#not sure if its horror but adding it just in case

[autismprotocol]

TMAG Theory Board Update (EP 11-12)

Hi guys sorry about the late posting I've just started a new quarter of college and its been pretty hectic. also got into my school design BFA program so pretty stoked about that! Anyways lets get into the Episode Breakdowns because even though not a lot of lore related things happened I still have a lot to talk about

For the breakdown I'll separate each by episode in sequential order

What Happened in Episode 11: Marked

Celias Rude Awakening- we jump right into the weirdness straight away with Celia waking up on the side of the interstate. she indicates that this is not a weird occurrence and ends the scene by telling someone named Jack that she's "on her way." If you remember episode 8 after Celia and Sam talk to Gerry and Gertrude, she mentions stuff about wanting help with her own mystery. When Sam asks about it she says she's looking into Time travel, other dimentions and teleportation. Many people have theorized that maybe Celia is just a super heavy sleepwalker, but I think the she teleports random places out of nowhere. This could be a side effect of her reality hopping if this Celia is originally from The archives universe.

As for the identity of Jack I'm not quite sure about that yet. I cross referenced the name Jack with past episodes of TMA. The only thing that came up was Jack Barnabas from the statement about dating Agnes Montague (aka an avatar of the desolation and Jesus-like figure for the cult of the lightless flame) So Unless Celia is secretly Agnes of Agnes reincarnated , I can't find any way to link Barnabas to Celia. (if anyone has a theory feel free to send it my way.)

Sam Lore- this one is pretty minor story-wise but I thought it was interesting. Before the statement for the episode is presented we get some classic Sam and Alice Banter ™ most of it is pretty lighthearted but I noticed Sam mention something that could indicate he might be an amputee.

These could not mean anything and I find it weird that it hasn't been mentioned until now but thought it was kind of cool and I will probably be drawing sam with a prothetic leg in the future cause I really like this head-canon. It also begs to question if he is missing a leg. it might have anything to do with his past as a Magnus institute test subject but then again could just be a fun character detail added by Jonny and/or Alex .

The Statement- Getting into the statement we get another Ink5oul appearance. Also possible Ink5oul identifying as she/they. (and lets be honest being a fear avatar is pretty non binary core). I found this Episode gave me a feeling of a hybrid between the Vast, Buried and the Flesh some people are theorizing that is might be a new entity called the Deep but I think that the fear of the ocean could easily apply to the vast or buried. Not much to say about this story though pretty standard Magnus horror that also gave us a hint to what Ink5oul's goal could be/which entity they serve.

Post Bonzo- Gwen has a debrief with Lena after her first Externals Liason assignment and her meeting with Mr. Bonzo. Undoubtedly Gwen is still pretty shaken from her encounter, even arriving late to work due to sleeplessness. Gwen is able to ask Lena a few questions mainly she wanted to know who's name was written on the letter given to Bonzo

Lena is largely unhelpful but tells Gwen she should have worked it out by now and if not to pay close attention to the case load for the next couple of days. before the latest episode my guess was Klaus because that is the only person mentioned so far that the OIAR intends to kill. but more on that later

Marked- Now were getting to my favorite thing about this episode. This episode title can have two meanings. The first is the more literal interpretation. Tattoos are marking of the body and the case this episode was all about tattoos so easily a good name would be marked. But I believe this is a red herring meant to misguide listeners who have not consumed all 200 episodes of TMA because if you know the world of Magnus Archives the term Marked takes on a entirely different meaning.

In TMA the term marked is used to indicate that somebody has been influenced by one or more or the fears and are one their way to becoming an Avatar. I think this could be a coded way to tell the audience someone in the OIAR has been marked. I have two potential candidates

Alice Dyer- Alice has been having dreams about the Institute after her and Sam's adventure into the ruins. also she mentions feeling like someone's watching her (common to people influenced or fed upon by the Ceaseless Watcher/The Eye) My guess if she is marked it would be by the Eye.

Gwendolyn Bouchard: Probably the most likely culprit. The main way an entitly tends to mark people is through encounters with other avatars. Gwen has just had an encounter with Mr Bonzo last episode who I strongly believe must be an avatar of some sort.

What Happened in Episode 12: Getting Off

Aww Sam!!- Sam asked Celia out and it was adorably awkward. not much to say I just loved this interaction and I'm longing for a new Magnus brand office romance hopefully is wont be an agonizing slowburn that ends tragically like a certain pair of morons from Archives (I love you Jon and Martin but Jesus christ)

It's Bonzo time bitches!!- Probably one of the most gruesome Magnus statement I've ever listened to (good work Alex) Mr Bonzo completely annihilated some poor dude at his bachelor party. Based on the date of the Incident the I can confidently say that whoever Baz (the groom) was he was our mystery person the OIAR sent Mr Bonzo to get rid of. Along with some of the bloodiest imagery we learned a few things about Bonzo. The most interesting detail is that Bonzo has to be summoned by playing his theme song I think the CD of his theme song acts somewhat like the tapes did in TMA by materialising out of nowhere. Also fun fact you know that torn seam that is right down Bonzo's middle? that is actually is his mouth lined with rows sharp teeth so I guess I know that now (so fun) Moral of the story dont f*ck with Mr. Bonzo

Alice knows something: Theres been this recurring audio glitch throughout TMAGP thatnks to a few extremly observent fans we have started to relize that these glitches are not at all random and are actually letting the audience know when a character is lying (i actually reposted somones deepdive into all the istances of this glitch so far if you guys are intrested in knowing more) why i bring this up now is becuase since we know when any charater is lying we also know when they are being truthful if there is no glitch when they say somthing and at the end of this episode this interaction occurs

Alice goes ahead and makes a joke about this to annoy Gwen but the fact theres no audio glitch when she says "I know" means she does actually know who is behind the OIAR and is activly refusing to share it with Gwen or the others. What do you know Alice!?

and that's about it im already loving these next batch of episodes and am so excited to learn more (ERROR has to show up somtime )

thanks to everyone who resonded the poll on the last update I will continue to include drawings into the breakdown even if it takes me a little bit of time to post. anyways I wrote this all in one sitting and I'm about ready to pass out so thanks again and the ask box and comments are always open for discussion and theory crafting.

-Echo

#the magnus protocol #augustus tmagp #tmagp #chester tmagp #gwendolyn bouchard #jonathan sims #lena kelley #martin blackwood #norris tmagp #tmagp theory #ink5oul #tmagp fanart #tmagp spoilers #the magnus pod #magpod #tmagp speculation #magnus protocol #magnuspod #alice dyer #gwen bouchard #samama khalid #lena kelly #celia ripley #tmagp celia #rusty quill #alexander j newall #celia x sam #tmagp thoughts

[smuthospital]

⭐️Degrees of lewdly: Eden⭐️

Premise: You're a spooky place youtube explorer, and you get lost in a big scary forest! Eden voorhees lol. Reader is fem. Enjoy!

Art by Minagami

Re-upload because tumblr took it down last time.

Content Warning: Non-con, kidnapping, tummy bulge, blood, Eden is Jason, Voorhees

Miners DNI

You've never really gone hiking before and it's proven itself to be a lot more difficult than you originally thought it would be. You like to explore places you've never been, spooky places. more for the thrill. you started filming it and posting your videos on youtube. You usually take some friends along, but all of your friends decided to be little babies this time since the place you're exploring is extra creepy this time. It's a large forest 20 miles away from your city. You borrowed your mom's car to get here. you always tell them you're at a friend's house because they'd kill you if they ever found out you're putting yourself in possibly harmful situations. This forest is known for creepy sightings, disappearances, ghosts, and lots of other things your viewers would love to watch. You've been to abandoned hospitals, cemeteries, tunnels, all that good stuff. You don't think you'll actually see anything, but you brought a can of pepper spray just in case.

The wind howls, making the trees dance above you. The shapes that were once branches in the day have turned into long gangly fingers that desperately reach for you and the bushes now house entities with red eyes and fangs that you imagine want to tear you to pieces! "Wow, guys. This might just be the scariest one yet, haha. There's probably some sort of scp in here with me haha!" You try to keep yourself company by talking to your soon-to-be viewers when you post this, but it's really just to keep you calm.

"I'm a bit lost. The trail kinda disappeared somewhere around here, I think. there's just so much long grass and it's more of a footpath than an actual trail." you complain as you try to spot any familiar landmarks. It's almost impossible. It might be easier in the day for sure, but the night masks everything. You step over decayed logs and large roots, feeling worry set in. What if you're really lost!? Your thoughts come to an abrupt stop when you hear a strange sound not too far from where you're standing. Your blood freezes as you feel a cold sweat coming on. Maybe...maybe it's a person? And maybe they can help you?..or..a monster!? No, (Y/n), this is no time to be silly! That could be a person willing to help you before you get yourself completely lost!

Little did you know you were already a mile deep, walking in the wrong direction.

“I heard a sound. It could be someone who could help me get back on track.” You whisper. You turn off your video camera's flash light and carefully make your way to where you heard the sound, being careful not to step on anything that could alert whatever it is of your presence. You don’t want to startle it, just in case it's an animal willing to protect its territory from invaders like yourself. The sound came from below you. There's a rocky slope leading down to a river. You get down on your knees and peer between the long grass. You can't make out much in the dim moonlight... until you spot a giant of a man dragging a sack through the shallow water. His size alone sends shivers down your spine. Even from where you're crouching, you could tell he would dwarf you the way a cat would to a mouse. You examine him a bit more.The sack is stained in a dark colour that is seeping through the fabric and into the water. You don't dare move a muscle or even breathe. You can't believe your eyes. This can't be real. Are you in a horror movie?

You make sure he disappears behind the tree line with the mysterious sack before letting out a breath. You didn't want to accidentally alert him of your presence in any shape or form. He was probably just a hunter. Yeah, he could have helped you, but he also could have added you to the wet sack and you were not risking that.

You stand up and turn around, ready to get as far away from here as possible, only to bump your nose into a tree. The collision causes you to drop your camera. That's strange. You don't remember walking around a tree to look over the cliff. You rub your nose in annoyance. Wait a minute... This tree didn't have rough bark like the rest of them...Your brain blanks out. You've been in denial this entire time, your brain working extra hard to rationalize what's happening. Before you is a large torso. You can't even see their shoulders from how close you're standing, just a wide, firm chest. You crane your neck up and it takes you a good three seconds before your brain registers that you're looking at the man from before..and he's wearing a mask!

He looks down at you with a focused gaze. You let out a short scream and try to run away, but being within arm's reach of the giant makes it too easy for him to simply reach out and grab the back of your top. He lifts you off your feet with one arm and brings you to his eye level. He cocks his head to the side, observing you slowly. He looks down at the camera you dropped and places his large boot on it, pressing down and crushing it. You start to hyperventilate. He's gonna chop you up and wear your skin, he's gonna keep you in a dark hole and shout "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!" You thrash in his iron grip, pushing at his large hand and sobbing untellable pleas for mercy, but your begging falls on deaf ears. "I-I'm sorry. I-I'll leave, I promise! Please let me go! I-I didn't mean to bother you, I'm sorry!" You cry. Your little struggle seems to have made your shirt ride up a bit, showcasing your supple flesh to his thirsty eyes. His eyes laser focus on your bare skin.

To your confusion, his hand reaches to caress your skin, feeling the smooth texture before slowly moving up. You wiggle more, scared of where this is going. His hand soon finds your breast and cups it before giving it a squeeze. He shudders. His breathing becomes heavier as he continues to mess with your body, his thumb rolling over your nipple. All you can do is whimper and wiggle in his hold. his hand begins sliding down and you scream. You suddenly remember you brought a can of pepper spray, whipping it out of your back pocket and pointing it at his face. Then as you were about to press down and unleash the fire juice, it was gone. In his hand that was previously molesting you lies the remains of your poor pepper spray, crushed and bubbling pathetically. He was so fast you hadn't even realized he snatched it. You just stare at him in horror. To your surprise, he's not even mad, too preoccupied with the need to explore your privates. You hold his wrist and look into his eyes. He looks back into yours as if telling you to stop. You hesitantly let go, and he nods as if to tell you that you've made the right decision. His hand cups your pussy through your jeans, pressing in a bit at the entrance. He seems eager.

He lifts you higher and uncomfortably sets you on his shoulder, his hand on your ass to keep you in place. You don't even bother struggling. You'll wait for an opportunity. If this man wanted you dead, you'd be dead. You don't want to provoke him. From your spot on his shoulder, You notice that he's got a hunting rifle strapped to his back along with a machete. He has an assortment of things attached to his hips among them being a hunting knife and bullet pocket. You shiver. One more off-putting thing that's just about forcing bile up your throat is that he's also covered in a dark wet liquid. You haven't noticed till now, but you haven't been breathing so his smell has now come to your attention. He smells strongly of iron. To that, you're not very surprised.

He starts marching down the hill you were previously watching him from. You have no idea how you saw him disappear through the treeline and he still managed to sneak up on you. He picks up the large stained sack where he left it in favor of locating his little spying mouse. It smells awful, the meaty smell assaulting your senses every second. It's been 15 minutes and an opportunity to escape has not shown itself. This is it. This is how you die. Your body will never be found. Maybe in a few years in a shallow grave by some hiker if you're lucky. This inhuman mass of muscle is going to cut you up and eat you. Maybe even skip cutting you up. He could probably eat you whole as pre-workout. He lifts his leg to step over a large log, his grip on your ass slightly loosening just enough for you to catch him off guard and slip off his shoulder. You grunt as you fall into the dirt and leaves behind him. You scramble up before the giant can scoop you up. You run in a random direction. You just needed to get away from him, getting out of the forest was a problem for later. You didn't even think about how fast he'd be. How could someone be so big and fast!? He took off after you and suddenly, he was on your ass. You've never felt such a primal fear as he chased you like a hungry animal.

A large hand grabs your shoulder and rips you backwards. You fall on your back and stare up at the man now on his knees in front of you, his body completely casting a shadow before yours. He gets down on his hands, caging you too the ground, his body inches above yours. You stare into the holes of his mask and into his rabid eyes. He leans in by your neck. You stop breathing once again, you think your heart stopped. You feel something large and hard pressing roughly into your crotch. You hear him take a deep breath and smell you..."Smells nice." His voice is deep and rough, but it sounds like he rarely uses it. You scream and begin to cry again, not being able to take it anymore. You fight him with all your might. He grabs your wrists with one hand. You hear him chuckle a bit before his hand comes up to cup your check. He suddenly squeezes it and twists your face around to get a better look at your features. He grinds his hips against yours, teasing you of what's to come. He roughly releases your face, before standing to his full height and dragging you up with him. He tosses you back over his shoulder, this time with an almost bone-crushing grip. “Name.” His tone is commanding. When you fail to answer right away, his fingers press into the area on your crotch. Threatening to rip right through. “(Y/n)! My name is (Y/n)!” He hums in response.

Hot tears run down your cheeks as he walks back over to where he left his murder mystery sack. He navigates through the forest as he knows it like the back of his hand until he comes upon a clearing where his home stands. A lonely wooden cabin. He drops the gooey meat bag on the ground. You cringe at the wet sound it makes on impact. You peer over at the sack to see a human hand flop out. Before you could react, he slams his hand over your mouth painfully. "Shut up." He waits for you to nod before removing his hand. He opens his front door and steps inside. It smells musty, like old wood and man smell. Not bad, but not amazing either. He walks up his stairs and sets you on a very large bed. You take a deep breath in, your stomach sore from being jabbed by his shoulder for the entirety of the long walk.

He doesn't let you get comfortable though. His hands are on you in an instant, grabbing your clothes and ripping them to shreds like tissue paper, you're naked before you could even hold any of your clothes together. Hungry eyes leer over you through his mask. You feel his hot breath fan you through the bottom of his mask. "S-stop it, please! Don't hurt me!" You beg. As if to mock your plea, his rough hand grips your plush thigh a little too close to your cunt and squeezes it tightly before shoving it against your chest, making room for himself between them.

He releases you for a moment, only to unzip his uncomfortably tight pants. You shut your eyes and look away, only to feel the soul-crushing weight of his cock slam against your lower stomach. You writhe underneath him, small sobs and hiccups coming from your mouth every few seconds. He pauses for a moment but ultimately decides to continue. You peer up between your wet palms and see him rubbing the tree trunk between his thighs while looking down at your pathetic form.

"W-wait! I-I'm not rea-" He grabs your thighs and forces you closer to him and lines his cock up with your entrance, he slides it up and down your folds, causing you to shudder. He doesn't care if you're ready or not. You shut your eyes as he presses forth. You scream in pain. It won't go in. You're too tight, he's too big and you're dry. The tip can't even get through. You whimper in pain. It burns. You need moisture. He lifts his mask a bit and you get a peek of his jaw. It's noticeably sharp and covered in stubble. You feel his saliva plap against your poor dry cunt before he puts his mask back into place. He tries to enter you again. You yelp. He gets a bit through before he can't anymore. He sighs. He was trying to be gentle. He didn't want to break you so quickly...

He grips your thighs tightly. You feel his nails dig in. You barely have time to register the pain before you feel like you're being ripped in two. He's forcing his way in. You immediately let out a scream and begin spazzing. He just continues until he reaches his base, more than snug against your insides. Drool leaks past the corner of your lip as you stare off into space. He breathes heavily and stares at the bulge he created in your lower stomach. He brushes his hand over it and watches as you whimper and twitch. He pulls his hips back and watches it disappear before ramming himself in again and seeing it jab through your insides. He chuckles.

You lay there, unable to do anything but feel what he's doing to you. You lift your arm and place it on his lower stomach, hoping to stop him that way. You feel his rock-hard abs through his shirt and push. "You're...adorable...fuck.. you're tight." He groans before he slams himself deep inside and you clench around him. He hisses and struggles to pull out halfway, your insides trying to pull him back in. He slams in again and presses himself as deeply as he can, firmly hugging your cervix with his cock. Your eyes cross as he thrusts in and out, keeping a proper pace. Moans spill from your lips along with jumbled-up words he can't make out, all of which sound like music to his ears.

He leans over you, forcing himself snugly against you again, his mask right next to your cheek. He groans as he feels you twitch around him. "Feel..so good... was worried you'd rip... you're only bleeding a little." You can hear the smug grin in his tone.

It feels so good. You're so ashamed, feeling good when you're being raped by a maniac. You clench your tear-filled eyes as he pounds into your aching cunt. The knot in your lower stomach bursts as you cum. He moans as you tighten around him. He stills for a second, just enjoying how you feel before he pounds into you like a feral beast. You're surprised your pelvis is holding up. He grips your waist tight and grunts as he empties his balls deep inside you. You can almost feel yourself getting pregnant. You feel too full. Your stomach bloats with cum. You feel hot and fuzzy. Your pussy is so very sore and your legs are numb. He pants above you. "I've been thinking of getting myself a little wife like you." He says as he slowly pulls his still throbbing cock out with a wet 'pop'. "You're a pretty little thing and you take my cock well. Be grateful I'm letting you live as my cock sleeve." He stands up, towering over your crumpled body once again. "My name is Eden. Your duties from now on are cooking, cleaning, mending my clothes and taking my seed. Do not make me repeat these orders. Object and I won't hesitate to remind you of your place. I was gentle this time." His giant cock is still dripping your juices. You can't stop looking at it. Ge takes notice and climbs over you before grabbing your head and forcing you close to his groin. "I see you love cock. Lick it clean then like a good wife. go on."

You look up at him and hesitate a bit too long. You see anger flash in his eyes and you quickly envelop his tip in your mouth. He groans as you lick your mixed juices off, going as deep as you can without choking. He moans and grabs the back of your head. He stares down at you with such intensity that you can feel him burning holes into you. You suddenly feel your throat being invaded and your nose pressing into his pubic hair, nose pressing into his crotch. He moves you back and forth, face fucking you. You struggle to breathe properly through your nose. You let out muffled whimpers and cries, sending vibrations through his cock. He grunts in pleasure before you feel a load of hot thick liquid being shot into your mouth and down your throat. You're so tired. He slowly pulls his cock back and laughs at your exhausted state. Your head flops back onto the bed, your jaw and lips so incredibly sore and raw feeling. "Good girl." He says before your sight fades to black. You explored a bit too much.

#lemon #non con #x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #dead dove do not eat #slashers #noncon x reader #obsessive love #degrees of lewdity #eden the hunter

[bloobluebloo]

I'm just thinking back to that poll, about whether Zelda would restore the monarchy or not, where the majority voted that she wouldn't restore the kingdom. The reasoning was fascinating, so many people citing the way her father had treated her, or how running a kingdom was stifling her and what she wanted to do, or how she was seemingly better off working directly with Hyrule's communities so she didn't need to restore the monarchy. Then now with the recent post I reblogged, where thinking of the fact that you have a singular form of government that rules on divine right for thousands of years, where the ruler has the blood of the goddess running through her veins, and people respond with "Well, Zelda has to be good! Because she's Hylia! Because she has the power of a goddess!" as if this is enough to offset the horror of having one. singular. monarchy. ruling.indefinitely.

I'm endlessly fascinated on how fixated people are on Rhoam as a shitty parent. I'm sure it's because many people who had strict overbearing parents could relate to how Zelda felt being reprimanded by her father for not being enough. But, there is a bigger picture to consider here. If Zelda is indeed this divine goddess reborn that radiates goodness and is set up to be Hyrule's salvation, can you blame Rhoam for his behaviour? He is Hyrule's king, and he is being faced with what is the worst possible thing that can happen to Hyrule, the key to its defeat laying in the hands of his daughter. Can you imagine having this threat that is looming over the horizon, that can appear at any minute, and then seeing your daughter, the princess with the power to stop it, busying herself with her interests while her powers have yet to be unlocked? You can't imagine getting frustrated even a little in this scenario? This is not me defending Rhoam, or belittling Zelda. Being a teenager burdened with the fate of your country and being unable to unlock the powers she needed must have done a number on Zelda, and having her father belittle her for her interests on top of that must have just added to her sense of uselessness instead of actually helping her awaken her powers. That being said, they are both playing on an entirely different field than the rest of Hyrule, and both Rhaom's inability to help his daughter in a productive way and Zelda's inability to unlock her powers in time came at a major cost to Hyrule. Anyways, the point of all this is to say: it is so weird how people really bend themselves out of shape to justify Zelda's goodness. I feel like the basis for so many people arguing that Zelda wouldn't restore the monarchy is because monarchy is "bad", the monarchy only hurt her and didn't allow her to do what she wanted to do so she wouldn't restore it. However, in any other case, Hyrule's monopoly on power is good because Zelda is Hylia and she is good and she is ruling with goodness so they should maintain power. It's just so fascinating that people are justifying their arguments on Zelda and her self-serving interests instead of asking if the way she chooses to make decisions and run Hyrule is actually good for Hyrule. Then they will turn around and argue that Ganondorf's desire for Hyrule is only based in selfishness.

#admiral’s log

[meraki-sunset]

having a hard time explaining grimdark and trickster to a friend

think you can help?

they get godtier just fine but the other two keep confusing them because right now they think

grimdark = chaos in anarchy sense, but trickster = chaos in haha funny meme sense

Sure, let me see…

GRIMDARK mode is described by Doc scratch as “going completely off the deep end in every way”.

It turns your skin an unnatural dark gray, and in rose’s case to be surrounded by a dark aura, while jade had a spacey green aura.

It’s basically a black magic power up deeply connected to the horroterrors, a state of mind that comes from letting them influence a broken mind. For Rose, it was the death of her mother, and then trying to reveal the horror terror’s secrets. For Jade, she was heartbroken, but also she got mind controlled into entering the grimdark state by the condesce, who is also connected to the horrorterrors.

As an extra, Hussie described Eridan as also going into grimdark when he began murdering people, tho his case must’ve been more symbolical, as he presented the perfect scenario to become grimdark, the complete loss of hope, waiting for Jack to kill them all (due to his title being prince of hope, ergo Destroyer of hope) added to Feferi breaking their moiraliance talking with Sollux, being the detonator for his broken mind, and him being a Derse player, so his dream self was around the horroterrors and had interacted with them prior, he was also interested in magic like rose, had a wand just like her and sought for answers about, like her. He just lacked the connection to the horroterrors in that crucial moment.

So Grimdark is basically when the horroterrors cause the player's most primal and violent tendencies to be pushed to the forefront

The grimdark is also described a “the fabled blackdeath trance of the woegothics”. So a dark trance that people like Rose and Eridan are inclined to fall victim of (in my opinion)

TRICKSTER mode, in the other hand, is described by Calliope as something that brings out your full potential, that brings all your walls down and puts all your inner thoughts in the outside and all your creative power in your hands. It strips you from all social and mental barrier.

It gives you reality altering Powers, allowing you to jump from place to place, probably dimension hopping, manifest objects and makes you super happy and candy colored to the point of losing grip in reality

The problem is that cherubs are very different from humans. For a cherub, who is supposed to fly around in the endless space protecting/destroying a certain part of the void, and its inhabited planets, feeding of black holes, fighting entities to death to ultimately mate in the shape of a big ass snake, a juju that’s basically drugs that can make you forget every wall you built up floating around space alone, and move forward as a happy missile ready to find a mate sounds good. But humans are social creatures, and cherubs are not. Cherubs don’t answer to anyone and don’t have Friends, they don’t need to follow any social cues. Humans built their relationships carefully, and they have secrets and barriers to protect themselves and others. They hide things like crushes and resentment and problems, because well, for the sake of peace, for the sake of not braking every relationship they have. That’s something that Calliope and Caliborn never fully grasped and understood why the kids came to hate the juju when they woke up

So that’s all I could gather. Essentially they are different kinds of power ups, opposite to one another at their core, BUT in both the person isn’t fully there and is being guided by primal instincts, be it rage/sadness or Hope/happiness and they both have consequences in the user because neither is supposed to be used on humans or even trolls.

#homestuck #csau extra #homestuck info #grimdark #trickster #homestuck trickster #homestuck grimdark

[lightsoutletsgo]

P L A Y L I S T (cl16 x singer!reader series) vol.1 - melbourne

warnings: none word count: 1k and we're off! I really hope you enjoy this first proper chapter of the series! please let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist or if you have any feedback. happy reading! mimi series masterlist

Melbourne 

The weeks leading up to preparing for the group's world tour had passed in a blur of costume fittings, dance rehearsals, vocal sessions, grabbing sleep where possible and deciding on lighting and vcr decisions. Before they knew it, their plane was touching down in Australia ready for the first stop of the tour in Melbourne. As she lay in your hotel room dozing, a voice nudged her from her sleepy state, “We have some free time tonight, don’t we?” She turned to look at Nina from the far-too comfortable-and-far-too-big hotel bed and lazily blinked one eye open to look at her, nodding sleepily, “I think I’m going to go for a walk, maybe get some coffee?” Nina yawned widely and got comfy in her own bed, “I’m staying right here” Y/N giggled before stretching, moaning at the satisfying pop you felt in your back. Moving to where her suitcase already led opened with its contents strewn everywhere. She quickly grabbed a comfortable outfit that would also allow her to remain relatively disguised. Quickly changing and grabbing her headphones she headed to the door,

“I won’t be out long!” Nina’s response was no more than a half asleep grunt and slight wave of her hand. Giggling as she left the room, she made sure to close the door quietly before popping your headphones on and heading for the elevator. 

Y/N pulled the hood of her hoodie up and over her head as she slid her sunglasses down to rest over her eyes. As much as she loved meeting fans, she also wanted some time to herself too. 

The streets of Melbourne were busy as she ambled along, occasionally looking in shop windows at sweet pastries or cute outfits. Spotting a sign for a small hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, Y/N pushed open the door, inhaling the scent of freshly ground coffee, cinnamon and a hint of sugar. Gazing around at the display cases with dainty cake slices and chunky cookies, it wasn’t difficult to work out where the delicious smells were coming from. With jet lag tugging at her mind once more, coffee filled her thoughts. Turning to the counter to order, she nodded to herself, surely that would help keep the tiredness at bay for just a little longer. 

With fresh coffee in hand, she stepped out the door and back into the bright sunshine. Nodding along to the band's new song playing through her headphones, she weren’t completely aware of her surroundings, too focused on running through the choreography in her head and counting the beats. Her thoughts were interrupted and she gasped loudly as she felt your hoodie suddenly turn damp and her shoulder turn sore from bumping into something- make that someone... Eyes shooting up from her phone, she gasped as you made eye contact with a guy, a cute guy. “I’m so sorry!” She was jolted back to reality suddenly as she realised her coffee had not only spilt down her hoodie but his shirt too. “It’s okay.” His annoyed tone contradicted his statement as he muttered to himself but she was caught off guard by his accent to notice too much. Was he speaking French? And where did those damn sunglasses go? Fortunately the hood was still covering most of her face and- oh my god his shirt. Y/N's thoughts ran a million miles an hour as she rushed forward and attempted to wipe the coffee from his shirt, the curse he let out confirming her thoughts that he was indeed fluent in French, “Ah! Mon dieu! Please don’t touch me.” She squeaked in horror as she realised she’d been feeling this man’s (very attractive and well built) body in the middle of the street, “Oh my god no!! I’m so sorry, I just thought that-” He scoffed, “You figured you’d follow me and bump into me for my attention?” “What? No? I-” “You followed me into the coffee shop and now you’ve followed me out here… What are you? A crazy fan?” Her mouth gaped like a goldfish and she let out her own sarcastic huff of laughter, the irony of this situation was all too funny. And who was this guy? Why was he worried about crazy fans? If anyone needed to be worried it was her... Right? “Oh please! Why would I follow you? It was a genuine accident, I didn't realise you were the only person allowed in that coffee shop." She glared at him before realising that this confrontation with the man was drawing a few onlookers. This was risky. Too risky. Quickly pulling out some crumpled Australian bills she had in her pocket, she pushed them into his hand, bending down to grab her sunglasses before putting them on once more, "Here, buy a new shirt or pay for it to be dry-cleaned... I'm really sorry." She winced at how cold she sounded, knowing this made her look like an ass in that moment, before turning and walking back in the direction of the hotel. Y/N didn't want to stay out any longer, too worried about paparazzi rather than making a good impression on a guy she'd never see again. She heard him behind her still muttering in French. If he wasn't so angry, she might have stared at him a little more... he was just her type.

------------------------- Charles stared after the unknown person with a confused expression, what had just happened? A call of his name from behind him drew his attention and he turned round to see his teammate staring at him, an eyebrow raised as if he was waiting for an explanation. “What happened to you?” Carlos’ head nodded towards the giant coffee stain on the front of Charles white t-shirt. “Just a crazy fan who wanted attention a little too much…” “Huh?! Are you okay?” Carlos crossed his arms as he took in the young Monegasque who seemed slightly shaken in front of him, “Wanna talk about it?” Charles shook his head, a non-verbal way of telling his teammate not to ask before he shoved the crumpled bills into his pocket, beginning to follow Carlos back to the team’s hotel and making a mental note to tell the team he wanted to up his security when he left the hotel.

---------

taglist: @ferraribabe @reidsworld @zendayabelova @mishaandthebrits let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

#*ੈ✩‧₊˚ playlist series #mimi.recs #f1 x reader #f1 fic #f1 x you #f1 fluff #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc series #charles leclerc fluff #formula one fic #f1 instagram au #f1 social media au #charles leclerc social media au #charles leclerc instagram au #Spotify

[belphiesreverie]

Hi hiii if its ok can I request a yandere Malleus, Idia, Leona, and Vil

with a darling that keeps on asking for a sign from god or in this case one of the great sevens if they should continue to have feeling for their current crush (w/c is not them rn btw-) or nah?

