#no matter the lighting just having a solid shadow on his face if he wears his hat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morallyinept · 8 months

Text

Saviour - A Joel Miller One Shot

Summary: Joel's suffering. He can't do this anymore.

Pairing: Joel Miller x GN!Reader (No name or physical description of reader - it's you, bub.)

Word Count: 2.5k-ish

Scoville Smut Rating: 🌶 "Don't hurt me, cadejo."

Check out my Scoville Smut Ratings here.

Waenings/Triggers: Angst. A butt load of angst/very mild smut/unprotected sex (wrap up, folks!)/alludes to violence/let's throw in some chronic insomnia, depression and probable PTSD. Poor Joel 🥺

NSFW. MINORS DNI! OVER 18’s ONLY. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU READ. ☝🏻Don’t come at me; you’ve been plenty warned.

I write for me, and I share with you. If this story isn't to your taste, that's fine. Just slip quietly out the back door. No need to make a fuss. It's just a work of fiction.

MASTERLIST | JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST

Enjoy! 🖤

You can hear the screams.

They rattle through the calcium of your bones, packed tight in the jelly of your marrow. The harrowing sounds of terrible men begging for their lives with blood around their gums. It's a sound that will stay with you when you close your eyes at night.

Like jackals they are; insidious and prowling in the night. They carry the decaying flesh of their prey in the cavities of their yellowing teeth. Sharp. Meat of the innocent. Snapping. Hungry.

Like animals, they are put down.

He told you to stay in that damned room, to not come out. No matter what you heard.

You never do. You know that if you see that, see him, it'll kill you. Hearing the frayed tendrils of what he has to do is enough; too much.

You swallow down the rancid bile that burns at the back of your throat.

You're sitting on the lackadaisical bed; threadbare sheets, knees drawn up and forehead resting on them, eyes closed. You press your sockets into your arm and phosphenes glitter at you. It's the only light you have now, when you're lost in the dark.

You can't help but listen out; ears primed despite your reluctance. There's no other noise to distract you here. No TV fuzz or static. No jaunty music. All that's long gone and seems like a vacant memory now, as if your brain is playing tricks on you; convincing you that you never enjoyed such trivial things to begin with.

There is no music here. Only screaming. And the heavy tarnish of Joel's fists.

Then a gunshot. A heavy thud. And then finally, silence.

The silence lasts for a long time. You feel bound in its rigidity, unable to break free as you're left with little else to do but to ruminate inside its ghastly shadows. The silence doesn't haunt you anymore, you haunt it. Leave solid traces of yourself in the shadows of it to gnarl and unfurl.

Footsteps. A creak of the floorboards and then, the door opening. Flooding with the devastation of him.

You look up as he enters; his face pulled into a tight knot at his brows, forever unchanging and refusing to uncinch as he fails to glance at you.

He can never look at you like this.

His eyes don't soften, they rarely do when it happens. Nothing can reach him, not for a while. It takes time to pull him back to shore. Effort.

Unwavering patience that you're not sure you have enough of anymore. Your fingers sag, blistered from the exhumation. This world has already taken so much.

Do you even have anything left to give?

You tell yourself this every time - and wonder the same each time - when you'll stop telling yourself this. When words that have lost all meaning still punctuate and leave lacerations in their wake. They bleed all over the pair of worn boots you wear that were never yours. Borrowed possessions in a world where possessions are fleeting and meaningless. Their stories pushed aside to make way for the turmoil.

You consider when you'll stop living in stoic acceptance for the things Joel does to keep you safe. Alive.

I don't want it if it means he has to suffer. If he has to die a little more because of it.

The burden weighs heavy. A constant crush on your shoulders that gets heavier to drag each day. Sinking slowly, it's up to your knees. Soon your belly. And you can only wonder how it hasn't fully crushed him yet.

Water runs and his back is to you as he washes what is no doubt blood from his hands. You didn't see, all you saw were his eyes. Dark and… empty. The light of them long since dimmed; the candle almost out.

You forget the colour for a moment. You try to remember nutmeg, autumnal leaves that crisp and curl into their death; a handmade switch from the oak to self-flagellate. The colours are all the same, muddy. Dull.

You move, and don't remember the action. You were both once like clockwork; now it's just you who ticks. You're there behind Joel, his back stiffens whilst he rinses his weathered fingers, even when the water has long since run clear.

Your cheek rests against the broad expanse of him; arms circling his puffy waist, pulling him to you. Anchoring. The material of his shirt is soft, but still feels hard at the same time; it grazes in its plaid juxtaposition.

You feel him flex and then the sinking begins. The tension breaks a little, just enough, a crack; a fissure.

A deft wet hand is pushed against yours, fingers interlock despite its chill.

You hear him breathe out, cold mist that barbs your skin. The faucet's gurgled scream is silenced.

"Joel," you metasticize softly in his plasma, and he doesn't make a sound in response to your infection; just a hangman swinging on the gallows.

But he doesn't need to say anything, he knows you're here; knows your shell is grounding him and giving him what he would never ask for at that moment.

He has never asked.

You would ponder on it if it wasn't futile. Deep down you've always known why.

His other fist finds yours - wet and brusied - and squeezes his fingers around your digits tightly. He crushes back until they go numb and your bones feel like they might break and crumble.

He lets go and like always, he heads straight for the bed when you're home, or the place you both call home now that isn't really. Doesn't undress, never undresses after. Even though you can see the blood now on his shirt, smell its iron fruiting.

He rolls, facing the dull window and by the time you're there beside him and running your arm under his, he's gripping your fingers back again. The ebb of his heartbeat felt on the tips languidly. You wonder when it is that you'll feel the last strangled convulsion of it.

You know he would have closed his eyes. But he's not sleeping. No.

Joel never sleeps.

Can't. Not without the pills or whiskey or whatever else he can find or trade for the nightmares to be silenced temporarily.

And when he can't, he stays awake. Even when you succumb beside him and he can hear your laboured breaths taunting him mercilessly as you dream unbidden. A small part of him resents you for that. He wants to make you suffer for the peace you've harboured selfishly for yourself.

You know. You would too if the bloodied boot were on the other foot.

Joel slowly deflates over the course of the night. You feel it each time he breathes out; his weight seems to feel lighter, a rib breaks and flattens the broadness of him into softer pulp. The muscles in his arm don't feel so tight. The cords in his neck become less taught. The leather of his skin more slack around his eyes.

Small pieces of him dying.

And you're left beside him just silently mourning each and every one.

When you wake, you know he'll be there. Unmoved, eyes still closed but not asleep. He never sleeps. The hurricane is never still.

But when you wake up this time, hunkered down in your dreary peace, it's different.

He's not there.

The alarm you feel swiftly shifts into panic. He's always there.

"Joel?" You call out gently.

You listen for the shower. For the mutter of his breath in the walls. Your feet take flight - again you don't remember it. He's nowhere to be found and the unsettling thoughts won't let you have any respite until he comes back, some three days later. Somewhat worse for wear. Somewhat the same.

He's aged. Aged so terribly in the last seventy-two hours that he's barely recognisable, and yet is still the same as you remember.

You don't remember much, just the empty void he left that haunted you tirelessly and nothing else. No peace resides here anymore. He selfishly took it and bundled it clumsily into his backpack leaving you with a decaying husk to nurture in his place.

When his face appears in front of yours again, said backpack discarded by your feet, his hands are strangely warm as they hold onto yours; pulling you out and into an even more terrifying nightmare than you've been rusticating in for the last three days.

You slap him across the jaw and it stings you; he doesn't flinch. He knows he deserves it.

His dark eyes search into yours as he presses your trembling hands to his lips but doesn't kiss them. Just holds them there for a while until your prints twitch through the prickly scruff overhanging his top lip like razorwire.

"Joel-" You begin to croak, but he stops you shaking his head vehemently.

"No." He utters in a small gruff.

And you still. You know it's okay, he's here. Nothing bad happened to him. Physically, at least.

You push your forehead to his and he breathes out. More deflating.

More dying.

"I can't do this anymore." He murmurs, barely audible, but it rings loud around the room like a claxon. Your warm, stale breath of relief hits him on his eyelashes.

"Thank God," you whisper back.

It takes him a while to speak again because he doesn't elaborate. He doesn't need to. He knows you understand and will accept it. Because you have to. And you will.

It's killing you.

He's unmoving, just there with his forehead stamped on yours and it's like you can feel some of that tension leaving him and being absorbed by your pores, even if you have no more room for it.

But you always make space somehow, shift things around. Forego them if necessary. And you can feel him become lighter with it as you start to sink.

You know that's how you save him.

You know how to breathe life back into him to keep him going for that little bit longer.

You lay him down and let him fill you up. There is none of the play, none of the readying. Nothing that would be remotely considered affectionate between you both. It's all you can offer because you know it is all he will take from you.

Something raw and peeled back to reveal bruised and rotting sinew beneath the tender flesh.

He still groans when you slide down on him fully; feel his weight and bulk heavy inside you. Swollen with need, a body to be emptied.

You rock gently on him with your forehead still attached to his, glued by salt. His hands are across your back, mapping over your shoulders; crushing you to him. Your ribs are tight against his as they knock together.

He doesn't kiss you, because he can't. He won't look at you, because he can't.

He can only love you like this, fractured.

And so you give him yours instead; this piece of you that you know can pull him through. To pull something out of him other than grief for a little while.

You don't come. You don't need to because it's more than just pleasure. It's how you save him again and again.

And if it means that a piece of you dies in return each time, then it's worth it to lay suffocating, your wings withering at his feet.

Joel comes inside you, pumping you full of the last tattered, warm parts of him, and as he releases, a hefty hand goes to his eyes.

You feel him silently rumble as his chest heaves and his lips downturn. You hear the stuffy sniffles from his nose as he breaks fully. Disintegrates into the mattress to be inhaled and choked on by you.

"I'm here, Joel. I'm right here." You remind him softly. Gently until his fingers latch around yours and you feel the wetness of his tears burn your skin.

You've always been here. You can't remember since when. You can't remember the before.

He muffles into your shoulder as those last few breaths are strangled before his body stills and you feel him blink against the pulse of your throat.

You stay like that, connected, for what seems like hours; his spend seeping out onto the soft down of his thighs and his turgid cock shrivelled, resting under your weight.

He sighs and you know he's beyond exhausted. Beyond done.

You leave him, again not remembering it as you crush the pills under the glass and swipe the powder into the amber liquid. He drinks it down fast and his head catches back on the pillow.

He pulls you close to him and your hands find skin that you've forgotten, neglected, as does his. You kiss his nape, but realise he doesn't feel it as he's slipped away from you, finally.

For the first time in what feels like a long time, Joel sleeps.

He can't let you be his saviour anymore, not when it costs you your humanity. And he can't be yours anymore. Not when it costs him his.

The price of survival is too much. And you're both out of ration cards to keep trading for it.

Instead, you slumber beside him with the weight of the world tucked in your back pocket for another day when it might rear its fungal head.

Right now, you're here with him and he with you. Even if you're both broken and damaged beyond some basic repair.

You hear the sounds of his dreams wash you away down the drain as he steals your peace from you. Takes the last of your colours, fading them out with turpentine.

For the first time, in what feels like a long time, Joel sleeps.

MASTERLIST | JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST

I hope you enjoyed this lil' Joel story of mine. Re-blogs and comments are always cherished & appreciated! 🖤

#joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller the last of us #joel miller tlou #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #joel fic #joel tlou #joel x f!reader #joel x m!reader #tlou fanfic #tlou fic #tlou fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal #joel x gn!reader

189 notes · View notes

fieldofdaisiies · 1 year

Text

Azris | I Have Been Expecting You, Shadowsinger

type: drabble warning(s): nothing word count: 570 summary: Azriel returns to the Forest House later than expected and Eris isn’t too happy about it. Thank you @autumndreaming7 for the picture inspiration💛

“You are late,” the High Lord of Autumn says matter-of-factly. Half of his face is laced in darkness as the only light source is a single candle burning on top of his desk.

The High Lord’s tone is as cold as the Winter Court and fully empty of emotion when he speaks to Azriel who steps into the dim room. Oh, the High Lord can play this role so well.

The shadowsinger’s eyes widen when he takes his first look at his mate. They have finally adjusted to his shadowy surrounding. Azriel has to swallow around the sudden dryness in his throat, his heart is starting to beat in a quicker pace. He hasn’t expected Eris to be waiting for him. Not that late. He has expected Eris to be in bed already, waiting for him there. But most definitely Azriel has not expected Eris to be waiting for him like this.

The High Lord’s cloak is draped over the sides of the arm chair, he is wearing no shirt, sitting there in all his half-naked glory, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“I am—“ “Sorry?” Eris cocks a brow in amusement and stretches one leg, folding the ankle of the other over it. “Are you really?” The High Lord lets his gaze trail over Azriel, slowly, almost tentatively. He devours the sight of his mate — Azriel standing there in all his tall glory, shadows dancing around him, stretching out, yearning for Eris to play with them. Azriel’s sharp features stand out in the dim room, his high cheekbones, his jaw, his plump lips, his beautiful eyes and Eris has a hard time to play all annoyed and angry when all he wants to do is pull Azriel to him and kiss the little pout on his lush lips.

“I am,” Azriel breathes, his fingers curling towards his palms at his sides. “I got hold up, Cassian wanted to talk about—“ “So the general is more important than your mate?” Eris leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. He silently regards Azriel’s reaction to his accusation and finally clicks his tongue. Eris raises a brow— a silent question that the shadowsinger quickly a moment later. “The matter was urgent, but no, he is not more important than my mate. No one, is and you know that.”

Eris grins brightly at that, he just can’t avoid it, his chest warming at Azriel’s confession. His annoyed mask shatters and he wants Azriel to see just how happy he is about his words. Too long have they been hiding in the shadows, denying their feelings. Eris stretches both his legs then, sitting in a sprawl and pats his lap. “Come here.” Azriel does not have to be told twice, he has been anticipating being close to his mate for hours. He moves forward and only hesitates for a moment to think about how he would sit on his lap— he does not get much time to do so when Eris reaches out his hands, tugs at Azriel’s scarred ones and pulls him onto his lap, Azriel’s thighs caging him. Eris’ lips closer over his Azriel’s and the fiery male kisses him in a gentle yet passionate way that should tell him just how much he has been yearning fro him.

“Gods, I missed you so much,” Eris breathes against the shadowsinger’s lips, his thumb brushing over Azriel’s cheek. Azriel’s eyes are still closed, his lips curling against Eris’ mouth when he lets his hands move up Eris’ chest, loving how hot his mate’s skin feels under his callused palms, how solid and hard his muscles are. How Eris’ flexes his pectorals under his mate’s touch.

“I am sure I missed you more and it has only been a day.”

Eris pecks the corner of his mate’s mouth and chuckles lowly. Azriel’s hands stay on his mate’s chest, on his pecs, over his heart.

“One day is definitely too long, my love.” Azriel is still smiling when he opens his eyes, hazel meeting russet. Eris swallows, his hand still resting on Azriel’s face, thumb idly swiping back and forth. “How is everything in Windhaven. You said the matter was urgent, I assume it had to do with the war camp.”

Azriel inclines his head. “Yes, just some smaller uproars in Windhaven and Ironcrest.” Azriel leans more into his mate’s touch, savouring Eris’ warmth, reveling in the feel of his mate’s skin on his own, Eris’ rich scent of spices, sandalwood and fire enveloping him. “Can we not talk about it now?”

