

Your lips twitch, expression still worried but the tease sneaking out instinctually. “I need to start calling you Mother Bear, Nikto.”

“It will be the last thing you do, Whelp,” he grumbles, eyes looking over his shoulder as he packs the last suitcase away. Amusement is like liquid stone inside of them.

So the trip ensued.

You entertained yourself by staring out of the window as the cityscape rolled back, already missing the sanctity of your penthouse as you fiddled with a small stuffed bird in your grip.

“I spy…” you mumble twenty minutes in, trying to be normal again. “Something tall and gray—”

“Tree,” Nikto grunts, trying to read one of the books he packed.

“No,” you say, defensively. “It was,” your mouth opens and closes, scouring the passing scene but finding nothing. “Fine, yes, it was a tree.”

“I spy something blue.”

“That’s not even funny.”

“I believe it was funny. Perhaps you do not have a good sense of humor, Woman.”

You glare, throwing your stuffed bird directly at his forehead and watching it bounce off. Nikto doesn’t even look away from the words on his page, flipping to the next with a deep chuckle in his neck.

Rolling your eyes, you groan and slouch into your seat.

You had to say, though, that as the city disappeared, so did your anxieties. It felt good to be near dense croppings of trees again—only an open and uncrowded highway and Nikto beside you. His pale eyes would watch you every so often, and you would do the same, studying each other as time passed and a gradual silence fell.

“Can I use you as a pillow?” You ask with only an hour left on the trip.

Nikto’s halfway through his book, and up until now, you’d kept to yourself, lost in thought.

“I am not comfortable,” he utters, leg shifting. He glances, but his numb eyes don’t do much until they move back to where they were prior. “And my Kevlar is hard. It will aggravate your head.”

You had to wonder how fast he caught onto that fact about you. A smile grows on your face, and you shift to grab your jacket, folding it and tossing the item onto Nikto’s thigh. His head darts down right as you move to rest there, body sideways and legs folded against the door.

“I like it when you worry—it’s cute,” you stifle a yawn, ignoring his digging eyes. “Wake me before we get there?”

Your ears don’t wait for an answer, your fatigue from missing an entire night of sleep catching up where Nikto’s never would. He watched you rest for the remainder of the ride, hand hovering over your shoulder until it slowly slipped down to rest on it with a grumble of exasperated Russian under his breath. But the man had noticed the bags under your eyes—unable to be hidden by makeup. He found it in himself to let you sleep, even if the infection of your warmth made his head go loose; how your slackened face looked peaceful.

The knowledge of what you’d just experienced was still with him, even as he linked his feelings together as pointless. This was a waiting game, and everyone else seemed to have time except for you.

He didn’t like it. There was a nagging in the back of his gut—instinctual understanding as a hired gun who’d gone through many deployments. This was bigger; something was going to happen soon. A tipping point.

Nikto had a feeling you felt it too, as your head nuzzled his thigh in your sleep, shoving yourself into your jacket as tiny grunts moved from your lips; eyebrows furrowing.

Bad dream, the Russian clocked immediately, his book long placed at his side and his one elbow against the window frame.

Pale blue eyes watched for a moment, looking at your deep red blouse and the long back skirt that lightly cascaded over the side of the seats. His hand at your shoulder—hard and immobile, twitches as it tries to keep you steady, feeling the muscle under your flesh writhe.

Only when you can’t seem to calm down does he do anything at all.

Nikto can easily stamp an expression of annoyance on his face, of bored numbness, but instead, a sliver of something that could be considered softness bleeds from behind his eyes; something that even if he were to look into a mirror, he couldn’t name himself.

A finger brushes up your neck, scarred and broken, most of a finger missing and the nearest ones fuzzy with nerve damage. It hovers, steady, before his hand moves to massage along the base of your scar. It’s an awkward angle, no mistake. After all, he was practically grabbing the side of your neck to reach, but it was all he could offer short of waking you.

When he couldn’t sleep, he’d do the same to himself; it helped, he thought, feeling skin on skin—a caress that eases aches. Call it pathetic, but the sensations he was feeling doing the same to you were nothing short of trance-inducing. To understand the pulse of your heart—your breath returns to a slow puff; brows settling back down at only his circling thumb.

A bit of that infectious pride trickles into his eyes; smug.

Nikto grunts, and leans back into his chair, continuing his work to settle you, and smirks softly under his mask.

Only roughly half an hour to go, and then it was back to guard duty. But perhaps he could close his eyes and rest as well.

You made for quite the distraction.

TAGS:

@anna-banana27, @random-thot-generator, @midwesternwitchery, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @halfmoth-halfman, @alpineswinter, @blingblong55, @cryingnotcrying, @lxne20, @not-eclipse, @theecoffeebean, @phoenixhalliwell, @h3ll-guttz, @tiinkerbell, @genjilvr, @azush4rp, @escapefromrealitysm, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @finnigansxz, @cowboybaby2, @delaynew, @doggydale, @zapphir, @littlemisstrouble, @xxtmoe, @grizzersmamma, @andreas-river, @blogdddxx, @jade-jax, @emthegrace, @lovebugmsyd, @makariaspresence, @noisyprofessorhoundsalad-blog, @scythebot, @blueoorchid, @kra-rino4ka, @caramlizedtomatoes, @strawberymilk,@frazie99, @homicidal-slvt, @develised, @crispyhusband, @cathnoneofyourbusiness, @ghostslittlegf, @generalcloudtraveler, @azsteris, @rvjaa, @creminemisinthehizzyforshizzboy, @comsyki

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wsdalt · 23 days

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i rewatched the felps prison stream and here's some fun facts that people who didn't watch his stream might not have known:

-the stream starts in media res with the saint music playing and him silent

-there's no facecam or chat on screen (a stylistic choice for qsmp specifically because i'm pretty sure he streams again after the priosn event is over and he has both)

-he was very shocked about the fact he's been asleep for months

-he has difficultly distinguishing dreams from reality/real memories he has, and often throughout the stream isn't sure if he's actually awake

-he calls himself a saint a lot but when empanada asks if he's god he says he's not actually sure what he is. later he also admits he's not sure what his powers are exactly

-the saint music emanates from him without him necessarily choosing for it to--as seen when he was playing hide and seek, and it kept playing even though he was trying to tell it to stop (ooc i think this was just felps trying to be found while still roleplaying, but in-universe this appears to be canon)

-sometimes before he blesses people the saint music plays and he stares silently at whoever he's about to bless for a few moments before blessing them. this isn't the only way he can bless people though--it can also be more casual

-is constantly trying to be taken to the heavens as a way of escaping prison

-vaguely mentions his death during fuga again! During the scene he's been taken to the interview room and is told to wait: "i think i will die. again." (i believe the fuga death is the one he's talking about because most qsmp deaths aren't significant for players and he's mentioned cellbit killing him in prison twice beforehand while on qsmp. but as i said, it's vague)

-his response to the question "if you disappeared for a few days where would you go?" was "I think, um… I went to an experiment? In an ice block? (suddenly intense) That's what happened to me before! So, I don't know if it would happen again! (calm again) So, I don't know, I don't know… Maybe to heaven?"

-loves pasta

there might be more fun facts but this is all i can think of right now \o/

#qsmp felps #this is kind of like… a little characterisation update for people i suppose #obviously doesn't encompass everything--but maybe it'll help a little \o/

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cheekinpermission · 22 days

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I wanna talk about the scene in the museum with Azul...

(SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3 AHEAD. ALSO LOTS OF RAMBLING! :D)

During Ch. 38 of Book 3, Azul and Yuu have a short conversation post-overblot in the underwater museum place. I always felt that this bit of dialogue was weirdly charged? The whole scene felt very intimate to me (and the soft music in the background doesn't help lmao), but I never knew WHY since nothing said was inherently romantic.

So, I went back and re-read through every post-overblot and realized that Azul is the only who who has a one-on-one conversation with Yuu after their overblot??

It's rare enough to have one-on-one conversations between Yuu and another character, but then Azul goes a step further. He's the only one to open up to Yuu about his problems:

Some of the other overblot boys talk about their problems, but not to Yuu specifically. It's more of a declaration than confiding in someone, you know? (E.g. Riddle talking about how he prefers milk tea even though the rules stipulate lemon tea)

We, the players, are shown flashbacks of the overblot boys to explain how they reached this point but I can't recall if Yuu is privy to this information as well. (It's theoretically possible since Yuu already has visions / dreams of the Great Seven, but no one ever mentions it so who knows. I'm personally on the side of Yuu NOT knowing because it feels a bit invasive that they'd have this knowledge of people who weren't ready to share it.)

Regardless of whether Yuu can or cannot see those flashbacks, Azul is the only one to willingly talk about his motivations to Yuu. For Azul, this is especially important as he's so protective of his image as a clever and upstanding housewarden, and yet here he openly admits to Yuu that he was a bit of a loser as a kid (his words not mine!).

I guess you could argue that he felt there was no reason to hide it anymore since Yuu already saw him as a chubby octopus baby, but he didn't have to talk about it at all if he didn't want to. But he did. On his own. With no prompting. (Really, though. Yuu can either say they want to make sure he puts the photo back or that they're worried about him, and either way he drops his lore on them lol) And then Yuu tries to help him feel better??

To my knowledge, Yuu doesn't do this with any of the other overblot boys, either. I could have missed it during my research, but if they did it wasn't nearly to the same extent as with Azul.

I still don't know why Azul felt like opening up to Yuu. He didn't have to, but maybe he wanted to? Maybe he wanted to try his hand at being genuine for once and felt Yuu was the least intimidating person to do it with (the magicless human that they are). Who knows? I wish there were more scenes like this. It makes Yuu feel more included in the story. I also think it shows a lot of growth on Azul's end to open up about his problems to Yuu of his own volition.

