#is still there with her. that and van using her blood to write I love you on tai's arm even though tai has a demonic alter ego that had

[see-arcane]

Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.

Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!

 ‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.

This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:

“Well. Why don’t I make something?”

And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)

So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…

FICTION

Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:

The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…

Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.

Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.

Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)

The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.

Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

………

…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)

The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.

What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.

The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.  

NONFICTION

Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.

‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.

Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.  

“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.  

Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.

 “The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.

…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.

This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.

#time for Dracula Season pre-gaming :3 #thank you to everyone who sent in their suggestions! #dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula

[bettyfrommars]

Death Becomes Us//Part 2: When Doves Cry vampire!Eddie x supernatural!fem!Reader//True Blood AU

⚠️18+Only pls⚠️ adult themes, blood, drinking blood, enemies to lovers, eventual smut, violence, reader and vampire!Eddie both get physically hurt--but they end up okay, talk of needles, alcohol consumption, talk of addiction, mention of sex, sanguivoriphobia, talk of the supernatural, death. Word Count: 6.7k

Series Masterlist

Summary: You start your first day at Main Vein, the vampire/human crossover bar owned by Bob Newby, flanked by vampire!bartender!Argyle and you learn what a risk humans can be to vampires as you begin to navigate their world. You and Eddie have to rescue each other as you're forced to share an intimate exchange that brings you irrevocably close. Playlist

Important words/phrases for this chapter: Fanger (derogatory term for vampires) Fang Banger (derogatory term for people who like to be bitten by vampires during sex) Sanguivoriphobia (fear of vampires)

✂️

If you are in the group of people who are familiar with True Blood, parts of this chapter will feel familiar. I won't be sticking to the storyline of the show religiously, but there are so many clever elements I wanted to incorporate. Please read the warnings above, as some of the things mentioned in this chapter might not be for everyone. ❤️

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Death Becomes Us Part 2: When Doves Cry

For years, you tried to cover your scars up with makeup, but then they ended up looking lumpy and odd, and it made people stare even harder trying to figure out what was under the heavy layers of foundation and powder. You’d never met anyone like you before, and it made you feel a type of deep loneliness that you never talked about because you knew no one would understand.

You’d left some tuna on your porch for Dio before you went to bed, and you were pleased to find the saucer licked clean when you left your trailer the next day. You could tell that she was well fed and that your nasty vampire neighbor was taking good care of her, but you wanted to reward her for proving to Eddie that she did, indeed, like someone other than him.

The white BMW was gone, and the old van was back, parked next to Eddie’s trailer. You were more curious and interested in whatever he was up to than you should be, considering you wanted nothing to do with him.

It was still daylight out when you rolled up early to Main Vein, and Bob got you to work writing out the specials on a sandwich board in your best handwriting, to hopefully attract customers in as they strolled by on the sidewalk. You shadowed Bob as he taught you the basics of tending bar while a couple humans (also known as “breeders” in the vampire world, because vampires, of course, could not procreate) came in for a few simple beers, and one guy ordered a jack and coke.

As a child, you were always an emphatic soul; you could tell what a person was feeling, even if they told you with their words that they were feeling something else. It was a trauma response to surviving in the emotional chaos you grew up in. Now, since the accident, you could read human emotions and intentions with ten times the intensity.

Vampires, on the other hand, were impervious to your gift—or, curse, as you often referred to it.

For instance, you could tell that Bob Newby had a heart of gold; his enthusiasm was not a fake front to hide dark intentions. He truly loved his vampire girlfriend, whom you had yet to meet, and he harbored nothing but the best intentions in the brainstorming of his human/vampire crossover bar Main Vein. He believed that vampires were good people who just happened to be dead, and that we were all equals, despite the fact that they were stronger, faster, immortal, and subsided on blood alone.

You were behind the bar, concentrating on putting the exact amount of alcohol in a drink that the recipe card in front of you called for, when Argyle slid in next to you and bumped your arm. His skin felt like ice.

“Careful!” He snickered. “Don’t spill any,” but half of the liquid had already dripped down your fingers. Since you couldn’t get a read on vampire’s emotions, it was a relief for you to be around them. Feeling other people’s emotions often meant that you had to experience them, and that was not to your benefit in many cases. Being around crowds of people sapped your energy in a way you still struggled to recover from.

Argyle wore his black hair straight and parted down the middle; it was shiny and soft and you wanted to touch it. He had on a colorful, button down shirt, and a blue visor that said Main Vein on it. He nodded at what you were working on, wiggling his eyebrows. “Whadda we got going on here?”

You sighed and told him what the customer ordered. Argyle smiled and waved you off. “I got this, foxy dudette. Let the master take over,” he cracked his knuckles and interlaced his fingers, flexing his palms out before he brought things from the under bar at lightning speed.

You were more than happy to shove off and get to the group at the front waiting to be seated.

When you were half way there with menus tucked under your arm, you realized that this group was mean and anxious and desperate; a combination that made alarms go off inside of you as your skin exploded in a wash of goosebumps.

They were nice enough to your face, though. It was a woman with two men, all dressed in denim and plaid; one of the men had an American flag on the front of his t-shirt. The other one had his greasy hair squished under a trucker cap, and two missing teeth in front. The redhead woman wore an Ed Hardy tube top under her flannel, and she was pretty in a whiskey and Marlboro reds kind of way. Her smile was big and gracious as she smacked her green gum, and they followed you to a booth.

They ordered a round of beers with potato skins from the appetizer menu, and just as you excused yourself to give their order to Bob in the kitchen, the woman grabbed your wrist.

You squeezed your eyes closed until you could calm the surge that went through your body when you felt threatened, waiting for the fire behind your eyes to settle before you met her gaze again.

“Sorry, darlin’ but this is a bar for vampires, too, right?” She was bent forward, whispering to you, her pupils tightly pinned in her dusty blue eyes. There was a faded, long stem rose tattoo on her white freckled forearm.

“Um, yes,” you looked around. “Will there be more with your party? Should I bring over a menu with our plasma options?”

The two men chuckled across the table at each other as if you’d just made a joke.

“That’s okay, baby,” the woman said sweetly, releasing your arm. “But, are there any vampires in here right now? Me and the boys were just hoping to see one up close, is all.”

You thought about what they were asking you, and the fact that their emoting of desperation was getting stronger, and decided not to point Argyle out to them. They’d eventually figure that one out for themselves because he loved to show his teeth. “I’m not really sure,” you lied with a shrug. “I never can tell the difference.”

The woman frowned and turned back to the two men as they started to discuss something.

The other waitress, a human named Erica Sinclair, tucked her Main Vein t-shirt into her shorts as she joined you on the floor, rolling her eyes. Bob introduced the two of you in a rush as he flipped a burger, and Erica gave you a bored look, but her gaze did not linger on your your scars like most. “You’re new here, right? You’re smiling, so you must be. Nothing much to smile about around here.”

You told her you’d only been in town a few days as you grabbed a second round of beers for the table that had been asking about vampires. You weren’t paying too much attention when the front door opened, but then some of the other customers seemed to still, conversations coming to a halt, and Erica’s attention shifted over your shoulder, eyes narrowing.

The song When Doves Cry by Prince was playing on the stereo system as you turned on your heel to witness your neighbor Eddie step across the threshold with ease; one initial invitation was all that was needed, apparantly. According to Bob, invitations could also be reversed if necessary. It was the couple waiting behind Eddie for their invitation that alerted everyone to the presence of something supernatural.

The two behind him could’ve easily passed as “regular” mortals. They had a very mom and pop look about them; she was a brunette in a floral dress and he was in trousers, a dark blue button down, and had a receding hairline. She clutched her white handbag at her stomach, and the man with her had his hand at her back, coaxing her in.

Eddie pretended not to see you there as he cupped a hand to light his cigarette and made his way over to the bar to take his normal seat at the end to order a Fang Tang, not even giving a second glance to the vampires stuck outside. Maybe they weren’t his friends? Not all vampires were friends, surely, as you were not close with all humans.

Bob would’ve been the first to greet them and welcome them in, but he was knee deep in the kitchen, wearing his “Bob the Brain” custom embroidered apron, and when you turned to Erica, she shook her head. “I’m not a fan of the Fangers myself. It’s going to take me a minute to get used to this new world.”

Your eyes snapped to Argyle, but he was busy at the other end of the bar doing a Tom Cruise juggling act with the booze to impress two of the local Fang Bangers.

So you straitened your shirt, squared your shoulders, and made your way over to greet them.

Meanwhile, the redhead woman with the rose tattoo on her arm and the two men with her were hyper focused on the new arrivals; you could feel the cold, wet tug of some kind of rot in their veins, surging though them and clouding their rational thoughts.

At the time, you did not know that there was an underground market for vampire blood, not only for its healing properties, but the euphoric high and transcendent experience it gifted the user. It enhanced sexual performance and gave humans the mental prowess of superhuman strength. Needless to say, it was a highly prized commodity; expensive and addictive.

Hunched at the bar in his leather and battle vest, and a handkerchief hanging from his back pocket, Eddie appeared to be ignoring you as you walked to greet the newcomers. You had never professionally invited a vampire in before, so you might have overcompensated with how cheerful your tone was. “Welcome to Main Vein,” you plastered a smile across your face. “Please enter and follow me. I will show you to your seat,” you also added a slight bow and extension of your arm like you were back in theater class again.

They stepped inside with a swoosh—a sound like they were breaking some invisible barrier you couldn’t see. They asked for a booth, and the only one out of the five that was available happened behind the party that was eager to see vampires up close: now they would get their chance. This vampire couple was not at all what you envisioned when people talked of “bloodsuckers from hell”. They seemed grateful to be able to come out to a bar with regular people---perhaps it reminded them of the human lives they’d once lived.

The guy in the trucker hat with two missing teeth turned around in his seat to get a better look as they sat and you offered them the plasma menus. You explained the different categories for synthetic blood, and how each offered the same taste and nutrients as real human blood. They offered replicas of a whole range of blood types, for those vampires with discerning palettes. You frowned at the guy in the trucker hat to make him turn back around and take his seat.

On your way back to the kitchen, Erica caught you by the elbow, her eyes wide. “What did they say to you?”

“They just wanted menus,” you said with a shrug, glancing over your shoulder at the couple in question. “I don’t think they’re all as bad as they seem on the news.”

“Oh, believe me,” She gave you a dire look. “They are evil. Don’t let the Laura Ashley dress and the Newport loafers fool you.” Truly, Erica had not yet properly met more than a handful of vampires in her life, she’d only heard the rumors.

“Have you ever met one?” You asked, assuming that she’d known plenty.

“I’ve met enough of them,” she promised, hands on her hips, and then she gestured to your neighbor at the end of the bar. “I know Eddie. But that’s only because I met him...before the change. And I’m forced to be around Argyle because I work here.”

When Erica walked off, you made the mistake of glancing over at the Eddie in question, and he tried to lower his eyes to his synthetic blood beverage as if he hadn't been watching you.

Argyle was working a metal cocktail shaker over his shoulder when you came back to the bar, and he nudged his chin at you. “What’s up with the freaks?” He asked, referring to the redhead with the rose tattoo and the two beefy men with her. He filled two martini glasses with a dark red concoction and trimmed each with a tiny pink flower.

You leaned forward a bit so you wouldn’t have to yell, tilting your head. “They specifically asked if there were any vampires here tonight,” you glanced over at Eddie again, but he was engrossed in something he was doodling on a napkin. “Do you think they’re tourists?”

“Nah,” Argyle wiped his hands on the rag at his waist, eyeing the table in question. “That’s Angie Klemp and her inbred brothers. They’ve been around forever.”

You could tell by his expression that he was weary of them, and you knew that he had excellent hearing which probably allowed him to listen in on some of what they were saying as they huddled together at their booth.

Wanting to change the subject, Argyle winked at you. “You’re doing a rad job, surfer girl. These are for the vampire couple that just sat down,” he pushed the two martini glasses toward you. “It’s our signature synthetic blood cocktail. Tell them it’s on the house.”

As the night picked up a bit, you took an order to the wrong table and fumbled a glass that shattered behind the bar. While you were cleaning that up, and mumbling apologies to Argyle, a woman wearing glasses and her honey-streaked brown hair in a bob took a seat at the small table by the window. Erica had a tray of drinks in her hand, so you dumped a dustpan full of glass in the trash and went over to wait on the new guest.

“Do I know you?” You asked as you took your pad and pen out to take her order.

She clamped her top teeth over her bottom lip, tucking hair behind her ear, shyly. “I own the bookstore down the street,” she answered. “You were in earlier, but I never got a chance to introduce myself.”

Of course, it came to you almost as quickly as she said it. You’d been so early for work that you took a walk around the block and ended up wandering into the quaint bookshop on the corner with the wind chimes made from seashells in the window. You had mentioned to her as you purchased a used paperback that you were starting work that day.

“The bookstore with the cats,” you grinned, pointing your pen at her. There had, indeed, been two resident cats in the shop, lazily draped over their carpeted perches in the sun, and sleepy, cream colored bigger dog behind the front counter.

“That’s the one,” she nodded, and then she stuck her hand out to introduce herself. “I’m Robin, in case you ever come back in, you can ask for me,” that seemed to fluster her and she shook her head. “You don’t have to ask for me, I’m usually there, but if you ever come by again, that would be nice.” Her cheeks got pink as she fumbled for the glass of ice water in front of her and took a sip.

You met her eyes and told her that you be back in soon to finish the series you were reading, and then she ordered a glass of wine with her salad. You could tell her heart was racing. She was nervous and excited to see you, as if maybe she’d had to give herself a pep talk before she came in. You noticed there was a certain warmth about her that wasn’t present in other humans. Whereas vampires were abnormally cold; Robin was pumping off heat like she had a temperature, and you were instantly fascinated by her.

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A bit later in the evening, Eddie said his goodbyes to Argyle, and you took casual note of his departure out of the corner of your eye while you bussed a table.

What you also noticed was the way Angie Klemp and her brothers paid quickly, and got up to follow Eddie out only a minute behind him. They’d had 6 beers and just as many tequila shots between them, and you got the feeling that they were up to no good. The two men were tapping their knees under the table, and scratching their necks and hands as if being actively attacked by ants.

The pulses of emotional electricity coming off of them instantly made your pores on your scalp blossom with sweat at how panicked they were; how hell bent. But again, what would they want with Eddie? To take their picture with him? That was a common tourist occurrence in Hawkins. But, the tourists in question usually preferred the subject to look like a stereotypical vampire; maybe wearing a cape, or dressed like Elvira. As far as you could tell, vampires usually kept with the same style they had when they were turned.

Eddie did naturally have that “vampire” look, though. He was a loner, he wore all black, he had spooky tattoos, and that long dark hair framing his pale face.

You were refilling someone’s water when you overheard Erica tell a guy at the bar to stop staring at her ass before she stabbed his eyes out with her pen, and it made you chuckle, mostly because you knew she wasn’t bluffing.

Ten minutes or so later, you were grabbing napkins from the storeroom in the back hall when you heard high pitched voices, screaming at each other from the alleyway parking lot. You hesitated with your hand on the shelf, wondering if it was just two people arguing and probably none of your business, but then you heard another scream, and decided to crack the door and peek out.

You had to scan the area at first, but then your eyes widened as they took in what was happening: against the brick wall of the next building, in a parking space between two cars, your neighbor Eddie was on the ground, his neck and wrists wrapped in silver chain, pinning him to the ground. You gasped and swallowed as you saw the steam rise up from where the silver was burning his flesh, his mouth set in a grimace.

Angie Klemp made fast work of jabbing a needle into the crease of each of his elbows draining his blood through tubing into clear bags. The brother in the American flag shirt paced at Eddie’s feet, barely able to contain his need for the drug, and the other one with two missing teeth kicked Eddie in the leg and then spat on him. “Yeah? Whadda ya think about that? Not so tough now, are you, Fanger?”

You stepped inside only to grab the fire extinguisher off the wall before heading back out, careful not to make any noise as the door shut. You tip toed around so that you were hidden behind the van next to them.

Angie seemed to be doing all the work, jerking the port out to fill another bag on the filthy pavement. “Goddamn it, I knew we should’ve taken him home first. This is risky as hell.”

“There’s no time for that!” The brother with two missing teeth took his hat off and scratched his head viciously. “I need some of the blood now, can’t I just have a little bit?”

Angie threw him a disgusted look. “You’re a fuckin’ addict, Clyde. How are we supposed to make money on this shit if you drink up all the profits? Get your shit together!”

You peeked your head out from behind the van, and Eddie saw you. His eyes were black and his fangs were out, but the silver had him rendered completely incapacitated. You could only imagine that the amount of blood they were taking was also making him weak.

You lifted up the fire extinguisher to let him know you were coming to his rescue, but he shook his head, trying to warn you off.

The two beefy men were too caught up in the throws of withdrawals and had their backs to you as you came up behind them. With a mighty heave, you cracked one in the back of the head with the big metal canister, and then when the other one turned around, you sprayed him in the face with the foam that comes out of the nozzle, blinding him. He clapped his hand to his face, yowling, and tripped himself on his own feet, going down hard.

Angie slowly stood, realizing that both men were on the ground, dazed, and she gave you a nasty snarl. “Why, you stupid, cut face whore,” she bit out just before she lunged at you.

You were about to swing the canister at her face when, from out of nowhere, a huge, boxy, beige pit bull terrier lunged from the darkness, barking and growling at Angie, barring its teeth, forcing her to back up. You looked down, a bit shocked: you’d never seen that dog before in your life. Would it attack you next? Hesitant, you let the dog move between the two of you, protectively, as it curled its lip and growled.

You pointed the nozzle at the woman. “Try us, bitch.”

The pit bull started barking a loud alarm that would soon have people coming to see what the hell was going on. Angie clenched her hands in the air as if she wanted to wring your neck, and then she was shouting for the two stumbling men to get in the truck.

“Go, go, go, you dickheads,” Angie demanded, grabbing the one covered in white goo by the collar, dragging him along.

The one with the crack to his skull was bleeding down the side of his head. “But what about the blood? Let’s take the blood!”

You and your new, aggressive pit bull friend stepped in front of Eddie, your weapon ready. “Don’t even think about it, fucker.”

You waited for them to pile in the truck and speed away before you dropped the fire extinguisher to the ground with a thunk and got on your knees next to Eddie, bits of gravel cutting into your shin.

The pit bull licked your cheek and stood guard next to you, looking from you to Eddie as if it understood everything that was going on, head tilting every so often. You were too concerned with how the silver was sizzling on his skin like bacon on a frying pan to wonder about your new companion. There were still needles in his arms and you slipped them out, cringing as you did so. You watched in awe as the hole marks in his arms disappeared and healed right before your very eyes.

“Can you move?” You asked him.

Eddie could barely talk, the pain of the silver was so excruciating. That, and he was extremely low functioning after so much blood loss. If those three had wanted to end him, they very well could have. He wondered how many vampires they had trapped and drained over the past few years.

He managed a scratchy, whispered, “no. It’s...the silver…”

With a gulp, you went to work unwrapping the chain from his neck and then his wrists, peeling layers of skin with it. He was an immortal vampire, but you could only imagine how much it must hurt, and yet, he hadn’t even made whimper.

His eyes never left you as you worked on him so diligently, your brows knitted together with focused determination. His neck was kinked forward, as his head and shoulders were propped up against the brick wall.

Unwrapping the last coil from around his wrist, you noticed that the wounds were staying the same, and you met his eyes. “Why aren’t you healing?”

“I’m too weak right now,” his eyes flicked away from you. “I won’t be able to heal until I feed.”

At that, the pit bull whined, and took its cue to turn and disappear back into the night.

You looked over your shoulder at the door to Main Vein. “Would synthetic blood work?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head once, rolling it against the wall. “Has to be...human,” he breathed, bangs sticking to his clammy forehead.

His once rosy lips were pale and the mangled wounds left from the silver made you feel bad for him, even though you weren’t even sure if you liked him.

“What if I just left you here?” You asked, raising an eyebrow. “Would you die?”

The corners of his mouth stuck together as he talked. “If I don’t feed soon, I won’t be able to protect myself. More will come to take my blood, and if I’m still out here at daybreak then, yes, the sunlight will kill me.”

Your gaze moved from his ripped throat to his eyes again, hovering there. There was a thick leather cuff on your wrist that you used to cover up your scar, but you undid the buckle, exposing the underside of your forearm. You wondered if he was too weak to expose his fangs, so you used the back of one of your earrings to slice a thin opening across your skin, wincing in pain as you did so.

Eddie’s breath hitched in anticipation as you lifted the bleeding gash to his mouth. He couldn’t lift his arms, so you pressed it there, and his eyes locked on yours as you felt his tongue lick across the cut just before his eye went black and he began to suck, moaning, drinking you as a small trickle of blood dripped down to his chin.

At one point, he got some of his strength back, and his hand with the three silver, chunky rings came up to push your forearm against his eager mouth as he fed, and your heart raced at the sight of it. The passion of his need made your pussy clench around nothing as you knelt there in the grimy parking lot.

When his swallowing finally slowed, you tugged your arm away and clutched it to the underside of your apron. Eddie licked his blood-stained lips and met your eyes again. “Seriously,” he was strong enough now to brace his hands and push himself up so that his back was no longer on the ground. He leaned close as if he could read the answers in your eyes. “What are you?”

Your face was inches from his. “Do I taste different?”

“Yes,” he returned, without hesitation. The mauled skin around his neck and wrists were completely healed. “I’ve never tasted anyone like you before.”

You got to your feet, clipping your leather cuff back on, realizing you’d need to find a first aid kit before you went back to work.

“I owe you big time,” Eddie looked you up and down as he sat for a bit to catch his breath. “If you ever need---”

The back door to Main Vein opened and Erica was standing there with her arms crossed, shouting across the parking lot at you. “What the hell is going on out here? Am I working the floor by myself tonight or what?”

You walked to the back end of the van to tell her you’d be right in, and when you turned back to say something to Vampire Eddie---he was gone.

-------

“What the hell were you thinking?” Erica blanched as she helped you wrap up your arm at the desk in Bob’s office. “You know these Fangers eat people, right?”

She was still yelling, but you were trying not to take it personal. “Well, he didn’t eat me, so I guess there are exceptions.”

“What the hell do you call him drinking your blood, then?” Erica had a very soft touch while bandaging you up, careful to make sure she cleaned the wound and inspected you to make sure you didn’t have a bite mark.

“You girls okay?” Bob came around the corner, flushed, his face red and glistening in sweat from a long night behind the grill.

Erica jerked her thumb over her shoulder at you. “This one decided to play vigilantly in the parking lot to save one of your vampire buddies.”

Bob beamed. “Aw, you made a vampire friend? They’re awesome aren’t they?”

This time, you and Erica exchanged a confused look.

---------

At the end of your shift, Bob and Argyle stayed to finish up with two vampire customers at the bar who were lingering. With a heavy sigh, you took your blue, blood-stained apron off, grabbed things from your wood cubby in the back, and then walked with Erica down to the end of the sidewalk. The two of you had to split up and go in separate directions because your hearse was parked at the curb, and Erica only lived a few blocks away. You offered her a ride home, but she declined. You could feel that she had some personal issues weighing on her heart, and besides that, she had a deep well of emotions inside for the people she cared about, and it took her a while to trust people and open up. If you didn’t have your curse, you’ve might’ve just assumed she hated you.

It was late, but because of growing vampire population in civilized areas, there were several lights in windows, and the low hum of conversations drifting down from higher up apartments. There were streetlamps on each corner, but the dark side of the building cast a heavy shadow on you as you fumbled for your keys.

You were just about to unlock the door when you heard the shuffling of footsteps, and then before you could turn, the hard edge of a rope edge dug into your neck, gagging you, and then you were yanked back, off your feet. You tried to scream, but it only came out as a gargle. Your ass caught most of the fall to the pavement, but then your head clapped back onto the hard surface and it caused a ringing sound in your skull. The person holding the rope around your neck pulled it tighter, and you struggled, kicking your feet, trying to get free.

Angie Klemp and her brother in the American flag t-shirt were standing above you, sneering. She kicked you in the ribs and you wailed at the pain. She squatted down to mock you. “Oh, darn, I guess that fanger boyfriend of yours isn’t around to return the favor now, is he?”

They were dragging you now, pulling you by the neck around into the alleyway where no one could see what they were about to do to you.

Your vision was getting blurry as you heard the woman's voice again. “You cost me five thousand dollars worth of fanger blood, and we’re gonna take it out of your ass.”

The rope burned as it slipped off your neck and you were somehow able to roll on your side and stand, just as one of the men punched you across the face and you went down again, coughing, tasting blood. You were on your hands and knees, trying to catch your breath, and one of them kicked the steel toe of their boot into your stomach, making you double over in pain as they laughed, tears squeezing from your eyes as you tasted bile.

You wondered if you were going to die there.

In a blink, with spots in your eyes, you tried to focus as you swore you saw the guy in the trucker hat get his neck broken right there where he stood. His head twisted all the way around, forced by seemingly invisible hands, and then he slumped to the ground, dead. Before the other two could figure out what was happening, you saw Eddie pick the guy with the American flag shirt up and throw him onto the hood of a car, his head crashing through the windshield with a bloody splat. Angie tried to run, but Eddie caught her by the back of her neck and picked her up off of her feet. With one hand, he threw her into the nearby dumpster and slammed the lid with a bang.

This had all been done in seconds; he moved at the speed of light.

You were on your side, choking on blood, feeling scared as your vision began to tunnel. But then, strong arms were lifting you up as Eddie scooped you against his chest, “I got you, I got you,” he murmured against your bloody head. “You’re gonna be okay.”

You might have blacked out for a bit because when you opened your eyes, you were on the grass in the park across the street, propped up against a tree. You mewed in pain as your head throbbed and you choked on a sticky pool of blood in the back of your throat.

Eddie took his jacket and denim off as he knelt in front of you, revealing the Metallica t-shirt he had on. You tried to hold your head up as he produced his fangs and sank them into his own arm, and then held the leaking bite marks out to you.

“You need to drink my blood, so you can heal,” he said. He didn’t want to scare you in that moment, but you had a serious gash in your skull, and he had no idea how bad that kick you took had affected your internal organs.

You tried to push away from him, your eyes wide. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”

“You won’t be,” he assured you. “Believe me, I don’t want this for you, either.”

There was a tenderness in him then that you were noticing for the first time. You’d been taken by surprise, but under normal circumstances, you would’ve been able to handle the Klemps on your own. You weren’t used to feeling helpless and in need of someone’s care. You could feel the blood dripping down your neck and your vision was starting to fade again.

“Just a little bit,” you breathed, sticky lips parted.

Eddie cupped your head in one hand as he brought his arm over, similar to how you had fed him earlier. The weeping holes from his fang marks were right in the middle of one of his tattoos and you closed your eyes as your mouth latched on, nursing on him like your life depended on it---which it did. It tasted ordinary, like sucking on a penny, but it felt like velvet on your tongue, warming your insides.

Consumed with a sudden lust for the juice in his veins, you sucked harder, whimpering, and you didn’t see it, but Eddie’s eyes went back as he growled in the back of his throat at the pleasure of the sensation. You drank until your brain stopped throbbing, and then you rested your head back against the tree, a smear of his blood across your chin.

You noticed Eddie was close to you, his mouth at your temple as he licked a bit of your blood from a scratch there as it was healing. You jerked to the side, surprised to catch him wanting to sample you again.

Your eyes locked. “What do I taste like?”

He searched your face, aroused by the sight of his blood on your mouth. “Like...memories. Like ice cream and summer breeze and suntan lotion melting on warm skin.”

Your lips were almost touching as he confessed this to you. There was no vocabulary for him to properly explain the many layered depth to your blood; it was sweet and savory, and it also tingled in the back of his throat like pop rocks or fireworks and made him feel alive again if only for a few moments.

You lifted your hand to your throat to find that the rope burn was gone, and your ribs didn’t feel like they were broken. You were just about to ask him another question, but then he was on his feet in a flash, putting his jacket on.

“Also,” he flipped his hair out of the collar of his leather. “Now that you have my blood in you, I’ll always know where you are,” it sounded more cryptic than he meant for it to, and so he added, “just in case you ever need my help again.”

You frowned. “But, how will you know if I need help?”

He busied himself rolling his cuffs up. “I’ll be able to sense your fear.”

You were letting that sink in when he spoke up again. “And don’t be surprised if you have some dreams about me.”

“Dreams?” You raised an eyebrow.

He turned his head and rested his tongue between his teeth as he figured out how to say it. “The sexual kind.”

“Oh,” you looked down, suddenly embarrassed. He stood there shuffling his foot on the grass and you had so many questions for him. How had he become a vampire? Was it something that he chose, or was it forced on him? How long had he been one? You were trying to choose which one to ask when he spoke.

“Hop up,” he said, gesturing for you to get on his back like you were a little girl. “I’ll take you back to your hearse.”

Normally, you hated when men tried to pick you up, but Vampire Eddie carried you across the street like you weighed no more than air. You had your arms around his shoulders and his hands were cupped under your thighs; the vanilla sandalwood of his hair blew across your face in soft tendrils. He lowered you to the ground once he got to the parking lot, and you both looked down the alleyway at the Klemp bodies that Eddie had dropped in his effort to rescue you.

You swallowed. “It’s illegal for vampires to kill humans,” you said in a hush. “I don’t want you to get in trouble for this. I’ll tell the police I was---”

“No police,” Eddie stopped you in a gruff voice. His jaw muscles flexed as he turned to you. “It’s also illegal for humans to drain a vampire for sport,” he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket and bit one with his teeth to pull it out of the pack. It bounced there as he talked, squinting one eye at you. “I’ll take care of them, you don’t have to worry about it, princess.”

Since he’d just saved your life, you decided to let him get away with the pet name.

He lit his smoke and took a tight, hissing inhale before aiming the exhale over your head. “I’ll stay here to make sure you get on the road okay.”

You looked down at yourself. “Yeah, I suppose I should get home and take a shower,” you noticed that your bag was in the gutter next to your front tire and you bent to pick it up, along with your keys up. “Guess I’ll see you around the trailer park.”

Inside the hearse, you watched from your rear view mirror as vampire Eddie leaned his back against the wall to smoke and make sure no one bothered you. He picked something off his tongue as you started the engine, and then you lowered your head to shift into gear.

You were not surprised this time to find him gone when you looked up.

-----

"Dig if you will the picture of you and I engaged in a kiss The sweat of your body covers me Can you my darling? Can you picture this? Dream if you can, a courtyard An ocean of violets in bloom Animals strike curious poses They feel the heat The heat between me and you How could you just leave me standing alone in a world so cold?"