“Of course,” Eris answers and leans back the tiniest bit. “Let’s go to bed, shall we?”

~~~~~~~~~

tags: @azrielsbabyg @lady-riel @moonlightazriel @aayo-whatt @brekkershadowsinger @ladyelain @banasheefan56 @a-frog-with-a-laptop

#azris #azriel x eris #azriel #eris vanserra #acotar #acosf #azriel acotar #eris acotar

170 notes · View notes

gasolineghuleh · 7 days

Note

Umm the Mary Goore and Secondo one sound good, reeeeaalllllll good 🤤

i picked the Goore one first cause he's my muse and i am booboo the fool

also this is a loose writing style i've been trying out lately. thoughts appreciated!

Words: 2.0k

cw: dead Mary, ghost sex, idk he's a phantom, Ghost, have fun with it.

When you see the strange, smokey shadow in your kitchen you think you're sleep deprived and becoming delusional. You've been at home, alone, all day long, cleaning and relaxing. Sometimes a little self-care consists of scrubbing the everloving hell out of your dirty and dingy apartment. It isn't often that you get the chance to really do some Spring cleaning, but now's the time. "This place has seen some shit," you mutter to yourself. When you kneel down to scrub the kitchen linoleum with a toothbrush - one deemed "unsavable" and useless by dental professionals or normal people - you get the feeling that you're being watched.

Mary, you think his name is. His sharp-featured, pale face is seared into your brain as it floats across your mind-- and not for the first time. He introduced himself to you the week after you moved in, deeming you safe enough to approach because of your nontraditional choices in home decor. Since then, he's visited a fair few times and even managed to physically interact with you most recently.

You'd decided to wear just your panties and a tank top, something light enough so the inevitable sweat didn't make you uncomfortable while cleaning, but now you're slightly regretting the decision. After all, this wasn't really an outfit intended for company. But does it matter, really, if the visitor isn't exactly living? No, you decide, it doesn't. Ghosts are just people... who happen to have died and are possibly able to rattle chains and throw things around. You haven't seen Mary do much of the throwing stuff thing yet, but you'd really rather not test out the possibility in person. And Mary has never done anything bad to you before, never even hurt you... as far as you know.

The feeling of him materializing is distinctive and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up straight. It reminds you of sticking your tongue on the batteries inside a remote, or the screen of a dying plasma television. You stand up straight, rolling your shoulders and peeling your gloves off with a snap. Mary, in full form and looking surprisingly human, is standing only a foot behind you and looks almost mischievous. All of his features are the same as they were in life, as far as you're aware. His jawline, high cheekbones and large eyes coupled with his intense eyebrows, tattoos and black hair make him look dangerous. It seems that a person as pretty and delicate-looking as Mary wouldn't be able to say some of the things he does.

"Baby," his voice is like the creaking of the floorboards, "don't turn around." He points over your shoulder, tilting his head to see better behind you. "There's a ghost behind you." You roll your eyes and laugh, turning around shaking your hands in mock fear. Across from you is a full length mirror, with Mary's spectral form perfectly visible. In the smooth glass surface and over your shoulder, he smiles. "Missed you."

"Been a few weeks," is your only reply as you nod, folding your arms under your breasts. "I thought you'd evaporated like left over soup." You don't move, but your thoughts move far too quickly as you scrutinize Mary's visage. He's wearing tight black jeans with holes in the knees, his shirt is black, ratty, covered in grease stains and something that looks alarmingly like blood. His hair is a mess, a well styled black nest framing his face beautifully. It's longer than usual, and the makeup around his eyes is smudged and smeared.

"Is this what you want?" Mary whispers, coming up behind you and threading his fingers through your hair. "Me, actually with you? Solid and warm?" His left hand trails along your clavicle, running up and down your throat before coming back to the opposite end of the bone.

"Mm, more than anything." You allow yourself to lean your head back onto his shoulder, closing your eyes and allowing him to run his hands along your body. "How did you know?" His voice is soft when he speaks, directly into your ear,

"A guy just knows his girl." Mary tucks himself close against you, his hips pressed against the swell of your ass as his hand trails along your midriff, fingers splayed wide across your stomach. "You know if you more, I might not be able to follow you." Already, you're nodding, the decision made long before this point.

"This is home."

"So are you."

When the rough pad of his calloused finger finds the swollen bud of your clit you gasp, your hips rocking back against his with a sharp movement. His other arm winds its way around your waist, holding you against him as he runs lazy circles along your tender nerves with his index finger. His tongue snakes out to trace along the shell of your ear, only serving to further ignite the warmth of arousal already spreading through your lower half and sending goose bumps down your arms. Ever so slightly, your hips are grinding along with Mary's movements, begging for more of his attention without speaking. You lean back, your arm instinctively going around his neck as Mary grinds his teeth gently against the soft skin of your neck.

"Open your eyes." Mary's voice jolts you awake, keeps you from melting into his arms. In the mirror you can see yourself reflected, panties pushed down to allow for his hand to caress you. Your cheeks are flushed with need, lips red and kissable-- and kiss them he does, capturing them in a warm and long-awaited kiss. His left hand, supporting your weight, cups around the swell of your breast to find the hardened bud of your nipple. Already Mary is pinching at you, plucking and pulling you to painful hardness as you moan and writhe in his grip.

"You were too shy to ask me to do this, weren't you?" His breath is hot against your ear as he catches your gaze in the mirror. "Little did you know... You only had to say the word and I'd appear, ready and willing to make you scream."

"Please," is all you can manage, struggling to maintain eye contact with him over your shoulder. His fingers press harder against your clit, finally moving down to your entrance, moving in teasing circles until your hips start to rock against him. With a wordless cry, your legs fall open, inviting Mary to slip a finger inside your tight heat.

It doesn't take long for you to become vocal. Your sounds mix together-- little gasps, breathy moans and needy whimpers-- as you tilt your head back. At first, he almost fucks you on his one digit, curving his long finger into the smooth skin just inside your walls. Instead, he pulls his finger out of you and gathers your slickness onto his index and middle fingers, rolling your clit firmly in the vee he's created. The movement is strong, fluid, constant, driving you forward towards your orgasm slowly but surely. Your legs are spread in a bent W shape as he fingers you, holding you for balance as your toes curl in your socks.

When you cum it's wordless, almost soundless, and the pleasure that wracks your body moves like a freight train through your senses. If feels as if you're watching in third person, coming back to your body as the ripples of pleasure and aftershocks run through you. Mary holds you tightly, cupping your mound to limit your overstimulation but pressing you up against his hips as they continue to rock against you.

"Want you. Need you. Fucking fucking fuck, baby, need you so bad." Mary chokes the words out, barely holding onto his waning self control. "Just wanna bury my cock inside you and kiss you forever, I promise. Touch you. Hold you." He continues to talk as he urges you down gently to the floor, hands scrabbling at the elastic of your panties. You feel the material pull stickily away from your soaked cunt and the kiss of cold air between your legs is welcome. Above you, Mary looks positively ravenous, practically vibrating out of his skin as he positions himself above you. Your knees fall apart in an unconscious invitation, causing Mary's fingers to still at the button of his jeans.

His dark eyes flicker over your face, scrutinizing you. Your head falls back against the linoleum, the sweat making it slip uncomfortably on the shiny, brightly coloured floor, and you laugh. Mary sputters out a laugh above you before placing his hands on either side of your head, leaning over you with a wide grin. "It's always fun with you, Mare," you say with a matching smile, bringing a hand up to card your fingers through his hair. He answers you with a deep kiss, shuffling forward and aligning his cock with your entrance.

As he sinks into you, the sensation is almost dizzying. Being filled has never felt so perfect or so delicious; his shaft stretches you, filling you in the most satisfying of ways, and your hips soon begin to rock as you try to urge him on. Soon Mary is snapping his hips against you, grinding his pelvis into your clit at the base of each push before repeating the process. You're able to see almost every single part of him: His defined, black-painted nails, his plump and pinkened lips, and the empty earring holes in either ear.

"Cum for me," you whisper, pulling him down closer to you and rolling your hips contrecoup to his. Mary's pupils look almost blown at your words, but the green irises contract as he blinks down at you. You can see over his shoulder, his hips moving against you and the pumping of his core as he moves.

Watching him is almost the best part.

Mary comes undone at the smallest things: Rocking your hips up into him makes him let out a loud moan, for instance, and him circling the pad of his finger around the bud of your clit like a figure eight makes you twitch, hips bucking into him. His long hair cascades into your face, occasionally sticking to the sweat you'd worked up washing the floor, and it tickles you in a good way when it brushes against your bare skin. Mary's pale and blood-spattered shirt clings to him, rucked up around his narrow hips to allow him the most access to you and displaying the flat of his abdominals.

"Do it again." His voice is low, ragged and desperate, a hair away from begging for you. "Kiss me." You capture his lips in a fierce kiss, pulling him down into your body as he groans against you. He quickens the pace of his finger and your cunt begins to tighten around him, seeking that electric tension that signals your imminent release. "Please," he begs, thrusting against your knee as you raise your right leg to rub against his side.

"Come on Mare." He whimpers and presses himself deep inside of you, his cock pulsing in time with the rhythm of his heart as he cums hard. His arms shake in his attempts to hold himself up, and two more rolls of his hips have him crying out in pleasure. Mary's fingers swipe across your nub a few more times before you join him, back arching off of the cold floor as your voice fills the room.

"Thank you," Mary whispers, pressing his lips against the crown of your head. "For everything, I mean."

"There's always a place here for you."

#the band ghost fics #the band ghost ficlet #ghost bc fanfic #lorraine writes #mary goore #repugnant #goore #mary goore x reader #reader x mary goore #the band ghost

7 notes · View notes

cosmica-galaxy · 1 year

Note

A continuation on this monster of a text, https://www.tumblr.com/cosmica-galaxy/719001034780000256

Me while reading this: Ohhhh celestial castle, very nice, dawww and they put Deimos and Sanford close together? In like a small bed, did they make a doll house for their resting vessels? That's so sweet, I would have ne- wh… w what do you mean “if he ever woke up from his slumber”.

Would this mean that others could potentially wake up too… heh, live footage of Jeb checking if Hofnarr is dead or alive https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YtSPQIK15uc

But seriously though THAT'S SO COOL, when i read the line “That once the employers confront the false moon, the “moon” is revealed to be one of Player’s eyes” i hit my table i was so pumped. This character started off so sad then it turned so wholesome, i love it.

Also, I think :Mothra's Theme (Queen of the Monsters Suite): would be a good fit for their character.

But another thing that's been bugging me, wouldn't the vessels notice something wrong, first they are engaged in combat and the other second they aren't, you can't tell me that they wouldn't notice.

Like a siad in the previous post maby it comes to a point where Doc wants to find out about this god. I mean if the employers are so perturbed by it and it's affecting his mercenaries (the exception being Hank). Then what could this mean… Listen, I just want one, ONE of the madcom characters to meet the moon god face to face in all there glory, is that so much to ask for?

Originally I imagined the god to have flesh, but now that I have a better understanding of their character I think it would be more suitable if they were made out of solid rock, or at least appear to be. It's hard to see their real form through the misty light that's covering them, but when they're scaled down a mock version of their form appears.

The gods body and clothes are made out of chiseled marble yet the garments that they wore moved with their body as if it wasn't. A shadow forever masking the left side of their face, the only glimpse to what's beneath it is a crimson stream dripping down their chine. It's hard to think that a statue could ever bleed, or for that matter feel pain, but how are one supposed to know if they are not one in the same. Cracks oozing with blood seep into the desert sand. The only indicator that they were ever there, despite their superiority they can not stay in that form for long.

I've been puting of how I envision their clothes to be or what they wear and ehh… they are very see-through. But then again I can't imagine the moon having any genitalia since they are a celestial body, their whole being is covered up by their mighty aura.

For referens

Here's a short little doodle dump to show what would happen during the confrontation. : )

#long post #shegairownmyamo #haxorus imp #hax speaks #cosmica galaxy #my doodles

24 notes · View notes

rekas-writes · 2 years

Text

Spooktober Day 2: Sweater Weather

Pair: Omen/FtM! Reader Source: Valorant

Type: Drabble - 1298 words Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort Perspective: Second-Person (You/Your)

Summary: Omen knits you a sweater to help ease your dysphoria

TW: Mentions of Dysphoria, binders and spiralling

A/N: I got an Oodie recently and I’ve been lounging in it all day everyday while I play games. Can’t lie, it’s a very nice dysphoria reliever for me and is part of the inspo for this fic haha. Also, for however far I am behind, I’ll be making up for. Don’t worry!

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Today just wasn’t your day… nor was the day before… or the day before that… And thinking about it, you wondered if any day would ever be your day again.

Tomorrow didn’t exactly fill you with hope, only the lingering dread of having to face the light of day once more, of having to face your draining thoughts and inner voice once more. If you had to describe Dysphoria? It was like a dirt pit. A dark, deep pit that whenever you fought a little harder to climb out, you only found yourself sliding back down to where you started. Maybe a little further. The edges were all loose dirt and slippery gravel, like some corn silo a poor bird would get suffocated in.

It had been a while since you’d faced a wave of emotional aching as painful and as seemingly never-ending as this. The voices pulling you down so viciously were usually quiet enough to ignore; they were easier to rip apart and disprove when you were so confident and proud... But now? When your confidence was shattered so completely by your incessant thoughts and your self esteem felt so brittle and fragile? Now, you only seem to see and remember everything that felt wrong, even when everyone around you seems to only see the best you. The you that looked and felt every bit the man he is.

Your growing discomfort with yourself only made your bad habits emerge louder, ever more apparent. From staying in your dorm, to wearing your binder for far too long, hyper-focusing and pinching at the parts of you you deemed too “unmasculine”. Every little thing felt off, setting your cursed brain off to spiral ever deeper into its own misery and anxiety. It felt so lonely, so isolating. Like another experience that sets you apart from being a “true man”.

But your looming shadow would never let you forget that you were never really alone in the first place, were you?

Though quiet he may be, he was always there. A solid presence that never wavered, even when your Dysphoria threatened to wash you under. Omen is your beacon of comfort during times like these, a symbol of solidarity as he empathises with your plight. Though your struggles differ, he sees the likeness in the way he questions every so often if he was truly more than the endless shadow and void he’s bound as. Whether or not he was deserving of the friendship and love he is shown by you and his allies. If he was truly deserving of the title of your boyfriend, when there were others more human than he who vied to be by your side in the way he was.

But you always shrugged those thoughts off, always looking at him with that content, little smile of yours as you assured him that none could ever replace him. None could warm your heart more than he, the agent with the namesake of imminent catastrophe. In your eyes, he’s so much more human than so many people you’ve seen. You make him believe that he’s worth it. That he is worthy of love when all he believes he is, is a monster.

So he tries his damn hardest to do the same when you feel down. When you feel like everything is against you. Patient, as he encourages you to heal at your own pace. The time he had off-mission was time he spent mostly by your side, no matter how much you tried to convince him you were fine. He’s always been perceptive, especially of you and lying was never your strong suit. You always felt a little guilty whenever he did this, but he stuck by you with such stubborn concern and affection that managed to stifle those gnawing thoughts.