I'm not sure what I wanted to say with this post, only that I wanted to get my thoughts out there about this scene because it always stood out to me. I felt there was always an undercurrent of something and I think it's because this was the only post-overblot private conversation we got with Yuu and an overblot boy, plus the added encouragement from Yuu at the end.

I'm curious to know if anyone felt the same way about this scene or if I'm just imagining things. I'm also interested in hearing any theories why Azul suddenly felt the urge to open up to Yuu, if you've got them!

Thanks for enduring my rambling!

Bonus!

Azul's so funny for trying to play it off all cool like he isn't doing flips and princess twirls in his head rn. Yuu laid it on THICK. We all know he's freaking out internally.

#i do have a theory for why only azul got this one-on-one with yuu post-overblot but that's a whole other long winded post lol #azul x yuu shippers win this one i s2g #this is just a really cute scene okay i wanted to mention it #i LOVE analysis btw #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst #twisted wonderland #octavinelle #azul ashengrotto #twst azul #twst book 3 #cheekinrambles

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nevadancitizen · 8 months

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-> (I'VE BEEN) DREAMING OF YOU

synopsis: könig comes into your reality.

word count: 1.2k

characters: könig, player! reader

trigger warnings: mention of canon-typical violence, maybe slightly obsessive könig oops lol

notes: self-aware cod au belongs to @puff0o0 , inspired by @simp4konig // i moved for college lol hopefully i'll be able to upload(?) more often + salf-aware aus are really my thing huh. my jam if you will

It had been a week since König figured out he wasn’t real.

At least, that’s what he approximated it to be. Time was tricky if he actually tried to count the seconds and minutes and hours.

But when he stepped off the helicopter and trudged back into base, he knew he would at least have some sense of relief. Some sense of… realness, even though he knew he only existed through the wires of ethernet cables, or maybe even something as primitive as a CD.

König knew his boots tracked in mud and blood and maybe even guts, but he didn’t care. Everything would be wiped clean and be put on a new plate tomorrow for… he guessed they would be called the players, to eat.

He shut the door to his quarters behind him and leaned against it, closing his eyes and sighing. He desperately wished he could tell someone, anyone, about what he had witnessed – what he knew to be true.

He felt crazy. He felt blessed. He felt like a conspiracy theorist that was just re-inventing the idea that the whole world is a simulation – because it is! People re-invented ideas all the time, but there was nothing shameful in it. But if the rest of humanity (and for all he knew, humanity could only be KorTac and Specgru) oohed and aahed and said, “God, we live in a simulation? I’ve never heard that one before!” just to make him feel good, nothing would ever get done. But it still stung to know such a heavenly being existed and to keep such a huge secret.

Of course he was talking about you, thinking about you. When did he not think of you, actually?

He felt almost hollow without you. Like you had given him warmth with your control – a raging bonfire he could only observe from a distance, but still felt the full heat of: as in, an actual heat in his chest whenever he felt his control slipping away, replaced with the security that came with being in your presence. And König didn’t hate it. Not at all.

He didn’t even bother to shrug off his work equipment before he threw himself onto his bed. He turned over and swaddled himself with his blanket to try and emulate your warmth. It did nothing.

It was a while before he fell asleep. And he had the strangest dream…

He was in your room. He had only caught glances of it, but here he was, tangled in your blankets and in your bed.

And there you were. Sitting at your desk, typing away at your laptop. Your back was to him, but he could tell it was you. Even at this distance, you were so warm.

You were wearing the big, chunky headphones you always wore when you played. He could hear quiet thumping bass coming from them. It was the only sound he could hear aside from your quick keystrokes.

König slowly untangled himself from your blankets – he still had his boots on, the ones that had mud and blood and maybe even guts. Then he realized he had all of his work equipment on.

He stood and surveyed his surroundings. Everything in your room was so… you. (Obviously. It was your room.)

His eyes snapped back to you when you took off your headphones. You pressed a button on the side to pause your music and then set them down. You stretched your arms above your head and let out a quiet groan as you leaned back.

You looked so soft. So cute. Nothing like what König had seen through the screen. You had been slightly bitcrushed and pixelated, but now…

The warmth that blossomed in his chest was like no other. It spread out into his limbs, almost making him weak in the knees. His eyelids fluttered, but he forced them open to look at you, take in more of you.

He tried to say your name softly, as to not startle you, but it came out choked and loud and awkward. His voice even cracked.

You were so scared you nearly punched a hole through your monitor. You stood and turned, immediately grabbing a pair of scissors that were on your desk.

Your hand shook as you pointed the pair of scissors at König. “T… take off the hood!”

König kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, even bending at the knee a little to be less threatening. He puts up his hands in a surrendering manner. “Schatz, no, it’s me. It’s König.”

“Shut up!” you barked. “I’m not – no way am I being killed or robbed or whatever by someone in cosplay!” Your eyes flit over his body, spotting a knife on his utility belt. “And give me your knife. Try anything and I’m – I’ll…” you glanced down at the pair of scissors (which you can’t really stab him with). “I’ll snip your dick off!”

It honestly takes a bit of effort on König’s part not to laugh. Still, he slowly, carefully took the knife out of its holster and offered it to you, the blade pointed towards his chest. “Please, be careful.”

“I know how to handle knives,” you snapped. You put the pair of scissors back on your desk and took to pointing König’s knife at him. You took a tentative step closer, your jaw set. You reached a shaking hand out towards König’s face. “Don’t… move.”

"Mein Leibling.” König breathed out the words. “What are you doing?”

“The mask,” you said. “I’m taking it off. Then I’m calling the police.”

König just looked at you with wide eyes, his blue-grey eyes stark against his eyeblack. His eyebrows creased as he looked down at you, but said nothing.

And then, König felt a blossoming warmth as his face was exposed for the first time in what felt like forever.

His eyes fluttered shut as he felt your eyes rove over his face. Under the hood wasn’t a face: nothing except for his eyes, eyebrows, and a little bit of the surrounding skin. The rest of it was unloaded textures, a checkerboard of black and bright purple.

“Schatz…”

“König…”

König’s eyes opened as you said his name. You didn’t notice before, but his eyes were detailed, told a story. This wasn’t the king of the battlefield – this was König. Here, he wasn’t a killer, wasn’t someone who saws someone’s head off with a dull plastic knife and doesn’t even blink when the blood spurts out. He wasn’t the long-shot-drop-pop one-bullet-wonder. He was a man.

König gently reached up and took your wrist and pulled your hand away from his hood. It fell back into place, covering up his checkerboard face.

He looked down at you, his eyebrows still furrowed. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

“You’re…” you sighed – not disappointedly, but more surprised. “You’re actually him. You’re König.”

“I am,” König said simply.

“Schatz,” you said. “What does that mean?”

König smiled down at you, even though he didn’t have a mouth. His eyes crinkled at the outsides. “Treasure.”

He gently let go of your wrist, his hand traveling up your arm until it came to your shoulder. His fingers brushed against your jaw, the rough texture of his gloves making you tense just the slightest bit.

He whispers softly, like he’s afraid of you hearing his voice. “My treasured player.”

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scuttlingcrab · 2 months

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So it's pretty obvious that Raphael would be a massive fan of luxury items. How would he react to Tav being able to make certain luxury items from scratch (such as lotions, massage oils, perfumes, soaps, etc.) and is really freaking good at it.

Maybe he learns this little fact about Tav when he receives a bundle of custom luxury items from one of his warlocks and it has a note which says, "To: Raphael. From: The mouse. A 'thank you' for the food." (assuming Tav filled a plate of food during the group's first encounter with the fiend)

Thank you for this awesome prompt. I took a liberty with this one, wanted to try something that maybe a writer hasn’t done before re: what luxury item Tav would make Raphael. I also referenced a few characters from my other stories. Marin, the composer from A Night at the Symphony and Dolofina, the warlock, from A Warlock is Born. I couldn’t resist! Hope you enjoy! And send on the next prompt if you haven’t already! :)

Summary: Raphael receives an unexpected gift from Tav.

Warnings: Mild violence/torture

––

A Perfect Fit

(Image via violadesdragons)

The screams were like music to Raphael’s ears.

The torment that resonated from each shriek, every wail that echoed into his House of Hope, if directed well, could create a symphony that would feed Raphael for weeks. A melody almost as magnificent as Marin’s concertos. Raphael mastered what buttons to push, what minute threads to pull, to achieve perfection.

Every human was an instrument in their own right. They had a unique cord, an unsung talent, that Raphael knew how to excavate and mould. He had spent millenia fiddling with mortals, experimenting with different techniques to inflict pain or even less conspicuous means to really persecute his poor unfortunate pets.

Nevertheless, Raphael despised it all. Torturing these creatures was so below his station, another idle role he had to play to keep up appearances in this never-ending farce to reach his objective, to reclaim the Crown of Karsus. He longed to see the players of his saga, his glorious ascension, leave the dark confines of the wings and enter the proscenium for all the planes to see.

Raphael listlessly looked up towards his current unfinished task, a withered mortal impaled on rusted spikes. No matter how hard Raphael stared at this rat, how tirelessly he worked his mind to calculate new methods to inflict agony, all Raphael could do was muster an apathetic groan in response.

He was almost relieved to hear footsteps approaching the dungeon, identifying the bouncy gait of one of his warlocks almost immediately. Dolofina.

Raphael smiled to himself, letting out a shallow breath as the doors slowly creaked open. He snapped his fingers, and another spike appeared, slowly lifting to meet the others.

