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#this is what you wanted right? the loss of your humanity?
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Day Zero
chapter 2
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pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x plus size fem!reader
summary: Ghost doesn't know what to do. He looks for Riley everywhere, with no results. He slowly loses his mind and does something he hasn't done for a long time… You wonder who and where Riley has been with all these years. How he found you? Why is he wearing that weird vest? And above all, where is the person who put it on him?
tags: AFAB reader, plus size reader, dog german shepherd, alcohol, weapon
author's note: I didn't expect so many comments, likes… everything… Thank you for this, it motivates me a lot.
Unfortunately, what everyone probably expects doesn't happen in this chapter… or maybe it does?^^
I plan to add new chapter once a week. However, I have more free time this week, so I will add the next part in a few days.
Chapter 2: The one with(out) Riley
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Day 730
You & Riley
It had to be Riley.
Of all the things you dreamed of all those lonely nights. About family, friends. Everything you've been longing for. You missed him the most. For your beloved dog. I t wasn't like the other family members were important to you. You just knew and pretty quickly came to terms with the thought that you wouldn't see them again.
It was difficult, hard. However, the realization of the unpleasant truth and mourning in such strange and new lonely conditions passed. The loss of the dog was unexpected and sudden. And knowing from day one that many animals somehow survived. Somewhere deep in your heart you felt that Riley was just there. And eventually, one way or another, you will be together again. But you thought it would happen after you died.
Not now. And not like that.
The dog was so happy to see you that he jumped at you with his front paws, trying to put them on your shoulders, but he was so excited and exhausted that he hit you with full force, pushing you. You hit the ground with a loud thud, crushed by the mass of the dog who was now licking every inch of your body, clothed or not. It didn't matter to him at all.
"Oh my god Riley...stop it, oh fuck" as you try to get out of the weight you don't know if you're in pain or if you're happy or shocked.
You're going through a million emotions. Many thoughts are running through your head. You have so many questions. So much confusion.
"Riley, man, calm down... I know, I know..."
You're trying to say something and at the same time get rid of the dog that has gained a lot of weight after these two years. Not only was he handsome, but he looked like a decent dog. Adult, mature. After many attempts, you finally manage to sit down, the dog seems to let go for a moment, panting loudly and sticking out his tongue. You look at each other as if each of you wanted to express and tell you everything that happened and what you felt during these months of separation.
Riley still had that incredible wisdom in his eyes, something that made him seem so human. This was one of the features that made him easy to recognize. The second thing was the fact that, unfortunately, before he came to you, when he was a puppy he lost part of his left ear. That's why as soon as you saw an animal running towards you, in a split second you knew it was him.
It was something so incredible, even impossible.
And you remember your mother's words the day the puppy showed up at the door of your family home 
"Fucking miracle"
Scratching Riley's ear, you shook your head in amusement and whispered, barely audible
"Yes Mommy, you were right… as always. He's a miracle."
Now you were just curious about the person who had kept Riley alive for so long and kept him in such great shape.
Slowly standing up, brushing off the dust from your clothes and wiping your cheeks, which were wet with dog saliva. You looked around the area, not seeing another living creature.
“Riley, who did you come with? Where is this person?”
You asked the companion next to you, grabbing your backpack and slowly walking in the direction the dog came from. However, the wounds on your feet from the long walk were so painful that you had to give up after walking a few steps.
“So, I guess we'll have to wait here for this mysterious Ghost?”
Walking towards a small building that was probably an energy building. Hoping that there will be a working power supply with electricity inside. which the tower still works and sends a signal, from time to time you looked with a smile at the dog which was glued to your leg and was following along with you.
For the first time in a long time, you smiled.
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Day 731
You & Riley
Nothing, silence, emptiness.
As if the arrival of the dog didn't change much. And it changed practically everything. The world took on new colors for you, you felt that it was a signal, a sign. Whatever. Something refreshing that restored meaning to your life after such hopeless and miserable, long and lonely months.
And somewhere deep inside you believed that someone would eventually show up. And after many hours of sitting in a dingy little building next to the tower, you lose hope again. Maybe Riley's arrival was everything you deserved in this new life.
When trying to get more comfortable on a concrete floor, you need to be careful with your dog. With every movement you make, even the smallest one, Riley raises his head and looks at you. He gets closer if you move your body away from his just the slightest. As if he was afraid that you would disappear from his sight again.
The night and half of the day passed. No one came at noon.
Like the mysterious Ghost, sleep never came.
“Darling, I'm so tired... everything hurts,” you say quietly, stroking the animal's fur with your hand.
 “Riley, I think we should wait a little longer, maybe one more day?” You look towards your backpack. Unfortunately, all the supplies you had packed were slowly running out. Your water supply would last for another day. Maybe if you saved more for the next two days. You had food for two or three days. However, you didn't expect before that you would have to count all the food and water for two.
It wasn't a problem. At all.
“Oh boy… you don't know how glad I am that you're here with me,” you muttered, placing your hand on the dog's body, finally falling asleep.
And the last thought was that in two years you haven't said as many words as today.
And it wasn't a problem. At all.
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Day 730
Ghost
Ghost felt like he was slowly losing his mind. That he's about to go crazy. Since all this happened, this whole cataclysm, the apocalypse. The end of the world... Everyone could call it whatever they wanted. That damn Day Zero. The man was able to organize himself in all this chaos, pursue his goals, plan and live. From day one, everything made sense, meaning, some direction for him.
Planning, patterns, predictability. Sticking to the schedule, drill.
His years in the army prepared him for this. It was in his blood.
So now that there had been no sign of Riley for over 24 hours, the only living being for whom he got up and went to sleep every day, it all made no sense. His life had no meaning.
Yesterday when he left the fucking house with a pillow in his hand that he took for the dog. In terror, he ran around the area shouting the dog's name, hoping that it would appear soon. Ghost was under the illusion that Riley would run around  the corner with some prey in his mouth. Wagging his tail happily.
Nothing like that happened.
Ghost, in his madness, destroyed several objects he encountered on his way. Screaming loudly and cursing. This couldn't be true. Something bad must have happened. The dog had been clinging to Ghost continuously for 2 years. Even when he taught him to hunt or search in new unknown locations, the dog was able to return to the man.
Why wasn't he there now?
Ghost finally went home after many hours of frantic searching. All the time he was wondering what else he should do to make his friend come back to him.
When he finally reached a safe place and parked the car, he looked around the area, hoping Riley had found his way home, and stuck his tongue out, wagging his tail. That the dog would be sitting outside the house, waiting for Ghost.
Unfortunately, to the man's horror, there was no sign of any presence.
Ghost felt under his skin that if he was left alone, he would lose ground. And his entire planned, arranged life will collapse day by day like a house of cards.
The house seemed unusually quiet and empty. Even though every space, every corner, cabinet, shelf and floor was filled with objects that the man had collected for two years. Supplies, clothes, items needed for survival. He was proud of how easily and quickly he adapted to the new challenge. How he was able to find himself alone, without other people.
This was another difficult and important mission for him.
I'm sitting in a chair at a large oak desk. He converted the room into an office where he kept maps, important documents and books. Ghost leaned back in the leather chair and closed his eyes.
He was afraid of this moment. Yes, he expected that one day he would be alone again. That he would have to say goodbye to his best companion. However, a German Shepherd should live up to 13 years. Maybe Riley would have lived another year or two in good health. Ghost was ready for this terrible situation. But that was to happen in the future. Someday, when they're both ready. In many years. In at least 9-10 years. That was the plan. That was the assumption.
And now Ghost was staring at the blank white ceiling, feeling like his world had collapsed once again.
The first was the death of his family.
The second time was when his teammate died.
Third… no, no, no. This couldn't happen again.
"No!" the man growled loudly, getting up from his chair and hurrying towards the room that was now the large pantry.
He must have had something strong to drink. Bloody hell. He had to drink that fucking brandy.
It's been a long 730 days since Ghost last dipped his lips in alcohol. Two years of sobriety.
And a drunk lieutenant meant something very dangerous. 
Pure madness. 
If someone showed up at Ghost's door now. The person should step back and leave without hesitation. And never come back. For your own safety. Your pathetic life.
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Day 732
Walking towards the city in the morning, with your dog by your side, you felt as if the world smiled at you and let you go back to your happy years. When you were younger and Riley was just a few months old puppy. This is exactly what your mornings looked like. You were walking along quiet streets somewhere on the outskirts of your city, enjoying the new, sunny day. You usually went to your favorite cafe and bakery, then went to the park with your dog. Lazy, ordinary mornings.
Unfortunately, now despite the idyllic landscape, peace and quiet, greening grasses and trees. Nothing else here was like back then.
Silence, deserted, ruined buildings.
Even though the world changed completely that day, the city looked remarkably good and clean, the main roads were passable, cars and other things on the road had been moved so that one lane was empty. You decided to go to the center and plan further walking there.
You entered several buildings and checked several vehicles.
Weird. All the more important and necessary things you could find in these places are gone. Medicines, canned goods. Batteries, clothes, shoes. The fuel from the car was drained, batteries, light bulbs and other things from the engine were removed.
The city looked like someone had definitely lived there after Day Zero. For a long time.
However, after a few hours of walking around empty streets, you decided to enter the last building where you expected to find at least a few drops of water. Even fermented, rotten food. Whatever.
“Riley, come on, one more place and we're going back to the tower, maybe Ghost will show up tomorrow?”
you lightly pulled the dog's leash. The dog was still sitting on its hind legs, looking in the opposite direction from which you had come.
You didn't have time to react.
Focused on the dog, you leaned down to give him the command again to finally move.
You didn't have time to do anything else.
Shot.
And the whistle of the bullet.
That's all you heard...
You didn't have time to do anything else.
taglist: @leviathanleva @chocolate-noodles
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lovinglokilaufeyson · 16 hours
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A Devil You Know - A.A.
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Pairings: Spawn!Astarion x Fem!Reader (Mephistopheles Tiefling! Raphael’s Daughter)
Warnings: Abandonment by parent, implied loss of parent, BG3 Spoilers (set sometime in Act 2), Angst, Conflict/Yelling/Disagreement between Tav & Astarion, Past Trauma, Not Proofread
Wordcount: 1,364
Summary: You are Raphael’s daughter, who he disowned for her good nature. You are abducted from Baldur’s Gate and receive a tadpole in your head. You have bonded with Astarion, but you are not about to let him ask your father for help.
A/N: Requested by anon! I loved loved loved this prompt so so so much God! Thank you for requesting this, I loved writing it! Also, I did some research as to what race Tav would end up being. From what I understand, if Raphael (Cambion) had a child with a human, it would be either a Tiefling or a Cambion?? (Still really muddy for me) Therefore, Tav/Reader is a Tiefling for the sake of this story, and to make the fact that she is “good” more realistic. There will definitely be a part two of this (with substantial fluff, maybe even smut).
It had been years since you had spoken to your father. He was on the verge of abandoning you when your mother gave birth to you, a Tiefling. Raphael would have preferred you to be a Cambion, as he was. You still had similar appearance like he flourished, but you showed an innocence that juxtaposed his own behaviors. He tolerated your presence for a while, but the time came when he was unable to process you frolicking through fields of flowers, basking in the sunshine, the pure happiness that radiated from you. He tried to destroy everything you loved: the flowers, the light. And yet, you were still happy.
He hated it.
He dropped you off at the orphanage at once, you were maturing, but not fast enough for him. That, and he practically despised you. Perhaps, for what Raphael himself lacked. However, who ever claimed that devils were self-aware was definitely a devil themselves.
You spent much of your childhood wondering what you did to deserve to be dropped off at the orphanage that day. The truth was you didn’t. You didn’t deserve to be abandoned by your father. You were just too dissimilar, and that was something Raphael couldn’t handle. You spent a bit of your upbringing attempting to enhance your magical skills, your father had rescinded the vast majority of your abilities upon plopping you at the door of the orphanage with no explanation. However, you were able to regain a lot through your studies in Candlekeep. You were a bookworm, and you loved learning, not only that but you had an innate proficiency with arcana. You became well-versed in magic, but you didn’t know that your adventures had yet to begin.
You had a tadpole placed in your head, and suddenly you felt a kind of freedom you hadn’t felt previously. Then, you were able to escape, with the help of your Githyanki “friend” (you had grown closer over time, she could tolerate you now) Lae’zel. You recruited Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale along the way. Later on, you met Wyll and Karlach. Karlach was most similar to yourself, being a Zariel Tiefling. Her skin was darker than yours, warmer, but if a stranger met you two they would have thought you sisters.
One person that you didn’t think you would bond with was Astarion. Astarion had his walls up very high from the very beginning, but something within you tore them down. Maybe it was your giddiness, or your general inexperience, but he felt the need to protect you, in a sense. Sure, you had fucked up in battle more times than they all could count, but you tried your hardest, anytime you misfired a spell you would study it over and over again with Gale until you could do it right 100% of the time.
You were perplexed on how you bonded more with Astarion than Gale, but the further you dug with Astarion the more you wanted to know. You had slept together a few times; little did you know that Astarion mostly pursued you for his own gain. He figured that if he got on the good side of the fearless, well-liked leader, she and the rest of the party wouldn’t turn on him. What Astarion didn’t realize was that he didn’t have to sleep with you to get on your good side. He just simply had to be him. You enjoyed his sass, his quips, the bantering that he tried to pursue with you. It never lasted long, which invigorated him, you were simply too easy going. A lover, rather than a fighter.
You were like a ray of sunshine. If he could, Astarion would douse himself in your rays every moment. Similarly to his newfound love for basking in the sun, you were intoxicating to him. Astarion hadn’t met many people who glowed as you did. Ironically, your contrasted, dark correspondent, your father, Raphael, had been following you and your crew around for the past few weeks. Of course, given the whole tadpole situation, the group reeked of desperation. And devils loved desperation. Desperation would lead to deals.
You were adamant that that would not be occurring.
It became evident, one night, that Astarion would be pushing you on that boundary. Astarion’s former master, Cazador,  had written a piece of infernal text on his back. You didn’t think much of it until Astarion became fixated on it one night. You could tell him what it said, but that would mean releasing the information that you were indeed Raphael’s daughter to the rest of the party, which you would have preferred not to do.
This, in itself, was a big step for Astarion. Talking about his past, his troubles, all of it. He felt comfortable around you, perhaps partially because you had shared so little with him regarding your past. You analyzed the scars on his back, running your fingertips over them as you did. “So, darling?” He inquired, pondering if you had an answer for him.
“I can tell you its written in infernal” you spoke simply, only giving him a glimpse into the answer he truly wanted. You bent down on the ground, drawing it on the sand for him, “here.” “I’ve never seen it before” Astarion spoke, and you nodded. “Infernal, you say?” He questioned again, as if an idea was coming to mind. You gestured in approval yet again.
“Darling, thank you. I believe we need to seek out Raphael, that devil who has been creeping on us the past few weeks. I bet he could tell us the meaning of the scars Cazador left on me.”
“Astarion, you can’t possibly be serious. Raphael is a devil. Devils always require a deal, and there is always a catch. You can’t pay that price.” You argued. You had wanted to do something nice for Astarion, given the horrific situation, but you knew one thing for sure. You would not be approaching your father for anything, not even over your own dead body.
“Darling, please. I’m not stupid. I need to know what these marks on me say, and Raphael can do that for me. We can adjust the pricing, I’m sure. You’re just inexperienced.” He quipped, and you gasped at his remark.
“We are not talking to Raphael, and that is final, Astarion.” You were worked up now, Astarion could see it. Gods, even the owlbear across camp half asleep could see it.
“It’s not your decision to make, Tav. It’s mine. If I want to make a deal with the devil, so be it. You can stay out of it.” From across camp, you could hear both Wyll and Karlach trying to intervene and talk some sense into Astarion. He wouldn’t take it anymore. He was his own person, and he could make his own decisions outside of what Cazador – or anyone else – decided for him. You looked at Astarion with glistening eyes, on the verge of tears. He knew he had hurt you, as well as hurt his position with you. But part of him didn’t care anymore about that.
“You’re just too naïve” he spat, and with that, a Barbarian-like rage emanated from you, your typical glow radiated into a powerful force that was nearly too much for Astarion. Your eyes were glowing most prominently, your hands formed into tight fists, and your teeth gnawed against one another. “You want to know what the damned scars say, Astarion?! Do you!?” Astarion, for the first time in weeks, was mildly scared for his life.
He nodded ever so gently, careful not to push you further. “It’s a contract. One between Cazador and Mephistopheles. The rite of profane ascension to a fate similar to godhood, but for vampires. He needs seven thousand souls, and you’re one of them.” Astarion had to bite back a chuckle. You had to be kidding him, right? This was a joke. Right?
“I’m dead fucking serious Astarion.” Your eyebrows were shifted downward, reciprocating your tone of voice.
“How would you know?” He quipped, anxious to break the pattern of seriousness and – perhaps lies that you were spreading. He didn’t want it to be true.
“I’m Raphael’s daughter."
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you know how you did bg3 types of yanderes, could you do that for castlevania? Like the trio and isaac, hector, dracula/lisa, carmilla, st. germain??
A/N: For reference, here is the one I did for BG3 villains, and here is the one I did for the BG3 Main Companions. Also, this is unedited as hell so if you see grammar mistakes, no you didn't. 
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Castlevania Characters as Yandere! Types: 
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Yandere! Trevor: 
Defensive. Calucative. Hardened. Trevor’s seen far worse than you, from humans and monsters alike. He knows the terror and the cruelty that lurks out there. He wants to shield you from it all, for as long as possible. He has this overwhelming need to prevent what happened to his family from happening to you. Even then, he knows your innocence won’t last; it couldn’t possibly. So long as you’re tied to him, you will know hardship. So as much as he babies you, and refuses to grant you complete independence, he is also distant, and frequently unaffectionate. In his line of work, people don’t die of old age; neither of you will be in the other’s life forever. Just let him love you the way he needs, when he asks for it, please. Everything else is so difficult in his life, you don’t want to add to that. Make yourself into the one piece of his life that is easy. And enjoy the easy while it lasts. 
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Yandere! Sypha: 
Confident. Feisty. Unyielding. Sypha is always sure of herself. Everything she does, she does with 100% effort and full intent- your relationship is no different. From the moment she sees you, she’s sure she likes you, and she’s certain you like her. Any behavior that suggests otherwise on your part must simply be beginning relationship nerves. After all, she is a scholar and a Speak Magician. Her infectious optimism seeps out of her every pore. Her love for you knows no bounds, and she will not hesitate to throw herself into danger to prove it. I mean, she can conjure fire and ice instantaneously in her own two hands! Who wouldn’t want to be her partner?  Only some sort of complete and total asshole would try and turn her down, or worse, fight against her. She fights for what is right, and what is just. You wouldn’t fight against what’s just, would you? 