-- When Doves Cry//Prince

------

Part 3: The taste of you

——-

Thank you for reading!

#vampire eddie x reader #Eddiemunson #eddie munson series #vampire eddie au #vampire eddie munson #trueblood #eddie munson fic

[muzansfangs]

I just read your "Accidentally sees you naked" fic

AJD EJDNEMRRJBRBRHEBE

IM FROTHING LITERALLY--- 😭❤️❤️

I WAS BLUSHING SO HARD WHILE READING URAHARA, AIZEN AND JUGRAM'S JDBEUBEJE! 🙈🙈

There are hardly any fics about Haschwalth anywhere 😭

If you get time van you write something similar with Haschwalth but both of them receiving the "nice treatment" ya'know (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)

Forbidden attraction.

Starring: Haschwalth Jugram x f!reader; Giselle and Candice;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, slight alteration of canon events, dom!Haschwalth, sub!reader, oral sex (f!reader receiving), oral sex (Haschwalth receiving), vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, choking, unprotected sex, creampie, language, kidnapping, biting, mention of murderous intents, verbal abuse, threats;

Plot: while you were a mere human without any valuable ability, you were Ichigo Kurosaki’s adoptive sister. That alone was enough for Yhwach to kidnap you and confine you into a cell in his luxurious palace. Everyone loathed you and that was the main reason why you rarely left your room. That and the fact that you would have rather been alone than spending your time with the people who were trying to kill your friends and family. However, one of the them, the one no one dared to cross, had always protected you from the sharp tongues of his colleagues. He was cold, distant, impeccable, deadly, not bothered by human emotions. But you, you literally drove him nuts.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

One month. You started to wonder if your friends had forgotten about you in the chaos of the war. You were almost getting used to the white walls of your new bedroom. Everything radiated a creepy purity that made your stomach clench in disgust. You loathed the grey and white walls, just like you wanted to rip to shreds the snow-white blankets of the king sized bed you slept in every single night, since they had thrown you in that majestic chamber. They did not call it a prison and, actually, it really was not a cell. But your heart felt like you were trapped into one.

The inhabitants of that dull fortress despised you. You could see the way they looked at you, when you were forced to leave your room. You knew they would have loved to tear you apart, scattering your limbs around for your friends to collect. You were a useless human being, after all. They did not get why Yhwach had ordered them to kidnap you. He could have just asked them to kill you right on the spot, leaving you to die an agonizing death and drown in a pool of your own blood.

Yet, there you were. You had a comfortable bedroom, a private space and you were even granted the chance to have all the drinks and food you craved, along with fresh clothes and blankets.

You were sitting on the windowsill, a book in your hand, as you tried to keep your mind focused on something else than the army of psychopaths roaming down the corridors outside your room. However, your door banging opened all of a sudden made you shriek on your seat, your grip on the novel slipping, as the volume landed on the marble floor with a thud.

Eyes widening even so slightly, you flicked your gaze up at the intruders of the hour and your blood instantly ran cold. Giggles and light footsteps echoed in the room as the two wicked Sternritters walked in, closing the door behind them hastily to taunt you out of prying eyes for the umpteenth time that day.

“Ah, there you are! I’m so glad you are still alive…” Candice piped out, her leaf green eyes locking with yours as she folded her arms against her chest to stare you down in disdain.

“Isn’t she pretty, Candice? I mean, I could make her even prettier, if I turned her into a zombie! What do you say? Should I do it? Ah, she looks delicious!” the shorter one, Giselle, chimed in as she strolled towards you with a malicious glint in her doe eyes. Maybe, Giselle was the worst of them all. Those blue orbs of hers had been transfixed on you since the first day you had stepped into that pit of vipers. Her intent was clear.

More than once, even when you were minding your business, the Sternritter Z had tried to approach you and whisper in your ear all the wicked things she wished she could do to you.

Chills ran down your spine, as you gritted your teeth and glared at them “Get out of my room. You don’t seem that smart, otherwise you would think twice before laying a finger on me. If you hurt me, you would probably end up dead too” you stated, clenching your fists down your sides, as you tried to stand your ground.

They laughed at your face, their grins making it painly clear that you were nothing more than a joker to mock and abuse for their entertainment.

“Oh, would you look at that, Giselle? The tramp is finally showing her teeth! Maybe I should just electrocute her” Candice blurted out, her spiritual pressure increasing as she showed you her fist and the familiar sparks of green and blue electricity engulfing it.

Your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of what would have probably determined your death and your heartbeat increased notably. You were hopeless this time. Your lower lip wobbled, your arms raising up in a defensive stance, as you squeezed your eyes shut and waited for the pain to strike you.

For the first time ever, you wished he was there to save you. You never appreciated his assistance, his cold and detached help, but this time your life was in danger. His deep voice, his scent and the sound of his cape fluttering around his slender figure were things you were grown almost fond of. He was the worst of the worst, the man you should have feared the most among those blood-thirsted monsters. Yet, he was the only one who treated you with respect and kindness.

Sometimes, you wondered if he really cared about you. Once you had even dared to ask him why he protected you from his subordinates, although you never received an answer. His stolid façade never cracked.

Maybe, he did not genuinely care about you and, if he had bumped into you on the battlefield, he would have probably sliced you up like a tenderloin, but there was something else in his icy blue eyes, when he helped you clean your wounds, or left new novels on your nightstand for you to find when you woke up in the morning.

He was just executing Yhwach’s orders, right?

“Don’t mess up her face, Candy! I want my new toy to look pretty!” Giselle’s voice abruptly interrupted your stream of consciousness, reminding you of how miserable your end was going to be.

How ironic was it that you were thinking of Haschwalth Jugram in the last moments of your life?

Candice hummed and sprinted towards you, a sadistic smirk gracing her lips as she consumed the distance between you two. You flinched in anticipation, waiting for her fist to make contact with your cheek, but a gust of wind whipping your face and the sound of a sword being unsheathed made you instantly relax.

You could have not been so lucky, right? But his deep voice echoing through your room and the gasps of fear from your aggressors made you lift your lids up to witness to the scene unraveling before your eyes.

“I don’t like to repeat myself, but apparently you two understand only violence. — Haschwalth said, his tone of voice flat but firm — Leave this room and do not even dare to glance at her anymore” he deadpanned, watching as the two Sternritters reluctantly nodded their heads and darted their eyes on you one last time, quick to leave you two alone.

The door closing behind them with a slam made you release a breath you did not know you were holding. He had saved once again. Your fingers were still trembling as you hopped down from the windowsill, your feet finally hitting the polished floor. You were still breathing quite heavily, your mouth dry, making it almost impossible for you to even mutter a simple ‘thank you’.

His back was still facing you, his broad shoulders and his height imposing over you and causing a turmoil of contrasting emotions in your stomach.

“Thank you, Haschwalth” you breathed out then, darting your eyes on the white wall not to be forced to lock eyes with him, when he turned around to look at your shaking frame.

Blonde and long hair, light-blue eyes and that white uniform he wore had always reminded you of how similiar to the popular portrait of a Prince Charming he was, despite his cruel intentions and villainous antics. His exterior jarred with his physical appearence.

“You were lucky I was around” he stated flatly, his eyes intently studying your features.

What was that insufferable feeling consuming him from the insides, whenever you were around him? It was not only connected to the way your beauty whetted his appetites, it was not a lustful and carnal desire. There was more. You were most likely the only person he did not enterily despise.

“Yeah, probably” you replied shortly, fumbling with the hem of your shirt in nervousness. He could sense you were avoiding his gaze, fear and anxiety were flinging around you.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, not moving an inch from where he was standing.

“I’m fine”.

Haschwalth did not trust you. He took a single step towards you, his hand reaching down to raise your face and his thumb and forefinger grasped your chin. Your eyes met for a split second, your heart skipping a beat at the unexpected gentle touch, but you were still way too shaken from the previous events to even bear a confrontation with him. Therefore, you swatted his hand away and took a step back, only to end up against the wall behind you. Your back flattened against it, your eyes half-lidded as you shot a pleading glance up at him.

Haschwalth was not surprised by your reaction but, instead of pushing your buttons further, he dropped his arm back down his side and arched a blonde eyebrow up. You had never really shoved him off of you, when he tended your wounds or checked on you. Something had changed. Was it only fear? The fear of being touched by one of the same people that had tried to harm you was undoubtedly coursing through your veins, glowing into your wary eyes, but there was something more. It was another kind of fear.

“What is it now? Am I not allowed to touch you anymore? You did not seem to be that scared of me before” he pointed out, resting his left hand on the hilt of his sword out of habit.

Cold sweat ran down your back at the accusation. Why had you escaped his gentle touch? It was not the fear of being hurt. You were liking your proximity, his concern, even though it was surely fake, was comforting. You liked his touch and that fact terrorized you to the point that your stomach clenched and twisted at the thought of how you craved some warmth, especially his warmth.

“It’s not—” you started, but a knock on the door cut you off, as Haschwalth immediately walked up to grasp the silver handle and opening it.

A petite woman, holding a refined silver tray in her gloved hands, came in. Her eyes were downcast as she silently settled it on your table, before bowing her head at the both of you and scurring out of your room. She did not fear you. She would have probably been capable of causing you enough damage to kill you, if you two were to engage a fight. It was him the one she was scared of.

“I was just about to wish you a good rest. Enjoy your dinner” he then spoke out, glancing briefly at you before disappearing behind the door too.

Once again, you were alone with your thoughts and contrasting feelings. You were not that hungry anymore, after what had happened, but you needed to eat to keep yourself healthy. As you sat down at your desk and poured yourself a glass of water, you realized that the event causing your lack of appetite was not what had happened with the Sternitters T and Z. It was the Sternitter B’s fault.

A restless night followed your meal. You thought you could find some peace among the silky bedsheets of your bed, but everything about that bedroom reminded you of him. Your eyes darted on the clock beside your bed, sighing as, much to your dismay, you realized it was two in the morning. For three hours you had tried to shift positions, read some more pages of the historical novel Haschwalth had left for you to read, but nothing worked. Your body craved some sleep, but your mind was unstoppable.

In a utter distress, you scoffed and sat up on the bed, bringing your knees to your chest and curling yourself up in a ball. Your forehead rested on the top of your knees, eyes closed, as you listened to the steady sound of the clock ticking. You were tired of being stuck in that place, you were tired of restraining yourself to feel forbidden emotions.

But just when you thought things could not get worst, you heard the door creaking open again. You lifted your head up, alredy alarmed by the fact that someone was entering your chamber in the the dead of the night, when you were supposed to be vulnerable and asleep.

However, as you jumped out of the bed and switched the lights on, you gasped at the sight of Haschwalth holding some books in his hands. He furrowed his brows, clearly not expecting to find you wide awake and ready to throw hands, if it was necessary.

“I thought you were asleep. I apologize, it was not my intention to startle you” Haschwalth declared, settling the three books over the desk.

You shrugged and looked at your feet, realizing how poorly covered you were before him. Your nightgown barely reached the middle of your thighs, granting him the chance to look at the entire length of your legs.

“I can’t sleep. Thank you for the books, anyway” you said, gesturing at the novels he had just brought to you as a form of entertainment from the living hell you were experiencing. It was a small attention he reserved to you, one of the things that made you believe he actually had an ounce of uncontaminated respect towards you.

“It’s nothing. You told me you liked to read, when you arrived here. You mentioned it being the closest form of freedom and escapism a prisoner could get to experience” the tall Sternitter said, his eyes somehow softer as he gazed at you.

Was it an attempt to make a small and civil conversation with you? Whatever it was, you were glad he had given some importance to your words. While the accomodation was something he had provided you under the strict command of his King, this was a small gesture of sympathy and mercy coming right from his core. In that very moment, it was hard believing he was the same cold-blooded man that had massacred legions of shinigamis before your eyes.

You bitterly smiled, making an effort in dealing with reality as you bit the insides of your cheeks. You oughed him some sort of an answer and, judging by his curious gaze, he was expecting you to reply something.

“You were not obliged to lend me your novels. I thought you were supposed to simply keep me alive and hold me captive… — you reasoned, your voice calm as you switched your attention from the blue cover of the book to his pale visage — These small gestures are not your Master’s orders, am I right?” you inquired, hoping this time he would properly retort something instead of walking away and avoiding your questions.

“Why do you care? It’s not the first time you’re questioning my actions” the blonde man noted, elgantly gliding his hand over the smooth surface of the desk.

You hated the way your eyes followed his movements attentively, or the way your mind played tricks on you.

‘How would those huge, calloused hands feel on my skin?’ you asked yourself, before turning around and sitting on the edge of the bed. The tension was palpable and you were more than sure that, despite the umpertubable expression freezing his face over, he could sense it too. After all, if your eyes had acted on their own accord and lingered on him for way too long, his ones were doing the same.

“Because I can’t figure you out” you admitted softly, sinking your foreteeth onto your bottom lip right after it.

You did not expect him to bother keeping this conversation up, but you were surprised as he took a step towards you and looked down at you. His jaw was clenched, eyes boring into yours in what resembled frustration, a battle clearly waging into his logical mind, as he stunned you in silence with his own confession.

“Honestly, I cannot figure you out too and it is driving me nuts” he stated bitterly, causing you to swallow down forcefully.

You tried to speak again, but the only sound leaving your lips was a small gasp of surprise as he wrapped his hand around your wrist and pulled you up on your feet. You craned your neck to look him in the eye and all you saw was a primordial desire, the same flame enveloping your heart and leaving ashes in your chest.

Before you had time to realize what was happening, his hands glided down your spine, until he hooked them behind your thighs and lifted you up easily. Your eyes were wide opened, as your legs were now tightly wrapped around his waist. What followed was a sinful action you did not fully know back then, if you would have ever been able to forgive yourself from having done.

His lips hingrily captured yours, as he made your back flatten against the wall. Your fingers found his hair, as your lips followed the lead of the man used to command and give orders. His tongue dominated yours without any resistance coming from you. It was too much to handle, too pleasurable to stop now.

A small moan left your lips, as he bit down onto your lower lip before he attacked your neck with equal hunger for your flesh, for you. You felt your cheeks boiling, his touch consuming you to the bone as if he was coating you in lava. Each bite onto your neck, or down to your cleavage, was a sign of how much he was conflicted by what he was feeling around you. You made him lose himself, it was unacceptable.

As his hand slithered down in the middle of you thighs, you felt ashamed of yourself for how much you wanted him to touch you. Haschwalth groaned as the pads of his fingers met the damp fabric of your panties, gliding them up and down through the thin item only to increase your arousal.

“Dripping for your enemy, tsk” he rasped, tugging them harshly to the side before drawing irregular patterns over your bundle of nerves.

Electricity coursed through your veins, your toes curling at the dirty remark he had made. The worst part of it was that he was right, there was no way you could deny it, or hide it from you. Not when his fingers easily delved into your warm core. Whimpers of pleasure fell from your lips as you lolled your head back against the wall, chest raising and falling erratically as you tried your best not to make too much noise.

However, despite his long fingers thrusting into you made it hard to think straight, you somehow still found the guts to fire something back.

“I may be dripping but you’re rock hard” you panted, mewling as Haschwalth remove his index from your aching heat and settled you back down on your feet.

His hands meticulously slipped underneath your nightgown, grasping the straps of your underwear and dragging the item down your legs, until they rested on your ankles. He was feral, almost tearing the panties apart as he hastily tossed them somewhere behind him. Haschwalth knelt down in front of you and grasped your right leg, draping it over his shoulder as he shot a lustful glare.

“I liked you better when you simply moaned” he remarked, before running his tongue flatly down your slit. You whined, eyes squeezing shut as your fingers threaded his hair in pleasure. No one had ever gone down on you like that, as if the juices streaming down your inner thighs were some divine nectar.

His lips sucked deliciously on your throbbing clit, making your legs shaking violently as you tried to keep yourself straight against the wall. You could not get enough, your mouth hanging open as you did not even care about who heard you anymore. Who would have complained about what was happening in your bedroom anyway? There was a perverse sting of satisfaction and pride in watching the Sternitter Grand Master delve his tongue into you. He was on his knees for you, serving a prisoner as if she was some queen whose approval counted.

As you whimpered one last time, hips bucking up against his face, Haschwalth growl and squeezed your rear in primordial desire. You came onto his tongue, almost slumping down onto the floor as he pulled away from you and wiped his chin and mouth with a tissue in his double-breast jacket.

More. He wanted more, he was ready for more. He could not fight the attraction he felt for you, therefore he had no qualms about dragging you to the bed and quickly unbuckle the belt of his trousers. Your eyes were glued on him as you watched the way he slowly stripped out of his candid uniform. His abs, his chest, his thighs seemed the precious work of a greek sculptor. Never in your life you had seen someone as perfect as he was.

You thought that removing your nighthgown was the least you could do for him. You did not fail to notice how his eyes gazed at your perky breasts, just like you almost flinched at the sight of his shaft spriging out of his tight boxers.

“Come here” he said, his tone unnaturally soothing as he climbed onto the bed and stood up on his knees. You did not hesitate to follow his command, your mouth watering as you crawled up to him and gently wrapped your hand around his cock. There was no more shame in your eyes, your body almost moving under the influence of a forbidden desire eating you up from the inside.

You heard him suck in a breath, his eyes closing, as you started to swirl your tongue around the pinkish tip to tease him. His hand grabbed the back of your neck and prompted you to give him more, to part your lips and let him experience the warmth of your welcoming mouth. You did not put on a fight, eager to hear him grunt just as much as he had enjoyed breaking you earlier. Each inch you took in made him tightened the grip on your hair, your mouth and tongue working to let him accomodate into your cavity.

“Damn it…” Haschwalth huskily said, a guttural moan falling from his lips, while you bobbed your head up and down to elicit more moans from him. Yet, he stopped you. Gripping on your hair tightly enough to make you pull your mouth away from him, he sighed and pushed you down onto your back.

For a second, you thought you were not doing a good job but, when he hovered over you and spread your legs for him to settle in between, his thumb brushed over your lower lip and he whispered something in your ear that made you whimper in anticipation.

“Don’t worry, it’s just that I intend to empty myself into you” he uttered, hooking one of your leg around his hip before shoving himself into you slowly, gradually.

A strained moan left your lips, as he grunted and bit onto the crook of your neck with each inch he conquered into you. Your eyes rolled in the back of your skull, the intrusion both pleasurable and painful as you adjusted yourself at his impressive size.

As Haschwalth carefully began to thrust into you, your hands cupped his smooth cheeks. Your lips found each others in sloppy and messy kisses, so unlike him, out of his style, out of the world. You could not believe you had allowed him into your bed, the sound of skin against skin filling the room and fueling something inside the composed Sternitter.

His hand found its way around your neck, the other flying up to the bedhead to balance himself as his hips smacked against yours in a feral pace. You did not protest to the blatant act of dominance, the grip on your neck only increasing your pleasure as you could focusing on your sensation.

“H-Hascwalth, I—” you whimpered, eyes watering as you gripped the bedsheets beside you so tightly your knuckles turned white.

“I know… Me too” he rasped, before releasing your neck and kissing you passionately. Your legs shook, your moan muffled by his lips pressing against your as you both came. His forehead was resting against yours, as he panted and gently stroked your cheek.

Sleeping was not hard, after that. You fell asleep over his chest, one of his arm draped over your waist in a firm grip, in which you woke up in the morning. Once again, when he slept, it was hard to believe Haschwalth Jugram was a monster. Haschwalth Jugram was just an angel who had lost his wings down his way to Hell.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! I am not going to apologize for that long and lewd one-shot. Actually, looking back at all of my works, this is probably the filthiest thing I have ever written in my life, lol! Well, what can I say? Some characters bring out the worst in me… Let me know what you guys think about this! Likes, comments and re-posts are always appreciated!

Until next,

x o x o

TAGS: @stygianoir @byakuyandaizenwifey @shattereddreamssara and my queen @sashi-ya because, if I’m not mistaken, you kind of like our deadly Prince Charming✨

#jugram haschwalth x reader #jugram x reader #haschwalth jugram #bleach smut #bleach x reader #jugram haschwalth #haschwalth jugram x reader #bleach jugram #bleach tybw #haschwalth x reader

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 39.5

(this takes place just before their first day back to school after the events of season one)

They slip out of the trailer. 

The park is just waking up around them, a few birds chirping, Mr. Robinson’s car starting up as he drives to work. One of their older neighbors must have fallen asleep with the television on – he can hear its static blaring all the way out here. 

It makes a shiver run up his spine. That almost familiar, eerie sound that resonates through a Demogorgon’s call.

But, the sun is shining and Steve’s safe and whole and warm at his side. So, he brushes it off, skipping over to the passenger side of the van and holds it open for Steve with a bow. 

Steve rolls his eyes, but there’s no more desperation bleeding into his expression. He’s like a caged bird, freed. He even settles his fingers daintily into Eddie’s flourished out hand, like he’s a maiden being helped into a carriage. 

Eddie closes the door once all of Steve’s limbs are in and accounted for, and damn near skips around the front of the van and flings himself into the driver’s seat. 

Dio blares out of his speakers when he turns the key until Steve reaches over to turn the dial down. Eddie tries to pout about it but the edges of his mouth keep turning up.

Steve’s slumped over in the passenger seat, arms crossed as he lolls his head sideways against the headrest to glare over at Eddie. “You’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“It’s a surprise.” He bites his lip against a grin as Steve huffs and rolls his head the other direction to glare out his window. 

Eddie taps his fingers to the quiet beat of the song, blood sizzling with anticipation. 

It’s a short drive, made longer by the careful way he’s stopping and starting, taking each turn ten below his usual. There’s precious cargo barely on the mend in here, and he won’t risk damaging it any more.

He pulls into an empty parking space, easing his foot onto the break. There’s only one other car in the lot, but the open sign in the front window of the diner is lit up. It’s a lurid red, but Eddie’s willing to forgive it.

“This is the surprise?” Steve asks. He’s not glaring anymore, but he’s looking doubtfully out of the windshield, eyebrows raised as he eyes the diner’s front door like he’s never seen it before. “Breakfast?”

Eddie reaches over to pinch his side – softly, gently – until Steve laughs that honking pig laugh that Eddie loves so much and has so rarely heard.

“You don’t remember?” Eddie asks, teasing. “You said you’d kill for some bacon, and now you don’t even want to go in?”

There’s something fathomless in Steve’s eyes as he finally looks over at Eddie. It makes heat pool in Eddie’s gut, sinking into him until he’s aflame. He wants to scoop out Steve’s brain, figure out what’s ticking away in there. He wants to rip out one of Steve’s eyelashes and make a wish. 

“I remember,” Steve murmurs, looking up into Eddie’s eyes. 

He still looks sallow and tired, but there’s a rudy pink blooming on his cheeks by the time Eddie rounds the van again to open his door. He doesn’t hold out his hand this time, but Steve still settles his fingers onto Eddie’s shoulder and uses it to lever himself up and out.

Eddie rushes back around to lock the van. Steve doesn’t wait for him, but he holds the door open wide to let Eddie in. There’s a little bell dangling off the handle that jingles under Steve’s shaky grip. 

Eddie hurries in. 

The waitress moves at her usual sleepy pace, calling out a quiet, “mornin’”, as she heads over to their chosen booth with unnecessary menus. 

Her eyes widen when she catches sight of Steve’s state, but she doesn’t comment, just takes their orders and walks away without writing anything down.

They settle into sleepy silence. 

Eddie’s breath stutters in his lungs when he feels Steve’s foot hook atop his under the booth. He taps the toes of his boot three times against Steve’s tennis shoe and smiles across at him.

The cook must be raring to go because it takes less than ten minutes for their waitress to round the partition, arms laden with dishes piled high with food. 

Eddie’d followed Steve’s lead, so there’s two of everything. The pancakes are fluffy, squares of butter melting at their centers, sides of warmed maple syrup just waiting to be poured. The hashbrowns are greasy and crip on the outside, soft on the center.

The bacon’s bubbling with fat, edges crisp, steam still rising from its surface. Fresh off the griddle. Eddie skewers a piece on his fork. He thrusts it up toward the middle of the table, nudging Steve’s sneaker repeatedly.

“What?” 

“A toast!” Eddie calls, beaming across at Steve when he finally gets with the program and raises his own fork and its dangling bacon. Eddie clinks their forks together. Fat drops in fat drops down onto the previously clean table. “To fresh starts!”

Steve brings his fork down to his mouth and takes a huge bite, closing his eyes in apparent ecstasy. “To good bacon.”

“And a monster free life.”

“And staying right-side-up.”

“Here, here!” Eddie cries, ignoring the way the waitress is glaring at the mess and ruckus their making. 

Because Steve’s smiling down at his food, taking big, savoring bites. The edges of the morning have been sanded down. 

Besides, it’s only fair. All Eddie had wanted when he got out was to hug Uncle Wayne, and he had. Steve doesn’t have a Wayne, so if he wants bacon, he gets bacon.

Eddie’d make sure of it, for as long as Steve will let him.

Taglist: @deany-baby @estrellami-1 @altocumulustranslucidus @evillittleguy @carlprocastinator1000 @hallucinatedjosten @goodolefashionedloverboi @newtstabber @lunabyrd @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @manda-panda-monium @disrespectedgoatman @finntheehumaneater @ive-been-bamboozled @harringrieve @grimmfitzz @is-emily-real @dontstealmycake @angeldreamsoffanfic @a-couchpotato @5ammi90 @mac-attack19 @genderless-spoon @kas-eddie-munson @louismeds @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @pansexuality-activated @ellietheasexylibrarian @nebulainajar @mightbeasleep @neonfruitbowl @beth--b @silenzioperso @best-selling-show @v3lv3tf0x @bookworm0690 @paintsplatteredandimperfect @wonderland-girl143-blog @nerdsconquerall @sharingisntkaren @canmargesimpson @bananahoneycomb @rainwaterapothecary @practicallybegging

#realized while editing that Steve had said his greatest wish during truth or dare was to get bacon at the diner and then they just never go? #anyway. added this! #my fic #steddie upsidedown au #anyway. not the update everyone wanted probably but honestly i found a COUPLE loose threads while editing so i'll probably make my way #all the way through before finishing the end. to make sure there aren't any more that I actually care about

[silkscream]

𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞 (𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭)

ੈ✩ pairing: eddie munson x reader

ੈ✩ summary: still you sit with him in a church parking lot, acting like you’re not falling for it. (until you do.)

ੈ✩ warnings: smut (18+), fingering, slight dacryphilia, drug use, (protected) high sex, car sex, a little blood, not edited

ੈ✩ wc: 4.6k

Hawkins was always unpredictable – you knew this – from rumors of Satanic rituals to alien conspiracies to government experiments on children. Tonight, however, it's the weather that annoys you, the inklings of autumn teasing your bare legs despite the fact that it’s the middle of July. It doesn’t particularly help that the midnight rendezvous you’re making tonight is taking place in a church parking lot, of all places. The cool, late summer breeze seems to trickle into your pores to make your insides shudder. Sighing, you walk forwards, eyes scanning the stained glass windows high above you.

When you open the door to Eddie Munson’s striped van, he salutes you with two fingers nestling a Marlboro red. With something in between a sarcastic smile and a grimace, you return the gesture.

“Munson.”

“Y/L/N,” he nods. You roll your eyes as you shut the door behind you. With an exhale, you pick the skin of your cuticles until it stings, wincing when the skin breaks.

Uncharacteristically, Eddie’s radio plays a low reverberated hum of dream-pop chords from the speakers. When you turn the knob of the stereo, you can’t help but grin when you hear Cocteau Twins’ “Sugar Hiccup”, Elizabeth Fraser’s nonsensical drawl lowering your blood pressure instantly.

“Thought you didn’t like this shit. When I put this on you were like, what’s the point of writing a song that’s fuckin’ unintelligible?” you tease, poking Eddie’s arm. 

“I still think that,” he rolls his eyes. “It’s your cassette. You left it here.”

“And you’re still listening to it.”

“Yeah, whatever, princess.”

You’d never admit that maybe you left your cassette in his van on purpose, just so you could have a possible excuse to see him again. Your love-hate relationship with Eddie manifested after Chrissy’s death – you and Hawkin’s notorious alleged cult leader formed an unlikely friendship after you’d testified in court about Chrissy’s whereabouts. You weren’t necessarily her best friend during senior year – Hell, no one would believe you even if you claimed that – but you had gotten close with the blonde when you’d tutored her. Besides Eddie, you were the only one who knew she was interested in drugs to escape her weird spouts of psychosis. 

Now, a year later, you might call Eddie a friend, if smoking together and listening to music in his van every few months counts as a friendship.

“So, Sativa or Indica? I’m also out of my usual shit because that, uh, Valley dude that’s friends with Byers bought out everything that was good. So lucky for you, I could do fifteen for an eighth instead of–”

“I’m not here for weed,” you interrupt.

To your surprise, Eddie laughs. The bastard laughs at you.

“What?” you cinch your brows.

“I’m not selling to you if it isn’t weed.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because.”

“Because, why, Manson?”

Eddie sighs with defeat and looks everywhere that isn’t your direction. You can tell that you’d struck a nerve from how his jaw locks, a small vein in his neck pulsing just slightly. You feel guilty immediately. “Told you not to fuckin’ call me that.”

“S’a joke, Christ. No one actually thinks you’re a cult leader, y’know,” you mutter, crossing your arms. 

“Half this town still does. Even after I got acquitted,” Eddie continues. 

“You won’t sell to me because of Chrissy, isn’t it?”

He stays quiet.

“Eddie.”

“I just don’t want you messing around with that stuff, okay?”

“Have you gone Catholic or something? How incredibly chauvinist of you. Is that why we’re parked in front of a fucking church?”

You hate that your face is turning warm from your boiling blood – of all people, how could Eddie fucking Munson be so evangelical about drug use when he was the one providing for half of Hawkins High? The thought of him viewing you as any sort of damsel made you livid. As if you weren’t dealing with a shitshow of a summer already.

He twiddles his silver-lined fingers, thumb rubbing anxiously over the pendant of a skull on his middle finger. It isn’t that he has a new moral superiority over your drug habits, but lately, the nightmares have started back up again, and every night when he goes to sleep, Chrissy Cunningham sits in the passenger seat where you are currently. Sometimes she overdoses on K, sometimes Vecna gets her before Eddie even makes the right turn to enter his trailer park. Sometimes when Eddie claps his hands in front of Chrissy’s gray eyes, he blinks once, and to his horror, you’re in her place.

