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thelordofgifs · 1 year

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the fairest stars

What if Angrist was a little tougher, and Beren and Lúthien managed to steal two Silmarils from Morgoth instead of one? Somehow I’ve already written NINE parts of this unhinged bullet point AU here and decided it was time for a fresh post to avoid that one getting too long.

Where we left off: Lúthien has been negotiating with Mandos like a pro, Maglor is nearly-but-not-quite-dead in Menegroth, Thingol has taken one Silmaril from him, Fingon has the other Silmaril and ditched Curufin outside the Girdle even though they did some bonding on the Worst Road Trip, and people are still upset about Celegorm’s death. YES I am well aware that the pipeline from the fairly normal first sentence of the post to this mess is insane.

Fingon and Maedhros are both very, very good tacticians. Between them, it isn’t very difficult for Fingon to follow Maedhros’ directions towards Menegroth, and then to find the hidden pathways by which Huan led Maedhros out of Thingol’s halls.

It helps that Thingol is still under the impression that the Girdle is impenetrable with the aid of his Silmaril, so he doesn’t have anyone keeping an eye out for the High King of the Noldor sneaking into his realm on an Adventure.

Finding Maglor's sickroom/prison cell/whatever is a little trickier, but not impossible. Long ago in Tirion Fingon was a mischievous child, so he's well aware that the best way not to get caught sneaking into a forbidden place is to make it perfectly clear that you belong there.

He strides confidently down the corridors, silently reciting Maedhros' directions to himself. Nobody stops him.

He's hoping that Curufin was wrong, and he'll know Maglor's door by the holy light showing through the cracks; but when none is evident he's forced to take his chances and start trying doors in the area Maedhros indicated at random.

Since he has plot armour is very lucky with this whole improbable-rescue thing he comes across Maglor without any trouble.

Maglor is only half-conscious – quite apart from the wounded leg, he hasn’t eaten in days – but his eyes flicker open when Fingon comes in.

“Hello, Makalaurë,” Fingon says, deliberately cheerful. “I’ve come to take you home.”

“You can’t do that,” Maglor says dazedly. “It burned – in the Bragollach – remember?”

Fingon opts not to answer that. “Russo said you were healing when he left,” he says instead, frowning at the bloodstained bandages around Maglor’s leg. “What happened? Has Thingol been mistreating you? I thought Lúthien at least was kind!”

Maybe he was too hasty in leaving Curufin outside the Girdle.

Maglor hurries to explain that Lúthien is dead, and that he’s actually in this pathetic state by choice or something.

“Right,” says Fingon, “well, you’re coming back to Himring now.”

But Maglor shakes his head. “I can’t, Finno,” he says. “Thingol took the Silmaril from me. I don’t – I’ve been trying to hold it back. The Oath. But I can’t leave it in Doriath and go, I can’t. So you’ll have to leave me behind.” He manages a brave and tragic smile.

On Thangorodrim while Fingon was struggling futilely with Morgoth’s iron shackle, hopeless tears running down his face, Maedhros said, You’ll never be able to free me, Finno, just kill me, please—

Fingon is rather sick of Fëanorian melodrama.

“One step ahead of you,” he says brightly, and he produces Maedhros’ Silmaril from its box, handing it to Maglor before his Oath can stir at the sight of it. “Here it is.”

This would never normally work. But Maglor is very tired and ill, and not thinking as clearly as he otherwise would.

As long as the obvious question doesn’t occur to him until they get outside the Girdle again—

Maglor takes the jewel and gives a relieved little sigh as the bite of the Oath eases. “You really took it from Thingol?”

“Of course,” Fingon lies. “Let’s put it back in the box for now so that it doesn’t attract too much attention?”

Maglor acquiesces. He and Fingon aren’t close exactly, but they get on well – certainly far better than Fingon does with Curufin. There’s an odd shared camaraderie that comes from loving Maedhros; it lends itself well to cooperation in difficult circumstances.

Fingon picks Maglor up – he's alarmingly light – and they begin to make their way back out of Menegroth.

"You're to be my betrothal gift," Fingon tells Maglor, and Maglor actually laughs.

Unfortunately it's much harder to look innocuous when you're carrying someone about five minutes away from expiring on the spot.

They haven't got very far before an angry voice comes from behind them: "Who are you and where are you going with the Fëanorion?"

Damn.

Meanwhile

[I should clarify my definition of "meanwhile" here. Evidently time runs much slower in Aman than it does in Middle-earth, even post-Darkening, or it's difficult to fathom why Beren and Lúthien canonically took two years to return from death. In vague support of this, the Fellowship find that time runs slowly in Lothlórien, presumably with the aid of Galadriel's ring, so I posit that the more Divine Stuff there is near a place (and Galadriel was ofc a student of Melian too), the more weird time shit occurs. So since I've anyway fudged the timelines so that travel times work out conveniently, we can also put the bits of story occurring in Aman here for funsies.]

Meanwhile, Finrod has been following Celegorm around in the Halls of Mandos.

"Was it worth it?" he asks. "Did you take joy in the lordship of Nargothrond, once I was gone?"

"I could ask you the same," says Celegorm, responding for the first time. "Did you die for anything in the end, Ingoldo? The mortal's here, after all your efforts. So much for your oath."

"So much for yours," says Finrod; "it looks like that eternal darkness you doomed yourself to wasn't that dark. Or eternal. So what was it all for? Do you even regret any of it?"

The dead can't lie. Artifice and deception are matters of the flesh, and they are buried with it.

"I didn't want you to die," Celegorm says.

"Well, that's a start!" says Finrod. "I can't say I'm glad to see you here, either."

"O Fair and Faithful one," says Celegorm, "spare me none of your pity. They are already whispering that you will be released soon, first of all the Exiles to walk again in Aman. So it's all turned out rather well for you, despite your evil cousins' machinations."

"I suppose it has," says Finrod, thinking.

The thing is, it was worth it. Beren's life mattered. It mattered that he saved it, even if he died to do so, even if Beren is dead now too (although word is that might be changing).

He did not do it expecting a reward.

"And my werewolf was bigger than yours," says Celegorm.

Finrod rolls his metaphorical eyes. "At least I actually killed mine."

Cousinly bickering is still kind of fun, even when you're dead.

Curufin, fuming outside the Girdle, would not agree.

After a time he's forced to conclude that the only thing he can do is head back to Himring.

The ride through Himlad, once as green and fair a land as any, does not improve his mood.

Also his burned hand is still hurting.

Look: here's the little stream where Celegorm caught a huge fish once; and here are the low hills where, a couple of centuries ago, they held some war games and Curufin's people thrashed Celegorm's decisively.

Here's the copse where, years before the Dagor Aglareb brought tentative peace to East Beleriand, Curufin and his son were surprised by a party of orcs, who took their small patrol all captive.

Tyelpë was just barely of age at the time. How trusting his eyes, then, how baby-soft his hair: how easily he had believed that his father would fix everything.

As for Curufin, he spent the hours-long ordeal learning anew what terror was, rendered compliant by the mere possibility that they could hurt his child.

They were fine, in the end. Celegorm rode up to the rescue while the orcs were still quarrelling over where to take them.

But Curufin remembers: how disabling love can be.

Meanwhile Fingon finds himself surrounded by a crowd of angry Iathrim in their home city.

He sets Maglor down on the floor and sets a hand on his sword-hilt, wondering if he is about to become a Kinslayer again.

(Fingon regrets Alqualondë more than anything; and he'd do it again, for Maedhros' sake. He knows this about himself.)

Before things escalate too far, Thingol shows up at the scene of the disturbance.

"We haven't met," Fingon says. "Fingon son of Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor in Beleriand. I've come for my cousin." He gives Thingol a rather dangerous smile.

Thingol thinks he might be in serious trouble. He attempts to adopt a conciliatory tone (which is really really hard for Thingol ok he's trying).

"He'll die if he's moved," he says, nodding to where Maglor is slumped against the wall, shivering.

