#;;TIMELESS GAMES (Crack)

[the-punforgiven]

Im curious, for people who have beaten the Shadow of the Erdtree final boss, rb and put in the tags how you did it!

(Don't say who it is though, I've still got mutuals who haven't played it and are avoiding spoilers lol)

[reissancesstuff]

The Name Game (And Pills Are Not Included)

Genre: Mafia Fluff, Domestic Chaos, Crack Comedy

Sanzu blew a party horn and looked entirely too smug for someone who almost knocked over the cake earlier.

“So. It’s a boy. Now we need a name worthy of his legacy,” he said, puffing his chest.

You raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t say—”

“I was thinking,” Sanzu continued proudly, “Xanazuki Midoripin.”

“…What the hell is that?” Rindou asked, half-asleep and scrolling through name websites on his phone.

Sanzu flipped his pink hair and said, “A combination of my three favorite pills.”

You looked at him dead in the eyes. “I’m not naming my child after your pills, Sanzu.”

Sanzu gasped, clutching his chest like he was mortally wounded. “I’m offended! My pills have saved lives—my life, mostly!”

Meanwhile—

Ran and Mochi were arguing by the snack table.

“Takatora sounds strong!” Ran insisted.

“Sounds like a dinosaur,” Mochi countered, crossing his arms. “Go with Daiki. Classic. Cool. Easy to write.”

Takeomi, with a cigar in hand, shrugged. “Just name him after something timeless… like Montecristo.”

“Takeomi, that’s literally a cigar brand,” you muttered.

Kokonoi raised a hand. “Okay but what about something like Benjamin, you know? As in Benjamins? Money? Dollars? It suits the legacy.”

“…Are we naming a baby or a startup company?” Rindou mumbled, still scrolling. “Here. Zephyros. Greek. Means west wind. Sounds like a Final Fantasy boss.”

You stared at the ceiling. “Why are all of you like this?”

Kakucho just sighed, visibly restraining himself from flipping a table.

Mikey, who had been quietly sitting next to you, finally stood up. One firm stomp. The room fell silent.

He turned to the chaos crew and said calmly but firmly:

“We have a name already.”

Everyone turned.

You held up a whiteboard with a soft smile.

In neat blue lettering, it read:

KAITO

Silence.

Then—Ran sniffled. “Okay… that’s cute.”

Sanzu wiped a fake tear. “I still think Xanazuki would've hit harder but… okay.”

Takeomi muttered, “Kaito Montecristo could’ve worked—”

“No.” said half the room.

Kokonoi nodded. “Kaito. It means ‘ocean’ and ‘soar.’ That’s solid.”

Mikey moved to your side, gently placing a hand on your stomach.

“Our son,” he said with a rare, warm smile. “Kaito Sano.”

---

Bonus Ending:

Sanzu: “Can his nickname at least be Zuki?”

You: “No.”

Sanzu: “Kai-Zuki? Hybrid? Fusion? Please?”

Ran: “Shut up before she names him Mochi Jr. out of spite.”

Mochi: “Actually…”

You: “Absolutely not.”

[holokitti]

blood moon — ldh

‧˚⭒ pairing: lee donghyuck x afab!reader. 18+MDNI ‧˚⭒ genre: thriller!au, horror!themes, smut. ‧˚⭒ word count: 9.2k ‧˚⭒ warnings: mentions of death, blood, magic, sharp objects, dark entities, clowns, smut. ‧˚⭒ starring: haechan, jihyo, ningning, chenle, jeno, jaemin, jisung, mark. ‧˚⭒ summary: in the middle of nowhere where shadows lie beneath the surface, you're led back to a place that unravels your past. in this cursed place, time is of the essence, only to meet donghyuck, the one capable of setting you free.

The small, dimly lit room feels suffocating, the walls pressing in on you with an almost deliberate weight. You draw your knees up to your chest, sitting on the edge of the creaky bed, your head lightly resting against the cold glass of the window. Tonight was supposed to be perfect, yet an invisible unease clings to you, wrapping itself around your thoughts.

You were back at your family’s old cabin, surrounded by friends who had come to this remote countryside to celebrate the annual festival. This land, once the backdrop of your childhood, was now a nostalgic glimpse into a life you hadn’t revisited in years. Sharing this piece of your past with the people closest to you had felt like a good idea. Yet, something about being here again unsettled you in ways you couldn’t explain.

Earlier in the day, the town had been alive with energy. Crowds of locals and visitors had flooded the streets, some dressed up to honor the town’s peculiar traditions. There were games, horse rides, and even the timeless festival classic: bobbing for apples—though you’d never been a fan. Watching your friends laugh and immerse themselves in the festivities had been enough to keep a smile on your face. But beneath the surface, an inexplicable weight lingered, heavy and persistent.

The cabin creaked softly in the night breeze, the faint smell of aged wood and pine wafting through the air. Outside, the dense woods stood like silent sentinels, their gnarled branches clawing at the smoky sky. The moon hung low, its hue casting an eerie glow over the landscape. Somewhere in the distance, the faint sound of music drifted through the trees—a melody so soft it felt more like a memory than reality.

A soft knock at your door broke the silence, making you flinch.

“You doing okay?” Jihyo asked, leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed.

Her presence immediately comforted you. Something about the way she stood reminded you of your mother, a bittersweet memory you hadn’t expected to surface tonight.

“I’m okay, Jihyo,” you replied softly, your gaze distant. “Just… taking it all in.”

She gave you a gentle smile and stepped into the room. The matching flannel pajamas she wore, along with the rest of your group, brought a sense of warmth to the chilly evening. A cool breeze slipped through the cracked window, brushing against your skin like a ghost of the past.

“We had so much fun today,” she said, sitting beside you on the bed, the old frame groaning under her weight. “Ningning won’t stop talking about the horseback dude who asked for her number.” She rolled her eyes playfully, letting out a small laugh.

You couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking your head. “Sounds like Ningning.”

For a moment, the two of you sat in silence, your eyes drawn to the window. The night sky stretched endlessly, the moon casting a faint, eerie glow over the land.

“Take a look at that,” Jihyo said suddenly, her voice filled with awe. “It’s a blood moon.”

Your gaze shifted upward, and there it was—a smoky red orb suspended in the heavens. Its haunting beauty mesmerized you. For a moment, you thought the light seemed to pulse, almost beckoning, though you dismissed it as a trick of your mind.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jihyo smiled and pulled you into a gentle hug. “I know how much this place means to you,” she began softly, her words carrying a rare tenderness. “And I know how hard this time of year must be, especially being back here. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to lose both parents, but I want you to know I care about you. We all do. And if it helps, we can make this a yearly thing—just us, with good food and drinks, hanging out in the countryside. How does that sound?”

Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. You nodded instead, swallowing the lump in your throat. “That sounds really nice. Thank you, Ji. I appreciate it.”

She hugged you one last time before standing and heading for the door. “Goodnight,” she said, smiling back at you as she closed the door behind her.

Exhaustion crept over you like a heavy blanket as the house settled into stillness. You slipped under the covers, the warmth lulling you into a dreamless sleep.

A soft whisper cuts through the silence.

“Come…”

Your eyes fluttered open, disoriented. The room was bathed in shadow, the faint glow of the moon casting eerie streaks of red across the walls. You sat up, straining to hear, and rubbing your eyes. The whisper came again, louder this time.

“Come find us…”

It was faint but unmistakable, the voice achingly familiar. Your heart skipped a beat as chills raced down your spine. You swung your legs over the edge of the bed, every nerve in your body on high alert.

The red light outside pulsed faintly, casting the woods in an otherworldly glow. The whispers seemed to wrap around you, tugging at your very soul. You glanced toward your now opened door, the adjoining guest room, where your friends were fast asleep. Their soft snores and murmurs reassured you they were blissfully unaware of the eerie disturbance.

Your feet moved almost of their own accord as you slipped on a pair of shoes and grabbed a sweater. The wooden floor creaked under your weight as you tiptoed out of the room, careful not to wake anyone. The cabin door groaned softly as you eased it open, the cool night air biting at your skin.

The whispers grew louder, clearer, as if guiding you.

“Come find us… we’re waiting.”

With one last glance at the cabin, you stepped into the woods, the pulsing red light ahead of you like a beacon.

You didn’t look back.

The whispers grew louder, drowning out the crunch of leaves beneath your hurried steps. The pulsating red light loomed closer with every breath, an unnatural urgency filling the air and compelling you forward.

“Sweetheart…” The familiar voice reached your ears, tender yet chilling, like a memory resurrected from the depths of your mind.

“M-Mom?” Your voice cracked, trembling as you stumbled forward, breaking into a run.

This couldn’t be real. It was impossible. Your mind grappled for an explanation. Was this a dream—a vivid, warped projection of your subconscious? Maybe you were caught in a lucid nightmare, wandering through some uncharted corner of your own mind. Yet, the cold air stung your skin, and the steady thudding of your heart told you otherwise.

Finally, you stopped, your breath catching as you stared, wide-eyed, at the scene unfurling before you.

A carnival.

Towering red-and-white-striped tents stretched high into the night sky, glowing unnaturally under the moon’s light. Flashing bulbs blinked erratically, casting shadows that danced with unsettling energy. The air was thick with the syrupy scent of popcorn and candied apples, mingling with the faint metallic tang of something unrecognizable. Strangers in capes and masks strolled arm in arm, their laughter melodic and strangely distorted.

Something about the place was deeply, fundamentally wrong.

“What… is this?” you murmured, your voice breaking as you took in the chaos. You stood frozen, painfully aware of how your pajama-clad form stood out against the surreal revelry of the carnival-goers. Their gazes lingered too long, curious and invasive, making your skin crawl.

“WELCOME IN, FOLKS!” boomed a voice from above. You jumped, startled, and turned to see a figure perched impossibly high on stilts, towering over the crowd. His face was a riot of bright, garish paint, his grin stretched unnaturally wide across his face.

“I, Chenle, your gracious host, welcome you to the annual Blood Moon Celebration! Grab your tickets and make your way to the freak show!” His voice rose and fell theatrically, delighting the crowd with every exaggerated gesture.

The air buzzed with cheers and applause as he gestured grandly toward a smaller, dimly lit tent behind him. Then, as if drawn by some unseen force, his gaze locked on you. His grin faltered for the briefest moment, a flicker of something—recognition?—flashing in his sharp eyes.

He tilted his head, studying you with unnerving intensity, before his grin reappeared, wider and more calculated than before.

Balancing with ease, he descended his stilts, each movement precise and deliberate as he made his way toward you. His painted face loomed closer, his sharp eyes scrutinizing every detail of your appearance.

“You…” His voice was quieter now, almost a whisper, laced with something unreadable. “I’ve never seen you here before, Miss. Do you have your ticket?”

The weight of his gaze was suffocating, like a spotlight trained on you. You swallowed hard, your voice faltering. “N-No. I’m visiting my hometown with my friends. I don’t remember there ever being a carnival… especially not during this time.”

His sharp eyes raked over you once more, his painted grin frozen in place. For a moment, you thought he might dismiss you—or worse, see right through you; but then, like a switch had been flipped, his grin stretched impossibly wider, his painted cheeks crinkling unnaturally.

“Well, well,” he said, voice bubbling with false cheer, “I’m sure the ringmaster will make an exception for you and your friends. Speaking of which…” His gaze darted past you, his grin unwavering. “Where are the rest of the bunch?” His voice dipped lower, feigning casual curiosity while his eyes scanned the shadows behind you.

A chill ran down your spine as you realized you hadn’t even thought about your friends. “I… I’m here alone,” you admitted, unsure if that was the right answer. Every instinct screamed at you to turn back, but his painted face held you in place, a sinister magnetism radiating from him.

For a moment, Chenle’s body stilled, his movements unnaturally controlled. Then, his eyes widened with exaggerated excitement, and he gasped loudly, clasping his hands together in delight. “Even better!” he exclaimed, voice rising with manic glee. “Come on in and enjoy the show!”

With a grand sweep of his arm, he gestured toward the main tent, the light inside pulsating like a beating heart.

You hesitate before stepping forward, Chenle’s lingering gaze burning into the back of your head. A chill creeps down your spine, but you shake it off, convincing yourself this must all be a dream—nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

As you step into the tent, the world transforms into a chaotic burst of color and sound. Confetti rains down from above, swirling through the air like a storm of celebration. A thick rope stretches across the audience, separating them from the performers. Jesters glide effortlessly on unicycles, their painted faces lit by flickering stage lights. Clowns honk their oversized noses, their wide, artificial grins aimed directly at you as you pass.

Your eyes dart nervously around the space, searching for an escape or a distraction. The only open seat is at the very front of the stage, directly under the spotlight. Swallowing hard, you make your way toward it, each step weighted with unease. As you sit, you sense every pair of eyes in the room shifting toward you, an unspoken curiosity in their stares.

Beside you, a cloaked figure sits unnaturally still, his face hidden beneath a stark white mask. Slowly, almost too slowly, he turns his head to look at you. Without saying a word, he raises a hand and waves.

Your stomach twists, but you manage to lift your hand in return, offering a weak, trembling wave. A strange weight settles over you—a pull, almost magnetic, keeping you rooted to your seat. Every instinct screams at you to leave, to run back to your friends and the safety of the cabin, but your body refuses to move. It’s as though the air itself has wrapped around you, binding you in place.

“You must be new,” the masked figure says suddenly, his voice muffled but friendly.