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Yandere! Alucard: 
Intellectual. Sharp. Melancholic. Alucard is not a stranger to romance nor heartbreak. Losing the people closest to him has left him vulnerable, both emotionally and physically. Instead of processing his feelings, he bottles them up, until he can no longer bear their weight. He feels such pressure to remain composed, remain controlled, not animalistic, to go against the programming of half of his biology. At the same time, he is starving, desperate, and filled with an insatiable thirst for closeness. Such a complicated, disconsolate man, Alucard needs you to stay, more than anything. His life has been so lonely, and so hard; at times it feels like all he knows is loss and the cruel impossible whispers of desire. You need to stay. You need to choose him. He cannot take another heartbreak. It’s quite possible, given his role throughout history, that humanity wouldn’t survive another one of his heartbreaks either.  
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Yandere! Isaac: 
Keen. Precise. Self-Righteous. Isaac has journeyed far on his quest for revenge, coming not only into a new land and new role but a new self as well. Gone is the former subservient, sacrificial lamb, who has risen into a stronger, wiser, seemingly benevolent king. Do not mistake this kindness for weakness, however. You must be either admirable or too kind-hearted to pose a genuine threat. Once you’ve caught his eye, prepare for an odd game of cat and mouse, you being the mouse of course. Isaac is not used to having friends, much less romantic companions. You must be patient as he learns the intricacies of your psyche. Surely, you must know he’s been analyzing it since you met? Be an honest, positive presence in his life, and he will keep you safe from all others who may do you harm. Treat him as the wise king he now sees himself as, and perhaps, he will ask you to be his queen. 
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Yandere! Hector: 
Reclusive. Embittered. Suspicious. Hector has been forced to toughen up. Too late did he realize at the end of the road, that it is the people, not the zombies you command that can make or break a man. That is where you come in my dear. Following Lenore’s death, Hector’s purpose is up in the air, he is suddenly a puppet, free of its strings. He feels much wiser, but just as lonely. Hector cannot help but latch on to you, the first “normal” person to view him as human. He yearns for a simple quiet life, with a dog (a live one) and a partner to call his own. You’re perfectly plain, or perhaps, you’re just odd enough to make him look normal, and he relishes that. You have to understand that he can’t share much about his past. He can’t possibly tell you about his old life, no, no, no. He’s hiding it from you, hells, he’s hiding from it with you. He loves you dearly, he does. But he can’t trust you, not fully. A man with a history like his cannot truly trust anyone. 
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Yandere! Dracula/Lisa: 
Nurturing. Captivated. Smothering. Dracula was not keen on humans before meeting Lisa; she bewitched me body and soul. And now the two of them have become enthralled by you. Dracula has learned the ‘other’ humans are not to be trusted, not with you, and certainly not with his wife. Lisa finds it unfortunate how she is no longer able to treat her former patients in Lupu, but she’s also incredibly thankful now that she has you to take care of! Ever the eager student, she still wants to learn so many things, and how wonderful of a practice dummy you are. Dracula is also eternally grateful that his wife will not be completely lonely; he knows how much helping her fellow humans means to her, and now that you’re here, Dracula no longer has to worry about keeping his wife (and by extension, you) to himself for eternity. 
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Yandere! Carmilla: 
Prepared. Calculating. Cruel. Carmilla is a sadist at heart, there’s no denying it. She loves feeling the power she wields over all other people, humans, and vampires alike. For you to have caught her attention, surely you must be something special. Either you are particularly gifted in something she’s not (negotiations, necromancy, art, etc.) or you’re just so unbelievably precious, that she can’t help but want to steal you away for herself. She sees you as a possession, as a rare and beautiful gem, not a person. Even if she did ‘hear’ anything you had to say, she’d simply consider it further fodder to be used in manipulating you should it all come to that. She is not a woman who is denied, not by God, not by man, not by Dracula, and certainly not by you. Chin up, pet. Things could always be much worse. You could be thrown in the dungeons and left to rot. How lovely of Carmilla to instead treat you to more luxury than your kind could ever dare to deserve. For your continued safety, may I suggest showing a little gratitude? I mean it’s not like your life depends on it or anything. It does. 
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Yandere! St. Germain: 
Wise. Inquisitive. Obsessive. St. Germain is a man who knows his mind. He knows a great deal about alchemy, and that alchemy, at the end of his days, will be his greatest work. That was of course, all before he met you. You opened up a whole side of him that he didn't know existed. Before you, his conquest was kings and courts; his acquaintances were mages and scholars! But now, in his effort to keep you from himself, you have become his conquest; his acquaintances are vampires and demons, all practitioners of dark magic. To him, it’s of little matter, so long as he can secure you, his one true love. To him, it’s the most important to have someone to share all his knowledge with, all that he’s achieved. To bask in the victory alone does not hold the same merit. He needs you at his side, he needs you to be invested in the great work. Without you, without your love, he fears he cannot achieve it. As such, he will do whatever it takes to get you by his side. And I do mean- whatever- it takes. 
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bornetoblood · 1 year
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Just saying the presentation of Laurence as less of a guy but more as the impact his actions have on other people, the defied version of him, is.... oh mhy god guys it’s so cool.
Laurence’s lack of personhood in the eyes of himself and others is sosososo fundemental to him I think
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skrunksthatwunk · 5 months
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kinda drives me up a wall when people go "hey i think x action in a war/combat scenario is inhumane and cruel and shitty" and someone responds with "oh but within the laws of war it's allowed or there's procedure for it etc etc". it doesn't have to be a war crime to be unforgivable man it's a shitty rulebook anyway
#like whether or not something's bad isn't determined by whether or not it adheres to arbitrary rules people made up and never obey#i thought we all knew that already. c'mon man. get a grip#obviously war crimes are bad but that's not where the badness potential ends y'know#this post is due to my dad talking about smth i sent him mentioning US troops firing on a bunch of guys in smth on deserters and he was lik#well they're not like citizens or refugees or deserters they're retreating enemy combattants. so it's different.#it IS different but isn't it still like. overly brutal? idk.#like would you want them to pursue Your ppl regardless? are they not allowed mercy just because you proved stronger? your positions could#be swapped easily and you'd think that as fellow combattants you would feel that deeply. idk maybe i'm just too soft or whatever but like.#seems stupid to me. war generally seems stupid to me but this specifically right now seems stupid to me#yes i know there are practical concerns and sacrifices in combat that make sense when you're actually there and me saying there should be n#wars and we should make it a fucking priority to not have wars doesn't mean ppl already in a decision-making role in the field should do#what i (an idealist) would do. they're responsible for minimizing loss and shit. whatever. doesn't mean it's not fucked up anyway.#and that's assuming the best case scenario for a leader in such a position. usually they just want to minimize Their side's losses. usually#by maximizing the other side's. or they just want to win and will sacrifice anyone for it if it's practical#which happens a Lot. usually it's a mix of the latter two to my understanding#as if americans' lives matter more than anyone else's and the other side doesn't have a right to mourn bc they offended us somehow#ugh that shit irks me so bad dude. there'll be like a terrorist attack in europe or smth and the news'll be like#ONE AMERICAN WAS KILLED. and twenty swiss. THE AMERICAN WAS VISITING FAMILY THERE ON SUNDAY MORNING WHEN TRAGEDY STRUCK etc etc#fucking hate that. i don't care if they're on 'my team' or whatever they're all equally human and equally dead#why the hell should i care if one of them was an american. just say 21 people died. like i get reporting on it briefly ig to like notify#ppl At Best but like. it's so grating. why can't you be normal about other people fucking goddamn you#why is this a controversial statement. why is giving a shit about people killing each other (often for like 10 ppl's financial gain) wrong#like. come on. i don't care if they 'deserve it' or whatever because i don't think they do. and even if they Did i don't think it's#America's Time To Step Up!!! every time smth like this happens (but only when it is financially beneficial to us to do so#such that we ignore atrocities all the fucking time bc it's inconvenient. we're not superheros. we're cops.)#not saying america shouldn't do anything bc like. idk. you screw everyone over to have all the power maybe you should use that influence fo#good. but my definition of 'good' is wayyyy way different from everybody who's ever held office here apparently so like. nuts to that#eugh. anyway im cutting myself off here rant over. for now
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sleepless-crows · 7 months
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the storytelling in this album i will die
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whookami · 1 year
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Oh Lexa, my poor baby.
I am so proud of you. You fought so hard and so bravely, but to ask anything more of you would only be indulging in my own selfishness. I set you free of your pain and suffering, you need not struggle to live one more day just for my sake. Take my love with you and go, be free. It is the final gift I can grant you in return for all you have given me.
I will always carry the warmth of you in my arms and feel it in my heart, because that is your home, and one day you’ll be back there again, where you have always belonged.
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I’ll miss you Lexa.
Sleep easy, my love
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gremlingottoosilly · 6 months
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I met a guy in the Summer (dilf!Konig x fem!Reader)
Your boyfriend is an asshole. Luckily, his hot dad just returned from deployment. CW and Tags: Cheating, dub-con, size kink, daddy kink, age gap(reader in 20s, Konig is early 40s), Konig is a pervert, slightly obsessive Konig, love(and lust) at first sight, fingering, dom!Konig Word count: 3713 AO3
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“Just one more game, babe, don’t be a buzzkill. I don’t want to end at a loss.” You didn’t want to be a buzzkill, of course. You simply wanted to be a good girlfriend, have some domestically cozy date, and for your boyfriend to at least try to put an effort into being with you. It wasn’t much to ask for, really. You hoped so, at least. You didn’t want to be an annoying, nagging girlfriend who only ever waits for another reason to yell at him, but your patience started to run thin. 
You spend the past three hours either listening to his apathetic rambling about the shows he watched – really, you wanted to invest in stuff he liked, but an abnormally large amount of animes he talked about had 1000-year-old girls who looked like they were 10, wearing inappropriate outfits, and you started to raise the alarm. 
You also watched him play – and also listened to his rage quitting and angry voice messages to his team that, honestly, made you slightly anxious. You never liked loud people, people who were so easy to rage about something as silly as some colorful video game with too many characters to look after. 
So, like a good girlfriend would – you wanted to be a good girlfriend, he was such a nice guy before you started dating, and you need something to think about besides the tremendous amount of study work you are doing for college – you decided to go and look for snacks. Maybe bring something for him as well. 
— I’ll find something to eat, alright? 
He didn’t respond at first, so you shook his shoulder. Your boyfriend took off his headphones with annoying look on his face, half-turning to look at you. You gulped, suddenly feeling like a child in front of the principal – not a feeling that you were supposed to feel around your partner, but with him, you somehow constantly felt like you were being judged. 
— Nah, stay here. I don’t want my father to see you. 
— Ah…your father is at home? 
You never heard anyone else being at the house – big house, you must admit, and it’s embarrassing almost how you never thought about his family. He lives with his dad, apparently, and the depth of your relationships can only be judged by the fact you literally didn’t know what his father’s name was. 
— Returned from his fucking deployment. He’d ask too many questions about you. 
— You didn’t tell him about me? 
Ah, now you’re hurt a little bit. You knew it wasn’t anything serious or too committed yet, but you intended to make this work. To try and fix all the problems you can without ending things abruptly. 
— He never asked. Not like he cares too much, but…
An apathetic dad, huh. 
You started to slowly piece together the puzzle that was your boyfriend’s horrible boyfriend skills. Now, you want to meet the man who conceived him and kick him in the nuts for creating such an unlovable human being who somehow captivated your chronically lonely heart. 
— If you don’t want me to come and meet him, I can go home. 
He doesn’t answer because his queue is finally coming to another match – you simply nod, knowing everything you need to. You can grab a little snack for yourself, fuck off to your dorm and rethink your life choices while your roommate is getting pounded by some gruss British bloke with an accent that makes your ears bleed. 
You have dignity, and right now, it has asked you to get some snacks from the kitchen. 
*** Now, the only thing König wanted after returning from deployment was to take as many hot showers as he could, shut his bastard of a son up, and get some delicious food waiting for him in the freezer. He was already home for a few days, but adjusting is always hard when you basically fucking hate living at your own house. Of-fucking-course, his son was watching the house while he was away – and now he can’t even think of a good excuse to set him off to his mother. Too old to do this, and split custody never really worked when not even one part of the relationship wanted to take care of the kid. 
König closes the door of the refrigerator – of course, his son took every good thing that he stashed for himself. With a groan, the colonel fights the urge to finally throw him out of the house – a thing he needed to do a few years ago, just when he celebrated his 18th, but some sentimental part of his heart instead promised to help with finding a place close to the college. No good deed goes unpunished. 
With a groan, he takes a few steps from the fridge – and then he almost stumbles across an angel. 
Scheisse
Now, König never thought of himself as a predator who prefers running after college girls who might as well be his daughters. He never thought of himself as a gut who liked them young – his wife, god forsake her name, was his age when they started dating, and he hardly had any sexual encounters with a person under 25 in the past few years. Well, not like he had any sexual encounters in the past years, but…
The thing is – he never thought he liked girls with wide eyes, pouty faces, and trembling hands who were holding a bag of his cookies that he carefully stashed away from his son. 
You are wearing something cute, a nice skirt and an adorable pink cardigan that looks so cozy and warm and soft, and he fights the urge to grab your skirt and simply lift it, You’re dressed up for a cute coffee date, and König has to double check if he isn’t dreaming and no one has decided to play a prank on him and send him a cute callgirl. 
— Oh! Sorry. It’s yours, isn’t it? 
You give him his cookies back – but not before your fingers fished another salty caramel goodness out of the bag, and you bit it. He looks at your teeth, at your lips, and glimpses of your tongue – god, he is an old, dirty bastard because even his baggy pants aren’t enough to hide his boner. You have no right to look this pretty for a man who hasn’t seen a woman in three months and hasn’t had sex in the past few years. 
You lick the crumbs from your fingers – it’s such a deliberate action that he can’t believe he actually sees it, and it’s not even something from porn he used to like. 
— Ja. You can have it. 
He would give you the code to his bank account if you asked for it. 
— Thank you, sir. I’m…well, I assume if Paul didn’t introduce me to you…I’m his girlfriend. Nice to meet you. 
You lick your lips and take a step back, pressed against the counter. He looks at the sway of your hips, a bit of crumbs on your shirt, and almost brushes it away with his hands. It would be a good excuse to touch your chest – but he can’t be like this, he has to keep his urges under control, or else his son will never forgive him. 
Yeah, like he needs a better reason to throw his useless son from his home. 
— Girlfriend? He never spoke about you. 
You look sad, and he immediately curses under his breath. For a moment, you look too fragile – too real. He can’t handle this look on a woman, especially as pretty and young as you are. You bat your eyelashes, even involuntarily, and he already prepares to give you the keys to his home just so you’d stop with such miserable expressions. He has a spare bedroom. 
He has his bedroom with a bed that would be enough for both of you. 
— Ah. Um. We’re…I guess we’re not at this stage yet. 
— Knowing him, you’ll never be, Schatz. 
You look at him immediately – you’re offended, angry, and sad at the same time. There is a certain stubbornness in your eyes that immediately makes him want to simply scoop you in his arms, lift you, and drag you straight to the altar – and here he thought that his impulses over getting married would be over after his first divorce. 
— What do you mean by this, sir? 
You look uncertain now, he can see this in your eyes – and really, knowing his asshole of a child, he is almost sure that Paul never once got you off, either physically or emotionally. 
Now, König never once considered himself to be a good man. He has killed countless people, overthrown many governments, and made shitty jobs for shitty people way more than saving hostages to help the good guys – and in the romantic field, it’s even worse. Wife, unsatisfied with his controlling tendencies and inability to feel normal love for a human being – and a son who hates him because, in fact, he never once wanted to have a kid. 
He looks at you and sees a pretty young thing, still in college or freshly out of, probably without a stable job and normal social standing – a good girl won’t be with his son if she isn’t stupid or extremely desperate for a relationship. 
The thing is, König is also extremely desperate for another warm body next to his, to feel a woman beside him, to love and obsess over someone – he looks at your pouty lips and shaky hands, at the way you bite the corner of your glossy mouth, and he almost wants to drop you on this very table and fuck you until you’re crying under him. He can’t do just that, of course. It would probably make you extremely uncomfortable and scared, but…well, quite frankly, his son doesn’t deserve you. 
König is. 
— I won’t sugarcoat it, Schatz. My son is a Scheiß Arschloch…fucking asshole, that is. I’m surprised he brought home someone as cute as you. 
You feel embarrassment collecting in your body. Paul’s dad is a…interesting man. 
Tall, broad, very muscular – even his baggy house clothes aren’t really concealing his extremely interesting physique from your eyes. He looks yummy and tasty, and you fight the urge to eye the bulge in his pants because you’re a good girl, you don’t look at your boyfriend’s dad like this. 
König has greying ginger hair, locks already curling slightly at the lack of cutting, and you fight the urge to sit on the counter and get your palm in his scalp, massage his head gently, and pull him closer for a kiss. You feel like a dirty, horrible woman – your boyfriend is in his room, probably enjoying his time on your “date” while you’re lusting over his father. 
Then again, this date already felt like a disaster. This relationship, too. 
— Paul isn’t all that bad, sir. 
“He at least has a nice dick,” you wanted to add but stopped yourself. Paul is tall and somewhat strong – if he weren’t sitting at his computer all day, you would call him even muscular. And he has a nice dick, yes, even though he had no idea how to use it. You liked the idea of laying with him, of spraying your jaw trying to fit all of this in your mouth, but his kinks and his sex skills being directly taken from porn…not really your thing. 
You look at König and wonder if they are similar in all of the places. He is his father, after all. 
König catches your gaze locked on his bulge and smirks. 
God, if he knew his son had such a cute girl, he would ask her to come earlier. He is two weeks off deployment and probably won’t take another long contract for a few months because they just upped his retirement payings, and he can afford to slack off a little bit, only visiting the home base for some training and instructions for rookies. 
He can afford to retire and never worry about money again – but he needs someone to make his days less boring, right? 
You look like a good candidate. 
— I’m sure my son was convincing, but I know him better than anyone. He doesn’t deserve you, Schatz. 
He is shitty at flirting, it’s not his forte – he can flaunt his money, maybe, show you in his wallet and bank account face first. He can just straight up ask you to be his sugar baby and suck his cock instead of doing your studies, but he can’t flirt and manipulate to save his life. Lying isn’t something he is good for, this is why his wife has left. 
— I…not sure we should be having this conversation here. 
You’re a good girl, and it’s infuriating. He knows that having someone in his bed shouldn’t be the end goal for his leave, but he wants you, and by the look on your face, you aren’t opposed to the idea. König doesn’t understand if he likes that you’re so reserved about it or if he wants you to be a bit more slutty – but he captures you in the space between the kitchen counter and presses you with his body. 
— You want to see the bedroom then?
Pushes you so close his knee gets between your legs – it might look involuntary like he didn’t exactly want for it to be placed here, but you aren’t dumb, you know what he wants from you. Like a good fucking girl, you’re too shy to give it to him right about now. God, sometimes he hates being so nice to people around him. 
— Sir, this is very…
He got you caged in his hands, body trapped in his embrace – you jerk your head upwards a little bit, staring at him like a small bird in the hands of a predator. He isn’t a strong man in regard of morals, he doesn’t see anything wrong with fucking his son’s girlfriend – if the girl is up to it. And if she isn’t…well, he better make sure she is. 