“I do hope you have some interesting news for me. And think hard on your answer, or else I might swap you out with poor Boris.”

Raphael turned to greet Dolofina, the whimpers of the tortured human slowly rising as he approached her. She stared back at him without any emotion, unmoved by the threat. He taught her well.

“Apologies for the intrusion, but a woman was insistent you receive this. She wouldn’t leave Korrilla alone until she confirmed we’d deliver it to you.”

Dolofina lifted the basket in her hands with a sigh, offering it to Raphael.

“Pah! Which insolent creature is it this time? If it’s that damned–”

“She only referred to herself as the, and I quote, ‘little mouse.’”

Dolofina seemed perplexed at the name, rolling her eyes as she waited for his response. Raphael’s mouth parted, his eyes instantly becoming more animated at the mention of her.

“Could she be crawling to me already?” So fast, and such a pity. He had been looking forward to a tussle.

Raphael gingerly picked up the basket, holding it in his hands and carefully inspecting every inch as if it was an ancient relic. What a simple little offering, merely a straw woven basket. Its contents were hidden under gold wrapping paper and held together delicately by a red bow.

“Don’t worry, we’ve already inspected it for traps.”

Raphael gave Dolofina a flat stare.

“Do you think the creature would be so daft?”

Dolofina shrugged.

“I am merely a mortal, what would I know?”

There was a hint of mischief in Dolofina’s eyes as she smiled back at Raphael, so pleased with herself. He growled, pointing towards the threshold of his dungeon. The skin on his human disguise hissed, verging on transformation.

“You have overstayed your welcome. And might I remind you, I am your master. I can terminate our agreement whenever I see fit, be it from the smallest lapse in your performance. You know what that means for your future.”

“Yes, master.” Dolofina responded through tight lips. She promptly made her leave, but not without slamming the doors behind her.

“Must every creature under my employment be so thickheaded?” Raphael whispered, taking a moment to massage the bridge of his nose.

When Raphael was sure his boiling blood had cooled, he proceeded to focus his attention on the basket, now weighing heavy in his hands. It would’ve been a shame to have accidentally incinerated the gift with his temper, which was nearly uncontrollable in recent months, without even knowing what was inside.

Raphael started with the bow, carefully untying the knot. Once it was removed, he brought it to his nose, slowly taking in its scent. Cloves and roses. Oh how he relished it. Raphael placed the bow in his pocket and removed the wrapping paper. He discovered a small envelope sitting on top of a golden gift box. A sudden jolt of electricity shot through his veins as he opened the letter.

To: Raphael From: The Mouse Thank you for the food. Please accept this gift in exchange for your hospitality. If the measurements are not sufficient, perhaps we can schedule a fitting. You know where to find me.

Raphael snapped his fingers, leaving the letter floating in the air beside him as he continued with the box. His fingers, usually so calm and still, twitched with excitement.

Raphael gasped, removing a single doublet from the box, its red colour as dark as blood. The silk melted in his hands, the article of clothing sparkling against the roaring flames of the dungeon. Gold and silver markings were intricately embroidered throughout the jacket, infernal designs suiting Raphael’s tastes. The cuffs of the doublet were adorned with devil tails that swished and curled on a constant loop.

“My, my, the little mouse has been busy indeed.”

And what artistry! It had been ages, no centuries, since his eyes fell on such an alluring piece. Is this what it would feel like once he held the Crown in his hands?

Raphael snapped his fingers, the doublet now on his person. He sighed, oh it fit him perfectly, as if that creature knew Raphael’s body like the back of her hand. He raised his arms, bowed, did every possible movement that could come to his mind in that instant, and yet could find no imperfections.

Raphael was a generous devil, perhaps often too generous. He wasn’t opposed to receiving such luxurious gifts on occasion, but it was dangerous to play with his food. He considered for a moment being harsher to his future clients. The little mouse had a long road ahead of her if she was to help Raphael get what he desired. She needed to focus. No more distractions. No more gifts.

And yet…

Raphael clapped his hands and a mirror appeared before him. He gave himself a little spin, grinning. It was a suitable doublet. Cursed creature! Perhaps he could make other uses of these tadpoled yet. What was that mortal saying he heard so often? Ah yes, all work, and no play…

Raphael was pulled from his thoughts at the howls of the tortured mortal, still impaled above him. Raphael’s cheeks burned, he had been sloppy, overlooking that he was not alone.

He angrily snapped his fingers and the mortal combusted. Their screams died with the flames, leaving no signs of their previous existence as the ashes fluttered away. A waste of a soul, Zariel be damned. She’d never even notice it was missing.

And with that, Raphael stormed out of the dungeon, proudly wearing his new doublet.

154 notes · View notes

amazzwon · 4 months

Text

MY GO-TO SEVENTEEN FICS

────⟢.ᐟ Choi Seungcheol (Scoups)

╰ Rough

smut, 2k

╰ warm hearts

fluff, 0.5k

╰ his arms

smut, 0.4k

╰ sapiosexual

smut

╰ Good Luck, Fermata Tower

firewatch au, smut, angst, fluff, 13.9k

╰ always only you

14.2k, smut, childhood friends to lovers

╰ Shiver Me Timbers!

pirate captain!seungcheol x siren!reader, fantasy au, smut, 3.0k

╰ Dancing Queen

smut, fluff, slight angst, disco club owner!choi seungcheol, performer!reader

────⟢.ᐟ Yoon Jeonghan

╰ First Makeout Session

suggestive, minors do not interact

╰ my heart is beating for two

fluff, daycare worker yn! x secretary jeonghan, 1k

╰ Blueberries

smut, yoga instructor!Jeonghan, 2k

╰ Hate is a strong word

smut, angst, fluff, e2l, coworker au, 15k

╰ How many chances are too many chances?

angst, fluff, fwb, f2l, 14k

╰ Titty-Shirt!

pervert!rollercoaster operator!jeonghan x bigtiddie!fem!reader, theme park au, coworkers to lovers, e2l, smut, fluff, 13.2k

╰ every summertime

16.1k, 70s au, playing hard to get, smut

────⟢.ᐟ Hong Jisoo (Joshua)

╰ City lights Series

smut, rocksinger!joshua, neighbours with benefits, angst, fluff, 75.4k

╰ NBA player

smut, 0.8k

╰ cranberry concoctions

bartender!joshua, smut, a little angst & a little fluff, 1920s prohibition au, speakeasy au, 4.6k

╰ leaning on the everlasting arms

childhood best friend! pastor's son!joshua x f reader, angst, smut, some fluff, bible college au, 10.3k

╰ Curse The Stars

Salesman!Joshua x Starlet Afab!Reader, Smut, fluff, strangers to lovers, fwb to lovers, 1970s Hollywood au, pwp, 8.4k

────⟢.ᐟ Moon Junhui (Jun)

╰ Christmas with his family

fluff, comfort, (slight) angst, 0.5k

╰ Do Re Mi

smut, fluff, 4k, wife!reader, husband!jun

────⟢.ᐟ Kwon Soonyoung (Hoshi)

╰ charity f*ck

smut, virgin!hoshi x experienced!reader, fluff, 12.2k

╰ Leather

smut, 1.5k

╰ driving lessons for dummies

fluff, humor, smut, strangers to lovers au, college au, stoner!hoshi, 16k

────⟢.ᐟ Lee Jihoon (Woozi)

╰ Somewhere In The Middle

9.7k, romance, smut, best friends, fwb to lovers, hurt, comfort

────⟢.ᐟ Jeon Wonwoo

╰ [12:01 AM]

fluff, 0.2k

╰ First Snow

fluff, angst, smut, ceo!wonwoo, single mom!reader, 33k

╰ no such thing as too perfect

office au, established relationship, fluff, 2k

╰ wonwoo falling in love for the first time

fluff, 0.8k

────⟢.ᐟ Lee Seokmin (DK)

╰ Backstage series

romance, smut, theatre performer!seokmin, fake dating with benefits, 43.6k

╰ Teach Me

smut, humor, college au, 2.3k

╰ I ❤️ DILFS / GOOD GIRL

college au, brother's best friend au, smut, crack, angst, 15.9k

╰ Patterns

smut, eventual fluff, angst, 10k

────⟢.ᐟ Xu Minghao (The8)

╰ (Not Titled)

fluff, humour

╰ i should’ve never let you go

exes!au, angst, comfort, 2.5k

╰ Flashing lights

model!minghao x f!assistant!reader x actor!mingyu, smut, 30k

╰ the letter

slowburn, fluff, angst, childhood f2l, 26k

────⟢.ᐟ Kim Mingyu

╰ titty obsessed! mingyu

smut

╰ i’ll marry you with paper rings

smut, fluff, angst, 28.3k

╰ kisses to his moles

fluff, 0.8k

╰ Drunk Goggles (Heart Eyes)

fluff, suggestive, 1k

╰ [10:23 PM]

fluff, 170

────⟢.ᐟ Boo Seungkwan

╰ honey

wedding planner!reader, fluff, smut mdni, theatre performer! seungkwan, childhood crush to lovers, 10.2k.