And them just doing stuff that's basically like a sign from the sevens that they should give up on their crush (lololol that would be kinda funny haha)

Yes ofc, this is such a fun idea!! Tysm for the request! 💕💕

TW: yandere behaviour, manipulation

This type of thing really isn’t Leona’s area of expertise. He’s much more of a “get rid of it at the source” type of person

So instead of leaving subtle hints and omens that you should move on, he thinks it’ll be much more effective to hear it directly from your crush

Of course, figuring out how to convince your crush to blatantly admit they don’t like you isn’t hard whatsoever for Leona. It’s a quick and simple solution

However, it’s also quite a harsh way of going about it but Leona is sure he can use your heartbreak in an effective manner as well

Vil has a lot of strengths, and one of those strengths is knowing a lot about body language and how to read it. It’s a skill he picked up from his acting career and he’s very open about it

So it doesn’t seem that strange to you when Vil slips in little remarks about what some body language reveals about how someone is feeling in conversations with you

He’ll talk about a large variety of people so you don’t notice what he’s trying to do when he brings up that your crushes body language insinuates they’re interested in someone they’re talking to

He might also slip in a little something about disconnect in their body language when you’re talking to them every so often. Surely these snippets of information will count as signs to you

The internet will be Idia’s best friend on this endeavour, and he’ll use all the hacking tricks in the book to make this work

He tries his best to make the transition seem natural, starting out with one or two ad’s labelled “is he the one for you?” which if clicked will lead you to a rigged quiz that will always tell you it’s destined to fail

Then he’ll take it up a notch, messing with your algorithm a little bit to show you videos of confession horror stories, and more and more ‘signs’ that your current crush isn’t the one for you will start showing up every time you look at your phone

And just as the icing on the cake, he’ll try to give himself a little head start by showing you video’s and ad’s talking about how your destined soulmate is a reclusive computer whizz

He’ll offhandedly mention that you’re looking for signs to Lilia and suddenly the whole of Diasomnia is on the case to make you give up on your crush

In the halls, all anyone seems to be talking about is romance and quite a few people are mentioning how your crush has a type that’s completely opposite to you or is already in a secret relationship

You’ll be sleeping peacefully and like 7 Diasomnia students will be whispering subliminal messages to you in your sleep that your crush hates you or that Malleus is your soulmate

Even Silver came up to you and told you about a prophetic dream he had about you being rejected and humiliated by your crush. Malleus is obviously not going to be doing anything to stop this any time soon

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twst x reader #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #leona kingscholar #Leona x reader #yandere leona kingscholar x reader #vil schoenheit #Vil x reader #yandere vil x reader #yandere vil schoenheit #Idia shroud #yandere idia x reader #idia x reader #yandere idia shroud #malleus draconia #malleus x reader #yandere malleus draconia #yandere malleus x reader #yandere x reader #tw yandere #gn reader #gn s/o

[mllemaenad]

So ... the stuff with the Emperor. I am somewhat twitchy about designating a group of people as always evil, especially since the game has noted that several races "used to be" considered evil, but now are not. But I can see illithids always being ... antagonistic, as a group, at best. Because they eat people. And unless they can stop eating people, having an illithid friend is always going to be problematic, even if they have no actual plans for world domination.

There's Omeluum, in the underdark, and while I would not say I've interacted with it enough to confirm it is what it says it is, there - at least at face value - is a "good" mind flayer. It's still very much eating people, though. Researching ways to stop doing that, and good for it, but still eating people. Eating "bad" people, sure, but defining "bad" and when being eaten alive would be a reasonable punishment for that is a whole other damn issue.

But the story the Emperor told me isn't ... quite adding up for me. Or else the lore isn't adding up.

From the start of the game, I assumed illithid infection was a matter of incubation. That is, the tadpole in your brain was a person unto itself, and it was going to both feed on you and use your body as a kind of trellis to grow to maturity. In True Souls, the growth was arrested, so no mind flayer was actually erupting out of a body, and the tadpole was consuming little if any brain matter. In the case of your party, even its influence was limited by the presence of the artifact, which turned out to hold an imprisoned githyanki with super powers.

That matched nicely with the things Lae'zel said about infections, about them consuming everything you were, and with the symptoms of infection as described: fever, memory loss, delirium. It sounded as though a person was being eaten alive.

But then the Emperor turns up and claims to be an adventurer who was transformed. It claims to be the same person it was it was before the infection. If true, that would mean that illithids were only "evil" because they themselves were mind controlled. Without that, they'd just be people with unfortunate dietary needs. And, well, we're still hanging out with Astarion for some reason, so this party does not have reasonable grounds to complain about that.

And it could be true. Sure. What do I know about illithids? Lae'zel's information could be wrong. We do know at least some of what she knows is more githyanki propaganda than truth.

Except.

Well, for a starters Withers makes a whole speech about mind flayers not having souls. Now - I don't even believe in souls, so that's not something I'd even consider without being prompted by the narrative. In any fantasy setting where ghosts and souls are assumed to exist, I tend to equate soul with person. If someone is talking to me, they've got a soul. Illithids possibly being terrible people is irrelevant to that question.

Under other circumstances, I'd dismiss this as simple prejudice. But one, this does seem to be Withers' area of expertise and two, it's presented as a plot point: the gods should be attempting to gather souls, but they are not, they are gathering soulless mind flayers who ought to be useless to them. It's weird enough to be worthy of comment.

If the Emperor were a human or elf or whatever, and was transformed into a mind flayer, then it ought to have a soul. Because if there's continuity of personhood, it wouldn't make sense for it to not have a soul.

And then there's the windmill horror. I went the wrong way when doing a quest hunting for lost letters, because I missed that the guy said west and assumed the trail of blood I found was related to the dead pigeons. I followed it to a windmill, picked the lock and went snooping. Inside was a newborn mind flayer - and I could ask it if it had been the one screaming. Its response? No, those were the dying screams of its vessel. It actually delighted in the anguish and terror of the man it emerged from. This wasn't a distressed person who had just undergone an unexpected species change. This was a wholly new person, with little sympathy for its vessel.

So ... barring the arrival of any new evidence that makes the Emperor somehow exempt from this, it does not seem as though it could be who it says it is. I mean - it's entirely possible it incubated in an adventurer. That's as likely as anything else. But every piece of information I can find apart from its story indicates that that adventurer died screaming, and a long time ago.

Which in turn means that this story seems like just as much a masquerade as the business of dressing up as something from the character creator.

"Hey, one of your allies is a friendly illithid!" would not necessarily make me suspicious. I mean - we've got a mummy that raises our souls for pocket change, a priestess who came back from the dead, and very frank demi-goddess, so sure, why not?

But these repeated attempts to convince me that it is in some sense not really an illithid? When every indication is that it is? That I do not trust at all.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers

[ficsforeren]

Never Let Me Go - Chapter 4

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Eren Jaeger X Female Reader

Genre: Zombie Apocalypse AU, Fluff, Smut, Angst, Strangers-to-Lovers, Slow Burn, Slight Horror & Action

Series Summary: A lethal virus has killed 90% of the world’s population and turns 9.8% into zombie-like, cannibalistic mutants who are extremely vulnerable to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. You and Eren Jaeger are both survivors crossing paths in the cruel world, but together, you’re able to find some beauty in it.

Chapter Summary: As the sun sets below the horizon, the dead roam the earth once again. With only a few knives and guns in your hands, both you and Eren have no choice but to fight back the Darkseekers. You promised each other that you’d survive this, but Eren has already bid you his final goodbye.

Content Warnings: zombies, graphic descriptions of death and murder, explicit sex (cunnilingus, blow job, fingering, hand job, car sex, abs riding, dry humping, unprotected sex, corruption kink, praise kink, etc), use of weapons (guns, knives), substance abuse (use of drugs and alcohol), traumatic past, anxiety attacks, depression, crude words, dark humor, sexual assault.

Poster art by the most talented @rainbuniart on Twitter

The moon is pale and the woods are bone-chillingly quiet.

The trees cast unnerving shadows on the road, swaying from side to side, dancing eerily from the night breeze. There are no screeching owls, no buzzing insects, no yelping frogs. Everything is silent, as if someone has muted the sounds of nature, or turned your ears deaf. The absolute stillness raises the tiny hairs on your nape, causing your inner voice to turn clamorous in your head, louder than a lion’s roar. It reminds you of the death reaper waiting on your doorstep, maybe with flesh between its teeth and dark blood dripping down its chin. 

Ghosts whisper through the wind and Eren’s rapid heartbeat is the only gravity that keeps your thoughts together. You both cuddle close in the rear middle seats, lying down with your bodies facing each other, your temple almost brushing against his collarbones. You thought it would be better to hide in the backseat but Eren reminded you that the last thing you wanted to have was trapped inside a car with a zombie as it would leave you with barely any space to fight. At least this way, you can kick the door open and run if you need to.

Your machete sticks close to your spine while your fingers curl around one of the handguns Eren has lent you. He has placed the shotgun underneath the seat, where you can both easily retrieve it in case of emergency. It holds eight shells in the magazine tube, which is not much but it serves as a reassurance. Hopefully, you won’t need to use it.

None of you dares to speak, not even in sign language. The car windows are too wide but you’ve covered them with clothes and any fabric you can find so they won’t detect your movement from the other side. But the moonlight still seeps through the little holes, painting your skin white and making you feel even more vulnerable with every intake of breath. You don’t have the bravery to take a peek through the glass. All you can do right now is just stare at the same spot of Eren’s shirt, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

In a desperate need to soothe yourself down, you close your eyes and rewind the moment you shared with him before you both climbed into the car.

“You sure you don’t want to take my magazine?” Eren asked as he offered his spare handgun to you. “I still have three left.”

“No, I’m better with knives anyway. You can make better use of them than me.” But when you held his gun in your hand, it added more comfort than you’d expected. “I really wish we don’t have to use this.”

“We’re not going to,” he consoled you with a smile. But no matter how sweet it was, it wasn’t enough to wash your anxiety away. The sunset was stunning, possibly the most beautiful one you’d ever seen. The sky was ablaze with its fire, streaks of orange painted across cerulean blue. Under different circumstances, watching the evening sun with your lover would’ve become one of your most cherished memories but you felt like you couldn’t breathe. A certain ominous feeling shrouded you like a thick fog, erasing whatever hope you had left. Your heart was thrumming in your ears, your stomach tied in knots.

What if… this is it? You gloomily mused. What if this is the part where we die?

“Hey,” Eren’s gentle call snapped you back. “Can you re-do my hair?”

You were stunned to hear such a mundane question during a moment like this. Searching his eyes, you wondered if he felt just as terrified as you were. But even if he was, on the outside, Eren was fearless—relaxed, even, unlike how he was when he first discovered the truck blocking your path. His boyish grin refreshed your memory of the time when you were about to enter the supermarket in search of food. You remembered how you had accidentally placed your lives on the line back then too, even almost losing him in the process. But you survived, didn’t you? Maybe you could survive this one too.

‘Maybe’ is such a terrifying word. No guarantee, no certainty, only false hope.

“Sure thing, Rapunzel.” You forced yourself to be at ease, even when the load in your chest only got ten times heavier. “Squat down.”

“Why don’t we do it like this?” Instead of lowering himself, Eren scooped you up in his arms, lifting your feet off the ground. A startled gasp escaped you before you tangled your legs around his waist in reflex, your hands circling his neck to maintain your balance. His grin broke wider on his face.

“You serious?” You asked, staring flatly at him. “Did Tom Cruise do this? Are you trying to re-enact his scene again?”

“Oh my God, shut up.” He covered his embarrassment with a roll of his eyes. “I was trying to be romantic.”

“Hmm, yes, I can tell from the way you have your hands plastered against my ass.” 

“I’m just supporting your body so you won’t fall.”

“And you can’t do that without grabbing my ass?”

“It’s just easier this way, Princess.” Shamelessly, he gave you a little squeeze, making you yelp in surprise. “That was cute,” he giggled. “I didn’t know you could squeal like that. So very girly of you.”

“Ugh, you’re so annoying.” But the smile you once feigned morphed into something real. For a moment, you could forget the situation you were in. No, not forget, pretend that everything was okay. Because what if this was your last time doing this with him? Touching his hair, feeling his warmth, exchanging laughter while being in his arms like you were meant to be together for eternity. What if everything was going to end in a matter of hours—minutes, even—and this was the only chance for you to be happy?

Taking a deep breath, you tried to savor every second left.

“Okay, hold still.” Unfastening his hair tie, you carded your fingers through his strands before you tied it up in his usual bun. You patted his shoulders once you were satisfied with your work. “There, all done.”

“Yaaay.” Eren brought you back to the ground, his hands resting a few seconds longer than necessary on your waist before he released you. “Thank you, milady.”

“You’re welcome.”

He had his hand stretched out, fingers stroking the side of your face before he, as predicted, tucked your hair behind your ear. Seeing you bite your lip to prevent your grin from breaking, he asked, “What?”

“Nothing,” you answered. “It’s just… You do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

It was adorable the way he was so oblivious about it. “This.” You gestured to his hand that still lingered on your strands.

You weren’t sure if it was the sunset that painted amber on his skin or if he was simply flustered at the realization. “I’m—I’m sorry.” He retracted his hand immediately, alternating to rubbing his nape to stop him from touching you again. “It’s just…” Landing his eyes anywhere else but yours, he watched his shadow on the ground stretching out underneath his feet. “I can see your face better that way and…” He paused, a few seconds longer than necessary. 

“And?”

“You just look…” His gaze slowly drifted back to you. “So beautiful to me.”

The way he vocalized the words, the sincerity and the softness of it, made your stomach flip in delight but you kept your grin impish. “Do I look beautiful enough to make you want to kiss me?”

He noticeably gulped. “You want me to kiss you?”

You shrugged. “If you want to.”

“God, I want to.” 

In the blink of an eye, his fingers held you firmly by the side of your jaw, lifting your face as he brought his head down. His mouth crashed against yours with enough force to make you stagger on your feet, stealing a gasp from between your lips. He was pushing you against the side of the van, your spine glued to the door, your chest to his. Circling your hands around his body, you raked your fingers down his back, nails scraping against the fabric of his red leather jacket as you separated your mouth to welcome him inside. Eren was an excellent kisser, not simply because of the way he moved his lips but the way he conveyed his feelings through it, pouring his passion, affection, and devotion all at once. You could feel his emotions every time he kissed you. When he was happy, when he felt lonely, when he was needy—you could always tell. But right now, you could feel none of those three.

There was only fear. Fear of the dark, fear of dying, and ultimately, his fear of losing you.

He ended the kiss just as sudden as he started it but he kept his face close enough for his breath to caress your cheek.

“Eren—” 

He kissed you again, effectively swallowing your words even if it was as light as a feather. The sudden change of vigor in the way he touched you made your chest constrict. It was the kind of kiss that you imagined Romeo had planted on Juliet’s lips when he kissed her for the last time before he took his own life in the name of their love. You felt your heart shrivel, sadness bubbling in your chest. 

This wasn’t a kiss. This was him bidding his final goodbye.

Eren gathered you in his arms when it was over, his lips brushing against your temple once before he placed his chin on top of your head. He turned pensive, letting the silence take the lead of the conversation for a moment before he rediscovered his voice. “We should go inside,” he murmured. “It’s time.”

“Just a few seconds more.” You tightened your arms around his waist, burying your face in his chest, breathing in his scent. With your eyes closed like this, it felt like you were at home—protected and safe, drowning in the bliss that only he could offer. “Hold me just a few seconds more, Ren…”

Eren shut his lids too, relishing in the strawberry scent of your hair. “I would hold you forever if I could…”

Your forever didn’t even last ten seconds. You broke away and he rewarded you with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“So nervous I’m about to pass out, honestly,” you said, which he reciprocated with a small chuckle. “You?”

“Well, let’s say I’m glad I’m wearing my brown pants if you know what I mean.”

“I wish I didn’t.”

Humor vanished at once the second you both stepped inside the car. Eren locked the door, exhaling a deep breath before he faced you with his jaw set. “And now we wait.”

“And now we wait.”

Eren laid himself down on the seat, his legs bent on the knees before you joined him and cuddled close. Swatting the bangs out of your eyes, he whispered, “We’ll survive this.”

“I know.” And you both knew that you were lying to each other. Nothing was certain. It was strange how you felt much braver when you were on your own, as you only had to think about yourself. Only had to fear your own death. If everything fell apart, you just had to plant your own bullet in your head and case closed. But right now… 

“Please don’t die,” you pleaded, landing your forehead on his chest. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.

As much as he wanted to promise you so, he couldn’t. “I promise you I will never let you go,” Eren said instead. “I’ll protect you with my life.”

“No.” You shook your head. “No, don’t say that. I want you to focus on saving yourself tonight.”

“But—”

“If I see you losing focus because of me and something happens to you—I will never be able to forgive myself.” You tilted your chin upward, meeting his gaze with your consuming one. “Do whatever it is necessary to survive. I know how to fight. I can protect myself. So if you want to promise me something, Eren, promise me that you’ll stay alive. Promise me that and I’ll promise you the same thing.”

You knew Eren could see the fear and uncertainty that were written in your eyes, but you didn’t care. You wouldn’t let him say otherwise.

“Okay,” he said, embracing you close but you stopped him before he could.

You raised your little finger in the air. “Promise me.”

His smile was frail but he hooked his finger around yours. “I promise.”

You’re not sure how many hours have passed since you both laid down in that position but it feels like years. Eren suggested you to sleep as he took the first watch, but you couldn’t catch a wink. You’re in the middle of running through your thoughts, going through multiple different scenarios to prepare yourself for the worst when your ears perk up at the slightest noise. The sound of leaves dancing in the wind. The creaking sounds of branches being stepped on. The footsteps on the ground.

Then the snarlings.

You lift your face at the same time Eren tucks his chin, locking his gaze with yours. They’re here. Stay alert. You nod in silence, all your muscles tautening at once as you feel the suspense choking you. The noises grow louder with each second passing by, driving you even more to the edge. You can feel your heart rising to your throat, the weight in your chest suffocating you. Eren shifts his hand from your waist to your ear, pressing his palm against it so he can muffle their eerie growls along with the sound of their feet being dragged across the concrete. You both keep your eyes on each other, communicating in silence and bated breath. 

Don’t move. Don’t make a sound. We’ll be okay.

He speaks with his eyes and you chant the words like prayers in your head, hoping your inner voice would sound louder than their wails. Your fingers tighten around your weapon, and Eren does the same with the handgun resting in his right palm. He’s taken the bandage off his hand, wearing both of his leather fingerless gloves just like you, as he can’t afford to have his gun slipping off his grip. None of you lift a muscle. None of you should, because by the sound of it, there are more than three of them outside. 

Their footsteps grow fainter, but you don’t let your heart rest easy. Not yet. Not until sunray can pierce through their decayed skin. How many minutes or hours are left till the break of dawn? You wonder anxiously. If they find out we’re here, we’ll—

A hand smashes against your window, hard enough that the sound rumbles through the night like a thunderclap. No matter how much you’ve prepared yourself for it, your body still jolts in reflex. Eren slaps one hand against your mouth, his eyes shaking in horror. 

Be still.

You let out a shuddering breath through your nose, eyes closing shut when the same hand slams again, repeating the motion. One of the shirts that you used as a curtain slips off the handgrip, leaving one window exposed. The moonlight drenches your bodies, your presence exposed.

They can see us. The terror in your eyes says it all. Eren, they can see us! What are we going to do?

You see him swallow, his bottom lip quivering. You both try to breathe as little as possible. Maybe if we play dead, they won’t notice we’re here. Three seconds pass by in silence with invisible hands strangling your necks. You wish you could hear their footsteps marching away but what you hear is another thunderous bang.

And the window starts to crack. 

The Darkseeker is now hammering its head against the glass, again and again, and again until your biggest fear transforms into reality. Lured by the noises, another Darkseeker appears on the other side of the car, slamming its entire body against the door, growling like a starving beast. The car is being rocked back and forth. They know.

You both sit upright at the same time, adrenaline pumping through your veins. With the ruckus they’re making, they’re only going to attract more of them to your spot. “We need to kill them fast!” Eren shouts, snatching the clothes away from the windows. “Aim for their heads. We can’t afford to waste bullets or we’ll—”

You both freeze in an instant, petrified to your bones.

There are five of them. Then six. Then seven. Then you stop counting.

They’re slamming heads and blood-stained hands against the windows. Without needing words to communicate, you aim the gun to your right while Eren aims to his left. Drawing a sharp breath, you both pull the trigger at the same time.

Two bullets pierce through the windows, tempered glasses shattering into tiny, blunt pieces at once. Eren’s lead makes a nest on its head but he already shoots another one before its body hits the ground, targeting another Darkseeker that tries to break inside through the opening. He’s always better with his aim than you are, and it’s easier to land a clean shot when these corpses are plastered against the window. Three bullets are shot and three corpses lay cold on the ground, cloudy white eyes staring vacantly at the moon. 

Though not as successful, you manage to shoot two right in the heads, wasting a couple more bullets than Eren did. But without the glass separating you, they can easily break through. A Darkseeker lunges toward you, its body leaning halfway inside the window before another one follows. The cracking sound of their bones can be heard as they try to fit through the frames, four hands stretching out, clawing against your chest. You shoot another bullet, the metal pierces through its brain, sending the first body to slide down the window. As if triggered, the other Darkseeker drives itself in with more force, its fingers clamp tightly around your wrist, making it impossible for you to point your gun. Opening the car handle with your free hand, you kick the door open with as much strength as you can muster, sending the corpse to fall on its back. You jump out of the car, aiming the gun at its head, and ending its life for good. You’re about to breathe in relief when a zombie jumps from the roof, tackling you down to the concrete.

Eren hears your surprised screech and his blood runs cold but he can’t afford to lose focus, not when a Darkseeker is close enough to spray saliva on his face. He takes a shot only to find that he’s run out of bullets. Cursing under his breath, Eren unlocks the door, pushing it open with brute force until the two of them topple to the ground. With hasty hands, he snatches a loaded magazine from his thigh harness, jamming it into the gun. But a Darkseeker grabs a hold of his leg, yanking him out of the car before he can take his aim.

You are separated, fighting your own battles, protecting your own lives. Eren is facing two Darkseekers at once, while you’re trapped underneath a zombie who’s twice your size. The corpse tries to bite your neck but you push your gun inside its mouth. You pull the trigger but there’s only a click that can be heard. The Darkseeker slaps the pistol out of your hand and you’re panicking. In this position, with your back pressed flat against the pavement, your machete is out of reach. You have a knife glued against the side of your thigh, but you need both of your hands to keep the zombie away. 

You can hear gunshots from the other side of the car, and for a split second, you feel relieved, knowing that Eren is still alive and fighting. You try to roll your opponent over to its back, using the same method you used to knock Eren off of you during your first encounter. But the zombie is much stronger, much bigger, and you’re losing your strength. The hands you land on its chest to keep its teeth away from your skin are growing weaker by the second. 

Eren, help!

You grind your jaw, teeth-gritting as you try to restrain yourself from saying it out loud. You don’t want him to lose focus, not when his life's on the line. But the Darkseeker’s weight is crushing your body, making it almost impossible for you to breathe. How much longer can you keep this up? 

Eren feels like his heart is about to break through his rib cages. He’s taking too long, and you haven’t made a sound. Please, he begs in his head. Please be okay. 

Another Darkseeker attacks from his blind spot, wrapping its arm around his neck from behind, getting ready to latch his teeth on his shoulder. Moving purely on instinct, Eren snatches another gun from his belt and shoves its barrel against the underside of its jaw. He pulls the trigger, the shot deafens him as his bullet makes a hole through its mouth before it punctures its brain.

Two more, he breathes out heavily, his ears ringing. Two more and I’ll be there to save you.

With two pistols in each hand, he aims them both toward the Darkseekers’ chests. Usually, he would remind himself not to spend more bullets than necessary but his desperation to save you dulls his ability to think straight. He can’t waste a second. He needs to know if you’re okay. Their movements are too fast and he knows better to aim at their chests instead of their heads as it would reduce the chances of him missing his shots. He pulls the triggers repeatedly, shooting two bullets at the same time, watching the way they drill holes in their bodies. He can’t kill them on his first try but he tries again and again until eventually, the bullets find home in their hearts and they collapse to the ground. Both handguns in his hands are now empty but he doesn’t stop to reload. He doesn’t have time. Eren doesn’t even let himself breathe. 

Pivoting on his heels, he dashes toward your spot, his eyes largening in dread when he sees a Darkseeker’s face hovering just a couple of inches from your neck. With that much adrenaline rushing to his head, his brain stops functioning. All he knows is that in a matter of seconds, that zombie will have your flesh between its teeth and it will be over for you both. Instead of jamming another magazine, Eren tosses his guns away and charges forward. He tackles the Darkseeker by its waist, their bodies rolling on the ground, his skull slammed against the hard concrete. 

You spin to your stomach, coughing and gasping loudly for air. Blood as dark as the night painted your faces and soaked your clothes but you don’t taste copper on your tongue. You’re safe.

But Eren is not. He’s pinned to the ground, his hands gripping tightly around the zombie’s wrists, trying to fend it off. His hold slips and the Darkseeker sinks its teeth into his shoulder. “Fuck!”

There’s no time for you to look for his gun. Dashing to his spot, you reach for your machete and you plunge it against its back, driving it straight to its heart. Within two seconds, the Darkseeker’s body falls limp above him and the night suddenly turns quiet again. That zombie was the last one of them. 

“Eren!” You sink to your knees, using both hands to push its body away from him. With frantic hands and shaky eyes, you hurriedly check on him, forcing him to sit on the ground with your hands fisting his shirt. He hisses, groaning lowly as he places a hand to cover his shoulder.

Your fear coils in your stomach, so much, that you can feel the world shaking before it narrows down to one thing: Eren’s face turning as pasty as the moon. You weren’t even trembling this hard when you nearly had your life taken away. 

“Let me—” You swallow thickly. “Let me take a look.” 

Eren releases his grip from his shoulder, letting you push back his leather jacket to examine the injury. You hold your breath, screaming prayers inside your head. Please. God, please, don’t let there be bite marks on him. I beg you.

With his jacket falling loose on his shoulders, you drag the collar of his white shirt to the side. Its teeth were sharp enough to tear his jacket apart, but they didn’t impale his skin, only leaving angry red marks on his shoulder. It takes you a couple of seconds to let it sink in before you can finally breathe again.

“Oh, thank God,” you whimper, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and cradling his head close. He’s not bitten. He’s not bitten. He’s okay. We’re okay. You can’t form a word no matter how ear-splitting your thoughts are. You just embrace him tightly with all the strength you can muster, teeth grinding as you prevent yourself from crying. Knowing that he’s safe—that he’s still here, warm and breathing in your arms—feels a million times more relieving than the fact that you’re still alive.

A bit baffled by how you act, Eren returns your hug and cards his fingers through your hair. “Princess..?”

“You’re okay,” you say, burying your face in the crook of his neck. “You’re not bitten.” We can still be together.

He smiles timidly to himself. “Still hurts like hell, though.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” you try to laugh through your tears. Quickly erasing them away with the pad of your thumb, you pull away, grabbing him firmly by his upper arms. “Why didn’t you use your gun?”

“I was—I didn’t think there would be enough time for me to reload—”

“So you just threw yourself at it?!” You almost bark, startling him with the sudden change in your attitude. “Eren, that was such a reckless thing to do! You’re lucky you’re not bitten!”

“I panicked.” He reaches out a hand to stroke your cheek. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

You can relate, of course. If the roles were reversed, you would’ve done the same thing but it doesn’t change the fact that he almost sacrificed his own life for your sake. “Thank you for saving my life,” you say. “But don’t you ever try to save me like that again, okay? If a situation like this happens again, I want you to run.”

“And live the rest of my life without you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“At least you could live. You promised me that.”

“It only feels like living when I’m with you,” he says, fingers framing your face. “Princess—”

You stop him by gripping tightly around his wrist. “You’re saying you’d rather die?”

“What will you do then?” He challenges, peering deep into your eyes. “Will you abandon me if that’s the case?”

You tighten your jaw, releasing a harsh breath. Running away from the topic, you swat his hair away from his eyes, observing his features with your gaze turning tender. “How are you feeling?”

“Could’ve been better,” he replies, still a little bit out of breath, just like you. “My palm is bleeding again.” You notice a few trails of fresh blood running down his wrist, staining his jacket’s sleeve.

“Okay. I’ve got some bandages we can use. Right now, we just need…to…” Your words die on your tongue as you look past Eren’s shoulder. There, in the distance, perhaps a few hundred meters away from you, are Darkseekers. There are more than you’ve ever seen gathered in one place. Twenty, no—maybe thirty. And they’re running.

They’re running toward you.

Your adrenaline rush kicks back in, dilating your pupils, and heightening your senses. With your heart rate increasing rapidly, you yank Eren back to his feet. He’s paralyzed by the sight of the Darkseekers sprinting at such high speed he’s never seen humans do. 

“Focus!” You snap at him. “Grab your guns and get into the car!”

“How are we going to—”

“Now!”

Eren complies with cold sweat breaking on his temples. But the second he takes a step forward, pain shoots through his entire body like a knife tearing his skin apart. His heart drops as he looks down, eyes glued to his right ankle. Is it broken? Or is it just a sprain? He can’t tell. The only thing he knows is that he won’t be able to run fast. And when you can’t run… 

You’re just as good as dead. 

Fuck. He tries to fight through the stinging ache, focusing on gathering his guns from the ground and returning to the car. You don’t notice the way he limps as you hasten to the other side of the vehicle. Throwing himself at the passenger's seat, Eren jams the magazines into his handguns, preparing for the worst. You sit behind the steering wheels, shoving your car key inside the hole and the engine blares through the night. You’re going to attract even more of them, but you don’t care. This is the only way you can think of to survive.

“What are you going to do?” Eren asks, fighting the chaos of his fear.

“I’m gonna run them over.” Your voice, unlike his, is surprisingly calm. “Put on your seatbelt.”

“What?!” But despite his protest, he does as he’s told. “There’s like thirty of them—we can’t just—”

“I’m not gonna sit here and die!” 

You step on the gas, driving your foot all the way down. The sudden rise of velocity sends you both backward, bodies plastered against the seats, your heart racing just as fast. You’re getting closer to them, your headlights shining across their rotten flesh. With the distance provided, your speed manages to reach seventy miles per hour before— “Hold on!”

A moment of impact. In three. Two. 

One.

It’s shockingly jarring and loud when you crash against them, your fingers tightening around your steering wheel so you wouldn’t lose control. Most of the Darkseekers are thrown back, tossed to the side of the road while some of them are hurled forward to the hood of your car. “Shoot them!” you shout, but Eren already has his guns ready in both hands.

One bullet pierces through the glass and the windshield shatters. Shots after shots are taken repetitively, each one goes straight to their heads. Bodies are being smashed under the tires and you don’t slow down. Eren pulls his trigger again but it ends with a click. “Fuck, I’m out of bullets!”

“The shotgun!” You remind him and he unlocks his seatbelt, reaching over to the middle seat to retrieve it. 

A Darkseeker crawls over to your seat from the bonnet and you drive your spear point knife through its face. It’s enough to blind its vision but not deep enough to tear through its brain. Its hand latches around your wrist, almost causing you to swerve the vehicle abruptly. “Eren!”

It’s your luck that he’s returned to his seat just in time. Raising the gun in firing position, he takes a shot and its brain scatters apart. Now lifeless, the body rolls off the hood before it falls and meets the earth.

“Thank you,” you vocalize, your body still trembling in fright. “That was a close one.”

“Don’t mention it.”

You are now ahead of them. Those Darkseekers you ran over, they’re not dead, not until they have their heads smashed to pieces. Some of their limbs are crushed, bones fractured, necks bent in the wrong direction, but it does nothing to them as they no longer have the ability to feel pain. They rise back to their feet, chasing after you.

“We’re just gonna have to drive until the sun comes out,” you utter. “How many bullets do you have left?”

Pumping his shotgun, Eren heavily answers with, “Seven.”

“Fuck.” There are no Darkseekers ahead of you but there are more than fifty behind, chasing after your trail, sprinting out of the woods. “How much longer till sunrise?”

He checks on his phone. “Fifty-two minutes.”

Your eyes automatically drift down to check on the lines on the gas gauge. Eren, watching you from the side, notices the way you’re swallowing your breath. “How much fuel do we have left?”

“We have enough,” you say, though the shiver in your voice betrays you. 

Eren returns his gaze to the road, his jaws clenched tight. He tries to think of ways, not to save his life but yours. “Okay, listen. If the car stops before then, I’ll go out and distract them—”

“We have enough fuel.”

“—in the meantime, you can run toward the woods and hide—”

“Eren—”

“—I won’t be able to fend them off for too long, but I can at least give you a few minutes to—”

“Eren!” Your scream is blood-curdling, silencing him at once. “We’re not going to die, you hear me?” You keep your eyes on the path before you, forced to reduce your speed to forty miles per hour as it would be risky to go faster than that on a serpentine road. “We’ve got enough fuel until sunrise. And even if we don’t, I won’t leave you.”

