#the urge remained though they have no idea about the murders | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theamberfist · 12 days

Text

Like Father, Like Child | Alastor + Exorcist! Reader

Familial! Alastor + Exorcist! Adopted Child! Reader

Description: You always had murderous urges, just like your adoptive dad. Of course, you didn't know he had them too; not until the day he died, when you swore to never act on them and end up like him. Now, you're one of Adam's exorcists, about to fight in the battle between heaven and the Hazbin Hotel.

(Notes: CW Alastor, mentions of murder) (gender neutral reader) (reader is Alastor's adopted child from when they were alive) (Part 1 of 4)

Words: 3,317

You awoke to the sound of banging at your door and groaned, knowing it was way too early in the morning to be up. You'd been having a particularly pleasant dream, too, though you couldn't remember what it had been about now.

Turning over in your bed, you attempted to ignore whoever was out there. Maybe, if you didn't acknowledge them, they would go away and leave you alone?

You were wrong. A few seconds later, the banging continued, making you shove your face deeper into your pillow. "Are you up?" A familiar voice called from the other side of the door but you remained silent. You could hear them huff in exasperation at that. "Come on, don't you know what day it is? Being late would be a really bad idea!"

You rolled your eyes. What could possibly be so important that you had to be up this early for it? This was heaven, after all, so it wasn't like most people didn't respect the fact that you needed your rest. Even if you were late to attend some pressing event, you were sure whoever was running it would be understanding. Everyone here was, except maybe one or two angels you could think of that would probably stab your eye out-

Suddenly, you remembered why today was so important and shot up with wide eyes. Why hadn't your alarm gone off already?

Scrambling across your bed to the little table at its side, you grabbed your phone and opened it to see that you had, in fact, set an alarm. Only, it was for the evening; not the morning. Some help that had been.

"Shit!" You whisper-yelled to yourself as you practically fell out of bed and raced over to your closet to get ready. Luckily, it seemed like the you that had gotten everything ready last night had foreseen this, because your uniform was laid out and ready to go, saving you the time it would have taken to search your closet for it.

"Oh good, now you're up!" The voice outside called as you hurriedly got dressed and then flew over to your tiny bathroom to finish preparing for the day. You were already running ten minutes late, but maybe if you hurried enough, you could make it just in time.

As soon as you'd finished getting ready, you raced over to the door with your mask in hand and threw it open, startling the pink and white spider demon girl on the other side.

"There you are!" She exclaimed with a smile, "I thought I'd never be able to get you out of bed!" You couldn't stay long enough to hear much more of what she had to say though; taking off into flight as you headed down the hall.

"Can't talk now, sorry Moll's!" You told the winner, feeling a little bad for ditching her like that when she'd been kind enough to ensure you made it to work in time. She seemed to understand though because she nodded, waving goodbye to you as you flew off. You resolved to take her out for ice cream when you finally did get back later in order to make up for this. After all, she seemed to have your back no matter how much you'd always tried to push her away.

"Good luck, Jez! Tell me all about it when you get back!" You resisted the urge to cringe at her use of that name, though it wasn't her fault that it made you uncomfortable. Even if it was what everyone in heaven had called you for almost as long as you could remember, it had never been yours.

There was no time to think about that, though; you had to make it to work before your boss noticed your tardiness or he would surely take out your eye.

You waved to the people you knew out and about in heaven's streets as you went; of which, there were few since it was so early in the morning. You knew the way to the heaven's gates by heart, so it didn't take long before you saw them in the distance. Panting from flying so fast, you made your way down to where a huge crowd of other angels had gathered in preparation for what was to come today.

The sight of them was enough to make you nervous but you quickly shook the feeling away, not wanting it to interfere with your job. If you messed up today, you might not be allowed down there again for a while and you weren't sure if your sanity could handle parading around in heaven for that much longer.

Finally, you landed near the back of the crowd, hoping no one other than the few angels lingering there had seen you arrive. You put on your mask now so you would look more put together and then looked around to see if your boss had shown up yet. Hopefully he hadn't; then he definitely wouldn't have seen you arrive late.

"Jez, nice of you to finally show the fuck up!" A familiar voice shouted behind you and you instantly deflated. Of course it would have been too much to hope he wasn't here yet. Still, you turned around, glad for the mask covering your face since it meant you didn't have to fake a smile out of politeness.

"Oh, hi Adam!" You exclaimed and then noticed the other angel standing beside him, "...And Lute."

"You're late." The angel in question said, crossing her arms in disdain.

"Yeah, so sorry about that!" You exclaimed awkwardly, "I, uh, accidentally slept in this morning! Luckily, Emily came and got me so now I'm here! I promise it won't happen again." You were over apologizing, but knowing these two, it was probably the only thing that would keep you from being too harshly punished for your tardiness.

"If you weren't such a great asset, Jez, I'd have kicked you out years ago." Adam told you in a very matter-of-fact tone.

"Years." Lute added with a nod as she crossed her arms.

"You're lucky you hunt down demons like they're fuckin' livestock." Adam continued, "Now, out of my way! I've got some bitches to hype up!" And with that, he pushed past you and through the other angels to get through to the front.

"You'd better prove your worth today," Lute snarled at you as she followed after him, "This is hardly your first slip-up, and even our patience has its limits." You nodded quickly to get her off your back, but in reality, you were glaring through the mask.

She headed up to the front and you let yourself melt back into the crowd now, wishing you could punch that smug expression right off her face. At the front, Adam now began his customary hype-speech you'd grown used to hearing before exterminations.

"Extermination day is here, bitches!" He called, "We're gonna go down and exterminate demon ass!"

"Destroy that ass!" Lute added in agreement. You almost would have wanted to laugh, if you didn't hate those two so much.

"Prepare to slaughter every sinner in that shit hotel!" Adam continued. Now, after having heard what went down in angelic court a while back, you knew where this was going. "And you all remember Vaggie!"

There it was. You winced at the mention of your old friend, whom you'd assumed had run away back when she disappeared on an extermination day years ago. As it turned out, she'd fallen from heaven and was now dating the daughter of Lucifer herself. You weren't sure how to feel about that news, but you didn't think you could get yourself to hate her for it, either.

Of course, it seemed the rest of the exorcists clearly could, because they all let out loud boo's at the mere mention of her name.

Lute must have made a particularly unhinged comment about Vaggie because even Adam seemed taken aback now. "Anyway," Adam went on, "Whoever brings me Vaggie's head gets...I don't know, a million heaven bucks! How about that, huh?" The rest of the angels shouted in joy while you contemplated whether or not 'heaven bucks' were a real thing. You didn't think you'd heard of them before...

"Ladies!" Adam said now, gaining your attention once more, "Let's fuck shit up! ATTACK!" And with that, everyone took off flying down towards hell. Despite the fact that you'd done this plenty of times before in the last seven years since you'd become an exorcist, you still felt that familiar nervousness at the idea of going down there.

What if you saw someone you knew from back when you were alive? There were plenty of people you could think of that had likely ended up in hell, and seeing them wouldn't be particularly pleasant.

But who were you kidding? There was only one sinner you were truly worried about running into down there. It had never happened in the seven years you'd been killing demons for Adam, but that didn't mean it never would.

What would you do if you saw him? You couldn't be sure. After everything that had come out about him after his death, you weren't even sure you considered the man a father anymore. But at the same time, did you have the right to shun him when deep down, you were the same way? It felt hypocritical but the betrayal of what he'd once done still clouded your judgement.

You flew after everyone else now, taking a deep breath as you entered the portal through to hell. You'd done this before, so there was nothing to worry about, you told yourself. Still, there was one fear you couldn't get out of your mind as you flew towards the hotel.

What if you did see your dad, and you weren't strong enough to kill him?

..........

You had always been an...Abnormal child. But then again, what kid wasn't from time to time? You, however, had grown up with urges most people never experienced. They were occasional and you always pushed them out of your mind as soon as they entered, but that didn't mean they weren't there.

You'd thought you were the odd one out for it; that no one around you ever felt the same way. For the longest time, you'd shunned yourself for it, only to later discover that in your case, it simply meant the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

The day you found out your dad was dead had been a shock. The man who had been ever-present in your life since the day he'd adopted you was now gone. But more than that, you'd been appalled to discover the kind of secrets he hid behind closed doors; ones he kept even from you.

He was a murderer, they'd said. He'd killed and eaten the people that were thought to be missing from your area for years. That psycho killer he'd always used to warn you against staying out late at night? That mysterious figure that was always in the back of people's minds as they went about their lives? That monster who had been the talk of every newspaper in New Orleans for months?

He was your own adoptive father.

After the shock came the feeling of betrayal. How could he do this? How could the man that had raised you into the person you were today have been such a lie? You'd always looked up to him; always tried to be like him in one way or another to make him proud.

Why couldn't he have taken a page out of your book for once? It wasn't like you'd never thought of doing those things; like you'd never had the urge to kill too. But unlike your father, apparently, you'd had enough self control to never act on those urges. You'd thought he would consider it wrong; improper, even, if you did, but it seemed now that he never would have minded.

In fact, you might have gained even more of his pride if you'd just given in to your own tendencies. How ironic.

Even knowing this, though, you never bloodied your hands when you were alive. If you had, it would have felt like you'd given up; like you'd let your dad win. You needed to prove to him, to everyone, that that was not the case. You wouldn't kill, no matter how much you felt that unsatiable itch in the back of your brain. You would prove to him that things didn't have to end up the way they did; that he could have chosen not to act on his wants like you'd been doing this whole time.

You'd been a teenager at the time of Alastor's death; left alone in the world to fend for yourself as the child of a now-known killer. It had been an immensely lonely existence, which was why you were glad when just a few years into your adulthood, someone finally ended your misery by killing you off themselves in a way that blatantly echoed your father's previous murders.

You'd expected it, and in the end, you'd been happy to say that you'd succeeded in never acting on your homicidal urges. You'd won in that regard.

Which, you supposed, had been enough to get you into heaven, because the next thing you knew, you were standing in front of the pearly gates being greeted by a peculiar looking man with wings and a halo. Not to mention the fact that you bore those things as well.

After that, the rest was history. You knew Alastor hadn't ended up in heaven so there was no chance of running into him there. You had no one else that cared for you either in life or death, so you stuck to your own for the most part.

That, and the fact that your urges still hadn't dissipated. Every day, you held back from running all that you'd built here in heaven; stopped yourself from making the unfortunate mistake of killing another angel. You were still proving this point to your dad, you supposed, even after death.

Even if he never knew about it.

It took a few years for Adam to catch wind of you due to your reclusiveness, but once he did, he immediately saw the potential in you.

The adopted child of a famous serial killer, whom had still somehow managed to stay clean enough to end up in heaven after it all? And, on top of that, you had no ties to anyone else in heaven that might hold you back or make you weak. Molly was the only other angel you really got along with, but even then, you'd always held her at arms length, just in case.

It was a backstory fitting of an exorcist, and Adam must have seen that for himself, because he immediately got to work recruiting you for his cause. It had taken a long time, thanks to the promise you'd made to yourself that you still kept up in death about not killing anyone. However, he knew how to appeal to your murderous nature, and eventually, he managed to convince you that killing sinners wouldn't be a breach of that promise; but a necessary way to protect the rest of heaven.

Or at least, that was what you'd told yourself.

In a way, you knew you'd never believed it. Your dad was down there in hell; you knew he was. Despite everything, you couldn't say killing him wouldn't count as breaking your promise.

Nonetheless, you trained to become an exorcist. The process was long and grueling, extending over many years. It tested you more than any other experience in your life or afterlife had; stripping away parts of your identity in order to provide you with new ones. Taking away some of that softness; that joy, to bring out your cold-hearted nature more instead. You didn't lose everything in that training, but it was certainly enough to make you harder to recognize by the end.

That was also how you'd gotten the name people now called you by.

"If they're gonna be one of ours, they need a killer name!" Adam had exclaimed to Lute, who nodded in agreement.

"Right you are, sir." It was customary for him to name all the new exorcists as they began their training; whether they wanted him to or not.

"Since you're a murderer's kid, ya need a name that sounds wicked as hell," Adam told you with a thoughtful look on his face. You just waited for him to make a decision already; knowing you were going to hate whatever he picked. Your dad had already given you a name you loved as it was; your name. Nothing else could compare to that, even after all that he'd done. "How 'bout Jez?" Adam finally decided, "That sounds pretty rad, and it reminds me of this one hot bitch I used to know. What was her name? Jezebel, or something?" Lute barked a verbal confirmation.

You cringed at the choice but shrugged anyway. Adam seemed content with that because he took a step closer and slapped you on the back. "Alright, Jez it is. Welcome to the exorcists, bitch!" And with that, he and Lute had flown off, leaving you to come to terms with your new identity.

..........

You flew towards the hotel with the rest of the angels now; feeling your nerves bubble up in your stomach at the sight of the huge black forcefield encasing it. There were tentacles coming out of the forcefield too that held angelic weapons, and it now dawned on you that that was probably how these sinners had found a way to harm your kind.

Something about the forcefield felt familiar to you but you pushed the thought away. You didn't have time to worry about it; not when there were demons to take care of. So, when Adam brought the shield down using his own weapon, you flew in and readied your spear just as you had done many times before.

There were a lot more sinners fighting back than you'd initially expected. Adam had made it seem like the only real threat would be the hotel owned by Lucifer's daughter, but given the huge army outside, that clearly wasn't the case. Where had they gotten so much manpower?

You fought most of them off with ease, noticing how they almost seemed to be...drooling? At the sight of you. It was like they wanted to bite a chunk out of you, and you weren't about to let that happen.

You flew to higher ground now, breathing heavily from taking out so many of the odd little sinners. There was a distinct feeling of accomplishment somewhere within you but you ignored it; reminding yourself that you were only killing right now in order to protect heaven, not because you enjoyed it.

...Even though you did enjoy it.

Now that you were higher up, though, you found yourself closer to some of the black tentacles you'd seen before, which extended off a nearby roof and now seemed to be coming your way.

Gasping in surprise, you brought out your angelic spear to try and defend yourself, only for the tentacles to suddenly stop in front of you, as if their wielder had just realized something. Panting, you glanced to the roof, where a deer-like demon dressed all in red with a few black accents was standing tall. His eyes were fixed on you but they weren't what caught your attention immediately.

He wore a big, yellow smile across his face that you would have recognized anywhere. It sent a chill down your spine as the realization that the exact event you'd always feared was currently coming to pass dawned on you.

Here you were, levitating above a huge battle between heaven and hell. Here you were, performing your eighth extermination.

And here you were, staring into the eyes of your father, whom you hadn't seen since the day he died.

..........

Part 2

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbinhotel #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #platonic hazbin hotel #platonic hazbin hotel x reader #alastor x child readeer #alastor x daughter reader #alastor x son reader #alastor x adopted reader #platonic alastor x reader #adopted reader #family comfort #fanfic #dadastor #alastor x child reader

80 notes · View notes

magswrite · 2 months

Text

prompt: devotion (april 8th). 1,369 words. @jegulus-microfic. cw: mentions of murder/blood

James shuffles side-to-side as he rehearses the words in his head, wondering whether the rumpled flowers in his hand will be enough for Regulus to forgive him. They’re his favorite, of course—dahlias, acquired earlier that morning, but James can still picture Regulus giving them one look and tossing them away.

“Regulus, I’m sorry,” he says. Or—

“—Regulus, I’m sorry. Regulus. I’m sorry.”

He keeps his voice low—low enough that James knows it won’t be audible through the front door of Regulus’ apartment. Under the sound of his muttered words, his heart is beating fast, thunk, thunk, thunk. Whether it’s quickened because of Regulus, or because he’s nervous, James isn’t quite sure.

But, when the door finally opens after a series of determined knocks, revealing a slightly-disheveled Regulus, his heart seems to stop for a second. Regulus has a determined sort-of look in his eyes, and a shiver runs up James’ spine.

“Reg—“

“James, I’m sorry,” Regulus says. “Now really isn’t the best time.”

At that, James’ stomach flips a little, thinking of the speech he’d prepared. Regulus, I’m sorry. The date with Frank—it was a mistake. You know how I feel about you. You know that, under any other circumstance, I’d hardly think about going out with someone else—

And it falls away at the tip of his tongue. Regulus Black apologizing?

“I just,” James starts. The flowers are still clutched in his hand. “Can we talk? Inside, for a moment?”

Something flashes in Regulus’ eyes, and he starts to shake his head, his curls bouncing slightly.

“—I know,” James cuts him off, before he can say anything else. “Bad time. But Reg, I’msosorry.”

It comes out far less elegant than James had pictured it. Still, Regulus hasn’t shut the door in his face, so James figures he’s doing something right.

“I never would have gone out with Frank if I hadn’t—if you weren’t—“

Regulus raises an eyebrow, as though he’s telling James to tread carefully. “—Iwantedtomakeyoujealous.”

Fuck me, James thinks. He’s really bad at all this confessing stuff. Still, it’s out, and that’s better than James has done in the past. He has a history of flirting terribly with crushes, only to never speak the unspoken. And the date with Frank had just been a bad idea, too. James could still see the expression on Regulus’ face after he’d caught him and Frank at the restaurant, going all pouty through the window.

Fortunately, a smile starts to spread across Regulus’ face. An actual smile. His eyes flicker from the dahlia’s in James’ hands, and up to his face, to the hand running nervously through his hair, and something seems to flip.

“Jealous?” He teases, leaning up against the doorframe. “What makes you think I’d be jealous of Frank Longbottom?

At Regulus’ expression, James resists the urge to roll his eyes. James might like to play aloof, but he isn’t, really. He’s terribly obsessive, actually, and has been with Regulus for the better part of a year.

Fortunately, Regulus hasn’t turned him away yet.

“Well,” James says. “Call it an instinct.”

“And you would say your instincts are good?”

“Yes. Generally speaking,” James answers.

The gears seem to be turning in Regulus’ head at the reply, the cool of the night air surely sweeping into the house.

After a few moments of silence, James asks, “Can I come in?”

The same expression remains upon Regulus’ face—what seems to be disbelief—before something seems to flip.

“Sure,” Regulus states, voice cold. “Yes, you can come in. Just—”

The door shuts. It’s probably a minute of silence on the other side before James hears him undo the chain on the other side, and open the door completely.

“I’ll get some water for the flowers,” Regulus says, voice in that some stone-like tone. “Take a seat.”

It’s more a demand than a request, though James has no place to argue. He takes a seat at Regulus’ countertop—cool and marble—and holds the flowers dutifully.

Regulus comes back with a vase, black like the dahlias, and sets them upon their side. Then, he pulls out a pair of shears, and sets them next to the vase. For pruning, James thinks.

“Champagne?”

James nods instantly, thinking of the reprieve a bit of liquid courage might bring. He still feels as if every glance of Regulus’ eyes is burning his skin in judgement. Or in something else he can’t quite put his finger on.

Wandering away from the counter, Regulus takes his time pulling out a bottle of Moet and two flutes. The champagne opens with a pop (over the sink, of course, because Regulus is the tidiest person James knows) and Regulus pours two foaming glasses, setting one in front of James.

When James finally curls his fingertips around the glass, he drinks half the pour in one sip. Somehow, the two of them manage to operate in solitude without any awkwardness—part of the reason James is so in love with Regulus in the first place.

Regulus takes a sip of his own, and then begins to snip away the ends of the dahlias, setting each of them into the vase.

“Talk,” he says, and James does.

“I don’t know when it started, really, because I think I’ve always been in love with you…”

He recalls, first, with how they met. How he’d felt when he first saw Regulus walk into the room at Sirius’ birthday, some sort of angel touching down on earth. Regulus seems to think it’s funny, because a small smile graces the corners of his lips at the memory, and James continues.

While talking, he can’t quite bring himself to look at Regulus, and so his eyes search everywhere else. They search Regulus’ fingers as they unweave flowers from the bouquet, snipping away the bad bits with a snip. They search the dim light of the kitchen, lit almost-romantic, searching little details about Regulus’ life he hadn’t picked up on the few other times he’d been to the apartment.

