#/riritw:yandere

[riricatria]

Hello, hello, first post!

The template is heavily inspired by @cinnamonest, I'm a big fan ┴┬┴┤◕‿◕｡)

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CONTENT WARNINGS INCLUDE: Dark content (dead dove), cisfem!Reader, verbal abuse, physical abuse (blood, bruises), one (1) bone breaking, the general psychological stuff that comes with yandere (obsession, possessiveness, imprisonment...), vague talk about depression, forced non-smechxual touching, NONCON, periods, brief anal, fingering, brief overstim, oral in both directions, rough boombayah, predator/prey dynamics.

Disclaimers can be found in my pinned post.

S-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 1. General look: How are they like? How do they behave around the darling? Are there any warning signs?

Mydei, Mydeimos, Son of Gorgo, the crown prince of Kremnos, Lil’ De, or the tall, handsome Chrysos Heir that only speaks rough words and puts a strange amount of effort into trying to best Phainon of Aedes Elysiae in whatever challenge they have made up that day. You don’t know him well. Very few people do, really.

He has a pretty face, a toned body, and a beautiful mane of hair that brings a large feline to mind. Very few people can truthfully say that he’s not an attractive guy. You’re not one of them, either: You have caught yourself eyeing the man a few times, just from afar. The gossip about him has reached your ears, they say that he’s actually a big softie (he sometimes plays with the children in his free time, they insist), but the aura he gives off is nothing but gruff. He doesn’t seem like the type to appreciate random people coming up to him to chat.

That, and you’ve gotten the picture that he isn’t particularly fond of your company. From how he looks at you in passing, it seems like he would rather be talking with the talking lion statue on the wall. He has a nasty habit of making his feelings known, too, you think. When you walk past him at the bathhouse, he might click his tongue in annoyance or fold his arms over his chest, rolling his eyes. Subconsciously, you begin taking the longer route around, just to make sure you don’t bump into him.

But what’s going on in his mind is the complete opposite of what you have gathered. He can’t get his eyes off of you. Maybe you’re just a random citizen that has moved in Okhema, wandering around the city, or maybe you’re with the Astral Express, completely new to the planet. Whatever it is, the moment he lays his gaze on you, it’s downhill from there.

He tries to deny it at first. That what’s growing inside of him isn’t infatuation, it’s actually just him finding you incredibly irritating and annoying and a waste of space and beautiful and mesmerizing and cute and-… this is the point where the tongue-click usually happens.

In a way, it’s convenient that he himself acts as the warning sign, although in a very reverse way. You think he can’t stand you, so naturally, you distance yourself from him, which is exactly what he does not want, but he can’t really help himself. The ball is already rolling (and the hill is so steep that the ball is basically just falling by this point), and you can do very little to prevent the continuum of events from happening.

Mydei is a bit peculiar in the sense that he doesn’t even attempt to court you in regular ways. No nice words, no compliments, no flowers, not even a hello, nothing. His brain just goes from ”oh she’s pretty” to ”I need to have her immediately” in the span of, like, ten minutes. It doesn’t take much brainwork, although he tries his absolute hardest to turn the whole set-up on its head in his mind. He isn’t one to fall in love, probably truly hasn’t in all of his years, even, so while the feeling is new to him. Still, he’s in control in the sense that he won’t make any rushed decisions.

The downside is that the said decisions that he ultimately settles on are… questionable at the very least. He’s a warrior at heart and very much used to getting what he wants, when he wants it. And what he wants is you, nothing less, nothing more. He almost feels entitled to you, in a way. Look at all he has done, look how incredible and strong he is, he deserves you. You’re nobody compared to him, you don’t get a say in the matter.

But at the same time, he’s terrified of the sheer humanness of the sentiment. He equates the feelings to a show of weakness (hence he tries to twist them into actually hating you), and it gnaws on his sense of self. You’re an obstacle, but at the same time, you’re a need.

So, then he starts stalking you. Or not stalking, it’s more about seeing how you go on about your day, walking around the city to maybe see what you’re up to, discreetly tailing you when you make your way home (it’s definitely stalking you). You begin seeing him more often in random places like at the market or at the plaza. His eyes always find yours for a moment before he makes a brief, sour expression. You start wondering if the crown prince really is that big of an ass, if he really dedicates precious time from his schedule to searching you out just to express his distaste towards you face-to-face. It’s ridiculous, you think, but even then, it’s up to you if you decide to change up your routes just to avoid him. Not that it’ll help; soon enough, you’ll start bumping into him again.

Mydei knows he’s being weird, or at least that his behaviour appears strange to you. Still, he rationalizes it in, quite frankly, a ridiculous way. Yeah, what he’s doing is strange, but because he’s a powerful figure, a Chrysos Heir, the warrior of Okhema, whatever he’s doing is not strange. Because he’s so far above everyone else. Obviously this is within his rights.

Phainon and Tribbie are the only ones that may comment on his activities. Tribbie is encouraging in the way that she tries to get Mydei to actually, you know, try to get you to like him. She very carefully suggests that the reverse-psychology trick he’s got going on may not yield very good results, she tries to direct him down the correct path, only to be faced with little to no results. Phainon is more humorous about it, teases him, might even come chat to you about him if he’s feeling mischievous. You, of course, don’t believe a word he says, you think he’s just trying to lift your mood or protect your self-esteem from the constant dirty looks, so you just end up rolling your eyes and telling him to tell Mydei to leave you alone. You would say it to the crown prince directly if it weren’t for the immediate public humiliation you would face, you reason.

However, in the end, it is Phainon that ends up being the catalyst and airing a proposal to Mydei which ultimately seals your fate. The two of them are chatting idly, maybe in the middle of their rivalry again, and Phainon speaks out a cheeky remark: ”Maybe you should just grab her for yourself if she’s that big of a deal to you”. Mydei is about to snap right back with a bicker, but when the sentence registers in his brain, he comes to think. Wait, what if…?

Surely, it would be alright. He’s the crown prince of Kremnos, a Chrysos Heir, he’s THE Mydeimos. Would it be that immoral of him to want something like that? Surely he has done enough for the city and its people to deserve this one thing? Surely he has suffered enough? And so, the final nail is hammered into your coffin.

˗ˏˋ ★ 2. Securing: How will they abduct their darling? When, where and how?

It’s quick, it’s sudden, it’s very vaguely thought-out, it’s rough.

The reason why the plan isn’t very calculated or meticulous is because he himself doesn’t see a need for it to be that way. It works, and that’s all that matters to him. There isn’t even any impulsivity to it, either, he just decides the day and time and goes with it.

He takes you from your own residence, likely in the city. The Okheman architecture is convenient in the way that the windows are wide open, and he uses that to his advantage. It’s late into the night, and he’s standing at the base of your apartment, looking up at what he knows is your bedroom window. It’s quite high up, but a leap of a dozen meters is nothing to his honed, immortal body.

You’re in your bed. The night is hot, and you’re wearing nothing but your sleeping attire. You have moved the blanket to the side, baring yourself to his scrutiny. You’re fast asleep.

It’s ridiculous how easy it is for him to just reach down and grab your body. It even takes you a moment to wake up from your slumber, to try to comprehend the situation you’re in, but by the time you actually open your eyes, there’s a gauntleted hand over your mouth and a rock-solid arm wrapped around your upper body.

You recognize the attacker. He sees your eyes widen, the way reality sinks in your mind. The terror is nearly tangible.

You think he’s going to kill you. That Mydeimos, the Chrysos Heir is actually going to murder you in your own home. His hand over your face prevents you from screaming out, and the arm is, with so little effort, restricting any and all movement. It’s petrifying, the way your life flashes before your eyes, your mind goes to the image of your friends finding your bloody corpse by the bed. How your loved ones will stand by your grave, mourning your destiny without possibly ever getting to know what happened to you.

But then, Mydei just tells you to shut up before hauling your body around and hoisting it up like you weigh nothing. And to him, you don’t. With one hand still on your mouth and the other holding you up and against him, he flees the room through the window and starts making his way to the ruins of Castrum Kremnos.

The trip to the castle is not a quick one. Even with his impressive speed, it takes a good while for you to reach the premises. That, and he’s sprinting with you in his arms. It wouldn’t even be an effort if it wasn’t for the way you’re trying to flail around, trying to punch him, squirm out of his grasp, make as much noise as possible. It almost makes him want to give your head a good bonk so you would go quiet. But he doesn’t. And soon enough, you reach his home city.

The plan being very vague includes that he doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to do with you once he reaches the place. You need a spot to stay, obviously, somewhere the titankin can’t reach you, where you can’t escape from, where you can comfortably stay for the better part of your day. That, at least for the time being, ends up being a small, dark room on one of the high towers of the castle. There’s not a lot of space, no furniture, only rubble and dust with a single, small opening in the wall where the light pools in from. The view is frankly depressing, even to his eyes.

After the crescent moon shaped lock clicks shut behind him, he finally sets you down and removes his hands from your body. The moment your feet hit the ground, you’re scrambling away until your back hits the opposite wall, creating as much space between you and him as you’re able. You point a finger up at him, eyes wide and a couple of tears spilling past your lashes, and you immediately start spitting profanities and questions at him, screaming your lungs out, threatening to tell the other Heirs. The act isn’t very convincing to him, though; he can see the way your knees buckle and your arms shake, the way your eyes dart around the room.

And he’s so nonchalant about it that you nearly explode. After haunting you for weeks on end, he has decided to, what, ”take you for himself”? You’re livid just as much as you’re terrified, but that does very little to wound his pride. He simply folds his arms and answers your questions with little to no compassion, stating things as matter-of-fact rather than even trying to console you.

Though, he does understand your concerns. He doubts anybody would find the experience of being kidnapped very pleasant. Then, you start yelling him about more trivial matters like ”where the fuck do you expect me to sleep here?!” and ”what the hell will I eat?”. These are the things that he hasn’t yet had time to arrange, and the points are valid in that sense. He himself doesn’t like sleeping on cold, hard ground, either. He should find you a mattress, he thinks, though he doubts there are any just lying around in the ruins.

Then you start complaining that it’s cold in there, and you’re only in your pyjamas, that everything is bad, horrible. He clicks his tongue in annoyance, raising his voice and telling you that you’ll sleep with him for tonight and that he’ll get you a bed tomorrow.

Your jaw hangs open at the sheer audacity of this man, but ultimately, you can’t do much when he walks to you in a few, long strides, grabs your body like a sack of flour, rests down by the wall and settles you in his lap. Obviously, you don’t just give up and go to sleep right away. Instead, you attempt to throw punches at him, kicking him to the best of your ability, trying to squirm out of his iron grip. It’s kind of funny to him, actually, and he makes it known by straight up laughing at your face. You can either go to sleep or fight him until the morning if you’d like, it won’t change anything, he scoffs at you. And, after struggling an hour or two, you go slack in his hold.

˗ˏˋ ★ 3. Life: What is it like to live with them? How do they treat the darling?

It’s less than ideal at first. Considering the factor that you don’t have all the comforts of your previous home like, eh, a bed, the first few days are especially rough. You’re alone for a good portion of your day, locked away in a small room with practically nothing to do. Your only source of light is the small window, and even with it, you’re mostly encased in dimness. The door is firmly locked, and the window is so small in size that your shoulders and you don’t think your hips would squeeze through it even if you tried. You contemplate on finding out for yourself, but for now, you don’t, since you have bigger things to worry about, such as making sure you don’t die of thirst while he’s away.

Conveniently, the moon symbol on the lock starts spinning just as you start worrying, the door opens. Mydei steps into the room and tells you to get up. When you fail to immediately comply, he walks over to you and grabs you by the arm. You protest, telling him that you’re able to walk on your own two feet, but it isn’t until you voluntarily take proper steps without dragging that he lets you not be carried.

He takes you to a different part of the castle. It’s much cleaner, there’s less rubble, less dust here. He leads you past the hallways and to a larger door embedded in the wall. Behind it, you find a more spacious, furnished room. There’s a sizable, plush bed, there’s a shelf, there’s a door to what you assume is the bathroom, a desk, a chair. He leads you in with a firm hand on your upper back. There’s a large window on the east wall, one you could easily fit through. You make a mental note of it.

Everything you need is in the room. There’s even a bowl of pomegranates on the desk. It takes a moment for the puzzle pieces to click together in your brain. Albeit expressionless, Mydei’s eyes keenly observe your reaction from the way your brows knit together to how you look around the room in confusion. And then you start lashing out again, telling him how there’s ”no fucking way that you're gonna live in some monster-filled ruins with zero social contacts and activities”. Huh, activities? Oh, of course. You need something to entertain yourself with when he’s away on his business and whatnot. In a dismissive voice, he promises to do something about it tomorrow, but for tonight, the two of you are sleeping in your brand new bed (he holds you while you writhe and scratch at him).

In the following day, as he promised, he gets you something to busy yourself with. He’ll visit the market or the Grove to get you a book or two. He’ll go around the city and get you some snacks. Mydei would be lying through his teeth if he said that he knows exactly what you like, but the idea is still there. Besides, if the stuff doesn’t suit your preferences, he can just bring you more.

It takes a few days for you to warm up to the idea of accepting his gifts. After hours and hours on end of sitting around doing nothing but sleeping and staring at the ceiling, you finally pick up the book he brought you. It’s not particularly interesting; just some tales about the Titans and such, but opposed to spending even one more minute in complete boredom, you would much rather have this.

Mydei also takes you outside regularly. Some days he’s not able to spend too much time with you during the day, but even then, he knows the importance of sunlight exposure and fresh air. So, the two of you may walk around the ruins for a bit, he takes you to different parts of the castle at first. Then, if you don’t show too much resistance, he might start taking you back to Okhema, albeit on very limited terms. It’s only in hidden areas, mostly those where only the Heirs are allowed to enter. You’re strictly prohibited from talking to anyone, too, and if you do, you’ll never see the city again, he threatens. You mostly get to wander around a bit — under his watchful eye, of course. You even get to talk to Phainon a few times since Mydei seems to trust him enough to have you around him.

Furthermore, Mydei attempts to make it so that you’ll get to bathe in the bathhouse once a day, or at least every two days. Oftentimes, that ends up being the highlight of your nights. He rarely demands anything from you during those times, so you’ll get to have some peace for yourself.

In contrast, moments you dread the most are those when he’s actually forcing you to spend time with him. If he doesn’t have anything better to do (and you’re considerably high up on his list of priorities), he might just sit around in your room and stare at you until you give him attention. Attention meaning that you’ll talk to him, and even then he’ll pretend to be somewhat uninterested just to save face. You don’t know if he does it on purpose or if that’s really how dense he is, but the only way to eventually get him to leave you alone is to entertain him. What a prick. He would love to hold you, too, if you’d just let him. And he might do it even if you’re less than willing.

Your life falls into a cycle of sorts. You wake up with Mydei (typically encased in his arms), he gets you food, he leaves for his business for a few hours, you stay in your room, he comes back, you spend time with him, he might take you outside, night rolls around, you get to go to the baths, you come back, you go to sleep, encased in his arms, naturally.

If you’re lucky, he might even move you back to Okhema a few months into your captivity. This is only if you’ve been on your best behaviour, though. And if you attempt an escape, you’ll go right back to square one.

˗ˏˋ ★ 4. Rules: What kind of rules do they enforce? How lenient are they? How do they keep their darling in check?

He doesn’t actually have a thought-out set of rules for the darling. He expects you to have common sense, to understand unspoken expectations. It’s mostly just things like ”don’t escape” and ”don’t break stuff” and ”do what I say”. He never speaks these things out loud, but they have become quite clear to you. If you do something that displeases him, he lets you know in non-verbal ways like roughly grabbing you by the arm.

Other than the basics, he doesn’t really care what you do when you’re in your own room since there’s nothing much that could cause harm to you (or him) there. Mydei, if anybody, knows that it’s important not to restrict a person too much if you want them to remain happy, so he doesn’t intervene with your me-time too much. He won’t let you roam around, though — not without him, anyway. You’re going to stay locked up in your room.

If you’ve proven to be untrustworthy (an escape attempt, trying to hurt him, that sort of thing), he’ll keep you chained to the bed by one of your ankles with a heavy leg iron. If you’re actively trying to hurt yourself, he might shackle your hands to the bedposts, too. He won’t let you out of your bindings until you’ve been compliant for a good amount of time.

Aside from the physical restrictions, his presence alone is enough to keep you on good behaviour most of the time. You’re much too scared to attempt anything under his watchful eye, and he’s very aware of this himself. Most of the time, he utilizes the effect he has on you, to keep you in check. Though, at times, he thinks it would be nice if you just remained pliant by your own volition. Frightening you is somewhat counter-intuitive if his goal is to get you to like him, after all.

˗ˏˋ ★ 5. Consequences: What kind of punishments will the darling face? How do they punish different offences?

Oh, it’s not pretty. As stated, Mydei (in the eye of the public, anyway) isn’t known to be a very gentle person, and that translates to how he will deal with a disobedient darling. He’s quite an irritable man in general, so even the mildest offences can earn a disproportionately violent reaction from him.

Mydei has got a sharp tongue. He isn’t a man of many words, but at the same time, he most definitely isn’t one to spare any of them if need be. That being said, his most likely response to the smallest misdemeanours is a few harsh words. It doesn’t even need to be an actual offence, really. It can be things such as accidentally dropping a plate on the floor, or even something like making an expression that didn’t appease him at the moment. He will comment on it, berating you in that aggressive yet indifferent tone of his. He calls you things like ”insolent thing”, ”weak fool” or ”puny woman” and follows them with an insult directed at whatever you did wrong.

Note that scolding is the mildest possible consequence you can receive, and it, too, is heavily dependent on his mood. If he’s having a particularly bad day, even something as miniscule as you stumbling on something could be enough to have him grab you by the shoulder and throw you right back into your room.

The mildest of wrongdoings aside, the punishment for deliberate acts of disobedience is almost always physical. He’s incredibly strong, so even if he doesn’t actually mean to hurt you, the way he manhandles you is usually painful enough to get the point across. Talking back at him, rejecting his touches, refusing to eat out of spite, such things commonly earn you pain in one form or another. If he’s feeling merciful, he may just yank you by your arm and have his gauntlet dig into your skin as he verbally degrades you. If his mood is less than ideal, he might even grab you by the hair and push you to the ground, lightly (although it doesn’t feel like that to you) dig his heel into your side until you get the point. And usually, by then, you’ve swallowed whatever spite you had.

Mydei isn’t one to be psychologically cruel about his methods of punishment. The most deliberate mental torment you might face with him is being locked in your room for a few hours, and, if he’s being completely truthful, that’s more for him than you, as well. Not having you in his immediate vicinity gives him a chance to cool down and rethink what is a suitable consequence for you — this way he doesn’t cave in to his first instinct which is to physically hurt you.

Your privileges may very well get revoked if you misbehave. If you continuously spit back at him or show defiance in other ways, he might just take your means of entertainment away. Oh, you pulled away when he tried to embrace you? That book he had got you a few days ago will be locked away for the day. You yelled at him (after he called you weak and incapable)? He’s not going to take you for a walk today, you’re just going to have to spend time with him inside. See how it feels.

When it comes to the most serious of offences, though, that’s when his worst sides come out. His response is very in-the-moment, rough, and uncontrolled. He has a hard time keeping his own strength in check at these times.

Most likely into the early weeks of your captivity, you’ll get a first taste of how Mydei is when he’s really mad. You’re about to commit your first escape attempt, you’re going to try to flee the ruins he has trapped you in. It’s not much, but you’ve prepared yourself a make-shift dagger (to stab him if need be and to defend yourself from the titankin roaming the place), and you’re pretty sure that you can make the jump off the balcony and to the building on the other side.

It’s one of those days when he goes out to Okhema — Chrysos Heir business or something, you’re not really sure and asking him about it has proven mostly futile — and you’re good to go. He naively trusts you to have enough common sense not to try to leap into your death via the open window, and the time to take advantage of that has come.

You make the jump, only barely managing to cling onto the window sill and succeeding in pulling yourself into safety. This room is not locked, and you’re able to make your way down the staircase and out of the building.

The ruins are difficult to navigate, there’s rubble everywhere, there are strange mechanisms that you’re unable to operate, and most horrifyingly, the monsters are everywhere. You’re scared, terrified, running for your life through the collapsing bridges and twisting hallways. However, with your objective in mind, you gather your strength and wander further.

It’s obvious, it should’ve been obvious to you as well, but you were never destined to make it far. Not even fifteen minutes into your stunt, blood-curdling, other-wordly shrieks and the sound of creatures twice your size being thrown into walls catches up with you. By this point, you know it’s over, but despite the inevitable, you still continue sprinting for the remaining twenty seconds you have left until a hand finds your shoulder.

You’re jerked backwards in a movement so violent that it throws you straight onto the ground. Then, in a blink of an eye, Mydei’s armoured fingers dig into your scalp, grabbing a fistful of hair before he pulls your head off the floor. He doesn’t utter a word, and you make the mistake of straining your neck to take a look at his face.

His nostrils are flared, his eyes are blown wide, and he’s panting out in rapid, deep breaths as if he’s holding onto the last ounces of self-restraint he has. He silently glares you in the eye for a good few seconds before he mushes your face against the floor. You can screech and cry out your desperation, you can try and beg him to stop, but that won’t deter him from pressing your cheek against the marble until you’re sure there’s a bruise forming on the side of your head. At this point, he will begin spouting profanities and insults at you, first hissing and growling before it builds up to full-blown yelling. Some of it is berating you for putting yourself in mortal danger, but a good part of it is just shouting at you for the sake of it. He exercises his status that way. It’s loud and guttural, and it would get the point across even without the words.

After a long while, he will yank your now limp body off the ground and throw it over his shoulder. If you decide that you still have one in you at this point, he just might throw you on the ground like a ragdoll and actually step on you. It would be the wisest to just accept your fate at this point.

The scariest part, however, comes when you’re back at where he keeps you. He reaches your room, and as the door slides shut behind him, he drops you down without care and with so much force that you don’t even get a chance to find solid footing. You fall onto the floor butt first, but before you can even try to scramble back up, his fingers are wrapped around your wrist.

There’s still that same, frenzied look in his eyes when his hold tightens, the metal claws pierce your skin. You can howl in pain all you want, you can try to thrash around. His grip won’t loosen, even when he yanks you up from the floor and grabs you by the head with his free hand. He resumes hissing curses at you while he practically dangles you in the air. His hold just becomes firmer, he presses harder, his fingers burrow deeper. Your cries grow louder, more panicked, as the pressure becomes unbearable, something is going to break, something is going to-

And then, he hears the sickening, distinct crack of a bone snapping. The sound is immediately accompanied by an animalistic shriek so loud that he can’t believe it’s from your mouth. He lets go of your body, and you drop to the ground on your knees. You wail in pain, eyes saucer-wide with terror as you clutch on your wrist with a wildly trembling hand. His eyes fixate on the purple splotch that’s now forming under your skin.

Your howls of pain don’t stop, even as your breathing becomes so laboured that you can barely get a coherent sound out. Your gaze flicks from your wrist to him, to the door, at his face, back at your wrist, back at him, all the while you rock your shaking body back and forth in your delirium. Fat tears spill down your cheeks, and a line of snot streams over your upper lip as you screech out unintelligible sounds. You’re gasping for air like you’re drowning, you’re wheezing hysterically, the colour is draining from your face.

It hurts so bad. You’re not sure which bone it is, maybe it’s one of the long ones on your forearm, maybe it’s one the hand’s side, but all you know is that it feels like your wrist has been lit on fire. You didn’t think he could do this to you, you didn’t believe he would ever go this far. And neither did he, truthfully.

Mydei has no idea what to do. He vaguely understands that he has crossed the line, he comprehends what has happened, but the red-hot rage is still fogging his judgment and blinding his vision. His gaze flickers from your quivering hand to your terror-struck expression, to his own hand still half-extended, back at your form, back at his hand.

He takes a step towards you. You let out a scream that could surely be heard by the titankin outside if he hadn’t just eradicated a good half of them. He gets closer, and you wildly kick your legs, completely uncoordinated, to either try to create distance in between you and him or pathetically attempt to defend yourself from him.

Either way, all his fury-clouded mind can think of doing is crouching down to your level, grabbing your head and covering your mouth and nose. Naturally, you only wail and flail harder in response, but he keeps his palm slotted against your airways. You can’t breathe. He repeatedly yells at you to calm down, but his tone of voice is doing nothing to further the cause. It’s only when you’re sure that you’re going to pass out that he lets go of your face. After you go right back to hyperventilating, he slaps his hand back down. It’s messy, it’s loud, it’s terrifying, it’s violent. The cycle repeats until you lie limp in his arms, eyes unfocused, legs twitching, drool staining the side of your mouth. You don’t remember much after that point.

The aftermath is just as rough. It’s only after a few hours that you’ve calmed down enough to be able to assess your own situation. Mydei has left you alone in your room, one leg chained to the bed, to go ”calm down” but judging from the noise from outside, he’s doing anything but that. At this point, you’re much too tired to even try to grasp the reality aside from the apparent bruise swelling around your entire wrist, or to even entertain the thought of another escape plan.

You don’t talk about it afterwards. He doesn’t seem to care, obviously he doesn’t apologize, he never really does. He makes an attempt to nurse the appendage, wrap something around it, put a splint on it. If it’s really bad, he may even bring you to Hyacine (and stare a hole through the back of her head the entire time she works) and let her heal you. After that, the circumstances return back to what he would call normal, but you swear you can sometimes see him flinch when your shoulder or knee pops.

˗ˏˋ ★ 6. Emotions I: How do they show love? How do they attempt to make the darling love them?

Mydei is a… difficult person in this sense. His only ever verbal show of emotion seems to be that of annoyance. It’s the huffs, the way he clicks his tongue, the aggressive stance, and then the words. You can’t recall many times you’ve seen him smile. Still, despite his harsh tongue and tough shell, deep in his heart, he still wants his darling to love him. So, he does his best to show love through actions rather than words.

During the first few days of your captivity, he doesn’t really touch you aside from when he has to move you or carry you. However, further in, you find his hands wandering on you more and more often. It starts with little touches on the shoulders and arms, more to grab your attention than anything, but then it evolves to touching your hair, your hands, your lower back, your sides. He never gives you a warning before he subtly closes the distance between the two of you, he doesn’t speak a word when the palms of his hands caress down your arms, making their way to your hands, back up your shoulders, over to your hair where he picks out a strand and twirls it between his fingers. Moments like these are extremely vulnerable to him, so if you decide to open your mouth during them, be prepared for a prickly response.

As he feels you under his fingertips, he’s hit with the realization of how frail you truly are. He becomes aware of how easy it would be for him to snap your femur clean in half with a single hand, how tiny your hands are compared to his, how little force he would have to use to shatter your skull. The thought terrifies him, only gives more fuel to the instinct to keep you locked away from the world.

He ends up making his way behind you and has you pause whatever it is that you’re busy with. You perk up as you feel the metal on the back of his gauntlets slowly trail down your back, making out the curve of your spine under your clothing, feeling your warmth. It’s the only way he can rid himself of these thoughts.

He also loves to do mundane things like cook for you. He surprisingly takes pride in his culinary skills, so preparing food for you is one of the most intimate things he will do. Furthermore, if you show a positive response when he brings you a plate of a home-cooked version of whatever food you had once mentioned that you liked, he will remain in exceptionally good spirits for the rest of the day. Beware that if you refuse the gesture, he might not do it again for a considerable amount of time.

Mydei occasionally brings you little trinkets and such from whenever he visits Okhema. They’re little things like flowers or jewellery, maybe even more stuff to entertain yourself with like literature or painting supplies. If you ask him about the habit, his response is always a defensive huff and something along the lines of ”I’ll take them back if you don’t want them”, but when you hastily shake your head and tell him that you like them, his shoulders visibly relax. If you’re feeling daring, you could ask him for a specific item, and if he’s in a pleasant mood, the request may even be fulfilled. Given that you’ve been good, that is.

Though he enjoys all the aforementioned things, if there’s one thing he really, truly loves, it’s bathing with you. Even though it’s basically a daily thing, it’s something that makes his heart swell up with contentment.

It’s only really late into the evening, only when everybody else has left the Hero’s Bath, when he brings you out into some small, remote corner of the bathhouse and plants your butt in the pleasantly warm water. He never speaks a word when he does so, only strips himself of his clothes (save for a towel around his hips) and sits right beside you, arms folded and thighs spread. It’s surprisingly serene in his company in these moments: he rests still in the bath, head tilted backwards, eyes closed. You can’t say you’re exactly relaxed yourself, the bathing suit you insisted on him giving you is a bit too loose around certain areas to your taste, but the hot, steaming air does manage to calm your nerves, even if only a little.

And then he opens his eyes, lets out a huff like he’s displeased, and turns to you. His ungloved fingers wrap around your upper arm, and he mutters out a ”come here” before dragging your body over to his lap. You don’t even have time to protest before the rough pads of his fingers slide your shoulder straps down, baring your upper body to him. If you start complaining, he might snarl at your struggling, saying that ”he can only see your back anyway” before telling you to stay still. And you do.

He reaches for a basket by the edge of the bath and grabs a bottle of some ointment, maybe soap, you’re not really sure. He pops the container open, and soon you feel his hand smearing the substance all over your shoulders and back. He isn’t particularly soft with the motions, no, but it’s gentle for his standards. His palms glide along your skin, sometimes pressing a bit firmer, effectively lulling you into a state of at least moderate tranquillity. Then he rinses your skin before picking out another bottle, and the actions repeat. It’s best if you stay silent; He might just dip your face in the water if you don’t keep your comments to yourself.

Oh, and if you’re in your manipulation era and you’re up for gaining some leniency from him, he will absolutely melt if you offer to do the same for him. He may even refuse the first couple of times, not believing that you’d actually want to do that, but keep insisting, and he will cave in. And, not that he would tell you, but it’s one of the most euphoric experiences in his long lifetime.

˗ˏˋ ★ 7. Emotions II: How do they deal with the darling’s emotions? How are outbursts handled? How do they attempt to comfort the darling?

Much like with how he shows love, dealing with the darling’s own feelings is less about words and more about actions. His words might even make the situation worse, he has noticed. You tend to flinch at his voice, no matter what it is that comes out of his mouth. It’s especially when you’re in a sorry state, either angry or depressed, that you seem unable to be comforted verbally.

If you lash out at him, his go-to is just throwing you back in your room for a cooldown. There’s nothing much to break there, you can throw your blanket around at most, you can bang on the door, you can scream. It’ll tire you out, too, and you have a habit of falling asleep after the flame has burned out, he has noticed.

Or, if you’re being an active risk to yourself (and him, though you could never actually do more than graze his skin), he might resort to holding you down or against him until you calm down. This method is less of a punishment and more of a necessary effort, despite you being sore after as his grip is quite tight. The most words you’ll get out of him during these moments is him telling you to cut it out and calm down in his gruff tone.

When it comes to a teary and sorrowful darling, he tends to take a softer approach. In such moments, you don’t really pose a physical threat anyway, so restricting you would be of no use. You don’t really come to him when you’re sad, believing that having him around would only bring you down further, but he himself is inclined to seek you out. It’s a protective instinct, he reassures himself, because your form appears even weaker than usual then. Not because he’s worried about you or anything.

Mydei has a hard time accepting the fact, and he would never say it out loud, but deep inside, he’s a gentle soul. That’s why seeing you in both physical and (especially) mental pain brings him great anguish.

Still, in spite of that, if he were to find you balled up in your room, quietly sobbing with your face buried against your knees, his first impulse is not trying to soothe you. For a good while, he can only stand a short distance away from you, gazing down at you with an unreadable expression. He observes the situation silently, and if it looks like you have no intention of trying to bash his skull in, he will come closer. He will take you up into his arms before sitting down on the bed with you in his lap. Usually, you’re in no state to refuse his affections at this point, so you just rest your face against his broad chest and sniffle. If he senses that you’re particularly receptive, he might stroke his hand up and down your head and back.

He only stops when you fall asleep in his hold (and it’s the only way to get him to stop, so if you want him gone, you can pretend to sleep). He will set you on the mattress with uncharacteristic tenderness, tuck you in and leave for a little while. If you ask him about his conduct later, his reaction is defensive, he’s obviously a bit flustered about it, but he will repeat the same pattern nonetheless if the situation demands it.

One of the few good things that can come out of you being miserable for days on end is that he might come home one day with a special gift to you. He mutters something along the lines of ”I’ll take it back if you don’t take care of it”, and sets a decently sized, fabric-clad box in your lap. You look at him with your fatigued eyes, then at the item, then back at him… until the thing moves. Mydei doesn’t make an effort to exit the room, only looking down at you, expressionless, so you decide to go ahead and see what the package contains.

The cover slides off what you come to see is a small cage. Your mouth falls ajar as you see what he has got you: Inside the bars rests a small, orange chimera. The animal looks up at you with its huge, round eyes, tilting its disproportionately large head to the side, wagging its little tail.

Mydei swears that, for the first time in what feels like forever, he sees a tinge of curiosity in your dull gaze as you observe the creature in your lap. With trembling hands, you bring your fingers to the latch and open it. The chimera immediately flees the containment, leaping down from your thighs and proceeding to run circles around the room while panting excitedly. Mydei watches as your gaze follows the thing, your expression conveying nothing short of awe. He wants to burn this image to his retinas, to savour the look of wonder on your face. Even if it’s only for now.

˗ˏˋ ★ 8. Thing to exploit: What are the darling’s best chances at escaping? Are there things the darling can use to their advantage? How can the darling make things easier for themselves?

Your best bet at fleeing is Tribbie. It’s not Phainon, it’s not Castorice, it’s not Aglaea, it’s Tribbie.

On your own, you won’t make it further than a few hundred meters away from your room before Mydei catches up to you and brings you back flailing. The ruins are much too difficult to traverse, and besides, he knows the layout like the back of his hand, and he’s almost never gone long enough for you to attempt an actual escape that way. So, your only bet is to get yourself a helping hand.

Castorice will turn a blind eye to your suffering. She knows that Mydei is hiding someone in the ruins, and maybe she would like to help, but she ultimately decides that maybe it’s for the best not to intervene. She values peace over it. Aglaea will not care. It may even be beneficial for the Kremnoan warrior to have something to take his aggression out on, she thinks.

You think that Phainon is the most likely to help you — you might even meet him a couple of times when he finds his way to Castrum Kremnos — but he’s actually the worst of the bunch. He may very well have his own darling back at Okhema at this point, too.

You get the chance to talk to Phainon alone for a minute when Mydei goes to fetch something. Even knowing that your time frame is very limited, you don’t hesitate to immediately drop to your knees in front of him and start begging for him to help you escape. However, he only gives you a sympathetic smile in response. For a moment, you think that he’s actually going to aid you, but then he places his hand on the crown of your head and ruffles your hair. ”He can be rough sometimes, I know”, he laughs softly. Your heart sinks.

But Tribbie will, no doubt, take enough pity on you to consider helping you. The only issue is that you and her may never come into contact with each other. Tribbie has little to no business in the ruined city, and it may very well be that she doesn’t even really know about your situation. However, if you somehow manage to catch her attention and tell her about your circumstances, she may offer to send you away. Maybe it’s unlocking the route for you, maybe she even uses the Century Gate to get you out, but after that, you’re on your own. And, it doesn’t need to be mentioned that the crown prince will hunt you down to the ends of the planet if need be. You should know that he won’t fail that mission, either.

So, if you want to truly regain your freedom, you need to leave Amphoreus altogether. In this regard, your best chance is the Astral Express. Find them, drop to their feet, pray for them to help, and maybe they’ll extend their aid to you. If the Express is not around —well, good luck.