"He'll die if he stays here!" Fingon says. "Is this the famed hospitality of your halls?"

"He has been offered every treatment he could ask for," Thingol says. "It is not the fault of Menegroth if he chooses to refuse them. Now tell me, son of Fingolfin, how came you through the Girdle of Melian – without her leave or mine?"

Maglor puts the pieces together. "Finno, you lied to me," he breathes, glancing at the box in Fingon's hand.

Fingon wonders if it would be diplomatically insensitive to kick Thingol.

"The jewel alone does not explain it," Thingol insists. "While I hold the Silmaril my daughter won, surely—?"

"I could have told you that, had you asked," says Maglor. "Silmarils aren't weapons! You can't use one as some sort of military defence."

Thingol is now questioning all his life choices.

He only took the Silmaril from Maglor in the first place because he thought it would protect his kingdom, and now—

Maglor is feeling resigned. He should have known Fingon's claim was too good to be true. Thingol still has the Silmaril, and Maglor can't leave Menegroth without it.

Face pale and set, he attempts to get to his feet, mostly unsuccessfully.

Fingon looks down at him. "Seriously, Makalaurë?" And when Maglor ignores him, he says, "Sorry about this," and kicks Maglor's bad leg – carefully, but still hard enough to hurt.

Maglor faints.

Fingon picks his limp body up. "The Silmaril isn't yours," he tells Thingol.

"The white ships of Olwë my brother's people were not yours, either," Thingol returns.

Fingon inclines his head, acknowledging the point. "I don't wish to start a war over the Silmaril," he says. Maglor is so cold and still in his arms. "My cousins have done enough for that cause lately. Only let me take my kinsman home."

Thingol hesitates. The iron box in Fingon's hand is so close, and Fingon is outnumbered, and he has his injured cousin to worry about—

It could all be over, if he took the second Silmaril. He'd never need to worry about his people's safety from invasion again.

"Elu," comes a voice from behind him, "enough of this. Let them go."

"Queen Melian," says Fingon, bowing his head.

She barely looks at him, meeting her husband's gaze instead. "Time and again you have disregarded me," she says. "Lúthien is lost, and yet you persist with this. Will you heed me now?"

Thingol stares at her, and then, finally, he waves his hand. The bristling guards move aside, allowing Fingon free passage down the corridor.

"I trust you can remember your way out," Thingol tells Fingon, and turns away.

Fingon looks at Melian. "Thank you," he says, "and I am very sorry about your daughter."

He has met Maiar before, of course, in Valinor: but Melian is still unsettling, with her implausibly flawless face and eyes that hold yet the memory of a time before Time.

"Little king," she says, "only hope that you will not know any such pain yourself."

Fingon manages a smile. "I'm good at that," he says. "Hope."

On that note he leaves Menegroth, carrying Maglor, and begins to make the long trek back through the Forest of Region, and thence to Himring.

Curufin has managed the journey significantly more quickly. On a crisp cold morning he rides back through Himring's gates.

Maedhros has been... managing. Not well, but he trusts Fingon.

Beloved, I will bring them back to you. Beloved, I will bring them back to you. Beloved, I will bring them back to you.

But here's Curufin by himself, looking pale and tired, and after all it was only a hastily-scribbled note, not an incantation.

Maedhros arrives at the gate at a run.

Scarce weeks ago it was the other way around, Maedhros riding into the fortress with Fingon's cloak only just concealing his bloodstained clothes: and Curufin met him as he came in and he can still feel the terrible jolt of knowledge in his stomach, and Celegorm is still dead.

How can it be borne?

A thought comes to Curufin and for a moment he thinks it the cruellest idea he has ever had, but Celegorm is dead and his hand is still burned and nobody expects any better of him anyway.

"They're dead," he says flatly, "they're both dead," and Maedhros just – stares at him.

(to be continued)

#silmarillion #my fic #bullet point fic #the fairest stars #fingon #maglor #finrod #celegorm #thingol #curufin #maedhros #theme of the day: lying #thingol makes one (1) good decision!#curufin makes zero (0)!#maedhros has a really bad day!#what else do we expect from this au

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suliscool · 4 months

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wacky amnesia the bunker theory/headcanon about the monster (first post :])

hello, amnesia tumblr, i am sul. this is the first of hopefully multiple posts. i aim to post theories, headcanons, and maybe even art. anyways.

(spoiler warning, in case you haven't finished the game, or haven't been spoiled yet, somehow. also, i talk about some violent stuff. bunker typical death or injury and whatnot)

i would like to present my theory, with headcanon elements, as to why the beast in ATB doesn't murk Henri during the time he spends in a coma, just kinda- laying in the sickroom. of course, people who are unconscious have this cool ability where they are quiet (most of the time) and since the monster mainly hunts by sound, i think Henri wouldn't really attract much attention, especially since the beast was busy with two or more dozen louder, moving, targets for a while. that's a perfectly valid and cool theory, but it sort of leaves me craving something even more complex and tragic.

hear me out: Lamby over here, during his human, as well as early transformation days, was aware of the fact that his dear friend, Henri Clement, is hurt, unconscious, and fighting for his life in the infirmary. he sat by his side longer than the doctor would stand around, waiting for him to wake up; maybe he even talked to him. as Lambert began transforming into the beast, his thoughts, memories, knowledge, as well as his very understanding of the world around him, slowly became more simplified, animalistic and twisted. what if this normal human knowledge of his bestfren laying in the sickroom became- something a bit different. he's aware that the sickroom contains *something* important to him, like, fragile. by the point of full monsterification he's unable to fully comprehend a concept like Henri Clement, so all he understands is that the location is somehow important, and that the piece of meat laying around is not to be harmed. what if while Henri was unconscious the monster even busted into the sickroom a few times and just kinda- stood around. what if he even took a closer look and recognised Henri, sort of, further associating him with this location. of course, Henri here is a very special case. i just think that this could be similar to the monster's relationship with the rabbit toy, as in Lambert's friendship, care and empathy, towards Henri in this situation were strong enough to halt his violent tendencies and bring back a little bit of his humanity. this only works for the most important people in his life at the time, who i, in my somewhat backed up opinion, believe to be Henri and Lambert's son, who Lamby associates with the rabbit toy. according to the notes in the game, one soldier claimed that he thought the beast had recognised him somehow. buuut that didn't stop Lambert from violently tearing him limb from limb and using his entrails as chapel decorations, did it now.

i don't think that Lambert can recognise Henri during the actual gameplay, at least not until it's too late. this ties into my other theory about the beast having bad eyesight, since Lambert needed glasses back when he was human. idk if anybody else has also had this in the actual game but i have had multiple instances where the beast just walked right past me, if i stayed quiet, hidden under a bed in soldier quarters or something, but the second i shuffled by one inch, he suddenly turned around and yanked Henri out of the hiding place, killing him instantly. things like this have led me to believe that the monster has poor eyesight, increased sense of smell, since he can track victims with open wounds by blood, and, obviously, very sensitive hearing.

i think that the beast doesn't realise who Henri is for multiple reasons. first of all, the bunker is dark and Henri is always keeping a distance, unless he's dead (i will get to that). it's very much possible that, if Lambert was nearsighted, everything is just extremely dark and blurry, leaving the monster with no chance of potentially recognising his dear friend. could he recognise Henri if he spoke? maybe, actually. although i still do not think this would result in Henri being saved or *safe* (i will get to that too). the second reason why Lambert cannot reognise Henri, that i've been building up to, is because Henri's location has changed. what if, in his simple little monster brain, Lamby has "rationalised" that Henri is in the sickroom, that he belongs there, even. therefore, another random soldier, who Lambert cannot even see past a blueish blur, out in the open, definitely not in the infirmary, would NOT be Henri to him. dare i say, he wouldn't even think about it, i'm pretty sure. well, he doesn't really think in general, does he.