Before you can respond, he lifts the mask, revealing a strikingly handsome face. His dark eyes are sharp yet cheery, his smile so charming it feels out of place in the eerie setting. The sight of him loosens some of the tension in your chest—he looks normal. Safe.

“I’m Jeno,” he says, extending a hand.

You hesitate before shaking it, introducing yourself. You study his features closely. There’s something oddly familiar about him, but you can’t place it. “You look… familiar.”

He chuckles softly, his laugh low and pleasant. “I think I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”

Your cheeks flush as you quickly glance away. The compliment feels genuine, but it catches you off guard, especially in such a surreal environment. “So, what is this place?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jeno leans back in his seat, a casual confidence in his posture. “It’s a late-night tradition that started a few years back,” he explains.

The timeline aligns with when you left for university, but unease creeps back into your chest. The way he speaks about the carnival feels rehearsed, as though he’s said these words to countless others before.

“The circus only comes around for special occasions,” Jeno continues, his voice steady but laced with something you can’t quite name. “This year’s theme is the blood moon. Guess they wanted to add a little extra mystery to the usual town festivities. This is my third year here. It’s funky, but fun.”

As he speaks, something clicks in the back of your mind. You’ve seen him before—or someone who looks like him. The memory is hazy, but it sharpens with every passing second. It was in a news article years ago, about a man who had gone missing from the area. The resemblance is uncanny.

Your throat tightens as you glance at him again, searching for any sign that he recognizes you, too. Jeno’s expression remains calm, unreadable. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, you tell yourself. Maybe the lights and the atmosphere are playing tricks on your mind.

“The show’s about to start,” Jeno says suddenly, breaking the silence. His lips curl into a sly smirk as he adjusts his mask back into place. “You don’t want to miss this.”

His words send a shiver through you. There’s something unsettling about the way he says it—playful, yet cryptic. Before you can respond, the stage lights dim, and the crowd erupts into cheers.

The curtains rise, revealing a kaleidoscope of performers in elaborate costumes. A dancer twirls at the center, her movements hypnotic under the spotlight. The air fills with a haunting melody, each note wrapping around you like a spell.

Jeno leans slightly closer, his mask glinting in the dim light. “You’ll want to pay attention to this part,” he whispers, his tone carrying an edge of excitement.

Your hands grip the edge of your seat as the performance unfolds, a sense of foreboding settling deep in your chest. Whatever this is, it’s far from ordinary.

The performance was truthfully very entertaining. You were engrossed by all the acts—the dances, the daring stunts, and even the silly little fights between the clowns. It wasn’t until the end of the performance that the spotlight shined on a few new faces standing at the center of the stage.

There were two men; the one on the right with striking white hair wore a tag that read “JAEMIN”, but it was the man in the center who immediately caught your eye.

He stood with an aura of confidence, his movements deliberate and captivating. The light reflected off his beautifully tan skin, and his black, slicked hair glistened under the stage lights. His dark eyes carried a heavy intensity, as though they could pierce right through you. He was dressed in all black, his fitted attire complemented by gloves and a cane, which seemed purely for dramatic flair. His name tag simply read, “HAECHAN.”

"As for the grand finale!" Haechan’s unique, rich voice echoed through the tent, pulling everyone into his gravity.

That voice. It sent a chill down your spine. Despite being front row, you found yourself leaning forward, desperate for a closer look. You cursed yourself for how intoxicating you found him, annoyed by your own curiosity and attraction.

Two assistants wheeled out a young man strapped to a table, his torso encased in a box, his face carried a nervous smile, betraying his unease.

“My lovely assistant here—” Haechan gestured toward Jaemin, whose smirk was both charming and sinister. “Will perform our infamous sword box trick on the ever-so-gracious volunteer, Jisung.”

The crowd cheered wildly as Jaemin stepped forward, dramatically unsheathing a long, gleaming sword. He spun it in his hands with practiced precision, earning gasps and applause.

You, however, felt an unease prick at the back of your mind. Something about this didn’t feel like an ordinary performance.

Jaemin’s grin widened as he lined the sword up with the box. Haechan raised his arms dramatically, rallying the audience with his booming voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you, this is an illusion of the highest skill. Prepare yourselves for the impossible!”

Jaemin plunged the sword into the box with terrifying speed.

At first, you expected silence. For Jisung to feign a scream, for the illusion to go off without a hitch, but the sound that filled the tent wasn’t pretend.

Jisung’s screams were gut-wrenching, his body convulsing as blood spilled over the edges of the box.

The crowd erupted into cheers and applause, but you couldn’t move. The scene felt wrong—too real, too visceral.

You ran toward the stage, desperate to stop the performance. “Stop! He’s hurt! This isn’t a trick!”

The audience’s laughter turned into a low murmur, but Haechan’s gaze snapped to you like a predator locking onto prey. His lips curled into a grin, dark and calculating, his piercing eyes gleaming under the crimson light.

“You…” he murmured, almost inaudibly.

Jaemin, unfazed by the chaos, twirled another sword in his hand with eerie precision. “Time for the finale!” he announced, his voice dripping with showmanship.

“No!” you screamed, trying to climb over the rope line to reach the stage, but a pair of clowns grabbed your arms, pulling you back into the crowd.

Jaemin plunged the final sword into the box. Jisung’s screams echoed through the tent, chilling you to your core. Blood pooled from the base of the box, the metallic scent thick in the air.

Your heart pounded as tears pricked your eyes. “He’s dying!” you shouted, thrashing against the clowns holding you. “Somebody stop this!”

But the crowd roared with laughter and applause, cheering louder than ever as if nothing was wrong.

The lights flickered once, twice, and then everything went dark. Gasps rippled through the audience, and you froze in the suffocating darkness, your breath caught in your throat.

A single spotlight blazed back on, illuminating the stage.

Jisung was standing. His body was whole, unharmed, not a single trace of blood in sight. He stood beside Haechan and Jaemin, both of whom bowed deeply to the roaring crowd. Confetti rained down as if nothing had happened.

Your stomach churned. Your eyes darted between the three men on stage, your mind screaming at you that this wasn’t just a trick. You had seen the blood, heard the screams. It was real.

You shoved your way through the sea of clapping hands, panic and confusion clouding your thoughts. You needed to get out, to breathe, to make sense of this.

As you stumbled through the tent flap and into the night air, you collided with something—or rather, someone.

“Whoa there,” a smooth voice said. Strong hands steadied you, keeping you upright.

You looked up, your breath catching as you met Haechan’s intense gaze. His face was just as captivating up close, his dark eyes glittering with something unreadable.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked, his tone dripping with amusement. “The show’s only just begun.”

You took a step back, your body trembling. “What… What was that? That wasn’t a trick. I saw—”

“Blood?” he interrupted, his grin widening. “You must be mistaken. Our performers are highly skilled. It’s all an illusion.”