There’s a painting, hanging in the living room, that James hadn’t noticed before. Or a stack of books, in the corner, of which James wishes desperately to know the contents. Or in the hall, chased almost entirely in shadow, where there’s a hint of red scattered over the floor, perhaps a carpet—

“James?” Regulus interrupts.

He’s stopped trimming the flowers. Instead, the black dahlias are pulled into a perfect arrangement. Perfectly planned.

James realises he’d stopped talking.

“Sorry,” he says. “Lost my train of thought.”

Suddenly, his throat seems rather—parched.

“Water?”

Regulus tilts his head to the side. “Please. Glasses are above the sink.”

James manages up out of the chair, his limbs feeling heavier than he’d been before his monologue. Love, he supposes, does that to you.

He manages to make it to the sink, everything feeling a bit hazier by the second, and turn on the tap for a glass of water. It’s only when he’s dipped the glass just under the faucet that things start to feel a bit—wrong.

There’s a bit too much red in the sink, isn’t there?

James’ eyes flicker back to the hall, back to where his gaze had lingered just a moment before. He can’t quite—can’t quite see it, but he thinks—

“James?” Regulus interrupts, again.

His eyes snap back down to the sink. Then, to the knife block. Back to the sink. A bit too much red, he thinks, again.

And he realizes, then, that it hadn’t been a carpet at all.

“Are you okay?” Regulus continues.

It'd been Frank.

“Reg—what did you do?”

James hates how his voice seems to come out a bit pathetic.

The expression on Regulus’ face flickers, for a moment. The false kindness. Then, suddenly, it falls away, and James feels as though he’s looking at an entirely different person. He’s not sure he wants to look away.

“Thank you,” Regulus says. “For your platitudes of devotion.”

There’s a speck of blood, by his ear. James can see it now—now that he’s so close.

“I hope you’ll thank me for mine.”

Before the world goes black, James can feel Regulus’ hands wrap fast around him.

#this is vaguely inspired by you #i've never watched you #but i'd like to think it is?#jegulus #sunseeker #starchaser #james x regulus #regulus black #james potter #regulus x james #jegulus fanfiction #microfic #jegulus microfic #marauders #marauders era

89 notes · View notes

myslutwritings · 9 months

Note

could you do headcanons of how muzan, kokushibo, and enmu would act when jealous? Tysm in advance if you do end up taking my request :))

yes! i like this idea. and ur welcome:))

➤ How Muzan, Kokushibo and Enmu act when they get jealous!

➤ Sfw headcanons (not proof read)

including: Muzan, Kokushibo, Enmu.

•

warnings: none.

Muzan

Jealousy scale: 10/10.

I lied, it’s 10000000000/10

Come on, don’t be surprised.

You belong to him, no one else.

On top of burning jealousy this man is POSSESSIVE too.

Now, you have QUITE the ✨looks✨

So the chances of a man or a woman approaching you, attempting to initiate small talk or simply flirt are high.

And that right there of course makes Muzan uncomfortable. Absolutely hates it when anyone approaches you but he knows he can’t cause a scene like that knowing you’d be against it.

You can tell because he shoots that person the DEATH stare, wraps his arm protectively around your waist and just stares down at said person hitting you up.

Has the undying urge to murder them, literally has to physically restrain himself from punching their head off.

One day.. ONE DAY, he’ll give into his intrusive thoughts though the next time someone dares to flirt with him.

You’re a loyal S/O so you obviously reject them.

This deeply satisfies Muzan.

Like hell yeah, reject that worthless piece of scum!

The last thing the person sees is him cracking a sinister smile at them.

What you don’t know is that when you’re asleep he actually tracks them, hunts them down, and kills them.

Muzan can’t really help himself. These are his instincts, demon nature, ya know?

Kokushibo

His jealousy scale is similar to Muzans.

I mean, come on, this man become a demon because of his jealousy.

So yeah, he is a jealousy prick.

He’s more jealous than possessive though.

He knows his S/O has a charming and attractive personality with the looks that kill.

Kokushibo isn’t a big fan of going out to public places. But you can’t really blame him, his demonic form is clearly visible. Six eyed freak.

So, other humans aren’t usually flirting with you, in the beginning, he initially thought this was a problem he wouldn’t ever have to worry about considering he’s always around you, plus you never go out that much.

However, on those days you do go out, leaving your boyfriend behind for a few hours. You return back to y’all’s home later that night to inform him about the stranger that flirted with you.

Of course, he gets jealous, no surprises here.

You notice a rapid change in his body language.

It’s quite difficult to wrap your finger around what’s going on through that head of his.

Kokushibo rarely expresses his emotions after all.

He must remain menacing and put on that whole “emotionless” act.

If you assumed he only became jealous.. well, you thought wrong. I like to think Kokushibo would also feel insecure:(

Refuses to admit it, but you love him so you can tell right away that he’s feeling both insecure and jealous.

Koku knows you love and care for him greatly but there is always a dark thought looming in the back of his head, telling himself that you secretly don’t love him and are going to abandon him for someone else.

He lowkey thinks that he isn’t good enough for your love and affection.

He’s so complicated because he doesn’t express it. Instead he handles this jealousy and anger by killing whoever tried to take you from him.

Kokushibo is aware you’re against it but he couldn’t care less. He cannot risk losing you.

Another problem he suffers from is whenever you attend the uppermoon meetings.

So, in this situation, let’s say you’re a demon.

Higher ranked or lower, you still attend those meetings with him.

No one usually bothers you two APART FROM DOUMA.

Bro will not hesitate to rizz you up right in front of kokushibo.

“Woah! Hey, there, Y/N-chan. You look quite beautiful today!~”

Douma you fucked up BIG time.

Gets decapitated for staring at you 😍😍

Not only Douma receives the message but so does every uppermoon.

Enmu

The picture i used above is his facial expression whenever he catches someone that isn’t him tryna hit on you.

Okay, so out of all the other demons, Enmu is the least jealous but he still gets jealous if you catch my drift.

Jealousy scale?? maybe a solid 8/10 or 7/10??

Mostly becomes jealous when other demons flirt with you. Not really humans because he can easily just kill them!!

Feels VERY threatened when a higher ranking demon flirts with you.

I mean, he has the urge to fight them because you belong to him but he knows he’ll get his ass kicked.

If it was a lower demon flirting with you then Enmu would kill them. No questions asked.

Is ALWAYS touching you.

Touches you even more when someone flirts with you.

Like he either has his arm wrapped around your waist or he’s holding your hand TIGHTLY.

Just wears a fake smile when some demon or human is being a little too friendly towards you.

Enmu is reluctant when it comes to even letting you out by yourself. he’s lowkey paranoid someone will try to steal you from him so he’s always attached to your hip.

During the times he isn’t present he will find out if anyone ever upset you, talked to you, flirted with you, etc.

Even if you don’t tell him, he’ll find out and downright TORTURE them if they’re a human.

Honestly, it really depends on how he’s feeling.

His jealousy scale changes on how he is feeling.

If he’s in a rather good mood that day then he’ll leave it be if you ask nicely.

But be wary of the days he’s in a bad mood. Enmu will show zero mercy.

266 notes · View notes

allmyocsarebritish · 1 month

Text

Kiss, Maime, Kill - Chapter 2: The Louisiana Butcher

Pairing: Alastor X killer! fem reader

Warnings!!!: Reader is a serial killer, convinced she is in the right, descriptions of murder, it goes without saying but I really don't condone this, Al's surname in this is Altruist cause it's even more ironic, but yes I know that's not canon

Wordcount: 1k

1928

Louisiana, New Orleans

The partnership you forged with Alastor woke something inside you. In the year that had passed, you felt alive; quite possibly more so than you had in your whole existence. Killing became even more of a thrill, something you had previously thought to be impossible. But with someone to share in the sadistic glee, it was only natural you'd be even more enthralled with the act of slaughter. How strange it was to dream whilst awake.

Murder aside, Alastor himself was truly something else. He understood your twisted mind in ways you never thought would be possible, always reassuring and calm, even in the face of utmost danger. You became close, closer than you were to anyone else, a strong friendship that broadened beyond the constraints of a mere work acquaintanceship.

Therefore, the once fortnightly affair of serial killing became more frequent as time progressed. And, proportional to the increase in your escapades was the time in which the two of you spent together outside of 'work'. Long, leisurely strolls through the park as he rambled became the highlight of your day. There was something about Al's voice that soothed you; there was a good chance that you were the top listener to his radio show, tuning in daily and without fail.

Sitting by the radio, warm mug of coffee in hand, you fiddled with the dials, the exact pattern to Alastor's show ingrained in your memory. Twisting the knobs, it felt as natural as breathing. The radio whirred into life, Al's voice rang out, clear and comforting, like a peaceful white noise.

"Salutations, dear listeners! I say, it's so good to be back on the air." You couldn't help the smile that appeared in response to hearing as he spoke.

You listened intently as Al discussed recent news topics, and, though mostly mundane and repetitive, the host managed to spark interest in even the most boring affairs.

"Now my friends, I urge all of you to stay safe out there."

A sentence which sent shivers hurtling down your spine.

"Rumurs of another missing person have spread like wildfire, and, although we must wait for confirmation of the police report, there is good reason to suspect that this is the work of the illusive Louisiana Butcher."

The Louisiana Butcher. That was what the press was calling you. It all came from Alastor's idea of how to spice up the slaughter further.

*graphic description warning!!*

You leant over the body as you slowly sliced along the man's clavicle relishing in sadistic delight. Your breath came out in sharp pants as you stared into the soulless, unblinking eyes of your victim. Sweat plastered your hair to your forehead, the exertion straining your muscles as you paused to catch your bearings.

Behind you, Alastor chuckled darkly, applauding your lack of mercy.

"Well done, Cher, quite the display."

You basked in his praise, eyes gleaming with manic pleasure.

"Thanks, Al." You stood, wiping the knife on your prey's shirt and moving towards the shovel.

"Wait-" Alastor's gentle yet firm grip on your wrist was a surprise, sending a wave of adrenaline through you, matching the high you felt following a kill. What was he doing to you?

"Leave it." He smirked, a dangerous spark lighting up his eyes.

"And get caught? Oh, Alastor, don't make me laugh!" You smirked, though your smile dropped when he remained insistent.

"I'm serious, dearest. Don't you want to make this adventure so much more exciting?" Bastard knew your weak spot: your penchant for criminal adventure. "Give the law a lead in our case. It isn't like we're at risk of actually being discovered; it will just add to the thrill of the chase when we make the front page of the tabloids!" His hand took your own, his face bearing an expression only present as the aftermath of a brutal killing. But this time there was something else in the mix of those rarely heightened emotions: affection.

Alastor liked you more than be had initially expected to. At first you had been but a mere pawn in his game, an opportunity to deflect the blame should he ever slip up. But now? You were so much more than that. His partner in crime, his best friend, his moitié. (Louisiana Creole for better half)

True to Alastor's word, the two of you made the cover of the paper the following evening.

"The Louisiana Butcher. That's what they're calling us, Al. Oh isn't it just so exciting?"

He smiled at the clear rush of ecstasy flowing through your veins. "Quite."

You were sitting on the plush, brown leather sofa in his living room, two mugs of coffee on the small table before you. Leaning into him slightly more than you knew you should, his arm draped over the back of the couch, directly behind where you sat. The broadsheet newspaper you had picked up in the way over splayed across your laps, the two of you intricately studying page one, the title practically jumping out of the sheet.

"Alastor?" You asked after a moment's pause.

"Hmmm?"

"What do you think would happen if we were to be caught? Y'know, just in case." Something foreign weighed down your voice, fear.

Alastor folded the paper and placed it on the coffee table, turning to face you entirely. He took your chin between hos thumb and forefinger.

"Well, first of all, Cher, you needn't fret in the slightest. Not a single officer would ever suspect a pretty little thing like you as a cold blooded killer. And regardless, even if the whole world was against you I'd still proudly stand at your side, my darling." Your cheeks heated at the compliment, drawing a smile to your lips, reflected on his own.

"But what if you were suspected?" Al let out another laugh at your concern.

"Ha, ha! My dear, don't make me laugh! You know I wouldn't slip up in such a way!"

"You promise?"

"You have my word." He drew your knuckles up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to them.

"Thank you, Al."

"Whatever for?"

"For being here." You moved further into his side, to which he froze for a long moment before reciprocating.

"Not a problem in the slightest, Mon Cher."

Part 3!

#hazbin hotel #hazbin #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #alastor imagine #alastor x reader #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #hazbin alastor x you #hazbin alastor x reader #alastor x y/n #alastor x you

51 notes · View notes

featherandferns · 1 year

Note

fluff drabble for 13?

13. You ate the last slice of cake. You're dead to me now.

absolutely!

feel free to request: prompt list

have your cake and eat it too - prompt 13

No.

No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

Your stomach twists and churns and you feel your light mood immediately drop like an anchor sinking to the water’s bottom.

You push a few more things out the way, hoping that maybe the remaining slice of cake is somehow hidden behind two bottles of beer and a half empty punnet of strawberries…but it’s useless and built on false hope. The cake that you’d been saving specifically for this afternoon is gone.

“Goddamn it,” you mutter, ticked off.

Closing the fridge, you trudge to the cupboards in search of something sweet to have instead. There’s a two-week out-of-date protein bar, topped with chocolate. It’ll do. It’s definitely not as good as that last slice of strawberry shortcake, though. As you eat, you stare out the window of the Chateau’s kitchen absentmindedly. Normal thoughts pass through your mind, like plotting the murder of whichever of your friends ate the last slice of cake.

When someone’s arm wraps around your waist and hoist you up, you let out a surprised yelp. JJ presses wet, purposefully sloppy kisses to your neck as you groan out in protests, trying to shove him off.

“Cut it out!”

JJ finally lets up with a laugh, putting you back on the floor. You spin around to face him. The moment you lay eyes on him, you know who the victim is for your imaginary daydreams. In his spare hand, the one that he hadn’t wrestled you up from the floor with, is the last slice of cake. There’s a huge bite already taken out of it. Whatever JJ’s babbling on about is falling on deaf ears. You’re staring at the cake like it might start talking to you.

“Is that my cake?”

“Huh?”

He follows your gaze and shrugs. “I just found it in the fridge.”

“That was mine,” you tell him.

JJ raises his brows, a shit-eating grin already growing on his face.

“This was yours?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Well, how come? Does it have your name on it?”

Making his point, he lifts the plate up nearer to his eyes and pretends to search for your name pasted on the frosting.

“No, I don’t see your name,” JJ concludes.

“I’ve been saving that all day,” you darkly say, glaring holes into his head. JJ doesn’t even tremble under your deadly gaze. If anything, his smile grows.

He picks up the slice careless, like it’s a twinkie or something that he found under the sofa and has another bite. Talking with his mouth full, he says, “I can see why, I mean, it’s really good.”

Reaching out for it, you say, “at least share it with me.”

He’s taller than you and easily holds it out of your reach. Grinning down at you, he swallows then asks, “why should I?”

“Because you’re a nice boyfriend,” you say. You’re jumping up, trying to reach for the half-slice left.

“I am?”

“When you want to be.”

“Hm,” JJ thinks. “I guess that’s true.”

“JJ! Come on!” you whine. So close.

But he’s backing away from you, still holding the cake up. “Well, what’s in it for me?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I get in return for sharing my slice of cake with you?”

You bite back to the urge to remind him that it isn’t his slice of cake. “I don’t know. The satisfaction of being a good boyfriend?”

“Yawn.”

“The joy of making someone happy?”

“Boring,” he sing-songs.

JJ leisurely takes another bite, somehow still too quick for you to grab the cake from him. You have to be careful. You can’t let him drop it. Whilst you’ll be put off eating it, he has no shame and would still finish the whole thing off.

“Oh! I know!” JJ says as an idea comes to him, swallowing his mouthful. Grinning boyishly, he continues. “You have to give me head.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Trading head for cake is technically prostitution,” you tell him. A bit of a stretch, but still…

JJ barks out a laugh. His body relaxes when he does, and his arm lowers just enough that you can reach. In his brief moment of distraction, you jump up and swipe the cake.

“Hey!”

You immediately make a run for it, laughing manically, darting under his arm and out the front door. JJ’s laughing too, racing as after you.

“Give it back!”

“Never!” you call back.

The Pogues, who are sat outside, perk up as you race past them. Crumbs are falling off the cake as you go.

“What’s going on?” Pope asks.

“I’ve been robbed, Pope! That’s what’s going on!” JJ tells him.

JJ catches up and tackles you into his arms. You start screaming through your laughs, trying to wriggle free.

Locked in his hold, you still try and keep the cake from out of his reach. It’s like a stalemate. If he lets go of you with even one arm, you’ll break free again. If he tries to take a bite from the cake, you simply hold it out of his reach, but if you try and take a bite, he’ll practically ram your head with his as he goes in to take some too.

“Why don’t you two just share it?” Sarah offers, humour in her voice as she watches the whole exchange transpire. John B and Kie have gone back to their conversation; yours and JJ’s antics like white noise to them by this point.

“Oh, we’re well past the point of that now,” you tell her.

You’re not sure how the idea came to JJ, but the moment it does you’re screaming through your uncontrollable laughs and falling to his mercy. He’s tickling at your stomach, relentlessly ambushing you on either side.

“JJ! Stop it! I’m gonna pee myself!” you practically cry through your hysterics.

JJ lets up and lets you go. You collapse onto the ground, trying to catch your breath, and JJ swoops down and takes the last slice of cake. There’s no time to even say goodbye. He eats it in one huge mouthful. You gape up at him from the grass. Betrayal.

“You bastard,” you dramatically say.

JJ wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I hope that cake was worth it. You’re in the doghouse for a week,” you tell him.

JJ stands upright, hands shoving into his pockets. Cocky, he tells you, “you can’t stay mad at me for a day, let alone a week.”

“Watch me. You ate the last slice of cake. You’re dead to me now.”

He quirks a brow. Behind him, the sun shines, casting him in a gorgeous glow. Damnit. Even looking at him has your resolve breaking.

“What if I gave you head?” he offers.

You bite back your smile. JJ knows it’s there nonetheless; starts grinning too. Knows he’s won once again. Rolling your eyes, as if having him go down on you is some kind of inconvenience, you sigh.

“I guess that could win me back.”

#jj #jj maybank #jj x reader #jj maybank x reader #jj drabbles #jj maybank drabble #jj x reader drabble #jj maybank x reader drabble #obx #obx fic #obx drabbles #obx preferences #outer banks #outerbanks #outer banks drabble #outer banks preferences #13 #prompts #drabbles

137 notes · View notes

finniestoncrane · 11 months

Text

Switch

Arkham!Two Face x Female!Insert, word count: 4k commission: harvey x oc (changed to just a female insert character here) have a lilttle bit of switch fun 💙 commission me here! request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: flirting, teasing, teensy bit of misogynistic language, sub/dom/switch dynamics, orgasm denial kinda

Another rainy night in Gotham, and another ridiculous hour to be outside in that weather. But she didn’t mind. She was used to being cold. She preferred it. And she was excited enough about her evening plans that she would have walked in the rain for hours to get to where she was going. Luckily though, Gotham’s nightlife was always thriving, despite the threat of villainy and criminals around every corner, even in the broad day light let alone the dark of the very late evening. Which meant that there were plenty of cabs driving on the roads, and she was quick to hail one over to her, telling him her destination. He blinked three times before unlocking the door. Everyone knew the address. It was Harvey’s place. Two Face’s domain.

She wondered if the cab driver had briefly considered warning her, playing the knight in shining armour. At least, had he thought of that before he took a long hard look at her, her neutral, if not slightly mischievous expression and her outfit, which screamed “typical Gotham criminal” and decided against it.