Rousing you from your thoughts, Omen frowns a little (something you recognise as the little constant jitter and wave his blue scars make whenever he’s displeased) as he calls your name seriously, making you flinch a little like a child receiving a scolding, “How long have you been wearing that for?” He points a claw at you, and you only look away guiltily. He always seemed to know when you had it on and when you’d taken it off. You can feel his frown deepen as he shakes his head at your averted eyes, “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he states so matter-of-factly that you can’t seem to find a valid argument. Shuffling with a garment in his lap, he finally addresses the thing you’d been curious about since he’d laid it down. It seemed to have patches of your favourite colour from what you could see of it bunched up.

“I made this for you,” Omen lifts the now seemingly oversized garment up, “to ease your discomfort,” he speaks softly, his posture turning a little more shy and bashful. His hard work and care could be seen in each individual stitch and the various beautiful blends of simple and complex patterns. It’s like a way cooler, comfier version of your baggy hoodies. The ends of the sleeves cinch to make sure your hands are visible and usable under the puffy sleeves without needing to roll them up. You take it with bright, awe-stricken eyes and a wonder-smitten smile, and Omen can feel his core pulse with affection and pride at making you look so happy.

Taking a deep breath in, you enter your bathroom to change- feeling the tight squeezing around your torso ease at last as you finally take your binder off for the day. You’re quick to slide your night shirt and newly acquired knitted sweater on, if only to distract from the growing distress in the back of your mind. Shuffling out, you have a weary smile as you spin around to show your boyfriend his handiwork, “How do I look, love?”

The way the shadows flow laxly upon his form, the bright blue highlights of his face pulsing slowly and contently, he seems like he’s smiling as he regards you. Slowly, he reaches one bandaged hand out carefully- his version of an invitation for affection. You’re quick to answer as you usher yourself into his arms. He takes a moment to relax, still slightly unused to physical contact, before holding you gently in his arms as he mutters,

“Handsome,”

The word takes you off guard, but in a way that makes your heart leap and mouth twitch upwards in a way it hasn’t for so long. It’s a wonderful welcoming change to the discomfort and self-bitterness. His tone lies bare with truth, and it makes your heart clench. You gladly let yourself be held in the Controller’s delicate embrace, closing your eyes like pounds of weight had been eased off of you for once. Like a few chains of many sliding to the floor, finally snapped and broken. You’re almost tearful as he holds you close, yet it portrays all the unspoken love and tenderness all the same. It’s easy to see how much the usually aloof agent cares for you in the quiet actions he makes for you.

Omen mutters a soft proclamation of love for you in your ear, ensuring only you and you alone can hear; your name follows so confidently that you can’t help the watery hiccup and raw sob that forces its way out of your throat. He carefully runs a hand against your back, a comforting touch as he helps you let go of all the pent up emotion bottled up inside. It's just your name but it’s never felt more sweet nor more fitting than when it fell from Omen’s mouth. It’s a reminder that you truly are the man you yearn to be. Always have, always will be.

No matter how hard the climb to inner peace was, you realise maybe… Just maybe… As your shadow holds you close, perhaps you didn’t have to climb out of your pit alone.

#valorant #valorant x reader #omen x reader #valorant omen #x ftm reader #x male reader #x trans male reader #reader insert #tw dysphoria

47 notes · View notes

eucalyptgem · 1 year

Text

some notes about the production of macbeth i saw tonight, because it was wonderful!

- The performance was set in the early 1920s, and whilst this didn’t seem to have any effect on the story interpretation, it made for some wonderful costumes and set pieces (I was particularly fond of Lady Macbeth’s pantsuit)

- Banquo was played by a non-binary person, who absolutely killed it! They brought such a tenderness to Banquo’s relationship with Fleance and a genuine, joyful care for Macbeth that was slowly tainted by concern as time went on.

- Speaking of performances, Lady Macbeth was incredible. Also, Lady Macbeth top rights for the win. Straddled Macbeth and pinned him down as soon as he got home and then when he got excited, slapped him in the face (“Your face, my Thane, is a book where men / may read strange matters”) and then just got up and left him on the floor lmaoooo

- Jumping ahead a little but after the Macbeths’ argument post-murder, Macbeth flinching away from Lady Macbeth when she goes to hold his blood covered hands.

- For almost the entire show, the entire cast was on stage. Instead of leaving they would all stand at the edges facing away from the audience. Instead of having the audio cues like screams and knocking in some of the scenes, the cast would simultaneous make these jerky movements to draw the attention. This also made the few times the stage was genuinely empty stand out.

- The whole banquet sequence was incredible, but particularly Macbeth’s manic giggles upon seeing Banquo. Banquo standing stock still for the first half before rushing to grab Macbeth’s face, and then standing right up against him in his second appearance. Macbeth’s actor was absolutely fantastic and when he started scuttling around the stage backwards on all fours whilst yelling like the girl from The Ring i was Very Unnerved.

- Macbeth just… curled in the foetal position for a solid 5 minutes. Same.

- Lady Macbeth KILLED it with the sleepwalking sequence. Love love loved that on the last “come, come, come, come, give me your hand” bit she became considerably gentler and crouched down, beckoning as though to a toddler learning to walk.

- Macduffs gasps and sobs when hearing his family was killed :( really made the “I will feel it like a man” line hit harder

- Macbeth just became entirely, manically insane for the last section. His whole breakdown, including wearing his jacket incredibly weirdly and crawling all over a chair like gollum, was emphasised through the very stark lighting casting his face in shadows.

- When brought the news of the moving forest he FULLY tackled the messenger to the ground and just sort of… enveloped the poor dude? Lying right on top of him

- Also at this point all of the chairs and tables from around the stage were haphazardly stacked in a mess in the corner. Something something the stage physically representing the breakdown of Macbeth’s mind.

- The final duel being with bayonets was a nice touch

overall i had a great time! while i think there could’ve been more done re: interpretation of some of the character dynamics (macbeth and banquo, macduff and malcolm), and some of the musical scoring and fight choreography came off as a bit cheesy, the actors pulled off a wonderful performance

#macbeth #shakespeare #classic lit #didn’t beat the production i saw back in 2018 though #god what i wouldn’t give to be in a shakespeare tragedy

17 notes · View notes

vvatchword · 1 year

Text

Over the space of an eternity, he became aware of a faint, rhythmic humming. It took a moment for him to realize that this was blood rushing up into his head. An invisible fist squeezed his heart.

“Daddy.”

His eyes flew open. The blackness was so complete he could have drowned in it. He slapped numbly against his helmet; after four or five tries, he finally tripped the switch for his lamp. It lit up a section of cracked tile. Beyond that was only shadow.

He listened closely. He couldn’t tell whether he had heard the word or imagined it.

Did it matter?

He rolled over, his muscles protesting, and groped for a purchase on the tile. His hands and feet were dead weights and his fingers and knees wouldn’t bend. As he struggled to find some command of his legs, he rolled over too far. With a sickening lurch, he tumbled into deep, scummy seawater.

The puddle was as cold as the ninth level of hell and brought him roaring out, slapping indiscriminately in every direction until he heaved himself onto solid ground. All the memories of the shark-eyed woman and her cohorts swept back to him in a wave. Then he remembered Sister, her chalky face… the goon… the gun…

Pain jabbed behind his eye and lanced from one temple to the other.

No time.

Com

part

mentalize.

He struggled to his feet. His reflection shone back at him from dark water. He was wearing his diving helmet.

Oh shit.

Oh shit!

Now he remembered! He’d gone diving! He’d dived! Fuck! Where was he? How long had he been out? How much oxygen did he have?

He rotated his cuffs. Left arm normal—one red tube, one neon-blue, both diving into the inside of his elbow; red at 0, blue at 100%. It was his right arm that was shocking: depth meter shivered at 3,280 meters, and as for his available air, the little dial pointed to 75%.

Shit! Shit! Shit! He was at record-breaking depths here, and at 75% he should’ve at least found the object of his mission. He couldn’t play loosey-goosey with his timing. He’d fucking die.

Wait. Wait wait wait.

What had he come down here for, again?

Sister.

That’s right, Sister! Gone! In trouble!

He closed his eyes and sought her presence. To his horror, he felt nothing but the squeeze on his heart. He tried to think her out, praying she was thinking of him, too. It had worked in the past, when his head had been cottony and he had stumbled to the wrong vent.

She did not answer.

He took a deep breath and shouted. At least, his intent had been to shout. The roar that blasted out of him shivered the water like a thunderclap, bounced off of the walls, echoed away, and away, and away…

A little loud, but thank god. He needed loud.

He waited.

Then, quietly, the answer came to him. It was sharp and short, like a polite cough in the back of a theater. And then, just as quickly as he had sensed it, it was gone.

He sagged. She was alive. They hadn’t killed her yet. But there was no time to lose.

No time at all.

75% O2.

Sister.

Guns.

He lumbered off into the darkness and immediately sank into water up to his thigh. He flailed and slipped and stamped one foot down, then the other, and rocked upright. The floor had buckled dramatically; soft as sponge, and slick on the grades, and the water murky on top of all that. Like ice-skating without skates.

Wait. When had he ever ice-skated?

He slapped his helmet until his ears rang. No time to think about that.

Sister!

He staggered, slid, threw his arms out, and sidestepped across the room. Tingling heat built in his chest and throbbed at the tips of his fingers. At least his hands and feet were starting to feel real again.

As he caught himself on the banister, the lights overhead flickered on and blazed liquid agony straight through his eyeballs.

He slapped his hands over his faceplate with a howl. Imprinted on the backs of his eyelids was an inverse image. A spacious alcove framed a stylized letter “A” couched in a blazing sun.

He slowly parted his fingers.

“Hrroooh,” he said.

He sloshed in a slow circle. This was not the area he remembered seeing last.

Live electricity sparked from gashes in the walls. Waterfalls poured from the ceiling, and the faux plants were slimy-black where they hadn’t disintegrated outright. And the mold! The place was coated with mold so thick he could’ve cut it off in slabs and built a mattress.

Shit.

A bad dream. Probably the worst bad dream he’d ever seen.

He took a deep breath.

One. Two. Three.

He let the breath out.

He clomped up the staircase. He was already starting to feel better. Still stiff, back like an ironing board, but his muscles were starting to squeak along in some semblance of normalcy, and the pain felt pretty good, if he were honest. It was going to be all right; lots of bad dreams turned out all right. He was at 75% O2. Not bad, good enough to return to the boat. Sister was alive, check. Should get her to the boat, too. Jewels was there, on the boat. Jewels, good old… whoever? Whatever. But Jewels was… jewels were?… good, definitely.

Good feelings about that word.

Great feelings about the boat.

The lights flickered on again. He reflexively covered his face. This time, the inverse image printed on his eyelids was a vent: a nickel starburst framing a gaping void.

One minute he was standing on the staircase. The next minute, he had jammed his faceplate up against the vent and started hammering his fist like a madman. The wall shivered with each blow, raining rotten chunks of plaster.

He hesitated mid-swing. Dropped his fist. Big swathes of intact wallpaper jiggled like gelatin for a good minute after he’d finished. He could see using the dream-sight, but not far. The vent was full of rubble. No little girl could possibly crawl through that.

Wait a minute.

He stood still. Breathed. Checked his wrist. 73%.

Big breath in.

Count to three.

Big breath out.

Again.

He’d clearly fucked up somehow, and bad. Problem: he wasn’t yet sure how exactly. He felt like he was groping in the dark, feeling shapes he had forgotten names for. Like someone was shouting to him and he could only hear their tone of voice, and that tone was, “You fucker! You dumb fucking asshole!”

Sister.

A warm cloud floated over him. The alarms jangling up and down his spine faded off reluctantly.

Yeah. Sister. That was the ticket.

Find Sister. Save Sister.

He jammed his right hand into the drill, tilted it back and checked the fuel gauge. Nearly full.

Save Sister.

He lunged up the stairs. The wood smashed flat and spongy beneath his boots. A big groove, fresh and black, had already smashed the stairs down, crushing the wood down to the stone foundation.

That explained it. He had broken down and dragged himself, that’s all. Then he got fixed. He’d been fixed before. They’d practically had to sew his arm back onto his shoulder once. What was a shot to the head?

Take the bullet out.

Sew the head back together.

Screw it back on.

Follow the rut back to Sister.

He passed a constellation of plate-sized craters in the wall, their outlines crusted with mineral buildup. Someone had slashed paint all over the walls, vividly white in his headlamp. A dozen handprints in peeling paint, the heels pressed together, like butterflies for Sunday School. Words had been splashed on the wall, too—some of them still fresh. A big triangle had been drawn over one bare patch. Lots of triangles. Lots of letters. He barely noticed that they were there.

Above the staircase, an ample arch, then the hall. He followed the rut dragging down the right-hand corridor.

73%.

A pile of furniture hulked in a corner, slimy black armchairs and chairs splayed on swollen legs with drooping seats. More craters in the walls, obscured by salt and shadow. A steam room, a pool slowly filling with seawater.

Whispers down the hall.

He froze.

Sister!

He hooted and slapped his hip.

He splashed down a new corridor, this one narrow with low ceilings and pinstriped wallpaper. These were private rooms for massages, although how he knew this, he couldn’t remember. Water-worn wallpaper peeled off in sheets; heaps of silt and melting carpet filled the doorways. He brushed by a fluorescent light hanging by a looped wire, swinging back and forth like a noose. He saw a shadow on the wall in the right corridor, lit up by pink-white light.

A nicotine craving hit him out of nowhere. His mouth tightened, pinching down for the familiar soft shape in his mouth, and felt nothing.

He forced his mind away—no use thinking about that, not here, not now—and instead, he started thinking about Sister again. This time the flicker of her presence was a little stronger—faint, like picking up a faraway radio signal and hearing the shadow of one’s favorite song. His heart throbbed, painful but reassuring.

He swung around the corner.

A vending machine leaned against the wall, flanked by two cartoonish girls as pink as princesses. There was a sign, but the words hurt his eyes, so he looked away. A handful of glowing vials gleamed from inside, but he could barely see what they were; the glass had been beaten until it was opaque. He sagged when he realized the whispering sound was actually some internal mechanism of the machine’s.

On the wall, something bright caught his eye. Its color was brilliant against the wallpaper, flesh-colored in the light. He dragged closer. More words and shapes slathered over and over in unmistakably fresh paint.

The bad feeling was back—the feeling that said something was very wrong with him. This was probably why he actually tried to read the painted words. He had to close one eye and read it one letter at a time, and at the end, his head was splintering.

“SISTER IN DEMETER”

To its left, someone had drawn a triangle. No, several triangles, all different sizes.

He whirled around. Triangle on the wall with an arrow pointing, all in the same fresh white paint. Triangle on a piece of upholstery. Triangle painted on the ceiling. He had passed how many of these? He had passed them and not seen them.

He touched one of the letters. It pooled around his finger. He drew his finger back. A spot of white. Its cleanness and clarity startled him. He turned his hand from side to side. The fog was starting to part a little, and in its wake was a hell of a headache.

Sister, came the oafish thought, something like reassurance. Sister.

His hand had started shaking. He turned it over again.

There, printed on the back of his left glove, a triangle. Faded, yes. Scarred, yes. But perfectly legible.

A buzz popped on in his brain and suddenly his whole body went rigid. His heart ramped up. He panted but he couldn’t breathe deeply enough to fill his lungs. Someone was coming for him and when they got there they were going to steal something he could never get back.

No! No! No!

He jerked backward like he could outrun his own hand. But he’d forgotten about the vending machine and slammed into it. The machine’s audio kicked in, but it had pitched down into a guttural demon thrum.

“Are you as good as—are you as good as—”

With a roar, he whirled on the machine and shoved it through the wall. The wood popped apart like wet cardboard and wallpaper peeled free. The machine crashed through the floor with a screech of metal against metal. A muffled crash, a loud splash, and just like that, he was lost in the dark again. All that was left was emergency lighting struggling down adjacent hallways.

He slapped his hand down, wiping the white on his hip, and whirled around.

70%.

Sister.

Just Sister.

Only Sister.

Sister was good. Sister was all he needed.

Sister.