“No,” you said firmly, your voice shaking. “I know what I saw. That man—he was screaming—”

“Perhaps your imagination got the better of you,” he said, his tone smooth and condescending.

The way he stared at you, like a cat toying with a mouse, sent a wave of unease through you. You shook your head, taking another step back. “I need to leave.”

Haechan tilted his head, his grin never faltering. “Go ahead, but you’ll be back.”

His words clung to you like a curse as you turned and bolted, the sound of his low chuckle echoing behind you. You ran as far as your legs could carry you, not daring to look back. Dream or not, everything about this place felt wrong. Your chest heaved as you made it past the stand where Chenle once stood, and without a second thought, you made a beeline straight toward the exit.

Only to find yourself… entering again?

“W-What… No, no, no,” you stammered, panic settling deep in your bones. You turned and tried again, running faster, more desperately, but every time you crossed the threshold, you were spat back to the same spot.

It was like a cruel loop, trapping you in its surreal embrace.

“Stuck?” a smooth voice startled you.

You whipped around to find Haechan standing a few steps away, arms crossed, a smirk playing on his lips. His gaze was dark and amused as he watched you, your chest rising and falling with frantic breaths.

“Let me out,” you demanded through gritted teeth, the fire in your voice masking the growing unease in your chest.

“Perhaps it’s best if you follow me,” he said, extending his arm toward you in an oddly polite gesture. “That’s if you truly wish to leave.”

You eyed him warily, your heart racing. There was something disarming about his charm, but every instinct screamed at you not to trust him. Still, what choice did you have? You nodded slowly, stepping toward him but ignoring his offered arm.

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, his grin unwavering. He turned and began walking, and you hesitated for a moment before falling into step beside him.

The two of you weaved through the bustling carnival crowd. Strangely, people seemed to part like the sea as Haechan walked by. Some stopped to bow at him, their faces expressionless, while others whispered in hushed tones or pulled their companions out of his path.

You couldn’t ignore the growing question in your mind. Who is this man?

The further you walked, the quieter the carnival became. The music and laughter faded into an eerie stillness as Haechan led you away from the chaos and toward a secluded area far from the lights and festivities. Finally, you stopped in front of a large, ornate tent, its fabric shimmering under the crimson light of the blood moon.

“This is my home,” Haechan said, gesturing for you to step inside. “It’s quieter here. We can talk.”

You hesitated at the entrance, your gaze darting between him and the ominous structure. “What are you going to do?”

“Talk,” he repeated, his tone calm yet laced with impatience. “Unless you’d rather keep running in circles.”

Swallowing your fear, you stepped inside. The interior was surprisingly luxurious, adorned with plush velvet seating, velvet bedding, golden trinkets, and flickering candles that cast long shadows across the walls. It felt strangely intimate, though the air carried an unshakable sense of foreboding.

Haechan walked past you, settling into a chair and gesturing for you to sit across from him. Reluctantly, you obeyed.

“So,” you began, your voice shaky, “what is this place? Why can’t I leave?”

Haechan leaned back, resting his chin on his hand as he studied you. “You’re stuck here,” he said simply. “Just like the rest of us.”

His nonchalance sent a chill down your spine. “Stuck? What do you mean?”

“This carnival isn’t what it seems,” he said, his tone growing somber. “Everyone you’ve seen tonight—the performers, the guests, even me—aren’t alive in the way you understand. We’re spirits, cursed to live in an endless cycle.”

Your heart sank as his words sank in. “Why? Why are you cursed?”

Haechan’s smirk faltered for the first time, replaced by a distant, pained expression. “Because of me,” he admitted. “Years ago, I made a mistake. I was desperate to save someone I loved, my best friend Mark. He… died too young, too tragically. I couldn’t accept it.”

Your breath caught. “What did you do?”

“I summoned something,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “A dark entity, one that promised to bring Mark back in exchange for a price. I thought it would be something simple. I was wrong.”

His jaw tightened, and his hands curled into fists. “The price was this carnival. My soul, and the lost souls of those who entered, would belong to the entity. We would perform endlessly, night after night, to entertain it. As long as Mark remains alive, this cycle continues.”

Your stomach churned. “If Mark is alive after all these years, can’t you stop? Can’t you break the cycle?”

Haechan shook his head. “Mark probably doesn’t remember me, his soul is forever immortal, and I can’t leave. The demon made sure of that. I’m trapped here, forever watching over this hellish spectacle.”

His words hung heavy in the air, the weight of his confession suffocating. You stared at him, trying to process everything. The charming, confident man you had seen earlier now looked vulnerable, haunted by centuries of regret.

“But why me?” you asked. “Why am I stuck here?”

“I don’t know,” Haechan admitted, his gaze locking with yours. “But the fact that you’re here, that you can see through the glamour, means you’re different— and that terrifies me.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but the words caught in your throat. You couldn’t deny the pull you felt toward him, the way his pain resonated with you. Yet, the thought of being trapped here forever sent shivers down your spine.

Haechan’s voice softened. “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this, but if you want to survive here, or at least find a way out before sunrise, you’ll need to trust me.”

His words left you conflicted. Trust him? The man who admitted to summoning a dark entity and cursing countless lives? Yet, as his dark eyes searched yours, you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was your only ally in this twisted nightmare.

Haechan sat across from you in the quiet solace of his tent, the air heavy with the weight of the truth he’d just revealed. His expression softened as he leaned forward, his hands clasped tightly together.

“This tent has been glamoured,” he explained. “No spirit, entity, or curse can touch us here. It’s the only place where you’re safe.”

You glanced around the dimly lit space, noticing the intricate symbols etched into the canvas walls. A faint hum seemed to vibrate through the air, a quiet magic you couldn’t quite grasp. Though his words were meant to reassure you, they only deepened your confusion.

“You’re telling me this whole carnival, everyone here… they’re lost spirits?” you asked, your voice trembling.

He nodded solemnly. “Every single one. Bound here to perform endlessly. Now, you’re a part of it, only you’re alive.”

The words hit you like a punch to the chest. You were desperate to find an answer, to find a way out, but as your thoughts spiraled, flashes of your past came unbidden; your mother’s gentle voice as she read you bedtime stories, the warm glow of your father’s laugh as he told you tales of old, and the cryptic conversations you’d had with them before they passed.

“Sweetheart, you have a light in you,” your mother had once said, her hand brushing against your cheek. “One day, that light will guide you somewhere important.”

“But why me?” you whispered to yourself, the memory blurring into the present.

Haechan’s voice broke through your reverie. “You’re holding something back. What is it?”

You hesitated, unwilling to share the lingering suspicion that your parents had somehow lured you here. Instead, you shook your head. “Nothing… I just—this doesn’t make sense.”