Your hand grasps the door handle next to you. “Okay. Fine. I can get what I want from someone else–”

Before you open the door fully, Eddie’s quick to hunch over you and shut the door with an amount of aggression that surprises you. For a moment, you think that he glances at your quivering lip. 

“Don’t,” he warns. “Another time, okay? I’ll give you whatever, just not now. Just do it when I’m around, okay? For your own damn safety.”

You stare at him blankly. “Sativa.”

You watch as he climbs dextrously over his seat to get to the back of the van, which is full of blankets and pillows – a new addition from the last time you’d been in it. 

“You sleeping in your car or something?” you raise a brow as you watch him, cheek leaning on the headrest of your seat.

“Henderson’s idea. We went to a drive-in the other night,” he murmurs mindlessly. “Pretty cozy, actually. You think I could pass as a Woodstock hippie with this set-up?”

“Totally,” you utter. 

It’s strange how you’d known the boy for a little over a year – really known him, at least, compared to sharing physics senior year with him – and yet watching him lick his rolling papers as your favorite album plays feels more intimate than it ever has. The way Eddie’s slightly shrunken Hellfire Club shirt reveals his dark happy trail makes you feel like a lecherous predator just for watching. When your eyes fall on the array of bats on his forearm, he brings you back to Earth as quickly as you’d left it.

“You wanna smoke or not?”

“Mhm.” You nearly trip on your way to the back of the van. So much for meticulousness. Cross-legged and sweating slightly from the stuffiness of the vehicle, you lean against pillows that are propped up against the side door. 

He notices your scent immediately as you move – amber incense and something woodsy. He always wonders why you’re still so timid after all these encounters, but he knows that once you take the first hit of the joint you’ll melt like an Indiana sunset. It isn’t that Eddie likes you better that way, it’s just that he likes the way your laugh sounds. And you tend to do it more when you’re high. 

He hands you the finished joint and lights it for you. You inhale and hold the smoke in your lungs with a bated breath, exhaling a cloud towards Eddie’s star-stricken face. It’s there again, that small giggle coming from your mouth that makes something bloom in his chest more than he’d like to admit. 

“What’re you laughing at, raccoon eyes?” he smirks. 

“Nothing,” you stifle a laugh. “Just… the fairy lights make a nice touch.”

You point to the battery-powered string of lights strewn behind Eddie, dangling Draculas illuminated by a dull yellow. 

“You’d look way hotter with raccoon eyes. Isn’t that what those KISS guys do?”

“I’m already hot,” Eddie protests. 

“Okay, but how ‘bout this—“ you rummage through your bag for your charcoal-black eyeliner. Before you can even point it toward the boy’s face, he flinches, swatting your hands away.

“Oh come on, pretty boy!” you whine.

“You’re gonna poke my eye out with that thing!”

“I won’t!” 

The two of you wrestle your arms together, with him gripping your wrist tightly whenever you try to touch his face. When he squeezes your forearm with his other hand, you forget how to breathe.

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“Thank you,” you coo, clasping your hands together in excitement. 

You have the cadence of a child, a feral glint in your eyes as your mouth turns into a grin full of wolf teeth. He only lets you because he wants to be close to you, wants your soft hands on his face. It’s a rarity for him, these fleeting touches – but now that Eddie’s fully high, he craves them like a child fiending for candy. There were other times like now, times when your girlish whimsy would have you combing your fingers through his hair absentmindedly and innocently until you snapped to your senses. Eddie always hated when that happened.

He lies back lazily against the pillows, bare knees spread so that you can get closer to him. The look on his face is deadpan, feigning annoyance and eyelids fluttering once you so as much as attempt to draw a black line under his bottom lashes.

“Hold still!”

“Make me.”

Your eyelashes flutter in rapid succession at his declaration, eyes narrowing with a hint of a smirk on your lips as you combat his challenging gaze. You’re not giving in. Not yet, at least.

“Shut up.”

It takes a few minutes, but the results are worth it. Eddie blinks at you with his brown doe eyes, which look even bigger with the smudged black eyeliner you’ve managed to get on him. 

“Am I as fuckable as Bowie now?”

“No one is as fuckable as Bowie. Not even you,” you snort, taking another hit from the joint. 

“So you agree. You think I’m fuckable.”

You give him a knowing look, small smile hiding from the debauched imagery creeping into your mind. You’d be lying if you claimed that you didn’t think about him that way, but you’d rather die than tell him that. 

He takes the joint out of your mouth, which is now slightly ajar and salivating as you scan his face and the smallest hint of a tattoo adorning his collarbone.

“Speaking of fucking, uh, Gareth has, like, a level five crush on you. Did y’know that?”

“Please. He makes it incredibly obvious.”

“You gonna go for it?” You notice the way he licks his lips in anticipation of your answer. You smile and shake your head. 

“Aw, c’mon! Kid’s still a virgin.”

“Oh, so you wanna pimp me out?“

“I didn’t say—”

“Mhmm. Right.” 

The joint’s nearly done when Eddie realizes he’s been staring at your face like the way someone examines a painting – really looks at it – for the first time. Reveling in all the details – the slope of your nose, the shape of your lips, your huge pupils blinking right back at him. 

“What would it take for you to fuck Gareth?” Eddie asks. His voice is suddenly lower, the raspy husk from his voice muddling away from clarity. 

“Christ, you’re really wingmanning so hard right now. Okay, so theoretically, I fuck him. What else? You gonna film it, too?” you slur. 

It’s him who’s quiet now. Eddie doesn’t want you to notice his flushed face, which he’s claiming in his head to be from the summer heat and lack of air conditioning in his car, but he’s also fully aware that this is one of the cooler nights in July. But why does he feel like he’s fucking sweating? And God, the imagery of you actually fucking Gareth is pervading his brain right now, short-circuiting it in a way that makes him feel embarrassed, and he thinks that maybe he should count to ten and stare out the window so that he can —

“Earth to Edward,” you snap at him with your middle finger and thumb. 

It’s Eddie’s turn to blink rapidly, averting his eyes. He rubs his temple like he has to contain a headache, but really, it’s dizzying lust that feels out of place. Especially with you right beside him. You’d never think that Eddie Munson was one to be shy around you, of all people, if at all. But between the sexual innuendos and the stupid banter, it’s like you’re seeing right through him. Needless to say, he doesn’t know how to hide his emotions at the moment. Certainly not when he’s high as a kite.

You think that maybe if you move just a few inches, something inside you could explode or bloom or coalesce completely. Any closer to Eddie Munson’s face and you’d be redistributing matter without a care in a world, but the cautious nature inside you screams instead. God, didn’t you arrive with a chill down your spine from the dip in temperature? Yet now, your synapses are on fire. All without being touched. 

Your body seems to move in its own volition, but slowly. A hand combed through dark, frizzy locks. Your fingers caressing the length of his jaw. Your breath haphazard like you’re splayed out like a desperate, dying animal with your insides on display. 

It’s like a glass breaks when it happens. You aren’t even aware of who does it first.

You take surprise in the confidence of your body pinning his down while his tongue explores the inside of your mouth, his hands gripping the exposed flesh above your shorts. You inhale sharply like you’re drowning until what comes out of your mouth descends into something like a laugh that’s swallowed by him.

Your desire is white-hot, blinding. You don’t realize how deeply you’ve got your claws into Eddie Munson’s shoulders until he lifts you up a little higher so that you’re properly straddling him, the warmth of your core pulsating from the severity of every sensation hitting your neurons. This weed is fucking strong, you think, with your brain blissed out to oblivion. 

Your bliss is interrupted when he curses into your mouth and flinches slightly, pulling away from you with wide eyes. 

“You bit me,” he chuckles lowly, wiping the crimson off his bottom lip.

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry,” you stammer. “I– that’s not something I do, um. I think I got carried away.”

“It was hot.”

Before you can respond, he locks his lips with yours again, this time grabbing the back of your neck with his strong, slender fingers. It’s messy, his newfound frenetic desire for you that had been bubbling up in his system for months and months, only to overflow the moment you got into the backseat of his van tonight.

He pulls away, a trail of saliva following his mouth as he grins. You’re too busy looking at him like you’re in a trance to think about anything else, certainly not when his silver-adorned fingers are touching the base of your throat.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he rasps. 

“Tell me more,” you tease, though whatever provocation you’re going for is swapped for vulnerability the moment Eddie’s mouth descends down your throat and latches onto your exposed collarbone, teeth and all. 

“So fucking hot… and sexy… and… shit,” he murmurs as he suckles lovebites on the curve of your shoulder. “Gareth’s gonna be fucking pissed at me when he finds out.”

You’re about to reply, make something of a self-deprecating joke to distract yourself from the fact that you’re sinking right under Eddie’s spell, but of course, the bastard sucks into your skin in a way that makes you glitch. You can’t even speak – all the sensations you feel from his mouth on your collarbone alone elicits a moan. He smirks into your skin.

The ache in your body is so viciously raw that you’re dreading the moment everything bursts. You realize you’re high enough that your usual fight or flight dissipates the moment you feel Eddie’s warm tongue on the side of your jaw.

Every touch feels electric. Your body is a forest fire.

Your blood is pumping hard, hot, and the way Eddie pulls back to admire the pinkish marks on your neck makes you nearly carnivorous with want.

“I need more, Eddie.”

More. Every cell in Eddie’s body screams more. He’s been teasing you, yes, but he doesn’t realize how onboard he is with more until he sees the salacious lust on your face, just barely muted by your virtuous eyes. He wants to devour you, he thinks. He doesn’t know that you were the one sharpening your fangs first.

“Whatever you want. Tell me.”

“Touch me.”

“Gotta be more specific, baby.”

“I don’t know,” you desperately mewl, burying your face into his shoulder. “Anywhere. Everywhere. I just need you.”

It almost sounds like a prayer, which nearly causes Eddie’s brain to malfunction from his disbelief. You – who’s always sarcastic, giving him the hardest time in a way that makes him want you more – begging for him as you grind against his lap. He must’ve died and gone to heaven.

“You’re sure about this?” Eddie murmurs. “You’re not too high, right?”

“I’m sure,” you huff, pouting. “You’re taking too fuckin’ long.”

He chuckles, grasping your waist with his hands as he grins at you with admiration. Your big moon eyes, your delicateness on top of him – all of it makes him fucking insatiable and he hasn’t even had a piece of you yet.

“Let’s take these off then,” he titillates, hands eager in pulling off your shorts. You beat him to it with such quickness that he has to double-take when he realizes you’ve so swiftly discarded your t-shirt as well, leaving you in your black lacy bra.

“Oh, shit, for me?” His hands touch the sides of your bra, fingers dancing around the clasp on your back.

“No, y’just got fucking lucky tonight. Your turn now.” Your hands roam the length of his toned stomach, which was already on full display from his Hellfire shirt that nearly served as a crop top. In a frenzy, Eddie discards both his shirt and his cutoffs, and before you can even get a word in about the growing length underneath you, his mouth is on yours again.

He tastes like weed and cigarettes and cinnamon. You love him like this – desperate and frantic, eager to have his skin flush with yours. His kisses only exacerbate in intensity as you take the liberty to reach into his boxers, your hand palming his shaft with such a fervor that it makes him groan.

Eddie’s quick to match your movements, fingers already clumsily coaxing themselves into your wet cunt while the two of you kiss like you’re fighting, like you’re competing for who gets the next bruise. 

You don’t even notice that he’s unhooked your bra until he stops his frantic kissing to suck on your nipple. You moan at the sensation, throat raw from all the smoking. Your mouth keeps letting out sounds that you can’t even recognize as yourself. There’s no time to react considering the depth in which Eddie’s fingers are inside of you, rubbing along your spongy walls until your legs start to vibrate.

He’s so aggressive with his hands like he’s trying to prove something. The heat in your core that brews begins to thunder into something unfamiliar. It’s too good, this electric feel, and it doesn’t help that the skin above your breasts is starting to flame a livid red just from Eddie’s lovebites.

He pulls his nipple from your mouth as he strokes your insides harder, head tilting curiously as he watches the expressions on your face change like a supercut. He knows you’re nearly there from the sudden entropy of your body.

“C’mon, baby, you can do it. You’re almost there, right?”

“Y-yes,” you whine.

“Good girl. Cum for me, okay?”

“J-just like… that… oh my god…. oh my god,” you stutter. “Eddie, fuck!”

You dip into convulsion as you screw your eyes shut – the phosphenes in the pitch-black of your vision exploding like fireworks. The high takes over you like a tidal wave until you’re out of breath, chest heaving up and down. You have to physically remove his hand just so you can even attempt to calm down.

“You look so fucking good when you’re cumming for me, Jesus Christ.”

He watches you with a doe-eyed expression, his hand in yours as you raise it to fit into your mouth. Delicately, you lick off your own taste. Just from watching that, Eddie feels like he might cum soon.

Without a warning, you decide the next order of operations, pussy landing flush against Eddie’s hard cock softly and grinding against his length.

“Jesus,” he croaks, eyes lulled in an opium trance as you kiss the swell of his throat. He can barely focus – barely misses wherever the fuck those extra condoms are in his bag – shit, where were they?

After a blind rummaging with you still on top of him, he finds one and rips the foil from his teeth.

“This is– you’re sure?” he checks in with you cautiously, his face florid and hot with sudden apprehension as if you aren’t sliding your wet cunt against his lap at this very second. You nod as you twirl a curly strand of his hair between your fingertips and he rolls the condom on.

As you lower yourself, he groans in tandem with your borderline pornographic moans, and slowly, you grind against him. 

“Oh, my God…” you moan. The thickness of him seems to be hitting every sensitive spot inside you to the point of you nearly seeing stars. Your iron grip extends to your claws as you dig into the bare flesh of Eddie’s shoulder blades, which flex slightly from the way he moves your body on top of his with his strong hands. Throughout your desperate mewling, he guides you on his lap while you cry out. He covers your mouth with his palm after a succession of your cries.

You gasp like a wild animal struggling despite your fervent stamina. You ride him like you’re trying to dominate him, but the sensitivity of your wet cunt nearly blows you overboard. At this point, you’re a lost cause until he grips your thighs tightly as you hover above him slack-jawed and soft headed.

Another mewl and Eddie thinks he might just come undone underneath you – but he doesn’t want to give you that satisfaction.

Within seconds, he switches positions, has you pinned against the blankets and pillows flat down so that he’s on top of you. You’d let him smother you if he could.

Eddie thrusts into you as his hands latch onto your shoulders. The sweat of his brow drips down the side of his face, adorning the glow radiating through him. After a slight sweep of his long curls, he has his hands tangled in your hair as he fucks into you, thrusting slowly but fully. 

“Eddie, fuck!”

“Shit, am I hurting you?” he asks you with frantic concern. He wipes a finger down the length of your cheek to chase away a stray tear. “I can be more gentle.”

“I like when it hurts,” you reply in a rushed manner. “Fucking… need you.”

With that encouragement, Eddie’s hips snap back to yours. He grunts with an animalistic inflection, head bowing into your shoulder as he picks up his pace.

“So fucking– tight,” he exhales. “Fuck. God, you’re so– fucking—”

Tears start springing from your eyes. The weed makes your body infinitely more sensitive, and now that he’s finally inside of you, you feel like you’re in the fucking rapture.

Even from all the overwhelming pressure, you beg for more just from your rapacious movements, arms crossed over his back with your nails digging into his flesh. 

He pouts when he sees your tears, wipes them off gently with the pads of your fingertips but your makeup smudges like a pornstar’s. With a grin, he peppers you with chaste kisses across your teeth despite the depravity happening below each of your hips, a burning candle on both ends as he hikes up your leg with your knee swung over his arm to thrust into you at a deeper angle. The blurred charcoal under your waterline makes you look gorgeous, he thinks, like an angel fallen out of heaven, Lilith banished from the Garden of Eden.

“It’s too much,” you gasp, eyes nearly rolling in the back of your head.

“You wanna stop?”

“No.”

He chuckles at that, sloppily kissing you down your chest. He has the sudden urge to turn you over, take you the way he wants, but the blackened tears on your cheeks make him want to treat you delicately despite the ravenousness of how he’s currently ramming into you. You insist on more, begging through hushed whimpers and limbs lumbering like a ragdoll’s. Just from seeing your wanton face, he thinks that this is intimacy, this is real, and having you in any other way would somehow break the spell. He needs to hold you this close and flush to his chest so you don’t disappear.

“Eddie–” you choke out.

“Mm?”

“Wanna be– on top,” you say breathlessly, and he slows the roll of your hips at the same time your hiccuping moans descend into smaller gasps. With his hands on your hips still, he sits up and leans backward while you stumble on top of his, knees nearly giving out because of how your legs feel like jelly. 

God, your thighs are burning just a bit, but the delicious roll of your hips has his cock hitting your g-spot so much deeper than before – as if that was even possible. 

“Holy shit,” Eddie groans, jaw slack with saliva glistening on the fullness of his bottom lip.

“S’feel good?” 

“Don’t– don’t stop, baby,” he rasps. It’s him who’s begging now, and Christ, he can’t get a break. Not when you’re hovering above him, riding his cock like that, tits bouncing right in front of him. He reaches out of you, massages your nipple with his thumb until his palm cradles your neck delicately.

Experimentally, he slaps your ass hard enough to leave a mark, and your sharp-toothed grin has him falling apart. Eddie’s brain is a total haze, neurons firing and melting with the soundtrack of Cocteau Twins still ringing through his ears with honey-dripping reverb. He’ll have to listen to the record again when he’s alone later, high and horny with thoughts of you. Eddie doesn’t think he’ll be able to get you out of his head after tonight.

He’s teetering on the brink of orgasm, especially when your lewd moans are getting louder with the aggressive way you’re grinding against him, thick cock hitting the hot spot inside your walls repeatedly until something blooms in your stomach.

“‘m s’close, Eds–”

“Keep going, baby, you got it,” Eddie praises. “Let go for me.”

Your thighs are burning still, heedless now as the elastic inside your core finally breaks. He groans when he feels your walls tighten around him and within seconds, he whimpers – actually whimpers – as he floods you. The frenzied sensation of your shared orgasm blend together, an amalgam of hot wetness, of stomach butterflies wielding pickaxes, of dripping, molten desire.

He softens inside of you and with an exhale, he touches your face just to remind himself that you’re real. With a smile, you kiss his knuckles, his rings, his fingertips, until you suck on his thumb gently.

“Fuck, y’gonna make me hard again,” Eddie indicts, mouth raw and red from all of your lovebites. 

“Is it ‘cause you made me cry?” you tease. “Sick fuck.”

“No, ‘cause you’re fuckin’ you,” he grumbles. “Kinda wanna keep you here forever, now.”

“That’s a completely normal thing for someone who’s not a cult leader to say,” you chuckle, lowering yourself down to Earth as your body fits into his like the missing puzzle piece. As you listen to the throes of his rapid heartbeat, his hair tickles your cheek softly.

“I think you’re the cult leader. Y’put subliminals in that cassette, yeah? Got me all high to seduce me?” His black-rimmed eyes are wide, eyebrows raised as he taps your nose playfully.

“You fucking wish, Munson.”

𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬!

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #stranger things x reader #stranger things smut #eddie munson oneshot #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fic #stranger things fic #joseph quinn #joseph quinn x reader #joseph quinn x you #joseph quinn smut

[dyns33]

Dead man walking

He's an ass, but I love Shane, so I'm writing some Shane's stories now.

Shane had called her when it all started. Even though he didn't want to believe it was serious, his instinct told him to call her, and Y/N answered while continuing to watch TV.

They had been together for a little over a month.

After what happened to his best friend and partner, Shane went to bars a lot, drank a lot, got into fights, and found a different girl to spend the night with.

When he approached Y/N, she knew he wasn't looking for anything serious, but above all she saw the sadness in his eyes, the desperation in his forced smile, the loneliness in the hand that touched her shoulder.

They had discussed. A lot of talking, and not the stupid, insubstantial discussions he had with all the other girls.

It surprised Shane that someone was interested in him. Really interested in him, not just his looks, his attitude, his invitation to jump into bed. He wasn't used to it.

Usually, people saw an idiot, an asshole, a seducer, a fighter, but nothing more. Before, people didn't really see him most of the time, because they were too busy seeing Rick.

He had cried that evening, in the arms of Y/N, who had comforted him with great patience and gentleness.

Shane had fallen in love. It was new to him, but not unpleasant. He had always dreamed of having a family, like his best friend. He wished he was there to share his happiness, but he talked to him all the time about Y/N when he went to the hospital.

Then there were the announcements. While Y/N was on a business trip to Jacksonville. 5 hours drive drom Atlanta.

Shane called her because some people losing their minds and attacking other people wasn't normal. He wanted to check that she was okay. He asked her if she was going to come home early.

As this did not seem to disrupt her boss's plans, she told him that she would be home as planned the following week.

"I miss you, baby. I don't like you being so far away." he sighed, realizing that he couldn't convince her to jump in her car.

“Everything will be fine, we’ll be together soon.”

Two days later, it was already chaos. There were no more telephones, everyone was running in the streets, the highways were blocked, there were no planes or trains.

Y/N witnessed terrible scenes. Dead people rising to eat the living. With a small group, she managed to hide in the woods, with water and food. It wouldn't last, even if they were safe.

But all she could think about was Shane. She had to find Shane.

Without a car or any other means of transportation, 5 hours became a lot longer to get home. If he was still home. If he was okay… No, she didn't want to think about that. Y/N knew Shane, he was alive, she was sure of it.

An excellent shooting instructor, he had taught her how to handle several firearms. She stole some from an abandoned gun store, with a knife, and after filling her backpack with provisions, she headed to Atlanta.

Avoiding the roads, making no noise, sleeping in trees, Y/N approached the goal after several weeks. She had been forced to fight, and kill some walkers, and that allowed her to discover that they detected her less easily when she was covered in their blood.

It was a real relief to see the town sign. Then she lost hope a bit, seeing that the streets were deserted. There was little chance Shane would have stayed here.

Maybe he had decided to join her, and their paths had crossed. Y/N went into the forest to rest, and she saw a camp from afar.

Suspicious, she used her sniper to determine if the survivors looked dangerous. There were women, a man on a camper van, kids.

Continuing to observe, she saw a couple away from the group, as if they were hiding.

The woman looked familiar. Y/N was sure she had seen her before. When they separated, she almost dropped her gun.

Shane. Shane and Lorie, Rick's wife, his best friend. Kissing.

She had to put her hand over her mouth to stifle the cry that wanted to come out, tears streaming down her cheeks. While she was risking her life to find him, Shane was sleeping with another woman, quietly installed in a camp, not caring at all about her.

If she had wanted, she could have shot them in the head before leaving.

But she held back, crying silently in a tree. She stayed there for several days, not knowing what she was going to do next. Her reason for living was to find Shane, she had no purpose now.

When the camp became agitated, she used her sniper again, seeing a sheriff approach, taking Shane in his arms, then kissing Lorie and her son.

Rick. The friend in a coma. He was alive, he was back, and he was going to cause a big mess. This made her smile. She really wanted to see what that would be like, so she decided to follow them.

They made a lot of bad decisions along the way, but Y/N could understand that it was more complicated to survive as a group. She saw the girl coming out from under the car, panicking.

Even though she was further away, Y/N observed her trajectory and she ran very quickly to catch up, while the group pushed the dead away.

Sophia was an annoying little girl. Stubborn. But after Y/N killed the walkers chasing her, she agreed to trust her, taking her hand to return to the group.

They had moved, again, so it wasn't easy.

Y/N didn’t really want to talk to them. To talk to Shane. But she couldn't leave a child alone.

The farm was in the middle of nowhere, but you could see it was inhabited. She approached slowly, her weapon against her chest, Sophia remaining behind her.

Rick was the first to come towards them, his eyes bright and smiling when he saw the little one, thanking Y/N for finding her. Her mother followed, then everyone else.

Shane's look was indescribable. He stopped in the middle of the camp, as if unsure of what he was seeing. For a moment, Y/N wondered if he was going to look at Lorie, hesitate because of what he had done, but instead he let out a huge scream.

He screamed her name, running like crazy towards her to hug and kiss her, surprising everyone.

"Y/N ! Y/N, you're alive ! You're here ! I can't believe you're here ! I thought…I'm a moron, sorry. Forgive me."

“I told you I was going to come home.” she said coldly.

"Oh, baby… I wanted to find you, but I had to take care of the group. They needed me."

“Yes, I noticed they had certain needs.”

He didn't seem to understand her sentence, but Shane didn't have time to ask her any questions, the others inviting them to enter the farm to rest, and for Y/N to tell them her story.

Strangely, some people knew who she was. Shane had talked about her, even if the subject made him melancholic and aggressive. They knew she was far away when it all started, and no one thought she would make it here, even if she was still alive.

Shane hadn't thought she was alive. This hurt her deeply, on top of everything else. She suddenly felt dead inside, remembering herself walking for hours, days, weeks, just to find him, just like those inhuman things.

She was able to hurt him in turn when Rick said that they were lucky that she arrived at the moment when Sophia separated from the group, and she contradicted him, revealing that she had been following them for several weeks.

"… What ? You found us several weeks ago and… And you didn't say anything ?"

"I was watching from afar. I saw… a lot of things."

Her eyes quickly landed on Lorie, who trembled, understanding what Y/N meant. Shane understood too, swallowing what he was going to say as he looked down in shame.

Not wanting to create discord when their son Carl had been injured, Y/N said nothing, finding a corner of the house to sleep. She thought things wouldn't go any further for tonight, but she had forgotten what Shane was like.

Once everyone was asleep, he snuck over to her corner, lying down next to her.

"I'm glad you're alive. I love you."

“Shut up, Shane.”

"I'm sorry." he sighed, staring at the ceiling, his hand still remaining close to hers. "I thought… At first, I wanted to keep hope. Then seeing all this shit, I thought it would be better if you weren't here anymore. I didn't want to imagine you alone, trying to survive. It was already horrible here, and I had people I knew. You have to understand… We felt alone and lost. We needed comfort. It was nothing else, and we weren't proud of it. I thought about Rick all the time, and about you, but I needed that to keep from breaking down. Do you understand ? Can you forgive me, baby ? My darling, my love ? I only love you, I swear.”

It still hurt, but Y/N could understand.

Nothing was simple, everything had changed. She wanted Shane to go looking for her, but he might have died on the road. She would have liked him not to sleep with another woman, but he might have lost his mind with the pressure and depression. She would have wanted him to keep hope, but this hope would have eaten away at him, torn from the inside, because he wouldn't have known what to do between staying with the group and leaving.

It hurt, but she couldn't judge him. He thought she was dead, he thought Rick was dead, the world was on fire, and he just wanted to hold on to something.

Gently, she took his hand, and she heard him sob, turning his head towards her to place it on her shoulder, kissing her skin.

"I only need you, baby. Always have."

“You’re still so excessive.”

“Yeah, and you love me like that.” he purred, clinging completely to her. "You don't know how happy I am that you're here. Fuck. I didn't think I could still be happy like this."

Y/N didn’t tell him that she was going to need time to completely forgive him. She didn't tell him that Rick would eventually find out too. She also didn't know that they were going to run into a lot of other problems, within the group and because of everything that was going on.

No, she decided not to ruin this moment, for which she had traveled several kilometers, taking him in her arms as during their first meeting.

#the walking dead #shane walsh #shane walsh x reader #shane walsh fanfiction #shane walsh imagine

[lvrsparadise]

'WHY (NOT)?' - S.T

Synopsis - "There used to be six of us. Now I'm alone."

Warnings! - Mentions of death, blood, (mild) gore, fear, vomit, profanity, italics mean flash back (will write at top who's pov), depictions of murder, sharp objects, angst, crying, yelling, implied Matt x Y/N, might make a pt2 don't know yet.

A/N - You know what's the best part about being creative? THIS ISN'T MY IDEA!! I GOT IT FROM PINTEREST! But like, BANGER. I had sm fun writing this ngl. (I cried, multiple times.)

I look into the eyes of the police officer across from me, exhaling frustratedly.

"I swear! I didn't do it! Something attacked us!"

"And how am I supposed to believe you? There's no footage of it."

I groan out, even more frustrated than before. I lay my head in my palms, which are shaking from what I saw, and frustration.

I hear the cop sigh and his chair scraping against the floor, as he stands and leaves the room.

----

!Y/N POV!

I look out the window at the old and abandoned mansion we're about to head into and unbuckle my seatbelt, looking at everyone else in the van.

"Dude I'm stoked." Chris daps Nate up as they get out of the car and head to the trunk to get our stuff.

I smile softly and shake my head.

"I'm honestly terrified."

"Me too" Me and Madi say in unison to Nick.

I turn my head to Matt, in the driver's seat next to me, and we share a look for a while, just taking each other in, before I step out of the car to help Chris and Nate with the stuff we brought.

"Dude, what if some like creepy old ghost haunts this place and like, possesses one of us?"

"How can you say that with a straight face Nate?"

He shrugs with a small smirk on his mouth as he hands me my backpack.

I roll my eyes and open my bag to make sure I have everything I need.

Flashlight, food, water, clothes, a blanket, my pocketknife, and batteries.

-

Once we're all set with our gear, we all collectively walk into the mansion, splitting up into groups of two.

Chris with Nate. Me with Matt, and Nick with Madi.

We all have cameras to record our own little adventures. We all are in different parts of the hose.

Me and Matt are upstairs, looking at all of the bedrooms, studies, and libraries.

"Woah, look at this painting."

I point my flashlight at the painting above a really gaudy and luxurious bed set, with is dirty and dusty.

It's a painting of a lady in a pencil thin bodice, long dress, and her eyes hollow and sunken. Her skin pale and bruised in several places.

"Holy fuck. That's nightmare fuel." He points our camera at the painting as he speaks.

"I know." I whisper as we continue looking around the room, filming all of it.

-

"So, as I was saying guys-" My foot hits something, and I furrow my brows looking down at whatever it is, my eyes soon widening in fear.

"Matt! MATT!" I yell out for him, running to where I was with him last, thankfully finding him there.

"Woah! Hey! Hey, what's wrong?"

I gulp and shake my head, my eyes filling with tears and my eyes still wide. I feel like I'm going to puke.

I just start walking back to where my foot hit the thing on the ground. I point my flashlight down to it, gagging at the sight of Chris laying on his back, dead.

His eyes, not there, blood coming from his mouth, and many large gashes on his chest.

I feel my breathing pick up, and a hand on my shoulder, ultimately ripping my gaze away from the once fun, and bubbly guy, now laying on the floor dead.

I hear Matt gag and watch as he does a full 180 and holds his hand over his mouth.

----

I cry for what feels like the hundredth time today. Not caring about the cops and investigators on the other side of what I know is a one-sided window.