and at last, the things i was going to get to. i have my own headcanon based on this theory as to what happens after Henri's potential death. you might've noticed that after the beast kills Henri via mauling him, or snapping his neck, it just kinda stands around and OF COURSE this is most definitely just the developers not wanting to animate the beast ripping into Henri as the screen fades to black. i decided to over-interpret it anyway. i like to think that once Henri is dead and within arm's reach for the monster, it can actually recognise him by being able to see his face. this then leads to Lambert, once again, regaining a smidgen of humanity, possibly lamenting Henri's death, before dragging his lifeless corpse back to the infirmary and putting it in the bed that Henri was supposed to be resting in this entire time. this is kind of the same reason why i think that Henri could potentially face an even more grim fate than the monster simply hearing and murdering him, if he heard and recognised Henri's voice. like, what if he still rationalised that Henri is supposed to be in the sickroom and started hunting him with the intent of returning him there? i think Henri *could* get seriously injured, or even die, if, say, the monster decided to drag him across the entire bunker, back to the infirmary. you know, over all that stone, debris, and those loose pieces of wood or metal. maybe trample him a little bit too. even being grabbed results in injury in the game, let alone all of THAT. aaaanyways

this was a bit of a hefty first post, if anybody actually read all of this, then i hope you enjoyed it! i had fun writing it, i sure love gruesome death/injury and tragic stories. have a good day, i'm going to go on a walk now. more posts coming soon! maybe

-- sul

#amnesia game #amnesia the bunker #frictional games #henri clement #augustin lambert

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 7 months

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Unfinished - Part One: Love is Like Ghosts

A/N: Happy Spooky Season, friends! This story has been marinating in my brain for the last few months, and I am super excited to share it with you. It's my first stab at something truly spooky, and though this part is mostly set up, the next few should hopefully bring the scares. If anyone is curious about the inspiration for this story, please please please feel free to ask because I have LOADS to say about it! I hope you guys enjoy my ghosties!

*Chapter title comes from Love Like Ghosts by Lord Huron*

Warnings: death, illness, murder, infidelity (not Reader and Marcus) mention of loss of parent, language

Word Count: 4,723

Summary: Maplewood Manor has a long history, not all of it pleasant, and not all of it known. You and Marcus also have a long history, and when you reunite for a few days, both of those long histories become intertwined.

Maplewood Manor - October 30, 1868

Henry Ashford stood at the window of his wife’s sickroom with a decision to make.

His hands gripped the wood that framed the panes of glass as he watched three bright orange leaves swirl through the chilly autumn air on their way to the ground. Ever since he was a child he had been fascinated by the colorful display of the changing fall foliage, the leaves seemingly celebrating their own impending demise by turning as bright and beautiful as they could before departing from the branches they were born to. Once they’d fallen, he would traipse through the grounds in search of the right one - one with perfectly shaped edges or the most vivid golden hue. Bringing it back inside he would take it to his mother, the woman pressing it under glass to preserve it through the colorless winter. Henry would hang the glass encased leaf in his window like a suncatcher, marveling at the ghost of autumn he’d captured until Spring came again with its buds and blossoms. And then the leaf would be discarded, the glass awaiting its next specimen until he outgrew the childish hobby.

Or perhaps outgrew was the wrong word for it. The fascination with preserving the beauty of things that had died stuck with him, stoked and fed by his father’s work in the burgeoning field of photographic technology. James Ashford was the owner of the largest camera company on the East coast, and the invention of the daguerreotype took his sales to new levels, solidifying the Ashford fortune for generations to come. At the same time it solidified Henry’s interest in a new method of preservation - postmortem photography.

It was a strange thing for a young man to be interested in, and as such, Henry himself was regarded as a bit strange. Nevertheless when the time came to marry, a suitable match was made for him in the form of Eliza Cutwright, the daughter of a wealthy banker from Philadelphia. It was not a marriage of romance, nor was it one of shared interests. Though she was wed to one of the most influential men in the photography industry, Eliza preferred the majesty of oil based portraits and pencil sketches to the cold reality of anything caught by a camera lens. It was rendition, interpretation, that she found fascinating - the way an artist would paint their version of the truth, the world as it was through their eyes, with emotion and passion. Not the scientific chemical process of taking and developing photos.

The Ashfords though, like any respectable family of the time, functioned as they were meant to. They hosted and attended high society events, Eliza playing the role of the ever-devoted wife, always a smile on her face, her arm always linked with Henry’s while they laughed and hobnobbed with investors and socialites. They had two children - a son, Edwin, and a daughter, Josephine - ensuring that their family legacy would live on for future generations. On paper, Henry and Eliza Ashford were an enviable couple.

Behind closed doors though, they hardly had anything to do with one another. Each year that passed seemed to widen the gap between their mindsets, every bit of growth that Henry’s company saw driving Eliza further into her love of the traditional arts. He spent more and more time in their townhome in the city, giving the excuse that he was busy with running his father’s company and leaving Eliza on her own at Maplewood, only returning when decorum called for it. It kept both of them happier and made it easier for Henry to stomach his wife’s obsession with fighting against modernity.

In turn, Eliza felt freer in her husband’s absence to commission artwork for their home, to visit galleries and meet with artists. In the Spring of 1868, while at tea with a friend, she was reacquainted with one of the first artists she had ever met - Calvin Harper.

Cal was the son of the artist that Eliza’s parents had commissioned to create both individual and family portraits of the Cutwrights, and he would tag along with his father when he came for sessions. While the rest of Eliza’s family had their turns sitting for Cal’s father, she and the boy, roughly the same age, would play in the gardens or else in one of the house’s many rooms. The only time Cal would be at his father’s side, watching each painstaking stroke of the brush, was when Eliza was his subject. Mr. Harper would later credit Eliza for Calvin’s interest in art. Their friendship, though not one of equal social status, was allowed to continue even after Cal’s father had completed his work, but it was terminated the minute Eliza was betrothed to Henry. It wasn’t proper for a married woman to keep company with bachelors.

Especially bachelors that same married woman had always harbored affection for.

But when she saw a piece hanging in her friend Grace Felton’s parlor, the same movement and light present in every brushstroke and the familiar C.H. signature in the corner, she knew at once that it was Cal’s work. Grace had purchased some of his paintings and had taken his information so that she could hire him to do portrait work. At Eliza’s request, she put the two old friends back in touch, and though it had been nearly a decade since they’d seen each other last, nothing had changed between them. Their friendship was rekindled as though it had never been dampened, Eliza inviting Cal to Maplewood and commissioning him for the same work that her father had hired his for.

He started with portraits of Edwin and Josephine, the children taking an instant shine to their mother’s childhood friend, running to greet him when he arrived, stuffing little bouquets of wildflowers or interestingly shaped rocks into his hand as gifts. Josephine had even made him a drawing, once, the girl beaming as he heaped praise upon it. He reciprocated with sweets and the occasional small toy. By the time both of their portraits were finished, Cal had himself two little shadows that sat and watched in awe as he painted, just as he used to watch his father. The way that they interacted only made Eliza’s heart grow more fond of him, and he more so of her. She began to imagine what it would have been like had she and Cal never been separated, daydreaming a life where they’d been together the entire time, where Edwin and Josephine were his and the four of them were a family. Where she’d never met Henry Ashford and never had to pretend to be anyone other than who Cal Harper knew her to be.

The affair seemed inevitable, largely because neither party did anything at all to stop it. It began while Eliza sat for her portrait, the little willpower that either of them had to keep things plutonic vanishing entirely once Cal’s eyes studied every detail of her face, once she watched the lick of his tongue against his lips as he concentrated. They were careful not to let the maid or the butler see, and they never shared more than a brief embrace in front of the children, not wanting to drag any of them into things should Henry arrive home unannounced. But during the week or so that Cal stayed at Maplewood while he worked on a painting of the house and grounds, he and Eliza took every chance they could to slip away to the meadow at the edge of the property, or else up and away into one of the many spare rooms.