“Princess—”

“Damn it, you said you wouldn’t let me go!”

“What I meant was I wouldn’t abandon you!” He shouts back, sounding as desperate and as frustrated as you are. “And that’s what I’m doing now! I’m trying to save your life—”

“Well, I’m not leaving you!” It’s almost a sob that comes out of your mouth, startling you both. You don’t expect yourself to break down to tears, but you’ve only ever felt this scared one time in your life before, and that was on the day you decided to drive your knife through your sister’s heart. “I’m not going to leave anyone again!” Hot tears line down your cheeks, running over the dry blood that coats your skin. “I’m not leaving. I’m not letting you go. I’d rather die than—” You choke, your throat constricting. “I will never…” Losing strength, your voice wavers like something seen through water. “I’ll never let you go, Eren… Please don't do this to me, I beg you…”

Eren’s heart thrums painfully in his chest. Only now does he realize that you see him in the same way he sees you. You both value each other’s life more than your own. It’s better to die together than to live by yourself, shrouded in guilt, drowning in regrets. It’s just not an option you can choose.

“Okay…” he says, wetting his lips. “Okay, we’ll stick together.”

You harshly wipe the rest of your tears away with the back of your hand. “We’ll survive this.”

He nods, chanting the same prayer in his head. “We’ll survive this.”

***

The car’s engine starts to sputter, yet the sun remains still in its slumber.

A wave of panic crashes through you but you don’t let it be seen on your face. You’re not fooling anyone else, however, as Eren takes a deep breath and says, “We need to pull over.”

“No.” To your luck, the narrow, winding road has ended, leaving you with only a straight path to take where you can accelerate your car to the maximum speed. 

“Don’t,” he reminds you as you step further on the gas. “If the engine dies—” 

Hydraulic power to the brakes and steering die with it. “I know, but it’s not like I’m planning to stop anyway.”

Funny how you criticize him for being reckless when you’re doing exactly the same thing, probably ten times more dangerous. How laughable would it be if you survived the zombie apocalypse just to die in a car crash? 

You take a glance through the rear-view mirror, trying to see if the corpses are still chasing after you. They’re far behind now, their presence invisible to your eyes. But it will only take less than twenty minutes for them to catch up, you assume. And what if other Darkseekers are lurking ahead of you? What are you going to do when the car stops?

You’ve only begun to think of a solution when you notice a loss in power. No, you beg internally. No. No. No. Please, the sun isn’t out yet.

Eren inspects your expression closely from the side, not saying a word as he can feel his own dread rising to his throat, but he has expected the worst outcome. Unlike you who’s been drenching yourself with hope, he’s given up a long time ago. Right now, he just wishes he could find a way to save you.

The engine dies and it takes a few minutes more before the car finally puts into a complete stop. With tremors in your hands, you unfasten your seatbelt. “We need to run,” you say through chattering teeth, leaning over to the middle seat to snatch your backpack. “If we’re lucky, we can find another car that works. If not, we can hide in the woods. We can climb a tree or something.” You’re not sure if it would work, but zombies are unable to use common sense as humans do as their brains no longer function. They have fast reflexes, strong instincts but you just need to outsmart them to survive. If you can get to a higher ground where they can’t reach, perhaps you can wait until the sun comes out. And you’ll be okay.

We will be okay.

You jump off your seat, placing back your machete to the back of your shirt before you hurriedly march to his side of the van. Eren steps down with his left foot, supporting himself with one hand on the door before he swings his other leg. As expected, he cannot bear his weight on his ankle. He tries to keep a straight face but you notice the pain that crosses his eyes. 

“What?” you ask him, your eyes boring into his. “What happened?”

“I think I broke my ankle,” he utters, stiffening you with his answer. 

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough for me to be a burden to you.”

You clench your fists. “It’s okay. I won’t abandon you.”

He feebly smiles. “I know.” Which is why this feels ten times worse for me, he adds with regret.

Eren has given up on arguing about it with you. If this is your last moment together, he wouldn’t want to spend it by painting tears in your eyes. He wouldn’t want his name to be spoken through gritted teeth. So he lets you wrap an arm around his waist while he lands his right one across your shoulders. He leaves his bag but he carries his shotgun with him, slinging it securely on his left shoulder. With your lead, he takes a step forward and he stumbles, almost falling to one knee if you weren’t there to catch him. “Sorry,” he says, ashamed for being so powerless. He wanted to protect you and here he is, being nothing more than a liability.

Except you don’t think of him that way, and you never will. He’s your life savior, in more ways than one. He’s the glue that keeps your sanity intact, the gravity that keeps you standing on the ground. Here, being shrouded in his arms, is exactly where you want to be. “It’s alright. Just match your stride with mine,” you advise gently. “One step at a time, okay? No need to rush.”

No need to rush. If only he could find the strength to laugh. Eren nods and he does as he’s told, trying to sync his movements with yours. It’s awkward at first, but once you’ve managed to pass it, you start picking up your pace and maintain it when you both have found your rhythm.  

The first sight of lightness comes into view. A small portion of the sun's rays illuminate the sky and the fainter stars begin to disappear. “Twilight,” you sigh in relief. “It won’t take long until sunrise. We can survive this.”

“Yeah.”

Eren’s palm still bleeds, dripping fresh blood all over the pavement. You wish you could stop for a moment and treat it with care, but you have to keep yourself moving. If you can survive for another twenty minutes, you will be safe. Anything else can come after that.

You’re counting the minutes that pass by in your head. Six, seven—twelve minutes have passed. “Just a little bit more,” you keep saying the words to keep yourself sane. Not sure why, but the panic that once has receded comes crashing back in like waves under a heavy storm, submerging you with it. “Just a little bit more, Ren.”

He keeps himself mute, cold sweat sliding down to his chin. Anything can happen in a matter of seconds, let alone minutes. He wishes he could feel safe, but he can’t. He’s terrified.

And when you stop dead on your tracks, your body frozen as if you were icebound to the ground, the fear in his chest doubled by tenfolds.

You can hear their rapid footsteps. They’re closing in.

And they’re closing in fast.

As your breathing turns labored, you take a look at your side. There are pine trees you can climb, but how can you get him up there? You’re not strong enough to pull him up, and he can barely stand on his own feet.

Fuck, what am I going to do?

Eren’s heart breaks at the sight of you biting hard on your lip to the point it almost bleeds as you switch from one scenario to another. “Princess—”

“Shut up,” you snap back, already figuring out what he’s going to say. “I’m not abandoning you.” You spin your head around, facing him. “But we have to run. Can you endure the pain for a moment?”

He gives you two firm nods and you both race as fast as you can. Eren feels like his ankle is about to snap like a twig, crushed underneath the pressure. It’s fucking painful, every step he takes feels like he’s walking on daggers. He groans in agony, and you hold him closer to your body. “I’m sorry, just a bit more.” Their growlings reach your ears, just as strident as your increasing heartbeat but you keep yourself focused. 

“Princess!” Eren shouts, terror in his voice. “We can’t outrun them!” 

He’s right. There is no other way. Stopping abruptly, you spin on your heels, snatching your machete from your belt. “Then, we’ll fight back,” you say, jaw clenching at the sight of Darkseekers sprinting towards you. They are not as many as they were before, probably ten or twelve, chasing after you at different speeds. But you only have seven bullets and a few knives. Eren can no longer fight and your legs are shaking underneath your weight due to exhaustion. There’s no way you can win this. This is it. This is the end. 

You think your body will start trembling in fear, but it doesn’t.

You think that when the grim reaper stands before you, his scythe ready to swing right through your neck, you’ll start pleading for him to spare your life. But you don’t. You’re not afraid of him. You welcome him like an old friend.

Because you’re not alone anymore, are you? Eren is here. And maybe just like him, it’s not death that you’re terrified of. It’s loneliness. It’s the feeling of surviving just to exist, without any purpose, without any emotions. When you met him, everything changed. With him, you’ve found everything you wanted to make your life worth living. 

It was a good life, these last five months you’ve shared with him. You were happy, weren’t you?

I was, you smile to yourself. I truly am happy.

So, there you are, standing with your hands steady. You take a step forward, bracing yourself as you shield him with your body. He’s shouting something at you, perhaps telling you to escape or stay behind him like always. His voice rings clamorously through the air, but to you, he sounds like he’s underwater, trying to mouth the words that you can’t hear. Your thoughts are louder, and they don’t speak a word of fear. They only speak of regret.

You wish you could say a word or two, maybe bid him goodbye, or tell him how grateful you are for his presence. For giving you so much joy, more than you deserve. For taking care of you. For loving you. But you’re running out of time.

Ah, you realize, as a Darkseeker, one that runs the fastest among others, lunges himself toward you. I haven’t told him I loved him yet.

Eren’s gunshot blares through the sky as you fall onto your back. The corpse hovers above you, its teeth dripping saliva but you slice its throat with your knife and kick its body away with your knee. Eren takes a few more shots, shooting each one right on the head as you prepare yourself for another. Two more zombies hurl themselves toward you, sending you both to the ground almost at the same time, his shotgun trapped between its teeth, your machete plunged deep into its chest but not quite hitting its heart.

They said during a near-death event, your life would flash before your eyes but now you see that it’s not true. You don’t see your entire past spooling out before you. You don’t see a replay of all the most significant moments in your life. You only see him.

Eren.

You see his smile and his adorable crooked teeth that peek behind his impish grin whenever he leaves you baffled with his witty retort. You see his eyes, emerald with flecks of strength—the kind of green that comes only as summer advances. You see his kindness, his adoration, and the love he holds for you, the fire of his passion that almost burned him whole—the same passion that consumed you just as much only a night ago.

And you wish you could turn back time and respond to his confession with honesty. Because the truth is, all those words he said to you—about how he missed you every second of the day, how he thought about you both in his wake and his dreams—you feel that too. When the words “There’s no life without you,” slipped out of his mouth, you heard them well and you felt it so much within your heart that you wondered if it was you who spoke the words. 

Eren gives your life meaning. He gives you more happiness than you could take.

I should’ve told him, is the only thing you can think of when you feel your stamina decreasing fast. I should’ve told him that I’d been in love with him too. 

God, I wish I could tell him now.

The zombie is clawing its nails against the front of your throat, your machete stuck between rotten flesh. Maybe it’s time to give up. You’ve fought long enough. Maybe you can use yourself as a distraction. You’re not sure how, but if you can at least give Eren a chance to escape, then it would be worth it. You just need to—

Time stands still. Suddenly, all you can hear is your ragged breathing.

The Darkseekers stop moving. They raise their heads, their white eyes staring straight at the horizon, their jaws hanging low on their faces, black saliva dribbling down their chins. They begin to wail then they run away abruptly, scattering into the woods, desperate to find shades to protect themselves from sunlight. It happens so fast that it leaves you both stunned. 

What just happened?

You and Eren are left panting on the ground. The rising sun casts a rosy hue across the morning sky, its first rays lighting up your skin. 

Sunrise.

You tilt your head to the side, catching Eren doing the same thing at the same time. Locking gazes, he mumbles out, “We’re alive…” He sounds like he’s in disbelief, his body is still in shock like he’s been trapped in a nightmare for so long and he’s woken up by a slap.

You’re not any better. Perhaps it’s because your heartbeat is slowing down significantly that you start to feel delirious. Or maybe it’s because your adrenaline rush is dissipating so fast from your veins, that it leaves you incapable of thinking straight. Because out of all the words you can say, you find your lips forming the three words you didn’t think you were allowed to state.

“I love you.”

Eren’s eyes widen at once, his breath leaving him as his lips part in a silent gasp. For the first three seconds, that’s all he can do. His eyes shake as they peer deep into yours, trying to unravel your every secret but he realizes he doesn’t have to. You’ve laid everything out in the open. For once, you let yourself be as transparent as the dew that kisses the leaves in the morning. You let him peer into your soul, let him understand that you're saying the words not simply because you almost died with regret for not saying them out loud. You say it because you feel it in your bones. You say it because you love him. 

And once he understands that, his expression changes. “I love you.”

You both meet each other halfway, bodies lying on your sides, faces trapped between eager hands as you capture each other’s lips. “I love you.” Tears dampen your eyelashes as you whimper the words, your lips moving against his smile. “I love you.” You sound like a broken record to your ears, but it’s a lullaby that he’ll remember until his last dying breath. 

I really love you, Eren.

He responds to each one with the same words followed by a whisper of your name, and you can feel it. This joy, this sense of completion as if you have finally achieved what you’ve been searching for your whole life. For the first time, you allow yourself to feel the happiness that he paints on your lips. You receive the affection that he carves into your heart, and you accept the love he gives you.

You accept the love that you deserve.

***

Eren has survived more near-death experiences than a person could have in a lifetime. Every time he did, he always questioned himself: Why do I have to try so hard to live? Why can’t I just let myself die? What’s the point of surviving when the whole world burns to ashes?

Will it have any meaning if I live through another day?

Today, he finally can answer his questions with yes, I’m glad that I’m alive. I’m glad that I can still bask under the sun, to have air in my lungs, to feel like I still have a soul inside me. To feel like I’m human.

And if he closes his eyes, all he can see is you. You make me feel human again.

You’ve brought him hope, his sense of purpose. Eren no longer lives to survive. He lives to spend every second of every hour he has left with you, creating memories, exchanging love and passion, and neverending bliss. He wants to embrace these feelings for the rest of his life—engulfed with joy, a sense of relief, and endless gratitude. He doesn’t feel like he just escaped death. He feels like he’s being reborn.

And God, it has never felt this good to be alive.

Eren looks to his side, blatantly staring at you with a goofy smile on his face. He’s dumbstruck—no, lovestruck at the sight of you. You’re the woman who stayed with him till the end, the woman who fought till her last breath, protecting him with no fear written in your eyes. You’re the woman that he loves, and the woman that loves him back. The woman that nurtures the flickering spark of hope inside his chest into a blazing flame. The woman that allows him to do the same to you.

“What?” You ask him with your cheeks burning bright, knowing that he’s watching you closely. You keep your eyes on the road with both hands on the steering wheels of your newly discovered SUV. It’s an old Chevrolet with dents all over the car but you consider yourself lucky enough to even be able to find one. It has enough fuel for you both to reach Aspen Pine before noon. You can find another car in the city if you need to. 

“Nothing,” Eren replies, still smiling sheepishly to himself. “I’m just, uh… Hoping you’ll say it again.”

“Say what again?”

“You know…” He scratches his nose, the blush that blooms on his face matches the pinkish glow of sunrise bursting through the clouds. “The three words you said to me earlier.”

Your ears are buzzing from how much blood is pooling on your face. An hour has passed since you both confessed your feelings to each other and yet, it feels like a decade has gone by where it becomes awkward for you to restate the words. Funny how you have all the bravery to face flesh-eating monsters, but when it comes to showing affection, you’re curling yourself into a ball of shame. 

“What three words?” You switch gears. “Any three words? Like, ‘Shut up, stupid?’ Or ‘You’re so annoying?’ Or maybe ‘Keep saying that and I’m gonna kick you out of my car?’”

He pouts—actually pouts like a child. “The last line isn’t even three words.”

“It is if you split them into four parts.”

“Ugh,” he groans, rolling his eyes. “Princess, you said it, like, ten times in a row an hour ago.”

Your cheeks are replaced by fire at this point. “Well, then you’ve heard enough to keep yourself satisfied for a lifetime.”

“I want to hear it!” You thought it would be impossible for a 193-cm tall brawny man to whine like a three-year-old, but there he is. “Can’t you just say it one more time?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause, it’s embarrassing.”

“Then I’ll say it first. You can just reply to me right after.” He said that but you can see him releasing a shaky breath from the corner of your eye, trying to mentally prepare himself. Although he has thought about them for months, the words still feel foreign in his head, let alone on his tongue. But Eren turns his body to face you, his gaze intense enough to burn holes. “I love you,” he says, sounding too formal and rigid to be romantic. It even feels a bit ridiculous, but you’re too nervous to laugh.

You tighten your jaw, your lips are pressed tight into a white line. You can’t. No matter how much you try, you can’t just say the line like that. It’s just so uncharacteristic of you to do so.

Eren waits with a palpitating heart. He feels like he just confessed to you all over again, not knowing whether you’d reject or accept his feelings. When three seconds pass by in silence, his blush smears right to his ears. “W-why are you not saying anything?!”

“Because it’s embarrassing!”

“But now I look like an idiot!”

“You are an idiot,” you retort, holding back the laughter that bubbles inside your chest.

His face matches the color of his red leather jacket. “Stop laughing!”

“I’m—” You clasp your lips tightly when you feel a giggle threatening to break free. “I’m not laughing.”

“Fine, you know what? I’m not gonna say it again until you say it first,” Eren says with a loud huff, throwing his face to the side and grousing like a child with his arms folded on his chest. 

“Fine by me.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. Glaring at the scenery outside his window, he grumbles under his breath. “Whatever. You’re an idiot.”

“I’m an idiot?” You blurt out, your tone full of mirth. “For what, for not saying I love you?”

You fall into his trap. Without knowing, you say the words he wants to hear, even if the rest of your sentence contradicts its meaning. “I love you too,” Eren says within a split second, beaming at you with a boyish grin. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I wasn’t—oh, shut up.” You spit back, tossing him a bar of Snickers to refill the calories he’d burned. You couldn’t carry much stuff in your backpack during your move, only a bottle of antibiotic ointment, some bandages to treat your wounds, a few bottles of water, some carbohydrate bars, and Eren’s favorite snack: Snickers. “Go get some sleep. Aspen Pine is still an hour away.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll stop by at a gas station to get us something better to eat, then we’ll find a house to stay in.”

“Okay.”

“And maybe by then,” you sigh, noticing that he’s still looking at you with the same dopey look on his face. “You can stop staring at me.”

Eren isn’t listening to you. He hasn’t been for a while. “Okay.”

“Ren.”

“Hmm?”

“Stop staring at me!”

“I’m not staring at you,” he tries to argue. “I’m trying to sleep by staring at you.”

“That’s it.” You snatch back his snickers bar with one hand—which he only took a bite from—and wolf everything down in one try. “There. Now, you can eat air for the rest of the day.”

“Wha—Princessssss!”

***

“I thought we were going to the lake?” Eren asks one and a half hours later as you drive past the final exit sign, indicating that you’re now at the border of Aspen Pine. But instead of taking the right turn as you’re supposed to, you’re taking left, changing lanes, and heading toward a new direction.

“There’s a small town nearby,” you answer, taking a gulp of water. Both you and Eren have finished your first bottles, leaving you only with one more each. You need to make a stop soon. “It’s only half an hour away from here. We need to find some weapons. Going through people’s houses will take too much time. I’m sure they have some guns and spare magazines we can steal at the police station.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Rather than being a good idea, it’s more likely to be the only option you can choose. Knowing that he can barely walk, it would be suicide for both of you to enter uncharted territories without a gun in his hands. You’re not sure you can protect him with your stomach growling and your muscles begging for some rest either. 

No houses are in sight as you steer through an empty road, only woods surrounding you, with the sharp, sweet, refreshing scent of pine trees and conifers tickling your nostrils. Combined with Eren’s soft breathing as he falls asleep with his arms crossed and his skull resting against the headrest, you can finally have a moment of serenity to yourself. 

That is until you can sense the smell of rotting flesh in the air.

“Eren,” you wake him up with a gentle call. “We’re here.”

The brunette male rubs his eyes away from sleep, squinting them to adjust to the morning light. His body tenses the second his nose picks up the smell. “Darkseekers?” He questions with a frown. “Can’t be. The sun is out.”

You don’t answer him. Slowing down the vehicle, you keep yourself alert to your surroundings, eyes scanning every part your vision can reach.

 Welcome to Ash Ville, a road sign says. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay.

You prepare yourself, inhaling and exhaling. You’re about to march into a town you’ve never stepped a foot in, and as much as it is nice to travel to someplace new, you’re shrouded in nothing but dread. If there’s one thing you’re certain of, not every town stays the same as it was before the outbreak. And within a few minutes, you’re about to find out you're right.

Blockades surround the town, made from barbed wires with thorns and spikes, stained with blood and pieces of rotting, human flesh. “They must have taken their own measures to contain the outbreak the second they heard about what happened in other countries,” Eren says, with which you silently agree. “It was smart of them to think that fast.”

The people in this town had built security perimeters, blocking every entrance to get to the city hall except the main gate. One that you assume used to have local officers identifying each person entering the town. The stone walls are certainly strong enough to keep the Darkseekers away, but the black wrought iron fences, which you thought would’ve been impenetrable, are destroyed, pushed with hard enough forces that they tore open the doors.

You decrease your velocity to twenty miles per hour, trying to find a police station or a supermarket nearby as you drive past the gate. A few meters in, you notice something. 

The people in this town didn’t die from the outbreak. The virus had never gotten to them.

They were massacred.

Shivers run down your body as you see corpses after corpses lying down on the street. It’s not the first time you’ve seen something like this. The virus used to be airborne. Once it was inhaled into your lungs, it would attack your body from the inside, and if you were weak, you’d explode, almost quite literally, within minutes after infection. Blood would seep through your pores and your body would decompose so fast, that it would only take less than 24 hours for your skeleton to show. The blood would turn black and it would stain the pavements as if the night had melted and drenched the earth.  

But that is not what happened here. The ground that stands before your eyes right now is painted crimson.

“The Darkseekers must have managed to break through the gate.” Eren’s voice turns deep with regret, his striking viridescent eyes turn dark as they’re painted over by anguish. “To think that they managed to slaughter the whole town in one night…”

A string of questions pops up inside his mind and it shows vividly on his face. What if the Darkseekers never left? What if they’re still here, watching our movements, waiting until the sun goes down before they rip our throats apart?

“Stay within the light,” you assure him, even though your fingers are gripping tightly enough around your steering wheels, enough to turn your nails white. “As long as we stay within the light, we’ll be okay.”

You try to swerve the vehicle to avoid the corpses. You’re not sure how much time has passed ever since the incident, but by the stench of their decaying skin, bodies start liquifying, teeth and nails falling out, maybe it’s been a few weeks. You don’t linger too long to find out.

“Just focus on finding the police station.” You wonder if you sound cold, or seem apathetic to his eyes but Eren doesn’t say a word. The world is cruel but you both have known it since the day you and Eren drove your knives through your loved ones’ hearts. This is nothing new.

It’s a small town that’s brimming with brick storefront housings, chock full of quirky gift shops specializing in crystals and moonstone pendants. The colors are vibrant and warm, and if the world wasn’t ending, this would’ve been a lovely town for you to travel to. But not anymore.

You spot a police station down the road and Eren tightens his grip around his shotgun.

“How many bullets do you have left?”

“One,” he answers. One bullet may seem like it offers nothing but a small reassurance, but knowing how good he is with his shots, one bullet can save a life, whether it's yours or his. Little do you know that Eren only intends to use it to save yours.

“Then wait here,” you order him to stay put as you pull on the handbrake, parking your car recklessly without a care in the middle of the road. There are no bodies around, no corpses lying nearby, and no signs of life. “I’m gonna go inside and check.”

“I’m going with you,” Eren insists almost immediately, his hand ready to lurch forward and seize your wrist if he needs to. It’s to be expected of him, knowing how chivalrous he’s been from day one. 

You don’t want to sound harsh by reminding him that with a broken ankle, he will only become a liability to you but he can be just as stubborn as you are, if not more, when he wants to. “Eren, you can’t walk.”

“I’m not letting you go inside alone.”

You turn your face to the side, watching him with weary eyes. You can see the determination on his face, how he’s not going to change his mind as long as you have your life on the line. Of course, it makes you happy to have someone who cares this much about you but still, it would be a terrible decision to bring him along. “Well, I’m not letting you step down from this car with a broken ankle.”

“Do you think I can just sit here and watch you risk your life for us?”

“Do you think I can just allow you to come with me when you can’t even run?”

He clenches his jaw, hating that he doesn’t have any better argument to fight you on it. “I know I’m no use to you right now, but…” It’s heartbroken to see him this way, to see how much he hates himself for being so powerless, for being such a burden, when all he wants to do is to protect you. “Princess, if something happens to you…” he speaks softly, his eyes losing the bravery and determination that filled them a moment ago. “And I’m not there to protect you as best as I can, I will never be able to forgive myself. I’d rather die trying to protect you than to live on my own.”

Although deep in your heart you feel the same way, you answer with a scoff, “That’s stupid.”

“That’s what I want,” he corrects, staggering you for a second from how solemn he looks. “I don’t want to live with regret. Not anymore.”

There’s a pregnant silence with thick tension stretching between you. Eventually, you release a defeated sigh, folding your arms above the steering wheel before you use them as a pillow to rest your forehead on. “Why do you never listen to me?” You ask, sounding much more exhausted than intended. “I’m trying to do what’s best to keep us alive.”

“We’re stronger in numbers,” Eren says, a sudden juvenile grin breaks on his lips, and you’re reminded of the words he said to you when you first met. “Besides, Princess, if we can survive last night, I’m sure we can survive this one too.”

“You’re weirdly optimistic.”

“You’re just too pessimistic.”

The little laughter that you try to suppress sounds more like a snort than anything else, but Eren can see a hint of amusement on your face. “Fine,” you say. “You’re coming with me. But if a Darkseeker shows up and you miss your shot, Jaeger, I swear to God, I’m gonna shave your head. Let’s see if you can still do your cursed Tom Cruise impressions with a bald head.”

Eren shrugs. “He was bald in Tropic Thunder.”

“Oh, shut up.” You land a small punch on his shoulder before you both trade demure smiles. “Well then, should we come up with a plan?”

The plan isn’t much of a plan to begin with, but it’s the best you got. Sticking your machete in the back of your shirt, you jump out of your car and move to his door. 

Eren blushes when he sees you stretching out both hands to help him step down from the car. With one hand supporting himself against the railing, he swings out one leg. “I can do it myself,” he says, but right after he finished his sentence, he slips his footing, his body stumbling forward, crashing against yours. You both topple over to the ground, your back hitting the earth with a thud and a painful groan is snatched away from your mouth. Eren has his face buried in your chest before he props himself up with both palms on the concrete. “I’m—I’m sorry!”

“For falling on me like an idiot or for almost motorboating my tits like a pervert?”

His jaw is seconds away from dislocating from his face. “I– I’m not–”

“You’re both,” you answer it for him. There’s a painful throb at the back of your skull that makes your vision slightly unfocused.

“I’m sorry,” he winces. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m this close at kicking you in the balls right now, but I’m okay.”

Eren laughs as he’s reminded of the earlier days when you spent ninety percent of your time together throwing playful banter like this. His smile is so contagious that you find your own lips curving up. It falters once he lays a hand on your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone. His palm, just like his ankle, has been treated with antiseptic and bandage. His blood has stopped gushing out from his wound.

“What?” You ask him, time seems to slow down as you focus your gaze solely on him. You watch his eyes drift down to your lips, his gaze lingering as if they are entranced by the sight. You know that look. “Don’t do it.”

Eren wets his lower lip, whether it’s a sign of nervousness or him just aching to have a taste, you’re not sure. “Why not?”

“Because it’s the most cliche thing ever.” 

“To kiss you when we’re in this position? I think it’s understandable.” 

It’s harder to stay unfazed under his coy, little coquettish smile, and his seductive whisper than to take a clear shot of your target, but fortunately for you, you manage. “There’s a correct time and place to do this, Er—”

He dives and brushes his lips tenderly against yours—a questioning kiss, brief and timid. Yet, you find yourself holding your breath when he releases you.

“It always feels right to me,” he says, smiling more with his eyes than his lips, a pair of beautiful crescents. “Anywhere with you feels like Paris in the rain.”

“Seriously?” You stare flatly at him. “Trying to woo me over by quoting a line from a mainstream song? Really?”

He knits his eyebrows together, puzzled. “What song?”

“Oh my God,” you groan. “So you’re naturally this corny? I mean I know you are but I didn’t think you were this bad.”

“Is it really a bad thing, though?” He murmurs, lowering his head for another kiss, slightly longer, slightly deeper that you could feel how despite they still feel soft against yours, his lips are a bit chapped from the cold. The saccharine smile turns into a devilish smirk. “Seems like you like it just fine, Princess.”

You knee him right on his crotch, not hard enough to make him cry in agony, but enough to serve as a warning. He grunts with his elbows supporting him on the ground, while you return to your feet and fix your leather jacket. “Stop wasting time and let’s go.”

“You’re not cute at all,” he pouts. He allows you to circle one arm around his waist as he lands his around your shoulder. You both make your way to the station, stopping right before the door where the sun can douse you with its light.

“Ready?” You ask him, grabbing your machete with one hand.

Eren releases you, standing with his shotgun in firing position. He gives you a nod.

Taking a deep breath, you kick the front door open. The wood creaks underneath the pressure, and by your third attempt, it swings open and slams against the wall. You’ve made enough noise to attract whatever is lurking in the dark. All you have to do is wait.

It’s only three seconds in, and a Darkseeker, dressed in a police uniform with black strings of saliva coating its bared teeth, advances toward you. You can hear Eren releasing his breath slowly as he prepares to take his shot. He pulls the trigger, the sound rings like thunder in your ears. The bottom half of its face is blown away, its body pushed back a few steps. But then it stares back at you, its snarl turning into a raging cry before it runs toward you with both hands stretched out. Eren didn’t miss his shot, but he missed its brain.

“Fuck,” he curses, stepping in front of you in reflex. He knows the sun will burn its flesh the second it walks past the door but he still tries to shield you just in case. 

“Move,” you tell him, pushing him away to the side with one hand while you snatch a spear point knife from the harness that tightly hugs your thigh with the other. You cast your blade forward, letting it pierce through the air before it lands right on the Darkseeker’s forehead, penetrating deeply enough to rupture its brain. The corpse tumbles back at once, body crashing against the wooden floor.

Eren stares in awe before he gulps. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

You don’t answer him, focusing on finishing your job first. Stepping into the room, you approach the spot where the Darkseeker is now oozing black blood to the ground. You go down to one knee, plunging your knife harder inside its brain before you drive it upward, splitting its head in the middle. You pull it away, wipe the blood on its tattered uniform, and place back the blade in its sheath.

Eren watches you from behind, completely enthralled. “Is it weird if I find you so hot right now?”

“Stop messing around and help me find some guns.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

***

Last night might be the worst night of your life but today? Today feels like God is trying to make it up to you.

You’ve managed to obtain yourself three shotguns, two handguns, and five extra magazines from the station. As the cartridges you found didn’t match the ones he owned, Eren tossed his old pistols away and decided to use the new ones instead. “These are lighter, I like them,” he commented with a satisfied grin, tucking his new handguns around his belt.

Your forage for food went well too. There was a minimart nearby that offered bottles of water and a selection of canned foods—which were still gross, in your opinion, but Eren was having a feast. You got your hands on a few bags of chips, a few cans of beer, and coffee–Eren was immensely pleased when he found Corona Extra on the counter that you swore you saw him rubbing his tears away with his hand. With your heart feeling ten times more at ease, you continued with your journey.

You’ve decided not to switch cars, only stopped at a gas station to refill the tank. You drive twelve miles west, heading toward the lake. It’s only one in the afternoon, so there will be plenty of time for you to find a new house and get familiar with your surroundings before the sun sets.

“I’m so excited,” Eren giddily says, munching on a Twinkie. It’s two weeks past its expiration date but he doesn’t care. “Feels like we’re going camping.”

You snort. “Want me to set up a bonfire for you? I’m sure they would love to have a little Jaeger barbecue party.”

“Your sense of humor is disturbing, Princess.”

An hour later, you’re driving down a familiar lane, going through the small neighborhood framed by steep hills and majestic lake views. Tucked into its cozy tree-lined streets are some of the prettiest homes you’ve ever seen—a conglomeration of architectural styles that, while unique, are unified in charm. As much as you are itching to visit the varnish-clear lake to revive your dearest memories, you focus more on finding a place to stay for the night. But then—

“Hey, why don’t we stop by the lake first?” Eren suggests as he rolls his window down, his head peeking out like an excited dog. His hair, tied up with a few baby hairs sprouting out of his bun, is caressed by the wind. “You want to see it, right?”

It’s as if he reads your mind. “I guess we can if it’s just for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, just for a few minutes.”