Escaping aside, there is one simple thing to exploit if you want your life to be easier. That is to just be nice and loving to him. Mydei would like to call himself a perceptive person, he wants to say that he sees through your little tricks, but if you show him the slightest bit of affection, he will melt. Touch his bare arm, say a nice thing or two, search out his company, and his fierce exterior will turn to mush. It has to be consistent, though: the first few times he might even brush you off, thinking that you’re just trying to manipulate him (which is exactly what you’re trying to do), but keep it coming, and he will cave in. This will bring you more privileges like time outside, more things to entertain yourself with, and he might even let you meet the other Heirs on a more regular basis if you’ve been compliant enough.

On the top of the list of stuff you should not do is talking about his parents. He will start tweaking, and the consequences of that are never pleasant. You find out quickly that his past is something that’s usually risky to bring up in any context. Very few things can wound his pride, but you are special in that sense because just about anything you say might be a blow to his ego in one way or another. It’s a 50/50 whether that brings you closer to your objective or if it makes him chain your ankle to the bed again.

˗ˏˋ ★ 9. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes? What unique qualities do they possess?

”There’s no word for ’flee’ in the Kremnoan language”, ”there’s no word for ’fear’ in the Kremnoan language”, ”there’s no word for ’betrayal’ in the Kremnoan language”, yada-yada-yada. Are there any fucking words in this fuckass language, you start to wonder.

Well, the words the language does seem to have are all battle, all insult, all challenge. He is a warrior at heart, of course, and that does bleed into your life with him. Especially if you’re a particularly feisty type of a darling, be prepared to fight for your privileges, literally.

It may start as something simple like you asking for help picking up a book, one that you can’t reach, it’s too high up on the shelf. He says that ”okay, sure, he’ll get it for you”, but then as he picks it out for you, he holds it over your head, just out of your reach. He dangles it right there, and you can see the way the corners of his mouth are tugging up in amusement. So, you jump and try to grab the item. He pulls it higher. You try to jump again, he dodges. If there’s one thing he’s really talented at, it’s riling you up in the worst of ways.

He won’t give you the damn book, not until you have basically climbed up his body and grabbed the stupid thing with your legs wrapped around his torso. And during your attempt, he spews out snarky comments like ”you think you’re so strong, then prove it” and ”you can’t even touch it. Pathetic”, and it makes you so livid that eventually there are red marks on his skin from you trying to claw at his bare bicep. Insufferable fuck. He even drops the ”HKS”-bomb on you. Irreparable damage.

On a completely different note, on the gentler side of things, you come to find that Mydei is completely unable to initiate any physical affection through words. There’s no come here, no hey, let me, and most certainly no may I. If he’s craving your touch, his method of going on about it is just… taking it. You may be doing something completely unrelated, maybe reading your book, maybe stretching, maybe eating, and he just comes behind you and grabs you by the waist. He just pulls you away from your activity, your back against his chest, hoists you up into the air. He walks to the bed or couch or even the floor with you in his arms before settling down in a comfortable position. He buries his nose in your hair and closes his eyes. Beware that you’ll be staying in that position for a while, so get cosy.

He strokes up and down your arms, he might play with your hair, trace the lines on your hand, rub your feet, all the while he remains completely silent. If you take a look at his face, you’ll come to find that he doesn’t look like he’s really enjoying himself, even though that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s another one of the times where you really should not open your mouth if you value your peace.

It’s much too embarrassing, much too vulnerable to verbally ask for your touch, he seems to think. He can’t let you know that his clarity of mind depends on these instances, even though it’s so painfully obvious that you want to tear chunks of his beautiful, blond hair off. However, on the brighter side, you should know that he’s going to be in a good mood after these sessions, so if there’s something you’re planning to request from him, cuddling him is a good start.

Out of all of his quirks, perhaps the most intriguing one is that Mydei has a very strange way of viewing you in general. You, as in your existence and being. On one hand, he sees you as frail, fragile, completely on the mercy of others and incapable of defending yourself. Then, on the other, he knows you’re a strong personality, you don’t give up easily, and that makes him want to test your limits in both mind and body. It gives him a kind of a thrill to hold that power over you.

The latter manifests in the bickering and insults, the physical strain he makes you go through to get what you want, what you need from him. He may even go as far as taking you outside, pointing at a random (very tall) boulder and going ”if you can climb on top of that, I’m going to take you to Okhema tomorrow”. You take the bait both out of spite and just, well, desperation. And you obviously don’t make it higher than a meter or two. He laughs at your unsuccessful attempts to scramble up the uneven surface, he lets you try for as long as you’d like, and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take that long for you to tire yourself out. After you’re left sprawled on the ground, all sweaty and chest heaving, he will simply pick you up with a mocking chuckle before taking you back inside. All the while he walks about how weak you are. Fuck his ass.

An unexpected consequence of these ”trials” is that you notice improvements in your physical abilities. You don’t tire out nearly as quickly as before, you’re stronger, you can run farther. It’s a plus, sure, but you still haven’t managed to complete any of the challenges he has presented you with, and you doubt you ever will because the difficulty has only gone up.

In contrast, the times he will treat you like you could crumble into dust in his hands are when you’re in actual pain, either physical or mental. More often than not, both are a result of his own actions (which he doesn’t know how to feel about). He would like to state the opposite, but it seems that he’s really not in control of his own strength or words when he loses his cool, and it’s especially obvious when you’ve been ”acting up”.

In the aftermath of the times he has crossed the line, he tends to go quiet, gathering your trembling form in his arms and moving you over to a better spot. It’s in these moments that he expresses regret in his actions (non-verbally, obviously), stroking your hair with his hand, pressing your ear against his chest to listen to his elevated heartbeat. It almost makes you feel like a pet, in a way, it’s kind of dehumanizing how quickly he can go from angry and brutish to caring and serene. And, he tends to be a little more soft with you in the following couple of days.

One more thing, Mydei would absolutely love to braid your hair for you. He has the situation completely envisioned in his mind: You’re sitting between his thighs, back facing his chest, and he’s tenderly holding locks of your hair in between fingers. His hands brush through the strands, meticulous and careful, weaving the portions together into several plaits, making you look like a noble Kremnoan maiden. He hasn’t yet had the courage to suggest it.

Oh, and he would probably ascend right then and there if he got you to wear the same hairstyle as him, the singular braid that rests on one of his shoulders. The two of you could match, but even the thought of that is so intimate to him that he has to actually shake his head to rid himself of the image before the blush reveals his thoughts to you.

NS-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 10. General look: How does their sexuality manifest? What does sex mean to them? How horny are they?

Mydei’s entire form is all aggression, all muscle, all testosterone, very little chill (except for the arguably cotton-soft core). It’s not a surprise that it all carries to the sexual aspects as well. He would never admit it out loud, but for the lack of a better term, he’s an extremely horny individual. He’s all hot, all go-go-go, and on some days, his drive is through the roof.

In the first few weeks of having you around, he doesn’t even entertain the idea of touching you beyond what is strictly necessary to keep you in check and to prevent himself from going insane. However, after a while, his eyes start to wander. He’s always been aware of it, but damn, you have a very nice figure. It’s a shame that you prefer to wear loose, flowing fabrics. The dip of your waist, the curve of your chest, your thighs… He finds himself thinking of how easy exactly it would be to just pick you up, throw you to the bed and have his way with you. From your point of view, the guy is standing a few meters away from you, hands folded, back straight, and his pants straining at his crotch. You don’t know whether to laugh, scrunch your face up in disdain, or be utterly terrified at the insinuation.

He turns to the help of his own hand a lot during this period. He can’t get the image of you out of his head, and Aeons forbid, when he gets to see your bare back in the baths. He beats it to that, almost being able to recall how your skin felt under his fingers, how warm it was, how warm other areas of you would be. He sees it in his mind, how you look under him, how your face is contorts in pleasure, how your-, aaand he shoots his load in his hand.

Your presence only manages to make him twice as horny as usual. He won’t talk about it, of course he won’t, but you do see him subtly adjust his trousers every once in a while. He doesn’t have any mental restrictions about sex in normal circumstances, he occasionally even participates in raunchy talk with people like Phainon, but it has proved to be a bit more arduous to control his urges when the reason for them is sitting at a touching distance away from him.

˗ˏˋ ★ 11. Limit: How long does it take for them to have the darling? What is the first time like? Do they care about the darling’s willingness?

You have a generous grace period of around three weeks. In that time frame, he won’t touch you sexually or force you to do anything beyond hugging him, but after that, his patience begins to run thin. Why do you have to be so alluring, why are you swinging your hips like that when you walk, why do you reveal your neck to him when you adjust your hair, why must you exist? Your mere presence is driving him wild. And eventually, he knows he needs to have you beyond some surface-level touches.

It would be easier, admittedly, if you’d agree to it out of your own volition. He attempts to gain access to you in his usual ways, just taking you to the bed, maybe climbing on top of you and hovering his face just above yours. He wishes from the deepest pits of his heart that you wouldn’t refuse his advances. Nevertheless, your stance regarding the matter becomes apparent when both of your hands land on his forehead and shove him away. You’re not pleased with the situation he has put you in, clearly, and that frustrates him.

He would really like to think that he’s above taking you against your will, that he has other methods available to him, that he’ll make you like him enough, soon enough, to not have to resort to that. However, as more days go by, he realizes that you might be even more reluctant than he originally thought.

So, eventually, it’s inevitable that he reaches his limit one day. He throws your body over his shoulder with very little effort and makes his way towards the bed before dropping you down on the mattress. By this point, you’re already anticipating that something dreadful is about to happen, and you do your best to squirm away, flailing your limbs until one of his hands snatches both of your wrists in a tight grip. He restricts your movement with ease, holding your body down with strength so immense that you give up on the physical resistance almost immediately. Instead, you begin screaming, shaking your head, spitting curses at him all the while he looks down at you with blown pupils and rapid breaths.

This is the point of no return, he thinks, and this once, he can forgive himself for indulging. You’ll be better off like this, anyway. It’s only the first time that you’ll be as terrified as you are. After it’s off the list, you’ll be much more receptive — or that’s what he hopes for, at least, because right now, you’re being less than agreeable.

After his free hand yanks the top of your dress down, you realize the true weight of the situation. In response, to his dismay, you start crying. By this point, the profanities have turned into begging for him to stop whatever he’s about to do, but your frantic voice does very little to sway his will. It does manage to elicit some sympathy, actually, but it’s not in the form you would like it to be. He only pauses his actions for a moment to bring his hand to your cheek, moving your hair away from your face. And then he tells you to calm down and just stay still. And then he goes right back to what he was doing.

The fabric that shields your breasts from his view falls to the side, and he can finally lay his eyes on what he has had to imagine for the last couple of months. Your nipples are perked up from the chill, your chest is heaving up and down in the rhythm of your panicked breaths. You’re irresistible, he thinks. His fingers glide in between the two mounds, trailing down your stomach, reaching your lower abdomen where his hand rests for a moment.

The bottom of your clothing is yanked down along with your underwear. With very little warning, you have been completely bared under his ravenous stare. You air a few more pleas for him to stop, but the volume of your voice has died down to a mere whisper. You’re terrified out of your mind, but even then, he doesn’t slow down. Instead, he rids himself of his gauntlets, tossing them somewhere on the floor, and then his fingers dip in between your legs.

You don’t understand what you did wrong. You thought, when he came over to you and whisked you away to the bed, that it was just going to be one of the cuddling sessions again, but that clearly isn’t his intention this time around. To the best of your ability, amidst all of what’s going on, you try to rack your brain, to pinpoint anything specific that might have angered him. No matter how hard you ponder, you can’t think of a single thing, and with his hands invading your most sensitive parts, the ability for rational thought slips away from your grasp.

He feels around for a little. The rough tips of his fingers find your clit, they stroke around it a few times, and then they glide down to where your entrance is hidden. He spreads your folds with haste, and then, oh Aeons, his hand goes to his belt. You can only watch with a petrified expression as he pulls out a rod that’s just about the same size as your entire forearm.

His cock is massive. Massive. The sentence would be at least a little bit funny in any other context, but you don’t find the thought even the slightest bit humorous as you realize that he’s going to try to plunge that thing in you with basically zero preparation. You’re nowhere near wet enough, not aroused, you can’t even comprehend the idea of his cock fitting into your cunt.

Your breath is catching in your throat in sheer terror, all the while Mydei gives your bits a few more rubs. He wraps his fingers around his girth and positions the tip against your hole. You weep out frantic apologies, pleading for him to stop, to at least give you a bit of time to prepare, you promise that he can have you, just please, if he could just pause for a second-!

You feel him pushing into you. It’s at this moment that reality catches up to you, and you start thrashing violently, doing your absolute best to shove your knees into his chest, sink your nails into the back of his hand, and close your thighs. Shrieks erupt from your throat, sounds that you didn’t even know a human being was capable of producing. Your words blur together, and what is left of your pleading is a string of unintelligible, horrified wails. It stings, it burns, it hurts down there.

Mydei’s breaths are ragged. He’s holding his cock in one hand, trying to nudge it further inside you past the few centimetres he has successfully managed to get in, but no matter how hard he tries, the walls of your cunt are refusing to budge. That, and when he looks up at you, he comes to find that your face is distorted in genuine pain. Beads of sweat cover your forehead, your eyes are those of a wild animal’s, he can’t make sense of the words that rush out of your mouth. You look like you’re about to faint.

He pulls his cock out. You’re far too out of it to even notice: Your legs are still twitching, gaze darting aimlessly around the room, and tears are spilling past your waterline. Your bare chest heaves up and down in irregular patterns, and your hands are clammy from the cold sweat. Tiny pearls of blood have risen on his skin where your claws have torn into it. He didn’t even feel it. The image he had of you lying below him, face flushed, fingers laced with his, shatters right then and there.

He doesn’t bother pulling your clothes back on. Instead, he reaches for the discarded blanket on the side of the bed and pulls it over your quivering body. Slowly, he releases your burning wrists from his hold. You’re so delirious that you don’t even realize he has done so: Your hands remain splayed over your head as if you were still being held down.

Time sort of slows down for him. He realizes that his dick is still out. You don’t look like you’re aware of what’s happening around you anymore. For a hot second, he thinks that he might have broken you, that this is how much your poor mind could take before succumbing.

In a flash, he goes from unfiltered, unrestrained carnal impulse to silently, tenderly lying down next to you and pulling you against his broad chest. His skin still feels searing hot against your face, and only by this point do you realize that his intentions have changed. You’re having trouble making any sense of what’s going on, your throat still feels like it’s closing in on itself, your entire body is trembling like a leaf. The hysteria doesn’t entirely wear off until several hours later, and by then, he has already been asleep for a few.

It’s fair to say that your first time with him splits into two parts, so to speak. Technically, the train-won’t-fit-in-tunnel is your first dip into the water, but the real deal will come soon enough.

He comes to ponder that perhaps it’s better if he gradually warms your body up to the idea. As in, his plan is that he’s going to start fingering you consistently to stretch you out. You don’t have to take his dick and he gets to satisfy at least a part of his urges, what a deal.

He starts slow, settling you on the sheets on your back with your hands in his. Then, unlike the last time, he doesn’t tear your clothes off like a brute, and instead just either slides his fingers down your bottom or moves your underwear aside. You’re just as shaky as the previous attempt, clearly expecting for him to rip you apart for real this time, and he takes note of that.

You do end up simmering down a little after a while, though, due to how feather-soft he’s being with his caresses along your folds. He’s making an effort to actually get you going (it’s up to you whether that works or not). If anybody were to ask him, he would never confess to ever being this delicate with you since that would be admitting how much power you hold over him. Still, it’s visible how he’s marvelling at the tiny blush spreading on your features.

So, from this point forward, these instances become regular — almost daily, you could say. His cock won’t make an appearance until he has worked his way up to fitting three fingers inside your cunt at once. (Using the red crystal things as toys to reach even deeper into you? He just might).

It might very well be that you’re not particularly thrilled about his antics even now, but he does manage to make you a little more pliant with promises of more freedom. An entire day in the bathhouse (only the private sections, though obviously), how does that sound? How about he takes you on a visit to the Garden of Life? You like chimeras, don’t you? Whatever your answer is, he’ll go through with it after he has made you cream around his fingers. And no complaining no matter how long it takes for him to do so; You come to see quite early, he’s very adept at listening to your body.

Eventually, it all will build up to him getting his cock inside of you. It will start like any of the previous times (minus the first incident), but then after you come on his hand, he’s going to take his junk out. You thrash all the same as usually when you’re frightened, no surprises there. He has to use his weight to pin you down again, but he knows that it will be much smoother this time around, so tone it down, will you? And, oh, the way your face contorts when he finally pushes all the way in, the way he can see the shape of him in your lower abdomen, he could nearly bust right then and there.

It’s likely still feels a bit unpleasant to you, he imagines. He has never been skilled in the art of comforting through words, but it’s nothing that his thumb pressing circles against your clit can’t fix.

˗ˏˋ ★ 12. Preferences: What is sex with them like? What sort of stuff are they into? What kind of kinks do they have?

It’s rough, it’s heated, it’s aggressive at least 95% of the time. That’s about it, really. Or, very rarely, especially if you’ve been looking particularly frail to him that day, he might get a bit more gentle. In normal circumstances, however, it’s best to be prepared to be sore the next morning.

Period sex

The son of Gorgo will be crowned in (period) blood.

Mydei is a warrior through and through. The fascination with grotesque things comes with that, you think. Of course he knows that you have periods, you’re a woman, he’s not stupid or uneducated, but when the time of the month comes rolling around, he realizes that huh, maybe there might be another aspect to it.

It’s not ideal if you’re in pain, more irritable, nauseous, all that stuff, but he can’t help but be drawn to you for no other reason than the fact that he knows there’s blood dripping down there. It awakens some dark instinct inside of him. Blood, to him, is a reminder of battle, of war, and that translates quite well to his behaviour. He goes feral, pretty much, it’s like his heat or something. It makes you reconsider the meaning of the word ”bloodlust”.

He sits you in his lap and props his legs over your thighs, preventing you from closing them. You’re complaining that ”no, what the hell, I won’t be having sex with you while I’m on my period”, but that does little to waver his will. He might huff a word or two in your ear, telling you to stay still, whatever. He knows you might be having cramps and all that. Won’t an orgasm or two make the muscles down there relax, too? You’re just resisting for the sake of it again. Shut it already, will you?

He sinks his fingers inside you. He doesn’t even need to worry about the friction this time because the blood is making your insides slick. It’s easy to prod them around, slide them in and out, spread the red around your bits. Your face is just about the same colour as your downstairs at this point, and he has to wrap an arm around your upper body to prevent you from trying to claw at his hand. You’re doing your best to struggle again, but when he doubles his efforts at thrusting his fingers right into your sweet spot, you need to reconsider your priorities.

Mydei gets immense pleasure from watching you come undone in a matter of minutes. Your cunt constricts wildly around him, and he lets you ride down the high as blood gushes out of your hole. However, when his fingers finally pull out, he brings them to his face and simply observes, marveling at the way your essence coats them all the way down to his palm. You feel his dick twitch against your lower back.

He will absolutely fuck you in this state, too. The blood works as lube, and he doesn’t mind getting dirty — he enjoys it vastly, actually. It’s a bit more painful these times since your regions are aching more than usual, but he knows how to make it good for you. He makes sure to stroke your breasts, your nipples, trail his hands (or hand, one has to keep you from escaping) down your sides, and press where you’re the most sensitive. It does, to your dismay, dull the cramps to some extent.

Eating you out is on the table, too. He would very much enjoy it, even initiates it a few times, but for some reason, you’re exceptionally reluctant towards the idea. He will refrain from doing it for now if it’s that big of a deal to you, but it won’t hold him back forever, just so you know.

Predator/prey

You know what really gets him going? Physical exercise, running, fighting, the thrill of battle and chase. All of those have his blood rushing in the most exhilarating of ways, which he quite enjoys, putting it very lightly. Naturally, his desire for that kind of excitement heavily intertwines with his sexual cravings.

So, it’s not even that far into your imprisonment when he takes you outside one time. You think it’s gonna be one of his ”trials”, that he’s going to make you do some parkour again or something since he leads you to the middle point of the castle, the Kremnos Arena. But then, he tells you that you have exactly ten minutes to run and find yourself a hiding place. You’re, of course, incredibly confused at the declaration, but it all comes clear to you when your gaze wanders a little further down from his eyes. Yep, there it is — the tent.

You did wonder why the noise from outside was so excessive this evening. There don’t seem to be too many monsters roaming around tonight, and you quickly put two and two together that he must have been planning this all day. You’re about to let him know your opinion on the matter, but as soon as your eyes return to his, you come to find just how excited he is about this. He’s staring you down just like a predator would a prey.

And so, you take off running. As fast as your legs allow you to, you sprint in the only direction viable: the bridge that leads away from the arena and deep into the city ruins. You’re not exactly sure where you’re going, you’re not familiar with the layout of the place since nobody in their right mind would take foot in the decayed castle.

You’re scared out of your mind, but if there’s one positive thing to be found in the situation, it’s the fact that, unlike usual, there’s not a single titankin in sight. He has got rid of them all, all for this. Following that train of thought, your skin crawls at the idea that soon enough, there will be something much scarier than Nikador’s shadows hunting you down.

Ten minutes is either a very short or a very long time, depending on the circumstances. You come to find that, in this moment, it’s both. The time given to you was barely enough to find yourself a suitable crack to hide in. It’s in between some rubble, just small enough for you to fit into, but at the same time, you grow agitated at how slow each second passes. You can hear your own, rapid heartbeat in your ears, your hands are trembling from the adrenaline, and no matter how deeply you breathe, you feel like you’re not getting enough oxygen in your burning lungs.

And then you start hearing the noise.

He’s throwing stuff around. Most likely boulders at least ten times as heavy as you. And with every passing moment, the sound grows closer. You wonder if it would be easier for you to stand in the middle of the floor and give yourself up to him, and maybe he would have mercy on your poor body.

But you don’t get much time to ponder that thought. The piece of wreckage that shielded you a split second ago is thrown into the opposing wall with so much force that you’re sure the whole place is going to collapse. You let out a screech, cover your ears and make yourself as small as possible as more debris starts flying around you. You’re only granted half a minute at most to prepare yourself as Mydei wrecks the pile of rubble to his heart’s content. After that, as the dust settles down, you’re pulled out from what’s left of your spot.

You can beg and plead as much as you want to, nothing is going to extinguish the sheer fervour he has gathered. He yanks you to him by your ankle, caring very little of how your head nearly lands on the marble, only releasing his hold in order to climb over your form. Wild would be the only correct word to describe how he looks: His eyes are wide, nostrils flared, and there’s a wicked grin on his chiselled face.

It’s only downhill from there. You’re not nearly wet enough, he finds, but even that does very little to slow him down. He barely remembers to rid himself of the sharp gauntlets before plunging his fingers inside of you. You’re sure, with how fast he’s going, that you will be bleeding by the end of this — and that would only make him go harder, you realize. It’s a terrible fate.

Ultimately, though, his goal is to make you come, even in all of his ardour. It’s not on his hands, no, but he makes sure to snake his arm underneath you and rub at your pearl when he hammers into you from behind. Your knees ache from grinding against the rough ground, same with your elbows, but it is, admittedly, difficult to think of anything else but the way his cock is rubbing all the spots inside of you, even those you didn’t know were there. All the while Mydei basically drools on top of you, chest against your back, hissing like an animal.

Oh, and if you want a really easy way out of the predicament — the only thing you need to do, when he tells you to run, is to plop down on the ground and look as pathetic as humanly possible. Bonus points if you start sobbing. It makes the caring side of him take over again; there’s no point in trying to make you escape if you’re already in this sorry of a state. It usually makes him reconsider at least, and at best, he might give up the game entirely. He’ll just huff in annoyance, disappointment maybe, gather you in his arms and go back inside. Easy as pie.

Size and strength kink

Mydei is a man of the size of a boulder, and he knows that. He can pick you up with one hand, throw you over his shoulder, carry you around like you were made of feathers. If he wanted to, he could hurl you right into the wall and leave nothing but a red splatter on the concrete in his wake. And he sort of… likes that idea. Not painting the rooms with you but the fact that he is strong enough to (hypothetically) do so. He likes how small and fragile you are compared to him.

This manifests in the sex, of course it does. He manhandles you, pushing you in all kinds of positions, against the wall, up in the air, under him with all your limbs pinned down so you can barely move… The possibilities are endless. No matter how you struggle, you can never outdo him in this aspect. And it turns him the fuck on. It has him grinning like a maniac when you use all of your strength to try and pry his fingers off of your wrists, but even with both of your hands, you can’t make him so much as budge.

If need be, he also knows how to intimidate you with his size. Maybe you’re being uncooperative, throwing insults at him, cursing him out, but it has you going quiet really fast when he takes a few steps closer to you, making you painfully aware of his size as he looks down at you. Going just by his expression, you can practically hear him go ”what was that?”, and you back down. It’s so pathetically easy that it almost amuses him. It won’t be long after that when he flings you to the bed and gives you a proper reason to yell.

And finally, his dick. His pussy destroyer 2000. It’s no joke. He knows it’s big — he’s moderately proud of it, too — but you don’t think he understands just how big it is. It’s always a stretch, no matter how many times he has breached the walls of your cunt. On the best days it’s uncomfortable, on the worst it’s, well, unbearable. Mydei has learned over time that prepping you is really important if his intention isn’t teaching you a lesson.

Even then, he never gets his dick inside all the way. A part of it is always left outside as your insides can only take so much. You feel him in your stomach, you’re sure. And, judging from the way he presses his hand against your lower abdomen with a hungry expression, you think he just might actually be.

Bath sex

The most predictable one of the things he fancies, perhaps. He likes soaking in the bath, and he likes you, so what’s stopping him from combining the two?

It’s more like sex by the bath most of the time, though. He tried it in the water once, trying to sink you down on his cock, but whatever lubrication he could coax out of you was washed away. Ramming inside you is nearly impossible that way, of course, so his usual go-to would be just fingering you instead. You respond better to that, anyway. Still, when he has the chance, he might lift you on the edge of the pool and give you a thorough fucking. You’ve tried to tell him to reconsider, that there may be people around, but he couldn’t give two shits about getting caught, really. Any normal person would be too scared to do anything about the Mydeimos having sex in a public area, anyway.

A new bottle appears among the ointments and lotions he usually has with him while washing, you notice. You won’t have to wonder about it for too long, though, because when he pours a generous amount of the clear substance onto his palm, his hand goes straight to your cunt under the surface. You yelp, your voice bouncing off the tiled walls, but he simply adjusts his hold on you and dips his fingers in. The next thing you know is that his dick is nudging at your entrance.

There is a softer aspect to the bathing, too, as mentioned earlier. It just kind of includes taking care of you in this manner, too. He washes your hair with care, lathers your skin in nice-smelling products, and he might even massage your back if you’re not in a hurry, but it’s almost always at the cost of an orgasm or few.

˗ˏˋ ★ 13. Punishment: What do their sexual punishments look like? What methods do they prefer?

Mydei doesn’t use sex as a means to punish, necessarily, but damn, it does feel like that sometimes. It’s not methodical in any way, it’s not calculated, there’s no coherent cause-and-effect line of thought there. It’s very in-the-moment and unpredictable, and that’s what makes it the worst.

If you push his buttons long enough, if you irk him (especially on purpose), if you try to do rash things, he will fuck you stupid. You can tell it from his face when you’re about to face a multiple hour long session of marathon sex from him. When you get the look from him, a string of apologies is already spilling from your mouth, and you’re slowly backing away from him, but there’s no getting out of it. And soon you’re in the searing hot embrace of the sheets again.

If you value your peace, it would be best to avoid these situations. They typically leave you sore and sometimes even bleeding; he doesn’t prep you properly in all of his irritation and anger, maybe strokes you down there for a bit at most before ramming his cock in. Unlike in all other circumstances, his priority isn’t to make you come. The point is to send a message, and his method is very effective in that sense.

He will bite you, he will dig his nails into your skin, he might even spank you. He will grab your jaw with so much force that you fear he’s going to break it if he uses any more strength, he will slide his tongue down your throat until you’re sure you’ll pass out, and when he does pull away, he’ll hiss and growl mean words directly into your ear. You are going to end up crying or he didn't do his job properly.

You’re really acquiescent afterwards, he comes to see. You lie nice and still in his arms, you fall asleep quickly. There are bruises forming on your wrists, your hips, your thighs. Your neck, shoulders and back are full of bite marks and hickeys, some having drawn blood, some surface-level. Dried streaks of tears adorn your flushed cheeks. It must have been quite intense for you, he wonders, but all in all, the result justifies the means.

Rarely, he might make you choke on his dick instead of fucking you. It’s the less strenuous of the two options, and he only allows it if whatever you did is on the fence of truly having ticked him off. The act is like dismantling a bomb, if you will. He sits down on the edge of the bed, the couch, his throne, even, and you get down on your knees and start sucking. He doesn’t actually fuck your face, partially because his cock doesn’t fit too far in (you start gagging) and partially because it wouldn’t really be you showing him remorse like that, you know? He makes you work for his forgiveness, stroking your hair while gazing down at you with your mouth full off his dick. You always find it to be terribly humiliating, your cheeks are warm, your eyes convey nothing but exasperation, but the only way to get yourself out of it is to get him to finish. And Mydei has been blessed with a generous amount of stamina, you come to find.

He also uses sex as a sort of an emotional release, not only for him but also for you. If you’re being mad, spouting slander and complaints at him, trying to throw hands, his solution is fucking you into the mattress. It’s relieving for him, and it seems to be that way to you as well. All of your pent-up anger and malice mysteriously disappears after coming a few times, and you end up being far too tired to do anything afterwards. You hate how effective it is, really.

˗ˏˋ ★ 14. Aftermath: What does their aftercare look like? Is there any?

It comes with his gentle side; he’s very particular about taking care of you afterwards. He knows that he tends to take you to your limits, even past them, so giving you adequate aftercare doesn’t only show you his love but makes sure that you’ll be ready for more in the few hours that it takes for him to charge back up.

His usual pattern is coming down from the high, just being still for a minute or two, letting his heart rate settle, and then he starts taking care of you. He’ll cradle you against his sweaty body for a moment (if you allow it, otherwise he goes straight to holding you until you inevitably fall asleep), feeling the way you pant against his chest in your afterglow. After that, he’ll sit up and check you for any actual injuries he might have caused you. Depending on what your mental state is at this point, he will either try to comfort you with his usual methods or go fetch a wet rag.

Mydei will lowkey be genuinely offended if you refuse his aftercare or show distaste towards him during it, which you often do, at least in the earlier days of your captivity. What more do you want, he made you come a good few times, he wasn’t even that rough this time around, and now he’s trying to cuddle you. What is there not to like?

He will take you in his arms, though, nonetheless. Roll you up into a blanket burrito (you’re going to boil alive) and squeeze you against his chest, his chin on the crown of your head.

˗ˏˋ ★ 15. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes sex-wise? Are there any unique aspects to them?

Mydei will actually, genuinely lose his shit if he ever catches you jacking off. What do you mean, what the hell are you doing, you have a whole-ass him right there, and you thought that ”hmm, I think I’ll use my own hand instead”. That’s what it looks like to him, anyway. It’s somewhat of a blow to his ego, too. Are you trying to tell him that he doesn’t satisfy you? Is that what this is about?

Good luck if he ever catches you with your fingers between your legs. You know just by looking at his face that he’s not particularly pleased with the situation he has found you in.

You’re in the middle of opening your mouth, but he’s on top of you quicker than you can get a single word out. His brows are knitted together, he clicks his tongue in something akin to distaste, you’re not really sure. Then, without a warning, he grabs the backs of your thighs and folds you clean in half. A strained sound slips out of your throat as your knees hit your shoulders, but there’s not much you can do when he inhales a big gulp of air before diving right into your cunt.

You can tug on his hair all you want, you can tear out entire strands for all he cares, but his mouth is not going to come off your pussy until you’re a trembling, flushed mess. And only he will decide when that point is. Be prepared for a whole lot of overstimulation.

On a different note, a strange thing about his whims is that he only seems to kiss you in his most tender and most brutal moments, no in between. In the former, he’s being very gentle, very careful, very mindful of how it feels to you. In the latter, you’ll barely be able to get a breath in. It’s teeth clacking together, it’s biting your lower lip, it’s shoving his tongue so deep down your throat that it feels like he’s trying to swallow you alive.

That, and one more thing. He would really like to stick it in your ass. But he can’t.

The only thing that keeps him from doing it is the fundamental issue that comes with his size. Don’t get him wrong, he isn’t opposed to causing you some pain, he even enjoys it to some degree, but trying to shove it in your butt would cause actual damage. And he would rather avoid the situation of having to bring you to Hyacine and tell her what has occurred. He has entertained the idea, thought about stretching you out like he did with your cunt, building up to the size of his cock, and then, maybe, it could work. He hasn’t yet tried.

He sometimes sticks a finger up there during sex. It makes you whine quite loudly, and you’re obviously not a very big fan of when he does it. However, he can tell that you come a little bit faster that way. It makes him think.

[riricatria]

Hi, hi~

I got some comments on the last post about if I'm going to write a profile for Phainon. You better believe that I will, I'm just as big of a hoe for the blond-blue-eyes six-feet-tall-and-super-strong fuckery he has got going on as the next person, but his stupid ass isn't oUT YET RAAAHHHH. Judging from the leaks, the patch in which he's released will drop a considerable lore bomb, so we'll have to wait and suffer together until then ( ;´ n `;)

In the meantime, though, I'm going to write other profiles. Stay tuned for *drum roll*... ☀️☀️☀️ (◕‿↼)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

CONTENT WARNINGS INCLUDE: Dark content (dead dove), cisfem!Reader, drugging (and needles along with that), the general stuff that comes with yandere content (obsessiveness, possessiveness, imprisonment, stalking...), one slap on the face, a gun is involved, gambling, threats of violence (both towards reader and their family), forced non-schmexual touching, vomit mention, NONCON, coercion, rope, fingering, oral in both directions, booty stuff, toys, overstim, brief edging, the boss form, some exhibitionism, this is 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓀𝓎 𝒶𝓈 𝒻𝓊𝒸𝓀.

Disclaimers can be found in my pinned post. The template is heavily inspired by @/cinnamonest!

S-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 1. General look: How are they like? How do they behave around the darling? Are there any warning signs?

The Gambler. Stay away from the gambler, they all say.

Aventurine of the Ten Stonehearts is a figure you have only heard and read about. He's something akin to a manager, you've conceived. You know of his existence and have a vague understanding of what he does, yes, but that’s where it ends. There's not that much information about him online aside from a few rumours and some fans' musings. Judging from the pictures of him on the news and whatnot, he seems like a flashy yet charming person.

However, all of the people around you, literally every single one of them, are telling you not to pursue any further information about him if your own mental well-being holds any value to you. He’s a dangerous individual — the amount of power his people hold over the entire cosmos is copious.

And, more importantly, he’s an insufferable guy — or so you've been told. One of your friends has seen him face-to-face. They scoff and tell you that the man is just like everybody that has actually been in the same room as him says he is: cocky, cunning and downright malicious. He never lets his smile fall, he never shows anything but the particularly irksome kind of confidence that people who have never been humbled tend to have. Although, to his credit, nobody seems to have been able to knock him down a peg. He's an anomaly that spends his free days travelling and indulging in the art of wagering. He has taken a particular liking to the planet you're currently on, Penacony, for that very reason.