In the back of the cab, she finished the last of her business on her phone, final emails of the night before she switched it off and focused on herself for a while. It was rough business, constantly fighting to remain afloat, scrambling to get near the top. The planning, the organisation, the constant communications. If someone had told her villainy was this difficult, well, she would have still been drawn to it. But she might have considered a degree in administration or business management.

But there were always moments of reprieve. Times she could set aside to relax, when she needed it more than anything else. And as always, ever ready to satisfy that urge though he pretended it was begrudgingly, was Harvey.

Good old Dent would never let her down. Despite his efforts to convince her that he hated receiving her last minute demands for some time alone with him, he was yet to say no to her inviting herself into his home for their sordid little meetings. He liked to convince himself that he had the upper-hand in their relationship, but they both knew better. She had him wrapped around her finger, and she knew how to make the most of that.

As though on cue, her phone pinged, right as she made the move to turn it off. A text from Harvey himself.

“Listen, if you’re not here in the next five minutes, I’m locking the door.”

Rolling her eyes, she typed a reply back.

“Oh yeah? In that case I’ll be fifteen minutes, and we’ll see if big bad Dent can stick to his word, huh?”

Turning the phone off, happy to ignore his response in favour of winding him up further, she sat back against the seat in the darkened cab, watching the ever-present rain drip down the window. Sighing, she admitted to herself that she was looking forward to this as much as she knew Harvey was. There was an undeniable connection between them. Not love, more lust. It was as if he knew her, and that knowledge served her well. He could relieve her tensions, that was for damn sure.

But she didn’t want to get too deep. It was better that their relationship, if they could call it that, remained superficial. Surface level. It was hotter that way. There was a danger to it. She couldn’t really bring herself to admit it out loud, but thinking about it, there was something deeply arousing about the idea that while he was willing to tend to her every need in the bedroom, Harvey was capable of switching moods as quickly as he switched personalities. Where was the fun if your potential sexual encounter wasn’t likely to murder you as equally as they were likely to grab you and kiss you.

She knocked on the large, heavy front door and waited. The panel slid to the side and she looked in, making unamused eye contact with one of Harvey’s goons who closed it, the sounds o f several locks being opened before the door itself was finally ajar. Stepping into the warmth, she offered a polite smile to the three men who stood, armed to the teeth, in the hall of Harvey’s mansion. She made a conscious effort each time to only walk on the neat side, keeping her shoes clean from the dirt and grime on the other. By the time she had made it to his lounge, he was there at the door to greet her.

“You made it.”

“Of course.”

“You stopped answering my calls.”

“Yes.”

He looked at her, straight into her eyes, his brow furrowed in irritation.

“Why?”

“Harvey, I have limited time and limited patience. Do you want to question me or do you want to make a start on what we had planned for this evening?”

Deciding it was easier to give in than to argue, and desperate to be allowed to put his plans into motion, he growled and turned, heading into the lounge and holding the door open behind him for her.

She took a seat on the throne in the room, watching as Harvey stood by the liquor cabinet, pouring two glasses out for himself, and another two for her.

“Old habits die hard, huh?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he swallowed down one glass, then another, and brought one over to her where she sat. Standing still, he watched her sip, blushing when she realised he was staring.

“Penny for your thoughts, Harv? Or a silver dollar, anyway?”

He smiled, an incredulous scoff with notes of unamused sarcasm echoing in the room before he spoke.

“I was actually thinking… you look pretty good up there.”

“Better than you do anyway.”

She smirked, teasing him. And though he scowled, she knew he liked it. Taking her by surprise, Harvey leaned in, taking her chin in his hand and kissing her. It was deep, surprisingly warm. Tender, too. Different from the way he usually felt, there was something to it, something new, but still familiar. His lips, the good side, were firm on her. But the weaker side of his face added the attributes she longed for. Messy, sloppy. It felt carefree, careless when he kissed her, his drool falling from the corner of his mouth, coating her as he moaned. His tongue, running along hers as the vibrations tingled through her throat. But as quickly as he started, he pulled back, awkwardly scratching at his neck. Clearly not his usual self, he shuffled from foot to foot, staring at the ground as he found the confidence to speak.

“So… Did you have time to consider my proposition on your journey over here?”

“I did, and I refuse to just automatically let you take charge, Dent. I don’t know why you would think otherwise.”

He sighed, reaching into his pocket and producing his coin.

“Ok then. Standard rules apply. I’ll flip, we’ll see who gets to go first.”

“Oh, the suspense is killing me.”

She rolled her eyes, a slight smile crossing her lips as she watched Harvey’s coin spin in the air on it’s way up and back down. He caught it perfectly in his palm, slapped it onto the back of his other hand, and revealed it.

“Ha! Ok, Harvey. Let’s get you trussed up like the good little slut you are.”

With a groan, he tossed his head back and began to shuffle behind her as she led him to his throne in the middle of the room.

“Sit down, big boy. Let’s get going, I think we’ve wasted enough time.”

Surprisingly obedient, Harvey took his seat on his ridiculously opulent throne as she stood up and looked straight into her eyes as she opened her purse up, producing several strands of deep red silk.

“You planned ahead.”

“You didn’t?”

He sneered at her, but the soft, red glow on his cheeks betrayed his confident and callous exterior. This was getting to him, it was pleasurable. And she could keep it up all night if she had to. The playful back and forth, the never-ending disagreements. It was the backbone of their ‘relationship’ and it fed them both what they needed and more. Chaos, an escape route if things got too emotional, toeing the fine line between lust and hate.

Harvey sighed at the result of the coin as he faced his throne, pulling his shirt out from his pants and lifting it up over his taut abdomen, revealing his muscles, scarred on one side, smooth on the other. Turning, he caught her eye and smirked a little, pleased that his body could still draw her attention that way after however many times she had seen it before. Sitting in his chair, finally, he slid his pants and underwear off, his cock, soft still, resting between his open thighs, completely on display for her, which she appreciated sincerely.

Taking the silk, she tied his ankles to the legs of his throne first, noting to herself that he put up no fight, happy to submit it seemed, despite his insistence that he was always the dominant one in any scenario. She moved to his arms next, bringing the silk around his muscular forearms and sliding it down, pulling the ends to bring his arms tightly together.

With his hands tied together at the wrists, she raised them above his head, using another length to keep them up by connecting them to the back of the throne. She let her eyes wander down his body, shirtless and exposed, his cock beginning to stiffen, twitching at the sensations of her touch and the silk on his skin. The longer she looked at it, licking her lips without even realising, the harder he seemed to be getting. Snapping out of the trance, she returned to her usual witty self and smiled warmly, but mischievously.

“Already, Harv? I’m just tying you up. You really like being subby for me, huh?”

“I really don’t. I just know what’s coming. If I grit my teeth and take it then I get my just rewards.”

“Who said anything about a reward?”

He narrowed his eyes as he waited for her to explain, already concerned about what she could be suggesting.

“Would an orgasm be the reward you expected, Harv?”

“I would have assumed so, yeah.”

“Well… it’s too bad that bad boys who are all trussed up like little sluts don’t get to cum.”

She sank to the floor, kneeling in front of him, dragging her soft hands up his thighs. Her fingers reached the top, close to the base of his cock, skirting around it, briefly grazing it on either side, before she pulled them away. Harvey threw his head back in desperate irritation.

“If you can behave, Harvey, I’ll consider letting you cum. But you have to be very, very obedient. Can you do that?”

“I’m sure I can handle it.”

He rolled his eyes, but he felt a pang of nerves rising in his chest. The only reason he’d called her over, practically begging, was because he was desperate. The urge, the need for release, had been overwhelming. And now he was being asked to supress it. No, in fact, it was being demanded of him.

Before he could adjust himself to the situation at hand, he felt her touch, her fist closing around his length. He gritted his teeth, trying not to make a sound, but his breath hissed out as he relaxed into her grip. She watched him, eyes never leaving his face, as she stroked his cock, feeling it pulsing under her touch, watching his face contort as he got closer to the pleasure. As he struggled against the restraints, he bucked his hips up, thrusting his cock through her closed fist. Sensing his desperation she jerked harder, faster, listening to him as he whimpered her name under his breath. He rarely did that, only when he was deeply aroused, so close to orgasm that his mind was stifled and his efforts to pretend he didn’t care who was making him cum lapsed, letting her know he was thinking of her, transfixed on her alone. When she felt his muscles tensing, she let go quickly with no warning, and Harvey snapped at her.

“Oh, fuck- … really?”

“Yep. I told you, rules are rules. You sure you can handle it?”

“Listen, I can handle anything.”

“Let’s test that theory then.”

She stood up from the floor, her hands moving to her back, a sultry move of her hips as she unzipped her dress and pulled it down her body onto the floor. Basking in his gaze, his pupils blown, she let him take her in. Completely naked, no underwear, because what was the point, in her heels only. Either instinctively or stupidly, Harvey pulled against the restraints, trying to reach out and grab her.

Lifting her leg up, she rested her foot on Harv’s chest, the toe of her shoe pressed into his chest and the stiletto heel digging into the skin just below. She increased the pressure, pushing him back into the seat.

“I really don’t think you’re going to be able to do this, Harvey. I think you’re going to give in, which is a shame, because you would make the nicest little fuck toy.”

“I’m really not going to give in, or back down. The coin decided. I can play fair.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Before he had finished his sentence, she had lowered her leg and was straddling him, holding his cock at the base as she lowered herself on to it. His whole body tensed as she clenched around him, her walls stretching to accommodate his entire cock as she balanced on his lap. She rolled her hips forward once, a quick thrust, and Harvey’s fingers gripped the arms of his chair. With a sly giggle, she began grinding herself on him, using him to fuck herself.

Under her, she could feel his body shifting and writhing, at least as much as he could manage while he was restrained. His desperate bids to try and take control of the situation, to at least fuck her instead of being fucked, but he couldn’t get the angle right, and she was grinding down hard on him, limiting his movements.

The more she rocked against him, her fingers clawing at his chest and broad shoulders, moaning in pleasure with each stroke of his cock against her sensitive insides, the more Harvey could feel himself reaching his own climax. But it was telling, his face, the way his breathing became ragged. And each time he seemed to be reaching the point of no return, she kept her body still, his cock twitching inside of her, pulsing as she raised herself off it, waiting until he had calmed down before she began rocking herself on it again.

“You are a complete pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Oh, Harv. Careful what you wish for. I brought more than just the silk ties, you know.”

Something unfamiliar inside of him stirred. He was usually never complacent in being dominated, but the way she commanded control over his body, the suggestion of her possibly taking him and penetrating him gave him butterflies. He’d never admit to it though. Their relationship was unsteady, not based in trust. He couldn’t imagine confessing that to her. he had to maintain at least equality, even if it meant denying himself a pleasure he was suddenly deeply curious about.

She began groaning as she picked up the pace of her thrusts, her slick coating Harvey’s thighs and her own, arousal flooding her as she could feel the heat of orgasm spreading from her stomach through her body. But, much to her own disappointment as his own, as she began to feel herself closing in on her own orgasm, she was thrown off by the sudden shifting below her, and Harvey’s frantic pleas.

“Ok… you have to stop, I can’t… I can’t hold it this time, I swear…”

Swiftly, and without much ceremony, she stood up, his cock freed from her as he sighed in relief, bobbing before settling, the flushed red member settling against his abdomen. He was so hard, so aroused, and she knew he was enjoying himself, but the pain of being denied the pleasure was still etched on his face.

“You need to give me a second… I can’t… I have to…”

“Can’t handle it as well as you thought, huh big guy?”

“Shut up.”

A little irritated by his attitude, she decided to keep pressing him. Bending at the waist, she leaned in to him, her breasts in front of his face, tantalisingly close but just out of reach of his mouth. She stroked her thumb over the head of his cock, wet with her own slick, picking up the small drops of precum which formed at the slit, spreading it over the sensitive skin with the gentle motions. His hips jerked, hitching up in desperation, trying to cling to the modicum of joyous friction and touch she offered. But she pulled her hand away again.

“Oh you… little bitch…”

“Tut, tut, Harvey. That’s not very gentlemanly of you. Even he wouldn’t be so rude to me.”

“That’s because he enjoys watching you torture me.”

“Torture is such a severe word. It’s… teasing.”

“Yeah, Harv!”

He growled at his own response, irritated by how much Two Face enjoyed the suspense, the withholding of pleasure.

“Shut up, don’t make this any worse.”

“Ah, the inner turmoil. One of you loves it, letting me be in charge. The other hates it. And let’s be honest, even more than he loves being brought to the edge and cruelly pushed back again, Two Face definitely likes to see you suffer more.”

He whined, his voice breaking, throat closing as he tensed against her, the way she seemed to have complete control over him.

“Ok, enough now, come on!”

She ignored his pleas, his desperate begging to be let loose. He wasn’t playing by the rules, after all, and he would be mad at himself and her if she gave into his demands so easily.

“Hey, seriously.”

“Oh, Harvey. You’re forgetting the rules, sweet boy.”

He looked to her, confused, eyebrow cocked and mouth open as he thought.

“You’ll have to use your safe word if you want me to stop, silly.”

“Oh…”

Quicker than she expected, Harvey uttered the word in an unamused tone, and the atmosphere shifted. With the confusion now on her end, she untied the silk restraints from Harvey’s ankles and then his wrists, freeing him from his ridiculously egomaniacal throne with a desperately disappointed feeling settling in her stomach. She was worried that she had taken it too far. Worried that she might have ruined things between them. And more than that, she was annoyed that she wasn’t going to get to fuck him now. But, before she had too long to let the dismal feeling fester in her chest, Harvey had his hands on her arms, gripping her tight and turning her around before he dropped her into the seat he had just left.

Swift, surprisingly so, he tied one of her wrists up, and she realised what was happening.

“Harvey Dent!”

“Guess again, baby.”

He grinned wide, self-satisfied and mischievous as he winked at her, tying the other wrist and moving to her ankles.

“Oh. You. I might have known.”

As he smiled, he continued to tie her ankles up, and she put up a little bit of a fight, just for him. She didn’t want him to think he wasn’t getting the full show. He liked a bit of a struggle, after all. At least, Two Face did. And she was more than happy to perform for him.

When he had finally secured her to the seat, mimicking the way he himself had been tied up, he stood back to admire his work. As she stared back at him, her chest heaved, breathing heavily as she waited patiently to be ravaged by him. And she didn’t have to wait long.

He sank to his knees and slowly shuffled towards her, his hands on her knees, trailing up her thighs, spreading them as far as they would go past the arms of the chair without straining her ankles, before he buried his face between them.

She screamed out instantly, the sudden fervour of his touch, the passion and hunger behind it, driving her to the edge as he pressed his tongue into her cunt, shaking his head from side to side as he growled into her. Her wrists were bashed against the ties and the arms of the throne as she tried to reach out for him, desperate to grip his hair, to push him closer to her, further into her. Straining, she screamed and groaned, as Harvey’s muffled laughter only served to tease her more.

She whined when Harvey knelt back, resting on his ankles, away from her body.

“Don’t worry, I’m not as cruel as you.”

He undid the ties, freeing her. Sitting still, she looked at him, waiting cautiously.

“Turn around and get on your knees.”

Obediently, she did as she was told, her knees on the soft cushion of the chair, her arms holding onto the back of the throne. She braced herself, waiting for Harvey, jumping when his hands made contact. His palms, smoothing over her hips around to her rear, grabbing at her cheeks as he held himself against her. Gripping his cock, he ran the head of his cock along her lips, teasing her before he slid himself inside of her.

“F… fuck…”

“Yeah, I thought so. You like that?”

“Mmm… oh god…”

“You can pretend all you want. You’re a little slut who likes getting fucked.”

Harvey held onto her waist with one hand, the other reaching up to grip her hair, pulling it and arching her back against him and onto him. With the angle he had her at, he thrust up, striking her inside, his abdomen slapping against her ass.

“You like being fucked rough? Think you deserve it?”

Unable to speak past the moans and gasps, the pleasure overwhelming, she could only mumble incoherently against his punishing thrusts.

“I’m in control.”

There was a guttural groan as he thrust himself in, his fingernails digging into her skin, a change in his tone, in his voice.

“I’m in control. Not you. Not him. Just me.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest, excitement growing at Two Face’s words, the way he held her, the way he forced more of himself into her than she thought she could take, surprised by her body’s willingness to have his entire length inside of her.

“That’s it, take it. Take everything, you’re such a dirty whore, huh?”

She nodded, but it was imperceptible given the force at which her body was being pounded into, and the quivering of her every muscle as she tried to steady herself in the wake of her climax. Body ready, weakened by arousal and pleasure, she could feel herself slipping, losing strength. And as she came, screaming at the top of her lungs and clenching around him, she was steadied only by his hands, one on her hip, the other on her chest.

Quickly, without giving herself much time to revel in the aftermath, she steadied her own body again, oddly keen to serve his needs in that moment.

“Where do you want it? You wanna be filthy? Want me to cum inside you?”

“Please, Harv… anything… anything…”

“So obedient. You’ll remember this next time you think you’re in control, hm?”

She bit her lip, trying to remain stoic, but as he withdrew himself, she shouted out.

“No don’t, Harvey, please. I swear, I’ll remember.”

Slamming himself back in with a cruel smile, he rutted a few more times before he grunted loud, a low groan following it as he spilled himself inside of her. Pulling out, he watched his cum trickle down the inside of her thighs, settling on the seat of his throne. He leaned in, kissing the back of her neck and bringing his palm sharply to her rear.

“You should know me better by now.”

Knowing he couldn’t see her, she smiled at the sentiment. She did, and she had known exactly what she was getting in for. Always had.

#harvey dent #two face #two face fanfic #finnie writes #arkham!two face #two face x reader #harvey dent x reader

84 notes · View notes

blvvdylcve · 10 months

Text

BloodLust. Ticci Toby x Fem. Reader.

Chapter Four.

TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD!

MINORS DNI 18+

[Y/N] -> Your Name.

Word count : 5983.

MASTERLIST !!

————————————————————————————————————————

There was a soft hum. It sounded like a car engine, a soft mumble that could be heard from underneath you. Your arm throbbed in pain and so did your head as you let out a soft groan. The seat underneath you felt soft, yet there was an occasional itch on your face which you could only assume came from an article of clothing beneath you? A cloth maybe?

That was beside the point, you were not in your motel room anymore and that was more than apparent. You felt sick, you smelt and could taste the remains of vomit in your mouth. Your eyes finally fluttered open, it was dark in the car, so dark even that a part of you almost thought that you were blindfolded. You moved your arm, letting out a hiss. Your wrists were tied, your ankles too? Before you could glance up at the driver, a glint just below you caught your eye. It was a blade, that same axe that had hatched your arm away. You blinked desperately, trying to get your eyes to adjust to the darkness that swallowed you up whole.

You hadn’t realised but your body was trembling. Was it fear? The lack of sleep that was beginning to catch up to you? Maybe you had finally lost it, a nightmare perhaps? You’d passed out on the couch and when you awoke from this fucking nightmare, the first thing you’ll do is speed dial your therapist and mom. God, Mom. You wanted her so badly right now. Your gaze slowly flickered to the person in the front seat, he was focused on the road, his index finger tapping against the wheel. You say he. You had no fucking idea. Was it the same guy from the motel room who hacked at your arm? Fuck, you hoped you weren’t going to lose your arm. You didn’t want to die. You squeezed your eyes shut tight, you were not going to die and you were adamant on that. You had to at least give some kind of justice to Anne right? Like, maybe, if you miraculously survived, this would be a big, ‘hey, Anne! We did it!’ Did Anne experience this too? Your heart ached.

With a soft struggle, you clenched your teeth together to hold back each whimper and groan of pain as you let your ass brush up against the back seat. Your pockets were empty. No phone or wallet on you. Well, the other plan caused you to gaze up at the handle of the door to your nearest left. Almost thankfully enough, your hands were tied up close to your chest. With some wiggling here and there, you could reach for the handle of the door and just try to slip out at that next traffic light. Then again, that was the next worry that plagued you. There hadn’t been any traffic lights for awhile, where the fuck were you? You could feel the familiar pit of anxiety brewing in your stomach, you wanted to heave again but pushed the saliva to the back of your throat and pursed your lips.