Haechan frowned but didn’t press further. “There’s one place that might help you understand,” he said after a pause. “The Mirror Maze.”

“The Mirror Maze?” you repeated, the name alone sending a chill down your spine.

He nodded, his tone more serious now. “It’s where no performer dares to go. The maze reveals the deepest fears and memories of anyone who steps inside. It’s dangerous, unpredictable. Even I can’t enter, it’s the one place my spirit doesn’t have power.”

Your breath caught in your throat. “So, you think it might help me?”

“I’m not completely sure,” he admitted. “But if there’s a clue about why you’re here—or how to break the curse—it might be there, and as someone whose still alive, you’re the only one who can find out.”

You felt a lump form in your throat but nodded, “Take me there.” 

The entrance to the Mirror Maze loomed before you, a twisted archway draped in dark velvet, the words “Face Thyself” etched ominously above it. Haechan stopped at the threshold, his expression grim.

“This is as far as I can go,” he said quietly, his eyes locking onto yours. “Be careful. The maze doesn’t lie, and it doesn’t show mercy.”

You swallowed hard, stepping through the archway. Instantly, the air grew cold, the dim light of the carnival fading behind you. The mirrors stretched endlessly in every direction, reflecting distorted versions of yourself—some familiar, some eerily foreign.

“Hello?” you called out, your voice echoing.

The reflections shimmered, and suddenly, the maze came to life.

One mirror glowed brighter than the rest, drawing your attention. In its reflection, you saw Haechan, but not as you knew him. His black suit was replaced with simple, worn clothes. His laughter rang out as he was with a younger man, under a summer sun.

“Donghyuck, don’t go!” His voice echoed through the maze, his fragile frame chasing after him.

“Mark…?” you gasped, recognizing the younger version of the name Haechan had mentioned.

The scene shifted, they’re older now. Mark was lying in a clearing, blood staining his clothes. Haechan kneeled beside him, his hands shaking as he tried to stop the bleeding. Tears streaked down his face as he begged, “Don’t leave me. Please, I’ll do anything.”

The air grew colder as the mirror rippled, revealing Haechan standing alone in the same clearing. His expression was hollow as he held a weathered book, its pages inked with symbols that seemed to crawl across the surface. His voice was shaky, desperate.

“I’ll give anything,” he whispered into the void. “Bring him back.”

A dark figure emerged from the shadows, its form obscured by smoke and tendrils of darkness. Though its face was hidden, the presence was suffocating. The entity’s voice slithered through the air, low and haunting.

“Anything, you say?” it hissed. “Love, devotion, life—pour it all into this wish, and you shall have what you desire.”

Haechan didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Take it all. Just bring Mark back.”

The scene shifted again, and you watched as the entity consumed Haechan’s love, twisting it into a curse. The same love that fueled his wish now tethered him to the carnival, an eternal performer trapped in a cycle to entertain the entity.

The mirror rippled once more, and your reflection appeared. Only, it wasn’t just you. Your parents stood beside you, their faces hollow and eyes void of life.

“You let us go,” your mother’s voice accused. “You couldn’t save us.”

“Stop!” you cried, reaching for the reflection, but the glass was cold and unyielding.

“Your light is fading,” your father added, his voice cruel and distant. “Now, you’ll be trapped here forever.”

The reflection twisted, and suddenly, you were staring at yourself—alone, aged, and hollow-eyed, forever wandering the carnival grounds.

“No!” you screamed, stumbling backward. The surrounding mirrors cracked with a deafening noise, sending you into a panic.

You bolted through the maze, desperate to escape. At last, you stumbled out of the exit, gasping for air as you collapsed onto the grass.

“Breathe,” Haechan’s voice said urgently as he crouched beside you, his hands steadying you. His palm rubbed circles on your back, and the sensation sent a jolt through you—a feeling almost electric. Your skin buzzed where he touched you, and a strange familiarity bloomed in your chest.

He felt it too. His hand froze for a split second before he continued, brushing it off as you did. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Your chest heaved as you clung to him, the images still flashing in your mind. “I saw you. I saw your past—Donghyuck.”

Haechan froze, his grip on you tightening. “How do you know that name?”

“It was in the maze,” you whispered. “That’s your real name, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly, his eyes dark and unreadable. “It is.”

“What happened?” you asked, your voice trembling.

He hesitated, but then his shoulders sagged, and he looked at you with a vulnerability you hadn’t seen before. “I made a mistake—a terrible one. And now we’re all paying the price for it.”

Your breaths had finally steadied, but the weight of what you'd just seen pressed heavily on your chest. The air around him seemed heavier now, his usual confidence dimmed by the vulnerability in his expression. His hand lingered on your back, as though grounding both himself and you.

"Donghyuck," you began softly, "how did Mark really die? And why did you have that book?"

His body stiffened, and for a moment, you thought he might brush off the question. Then his hand fell away, and he exhaled deeply, running a hand through his dark hair.

"I guess you deserve to know," he muttered, his voice thick with regret. "Mark... he wasn't just my best friend. He was like a brother to me. We did everything together-built dreams, made plans, fought over stupid things, but one day, everything changed.”

You stayed silent, giving him space to continue. He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes fixed on a spot on the ground, as if he couldn't bear to meet your gaze.

"I found this book," he said finally. "It was old, leather-bound, and covered in strange symbols. It looked like something out of a bad horror movie. I thought it was a joke-a prop someone left behind in a dusty attic, but the more I read, the more... real it felt. The spells in it, they worked.”

"Spells?" you echoed, your heart pounding.

He nodded. "At first, it was little things. Moving objects, changing the weather, making small things happen that shouldn't have been possible. I didn't think about the consequences—was too caught up in the power. I thought I could do anything. Be anything."

He paused, his jaw tightening. "Then... one day, Mark and I got into a fight. It was over something so stupid I can't even remember it now—but I was angry-so angry.

I let the power go to my head. I used the energy l'd built up from practicing the spells.

I wanted to scare him, to make him stop yelling. I didn't realize how strong l'd gotten.

He swallowed hard, his voice breaking. "The energy hit him full force. It wasn't just a scare—it... It killed him. Right there in front of me.”

Your breath hitched. "Oh my god..."

Haechan's hands trembled as he continued.

"I was devastated. I didn't mean to-he was my best friend. I'd do anything to take it back. That's when the book showed me something else; a way to bring him back."

He glanced at you, his dark eyes filled with shame. "I didn't care about the cost. I summoned... something. An entity. It promised to bring Mark back, but l'd have to trade my soul and spend eternity entertaining it."

"And Mark?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

"He was brought back... somewhere," Haechan said, his voice hollow. " I haven’t seen him since. It's like he exists in the world, but I can't reach him. I've been stuck here ever since, performing for the entity that cursed me. Reminding me of my past and reminding me I can never get my best friend back.”