Well, everyone but one single person has told you to stay away from him. Everyone except one of your friends who happens to have caught a tiny little crush on the guy. They're showing you pictures of him, articles, gushing about how mysterious and suave he is. The opinion is contradicting everything you have heard about him so far. Of course, your friend holds no chance of actually getting with him, they know it very well themselves, but it's harmless fun to just imagine, right? You entertain their thoughts, and in the end, the chat does manage to pique your interest a bit.

You shouldn't pry further. Even your own gut is screaming at you not to. Oh, but you just have to see him for yourself. You need to witness him with your own eyes, you need to understand what all the fuss is about. Under the watchful eye of the Family, what’s the worst thing that could happen? And besides, you’re not planning on making a scene anyway — just taking a glimpse at him is enough for you. It would be a miracle if his eyes even managed to land on you out of all the people surrounding him. You’re not worried.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or just a passing tourist; you could be a member of the Astral Express, an employee at the Reverie Hotel, it’s all the same. There’s a single reason why anybody would decide to visit a planet like Penacony, and that reason is the Dreamscape. It’s all about having fun, it’s witnessing sights beyond anyone’s imagination and experiencing things that you normally couldn’t in the waking world. Surely you have enough things to keep yourself busy with without deliberately engaging yourself with difficult people. But after having heard that the man is around, an opportunity to conduct some research has presented itself. It would be a shame to miss it.

And so, you dip your feet into the pleasantly warm bubbles of the seashell-shaped bath. The liquid is faintly fragrant, a dreamy shade of lavender in colour, and the moment it touches your skin, you feel how all of the accumulated strain is released from your muscles. The room is locked, there’s nobody but you around, and you feel safe enough to settle into the Dreampool and close your eyes.

You’ve been told that there is one single location in all of Penacony where the guy is sure to be found. Taking his infamous nickname into account, it should come as no surprise that that place is a certain casino in the Dreamscape’s Golden Hour, and it’s exactly where you’re headed.

You wander through the bustling streets, crossing the oblique intersections, making your way towards the building with hearts and clubs painted on its high windows. The atmosphere is as lively as ever, the crowds are thick, there are people all around you enjoying what the realm has to offer.

Your heart is strumming in excitement; it feels like you're doing something forbidden — which you kind of are, in a way. Nobody knows where you're at, you didn't dare tell anybody about the adventure you were about to go on. It's supposed to be a surprise for your friend, you're maybe going to snap a few pictures to show them later. That, and the rest of your social circle's opinion on the matter would most likely not be very enthusiastic. Nevertheless, you're your own person: You can do what you want, and if that is wanting to go take a glance at some weird celebrity, that's what you're going to do.

The casino is packed as full as it could possibly be. There are people everywhere, drinking, revelling, and most noticeably, gambling. There’s poker, there’s slot machines, bets, roulette, two men are even playing chess with money on the table, and they have gathered a small audience around them. The atmosphere is surreal, almost: People are yelling, chanting, egging each other on. It’s nearly intoxicating. You have never experienced anything like this before.

However, the reason you’re here is, without a doubt, hidden behind the largest wall of spectators near the back wall. It’s clearly the main attraction of the place.

The multicoloured lights dye the vast room in all the shades of the rainbow. Bass-heavy, upbeat music plays on a volume that's just on the edge of being too loud, and there are men and women alike jumping and dancing all around you. You need to push through rows and rows of people, shoving them aside until you reach the front line of the crowd. There, you’re faced with the sight of a blond, sharply dressed man sitting at a blackjack table, leisurely leaning back in his chair, legs crossed. On his side of the board, there’s a tall tower of chips that’s nearly falling over due to its height.

It's him. Aventurine. You recognize him from all the clips your friend has shown you. The fair hair, the fedora, the extravagant choice in clothing — he's hard to miss. The guy looks nothing but relaxed and sure of himself as he finishes his turn.

His opponent, on the other hand, is sweating bullets. He has a single piece on his side, and as Aventurine proceeds to turn the played cards around, it becomes apparent that even the final chip is about to switch owners. The audience erupts, both in cheers and in anger. You remain quiet, eyes fixated on the man's form.

He carries a strange energy. You’re almost mesmerized. The way he presents himself is so… exaggerated. No, that’s not quite the word. It’s ostentatious. From the hat to the numerous rings adorning his gloved fingers, he practically radiates the aura of someone who could ruin just about anyone’s life within a heartbeat. You don't recall ever being in the presence of somebody with so much sheer charisma that you can feel it seeping into your skin. It fills the entire space. It's intimidating.

He’s looking at you. He’s looking at you.

Your gaze locks with his. As he pulls away from the table, his face pauses mid-expression, leaving behind a strange mix of a smirk and what looks like bewilderment. His eyes, despite being shielded by a pair of tinted sunglasses, pierce into you like daggers. Even through the lenses, you’re able to make out the distinct, peculiar pattern of his irises.

In a split second, he composes himself. The man on the other side of the board is in actual, genuine tears. You only get to witness his outburst for a moment, though, because the casino’s personnel drag him away from his seat, just barely dodging his frantic kicks and punches. His foot hits the table leg as he protests, and the pile of chips on Aventurine’s side topples over and scatters over the cards. The man is spitting out insults, trying to claw at the numerous arms holding him down. You would fear for your own safety if the staff didn't seem to be used to this kind of behaviour.

It's the nature of places like this. People come here and either lose everything they have or leave so rich that they could as well paint a red dot on their forehead. And, the worst part is that it's all agreed upon. You don't belong in a place like this, but you realize the truth of the matter a tiny bit too late.

Aventurine is a showman, through and through. It comes very apparent to you when he turns his attention to the people surrounding him, this time with a courteous smile. You can hardly believe your ears when he opens his mouth.

”Come play with me”, he suggests, pointing a single gloved finger at your chest. He taps the nail against the tabletop, beckoning you closer.

There's a horrible, instinctual feeling boiling up in your stomach. Every single thing about him, every last inch of him, is like a blaring warning sign plastered right in front of your eyes. For perhaps the first time in your life, you experience the true weight of what people mean when they talk about the gut feeling. There is, quite literally, a cold, thick sense of imminent doom deep in your guts. Adrenaline floods into your bloodstream. You're suddenly extremely aware of what's happening in your body.

All the eyes are on you, boring holes through your back, scrutinizing the way your hands twitch, how your jaw clenches. Your vocal cords fail you, and the words that are meant to come out as resolute are reduced to a mere mumble. You try to explain to him that you can’t, that you don’t have any money with you, you don’t understand the least bit about gambling. However, he simply shakes his head and makes a come-hither motion with two of his fingers, saying that ”it’s alright, he’ll pay for you”.

You value your life enough to take the offer without further objections. You pick up the chair that has fallen over amidst all the commotion and set it back on its legs. You take a seat on the other side of the table, sitting across from him. In contrast to your ruler-straight back and clenched fists, the way he picks up one of his chips and fiddles around with it is almost humorous. He spins it between his fingers with an impressive amount of dexterity. Then, after a moment of flaunting his tricks, he slides the item over to your side.

He asks you if you know the rules to blackjack. That you do, at least to the degree of being able to play, and you give him a meek nod. He gives you an acknowledging hum in response. He gathers the cards from under the fallen mount chips and begins shuffling the deck. He doesn’t save his skills in this act either: He twiddles with the cards, twirling them around with little effort, all while wearing a somewhat complacent smirk.

He sets the deck in front of you before asking you to cut it. You do, cautiously picking up a portion of the cards and laying it beside the other half. Judging from the way the corners of his mouth tug up, he’s pleased with your performance. Then, he trails the tip of his finger along the wooden top of the table, all the way to where your singular piece lies. He asks you to place your bet. You comply, pushing the thing forth. You don’t even know how much it’s worth, not saying anything to accompany the action, but despite the bad etiquette, he gives you a pleasant smile.

”All in”, he then states. Mortified, you can only watch silently as he pushes the entire pile of his chips towards you. Some of them fall off the table, rolling onto the floor and in different directions. A few people in the audience discreetly pick them up and slip them into their pockets. You look up at him with a questioning look on your face. However, judging from his expression, it appears that he could not care less about whatever ridiculous amount of money is tied to his haul. He begins dealing the cards.

You should’ve listened to everyone. You should never have even thought about stepping foot into this hellhole, but there's very little you can do about that now. He tells you to play. After a brief moment of contemplation, you open your mouth, speaking the word ”hit” in a quiet, dry tone. He places a card on your side of the table. You ask for another one, and then one more after that.

You need to get as close to 21 without going over the number, right? So, the total of 18 you have currently is a bit of a risky number. You end your round there. You don’t even know why you’re stressing so much; it’s not like you’re actually even playing with your own money — you’re not playing for anything, really. The singular chip can't be worth more than a few hundred credits. Besides, this is basically his other profession; a side hustle. You don't stand even the tiniest chance at winning.

You watch as he lays his cards on the table on his side, expression serene and calculated. He doesn’t look the least bit bothered, obviously, as his fingers glide over the black and gold backs of the cards in accustomed motions. Soon enough, his hand moves to hover above the upside-down one on his side. He taps the tip of his nail on it, prolonging the suspense. Then, with a smirk, he turns it over.

You can’t believe your eyes. He has gone over the limit of 21.

7, 2, 4, 10, it’s 23. You count once, twice, thrice, making sure you're not miscalculating. It's easy addition. You must be seeing things. There's no way. You’re sure that if there is a possibility of dreaming inside the Dreamscape, then this has to be it.

Aventurine spreads his arms and shakes his head in an expression of disappointment, but the gesture couldn’t be further from genuine. His smug face gives it all away; he’s not the least bit dismayed about the result. ”Oh, looks like I’ve lost”, he states in a completely unbothered tone, shrugging before he goes to push the pile of chips towards you. The pieces fall into your lap, in his lap, at your feet, under the table, everywhere. The audience erupts into yells that are just loud enough to drown out the sound of your own hammering heartbeat in your ears.

You leave the casino with heavy bewilderment and an absurd amount of credits that night. You can’t truly fathom a single thing that has happened in the past twenty minutes or so, nor do you really want to. The entire experience is comparable to an acid trip, almost — loud, intense, and completely and utterly incomprehensible.

Every single thing people said about him was true. You had planned out how you were going to tell your friend that you saw him, you had envisioned how excited they were going to be when you showed them the pictures you had taken, but all of a sudden, you don’t feel like ever speaking a word about him in a conversation ever again. Right now, you acknowledge that the correct course of action would be to refrain from visiting the entire Dreamscape for at least a month, if ever again. Your face is going to be recognized. Maybe you're already in the news somewhere. The notion fills you with horror. You can only hope that the insistent feeling of trepidation has left you alone when the morning comes.

But that’s not what is coursing through Aventurine’s mind. The sight of you is burned into his eyes like an afterimage of a bright flash. To say that he’s intrigued would be the understatement of the century. He’s amazed, he’s mesmerized, he’s completely and utterly enthralled by the maiden that happened to wander into the depths of the casino. It’s just his luck, he thinks.

He let you win the round on purpose, of course. There’s no way he could actually lose to some amateur like that. The fortune that has blessed him wouldn’t allow such a thing. It was a split second decision. Losing in front of an audience like that does sting a tiny bit, of course, but this, this is a result far better than any expectations he ever had. His wealth is practically limitless, so a few dozen million credits off his bank account is nothing compared to what he got to witness. He feels euphoric long after, even when he exits the Dreamscape and rises from the pale purple pool. Oh Aeons, he has to find you.

Aventurine doesn’t consider himself to be a person that’s easily affected by emotions and whims. Despite the amiable way he presents himself, he’s very guarded, very mindful about what he shares with others. He seems nonchalant, but inside, all of his alarms are going off at the sheer thought of you. He isn’t used to being bombarded with these kinds of sensations at all. He feels extremely vulnerable all of a sudden, and the feeling isn’t helped by the fact that you’re basically just some passer-by, a meaningless face amongst the crowd. Compared to someone like him, there's nothing that remarkable about you. However, it seems that the universe has decided otherwise.

He has experienced his fair share of fleeting crushes in his life, and he knows how those are: They’re brief, mushy, imaginary scenarios of people that you don’t truly even know, and they dissipate just as quickly as they form. This time around, however, it doesn’t feel like one of those. Whereas he daydreamt about that one person for a couple days a year or so ago, you won’t leave his mind even for a second. The quality of his work is deteriorating. He becomes more aloof, more absorbed in his thoughts. He has trouble concentrating in his own job, and for someone of his rank, anything less than perfection is unsatisfactory. His colleagues are a bit too frightened to comment on it, most likely, but he notices the effects you have on him. You’re indirectly hindering his life.

Truthfully, he’s terrified at the feelings that are growing inside of him. With all he has gone through in his life, personal relationships have always been sort of a taboo to him. His family died, he had to abandon his home, he went to hell and back just to get to where he is now. That, and he’s an especially volatile kind of a person in general. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that what started as brief fascination quickly turns into a full-blown obsession — ”quickly” meaning in a span of a couple of weeks. There’s a part of him that’s telling him to hit the brakes, to stop whatever he’s building up to doing. However, he ends up deciding that, if these emotions truly are a crime against humanity, he will gladly fall even further into depravity; further than he already has, anyway.

When it comes to you and Aventurine crossing paths, you’re under the impression that the casino was the first and last time you ever interacted with each other. That much is actually true, in a way. You see, his story, however, is just a tiny bit different to yours. The IPC has eyes all over the planet, the galaxy, the entire universe. He himself doesn’t need to be the one keeping track of where you are.

He doesn’t stalk you in the classic sense. What he does, however, is find your room number, your phone number, your social media accounts, the names of your family members, your home planet, your friends’ contacts… Nothing is too far out of his reach. Aside from the trivialities (stuff like your social security number), he starts fishing for any and all pieces of information about you that he could possibly want. Your favourite food, what you like to spend your free time doing, your pet’s name, your pet’s favourite food, your shoe size, your pet’s shoe size — nothing is off-limits for him.

There starts to be weird activity in your bank account. Money begins appearing out of nowhere, and the senders are untraceable. The amounts are not that huge, it’s only a few thousand credits at a time, but it’s still very strange. An anonymous account starts following yours. A free meal is delivered to your hotel room. It’s all alarming, and there’s a tiny suspicion in your mind about who the culprit might be. However, even the mere idea is so horrifying that goosebumps rise on your skin. You deliberately turn your back to it.

When it comes to courting, there’s one (1) proper attempt Aventurine makes at trying to woo you, and it’s in the most diabolical way imaginable. It’s a few weeks after the casino incident, and you’re making your way down the streets of Golden Hour yet again. You have managed to get over what happened in your prior visit, promising yourself that you’ll never catch yourself in a spot like that again. After a good few days of feverishly scrolling the news only to find that your face is nowhere in sight, the panic has finally worn off. Instead of engaging in the thrill of gossip, you’re going to spend your stay enjoying the Scape’s delicacies and seeing the wonders of the theme park.

Just as you're about to turn a corner, a couple of hands come up behind you and cover your eyes. ”Guess who”, a male voice whispers in your ear. Huh, you don’t remember any of your friends mentioning that they would be around today, strange. You respond to the person with a sarcastic remark and turn around on your heels, fully expecting it to be an old acquaintance.

Whatever is in your hand drops to the ground. You stare at his lilac and turquoise eyes through the pink shades, your feet frozen on the ground, completely paralysed. It’s a miracle that your stomach doesn’t empty itself on the sidewalk on the spot. Right in front of you, with an uncomfortably slim distance in between, stands none other than Aventurine.

He’s holding two bottles of SoulGlad in his hand. He’s about to open his mouth, but before he can get a single word out, you bolt in the opposite direction as fast as your feet can carry you. It’s easily the most surreal and terrifying experience of your entire life — making the previous scene drop to the second place — and you make the decision, right then and there, that you’re never going to step foot into the Dreamscape ever again. At least not while he’s on the planet, and maybe not even then. Unlike him, Lady Luck must have abandoned you completely. With how your head is spinning and the world is turning, it’s a miracle the encounter didn’t scare you right out of the slumber you're in.

Aventurine, on the other hand, is left standing in the middle of the street with one of his hands still half-extended. Despite what has just occurred, his pleasant expression hasn’t cracked the least bit. This just means that he's forced to take a detour to get what he wants; it’s no big deal, really. He has many aces up his sleeve, after all, and more than half of those are completely out of your control. It's a wicked game you've entangled yourself in.

All in all, there’s not much you can do to change the course of events that is about to follow. You didn’t respond well to his ”advances”, and you clearly won’t let him even approach you, so you leave his hands tied. You have a time frame of a couple of days to leave the whole planet if you’d like to avoid your rapidly approaching fate, but if you don’t manage to do that, it’s game over.

˗ˏˋ ★ 2. Securing: How will they abduct their darling? When, where and how?

He’s nothing if not resourceful. Aventurine, when it comes to just about everything, is used to having his way in, well, one way or another. It’s a selfish way to go about things, he knows, but considering his past, he would say that he deserves as much.

His method of choice in kidnapping you is a bit unconventional, but it works nonetheless. It's his day off, and you haven’t left the hotel yet, he sees, to his delight. It’s a bit foolish of you to assume that the only way he can reach you is via the dream world. There are so many ways he could go about abducting you, there are so many open opportunities, but ultimately, it ends up being a single meal that seals your fate.

You’re having dinner at the hotel restaurant. You have made the decision to leave Penacony — maybe it’s via the Express, maybe it’s on a random spaceship — but you only have a few hours more to spend on the planet. You have decided to indulge yourself a bit, having a nice supper all by yourself while watching people pass by, going on about their day, excited to visit the Dreamscape. You wish you still had that same enthusiasm, but in light of all that has gone down, seeing what the rest of the galaxy has to offer is for the better. You're relieved, actually.

However, not long after you’ve finished your plate, your stomach starts feeling weird. Soon enough, the sensation grows into full-on, unbearable nausea. The meal must have had something wrong with it, is your first thought. Maybe it’s food poisoning, you’re not really sure, but you do start panicking the slightest bit when your vision starts shifting not long after. Your insides are twisting and turning, your head is spinning, you’re losing feeling in your limbs. It’s like you’ve just drank an entire bottle of whiskey. You're not sure if a single sound comes out when you attempt to call for help.

Everything is hazy. You don’t understand what’s happening around you. A person appears in your field of view, at least you think that it’s a person, and they ask something. Simultaneously, you feel a weight around your shoulders. Another voice speaks. You can’t make out a word. You’re barely clinging to your awareness. Then, as the two voices continue chatting, you feel your form being lifted.

Your vision starts going in and out. You can't feel your legs or your hands. You don't know which way is up and which way is down. There's a ringing in your ears, two different tones that you suppose are words, but you can't tell anymore. It’s mere seconds after that you fall into unconsciousness.

Oh, goodness, Aventurine thinks. He knows his luck rarely turns its back on him, but this must be a new record. Not a single person questions why he’s dragging a barely breathing woman on his shoulders. Or, maybe they do question it, in their minds, but none are brave enough to intervene. It’s kind of funny, actually, how easy it would be to kidnap any of these people, and the most prominent reaction from the witnesses would be a brief eye contact. Maybe they're trying to convince themselves that you're just a black-out drunk acquaintance of his, that there's an entirely normal explanation to this. Perceived status is a wonderfully rotten thing, he thinks. Plus, he’s in the core of his element: lying, deceiving, bluffing. He would’ve made a good delinquent, no doubt.

Heaving you through the never-ending hallways and sky-high elevators, he takes you to one of Penacony’s countless suites. It’s one of the many under his name, costing millions of credits, but money like that is nothing to him. He likes his place of stay a bit extra, and besides, he would hate to hear that you’re unsatisfied with what he has to offer. You, unlike all of the luxuries, can’t exactly be bought, so he better leave a great impression in this respect, at least. Bribery in the classic sense could only get him so far, and the thing he wants is you, not the idea of you that’s been achieved by throwing some expensive stuff your way.

He sets your limp body on his bed. You have been completely out of it for the better part of the walk to his room. The drug's effects are a bit too potent, it seems, but it will wear off in a good few hours, and he has that much time to get everything ready for you. He did his fair share of preparations, needless to say, but now that he actually has you, living and breathing, in his clutches, he starts considering things that didn’t seem that important before. What will you think about the colour of the sheets? He can replace those in a heartbeat if you’re not a fan, of course. What about the suite itself? It’s really large, there are more rooms than you can count for you to roam in, but if it’s still not vast enough for you, he can just buy a few more. It’s no big deal, really.

Oh, but he can’t let his mind wander for too long. Your sleeping face is so cute. Your expression is all relaxed, unlike when you laid your eyes on him back in the Dreamscape. Oh, how miserable the past few days of waiting have been for him, but it all has become worth it. There’s a bit of drool at the corner of your ajar mouth. He hopes the food didn’t mess with your stomach too much: As much as he adores you, cleaning puke off the carpet really isn’t his thing.

The few hours it takes for you to wake up are perhaps among the longest in his entire lifetime. He lies down next to you, slipping an arm under your head in a loving manner, making sure that your neck is not straining. He scrolls around on his phone, maybe going through your social media, watching some reels, shopping for some clothes for you to wear. He knows your clothing size, obviously, and your preferred style. Oh, that one’s nice, he’s going to get it for you. That one, too, and that one. He’s just idly killing time by spending insane amounts of credits in the span of mere minutes.

And then, you start stirring. He perks up, immediately putting his phone down on the bed and turning to your form. Your eyes flutter open, glossy and exhausted, wearily staring straight ahead. It’s clear that you’re still at least a bit disoriented. He reaches for your face, softly tucking a piece of stray hair behind your ear. Your half-lidded gaze fixates on his features.

Thank god the hotel walls are thick, he thinks. It’s a miracle that the sheer volume of your scream doesn’t shatter the pink lenses of his shades that now rest on his forehead. You attempt to scramble away from him, but the drug still hasn’t completely left your system, so you only manage to twitch around a bit. Your eyes, wide with terror, are flitting around the room, anywhere but his form, unable to truly focus on anything.

He watches you with something akin to intrigue as you continue your weak flailing and screeching. It’s a survival instinct, he guesses, the way your first response is to alert as much attention as possible, even though there's nobody else around. So, unfortunately, the only attention there is to get here is from him. He's sure you'll grow to welcome it eventually.

˗ˏˋ ★ 3. Life: What is it like to live with them? How do they treat the darling?

The first few days after the initial shock are basically just getting to know Aventurine in general. While he knows just about everything there is to know about you, you can’t say the same when it comes to him. He’s just some strange man from the IPC, and on top of that, his public image is basically limited to how wealthy and flamboyant he is. Aventurine isn’t even his real name, but that’s what you learn to call him by.

You grasp the basics very quickly. The suite will be your home from now on, at least for the time being. You can wander around as much as you want, but it must happen inside the walls of his living quarters. You can do whatever you’d like — flip the entire place over if you’re feeling like it, he can afford that. Your phone? Oh yeah, he got rid of that thing, you won't be needing it. Here, have a new one! The only person you can contact through it is him, of course, but it’s better than having nothing, right? Go on, say thank you.

Furthermore, he lets you know that the two of you are in a relationship now. Alright, alright, it can only be dating for now if it really bothers you that much. He doesn’t understand why you’re so very hesitant, really, he has an entire queue of people lining up to be his partner. If anything, you should be honoured and relieved, even! He could be some ugly 55-year-old fuck that collects girls half his age to be his sex slaves. He’s not like that, and as a cherry on top, he can make your life way better than it was before this. It just comes at the cost of... a lot of things. But no matter.

The money aspect becomes very clear to you very early into your captivity. He throws credits around like they’re receipts he found at the bottom of his bag. You could do as little as mention something you like; it doesn’t even have to be a specific thing, you could say that ”wow, that flower is pretty”, and bam, a bouquet of them is in your hands in less than half an hour. You have nice clothes, as much food as you could ever want, you have electronics, TVs, basically any streaming services that exist, (he probably downloads some popular gacha on your new phone and buys you a billion of whatever the pulling currency is), and you have his attention basically whenever and wherever you want.

And, he sure likes spending time with you. Whether it’s sleeping together, cuddling, just lazing around or being on work business, he has you with him nearly at all times. It really doesn't matter what he's doing, you're most likely going to accompany him.

His one favorite thing to do is just chat with you about mundane things, life, people, whatever. Or, the correct wording would be chatting to you, because you rarely feel like entertaining him with your words. That doesn't matter, though, because he could blabber away at you for hours on end regardless of if you're answering if he didn't have responsibilities to take care of. It gets irritating pretty fast. You're not a big fan of his monologues in general: There’s always a tiny bit of condescension in the way he talks to you. He kind of treats you like you were stupid, in a way, or that’s what it feels like to you.

Aventurine's job, as inconvenient as it is at times, does require him to travel quite a bit. Leaving you behind would be bothersome for a myriad of reasons, so more often than not, you're coming with him on these trips. He can’t have you be alone for too long, you know? He trusts his security measures, don't get him wrong, and taking risks is sort of his thing, but you’re the one thing he would prefer not to mess around with when it comes to that. So, oftentimes, you’ll end up accompanying him to whatever higher-up business is to be dealt with that day or night. It’s scary, you find, to see all the people that get to pull on the strings that control the entire universe's economy, ogling at the unfamiliar person that accompanies Aventurine everywhere he goes.

Oh, and prepare to be obnoxiously dolled up to the max for all of his gigs. Even if you somehow managed to bump into someone you know, you doubt they would recognize you under all of the bling-bling and makeup. If you didn't already, you'll soon come to understand that Aventurine is very particular about appearances.

˗ˏˋ ★ 4. Rules: What kind of rules do they enforce? How lenient are they? How do they keep their darling in check?

You directly ask Aventurine about the rules one time. You’re sitting at the table, having whatever he guessed you were craving for breakfast. He’s been yapping your ear off for the past twenty minutes, but as you air the question, he goes quiet for a while.

Pondering his answer, he tilts his head to the side, and his smile grows. Just by his reaction, you know that whatever is about to come out of his mouth is going to, if not ruin your entire day, then make you want to punch his stupid face in. He taps the tip of his chin with his finger as if considering his response long and hard, making little clicking sounds with his tongue, resting back in his chair with a thoughtful expression.

"Don’t try to escape", is the first thing he says. Okay, yeah, that’s given with whatever fucked-up logic he’s going by. ”Do what I tell you”, is the second rule he comes up with. Sure, you have kind of been forced to obey that one, too. He goes quiet after reciting the first two, and for a moment, you think that perhaps he's actually being serious about this.

Then, then, after remaining silent for a good while, he speaks out a third rule. And it’s not even a fucking rule. ”Your left heel can’t touch the floor when you walk”, or something equally as outrageous. It’s incredibly stupid, so infuriatingly specific, such obvious bait that you wonder if you should stab the fork in your hand into his eye right then and there. Your jaw clenches with the rage you’re holding back, and judging from how his grin deepens, he got the exact reaction he wanted out of you. He’s deliberately riling you up, making you mad on purpose, pushing your buttons until your circuits overload. It's terrible.

No, but seriously, all he actually requires of you is you staying where he wants you to: by his side and preferably with at least a neutral expression on your face. Ah, and don’t talk to anybody. As much as he doesn’t think that anyone would care enough about the ramblings of some random woman, he can’t take the risk of his reputation taking a hit because of it. On the side of all his hustle, he does serious business and represents the IPC, and if you don’t respect that, he’ll have to come up with a more creative solution to keeping you quiet.

When it comes to keeping you docile, Aventurine uses the classic method of locking the door. Since he is a powerful figure, the places he stays in aren’t exactly easy to break into, or in this case, out of. The windows are bulletproof, the locks would require a jackhammer level drill to break, and bursting through the walls is an idea you wouldn’t even entertain, he trusts. All in all, he doesn't really have to take any drastic measures to make sure that you don't escape.

There’s one exception to that, though, and it is if you’re seriously being a threat to yourself or him. Like he said, you can wreck the entire place if you’re feeling like it, but don’t hurt yourself while at it. If it looks like you’re doing less demolishing and more indirectly beating yourself, he might drug you much like he did when he abducted you. He keeps a syringe ready in the locked drawer of his nightstand in case you refuse to calm down. If you're refusing to listen to his warnings, he’ll just come up to you and stick the needle into whatever body part is available. Soon after, you’ll be nice and peaceful again. Don’t worry, it’ll wear off in an hour or two — you can take a nap with him in the meantime.

Oh, and he definitely uses threats to keep you in check. With all the power he holds, he has the ability to seriously affect the lives of those you hold dear. Wouldn’t it be a shame if one of your family members were to lose their job? It would, he bets. So, behave.

˗ˏˋ ★ 5. Consequences: What kind of punishments will the darling face? How do they punish different offences?

He’s… a bit stumped when it comes to punishing you. There’s locking you up, there’s tying you down on the bed, there’s drugging you, but beyond those, he hasn’t really thought about you being disagreeable to the point of him having to step up with actually disciplining you. He’s kind of lenient in this way; you can get away with a lot of stuff without any real consequences.

A big thing about him is that he refuses to make you suffer through things that he had to do back when he was a slave. Regardless of what you do, you’ll always have food on your plate and a bed to sleep in, that kind of thing. He doesn’t know what it is about it exactly, but even thinking of exposing you to those horrors makes his stomach sink. They’re completely out of the question.

What he will do, however, is firmly remind you about who holds the authority here. If you’ve done something really bad like managing to get into his phone or trying to talk to some poor IPC employee while he was away for a minute, you can be sure that you won't get off with a mere warning. He’ll grab you by your jaw or your neck, dig his nails into your skin, squeezing your cheeks together while looking down at you, directly in your eyes. It’s one of the rare times you’ll see him show anything else but self-assurance, and for once, the smile disappears from his face. He hisses right into your ear, telling you to never do whatever you did ever again if you’d like to keep all your fingers and the ability to speak. The point gets across.

The one thing that gets the worst reaction out of him, like with most yanderes, is managing to escape. It’s not only the action itself but also the fact that it takes a considerable amount of wit to be able to pull it off. He’s pretty damn meticulous about his ways of keeping you captive, and if you somehow succeed in slipping past those, he will be livid, both at you and himself.

If you do escape, it’s while on a business trip. As much as he would like to, he can’t always get a maximum security room to stay in, so your best opportunities to flee are when you're staying in a less guarded place. They are few and far between, but they exist.

With both physical and intellectual efforts, you may be able to make it out of the room you're residing in. Maybe it's via an unlocked door, maybe through a window, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that there is an entire nine minutes in between the moment of your breakout and when an extremely nervous assistant interrupts his business meeting to bring some urgent news to Sir Aventurine. She lets him know that ”something that belongs to him has been captured in the VIP lounge”. Digesting the information, he does his absolute best to keep a straight face in front of his expectant business partner, but he can’t help the way his eye twitches. He shortly excuses himself.

The moment you have to face him after his men have caught up to you in the lobby and carried you back to his room is… terrifying. The situation itself is awkward, certainly, at least to the two agents who are holding you up by both of your arms all the while you’re flailing your limbs around and screeching like a cornered animal. The description isn't that far off from the truth, either. It doesn't matter how hard you fight, or how much noise you make, Aventurine only dismisses the two men with a wave of his hand and a blank stare, saying that he’ll take care of it. And oh, he will take care of you, alright.

The second the door locks behind the two of you, you know it’s not going to be pretty. However, whatever it is that you expected him to do, it is not for him to pull out a revolver and point it directly at your head. Your eyes fly wide open, the profanities you’ve been yelling suddenly run out, and your body freezes in place.

He tells you to get on the bed. You don’t comply. He steps over to you, grabs you by the cheeks, presses the gun’s barrel right against your temple and repeats: ”Get on the bed”. You don’t even get a chance to do as you're told before he takes you by the neck and shoves you down on the mattress. Still holding the weapon to your head, he straddles you and reaches over to the nightstand to dig through the drawer.

Knowing what is to come, you flail and make an attempt to snatch the gun from his hand. He slaps you across your face. The action stuns you for long enough for him to pull out the syringe from the drawer and jab the needle right into your neck. You convulse and whine for a moment before going completely slack under him. He closes his eyes and exhales.

Although you don’t get to see it due to being under whatever he has injected you with, his reaction to the ordeal is rough. He sits next to you on the bed, back turned to you, his face hidden in his hands. He’s sweating all over, his cheeks have gone pale, his legs are trembling. He can’t believe you almost got away with it. How many people saw you, he doesn’t know. He can only hope that your little stunt won’t bring irreversible stains to his image.

˗ˏˋ ★ 6. Emotions I: How do they show love? How do they attempt to make the darling love them?

As mentioned before, you come to find out pretty early on that Aventurine is a ridiculously materialistic person. Initially, you think his only way of showing love is through buying you stuff, which is admittedly a fair conclusion to come to. Oh, and he does compliment you pretty often, but the praises mostly sound more like barely disguised insults. He may tell you that you look pretty while looking down at you on the bed where one of your hands is tied to the frame, for example. It’s more belittling than anything.

After a couple of weeks pass, however, you will see that his love language ends up being more about touch than it is about gifts. It will start in very subtle ways like leading you through a hall with a hand slotted against the small of your back or discreetly fixing your hair for you, but it quickly evolves into activities that are borderline inappropriate to do in public. He’ll start kissing you out of nowhere, sneaking touches at your inner thighs, stuff like that. In addition, he will start cuddling you to sleep whenever the two of you share a bed (which is basically always except for the times he’s out all night). And clearly, at least a part of the reason for the aforementioned things is that they get a nice reaction out of you. You’ll become all bothered, all flustered. What, "he’s doing it on purpose"? No, no, he would never. You’re imagining it.

Being able to feel you is a big thing for him. It reassures him that you’re, in fact, a living and breathing person. He has some abandonment issues that stem from unnamed reasons (cough, his entire family dying, cough), so naturally, he wants nothing more than to make sure you’re healthy, well-fed and, most importantly, there. He can’t bear the idea of losing another person. That’s why, whenever he can, he’ll hug you, hold you, caress you, give you physical affection in amounts beyond anything you’ve ever wanted. He might become a bit whiny if you refuse his touches, telling you that come on, just for a bit and come here, let him smooch you. He doesn’t want to admit it, but you hold much more power over him in this sense than you could ever understand. Inside, he’s still an extremely sensitive soul.

If the chance presents itself, he also loves to do fun activities with you. If there’s a free slot in his packed schedule, he might take you to see sights, to eat at expensive restaurants, that kind of thing. It is, admittedly, a nice change from being caved up in a hotel room for the entire day. He won’t say it out loud, but he’s a bit desperate for you to be happy, so if you’ve been grumpy for a long period of time, the likelihood of him taking you out increases tremendously. Time to start sulking for no reason.

He often takes you to the Dreamscape, too, when he has the chance and the two of you are on the correct planet. It’s much more safe to do things there than it is to take you to places in real life since you can’t physically escape from him. Obviously, though, the same rules apply there as in the waking world: Don’t talk to people, do what he says, and so on.

Lastly, Aventurine does, in his mind, show you love by keeping you safe, even though it doesn’t appear that way to you. All the effort he puts into making sure that you’re not in harm’s way is immense, you know? This stuff costs a lot, making sure that nobody gets to hurt you. The word is out, there’s a rumour circulating about Aventurine of the Ten Stonehearts having a lover behind closed doors. Gossip like that places quite the target on your back, so he’s actually doing you a favour at this point. Though, it’s not hard to imagine how all of it looks from your point of view. You win some, you lose some, he thinks.

˗ˏˋ ★ 7. Emotions II: How do they deal with the darling’s emotions? How are outbursts handled? How do they attempt to comfort the darling?

You don’t think that Aventurine is capable of showing genuine emotion, at least anything close to sympathy. He can be happy, he can be angry, sure, but when it comes to you, you have never caught him sparing a single moment to wondering how you feel.