So you follow his request and fulfill your wish, keeping your engine running until you can witness the glorious luster of the water before you. It’s the same skyline-silver lake where you used to spend every summer making cherished memories and endless laughter with your family. It feels nostalgic, the way the atmosphere is convent quiet, soothing, and yogi still. It’s lined with pine trees and the sky’s magnificence seemed to be emblazoned on the lake, making it look like nothing but a painting. The whiff of mint and the cedar-sweet smell wafts up to you the second you stop and open your door to breathe the fresh air. Feels so good to be home, your lips almost form the words. The idyllic scene still takes your breath away just the same, and when you spin your head around to see him, Eren has his lips parted in awe, looking just as enraptured by the scenery, if not more.

“You want to go out?” you offer him. “Just for a few minutes.”

He mirrors your smile. “Just for a few minutes.”

Climbing out of the car, you help him support his balance by holding him around his waist like before. Eren has his arm resting on your shoulders, the visage of the lake is reflected in his eyes. Sunray adds a golden tint to the face of the lake, and Eren thinks this is what paradise looks like. Untouched by the cruelty of the world. It’s a place with the kind of beauty that is unmatched, except maybe…

His eyes shift to your face again, only to be answered instantly by a gentle smile on your face. “Do you like it?” You ask him. 

Eren casts his gaze down when he feels you removing your hand from his waist, only to interlace your fingers together. You squeeze his hand lightly before your warmth seeps through his pores, and he wonders if you’re thinking the same thing. That this is a new beginning, for you and him. That this is finally the place that you both can call home.

“I love it,” he says, almost in a content sigh. He shifts his arm away from your shoulder, his hand doing the same habit of tucking your hair behind your ear. But maybe it’s not a habit. It’s just his favorite thing to do in the world. 

And he wants to say something. Wants to describe that even all of this scenery—everything that took his breath away—they’re nothing compared to you. But you’ve called him corny so many times and Eren’s knowledge of romantic phrases is close to none. All he can offer you is his honesty. 

“I’m in love with you,” he breathes out while your breathing stops. “I find endless joy when I’m with you, Princess. Loving you feels right as if it’s the reason why I’m here. I feel like I’ve loved you in my previous life, I love you in this one, and I’ll love you again in the next one.”

How can he say something like this? You wonder, turning bashful. So beautifully, so genuinely, so passionately. You could feel the attraction that pulses between you, a magnetic pull drawing you to him. For a moment, he renders you speechless. 

“This is the right moment,” you tell him.

He blinks. “Huh?”

Ah, damn it. With your face aflame, you speak through gritted teeth. “For you to kiss me, you idiot.”

“Oh!” The realization only overtakes his features for a second before it quickly turns to regret. “Oh, no, I just ruined it, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I should’ve—”

You pull him down by the collar of his jacket, standing on your toes as you plant your lips against his. It’s a bit more forceful than intended, but it delivers the message well. You break away only to whisper, “Stop talking and just… kiss me harder.”

And he does, kissing you with all the passion he feels. The need. The hunger. But Eren keeps his control. He just wants your taste on his lips. At least, for now. 

The kiss is different than what you shared with him a moment ago. There’s no elfin grin on his mouth, only parted lips and eager tongue—shy enough to penetrate deep into your cavern but bold enough to glide against your lower lip. There’s no giggle erupting from the back of his throat, only a deep moan and breathy sigh when he feels your fingers dancing across his nape. His right hand slithers around your waist, his other one cups you by your jaw, the leather of his fingerless glove rubs against your skin.

“Be with me.” He maps his way down to your jaw and the side of your neck to murmur the words before he returns home to your lips. “Stay with me.” It’s followed by your name, spoken like praise from a love poem. “Hold me like this and never let me go.”

I need you to promise me this, Princess. I don’t want this to be the last time I can kiss you. I don’t want tomorrow to be the last time I can see your smile. I’m scared. Deep down, I’m always terrified because…

What if death comes to take you but not me?

Eren had hopes before. He hoped for a better life, and he thought if he wished for it hard enough, he could have it. After all, things were really turning for the better, for both of you. But after what happened last night, he realized that his hopes were nothing more but a fantasy he could never achieve. Yes, you won the battle of your life, but how much longer until your luck runs out? It feels harder than ever now to keep on hoping.

Your legs feel weak, and you try to blame it on all the running you did trying to survive. You want to say it. You want to say it back. I love you. I’m so in love with you too. I’ve never felt like this before and it scares me because what am I going to do when you’re gone?

You land a hand on his chest, gently pushing him away just to get a few seconds to collect your courage. “I…” You lick your bottom lip as a way for your body to suppress your jitters. You taste like him. “Eren, I…”

Say it, you idiot! What is so hard about it?! Just tell him you love him!

Your heart is in your ears, and blood rushes to your face so fast that you know it’s going to change the color of your cheeks. “I, umm…”

Eren watches in silence, patiently waiting for the words to come out and it only makes it ten times harder for you to say it. Then his mouth twitches into a smile a second before a tiny peal of laughter escapes him. Flustered, you give him a little punch on his chest. “Why are you laughing?!”

“Because you’re so cute.” He gathers you in his arms, granting you a small kiss on your temple before he rests his chin on your head. “And you’re so transparent. I can literally see whatever thought crosses your mind.”

“Shut up.”

“You want to tell me you love me too, right?”

“Shut up.”

He chortles again and it's the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. Eren kisses you one last time before you break away. He feels it. Even if you don’t say the words, he feels your devotion for him in every fiber of your soul. Elation leaps through him and for a moment, all you can think of is the feel of his body against yours, the passion and the ferocity of his kiss.

When it’s over, he leaves you a bit disoriented. “Let’s go find our home, shall we?” He suggests, intertwining your fingers together.

With you, I’m already home. A thought crosses your mind and your chest is suffused with warmth. It’s until you can feel the way Eren’s hold around your hand turns rigid, that you realize you just said the words out loud, your mouth forming the sentence before your brain could tell you to stop. It came out in a whisper like you were mumbling in your sleep, but Eren felt it to his bones.

“I—” You panic, ashamed. “I meant—I don’t—”

Eren pivots on his heels, staggering quite a bit as he takes you by the hand and leads you back to the car. He rubs his nose, visibly abashed, where the color of his tip matches the crimson in his cheeks. “I didn’t hear anything.”

But he’s always been a terrible liar, hasn’t he?

***

Perched on the edge of the lake, there’s a Craftsman-style shingle lake house that peeks out from the towering pine trees that surround it. Even from the outside, the home is striking, designed to merge with the natural world with wood exterior, as well as the landscaping with native plants, blending into the six acres of surrounding forest. It has unfettered lakefront access, with multiple decks made of wood just feet from the shoreline, one of which has a hot tub.

“I think we just hit a jackpot,” Eren mumbles in awe. “This is literally the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.”

You can’t argue with that. It looks like it’s taken straight from an architectural magazine. “Well then, let’s go check it out.”

Knowing how he’s going to be stubborn about not letting you go inside alone, you don’t bother to bicker with him this time. It is your luck that one side of the house is enclosed by a 30-foot-tall wall of windows rising above the lake. It aims to give you a gorgeous view of the waterfront, but you’re thankful for the sunlight that bathes almost every corner of the house. 

You enter the residence side-by-side, slowing down your pace to match his steps. Both of you have your handguns ready, scouring your surroundings with alert eyes and taut muscles. Albeit looking a bit abandoned with thick piles of dust coating every piece of furniture and untended plants growing in disorder, the house seems cozy and warm. There’s even a wood fireplace in the living room, and while it’s easy to imagine spending summers here, Eren can’t wait to enjoy a cozy winter night snuggled up with you as you watch the snow fall on the frozen lake. It reminds him of the dream house he often fantasized of sharing with his future wife and two, maybe even three children, where he would—

“What?” You ask him with a raised eyebrow, interrupting his thoughts. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“N-nothing,” he blushes.

“Are you thinking dirty thoughts again? Really? Zombies can literally be hiding in one of the rooms right now, and you’re thinking about what, getting handsy with me in the hot tub?”

He nearly faints. “No, I was just—” He clears his throat, averting his gaze away. “I was just thinking about growing old here with my wife and kids. The house—it’s—it’s really, umm, nice.”

He’s an idiot. And you are the bigger idiot here because he didn’t even specifically state that he was thinking about you as his wife, and here you are, feeling like your head is about to explode from the thoughts of dancing with him in the kitchen as you make breakfasts together, or snuggling close on the couch with books in your hands and a guitar on his lap, and maybe when the kids are asleep, he’ll even trap your body against the window glass, his lips forming filthy words to describe how much he wants to make love to—I need to stop. 

“Go check the kitchen,” you tell him in a desperate attempt to distract yourself. “Find if we have food for the rest of the week.”

“What about you? Where are you going?”

Away from you. “I’m just going down the hall.”

“Stay within the light.”

“Stay within the light,” you mock him back, your cheeks still sizzle hot as you make your way to another hallway. You feel safe as you can still feel sunlight kissing your skin everywhere you go but your fingers remain tight around your handgun. 

Eren enters the kitchen as ordered, amazed by the sight of maple woodwork, a granite island, and a wine refrigerator that is stacked with top-class brands, ones that he could only dream of having. But that’s exactly what it is, isn’t it? This is a dream and he’s living in it with his eyes wide open.

He’s in the middle of rummaging through the top drawers, mumbling a little, “Lucky,” when he locates a numerous amounts of expensive canned foods, and jars filled with cookies and candies. 

The joy that sparkles inside him turns instantly into chaos when he hears your scream.

Eren spins on his heels so fast, he might have broken his other ankle but he doesn’t care. Mustering every strength in his body to run to your spot, he ignores the pain that burns his every nerve. “Princess!” He shouts out, his balance unsteady. “Princess, are you—”

“REINER!” 

Your scream is loud enough to deafen his ears. “Uhh… It’s Eren, actually.”

“No, I mean, it’s Reiner Braun!” Never has your voice sounded so high-pitched before. Your eyes are so wide open, that he wonders how they are not falling out of their sockets yet.  

Eren, still limping, walks closer to your spot with a frown. He looks over your shoulder, following the finger you’re pointing at one of the photo frames that decorate the wall. “Who’s Reiner Braun?” His gaze lands on a muscular man, probably in his early fifty, staring into the camera with a grin warm and kind enough to look unnatural on his bearded face. The man called Reiner is sitting on the couch with two teenagers hugging his sides—Eren assumes they’re his children as they bear striking resemblance to him. His wife, standing behind the couch, has her cheek pressed against the side of his head, smiling beautifully with her arms embracing her husband’s shoulders from behind. The amount of love and happiness they showcase through the picture is enough to warm your hearts, and Eren wonders if someday, he can take a picture with you like this too.

“The guy from Empire!” Your shout slaps him back to reality—a reality where you are now fangirling over another man. “Eren, this is his house! We’re staying in Reiner’s house right now, oh my God—I can’t believe this—”

“All right, chill.” But he can’t help but laugh at the way you’re practically jumping on your feet, drowning in your excitement. “What’s Empire? A boy band? That dude looks too buff to be wearing skimpy clothes on stage.”

You restrain the urge to slap the photo frame against his face, only because you care too much about the picture. “A rock band. He’s the drummer. They were pretty cool, my dad was obsessed with them. Instead of letting me listen to Justin Bieber, he kept shoving their albums down my throat. Thank God, though. Justin Bieber’s music is shit.”

“Hey!” Eren raises a finger in the air, stopping you. “Do not insult my man.”

“You were a Belieber?”

“I am a Belieber,” he corrects with a proud look on his face. 

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Why would I? He’s my pride and joy. I used to spend hours, just… You know, biebing.”

“Oh my God, don’t talk to me.” 

Taking the picture off the wall, your gaze softens as you recall your old days, reminiscing the time. “We used to jam to their songs every morning as Dad drove me to school. I think they’re in their seventies now, so they’ve retired for a while. Too old to be playing on the stage, I guess.” You place back the frame, shoulders sagging forward. “I wonder where they are now.” Are they still alive somewhere? Are they dead? Or worse, have they turned into one of them?

Eren, noticing the sadness that radiates off of you, lands a hand on your head. “Was Reiner your favorite member?”

“I like all of them. Their frontman was, like, the younger version of Kurt Cobain. Too bad he died in a car crash. Poor guy, he was so young too. So talented. And hot.”

The hand that’s been lightly stroking your hair stops. “Hotter than me? I doubt it.”

“Well, obviously—” You stop when realization dawns over you, whirling your head toward him so fast, it leaves you a bit dizzy. 

Eren blinks uncomfortably at the sight of you scrutinizing his features. “W-what?”

“Now that I think about it, you kinda look like him.” The second the words break free from your mouth, you feel like you need to wash the filth off your tongue. “But ugh, that is so gross. I can’t believe I just said that.”

Eren just casually takes in what he wants to hear and ignores what he doesn’t want to hear. “Wait, so you’re saying I’m hot? Like rockstar level hot?”

You kick him in the shin and walk away.

The more you tour around the house, the more surprised you are by its grandeur. There are five bedrooms and six bathrooms inside–one of them even has a Japanese bathtub where you can spend your time relaxing while indulging yourself in the scenery of the lake. There’s also a spa and sauna, a fully-equipped gym, and a game room with an endless collection of comic books and action figures, a massive billiard table, and an old Pac-man arcade machine. With all that, you might never want to actually go out on the lake, opting instead to take advantage of all these luxe features.

Checking the room one by one, you notice one thing. The linens on the bed used to be crisp white but they’re painted with yellow stains as they haven’t been used for months. But judging from the way the room is very organized–no pencils on the table, no creases on the sheets, no sweaters hanging in the standing coat rack–maybe the room hasn’t been occupied in years. In one of the photo frames you find on the table, you see the happy family attending their younger child’s college graduation, celebrating it with hugs and kisses. Maybe she’s moved out of the house?

The next room has a more masculine vibe to it. Instead of salmon pink, the walls are painted gray. His son seems to be taking after his father’s hobby, with drumsticks signed by popular musicians decorating his shelf. There’s an entire wall dedicated to the Gods of Metal, with posters of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath plastered against it. But just like the previous room, this one seems like it’s been abandoned for a while.

“Seems like it was only Reiner and his wife who stayed here,” Eren comments as you head toward the last room–the master suite. “Or maybe this is just their vacation house or something.”

“Why would the front door be unlocked if they weren’t here?”

Eren is still musing to find the answer when you curl your hand around the doorknob and push it open. You’ve prepared yourself for the worst, maybe one or two Darkseekers turning their heads toward you, but what you see is even worse.

Eren, who’s following close after you, lowers his gun. “Well, I guess we found our answer.” 

Reiner and his wife—what’s left of them anyway—are lying down on the bed, their bodies are now dry, but still decaying very slowly. Bile rises to your throat as your nose picks up quickly on their stench, and if it was your first time encountering dead bodies, you must have vomited your insides. 

Seeing you turn pasty, Eren clamps his fingers around your wrist and leads you outside, closing the door behind him. “You okay there?” 

“I’m fine,” you say, inhaling as much fresh air as you can into your lungs. You loosen up your collar and hurriedly make your conclusion. “I think we can stay here. We’ll have to do something with the corpses later but… For now, we can rest.”

Eren nods. “I think I saw a door leading to the basement. Should we check it now or…” He stretches out a hand, caressing the side of your face with delicate fingers as his eyes droop in concern. “Do you want to take a break? I can do it on my own if you want to.”

He sees right through me, doesn’t he? You're trying your best to appear nonchalant but Eren always picks up every hint of distraught that bubbles inside your chest. “No, it’s—” You clear your throat. “Let's go.”

What Eren doesn't know is that you’re not saddened by the fact that the man who inspired you, who you so deeply admired as a kid, has passed away.

You’re crushed by the fact that it wasn't the virus that took him. It was the pills, taken from the packer bottle that sat on his nightstand, its lid still open as they didn’t find any reason to close it. They didn’t find any reason to do anything at all instead of swallowing down the pills and plastering a smile on their faces as they drifted away to sleep only to never wake up again. It’s acetaminophen, you know for certain, even without reading the label, as it was the same one that took your aunt’s life to free her from depression. It was also the one you considered taking, as a way to escape your fear of reality. Ten pills of those and death would take you on a journey.

Reiner and his wife didn’t die with black blood staining the sheets. 

They died holding hands.

***

The basement, it turns out, is not a fucking basement. 

It’s a soundproof media room with a Bang and Olufsen sound system, a wine cellar, a shelf full of Blu-ray DVDs, a karaoke player, and a music studio where you can locate the same set of drums Reiner used to play a few times in his concert decades ago. They have placed carpeted floors over wooden flooring, the walls are covered by textiles and porous materials to absorb the sound. The cabin-style basement is even completed with another fireplace plugged directly into the wall. It’s the electric kind that doesn’t need a ventilation system but still mimics a traditional wood-burning fireplace. The dancing flames might not be real but they can exude just as much warmth as the usual ones do. The rustic wood furniture is aesthetically pleasing to look at, providing a much more comfortable, warm atmosphere compared to the living room you saw upstairs. 

“Look at this couch.” Eren, completely forgetting that he has a broken ankle, throws himself carelessly on the L-shaped sofa. As expected, he winces from the pain but it’s soon replaced by a long, drawled-out moan the second he feels how soft it is. He shifts around, trying down several positions until he lies down on his stomach. “Oh my God,” he sighs in bliss with one cheek pressed against the leather, his hand sliding up and down in a way that is almost similar to the way he caressed your legs two nights before—not that you should think about it. You’re sure by the size of it, the couch can fit more than eight people. Hell, you can even have three Erens lounging with their legs stretched out and you will still have room to sit. 

“I don’t ever want to move out again,” he mumbles deliriously.

“From this house?” You can’t help but smile, folding your arms in front of your chest as you lean your back against the wall. 

“From this couch. I’ll eat over here, cry over here. I’ll pee all over it if I have to, I don’t care. You’re my baby now.” He’s actually talking to the couch, nuzzling his face against it. “I’m never gonna walk away from you, Sofi.”

“Sofi?”

“Sofi the sofa.”

“Hmm, figured.”

“I was going to name it Coochie the Couch but then I remembered that it’s like slang for something completely different.”

You snort. “You’re probably gonna name our child the most basic name like Jack, or Bobby, or something.”

Wait.

Did you say your or our?

Your eyes quickly dart back to his face, and it doesn’t take long for you to know that yes, you clearly said our, you giant idiot. 

“Your,” you correct hastily even though you know it’s no use now. Eren heard it well and now he looks like he’s about to burst with joy. The only choice you have right now is to disappear from the face of the earth. “I’m—” You scurry away. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

You take hasty steps toward the stairs, shouting stupid, stupid, you’re so stupid, inside your head as you do. A moment before you close the door behind you, Eren’s voice rings in your ear.

“Irene if it’s a girl.” You stop at once, feet shackled to the ground. You don’t allow yourself to throw a look over your shoulder no matter how much you want to. “And Jace if it’s a boy.���

Your fingers are curling tight against the side of your jeans, your face catching on fire. Irene and Jace… Fuck, those names are actually cute. And now you can’t help but put faces to their names, a little girl with the same brown hair and green eyes, and a tiny, tiny boy who looks like a spitting image of him. They might have your smile, but that’s it. The thought of it is so fucking cute, you can feel your heart clawing its way to jump out of your chest. 

“Go take a shower, you stink,” is the only thing you can say with a dysfunctioning brain. Exiting the basement, you press your backside against the closed door. Your palm drifts up to conceal the bottom half of your face. You can almost quite literally feel your skin burning. 

Fuck, this is so bad.

It’s bad that I want it too.

***

Your house is the only one that’s located near the lake. You’re separated by a few miles from the other houses, where you can only hear the sounds of rippling water and swaying branches that are kissed by the autumn breeze, and the anthems that the frogs sing. Once the sky is ablaze with the fire of the setting sun, you close all the curtains, turn off all the lights, lock all the doors and windows. You can barely do anything with the 30-foot-tall wall of windows, but as long as you remain within your room, they won’t detect any movements from the other side. The windows are made from tempered glass, highly durable and resilient to impact, which adds to your reassurance even though you knew, they wouldn’t hold them back for long if they used all their strength to tear them down. But as long as they don’t notice you’re there, you should be safe.

“I think we should both stay in the basement,” you suggest, “It’s a perfect place to hide, soundproof and all.”

Eren’s heart jolted at the offer but he affirms with a steady nod. He’s not sure what he is so nervous about—it’s not like this is going to be the first time you share the room with him. Is it because you’ve told him you loved him too? Is it because he can tell you’ve been secretly visualizing yourself growing old with him in this house, just as much as he has? Or is it really something as simple as the way he can smell that addicting strawberry scent from your hair, your body fresh and warm from the shower you just took; or the way you look so cuddly wearing an oversized sweater with sleeves too long for your arms?

“Can you please, umm…” You scratch your cheek, avoiding his gaze. “Stop staring at me like that?”

A flush creeps up his cheek. “S-sorry.” 

Eren walks past you, still hobbling on his feet as he takes a seat on the couch. Just like you, he just finished taking his shower, rubbing off all the dirt and blood that coated his skin. He wears his hair loose, seemingly a bit longer now with the end of his strands stopping an inch below his collarbones.  

Trying to shake off whatever this awkward tension that surrounds you, you decide to treat his injury, just like you did a moment after the fight ended. Grabbing the emergency kit, you go down to your knees before him, carefully checking on his ankle. “Does it still hurt?” You ask as you unfasten his bandage, wanting to change it to a new one as it is damp after the shower.

He winces at the touch, even when you’ve tried your best to be gentle. “A little.”

Swelling and bruising around the joint, there are splotches of black and blue sketched upon his sun-kissed skin, tracking down toward the sole of his foot. You apply cold packs to the injured area, hoping it will decrease swelling and pain. Eren watches you with unblinking eyes, entranced with the way you seem almost motherly as you treat his wound. The flames from the electric fireplace cast amber on your skin, and you seem so pretty, glowing underneath the dim light. And when you raise a hand to push a lock of stray hair behind your ear, Eren almost groans, feeling utterly disappointed that he’s not fast enough to do it himself.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice, even if it’s softer than usual, still startles him as he’s been daydreaming again. “It must have been painful to move around the whole day. When did this happen exactly?”

“Umm… I’m not sure. Probably when I tackled that Darkseeker away from you.”

“Probably? Did you not feel pain when it broke?”

“I only noticed I broke it after I was sure you were safe,” he mumbles out sheepishly. “I was… too busy thinking about you, I guess.” 

Ah, damn it. You rise to stand on your knees only to flick him right on his forehead. 

“Aaw!” he hisses. “What was that for?”

“For being embarrassing like always.” You return to your kit, rummaging through the box to find a new roll of bandage. “You should take some ibuprofen,” you suggest, wrapping it around his ankle to restrict him from moving it too much. “It’s a painkiller, but it will also keep inflammation down. Lie down on the couch.”

Eren, noticing that you turned bashful by his words, follows your command with a little smile breaking on his lips. It turns out that the couch has a metal frame and a memory foam mattress underneath its seating cushions, and it feels even comfier than the actual couch itself. You’ve brought more blankets and pillows with you, transforming the couch into your prime sleep spot, hopefully for the next few weeks. Months, if you’re lucky. 

You place a pillow underneath his leg, elevating his ankle, and two more on each side to keep it trapped. “Try not to move too much,” you say, draping a blanket over his body and pulling it up until he has his shoulders covered. He already looks funny this way, a 6.3-feet tall muscly man, shrouded by a quilt like a child, but you decide to tuck the blanket underneath his body, transforming him into a cocoon. You beam at him with a cheeky grin which he reciprocates with a pout. 

“Happy now?” He asks, jutting out his lower lip as if he didn’t look childish enough before.

“Immensely.”

“How can I cuddle with you if I’m like this?”

“Who said we were going to cuddle?”

His jaw drops, nothing but disappointment gleams in his eyes. “We weren’t?”

You slam your pillow once against his face, muttering, “Go to sleep. The sun’s down in ten minutes,” before you move to your other side of the bed, sighing in bliss once you feel just how comfortable the mattress is. You let your muscles unwind, closing your eyes and taking a moment to thank whatever supernatural forces it is that have kept you breathing to this point. 

You can’t hear anything from inside the basement. Not the wind that caresses your windows, not the pit patter of raindrops, not the snarling or the sound of branches cracking under their feet. The tranquility of it all seems eerie at first, but once you focus on the steady sound of Eren’s breathing, you finally can believe that you are safe. 

“Princess,” Eren whispers, breaking the silence.

“Hmm?”

“It’s hot,” he says, struggling to break free. “Can you help me get out of this? My balls are literally sweating right now.” 

You restrain the urge to laugh only because you have to stay quiet. Rolling to your side, you help him loosen the fabric around him. “There. Now, you can—“ Eren pulls you into his arms without warning, using more strength than necessary that you end up with a little “Oof!” breaking past your lips once you land your face on his chest. He lays on his side, his strong, long arms wrapping themselves around your shoulders.

“I thought you said you were sweating,” your voice is muffled by the thin layer of his black sleeveless shirt that does absolutely nothing to hide the muscles of his chest and abdomen. 

“Yeah, but now I’m cold and you’re so warm.” He buries his nose in your strands, not so secretly inhaling your scent as he embraces you tighter. 

Back when you were a kid, you used to have a huge teddy bear plush sitting on your bed. You called it Mr. Cuddlesworth, and you talked to it every night, tangled your limbs around it, and stayed like that until morning. Your mother used to wash it often as you tended to drool all over it, and every time she took it away, you would find yourself staring vacantly at the ceiling, unable to sleep. You only managed to stop being attached to it when your dad accidentally gave it away to your cousin one summer, thinking that you didn’t need it any longer. You were devastated. It almost felt like you lost a family member. You even bought a new one to replace it, the same kind, the same brand, the same color, and size, but it didn’t feel the same. 

Until now. “Mr. Cuddlesworth,” you accidentally mumble out loud, sighing against the fabric of his shirt. 

“Mr. Cuddlesworth?”

In a desperate attempt to conceal your shame, you bury your face deeper in his chest. Eren’s chuckle reverberates deep where you can feel its vibration directly on your skin. “Who’s Mr. Cuddlesworth? Your ex-boyfriend?”

“My teddy bear. But yeah, my ex-boyfriend too, I guess.”

“What, I’m your teddy bear now?”

“Well, you’re big and you’re warm and you’re so cuddly and–” You catch yourself, ending your line abruptly with a pout. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“Holy shit, you need to stop, Princess.” He hugs you in a way a child would hug his favorite doll. “You’re literally the cutest person I’ve ever met. But you’re also so strong and badass at the same time. How is that possible?”

“S-shut up.”

“See? You just got ten times cuter now–ouch, stop punching me! Show Mr. Cuddlesworth some love!”

“Ugh, I actually hate you.”

“And I love you too.” He catches your hand, filling the spaces between your fingers with his. That gentle brush of his lips against your forehead, the way his voice turns delicate, calms you down until you’re back to your previous position. “Wish we could stay like this forever,” he murmurs with his eyes closed, sounding more like a confession than a mere wish. “Just you and me.”

In different circumstances, you might pinch his nose and reprimand him for spouting out corny lines like usual, but right now, especially after what happened the night before, you feel like he’s saying the words you’ve been chanting in your head. So, instead of pushing him away, you rest your forehead on his chest, fingers curling against the front of his shirt as you breathe out, “Me too.”

And that makes him think. “Princess… Did you see the way Reiner…” His voice falters, unsure if it’s okay to continue but he feels you giving him a timid nod.

“They were holding hands,” you echo his thoughts. “They killed themselves.”

“Why do you think that’s the case?”

“Maybe they were too afraid. Maybe they felt it was better to die in their sleep than to have the virus rupture their organs from the inside. Or worse, be turned into one of them.”

Eren grows exceptionally quiet. It takes him almost a minute before he can form a response. “Do you think it’s right for them to do it?”

“No,” you say, and you feel guilt residing within you from telling such lies, as it was the same option you had considered taking months ago. “I think it’s wrong that they gave up before they tried to fight back.”

“Maybe the reason why they didn’t fight back is that they couldn’t afford to lose one another.”

“You think it’s better to die with your loved one instead of trying to survive for yourself?”

“I think it’s an understandable choice,” he answers. “It’s a nice way to die.”

A nice way to die? You feel your heart plummet to your stomach. Exhaling heavily, you rest your palm on his cheek. “Why don’t we just focus on living for now?”

“You’re right.” Eren naturally leans into your touch, lips curving up into a soft smile. “I’m sorry. Shit got depressing real quick, huh?”

For a moment, you consider stopping the conversation there, but there’s this fear that builds up quickly inside your chest, that you need to let out before it starts smothering you. “Eren… You remember what I told you, right?” You question him with your voice and your heart close to breaking. “Do whatever it takes for you to survive. With or without me. You promised me that once, and I want you to promise me that again.”

You can still see it, see the way his whole body is on the verge of screaming, “I would stay with you until the end, no matter what happens,” but his lips are pressed in a tight line, mustering all his willpower to contain the words from breaking free. 

Because you are crying on his chest. Softly, weakly, like a little child trembling in fear. It all comes so suddenly too, startling you both. “Why are you crying?” He strokes your hair a moment before he brushes his thumb against your cheekbone, wiping away the stain. 

The more you feel alive, the more you fear death. The more happiness he gives you, the bigger the pain he’ll inflict when fate cuts your bond for good. And with him sounding like he’d rather die with you than survive on his own, you fear death more than ever. But instead of telling him these words, you fist his shirt and lock your lips together.

Eren, stunned by the action, still has his eyes opened until you part away from him two seconds later. “Princess?”

“Hold me,” you whisper, hand sliding past his shoulder before it rests on his nape. Make me forget about everything. Remind me that at this moment, we’re still alive. That you’re breathing my breath and I’m breathing yours. Drown me with whatever you have until I can escape my fear, just for tonight. “Just… hold me close, Ren…”

Eren lowers his head until the tip of his nose brushes against yours. His hand slips through your strands, fingers tangled and pressed against the back of your skull. You have your eyes closed and so does he, and for a few seconds, you stay in that position with your foreheads glued to each other. Then he kisses you softly on the lips, pouring all his love into that one kiss until he burns you with it. And just like that, he fulfills your wish.

He’s alive. You both are. And you stop thinking about the number of days you have left. Even before the outbreak, everybody has their days numbered, so why should this be any different? All that matters now is that you’re living this exact moment with him where your heart feels so full and your body invincible from the amount of joy that surges through you. 

This. This moment right here. This is what matters the most.

***

AN: Hey, everyone! Thank you so much for reading! Sorry it took me a while to update this, but I hope it's worth the wait 😭 There will be a bonus chapter where Eren's gonna take you out on a date hehe please look forward to it!

Thank you so much Aleks, Coi and Ben for beta-reading this ❤️

Tagging:

@l6ffys @vivi-et @halparkebitch @fwess @littlemochi @thebeardedmoon @didiyogo @coyloves @erenbean @tehehebri @justasketch @infnteen @naiomiwinchester @spiderlingh @doyochii @ahornyenby @aengelren @sakurashell @princess-jaeger @resonancesoul @blrqt @cacapeepee @persyhange @jaegersdiary @erentoes @trashygremlin04 @meed18 @j0livi0ni @snowflake-201 @jaymihawk @eva-gates @claudevonstrukesblog @sofijaeger @rinsie @blanccofiie @ereninbunu @natanialora @khinjito @jaegeriess @watermelon-online @tropicsoda @damselofblueroses @alexackrman @bblgumz @jurrasicpork @erenjaegercult @holycandypizza thanks so much for reading, lovelies ❤️❤️❤️

#eren smut #eren fluff #eren x reader #eren jaeger smut #eren yeager smut #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #eren jaeger fluff #eren yeager fluff #eren x you #eren #eren jaeger #eren yeager #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #never let me go canon

[inkyquince]

Dogboy! PC getting revenge on River for yanking his ears. It hurt, and people laughed and yeah, you managed to snap at him to warn him off, but it doesn't feel enough. Not when you know exactly how playfighting ends with the pack, making sure the other still knows who exactly is in charge. He might be a teacher, but you're the one he should be cowering to.

content warning. male reader is called a dog boy but its implied the reader is the alpha of the wolfpack. very much a noncon turned dubcon, very nasty, and River has a mindbreak at the end. I've been wanting to write each teacher with a dogboy for a while so its fun i got river's out the way first!