────⟢.ᐟ Chwe Hansol (Vernon)

╰ Friends with Benefits

fwb setting, suggestive

╰ DO YOU DREAM OF ME?

soulmate au. slight college au , f2l, fluff, some angst. pining, 9.6k

╰ [16:23 PM]

fluff, childhood friends to ?, 0.3k

╰ Birch Trees & Fear Street

smut, fluff, 1.7k

╰ sweet kiss

fluff, strangers ish to lovers

╰ BEAUTIFUL

fluff, strangers to lovers

╰ Music festival

drabble, fluff

╰ operation: hot girl summer

smut, fluff, humor, summer romance au, best friends to lovers, 4k

────⟢.ᐟ Lee Chan (Dino)

╰ As It Was

Ghost!Chan, Human!Reader, Romance, Angst, Smut, Historical/Fantasy Themes, Reunited Lovers, 9.1k

╰ Goodbye, Fourth of July

college au, best friends to lovers, angst w a happy ending, smut

╰ Love Guard

Lifeguard!Lee Chan x Lifeguard! Fem Reader, 9.2k, Fluff, E2L (One sided)

╰ distraction, a fatal attraction

strangers to lovers, college au, fluff, 7k

╰ In Case You Didn’t Know

Fluff, romance, smut, a little angst, Brother’s best friend au, roommates au, 90s au, 28.8k

351 notes · View notes

blueaetherr · 1 year

Note

hello, could you do a jude bellingham hot where he wins a final and has a fun night at the hotel with yn. please, kisses from Brazil.

thrill and adventure

pairing: jude bellingham x fem!reader [she/her]

warning(s): mentions of drinking

summary: the one where they celebrate jude winning the champions league final by roaming around their hotel

author's note: hi anon, thanks for the request and sorry it took a bit long. i hope you enjoy this one <3

now playing: world on wheels by duckwrth ft. kyle dion

"Say cheese for me."

Looking up away from his phone, Jude noticed Y/N recording a video in the direction of the elevator mirror. His face lit up, happy and animated. Suddenly, the attention he had reserved for the person on the other side of his phone was long gone. For now, and like he always did, he let it fall on his first person, Y/N.

Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he exclaimed, "Cheese!" Seeing as it was a video rather than a picture, Jude let that happiness and animation express themselves through the video. He bared his teeth through his flourishing smiles, stretching the words as he spoke to his partner, waving his arms with so much spirit and throwing up a peace sign every now and then. He was doing the most and all within reason.

Jude had managed to win the Champions League final with his dear club, a win that now came before any other win, major or small, that he'd ever achieved before. The happiness, the joy, the relief, the satisfaction of winning—they were colourful and voluminous, so much more than he had ever experienced before in his career, in his life even.

It was all so overwhelming and the only right way to contain it all was to do the exact opposite; Jude would express all his caved feelings in the moment and let them out for everyone to experience for themselves.

Her phone long put away, she let her eyes fall on the medal Jude was wearing. "I'm proud of you, y'know," Y/N placed her hands on his shoulders, letting her sight move from his chest to meet his glance. He was already smiling at her when the two met eyes, only encouraging Y/N to laugh a bit as she felt her lips curve up. "I know I've already said it but I just gotta let you know one more time," they poked his chest a few times, "You played so well today, so well. You deserve this. All of it."

"Thanks Y/N, I know." Jude let himself be vulnerable, falling close and comfortable into an embrace with his partner, placing a kiss by the side of Y/N's head before leaning his head against hers, the two swaying to the kind elevator music and their shared laughter.

His words were said with clear purpose. I know you're proud of me. Y/N always let Jude know she was proud of him. By attending his matches, by sending him those last minute messages before he was to head onto the pitch. Never questioning his ability but rather building up his confidence and mood with just a few words, letting him know that he was a good player with every passing day.

I know I deserved this win. She always let him know he was destined for success; to the trophies, the love from the supporters, to the titles of the best or the most gifted. That his hard work wasn't in vain or just to pass the time, that Jude was doing the right things and taking the right steps in his career and he would see so much come through with time. After all, the passing hours were only the start of it all.

"But, but, but, but..." Pulling away from the embrace, Jude took off his medal and placed it around Y/N's neck. He continued, moving her hair so the medal could rest well. "I can't say I would have all of this if it wasn't for you." When everything was in place, Jude observed Y/N: her timid facial expression, the medal simply on her and just thought wow. Softly, he commented, "Look at that! It suits you so well."

It was unfortunate that Y/N's name wouldn't be included with all the names of the players that won today's match—Jude felt like Y/N had won the match with him and the team. He knew to recognise her for everything she had ever offered him, for all that she was. His motivation, his support, his happy days. All that energy she put in him, Jude always took that and put it into his craft and let that grow into the success Y/N was always talking about.

He had to give credit where it was due. It was all because of her, his dearest Y/N.

Observing the medal in her hand, she hummed, "So this is like a what's yours is mine type shit?"

Jude let out a loud laugh, shaking his hand. He couldn't forget, too, that she was his laughter and comedy unintentionally. "I guess so."

"If that's what you want. Speaking of, what do you want to do, like, right now?" Y/N offered the floor to Jude. It was his day, his night, his month, his season maybe. She knew he was on cloud 9. He should get to choose what they should do. Besides, if she didn't ask him, he would've taken the opportunity to ask her.

"I don't know really," Jude exhaled a small breath, scratching the nape of his neck. "I haven't really thought about it y'know."

His eyes fell on the elevator screen by the door showing the hotel floors slowly going up. Heading up to his hotel room, Jude came to realise that the two wouldn't actually have anything interesting to do other. All there was to do was sleep. And Jude could sleep, the feeling distant in his eyes but he didn't want to; the adrenaline from the match was still present and wouldn't allow him to sleep off any unnoticed fatigue.

He felt obliged to do something, to celebrate this massive win some more. And that, eventually, was something he wanted to fall back into once again.

Y/N watched Jude head towards the elevator buttons, confused. And it was only deepened when he halted the elevator ride. Frowning, they wondered, "What are you doing?"

"I say let's not call it a night," Jude said with a shrug, a playful look soon maturing across his face. "I'm pretty sure everything here is 24 hours. Let's just roam around the hotel and do whatever we can find to do."

"And do what exactly?"

Rather than stopping on their floor, they pressed random buttons and let themselves reach a totally random floor. And as soon as the elevator door opened, they ran and ran and ran. Wherever Jude and Y/N could place their feet, where there lacked deadends, the two found their way together. Without care, passing by people while waving at them, saying a rushed sorry or excuse me, some with or without meaning whenever they bumped into someone.

They were like kids, unhinged yet full of excitement and wonder for the thrilling times the two were sharing together. Running through the hallways and dodging as many bodies as possible, finding the main hotel kitchen to have all chefs confused by their presence. Running into the restricted areas that, suddenly, weren't so restricted anymore; taking the elevator every time their feet were about to give out.

And Jude and Y/N were fun with it all too. Every security camera they saw (or they thought was one), the two would wave as if they were communicating with security on the other side. Every time they heard distant footsteps, they would share a glance before running away in laughter and giggles like they were being chased, holding hands for dear life to make sure one (Y/N) wasn't lagging behind the other (Jude) as they ran around seeking thrill and adventure.

Roaming around the hotel brought the couple to the hotel bar, where Jude and Y/N found the drinks and the karaoke machine. And for some reason beyond what they knew, they preferred the karaoke machine; to sing a song and loosen up sounded good. The adrenaline was so high up, so high that a drink or two wasn't necessary to boost their confidence. Nonetheless, they chose to drink some anyways too.

Together, Jude and Y/N sang their songs; their favourite songs, the ones they could sing, the ones they couldn't sing, the ones the pair sang in private and only to one another. And it definitely felt like it, like they were the only ones in the room. 'Cause even though some of Jude's teammates were present too in the bar—enjoying the atmosphere and recording Jude just in case—that didn't stop the couple from enjoying themselves and feeling like they were the only people in the room.

To fall back into reality– to fall out of their high and hyperactivity– the two headed to one of the many indoor swimming pools. Seeing as they hadn't brought any swimwear with them, they chose to swim in their undergarments, Jude and Y/N mindlessly laughing as they watched one another undress.

Heading into the swimming pool, they chose to take it easy. Holding one another, resting on the shallow end because they had no real energy to swim. Just like the pool water, that want to sleep and cave in was slowly washing over them, surely but slowly. There was talk, but it was exhausted and strained. All Y/N and Jude wanted to do was celebrate—that was the only thing resting on their minds.

But from leaning on each other to not lose balance to almost dozing off on the pool floaties, they understood sleep was necessary at some point. It was time to pack it up for the night; the celebrations could start again another time.

Hand in hand—like they had been all night—a bit stiff and lagged in their walk, water carelessly dipping on the floor, the two together walked into their elevator. While Jude pressed the floor number in, Y/N took her place on the elevator floor, closing her eyes and exhaling low as her back got to rest against the wall. There was no energy between them; they could no longer hold themselves up without the help of each other.

She felt a presence relax by her side as the elevator began to go up. Opening her eyes, she turned to look at Jude to find him already wanting to catch her gaze. And they just laughed it off together, their laughter hollow and tired in the elevator. Nothing was necessarily funny, it was just a good way of getting past something that would've been embarrassing at the beginning of the relationship (which it was, particularly for Jude).

Jude inhaled through his nose, rubbing it a bit. The pool water was still having its effect on him. There was a small moment of silence before he mentioned, randomly, "I gotta listen to more Kehlani songs."

"Yeah?" Chuckling, Y/N leaned her head against the elevator wall. It was a fun time to witness Jude so out of it.

"Yeah, I do, I do," Jude nodded and sighed, letting his head rest against Y/N. "I really like one where she's all like I love you shawty, shawty," he sang, his drowsiness along with his accent pronouncing shawty like shaw-day. "That one's real cool."

"I know you like that song." From what she could remember, that was the song Jude was singing with the most passion and animation at the karaoke bar over others.

It felt like it took forever to reach their hotel floor. In reality, the elevator ride had only taken less than a minute. They had reached their hotel floor a long time ago. However, exhausted and slightly out of things, neither Jude nor Y/N noticed when the door had opened. They remained on the elevator floor, leaning on one another and engaging in simple talk. It was early in the morning; no one was awake so they felt no rush to get up.