In reality, he has, though, more than you could imagine. His guard is just so high that he never ends up baring any more than tiny glimpses of his true self to you. It's much less risky that way, but it translates to him being pretty horrible at dealing with your sadness and comforting you.

If he catches you crying, sobbing on the bathroom floor (which is not very often since your usual reaction is lashing out in anger), he’s at a loss of what to do. At first, he genuinely thinks that you’re just trying to pull his strings, that all the tears are just some pathetic attempt at manipulating him, and because of that, he ends up just teasing you. He tells you that if you wanted something from him, if you wished to go outside, you could just tell him straight up; no need for all these theatrics. He will ruffle your hair, poke your forehead, treat the entire thing like it's a joke.

However, when you start blubbering about how you miss your old life, your friends, your family, your home, he comes to understand that perhaps this isn’t about manipulation anymore. That’s when he reaches an emotional block he didn’t even know he had. He has never really had to comfort anyone, at least not in a very long time. Suddenly, all of the chaff leaves him, the words he had so carefully planned disappear into thin air, and he’s left with the realization that you, his darling, are having a breakdown right in front of him and he doesn’t have a clue what to do.

You think he’s mocking you. There’s no other explanation for his behaviour, he must be poking fun at your distress. You're not even surprised at this point. So, through your sniffles, you scream at him to leave you the fuck alone.

He’s a bit taken aback by your sudden outburst. He's still in the middle of calculating his options, but now that you’re clearly starting to show a negative response, he knows he has to act quickly. Truthfully, he can’t bear it. He can’t bear it, seeing you in such a state feels like his heart is being torn in half. It’s a visceral sensation. Deep down, he realizes that it’s him that’s hurting you, that it’s all his fault that you are this way. His skull is about to split open from how two completely opposite sides of his psyche are contradicting each other, yanking him in different directions: One wants to keep you locked up and safe, and the other wants nothing more than for your tears to stop. It’s an impossible equation.

Ultimately, the only thing he’s able to muster is cautiously setting his hand over the crown of your head. There, he lets it rest without moving, just silently acknowledging your feelings. It’s one of the only times that you’ll get a genuine, emotional response from him. He doesn’t speak a word, he simply can’t find any, and this is also the first time you can recall that he doesn’t try to fill the void in his soul by talking your ear off. It’s a truly bizarre situation to be in, in every single aspect. You regret ever stepping foot on the same planet as this man.

Afterwards, when you’ve calmed down enough, he’ll be very quiet for the rest of the day. There’s no teasing, no cheeky remarks, nothing. He might spend an abnormal amount of time on his phone, tapping away on his laptop, taking care of ”work business” (he’s looking at an empty screen), and so on. He doesn’t want to admit how affected he is by your sadness.

When the night comes rolling around, instead of spooning you like usual when you go to bed, he turns you around in his hold and tugs your face under his chin. You might ask about it, you may complain that it’s an uncomfortable position, that you can't sleep like that, but he won’t budge. He just tells you to go to sleep and slips a secure, warm hand to your bare upper back under your pyjamas.

He stays up long after you have fallen asleep. He’s afraid that if he closes his eyes, he’ll be haunted by nightmares so tangible that he would rather not rest at all.

Even in the future, comforting you is one of those things that he doesn’t seem to get any better at, no matter how many times he has to do so. It’s always clumsy, always leaves him embarrassed at how little he’s able to do about your emotional distress. You obviously let him know about it, tell him how evil he is, how much you hate him, and truthfully speaking, it does hurt him when you do that. He just doesn’t know how to show it, and even if he did, he doubts he ever would. You would just use it against him, he thinks (you absolutely would).

˗ˏˋ ★ 8. Thing to exploit: What are the darling’s best chances at escaping? Are there things the darling can use to their advantage? How can the darling make things easier for themselves?

So there are a couple of actually viable things here. Your biggest obstacles are his wealth and, well, his luck, and those are two very prominent things to be concerned about. Still, you do have a decent chance at escaping from him.

He’s very particular about the people he allows to see you, but not so much so that there aren't any opportunities there. One of the people you will come to recognize is Jade, but she’s one you should not confide in. She won’t give a flying fuck about your situation. It’s going to be quite a cruel experience for you if you were to talk to her: She might pretend to listen to your troubles, nodding along and offering something close to sympathy, but when you’re done, she will give you a polite smile and let someone know that ”Aventurine’s plaything is acting up again”. That, and no matter what it is that you told her, she will absolutely snitch on you to Aventurine. Not a good idea.

On the other hand, if you ever manage to get into contact with Topaz, she will help you to the best of her ability. It’s a rare chance if you do since Aventurine is very aware of how soft her heart is, and that’s why he has made an effort to keep the two of you from meeting each other. Topaz might, for example, bribe the employees under Aventurine’s command to ignore your escape if you manage to pull one off. There isn’t much she can do about you being locked up, but if the opportunity presents itself, you have a better shot at fleeing than without her help.

Whatever comes after making it out of his clutches, though, is a bit trickier. The IPC has eyes everywhere, all across the universe. You would have to change your identity, your looks, your name, everything to truly be able to avoid being recaptured. You would need to be extremely careful, very clever, and truly, truly lucky to escape from him for good. That, or you need to get another powerful organization on your side. If you somehow manage to contact the Family, for example, they might extend their services to you. Be careful, though, because there’s a chance that if you get someone like, say, Sunday involved, the only things that may change are your location and your abductor.

Aside from getting help from other people, there��s one thing to take advantage of that you might not consider at first. It’s that, although being a man and in a decent shape, you could, in certain circumstances, be able to overpower him physically. You come to see it one time when he’s trying to cuddle you in the bed. You’re not having any of it, you're telling him to stop, but he just won’t give it up. So, mustering up all your power, you turn around in his grasp and manage to get on top of him, briefly being able to pin him down. You’re not sure if you’re just imagining it, but you swear that for a second, there is a fracture in his expression, an ”oh shit”-moment of sorts. He quickly composes himself, of course, grabbing you by the arms and throwing you off of him. However, he is a tiny bit shaken up by the strength you had in you.

So, if you manage to catch him by surprise, there’s a chance that you could escape via the classic means of beating the shit out of him. Especially if you have muscle, this might be the most realistic option for you.

When it comes to making things easier for yourself, the simple answer is just to entertain his whims. Talk to him, spend time with him, tell him what you like, get to know him. He might even spill secrets from his past to you if he trusts you enough. Something like that is quite a strong psychological weapon against him, so it’s recommended to get as much information out of him as possible.

˗ˏˋ ★ 9. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes? What unique qualities do they possess?

Gambling. There’s so much gambling. Anything can be made into gambling. Everything is gambling.

No, but in actual fact, Aventurine uses gambling as a method of getting under your skin just as much as he does it for the thrill. He gets very cruel with it: He might tell you to come to him at a random moment, leaning his elbow against the table while he plays with something in his hand. Look at the coin, he tells you. Heads or tails? Go on, choose. If you guess wrong, he will send a few of his men to your home planet to kill your entire family.

The colour washes away from your face in a matter of seconds. Despite the ruthlessly brutal thing he's suggesting, he has to stifle a laugh. You stammer out that ”no, you’re not going to choose”, trying to act all brave and unbothered, but he can see the way beads of sweat rise on your forehead, the way your eyes start darting around the room. You’re not fooling anyone. He knows exactly how to get you scared.

So, he tells you that if you don’t pick, he’s just going to give his men the command regardless. You look up at him with pleading eyes, wordlessly asking for him not to make you do this. He merely shakes his head in response. After silently staring at his fingers for a good ten seconds with tears threatening to spill past your waterline, you whimper out a strained ”tails”.

He flicks the coin into the air, playing around with it, rolling it over the backs of his fingers. You follow his every movement in horror, eyes going up and down, left and right along with the item. Then, he lands the thing on his forearm.

It’s tails. You don’t even attempt to silence the sigh of relief that slips past your lips as you see the result. He can barely keep himself from chuckling. Of course it’s tails, that’s what he intended for it to be. He would never (okay, almost never) put so much effort into getting rid of people you hold dear, that would simply break your heart, but it’s fun to keep you on your toes. Prick.

Aside from the obvious tricks, Aventurine has very very subtle ways of manipulating you. His methods are so cruel but so miniscule at the same time that you can’t even tell if it’s actually on purpose. The two of you might be resting in his room, you’re lying on the bed with your back turned to him while he’s on his phone. There’s music playing on the stereos. The current song is one of Robin’s; it’s a popular one right now. Soon, though, after the last few notes, the melody fades into silence before the next track starts. However, the very second you hear the first few beats of it, your head rises off the pillow to look at him.

It’s a song you know. Not just any song, though: It’s an obscure track from some band that has less than a thousand listeners on the app. Everybody has at least that one really small artist on their playlist that nobody else has ever heard about, and this is one of those for you. You’re pretty certain that you’re one of the few people in the entire universe who have ever played this song. And now it’s echoing through the room. The phone connected to the stereos is his.

He looks up from his device with a questioning look, gazing at you with the same, serene smile as always. He quirks his brow. You know he’s doing it on purpose. Or at least, you think you know. What if he actually just knows this band? But there’s no way, what are the odds? Well, the odds are in his favour, is what they are. It’s a bet on your part, to decide whether you’re going to confront him about it or not.

You want to be mad at him, want to scream at him, but simultaneously, that would be admitting that his antics have gotten under your skin. Besides, he’s definitely going to pretend that he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. The best course of action is to drop the entire thing. Despite the seething rage nearly spilling over inside of you, you let your head slump back down on the pillow. He’s horrible. (Like half of the stuff he plays through the stereos is also horrendously generic white-girl music. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to you to decide.)

On the nicer end, there are times with him that are actually tolerable. You wouldn't actually use the word "nice" for it since it's still against your will, but on the days when his schedule is completely empty, he may spend the time by playing cards with you.

It's one of the rare times that you don't want to bash his head in. He may call for you, beckoning you over to the table where he's shuffling a deck in his hands. He may teach you a new game, or you could play one that you already know the rules to, but the activity is surprisingly pleasant regardless. He guides you through with minimal teasing, calmly telling you when you're about to make a dumb move, sharing a few strategies with you. You listen and watch as his fingers play with the cards, spinning them around, showcasing his best tricks to you.

He might even let you win some rounds. He will place a meaningless bet on the games you win, telling you that you'll get to decide what you're going to eat for dinner today if you beat him, and when you do, the happiness and pride on your face is enough to make him swallow his remarks. The entire ordeal would actually be incredibly wholesome if it wasn't for the lock on the door and the key in his pocket.

On a completely different side of things, a very questionable encounter you will get to experience while residing in Penacony is when, by chance, you run into none other than a man called Dr. Ratio. It’s on some trip to the Dreamscape, when Aventurine has to take care of work business again, that you get to meet him. The two of them know each other, you come to find, because Aventurine immediately strikes up a conversation with him despite the guy looking less than pleased about the coincidence.

They chat for a while, but then, the Doctor lays his eyes on you. You can nearly see how the gears start turning in his mind. His expression doesn’t really change, but you still watch him go through confusion, apprehension and disbelief all in the span of, like, five seconds.

He doesn’t engage. Maybe it’s because the two are sort of like colleagues — or, rather, they both work under the same organization, but the man simply turns his gaze away from your form, continuing his discussion with Aventurine.

The situation leaves you feeling a bit agitated. You didn’t exactly think that the man would help you, of course, but he could have at least acknowledged you. He could have given you a nod, anything. He might very well have risked his position if he were to do that, you know that, but something tells you that the real reason is that he just can’t be bothered.

NS-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 10. General look: How does their sexuality manifest? What does sex mean to them? How horny are they?

It’s… a bit multifaceted.

On one hand, Aventurine is undeniably somewhat of a sexual person. There’s a flirty undertone to his behaviour, he doesn’t shy away from showing a bit of skin (the chest window in his shirt is very deliberate), and when it comes to his history, he has had multiple encounters in his past, most likely with all kinds of people. He isn’t particularly reserved regarding sex. And he likes it that way, too. It keeps people guessing, makes it easier to catch deals with certain types of individuals. He’s a very flashy person in general, so it should come as no surprise that it extends to his sexuality.

Then, on another side, there’s a bit of a disconnect between romance and sex in his brain. He has noticed that, to him, sex isn’t necessarily something he uses to show another person that he loves them, at least not until you came into the picture. It’s more about the rush he gets from it, and it feels good, so of course he enjoys it. It’s just not something that he actively looks for or needs.

When you appear in his life, the previous statement loses credibility. He’s obviously still his normal self (at least to a degree), a bit provocative, that’s his style, but for possibly the first time in his life, he notices that he’s actually craving another person in that way. As in, he has an urge to touch you, to feel you under his fingers, to make you feel nice. Before he goes to sleep, while you rest in his arms, unaware of everything that’s going through his mind, he starts imagining what it would be like to have you under him, your hands tied to the headboard, his fingers inside of you. He hopes that you’re already in deep enough sleep not to feel his bulge pressing up against your butt.

He begins entertaining the idea of having sex with you for real pretty early into your captivity. You’re obviously not very willing towards the notion, he knows, but he’s sure that you’ll warm up to him eventually. He has certain tools at his disposal that might end up changing your mind.

˗ˏˋ ★ 11. Limit: How long does it take for them to have the darling? What is the first time like? Do they care about the darling’s willingness?

Physically, Aventurine is not a violent person. Don’t get him wrong, he can absolutely use force if need be, but when it comes to you, he would rather not. It hinders him from reaching his objective, which is ultimately getting you to like him. Forcing you to do something like having sex with him would be barbaric, even to his standards. However, when it comes to his own needs, there are compromises he’s willing to make to get you where he wants you to be.

So, he’s not going to take you by force, no. He’s going to offer you something in return that you simply can’t refuse. Say, how would you feel about getting to see what your friends are up to these days? You haven’t been able to contact them, of course, and he won’t let you do that even now, but what would you think of checking their accounts? Are you curious? He suggests all of this while pulling what you recognize to be your old phone from inside of his breast pocket.

You’re not stupid. You know there’s a catch, and it doesn’t take long for him to air it out to you. If you want to see how your friends are faring, you’ll have to give him a kiss or two. Actually, you need to make out with him and let him eat you out. All of those. It’s not that big of a deal, really, he says. Instead, he insists that he's actually doing you a favour: You’ve been awfully irritable for the past few days, so maybe this could even cheer you up a bit. But you don’t have to, of course. ”It’s your choice”, he says with a tilt of his head and a smirk so detestable that you want to slap it right off his stupid face.

You stare at him with your mouth ajar, all the while he stands in front of you, one hand on his hip while the other is dangling your old phone in your face. He’s being unfair, he’s being so infuriatingly obnoxious that throwing a fit and having to take the syringe would probably be preferable to whatever he has in mind.

But still, the proposal manages to plant the question in your mind: How are your friends faring nowadays? What about your family? You haven’t seen their faces in what feels like ages. You stare at your reflection in the black screen of your phone, looking into your own, desperate eyes. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you, and at this point, as you give in to your emotions, you have no choice but to fall for it. It’s deplorable, really; the way you suck in a determined breath before letting him know that ”okay, you’ll do it” in a tone that’s less than enthusiastic. Your lack of excitement isn't exactly ideal, but he will gladly accept the result nonetheless.

So, he takes you by your hand. However, you immediately whisk it away from him. You tell him that holding his hand is not something you agreed to while wearing a tiny, smug smile. Admittedly, he is a bit irritated by the remark: He raises his brows at you, letting out a contemplative hum, but continues his advances nonetheless. With delicate motions, he lays you on the bed on your back before climbing on top of you with a blush dancing on his features. He leans in for a kiss.

You keep your lips firmly shut. ”Touché”, he thinks, rolling his eyes before using his fingers to pinch your nose shut. It works wonders, and soon enough he gets the chance to slide his tongue down your throat. You don't dare bite him.

His hands are all over you, sliding along your sides, feeling your breasts through your top, all the while he humps his clothed dick against your thigh. Then, his lips start trailing lower, lathering your neck in open-mouthed kisses. It feels like he’s trying to eat you alive, and when he starts unbuttoning your top, you’re quick push your hands against his chest. You attempt to shove him away and point out that whatever he’s doing was not agreed upon.

You’re being difficult on purpose again, he thinks. You nearly celebrate your victory when he gets off of you for a brief moment, but then he lets out a deep huff before reaching for his belt. You don’t really get a chance to struggle before he wraps the thing around your wrists, making quick work of your hands and tying them to the bed frame.

It's when the true weight of the situation dawns upon you, and instead of trying to make the ordeal exasperating for him, you start doing your best to kick him off of you for real. As he tries to catch your legs, your heel manages to land a hit on his abdomen. He lets out a pained oof through clenched teeth, but you only get to enjoy the reaction for a second. There’s a brief change in his pleasant expression, and in the next moment, he grabs both of your ankles and forces your lower body against your chest with his entire weight. He softly tuts at you before pressing his index finger against your lips. He doesn’t even need to speak his mind out loud — a nudge of his head towards the nightstand and a suggestive smirk is enough to shut you up.

He tells you to settle down and relax. It's obviously not going to actually do anything to calm you down, but he feels the need to sort of pretend that this is something you want and need. Moreover, he twists it in his mind that what he’s about to do to you is actually a positive thing. It's for your own good, so get over it.

You’re trying to fiddle with the belt around your hands to free yourself. He watches your efforts with an amused expression. You can try to fight it all you want, he made sure that the thing holds. So, while you’re busy trying to resist him, he hooks his fingers under the waistline of your clothes and pulls your bottoms down. You hiss at his actions, badmouthing him, throwing insults at him. That’s cute, he thinks. Not much you can do about it now, so you should just try to enjoy it, no?

You only get a mere moment to prepare yourself before he starts devouring your cunt like his life depends on it. He just goes for it. And, you come to find that he’s unfortunately incredibly good at it. He starts slowly, giving some teasing licks to your clit, just above your entrance. He's biting down on your inner thighs, pinching around your most sensitive areas, riling you up like no tomorrow. You try your best to close your legs, attempting to shove him off your bits, but he just grabs you by the hips and pulls you flush against his face.

He’s awful. He somehow seems to know just where to prod to get your insides feeling all hot. When he truly gets down to it, after the gentle warm-up is over, you come to find that he's shockingly adept at trying to pleasure you. Still, with some effort, you’re able to distance yourself from the situation. You let your mind wander, thinking about anything else, how the room looks, what you ate today... You zone out and do your best to ignore whatever is happening in your lower half.

Oh no, you must have gotten the wrong idea, he thinks. He pauses his actions, getting up and on top of you from between your thighs before gently caressing your cheek. ”You do know that we’re not going to stop until you come, right?” he asks you.

You can nearly see the hearts in his eyes, the simultaneously pitying and mocking smile on his lips. Your insides flip. You try to bark back at him, telling him that he’s being unjust, that this is not what you agreed upon, but he just shakes his head and lets you know that no, you’re not the one who makes the rules. It’s him. So get comfortable.

Deep inside, he’s a bit offended that your go-to would be trying not to feel anything when he’s clearly putting his heart and soul into getting you off. Instead of disheartening him, though, it only makes him go harder. So, do what you want, nothing is going to stop him from plunging two fingers into your warm cunt. It comes with zero warning, and to his delight, you let out a whiny shriek in surprise. Good thing that the soundproofing is excellent here.

˗ˏˋ ★ 12. Preferences: What is sex with them like? What sort of stuff are they into? What kind of kinks do they have?

Oh, he’s… a freak. When it comes to his preferences, he truly is a force to be reckoned with. There’s mildly kinky stuff that he’s into, and then there are things that he would get a lot of looks for if he were to ever say them out loud. And, (un)fortunately for you, you’ll come to find out about the whole spectrum of his preferences.

There’s very little that he isn’t open to at least trying. He will lowkey go through your old phone's search history and find out all about what you’re secretly into. Nothing like that is off-limits to him. Besides, he will learn to know you even better that way! He doesn’t really understand why you’re so horribly self-conscious about something like this. It’s not like he’ll use that to his advantage or anything.

Bondage

He likes restricting your movements. The degree of it depends: Sometimes he might be satisfied with just tying your hands together, other times it’s your entire body. He’ll bind your calves against the back of your thighs, your whole arms behind your back — he’ll wrap you up like a nice little gift. Which you kind of are, actually; to him, anyway.

He tends to appreciate the aesthetic things in life, so he likes playing around with rope in the bedroom in that sense too. He’s quite skilled with it as well, he knows how to tie nice patterns around your chest, your legs, all of it. He might even install a hook in the ceiling so your entire body can hang in the air if he’s feeling extra freaky. It’s also easier to get through with the act those times, obviously, since you can’t do much struggling when you’re barely even able to wiggle your fingers.

He can basically do what he pleases with you when you’re bound. He can use you however he likes, he can finger you, eat you out, get his dick wet, stick a finger in your ass, whatever he’s feeling like. It oftentimes comes with blindfolding or gagging you, too. He’s a big fan of ball gags in particular: It makes you unable to spit vile words at him, and besides, you look super cute with it, he thinks. Covering your eyes makes you at least twice as receptive, he finds. You twitch more often, shiver, try to yank on the ropes, cry, even. He likes to see you struggle; it gives him an unexplainable, powerful feeling.

Toys, toys, even more toys, and overstimulation

Of course he likes using toys in the bedroom. What is there not to like? They spice things up, make certain things easier, and most importantly, they get you going faster than his hands or mouth ever could. And no, that’s not an insult to him, of course, he knows how to pick you apart with just what he was blessed with, but toys bring excitement. He can’t get the same effect with his hands as he can with a vibrator.

That being said, he really is a big fan of vibes, namely. Small, big, bullet, wand, gentle, industrial level, he’s all for them. He loves how your body reacts to them, especially if it’s particularly visceral.

One of his go-to foreplays is blindfolding you and tying you down like usual, but there's a bit of a twist. You’re expecting him to go down on you, stick his fingers in, whatever it is that he commonly does, but then a whirring sound fills the room. You barely get the chance to react before a vibrator is pressed right against your clit. You jerk back, naturally — the sensation is beyond intense, the thing is pressing directly on one of your most sensitive spots — but he just shushes you and follows your movements with the device. You can't get away. No matter how you struggle, the vibe is not coming off your cunt until you come on it, he lets you know, all in the infuriatingly mocking tone he uses on you when he knows you can’t clap back.

And he keeps his promise, too, and more. When you inevitably do cream on the thing, he doesn’t move it away or turn it off. You start flailing around, of course, you just came and you’re sensitive, but he doesn’t make an effort to stop. Go on, try to get him off of you — he won’t let you. He probably says something snarky like ”oops, my hand slipped”, all the while he continues tormenting you. His free hand slides next to the vibrator’s head, and he uses two fingers to spread your folds further apart. The action brings your clit out further, and he presses the vibrator even flusher against your cunt, aligning it so that it rests directly on your pearl. He notes that it gets an exquisite reaction out of you.

He keeps going, only stopping when you’ve been through a whole lot of orgasms back-to-back, and your entire lower half is almost completely numb. You lost your will to fight back somewhere in the middle, there’s drool on your cheek, your eyes are barely staying open, and most wonderfully, your cunt is fluttering and twitching around nothing. Delectable, he thinks. You really don’t understand what you do to him. It’s a good thing he snatched you away when he did because some other man would surely have taken advantage of you soon enough.

Aside from vibrators, he likes nipple clamps. You, however, tend to hate those the most because of how easy it is for him to tug on the chain that connects them, and you’re already whining. They’re a nice addition to your sessions. A little pinch never hurt anyone.

Butt plugs, dildos, anal beads, whatever it is, he probably has them for you in various sizes and colours. Aside from your cunt, he does like playing around with your ass a lot, so be prepared to get a vibrator shoved up there as well. He usually starts fiddling with the rear hole while you're already under a ton of stimulation from other areas, too, so when you're done, none of your places will have been left untouched. He has very little qualms when it comes to getting you off with different tools.

He will absolutely make you wear a plug to a meeting or an event the two of you attend, too. You’re obviously heavily against the idea, the last thing you want is for others to know what a freak you’re forced to be with, but there’s no changing his mind. Besides, it’s in private when the magic really happens. The idea of you having the toy inside you had him hot and bothered all evening, so when you finally return to his room, he will be insatiable. He will stuff both of your holes full of whatever things he happens to prefer that day, make you walk around the room on a leash with the clamps on your nipples, a vibrator against your cunt, all that stuff. And he won't stop until your slick is dripping down your thighs. It never gets any better.

Going on a tangent from the overstim, edging isn't really Aventurine's thing when it comes to you. Yeah, he might sometimes partake in it, getting you as close to coming as he possibly can without tipping you over the edge before pulling away, but he can never keep it up for long. He gets the kicks out of seeing you come, not almost come. Even if he tried to do it as a punishment, he doesn't think he could actually go through with it for that very reason. Ruined orgasms are another thing, those he might do, but only because of the overstim that follows right after.

Banging you in his boss form

Did you think he would not? No, did you seriously think he wouldn’t use the stone in the bedroom? Of course he would. Having this rare of a tool in his hands would go to waste if he were not to take advantage of it in the sheets at least once.

You don’t agree with the notion in the slightest, he comes to find. You’re straddling one of his thighs while he rests back on the couch, very clearly taking in the sight of you and enjoying the show. The monstrosity isn’t even that much bigger than his usual stature, but oh, he can see it in your eyes how wary you are of him in this form. Your brows are knitted together, and you visibly flinch when he raises his hand to move a strand of your hair off your forehead with one of his talons. The way the tips of his claws brush against your cheek, he shudders at the view.

Come on, then, hop on. Yeah, come on, it’s not even that much different to his actual one. Yeah, he knows, the dick is a strange colour now, and it has a few ribs, but the size is just about the same, and you have taken him before. What are you waiting for?

He bounces his thigh up and down a few times, encouraging you to properly climb into his lap and sink onto his cock. Your bare cunt rubs against his pant leg as he does, and you have to hold back a hiss. Aside from his appearance changing drastically, it seems that his strength has received a considerable boost as well. It wouldn't be wise to make him mad in this form, you admit, so best not to have him wait for too long.

You feel his nails caressing along your spine as you prop yourself on his hips. He’s letting you feel the subtle threat that comes with his touch, his fingers are tapping rhythmically against the bone under your skin, telling you to hurry up if you don’t want him to take the initiative.

You bite into your bottom lip as you feel his cock slide into you bit by bit. You feel every single bump, every single ridge as the thing breaches your walls. He throws his head back in satisfaction, exhaling deeply. He can feel the way your cunt constricts around him, obviously not pleased with the intrusion. Your breaths become ragged as you struggle to take him, your hips are subtly trying to nudge higher and off his junk. He brings his hand down on your thigh, gently pushing you back down. You curse at him in response, but he only shakes his head. You can’t tell what his expression looks like, the mask prevents you from seeing his face, but you would bet your entire life on it being a condescending smirk.

He starts heaving you up and down on his dick. You yelp, using more force to try and get yourself off of him, but there’s no budging him. Instead, he removes his hand from your thigh and slips it in between your legs. His fingers prod around for a little until they find your clit, and he begins rolling the pearl in between his nails. He’s being careful not to poke anything with the sharp edges, of course, and judging from how you go tense and your cheeks flush, he’s doing a good job. You should really be grateful that he isn’t sticking it in your other hole, you know. He’s showing you a lot of grace here, really.

… among other things

As stated before, he has very little restrictions when it comes to sexuality. There are very few things that he is completely opposed to doing, and similarly, there aren’t many things that he hasn’t already tried. In no particular order, more of his favourites include eating your ass, putting a collar on you, tickling you, dressing you up in horrendously humiliating outfits, even gunplay… The list goes on and on and on. However, all of the mentioned things have one thing in common: The reactions he gets out of you are entertaining beyond words.

That, and he’s a big fucking fan of talking to you throughout the activities. Whether he’s in between your legs or dick-deep inside of you, he can’t close his mouth for the love of him. Every chance he gets, he speaks out, praising you, teasing you, degrading you, yap-yap-yap-yap-yap. He says things like "come on, you're taking it so well", "you're so cute when you try to fight it", "it's not going anywhere, you're just gonna have to take it" and "stupid little thing, can't even take this much?". It’s like he constantly has a knife right against his throat that will slit his artery if he stops talking even for a second.

Oh, and he gets really descriptive about his musings. He might let you know what your cunt looks like to him in very precise detail. You wish the one wearing a gag was him and not you. As the cherry on top, he also likes to moan very loudly and right in your ear, even when he's not actually receiving any physical pleasure himself. He tends to mock the sounds that you let out, singing high-pitched whines against your cheek and chuckling right after. God, you wish the chandelier would drop on his ass.

And he gets so damn mean with it. He will belittle you to his heart's content, until your pretty face is adorned by tears, until you're begging for him to just stop. That's when he knows he has you exactly where he wants you: Nice and obedient, and most importantly, so fucked-out that you can barely get a coherent word out. He could bust right then and there with zero stimulation.

One of the most atrocious things he makes you go through is dressing you up in one of those bunny outfits. You know the one, a leather leotard and thigh-highs that barely covers your bits (plus a bullet vibe in your underwear, obviously). That alone would be terrible enough, but in addition, he takes you to some obscure casino while you're wearing the outfit. There’s girls dressed similar to you everywhere, entertaining the guests, but you stay firmly slotted in his lap while he plays roulette and empties the entire table. In his pocket, he holds the remote to the device in you, and obviously, he’s not going to let you catch a break the entire evening. (He will also totally place you as a bet on some gamble. He’s always going to win, of course, but the brief look of terror on your face is admittedly very funny to him.)

˗ˏˋ ★ 13. Punishment: What do their sexual punishments look like? What methods do they prefer?

Sexual punishments are actually a fairly common thing with Aventurine since it’s both exciting to him and effective in keeping you in line.

Out of all of the things he could do to you, he has one singular favourite when it comes to getting a point across, and it’s relentless, merciless overstimulation. You thought the regular sessions were bad? Be prepared to experience the torture at a degree that’s at least tenfold as bad.

If you’ve been misbehaving or being generally difficult, he might just load you up with toys and leave you like that for the entire night. See, it is handy that he has multiple beds available. He can’t have a good night’s sleep if there’s a struggling and moaning person right next to him in the sheets.

You know exactly when you’ve crossed the line between mild consequences and a night in agony. It’s that one distinct look that he gives you, his eyes are the slightest bit squinted, and he raises his brows, urging you to "go on". At that point, you stop whatever it is that you got in trouble for, shaking your head and trying to make up an excuse to get yourself out of the situation, but it’s way too late for that now. In a heartbeat, he has you down on the bed, thrashing around, but it does very little to stop him from chaining you down. ”You brought this upon yourself”, he tells you as he starts digging for the tools in the box under the bed.

He shoves beads in your ass, a generously sized dildo in your cunt, and he finishes the piece with a wand right against your clit. He turns the thing on at maximum setting. There’s no slow build-up like usual, he doesn’t warm you up in any way, it’s from zero to a hundred in a split second. You start screaming at him, telling him to turn it off, to get it off of you, but there’s only so many words that you can get out before he shoves a gag in your mouth.

You’re going to suffer through your punishment like a good girl, he lets you know. There’s no getting out of it, and you can be prepared for at least a good few hours of relentless stimulation. It might be for as long as he’s out on business, it might be overnight, you never know. Not being certain on how far he’s going to take it is a part of the fun, obviously. You’re under his mercy, and that if anything will get you behaving.

It’s also nice how obedient you are afterwards. When he finally gets the toys out of you and unties the bindings, you can barely move. He tells you to apologize to him for whatever you did, and in fear of him continuing the torment, you mumble out a barely coherent ”sorry”. It’s that easy.

Or, he might spank you. This is only when he actually has time to reprimand you, which isn’t that often, but when he does, you despise it. He seems to get even more out of it than the usual overstim hell. Spanking is his go-to if your offence isn’t one that he’s actually that mad about, like trying (and failing) to unlock his phone, for example.

Maybe he catches you red-handed, your fingers still tapping against the screen. Quickly, you set the thing down as if that would get you out of whatever is going to follow. It’s kind of adorable, really, how your eyes go wide like you were just caught digging through a cookie jar. He just tilts his head in curiosity, giving you a soft smirk before telling you to get on his lap.

It doesn’t matter if you put up a scuffle, you’re going to end up lying down on your stomach, chest pressed against his thighs. He uses one hand to keep your arms behind your back while the other one yanks your bottom down. Then he starts landing open-palm hits on your rear. The shrieks you let out are nothing short of exhilarating to him. It’s not even a minute into the act that his clothed dick starts pressing up against your side. It’s very likely that he’ll first switch to slapping your cunt before starting to finger you instead. Whether you like it or not, stimulation down there, no matter what kind, gets you aroused, and he’s pleased to find that you’re already wet for him. He makes sure to let you know that, too, of course.

˗ˏˋ ★ 14. Aftermath: What does their aftercare look like? Is there any?

Aventurine hasn’t done his job right if he can still make out your words after he’s done. Sex with him is obviously incredibly intense from your perspective, so your will to object to his advances afterwards is in the negatives. You undeniably require some attention in the aftermath since you’re barely able to lift a finger in your hazy, post-orgasm state. Plus, he knows the significance of taking care of one's partner after a rough time, even if the act itself is terribly twisted in this context.

He usually starts the aftercare by caressing your face, gently coaxing you out of your delirious state. It’s grossly similar to what a real lover would do: It’s soft and mindful, and most noticeably, it’s a complete contrast to what has gone down just mere moments ago. The next step, if needed, is to rid you of the implements he has utilized that time. He pulls the toys out of you, pinches the clamps off your nipples, unties your arms, slides the blindfold aside. He coos at you while at it, telling you how well you did, how good you were for him. You don’t have the spirit in you to let him know just what’s going on in your mind.

After the imperative part, he usually either takes you to the bath or just goes straight to snuggling your spent body. The latter is the more likely outcome since you tend to flake out quickly after he's done. It’s only the rarest of times that you actually muster up enough willpower to resist his embrace. He’ll be a bit displeased about it if you do, but more often than not, you can’t keep it up for long anyway, so it's not that big of a hassle.

Aftercare, for him, is the most intimate part of the whole act. It’s when he can truly, even if it’s only a glimpse, show you his true emotions. He can get awfully sentimental in these moments, too. He’s very responsive to anything you might ask or wonder about, his job, his colleagues, even his past if the stars have aligned. These are also moments when you can use his lowered guard to your advantage. Get that info.

˗ˏˋ ★ 15. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes sex-wise? Are there any unique aspects to them?

The… The gambling continues in the bedroom. It’s no joke.

It’s, like, 30% of his entire personality, so why would he not include it in the sex? You think it’s beyond ridiculous, you let him know that he could perhaps consider using the brain cells that the Aeons have blessed him with, but no. You are going to gamble in the bedroom.

Think of it like this: Pure chance gets to settle what you’re going to do that time. Look, the coin will decide whether it’s going to be his fingers or mouth, and the number on the die determines the number of rounds. And no, you’re not going to get out of this one, either. Don’t you think it’s kind of fun, too? You’re throwing your bodies in the game, what could be more thrilling than that? Or, how about this one: The coin dictates if it will be the plug or the wand, and the dice will tell you the setting. Exciting, no? So, heads or tails? ”Fuck off”? Hey, that wasn’t one of the options.