He jogged back down the hall, the walls shuddering as he passed. Here, the floor was flooded, and he could only tell the drag marks by how they felt underfoot. His dream-sight nosed ahead of him; around this corner were the squash courts with their placards still advertising available rates, and here was a hallway lined with stacks of chairs all the way to the ceiling, and here a number of sagging armchairs had been lined across the hallway and lashed together with stanchion belts. He kicked through them like they were nothing, rotten fabric and rotten wood and rotten bone.

68%.

He tramped up a set of stairs, past a restaurant and a club. Big holes in the floor, strewn with seaweed and what looked disconcertingly like clothing. His brain was still buzzing, and the pressure built up behind his eyes.

Without warning, the buzzing screamed up behind his eyes and all the lights and colors blew out—and for a second, there were bright colors and light—and with it all came a lightheadedness so violent he didn’t know if he were still standing up. He could smell—what was it? Gunpowder? Body odor? Rot?—and against his skin, the air pressure and clean cold breeze from a different time.

A woman backed up in the restaurant, her arms up. He could feel the tightness of her chest and hear the echo of gunfire and bootsteps. She was in her stocking feet. She was calling out: “Please, don’t bring guns in here. Please, we’re just trying to…”

Next second, he was blinking against the wall, and for the first time, he was struck by the silence. No buzzing. No light.

Ghost!

He leaned inside the restaurant. No woman, just the familiar craters running from the floor up to the ceiling. He did remember this place… from somewhere. Sometime. A good-dream, definitely. The room had been so full he hadn’t been able to see the opposite wall. Now he could see the whole row of windows gleaming in the dark, only slightly lighter than the rooms themselves.

Wait.

What had he been doing again?

He had to stop and think about it. Lord. It hurt his head like the devil.

Oh! Yes!

Sister!

He marched off past the club, looked through to see another makeshift barricade. Dining and masseuse chairs lay on their sides, lashed together with rotten rope. A Garand lay quietly on the bar, chamber open, slime blackening the stock.

67%.

He should be thinking of emerging again about now, stepping on the diving chamber, lifting up, up, up, to the safety of the surface…

He had just passed another restaurant when a woman screamed.

His gait hitched only a second.

That wasn’t a ghost.

He launched off. In the dark, he could see the luminous white mark on his index finger, the slash of white on his thigh.

The scream howled up, higher and higher, half pleading, half agony.

“I swear to God! We’re not splicers! I don’t even like Sinclair! I swear to God!”

The scream cut off. A sharp gurgling cough.

Another woman’s voice leaped up to fill the vacuum, chattering, breathy, stupid.

“We ain’t done nothing wrong!” she said. “We ain’t done nothing to Lamb! We like the Family! We was going there to join right after this! I swear… I swear! I h-haven’t spliced. I haven’t! There’s nothing in me!”

He crashed around the corner. Half of the wall came with him. The hallway opened into a sprawling atrium. Paintings hung like closed windows, so furry with mold that they could no longer be seen. Triangles had been painted in every frame, “SISTER IN DEMETER” across every wall, a phrase more remembered than read. His eyes panged.

At the center of the atrium, a magnificent arch framed a grand balcony and a window beyond. There was a sign arched over the entryway, but he jerked his eyes away—there were words there—the words were bouncing—god he fucking hated words he fucking hated reading—

Fracturing the window-light was a pillar carved into the shape of a tree. He remembered that stone tree—the tree hung with crystal fruit—the bar—the woman in white—that Moneybags guy—camera—she was going to pick up the camera—so much booze—real cigarettes.

Fuck, he could use a cigarette.

A woman in an ill-fitting diving suit slumped over the balcony, her helmet rolled up against the banister. Dark beads dropped from her hidden face. Above her, her friend hovered in midair, hands grappling at her throat, hacking, coughing, spitting. One shoe dangled from her right foot; wiggled, waggled, fell three feet to the floor. She wore a man’s breeches and dress shirt and her arms were white up to her elbows.

Not a ghost. Nobody held her. She just floated there.

He skidded to a stop. The hovering woman whipped to look at him and her eyes were huge, rolling, horrible.

“No,” she said. “Don’t—”

Then her head snapped to the side and she flopped to the floor like a shed jacket.

A silence had come over him. It probably only lasted ten seconds, but he felt as though he regarded some hidden predator, and that it regarded him.

It felt like someone he should know.

“Hoooo?” he said.

Two invisible hands grabbed under his breastplate and yanked. He lurched forward, one helpless step after another, but he wasn’t walking—he was pedaling in place—faster and faster and faster—heels skipping against the wood, then dragging—

He jammed one heel down and then the other, leaned backward hard, drill roaring to life in his fist. He rammed his free hand into the wall on his left, bashed the drill into the wall on his right. But he didn’t slow down: he sped up. He flew free of the corridor—his left hand hit air. Faster and faster and faster, plowing two enormous furrows into the floor with the corridor booming down behind him like a chain of dominoes.

He slammed through the two corpses, punched through the balustrades like they were matchsticks, and soared into empty space. He had remembered a grand staircase leading down from the balcony. There wasn’t one anymore. Just two partial steps at the bottom, and the rest blown to hell, a jumbled heap of masonry and steel.

The lightheadedness hit him again, the lights smeared, and for a breathtaking moment, he lost his mind.

Ghosts whirled below him in evening dress, packed wall to wall, layered over and passing through one another. Silvery and staticky and fading in and out, sometimes with the faintest blush of color; women’s gowns flaring out in dead colors to dead music; the twinkle of long-lost gold. Rushing up to meet him were a cacophony of alien voices heard as though through static.

Oh, we are so happy to be will we see Mr. Ryan tonight maybe I should just set the story straight—

Then the hands dropped him.

A sickening heaviness as gravity took over. He slammed into a mid-level bough sprouting from the stone tree. The branch reeled on its joint, glass leaves clashing together. He grappled madly for purchase, but both his arms and the branch were slick with filth, and he pawed madly, helplessly, sliding, sliding, inch by inch, until at last, he clutched at air.

Muscle memory kicked in. He flung his left arm down, and the floor trembled—an updraft heaved up in a mad effort to cushion his fall.

It was too late. The whole ton of him crashed down upon a blockade. The sandbags were soaked, heavy as stone, and punched the oxygen tanks straight into his back. He howled, heels thrown up in the air, sparks flashing behind his eyelids. Up burst a cloud of shrapnel—glass and rusty nails and rotten wood and god-knew-what-else. His fingers twitched on the drill’s lever two or three times and it skipped off the floor and yanked his arm out of its socket.

He rolled across the floor and thudded anticlimactically against the bar. A line of empty bottles rocked back and forth. He coughed and rocked upright. The ghosts were gone. The floor was empty and dark and he was alone.

Sucking air, he rolled up to his knees. At least the stiffness had mostly faded; his joints bent, his legs lifted, he could feel his fingers. Leaning on the bar, he thrust himself up onto his feet. One good yank on his elbow and his arm popped back into socket. The discomfort shot his awareness into crystal clarity.

The window was the only source of light, and it wasn’t much—like the blush before dawn. Outside the window, a coral garden wavered, sparkling with bioluminescence. He turned in circles, sweeping shadows away with the dream-sight. Detritus, dashed furniture, broken glass, twisted rebar, nothing more. He jerked on the drill’s lever once, twice. It roared up, throbbing in his fist, before whining down again.

Nothing.

So he slammed his drill into the floor and roared until the puddles shivered.

The sound faded off. No answer but that of wood crumbling, glass and masonry rolling to standstills, the steady plink, plink, plink of water on stone.

And a scratchy sound on the ceiling.

He tilted back as far as his stiff back would allow. It took his dream-sight to see what he had missed before.

Up in the glittering boughs of the tree, among the apples and faceless cherubim, a spidery shape drooped. It wore the patched remnants of three diving suits all sewn together and an oversized helmet. An oxygen tank had been lashed down to the body with rope. All odds and ends: scraps of leather from bathysphere seats, men’s dress belts, and neat stitches from fishing wire. Everything was blue in that room except for the single red point in the helmet.

A mind-splitting scream rent the air.

He slammed back into the bar. The scream was a dizzying, ear-blowing, visceral sound. It blew the fog out of his brain and all the alarms came back, plus new ones he hadn’t heard before.

The realization jolted him.

Sister.

“She is my daughter.”

He flung his arms open and bellowed. There was no logic left in him, only waves and waves of overwhelming relief.

Her answering scream echoed through the room over and over. The red light blazed up; his vision smeared. Glasses shuddered under the bar, then began popping—first only one or two, then every glass in the cases, every bottle on the bar. Shapes shifted in his mind, lifting toward the light. He could almost see them.

She plunged down the trunk.

She was… coming a bit fast.

And… she was a bit tall. Maybe six feet?

His bellow wobbled off into a croak. Hadn’t she been, you know… small?

His confusion deepened when she smashed him through the bar.

He plowed shoulder-first through lines of rotten furniture. He flung his drill arm out and it skipped, gouging divots in the tile. A babble keened up in his brain in a voice that wasn’t his.

How could you how could you how dare you I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE

The monster’s weighted boots jammed against his chest as he skidded: black, dripping, and long-legged, a spider with Sister’s mind. Sister’s syringe had been lashed around her left wrist, and a harpoon three feet long strapped to her right arm.

Her harpoon swept up against the painted heaven.

The harpoon was falling on him. The needle was falling on him. The needle. The needle the needle the needle the needle the

His brain popped.

There was a protocol for feelings. Feelings could be Good and Bad. “Good” was for Sister and for the doctors in the Red Place who gave him Blue Stuff and Red Stuff and for the technicians who patched his suit. “Bad” was for things that hurt him or Sister—bullets, blows, explosions. He had operated in this dichotomy for a long, long time. It was comfortable. It was cozy.

So the sensation of real anger was shockingly sinful, dreadfully powerful, carnally thrilling: some ancient, screaming, swearing, swinging monstrosity blazing from the impacts of a thousand injustices, a thousand traumas, a thousand unanswered prayers. He was dazzled by its brightness, by its power, and most of all, by its owner: for it was his, and his alone. His fury would fight for him, his fury would die for him, and he loved it, he loved it, he loved it!

They were still skidding over the floor when Sister’s harpoon punched down. With speed he didn’t know he had, he slapped the shaft aside, rolled with the impetus of his blow—his terrible weight now brought against her—and flung the barb through the floor.

They rolled free of each other, he rolling onto his feet and thrusting himself aside with an updraft, she with a long-legged spring and a hard yank on the harpoon. All the hair stood up on the back of his neck and he barely ducked in time before she boomed off a bolt of lightning. The far wall blew apart with a shuddering roar and little tongues of electricity licked at him through the dust.

The jolts felt good.

Pain was good!

Her babbling was still racing through him, words he could feel like a second heartbeat.

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate

And to his shock—a shock that was sinfully delightful—words of his own crawled out of some dark recess. They began as a whisper and rolled up louder and louder and louder:

how

how dare you

How dare you.

How dare you!

He screamed, beating his drill against the floor.

She screamed, beating her harpoon against the wall.

They flung themselves at each other. She slung arms of lightning at him; he slung his fist—much harder than he had to—and wrenched half of the bar apart by the mere will of his mind. The bar-top launched between them, the lightning boomed into it and the whole thing flipped over him and shattered against the wall. The shockwave stole his breath.

Good!

She sprang across the room—she was so nimble, so quick—

jack jump over the candle stick

—and he was bashed from behind.

Jack be nimble!

Tables and chairs. She was hitting him with furniture. A booth cartwheeled into him, bursting into clouds of splinters and nails and rotten stuffing. He stumbled, but he did not fall. He hooted at her, something like laughter, and snapped his fingers. Droplets hissed on the palm of his hand and the little ports on the inside of his glove burned silver, and out spidered electricity, electricity like anticipation, electricity like thirst. He crashed through a pinwheeling table in a fog of splinters and flung his hand up and lightning boomed out of him. Half of the wall collapsed in a wave of plaster.

She flickered through the onslaught in puffs of violet and carmine and flung her arm out in response. Invisible hands yanked his electric arm sideways and he blasted an arc of electric destruction across the wall, across the ruins of the staircase, but he flung his other arm up with a howl and popped off a neater, thinner bolt of light.

This one struck home. With a screech, red light flickering, she missed a step, a foot slid, she solidified—solid, blacker than black—her arms and legs seized up—she tumbled and hit the floor—

like dove hunting

He stalked toward her, snapping his fingers. Light arced from thumb to forefinger to the gap in his palm. He could roll the light

like cigarettes

She recovered fast, rolling up awkwardly to all fours, then to her feet, the oversized burden of her helm dragging her down as she stumbled away. He did not speed up. He snapped his fingers and the light that spat out was orange. He was starting to burn red-hot. He was burning, burning, burning, molten inside and out, and with mad, curdling bloodlust he chased her with his eyes.

He didn’t have to run.

She would come to him.

Static hissed on in his helmet. He didn’t notice it at first.

“Eleanor!”

Sister jerked aside like a startled fish and slammed against the wall. She had jumped up onto the stage area—

a woman with her hands trembling on either side of the mike, her eyes closed as she surrendered to one rapturous note

—which was framed by a single sheet of glass. The mirror shivered as Sister dashed herself against it before drunkenly zig-zagging into a thicket of music stands.

Static crackled.

“Eleanor, where are you?”

He marched toward her, dragging his drill against the tile. He filled the mirror one step at a time. She was scrabbling to her feet, pawing at her helmet, hissing helplessly. The babble was gone. All that was left was the static.

“What are you doing? Where’s your video feed?”

He thundered toward her. She took off like a

little bird trying to fly. The cat crouched

and flopped back to the floor. Something was off, something was wrong. It was a hurt that ran through her whole body. He could feel it, same way she could feel him burning.

“I’m sorry we have to do this, Eleanor. Just be honest with us. That’s all we ask. It’s all we ever ask.”

They smashed into the mirror together. Fissures lanced, spiderwebbed, showered them with shards, and he yanked her back and slammed her against the mirror again, again, again, until the wall was naked stone and they were powdered in silver. Every blow throbbed through him and his heart was crushing, crushing, crushing in an invisible vise.

“We can tell you’re up to something, Eleanor. Your heart is racing.”

His burning fist was knotted up under her throat. He could feel her fear like ice in his own stomach. She was afraid. She was afraid and he loomed over her and he could feel the fear like silver trembling, like

the white belly rolled, the tail lashed, the jaws gaped

“Just turn on the camera.”

He shoved her against the wall, dragged her across it, hit every blade of glass and crooked nail and he could feel everything, even the weight and heat of his own arm. She stabbed stupidly at him, but with the little needle she’d borne as a child; it snapped against the lip of his helmet and flipped into the false twilight.

He hurled her after it.

She banged onto the floor and rolled up against the window. Where his hand had gripped, the metal of her helmet burned scarlet. The fabric had burned away at her throat. He could see the raw flesh, blood. His knuckles were burning with her blood.

“I’m sending the others. I’m sorry, Eleanor. This is for your own good.”

A click.

He marched on her, shot through with agonies that weren’t his own, steaming in the chilled air. His index finger played with the lever in the drill, which spun loosely, lightly, over and over.

He could have driven it down below her helmet into the unguarded belly. Instead, he squatted down before her. She swung the harpoon, but she was too close, too uncoordinated. The shaft gonged him on the helmet. He let it. His fingers folded around it. She yanked back, but her strength was nothing compared to his. She was crumpling in front of him, her knees folding under her as she twisted away.

Slowly, he stood. He dragged her up with him. Her hand clamped onto his wrist, then clapped onto his viewplate. Fingers of light licked across the glass. She shook with the effort.

Pathetic.

How dare you.

Harpoon locked in his fist, he whipped her through the air in a perfect arc and dashed her against the floor. Her elbow snapped and her shoulder dislocated and

his heart exploded.

In a day full of agonies, this was the worst: like someone had fired off a car battery in his chest. He heard screaming, an unbelievable screaming, but he couldn’t tell whether it was him or her or both. All he knew was that one second, he was upright, and the next, he was lying on his back, spasming like he had just hugged a live wire.