And even if the elevator doors closed on them, it would be okay. Somehow, they would find their way back.

"Hey, Y/N," his partner hummed, her voice almost trailing away from him. "Thanks for today, for everything really. This," with his eyes struggling to remain open, Jude tapped his finger against his Champions League medal Y/N was wearing. "I wouldn't have it without you."

"It's okay, Jude. I know." I know you're grateful to have me. And she was right; that's just how it was. Jude was, indeed, grateful to have Y/N.

1K notes · View notes

jennycalendar · 1 year

Text

SO. in the process of my ted lasso rewatch, i noticed something that absolutely floored me, and that feels really fucking significant re: nate's arc. the second episode features a scene where nate, in an effort to be Cool and Angry About Losing in the same way as the players, does this:

seriously damaging the door.

now, there are a lot of parts of this moment that are super important to look at. the door is damaged because nate is trying to be someone he isn't in an attempt to fit in. the crack patterns ON the door have a nexus point that shows up directly where ted's back is -- visually speaking, nate is backstabbing ted. the scene itself ends with this nonverbal interchange between ted and nate:

ted is confused, nate is placating and apologetic, both of them are separated by a sheet of damaged glass (and ted is in the manager's office, which is the very position that nate wants to inhabit so badly!)

but the reason that i so badly wanted to bring this to the attention of tumblr at large is the single-second, blink-and-you'll-miss-it follow-up shot during sam's birthday party.

we see nate. we see the door, taped up. we see the tape, in nate's hands.

nate has fixed the damage that he did. gone and done it himself. the show makes it clear that HE did this by emphasizing him tossing the tape between his hands in time to the music. he caused damage but he learned how to put things back together and we see BOTH OF THOSE ASPECTS in this scene!

anyway. i think that one is worth thinking about. :)

#celia watches ted lasso #ted lasso #nathan shelley #i have been freaking out about this one on call with lindir for multiple hours.#i am calling it now. nate is going to learn how to do and be better.#and it isn't going to be perfect!#the door is very clearly FUCKED UP #but he is going to try and things are going to get better!!!!!#i just! ghJDSNJGDSHHG i need ppl to SEE THIS i am 10000 percent convinced i'm onto something here!#maybe this is old news but I DO NOT THINK IT IS

501 notes · View notes

beejunos · 11 days

Text

SINNERMAN | Alastor x f.reader | part 2

Summary: After Sir Pentious’s failed attempt at spying on the hotel, the Vees approach you to make a new deal—a deal that you can’t refuse. Help them take down Alastor, and you will get to kill him again.

After all, the great butcher of New Orleans had killed your brother, so it was only fair that you had killed him in return. And you would love to do it again.

Tags: Alastor x f!reader, slow burn, obsessive behaviour, enemies to lovers, spying, murder

PART 1. | PART 2. | Part 3. | AO3

Chapter 2. Offers of Champagne

Even if your office had modern technology incorporated into the older environment, you still preferred the sound of an old record player over the more modern ones. There was just something so soothing about an older record player, with its raspy and non-clean sound.

It almost made you wish that you had died at an older age so that you could have experienced the evolution of music, but thankfully, your staff members loved to share the music they had loved to listen to while alive with you, and you often listened collectively to someone's choice in music at the end of a work day. Your only rule was that if they were going to play their music in the afternoon in the office, they had to use the LP record player and never a CD.

The look on Vox's face, as he re-entered your office and heard the soft music from the record player echoing in the large open-plan office, had been equally confused and intrigued, and you wondered if his home was comprised of primarily modern technology. He was, after all, the owner of Prids tech giant.

"Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?" Oh, how you wished you had been alive to hear Nina Simone sing this song.

You stood still by the door to your private office, waiting for Vox to approach. He kept closing and opening his fists as he got closer and closer to the open door, his shoulders tensing as a slight buzzing sound came from him.

"I did not expect you and your colleagues to get the 1500 souls so fast. You are full of surprises, Mr. Vox." You did not intend to torment him; you had never tormented any clients before, but you could not help yourself to tease him a bit. He was just so reactive, and your grin only grew as he shot you an irked glance.

The last thing you hear of Nina before closing the door behind Vox is her prayer for the Lord to save her. Oh, how ironicly fitting for Hell.

"It was not too much of a hassle," lied Vox as he sat down on the same moss green couch he sat on the first time the two of you met.

In reality, Velvet and Valentino had been furious with Vox that he had agreed to the deal without talking to them beforehand, but because of the nature of dealmaking in Hell, they could not back down from the contract. It was binding, and everyone's hands were tied. You could not not fulfil their request, and they could not ignore paying you.

"It has only been three business days. Usually, it takes weeks until I get paid for these delicate contracts," you said, folding your wings over the backset of your green armchair as you sat down. Even if wings had turned out to be a terrific addition to your afterlife, they could be quite a nuisance to live with. Sitting down in chairs and even sleeping could be quite an ordeal that had taken you some time to get used to, but it didn't outweigh the freeing feeling of flying.

As you cross your legs in front of you, effectively accentuating their curve in your black pencil skirt, you say Vox's eyes flicker down briefly before looking back up at your face. The disadvantage of having a TV screen as the face of your demonic form was that every eye movement one made became far more apparent to the observers.

You dully noted Vox's small attraction toward you and filed it away in your mind. Keeping the information if you ever had to manipulate him again when his obsession wasn't driving his actions.

"Well, as you may know, you can always trust us to deliver," disclosed Vox, trying to give you a confident and suggestive smirk. You leaned your arm against the armrest, using your hand to cover the grin that pulled at the corner of your mouth.

Vox had a charm to him in a very pathetic way, but then again, you had never met a man who wasn't pathetic.

"After this meeting, I don't want you or your colleagues contacting me unless it is absolutely necessary. If you need me, you will first contact Claudine, and she will contact me. The less we interact, the easier my job becomes."

Vox nodded in confirmation. His eyes glowed with determination.

The transfer of souls was a harmless and relatively uneventful ordeal compared to whenever a deal was struck. You and Vox would shake hands, just like any other deal, but this time, there would be a golden light and the outlines of chains spinning around your hands instead of the sickly green light you were more used to. You could feel the souls moving from Vox's being over to you, and it felt almost like you could breathe easier. Your wings and ears twitched as you inhaled deeply at the feel of your powers expanding inside you.

When you let go of the overlord's hand, Vox looked paler than usual. His hand shaking as he pulled it towards himself.

"Would you like a cup of tea? Maybe something to eat?" you asked softly, feeling sorry for the sinner. Even if transferring soul contracts from one sinner to another doesn't look like a burdensome experience, it could drain the energy of the one giving the souls away relatively fast. You had found that the best remedy for that specific type of fatigue was to drink something warm and have something small to eat.

Vox only nodded before he sank down further into your sofa.

On the outside, Hell and Pride could seem like lawless societies where the laws of the jungle prevailed, and to a certain extent, it was so, but there was also a part of Pride where people grasped after power with greedy hands. If not through physical means, then by being the most cunning person in the room.

Most sinners playing these games desperately tried to be the ones playing the game of chess instead of being the pawns on the playfield. However, only a few of the sinners were able to become players instead of tools in these vicious games.

After all, this was the Pride ring of Hell. Reputation and connections were everything, and you prided yourself in having lots of connections all throughout the city and even beyond it.

Connections and deals were the silent currency of Pride, and thanks to you being rich in this, you were able to get into a highly private gala event that you knew the princess of Hell, Charlotte "Charlie" Morningstar, would attend.

While Vox had argued in your meeting that you should have just gone to the hotel and introduced yourself to the princess instead of waiting a week, you claimed that a tactic like that would not have been natural and could have created suspicion in the others. Something that you did not have the luxury of even considering.

Instead, you went with your idea, which led you to the private gala and to mingle with highly prolific sinners and demons in a penthouse overlooking the city.

As you walked through the penthouse after politely leaving a conversation with a gorgon-like demon and a sinner with two heads, you grabbed two glasses of champagne as a staff member passed you by. Your green and black striped satin dress swayed like water as you moved through the crowd, heading to a downfallen Charlie, who had unsuccessfully tried to talk to someone about her hotel.

"I would not morn the conversation you may have had with that sinner," you said in a soft voice, pointing with the champagne glass in hand at the shark demon Charlie had just talked to, "Mr Dubois is known for his drug dealings, and he is also a compulsory lier who is probably the worst thief I have ever seen."

"Oh, really?" Charlie sounded genuinely surprised as she looked over at Mr Dubois, who was trying to talk to a representative from the Wrath ring. How the shark demon had made it into this gala was beyond you. Maybe he had a PR specialist who could work magic?

You offered the princess the extra glass of champagne you had brought, which she took gingerly. Creating a better opportunity for you to trap her in your conversation.

"I saw your interview on the news about your hotel." You said while taking a small sip of the bubbly alcohol, leaving a red lipstick stain on the rim of the glass. "I'm sorry for how that woman, Katie Killjoy, treated you."

Charlie almost looked physically pained by your reminder of that event, and you felt genuinely sorry for the girl.

You assumed she was here to find more influential people supporting her dreams, but you knew she was fighting a losing battle. Charlie could, of course, be good at networking-after all, you did not know her that well, but you would rather guess that her dreams of rehabilitating sinners were so ludicrous that no one wanted to listen to her. You would even go so far as to say it was a miracle she had gotten someone like Alastor to help her, and you were dying to find out the bastard motives.