— What is it, Schatz? Paul won’t hear us in his headphones.
You know just how wrong it is, and you almost want to escape – his dick grinds on your pelvis through his pants, and you’re horrified to see how big it is. Excited too, of course, he is bigger than your boyfriend ever could be, and you don’t want to be a slut, but, oh well, not like you were in a committed and serious relationship anyway. 
Paul was seeing your friends more than you ever saw them – it’s probably a sign that you should settle for someone older. You did enjoy Lana Del Rey's songs, after all. 
— I don’t want to break his heart. 
— He doesn’t have one. 
You’re lost when he pushes his lips to kiss you over and over again – a surprisingly good kisser, and you give in because it was the first time in forever a kiss made you feel this good. His lips are sending electricity down your spine, you want to moan just from his knee, pushing on the softness of your cunt through that adorable skirt you liked so much – you feel so small like this, so tiny in his hands, you…
God, you feel like a slut, and you like it. 
Soon enough, you answered the kiss, your lips meeting his in a dance that made you feel hot, that made you feel like your boyfriend never could. Never thinking of yourself as someone who can fall so easily into the hands of an older man, now you know that he got you right where he wanted. 
You push your hand on his pants, trying to get the control back – but he stops you, a giant hand enveloping your wrist and pushing you back. With a surprise on your face, König just wants to kiss you all over. God, you’re adorable, and he knows that you deserve way more than being fucked on the rough kitchen counter while your so-called boyfriend is too busy dickriding his friends in some useless online game. 
— Not now, princess. You deserve better than being fucked on the kitchen counter, ja? It can come later. 
“Later” sounds like a promise, and you bite back your moan when he keeps pushing his knee against your cunt, making you throb and clench on nothing. He is such a gentleman, you can’t help but compare him to his son – and his fabulous ability to make you feel dirty after fucking you in the backseat of his car and tossing you to your dorm with your pussy still wet and messy after you didn’t cum. 
You sob, not from sadness, but from pleasure mixed with some weird, unnatural for you emotions – you feel weird, strained here like this, but you hug his neck and whisper something in his ear. Something, dangerously sounding just like “daddy, please” 
König is blushing, and he looks fucking adorable. 
— Daddy, ja? God, you’re dangerous, liebling. Going to get me in trouble with my son later. 
He laughs when he kisses you again, his hand slipping in your panties only to find them completely soaked – he knows you deserve a nice pillow and soft sheets under your body, and he pushes you up so you can hug his waist with your legs. You rely on him like a cute pet, and you’re so perfect in his hands he curses himself for not seeing you before. 
He is going to ruin you for anyone but him. Put so much cum in you, it will make your tummy bulge – make you his precious sugar baby, pay for your dumb college and make you move to his bedroom instead of some shitty dorm you probably share with four other people. 
He can be good for you – but he will ruin you for anyone else, anyone appropriate, every guy your age who clearly doesn’t know how to treat a lady right. 
— So wet for me…such a filthy thing, I didn’t know my son dated a whore. 
— N…not a whore, please…
He kisses you on your forehead, silently apologizing. You feel his crooked, scarred smile, and you push your face up to kiss him – you want to touch him so badly it makes you feel stupid. 
— Sorry, Schatzen. Not a whore, a good girl for her daddy, ja? So nice for me, too fucking young…
— W…we really shouldn’t… — Tshhh, don’t think about it. Thinking will only hurt your pretty dumb head. — I’m not…
— Quiet, little one. Let daddy handle everything.
He kisses you over and over, his fingers playing with your pussy – meaty digits digging in your hole, making you whimper from sudden intrusion. He is big, bigger than anyone else, just two of his fingers are enough to spread you as much as normal cock would, and even though you’re used to taking Paul’s size, you just know that his dad would be much, much bigger. He is going to split you open, and you will love every fucking second. 
It feels so wrong, you still aren’t sure if you want him to touch you like this. 
It feels so right, he is experienced and eager, pushing every button to make you squirm in his grasp. Your orgasm comes embarrassingly quick – maybe because you haven’t gotten off in ages, only miserable masturbation sessions and poor attempts at faking your orgasm made it feel real. Paul never cared enough to actually get you off – but now…
You aren’t ready for him. You squirm in his grasp when the pressure becomes too much, and he soothes you, two fingers still buried in your soaked cunt. You feel so dirty, so wrong right now – you are cumming on the fingers of your boyfriend’s absent father, and you love every second of it. 
Post-orgasm clarity makes you whiny and sobby, and you whimper in his shoulder when he gently lifts you in his hands. God, you’re adorable, and he knows that he just scrambled your brain with that orgasm – it’s good, really, he might just want to keep your pretty head nice and empty for him. Not like you would ever need to think in his presence, the colonel can handle everything in- and out- of bed. 
König holds you close, not allowing you to scramble away no matter how embarrassed you are. You are his precious thing, with a pouty face, and he will do everything in his power to make you squirm on his fingers again and again before he makes you his wife for good. 
So impulsive, maybe this is why his son is such an asshole – taking the worst traits of his father. 
— Don’t cry, Schatzen. You’re okay, it felt good, didn’t it? 
— W…we shouldn’t have. Shit. I’m sorry, it was a m…god, I need to tell Paul. 
— I’ll tell him. 
— No! — I will tell my asshole of a son that you’re my girl now, ja? And then I will take you to the bedroom, so we can fuck. 
— I need to return to my dorm. 
— And then I will dine you properly, okay? Sorry, Liebling, I know I should court you before all of this…but we can afford to go a bit off board, ja? 
He is smiling, so smitten and obsessed over just having you cum on his fingers once – you don’t have the heart to say no. Never did. You’re a good, proper girl, and Paul was never treating you right anyway. You feel dirty, yes, but somehow, it is almost right. 
He peppers your face with kisses, like a dog lapping its tongue all over your skin – you’re so concentrated on the warmth of his strong, seasoned body that you don’t even look in the direction of the doorway to the kitchen. 
Paul, however, looks straight at you, disheartened and shocked. 
— W…what the fuck, dad?! König laughs, kissing you once again – deep, hot, with tongue and loud, sloppy sounds of your mouth pressing into one another. You’re stuck in place, still caged in his arms like a precious little pet you are. 
— She’ll make a good step mom, ja? 
You don’t even register his hands slowly caressing your fingers as if he already tries to check the ring sizes. 
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kneelingshadowsalome · 4 months
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Minotaur!König x Ariadne!Reader Theseus is dead. You’re escorting the Minotaur, more beast than a man, out of the Labyrinth. The problem is, he seems to be more interested in what’s between your legs than in his mission of killing the notorious king of Crete… (12 k. Minotaur is not an actual hybrid in this fic. Reader is Hecate’s initiate. Part 1 here.) Tags/warnings: Shameless smut mdni, dubious consent, extremely possessive behaviour, abduction, first time (König & reader are both virgins), hugs & cuddles, washing blood off your monster boyfriend, awkward flirting, semi-rough sex, shifting power dynamics, sexist insults & slurs (the citizens of Crete do not approve of your choices), implied cannibalism, fluffy ending. Mythical AU.
The candle goes out before you reach the surface.
To someone else, it would be the end of the world: to you, it’s only a hindrance, a nuisance, mostly. 
You’re not easily distressed. If you were, you wouldn’t be in the service of the greatest goddess of the Underworld. And you’re not mourning losing the sight of your warmly illuminated beast... You’re only worried about what he will do once the darkness descends. Whether he will forget about his vow, whether the baser instincts take over him once the darkness falls.
And darkness is not capable of making you lost: you can always follow the string in your hand. But without light, it’s difficult to predict the Bull’s moves: whether he decides to maim or fuck you against the wall, you can never tell. He hasn’t lived in the real world among people; he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong and what’s expected of him. Even the best of men can succumb to the demands of the flesh, so what power would a Bull Man have against his animal wants? No one ever taught him to respect the gods, let alone the maidens who serve them...
Then again, if a simple candle was the only thing that kept you alive, then what’s the point of lamenting the loss of it? Your life was already forfeit when you chose to descend here.
So you let it go: as always, the greatest lesson in life is to simply let go. Of control, of judgment, of fear, of hope. 
He doesn’t say a thing when the light flickers, then fades. The candle goes out in silence, and you let it drop before the remaining wax burns your palm.
And it’s not the absence of light, but strength, that forces you on your knees before even an hour has passed. There’s still a long way to go, and the yarn is like a thin string of hope in your hand, but you’re too exhausted, too worn out, too hungry and too tired to go on.
The Bull Man doesn’t object to your suggestion to lay down and sleep for a while. He has walked behind you in silence the whole day. Or night… You can’t tell the difference; you lost count somewhere along the way down here. The air is stale and humid, and there’s no torch, not a single candle anywhere and even if there were, you wouldn’t do anything with them without a flint. 
The horror is kept at bay only through your numerous exercises with the goddess who introduced you to darkness many, many moons ago. You were initiated during the dark Moon, the new Moon, the blood Moon, introduced to the mysteries of the maiden, mother and crone, to the secrets of both the living and the dead. You’re not afraid, but your body still warns you of danger: you just don’t know if it’s a memory from childhood or a reaction to the Bull, panting behind you – out of lust or exertion, you don’t even know. Someone who wasn’t a maiden probably could tell… At times, you curse the fact that there hasn’t been a single phallus inside you because men too possess knowledge. Taking a man into your bed would have initiated you to a different set of mysteries, but now, you are poking blind. 
The Bull Man is an animal, you remind yourself. The longer you stay in his company, the more he starts to resemble a human, even if he is a man of few words. How he even remembers them is another mystery: you thought he was sent down here as a young boy. He speaks oddly but eloquently, a remnant of his noble descent, perhaps. Or perhaps he has listened to the people speaking in the Labyrinth, eavesdropped his victims an hour or two before killing them. Whatever the reason, you have to constantly tie your tongue because there’s simply no point in talking to a beast. The less you know about him and his past, the better.
You ready yourself for sleep, but the cursed cold of the tunnels keeps your body awake. Your flesh is human even if your mind is forged to withstand hunger, thirst and pain. Endurance against cold was never your strong suit, and you miss the heat of the sun, the warmth of it on your skin, even the ample light it gives. You, a lover of the moon, missing the heat of Apollo… It’s a joke, surely.
On the stone floor, it’s even colder, the rough, damp ground making your very bones ache. How on Hecate’s name has the beast survived this place?
“Bull Man,” you speak into the darkness, thick like an impenetrable wall and thin like a virgin’s veil.
“Maiden,” he echoes with a dark, low growl, slightly amused by the name you’ve selected for him.
“Are you cold?” You whisper.
Perhaps he doesn’t quite understand the question or why you asked it. It doesn’t matter: you have to swallow your pride and ask for his help if you’re going to survive this dark prison.
“I don’t get cold,” he finally responds.
“Good. I need your heat.” 
The silence drags on, and you fear he has misunderstood you again, but then he speaks again, with the same slightly amused tone as before.
“Come take it.”
You’re not sure if you’ve completely lost your mind, crawling to him through the uneven floor of the Labyrinth. Who knows what he will do to you once he gets those arms of iron around you? You’re placing your maidenhood, your whole body at his mercy. And you’re not even sure if it’s a he, if this thing is human at all. 
Human or animal, your hand meets the bull’s head on the way to him. He has taken it off, then... It’s not a part of him, just like you suspected. Maybe he is just a giant, daunting man, born from whatever forbidden desire Pasiphae had. Who knows if she only went to a foreign lover’s arms when her husband was at war? Who knows if King Minos has trouble getting his phallus up… These things happen: women get pregnant from their lovers, they do desperate things to pacify their husbands. And you don’t need a bull to get yourself an heir...
You feel his heat before you feel his skin: the Minotaur is verily blazing. He has gotten used to the cold, it seems, his body like a small bonfire in the clammy tunnel. 
“Cold little female,” he comments when you snuggle towards him shyly, thoroughly aware of the uninviting chill of your body. 
You settle next to him, every muscle in your body tight like a bowstring, your breaths shallow when he gives you a welcoming rumble. Goosebumps prickle across your skin and your throat goes dry, the thick swallow in the tunnel echoing around you like a thief.
Arms like iron go around you, and his body is taut, just like yours, but for a whole different reason entirely. He’s not afraid or nervous; he’s just… big. Pure muscle, his whole body thick, the stock and heat of him remind you of the sun. A miniature sun down here in these dark tunnels, but while you start to slowly soften in his arms, a different threat is already emerging. It doesn’t take long before his cock stiffens against you, and with the scarce clothing you both have, you can feel its every excited twitch.
Artemis… Protect me from this beast. Turn him into a dog if he tries to penetrate me. Let him rip my throat instead… 
You’ve never prayed to the Virgin Goddess; you don’t know if she can even hear you from down here. But Hecate would only laugh if this Bull decided to breed you. No mercy would arrive from that direction: she would either send a disease of blisters upon the Minotaur for touching her chosen or then she would cackle like an old woman, thousand times raped.
“Thank you,” you whisper, hoping your kindness will distract him from what’s happening downstairs.
“My pleasure,” he grumbles, mimicking the words he probably heard as a child in his father’s great hall. 
It sends a chill down your spine and butterflies into your heart to hear him speak like a polite man of court. And again, you think of asking him about his childhood... His mother, his father, the things he remembers from the surface. How he survived here without water, if there are underground springs here somewhere. Whether he eats humans like they say... If he ever embraced the dead women he killed. 
“Can you do it again,” he rumbles against you, cutting you away from your grotesque thoughts.
“...Do what again?” 
“Touch me… With your hand.”
His words are blunt now, his speech clumsy. But the way he says it is not an order. It’s an odd beg, more like. Laced with hope and wishes far away from greed. This Bull is never greedy, per se… He’s just lacking. Starved, for so many things that you fear there’s not enough time nor kindness to give him what he needs.
Your pulse flutters when you slowly lift your hand and caress the strong cords of muscle that make his neck. The rumbling returns; it turns into a low purr as the beast relaxes under your touch. Something softens inside you when he sighs from relief. His unbridled happiness tugs at your heart, trying to yank open something forbidden. It’s the softest violation you’ve ever felt: to be held by a giant killer having a roaring erection, while the said killer clearly enjoys your caress like it’s the touch of Aphrodite herself…
You even stroke his face. His jaw, unclenching under your touch; his cheek, covered with what you suppose is simply a wild, overgrown beard. 
“Your hand,” he groans softly, “makes me sleepy and warm…”
The cold, uncaring goddess recedes. The burdens of past, present and future dissolve. Softness takes place in your heart; the iron locks give in like brittle brass. A smile plays on your lips as you continue to pet him softly, lulling you both to sleep with your voice.
“Then sleep, Bull of Crete...”
You wake up to his cock pressing against you.
Not against your stomach like when you went to sleep – that you could do with – but against your cunt, barely veiled by the thin linen of your dress.
The panic is soon wrestled down with reason: you tell yourself it’s just a cock. It’s just him. You’re simply in the Minotaur’s arms, and he’s sound asleep still; there’s no reason to buck and jerk and scream. 
The darkness feels like a safe womb now, but with nothing to lock your gaze to, you have to take a moment to ground yourself into reality. And the first thing you ground into is a thick cockhead, pressing fast into your nether lips. He’s practically at the gates, and you’re lucky he’s still asleep.
It’s perhaps your fault this happened in the first place: you notice you’ve dragged your thigh over his hip; as if wanting him to fuck you in your sleep… You embrace him like Helen of Troy, and he holds you through his sleep like a man in love, perfectly content with napping on the cold ground with you.
“Mm…” The beast stirs, probably noticing how the female in his arms is tense as a rod. “You smell like you want to fuck…”
“No I don’t,” you hurry to whisper.
Gods curse this man’s ability to smell everything from miles away. Blood and humans and, apparently, a woman at her most receptive. 
What if he can actually smell the wetness between your legs?
“We need to go,” you slowly remove your leg from on top of his waist, hoping it would go unnoticed that you were clutching him like a lover. You have no such luck: he grabs your thigh and draws it back, sets it safe and snug around his waist while adjusting his grip on you, now hugging you entirely like a lover would.
“I want to mate with you,” he says softly. “You want to mate too. Why go?”
He sounds so adorable when he’s still in the process of waking up to a new day. Drowsy and sweet, voice husky from sleep, body warm as can be, the hard-on between his legs happy and stiff.
“I thought you wanted to kill the king,” you try to point out. 
“This is more important,” he gruffs. “Urgent.”
The cock pushes further up and against you, now spreading your folds under the dress, trying to penetrate into your heat. Your eyes go wide as thick need pools down to meet his greed. His body, his cock makes your head go dull for a moment; you feel like you’re not even capable of thinking actual thoughts.
“No, it’s not. We need to get up.”
You stiffen in his arms, push yourself away, and to your surprise, he actually lets you go. Reluctantly and with a hollow grunt, but he lets you go. 
You rise with a wobble, and adjust your dress, your head spinning from his advances. You swear he becomes more man-like every day, every passing hour, even. Or is it just you who’s changing…? 
The Bull Man is up before you get to ponder on that thought for too long. Your heart and head struggle to find their footing for a moment, your legs are so weak you feel like fainting. He catches you before you fall, the warm, thick arms closing around you with stout affection.
“You need more heat?” He asks softly.
You look up out of habit, even if you can't see his eyes, covered by the carcass again because his voice is muffled.
“No… I’m hungry.”
He’s silent for a moment, probably thinking what he could do to help the situation. You fear he will suggest you go back to visit his “pantry” and eat whatever horrible, half-rotten man-flesh he might have in store there, but he only holds you close to prevent you from sliding back to the ground.
“Hmm. No mice up here,” he ponders. 
“You eat mice…?”
“Sometimes.”
You leave it at that: you don’t want to know what he’s had to do to sustain himself down here. You don’t even have a fire to cook the vermin, even if you would be ready to eat even those after another day or two without food. 
“Not a long way up,” he says. “We will reach the sun soon. Then I’ll find you something to eat.”
“How do you know that…?”
“The air smells different.”
You sigh and search for the string, your lifeline to the outside world. You can’t wait to get out of here, and with both hurry and an odd dread, you hike for what seems like another whole day. Tension, hunger and thirst distort your thoughts, and you’re sure by now that the time flows differently here in the Underworld. With no small amount of pride, you feel accomplished to have survived this place so far. Even gods have had to do some tricks to escape the nether worlds: it is no small feat to charm the Minotaur and then walk out of here unharmed. 
To your knowledge, you’re the only one who has ever escaped the Labyrinth. You haven’t even had time to think about what you will unleash with you… The demon that walks on your heels will take his revenge, not only on the king but on the city who threw him here. 
Well. It’s their problem now. Minos and Pasiphae simply have to deal with their successor. The world will simply have to deal with the Underworld’s wrath. 
And oh, how Hecate would laugh if she saw this monster prince of Crete escape his prison because of you – the feared Minotaur set free, only because he’s mesmerized by a woman. You suspect he would have his cock jumping for any girl, though. It's not because you're an exceptional sorceress that he follows you: it's your cunt he's after. And it shouldn’t make you feel jealous that he probably gets distracted the moment he sees a better offer walk by.