Moreover, Aventurine, perhaps a bit unexpectedly, isn’t that big of a fan of receiving. It’s a bit of a complicated matter to put into words, but from the psychological viewpoint, being on the receiving end of sexual activities does very little for him. He doesn’t know why that is, exactly. He’s aware that his head is a bit fucked up in a couple of places, but that’s where it ends. It’s not like he won’t occasionally end up having you suck on his dick or similar, but he won’t actively seek it from you. He would much rather observe how each of your barriers collapse one by one under his prying touch. Dicking you down is also more about you than it is about him, and he doesn't necessarily have to come each time himself.

The exception to this is that if you, in the very implausible scenario that it occurs, voluntarily offer yourself to him. If you, out of your own volition, come up to him and inform him that you would like to give him head, he will unquestionably agree to it. He doesn’t even let himself consider if what you’re doing is just a manipulation tactic, simply because he’s so overjoyed by it. He won’t show it, of course — he’ll act all pompous, the usual routine, but inside, he can barely contain his elation. Of course, you’re only doing this to get something out of him, but oh well. He might as well enjoy it.

One more peculiar thing about him is that, no matter what you do, he will never actually hurt you during sex. It doesn’t matter if he’s punishing you, for a serious offence, even, he will (almost) never slap you around beyond your butt or draw blood or anything like that. He just can’t get himself to even think of doing those things to you. There will be threats, sure, those keep you pliant, but you can be certain that you’ll never be hurt physically aside from what’s strictly essential. Your nerve endings in a certain few places may very well be fried, but never anything more severe.

A/N

This was a bit of a tricky write in the sense that Aventurine’s character has an incredibly rough backstory. Don’t get me wrong, obviously the topics at hand in this writing are equally as heavy in the real world, but the difference is that it’s meant to be horny content here. Aventurine’s lore isn’t meant to be hornied at all, at least not in my eyes, so avoiding those tones brought some difficulty. I sometimes find it hard to walk the line between the two moods.

That being said, I decided not to touch on the topic of his past too much for this reason. Above all, these are fictional characters we’re dealing with, and technically I could write almost whatever the fuck I want, but this is where my ethics stand. I hope you had a good read regardless!

(Off-topic but I can't believe I had to do research on gambling out of all things to write this piece. What a ride.)

Extra Special A/N

I got an inquiry if I could tag people when dropping a new profile. So, I present to you, my one-person taglist ⋆｡°✩

@yourfavouritecitizen

[riricatria]

Hiii~

"Moments of Weakness" as in the reader suffering critical aura damage by being difficult with the yanderes. This is the second part for the post carrying the same name! If you want more, the previous one can be found right about here. I hope you have a good read ~(˘▾˘~)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Characters include: Aventurine, Boothill, Gallagher, Dr. Ratio, Mr. Reca and Sunday (pre-AE) CONTENT WARNINGS INCLUDE: Yandere content (BUT this on the much more wholesome end of it. It's fluffy and sort of hurt/comfort!), cisfem!Reader, unwanted touching, manipulation, reader gets a good bonk on the head in the BH one (there's blood), alcohol mention in the Gallagher part, reader is nakey in the Sunny one but there's nothing sexual.

˗ˏˋ ★ Aventurine

The quiet shuffling of cards scraping against each other is the only thing that can be heard in the room you and Aventurine share. It’s a deliberate thing on his end: Though you’re lying on the hotel bed with your back turned to him, the mere sound is enough for you to understand the message without him having to even say anything. 

It’s clear as day; he’s trying to lure you into playing with him again for whatever bet he’s feeling like setting on the game today. It’s always a tempting offer to accept: He promises you all kinds of things if you manage to win against him. The only issue is that, without fail, you have lost every single time, no matter how much thought and strategy you have put into it. It’s not even about skill anymore — though admittedly, he’s much better-versed in that field as well — but his luck is simply unbeatable. 

”Hey, I know you’re not sleeping”, Aventurine sings from where he’s sitting at the table, elongating the last syllable of his words with an annoying lilt. 

”I’m not gonna play with you”, you turn him down before he can even propose the activity itself. 

”Come on, not even for a little bit?” he coos at you. ”I know you want to.”

”I don’t”, you shake your head against the pillow you’re resting on. 

”What’s all this, now?” you hear the chair creak as he stands up from his seat. ”You’ve been so gloomy lately. Is something wrong?”

You are wrong, you want to respond to him, but speaking it out loud would serve no purpose. His ego is practically untouchable: Nothing you say could wound him deeper than a mere graze on the surface. 

Your bed shifts as Aventurine plops beside you on the mattress. You don’t offer him any reaction; not even as much as glancing at him over your shoulder. Instead, you pull further into yourself, bringing your knees to your chest and curling up in a fetal position. 

Unsatisfied with your lack of enthusiasm, Aventurine brings his hand to your hip. There, he moves two of his fingers along your curves, pretending as if his hand was walking down the dip of your waist, the bend of your elbow, the back of your neck. It tickles a bit, and after a few moments, you have to reach your arm over your side to swat his touch away.

”There you are”, his striking eyes lock with yours as you raise your head from the pillow, scowling at him. ”What’s with the sulking?”

”...”

”Come on, now”, he intones, reaching for your face and gently moving a stray piece of your hair behind your ear. ”I have a really nice stake for this one.”

”... Like what?” 

You hate how easy it is for him to pique your curiosity. With how capricious he is, one would think that you would try your absolute best to stay away from his antics, but the reality is usually quite the opposite.

”Well”, he says. You can hear the smirk in the ring of his voice. ”I was thinking we could take a trip to the Golden Hour again. How does that sound?”

It sounds nice. It has been a while since he has last taken you anywhere — for leisure, anyway: He has been drowning in work lately, and in consequence, there haven’t been many opportunities for the two of you to go out on “dates”, as he calls them. 

”... What do you even want to play? Strip poker?” you ask him in a dry tone.

”Oho, are you offering?” 

”I’m not.”

”Bummer”, Aventurine shrugs with a smug look on his face. ”I was thinking Blackjack. Just like back at the casino that one time, remember?”

”...”

”Heh”, he lets out a chuckle. ”Do you want to deal or does the job land on me yet again?” 

”Hold on, what do you get if you win?” 

You prop yourself up on your elbows, looking at him with your brows furrowed. There’s a dangerous glint in Aventurine’s eyes.

”Hmm, let’s say...”, he muses, tapping the tip of his chin in a thoughtful manner, ”fifteen minutes of cuddling for every hand you lose. You’ve got ten rounds to beat me.”

You purse your lips together.

”Deal”, you say. 

Without delay, Aventurine briefly shuffles the deck in his hands before dealing the cards in between the two of you on the bed. Abiding by the rules, he sets one of his upside down while giving you a couple with their face up. 

You count the total. It’s 15. 

”Hit”, you utter. 

”Very well”, Aventurine responds.

He picks up another card for you from the pile. With a theatrical curve of his hand, he lands it beside the other two. 

You stare at the symbols on the thing, then count the tiny, askew squares once, twice, thrice — there’s no mistaking it. With uncontrollable excitement, you point at the six of diamonds with your mouth hanging open. 

”That’s 21!” you exclaim with more joy than you were planning on. ”I win!”

”Oop, would you look at that”, Aventurine leans down lower to inspect the card, squinting his eyes. ”Fair and square. The Dreamscape is calling.”

”Do we leave right now?” you ask, already swinging your legs off the bed with your eyes sparkling. 

There’s an odd, complacent look on his features. 

”Take it easy, now”, he says, wagging his finger back and forth at you. ”We’ve still got nine more rounds left.”

”Huh?” your smile falls. ”But I won? It’s 21?”

”I didn’t say we wouldn’t play the rest, now, did I?” Aventurine grins at you, evidently holding back his laughter. ”Come on, settle down.”

”But you...!”

You glare at him with your mouth ajar, but as you play back the conversation in your head, his ploy becomes painfully clear to you. You’re about to raise your finger at him, to curse him to the deepest pit of the planet as the chagrin burns on your cheeks, but the man has already started dealing the next round of cards. 

Your total goes over the limit with your first hit. 

”That’s 15 minutes to the counter”, Aventurine swipes his tongue over his teeth. 

Similarly, you lose the next round, the third, the fourth, the one after that, and every single one until the very last hand. It’s like every loss is another stab at your pride: He even scores five perfect blackjacks back-to-back without as much as batting an eye. Twisting the knife in the wound, he makes sure to keep an exact count of how long the agreed-upon cuddle session is going to last, speaking the time stamps out loud. 

By the time the last hand of cards has been dealt, you have rested back down on the bed, barely even paying attention to the game anymore. You watch with very little interest as he lands two Jacks on the bed, beating your measly total of 18. 

”And that one’s a win for me as well”, Aventurine states, tapping the tip of his finger against the ornate illustration of a knight on the card he just flipped over. ”Game over.”

You don’t delight him with a response. Instead, you roll over on the bed, once again turning your back to him with a deep pout on your face. It doesn’t deter him from enjoying the moment to his heart’s content, though:

”That makes, let me think... A little over two hours, does it not?” he leans over your form to catch a glance at your expression. ”We might have to cut it down to only an hour and a half, though. We won’t have much time to spend in the Dreamscape, otherwise.”

You bury your face in the pillow. 

”Hey, don’t be like that”, Aventurine pets your arm, lying down behind you on the bed. ”It’s what you agreed to. You can take a nap if you’d like, I don’t mind.”

As he snakes his arms around your waist and pulls your back flush against his chest, you promise to yourself that you’re never, ever going to entertain his whims again. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Boothill

You’re pretty sure you weren’t far from the verge of passing out a second or two ago. The stars that adorn your field of vision flicker in and out like sparklers, making it difficult to focus on the sight ahead of you — which happens to be Boothill’s chest. 

After having pulled away from yet another one of his crushing hugs, he took matters into his own hands. You’re aware he doesn’t like it when you refuse his affections, but you didn’t exactly expect him to jerk you back to him with enough force to mash a boulder. Consequentially, as a result of more than one unfortunate factor, you ended up banging your head right against his chestplate. 

You fall on your knees in front of him, sinking to the floor while clutching the middle of your forehead with both of your hands. Not only does the spot throb terribly, but as you draw your fingers back to check the extent of the damage, there’s a distinct, red smear on them. 

”Fudge!” Boothill swears, to the best of his ability, kneeling down to your level. ”Why’d you do that?”

”I didn’t-!” you speak through a clenched jaw, but it’s difficult to concentrate on anything else but the pounding ache. ”You-, ow-ow-ow-”

You bring your hand back over the wound as you see Boothill reach for your face. 

”Lemme see that, Sugar”, he takes hold of one of your wrists and attempts to yank it away from the injury, but you don’t allow him to: Instead, you pull further into yourself to shake off his touch. 

”Don’t touch me!” you yelp at him, although the words come out as more of a plea rather than a demand.

Letting out a frustrated huff, Boothill resorts to trying to peek at your wound through the gaps between your fingers. Catching sight of the blood, he hisses through his razor-sharp teeth, scrunching his face up a little. He doesn’t seem to quite know where he should put his hands because they’re hovering all around you, unsure where to touch or if to even touch at all. 

A thin trail of blood crawls down the bridge of your nose. Boothill’s expression only grows more concerned, and as he tries to reach for you yet again, you land a slap on his hand. 

”Sugar, you’re blee-”

”I know, I know!” you whine with your eyes squeezed shut. ”Just give me something to... I need something to put on it...”

”I’m not sure we’ve got anything for that in here”, Boothill scratches the side of his head in a fretful manner. ”Didn’t prepare for situations like this, bein’ a cyborg and all.”

More blood dribbles out of the wound. A droplet slides past your brow and nearly makes its way into your eye. You try to wipe it away but only manage to smear both your face and the end of your sleeve in the deep red. Boothill watches the sight with his face screwed as if he was the one in pain. He lets out a vexed sigh.

Before you can shield yourself, he reaches for your hand and forces it off your face. You let out a startled squawk and attempt to fight him off, but instead of allowing you to, he lands a strong arm on the back of your waist and locks you in place. Using his free hand, he pushes your hair back. Sparing little thought to how your eyes have widened up in alarm, he leans in uncomfortably close to inspect the injury. He softly grazes his fingers against the border of the contusion, tutting his tongue.

”Fudge”, he curses yet again. 

Without delay, Boothill slides his hand under your thighs and hoists you up from the ground. There’s so much momentum in the movement that you nearly hit your head on the low ceiling of the room. He mutters out a half-hearted apology before adjusting his grip on you, balancing you on the crook of his elbow with you holding onto his head for dear life. With inhuman strength, he carries you towards the bathroom. 

Kicking the door open so hard it slams against the wall and almost falls off its hinges, he sits you down on the edge of the bathtub. He grabs one of the bright-coloured towels off the side of the sink, bringing the thing under the tap and soaking it in cold water.

”Alright, hold still for a bit”, Boothill tells you as he kneels down in front of you with the piece of fabric in hand. 

Gently, or rather, as gently as he’s able to, he dabs the towel around the gash on your forehead, wiping the blood off to the best of his ability. Despite how each of his touches stings, you let your defensive hands slowly fall to your lap.

He isn’t exactly careful with his actions. With each pat against the wound, his metallic fingers knock against your skull in a careless manner. He doesn’t seem to grasp the extent of his strength, to a certain degree: While he visibly takes a little caution to tone it down in your company, occasionally, you end up with unintentional bruises and marks on various parts of your body — much like now. 

After a while, Boothill pulls the towel out of your face before examining the outcome of his efforts. 

”Don’t know what I’m gonna close that up with”, he speaks his thoughts out loud, drumming the pads of his fingers against the tub’s ceramic. 

”I can-”

”Nope, you’re gonna stay right where you are, Sugar”, he interrupts you before you can even voice whatever suggestion you had. ”We used to have some tape or somethin’ layin’ ’round here, right?”

He spins on his heels before making his way back to the sink with the wet cloth in hand. He carelessly lays it over the sink’s edge before flinging open the doors of the cabinet above it. He rummages around for a bit before pulling out a roll of wound tape from inside. 

”Alright, hold your hair back for me, yeah?” he instructs you, snapping off a small piece of the material. 

You do as you’re told, brushing your fingers past your hairline and pulling the strands back. Not waiting around, Boothill goes for the finishing touch and glues the tape over the lesion. For good measure, he rips another slice of the tape off the roll and crosses it over the first in an X-shape. 

He leans back from you to inspect the result of his work. An amused snort slips past his teeth. 

”Ha, you look like one of them forkin’ shooting targets with that on your forehead”, he chuckles, poking his index finger on the bridge of your nose, right below the wound. 

You front at him in response. He closes his eyes for a moment, and his smirk simmers down a tiny bit. 

”You better not give me any more attitude in the future, you hear?” he says.

Though the words are spoken as a bit of a joke, you don’t miss the implication behind them. Boothill sets his hand on your knee, giving it a few, comforting pats. You let your hair fall back over your face. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Gallagher

You’re not sure if you could get a single sound out of your mouth, even if you were to try your absolute hardest. It feels like a bunch of flaming matches have been tossed into your windpipe. You didn’t even know it was possible to get sick while in the Dreamscape, yet that’s how you’ve ended up; with your throat burning and your voice gone. 

You’ve spent the past few hours simply lying down on one of the benches in the bar’s back room. Due to your ailment, you haven’t had much energy for moving around, and besides, you don’t feel like roaming about the public area: There isn’t that much to see, and more importantly, Gallagher is there. The bar already closed a fifteen minutes or so ago, and he’s most likely busy setting everything up for when it opens again. 

You know that he’s most likely aware of your current state — you’ve been hacking your lungs out for the better part of an hour, and the man isn’t deaf nor is he stupid — but even so, he hasn’t taken the time to come check up on you. 

It’s not that you want him to, necessarily, but for how much he pesters you in general, it’s a wonder that he hasn’t slid in the back room yet to inquire about your condition. You can already hear his condescending tone mocking you for your trouble, telling you ”how adorable for little old you to catch a cold”, and even the mere thought has you rolling your eyes. Given his nature, the entire thing would be funny to him, more than anything: You don’t think you could stomach all the remarks he has in store for you right now.

You prop yourself up in your elbows with a sigh. The shiny, leather surface of the bench is starting to feel a bit uncomfortable against your side. Moreover, it’s getting a little chilly. Coincidentally, all of the blankets have been left in the public area for the customers — perhaps a purposeful deed on Gallagher’s end. 

Your mouth is dry as a desert, to the point that it hurts. Looking around the room you’re holed up in, you come to find that he hasn’t left you with anything drinkable, either; the only liquid in your general vicinity is a bottle of hard liquor, and although technically being a beverage, you doubt it would serve the purpose of quenching your thirst. You wish Siobhan would drop around for a bit again: She’s much nicer to spend time with than your captor, being a woman and all, and with her, you don’t have to fistfight your own ego when asking for basic necessities. 

Carefully, you get on your feet and make your way to the door with dragging steps. For a moment, you ponder if you could manage for a little bit longer, but with how your throat aches, you decide that ultimately, confronting the man is a better option than suffering with your malady. 

As quietly as you can, you slip into the public area. Judging from the clinking sound coming from the other side of the bar desk, your guess is that Gallagher must be behind the middle wall that divides the spacious room, still occupied with something. He doesn’t seem to have noticed your presence just yet, and you take advantage of that.

Tiptoeing closer to the counter, you spot an unopened can of lemonade next to a few empty bottles of wine. The sight is awfully tempting, to the point that your mouth musters up the last bits of saliva you have left in favour of allowing you to drool. 

You try to catch a glimpse of your captor past the middle wall, but alas, you’re unable to. Deciding to go for the steal nonetheless, with your eyes set on the can, you sneak closer to it, grab it off the desk, and-

”It’s good to see you up”, Gallagher’s voice rings in the silent room. ”Doing well?”

As you raise your gaze, you come to see him peeking out from the other side of the rounded counter. He wears the same, smug smirk as always, looking down at you with a hint of curiosity in his expression. 

Your eyes widen. You’re about to greet him with a flavourless ”hi”, but even as your tongue forms the syllable, no voice comes out. Immediately after, you cough out, planting your hand over your chest in an effort to stabilize yourself. 

”Something wrong?” Gallagher quirks a brow at you, making his way over to where you’re standing. 

You try to mouth out an answer to him, saying ”my voice is gone”, but as you’re unable to produce a sound, you resort to moving your hand along your throat horizontally, attempting to convey the message via gesturing. Looking at his expression, you come to find that he has understood the problem, but true to his style, he isn’t going to let you live your trouble down just yet. 

”Hm, what’s that?” he leans down with his hand cupped around his ear. 

Biting on the bait embarrassingly fast, you put your best effort into trying to yell out at him, but the only thing that comes out is a tiny, pitiful wheeze. Desperately, you point at the can on the counter. 

”I’m not sure what you’re getting at”, Gallagher sighs with a shit-eating smirk on his face, shrugging his shoulders to really sell the performance. ”You need to use your words, I’m afraid.”

”I need water!” you mouth at him with a pitiably wretched frown on your lips. 

Gallagher lets out an amused sigh in response. He then closes his eyes and places his hands on his hips.

Apparently, your little show is pathetic enough to get through to his heart, and he gives up the act with a low chuckle. You nearly wince away from him as his large hand lands on your shoulder. 

”Do you need a drink?” Gallagher then asks, cocking his head to the side. 

You nod fervently. 

”Alright”, he says. His touch pulls away from you as he proceeds to hop over the counter and back to the bartender’s side. ”What would you like? Sweet? Spicy?”

You frown at him with so much attitude that he has to let out yet another laugh at the sight. Though, instead of teasing you further, he picks up something from the shelves under the bar desk. A deep blue blanket is tossed at you. 

Without another word, Gallagher starts picking out bottles from the ledges on the wall, setting them on the counter in a neat row. You drape the soft fabric over your shoulders and sit on one of the bar stools. 

The scene looks like you were a customer being served, almost. You follow his movements as he pours different ingredients into a tin shaker before sealing it up tight. He then joggles the thing around in a theatrical manner, spinning it in his hand, pitching it into the air, giving it a good whirl. After he deems the results suitable, he takes out a tall glass from one of the cabinets and tips the liquid in it. For good measure, he finishes the drink up with a striped straw. 

”There you go”, Gallagher slides the glass over to you. 

Though, for some reason, he doesn’t let go of the base. You give him a questioning look, softly tilting your head to the side with your brows knitted. 

”Hm? Not even a ‘thank you’ for a job well done?” he sighs with a mocking lilt in his tone. 

You fold your arms over your chest, pouting. You reach for the drink despite his taunt, but he pulls it further away from you before you can even touch the thing. 

”Ah-ah-ah”, he shakes his head. ”Come on, Darling, show me a little gratitude, will you?” 

You resist rolling your eyes at him. For a moment, you debate whether or not you should just drop the entire thing and let him play his games alone, but then again, the drink smells so good you could melt through the ground. As much as you can’t stand the man, you need to admit that he understands his field to a T. 

So, with the last bits of your self-respect leaving you, you avert your gaze and mouth out a ”thanks” with a slight bow of your head. Accepting the gesture, he finally lets you have the glass. 

”You’re welcome”, Gallagher gives a soft pat to your head as you bring the straw to your lips. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Dr. Ratio

You’ve been stuck on the same page of the book you’re reading for the better part of ten minutes. The tome in your hands is not even a particularly intriguing piece of literature — it’s one of the few that Ratio allows you to spend your free time on: He has made it clear to you that you are not to waste your leisure on something as vain as fiction. 

The only issue is that you don’t exactly seem to be in the piece’s target group: It’s full of scientific jargon and bizarre words you have never stumbled upon in your life. It’s clearly meant for people well-versed in the topic, and unfortunately, you don’t happen to be a part of that group. To be exact, the book is a collection of various research papers and theses surrounding some mathematical formula relating to space travel — at least from what you’ve gathered. You would be lying if you said that you’re having fun with it, but then again, anything is better than having to stare at the wall while the man works on yet another treatise. 

For one reason or another, Ratio doesn’t permit you to leave the room while he writes despite not sparing the least bit of attention to you. You have a designated chair in the corner of his office that you are to sit on: Not that there’s anything much for you to do in the crammed space, anyway, but he made it known to you that he can’t stand how you ”rummage around like a brainless origami bird”. So, essentially, the only thing you are allowed to do is sit still, look pretty, and wait for him to finish whatever he’s doing, much like now. 

Ratio sighs out loud, tapping his pen against the tabletop in an agitated manner. He then abruptly stands up from his seat, scribbles yet another mathematical formula on the chalkboard behind him, and sits back down. No matter how many times he has already repeated the same routine today, you always jump at the sudden movement. 

Stifling a huff, you sink back into the book in your lap. Antiparticle, equidimensionality, multivariate... Nope, you can’t make any sense of the text, even as you read over the jawbreakers a dozen times. It’s as if you were trying to read an entirely different language. 

You wonder if Ratio would mind if you were to take a nap on the floor. His only requirement for you is to stay quiet and still, anyway, and sleeping would technically fit into aforementioned conditions. Besides, the book served as an excellent sedative: It’s safe to say that reading it managed to spend the entirety of your brain’s capacity in a mere half an hour. 

You smack the thing shut with a thud. As you do so, you happen to spot a pair of feet at the top of your field of vision.

Your heart nearly jumps out of your throat as you raise your head and come to find that Ratio is now standing right in front of you, staring down at you with his usual, blank expression. Barely managing to stifle the yelp that almost slips out of your mouth, you look back at him with wide eyes. 

”Doct-, Veritas”, you correct yourself before the wrong name makes it past your lips, subconsciously leaning away from his form. Unlike with everyone else, he doesn’t take kindly to you referring to him by his formal title.

The man doesn’t respond to you. Instead, his gaze flicks to the tome resting on your thighs.

”Do you have the faintest idea what you’re reading about?” he then asks. 

”Well, um... I do, sort of”, you gather the book in your arms and pull it to your chest in a protective manner.

”Hm”, Ratio lets out a bland huff. ”What is the purpose of the third formula?”

”Eh?” 

”The third formula. Explain it to me.”

”...”

You lift your legs on the chair, turning your body away from him with heat rising onto your cheeks. 

”Hand it to me”, Ratio then demands, holding his hand out with a beckoning gesture of his fingers. 

”But you said-, you said I could read it!” you argue against the request, but despite your demur, he simply reaches for the thing and yanks it out from your grasp. 

He flips the tome open on the page you were reading moments ago, quickly skimming over the contents with his eyes.

”The variable?” he questions, turning his attention back to you. 

”What?”

”What does the variable refer to?” 

”... I don’t know.”

”I thought so.”

”Can I have it back?” you plead, reaching your hand out towards him. ”I don’t care if I don’t understand it, I just want to-”

Your words are cut short as instead of handing the book back to you, Ratio grabs you by the wrist and pulls you off your seat. You let out a small, surprised sound in response, but it does nothing to dissuade him from his new-found objective. In long strides, he drags you over to his desk. 

”Sit down”, he instructs you in an indifferent tone. 

Not daring to disobey him any further, you promptly take a seat in his chair. The next second, he slams a clean sheet of paper in front of you on the table. In his eloquent handwriting, he scrawls a string of numbers and letters on it. 

”Find the derivative of this function”, he commands, insistently tapping his finger against the table, ordering you around like you were one of his poor subordinates. 

Ratio slides the pen in your hand. Expectantly, he plants his hand down next to the paper, urging you to get to work.

With a bewildered expression, you stare at the row of symbols in front of you. Even as you try your best to concentrate on what he has written, your focus strays immediately: You’re painfully aware of how his sharp gaze is piercing a hole through the back of your head. As an additional challenge, he places one of his hands on your shoulder, silently raising the pressure even higher as he looms behind you like a bad omen. 

Despite reading the line of symbols over, again and again, you’re unable to grasp even the first step of the solution. You don’t consider yourself to be from the daftest end of the population, yet he always manages to make you feel like an idiot, regardless of the matter at hand. 

”Nothing?” Ratio quirks his brow.

You look back at him with a lost expression on your face, timidly shaking your head. 

Letting out a disappointed sigh, Ratio motions you to get up from your seat. You obey the request without delay, allowing him to sit on the chair instead. Though, rather than having you stand beside him, he pats his thigh. 

”Huh-, oh-”

Your movements are a little too slow for his taste, and the man tugs you to him by your arm, urging you to take a seat on his lap. With how much Ratio breaches about patience, there are a certain few things that manage to get him quite tetchy, you have noticed. 

He slides one of his hands around your lower back, and with the other, he begins making notations on the paper. 

”Here is the formula”, he underlines a section of his writing, nearly crossing out another with how intensely he performs the action. ”Apply it.”

It’s a familiar one, you come to find; he has taught it to you before. Moreover, it’s one of the simple ones, too. You swallow.

With a faintly trembling hand, you get on with the task. Resting the pen against the paper, you begin writing out the steps for the solution. Though it takes you a minute or two and a few trials and errors, you manage to tackle the problem without too much difficulty — all the while tormented by his dissecting gaze, no less. 

You turn your head to the side to face Ratio with a shy smile tugging on the corners of your mouth, equally as terrified as you are triumphant. He sees your work over with a captious eye, carefully going over each letter you have written. It’s only as the crease between his brows smooths out that you dare to let out the breath you’ve been holding in. 

”Not bad”, he says. 

You flinch a tiny bit as the hand on your waist moves to the back of your head. There, he caresses your hair, silently praising you for your performance before letting his arm fall back into its original position. 

”Let us move on to the next one”, he then declares, writing yet another function below your answer. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Mr. Reca

You jolt awake. 

As your eyes shoot open, you come to notice that you’ve raised your hands in front of your face in your sleep, as if fighting something. Your skin is clammy with cold sweat, and for a moment, you’re unable to hear anything, other than your own heartbeat hammering away in your ears. Feeling something sticky on your cheek, you swipe your fingers along the bottom of your eyelid. You find that, yet again, you’ve been crying in your slumber.

You can’t recall the last time you’ve slept without having a nightmare beyond imaginable horrors haunt your rest. Or, more specifically, the last time you’ve gotten proper sleep without being encased in Reca’s arms. 

Propping yourself up on your elbows, you squint your eyes and peek at the entrance of your shared bedroom. You can’t really see much in the darkness, but judging from the stripe of light pooling in from under the door and the faint sound of footsteps in the room behind, it’s safe to say that the man is still awake. 

For a moment, you concentrate on evening out the rhythm of your shallow breathing. You can’t even remember what the nightmare was about anymore: It has proven difficult to keep track of your dreams since the amount has been piling up for a good few days now. Each one has been more terrifying than the last, and out of respect for your own mental well-being, you haven’t exactly been inclined to write them down. Moreover, it’s the time frame that is of more interest to you, anyway: The nightly horrors appeared around the same time as you started refusing Reca’s affections. 

It has to have something to do with his supposed Memokeeper abilities, is your best guess. The matter of his side hustle has only come up once or twice in your conversations, and you’re not exactly sure what the title means in practice, but if your own experience is anything to go by, he possesses particular skin in a certain, taboo field — manipulating memories, that is. You don’t have anything to prove it with, but you’re quite certain that your nocturnal episodes are of his doing: They’re a tad bit too... cinematically rich to be the handiwork of your own subconscious. 

You’re tired, so very tired. As much as you don’t want it to, the accumulated fatigue is starting to affect you: It’s getting more and more difficult to focus on anything during the day, and you’ve been particularly irritable which isn’t a particularly favourable trait to have when having to deal with someone like Reca. His frog companion, especially, has been getting on your nerves lately: You were this close to smacking the stupid thing off his desk the other day. 

Rubbing the remaining doze out of your eyes, you decide that you’re not ready to revisit the nightmares just yet. Instead, push yourself up on the bed.

Careful not to make a sound, you swing your legs over the edge of the mattress and stand up, straightening the hem of your top. Taking care not to step over anything in the darkness, you tiptoe your way to the door. With a final look at the dim outline of the bed behind you, you wrap your fingers around the handle and twist the lock open. 

Reca is sitting on the couch in front of the living room table, legs crossed and a pen in hand. He twirls the thing between his fingers with a bit of a pensive look on his face, but as he notices you peeking at him through the ajar door, his expression lights up. 

”Oh my”, he utters, setting the pen down beside the piece of paper he has been working on. ”Isn’t it quite late for you to be up, Dear?”

You could say the same about him. The man stays up until the early hours of the morning, invested in his movie scripts and whatnot, you’re not really sure. His habits have proven to be a bit of a headache for you: You would prefer it if he were the one to go to sleep first — that way, you wouldn’t have to fight his arms off of you during the night — but for some reason, you haven’t had the willpower to stay awake past nine in the evening. You suspect that he, once again, has got a hand in the matter, but as is with the dreams, there’s not much you can do about it. 

Reca awaits for you to speak with a soft tilt of his head. As you refuse to delight him with the sound of your voice, he closes his eyes with the usual, faint smile on his features. 

”No matter”, he sighs, briefly correcting his posture before leaning back against the couch again. He pats the empty spot next to him. ”You’re more than welcome to join me.”

You stand in the doorway in your nightwear, still as a statue. Swallowing down the piece in your throat, your lips press into a thin line.

”... You’re doing it”, you speak in a quiet tone, as if unsure of your own words. 

Reca raises his brows. He pulls away from the table and turns his body towards you. 

”I’m not sure I follow, Dear”, he says, gazing at you with an unmistakable flicker of intrigue in his keen eyes. 

”The dreams”, you wrap your arms around yourself, shivering from the remnants of the nightly chill in your limbs. ”You’re the one making me have them.”

Reca lets out a sigh. Running his hand through his hair, his deep red eyes lock with your.

”That’s quite the accusation”, he responds with a strange lilt in his tone of voice. 

”Make them stop”, you demand, straightening your back in an attempt to make yourself appear more resolute — though the effort fails to live up to its purpose.

Truth to be told, the man elicits a very particular kind of fear in you, and you’re not thrilled to be faced with the current scene. His gaze sharpens, and his smirk deepens. The subtle shift in his expression tells you that the conversation is about to take a less-than-savoury turn. 

”Now, now, Darling. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves”, Reca idly drums his fingertips against the tabletop as if plotting something. ”I’m sure you understand there’s a reason behind the horror shows in your dreams?”

”... What do you want from me?” 

You stare him down, clutching the sleeves of your top with a, no doubt, terribly pitiful expression on your fatigue-worn features. He looks back at you without much of a show of sympathy, instead observing your reactions with his usual, prying sort of curiosity. 

”I thought I made myself quite clear”, he then says. 

Gracefully, the hand he has rested on the table glides down to his side where he yet again pats the cushions; this time, with more insistence. 

You glare at him with as much hostility as you can possibly pack in a single look. Though, the strategy doesn’t seem to be working: Not even batting an eye, Reca stands his ground, unwavering. 

Bargaining, negotiating, threatening… Even appealing to his soft side never works with him. Nothing ever works with him. 

”... You promise to make them go away if I...”, your voice dies down into a whisper, and the sentence is left unfinished. 

”But of course”, Reca assures you, giving an answer to your question nonetheless.

He reaches to the other side of the couch for the pillows that line the armrest. Picking one up, he fluffs the thing a little before leaning it against his thigh. 

You hate how tightly he has you wrapped around his finger. It’s beyond humiliating, but at the same time, he offers you everything you need — at the price of your dignity. You frown.

Slowly, you take one step, then another. Hanging your head low to save yourself from the embarrassment of meeting his eyes, you make your way across the room, all the way to him. Without a word, you climb onto the couch and plant your head on the pillow he has set out for you. 

”There you are”, Reca exhales as you settle yourself on the cushions. ”Just a moment, just a moment.”

Your head shifts along with his movements as he straightens his back, ridding himself of his coat. He gently shakes the article of clothing out before laying it over your form. 

”Sweet dreams, Dear”, he bids you.

His hand lands on the crown of your head. Idly, he begins playing with a stray strand of your hair. His fingers glide along your scalp in soft, comforting motions, drawing out intelligible patterns and curves. With each caress, your eyelids grow heavier and heavier, and before long, you drift into slumber, accompanied by the quiet sound of a pen scraping against paper. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Sunday (Pre-AE)

”Give me my clothes back.”

”I don’t see a reason for that.”

”Sunday, give me my fucking clothes back.”

”Quit with the foul language, please.”

”Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.”

”This is your last warning. Is the current punishment not enough for you?”

”It doesn’t even say that in the rules.”

”It’s something to be added, then, perhaps.”

You sit in the farthest corner of your room, having put as much distance between you and Sunday as possible. The metal bars of the cage dig into the bare skin of your back, cold and unforgiving. Though you’re not inside the thing, at least for now, you almost wish that he had thrown you in there instead of leaving you out in the open. With your knees slotted against your chest and your arms wrapped around your legs, you’re just barely able to shield the private bits of your naked body from his prying eyes. 

He sits at the table a short distance away from you, absorbed in the book he’s reading. His gloved fingers turn the page without haste: He’s simply passing time while making sure that you get the most out of your punishment. 

You think it must be his favourite form of “disciplining” you. Yes, it’s true that you tried to take the clasps off one of your shirts for mischievous purposes, but even if you hadn’t, he probably would’ve found a way to get you in trouble regardless. It doesn’t really show in his demeanour, but he looks to be incredibly delighted with the turn of events: If the subtle, complacent smirk on his face is anything to go by, Sunday is enjoying the present situation way more than he would like to admit. 

Discreetly, you try to reach your hand in the cage to grab the blanket lying inside it. However, you don’t even get to touch the thing: As if knowing exactly what you’re up to, Sunday raises his gaze from his book, and a single look from him is enough to have you draw your fingers back. 

The stalemate must have lasted over an hour by now. You refuse to give up your little act of defiance, and alike, he hasn’t budged the slightest bit. You tried to go for the bedsheets at first, but he didn’t let you do that, either. It’s not that he’s actually physically restraining you from doing it, but there’s a certain, nasty trick he has available to him: As irritated as you are, having him use the Harmony on you isn’t worth the amount of amusement you would get from looking at the knit between his brows. 