The sight of seeing everyone I love, and the guy I've been crushing on, dead, all missing their eyes. A horror I'll never forget for as long as I live.

I hear the door open again, and don't bother to look at it. These handcuffs were really starting to hurt.

I hear whoever it was plop down in the chair across from me and drop a file on the table.

I wipe my face the best I can with the cuffs and look up at the person.

It's a different cop or whatever than the many who've came in here.

"I'm not here to interrogate you or overwhelm you with questions, I'm here to help you grasp the severity of this situation and why your co-operation is valuable right now."

"I'm telling the truth! I didn't murder my fucking friends!"

She holds up her hand in a motion telling me to stop, and she opens the file, pulling our multiple photos, and angles of my friends, all dead. Pale, eyes sunken and gouged out.

I gag at the pictures. She points to one of Matt's photos, a picture of him alive and happy next to the horrifying image I'll never forget seeing.

"This is Matthew Sturniolo? Correct?"

I nod and swallow the bile in my throat and clearing it before speaking.

"Y-Yes that's him."

"Okay. And this one?" She points to a photo of Madi, looking barely recognizable. I sob quietly and nod, sniffling.

"That's- That's Madi- uh, Madison Filipowicz."

She points to a photo of a boy in a backwards hat that I recognize as Nate's. I feel more tears fall down my face at the fact he's too unrecognizable on his face that the only reason I knew it was him was by his blood-soaked Boston Red Sox hat.

"Nath- Nathan Doe."

"And this one's Nicolas? Right?"

I nod as she points to a photo of Nick.

"Y-yeah." I blow out a shaky breath.

"So that leaves this one to be Christopher." She gestures to the photo of Chris. I don't even bother to look at it, fearing I might actually puke all over this table, the photos, and the lady's nice tan pantsuit.

----

!CHRIS'S POV!

Me and Nate watch Matt and Y/N walk up the stairs in front of us, but once we reach the top, we split and go opposite directions.

"Dude! Look at this old ass record player." Nate points his flashlight to the record player in the middle of the room.

"It's so fucking dusty."

"Well, no shit. It's probably been here for a hundred years."

"Ha ha. Although, probably has. This place looks like if you breathed wrong it'd fall over."

I drag my finger along the back of the chair, and it was dusty as hell.

-

After a bit of walking around, we make it to a large hall with a long table in the middle and chairs, on every side of the table.

"What're we here for? Dinner." I snicker at Nate's joke and shine the flashlight on it, while using my other hand to point the camera at it as well.

"Damn, hoity toity ass dining table." I mumble. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a shadow, or like a figure, but I brush it off as the light from the flashlight and mine or Nate's silhouette.

"Look at that dude!" Nate points his flashlight at a painting at the head of the table. A dude in his 40's maybe 50's with chops and a bald head, wearing some goofy ass clown collar.

"Dude looks like his name was fucking, Edward or Baldwin."

"This house has to be at least 200 years old or some shit. Because there's no way this fucker existed a hundred years ago."

I laugh at Nate's words. But I'm cut off by a scream from down the hall. Both me and Nate look at each other and point our flashlights to the staircase we came up, just in case.

"The fuck was that?"

"I don't kno-" Another scream. Sounds like.

"Madi."

"Fuck." I go to run down the stairs, but I'm yanked back by my backpack. Hard.

I hit the ground with a 'umphf' and a groan, having the air knocked out of me.

I cough and hear Nate yelling my name.

"CHRIS! CHRIS WATCH OUT!"

But I feel cold on my chest and look down to it to see at least 5 large gashes across my chest.

"The fuck-?" I mumble and look up to see some whack ass thing, with fingers as long as my fucking arm. And sharp looking. Black eyes, or none at all, I can't tell. And so many fucking large teeth.

My eyes widen in horror at the sight of the thing. It's skin grey and yellow, his body thin and tall, adorned with large bone like wings and spikes in its spine and its knuckles.

I don't even get a chance to let out a full scream when I feel a sharp pain in my eyes, and everything goes black and numb.

----

I rub my wrists as they take the cuffs off me so I can eat what they gave me. Which looks amazing, but I have no appetite.

It's a pork loin, mashed potatoes, green beans, fries, some juices, some fruits like pineapple, apple, strawberry, and some baby carrots and cucumbers.

Like I said, looks delicious, but if I try to eat it, it might comeback up.

The cop leaves the room and I'm left alone with my thoughts again.

I sigh and pick up the plastic fork, scooping up some mashed potatoes and eating a little bit. But they don't taste how they should. They feel like sandpaper against my mouth. Like grit, and I have to force myself to swallow it. I know it's not the food, but me.

I push the tray away and rest my arms on the table, laying my head on them and sobbing, but no tears come out. I've dried them up. I mean can you blame me? I just watched almost every single one of my friends die.

I wish I had told Matt how I felt. Maybe I wouldn't feel like this. Like I'm missing something. Like I could've convinced them not to go. Like I could've helped instead of just watching.

Maybe then all of my friends wouldn't be dead.

It's crazy how much one little decision can cause. Like, deciding to go to that mansion in the first place. If we'd just stayed home or brought professionals maybe, then I wouldn't have watched them die. Watch as their eyes were poked out and watch as their bodies sag to the floor.

I scoot the chair back and puke under the table, unable to hold it down anymore. It's all too much.

After I vomit, I pick up the cup of water from the table and wash my mouth out. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to rid myself of those images.

-

I rub my eyes and watch as, yet another cop enters the room, accompanied by what looks to be either a journalist or a lawyer, they dress the same so I can't tell.

They sit across from me, and the journalist or lawyer lady sets a recorder, a file, and a plastic bag on the table as the cop throws down another file.

"I want you to tell me what happened Ms. L/N. In full detail. Explain what happened to your friends, as well as why you survived." The journalist, I've confirmed, speaks in a demanding tone, but still so monotone, and pushes a lock of her jet-black hair behind her ears.

"You asked for it." I shrug and scoot closer to the table, careful to avoid my pile of vomit on the floor, and rest my arms on the cool metal surface, lacing my hands together.

"So, Matt Nick and Chris are- were YouTubers, and they had a cool video idea that they wanted to do. So, they we set a date, got everything packed, invited a few friends, me included, and we set off to the old Gordon family mansion in Los Angelas. Once we got there, we all split up into groups of two, seeing as there were six of us." I clear my throat and stammer over my words for a second before continuing.

"Uh- Me, Matt, Chris, and Nate went to the second floor to explore while Nick and Madi were on the first floor, looking around there. Nate and Chris went in one direction and Me and Matt went another. We-we, we stumbled upon a series of paintings of a family, looking almost dead, and that's when I-" I take a deep breath before trying to continue. Keyword, trying.

The journalist sighs and places one of her hands on top of mine, in sympathy.

"It's okay, take as much time as you need."

I take another deep breath and continue.

"I was walking when I kic-kicked Chris's body, unknowingly. I yelled for Matt, and I ran back to him to bring him to it. Once we got to his- his body, we both just broke- broke down and soon after I had found him, Nate appears out of nowhere, seemingly hiding. With a horrified face. Just, completely pale and his eyes wide open, like they were stuck like that. And he said he saw what had happened."

"Can you tell us that?" The cop asks, and I nod.

"Ye-yeah." I drag in a shaky breath and le it out slowly.

"Um- there was this- this thing, he said. And it was at least 8 feet tall, and you could see the bones through its gray skin. It had bone like wings, spikes coming from his spine and knuckles, and horns made of bone spiking through its head. He said it had no eyes, or they were just black, and large, spikey teeth. And it had long spikes for fingers, and that he saw as the- the thing poked Chris's- Chris's..." I let out a small sob at the recall of what Nate said, moments before his own untimely death.

"It poked out Chris's eyes with his long fingers and Chris barely got a chance to scream out." I finish and sob into my hand, which is now covering my eyes and shaking again.

"What happened after Nathan told you what happened?" The cop is writing in his little flip-notepad, scribbling things down, most likely the description of whatever it was that killed my friends.

"Uhm- We heard something that sounded like a crying scream and a siren, the next thing we knew, Nate was flying towards me and Matt, he landed on me, pinning my body down as he lays on his back on top of me. The thing he had described seconds before, was now standing over me, gashing at Nate, with screams and wails of agony coming from him. Then, it all went silent, when I opened my eyes, the thing was gone, and I scrambled to my feet, pushing Nate's body off of me, and that's when I see, he's missing his eyes and he's almost unrecognizable." I let out a muffled sob into my hand as I try to hold back the sobs, my throat forming a lump in it, making it hard to speak.

'Then what?" Despite the circumstances, the journalist has a very soft and comforting voice.

"Me- me and Matt ran back downstairs, looking for Nick and Madi. Thankfully, we found them, alive, and we said in a rush and rambled mess that we had to go, something was there, we're all going to die. Something along those lines, and they were like, or Nick was like 'slow down, what's going on?' and so we slowed down and told him what happened. And it was like speaking about that damn thing summoned it, because the next thing I know, it's standing behind Madi..." I blow out a shaky breath and close my eyes for a second, but open them quickly, seeing as the only thing I see when I close them is the horrifying images of my friends dying in front of me.

"And then she's being thrown across the room with 4 to 5 gashes on her chest and then the thing seems to teleport, and looms over her as she screams in pain, fear, and pure agony. Then it's silent again. And Madi's dead." I hang my head in my hands, more tears slipping down my cheeks.

"What happened next?" I sniffle and wipe my face, looking back at the cop and journalist in front of me. Both of their faces intrigued, and full of sadness and sympathy.

"Me, Matt, and Nick start running for our lives to the front door of the house, but we can hear and feel the thundering footsteps of the creature behind us. Making that wailing slash siren sound again. We made it out the door, but the thing catches Nick just as we do. I grab my pocketknife from my backpack, and I throw it at the thing, landing right in between its eyes. And bright, glowing blue blood starts oozing from its eyes, and where my knife is lodged in its skull. I remember the fear I had in that moment. Because that means, I'm about to lose another one of my friends. And Matt is about to watch his own brother die, right in front of him." I choke out a sob and shake my head slowly. Seeing it was enough, but having to tell someone about it? Makes everything so much worse.

"Then same thing with Nick as the others. Except the thing kept Nick standing while it- it- it killed him. And I watched as his body sagged to the floor, landing with a thud and a pool of blood instantly forming around it." I gag reflexively, but I hold it down.

"Me and Matt ran as fast as we could, but it wasn't enough. It was never supposed to go that far! I wasn't supposed to lose Matt! He was the one who was to survive!" I sob and yell out, pointing my finger in the air at no one specifically.

"We- we made it to the car and started to drive off, but the fucking thing crushed the back half of the car!"

----

!Y/N POV!

"Matt! Come on! Drive! GO!"

"I'm driving Y/N!"

The car seems to shrink and then next thing I know, we're doing burnouts from not having the back half of his car anymore. I'm sobbing at this point.

"I don't want to die!"

"You're not going to Y/N... I promise."

"Wh-what?"

He smiles softly at me before he kisses the back of my hand and unbuckles my seatbelt.

"When I get out, I want you to run."

"No- no. I'm not leaving you Matt."

"What am I without Chris? Or Nick? Nate? Madi? It's better this way."

"But Matt..."

He shakes his head firmly and steps out of the car, cueing me to run.

I shrug off my backpack and run out of the passenger seat, booking it, but stopping and turning around to see Matt, and hearing his screams.

My hands fly over my mouth at the sight of Matt getting his eyes poked out. The creature dropping his body to the ground as though it were a doll.

The thing stalks back into the house, leaving me outside.

Once I know the thing is gone, I run to Matt's body and grab his hand, holding it to my face, sobbing.

"No. no, no, no, no, no." I shake my head repeatedly.

----

"Why leave you alive?" The cop furrows his eyebrows as he looks up from his notepad.

"I don't know." I shake my head and sob, almost uncontrollably, but not loudly.

The journalist nods and takes my hands in hers.

"I know what you saw is deeply traumatic, but was there Anything else that happened? Anything that could help us with this?"

"Nothing else happened. I swear." I shake my head and control my sobs, tears still streaming down my face.

--

After a few more hours of waiting in this very uncomfortable chair, a cop, and what looks to be the chief, walk in and I immediately straighten my posture, out of respect.

"Miss L/N, correct?"

"Uh- yes sir."

"We're letting you go, but we will be checking up on you weekly. You're free to go. And stay safe out there."

I nod and stand up from the metal chair, walking over to the chief and shaking his hand.

"Will do."

-

After I've gone through the whole, discharge process, I'm walking out of the glass doors of the police station.

My phone starts ringing from my pocket, and I grab it out and answering it.

"Yeah?"

"Well done. You really know how to hold a story."

"Well, you know how to play dead." I smirk.

"And you did good playing the victim. Make it home safe. See you tonight Y/N."

"See you then Matt."

Tags ! ✮

@dwntwn-strnlo ✮ @ssturniolo ✮ @strniolo ✮ @20nugs ✮ @prettysturniolo ✮ @mxqdii ✮ @thetriplets3 ✮

If you want to be added to the list, all you have to do is ask !! ✮

I love all of you guys !

And I hope you all have a wonderful day and / or night ✮

#l writes! #matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nathan doe #madi filipowicz #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo x reader #SPOOKY #felt devious

[gaysindistress]

Van Helsing Retold - six

pairings: vamp hunter!reader x vamp!bucky

Summary: Under the cover of night, vampires and their hunters have been at war for centuries, never letting their bloodshed reach the light of day. That is until the wife of a powerful vampire leader, Steve Rogers is murdered and he demands revenge. Y/N Van Helsing is the target of his crusade and she comes face to face with his right hand man, Bucky Barnes.

Warnings: cursing, violence, blood, vampire antics

Word count: 2.4K

Five | series masterlist

Tag list: @emerald-writes @globetrotter28 @vonalyn @cakesandtom @nerdytif @teambarnes72 @crazyunsexycool

disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on google/Pinterest

My mother flinches when I say the title that she has probably never heard and it sends a a ripple of hurt through me. She’s here. She’s alive. She…she’s alive and yet she left me with the Guild. She left me. My lungs feel like they’ve been ripped from my body and in their place is a gaping hole that my chest squeezes around, trying to keep itself alive. Sam’s hand darts out and wraps itself around my bicep before I can stumble forward towards her. Another wave of shock and fear rolls in, Bucky’s emotions to be exact.

“I feel like a test of your love is fitting, don’t you?” Steve’s voice cracks through my shock, “I’ll let one of them go if you complete the turning process.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, Bucky crumbles to the ground beside Steve as a result of another vampire jabbing him with a cattle prod. I gasp in pain and crumble too as I watch him fall and Sam grunts in protest from being caught off guard.

“What do you mean complete the turning process?” I manage to gasp out and Steve’s sharp gaze cuts to me and then to my infected hand.

“I can practically hear the venom crying out to be feed,” he casually states as he looks between Bucky, my mom, John, and myself, “so who will it be, Y/N Van Helsing? Your mother who you thought tragically died when you were an infant, the Guild Master who’s hopelessly in love with you, or the vampire that has a soft spot for you?

Bucky growls but is forced to the ground again with another stinging zap of the prod. John makes a noise too but my focus is entirely on Bucky. How could Steve have known? I go over every little memory that I can manage, desperately searching for anything that might explain how he could possibly know. Bucky’s noises of protest are growing weaker, spurring me to look even harder when it hits me; Steve didn’t say that we were mates.

He doesn’t know. He only thinks that Bucky has taken a liking to me but he doesn’t know about our bond and that is something that I can use to my advantage.

I gently push off of Sam and do a mental check of my body; my hand is throbbing now due to the nearby blood but the vial that Bucky had given me earlier is still tucked into my sleeve. Straightening my back and squaring my shoulders, I lock eyes with Steve as I start my negotiations, “If I turn…”

Bucky cuts me off with a pained groan that sounds like he’s trying to say no but the electricity from the prod drowns it out. I force myself to keep my eyes on Steve and I continue, “If I turn, you will let both John and my mom go.”

Steve gives me a bored look and I offer up another condition to sweeten the pot, “And I’ll kill Bucky. Save you the trouble.”

That earns another pained groan and a deep, blood curdling laugh from Steve.

“You’d kill him for me?” Steve asks as he breaks our stare to look down at Bucky. He crouches to his level and disgust drips from his voice, “Did you hear that? She said she would kill you herself if I let the other two go.”

Sam grabs ahold of my elbow and jerks me back, “What the fuck?”

I don’t look at him while I pull the vial from my pocket and tuck it into my fist. Sam curses under his breath when he sees the flash of glass and blood, “what’s the plan?”

“I’ll take him out while you get my mom and John.”

It’s not lost on him that I didn’t mention Bucky and he squeezes my elbow, wordlessly asking me about him. I shoot him a pointed look over my shoulder and he drops my arm. The meaning behind my look is not exactly reassuring or clear, for that matter, but either way, he knows better than to question me. He’s always trusted my judgement and he has no choice but to do the same now.

Steve stands up and claps his hands together before making a show of presenting my mom and John to me, “Go on then Van Helsing. Feed and complete your transition.”

“I don’t suppose you have blood bags laying around?” I ask him while coming to stand before them.

“Fresh is always better,” he winks at me as I fight the urge to scoff at him. The transition doesn’t require more than a drop of human blood but new vampires are known to be violent and implusive. They can’t stop the moment the blood touches their lips and no matter the amount of self control I have now, I know I’ll fall victim to the blood lust if I’m not careful.

I stop in front of John and my mom and look between them as I stall, pretending to struggle in my decision about who to feed from. Bucky is telling me to choose John through the tidal waves of anger and hatred that break across our bond and without a second thought, I do take a half step towards him. His shock is written plainly on his face albeit difficult to see behind the blood and swelling. Of course, he would think so highly of himself as to believe that I might actually feed from my mom over him. However I don’t know her and therefore can’t trust her to keep quiet as I let the vial of Bucky’s blood slip into my hand and kneel in front of him. His eyes flicker to my hand and I quickly whisper for him to look at Sam. The gentle command will seem like evidence of whatever love Steve thinks I have for John but it’s to keep him from growing suspicious and demanding to see what’s in my hand.

I take John’s wrist in my other hand, whispering to him the plan, “On my word, take my mom and run.”

“I’m not doing that Y/N. I’m not leaving you here to get yourself killed,” he hisses and tries to jerk his wrist away. My infected hand, the one that’s wrapped around it, tighthens its grip with a new strength that I can only assume came from the venom. He hisses again although in pain this time and if he had more strengthen himself, he would’ve tried a second time to break free.

Steve’s patience is beginning to wear thin and he demands for me to get a move on it before he slits both of their throats.

“Please,” is the last thing I whisper to John before yanking the cap off of the vial and bringing it my lips but it seems that I’m not fast enough. Steve lets out a monstrous roar as he launches himself at me and rips me back with a fistful of my hair. My hands fly back to try to claw his away as Bucky and I let groans of pain out at the same time. John tries to pull my back but another vampire has grabbed him and as well as my mom.

The sound of glass shattering draws everyone’s attention to the small pool of blood on the ground between John and me. No one makes a sounds as confusion takes ahold but Steve’s grip grows tighter when the realization hits him. Sam curses under his breath from behind us when Steve yanks me to my feet. Moving his hand to wrap around my neck, he pins my back to his chest and his scruff scratches against my cheek as he speaks lowly into my ear, “Whose blood does that belong to, Van Helsing? What vampire was stupid enough to infect you without seeing you through the turn?”

When I don’t answer right away, he squeezes tighter and tighter until I’m tearing at his hands to pull him away. He demands me to answer his question before repeating it.

“Your wife,” my voice comes out in the form of a squeak but he hears me regardless.

“My wife?”

“S…She spit on me as…,” I stammer through the weight of Steve’s grip on my neck, “as… I shot a stake through…her heart.”

He doesn’t make any sudden movements like I had expected and chuckles instead, “So you were the one who killed my mate?”

“Yes and I would do it again.”

He sniffs the air for a moment and then tightens his grip once more as he lays eyes on Bucky who is still crouching on the ground. The vampire behind him has the cattle prod shoved into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, awaiting any chance to shock my mate.

“Do you know what my favorite part of the transition is?” he whispers without waiting for my answer, “My favorite part is that you can still be persuaded. You’re not quite human, not quite vampire which makes you to the most dangerous and perfect weapon I can think of.”

“No,” I mummer in disbelief and he finds great pleasure in that.

“What was that Van Helsing?” he spins me around so that I’m facing him and he forces me to make eye contant with him.

“No,” I whisper louder and it spurs him to gesture to the vampire holding John. The vampire jerks my Guild Master forward and when he is within arm’s reach, Steve swipes some blood form his face with his thumb. I struggle against him, using my nails to tear at his hand and fight as much as I can but it’s no use. I’m not strong enough to get him off of me and the venom is slowly draining whatever strength I do have.

“Whose blood was in that vial?”

The unwelcome familiar wave of complacency overcomes me as I mindlessly answer him, “Bucky’s.”

“Bucky’s?” he parrots with mock shock, “Is he your mate?”

“Yes,” I whisper before he forces my mouth open and wipes John’s blood onto my tongue. A bitter coppery taste fills my mouth and not soon after, a dry thirst follows. It feels as though my body has become immediately addicted to it and it’s been 30 seconds too long since I’ve had my last fix.

“Kill him.”

My body obeys and my mind fades to black as to save me from remembering my next actions.

The transition must have completed itself or completed enough that I get the pleasure of witnessing my chaos because I’m self aware again. Barely but I’m in control of myself again which is more than before. A broken voice from under me catches my attention and I look down as it calls to me again.

“It’s okay.”

I stare with a wild look in my eye at the hard body beneath me. I can hear every movement inside of his body. I can hear every shallow move of his chest and how the nerves in his back are screaming from being pressed into the hard floor. I can hear his lashes as they flutter against the top of his cheek. I can hear the tears that slip down the side of his face and how they splatter on the ground. I can hear as his body starts to accept its fate and it slows.

“It’s okay.”

I can hear the air being pushed from his lungs to his lips as his speaks.

“It’s okay.”

When my eyes finally focus, all I see is the beaten and bloody face of my mate laying under me. The knife I’m holding is pressing into the soft skin of his throat while thin black lines of blood mix with his tears.

“Bucky,” is all I manage to choke out.

His eyes open and even though, he is dying, he still smiles at me.

“Y/n,” he whispers back, “there you are.”

“I can’t…i can’t.”

“I know and it’s okay,” he tells me as my hand presses the knife harder against my will.

“It’s not. It’s not,” I ramble, trying to force my hand to move but stays put, “It’s not fucking okay.”

“When I found you but couldn’t have you and all I had was my dreams, I didn’t care what you were doing. Only that you were with me,” he tells me, “even if you were trying to kill me.”

He lets out a sad chuckle, “it’s ironic that this is how it ends for me.”

My tears start to blur my vision and he gently wipes them away for me, “i wish we could’ve had more time, Y/N. Then I would’ve got the chance to tell you how in love with you I am.”

“Fuck,” i scream.

My knife presses harder. It’s met with little resistance.

“I love you too.”

The turning process didn’t hurt but it wasn’t pleasant. I was hyper aware of every little thing and i became so over stimulated that i threatened to cut my own ears off if Sam didn’t stop breathing so hard.

I think the hardest part was not having Bucky there with me, to guide me, to comfort me, to love me when I couldn’t love myself for becoming what I’d hated for so long.

Sam could only do so much and with no other friendly vamps handy, all I had was myself and the unconscious body of my mate to attend to, a distraction from the burning bond in my chest.

A startled gasp yanks me from my sleep and I blink frantically as my eyes adjust to the lights. Bucky is sitting straight up in the makeshift cot Sam and I scrounged together. He’s looking around the room, taking in his surroundings as he comes to the realization that he’s alive.

“Took you long enough,” I tease him while standing and moving to sit on the bed’s edge.

“Y/N?”

“Bucky.”

He throws himself at me, pulling me into the most bone crushing hug he can manage in his weakened state. Burying his face in my neck, Bucky takes deep breaths in and his body shudders when it recognizes me. I wrap my arms around him too and we stay like this for a while. I’m not sure how long but it’ll never be long enough.

Eternity would not be long enough but luckily we have it so we can at least try.

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes fic #marvel imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #van helsing retold bucky #van helsing retold bucky barnes #vampire!bucky x reader #vampire bucky barnes #vampire au

[lacyscabinet]

i have a request queen 💪 do you think you could do like Nat’s reaction to if reader got attacked by the wolf instead of Van? or like if Nat and reader were with that group and reader gets attacked?

OH GOD NAT WOULD BE TERRIFIED, thanks for the request!! I decided to make reader go with Taissa while Nat stayed at the cabin (Y'all I promise I'll write the Shauna fic soon but I think I'm not cut to write for the other YJ 😭 but I'll give it a try) Muahhhhh

MASTERLIST

For the better

Nat knew it.

You weren't supposed to go.

"Come on y/n, please, stay" she almost begged you while you were packing your stuff to go with Taissa in hope to find help and get everyone rescued

"Nat" you turned around to face her "It's the right thing to do, maybe we can get help"

"But we don't know where we are, we don't know if it's safe and I just think we should stick together" She kept pushing.

Sensing her stubbornness you sat down next to her in the old bed "I am going, and yes, I'm going to miss you, but it's for the better" you reassuringly smiled up at her, pecking her lips, she kissed back immediately, not wanting to lose a moment with you.

"It's time to go" Van interrupted the kiss yelling from the door, so you grabbed your backpack and headed outside to say your goodbyes.

After you had left, the cabinet was no longer the same. Every task Nat used to do you was now a solo job. No more hunting together, no more doing domestic things together, no more cuddling, no more you.

A couple of days passed and Nat wasn't still over it, her friends starting to get worried.

Until, one afternoon she heard something while everyone was just doing their thing on the porch

"HELP!" It was Misty, screaming at the top of her lungs, she was quickly followed by Tai and the others, in that moment Nat immediately noticed you leaning on Tai's shoulder, deep cuts on you cheeks and blood all over you

"OH GOD!" she exclaimed and ran over to you and helped to carry you inside the cabin, she had never felt more scared in her entire life "What the fuck happened to her?" She asked Taissa while placing you on the table "We were asleep and...the wolves...they..."

Natalie's eyes widened, you had been attacked.

Screaming in pain and breathing heavily you were forcefully held down by all the girls while Akailah tried to keep your head still to stitch you up

"She keeps moving, I can't do this" she slightly panicked

"I got it" Nat mumbled and shifted position to hold your head from your hair in order to stabilize you "It's going to be okay y/n, I love you, it's going to be just fine"

She wasn't sure if she believed it herself in the first place, she wasn't sure it was going to work, she wasn't sure if you were gonna make it, but one thing was for sure, it wasn't for the better.

#natalie scatorccio #yellowjackets #natalie scatorccio x reader #nat scatorccio #nat scatorccio x reader #yellowjackets x reader #nat scatorccio x #natalie scatorccio x y/n #yellowjackets x you #writers on tumblr

[vickyvicarious]

"I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak."

+

"I want you to hypnotise me!" she said. "Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short!"

There's a lot going on here, I think, but one of the key details to me is Mina referring repeatedly to her own ability to speak. It's very interesting, because in point of fact, what she does next is basically look through Dracula's eyes. She uses 'I' then too, as does Van Helsing - "Where are you now?" not "Where is he?", "What are you doing?", and so on.

Mina seems to inhabit Dracula's body briefly, following the link he created between them in order to spy upon him the way he perhaps may have intended to spy upon her/them. She has obviously not been sitting idly, but has been thinking about what Dracula said when he forced her to drink his blood:

"You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says "Come!" to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this!"

There is a mental link there apparently, and she knows already from Lucy that a sleepwalking/trance state opens you up more to Dracula's influence. She knows from Van Helsing's research that Dracula is weaker during the day, beginning at sunrise, and so that's why she hurries to put her plan into action immediately. In such a state, Mina will be extremely vulnerable and unable to direct her own actions... but with Van Helsing doing so instead he can unlock the secrets she will have access to. Mina is doing what she's always done best, taking disperate pieces of information and connecting them to find a lead to follow/build a plan of action. Even the words Dracula spoke specifically to torture her with fear are getting used against him, because they contained information and Mina knows what to do with information.

(I love her so much.)

But there's another element to this as well. A recurring theme with people who have been affected by Dracula is their inability to speak about what they know/have experienced. I used to think it was kind of a passive effect of him feeding off of you, but Renfield being unable to speak, and Mina telling the story on October 3rd, makes me think it is something he does deliberately, or at least can choose to suspend partially when convenient.

So far, the effects of this ability seem to have been thus:

Lucy hid her bite marks. She only vaguely seemed able to connect her dreams and the bats to what was happening to her in her diary, but unable to speak of them. She tore up the final message she had written** while asleep.

Renfield was unable to speak directly about Dracula coming to him and being let into the asylum, or about him preying upon Mina, despite clearly trying as hard as he could to get the information across.

Mina had all the pieces but for the first time wasn't able to see the relevance of them, so despite knowing Dracula was next door and knowing what she dreamed of matched his other victims' experiences, she dismissed those as nothing but fear/worries. She clung to Jonathan and was obviously subconsciously aware but not on any level she could verbalize (aloud or even to herself). She was able to tell of the attack that involved her directly speaking with Dracula, and that was witnessed by others. Either this means this ability only works when their is some level of plausible deniability, so to speak, or he deliberately wanted to torment them all with what he told her. I definitely lean towards the latter.

** (I think Dracula deliberately allowed Lucy to write her memorandum as a final taunt before her death, but when he came by the next day and she was still alive for the time being, he wanted it gone so he could still have access to her without showing his hand too much. This is supported by her writing of the specks swirling in the room, suggesting he was there watching her write the letter. It's very in-character for him to want to taunt his defeated foes and let them know how she suffered, but he was trying to remain hidden the entire time he was preying upon Lucy so I think he didn't want to confirm any suspicions they may have had about his abilities and give them more ways to counter him. They already were learning with the garlic flowers.)

So Mina emphasizing that she knows of a way she can speak freely is so interesting to me. She has found a workaround, bringing the information trapped in her subconscious to the fore and giving voice to the part of herself that knew all along what was happening but couldn't reach the surface. Even what happens after she is woken supports this, since she had to ask about what she'd said but didn't seem surprised by any of it. Deep down she already knew.

This relationship between the subconscious and the vampires is nothing new. They have been putting people in trances only when they're in some kind of vulnerable state like Lucy's sleepwalking or Jonathan's misery clouding his mind as he stared blankly out the window - and even then he was awake and could more easily break free, unlike when he was half-asleep and nearly eaten on the couch. Van Helsing was sure that Lucy dying in her sleep was why she became a vampire, and that it even had an effect on her undead self. We know of this.