But it does. In your darkest wishes, you would keep the Bull Man all to yourself. Get him a leash, perhaps... Feed him with your own hands and let him grope you in the dark, watch him go wild from lust when you finally give him access to your cunt. 
Many would hardly think you’re a virgin if they took a peek inside your head. But the things you’ve seen and done, the white bulls you’ve slaughtered for the dark Goddess, adorning them with cypress wreaths before slashing their throats open, would turn any woman bleak and twisted like this. For once, you would like to save the bull from slaughter.
When you see the first evidence of light, your body lets out a sigh it has been holding ever since you arrived here. Seeing the sun gives you more strength than any food or meal, and you pick up your pace while the Minotaur behind you begins to hesitate. 
“It’s too bright,” he says before you’ve even walked out of the tunnel, now turning into a vast cave, the entrance to the Labyrinth. 
You turn around to look and stop in your tracks when you see the fear in his eyes is acute. It’s mixed with wonder, the curiosity wrestling away doubt slowly but surely. He only needs a little nudge, a gentle pull, an enticing little smile and eyes that he can trust.
“You’ll get used to it soon,” you extend your hand. 
He takes a step, then another, then another, until he reaches your outstretched fingers, and hand in hand you walk out of the Labyrinth and into the bright morning sun, burning over the kingdom of Crete.
He’s only a breath away from panicking, but covers it well. You wonder if it’s truly the light that’s too bright or if the feeling of being so exposed is what makes him so afraid. Clearly, the vast space opening up before him is intimidating. 
There are grassy plains as far as the eye can see, little hills that dot the horizon, and skies so expansive and bright it must hurt his eyes. Goats are grazing under the sun, trees are bending in the wind, the rustling of leaves and the sound of birds calling him to look in all directions as he tries to make some sense of his surroundings.
“It’s alright,” you give his palm a soft squeeze, and the way he looks there under the sun, so big and powerful and able, and still so utterly lost, is giving you heartache you haven’t known since you were a child.
“There’s… so many colours,” he says, looking at the blue summer sky, the deep olive greens, the dirty whiteness of the goats, the flowers upon the grass. A butterfly, flying past, yellow like the citrus that people harvest from a few miles from here. A big blackbird with an orange beak, swooping down to catch a cricket, the slate grey pigeons flying so close to the sun that he has to shield his eyes even if they’re already safe and sheltered under the bull head.
Seeing his wonder and awe makes you look at the scenery so differently that it burns, it actually hurts: there’s so much beauty in the world, and you have always taken it for granted. Cursed the rain and the storms, cursed the droughts, cursed the gods for sending down another famine, when in truth, the world was filled with abundance, of colours, of life and joy… And all you’ve done is worship darkness. Now the darkness is out: it’s standing next to you, watching the view of your mundane everyday life like it’s nothing short of a miracle.
And when you turn back to look at him again, his eyes are upon you.
“What?” You ask, freshly caught in your moment of weakness.
“You are pretty,” he says, eyes wrinkling with delight under the mask. 
Gods damn him… 
He doesn’t know that human men don’t act like this, talk like this, or if they do, there’s usually something vile involved behind it all. He doesn’t know how to play games, he was never introduced to the lies and deceit of the world.
The Bull of Crete only looks at you with soft fondness in his stare – he doesn’t understand that he should cover that softness as well if he intends to win. Any woman could put a leash on him before another moon has passed, but he doesn’t seem to care. And it’s not even heat or hunger that makes you weak this time... It’s those eyes, looking at you with more and more warmth.
“Nonsense,” you huff without a voice, and turn towards the old road with an adoring bull on your heels.
The cold sigh of the underworld is quickly left behind you as you walk up the old carriage road, nearly grown in with weeds. The Labyrinth is located miles away from civilization, but the people living in these hills are used to the cold cave by now. They trust that the Minotaur will never escape and only turn away their heads and close the doors of their huts when the screaming, crying human sacrifices are delivered to the mouth of the cave. Little do they know that the monster is now looking at their little hills and goats with delight, not bloodlust.
For the Minotaur is fascinated with your world: he has to touch every leaf, every tree, every blade of grass, it seems. The goats are afraid of him, but one small nanny is bold enough to come and sniff his hand. Perhaps it remembers that beings walking on two feet give her apples sometimes, and the giant studies this small white animal with gentle curiosity, allows the goat to smell his hand, only chuckles when the goat gives out a little scoff when she notices there are no treats to be found there.
The vision is more adorable than when you’ve seen children play with kittens, and no matter what you do, you can’t turn your heart into ice anymore. You were taught that the Minotaur is a monster who enjoys torturing his victims, creatures far more helpless than him. Now you see him watching the she-goat with warm curiosity, rumbling softly inside his helm, far from the ravaging beast that approached you in that tunnel what seems like months ago.
You watch him with tender sadness as he marvels at the sky and remembers how he used to sit in the shade of an olive tree when he was a child. He goes to sit there now and examines how the sun filters through the massive branches of the tree as if trying to recall the memory. 
He asks questions like: “How can you humans stand this heat?” or “Why is there only one road?” and listens to your answers carefully.
He says he can smell the sea, even if the salty water is miles and miles away, and gets curious about what’s behind that hill, or that one, what about that one… You wonder if he’s even interested in killing the king anymore and suggest that he could just forget about this cruel place and buy himself a sea voyage with that expensive sword. He could get rid of his helmet and ask if anyone needs a goat herd or an able-bodied man to help at construction sites or stables; he could get work from the docks any day, sail to Athens or some other big city, forge himself a new life. 
But he doesn’t want to.
He says he has to avenge his mother who always cried when he was little.
More wretched tugs pull at your heart as you approach the city. The lovely summer’s day turns into a nightmare once people see who’s on his way to the heart of Crete.
You don’t understand their screams, not anymore, while only a few days ago you knew they preceded death. The Minotaur doesn’t kill anyone, mainly because he doesn’t have to. Everyone flees before his wake, people rush to their homes and bar the doors, even soldiers slip away to be with their loved ones or run to warn the king if they have any loyalty left. 
You’re left to walk through the marketplace in settling dust and tense silence as the Bull Man explores the abundant samples of food on display. He has to have a taste of everything from all stands, but only after he has offered figs, olives, grain, grapes, grilled meat and fish to you first.
“Eat,” he says and shoves a handful of pine seeds your way. “You were hungry?”
“This is not the way to–” you ignore the food only through sheer willpower. “This is not right. People own these things. They sell them at the market, you need to pay for these.”
“Pay? With what?”
He looks at you for a moment, unable to recall what money is and how these things are supposed to work. He probably had his mother’s servants bring him everything he needed as a child anyway, so how could he know? 
“They will take your hands for stealing,” you try to explain with softly building despair.
“I will take their heads before that.”
“The next king will hunt you down and punish you,” you rush after him, and when he won’t listen, you seize his hand and finally get him to halt. He looks down at the weak palm around his wrist, then raises his gaze to you.
“Bulls don’t have kings.”
Your attempts to tame him are futile. The things they’ve taught him to be are now being used as a way to escape responsibility, and while it’s none of your business, you refuse to let him believe that he is nothing more than an animal.
“You are not a bull,” you wail in frustration. “You’re a man.”
He hesitates, only for a moment; the gentle, loving gaze makes your legs weak.
“You’re the first to think that.” 
Then he rips himself away from you, softly but sternly.
He doesn’t need directions to the palace: he knows he has to head for the most prominent building in the city to reach the king. The grandiose heart of Crete, white-chalked and beautiful under the burning midday sun is the pride of every citizen, even if it houses another monster.
You sigh as you watch him go: the Bull Man, the demon of the underworld, the one you thought would rape you bloody before you get to crawl out of the Labyrinth. The fact that he wanted to kill his father more than he wanted to be born again into a new life wasn’t a surprise, but that he chose to bloody his sword rather than his cock is somehow... insulting, almost. 
What actually haunts you is how your insides coil and turn when you rush back to your temple. It’s not like you thought the Minotaur would take you with him. Board some trade ship bound for distant shores, and ravage you ever so softly in the belly of the creaking hull. It’s not like you dreamed of petting him to sleep while you two embark on a new life. But the way your heart twists and wails inside your chest makes it clear that losing him is even more painful than losing Theseus and the life he promised you. 
You never even wanted Theseus; you only wanted him to take you away from here. His affection would have been the result of ample witchcraft at best.
He’s practically already dead, and your heart turns to stone far more slowly than you would prefer. It’s just your luck to first have the golden hero of Greece look down on you in disdain, and then witness even the Bull Man walk away from you like you never meant anything to him. Men killing each other is the oldest story in the world, and you want no part in it, but something in this beast has stirred you awake from a long, cold slumber. It’s infuriating that you can’t dispel a simple animal from your heart. Oldest story in the book, that one, too…
But oh, how you now yearn after some cruel, lowly, dirty beast… The Minotaur already owns you, and he never even had to plunge his sword inside you to prove that. Besides, you would’ve been perfectly willing had he decided to take you on the green grass, under the vast sky, while some noisy goats graze around you. You realize that that’s what you expected to happen, and when it didn’t, you’re left more than disappointed: you're left completely hollow. You always find out these things a little too late, it seems… The Bull is headed for the palace and will likely get killed after he slaughters his cruel father. There’s at least thirty spears in that building, and more will arrive when called.
You arrive at the temple, panting and with your body flushed and weak. The maidens at the entrance share a quick glance with each other before turning their fearful gazes back to you. They’re the youngest arrivals, not even initiates yet; one of them hardly even bleeds. 
“The King is dead,” you announce without bothering to even greet them, and the girls huddle up together like they’re a bunch of slaves about to get slapped.
You realize you must look like an animal with your dirty robes, dishevelled hair and your wild, alive stare. No wonder they look like they’ve seen a ghost... You basically are one, coming back from the dead like this.
“What?” 
A priestess arrives at the threshold like an image of Hecate herself, dressed in robes as black as the midnight sky, but you don’t shy away from her like you used to.
“Or he will be. Soon. The Minotaur is here.” 
“How did you… How did it...”
You’ve never seen the priestess in disarray. She’s always composed, cold and distant, but seeing you like the wraith that you are, freshly escaped from the Labyrinth, spat back from the bowels of the earth like the dark gods didn’t even want you there, makes even the greatest of Hecate’s servants a little uneasy. 
She gathers what’s left of her dignity and finds her most commanding voice. Sadly, it doesn’t have the power to shake the ground anymore.
“Where is Theseus of Athens?”
“Disemboweled… is my best guess,” you say in a listless voice, then turn your head toward the smell of fresh fruit.
Normally, you would walk these halls with dignity, but now, you simply barge in and grab the first piece of food you find. You ought to get whipped for your insolence, but no one dares to raise a hand against you. The maids and priestesses stare in shock as you eat and drink like a starved prisoner. You’re a living Hecate in certain aspects, your arrival the first toll of the bell of doom as the palace guards sound the alarm.
So…
The Minotaur has reached the king.
The priestesses deem it only logical that the King finally pays for his sins: the gods have been offended by the number of human sacrifices sent to the Labyrinth, and this is their way of exacting revenge. You were only an instrument of their will.
After a quick wash and some more food, you begin to feel like a human again. The maids bring you a new chiton, flowing and white: your old clothes are burned in a brazier as if that would help you forget.
And this might be the only place you don’t get blamed for unleashing a monster. You were at a crossroads with the Minotaur, and anyone would have done the same: try to talk him out of his killing spree, calm him down, entice him with a gift. No one expected that the beast could even speak, so your approach was unusual, perhaps, but it worked. Hecate guided you through the tunnels, even when the candle went out, she stilled the Bull’s loins until you reached the sunlight where the beast got distracted with other things. You leave out the Minotaur's attraction to birds, bees and butterflies because your story is unbelievable enough as it is.
But the Minotaur will be slain after he has done his deed: Minos is the one who should be punished, not the city of Crete. And it is only just to put down this beast, a mercy.
So when he appears between the pillars of temple, this time wholly covered in blood, people are bound to scream. Even the priestesses who are used to seeing blood, shriek like widows when the Minotaur steps inside the holy shrine of Hecate.
“Where is the maiden of the crossroads?”
He came back for you, after all…
The boom of his voice is familiar, and yet, you cower on the bench when you hear it. The Minotaur sounds like he’s an envoy of Hades himself, and while you’re not among those who scream and yell, it still sends shivers down your spine to hear him speak like that.
Or is it the excitement, a tiny flame of hope that makes you quiver like this?
“We all belong to the goddess,” someone peeps, the Minotaur now descending down the stairs.
The massive head turns, gaze like razor sweeping across the marbled shrine. You’re so far back that he can’t catch you, sitting behind many bodies and faces, and before you can force yourself to rise, the main priestess, the oldest, most crooked of the crones, steps forth to meet this beast.
“This is a House of Hecate,” she speaks. “No man is allowed to enter unless they are Death.”
The black carcass turns, but the priestess doesn’t waver. If anything, her spine turns into unbreakable metal before this man’s gaze.
“I am Death,” he says, far more gently than anyone would expect. Then he walks past the crone like she’s just a harmless elder. No one does a thing, because even the head of your temple is powerless now.
“She had a red string and a candle. Where is she?”
He grabs the first woman he sees, and you rise up before he decides it’s time to thrust his blade into someone to loosen the tongues of these women. 
“Please,” you take a hesitant step towards your Bull. “I’m here... I’m the one you’re looking for.”
The Minotaur lets go of the frightened initiate the instant he sees you. She’s shoved aside with little interest, the blue eyes behind the corpse now solely fixed on you. The way they soften into hazy ice makes your knees weak – that’s the stare of someone who recognizes their loved one among a thick, dull crowd…
“Come with me,” he extends a hand when he reaches you, strong legs swallowing tiles like he’s in a hurry to get back to you. You open your mouth, close it, and look at his hand, the rough, enormous palm held out for you to place your own little hand in.
“You belong to me,” he says with great weight when you don’t speak. It should spark the ire of the goddess for him to dare to talk to you like this… But mostly, your body sings. It tells you to take a step and take his hand: to let him have you, once and for all. 
“My place is here,” you utter, all power gone from your voice. All your dreams, all your fears are offering their hand to you with his, and the maidens, mothers and crones of this hall look upon your exchange with the Bull Man in stupefied silence. 
“You were sent down to me,” he presses on. “You are mine now. You belong to me.”
Your body is singing, singing, singing.
It’s not a request… Or a proposal. 
It’s a god, taking what’s his.
You swallow with nothing in your throat and look at the head priestess with helpless misery: she looks back with the eyes of a noxious Medusa, wholly dispassionate to the problems you brought upon yourself. And what could she even do? She’s unarmed against the claims of Hades: Death is now in love with you, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. 
He doesn’t want to stay in the city, as enchanting as it is, saying that it stinks and that he’s tired of the screams. No one wants him here; he already knows that, and the task he was meant to do is done. He doesn’t seem to be much moved by it either, only asking you if there is a place where he can wash the blood off himself. 
People become more bold when they see you walk out of the city. Not even the sight of a crimson demigod makes them watch their tongues. Insults and slurs follow you through the streets, shouts such as “Kingslayer!” and “Beast!” are accompanied with curses such as “You are an abomination!” and “Go back to your lair!” 
No one treats him as their prince and savior, no one sees him as the man he truly is. And because hatred thickens in crowds, you get your share of the insults as well. 
What kind of a woman would follow a beast like him? Have you sold your soul to the demons of the desert, or has Hades himself forced you to be with this monster? Are you behind the murder of their king?
“Must I remind you?” You turn on your heels, standing tall and proud with the posture of a queen. “According to the old laws, the one who slays the king is the next to rule.” 
“You led him out of the Labyrinth, didn’t you?” the voices ask.
“Gave him your cunt, too,” they sneer.
“You’re worse than the bloody Gorgon,” they mock, but you have a thick skin: if anything, you take it as a compliment to be referred to the mighty slayers of men.
What cuts through your heart is the filth and hate they spit at him, the man who has known nothing but loath since he was born. 
“Hecate’s whore… I should kill you first,” one soldier shouts with spit running down his chin.
The citizens of Crete would never hail the Minotaur as their king, but none can say the deed didn’t prove great strength. Some would even call it justice. He is the queen’s son, after all: he’s more royal than any of these dung-stinking peasants will ever be. He should never have been sent down to those tunnels in the first place.
Before you know it, the Minotaur swoops past you in haste, diving towards the screaming crowd with hunched shoulders and a fiery breath.
“Stop,” you say, and he halts immediately, gaze still directed to the one who called you a whore. The soldiers back away along with the peasants and tradesmen, these poor, humble Cretes who act like they never meant to be so mean.
“Let us go in peace,” you command, voice unwavering and stern. “Or I will curse you all. You and your families, down to the seventh son and seventh daughter.”
That manages to shut them up. The threat of a curse frightens these poor beasts even more than the enraged Minotaur breathing fire through his helm. No one wants rot and puke to follow them wherever they go; no one wants to doom their offspring with illness, death and sorrow. They disperse in all directions and only hiss and whisper as they go.
You spit on the ground as your last gift to these people, leaving the city of Crete with the ever-adoring Bull at your heels.
“You’re even prettier when you’re angry,” he says while walking next to you, voice thick with genuine passion and awe.
You roll your eyes: any man would cower before Hecate’s curse, but this one? This one only gets more horny. 
“Perhaps you are part bull after all,” you retort dryly.
“It takes more than one spear to kill me,” he boasts, but you don’t need more proof of his prowess. Surely, people have tried to kill him in the Labyrinth, but he’s survived every single attempt on his life – for that alone, he should be a decorated hero.
The only thing that makes you annoyed, however, is this childish need to prove he could’ve taken the whole city by himself just because some man happened to call you a slut.
“Mother said I’m a monster instead of a man,” he says, completely unaware that your snap wasn't meant as a compliment. He says it like he’s partly proud of it, and you finally sigh and turn. 
“Your mother was heartless. And wrong.”
The Minotaur only looks at you with a building passion that goes straight to your loins.
“But you’re not.”
“...What?”
“Heartless.”
You feel stripped naked before him, the way his eyes seem to burn away your poor dress. But the fact that he unearths your most guarded secret, just like that, is a catastrophe of a far wider scale.
You’re not sure who’s tied to whom anymore… Or if you’re tied to each other, the gods now laughing in their wine as they look down at you two: a fierce and bloodied giant following the maiden he stole like it’s you who took him and not the other way around.
You reach the roaring waters of a waterfall in silence, the night wrapping the lands inside a dark blue veil. Stars will be visible soon, and with the moon creeping up to the sky, you won’t be needing candles tonight. The silver mistress gives plenty of light for you to admire your beast, and compared to the thick darkness of the tunnels you emerged from this morning, it feels like a generous blessing.
You sit on the banks of the small, clear pond, utterly exquisite at nightfall. The sun’s heat has turned into a warm, caressing breeze, and you submerge your feet into the water, giving out a satisfied sigh as the cool pond embraces your travel worn feet. The Bull sinks to a crouch some distance away from you, curious about your obvious moment of pleasure.