You look at Donghyuck, his eyes reflecting the faint glow of the carnival’s lights, and feel a knot tighten in your chest. The pieces are starting to come together, though they’re jagged and painful to hold. “My parents,” you say hesitantly, your voice low but steady. “They died so suddenly. It never made sense. Now… Now I think their souls are tied here, just like the others. Maybe that’s why I was lured here. Maybe it wasn’t just this place calling to me—it was them.”

Donghyuck’s expression falters, the angry glint in his eyes replaced by something more somber. He doesn’t speak right away, and you press on, needing him to confirm what your heart already knows. “You knew them, didn’t you?”

He shakes his head, his gaze steady but solemn. “No,” he says firmly. “I didn’t know your parents, but if their souls really are tethered to this place like we think they are, then we need to break the curse now. We can’t waste any more time.”

The air feels heavy, almost suffocating, as the truth settles over you. All this time, the whispers had felt familiar, like the voices of the people you’d lost. Now you understand why—they weren’t just figments of the curse. They were real. “So, if I help you break the curse…” You look at him, your voice tightening with emotion. “I can free them too?”

He meets your gaze, the vulnerability in his eyes raw and unguarded. “If we do this right, yes. You can free them. The others too. All of us.”

The thought of freeing not just your parents, but every soul trapped in this wretched carnival, stirs something fierce inside you. “Then I’ll help you,” you say, the words firm and sure. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Donghyuck’s eyes widen, and for a moment, he looks like you’ve spoken a foreign language. “You’d really want to help me?” he asks, his voice tinged with disbelief and something else—hope.

“Yes,” you say, stepping closer. “We don’t have much time. This place resets at dawn, right? We need to get to your tent and find that spell book.”

He nods, snapping out of his shock. “Follow me,” he says, leading you through the twisting paths of the carnival. The whispers grow louder as you walk, almost guiding your steps. Despite the danger ahead, you feel a strange sense of clarity. This is where you’re meant to be, and for the first time, you believe you have the power to change how this story ends.

The weight of the spell book feels heavy in your hands, its leather cover pulsating faintly with an eerie warmth, as if alive. You stare at it, your mind racing with the realization that has gripped you. The darkness that spurs out of it. The book itself—this cursed, vile object—has been the entity all along. It’s not just a tool; it’s the root of everything. The curse. The carnival. The cycle. The deaths. It’s a trap.

Donghyuck stands frozen, his dark eyes widen with fear, realizing your intentions. “Stop— you can’t destroy it,” he says, his voice trembling. “If you do that, there’s no way out. No way to help me. No way to help Mark. No way for us to ever—” His voice cracks, and for the first time, you hear true desperation in his tone. “Please.”

You step closer, gripping the book tighter. “Donghyuck, I know this is hard. But this—this thing—it’s been keeping all of us trapped. You, Mark, my parents, everyone. If we don’t destroy it, the cycle will just keep going.”

His hands shake as he runs them through his hair, pacing frantically. “You don’t understand,” he mutters. “Without it, I’ll lose everything. I won’t even get to know what’s next. What if this—this emptiness—is all that’s waiting for me? What if I can’t see you or Mark again?” His voice softens, breaking under the weight of his words. “I’m scared.”

You reach out, your hand brushing his arm, and the familiar electric spark flickers between you. “Donghyuck,” you say, your voice steady. “I don’t know what’s waiting for you, either, but isn’t that better than this? Better than being stuck in a place that’s killing you over and over again? You have to give it some faith. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

His gaze meets yours, the walls he’s built around himself crumbling as tears well in his eyes. Slowly, he nods, swallowing hard. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. Do it.”

You take a deep breath and open the book. The pages are stiff, almost glued together by some unseen force. You try pulling at one, but it doesn’t budge, no matter how hard you tug. A frustrated sob escapes you as you glance back at Donghyuck, his expression torn between fear and hope.

Closing your eyes, you think about your parents—the love they had for you, their unwavering belief in doing what was right. You think about Mark and the unyielding bond he shared with Donghyuck, the lengths Donghyuck went to for him. Love, in all its forms, floods your chest, and with it comes strength. When you pull again, the page tears free with an audible crack, bursting into flames before disintegrating into dust.

One by one, you tear the pages. Each piece of paper ignites, dissolving into nothingness. The room grows heavier with every rip, the air charged with an otherworldly energy. Donghyuck watches, his breath hitching, his body tense. When the last page burns away, the book’s cover collapses into ash in your hands, leaving only silence behind.

“What have you done?” Donghyuck whispers, his voice shaking. “What if it didn’t work?”

Before you can respond, a soft glow fills the tent. You turn to see a figure stepping through the curtain, translucent but unmistakably familiar. “Mark…” Donghyuck breathes, his voice cracking as tears spill down his cheeks.

The two of them stare at each other for a moment that feels eternal, before Donghyuck stumbles forward, wrapping Mark in an embrace that somehow feels real despite the faint shimmer of his form. “I’m so sorry,” Donghyuck sobs. “For everything. I was selfish. I—I ruined everything.”

Mark smiles gently, his own voice thick with emotion. “You did what you thought you had to, Hyuck. I was never angry. I just wanted you to be okay.” He pulls back slightly, his hand resting against Donghyuck’s shoulder. “You saved me, you gave your life for me.”

The glow around Mark intensifies as his spirit begins to fade. Donghyuck chokes on a sob, whispering a tearful goodbye as Mark disappears into the light.

Then, more figures appear. Your parents. Their familiar faces send a fresh wave of tears streaming down your cheeks. They smile warmly, pride shining in their eyes. “You’ve done it,” your mother says, her voice soft but steady. “We’re so proud of you.”

“We can finally rest now,” your father adds, his hand reaching out as if to brush your cheek. “We love you. Thank you, sweetheart.”

You try to speak, but all that comes out is a choked sob. They give you one last look, filled with love and peace, before their forms dissolve, leaving you standing in the silence of Donghyuck’s tent.

Donghyuck steps forward, his arms wrapping around you in a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispers, his voice raw. “For everything.”

For a moment, the spark between you flickers, faint but unmistakable. You feel his warmth, his touch, and for a fleeting second, you wonder how it’s possible. As the weight of the moment settles, you let it go, clinging to the sense of hope that remains. Together, you’ve broken the cycle—and for the first time, the future feels like your own.

“Will I ever get to see you again?” you ask, your voice trembling as you look up at him, your eyes pleading for an answer you’re not sure whether you’re ready to hear.

Donghyuck’s breath hitches, and for a moment, he just stares at you, his golden eyes shining with a mix of longing and sorrow. Slowly, he steps closer, his hands trembling as they come up to cradle your face. His touch is warm, grounding, and for the first time, it doesn’t spark—it burns, searing this moment into your soul.