Let’s be real, if you survived this shit and wrote a novel, it’d be the next best seller and you’d never have to worry about paying your bills on time again. Right now though, your main priority was just surviving this fucking mess. Sucking in a calm and steady breath, you began to wiggle up the seats. You used your legs and hips to help thrust you up inch by inch. It would’ve been quicker if you had used your chest but causing more pain onto that huge fucking wound would make you yell out bloody murder. You were almost certain that your bone was showing, peaking out amongst the blood and muscle of your arm. Your mind went hazy as the urge to heave again swelled up in your throat. With determination to survive coursing through your bloodstream, you continued to shuffle up further the seat until you deemed yourself close enough to the handle.

This was the part that would fucking hurt, outstretching your arm to reach for the handle. It would be worth it, a small surge of pain in exchange to live the rest of your life. Fuck, grow old, do dumb shit like getting nailed between aisles of a library for the thrill of it. Fuck the best seller book, imagine being that kick-ass mom that survived this bullshit. You could feel the smugness stretching across your face. With a steady breath, you sent a cautious gaze over to the driver. He was focused on the road, he looked as if he was lost in his thoughts. There was a hood draped over his head, so you could barely make out any facial features or what colour his hair was. This would be crucial when you finally called this bastard in to the cops.

Slowly, you outstretched your arm and let your hand reach its way to the handle of the door. The pain stung, causing you to quickly bite down on your tongue. There was a taste of blood that begin to taint your tastebuds, but the sweet smell of freedom was enough to continue to push further. You stretched, stretched, your fingers reaching out and barely grazing the handle. It was like the handle glinted in the moonlight, mocking you for your sheer desperation to live.

That was right, you wanted to live. The glare of the moonlight took you back to the night you tried to take your life and now you thought about it, how fucking stupid was that shit. You were here, just about and you were not giving to give in to death so easily EVER again.

Your fingertips hooked around the handle and your heart burst in excitement. You gasped, shooting your gaze up quickly as you pulled back with what strength you could muster up. CLICK.

You went to push the door open but nothing happened and you froze, feeling as if everything around you had stopped. It was locked, the door wasn’t budging and now you felt like you were being mocked. No. No, life, success, a meaning to life was RIGHT there. Your breath hitched as your eyelid twitched, your hand dropping down helplessly. There was a lump forming in your throat, vomit? No, you were crying. It started with a single tear rolling down your cheek, down your nose and dripping onto the fabrics of your shirt and then there was a soft whimper that escaped from your throat involuntarily. You could taste it, freedom, you could’ve, should’ve, you had a fucking right and now this guy was going to kill you like you were nothing but a sack of fucking meat. All your worries vanished. Who gives a fuck what your nose looked like, how much you weighed, your teeth or even the blemishes upon your cheeks. You were going to die. You were uncontrollably sobbing now, unable to stifle any noise that escaped from you. It was pointless, this was all for nothing.

“Fuck….! Fuck!! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” you were screaming, your throat so hoarse that occasionally it would break from the outpour of tears.

The drivers posture changed, he sat up a little and then suddenly leant over the steering wheel. His body contorted for a moment, jumping up and down until it hit you that he was laughing. He was practically slapping his knee, holding his stomach and gasping for air as he tried to control his laughter. Your cries and sobs ceased to be but your bottom lip trembled, the sheer embarrassment of this guy laughing in your face made you wish that maybe your death would come quicker than you had previously hoped. He leant back, caught his breath and suddenly started laughing again to begin round two. This time, he was punching the steering wheel and occasionally the car would blare out a small honk here and there.

“You are f-f—“ he laughed more. “Fucking funny!” he exclaimed, happily before now leaning back in his seat again. It seemed he had calmed from his laughing fit. You glanced at his figure before at the rear view mirror. His eyes were on you, wide and hungry. You could just about make out the brown. “You h-have fuckin’ sp— spirit- feistyy.” That word rolled on his tongue and it caused you to shiver in disgust. This was hilarious to him. “I-I-I-I- FUCK!” he punched the wheel, leaning back, sucked in a breath, twitched his neck and returned the gaze in the rear view mirror. “I like t-the—them when they f-fi-fight back. Sooooo f-f-fun!” This guy was fucking crazy and unpredictable. Your gut was yelling at you to move, to fight back, to literally do anything but you remained still, like a part of you wanted to hear what he was to say to you.

God, the way he fucking talked. It was jarring. It reminded you so much of that creepy fucking neighbour. What was his name? Tony? Toby? That’s it, Toby. Yeah, he was weird, but he would’ve never acted like this? Right? You narrowed your eyes, glaring at him with hatred. He was smirking, it was evident with the crinkle around his eyes. He was enjoying himself more than you wanted to even admit, to consider. You pursed your lips, your eyes stung and you could feel a couple of stray tears trickle down your cheeks.

His eyes wandered, you couldn’t tell whether he was looking at your arm or your body but it sent a shiver of disgust that made your shoulders shudder.

“R—R-Real fighter, t-that arm, h-h-hurt?” You narrowed your eyes, the stuttering felt so familiar, almost as if you were talking to Toby. You finally let your gaze wonder to your arm or what you could see of it. The pain had ceased, it was numb and it seemed that it had finally stopped bleeding. You’d lost too much blood though, that was for sure. Pursing your lips, you were silent for a moment, you didn’t want to talk.

“Speak.”

“Yes—“ you mumbled, answering his question from before. His face were stern for a moment before he was smiling again.

“Y-Your own f-fault..” he shrugged and sighed. You took that time to sit up a little and peek up and over, gazing out the window. You weren’t moving, had you been moving at all? You were at a stand still, somewhere remote which would explain why it was so dark within the car. “I’ll f-f-fix you u-up, okaay?” He spoke in a tone that made your face contort into disgust, like he was just constantly mocking you or having fun.

“Where are you taking me?” you croaked out and now he was taking in more excitement to know that you were finally engaging a little more, it seemed apparent that it was boring when he did all the talking.

“J-J-Just somewhere.. m-me.. you, a-alone, t—t-together. T-Then we c-can really play,” he moved his hand which caused you to flinch in fear. His hand slid down from the wheel and moved to the key in the ignition. He turned it and the car rippled to life.

You had no idea what he meant by ‘play’ but the idea alone didn’t sound great, you pursed your lips. If your wrists weren’t tied and your arm weren’t on the verge of falling off, you’d get the damned rope and strangle him from behind.

The car began to move, causing you to fall back a little against the chair. It was scary how casual he seemed when he drove a car, like he wasn’t an insane, mentally fucked individual. Nobody in their right mind would even assume that he had someone tied up in the back of his car, falling in and out of consciousness. There was the soft hum of the radio, a news station and despite trying your best to listen in, it was pointless.

“Y-You were m-more of a fighter than A-Anne,” he broke the silence. It was him, he killed Anne. You felt your emotions contort, rage and sadness mixing in beautifully within your very person.

“You fucking monster,” you spat, lurching forward a little. He laughed, shaking his head in response.

“P-Play the game, w-win stupid prizes, r-r-right? W—Well… N-Not so much for A-Anne..” he snickered, you felt even more repulsed. What kind of fucking game? How could this even be a game if the person had no idea they were playing?

“You’re a sick fuck.”

“A-And you a-accepted the i-invite!” he shrugged, keeping his gaze on the road momentarily before flicking you a look in the rear view mirror. You were struck with confusion.

“How?!” you voiced your concerns. He leant over for a moment, picking up something from the passenger seat before waving it up. It was a brown envelope.

“T-This look f-f-familiar, b-babe?” Your bottom lip wobbled, you were so fucking torn in anger you wanted to lash out more than anything and he knew this, he loved and thrived off the idea of getting under your skin. It was too easy, you were a fucking brat.

“It was you,” your voice was gravelly and coarse but your anger was clear to see and it fuelled Toby more. How he was making you sick was unexplainable but it was more than evident that he killed Anne, if you were to escape this fucking nightmare, you had to do justice and go to the cops. A part of you bit back the guilt that snapped you in the ass purely for not doing it any sooner.

“Y-You’re slow,” he replied, a little sing song chime to his voice. What the fuck was this? A Saw movie in the making that almost everyone in your life just forgot to inform you on?

“What are you going to do to me?” There was a wobble in your voice, a wobble of uncertainty to whether you wanted to know the answer to your question or not. Maybe living in the unknown would be the better outcome.

You wished you could speak to mom, to dad. To say you’re sorry for being the literal worst child in the world, to say goodbye and thank them for everything despite the fact that they were somewhat useless in their own aspect. You wanted to go back, back to the time where the only monster you had to worry about was the one under your bed. Where your dad would scare it away with his footsteps and then lull you to sleep with the trace of his fingertips against your forehead. This was nothing compared to the monster under your bed and now you wanted to reach out and cuddle that inner child of yours, to hold her hand and never let go. Life was so unfair, this was all so unfair.

“W-W-Well, your arm is b-b-bleeding out,” he paused momentarily to look left and then right of any incoming traffic before stepping on the gas. The car hurled itself, like it was on the verge of dying itself. “P-Patch you up..” his voice trailed, leaving you in another state of confusion. Patch you up? Could he not make up his mind on whether to kill you or care for you? Had his mom never taught him to not play with his food? This was cruel. “G-Get you on your p-p-pretty knees and s-s-suck my cock, hm?” You felt repulsed, mostly because his words were so intoxicatingly inviting. He shifted in this seat, like he was getting a hard on just thinking about it.

“I f-f-feel like this w-was too fun, s-s-s-so, l-l-let’s make a deal?” He glanced at you but you were still unable to make out any facial features. “I’ll g-g-give you t-t-two weeks,” he held up two fingers. “F-F-Find me a-a-another victim, p-pass this on and I’ll l-l-let you live.”

Two weeks? Your mind was being flooded with questions, so much so that your head began to hurt and throb even more. You had two weeks until you were dead? Your breath was caught in your throat. Not many people would know when they would die, unless they were terminally ill, right? Everyday, we all cross the day we die and now you knew.

“What..” was all you could bring yourself to say, your voice a whisper.

“T-T-Three weeks if you spread your l-l-legs.” This guy was so fucking smug, you could hear it dripping off his voice. You felt disgusted and you scoffed. “B-But I’ll give you o-one more c-chance.” This would be easy, even though you would be sending someone else to their death, a part of you felt selfish for even thinking this. “B-But I’ll be h-h-hunting you.” You pursed your lips, you felt conflicted, almost like a part of you should just play along and another part of you should run to the cops to get this fucking freak busted. Your gut twisted, like running to the cops would be the worst outcome amongst all of this. You didn’t even want to consider it, but you knew that this guy was skilled, like he had done all this messed up shit before. You were silent as he continued to drive, you had no idea where he was taking you but there was something telling you that you weren’t going to die just yet.

————————————————————————-

The drive was quiet, excruciating too as your arm continued to throb in pain. You felt nauseous and this guy wasn’t necessarily a good driver, which quite frankly didn’t surprise you either. You could only assume the roads were quiet considering the speed he was going at, which gave you another good indicator that it was late. No, not late, it had to be early morning. You had no idea but you were desperately trying to cling onto consciousness.

Another half hour passed and the car came to an abrupt stop, jolting you awake. You must’ve dozed off, your eyes feeling heavier than anything and suddenly you became far more alert and awake when he got out the drivers seat and slammed the door shut. You wouldn’t like to say you had become frightened, but you knew that had arrived at some sort of destination and the surge of questions that plagued your mind were becoming a hefty reminder that you were not safe.

The passenger door swung open where your feet promptly laid closer to, causing you to slowly urge your head up. He was stood on the other end, it was still dark and you couldn’t make out any fucking facial features which only irritated you some more.

“C-Come on then..!” there was a hint of excitement in his tone as he reached out for your legs but abruptly stopped, giving himself a small smack on his forehead. “O-O-Oh, right… Heh, how could I-I-I-I forget?” With a small chuckle, he pushed a hand into his trouser pocket. He was wearing cargo pants, that was for sure considering he had large pockets on the sides of his legs. Out he pulled a large piece of fabric, a black one and now he had began crawling towards you. In all honesty, you prepared for the worst. You’d had the occasional night flings, sure, so you weren’t a virgin but the idea of being fucked by this complete psycho made you prepare yourself to muster up courage to fight back. You were expecting his hands to move to your pants but they didn’t, instead he crawled over you so he was practically above you on his hand and knees.

There you could get a better look at his face. His hood was up and over his head and it seemed there were stray locks of brown that escaped from under his hood, flicking in different ways. His eyes were brown, with dark circles around his eyes and as you quickly flickered your eyes to take in every feature of his face, the black fabric he held within his hands suddenly was wrapped around your head. Your vision was blocked, your breathing making it hot under this fabric and your body prickled in anticipation for what the fuck was about to happen to you. You could hear him breathing above you still, like he was enjoying the sight of you being tied up, bleeding with a black sack over your head. His breathing was shaky, trembling almost as you tried to stifle your own breathing to hear what was going on outside of the black sack.

Then there was motion, his hand moved again and it sounded like he placed one just beside your head, the other moving to gently caress your cheek. Your body tensed up, the soft touch least expected in this situation especially by him. You could hear your own heartbeat and despite trying to calm your breathing, it was becoming deafening. You could’ve sworn that he could’ve heard it too, your heart thumping away helplessly under your rib cage. The hand that was caressing your cheek moved, slowly and now his thumb was gently pressing on the outline of your bottom lip. He couldn’t see your mouth or facial features but it was like he was working on muscle memory alone, like maybe he had already done this to you before. Almost instinctively, you opened your mouth and his thumb hooked in toward your bottom teeth, using them to help force your mouth open more. With the fabric in the way, it wouldn’t stop him and now he was leaning in to press his lips against your own. You couldn’t feel his lips, just the roughness of the fabric but you knew he was kissing you.

Before you could even process what had happened, he was pushing himself off your frame and stepping out the car. His hands that had once shown you softness were now rough against your ankles as he pulled you out the car, sliding you across the seats and using his strength to pull you up and over his shoulder. The motion of it, along with not being able to see what was going on make you feel motion sick and you pushed back the urge to heave. Nothing would be worse than throwing up with a fucking black sack on your head and having to practically lie in your own vomit.

You could feel his footsteps beneath you as he walked and it felt he hadn’t walked far until you heard the turn of a handle which squeaked and a door being pulled open. As he stepped inside with you over his shoulder, you could hear the change in his stepping. It sounded like dirt before but now it was like wooden flooring. There was a shuffle before he pulled you off his shoulder and sat you down on what you could only guess was a hard, wooden chair which honestly, hurt your ass so you shuffled for a moment. The door closed, trapping you here with him and then suddenly the black sack was ripped off your head. This allowed you to take a look around at your new surroundings.

It seemed like a wooden cabin, it didn’t look homey at all, it was cold, some beams of wood broken like it had been hatched away at and there was a sleeping back on the floor which looked like was around a makeshift fire. The fire was out, what only remained was the ashes of one before this. It looked like it had previous residents but not from this person alone, like multiple. There were cigarette butts on the floor, some razor blades for reasons unknown and it seemed there were empty cans of.. deodorant? It was an odd little place, abandoned for sure and a part of you could only assume that maybe it was a hunting lodge? That could only mean you were in the woods but you were filled with uncertainty, after all, he did put a black bag over your head so you were just reaching out for any theories here. The cabin was dark however lit by a couple of stray candles that simply didn’t provide enough light, your eyes straining in hopes to try and figure out who this person was.

The guy in front of you was pacing a little, a finger tapping against his chin like he was deep in thought. You could only assume he was coming up with ways on how to murder you, the thought alone made you quickly advert your gaze away from him. He paused and knelt down by the ash of what used to be a campfire, beside it was a black backpack, it seemed filled with all kinds of things but it was hard to make out what. Out he pulled a pocket knife and first aid kit before approaching you. He paused in front of your figure, like he was assessing you over.

“If.. I-I-I cut those ropes around your w-w-wrist, you won’t l-l-lash out at me, will you?” his voice was stern, hoarse and for once, serious. You pursed your lips, how the hell could you trust him after what he had done in the first place? Reluctantly, you shook your head and you could’ve sworn he grinned beneath his mask. “G-Good.” He then knelt down, raising the pocket knife to cut you free. You wanted to rub your raw wrists but the fear of moving your arm and having that strike of pain ripple throughout you made you freeze. You weren’t going to risk it.

“N-Now, I’m n-n-no doctor, so.. y-y-eah,” he was awkward as he pulled out a wrap of bandages and began to slowly unravel them, letting them press against your arm and wrap around. You hissed out and for once, he froze, like the idea of hurting you actually seemed to cross his mind and made him reluctant to continue. Had he actually had feelings? No, surely not. “I-If Jack was here, he’d do a b-b-better job than me,” he chuckled a dry chuckle. “A-A-Although, he’d p-p-probably eat y-you.” Jack? This guy actually had friends and they were just as scary as he was? What? Was this guy some kind of fucking cannibal? Or was he talking about an animal? Or even better yet, some kind of actual fucking monster?

He could sense your fear, it excited him and yet he continued his work on your arm. It hurt like hell without any kind of numbing miracle, but it was whatever.

“S-S-So… T-Two weeks, y-you mess up, y-y-you’re dead,” he grinned, his hands were trembling and occasionally his head would twitch. Your mind was rattling, questions flooding your system and quickly, you cleared your throat to speak.

“I just give someone an envelope right?”

“A-A brown o-one,” he corrected with a soft shake of his head.

“Right, a brown one.. And then.. what they die?” He chuckled, not answering your question but it almost seemed that the chuckle was enough.

“And you’re gonna try and stop me.”

“S-S-Sounds fun, right!” You clenched your jaw, this guy was so fucking unhinged.

“But what about Anne, she gave me the envelope and she still died..!” you protested a little.

“S-She ran out of t-t-t-t—“ he paused, sucked in a breath. “Time.”

“So, this is my.. second chance?”

“Mmmh-hmm!”

“And they die? Like, I’m sending them to their death? What if the cops find out?”

“I l-love g-games.”

Asking him questions were taking you nowhere, he was refusing to answer them and he was taking enjoyment out of your frustrations with him beating around the fucking bush.

Finally, he finished wrapping your arm up and stood, there was a click in his knees as he did so and carelessly, he threw the knife and first aid kit down to the floor. It tumbled and clattered against the wood, causing you to flinch a little in response. You shot a glance at your arm, it was a shitty job and you cringed a little at the idea of getting a possible infection over it.

“So, what now? Can I go home?” There was a tremble in your voice, like the true extent of your fear was showing. He shrugged.

“Awh, but t-the company is s-s-so nice,” there was a soft whine in his voice and you shifted uncomfortably.

“You know where I live, right?” He scoffed, what you had said was clearly the most stupidest thing he had ever heard.

“R-Right..” his voice trailed off and then he turned, pushing a hand into his hoodie pocket to retrieve the black sack that was on you previously. “Y-Y-You don’t m-mind?” Why was he asking you? You didn’t fucking care, as long as you actually got out of this shit alive, it would be a miracle. You nodded, a bit too eagerly for your liking and he approached to slide the hood over your head.

It was black again, you held your breath as he picked you up and you returned to the car. This time, he left the sack on your head and you could make out the engine roaring to life and the motion of moving. You felt pretty nauseous but the idea of actually returning home made you feel a purge of excitement flush through your body. It felt like the first time in forever since you felt excited in general. You held your breath and let the car ride roll out.