However this is the first time anyone on our side has deliberately tapped into it. And it immediately pays off by unlocking those hidden experiences. (Which brings up heartbreaking questions, like 'if they'd thought to hypnotize Lucy would she have told them exactly what was happening to her?') Mina has reversed the usual course, has tapped into Dracula's subconscious instead (or at least that is how I have read it). She isn't merely in his body - she is him, for a little while, at least a little bit:

"Then you are on a ship?" We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick:—

"Oh, yes!"

"What else do you hear?"

"The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the rachet."

"What are you doing?"

"I am still—oh, so still. It is like death!" The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again.

By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day.

This is where I come back to my original point about Mina using first-person pronouns here. As she is asked questions, she describes not only hearing sounds, but is able to identify them as distinct objects. I don't think Mina personally has enough knowledge of ships to immediately recognize the capstan falling into the racket - that is Dracula, knowing he is aboard and what is happening. Similarly, Mina is able to immediately confirm that she's on a ship when asked. She doesn't puzzle it out or clue anything together, she just knows because Dracula knows and she's currently at least partially Dracula.

It's only when the questions shift from what is around her to what she herself is doing that she wakes. This could be partially about the time, but since dawn is already fully over I'm not so sure. It may be that focusing on Dracula himself has drawn his attention and he cuts the connection off. Or maybe it is dangerous for Mina to dive too deeply into feeling what Dracula feels, and some part of her is what breaks the connection.

Regardless, I find this whole scene fascinating. Especially in the context of how Jonathan and Dracula are stealing/exchanging traits from one another:

Dracula stole Jonathan's identity

Dracula has gotten younger/darker hair while Jonathan now has white hair

Jonathan climbing on walls/out windows like Dracula

Dracula making Mina 'his', like he's stealing Jonathan's marriage and instituting his own version

Dracula is now the one making a mad dash to flee the country while Jonathan is the one consumed with an unholy drive to destroy

...and so on. But here, Mina is tapping into this exchange of identities as well. Dracula is trying to make her like him? She becomes him, and uses it to help them all hunt him down and destroy him for good.

It's just super fascinating to me.

#dracula daily #dracula meta #my meta #this got waaaay longer than i thought it would

[jo-harrington]

As Above, So Below - Prologue: Annunciation

Prequels: Heaven - Hell - Purgatory

Summary: Burdened by a centuries-long curse, you must follow the path fate has set for you and defeat evil that roams the Earth. You've left everything your heart desires behind to follow this path, and unfortunately, it still isn't enough. Fate has other plans for you, and for your love, Eddie Munson.

Word Count: 6.9k (nice)

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!OC (Told in 2nd Person POV - you/your)

Warnings/Themes: Violence, Death/Suicide, Torture, Body Horror, Blood, Established Relationship, Romance, Religious Themes, Criticism of Religion/Catholicism, Fate vs. Free Will, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: Welcome to As Above, So Below, my take on Kas!Eddie fic and a story inspired by Van Helsing (2004). This story has 3 prequels linked above that I highly recommend you read as this story will reference them.

This story is going to be EXTREMELY HEAVY to write, so I will not be putting out a posting schedule. Chapters will get posted as they are completed, however long that takes.

Please keep in mind, although this is an OC fic, our Knight will not be named or have physical descriptions noted. She is of European/Italian-American descent on her father's side. She was raised Roman Catholic, but her beliefs are very loose and you will see why if you read. You are free to imagine her as you wish. But her cultural identity will be referenced in this story, at least at the beginning and the end.

This series will not be for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

“Do not be afraid […] for you have found favor with God […] With God, nothing will be impossible.” — Luke 1:28-37

March 25th, 1986

In your short time on this earth, you had certainly seen a lot. Mysteries of the universe were made known to you, you'd encountered heroes and villains alike—monsters, even—and been to many places, far and wide.

But you could honestly say that you had never set foot in a lair before today.

And, truly, lair was the only word you could use to describe this place.

Vaulted ceilings, marble floors, velvet curtains. There was an elaborate organ set up on a platform and an ominous set of stairs that descended deeper into the ground at the far end of the room.

Eddie would say this looked like something out of a C-list horror movie or a James Bond film.

You were already deep enough as it was; you'd navigated through an abandoned old mansion and the Los Angeles County sewer system just to get here. To anyone else, it would have seemed as though it took some divine intervention to find this place at all, but the divine is what you knew best.

Archbishop Jinette had given you minimal information to stop the evil that was at play. A ritual to bring forth a River of Life that would flood the San Gabriel Valley and kill millions. More importantly, to Jinette at least, it would create a rift in the fabric of reality that would cause a surge of Heavenly Power to flow freely throughout the Earth.

The Church never cared about the details, didn't care if a sacrifice or two came about, as long as their power remained safe. So the Who's and How's and Why's were left up to you. Thankfully your adversary had been careless with the clues he left behind.

You couldn't tell if it was a coincidence or not. Easter was a few days away so a River of Life made sense but surely a ritual that mirrored the ten plagues of Egypt would be more fitting a little closer to Passover.

"Doctor," you called out, your voice echoed through the cavernous room. You gripped your weapon—a nightstick taken off the body of the police officer that had been swarmed by locusts—and ventured forwards. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help."

"You are not here to help," a stiff, croaking, disembodied voice reached your ears, filtered through some sort of unseen sound system. "You're here to stop me."

"Stop you from killing anymore innocent people," you explained.

"One remains," the voice replied. "Nine shall die. Nine eternities in doom."

"It will be a lot more than that if you don't stop whatever it is you have planned." You tried to reason with him, but you were met with silence. "Doctor! Doctor Phibes!"

Music suddenly blasted through the sound system and the room went dark, the only source of light came from whatever lay at the bottom of the stairs.

You knew the doctor wasn't done talking, he was just luring you deeper into his web to tip the playing field in his favor. You both knew there was no time to waste, so you walked into the trap willingly, with swift feet and a brave, but possibly foolish, heart.

Below the cavernous lair was an even bigger cavern still; a half-finished room with the same marble floors that suddenly gave way to rock formations and stalagmites and an underground river that offered a steady roar of rushing water. You didn't know where to rest your eyes, there were too many carefully crafted horrors laid out before you.

An altar with a body carefully placed atop it, a series of nine half-melted wax busts, a four-piece jazz band comprised of mechanical figures, a sterile area with a surgical table, and a ragged man who was elbow deep in another person's chest cavity.

A heavy hand clamped on your shoulder and you jumped to find the elusive Doctor Anton Phibes behind you. He was an imposing man who towered above you, his face sallow, waxy, and sagging. His red-rimmed eyes were bright with lively mischief, although his aura was heavy with the infernal stench of death.

You expected him to speak, but he simply tilted his head forward and urged you towards the altar. Not a question or suggestion, but an order.

You quickly weighed the possibility that if you killed him, struck him down, the ritual would simply end. Of course, then came the equally possible outcome that it would only hasten it.

Phibes pushed you the last bit of distance until you fell against the altar table itself and came face to face with the body resting there. You knew a dead body when you saw one, and generally you disagreed when people said they looked as if they were sleeping....this one however...she was peaceful in her eternal rest.

Face was full and serene, plump lips painted a succulent violet, with long, kohl-laden lashes that kissed her blush-dusted cheeks. Her skin was glowing and her long black hair had been fluffed and haloed around her. Her hands were folded below her chest and a lovely bejeweled ring glinted in the light of the candles that flickered from beside her on the altar.

The woman was preserved perfectly. Unnaturally.

"She's beautiful," you muttered.

"My wife," Phibes' voice croaked from beside you. You glanced over your shoulder to find that he had held a cord that ran from a porthole in the side of his neck to a phonograph-like speaker beside him. "My Rose. Taken from me far too soon, stolen from me."

"My God, please help my son," came an echoed mutter from the sterile area across the room. The surgeon had his bloodied hands folded in prayer as they rested on his patient's chest.

"Murdered!" Phibes voice grew louder and wrathful. "Don't cry upon God, Dr. Vesalius. He is on my side."

"And how do you know He's on your side," you questioned and Phibes' eyes cut back to you.

"He led me here," he explained. "Showed me the way in the quest for vengeance. Showed me the key to resurrection for my beloved and eternal life for us both. I plan to move Heaven and Earth to achieve it."

"Who are you to resurrect her?" you asked. "To bring about devastation for your wife? Is that His plan? The death of millions for the life of one?"

"He told me of you too, little Knight," he ignored your question. "It's how I knew to expect your arrival. He told me that you would appear to stop me."

"You're not only here to enact God's plan but to prophesize as well?"

"He said you would be the last step in bringing me back to my beloved Rose."

"So I must die too?"" You shrugged. "I'm the ninth?"

"No," he croaked. "Vesalius. Or rather, his wretched son. You must complete the ritual."

"I could kill you instead."

"Oh, but virtuous little Knight, I'm already dead." He released the cord and lifted his hands to his face. He peeled the waxy flesh and the tufts of hair on his head to reveal a twisted and burnt husk beneath. He was skeletal, barely a visage left; his nasal cavity shook with each labored breath and his exposed jaw clenched every so often.

Phibes inserted the cord into the porthole once again.

"I lost everything," he explained. "I lost my life, my purpose. And just when I thought it was enough, I lost my love too. I asked myself over and over: what was God's plan in taking it all away from me, in the blink of an eye? All at once? When I decided I would do anything—sacrifice anything—just to bring her back, He showed me the path and I took it. Wouldn't you? If you'd lost your love, what wouldn't you do, give, to get them back?"

A bitterness settled deep in your gut.

What did he know? What didn't he know? What was God's plan?

You'd asked yourself this many times over the course of your life, had become desensitized to the constant lack of an answer. Fate was an answer you couldn't stomach anymore.

So you had tried to run from it, only to collide with it instead. Fate cruelly led you to Eddie, and then away from him again...to protect him from the pain that was your damned life.

Yes, you would have done anything for him, even let him go. Love, for you, had to wait so that Fate wouldn't have been tempted to take him away.

Like it had for Phibes and Rose.

As you turned and stared down at Rose again...you felt for them...you truly did.

"Do you know resurrection takes more than just...some fancy ritual?" you asked Phibes. You could hear his feet shuffling closer to you. "It's unpredictable. The soul...the soul needs to be put back together, and by the time they ascend...or descend..."

"Rose was an angel," Phibes interjected and insisted. "My angel. My muse."

"...sometimes it's too late. How long has it been?"

"4 years."

"The ancient Egyptians had it right," you explained. "The Ka, the Ba...the Ahk...to put her back together after this long...would be impossible. Moving Heaven and Earth? More like breaking the walls between them. We could complete this ritual and resurrect her, but even still I don't think she would be whole ever again. She'd never really be your wife."

"And when would I have had to..."

"24 hours...48, maybe?" you offered.

Phibes' eyes slowly shut and he let out a painful hissing noise you could only attribute to a wail, or whatever equivalent his body could produce.

"I'm sorry," you muttered, hoping to provide some sort of balm on his wounded spirit. "But she's in Heaven...waiting for you."

You moved out of the way as Phibes collapsed on the altar and spoke in garbled tones to Rose's body, the cord pulled out of the porthole. Whatever confession in his mind was just for them.

You immediately ran across the cavern to Dr. Vesalius and his son. The surgeon sobbed his thanks to you as you began to work on the younger man. You didn't get the opportunity to heal others often—you were used more as an instrument of destruction than one of renewal—though the capability was always there. You dug deep into the celestial light within you and slowly his wounds knit back together.

Once Lem regained consciousness, Vesalius tugged at the restraints. Another spark of your power severed the chains and set the boy free and before long, father and son scampered up the steps and out of this pit of despair.

Vesalius had grabbed your hand before they had, though.

"Thank you," he said. "You're a hero."

No...you were nothing of the sort.

You walked back to the altar to check on Phibes, only to find his form still as it lay next to his wife.

"Doctor?" you shook him. "Doctor?"

You pushed him onto his side and a knife clattered to the marble floor; you balked at the needle in his arm and a slash in his wrist that lazily dripped...dripped...dripped...

Tubes ran out from the needle and embalming fluid rapidly replaced blood. It hadn't been that long for you to heal Lem had it? Had this always been Phibes' plan if the ritual failed? He was sure that you would be the one...the last step in reuniting him and Rose.

You touched his chest and closed your eyes.

Eight were dead but the first born son lived. The ritual was unsuccessful. The secrets of what really happened would stay buried deep below the city.

You could feel it...the ambient energy stirring around Phibes...slowly leaking from every pore of this mortal prison as his body died and he began his ascent. Anton and his beloved Rose would spend eternity together.

He was a good man, a loving man, led astray...and God was willing to forgive him and let him into Heaven.

You looked around the room again and felt sick.

For all the money that the Catholic Church had, the best they could afford when they sent their attack dog—you—to save the world for the umpteenth time was a crappy roadside motel off the 101.

You were used to uncomfortable plane and train rides, questionable motels and cots shoved into the corners of storage rooms in monasteries and missions when space could be spared.

This was your life though.

You had run from the safety of your Nonna's home when you turned 18 and then again from your little apartment in Hawkins a little over a year ago after Fate finally caught up to you. The next closest thing to...a base of operations, if you could call it that, was a tiny, unkempt bungalow house in a small suburb in Chicago that you barely set foot in because evil reared its ugly head a little too much.

Home was not a luxury you could afford, and even if it was...for you, it wouldn't have been a place, it would have been a person.

So you took comfort after a trying assignment in crappy gas station food and lumpy beds because it reminded you of the home you wish you didn't have to leave behind.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you exclaimed as you kicked the door to your room open and found an unexpected visitor sitting crosslegged on the bed you hadn't claimed for yourself. He held a stack of palm branches in his hand, a small pile of folded crosses placed neatly beside him.

"Watch the way you talk," he began. "Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth."

"Is it not a little...weird for you to quote the Bible?" you asked.

"I didn't write it," he replied simply.

"Well your boss did." You fell onto the unoccupied bed and sighed. You didn't know if it was just the adrenaline finally wearing off after a successful end to your task—if you could call it successful—or something else. Something within you felt like you were...trapped under water.

"He did not either," he dismissed and went back to folding crosses. "You're planning to visit the cemetery." It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before Easter, if Jinette doesn't have another errand for me to run." You fished a bottle of YooHoo from your bag of snacks and offered one to him. His lips quirked and in a blink, all of the palms were folded into neat crosses and he was on his feet.

"Good." He stared at you blankly, expectantly, and it made you feel claustrophobic.

His presence was greater than what was apparent to the naked eye, and in times like these where he was about to spring something on you, your soul could sense the swell of his being. It never got easier.

"I know this isn't a social call or a job well done for preventing the destruction of the Earth for the hundredth time," you begin and cover your face with your hands. "I'm tired, so if you could please just—"

"You say that a lot," he noted.

"What?"

"That you're tired."

"It happens when you're a human," you retort.

"Then you will do well to listen to me now," he says gravely. You peek through your fingers to look at him. "Something is coming. Something bigger than you've ever encountered before."

"Shit, really?" you asked. "When will I have to go?"

"You won't," he stated with an air of finality. "Or else, you will die."

Your hands fell from your face as your ears started to ring and your pulse pounded in your head.

You'd heard many warnings in the past, throughout your life, from him. Pain, suffering, duty. This was the first time he had ever warned you of your death.

Why now? After all of the other missions you'd been given, after facing Hell on Earth dozens of times...

You always knew it was a possibility...but a guarantee?

"W-when...why...when?"

"Soon."

That was helpful. You couldn't even prepare. It would be sprung on you. The next time you were called into action maybe? Or the time after that?

"So I just...I tell...tell Jinette o-or whatever Bishop that I can—” you stammered and he cut you off.

"This is not something that they will ask you to do," he explained. "This is something you will feel compelled to do. Strongly compelled. But you must heed my warning, young one. For you will perish and damnation will surely await you."

"I don't understand," you squeezed your eyes shut. "Isn't...isn't it already awaiting me? What makes this any different?"

"Because it will hurt. It will destroy you." What would...the task? Or the damnation? There was a rustle of wings and a roar of fire in your ears. "Do not be afraid."

They were words you had never heard from his mouth, but you knew he had said them before.

When you opened your eyes, he was gone, and you were left in the motel room alone.

"Gabriel?" You called for him, like you used to when you were a child and nightmares of monsters and demons plagued you. When you used to look for comfort when your father was off on a quest so similar to your own and your mother had no way to sooth you on her own. "Gabriel!"

March 27th, 1986

You knew from the moment you woke up that morning, something was off. As though you were operating on a different frequency than usual. You felt simultaneously sluggish and as though lightning surged just beneath your skin.

It didn't happen often, if ever really, which is what caused some alarm.

Perhaps when you were much younger and your abilities began to manifest. The holy light within you couldn't be contained by such a young body. It had led to massacres and miracles alike.

You remembered seeing Empire Strikes Back for the first time and feeling a kinship with Luke. "Luminous beings are we, not this cruel matter," a phrase you muttered to yourself often, taking comfort in the Light, when your future could only possibly be shrouded in Darkness.

It had taken years to control it, and you were well past grown now, but somehow you couldn't just shake the feeling that plagued you today. It was as though your fight or flight response was primed and ready, despite no danger in sight.

If Archbishop Jinette was any sort of reliable figure in your life, you would have confided in him. Looked to him for guidance. For help. Instead, you'd sat in his office with him for the past hour as he debriefed and lectured you—reamed you—for your handling of Phibes and the ritual.

"It was, quite frankly, irresponsible," he said for the tenth time. His cassock swished around him as he paced before you. "The number of innocent lives that could have been lost."

You rolled your eyes, fully of the belief that he wouldn't have given a shit about any other lives lost at all. You used to give Jinette—give all of your handlers—the benefit of the doubt, used to believe that they cared about innocents. Maybe they had once, but now it was twisted by the power their positions afforded them.

Once they donned a pectoral cross, guilt no longer affected them. It was only a tool used to bend others to their will.

"How can we rely on you to your duty fully if you take the time to negotiate?" He asked. "If you try to reason with agents of evil?"

"Phibes was not evil. He mentioned that God led him to this path," you interjected, and Jinette stopped in his tracks. "That He led Phibes to the ritual in order to reunite him with his wife."

"They would be reunited in Heaven," Jinette dismissed with a hiss. He turned his judgmental, wet eyes to you and glared pointedly. You knew exactly the warning he was trying to convey and you straightened your shoulders.

"It must have been the devil in disguise. Trickery. You, more than anyone, should know how easy it is to fall for temptation." The burn of his stare became righteous, but it was not what caused you to turn your eyes downward.

Was temptation really so bad if it brought you peace? If it made you feel more whole than you'd ever felt in your life? A year with Eddie and you felt sure in your skin, safe, loved. Was that bad? Did that make you evil?

You had let your pain get the best of you in the moment, but after a few days of clarity...Phibes had been right...

What you wouldn't give right now to be back there? To be anywhere but here?

It was regret.

There was a sharp knock at the office door and Jinette sighed and looked at the clock.

"It is time for Mass," he announced. "Think on your sins and the Lord may offer his forgiveness."

After he vacated the office, you forced yourself to your feet, trudged through the rectory, and into the cathedral where you slid into one of the last pews. You would hardly consider yourself a devout attendee—certainly not as you disassociated through the psalms and readings—but you knew if you missed Mass after your supposed sins, there would be Hell to pay.

"...Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world. He loved his own in this world and he loved them til the end..."

You'd heard this Mass before, the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Not your typical Sunday service, so you couldn’t recite it verbatim, but familiar enough. Your Nonna dragged you to as many masses as she could, in every language offered at the local parish, hoping to spare you of this fate in a way she couldn't spare her son or her husband.

Over the years, her hand shrunk in yours. What was once a healthy, strong hand that guided you became small and weak, shriveled and brittle. Until one day, there was no hand left to hold at all.

"...I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

You spotted a group of women further up the aisle. Novitiates, probably. You could sense a tenuous peace about them. One could tell she was being watched and she turned to look at you. She was young, maybe around your age, and her eyes were wide and curious.

You tried to smile at her, encourage her—it was all you could do not to scream, actually—but she rolled her eyes a little and turned back around.

The sound of rustling bodies washed through the Cathedral like a wave as everyone got to their feet—

"Pray my Sisters and Brothers that my sacrifice and yours should be acceptable to God, The Father, Almighty."

—and as you rose, your stomach dropped.

Your body burned.

It felt like a thousand cuts were made along your skin. You gasped for breath but could find no air. Your bones cracked and crunched beneath an invisible weight, and the pressure felt as though your sides would split and your insides spill out through phantom wounds.

You fell to your knees and grasped the back of the pew in front of you. You tried to make a noise, to call for help, but nothing could overcome the rumble of the congregants.

"Lord have Mercy. Christ have Mercy."

The polished wood splintered under your grip before the world went dark.

When your eyes opened, you were met with a muted haze. A dark sky, with clouds that shifted in tandem with the howling wind, sizzled with infernal lightning over and over.

You laid on cold, damp ground. You could feel it seep through your clothes and leech into your skin, deeper and deeper, until it settled uneasily in your bones. An acrimonious rigor that would have overtaken you had you allowed it.

Something deep within your subconscious wanted you to.

You needed to gain control quickly.

Your fingers dug into the thick, unforgiving clay of the earth beneath you, and you pushed yourself upright, only to be met with a chilling sight that made your heart stop in your chest.

His was body was aligned with yours, the soles of his feet just inches away from brushing against you. His skin was pale and smeared with gore, and his ripped clothes belied the true extent of his injuries. He choked on his blood with fit of coughs, too wet for a death rattle. He was practically drowning in his own life's essence.

Eddie Munson lay dying in front of you, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Your mind raced. Was this a vision? A prophecy? The gift of sight had never been one you could tap into before. Why now?

Was this a warning? If you didn't stay on the path He had in store for you, didn't listen to those He tasked to guide you, would this be your future?

You could hear a voice—an ominous, venomous voice—at the very corners of your mind, speaking to Eddie.

They left you behind. Left you to this fate. Left you to me.

What did that mean? You didn't leave Eddie. Not really. A part of you would always be with him.

You struggled and scrambled to get to his side. Your hands were unsure of where to touch him, how you could let him know you would be there without bringing him more pain.

He looked up at you with unseeing eyes.

"Eddie, please, please," you begged. "I'm here, I'm here with you."

His eyes wrenched shut and he cried out, mouth opening in a feral, heartbreaking howl.

To do with you what I please.

You knew it wasn't the Devil's voice. He wouldn't taunt and tease this way. It had to be some other malevolent creature who tried to get an innocent soul in its' clutches.

You closed your eyes and concentrated, tried to pour as much of your light into Eddie as you could, but despite his body being torn open the way that it was, he simply would not receive the help you could give.

You knew you couldn't leave him.

But Eddie was already gone.

And do to you, I shall...

When you came to, mass was over.

The closing hymn, heavy with organ song, rang throughout the cathedral as the procession made its way back up the aisle. You watched as Jinette glared at your prone form, laying on the pew, as he passed, but a light voice offered a distraction.

"Slowly, there you go, wake up," it said. A small, strong hand shook your shoulder then carefully tapped your face. "Sister Margaret went to call an ambulance."

"No," you groaned. "No ambulance. I'm fine." You immediately tried to push yourself upright, but the hands held you down to the pew.

"Don't get up, I don't know if you hit your head."

"I don't think so," you muttered. The pain that had wracked your body was nothing but a memory, a tell tale static that surrounded you, much the same way it would if your foot fell asleep.

You finally got your wits about you and found that your savior was the young woman you spotted earlier. Hell, if she didn't already think you were some creep off the street who'd wandered into the cathedral before...

"You're a part of the Order, right?" she asked disarmingly and pointed down to the small medallion that must have escaped from the confines of your shirt when you collapsed. Your hand immediately went to it and tucked it back into its hiding place; it was a reminder...a shackle. "A Knight of the Holy Order. Mother Superior said to steer clear of you if we ever crossed paths with you. She didn't say much else.

"I never thought I'd see one...just...pass out during mass."

"We're normal people," you sighed. "Not...Gods."

"Saints?"

"Sinners," you clarified and she laughed lightly.

"Yeah, me too" she agreed then frowned again. "Do you feel well enough to sit up?”

"I'm fine, just...tired," you explained and pushed her away from you. "I need to get back..."

"Back home?" she asked eagerly.

"Back to my motel." You got to your feet as the organ music stopped and the last few stragglers left. "Thank you for staying with me..."

"Oh...uh...Mary...Victoria..." she provided her name and you must have made a face. "I'm still working on it. I know I have time. But Victoria was my grandmother's name...so..."

"Well, I think it's a lovely name then," you offered a tight smile and your own name, then shuffled past her to make your escape. "See you around Mary Victoria."

March 30th, 1986

In the days following Holy Thursday, something was still off.

You had woken up the following morning with a sore jaw and a hoarse voice. Sometime later that day, you'd started crying blood. Only for an hour, but there was no controlling it. You were overwhelmed with emotion.

Hopelessness was the most prominent of them all.

You hadn't blacked out again, but something lingered beneath the surface. Given Gabriel's warning, you figured it would be best to lay low.

You knew it was a futile attempt to try and summon Gabriel again; he appeared when he felt like it or when it would best serve God.

The only time you’d ever desperately called for him, as fire almost consumed you and damp earth threatened to bury you alive, it had fallen on indifferent ears. It was then that you realized stories about Guardian Angels were just that: stories.

So instead, you went about your day as you typically would. Unless you were summoned somewhere by the clergy, they generally left you to your own devices. Especially on Holy Days like today.

Your plans for Easter Sunday specifically consisted of visiting the local cemeteries—

You would miss mass at the Cathedral today. Running your hands along the marble headstones and brass nameplates of those long-since-passed-and-forgotten and offering them a thought or two brought you more peace than any prayer or blessing would.

—and getting absolutely hammered.

You weren't a big drinker, really, since you typically were expected to have your wits about you. But it was a Holiday and you were far from home and alone. You made a blind choice at the liquor store on your way back from the cemetery, and it would numb you either to the point of blacking out, or make you give into your temptations to call Eddie.

You'd been thinking about him more lately.

Well...that was a lie, you always thought about him. Thought about calling, about visiting. You knew you couldn't trust yourself, so you did what you could to keep him safe. You skipped the letter M in the phonebook on the off chance he had finally made it out of Hawkins to follow his dream. Made it a point not to drive through Indiana if you could help it.

Maybe you didn't want to help it anymore. Maybe you should...maybe not visit...just call him.

Someone had left behind an honest-to-God glass in your motel room, and after a thorough cleaning, you poured yourself a helping of the nondescript amber liquid. It burned on the way down. Maybe it was a warning about the bad decisions that lay ahead of you.

You'd been tempted to call for his birthday last year, for Christmas...you sent a card. No return address, no name. Just a heart. You hoped he knew it was you because he always said your hearts looked like butts.

Another glass and you stood in front of the nightstand. You stared, transfixed, at the dingy rotary phone as you sipped your drink, savoring the burn this time. As if it had a mind of its own, your hand moved to grab the handset, but it just hovered for a moment.

How would Eddie answer? What would you say? What if it wasn't Eddie at all, what if it was Wayne? What if Wayne told you...that Eddie was spending Easter at a girlfriend's house? What would you do? What could you do? You practically forced him to say that he would wait for you...could you really blame him if he didn't?

Next to the phone was the remote for the television.

You hadn't really left him much hope after all.

You grabbed the remote and mindlessly aimed it behind you to turn the small set on. As it came to life and started bleating a commercial for some local restaurant, you momentarily prayed that it wasn't one of those Biblical epics, like The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Instead, the commercial ended and, as you poured yourself one more glass, the sterile voice of a newscaster reached your ears.

"...currently 68 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center. Lovely weather for Easter Sunday. For our top story, we bring you live to our own Robert Gilroy in Roane County, Indiana. Rob?"

You turned in shock and stared, dumbfounded, as the screen flashed to show a severe man in a brown suit. He frowned at the camera while a convoy of cars inched by behind him. You couldn't help but notice plumes of black smoke in the distance and you hoped that it was just a defect with the cheap motel tv.

"Thank you Laura. It's been less than 48 hours since a 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake rocked the quaint town of Hawkins, 80 miles outside of Indianapolis in an event that seismologists are calling a natural disaster of near unprecedented scale."

A wash of colorful stripes rolled across the screen before it showed b-roll of people running and crying, of a team of firefighters desperately trying to extinguish the burning Hawkins Public Library building, that was half rubble anyway, a man in camo bandaging a little girl's leg.

"The death toll now stands at 22, but with hundreds more filling Roane County hospitals and many more still missing, officials expect those numbers to rise."

You immediately dropped your glass and turned back to the phone, fumbling with the rotary dial to input a number you knew by heart.

"Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up." You listened as the ringing went on and on and on. You hung up and dialed again, and you desperately hoped you just got the number wrong. You screamed as it didn't even ring, but blared a taunting busy signal. "No! No! Who are you talking to? Pick up!"

"This is only the latest tragedy to befall this once safe town. Most recently, a string of high school students were killed in a series of ritualistic murders which have been linked to a local Satanic cult known as Hellfire."

Your blood ran cold at the word Hellfire and you refused to look at the television.

There was more b-roll, some chitter chatter saying how the Hellfire boys were always up to no good. How some upstanding students were killed, taken too soon.

Your breathing got heavy, enough that you started becoming lightheaded. The alcohol didn't help at all.

You tried to savor the last few minutes of ignorance as you wrenched your eyes shut, because if you didn't see it. It wasn't real.

"Eddie Munson, the leader of this cult and prime suspect in the murders..."

But you knew. You knew that this was the moment. You knew that this was what Gabriel meant. If you went to Hawkins, if you had to fight for Eddie, you would do it in a heartbeat and you wouldn't stop until you died.

"...has been missing since the earthquake..."

Those seconds that the reporter needed to take his dramatic breath were an eternity, one you would savor. Because it was easier to pretend that the only thing you had to do was just stop yourself from going to Hawkins, stop yourself from being selfish and wrathful, to punish those who would accuse the sweet, dumb, foolish, clumsy, trustworthy innocent love of your life.

It was just easier if you still lived in a world where you didn't have to hear what you knew was coming next.

"...and is presumed dead."

People often mistook the power of heaven to be one of peace, of hope, of new beginnings. And it could be. It usually was. But they forgot that the beginning of one thing was also the end of something else.