“I don’t know,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “But I wish I could stay here with you. For just a little longer.”

Before you can respond, he leans in, his lips brushing against yours in a kiss that feels like both a goodbye and a desperate plea to hold onto the moment. His hands tighten slightly, as though he’s afraid you’ll slip away, and you can feel the raw emotion pouring from him—fear, gratitude, and a deep, unspoken connection that neither of you can fully explain.

The world seems to fall away around you, the weight of the carnival, the curse, and the souls you’ve freed fading into the background. All that matters is him—the warmth of his lips, the way his fingers gently press against your skin, and the silent promise you feel between you.

When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against yours, his breath shallow and uneven. “Thank you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible. “For saving me. For saving all of us.”

Your hands rest over his, still cupping your face, and you close your eyes, letting the moment linger even though you know it can’t last forever. “We’ll find a way,” you murmur. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way.”

His lips curve into the faintest, bittersweet smile. “If anyone could, it’s you.”

You smile up at him, unable to resist the pull any longer. Giving in to your temptations, you grab him by the collar and tug him down into another kiss, this one more fervent, more consuming. His lips crash against yours with a desperation that matches your own, as though you're both trying to cling to the moment, to each other, for as long as the universe will allow.

Everything had worked out—Mark was free, your parents had moved on—yet he was still here. Still with you. You both knew this borrowed time wasn't guaranteed, but that only made it more precious. You kissed through gasping breaths, every exhale mingling with his as the burning connection between you grew hotter, fiercer.

It was now or never.

The kiss deepens suddenly, urgency overtaking the both of you. He presses you back, guiding you until you stumble against the velvet bed in the center of the room. His hands trail along your body, tentative at first but quickly growing bolder as you pull him closer, refusing to let even a sliver of space come between you. Your fingers tangle in his hair, your touch setting every nerve alight as that fire you've felt since the beginning roars to life.

The world outside the tent fades entirely. All you can feel is him-his lips, his hands, the way his heart ironically pounds against yours. That burning sensation builds, but it isn't just desire-it's something deeper, something ancient. This feeling, this moment, is what you were meant for. It's as though your very soul recognizes his, as though you've been tethered together through time and fate and whatever lies beyond.

This is where you belong. This is who you belong with, and you're both finally allowing yourselves to embrace it. 

Your body sinks into the mattress as he hovers over you, his eyes roaming over you with an intensity that makes it feel like he can see straight through your clothes. The weight of his gaze causes heat to rise in your cheeks, and you turn your head slightly, unable to meet his eyes. He notices instantly.

"Hey, it's okay," he murmurs softly, his voice low and reassuring. "You're safe with me. I'll take good care of you tonight, the way you did for me."

His words, gentle but filled with conviction, send a shiver down your spine. His voice alone stirs something deep inside you, and the heat pooling between your legs grows unbearable. You press your thighs together instinctively, seeking any kind of relief.

"Dong...hyuck..." you whimper, his name falling from your lips like a plea.

The sound draws a heavy grunt from his throat, primal and raw. Hearing his real name come from you like that seems to undo something in him, fogging his mind completely. He leans closer, his hands moving to the edges of your clothes. Slowly, almost reverently at first, he begins to slide them off, tossing each piece aside with little care for where they land. His focus is entirely on you, the fire between you growing with every passing second.

You join him, a soft moan escaping your lips at the sight of his unbuttoned dress shirt slipping off to reveal his golden-toned torso.

The way the red moon light dances across his skin makes your breath hitch. Without hesitation, he yanks the shirt off completely, quickly discarding his pants as well, leaving the both of you in nothing but your undergarments.

He notices the dazed look in your eyes and takes advantage of the moment, gently lifting one of your legs. The movement exposes the damp patch at your clothed core, and his breath hitches audibly. A low moan escapes his throat as he lowers his head closer, his lips just brushing against the fabric.

"So desperate for me, aren't you?" he murmurs, his voice thick with desire. "Fuck, you're so beautiful." His breath fans over the dampened spot, which only grows darker with every passing second, his words and closeness pushing you further into blissful surrender.

He starts kissing over it, his lips applying pressure exactly to where your clit is, causing you to squirm around.

“Please… I want more,” you beg desperately, looking down at the sight of him teasing you.

Locking eye contact together, he rips off the last piece of your clothing, he starts licking up every bit of your juices that started leaking out of you. Your hand immediately reaches for his hair like a reflex, and you push his head closer to you, not wanting a split second of separation.

Donghyuck moans against your cunt, bringing his fingers to your entrance, and plunging them inside of you while his mouth starts playing with your clit.

He releases his mouth, a popping sound echoing throughout the tent when he does so. His fingers still working on your insides—he refuses to take his eyes off your face as it scrunches in pleasure.

“My own personal heaven,” he whispers to himself.

He feels your insides squeezing around his fingers, reaching your climax.

“Hold it for me baby, I want you to cum around my cock,” he whines, that alone nearly causing you to finish.

He slides his fingers out of you, and your eyes start to water—missing the feeling of him so close to you. You didn’t realize your tears were starting to trickle down your face until he kissed them away, adjusting your hair out of your face as he positioned you up.

“It’s okay baby, shhh, it’s all going to be okay,” he holds you gently, flipping you over so this time you were arching right into his tip, your head pressing against the pillow now damp from your previous tears.

“I know you want this as badly as I do, isn’t that right, babe?” He snickers, teasing the both of you as he continues to only insert his tip in and out of you.

An almost animalistic groan escapes your lips as you cry out, “I can’t take it… Please, Donghyuck, I’m begging you!”

“Begging me to do what?” he teases, his voice low and challenging as he tests your resolve.

“Fuck me—Please Hyuck just please—Fuck!” You scream as he plunges his full length into you.

His grip tightens on your ass as he yanks you closer, pounding into you harder by the second.

“Acting like such an angel, but look at you. You like it rough, don’t you? Drooling everywhere all because of me,” he grunts through each thrust.

He grabs your hand and guides you to your clit, making you rub it in circles while he continues to go deeper.

“Donghyuck… I’m going to…” your voice shakes.

“Do it. Cum all over me baby, I’m so close,” he demands.

In a blink of an eye, you’re now squeezing all over his length, chasing your high. Your eyes completely roll back as you continue to scream his name, your voice echoing.

Soon after, he follows you, releasing himself inside you with a deep groan, his movements slowing but never stopping, even as the two of you grow sensitive. It's as if he can't bear to let even a single part of himself go to waste.

Finally, he collapses beside you, both of you turning to face the pointed ceiling of the tent. Your breaths are ragged, your chests rising and falling in unison, but slowly, they begin to even out.

Suddenly, you feel his arms wrap tightly around you, his breath warm against your ear. "That was perfect," he murmurs, his voice husky and satisfied.

