#x suicidal!reader

[thestxrsiren]

manifesting a pretty masc girlfriend that plays guitar

#ellie williams #wlw #sapphic #girlblogger #girlblog #girlblogging #coquette #lizzy grant #lana del ray aka lizzy grant #cecilia lisbon #lux lisbon #lana del rey #the virgin suicides #soft masc #sofia coppola movies #light feminine energy #dark feminine energy #dark feminine #masc lesbian gf #lesbian #female rage #divine feminine #femme fatale #doll #dollette #black swan #ellie williams x reader #tlou ellie x reader #tlou ellie #kristen stewart

[creepling]

⋆.˚☀︎٠ ࣪⭑ A KNOCK AWAY

synopsis: returning packages and a broken washing machine lead you to spend the night with your hot neighbour, digger harkness.

tags: smut - minors dni. fem!reader. age difference (early 20s x late 30s). domestic elements. reader described as "shy" but not really. sexual tension. alcohol use. drinking games. awkward moments. oral (f receiving). couch sex. big dick (it's canon it's out of my control!!!). p in v. creampie. 4.4k words.

Your neighbour had a habit of ordering ludicrous amounts of packages but is never at home to collect them. It was almost every day they arrived and piled at your front door. The last few days you’ve knocked on his door to give them, but met by silence. Your small apartment is running out of room if any more decide to show up. You had been going in the afternoons once you came off work, but he either didn’t answer or wasn’t in. This time, on Saturday morning, you decided to knock on his door. Who cares if it’s the weekend, or it’s too early, you were determined to get those packages out of your house.

You knock gently at first and wait for a minute. No answer. A week. A whole week of this bullshit. Impatience clouds your sympathy, and you knock on the door harder. You hear a thud, a clank of glass, and a curse on the other side of the door. You knock again, calling up a groan of annoyance and an “I’m coming!”

The door opens, and you’re greeted by your neighbour for the first time since you moved here. He is shirtless, showing off a collection of tattoos. His mop of hair hadn’t met a comb yet; still scuffled by sleep. You could tell he was older, and you were taken aback by how attractive he was. Given in a rugged way. You half-expected a balding divorcee with a beer belly.

“You’re George, right? I live next door,” You introduce.

Eyes squint and bloodshot, he looks you up and down before nodding. “You know what time it is, sunshine? Too bloody early to be knocking on people’s doors.” He said, fighting through a hangover to communicate. The twang of an Aussie accent was the second thing to surprise you. Even with the twang of annoyance in his tone, you bite your cheek to fight off a flattered smile.

Your bashfulness forces you to ditch the defiant speech you prepared. “I’m aware of that- but I’ve tried to get a hold of you all week, but you seem to not be in during the afternoon.” You shuffle to your open door, grab one of the packages and gesture it to George, “There’s a ton of packages here for you.”

George’s annoyed face began to soften, and he let out an idle chuckle. “Shiiiiit, I forgot about those!”

He opened his door wider and began collecting the parcels from you. You got a peek inside his apartment. Your suspicions of his home were accurate, resembling what all men living alone succumb themself to; their own squaller.

“Thanks for holding onto them for me. And sorry for being cranky, hangovers, y’know?” George said, his tone now different, one more pleasant. You smile, feeling pleased that you have the chance to converse with a neighbour and know who lives next door.

“Hope you had a good night so it’s worth it,” you chuckle, taking a stack of the packages and shuffling to his door. George takes them from your hands swiftly. This left you standing by his door, looking around the living room, stumped on the small talk. You were never really good at this.

“I mean- it was alright. They just hit you more when you get older,” he dropped the remaining boxes by his door, rubbing his temples as he stretched. His abdomen extended, shifting the waistband of his pants, making you look away and stand in silence. George scratches the back of his neck as he looks at you, feeling the interaction fade to a farewell.

“I better get going, you’ve got a lot to unbox,” you say, slowly backing away.

George gets to the door, nodding and shooting you a smile. “Thanks again for keeping them safe.” You could have sworn he looked you up and down, in a different way this time. Sizing you up, for other means. Maybe it was your imagination.

You meekly wave before retreating to your apartment. With the packages gone, your eyes adjust to the clear space, and the lingering images of your neighbour hot in your thoughts.

The washing machine was stuck again, and no matter how hard you hit it, it was still broken. Today is not going well, and you were on the edge, especially since the only other machine in the block has an ‘out of order’ sign on it. You rub your hands along your face, the skin already flushed from anger. A shuffle of footsteps approaches the entrance, and you reveal yourself to see who is witnessing your self-pity.

“Useless fucking thing, ain’t it?” It was George, the first time you’ve seen him in clothes that weren’t pyjama pants with socks and slides. He looks like he’s back from work, or the gym, it is hard to tell. You did wonder what he did for a living.

“I’m lucky it broke before I put my laundry in,” You look at the bright side with heavy eyes and a half-assed smile.

“Well, I don’t wanna brag, but I do have a machine. Wouldn’t mind ya using it until they fix it,” George shrugs with a ‘no big deal’ attitude. Suddenly your neighbour was a beacon of hope, and the stress left you with a sigh of relief.

“That would be really helpful, thanks,” you pick up your laundry basket, following up the stairs. He hunched the duffle bags over his shoulder. Reaching the top of the stairs, he unlocks his front door and lets you in first, taking a look at his living room and huffing. “Sorry about the mess.”

Beer bottles and cans littering the coffee table, clothes on the floor or hanging from the couch and chairs. You take one breath and smell the stale air, keeping a straight face. “It’s okay,” You smile through it, not wanting to place judgment. Maybe he’s just a busy guy.

George quickly shows you the settings on the machine (which he wasn’t so sure about) before excusing himself to the shower. Before you could ask questions, he was dashing to the bathroom, leaving you to your own devices. You load the machine, press the button and hope for the best.

Alone in his apartment was daunting and you begin to explore. Mostly focused on the messiness, the environment nagging at your senses. Clean space, clean mind, as they say. You pick up the trash and throw it out, starting with the beer cans. Luckily you didn’t find anything too disgusting, with the odd dirty plate you could place in the sink. You open the curtains, coughing from the dust and open the window to release the smell of stale pizza and beer. Your mind is clearer, you go to wash your hands until you spot George standing by the entrance of the living room in awe. He is still in his towel, his right hand clenching the side to keep it in place, his hair wet and slicked back. You turn away immediately, looking anywhere but him, a kick of adrenaline overtaking your insides.

“Wasn’t aware I ordered room service,” he joked, amused by your embarrassment.

“I’m sorry- I should have just left and come back later for the laundry. But- I don’t know- your place looked like it needed a tidy-up. I can’t help myself, it’s a habit. God- I’m so stupid-”

“Don’t get your undies in a twist, it’s fine. I appreciate it,” George reassures, rubbing the back of his neck, “As you can see, I don’t get many visitors.”

When he closes the bedroom door to change, it’s safe for you to look again. That feeling in your stomach didn’t go away, it still brewed in the pit and crawled its way up your core. It makes you think about him again, like those sleepless nights after your first encounter, and your cheeks grow hot. Maybe this is a good time to slip out and avoid him like the plague. But what else would you be doing? Watching TV? Playing video games? All alone in your apartment, like you always are. That’s how your life has been, work, home, bed; absent of social life, of anything remotely adventurous. You keep your feet firmly on the ground, chewing your lip in thought. There was a time when you lived life on the edge, out every weekend, hooked up with people. Letting your old self come out to play wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

“Where do you keep your cleaning supplies? I could do the rest for you if you want,” you call, inching towards the bedroom door so he can hear you. He opens the door quickly, startling you, wearing casual grey sweatpants and a white tee.

“Are you like a freelance maid or something? This how you get clients?” He leaned an arm on the door frame, looking down at you. He becomes the only thing in eyesight and you freeze, giving a shy smile.

“No, I just like cleaning, that's all. You seem like you need it, being a busy guy and all.” You study his eyes, wondering if he sees right through you.

George slowly nods, then snaps his fingers, heading towards the front door and sliding his shoes on. “Tell you what, love. I have to run a few errands, while I’m out I’ll leave you to it.”

You frown, crossing your arms. “You’re just gonna leave me, your neighbour you’ve met like once, in your house alone? You trust me like that?”

He shrugs, taking one of the duffle bags full of… something. “I’ve got many weapons I can pull on you if you try anything. Plus, you’re young and don’t look that strong, so I think I can take you on.” You weren’t sure if he was joking, but there was a cheeky look in his eye that allowed you to chuckle.

“That would do it. You can trust me.”

George gives a little salute, exiting the door. “Stuff’s under the kitchen sink. Good luck!”

You look at his limited supply, an empty bottle of bleach and a mysterious liquid in a spray bottle. You decide to use your supplies, grab them from your apartment, and come back to start the work.

You collapse on the couch gasping for air. People underestimate how much energy it takes to clean, especially when cleaning George’s house. Within an hour you cleaned the living room and kitchen and hung up your laundry to dry in your apartment. The worst part was the vacuuming, as like not owning cleaning supplies, he also didn’t have a vacuum. Go figure.

George eventually returned, greeted by your efforts and your limp body sprawled on his couch. You quickly got up, hoping he didn’t mind. Heck, this guy doesn’t have a vacuum, he can’t be the judge. “So, what do you think?” You anticipate.

“You did a bloody good job, I’ll tell ya that,” a smile on his face, making you smile too. “And since ya the best neighbour on this side of Metropolis, I got ya a lil payment to say thanks.”

George pulls out a crate of beers and takeaway pizza, presenting them to you. Your eyebrows knit in confusion, but you smile at the thought. “Thanks, George.”

“Please, call me Digger, everyone calls me that,” he said, “Thought we could have a couple of beers and I’d feed ya, but I’m no chef, hence the pizza.”

“So, Digger… is this you inviting me over for dinner?” You ask, pursing your lips. He thought about it and then nodded his head. “I guess I am,” he smirks.

Pizza crusts and beer cans decorate the coffee table, the television musing low music. You laugh at a joke Digger told you, hiding your mouth to not spit all over the place. He sits low on the couch, his hands resting between his legs with a beer. With your legs close to your chest, you take a sip of beer when a silence falls between you.

“Thanks for having me, I’m having a lovely time.” You confess, a little tipsy. You get shy admitting that, focusing on the music, unaware of Digger’s eyes not leaving your sight.

“I didn’t have a college kid cleaning my house on my bingo card,” he muses teasingly, smirking at your bashful smile.

“I am not a college kid! I graduated ages ago.”

“And by ages ago you mean in the last five years?”

He chuckles at your look of defeat. “Says the guy who’s five years off getting a pension,” you tease in defence.

“I’m not that old!” He defended back, “Nowhere near it!”

“Well, you’re at least old enough to clean your own house and have a vacuum.”

“You got me there…” he says into his beer.

The silence fell between you once again, but surprisingly it was not awkward. The air was thick, and not with stale air like before. You convince yourself it’s one-sided, keeping yourself together. You had an idea, but it was juvenile. When he doesn't say anything to keep the conversation going, you go on and suggest it.

“How about we play truth or drink?”

“How old are you? Five?” He scoffs.

“We already established my age, remember? C’mon, it’ll be a good icebreaker. Don’t you wanna get to know your friendly neighbour?” You nudge his arm playfully, realising you’ve been going that a lot since you had a drink. Mostly when he told a joke. You try not to cringe, realising your inferiority. He probably thinks you’re immature, and you suddenly see yourself as a fool. But when he turns his body towards you, giving you his full attention while cracking open another beer, you feel a little better about yourself.

“Who’s asking first?” He asks.

You volunteered since you suggested playing. You turn towards him, fighting through a fit of giggles, liking the way his eyes smile at you. He has nice eyes, light in colour, a mix of blue and grey with crow's feet winging the sides.

“Okay, let’s start easy. How long have you lived on the block?” You ask.

“‘Bout five months, I’d say,” he says.

“Do you move around a lot?”

“Oi, thought you ask one question at a time?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just curious,” you dart your eyes to his smirking lips before looking away.

“To answer your other question, I do move around a bit. It’s a job thing.”

You look back at him, catching his stare, the one that never seems to fade from you. You like the way he stares at you, so attentive like he refuses to have you out of his sight. It’s the type of stare that makes someone feel special.

“My turn,” he chirps, “are you always this shy around people?”

“What? I’m not shy,” you scoff.

“Really? You’re not shy?”

“What happened to starting easy?”

“No, you said that. I didn’t. I never start easy,” he says haughtily.

You roll your eyes, taking the beer can to your lips and taking a sip. Digger scoffs in shock, “No way are you drinking to that.”

“It’s a ridiculous question, plus I technically did answer the question. I’m not shy.”

Digger shakes his head in disappointment, breaking eye contact to chuckle into his hand. You narrow your eyes, readying the next question.

“Do you have a wife and kids?” You ask.

Digger didn’t act like you struck a nerve, but he wasn’t laughing anymore. He shook his head, and you take that as an answer, not wanting to press further. Yet, he begins to speak, in a tone softer than the one you’ve been getting used to;

“I know at my age I probably should, but it’s never worked out, y’know? The whole love thing I’ve never gotten the hang of.”

You resonate with him, meekly returning a smile. “Me either.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Digger said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you’re good-looking. Woulda bet somebody snagged ya by now.”

You can’t help but chuckle, hearing how wrong his words are. “I guess I’ve gotten close before, but it was never meant to be.”

Digger nods in agreement like he is in the same boat. You had a strong urge to move closer to him, but resort to fidgeting with a thread on the coach. “Who’s turn is it?”

“Mine,” Digger returns his gaze to you. It was more intense, and you feel him all over you. As you grow the courage to meet his eyes, you see them trailing from your lips to meet you, his icy eyes darkening and lips parting as he readies his words.

“How would you feel about kissing me?”

Your stillness speaks volumes to him, and from the look of shock in your eyes, Digger’s smile fades and turns sour. He hides his face in his hands, cursing under his breath.

“Fuck- Just drink to that, it was bloody stupid,” his self-depreciation eats at you and you try and find the words to explain yourself. He was right, you were shy, and it got in the way of your feelings. So much for being the big flirt like you planned.

“No, it’s fine, honestly-”

He cuts you off, “I just thought- why else would wanna hang out with an old fuck like me? Keep my packages, clean my house,” he groans out a sigh, “and the way you look at me, fuck, it’s been driving me insane all day.”

“Digger-” you catch his attention, softening your face, and placing your beer on the coffee table. You shift your body closer to his, your movement swift but gentle. “I’d like it if you kissed me.”

He blinks, adjusting his eyes to the proximity, noticing the small details of your features, the softness of your lips. He swallows back his nerves, “Nah- you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

There is only one way to prove him wrong, and you did it by making the first move. You press your lips against him, and you're struck with his immediate touch as he engulfs you in his arms. Your hands snake up his chest to the back of his neck, deepening the kiss as he beckons you to press your body against him with his firm hold. He grins into the kiss at the sound of your whimpers, holding the small of your waist and guiding you to his lap. You go with the motion, swinging your leg around and straddling him, enamoured by the hold he has on you. The makeout was sloppy, tipsy on beer and getting more drunk on each other’s lips. Digger’s kisses were firm and deep, his chapped lips coated in your sweet spot as he glided his tongue along yours. His hands lay haven on your asses, rubbing his callous palm around the fabric of your pants, enchanting your hips to move ever so slightly.

“Ain’t so shy now, are ya?” He grunts into your ear, migrating his lips down your neck, sucking and nibbling on your faint skin. You see stars, closing your eyes in bliss, your fingers tugging at his shirt and fighting off the urge to rip it off. He takes the time to remove his t-shirt with your eager assistance, latching onto you once you discard it.

“Please, I need you,” you plead. You gaze down at him, your stare both close and far. His bucking hips invite your crotch to feel his length, the tip of his bulge grinding against your thigh.

He whispers to you, “Tell me what you want.”

 “Use me, I know you want to,” you taunt, enjoying the light that ignites in his eyes, his grip tighter on your skin.

“You’ll regret saying that, but I bet you can handle it,” he jesters, pulling your hair to expose your neck, his lips latching back onto your sweet skin. His other hand pushes your top over your breasts, exposing your hardening nipples. Licking towards your nipples, sucking on them gently and cupping your tits in his hands, grazing his teeth when you grind down on his erection.

Digger, hungry for more of you, lays you down on the couch. His eyes demand your attention, taking time to pull down your pants and underwear, drenched in your arousal. He lowers his head to your cunt, prying your legs open as you try to hide how wet you were.

“Don’t hide from me, love, show me how pretty you are,” he muses, admiring your glistening walls, lapping them tenderly with the tip of his fingers. Relishing in your squirms, he gazes at you under his lashes. “Fuck, you’re drenched.”

Your hands grip his hair when his tongue makes contact with your sensitive walls, his prominent nose snug on your clit as he eats you out. His movements are deep and steady, keeping himself in place between your quivering thighs, refusing to come up for breath as a rising feeling of release fills your insides. Shifting his tongue from your walls to your clit, his nose taking place not to neglect your pleasure, his eyes checking your reactions as his pride swelled from your raptured state. He takes a breath to tease you in between, his hoarse voice wavering against your heat, “Look at you, getting so worked up for me.”

“’m so close,” that was music to Digger’s ears, egging him on to keep up the pace.

Your whimpers rise into moans, and your thighs shiver under his grip and come undone. Digger doesn’t stop, pressing a firm hand on your stomach, keeping you in place so he rides out your high. You’re flushed in humility, but fuck it feels amazing. You break a sweat, shivering at the cooling of your hot skin, sighing in relief when Digger finally relaxes his hold on you. His face meets yours, your arousal coating the stubble on his chin and spreading to his chops. He is ferocious and light-headed – as if drunk on the taste of you.

“Hope you’ve still got some spunk in ya,” he pants, “I’m as stiff as a board here.”

Digger invites your hand to feel his erection. You didn’t think he could be harder than he was before, but he comes full of surprises. He slings the waistband of his trousers down and his cock springs free, twitching at the touch of your flinching fingers.

“Jesus fucking Christ-” Blessed by the man himself, his size was insane. You straighten in intimidation.

“I’ll go slow, okay? Just- fuck- I’m bursting at the seams here,” he begs, cupping your cheek with a reassuring hand.

You nod with a morbid curiosity, unable to deny the instinct to have him inside you, to feel every inch of him. Digger litters you in kisses, sloppy and idle as he dampens your cheeks and lips. Opening your legs wide, sucking in a breath, you watch as he lines his cock to your entrance. There was no fuss in sliding inside you, your dripping cunt lubing his tip and coating his shaft, the feeling of him inside you more filling than painful. It sets a spark in your mind, your eyes distant, the twitch of his cock against your walls melting your senses.

An unexpected moan escapes Digger’s lips, but he is attentive enough to coo for your attention, holding your face and bringing you back to earth.

“You still with me, hun?” He chuckles at your dazed look, trying to keep himself together as you tighten around him. You blink back to reality and wrap your legs around him, mewling at the slow thrusts coming into you. You eventually nod a reply, straining your neck to witness his cock buried inside you to train your hole for his massive size. He takes advantage of your position, locking a hand behind your head and picking up the pace. He is smitten by your squeaks. His rough hand clenches your hip, setting out to fuck you good. As you will soon learn, Digger has a habit of getting carried away. You learn a lot of dirty things about him that both shock you and fill you with sweetly sick lust.

Digger has you bent over the arm of the couch, his cock pummelling in and out of your abused cunt, muffling your feral moans with a hand clasped over your mouth. He arches your back and presses his lips against your ear, reminding you that he can see right through you.

“Is this what you wanted? To fuck you; get you drunk on my fat dick. Bet you didn’t think I had it in me.”

“You’re so good, so ‘fucking good,” you moan, your eyes glued to him with lust, a sly smile across your face. Digger sticks two fingers into your mouth, teasing your tongue to swirl around them, smirking at your eagerness.

“Shit, that’s enough to make me finish,” he says in a low voice, “And you wouldn’t want me cumming inside you, would ya?”

The way you clench around his dick and the sidious look in the dim light suggest the opposite. “No, come inside me,” you seal the deal.

“You’re so bloody dirty.” Digger’s eyes turn dark, his hand wrapping around your neck, rutting into you faster and harder than before. You see stars, giving into the numbing pleasure you succumb to. A dumbfound smile stretches across your lips once you feel the warmth of Digger’s seed filling your cunt, hitting against your womb. His weight falls on you momentarily, leaving kisses along your back while his energy is slowly sucked out of him. His cock slips out and before his heavy eyes close over, he gazes at the cum dripping from your slit, groping your ass for a better view.

Digger gathers his senses, only noticing you struggling to get up from your stiff knees. He brings you onto his lap, soothing your legs and resting your head on his shoulder.

“Well, that was something…” He chuckles, “Ya think we got a little carried away?”

“I think I’ll never be able to walk again,” you joke, yet anticipated the next few days entailing leg pain.

He felt guilty, knowing to make up for it he would need more than pizza and beer. He continues to sooth your legs, nuzzling his nose into your hair.

“How’s about I run you a bath?” He suggests.

There he is again, that beacon of hope. He is going to find it hard to get rid of you now. “That’d be amazing.”

#digger harkness x reader #captain boomerang x reader #the suicide squad #kill the justice league #ssktjl #smut #dc fanfic #ehhh might be a lil ooc it's my first time writing him sorryyy

[rodolfoparras]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8okvv33/

Think he calls it his boomerang? (Especially if it has a little curve to it) Who said that 🤨

Anyways... Please ignore how horny my asks have been tonight.... It's very late 😋

-🐧

Thinking about how Digger has a humiliation kink, yet another thing he discovers accidentally. You’d been messing around in bed, kissing and feeling up each other, when Digger mentioned how you got his boomerang excited.

He’d thought you’d laugh it off or maybe scoff and roll your eyes at his words, but instead you had retorted back, mentioning something about his little boomerang.

The word had supringly stuck with him. Now don’t get it wrong he wasn’t offended by any means. Digger knew that he was big. It didn’t take much to see it. However something about you downplaying his size had him hot and bothered. And he wasn’t shy to let you know, either by his words or the grunts and groans rolling off of his tongue, hard cock pressing up against your thigh.

It doesn’t take much before you have him straddling your waist, surprisingly strong thighs working themselves up and down your length and his big cock uselessy rubbing against his stomach, smearing pre cum all over it.

Maybe you’d be so cruel to flick your finger against his tip, a faux look of disappointment on your face as you spoke about his cock as if it were non existent.

Or maybe you’d remind him of the size he’s got and how his big cock is practically useless because he’s such a slut.

Whatever you say has cries of pleasure, tumbling past his lips, with Digger practically bouncing on your dick, before tipping over the edge, ropes of cum painting both your abdomens.

It doesn’t take much before he’s realigning your cockhead up with his rim,and sinking down on your dick, his own cock fully hard, and with Digger eagerly awaiting to hear whatever you’ll say to him.

#captain boomerang #captain boomerang x male reader #captain boomerang x reader #digger harkness #digger harkness x reader #digger harkness x male reader #dom male reader #top male reader #sub male character #bottom male character #x male reader #male reader #suicide squad game

[selineram3421]

Hiiii you're the first blog I check every morning and I absolutely LOVE everything you write!!

How about Alastor/Angel Dust/Husker finding the reader after attempting suicide? (If you don't want to thats fine, it can be super triggering, I just want comforttt)

I went aw and then went oh..

Lol but yes, I can do this.

Attempts

Warning! ⚠

⚠ mentions of attempted suicide-drowning/overdose/cutting, descriptive injuries, blood, mental illness mentioned ⚠

Human AU for this one:

Alastor, Angel Dust, Husk

Alastor🎙

He had noticed you becoming distant.

For what reason?

That's just the thing. He didn't know.

It did concern him though and he would check up on you from time to time.

But you would just smile and say you were fine. That you just had a hard time falling asleep last night.

There was something that still had him on edge. Something was wrong but you didn't tell him.

He was your friend, your best friend in fact! You could tell him anything...

Right?

Alastor had come to visit, bringing along some of his cooking to help cheer you up.

Time's were getting rough with the economy crashing. And you, his dear friend, lived alone with no immediate family around. It was just you and that cat that would occasionally come by for food.

He stood at the door of your apartment and knocked, waiting for you to open it and greet him.

As he waited, he noticed the claw marks at the bottom of your door, wondering if the stray cat had done it.

How odd.. He thought. They would have opened the door before the little creature could dare scratch up their door.

He knocked again.

But the longer he waited was making him slightly nervous. Tapping his foot until he could no longer stand still, he got the spare key you gave him and opened the door.

Calling out your name, he walked into your apartment and placed the place of food down on the kitchen counter. After closing the door behind him, he walked into the living room.

"Are you home?", he asked, looking around the room, spotting your coat and shoes still out.

They haven't left. Maybe they are asleep?

Something had formed at the pit of his stomach, the feeling of fear and worry cloaking his thoughts. He walked into their room after feeling it grow stronger.

Looking around, he saw that your bed was made and that everything was neat and tidy.

Then he noticed the paper on your dresser.

Walking over, he picked it up and started to read. It was odd, as it addressed whoever happened to pick it up, but then he noticed what it meant.

No no no no no-!

His hands shook and he flinched when hearing a loud splash of water.

Dropping the paper, Alastor ran to the bathroom, barging in. There he saw you in the filled bath tub, soaking wet with clothes and shoes on, gasping for air.

He said your name and rushed over, pulling you out of the tub.

"Darling, talk to me!", he said, grabbing a towel to wrap around your shaking form. "What-"

"I couldn't- I couldn't do it! I couldn't..", they sobbed, turning their head away from him as they sunk down onto the tiled floor. "Why can't I just do it!?"

Not knowing what else to do, he sat down on the floor and hugged them.

"Shh sh, its alright.", he whispered, rocking them back and forth.

They clung onto the back of his shirt, still shaking from their cries.

"Its going to be alright."

Angel Dust🕸

You were his buddy, his pal.

Someone he could tell everything to without having to worry about you running to the cops.

You were the friend that was always by his side, no matter how many times he fucked up.

You would encourage him, praise him, and just be like sunshine. It reminded him of his sister Molly.

He didn't notice when your smiles started to become a mask.

He didn't notice when you started taking drugs from his stash.

Angel had left to pick up some drinks for the both of you. The day was alright and you had asked to hang out for a while.

It was a little weird when you had started to point out every detail, but he had just brushed it off as you being observant.

Maybe it was one of those days when you would just stare at the sky.

When he got back, he couldn't find you in the room.

Weird. He thought and shrugged before sitting down on the couch to wait for you.

Opening up his drink, he went to take a sip before something caught his eye.

It was the vent that hid his secret stash.

Why is that open? No one could have known it was there but you-

His eyes widened and he shot up from the couch and ran around the place yelling out your name.

"Com' on! This isn't funny!", he yelled, opening every door that he came across. "You've nevah had drugs! You don't know how much you can handle!"

He found you on the floor, packs ripped open around you.

"No..", Angel said quietly before repeating it as he rushed over to your side. "Snap out of it!", he yelled out in a panic and shook you by the shoulders.

You were blinking really slow, pupils dilated and shaking.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!", he said, picking you up and placing you on a nearby couch. "Stay awake! I'm gonna call a hospital, ok!?"

"Sorry Angel.", you mumbled and lifted your hand to hold his. "I just wanted the pain to go away. I just wanted to sleep."

"Stay awake. I'll come back in a bit ok? Or let me find a phone with a long enough cord.", he said before running out of the room.

He held back from crying when speaking to the nurse on the phone. Doing his best to explain what was going on.

After the call, he went back to hold your hand until the ambulance came to pick you up.

He had gotten an earful for being late for a job but he didn't care about that. All he could think of was you, hoping you were alright as he worked on autopilot to get the job done.

Damn it. He thought as he paced back and forth. I should have paid more attention to them.

Angel immediately went to visit you after finishing up, rushing down the hallways to get to your hospital room with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

He slammed the door open and found you awake, looking him up and down.

"What the fuck were ya thinking!?", he said as he made his way over to your side. "Best friends don't try to kill themselves before the other one! Best friends die tagethah!"

"I-"

"These are for you.", he said and placed the flowers on the nightstand nearby before sighing. "Why didn't you talk to me?"

Pulling up a chair next to your bed, he sat on it. Taking off his hat to brush his hair back to try and calm himself down.

"You know you can tell me anything, right?", he said looking at you. "I'm here for you, like you are for me. So talk to me."

Husk🃏

Honestly, he didn't know what to think of you at first.

You were just another person on the other side of the bar. Ordering a drink and sitting there for hours.

He knew a sad face, as it was quite common, but yours seemed permanent.