————————————————————————-

You must’ve fallen asleep because when you awoke, you were no longer in the back of the car. You were in your apartment room, the smell of it simply bringing tears to your eyes. You were home. Home, it hadn’t felt like home in such a long time. Slowly, you moved your hand to caresses the sheet underneath you, you were on your bed. You were alive, you held your breath, half expecting that any minute something bad was about to happen. But a beat passed and nothing happened, you were still on your bed trying to steady your breathing. As you took your bedroom in, the messy pile on clothes shoved in the corner of your room, your bedside table full of bottles of all kinds of medication you had to take and then your teddy bears, staring at you on the other side of the room on the dresser. As you let your gaze settle on the soft bears, something else caught your eye. It was a letter, this time no brown envelope and slowly, you pushed yourself forward to reach out for it. There was no doubt that your arm hurt, it hurt like hell itself but you pushed through. The amount of bloodless wouldn’t be good for you, but you seemed okay right now and the only thing you could simply be thankful for was the idea that you were actually alive.

Opening up the envelope, you read the writing. It was messy, as per usual.

‘i did a shit job on ur arm. go to a hospital!!! :D ps. times ticking. dnt forget’

You held your breath, it was better than a death threat or another photo of Anne. This fucking guy. You crumpled it up, tossing it back onto the dresser before standing. Your head throbbed, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to actually get your arm patched up by someone more professional. What was written was right however, you were on a ticking time bomb right now and you had to pick a person. Bella? No, you couldn’t, she was young and had her whole life ahead of her, sure you did too, but she was kind and caring. Lisa, your therapist? She was old, maybe her time was due? You shuddered, you’d be sending people to their death and now this was some kind of game? Lisa was always a fucking backstabber, you were her patient and what you told her was supposed to be confidential but she would always run her mouth to your parents. Sure, they paid for the sessions but that didn’t mean your business was suddenly theirs? You felt a tinge of anger and then your mind wandered to Anne.

She caused this, she did this to you. The days you spent swallowing yourself up with guilt, it felt like nothing. She passed this curse onto you, this problem and as much as you didn’t want to admit it, you were glad that she was dead.

———————-

A couple stitches here and there and you were back from the hospital. You were glad you didn’t have to deal with any cop interrogations, you pulled some weakness excuse out your ass saying you simply hurt yourself while doing some D.I.Y it wouldn’t explain it, sure, but you were patched up and they were off your back so it was a win, win either way.

You had been sat on your couch for an hour now, you would’ve been pacing back and forth but your head was hurting and the nurses and doctors advised you to relax. You simply couldn’t, you had to pass an envelope to someone and someone soon. You should’ve asked this guy more questions, how would you get the envelope to begin with? Like, what, pass them an empty one or did you have to write some creepy fucking message? You bit your lip, pulling the skin off and swallowing it which made your lips raw. You did this a lot with your anxiety, you also bit the inside of your cheek a lot. God, you had issues and now doing something like this only made you feel more like an asshole to begin with.

Your phone was on the coffee table in front of you, the screen black as you exchanged a couple of glances toward it. You were tapping your thumb against your leg anxiously, feeling too scared to move a muscle and reach out for it.

Was Lisa your final option? Does she deserve this? Make an appointment and just give it to her, easy, right? Just say its like a ‘thank you’ letter, she wouldn’t ask any questions, she’d be delighted to receive it? How would you get the brown envelope, just wait for it in your letterbox? Under the door? You sucked a breath, slowly reaching out toward your phone. It was your life or hers and she was old, like it fucking mattered. You sounded like a selfish asshole, you were going to rot in hell but it wasn’t like you had a fucking choice!

Your hands trembled as you punched the pin code into your phone and opened up your contacts.

Lisa.

You pressed dial, pressed the phone to your ear and waited. It rung and rung and rung. Each time, your heart beating faster and faster. Then there was silence.

“Hello? [Y/N]?” You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out, you cleared your throat and forced a smile, like she could see you. Your voice trembled.

“Hey, Lisa.”

#creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #slenderman #creepypasta headcanons #ticci toby #xreader #fanfic #eyeless jack #marble hornets #toby rogers

51 notes · View notes

niyanoireee · 3 months

Note

Hiii!! Rlly interested abt what vanguardtale is about, like is chara physical? How? Does the au still take place in the underground? Or well whats the overall idea? Love the art btw ♡

hi okay so!! this will be a short summary!!

Vanguard!Tale starts at the very end of the pacifist route. Instead of the barrier breaking, It had stayed completely shut for currently mysterious reasons. Asgore would have normally sacrificed himself so Frisk can pass, however Frisk talked him out of it, as she assured him that she'd find another way.

KEEP IN MIND THE STORY IS STILL PROGRESSING cuz.. everyone who’s part of it is insanely slow.

— > Frisk is female in vanguardtale , Chara is male.

For the next 7 years, Frisk stays underground. She's now 17, soon to be 18. During this time, War rages out on the surface which further prevents the monsters from leaving the underground. Due to war and the danger of humanity on the surface, The seven souls are currently kept under even heavier containment as Asgore decides what to do. . . The name vanguardtale comes from the fact that Asgore will eventually give 6 monsters one of the 6 souls; So eventually they can go on the surface and not have to worry about being attacked by humans. This is just a lil summary there’s so much more lore :3 but that’s like the jist. As for some of the MAIN characters. . .

FRISK

Frisk starts off as 10 almost 11, but is now 17 and soon to be 18. Unknown to most, She's done numerous genocide runs years before her final Pacifist run, only to be remembered by Chara. She is, at her core, a murderer. But with the power of DETERMINATION, she came to a realization that she has the ability to change who she is. She will always have the urges to start another route, however her willpower to be a better person and change lives is much stronger than the halfhanded urges. She now resides at New Home and has somewhat replaced Sans as "The Judge".

TORIEL

Toriel has remained basically the same with the slight addition of a new nickname; Cari. Even though shes very similar to UT!Toriel, She has become slightly less reserved in fights. She will only kill when provoked by someone who's proven to be irredeemable, in which she will not hesistate or falter. She excells in almost all fields above most monsters, however shes especially skilled in defense. As for appearance, she looks far more royal than before. She wears purple underneath her white cape and white DELTARUNE symbol connecting the jacket/cape together

SANS

Sans, appearance wise.. is the same. Literally the exact same. He's lazy, did you expect much different? However he DID find a "blue heart sticker" that hes worn ever since. (Possible redesign soon) As for personality, he's much more canon than fanon. He will, in fact, NOT push out a blaster at the slightest inconvinience! With Frisk now taking the job of Judge, he's pretty much living carefree.

CHARA

Nope! Chara is not physical as you asked! He’s a ghost and god knows how he ages. Chara HATES Frisk; And that’s alot coming from someone who would kiss the ground she used to walk on. Any route they took, Chara would support. Every genocide she did, Chara was rooting. But eventually something changed. After Flowey had completely given up on trying to stop Frisk; Chara took a step up and began that job. Not because he hates Frisk for what she’s done; but because they’re insanely tired of being in this world. Imagine how many resets of genocide and then some random ass postponed pacifist. Yea, he’s fucking fed up.

the whole au generally requires a lot of explanation so if you have more questions about something u want more detail on lmk. ALSO IK I DIDNT COVER EVERY CHARACTER BUT THERES SO MUCH TO COVER AND I JS WANGED TO GIVE A QUICK SUMMARY OF WHATS MOST IMPORTANT

#nyxnoireee #vanguard frisk and chara #vanguardtale #vanguard frisk

9 notes · View notes

mariana-oconnor · 1 year

Text

The Cardboard Box pt 1

An uninspiring title, but apparently it's controversial? All my brain is thinking (I am still le tired) is 'Big fish, little fish, cardboard box' over and over again.

If you don't get that reference, that's probably for the best. the early noughties were weird.

Anyway. I hereby do swear that this time I shall read the text more carefully and all my claims, accusations and harebrained ideas will be based in textual evidence and not mere vibes alone. One cannot thrive on vibes alone!

I'm going to try anyway. I may still dislike characters on principle, though.

He did however take a particular fancy to some of the paragraphs at the beginning of the tale and urged me adapt them for later revisions of my story ‘The Resident Patient’, which I sent to you in January.

OK, so is this going to be an AU version of The Resident Patient? Because I feel like that gives me a head start on the guessing.

I did a side by side of the two and overall it seems pretty much the same, except we're now in August and it's blazing hot. I shudder to think how Watson would have described August in the UK last year. Then we have the discussion about Holmes reading Watson's mind body language. Until we get to the first significant difference:

"Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?” "No, I saw nothing."

Aha, the titular cardboard box, one wonders?

Watson is really falling behind in his paper reading duties. Holmes is doing all the legwork here. Honestly. You just can't get a good chronicler these days! But he's still making Watson read it aloud.

Holmes does like hearing things read aloud. He'd be all over audiobooks, but he's got Watson for that so it's all good.

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

Ooooh, I think I might remember a bit of this one. I might remember what's in the box, anyway.

Sorry, that was my contractual obligation.

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident."

If it's what I think it is then practical jokes were significantly more aggressive in the Victorian Era. I don't think even TikTok has graduated to this level. We're getting a pretty weird look at the 1800s English sense of humour: beating other children with sticks and... this.

"A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt."

Everyone needs some seasoning on their... "two human ears [...] quite freshly severed".

Okay, poor taste, poor taste. I know it's there for preservation. Also weirdly I thought it was going to be fingers. Don't know why I thought that. But yes, this is quite the jape, my friend. I just cut off some human ears and sent them to you.

How is this a practical joke? These are genuine freshly cut ears. Even if they're from a cadaver, that's theft and criminal damage at the very least. Isn't it? And I thought they were particularly strict on stuff like that in the 1800s. We're a little late for the Resurrection Man and Burke and Hare, but they did not like people messing around with corpses.

Okay, research research: 'The Anatomy Act of 1832 made it legal for corpses from workhouses that remained unclaimed after forty-eight hours to be used to satisfy the demands of the anatomists.'

Welp, I guess it was okay to do anything to corpses if they were the corpses of poor people with no friends or family (or at least no friends/family who could afford to claim them).

I mean, on one hand it stopped people from being murdered and science needed bodies to learn how bodies work better (good lord did we need to learn how bodies work better) but on the other hand, this does make me uncomfortable. Workhouse in life, still put to work in death. Also, from a purely scientific viewpoint, your sample is biased. You need some rich people bodies in there, too.

"There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post."

So, either she's secretly running an underground crime ring. Or the ears were meant for someone else with the name S. Cushing.

"...she let apartments in her house to three young medical students..."

Oh, yeah, fine. All makes sense now. Medical students are fucking feral. I have met literally one in my life who I would have been comfortable to have as a doctor, and I think he was just really good at hiding it. Guy once got 'kidnapped' by an entire female hockey team and ended up in an entirely different city. Another one I know just kept a dead squirrel in the shared freezer so he could do dissection practice on it.

I'd put the Dead Dove, Do Not Eat gif, but he didn't even label the fucker.

"...their noisy and irregular habits..."

Medical students... yeah.

"In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”

Oh hai, Lestrade!

At least the police are putting an actual detective on the case and not just saying 'oh it's a silly prank' and ignoring the transportation of human body parts. Was it illegal to send human remains by the royal mail at that time?

“I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon."

'We're totally going to do this, we just don't have... any idea how. But we totally could!'

"The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way."

Did somebody say... TOBACCO?

A specialist subject has entered the chat.

If Holmes doesn't use his extensive and very detailed knowledge of tobacco to help solve this case, I will be v. disappoint.

Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever...

Watson is contractually obliged to remind you that Lestrade looks like a ferret every time he appears. His publisher insists on it.

I'm informed that an antimacassar is an arm cover for an armchair or sofa. My Nana used to have them. They had tassels and I'd get told off for plaiting the threads in the tassels together. Good times.

“Why in my presence, sir?” “In case he wished to ask any questions.” “What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?”

Miss Cushing has very strong Done With This energy and I am here for it. Those are not her ears. She has perfectly good ones thank you very much, and she does not need any more. Why are you still bothering her?

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”

Holmes once again showing that he does have emotional intelligence no matter what people might think.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”

Oh, not the tobacco knowledge, but the knot knowledge. I see 'peculiar' and 'knot' in the same sentence and I immediately think 'sailing'.

Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has been originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.

Our sender has poor handwriting and poor spelling, then. The 'wrong person' theory is growing stronger. The likelihood that Miss Cushing is a criminal mastermind diminshes. Shame.

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he examined them minutely.

Is he wearing gloves? Please tell me he's wearing gloves.

“Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it."

This feels like something the police should already have noticed. If the questions are 'Where did these ears come from? Has a crime been committed?' you would think someone would have considered whether they were from a preserved corpse or someone fresh. I know that policing has changed a lot since then and forensic medicine wasn't really a thing, but clearly they suspected foul play was a possibility, because Lestrade called for Holmes.

"We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time."

Oh, Lestrade. The things you can do without leaving your home. She might have anyone buried under the floorboards. She might have been sending blackmail letters to her neighbours. She might have been doing any number of things. I still think the wrong person got the parcel, but saying that she's just too respectable for this is very optimistic of you.

I do agree that if she knew what the ears were about, she probably wouldn't have told anyone about them. Unless she's in such a secure position that she doesn't think anyone would ever trace anything back to her. In most situations, it wouldn't be the best move.

"One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring."

Did no men wear earrings in Victorian times? Admittedly, probably not 'respectable' men, but the knot's already pointing me at sailor (as is the tarring on the string, tbh) and it used to be a thing that tattoos were mostly a sailor thing over here, and piercing is a similar kind of body art. So a woman or a sailor with small ears.

omg. pirates.

"The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring."

Oh, okay, so the earring wasn't the thing. Doesn't prevent the first ear from belonging to a small pirate, though. Sunburned also makes me think sailors. They have to be outside a lot with no shade. Sunburn on your ears is the worst. They have my sincere sympathy.

Also, y'know, cause they got their ear cut off - with a blunt blade, which... eesh.

"These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now."

I mean, they could have been kidnapped and this could be proof of life. These days if you get an unsolicited body part in the real life mail the mind does go to kidnapping. Maybe that originates here - but they have no way of knowing whether the ear was detached ante or post mortem at this point, do they? So it's more proof of having, rather than proof of life. And I don't think I'd recognise my friends or family by their ears, so it's not even really that. If the earrings had been attached then I might recognise them.

Yeah... s'weird. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're dead. Although... Victorian hygiene and understanding of germ theory.

...

Yeah, they've got sepsis. They're dead.

Question spiral! Holmes just asking himself question after question is very relatable. And bringing up all relevant points about how if Miss Cushing knows what's going on, taking the ears to the police but telling them nothing is the weirdest possible response.

I'm assuming that the subject of this email is wrong, because if this is part 1 of 1, there is no conclusion to this story and so without further evidence, I am forced to believe that one large pirate and one small pirate, genders unknown, are currently dead/dying of sepsis and the true recipient of these ears, M. S Cushing (any or all letters interchangeable) has heard nothing of their fate. Although, given it was in the newspaper, they probably have heard about it by now. So maybe they don't need the ears.

No idea why the ears were sent though. Proof of a hit? Proof of life? Just a creepy serial killer who likes to send the ears of their past victim to their next victim? Probably not that one, seems a bit Criminal Minds for a Sherlock Holmes story, but you never know.

#Letters from Watson #Sherlock Holmes #The Cardboard Box #Modern Sherlock this is a live unboxing video gone wrong #long post

36 notes · View notes

thewertsearch · 2 years

Text

Asks Compilation 20/11 - 2

CC: I will need to connect after my goofball moirail does so I can keep my goggles on )(is nefarious escapades. [...] CC: Isnt t)(at w)(at youre doing too? Joining late to keep an eye on yours? GA: I Dont Know For A Fact That She Is Mine CC: )(a)(a youre not supposed to know for a FACT dummy! [...] GA: I Know GA: But What If I Dont Really Want Her To Be That

This initially sounded like Kanaya wasn't sure if she wanted any kind of relationship with Vriska, but in retrospect, it's clear she was just confused about the type of relationship she wanted.

The post quoted above is my analysis of Equius and Nepeta's relationship. We now know, more or less, the 'reason' that she puts up with him - but I'm still not convinced she should.

For sure - it would have highlighted their relationship as a moirallegiance a lot earlier than the comic did.

I probably wasn't going to guess that they were moirails, though - hell, I still probably wouldn't be able to guess it, if it hadn't been explicitly stated!

I think moirallegiance is romantic. It exists under the umbrella of troll romance, after all. I just think it's also platonic - a contradiction that would confuse a human, but would make perfect sense to a troll.

Not a problem! Shipping dynamics are confusing enough when we're just talking about one type of relationship.

'The Joker has a pitch crush on Batman' is not the take I expected to see in my inbox, but damn if it doesn't make sense.

Never mind. This is the take I needed to see.

I see it, and I'm never going to stop seeing it. Honestly, I'm not sure Ianthe is capable of any kind of relationship other than a pitch one.

This is so funny. Is Homestuck really enhancing my reading of The Locked Tomb to this degree? Is this really what we're doing now?

Oh my god, I didn't even think about Augustine and Mercymorn. What they have going on is a hot mess, and kismesissitude describes it perfectly.

Oh, damn. Muir really is a diehard fan, isn't she? I'll have to read her fics when I'm done.

Just for the record: Harrow and Palamedes are totally moirails, and he auspisticizes for her and Gideon in Canaan House. In this essay I will

See, I know what you meant, but I do love the idea that swearing is banned on Alternia.

Maybe that's why they use quirks? To get past Trollian's filtering? lmao

Doof and Perry are clearly moirails, with Perry as the pacifier. His calming influence is obvious, as Doof's 'villainy' gradually becomes more and more benign throughout the show, and their relationship becomes increasingly casual.

"they seem like very good moirails! :)"

I wonder what the demographics are around troll orientations, actually. It seems as if you can form a kismesis/matesprit pair with a troll of any gender, so maybe trolls are predominantly pansexual.

Honestly, these symbols are very useful. The quadrants are surrounded by an overwhelming amount of terminology, so it's good to have them as shorthand. Equius♦Nepeta, Kanaya♥Rose, etc.

Anonymous asked: Something interesting is that Equius's violent impulses are actually comparatively stable. He definitely has them, but he's managed to get a constructive outlet for them in the form of robot cage-matches. Compare the outright-genocidal CA, vriska's manipul8ion and crippling of Tavros + murder of all those other trolls, or to a certain extent Terezi's own love of carnage. The only trolls in the top half of the hemospectrum we've met who haven't demonstrated any 'violent urges' are Kanaya and Gamzee [...] Equius might be fucked up, but he has mechanisms and strategies to not take it out on anyone around him.

There's also CC, the only high-blood whose disposition remains a relative unknown. We've just been semi-officially introduced to her, though, so we'll probably be seeing more of her soon.

Anyway, you're right - Equius has his coping mechanisms, and the implication is that he could be a lot worse. We haven't seen Nepeta act as his moirail yet, but maybe she's been doing so offscreen.

Thank you! I'm pretty sure it boils down to the fact that the quadrant system is fairly complex, and I love that shit. Give me a set of rules, and I'll analyze the hell out them, every time.

This is something that Hussie has always been good at, both in Homestuck and Problem Sleuth - and it seems like it can even make shipping interesting to me.

To Gamzee, Equius is a friend with detriments.

To Equius, Gamzee is a friend with weird caste system baggage that he isn't sure how to deal with. Plus, he's clearly into him, although I can't figure out in which quadrant.

Yeah, I guess it's always possible that a 'typical' auspistice doesn't need much social ability. When you get right down to it, all you really need to do is keep the warring parties apart, so anything beyond that might cross the line into advanced auspisticism.

Maybe a 'meddler' like Kanaya is indeed a rarity, which would make per a particularly popular auspistice. Like I said, there aren't a lot of trolls around with a disposition like hers.

I haven't decided yet if I'll be liveblogging anything after Homestuck - but I've added it to the list of prospective projects. We'll see how I feel when Homestuck is finished with, in late 2034.