He seized over and over. He chewed the insides of his mouth until he choked on blood. Blackness and haze curled in on the edges of his vision. He fought it back, wild as a beast—not here, not like this—but desire wasn’t enough.

He blacked out.

When he drifted back into awareness, she was looming over him. The side of her helmet was dented in, the glass in the porthole shattered. Through it, he could see a single black eye, strands of hair, dark circles. Her arms hung limply at her sides. He’d broken them both. And some ribs. There was worse inside. He could feel that, too.

If she had wanted fear, she didn’t get it; he felt nothing.

He lay there and breathed. Deep breaths. Counted to three. Deep breaths. He cast his will down into his arms and found only meat. She stood broken against the light. No words. No feelings. He was starting to feel all of her fractures. Shouldn’t she be better by now? Shouldn’t she have healed up? He remembered bullets blowing through her and the wounds closing up behind them.

She set her boot on the throat of his helmet and leaned down.

Why are you here?

He stared up at her blearily.

I found out the truth, you know. I read all about how we were made. You’re a lie.

In the wake of his anger, there was nothing to return to. No Good, no Bad; no diving; no Jewels; no boat. He was floating in limbo.

Suchong and Alexander made you. You never loved me. They made you love me. Love that’s not a choice isn’t love at all.

He wanted to be angry again but the spark was gone.

I can’t kill you right now. I’m tired.

Her boot grated off of his throat. There was so much damage. She shouldn’t have been able to stand.

If I see you again, I’ll kill you. Go die somewhere else.

Behind her, a concussive burst. Another long, leggy specter materialized out of the shadow. Then another burst, and another. Spidery shapes drifted out of the darkness, bent below the hideous weights of their helmets and tanks. Such tiny bodies, such massive burdens.

I killed it, said Sister. Sinclair was planning to use it for something. I don’t know what.

From the dark came metallic scraping, clicking, clanking. Shades surrounded him. Red winks in the blackness.

Daddy, said a not-Sister. It’s Daddy.

They stood around him and stared. They were all whispering: Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.

Not your Daddy, Sister said. Her voice was sullen. My Daddy.

They trembled altogether. A dozen alien feelings welled over him before he realized that they weren’t his. There was hatred, there was anger, there was suspicion, but the common thread was the adoration. It was as tactile as the air he breathed. If he hadn’t been so drained, he would have taken each feeling and looked at them a while. Maybe there was a new one that could belong to him.

Stop it, Sister said. He’s no father. He doesn’t love anyone. He’s a trained animal.

Look! He’s still alive, said a not-Sister eagerly.

Not long. Look at his heart. Sister turned. I need ADAM.

A pop, a wet red cloud, and she was gone. He was left lying there, breathing, waiting. The shades looked at each other, looked back at him, and one by one, dissipated. Only one remained. She leaned over him, head cocking slowly. He could now feel Sister through his whole body without even trying. But this strange new not-Sister—all he could feel was what she radiated. And what she radiated was an intense jealousy and something like love.

She turned to look at the ocean. Like Sister, she had a smaller needle lashed around her left arm. There was a baby bottle screwed onto it. Without looking down, she unscrewed the bottle, procured a plunger from one of her dozens of pockets, capped the bottle. She tossed it to his side. Something red and shining splashed inside of it.

A pop, a glowing red cloud, and she was gone.

There was nothing left to do but wait for his life to return to him. From far away, he could feel Sister healing. This was comforting.

Good.

He breathed.

This, too, was good.

Deep in his belly, the anger uncurled. He breathed, and the flame swelled up. He cupped it in the darkness of his body and watched it tremble.

How dare you.

UPRISING: BLACK SCRAPBOOK HUB

#bioshock #fanfiction #vvatchword #i have committed so many literary sins here #The Dramatic List of Hard Returns drives me crazy and I should stop that shit #whatever #I want someone to see it #look at it #look #some guys fight and shit

3 notes · View notes

castleofkitties · 2 years

Text

Haunted (chapter 3)

Çetžak stares at the imp. “This is my home,” he eventually replies.

Çetžak watches the imp bump into the wall behind them. This startles them and they drop their illumination device. There’s a loud thud as the rectangularly shaped thing hits the floor. Its light dies.

The imp’s chest is heaving up and down in heavy breaths. They don’t pick up the device, but cling to the wall as if it would keep them afloat.

He had hoped speaking up would put them more at ease. Yet he gave them a worse scare instead.

He doesn’t like the other two but this imp… He’s curious.

“I did not mean to scare you.”

The imp forces a laugh. “I’m, I’m not scared. A little surprised. Yeah. Surprised. Just a little, though.”

Çetžak bends down and picks up the illumination device. He holds it out to the imp.

“You have my sincerest apologies for startling you.”

The imp gives the device a sceptic look, then takes it from him. They look at it and frown.

“Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing.” The imp holds up the device for Çetžak to look at. There was a visible crack down the thing. “The screen broke is all.”

“It is my fault.”

The imp chuckles. “I dropped it. I’m clumsy sometimes. Anyway,” the imp puts the illumination device away, “why are you here?”

Çetžak stares at the imp.

“This is my home,” he eventually replies.

“Your… You live here? Fuck. We didn’t know anyone actually lived here.”

“I seldom have guests over. Perhaps that is why people believe the mansion to be haunted.”

“Ah, yeah, maybe? But what about all the covered furniture?”

“I do not use them,” Çetžak explained, then motioned slightly. “I only need very few rooms, as I live here by myself.”

“By… yourself? Damn, that’s gotta be lonely.”

Çetžak pauses to think. Was it lonely? He hadn’t thought about it for a long while.

“I have become used to it.” He turned to look at a painting on the wall. “Once one spends enough time by oneself, one forgets about others.”

“That’s just tragic.”

Çetžak looked back at this imp. “Then… would you mind keeping me some company?”

***

Laž’ar follows the ‘ghost’ of the mansion. Now that he’s not scared — No, not scared. Surprised. — he’s able to take in the appearance of him. His black hair falls in waves halfway down his back and the white loose shirt and dark trousers he wears look more expensive than Laž’ar’s jeans and oversized hoodie.

And he doesn’t look remotely like a ghost.

Besides, he had picked up Laž’ar’s phone, so — although the candle he holds casts some odd shadows sometimes that makes it look like Laž’ar vaguely can see through him — he’s clearly solid.

Even if ghosts did exist, when had he ever heard of a ghost with a physical body?

Exactly never.

The ghost opens a door for Laž’ar.

“This is my study. You will have to excuse the mess. I did not expect visitors.”

“Oh, don’t mind it.”

Laž’ar steps into the study.

It has a large collection of books that all look ancient with brown spines. There’s a heavy wooden desk facing away from the view of the garden. Laž’ar can see the centre of the city not that far away, its apartment complexes reaching toward the sky in the last rays of the setting sun.

A chess game in progress is on a small table, but no chairs to sit down on. On the wall above it hangs a small selection of sabres and daggers, many of them of gorgeous designs. He can’t believe they had ever been meant to be used to cut anything.

When he turns to speak to the ghost, he sees a large portrait. It looks straight ahead, above him, into the distant city beyond the hedge.

“Wooooow!” Laž’ar looks between the ghost at the entrance of the study and the portrait next to the oak door. “How much did you spend on this? Is it painted? Did they use paints to make it look old or do you have some ancestor who looks this much alike you?”

“It is indeed me,” the ghost responds. “I did not order it, though, and do not know the specifics. It was my father’s request when I was fifteen, I believe.”

Laž’ar studies the portrait with great interest. “And how old are you now?”

The ghost’s silent for a moment.

“My last birthday was my seventeenth.”

“Oh! We’re really close in age!” Laž’ar grins. “My sixteenth birthday’s right around the corner. Right after Halloween, really.”

“I was born in summer, apparently.”

Laž’ar frowns momentarily, but doesn’t ask.

“If you have nothing going on in a few days, you can come over when I celebrate my birthday. I don’t mind. Me and some friends will just hang out, so I don’t think they’d mind. Oh…” Laž’ar smiles sheepishly, “…but perhaps you don’t want to spend time with any of us intruders?”

“You seem like pleasant company. However, I would only be available in the evening.”

“No problem! We got school too, so we can’t do anything during the day, anyway.”

The ghost nods.

“It may be somewhat belated now, but my name is Çetžak, if you do not mind me telling you. May I know yours?”

“Laž’ar. You know ‘elegance’ or ‘elegant’ or something in that ancient language. Ret — the scaredy-cat downstairs — always makes fun of me for not being elegant enough for my name.”

“I am inclined to disagree. I think you have innate charms and elegance, Laž’ar.”

Laž’ar chuckles. “Now you’re just flattering me!”

“Laž’ar.”

“Yeah?”

“I simply felt like saying it. It is quite a nice name. I hope you do not mind.”

Laž’ar huffs a laugh. “Go on, say it again.”

“Laž’ar.”

It sounded like Çetžak tasted the name. As if he tried it out, both familiar and unfamiliar with it.

What an odd guy.

***

Çetžak watches as Laž’ar looks further around the study. They are very curious, and once they took out their device, but put it back into their bag with a frown almost right away. They touch nothing without explicitly asking for permission. He appreciates the consideration because most things in his study are indeed very old. Not everything is.

Laž’ar, for instance, isn’t old, although they’re not a thing either.

The two of them pass time like this until they hear a grandfather clock in the mansion go off, the nine chimes indicating it’s already getting late.

“Oh…”

Laž’ar looks a little disappointed.

Çetžak’s amused by how frightened they had been before, but how none of that remains now.

“Your friends surely wonder where you went.”

Laž’ar hums in agreement.

“I do not mind if you come by another day. I am always available in the evenings.”

“I suppose I can come by tomorrow then? You shouldn’t be lonely all the time.”

Çetžak smiles. “I will not be able to be lonely if you offer your company. I would not mind if the only one I meet is you for the rest of eternity.”

Laž’ar huffs in playful anger. “You shouldn’t say things like that! It would be boring if you met no one else.”

Çetžak turns to the door without responding. After opening it for Laž’ar to leave, he only says: “Take the light with you. I have more candles I can light if the need arises.”

***

“Laž’ar!”

Khanuk’s shout echoes through the mansion. Retnüir’s something between furious and frightened, not daring to leave Khanuk’s side, but also unwilling to stay near him.

“Laž—”

“So loud.”

Startled, the two of them look up. They hadn’t seen there’s a balcony shrouded in deep shadows right above the hall where they entered from.

A figure stands there now, looking down at them. Khanuk almost jumps when Retnüir grabs onto him in fright.

The figure walks closer to the railing, their features becoming clearer.

It’s only when the figure’s almost next to it, Khanuk sees it’s none other than their missing Laž’ar.

“What are you doing there?! Come down now! What are you running off on your own for?”

Retnüir’s voice is a little shaky, but it’s impossible to say if it’s fear or anger. It doesn’t matter. Laž’ar turns to walk down the stairs.

“You’re so noisy. You disturb people shouting this way.”

A candle lights up his way, and he’s holding his phone in his other hand.

The phone that wasn’t supposed to work, suddenly lights up, and Khanuk sees a crack that goes nearly straight down the middle. When it vibrates, Laž’ar looks down at his hand and a soft “huh” leaves him.

For some reason this scares Khanuk more than anything else.

“Where… where did you get the candle from?”

“Upstairs. It’s cleaner there. The furniture isn’t covered either.”

Khanuk feels Retnüir tensing up. “Aren’t we trespassing?”

“Really, Retty? Obviously. Let’s just go home.”

“It’s fine,” Laž’ar says and blows out the candle. He lifts the cover off of a side table and places the holder down. “The owners aren’t home, anyway. I don’t think they’ll find out.”

Something sounds very off with this, but Khanuk doesn’t dwell on it. He grabs Laž’ar by the wrist and pulls him along, leaving with long strides.

#chapter 3 of 7 #blood of destinies rewritten fic #annyinacastle #modern au #kind of horror maybe?#ghost story?

2 notes · View notes

fantasmalforces · 2 years

Text

@hcsuffered SAID: ✨ + Three Card Draw + brahm and mark :D

💜 Tarot Practice Meme // ACCEPTING 💜

The Devil - Brahm

There are shadows holding you back, and your best self is caged. There is an enormous strength in the bonds and connections to play, and they might have become negative influences, or have the potential to become so. Understanding who or what has a hold on you can reveal how deep with the attachment to them goes. The light you shine on your shadows will drive them away. Break through the barriers holding you back, past fear, past ignorance, and past self doubt and acknowledge that you are in control of your situation.

// It is true that Brahm’s very existence is a curse placed upon him for his transgressions as a human. He was a vindictive liar and manipulator who turned a survival strategy into a way of preying on others without shame or remorse, so now he gets to live the lie eternally, his true face obscured by a mask of evil that he was intent on wearing for so long. Despite the circumstances though, Brahm can find peace and happiness. If he learns to accept that he did wrong by others and committed himself to the understanding that this is a situation of his own making but he still has the choice to change inside as much as he has on the outside, he’ll be able to stave off the darker aspects of his reality. Simply put, the choice to atone and be better is in his own hands. It might not change anything that’s already happened, but he can change the future if he so chooses.

Ten of Wands - Mark

Recently, you’ve taken on additional responsibilities or a particularly heavy burden those weighing you down. Your situation is only temporary, and your hard work will pay off in the end, for your dreams are within arms reach. Be mindful that you do not overextend yourself by doing everything at once. Prioritize only the urgent tasks and ensure you get rest when you are able.

// This could be in reference to a lot of things. In regards to what we’ve written about Brahm and Mark’s particular timeline, this could be interpreted as him taking on the aspects of nature. Becoming a spirit of the woodlands is taxing and difficult to understand for someone such as Mark. In the beginning, he has no idea what’s happening. Both the realization and experience of being so tied to the woodlands exhausts him, especially where injuries are concerned. Yet in the end, he comes to realize that the pain of adaptation is only temporary. In time, he learns to defend himself and his home, and realizes that his dream of living a peaceful life free from the danger and influence of alternates is possible. He has Brahm to help him as he learns to manage his new abilities. He just has to remember to take things one step at a time and remember to rest amidst all the excitement.

King of Swords - Relationship

There is no place for sympathy or emotions when making well-informed, impartial decisions. Your ability to detach yourself and make fair calls has earned you the respect to speak your opinions freely in a way that makes others stand up and take notice. So others may find you unapproachable or cold, your ability to get to the root of a matter has given you a solid reputation. Take the time to consider a situation from all angles and call upon all of your life experience thus far before making an educated decision.

// Brahm and Mark have a very deeply emotional connection. They enjoy being around one another and tend to be very protective of both their mate and their shared territory. Their relationship is almost-dreamlike in that regard. However, they both share a measure of levelheadedness and don’t let their affections blind them to the reality of situations. They know when to abandon sentimentality and act upon reason when its needed. If that means Brahm has to yell at Mark to get away when he’s in danger, or Mark telling Brahm that someone potentially dangerous is in the woods and they need to leave immediately, then so be it. They evaluate situations in every possible way and discuss things calmly and rationally when they can before making the decision to act. Maybe those decisions aren’t always easy. Maybe to outsider they might seem callous and cold. But it’s not true. They love each other very much and are very dedicated to keeping each other happy. They just also happen to very knowledgeable about the cruelties of the world, and they know that sometimes they need to use their heads instead of their hearts, even if it hurts.

#// WHOO this was a fun one!!#{ open your eyes : ask }#{ we will rock you : mutual }#hcsuffered #mark and brahm : offer me my deathless death ; good god let me give you my life [hcsuffered]#{ the nightcaller : brahm }

2 notes · View notes

m5ria · 11 months

Text

Chapter 17: The Teleportation

After four days of utter boredom, I wake up, still tired.

Because of the threat of the Vees, I couldn’t risk going out to hunt, or anywhere for the matter. I glance worriedly at my money box, knowing that this quarantine will only slow me down and make me even more dependent on the hotel.

With this lack of activity, I got to explore more of the hotel. Shockingly, there are more residents of the hotel than I was left to believe. I didn’t bump into that sinner Angel was talking to that day, but I spotted a short eccentric lady who kept rambling to Ren about her old acting days. Being my usual reserved self, I managed to escape before she’d see me too.