"I must say, you are very brave in pursuing your ambitions. I know many sinners who, in secret, would be open to the idea of salvation and seek it if they could." It was half a truth and half a lie, your unique skill. You did know many sinners just like yourself, sinners who had done horrible things in self-defence or to protect someone else, and that had landed them a one-way ticket to the burning pits of Hell. But they were not evil souls. They did not thrive in misery or seek to hurt others; in your opinion, they would be the best candidates for the rehabilitation program. The problem was, though, that these sinners, like so many others, believed that they deserved to be in Hell, and that was what kept most of them away from the Hazbin Hotel.

That, and the hotel's horrendous marketing.

"Oh, thank you! That's very kind of you," said Charlie, turning more toward you. "I don't think we have met before. I'm Charlie. Morningstar."

Her last name came out softer and more hesitant than before, and you wondered if the princess was a bit embarrassed by her heritage or if she was just modes.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Charlie. I am Monroe; I own the PR agency downtown," answered you using your sinner name. Most demons and sinners used a false and made-up name in Hell, including you. It was easier to detach yourself from your humanity, effectively accepting that you were a sinner, the scum of the afterlife, if one used a pseudonym of sorts. It was easier to live a life in Hell as someone else, the thing that everyone expected you to be, and with a new name, it became more prominent that you were a new "person".

Only a handful of sinners used their human names in the afterlife, like Alastor, and every single one of them gave you the creeps.

It was just something so disturbing of a sinner keeping their human name. It was as if they still saw themselves as their human selves or were proud of the lives they had lived.

Rosie, the overlord of Cannibal Town, was the only sinner who still kept their human name and who you enjoyed spending time with. But that was mostly because she made the second-best cup of tea in all of Pride, after yours, of course.

"I must confess, princess." You leaned over towards Charlie, tilting your head down as you looked up at her, making your eyes look bigger and more innocent than you were. You wanted to create the feeling that your conversation was just for the two of you. A private and personal confession between friends. For that was what you wanted her to see you as, a potential friend.

"I believe your Hazbin Hotel is Hell's best shot against the exterminations, and I want to help you in any way I can."

"You do?!" Charlie whispered quite loudly back towards you as a childish light danced in her eyes, almost making you regret deceiving her.

"Yes, I do!" you said, faking excitement. "I think the hotel could really work. I don't know if I can help with the redemption part, but I'm somewhat of an expert in PR, and I think if we could just change the hotel's reputation, sinners would flock to the hotel like bees to honey."

"But you are a sinner, yourself. Don't you want to be redeemed and go to heaven?"

You looked over at Charlie with genuine surprise. It seemed that you had underestimated her.

You had assumed that Charlie's excitement would cloud her judgment and not question your involvement in her business, but you had not guessed that she would ask you if you did not want to be redeemed instead.

You inhaled and sighed softly as you closed your eyes. To Charlie, it would look like you were contemplating her question, but in reality, you were quickly thinking of an excuse for why you should be hired and not enrolled in her rehabilitation program.

"One day, maybe I'll be ready for the possibility of being redeemed, but I don't believe that is in the cards for me right now."

"The first step is just to want redemption," said Charlie softly, placing her hand on your arm to comfort. You gave her a genuine smile as you put your own hand over hers.

The princess was too soft and trusting for her own good.

"The things I have done are not actions that can be redeemed so easily, and I still believe I need to atone for my sins," you lied straight through your teeth. There was not a single atom in your demonic body that believed that what you had done was wrong, and you never would. You had saved New Orleans from a bloodthirsty serial killer, and because of that, you believed that your actions had been justified.

"But let me work for you and help you with your dream. I could begin there, and one day, when I think I'm ready, I will tell you I'll resign, and you can enrol me in your program."

The only time you would ever consider redemption was after you had killed Alastors demonic body, making sure that his soul would never return. Only when that monster was eradicated from every cosmic plane would you get on your knees and ask the heavens for forgiveness.

Excited at the prospect of having another sinner join her cause, Charlie happily agreed to hire you as the hotel's PR specialist. And just like that, you had your way into the hotel and its inner workings.

You and Charlie continued to talk enthusiastically about the hotel and the people who lived there throughout the event. Both of you had decided to move to the balcony that stretched around the whole apartment, looking out over the city. The red night sky was devoid of stars but illuminated by the divine light from the gate to heaven. It was a beautiful mockery of your hellish existence, a constant reminder of your wretched existence.

While the night sky was starless, the twinkling lights of the city lit up the evening in a colourful display of technology and consumerism. Shouting sinners, car horns, and guns fiering could be heard in the distance. Prids every present ambience.

Hell was truly beautiful in its own vile ways.

"And then we have Vaggie; she's my girlfriend and is kind of in charge of the hotel's security. She will probably ask you some questions before you start working, but don't take it personally! We've just had some problems with other sinners before, but nothing serious," rambled Charlie, waving her hands around exuberantly so the content of her glass spilt over. She had not had one sip of the alcohol whilst you were almost finished with yours.

"Alastor also stays at the hotel, but don't you worry! He has been trying to be helpful, even if his motives for why he is at the hotel are maybe not ... that wonderful." As she talked, you could see that Charlie grew increasingly uncertain when talking about the radio demon, and you wondered if she knew why he was there in the first place. You decided to ask her, making your voice meek, hoping the princess would interpret it as fear for the other demon.

"Well, he says that he is bored and likes to see souls struggle to accomplish anything meaningful."

That did sound a lot like the Alastor you had once known. Seems like Hell had not changed him one bit.

"But other than that, he's been pretty harmless!"

Ha! That almost made you laugh.

"Actually, I think he's here somewhere," remarked Charlie absentmindedly and turned around to look back into the apartment where everyone was talking more freely because of the alcohol.

"What?!" you hissed before you could control yourself. Your whole body tensed up like a string on a bow. Charlie had, thankfully, not noticed your drastic change in emotions and continued talking.

"Yeah, he came with me since Vaggie couldn't. He left to talk to someone he knew, I think. I haven't seen him in a while, though."

It felt like your blood was boiling inside you. Every muscle was tense and ready to fight or flee. Your claws dug into the balcony railing, threatening to leave marks.

"Oh no, wait, there he is!" exclaimed Charlie, calling the demon's name, who had just appeared by the glass door to the apartment. You turned around slowly and, for the first time in ages, came face to face with the monster that haunted your very existence.

His demonic presence had not changed one bit since the last time you saw him all those years ago. Still the same tall freak with the ever-present grin you hated more than anything. Oh, how you yearned to erase that smile for good.

His red eyes landed on you, and a shiver travelled up your spine, making your wings tense behind you. His gaze was soft, but there was a sharpness to them that you knew all too well. It was the same calculating gaze you had been so intrigued by and later come to hate. The calculating gaze of a killer. The same gaze that he had unknowingly taught you to make.

His eyebrow lifted slightly as he looked at you, and you could feel your heartbeat buzzing in your ears.

"Why, hello! I see that you have met Charlie. The name's Alastor; it's a pleasure to meet you."

You felt like someone had pulled the rug from underneath you. The bastard did not even remember you!

The chock that incapacitated you took some time to shake off, but it took you long enough for both Charlie and Alastor to give you funny looks. It wasn't until you screamed at yourself in your own head to speak that you were able to croak out a greeting.

He didn't even remember you.

Hmm, I wonder what consequences will come out of this~

Taglist: @martinys-world @tremendoushearttaco @fairyv-ice @azmosposts

#alastor x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #alastor x you #x reader #alastor the radio demon #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #hazbin alastor x reader #hazbin alastor x you #sinnerman alastor fic

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kimetsu-chan · 18 days

Text

~Wine~

A/N: my heart stopped approximately 534 times while writing this, oh my gosh. This made my lovesick heart happy.

TWs ⚠️: alcohol(briefly mentioned)

It was quiet in your shared penthouse. Save for the soft music that played on your record player. Two glasses that had been emptied of their wine lay on the counter by the sink, and lights had been dimmed. You and your husband had just finished your dinner, and had decided to enjoy a glass of his favorite wine after.

Now that you two had a little alcohol in your systems, Chuuya had the bright idea to dance. Now, it started off serious, just a nice slow dance on the empty space of your large kitchen. But it had soon developed into something more fun. Giggles from both you and him overpowered the quiet songs playing as you two talked about anything and everything.

You were busy explaining the contents of your day, the frustrations and the reliefs, when you saw he was barely paying attention. Only your sweet call of his name brought him back from his daydreaming. He smiled and placed a tender kiss to your cheek when you asked what was on his pretty mind.

He simply answered-

“You.”

-before pulling you into a dip. His smiled only widened at the surprised gasp that elicited from your lips. He quickly pulled you into a long, chaste kiss that made butterflies erupt and fly a round in your stomach. He leaned away from your lips, albeit reluctantly, and looked at you with the most infatuated gaze you had ever seen in your life.

God, he was in love.

A/N: giggling and twirling my hair and holding my breath as I re-read this-

REBLOGS WITH TAGS ARE APPRECIATED!!

#🍁#hehehe #tw alcohol #tw alchohol mention #bungou stray dogs chuuya #bungou stray dogs #bungou gay dogs #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungou sd #bsd chuuya #chuuya nakahara #chuuya x reader #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya nakahara bsd #chuuya nakahara x you #bungo stray dogs #nakahara chuuya #bsd

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eddiemuonson · 7 months

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Lovely Charming - Eddie Munson

Summary: You've never talked to Eddie Munson until this day, where he's being very annoying and loud with his friends. But then he decides to act like the chaotic douche he is sometimes | Fluff, kissing, mentions of blood and wounds

Word count: 3.5k

💕💕💕💕💕

You’re sitting with Robin, Nancy, Steve and Jonathan on your class break at school. You’re having a conversation about prom and senior year, or at least trying because the guy at the table next to yours won’t stop babbling about something you have no idea.