The one that ended up being the last room either of them ever set foot in, actually. The room that eventually became Eliza Ashford’s sickroom.

Just as the affair itself seemed imminent, so too was Henry catching wise to it. He met Cal on a visit back home, the artist taking the opportunity to start Henry’s individual portrait while he was available, setting Eliza’s aside to finish once he was gone again. Nothing happened then to tip him off about what happened while he was away, the two men saying very little to one another but remaining civil. Despite his affinity for photography, Henry was actually quite pleased with the outcome of Cal’s work, bestowing a handshake on him. It wasn’t until all four Ashfords were sitting as a family that Henry picked up on the attraction humming between the artist and his wife - and between the artist and his children.

It wasn’t as though he remained loyal to Eliza while he was away. Henry had at least two women in Philadelphia that Eliza knew about. But a man of his stature was almost expected to have a mistress, and so long as there were no bastards involved and no one important caught wind of the man stepping out on his wife, it was like it never happened.

What enraged Henry about Cal and Eliza’s tryst was the fact that it occurred in their home. It was the fact that Eliza had allowed Cal to become close with the children. It was the idea that Edwin or Josephine might slip and mention their mother’s good friend who spent long weekends at Maplewood while their father was gone. It was the ramifications of a leader in the camera industry’s wife spreading her legs for a common artist. It was pride, more than anything.

He knew for certain that something existed between the two when Eliza fell ill and Cal still came to Maplewood. He’d given the excuse of needing to refine the painting of the house - more detail in the cornices or better color matching to the stained glass windows - but that hadn’t kept him from making a stop to see her. The final nail in the coffin had been the sketches Cal had brought to show Eliza, hoping that they would lift her spirits - sketches of her, not a stitch of clothing to cover her body, sketches of the two of them together in positions he dreamed of during their ten years without contact. Sketches that included birthmarks that only Henry should know about on Eliza’s body. Sketches that fell out of his bag and that Henry found on the floor of the hallway outside Eliza’s room.

The doctors said it was consumption, but the medical world would likely later redefine her condition as a type of lung disease, non-infectious, which was why no one else caught what was killing her. She may even have survived her illness given a few more weeks to recover. But those sketches became her true cause of death. Cal’s, too.

Edwin and Josephine had been sent to stay with their governess at the townhome in the city while their mother was sick since no one knew that it wasn’t contagious. The staff had been pared down to just the housekeeper, who had gone into town to go shopping, so there was no one home to hear the gunshot that tore through Cal’s skull, and there was no one home to stop Henry from aiding Eliza’s death with a pillow over her face.

Which led Henry to the decision that he needed to make. The way he saw it, he had three options.

The first was to turn himself in for the murder of his wife and her lover. He would go to prison. His father’s company, his company, would be dragged through the mud, and Edwin and Josephine would likely never speak to him again, let alone have anything of his to carry on which was the whole point of their births. This was the option he gave the least amount of thought to.

Option number two was to follow Eliza and Cal by swallowing a bullet of his own. In his eyes it was preferable to prison. There was even the possibility that when the three bodies were discovered, authorities would assume it was a murder-suicide committed by Cal. The children would grow up traumatized by the story of their parents’ murders, but Henry figured that would already be the case after losing their mother so young. The company would survive, and nothing of the estate would be liquified. Henry didn’t want to die, though, so he put that one out of his mind, too.

That left the third and final option - disposing of Cal’s body before anyone returned, and passing Eliza’s murder off as a natural cause. Because he hadn’t shot her, there was no wound. It would be easy to say she’d died in her sleep. Cal had fallen in the center of an area rug, which meant that the mess was contained and would be simple enough to bundle up and drag into the cellar. The floorboards were removable, and there was plenty of space for a 5’11” corpse to never be found.

Turning from the window pane and back to the gruesome scene in front of him, he made his choice.

It wasn’t until both bodies had been dealt with that Henry noticed the easel in the corner of the room, Eliza’s half-finished portrait staring through him from an otherwise featureless face.

– – –

Maplewood Manor - October 30, 2023

You sat at the long elegant dining table going over the notes for your lecture and listening to the murmur of the crowd as people shuffled into the next room to take their seats.

Sounds like a full house out there.

As a member of the Society for the Restoration of Maplewood Manor, you were obligated to host one fundraising event that was open to the public a year, and whenever you could, you chose to do something that had a Halloween spin on it. Other members chose things like tea parties, dinner dances, or summer barbeques on the sprawling lawns. People from the area - and even some from further away - would purchase tickets, and then whoever was in charge of the event would round up sponsors to donate whatever was needed so that 100% of the profits could go back into the maintenance and repair of a two hundred year old estate.

Maplewood had been in rough shape until the fifties, the deed falling into the township’s hands when the last owner had passed and there was no one looking to move in. It was turned temporarily into an art gallery, which had done severe damage to the walls and floors, not to mention the botched job that some electrician had done with the wiring of overhead lights. Eventually the property was purchased by a local university and that’s when the serious repair work had begun and the Society formed. Years later you would end up attending the college, which was how you got involved with the restoration, and though you’d graduated almost twenty years ago, you were still an active member.

The event that you were hosting was entitled Unfinished Business: Ghosts Caught on Canvas. You’d decided to go with something that combined your interests and skills. You were an artist by trade, but your focus was very atypical. Though you did also create your own original works, you’d made your name in the art world by completing works that had been left incomplete by their creators’ deaths. Sometimes the families of the artists would commission you, other times you were contacted by museums, universities and private collectors. In a way, you felt like you were bringing closure to the people who hired you, and to the actual pieces of art themselves. Your lecture didn’t include any of the pieces that you’d worked on, all of the ones you’d chosen to highlight still unfinished and baring all of the sketchy lines and over-painted areas that showed how their artists were still unsure or undecided about how that portion of the piece would look when it was done.

To your surprise, the event sold out in under a week when normally tickets for these events would still be available at the door. You were glad that you’d been able to contribute something so beneficial to the restoration society. But an even bigger surprise came in the form of one of the attendees on your guest list - Marcus Pike.

You smiled to yourself as you recalled the message you’d sent him as soon as you saw that he had purchased a ticket. This really you? You’d sent it along with a screenshot showing his RSVP, and within seconds he had responded. Do you know any other Marcus Pikes? It had made you roll your eyes and snort, but at the same time it filled you with excitement. You hadn’t seen much of Marcus in the past few years while he was in Texas, and hadn’t spent a Halloween with him since the year after the two of you graduated college.

Which sucks, because he’s so much fun around this time. And… and I miss him.

Though you’d remained as close as you could from so many states away, nothing beat the few times you’d visited one another when he had time off from work. But none of those visits had been in the month of October. Another smile climbed your cheeks - along with a splash of heat - as you thought back to the first Halloween you spent with him, and the night that the two of you met. You and Kelly, your roommate, were hosting a costume party, and you were meeting her new boyfriend for the first time. Though their relationship wouldn’t last, you had formed a friendship with the cute guy from 2E who showed up in an impromptu sheet-ghost getup that would at times border on something more but never truly solidified into anything official. You’d kissed a few times, even slept together once, and more than a few of both of your friends had assumed that you would end up together.

But then Marcus had moved south to start his career, and the will they won’t they question seemed to be answered with a won’t. And then he met and married Erin, and even when the marriage quickly came apart, you never really considered that the two of you would shift gears.

And then there was Teresa.

You wrinkled your nose at the thought of the woman and the bullshit that you knew she put Marcus through. In a way, you were glad that they hadn’t worked out, because you didn’t think you could stomach being nice to someone who had toyed with your best friend the way that she had. But at the same time, you felt for him, because you knew that when Marcus went in on a relationship, he went all in. He fell hard, which made it hard for himself to get back up sometimes. Moving back East to D.C. was good for him in that regard, and selfishly, it was good for you, too, because him being only two hours away meant that more regular visits were back on the table.