So, after school, you stay behind, slipping back into the Maths classroom, where he was faffing about in the supply closet, returning dusty textbooks to the shelves and tucking the calculators back. He doesn't even notice you creeping closer. Weak member of the pack, one that would be left behind at the cave and mounted when the strong ones came back from a hunt.

Your cock gave a twitch in your trousers and you finally stepped into the cramped space, shutting the door loudly behind you. River practically jumped out of his skin and spun around, only to calm at the sight of you.

"Oh... It's you. What-"

He was sharply cut off by you lunging at him, his startled yell muffled in the closet. It was stupidly easily to pin him down, his body untrained and soft compared to yours, and your nightly hunts. Yet he dared to try and to yank at your ears?

"What are you doing! Get off me! Wait till the headmaster hears about this!" River's angry tone was tinged with fear. Normally he'd be fine straightening out unruly students, but there was a feral ferociousness to your actions, pinning him down and draping your body over his.

He froze up at the feeling of your cock twitching in your trousers.

The hot feeling of your tongue, laving over his neck, shocked him out of his stunned horror, feeling the sharp of your fangs dragging over his skin. It paralyzed him, but not with fear. He felt his cock twitch and shame flooded him. This deep, disgusting, hidden side of him shouldn't even be apart of him, and yet is reared its ugly head from time to time, leaving him hard and horrified and refusing to touch himself, willing it to go soft. His own panic at his arousal made him deaf to the sound of unbuckling, his trousers being slide down to his knees, showing his drab boxers.

He was jolted out of his own head when he felt a hot, rough tongue laving over his ass, saliva soaking into the fabric of his underwear.

"S-Stop that this instance!" He struggled to find the authority he used on his class, but his wobbling voice failed him.

You ignored him, gripping his hips in case he fainted like he would do time to time in class. Him being unconscious wasn't going to get him out of his punishment. That's what you thought until your tongue dragged over his balls, and you felt his hard, jutting cock, bobbing shamefully. With an intrigued huff, you grabbed the band of his boxers with your sharp canines and ripped them clean off, making him yelp and attempt to kick you, to no avail.

His cock was fucking tasty. Still slowly hardening, and admittedly, nothing like your virile mutt cock, but still. Full balls, throbbing desperately, probably been a while since they were drained. You drooled at the sight, saliva dripping off your tongue and sliding down his balls, making River shiver. His cock was uncircumcised, which struck you as weird, or at least your human brain thought so. Temple boys are circumcised, but River had his delicious head, dusky pink and dripping, just barely peeking out.

Grabbing the shaft and ignoring his yelp, you hungrily slobbered over his cockhead, not even properly tucking it into your mouth. Dragging your tongue over the sensitive skin, drooling all over it. River can't help but to moan into his forearm, shutting his eyes to try and escape being molested by a dogboy, but it just added to the sensation, your hot tongue feeling too good for him to even comprehend.

The sound of you eagerly stuffing his cock into your throat, the squelching and wet noises should disgust him, they do, they do, but his balls still throbbed with every loud lick. River had never had anyone do this to him before, he himself never even masturbated too much, too afraid of being struck down or found out. This was a horrific wet dream that he swore he wanted to wake up from, but it felt way too deliciously real. Worst of all, he knew he was going to cum like the virgin he was if you continued molesting his cock with your tongue.

You must have felt his balls throb alarmingly, because you finally let his cock fall from your mouth, swaying between his thighs once more, dripping with saliva and precum. River gave a sigh of relief, until he felt something hot, and fat and too big to be your tongue, against his ass.

"S-Stop this now, y-you've done enough. We won't talk a-about this if you- Ah!" River cut himself off with a moan, arching his back as your drooling cockhead shoved into his barely prepared hole, immediately making his knees shake. He would have collapsed fully if you didn't haul his hips up, actually standing up fully, forcing him into a humiliating ass up, face down stance.

You didn't waste a moment. Leaning your head back, you shut your eyes to enjoy bottoming out in this tight, virgin hole. River's loud moan was a surprise to only him. Your warped cock filled him up, but didn't rip him, and the pleasure was already fogging his brain. Precum was steadily dripping down, pooling on the supply closet floor, staining the ugly grey-blue carpet.

"Fuck... Fuck!" River whispered, cussing for the first time since he was far younger and smacked around the head for it. But he couldn't just not use the most applicable word for this.

He was being fucked. He was fucked and being fucked by a student who could fuck well.

The skin against skin slapping sound was wet and loud, barely muffled beyond the door as you fucked your Maths teacher ass open, ruining him a way that no one else ever could. In a way where he couldn't be able to sit down without thinking about the way his ass has been molded to half feral cock, and a voice will always whisper to go tug your ears again.

Your hungry panting was music as he was fucked, almost bred as you asserted your dominance over him in a way that he would never be able to forget. You just groaned out profanity, calling River your bitch, telling him this is what happens to mutts who try and take over as alpha. You were the one in charge, and he could do nothing but groan and moan and agree.

River wasn't going to stop you. His ass being slam fucked until numb, even as the pleasure goes straight to his cock, was ruining him. Fuck, he wasn't going to stop you. Even as your knot swelled and plugged his ass with cum he wasn't going to bat you off, not with his own cock cumming hands free. And even then, as you continued to hump into him, he just welcomed it, much to his horror.

The type of welcome where he'd stare at dog treats at the store, and the type of horror he'd feel as something whispered for him to buy a collar and see how well you'd adapt to sleeping at the foot of his bed, his ass filled with cum and the taste of your cock on his lips.

#river the maths teacher #dol #degrees of lewdity #quincewrites #nsft #big ole apology for how long this took to come out!!

[rickmymanrick]

one rule | chapter five

[rick grimes x original female character slowburn]

series masterlist

summary: glenn and rick try out a new technique in order to survive and reunite with the rest of the group. back at camp, daphne and shane reach an understanding.

notes: god i’m so irritated with my writing in this series. i have the tendency to write too many little details but that changes after this chapter istg. so the style of writing might be a bit strange after this part but if you'd like an idea of what it'll be like, check out my star wars au i'm writing on my main acc. and sorry for the long ass wait. enjoy.

“I’m going to throw the fuck up,” I breathed, trying to control my gag reflex. Rick groaned in response, pushing harder and I gagged again.

“Stop doing that,” Glenn whined. “You’re going to make me throw up.”

“I’m sorry,” I said with watery eyes, trying not to breathe in the scent of rotten guts filling the air. We were all standing before Rick and his axe— staring as he cut a walker’s body in half.

Rick gave one last chop before handing it over to Morales. I did my best not to look at the mush of guts spread all over the floor.

After a heated discussion with Glenn, I’d agreed that it would be safer if I stayed behind, despite how badly I wanted to join him on Rick’s suicide mission to escape Atlanta. So I stayed silent, helping them spread intestines all over their coats with two layers of gloves on.

I’m sure my face was turning violet from how long I was holding my breath but it was either that or vomit all over the place. The texture of the flesh was lukewarm; this walker probably wasn’t even dead for long.

Glenn was beginning to hyperventilate.

“Think about something else. Puppies and kittens,” offered Rick with a grimace.

“Dead puppies and kittens,” T-Dog added in disgust.

I flinched, bracing myself. Glenn whipped around in horror, hurling over his shoulder instantly.

Andrea rolled her eyes and pulled away from Glenn. She fixed T-Dog with a glare. “That is just evil. What is wrong with you?”

“Next time let the cracker beat his ass,” snapped Jacqui.

“I’m sorry,” T-Dog backed away guiltily.

Rick cut in. “Do we smell like them?”

“Hell yeah,” I answered.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you take a single breath in the last five minutes, Daphne.”

I squinted my eyes at Rick.

“It’s a wonder you’re still standing,” he mused.

“Unless you want me to throw up on you and everyone in the vicinity, I’d rather suffocate in silence,” I said stiffly.

“Glenn," I turned around to find Andrea handing off my gun. "Just in case." I didn't argue, knowing if she had returned the gun to its rightful owner, I would've done the same thing. Still, I gave her a glare.

“If we make it back, be ready,” said Rick firmly.

“What about Merle Dixon?”

Rick fished out the keys from his pocket and tossed them to T-Dog.

“Give me the axe,” sighed Rick. “We need more guts.”

After another agonizing round of gut scooping, the two were ready to head out. Glenn glanced back at me with a terrified look. I tried to give him my most confident smile, but inside I was sort of dying too.

I shared one last look with Rick, imprinting both of their faces in my mind just in case. How is he still so handsome covered in guts?

‘You got this,’ I mouthed at Glenn and then Morales promptly slammed the door in my face. I rounded on him angrily.

“We couldn’t risk the walkers seeing us,” he shrugged apologetically.

I sighed, glancing up the stairwell and suddenly remembering Merle’s crazy ass was still up there. Suppressing a groan, I forced my way past Andrea and the others and decided to wait on the rooftop for a better view.

And somehow between the sudden rain pour that fell over Atlanta and Andrea accusing Rick and Glenn of abandoning us, the plan actually managed to work.

I was practically biting my nails, sprinting back down the stairs I came from, leaving Merle and his yelling in the dust. I couldn’t bring myself to give a single shit, only focused on trying to push myself the fastest I’ve ever gone, just so that by some miracle of God I could intercept Glenn before he took off.

He was leading the horde away, distracting them so that we could all get into the van Rick had managed to steal.

I diverted from the course, ignoring Morales and Jacqui’s frantic questions, urging them to meet Rick at the rendezvous. Over the frantic pounding of my heart, I could hear the siren of Glenn’s stolen car, getting closer and closer as I sprinted down a dark hallway, seeing the daylight pouring through the crack of the emergency exit.

With a shoulder shove, I burst through the door, fully bracing myself for a fight against any walker that was in the vicinity...

But it wasn’t the dead that attacked me.

It was Glenn Rhee, slamming into my side hard enough to send me flying towards the pavement feet away. My ears rung a bit and I had to blink a few times to gather my wits, but then I suddenly heard Glenn’s yell and growls getting closer and I forced my body to jump into action.

I swayed a little on my feet, gaping at Glenn who was hanging halfway out the car, staring at me like I’d grown two heads.

Walkers rounded the corner suddenly.

“Holy shit! You crazy fucker!” I yelled, swinging my body to the passenger’s side. I was more than ready to get the hell out of dodge.

“Holy shit,” Glenn repeated, but I could barely understand over his ridiculous guffawing. There were tears streaming down his face, his cheeks bright pink from how hard he was cracking up.

“You hit me with a car. Har har. Hit the fucking gas pedal, chuckles.”

His laughter was contagious, doubled over the steering wheel and I momentarily forgot that Rick and the others were depending on our corny asses to survive.

“Glenn,” I wheezed through suffocating laughter. God, my fucking side hurts but I can’t stop. “Glenn! We got—gotta GO!”

A loud bang made us both jump. Nothing kills the mood quite like a decaying corpse snapping at your car window.

Finally, Glenn hightailed it, sending the car flying with a deafening squeak. I gripped at the overhead handle. As we turned the corner, I barely caught a glance of Rick’s truck, now speeding away from the building.

I slammed my hand into the dashboard twice. “They’re out. Let’s go!”

Glenn didn’t need to be told twice, pushing the car even faster than I thought possible. Impulsively, I rolled my window down and felt the wind cut through my hair hazardously.

Soon, Atlanta was in the rearview mirror and a feeling of elation rushed to my head.

“We’re alive,” Glenn said suddenly, as if he read my mind.

“Cause of you,” I admitted in a rare moment of complete honesty with this asshole.

A sly smile spread across his cheeks and I whipped my head to face him fully. “I take that shit back. You almost killed me back there. I think you broke my hip, Glenn!”

“You look fine,” he denied.

“What do you know? My hip is in fragile condition! I may never be the same.”

“Should’ve looked both ways before you crossed the road.”

“Dude—” I fixed him with a murderous look.

Glenn glanced at me from his peripheral. I stared at him a few seconds longer. We were speeding down the highway, on lanes that were vet eerily empty. But the other side of the highway was a complete other story. I refused to look that way.

A few more seconds of death glaring Glenn satisfied my pettiness and so I began to rummage through the compartments of the car. A nice silence filled the car, just rushing wind and the company of the person who meant the most to me in this fucked up world.

All I could find were old receipts and registration papers. I sighed, “do you think they had any cds— FUCK YES.”

“What?” Glenn demanded quickly.

I flipped the cd around and practically shoved it in his face. He swerved a little— it’s not like there’s anyone to crash into.

“Put that shit on!” He yelled, beginning to smile uncontrollably.

I shoved the disc in and blasted the volume, drowning out the stupid alarm.

“Everybody look at me, me! I walk in the door you start screaming!” We both chorused loudly, feeling the spirit of Nelly Furtado and countless nights at the club fill our veins.

When we finally arrived, speeding over hills and around curves, we clambered out of the car, exhilarated from the drive and feeling the post-high of our near-death experience.

The giddiness rushed to my brain, making me a bit lightheaded as I gave Glenn a playful shove when I made my way to his side.

This feeling nearly made me forget my very pressing issue here at camp.

He came rushing over with a scowl. “What the hell?!” Shane growled at me.

“Holy shit, turn that damn thing off!” Dale yelled, stomping over with his white bucket hat lodged firmly over his hair.

“I don’t know how!” Glenn said, leaning over to fidget with the dashboard in the car.

“Pop the hood please,” said Shane a little more gently than he’d spoken to me.

I gave him a side eye.

Glenn and Dale kept yelling over each other in a panic. An anxiety began to creep over me when I realized just how loud the alarm was. It bounced off every tree; its echo could probably be heard below the cliff we were camped on.

I leaned closer to Glenn. “Hey, pop the hood—“

“Pop the damn hood!” Shane snapped suddenly.

The hood of the car finally popped open and I jerked back to glare at Shane. He was turning away from me, his head shaking and I could tell he was mumbling something under his breath.

The asshole pulled a wire out and the siren stopped.

“Are you crazy, driving this wailing bastard up here? Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?” Shane leaned against the car with an agitated look.

“I think we’re okay,” said Dale.

“You call being stupid ‘okay?’” Shane asked.

“The alarm was echoing all over these hills,” explained Dale. “Hard to pinpoint the source.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled. It’s nice to see someone still has functioning brain cells in this group.

Shane turned to glare at the three of us, hands on his hips, a scowl planted on his face.

“I’m not arguing. I’m just saying,” Dale told him defensively before spinning on both Glenn and I. “It wouldn’t hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time, would it?”

“Sorry,” Glenn shrugged. “Got a cool car.”

“Has some good cds too,” I chimed.

“Nice to know you put us at risk for some cheap music,” replied Shane unnecessarily.

I opened my mouth, ready to fire back—

A rumbling could be heard from a distance. Amy rushed forward, shielding her eyes from the sun, a desperate look on her face. “Is that them? Where’s Andrea?” She turned toward me suddenly. “Is she okay?”

“She’s okay, Amy. We just had to take two cars, s’all.” I reassured.

We squinted against the glare. In the distance, a white truck was rapidly approaching.

“That’s not our van,” observed Shane lowly.

Obviously. I didn’t spare him a glance. I only stared ahead, hoping everyone except Merle was in that damned van. I knew it was wishful thinking though, that man was like a fucking cockroach.

In my peripheral, I saw Glenn glancing between Shane and I awkwardly. “Yeah, um, we had to leave it behind. Found a bigger truck though.”

Maybe I should mention the fact that Rick Grimes was driving the truck and that his partner was alive but my stubbornness kept me silent. And it was only at this thought that a memory resurfaced in my brain.

“Did you see Rick?” I asked quietly, observing Lori and Carl from where I sat on the rock. The pain in my thigh had dulled just a bit.

Shane glanced up from my leg, looking through his eyelashes briefly before quickly directing his gaze down again. He continued to wrap gauze around my wound.

“I did,” he said hoarsely. I waited with bated breath, but he said nothing more.

“Did they transfer him to Atlanta General?” I asked, not sure I even wanted to know the answer. The horrific sight of the dead on the highway was seared into my brain. The screams stopped hours ago; now all that could be heard was silence and a faint growling from the deserted highway.

“He’s gone,” Shane stated stiffly.

“He’s…?”

“Dead.”

I stared over at little Carl Grimes who sat next to his mother silently, observing how to light a small log fire. A lump formed in my throat, but I cleared it with a sniffle. There was no going back to the way it was before. I had to toughen up and accept it.

“Okay,” I lamented, forcing the grief back into the depths of my mind.

Shane finally looked up, brown eyes looking intensely into my own. “Okay.”

Hours later, I sat alone, like I did most nights I couldn't sleep, legs pulled up to my chest and staring at the dark outline of the city. It was brighter than usual this night, a full moon hanging high over our heads.

I traced each building I could see, wondering if Merle was atop one of them, cursing each of us to hell.

This evening was... eventful, to say the least. The Grimes family reunion went as expected, full of tears and embracing. I had to look away after a few seconds, feeling that stupid guilt churn in my gut, especially when Lori kissed Rick on the crown of his head.

And then I saw Shane, acting stranger than usual, a forced smile on his face after the shock of seeing Rick had worn off. He'd glanced at me the second it had processed in his brain who was driving the van, a mixture of shock and something else behind those brown eyes.

I imagined he felt betrayed I hadn't spilled it to him as soon as Glenn parked the car. Maybe it was a bit petty but his behavior towards me was setting me off. We hadn't worked so hard to make a living, just for a misunderstanding to destroy the bond we had.

I scoffed at the thought, glaring at the dirt.

Slow footsteps in the grass crunched behind me and I curled my fingers around my knife.

"'You barely got them out?'" I said monotonously. At the campfire just about two hours ago, Rick had expressed his undying gratitude to Shane. After Shane explicitly pointed out that he'd saved them. He was the reason the Grimes family was whole again.

I heard a sigh and Shane rounded the corner, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since last night. "It was a lot to explain."

"We had time," I pushed a little stone I found in the trunk around. "I'm not asking for credit. I would do what I did without hesitation if I had to again. But you haven't acknowledged me once since last night."

It was silent. I refused to look back up, tired of his mood swings.

"I...I haven't been fair to you," said Shane quietly. "I'm sorry. I just-- I've been working through some things. Feelings. You didn't deserve the way I'd been treating you."

I hated that confrontation made me overly emotional. I tried to swallow down the sudden lump in my throat. That's the thing-- maybe I did deserve it.

I wanted to say something, speak up for myself, maybe yell at him for giving me such a goddamn headache. But the lump in my throat kept me painstakingly silent.

“…Daphne?” Shane asked very quietly. It was barely a murmur, but my trained ears caught it.

I cleared my throat and whispered, “okay.” Outrageously angry at myself for not finding the strength to give him a piece of my mind.

It was silent for a few long moments.

“I’ll..." He cleared his throat and puffed out his chest a bit. "I'll take the night shift. You go get some rest. You’ve had a long day, Lara Croft,” he tried to joke awkwardly. I didn't laugh, so conflicted on my feelings for him.

On one hand, he’s the man who has been with me since before the fall and even through it. We’ve been forced to fight and survive together. Fight for each other. Other than Glenn, he’s the only friend I’ve got.

But god we fucked it up so bad last night. I fucked it up. I could sense his apology was sincere and life was too goddamn short to hold onto grudges.

And my back was starting to kill me after getting smacked around by Glenn's stolen car.

“Thanks,” I whispered, accepting his offer and hopping off the jeep. I looked at his fluffy brown hair and his eyes that were suddenly much lighter than they had been in all day, despite the darkness of the night.

The anger was still there, simmering and bubbling in the pits of my stomach, but with one deep sigh, I spun on my heel and made my way to Glenn and my tent, deciding to just deal with it tomorrow--

A whisper traveled across the path.

"For what it's worth, it's always been you."

I froze, straining my ears to convince myself I hadn't just made it up.

"I don't wanna fight. But it's your call. Daphne, I need you... and-and I'll take you however I can have you, Ayala."

An even larger lump formed in the base of my throat. My lungs burned furiously and I realized I'd been holding my breath all this time. I willed myself to respond.

"I need..."

What did I need?

I frowned in confusion. My heart was telling me one thing, but my brain was convincing me of another. There's no reason to deny myself this attention, this man who has clearly pined after me for so long. And because of my silly crush on Rick Grimes, I'd never given him the time of day.

Now Rick's back and I have to co-exist with his family.

I turned my head to glance at him over my shoulder. He was standing by the jeep still, a hand on his holster and another scratching at his scruff.

Maybe... I should've given Shane Walsh a chance so long before the world went to absolute shit.

Maybe... maybe I can give him a chance now.

My stomach turned with the possibility of just allowing myself to be loved. But my anger very much still brewed silently.

"I need time," I said honestly. I forced a small smile. Not a yes, but certainly not a no.

A puff of air left his lips, I heard it even from this distance away.. It was full of a flattering sort of relief and I found myself shocked that my ears began to tinge with heat.

Spinning away before he could say anything else to fluster or anger me further, I rushed back to my tent, that tight lipped smile slipping into an easier one.

The next morning, I woke up earlier than I expected, my anxiety at an all time high.

Glenn was still snoring on his side of the tent, flat on his back and his mouth hanging open just a little.

I took the opportunity to change into a fresh set of clothes and brush my teeth quickly before trekking into a part of the woods I'd discovered a week ago. It wasn't too far, a few minutes into the trees, but far enough to be able to take a breath of air without someone lurking about.

The trek had a greater purpose though; within its bushes, a patch of blueberries grew untouched. I'd been going back to check on it every morning and now, I was hoping it was ready enough for picking. The thought of surprisingly Carol and Sophia with some jam put a little pep in my step.

So I began my slow search, carefully inspecting each berry to make sure they were edible.

My peace was interrupted sooner than I expected. There was a major scuffling within the trees and my heart leaped to my throat, freezing in place as I tried to calculate who it was coming from and where.

I was hunched over, ready to leap and attack a walker if need be. The footsteps got louder and I steadied the grip on my weapon.

"Merle was a danger to us all," I heard Shane's voice travel across the trees. My heart jumped to my throat. I'd been avoiding the thought of him since I woke up.

"You don't know what you're talking about," grumbled the voice of Daryl Dixon. Through the low bush, I saw a group of three approaching.

I held my breath, surprised Daryl hadn't throttled Rick already.

"What I did was not on a whim," said Rick. "Merle does not work and play well with others."

“He’s my brother,” Daryl insisted, more angry than I had ever seen him. Maybe, he did throttle him. Shane must've pulled him off because there was red marks from a struggle on his neck.

My cheeks burned, my heart stupidly fluttering just because I'd finally come to terms with allowing myself to feel something for him. I realized a tiny smile started spreading across my cheeks and quickly shut that shit down. I glared at the ground to gather my bearings.

Now was not the time for girly high school shit.

Shane shook his head. “I understand that this is difficult but—“

“No, you don’t understand. Y’all don’t have a brother here!” Daryl threw his hand up and began to storm away.

“I do, Daryl. I do.” Rick said. Daryl turned around with a sneer, and Rick glanced back at Shane fondly.

I became confused when Shane’s face twisted into an uncomfortable expression, more of a grimace than a brotherly smile, a tense nod given to Rick in return.

Daryl scoffed.

“Oh really? Does a brother fuck your wife?”

OHHHH SHITTTTT. unedited as fuck btw

next chapter >

#rick grimes x reader #rick grimes x daphne ayala #rick grimes x oc #rick grimes x original female character #the walking dead #shane walsh x original female character #the walking dead fanfic #twd #rick grimes #glenn rhee #the trail of annihilation #twd fanfic #shane walsh x reader #original female character twd #mgparker #rickmymanrick

[polyamorouspunk]

ok thank you for explaining! i think im still a little confused bc i thought clicking the "dont show mature content" toggle or however its phrased is how you curate your dash just in case someone reblogs someone they dont usually reblog? like for example if a blog that normally posts cute stuff reblogs something horror themed you can make sure not to see it instead of having to unfollow the cute blog? and thats different from blocking tags because the cute blog might not tag that post as violence or death or w/e even if the original posting person did? but i think maybe i just dont understand smthing about the site and ill figure it out by using it more. it took me a while just to figure out that reposting and reblogging were referring to different things so i spent a long time thinking that reblogging someone's art was bad here lol. thank you again!

If you mark a post as mature it hides it from everyone who has that setting enabled. If someone marks my post as mature it essentially black lists it. So if you think “I don’t like this I’m going to mark it mature” you have marked it mature for every single user on this platform. You have taken someone’s content and added a “Do Not Go Here” sign to every single user on this platform, not just you. If you don’t like a topic (we’ll use horror as an example) block the tag instead and then on your dash any horror that comes up will not be visible for YOU and only YOU. Adding a community label makes it the poster’s problem and blocks it for EVERYONE, not just you.

#punk gets mail

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Reassembly Required

For: @berry-berry-blu @faeriekit @dykesville @idiot-cheesehead-archenemy ghxstkids @nat-space-obsessed @fan-dot Cake @carelisswriting @redactedgoose @jessaverant

For ghosts organs are optional, bones are optional, skin is optional, limbs are optional, heads are optional. Meaning that: head, shoulders, knees, and toes; all these pieces certainly must go!

Valerie just really hates jigsaw puzzles now.

Okay, Valerie is dealing with some shit right now. Not the normal kind of shit either… well it was still ghost related just not in the way it normally was. Decidedly not. And she’s not entirely sure what to do about that fact alone. Another fact she’s not sure what to do about is the fact that she is currently helping, yes helping, a ghost. Actually helping, not just being battle buddies. Sure it’s Phantom she’s helping and he or it or whatever was… okay… okay-ish. But he’s also why she even does everything.

Good-ish behaviour or not Phantom’s still a ghostly menace.

And here she is.

Helping he/it.

She’d question why but well, it would be pretty messed up of her to not help someone/something, anyone/anything, who had somehow survived -if being still dead but not gone counted as surviving- being fucking dismembered (who does that to someone?!?!?!?) and having its/their parts ‘conveniently’ wrapped/stored into a bunch of garbage bags.

She hadn’t even realized it was Phantom in there. But vaguely squirming black bags plus suspicious looking men -who were not in white suits- was a damn good cause for concern, and for theft of said vaguely squirming bags.

On that note, did you know that apparently disconnected ghostly body parts just squirmed and wiggled on their own? And were more gooey messy stuff than solid matter? Yeah no, probably not. She definitely hadn’t and would have like to have kept it that way. Instead she had committed vehicular break and enter, with maybe a side of arson, all to wind up finding out that fact when she opened the bag.

She expect kittens, or puppies, or something equally horrible. Horrible but both less horrible and more normal than this. Zone, human babies would have been less startling, much more upsetting though.

You win some you lose some right?

Oh god.

She needs fucking therapy. Especially after this bullshit. Grimacing and having to readjust the repurposed laptop bag strap she’s using to hold down what she thinks is a section of a forearm so she can continue sticking it back on to what she’s absolutely sure is definitely an elbow. She really hates the whole squirming on its own fact.

That… or Phantom is being a dick and is actually conscious and is just messing with her. She’ll end Phantom herself if that’s the case. She doubts it though.

At least she’s got one hand back together, why those whackos decided to remove each segment of finger at each and every joint she will never know. Doesn’t want to know even. Phantom will absolutely tell her though, be he thinks body horror is ‘funny’. Asshole.

Even pretends he ‘forgot’ that that kind of body horror usually kills people to do. With Its stupid, “oh yeah”, line.

Zone why is she doing this for this asshole again? She’s probably going to give herself nightmares, and what’s up with how goddamn gooey everything is? She expected some kind of solid matter, or at least a sturdy internal structure perhaps. But this fucking Jello and jet black semi-solid bone chunks mess might be better, because see, she made a plan -kinda maybe- after she opened up the first bag and was met with a goddamn swear-to-the-zone-and-back toxic green eye staring back at her unseeingly and twitching like people’s eyes do when they’re having chaotic dreams. The fucking whole skull, completely de-skinned because people are CRAZY, and loose teeth really added to the nightmare. All the green made it less nightmarish but oof, she hadn’t been okay with that and still wasn’t. But she has a plan at least.

That plan? Stick all the ‘ends’ together and the ‘bits’ back into or onto whatever they were supposed to be in/on, then all that ecto goo ghosts were apparently actually made of would just, you know, stick back together? Zone she’d seen Phantom just ‘pop’ an arm back on before.

But no. Apparently not. Because now she’s sitting in her room, with a bunch of her-damned and Phantom-damned bags of ghostly body parts attempting to put everything back together with a sewing needle and some thread she scrounged up from her closet. It was a little gross and dusty but surely ghosts can’t get infections from dust, right?

Whatever, Phantom should be thankful she’s doing this for Its sorry ass even if he does get some kind of dust infection.

And fine, maybe, maybe, ghost just being pure ecto, and not having a more proper firm structure like living beings, should have obvious but shes not a damn scientist okay?

“Shit!”, Valarie has to jump up, practically scrambling to catch the now run away hand; abandoning the nearly finished elbow and maybe-half-a-forearm. Having to jump on it to pin it to the ground like a cat after a mouse, “do I have to chase you every time we meet?”, and glares at the hand as she picks it up; it spasms a bit. She hopes that wasn’t some kind of ‘response’. Again, she will end Phantom otherwise.

At least the part she was working on is still secure. Small mercies.

Anyway, where was she? Oh yeah her mild mental crisis about helping Phantom/a ghost that she’s mildly using to distract herself from the fact that’s she sewing together a disturbingly close to human body but like it was made of jello. Phantom could never make things easy on her could it? She’s maybe a little rougher than necessary about ripping open another bag to maybe try and find more arm bits; it’s a serious struggle not to gag. Muttering, “you’re doing the right thing. You’re doing the right thing. You’re doing the right thing”, repeatedly to herself all the while.

Would it be messed up of her to demand a burger after this? Yeah. Probably. But she’s making the spook get her a damn burger anyway because fuck him and his/its unending bullshit.

Besides, what kind of super powerful ghostly maybe-hero gets chopped into bits and tossed into trash bags like something out of a B list gangster film? Her life and his afterlife were in the supernatural genre, zone damnit.

What?

Did Phantom agree to it?

Did It lose a bet with oddly high stakes?

Got caught up in a ghost body part trafficking ring?

Take a nap in a trash compactor that was just missing a lot of teeth?

Grimacing to herself… okay he might actually do something like that, and then finds a genuinely completely intact upper arm. What a blessing.

Ugh.

Well at least all she needs now is the rest of the forearm and she can stick the hand on. Hopefully the arm matches the hand, it might not. Does she really care though? If it still works than no. Phantom can rip Itself apart and slap Itself/himself back together again later, without her involvement, if he’s unimpressed with her workmanship.

She physically sits on the hand, so it can’t escape again, as she gets to work stitching the upper arm onto the elbow. Well she would get to work if the damn elbow would stop flailing and bending rapidly or occasionally liquifying, “would you goddamn stop that, I’m trying to help you here”, sighing as it just seems more erratic and wiggly, “why is this my life. I hate you so much”.

She winds up having to strap the elbow top down with some electrical tape she found in her drawer. It’s old and clearly not going to hold for long so she absolutely speeds through trying to stitch on the upper arm; it’s sloppy as hell and she doesn’t care.

The tape does indeed not hold and she gets smacked in the chin by the exposed upper portion of the arm for all her hard work. Zone she just feels so appreciated right now.

…

Now she’s also struck by the fact that she’s going to have to clean up her room after this, after Phantom is just leaking and flinging Its fucking ectoplasm goddamn everywhere. It’s in her hair, on her hands, covering the floor, there’s arches and splatters across the ceiling, her bedsheets are a hundred percent a lost cause, and now there’s also definitely some on her chin. At least what’s still sluggishly leaking out of the mostly rebuilt arm is just doing it very slowly; so it’s just kind of drooling out of the end and squirming in gooey strings. Rather than getting actually splattered around.

Electing to shove the hand in an old candle jar to stop any potential repeat runaway attempts before going about searching for the rest of the forearm.

It’s not fun. It’s really not fun. Pretty shit actually. Having to go bag by bag -was eight separate bags really necessary?- and push around mounds and globs of disconnected and disjointed ecto-flesh and ecto-organ soup (or maybe just organ-like things, she’s pretty sure ghosts do not have organs of any kind at all) hoping to find the particular bit of ecto-flesh that she’s actually looking for. Since spreading everything topour out on the floor was a bad idea for so many reasons, the hands escape attempt being one. Plus, that tactic didn't work with ikea furniture, it wouldn’t work for people… or ghosts in this case.