You’ve seen him a few times before but actually never cared to pay attention. He was a very exotic rocker guy, who likes to wear a lot of rings on his fingers, weird t-shirts and owns a very messy hair.

The dude, who you just learned is called Eddie Munson, is very loud and it annoys you how he keeps talking and doesn’t let anyone else speak.

As you get up from your chair, you march towards him, who’s sitting at his table, gesturing while talking. You get closer to him, and he looks at you like you’re disturbing a very important topic to him. His friends move their heads to look at you.

It’s not like no one knows you, especially because you’re the school reporter, along with Nancy and Robin, and usually go after people to talk about stuff.

You try to keep your eyes focused on him, giving you’re having his friends’ attention and it makes you nervous.

“Can you please speak a little lower? We’re trying to have a conversation over there and you’re too loud”, you ask, trying to be polite. Of course it didn’t sound polite to him. He opens his mouth in disbelief with a grin on his face.

“And you are?”, he asked. It was like he didn’t care to agree with your request. Someone whispers him your name and he stands on his feet at the table. If you thought he was being loud, you couldn’t have imagined it going south.

“Okay. Listen, everyone. We’ve received orders from the Miss Congeniality over here. We can’t speak during our break”, he shouted. You expected yourself to bury your face with your hands, or look down at your shoes. His friends are laughing with him.

This is obviously humiliation for you, but you know guys like him only tend to be rude to get the attention they need. You keep your gaze at him as he sats down at the table.

“Sorry, darling. No can do. If you’re bothered this much, just go talk somewhere”, he gives you a smirk. The other guys look at you, still laughing.

Before you leave their table, you shake your head and give him a freezing cold look.

“You’re such a dickhead”, you snap at him and he keeps looking at you like it doesn’t affect him.

“I’ve been told that before”, he responds as you turn around and go back to your table.

When you sit back, your friends are all despising Munson with an annoyed look on their faces. They’re not really fond of him either, but they know Dustin and the other boys liked to play Dungeons & Dragons with him sometimes.

“This guy was always an asshole”, Steve said as he shook his head. He was the one who disliked Eddie the most, he always thought the dude was too extra when he was around other people. And he usually likes to make jokes about the basketball team, because as he says: “it’s nonsense to play at school”.

He obviously prefers to play guitar and listen to music with his friends when he’s not doing anything. He goes around driving his van all the time and does nothing.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

You still had to do an article that day about the basketball team, and you had to interview one of the players and the captain. You’ve had your humiliation of the day but it seemed like that wasn’t enough.

You were re-reading everything you had to ask them, while Robin was preparing the camera. The fact about being the school reporter is that you have to ignore the feeling of disgust when you don’t like someone, or even, when you’re not treated well when it comes to Billy Hargrove.

He was every girl’s dreamy guy in Hawkins, every place he would go people would stop to look at him. He looks like he came out straight of a magazine cover and he makes sure of that too. But he doesn’t get to you like that. Not that he isn’t handsome, he just isn’t your type.

More so, he seems to try really hard to make every other girl who isn’t interested become in love with him. It was just really annoying.

There were a few people sitting on the bench while you were getting ready to speak to him.

It was going to be just a few questions about the future of the team, what they look forward for the future personally and stuff like that. Sometimes it was just too boring to talk about sports but you had a compromise with the principal, sadly. It would help you with your credits to go to college anyway.

“It’s just gonna take a few minutes”, you smile at Billy as you stand in front of him, holding out your mic. He looked bored already, he was sweaty and didn’t have a shirt on. ‘Classic, of course he wants to show up like that for school TV’.

“Just make this quick”. Your head screams 'fucking douchebag’. Christ, this is very annoying. “I don’t have all the time in the world for that crap”.

As you start asking questions, Hargrove decides he doesn’t want to be the one to look interested at that and starts giving really short answers.

Until he started to get annoyed, making sure to show you and Robin he’s not at it. “Are you done with that?”, he asks. You barely have time to say it’s just one more question and he snaps at you.

“Look, you really wanna do this? Go fucking find someone else”. This is expected, of course. You still thank him for his time because you’re polite. But he’s not.

“Yeah, whatever, brat”, he said as he leaves. Ok, he didn’t need to say that.

“Look, you don’t need to be such a jerk just because you don’t like it. I’m trying to get credits for college. Either way, you being an asshole doesn’t give you the same possibility”. You said it as faster as your brain could formulate your response and you regret it immediately.

When he turns his back at you, you realize he doesn’t care you’re a girl. He could beat the fuck out of you right there in front of everyone at the gymnasium. “What the fuck did you just say?”. He looked beyond mad, Robin was trying to pull you away from him but you had other plans.

“I asked you a question. What. The Fuck. Did you. Just Say?”, he got closer to you, intimidating you. He was taller and stronger. His blue eyes extremely red now with anger.

Shit, he smells good. His hair looks good. His jaw is incredibly sharp. But nothing overrules the fact he’s a jerk.

“Hey!”, you heard a loud scream across the gymnasium. “Hey, Hargrove”. Your eyes travel around the place until you meet the person’s voice and it hits you. Eddie was walking towards you and Billy, who’s still holding a death gaze at you.

“What, Munson?”, he asks, still looking at you. “What the fuck do you want?”. Billy is already making a fist, getting himself ready to punch a face (hopefully not yours).

“You never heard of manners, have you?”, Eddie asks when he gets closer. Both of them now looking at each other. “Jesus, look at you. You think of yourself as some Renaissance art”.

You were still there watching as both men threaten each other.

Hargrove lets out a sarcastic scoff. “And what are you, besides a creep anyway?”, he dropped a punch at Eddie’s cheek and you gasp loud. “What, think you came to the school to save the fucking word?”.

They were hitting and punching each other, while a few guys from the team tried to separate them. You just kept watching them kill themselves with Robin on your shoulder.

Billy dropped Eddie on the floor and the guys tried to pin him down so he would stop, but he didn’t. They were holding his arms behind his back, while he was spitting at Munson’s face, who was laughing at him.

“You realize this is just showing people who you really are. I’m impressed you still get girls in your bed”. The other man laughed sarcastically, trying to let go of himself.

“At least I fuck as many girls as I can, how about you virgin Mary?”. They were both trying to kill themselves, while the students try to get Billy off of him before the teachers hear it.

As soon as they get both of them apart, you watch the rocker guy look at you. He made it look like it’s your fault, but you realized he only did it to defend you. He was trying to show Billy what good manners were but he couldn’t even talk to him, he never listens.

He’s always about to snap, always ready to get in a fight, always ready to punch someone. You told Robin to give back the stuff you used for the interview and decided to confront Eddie.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”, you said as he was getting back up, while two guys helped him. “You do know this dude is a troublemaker”.

“I don’t know about you, but from where I come, it means being a man of value. This asshole was treating you like you were garbage”, he responded. His face was dripping blood and his nose looked like it was broken.

“For someone who made a hell of a show earlier, you do look like a guy who knows how to treat a woman”, you said sarcastically, crossing your arms in your chest. He looked at you with a small grin, cleaning his face with his own shirt.

You put your anger aside and grabs his forearm, leading him out of the gymnasium, heading to the nurse office so he could get patched up.

As soon as the nurse stitched his nose and his chin, she made sure he takes some painkillers and takes care of his wounds. You watch her leave the room and stand there next to the door, still staring at him, who was looking distracted while tying his sneakers.

“Thank you for doing that. Even though I still think you didn’t have to”, you say as he turns around. Munson looks amused, actually. He didn’t expect you to thank him, mainly because of the way he treated you earlier. But it’s the way he is. He’s chaotic, funny and weird at the same time.

“Well, if I hadn’t, that guy with a small dick would’ve created a war”. You laughed at the way he mentioned Billy, even thinking you weren’t supposed to. “But you’re welcome anyway, miss congeniality”.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

Words spread too quickly during the week after Hargrove and Eddie kicked each other’s ass the other day. Both of them looked pretty beaten, but Munson was obviously looking more wounded.

No wonder, Billy was always beating people up, it didn’t matter the reason, if he got annoyed he would do it. He did it to Steve once or twice even.

After leaving the nurse office you didn’t talk to Eddie anymore, but it’s not like you befriended him anyway. Still, at some point he would look at you during the class breaks, or at any event at school, even when you were walking around the mall. Sometimes you would hear him talking to his friends, loud as fuck as always and it still annoyed you.

It was Dustin’s birthday and he had invited the whole crew, even Munson and his friends so they could play Dungeon & Dragons while you and the others played beer pong.

You were at the backyard in his house, the music was blasting and you and Nancy were trying not to get too drunk as you were the ones who didn’t like to drink that much. By the end of the night it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Nancy was talking about Jonathan and her past relationship with Steve when Eddie went downstairs to grab another beer. He was wearing a t-shirt with a very exotic design, with the words “Hellfire Club” on it, a black jeans with a belt barely hanging on.

Somehow it caught your attention but you made sure he didn’t see it. Because you were still mad at what he did to you.

You didn’t want to blame your zodiac (which was scorpio), but people tend to say scorpio people were very vengeful and you had something fun in mind for him. You got past Eddie and “accidentally” dropped the rest of your beer on his shirt.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Munson!”, you made it look like it was realistic but your face said otherwise. “Oh no, it ruined your shirt”.

He looked down at his clothes and scoffed. “Really, (Y/N)? How old are you, like twelve?”, he asked as he tried to rub a hand towel on it. You opened your mouth as you tried to retort but he cut you off. “I know this wasn’t an accident”.