Dinners were as usual. Only the seven of us, occasionally joined by Ren next to me. I was to shy to ask why the other residents wouldn’t join us, but I made up my mind that it might not be compulsory to attend dinners as I was left to believe.

Speaking of dinners, it was the only time I got to see Angel. He’s still giving me the cold shoulder. Well, I suppose he is... I don’t know what to make out of his lack of interaction. Maybe he got tired of befriending me or something.

Vaggie wasn’t far away either. Ever since the argument, she threw all kinds of skeptical glances towards me and I just had to pretend I didn’t notice. Charlie didn't help much either, since she might not have thought it a big deal.

Which left me with dear Husk and Niffty. Now, Husk has been a great bartender in the last few days, always giving me the best choice of drink. Somehow, this guy only looks at me once and knows what I need.

As for Niffty, her excited temper has raised my mood scarcely, but sufficient enough to not lose my mind between these walls. She even invited me to take down some bugs in the library. A perfect occasion to study the books the hotel has and to shoot ice arrows at the poor creatures. Ren would occasionally join me in exploring the books, mostly to avoid the others.

And Alastor... After the deal we struck, there’s been silence from the Overlord. No call. No challenge. Nothing. Not even during dinnertime.

For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been fantasizing that the deal was a dream and that I wasn’t stupid enough to dare a Hell Overlord to test my resistance. But, oh, how wrong I’ve been...

I sink back into my bed, and look up at the ceiling, only to see a shadow. A black, solid shadow, above me.

“First lesson starts today!” it sings.

I slap it as hard as I can on the cheek, but it only evaporates. I’m glad I was covered up, but fury already starts to take over me.

Is there no fucking privacy in this hotel??

Calm down. He’s making this on purpose.

I dress up in my gym pants and black top and tie my hair. I don’t know what I’m about to face today, but I have to wear something that allows movement.

I look back in the almost empty closet, where my new clothes already need tending or washing. Or throwing away. Especially the one T-shirt with two bloody holes.

I look down and touch where my wounds were. They still answer with faded discomfort, but they mostly healed enough that I can walk normally, maybe even run.

Let’s test that theory.

I warm up by climbing down the stairs three steps at a time. I need to be prepared body and soul for what’s going to happen.

I reach the ground floor and immediately see him in the middle of the hallway. The light from the doors’ mosaic windows cast a shadow behind him, but, contrary to physics laws, it moves as if it wants to be released.

It looks at me and smiles its red grin before Alastor turns to me, copying it with a yellow smile.

“Good morning, Diana dear!” he waves a hand. “How was your sleep?”

“It was,” I bluntly answer him.

“Fantastic!” his energy tires me already. “Let’s go then!”

“Where?”

“Behind you!”

I turn around and see the ending wall of the hallway. On the right is the dining room, on the left is the staircase. No door in the middle, though.

“Where?” I ask him again, irritated.

He snaps his finger and the entire wall in front of me dissolves in the air. Two curtains fall, and then mold themselves around a window, leaving an entrance to a dark room. With no other questions raised, I go inside.

My curiosity is soon satisfied as my eyes adapt to the darkness. It’s a big ballroom! With so many beautiful ornaments. Candelabras of crystal and mirrors as tall as the room. On either side of it, there are curtains which, based on the smell, are made of satin.

“Wow...” the word escapes my mouth.

I hear another snap of fingers and the curtains of the windows give way to light. It blinds me for several seconds. When my eyes adapt again, I see something truly magnificent. The windows give a white-blue light. Not red, like Hell's sky. It paints the room in colors red, gold, and white.

“How?” I turn to Alastor and then point to the windows. I have no words for the way it makes me feel, to see something so ... familiar.

“Hmm. A little trick sweet Charlie tried,” he smiles pleasantly. “She fancies humans, so each time she gets a chance, she experiments with what it’s like to be one.”

I reckon I’m not the only one fascinated by Charlie’s experiment. Alastor looks around as if he truly relishes getting the chance to use the room.

Now that I think of it, I wonder...

“Did you tell Charlie you’re using this space?”

“And reveal our little deal? Ha ha, no.” He snaps his fingers and the entrance wall suddenly materializes again, leaving the two of us alone in the ballroom. I immediately regret ever going inside it and throw glances at all the windows as a means of escaping.

“Shall we start?” his head leans on one side like a curious child.

“Yeah...”

“So, what powers do you think you possess?” he asks me with wild curiosity.

Oh no. It’s time.

“Uhm... So, there is the ice thing, teleportation, invisibility and... I don’t know what it is, but I sometimes glance in a world in black and white in order to see... Shadows.”

If he’s understood that he’s the shadow I’m referring to, he gives no clue.

“So curious!” he nods. “So, so curious! Well, this obviously means four full sessions for four powers. And it seems there’s a bit of investigating as well, which makes it even more exciting!”

“And after the fifth task, it is done,” I cut him off. I feel like I need to remind him that I’m not his subject or experiment.

“Aww! Trying so soon to get rid of me?” he appears a foot away with puppy eyes and touches my chin. I pull back from him.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you,” I snort.

“Shall we start with teleportation?” he suggests giddy. “As you are already somewhat experienced with that.”

“Barely.” I think of the time I appeared inside that hellhound guard. It still gives me chills.

For the next quarter hour, he asks me to teleport to places he chooses and I do it every time. After a while, I seem to perceive the world around me only through the bubbles.

“Hmm...” he does after I last teleport. “I see where the problem might be.”

“Is there a problem to begin with?” I ask him with a mix of confusion and dignity.

“Indeed, there is! Now, may you tell me how you see it when you teleport?”

I hesitate. Everything he asks and I give an answer to is a way for him to gather knowledge about me. I know that, and he knows it too. Why else would he grin wider at my reluctance?

“I see a world of bubbles,” I scarcely confess. “I choose one to appear by walking in it.”

“Quite original, indeedy!” he nods excitedly. “However, the problem with that is that it takes valuable time. And I presume you can’t jump too far.”

I cross my arms. His presumption is true. Still, it’s the only way I can teleport. How else am I supposed to walk in a place?

“How do you do it, then?” I ask him back.

“All in good time, dear! Now, do you read?”

“What?”

He totally takes me by surprise.

“Couldn’t you hear me, dear?” he smiles and then looks at his microphone accusingly. “Are you having trouble again?”

“Not at all, sir!” the microphone’s eye opens big.

“What does reading have to do with teleporting?” I redirect his attention.

“Do you, though?” he presses the question with an annoying grin.

“Of course, I read!” I roll my eyes.

“When you read, do you hear your voice in your head echoing the words on the page?” he smiles dreamily.

“Yeah...” I agree. “It’s the way you read a book, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes and no,” he half-answers and starts walking. “You see, do you know of those people who can read a page diagonally? Or finish a book in a couple of hours? They were called geniuses back in my time. However, they simply discovered a secret about words.”

He stops to regard me. Watch my reaction as he puts his finger at his mouth: “The secret is to not think of the words!”

I stare at him, trying to understand what he’s meaning. Not thinking about the words? Then how are they registered by the mind? How can I understand what the book is about if I can’t use its words?

“Haha, I see you’re quite taken aback,” he smirks. “Let’s get back to the concept of reading, shall we? The inner voice you hear in your head when you read is called subvocalization. It helps you understand the words you’re reading. People who train their speed reading try to minimize subvocalization. Some listen to music and hear the musical notes instead of the words. Others train their eye movement to include more words. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of subvocalization, but you can double the reading speed.”

I... I...

“It’s the same with teleporting! You imagine your bubbles and choose them. It's your way to understand it. However, it is not necessary. Instead of looking at each bubble and figuring out where they might send you, you simply focus on your destination. This way you’d reduce the time and energy. It might even be instantaneous.”

Speechless. That’s how I am. His words, his theory... They’re remarkable! I can’t deny it. I am fascinated by the comparison.

Yet, I am unnerved by it as well. It’s easy for him to say it. But in practice? I’d need to relearn something I know so well now. Give up instincts rooted deep down. How am I going to even start that?

“Quite a difficult concept to comprehend, indeed,” he takes my silence as a confused pause.

“No, it’s not,” I argue. “It’s just... I don’t know where to start,” I confess shamefully.

“Of course, you don’t!” he laughs. “That’s why I’m here! Hahaha! Now, is there any book you’re currently reading? Or in your book list?”

“Divine Comedy,” I immediately answer. The truth is that I missed reading it, not knowing what was about to happen. One of my sorrows in ashes. And when I looked for it in the library... No success.

He snaps his fingers and a book appears and falls in his hands. He looks at its cover intrigued before sending it to me through a portal. I catch it and look at it as well. It has a black leather cover with golden calligraphy: Dante Alighieri, “Divine Comedy”.

My hands caress the book for a second before I look up at Alastor. I’ve caught his focused and giddy eyes before he smiles with his teeth and says: “If you master speed reading, you’ll be ready not only to learn how to appear and disappear properly, but to create portals or even spatial warp objects or demons. Of course, this implies a lot of exercise, as well as a great focus and...” he gestures with his staff an arch, almost resembling a rainbow, “Imagination!”

Suddenly, the book in my hands represents even more than a reality escapade. Who could have imagined? That reading, indirectly, will teach me how to use my powers.

“Unfortunately for today, there can’t be any more action!” I look up surprised at Alastor, who made his staff disappear. “Phase-jumping for you is more of a mental block rather than a physical one. You’ll have to train your brain, then your body.”

“That’s it for today?” I ask him incredulously. Twenty minutes have barely passed.

“Oh, I’m confused. Now you do want my company?” he raises one eyebrow delighted.

I hold my words in check and only nod at him. Fine, if that’s how this is going to be.

With the book dearly held to my chest, I walk to the exit, only to find it closed.

“May I be excused?” I ask him for permission ironically.

“Of course!” he snaps his fingers. The wall dissolves again.

“Thank you,” I say, not sure if it’s genuine or not.

Only when the wall closes behind me, I realize I forgot something. I forgot to ask him about when my first task is.

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

Masterlist

0 notes

ronmanmob · 1 year

Text

@brooklynislandgirl picked up from (here) All things considered, Beth is the worst sort of Irish woman in the world. The only time in her life she really enjoyed whiskey was when it held the warmth of her brother's breath on her cheek or near her hair. Same with the cigarette smoke that would cling to his leather jacket. She supposes corned beef is bearable but the idea of veg being boiled to within an inch of disintegration makes her queasy just thinking about. She did wear green as was proper, or at least close enough for the lights inside the trader, a modest ankle length acrylic County Antrim tartan and an Aran style cardigan over a plain tee-shirt. Hair in braids exposing the column of her neck. Would that she could have worn wings.

The Trader does healthy business, and by now she knows every face and each name as she knows the names and faces of the tenants in her building and their extended families. That's what she's come to think of Ron's pub as. Regulars that are likely some distant kin to him, the relations long forgotten. New and old who seek the comfort and the simple rightness of their Local. Tonight though, there were so many people in the mood to celebrate that she can only really recalling actually seeing Ron when she was dropping off table requests, as he and a few extra hands had the bar well in hand.

Now they've come to the end of the night and her feet are sore to the point that she can't quite hide the faintest limp of hers. When she stretches her whole body sounds like bubble wrap and her already quiet voice is a touch huskier than normal for all her chit-chat and the singing. Although she does make it a point of pride that while she knew many of the ceilidh songs and dances, none of the ones she listened and participated to were rebel tunes.

And maybe it's less about the patrons and more about Ron himself; she has not forgotten that England was far kinder to her islands than America, and she knows that his earliest years still bear the scars and the shadows of the Troubles.

Before she can sink too deeply into that rabbit hole now that the Trader's fallen silent and all that's left is the clean up and the accounting, a new sensation slinks its way into her mind. Almost as if she's summoned him on the strength of a wish, Ron envelopes her against her. He is warmth and solidity, an anchor thrown into rough seas, sails furled. All the tension drains out of her slight frame as his face grazes her throat, where her pulse skips a beat in welcoming him.

So close to her ear, she doesn't miss a single syllable he murmurs nor does she have to fight to make it make sense. Ron in the moment is perfect clarity and it earns him a tired but full smile that he might not actually be able to see, and a hesitant little reply, though she honestly knows little of the tongue of her forefathers.

"…Sláinte agatsa, Kanuha."

To his health, as well.

Squirmy little thing that she is though…a hand rises to press whisper light as his cheek so very brief that they both might have imagined it and she turns a tiny pirouette until the small of her back is rested on the bar counter and she winds her arms around his neck.

A flickering glance from the tip of his nose ~she doesn't engage his gaze unless he does so first, because she's learned him as much as he's learned her~ that drags down to the full sin of his lips. Only now does the rebellious nature of her spirit show. She doesn't ask politely or really make a sound other than the breath she takes before she's leaning up into him, and chases the taste of her essential oils and salt on his lips.

Bar Sláinte and her name for him, Ron didn’t follow what Beth said to him as she relaxed into his embrace in the evening’s lull, but that didn’t matter. It was the sound and the feeling of her, the taste and the scene of her that he wanted. Meaning and language and conversation through these...That was secondary. He didn’t need it to commune with her, nor did she to commune with him. They hadn’t needed it for months now. And that was so, so freeing for she who struggled hearing words and he who could struggle speaking them.

Her graceful pirouette in his arms nudged a smile free, as the sight of her face often did. Small and wonky and full of affection for her, Ron’s gaze - like Beth’s did - flitted from her lips to her brow and back, verdant eyes chanced, lingered near and then lost to him as she closed in; her kiss like a balm on burned skin after so long and so socially taxing a day.

Broad palms stroked up her back as she leaned up into him, half a thought given to offering her a massage when next he could speak for all the knots even his untrained paws could feel. For now though, better to let her stretch all she pleased up him; better to part his lips against hers, to welcome her tongue with the touch of his, the comingled tastes of honied tea and his latest vape’s flavour - something candied, he’d lost track precisely what - joining her salt and her oils between them.

When they broke apart, the purr Beth was met with that came up in Ron’s chest was as much made of affection and relief at her presence as it was of want for her. Free of his glasses - for all contacts were a bane to him - Ron tilted his head into Beth’s, touching their temples and resting there without the usual concern for his now absent spectacles. The hands at her back had stilled, one resting low, the other between her shoulder blades. They shifted as Ron embraced her fully, enfolding her in his arms and giving a gentle squeeze to press her right into him.

Syllables then, low and on the run by her ear.

There was a Fuck I’ve missed you somewhere in there. It’d come up salad, like things did by ‘n by, now and then after too much time had been necessarily spent marshalling the bridge between mind and mouth. Ron didn’t notice, but he knew even without knowing about the slip that if Beth noticed, she wouldn’t mind. Knowing her like he did, he’d not be shocked if she could read his meaning through how the words rumbled up in his chest.

More escapees then--

“--Barely feels like I seen yah...”

--right-ways round this time, though lagging and tired and, for Ron, almost painfully relieved. It’d been one of those I have to do this even though I maybe can’t days for him; not one where he’d taken poorly, but one where the limits of his mental stamina were tested, re-tested, and then tested once more. From Beth’s temple, Ron’s head bowed down ‘til his brow dropped to the crook of her neck and shoulder. A groan-come-sigh found its home there. He’d never been more pleased for the closing time bell.

#brooklynislandgirl #modern!verse #<- with Beth

1 note · View note

words-writ-in-starlight · 3 years

Text

day 5: "betrayal"