Yup - if we interpret a 'spadekind specialist' as a master of caliginous relationships, then Karkat's the one who fits the bill.

#asks #full liveblog #act 5

86 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 7 months

Text

The biggest benefactor to Hamas in the US is not the radical chic fringe but Republican former President George W. Bush.

Because of recency bias, many people have forgotten what an awful president George "Dubya" Bush was. But in addition to two recessions (including the Great Recession), two rounds of tax breaks for the filthy rich, neglecting national security which led to 9/11, and starting an unnecessary and destabilizing war in Iraq, Bush helped to bring the terrorist group Hamas to power in Gaza.

Gaza has not had an election since 2006 – one which was instigated by George W. Bush. That election turned out to be a disaster.

It was in January 2006 that the Palestinian territories held what turned out to be their last parliamentary elections. Hamas won a bare plurality of votes (44 percent to the more moderate Fatah party’s 41 percent) but, given the electoral system, a strong majority of seats (74 to 45). Neither party was keen on sharing power. Fighting broke out between the two. When a unity government was finally formed in June 2007, Hamas broke the deal, started murdering Fatah members, and, in the end, took total control of the Gaza Strip. Those who weren’t killed fled to the West Bank, and the territories have remained split ever since. In other words, Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place. Since they have known no alternative, have absorbed little information but Hamas propaganda, and have witnessed periodic outbursts of violent conflict with Israel throughout their lives, it is impossible to know what they really think about their rulers. But we need to ask another question: Why did the 2006 elections take place? The explanation lies in the political ideals—or, more correctly, the naïveté—of President George W. Bush. (Much of this comes from the reporting for my 2008 book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power.) Bush entered his second term, in January 2005, convinced that his mission was to spread democracy around the world. He assumed that democracy was the natural state of humanity: Once a dictator was toppled and the people could vote for leaders in elections, freedom and liberty would bloom forth. For a moment, it looked like he might be right: The world was witnessing the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the first parliamentary elections in post-Saddam Iraq. More pertinent, the Palestinian National Authority held its first election, and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party—which had recognized Israel’s right to exist and supported negotiations for a two-state solution—won handily. Around this time, Israel was withdrawing from the Gaza Strip—not just pulling out troops, but evicting some 8,000 Jewish settlers (most of whom were paid to resettle in the West Bank). Suddenly there was a vacuum of local authority. Bush thought democracy would fill a vacuum, so he urged the Palestinian Authority to hold parliamentary elections.

Create a power vacuum and the most determined group, not the most appropriate group, will rush in to fill the void. That happened to be Hamas.

One problem, though: Radical parties—notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which had boycotted the 2005 presidential election—decided to compete in the 2006 parliamentary contests. Six weeks before these elections, Dennis Ross was on one of his frequent trips to the Middle East. As the Middle East envoy for Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, Ross had more experience negotiating with Israelis and Palestinians than any American. He was no longer in the U.S. government, but he knew all the relevant players. Ross was leery about holding elections. He thought that if there were elections, militias such as Hamas should be banned from participating; they should have to choose between joining the system and waging violence against it—they shouldn’t be allowed to have it both ways. Members of Fatah, fearful that Hamas might win, approached Ross and asked if he could quietly urge the Israelis to block the election. An odd alignment was taking shape. “What’s wrong with this picture?” Ross asked himself. Fatah and Israel were against holding the elections; Hamas and President Bush were in favor. Ross communicated all this to Robert Zoellick, a former colleague from Bush Sr.’s days who was now deputy secretary of state. Like Ross, Zoellick worried the election could be disastrous. He urged his boss, Bush Jr.’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to urge Israelis to do some things to improve Fatah’s prospects—for instance, to ease up on border crossings in the Palestinian territories and let Abbas take credit for the gesture. Rice refused, saying that the U.S. shouldn’t put its thumb on the scales. A former hardheaded adherent of realpolitik, Rice had recently adopted Bush’s view of the world: She thought, or at least acted as if, elections were a magic potion for curing political ills and that the U.S., having delivered or blessed them, should sit back and let the historical forces flow naturally. To her (and most American observers’) surprise, Hamas won. It proved to be only the first yank in the unraveling of the Bush-Rice dogma. Civil war broke out between Hamas and Fatah, leading eventually to Fatah’s expulsion from Gaza, Hamas’ total dictatorship there, and a resumption of rocket fire from the enclave into Israel—prompting the Israeli blockade on Gaza’s northern border (which Egypt, whose leaders hated and feared Hamas as well, reinforced with a blockade on the southern border).

The bottom line...

[T]he election that put Hamas in power was not inevitable; it was premature. Israel and the leaders of the neighboring Sunni Arab nations, who inveighed lavish rhetorical support for the Palestinians but did very little to back it up, could have done more to help build the elements of a civil society and negotiate a peace. But ultimately, they didn’t want to. Elections only tightened the bonds of conflict and lent it a veneer of legitimacy. Hamas’ murderous assault on Oct. 7, the subsequent escalation of violence, and the possibility of a widening war—these are the latest and most bitter fruits of the elections’ legacy.

At best, Bush and Condoleezza Rice were foolish and naïve. They felt that elections in countries with little in the way of democratic institutions would solve all their problems.

Bush, Rice, and Vice President Dick Cheney also repeatedly fawned all over what they called the first election in Afghanistan in 5,000 years. Afghanistan, like Gaza, had no background in democracy and we know what good those elections did Afghanistan in the long run.

Fred Kaplan, the author of the Slate article which is excerpted above, recently spoke with Brian Lehrer at WNYC. You can hear their conversation here...

The U.S. Role in the Israel-Hamas War

#gaza #hamas #fatah #palestinian national authority #george w. bush #the g.w. bush administration #israel #elections #democratic institutions #republican naïveté #democracy #dennis ross

10 notes · View notes

ridiasfangirlings · 1 year

Note

Not sure if anyone had asked this before but, what do you think the characters would do if they had gotten their hands on a death Note? Who would end up using it and for what?

Imagine middle school Fushimi with a Death Note, writing ‘Fushimi Niki, gets run over by two dump trucks, crawls to the curb and gets hit by a motorcycle, then falls into an open sewer and gets chewed on by alligators.’ Older Fushimi I could see just keeping the Note ‘in reserve,’ I don’t think he’d go all Light Yagami killing people (voice notwithstanding XD) but I could see him figuring this will come in handy in a pinch. Like he doesn’t see the point in using it against normal Strains that he could handle on his own but if backed into a corner or there’s like a hostage situation he’s fine with using it (he does have to resist the urge to use it on certain squad members when they annoy him though). By contrast I can’t see Yata using it at all, I feel like he’d be more nervous about straight-up killing someone and anyway isn’t that cheating, like he feels that if someone’s doing something bad Yata should be able to kick their ass on his own without needing to rely on some weird notebook.

Munakata I actually don’t see using it much at all, even though he does want to bring about justice and all that — in fact I think that’s precisely why he wouldn’t use it, because vigilante justice isn’t justice at all. I think Munakata would rather use his own skills and intellect to take in even a dangerous criminal alive rather than just writing their name down in a notebook, especially if he hasn’t even been able to speak to this person on his own to understand their circumstances. I could see him keeping it in reserve for a last resort (or actually even giving it to Fushimi for that purpose, or to Awashima as a way of handling his Sword falling that doesn’t involve having to stab him) but in general he wouldn’t have much interest. Awashima I think is the same, she would probably defer to Munakata’s judgment and wouldn’t use the notebook unless there’s no choice.

On the Homra end, somehow the idea of Totsuka having a Death Note feels very frightening XD I feel like he would be the sort to constantly tease everyone like ‘oh should I just write that name down in this book’ and everyone yells at him to stop and then he just grins like ‘kidding.’ I think if needed though he wouldn’t really hesitate much, like if this is a thing we need to do it’s fine, it’s good to use the resources at your disposal. Kusanagi I see having similar feelings though perhaps with more reservations, I think Kusanagi would be wary about just getting this magical Death Note out of nowhere with no apparent strings attached. Mikoto I don’t think would use it at all, if someone needs to be burned he’ll do it himself and if not why should he bother with the notebook.

Hisui on the other hand I think would definitely be chill with using it, like it’s best to use advantages when they’re obtained as long as it remains within the rules of the game, and this is a good way to help achieve his dream. Actually in a case like this I somehow see Iwa-san being the one to take control of the notebook, like he doesn’t think Nagare should be the one dealing with this sort of thing and why not let the old man take care of it, Iwafune would totally write Kokujouji’s name down in Hisui’s place. Sukuna I think would find the whole thing cool and probably doesn’t think too hard about the whole actual murder portion of the Death Note. I sorta think Yukari wouldn’t care much for it though, like it’s much more beautiful to kill people yourself with your sword than to use a book.

The Silvers are probably most likely to accidentally cause mayhem by not realizing what they have. Kuroh would definitely never use the notebook, his sense of justice wouldn’t let him play judge, jury and executioner. Shiro does the Totsuka thing and jokes about using it a lot, much to Kuroh’s irritation, but I don’t think he would ever use it either, if anything he’d probably want to study it to see how it works. Neko accidentally kills a local fishmonger by using the Death Note to write a grocery list.

#k project #Talking K #Neko just wanted some fish she didn't mean it :(#imagine Fushimi writing in his death notebook and laughing like Light XD #he doesn't want to become god he just wants to kill annoying people

16 notes · View notes

edelgarfield · 1 month

Note

Have you ever thought about durge sibling angst but as the younger sibling? Idk much about bg1 and 2 but in bg3 it's cannon that that protagonist was morally good and a bhaal spawn and was the previous ruler of the gate before wylls dad but died when bhaal came back to life 20ish years ago. If your durge is old enough and has been in the gate for long enough, why didn't bg1 protag notice the cult to their father under their feet? Why didn't they save their siblings? Why didn't they care?

I actually don't think I have and I'm not sure why now that you mention it.

as far as the timeline with respect to bhaal's resurrection, it's a huge damn mess that I'm pretty sure the game just handwaves for convenience, I don't think theres an actual answer. So the "canon" protagonist of BG1 & BG2 is "Abdel Adrian" or "Gorion's Ward" on the wiki.

And he died exactly 10 years before the events of the game in 1482. the dark urge is mostly left up to the player, BUT the "canonical" version of Dark Urge was operating under Bhaal's influence by 1477. the ARG where Durge was revealed has them committing a string of murders in Baldur's Gate in 1477.

this part is just my headcanon but it's also the closest we ever get to a "canon" age for Durge; iirc Sceleritas says he was sent to serve Durge when they reached the "age of maturity," meaning Durge has to be at least 18 by 1477, meaning they have to be at least 33 by the events of the game. If you assume the string of murders from the ARG is Durge's first outing as a Bhaalspawn, which is my personal hc, that would make them exactly 33.

As for why Abdel Adrian doesn't notice the cult, that's an extremely good question. also Durge & Abdel Adrian being alive at the same time kinda throws a whole wrench in the resurrection plot in the first place, but you can potentially handwave it by saying Durge is special.

But ignoring all the timeline weirdness, there's a tweet thread from one of the creators of the Forgotten Realms that basically says even after choosing to reject Bhaal, Abdel Adrian was still under Bhaal's influence to some extent, so you can potentially use that as an explanation;

basically "abdel adrian rejecting bhaal was actually part of bhaal's grand plan all along" & you could theorize that Bhaal's remaining influence over Adrian kept him from discovering the cult's operations. (and i have no idea what exactly this means for Durge post-game but I have thought abt it)

imo it makes the most sense for the Cult of Bhaal to have been operating largely in secret before Bhaal's resurrection. For what it's worth, they are technically STILL operating in secret during the events of the game. Even though to the player their involvement is extremely obvious & blatant, narratively the average citizen of Baldur's Gate isn't aware of the resurgence of the cult. and even in the game, even though you KNOW the Cult of Bhaal is involved, you still have to jump through a ton of hoops to get into their temple, and that's during a period of high activity. Hell, Orin literally invites you there and you STILL have to do a bunch of bullshit to get in.

Like obviously the parts of the city we get to explore feel very dense & crowded, & people joke abt the temple of Bhaal being three feet away from Cazador's dungeon, but I think you have to chalk some of that up to quirks of the genre. It would be much more realistic to have a giant empty city with all the points of interest spread out, and a giant empty sewer with the temple of Bhaal hidden super far away. but no game is going to make a bunch of assets just to fill space & it would drive players absolutely nuts if the map was filled with Empty Warehouses 1-49

all that is to say, I think if the Cult is actively trying to lay low, especially during a period where they're, say, planning for the resurrection of their dead god (and obviously they're only going to have a handful of very devoted worshippers at this time, bc their god is, y'know, dead) I think they're capable of more secrecy than we see in the game. especially since they're known to use changelings & doppelgangers.

additionally, even if you know the Cult of Bhaal is back in business, I think knowing they're around & actually being able to find and enter their temple without getting yourself killed are two different things.

while abdel adrian's involvement/knowledge of Durge is up to speculation & honestly i would love to see more people delve into the game's lore & answer these questions. did Durge look up to gorion's ward as a hero when they were young in baldur's gate? did they always feel a connection to the story of The Hero of Baldur's Gate & not know why? how did they feel abt Sarevok in the legends? did they cross paths with Abdel Adrian once like two ships passing in the night, not realizing they were actually siblings?

my personal take is that abdel adrian just didn't know abt the Cult's resurgence or Durge. Or even if he did know abt the Cult beginning operations again, IMO he was under the impression that Bhaal's divine power was hidden away beyond Bhaal's reach & he shouldn't be a threat, so even if his cult is acting up again, I doubt it's the first time they've tried to convince people Bhaal is definitely for sure coming back this time believe us. He probably had people keeping an eye on it, and tried to counteract the cult when he could, but it wouldn't be the most pressing issue on his plate bc he had a whole ass city to run. and again, exactly how much influence Bhaal still had over Adrian at this point is up to speculation, but he had at least SOME.

#hilda talks to people #Anonymous #baldur's gate 3 #dark urge

6 notes · View notes

ginsherrywasathing · 7 months

Text

Senseless Acts of Love.

read on ao3 word count: 5.5k teen and up// mention of murder&suicide

"It had been three days. Three days since Gin had put a bullet through Miyano’s heart. Three days of bliss. But he couldn’t tell Sherry that. Instead, he extended his hand towards her face. Before his fingertips could even brush against her skin, though, she turned away, stepping out of his reach," or: Gin has to face the consequences of his own actions.

Gin’s eyes strayed from the road ahead towards his mobile phone the moment its display lit up with her name. She didn’t usually call him around this time of day, so he immediately knew her call for what it was. Gin took one last drag on his half-smoked cigarette. Admittedly, this particular call came in much earlier than he’d expected—but then again, Sherry had always been a smart one, quick to figure things out. It was a quality of hers he did not always appreciate.

Flicking his cigarette out the car window, Gin slowly picked up the ringing phone from the passenger seat; although he was prepared for what was to come, his thumb hovered over the answer button. It had only been three days since the death of Miyano Akemi. Three days since he’d removed the tumour that had viciously spread all the way through his life with deathly efficiency. Three days since he could finally breathe freely again. It had been a splendid time so far, a beautiful prelude to many good days yet to come. Never again would he have to worry about the treacherous ideas Miyano might plant into her sister’s pretty head. At last, he could rest assured that Sherry wouldn’t be gone by morning, swallowed up in her sister’s foolish suicide missions; spirited away to places even he couldn’t retrieve her from. What were a couple of hours of emotional labour when, from now on, he—they—could finally be at peace? With that in mind, and his usual greeting ready on his tongue, Gin eventually accepted the call.

“Why is she dead?”

Sherry’s collected, almost cold inquiry made him pause. Gin had expected tears, weeping and wailing; he’d been prepared to comfort a pain he didn’t know nor would ever experience himself. And yet… Had he been wrong about Sherry’s affection for her sister? Had he miscalculated the grief Miyano’s death would cause? For a moment, Gin entertained the idea that all the hard work he’d invested in getting rid of the cursed woman had been unnecessary in the long run—but no, it couldn't be. Too easily could he recall how Sherry’s face tended to soften whenever she spoke of her sister with honeyed warmth in her voice. Those rare little moments when she would let him in on memories he wasn’t part of.

Gin’s hand tightened around the steering wheel. No, being rid of Miyano was many things, but not a mistake. It was just that Sherry’s apparent lack of devastation threw him off, if only just. In the end, tears could always be dried with some pretty lies. This calmness of hers, however, was sharp, demanding truths he couldn’t possibly give. Ever. And yet it was no use playing dumb now, either. Forcing down the urge to light another cigarette, Gin wet his lips. He had to mind the road.

“I’m on my way to you. Talk to you then,” he said, cautiously matching the tone of her voice.

There was a moment of silence before Sherry ended the call without uttering another word. Gin figured he would have to adjust his plans.

He found her waiting inside her office at the lab about an hour later. Sherry sat at her desk, straight back turned towards him, hair messy from running her hand through it one too many times. Underneath her lab coat, she wore the same clothes from last night, picked up from his bedroom floor in a hurry earlier this morning. It was a familiar sight to him—Sherry being immersed in her work, getting the Organisation one step closer to their goal with every calculation and experiment she conducted.

Today, though, her computer screen remained noticeably dark; her paperwork neatly stacked an arm's-length away, obviously untouched. Except for the soft rise and fall of her shoulders, Sherry was eerily still. It didn’t seem like she’d even noticed his presence.

Silently, Gin took in the sight of her a while longer, unknowingly committing it to memory. Only much later, when the world had already been shaken to its core, would he come to realise that this very moment had been the silence before the storm.

Gin gave the door frame a soft knock upon finally entering the room. The young scientist stood at once, facing him. Although she was a little paler than usual, Sherry’s face didn’t betray any hint of emotion. Only her unexpectedly dry eyes were looking straight at him in a way that always made Gin’s skin crawl. It was a look Sherry usually reserved for particularly stubborn mathematical problems she was set out to solve, mercilessly dismantling them bit by bit until she found the solution. And no matter how complex the task was, she would get there one day, inevitably. Still hoping that day was somewhere in the far-off future, Gin evaded her gaze. He would have to tread very carefully.

First, he needed to know what information Sherry had so far. How had she found out about Miyano’s death in the first place? Had someone told her? What could she possibly already know? He’d actively kept her off the news for the past couple of days and he doubted that someone inside the lab had made the connection between the bank robber Hirota Masami and head scientist Miyano Shiho, let alone approached her about it. Knowing Sherry, she certainly already suspected the Organisation to be involved in Miyano’s death—but to what extent? Having too little information to assess the situation properly, Gin waited for her to break the silence first.

“How long have you known?” Sherry asked at last, again in that oddly detached manner of hers.

Gin stepped closer to her. That was an easy enough question. It had been three days. Three days since he’d put a bullet through Miyano’s heart. Three days of bliss. But he couldn’t tell her that. Instead, he extended his hand towards Sherry’s face. Before his fingertips could even brush against her skin, though, she turned away, stepping out of his reach.

“How long?” she repeated, louder this time, but not less composed.

Miyano was dead. What did it matter how long he had or hadn’t known? It didn’t change a thing, did it? Compared to Sherry’s original Why is she dead? it was an uncharacteristically stupid question to begin with. Why had she changed her approach? Gin considered her blank face for a moment, then let his gaze slowly wander over her body. It was then that he finally saw it—the first sign of emotion. Sherry’s right hand, stiffly resting against her upper thigh, was trembling ever so slightly. Was it from held-back sadness? Anger? Both? What could possibly be going through her head?

“I found out yesterday,” Gin lied, deciding it was best to humour her for now.

Sherry gave a curt nod before putting another step between them. He watched as she leaned against the desk behind her, the way her fingers curled around the edges of the sterile tabletop on each side of her hips. Under different circumstances, it might’ve looked like an invitation, but Gin knew better than that today.