…

It was in with the, ugh, head bag. Which was the last one she checked. The one she most wanted it to not be in. Seeing a goddamn SKULL and eyes, unseeing or no, was a couple of notches past more disturbing than she’s honestly all that willing to put up with. Even for the maybe-good maybe-hero that is Phantom.

Frowning at the bit of forearm, “but if this was reversed, he’d do this for me without hesitation”, shaking her head, “ugh. Stupid idiot”.

If he wasn’t a ghost… she probably couldn’t bring herself to hate It at all. That had to be hypocritical of her, right? Plus she definitely wouldn’t piece back together someone she actually hated, Zone, she’d find a water bottle full of old piss and dump it on Vlad’s exposed parts before helping him out; maybe shake the piss filled bags around a little. So maybe she didn’t hate Phantom, he was okay, definitely okay enough to not be left as a collection of Bits & Bites™ mixed in with broth to make Campbells Chunky Soup™.

Scowling at herself and then glaring at the forearm to forearm sticking she’s doing, “Zone damn it Phantom, you’re corrupting me”. Morbid humour can’t be healthy, regardless of Phantom’s love for it. He’d never let her live it down if It knew she had referred to It as a snack food that’s just a bag full of a random collection of other snack foods mixed in with soup. You know. Like how he was currently bags full of a random collection of body parts and liquid ectoplasm.

At least the forearm being actually securely tied down, regardless of the upper arm still flailing and wiggly madly, makes the reattachment go smoothly enough.

Okay. So. The hand…

She chooses to just wrap some of the bedsheet around the hand to keep the fingers from flailing and scratching anything before putting hand stump to forearm stump and getting to work. She is very thankful that all Phantom’s parts are currently doing is random movements and not, like, randomly shooting off ecto-beams or making ecto-ice. She’s not foolish or prideful enough to think she’d actually survive being in an enclosed space with Phantom, with any part of It, randomly sending off attacks in random directions. She’d never realized how much he was holding back when she was young, when she first started, but she sure as shit figured that out after seeing the state he left Vlad’s -ugh- lab in.

It is definitely weird that that makes her feel better about the spook though. It could obliterate her and everyone else yet actively made a point to not hurt anyone intentionally or directly. Still did though, because he was a dumbass and also because she was, admittedly, over aggressive.

Right now though, she thinks it’s his hand and arm that are being ‘over aggressive’. Watching the fully reattached thing smacking itself into the floor with audible thumps. “The downstairs neighbours must hate us”. They did. They complained. A lot. Or they used to, until she bitched to Phantom about it during patrolling down time, after said neighbours had stabbed a broom into their roof to ‘make her quiet down’ so hard it punctured through her floor. Apparently Phantom ‘haunted their asses’ for three days and infected their fish tank with ‘signal signs’, she did not ask for an explanation. You know, that whole thing about gift horses and mouths.

Speaking of mouths, that is the last part Phantom’s getting reattached; for obvious reasons. Zone he could just never shut up; and trying to make him shut up just made the ghost more talkative.

She should do the other arm right? She got one figured out so round two should be assuredly easier… hopefully.

And it actually is. Weird. It’s just in two whole halves, an upper and a lower. Left arm? Maybe? It would make sense because if Phantom was defending Itself -which he damn well should have been- It most likely would have used Its right arm more to do that… meaning more damage would be done to the right arm.

…

If that’s the case she definitely attached the wrong hand. Shaking her head and shrugging, “Oh well. Phantom’s problem”. The only real downside to the more intact chunks is they’ve got a little more power, or energy maybe, to thrash around with. Little less ecto leaking though, an alright trade off really. Plus she still has to deal with another hand, which she is not looking forward to at all. Though wait, if the fixed hand was so turbo fucked then it has to be the right hand, because why would a mangled hand be attached to a less mangled arm?

Snaking her forehead, “I’m a dumbass”, sighing, “I can just check which side has the palm and thumb the right way. Ugh”. Getting up and abandoning the mostly stitched back together arm, which starts bouncing around on the ground gurgling out ectoplasm, to check the hand.

…

It’s the wrong fucking hand. Why is her luck such horseshit? Why is Phantom’s luck such horseshit? Why didn’t she have the brain cell required to actually check before attaching the hand?

Whelp, she ain’t fixing her fuck up now. But maybe she won’t attach the other hand to the obviously wrong arm; Phantom can deal with it.

… Unless she needs to put him back together completely for his sorry ass to wake up. That would be just the cream on top, wouldn’t it. Either way she goes back to finishing the other arms stitch work; which thankfully doesn’t go horribly and doesn’t get her smacked in the chin again. Which fine, might because she was on guard for a repeat offence this time.

Standing up after using her desk leg to sort of pin down the arm, putting her hands on her hips and eyeing the bags, “okay, legs; since I’m making the second hand Phantom’s problem”, grimacing, “and because I am deeply disturbed about what I’m going to have to deal with with the torso, and the head is, frankly, too freaky without shotgunning at least one Redbull™”, frowning more, “and maybe cracking open a Monster™ too, for good measure”. She just mildly hates this entire situation.

…

Scratch that, she aggressively hates this ENTIRE situation. She found feet skin. FEET SKIN. Fucking. Hollowed. Out. Floppy. Feet. Skin.

Who does this shit to someone??????? What the fuck???

Sure. Maybe. Phantom’s ’feet skins’ -Zone fucking Hell why- are more… boot? skins? Its feet outer ectoplasmic shell was just white boots after all, but still DISTURBING. What is she even supposed to do with this? Scowling, “Woe to those men. Dishonour on you, dishonour on your cow. Fuck”.

…

Now she has to go garbage bag digging for probably mushy feet innards. Fun. Exactly how she wanted to spend her afternoon. Groaning and looking back into the bag with the… feet skin and hoping it’s at least in the same damn bag.

Glaring down at the actually intact feet innards sludge, “I am currently thankful you are one of the weird ghosts that actually likes to maintain the illusion of bones, holyshit”. The black feet and toe bones ‘appear’ to be holding together the innard ectoplasm of his feet. It’s weird, vaguely solid-ish and needlessly gooey all at once. But regardless she gets up with that nightmare in hand and grimaces at the feet skins, this was gonna suck.

She now has the ‘fun’ task of stuffing wriggling feet ecto-innard goo and ecto-bones inside of pulsating feet/boot ecto-skin, like she’s putting on a seizing persons decidedly gushy and grippy socks. She has to stitch it on some since it’s not just snapping into being attached and, unlike socks, is not made of body hugging elastic.

The feet go in the candle jar immediately.

Wheezing to herself and shaking herself off some, “that might have been the worst thing I’ve ever done”, and shuddering before resuming looking for legs.

…

She doesn’t find legs. Like, at all. No thighs. No hips. No shins. No calves. No knees. Nada. You know what she does find though? A ghost tail. Yup, a full ghost tail. Which makes zero sense. Picking up and making faces at the surprisingly completely limp -though vibrating randomly- noodle-like thing, “how do or did you have both feet and a tail? What the Zone, Phantom?”. Better yet why couldn’t he have just had the tail? So that she wouldn’t have had to go through the crap she just did?!?!?!?!?!?.

… well at least it’s whole and intact. Fuck her life.

This unfortunately means it’s either torso or head time. Neither of which she wants to deal with. Especially not after that bullshit. What if she puts his goddamn face skin back on and the eyes in and everything and he just starts talking to her??? Yeah nope, not dealing with that. Not a chance. Yes if Phantom did do that It might be able to explain shit that she honestly doesn’t actually want explained but morbid curiosity is a thing, or be able to provide some advice on what the heck she’s doing.

Cause frankly?

She doesn’t know if she’s actually doing any of this shit right. Zone she already maybe put on the wrong damn hand!

She refuses to deal with his bantering though. Big ol’ fat no. An even bigger, fatter, ‘No’ if It banters while Its head is still detached from a torso.

So torso reconstruction it is. Meaning organs. Ugh. And considering she knows what bag the head, it’s skin, and the eyes and teeth, are in; she actually can just dump everything else, at this point her floor can go fuck itself. Anything that wiggles or squirms too much goes back in its plastic confines as punishment.

Valerie drops the tail and turns on the rest of the -head free- bags, dumping them in a messy pile unceremoniously. It’s a mess. It’s disgusting. It’s writhing and dripping and squelching. It’s a lot of things. Mostly it’s a mass of maybe-bones, maybe-organs that are maybe whole, and ecto-flesh; ectoplasm leaking and dripping in and out (somehow) of the squishy jello mound.

Her blinking, “… maybe making a fucking flesh mound wasn’t the best way to go about this, dear zone”. Breathing and massaging her temples, “okay. Okay. Let’s see. Uh”, sighing and dropping her hands, “drag out the outer ecto-flesh, hope it’s entirely intact even though I damn well know it ain’t gonna be. If it’s not intact then, fuck, try? to piece it back together like a very disturbing flesh puzzle”.

Not only is the flesh not intact -big surprise there. Not- but it’s also still connected to random bits of innard ectoplasm. Some is still connect to ecto-bone even. Even worse some of the innard ectoplasm and ecto-bone is also connected to other innard bits; making basically strings and webs of semi-solid mangled nightmare mess. She’s has precisely zero chance of figuring out what everything is and where everything goes.

Shoving everything around on the floor and throwing her hands up, “I give up on making sense of any of this”. So here’s the new plan, stitch the skin back together at random with mild attempts to make things straight-ish and aligned-ish; while giving very little fucks about how nice it looks since it will all probably have to be removed and redone.

By Phantom. Not her.

Who knows maybe he has experience stitching Itself back together from head to toe, he gets hurt enough that it’s possible… she pities him sometimes honestly. Like he’s out there doing the whole sorta heroing thing and getting shit kicked beyond shit kicked for it. Sure so was she but she didn’t get de-limbed vaguely regularly, not to mention this whole mess.

Lifting up a very square section of ecto-flesh, watching the stringing connections to what seems like a rib or half a rib, it warbles and makes a groaning noise. Valerie drops it immediately, whisper muttering, “what the fuck, Hell no”, a couple times. She does swallow and keep working on stitching together different pieces though, she’s not letting freaky ghost shit stop her from doing what she’s decided she’s going to do. Being extra freaky or not.

Unfortunately that is not the last time she encounters random moaning… stuff. She drops every single piece that does it and moves onto a different part every time.

And then the apartment door opens, or sounds like it does at least, making her freeze. Okay, alright, two options. Option one: they’re being robbed. Unlikely but possible, very unfortunate for the robber though because she WILL fuck their shit up while actively covered in gore. Option two: her dad’s home. Technically safer but ho boy, not good. He might be… alright more or less with her chosen profession, at this point. But being okay with your daughter kicking ghostly ass and occasionally getting slightly hurt was entirely different than walking in on your daughter reconstructing what’s practically a goo ghost corpse; a ghost corpse of the well-loved, highly respected, and celebrated town hero. Also her room looks like a fucking nightmare, Zone she probably looks like a fucking nightmare.

There’s the sound of keys being hung up, shoes being dropped on the ground before tucked away, the fridge being opened and closed, the coffee machine starting up, and a loud sigh. Yup. It’s her dad. She is so fucked. The vaguely more person-shaped mound seemingly agrees and moans from some part of Itself; the squelching is louder than the moan yet unfortunately less disturbing.

“You home, Sweetie?”.

Valerie swallows, yes or no? He’ll want to check in on her room either way so maybe if she tells him to, ugh, not come in then he’ll listen. Or he’ll make her at least come out and see him so he can see she’s fine. Normally it was just mildly inconvenient but made her feel warm and happy inside, but right now she’s positively covered in ectoplasm and bits of ghost flesh; if she was injured he wouldn’t be able to freaking see it past the ecto.

Which fine, that might have covered her from his worry more than once but Phantom always noticed because apparently blood had a noticeable smell, a thing she chooses not to think about too much.

Ah fuck it, if he comes in that would be worst case scenario here, “I’m home!”.

Apparently the downstairs neighbour has something to say about that, “I KNOW! I HAD TO PUT DOWN A GODDAMN BUCKET TO CATCH ALL THE GODDAMN ECTOPLASM DRIPPING DOWN FROM YOUR GODDAMN FLOOR! SORT YOUR SHIT!”, followed by a, “please don’t get me haunted again!”.

Okay, she can’t help but chuckle nervously at that. Damn it. But… glancing around and right yeah, all she did to fix that ‘hole’ was throw cardboard over it. Cardboard that is fuck soaked in ectoplasm now. Whoops. She’d apologize but that would just make those folks feel more bold to yell up through the floor.

“Valerie…”. Now her dad sounds unimpressed and concerned, more unimpressed than concerned; good.

Her vaguely attempting to squish around the person-ish mound -she thinks she actually managed to get one shoulder looking actually right, go her- so it looks slightly neater and maybe to get it to stop bubbling? and weakly flinging itself around in sections. “I’m fine, dad. I’m just, ugh, patching up Phantom”, muttering, “stupid ass ghost”, under her breath and very specially at the blob. The arm with a hand picks that moment to free itself from the laptop bag strap and spastically bounce wiggle itself into the ceiling with a wet thwack. Valerie glaring, “thanks Phantom, I definitely needed an entire arm and hand print on my goddamn ceiling”.

“Oh? It’s not too bad is it? Do you need help? Him?”, he sounds closer to the door now; she’s seriously praying he does not come in. Let her, and Phantom honestly, have that little ounce of luck.

Hurriedly responding, “no, no, no, no help necessary. But, it is bad, dad”, wincing, “I think he’ll be fine since he hasn’t started fading or anything”, muttering quietly to herself, “I have no clue how though”. Because really? How was this in any shape, way, or form, survivable to any degree? “You don’t have a protective suit or anything so you definitely should not come in”. Please let him listen to her, please let him listen to her, please let him-

“If you’re sure, I don’t like the sounds of that though and you know it. Once you do have him patched up, I want to see both of you just for my own peace of mind; okay?”.

She knows damn well she can’t get out of this one, but Zone does she wish she could. Plus she doesn’t exactly know how possible that will be for Phantom. Even if she had somehow by some miracle actually managed to put the ghost back together again perfectly, which she clearly didn’t, there’s no way It wouldn’t still be hurt and exhausted and whatever else. He’d probably want to go see that doctor he’s said he/It has; that still baffles her some. Ghosts having fucking doctors. Sighing to herself, “okay. Can’t guarantee Phantom will be super up for a chat though”.

…

“Based on him not making some joke I’m guessing he’s unconscious?”.

Valerie winces, over both the comment and the fully intact arm plus hand practically slapping into the torso flesh mound, “yes?”.

Thankfully her dad sighs, “I’ll be in the living room then. I will check in every hour on the hour though, missy. And I will come in there if I don’t get a response”, and sounds like he’s walking away from the door.

… So looks like future her and future Phantom will have that problem to deal with. After dealing with the current, much more dire and insane, one.

Sighing and frowning, she pries the spasming arm hand out of the torso mound, “stop hitting yourself, you idiot. That’s my job”. She gets the hand arm tied back down onto one of her bed legs, at least the other arm -still sans a hand- was still pinned down by her desk. And the-

Shit.

The feet escaped their candle jar jail, Zone damn it.

Standing up abruptly and looking around, “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Where did you go you stupid bastard”. Getting down on her knees to check under the bed, yup there’s a foot, it’s kicking her wall, flopping over, flailing, and spasming up and down like a goddamn game glitch. “Every single part of you is unnecessarily dramatic, Phantom. Now come here you”. Today was going to give her extremely unique nightmares. Like a mob of mildly sentient feet attacking her from beneath her bed. Hooray for probably eventual insomnia induced creativity.

The foot goes back in the jar, her putting a desk weight on top of it for good measure while she hopefully goes to find the other missing foot.

She spends a good twenty minutes almost ripping her room apart, no foot. Okay so either it A) dissolved, a very bad omen. Or B) it’s successfully hidden itself and Phantom will have to find Its own shit. Or, and this is the really shitty option, C) its escaped the apartment entirely and has begun terrorizing the other tenants or random people on the street with its mere existence; meaning she’ll have to hunt down Phantom’s dismembered foot, which is probably leaving a mild trail of ectoplasm drippings and streaks where ever it is.

As it is she’ll have to deep clean even under her entire bed and the damn wall back there now. Ugh, cleaning everything was going to be a nightmare. Groaning into her hands, “if I get It back together then maybe Phantom can be helpful”, groaning again for good measure before moving back over to the torso mound and blink, titling her head, “I think it’s reconstructed itself? Or rearranged itself?”, well either way it was less horrific to look at. Though watching as some of the stringy connections warble and leak out more ectoplasm from somewhere -how much ectoplasm can one damn ghost have?- before shaping? a bit better; yeah this was still distinctly freaky. Making faces, “are you, er, conscious now? Reforming?”. She gets back the clicks, screeches, warbles, whistles, and static that she knows is ghost speak.

b̶̳͔̝̫̜̖̾̎̿̅͂͒̑͂̕͜ͅà̶͉̠̲̇́̿͑̽͒c̷̘̻̤͍͔̖͍̣̿̔͆̕͠k̶̛̬̤̻̗̄͊̊̔͆͊͑̕ ̸̻̂̃̿̍͗̉̏̕o̶̯̲̙̻̰̳͈̠̣̎f̷̢̰̟̹͝f̶̱̫͌̈́͊͋̇́͝.̷̢̣̥̻̹͚̉̿̈́̊͝ ̴̩̟̙̗̌̈H̷͓̪̳͉̻̄u̶̙̬͈͈̔̾͂̐̃̚̕͠ͅr̸̗̓̚t̸̛͍̱̰̰͍̩̏̈́͆͐͛͛͑͝ͅͅ.̷̫̜̭̤̺̖͍́̌̔̋̅͆̚ͅ ̷͎̟̠̖̲͌̋͛̈́͊̒̊́P̵̪͙̰̲͆̾̿̆a̵͍̙̠̼͕̪̪͑͌̏̿̃́̑i̷̺͈̜̯̩̝̓̆̏̐̊̍͜n̵͕̱̠̗͋̀̇̀͝͝.̶̧̢̱͕̦̀̍̋̆͑̆́͠ ̶̧̓̉̎̂͑͘F̴̧͕̙̥̝̭͚̲̓̽̚͠ḯ̵̜̝̊̈́͐̀̀̈́̾͠x̶͇͇͒̈́��̿̈́͋̂͌.̵̰̀̉̾̓̈́̌͠ͅ ̶̨̥͖̣̱̕Ṣ̷̡͓̗͓̟͈̊̉̓̕ͅt̷̡̪̔͂̌̍̍̀͊̚̚͜ͅạ̸̹̥͕̮̍̓̋̅̐̃̑̔̌y̴͍̭̘̘͒̾ͅ ̴͔͋͗̋̽̂̍ą̴̨̛͚̹̦̜͉̌̓w̴̘̺͓̥̝̩̘̟̓ấ̸̫͕͕̱́̽͒̿͝y̷̙̻͔͚̽.̴̡̀ ̵̖̥̲̦̿̄̎̓͗̾̍͘͠N̶̤̦̝͗̈̒̊̈͗͂͘͘ȍ̸̢̯̤̻̘̥̩͓̒ ̷̜̝̼̗̾̍͜t̸͇͎̩̏̀̀͋o̴̖̓͒̊͗͑ͅǔ̵̘̾͐̿̔̅̇̐̚ͅc̶̡̜̤̼̖̗̲͉̝͂̾ḥ̷͍͉͓̹̗̦̽̊͜ͅ.̷̗̳̝̘̙̦̦̀̊̀̌̀̀ ̴̰̝̣̙͙̟͕́̓̑̀̎Ḙ̷̡̬̗͓̼͚̜̐̃̍̚ͅw̵̥̬̔̂́̕͘

Valerie blinking, glad she’s gotten used to ghosts enough to not instinctually flinch or cover her ears. Not that she can remotely understand what ever was just said or if the mound even actually said actual words and not just random sounds. Phantom would be the type to just make random sounds purely because It could.

Standing up and eyeing the one untouched bag, ugh, “okay if you’re maybe sorting that mess out I guess I have to deal with the… head now”. Maybe she’ll get lucky and he’ll have at least his eyes or skin back where it should be.

Is she that lucky? Of course not! Why would she be?. Closing the bag again and breathing, “yeah okay. Nope”. Walking off to her desk, throwing a glare at the pinned arm before ripping open a drawer and grabbing a RedBull. Promptly stabbing it with a knife, one that isn’t infused with ectoplasm or nano bots or covered in ectoplasm, and shotgunning it; grabbing a Monster right after and cracking it open.

Moving back over to the bag and sitting down, still glaring, putting the Monster to the side and opening the bag up again. It’s still a nightmare but at least it’s a nightmare she’s dealing with while caffeinated now. Officially grabbing out the fucking soft skull and just staring for a beat; there’s squirming squiggly muscles attached to it which is somehow both better and so much worse. It looks like the thing is covered in a mass of writhing green worms and parasites.

“Valerie?”.

Valerie jumps a little, apparently so distracted by Phantoms Zone damned skull that she didn’t hear her dad approach, “I’m still okay and still doing patching up, dad”, eyeing the singular foot in a jar. Naw, it’s better if she doesn’t tell him to search for a dismembered foot; that’ll worry him even more.

“Alright”. It sounds like he’s walking off again.

Shaking herself and looking back to the skull, hopefully this is the only time she’s going to see someone’s skull to any degree. Tilting it and squinting in through an eye socket, the inside of his skull was glowing blue of all things. Is that good? Bad? Related to how Phantom, of all ghosts, wound up dismembered? Sticking a finger in to poke it, which she was actively trying not to think about, and jerking her hand back with a faint hiss; glancing at the ice on her finger. “Alright. Ow. Not doing that again. Point taken, geez”.

Then immediately scrunching up her entire body in a disturbed cringe as the skull vibrates, mouth clicking open and shrieking loudly at her.

She definitely hears her dad rushing over this time, “you okay?”.

Shaking herself off, “yeah, I just pissed Phantom off a little I guess”, cracking her neck and shaking herself off a little more, “dick”.

And then the fucking skull snaps back at her, opening its toothless jaw wide, holy fucking shit. “h̵̙̓ē̶̼ý̸͔ ̷̙͂f̶͎̋u̴͈͊c̴̘̏k̶͎̈́ ̵̳̀y̴̤͂o̶̖̚ủ̸̼ ̷̞̊t̷͎̚o̷̳̊ȍ̵̭ ̷̫̽t̸̮̍h̷̞͂a̵̢̔t̸̫͂ ̴̻̃h̶͙̓ủ̸̼r̸̖̿t̴̪͆.̵̬́ ̸̧̈́W̸̮͋h̵̲̍ǎ̵͉t̴̡̛ ̶̰̽t̶͙͘h̶̬͝ě̷̥ ̷̗̔Ź̶͍ȏ̸̰n̶̮͒ẽ̵̩?̶̺͐”.

She instinctively flings the skull into the ceiling, it falling to the ground, squishing a little, and rolling a bit before she cautiously picks it back up. That… that was vaguely English, she thinks? she understood that. Her dad’s wince is almost audible, “I hope that’s all it was”, before sounding to go back to the living room again.

Then… the skull speaks up again; or Phantom speaks she supposes, “O̷h̶ ̶g̸e̸e̸z̷ ̶w̷h̴y̷ ̴a̴m̸ ̷I̶ ̴a̸ ̸m̷e̵s̴s̵?̷”.

Closer to English, good for him; this is a nightmare. She is having a goddamn conversation with a disembodied skull. “I am deeply disturbed, Phantom”.

Apparently It doesn’t like that response, “W̶h̷y̵ ̵i̸s̸ ̷m̸y̶ ̵h̷a̸n̴d̸ w̶r̴o̶n̴g̵?̸ W̴h̴e̴r̷e̶ ̴t̷h̸e̸ ̶f̴u̷c̶k̷ ̴I̶S̸ ̶m̷y̵ h̵a̵n̵d̸ a̴c̵t̴u̶a̶l̷l̷y̵?̶ W̴h̸y̷ ̵i̵s̸ ̵n̸o̴t̸h̸i̵n̵g̶ at̸t̵a̸c̷h̶e̶d̷?̸ ̴W̸h̷y̸ ̸i̸s̵ ̵m̴y̸ ̸a̵r̶m̵ ̸b̷e̷i̵n̶g̶ ̵s̴t̸a̸b̷b̷e̵d̴ ̷b̴y̵ ̸a̷ ̶f̷u̸c̸k̷i̷n̴g̷ ̶d̴e̸s̷k̴?̵ ̸B̴y̶ ̸t̸h̴e̵ ̵A̶n̴c̷i̷e̷n̷t̸s̷,̵ ̵V̵a̷l̸?̵”. She just stares for a beat, letting Phantom continue, “w̵h̶y̴ ̵d̵o̸e̷s̷ ̴i̷t̸ ̷f̵e̵e̷l̴ ̶l̶i̶k̷e̷ ̸o̶n̷e̴ ̴o̷f̶ ̶m̴y̶ f̸e̸e̷t̴ i̷s̴ ̸b̵e̸i̶n̸g̶ ̴b̵o̸i̴l̸e̵d̸?̵ ̴W̵h̵y̴ ̶d̴o I̷ h̶a̶v̶e̸ ̸f̵o̵u̴r̷ ̶f̵e̷e̴t̸!̵”.

She hopes by ‘four feet’ he means the ghostly tail that’s still laying limp on the floor. “Excuse you, I’ve spent multiple hours stitching you back together like a nightmarish puzzle. Zone I even rescued your sorry ass from the whack jobs carrying you off in garbage bags”. This conversation should be starting with a thank you as far as she’s concerned; she slapped It back together from something that damn well should have ended the ghost.

While the skull stays silent Valerie pulls out the face skin with as few fingers as possible, she might as well have this conversation with a proper damn face and not a freaking skull. Zone. She feels like she’s being judged as she just kind of tugs the skin down over the skull and prods it to move it where it’s more or less supposed to be.

She’s very glad the skin does actually snap or suck back on this time, as if it had never been off to begin with.

…

Phantom’s mouth opens again, the fact that Its still toothless is not a good look, almost as disturbing as being faceless, when combined with the lack of eyes. “D̷i̷d̴ ̷y̸o̴u̶ ̴j̴u̷s̷t̵ ̵p̴u̸l̶l̷ ̵m̷y̵ ̴s̷k̶i̵n̵ ̵b̵a̵c̸k̵ ̸o̷n̷?̵”.

There’s honestly not much she can say to that, “yup”.

“h̴u̶h̵”.

“Yeah”.

“t̷h̶a̵t̸’̷s̶,̴ ̷u̴h̸,̸ ̸p̷r̸e̸t̴t̶y̷ ̷f̵u̴c̸k̴e̸d̴ u̶p̴ ac̶t̵u̵a̵l̵l̵y̴”.

Valerie rolls her eyes, bleeding sarcasm, “you think?”, leaning over to grab an eye with a grimace, she’s got questions about how the actual fuck it’s actively leaking out ectoplasm. It’s completely covering her fingers and dripping down her arm onto the ground. “You’re getting an eye back too”.

“C̴o̸o̶l̶ ̷b̶e̸a̶n̶s̷”.

Valerie gapes a little at him, what the fuck kind of response is that? Here have back your eye that was removed from its eye socket by probable psychos. Oh that’s neat thanks for the solid, man. Stupid stupid Phantom. She basically rams the eye back in without any degree of precision, “screw you!”.

Phantom makes faces as the eye seems to, ugh, resettle. “f̸i̵r̶s̸t̶ ̵y̶o̴u̵ ̴s̵t̸a̴b̸ ̴m̴y̷ ̵c̶o̸r̷e̵,̴ ̵t̴h̷e̴n̶ ̵y̵o̷u̸ ̵s̵t̴a̸b̵ m̷e̶ w̸i̴t̵h̸ ̴m̸y̴ ̶o̸w̴n̸ ̴e̴y̸e̴!̶”.

“You say that like it’s something that regularly happens to people”.

“D̴o̸e̶s̵n̶’̴t̵ ̸i̶t̸”.

Valerie practically growls at the gaul of It, “no! Things that kill people don’t regularly happen to them, you twat!”. Why did Phantom have to be so damn insufferable sometimes. She grabs Its other eye a bit more aggressively than is necessary. “Do you want your other eye back or not”.

It glares at her with Its one attached eye, “N̴o̵t̴ ̴i̴f̷ ̶y̷o̶u̴’̸r̷e̵ ̵g̸o̸i̷n̴g̷ ̷t̵o̸ as̵s̵a̷u̵l̷t̷ /m̴e̵ ̸w̸i̶t̴h̴ ̴i̸t̷ ̷a̴g̶a̷i̷n̴”.

What kind of person or ghost just says ‘naw I’ll pass on having both eyes’??? She absolutely rams the eye in while Phantom shrieks in annoyance at her. Fuck him and fuck his annoyance too.

They just glare at each other for a while before Valerie huffs, scowling, “why am I still holding you, you suck”. Turning and throwing Phantoms head at the torso mound like she’s trying to slam it down.

It makes a loud squishing noise and indents into the torso mound some. Phantom speaking, muffled, “r̵u̶d̵e̶,̶ ̷b̶u̸t̶ ̶a̷c̸c̵e̴p̷t̵a̴b̵l̸e̵”.

She has no idea what he means by that, until the torso mound fucking squirms and starts globulating and reforming grotesquely like something out of a hard core eldritch body horror flick. There’s strings of almost starry gore scrapping against and snapping on to things, definite organs literally slapping into each other, stomach bile? squelching around black ribs in granules before settling, muscle fibre stretching unendingly and almost crushing in bone and ectoplasm. The ghostly tail slithering across the ground like the snake in the garden of eden itself to reattach to the severed lower section of torso, respawning to Its familiar legs; the normalcy of that particular change is more unsettling than it has any right to be.

She is strongly resisting the urge to vomit, it’s a fucking blessing when It’s suit reforms in perfect condition over the torso and neck. Phantoms back arching backwards in a stretch, head and neck craning back then forward then around with loud cracks. It rolls Its shoulders, with nothing attached to them, before looking over Its shoulder back at her, “I̷ ̴a̵m̴ ̵n̷o̴ ̸l̶o̵n̴g̶e̷r̸ ̷b̸o̶d̸i̸l̴e̶s̵s̴”, tilting Its head, “o̸r̸ ̶n̶o̵ ̶l̶o̶n̷g̶e̴r̸ ̶h̵e̵a̴d̸l̵e̷s̴s̷,̶ ̴d̴e̸p̷e̴n̴d̵i̵n̶g̴ ̸o̸n̸ ̴h̴o̶w̸ ̷y̶o̶u̵ ̵l̸o̵o̴k̸ ̵a̶t̷ ̶i̷t̴”.

She almost squeaks at him, “I didn't want to see that at all”. Scratch out everything she said about all the other horrific horror bullshit she’s seen tonight, that was the most nightmarish thing she’s ever seen and she will be having nightmares tonight, Zone she’ll be having them for the next week.

It levels her with a flat glare, “I̴’̴d̴ ̷s̴a̴y̸ ̶s̵o̵r̷r̸y̸ ̵b̸u̷t̸ ̸y̵o̷u̴ ̷p̷u̸n̷c̵h̶e̷d̴ ̴m̶e̴ ̷w̸i̷t̶h̴ ̴m̴y̴ ̶o̸w̸n̵ ̷e̴y̵e̵,̷ ̵t̸w̷i̷c̴e̷”.

She glares back and wheezes in pure disgust. Phantom nodding its head at the strapped down arm with a hand, clearly expecting her to go get it for the ghost. She is having none of that, “get it your damn self, you utter nightmare fuel”. Their glaring match goes on for a bit before she huffs and gets up, unstrapping the hand arm and giving It over by smacking the ghost over the head with it. Phantom managing to bite onto the wrist and muffle growl at her for hitting It; doesn’t stop glaring though, looking from the arm stump to Its shoulder stump then to her.

…

Is it not just going to reattach like the… torso? Fuck her luck, “do you need me to stitch it back on?”.

It nods happily, almost grinning like a damn puppy.

… Guess she’s doing this again, stupid Phantom for being like this. She huffs but does shuffle over to work on stitching the arm, Phantom holding it up with his mouth all the while; at least now it looks like It’s healing is helping the process along now.