“Did you meet her…? Your mother?” You ask from the cool water lapping at your feet – how can a simple man make you feel so restless and shy?
“Did you… kill her?” 
“She cursed me,” he says, sullen and wholly unsurprised. Time and time again, you are shocked by the hatred his own kin shows him. How can a mother be so cruel?
“How could I kill my own maker?”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “For everything.” 
You swallow before such unwavering love. The same man who cursed the gods yesterday  honours the womb he came from so much that he won’t raise a hand against it, not even when his own mother spits curses at him. You don’t know if it’s his greatest strength or biggest weakness, but sometimes you wonder if he’s more human than humans, this beast.
“I’m not,” he retorts immediately. “The king is dead. Mother is safe. I have you... This is the best day of my life.”
You turn to look at him. Time and again, the lack of lies and deceit in this man catches you off guard. It’s more painful than any wound, to see how the Minotaur has no protective skin against the corrupted human nature, that he is human nature before it was defiled.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” you falter. 
The chiton pools around your ankles, and you wonder if the man even breathes anymore. You know your skin is glowing with the last rays of the setting sun, you’re aware that the water and moonlight play upon your skin and make you look like an illusion, powerful in its own way.
When have you ever faltered…? Back when you were a little girl, you reckon, the notion euphoric and eerie in your bones.
You rise up and undress before him nonchalantly, trying to ignore the fervid stare of your admirer. Unclasping the brooches holding up your white linen dress, you let it fall down and set you free, secretly reveling in the downright carnal stare now glued to your skin. 
Ripe for plucking, you think while stepping out of the pile of cloth and into the thin evening air. His gaze feasts on you: the plump breasts no one ever loved, the vulnerable navel down below, the dark triangle between your legs, the secret power it holds.
Heat pools into your core as you watch him: everything in your body turns warm and soft when you take in the utter heftiness of him. The mean, swelling phallus between his legs, the near inhuman strength those shoulders and chest possess. Your body is the complete opposite of him, ethereal, almost, compared to the absolute brute strength before you. 
His eyes linger there the longest until he rises too, stiff and dreamy, a beast entirely taken by a thrall. The loincloth is practically torn away, as if it’s only a nuisance he must get rid of immediately. His eyes never leave your shape while he bares himself, and the phallus, you notice, belongs to a human. It’s thick and wondrous, fully erect, adorned with dark curls and accompanied by a set of balls you’ve mainly seen on horses. Big, full and round but unlike animals, they’re covered in dark fur, almost black here in the evening light. Thick seed beads through the slit of his cock from simply seeing you, and the way his chest heaves makes it clear that this man is ready to mate as soon as he’s allowed to do so. 
“You need to take off your helm,” you lift your chin, thoroughly aware of your power over him, even if it’s laughable, a miracle that he doesn’t fuck you on the spot like the animal he is. “You’re a man, not a bull.”
His eyes don’t betray any kind of hesitation. He doesn’t seem to be interested in whether he wears his mask or not. He just blinks as if he’s indeed under a spell and nods.
“If you say so.”
The broad muscles flex as he takes it off, and what is revealed to you from underneath the head is both a surprise and a disappointment. There’s not a monster under there, only a man, a stoic, boorish, shaggy male who’s in desperate need of a wash and a comb. He’s somewhat handsome under all that facial hair and knots, actually, not bad at all – if you like your men rugged and wild. 
He lets the head drop to the ground with a thud as if it was never a part of him at all, and follows you into the pool like you’re his mother and he’s your cub about to get scrubbed clean. 
He seems to dwarf you, even when half submerged in the pond, leaning back with a sigh not unlike yours. If you’re afraid, your body has a peculiar way of showing it: even in the clear, glossy water, you can feel yourself get wet. Never have you seen such strength, not in any man: in horror and awe, you realize he could be a descendant of Zeus himself. As if providing proof to these claims, he looks up to the sky, mesmerized by the myriad stars dotting the vast, unattainable blue.
Using this momentary distraction to your advantage, you reach to pluck a handful of moss from the bank. With this soft little sponge in your hand, you hope to make it clear that this is indeed a bath, not foreplay. 
“They’re stars,” you say softly while slinking closer to him. “Have you ever seen them...?”
“Yes,” he rasps with his head lolled back, throat completely exposed. It always hurts your heart to see that he trusts you so fully. You are no threat to him – even if the gods changed the moss in your hand into a weapon of some sort, you wouldn’t pose any kind of challenge. And still, the way he allows you to creep towards him and wipe his rough hide with the makeshift sponge without so much as flinching is heartbreaking. 
“I have forgotten…” his voice drifts off as he examines the night sky, eyes filled with distant, glass-like delight.
“Beautiful, aren’t they...?” 
“Your world is pretty,” he brings his gaze back to earth and to you. “But you’re the loveliest thing I’ve seen so far.”
You almost freeze upon hearing that. His compliments always catch you off guard, but this time, something forbidden and long forgotten comes undone: a lost want, no, a need to hear such simple words of shallow praise.
“You do not scream... You do not run. Why?”
Your eyes are liquid, glass about to break as you set yourself on the task of scrubbing him clean. You refuse to get emotional in front of him: an initiate of the dark goddess, shedding tears when a horny man calls her pretty? What utter nonsense.
But then he grabs your wrist: not to seize back power, but to prevent you from escaping this fragile moment.
“You are different,” he agrees calmly, then releases you, but you reckon it’s mostly because he misses the soft rubs you were giving him. 
“Perhaps I’m crazy,” you breathe while looking at the damp curls on his chest.
Yes… That’s the only explanation for this madness. It has to be.
“Is that why you took me?” 
“I took you because you’re mine. I want you.”
“You can’t just take what you want,” you warn softly.
“Why not?” His head tilts a little to the side as he’s trying to make sense of you and the manners of your world. “Don’t you want to be mine?”
You lift your gaze and risk a look into his eyes, stripped from all facades as always. You even catch a passing wave of worry there: he had counted on you being as fascinated with him as he is with you. The hunger behind that want, the need to be something special to you, is a whole another issue that must wait until your head is more clear. Way more clear…
“Perhaps,” you confess.
“I have nothing to give you,” he shrugs, eyes looking slightly past you this time, out of shame or anxiety. It takes a while for you to understand he’s liking you to the goods at the market and thinks he’s expected to have money to be able to keep you.
“You don’t need to pay for me,” you smile, trying your best to disguise the soft amusement in your voice. His brows only furrow as he tries to calculate and think.
“I don’t understand the rules of this world,” he finally shakes his head. 
“I’ll teach you.”
For a while, he only looks on with fascination how you rub his arms and belly, basically massaging him with the wet moss. His eyes drift closed when you scrub the back of his neck, the stout erection only getting thicker under the cool water. You’re careful with his legs, not because you’re afraid he’s ticklish but because you try to avoid touching the huge cock already jutting up from happiness. It gives a few excited bounces when you wash his inner thighs, hopeful to get its needs satiated soon. 
“I can hunt for you,” he suggests. “Bring you food… Protect you.”
He’s visibly excited when figuring out a way to give you something in return. He wants to provide offerings for your company, your lore, and eventually, your cunt, too. You might be a virgin, but you’re not stupid: of course he wants the soft, wet prize between your legs. A pair of lovely tits to squeeze at night... Ears to groan hushed confessions into, thighs to nibble, bite and suck until you cry... 
“What do you think?” He asks, breath heavy from the bliss you’re already granting him by simply giving him a bath. “I could give you my heat. Please you...”
“You know how to please women?” 
“No. But you could teach me.”
The way he says it is not shy. Only tentative. A bear, walking on ice and hoping it would carry his weight. One wrong step and the ice will swallow him, spitting out his bones only in spring. 
And then…
“Do you know how to fuck?”
The ice holds, mainly because you’re too shocked to even slap or ridicule this man. His eyes bore into you with such unbridled greed that you have trouble keeping your precious pride intact.
“Of course,” you hear yourself whisper like it would be an insult to your intellect if you didn’t.
“Teach me,” he says, ever more greedily.
“I…”
Your jaw is left open, but not a word comes out. A strong palm closes around your wrist again, this time to bring you flush against him. The water laps at your skin, a distant crow cackles somewhere. Your hand is brought to his phallus, but he doesn’t have to wrap your fingers around it: you do it all by yourself, breath locked in your throat as you feel how hard and blazing he is.
“You want my cock,” he says, mouth only an inch from yours. “Don’t you...?”
You wet your lips – a mistake, because his half-lidded gaze darts to your mouth the instant your pink tongue lashes out. You’re in a predicament, but on the other hand, what else did you expect, taking your clothes off in front of a touch-starved bull?
“I’d give it to you happily,” he insists. “No female ever wanted to spread her legs for me.”
Or a leash. 
Your fingers tighten on their own, they mould around him. Like a bond…
“Really?” You breathe. “What fools they were...”
The cock gives a full throb inside your palm, exalted to be yours. But only a moment later, the dreaded Minotaur moves. 
You find yourself under him before you can even gasp for air: the soaked, hot body of a giant now pinning you on the grass and crushing you under it with ease. The weight of your error is fully pressed against you: he was never tamed, and you were a fool to think you could put him in chains.
The raw scent of earth and musk fills your nostrils, making the stars above you spin. His cock is trapped between your bodies, giving another rich pulse against your thigh. Gods, if he were throbbing like that inside you…
“You make my skin burn,” he growls into your ear, the heat of his skin now unbearable, the coarse hair prickling your skin from neck to thigh. “My loins, ache…”
“Are you a witch?” He asks, and you finally allow yourself to breathe.
If he only knew… But hexes and charms are of no use for you now: the only thing you can do is moan, apparently, as he dives for your neck, planting barbarous kisses on your skin.
Down, down, down he goes, pure avarice driving him to feast on every part of you. You’re too weak to stop him when he searches for the source of your intoxicating scent. Discovering it between your thighs, he dives nose-first into your sex, meeting your core with a hungry grunt.
Your back arcs with pleasure, your nails sink into his back: a funny thing to do when he’s already as close as can be. The trail of crude kisses leads him to your breasts, and you try to keep your whimpers in control, but a gasp erupts when he drags a hot tongue across your nipple. Massive palms close around your tits while you squirm in his hold: he doesn’t seem to be driven by the need to please you; rather, he wishes to study you first, examine how your body reacts to his groping. He leaves your breasts aching and sore, every bite and suck managing to make you wetter and wetter, your cunt screaming for attention by now.
“Gods...” you wriggle on the soft earthen bed, not expecting him to take you with his mouth first.
He withdraws, only a little, but his voice is surprisingly soft.
“Do I hurt you...?” 
“No… But this is not mating…”
“Even I know that much,” he says darkly, and grabs you by the waist, moves you around like a doll until you find yourself on your belly. 
He looks at you from between your thighs, demonic and keen. The broad shoulders force your legs wide apart when he’s seated there, waist-deep in the water, with you hauled to the shore like a siren.
Not a moment is wasted as he pulls you back to him by the hips: you’re drawn to all fours, a hot streak of cum dragging on the inside of your thigh from the cock that meets your skin. He grabs and steadies it with an annoyed grunt, and the fat tip is shoved straight into your folds, your nether lips parted with brute force almost. 
“Guide me.”
His voice is demanding, impatient as he drags the fat head up and down the entrance of your hole, coating his cock with your slick in the process. You wonder if it’s instinctual, if he knows that this is where he should poke and that it will hurt you less if he’s well-oiled. He’s about to rut you into oblivion the instant you tell him where to shove his cock, and the prospect only sends more sap flowing down your thigh.
“There…” you stutter when he finds it, the aching spot that’s leaking profusely. He pushes the head in, not by teasing but by bullying, almost forcing it inside from how tight and unreceptive you are.
“Tighter than my fist,” is his only comment, and it makes you shudder. “I will not last long…”
You wince from the burn, but the rest of it glides in like a dream, and suddenly you’re filled, to the capacity, one could say. He grunts just from the way your womanhood is hugging him, not sure what this foreign object inside you is – is it a good thing or a threat?
“Easy then,” you breathe a huff into the sweet night air, filled with fireflies and night birds who know nothing about the fucking you’re about to go through.
He doesn’t move – inside you, that is. Outside, he crawls forward until he moulds around you, heavy body enveloping you completely. The hairs on his thighs tickle the back of your legs, his chest scrapes your back just so as he demonstrates how you belong to him in every way. But when your cunt starts to squeeze him again, he swallows thickly.
“Does this feel good to you too…?”
You catch faint confusion and concern in his voice, astonished that such a soft, frail body like yours can take his cock just like that. Little does he know you’re still adjusting to his size, thanking all the gods that he doesn’t move yet.
“Yes,” you confess because it does feel good: his thickness inside you, stretching you both gently and violently, studying how it feels to be inside a loving, wet heat.
“Then I will fuck you every day,” his lips come to brush your ear. “Many times...”
You hear yourself whimper, more humble now than ever. No man would dare to take you on all fours, but here you are, like a bought bride about to get stuffed…
He withdraws a little, asks, “Like this?” when he returns with a rough, nasty thrust. The balls meet your mound, heavy on the tender nub you’ve flicked when you’re lonely, covering your mouth while you do it. Both your hands are planted on the ground now, your legs spread before this beast, cunt filled to the brim with his cock.
“Not so rough,” you warn, and he heeds your instructions to the letter until he’s moving in and out with a slow, delicious pace that allows you to feel every thick bump of him. Soaked now down to your thighs, the sounds of your mating is utterly sloppy and slick, and of course he’s curious.
“Are you always like this…?”
“Like… what,” you huff in between the slow, torturous thrusts.
“Soft,” he rasps. “Tight… Wet like rain.”
“No. It’s just when…”
“When you want to fuck?”
You whimper for an answer, mostly because he starts to slip from the agreed sluggish pace. His cock invades you with more urgency, chasing the eruption that must be generous from those thick balls that should belong to a horse.
“I knew it…” he says dreamily behind you. “Some women want to mate with bulls...”
He punctuates his newfound pride with a full, deep thrust, and you wince.
“You’re not a–”
“Keep telling yourself that, little maiden.”
He exhales a hot smile next to your ear, and you’re neck deep in love. Your mouth hangs open, your lids half closed and fluttering from the way he pounds into your poor, abused cunt. Heavy balls slap your swollen nub with careless abandon, making you squeeze his thickness every time he hits the end of you. His grunts become more animalistic with every thrust, and your cunt is a wild thing, leaking and weeping and throbbing until you fear there’s something wrong with you – no woman is supposed to be this needy for a beast…
I’m going to come… You realize in horror as the slick sounds of fucking overthrow even the coursing roar of the waterfall. The knowledge shoots your body full of dark, hot ink; it explodes inside your core like a liquid star, throbbing through your cunt currently being ploughed like you’re nothing but a needy, sloppy hole for him. You’re swimming in so much pleasure that it’s almost painful, the revelation some secret of the gods, no doubt. 
He growls when you moan, heavy arm snaking its way around your middle to keep you in place for him. The purr is eager and low, the rumble erupts from his chest like a thick, loving volcano, a statement of how perfect you are. He nuzzles his nose into your neck and rubs his scent all over you while fucking you through it, the divine rapture that leaves your throat dry from moans. 
He doesn’t need to be told what it means when you’re crying like that: he doesn’t need to be explained that his cock is giving you ample pleasure. It’s so desperate, how much he wants to both fuck and please you, just own you and fulfill you, that you start to shake, your frail body not capable of handling the orgasm he just gave you. 
Your strength fails, and you find yourself on your elbows, cunt even more exposed to him now, the cock pistoning into you with a relentless pace. He’s like a titan upon you, taking pleasure from your quivering, weak frame and the tight wet hole that belongs to it. You’re still in rapture when he starts to sound like broken, wounded man.
“You were made for me,” he huffs. “You were made...for me…”
His voice evaporates along with your thin, adoring mewls, just before he fucks himself over the edge. You can feel the hot, thick spurts, filling you as he roars into your hair, balls pressed flush against your sex, thighs meeting yours in a moment frozen in time. 
They can probably hear him all the way to the city, hear what a cunt like yours does to an invincible beast like him… But his cries are only met with silence; the night sky looks back with disinterest, the birds continue their songs when they notice it was only the roar of a mighty beast that filled the land. Before long, he’s groaning above you, using your hole more softly; loving it until the last drop is milked. 
When he stops, his whole body is trembling from release, but you’re not given a moment of reprieve. He forces you to the ground with him on your back, the rough, thick body never leaving yours. Coarse beard chafes your neck, his body trapping you completely under him, he even opens his jaw to take your shoulder between his teeth and bites you while his cock is still pulsing fat inside you. 
“I can’t get enough of you,” he pants into your ear, angry, almost.
“Good,” you breathe a smile, but he’s not satisfied.
“You couldn’t get enough of me too… I noticed.”
“You gave me pleasure,” you agree. “Lots of it.”
“That was a lot of seed… I haven’t spilled in days.”
He huffs into your ear, astonished and proud that he could do such a thing. You feel him shift to take a better look at you, fingers arrive to graze your temple as if to make sure you’re real, as if having his cock inside you wasn’t enough proof of that. They’re a little shaky, a little uncouth, but the touch is gentle enough, and sweet.
He's boasting again perhaps, you don’t know, but you give him a soft laugh, notice how he stops breathing momentarily when hearing the bright sound.
“I am filled to the brim with you, yes… It will take a while before I can take more.”
“...You have other holes in you,” he offers after a while, quite seriously, in fact. 
“Get off me, you beast,” you huff and squirm to get out from under him, but there’s a luscious grin on your face, a smile that tells him you would more than approve of his obscene ideas later. 
“This feels good,” he murmurs into your hair. “This feels right...”
He allows you to leave from under him, only whines when his cock gets exiled from your cunt. He misses the wet heat like a newborn child misses the womb, but you need to recover from the recent invasion. Seed gushes out from your hole, making a mess on the ground as he pulls you against him, wanting to cuddle you next.
You wonder if he even knows what cuddling means as you lie there with a sticky mess between your legs and the heat of an entire sun on your cheeks. You smile into the coarse, sweaty body hair tickling your nose, deciding it doesn’t matter whether he knows or not: the most important thing is that he wants to hold you like this.
“Yes,” you smile. “This feels right…”
Something blooms in your chest. An odd flower, persistent and sweet. 
The stars above are cold but motherly as they look down on you two: born again into a world that doesn’t want either of you. The only things that accept you now are flowers, birds, the wind and the rain, bees and salty sea, but that’s aplenty. That’s more than the whole of Crete could ever give you.
“Are you thinking about your hero,” he asks above you.
“What? No…”
“Good,” he rasps, so softly now that you start to fear he’s about to cry.
You are more than capable of lying, but Theseus hasn’t crossed your mind in hours: the last time it did, the memory was received with loath and disdain. Thinking about Theseus while you’re draped all over your Bull, his seed flowing out of your womb... What a ridiculous idea. 