Divine retribution, a burning smiting wrath, the like of which had leveled Sodom and Gomorrah, flowed freely with your grief. It was illogical and irrational and inexplicable to any mortal, including you.

You remembered screaming.

Remembered the pain of the bones in your fingers splintering as you dug them into your skull. Your nails cut deep into the flesh of your scalp as you peeled the hair and flesh, as you opened the top of yourself to release the pressure that had suddenly and violently built up in your core.

Glass disintegrated into sand, furniture turned to ash, even the frame of the building began to buckle.

But there was a voice that called your name. A soft, sobbing voice that pulled you back from the edge of whatever precipice you subconsciously teetered on.

"It’ll be ok. I’m here."

You could practically feel arms slither around you, the phantom weight of them pressed into your skin. Dextrous fingers wove together with yours, soothed them, healed them. They caressed your wounds and the broken flesh stitched itself back together.

A cool breath grazed your ear and the screams that ripped from you began to subside. It shushed you and said unascertainable words of comfort as your fury subsided into woe.

"Close your eyes. It'll all go away if you don't look."

"But you're gone," you wept. The tears rolled down your cheeks and over your lips. You sniffled and licked at them; blood, again. "Why?"

There was no answer. You were about to open your eyes, eager to see and not just to feel, but the fingers glided over your face again. Over your cheeks to wipe the blood from them, over your lips to play with the softness of them, then over your eyelids.

Places he liked to kiss...places you wished you could feel lips instead...wished you could know that he was there.

"I'll never really leave. Even if you can't see me. I’m here.”

Every fiber of your being wanted to go, would have walked to Hawkins, run til your feet bled, to find his body. To clear his name. To say goodbye.

To die a most miserable death. Like Phibes and his Rose.

You would leave this world, happily, if it meant you could be by his side. But there was no guarantee. You could toil for a lifetime and hope to join him, and still be denied access to Heaven.

“I’ll be waiting for you. As long as it takes. I’ll be here.”

You heard the lovely whisper of your name, over and over as you sunk to your knees and you curled in on yourself. Every second it faded into the depths of your mind, and you couldn't help but crack your eyes open.

Lightning struck, the firefighters would explain to you later, on a clear day. The building went ablaze and was destroyed, but all the rooms were empty except for yours. The paramedics said it was a miracle you weren't injured. They touched you lightly, almost reverently.

"Hallelujah."

You were alone again.

It was a disquieting procession.

The creatures moved in a way that seemed unnatural, unfamiliar to them. Their feet shuffled across the barren waste and they dragged a hulking beast behind them. It was a large and ominous and twitching thing, and although the formality of this event it felt like a funeral, you knew that you were witnessing a birth instead.

The wings conjured images of Beelzebub...but Asmodeus felt like a more fitting comparison given how familiar you were with the inner workings of its mind.

Thinking of him as Beast or It was wrong. It felt sinewy and astringent. A bite you were reluctant to take.

You bore witness for three days.

It took two to break him, but images would haunt your mind and your heart for eternity. You tried to protect him, tried to undo what was done. You offered him comfort and a place to hide when he desperately needed a break he would never get.

How he had survived it, you would never know? But he was always stronger than you; if not in body, then in spirit. You never lasted long before you were forced to pull him back in. If you had remained, given him a longer rest, you knew you would have broken before he did.

He finally begged for mercy. He finally relinquished his soul.

You would stay beside him. No matter what they did to him. No matter what he did to himself.

They dragged him to their pit to put him back together again, and you forced yourself to watch, to listen, and to pray that every addition and alteration would stick. That he wouldn't have gone through the torture only to perish so close to the end of it.

You wondered where prayers went when they were made in Hell. Did they reach God's ears? Were they intercepted by Lucifer and his court? Or did they just...float in the void of oblivion?

He muttered words, you'd even heard your name escape his lips several times before they filled his mouth with too many teeth to speak.

By the end of the third day, he rose again.

And you sobbed in relief because somehow the sight of him complete, the sight of him rising and blinking and roaring brought you more comfort and warmth and joy than you had ever felt in your cursed existence.

It didn't matter how grim of vision he was. There was a beauty in that too. The beauty existed...simply because he still did.

Whatever they did to him, he was alive, and he would always be your Eddie. And that meant you had a chance to save him.

“When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces.” — Jodi Picoult, The Pact

Special thanks to @big-ope-vibes and @pastel-pillows who can read even though she says she does not. And @fracturedarkness who I am determined to destroy/delight with this story.

Next Chapter: Illumination

#vampire eddie munson #vampire!eddie #kas!eddie #Eddie Munson fic #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: religious themes #stranger things fic #tw: suicide

[yanderu-deredere]

drawn.

★ they've just been so lonely, all by themselves in this abandoned little factory town. it's hard not to be attracted to someone so wonderful, so glittering and beautiful, someone like you

a/n: sorry i ended up not posting anything the past few days. ive been really struggling with chronic pain flare ups and general bullshit but you guys really encouraged me to come back! so here i am with the latest chapter of the cannibals!

minor changes with part three where i made it so that none of the friends come down to dinner hehehe wonder why? neway, you can go back and reread that if you'd like but it's not that big of a change.

finally, after teasing it for so long, it's the gore chapter ive been waiting for forever to write! with that said, please mind the warnings!

i feel like this got really long so i didn't really do as much as i wanted to... you'll see when u finish reading. if you think i should keep going, send a couple asks and maybe i'll write another extra chapter?

part one (hook.) ★ part two (line.) ★ part three (sink.) ★ extra (captive.) ★ part four (here) ★ part five (quartered.)

pairing: casimir fiala x reader x emmaline fiala word count: 3612

warning: gender neutral reader, mentions of throat knife violence, mentions of coroner's and mortician's equipment, descriptive head injuries, descriptive eye violence and gore, mentions of drugging someone nonconsensually, mentions of medical and recreational drug use

Casimir knew as soon as the white van pulled up into the factory town that his entire life would be completely turned around, that this group of rule breaking idiots would be different from the usual.

When he saw your cute little face peek out of the window, he knew exactly why.

Casimir always believed himself to be a man of science and he had explained away his fascination (or rather, attraction) to Emm by just acknowledging that the two of them were polar opposites and evolution simply made it so that human beings were attracted to their polar opposites.

Opposites attracted simply because it gave their offspring better survival chances.

But then, of course, you threw a wrench in all of that, didn't you? Because he knew nothing about you except that your entire face made his heart palpitate in his chest for no reason.

He didn't even know if your personality was good with his or if you would even irritate him with your small habits. But, still, he found his eyes attracted to you like a magnet to metal and he wanted more.

Emm felt exactly the same. Unlike Casimir, she believed in love at first sight. It's what she felt when she met Casimir after all.

She knew as soon as she saw the man that she wanted to ravish him and she knew as soon as she saw you that she wanted to ravish you too.

She loved Casimir; the two of them have been together for years now. The only reason they were able to enjoy those years together was because Emm followed those instincts of hers.

Emm wasn't going to let Casimir use his science mumbo-jumbo talk to get her out of keeping you.

Thankfully, the two of them were on the same page. They didn't even have to communicate verbally. They shared a look; Casimir from the road and Emm from her binoculars.

So, despite the rules that they'd agreed on (not to kill the people who weren't breaking the rules, to try and stay inconspicuous, to be polite and nice just in case), Casimir couldn't find it in himself to stop Emm from using a silenced gun and popping your friend's tire.

The both of them only felt more and more justified the longer they spent time with your friends.

They pretended to be polite but whispered about how weird Casimir was. They tried to take photos of Emm's burns (and you were the angel that prevented them from doing it). They even went so far as calling you a freak.

It made both of their blood boil. Emm's more than Casimir's but Casimir's head had always been more level headed.

So, really, the group dug their own graves.

The first one that had to go was that damn bimbo.

Casimir didn't like her at all. Chloe was it? She just didn't look at Emm the right way and don't even get him started on the whole 'taking a photo of Emm' business again.

Plus, she kept sneering at you and whispering about how stupid you were to her boyfriend.

So, when you went upstairs to go change right before helping Casimir out with cooking dinner, he went to work.

"Hey, by the way, you guys wouldn't mind it if Emm smoked a couple of joints, would you?" He mentioned off-handedly to the bimbo as he sharpened one of the knives at the kitchen counter.

His sleeves were pulled up to his elbows, his muscles flexing as he clenched and unclenched his fists, trying not to get annoyed.

It was odd since both he and Emm usually didn't let them last this long but, he supposed, for your sake, he would put up with the disrespect.

It just really got at his nerves that she was treating the entire place like it was hers, looking into their fridge like she owned the place. They said 'make yourselves at home' but that wasn't exactly what they meant.

The ditzy blonde didn't even have the decency to hide her emotions when she looked at him, all wide-eyed with wonder "Oh? You guys smoke?"

"Yeah, some strong medical stuff." Casimir shrugged as he kept his eyes on the smooth metal of the knife and the rough grey of the whetstone, his knuckles turning white as he gripped it harder and harder "You know, because of--"

"Oh, of that whole--" She finished for him, making a gagging sound from the back of her throat.

It took everything in him not to just run the knife in his hand through her face.

He could imagine how satisfying it would be. It would meet some resistance when going through her nasal cavity but the crunch of it as it met bone would feel so good.

Before he completely lost it, though, the sound of the other three idiots in the living room convinced him fully that he needed to keep it together.

This needed to be their cleanest kill yet.

Not just because the four of them were a big group but also because they needed to get away with killing three of them without letting you know.

"Yes, she smokes all of it downstairs in the basement." He nodded his head towards the main hall and he watched her face turn blank, her eyes obviously confused.

She definitely looked like she was turning an idea carefully in her head. Casimir wished she'd hurry it up since she still had the fridge open and it was using up electricity.

Then, as if he could literally see the lightbulb above her head, he saw her expression brighten. She closed the door and gave him a bright smile that grated even harder on his nerves before flouncing away.

Casimir glanced at the knife in his hands, giving her a few seconds, before rinsing it off and wiping it with a dish towel hanging on the oven handle.

Then, he sheathed the knife, grabbed a meat tenderizer, slipped it into his pocket and unfurled his sleeves. Of course, the other idiots paid him no mind. Probably just like they paid their friend no mind as she slipped past them.

They looked deep into a conversation about something, all their backs turned towards the main hallway.

The realistion that hit the bimbo was probably the fact that there was a door at the very end of the main hallway. Normally, people mistook it for a cupboard under the stairs.

Casimir could at least give her credit for being smart enough to realise that it was most likely the steps to the basement he had been talking about only seconds ago.

He quietly followed her down, locking the door behind him just in case.

Casimir was nothing if not careful.

He would've paid big bucks to have seen the look on her face when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

He saw the way her steps faltered (he was right behind her, after all) so he knew she must've been surprised. Plus, she gasped too, which seemed a bit much but she also seemed like the type to overdramatise.

It probably surprised her to see that it wasn't a wine cellar or a man cave in their basement but a clean and proper butcher's dream.

It was Casimir's hard work after all. Emm helped a little but she was a bit too messy to really take care of a lot of the detailed work. Instead, she helped weld things together and fix some things up.

Before the bimbo could turn around or freak out, of course, Casimir shut her up.

She crumpled like soggy paper when the meat tenderizer hit the back of her head.

The crack of it was so satisfying, honestly. The splatter of blood was less so but it still felt good to see the crater of gore in the back of that bitch's head.

Surprisingly, he could see a brain in there.

As he watched her crawl on her hands and knees, trying desperately to get away, Casimir tested the hammer in his hand and frowned.

He wasn't usually one to use such bulky tools. Though the sound of it was music to his ears, the feel of it wasn't right. It really was better to stick to knives and the like. Leave the more brutalizing ones to Emm.

Before the little worm could get too far, he stepped forward, accidentally stepping on her ankle as he scooped her up, his arm wrapping around her torso and his free hand gripping her chin, his fingers digging into her cheeks.

He lifted her easily enough, despite the fact that she was so top heavy.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't get a lot of breast meat from this one since it was probably all plastic but he'd need to get rid of her regardless.

"Now, what are you doing here?" He whispered against her temple, relishing a little bit in the way she struggled against him, her well manicured nails trying to claw at his clothed sleeves.

She was barely making sense before he'd whacked her with the meat tenderizer but, now, her voice was slurred and stuttering beyond recognition.

She was concussed then. He would've been more surprised if she hadn't become concussed. In fact, he had to give her credit. That blow would've knocked most normal people unconscious.

Maybe she was particularly hard-headed?

In any case, her blabbering was entertaining at first but then it eventually got too annoying.

With barely any care at all and completely ignoring the way her feet dragged on the cold concrete, Casimir brought her over to his special autopsy table and plopped her down.

It was his own invention; not exactly his life's work but certainly one if his more brilliant ideas.

It wasn't entirely made from scratch, of course. He built it off of a second-hand autopsy table but he made it tilt one way so that the blood would pool better. He liked collecting it in case he wanted to use it for blood sausage or something.

He also added some restraints for the really shitty visitors that really pissed them off. Sometimes, the couple really liked to take their time with their kills, really carve them up, slice and dice them and hear them scream--

Plus, sometimes, Emm liked putting him in there too and he could be a little too wiggly for her tastes.

In any case, when he slammed her down on the cold metal table, Casimir couldn't say he was taking the usual care with her.

She was sprawled across the cold metal, her body locked into the restraints with a little distain, even his initial incision of her jugular was sloppy at best.

He didn't have any respect for people like her who couldn't even take care of people like you. You had trusted her with your friendship and she betrayed you. She didn't deserve any kindness from him.

She couldn't complain anyway.

Mostly because she was finally knocked out cold.

Anyway, Casimir left her down there. If she bled to death, good for her. If she were still alive when he got back down there?

Well, he wouldn't enjoy her screams in the usual way but he'd definitely get some sort of sadistic glee out of them.

He'd flay her skin open, watch her muscles twitch as she struggled to move away, see the life ebb out of her; he'd make sure that every single thing you'd suffered through, she'd feel but a hundred times worse.

Hopefully, enough, she'd be alive.

Before he left, of course, he had to wash the stupid meat tenderizer. Surprisingly enough, fragments of her skull stuck to the spikes of it and chunks of her scalp clung to the metal.

Then, he obsessively cleaned the blood splatter off the walls, taking care to wash himself and any wash cloths he used with the sink in the room.

It was easy enough to wash everything since the entire basement was made like an embalming room; the floor sloped slightly to the middle where there was a drain.

Lastly, he changed his clothes because he got a little messy in his anger-- No, irritation. He didn't want to accredit such a strong emotion to such an insignificant ant.

He and Emm kept spare clothes down in the basement just for situations like this.

Honestly, the entire thing was so easy that it disappointed Casimir. He had hoped the blonde idiot would've struggled a little bit more, at the very least.

Maybe the others would prove to be a challenge.

Speaking of the others, Casimir knew that the boyfriend would notice the fact that his girlfriend was missing the fastest.

Unless, of course, he was a piece of shit too.

So, Casimir's next objective was to get rid of him.

The very last thing he did before he left the basement was he grabbed a little baggy of weed. It was a specific one they used to drug some of their more troublesome victims.

Seeing as his girlfriend was interested, it was possible that the boyfriend would've been interested too.

The drug wasn't anything deadly. Just something to help them get a... better high. Which didn't just distract them but it also affected their short-term memory and their attention span.

Casimir just had to make sure that he mentioned where his girlfriend could be before the dumb idiot started smoking the stuff.

Finally, when Casimir emerged from the basement, he was met with the boyfriend. He kept saying 'the boyfriend' in his head but, truly, it was because he didn't recall what his name was. Dick? Rick? Something along those lines.

Casimir would mentally refer to him as Dick just because that's what the guy was.

Hell, even the one thing Casimir knew him for (being that bimbo's boyfriend) he couldn't do properly.

When the ditz wasn't paying attention, Dick? complained about how annoying his girlfriend was, about how much of a drag she was, how he was tired of her.

It was a surprise to Casimir since he had pretty much been singing her sonnets since he first met them when she was around to hear his compliments.

Though, it made sense when Casimir noticed the sleeze bag's eyes always seemed to be glued to her chest.

It just showed how two faced this entire group was, Casimir supposed.

"Hey, did you see where Chloe went?" Dick? asked, looking suspiciously at the door behind Casimir and then suspiciously at Casimir himself.

Casimir doubted it was because the idiot thought he killed his girlfriend, though. The man didn't look that smart.

"She mentioned she had a migraine? I think she might have gone to her room." Casimir looked towards the stairs before glancing to the front door "Or maybe she went outside for some fresh air? I don't exactly recall what she said."

The boyfriend clicked his tongue but, before he could leave, Casimir placed a hand on his forearm "By the way, she mentioned she takes medical marijuana for her migraines so I mentioned to her that my wife took some too, for her burns?"

When the guy turned back to look at Casimir, arrogant confused expression on his face, it took everything in Casimir not knock the living daylights out of the guy.

He bet he could make the same crater in this guy's head as he did in this guy's girlfriend's head with just his fist.

"She ran out and asked me for some. Emm had some extra so I figured--" Casimir shrugged and then held up the little baggy with the drugged weed "She told me to ask you to pay for it but, between you and me, it's honestly fine."

"My wife goes through so much pain, I can't even imagine--" Before Casimir could finish, the idiot snatched the baggy up and nodded quickly, that confused expression completely taken over by his arrogance.

"Of course! I'll make sure to get it to her!" Dick-head looked like it took everything in him not to cackle at Casimir.

And it took even more in Casimir not to choke the man.

Before he could be further tempted, Casimir just gave a curt nod and left for the kitchen.

He rolled his sleeves up and went to get ready for you to come downstairs.

It was a shame you had a change of clothes. He had an odd highly illogical fantasy of you borrowing clothes from them, maybe something of Emm's or of his, and then decending down the stairs.

He could imagine you, looking so breathtakingly theirs.

It didn't make sense to Casimir but he supposed his love for you didn't make any sense in the first place either. He would just have to keep you by his side and study you.

"Did you go shopping?" Emm suddenly appeared at his side as he got out cling-wrapped meat from the freezer above the refrigerator, her arm brushing against his waist.

Did you deal with one of them?

She was probably asking because she passed by the living room and noticed that there were only three of them.

"Yes, I did. But that meat is for next week." He pressed a kiss to her cheek, smirk playing on his lips as he closed the freezer door and opened the fridge "We're having the meat I bought last week. It will go bad if we don't have it now."

Yes, she's downstairs. I haven't cut her up into pieces yet. We're having that couple we killed from last week, the ones that tried to break into the factory to steal spare parts.

"You wan' me to take care of next weeks shopping since you've taken care of this weeks?" Emm tried not to grin too widely, excited by the victims that her husband had left for her.

"I mean, I have plans for next weeks shopping but, if the opportunity arises..." Casimir sighed like he was tired of the way Emm always seemed to go off script but, in reality, he was glad she always seemed to enjoy herself.

It was evident by the way that smirk on his face didn't even waver.

"I dun' know what I'd do without such a dedicated house-husband." Emm teased, mirroring Casimir's smirk as she cupped the side of his face and pressed her own kiss against his temple.

Casimir took the ingredients out one by one, bundling them into his arms "And dessert?"

The fourth one. The one best saved for last. That was, of course, you.

"We def'nitely have room for dessert." Emm pulled back enough to look Casimir in the eye and he knew that, from the expression on her face, she would take no arguments.

We're keeping them.

Casimir didn't want to argue with that. From looking at his face, Emm saw that.

"Good because dessert is the caramel flan I made last night." Casimir chuckled almost breathily as he finally pushed away from his wife and brought the food to the kitchen counter.

That one wasn't code at all but an honest fact. It took everything in Casimir to convince Emm not to scarf the six tins he made last night in one sitting.

"I'll jus' go move my bike into the garage." Emm sighed, her expression morphing to one of boredom as she stretched a little.

She didn't like the idea of having to go out into the rain but, if she left the bike just parked there, there was a possibility that it would rust.

It was just hard to go outside, to leave the house really, when you were inside, so close yet so far away. Emm had never felt so pained and lazy before until you.

Then, to make matters worse, while Casimir was getting the ingredients ready for dinner and Emm was putting on her work boots, that stupid boyfriend tried his moves on her.

Unfortunately, he didn't seem high at all.

Had he not smoked it yet? Casimir hadn't smelt anything so, perhaps, he was saving it for later?

Either way, it was stupid to flirt with Emm right there, where Casimir could obviously see them. Normally, Casimir would've lost it but he needed the night to be perfect so he figured he'd let Emm handle it.

"You goin' somewhere, gorgeous?" The idiot leaned against the wall, sleezy expression on his face as he eyed her up and down.

Emm tried her best not to sigh too loudly or even groan like she wanted to. Instead, she tied her boots and smiled politely at him "Yeah, jus' need't park my bike in the garage."

"Oh, you know, I know a lot about motorcycles." The guy didn't even wait to hear what Emm would say before he was putting his shoes on "Let me go with you."

At first, Emm's fist clenched and she felt her entire body tense. But then, she realised how good of an opportunity it was. She'd be able to get him alone.

So, she forced another smile onto her face as she nodded "Sure!"

"You know, my dad owns like five Harleys." He bragged as he stepped out of the house, that same smug look on his face as he walked with his hands in his pockets.

Emm wanted so badly to trip him into a puddle but, instead, she crossed her arms under her breasts and nodded, trying her best to look interested "Oh, I have a Harley in the garage."

"D-Do you?" The pervert didn't even disguise his staring "Why don't you show me that first? I can help you with your motorbike after."

Moron.

"Sure." Emm lead the way through a side door, letting them into the garage without triggering the loud garage door.

It was dark and, even when Emm pulled the string for the florescent lights, the entire room was still dimly lit.

The garage was kind of Emm's domain but she wasn't exactly proud of it. After all, though she could be a real genius when putting parts together, organisation wasn't her specialty.

Casimir had to come down every month or so and fix the place up for her. Even then, the entire place always ended up looking like a tornado went through in a week.

Basically, the clean look never lasted.

"Damn, you should tell your husband to clean up in here." The moron laughed as he stepped over some steel bars.

Emm tried not to cringe "Oh, Cas don't really come in here. The mess's mine."

"Yours?" He said, as if saying 'but you're a girl' and it wasn't the last straw for Emm but it was damn close to it.

She looked around, trying to see if there was anything fun to kill this guy with or if she'd have to go old fashioned and just fuck his head up with a wrench.

She knew she couldn't make too much noise, though, so no chainsaw or anything too fun. Even if splattering his guts everywhere would've been worth the clean-up.

"Sure, let's go with that then." The guy laughed one more time before caging Emm against one of the various shelves in the garage, his disgusting breath damp and putrid against her ear

Emm couldn't take it anymore. She grasped at something with her hand; it was smooth against her palm, dusty, something with metal and plastic.

Her arm was swinging before her brain could even connect the dots as to what it was.

The guy fell onto his back, screaming profanities as he clutched one of his eyes "You fucking bitch!"

Emm just straddled his chest, that grin she'd been suppressing for so long finally stretching out onto her face.

She looked down at her hand and noticed that she had grabbed a spare motorcycle headlight.

When she had swung, the entire thing had been a blur so she hadn't really seen what she had done to him. Even now, she couldn't see because he was covering it.

But the screw end of the motorcycle headlight was covered in blood and the ripped apart flesh of an eyeball. She could make out the veins against the whites, the chunks of it clinging to the grooves of the metal part.

It filled her with a rush to know that she'd jammed the entire thing in there in one try.

To prevent him from screaming any more, she grabbed his wrist and stuffed it into his mouth, essentially making him pretty much choke on his own flesh. Then, she saw a peek of it.

He was still trying to dig the heel of his palm there, as if putting it there would stop the bleeding. Which made sense, of course. But it definitely wouldn't make a difference.

In any case, when she had yanked his hand away, she saw that his eyeball was replaced with bloody indecipherable gore. There were torn parts of the whites of his eyes near the outsides but it didn't look like there was much of it.

She laughed and he continued to struggle, kicking and bucking, desperate to get her off.

"Oh, so you wan'o play with the bull but y'can't handle the horns?" Emm couldn't help but taunt him a little, relishing in the way his own teeth dug into his wrist as she pressed down on him harder.

Despite the fact that they were almost the same height, she was much stronger than him and holding him down wasn't even a contest.

Before long, though, the struggling and the gore started to bore her. She realised she'd gotten too messy and that she'd have to clean up before she could see you.

Which meant, of course, that it would take longer to go see you. Something that felt unacceptable in her eyes.

So, she bashed his face in with a motorcycle headlight. Over and over. Till his entire skull caved in. And the motorcycle headlight got crushed in her fist. Or till it got crushed against his skull?

Whichever one was stronger, she figured. Her palm would bruise but his head caved in so, she supposed, it was her fist?

It was unfortunate, really, but the anger had built up inside her and the way he had tried cheating on his girlfriend really rubbed Emm the wrong way.

It wasn't like they ever used the head or the brains for anything anyway.

Then, she wrapped his face with a towel she had lying around and she carried him to the basement using the back cellar doors.

If holding him down was pretty easy, this was a piece of cake. She just slung his arm around her shoulders and then wrapped her arm around his torso, holding him up entirely.

She would've fireman carried him but there wanted to stay as clean as possible so there was less clean up.

When she entered, Emm spotted his girlfriend and felt bad for her.

That feeling immediately vanished when Emm remembered how rude she was in the van, trying to take a picture of her like she was a freak or something.

The thing Emm really struggled with was putting him on the autopsy table. She always complained to Casimir about the things. She absolutely enjoyed the sausages he made and the soups too but it was so much work.

She had to put his upper body down first but, then, she did it wrong and accidentally hit his head against the edge. Not like he was still alive but it was still annoying.

Emm had to try again and then a third time. Finally, the third time worked but then she had to get his legs up which wasn't that much of a struggle but it was still time she wasn't spending upstairs!

Where the two loves of her life was!

To make matters worse, as she was doing that, the stupid bimbo woke up and started struggling and stuttering and freaking out. She was crying up a storm, begging and pleading for her life and her boyfriend's life.

Like his entire face wasn't caved in and bloody already?

Emm just left her be and went to go wash her own face, hide the idiots' things, lock one of the guest doors and change her own clothes again.

Hopefully, the bimbo would just tire herself and bleed out.

"You okay, my love?" Casimir cupped her cheeks, pressing their foreheads together.

Emm just sighed and rolled her eye before nodding her head "Jus'... wanted to ask you 'bout somethin'."

Casimir smirked at that and pressed a kiss to Emm's lips before continuing what he was doing with prepping ingredients "What is it, my love?"

"I d'no if I was p'ck'n up what you were puttin' down before." Emm crossed her arms and leaned her back against the kitchen counter "But you... you think they're real pr'tty too, right?"

Casimir felt his ears get just a little bit hot but, of course, he quickly nodded because he never hid anything from his wife "We'd of course have to get rid of the nuisances but..."

Emm quickly nodded and hugged Casimir from behind, pressing a kiss to the back of his ear "I love 'em so much and I don' know why but I just--"

"I know, dear, calm down." Casimir laughed a bit breathily, trying to keep an understanding expression on his face as he smiled at his rather nervous and bashful wife.

The two of them had been with each other long enough that they could have discreet conversations without having other people know about what they were truly talking about.

For Emm to outright ask him these questions, she must've been really concerned about this. So, of course, he wanted to reassure her as best as he could.

"I'm very interested in them as well. Don't worry." He sliced into the middle of a bell pepper with precision, his ears feeling a little hot from his confession.

Casimir wasn't the best at confessing his feelings but, still, he wanted to make his intentions clear to his wife so she wouldn't be so insecure.

"Y'think they'd go for it?" Emm bit her lip a little, frown gracing her lips as she tightened her hold on her husband "Go f'r me?"

"My dear, you are a mighty fine specimen of a woman. If they don't go for you, well..." Casimir thought on the plethora of drugs he had in the basement and smiled, his finger tracing the silver sheen of the knife in his hand "I have a plan for that."

"You an' your plans." Emm huffed, her breath ruffling Casimir's locks a little bit.

Casimir just laughed again, all airy and soft, before shrugging her off and returning to slicing and dicing the peppers for the steak dinner he was making "Why don't you go and fix the garage? I know you were in a hurry and you didn't clean up after yourself."

Emm groaned, burying her face into her husband's neck. He reached behind her and, for a second, she thought he'd comfort her somehow. Instead, he thread his fingers into his hair and gave a hard yank, pulling her head up so that her ear was right next to his lips.

"You know how I feel about messes right, my dear?" Emm couldn't properly see Casimir's expression but she could imagine what it was: that wide sadistic smirk he always had when people tested him or when something interested him a bit too much

So, she huffed and rolled her eyes "Fine, fine."

Casimir let go easily enough and she unravelled her arms from around his torso, pulling away from him but not before pressing a kiss against his cheek.

She'd go clean up as fast as she could and then, maybe, she'd go join you and Casimir in preparing dinner.

Casimir watched as Emm left to go deal with her mess, a fond smile on his face.

Unfortunately, the peace was interrupted when he was shoved from the side by that one guy who loved tormenting you.

He remembered this guy's name purely because he hated him so much: Bran. Like the cereal. What an idiot.

Casimir had heard the footsteps so he hadn't been surprised by the shove but he hadn't exactly braced himself either so, when he was pushed against the counter, the knife clattered out of his hand.

It didn't matter. If needed, Casimir had other things he could kill this douche bag with.

Hopefully, he wouldn't have to. Casimir was hoping to bleed this one out and torture him slowly.

Casimir and Emm both noticed the way Bran had stared after you, looking at you like you were an object to be lusted after, like you belonged to Bran, all while he already had a girlfriend.

It definitely disgusted Casimir and he knew that cheating was a sore subject for Emm.

"The fuck are you two talking about?" Bran tried to sound as menacing as possible.

"Nothing." Casimir just smirked as he turned to face the asshole, hoping this man would give him any reason at all to humiliate him "Can I help you?"

"I'm fucking on to you." Bran spat out which, of course, made Casimir feel especially disgusted. "You and your fucking freak wife."

Casimir felt a little bit of his sanity snap when Bran said that specific phrase but he knew he had to hold back "On to me about what exactly?"

"I don't know." The question made Bran back off and the admission made Casimir smirk mockingly at him.

Bran looked like he was about to punch Casimir in the face but, before he could, Casimir took him by the wrist and straightened himself so that he was easily taller than Bran.

"We have helped you, we have sheltered you and we are now about to feed you. I will not have you disrespect me in my own home." Casimir smirked from ear to ear, his eyes boring into Bran's "So, tell me what your problem is with your words, like an adult, or get the hell out of my face."