Phantom dropping Its wrist out of Its mouth, “n̸i̸c̶e̴”.

Was that almost a thank you or is she hallucinating?

The ghost raises Its eyebrows at Its hand as it opens and closes, flexing, the wrong goddamn way because it’s on the wrong goddamn arm; before just shoving Its hand into Its head.

…There comes a point where disturbing shit just kind of stops being disturbing, you get to point where it’s just ‘ah okay this shit again. Fantastic’ and at least Phantom shoving Its hands into Itself suddenly wasn’t super new behaviour. It keep that thermos in Its stomach half the time for Zones sake. Phantom pulling a blue orb out of the front of Its face is goddamn new though, her watching as It promptly shoves the orb in Its chest.

Then, because apparently It wasn’t done being a pain, the handless arm and jarred foot go intangible, escaping their confines, and zip over to Phantom to reattach. Followed by Phantom biting off Its hand and sort of maneuvering it onto the left arm, right hard reforming from right arm stump out of thin air; the other foot also reforming from nothing.

Valerie blinks, speaking blandly, “well at least I know why I never found the other hand”. At least that means It did actually damage Its dominate hand more. “And what? Too lazy to go get the run away foot?”.

Phantom rolls Its eyes, “har har, I’m not reattached something that’s been basically boiled to a crisp in what I think is some guys stove top pot. Let the have my ecto blood as a broth additive”. She can only nod in acquiescence. Then It gets that stupid soft gentle ‘I care’ look that pulls at her heartstrings, before outright hugging her.

What?

It pats her back gently, “thanks a lot, really. Thanks so much. I’m fine, I’m whole; it’s okay for you to stop shaking now or for you to throw up if you need to-”.

She was shaking? When? How hadn’t she noticed?

“-I can summon you a shock blanket if you don’t have one. Or a soothing tea maybe?”, mumbling more to himself, “I’m sure Nocturne wouldn’t mind me taking some. They’d probably be happy, since they always say both of use are always too stung out and don’t sleep enough”.

She kinda hates that that would probably actually be a good idea, because all of this was all kinds of fucked up and supremely disturbing in every sense of the word; and the energy drinks were coming back to kick her in the ass. Had she even finished the Monster? Probably not. That was a waste right?

Phantom stops hugging her, leaning back but putting his hands on her shoulders, watching her face and tilting his head curiously, “you better? Better enough at least?”.

She fucking throws up right on his lap. Yeah okay, disturbing stomach churning shit, plus apparent mild possible shock, plus nerves about fixing a horrifically injured battle buddy, plus excessive caffeine, was maybe not the best idea she’s ever had. And Phantom be a gentle asshole rather kills her spite fuelled pride.

Her wheezing and whipping her mouth, while Phantom furrows his eyebrows together and purses his lips, “yeah. Yeah that’s- that’s fair. I definitely deserved that”.

“Fuck you”.

Phantom snorts at that but at least stops holding her shoulders. It leaning back on his hands and staring unseeingly at the wall, “I guess you probably want an explanation for the horror show I dump on you”.

Honestly? No. No she does not. That’s reasonable she thinks. Yet a stupid part of her is filled with that stupid morbid curiosity. Also, yeah, she definitely is shaking and she doesn’t know if that’s shock, adrenaline, or caffeine.

…

There’s also a blanket on her shoulders that definitely wasn’t there before. Stupid Phantom. Stupid stupid Phantom. He puts her through a fucking medical nightmare, then a body horror visual metric ton of nightmare, than has the audacity to be nice and kind and gentle. Zone she hates him… that’s a lie obviously but still…

Her swallowing, “the blue orb?”. That was at least something that won’t be horrifying, hopefully.

He grins and his eye light up, clearly happy to not talk about the shit that happened to him which was probably traumatizing, him turning to look back at her, “ah! yeah I guess you would have no clue what a core looks like, huh?”, shrugging loosely, “I’m sure Maddie and Jack have explained them some. Think heart and brain and lungs and bone marrow and everything”, pointingat his chest then to his head, “I moved my to my head to protect it”.

… All she can really think to say to that is, “well at least you protected yourself for a change”.

“Ouch, cut deep why don’tcha?”, and he grins stupidly, laughing a little.

She’s baffled how It can laugh at all after all this bullshit? She somewhat fixed him but everything she ‘fixed’ was things that were done to him. Scowling without any real feeling, “how are you not freaking out”.

His smile wavers a little but he shrugs anyways, “I’ve been through a lot, Val”.

“Don’t call me that”.

It actually winces, “right, sorry”, rubbing Its neck, “though yeah, getting dismembered by a ghost body part trafficking ring was a new, and very unpleasant, one”.

Zone fuck she was joking when she thought up fucking organ trafficing as a why for all this crap. Glaring, “seriously”.

Phantom smirks, “what can I say? It’s an Ancients be damned weird world. It’s tied to some cultural or religious thing, don’t quote me on that, that thinks wearing or consuming ghostly parts and ‘true ghost ectoplasm’ is healing and empowering. Yeah, it’s fucked up”.

Both of them jump at her dad suddenly interrupting on the other side of the door, “still okay in there?”.

Phantom just looks confused while Valerie shakes herself off some, “yeah dad, Phantom just came back around and is, you know, explaining”.

The man’s relieved sigh is extremely audible, “good. Good. Remember what I said though, you and me and Phantom and tea. Okay?”.

She sighs, “yeah, I know”, and starts pulling off the blanket to fold on her lap. Fuck she’s exhausted and doesn’t want to deal with this, but it’s her dad and she doesn’t want him to fret. Meanwhile Phantom is glancing around and eyeballing the ectoplasmic mess straight out of a slasher flick and wincing; eyeing her up and down and again wincing. She knew she looked a mess alright? No need to be a dick about it. Besides, he looked worse. So much worse, holy fuck.

Her dad humming, “good, will you both be out soon?”.

Phantom clears his throat, “yeah sure, I wouldn’t call myself super presentable quite yet though, so give me a beat, yeah?”.

“Of course! No worries, just sooner rather than later. Please”.

Both of the local town heroes wince at that, giving matching, “okay”’s before her dad walks away again. Her eyeing Phantom as he stands up with a bit of a grunt. Her frowning, “are you good?”.

His laugh is a little bitter and hollow, “I’m one part reformed mangled flesh soup and one part enough stitching to make me a patchwork doll. Not a chance in the entire Zone am I ‘okay’”, him kneeing down by some of the ectoplasmic mess, “but I’ll be okay, eventually. And there’s a gnarly mess to clean up and a worried father to placate”.

She blinks at him, confused, “mess to-?”, and cuts herself off at seeing all the ectoplasm splattered and smeared and coagulated around start pulsing and flowing to and seemingly inside of Phantom. What the actual fuck??? “What the fuck Phantom”.

The ghost shrugs, not looking back to her, “yes I can reabsorb my lost ecto, it’s just really not efficient or worth the effort. I produce and absorb ecto quick enough to replace whatever I’ve lost that it’s redundant to absorb what I’ve lost”.

Valerie shakes her head and forces herself to get up too, “what a technical way to say you’re over powered”. Which results in his cheeks instantly lighting up green, much to her amusement. He’s… actually okay-ish by some fucking stroke of pure luck.

Phantom clears his throat and points at her, making general gestures to her entire body, “well, ah, Amity’s also my lair so that helps”.

She scowls at It, “fuck you, again”, sighing and glancing down at herself, “if you think I’m going down and having tea with my father while covered in your ectoplasm, you’re kidding yourself”. At least he chuckles at that before poking her and seemingly absorbing his ecto. Fucking small mercies she guesses, since she wasn’t sure what to even do about the mess at all. “Some dripped down into Karen and Kevin apartment, they were bitching”.

“Fuck Karen and Kevin”.

She snorts at that which just results in both of them chuckling a little manically. Phantom gesturing to the door, “shall we?”, then shaking his head, “we need therapy”.

Valerie shakes her head to but moves towards the door, “so much therapy”. “Hey I’m supposed to be the issue, stop copying me”; there’s too much genuine sadness in than to make it really passable as a joke. At least the jackass wasn’t floating or anything, that always made him feel a little less inhuman; which was probably the point. That and the ghost was apparently still right shit, as he fucking deserved to be after the crap he just put her through.

Damian smiles and waves at both of them as they enter the living room/kitchen/dining room area (small apartments, am I right?), “so what do you want, I’ve got elderberry, chamomile, lavender berry….”.

As he continues to list on, both smile at him, it’s a little faked and the calm postures are a bit forced, but it’s something. Something tells her that Phantom’s is just a little bit less faked than hers though, which… just makes her pity the ghost more.

End

#danny phantom #phandom #phic phight #phicphight24 #danny #valerie gray #damian #poor danny #gore #blood and gore #dismemberment #stitching #reassembeling a sorta corse #injury #characyer injury #fan fic #phan phic #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker #gothmoth

[peachymilkandcream]

Fraud | Part 11 | Yandere All Might x Hero!Reader

(A/N: Slowly we're going into each and every one of All Might's previous victims before reader, I think you'll enjoy the journey and I hope you enjoy! Comment to be added to the taglist!)

WARNINGS: noncon, dubcon, manipulation, domestic abuse, yandere themes, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, stockholm syndrome, graphic depictions of violence, mind breaking, misogyny, power imbalance, age difference, cheating, forced orgasm, suicide, etc.

================================================

The second was much different, this time All Might hadn't sought her out with ulterior motives in the beginning. Ones that went beyond a simple need to boost career. This time his next prey forced herself into his life, and he didn't mind in the slightest.

She was an up and coming hero like he had once been, desperate to make it in the ever increasingly competitive world of heroes. Dozens of new pros made debuts every day, an untold number never made it past that debut, forced to become a sidekick or leave the scene all together.

Clearly that was the case with this one, she was on a rapid decline and finding overdue notices on bills that should have been paid weeks ago. Desperate to make this career choice work at all costs to avoid a life of a base nine to five job.

The fool even came to see him with some ridiculous offer and begging him to help boost her career. When he declined, she became desperate and offered sexual favors in exchange for his support.

Her advances were accepted gratefully.

The girl had never been with a man before and yet gave herself freely to him to use. She cried when he first pushed in and didn't stop weeping until he was finished with her broken body. She had wanted this, but undoubtedly she seemed like the girl who wanted to wait and save herself until she found the perfect guy. Now she had given her innocence to the man who viewed her as nothing but a good time.

Day after day it continued, All Might making sure not to promote her career like he promised, promising "he would get to it" eventually. When she begged him to please hurry on it he threatened to take back his support and publicly shame her for seducing the Symbol of Peace for such a malicious reason.

The threat carried its weight, and soon he found himself bouncing her on his dick until she quite forgot why she had come to him in the first place.

===============================================

For months this continued, All Might falling through on his promises and her begging him to not take away his support before ending the meeting with every inch of his office covered in bodily fluids.

Eventually she stopped coming to beg him to advance her career, soon she came just to get railed. Begging him to be harder and allowing him to deflower every one of her holes.

Poor girl, she was falling in love with him, or at least an image of him, and she'd have her poor heart broken in two.

===============================================

She was the first of his conquests to have gotten pregnant, All Might refused protection on his end but insisted she take birth control. But as his pattern of intense passion followed by distance made itself known, the girl had gotten desperate and stopped taking it in hopes of tying him to her.

He could have killed her right then and there, but he wasn't totally heartless.

Toshinori wasn't there for the birth of his son, telling her he'd pay for hospital fees if she shut her mouth and put the brat up for adoption. She refused, wanting to keep him but promising she'd keep the whole affair under wraps.

===============================================

By the time he had two more children with her he had gotten bored of her boring vanilla sex. He wanted a challenge. So he sought them.

All Might would never forget her face as she walked in on him with two women being filled in turn. The look of horror and disappointment finally turning to anguish as the reality of her situation hit. She had three of All Might's own children but would be nothing but a cum dumpster to him.

In revenge, she later told him he either had to commit to her or she would reveal everything that transpired between them. How he had blackmailed her, led her on, and had three illegitimate children he didn't care for. The scandal would be enough to end his career for good like the woman before her.

All Might promised to talk things out if she'd come see him, to which she agreed, putting on her best dress and even having the audacity to bring a marriage license with her for him to sign. The woman had guts, but was dumb as a box of rocks if she thought he'd give in just like that. Roll over and show his stomach.

================================================

When a nobody goes missing no one bats an eye. She had no family or friends, since she had distanced herself from them when their affair started, as an attempt to devote all of her efforts to him. She was nothing.

Disposed of.

Her children were swiftly put into foster care with fake DNA tests given to throw any potential adoptive parents off the trail of the children's true origin.

And soon the world forgot she even existed.

Just another skeleton in All Might's growing closet of heinous deeds.

#fraud #all might mha #all might bnha #yandere all might #all might x you #all might x reader #all might #yandere all might x reader #all might x oc #bnha #mha #mha x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #toshinori yagi x reader #mha toshinori #toshinori x reader #bnha toshinori #yagi toshinori #my hero academia toshinori #toshinori yagi

[talesofthedm]

Silence — Escape the Nautaloid

Woo, I finally got the chapter written and proofed. If anyone is interested, I will be writing out a combination of all 7 of my concurrent playthroughs (Tav + all the companions) and it is 100% a writing exercise and not because i have brain rot its both. By virtue of having those 7 playthroughs, it means I get to write out the romances between party members.

I'll be cross posting between here (summary and chapter below the line) and on AO3 as it goes. General tags/warnings will be applied to AO3, as well as I'll be doing chapter specific warnings in the notes section. Here will just get chapter specific ones. (Summary below the line).

Word Count: 6.8k

CW for this specific chapter includes: mentions of panic attacks, alien abduction, forced experimentation, graphic depictions of gore, body horror, implied stroke, and concussion.

Excerpt:

It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea. Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god. The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much. Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul. Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause. Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked. And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil. Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions.

Summary: Freya lost her hunting partner two years ago. And then again three months later. And another a month later. Now she's pretty sure she's cursed. And being abducted her first day back in training really isn't helping that idea. Now she's trapped, it reeks of Avernus, something burrowed its way into her head, and she has to fight a small army! Even for someone who hunts the monsters roaming Baldur's Gate, this is a little much. Hopefully she can get back home and figure out what's going on before it gets any worse.

CH 1: Escape the Nautaloid

A large crack crawled along the edges of the glass as if it itself was alive, a parasite not unlike her own. Crawling, digging, tearing its way to ruin its host. She could still feel her own. Crawling. Burrowing. Itching. Settling somewhere between her optic nerve and pituitary gland.

The illithid didn’t even disarm her, the smoothed wood of her bow the only thing grounding her from another panic attack—not that it mattered even if they did.  All she knew was that horrible clicking at the base of her skull that caused her limbs to seize. Docile as a doll, trapped within her own body. She would have preferred a bed of hot nails or a pair of fangs at her throat. Hells, she would have preferred if they simply ripped her skull open with the horrible slurping she had only read of in books. But that wasn’t the case now.

She jammed the tip of her bow through the broken seal, trying with all her might to pry it just a bit more, to open it just a touch farther. To breathe something that wasn’t so sterile and soulless—even if that meant burning lungs and acrid smoke. What she didn’t expect was the stench of Avernus; sulfur and heat and blood. So much blood.

Freya collapsed onto the floor rather pathetically. The floor was a smooth, strange metal that provided no purchase or traction despite its design that reminded her more of carapace than anything she knew. The sole of her boot slid this way and that as she fought to stand, knees knocking like a newborn deer. She refused to be such easy prey.

But the violent jostling of the nautaloid certainly wasn’t helping.

The world slid and Freya braced herself as best she could. The contents of the central vat sloshed over the edges, burning groves into the leather soles of her boots. It was a creamy sort of color, thick and viscous like porridge. A shame, really. She used to like porridge.

There were people—innocents—trapped as she was. Trapped behind tinted glass held by scaled plates made of crisscrossing membrane and kept alive by things that were more tentacle than tube. Freya doubted the raised designs were simply that. Perhaps they were like veins—carrying within it the lifeblood of the machine.

Men, women, elves, humans, gnomes… She wasn’t even sure if they were alive. What was the rising of a chest and what was the pulsing of the machine?

Even among the roar of fire and the shouts of the blood war, Freya heard the creature’s claws dig their way into the metal of the ship. Crawling, scraping, desperate and dying, towards her. Her body seized; her mind went still. Consumed entirely by a single thought that was not her own.

Feed…

The dying gasp of a desperate animal—if she could even call it that. It was all the mindflayer could think out before a chunk of plating collapsed inward, crushing its skull with a sickening squish…

Do they have skulls? Freya half wondered, gazing at its now flattened head. It had burst, a particularly nasty boil that now oozed out the sides where its brain once throbbed with life. She watched pink slime trickle its way across the rapidly warming metal.

She had to get out of here before the hells melted the entire ship around her.

Freya didn’t want to think of the door, the way it twisted and churned her stomach. The way this ship was almost a mockery of something. Not wholly alien, the designs plagiarized and stripped from nature. It would be better if it was entirely new, entirely unknown. Instead, she was walking through the literal butthole of the ship. The ridiculousness of it all made it all seem worse.

Gods, I hope they aren’t all like that.

But the next room was better. Cleaner. The smell was still stale, purified in a way no air should ever be, but also dotted with sulfur and blood; two things she should never be grateful to have. But her lungs no longer screamed, her eyes no longer burned. Best of all, she knew the bodies were dead.

A goblin laid across the table—though, she more thought of it as an altar with the care and reverence the owner had left his tools. The skull had been torn open with such delicate care; the brain cavity now void of anything she could call as such. The stem had snapped, leaving the ball of grayish-pink tissue to roll about in a pool of its own liquids. A shame, really. It would have made something so perfect…

Freya shook away the thought, refusing to believe it was her own. Instead, she took stock. Even if it was rather… pitiful. A training bow. Blunted arrows. Even her armor was no more fit for hunting than her nightclothes. It was soft, pliable. Something designed for sparring. Yet, here she was, shaking and vision blurring. Fighting for her life.

Free Us.

A distant thought called at the edges of her mind. Not her own—but not a command, either. A part of her softened at the voice. Like a parent hearing a newborn laugh.

Save Us.

Her limbs moved automatically towards the platform and before she knew it, she was standing before a control panel. At least… that’s what she thinks it was. A single, pulsing orb the color of blood. Tentacles protruding from it, reaching for her. Freya reached for it, in turn. It was warm, smooth. A gentle rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. And then the platform moved.

It deposited her only one level up, surrounded by jars and vials and tubes that did nothing but house still-living organs. Hearts and stomachs and patches of skin and brains. So many brains… Samples? Experiments? Aquariums? Terrariums? Either way, there was a primal kind of fear rising up in her at the sight. Something that she was never designed to see—no one was designed to see—and it was put on display as one would a collection of insects. To be pretty and pinned and studied and cherished.

The worst of it all was the twitching form in the chair. Shirtless, scalpless. The only things left of the elf was a blood-spattered body and an echoing voice that in no way belonged to him. Here. We are here. If Freya wasn’t so close, if she hadn’t seen the floating tentacles and the rhythmic pulsing of his exposed brain, she might have mistaken him for a lord sitting atop a throne. A dark, spiked throne of chitin and spines. His head lolled back and forth as if to say ‘no,’ the echoes of his final words still playing on repeat even though no sound came out. No no no no no no no. His mind was gone, his body a husk on autopilot.

We are trapped.

Freya approached with caution; her footsteps as soft as she could make them despite the pounding in her head.

Yes! You came to save Us from this place, from this place you’ll free Us! Please, before they return.

They return, the voice echoed across her mind, consuming all thought and supplanting it with its own.

No brain should move. No brain should twitch, quivering in excitement and anticipation. Freya could not help but study it, the squishing mass of tissue that had swollen to fill the entirety of the cranium. The edges of it were darkened, misshapen and discolored from its beating against the skull that held it. Blood vessels spread out from the center, curling and reaching through to every crevice. It reminded her of trees or vines or winding rivers on a map. It was an image of life itself, now perverted into something slopping and disgusting.

“Why do you sound so afraid?”

The enemy! So many enemies. As if to invoke pity, tears streaked down the elf’s face. A constant, steady stream that washed away the bloody stains. Or worse, there was something left of the man. Left in a silent scream of pain and agony as his very will was ripped and torn by tiny claws.

“You’re past the point of saving,” she pleaded to the man, not the brain. “I can’t—”

The voices drove into her mind like an icepick; a hundred, a thousand, a million of them. Her father, her mother, the children she would hear running between the streets at dawn and dusk, her coworkers chatting it up in the tavern… her partner. Please! We are newborn. Remove us from this body.

Freya grit her teeth against the onslaught. The idea of manipulating her—using pity and memories that in no way belonged to anyone but her—was enough to drive her over the edge. She gripped the brain, digging scarred and callused hands between the squelching tissue and smooth walls of the interior skull. Clear liquid splotched out onto the ground at her feet as her fingers dug deeper, displacing whatever remaining spinal fluid still lingered underneath.

The newborn screamed, piercing and painful. Whether it was calling for help, or begging for mercy, she did not know but it only spurred her on. It, in turn, was clawing at her mind. Digging mental claws, tearing and biting at distant memories she would better preferred stayed buried and forgotten—anything to save itself.

She dug deeper still, slipping deft fingers into the furthest recesses of the skull as she searched blindly for the spot dead center—the dull, constant thud of the heart of a dying man pulsing its way through his arteries and into a brain that was no longer his. Freya tore through the circle of veins with ease, more blood than she always thought possible slopping onto the ground.

And then it was quiet. Sweet, sweet, silence as she tuned out the raging infernos and battle cries just beyond the walls.

Something had torn into the side of the ship long before she had awoken, exposing what could only be described as open bone and straining tendons to the searing heat of the hells. A strangely sweet scent on the air—sickeningly so—as the tissue shriveled and burned and died.

Freya made her way back to the platform, and from there the floor below. She had to get out of here, had to escape. Even if it meant traversing Avernus itself; she would sooner sell her soul willingly than have it forcibly taken.

Carapace-metal turned to squishing flesh. Her boots sunk into the new terrain, a welcome adjustment from having to constantly fight the frictionless surface. Especially as the rush of air nearly knocked her over, the great beating of wings as two red dragons rushed past in a torrent of fangs and claws and fire. They weaved through the air, dodging beams of psionic energy before tearing the canons away and tossing the scraps into the valley below. Even in the hells, surrounded by an ever-burning sky and flying over a river of lava, she could feel the heat of their breath. Her skin crawled at the heat, feeling the memory of her face puckering and scarring over again. A faint waft of oil and a bad memory.

Still, this was not what had Freya on edge. That kind of sixth-sense, the one where the edges of her hair stood on end and had her taking back alleys she normally avoided crawled its way up her spine. The sense of being watched; of being hunted.

Her bow was braced and primed before the Githyanki landed, the roar of yet another dragon soaring overhead. “Abomination. This is your end.” The sword was at Freya’s chest, mere centimeters from tearing through the leather and sinking into her flesh. At the same time, she was mere seconds from releasing the string and sending the arrow flying into the Gith’s eye.

They were at a stalemate, as far as she was concerned. Either run her through and die in the process, or disarm her and give her time to run. Even blunted, arrows could do damage if they were aimed well enough.

The two were on the ground before they could realize what was happening. The pounding, throbbing pain of memories flooding both their minds. Of dragon wings and tearing fangs, of silver swords and poisoned tipped arrows. Of each other as seen through the others eyes.

One tall, one short. One lean muscle and the other strong. The copper skin of a wood elf beside the green and black streaked skin of a Githyanki. Each under prepared, taken by surprise and held and used as nothing more than an incubator.

Both hunters in their own right.

“You are no thrall—Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“First, we must exterminate the imps.” Freya looked over the Gith’s shoulder, finding the tiny creatures tearing away at the innards of a fresh carcass. “Then we find the helm and take control. We can address the matter of a cure once we reach the Material Plane.”

Lae’zel took off running before she could even respond, blade arching its way into the skull of the imp. It’s twin set of horns split, the curved bone all but shattering from the force. It gave a short cry, one no more suited for a babe, let alone a demonic creature. There was something almost… excited in her motions. A happiness Freya understood. Of not being stranded and alone in all this.

Freya stayed further back, allowing her new companion to take the brunt of the attacks for her if she was so insistent on charging into battle. The Gith had armor—she could take it. Bow in hand, the weight at least familiar if useless. She drew the string, knocking her arrow with it in one practiced, fluid motion and took aim between its ribs.

Her eyes blurred, limbs shaking, as that thing crawled around inside her. She could not aim, let alone target the weakest points of the imp as it danced around the sky. She doubted she could hit a simple target in her state… Freya shifted her attention, instead aiming for a much larger target than the tiny space between two equally tiny ribs.

The arrow pierced its leathery wing, tearing delicate veins that would leave more bruise than any deep wound. Even still, it collapsed to the ground, the force of the shot sent it tumbling off the edge and into the chasm below. No wings, no flight. And it being a million miles from the ground… The only thing she regretted was losing the arrow, making her already dismal supply even worse.

A beating of wings lost in the torrent of wind; she didn’t realize it was upon her until the blade bit into her shoulder. The curved edge of a scimitar—as long as the imp was tall—narrowly missing her ear. Freya swore, realizing the remaining flying pest was smarter than she would have liked. Her arm was useless in this state. She backed up, feet dragging against the metal so she would not trip and make her situation worse. At least, until she felt her heel teeter on the edge, nothing below but decrepit earth and endless war a million miles below.

It glided forward, beating of its wings matching Freya’s heart. Its eyes burned like fire, but held nothing but cold and pain and promises of a torturous eternity no matter if she lived or died. Closer and closer, perhaps wanting to inch her off the deck of the ship rather than sully its already blood-stained blade. Curved talons reached out, not to strike but to push her that last half-step into the chasm below.

Freya sidestepped the fiend the moment it came within reach, the creature only finding empty air. Horrible screeches of anger, one that made her ears bleed and resolve steel, left behind nothing but an empty promise as the elf drove a blunted arrow into the literal fire of its eye. The blaze turned to a single, fading cinder that could just as easily be snuffed out by a pair of fingers. Its body went slack, crumpling to the ground. If she hadn’t just killed it, she might have mistaken it for a prop or toy of some rich noble who pretended his life was worth more than it was.

“Ugh!” Lae’zel screamed, silvery blade slashing wildly through the air as the final remaining imp dodged between attacks. It taunted her, tongue out blowing raspberries and throwing rude gestures with every missed hit. The Gith was panting, seething, out of breath far sooner than she was used to.

At least Freya wasn’t the only one suffering any ill effects.

Her shoulder screamed with every motion, its tendons now nothing but thin strands trying desperately to hold her together. She knocked the arrow, drew back the string. She aimed, watching as the tip shook with each shuttering breath and the world blurred from a mixture of pain and tadpole. It—the fiend—danced and fluttered as gleefully as a child between each attack. She would never be able to hit it, not with the Gith swinging and the creature dancing… But she had to aim at something.

The arrow went loose, Freya shifting her weight and her aim at the last possible moment to account for herself and prayed to whatever god that could hear for it to miss its mark. The blunted tip veered off course almost immediately, striking the imp through the back instead of the glinting red gem of the Githyanki’s armor. It collapsed, dead.

“Tchk. Perhaps you are not as useless as I believed, after all.” Lae’zel kicked the fiend’s head, confirming its death.

Freya reached down and picked up the scimitar with her good arm, the weight of it unfamiliar and the rapidly heating metal causing blisters where it met her skin. It was another option, at least. And it would have to do—swinging wildly was a better chance to hurt something than her bow. She just had to pray it wasn’t herself.

Or Lae’zel.

The Gith took off running, leading the charge with an eagerness Freya only associated with the apprentices.

Webs of membrane spilled out over the ledges. Of course, she would have to climb in her state…

But the glowing mist of a machine beckoned her. Thousands of thin, strand-like feelers with bulbus tips, a strange blue fluid leaking from them. It smelled of fresh rain and sweet wine, brandy and herbs and the first peeling of a fresh orange. It smelled of her rest periods, the times between hunts when she had herself and silence and possibly her dad as he visited after his own work.

She stepped onto the platform, textured and shell-like and alien even compared to the rest of the ship in its organic nature. The mist surrounded her, the fluid dripping and evaporating on contact with a hiss. There was no pain, no itching, not even a numbness as her shoulder stitched itself together, layer by layer, fiber by fiber. Not even a scar, just fresh, healthy skin.

“Hurry up,” Lae’zel called from the top of the membrane rope. “The Ghaik do not wait, nor do the hells.”

The top was more chitin-metal, seemingly untouched by the heat and the blasts of devils and dragons. Another puckering door that gave way at the slightest intrusion, and beyond it a monolith of spines.

An elf and a human and a tiefling, not bound but held prisoner all the same, slept in some form of deep statis. Each one wearing the same clothes, baring the same crest that itched the back of her mind with its familiarity. A downward triangle, a front facing skull locked in a grimace, and a bloody handprint to cover it all.

Their energy was being sapped, stripped away by the altars they lied upon and fed into the monolith in the firm of twisting, red energy. The interior of it pulsed, spasmed as if it itself was living. Like a leech or vampire, feeding off of the hapless victims. Though it was not lifeblood it stole, but something equally as precious.

Freya just did not know what it was.

The control panel in front of it was comprised of more tentacles and wet tissue. Massive orbs she could only describe as tumors gave a soft glow about them, each one labeled with a strange word she could distantly remember in a book but otherwise ascribed no meaning. She was not sure what was button, what was lever, what was joystick, and what was merely design.

“You!” A panicked voice echoed behind tempered glass from across the room. “Get me out of this damn thing!” A woman with dark hair and silvered armor, bearing religious iconography across her entire being—eclipses and shadows.

“I’ll look around—there must be some way to get this damned thing open.” Freya craned her neck, looking at the pod and its construction. It was wrapped in a strange energy she had not seen before—red with flecks of a golden orange. There was no latch, no lever, not even a hinge to show it was capable of opening… she had pried hers off. Was she truly only alive because of another fluke?

“Tchk, we do not have time. We must reach the helm!”

Freya ignored her companion’s complaints. “The pod’s stuck fast. I’ll look around, there must be some way to get this thing open.”

“The contraption next to the pod! They did something to it when they sealed me in!”

The console was dormant, unlike the counterpart she had previously found. The life thrumming through it was minimal, possibly asleep or dying. Cancerous bulbs only gave a faint pulse in time with her breaths. Freya punched it, her fist digging half a foot into the fleshy gray matter-like tissue before her momentum slowed to a stop. She pulled back, a sticky strand of clear mucus trailing behind it. Ugh.

There had to be something, anything, to save someone. And then there was: an empty socket.

Now if only she knew what was supposed to go in it.

“It’s missing a piece! I’m going to look around, see if I can’t find something—”

“Please!” the woman cut her off. “Hurry!”

Perhaps the next room would have a key or a hatch or an escape. All Freya knew is she could not leave the girl with shadowy eyes. She could not save everyone, but she could save someone.

But, gods, she hated these damned doors.

She wasn’t sure what to call the chamber, a suspended platform above a cancerous mound of sticky flesh. An antechamber? An observation deck? The six thrones spoke of unequalled power and the central pod said nothing but voyeuristic torture. Even the architecture expressed only violence.

At first, Freya mistook the statues for wasps, with their long, curved thoraxes that tapered to an unsettling point. But the lack of legs, of wings, gave her pause. More larva than insect, with the piercing maw of a spider and the thousand legs of a centipede. She could feel it now, squirming and crawling and nestling deeper into her brain. The pointed stinger dragging, leaving trails of pooling blood that blurred her vision and numbed her limbs and confused her mind.

The room was a monument to all things absolute.

Absolute power.

Absolute control.

Absolute perfection.

The two of them stepped over a dead body, a human that looked stronger than either of them felt at the moment. Another escapee, another runaway. A failed one, at that. Clutched in her palm was a single key. Something she was desperate enough to die for… Freya took it, slipping it in her pocket.

Another pod stood front and center. Harsh lines, plated chitin, but it was not pulsating. The tubes that ran in and out were dead and dull, the once living prison now more like stone. The woman inside was trapped, too dazed to realize who she was, let alone the danger she was in.

But she was moving. She was moving and blinking and breathing and—“We have to find a way to open it. Get her out.”