The reason for his hardly disguised anger is laid out plain before you: he's just jealous like any other man. Somehow, it makes you feel even more glowy inside.You’re my hero, you want to say, but have no courage to spill out the words. He was balls deep inside you mere moments ago, but telling him this intimate truth seems to be too much.
It never occurred to him, then, that you would enjoy copulating with him. He fucked you with the impression that you needed thoughts of another man to make you wet… That perhaps with the help of the image of Theseus in your mind, you were able to come with his cock inside you. 
“My Bull,” you whisper. “Tell me your name. You must have a name…?”
His breath stops only for a moment, the heart in his chest gives an arduous beat before he answers.
“Asterion.”
Starry one…
Of course.
All monsters have names, usually the opposite of what they’re claimed to be. His birth is in heaven, in the stars; he belongs to the company of heroes and gods.
“Asterion,” you whisper it out into the night air while the animal an man both find their new home in your arms. “Your birth is written in the stars. Did you even know…?”
“Does that make me a hero?” He snorts, more old wounds torn open right before your eyes. 
You wriggle yourself out of his hold, but he avoids your stare. You lift a hand to bring those beautiful Olympian eyes back to you.
“It makes you immortal.”
Perhaps you should’ve known he would be enticed with an apple instead of tethers and deals. Or with a palm, held out with no intent to strike… 
It’s lovely, how he blinks every time he’s confused. You’ve yet to see him shy, but if he ever is, this might be the moment… You even catch him swallowing under that wild facial hair, an awkward blob right after that blink when his birthright is acknowledged.
But even more dumbfounded he becomes when he realizes you’re truly and veritably admiring him. When you whisper it to him – you’re my hero – and watch something shatter in him that was supposed to wrench itself free, that’s when he’s truly granted divinity.
Perhaps it was all about becoming animal again, allowing the other to have a sniff. Baring your throat and embracing the instinct to trust. Marrying your wild soul… The deepest magic of all.
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deadsetobsessions · 4 months
Text
“Tim. Timmy. Ancients, kid, what are you doing?!”
Danny Phantom smacked away the instinctual terror of seeing an eight year old dangling out of a third story window.
“I gotta go take pictures of Batman and Robin! They’re out tonight!”
Danny thought that his barely healed vivisection wound might bust open from the sheer stress.
“Setting aside how you even know the patrol schedule of honest to god vigilantes, why’d you choose the window? The house is literally empty, just walk out the front door, for Ancient’s sake.”
Tim paused, a motion Danny was overwhelmingly thankful for, and blinked sheepishly.
“Um… for the aesthetic?”
Danny allowed the silence to settle between them before dropping his head into his waiting hands. Tim panicked.
“You- you can’t stop me!”
And yeah, Danny really can’t. In the months he’s been mooching off of the Drakes (not that they’ll notice), Danny’s learned that Tim Drake is nothing but relentless in the pursuit of whatever he sets his mind on. Whether thet might be putting hot chocolate in his cereal (which Danny doesn’t actually mind) or, apparently, stalking a pair of vigilantes.
He wanted to hack into the library cameras? Danny had to hover just to make sure the kid didn’t get caught after arguing for an hour about it.
He walked out of that argument with a loss, yes, but he also let Tim know that Danny cared about him. Danny also walked out of that argument with a new hatred for Janet and Jack Drake and his mind (just as diabolical as Tim’s) whirring with plans to haunt them.
Tim is never ever introducing his new little brother to Tucker. Ever.
“Okay. I don’t want to see you take unnecessary risks, but I’m also aware that I can’t really stop you. So. I’ll go with you.”
Maybe this is like… Tim’s obsession? When he put it that way, Danny lost the fight to prevent this tiny kid from what clearly is the only joy in his poor life.
“But…!” Tim’s eyes darted to Danny’s chest, the vivisection scars still fresh in his mind.
“They’re healed.” Danny pulled his dumbass little brother off the window sill, core settling as Tim follows willingly. “I’ll make us invisible and fly with you behind Batman and Robin so you can get even better shots. You can’t make any noise, though. That camera got a shutter sound, right?”
“Yeah!” Tim’s face brightened and Danny melted. He shoved a bottle of the (incredibly stinky but helpful in a pinch) ecto contaminated tap water into a backpack, along with some snacks and a blanket for when Tim gets cold. Danny’ll be fine, he’s got a Space Core. The cold his kind of his thing.
“Cool. We’ll stay out of earshot. If things starts to get too dicey, we’re heading home, okay?”
“Okay!” The look Tim shot him is full of trust and adoration and it makes Danny’s human heart squeeze painfully. “C’mon! I don’t want to be late!”
“We need to talk about your stalking tendencies later,” Danny said fondly.
“I’m not stalking them! I’m observing them!”
“Uh-huh,” Danny drawled, picking Tim up and making them intangible and invisible. “They’re not a bird observatory and also, even the birds in the observatory knows they’re being watched. Batman and Robin clearly doesn’t.”
Danny felt more than saw Tim’s pout.
He laughs as they fly just below the Gotham-brand of toxic smog. He waves to the City’s Spirit as Tim cranes his head around to catch sight of Batman and Robin.
“There!”
Danny obliged. With Danny’s flight, Tim got much better- much closer- photos than he would have originally.
Danny hung back as the pair of vigilantes swooped down to take care of a mugging.
“Wanna mess with them?” He grinned down at his little brother, canines glinting.
Tim looked up at him, admiration and mischievousness in his gaze. “Yes.”
Gotham parted her clouds in response to their glee.
——
Dick Grayson, AKA Robin, finally understood why criminals are so creeped out by him.
Other than the whole flippy child kicking grown people’s asses and winning thing, obviously (that, and Batman loomed menacingly behind him everytime a criminal even looked at Robin wrong).
Batman had picked up on it first, but the for entirety of their patrol, they kept hearing eerie little giggles and laughter. Haunting them. Never distracting. But persistent. And so creepy. He got goosebumps.
“B, I wanna go home.”
“Hm.” That’s a resounding yes if Dick’s ever heard one.
Maybe Alfred can chase away the giggles and chuckles.
Robin shudders and follows the Bat home.
——
Danny lowered the temperature as he held Tim up near Batman’s cowl so his brother could giggle menacingly. He knew for a fact that any recording device would get completely cram led by the sheer output of ambient ectoplasm he’s emitting. Plus, it freaked Robin out and raised the hairs on the back of the vigilantes’ heads. He tones it down when he noticed Tim rubbing his hands together.
He let out a quiet laugh, enjoying the flight with his brother in his arm and the light of the stars (thanks, Gotham) at his back.
——
Danny: oh, this kid’s got an Obsession, gotta let him do it safely, he’s a liminal from all that tap water
Danny: *forgets Tim isn’t a ghost nor is he from Amity and is therefore extremely breakable*
——
Danny and Tim: doing crime is a good bonding activity
Batman and Robin, who wants to say no it isn’t but they’re literally a pair of illegal vigilantes:
——
Dick as Robin: *cackles*
Tim, learning habits from stalking them: *giggles*
Gotham Criminals: *fear*
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forgwater · 2 months
Text
"Ah, yes. Me, my beloved Prefect and my lookalike tsum from another dimension."
Twst Boys and their reactions to you cuddling their tsum instead of them Headcanons
part 3 part 2 part 1
Deuce Spade
He's exasperated.
Ace has already been making fun of him and how you seem to prefer the plush and how his tsum is completely whipped. just like the real Deuce.
He's at a complete loss.
Has no idea what to do.
He's staring holes into his tsum.
He's flustered, but also annoyed.
You look so cute! And you're holding his lookalike! What is he supposed to do in this situation?!?! He wants cuddles too!
Physical fighting is not an option here!
He tries bargaining with his tsum when he thinks you're asleep.
You hear his attempts.
Deuce is mortified.
Azul Ashengrotto
He's flattered that you like his tsum that much.
He's not happy to see you lavishing all of you attention and affection on it though.
He must move fast before it is too late.
Azul tries being civil at first.
Attempts to talk you into letting go of his lookalike and hugging him instead.
He'll start listing pros and cons in his attempt.
If none of this works, then he just tries to rip the plush out of your arms when you least expect it.
He really hoped it would not come to this.
His tsum is not letting go.
Azul is very much not happy about this.
Jade Leech
Ah, Prefect don't you look just so adorable holding his tsum in such a tight embrace.
He'll play nice this time and share with his tsum.
Only for tonight.
You are far endearing to disturb.
But, that's enough of that. He needs his cuddles too.
Jade tries to hug you, ignoring his bean version until it does the unthinkable.
It slaps his hand away.
He's stunned.
Then, right after that, Jade starts planning his own tsums murder.
How unfortunate.
He really did like the little critter.
Well, he's got new feelings about it now.
So, how should he start his revenge on that plush?
Kalim Al Asim
He's trilled!
Why would he be upset about you loving his lookalike just as much as you love him?
This calls for a pajama party!
When you finally go to sleep at Jamils exasperated insistence, you more or less get sandwiched between Kalim and his tsum.
How cute!
Unfortunately, both of them tend to cling to you in their sleep.
There's a lot of moving around.
Kalim ends up falling of the bed.
Rook Hunt
Ah! Beauté! 100 points!
How could this hunter of love not appreciate the scene right before his eyes?!
Your adorable visage, partially obscured by his own tsum that you hold so dearly in your arms.
Really, he couldn't have asked for a better!
The only problem this heartwarming scene is the empty spot in his arms.
He also attempts to play nice and hug you as you are hugging his tsum.
Rook tsum makes a quick more to thwart his human counterpart.
Ah. So this is a challenge.
Throughout the night Rook attempts to remove his lookalike plush from your grasp.
They are locked in a quiet battle for your affection.
Lilia Vanrouge
Awwwww!!! How adorable! Lilia will allow his tsum to get some cuddles from you.
But as cute as his tsum is, he is just as cute if not more.
Do let go of the tsum and hug him instead, would you?
When you make the executive decision that the tsum will sleep with you, he's... fine with it.
But only as long as he gets cuddles as well.
He's too old and mature for jealousy. (he says, like a liar)
Lilia attempts to hug you, but his tsum keeps getting in the way, moving in such ways that will not allow the bat fae to get his hands on you.
Lilia's not too fond of this.
You wake up in the middle of the night to Lilia locked in a deadly stare of with his plush lookalike.
His lips are moving.
He's whispering threats to the tsum.
The tsum does not seem bothered.
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queertransetc · 10 months
Text
- ED trigger warning -
Being skinny ruined my life. If you’re thin and think to yourself, “why don’t fat people just lose weight?” Please read this
I was the “ideal fat” in the sense that I did everything skinny people wanted me to do. I tried every diet in the book. I exercised regularly. I worked with doctors and dietitians to figure out the best way to lose weight. But nothing worked. I did everything “right” to lose weight, and my weight stayed the same
But the thin people in my life kept telling me that I wouldn’t be happy, attractive, healthy, etc. until I lost weight. So, heartbroken, I came to the conclusion that anorexia was the only option left. It felt safer than bariatric surgery, and was obviously much more affordable
I became the perfect anorexic. 700 cal a day or less, except once a week I allowed myself 1400 cal. For reference, my body required at least 2800 to maintain weight, and at least 1800 to keep my organs and stuff fully functioning. Still, 700 a day, I persisted because everyone in my life told me weight loss was all that mattered. If dieting didn’t work, anorexia had to
And it did. My weight dropped all the way down to 110 pounds. I was skinny - underweight, even - in all sense of the word. The people in my life saw it as a miracle. The ultimate success story. My mother, my “friends,” my doctors, they all congratulated me on my accomplishment
When I confessed my eating disorder to my doctor, he told me, “that’s not the best way to go about it, but I’m glad you lost the weight.” My mother took pictures of me and sent them to relatives to brag
Okay, great. I was skinny. I did what I set out to do. But there were severe consequences
The most obvious was my joint pain doubled, maybe even tripled, to the point that I couldn’t leave the house without a wheelchair
I also developed several health complications, including fatty liver disease and extremely painful GERD. I had to see a handful of specialists and get an endoscopy because of severe stomach pain
My partner, who was the only person who saw my weight loss for what it was (a horrible thing that only happened because of an eating disorder), convinced me to enter a recovery program
For nearly a year, I relearned how to feed myself. I ate everything I was told to eat, nothing more and nothing less. My diet was 100% in the hands of somebody else
And I gained back every pound I has lost. All of the work to become thin went right out the window. It was proven to me that thinness and health were incompatible with my body. If I wanted to be thin, I had to forgo my physical and mental well-being. And vise-versa
Prior to the anorexia, I never once struggled with binge eating. I was naturally an intuitive eater, and I did a good job of having a well rounded diet. After the anorexia, after recovery, I developed a binge eating disorder. I had spent so long starving myself, that my brain and body got stuck in survival mode, desperate to consume any and all calories out of fear that I might starve again. To this day I struggle with binge eating
I did everything thin people wanted of me. I dieted. I exercised. And when all else failed, I starved myself. Now I have liver disease, stomach issues, and BED. Not to mention the loads of mental issues that accumulated as a result of my weight loss journey. During the throes of my anorexia, I had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation
When you tell fat people to “just lose weight” you are suggesting they give themselves illnesses for which treatments are not always effective. You are asking fat people to destroy their stomachs and livers. When a fat person loses so much weight that they become skinny, they are likely giving up so much of their health in efforts to be treated like a human being
If you’re thin, do your part. Treat fat people like people before we tear our bodies apart
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angelltheninth · 8 months
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Hello I have a desperate need to drop this somewhere after doing the second Fontaine quest, so I really hope it's okay that I do, but like; Virgin nuevillette. Finally having someone to be spicy with and he's just a mess and so damn cute because he wants soooo badly but he doesn't know what exactly. Something about having to guide such a big guy because he's too whiny and excited to focus right just makes me giggle
This makes so much sense my fingers just flew across the keyboard.
Pairing: Neuvillette x Fem!Reader
Tags: nsfw, smut, being flustered, double cock, loss of virginity, coming quickly, blowjob, eagerness, clit stimulation, blushing, kissing, creampie, biting, mating press, size kink
A/N: The double cock action seems like a neat idea, I hope the fandom accepts it as truth. It's my contribution.
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Virgin!Neuvillette is simultaneously eager to please you and very flustered at the same time. For starters you're a human, he could hurt you if he gets carried away. It hasn't happened in your make out sessions but this time it won't just be that, he'll be inside of you, one with you. Whatever he can do to make this good for you he promises that he will.
Virgin!Neuvillette has two cocks, more for you to please that way but the second one only appears when he's really horny. Getting a blowjob from you will do it. He is in awe at how you're handling him, never leaving either cock alone, hand moving up and down one of them while you suck and kiss the other at the tip. Because he is getting stimulated even when you go still when you bend down to take his cock in your mouth his other cock shoots cum all over your face. He goes only a little bit soft but there's still the other hard cock in your mouth for you to play with until the other gets hard again.
Virgin!Neuvillette gets a little embarrassed that he couldn't last long with you. He heard that this can happen but he really thought he would do better. Then again he was never one to masturbate much so it's not that surprising. But still, one of his cocks is always hard, he's got the stamina now he only needs to work on his endurance. And you will gladly assist him. He doesn't care if your face is covered in his cum, he still kisses you, commenting on the interesting salty taste of himself. Do you like it? His taste that is. You do, so much that you lick the cum off your lips and his.
Virgin!Neuvillette lets his playful side out when you pull him on top of you. He starts biting and kissing your neck, a deep and primal need to mark you boiling to the surface. Not yet, but if your relationship lasts he wants to give you a real mating mark. For now he will be happy with seeing these temporary ones all over your body.
Virgin!Neuvillette has a hidden size kink. His cocks are pretty girthy and long so he asks you which size is better at first. It doesn't matter to you because you'll have both inside of you at some point, maybe even both at once. The zips leak with cum at the idea but he decides to put the larger one in first, moaning and whimpering loudly as you take him inside of your pussy walls. That way his other cock can slide over your clit giving you double stimulation as he moves. His thrusts are sloppy, unsure, but each one is deep, it's like he can't... he doesn't want his cock to be out in the open, it has to be inside you. Is this what they call being pussydrunk?
Virgin!Neuvillette loses himself in the feeling of you coming undone under him. It's not enough, he needs more, he wants to go in deeper, deeper until his cock is kissing the entrance to your womb. He needs to feel it, now. Lucky for him, you're so easy to move around, easy for him to push your legs up on his shoulders, to your chest and kiss you while he gets what he wants, his pulsing, hot cock with nowhere to else to go.
Virgin!Neuvillette can't stop his pleasurable cries as he fills you up with warm seed. His other cock jumps, twitches against your clit, shooting thick, white ropes all over your body. Outside, inside, you're now marked as his with his cum. He never knew one could feel such pleasure but now that he's experienced it he doesn't want to go a single day without it.
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theghostofashton · 1 year
Text
.
#the other thing re: that last reblog is like..... if no one's doing the work and having the difficult conversations#how is anything going to change?#like i constantly see people say they don't want to do emotional labor and it isn't their job to educate anyone and that's fine#if you don't want to educate someone more privileged than you if you're part of a marginalized group and not into doing that#fine whatever that's absolutely your right#but to look down upon people from marginalized groups who DO want to educate people? act as if it's a moral failing to want to?#how the fuck do you expect anything to get better#things won't change by magically snapping your fingers#too often i see people throw around the idea of being a bootlicker or whatever and it's like#how do you realistically expect anything to change#if no one wants to talk to anyone they deem too privileged if all you want to do is treat strangers like shit for being privileged#you are not changing anything you are not making anything better you are actively causing harm#that's a net loss not a gain by any standard#and yes respectability politics is bullshit#but you know what else is bullshit? bullying strangers who've literally done nothing except exist#impeding people who ARE trying to create change#that will always make things worse#you don't owe someone actively trying to oppress you respect but you do owe total strangers human decency#them being of a privileged group does not excuse you being downright cruel#i feel like so many issues would be resolved if people got that lol
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sleepy-writes-stuff · 2 months
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DP X DC PROMPT #27
(Time for something a little more lighthearted/found family. Could probably also make this a crack prompt instead.)
(#) = Notes at the end of post
(*) = Just me building off of other ideas.
Visitation Rights
When Danny went to list Dani/Ellie as his heir after she'd come back from her years of traveling the world, he was quickly informed that he already had one in line for the thrown.
"What? Since when?!"
The pretentious, floating eyeball looked like he wanted to be anywhere else other than here, providing information to King Phantom, but explained anyway.
"The day you officially achieved royal status, you permanently linked your being to the Infinite Realms. When this happened, however, a child was in the process of being created with the assistance of ectoplasmic runoff that's been leaking into the mortal world for centuries. As a result of your power being incorporated into the Realms at such a time, this human child retained an imprint of your core signature. The Infinite Realms itself has recognized this child as your offspring. Your... other offspring has yet to be recognized in such a way and would therefore be considered your second heir once claimed."
Danny stared at the Observant with wide, blank eyes that were slowly filling with dread and panic.