“What? I’m getting tipsy from all the drinking, Eddie. It’s not my fault I can’t hold a beer”, you say as you try to avoid eye contact with him. “Besides, you deserve it anyway”.

He gives you a chuckle as he decided to take his shirt off and throw it at the chair. He was close to the fridge and rested his torso there. “You know what? I was propably going to apologize for being a dick the other day. Now I don’t want to anymore”.

“And who said I’d accept it anyway? Did you see what you did? I asked you politely to speak lower and you made the whole school look at me because you can’t keep your mouth shut”, you snap at him.

He still holds a smirk on his lips. The way they look red and puffy steals your attention.

“Yeah, well. I like to use this amazing mouth of mine. Some people really dig it”, he responded while grabbing a bottle of beer and opening it with his teeth.

Now he was doing everything on purpose. He was just standing there displaying his abs, his nipples perfectly shaped.

“I feel really sorry for them. You should definitely keep it shut for everyone’s sake”. You watch as he chugs the entire bottle at once, still staring at you, and starts getting too close. You hit your lower back on the sink as you tried to back out.

As he stands inches apart from you, you can already feel the heat from his body and his beer breath hits you like a trainwreck. What the real fuck is happening? This sudden tension makes your head whip.

Munson trails your eyes and leaves his empty bottle at the sink as he uses both hands to trap you.

“Next time someone is towering you like Hargrove did, I’m gonna let them”, Eddie says, his lips almost touching yours.

“I didn’t ask for your help, Munson”, you whisper. You start getting dizzy over the closeness and it makes you feel like you’re losing your mind.

“Good, 'cause I won’t help you”, he gripped your chin with one hand and clicked his tongue. He turns on his back and grabs another bottle, making his way upstairs again. He just left you there feeling lightheaded.

You hold yourself on the sink and let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding for too long. Your legs are shaking and your palms are sweating, your heart is beating faster and it feels like it’s gonna rip your chest out. 'Damn you, Eddie Munson’.

“Hey, you’re coming back or what?”, Steve asks as he shows up holding a few empty bottles of beer. You were still on cloud nine and didn’t know how the fuck you got there so fast.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

It was almost 2 am and you were playing truth or dare with the older ones. The kids were playing some videogames after being too bored to play D & D. Eddie’s friends have left and Dustin made sure you all invited him to stay with you, since he was older as well.

You couldn’t protest, because as a sweetheart as Jonathan is, he tried to convince you all to give the guy a chance. You did, but very reluctantly.

You actually didn’t want to play that stupid game but you were all still happy because of the alcohol and the music was still playing.

It was your time to take your shirt off and you only did it because you were wearing a bra underneath it. You wanted to curse Steve for being a pervert. Because he could’ve chosen anything for you to do and yet that was his only idea.

“Oh, come on now. Don’t be such a prude”, Munson says playfully as you throw your shirt at him.

“Fuck you, Eddie”, you snap. As you sit back on the floor, he starts to stare at your bare chest. The way your necklace swings in your skin, the way your chest gets up and down when you breathe.

The bottle pointed at him this time and Nancy looked at you very slightly, which you didn’t even notice. You told her what happened in the kitchen earlier, and she knew you and him weren’t just being rivals for nothing. It was obviously more than that.

He chose dare as well. And then she asked him to stay in his van for five minutes with you so he could apologize and you could work things out. Classic, you thought.

“No. No fucking way. I’m not staying inside his van for five minutes with him”, you protest, shaking your head. Everyone boos you and Eddie laughs out loud.

“Oh, come on. It’s clean, it smells like lavender. I don’t have any bones or shit like that”, he said, pouting at you. “I promise I won’t even talk”, he was being sarcastic.

They all looked at you like it was a very important decision for you to make and it annoys you. It gives you anxiety because you know he’s not going to leave you alone. He lives for the jokes.

“We’re just playing, come on (Y/N). Just enjoy the night”, Jonathan said. Fuck you and your cute eyes, Byers. You get on your feet and put your clothes on, hearing them complain about it and you shush them.

You follow Eddie as he makes his way to the van, jiggling the keys on his index finger and he disarms the vehicle. He opens the back door and gives you space to get in and he gets in next.

Steve is right behind, getting the keys. He sets the timer and goes back inside the house.

It’s extremely uncomfortable to be quiet but you’d rather stay like that rather than hear him talk. He sits on the car and rests his arms on his knees. You just stay still, standing on your feet as you wait for time to pass. But it never does. Five minutes feels like an eternity there.

“I’m sorry I was an ass”, he said suddenly. You looked at him through the dim light from the car and he stares at you. “It’s not an excuse, but it’s how I am. Sometimes I just try to be this annoying funny guy”.

“Yeah, well. You could’ve humiliated me to your friends, to say the least. Not to the entire fucking school to see”, you proclaim.

“First off, that’s a school, not a fucking library. And second of all, I said I was an ass”, he sounded annoyed. But it’s not like you could blame him.

“You just really do that only to get ten minutes of attention, don’t you?”. He rolls your eyes at your statement, getting on his feet. “You think you’re so cool you need to stand on a fucking table so everyone gets a glance”.

He starts to get closer to you but this time he doesn’t have his shirt off. “I already said I was sorry. I admit I was an ass. You want me to apologize to you in front of everyone? I’ll do it”. He has a mixture of smells. He smells like cologne, cigarrette and beer.

“But don’t forget I was there to scold that scumbag when he was about to snap at you”. He confronted you, you could barely see his eyes because the light was too low.

“Oh, you want a Nobel Prize for that? I’m sorry, I don’t have one with me”, you respond. You’re in between being too proud to accept his apologies and trying to hold in your sexual tension.

Munson had his both hands on his hips as he forces himself to not punch you in the face. He bites his lips and breaths in and out several times.

“What? You don’t want to talk now? You said you didn’t care about what people thought”, you said sarcastically and Eddie scoffed. “The king from the Hellfire Club got his tongue stuck in his mouth”, you teased, it was you who was getting closer to him now. Only to set fuel to the fire.

“If you mock me like that one more time I’ll make sure your life is gonna be a living hell during every class break”, he whispered.

He was almost brushing his lips on yours, his breath striking your skin. Munson held your chin with his caloused fingers from playing too much guitar and aimed on your ear.

“And if you ever get yourself in trouble with Hargrove, I already swore I won’t be there to defend you”, he breathed into you. Your skin shivered as he cupped your cheeks with one of his hands. The other one was resting on your waist.

“I think we should set boundaries here, Eddie. You’re too close”, you pointed out under your breath and he smirked, still staring at you.

“You’re gonna say you don’t like that?”. Well, you would never say that.

“I actually hate it”. You flush your eyelashes and he starts to rub his thumb on your lips and down your neck.

“I think you’re a terrible liar”, he replied. “Will you forgive me or not?”

“I’ll have to think about that”, you try to get yourself together before looking at him with a grin on your face, teasing him again.

“You should think about it carefully”, he offers as he rests his forehead against yours. His right hand is still holding your chin.

You feel his warmth against yours, his hair smells like shampoo and you can’t get rid of the need to feel his growing beard against your skin.

“How much time do we still have?”, you hear yourself asking and he stares at his watch.

“I have no idea anymore. Why?”, even before he waits for your answer, you capture his lips with yours with a tender kiss, not wasting your time and explore his mouth with your tongue.

He tastes like cigarette and beer and you found yourself almost moaning when you touched his tongue. His grip on your face tightened as he was getting a fistful of your hair almost pulling it.

He hummed against your mouth and it felt like your legs were about to melt down. He trapped you between his body and the van and your body started to burn under his touch. You were holding his neck and could feel his skin shivering from your touch.

Eddie was feeling his breath shorten after a while and broke the kiss only to bring some oxygen to his lungs. He didn’t wait too long and started to nib your lower lip, pulling it between his teeth and you mumbled softly under his touch.

Munson trailed his hands through your body and grabbed your ass, pulling you even closer to him. You were both panting between the kiss and it started to get hotter inside the vehicle.

Everything was too overwhelming and he realized he needed to stop before the bulge inside his pants started to show up. He unwillingly parted your lips and gasped for air.

You were both still resting on each other’s forehead and completely forgot you were playing truth or dare. You were supposed to stay there for five minutes but it has probably been way more than that.

“I’m really sorry I was a dickhead. I’m not trying to be a show-off in any way”, he said as he rubbed his thumb around your cheek while cupping your face.

You didn’t have time to respond as you hear a knock on the van’s door. “Hey, are you guys still alive or you just killed each other?”, Robin asked. You and Munsun broke out of your bubble and fixed yourselves before opening it.

“We were just making amends”, he said. You could see a smirk on the side of his mouth as he dropped from the vehicle and helped you out.

“No shit, Munson. Your dick is almost showing off”, Steve pointed out laughing as soon as he reached the door.

He looked down at himself only to realize he really had a crying bulge over there and it wasn’t like nothing happened. The others laughed and Eddie tried to hide it, he didn’t even want to look at you.

“What the hell even happened back there?”, Robin asked as she intertwined her arm around yours, a smolder look on her face.

For the rest of the night you couldn’t face him, it was easy before because you were annoyed by him. You were still trying to face the fact you were getting attracted to him, even though you’ve had a lot of beer.

But now, it feels like you can’t deal with his presence. It was hard for him as well, especially because he got hard in front of you and everyone noticed. Your friends tried to make sure it was just fun and that happened to every guy.

Sometimes when you crossed eyes, you’d see he had a different look at you. You’d see Eddie giving you this soft stare and sometimes he would even get shy by your gaze. Because even though you were trying to digest the situation, you couldn’t deny how good looking and charming he was.

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