Your phone chimed on the table next to your notes, and you couldn’t help the way your face broke into a grin as you read the text displayed on the screen. Just got here. Place looks great, can’t wait to hear your lecture! Another text bubble popped up that made you pull your bottom lip between your teeth. And to seeing you.

Before you could respond, Xander, one of the grad students who was part of the restoration society, poked his head into the room where you sat to let you know that you were all set to start.

“Thanks, X.” You smiled at him and gathered your note cards before heading into the next room.

Thanking everyone for coming - and honing in on Marcus as you said it - you launched right into your presentation.

“Real quick, before I start, how many of you all have been on a supposed haunted tour? Of a house or a city or graveyard?” You paused to let people respond, counting the raised hands in the room. About half of them were in the air. Not surprised. You smirked. “Now keep your hand up if you actually saw a ghost on any of those tours.” A ripple of laughter went through the room as every hand dropped back down. “That’s what I thought. Now, show of hands, how many of you really truly believe in ghosts?”

This time, only a few people put their hands up. Again, not surprised. But you acted surprised anyway. “Really? Almost everyone in here has paid money to go on a ghost tour, but only four of you actually believe in ghosts?”

That got another round of chuckles, Marcus’ hitting your ear over the rest. “Well, don’t worry. I’m not asking you to believe in ghosts tonight. The word belief implies that I’m expecting you to put your blind faith in something without being able to prove that it’s true. But I have proof. Solid, physical proof of ghosts that exist here in our world. So I’m not asking you to believe. I’m telling you that ghosts are real. And now I’m going to show them to you.”

You could feel the rush of anticipation in the room, everyone going from joking and laughing to scooting forward in their seats at your promises. For the next hour and a half, you went over the selected works, pointing things out and connecting each piece with its artist, sharing facts and stories about them when they were relevant or entertaining.

“You can still see the sketches underneath, right here. In this corner of the image. It’s almost as though the artist hadn’t decided yet - should the wings be unfurled or folded? The pencil lines here and here would indicate that originally they were open, spread wide. But from the beginnings of the brushstrokes over here it seems like maybe he was considering a different pose. And we’ll never know which way it was intended to be, or if the wings would even still be there in the final piece. So in a way, the painting itself is haunted, full of the ghosts of the artist’s original intentions.”

You finished up your talk by briefly explaining how you did your job - how you tried to immerse yourself in the mindset of the artist by gaining access to their journals, letters, photographs or any information about their life at the time that they were working on the piece, and then do your best to match the different styles and color palettes to complete the picture. Wrapping it up by thanking everyone again, you let people know that refreshments were available in the dining room and that you’d be available for any questions for about a half hour. Most people made their way in for snacks, but a few lingered for your informal Q & A. You gave them your undivided attention, which was difficult knowing that Marcus was hovering just beyond the small group that had formed around you and the six easels behind you.

But there was no urgency, no rush to finish up and spend time with him, because he had four days off and was planning to spend three of them catching up with you. When you were finally done and the last person had thanked you for your time, you turned to Marcus and blew out a huff. “Well that went well I think.”

He grinned wide, the expression lighting up his eyes. “You think?” Without warning, he moved in to wrap you in a hug, arms winding around you and giving a brief, tight squeeze. “You did great.”

Returning the hug, you laughed. “Thanks, Marcus.” The scent of his cologne hit your nose and you had to stop yourself from burrowing into his neck to inhale again. Instead, you pulled back to see the smile he was still wearing. “I’m so glad you could make it. Been a while since we’ve been in this building, huh?”

Marcus glanced around the room and nodded. “It has. Brings back a lot of memories.” He looked back at you and winked. “Good ones.”

It does.

Marcus hadn’t been in the restoration society with you while you were in school, but there were a number of campus activities that happened at Maplewood Manor, so you’d both been in the old mansion plenty of times before that night.

You kissed me in the parlor room junior year. Doesn’t get better than that, Marcus.

You wondered if that was the memory that came to mind for him, but before you could get too caught up in that thought, he spoke again. “Not to rush you out of here or anything, but I’m starving. You ready to go grab dinner? On the way here I noticed that Michael’s Diner is still open and I’ve been thinking about those disco fries since then.”

Your eyes widened. “Of course Michael’s is still open, that place is an institution, Marcus. And yes, I’m also very hungry. Let me just check in with Xander and the other student volunteers to see if they need anything before we head out.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be here.”

Verifying that Xander had everything he needed to close up once the remaining guests had cleared out, you thanked the kid and rejoined Marcus. “Alright, all set. Let’s go pig out like we used to.”

– – –

You’d made it halfway through your meal and most of the way through listening to Marcus tell you about his latest case when your phone rang. Reaching to silence it, you noticed Xander’s name on the I.D. “Sorry, I need to…” You trailed off pointing at your phone and showing him the screen. “Xander probably forgot his key or something.”

Marcus held up both hands, palms facing you. “Of course, go ahead. No need to apologize.”

Nodding, you answered. “Xander? Everything o-”

“You need to get back here. Now.”

The young man’s voice was thin and shaky and it made your stomach drop. Something was wrong, very wrong. It wasn’t just a forgotten key or a lock he couldn’t figure out, and the fear in his voice made your stomach drop. Your expression must have given you away because Marcus’ eyebrows pinched together in concern as he sat across from you.

“What happened, X? You okay?” Your pulse pounded in your brain as you asked.

What could have happened? I haven’t been gone that long.

“There’s… someone…” He gasped a breath and swallowed, saying your name. “I called the police already, they’re on their way and I’m across the street at the security booth, but… There’s a body - a dead body in one of the bedrooms upstairs. I… I was doing a sweep before I closed up and…”

“Oh, shit.” You breathed the two words out, ice flooding your veins as the concern on Marcus’ face went full-blown. “Oh, shit, Xander. I…”

“There’s… s-something else, too.” You heard him swallow again. “When I came back downstairs there was… You only had six paintings in your lecture, right?”

Blinking quickly, you nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “Yeah, why? Is one missing?”

“No. No, nothing’s missing. It’s… there are seven now.” He paused. “Where… how are there seven now?”

“Okay, X. Alright, sit tight until the police show up.” At the mention of the police, Marcus shifted into law enforcement mode, eyes laser focused and hands already moving to pull his wallet out and drop cash on the table. “I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay?”

How the fuck… a dead body? What the… how? When did that happen, I was up there earlier in the day and then the door to the staircase was locked and-

“Hey.” You looked up at Marcus as you both stood from the table. He shook his head. “What’s going on?”

“Xander said he… Marcus, there’s a body. At Maplewood. Someone was killed, and… and there’s another painting that I didn’t bring with me now. I… I don’t-”

“Alright.” He reached for your biceps, taking a deep breath and letting it out to try to get you to do the same. “Okay. Leave your car here. I’ll drive. Let’s go.”

You nodded and tried to calm yourself down, the task made easier by the fact that Marcus was with you, and then you let him steer you out of the diner and into his car.