After a while, you became friends.

You weren't annoying and he appreciated your company. Sometimes when it was a slow night, he would show you card tricks.

He didn't know how depressed you actually were.

It had been a long night.

Husk had to serve some annoying assholes but other than that group it was tolerable.

What was odd was that you didn't show up.

They probably have an actual life to get back to. He thought as he cleaned up the bar.

After he locked up, he went out through the alleyway in the back. But as soon as he walked out he saw you leaning against the brick wall covered in blood.

"Oh shit!", he yelled out in shock before rushing to check you over.

He found your wrists slit, still gushing out some blood. Quickly, he ripped the bottom part of his undershirt and tied them around your wrists to try and slow the blood.

"Fucking hell!", he hissed and ran over to the pay phone across the street.

After putting in the coins, he called the nearest hospital and rushed out what was going on.

"I found them a few minutes ago! They are unconscious, but their wrists are still bleeding! I don't fucking know! Just send someone over!"

He got fed up with the person on the phone and slammed the pay phone back to its place. The change clunk down into the machine and he ran out of the booth to take you to the hospital himself.

"Don't you fucking die on me!"

After you were taken by the doctors, Husk sat on one of the chairs in the waiting room, bouncing his leg.

He hasn't beem that worried about someone since-

It's just been a long time.

It wasn't until a few hours later that you woke up. The doctors let him know that he could see you now, and he made his way over to your room.

As soon as he entered, he pointed at you with the grumpiest frown you've ever seen.

"Don't you ever do that shit again."

All you did was smile.

"Thanks Husk."

Then he did something that surprised you.

He hugged you and cried.

"You fucking dumbass.", he grumbled. "Do you know how shitty my night was? Then I find you passed out, covered in blood in the fucking dark."

"I'm sorry Husk.", you said, leaning your head on his shoulder. "I had a shitty night too. I wasn't thinking right."

Both of you stayed like that for a while.

Something that both of you never talked about was your home life. After this stunt, Husk would make sure to check in on you more.

"You owe me booze."

You laughed and agreed.

This was hard. Sorry for it being so late, but I hope you are doing better now.

~Seline, the person.

ML's for Alastor, Angel Dust, Husk

#suicide mention #tw mentions of suicide #if you are going through something please call your emergency suicide number #hazbin hotel fanfiction #gn reader #x reader #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #human au #human reader #human alastor #fanfic #human angel dust #human husk #husk #husk hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel husk #angel dust #hazbin hotel angel dust #angel dust hazbin hotel #blood mention #hazbin hotel #warnings #alastor & reader #angel dust & reader #husk & reader

[hyperfixiation-station]

Can't stop thinking about poly!141 ignoring the reader. Literally just can not. So enjoy this suicide-mission + ignored reader idea i had. It suo for grabs if anyone want to write an actual fic

Laswell pulled you aside and asked if you'd be willing to what would basically be a suicide mission. She gave you 2 days to talk it over with 'your boys'. The boys who conveniently had nto spoken to you on over a week, for reason you couldn't not fathom. But surely they'd listen to you on this, they'd at least hear you out when they heard your desperate tone....right?

2 days later and you hadn't managed to get any of them to talk to you. "Simon-" "can't." "Buts its import-" "I said can't." "Johny, can I plea-" "im busy lass, sorry." "Gaz i need to-" "sorry, I'm a bir busy, we can talk later." "John I-" "i cant right now, maybe later." So you say yes, much to Laswell's surprise.

You're on plane the next day, on your way to infiltrate an enemy base, not to come home for at least 3 months. It's a low-contact mission, where you're only able to send transmissions every 2 weeks. There will be no way to know you're compromised until its too late.

4 hours after your plane takes off and you are officially no-cotact, the boys show up to your barrack, flowers and an apology in hand. Buy they're too late. You're already gone, bunk cleaned out, no note or text left behind.

Their first thought is that you quit, where discharged. But they quickly dismissed that idea because they would have heard about the ceremony. Their second is that you transferred teams. So they talk to Laswell, who not-very-gently breaks the news to them.

They beg for Laswell to call you back, but it's too late, what's done is done. Now they just have to wait. They get increasingly antsy as the weeks tick down, regret and self-hatred fueling there every action.

2 guilt-striken months go by before Laswell stops receiving transmissions.

#sorry i'm rambling #i just can't get enough of this trope #cod fanfic #simon ghost riley #cod #ghost fanfiction #cod x reader #angst #john soap mactavish #call of duty #poly!141 #suicide mission say what #ghost x reader #johnny mactavish #john price #kyle gaz garrick #gaz #gaz x reader #brain ain't braining #brain worms

[hanafubukki]

Death.

That’s what would end this dream.

But it wasn’t fair, this was supposed to be a happy dream was it not?

But someone needed to die in order for Lilia to wake up.

In order for them to stop Malleus.

It would be cruel to have Mallenoa die in front of Lilia, in a dream that was supposed to end happily.

It would be too much if any of you were to cause such a demise.

But any other answer would be just as cruel.

The devoted son? No, that would break Lilia.

The overly loyal prodigee? No, that would add trauma and guilt for Lilia and might affect his relationship with Baul.

Grim had little to no ties with Lilia, his death would not cause him to wake up nor would you allow any harm to come to him.

…so that left only one answer.

Yours.

It would have to be the shock from your death that would awaken everyone from this dream.

Your hands shook.

Will this work?

And if it didn’t, what would happen to you? To the others? To Malleus?

As you stare at Mallenoa and the victorious fae army celebrating their win against the Knight of Dawn.

You had made a choice.

You breathed.

Deep breathes in.

Deep breaths out.

You swiftly turned.

I’m so sorry.

You knew your choice would bring pain to a number of people. Lilia and Malleus, who would lose a sister and mother respectively. They would also loose you if anything went wrong in this dream and reality.

Sebek, Silver, and Grim would feel devastated at not being able to stop you.

But this was the only way and the one least painful.

…you hoped.

You had never confessed your feelings to Lilia. You didn’t have the chance to, especially after he announced his departure.

And you couldn’t be selfish and weigh him down with your feelings.

But you hoped he cared enough about you that it would work. That the fleeing glances from General Lilia was an indicator of his feelings for you.

You allowed your self to be selfish just this once. You hoped that you would be enough to wake him up because anything else would be too painful.

If not, then at least it was just your death and the least painful of the four.

If this doesn’t work, I can at least keep Malleus company…despite his inky self and how awkward it might be.

By now, you can hear voices questioning what you were doing. You can hear the alarms in their voices as you near the edge of a cliff without any falter in your steps.

You turn around, there’s barely any space left between you and the air that would welcome you.

The others are in varying degrees of panic.

General Lilia had noticed the commotion by now, his eyes widening as he took in your form.

Good, he would be too far to get to you in time.

You smiled at them.

It will be alright.

…you fell back.

…only to wake up gasping back in Diasomnia’s lounge.

With several gasps echoing right after yours.

Part 2

#tw death #tw suicide implied #tw suicide #<- just in case #twst angst #first two tags implied since it is a dream world and not reality #Lilia Vanrouge #lilia vanrouge x reader #twst lilia vanrouge #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x you #hurt no comfort #kind of #open ending ish #hopefully ending #ambiguous ending

[stickyspeckledlight]

Waxing, Waning, My Unraveled Body Beheld By the Moon [Yan!Aventurine x GN!Reader]

The sun is not always shining. But the moon can only shine because of the sun. A companion piece to Sunrise, Sunset, My Destroyed Body in the Onset. This fic assumes you've read it, so I heavily recommend you read it first before reading this. It'll make more sense if you do.

Ao3

Word count: 15.6k

TW: Implied/referenced noncon, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, mild gore, violence against reader, choking/strangulation, Stockholm syndrome, Aventurine's Past shows up, EXTREME tonal whiplash due to the beginning (but frankly it's so you can brace yourselves...the calm before the storm), Reader needs a hug, Ratio where are you my man needs therapy NOW, twisted "happy endings" my beloved

Note: This got so out of hand. Aventurine is the most potent brain worm I've had in a while. Poor reader though. They used to be such a cringefail, now they're a poor little meow meow 😔

(Written before 2.2)

You stand on the top of a tower. 

It’s a modest and small thing, but every second and breath you’ve taken is in its service. Time is its mortar, and actions are its bricks. It is stable, with a wide and strong base, with little deviation. If it had a shaky foundation, then you wouldn’t even bother.

You have no plans to construct it into something grandiose and spectacular. It’s best to keep your ambitions realistic, for it is so very easy to use and dispose of those with dreams bigger than themselves and small enough to be crushed in the palms of those atop skyscrapers. Your tower is modest, and you will keep it that way. You will have to become a cog in the machine for that to happen, but you can meagerly control the stability of your cog. 

It is cruel that it has to be that way, but you aren’t capable enough to change the way things are done. You might as well make the most out of this.

You know this song and dance, by now. The park is closed at this time of night, but, and it might be your greatest achievement of them all, you found a way to sneak in undetected. Granted, there weren't many people to stop you, but you’ll still take your W, thank you very much. 

You park your bike, well hidden in the bushes and trees. This is the noisiest part of your visit since the bike is heavy and you can’t suppress your soft grunts as you weasel it into its spot. But it’s worth it. After that, you walk along the trail, and when you’re far enough away, you stop trying to silence your steps and enjoy the sound of your boots falling onto the dirt. It’s a soft but firm sound, and it brings you a sense of peace. You hike until you reach it: a little trail to the side. Few sets of feet have paved the dirt, and even those who decide to pursue it usually turn back at the impenetrable foliage. But there is an opening in the forest’s defense. It’s tucked away, discovered by a much younger and adventurous you. You’re not sure if you found this place because you wanted to pretend to be a fairy princess or a heroic knight who saves the princess, or if you might’ve always been a little bit lonely. Whatever the case, you found this place, and it has since been your reprieve whenever things become too much. 

You know the area like the back of your hand, turning off your phone’s flashlight as you make your way. It’s a small clearing of forest, but it’s perfect. Bushes and trees surround you in a half-circle from behind, and in front of you is the ledge of a cliff. The sky is in full view here and lends itself to beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes, when your mind wanders, you wonder how long you’d fall if you tripped over the ledge. But those are just musings you have no intention of acting on. 

The moon does not grace you with its shine, but that’s alright. You’re here to see the world that moonlight blankets, not to be a part of it. You’ll bask in the darkness, and admire the silver sheen on the rest of the world; the world which gets a fraction of the sun, even at night. You settle into your spot against the tree trunk, shaped so it nearly encircles you in its embrace. A silly thought crosses your mind: does this tree love you? Of course not, but it’s just that: a silly little thought. 

You’re not here for any especially soul-crushing reason or anything. It’s the usual: schoolwork ramping up and deadlines creeping up. And the accompanying existentialism of what comes after. It’s just another peaceful night during a stressful time. It will soothe your soul, the comfort within shall ebb and flow, and then it will all fade away when you’ve returned to the world blanketed in the sun’s golden sheen. When it all piles up again, you know you can always come back here: your special place, where you can curl into yourself as much as you want to. And as always, you will fight the urge—so tiny that it’s insignificant but still so omnipresent—to sink your head fully into your stomach and become a mass of unthinking flesh. Becoming smaller and smaller until you aren’t even a speck.

The wind picks up. The cold doesn’t bother you much, but you’re still human. Instinct has you nuzzling into your cotton scarf. It does mean you have to wash it often, but the inconvenience doesn’t outweigh the comfort it provides. Yes, tonight will be a lovely one, spent doing nothing but staring at the moon from the shadows, alone with your thoughts and nocturnal critters that may tussle in the shrubbery. You hear a series of quick rustles—squirrels, maybe? Two of them, considering the frequency of rustling and the fact that it’s their mating season (well, you’re pretty sure spring is mating season. It could be wrong, but it’s useless trivia anyway, isn’t it? In the back of your mind, you imagine someone berating you). Another rustle plays, and you sigh wistfully. And then—

“…Hello,” A voice, shrewd and low sounds out.

Ink makes your vision go black and the only reason you don’t gasp or scream is because you’ve always froze before you ran. But even if you were a runner, where was there to go? You don’t know who this person is, where they are, why they are in your special place and why they’ve come here like a malicious boy kicking down a toddler’s sand castle or could they be here to prevent you from ever coming back to your special—

You swallow your panic and look for an exit before it forces itself back up. It’s not the first time someone’s noticed you, but you never really had to worry; you could just slip into here, and they’d give up when you couldn’t be found. But this is uncharted territory. More importantly, if anyone else were to know about this place, it would be a ranger. And you aren’t very interested in counting empty donut boxes and coffee cups during a run-of-the-mill interrogation. 

Slowly, and as quietly as you can, you make your move. Your hands are clammy, and each step feels like it will cause the earth to crack and send you falling into its molten core. You’ll be melted down, and the idea that you may be reforged sends another surge of panic within you. You cannot let a single brick crack. 

“I’m not here to hurt you if that’s what you’re thinking,” the voice says, much much much closer now. The words themselves should be of relief to you, but the fact that he’s closer means he knows where you are—in fact when you turn to look behind you, you can see a vague silhouette. Still, the few seconds you took to turn around also made it so that rather than relief and panic nulling each other, somewhat cool relief washed over you. Even if this entire situation is very, very, very weird. Maybe the relief you feel is a defense mechanism to prevent you from putting yourself in shit.

Should you just leave? He could just be lying to you. You weren’t great at figuring out people’s intentions, but you’d think that the most likely one in this situation leaned toward the malicious. However, you didn’t even notice his existence until he spoke. It’s the fact that he could weave through mostly undetected. If he could do that, then you think it’s not very likely you can just get away. 

You accept that defeat, so you decide to do something a little stupid. You talk to the stranger. In the event he’s a serial killer or something, maybe a conversation will let you get a good enough handle on him that he might just…let you go. Your heart hammers and you want to do nothing but shake, but you will yourself into a blizzard. If you are there, then you might be able to freeze and delay the ink that begins to drip. 

“I’m pretty shocked,” you mutter. Your voice is still a bit disconnected, still reeling, “I’ve never met someone here. How’d you find this place? Why’d you come to this place?” You ask these questions, and you won’t mind dying as much if they’re answered.

“Work,” he cryptically says. You just barely pick up on a sardonic lilt.

“So you’re a park ranger,” you deflate, and you nuzzle into your scarf as you brace yourself. But levity is powerful, and you’ll tap into it. “Here to arrest little ol’ me, then? You could’ve waited, at least until the moon started to dip. It’s a pretty solid night, methinks.” Your heart feels a little numb from hammering into your ribs so much. 

The ranger hums, “Moon’s the moon. It’s not bad, but the sun’s always pretty nice. But you’re right. It would’ve been better to wait till the sunrise. Alas, my schedule as of late has been a horribly rigid thing. I’m sure you know how it is.”

“Hmph,” you frown. It feels like he’s a cat playing with a mouse. You sigh with defeat, “Oh well. I’m not exactly known for being slippery, so I’m not even going to try and outrun a ranger of all people,” you extend your hand lazily, “Just get the cuffs already,” you decide to pout, to turn the situation around to something more comical and less soul-crushing, “Any longer, and the suspense’ll bury me six feet under. The records might call that cardiac arrest, but I call it embarrassing—the thought of dying like that is a real heartstopper.” Ha, look at you! A true punster, you little rascal. There is no reason for you to defame or attack a guy just doing his job, so if you go down, you’ll at least go down with a slow-witted joke or two. Across from you is a law-abiding Joe, and you are the evil thief mothers warn their children about. Truly, it cannot be more black and white than this, so it’s best for everyone that you don’t make too much of a fuss. See? You are capable of ethics! Or maybe that was more like philosophy? Eh, what’s the difference? You’re still fucked, and you very much want to die. 

“Arrest you?” The ranger’s voice teeters toward, um…you think it’s some mix of sarcastic, mocking, and—oh wait, you’d call it ‘teasing.’ “Do you want to be arrested?” He teases, but it feels like the way an owner would talk down to a beloved puppy. You don’t appreciate it. 

You frown. “No. Why would I want to be arrested?” You deadpan, “Can you please stop skirting around the issue?” More ink blots your sight, as your palms start to clam with unwanted anticipation. You think they could be gushing with your blood, if this guy keeps dragging your arrest out like this. 

The ranger laughs. Laughs. You aren’t sure if you want to join him or shove him off the cliff. Whatever the case, now you know that there is a nonzero chance this ranger has a bit of a sadistic streak. Instinctively, you take a few steps back, as if that could save you from disaster, from plummeting over the edge of your tower. 

“…Please tell me you aren’t planning anything…” The words you were thinking of saying suddenly elude you, but you’re already speaking. You have no choice but to see what haphazard replacements you make, “…goofy silly. Or something.”

The ranger clicks his tongue. It seems he’s fully dipped into a playful veneer; whether that’s his true self, or the mask he thinks you’ll best respond to in the way he wants, it nudges you a little further to the edge. You defensively nuzzle into your scarf, trying but failing to calm your nerves. You’ll give yourself one point, though: you thought you’d be more inclined to be screaming or crying. That’s probably because you are technically doing something illegal, so there’s really no one but yourself to blame for this predicament. Really, why do you still come here like this, when you know it’s against the rules? It’s not the first time you’ve asked yourself that question, but it’s certainly the first time it feels sort of tangible. 

“‘Goofy silly?’” The words seem all at once perfect and dubious when carried in the ranger’s voice, “Hm…you know what? I do feel like I’m in a ‘goofy silly’ mood!” 

Oh. Well, guess you’re double fucked. It was a good life, the clean record, you suppose. But what is life if not change? You’re entering a new era now, you hardened criminal. Crime will be your lifeblood; anything scared shall disintegrate into something depraved at your touch. You’ll do it all: tax evasion, defamation, shoplifting, parking offenses. Society will not be free of your crime sprees—all will fear the Suburban Terror. Karens will cower before you, the neighbors will hate you, the teenagers will prank you, and the children will scream with fear at you. All because the consequences of your actions caught up with you at the behest of the actions of some guy who just so happens to be able to arrest you. 

“So, about that arresting,” the ranger continues, “I won’t be doing that!” he peps.

Everything stands in place. “What?” 

“I’m not gonna arrest you!” 

“W-well, I heard that,” you stammer, “but why? You literally said you’re here for work!” 

You can practically sense the ranger’s lighthearted shrug, “I am. And I’m not arresting you. Simple as that!”

Everything feels like it's going too fast and too slowly. Whiplash isn’t good for the soul, in your opinion. “But…but the law…”

“Who said the law needs to be followed?” 

“The government and state…” and then something clicks, “Hey, if you’re a park ranger, then aren’t you working for the government? Is this corruption?” 

You imagine the ranger smirks. “What is corruption but a tool of the game?” 

“What does that have to do with this conversation?” You find yourself deadpanning. “And why aren’t you answering?”

“Life’s a game,” he breezily purrs, “and conversation is a part of life, so really, it has everything to do with this conversation.” 

“I think I’d rather go through a physics textbook than deconstruct that sentence,” but you find yourself smiling. The ranger has a good sense of humor, you find. You take a few more steps, no longer teetering on the edge. In the back of your mind, you think that he could just be lowering your guard, but honestly? Maybe you shouldn’t doubt a person’s goodwill, even if it’s technically illegal. Well, you don’t care about what’s illegal and not; if hairless monkeys with godless monkey brains are imperfect, then the things they make are imperfect too. Regardless…you don’t know his face, and he doesn’t know yours either. In other words, you’re both complete strangers. If you ever meet each other, you won’t even recognize each other, won’t ever truly register each other’s existence outside this singular shared moment. 

That anonymity, the opportunity to exist without future consequence…it entices you, and you’re drawn into it. Drawn into levity and shedding your superficial guard. 

“Careful, you might insult a doctor of physics or two,” the ranger says with an insinuating lilt. Perhaps he knows a physicist or a student suffering with their doctorate thesis. Information that is all at once useful and impeccably useless. “You might just get a piece of chalk lodged in your skull.”

You shrug. “I’m living my best life while they’re stressing over the mechanics of a rat yawning and how that like. Affects the physics of the air or something.”

That gets a soft huff, like he breathed out a laugh, “I say that too, but then he starts going on about quantum mechanics and wormholes…probably a lot more than that, but the stuff’s so incomprehensible I tune out.”

“Your friend sounds…well, like a scientist,” you unceremoniously blurt. “Sure, they’re called nerds, but for good reason. They can talk your ear off, all the while you nod without understanding a single thing…and then they sigh to go talk to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.” 

“‘Talk your ear off’ is a bit of an understatement,” the ranger says, “though I think it’s better to say ‘gives a tongue-lashing.’”

You wince at the image. “Oof. Sorry about that.” 

“I’m used to it,” the stranger says. “Besides, I have a quip or two to throw back.”

“Oh.” You aren’t sure how to react. “That…that sucks.” 

“‘That sucks?’” his tone isn’t accusatory; it’s curious, with a hint of what you believe is wariness. 

It flusters you a bit, for some reason. “W-well,” you stammer, “if you’re used to it, then that means you get, uh, ‘tongue-lashings’ a ton, right? I don’t think people should be getting a ton of tongue-lashings…” 

“But what if I do things that deserve a tongue-lashing?” 

“Well, then you’d get a tongue-lashing. But, I dunno. I don’t think people should be mean to each other all the time, I guess,” you try, practically rambling, “Maybe it’s just cuz I know I’d just be on the floor in a sobbing heap if someone so much as raised their voice at me…but…but…w-well, you know what I mean!” You raise your hands, making desperate gestures as if you could telepathically communicate with them. Unfortunately, you do not live in a sci-fi with magical reality-bending wizard monk powers, not unless you devote yourself to a singular concept. “There’s always plenty of room for, um. Positive reinforcement, yeah! In fact, let’s practice!” Shit, your cheeks are heating and at this point you’re just incoherently blabbering but now that you’ve started you just can’t stop oh dear Aeons save you— “Uh…you…you follow your heart! By choosing not to arrest me out of…out of principle or, or, or pity…um, well, point is, you have defied the law of your own choosing, which is a pretty uh, gr~eat show of your super strong will! Your beliefs! They say within all delinquents lies a heart of gold, after all! And you know how to be sneak of super! I mean sneak super! I mean super sneak! Urgh, I mean suppppperrrrrrr sneaky. And I bet that’s really nice and I know that’s really cool! It’s a super power on par with that of uh. Uh. An Aeon? Yeah, an Aeon!”

You’ve lost your steam, and now you’re left blinking. The embarrassment flusters you, and now you’re something in between a fish being choked in the hand of a cruel fisherman and a wonderfully eloquent failing car engine. You truly are the epitome of grace and elegance. There was no way the ranger wasn’t at least cringing. Maybe he’d change his mind and just arrest you; after all, how else to fix cringe if not rehabilitate it? Well, if he did arrest you over this, you’d be back to haunt him with like, cheese, or something. You’d jump that hurdle when you got there. 

Hm…but you think you kind of wanna crawl into a hole and die…but that expression is too cliche, so instead, you think you wanna crawl into a hole and start a society of mole people. It’ll be like LARPing, except you wouldn’t be role-playing! …Actually, yeah…someone should just kill you right now before you start to laugh and then cry as your embarrassment transitions into self-conscious despair……..that’s how it usually went when you got like this….

It’s a good thing you can’t be seen. 

You think the ranger will laugh, stand in baffled silence, mock you, or just walk away, but he chuckles. “Hmmm…you know, I could get used to this; hearing people stumble over their words to compliment me!”

You’re a little dumbfounded, but you’re decent enough at rolling with the punches. You can come up with a headcanon or two on the spot. “Yeah! That’s the spirit! Now that’s what I call some good old-fashioned character development!”

He lets out a soft whistle, “That so? What trope would you say I embody, out of curiosity?”

“Hm…” you tap your chin in thought. You’re in a forest, and there’s a moon, and you get an award-winning idea. “Maybe…hrmmmm…a mysterious vampire, here to whisk the unassuming protagonist away to a forbidden romance, sustaining your very being on their essence…” 

“Oh? Am I really that charming even without a face?” He teases.

You laugh. “Well, you are pretty charming, but I was just kidding. I couldn’t just let that opportunity slip away,” your laugh calms into a soft chuckle. “No, I’d say…a mysterious stranger, with a past unearthed and a charming veneer, but beneath it all lay an affable man…who may or may not heed the word of law. A Robin Hood-esque character of sorts.” Sure, it’s cheesy, but you don’t care if he likes cheese or not. You like cheese, and that’s all that matters in this cruel world! If the world doesn’t like that, it can kiss your ass! (You think all of the is while very aware that the world can just as easily kick your ass)

“So…you’re just saying you don’t have a single clue about what my deal is.” 

You feel a little offended. In hindsight, maybe you wouldn’t have been great at terrorizing Karens. “I mean, I’ve only known you for like, half an hour. All that I know about right now is that you’re some flavor of anarchist. Probably. Maybe.” But the same applies to him! He knows nothing about you! “But if you’re so confident, then it’s time to prove your mettle!” You point towards him challengingly, even though again, he cannot see you, “You tell me what character trope I am!” (And you briefly realize that you feel light and happy, that your smile is wide)

And at that moment, just at the cusp of truly extraordinary conversation (a claim which may or may not be exaggerated), an annoying thing happens. Your phone vibrates and your screen lights up; your alarm has gone off. Your phone always has the best timing, and you don’t want to scream at it and crush its sorry little body into itty bitty pieces. 

“Oh…” you awkwardly exclaim. You’re wearing a light jacket, so the ranger can see the soft glow just as you do. “That’s…yeah, that’s sorta…alarm. Yeah. It’s my alarm. Not me alerting the IPC or the CFSS or something. I…have to go.” 

“I see,” the ranger’s voice is light and airy, entirely unaffected. “A shame. I really did enjoy our conversation.” Your mind tells you it’s all empty, but your heart is aching to soar to heights unseen. Because you are only human, those with lone hearts die first.

You want to ignore it so badly, to just converse with this ranger a little bit longer but…but you really can’t. You must abide by it if you want to mitigate your suffering in the morning (re: you’ve run out of energy drinks and coffee at home and it’ll be hell to start your morning without slugging around like a zombie). And just like that, the ranger and your conversation will fizzle away into a distant memory. And you’ll still live, the same as you’ve ever been. And because you’re both strangers, there is no reason to ask each other for anything. Because if you do, then you will both have to live with the consequences of your words. And who knows? Maybe the ranger has only spared you this night because he was in a good mood. Maybe he won’t be so affable the next time you meet. 

But there’s something to it. Some allure—no, the same allure of your special place. So you offer something, and you think your face might melt off, with how your cheeks fluster to the point its searing. 

“...I come to this place a lot. It’s like…my special little place,” you awkwardly offer. “If…if you were curious about that, er, sorta thing. Yeah. Bye, have a good night.” You stutter awkwardly, stiffly and uncertain. And then you walk away, simultaneously desiring and afraid of hearing what his response to that would be. Of having your fear being validated with rejection. 

If there was one moment you could point to that sealed your fate, it wouldn’t have been that conversation by a longshot, nor was it your second, third, tenth, or even your final conversation before he revealed himself to you; it was your offer. After all, people only think fate is immediate whenever it comes to hit them straight in the face. In truth, fate is gradual, of many bricks stacking up into a skyscraper. That offer led you to swim in ink; to traipse into fields of cotton; to weather against frozen infernos; and then finally, to dance in a flowering meadow, your feet raw and bleeding, sanded against the soft blades of poison ivy and oak. 

—

He sees you’re on the balcony.

(Only right after when he woke up and felt that you weren’t in his arms and nearly tore apart everything and anything with a scream and that you were gone and had left him like everyone else—)

He’s rather taken aback by this. He was sure you wouldn’t even be able stand come the dawn. But you still unwittingly find ways to surprise him even now. You should really give yourself a pat on the back! Even if it seems like you’re leaning onto the railing for dear life. 

The moon covers you in its silken silver sheen. The breeze tussles your hair and makes your robes softly billow. It’s a heart-throbbing serenity, and he finds an iota of respect within him to make his ambush on you gentle. You’ll squeak, pout, insult him, banter, and hiss before you resign and then he can hold you in peace. It’s a predictable song and dance, but he hasn’t tired of it. Seems even he can surprise himself.