Though, as much as your spite is keeping you from thinking about it too much, you can’t escape from the sheer humiliation of the situation. You despise how much power the man holds over you, and furthermore, he isn’t exactly skilled in concealing his sadistic hunger for forcing you under his boot. Moreover, even with the abundance of your wrath keeping you warm, the natural consequence of being bare is that it’s starting to feel a bit chilly in the room. 

”This is getting quite ridiculous, don’t you think?” Sunday then sighs as if having read your thoughts, closing his book with a dull thud. 

You don’t respond to him.

”How long do you plan on drawing this out for?” he asks, propping his chin up against the back of his hand.

”For as long as it takes for you to give my clothes back”, you mumble into the mound of your knee. 

”Well, you’re going to have to wait a while, then.”

”...”

You pull your thighs closer to your chest. Goosebumps are rising on your skin from the draft that occasionally breezes through the room. You could swear that the air conditioning is a tiny bit louder than usual — you wouldn’t put him above a trick like that — but then again, there’s a much more obvious reason for the chills that rake your body.

Sunday looks down at your huddled form in silence. There’s a certain tint of interest in his calculative gaze: Though you’ve never quite gotten used to the nerves that come with having his undivided attention on you, this time around, it’s even more daunting. You bring your legs closer together to make sure he isn’t seeing anything he’s not supposed to. 

He stands up from his seat. The chair creaks against the floor as he sets it back under the table in his wake, and then, he makes his way to you. He kneels down to your level, not paying mind to how you pull further into yourself as he approaches.

His hand grabs your jaw, causing a yelp to slip past your teeth. The grip isn’t exactly crushing, but it’s still tight enough not to leave anything unsaid. 

”You have two options”, Sunday informs you, brushing his gloved thumb over your lips. ”You may either apologize for your actions and regain your privileges, or you’re going to spend the night in the cage without the bedding. Have I made myself clear?”

You attempt to tear your face away from his hand, but he seizes you right back. Tilting your head back by your chin, he makes you look him right in the eye. Despite your initial conviction, you can’t help the way your gaze strives to stray away from his own. 

”I...”

You start the sentence out of unease, not really knowing what you’re going to say, and your voice dies out after the first word. Sunday awaits for your answer with his brows raised in an expectant expression. 

”Let’s hear it, then”, he encourages you.

Your gaze drifts to the corner of the metal cage that’s visible to you in the awkward position. Quickly going through your choices in your head, you contemplate whether or not you have enough willpower to sleep on the cold, hard ground for the entire night. 

Though you try to repel the feeling to the best of your ability, you can’t stop the embarrassment from creeping up your neck as Sunday observes you at your most vulnerable, silently flaunting his authority over you. There isn’t a single crack to be found on his features: In this realm of things, the man simply cannot be won against. 

”I’m... I’m sorry”, you whisper out an apology.

”For what?” he presses. 

You resist the urge to bury your face in your hands. Tears of abasement prick at the corners of your eyes, and your lips purse up to a thin line. The words lodge sideways in your throat.

However, before you can even begin the process of swallowing your pride, the hand on your chin moves higher. Sunday tenderly holds your face, stroking his fingers along the curve of your cheekbone. 

”I suppose that’s enough for now”, he then speaks, giving you a faint smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. ”You’re forgiven.”

Your mouth falls ajar as you’re about to question him, but at the last moment, you stop yourself. He seems to be pleased with your show of acquiescence, and he rewards you by tenderly petting the crown of your head. 

”You’re quite lovely when you’re obedient, I must say”, he adds with a light, mannerly chuckle.

You don’t fall for the trap. Instead, you retreat from him, ridding yourself of his touch.

Seeing as you don’t offer him any further reaction, Sunday lets out an airy, somewhat content sigh. He proceeds to unclasp the golden brooch off his shoulder before sliding his coat down his back. He neatly folds the lavish piece of clothing over his arm before handing it to you. 

You accept the gesture in a heartbeat, ditching the last bits of your fury in favour of receiving the tiniest slice of warmth in exchange. Though you see the amusement in his gaze, Sunday refrains from commenting on your actions. Instead, he stands up, briefly dusty off his pants, and turns towards the door.

”I’ll be back in a bit”, he informs you as he watches you drape his coat over your shivering body. 

You don’t answer him. Relishing the residue of his warmth that lingers in the fabric, you finally allow your head to slump against your knees.

A/N

Here you go! I love you too anon, mwah (~˘▾˘)~

PLEASE excuse the fuckass title picture for Reca. I usually use the E4 pictures for the banner, but for certain reasons, that wasn't available for him, so I had to take a random quest pic of him and put a blueish filter over it. There was the same sort of a problem with Ratio as well: All of his art is nice and good, but his E4 is of him with the plastered head on and I was not gonna have that shit on the post (👁‿👁). I settled for the E3. Cheers.

Anyways, shoutout to all the darlings that know how to derive functions.

[riricatria]

Helloo~

"Moments of Weakness" as in the reader taking L's left and right by being uncooperative with the yanderes. This idea was cooking up in my mind for a long time, and then I got heavily inspired by @thehatboxwitch for the post, specifically this one. I ate that up, such a good piece, mwah (づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ

The Amphoreus men and Jiaoqiu? Yes, I know, odd combo. I was done with the first three but then I got an insane inspo surge to write for the fox man as well, and thus this piece was born. I haven't really written short-form content ever, so this is like a test run for me. Let me know if you vibe with it!

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Characters include: Anaxa, Jiaoqiu, Mydei and Phainon

CONTENT WARNINGS INCLUDE: Yandere content (ALTHOUGH this is not on the heavy end of the spectrum. It's kind of fluffy), cisfem!Reader, unwanted touching, manipulation, the JQ one has periods and a vague mention of sexual stuff (but nothing explicit).

Disclaimers can be found in my pinned post.

˗ˏˋ ★ Mydei

You wake up on the cold, hard floor of your room in the high tower of Castrum Kremnos. Judging from the limited view you have of the sky through the window, the time must be somewhere between midnight and the early hours of the morning. 

You’ve barely been able to get any sleep at all, truth to be told. The piece of clothing you gathered into a ball hardly served as a substitute for a pillow, and your neck has gone painfully stiff from the odd position you have rested in. Your back aches, and a faint rash has formed on one of your shoulders where it has been pressed against the coarse ground. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows. In the darkness, you’re only able to make out the silhouette of the man lying on the bed. Mydei’s back is turned to you, and his body steadily heaves up and down in the rhythm of his breathing. He seems to be fast asleep. 

The soft, plump mattress has never looked as tempting as it does now. Your shared comforter is partially hanging off the side of the bed, drooping just out of your reach. 

In hindsight, the obstinacy you demonstrated earlier tonight by demanding to sleep on the floor was beyond ridiculous. Mydei let you know that then, telling you how childish you were being, but your pride got the best of you. Though, as you recall his harsh words and the dour clicks of his tongue, you’re still of the opinion that your reaction was at least somewhat justified. 

You rub your hands up and down your arms in an attempt to warm yourself up. Not having been granted the luxury of a blanket on the floor, your extremities have gone cold and numb. Shivers of nightly fatigue rake your skin. You huff to yourself.

Mydei’s form stirs. He lets out a rough exhale before turning over on the bed to face you. His piercing gaze fixates on your pitiful form. 

”Stubborn woman”, he derides you in a groggy voice, propping his head up to rest it against his palm. ”You prefer to suffer rather than swallow your pride?”

”Shut up”, you answer with equal spite. 

”Get in the bed and rest your night peacefully”, he then commands, sweeping his fingers over the empty spot next to him. 

”I said shut up, Mydei.” 

You fluff up your make-shift pillow and settle back down on the ground, turning your back to the man. Despite the way the reddened patch on your shoulder aches, you simply tug your sleeve over it and call it a day. 

Mydei scoffs at you before rolling back over. You silently celebrate the small win, but you can’t deny the way your fatigue-struck mind weeps when you peek at him and come to find that he has pulled the comforter further away from you. The action is deliberate on his end, no doubt, and you can’t help but clench your teeth in bitterness. 

You’re so tired. You’re so fucking tired, but there’s no way you’re going to let him have what he wants. Mydei truly excels at bringing out your mean side: Pleasing him is the last thing you want to do, and if that comes at the cost of sleeping on the ground, so be it. You settle your head on the clump of cloth and close your eyes. 

But there’s no chance you’re going to get any sleep as you are. The truth is quite apparent, and it stings, but the sheer exhaustion you feel is dulling out the little wrath that remains in your being. 

Not even a minute after, you slowly push yourself off the floor, careful not to make any sound. Not that you actually succeed in the latter — Mydei could probably even hear your heartbeat from where he’s lying if he tried hard enough — but it’s more for your own sake than his, anyway. 

Judging from how he has gone back to resting, he’s probably weary enough not to get mean. You cautiously rise on your toes to peek over him, trying to catch a glimpse of his face, but you’re unable to determine if his eyes are open or not. 

The mattress dips as you set your weight on it. You stifle a sigh of relief as you finally get to bury your head in the thick cushions, to pull the covers over your freezing form and soon allow yourself to drift into a deep slumber. Though, a wrench is thrown in your plans as you’re only able to get the comforter halfway across your body: The thing is stuck under Mydei’s broad back. 

He doesn’t move an inch as you wordlessly tug on the blanket. It’s quite obvious that he’s being difficult on purpose, that he wants to make his point as much as you want to make yours, and damn is it getting to you. 

”Mydei”, you hiss out his name. 

He doesn’t react. If you didn’t know better, you would think that he has fallen asleep again, but taking the context into account, you’re a hair’s breadth away from snapping at him. 

”Mydei!” you repeat a little louder, smacking your hand against the pillows, right next to his head. No response. 

”Mydei, for fuck’s sake-!”

Your sentence is cut short as the man suddenly lunges at you, catching you completely off guard. The strained yelp you let out is muffled by his bare chest as he pulls your body flush against his. In a split second, his arms wrap around your back, effectively trapping you in place. 

His skin is searing hot against yours. The hem of your shirt is dragged up as he plants the palm of his hand on your upper back. For good measure, he swings one of his legs over yours to keep you still. All of it happens in a single moment, and he doesn’t grant you the time to do anything about it. 

You consider protesting. There’s no escaping Mydei’s squeeze; his hold is much too tight, but he might give up the fight if you put up enough resistance. You could scratch at him, you could start screeching at the bottom of your lungs, and eventually, he would be bound to become irritated enough to let you sleep on your own. 

But the warmth. The heat that emanates from his form is nearly blissful. It seeps into your frigid limbs, lulling your sleep-deprived mind into the comfort that is his protective embrace. Your body turns against you. 

You allow your shoulders to fall lax. Slowly, your hands pull back from where they were shoving against Mydei’s ribs mere moments ago. In response to your new-found obedience, he strokes his thumb along the curve of your shoulder blade, further encouraging you to relax against him. He lets out a content exhale against the crown of your head. 

In the back of your mind, your ego is sobbing at the loss of yet another battle against your captor. Nevertheless, you let yourself sink into the comfort of the bed, deciding to save the fight for when the morning arrives. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Phainon

There’s something off about his usual smile today. The way he’s looking at you from where he leans against the wall with his arms leisurely crossed, there’s something off. His gaze is fixed directly on you, keenly following your every movement as if he’s expecting something of you. 

”... What?” you ask him, peering at his form, though your words come out as more of a comment than a question. 

”Hm?” he tilts his head to the side with a tad bit too much excitement in his expression. ”What’s up?”

Your brows knit together. Doubting his sincerity, you’re almost scared to turn your back to him as you scan the room with your eyes. Although, after a quick look, nothing too obvious seems to have changed: You let your gaze wander over the couch, the bed, the door, the-

”Phainon, what happened to the chairs?” you point at the vacant spot under the table. 

”Ah, those!” Phainon pushes himself off the wall and walks over to the bed, sitting down with one leg propped atop the other. ”I put them in the kitchen.”

You squint your eyes at the man. 

”And why would you do that?” you gesture at the now empty floor. 

”Mm, no reason.”

Phainon shrugs in a rather innocent manner, but the smile on his features tells an entirely different story. So, you continue scrutinizing your surroundings, carefully looking over each and every piece of furniture until your eyes land on the nightstand beside the bed. 

”The book?” you turn your attention back to the man. ”Where did you put the book?”

”Oh, I put it up there”, Phainon responds, nudging his head towards the bookshelf beside the door. 

You follow his gaze all the way up the highest ledge on the shelf, and there, you spot the familiar piece of Okheman literature you’ve been invested in for the past couple of days. As you put the puzzle pieces together, Phainon’s scheme becomes quite apparent to you. 

”... Really?” you ask him, spreading your arms in disbelief. 

”Hey, don’t be like that”, Phainon gives you a sympathetic look. ”Do you need help reaching it?”

You let your hands fall back to your sides. Then, you close your eyes and take in a deep breath to calm the exasperation that threatens to boil over inside you. Instead of lashing out, you silently make your way over to the shelf and pick out a random piece. 

”I’m good, thanks”, you tell Phainon in a dry tone. 

”Oh, alright”, he gives you a smile in response. ”Let me know if you change your mind.”

You roll your eyes at him. Making your way over to the couch, you plop down on the cushions and open the book on the first page. 

It’s in a completely foreign language. You don’t understand a single word plastered on the paper, but it’s much too late to put the thing back on the shelf now. Even without looking, you know that Phainon’s attention is on you, and you don’t dare to even glance at him to make sure in case he gets any ideas. You wonder what Aeon you have angered to have been granted such rotten luck when it comes to standing your ground: It seems that no matter what you do, he always gets his way. 

You don’t even know if you’re holding the book the right way up. The symbols are all squiggly, and you don’t have as much as an educated guess on what the text is about. A sigh makes it past your lips. If there’s anything positive to be found in the situation, though, it’s that most likely, Phainon is none the wiser about it. Why he even has a book like this in his home, you don’t have the slightest clue. Moreover, he doesn’t seem like the type to read in his free time, either, so the chances of him recognizing the cover are quite low — at least you hope so. 

You make the mistake of peeking at him. Sure enough, the couple of bright blue eyes are eagerly observing you from where the guy is sitting on the sheets. His gaze doesn’t fail to meet yours for a brief moment just as you turn your head away. 

Time has never moved at such a slow speed. The seconds drag on and on as you pretend to be invested in the intelligible story in your hands. You let your eyes travel over the rows of characters as if you were actually reading, but you can’t help the way your attention strays to the sight of your original novel sitting at the top shelf, far out of your reach. With each moment passing, the little patience you have left drains out of your body until you have none left. 

You smack the book down on the couch with a huff. Phainon visibly perks up, and you can almost imagine a fluffy tail wagging wildly against his back. 

”I changed my mind”, you speak out, standing up from your spot and walking over to the shelf. ”Help me get the book.”

”Sure thing”, Phainon is quick to rush to your side. ”I thought Kremnoan poems might not be to your taste, heh.”

You bite the inside of your lip and pray to whatever deity is watching over you that the blush isn’t visible on your cheeks.

”This one, right?” Phainon rises on his toes to pick the familiar hardcover from the top ledge before handing it to you. ”There you go. What do we say?” 

”I’m not gonna thank you for that”, you snap at him, snatching the thing off his hand and pulling it to your chest.

”Too much?” Phainon answers the show of defiance with a smile. ”Heh, you’re so cute.”

You flinch a little as his hand lands on the top of your head, ruffling your hair until it resembles a bird’s nest. His touch then trails lower to your cheek where he strokes his knuckles along the bone. 

”My pretty thing”, he sighs with contentment. 

˗ˏˋ ★ Anaxa

Never in your life have you had to fight this hard to stay awake. Not once, at any point, have you been this determined not to let your lashes fall shut as you listen to Anaxa yap on and on about some academic discovery he made a year or two ago. Truth to be told, you haven’t been listening to a single word, and you don’t have the faintest idea on what he’s going on about. 

Your train of thought is so sluggish that you’re barely aware of your surroundings, and your head is throbbing hot. In contrast, the rest of your body is shivering, practically trembling from the cold. It doesn’t seem to be the room, though: Anaxa doesn’t appear to be the least bit bothered by the temperature, having stripped himself of the cloak he usually wears. You would like nothing more than to burrow under the blankets on your shared bed and sleep for the next three days. 

But you have to stay awake. He promised that if you were to stay up until 10, the two of you could go for a quick walk in the Grove. He hasn’t ”had time” to take you outside in nearly a week now, and you’re not about to miss a chance like this. Being trapped in a small space and forced to endure the man’s presence is a challenge in a league of its own, and if you were a person of any weaker resolve, you would’ve gone insane ages ago. 

”— and that would be the reason why”, he concludes.

The last two minutes of his monologue could as well have been spoken to a wall. It’s difficult to concentrate on his words through the haze that drowns out your senses. Your muscles ache terribly, and your entire body is drenched in clammy sweat. You feel so miserable that the thought of giving up the fight seems almost euphoric, but you’re not about to back down now that you’re mere moments away from the clock striking the next hour. The victory is so close that you can almost feel the fresh, crisp outside air on your skin. It’s only a few more minutes away; a few more minutes of holding out against falling off your chair. 

Anaxa’s hand enters your field of view where you’ve been blankly staring at the table for the past half an hour. He taps his index finger against the wood to catch your attention, and it takes you a good few seconds to even register the action. You raise your gaze, slowly blinking a couple of times before your eyes land on his form.

”Can we go now...?” you ask him. As desperately as you’re trying to hide it, your voice tells on your fatigue as you speak. 

”We agreed on 10 PM, did we not?” Anaxa tilts his head to the side, towards the clock on the wall. 

You don’t have the energy to talk back to him. He’s so infuriatingly punctual when it comes to just about anything that you wonder how the pink-haired priestess is able to stand his company for more than a minute. You only give him a half-hearted, joyless smile in response before going back to staring. He sighs. 

Anaxa’s chair creaks as he stands up and walks out of your sight. You pull your knees up on your seat, pressing yourself into a little ball in order to preserve the little warmth you have left in your body. You don’t dare to close your eyes even for a moment in case the fatigue were to catch up with you. Instead, you remain in your spot, as still as a statue and barely conscious.

A cold hand comes to touch your shoulder from behind. You’re much too slow to turn around before your vision is obscured as he reaches for your face. Gently, he gathers your hair off your forehead and presses his fingers against your heated skin. 

”How long were you planning on keeping this facade of yours up?” he then asks, his hand moving a little lower in favour of checking both sides of your cheeks as well. 

You don’t respond to him. Instead, you only let out a quiet sigh.

It’s obvious; you’re running a sky-high fever. There’s no way of getting around it — the best remedy to a sickness such as this is rest — however, your desire to go outside is much greater than any flu you have caught. 

”I’m feeling okay”, you lie through your teeth, bending forward in order to rid yourself of his touch. 

”Preposterous”, Anaxa comments in his usual, stark tone of voice. Not paying mind to how you’re clearly trying to withdraw from him, he moves the collar of your shirt aside in favour of pressing his hand against the back of your neck, feeling for the temperature. ”One such as you ought to know better than this, no?”

”I can wait until 10”, you insist. 

”Is that so?” 

He pulls away from you. You follow him with your eyes, watching as he makes his way to the door in quick strides. 

”Well, then”, he beckons you towards him with his fingers. ”Let’s be on our way.”

You grasp the back of your chair with both hands, summoning up the strength to see the endeavour through. Your entire body trembles as you begin pushing yourself off the seat. 

Anaxa observes with curious eyes as you manage to balance yourself on your wobbly legs. For a moment, he can see the way your face lights up at the success, but your joy is short-lived: He merely quirks his brow when one of your knees gives out, and you topple down on the floor a mere meter away from the table. 

He lets out a mix of a huff and a laugh. You’re quick to scramble back up, trying your absolute best to find your footing, but the sight of him is spinning, and your limbs have gone numb. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for you to slump back down on the ground, defeated. 

You don’t do as much as raise your head when you hear the clack of his heels approaching you. Instead, you only listen to your own, rapid heartbeat rushing in your ears as Anaxa crouches down beside you and sets his hand on your waist. Carefully, he helps your limp form off the ground and snakes his arm under your own.

”The walk shall have to wait, it seems”, he says, failing to do a very good job at concealing his glee. 

”But you-, you promised that we could...”, you protest, wearily turning your head towards the clock on the wall. It’s a minute past 10. 

”Do you truly think you’re in any state to even entertain that idea?” Anaxa scoffs at your words. ”Go on, then.”

He loosens his hold on you, and you immediately reel to the side. Just to make his point even more clear, he lets you attempt to find your balance, but it’s a futile effort. You end up clinging onto his shoulder for dear life. A mocking chuckle slips out of his mouth. 

”I thought as much”, he says. 

You really want to bite back, to go through with the plan, to go walk a single circle around the house even if it lands you in the bed for the next month. You need to, for once, prove him wrong, but alas, it seems that he has won this round. You swallow down the lump in your throat. 

”Help me”, you whisper out, hanging your head low. 

”This once”, he responds.

˗ˏˋ ★ Jiaoqiu

You’re balled up on the bathroom floor, clutching your arms around your stomach. Beads of sweat adorn your forehead, and despite your efforts, you’re hardly able to control the rhythm of your breathing. The time of the month has rolled around yet again, and for the past two hours, you’ve been battling perhaps the worst period cramps of your entire life. 

You’re aware that if you so wished, the relief to the pain would be a single question away. Jiaoqiu is just on the other side of the door, working on some herbs or something, you’re not really sure. Considering his Foxian blood, he most likely knows of what’s going on, but the damned man won’t do anything about it, of course. Not unless you walk up to him yourself and ask for his help, anyway. 

Another cramp takes over. You stifle a groan and lean forward, planting your forehead against the cold floor tiles. In the awkward position, you rock your body back and forth until the pain diminishes to a little less excruciating level. 

It’s quite obvious that you can’t go on much longer like this. As much as you detest the idea of leaning on your captor for help, he’s the only one who can aid you. You wonder if he has hidden the painkillers from you for this exact purpose: The man is as sly as, well, a fox, and no trick is too cheap for him when it comes to getting you where he wants you. He’s beyond unfair. 

You blurt out a hushed curse word as you rise from the ground, hunched over and still holding your abdomen. Taking a peek at the mirror, you come to find that your face has lost its colour, and you look like you haven’t rested in a week. The latter is no wonder, though, since you weren’t able to get much sleep last night due to the present problem. 

Being as quiet as you’re able, you press your ear against the door. There isn’t much to be heard on the other side of the wall, but you can make out the faint clinking of dishes touching against each other. Jiaoqiu has been busy conducting the same task the entire morning, and it seems that he’s still occupied with it. Dread brews in your stomach as you consider the possibility that he’ll outright refuse to help you: Considering his personality, it’s not above him, and it wouldn’t be the first time he weaponized matters out of your control.

”Aren’t you making this unnecessarily difficult for yourself?” 

Your heart jumps at the sound of his voice from behind the door. How he could have heard you, you don’t know, but then again, his kin is known for their keen ears. Moreover, you realize that there’s no hiding your current condition from him: Your options are either-or, and the responsibility of taking the initiative seems to have landed in your arms. 

Yet another cramp strains your body. You clench your teeth and endure the pain, but at the same time, your hand reaches up for the door handle. Deciding that enough is enough, you push yourself out of the bathroom. 

”Oh, there you are”, Jiaoqiu comments at the sight of you faltering out of your retreat. He can’t actually see you, of course, but his head still turns towards you as if he did. 

”Give me something”, you beg through pursed lips as you fold in half over the threshold. ”Please give me something for this.”

Jiaoqiu’s expression turns into that of compassion, although you can’t say for sure if it’s genuine. 

”One moment, please”, he says, setting the mortar and pestle in his hands on the tabletop.

He opens one of the cabinets above the counter and reaches for something in the back. Carefully, he pulls out a small bowl from between a row of bottles. By tilting the dish from side to side, he stirs the concoction until a few darker specks appear on the liquid’s surface. Then, he brings his hand over it, and in a flash, the thing lights up in flames. However, just as quickly, the fire disappears, and he’s left with a cup of steaming hot soup. 

”I tried to go easy on the spice”, he says as he fans his fingers over the bowl. ”It’s quite warm, be careful not to burn your tongue.”

He makes his way over to where you’re balled up on the ground. With a gentle touch, he coaxes you to raise your head enough for him to place the dish against your lips before tilting the cup. 

It’s good. The rich liquid flows down your throat as you drink it with greed, paying very little mind to how the heat scorches your mouth. He didn’t lie about being mindful of the seasoning — it’s much less spicy than what you’re usually forced to endure — but your taste buds are still left begging for mercy. Nonetheless, you couldn’t care less, and the soup is gone in a matter of seconds. 

”It should only take a few minutes to kick in”, Jiaoqiu says as he pulls the now empty bowl away from your lips. ”How are you feeling?” 

Bad, terrible, deplorable, godawful, but you don’t tell him that. Instead, you only let out a shaky exhale as you slump back down on the ground. 

You feel Jiaoqiu’s fingers creep along the waistline of your bottoms. For a brief, horrific moment, you think he’s about to initiate the carnal, but instead of slipping his hand further down, he lets it rest over your lower abdomen. 

”Is it in the middle or more towards one side?” he asks as he tenderly presses his palm against your stomach, warm and pleasant. 

”Hey, don’t-, don’t...”, you’re about to start protesting, but the complaint dies on your tongue as the man’s touch dulls down the worst of the ache. 

He seems pleased at your compliance, and he rewards you by caressing the back of your head with his free hand. For once, his closeness doesn’t feel completely intolerable.

[riricatria]

Greetings, greetings~

*slides into room* Sunny, ♫ ♪ ♬ ♪ yesterday my life was filled with rain ♫ ♪ ♫

Giggling, blushing, screaming, kicking my feet while reading your comments and asks ( ∩´ ᐜ `∩) I'm truly flattered by the feedback! I got an especially heartfelt ask on the Aventurine profile regarding the A/N, thanks for that! ♡

I'm a bit torn on who to write a profile for next, so I welcome opinions on that! Maybe Jing Yuan or Blade? Argenti, even?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

CONTENT WARNINGS INCLUDE: Dark content (dead dove), cisfem!Reader, hair-pulling, threat of breaking bones, the general stuff that comes with yandere content (obsessiveness, possessiveness, captivity...), reader is put in a cage, mind control, a slap on face, degradation, forced non-schmexual touching, restraints, a bit of sadism, NONCON, restraints, fingering, some breath-play, pet-play, edging, mind control, brief butt stuff, sadism, praise (kind of), Sunday is pretty cruel.

Disclaimers can be found in my pinned post. The template is heavily inspired by @/cinnamonest!

S-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 1. General look: How are they like? How do they behave around the darling? Are there any warning signs?

The head of the Oak Family, Sunday, is an exemplary man. Or, at least, that’s what you’ve gathered from the limited time you’ve had the honour of spending in his presence. He dresses elegantly, he’s always on time, he speaks in a tone that conveys nothing short of self-assurance, and the words he utters are, without a miss, perspicuous. His way of leading leaves no room for hesitation. It’s nothing short of admirable.

You and him first meet by chance when you’re roaming around in the Dreamscape. It’s just an ordinary time: You’re waiting in line by one of the food trolleys. There’s still a few people ordering before you, but you start searching for your money in advance nonetheless. You dig around in your bag, trying to find your wallet amongst all the stuff in there, rummaging through each pocket with one hand. And, when you do find your wallet, it slips from your grasp and falls onto the ground. A curse makes it past your lips, but before you can crouch down to pick the item up, another hand has already wrapped its fingers around it.

You stand up, preparing to thank the person for their help, but instead, your mouth is left hanging ajar. You recognize the man: It’s one of the most prominent figures on the entire planet: Pale blue hair, a white suit, and most notably, the little wings of a halovian that poke out from behind his neck. It’s difficult to mistake him for anybody else — Sunday.

He hands the wallet back to you with a polite nod and a smile. You shake yourself out of the befuddlement before proceeding to sputter out apologies and words of gratitude. It’s already embarrassing to have someone picking up your stuff from the sidewalk, but it's even more so when the person is someone of his status. It’s incredibly rare for a woman like you to end up in the company of somebody like him.

In your flustered state, you continue babbling away at him until he reaches for your shoulder. He gives it a gentle pat and lets you know that ”he’s not bothered at all”. Your heart skips a beat.

You never knew that the strict man you saw on the articles was such a courteous and gentle person behind the scenes. Compared to the image you had of him, he’s also not that tall, even though the pictures of him depict him looking down at the vast crowds of Penaconians. It’s not to say that he doesn’t look the exact same otherwise, down to the clothes he wears, but the sight of him is, admittedly, a little less threatening in person. And, he has got a pleasant and calm voice, too.

You can’t help the blush that rises onto your cheeks. He has a very distinct charm to him, through and through. From the way he looks you right in the eye to how his little wings flutter along with his movements… Oh my. If you were anybody else, you would have fallen in love right then and there. But, he’s just a guy, and you’re just a girl, and you have places to be, as unfortunate as that reality is. It’s your turn to buy your food, and you bid him a wave of goodbye before walking away with your fresh snack. He responds to the gesture.

The second time you run into him is also by pure coincidence. It’s in the Dreamscape’s Golden hour, yet again: You merely brush against each other on the bustling street. Obviously, you notice him the moment your eyes land on his form but ultimately decide not to say hi to him. He meets at least a dozen new people every day, and you don’t think you’re anyone special among those, so there’s no chance that he could even recall your face. However, against your expectations, he recognizes you in a heartbeat, and he stops in his tracks in favour of turning around to greet you.

The two of you engage in a short yet joyful conversation, chatting about this and that — it’s mundane things like how gorgeous the place looks, how much fun you’ve had today, what you’re going to do next. You mention how you can’t believe that he would remember you, and that you’re truly honoured to be able to have yet another encounter with him. He nods along, speaking cordial words and uttering ingenious phrases. Just like the first time, you’re left with a delightful impression of him.

Oh, if only you knew what’s truly going on in his head.

It would be near impossible for you to glimpse the sinister side of him. The truth is meticulously hidden behind all the pleasantries and witty expressions. Nothing in his demeanour raises the warning signs. You don’t have the slightest idea of what kind of a person you’re truly dealing with.

Only a select few minds in the entire universe have been blessed with such skill to effortlessly deceive as he has. It’s a distinct, morally dubious trait that’s only found in the most established people in the cosmos. Considering its nature, the people in question usually end up pursuing a career in the criminal world since such prowess is, without a doubt, a priceless tool to have in that field. He, however, has found particular success with it when it comes to furthering his most recent goal.

You see, the case with Sunday is that he has most likely been in search of a darling for a while before he happened to stumble upon you. With all the responsibilities he has to face in the shoes that he fills, it’s no wonder that a certain part of his psyche would begin desiring a target to take all of his uncertainty out on. His job is incredibly demanding: He has to be in charge of a countless number of things, pulling at each of the strings to achieve nothing short of a perfect result, and that leaves very little time to pursue personal relationships. Such is the life of the Oak Family head: It’s a lonely position to be in.

No matter the amount of adroitness he has been granted by the Aeons, there’s still something crucial missing in his days. There’s currently a single person in the entire world that he could refer to as one he holds dear — that person being his sister — but as even Robin is straying further and further away from him, he comes to the realization that a certain specific, selfish need of his is no longer being fulfilled.

After the first time he ran into you, it cannot be said that he was immediately obsessed. He’s a reasonable man, so a more adequate description would be that his interest has been piqued. You’re attractive to him, like a fascinating, new concept, he admits to himself, but that’s where it ends. Though, it’s not like he meets people that catch his eye on a regular basis — it may very well be less than a yearly occurrence — but you have successfully crossed that threshold. He just isn’t entirely certain yet.

However, on the second instance, even a level-headed person like him must ponder if the concept of fate truly exists. Truth to be told, the entire conversation you have with him, more or less, goes in one of his ears and right out of the other. Despite seeming fully present, he’s operating completely in autopilot mode. Sure, he answers and asks smart questions, keeps you engaged in the discussion, but in his head, he’s going over entirely different matters. Namely, how he’s going to get you for himself.

You won’t catch even the tiniest hint of what he’s planning while you’re busy gushing at him about how wonderful Robin’s last performance was, how big of a fan you are, how you’re looking forward to seeing her perform again. He smiles, nods along, gestures with his hands. He knows he’s skilled in disguising his true intentions, but for him not to raise a single question in your mind is truly a wonder. You’re so gullible.

After your little reunion has concluded, he’s left standing in the middle of the sidewalk with an abundant amount of thoughts rushing through his head. His eyes are glued to your back as you disappear back into the crowd, mixing into the sea of colours that is the Golden Hour’s scene. His chest bubbles with unfamiliar emotion.

The idea of you won’t leave his mind even when he exits the Dreamscape several hours after. He can still feel your warmth, hear your voice, smell your scent, see your delicate form in his mind’s eye. It’s so vivid that he has to wonder if he’s hallucinating. However, even though the current course of affairs is already alarming enough on its own, it’s only the first few steps of the spiral he’s going to be sucked into.

Sunday contemplates the idea of getting to know you in the standard, societally acceptable way for a day or two. He promptly rules that option out, however, since it would require asking you out on a date. It would be a risk both regarding his position and the possibility that you may decline the advance. Someone like him can’t just approach a woman and expect the media not to turn it into a circus. Besides, what he’s feeling is less of an innocent crush and more of a budding obsession. He recognizes it himself, but after a little bit of ”careful consideration”, he’s surprisingly fine with the idea. Someone like you is incapable of truly caring for themselves, anyway, he thinks.

As soon as he makes up his mind about you being ”the one”, he starts preparing a room for you to stay in in Penacony — in his house, more specifically. This extends to both the Dreamscape and the reality. He has already done some devising by this point, but now, as his plans are finally about to bear fruit, he allows himself to get excited about it. He starts gathering a list of all the things you’ll need in your new home: A bed, a dreampool, a wardrobe (oh, he has to get you some clothes, too), you’ll be needing a bathroom of your own for when he’s away, the security systems must be updated, he needs to install a few cameras… There’s a lot to take into account. Ah, he has to build a few more locks on the door, and the cuff stems have to be attached to the wall, too.

Most importantly, though, a metal cage needs to be built in the corner of your room. He isn’t delusional: He knows that you won’t be particularly enthusiastic about the change in your life, so he has to be prepared for your attempts to… protest. Moreover, it’s going to be much more convenient to lock you in the cage opposed to tying you down completely. Unlike with all your limbs restrained, you can still move around in there, but there won’t be anything that you can take your anger out on.

He’s not a savage, either. You’ll have a mattress for yourself in the enclosure. He wouldn’t make you sleep on the cold hard ground, no, that would be terrible for your body. That, and the cage has to be high enough for you to be able to stand straight. He can’t have your back developing deformities because of the constant hunching you would have to do. All in all, he’s incredibly meticulous about the groundwork.

The workers that eventually have to construct and renovate the place to Sunday’s liking are to be pitied. Throughout the entire process, he sees the men exchanging doubtful looks between each other, and the cage hasn’t even been brought in yet. He oversees the efforts, making sure that everything is flawless for when the day of your arrival comes, peeking over the men’s shoulders with a serene expression. Though they don’t express it out loud, it’s obvious that they’re not thrilled about having someone like him breathing on their necks while they work on the more-than-suspicious personal project of the Oak Family head. It’s a little amusing to him, even; how none of the workers dare to question his plans or even cautiously inquire what the room will be used for.