-- -- --

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to be added to or removed from the tag list, please feel free to let me know. You can also fill out the form on my Masterlist! :)

tags: @something-tofightfor @littlemisspascal @mishasminion360 @nyctophiliiiiaaa @alraedesigns @practicalghost @tanzthompson @amb11@harriedandharassed @woodlandmouth @thescarletfang @trickstersp8 @princessxkenobi @imtryingmybeskar @haylzcyon@wildmoonflower @mswarriorbabe80 @theredwritingwitch @silverstarsandsuns @pedro-pedrito-pascalito @jedi-in-crocs @hannahkatharine @anoverwhelmingdin @chiyo13 @myloveistoolittle @spishsstuff @Noisynightmarepoetry

#marcus pike x female reader #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x reader #marcus pike fic #pedrostories #marcus pike the mentalist #marcus pike #spooky story #love is like ghosts #unfinished #pedro pascal character #marcus pike fanfiction

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llovelymoonn · 9 months

Note

hi love, could you make a web weave about grief?

fortesa latifi the truth about grief (via @virginiewoolf) \\ patricia traxler naming the fires: "last hike before leaving montana" \\ carmel cauchi the touch of comfort \\ herbert mason gilgamesh: a verse narrative (via @saintsebastiensbf) \\ janelle rainer dead head \\ camille rankine incorrect merciful impulses: "the increasing frequency of black swans" \\ linda bierds flight: "wonders" \\ edvard munch death in the sickroom \\ kristi dilallo the language of grief: how art can provide us with different languages for discussing loss

kofi

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familyabolisher · 11 months

Note

have you ever written about the avulsion scene btw? bc you are very right and i always rotate in my head. so much going on there.

i think the first port of call for understanding the avulsion chapter is thinking of it as a rehearsal of sorts for the end of the book (or foreshadowing, if you prefer)—the three key agents are harrow, gideon, and cytherea, harrow ‘batterises’ gideon in a process that preempts that of full-on lyctorhood*, gideon ‘dies,’ cytherea mitigates this relationship between harrow & gideon that eventually becomes the conditions of subjugation that lead to that ‘death’ becoming possible, homoeroticism is there. harrow emerging naked with almost all of her hair singed off preempts cytherea emerging from the sickroom post-getting exploded; cytherea and harrow essentially swap places in a configuration which highlights gideon’s loyalty-slash-subjugation-slash-homoeroticism as shifting from being directed towards cytherea to being directed towards harrow. cytherea is this kind of … active narrative ingredient, ironically for the very thing she’s trying to prevent (and doing so badly. Flop queen), in that the narrative demands that gideon reach a point wherein she can kill herself for harrow, but cytherea is necessary to initiating the process by which she can get there and making clear the terms on which it has to happen.

*obviously ‘full-on lyctorhood’ is a combination of eight different practices, but the text draws our attention to the idea that avulsion is the most direct and immediate commonality at least of those we’re exposed to. the fight between silas and ianthe towards the end & the idea that silas of all those present would be the one to reject lyctorhood outright (on theological grounds, no less) gains its kind of narrative compulsion in part on the basis that silas’ position is a contradiction in terms; that soul-siphoning, and by extension whatever they were doing during avulsion, is the most immediate articulation of the lyctorhood process (batterisation!), that the practice was developed by mercy and cristabel, the latter of whom was of course was the most fervent devotee of The Process out of all the early disciples—like, what galvanises the eighth house (discursively speaking) is a contradictory tension between zealotry and heterodoxy, devotion and heresy, so it stands to reason that the eighth house trial would take a form closest to what lyctorhood actually ‘is’ only for its practitioners to reject lyctorhood outright. anyway that’s enough eighth house sidetracking lol—

—the driving force throughout gtn is this process of gideon ‘learning’ cavalierhood; i’ve written before about this question of categories, taxonomies, socially enforced vs socially maligned relationships wherein to make sense of oneself within these essentially imperial categories and act accordingly is to act as grist for the imperial mill (and in turn open up a bunch of questions about what conditions are needed to sustain the particular imperialism that tm evokes, which tldr is rape and death and hegemonic discursive ownership over both), and gtn is laying the groundwork for the sorts of questions that the rest of the series goes on to interrogate (as in like, how do these conditions come about? how are they enforced and to what end? why is edgar allan poe there? what about the new zealand of it all?). so if we understand avulsion chapter as a key step in that ‘learning’ process (ie. one in which gideon voluntarily subjects herself to the siphoning, which both implicitly legitimises harrow’s desire for lyctorhood in ways that she hadn’t before been willing to do and posits her as an active participant), we can treat the chapter as able to reveal particular key points of discourse around what lyctorhood is supposed to ‘represent,’ what it ‘does’ in the text and what kind of conclusions it points to.

so obviously i’ve done the whole “locked tomb is lolita” thing to death by now, but—lyctorhood, and avulsion as a rehearsal of lyctorhood, anchors itself in what is very simply just a literalisation of nabokov’s discourse. where nabokov figures humbert as coveting an ‘immortality’ afforded to him through reverence within the literary canon and then figures dolores haze as a muse-type figure who can be raped, killed, reconfigured as equally timeless, but necessarily remain dead and extant only on the terms of humbert himself through his literary discourse. lyctorhood as immortality through the batterisation of another person is just … this, put into literal terms, and this is the entryway through which we can think about the series as heavily thematically concerned with sexual violence articulated through these vectors of death, necromancy, reanimation … anyway, avulsion is kind of an overture to these themes that are going to go on to shape the whole series.

& like, avulsion posits a relationship between batterisation/siphoning/lyctorhood (which is ofc to say Lolita Discourse), (homo)eroticism, and exploitation. when i wrote about the use of don quixote in gtn i spent a little time with how gideon & cytherea’s whole situationship was constituted on these essentially chivalric grounds and thus introducing some key questions re: the relationship that chivalry holds not only to a specifically catholic imperialism but also to lesbian gender formations and how lesbian masculinity in particular is often made sense of on the terms set by chivalry with all its problematising implications. i think this is especially prominent in avulsion, which you can read as something of a ‘wounded knight’/lady setup (obviously ironised by the fact that this is a situation very much engineered by cytherea herself); there’s an erotic-romantic undercurrent running through how cytherea talks to gideon (“good girl,” “darling,” the hair-stroking) which works in tandem with the kind of flirtation-chivalric seduction that’s characterised their relationship up until that point to suggest that being the object of that kind of seduction can be made equivalent to subjecting oneself to avulsion, and by extension that the erotic logics of that seduction bear a relationship to lyctorhood. (similar to how, like, protesilaus as puppeted corpse cavalier—loveday as dead and batterised cavalier—gideon as effectively cavalier to cytherea before she un-defects back to harrow draws the three of them into one another’s orbits to make a narrative claim about how to be beguiling corpse’d is to be lyctorhood batterised is to be whatever chivalric butch/femme thing gideon and cytherea were doing. metaphors innit.) this then opens up the v broad questions of sexual subjectivity, the body as instrumentalised (& as imperial cannon fodder), sexuality as a site wherein that instrumentalisation can take place, and sexual violence & its attendant metaphors that the series then tackles in far greater detail elsewhere. like, again, it’s an overture for the kind of thematics we then see developed further throughout the other two books.

so tldr avulsion is this kind of microcosm/overture for themes that characterise the rest of the series & we can pick it apart accordingly. it’s maybe a reach to call avulsion an out-and-out rape metaphor, but certainly it introduces something which is later posited as equivocal to rape for the purpose of tethering otherwise disparate practices of violence and exploitation back to the common denominator of conditions by which the internal configuration of the imperialist social body is sustained and made sense of.

#ask #tlt

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dragcnbreak · 9 months

Text

cathy linh che, go forget your father / jeremy zucker & chelsea cutler, parent song / edvard munch, death in the sickroom

#short but sad i think #image #mine #web weaving #red vs blue #rvb #the director #leonard church #agent carolina

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kpop-stories-21 · 11 months

Text

History section | Strength & Love

Group: ATEEZ

Pairing: San x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Rating: 18-21+

Genres + AUs: Non-Idol AU, Roman era, Smut

Content & Trigger Warnings: Gladiator!San, Healer!Reader, pet names, first time, unprotected sex(wrap that shit up kids)

Summary: As the most experienced healer in the Coliseum, you've been around long enough to become friends with most of the gladiators. But there's one in particular you wish to be more than just friends with.

Tags: @kpop---scenarios @stardragongalaxy @jeonrose @skittlez-area512 @mybiasisexo @skeletor-ify @biaswreckingfics @anyamaris @liliesofdreamsskz @rdiamond2727 @naturalogre @thelargefrye @yoonguurt @wooyoungmybelovedhusband @sanjoongie

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Event Masterlist || Main Masterlist

As soon as you entered the History section, you again felt the pull of being drawn towards something. Now that you knew what to look for, it took almost no time at all for you to find the glowing book that housed the Guardian. Bracing yourself, you pulled the book from the shelf and shut your eyes against the ensuing explosion of white light.