(But oh, it’s because it’s something resembling a warm thing he thought was lost to him…and a sturdy rock he can hold onto)

The smile spreads on his face easily (but whenever he’s around you, it’s a little less weighted, a little less about pitiful survival), “Sick of me already?” he adopts his signature lilt, albeit weighed by sleep, as his arms encircle your form. “We’ve only been a couple for a few of months.” You squeak, comically so, and violently flinch as he settles his head in the crook of your neck. Your reaction almost immediately invigorates him, like he’s wide awake in the sun. Your heart rate beats more rapidly, but your tensed muscles relax, just a little. You’ve been practicing, he thinks, to lessen your own burden rather than increase his pleasure. Maybe there’ll come a time when you can mold yourself however you please, and he’ll be none the wiser in your embrace when your hand snakes into his back. 

(Don’t do that. Please, he just asks that you melt in his touch, melt right into him and stay—)

He inhales—his chest expanding into your back, and he feels your own breath hitch as if it slices into you—taking in your scent, all at once overwhelming and (newly) customary. A pungent ink comes to burn his nose at first, but underneath it comes moonlit snow, fresh and cool; dancing within a floral and earthy aroma, a dusty cedar scent with wilting flowers; and the afternotes of a decaying musk, passionate and vying for an end. He hums in appreciation, exhaling with contentment. You shudder in disgust because it’s him and you still aren’t used to the way his breath feathers and scratches your skin, over the bits of dried blood speckled over your neck. 

“Aw, nuts…” you softly curse, but there’s no surprise to be found. Your words are laced with sleep, but there’s something else to them, he’s noticed. Your words still drip with vitriol (though it’s always been measured with ink, and it makes him purr in delight and it makes him feel even more empty—), but they’ve gotten softer, for lack of a better word. Exhausted, the same way one is when they’ve walked through a blizzard or sandstorm for long enough. How one gets frozen in the bowels of hell’s fires, or how one burns in solitary inferno in the frigid arctic. 

And still, you haven’t reached your limit and killed him. 

Surprisingly, you turn to face him, and he turns down the urge to lean in and kiss you. For now, at least. He’ll take it when you’ve said your piece. 

You probably think yourself expressionless, but there’s a certain way your mouth subconsciously curls in displeasure like you want to scream or vomit your organs. Your eyes can host anything from enraged clarity to dull acceptance. The latter has only appeared a few times, but he anticipates that it will be a common sight as the months pass by. He wipes that look from his mind, and smiles wide as he looks intently into your eyes. The scent of ink burns his sinuses. Right now, your eyes are exhausted, disgusted, and a touch confused; nothing he isn’t used to. His smile goes soft, for he is more than willing to swallow the poison you gift him. And as lovers, you’ll have to reciprocate, won’t you?

(Stop. Let him apply thinner to that ink, let him wash it all away and please please stop drowning in it)

“I was sick of you the moment you revealed yourself as the orchestrator.” you bluntly say, as if it’s an obvious fact—it is—and for a moment he feels like he’s touching ice. You shake your head and sigh, looking back to the moon. You don’t want to discuss the matter, so you move on to another. “I just woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s nothing personal. Happens all the time.” 

“‘All the time?’” He echoes and slides his hand into one of yours, where you lean on your arms against the railing. Your hands have been clamming; gosh, he really was something, to get you so worked up in a matter of minutes! His self-restraint is already on a thread when it comes to you. He gives in and gives you a chaste peck. Your lips slightly pucker with disgust, like you’ve sucked on a rancid lemon. But the kiss was meant to be brief, so that’s not an issue he’s too hung up on in the moment. He’ll just work on it with you, later. He trusts that you’ll cooperate, anyway. 

(That you do not immediately hurl in his mere presence is miracle enough. He’ll take what he can get, and work from there. That’s how he got here)

He tilts his head boyishly and gives your cheek a playful pinch, “I mean…lately, you’ve been able to fall asleep without medicine—” your eyes widen and your cheeks flush as you’re caught off guard—but he doesn’t cut open your stomach or slice at your ribs to let your own body be the weapon which kills you—his goal is always to win, but that doesn’t mean you have to fight. Right now, he’s merely having a heart-to-heart with you, sweetheart. So he doesn’t bother to point out the red on your cheeks, because he knows you hate it. Knows you understand it on a logical basis but still hate it so, so, so deeply and intricately. He doesn’t mind pushing you, but he would rather not see you bashing your head on the wall, crushing your skull and mind into lumps of grounded flesh, to try and ‘fix’ it. He sees that you’re mentally dismembering yourself when you locate the opening you gave him anyway. He doesn’t really need to try with you sometimes. It’s not an insult, it’s the truth, and he still loves you so very much despite it. “These nighttime stirrings of yours aren’t going to be the norm, you know. If you’re able to fall asleep in my arms once, you can do so twice.”

Your eyes flit through a captivating kaleidoscope of disgust, intrigue, disgust again, pungent ink, and then victorious confusion. You scoff, but you don’t entirely deny what he said. “Waking up in the middle of the night and not falling asleep is a common thing. You shouldn’t misconstrue these sorta things y’know. Makes you seem desperate.” 

“‘Desperate?’ Coming from you, should I consider that bonafide or just another desperate act?”

You frown. “I was only desperate because of you. The shit you pulled gave me no other choice.”

“Really?” He smirks, letting out a mocking huff, “You weren’t desperate before that?”

You scoff. “If you’re talking about school, then fine, I guess I was desperate to graduate as soon as possible.”

“Errr,” he mimics a buzzer, “two strikes.”

“Are you just projecting?”

“Make that three.”

“Bruh.” You deadpan. You’re quite amazing to be able to momentarily take yourself out of reality, he muses. 

(He’s a bit jealous)

“I’m not desperate,” you insist, practically hissing the words.

“If you weren’t desperate, then why’d you blindly befriend someone whose face you didn’t even know?”

“…I don’t know my online friends’ faces,” you weakly respond. You’ve conceded. Your response was merely for show. For him or for you or for you both. He’s not sure either. 

“Alright,” he pretends to concede, “Putting aside that they could just trace your information and learn everything about you…” his hand strokes your neck, goosebumps blazing in its wake, “They wouldn’t have been able to just…snap your neck, with you none the wiser,” He presses a kiss to your uneven pulse with a soft huff of laughter. 

“It’s not like I didn’t think that,” you shoot back, “I figured at the time that if you could sneak up on me like that, then I’d be helpless to your whims.” 

“Ah, but then…you offered me something: another night, in your special place, underneath the moon…who’s to say that I wouldn’t have been able to carry out any malicious actions? To continue to gain your trust and then stab you in the back?”

You frown. “Well…I…”

“Cat caught your tongue? Well, as I’ve said, the word you’re looking for is ‘desperate.’”

You swallow, and then you say, meekly, softly, like your voice is about to crack, “…I guess. And in the end, you did stab me in the back.”

He did, it’s true. That same iota of respect emerges, which makes him gently kiss you instead of speaking. Anything he’d say would only dampen your mood. You both may know about how disposable—

(Yet when it comes to you, something unpleasant twists his tongue, whenever he calls you disposable. He can’t bring himself to actually vocalize such a statement)

—the two of you are. Nothing more than dots in the universe, nothing more than pawns in another’s game. The hand that moves him is the IPC, and it’s only natural he’s found a pawn of his own: you. Even if you’re not particularly valuable on the grand chessboard. 

[Do you even want them on the chessboard in the first place?] 

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises. But you don’t believe him. 

“You can make it up to me by never showing your face to me.” Ice encases his hands, stabbing into him; but it also roots him right at his spot. He is unused to the ice’s painful cold, but for as much as it is a deterrent, ice has a tendency to trap.

“Hmmm…how about no?” 

“You half-ass…” You groan, tired and defeated. He feels a thread fall. “Seriously, people like you who use others to make promises you can’t and don’t keep are just…well, you know just how much you disgust me.” 

(But he admits. He admits that your vitriol is tiring. He admits that he wants to hear you whisper in his ear, the same way he does to you, that he wants you to harbor the same carnal adoration he has for you—that he wants you to tear into him and expose him and then kiss and embrace him and that he wants to feast on you devour you consume you infuse you with his heart and soul so that he knows you’re here and will always be h—)

His jaw expands and closes down. Blood spreads along his tongue like wine, bitter, salty, metallic, and well-aged. You let out a scream of pain, and he only bites harder so that he burns himself into your skin to prove that he has you and that he is hu—

“Ah—ow…ow ow ow owwww—” you hiss, muddied by a sob, “W-why…?” You whimper, “When you already—AH!” His mind is blank, excited by the sweet flesh, only focused on devo—

“S-s-stop! Please!” You beg, and he feels you struggle uselessly, “H-hurts! I-I, what d-did I do to—?! Gh!”

Satisfaction and triumph weave into him. Your screams mean you’re here, means he’s carved himself into you, means he’s indulging in wine. 

(But that’s a bit of a leap. He wishes he was as calculated as he makes himself out in front of you when it comes to you)

He pulls away. You breathe laboriously, looking at him with hate and terror, cradling your weeping neck with your hand. You aren’t completely exhausted, but he has made you even wearier if such a thing was possible. “Sorry,” he emptily apologizes, and presses a soft kiss to irritated skin, before moving on to your tears. Blood quickly smears your skin.

You growl, the pain making way for your unfiltered words. “You keep doing it, and it’s always so fucking painful.”

“It doesn’t help with how irresistible you are, sweetheart,” he smiles, and you bristle. “You know it’s because I love you,” he says, to rile you up a little. It helps that he means it. 

(So you don’t notice the fact that he was in a hypnotic daze) 

“‘Love.’” Your voice shakes. Your eyes are wide, angry, disbelieving, and blank. 

“Yep.” 

You shake slightly with anger. “Eat shit.” You spit. “Whatever the fuck this is, don’t call it that. Don’t you dare twist that word like that.” 

He blinks. It’s not the first time you’ve lashed out over the word or the admission, but he still doesn’t quite know how to answer you. He settles, then, for what he’s always said. “Then what is it?” 

“I don’t know. Obsession. Hate. Sadism. Loneliness. Whatever it’s called, it’s one hell of an insatiable beast. All that matters is that it’s hurting me.” You grunt, and bury your face into your hand, sighing blearily. “It’s late. Let’s…let’s not,” you exhale, tired, “Let’s not,” you repeat as if it were all a hopeless prayer. It might be more fitting to see you as a beggar, however. Leave me alone, you beg. Get buried beneath the sands already you Sigo—

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” he softly mutters, gently tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, and presses a kiss to your cheek. The lingering blood on his lips blossoms into a weeping flower, a venomous and invasive species. They can be found throughout your skin, dried and wilting, but they’ll always blossom back. “You can sleep in.” Translation: he’ll still wake you up, but only for a kiss before heading to work. You’ll be free to do as you please for the day! Isn’t that just enticing? Though you’re still hesitant to exercise any bit of freedom he offers you. To be fair to you, you’re so very well aware of where your freedom and “freedom” lie. One has been crucified, and the other is merely its poorly preserved remains. 

His mercy isn’t lost on you, but the hope in your eyes is quickly simmered by your hesitation and dread. You look away and grunt, likely hoping he’ll just shrug and walk away. Or at least delay the inevitable. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, you know. So painfully aware of your complete lack of power, so painfully aware that any outright resistance just isn’t worth it; isn’t worth risking the pain you fear so, so, so much. But that doesn’t mean that a reminder is remiss. Hesitation is fatal for the gambler, after all.

He hums and grins. You shrink, knowing he’s planning something. Like a little fawn, he muses, helpless without its mother. He suddenly pulls you back and flips you around so that your back leans against the railing, slightly hiked up so the tips of your toes just barely press against the ground. It grants him an unfettered view of your expression, almost comical shock morphing into fear as you register your newfound positions. You may not be entirely dangling over the railings…but you’re still at his mercy. You don’t hold onto his hand for dear life because that’s just what he’s decided. Simple instinct has you desperately hoping he doesn’t even fancy the scenario. He can so easily squash you between his fingers, and smear your remains on a handkerchief to be discarded: like a pestering fly.

[You mean…you want to point a gun into their heart, again?]

Fortunately, he has other plans. As much as he loves staring into your eyes, it’s not the only thing he likes about you. He moves his head against your chest, right against that sweet heart of yours. It misses a beat before it resumes its cacophonous rhythm. “Wha…what?” your mortified tongue manages to get out. “Put…put me down!” He gives a content hum in response, nuzzling further into your heartbeat, tracing patterns into your back with one hand and securing you by the waist with the other. His silence only intensifies the cacophony, but he could never bear to shut down any sound of yours. He chuckles. You shiver and let out a helpless sound, a cross between a cry, sob, and whimper. He can see you fight not to struggle, in fear that it would send you plummeting.

“It could be so much worse. You know that, don’t you? You live without chains and in a land where dawn shines, but that’s all my choice.” He finally speaks, when he’s decided you’ve had enough. Sure enough, the sound of screams and crumbling cities joins the cacophony. He pushes so he may discover all of the cacophonies your heart plays. He giggles, to twist the point further, “Relax! You haven’t done anything to warrant that! Yet.” You take a sharp breath. “But you still do things. Small things, but they’re still bad things,” you quiver. “I’ve had a few thoughts. Like a tattoo,” your heart skips a beat, “of a peacock’s feather, maybe, tickling your thigh, or an ace of spades. Nothing too extravagant. Hm, although,” your shaking has turned violent, so he moves his hand up to drift around your chest, clutching your waist tighter, “maybe we can just have my name, somewhere here…or…” he hums, for any and all matters pertaining to you need great care and thought, “....maybe we can just go with them all!” He exclaims. 

(What is he doing what is he doing no he knows what he’s doing yes he needs to see and feel and taste your ink he’ll take what he can get but what is he doing why is he doing why why why is he doing but why is he asking it feels so so so good to be the one towering above to be the one pouring wine)

He resists the urge to look up at your expression. Not yet, he’ll save it for when it’s truly exquisite, for when ink burns up into his skull. “Oh, and now that I think about it, maybe something fancy on your back? Ah, haha, but it can’t be super big. It has to complement you, not overtake you! On that note, a piercing or two wouldn’t be half bad. Your ears are a no-brainer, but…” he takes on a teasing lilt, like he’s a boy unsure how to act around his crush, “...where~ else~ do we go? The belly button? That’d be pretty cute! Or…” his hand drifts further along your chest, “here…” he giggles, “that’d be so awfully adorable, wouldn’t it?” Your unease rolls out in waves. His grin widens further, foxlike. He silently thanks you for giving him so many openings. “Ah, but doing all of that’s like saying you aren’t enough, isn’t it? I’m sorry for implying that,” he purrs the faux apology, “and maybe those kinds of accessories would get in the way of your full resplendence.” He sighs, similar to the way he does whenever he’s done talking. That he’s done torturing you. That your feet will touch the ground. After a few moments, the cacophony quiets down, the ink merely stings, and your breaths steady ever so slightly. Awww…poor thing. He brushes your neck. You think he’s done? “Clothes, too.” Your heart plunges into the depths. His hand teases dipping into your robes, “Why have a wardrobe when it can’t possibly do you justice?” He clicks his tongue. “That just~ won’t~ do~,” he singsongs, and then transitions into a friendly tone, “and hey! You can just think of it likeeee…going full-on commando!” He feels you seize up with disgust drawn out from the very depths of your soul. “That’d be pretty fun, wouldn’t it?” He laughs, “And comfy. A self-proclaimed couch potato’s dream is to endlessly lounge away the days, right? So, then,” he slightly dips his fingers, featherlight against shadowed skin and bitten gifts, “you really should just spend all day in bed. It’s not like you could go outside anyway. And just think about it—” An image pops into his mind, widening his smile, “Wrapped in my blankets, tangled in silk, entrapped into a web of it…” he slides a hand around your trembling wrist, brushing his thumb over your thundering pulse, “this would look so beautiful, in red ribbon,” he presses a chaste kiss to your thundering pulse, “your ankles, waist…a mess of them over your chest, covering your eyes…” he sighs, but he isn’t a negligible man, drifting his touch to lovingly wrap his hand around your neck, “and that pretty little neck goes without saying. You’ll be just like a little gift all for me. And,” he chuckles, “I don’t imagine you’d want to leave, either.” You shudder, tremble, make a sound a cross between disgust and a gasp choking on ink. “Hm, actually, that’s a good question,” And then he finally looks up. He is not disappointed in the slightest. You are choking, and completely pale and the only signs of life on your frozen face are your infrequent blinks and quiet breathing. “Do you want to leave me?” He wonders: what will you do? Say? You both know the answer, but for him to ask it would have you second-guessing yourself on what to say. Should you be honest? Should you give him the answer he wants to be true? Should you merely say that the two of you know that already? Or do you just say nothing, as ink clogs your throat? 

[Do you really think you’re playing a game? With them of all people? How do you think they even ended up here in the first place?]

The cacophony of your heart cracks and twists the earth into pieces. You shake like a leaf, slowly but surely devoured by a caterpillar. Soft and innocent at first glance, but it only knows how to feast and gorge itself. Your breath comes out in short gasps, as burning ink drips through them and into your stomach. It forces itself out violently, as your sensitive skin clams up, as it painfully inches out of your skull, to thrust itself out through your eyes.

You’re beautiful. 

What an honor, he thinks. 

(And stand so highly elevated) 

Although your terrified silence was anticipated, he doesn’t quite appreciate having a one-sided conversation, sweetheart. It seems you need a bit of encouragement, but he’s more than happy to provide. Regrettably, that means fully raising his head, but at least he won’t have to strain his neck to get a look at your face. He hikes you up, and you shriek in with fear, vaulting to wrap your arms around his shoulders as you struggle in vain to give yourself any semblance of contact with the ground. But the tips of your toes just barely graze the smooth concrete. “Dar~ling~,” he sing songs, “don’t keep me waiting, now.” 

He smiles kindly. He takes your left hand into his own, gently rubbing in soothing circles. Your heart beats louder, as you’re forced to rely on him even more. You take in a sharp breath, stifled by a flood of ink. He leans his head down, over that nigh-on unbearably beautiful mark on your neck, placing his lips on it like a fleeting feather brushing past. He looks up into your eyes, blackened and blurred, while his own are rounded and soft. He coos and kisses the few that fall, a delightful flavor of vulnerability flowering on his tongue that he can’t get enough of. He tilts his head when he’s done, his expression lovesick and deviously innocent, and goes caress your cheek, to chain you to place. You stay still so that it doesn’t go from choking to cutting. He gives your hand a maliciously reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve got you,” he reassures, “you’re safe, with me.” The words are heavy and loaded yet he says it like he’s holding you close in the afterglow, whispering sweet nothings that mean everything into your ear. Impressively, a scoff is drawn out of you, yanked out through a sea. 

(It reassures him, in some strange way) 

You clutch at him harder, almost pulling him flush against you in an effort not to fall. Adorable. You’re still enveloped in ink, so looking up at him, you seem little more than a trembling newborn fawn. 

Something dark flickers in your eye; the same dark thing he saw on the luckiest day of his life, as the sun shined so brilliantly on the gun held against your forehead. That dark thing which he didn’t foresee, and hadn’t seen since that day, until now. 

You tremble, but you purse your lips, and, as resolutely as you can, give your answer.

“Yes.” And then you lean back. Your feet do not touch the ground. 

His instincts are honed in ways impossible for you to imagine. Pulling you away and into the room is a simple affair. You whimper in pain, struggling against his hold, but it only takes a slight twist to your wrist, an effortless suggestion, for it to cease. 

(It’s his whole body that trembles, but you never seem to notice, when you tremble so much yourself and are so often a prisoner in your own mind) 

“My friend,” he says, dropping any semblance of emotion in his voice. You nearly shriek as you’re engulfed in an inferno, hyperventilating in vain as smoke from your own burning body clogs your lungs. You’ve brought this upon yourself, though. Did you forget in that moment? There isn’t anywhere for you to go, trapped in the fox’s jaw. He smiles emptily, knowing that it makes you want to die. “Why don’t you come back to bed with me? And we can have a chat.” 

(He hides his arm behind his back)

Just before he opens the balcony door, a drop of rain hits his cheek. The clouds obscure the moon, sealing its light shut. The sun will not shine on you two. 

—

You aren’t shoved onto the bed, to skid across it like a sea of sharp rocks or a river of hot coals. That makes it worse, you think. Though, with how heavy your mind is, with how much ink fills it, you could see a blossoming flower and think that doomsday was nigh. 

Trapped in his hold, out of endless possibilities, Aventurine elects to merely guide your forms to sit on the edge of the bed. He releases you, but whatever relief you felt is burned away when he slots your hand with his own, the other held behind his back. Like this, you two must look like a normal couple. One that had a fight, but then cooled down enough for them to sit and have a serious conversation; to communicate their feelings to one another, leading to a gentle reconciliation and promises to do better. Promises to never undermine the respect they hold for one another. But Aventurine…you’re sure that he holds a butcher knife, hidden behind his back, in moments like these. The hand which holds yours digs its claws, tearing into tender flesh so that you cannot rip it away; not if you’d like to keep your hand.

You almost don’t hear him over the pounding in your ears eyes heart and lungs and everything. “Just what were you thinking, acting like that?” 

Thinking? Thinking? Why would you tell him that? Actually, thinking? Did you even think? You feel your hand get squeezed like a lion clamping its jaw into a gazelle. “I—I, I…I,” you stammer. Any word you can even think of instantly turns to ash.

“‘I don’t know?’” and you almost demand for how he was able to guess your answer. He hums and leans in further and further, boring those terrifying eyes right into you; you fear that he’ll bore a hole right through your eyes and fill it with himself. So that even in death, a part of him would always infect you. 

Your mind, badly addled, nods. 

He hums again, betraying no emotion, “I know what you were thinking. And you will, too. I’m sure the two of us are eager to get back to sleep, so it’s best to cut to the chase.” 

“Cut…to the chase?”

“To the takeaway.”

It happens slowly, or quickly, or something, you don’t know you don’t really know at all everything drowns in ink—

He leans toward you, and gently pushes you on your back. You reactively scramble, but it doesn’t take much for him to make your struggle useless—and your neck is squeezed. Softly, then firmly, then roughly, and then air is gone. He doesn’t butcher you, doesn’t spill your blood, doesn’t dismember you and put you back together, doesn’t meticulously carve himself into your skin. He just squeezes. Nothing more, nothing less. No bloodshed to be seen. That might’ve been the truly shocking thing about this. But you can’t think about that when you breathe and nothing comes in. You gasp, but it comes out as a silent, dying wheeze. You kick, but it’s useless. Your legs drop to the bed like rotting sacks of meat. You try and pull his hands away. It’s about as effective as a mannequin trying to move on its own. Useless. Useless useless useless everything is useless your future and very being are an endless abyss devoid of hope and life and everything you do have done will do is useless meaningless meaningless meaningless you’re dying you’re going to die you are dead you are hopeless and miserable and scared and dying dying dying dying dying he’s bored of you sick of you hates you he hates you hates you hates you hates you hates you stabbed you in the back choking you choking you you cry cry cry cry cry but your tears are searing ink that burns your flesh you’re burning burning burning burning there is no sunlight or moonlight—

You think and think about everything and nothing. You think about your cotton scarf. You think about your parents. You think about your degree and how its been such an waste of time and money. You think about the tiramisu you made earlier, how its setting in the fridge so you could eat it come lunchtime. 

But no matter what you think about, or what you stop thinking about, you cannot stop thinking about Aventurine. About who he was, is, and will continue to be. How he’s permeated himself into your life and very being. How your corpse will be in his hands.

It hurts, but you can’t say that. It hurts so much that you feel like your neck will be sliced off your head. You must look so ugly. You feel your eyes bulge, expand from out of your sockets, just a few seconds away from popping out and hanging by a nerve that could so easily be cut and gushing blood that Aventurine will lap up before throwing your corpse out of the window like trash. Your nose uselessly tries to inhale, but all it does is marginally slow the hideous mucus that leaks. Your mouth is equally useless, and it isn’t long until you give up and your tongue ungracefully lolls from your mouth. You feel all at once overwhelmed—the tears from your eyes burn your flesh, your eyes will become weights that shake with every movement, the snot leaves behind anguishing trails of acid, and your tongue feels like a dumbbell crushing your face—and in a weird way, you feel like you float. You decide to float. You think about your cotton scarf, nuzzling into its comforting—

You dimly realize you’re nuzzling into the grip that’s killing you. 

Your body becomes lead. 

Aventurine’s expression betrays nothing. But you feel something shake—your body? It’s surprising because you can hardly even blink, let alone move. It’s mostly around your neck. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen. Your hands have gone limp, uselessly falling to the side, but you haven’t died yet. Aventurine is still busy killing you, and looking at you like you’re nothing and that he couldn’t care less about your reaction. You don’t want to look at him anymore. You don’t want to die with his face as the last thing you see. You’d rather die looking at the moon. But against his ironclad grip, your head doesn’t move. You struggle, but Aventurine’s face remains. Your eyes start to glaze, and your mind begins to fill with cotton, but it's burned away by a particularly forceful squeeze, which quickly lightens, but the damage has been done. 

Your tongue is drying. Your vision spots. Not with black, not with the shade of ink you’ve grown used to, but it spots with light. Sunlight. You’re being cradled in the sunlight. Warm and soft, but you’re wretched out of that false sense of security when your body begins to blaze.

Something burning and cold and wonderful enters your nostrils and mouth—air, air, air air air air you need air air air air air—

The air doesn’t come rushing in like you’ve seen described in books. It painfully pumps into you, but it’s vastly preferable to the pain you were experiencing just a few moments ago. Your head slumps, turning to the moon's salvation—but you see only the clouds.

When your lungs stop burning, and your breathing returns to normal, Aventurine gently pulls you up into his lap, where he leans against the headboard. A single arm draped over your waist confines you to his chest. His other hand is out of sight. When he’s sure you aren’t getting away, he takes a breath, and his hidden hand comes to tip your head up. 

His eyes all at once resemble an aphotic ocean and a flooding dam. You aren’t sure where it comes from, but you realize that, for this brief moment, he has dropped his facade. 

“If you want to die,” he says, quietly, softly, almost vulnerably. You must have brain damage, if this is how he sounds. “this is how it’ll happen. By my hand. By my choice. And trust me when I say it’s infinitely better than anything you could do with your own hands,” he removes his hand from your chin to intertwine it with your own, all at once invasive and sweet, “I promise, (Name).”

Your chest begins to flood with a sob. It comes out wrangled and inhuman, but he only clutches you closer. Strangely, he doesn’t lap up your tears. Like many nights before and to come, you pass out, weighed by the agony of living with a man so obvious and indecipherable.

Your last thought before finally shutting your eyes is that Aventurine won’t be throwing you out anytime soon. You do not celebrate the thought, not entirely, anymore. It’s only much later that you realize why: he finally succeeded in forcing a small part of himself into you. 

—

When you pass out from complete exhaustion, Aventurine quietly tucks your head deeper into his chest. He thinks about yanking apart his ribcage, forcing you into it, and then pinning you there as he forces it shut. It’s begun to rain outside. It pitter-patters, booming in his ears, and nearly shreds his ears apart.

[But a part of you likes it when you drag them down to your level, right, Kakavasha?]

—

His master swirls a glass of red wine. It may as well have been blood; bought by blood, drank in the wake of blood, and spilled into blood. Kakavasha pursues his lips, to not scream in agony as the wine sears his wound; but it will be okay. He is used to weathering the sun, trudging through heavy sand, with his mouth drier than the sand. He can withstand this searing heat. He’s already withstood iron-hot metal pressed into his skin for minute after agonizing minute, no matter his involuntary cries and tears and pleas to stop. 

But that was an exception. The desert has long dried his tears. 

Besides, this is a ‘reward.’ For triumphing yet again. For surviving yet again. So the master sees it fit to briefly lavish him in luxury. At least it’s fitting for the occasion, Kakvasha thinks, the wine puddling out like blood. He waits for it to end. He’s already battered and bloody, beaten down, and he doesn’t need his neck chaffed and bleeding. Every yank of his chain evaporates energy he cannot afford to lose, cannot sacrifice or else there won’t be a bet he can emerge lucky from.

And, he admits. He’s a little (no, very) afraid of being brought to the edge between life and death again. He doesn’t want to be chained to the wall again, and have the chain around his neck pulled further and further away—

A sneer that would get him tortured spreads across his face. His face is already forced to the ground, so he’s not too worried. 

“My lucky hound,” his master drawls, “stay with me. You did pretty well; it’d be a shame if I had to reevaluate you if you pass out just from this. C’mon, gimme a lil’ bark.” 