Though, at one point, the boldest man out of the bunch asks him if it’s on purpose that the room cannot be unlocked from the inside. Perhaps there is an error in the blueprints, he gently suggests, but Sunday simply smiles at him and lets him know that ”no, the blueprints are as they’re meant to be”. Whatever is going on behind the worker’s eyes would be a curious sight to see, judging from the way he quickly averts his gaze before returning to his task. Obviously, the project is starting to look more like a prison cell than a leisure space or a spare bedroom. Little do the workers know that their initial thought is, in fact, correct.

All the while Sunday is preparing for the calamity that is soon to befall you, you’re out there, free, living your best life. For the little time you have left, he lets you do just that. You look awfully happy when you’re exploring all that the Dreamscape has to offer, enjoying the sights, experiencing the wonders without a single care in the world. It’s a bit of a shame that he has to take all of that away from you. It’s a heinous thing to do, but just this once, he hopes that the Aeons will avert their gaze.

˗ˏˋ ★ 2. Securing: How will they abduct their darling? When, where and how?

His method of kidnapping you is meticulously planned, well thought-out, and completely and utterly inescapable. There’s literally nothing you can do to prevent it aside from leaving the planet on the next ticket.

Sunday informs the Bloodhounds that they have a little bit of work cut out for them. Namely, they are to transport an entire person out of a certain room in the Reverie hotel. Naturally, when he airs the request to the less-than-zealous workers, their first assumption is that the man in front of them is cracking some strange, obscure joke. One of them even lets out a half-hearted laugh to appease him. Very quickly, though, they understand that Sunday is, in fact, serious about it. The matter is not questioned further.

Being the head of the Oak Family, Sunday has certain privileges on the planet that the regular guests don’t necessarily even know about. One of those privileges is that he has access to each and every room in the hotel if he so desires. That day, he happens to want to visit a certain number with a couple of bloodhounds to ”assure his safety”.

You’re completely unaware of the danger that you’re in. Still submerged in the comforting warmth of the dreampool, your other body is wandering around somewhere in the Scape. Your face is relaxed, completely devoid of any expression or indication that you know what is about to happen to you.

The Bloodhound men look at each other behind Sunday’s back, sharing a collective glance of ”what the hell”. If he was in their shoes, he would strongly be considering booking it, but a profession such as this has no room for weak-minded people, and so, neither of the men turn their backs to him. For how concerned they seem to be about you, they’re completely oblivious to how they’re about to become victims themselves in the next few seconds. Most likely, they don’t get a chance to choke out a single word before their minds become hazy, and eerie, wavy patterns fill the edges of their vision. It’s a shame that he won’t get to enjoy their psychological torment any further than that since, unfortunately, having witnesses to the act is out of the question.

Sunday won’t be caught in the act himself, of course. The only thing that the outsiders will get to see is four people walking out of a certain room with strangely dull expressions on their faces. He marvels at the passing people’s reactions at the strange phenomenon for a moment before using the Harmony to make sure that they remember none of it. The same will go for the two bloodhounds as soon as the mission has been concluded.

The place of his residence is located outside of the Reverie hotel, and to take you there, he needs to drive. He’s not going to do that himself, just in case somebody were to catch him in the act, so it’s much more convenient to have the two men conduct the dirty tasks. He’s not particularly worried about being stopped by the authorities since he can always just use his tricks on them, but the less people that are affected, the better. The more targets there are, the riskier the practice becomes. That’s why he settles on sitting on the backseat with you leaning against him as one of the bloodhounds parks the vehicle in front of his grand house. He makes sure to thoroughly conceal their memories of the event before sending them back on their way.

By the time you wake up, you’ll be safely confined in the room he designed just for you. He observes you through the surveillance cameras, peering at the screen as your body twitches awake. He hopes that you won’t be too perturbed about the sudden change in scenery, but based on the way your face falls, he’s going to have some explaining to do. As much as he wishes that you seeing him would bring a smile to your face, the mischievous part of him simply cannot wait to hear your appalled gasp when you realize just who the one behind it all is.

˗ˏˋ ★ 3. Life: What is it like to live with them? How do they treat the darling?

Your life with Sunday is strictly bound by routine from the day one. He’s austere when it comes to the structure of his day, he was raised that way, so naturally, his habits extend to you.

For the first week or so, he allows you to question him, to protest his ways. He responds to your inquiries to the best of his ability, articulating his answers in a calm and poised manner, explaining your circumstances for as many times as you would like. He doesn’t particularly appreciate the way you mostly scream at him and attempt to throw hands, but he understands that you’re in a strange, new situation — some pushback is to be expected. He probably gives you an entire room tour like a real estate agent, presenting everything that he has prepared for you with a proud expression on his features. You can only blink at him in disbelief as he leads you to the cage and recites the words ”stainless steel and impossible to wear down”. The audacity of this man is unrivalled.

Though, after your grace period is over, your ”normal life” will begin. From that point onward, your misdeeds and bad behaviour will be punishable offences, and your questions about his plans will mostly go unanswered. He gave you ample time to get used to your new surroundings, and if that wasn’t enough for you, that’s a ”you”-problem, he concludes. Besides, most of your later complaints are about things like ”there’s no windows”, ”it’s so gloomy in here” and ”he can’t just lock you away from the rest of the world” after you realized that he’s immune to the insults and demands you have been hurling at him. Yes, he understands that the room is a bit sombre, but you could technically be seen through a window if there was one, and so, he decided against having that. He could install a screen that mimics the view of the outside world, though, if you would like. He barely dodges the glob of saliva that you sit his way.

That being said, you wake up at the same time every morning, and the two of you eat breakfast together in your room at the table he constructed for this specific purpose. You don’t get that much time to finish your food, though, because he is to leave for his work in the Dreamscape’s Dewlight Pavilion soon after, and you’re coming with him. You have your own little prison there, too, and it's where you’ll be staying for most of the day. It’s not as dismal as your regular room in the real world: There’s even a window that faces the gorgeous landscape of the Moment of Morning Dew. It’s nice to be able to see the sky, even if it’s only a fabrication. That, and you’re usually alone for this part of your day since the man is busy with his own affairs.

The space you’re allowed to roam in in the Dreamscape is much more spacious than your regular room, too. He isn’t as concerned about you trying to leave since there’s usually nobody around in this Hour, anyway. If you’ve been agreeable, he might permit you to explore the Pavilion’s interior. There’s not that much to see there, though, the hallways are dull and empty at best, but regardless, you’re happy to get to move around more. He takes note of how you seem a bit more energetic after getting some time to wander around, so these instances get more frequent further into your captivity. It’s also convenient for him since you can’t exactly escape via the dream world: Shaking yourself out of the slumber will only get you sent back into your room in the reality.

When he’s done with work, you either leave the Dreamscape, and the rest of your day is spent in his house, more or less in his immediate vicinity, or he might take you to visit the other corners of the dream realm. It’s only the most secluded locations, obviously, and the entire time, you’re glued to his side. Compared to the alternative, it’s a pleasant time despite the rotten company you’re forced to be in.

In the evening, you’ll be back in reality. The two of you share dinner, either eating in your room or sometimes in his, albeit it’s an incredibly rare occasion. Then, when the night comes rolling around, he sees you to the bed (always the exact same time), tucking you in and shackling one of your ankles to the chain that connects to the wall. He himself stays up an hour or two longer, usually doing some leisurely activity like reading a book, but eventually, he either joins you in the bed or goes on to sleep in his own bedroom. It depends on what mood he has been in during the day. Curiously enough, he will leave you to sleep alone only if the day has been an unremarkable one. If the day was pleasant or downright horrible, he will prefer to have you in his arms for the night. The ”downright horrible” aspect does include you being disagreeable, too. You don’t know what it is with him, but you have noticed that the chances of him cuddling you only increase the meaner you are to him. It’s a peculiar equation.

Furthermore, his favourite position to sleep in is with you in his hold, his chest against your back. One of his arms is draped over your body, preventing you from squirming too much or trying to create distance between you and him. One of his wings will also come down to rest on the side of your head, the feathers stroking your temple. There are no other alternatives; this is the position the two of you sleep in if you share a bed. He’s very fastidious about it, too, though he would never admit it out loud.

Lastly, a lot of tiny aspects in your daily life are controlled by him. You don’t, for example, really get to choose what you wear. He sets out your clothes for you, and he sometimes even dresses you up himself. He tends to doll you up a bit, too, even though there’s nobody else but him that gets to see the sight of you. You conclude that it must be him emulating what it would be to live a normal life with you. You’re not too thrilled about having to play a role in his fantasies, but to be fair, even you yourself would prefer looking pretty to resembling a sogged-up origami bird in appearance. He occasionally buys accessories for you to wear, too, like necklaces and hair ornaments.

You don’t get to decide what you’re going to eat, where he’s going to take you in the Scape, when you’re going to bathe, nothing. Of course, if you’re feeling brave, you could offer a kind suggestion to him, asking him if you could maybe do this or that, but it’s likely that he won’t oblige. He has his preferences, and it’s much easier for you to just go along with them.

˗ˏˋ ★ 4. Rules: What kind of rules do they enforce? How lenient are they? How do they keep their darling in check?

True to his style, Sunday has a coherent set of rules for you, all detailed with possible irregularities and exceptions. There’s quite a lot of them, but he has written them down on a list for you to read through. And, you come to find that they are very thoroughly considered.

The core rules go as follows: 1, Always do what he says regardless of what he’s asking of you. 2, Do not attempt to flee unless exposed to imminent danger (e.g. fire). 3, Do not attempt to hurt him or yourself. 4, Do not attempt to resist him under any circumstances unless a matter requires his immediate attention. 5, Only speak when spoken to. 6, He has the right to change these rules any time he so wishes.

You look at the list, then you look up at him, back at the list, back at him. Then, you immediately take the liberty of breaking the fifth rule and start insulting both him and the thing, sparing no curses nor words. He, despite having expected an outburst, is a tiny bit taken aback by the sheer volume of your voice and the strength you muster up to try and free yourself of your bindings. Disobedience is among the top three things he cannot stand in this world, but still, he supposes that he can forgive your misdemeanour this once without a consequence. It is only the first week in your new life, after all; he would be a bit too cruel of a man if he didn’t allow you even a bit of leeway.

Though, that ends up being the last time your offences go unpunished. ”On the seventh day, grant dignity”, and so on. He’s very particular about the rules he has set out for you, and he expects you to follow them to a T. Though, if your offence is dancing the line between being admissible and being deserving of a punishment (especially if the act was accidental), he tends to let it slide. It only means that he has to make the rules more definite. Although, he does let you know that your common sense ought to have shunned you away from the act. If you constantly keep committing slight deeds of disobedience, he won’t look at them through his fingers much longer. This applies to the inadvertent instances, too.

When it comes to keeping you in check, Sunday is nothing but thorough in his ways. The door has at least a few different locks on it, there are no open windows (there are no windows at all), there are no items in your room which you could use to attack him or get yourself out, there are surveillance cameras that he constantly monitors you through, and one or more of your limbs is chained to the wall at nearly all times. There really aren’t many options open for you to try.

He tends to go a bit overboard with banning items from your room. He justifies it because of the miniscule chance of them being of aid when you plan your escape. Sharp items are obviously off-limits: This includes things like scissors, nail files, even hairpins and whatnot, but he also prohibits you from holding stuff like glass and porcelain items, long cords, anything that he deems too risky to have in your vicinity. The further it goes, the more laughable it becomes: Not even that far into your captivity, he ends up taking some jewellery away from you because the clasp has a sharp edge on it.

Even if the whole ordeal has you rolling your eyes, you’re sort of curious about how far he will take it. So, in response, you start inventing the most creative of ways to cause harm to your surroundings with what little you have in your room. You start scratching the walls with the buttons on one of your shirts and the heels of your shoes, you begin trying to shoot the lamp down from the ceiling by throwing loose objects at it. Any and all items that can fit into the keyhole in the lock will be shoved in it. You flip your bed upside down and see if you can detach one of the crossbars. It’s beyond petty.

In the end, though, as much as he has to commend you for being so resourceful, the result is him taking all your stuff away into a different room — down to your clothes. The only thing you have to cover yourself with is the blanket in your upside-down bed. The aftermath really isn’t worth it despite you getting a laugh out of his bewildered face and twitching smile.

His unfortunate go-to is also, well, the cage. It was built for this specific purpose, after all. It’s the one place in the entire house where you simply can’t cause harm from. If possible, though, he would prefer not to have you in there all day (unless you deserve it), but he will not shy away from throwing you in at the smallest sign of insubordination, so be prudent.

And then again, the last card up his sleeve is always the power of Harmony if you prove especially difficult to deal with. All he needs to do is take a single look at you, and the vibrant hues start creeping into your field of view. It’s sort of endearing, even; how you squeeze your eyes shut when your head starts feeling fuzzy at the intrusion into your mind. Not long after, your fire will simmer down, and you’ll have that hazy, serene look in your eyes that he so adores.

˗ˏˋ ★ 5. Consequences: What kind of punishments will the darling face? How do they punish different offences?

Sunday is a lot when it comes to the punishments he serves. Aside from the list of rules, he also happens to have all the possible consequences written down on a neat, white sheet of paper. He has left the thing in your drawer, just in case you would want to refresh your memory every once in a while.

The punishment for even the smallest of misdemeanours feels disproportionately harsh. Considering what his rules are, you could earn yourself a penalization by just saying something that even mildly inconveniences the man. It almost feels like he has set the restrictions out just to be able to punish you. He’s ridiculously strict with them, too, and you can rarely get out of it, even if you were to present the most heartfelt apology to him. It’s an impossible game to win, and just as you suspect, he has taken a little bit of a liking to seeing your consequences through.

The smallest offences, the list reads, are punishable by locking you in the cage until a certain period of time has passed. However long that time is is up to him to decide: Usually, it’s somewhere around half an hour, but it could stretch up to being a few hours, even, if you’ve been particularly disagreeable. Considering the alternatives, this is not that bad of a punishment since you do have a mattress in there: Usually, you just end up napping the time away, and when you wake up, he has most likely already unlocked the latch.

It is, however, especially humiliating in the beginning. He’s treating you like a misbehaving animal (which you sort of are to him to a degree). Early on in your captivity, you might very well spend the entire day in the cage because every time he enters the room to free you, you immediately start hissing at him. You learn that the cooldown time is, unfortunately, cumulative.

Another thing he might do in response to small stuff is taking away your means of entertainment. Since you seem to be having so much fun spitting mean words at him, he’s sure that you won’t be missing your books for a while (the rest of the day at minimum). It also serves another purpose to him: If you don’t have anything to occupy yourself with, you’re more likely to seek him out in hopes of a conversation to pass your time. It’s embarrassingly effective, to his delight, and you do end up spending more time with him during these instances.

When it comes to anything more severe than the slightest of blunders, though, it gets scary and it gets scary fast. His punishments are like a rapidly steepening slope: He’s relatively lenient at first, but you won’t have to walk further than a few steps before he will show you the worst that he could possibly offer.

Breaking anything gets you a foul punishment without exceptions. This includes the stuff in your room, the rules list (your personal favourite to take your anger out on) and him. It could be as little as tossing something on the floor, swatting his hand away when he tries to touch you, anything. You don’t get a chance to speak out your reasoning, because his hand will already be grabbing your face before you can get a single word out. He squeezes your cheeks together, makes you look him in the eye, and speaks to you in a tone that’s a complete contrast to how tightly he’s gripping you. ”Excuse me?” he will ask in a placid tone, slightly raising his brows. If you talk back at him, he’ll say something like ”come again?” or ”what was that?”. It’s usually enough to shut you up without delay, but in the case that you don’t, he’ll just grab a handful of your hair, tug your face towards his and tilt his head to the side. That gets you quiet real fast.

There’s also a harsher version of this event. If you’re doing your absolute best to be as insufferable as possible, even when his nails are digging into the sides of your face with more strength than you thought he was capable of, you’ll be in for a nasty surprise. Without a warning, he lands an open-palm slap on your cheek before digging his hand into your scalp. He drags you across the room to where the mirror stands. There, he basically dangles you in the air just by the strands in his grip and asks you to look at your reflection.

”Apologize”, he demands. You don’t speak a thing, only trying to claw at the hand that’s ripping on your hair. It’s a futile effort, however, and as your silence prolongs, he only tugs harder. He only loosens his hold when you’re sure that he’s about to pluck a tuft out, and in fear of that, you start spewing out frantic apologies.

Deeming your remorse sincere enough, he lets your body fall onto the ground. Your hands are holding your head, and you don’t lower them, even when your locks settle back into their places. You’re breathing heavily, your teeth are clenched, and there are tears stinging in your eyes. You’re worried for your hair, picking at your scalp, but judging from how there are no strands in his fingers in the mirror’s reflection, no permanent harm was inflicted.

Wondering about the same thing as you, he crouches down to your level and gently brushes his fingers through where his grip was tight a mere moment ago. A light smile spreads on his features as he finds no signs of detriment. He lets his arm fall lower to your upper back where he gives a few pats in between your shoulder blades. ”That wasn’t so difficult, now, was it?” he asks you. You think about getting even with him right away — his wings are within a grabbing distance — but you’re not sure if you can take another whole day in the cage, so you swallow your pride.

Realistically, you won’t be able to flee Sunday’s clutches — at least not without help — but if you do plan on making an escape, be aware that even the tiniest signs of you trying to conduct a scheme will be punished just as harshly as if you had actually made it out. Be it a lockpick, a makeshift blade, a written note; anything could be classified as an attempt.

What such offences will earn you is a day chained to the bed. Your wrists, your ankles, your neck, all of them will be chained down in a position where you can hardly move. Technically, whatever you did could very well just be nothing, but he doesn’t like to take the odds. No matter how you try to tell him that ”no, the drawing wasn’t a map of the ventilation system”, you’ll only be let out of the bindings if you need to go to the bathroom or when he decides that you have had enough of it for now. During these times, he will feed you himself, too, so you’re not getting up from the bed during mealtime, either. Not only is it horribly humiliating and dehumanizing, but it also gets boring very fast. And, if your attempt was especially heinous, he might even give you a blindfold to top the setting. It’s terrible.

On the miniscule chance that you do manage to make it out of the room you’re locked in, you’ll truly see him livid for the first time in your life. You’re not going to make it very far, anyway, you’ll be caught up with by the time you reach the front door, but even that is way past what Sunday ever expected you to be capable of. It’s most likely when he’s away on work business, so he can’t directly intervene with your attempt, but he sure as hell can see what you’re doing through the surveillance cameras.

You’re not sure what to do. Honestly speaking, you didn’t think you would make it this far. The tiny pick you had constructed out of some metal parts from a can of lemonade is, without a doubt, your greatest handiwork yet. Even though it took nearly half an hour, you managed to make it through all the seven locks in the door. You know that he’s most likely watching, and damn, you hope that the man is seething from anger behind the screen. As you push the door open, you make sure to flip off the camera above your bed before exiting the room.

You make it to the hallway. You have seen it a few times when you have had the honour of visiting the other rooms in the house, but aside from that, the view is unfamiliar to you. The door to the left is his bedroom, you’re sure, and the one after you’re not sure about. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the staircase at the end of the corridor is where you’re headed, anyway.

Your heart is thumping in your ears as you hop down the stairs two steps at a time, keeping a steady rhythm despite the way your entire body is shaking. The feeling is simultaneously euphoric and terrifying. You know you’re being monitored, and you’re certain that he will be on your back soon, so you hasten your pace.

His place is big. There are more rooms than you can count. Ornaments costing more than your life savings line the drawers, the mantel, the dinner table. There’s a somewhat abstract painting of Robin hanging on the wall alongside a smaller picture of a halovian man with dark hair and a crow on his shoulder. You don’t recognize him. There’s the living room where Sunday’s own, personal dreampool sits. As a fleeting thought, you consider that perhaps you should go to the Dreamscape instead and try to alert someone of your presence, but you’re not sure where the pool is connected. It’s wiser to try and make it out of his house.

It’s easier said than done. You need to make it to the lower floor, and only there you’ll be able to find the main door. You have never gotten the chance to explore this part of his residence, understandably so, but eventually, after running around the building for a good few minutes, you arrive at the grand entrance hall. Lining both sides of the walls, a rounded staircase leads down to the first of two doors to the exit. You run towards them, breathing ragged and your hands clammy with cold sweat. You wrap your fingers around the ornate handles, barely able to contain your feelings as the gates to your freedom crack open. You know you shouldn’t celebrate yet, especially since you still need to get through the vestibule, but you can smell the outside air that seeps through the walls.

You sprint for the exit. Your legs burn from the strain, the adrenaline courses through your veins like a drug. Your fingers find the handle, you push and-

The lights go out. The door behind you slams shut. In the pitch black, you try to yank on the knob that your hands are still clutching, desperately twisting the thing, but it doesn’t budge. In the span of a single moment, all your hope trickles down the drain like the tears that now spill from your eyes. You turn around, trying to free yourself from the small space by getting back in the house, but the handle on that door refuses to give in as well. You’re trapped a mere few inches away from your freedom.

You collapse to the ground.

It’s not until an hour or so later that Sunday arrives back at his house. You don’t even raise your head from where it’s slotted against your knees when light floods the vestibule. You’re balled up in the back corner of the room, silently sniffling.

”Hand it over”, you hear Sunday order. The tip of his shoe enters your limited field of view as he bends down in front of you. You don’t comply with the request. However, it seems that his patience has worn thin, because in the next moment, your vision is already swimming in the strange hues of Xipe. Against your own volition, your balled fist unravels and drops the lockpick on the ground. He picks the thing up, inspects it between his fingers for a moment before sliding it into his pocket.

You’re pulled up from the ground by your arm. His grip is tight, sparing no mind to how it aches when his fingers pinch on your skin. You yelp out a noise of pain, but he could not care less. Your legs feel wobbly as he drags you through the hall, up the staircase, past the living room, all the way back to your room. You’re sobbing out incoherent words, trying to tell him that he’s hurting you, that his grasp is cutting off your blood flow, but he doesn’t listen to a thing.

When he reaches the wide open door of your prison, he wastes no time tossing you to the ground. The air is forced out of your lungs as your body hits the floor with a heavy thud. Your head is spinning, your arm is throbbing, there’s snot running down your face. He doesn’t grant you a single second to collect yourself before his heel comes down on one of your ankles.

He shifts weight on it. Your eyes go wide as his shoe digs into your leg, putting pressure right where your tibia protrudes under the skin. ”You have learned your lesson, I hope?” he speaks out in a tone colder than his pale blue eyes. His wings are sticking out straight to the sides, spread into their most majestic form. There’s not a single hint of sympathy in his dead gaze.

He presses down harder. Tears spill down your cheeks and gather at the tip of your chin. You try to whimper at him to stop, that it hurts, that you’re sorry, but no coherent words come out of your mouth. There seems to be a single intention in his mind, being one that involves his heel burrowing right through your skin, and judging from his expression, his mind is set on it. You attempt to pull your legs to yourself, but you find yourself being completely unable to move anything below your head due to the Harmony that’s still being inflicted upon you.

There’s nothing left for you to do except pleading for mercy and letting your tears fall. Still, even through the relentless, colourful haze, you’re able to mumble out a single, strained ”please” before closing your eyes.

The pressure on your foot disappears. Even as you hear shuffling, you don’t dare peek at his form. With how your head is clouded, you find it easier to pretend to have passed out. He, of course, knows that you’re still conscious — no thoughts of yours are safe from his prying mind — but even when he lifts you to the bed and cuffs all your limbs to the bedposts, you keep your eyes shut. It’s no use struggling at this point. It’s a meritorious feat you managed to pull off today, even though it ended up being for nothing.

You fall asleep not long after. You’re aware of the horrors that await you when you wake up, so you decide to make most of the little time you have before that. Slumber is the one place where Sunday cannot reach you, but despite that, you’re certain that throughout your rest, there’s somebody cradling your body in their arms.

˗ˏˋ ★ 6. Emotions I: How do they show love? How do they attempt to make the darling love them?

So, the way Sunday shows love is… making you as perfect as humanly possible. You’re his very own darling, so of course he puts the utmost effort into making sure you’re flourishing and in a sound state. The latter may be compromised, though. It’s morally questionable, sure, but to him, it’s the highest honour that he could bestow upon anyone.

He takes pride in taking care of your appearance. It’s a daily thing, sometimes even multiple times in the span of a single day, but he loves to do things like brush and do your hair, dress you up, even put makeup on you. It’s reminiscent of the things he used to do for Robin when the two of them were young, so he’s very adept when it comes to grooming you. Were it in any other context, the whole thing would be incredibly wholesome, even. The ordeal is sort of a control thing to him, too: He gets to decide how you look, to a degree, and it’s a very intimate idea to him.

It may come as a bit of a surprise, but he’s, in fact, a little bit of a toucher, too. It’s very subtle and sophisticated: A caress on your lower back here and there, holding your hand in a gentlemanly way, inspecting a strand of your hair between his fingers, that kind of thing. He’s not one to indulge in touching you that much against your will, it doesn’t do much for him, but be prepared to be prodded at least a little bit. He likes to have you close to him in general, so if you’re in the same room as him, it’s a common occurrence that he might sidestep closer to you and pull you to him. He may start chatting to you about nothing in particular, just seeing how you’re faring (you’re usually not faring very well).

Moreover, he tends to praise you. There’s always a nasty little backhanded aspect to it that leaves you feeling like you were actually being degraded, though. He might, for example, commend you on being exceptionally obedient that day, or tell you what a good job you did listening to the instructions he gave you. It’s a little theatrical, and he makes it that way on purpose. Still, no matter how dramatical, it’s way better than being on the receiving end of his wrath. You grow used to it.

In addition to the previous points, Sunday does get into a true lovey-dovey mood every once in a while. It’s still subdued, true to his style, but the most affectionate you’ll ever see him is when he starts to sort of play out the role of a husband. He has these fantasies in his head that are straight out of a picture-perfect romance series. He has envisioned the sight of you in a pretty dress and smiling at him, for example (it’s probably his before-sleep thought). He acts these scenarios out if you’re receptive: For instance, he tends to come up behind you, move your hair to the side and kiss the back of your neck. He’ll smile and mutter out a compliment. You’ll come to realize quite early on that this part of him is purely performative — it’s like he’s trying to convince himself that you’re actually willing.

If you are willing enough, though, he adores just lingering in your presence while you read or draw or knit, something along those lines. Sunday isn’t that big of a talker when it comes to showing genuine affection, so his go-to is just sort of being there with you.

Maybe you’re sitting on your bed while he’s resting on the couch, occupied with his book. In the next moment, he’ll slide himself in the sheets with you, patting the space in between his thighs. Your brows furrow, not immediately understanding the request, but it does become clear when his fingers wrap around your upper arm and insistently nudge you towards him. You’re much too fatigued to fight his advances, and without much resistance, you climb into his lap and get into a comfortable position. His hand comes down on your hip, caressing the skin for a little before returning to his activity.

Oh, and he will absolutely get the two of you rings. He presents the piece of jewellery to you, telling you that you shall be wearing it from now on (preferably on your ring finger). It’s not that you’re actually married, but he likes to… pretend. You’re sort of like his wife, after all — no, more like a possession, actually, but the notion stands. One more ring will appear on his glove, among the ones that already adorn his fingers. Nobody asks a thing about it, despite the piece’s risqué position on his left hand.

Be aware that he will be furious if you decide to get rid of the thing somehow. It’s both a stab to his ego and a soul-piercing insult to him. The entire ordeal is incredibly personal to him, so if you end up throwing his act of love away, you best be sure that he’ll be sulking for the rest of the week if not longer.

˗ˏˋ ★ 7. Emotions II: How do they deal with the darling’s emotions? How are outbursts handled? How do they attempt to comfort the darling?

One issue that both you and Sunday alike will face is that, in the setting he has placed you in, your contentment starts deteriorating, and it does that at an alarming rate. He knows exactly why that is, he’s not stupid, but there’s only so much he can do without risking having you flee or somebody seeing you. That being said, it’s wasted effort to expect him to go easier on you if you start showing signs of gloom.

Emotional outbursts that hold even the tiniest bit of kick are dealt with using his usual methods: No matter how much you scream and cry, you’re going to end up in the cage he has for these exact situations. He really can’t be bothered to deal with a yelling and thrashing person that he has been nothing but sensible to, and even if your rage eventually dwindles down into sorrowful sobbing, he’s not gonna offer much comfort to you. More often than not, these little episodes of yours are to get a reaction out of him, anyway (or at least that’s what he thinks), so what better way to punish you than not to give you the attention that you so seem to crave (you want to bash his face in).

Even though his nature is seemingly callous, he is quite proficient in differentiating when you’re just making a scene for the sake of it and when you’re truly under heavy emotional distress. He can tell from the way you react to him presenting you with the consequences. If you go quiet afterwards and accept the result with only a distasteful click of your tongue, it’s usually just about you blowing off some steam. However, if you continue lashing out even after he has locked you in the cage, for example, it’s usually a sign to him that you’re not in a good place mentally.

The first few times that you end up on your knees on the floor, sobbing your heart out, he’s at a little bit of a loss. Of course, he could go the usual route of offering half-assed consolation like a few kind words and whatnot, patting your head a bit, whatever. It’s just that, when he thinks of resorting to that, his heart twitches in an uncomfortable manner. He feels like the action would be particularly immoral, even for somebody like him.

That being said, his uncertainty results in him having to leave the room nonetheless, and you’re left in the darkness, all alone and without anybody to listen to how you wail your soul out. He knows that it appears incredibly cruel to you, but the reality is that it’s the best he can muster. He beats himself up for it long after, even.

When more time has passed, and you have gone through a couple more of these ”episodes” as he likes to call them, he finally decides to gather up the courage to face you during one. It’s the regular kind: You’re in your room, yelling and pointing fingers at him, sobbing your eyes out. As usual, after the initial outburst with all the violent words and tearing at the cuff around your ankle, you give up the fight and fall down onto the floor, defeated. As is common, his only reaction so far has been standing a short distance away from you with his hands behind his back, silently observing and taking in the sorry sight of you. There’s not a lot going on on his face, either, purposefully so; it’s terrifying for you not to know at all what to expect from him next.

You sniffle, sitting on your knees with what is left of the rules list on your side. You shredded the thing into pieces, ripping into the paper with all your might until the only proof of its existence was the white flakes that now cover the carpet. It must be the third one this week. It’s a terribly childish show of resentment, you know that very well yourself, but being the object of Sunday’s emotional torment would be enough to drive just about anyone into primal rage.

Your head hangs low as you clench your hands into fists and tell him to ”just throw you in the cage already”. However, your words are only met with silence.

There’s a gloved hand on your cheek. You raise your gaze the tiniest bit, only enough to be able to see that, yes, it’s him that’s so tenderly holding your face. He kneels down in front of you, stroking his thumb under your eyes and rubbing away the tears that spill past your lashes. His expression is strange: The usual smile he wears is still there, sort of, but his eyes are slightly unfocused. It’s like he’s gazing right through you despite being very precise with his movements.

”You must be exhausted”, he speaks, voice conveying no emotion in particular, just like always. He brings his other hand up to your face as well, using the back of his glove to dry the streaks that adorn your cheeks. His touch is so delicate, so gentle that your head is about to explode from how his actions completely contrast his usual behaviour in these moments. Despite how soft he’s being, you can’t help but feel completely dehumanized by the sentiment. He knows that he’s the sole reason for your anguish, yet now he’s so graciously offering you consolation for your woes. It almost makes you want to try and lash out at him again.

He snakes an arm behind the back of your neck. The touch gently urges you to lean in, to rest your face against his chest while his hand rubs up and down your back. His other hand finds the crown of your head where it gathers a bunch of your hair and gently scratches the scalp there. You feel his wings tickle your forehead, coming down to mimic an embrace.

He smells pleasant. You hate yourself for associating a single nice adjective with him.

It’s a terrible situation to be in. You don’t have the slightest idea if he’s being genuine with his actions, even now that he’s holding your trembling form in his arms. You stay like that for a good while, too. He only loosens his hold when he knows that you’re close to collapsing to the ground. You don’t have a single ounce of fury left in your system anymore, and he takes advantage of that by properly pulling you into him and picking your tired body off the ground. He lifts you over to the bed, settles himself on the mattress, and rests you in his lap. There, he places your head over his heart and begins stroking your hair like he was caring for the baby bird he found in the garden with Robin in his childhood.

You are more resemblant to that bird than you realize, he muses. Both you and the animal are scared little things; terrified and thrashing in his hold until you realize that your captor has only extended their hand out to help. You need to understand that what he does is for your own good, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner the two of you can begin living with no longer needing to lock you in your metaphorical and literal cage. He lets you know all of this in a soft, soothing tone all the while you’re barely able to keep your eyes open. His chest gently vibrates with every word. If you still had the strength, you would latch your fingers around his throat.

Though, when it comes to situations where Sunday doesn’t believe you’re going to tire yourself out before causing serious harm to your environment and yourself, he’s not going to hesitate using Harmony on you. He will follow the situation through the surveillance cameras with a pensive look on his face before promptly deciding that it is time for you to knock it off.

He will arrive in your room like normal, and naturally, an object immediately flies his way. He dodges it with little difficulty, and when his eyes settle on you, you know it’s over. The colours start spreading around the edges of your vision, and the image of him in front of you blurs. Whatever you’re holding drops to the ground with a dull thump. He steps closer to you, and you can barely get a word out before the noteless melody consumes you whole. You suddenly feel completely at ease, your body becomes incredibly heavy. One of his hands comes to support your back as your legs give in and you nearly fall over. Through the haze, you hear how he’s softly telling you to calm down and ”breathe, just breathe”. ”You’re alright”, he hums, lulling you deeper into the song.

Nothing, not even your red-hot wrath, is capable of resisting the overwhelming sense of tranquillity that curls around your mind. It seeps into your very essence, forcing every last muscle on your body to fall lax in his tender embrace. You look up at his face and try to get your eyes to focus on his expression through the fog. There’s nothing to note: He himself is scrutinizing your features, looking for any signs of discomfort. When he doesn’t find any, he lets out a long, somewhat relieved exhale.

As handy as it is, he would prefer not to use the power on you if possible. Not to say that he won’t rely on it when need be, but the obedience he gains from you via that route is… inauthentic. You’re not submitting by your own volition. He’s just explicitly making you do what he orders you to, and that’s not what he aims for. He wants you to want to be good for him. However, in his eyes, all of these instances are just necessary bumps in the path that he needs to cross to get to the result he desires. It’s a long road, he’s perfectly aware, but what awaits at the end is more than worth all the anguish and struggle.

˗ˏˋ ★ 8. Thing to exploit: What are the darling’s best chances at escaping? Are there things the darling can use to their advantage? How can the darling make things easier for themselves?

There’s no way around it: Sunday is an incredibly difficult yandere to get away from. Not only is he an extremely prominent figure with loads of resources at his disposal, but he also has the power of Harmony on his side. On top of that, he doesn’t really take you outside, let you meet any people or offer you many chances at escaping in general. Every door is locked, all windows are shut, there’s absolutely nothing you could use to your advantage. Getting past all of his precautions and measures will require both wit and patience, calculated risk-taking and vast strokes of luck.

He doesn’t let you see any of the many workers under his command. Even though the chance of them agreeing to help you is minimal, he would still rather not take the risk. It requires a bit of extra effort to keep them away from you, but he’s a meticulous man to the bone, and this is no exception. The one person, however, that you may be able to get in contact with is none other than Robin.

It’s only a few fleeting times that you’ll get to even be in the same room as her. Although Sunday is opposed to the idea of you and her talking, he does have a soft spot for his sister and ends up allowing it — only when he’s in the room with you, though. You won’t be able to get much from her — it’s only a break from being alone with Sunday, really — but she might attempt to make your life a little easier.