When you opened them this time you found yourself in another small room, with walls made of ivory-coloured stone. A pallet lay on the stone floor, and there were piles of unfamiliar herbs everywhere. From far above you came the muffled sounds of shouting and cheering, as well as many heavy thumps and the cry of a wild animal.

When the rush of memories came, you were expecting them, and thus the headache was not quite as bad. This time around, you’d been placed in ancient Rome. You were the chief Healer of the Roman Coliseum, you and your four apprentices tended the many gladiators that fought there. The noises you’d heard were the sounds of an ongoing fight, and the gladiator up there currently just so happened to be the one you were most fond of: a slim, well-muscled foreigner named San.

You’d always felt particularly sympathetic to San and the unfortunate circumstances that had brought him here. He had been a simple traveller, exploring the world and seeing all there was to see. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time that had him quite literally running into a young man of similar age and appearance who’d just stolen a handful of priceless jewels from the Emperor himself. The thief took advantage of San’s confusion to slip the jewels into his money purse before fleeing. When the guards caught up, they took hold of San and searched him. Upon the discovery of the jewels San had been thrown into the dungeons of the Coliseum to fight for his freedom.

With the memories came the names of all the herbs in your room, along with the knowledge of how to use each and every one of them. When the loud scream of a dying animal reached your ears, you knew the fight was over and your skills would be required. Grabbing up a nearby satchel, you filled it with everything you thought you might need before hurrying through the many tunnels and into the main sickroom.

The room was empty save for the next gladiator to fight, a burly former blacksmith named Wonho. You nodded to him in greeting before giving your apprentices orders to prepare everything for San’s arrival. You were almost certain his injuries would be worse than usual, given the fact you had overheard some of the gladiators whispering a few days prior about how the Emperor would be pitting San against a couple of wild-caught tigers to see if he was truly as strong as the rumours said.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel something special for San, your apprentices and most of the gladiators could already read your feelings just by the way you interacted with him. You just felt normal around him, like you weren't a Healer and he wasn't a gladiator who regularly stared death in the face. You also knew he felt the same way, he'd said as much one night when you'd gone into his cell to check an infected wound.

You knew the gladiators were forbidden to form relationships, as it supposedly dampened their will to fight. But when it came to San, that was simply not true. If anything, he fought harder after knowing you shared his feelings because when he finally earned his freedom, he was determined to take you with him. Still, until then the two of you had to be careful not to get caught together. If a guard saw you messing around and reported it, you would be stripped of your position and San would be executed.

"Make way!" A guard yelled, the urgency in his voice ripping you from your musings. You looked up and felt your heart clench.

Blood, so much blood. There was a trail of it on the floor from where the guards had practically dragged San out of the arena. You ran to his side in an instant, your apprentices joining to help the guards lower San onto a freshly cleaned pallet. The guards left immediately, taking Wonho with them, and you allowed a bit of panic to slip into your voice as you gently shook San's shoulder.

"San? San, can you hear me?!"

A barely audible groan came from his chapped lips, and you breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He might be gravely injured, but he was still alive and for that you thanked the gods. Confirming no one was present but your trusted apprentices, you placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"Try not to move, brave one. We're going to tend to your injuries and it will not be pleasant."

You immediately began digging through your satchel, pulling out everything you would need. Once all the herbs were laid out, your apprentices came with clean rags and basins of water. Turning, you pulled aside the eldest of the four, a tan-skinned young man named Haechan, and pointed to a specific pile.

“Take these, soak them in water, then use the mortar and pestle to grind them into a paste. Have Jeno help you so your hands don’t tire. Renjun and Jaemin can help me clean him and locate his injuries.”

Haechan nodded, relayed your words to Jeno, and the two of them split off. You, Renjun, and Jaemin began gently wiping the blood from San’s heated skin.

“He shouldn’t feel this warm, one of his wounds must already be infected. We must be extra careful not to get any dirt or debris in them until we discern which one holds the infection.”

The two young men nodded and slowed their movements, taking extra care. Soon you found the wound in question: a set of large, deep claw marks across the whole of San’s back. The edges of the gashes were bright red, the skin shiny and stretched tight around the inflammation. Your heart skipped a beat at the sight, but you quickly reigned in your emotions.

“Renjun and Jaemin, take these herbs and trade places with Haechan and Jeno. They can bring what paste they have ground already, we’re going to need a lot of it to fight this infection.”

The two nodded and hurried off, Haechan and Jeno returning shortly with a goodly amount of the pale green paste.

“We have to start packing this into the wound immediately. Jeno, I’ll need you to hold San down. It’s going to hurt but I need him to be still.”

Haechan passed you some of the paste as Jeno took up a position comfortable for both him and San. Taking a deep breath, you began pressing the paste into the deepest gash.

San reacted immediately, a high whine escaping him as he tried to squirm away from you. Jeno kept a firm but gentle grip on him and by the time Jaemin and Renjun returned with more of the paste, you had just used the last of it. A few minutes more and you had the enitre wound packed and covered with bandages.

The rest of San's injuries were minor and there were no broken bones, so by the time the guards returned with a mildly roughed up Wonho, the five of you had just finished gently moving San back to his cell.

A week or so passed, and San recovered at a steady pace. He was exempt from the fighting until he was fully healed, since a weak gladiator meant a shorter fight and less entertainment for the crowd.

You enjoyed the extra time spent with him, growing ever closer to him as the love in your heart burned ever brighter. And then one day, he decided to take things to a whole new level.

You had just finished checking his injuries for the night and were about to leave when San stopped you.

"Do you need something?" You asked him, curious what his response would be.

He took your hand in his and smiled softly. "You know that I love you with all the passion that is inside of me?"

You blush and nod, a smile of your own rising into place. "Yes, as do I."

"Then indulge me with this one question: Am I well enough to make love to you?"

Warmth surged through you at his words. You certainly hadn't expected him to ask such a question. After a moment of thought, you decided he probably was, and told him so.

San’s smile widened as he tugged on your hand and gently pulled you into his lap.

“Tell me at any time if you want me to stop.” He murmured before claiming your lips in a gentle kiss.

A contented sigh left you as you kissed him back, shifting to straddle San as you wrapped your arms around his neck. His tongue swiped across your lips and you parted them, allowing him access. As he explored your mouth his hands undid the belt of your tunic and slipped beneath to gently massage your breasts, your sweet moans muffled by the continued liplock.

When you finally had to part for air, San lifted your tunic over your head and laid it to the side. Then he leaned forward and began to lick and mouth over the skin of your neck. Chills rippled across your body, going straight to your core.

Straightening, San pecked your lips before asking, “Have you ever been with a man before, my petal?”

You shook your head. “No, only kissing. Never any farther than that.”

“Then I promise to be gentle. But first I must prepare your body for me.”

At that he slid a hand between your legs and slowly pressed a finger into you.

Pleasure exploded through your body, back arching as you let out a long moan while trying your best to stay quiet.

“You’re so wet for me, petal. How long have you wanted this?”

“So long Sannie, so long!” You gasped as you felt a second finger slip in beside the first.

He smiled, pleased.

"I'm glad to know I occupy so much of your thoughts. And is this living up to your expectations?”

“B-Beyond them, so far beyond.”

It wasn't long after adding a third finger that he slipped the digits out of your dripping hole. You whined in protest, but he quickly quieted you.

"Don't worry petal, I'm just replacing them with what you really want."

You clamped a hand over your mouth to muffle the moan that threatened to escape as he carefully filled you up.

Once he bottomed out he was still for a moment, letting you adjust to all the glorious sensations coursing through your body.

"Are you ready, sweet petal?"

"Yes, p-please, make love to me San."

He began moving slowly so as not to overwhelm you, watching as you writhed beneath him. He leaned down to kiss you, tongues and teeth clashing in a heated exchange.