"Why are you just telling me this now?? My coronation was over a decade ago!" He held his face in his hands and gave a horrified groan at what he just learned.
"If you really wanted that clone as your heir, I'm afraid it's too late to change it-"
Danny's head shot back up with a snarl and furious green eyes.
"That's not what I'm upset about you walking cataracts! Eleven years! I've missed eleven years of this kid's life!! How could you think I-"
At a loss for words, he growled deep in his chest. Deep enough that it echoed throughout the halls and rattled the floors.
"Who is this kid, and where can I find them?"
Once given the information and learning of the child's other parental figures, he gets to work. A few weeks later, he appears in the home office of a well-known billionaire with a stack of papers that he promptly slams onto the desk in front of the startled man. (1)
"I demand visitation rights to our son, Damian Wayne."
(1) Danny actually visited Talia first to get visitation rights. Needless to say, that didn't go very well. He's still got a couple knives floating around in his chest cavity because of it.
(*) ALSO! I'm not sure how this lines up with the DC/Batman timeline. All I figured out is that if Danny waited to be crowned until after he graduated college as an astrophysicist, which take 5 to 7 years, he'd be about 36 years old when he finds out about Damian. Bruce would be about 41, so the age gap is only 5 years. If y'all wanna make this Danny/Bruce, go ahead!
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Text
Burns Like Rum
Ship: Astarion x female!human!reader/Tav
Summary: Astarion's hunger worsens every day and you don't have any blood to spare—but that doesn't stop you from inadvertently tempting him at every turn. Luckily for both of you, you've both got the same idea to cure him of his hunger.
Word Count: 7,840 words
Warnings: sexual content (18+), menstruating reader, hungry Astarion, mutual pining, possibly OOC dialogue, vampire feeding, soft Astarion, no particular timeline but Astarion hasn't told you anything yet
18+ Warnings: period sex, fingering, oral (f receiving), hand job, bite kink, blood kink, aftercare, use of the words cunt & cock
Note: For my usual readers, more Stranger Things content is coming, I promise! But this bitey boy currently owns my heart so I'm gonna show him some love :)
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☟ Continue below the fold ☟
Astarion was hungry, and it was entirely your fault, for more than one reason.
The first was that, almost a month ago now, you had let Astarion drink from you. He'd been starving, and it didn't help that the others had given him strict rules about feeding, so when he flashed those sad but gorgeous red eyes at you, complaining of hunger, you'd all but gifted him your neck.
He'd practically drained you that night. You had been weak for days. Of course, the others, namely Gale and Lae'zel, were furious with you for letting him drink from you, but the sated, content look on his face after feeding made it all worth it to you. He'd become more comfortable around you after that, too, and you'd considered that an improvement.
It hadn't been all that bad, really, for him to sink his teeth into you and drink until your grip on him had grown so weak that he'd let up to check on you. In fact, it had been...rather pleasant. He'd been gentle, careful, his bite sharp but considerate. You knew then that you'd risk becoming anemic for a week just to feel the pleasure of his hand cradling your neck and head, his mouth against your neck, his tongue soothing the bite he'd left when he'd had his fill.
But in the weeks that followed, his hunger gradually returned, and with a vengeance. It was as if he'd never fed from you at all, suffering hunger pangs he hid from the others—but you noticed, recognizing them from the night he'd begged you to let him drink from you.
You'd offered him more of your blood since then, but he'd refused you every time. He could smell your guilt, your need to make him feel better simply because you felt responsible for his current pain.
"I won't accept blood from someone who feels obligated to give it to me," he'd said, and his tone made it difficult to tell if he was being snide or kind.
Sometimes, you simply didn't understand that man.
And then three days ago, you'd been injured in a fight. It was nothing fatal, the gash in your midsection missing any major muscles and not deep enough to jeopardize your organs, but it was bloody. You'd limped your way back to camp, your head swimming, the world around you growing darker around the edges with every step.
You'd fainted in Astarion's arms—although collapsed was a better word for it, according to Karlach—drenched in blood, some of which was yours and some of which that wasn't.
"You should have seen his face!" Karlach had laughed when you'd woken up the next morning, woozy but fine thanks to Shadowheart. The blood loss kept you off your feet for the day to recover, and Karlach had taken the time to visit you.
"What do you mean?" you asked, although you already had a good idea what might have happened after you passed out.
"You put him in a right pickle, collapsing on him like that, all covered in blood and losing more of it quickly," she said. "He didn't know what to do with you. It was— It was like he didn't want to drop you, but he really did want to drop you, because all he wanted to do was drink from you. Can't say as I blame him—he's not fed in weeks and you turn up with his next meal draining out of you." You hid your face in your hands with a groan. "Why'd you beeline for him anyway? Shadowheart's tent was just a few paces away!"
You glared at her through your fingers. "You know why I went to him, Karlach!" She, of all people, would understand. She had been the first person to find out that, as much as you flirted with them all, Astarion was the one you wanted.
"Well, obviously," she said, "but it didn't occur to you that he might...have an adverse reaction?"
Rolling your eyes, you snarked, "No, Karlach, it didn't, I was bleeding out and suffering from head trauma. I just...saw someone I trusted to keep me safe and ran to him."
She cocked her head to the side. "That's sweet, but stupid."
You snorted. "Yeah, I know—Shadowheart won't stop yelling at me for it."
You hadn't seen Astarion until that night, when the group of you had gathered at the campfire. It hadn't meant to be like that; you'd seen him and had wanted to talk to him, at least apologize for throwing your bloody body at him, but Shadowheart followed you closely to keep you safe and soon the others had gathered.
It had been like a very strange family dinner, made awkward by everyone dancing around exactly why you'd gone to Astarion, knowing a hungry vampire and fresh blood were not a good mix.
The final reason you were making his hunger unbearable made itself known at the end of the night, when it was just you, Astarion, and Shadowheart at the dying fire.
She must have caught sight of the way you kept looking at Astarion out of the corner of your eye, embarrassedly looking away or pretending to gaze into the trees behind him every time he caught you looking. She tapped your shoulder and told you she needed to get rest. The "you should, too" was implied, hanging in the air along with her worry about your healing.
"I'm fine, Shadowheart, really," you insisted. "I won't rip myself open again, I promise."
"I'll keep an eye on her," Astarion promised. "Nothing too...strenuous for her just yet." Something in his voice made you shiver.
She left the two of you alone. You looked first at the fire, then down at your hands, folded in your lap. Anywhere than at him.
You didn't even hear him move. You only knew he had when you felt him sit on the log beside you, one of his hands covering your own.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice soft. "I...am sorry I didn't visit you, it's just—"
"It's just that I threw myself at you when it looked like I'd taken a shower in blood and that made things a wee bit difficult?" you interrupted, the words spilling out before you had time to process that you were speaking. Embarrassed heat flushed through you instantly.
But Astarion only gave you that soft, slightly toothy smile. You drank it in, relishing his smile lines and the brief contentment on his face. "Something like that, yes," he said. "I was...worried I might hurt you if I saw you again and you still smelled so deliciously of your blood. I'm so hungry, darling, it's unbearable. All I wanted was to feast until there was nothing left of you, and I'd never forgive myself if I—"
"Stop." You held up your hand. "Please. I don't... Don't be so nice to me, it makes me feel like I'm on my deathbed."
Astarion laughed, throwing his head back. "I'd hardly call wanting to drain you nice, my love." Almost unconsciously, your gaze dipped to his exposed neck and you wondered idly what he would do if you were to bite him back.
Probably the strenuous activity Astarion had promised Shadowheart you wouldn't be doing.
He met your gaze, a sudden depth and seriousness in his crimson stare. "Stick with me, and you might soon be on your deathbed." Pointedly, he broke eye contact with you, letting his eyes drop first to your neck and then further down your body. You tingled, the feeling reminiscent of the anemia that had possessed your body in the hours and days after he'd drank from you.
You realized Astarion was waiting for a reaction from you, hoping for something more than your stunned silence. So you let your eyes drift across his body, resting on his mouth as you said, "Doesn't sound like a bad way to go out."
From the back of his throat came a sound that wasn't quite a growl or a groan, but somewhere in between, just as needy as either sound. "Don't tempt me, darling," he whispered. "I promised Shadowheart I'd keep you safe, and you certainly wouldn't be if I did everything I want."
Your heart skipped a beat. "Astarion..."
He closed his eyes, leaning toward you, releasing a tense breath. "Darling..."
"What if I want to tempt you?" You put your hand on his leg, sliding closer to him.
"Cheeky thing," he said, eyes opening in small slits. "But only when you're healed. I can still smell the blood on you." He sighed. "You have no idea how much restraint it takes not sink my teeth into that pretty neck of yours."
You frowned. "But I am healed," you said. "Just tender. Shadowheart wouldn't have let me leave her tent otherwise."
"I can't blame you for wanting me," Astarion teased, that familiar charm honeying his words, "but I've never been wrong." He cupped your cheek, his touch taking the bite out of his words. He offered you a small, sympathetic smile.
You put your hand to your abdomen, half-expecting to find that your wound had ripped open of its own accord. Your shirt and the bandage beneath it was dry—but a sudden twinge of pain, appearing only once it had been acknowledged, came from lower. You hissed.
Astarion sat up straighter. "What is it? Are you alright?"
"Shit. I think I've figured out why you still smell blood," you said through clenched teeth.
Astarion's eyes dipped to where your hand rested. "It's that time again already, is it?"
"It's early," you groaned. You stood slowly, regretting it instantly.
He tracked you as you moved, his gaze becoming dangerous and predatory. It was the look that had scared you when he drank from you, practically convincing you he wasn't going to stop. Still, his need for you burned through you like rum, its heat spreading through your belly.
"I didn't smell it before, not under all the blood you had on you," he said. His voice was deep, dark, dangerous. "But, oh, darling—I smell it now." He licked his lips and your stomach did flips that were neither pleasant or unpleasant. The hunger in his eyes was palpable
"I, ah, have to go. For your sake and mine. Um. So, uh, goodnight, Astarion. I...I'll see you when this is all over."
He stood up quickly. "Darling, do you need—" He cut himself off as you waved away his concern, crossing the camp to your own tent.
"No! Goodnight!" you called over your shoulder.
Astarion sighed. "...Night."
~❊~
You avoided Astarion like the plague. Well, perhaps not, because while you never wanted to see the disease, you were always on the lookout for your favorite vampire.
You caught glimpses of him through the open flaps of your tent, sauntering by with a swagger you found unfairly attractive. You saw him reading on his own when Shadowheart helped you changed your bandages, his handsome face fixed in concentration. A few hours later, you heard him arguing with Gale about the very same book, which had apparently gone missing, and you hated the flutter in your stomach at the growl in his angry voice.
"Stop that," Karlach said, glancing up at you as the pair of you cooked, Karlach helping you roast root vegetables evenly.
"Stop what?"
"Mooning over him," she said, jerking her head in Astarion's direction.
Your body flushed with heat. "I'm not—"
"You are, and we can all tell, and you should just get it over with, but only if you mean it."
You frowned, tearing your eyes away from the blessed sight that was Astarion basking in the sun. "Sorry, what?"
Karlach sighed. "If you sleep with him—" You spluttered. "—it had better be because you truly want him and not because you're bleeding."
You blinked at her. "Karlach, of course I want him, you've heard me talk about him before this!"
"I know, I know," she relented, "but I have a feeling there's more to our vampire than meets the eye." She glanced over at Astarion. "Just...be kind to him, dear. He's more fragile than he looks."
You followed her gaze over to him. He was stretching, his arms lifted high above his head, undoubtedly oblivious to the two of you watching him. Want and need bubbled up inside of you, both clamoring for Astarion, agreeing that he would fulfill them both. The deep-seated lust you'd had for him since he'd first put a knife to your neck burned even brighter as the breeze that had been kicking up dust all morning played with the silver hair curling around his ears.
His nostrils flared and you knew he'd smelled you. He looked over at you and Karlach and you froze. She waved cheerily, then frowned at you when you didn't move. You swallowed harshly and went back to removing the scales from the fish in your lap.
"He doesn't like not being around you either, you know," Karlach said, returning to the task at hand. "He's always looking at you when you're not looking. You're perfect for each other like that."
"I don't want to make this harder for him by being around him," you said, glancing back over at him. He was watching you as he poured himself a glass of wine. Had it been normal circumstances, when you weren't driving him insane simply by smelling like blood, you would have teased him for day-drinking. "He's already so hungry, I'd only make that worse. It was bad enough I threw myself at him covered in his favorite snack!"
Karlach snorted. The sound of a light laugh floated over to you and you looked up to find Astarion smirking into his goblet. He beckoned you over and your eyes grew wide.
"Excuse me for a moment, Karlach," you said, clearing your throat.
Karlach followed your gaze and giggled. "More than a moment, dear. I'll come back later to help you finish this." She left the log you'd been sharing and you waited until she was in her own tent again before you jumped to your feet and practically ran to Astarion.
"Hello, darling," he purred. "Care for a drink?"
"I could go for a little," you said.
Astarion smiled, that rakish charm summoning warmth that spread through your entire body. "I hope you like red," he said, and put his own goblet to your lips.
You held his gaze as you drank. You saw his nostrils flare, his pupils growing large. You knew he could hear how your heart was racing, could smell your arousal mixing with your blood.
He pulled the goblet away from your lips and took another swig. You licked the red wine off your lower lip and heard the breath catch in his chest.
"You're starving, aren't you?"
"You have no idea," he whispered.
"I might," you said. "Thought I'd say it's a hunger of a different kind."
Astarion's smirk was so wide you could see his fangs clearly. "Oh, really, darling?"
You nodded, taking a step closer to him. He breathed in deeply. "We could help each other, you know. Satiate our hungers."
His eyes grew dark, trained on yours. "Is that so?" He raised his hand, nearly brushing your cheek, but stopped himself just before he touched you. "You'd let me soothe your pain by..." His gaze dropped to your waistline. "...eating from you?"
A tremor passed through you at the sound of his voice, deeper than you'd ever heard it, laced with a danger and a seduction you were embarrassed to find attractive. Your body was tuned to it, his words seeming to drop like a stone from your ears to your core, spreading fire through your veins and melting your organs.
Astarion took a small step closer to you and took your chin in three gentle fingers, tilting your head up toward him. For a moment, you thought he might kiss you then and there. "I'm going to need an answer, darling."
"Yes." You couldn't get the word out fast enough. It came out breathy, nearly lost on the wind still swirling between you.
He chuckled. "Well, then. You asked for it." He dropped the hand on your chin back to his side. "Once everyone else is asleep, come find me. We'll find a quiet place and...have a little fun."
~❊~
Of all the nights, it had to be this one where everyone came to check on you before they went to sleep. Thanks to Astarion avoiding you like the plague when the two of you had become inseparable, your monthly bleed had become public knowledge. So practically everyone in camp came to you with solutions you declined, claiming to feel fine, even though your pain had worsened over the course of the day.
You watched Astarion slink off into the forest after the sun had gone down and waited until the others were sequestered in their tents, nearly an hour later, to pull your boots back on, stand on shaky feet, and follow the path you assumed he'd taken.
You had started to believe you'd taken a wrong turn somewhere when you heard his cool voice from behind you: "There you are. I've been waiting."
Astarion stepped out of the shadows. He ran his gaze over you, observing your slightly hunched stance, your hand on your lower abdomen. Your shoulders relaxed at the sight of him; he looked softer in the moonlight. The silver light fell across his curls and the statuesque panes of his face, somehow making that face that was so gaunt with hunger unbelievably beautiful.
He looked like a poet or a god, even in just the simple shirt he insisted on wearing around camp instead of the finer silks you knew he carried with him. Or perhaps it was the simplicity that made him so godly. You couldn't tell.
A frown graced his brow. "The pain is worse now, isn't it?"
You nodded. "Just a bit."
Astarion left the small hill he stood on and came closer to you. He offered you his hand. "Come on, dear, let me make you feel better."
You let him guide you away from the path you had taken and into a small clearing just a few feet away, conveniently hidden by thickets, trees, and tall grass. He stood aside, letting you take it in for a moment, as if waiting for your approval of the place. You looked down at the mossy ground and decided it would be soft enough.
"Well, this is nice," you said, seconds before you heard fabric rustling. You turned and blinked rapidly at what you saw: Astarion, his shirt now off and in his hands. You watched him lay it down where the ground was most level. Your breath caught horribly in your throat at the sight of the scar covering his back. You fought back the urge to ask, knowing it would only piss him off.
He turned back to you with a smile. "Your bed for the evening, my love," he said, gesturing to it.
"Oh, Astarion, I can't, I don't want to get blood on your shirt. What would the others—"
Astarion cupped your face in one hand. "The others will assume I hunted something and got messy," he said. "And I'll enjoy your scent while I have it."
Flutters in your stomach nearly brought you to your knees. You looked up at him, drawing in a tiny breath, and brought your hand up to hold the wrist that cradled your cheek.
"Please," you whispered, unsure of exactly what you were begging for but knowing what you wanted.
"Promise me you'll tell me if...I'm too much," Astarion said, and you got the sense he'd changed what he was going to say.
You nodded, whispering your promise, and wound your free hand into the hair at the nape of his neck, standing on your tiptoes to push your lips to his.
It was a messy first kiss. It was little more than teeth and spit, but it felt like heaven anyway, because his free arm was winding around your waist and pressing your bodies together, his leg sliding between yours. Bliss spread through you, starting at your core.
Astarion pulled away from you. "Someone's eager, isn't she?"
You whimpered and he stifled it with another kiss, softer than the first. He was gentle, more than you'd expected from a starving man. He cupped the back of your head and your hand dropped to his hip. You opened your mouth to him and reveled in the feeling of his tongue sliding against yours. He made a soft sound of satisfaction and pushed his leg up against your clothed core. You moaned loudly, your grip on him tightening. Need flooded you and your hips pushed down on his leg, finding relief in the pressure.
The two of you pressed your foreheads together, breathing heavily.
"Shh, darling, not too loud. You don't want the others to come investigate, do you?" His cheeky tone suggested he would love it if the others found the two of you like this—or, perhaps, further along.
You wrapped both arms around his neck and buried your head into his shoulder, heat burning through you, a mix of embarrassment and pleasure. You felt like there was a pendulum inside you, swinging constantly between wanting to slow down, afraid of coming off as too eager, and desperately needing him to get to it.
Astarion chuckled. "Don't hide, love." He smoothed his hand over your hair. "You do trust me, don't you?"
You kissed his shoulder and heard his breath catch. "With my life, Astarion."
"Are you ready?"
You nodded and he walked you over to his shirt and helped you to sit on it. He watched you lay down, his gaze falling your exposed neck. There was something more than hunger in his eyes; it made your breathing hitch.
Astarion crawled over you and placed his hand underneath your head before he kissed you. You draped your arm over his shoulders, holding him close to you, enjoying the soft touch of his lips against yours. It was chaste, as were the next few that followed it in quick succession, one after the other.
One hand slid down your body and stopped at the hem of your trousers. He tugged at the shirt tucked into them. "Darling? May I?"
"Please do," you said.
"Arms up."