He wipes his sneer and looks up with a practiced expression: defiant, but sanded down with fear; feisty, but compliant. Just enough fight to entertain, but not enough to be a nuisance. “Alive and kicking,” he grunts. It’s a strange mix of genuine and manufactured, biting back his cries of pain. It took him a bit to figure out what his master liked, but all that matters is that he got there. It’s fine, he tells himself. He doesn’t need to know how much he’s using him, too. “And savoring your gift.” He’s sure it’s the right answer, but the slight tremor indicates the awful anticipation he has for the results. If it isn’t, then everything he’s done to get here would all have been for nothing. He cannot afford to fumble his gamble now. 

Luckily (ha!), it was the right answer. He’s given something his master can poke and prod at, and he’s gladly taken it. “I thought I asked you to bark,” he snarls, and the flaming wine ceases. But it’s for a reason, for he soon gets a kick to the stomach. It knocks the air out of him, but if his master were truly offended, he would’ve done much, much worse. Kakavasha coughs, just enough to suggest that he’s sorry and begging for forgiveness, but not enough to seem desperate and begging for a release and to stop stop stop— “Speaking is for humans. Honestly, I don’t even know why you Sigonian hounds were born with mouths. Universe’d be a better place if slaves like you were born with their mouths sewn shut—by the Aeons, do you disgust me!” he scratches his chin before a smirk twists his face, “Though, ‘suppose that would mean I wouldn’t be able to hear the dogs whimper.” A shoe grinds into his stomach. He wants to see all of Kakavasha’s face then. “So, you gonna bark, or what?” 

Kakavasha doesn’t need to act much, this time. His face falls into grim acceptance; the face he made when heat emanated from his neck; the face he made when the doors to his cell closed; the face he made when he saw the sand bury his sister’s body. Although the expression this time isn’t genuine, it’s not quite fabricated, either. 

It’s fine. It’s fine. This is but one gamble. Acquiesce to his whims just enough, and then strike. 

Soon, wine pools at his feet. But the wine in his master’s hand hasn’t all spilled, yet. Memories flit by in his mind: his master, flaunting his wealth in front of him. 

“Humans wear clothes, accessories, and jewelry…dream all you want, but an animal can never become what it’s fated not to be.” His master’s voice echoes. 

His limp and cold hand is adorned in rings. His still wrist holsters a beautiful watch and tasteful bangle. Kakvasha takes a sip of the wine. It burns, dripping down his throat. It leaves his tongue rancid and as dry as the desert. 

He supposes that’s what it means to be human, then. 

—

When you wake up, pain radiates throughout your neck and legs. Absently, your hand goes to your neck to relieve it but meets soft cotton. Gauze. He must’ve disinfected your wound (brand, that bastard branded me get him out of me I’ll—) when you passed out.

You close your eyes and try to fall back asleep but to no avail. With a moan, and then a hiss of pain, you roll over on your side. You see a note, a couple of pills, and a glass of water have been placed on your nightstand. With concentrated effort, you sit up and read the note. 

Darling, dearest, love of my life, (you’d scoff if it didn’t hurt like hell to even breathe)

A painkiller. One every three hours. I suggest you take it if you want to get through the day comfortably, so please don’t spend your day staring at them in contempt like they’ve killed your dog. Contrary to what you might think, I do care for your comfort. (You feel a jolt of anger through your spine) I’ll try to be back a half hour or so earlier, but if fortune’s on my side, I’ll be back to you a full hour earlier. Wouldn’t that just be amazing? Actually, let me do a coin flip to gauge today’s fortune—oh! Look at that! Seems that it’s an hour. You won’t be lonely for long, I promise. (You frown) Business is wrapping up, so we’re leaving today, but I’ve already packed your bags. Focus on yourself, sweetheart, and get plenty of rest. And before you start overthinking things, I’m not worried at all. You won’t be forgetting anytime soon, and you’re not going anywhere. (You grit your teeth)

Use lots of ice on your neck! It helps a ton. And eat soft foods that go down easy; broth, oatmeal, the works. Now that’s what I call a good excuse to gorge on ice cream; not too much though, you *might* just throw up. And no, you can’t break the windows. Literally. I know you have your impulsive moments, but you’ve gotta be conservative with your energy today. I’ll make sure you are. If not…well, you like guessing games, right? Haha, now I really do have to go. I can’t believe you got me writing such a long letter! Alright, see you later, sweetheart. 

Love, Aventurine. 

You stare at the signature. Love, Aventurine sounding over and over in your mind, hitting the walls and coming back in a cracking echo. Love—a knife impales you—Aventurine—and you’re eaten alive.

Love, love, love, love, love.

You force yourself to look at the painkillers. You have no reason to believe him, but he doesn’t have any reason to lie to you. You decide not to take them.

Instead, you take a few slow sips of water, letting it coat your throat and tongue thoroughly. Then you force your sore body to the kitchen. You stumble, you trip, but you still make it to the countertop. It’s not complicated. Your mind can’t process complexity in its current state anyway. 

It’s simple. You yank a knife from the block and plunge it into your chest, through your ribs, and into your heart. Blood gushes out like a waterfall, glistening like a ruby in the light of the dawn. You grin, pain wobbling your mouth, and swiftly cut open your stomach. Bile creeps up your throat as you gag violently, until you finally retch on the elongated mess of your intestines, unraveling into a bunch. You laugh hysterically when you notice that it looks like a horribly butchered plate of spaghetti—hilarious. It’s all nearly too much to bear, but there’s more work to be done. You’re still thinking; that just won’t do. You raise your knife, the tip shining in the sun and sparkling through your tears, and slam your forehead into it, finally putting an end to your existence.

That’s what should’ve happened. But the knife hasn’t taken that first plunge, yet. You will your arm to rectify the mistake. It only shakes harder. And then everything from the night before rushes to your head, and ink clouds everything and everything and—

You can’t do it. Not by your own hand.

You violently throw the knife into the sink and collapse to the ground in a brutal sob.

You never attempt it again.

—

He was wrong about something. Your shattered limit would never end with his demise—it was yours. 

(Is he really surprised? Or was he in denial this whole time?)

He’s not sure how to feel, that you’d rather destroy yourself than kill when backed into a corner. But he can at least understand that urge of yours to take someone else down with you; only, that person isn’t him, this time. 

The wall you have built crumbles, and he wonders if you care if your destruction ends up killing another unintentionally; if that part of yourself has been killed, or if it has been so twisted that you are born anew. But that’s a bit silly. You can destroy yourself, but you won’t ever lose yourself, even if you become fractured. That’s what experience has taught him, and it is both excruciatingly painful and relieving. 

You’ve pinned him down. Your eyes are wide and dilated, and that spark of life within them is just nearly dimmed out; and yet, beneath that spark, something awful and alive pulsates. They hold an unabashed focus, yet they also look past him. For a rare moment, he is completely taken aback, and cannot conceal his surprise and dubious, almost hesitant delight. But he drops the hesitation. It’s fatal for him.

(His heart nearly stops. Is he pinned to the ground, or is he looking into a mirror? He almost feels like he’s been turned inside out)

“What. Were. You. Thinking?” It’s your voice, but he can’t help but think it takes on a cadence similar to his own. He can see that awful creature brandish its claws.

As much as he enjoys seeing such a creature, he cannot allow himself to be ripped apart by it. He’ll assert his control, and you’ll back off, the same as it’s always been. But he doesn’t quite mind being pinned down by you, so he’ll allow it for the moment. “You watch me gamble all the time, dearest.” He tilts his head, knowing just how much it pisses you off. “I don’t see how that’s gotten you so worked up—and you’ve been so sweet lately.”

Your jaw trembles, like a dog, he thinks, on the verge of barking and biting an intruder. Yet, a part of him also tells him that isn’t quite right. “You played Russian Roulette.” Drip, drip, sounds the blood of his challenger, but such a sound has been white noise all his life. 

He smirks. “Are you jealous?” he teases, “Did you want to kill me, or were you hoping to take the bullet yourself?” 

You, ever so slightly, begin to shake. “No,” you respond, without any sense of the word. “Answer my question,” you demand. He’s a little surprised because you so rarely make demands. He can see the beast grind its teeth, gnashing at the mere idea of his flesh, drooling its filth in gluttonous anticipation. But he knows you so, so, so very well. He can smell your fear—but of what? Fear that you might not be able to personally exact vengeance? He’s a little lost, for once. But he’ll know soon enough, he supposes. He continues with his usual demeanor.

“Mmm,” he hums nonchalantly, making you shake in agitation. “Well, I suppose I’m in no position to refuse. It was a good gamble with a good thrill, of course! I thought you knew this.” He knows you don’t believe that entirely, having spent so much time with him. The look in your eyes tells him it was the answer you were expecting. But you still aren’t satisfied. You still haven’t strewn his guts about the floor, to join the foolish challenger. 

You do not respond, remaining as still as you can be. He decides to encourage you; you can’t just lead him on like this, you know. 

He cups your cheek. “What’s wrong?” he goads. “Or have you finally come around to just how irresistible I am?” 

The blood’s aroma has wafted over. Your eyes glaze impossibly further. The beast breaks its chains. 

“I want to hollow out your chest,” you admit. His heart stops, and it’s only through years of practice that his face doesn’t instantly break out in shock. “And burrow into it, so I can listen to your heartbeat and feel the expanse of your lungs pressing into me with your every breath,” you shake, near violently, and you take each breath as if it’ll be your last. His own heart begins to beat erratically; he’s excited, he doesn’t know what’ll happen, but whatever it is he needs to have have have it— “I want to breathe in your blood, taste your heart, blood, sustain myself on nothing—” Aventurine feels a thread be pulled apart. “—on nothing but you!” You cry out, leaning in closer as you collapse to your knees and elbows, practically exchanging air with him. You’ve finally begun to cry, and with it, the beast has come—

No, he thinks. It’s already ripping apart his flesh. Your tears fall onto his face. His heart beats faster and faster; just as fast as when he hid in those bloody puddles all those years ago. 

“If you die…I might just join you, because…there’s really nothing else for me…” you sob, face contorting in a way he finds so breathtakingly pathetic and beautiful. For a moment, your mouth curls down, not maliciously, but with a determined promise. “If you die…I’m pulling the trigger, not some random sap in a casino.”

Oh. You…you remembered. Of course, you did. You never would forget. You couldn’t ever forget. His chest feels numb with how brutally his heart has beaten it. 

He feels something cool seep into his pants and legs. Blood. So familiar it’s like a second skin.

He is well acquainted with the touch of ice. How could he not? The time spent with you feels like a (fragile) eternity, and in it, he has glued himself to you; and you’ve, however unwittingly, froze him in place. Even if he’s always been able to force you into the desert with him, there are still those moments when a nigh unbearable cold seeps down into his bones, threatening to kill him, to preserve his dead body to be dusted and ogled at whenever the master of the house needs to show off their private collection to guests. But he feels it melting. He feels the cold you’ve desperately embraced crackle. 

You sob, a sound of euphoric despair that has him resisting his every urge to cradle you, and confess the truth; confess your want.

“I love you, Aventurine,” you take in a shuddering gasp. 

His heart explodes. It is then he realizes that he, too, has gasped, and is breathing irregularly. That his composure has shattered without his realization. 

“I love you…” you cough, no longer able to hold back your breakdown, the volcano of your emotions erupting in a destructive blaze that killed a part of you; the part of you that’d been holding on. Flora and flowers burn, snow becomes hellfire, and any and all life is replaced by a hungering beast desperate to keep itself satiated. 

But only Aventurine can satiate it. A blush dusts his cheeks.

“I love you, I love you,” you hiccup and sob, repeating the mantra like a prayer (to a devil in velvet), “I love you I love you I love you I love you.” And then you finally collapse on him, a pile of bricks and rubble and dust. You curl into his chest, over his violet heartbeat. “Don’t throw me away…don’t l-leave me…” he immediately secures your waist. It’s a disgusting implication. Why would he do that to you of all people? “I need you,” and his heart soars. A smile finally cracks his face, shattering something deep inside of him. 

[No, no, Kakavasha, that’s really quite wrong. You haven’t been whole for a very, very long time.] 

And then something brief surfaces in you, a small piece of useless reasoning, “and it’s your f-fault I’m like this…” That’s very true, which is why he needs to take responsibility. Which is why he has to continue keeping you, caring for you, and brutalizing you. The blood has trailed down to his back.

And then you’re back to sobbing, and practically howl, “Please, please Aventurine, tell me you love me and won’t ever let me go!” you beg, and entirely break down into a concentrated sob, distant from reality. You blabber, likely unaware, utterly lovely and incoherent words. The blood has reached the back his head.

His entire body shudders, rapturing him into a pile of broken flesh. He can’t hold back. He holds you tighter than before. It snaps you out of your daze, your body instinctively flinching away, but his grip doesn’t cease; it can’t cease, because if it does you two may never truly meld with one another. He sits up, positioning you so you straddle and completely rely on him for support. He looks at you. His long-lasting appetite has finally been satiated, but now a new one takes hold of his shaking form, his excitement electric and bloody.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he shudders breathlessly, just barely keeping himself from pouncing, “that was beautiful—you’re beautiful,” he pants, as his hunger grows painful, “how could I refuse such a heartfelt and adorable confession? You’re so perfect. You’re the other side of my coin…”

[Took you long enough.]

“...yes,” he groans, “I’d love to bring you down with me, and to tear you apart if I’m back in that dawnless land.” Because you aren’t leaving him, nor could you survive if he plummets back into that land. But you’re still coming with him because you need him (and so does he).

The dawn shines on the two of you, and finally, he kisses you. You’re too dazed to reciprocate, but you offer no resistance at all. But it’s a (relatively) chaste kiss, as he pulls back to whisper against your lips, wholly reverent. “I knew you were the one,” he confesses, and he sees your blush deepen, your eyes widen, “Thank you, for destroying yourself for me,” he brushes your cheek, “It’s truly an honor, sweetheart.”

You blink, eyes wide with tears, and just as he’s about to caress them away your mouth twitches—almost like you’re glitching as if the very expression was some bug in a game—and then you laugh. And it isn’t crazed, it isn’t weighed by madness, nor does it carry that familiar undertone of despair and fear he’s become so used to hearing from you—it’s warm like the dawn has cut through the rain to shine on him.

It’s that lovely laugh which the sun shines overhead and erases any shadow of doubt:

You’re insane. You’ve frozen over in hell, and have shattered yourself into pieces to melt into it.

If ‘I love you, Aventurine’ was the straw that broke the camel’s back, then your laughter is what made the camel burst and seep into searing, soulless sand.

It makes sense. Only someone destroyed and insane could love Aventurine.

(Kakavasha was dead. His hands are sticky, his chains rusty with blood and his throat burns)

[Is he? Or do you just need him to be dead? No matter how you slice it, I still see that same boy who clung to his Big Sis till the very end.]

But he’s a selfish man. If you give him your love, then he’ll gladly take it. 

[Tsk, tsk. A desperate man, Kakavasha.]

But more importantly, there’s a feeling in his heart. It’s the feeling of a peaceful day beneath the scorching sun, of when he wins a game, of when he and his sister were just themselves with each other. All of it coalesces into something he hasn’t felt in—no, something he may have never truly felt until now:

Happiness. 

[The closet thing you can call happiness, you mean.]

And is that feeling that has him lift you up, and spin and twirl with you in his arms. It is sheer elation, a hedonism that is so self-serving yet selfless all at once—sheer bliss—that fills him. This: this is what he wants to feel. Your laughter is infectious, permeating his body and sapping it of rationality, but he does not try to fight this virus. For he is happy. The corner of his eyes crinkle; he is unused to the feeling.

He laughs and laughs with you. His clothes and shoes are tracking blood. Normally the thought of even rain getting on his clothes disgusts him, but now, all he can think about is basking in this crimson victory. The dawn shines on you both, commemorating your unholy union. 

You really are perfect for him, he thinks. Because he must be insane too, when he laughs like a crazed dog—the same dogs he nearly drowned in bloodied water to get away from. 

—

You both deserved a treat. He whisked you away to a room—he can deal with the casino room later, call on a few favors—because you deserve his utmost attention, as he does yours. The prospect of your complete attention, entirely unfettered, excites him.

It’s a fine room. The bed is large and soft, the bath is large and pleasant, and the view is utterly breathtaking. But neither of you cares about that. You could be rolling in sewage and shit and you’d still look at him the way he looks at you, still enter demented laughter and twisted joy, still parade under that veneer of love. 

He gets his fill, as do you—but you both know neither of you will ever be sated, not when you two can’t be joined together in the ways you want to. 

The dawn is rich and bright, shining on the waking and sending the begging crawling away into the shadows. You breathe softly, utterly exhausted. A complete 180 from just a few moments ago. Your arms wrap weakly around him, tucking yourself into him snugly. His kisses, imprinted with your blood, create a field of flowers on your face. As does his own. …He makes a note to tip room service extra for the bloodied sheets. There’s a reason he doesn’t dress (as) extravagantly for when he needs to get his hands dirty. 

Perhaps after this, he’ll gift you something truly special, he thinks. His earring’s twin has just been gathering dust, and that just wouldn’t do. And it would be quite romantic to get your ears pierced by him, too. His heart beats at the thought. He’s sure you’ll agree to it if it’s by his hand; perhaps you can make a date out of it~? Maybe, after this, you’ll wear his gifts of your own accord. Small things, for when you go out, a modest bracelet or watch, a tasteful necklace (of ownership). Nothing overt so as to not draw any thieving eyes, but something to signify to those that know what to look for that you aren’t to be messed with. As for when you’re inside and home…he still remembers how red your face got, and the curses you threw at him. And then you’ll finally concede that his taste is actually pretty solid (don’t worry, it's not a sore spot in the slightest! He’s more mature than that). 

He feels a bit of pride at your exhaustion, smiling as he recalls the beginning of your tryst: 

“I…erm…wanna…well, I can d-do some of the work,” you said, flustered and embarrassed by the mere admission. He found it endearing, that you could confess your desire to burrow into him and then stammer when asking him for something. You really did hate the idea of using him, didn’t you?

(He doesn’t bother dissecting what kind of smile he makes)

However, a single moment is on repeat in his mind. His hand absently drifts to the crook of his neck, weeping but a few minutes ago. Your teeth, sinking in so deeply, intimately, just on the verge of ripping a chunk of his flesh out; you were practically dining on him. It sent him over the edge. 

When you pulled away and looked at him, he was again taken aback at what he saw.

Your lips, slightly parted and utterly breathless, speckled with rouge. Your cheeks were red hot with adoration. Your eyes, brimming with love and care and everything he couldn’t believe someone besides his own family could direct toward him.

(But your love is very different from his family’s. They wanted to nourish. You want to devour. But he sees nothing to criticize there—indulge, and he will gladly indulge back, until there’s nothing left of either of you)

But what truly pushes him over the edge, is the smile you give, softly stained in crimson. It is pure and untainted, angelic and sweet, soft and warm like how the dawn kisses his cheek. It is as if this love of yours was born not of a tower’s rubble but of whispered secrets and touches shared in the shadow of moonlight. It’s as if the love you show him now would’ve been what he got if he was a more selfless man (if he were any other man). You both know he does not deserve the love in your eyes—it is the last thing you owe him. Yet you give it to him anyway.

You are utterly insane. And now that he knows what insanity on you looks like,

He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

But before he can shut his eyes for an hour or two of respite, there’s something he has to do. He promised many things as you both feasted, but there are two absolute ones he has to reaffirm. Two absolute ones you wanted so badly that you unleashed a frozen inferno. 

“I’ll never leave you,” he promises, “And never would. I admit, it stung a bit for you to fear that from me, but…I’ll make it up to you tenfold, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you don’t feel that way ever again,” He kisses your cheek gently. He pictures your response and giggles. “Yeah, I’m being sappy, but you’re,” he boops your nose with each following word, “just~. As~. Guilty~.” You stir with a soft groan, but it’s not enough to rouse you. After a short while, you nuzzle your head further into his neck with a sleepy sigh. Something tells him that even asleep, you’ll somehow know what he’s telling you. Your lips come to rest on the gift you gave him, as if even in sleep you’d rip him apart. His heart flutters. “You’re so sweet…” he exhales with a shudder, “seriously, how do you manage it? Not that I mind, of course…anything but…” he plays with a strand of your hair. Candy and clouds and raw flesh burst on his tongue all at once; a flavor of sickly sweet rot he can’t get enough of. He smiles, a soft and predatory thing, and his lips drift to his favorite spot.

But don’t get him wrong—every part of you is lovely and he would kill to vivisect you if only it didn’t mean killing you and putting you in extreme pain. It’s those two latter thoughts that largely quell his desire to do so. 

(Maybe he would enjoy it, but only for a moment, only for so as long as the euphoria and awe of seeing all of you lasts. If you did die—especially with cries and shrieks of pain—he would sob, curling around your body…and then he would take you with him, so when he goes to that place, you’d be with him on that very first step)

It’s where he first bit you on the luckiest day of his life; a lucky charm. It’s bruised and tender, red and ugly and scarred. Renewed countless times, it is beyond repair. Moments ago it held a crimson sheen, but its been smeared throughout your collarbone and shoulder. It looks like a red mist, a curling wisp of smoke that dirties clouds and infects rainwater. He brings you impossibly closer, to keep you from becoming red mist. But he also realizes that should he squeeze too hard, you might end up as mist anyway. But if that’s how you become mist, at least you’ll have been in his arms; be with him.

(As if to keep you far, far, far away from the rainwater which had swirled with a thick, red mist—to keep you from breathing in it, from having to hide so you don’t end up like the cold bodies which float beside you)

His lips seemingly slot in with the spot perfectly. It only makes sense. It was today where you’ve melded yourself to him.

(And he’s melded himself to you for a long time. Against his better judgment and sense, he melded himself to you; at the time it was only the idea of you, but it didn’t take long for it to be you.)

He sighs in content, but he still has another promise to make. 

“We’ll be together, you and I. Two sides of a single coin can face away from each other, but they can’t exist separate from each other. You’re pretty smart, so I’m sure you get it,” yes, he has plenty of faith in you, sweet thing, but he can’t help but ramble, “and it’s because I love you, (Name).” He says it so tenderly, your name, and unexpectedly (or very expectedly) something he thought he’d never feel ever again invades his chest, and it forces itself out, “I love you, I love you,” he thinks his grip has tightened and that his heart has started to race and that he’s shaking but he doesn’t care about that right now and he doesn’t care if he has been losing composure without his notice. “I love you I love you I love you. You have no idea just how much I want to devour you, just how much I want you tethered to me. How much I need you to be unable to live without me. If I’m alive, you’re alive. If I’m dead…you said it yourself. You’ll follow me. It just needs to be by my hand, and you’ll follow me. You won’t have to worry about being alone, being without me. And it’s all because…

I love you.” 

He dimly realizes that something salty has trailed to his lips. Are you awake? Or are you having a nightmare? Either way, he moves like he has so many other times, to remind you that he’d be there, even at your most vulnerable. He goes up to kiss your eyes and lick your cheek, but nothing’s there. 

Something flutters against his cheek. You’re awake, and he feels something warm and wet travel on his cheek. He’s not sure what he feels, when he looks up to you.

(What does his face look like?)

You blink, eyes bleary with sleep and weighted with content. But tinged with the sleep and contentment, there’s another thing, which makes everything within him burn. Which makes him shake and his heart nearly explodes.

Dimly, he realizes that the fallout of your destruction wasn’t just limited to you. He’s buried beneath the fire and rubble, too. 

[And it’s lovely.]

And then (at that moment), for some reason (for all the reasons), he buries his head in your chest (into your heart), 

To sob in the sunlight, soothed by the hands that unraveled him.

#yandere #yandere hsr #yandere aventurine #destroyed onset #aventurine x reader #yandere aventurine x reader #yandere x you #yandere hsr x reader #tw noncon #tw suicide #next fic is gonna be sitcom esque #the calm before the storm 😉 #and also because i need to write the reader being happy in a #not fucked up way LMFAO

[sinkovia]

Polaroids

Simon Riley x Fem!Reader

Angst, mention of suicide, mention of death.

Underneath the winter sky, the world transformed into a pristine landscape of snow-covered fields and frost-kissed trees. You and Simon found yourselves amidst this winter wonderland, bundled up against the chill, ready to capture a moment frozen in time.

With the camera in your hand, you pulled Simon close, wrapping your arm around him as you both huddled together for a picture. There was anticipation in the air as you counted down. "Three!" you exclaimed, and just as the flash burst into life, Simon seized the opportunity. A mischievous grin played on his lips as he swiftly smashed a snowball onto your head right at the moment the picture was taken.

"Simon!" a mix of laughter and surprise in your voice. Your hair was dusted with snow, and you looked at him with mock indignation, but the gleam in your eyes hinted at joy. Simon, with a mischievous grin, reveled in the success of his snow assault.

The snowball ambush marked the beginning of a delightful chaos. Laughter echoed through the winter air as you both dodged, ducked, and retaliated with fluffy ammunition. The pristine landscape transformed into a battleground, each throw leaving its mark on the snowy canvas.

As you dodged and weaved, Simon's infectious laughter filled the air, his playful spirit contagious. Eventually, he closed the distance between you, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. You felt a mischievous glint in his eyes, and before you could react, he playfully brought you down into the soft snow. The cold powder cushioned the fall, and you found yourself rolling together, laughter bubbling up between you.

In the midst of the snowy tussle, the world around you blurred into a playful dance of white. The winter air was filled with the sounds of your laughter and the soft crunch of snow.

Eventually, the playful roll came to a gentle stop, leaving you on top of Simon. Amidst the falling glistening snowflakes, you looked into each other's eyes, the two of you catching your breath between fits of laughter.

As your laughter gradually faded into a contented quiet, you leaned down, your smile lingering, and pressed your lips to his in a soft kiss. The softness of the snow beneath you mirrored the tenderness of the stolen moment, and the world seemed to disappear, leaving only the two of you in your snowy sanctuary.

In the midst of this tender exchange, a soft click resonated. You turned your gaze to the right, where Simon held up the camera, capturing another candid moment, immortalizing the post-snowball fight kiss.

Taking the polaroid, you began to huff warm air onto it, warding off the haziness that the cold weather threatened to impose. Squinting at the image, a frown creased your features.

"What's wrong, love?"

"My face is all hazy, damn cold weather."

"Let me see." you turned the photo over so he could examine it with squinted eyes.

"Hmm, only a little, but why would I look at a picture when I'll always have you next to me?" Shaking your head, you kissed him again. "For memories, Si."

Those words echoed in Simon's mind as he held the Polaroid in his hand, sitting alone on a bench. The serene snowy landscape looked dull and gray without you. It had been a year since you passed, your life cut short by a drunk driver hitting the passenger side of the car. The memory of that tragic day haunted him, and the Polaroid served as a bittersweet reminder of the love and laughter that once filled his life.

In the quiet solitude, Simon vividly recalled the moment he turned to look at you in the passenger seat. Laughter filled the car as you both shared a moment over an awful joke. He just wanted another glimpse of you laughing, savoring the way you closed your eyes and held a hand to your stomach in pure joy. Your radiant smile, the tears in your eyes—he longed to see your radiance, a sight he had always cherished.

Then came the headlights on the other side of the passenger window. Panic set in, and Simon tried to react, to steer away, anything to shield you from the impending danger. But it was too late. The impact sent the car flipping several times before landing upright. Simon, initially dazed, was jolted into awareness by the sound of your labored attempts to breathe, a shard of glass embedded on the left side of your neck.

You turned to look at him, tears streaming down your face. Pure desperation filled his gaze as he swiftly unbuckled his seatbelt, reaching over to hold your neck in an attempt to stop the blood spurting from your neck.

"S…si…" Your eyes conveyed agony as your choked attempts at breathing became more shallow.

"Shh, sweetheart, it's okay baby. You're gonna be okay, I promise." He spoke with a tremor in his voice, desperately denying the gravity of the situation when your hand fell limp from your neck, landing in your lap. He reassured himself that you were still alive.

"Help is coming, baby, I promise. Just hang in there, okay? For me, can you do that for me, baby?" His words were a desperate plea, and when he heard you stop trying to breathe, he continued to deny the reality, reassuring himself that you were still alive.

"Just breathe slow, sweetheart. Please, just breathe, baby. Please just—" When your head slumped against his shoulder, he felt his hands begin to shake, a lump forming in his throat that made it hard for him to speak.

"Y/n, baby, I need you to lift… I need you to lift your head up, baby. I can't… I can't." He choked out a sob as his hands slowly moved away from your neck. He started heaving in breaths as he threw open the driver door and collapsed on the ground. His chest tightened, and his heart raced a million miles per hour. He couldn't bear to see your lifeless body. He clawed at his chest as a sharp pain tore through.

He was having a heart attack.