“You’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell me since then,” Sherry stated flatly, fixing him with that persistent stare of hers. The accusation in her words wasn’t lost on him.

They both knew she wasn’t wrong, of course. Between dinner and bed there had been some time to break the news to her, but telling her then would have ruined the mood for the evening quite a bit. Not that Gin had planned on telling her at all—at least not for a while. If things had gone according to his plans, Sherry would’ve first gotten worried about Miyano in a month or so, when one too many calls between the sisters had fallen through; when Miyano’s answering machine had been so full of unheard voice messages that it couldn’t have recorded any more. When Miyano would’ve failed to contact Sherry for Christmas, New Year’s and eventually her birthday... Only when Sherry’s worry would have turned into outright distress would he have offered to inquire about Miyano’s whereabouts—and ultimately find out about her tragic, unforeseeable death. By then, Sherry would’ve come to terms with reality, grieve for a little while and eventually go on with life. Her untimely confrontation with her sister’s death was indeed an unfortunate turn of events…

Since Sherry couldn’t back off further, Gin dared another step towards her, then another. She lifted her chin, still watching him like a hawk, reminding him that he was under close observation. Now that Sherry was back within reach, Gin let his knuckles run gently down her cheek, if only to have her ever-alert eyes stray from his for but one second. Sherry didn’t turn away from the gesture, nor did she lower her gaze. He could tell that his touch against her heated skin wasn’t as welcome as usual, but it would have to make do for now.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Gin admitted, tucking a strand of hair behind Sherry’s ear. The best lies were closest to the truth.

She nodded again, lips pressed into a thin line. They remained like this for a moment, until her body eventually shifted away from his touch, leaving his hand hanging awkwardly in the empty air between them.

“So you just let me find out like this?”

A loud rustle went through the room as Sherry shoved a bunch of paper against Gin’s chest. It only took him one look to recognise yesterday’s newspaper, crumpled and stained as if someone had pulled it from the trash. He groaned inwardly; Miyano’s face had made the front page that day.

“Why?” Sherry demanded, arms crossing over her chest.

Why, indeed. Why did Miyano have to let a rat sneak on board only to then try and jump ship with it? Why had Miyano, unimportant as she’d been, done anything to endanger her sister; ruin the Organisation’s uttermost goal? Why had this traitor—his thief, this witch!—had to exist in the first place and make Gin’s life this damn hard?

Gin grabbed the newspaper, pretending to read the front page as if he hadn’t seen it before. Sherry was studying him like a tome, looking for something—anything—that might give him away. She would find nothing; he wouldn’t give her anything to doubt him. When Gin looked up at her again, he finally met her gaze.

“There was some talk that she wanted to desert…” he mused.

Now it was his turn to observe Sherry closely. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but he knew from experience that blood tended to be thicker than water. Who knew… maybe Sherry hadn’t been as ignorant of her sister’s plans as he’d gambled on. Maybe she’d long been onto them—Miyano and him—playing dumb, now that her way out of the Organisation had gone up in flames. It would even explain this peculiar behaviour of hers, this false calmness; maybe Sherry had—

The genuine surprise on Sherry’s face lifted a long-accumulated weight off Gin’s shoulders. She really hadn’t suspected a thing. And how could he have doubted her? Sherry was a woman of the Organisation—his woman, no less. He shouldn’t ever have questioned her loyalties!

Gin watched as Sherry opened her mouth only to close it again, struggling for words. It didn’t make sense to her. It was apparent that no matter how she twisted and turned his words inside her head, she couldn’t put the puzzle together. Sherry’s eyes darted away from his, looking around as if the answers to her questions were written somewhere on the walls of this small office. Gin could almost hear the gears turning high-speed inside her head.

“She…” Sherry reached for the dirty newspaper in his hands, but eventually dropped her arm before her fingers could brush against his sleeve. “She wouldn’t have left.”

Gin’s heart skipped a beat hearing her voice begin to shake. How he wanted to embrace her then; dearest Sherry, naïve little pet. If only she knew! All this time he’d kept her safe from Miyano’s lies and intrigues, her vicious attempts to get them both killed. A part of him wanted Sherry to know, to appreciate what he’d done. The other part of him—the one guided by professional instinct—thankfully kept his mouth sealed shut. As long as he lived, Sherry would never know what had truly happened to Miyano Akemi.

Gin took one last look at the utter confusion written all over Sherry’s face before laying his arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her against his side. Instantly, she nestled her cheek against him; Gin could tell her breathing only remained somewhat even by years' worth of hardened discipline—but discipline only reached so far. Ever so slowly, Sherry began to tremble. Sweet, precious little thing—she would break any moment now. In the end, Gin hadn’t been wrong about Sherry’s affection for her sister, the devastation Miyano’s death caused. Satisfied, he let his chin rest on Sherry’s head, slowly breathing in the familiar silken scent of her hair.

“She wouldn’t have left without telling me, wouldn’t she?” Sherry asked almost timidly, her question muffled by the fabric of his coat.

Had it been anyone else but her, Gin would’ve thought this beg for reassurance pathetic. Today he would indulge her, though, because Sherry had lost the only person in the world bound to her by blood—for some time, at least. But Gin would make it all better, he promised, silently. He could make it better—fuck, he already had made it better! Hadn’t it been for his foresight, Sherry would be lying next to her sister, abandoned in some dark morgue, her body forever unclaimed. He’d saved Sherry from that very fate. Now that she was all his, she would never be alone, never have to worry. Gin pulled Sherry even closer, basked in her warmth. He’d done everything right—he had been in the right. Gin pressed a kiss against the crown of Sherry’s head. He had saved her.

“You mean that woman wouldn’t have left without you.”

Later—in those too long, half-sober nights—Gin would try and fail to reconstruct his catastrophic blunder time and time again. Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? What had gotten into him? Why hadn’t he been more careful? The words had escaped him by accident, they’d never been meant for Sherry’s keen ears. He’d made a mistake, he’d—

Gin could feel Sherry’s body go rigid against him the moment the words had left his mouth. He, too, stilled. There were a few seconds of heavy silence between them before Sherry withdrew from his embrace, taking her warmth with her. He’d fucked up.

“What are you implying?”

Watching Sherry’s eyes narrow, Gin weighed his options, fast.

“Well, we can be glad nobody thinks you’re involved in this,” he said, frowning as if she were foolish for not seeing the issue herself.

Gin hoped it would be enough to put some appropriate concern into her; a reminder to be extra careful for a while. Yet, the only thing Sherry did was tilt her head. That was how Gin knew that the only thing he’d given her was a new problem to deconstruct.

“Why would they think that? What do I have to do with—”

Sherry’s face turned ashen as some sort of realisation struck her. Maybe she’d finally understood that nobody had given a shit about Miyano as long as the woman had kept her mouth shut. Nobody would’ve even cared had she just run off. Miyano had known next to nothing about the Organisation, she had been nothing. Now that she was gone, her absence couldn’t even be felt. Had she only been willing to leave Sherry behind, she could’ve lived a normal life. But Miyano had chosen differently.

“Tell me what really happened.”

Whatever form of composure Sherry had mustered so far crumbled before Gin’s eyes, and if she’d been suspicious before, she was now positively alarmed. Watching the hurried rise and fall of Sherry’s chest, Gin could feel a massive headache incoming. He’d been a fool for thinking he was anywhere near prepared for this conversation.

“I don’t know. I’m going to ask around—”

“Liar,” she hissed, suddenly, deep blue eyes round with a temper he hadn’t seen all too often before. He only knew it was no use speaking to her like this.

Exasperated, Gin turned away from Sherry, crumpling the old newspaper in his hand. He pointedly ignored Miyano’s coffee-stained face that somehow still managed to stare back at him. Even from the grave did this pest of a woman make his blood boil, but he couldn’t let his anger get the best of him now. He needed to clear his head, regroup. At the moment, the most important thing was to appease Sherry. It would be best to get her home, sit her down in peace like he should’ve done from the beginning. Gin could just put the blame on that rat Akai—it probably wasn’t even too far off from the truth, he was the root of this misery after all. It was as good a plan as any; if he put his mind on it Sherry would believe—

The noise of breaking glass ripped Gin from his thoughts. He’d only let Sherry out of his sight for one second, but one damn second was all it took for hell to break loose. Later, Gin would identify this amateurish mindlessness of his as his biggest mistake, the point where it had all gone wrong. He should’ve never let go of her.

Gin turned just in time to see Sherry swipe her paperwork off the desk. Folders and loose pages went flying about the room, slowly floating down, down, down, coming to a halt on the floor where the heavy computer monitor already lay broken. Gin was on Sherry in an instant, grabbing her by the upper arm.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?!”

She struggled against his grip, which earned her little more than an irritated look. Sherry stood no chance against him, but that didn’t keep her from thrashing about.

“Tell me what happened or I swear I’m tearing this damn lab down,” she spat, reaching for any object she could get hold of with her free arm.

Even without the Petri dishes shattering somewhere on the floor behind Gin, it was evident that Sherry meant what she’d said, which did nothing to ease the building pressure behind his temples. Neither did the burst samples around them, for that matter—he figured their fumes weren’t all too healthy to breathe in. With more force than strictly necessary, Gin dragged Sherry out of the office into the too-brightly lit hallway.

“Have you lost your damn mind?” he glared, caging her between the wall and himself.

“Tell me,” Sherry repeated, either unimpressed by or simply ignorant of his rising anger, “Just tell me what happened!”

It was as if the woman didn’t even hear him! Gin had half the mind telling her right then if she so insisted. He would tell Sherry how it had been her fault Miyano was dead, that all this trouble could’ve been avoided hadn’t she been so attached to her sister—they would see how fast that shut her up… Instead of saying even more things he might come to regret, though, Gin took a deep breath. At least one of them needed to keep a cool head.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see a small group of scientists gather down the hallway. Like rats they’d crawled out of their little holes, curiously looking over at their head scientist and the darkly clad man they generally knew to avoid. The last thing Gin needed was some no-name lab rats to go tattle about Sherry making a scene, but what could he do? Gin considered her for a second, her clammy forehead, the rapid rise and fall of her chest. The woman had gone mad! Like a wild animal, she pressed her back against the wall, unsuccessfully trying to push him away. Gin needed her calm. Now.

Sherry’s hands were ice-cold to the touch when his fingers curled around both her delicate wrists, holding her arms still. She wheezed, glassy eyes linked with his. It was as if she didn’t see anything but him.

“Why did nee-chan have to die?” she demanded again, her voice growing hoarse, never stopping her struggle against his grip.

Even now Miyano was the only thing on her mind. Gin was stunned at how one single death could arouse such a hefty reaction from someone. Clearly, Sherry was overreacting. She was making this so much harder than it needed to be. She was… in shock. The moment this occurred to Gin, he could clearly see the signs. He’d been a fool for not connecting the dots earlier. But now that he had identified the issue, he could work with it. Everything was going to be fine.

Bit by bit, Gin eased his grip on her wrists. It was a sign of goodwill on his part, and to his satisfaction, Sherry calmed down enough for him to lean closer without catching her elbow with his face. Sherry looked at him, expectantly.

“Listen to me,” Gin said gently, enclosing her hands with his to bring some warmth back into her fingers. Any hint of his irritation was hidden behind a mask of understanding, sympathy, even. “You need to get yourself together until we get home….”

It was no use. The second Sherry realised he wouldn’t tell her anything on the spot, she shoved against him again, viciously enough to force him a step back.

“Tell me!” she cried out.

Gin’d had enough of her temper tantrum, then. Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled Sherry aimlessly down the hallway, away from prying eyes.

“If you don’t stop this nonsense at once, I won’t be able to help you,” he tried again after they’d rounded a corner. This time Gin wasn’t able to hide his frustration any longer. Why couldn’t Sherry see that he only wanted to protect her, if need be from herself?

“I don’t need your help, I need the truth!”

Sherry couldn’t handle the truth. This crazy behaviour of hers was confirmation enough, and it was about high time she came to the same realisation. Gin stopped abruptly, never releasing Sherry’s wrist. Like the sensible person he knew Sherry to be, she finally stopped struggling against his grip. They stared at each other for a moment, both somewhat out of breath.

“It’s confidential,” Gin urged in a tone that marked the discussion as over.

Sherry scoffed, clearly waiting for Gin to say more. When he didn’t, her tensed face relaxed a little, although her lower lip started to quiver. Coyly, she looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“Tell me what happened,” Sherry breathed, reaching with her free hand for his. “Please.”

Wasn’t she a crafty little vixen? Gin might be fond of her little games, that was no secret, but that didn’t mean he would fall for some girl’s tepid manipulation.

“They don’t want you to know,” he snapped, pulling his hand away.

Sherry’s eyes darkened at once. Whatever suspicion she’d had, he’d just confirmed it.

“Then they can go to hell.”

Gin let go of her then, taking a step back. His eyes only left Sherry’s glassy stare when he took an inconspicuous look around, listening into the silence. They were still alone, unheard. But even now they couldn’t afford to say shit like that; Gin didn’t—shouldn’t—need to remind her of that. Sherry had behaved like a proper maniac the moment he’d stepped foot into her lab, but now she was about to overstep a line. Once she’d crossed it, there was little he could do for her.

“Watch out, my dear,” Gin said, his voice much calmer than he actually felt. “They might start to question your loyalties after all.”

Sherry had the cheek to not even look sorry for what she’d said, and that’s how Gin knew she’d really lost her mind. Holding his breath, he waited for her to take her words back. She did quite the opposite, though.

“They might be right to do so,” was all she spat.

It was enough.

Sherry gasped in surprise when Gin’s fingers locked around her jaw the moment the words had left her mouth, yanking her so close towards him that his nose almost brushed against hers. His voice dropped dangerously low.

“This is treason.”

To her credit, Sherry didn’t back off once, didn’t even fight against the firm hold he had on her.

Unfazed, she stared straight into his eyes. “So be it.”

Gin counted his heartbeats. One, two, three, he waited for Sherry to finally back down, apologise for what she’d said and done. It was one last chance for her to come to her senses. Saying she didn’t mean it was all she had to do. Everything else could easily be fixed. But Sherry didn’t say anything at all.

Gin nodded his head, understanding that she’d made her decision.

“As you wish.”

Exhaustion had long caught up on Gin when he descended the stairs to the lab’s boiler room with heavy steps. While he had expected this day to be somewhat challenging, he hadn’t reckoned it to turn into a straight-up disaster. It had taken professional backup from Vodka to encourage the other scientists to keep their mouths shut about Sherry’s little faux pas, while the woman in question, for her part, had reinforced her unfortunate decisions with persistent silence—which had actually been for the best, Gin supposed. There was only so much he could choose to not hear, and Sherry had said rather enough as it was. In fact, silent or not, he hadn’t been able to even look at her without fuming. Even now, hours later, the unnerving air of indifference that had surrounded her still infuriated him—mostly because Gin had no clue how to keep the woman in check should she still prove unreasonable. It was a perfect predicament. Same as earlier, the idea of threatening Sherry into compliance seemed rather contra-productive in her already unstable condition and Gin didn’t want to burn any bridges. He could only hope that his short-term solution had been enough to make her come back to her senses. And he’d had to put his foot down somehow, hadn’t he? Now that Sherry had revealed her potential to act up, he simply had to make her understand the severity of her actions, lest she didn’t take him nor the Organisation any seriously.

Gin’s migraine flared up when he thought about how Sherry had walked down the same set of stairs mere hours ago, prim and proper like a little doll, and just as mute. She’d acted as if the entire situation was none of her concern, either not caring about any consequences or trusting that Gin would clean up after her mess. He didn’t know which option bothered him more and he was, quite frankly, too tired to ponder on it.

However, after everything was said and done, it was as true as ever that Gin still wanted to protect Sherry. He’d come so far, had already eliminated the biggest threat to their lives—their future. He couldn’t give up on Sherry now, not over something that could still be fixed. Punishment, unsavoury as it might have been, was just a necessity to keep her safe.

Leaving Sherry in the boiler room to reflect on her actions had been the right call, that Gin was certain of. In places like that, one could easily come to figure out what really mattered in life, especially when chained to a wall… which Gin had only done for her own safety, of course. Sherry’s calmness was not to be underestimated, as he had come to learn. And if she needed to be restrained to not hurt herself, so be it. That the click of the handcuff closing around Sherry’s slim wrist still echoed in Gin’s ears didn’t matter at all. It had been inevitable. It would be okay. It had to be.

Gin reached the bottom of the stairs not knowing what to expect to find within the dark boiler room. The best case scenario was a reasonable and collected Sherry, ready to be guided back home. That was why Gin wasn’t worried when nothing but silence greeted him from behind the door to Sherry’s temporary dwellings. In fact, he welcomed the silence as he unlocked the heavy metal door. And even if Sherry had spent the last hours wreaking havoc in the protective isolation of her prison, she surely would have been exhausted by now. In either case, silence was good. Silence was safe.

So why was ice-cold dread winding its way up Gin’s spine?

It took him a moment to realise it wasn’t just silence that made him hesitate to enter the room. Rather, it was the lack of human sound whatsoever, the quiet of the dead that Gin knew all too well. It was the palpable absence of Sherry’s presence.

Stiffly, Gin stared into the sparsely lit space. Sherry’s name weighed heavily on his tongue although it remained unuttered. What if he didn’t receive an answer to his calling? What would he find around the corner? Scolding himself a fool, Gin didn’t allow the images inside his head to take on proper shape and stepped forward. There was no way Sherry could have escaped the room. There was no way she could have done the unspeakable. There was no way she wasn’t within these walls. A couple more steps and Gin would find Sherry sitting on the floor, overcome by exhaustion; it had been a long day.

And Gin’s day would be even longer still.

The small water bottle he’d brought fell to the floor, disturbing the silence. Against all odds, there was no Sherry waiting for Gin where he’d left her. Not at all. In fact, the only sign that she’d ever even been there were the handcuffs hanging empty around the same pipe Vodka had locked them around hours ago—that and the faintest scent of Sherry’s perfume that still lingered in the air, taunting Gin further.

Dumbfounded, Gin looked around, but no matter how hard he looked, the room remained empty. Gin wet his lips, listening.

“Shiho?”

As he’d feared, silence was his only answer.

Gin’s fingers curled around the steering wheel as he accelerated the car, racing through rain-drenched streets. There had been nothing in that boiler room. Nothing. Not even a hint of where Sherry might’ve gone. It was as if the woman had simply vanished, dissolved into thin air! Taking an intense drag from his cigarette, Gin went over his facts again, coming to the same conclusion over and over again. Sherry’s absence was impossible.

Gin could swear the handcuffs that had shackled her hadn’t been tampered with, and even if Sherry had somehow managed to get them off, there had been nowhere for her to go. There were only two exits from the boiler room—Gin had made it a point to check the building’s blueprints himself. There was no way Sherry could’ve left via either of them, not when one was a trash chute no grown woman would ever fit through and the other a locked metal door to which only Gin had keys. And yet, as impossible as it was, Sherry was indeed gone.

Gin dared a look at his watch. He’d given himself another hour to find Sherry by himself, but he had a feeling that hour would likely turn into the entire night. There were still a few more places he could go to look for her, he reassured himself. As of now, nothing was lost. But still, he had to admit that Tokyo was a very big city and Sherry a rather small woman…and if Gin hadn’t found her by morning, she wasn’t the only one who was well and truly fucked. With a trembling hand, Gin lit another cigarette, cursing foully. He was fooling himself. This was bad; the worst possible outcome. He’d lost the Organisation’s head scientist and didn’t even know how it had happened because Sherry couldn’t have left that damn room in one piece!

Gin tapped his fingers against the gear lever. Of course, he’d considered other options since he’d left the lab. No matter how he twisted and turned the facts inside his head, Sherry couldn’t have escaped the boiler room, not on her own—which only left one more possibility open. Someone had helped her. But who? Who could’ve possibly stolen her from right under Gin’s nose? And how would he get her back if that was the case?