Your hands found grip in his hair as he broke the kiss to mark the soft skin of your collarbone. You had expected your first time to hurt, but if it did you were too caught up in the bliss to even process it.

"Faster Sannie, n-need more." You begged, not sure exactly what you needed more of.

He did as you requested, slamming into you as you choked on a moan. Your legs locked around his waist, driving him even deeper, and your hands scrambled for purchase as the pleasure increased tenfold.

Something tightened in your stomach and you felt your eyes rolling back. You tried to speak and tell San what you were feeling, but no words would come, only frantic grabs at his broad shoulders.

San knew what you were feeling. He could feel you tightening around him and knew he wouldn't last any longer than you at this rate. Increasing his pace a bit more, he placed his lips beside your ear.

"Cum with me, petal."

The tightness in your stomach released at his words and you bit into your hand to cover the scream that burst from your lungs as you were filled with absolute euphoria.

San hammered into you one final time, letting out a quiet moan of his own as he filled you full of his cum.

The two of you were still for a few moments, catching your breath and basking in the lingering emotions. Then San carefully slipped out of you to fetch a damp rag and clean up.

Once your tunic was back on and you could breathe properly again, San laid down and you cuddled into his side.

"I love you so much, my petal." He whispered, hands caressing your face. "I hate that this must come to an end."

You felt something metal in your hand as you looked at him in confusion.

"What do you-"

A bright flash of white light cut you off as the world around you faded.

When you returned to yourself, you were again on the floor with a key in your hand. This one was a shiny silver inlaid with yellow pearls, and you thought it fit San rather well.

The key joined Jongho's in your pocket and you made your way towards the Science Fiction section.

#cultofdionysusnet #library of illusion event #kdiarynet #cacaokpop #ateez #san x reader #ateez smut #ateez san #san smut #maturefanfic #21+#au #fanfic

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phasewashere · 4 months

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terminal hosea matthews moment

creds; miracle fish - ada limón, gregg araki - nowhere (1997), jovialtorchlight, joaquin cachero - broken bottle, alexandre - gabriel decamps, coffin heart? bury me - fatima aamer bilal, death in the sickroom - edvard munch, interview with fabien frankel - albrecht dürer, the fox and the grapes - john russell, momus (fire and blood) - george r.r martin

#phase weeps #hosea matthews #coughs up blood #anyways #web weaving #rdr2

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xythlia · 1 year

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𝘚𝘓𝘐𝘋𝘌 𝘛𝘈𝘊𝘒𝘓𝘌 [𝘌𝘟-𝘏𝘜𝘚𝘉𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘓𝘜𝘊𝘐𝘍𝘌𝘙]

- ̗̀໒ WARNINGS : ANGST, divorce au, heartache + heartbreak, jealous ex, alcohol ment

- ̗̀໒ WORD COUNT : 1k+

this is part two of the ex-husband series! luci pov of after that foyer kiss 🖤 is your ex really over you? what happens when he sees you with someone else?

PART ONE | SERIES MASTERLIST

It's been a while since a headache had this much punch. Throwing himself down onto the couch in his study, Lucifer dragged his hands down his face before bending down towards his knees, head in hand.

He shouldn't have done it, is the reality. Should have just let you go on your way, drop the bag and rush out the front door, off to meet whoever. Except that little voice in his head was suddenly shouting in those seconds, pounding against the walls of his skull to stop you, convince you to stay here because how could you honestly believe you belonged anywhere else? With anyone else?

Then again, he knew it wasn't fair to feel like this, not after the night of your birthday a few months ago. He's kicked himself over and over again, that moment like a tape stuck on pause, with him ludovico's techniqued into being the captive audience.

The thought of indulging in demonus crossed his mind, get just tipsy enough to enjoy a dreamless sleep. How unfortunate he wasn't that kind of demon, but this room was getting too stuffy, too constrictive and he heaved off the couch to pace like a caged animal.

Abruptly he paused, eyes narrowed on the study's heavy oak door. He'd promised himself he wouldn't go near your old bedroom in the house; treating it like a black death sickroom and he'd avoided the temptation all these months but after tonight...

His fingers drift up to run along his bottom lip, vividly recalling how it felt to see you so immediately responsive. You'd stored some old things haphazardly in there after Mammon had helped you find a place far enough from the house for you to feel comfortable. The key to that apartment felt heavy in his pocket, he'd convinced you to give him a copy just in case anything were to happen.

Swiftly his feet took him to the door, only briefly hesitating at the idea of opening his personal pandora's box but the ache in his chest won out. He needed to have any piece of you he could right now, no matter how menial.

Cracking the door open revealed everything was almost exactly as he remembered it, aside from the disheveled boxes here and there or the sad little pile of clothes on the stripped mattress.

He'd forbidden anyone from coming in here since you officially left, but knew there had been occasional trespassers regardless. He couldn't blame them for wanting something similar to what he did right now, and thus never uttered a word about it. They resented him enough for driving away the brightest spot to bloom in their existence for millennia.

It was nauseatingly nostalgic; frozen memories in the form of pictures still pasted to the walls, some from your very first year but it was all laid to waste now. Soft footfalls brought him further inside, quietly closing the door behind him. It felt like seeing everything and nothing all at once.

Your old uniform, practically ancient now, was hung in the closet and no doubt sporting a healthy coating of dust. Some forlorn hair ties and knick knacks were left strewn on the top of the dresser, sad little soldiers left behind. His attention was drawn back to a photo on the wall, plucking it down and immediately choking on a rush of emotion.

It was a picture of you on Beels shoulders after a fangol game, laughing and extending your arms up like you could grasp the sky in your hands. He couldn't recall the last time you'd been this happy, sending a shock of shame through his heart like an expertly fired arrow.

Pain threatened to swell his throat closed, shaking hands dropping the photo, left to drift to the floor, and he nearly collapsed against the mattress. It became unbearable in seconds, his breathing labored against the feeling of imminent sobs as he looked around frantically. He'd come in here for any piece of you-

A slim necklace glinted in the dark, sat atop the discarded clothing pile and quickly he snatched it, desperation making him nearly slam the door on his way out of that apocalyptic time capsule.

Clutching that thin metal chain in the dark it occurred to him this could be a lifeline, a way to see you again and deduce if indeed another person had swept you off your feet. Once more that key felt like a burning coal in his slacks pocket, but this time his steps were determined.

Grabbing the first jacket he saw, sliding it on and bounding out the door Lucifer felt something like hope for the first time in months. He didn't bother with a car, walking to your place would give him plenty of time to craft his speech and hammer it home.

The chilled night air was refreshing after nearly suffocating from the weight of his emotions inside the house. The wet reflections of the downtown neon shop lights on pavement gave it a certain wondrous feeling, but as he rounded a corner from an alley shortcut his blood ran cold.

The sound of your laughter echoed from the door and out to the street, chaining him in place and making his heart plummet to his stomach.

Backing up across the street furtively he watched through the wide bar windows. You looked something beyond radiant, clearly uninhibited thanks to the alcohol in your glass, and eyes bright from the company across from you.

He felt bile rise at your mischievous smiles, your obvious giggles, and open body language. You clearly liked this demon, and he absolutely hated it. His hands flexed, opening and closing a fist at his side desperate to make any sort of action but for once feeling completely helpless.

It dawned on him as he turned away, heavy footfalls paired with a heavier heart tracing his path back home, that he didn't just hate seeing you with another demon- he hated himself because he had the opportunity to make you just as happy but squandered it; leaving the door open for someone else.

Briefly he recognized the impossibility of your relationship, the divorce was final. Instead of making himself nearly vomit from heartache he should be making time to relearn life without you.

But how could he when the memory of that kiss seared like a brand on his lips?

#obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #obey me lucifer #om lucifer x reader #om! lucifer #obey me angst #obey me imagine #lucifer x reader #♡.savxonne scribbles

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