The paramedics arrived just in time to tend to Simon, nearly saving his life, a fact he later cursed them for. Why couldn't they just let him follow you into the afterlife?

Staring at the two Polaroids in his hand, he longed to go back to that day. Back to a time when everything that reminded him of you didn't cause insurmountable pain, a time when he still felt warmth—a time when you were still alive.

Despite the accident not being his fault, Simon carried the burden of self-blame, haunted by the regret of not noticing the oncoming car. The echoes of that fateful day lingered, casting a shadow over the stark winter scene surrounding him. Rising from the bench, he walked back to the house you once shared—a place you had made a home.

In the hallway, he stopped and looked at the framed photo of both of you, taken on your first date. You insisted on framing it, and he softly smiled, almost hearing your voice echo through the walls of the house.

He continued walking until he reached the edge of the bed, where he sat down and pulled out his phone, dialing 911.

"911, what's your emergency?"

“I heard gunshots at my neighbor's house, the address is 1311 Amberville Rd,” he reported stoically before hanging up and reaching for the metal box under his side of the bed. Slowly opening it, he revealed a pistol.

He tried his best to carry on, to honor the memories you had together, to keep you alive through the love in his heart. However, the weight of living without you became unbearable. Tired of waking up each day without you by his side, exhausted from the relentless nightmares that plagued him.

He was simply tired of experiencing life without you.

He took the gun from the box, raising it to his temple. Without hesitating he pulled the trigger.

His eyes flew open, and he quickly sat up in bed, confusion clouding his gaze as he realized it looked just like your shared home. The surroundings appeared brighter, more vivid than before. Slowly getting up, he walked through the hallway, glancing at the framed picture on the wall before searching the entire house, only to find it empty. Opening the front door, he stepped outside, the soft crunch of snow under his shoes echoing with each step. The snow seemed to stretch out for miles, and trees covered in a thin layer of snow surrounded the yard.

Furrowing his brows at the unfamiliar scene, he noticed it was odd—they never had trees in their front yard. He remembered your dream of having big oak and willow trees. He smiled when he remembered the small pout you made when he told you that trees take years to grow full size.

Suddenly, a snowball crashed onto the side of his head. He heard your laughter and turned wide-eyed to see you running up, tackling him to the soft snowy ground. Rolling with you until he stopped, you ended up on top of him. He looked up at you in disbelief, tears welling in his eyes. Cupping your face with shaky hands, he questioned if it was too good to be true. Was he dreaming again? No, this felt too real. You felt too real.

“Y/n?” You smiled and gently pressed your lips to his.

“You came too early, Si.” He shook his head, his eyes bouncing all over your features. “I didn't come soon enough. I'm sorry I kept you waiting, love.” You smiled as you gazed down at him, your heart swelling. He combed his fingers through your hair.

“I missed you so much, sweetheart.” You nestled your head in the crook of his neck. He took in a deep breath, your scent filling him with warmth. “I missed you too, Si.”

#call of duty #cod fanfic #cod #This was almost fluff #cod modern warfare #cod mw2 #cod mw3 #cod x reader #call of duty modern warfare #writers #cod mwii #mention of death #mention of blood #mention of suicide #simon riley cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley angst #simon riley #simon x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost riley fanfiction #cod angst #angst #ghost angst #ghost cod

[pedroslittlelady]

Just You & Me, Darlin'

joel miller x f!reader (18+)

A/N: OMG Okay, I'm actually doing this! I'm posting something for the first time in over 4 years and I'm super nervous. Pedro Pascal just has me by the titties, and so do all of you wonderful writers and artists I've been so inspired by, so here is my little contribution 🫣💕

You can also read this on my ao3 if you prefer 😊

summary: When Tommy returns to the QZ without you, Joel is both terrified and furious but he’s determined to get you back safe no matter what.

tags/warnings: 18+ Explicit | Minors Do Not Interact Please! no use of y/n, boston qz, fluff, hurt/comfort, mention of suicidal thoughts, slight exhibitionism, explicit smut, unprotected piv, no description of female reader, other than joel can pick you up and kinda implied age gap, squirting, emotional sex, unbeta'd, use of pet names (sweetheart, baby, darlin', baby girl). oh and you're both super in love so :) I think that's it.

word count: 5.9k

Joel’s heart was fluttering within his chest, nerves and excitement flooding him as he made his way up the steps of his apartment building. If all had gone well, you were due back from the week-long smuggling run outside of the QZ today, and he had been stuck on work duty for most of it. 

He hadn’t been able to go with you since someone had needed to stay back and protect their store of goods and ration cards from being stolen in their absence, they’d learned this the hard way. 

And in his mind he’d drawn the short straw.

Joel would much rather be out there with you than stuck here wondering if you were okay. Here, he was unable to do anything if something went wrong but he knew you, the little hell-raiser that you were could definitely handle yourself. 

The both of you had agreed when you first started sleeping together that it shouldn’t mess with the business, it gave you all a more comfortable life in the QZ than most got to have after all. 

Even after falling hard for one another following the sharing of your past within whispered cuddles post sex, you both still tried to keep the business professional and that meant trusting one another to watch your own and your partners’ backs. 

As he entered his apartment he was surprised to see Tommy sitting on his couch with his head in his hands. 

Joel’s stomach dropped at the sight, he already knew something was wrong. Heart breaking into a gallop against his sternum he quickly scanned the apartment, the open layout giving him a view of the whole room and you were nowhere in sight.

Joel's hands tightened into fists, his jaw tensing in anger and fear as he focused his intense gaze on his little brother who was now worrying his lip.

“Where is she,” Joel stated more than questioned in his deep southern timbre, his voice thick with emotion. Anger, fear, anguish and dread were all suddenly clogging up his throat. He swallowed to keep it contained, needing to keep his head on straight right now.

“I don’t know brother,” Tommy responded, guilt and slight fear painted his features as he looked up at his older brother.

“The hell do you mean you don’t know?” Joel growled as he prowled closer to his brother who quickly stood from his slumped position. “I trusted you to watch her back, to keep her safe for me!” Joel couldn’t control himself, the emotions from the thought of losing you, of never seeing you again were too much to handle and he grabbed his brother by the neck of his jacket and shook him.

“The deal went bad! Me and Tess got separated from her!” Tommy quickly explained, his hands gripping onto Joel's shaking wrists. “We tried to find her but… shit man, things are more fucked up out there than ever. We were hoping she’d made it back here.”

Joel pushed his brother away from him, afraid he would start swinging. Rage and fear consumed him, tightening his heaving chest as he ran his hands through his greying hair. He quickly stalked over to his weapons stash beneath the floorboards while vile images of you being scared and hurt, being taken by sex traffickers and all manner of other atrocities he’d seen and heard about over all his years surviving in this hell were flooding his mind.

If it was the last thing he did, he’d find you himself and bring you home. The thought of never finding you was unspeakable and he quickly pushed that horrible scenario out of his mind. But then another took its ugly place as he quickly grabbed his go bag; what if he found you dead or dying?

Well that would be the end, wouldn’t it?

He paused before looking at his little brother, standing before him paler than he’d seen him in a long time. Exhaustion was dragging Tommy down and Joel knew that he and Tess had done the best they could to find you; they loved you too.

“I’ll find her and bring her back,” Joel stated.

“I’ll come with-”

“No… thank you, but no. You're exhausted, you’ll just slow me down. If I don’t come back… then I…,” Joel trailed off as he watched anguish and fear become apparent on his little brother's face.

“Joel. Don’t. Please, brother,” Tommy begged, already knowing where Joel’s head was at.

“I can’t…” Joel felt his voice break as tears flooded his vision, blurring the image of his baby brother walking towards him. 

Next thing Joel knew, his brother's arms were around him and Joel let himself feel the rare embrace for just a moment. He and his brother had never been the most affectionate with each other even before the outbreak, so the fact his brother was hugging him so tightly told him Tommy knew exactly what you meant to him. How could he not, with how blatant the two of you were with your lovesick need for each other. You had become his whole world, a quick spiral into passionate need that seemed to drive the two of you from the very moment you became one when he took you on that dirty warehouse floor three years earlier.

His head dipped to Tommy’s shoulder as silent tears rolled down his cheeks and into his patchy beard, into that place where you always kissed him, as if that spot had been made just for you. A place to kiss and lick and nibble like you loved to do when you both were intimate, which was basically whenever you were in the same room as one another, everyone else be damned.

Would Joel ever feel that again? Had you both made all the memories together that you ever would? The last time he saw you flashed in his mind, replacing the ugly panicked images from before. You’d smiled up at him, arms wrapped around one another, foreheads pressed together as you whispered your ‘see you laters’ - never ‘goodbyes’ - to each other, while Tess and Tommy looked on and rolled their eyes in annoyance at your overt pda.

The Joel of before had never been one for public displays of affection, to the point where one woman had broken things off with him because she’d said he was cold, that he didn’t care enough about her. He’d realised later on that she had probably been right. More conscious of how much affection he was giving in front of others than he should have been.

Now though, with you these last few years? Joel didn’t give a single fuck what people thought of how he held your hand, kissed you, sat you on his lap as he made deals with all kinds of people. He loved when you’d do the same, when you would kiss him in that spot that was surely made purely for your mouth while you rolled your hips against his hardening cock. The greedy eyes of lowlifes watching on in pure jealousy of how unashamed you were with showing everyone how wanton you could get for him. His precious little hell-raiser.

Shit, he’d fucked you outside before and hadn’t cared who’d heard. It had actually turned him on to know the residents had heard your desperate and lustful cries as you let him take you from behind in an alleyway between two apartment buildings. Anyone could’ve looked out and seen how Joel Miller got to have you be his, the most vicious beauty in all of Boston, submitting to him, belonging to him.

Joel quickly pulled away from Tommy before he got too emotional about how this day had turned into a fucking real life nightmare. 

As he strode towards his apartment door with his go bag on his back and his weapons tucked away on his person, he rubbed the tears from his eyes and face. He couldn’t look back at Tommy so he roughly pulled open the door and walked out with a quickly uttered, “see you brother.”

While descending to street level Joel struggled to get his emotions under control. It had been a long time since he had cried, since he had felt this scared and helpless, but he pushed through and began to formulate a plan on how he would get out of the QZ through a smuggler tunnel they had created two years ago. Then he would find you so he could bring you home, safe and sound.

There was no other option he would let himself consider from here on out, he needed to focus on his current mission.

Joel steeled himself as he walked out of the apartment building and turned right to head to the closest smuggling route out of the QZ. As he looked up to assess his surroundings he was stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of you standing in front of him.

His eyes widened in shock as you stood before him, a shaky vulnerable look on your pretty as sin face. Joel choked on your name in disbelief and before he knew it his hands were grasping your cheeks and his lips were crushing against yours in a desperate kiss.

He pulled away from your tight embrace to quickly gasp, “What the hell happened, baby?” Before he kissed you again and again and again. So relieved to feel you alive and whole in his arms once more.

But then worry clouded his mind; the look on your face as you saw him notice you replayed in his mind.

Joel once again pulled away from the desperate kisses you both were sharing to truly look into your wide teary eyes.

“Are… are you okay, sweetheart? Are you hurt? Let me see you,” Joel pleaded in a vulnerable whisper. He reluctantly pulled further away so he could assess you until you spoke for the first time since your reunion.

“I’m okay Joel, baby. I’m okay I promise!” You gasped as Joel began to pull up your sleeves and the hem of your shirt to see your slightly bruised and cut skin, clearly searching for a fatal wound like a bite that he thankfully would not find.

“Joel!” You shouted to get his attention, uncaring of the passers-by on the busy street taking notice of your desperate interaction.

Joel stopped his searching as you placed your hands on his cheeks and gave a soft smile when you saw the fear in his eyes recede into a warm relieved look of love that always made your chest flutter in unbelievable happiness, like butterflies bursting with life within you. You had never expected to get to this point with anyone, let alone the cold standoffish brute Joel Miller who had barely seemed to tolerate you the first few weeks after your initial meeting. 

To have this big, dangerous, sometimes scary but protective man look at you like you were his whole world was intoxicating. No wonder you could never keep your hands off of him. 

It had started after the first time you’d fucked, and that’s all it had been meant to be. A desperate fuck after a near death experience, both of you alone and thankful to be alive. You had exchanged no words but a heady look and before you’d known what was happening he was kissing into your mouth before pinning you onto the hard dirty floor and fucking you silly.

You knew he’d been sleeping with Tess at the time, although it wasn’t serious, and you had slipped into Tommy’s bed once or twice, but for years you had respected Joel’s leadership and strength, and of course enjoyed admiring how handsome he really was, but you both had never been particularly close, until then.

After, you had both agreed it wouldn’t happen again. You reluctantly agreed with him even though your legs had felt like jelly after the best orgasms you’d ever been given, having never before been fucked like Joel Miller liked to fuck. 

It happened again of course, the very next night when you took a chance and slipped into his room and cot. He hadn’t said a thing against it, only a cocky, “can’t get enough huh, hell-raiser?” 

After you sucked him to full hardness he’d let you ride him as fast or slow as you wanted while he just watched you. In the wake of your first orgasm Joel had snapped and took control once more by putting you on your back and practically folding you in half. He’d fucked you so hard you’d screamed your pleasure, so loud you had only realised afterward that Tommy and Tess must have been 100% aware of what was happening. But you’d come so hard you’d squirted all over Joel and made a complete mess, but you had seen in Joel’s eyes how much he’d absolutely loved it.

There was no talk of it never happening again after that, only an acknowledgement that business came first. A few months into your arrangement he began cuddling you after sex, asking you not to leave his bed in the sweetest whisper against the back of your head. You had agreed, threading your fingers through his and nodding with a simple, “yes Joel.”

And you hadn’t left, you both barely let the other out of your lovesick sight as you basically moved in with him. Tess and Tommy quickly moved out so they didn’t have to listen to the both of you ‘fucking every goddamn day.’

“I’m fine baby, I promise. Okay?” You kissed Joel softly bringing you back to the present, his arms tightening around you.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if… fuck, I thought you were-” Joel was crushing you against him, lips brushing yours as he spoke. A tremble was in his voice, one you’ve come to know more over the years as he opened up to you about things from his past.

“I’m right here darlin’, right where I’m supposed to be,” you gently spoke while running your hands through his salt and pepper curls. The action always calmed him down.

“I love you so goddamn much, hell-raiser.” Joel smiled against your lips before kissing you again. You chuckled, feeling tears gather in your eyes at the silly pet name he’d given you after your first chaotic introduction years ago which involved you wielding a couple molotov cocktails. The first of many pet names he graced you with, but definitely your favourite.

“I love you too, big guy.”

Your back gently hit the apartment building as Joel increased the pressure of your kisses, a desperation taking over you both as the feeling of being reunited after a close call washed over you once again.

Joel hiked your leg up and ground his hardened cock against your rapidly soaking pussy making you gasp at the sting of pain the suddenness of your arousal wrought as it travelled deep into your rapidly warming core.

“Joel,” you panted into his mouth as he licked at your tongue before sucking it into his mouth with a growl of need you felt emanating from his belly which was pressed tight against yours.

“Fuck, need inside your tight little cunt right now, darlin’,” Joel rumbled before he hastily began to undo your jeans, his lips carving a wet path across your cheek and down your tilting neck. He bit you quick and hard there, marking you; claiming you. You gasped, your arousal seeping from your desperately empty channel and trickling into your panties as you tilted your hips against his rock hard cock.

Joel slipped his thick fingers into your wet slit making you moan into his mouth.

“Get a room,” you heard someone mutter as they walked past. Joel growled before pulling away to glare fiercely at the man who suddenly blanched before quickly scurrying away at the sight of Joel hovering over you with a murderous look in his eyes. 

You giggled at the interaction, drawing his attention back to you, his eyes softening at your mischievous smirk.

“Take me to bed, big guy. Remind me who I belong to,” you murmured before biting your lower lip in anticipation as Joel's eyes turned blacker than the deepest cavern within the fathomless ocean.

He grabbed you by the back of the neck and began to steer you back into the apartment building and up the stairs. You could feel his eyes on your ass before a slap landed there making you squeak excitedly. “Hurry the fuck up, darlin’,” Joel growled with a squeeze to your right cheek making you skip up the stairs quicker, panties practically drenched now.

The next second he was pushing open your apartment door, throwing off his bag and flipping you around to face him so he could kiss you hungrily once more. His thick tongue probed every part of your mouth, overwhelming you. You whimpered, your hands caressing through his hair to scratch gently at his scalp.

His grip on your thighs suddenly let you know what he was about to do and you braced your hands on his broad shoulders as he quickly hoisted you up, your legs wrapping around his hips. You both groaned and panted into one another's mouth at the feel of being pressed together.

You stilled when you heard the clearing of a throat. Joel groaned in annoyance as your lips separated wetly.

“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” Tommy said before covering a slight laugh with a cough, Joel glowered. “But I’m really glad you're okay, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, Tommy. I appreciate it.” You smiled, so glad to see him safe and sound too. You told him this and questioned where Tess was and he informed you that she was just fine also.

“I just wanted to say-” Tommy started to speak.

“Enough said,” Joel growled. “Talk later. We're busy, brother.” Joel raised his brows clearly unabashed at being caught in this position by his baby brother.

“Jeez, alright lover boy-” Tommy rolled his eyes.

“I swear to God Tommy if you don’t get the fuck out of here now I’ll-”

“Okay okay! We’ll catch up later, Christ.” Tommy shook his head but you could see he wasn’t truly annoyed by the relieved look on his face.

As Tommy made his way to the door, a smirk was painted on his handsome face. Joel just pierced him with a frustrated and grumpy glare, you couldn’t help but snort softly while still being held up in his strong arms.

“See you later Tommy, and tell Tess thanks as well when you see her,” you quickly uttered before you forgot all about Tess and Tommy in just a few seconds.

“Will do, sweetheart. See you later. You too, Romeo.” Tommy laughed before darting out the door as fast as he could once he’d heard Joel’s growl of annoyance.

“C’mon baby,” you murmured in his ear before sucking the lobe into your mouth bringing his attention back to you, his eyes softening once more. “Need to feel your big cock inside me, I feel so empty.” You pouted playfully even though you could still feel some of the adrenaline and fear from your near miss swarming inside you. 

You had very nearly not made it home to him and that thought made your heart jump and your hold on your lover tighten. You didn’t know if you could hold back on the avalanche of feeling you knew was headed your way.

“Poor baby,” Joel responded as he carried you to your bed and laid you down, his back not being able to hold you up for much longer, not if he was going to fuck you like you both needed after today. “Don’t you worry darlin’, I got you.”

Joel stood before you and began to remove the various weapons from his body, his dark intense gaze never leaving you as you began to writhe in need.

“Hurry Joel,” you whimpered, a desperation taking over now that you weren’t in his arms anymore. You felt tears gather in your eyes at just how lucky you were to be back here with him, safe and sound. You couldn’t hold back a hiccupping sob threatening to escape you.

Joel took notice and quickly hovered over you, one hand on your hip, the other palming your cheek and wiping a tear away. “You're okay now, baby. I got you.” He kissed your forehead and you could hear him inhale your scent as he did.

“Joel.” You murmured, feeling a little overwhelmed. You needed to release these emotions, and Joel was the best at giving you just what you needed, what you both needed.

“I know, sweetheart. I know,” Joel murmured, his own gaze tear filled meeting yours before he pressed his lips to yours for a desperate kiss. You struggled to keep up with his kisses at first but then he was scraping his teeth down your jaw and sucking on your neck.

You bucked your hips up against him, his leg slipping between yours so you could grind on him. You whimpered, needing his bare skin to be slick against yours as you once again fitted together so perfectly. 

You needed the intimacy and the vulnerability of being beneath his broad form as he fucked you deep and hard, imprinting himself within you forever.

As if Joel had read your mind, he pulled back from nuzzling between your breasts, his big strong hands grasped the collar of your shirt and ripped it down the middle in one go.

You gasped at the action, at the grimace of need on his face as he began to manhandle you in a desperate need to get you naked beneath him. You unhooked your bra as he roughly pulled down your jeans and panties in one go, snarling in annoyance when your boots hampered his mission.

As soon as you were bare Joel was back on the bed and spreading your legs up and wide so he could see your perfectly soaked little cunt fluttering needily around nothing. Fuckin’ Heaven right there, he thought to himself as he dragged his eyes up your heaving belly and chest to see you biting your lip, small hands fisting the sheets beneath you.

“Please Joel, want you naked against me,” you practically begged, pupils blown out, eyes still glistening. He knew from your reaction something had scared you, probably a moment of terror in thinking you weren’t going to make it back to him in one piece or at all. The idea of that being a very real possibility that could have happened shook him to his core and he quickly tore off his clothes, not wanting to be away from your touch for longer than necessary.

He began to kiss every scrape and bruise as he made his way up your chest. Soon his eyes were looking deep into your soft gaze, your arms and legs wrapping around him and he knew he was finally home. He brushed his nose along yours, both his hands tunnelling into your pretty hair as he gazed down at you.

“You and me, darlin’, that’s all I need. Just you, I fuckin’ love you, you drive me goddamn insane with it, you know that?” His gaze was soft but intense, his words rumbled out of his pouty lips.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your own hands rubbing his back soothingly before sliding up his neck and into his hair. “But I feel the same.”

“Don’t be sorry, darlin’. You’re the best thing that's happened to me in a really long time. Just scares the hell outta me,” he nearly choked on his words before burying his face into the sexy slope of your neck, inhaling your heavenly scent. “Can’t lose you, baby.”

“I’m right here, not losing me, Joel,” you responded softly before kissing his scarred temple.

Joel slowly lowered his hips as he lifted his head to kiss you, his weeping cock covering your pussy, soaking him even further. Normally Joel would prepare you, stretch you with his thick fingers and make you come on his tongue but from the way you were mewling and moving against him he knew you both needed to become one right now. Besides, you had told him plenty of times how you liked the slight pain his cock created when it stretched your little hole open, the  girth of him too wide to fit comfortably at first.

You both angled your hips, well versed in the best way to slot together hands free. Your breath hitched when the crown of his twitching cock popped inside you.

“So fuckin’ tight and wet for me, baby girl.”

“Joel,” you whimpered against his lips before your hips pushed against him, sliding more of him within your aching heat.

He stared into your watery eyes as he gripped your hip with a bruising grasp and began to push into your tightness. He loved watching the way your mouth opened into a little ‘o’ shape and the space between your brows creased cutely in pain.

“Takin’ my cock so well, you precious little fuckin’ thing,” Joel growled as he bottomed out causing you to gasp. Your perfect cunt clenching around him was like nothing he’d ever felt before. 

Your breasts heaved against his chest as he let you adjust to the stretch of him for a moment. But he had little patience right now, so he soon pulled back making you whimper sweetly and he kissed into your mouth soothingly before he moved his hand to the back of your neck and held it tightly.

Pulling back from the kiss he quickly punched his hips down and forward, slamming deep inside you and causing your body to jolt from the force, his hands holding you steady. You weren’t going anywhere.

The squeak you let out was choked off when he did it again, and again. The soundtrack to your desperate love making became the wet slapping of skin on skin, the gasps of pleasure and the cries of pain as you melded together as one. Sweaty skin sliding against hardened nipples and harsh gasps were shared as he rhythmically pounded you into the mattress

“Joel, Joel, oh God Joel don’t stop!” you pleaded wide eyes staring up at his fervent expression as he gazed down at you.

“Fuck! That’s it baby, take my cock.” Joel grimaced in pleasure.

“Please, baby. Go faster!” You yelped as his hips smacked against you, his heavy balls soaked from your arousal.

He granted your plea, arching his back so he could suck on your tight nipples, hands grasping under and over your shoulders as he began to piston sharply within you, pulling you onto his thick cock.

“Yes yes yes, gonna come,” you suddenly gasped and Joel knew it was true by how your tight little pussy started fluttering around his shaft, sucking him deep.

“Come all over me, baby girl,” he whispered against your parted lips, sweat building between you as you both moved in sync, chasing that beautiful euphoria he always granted you.

You had been feeling it build within you so deeply, you knew you were about to crest that tremendous wave of pleasure you associated with Joel and how he always spoiled you rotten when you made love. It hit deep and sharp, making you arch your back and cry out against his lips as your pussy clutched so tightly to him, never wanting him to stop or leave your most vulnerable place that he always cherished.

It caught your breath as you ascended into ecstasy, all you could do was whimper against his plush lips as you came. His hips stuttered as you tightened, unable to keep up the pace at how tightly you were grasping at him. Nails scraping his back, legs spreading further, toes curling against his thick thighs.

“Good girl, baby,” he practically whimpered as you came around him. “That’s my good girl. Fuck, I love you,” Joel growled while he quickened his pace again, the ache in his lower back completely ignored. He sat up a bit, lifted your legs so they fell over the bend in his elbows before planting his hands on the bed.

You were practically folded in half, completely dazed from that intense orgasm as he manoeuvred you however he liked. You loved when he treated you like his precious little fuck doll. 

“Oh my God, baby,” you gasped, just watching as his hulking form rose above you, his dark desperate eyes dragging from your own eyes to your bouncing breasts as he started pumping his cock into you once more. The generous crown of his cock repeatedly hit that amorous spot deep inside you that only Joel could locate.

His stare was fixated on where you were joined together as he continued to thrust, slowing a little to admire it. “Sweet little pussy is creaming all over my dick, fuck!” Joel couldn’t take his eyes away from it, your abused hole flushed with arousal and soaked with your mingling desire. “God damn, baby girl. You can really take some cock, huh?”

All you could do was whimper at the vision he made above you, greedy lustful stare focused on your needy hole stretched around the wide circumference of his wet cock pumping inside you. The broad expanse of his tanned slick shoulders, the strength of his hands as they wrapped his calloused fingers around your hips, angling them perfectly. He sat up, his knees bracketing your ass and you quickly pressed your hands up behind you knowing exactly what was coming. Your heart jumped in your chest, you loved to watch him above you like this; using you, loving you so deeply and harshly.

“Gonna cum so deep inside your cunt, baby girl. Never gonna be rid of me,” Joel growled before rolling his hips into you, knowingly hitting that special place inside you that usually had you squirting all over him. 

He never forgot that moment you’d shared with one another. Only your second time together and he had given it to you so good it was probably one of his proudest moments, his ego getting a huge boost that had been well needed at the time. 

You had been so shocked and loud, you’d practically screamed at the sensation, shivering so vulnerably beneath him afterward it had stuck deep inside his chest afterward. It had pushed him to coo to you softly at your little whimpers, telling you that you were okay, that you had been so sexy and beautiful for him.

His hips were rolling and thrusting into you making you moan and stare up at him in awe. This man was all fucking yours.

“Mine, Joel. You’re mine.”

“Yeah, baby. All yours, this cock is all yours. And who does this pussy belong to, hmm?” he questioned with a smirk as he stared down into your wide eyes as his hips picked up the pace, you continuing to reciprocate his movements like a well choreographed dance.

“Yours, my pussy’s all yours. No one else's, baby.”

“Good girl,” Joel praised before leaning over  you, his pretty lips pressing into yours, widening your mouth and swiping his tongue against yours as your pussy flooded his cock and balls creating a slapping sound that made you whimper and blush.

“Always so fuckin’ wet for me. Ain’t ya, sweetheart,” Joel groaned. “Fuckin’ love you.”

“Love you too, now fill me up, baby. Please!” You gasped against him, your foreheads now pressed against one another, mouths sharing harsh breaths. 

You braced against the headboard with one hand while moving the other to his curly hair desperately seeking purchase as your arousal grew once more. Core warming and tightening in an impending orgasm and when he shifted your position so he could press against your clit and urethra with his fingers your stomach jumped, knowing exactly what he wanted from you.

“Oh Joel,” you whined.

“Yeah baby, drench me please,” Joel encouraged and you began to flutter around the precise pumping of his twitching cock within your sensitive walls.

It hit you suddenly, your back arched with a quick scream of pleasure and the overstimulation that you associated with squirting. Joel groaned in pleasure as you burst with feeling.

“Atta fuckin’ girl, baby! That’s it, shit I’m gonna come,” Joel gasped as you soaked him, a vision beneath him, sweat slicked tits bouncing, mouth agape in a shout of intense pleasure and eyes practically rolling into the back of your head.

Joel's hips stuttered, his balls tightening even more as he felt his pleasure travel from deep within his core, up to the swollen tip of his cock. “Fuck, baby,” Joel whimpered into your neck as he began to spurt his come deep into your womb, hips stuttering and grinding against yours with the need to stuff you full of his cum.