…And how could he protect a traitor from the Organisation’s wrath? Did he even want to protect Sherry if she’d abandoned—

Gin slowed down. There was no use catastrophizing. One way or another, he would find Sherry before word about her absence got out. Everything else could be sorted out after that. He only had to focus, keep his eyes open. It would be fine.

Gin cursed again. The heavy rain made it almost impossible to see the road ahead.

#ginsherry #ginshiho #ginxsherry #ginxshiho #detective conan #ff #emi writes #nothing hits quite like writing for niche ships #thoughts and all that are always appreciated

3 notes · View notes

ohwynne · 1 year

Text

Penny for your past // Leviathan & Wynne

PARTIES: Chuck/Leviathan @faustianbroker & Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: Mephisto's Repository TIMING: Early April CONTENT WARNINGS: Mentions of animal cruelty, SUMMARY: In search of a rabbit's foot, Wynne ends up in Chuck's store where they encounter not one but two demons. Leviathan is quick to show an interest in their past, after Gab spills the tea on Wynne's unfulfilled destiny.

They weren’t sure why this urge had risen in them, to return to previous ways. It had risen with the settling down, the quietness that came from starting to develop a routine and having their own room rather than a musty, dusky motel one. Wynne had missed a fair amount of rituals and celebrations, and while they didn’t know if there was any point in continuing to make offerings (what with refusing to be one) it still felt strange to separate themself from it entirely.

That was why they were in need of a rabbit’s foot. Lucky or not, it hardly mattered — luck wasn’t part of the teachings, anyway, and superstition was considered sacrilegious. It was more so about the sacrifice of the creature, the circle of life ended early, and Wynne was selfishly enough unable to undertake a murder themself. (Too reminiscent of fates escaped, and all that.) A rabbit’s foot, though, that was purchasable, especially in this strange town, and it would come close enough. And luckily the internet came with kind enough recommendations.

So Wynne had a mission. They entered Mephisto's Repository with a bit of trepidation, but walked up to the counter instead of letting their already-frazzled mind get distracted by all that’s in stock. Their chin was somewhat high when they looked at the person behind the counter, though, eyes trained. “I’m looking for a rabbit’s foot, and heard you might have one. Can you point me in the right direction?”

—

The young man sitting by the register, leaning back precariously in his chair with his combat boots propped up on the counter, didn’t move a muscle as the customer stepped into the shop. There were a few other people milling around, poking at this and that and commenting in hushed tones, but he seemed wholly unbothered by the idea that he ought to maintain a professional demeanor. Though to be fair, the aura of the place didn’t seem like one that demanded its employees to button up their shirts and straighten their bowties, so to speak.

Glancing up from his phone as they spoke, he raised a brow. “Oh, uh… yeah, I think we got those.” Clicking the screen off as he pulled his feet off the counter, he rocked forward to lean against it and point to a far-off corner of the shop. “Back there,” He casually sniffed, giving them a once over and a shrug before settling back in the chair. Something caught his attention though and he cupped a hand to his mouth, giving a sort of half-shout to someone who was coming up behind the customer. “Hey, Mr. Jones, we still got them rabbit feets, yeah?”

The person coming up behind her audibly laughed. “Yes, Orville. Glad I could do your job for you.” The younger man gave a snort and went back to looking at his phone, while Chuck gave the customer a knowing smile. “Had a feeling I’d see you in here some time soon! Come on, I’ll show you where they’re at.” The vague directions Orville had provided would likely lead to a fifteen minute search, with how packed this place was. Walking them over to a section that was dedicated entirely to animal remains, Chuck made a sweeping motion with his arm. “We’ve got a few in stock right now, so you’ll get your pick of color, too.” A beat. “... you’re in need of some luck, then, huh? If you don’t mind my asking.”

—

Wynne had little intention to stay in the store for long. Something about it put them off, but then that was the case with most things these days. It was the feeling of living on borrowed time, that tendency to look over their shoulder expecting something there — an elder, a mentor, a creature their mind was too small to picture, their father or mother or worst of all, their brother. This place was obscure, strange, called itself filled to the brim with cursed things. Wynne couldn’t help but think about how they were considered blessed once, and what a curse that had been.

Still, they have something they want. They look over their shoulder in the direction the employee points them in, giving a small nod. “Thanks.” While Wynne does their best to not look out of their depth or jumpy, there is still an unplanned movement of their shoulders as a voice booms. Another figure appears, considerably larger and more impressive in stature. “I said I’d come.” And while they were not always a person of their word (considering the fact they were at present alive, and all), they had been in this case.

They’re quick to follow, eyes falling on different bits of animal. A sad display, Wynne thought — whenever they had made an offering of living things, they treated them with respect. An altar. Flowers and fruits and something burning. If they had ever handled it like this – killing not for the sake of the entity or community, but for profit – perhaps the Protherians would have ceased to exist much earlier. They swallowed their thoughts. It wasn’t like they understood this economy enough to comment on it in a smart way. “That’s a fair amount.” Their eyes moved from the different colours of fur, trailing up. “Isn’t everyone, always?” It was a trained response. “But yes, I suppose. The seasons are changing, it always requires a certain …” Shoulders lifted. “I don’t know, something extra.” They tried really hard to tell themself that this would be fine: that this could serve its purpose. If there was any at all. To the rabbit feet. To life, even. “Which one is freshest?”

—

It wasn’t quite the question Chuck expected, brows raising in thought. “Freshest? Well…” All he could really say was which had been acquired most recently, but that wouldn’t exactly say much about the foot’s age, itself. The demon narrowed his eyes at the customer, digesting the rest of what they’d said. Changing seasons. It was nothing, probably, but—no. It was nothing. He let an easy smile stretch over his features once more as he reached into the pile and plucked out a black foot, handing it to them. “This one, I’d say.” The rest of the display, composed mostly of bones and tails and pelts, seemed to bother them a bit, but that was hardly new. For every trapper in this town, there was a pacifist. “Lucky as they come. Might help your spring come in a little easier, eh?”

Something bumped against his leg and Chuck glanced down. Oh. A curious looking badalisc had wandered out of the back room (which was against the rules) to inspect whoever it was that Leviathan was speaking to, toddling over on all fours and angling his massive head up and slightly to the side to get a good look. Chuck tried to swipe the creature back behind his legs with his foot, but the lesser demon was having none of it.

“Oi!” it wheezed, clambering up Chuck’s legs to settle in his arms. The owner gave a glance around the shop and was relieved to see that in the time they’d been talking, everyone else had left. That was less to explain, or… deal with.

“This one smells funny,” the badalisc grumbled, leaning out to get a better whiff of the customer. Chuck’s brow furrowed and he hoisted the creature onto one hip, scolding him.

“Gab, that is not a nice thing to say to someone.”

“The fuck you care about nice?” the badalisc cackled.

—

For a moment, Wynne considered changing their mind, excusing themself and turning around, heading right out of the store. What use was there, in any of this? There was nothing to keep at bay any more. No one to share these holidays with. Maybe it was all the talk of Easter, the longing for something familiar in this unfamiliar place — but it would be a poor version of a ritual, anyway. And still, they remained, took the black rabbit’s food in their hands, and turned it over. “So none of this is cursed?” Eyes glanced over the inventory, before turning to the other. They opened their mouth to confirm that this was supposed to help make the spring a little smoother, though they were interrupted by a strange sight.

“Oh!” The exclamation was close to a yelp, Wynne clutching the rabbit’s foot as they jumped back a few inches as the creature made its way into the shop owner’s arms. Eyebrows shot up, an expression of surprise and something close to terror washing over their features. From all the strange things they had seen since their running away, this seemed to stir something most. As it reached towards them, they moved back further. It’s nothing, they told themselves, it’s different from the pictures they had back home.

Forcing a breath in and out, they tried very hard not to stare and jump to conclusions. But there was a tenseness spreading from the base of their spine, dread pooling in their stomach. As the demonesque thing grumbled, their eyebrows lowered to a frown. Another shaky breath, “Can you ring me up?” They really wanted to get out of here now. Wynne attempted to focus on the fur under their fingers, but their eyes kept being pulled to that thing. “Without that, maybe?”

—

Orville came scrambling over from the register, hoisting the badalisc out of Chuck’s arms. “Sorry sir, I’ll—sorry, sir,” he wheezed, waddling toward the back room door with the creature in his arms. Chuck shot his customer an apologetic look, but seemed altogether unbothered by the display of the unnatural. So it went, in this shop, and most folks were too afraid to tell anyone else about it, lest they be ridiculed.

“My apologies. Gabagool is something of a menace, sometimes, I assure you he meant you no harm.” The reaction was interesting. Different. Chuck had a feeling that anyone else that had been in the store when this customer walked in would have run off screaming. Curious… curious indeed.

“Tell you what. For your understanding, I’ll let you have that, free of charge.” He smiled. “And I hope I can be of more help to you someday, should your rabbit foot not quite do the trick.” There was something in his tone that suggested an unspoken offer, but the demon wouldn’t elaborate. Not here, not now. All he would do was pull out his business card and pass it to them. It had his name, Chuck Jones, and the names of his two businesses on the front. On the back, a phone number, superimposed over a faint symbol that looked something like a dressed-up pentagram.

“As the need arises.”

—

They missed the apologetic look, eyes glued to the strange creature. Their mind echoed something distant, that this was demonic, that this town kept proving that there might be answers here but that those answers might be threats. Wynne felt a tingling in their legs, as if they were to give in from under them.

There was a dryness gathering in their mouth, no words leaving it as they were offered the rabbit’s foot for free. It didn’t seem particularly lucky now, but Wynne wasn’t fond of being rude. Their fingers wrapped around the business card, eyes taking in the pentagram. They’d never used such gaudy iconography, back home — but even Wynne knew what pentagrams were.

“Thank you.” Their eyes redirected to Chuck Jones. Wynne swallowed, taken aback by his general attitude: the extended business card, the charity, the hint of helpfulness that went unspoken. The discrepancy between it and the creature. They really did feel as if their legs weighed nothing at all, a tightness forming in their chest. They opened their mouth again, “What was that?” They made a quick correction: “He, I mean.”

Before Chuck Jones could answer, Gabagool piped up again as it scuttled through the store again, “Better question, what are you?” Gaze rested on the red-eyed demon, Wynne finding themself speechless once more. But Gabagool wasn’t looking at them: rather at the store-owner, “Outran their destiny, this one.”

—

Orville, who was standing back in the shadows looking mortified, straightened up as he was addressed directly once more.

“Orville,” Chuck said slowly, his gaze fixed on the customer. “Go take your lunch break.” Without question, the employee nodded and hurried from the room, going out the back to leave those three to their business.

Gabagool huffed, pacing in circles around the stranger. “It reeks of ritual, Leviathan. Ritual unfulfilled.” With a satisfied sigh, the child-sized beast sat at Wynne’s feet, staring quizzically up at them.

Finally, Chuck reacted. Sucking in a short, sudden breath, he smiled. “Gabagool is a badalisc. A lesser demon, if you will. Harmless for the most part, but very nosy. And very good at digging up people’s secrets.”

“You know I don’t like it when you call me lesser,” the beast complained flippantly, twisting its stout body around to narrow those little eyes at the shop owner. Chuck shrugged.

“Well you are, sweetheart, sorry to say.” His attention returned to the customer— “Of course I’m curious to know what Gab is talking about, but first… how about a name for my new special interest?” He was waiting, expectantly, for them to offer up their name.

—

Panic spread through their body as the creature opened its mouth and Chuck opted to respond in a calm yet determined manner. He suddenly seemed much too tall and imposing to be at all helpful. Wynne felt their body take a step back, eyes casting a glance over their shoulder to the door before meeting the other’s fixed gaze.

Leviathan — there was distant recognition, a term from scripture, from lessons they were hardwired not to forget. Their mouth felt dry as the truth came to them: this was a demon, of sorts. Not the one from the pictures, not one as threatening as gythraul. Still, this thing at their feet was cut from the same cloth from the thing that had demanded their life and not received it.

They took another step back, hit a shelf with their shoulder and halted. “Wynne.” Instinct told them to turn away, but then there was the harmless for the most part demon at their feet and a tightness in their muscles. “I’m Wynne.”

The rabbit's foot was still in their hand. They weren’t sure if the feeling of being backed into a corner was accurate or fair, but it mattered little. What Wynne did know was that the other’s response was eerily calm and curious, and that wasn’t something they knew how to deal with. So they didn’t: instead they asked, “What do you want?”

—

Leviathan beamed, but there was an unfriendliness in the arch of its brows. “What is it that the angels always say? Ah, yes… be not afraid.” The demon chuckled, then snapped its fingers at Gabagool. “Come on, back off, you’re frightening the poor thing.” The flash of malice that had lived in its expression for a fleeting moment was almost forgotten in the warm, inviting smile that followed it now. “Want? Oh, nothing that would be an imposition to you, my dear.”

The badalisc wandered back toward Leviathan, giving itself a good scratch behind the ear before piping up. “It wants your story, marked one,” the ungainly lesser demon explained, to which Leviathan simply nodded.

“He’s right. That’s all. It sounds to me, at least from what Gab is saying, that you were supposed to be… a sacrifice?” It was a rhetorical question, of course that’s what they’d been intended to be. “I’ve never much cared for sacrifice. I always found it so… oh, what’s the word…”

“Gaudy? Tasteless? Lacking imagination?” Gabagool offered. Leviathan nodded and shook a finger at its small companion.

“Those are the ones. Lacking. In. Imagination.” It leaned a bit closer to Wynne, pleased with itself. “I’ve never been so full of myself to demand human sacrifice, I’ll have you know. Happy as a clam just living among the people and striking a deal here and there. Helping people. And I’d like to help you, if I can. So… tell me your story.”

—

They had seen worse things than this, had they not? Wynne wondered sometimes where their resilience had gone, since they had run away. It only took so little to unsettle them, to make their heart climb in their throat. Back on the commune, they had been more tranquil, even in the face of terrifying things.

But it was hard to fight, the nervousness and fear that came with being in the presence of one confirmed demon and another mysterious yet lanky character. They let Chuck speak, let it lay out its motivations. They let their mind run with the words they receive, falling into assumptions before they could stop themself from doing so. Wynne saw dots to connect in the most innocuous of things, and this was hardly an innocuous situation.

Was there use in denying the rhetorical question? There was a corner, yes, they were backed into its metaphorical borders. But it seemed that what they were backing away from wasn’t deeply malicious. Their eyes shifted, landed on Chuck. “Are you one too?”

Wynne breathed in, fingers pressing down on the fur of the rabbit’s foot. Its bones gave way. There were the phalanges, which they’d sown in pillowcases back home. So small you hardly felt them. “I ran. The night before I was supposed to die. They had it all ready, the altar, the –” It was hard to find the right words, to find the start, the context. The courage, perhaps. “I’m not supposed to speak of it.” No, the rules had been clear: only certain Protherian ways were to be shared with outsiders. Definitely not the sacrifice bits.

“Why should I trust you? If you’re like It, then —” Their head shook. Wynne swallowed thickly. “There’s always tricks and deals. How could you help? What would you want? Just a story?” That couldn’t be.

—

The brown eyes that belonged to the human face it wore, the ones that glowed a sweet honeyed shade in the right light, looked ravenous. For what, one couldn’t be certain.

Leviathan was not like other greater demons. For one thing, it generally had far more contact with humans than any of its brothers and sisters. Many of them liked to impose themselves on the creatures of this dimension as a god to be worshipped, but that had never been an attractive life to the Leviathan. It entangled itself with them across hundreds of cultures and centuries of time, rather than controlling a pocket of people here or there. Even the name it went by, Leviathan, was given by the humans. Its true name, one that would not be spoken aloud, was an identity that it had almost completely forsaken. And the other demons, well, they looked down on Leviathan for it. All of that was to say that the demon had a bit of a chip on its shoulder.

“Yes,” it answered simply, “I am. Though… I am not like them. I don’t have the same goals.” It listened while they told their story, nodding in understanding. The secrets were nothing new, anyway. “I see,” was all it said, straightening up. “As for the tricks… don’t insult me. There’s nothing tricky about my deals. It’s all written right there for people to read.” It wasn’t Leviathan’s problem if people chose not to pour over the whole contract like they ought to. And even the ones that did still thought they could handle the cost, which was usually not the case.

The demon smirked.

“I’m not asking you to trust me, Wynne. And I don’t know how I can help, not yet. I’d need more information. But that’s up to you to give, so…” It shrugged, silencing Gabagool with a motion of its hand as it noticed the lesser demon about to pipe up. “As for what I want? That changes by the day. I’m not asking you to make any deals with me right now, sweetheart. You’re free to sleep on it.”

—

There was no beating around any bushes. The demon met their question with a simple, forthright honesty Wynne was wholly unfamiliar with. Should these things not be clouded in more mystery? Hidden away, covered in some level of mythology? But then this demon was nothing like the creature they had spoken of. It looked like a man, albeit tall and imposing, and did not speak in tongues or ways only a select few understood. It ran a store with objectively strange objects but it was still just that. A store.

There was no demand for blood or offerings, no claws reaching from the darkness like the paintings depicted. There was honesty. And yet Wynne was afraid, as if it was the only emotion they were able to tap into. They stared at it, letting out a shaky breath. “How are you not? What are your goals?” The questions came almost automatically. Wynne had always been curious in their nature, but they had not met many people willing to satiate it.

Then their gaze cast down, fingers pushing the phalange bones aside once more. “I didn’t mean to insult, I’m sorry. That’s not fair of me.” Corwyn Prothero’s deal with a demon some three hundred years ago may have had lasting impacts on Wynne and their commune, but that wasn’t to say all demons demanded to be paid in the blood of future generations.

Their eyes remained wide as they processed what was laid in front of them. They couldn’t recognise it yet, unsure if it was a helping hand or one wanting to be shook for something macabre. There were things they wanted, things they thought to request — but their trepidation remained. If there was one thing they had learned over these past months, it was to not to trust people immediately. “Can we talk about it another day? Somewhere else, maybe — I need to think. Process.” It felt strange, to voice their needs: but it felt distantly mature. If it wasn’t for their nervous glances, that was. And part of them yearned for it, to lay everything out that had occurred and have someone look at it without asking too many questions. But whether it was the person to look for, Wynne was wholly unsure of. “I’ll take you up on that offer, to sleep on it.”

—

Leviathan’s goals were not ones to be shared with strangers. Hell, they weren’t even shared with the one person they involved: so for now, a half-truth would do.

“There is someone that I care for whose life is at risk. I am looking to put a stop to that… uncertainty. Beyond that? I’m just here to have a good time.” With a smirk, the man dragged an index finger over his chest in the shape of an ‘x’. “Cross my heart.”

The apology was like a balm for its riled ego and it visibly relaxed, though it said nothing else on the matter. A nod was all that was offered before the conversation moved elsewhere. “Of course, Wynne. Take as much time as you need, and really think about what it is that you might want from me, hm?” It grinned. “You know where to find me, and of course, you’ve got my number with you now. Just don’t call Sunday evenings, that’s when I hold my bible study.” A beat. “I’m kidding,” it chuckled.

—

The answer lacked detail, but Wynne was hardly one to press in situations like these. It was enough, to not hear him say that its goal wasn’t to be worshipped or feared, anyway. So they nodded their head, just once. “Alright.”

Their mind was already moving, already passed through the door and ruminating on all the things they could ask for and what they might have to offer in return. It took restraint, not to ask the questions that burst under the surface, but Wynne was certain that they’d shown enough desperation.

A nervous burst of laughter slipped from their lips at the joke, which was a good one. “Okay. Bible study, got it.” There was another nod of their head, which was more a tuck of their chin. “I guess until the next time.” If there was to be one. They held up the rabbit’s foot before tucking it in their jacket. “And thank you.” With that, they turned and headed out of the store.

#threads.#chuck.#penny for your past.#ty for writing this w me elliot 🥺😈

7 notes · View notes