Casimir could at least give credit to the man: he was fearless. Bran didn't back down. "They're mine."

"Your girlfriend?" Casimir played innocent, all the while his grip on Bran's wrist tightened to the point of being unbearable.

He could see it in Bran's face; the man was wincing and flinching away but the feeble tugs he tried to make were no match for Casimir's grasp.

Still, stubbornly, Bran continued "You know who I'm talking about."

Casimir finally let go "I am quite sure I do not. In any case, neither my wife nor I have any interest in your girlfriend."

"Where is she anyway?" Casimir added, dusting himself off and wiping Bran's spittle off of his skin.

"She's high right now so she's in Chloe and Dirk's room." Bran growled, still as aggressive as before but unable to make a move against Casimir since he was cradling his wrist "Once Chloe and Dirk get back, we're fucking out of here."

"Have fun driving with three wheels." Casimir just turned back to the food, not at all worried about the idiot behind him.

Oh, but Casimir definitely stored this entire event in his mind, knowing for a fact that he'd get his revenge later.

Bran didn't respond but he could hear the moron's thumping steps as he ran up the stairs and slammed one of the doors.

After your dinner with the two them, Casimir watched as you excused yourself and went outside.

Emm looked worried but Casimir didn't have a single doubt in his mind. His plans were absolute and he wouldn't let you escape. He had planned for every single eventuality and he would make sure you were theirs.

"Wait a few minutes before going after her." He said instead, pressing a kiss against her forehead as he started putting the dishes away.

"What about you?" She glanced at him warily.

Casimir simply picked up one of the sheathed knives with a bored expression on his face "I think the other two got high so I better just chloroform them and bring them downstairs."

Emm seemed satisfied by that because she grinned, laughing at Casimir's expression "What kind'a fucked up freaks are we that we get both'red when the killin's all borin'?"

Casimir just clipped the leather knife sheath to his belt loop and stepped towards his wife, kissing her chastely on the lips "Why, my dearest, the best kind, of course."

#yandere oc x reader #yandere x reader #yandere #female yandere #male yandere #oc x reader #male oc #female oc #male slasher #female slasher #yandere slasher x reader #slasher oc x reader #slasher x reader #casimir #emm #chaptered #lemony content

[birgittesilverbae]

Shannon & Bea + dinner

love you so much I'll write babea au for u

//

The bedsheets have been worn rough with repeated washings, but they're still a comfort to Shannon. It's what she deserves, that abrasion against her skin, pulling and catching, a friction that keeps her awake long into the night even with the painkillers dulling her nerves. 

It's worse now that Mary's been called back to Cat's Cradle, now that Shannon's been left to wonder if this is the very sickroom Suzanne had convalesced in all those years before, when she'd left the Cradle broken and returned hard and cold as ice. It shouldn't be much longer, the sisters tell her, the younger faces among them painfully familiar, the elder few and far between. She feels just as much a remnant as they must, these women used up by the OCS and then cast aside when they had nothing left to give but their lives, when their fingers could no longer grip a hilt or pull a trigger, when the slightest sound sent them ducking for cover. 

Sister Rachel, glimpsed briefly in the haze of those first few days when Shannon had yo-yoed in and out of consciousness, who'd almost lost a leg to compartment syndrome during Shannon's first month with the Order. Sister Anne, who'd screamed herself and everyone along her hallway into wakefulness night after night until being whisked away early one morning. Sister Margaret, her lumbar spine crushed beneath the rubble of a collapsing building. The cast-offs of decades of Order work, squirrelled away in a convent near Madrid. And for what?

A knock stirs Shannon from her reverie, and she lifts a heavy hand to wave them in, barely wincing any longer at the drag of muscle against the half-healed wound in her back. A familiar smell accompanies a familiar tread, and her teeth grind together as her jaw tightens.

She forces her muscles to relax, twists her mouth into a mockery of a smile. It's still Beatrice, no matter the– It's still– "Hey, Bea," she manages finally, before the dregs of the smile slide right back off of her face.

"Shannon." Her voice is stiff. Formal. It's an uncomfortable task, Shannon recalls in vivid detail, to put yourself face to face with a woman who failed to carry the burden you now found placed on your own shoulders. But Shannon had never quite taken to it with the alacrity Mary had said Beatrice has shown. "I brought dinner."

"Thought I smelled Mary's cooking." She props herself up on an elbow as Beatrice rounds the bed. Beatrice busies herself unpacking containers from her tote bag, and Shannon takes the opportunity to take stock of her.

It's the first she's seen her since the mission, since she'd taken one look at the hell they were about to step into and turned to handcuff Beatrice in the back of the van without a moment's hesitation before diving into the fray. There's a rigidity to her posture that hadn't been there before, steel replacing that whipcord looseness that she'd come to associate with Beatrice, the way she'd grown into draping herself easily across every surface, into perching readily on chair backs and countertops. This Beatrice sits stiffly in the ladder-backed chair she drags to the bedside, her shoulders drawn back as though to shield the Halo in the concavities of her scapulae.

There's a curl to her lip when she forces her gaze to meet Shannon's, and the hint of the tip of her tongue pressing at the corner of her mouth is the only thing in her that still feels wholly Bea.

"I'd have thought you'd be on assignment with Mary," Shannon ventures after the silence has stretched thin between them. 

"Father Vincent sent her on a solo run up north to meet a contact who's not exactly fond of the Church."

Shannon's blood runs cold and she starts up with such rapidity that Beatrice shoves her chair back a foot. There's warmth slipping down her back, skin torn apart by the abruptness of the movement, but she doesn't pay it any heed. Can't. Not when– "Was she sent on his orders alone?"

Beatrice's brows arch. "I wasn't aware that was something I needed to keep track of."

"It's not–" Shannon presses the heel of her palm to her forehead, tries desperately to piece together a way to present this that doesn't sound like she's– But maybe she is losing her mind. Maybe her loss of the Halo is just further testament to that. How else is she meant to explain the dreams, the visions, the reality in which she's found herself. "Don't trust him, Beatrice," she says finally, desperately. "Please."

"Don't trust Vincent?" Beatrice's laugh is harsh, cuts straight to the bone. "How am I meant to trust you, Shannon?" There's an edge of warning to her voice. "In what world do you deserve to have any more say about who I put my trust in? You betrayed me, you betrayed the Order, and you betrayed the Halo. No wonder it rejected you." 

"Beatrice–"

She rises sharply, tips her head towards the door. "I will be back in half an hour for the dishes. Have a good meal." Beatrice strides from the room, leaving Shannon reeling in her wake.

#ask #smokestarrules #warrior nun #myfic #mywn #sister beatrice #shannon masters #babea au

[emilymaxximoff]

The World; Carl Grimes X Fem!Reader

CW: Fluff, Two violence, Swearing, Mention of drinking, Mention of ED when talking about Heathers

Prompt: "We're just friends." "You're joking they look at you like you're their whole world."

A/N: I kinda hate this but I invested way to much time into this to not to post it. I once again did not proof read (oops but honestly I probably never will lol) I really hope y'all like it. This is like so much fluff I swear I had a direction I was going in. Maybe I'll try to write a spicy something next lol. Reminder everyone is like at least 18 or 19. Anyway love y'all.

"Fuck!" you yelled as you used your knife to make a hole in a walkers brain. A horde had attacked your group out on a run. Everyone was fighting for their lives but all you could think about was Carl. What would happen to him if you didn't come back? Would it matter? Would he care? You two had been best friends forever and had never gone on a run without each other before. You had feelings for him and if you died now all of that was over. He would never know. You still wondered why all you could think about was him as you dug your blade into another walkers head, fighting for your and the rest of your groups lives.

Suddenly someone grabbed your arm and screamed your name. "Y/N come on we have to get to the car!" Enid was dragging you to the van you all had ridden in while Daryl and Carol covered you as you made a mad dash for the van. You violently opened the door and pushed Enid through before hoisting yourself through the door of the van, climbing into the back grabbing Daryl's gun from him as he hopped into the drivers seat and started the van to speed out of there. In hindsight it was a terrible idea to only bring your knives and handgun to this run but god you loved that shotgun and now you had an excuse to use it. You had tried to steal it from Daryl before but he had always managed to steal it back. We opened the windows and shot at as many walkers as we could as Daryl sped through the horde. When we finally got out of the horde and on a clear path back to Alexandria I sighed.

"Fuck dude, I thought I was gonna die back there. Yo, Daryl you sure I can't steal this?" you joked, holding up his shotgun.

Daryl jokingly rolled his eyes. "Keep dreaming, Y/N."

The group got out of the van hauling the small amount of supplies you all had secured out in your backpacks and walked in the gates of Alexandria. Rick greeted us with confused look as the group were covered in more blood and guts than normal.

"What happened guys? Why are you all so dirty?" Rick inquired.

"Got inta a bit of a scruff with a horde of walkers. Sorry we didn' get much this time but at least we made it back." Daryl replied.

"That's alright. Is everyone clean?" He looked us up and down as we all nodded. "Ok then, what have ya guys got for us at least?"

Daryl continued on a conversation with Rick and Carol as they emptied their bags while you and Enid crouched nearby emptying your bags as well. You gently nudged Enid with a wide grin on your face and giggled. "How much do you wanna bet Daryl is gonna call Rick sweetheart one of these days."

"Oh I would bet my life on it." she laughed back.

As you both giggled you turned your head and saw Carl coming up the road to greet you both. Your smile widened even more. You had made it back to him but the words to tell him how you felt would evaded you once again. You saw Enid straighten her clothes and adjust her hair in preparation for his hello.

"Hey Carl!" Enid said as she attempted to give him a flirtatious smile.

"Hey Enid." Carl replied giving her a quick hug before turning to you and smiling wide before saying loudly saying, "Y/N! You made it back alive." He gave you a long hug picking you up off the ground and laughing as he swayed with you in his arms. "God damn you are just covered in guts. What the fuck did you do this time."

"Jesus" you giggled. "Why do I always get blamed for this shit? What about Enid she was there too asshole?"

"Yeah but you're the fuck up"

"Fuck you." you said as you punched his arm. God he was infuriating but you loved it. He was your best friend in the whole world and everything he did and said gave you butterflies. You would die for this one eyed boy.

Enid suddenly spoke up forcing a small smile. "Hey guys how bout Y/N and I go clean up then we meet up before the town get together tonight."

"Sounds good to me." Carl replied. "See you guys in like an hour or two?"

"Yeah, sounds great see ya"

"Bye Carl." you said as you turned back to Enid. "Hey can I just come back to your place to take a shower? I was gonna ask if you wanted to watch a movie till then. I think we deserve it."

Enid grins. "Yeah I think we do. Come on let's go."

----------

You sat on the couch next to Enid watching Heathers. Your wet hair lay on your t-shirt you had stolen from Enid. She had let you borrow her clothes so you didn't have to go back to your room across town in the Grimes house where you lived but at this point you owned more of her clothes than your own.

"It just baffles me how people would throw up their perfectly good food." Enid commented.

"Yeah it's weird but I get it. Beauty was a big thing back then they cared if they looked like a model and not whether they could kill a bitch." You replied trying to make a joke at the same time.

"Isn't this movie about killing bitches though? Like that's the whole plot." Enid giggled. You had both watched this movie 100 times but somehow it always ended in this conversation but you weren't one to complain. Movies were scarce in the apocalypse and you were happy to even have a few, or electricity for that matter.

"Enid..." you laughed as you heard a knock at the door.

"I got it." Enid said as she jumped out of her seat and made a dash for the door. You knew it had to be Carl and the way Enid always acted around him you knew something had to be going on. Maybe that's another reason you kept all of your feelings to yourself. You didn't want to hurt Enid and you thought she had a better chance than you ever could.

"Hey guys, are we ready to go?" Carl asked standing in the door way peering into the living room.

"As long as Enid is ready so am I." you replied looking towards Enid for conformation and she nodded. You hit the power button on the remote and got up from the couch to make your way over to the door Enid and Carl were standing at.

The three of you walked down the street towards the town center. The sun shone off the water in the quarry as you walked toward it. You all laughed as you joked and got to be young adults for once. There was almost no times like these. Times where you could just live and enjoy life. Times where you weren't fighting for your life. As you walked down the street Carl continuously bumped into you lightly grazing your hand gently each time as you all hysterically laughed.

----------

You sat next to Enid on the couch with a beer in your hand. Your social battery was almost gone and it was late. You knew you would be going home soon. Carl was over talking to his dad and you finally had a second to breathe and take in how he made you feel. You spent the whole party making sure to not let him know how you felt. Your thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Enid sighing loudly.

"Why do you have to be so fucking charismatic and prefect?" she said as she leaded back into the couch.

"What?" you asked confused.

"Just you being you and Carl is literally in love with you and I'm just so fucking jealous all the time."

You looked at Enid with wide eyes. You couldn't believe your ears. Your mouth hung open and you let out a small scoff in amusement. "What are you talking about? I am not perfect. And Carl? We are just friends. He probably has a thing for you. I promise he does not.... love me."

"Oh please." she said as she lazily rolled her eyes at you. "You have to be joking. He looks at you like you're his whole world. I keep throwing myself at him and all he can look at his your perfect ass."

"I-" you stuttered. You never wanted to hurt Enid.

"Save it. I'm not mad at you. I'm jealous sure. Maybe mad that I can't be you but I could never be mad at you for that." She looked at you gently smiling but you could see the pain in her eyes. "Listen, I can be a real bitch some-, most of the time but I like and care about you. You have been the best friend I have ever had and if giving up my pride so my best friend and the guy I like can be happy together, then so be it. And before you start denying it I can tell you like him too so just get with him and get it over with. I hate watching you guys dance around it."

"Enid, I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this to you." you stared at your lap. "I'd never purposely hurt you, ever."

You fumbled with your hands, a habit you had picked up after the apocalypse. You looked up over towards Carl. You really did love this boy. You could feel tears welling in your eyes. You didn't want to hurt Enid but you wanted to be with Carl. You wanted to feel his hands on your waist as he kissed you. You ached to kiss his soft lips and look into his eye. You wanted to tell him you loved him and to hear that he loved you back. You wanted to hold his hand and never let go. You suddenly realized you were staring when Carl looked back at you with a wide grin on his face. He started to walk over and you realized finally what was happening. You looked over to Enid, slightly panicking.

She smiled back at you then leaned in and whispered, "You got this. You should tell him tonight."

"Hey guys what are you talking about?" Carl said as he stood in front of the couch.

"Nothing important just how we should find somewhere to get new summer clothes most of my clothes are in Y/N's closet." Enid replied lying through her teeth. You smiled at her thankfully.

Carl looked back at you with a concerned look. "Hey Y/N are you ok? You look like you're about to cry."

You were about to cry, but you couldn't let Carl know that. He would ask why and you were not looking to lose your shit in front of this room full of people. "Yeah I'm just really tired." you managed to mumble.

"Oh ok. How 'bout we walk back together? I wanted to go back to the house anyway."

"It's ok I don't want to take you away from the party if you're having fun so I'll-"

"No I want to." he interrupted you. "Please let me."

You looked up at him and nodded. You really did want to leave. You looked over at Enid for approval. You didn't want to leave her in the dust. "Are you gonna be ok if we go?"

"Yeah go ahead. I think I'm gonna get fucked up and make some poor decisions like a bitch." she said giving you a smile and a sarcastic wink.

You rolled your eyes at her with a smile on your face as you let out a snort through your nose. You slowly got up from the couch to stand by Carl and turned around to face Enid. "Ok just don't make too bad of decisions. I'll see you tomorrow. And thank you, for ya know everything."

She scrunched her nose and smiled. You turned around and started to walk out of the house next to Carl. As you walked out the door Carl looked back at you to make sure you were following him. You walked silently next to Carl towards the Grimes house looking down at your feet and wondering if Enid was right about the way Carl looked at you. You looked over at Carl and all you could think about is how much you wanted to hold his hand and feel his soft lips on yours. As you and Carl walked up to the house, Carl turned to you and smiled. "You're still wearing Enid's clothes. I guess she was right about you stealing all her clothes." he smirked at you. "It's ok. You look better in them anyway."

"Thanks." you laughed. "Don't let her hear you say that though. She'll beat your ass."

You made your way up the stairs and towards your room but before you could get there a voice calls your name from behind you.

"Y/N. Hey wait. Can we talk?" Carl asked

You turned around with your hand still on the door knob. Your heart was beating out of your chest. Had he heard your conversation with Enid from across the room? Did he not feel the same? Was he in love with Enid? "Yeah what's up?" you asked trying to sound as cool and collected as possible but your voice still broke imagining the worst.

"I know you aren't just tired. I can tell something else is going on. I see it in your eyes. You know you can tell me anything. I would never judge you." He cupped your face in his hands wiping a tear off your face. "Did Enid say something to you? Was she being a bitch?"

"No no nothing like. Quite the opposite really." you quickly reassured him.

"You seemed fine before you talked to her so if it's not that, what is it?"

You tightly closed your eyes and bit your lip to try to suppress your tears but it wasn't working. "Can we maybe talk in my room? I feel like I need to sit down."

"Yeah of course. Anything." he said as he moved his hand from your arm to your hand and squeezed it tightly. He took his other hand and cupped your face wiping tears away once again. You lead him over to your bed and sit down. He can feel your hands shaking in his hand and he holds them tighter. "It's ok I promise you can tell me anything."

You inhaled deeply and closed your eyes gaining the courage to tell him how much you loved him. Enid's words replayed in your head 'you should tell him tonight' and you finally took your last deep inhale and ignored the pit in your stomach to finally tell him how you felt. "I am mildly, well very upset because of something Enid said but it's not because it was mean. It was weirdly nice and selfless of her to put aside how she felt for my feelings. She told me she was jealous of me and the way you looked at me. She said you looked at me like I was your whole world. I've never noticed it before and part of me thinks she's wrong because I just don't see how you could ever like me. I thought you might have feelings for her because well, she's Enid but there is another part of me praying and hoping that she is right because I ya know like you..." you paused quickly readjusting your words. "You know what no. Fuck it. I'm already this deep in, I love you and thinking for even a split second that there was even the slightest chance that you might feel the same, that you might, love me too made me so happy. I have loved you ever since I moved into your house. I have thought about what it would be like for you to kiss me, and look me in my eyes and tell me that you fucking love me too. You don't have to feel the same way and I am so sorry if I ruined our friendship but when you asked I had to tell you and Enid said to do it tonight so I guess fuck me I did it." you said sobbing.

"Y/N please don't cry." Carl said lifting your chin and staring in your eyes before pulling you in and kissing your lips. His lips were soft and warm. He started gently but deepened the kiss by the second making you feel safe and secure. You had never been happier. He pulled away and placed his forehead on yours with his right hand holding your face and his left still holding your hand. You positioned yourself the same holding him close. "I look at you that way because you are my whole world. I love you more than anything. I have loved you ever since you became part of our group but I never said anything because I thought you wouldn't like me back either. I love you so much Y/N. Please don't ever leave me."

You smile, happy tears streaming down your face, taking all your stress away as they fell off your skin. "Never Carl. I will never leave. I mean it."

Carl kisses you again and finally you are happy. In his arms you feel no harm can come to you. You pull away and look at Carl barely able to contain the cheesy grin you are trying to suppress. There is nothing that could ruin this.

"Hey, can I maybe stay in here and cuddle with you tonight?" Carl asked nervously but he was almost sure of the answer.

You couldn't hold back your grin anymore and you laughed quietly. "I guess so but on one condition."

"What's that."

"You make this a regular thing. You don't get to sleep here only once."

He laughed and replied "I think I can work with that beautiful. You have got yourself a deal my love."

As you drifted off to sleep wrapped in Carl's arm you realized you have never been this happy in your life, not even before the outbreak. Enid had done the most selfless thing she could and now you were laying with the man you loved, warm and cozy.

#carl grimes x y/n #carl grimes #carl grimes x reader #twd #the walking dead #carl grimes fluff #carl grimes twd

[lokis-army-77]

I’m the tv show/movie anon. I adore your writings. If you wanted to write something like that I would love for you to use your ideas! When I was thinking of it I just had the generic idea of being a final girl Eddie saving me lol but spooky season is over!

Visit from Strangers

Eddie Munson x female reader

Word Count: 1766

This is literally based on the movie The Strangers from 2008 but it's not exactly the same.

I'm sorry if this is some awful writing, I had no clue what I was doing and I apparently suck at writing "scary" stuff

Warning: Angst, home invasion, mention of blood.

Masterlist 

The night had started normally. Eddie had driven us back to my place after leaving one of our mutual friend's wedding. We had sat in the living room and made out for a bit before he realized he had left his stash on his dresser.

Before he left, the only weird thing was the sudden knock on the front door. My house was a little way out of town and it was nearing midnight, no one should have been out there. Yet, when Eddie opened the door a girl just shorter than me stood there, a hoody covering her face and standing far away from the reaches of the dim porch light. She had asked for someone, a name I couldn't quite catch with how she was mumbling. Eddie had told her that there wasn’t anyone by that name here and she walked off. 

It was strange and had shaken me only a tiny bit but I was fine for Eddie to leave. He gave me a quick peck on the lips before jogging out to his van. I tidied up around the house for a bit until I heard another knock. The girl was there again, asking for the same person. Hesitantly I turned her away, telling her what Eddie had said only ten minutes before. 

Things had only gotten stranger from there. I could have sworn the sliding glass back door had been locked and closed before I had left earlier in the day but when I felt a cool breeze coming from it I noticed that it was cracked. Then the knocking came again, louder, almost angry. A little freaked out and not wanting to be alone with some crazy girl outside, I rushed to the house phone and called Eddie’s trailer. 

The receiver rang three times before Wayne’s voice filtered through. 

“Wayne, is Eddie there?” I asked my voice shaking on edge.

“No, I thought he was with you?” Wayne had answered. 

“He was but he forgot something at home and went to get it. Can you tell him to call me when he gets there? It’s important.” I sighed into the phone. 

“Sure can do.”

“No, wait,” I quickly rambled when another harsh knock came to the door, “Just tell him to get back here as fast as he can. There’s a lady outside that won't stop knocking on the door and it's creeping me out.” 

“Do you need me to come over with him? Settle the situation, maybe call the police?” 

“No, no Wayne, that won't be necessary. She seems harmless, it's just creepy and I don’t want to be here alone.”

“Alright Sweetheart, I'll tell him to hurry his ass. Be safe and call me if you need.”

“Thank you Wayne, night.”

We hung up and the house was back to being quiet, except for the sound of wind coming back through the glass doors. I shook my head and went back to close them and the curtains over them, not thinking that someone could have come inside while I was facing away on the phone. 

Not even five minutes later the phone rang and I quickly picked up.

“Babe?” Eddie asked worriedly.

“Eddie, I need you to hurry up and get back here, that girl keeps coming back.” 

“I know, Wayne told me. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine, just need you to get back here fast.”

“I will, Princess, I’m headdin-” Eddie didn't finish his sentence and a loud static filled the receiver.

“Eddie? Eds?” I called into the phone but nothing happened. I tried calling back but it was dead like the line had been cut.

All had seemed fine in the house after that for a few more minutes until it sounded as though someone had opened the front door and come in. 

“Eddie?” I called out, no answer. “Eddie this is so not funny.” Still no answer. Turning around, I went straight for the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife I could find. In the back of my mind, I knew that it wasn’t Eddie, his trailer was at least 25 to 30 minutes away and there was no way he could have gotten here in the time between then and the phone call. 

I knew I shouldn’t have but with the false sense of security given to me by the knife, I walked to the small front hallway slowly. 

“Who’s there?” I asked as I went. “I’ve got a big fucking knife and I’m not afraid to use it. Just leave me alone and you’ll be fine.” It was eerily quiet. “My boyfriend is coming back any second.” I hoped that by saying Eddie was coming they would get scared and leave. I was wrong. 

The front door was closed when I had it in my sight. Then the knocking started again. I backed away, fear taking over. What the fuck is going on? I thought to myself. The knocking stopped but soon after the windchime outside the back door started to sound. 

“This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. I repeated over and over to myself as I watched the curtains in horror. Moving closer to them I did what I shouldn't have done, moved them. 

There in the darkness was a man, burlap sack over his head with a face painted onto it. The scream which left my mouth was filled with terror as the man began t beat his hand onto the glass. I backed away as quick as I could going to the front door but then the knocking bargain again. 

My heart began to beat and beat faster as I realized these people had all my exits blocked. I was trapped. I did the only thing I could, I ran to the back bedrooms and look for a place to hide. 

The sound of glass shattering followed me along with the banging on the door. I ran to my bedroom and tried to fit under the bed but the space was too small. Fuck, I’m gonna die here. 

Then everything stopped as I heard the sound of the door shut and quiet footsteps. I raised the knife up and prepared myself to fight these people off when Eddie came through the bedroom door. 

“Shit, Princess, what's going on.” He asked worriedly as he came to me crouching down and taking the knife from my hand. 

“The- The girl had a friend. He was standing outside the back door.” I couldn’t help the waiver in my voice. 

“Did you see what he looked like?”

I shook my head frantically. “No, he was wearing a mask.” 

Eddie furrowed his brows and gripped the knife, standing to his feet. 

“Eddie no, don’t go out there.” I was pleased with him. 

“It’s just for a second. I’m gonna go check and then we can get in the van and go back to the trailer, okay?”

“Okay.” I breathed, standing up to go with him.

We checked the whole house and no one was in sight until we checked the garage. The girl from earlier could be seen through the window, standing in the yard, unmoving. 

Eddie said suggested going out to his van to grab the metal baseball bat he kept in the back, seeing as I had no weapons in the house other than kitchen knives. I had told him not to, but he went anyway. That's when they ambushed us. Stalling Eddie outside while one of them came after me into the house. In hindsight, I should have gone with him to the van and just driven away. 

The man had chased me through the house. I had called for Eddie multiple times but he never came. Before I had gotten chased away, I had seen a third person, another girl out there with Eddie. He had probably been surrounded by the two with no way to get to me. 

With blood running down my arm from a cut the man in the mask inflicted, I ran from him as fast as I could. I used all my energy to run out the back door and into the woods. 

The woods were dark and every little snap of a twig or rustle of leaves as I went past felt like the sound was amplified. Even the sound of my heart racing felt like it could be heard from miles away. Fear was coursing through my veins. I had lost the sound of the man's footsteps when I had entered the tree line. I was thankful he hadn’t followed me in but worried because that left Eddie with the three of them. 

It took me a good five minutes to calm myself down and began to walk cautiously back to the house. At every sound I would stop and hide behind a tree, waiting until I was sure it was nothing. But then I heard hurried footsteps coming my way and I practically tried to push myself into the tree behind me with my hand covering my mouth and nose to keep my ragged breaths from being heard. 

With my eyes closed tight, I listened as the footsteps ran past me and then stopped. Shit I thought, They found me.  But it wasn’t the strangers I saw when I opened my eyes but rather a frazzled and bloody Eddie. 

“Eddie,” I gasped, running the short distance to him. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” I asked trying to find where the blood was coming from. 

“I’m fine princess, but we need to go, now.” He urged me forward, away from the house and further into the woods. 

“How did you get away?” I asked.

“Got that blond girl with the doll mask really good with my bat, then I fucking bolted.” He chuckled. 

“I stabbed the man with the knife. That didn’t stop him from scraping up my arm really bad.” I took my hand off my upper arm to show him the deep oozing cut. 

“Shit babe. Here.” Eddie tore off the bottom chunk of his band shirt and tied it tight around my arm. “We need to get you to the hospital.” 

“I don’t know if I can walk that far.” I could already tell my energy was depleting and with the loss of blood, I was becoming a little dizzy.

“You have to, I’ll carry you when it gets to be too much but we have to keep moving, I don’t want those psychopaths catching up to us.” 

Eddie grabbed my hand and pulled me along with him, each of us looking behind us, paranoid.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #joseph quinn #joseph quinn x reader #stranger things x reader #stranger things fic #female reader #eddie munson angst

[stardustbarbarians]

Even Sinners Drink the Wine

A Too Pretty For War prologue

Part One

A Samuel Kiszka / Daniel Wagner fic

Summary: Years before he became the king of Athens, Prince Samuel risked his life in order to save his best friend's.

Tags: Prince!Sam, Court Member!Daniel, war, life or death situations, Savior Sammy, Sam-centric

Trigger Warnings: graphically depicted violence, blood, nightmares, discussion of death and dying (if I miss any please let me know!)

Words: 6.9 k

A/N: An entire year later (to the day), I finally got around to posting that Sanny chapter of this series I promised. I didn't intend to have multiple parts of this fic, but considering the word count came to 17,000+ words, I did not want to subject you all to that. If you've seen the BBC show Merlin at all, this fic might be familiar to you as I was inspired by the episode "The Poisoned Chalice". Also, I tagged this as Danny/Sammy, but we all know what happened in TPFW, so take that how you will. Now, I would be remiss to not dedicate this fic to @t00turnttrauma as I'm convinced she's the biggest fan of this whole universe. I would also love to shout out @ofthecaravel for being a tremendous help and a good sport as I sent her snippets of this as I was writing. And lastly, thank you @safety-sam for giving me the idea for this whole universe a year ago. I feel this is most likely unnecessary, but the title is taken from Greta Van Fleet's Stardust Chords. As always, enjoy <3.

+++

The war had been raging for six years. Six years of bloodshed and violence for a boy that never would have wanted such a thing in all his days. 

Josh had passed six years ago and Sam was reminded of that simple fact every time the sun poked over his beloved sea. 

However, this particular morning was one of the few where the young prince awoke with sorrow absent from his heart. For the first time in three years, Samuel was finally seeing his older brother. 

Jacob was returning home from the battlefield. 

As soon as the sun’s rays began to weakly stream into the prince’s room, he sprang up out of his bed and called his servant into the room in order to be dressed. Samuel was buzzing with excitement as he was wrapped in his silk chiton, hardly able to stay static. 

“Your highness, you must remain still if you do not wish for me to draw your blood,” Pythius warned, ceasing all action for dressing the prince. He held the chiton in place with one hand and a broach in the other hand. 

Sam knew he’d been acting difficult this morning, but he just couldn’t help it. Today was a very special day for him. It was not every day that he saw Jake. How could he contain himself? 

“Apologies, Phythius.” Sam then made a conscious effort to stay as still as the statutes lining the halls of his palace. Though, he could not cease his hands from fidgeting with the ends of his garment. 

After what felt like an eternity, Pythius finally finished dressing the young prince. 

“All done, your grace-” 

Before he had even finished his sentence, Samuel was bolting out the door and yelling his thanks behind him as he did so. Pythius grunted as he made to chase after him, stopping in the doorway. “Prince Samuel!! Your sandals!!” 