“Yes, Joel,” you whimpered as you felt him empty himself within you. You nudged his head as he did, wanting to see his handsome face in pleasure. He lifted and looked down at you, cum still spilling, overflowing you and trickling down your ass. “That’s it, baby. Fill me up good. I want all your cum,” you whispered softly as you gazed up at him. His face was so vulnerable and needy in that moment you couldn’t help but clench around him once more.

His balls had emptied with each ejection of his cum inside you, hips finally stilling as his cock became oversensitized to the stimulation still happening.

“Easy, baby girl. Easy.” Joel chuckled as he fell against you, completely spent before kissing you so softly that your heart jumped. “You think I can go again at my age?”

“You think I can go again after that?” You giggled breathily, completely satisfied. The impending avalanche of emotions purged from you in pleasure by your lover.

“Yeah, baby. Don’t doubt yourself.” Joel rubbed his nose against yours affectionately, a small grin on his face, eyes as soft as chocolate ice-cream.

“Then you don’t doubt yourself either.”

“I know my limits and my back is shot, darlin',” Joel grumbled in annoyance, his softly grinning face turning so grumpily pouty you couldn’t help but melt, you loved that you got to see this side of him that he unveiled to no one else but you. He really was all yours.

“Oh, poor baby,” you whispered to him before nudging him to the side so he could rest flat on the mattress, his softened dick slipping out of you with a flood of his cum which tickled your still trembling thighs. You definitely planned on giving him another back massage as soon as you both got some sleep, he had fucked you so perfectly; hard and loving. He certainly deserved it. “Rest now, we’re together and that’s all that matters.”

Joel sighed as he settled into the admittedly uncomfortable bed, but with you snuggling up against his chest he had no complaints.

“I don’t want you goin’ out there without me anymore, okay? Fuck the business, you’re more important.”

You looked up at him “As long as you don’t go out there without me either, we’re more important,” you agreed with a sigh of relief.

“Just you and me, darlin’. That’s all I need,” Joel assured you.

You snuggled deeper into his strong arms, a warm sense of safety and love blanketing your heart as his arms tightened and his lips kissed the top of your head with a mumbled, “Love you, hell-raiser.”

You kissed his chest before replying, “Love you too, big guy.”

A/N: Thank you to any of you who made it to the end of this, I hope you enjoyed it! Please consider reblogging and/or commenting to help this little story of mine find new readers💕😘

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #clare's stories #pedroslittlelady writes #tw: mention of suicidal thoughts #tlou fic #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller #joel miller x female reader #implied age gap #pedro pascal x reader #joel miller fluff #the last of us fanfiction

[torimurphy]

shut up boy, you bananas!

#cillian murphy #cillian x y/n #cillian fluff #cillian x reader #cilliangifs #cillian fic #cillian fanfic #cillian smut #peaky blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #prom song gone wrong #oppenheimer #thomas shelby #tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #the virgin suicides #coquette #explore #girlblogging #lana del rey #lana del slay #cinnamon girl

[jessamine-rose]

꒰ The Spider and the Fly ꒱

This is for my hormones every artist/ writer who dragged me into the Miguel O’Hara fandom. Your content is absolutely amazing, and I hope this piece can measure up to the brainrot you’ve given me  ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝

Tw:: YANDERE, kidnapping, manipulation, blood, violence, self-deprecation, mention of suicide, bondage, noncon, nsfw, MDNI

Note:: Female reader, double POV, ATSV spoilers, Best Wingman Award goes to LYLA

♡ 7.6k words under the cut ♡

i. spiral orb web

You’ve always been attracted to pretty things, and that includes spiderwebs.

In your eyes, the spider’s craft is the closest thing to art in your everyday life. It is a natural phenomenon marked by intricacy and utility, yet one so easily overlooked due to its associations with pest behavior.

Fortunately, public reception has shifted since the emergence of Spider-Man. It is thanks to your “Friendly Neighborhood Hero” that the spiderweb has been rebranded as a symbol of safety. Be it a weapon or a life-sized shelter, there is a certain beauty to those human creations.

Though the same cannot be said for Miguel O’Hara’s.

Spider-Man 2099’s webs belong to their own category. His are scarlet, bright as lasers, conspicuous and dangerous in equal amounts. When Miguel traps a villain in his webs, one is reminded that a spiderweb is the tool of a predator.

Miguel’s webs are not the only thing which set him apart from the other Spider-Men. He has more inhuman powers—claws, fangs, paralytic venom. His jaded personality and intimidating stature are also far removed from the public image which inspires hope in civilians.

Perhaps that is why you find him all the more alluring. Or it could be simply because he is the one who saved your life.

He’s done more than rescue you. After catching you midfall, Miguel regards you with shock and…pity, you think. It is the only logical explanation as to why he is being so gentle with you when your dimension’s stability is a greater concern.

It also explains why he allows you to follow him into the departing portal. No, follow is a self-preserving term. More like burst into tears, ran after him, then told him your pathetic life story and how anywhere is better than here.

Much to the surprise of his coworkers, he relents.

꒰♡꒱

At first, Miguel thinks you are an Anomaly.

It is one thing to find you in another dimension. It has happened before, and he always avoided your Variants for their sake. But you are inescapable.

Among every version of you, the happiest one was his Variant’s wife. Then there’s you, the one whose life would’ve ended if not for his interference.

He tries to justify his decision. Your departure doesn’t affect the Canon, so no harm will come to your universe. And judging by your personal data, you would be much safer in a different dimension.

His dimension, to be specific. Where he can keep a close eye on you.

He is also logical enough to recognize you as your own person. You aren’t his wife, and his observations support that theory. Your hairstyle is different. You code-switch more often. You sleep and wake up at earlier hours. You’re not as confident in your abilities.

You are alike and unlike her in so many ways, yet he still sees a spark of his sun in you.

ii. funnel web

Since then, you’ve resided in Nueva York.

In return for permanent residency, you are hired as a secretary for the Spider Society. It’s civilian work, nothing dangerous, but more purposeful than what you’d ever achieved in your old job.

Strangely enough, you encounter Miguel quite often.

At first, it feels totally warranted. He is the only person you know in Earth-928, so he guides you through every step of your adjustment. He gives you a Dimensional Travel Watch, shows you around the facility, and instructs you on how not to mess up the multiverse.

After your first week, he invites you to move in with him. Miguel claims that his home already has an extra bedroom, though LYLA’s remarks suggest otherwise. Regardless, you accept since it means a familiar roommate and better living quarters.

How thoughtful of him.

꒰♡꒱

“It’s easier to look after her if we’re under the same roof,” he rationalizes.

“Sure,” says LYLA. She flickers above his shoulder and watches the holographic screens with him. “And it’s not because she reminds you of a certain someone?”

Ignoring her, Miguel switches to a different camera angle. Peter B. Parker walks past your desk and does a double take, and he is promptly summoned for a meeting.

No doubt, there will be questions about you.

“What about the redesigns?” LYLA pulls up a screen showing two bedroom layouts, one collapsed and the other abandoned. “Should we pick one? Merge them? Think of a new design? Or we can ask for her input, seeing how she clearly has better taste than you.”

One of the monitors catches their attention, announcing an Anomaly in Earth-131222.

“We can talk about this later.” With that, Miguel opens a new screen and analyzes the data. On second thought, he adds, “She prefers thin bed sheets.”

-

Later that day, he escorts you home. Your mood has greatly improved since your change in environment, though you’re still quiet around him. LYLA compliments your coat, a purple remnant of her closet which Miguel lent to you, but he ignores her knowing glances.

You wear it differently, he notices. It’s the same article of clothing, but fully buttoned with a silver brooch on one lapel. The effect is significantly less casual.

“So, this is it.” Your expression turns hesitant as Miguel unlocks the front door. “Are you really sure that I can stay here?”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t a hundred percent sure,” he points out.

And it means less time monitoring the CCTVs.

“And you haven’t seen your room yet!” adds LYLA. “We know you’ll love it.”

“I guess it would be impolite to back out now.” You follow him inside and remove your coat. “I’ll try not to be a nuisance.”

He pauses.

That green dress…he could swear that he’s seen it on you before. Many shades lighter, paired with a bright smile, to match the T-shirt of the little girl by your—

“Miguel?” You frown at him, then your gaze flits to your dress. “Is there something wrong with my outfit? I didn’t commit a serious fashion crime in your dimension, did I?”

“It’s nothing,” he says quickly. But upon noticing your lingering anxiety, he admits, “You look good in it. That’s all.”

You nearly drop your coat. “W-What? Are you serious?”

Miguel could swear that you look more shocked than during your first meeting. If he were to come close enough to touch your face, it would surely feel warmer than average.

That’s enough.

“I meant what I said,” he replies, walking ahead. “Do you want to look around or are you just going to stand there?”

That snaps you out of your fluster. You follow him into the living room, a small smile making its way to your face. “The living room is pretty. Was it you or LYLA who designed it?”

The change of topic is a godsend. As Miguel shows you around, you recover from his comment and focus on your surroundings. LYLA is the next to admire your dress, winking at Miguel as she asks about the color, and he takes note of your reaction.

More vulnerable to flattery, regardless of speaker. Extremely happy afterwards.

His wife wasn’t like that. Usually, she’d be the one teasing Miguel with praises, pick-up lines, and inside jokes which he pretended to understand.

Still, it’s nostalgic to sit next to you on the sofa. He could get used to this again.

iii. lace web

In the following months, you fully adjust to your new life.

Your job in the Spider Society is manageable, fun even. Aside from the Spider-Man of your dimension, your close coworkers are kind enough to welcome you into their group. They look out for you, include you in their conversations, and appreciate your hard work.

They even indulge your aesthetic interests! One word from you, and they are already comparing webs. Among the various designs and techniques, however, none have fascinated you as much as Miguel’s.

…You do wish he’d let you roam Nueva York more often.

In case of Canon events, you need to get his permission first. Then you have to wait for him or an assigned Spider-Man to accompany you, and the latter is always a stranger whom you find difficult to bond with. Conversations with LYLA can only do so much.

You’ve recommended your coworkers before, but Miguel doubts their reliability. And every time you invite them to go with you, a new mission cancels your plans. If not for the official records, you’d suspect them of making excuses.

It’s a bit frustrating, honestly, but you know better than to complain.

You should already be satisfied with Miguel. He is an agreeable roommate, he trusts your capabilities, and he acknowledges your efforts. And no matter how closed-off or overworked he is, he's still deemed you worthy of his company.

…He is also very nice to look at. Muscular physique, handsome face, a serious gaze occasionally tinted in red. It’s a shame that he rarely smiles.

In another dimension, a better version of you would have definitely pursued him.

꒰♡꒱

“...and get this, he can shoot webs with stabilimenta. The designs are so detailed!”

“Oh, wow.” Miguel barely looks up from the monitors, grimacing at yet another Anomaly. He quickly sends an alert to the dimension’s Spider-Man. “What else?”

Behind him, you suddenly grow quiet.

“Now that I think about it, you must already know that since you recruited him. Sorry if that wasn’t anything worth listening to…are you sure I’m not bothering you?”

“You’re not.” It comes out faster than intended.

He turns around. Once again, you look surprised by his words, but you don’t ask for confirmation this time. You just nod and return to your digital reports.

Why did you visit his laboratory again? You said it was a false alarm from LYLA, who’d likely sent it on purpose. Lately, she’s been on his case about how rude it is to “avoid” you through extra work. He thinks he could easily do without distractions or triggered memories, however.

Miguel opens a private file and thinks of what you’d just told him. Apart from concerned looks from Jess and Peter B, most of the Spider-Men haven’t given you any trouble. Your coworkers, however, are a different matter.

-

23) ______ laughed because of some stupid pickup line from Web-Slinger. Smiled when he complimented her outfit (purple blouse, black high-waist skirt, favorite heels, pearl hairpin).

24) ______ talked about the other agents’ webs again.* She admires stabilimenta.

-

“You should be careful with your friends,” he tells you. He types a few more observations and closes the screen. “The last thing I need is for you to get involved in their mess. Don’t think that I can’t see them slacking on the job.”

To your credit, you don’t apologize. “Noted.”

“Miguel!” LYLA appears and moves the screens around him. “We have an Anomaly in Earth-332. Spider-Woman called for backup.”

Great, another one. It must be a persistent villain if Jess needs his help.

“I’m on it.” He types the coordinates on his watch and activates the portal.

“How dangerous is it?”

He stops, just a few meters short of leaving.

You leave your desk, an anxious look on your face. “I know you told me not to worry before, but I really have no idea of what your battles are like. So…will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” he assures you. A hug comes to mind—it always calmed her anxieties—but he instead gives you a shoulder pat. “Don’t wait for me. If it takes a while, LYLA will call someone to escort you home.”

“Okay.” You’re still standing in front of him, but he can feel the tension leaving your body. “It’s my turn to cook dinner tonight, right? I’ll prepare a nice victory feast so look forward to that.”

A few more seconds wouldn’t hurt. “You don’t have to.”

You pout at him. “But I want to. Besides, it’s not fair that you are so good at making my favorite meals. I still haven’t perfected yours.”

Secretly, Miguel thinks your cooking tastes better than his wife’s. But whatever keeps you distracted while he is saving the multiverse.

It’s also…nice to talk about work with you. With her, he had to act normal and make up excuses for his sudden disappearances. It’s refreshing to see your concern and know that you are praying for his safety. To imagine your relieved smile when he comes home.

“Miguel!” LYLA reappears between the two of you. “I hate to ruin the moment, but Spider-Woman could really use some help right now. I know you’re counting the seconds!”

No more time to waste.

“I’ll see you later.” He lets go of you and walks into the portal.

“Take care!” you call after him.

iv. triangle web

“Welcome home, love!”

As the door opened, Miguel resisted the urge to flinch. The lights were always too bright.

His Variant’s wife wasted no time hugging him. “What took you so long?”

“Something at work came up,” he explained, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Again?” You closed the door behind him, a frown replacing your smile. “That’s the third time this month. Is there a problem in your office?”

“It’s…classified information. But nothing to worry about, mi sol.”

The house felt lively, even with Gabriella temporarily away. Warm lights. Family photos. Personal belongings scattered about. Your cheerful presence leading him.

The TV in the living room was on, paused at the beginning of a new film. Movie nights were an old family routine, he’d learned. The first time Miguel arrived in your husband’s place, you and Gabriella had agreed on an animated classic.

“Okay then. I’m just glad your office isn’t in the same area as that crime from earlier. Was there any debris blocking the road?”

“Not much.” And definitely none on the route to your workplace.

Upstairs, Miguel took a shower and contacted LYLA. The Anomaly had been returned to its original dimension. If he were lucky, none would appear tomorrow.

You were on the sofa when he came back. Wordlessly, he sat next to you and you rested your head on his shoulder. The film began playing.

“I called Gabriella,” you murmured. “She and her friends are already planning their next sleepover. I’ll pick her up tomorrow morning.”

“That’s good to hear. Have you gift-wrapped her present?”

A pearl ring glinted above your intertwined hands. “It’s in my closet.”

Note to self: Ask LYLA to record the party. It will be a nice memory to revisit.

He smiled at you. “I can’t wait to see her reaction.”

The movie had a happy ending. It was, in your words, a cinematic masterpiece.

-

“That’s how it ends?”

Your outburst prompts Miguel to face the opposite end of the sofa. In the dim light, he can easily make out the unimpressed look on your face.

“The ending looks decent to me,” he muses. “If you ignore the logistics of their reunion, the film is entertaining enough to rewatch.”

“I think it could be more realistic. And you’re saying that across the multiverse, this is the most common version of the movie?”

“In five dimensions, to be exact. Others have the same ending but different actors.”

You pause. “I’ll admit that Earth-928’s version has superior costume design. But I still prefer my dimension’s neutral ending. Maybe it’s because our societal values are different.”

The closing credits continue, but neither of you leave the sofa. You’re still criticizing the film under your breath, unaware that Miguel can understand every word. He does agree that the happy ending causes a few plot holes.

At least with you, he can adjust the brightness levels.

“We can watch your version next time,” he offers, reaching for the remote with his webs.

“Really? You don’t mind?”

He turns off the TV. “We can do it on my next day off.”

Knowing LYLA, this won’t be the last time she plans a movie night without telling him.

“Well, what else could I do?” she asked after he privately demanded an explanation. “You’ve been working yourself too hard, Miguel. You could really use a break, and so does ______.”

You take the remote from him and untangle the web fluid. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

Miguel gives you an odd look. “For what reason?”

You twist the web in your hands, forming string figures.

“As a decoration, maybe. Oh, and for the record, I don’t go around collecting webs from your coworkers. I just find yours particularly interesting.”

Weirdo. “My webs are functional like the others’. That’s all there is to it.”

You look him in the eye this time. “Hey, you should give yourself more credit. It’s my belief that every spiderweb is a work of art. And before you call me overly romantic, there have always been artists who thought they were worth noticing."

The web loops around your ring finger, in the place where her wedding ring used to be.

He averts his gaze. “I don’t see it that way. But whatever works for you.”

Another moment of silence.

“There is another reason,” you add softly.

He side-eyes you. “Is it about that day? You don’t need to keep thanking me for saving your life. As I said, I was doing my job and anyone would’ve done the same.”

“I wasn’t talking about you catching me.”

Oh, you meant that.

The web tangles in your hands.

“Listen.” You take a deep breath, eyes on your lap. “I know you’ve been avoiding this subject. Maybe it's so I don’t feel indebted to you or pressured into reliving bad memories. But…I just want you to know that I’m glad you foiled my plans.”

…It would be best to let you finish first.

Your voice shakes. “I mean, you’re smart, aren’t you? Even without my meltdown, you would’ve figured out that my fall had nothing to do with the Anomaly in my dimension.”

He did. And that was precisely why Miguel mistook you for one at first. It wasn’t just your identity but the fact that you were found in danger after the Anomaly had been captured.

Ten minutes post-battle. The undamaged state of the nearby buildings. The passive acceptance in your demeanor.

He can vividly recall the rest of that day. Those hours spent studying your personal data, identifying every action and condition which diverged from his wife's path.

A loud sigh. “I just—I couldn’t take it anymore, okay? I thought it would be easier to put an end to my mistakes, then you had to show up. And thanks to you, life has been great! I like this world, I’m not alone, I still have my personal issues to work through but I’m trying to do better. But yeah…I’m just sorry for forcing you to get involved.”

“It’s not your fault,” he insists. He scoots closer to you and puts his hand on top of yours. “I made the choice to bring you here. And I couldn’t exactly leave you, knowing your situation.”

That is a lie. Rather, half of his thoughts were about his wife and how he’d been able to sustain her happiness. How that farce proved he could do the same for you.

“Either way, I’m grateful.” You look up, your lips curving into a shy smile. “I’m really happy now, Miguel. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ll never regret my decision to follow a cryptic stranger into a portal. Even if it meant learning that the multiverse is in constant danger. Or that my favorite film has an alternate ending which makes no sense to me whatsoever.”

Has his wife ever looked at him like that? There is a soft brilliance to your gaze, wholly reserved for him. It triggers a warm feeling in his chest.

The moment is quickly ended when you cover your face with a cushion.

“Anyway! If you don’t mind, I’d really love to move on and talk about something else. How was your mission earlier? Is Earth-199999 still giving you a hard time?”

You’re still seated next to him, legs touching. Your tone leaves no room for objection.

He lets go of your hand. “You would not believe what kind of shocking messes we’ve had to deal with. We are never recruiting Dr. Strange or his little nerd.”

“You can tell me all about it.” You untangle his web from your hands; it loops around your pinky finger this time. “I’m here for you, okay? For as long as you’ll have me.”

v. mesh web

There have been more Anomalies lately.

You walk past the detained villains, silently counting them. Their increase in numbers has kept the Spider Society on high alert for the past weeks. While it means more documents for you, the effect on Miguel’s stress levels is concerning.

Come to think of it, has he returned from his mission yet? If not, you hope the cafeteria’s takeout boxes have a self-heating function. As you get closer to Miguel's laboratory, you hear the door open. The sound is followed by two sets of footsteps.

“Do you think it’s healthy for him?”

“I’m more worried about ______.”

You stop walking.

Is that Peter B and Jess? Why are they talking about you?

Jess’s tone is reproachful. “The poor girl has been through so much already. It’s not safe for her to be here, at least in HQ. He knows that she is a different case from Gwen.”

“You know how Miguel is. I’ve already asked about her, and he won’t tell me anything new. Not even my Super Adorable Mayday album could convince him.”

“I don’t like this, Peter.”

Their footsteps become louder. You go back to the entrance of the hallway, just within earshot but hopefully far enough to evade their Spider-Senses.

“Neither do I. But you should’ve seen him when he lost their daughter, Jess. Now think of his wife: He never got to see ______ before she disintegrated. Then one day, out of nowhere, after staying away from countless Variants, he finds a version of her who needs him.”

…What the hell are they talking about?

The walls close in on you. You take a step back, followed by another.

Then, at the sound of a sharp “Is someone there?”, you drop the takeout box and run.

Their daughter. His wife. A version of her.

You already know that Miguel lost a family in another dimension. It was briefly mentioned when he warned you about Canon disruptions, but he refused to share the details. Is this why?

This whole time…you are a Variant of his wife?

You aren’t followed. Your coworkers cheerfully greet you, but you ignore them and return to your desk. It’s arranged the way you like it, complete with personal decorations. The drawer holds a stress ball in your favorite color, a gift from Miguel of all people.

You never did tell him that it is your go-to stress reliever. Was it the same for her?

You squeeze the ball and take deep breaths, but the action does little to calm you.

It all makes sense. Why else would Miguel take an interest in you?

Your gaze lands on your Dimensional Travel Watch before you remember that the idea is futile. Yours is only a modified version which prevents glitches but can’t be used for travel. And the Go-Home Machine would require Spider-Byte’s help.

…Why are you even wasting your time on an escape plan? How are you sure that you won’t mess up and make another mistake?

“______?” LYLA appears in front of your face. Her greeting sounds different.

He knows.

You force yourself to answer. “Y-Yes?”

“Miguel is back.” She flickers as usual, but it doesn’t change the nervous look on her face. “He wants to see you.”

꒰♡꒱

Peter B will be dead when he gets to him.

Several screens surround Miguel, each playing CCTV footage. He focuses on a live recording of you on your way to his laboratory.

At least you are complying with his orders.

The platform is fully lowered by the time you get there.

“Hey…welcome back,” you stammer. “How was the mission?”

“It was fine,” he replies brusquely. “Jess and Peter B spoke with me as soon as I came back. I was just confirming the status of Earth-67 when I checked the CCTVs. Care to explain?”

A heavy silence falls between the two of you. LYLA is nowhere to be seen.

Your panic is evident. Your gaze wanders, at everything but Miguel, until it stops at the dented takeout box on his desk. “Is that…is the food still warm? Or have you already eaten in Earth-67? I forgot to ask in advance.”

He glares at you. “Are you seriously worrying about my lunch right now?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to say?” you shoot back. The anger in your tone is unmistakable. “‘Hey, Miguel, when was I supposed to know that we were a family in the dimension you accidentally collapsed?’ Does that sound any better?!”

“Believe me, I was going to leave you alone at first.” He grips the edge of his desk, resisting the urge to raise his voice. “But how could I do it after the way you reacted?”

“Oh, so it’s my fault? You could’ve easily said no! This whole time, I wondered why you were so willing to help me. I thought you were being nice, that you believed giving me a better life was worth all these risky accommodations. Was…was I wrong?”

Your voice cracks at the last part, and you hastily wipe your eyes. It’s reminiscent of your first meeting, the distressed shock which Miguel had never seen in his wife. Only that time, you had sought out his comfort.

“Tell me, was it because of her?” you whisper. Tears well up in your eyes, threatening to spill. “Is that all you’ve ever seen in me?”

“You have the wrong idea.” Miguel approaches you, but you instinctively back away. He raises his hands in a placating gesture. “If you would just listen to me—”

“How can I?!”

Your hand settles on your wrist, unconsciously fiddling with your Dimensional Travel Watch. The clasp loosens, and his reaction is immediate.

He grips your arm. “Don’t do that! You’ll get yourself—”

“Let go of me!”

You pull back, clawing at his wrist, but Miguel's grasp only tightens. His other hand taps the watch’s controls to activate the Lock feature.

“This is for your own good, ______." In the split second that he releases you, his webs shoot out and bind your limbs together.

“No!” You collapse onto the floor. The scarlet threads dig into your skin, emitting a harsh glow in the dark. “Please, just let me go!”

After everything he’s been through, he is not losing you again.

Ignoring the stab of guilt, he picks you up and salvages what is left of his composure.

“You see, this is why I didn’t tell you.” He sighs, already feeling the beginnings of a headache.

You’re still shaking in his grasp, tears rolling down your cheeks. “I…I’m not—”

His kiss easily silences you. It’s far from intimate but the sensations are familiar. Warm lips. The scent of your perfume. The addictive rush of euphoria. Physical and chemical reactions which couldn’t be adequately explained in words.

And the whimper that escapes your lips when Miguel pulls back to press a light kiss to your forehead.

“We can continue this conversation when we get home.”

vi. cobweb

Your days in the Spider Society are over.

Not permanently. Miguel says that you can resume work once you’ve calmed down, but you doubt it will happen under any pretense of freedom.

Since your confrontation, you’ve been confined in his home. As it turns out, Miguel had already prepared for this—locks, alarms, hidden cameras, a comprehensive speech which only elevates your horror.

“She wouldn’t want this,” you keep insisting. You writhe against your restraints, but the webs remain taut against your skin. “How would your ______ feel if she knew?!”

“She’s not here anymore.” Miguel looks away from your face, as though the reminder physically pains him. “What matters now is that I have you. The both of us can start over.”

“How can you say that?!” At this point, you’re on the verge of hysteria. “You…you don’t actually love me. You’re only doing this because I’m the closest you have to getting her back!”

The hand on your cheek makes you flinch. The gentle caress does little to soothe you, not with the underlying threat of his claws. His eyes flash red in the dim light, brimming with—what do you call it? Grief? Desperation? Obsession?

You can’t tell, not when those sentiments are for someone else.

“You only say that because you don’t know any better,” he says softly. His lips meet yours, trapping you in a deep kiss. “Now get some rest, mi sol. It’s been a long day, and we know how you get when you’re stressed.”

My sun. What a lie. Since when have you done anything to deserve such a title?

You can’t bother to fight back. You’re too tired to think, to resist the kiss, to move an inch as Miguel undos your restraints and tucks you into bed.

Instead, you close your eyes and retreat into slumber. But even in your last seconds of consciousness, his gaze is strongly felt.

-

As it turns out, Miguel really did consider all possibilities. Your Dimensional Travel Watch has an exclusive Lock feature, should you ever be tempted to escape him through death. It can only be removed during your scheduled baths, with LYLA acting as your timer.

You rarely talk to her, either. She clearly feels sorry for you, but not enough to help. She monitors your daily activity, keeps you company when Miguel is away, and tries to cheer you up. She has yet to accomplish the last task.

Against your better judgment, you ask her about your Variant. She is resistant at first, knowing the negative outcome, but you are persistent. In the end, LYLA decides that it’s better to show you a few videos than for you to ask Miguel directly.

…Your Variant is perfect. Pretty. Carefree. Successful. A calming presence. You can see why Miguel would fall for her, with how she effortlessly puts a smile on his face.

Among your Variants, isn’t there one who bears a closer resemblance to her? Or were they too important to leave without disrupting the Canon? Is that why he settled for you?

“You have a better sense of style,” LYLA offhandedly mentions. “It was Miguel who said that. And do you know that he calls you one of our best workers?”

It doesn’t make you feel any better. “I see. Thanks for letting me know.”

As LYLA predicted, the information only makes you feel worse. You can’t stop thinking about your other self. How did she turn out like that? How did she succeed in your failures? How has Miguel perceived his moments with you, as new memories or a replica of lost time?

You don’t want to ask him. You’ve had enough disappointments for one lifetime.

Neither do you make an escape plan. On the low chance that you succeed, you don’t have anywhere to go. The Spider Society, or most of them, is loyal to Miguel. And it’s not like you’d be better off in your dimension, back to your empty home and dead-end job and daily reminders of your insignificance.

At least here, you can feel valued. Even if you owe that to someone else.

꒰♡꒱

“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but I told you so.”

Miguel doesn’t look up from the screens. “Now is not the time for this.”

LYLA is anything but smug. ”Are you sure? Because you said that when I asked if you’d ever tell her the truth, and look where that went. A civil explanation might’ve been nice.”

“How is she?”

“No better than with you.”