When Cassandra de Rolo was fourteen years old, her brother Julius came into her room and shook her awake with blood on his sword. He had killed three guards to reach her room, and he was already hurt, bleeding from a wound in his shoulder where a blade had pierced muscle and bone badly enough that he held his sword in his off hand. He whispered to her to get up, to get out of Castle Whitestone, to run for her life and not look back. He promised that they would meet her in the forest, that he and Vesper were just going to get their brothers and they would be right there to find her.

If someone had asked her, the day before, hours ago at dinner, if she trusted Julius, Cassandra would have said without hesitation that he could put a sword to her throat and she wouldn’t even flinch.

Now, though, she cringed away from the dark hallway, and from Julius, the blood black in the moonlight spilling through her window. She could hear someone shouting, a deep, booming voice that echoed off the stone, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“What’s happening?” Cassandra managed in a shaking voice.

“It’s going to be okay,” Julius said, holding out his empty hand to her. He winced, and his wounded shoulder stopped short at an odd angle, but he tried to smile at her. “There’s fighting in the castle. You need to get out, all right? I’m going to send Ludwig after you, we’re going to be fine.”

Cassandra stared at him, gasping in shallow breaths of air as her head spun. Her hands were cold, and her ears were pounding, and she looked Julius in the eye, reliable Julius who let her and Ludwig build a fort under his desk last year even though they were really too old for it, honest Julius who never lied even when their parents asked him who had let Percival dismantle a firework on their dining hall table.

Julius, Cassandra understood in a hollow kind of way, was lying to her.

Cassandra clenched her fists tight, and nodded.

“All right.”

“Good girl,” Julius said, and his smile trembled a little as she stood up. “Go through the servant’s passages. Don’t let anyone see you. Don’t stop, no matter what you see. If you can’t get out, hide until the noise stops, and then run.” She nodded again, stiffly, standing barefoot in her nightgown, and Julius let out a ragged breath. He caught her around the shoulders with his injured arm and pressed her close to him for a moment, kissed her on the forehead.

And then he left.

Cassandra counted to thirty after Julius left, and then darted down the corridor on bare feet, trusting her knowledge of the castle to carry her through the dark, one hand trailing fingertips across the wall to keep count of doors. One door—washroom—two doors—study—three doors—Vesper’s room—her foot landed in a puddle of something slick and warm and she almost skidded into the wall at the corner, but years of experience with ice and snow kept her upright. Cassandra refused to think about what she had stepped in. Vesper was the best fighter Cassandra knew, their father’s pride and joy. She must have fought someone here, and beaten them. She must have told Julius to get Cassandra up, because she was a better fighter than him, and she could get to the others faster.

Leaning against the wall, Cassandra palmed blindly, fumbling, for the concealed door to the servants stairs. They led straight down to the scullery. The scullery opened onto the back courtyard, where the maids hung out the laundry on every fourth day during the summer. The back courtyard was gated off, but Cassandra could climb the wrought iron fence, the twins had bet her their dessert for a week that she couldn’t climb it faster than they could, two years ago. She had whipped them handily, and their mother had grounded her for risking her neck, but had also made the boys give up Cassandra’s winnings every night. Once Cassandra was outside the castle, she could run for the town and—no, the forest. Julius had told her to run to the forest.

It was the middle of the night, in the height of winter. Cassandra had never been in anything less than disastrous trouble for going into the forest at night, and everyone in Whitestone knew not to play dice with the cold, but—

All she needed to do was get down the stairs, Cassandra told herself. Then she was practically already free.

Her fingers found the latch, and Cassandra pulled open the well-oiled door in a silent rush, ready to run headlong down the stairs to safety.

There was a light, casting shadows on the far wall of the spiral stair. It was probably a dim thing, really, the steady white glow of an arcane source rather than a flicker of flame, but in comparison to the black of the corridor, Cassandra flinched back like she was looking into the sun.

It was that instinct that saved her life. Later, she knew, if she lived long enough to see a later, she would think about that moment where she flinched, instead of running forward as she’d planned, and know that she had been that split second from giving herself away. Instead, she had a heartbeat of time to see the light rise up the stairs, listen to the footsteps coming toward her and the voices calling to each other below, and understand that she wasn’t quite caught, not yet.

Cassandra didn’t latch the door shut, afraid of the noise. Instead, she pushed it back to touch the jamb, and ran for the first door she could reach.

Cassandra wasn’t as smart as Percival. She wasn’t as strong as Vesper. But Cassandra was fast, and she was small, and her siblings hadn’t beaten her in hide-and-seek since she was six years old.

Vesper’s bedroom floor was covered with a soft red rug, a simple pattern of red and brown and blue that Vesper sometimes laid on after training, flat on her back, while Julius called her a lazy sod and she snickered at him. But what mattered now, as Cassandra tried to breathe quietly and think in orderly lines, problem-to-solution, like Percival told her to when she was complaining about her studies, was that the rug was deeply piled, thick fibers that their mother always told them not to walk on in their boots. She said that it was too quick to absorb anything, and it was rude to make the servants clean it every three days just because they were a pack of young ferals who couldn’t take their shoes off.

Cassandra made directly for it, guided by her memory of the room and the dim light spilling through Vesper’s open curtains. There was more slick liquid in Vesper’s doorway, forcing Cassandra to walk through it again, and then something piled on the floor, barely visible as a dark shadow against lighter shadows, and Cassandra, hands shaking, reached out to touch it. Her hands found a shoulder. It was still, and warm.

She needed to run. She needed to run right now, before her luck turned. But—

Cassandra’s hands were grown clumsy with fear, shivering and betraying her as she groped down the shoulder, for the arm, and then the hand. It was wrapped loosely around a sword, wet and glossy in the moonlight, and she tried to find the wrist, tried to find a pulse. Her other hand tracked up the shoulder to the neck, then to the jawline. The hair was long. Cassandra had to—she had to see the face, she had to know—

“Up here,” a voice called in the corridor, and Cassandra’s heart stopped. “This door is cracked. How many of the kids have we accounted for?”

Crouching on the ground, frozen, like a rabbit hearing the dogs closing in, Cassandra clutched at the body that might have been her sister, or might have been a stranger, and strained to make out the answer. She couldn’t, not quite. She thought there had only been one syllable called back up the stairs. Not all of them, then, no matter what number it was—it couldn’t be all of them because, she realized with a cold jolt, they hadn’t found her yet.

Forcing herself to stand, to leave the unknown body on the floor, was even harder than standing up had been, when Julius had come into her room. But she did it, and ran forward as quietly as she could manage, onto the familiar softness of Vesper’s rug. She scrubbed the soles of her feet against it, for as long as she dared, and then dashed forward for Vesper’s window seat.

Vesper’s window seat had been a gift for her twentieth birthday, a coming-of-age present from their mother. It was a long, solid bench with a cushioned seat and an engraving of the sun from the de Rolo crest, framed by a pair of swords. It was also hollow. Vesper, who had been using her wardrobe to store her armor and weapons despite pleas to consider their effect on the linens, had laughed, and filled it with sheets, blankets, and out-of-season clothing. The weapons were still in the wardrobe, but they did less damage now that they had more space.

Cassandra heaved the lid open as carefully as she could, quietly, and rolled herself inside. She lowered the lid down over her, nearly silently, and, in the dark, she began wriggling beneath layers of cloth. It was midwinter—this was not ideal, Cassandra noted with a kind of hysterical clarity, because it meant that most of Vesper’s thick blankets and coats were in use, and she was left with lighter summer wear to cover herself with. But she dug down through the clothes, deeper into the dark, until her hands hit the wood. Then she twisted herself around, so that she was on her side, pressed up against one edge of the window seat and buried under her sister’s clothes, and pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her breathing, and waited.

Cassandra waited as the voice left the stairwell and split up across the corridor.

She waited as heavy footfalls, not even bothering with stealth anymore, marched into Vesper’s room.

She waited as Vesper’s room was searched.

She waited, holding her breath and trying not to shake so much that she would be seen, as the window seat was opened, inspected, and declared nothing but old clothes.

And then, as the footsteps moved back toward the door, Cassandra heard the invader speak again. And now, closer, she thought she recognized the voice. It was—

Cassandra closed her eyes, hand still pressed over her mouth, as Captain Stonefell called out to his guards.

“Nothing here. Except this—” a thud, as if kicking something heavy, and a metal skittering “—room’s empty. You, go round up the rest of the boys and tell them we’re searching the castle. Sweep from this floor down. She’s a little slip of a thing, can’t have gotten far.”

“Yes, sir,” a handful of voices called back.

Another voice asked, “Does the Lady have any instructions for her? Or the doctor?”

“The doc thinks she can get everything she needs out of Percival,” Stonefell said. “And Lady Briarwood says that anyone Ripley doesn’t need dies. Once it’s done, put her with the others. Get a move on!”

A sob was building in Cassandra’s chest, or maybe a scream, an inarticulate howl of grief and terror. Put her with the others. Did that mean—was it possible that only she and Percival were left? But Julius couldn’t have left more than five minutes ago, and he had said that Vesper was getting the others. It couldn’t have happened that quickly, a young, desperate part of her whispered. They were her family. They were her family, they were supposed to be there always, they were the de Rolos and they were supposed to live as long as Whitestone did.

Cassandra choked down the child’s wail. She couldn’t let the Briarwoods’ people—their guests, people they thought were their friends—find her. She had to—

She had to wait, like Julius had said. She couldn’t get out while they were searching the castle, but, she realized, inspiration striking, she might be able to wait them out. If she could wait long enough for them to believe she’d made it out of the castle unseen, they would start to sweep the forest instead. That would get most of the people out of the castle—the forest was massive, the snow making it hard to search efficiently with anything but magic, and surely, if they could use magic to find her, they would have done it already. And then, hopefully, she could make her escape.

And—Percival. Percy, that nickname he always hated, that they all used when they wanted to get under his skin. Her most annoying brother, who was a pretentious prick when he wanted to be, who was so sure that he was the smartest person in any room half the time, who was always trying to get her to care about things like math, and gadgets, and science.

Who let her sit on the floor of his workshop when she was bored of learning about diplomacy and negotiations, and made her little wire figurines out of his scraps.

Ripley, the doctor the Briarwoods had brought with them—she had him. She wanted something from him, wanted something from the de Rolos besides their home, their fear, and their lives. Maybe something about one of Percival’s inventions, or something that any of them might have answered, but—a horrifying thought—Percival was the oldest de Rolo left.

It didn’t matter what they wanted, Cassandra decided, after what felt like hours turning the possibilities over in the dark. Percival was her brother. The Briarwoods could choke on the de Rolo defiance before she let them keep her brother.

Cassandra waited, listening to the search, peering out through the cracked lid of the window seat when she felt sure of the silence. She didn’t think she slept, but time passed strangely, in long syrupy dollops of fear and heart-pounding boredom. There was chill winter light, the muted white brilliance of an overcast day, pouring through the windows by the time Cassandra had finally stopped hearing the footsteps of guards searching the upper floors.

When peeking out revealed no noise or sight of another presence, she counted to five hundred before she dared to struggle out of her hiding place. Her legs were numb and her back ached and she was clumsy with the adrenaline of the night, and the lid of the window seat crashed out of her grip when she tried to close it. The sound was deafening in the mausoleum silence of the castle.

Cassandra stopped breathing.

No one came.

All right. That was good, Cassandra tried to tell herself as she crept toward Vesper’s door. The soft red carpet was still bloodstained from her feet, but in broad tacky smears that looked nothing like footprints. There was the puddle of blood she had stepped in beside the door. The body was gone, along with its sword. Cassandra tried not to look too long at the place where it had lain.

Cassandra stopped on her way to the door, and turned to Vesper’s wardrobe. Vesper’s wardrobe, full of weapons, the doors still flung carelessly open by the searching guards. One of Vesper’s swords, her favorite, was missing—probably she had taken it. There were two other swords, a handful of knives of various styles, a bow and a number of arrows, and Vesper’s deep blue winter coat.

Cassandra took a dagger, and the coat.

Cassandra tried to visualize the castle in her mind, every nook or cranny that she and her siblings had ever crept into. Where would she go if she was an invading murderer hoping to interrogate a teenager? It was a ridiculous question.

Maybe it was the wrong question, Cassandra thought as she slipped into the hall, taking careful steps to keep her bare feet out of the dried blood, now that she could see to avoid it. Maybe she shouldn’t be wondering where they were interrogating Percival. She couldn’t get him away from Ripley even if she found them—she was one girl, armed with a knife she wasn’t sure she could use and armored with her older sister’s overlarge coat. Besides, they could be interrogating him anywhere in the castle, and eliminating rooms one at a time sounded like a long and exhausting way to commit suicide, after she had gone to so much trouble to live.

But, if they were hoping to interrogate Percival, they would have to keep him somewhere.

And the castle did have a dungeon.

#whumptober 2021 #no.5 #betrayal #critical role #vox machina #cassandra de rolo #fic #violence #i am actually going to hunt through the rest of the prompts and find an appropriate one for the rest of this #because i have a Hunger to write this all the way through to the end of cassandra's worst day ever #there's a stabbing prompt? is that too much of a stretch for 'shot full of arrows'?#but i figured i'd stop here because it's already pushing 3k so y'know #here #UGH i love the de rolos what a nightmare #this includes several of my inane headcanons!#including that julius was a very good eldest son (trustworthy loyal honorable all that shit)#and that vesper was a fighter who liked Weapons and also her siblings #and that percy actually did not care for being called percy until after his whole family--everyone who called him percy--was murdered #starlight writes stuff

246 notes · View notes

littlefreya · 3 years

Text

Velvet Chains

Summary: For a generous fee, August Walker is yours. A man devout to pleasure, who will worship you for an entire night and make sure your first time is more than memorable.

Promot:

A thought - August as a gigolo who specializes in deflowering. 👌

Pairing: Soft! August Walker x Virgin Reader.

Word count: 1.6K

Warnings: 18+. August Walker as a sex-worker, sexual intercourse, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, a depiction of bodily fluids, soft!August themes, a tinge of angst and August’s monster c...

A/N: When I received this prompt, I didn’t think I can actually do it justice, but it was 3am and I started dabbling around. Then in the morning, I took another look at it, and this little drabble turned into a one-shot. I hope you’ll like it, I hope I did well. Many thanks to @agniavateira my muse who beta’d my story.

Please give feedback and reblog if you enjoyed reading. 🖤 DM if you want to be added to my tag squad.

Title: Velvet Chains

They were all little flowers to him, fresh peonies and flushed roses. Young or mature, it never mattered as long as they were still oh so pure. Undefiled, succulent flesh. Kissed by dew and wrapped by the last remaining petals of their innocence.

All for him to willfully pluck.

Sprayed with notes of tobacco, and boozy fragrance of rum - August Walker was the top-tier kind of service, a man to die for with his three-piece suits and shiny leather shoes. At one point he didn’t even need to self-promote; they came to him, all doe-eyed and coy, willing to pay as much as it takes to have him breach through the sealed gates of their garden.

The rules were quite simple: Cash in advance and always wear protection; other than that anything goes. August liked to see himself as a procurer of fantasies rather than a male prostitute. For a generous fee of $1500, his girls earned themselves a night they never forgot. Whether it began with a dinner at the most outrageous restaurant, a masked ball at a billionaire’s mansion, or an intimate evening with his homemade cooking at a cosy sublet.

It was up to him to choose the experience for the ladies after thoroughly assessing and profiling each client. He was never wrong; after all, it was his job to study women, both mentally and physically.