“We will not! Our mission is the helm, not to waste our energy on every ishtik we come across.”

Freya whipped around, trying her hardest to ignore the way the world was suddenly doing summersaults. The woman was fidgeting, palms itching and shoulders pinched and teeth bared in such a way that it betrayed her thoughts. She itched to reach back, pull the gleaming longsword from its sheath and strike through Freya’s body in one swift motion.

But she didn’t.

Her palms itched not from impatience, but from beads of sweat that made Lae’zel too uncomfortable to be in her own skin. Her shoulders pinched not as an enraged animal, but as something cornered. She bared her teeth like fangs only because she had none.

She was afraid.

“One less captive, one less mindflayer. One less threat.”

Her new companion bounced impatiently. “Our mission is the helm. Not this,” she restated. But otherwise, Lae’zel made no motion to flee, or strike, or otherwise betray her.

There was another living module at the far end, riddled with cancerous tumors and sticky tentacles. Freya reached out, tentatively and sunk her hand into the very center of it. She had a vision of it—of reaching into the proverbial lion’s maw and hoping it did not bite back.

A voice, one so distant and indistinct that it could not be understood, echoed in both their minds. To be born, to perfect, to be changed…

The woman in the pod screamed. One that stole her breath and threatened to tear her throat with its intensity—but it was muffled. She beat desperately against the glass as every muscle in her body seized. Her neck strained, snapping violently to the side as her limbs jerked violently in the wrong directions. Her bones snapped, commanded by a higher will to destroy itself in order to be born anew. Violet tentacles tore their way through her throat and out her mouth, choking the last of her life away before consuming her in its entirety. A face, a brain, crawling its way outside a fleshy prison and into the light the way a hatching might break its egg. The woman’s body flipped inside out, destroying anything of her that might have been saved. And then there was a mindflayer.

Dampened behind tempered glass, the woman’s last acts of humanity had been to make sure that her “saviors” knew the pain and torment they had condemned her to. Freya wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

“Kaincha!” Lae’zel swore. Freya might have not been able to speak the language, but she understood all the same.

Fuck.

“We must be purified, or this may be our fate!”

“No arguments,” Freya responded. There was no fight left except that of survival.

The two ran back to the previous room as fast as they could manage and gave another cursory glance. To find explosive, acids, poisons, weapons of any kind that may help them survive the waking nightmare they were in.

The same woman from before continued to beat against the glass, desperate for escape as they were. Freya was about to leave her and save her own skin if it hadn’t been for the damned chest and Lae’zel.

The reliquary was odd in its normalcy. Something mundane, inanimate, yet resting atop a nautaloid table as if it belonged. A deep purple, obsidian or perhaps a rough amethyst, and wrapped in gold. And locked. Very very locked. The key clicked in place, turning with no resistance and revealing a meager contents. A few coins. A small gem.

An alien-looking slate.

It called to her; sang in that special way she had come to associate with everything nautaloid. Another key, this one begging to be placed back in it’s socket like the piece of a puzzle. Begging to be made whole once more.

There were no screams, thankfully, when Lae’zel pressed a hand against the button of the central control panel. The sleeping forms feeding the great machine spasmed, purple spikes of energy snapping through the air and piercing the very fabric of their minds. They collapsed in silence, died in silence, and now bleed out onto the ground in silence.

“What the hells?!”

“We dealt with ghaik your way. Now, we try mine.”

“They were not ghaik,” the word felt strange on her tongue, a series of sounds she was not used to stringing together in such an order. “They were people! They were—”

“They were nothing but tralls feeding the Grand Design. Your saving,” she spat the word. “Only invites death upon us.

Lae’zel stalked to the woman’s pod, prepared to continue her slaughter. “No! Please!”

Freya ran as fast as she could, shocking the Gith woman with her speed. She flung herself between her companion and the pod, arms out to protect from whatever attack she had planned. “No more death! No more loss!”

“Then you invite our own! A thrall cannot be shown mercy—”

“A thrall who’s begging to be let out? Afraid to become a monster?” Lae’zel stood speechless. “She is no more thrall than you or I, Lae’zel.”

“I would appreciate it if you did not debate my death while I’m standing right here!”

Freya ignored her, continuing. “She is conscious, and she is talking, and she is as much afraid as you or I.”

“Those worthy of Vlaakith do not know fear,” she spat, but otherwise did not refute the statement. The Gith leaned back on her feet. She did not concede ground but did not advance, either. Freya carefully stepped over to the dormant console, only turning her back to the Gith and the pod when she was forced to.

The slate slid in without effort, locking in place as alien muscles contracted and held it there. The same strange red and golden light emanated from the center of it, as if it had been infected by an equally alien disease. It pulsed, a dull thud that sounded in the back of her head as much as it did in front of her. It was not a mind, but a beating heart… what would happen if she killed it?

The parasite squirmed in Freya’s head as she reached towards the console. She could feel the web of veins in her brain strain and tear as the creature burrowed deeper, contented with the soft warmth of fleshy gray matter that gave way around it. Her vision blurred again, the side of her body suddenly feeling numb.

But then the sensation was gone, the discomfort fading into the dull ache of dehydration and sore muscles, and a new one flooded in. A familiarity of being held, of never quite being alone. An intimate connection that whispered power and belonging and control. Authority.

Freya clung to that feeling despite every cell in her body screaming otherwise. She was in control. Her will would supplant all others.

Even the nautaloid itself.

The pod would open.

She felt the command buzz across every synapse of the living ship at the speed of thought. Processing. Considering. Yeilding.

The pod shifted, the chitin plating parting as the glass slid away on unseen hinges. The woman stood on her own two feet, prepared to take her first steps to freedom.

Perhaps it was the sudden shift in pressure, of stale air being stolen from her lungs and flooding back in with the caustic smell of smoke and antiseptic. Perhaps it was the adrenaline crash, her body realizing that, for a brief moment, she was safe. Either way, eyes rolled back and her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the floor.

“Pathetic,” Lae’zel spat.

Freya ran over, sliding onto her knees in an instant to help the woman up.

“I—I thought that damn thing was going to be my coffin. Thank you—” both of them keeled over in pain, minds lurching into the familiar but unwelcomed dance. The barest glimpses of memory—distant and shadowed as the rest of her—and gratitude and wariness. No one helped without cause, and there was a Gith standing behind both of them.

“She’s an ally,” Freya responded to the question before it was even asked.

“We will take the helm. Escape and cure us of this infection.” As if it was a simple wound to be cleansed.

The woman nodded. “We’ll need all the help we can get. Let’s get off this thing together.” She stood on wobbly knees and took a few tentative steps before a moment of realization came over her. “One moment.” She turned, fetching a discarded pack from the floor of her pod. A red vial, a scroll, and a strange device that she seemed too keen on hiding from her new companion’s watchful gazes. “Lead the way.”

The helm had been right around the corner, a simple right instead of the straight path they had originally taken. “Follow my lead once we are inside,” Lae’zel commanded.

The door spiraled open onto a long interior, the chitin floor melted and burning under the hellish fires of Avernus. Literal devils slashed away at the tentacled freaks—mindflayers. One locked in a deadly conflict, blasts of psionic energy warping the very fabric of reality around them as the devil took stab after stab with a flaming sword. A second combatted his own further back before he was disarmed and forced to his knees.

The alien creature wrapped its tentacles around the devil’s face, forcing the moist appendages down its throat so the devil would choke. A horrible, shuttering noise came from the mindflayer, more akin to a drill bore than anything normal. Blood spirted in wide arches, decorating the alien in a veil of glory as it slurped the brain from its cavity and the devil fell down limp. Freya had never seen one feed before. And, based on her companions’ reactions, none of them had.

Imps crawled their way into the room from between cracks and open windows, like parasites themselves. One, two, three slashes across the Illithid’s body and face and arms. Its own blood intermingled with the devil’s. It did not matter what was what or whose was whose; they both collapsed beside one another in death.

A blast of psionic energy pushed the last remaining devil flat on its ass, buying the creature enough time to survey the destruction around it. The alien’s eyes met Freya’s and immediately formed a mental connection.

Thrall, connect the nerves of the transponder. We must escape. Now. Command. Authority. Pleading. Fear. Desperation. Impotence.

It could only pray she obeyed, its mind immediately dragged to more pressing matters as the Devil stood itself up and cleaved into its side.

“Heed its command,” Lae’zel said. “We will deal with the mindflayer once we are back in the material plane!”

Freya took off running without a second thought. She didn’t even notice the hellish creatures tearing through the corpses before her until the hellsboar took a swipe with its burning tusks. It gouged into her leg, cauterizing the wound the moment it was made. So, she kept running.

An imp erupted into golden flames before collapsing to the ground at a single wave of the shadowed-woman’s hands. Fuck, Freya swore to herself. How could she have forgotten? Maybe she wasn’t as useless in a fight as she thought.

Two more creatures collapsed around her as Lae’zel picked off imp after imp with her bow. Part of Freya hoped the Gith was providing proper cover and not just blindly aiming and praying that she missed enough in the right direction to be useful.

Freya left the cambion devil and the mindflayer in the dust, each step reverberating up her legs painfully with the force of pushing herself faster and farther than she was capable of in the moment.

The two struck at each other desperately, the mindflayer too dazed and weak to be useful anymore. The cambion, on the other hand, was deadlier than ever. Its ever-burning blade tearing through lilac flesh with all the diabolical grace Freya had come to associate with the Nine Hells. The battle was almost laughable—but she was more afraid in the moment of what would become of them if the ship fell before its time.

“Incante!” Freya screamed, a newly summoned hellsboar erupting in golden light before collapsing to the ground, a charred husk of an already charred husk.

She was so close. So, so, so, so, so close to the transponder. To the writhing tentacles that controlled the ship. To home.

With a final scream, the mindflayer fell; useless in death as it was in life. Freya did not have time to survey the scene, to find out who the Cambion would reach for next in its slaughter. She hardly had time to think, being so incredibly close to the end of it all.

The shadowed woman stumbled, the heavy armor she wore suddenly unfamiliar in its weight as the ship lurched. The final master now dead, the ship was dying. The Gith took an unaimed shot, desperate to distract the fiend long enough to buy time. It went wide, a mere nuisance in the way a particularly annoying fly might have been, and the cambion lifted its blade to strike a critical blow. One that would cleave the woman in two, leaving her bleeding out on the floor of the ship until the heated air dried it to flaking clots and empty breaths.

Freya gripped the tentacled arms of the transponder, delicate feelers reaching from the clubbed head. It latched on to her in turn; consuming, feeding on her very will. She grabbed a second one at random, forcing the two ends to meet in the middle. An endless loop, the ship feeding off of its own dying energy. The tentacles went taught as a string. And, like a string, she flicked it. A gentle hum reverberated throughout the ship and the surrounding air.

The ship lurched again more violently than before. The cambion lost his footing mid strike, sending him flying into a curved pane of glass, cracking it, as gravity suddenly had no reason. The blade spun through the air, having been lost in the fiend’s fall. Spinning, flipping one end over the other until it finally sunk with a final thud and though its wielder. Web-like designs crawled along the pane, cracking and breaking until, finally, it shattered and the cambion fell through to its death.

Lae’zel found herself suddenly on the ceiling and then again splayed across the floor. Her weapons scattered to the winds as her lungs protested the lack of air around her. A familiar pain, one she had grown used to in her travels between planes and across the Astral Sea. Her body willed itself to breathe, willing the very fabric of dreams to solidify into oxygen so she would not die. No, in Vlaakith’s name she would. Not. Die.

Freya clung desperately to the tentacles of the transponder, her own lungs burning and her limbs screaming with the strain of holding on in the violent tumble out of Avernus. Gravity ripped this way and that, no rhyme or reason as the ship drove at impossible speeds to worlds unknown. They had to go anywhere, anywhere, but here. Anywhere in the material plane—anywhere close to home.

It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea.

Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god.

The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much.

Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul.

Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause.

Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked.

And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil.

Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions. She fell a hundred feet, a thousand feet, a million feet to the rapidly approaching beach below, fully conscious yet strangely calm in the face of her impending death. A searing pain in her skull as her brain collided with the interior of it.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #balders gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #astarion #karlach #bg3 gale #shadowheart #astarion x tav #gale dekarios #lae'zel #slow burn #my writing #fanfic #shadowheart x lae’zel #shadowheart x halsin #wyll ravengard #wyll x karlach #gale x lae'zel

[rivuletmansion]

Introduction to the AU!

Hiya everyone! My name's Pinpin, and I'm a music composer and artist who has a big case of rain world brainrot Said brainrot has resulted in me coming up with this AU that y'all are looking at right now! This AU has been a thing for a while, but I had been too nervous and anxious to share it with the world So it was just sitting there as a discord thread in my good friend zyekno's discord server But I think that I had fleshed out the AU enough for me to finally share it with y'all~ There's a lot to unpack here, so let's get started~!

What's the general gist of this AU, lore-wise?

As the name of the AU suggests, it all began with Rivulet! Rivulet was once one of the many assassins for hire, who was driven insane (and bored) by the sheer amount of killing they had done over the years, and then one day it appeared as if they had vanished without a trace from the world completely. Many people speculated that they had finally snapped and ended their own life, but in reality, Rivulet had stumbled upon a cursed mansion in a forbidden forest area, not too far from the urban town of the Outskirts.

This cursed mansion only shows itself to those who are curious or crazy enough to explore it, and once some poor soul finds themselves drawn into it, they are given two choices: Forfeit their life to become the next cursed owner of the mansion, gaining immortality and undead traits until the next person comes along and inherit their position, or get killed trying to escape its inhabitants and then be added to their numbers in death.

Rivulet could've easily escaped with their skills in combat, but driven by their insanity and curiosity, they instead had the crazy idea to turn the mansion and its inhabitants into something more on the wackier, less-dangerous-to-mortals side. Thus, they eagerly took the ownership position from the previous owner, who asked Rivulet to keep their name and identity a secret for an unknown reason.

Ever since then, Rivulet spent the next several decades shaping the mansion and its inhabitants as they please, turning them into something that felt like a wacky madhouse of horrors that's as fun and chaotic as they could make it. An unknown amount of time later, Rivulet felt that the mansion was ready to start housing actual people who are not undeads… and their loneliness had reached its peak at that point, too.

Thus, on one particularly uneventful day for the world at large, the crazy mansion owner set off to the nearest city to find someone who'd be interested in living in their home. Or rather, kidnap someone into their home and force them on a tour of the mansion for fun (and to briefly stave off their loneliness), cause surely no one is possibly going to want to live in such a place, right?

Meanwhile, a maroon colored slugcat by the name of Artificer was in trouble- she was caught stealing food, and was being chased by the police officers into the alleyways. She was particularly off her game that day, as she ended up accidentally running into a dead end, and fear had overtaken her as the polices were coming around the corner. But luckily for her, Rivulet had seen the entire chase, as they were watching what's going on out of curiosity- and they decided to pick her as their first mansion visitor!

Before she knew it, the surrounding shadows enveloped her being, and she was teleported to the accursed mansion's front gates. There she was greeted jovially by Rivulet, who revealed themselves to be the one who helped her escape. And that as payment for their help, she was to be the first (living) tourist of the mansion who wasn't allowed to leave until the tour was finished. Torn between feeling grateful for the rescue, and terrified by the appearance and powers of her rescuer, Artificer meekly agreed- and then the tour was on!

Artificer was expecting the mansion to be full of horrifying things that'd give her nightmares at night, and to her surprise, it was only half right. True, the mansion was full of various forms of undeads, from ghosts to animated skeletons to zombies- but they all came off as rather… comical and wacky, instead of terrifying. It's hard to feel scared when they had all acted friendly (to some degree), after all. Against her better judgement, she found herself getting more and more curious about the mansion as the tour went on, especially as Rivulet's crazed yet jovial attitude during the entire thing was putting her at ease.

At some point during the tour, Rivulet lamented lightheartedly about the empty bedrooms in the mansion, and joked that they'd love for someone to live here to give them company. Unbeknownst to them however, this caused an emotional turmoil within Artificer, who's a single mother with 6 kids to feed and no roof over her family and had long since been looking for a chance to improve their living conditions. For the rest of the tour, she was distracted and anxious as she weighed the pros and cons of what she's about to decide.

At the end of the tour, Rivulet took Artificer to the mansion's front gates to sent her off, ready to teleport her back to her family… only to be surprised when she suddenly turned back, and asked if Rivulet was still looking to house someone- several someones. Stunned and confused, the crazy slugcat asked her why, and she launched into a long, emotional explanation of her family's living conditions. The sheer desperation to give her family a chance at a better life all but spilled out, and by the end of her rambles, tears were streaming down her face as she all but begged the mansion owner to let her family stay- even if only for a while.

Pitying the poor mother (and seeing a golden opportunity to finally do something about their loneliness), Rivulet only took a second to say yes, and told her that her family was welcome to stay in the mansion for as long as they need/want- much to her shock and overwhelming relief. The mansion owner then sent her back to her family, so that she could go ahead and tell them the news while they prepare the rooms for her and her little ones. Naturally, they were quite shocked by their mother's news, and a few them were very skeptical. Even Artificer herself was unsure if she could trust Rivulet- but she reasoned that she had already taken their offer and that, at the very least, they should give Rivulet the benefit of doubt if it means a chance at having somewhere to finally call home.

The family's relocation into the mansion was rather tense and rough at the start, naturally, considering the mansion and its inhabitants. But as the months passed by, and Rivulet's invitation to stay at the mansion for as long as they want seemed more and more real, Artificer and her family ended up getting used to the crazies that happen around the place and started to genuinely enjoy living there. The mansion proved to be a bizarre, yet much needed improvement on their living conditions, and so they were finally able to start living a normal life. Or as normal as could be, anyways.

Over time, more and more people started discovering the mansion through chances (or was it fate?), and it started receiving more and more frequent visitors who are curious about the place as a result. From a pair of teenage siblings, to a light priestess (who was sworn to keep the mansion a secret to her fellow priests, lest they try to exorcist the place), to a police officer who's an old friend of Artificer - nowadays the mansion seems livelier than ever!

What shenanigans and adventures will Artificer's family and those visitors be dragged into, and what memories will they make? Let's find out!

#rain world au #rain world downpour #rw artificer #rw rivulet #rivulet mansion #rivulet's mansion

[guppybubbles]

oooo,, i really like your writing!!

if you’re still taking prompts- mayhaps something including.. dragons(i 👉👈 i really like dragons), or mers? as for with who, my personal preferences are peer pressure duo or alliumduo, but if you’re not up for writing either of those, feel free to do whatever!

apologies for not following the fake title format, i am- not good at titles of any kind,, dkdnkdndkdk. hope you have a good rest-of-your-day! — 🎲

GOLD FEVER [1/2]

Ranboo is an Enderman being hunted down by monster hunters. Unable to protect themselves, they offer tons of gold to The Blood Dragon.

Word Count: 2777 words

CONTENT WARNING!!! : mentions of scars and swords, general fear, fear of death, implies being eaten (but nothing happens)

( A/N: no need to apologize!! the fake titles prompts was just smth beckyu wanted to do! nothing wrong with not following the format <33 anyways, i hope you enjoy! teehee )

He's been standing here for an hour, maybe even two. Ranboo just can't bring themselves to enter. The entrance looked so intimidating, he can't even imagine what lies inside.

The mouth of the cave was huge, big enough to possibly fit every single tree in this forest. Every time he tries to hype himself up to go inside, his fear pulls him back to where he started.

But would he rather die by hunters who've been known to make their bounties deaths slow and merciless, or die by a dragon who would most likely just make their death as quick as possible?

Yeah, dragon. Dragon sounds better.

Ranboo took in one deep breath of air and stepped in once more, trying to ignore the strong urge to run away and return home. Even with their excellent night vision, the cave still looked dark. They could barely make out the claw marks scratched on the walls. It felt like something out of a horror book.

He knew he was nearing more into the dragon's den when he noticed thin stripes of light being hidden behind a thick layer of leaves. Ranboo felt like their heart was going to break out of their chest with how intense it’s been beating. As quietly as possible, they pushed through the foliage and held their breath.

Redstone ores were scattered around the den. Ranboo remembers they shine much brighter than other ores he’s mined, he’s not a rock expert but he assumes the reason why they shine so much is their energy source. It’s one of the main ores being used in many advanced communities, perhaps the shine is an indicator of how much energy just one ore has.

Redstone wasn’t the only thing sparkling in the dark cave, because right in the middle was a large pile of gems that could make a King seem poor in comparison. Ranboo swears they can see crystals they didn’t even know exist, and they mine as a hobby! They feel entitled to at least know a decent amount more than basic knowledge when it comes to ores.

Ranboo froze when he saw whose head lay on top of the gold pile. The Blood Dragon.

Staring right at him.

"It— it's not—" They stuttered, "It really isn't what it looks like." Ranboo fully emerged from the curtain of leaves, holding their hands up to emphasize their intentions.

The dragon growls, a rumble so loud that the Redstone's lights flicker with fear. Its large tail wraps around the mound of riches, assuming that the enderman was here to steal their possessions. Ranboo couldn't blame them, he was holding a suspiciously big brown sack that reminded him slightly of the material thieves used.

"I'm here to give you offerings—! Actually!" He quickly added, throwing the sack in between the both of them and gold spilled through its opening. The rumbling stopped and Ranboo released a breath of relief.

The Blood Dragon looked interested in his gold, to say the least, and Ranboo wasn't even sure if they could understand his words. There have been cases that stated most dragons have a consciousness and can understand simple phrases, and Ranboo was desperate for any sort of protection— so he'll keep trying until he was sure they could understand him.

Slowly, they picked up the sack of gold again and approached the dragon. The dragon's eyes squinted, skeptical of the enderman.

"I'm… I'm being hunted by monster hunters and I need your protection. Not forever! Just, just enough to… I don't know, scare them off to make them leave me alone?" Ranboo stopped right in front of the pile.

A gust of warm air washed over him, the dragon just huffed out a puff of smoke— almost looking tired and annoyed. It seemed less angry than it was when he first entered, so he'll take it as a good sign.

"… Okay. I'll take that as an… unsure response." Ranboo slowly placed his brown bag right next to the bundle of gems.

The dragon stared at him, then carefully inspected the bag with its snout. Seeing a dragon— not just a dragon, the BLOOD Dragon, up close is a surreal experience Ranboo did not know they would ever have. The tales spread across the SMP mentioned how the Blood Dragon would slaughter anything and anyone in its path, yet here it was now, pouring the bag's contents onto his pile, seemingly accepting the offer, but still wary of the enderman.

"It's not a lot of gold, I know— Compared to your treasures." Ranboo spoke, "But, I promise, I'll keep paying you until you accept to protect me from the hunters… Is- Do we have a deal?"

The dragon stared at him for a long period, and Ranboo starts to think he was insane for even trying to make a conversation with them. Then, the Blood Dragon slightly bows its head and closes its eyes, accepting the enderman's offer.

Ranboo lets out a sigh of relief.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Ranboo arrives the next day with another big brown bag of gold, mixed with bits of diamonds and iron. While there was still a bit of anxiety when he entered the mouth of the cave again, it didn't take him nearly two hours to even consider going inside, which isn't a big victory, but a victory nonetheless.

The dragon was there when he set foot in the den. He huffed out another puff of smoke through his nostrils but remained lying down next to his riches. He didn't seem aggressive today, though still looked wary of his presence— Ranboo regarded that as another small victory. "Hello, um, dragon."

The Blood Dragon softly grumbled in response. He decided to think of that as the dragon greeting him back. “Maybe you won’t like being called just dragon. Do you have a name? You probably do but you can’t tell me. Should I call you something else?” He rambled, “Should I just call you Blood, Gold, or I don’t know, Michael?”

The dragon stared at him silently, and Ranboo felt like he was being judged for his name choices. “What? I think Michael is a good name!” He defended, “Though, I guess it doesn’t suit you…” The suggestions may suck, but in his defense, he’s never been good with names. As he offered another addition of gems to the dragon, he took that time to examine the treasures he has from afar. Ranboo noticed a sharp sword encrusted with the shiniest diamonds and even bits of Netherite. “Oh! What about Dagger, or Blade?”

They laughed at themselves, Prime, what were they doing? They were trying to make conversation with a dragon and trying to give him a name. He felt stupid and pathetic. “What am I even doing?” They silently asked.

The dragon moved to examine Ranboo’s offering, and the enderman plopped himself on the ground. “I’m talking to a dragon.” This was unbelievable, “I can’t find anyone willing to protect me, so- so I have to turn to a dangerous dragon because, because what? The hunters find me dangerous since I’m half enderman, half—” Ranboo cut themselves off, opting to sigh instead.

He can’t ramble on about something the dragon wouldn’t care about. Mob hybrids aren’t usually treated with the greatest respect. He’s met Charlie, a slime hybrid, they acted with childish wonder yet had random times where they showed an infinite amount of wisdom. They’ve been on trips together and he’s seen how many villagers disregarded his existence. It felt unfair, Charlie has been nothing but kind yet still treated like an unredeemable criminal.

Fortunately, Charlie found a safe place for shelter from the hunters. They were taken in by one of the richest people on the SMP, a gambler who owns multiple casinos and owns a big portion of land dedicated to stealing money from the unsuspecting in a ‘legal’ way, Quackity from Las Nevadas. Ranboo did have his doubts meeting him, but he noticed the strong bond between him and the slime hybrid, and who was he to interfere with that?

Ranboo thought he could find safety in a person just like Charlie had with Quackity. It doesn’t even need to have a strong bond, just someone to shield him from harm. He attempted to pay experienced fighters for that reason, but he’s been accused of stealing something that was rightfully earned by hours and hours of mining.

“Do you accept my offer, Blood Dragon?” The dragon made a low growling sound, not as scary and hostile as before but it did make Ranboo tense up. It reminded him of exactly what he was dealing with, he shouldn’t let his guard down no matter what whenever he gets near this giant dragon. The dragon letting him enter and giving him mercy by not outright killing him shouldn’t be a reason for him to relax.

Ranboo scrambled to his feet and patted off the dust on his pants,

“Okay… Next time then.”

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Ranboo didn’t visit the day after that, nor the following days after that either. They decided to spend their time mining in ravines and mineshafts. Who knew giving most of your gems to a dragon would almost empty your supply of ores? They didn’t mind it though, they loved spending their time mining around and always get satisfied with how many resources they got from hours and hours of emptying various caves.

It wasn’t all that dangerous either. Because he was half-enderman, Mobs recognized him as just another mob and left him alone, giving him a safe space. He was hidden away from the judgments of villagers, the spying eyes of hunters, and the awful stares of other beings. In here, Ranboo felt safe.

Safe, but isolated.

It’s what he wanted, but did the price of safety mean taking away his company? Any sort of interaction would be void if it meant living in the caves forever. Mobs aren’t very responsive to his attempts at socialization. It didn’t help that he was an enderman hybrid either, one of the mobs most known for not being able to handle interaction with species that aren’t other endermen and hate eye contact.

He wanted to visit the dragon today, but he hesitated on that decision. Hours of mining led to him upgrading his items at his base using those materials, which left him with nearly the same amount of materials he had before he started mining. Most of what he had was a bunch of emeralds he didn’t have much use for. Trading them with villagers was great, they’d trade some decent stuff but the quality slowly declined over the years. The last time he tried to trade, they tried offering ten pieces of paper for 8 emerald gems, which he didn’t need when he had an entire library of books and journals back at home. It meant most of the emeralds he has and the emeralds he’s mined collect dust in chests.

He debated if he should give emeralds to a dragon who clearly prefers gold, but wouldn’t it be better to have something other than nothing? Ranboo didn’t have the energy to keep mining either. Don’t get him wrong, he loves mining but he loves rest as well.

Ranboo held a large bag of emeralds, and he had that deja vu of wavering fear when he reached the dragon’s den again. What if he didn’t accept his offer? Everyone knows emeralds aren’t of much use other than trading, they can’t be used to make armor or tools. They’re pretty much useless!

Just like the times before, the dragon was there next to their heap of jewels. “Hello, Blade.” Ranboo greeted softly, and he knew he heard him when he did his signature puff of smoke as a hello. “D’you get lonely without me? I know, I’m pretty good company.” He joked and Blade thumped his tail on the ground.

Ranboo chuckled. “Ah- I think I should just be honest here. I don’t… have gold, I just have emeralds and I—”

The Blood Dragon then suddenly popped up from where they were laying and stared at Ranboo. In instinct, the enderman immediately looked away. Oh Prime, Oh Prime, Oh Prime. Coins and metal shuffled around, Blade was moving. Fear struck in Ranboo, especially since they have never seen the dragon stand up or move away from their treasure before.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

He was walking closer and they closed their eyes, trying to touch into their teleporting skill and get out of there. Ranboo could feel the particles surrounding him, and he attempted to imagine the forest outside to teleport to. They weren’t great with teleporting, in fact, it mostly only works when he’s scared and oh, he’s so scared. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!” They screeched out ender apologies, only coming off to the dragon as warbles of sounds.

Blade pressed their snout against Ranboo’s chest, effectively trapping them between him and the wall of the cave. “Oh my Pr- please, please, don’t kill me!” Panicked clawed hands made an effort to push the dragon’s face away, to no avail. This is it, the exact scenario he was worried about. He should’ve just waited for more time and come back with the items the dragon had wanted, or maybe he shouldn’t have even come here at all. This deal was nothing but just the dragon milking out Ranboo’s resources until he was bone dry. Tears welled up in his eyes and they burned his eyesight. Wow, thanks for giving him every enderman trait except for great teleportation skills. Thanks a lot, Universe.

Ranboo didn’t know what he should feel in his last moments. Whether it was anger or sadness, he just wanted the dragon to get it all over with as swiftly as he could. He knew he was taller than the average human but the Blood Dragon was huge, so he could make quick work with him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Blade made a sound, a small roar that sounded a lot like curiosity.. Or was it happiness?

Ranboo opened their eyes and felt their heart thump louder than they had before. The dragon was mere inches away from himself, though their attention was focused on the brown bag on the floor, or maybe what was inside it. They never noticed the dark pink scales scattered across his body before, and the scars of what were presumably sword scars were displayed at his neck. Not just on his neck, but scars displayed on his wings, tail, and even on his chest.

Blade sniffed at the bag and made soft sounds, gently poking the bag with his snout. Ranboo, still in a state of shock, tried to speak. “Oh. Oh- so you were- you like emeralds?” He questioned, and noted that the continuous thumping was just Blade’s tail excitedly hitting the floor.

Slowly, he picked up the bag full of emeralds again and watched as how Blade’s thin irises expanded, reminding him of a cat focusing on a red dot from a laser pointer. “Jeez, you-” Ranboo breathed deeply, unable to find the right words for their feelings. They approached the heap of treasures again, and Blade followed right behind them. Their massive shadow covered the entirety of the enderman and they made a delighted trill sound as the emeralds were added. “There. Happy?” Ranboo squeaked an ender curse as Blade pressed his snout against his body again, and the sound of thunder outside just made his nerves rise again.

Wait… Thunder?

He could barely hear it in this huge cave, but there were sounds of raindrops and the occasional thunder outside. That was strange, he could’ve sworn there weren’t any clouds in the sky when he had first entered- but to be completely fair, he wasn’t paying attention to the sky when he was contemplating about entering the cave earlier. He’s stuck. “Crap…” He mumbled.

Blade turned their head to the ceiling of the cave, aware of the thunderstorm happening outside. Ranboo walked up to the curtain of leaves to see just how bad the storm was, maybe they could set off back to their home. Sure, it may hurt but— “Wait, wait, wait, what are you doing?!” Blade’s tail wrapped around his waist and lifted him just a few inches off the ground and brought him closer.

Blade laid down and gently placed Ranboo by his neck. Was he asking him to stay here? “Thanks, but I got to get home, Blade.” He said, patting the dragon's neck. The dragon replied with a pleading rumble, eyes closed and cuddling their neck closer to him.

Ranboo smiled softly. He couldn’t say no.

#mcyt g/t #mcyt gt #dsmp g/t #dsmp gt #g/t writing #g/t #g/t au #giant/tiny #tiny!ranboo #giant!techno #guppy's asks #guppy writes! #Gold Fever au #mcyt g/t community #mcyt gt community #gt writing #dragon!techno #edits will be made after i sleep zzzzz