The CCTV switches to the kitchen. By now, you've established a new routine—lie awake in bed, rearrange your room, watch TV, cook your own meals. It's repetitive but easy to follow.

He zooms in on the ingredients. “Do you see anything suspicious?”

“No potential poisons,” LYLA responds, equally focused. “Oh, is she cooking dinner again? Last night’s meal looked really good.”

“It probably helps. Gives her something to preoccupy herself with.”

In the end, you’ve chosen the docile route. You’re still tense around Miguel, but your behavior can’t even be counted as malicious compliance. You just go through your new routine, trying to create some semblance of normalcy in confinement.

Though internally speaking, he has no access to your thoughts.

“She’s quite different from his wife, isn’t she?” asks LYLA. “I like this version of ______.”

Miguel zooms in on you this time. In your current state, you’ve revealed more contrasts to his Variant’s wife. It actually doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

When did his feelings for you begin? Was it when he saved you? When he saw a spark of his beloved in you? When that spark turned out to be your own brilliance?

All he knows is that you’re the one who consumes his thoughts nowadays. Your distinct preferences, your little quirks, your quiet words, your uncertain expressions, your attitude towards him and no other Miguel.

...There must be a way to persuade you. If Miguel was able to play along with his Variant’s family, to the point that his love for them became genuine, the same can be said for you. He just needs to prove that you can and will be happy together.

The only thing missing would be Gabriella.

vii. sheet web

You’ve been promoted to Miguel’s bedmate.

His room isn’t much. It is dark, minimalist, often empty due to the nature of his work. There are zero mementos of his lost family, not even a framed photo or something of her influence.

They’re probably hidden somewhere. How considerate.

On most nights, you act oblivious to your new sleeping arrangement. You just say good night to Miguel, lie down on your side of the bed, and try to fall asleep as quickly as possible.

…That turns out to be more difficult than expected. Try as you might to feign sleep, you can’t relax in Miguel’s grasp. He holds you tightly in his sleep, your back pressed against his chest. You wonder if it is a familiar position or a means of keeping you close.

Lately, he has switched tactics. Movie nights have become a regular pastime. You’ve received permission to work from home, sans contact with the Spider Society. The two of you have even gone outside for a few dates, though his grip on your hand discourages any escape attempts. Awkwardness aside, he’s been more physically affectionate.

It’s absolutely jarring, but you’re somewhat grateful for the added comforts. If your choices are different from his wife’s, Miguel doesn’t seem to mind.

This should be fine. It’s better than when he was acting like an overprotective control freak…even if those methods had left no speculation as to who the intended receiver was. With this approach, you can never be sure if Miguel sees you or his wife in front of him.

You try not to dwell on it more than you already have. You’re still here. Your living conditions have marginally improved. Miguel doesn’t expect you to be more like her.

You just need to keep it together, like you always have.

That is what you keep telling yourself, up until the night Miguel asks for your thoughts on starting a family.

-

“No. Please, stop!”

Red. In the dark, all you can see is red.

The lurid color wraps around you, binding your wrists to the headboard. The webs are taut, no-frills, effective in their sole purpose of keeping you trapped.

No, what’s worse is Miguel. His gaze is trained on you, scarlet orbs alight with crazed desire and your own terrified reflection.

“Stop struggling,” he sighs as he pins you down. Blood decorates his bare arms, from where your scratches failed to stop him. “You’re only going to get yourself hurt.”

You continue, anyway, only to scream as he leans down and sinks his fangs into your neck. It hurts, the flesh burns, everything feels heavy—

You can’t move.

It doesn’t take long for the venom to kick in. The numbness spreads throughout your body, leaving you dizzy and helpless. Your limbs won’t cooperate at all.

Yet despite the paralysis, the pain stays with you. It’s the only sensation you can feel—the sharp ache in your neck, the chafing around your wrists, the sting from where Miguel accidentally scratched your thigh while tearing off your clothes.

“Mi sol, you are still tense,” he mutters. His lips remain on your neck, administering light kisses to the fresh wound. A clawed hand presses down on the bed, puncturing the fabric, to support his weight. “You need to calm down.”

You can only bite your lip as he moves on to your chest, tainting the skin with love bites. His other hand retracts its claws and strokes your stomach, tracing—are those patterns supposed to be her stretch marks?

Of course he memorized them. She must be on his mind right now.

You squeeze your eyes shut, but the ministrations continue. His thumb strokes your hip, eliciting a stifled moan, and the self-inflicted darkness gives way to the sight of Miguel’s irritated expression.

“You’re not listening to me, ______.” His eyes flash, daring you to try again. The sight of his exposed fangs, speckled with your own blood, triggers another wave of dread.

Should you even be surprised that he knows your sensitive spots? He already made it clear that any form of escape is in vain.

It's pure torture. It would be easier if Miguel would just have his way with you, use your body to his heart’s content, leave you to your thoughts. But no, he is taking his time and making sure that you physically enjoy this. Ensuring that you will be ready for what comes next.

“S-Stop.” Your lips are still numb, but you manage to form words. “I said…I don’t want this! I’m not ready!”

“Shh.” He silences you with another kiss, his palm pressing down on your stomach. “You’re only saying this because it’s our first time. You have to trust me.”

It’s hard to believe him when you know that his composure is slipping. What is he trying to hide? His ragged breaths? The hardness pressed against your inner thigh? The urgency with which he lifts your legs up onto his shoulders?

“You’ll understand once our child is here,” he says. He breaks off the kiss, his voice hushed to a reverent whisper. “We will be so happy, happier than you can ever imagine.”

“You’re lying…I can’t—!”

You can’t stand to look at him. His gaze is so cruel, clouded with love, adoration, hope. Skies, he looks so hopeful. You don’t want to wait for the day he looks at you differently.

Was this how he looked at her? How did she return his gaze? It must’ve been passionate. It must’ve been romantic. It must’ve been so promising.

“I can’t give you Gabriella!”

The world stops as soon as those words leave your mouth.

“...What did you just say?” Miguel stares at you, eyes wide.

Of all Variants, why did it have to be you?

That is when you burst into tears.

How humiliating. It’s hard to breathe, it must be an ugly sight, and you can’t do anything to cover your face. But it’s enough to make Miguel stop and listen to you.

“I can’t give you Gabriella,” you repeat in choked sobs. “It requires an exact time, specific cells and DNA. And even if we succeed, I can’t raise her into the child you knew. I...I can’t restore your family. I can’t be her.”

In the end, you will only disappoint him.

“______…” He raises his hand to wipe your tears, but you interrupt him with a glare.

“Honestly, why did it have to be me?!” you shout. “Why couldn’t you have found a better duplicate of your wife? This wouldn’t be happening if you’d chosen the right ______!”

He doesn't respond.

For a few seconds, all you can hear is your own pitiful weeping. You vaguely register the feeling of your legs hitting the mattress, of the absence of Miguel’s touch, but you keep your eyes closed. It’s easier that way.

Suddenly, there is the sound of threads snapping. Then the sensation of strong hands coming under your back, lifting you upwards, pulling you into an embrace.

Your eyes fly open. “What—”

“Ya, calladita.”

Miguel…is he hugging you? He holds you tightly, repeating the words in a hushed tone. The message is followed by a string of curses which, judging by the way he turns away from you, must be solely directed at himself.

Paralyzed, you can only stare down at your lap. At his webs, still wrapped around your wrists but no longer connected to the bed. “What are you—”

“Could you let me talk for a second?" he snaps. He tilts your face upwards, allowing you to take in his glare. “You are my first choice. Not the version of you from Earth-94, Earth-835, or any other dimension in the multiverse. It doesn’t matter that you are different from her.”

This can’t be true. “Still, I—”

“As for Gabriella, you’re right." There is a flash of resignation in his gaze, so sorrowful that it clashes with his words. “I knew that from the start.”

“...Then why?”

Your head spins. His hands are still on you, caressing your cheek and keeping you in his grasp. The numbness gives way to warmth.

“Well, it doesn’t change the fact that any child from you will be ours,” he answers. His voice softens, as does his gaze. “Just as you are mine and I am yours.”

The words get stuck in your throat. “Are…are you sure?”

How can he say such a thing? Your sense of hearing must be damaged. It is the only logical explanation as to why—

The look in his eyes leaves no room for doubt. “I promise.”

...What else can you possibly say?

Your vision blurs. Miguel is still speaking, another quiet reassurance from the sound of it, but it’s all static in your head.

What the hell are you supposed to do with this information? It’s beyond your comprehension, too subjective and unproven for the likes of you. And yet you feel…good. Happy. So, so happy despite everything you have been through.

Skies, you are truly pathetic.

No, what’s more pathetic is the way you cry harder and melt into Miguel’s embrace. It’s the way you listen to his remaining praises and beg him to keep talking. To list everything about you that is good and faultless and desirable to him, everything he thought was worth noticing.

And when he kisses you, you willingly reciprocate.

-

The darkness is soothing.

The dim lights cast the bedroom in shadows. It’s a blessing to your dizziness, your eyes tired from crying. With this obstacle to your vision, you can pretend that the previous hours never happened.

Almost. The soreness, the deft hands tending to your injuries, and the immense euphoria are impossible to ignore.

It’s also painful, unbearably painful now that the venom’s effect has fully worn off. You can only sit up and wince as Miguel disinfects another wound.

He looks up in concern. “Are you okay?”

“I am.” You give him a weak smile as he bandages your thigh and mumbles a second apology. “I feel better already.”

His own injuries are equally evident, from your hesitant love bites to the scratch marks on his back. As guilty as you felt, you could only say so much before Miguel silenced you with a withering look.

…You will make it up to him tomorrow. If you are still capable of walking.

The thought leads you to cry into the pillow, muffling your curses. If Miguel can understand you, he doesn’t say anything. Rather, he closes the first aid kit and holds your hand.

“I’ll draw a bath,” he tells you. “Can you wait for a few minutes?”

Your thumb brushes against his pulse point. His heart rate is frustratingly calm, perhaps slightly above average if you are to flatter yourself. Maybe you can count the number of beats and ask LYLA tomorrow. She will be happy to confirm it.

You meet his gaze, intertwining your fingers with his. “Sure.”

You’d like to think that his last kiss is another promise.

With that, Miguel stands up and leaves the room. As for you, you lie down and go back to screaming into the pillow. Tired as you feel, you haven’t felt this thrilled in years.

Then the spiderwebs catch your attention. They’re still stuck to your wrists, albeit frayed. There are loose threads from where Miguel broke them.

Red. Illuminating the dark, holding you close, keeping you safe.

Carefully, you pick apart the threads and twist them around your hand.

No string figures this time. Your technique is clumsy, irregular, lacking beauty and order. Nonetheless, you continue until your left hand is covered in a glovelike pattern.

The final knot is above your ring finger. It’s a perfect fit.

It is the prettiest thing you have ever seen.

♡

Author's Note ๑ Side Story 1 ๑ Prologue ๑ Epilogue ๑ Side Story 2

“I’m just going to write a short post to purge my brainrot,” I say, shortly before Miguel O’Hara unlocks a core memory of me reading The Spider and the Fly and inspires me to write 7.6k words with literary references.

Thank you so much to @diodellet for beta-reading this and @yanmaresu for helping me with the Spanish phrases!! As for my readers, I hope you enjoyed my take on Yandere! Miguel and his darling. Do entertain me with your comments and brainrot ⸜(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)⸝

Tag a Miguel O’Hara enjoyer!! @kocherry @yandere-romanticaa @yandere-daydreams @bweoo @h2o2-and-baking-soda @ansy-tea @yandere-wishes @weebsinstash @curesi @robindere @crystalcrynight @mrlidocaine @handsomeunderwear-art @blughxreader @chiikasevennn @fortheloveofleon

#miguel o’hara #yandere miguel o’hara x reader #yandere miguel x reader #miguel o’hara x reader #yandere spiderverse #spiderverse x reader #tw: yandere #tw: dark #tw: manipulation #tw: kidnapping #tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: suicide #tw: noncon #spicy warning #mdni #fem reader #yandere miguel o'hara #across the spiderverse #yandere miguel o’hara #yandere atsv #lyla #atsv x reader #atsv #atsv spoilers #atsv miguel #atsv lyla #spiderman 2099 #jessamine-writing

[fandomnerd9602]

Y/N walks in to find Harley hanging upside down…

Y/N: do I wanna know why?

Harley: I couldn’t find anymore mistletoe.

Y/N: why don’t you come down and I’ll kiss you anyway

Harley swings down and lands in Y/N’s arms and giggles…

Harley: tempting…I placed all the mistletoe over our bed (winks)

Y/N: you’ve been naughty

Harley: only for you

#dceu #dc comics incorrect quotes #dc comics fluff #dc comics #harley quinn #margot robbie #christmas romance #christmas fic #Christmas #harley quinn x reader #harley quinzel #suicide squad

[rodolfoparras]

Content tags: 18+, top male reader , dom male reader, friends to lovers, digger is a yapper basically

It’s no secret that Digger has a mouth on him, and you’d been acquainted with that very same mouth ever since you joined the squad, with Digger throwing flirty remarks your way or making comments that made you straight up laugh, even sometimes getting a bit loose lipped after a couple of shots, and dancing his way into your heart.

So it came as no surprise when you found out he was just as vocal in bed, matter of fact you found out about it before you even got to doing anything, with his chapped lips pressed against yours, tasting liquor on his tongue as he confessed how he couldn’t believe this was happening, asking you if you’re sure you want to do this, swiftly followed up with a “never mind please don’t regret this”

It’s with your head between his thighs that you find out just how vocal he can be, endless praises and nonsensical words rolling off of his tongue despite only having kissed his thighs and when you finally put your mouth on him he’s drooling all over the sheets accent getting thicker and words becoming more incomprehensible as he tells you how good he feels but it doesn’t take much before his praises turn into pleas and he’s begging for you to “please please fuck me”

And who are you to deny his wish? little whines and whimpers slip past his lips as your cockhead pushes past his puckered rim, with him making an off hand comment about the sting that comes with the stretch even though he’d been the one in a hurry to prep himself.

He only mellows down when you bottom out, shaky breaths escaping his lips as he gets used to the feeling of practically being skewed onto your dick

However it doesn’t take much before he’s wiggling under your grip, telling you to move move move please and when you finally do so he doesn't waste a second to let you know how good he feels, telling you to go harder, faster- to give him more please! getting so loud you’ll have to put a hand over his mouth to quiet him down or shove fingers down his throat to muffle the sounds but even that isn’t enough to silence him.

And after going for multiple rounds, you’ll hear his voice, low and hoarse muttering the words “come on, one more time”

#captain boomerang #captain boomerang x reader #captain boomerang x male reader #top male reader #dom male reader #male reader #x male reader #digger harkness #digger harkness x reader #digger harkness x male reader #suicide squad game

[merakiui]

his blueberry eyes (anagapesis in paradise).

yandere!azul ashengrotto x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, death/murder of reader, obsession, codependency, emotional manipulation, psychological abuse, mentions of self-harm/suicide attempt, brief mention of pregnancy + loss of baby, vague mentions of binge-eating/disordered eating, angst, characters written as 18+ note - the color blue haunts azul. // loosely based on clingy, codependent bf azul.

the prelude - forever lost in cerulean paradise.

Azul Ashengrotto, a man forever bound in burdensome blue, surfaces from the numbing sweetness of an all-consuming slumber and finds the tops of his hands are littered with deep, dark, desperate scratches. They’re furious and distinct, standing out like pearly teeth on black tile, spotting his pale, paper-thin skin like a child’s poor attempt at proper handwriting. Carefully, he runs a trembling finger over the length of one as it travels from ring finger to the delicate bone of his wrist. A wet laugh bubbles out of him, ink-stained and heartbreakingly pained. He wipes tar-colored saliva from the edge of his mouth, smearing it, and shudders through another laugh. The sound wavers as if caught in his esophagus, pronounced choked and raw.

“Ah… I did it again.”

He sits back on his haunches, small and scared like the squishy thing he once was all those years ago, and inhales a steadying breath. His vision, once narrowed so scarily slim, widens to encapsulate the rest of the sitting room, which is cast in a cool glow from the crystalline cityscape beyond. He spies his haunted reflection in the glass, his hair mussed and matted. From sweat, most likely. It’s unsightly, his unkempt, ugly appearance, but it’s him staring back. 

Looking on with those bewitching blueberry eyes.

Swallowing thickly, he pushes a swoop of silver hair out of his face and whispers, “I fell asleep…again. Right. Again. That makes it—what is it now? Four times in a week? No, not quite… I fell asleep, but then I…”

His gaze slides from the windows to the floor. Lying sprawled and stiff, amidst shattered glass and crumpled, lemon-hued tulips, is the love of his life.

“Ah, I see now.” He runs two fingers over the injuries on his hand. His nose wrinkles once and then twice. His throat is set aflame, constricting like a python coiled around its prey. Blueberry eyes sink in a rising tide, overtaken by tears spotting a weary lash line. “My world… My angelfish…”

He forces himself to stand on rubbery legs. He stumbles once, reaches for the coffee table’s reliable support like a newborn grasping their mother’s outstretched finger, and peers at a shattered portrait splayed on the floor. It’s you on your wedding day, flashing a toothy grin at the camera, while he holds you close, an arm secured around your waist. Clinging to you like you were the only buoy in a rocky sea. Planting parasitic roots by way of attraction, and you were simply too blinded by the charms of shimmering, sparkling cheer to realize. So was he in that regard—struck dumb with a too-large love, unable to handle the full capacity of what it meant to fall into a sugary-sweet romance.

It’s a happy picture, one of many, but then the memories of the many elude him at this moment. He, the brilliant, benevolent actor, struggles to differentiate the real from the fake. What is a smile if not another foggy reflection of something far sadder? What is laughter if not the sounds of a hollowed sweetheart howling joyous tunes to placate?

His fingers curl around the wooden table. It’s too familiar and, as if having touched something hot, he jerks away. Azul turns his hands over, searching for imperfections he’s already found. Slowly, he pivots to confront the body.

“My darling angelfish, please wake up. It’s not… It’s not very nice of you to play pretend. We’ve been over this.” He shakes his head and steps around the overturned vase and puddle of flower-spotted water. He lowers to your height, offering a hand you don’t take. “Please, my love. I’m sorry for scaring you. I won’t do it again. I… I’m getting better, you see. I’m doing it for us. I want to get better. I promised I would, didn’t I? Aren’t I a man of my word?”

You remain there, eyes shut in blissful permanence. Azul sucks in a breath through grit teeth. You’re always so…difficult. Sometimes. Not always. And even when you act like this, he still cherishes you. But fighting is not something he loves, and he wants this feud to end sooner rather than later.

Azul Ashengrotto hates the sharp, bitter sides to his marriage.

“I can be patient,” he says, though it’s more of a consolation than a promise. “I’ll be patient. But, really, being vindictive will get you nowhere, my dear. Haven’t we been over this?”

Still, no matter what he says, you don’t stir.

He allows silence to fill the room to a suffocating degree.

One minute passes. Then two. He drums his fingers along a newly forming bruise on his arm.

Now it’s three.

Four.

Five.

It’s too quiet without your pretty voice filling the empty room, filling the hollow in his heart, filling the gaps in his brain to snuff any other self-destructive thoughts from pushing through.

“I love you,” he whispers, less forceful this time. “And… And I’m sorry. Truly, I mean it. I’ll never put my hands on you again. Never. And I’ll go back to therapy. I won’t skip my sessions. I’ll even take my meds!” A crooked smile stretches across his lips. “I promise. I won’t lie to you. I’ll leave the cooking to you. I won’t touch sharp objects. I’ll stop hiding knives from you. I’ll be honest from now on. So please…” His voice cracks, weak and raspy. “P-Please… Please don’t ignore me…”

Azul reaches out to you, fitting his trembling hand in yours. It’s cold. He brings it to his face, kisses the top of it, and then cradles it close. His shoulders shake, wracked with silent sobs.

It’s cold.

His breath hitches.

You’re cold.

“Angelfish, please…” He sniffles. The tears are already falling in thick, salty rivulets. He’s always been an ugly crier. “Please don’t leave me. Without you I…”

His untrimmed nails dig into your palm, and a great sob shudders through his body when he presses his thumb into your wrist to check your pulse.

It’s stopped.

He scrubs his face with his free hand. A fruitless effort. The tears won’t cease.

Without you, I’m nothing.

He gathers you, stiff, cold you, in his arms and holds you like you’re a treasured childhood plushy who’s lost its stuffing. His reflection blinks back at him, blueberry eyes awash in watery tragedy.

Without you, I’m all alone.

He spies the markings on your neck and his throat closes up. He grabs your face between both hands, searching it for any indication of life. A lie, surely. You’re just pretending. You’ve always done that, putting on acts to keep him and everyone else pleased. You, the best actor, knew him better than he knows himself. Because, in spite of the loose, fraying seams, you took them, poured remnants of your heart into each tear, and stitched them up until they were better again. You’ve sewn him anew when he thought all hope was lost.

So it’s impossible. A lie, definitely.

You’re a pretender, and he’s the captivated audience member. Soon you’ll open your beautiful eyes and shout, “I got you! You should have seen the look on your face!” And the cycle will repeat itself. He’ll pretend to be okay and you’ll follow along with a sweet smile, chopping vegetables with the same knife he used to threaten his own life days prior.

You can’t fool him.

Only you do. And you have.

He peels your eyelids open. Your listless stare pierces something in his brain, wires the circuitry correctly so that Point A and Point B can connect.

With a horrified gasp, Azul drops your limp corpse. Your head smacks against the floorboards, but you don’t groan in pain. Because there isn’t any pain to be felt. Because you’re not going to wake up. Because this is the final act and the curtain has closed on your skillful pretending.

Azul Ashengrotto, a man forever bound in burdensome blue, has lost the very person who once made him feel so whole.

the first vow - to have and to hold.

“We should make a baby.”

In the first month of being newlyweds, you’d told him that. He leaned over to nudge you with his hip while you painted swirling designs on a blank kitchen wall. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not opposed to it.”

You pulled away from your canvas and grinned. “Neither am I.”

“Sooo,” he encouraged, nodding, unable to curb the glee in his curling smile. “What? Should we make one?”

“Can we?”

“This conversation feels rather circular, my dear.”

“You’re circular.” You stuck your tongue out at him and dipped your brush in a bright blue. “I’m gonna paint an entire field of cornflowers on this wall.”

Azul hesitated at the sudden change in subject, considered the meaning of a cornflower, and snorted in amusement. He came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “If you want a baby, just say so and I’ll give you one.” He nosed your neck, humming into your skin. Sneaky hands slipped under your loose cotton T-shirt to cradle your stomach. “I once read a statistic that claimed marriage improves the outcome of a pregnancy. Shall we see if it’s true?”

You rested your free hand over his. “If you help me paint.”

“You know I’m no good at art.”

“Anyone can be an artist.”

“Angelfish—”

You shifted in his arms and held up a clean paintbrush. “Anyone, Zul. That includes you.”

He stared at the brush, frowning. “I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

“I’ll have none of that talk.” You rested your head against his chest and peered up at him through your lashes. A pleasant smile softened your face. “I don’t want this wall to be my masterpiece. I want it to be ours.”

“Yes… Yes, I’m aware. But even so—”

“The best things come in two, don’t they? Come on. You won’t know if you’ll enjoy something until you’ve tried it.”

“But I have, dear.”

“Not with me you haven’t.”

Azul laugh-scoffed. “Stubborn,” he chided, pinching your side and shaking his head in disbelief. One hand slid out from beneath your shirt to grasp the brush. “I suppose I can try. An entire field of cornflowers won’t paint itself now, will it?” He winked.

“That’s the spirit! I think blue suits this room, don’t you?”

“I’m struggling to see your vision, darling.”

“It’s a nice color. One of my favorites. And…” You turned in his arms to press your lips to his cheek. “Blue is you.”

He was smiling; he could feel it—the tug of toothy jubilance. “Is that right?”

“It is! I thought that the moment we met. If it weren’t for your pretty eyes, I don’t think I’d have approached you.”

“Ah, right. You thought they were rather lovely, didn’t you?” His hold on you tightened as he recalled the memory. “How did you say it? ‘Sir, I just had to come up to you to compliment your eyes! They’re the nicest shade of bewitching blueberry blue I’ve ever seen.’ You said it like that, yes? And it was the first time I’d ever heard such a strangely specific compliment. Normally, most go for the outfit or the hair.”

“But you liked it, didn’t you?” you say, singing the question like a pansophical siren.

“I did. I…really did. I still do, in fact.”

Your body shook with your laughter. “Then it’s not so strange after all.”

“Not in the slightest.”

His fingers brushed your navel, a fleeting touch that turned giggles into shivers. You put your brush to the wall, but no designs bloomed. He did much the same, meeting your brush halfway, bristles dipped in friendly yellow. Only after he’d marred the wall with it did he realize his error.

You always ruin everything, he thought, resenting his clumsy ways. Everything you’ve ever touched, you ruin.

“Ooh, yellow and blue. That’s pretty. Like sunflowers and cornflowers!”

“But I… Your blue—I completely tarnished it.” He couldn’t help it; the words rushed out.

“What? No way! I like it.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, it’s true. It adds something to the blue. Makes it come together, you know?”

Azul stared at the wall, his face scrunched with poorly veiled vitriol. “I fail to see how that logic tracks.”

You gathered both brushes and set them down on the countertop before turning fully in his arms. “Hey, it’s okay. We can paint over it if you want. But… Well, personally, I think we should keep it.”

“Why?” It came out hushed, a broken murmur.

“Because it’s like happiness amidst sadness.” Like the angel you’ve always been, you reached up to cradle his face between your warm, gentle hands. He melted in your hold, weak to the ways in which you often lifted him up. “Too much of anything in abnormal amounts is unhealthy, so we need happiness to balance the sadness. Plus, if this room was solely blue, I might go crazy.”

He wanted to reject your explanation, gripe and groan about how it was much too fluffy and foolish, but you were right. You have always been right with emotions, reading him well enough to pick apart his tells.

It’s your lips on his that brought him back to himself. He blinked when you separated.

“You’re not perfect. No one is. Not even me, and this wall definitely isn’t going to be perfect either. But it’ll be special because we made it. Because it’s a unique combination of us.”

Azul felt himself nodding along.

“So don’t worry. Sometimes mishaps like these are for the best. They help put things into perspective—to show us something we might not have seen before.”

“Like painting a new picture.”

“Exactly!” You squeezed his hand. “So no pity parties, got it? Not unless we’re going to throw one together and have snacks and tea.”

He exhaled shakily, reciprocating your affectionate touch. “Thank you, my love.”

You smiled so beautifully that he was compelled to enshroud you entirely and keep you with him in a cage of limbs. To ensure you’d never leave. To keep you backdropped by a work-in-progress wall forever.

And for the first two years of your new life with him, you remained in that cozy, quaint house, adding details to the wall when you could. The kitchen shaped itself nicely, embroidered in an array of blue hues, accompanied by sunny yellows and frilly whites. Every morning, you’d stand at the counter and cook, ever the early riser, and he’d drag himself in just after the sun had peaked in the sky; and together you would eat in front of that wall, tied together by the bright, beautiful wonders of young love.

Sometimes it was the yummy temptations of good food that brought you together. Other times it was each other, bodies pressed flush. Clothes wrinkling and coming off in heaps. Windows left open in the aftermath to bring in sweet spring breezes. Gathering each other and sitting in the bath, giggling about something silly. More kissing and touching; playful squeezing while washing the other. If Azul’s life had been a tragedy before, then this was certainly something far better. A new chapter in a new book with crisp, unturned pages, each one ripe and ready to receive love in loads.

You fell pregnant just as the changing winds ushered summer in, and suddenly that storybook blossomed considerably, pages stained with all things good. He had pinched himself before just to ensure this wasn’t a delusion or a dream, and finding that it was neither proved that there was indeed tenderness in his world. It was destiny that you two would meet by pure chance, fall for the other’s quirks and charms, and agree to a whirlwind marriage, so swept up in the authenticity of redamancy.

Azul thought his life couldn’t get any sweeter. A perfect wife, a perfect job, a perfect house, a perfect paradise built for two. It was a future he’d only ever fantasized about, an illusion he imagined to be forever out of his reach. But he had attained it, miraculously grasped it with both hands, and from here it would only be days and days of wonder and whimsy.

Thirty-one weeks into a perfect, pretty pregnancy, you fell again. Down the stairs, crumpled in a heap of limbs and broken promises. He stood at the top of the stairs, his chest heaving with the remnants of some animalistic emotion. You shattered like porcelain, a marionette cut free from her strings. The baby fell with you.