He pulled the fabric over your head and tossed it to the side. He looked down at your torso from where he straddled your hips. His hands skimmed over you and he leaned down, pressing more gentle kisses to your neck and collarbones. Your body tingled with remembrance, practically yearning to feel his fangs sink into your neck, to feel your blood leave you with a burning that felt like intoxication.
"Astarion." His name was a breathy cry on your lips, and you saw how much he liked the sound of it when he looked up at you, a smile curving onto the lips still pressed to your skin.
"Yes, dear?"
You gently coaxed him back up to you with your hand on his chin. "Let me kiss you."
He smiled, brighter than the moonlight falling around you, and you pressed your mouth to his. He hummed happily into your mouth, a pleasant sensation that made you reluctant to break the kiss. But you did, kissing along his jaw and down his neck instead. You nipped gently at his neck, pulling a surprised laugh from him.
"Really, darling? Biting the vampire?" Astarion's eyes were sparkling with amusement. His face had relaxed into an easy smile. It was a good look on him; you liked it.
You giggled and placed another kiss over the bite. The pair of you rolled onto your sides and you peppered his chest with kisses, your arm wrapped loosely around his waist. You went back up to his neck and sucked lightly.
"So much for the others not knowing," he teased.
You looked at him through your lashes. "What if I want them to know?"
"Cheeky little thing," he whispered, dragging a finger down the side of your face. "As much as I love this—and believe me, I do love this—I can't wait any longer. I'm starving, darling. Let me taste you. Please."
Slightly subdued, you rolled onto your back. "Alright," you whispered, your chest tightening in anticipation.
Astarion climbed on top of you again. He undid the laces at the front of your trousers and slipped his hand inside them, moving slowly and keeping his eyes locked on yours.
The moment two of his fingers slid between your wet folds, your eyes fluttered shut and a happy sigh slipped from your lips.
"There she is," he whispered, his eyes half-lidded, as he worked you gently and slowly. You felt the blood and arousal gather on his fingers as he grew closer to your entrance. He dragged them back up to your clit and rubbed in a slow circle. You gasped, arching into his touch. Astarion giggled. "Oh, you like that, don't you?"
You wriggled underneath him, trying everything in your power to get more of his touch. He smiled down at you, kissing your cheek and cooing softly at you. If he spoke words, you didn't hear them, too lost in the pleasure he easily, skillfully, brought to you.
Without warning, Astarion plunged both fingers into your entrance. You moaned, grabbing at his hair. He chuckled, curling his fingers inside you. Whimpers slipped past your lips; you couldn't have controlled them if you tried, but you were by no means trying. His smile grew with every sound you made, and you wanted nothing more than to see that smile.
Just as suddenly as he'd pushed his fingers in, he pulled them out. You whined instantly but he shushed you and removed his hand from your pants. A small streak of blood was left on the skin of your stomach as he raised his hand to his mouth. You watched raptly as he licked your blood from his fingers, never once breaking eye contact with you.
He wasn't even touching you and the fire in your belly grew at the sight.
Astarion moaned softly around his fingers. You watched his deft tongue catch every drop of blood, thinned by your arousal, from his hand. He whispered your name in a whine and you let go of a long breath.
Once he'd licked his fingers clean, he bent down and yanked your trousers off your legs. You spread them automatically and he put one leg between them. He pulled off your undergarments and sat back, admiring your naked body with a satisfied smirk.
"Look at you," he whispered.
The need for him to touch you won out over the desire for him to keep staring at you. "Astarion." His name was a loud whine, emphasized by your writhing hips.
He chucked. "Needy girl." His hand returned to your cunt, his palm applying pressure to your clit while his fingers toyed with your bloody folds. His eyes practically rolled into the back of his head, the smell of blood so heady even you could smell it.
He teased your entrance for a moment and pulled his fingers back up, the tips of them coated in thick blood that looked black in the night. He sucked it from his fingers with a toothy smile, his fangs peeking out over his bottom lip.
You pushed your hips up enough to catch his eye. "Please," you whimpered.
"Alright, love, alright," he said. He put his hand back and slipped his fingers back inside you. Relief curled through you—as did his fingers. "I'll starve myself a bit longer for your pleasure."
You cupped his neck and brought his face to yours and kissed him fiercely. He made a surprised but pleased sound into your mouth and quickened his pace. You gasped against his lips and he ducked his head to your neck, kissing you quickly with every curl of his fingers.
You twisted your fingers through his hair, rapidly kissing the top of his head, pushing your hips up into his hand. He chuckled, his breath ghosting over your skin and raising goosebumps. You shuddered in his arms.
"I've got you," he murmured, sucking a light mark into your neck. You felt his teeth prick you and saw the shudder that passed through his body at the tiny droplets of blood that appeared.
He pulled away from your neck and curled his fingers just so. You groaned.
"Astarion!" you cried, throwing your head back.
He grinned and quickened his pace. You sucked in a deep breath, fighting back tears of pleasure.
"Let go, darling," he whispered. "I've got you."
Astarion looked back down at your neck. He locked eyes with you as he pressed his tongue to your skin, slowly licking up the droplets as they began to run down your neck. The combination of his intense stare and the movement of his fingers was all you needed; with a loud cry, you came on his fingers, your walls clenching so hard around him he could hardly keep moving them.
He chuckled. "That's it, dear, that's it." He cooed softly, helping you through it with his voice, his soft touch, and gentle kisses to your lips.
You were breathing hard when he finally pulled his fingers out of you. You whimpered at the slight pain but realized your cramps had all but disappeared.
Judging by the state of his hand, you didn't want to know how bloody his shirt was. It looked as though he'd reached into someone's chest and ripped their heart out; his hand was drenched and rivulets of blood ran all the way down to his elbow.
Astarion giggled at the sight while you burned with embarrassment. "Well, well, well. Someone's happy, isn't she?"
"So are you," you said, nodding to the bulge in his pants.
He grinned. "Well, what did you expect? You were quite vocal, my needy little thing." His eyes drifted back down to your cunt, lust curling through his gaze. "Tight and wet and utterly desperate for me."
He licked a stripe up his hand, his eyes fluttering shut. "Oh, darling, you taste good." He sucked your blood off of every finger, pleasure sliding over his face.
You smiled. "There's more where that came from."
Astarion raised one perfect brow. "Can you handle another little death?" he teased.
You nodded. "I can take a few more."
He chuckled and groaned at the same time. "Oh, my love, don't make promises you can't keep."
You met his gaze as he finished cleaning off his hand. "Believe me, I can keep it."
The vampire grinned. "Very well, then. I'll eat good tonight."
He kissed you chastely as he put his hand between your legs again.
Astarion brought you pleasure unlike anything you'd ever felt before as his fingers slid over your blood-slick skin, teasing your folds and entrance with a smirk, often just barely inserting the tip of his finger before pulling it out again and tracing over your clit and smearing blood across your skin. He kissed and sucked on your breasts, leaving darkening bruises and tiny scratches from his teeth, licking up the tiny beads of blood that sprung from each nick. He kissed along the line of scarring and stitches you had gotten from your injury, fading fast but still a reminder of what had gotten you on your back for him in the first place. Now that he'd eaten a little, he was intently focused on bringing you to the edge and pulling you back, again and again and again.
He worked another orgasm out of you and was on his way to coaxing out the third when you stopped him.
"Is it too much?" he asked, frowning. His unbloodied hand moved to rest on your hip, his thumb smoothing over your skin. His eyes searched your face, looking for anything to tell him why you'd stopped him.
You shook your head. "I need more, Astarion," you gasped, slurring his name into Astari. The unintended nickname made him blush. "I need more of you. Please. Please."
The smile returned to his face, cockier than before. "Oh, darling. I need more of you, too," he said, looking into your cunt and licking his lips. "I could just eat you up."
You spread your legs wider. He settled between them. "Please do."
He breathed in deep and his eyes practically rolled back into his head. "You're going to be the death of me— Ah. Well, you would be, if I was alive."
You frowned. "Would this even be happening if you were alive?"
Astarion thought for a moment. "Let's not think about the logistics," he decided and licked the drying blood from his fingers off your abdomen. Your body trembled. He lifted your legs over his shoulders. You squeaked and smiled at him.
"Lay back," he whispered. You obliged him.
Wet warmth touched your skin just above your clit and you glanced down at him, watching him slowly lick the drying blood from your skin. He kissed your skin as he cleaned it, leaving you covered in slowly darkening bruises.
You stared at the stars as he pressed a soft first kiss to your clit. You let out a slow breath and he began to suck, his lips closing around it, his tongue licking light stripes.
You pushed your hips against his mouth. "Circles," you whispered.
"As you wish," he said, his breath fanning over your cunt and making you tremble. He went back to his feast, licking in circles this time, and you let out a soft whimper. You reached down and he reached up, lacing your fingers together and squeezing your hand. You squeezed back.
He moved further down until his nose bumped your clit and his lips found your entrance. He moaned, the sound deep and guttural, at the taste of your blood. He lapped at your entrance, his tongue sweeping up the blood as soon as it collected there. You shuddered, your breaths coming in heaves.
Astarion kissed your entrance once before he dove in, pushing his tongue into your cunt. You gasped and he laughed and buried his face in you.
Through the pleasure, you wondered dimly how he was breathing (did he, as a vampire, need to breathe?), but the thought was pushed away the moment his splayed fingers on your hip dug into your flesh and pulled you even closer to his mouth.
The sounds you were making were obscene: your moans were loud and coarse, and your cunt squelched lewdly as he drank your blood and arousal. You felt filthy, aware that the mix was running down your legs and buttocks but knowing the vampire eating you out was enjoying you too much to care.
Astarion himself was quite vocal, moaning into you and making you shiver. He whimpered, whined, groaned, and keened, growing louder with every swallow of blood. He alternated between watching you writhe and squeezing his eyes shut in pleasure.
You watched his hand slide from your hip to his bulge. He palmed himself through his trousers, hissing in pleasure, and the sight was enough to send you over the edge for a third time.
But Astarion didn't let up. He lapped at you, sucking so harshly your pleasure bordered pain, until your legs stopped shaking and your breathing evened out.
He lifted his head with a grin. "How do I look?"
You looked at him and started laughing. He was the smiliest you had ever seen him, his eyes practically glowing, and the lower half of his face was covered in your blood. His teeth were stained red and sticky blood dripped slowly from his fangs. It ran down his chin in rivulets and splatters dotted his lower cheeks like freckles. Some of it was even in his hair.
"You're ridiculous," you giggled. "And a messy eater."
He snorted. "Excuse you!"
"It's all over your face!"
He sat up with a grin, licking his lips. "You mean you are all over my face."
Satisfaction curled through you. "Yes," you said, reaching for him. He took your hand again. "Yes I am."
He wiped his face with his hand and licked it clean once again. You reached up and wiped some off on your thumb, then held it out to him. He took your thumb into his mouth and sucked. Your heart stopped beating.
"Feeling better?" he asked you, lightly placing his palm over your abdomen, applying a little pressure, and rubbing gentle circles.
"Much better," you said. "Thank you. But, ah..." Your gaze drifted from his beautiful, if slightly pink, face and down to his bulge. It was just as, if not more, prominent now that he'd gone down on you. "What about you?"
Astarion smirked. "I like your enthusiasm, but don't worry about me. Not tonight, darling."
You frowned. "Why not? What if I want you inside of me?" You walked two fingers up his leg and slowly covered his crotch with your palm. When he didn't protest and his eyes fluttered shut, you gave him a gentle squeeze. He let out a soft moan through closed lips and tilted his head back. You kissed the column of his neck and bit down gently. You sucked—hard—and a rumbling moan came from his chest.
"Because," he said finally, drawing in a ragged breath. "Because that would be a terrible waste of your precious blood." He looked at you with half-lidded eyes. "When this is over, I promise you, you can have as much of me as you want." He pushed his hips into your hand and you gave him another gentle squeeze. He gasped.
You nuzzled into him and his arm wrapped around your shoulders, holding you there. "And what if I want all of you?"
The question hung in the air. He looked at you for a long time and suddenly you saw the fragility Karlach had mentioned this afternoon, which felt like years ago instead of mere hours. You reached up to cup his cheek and, though you were stark naked, the sexual desire in the air seemed to have disappeared.
"I want all of you, Astari," you whispered. The nickname made his eyes grow wide. "All of you, in every way, for as long as possible. If you'll let me. If you want me, too."
He whimpered, and the sound was broken. You hated hearing that pain coming from him. "I want you, I do, I just..." He closed his eyes and you were suddenly very sure there was a darkness, a secret, he was trying to hide from you. You were certain it had to do with his vampiric master he'd so often complained about. "I'll try, my darling, I'll try for you."
You sat up on your knees and cupped his face in both hands and kissed him. You didn't break the kiss once as you pressed your body against his and held him tightly. You felt the scar on his back and wanted to ask but didn't, letting him keep his secrets for now.
His arms came around you, cradling your back and holding you tight to him. The kiss became a long-lasting hug, the both of you burying your heads in each other's shoulders until Astarion pulled away from you, a smile on his face. You returned that smile and sat back on your heels.
His eyes trailed over your body again. There was a note of nervousness in his voice as he asked, "Darling, would you mind...touching me again? I could use some relief."
You grinned. "Of course, my love. All you had to do was ask."
Relief crossed his face. He leaned back as you trailed your hand from his shoulder, down his chest, and back to his bulge. You tipped his head back with your free hand and kissed his neck while you rubbed him. He pushed his hips into your hand, sighing blissfully, and your hand was in his trousers in seconds. He grew loud, thrusting his cock into your hand with a power that surprised you.
"Take what you need," you told him, your voice hushed, your lips directly next to his ear. "Help me give you what you want."
He whimpered, your name a broken cry from his lips, and he cuddled into you as he came. He buried his head into your neck, hiding his eyes and barely holding back grunts. As his thrusts grew weaker and you slowed your hand on him, you felt hot tears on your neck and wondered what this poor man had been through that he hadn't yet told you.
You removed your hand from his pants and he immediately wrapped you in another hug, one strong enough to knock you down and knock the breath of you. You held him as tightly as he held you.
When Astarion at last pulled away from you, his tears had stopped but his eyes still shone with them. He kissed you softly.
"Thank you," he whispered. "I... Thank you."
You brushed some of his hair from his face. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. You were... It's just that no one has cared about me during sex in a very long time and...you did. So...thank you."
You took his hand and squeezed it. "Oh, Astarion," you cooed. "I always care about you. Like this or otherwise. You could stop this right now—or before it even began—and I wouldn't have stopped caring about you."
He smiled. "Oh, darling. I love the sentiment, but I'm not done with you yet."
Astarion kissed down your body and laid between your legs again. He licked another stripe up your cunt and you saw the coating of blood on his tongue before he swallowed. "Shall we try for a fourth? Or perhaps even a fifth?" He raised his brow, leaving the decision up to you.
You laid back. "We'll try for as many as you'd like," you said.
He bared his teeth in a feral grin. "All night it is!"
~❊~
You woke up the next morning sore and alone and with very little sleep.
Astarion had been relentless and stopped only when you simply couldn't take it anymore and he was practically drunk on your blood—all without making you bloodless and woozy. When you had finished for the final time, he had cleaned you up, helped you back into your clothes, picked up his own shirt, and walked you back to camp. He was so gentle that you didn't even mind the teasing about how you limped.
Dawn hadn't been far off as you each went back to your tents after exchanging a final, solid kiss. So you woke to the sound of everyone else beginning their day just a few hours later.
You felt the soreness in your core before you even moved. Biting back a sigh and not regretting it one bit as you pictured Astarion's happy, bloody face, you rolled over and hoped your recent injury would be enough for the others to let you sleep in.
You were wrong.
Shadowheart opened your tent a few minutes later with a urgency that made you jump.
"What? What's wrong?" you asked, blinking blearily in the bright sunlight.
"Are you alright? You never sleep in, you're always up making breakfast!"
You groaned. "Is that it? Are you just hungry?"
She peered at you. "Are you hurt? Did your wound reopen?"
"What? No! I'm fine, I'm just tired, that's all! I have lost a lot of blood recently, in case you forgot."
She sighed. "Oh. Alright. Well, just know the others are worried, too—Astarion especially."
You remembered how he'd checked in on you last night and had asked if he'd hurt you at all when you'd returned to camp and wondered if you had worried him by sleeping in. Suddenly you were grateful the others could chalk it up to his not-so-secret crush on you.
You dressed and hid the light bruises on your neck and collarbones in a high-collared shirt. You only noticed you were walking with a slight limp still after you'd left your tent and made your way across camp.
Karlach called your name and was at your side immediately. "You're limping! Are you hurt? Do you need me to fetch Shadowheart?"
You blinked at her. "What? No. I'm fine!"
"You don't look fine," Gale said, a few feet away, looking up from the book he'd been engrossed in for days. "Did you hurt your leg the other day? Or have your stitches ripped?"
"My, my," said a suave voice behind you. You turned and found Astarion grinning like a cat. "You do have quite the limp, there, darling. Are you sure you're alright?"
You huffed at him, your body remembering his touch immediately, his ghostly hands sliding across your skin. "I'm fine, I promise. Now hush and someone help me make breakfast."
Both Karlach and Astarion sat with you, Astarion very close to you and giving you a smile you couldn't help but return. Karlach stared at Astarion like he'd grown two heads, her gaze flickering between the two of you. She gasped very suddenly.
"Not a word," you hissed at her, knowing she'd figured it out.
Astarion smirked.
"And nothing from you, either," you added. "You're the reason I'm walking like this, you bastard."
He smiled sweetly at you, catching the fondness in the words. "And I gladly will be again." He took your hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing it. Your eyes grew wide.
Karlach squeaked.
"You know nothing," you told her. "At least for a little while."
"Yes," Astarion agreed. "At the very least, tell Shadowheart nothing—I broke my promise to her to keep our dear girl from doing any strenuous activity."
You turned red and Karlach groaned, "Not before breakfast, please!"
Astarion opened his mouth—undoubtedly to say something about how you were technically his breakfast, based on the hour you'd returned to camp—but you moved quicker than he could speak. You grabbed him by the collar and yanked him toward you, kissing him heartily to shut him up.
A heavy silence settled over camp. You cracked one eye open and found the rest of your companions staring at the pair of you, mouths agape and eyes wide.
"Oops," Astarion muttered, sounding rather pleased.
You cleared your throat. "I, ah, I've been meaning to tell you all. Honestly."
Gale heaved a sigh. "How much do I owe you, Wyll?"
Your jaw dropped open. "You placed bets?!"
"Alright, you bloodsucker," Wyll said, holding his hand out and waiting for his payment from Gale. "You win."
"Yes," Astarion said, and you expected him to be wearing a smirk infused with his charm, his triumphant eyes on the others. But when you turned to him, he was staring at you, a dopey smile fixed on his face. "Yes, I did."
☞ ❊ ☜
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Baldur's Gate 3 // Astarion Acunin
part 2 (Sweet Like Wine) {here}!
Taglist: {comment and let me know if you'd like to be added to the Astarion taglist!}
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