“I know what you need,” he would murmur as he kissed down their navel and swept between their shaky thighs. And in his grip they indeed laughed, cried, and came undone so many times over, reaching out to grasp heaven around his unapologetically huge cock.

Until you changed everything.

August couldn’t quite crack you; while he enjoyed, savoured, and conquered every woman he had, it was you who seemed to have more power over him than he did over you. The quiet abyss in your eyes reeled him in like an unfortunate, foolish fish teetering on a hook. Whatever mysteries that mind of yours held, he wanted to pry it open with his fingers and brush them through the parchments of your soul.

He desired you more than just the flesh; he wanted to be deeper in you than he ever was in any other woman.

‘Who are you?’

Shivering in his presence, it was crystal clear that you weren’t immune to his spells; yet you didn’t seem impressed by the theatrics or his suave appearance. As if you saw right through him, and knew it was all but a spectacle.

Wanting everyone to witness your ‘claiming’, he took you to the dimly-lit roof of his private apartment and laid you on a blanket beneath the beaming stars. When his lips touched yours while slowly ridding himself of his clothes, August felt like he could tell you his most kept secrets though he didn’t want to.

This is not how it worked. Not for him.

Sorrounded by the fairy tea-lights that adorned the intimate rooftope, you flinched as he began undressing you, and trembled so vehemently once completely bare that all he wanted was to embrace you in his big arms. And he did so, collecting you against the dark fur of his chest, the heat of his body provided shelter from the cold October breeze.

“Beautiful,” he whispered sincerely and allowed his hands to roam the tender map of your body. Likely, he would never see you again, so he wanted to remember every curve, dimple, and scar; he needed your moans imprinted in the museum of his mind.

The same desperate, breathless pleas only a virgin would make, purer than pure.

Breathing in shudders, you laid down beneath him with your legs spread out. Your little untouched slit displayed to his hungering gaze, asking to be reshaped by his intrustment. August was never one to lose control, but your entire existence has made him question every decision and in a moment of frivolousity, he lost himself completely and broke the most forbidden rule:

He entered you bare.

Painfully large and hot as flaming iron, his rigid cock tore through your maidenhood and delved into your velvety pit, desperately searching for the engulfing shelter that was your womb. Weeps of pain rained down your lips; he was too big, and he didn’t slow down. He unwrapped you, tearing your rose petals one by one, sinking in until you could have sworn he was infused between your lungs.

Overwhelmed by the raw sensation of your wet flesh engulfing him, August raked his arm around the small of your back and held your body against his, forcing you to spread wider, to grant him the infinite access he demanded.

“Look at me kitten,” he murmured in a half-breathless, half-soothing voice and showered hasty butterfly kisses across your forehead, “I’m inside you. It’s done, now let me please you.”

He seared your body, your sensitive entrance pulsating with a twinge of grieving anger around his veiny cock, your walls squeezing, fighting off his lewd intrusion. While you anticipated the pain, the initial shock was too much to bear.

“I don’t think I can take you,” you retorted and swallowed hard, trying not to cry as he swelled and flinched inside you further more.

August reached a hand to your jaw and caged it between his strong fingers. Not saying a word, he stared intensely into your eyes. Smoke and broken mirrors shadowed his glare. In your daze, you swore you could see his reveries and hear him whisper without moving his lips.

The barriers of your guarded castle were in ruins, and so was your self-preservation. Fully submitting, you allowed him to take you beneath the shimmering, black silks of midnight.

August was both gentle and rough as he rode between your thighs, his heavy body surrounding you completely. His entity seeped through your lungs and pores, his bewhiskered mouth left sloppy, ticklish kisses and chanted a hymn of pleasure against your neck.

For a slight moment, you wondered if he was this passionate with all of his customers. But all thoughts died at the moment his crown slammed into the wall of your womb, and the entirety of your existence was flooded with both the tremors of sudden pleasure and satisfying pain.

You wanted more, you wanted to be complete. To be completely his.

“Oh god, yes!” You cried for him, clawing your nails at the taut muscles of his back.

Grunting, he plunged into you, harder with every pull and deeper with every thrust. He sought for heaven between your legs and as inexperienced and naive as you were, you followed your instincts and complied to his arousal. Bucking your hips, you yielded to meet the jerk of his hips - your rhythm a savage mess, your demeanour that of a virgin-whore.

“Good girl, my good girl,” August praised, thrilled of the shift in you, and by the helpless, glossy gaze and gaping mouth as you moaned and begged. Your freshly open cunt clung to his invasion with its growing tightness. Holding onto him the way the moon is bound to earth.

Control was gradually lost over your own bodies, enslaved to something stronger than your wills and wits. It was as if you became vessels to haunting spirits that made you slam into one another, lost in a sweaty, carnal trance until a flush of sudden rapture broke between your legs the way raging waves break upon a ship lost at sea, consuming it completely.

Like a dauntless sailor, August followed you into the depths of euphoria. Jumping to his knees, he hauled you by the waist and slammed you against him, needing to be balls-deep within you. With a loud shout, he came undone, astonished by the raw, unbridled sensation of releasing himself inside another person.

You both shuddered in shock as his thick cum bathed your womb in three, warm gushes.

‘Oh, August, what have you done?’

Spent, he nearly collapsed on top of you, holding his hands flat to the side of your head. He took a deep breath before pulling out from your hurting hole and moving to lie by your side. The pink mixture of your essence trickled between your simmering lips just the way it coated his still-swollen cock. Glancing down upon it he felt an odd notion of triumph, more than the usual complacent feeling usually evoked with his clientele.

“Don’t worry, I am clean.” He promised.

In a way, you were his first as well.

Pulling you against him, he nuzzled your neck and hummed lowly, “I don’t imagine you could give me anything.”

Still trying to land back on solid ground, you said nothing. Words didn’t make it, not through your chest nor your head. You basked within the moment, trying to memorise every vibration that flowed through your veins as the glow became dimmer with every passing minute.

Limbs entangled, he decorated your shoulder-blade with honey-sweet kisses while your spine attached to his hairy chest. He watched you quietly, admiring you completely until the two of you fell into a dreamless sleep under the guarding sky.

Come morning, August was awakened by the sounds of the raging street below. The scent of toxic vapours hung heavy in the air and his face curled at the sounds of the beeping horns. For a moment, he forgot where he was but then you were the first thing on his mind. Even though he knew the deal was for one night only, something in him itched for a generous ‘on-the-house’ lazy morning sex.

As he rolled to lie on top of you, his chest felt abruptly empty. He was met with nothing but the defiled blanket.

You were gone.

Though the scent of your body, your sweat, and viscous fluids were still stuck to his skin, your memory a sheer piece of silk carried away by the cruel wind. The weight of a thousand stones dropped in August’s gut and he flipped onto his back once more and stared at the cloudy sky.

It resonated in him that this was all that it was, and he would never find a girl like you again.

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it, ideas or parts it and claiming it as your own

*I don’t own August Walker or the Mission: Impossible Franchise

#henry cavill #august walker #august walker x reader #henry cavill x reader #august walker fanfiction

3K notes · View notes

queen-of-the-night-lights · 3 years

Text

Beautiful (Omega x Mom!Reader x Bad Batch)

A/N: So, I have been seeing all of these other stories with a few scenes of the reader being a mom towards Omega and then the rest of the story being with a member of the batch. While I love those my brain went “ Give this little girl done love and support” and I came up with this story which is basically Omega and the reader just hanging out by themselves. ( I also left the ending open so you can imagine the batch member of your choosing😉)

Warnings: None/fluff

Plot: The reader does Omegas make-up for the first time.

“ What are you doing?” The young girl asked innocently. She caused you to jump slightly, it has taken a while to get used to a new voice around the ship. “ People on this planet wear a large amount of make-up so I decided to wear some while I go out to get food and supplies. Here I would stand out much more if I didn’t wear any, opposed to if I did.” You explained brushing on some finishing touches. Meanwhile Omega just watched you, she has never seen anything even close to what you were doing, but then again she didn’t know much about anything outside Kamino.

When you finished you turned to the child and asked “ What do you think?” She smiled and said “ It looks good. A little weird because you look a little different, but still good.” She gave a soft chuckle “ Well thank you, I appreciate your honesty.” Just as you were about to put your makeup away Omega chimed in “ Can I try some on?” You turned back to the girl as she gave you a curious and pleading look. With a small smile on your face you approved with a “ Sure. Come sit down.”

You stood up from your vanities chair to let her sit in it hoping it would make her feel special, in some weird way that’s how you thought of the chair. Pulling a stool close so that you could sit while helping her. “ Lets see...” You said studying Omegas face, you didn’t want to put too much makeup on her since this is probably her first time putting anything on her face. While doing this you noticed many qualities she did share with other clones, making Techs statement a few weeks ago resonate with you. She of course was very different from Regs just like the rest of the batch was, but little traits here and there are where you can tell they are related.

“ Okay so, since I don’t want to put too much on you just incase you have a poor reaction to the makeup, we are just going to do yours a little lighter than mine.” You explained and she nodded in acknowledgment before asking “ What do you mean by reaction?” You then explained how some makeup isn’t compatible with people’s skin and how sometimes people have allergic reactions. After noticing the slight nervousness on the kids face you soothed her by telling her that you only use hypoallergenic makeup and the likelihood of her having a reaction would be very low, but you just want to be careful. After that reasoning she seemed to have gone back to her usual curious nature. “ So usually we would start with foundation, that this part that covers the entire face...” you gestured a circle around yours as you continued “ ...but since I don’t have your exact skin tone of foundation , we are going to use this powder.”

Showing her the brush and translucent powder. “ Now let me know at anytime if you are uncomfortable. Then I will stop and we will make sure everything is okay.” With that you started gently brushing the powder along her face. She giggled at first “ It tickles.” You smiled at her adorable laugh “ Yes it does at first, but I need you to try to hold still the best you can okay?” She then nodded and you continued. The brush was big and soft she had never felt anything like it before. It was a nice feeling as you gently brushed and stippled along her face. You then decided to skip the eye shadow primer and things such as that. Those are for another time when you could teach her longer and had more makeup for her to try.

“ Next, I’m going to have you close your eyes and we are going to use this brush with these two colors and put them right on your eyelids. After that I’m going to wet this brush and put a little line of eyeliner on. That’s this around the base of my eyelashes.” You explained closing your own eyes. She smiled and closed her eyes trusting you not to hurt her. You and the boys always made sure that she was comfortable, no matter what. However there was this different feeling she had towards you than with the others. While she trusted them and loved being around them, there was this different kind of feeling of care you gave off. Maybe it was that “mother” feeling the others told her you had. You just seemed to know the right thing to say and how to say it. You also knew exactly what everyone needed when sometimes they didn’t know themselves.

“ (Y/N), can I ask you something?” As you switched colors you replied in a calm yet reassuring tone “ Of course.” “ How did you learn to do makeup?” You smiled at her question as memories started to fill your head. Taking a breath you explained “ I used to watch my mom. My mother she was, beautiful. With or without make up she had the ability it make a transport ship stop in its tracks. She had these two friends and sometimes they would all put their makeup on together before they would go out. They had this setup where they would put all their mirrors, like this one, all together in a row in front of this huge window we had at my family’s house. And from there I would watch them and think ‘ I can not wait until I am old enough to play with this stuff.’ “ As you finished your story you told Omega to open her eyes and instructed her on the next step. “ It’s all coming together now! This next part is a little scary, but I promise I will not poke you in the eye. I’m going to take this mascara wand and gently put this on your eyelashes.” Omega nodded an okay, then you explained “ Okay, I’m going to need to open your eyes really really wide and look right here.”

You pointed right at where your neck meets your collar bone and quickly put on the mascara. You remember how uncomfortable you were the first time you had it put on for you. Omega seemed a little more relieved after you put it on as well. She then blinked and fluttered her eyes as they adjusted to the new sensation. She then looked back up to you with your soft smile still adorned on your face and asked “ Do you think I’m pretty?” A little taken back you then confidently answered “ Yes Omega, you are very pretty. You have these big, round, and bright eyes, a cute nose...” you said giving her a light tap on her nose to emphasize your point. That caused her to scrunch it up and let out a little laugh. “ And you have this amazing smile.”

Omega had a small blush creep on to her face as you complimented her. You can’t imagine her life back on Kamino, even though she probably treated differently from the rest, you knew that her life, her beginning of her childhood must have been hard. Yet she almost always seemed happy. “ Alright here’s where the hard decision comes in, for your lips do you want a solid color or something shiny.” You said holding a lipstick and a lipgloss in each hand. “ Definitely the shiny one.” She said pointing to the one in your right hand.

“ Excellent choice! Now I’m going to ask you to make a really weird faces. Kinda make your lips go like this.” Omega then mimicked the pursing of your lips making sure she was doing it right. You always thought it was cute when she would try to do the same actions as you all did in the ship, her favorite person to mimic was Hunter, but you couldn’t blame her. “ Alright, now we blot. We want to make sure that our lipstick or lipgloss doesn’t stick or wear off to easily.” Grabbing a tissue of the vanity and showing her what you wanted her to do. Making you lips form a line and gently putting them together, but not actually putting the tissue in your mouth.

Once Omega finished you stood up and asked “ Are you ready to take a look?” She nodded her head with excitement and you spun the chair around to have her face the mirror. You saw her eyes widen and get bigger, if that was even possible, as they filled with wonder. A small whisper of her exclaiming “ woah” left her as she looked at the makeup you did. A bit of pride and affection towards the girl swelled in your chest as the girl copied the head tilts you did earlier as you finished your own makeup. “ Beautiful.”

She smiled as she continued to admire your work “ Thank you!” She exclaimed with a beaming smile looking up at you. “ You are very welcome, but you have to remember it is never the makeup that makes you look pretty, it’s how you treat others and what is on the inside that makes you beautiful.” When you finished that statement Omega turned the chair around and gave you a hug. With tears pricking your eyes you hugged her back. You felt bad for everyone that lived on Kamino, you remember the first time you hugged the others and they were a little taken back and confused by the gesture. Omega however was different due to her young age and hugged you quite often. You wished her the best in the galaxy and wanted to protect her and your boys, your family from any danger.

The hugged lasted a while but you didn’t care, what the two of you didn’t know was that someone was watching you from the doorway. His heart swelled at the interaction between the two of you. He wasn’t there long, he had only been standing there a few minuets. Everyone seemed to have changed a little when Omega came on to the team, and while you didn’t change as much as the others your personality amplified. The way you are able to take care of them became more noticeable, you just had this amazing way with all of them and your ability to care so much.

Everything you did was amazing, making sure they we’re rested, making sure that they had eaten, that they didn’t overwork themselves, reassuring them when they had doubts, and giving hope. He started feeling different about you after the first few months of you being with them. Back then he didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling, but now he knew. He had fallen in love with you. Seeing you with Omega assured him that you would always be there with his family and that you wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt them. He wanted a life with you, his brothers, and Omega. No one will ever take that dream away from him, ever.

478 notes · View notes