It was no use and the manservant knew this. Samuel was forever “forgetting” his footwear, and to attempt to force him into them was a Herculean feat. Leaning against the doorframe, he tossed the sandals onto the floor of Samuel’s chambers as he watched the youngest royal tramp down the hallway that led to the ward’s chambers. 

Samuel scrambled down the halls, the sandstone cold against his bare feet. He could not wipe the beaming grin off his face as the wind ran its fingers through his hair. He skid around the final corner and reached his destination. He barely gave the courtesy of a knock before barging inside the door. 

“Jacob is coming home today!” Samuel’s tone was so chipper, he sounded like one of the birds his mother kept as a pet. 

The ward glanced at his best friend through the mirror he sat before as his dark curls were being manipulated into place by his manservant. He seemed to have caught Sam’s contagious grin, the corners of his petal pink lips curving upwards at the sight of his best friend. 

“Good morning, my darling Samuel,” Daniel greeted, not at all fazed by the royal’s enthusiasm. He’d been dealing with Sam’s overly excited nature for going on a week now. He was used to it at this point. 

“Jacob is coming home today,” the prince repeated, seeming to ignore Daniel’s greeting. He was grinning so wide, he was sure all of his teeth were on display. His hands were balled into fists in front of him, shaking them up and down as he bounced on the balls of his feet. 

With a final word with his servant, Daniel got up from his seat once his hair was deemed finished. It had been pulled back into a bun that was wrapped in a gold string, two perfect curls framing his brilliant face. There was also a gold headband wrapping around the circumference of his head, matching the gold piping accents of his off-white chiton. 

“Yes, so you have said,” Daniel responded. It was said without a hint of exhaustion; if anything, it seemed to make his smile brighten. He outstretched a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Samuel’s ear, something glittering in his eyes that Sam completely missed in his enthusiasm. 

“When do you believe he will arrive?” He searched the ward’s face vehemently, hopeful for an answer that he agreed with. 

With a sigh bordering on wistful, Daniel dropped his hand and turned back towards where he was just seated. That was when Samuel noticed the long cape that flowed from the straps of Daniel’s chiton, the fabric leaving his upper back exposed. When he turned back to face the royal, Sam noticed he had slipped on golden bracelets forged to resemble vines wrapping gracefully around his wrists. 

It was… a different look for Daniel. Usually, he opted for a simple silk fabric and that was the end of it. It was a flattering look for the ward, even if it more closely resembled a woman’s dress. It was upon that realization that a warm flush flooded his cheeks with near violent speed. However, his moment of being flummoxed was quickly overtaken with his elation when Daniel answered his question. 

“Most likely by the evening, if not by mid-day,” he responded, that soft smile returning to his brilliant features. 

Sam all but cheered, jumping up as the thrill of seeing his long missed brother mounted into something that was hardly contained. The ward watched on in amusement as a child-like enthusiasm overtook the prince. 

“I was dearly hoping you would speak something like that,” Sam finally commented after being able to partially put a lid on his emotions. 

His smile turning into a full smile, Daniel turned away from his friend and made for the door. 

“Alright, your highness. Let us get some food in you before you faint or forget,” Daniel urged, opening up the doorway of his chambers into the corridor now lit with the strong rays of dawn. 

Sam, knowing that his best friend was right, walked through the door. The two sauntered down towards the dining area, Sam making conversation that was mostly one-sided. He kept buzzing about all the things he had wanted to do with his older brother upon his return, his passion never-ending. Daniel listened to the prince’s chatter, his patience never-ending. He was always this gentle when Sam got into one of his moods; he had seen one too many times where Samuel’s excitement was unjustly turned down or interrupted due to the listener not caring about his soliloquy. Daniel never was one of those shades, and Samuel was forever grateful for that. 

“Apologies for interrupting. But Samuel, you must not allow yourself to get your hopes too high. Jacob… Well, he might not be as you remember him to be,” Daniel carefully explained, turning his body to fully face the royal. He even placed a gentle hand on Sam’s shoulder, his eyes searching for Sam’s own. 

“Whatever do you mean, Daniel?” 

A look flashed across his face momentarily that almost seemed to pain the ward. As though he pitied the youngest royal. But, just like a flash of lightning, it was gone from his features within the blink of an eye. But Sam caught it. 

“Just…” 

Whatever Daniel had wanted to say died on his tongue like an animal who had had its heart pierced by an arrow. 

“He has been away for a long time. He may not be the same Jacob from your memories,” Daniel finally elaborated. Samuel knew that was not what his friend had originally wanted to say. But, he did not have the time to pry out of him whatever the ward had meant before the two were spotted by Samuel’s older sister. 

“Ah, I thought I would find you two lurking about,” Veronica playfully called, making her way over to the pair. Her silk gown billowed out behind her as she approached, similar to how Daniel’s garments had as he strolled down the hallway with Samuel. 

Once again, it had given the young prince a moment of pause, causing his cheeks to flame like the burning sunrise over his beloved sea. 

“They are waiting for you out on the patio. Your chiton is lovely, Daniel.” The princess spoke the last line over her shoulder, guiding the pair towards the patio in question. 

Samuel dutifully followed. Though, as his sister and his best friend made conversation, Samuel tuned them out. Unintentionally, of course. But, his mind was soaring into the clouds as he attempted to parse out what it was about Daniel that day made him so flustered. 

+++

Breakfast came and went with minimal incident. Of course, there was the instance of the king snapping at his youngest for talking incessantly about his brother’s return, but that was hardly a rare occurrence. His mother had placed a comforting hand atop her son’s after he had retreated inwardly at his father’s anger, calming the turmoil roiling beneath his breast. He placed a loving kiss onto the back of her hand before taking his leave. 

Samuel spent the rest of his morning honing his archery skills. He attempted horseback archery, something he had only previously done once before. Despite his nerves, he was able to do a good job at hitting the targets. 

“Althea, you have yet to disappoint me,” Samuel cooed to his horse, patting her dapple gray neck lovingly after he dismounted. She stomped her large hooves appreciatively into the dirt beneath her, her long black tail flicking at the affection. 

The prince clicked his tongue as he held her reins in his hand, his signal for her to follow him. She did so loyally, matching his pace as the two made their way over to where Daniel was lounged under a tree. 

“Are you diligently at work, or simply presenting to seem that way?” Samuel jested as he approached, flashing a brilliantly charming smile towards his best friend. 

“I know you are unfamiliar with the concept of work, so I shall not fault you for not knowing what that looks like,” Daniel shot right back, only briefly glancing away from the scroll he was pouring over to look at Samuel. 

With a good natured laugh emitting from both parties, Samuel turned to Althea to remove her saddle, grunting as he lifted the heavy wood and leather off the animal. She shook after having the weight removed, throwing her head up and down as if stretching. After setting the saddle under the tree on the opposite side of Daniel’s position, he turned back towards his horse. 

“Go and frolic as you wish, girl. You earned it,” he told her before untying her reins from the branch of the tree. With little hesitation, she wandered off into the field that stretched out before them. 

With a fond smile adorning his face, the prince pivoted on his heel and made for the spot the ward lounged. 

“What subject matter are you cramming into that thick skull of yours?” Sam teased as he laid down perpendicular to Daniel, resting his head onto the man’s lap. If he squinted and strained his eyes just right, he could just barely make out the writing on the parchment. 

“Diplomacy,” he quickly answered before pulling the scroll out of the way to gaze at Samuel directly in the eye, “not that you have any inclination as to what that word suggests.” 

There was a devious glint in his eye after he spoke that matched the smirk on his lips. 

“Aye! You cur! Retract that statement at once!” Sam’s demand was accentuated by his finger pointing in the ward’s face. 

Daniel simply chuckled warmly before pushing his best friend’s hand out of his face and sliding the parchment back into his line of sight. “Your demand achieves nothing, save prove my point.” 

The prince crossed his arms over his chest in a petulant act. He had hoped to provoke Daniel into a bit of a tiff for his amusement, but it seemed that he would not rise to the bait. Instead, he preoccupied his time by watching the sunlight dance across the yellowed scroll above his eyes as the wind rustled the leaves with its gentle and warm breath. 

Without even realizing, the man had dozed off. It seems the comfort of being swaddled in his best friend’s scent and warmth as well as having his skin warmed by the afternoon sun were the perfect amalgamation of factors to send him off peacefully towards his dreams. 

However, peaceful they did not stay. 

Samuel found himself shoved into a dark cave, black cloaking his vision so successfully he could not see his hand directly in front of him. With a whimper of fear that he attempted to suppress poorly, he stumbled forward in a direction he could only hope led towards the mouth of it. He dared not make any noise in fear of what beasts call that musty and decrepit cavern home. 

Turning what he hoped was a corner, Samuel felt relief flood his veins as he spotted a far away stream of light that led towards the exit. Only then did he hear a scream that made every drop of his blood turn to ice. 

“DANIEL!!”

With no hesitation, the prince turned away from the cave exit and back down to the bowels of the cavern where the scream originated. He stumbled hastily downwards as the tormented screams of his best friend became more pained. 

When Samuel finally reached him, he was greeted with the most awful sight of Daniel bound to a boulder with iron chains clamped around his hands. His arms were forcibly stretched out above his head, the strained muscles on his chest on full display due to his lack of clothing. And perched atop his ribs was an eagle, its talons digging so deep into his flesh that they seemed to coil around the bones of his ribs. Its head was bowed, its beak violently tearing into the skin right beneath Daniel’s right pectoral. A sickening amount of blood spilled out from Daniel, some of it even dried on his sweat-slicked sinews. 

His face was screwed up in unbearable pain, his teeth gritted against the agony of having his liver scavenged from beneath his still beating heart. Each movement of the eagle made the man cry out in pure arduous torment. Tears even flowed down the sides of his face. 

Samuel’s knees buckled beneath him. He crashed into the cold stone of the ground, horror freezing him in place. There was nothing he could attempt in order to save Daniel. He had been sentenced to this torture under divine order. There was simply no escaping your fate once the Gods had condemned you. 

Knowing that he had limited options, Samuel went with the only one he knew to be possible. He crawled along the floor of the cave, reaching out for his best friend. When he reached Daniel, the royal simply smoothed the curls on the crown of his head. The tortured man’s sobs became stronger as he experienced his first comfort in Gods knew how long, leaning his head into the touch of Sam’s caress that traveled down to his cheek. 

Samuel felt a tear of his own trickle down his cheek as he pressed his forehead into Daniel’s. “I am so sorry.” 

“Sammy!” 

The prince jolted awake at the calling of his name. Blearily, he rubbed at his eyes before searching around to check that he was not still trapped in that awful nightmare. Instead of the oppressive darkness of that cursed cave, he was greeted by the warm embrace of the late afternoon sun. With a sigh of relief, all of his fear seeped out of his bones in his exhale. He glanced upwards, Daniel gazing down at him with a look of carefully masked concern on his face. 

“What is it?” The prince’s voice sounded as though he had swallowed sand. He lifted one of his hands to his forehead, rubbing at his temples that were beginning to throb.  

“Were you having a nightmare?” Daniel inquired, his brow knitting as he closely examined his companion. 

Yes

“No. You needn’t worry,” Sam quickly reassured, waving his hand in a dismissal of his best friend’s concern. 

Samuel watched as the ward regarded him. He was aware Daniel knew he was lying, it was now simply a matter of whether or not he would call Sam out on this. 

After shaking his head, the ward came to his decision. 

“Pythius just came by to offer up the news. Jacob has returned to the palace.” 

Samuel, still reeling from his nightmare, forced himself to react with the same enthusiasm he had emanated for the past week in regards to his brother. Cosmetically, he knew he had managed to muster the appropriate response; his lips parting into a blinding smile as he shot up from his position, forcing his skin to buzz with excitement. But, just beneath was a darkness that was sapping away his true elation and replacing it with an encompassing sense of dread. 

He had dreamt of Daniel as Prometheus, the Gods ultimate scapegoat. And as he bounded off towards the sandstone structure he had called home for the past eighteen years, he could not rid himself of the sinking feeling deep within his stomach that his nightmare mirrored that of his prophetic dreams. 

+++

There was a haunted look beneath Jacob’s otherwise warm disposition. Samuel noticed it right away, though he dared not point it out. For the time being, until the moment presented itself, the youngest prince played along with the facade the warrior had worn. 

“Jacob, it is so good to see you,” Samuel greeted, pulling his older brother into an embrace. The moment he had his brother in his arms again, Samuel felt that affection and enthusiasm surge up in his chest and beat away that dread that had sewn itself into him. 

“Samuel,” Jacob breathed, his arms tightening around Sam before releasing him and holding the youngest at arm’s length. He took in his little brother’s appearance, his eyes scanning him from head to toe. 

“You’ve grown.” There was a melancholy intertwined with the words. 

Sam felt his lips curl up at the corners. “So have you.” 

It was true. Since the last time he had seen his older brother, Jake had grown. Not in height - Samuel still towered over him - but in build. No longer were his limbs thin, but piled with muscles that come with being a soldier fighting for three years straight. He was still in his armor, the bronze chestplate reflecting the light of the late afternoon sun. He even rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

With a smile that finally reached his eyes, Jacob removed the hand he had rested on Samuel’s shoulder only to tangle it in his hair and ruffle it. They both laughed, Sam slapping Jake’s arm away. 

“Cease, you two. I do not want this to turn into a real squabble,” their mother interjected. 

The brothers both spared her a glance before looking back at one another. With a nod of his head towards the hall, Jacob led the way towards his chambers. Samuel scrambled to match pace with his brother before falling into step with him. 

“So, do not misinterpret my intentions behind this question, but why have you returned? When I inquired about this with others, no one would answer me.” 

Jacob paused in his steps, the metal of his armor clattering together at the halting of his momentum. He regarded his little brother with a look that Samuel could not place. 

“They would not answer you?” he repeated. 

Samuel shook his head, some of his hair getting caught in the corner of his lips. He reached up a hand to wipe it away and tuck the loose strand behind his ear. 

There was another beat where it appeared that Jacob was making a decision. With something flashing quickly behind his eyes, the crowned prince clapped a hand upon his brother’s shoulder before offering a charming smile. 

“I missed you. That is all.” With one more pat to Sam’s shoulder, his brother turned away and made for his chambers. 

Samuel stayed in his position, watching on as Jacob trekked down the sandstone floor. He felt conflicting emotions coil up into his chest as he observed Jacob; pain at knowing he was being lied to and pride at realizing that these halls were meant for him. He was the next true ruler of this kingdom and it was evident. 

Sam would never be as fit for ruling as Jacob. But, that was not something Samuel would ever need to fret about. 

+++

As the sun slipped below the horizon, the whole of the castle had gathered in the great hall for a celebratory feast. Each lady was dressed in her finest, the gentlemen wearing the decorative armor. Daniel had abandoned his long silk gown in favor of his finest armor. His curls had been left to fall down to his shoulders, his gold headband replaced by a silver crown piece wrapped around his forehead with a pearl dangling down from the center.

Samuel and Jacob both wore their respective crowns of their own. However, as one would imagine, the one worn by the crowned prince was much more elaborate than Samuel’s simple golden vines. While they were similar in shape, Jacob’s silver vines were encrusted with sparkling jewels that twinkled like the stars of the night sky. They were seated on either side of their parents, the crowned prince on the side of their father and Samuel next to his mother; Veronica was next to Jacob. On Samuel’s right was none other than his best friend.

The two of them had passed the time of the night with endless conversation, never seeming to run out of topics to discuss. More often than not, one of them would become too enraptured in their own corner of the world and forget about the presence of the others in the hall, boisterously erupting in laughter or the like, earning more than a few pointed looks from the queen. 

As the night reached its natural mid-point, the king called for everyone’s attention by tapping his fork along the side of his goblet. When the clamor of the room died down at the noise and all eyes shifted their focus towards the front of the room, the king stood from his throne at the very center of the high table. 

“Gentleman and Ladies of the court, if I may have your attention,” the king asked, his arms raised in an almost placating manner. As much as Samuel hated to admit it, he could not deny that his father knew how to command a room. 

When the din ceased and all eyes were properly fixed onto the most powerful man in the room, he continued with his speaking. 

“I thank you all for joining us, first and foremost. Most notably my son, Jacob, who has traveled from the front lines of war where he fends off those beastly savages, the Spartans. Truly, a hero amongst us men.” The king placed a firm hand on Jacob’s shoulder, a look of pride swelling onto his features in the manifestation of a smile. 

Samuel, having to divert his gaze from the display, felt the claws of jealousy sink into his heart while the ropes of sadness coiled inside of his gut like a snake. His father had never gazed upon him in such a manner and most likely never would. 

“But, this night is not about him. As you are all aware, with the recent passing of our dear Lord Lógios, the crown is in need of a new court advisor. And when it came time for me to name such a man to fill his position, I could think of no one better than that of my ward, Daniel-” 

“This is why Jacob has returned?” Samuel hissed quietly at his mother in order to refrain from putting attention onto himself. 

The queen leaned over towards her son just enough so that he might be able to hear her response. “We kept this from you in fear of you slipping up and ruining tonight’s grand reveal. Apologies, my dear, but it had to be done.” 

Without allowing for any further probing, Sam’s mother returned her attention towards her husband. 

“-you could join me in raising your goblets,” the king held his own in hand before lifting it higher towards the ceiling, everyone in the court following suit, “to Daniel, for that he may guide my son on the right path in the way I trust that he will.” 

“To Daniel!” the room chorused together as they mimicked their king’s gesture. Just as Sam was about to take a drink of his wine, he heard a loud thud to his right. Snapping his head in the direction of the sound, he was greeted by the awful visual of his best friend laying on the floor, his spilled goblet next to him as the remaining wine seeped out across the sandstone. 

“DANIEL!!” Samuel cried, all but tossing his own goblet away in his haste to rush to the man’s side. He was not responding to Sam’s voice nor his touch, causing a spike of fear to lance its way through the prince’s heart. 

Suddenly, there was someone at his side, but Samuel could not tell who it was. All he had the focus for was the fact that he was not certain if the ward was breathing. Someone was speaking to him, a man, but he could not say what was being spoken. There was only one thought repeating in a mantra within his head: He’s not breathing. And that was the most terrifying thought anyone could possibly conjure up. Even in his worst night terrors, Morpheus dared not present Sam with this possibility, for even he understood that was taking it a step too far. 

“Samuel!” 

Jake had taken him by the shoulders and shook him. Finally, Sam was snapped out of his downward spiral and back to the present matter. Stealing one last glance in his best friend’s direction, he spared his undivided attention towards his older brother. 

“Sammy, I need you to stay with me. Daniel is in danger, but being stuck in a panic is not the way of assisting him. Do you hear me?” When Sam tried to look back towards Daniel, he placed both hands on the young prince’s cheeks and forced Sam to look him in the eye. 

With a shaking breath, Sam nodded his head. Right, he was simply wasting time by allowing his anxiety to sink its claws into him. 

“Good. Now, we need to take him to the physician immediately,” Jacob ordered, letting his hands fall from Sammy’s face. 

The prince was so thankful for his brother grounding him in that moment. He would not realize it until after, but Sam realized he had witnessed General Jacob in action in that moment. 

Bracing himself, Samuel slid his arms underneath Daniel’s prone form, carrying him as if he were his new bride. There was a moment where the muscles in his legs protested at the extra weight being added to his ascent to his upright position, but he ignored them as he ran away from the uproarious commotion that had erupted in the hall at the newly appointed advisor’s fainting. Jake was in tow, the goblet Daniel had drank from in his hands. Another person in their wake following them down the corridors of the palace was Giatrós, the court physician. 

“Lay him down on the bed,” Giatrós ordered as they burst through the doors of his chambers. Samuel obeyed without qualm, gently resting his best friend down onto the soft bedding of the healing ward. 

Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be pulled away from Daniel by Jacob to allow for Giatrós to have the space to work. However, he did not let himself be pulled far, insisting on keeping his hand in Daniel’s on the opposite side of where the physician worked. 

“He’s burning up,” the healer muttered under his breath after placing a hand onto the ward’s forehead, “Prince Jacob, would you please fetch me that pail of water and the cloth next to it?” 

The hand on Sam’s shoulder left, Jake following the request of the physician. Samuel watched on as he busily worked up his patient, his face pinching together in a frown that Samuel did not care for as he checked Daniel’s pulse. 

Sam, who at this point had begun to chew on his lip and nails interchangeably, took in the visage of his best friend. He had gotten so pale so quickly, all of the color draining from his sinews. A sheen of sweat had accumulated across his visible flesh, his body wracking in small convulsions as he fought off the chill brought on by his fever. Daniel had rapidly flexed and unflexed his fingers around Sam’s hand, each little grip squeezing his heart as if that was what Daniel was holding in its stead. 

“It will be alright, Daniel, I promise,” Samuel had whispered into the man’s ear, using his free hand to smooth the curls on the crown of his head. He had taken to gently removing Daniel’s diadem when he saw his brother return with the cloth and bucket. All too suddenly, Samuel was struck with the similarities of this to his nightmare he’d experienced just that afternoon. 

“Sam, please,” Jake gently asked, the hand not holding the now wet cloth pulling on his shoulder once more. 

With one last caress of his hand, Sam pulled away once more to allow Jacob to do as he was tasked. 

“Giatrós, please, tell me you can heal him,” Sam desperately asked, all of the emotions saturating his tone causing his words to crack under the weight of them. 

The physician glanced up from his work to look the young prince in the eye. When he hesitated, Samuel realized that the man was becoming blurrier with each passing second. 

“Without knowing exactly what he has fallen ill from, I am afraid there is not much I can do other than treat his symptoms,” Giatrós answered honestly. 

Hot tears cascaded down Sam’s cheeks at the gravity of his situation. Daniel - his best friend and the person he was closest with and whom he had wished to spend the rest of his days with - was about to be torn away from him. He felt as if he was about to fall over, all of the blood in his veins turning to ice. His vision was charring around the edges, that darkness encroaching onto him with every heartbeat. 

Sam began swaying on his feet, his extremities turning fuzzy. Just when it seemed that he was about to lose consciousness, Jake swooped in and caught his baby brother within his arms. 

“Keep your head, Samuel,” Jacob softly ordered, gently propping Sam back up onto his feet. 

Giatrós was still fluttering around his chambers wildly, grabbing vials and small bottles off of shelves only to place them back in their positions. He eventually returned with a mortar and pestle made from a dark stone in his hands, grinding herbs as he approached with his brow knit in concentration. There was a pungent smell wafting out of the mortar as he approached. 

Sam watched him scoop the herbal mixture into a small muslin cloth and then dip it in water before taking the now soaking cloth and squeezing it into an empty vial. He repeated the process about three times until the vial was about a quarter full. 

“Pinch his nose closed for me,” the physician requested, looking Sam dead in the eyes. With a weak nod, Sam did as he was told. Giatrós pried open the ward’s mouth before pouring the contents of the vial into it, clamping a hand over his lips so that he had to ingest the mixture. 

“There, that should assist in keeping the fever at bay for now.” Giatrós removed his hand, Sam following his lead and doing the same. Daniel gulped for air now that the pathways were unblocked, but he still would not open his eyes. It was frightening, it was maddening, and Samuel had to sit by and watch. As the healer said, there was nothing they could do without knowledge of what caused Daniel to have this reaction. 

Samuel took the small strides necessary to place himself onto Daniel’s bedside, sitting down next to the man’s waist as the bed dipped with his added weight. He never released Daniel’s hand, their fingers managing to become entwined without Sam conscious of it happening. He went back to smoothing his best friend’s raven curls with his hand, the silken strands damp with his sweat and clinging to Sam’s fingers. 

“Please, fight this. I beg of you,” Samuel whispered desperately before resting his forehead against Daniel’s. 

One thing that did fan the embers of hope burning inside his chest was that Daniel’s body no longer seemed to convulse with chills. Giatrós’s tincture had worked; the ward’s skin no longer blazed beneath Sam’s touch. 

“Now that he has become more stable, I shall take a closer look at the goblet he drank from,” the physician informed, picking up the ornate silver drinking vessel and staring into it with a critical eye, “perhaps it will provide the answers we seek.” 

“What of the guests at the banquet tonight? Perhaps they witnessed or heard something,” Sam suggested, swiveling his head back and forth between the two men stationed on either side of him. 

“I shall look into that,” Jacob offered, his arms folding over his chest as he spoke. “I severely doubt you will abandon Daniel’s bedside anytime in the near future.” 

Sam felt his face grow warm in embarrassment, his hand tightening within his best friend’s grip. He could not refute Jacob’s claim, as it were. 

“I-” 

“Yell for me if his condition worsens. I shall be in my study,” Giatrós informed before sweeping out of the sick area and through a door that Sam had never been behind. 

“Do not neglect yourself and tend to your own needs as necessary,” Jacob firmly ordered before placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder and looking him intently in the eye. 

Before Sam could respond to such a statement, the crowned prince headed out the door. For the first time that night, Samuel was left alone with Daniel. He felt suddenly as if a massive boulder had just plummeted onto his shoulders, his entire body sagging with the weight of it. 

“You will make it through this,” Samuel’s voice wavered, wrapping his other hand around Daniel’s that he was already holding, Samuel bringing it up to his lips, “I promise.” 

+++

Countless restless hours had passed, many of them spent watching Danny like a hawk. When it had reached the earliest hours of morning, the jaws of sleep had finally snapped themselves fully into Sam, pulling him down into their clutches. However, that rest would not last long. 

A knock on the door to the infirmary roused Sam from his sleep. He lifted his head up from his crossed arms on Daniel’s cot, shaking his hands against the pins and needles buzzing within them. 

“Come in,” he blearily commanded, thinking it to be Jake. Though, after he had finished rubbing his eyes with his hand, he was surprised to see a serving girl standing before him. 

She was clearly very nervous, her hands wringing together as she made herself very small in stature. She also refused to meet his gaze, nervously glancing around the floor as if she expected a nest of vipers to writhe their way out of it spontaneously. 

“What brings you here?” Sam cringed at how supercilious he sounded, intending to come across as soothing. He had never been good at connecting with people, that was more of the twin’s ability. 

“I apologize for disturbing you, Prince Samuel, I did not mean to cause any strife,” the woman rushed out, still keeping her eyes pointed downwards, “but I have some information regarding… well, regarding Lord Daniel.” She cast her eyes over towards his prone form quickly before forcing them back downwards. 

“You do?? By all means, do tell me.” He had managed to make his tone smoother, keeping his volume down in order to keep from disturbing Daniel. 

That seemed to be the wrong response, however. As soon as the sentence left Sam’s lips, the servant’s body began to tremble wholly. Samuel instantly felt his body turn as rigid as a wood plank at the display. And when he realized that the shallow breaths she was intaking were her sobs, his entire body turned frigid. 

“My lord, please do not spill my blood for this. I know it does not justify my role, but I was under threat of death as well as my family,” she sobbed, her voice just above a whisper. Her entire body shook with the force of her tears, finally locking her glassy eyes onto Sam’s. They were so filled with fear… Sam had no choice but to believe that this was how soldiers looked right before being run though by a blade. 

“Please, try to breathe,” the prince uselessly muttered, kneeling down in front of her to try and seem less imposing, his hands resting gently on her arms, “how about you start by telling me your name?” 

The serving girl swallowed hard, closing her eyes and breathing as she was instructed. “Alcmene.” 

“Alcmene, good. Now, start at the beginning.” 

Taking a deep breath, Alcmene launched into her narrative. 

“It was I who laced the poison into Lord Daniel’s wine. But not I the one who conjured up the plan. I was forced to by Lord Aetós,” she explained, her voice dripping with hysteria as she went. Samuel could feel her tremble beneath his hands. 

Lord Aetós. He should have known he would be the one to devise such a sinister plan. The man had been after the position of court advisor for nearing decades now. Only problem with this being the man had no wisdom to speak of. The thought that he would end Daniel’s life in order to try and take his position caused an unfettered rage to burn fiercely inside Sam’s blood. 

“Please, spare me,” Alcmene desperately pleaded. 

Right as the young royal opened his mouth to assure her no such fate would befall her, she spoke again. 

“If you do deem it necessary to execute me, I have just one request. I have a boy of only three, I simply beg of you to ensure his safety.” Her voice trembled with every word. 

“What of his father?” Sam hesitated to ask, afraid he already knew the answer. 

“He perished in the war,” the woman struggled to say, her voice cracking beneath the weight of her emotions. 

Her words plunged deep beneath his skin like a dagger to the chest. She had been forsaken so egregiously by the court and those she served and here she was, standing before the prince fully anticipating he call for her head for committing an act she had no say in doing; and her only thought was that of her boy’s safety. She was the bravest person Sam had ever encountered. 

Dropping his hands from her arms, Samuel removed the golden bracelets he had wrapped around his wrists and handed them over to her. The look of complete shock on her features did nothing to help ease the guilt thrumming behind his ribs. 

“Your highness…” 

“You have done a great service for us today. You may have just saved Daniel’s life, and for that I am forever in your debt. And as a tiny act of gratitude, please take these. Once this is over, I shall arrange that you be paid handsomely in gold for the rest of your days and never have to worry about you or your son’s safety.” 

She stared down at his offering, her mouth hanging open as she digested his words. “I… I cannot accept…” 

The prince used his free hand to gently grab Alcmene’s, opening her palm and closing her fingers around the jewelry. 

“You are the bravest person I have ever come across. Daniel means more to me than… more to me than words can describe and you just risked your life in order to save his. You deserve this. Now, go and be with… what is your son’s name?” 

“Ganymede,” Alcmene answered, a smile finally breaking through her fear. 

“Right. Go and be with Ganymede. My one contingency of this offering is that you must use this money to purchase him a pet of his choosing,” he playfully instructed her, a smile of his own breaking out across his lips as the woman emitted a watery laugh. 

“I shall find him a guard dog; name him Samuel and tell Ganymede about the wonderful prince who will watch over him for the rest of his life,” she laughed, a meaningful look in her eye as she locked gazes with the royal, “thank you, your highness.” 

“No. Thank you,” he emphasized before sending her off to be with her son. With Alcmene gone, he finally was able to focus fully on the blinding rage boiling just beneath his skin. It was a titan in and of itself, his fury. One that even the Goddess Lyssa would pale at. 

Taking Daniel’s pale hand in his, he placed a lingering kiss on the back of it, forcing himself not to notice how chilled his skin was. Gently resting Daniel’s hand back onto the bed, Samuel swiftly made for the exit. 

“Aetós. You shall pay for this with your blood.”

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