Then came the darkness: creeping, encroaching, all-consuming.

Then came the lies.

Then came the obsession with omniscience.

And all throughout it, you’d continue to imprison yourself in his eyes.

the second vow - to love and to cherish.

“You shouldn’t work so much.”

By the fourth year, he had told you that.

You looked up from your plate, which you’d spent most of dinner pushing the food around rather than actually eating. Meals carried out in this fashion, a cyclical routine you dreaded. Ever since he’d purchased a penthouse suite and moved you to the city, abandoning the life you had built in the tiny, two-story house with its friendly neighborhood of faces, your world became the sky: sad and cloudy. Always rainy. It was empty up there, and the luxuries he provided did nothing to fill the holes in your shattering heart.

You couldn’t paint any walls here, for they had already been colored in boring monochromes.

“But I like the coffee shop. Everyone’s really nice to me, and the hours are reasonable. I’m paid well, too.”

“It’s minimum wage, (Name).”

“Still…”

“I make enough to support the both of us.”

And it was true. He’d just opened the first branch of the Mostro franchise, an elegant, high-end eatery stuck right in the heart of the city. Money has never been an issue, not when he was so determined to see each of his dreams through to the very end. You were dragged along through the wild currents of those ambitions. Simple luxuries were no longer sleeping in on weekends or watching the sun rise and set in the garden. Now it was extreme excess and opulence, devouring you with designer brands.

“I’d rather not be home all day. It’s lonely.”

“Jade or Floyd can provide company should you need it.”

You stared at him, your mouth agape. “I don’t need babysitters. I’m an adult, Azul.”

“They wouldn’t babysit—” He sighed, shook his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re welcome to accompany me to the office instead.”

“But I like my job. I like talking to customers and taking orders and making drinks. If I quit, I wouldn’t have anything else.”

“That’s not true. You’d have me.”

“The regulars would miss me. So would my coworkers.”

“Darling… Angelfish, I don’t quite care for them and I don’t think they care for you either. At the end of the day, all of you are working a dead-end job, putting up with nonsense from rude, impatient customers who never bother to tip despite having full pockets. You’re not working.” Azul smiled, his blueberry eyes ripe with a strange sort of light. “You’re surviving, and that’s not a quality of life you should shackle yourself to.”

You pushed food around on your plate, unconvinced. “I just don’t feel right about lazing around and doing nothing. It’s not very fair if you’re the one doing everything while I just sit back and reap the benefits.”

“Why not? I hardly mind. Besides, I enjoy spoiling you. You deserve this and so much more.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “If I could, I’d package the world in a little box and give it to you, my dear.”

“We had that once and you broke it.”

His body stiffened, eyes flicking to your mouth. He couldn’t meet your eyes. He’s never been able to—not since that day. Neither of you can figure out whether it was intentional or an accident, or maybe it was something more: an intentional accident.

“P-Pardon?”

“I had the world and you broke it.” You set your fork and knife on your plate, perfectly vertical in accordance with proper etiquette. “Back at the old house.”

“Darling, you know we couldn’t stay… We were due for a change of scenery.”

Furiously, you opened your mouth, tears springing forth, but no words came. Instead, you clamped your jaw and stood from your chair, turning away from the table in a hurry.

“(Name), sweetheart, please wait!” He stood as well, nearly stumbling over himself as he moved to intercept you. “My love, you know I never meant for that to happen. If I could, I’d go back and I’d fix everything so that we’d never have to experience such sorrow again.”

He reached for your hands, but you slapped them away and took a grand step back. “You knew we were at the top of the stairs. You knew, Azul. You knew it was wrong because you moved me away so no one could question it!”

His face contorted with offense, nose scrunching as if he had just smelled something foul. “I did not.”

“You did! You pushed me down those stairs and you watched me. Watched me cry and groan because it hurt and the baby was hurt. You watched and you waited because you knew.”

“I did not!” he said, louder this time, his face blue with rising frustration. “I was in shock, (Name). You can’t possibly expect me to jump into action when I was frozen stiff and horrified. And it was an accident. We’ve been over this before. I’ve apologized numerous times.”

“Sorry, but words aren’t gonna fix anything. See? I’ve said it and nothing’s changed. It’s not words that fix broken things, Azul. It’s action.”

You stomped out of the room in a huff, blinded with tears and rage. You weren’t sure if you were more frustrated with the circumstances or Azul himself, but it might have been the latter when he pursued, insistent like the worst kind of thorn. One that’s wedged itself so deep you couldn’t possibly pluck it free with your fingertips.

You’re not sure tweezers would work either, for the hold he has on you was and still is a nasty vise.

“I… (Name), love, darling, I’ll do better. I’m trying.”

Though he made these claims, he expressed them rather pathetically—his arms outstretched, palms up, as if to show you he was no longer a threat to your mental and physical well-being. His face was in poor shape; he was blue all over, flushed from the rush of emotions, his eyes much too small. He looked almost deranged in a desperate, animalistic way. As if someone was cutting him into meticulous slivers with a precision so painful it would leave him to bleed out for hours.

You inhaled a deep, shaky breath, freezing the red-hot anger for a moment. I have to be the bigger, better person. Fighting isn’t going to accomplish anything.

“Look, if you want to make a conscious effort to be better I’m all here for it. But you have to actually try, Azul.”

“I am—I… I will!”

“I’m serious.”

“As am I.”

“Then please let me do things for myself. Marriage is about fairness. It’s you and me. We have to work together. And if that’s you supporting us with your business and me working part-time for extra cash, then let it be that way. That’s togetherness, not forcing the twins to babysit me like I’m senile or convincing me to quit a job I enjoy doing. Money shouldn’t matter if we’re both making it and we both trust each other to be responsible about it. So, while I appreciate surprise purchases, I’d much rather we do things together like before. That’s more meaningful and priceless to me than materialistic ploys meant to win me over.”

He swallowed thickly. Blue bled into the rest of his scleras. You watched him gradually inflate with relief. “I… I understand. I’m sorry. Truly, I am…”

“Stop telling me that. Show me. Please. And mean it.” You held your hands out. Hesitating, he fidgeted on his feet before gingerly placing his palms in yours. They were ice-cold. “Every relationship has its faults. Ours is no different. I’m forgiving you for the past, but I’m not going to forget and I’m not giving you a free pass either. I want to trust you, Zul, and I want you to trust me.”

“I do…” he began, only to curb himself. “I… Well, you know I worry. I know you have good friends, but when you’re out so late… O-Or when you don’t text me back… I’m always worrying.”

“Don’t.” You smiled and squeezed his hands. “I can take care of myself.”

His face darkened at that, a slew of stormy emotions brewing behind blue eyes. “Still.”

“I don’t worry about you when you’re at work or flying out for business trips. I trust that you’ll be okay because you know what you’re doing.”

“That’s different… That’s—”

“I’m happy that you care so much, but I promise I’m always safe when I’m out. You know this.”

“Yes. But… Well…” He sighed and shook his head. “At the very least, please let one of the twins drive you to and from your destinations.”

You fixed your lips into a moue. “Azul.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, groaning softly. “Yes, I know how that sounds. I know.”

“I’m not asking you to change overnight. No one can. It takes time. Everything does. I understand that you worry, but I’ve proven to you more than once that I’m plenty capable on my own.”

“All right.” His eyes flicked open at that, and without warning he tugged you into his chest. The embrace was constrictive with an alarming tightness that seemed to mean: I can’t lose you, so I’ll never let go. He buried his face in your hair, clinging to you out of sheer need. “All right. From now on, let’s be together.”

You nodded, slow to reciprocate. “No more gloomy dinners?”

He shook with awkward laughter. “No more gloomy dinners.”

You thought you had it under control. You thought you could reel him in and sculpt him from the shards—take all of the hateful, broken parts he harbored and glue them whole. You thought it’d be safer to organize his medication with encouraging notes each morning in hopes that he wouldn’t neglect it. You thought you’d ease into discussions with a gentle approach, if only to avoid stoking the flames of something monstrous. If only to ensure neither of you would scream at each other until your voices were spent.

You thought you were making progress when he showed you all of the secret spaces in the penthouse, admitting to squirreling things away out of weakness, out of greed, out of some tangle of complicated feelings. The majority of his stash was comfort foods, each one more unhealthy than the last, accompanied with a tiny notebook he’d used to scribble calorie counts. The pages were brittle and stained when you flipped through them; he had been crying each time he documented the amounts. Pieces were beginning to fit themselves together. On days when he surpassed his recommended calorie intake, he hardly indulged in dinner, preferring to pick at his plate. Instead, he would feast on empty conversations with you and those would be enough to sustain him.

Throughout all of this, Azul kept his gaze firmly glued to the floor and tore at the skin near his nails. The tips of his ears were flushed blue with humiliation.

“I hate eating,” he muttered, tapping his foot in quick, anxious rhythms. “I hate it so much.”

“Azul,” you said, soft like linen, “do you really mean that?”

His eyes found yours, glossy and defeated. “I… I…” He shook his head, the truth spilling free like paint dripping from a slain canvas. His arms, trembling and twitching, rose to his face. “No, I don’t,” he wailed into his hands, the sound echoing in the hall. “I really, really don’t.”

You shut the diary. It’s because you love food so much that you hate it, you thought, pitying him and the self-deprecating notes he’d scribbled alongside columns of calculations. Because when you eat, you don’t want to stop. Because if you aren’t thinking about numbers, you enjoy it. It makes you happy. And you restrict yourself and this happiness because it hurts to have any more than the bare minimum. Because the bare minimum also hurts, but it feels better when you have less in your stomach so you can eat the rest in secret.

“Let’s start small,” you offered, placing your hand on his arm. He lowered it to reveal a snotty, teary face, blueberry eyes darting to and fro. “Let’s plan our meals together. If we know what we’re eating in advance, we can avoid falling into bad habits. And meal plans are a good way to budget.”

Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he sniffled. “I’m…not opposed to the idea.”

You had it under control.

But then the knives would go missing, later turning up when it was most convenient. When he needed a clever way to get you to stay.

You had it under control.

But then you would forsake plans with friends and family in order to help him through another spiral.

You had it under control.

But then it felt like he was breaking himself into pieces nearly every day, at every hour, over the smallest of inconveniences. Working a minute too late. Eating dinner before he could get home to join you at the table. Going out on your own without supervision from Jade or Floyd.

You had it under control.

But then his shadow was stretching too far and too wide, swallowing you in a portrait of possession.

You had it under control.

But then that was at the cost of your sanity.

the third vow - till death do us part.

“Hypothetically speaking, if I were to die tomorrow, would you grieve me forever? Or would you simply get over it and remarry?”

By the sixth year, just a few hours ago, he’d asked you that.

You looked up at him from the notebook in your lap, where you’d been aimlessly scribbling in circles. The lines overlapped, ink blotting together in manic patterns. Originally, you were going to write a grocery list. But now all you had were jagged lines and not-quite-right geometry.

As if you had rehearsed it prior, you answered smoothly, albeit with an edge to your voice, “But you’re not going to die tomorrow.”

“I could.”

“You won’t.”

Azul slumped back against the sofa and pulled his knees into his chest. “Maybe not. I have a clean bill of health.”

Not mentally, you thought, morbidly wry.

“You shouldn’t sound so disappointed. It’s good to be healthy.”

“You won’t care for me as much if I’m healthy,” he mumbled, gazing out the window at the sparkling cityscape with those dull, dreary blueberry eyes of his. “I wish I was sick. Then I could take a week off from work and just…exist.”

You frowned at him from where you sat opposite in a comfortable chair. It was the only piece of furniture he took from the old house. For sentimental reasons, of course. Sometimes you thought it still smelled like home, even if the scent of home was so warped and far-off now.

“You’re the boss, aren’t you? If you need to rest, take some time off and recuperate.”

“I want to, but my schedule can’t afford any interruptions. Not now.”

“Don’t overwork yourself.”

“I’m not.”

The conversation flatlined, only to soon breathe again when he suddenly added, “We should go on a trip.”

“A trip?”

“New scenery would do us a world of good.”

“Oh. Um, okay. Where should we go?”

“Anywhere.”

“Anywhere is too broad. Plus, we’d have to plan it in advance. Make sure everything’s covered. Expenses and whatnot.”

Azul’s expression soured. “Ah. Right.” He hummed his contemplation, drumming his fingers along the sofa’s armrest. “We could go somewhere nearby. Hospital food sounds good.”

You speared him with a sharp, stern look. “Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m not!”

You set your notebook and pen on the coffee table, aware of his powdery hues tracking your every move. “Azul?”

“Mhm?”

Your heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Relentless, the sound skyrocketed into your eardrums and joined in chorus with rushing blood. But you had to tell him. You had to broach this subject. It had been gathering dust and cobwebs, aged by many tiresome years. You couldn’t do this anymore.

“Azul, I think—” You swallowed hard, your fingers curling up into tight fists. “I think we… I think we should get a divorce.”

His head snapped up from where it had previously rested on his knees. He stared at you for a long, silent time.

And then, sucking in a breath, he asked in a fragile, breathless whisper: “What?”

“Um… I… We…” Your chest heaved with your exhalation. “We’re not happy.”

“We are.” He blinked at you, owlish and unwilling to look past the gilded lie. Unable to stop playing pretend. “We’ve always been.”

“No… No, we haven’t. Azul, it’s—really, it’s so exhausting. I’m so tired.”

“Then let’s sleep.” He lowered his feet onto the floor, intending to stand.

“Mentally, Azul. I… Fuck, I’m so tired. I really can’t do this anymore.”

Color seeped from his eyes. His pupils widened and shrunk, and then a wobbly smile overtook his gaunt features. “Angelfish, that’s not a very pleasant joke…”

You could only offer him your most forlorn look, finally defeated after six years. Six years of pushing a stone up a hill, never to advance and never to succeed. This conversation was well overdue.

Azul rose to his feet, his apparent horror dawning. It molded his features into something wrong and fearsome. Something panicked and cornered. “Darling, you’re not serious about this, right? You… We’re just going through a bit of a rough patch, but we’re okay. I’m okay. Yesterday’s session went so well. I’m getting better. I… I’ve done all of this for you—for us! So we don’t need to do anything rash. We don’t need to get divorced. We just need to—”

“You’re not okay. Azul, I’ve tried so hard. I really have. I’ve done everything, but I just can’t keep exhausting the same tricks.” You heaved a dry, tearless sob. “I can’t keep doing this anymore. I want to go back to work, but I can’t because I never know if you’ll be okay on your own. I want to trust you, but I can’t. We’re not communicating. We’re just—we’re playing the same delusional game and it’s getting us nowhere. You and I both know we’re not working. We stopped working the day you pushed me down those stairs.”

He froze, his lip quivering. “Darling, please… Please don’t say that. You don’t mean that.”

“I want you to get better—genuinely get better—but I’m not the help you need.”

“That’s not true. You’re all I need—all I’ve ever needed. With you here, I’m whole. I’m happy. What was it you told me? That marriage is togetherness? That it’s you and me? So as long as we’re together—no matter what may come between us—we’ll always be happy. We have our disagreements, yes, but every relationship is like that. It’s normal, my dear. So please don’t say those things. I am better, and I’ll continue to be better until my final breath.”

“Azul, you’re not listening.” Now you were standing from your chair. “Togetherness is not this. This—” you gestured to yourself, to the way your clothes hung from your body, a size too large, before pointing at him— “isn’t healthy. We’re not healthy. Every day I’m with you is hell. I need a break as much as you do. We can’t keep doing this. Let’s save ourselves the insanity and misery, and let’s be sensible adults. A divorce is the only—”

“You’re wrong.”

The rest of your tirade stuck in your throat. “W-What?”

“Divorce is an expensive, lengthy process.” Azul stepped around the coffee table, his stare blank and haunted. Twin pools of the darkest ocean bored into your skull. “I can easily afford it, but it’s a price I’m not willing to pay.”

Despite what little confidence you had before, it’s all but diminished now. You shrunk away from him. “A-Azul, calm down. You… You’re scaring me.”

“Well, that’s nothing new now, is it?”

“Azul—”

“You want sensible adults? Very well. Let’s have an actual discussion instead of picking each other apart like this.” He peered down at you from where he stood, his head angled in such a way that his acknowledgement of you appeared contemptuous. “So sit back down in your chair and talk like a sensible, mature adult.”

Opening your mouth, you intended to respond. But the words wouldn’t come. They were lodged in your throat, coagulating with raw, rich fear.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

I can’t say anything, you thought, your body petrifying with every passing second. I’m scared…

“If you put just a little more thought into your brainless idea, you’ll find it’s quite…lacking. Divorce ruins our togetherness, splits us apart and condemns us to two different worlds. And if I’m no longer able to cross into your world—if you forbid it and leave my world—I’ll truly die. I refuse to let that happen. So, no, darling, we won’t be getting a divorce. I won’t agree to it.”

Perhaps it was the hopelessness in your heart that forced fresh tears from your ducts, or maybe it was the final straw in your weakening defenses, but the words came bursting out in a hurry.

“I don’t care anymore! I want you to die!”

You slapped your hands over your mouth. Azul stared at you, stupefied.

“I… I want to be rid of you,” you continued, your words muffled and distraught. “I’ve always thought… Always hoped you might just disappear one day and I’d finally know peace… Please, Azul. Let’s end this. I don’t want to be stuck in this cycle. I don’t even love you anymore. I’m just…done.”

“You don’t mean that…” He made a strange sound, a hybrid between a gasp and a laugh. “Y-You’re just saying that. You still love me. You don’t actually want me gone. You love me… R-Right? Please say you do. Please, angelfish. My love… Please…”

“You’re not well, Azul. I think… I think this is for the best.” You turned away from him. “I’m going to stay in a hotel tonight. Please take some time to calm down and then we’ll talk more in the morning. I… I’m sorry. I really do want you to get help, but I can’t be around you any longer than I already have. It’s draining. You’re draining.”

You took one step further and something inside him splintered.

His power was cut, a line between consciousness and reality severed.

You did not love him. You wanted a divorce. You did not love him. You wanted a divorce.

Did not love him. Divorce. Did not love him. Divorce.

Did not love did not love did not love did not love not love not love not love.

Divorce divorce divorce divorce divorce.

Not love not love not love.

All alone.

Alone like before.

Back to the disgusting creature he once was.

You were walking away, your back turned on him.

He was going to lose his world. It was slipping through his fingers, fleeting and frail.

He couldn’t lose his world, for it’s all he’s ever had.

Azul lunged, seizing your wrist and dragging you down.

Your scream was cut short when his hands clung to your throat.

From then on, everything was a blur.

Two blueberry eyes swallowed you whole, entrapping you in cerulean paradise.

the epilogue - there will never be two without you.

“They used to call me all manner of cruel things when I was a child,” Azul admits to the desolate quiet of his penthouse suite. “I was ridiculed every day. I couldn’t even recognize myself in the mirror. Isn’t that just terrible?” He leans against the sofa and exhales slowly, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “But then you told me I was pretty and suddenly the mirrors blinked back at me. Suddenly the world looked just a little wider and…brighter. So bright! The sea swallows so much color, my dear, and so you’ll never know just how vibrant the surface is to us merfolk.”

He deflates with a wet, wheezing laugh. “No one’s ever told me I was pretty. No one’s ever loved me. Not in the way that you did.” Sighing, he runs a hand down his face. Tears track his cheeks; his blueberry eyes exist in a field of splotchy red. “You were such an angel. To love a filthy, hideous thing like me… Only an angel could do that. Only an angel could look beyond every flaw of mine and love so gently.”

Azul lowers his arm and peers at the knife clutched tightly in his other hand. “I never deserved you. I’ve treated you so horribly. I—” He chokes on a rising sob and shakily lifts the blade to his wrist. It presses against his skin for a moment before he’s yanking it away.

“Fuck,” he spits, his voice trembling. “I… I can’t do it.”

You’re a coward, his inner critic berates. A cowardly, clumsy fool of an octopus.

Gritting his teeth, he steels himself and tries again. The blade digs deeper into his flesh, enough to draw the tiniest pinprick of blood. Pain flashes through his nerves, prey instincts firing off commands. He attempts to push past the curtain veiling his thoughts—Stop before you hurt yourself! Stop before you kill yourself!—but then he spies the blue rising to the surface, pooling under the blade, and he retreats immediately. Horrified, he discards the knife at once. It soars across the room in an imperfect arc before settling on the floor with a clatter, just inches from your body.

“Fuck,” he whispers, closing his hand around his wrist to halt the bleeding. “Fuck. Fuck!”

I really can’t bring myself to do it…

He throws his head back against the cushions, eyeing the ceiling. “I’ve done such an unforgivable thing to you and yet I… I can’t do it to myself. I just can’t.” He shuts his eyes, inhales deeply, and opens them again. “I so selfishly took your life, but I’m clinging to mine like a spineless loser.”

Azul lowers himself onto the floor, curling into a fetal position. He grips his wrist in a tighter hold. His glasses are somewhere in the room, likely cracked or worse. He can’t be bothered to seek them out.

“Did you ever believe in soulmates? Ah, what am I saying? Stupid… But I truly think we were soulmates. Perhaps not in this lifetime. But somewhere on a distant horizon…” He smiles dreamily, pressing his cheek against the cool floorboards. “I wonder if we’ll ever meet again. It’s a matter of luck and fate. Sea Witch below, I hate those odds.” Another noisy sob bubbles up in his throat. He shakes with the force of it, his throat raw and ruined. Another onslaught of tears pours from his eyes. “I was r-really happy that day you approached me. I was so happy… More… More happy than you’ll ever know. Thank you for looking at me and seeing me and opening your heart to me. I’m sorry I couldn’t cherish you more than this.”

He forces himself up onto his arms and then, as if just learning how to walk again, rises to his feet on wobbling legs to cross the slim distance to arrive at your body. Like a sinner on trial, he drops to his knees and gathers you in his arms as if you are his Madonna della Pietà.

“Without you, there is no world,” he murmurs, holding you close for a moment longer before lowering you to the floor. His tears dot your cheeks like somber rainfall. He reaches for the knife next, his mind made up. “Thank you for loving me. Sincerely. Truly. You’re the only one I’ll ever love. For that, I’m grateful. Because of you, I was able to know the taste of romance. And…” He hiccups through his bawling. “And it’s so very sweet.”

Blue blood spatters the floor, spilling from a messy gash in his abdomen. The knife is sharper than he thought.

Azul flops onto his stomach beside you, reaching out to run his fingers over your cheek. He inhales a weary breath and agony fills his lungs.

The world is dyed a brilliant, burdensome blue.

Azul Ashengrotto wakes in captivity. Bandaged, dressed in a plain gown, and cuffed to the bed, he is alive.

He moves his wrist, each of his senses filtering in at once. His other arm is turned over and pierced with an IV. Groggily, he lifts his gaze to the machines humming around him. Blue blood sits heavy in a bag, and he watches the liquid travel down, down, down through the tube. He blinks. His eyes are crusty. Has he been crying?

Assessing the handcuff once more, he turns up empty.

Why is he here?

Why does it hurt to move?

Why are there so many bandages around his stomach?

Most of all, where is his world?

What is this place?

It’s a hospital, yes, but why is he here? He has a clean bill of health.

Where is his world?

It’s when he starts actively struggling against the restraint, his breath coming in terrified huffs, that the nurses file in to tend to him. They check his vitals, run some harmless tests, ask him a few questions—it’s a lot all at once. He goes through the process as if stuck in sludge.

“My… My wife,” he croaks, unable to think of anything else. His heart tightens in his chest. “Where is she? What happened? Is she okay?”

Nervously, the nurses skirt around his questions until, eventually, he loses patience and tries to tear himself free from the bed that confines him.

“Where is she?!” he’s screaming, thrashing on the bed like he’s Frankenstein’s monster—a haunted reanimation shocked with electricity. “Answer me! Where is she?! She has to be here. Please… Please tell me she’s safe. I need to see her—need her here right now.”

They hurry out just as he curses at them.

“You can’t keep her away from me! She’s my wife—mine! If you lay a hand on her—”

A new face appears in the doorway; it’s a man dressed in striking attire. A police officer. Azul stares at him, his nostrils flaring wildly. For a short beat, they simply watch one another. Eventually, the officer nods towards a chair.

“May I?”

“What do you want?” He narrows his blueberry eyes, immediately suspicious.

“I’m here to have a chat with you. It’s about your wife. Is that okay?”

At the mention of you, Azul’s thoughts stall out. “Do you know where she is? Is… Is everything okay?”

The officer lowers into the chair and casually crosses one leg over the other. Casual in the friendly sense, Azul realizes. He really doesn’t like this man. Any longer here and he’ll start trying to build rapport.

“We’ll get there in a second. First, I’d like to introduce myself.” He goes through the motions; Azul is only half-listening, replying when it’s beneficial.

(Name). She’s safe, right? She must be. She has to be. Everything’s okay.

(Name). (Name). (Name). (Name). (Name). (Name). (Name).

Where are you? Do you realize how worried I am? Oh, this must be my fault. I did something foolish again.

I must have tried to hurt myself. Angelfish, please wait for me. I’ll be okay. You’re safe and so am I.

Safe. Yes. Right. Safe. Safe. Safe.

Safe… Right?

Right.

Right?

“Had your friends not called in, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

That brings Azul back to the world. He blinks at the officer, one eye at a time. “What?”

“You were on the verge of bleeding out.”

“Friends?” He’s slow on the uptake. “Jade and Floyd?”

The officer nods. Silence fills the space. Azul wonders when he’s going to open his mouth again.

“What about them?” he asks instead.

The officer frowns. “Do you not recall anything?”

Azul thinks long and hard about this. “I… I was having a discussion with my wife. It was something about a trip. No, not that. Um… Something…important. Something else, perhaps?” He shakes his head, unable to turn up anything useful. “I haven’t a clue. Why? Is something the matter? Where’s my wife?”

Silence is his only reply.

Somehow that tells him everything and nothing all at once.

Somehow he suspects it. His body knows. His fingers twitch with phantom spasms, curling inwards to cut off airflow. The puzzle is scrambled and the image is fuzzy, but he knows.

He knows because he’s already crying, and there’s only ever been one thing that can bring out the inner crybaby he despises so.

It’s always been you.

Azul Ashengrotto is the sole speck of blue in this white hospital room.

And he certainly feels it.

He’s right back where he began: alone and clumsy, an octopus out of water, viewing the cramped, compact, colorless world with his bewitching blueberry hues.

#yandere twst #yandere twst x reader #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #yandere azul ashengrotto #yandere azul ashengrotto x reader #yandere azul x reader #yandere azul #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: self harm #tw: suicide

[gothamitelove]

Hey. Could I request a “dating joker would include…”? (Jared Leto’s joker)

thanks!!

hell yeah!! first im gonna send you over to this post if you haven't already seen it, but here are some other hcs i have for him:

dating leto!joker headcanons:

this man is VERY touchy. he likes knowing you're nearby, and even more so than that, likes knowing you're his

will absolutely use that to scare away anybody he thinks is making eyes at you

also very fond of giving you stuff. part of it is a possessive thing (a lot of things are, with him), knowing that you're wearing things he gave you, but he also likes giving you things he knows you'll like so you wear that pretty smile for him

he does love it when you smile. he thinks your laugh is the most beautiful sound in the world

when he's asleep, he looks... peaceful, actually. the most peaceful you've ever seen him.

he kind of attaches to you like a koala when you're in the same bed at night. you could be on opposite sides of the bed to start out with but you WILL wake up with him all over you

a HUGE fan of the holding your face in his hands thing

not above sitting in your lap! this is the joker we're talking about, he is nothing if not flexible (in a couple different ways, my friend)

#asks #joker #suicide squad #dcu #x reader #gender neutral reader #dc x reader #rogues gallery #headcanons #dceu #joker x reader #suicide squad joker #the joker #leto joker x reader #leto joker #jared leto joker

[amphibiahawks321]

Harley Quinn : is it just me or does Y/N's ass lookin more fine today?

Deadshot : Groans first, why are you saying that to me of all people Second, have you ever tried not to be open minded....

Harley Quinn : Ha! yeah no!

Harley Quinn : HEY Y/N!

[Y/N heard Harley called]'

M!Reader : ???

Harley Quinn : Your ass lookin mighty fine today!

[Deadshot facepalm]'

M!Reader : ......

M!Reader blushing : What-

#male reader #dc x reader #reader x dcu #reader x dc #dcu x reader #reader x harley #harley x reader #harley quinn x reader #reader x harley quinn #harley quinn #dc #dcu #dceu #dceu x reader #reader x dceu #suicide squad x reader #reader x suicide squad #suicide squad