The tendency to manipulation must be a familial thing with them: As naturally as breathing, Robin musters up her most pitiful expression and says something like ”Oh, poor thing”. She sets her hand on top of your head and strokes your hair in a nearly maternal way. You don’t dare look at Sunday, but from the corner of your eye, you can see the way the corner of his mouth twitches. You’ve known him for long enough to recognize that he’s affected but is doing his absolute best not to show it. You don’t know how you should feel about seeing him so… vulnerable.

Furthermore, if it occurs that you meet Robin more than once, it’s quite likely that she will help you escape. It’s not just indirectly aiding you or offering you comfort, she will literally aid you in your breakout. She isn’t afraid to have it traced back to her, either; she’s much too kind-hearted to know that his brother is keeping someone captive and live doing nothing about it. She might divulge Sunday’s schedule to you, for example, or literally sneak to where he keeps you and get you out. No matter the consequences she will face, it’s worth it in her eyes. A bird does not belong in a cage.

Whatever happens after making it out is up to you, though. Robin can only do so much, and as much as she wishes that she could see you soar, the people higher up in the Family hierarchy would probably not be overjoyed to hear that the most public figure in their faction is getting involved in such affairs. The wisest course of action would be to immediately leave Penacony by whatever means possible, of course, and surprisingly, just that might be enough. Don’t be fooled, though: Sunday can and will hunt you down if given the chance, but there are a few responsibilities of his that he can’t simply ditch. He has an image to upkeep, and as obsessed as he is with you, as painful as it is, they are a higher priority. That, and he has a bit of an ego and wants you to think that "this was his plan all along". His people will be coming after you within only minutes worth of delay, however, so be careful.

When it comes to things aside from escaping, there’s one oddly specific thing that you can do which will both lower Sunday’s guard and make him dull down the harsher aspects of how he treats you. It’s not one you’ll come to think of straight away, but when you ponder it more profoundly, it actually makes plenty of sense.

Whether it’s humming a tune or whistling a few notes, hearing you sing is something that will calm his nerves with a near perfect success rate. You don’t have to be skilled by any means, you can be just as off-key as you want, it’s the action that counts. It doesn’t matter what he’s currently doing, hearing a melody flow out of your mouth immediately transports him back to his childhood. He hates how weak he is to it, but he can’t help the way his heart softens.

He may come up to you when you’re idly humming while being occupied with some mundane task. You obviously shut your mouth when you see him approaching, not assuming that he would appreciate it if you were to fill the silence with your song. You carry on with your chore, but after a few moments of quiet, you hear him mutter something. You turn around to face him, only to find that he’s standing with his back turned to you. Hesitantly, you ask him to repeat his words. ”Please sing”, he speaks in a tone no louder than a whisper.

It’s up to you if you want to follow through with the request or not. Nothing will happen if you decide not to, but know that if you do, he will remain in a good mood for the entire day. He’s much less volatile and much easier to talk to. If you’re feeling brave, you could even ask him for something. It’s a bit of a gamble whether he will agree to it or not, depending on the nature of the wish, but still, it’s worth trying.

Finally, as a side note about escaping his clutches — it’s the stupidest thing imaginable, but your freedom will arrive at the latest when the Astral Express arrives in Penacony and does their boom-shakalaka. Part of his redemption arc will be letting you go. It’s a bit of an anticlimax, but it is a solution nonetheless.

˗ˏˋ ★ 9. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes? What unique qualities do they possess?

In hindsight, you should have guessed it from his looks, but Sunday is a complete and total, irremediable neat-freak. It manifests in nearly everything he does, from his taste in dress to how the books on his shelves are set in alphabetical order. His work desk is so pristine that its feng shui can heal its surroundings within a five-mile radius.

Naturally, his obsession with order extends to you. Whenever he notices even the slightest fault in your appearance, he’s quick to fix it. Be it your hair, something on your face, your clothing being wrinkled, anything. He’s actually very mindful about it: He doesn’t say a thing — only steps closer to you and moves the stray strand off your face, picks out the piece of dirt on your cheek, fixes your collar. There’s no remarks about the error, nothing. You could almost call it loving; the way he does it is so tender. He might get annoyed if you keep repeating the same faults over and over again, though.

On a different note, Sunday is one of the few captors that might actually make you do labour for him. It sounds ridiculous, and it very much is just that, but if you’re whining about having nothing to do all day, he might be inclined to get you to spend your time more wisely.

He will set a stack of papers on your desk. When you question the action, expressing your confusion by uttering out a very demure ”what the fuck?” and pointing at the thing, he will explain that you ”might as well busy yourself in other ways than complaining”. He tells you to organize them by date, the oldest at the bottom and the newest at the top. You squint your eyes at him to decipher if he’s actually being serious with the suggestion, but as you find nothing but the usual, polite smile on his features, you conclude that yes, this man might just be a lost cause.

Your initial thought is that, hell no, you’re not going to entertain his stupid ass by doing his work for him, but as the hours stretch on and on, you start considering that maybe you should take up on the offer. It’s not like something like this would take him that long, either, so what if he truly just wants you to feel a bit more involved? You’re running out of books to read, stuff to draw, and the pile of notes on the desk is starting to look more and more enticing.

And so, you start sorting the papers out, inspecting the date written on each page’s corner. Sunday, of course, follows your every movement through the security app on his phone. There’s a slight smirk playing on his face as he sees the way you carefully sort the documents into different stacks before eventually gathering them into a single, neat bunch. You seem to be pleased with yourself, even.

Truthfully, the papers are of no value, and he doesn’t even need them. They’re just some notes from the Family people of lower ranks, and they hold no importance to him. Still, seeing you conduct the task with such diligence, he needs to start bringing more of those in, he thinks.

A strange thing you'll come to see is that, when it comes to Sunday, you don't actually have that much to tell about him. Not that you don't have things to say about him, though — those you have a lot of, and the words used would not be pretty — but in general, you don't really know him on a deeper level. He keeps it that way on purpose: Despite your occasional inquiries, he hasn't told you almost anything about his past, about his job, about things he likes, anything, really. It's a boundary that he wouldn't like to cross any time soon. While it's partially because of his own emotional blocks, it also keeps you more pliant since you don't have a lot you could use against him psychologically. It's a strategic choice.

NS-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 10. General look: How does their sexuality manifest? What does sex mean to them? How horny are they?

Sunday has got two sides to him that contrast each other to an inconvenient degree. On one hand, he’s very reserved when it comes to his sexuality: He doesn’t indulge in the art of beating one’s meat except for once in a blue moon, he isn’t a fan of a flirty atmosphere, and he certainly does not search out company for those kinds of activities. Then, on the other hand, he’s… a man. He’s a man that isn’t that far off from the average when it comes to the topic of libido. He has urges, sometimes hefty ones, even, but he’s very skilled in suppressing them. (He probably unironically refers to sex as ”coitus”.)

Furthermore, though, as is with most yanderes, his sexual desires skyrocket when you come into the picture. There’s a nearly comical aspect to it: He isn’t used to having to keep himself in check to the degree where he consciously has to force himself to look away from the sight of you or start counting the dust particles in the air. It’s ridiculous, and he’s ashamed of himself, too, but there’s only so much he can do about it. Besides, it’s at least partially your fault since you’re flaunting around your bare ankles and all. Whore.

His desire towards you first manifests in less inherently sexual ways. Though, being aware of the context, they still appear that way. Kissing your neck and upper back, for example, are a thing he tends to do in an almost idle manner. You think it’s quite intimate, yeah, but it’s not as big of a deal as when he sneaks fleeting touches at your thighs or your chest. Those, despite being less intrusive, feel a lot more loaded than the pecks. He kind of builds his touches up until it all comes down on the night of your undoing.

˗ˏˋ ★ 11. Limit: How long does it take for them to have the darling? What is the first time like? Do they care about the darling’s willingness?

It’s stupidly dependent on how you present yourself in the first few days of your captivity. Whatever you do, he is going to take you by force, but the aspect that you can affect is when it will happen. It’s an either-or situation: Your options are basically right away or in a few weeks. There’s no in between, and it all comes down to how you behave. If you display signs of serious fear like crying, trembling and being unable to converse with him, he will decide that perhaps it’s for the best that he leaves the leap for a later time. Then, on the other hand, if you’re mostly hostile and spitting insults at him, he’s going to tackle the matter as soon as possible.

Nevertheless, how the first time goes is more or less the same regardless. You don’t know to expect what is about to happen, and he prefers it that way. It’s easier to lead you into the bedroom and lock the door behind him without you putting all of your strength into trying to wriggle away from his grasp. That being said, you only start to anticipate that something grim is about to take place when your only exit clicks shut with him in the room.

He won’t sugar-coat it. He simply informs you that ”you’re going to have sex with him”. Of course, your eyes go wide as saucers at the statement, and your immediate response is to scamper as far away from him as the room allows. You start screaming at him, refusing to listen to anything further he has to say, telling him that ”he’s insane”. He was prepared for a reaction like this, he’s not dense, but it does manage to irk him nonetheless. Yes, he does feel a tinge of sympathy when he sees your petrified expression, but it’s a necessary evil, he thinks. Tears won’t get you out of this one — he’s going to have you either way.

It’s terrifying; the way he backs you into the corner of the room, walking in unhurried steps while you’re hyperventilating and scampering away from his nearing silhouette. He does it all with the usual, polite smile on his pale features, all the while you go through every possible method of keeping him away from you: You throw objects at him, you make an ungodly amount of noise, but there’s only so much you can do. Eventually, he catches up with you and pulls you up by your arm. If you put up a considerable amount of resistance, thrashing around in his hold, clawing at him, trying to take a bite out of his hand, he’s going to use the power of Harmony on you. It’s only for a moment, though: He wants you lucid for the experience, but even the few seconds of his tricks get you nice and obedient for him. You’re fighting a losing battle.

He drags you to the bed and chains your hands to the cuffs that hang from each of the bedposts. Despite your struggling, he’s being uncharacteristically gentle with his actions, making sure that your wrists don’t chafe against the restraints more than absolutely necessary. From the psychological viewpoint, the experience is among the cruellest, compared to how the first time would go with other yanderes. The entire time, you’re being bombarded with his soothing coos while he holds your flailing legs down with an iron grip. The contradicting messages blur into one, and you can only hope that the ordeal doesn’t steal the last bits of sanity you’re clinging to.

Still, he hasn’t lost control, by any means. Although his dick is straining in his pants to an uncomfortable degree, he knows that, when it comes to the female body, he can’t just jam his cock in. You need to be cared for like the delicate, little thing you are. So, he starts methodically caressing his hands along the curves of your body, all the while you’re quivering like a leaf under his touch. He smiles down at you despite the way fat tears are spilling past your eyes and gathering down where the pillow catches them under your head. He’s going to have to cover your mouth if you don’t stop wailing, though. No matter how gentle he’s being, you won’t stop begging and pleading for him to stop his ministrations.

He talks you through the process. Systematically, as he pokes and prods at you, he lets you know what he’s going to do to you. It doesn’t even serve a sadistic purpose: He simply describes what is about to happen in a poised yet calm manner. Despite his attempts at consoling you, you only seem to become more distressed.

He lets you know that first, he’s going to kiss you and finger you for a reasonable while so you’ll be sufficiently aroused, and then he will proceed to penetrate you. You shake your head in disbelief, still crying, but it does little to sway his will. He leans down to your face and plants a loving kiss on your temple.

His form obscures a section of your field of view, and you’re unable to see the way his gloved hand slides down the front of your bottom. You sure can feel it though, and even more so when his fingers start prodding around. Despite being fully clothed, you feel horribly exposed by the way his eyes are glued to your expression as he searches for your clit in between your folds. He takes his sweet time, feeling around, finding your entrance and briefly tipping his appendages in. He withdraws a bit to slide his fingers a little higher, searching for where your most sensitive spot is hidden. Judging from the way you flinch when he presses at a particular spot, he believes that he has found it.

Your arms are straining against the restraints. He advises you to tone it down a little; he doesn’t want you to suffer unnecessary injuries from the ordeal. Still, yet again, you only scream at him that ”he’s the reason for it”, and finally, he has had enough of your disobedience. His free hand comes up to your cheek, stroking his knuckles against the soft skin, before latching it over your mouth. Naturally, you furiously shake your head, try to bite his fingers, anything to get him off of you, but no matter what you do, neither of his hands are pulling away. He merely sighs at you as if you were a misbehaving pet.

The way the tears spill down the sides of your face does, admittedly, wound him a bit. He would prefer for you to enjoy this at least half as much as he does, but he understands that it’s not a reasonable expectation. He’s also a little concerned about the rate in which you’re gasping in air through your nose. He might end up having to lift his hand off your mouth if your airways begin to clog.

Despite the way you tremble and sob, he’s going to progress to properly having you by the end of the session. Though, before that, he’s going to continue fucking you with his fingers for a good while. He’s aware that the muscles in your lower parts need to be completely relaxed before the act. His hand should do an adequate job at assuring that, so he’s not concerned. And, going by the clear substance that now coats his glove, he’s doing a fine job.

He lifts his hand off your mouth in favour of slipping it under your shirt. When your immediate response is to start yelling again, he makes the decision to pull one of his gloves off and stuff it into your open mouth. The noises immediately decrease in volume.

The pads of his fingers slide along the skin of your chest until they find one of your nipples. There, he begins stroking the nub, gently circling his thumb around it until it hardens under his touch. The stimulation is evidently starting to get to you, and your muffled shrieks for murder are now turning into strangled whines. Not that you’re being cooperative by any means, no, but now, a part of your energy is going into rejecting the pleasure that he’s offering you. It’s a beautiful sight to him. Moreover, his pupils dilate at the way the trembling of your limbs has become more and more uncoordinated. He presses down on your clit. Your breath hitches.

You come on his fingers. He feels the way your cunt constricts around them, and he can’t help but marvel at the view. After helping you ride out your high, he pulls his hand away from your bottom and brings it to his face. He inspects the digits, observing the way the dim light reflects off of the fluid coating them. He lets out an airy chuckle.

He hovers the fingers right above your eyes, presenting you with the mess you’ve made. Despite your misery, he can see the blush that has crept on your cheeks. You’re humiliated beyond repair, and he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty even when more tears fall past your lashes. He lets you know that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that ”you’re doing an excellent job”, and how you’ll be ”just fine”. The glove in your mouth suffocates your cry of despair.

He removes his hands from your body in favour of stripping himself of his blazer. You try your hardest to stay alert, racking your brain for possible ways to get yourself out of the situation, but you’re hardly even able to form coherent thoughts in the mélange of emotions your system is drowning in. In your hazy, post-orgasm state, you don’t notice the way he goes to unbuckle his belt.

It doesn’t take long for you to start flailing hysterically again when he drags your bottoms down and bares your cunt to the cold air. You muster up another fit of vigour, wildly kicking your legs in all possible directions, trying to rid yourself of his touch, but there’s only so much you can do when your wrists are firmly tied above your head. With ease, he grabs both of your ankles and gives them a squeeze. You don’t immediately comply, but when his hold tightens, you resort to trying to force your thighs shut. It’s no use, of course, and soon enough, you feel something nudging its way past your entrance.

It’s not painful aside from a tiny sting when his cock enters you. He’s not remarkably big or girthy, and he’s taking care to go slowly despite how heavenly it feels to finally have you around him. He observes your expression, the way you wring your eyes shut at the intrusion, all of it. One if his hands goes over to your hip to gently pet, trying to offer comfort or reassure you. It’s not doing much, you’re still clenching your teeth and hissing through your make-shift gag, but this is the best he’ll get for now, he supposes.

˗ˏˋ ★ 12. Preferences: What is sex with them like? What sort of stuff are they into? What kind of kinks do they have?

After a few minutes of waiting you to adjust, he starts fucking you in earnest. He lands kisses all over your neck, your face, your chest, everywhere he can possibly reach. His wings tickle your skin and caress your cheeks. His fingers stroke your breasts, your clit, your thighs. The cock inside you slides in and out without much difficulty.

In his eyes, his first time with you is the most magical time he has experienced in his life. From your point of view, all the stimuli you’re being bombarded with are threatening to fry your mind and body alike. He doesn’t seem to pay any mind to that, though, because the night will stretch on until he has had his fill.

There are two extreme ends of what Sunday is into when it comes to sex. It’s either the most intimate, gentlest time or a three-hour session where you have to fear for both your mental stability and your body. There’s one thing that never changes, though, and it’s him being in full control of the situation at all times.

You would think that he would have a submissive to him, especially since his job requires him to be stone-faced and scheming, but no. He can’t even fathom the thought of letting you take charge in any way. His morbid need for authority manifests in him taking all of his frustrations out on you in his own, personal way. It’s never necessarily a bad time for you (or if you’ve been disagreeable, it might), but it’s not something you particularly look forward to. You’ll come to find quite early on that he has got a bit of a nasty streak in him.

BDSM

It’s no surprise. The words that the acronym stands for suit his tastes to near perfection. Bondage, domination, discipline, and last but not least, sadism. It’s like the practice was created solely to cater to his needs. The last two words, submission and masochism are for you to decide, of course, but by the end of the day, you can be sure that the former will have been achieved, whether you like it or not.

He will have introduced rope and bindings into your shared life by day one, as mentioned. Obviously, you have the chains on your bed, but you didn’t realize they served an inherently sexual purpose until the first time he went through with his fantasies. Restraining you is not only effective in assuring that he can do whatever he wants with your body, but it’s also incredibly arousing for him. There’s just something, something about the way you struggle against the restraints, how you can’t do anything to stop him when his fingers caress your most sensitive areas. You can plead, you can shiver, tremble, cry, even, but ultimately, you’re completely under his mercy. He likes the rush of power that it grants him. More often than not, bondage is more for him to chase that feeling than to actually get himself off.

The bindings also extend to things like collaring you. This one is not that common of an occurrence, though, since he himself is the tiniest bit embarrassed about enjoying it, but he does have a leather choker for you in his closet. The thing is attached to a leash, naturally, and you dread the times he enters your room with the damned item in his hands.

He has two things he likes to do with you when it comes to the collar. The first one is just a simple fucking, dicking you down while he forces your head up from the pillow by tugging on the chain. He doesn’t choke you or anything, but it does make him feel some type of way when you let out a strained noise at the action.

Then, the other side is, you guessed it, good old petplay. He himself prefers not to call it that since it would insinuate that you’re just some animal he owns (he secretly gets off to the thought), but it doesn’t stop him from enjoying the act to his heart’s content. Though, if anybody were to ever find out that Sunday of the Oak Family was into this kind of stuff, he would probably leave the entire star system of Asdana, so there’s still a vague awkwardness to when he fastens the collar around your neck. He’s also putting up an act that ”no, this is not just a sexual thing”, but you would have to be pretty daft not to understand that he’s lying through his teeth.

He likes to do things like parade you around the room with you on the leash, have you sit at his feet, naked, while he "works", and do strange things like scratch you under your chin. The more shameful it makes you, the better. The cage will also gain a secondary purpose during these times, which is to simulate the pet-thing to an even more authentic degree. He hasn't yet whipped out the animal ear band, but be aware that if he enjoys the act too much, he just might.

Spreader bars are on the table, too. Especially if you’re being uncooperative, he will latch cuffs on both of your ankles before connecting them with a metal bar. No matter how hard you try to close your legs now, it’s a futile effort. Your thighs are trembling from the strain, but despite your best efforts, you can no longer hope to fight his touches off. Your entrance seems to give in further in this position, too, so he doesn’t have to coax you to relax nearly as much as usual to be able to stick his fingers or cock in.

When it comes to the things he’s not too fond of, gagging you would be at the top of the list. The concept would be a welcome addition since you hardly ever keep your mouth shut when he does his thing, but at the same time, he wants to be able to kiss you. It would be a bit difficult to slide his tongue past your lips if you had a silicone ball in between them or similar. He prefers to cover your mouth with his hand or stick his fingers in your throat to silence you instead.

Aside from all the tools, it’s the discipline part of all of it that Sunday likes the best. Sure, he enjoys using his instruments on you, and they make his job easier, but he adores making you submit to him. Talk is a big part of it. He commands you with a strict tone, telling you to open up, to stop struggling, to suck on his glove, anything he wants. He orders you to tell him exactly how it feels when his fingers rub against the walls of your cunt. If you don’t, you’ll receive a mean pinch on your nipple in retaliation. Whatever he says, goes, and you don’t get to have an opinion on the matter.

Your obedience will be rewarded with orgasms, and your disobedience will be punished with… a little more strenuous orgasms. Don’t get him wrong, both scenarios are going to end up with you coming at least once or twice, but the latter requires a bit more effort. He will edge you until you yield, until you let down your guard and submit to him. He will be satisfied with nothing but complete acquiescence. He relishes the way your pleasure is in his hands, and he will use that to his advantage.

Truly, prepare to be edged if you misbehave. Not that it will alter the eventual outcome, but he will stretch the process out until you swallow your pride, and it’s going to be a much worse time than if you were compliant. He himself has incredible amounts of self-restraint, so just leisurely fucking you or laxly fingering you bring no difficulty to him when he doesn’t want you to come just yet. It’s only feather-light strokes on your clit, brief curls of his fingers inside you, tweaking your nipples until you choke out a ”sorry”. Only when you settle down and accept his ministrations will he pleasure you into completion.

Sensory deprivation

Sunday enjoys toying with your senses. He has noticed that blindfolds work wonders to heighten your receptiveness, so he comes to ponder if going a step further would bring about an even more thrilling experience.

He ties you to a chair, naked and trembling. Your ankles are bound to the legs, your hands strain from the way he has cuffed them to the back of the chair. You can barely move; you’re able to clench your fingers and toes at most. Your vision is obscured by a black strip of fabric. The polished wood is cold against the back of your bare thighs.

He’s in the room with you, slowly walking circles around your helpless form. He wants you to hear his steps, the menacing clack of his heels against the floor. You speak out in a timid tone, hesitantly calling out for him, unsure of what is about to happen to you. He doesn’t say a thing, only prolonging the unbearable anticipation that looms upon you. It’s only after a good few minutes of him merely observing you that you feel his touch on your breasts.

He rolls your nipples in between his fingers, gently tweaking them, cupping your mounds. The warm air from his slightly laboured breaths tickles the side of your face as he inspects his work from over your shoulder. He doesn’t answer even when you whimper out his name in a frightened, hitched voice. At most, you’ll get a soft, acknowledging hum from him, but it does nothing to intervene with his actions. He doesn’t pause even for a moment, and soon, his touch starts trailing down to your lower parts.

You flinch when his hand finds your clit. Slowly, he rolls the pearl between his index and middle finger, tenderly rubbing around it in a way that has your stomach turning. His aim is not to have you come, at least not for now. His objective is to rile you up as high as possible.

Even behind the blindfold, you don’t fail to notice the colours that slither at the edges of your field of vision. The last thing you hear is a gentle ”calm yourself” before your ears go deaf. You’re not spared even a second of panic before you feel the way his digits dip into your heat. You shiver as his tongue licks a stripe up your neck, all the way to your earlobe. Despite having two of your senses disconnected, the sensory hell you’re being subjected to is beyond your wildest nightmares. It’s torture, and it’s exactly how he wants it to be. You can only hope that the sounds that erupt from your mouth are shrieks and not whimpers and moans.

Mind control

It’s something he figures out he likes after you have been subjected to the wonders of Harmony a few times. He hasn’t yet used it in a way that would bring about sexual gratification, but the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if he should give it a try despite its… morally dubious nature.

He has you in the bed. You think that it’s going to be the same routine as before: him tying you down, fucking you, and being done with it. What you don’t expect, however, is for him to grab your face and look you directly in the eye with a faint smile on his features. In a matter of seconds, your expression turns dull, and you’re completely under his clemency once again.

To his delight, he notices that he doesn’t even need to bind you down when you’re under the Harmony. He’s able to pull the strings in your mind like controlling a puppet, and although he can sense and hear your disinclined thoughts, there’s nothing you can do to resist. Telepathically, he suggests that you "lay your complaints to rest and just accept what is about to happen to you”.

Your limbs start moving on their own. No matter how hard you will your legs to close, your hands to fly out and grab at him, they won’t listen. Instead, your thighs spread apart right in front of him. Then, your own hands start unbuttoning your top. He watches the events unfold with a curious glint in his eyes, following your every movement with silent glee. You can see him perfectly clearly, all the way from the smile tugging on his lips to the slightly raised brows. Your hands move to your bottom, and you pull the article of clothing off along with your underwear.

He tells you to spread your labia for him. The sentence sends such a jolt down your spine that he’s almost concerned you could break out of the trance if it were any stronger. Still, no matter how you fight it, your fingers slowly trail down your stomach and over to your bits. There, you slowly part yourself for him to ogle at, baring your clit to his scrutiny. He seems well and truly pleased at your show, and he makes it known by leaning in and landing a kiss just under your cheekbone. Then, you feel his own hand replace yours.

It’s not just about guiding your body, either. He takes immense pleasure in making you tell him just where to prod and touch to have you unravel. He asks you things like ”how does it feel right here? What about here?” and ”is it better when I touch here or there?”. Each time, you answer candidly due to the way his powers force the truth out from between your pursed lips. He follows your instructions, and soon enough, he has you coming undone in a record time. It’s particularly endearing for him to hear all the protests and the voiceless wails that are scrambling in your brain. As a reward for your transparency, he decides to bring you to another, earth-shattering climax. You would cry if you were able.

… Soft sex?

It’s not something you expected from him. However, Sunday, against all odds, requires a session of soft, organic, missionary sex with you every once in a while to keep himself from going insane. This, somehow, is even more embarrassing for him than all the other things he makes you go through, and he would rather admit to the petplay-thing than ever confess to baring his soul to you like that.

Regardless, he needs it. He needs you. He needs to caress you, to feel you under his fingers, to understand that you’re truly there. That being said, sometimes, when you appear weary enough, sex with him will be as gentle as it gets. He doesn’t bind you down, doesn’t cuff you to the bed or try to control you with Harmony. If you thrash, the only thing he will do is take both of your hands in his and press them down on the mattress before quietly shushing directly in your ear. His forehead will press against yours when his cock sinks into you, and your bodies begin swaying back and forth in tandem.

Occasionally, you cry during these times. He doesn’t quite have it in him to console you when you do, but he does bring one of his hands to rest over your eyes. He can’t bear the sight of your tears. Not at that moment.

˗ˏˋ ★ 13. Punishment: What do their sexual punishments look like? What methods do they prefer?

One would expect Sunday to get quite creative with his sexual punishments, and one would be correct about the matter. He knows the effects that sex has on people, he understands the extent of how far it can be utilized. That being said, his methods of disciplining you through sexual means will become very familiar to you once you have faced his wrath. Prepare to be subjected to a carnal hell. Through pain, pleasure and psychological torment, he will make sure that you won’t repeat your mistake of disobeying him again. You’ll experience such overwhelming amounts of stimulation that after he’s done, you’ll be feeling his hands on you multiple days after.

He never gets particularly rough, per se. His punishments are more about how they make you feel rather than how much damage he can inflict on you. His usual approach includes things like spanking, relentless edging, choking, and humiliating you in other ways. All of them are meant to be mortifying for you, and he happens to be quite skilled at making you regret your choices.

Spanking is an easy one. Sometimes, it’s his hand, and other times, it’s a wooden paddle that he has invested in solely for this purpose. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most physically agonizing things that you’ll be exposed to during your captivity. It’s either over his lap, or he might tie your hands to the bed’s headboard and have you ass-up-face-down for him. Regardless, he’s very precise about the way his implement of choice lands hits on your butt. Your flesh jiggles along with the impact, and no amount of whining is going to get you out of it. He gives you a set amount of strikes, and you have to count them out loud, or the torment will continue into the unforeseeable future. You don’t have a choice, really.

Edging is given, too. It doesn’t require that much of him, it goes with basically zero preparation, and it’s very effective. It’s not necessarily that you’re desperate to come, but every single one of your erogenous zones will be so spent by the end of it that you feel like it would be better not to climax at all. He plays your body like a violin, plucking on your strings until you’re a sobbing mess, begging for him to have mercy on you. He won’t, however — you’re done when he says you are — and that might be in the next thirty seconds or three hours.

Choking is what he tends to do when he’s actually mad. It’s the only time that he indirectly causes pain to you when it’s not the main purpose. It’s either with the collar on, or he might use his own two hands to do it. More often than not, it’s with the latter: His fingers wrap around your neck, and before you can protest, they squeeze down around your windpipe. You can no longer get ample air into your lungs, and instinctively, you attempt to yank your hands off the shackles and get him off of your throat. His hold tightens by the second, all the while his cock is ramming directly into your sweet spot. His eyes are fixated on the way your mouth hangs wide open, where tiny wheezes of breath make it past his clutch. He doesn’t actually strangle you, of course; he makes sure that you’re getting just enough oxygen, but the sense of danger is still very much present, and that’s exactly what he’s going for.

Lastly, if you misbehave, a consequence that doesn’t directly involve touching you is him taking your clothes away. All of them. You have nothing to wear, not even underwear, and the only thing you have to cover yourself with are the sheets in the bed. It’s the pettiest thing you’ll ever see him do. He won’t regrant you the privilege until you have profusely apologized to him, either.

˗ˏˋ ★ 14. Aftermath: What does their aftercare look like? Is there any?

The aftercare depends heavily on what kind of sex the two of you have had. If it’s the usual kind (from gentle to medium rough), he’s going to be quite meticulous about it. It’s also tied to how your mental state is afterwards — sometimes he’ll go through the entire checklist of things, other times it’s only a bath with him. The bath is non-negotiable, though, no matter the occurrence. It also comes with him changing the sheets if the bed has been utilized, which is almost always.

More often than not, he’s going to perform a full check-up on your body after sex. This is especially if he has inflicted pain on you. Scarring you (physically) isn’t something he aims for despite being the reason you’re left with a considerable number of marks. That’s why, after you’re done, he takes you to the bathroom, turns on the uncomfortably bright overhead lamp, sits you down on the stool and starts going through your body limb by limb. He has the same routine nearly every time: First, the shoulders and the neck, then your arms, your back, your thighs and legs, and finally, your face. He’s very precise, and he doesn’t allow you to move during the fifteen minutes that it takes for him to do his thing. He might mumble a few words, but that’s the most you’ll get.

He’s very soft with his actions. His fingers glide over your skin with tenderness, going over the hickeys, the bitemarks, the welts, the bruises, everything. Sometimes, you can feel his touch stop at a certain spot, maybe to inspect a mole or to rub on some tiny speck he found. You might hear him let out a soft sigh before moving forward. Be aware though, that if the sex was the punishment kind, this part of the aftercare will most likely be skipped. It’s not even that big of a concern to you: It usually gets a bit tedious to sit still for as long as he’s busy with you (naked, too, mind you), but in his eyes, he’s disciplining you by leaving this extremely necessary step out.

When it comes to the bath, you will sit still and pretty in his lap in the tub, and he will wash you. Don’t attempt to clean yourself, because he’s only going to grab you by the wrist (the strength depends on whether you’ve been agreeable or not) and set your hand back down in the water. It’s a wordless way of telling you that you’re unqualified to take care of yourself in this manner. He will scrub you down thoroughly, he will wash your hair, soap you up, all of it. It’s not uncommon for it to take so long that by the time he’s done, you’re already half asleep against his bare chest.

Regardless if it’s night or not, you do tend to go to bed afterwards, he has noticed. Psychologically, sex with him is always strenuous, so it’s no wonder that you would be tired. If he doesn’t have anything better to do, he will tuck your worn body under the blankets and climb in next to you. However, more often than not, he won’t fall asleep until a few hours after. He tends to read a book or go through a few work matters before that.

There’s one exception that comes to his aftercare routine, however, and that is if you’re left in a particularly rough state after a session. He doesn’t like it himself, but he does have a weakness for tears; particularly when it comes to you. So, if you’re left sobbing after he’s done, he’ll postpone the mandatory bath in favour of soothing you. If you’ve been ”bad”, the words of consolation that he offers are more on the end of being ”you did this to yourself” and other less-than-benevolent phrases, but if not, if it’s just an ordinary time, he will genuinely attempt to alleviate your suffering. He will caress your face, neck and chest area, probably kiss you a bit, his wings will kind of come down to shield your eyes, and he will let you know how "good you were for him". Depending on the occasion, he may even get a little desperate with it; he might literally beg you to stop crying. It’s probably the weakest you’ll ever see him.

˗ˏˋ ★ 15. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes sex-wise? Are there any unique aspects to them?

It’s a relatively minor detail, but Sunday prefers to keep his clothes on during sex. The habit sometimes extends to you, as in he doesn’t undress you beyond unbuttoning or pulling up your shirt and taking your lower half off to get to the good bits. When it comes to himself, though, you’ll be lucky if he ever decides to even get rid of his gloves. It’s quite a common occurrence that he ends up fingering you with them still on. Naturally, after the act, he’ll comment on them ”being unusable”, completely ignoring the fact the same thing happens each time. He might shove the drenched piece of fabric in your mouth if your complaints regarding the matter get too loud.

It’s sort of a domination thing, too. He finds power in being the one clothed while all of you is bared to his hungry gaze. It’s especially uncomfortable since his eyes tend to rake every inch of your skin, and he seems to take pleasure in the way you squirm under his scrutiny.

Eye contact is another thing that’s really big for him. No matter the position (unless it’s one of the times when you’re blindfolded), he likes to be able to look directly in your eyes while his thrusts rock your body back and forth. Not only does it make it easier to use the Harmony on you if need be, but by observing your expression, he can figure out just what makes you tick.

It also makes sex with him exceedingly intimate. There’s nowhere you can hide from him, nothing you could redirect your mind towards. Oftentimes, he will ask you to ”look at him”, verbatim. If you decline the request, he’s sure to give you a couple extra deep pushes to change your mind. It’s less demanding to just go with his whims.

Sunday likes butt plugs. It's specifically those: He's not that big of a fan of brutish things like full-on anal: Sometimes, if he's feeling extra freaky, he might stick a finger in your ass while fucking you, but nothing beyond that. Plugs, however, do it for him. Especially the ones that have a jewel on the flat end, those are to his liking. He might have you wear one for a long while, too, especially as a minor punishment.

He likes putting in the thing himself. He has you face down in the pillow, hands tied behind your back as you wouldn't stop protesting, and he meticulously lubes up your rear hole. His fingers spread the liquid around, occasionally dipping in, rubbing around your rim. He coats the toy in the substance as well, and soon after, you feel the rounded tip pushing into you. One of his hands is stroking on your hip, trying to get you to relax so he can nudge the entire thing in.

He might prolong the process on purpose, too. Just as the widest part of the plug is about to slip in, he pulls it back. Your hole contracts as the stretch disappears. He repeats the action a few times, probably fingering your cunt at the same time just to maximize the stimulation, and he watches with great satisfaction as the toy finally sinks in all the way. You let out a high-pitched whine. The strain in his pants is nearly unbearable.

Oh, and if you want to embarrass his prudish ass, make sure to talk to him about sex as much as possible. Despite all the stuff he does to your poor body, due to his inhibited nature regarding the subject, he gets horribly uncomfortable when you bring the matter up. It’s reverse psychology at its best, and if you make him awkward enough, you might very well receive an exemption from the night’s session. If his actions have been especially nefarious lately, it’s possible that you may even get an apology from him. It’s not a promise to never do it again, though, because he absolutely will, but it gives you a break from it at least. And, another reason to go through with it is because it’s… kind of funny. It’s a rare treat to see the man so flustered.

A/N

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