You let out a soft chuckle, a hum of contentment escaping your lips. "Yeah, it was." For a fleeting moment, you allow yourself to bask in the warmth of his embrace, but the growing light filtering into the tent pulls you back to reality. The sun is rising, its golden rays piercing through the fabric, and with it comes a sinking realization: this might be the last time you see him.

You turn to him, your heart clenching with fear and sadness. He notices instantly, his eyes meeting yours, reading the emotions written plainly across your face.

Without a word, he places a tender kiss against your forehead, his lips lingering there as though trying to reassure you.

When he pulls back, his voice is clear, steady, and almost too calm. "Don't worry, love. It's just the two of us now. Just us, forever."

Your breath catches in your throat, and your eyes widen. You push yourself up, staring at him with growing dread. "What do you mean, forever?" you ask, your voice trembling as you swallow hard.

An eerie yet soft grin spreads across his face, a look that chills you to your core. “I made one last wish before you tore the book," he says, his tone light but filled with something darker beneath the surface.

The color drains from your face as his words sink in, dread washing over you in waves.

"What... what did you wish for?" you whisper, though part of you already knows.

"I didn't need the power, the magic, or even my friendships to set me free," he continues, his gaze never leaving yours. "I needed you. Now that I have you, I'm never letting you go."

The sun streams through the tent, lighting up his features in a way that should be comforting, but instead fills you with icy terror. His eyes glint with yearning, his arms tightening around you as though he's afraid you'll disappear. You lie there frozen, realization dawning like the sunrise breaking across his face.

You'd set everyone else free, but in doing so, you'd unwittingly trapped yourself.

He was the real entity all along—and now, you belonged to him. Your soul tied to his, forever.

[muzzlemouths]

Hey!! I read your sunshine station piece and it was awesome!!! I know you mentioned Moon briefly, is there a second part with him in it by chance? Thank you! Have a great day!

As a matter of fact...

"Evening, dozers. That was REO Speedwagon's 'Can't Fight This Feeling', a classic for the ages. We're all fighting for something, facing our own demons these days. Maybe you're juggling a schedule that just won't let you rest, maybe you're struggling to balance your home and work life, or your heart is trapped in a game that you can't seem to win, maybe...you're fighting to stay awake." 

Laughter pours from Moon's voice-box, hazy and quiet. "Whether you're toiling through a graveyard shift or just can't seem to lay your head to rest, I'm here for you. I'll be your voice through the dark, the bedtime story that puts your mind at ease, the friend who stays up with you all night."

Neon red illuminates the soundboard, drawing his focus to the familiar silhouette standing just outside the booth door. His copper cage heart ba-thumps in place.

"This next one goes out to those of you burning at both ends of the fuse,“ he continues. “These timeless flights might feel lonely, dozers, but I'll be here until you come back down. Here's 'Rocket Man.'"

He slides the Elton John track into place, smooth metal gliding over vinyl, and queues "Just the Two of Us" at its tail, granting him just under twelve minutes to stretch...at least, that's what he'll tell Eclipse.

Moon cracks the booth door open and peeks just outside of it, glancing around. "Bedbug?"

"Here," you call at his back. Watching him jump ought to be funny, but you can't help but find it endearing. "Sorry, didn't mean to spook you."

"You didn't," he lies, grinning from cheek to cheek. "What brings you here at this hour?" He nods towards the clock, its hands pointed accusingly at fifteen minutes past four in the morning. "Your shift doesn't start for another two hours. If you're here for Sun, he hasn't even come in ye—"

"I'm here for you." The words jump from your mouth like a sneeze, surprising both of you. "I mean— I-I'm here to bring you a coffee," you insist, thrusting the lidded paper cup towards him. Normally. "Eclipse asked me to. Since — since you've been working so hard lately."

Moon blinks at the cup strangely. He's still trying to calm the steam rushing through his vents when he reaches for it, not daring to look you in the eyes until his heart settles down. It isn’t every day that you – or anyone, really – wants to spend their time with him. Not when the brighter, louder, better Sun is always there to cast him in shadow.

He takes comfort in the warmth soaking through the cardboard sleeve when he takes it from you, lingering for only a socially acceptable length of time when his fingers brush against yours.

"Did he, now?" That telltale grin of his returns. His shoulder slumps against the door frame, all worries forgotten. "Well, that's very thoughtful. Maybe I should head down to his office and thank hi—"

"Don't!" Your protest is loud enough on its own to draw attention even without Moon ratting you out, and he is nothing if not amused by it. You clear the humiliation from your throat and try again. "It's just, you know how busy he is, a-and I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate being interrupted over something so trivial, you know? He doesn't even have to know I was here!"

Dopey laughter bubbles from his voice box. You wish he wouldn't look at you like that; like he's hanging on your every word.

"Couldn't sleep, could you, bedbug?"

Your stomach somersaults, pouring blood into your cheeks and heating your ears, and you stammer. "I— It's just that I was already in town, is all, a-and—"

"I don't think it's trivial." He brings the cup to his lips and takes a long, thoughtful sip, eyelashes resting against his cheeks as he indulges in the taste.

"You..huh?"

"The coffee." His gaze settles on you like fresh snow, quiet and slow. His smile could melt through even the coldest winters. "I don't think it's trivial," Moon echoes. "You made it just how I like it, too. Must have had to sneak past Eclipse to get to the break room, then again to bring it all the way here, to me. What's trivial about that?"

If your face gets any hotter you're going to catch fire right where you stand.

"It— it's nothing," you insist, struggling with where to put your hands now that you no longer have the cup to distract your twiddling thumbs. "So...does that mean you won't tell Eclipse?"

Moon looks past you, towards your collective boss's office, then strains his neck to see into his booth, noting the time that remains. He hums.

"Want to join me?"

The question startles you into a hiccup. "I'd love to, but..." you cast a glance over your shoulder, peering down the hall yourself as though you're expecting Eclipse to pour from his office any moment now. "After the 'stunt' Sun pulled yesterday — his words, not mine — Eclipse will have my things in a box by morning if I get caught in the booth again."

He pulls away from the wall, perfectly composed, and straightens the cardigan sleeve that had slipped from his shoulder. "That's a shame," he murmurs. "I'd have let you pick the next song."

"Wh— Really?"

"Mhm." Moon steps over the threshold and into his booth, hand reaching for the doorknob with purposeful delay. "Well, I have to get back to work." The door begins to shut. "Thank you for the coff— oh."

He doesn't bother stifling his chuckle as you dart beneath his outstretched arm and into the booth. If anything, he finds it all too charming for your liking.

"Change your mind after all?"

"I can't stay for long," you tell him, trying (and failing) to sound firm about it. "You...you aren't going to make me talk on air, are you?"

"'Course not, bedbug." He gets your chair for you like a gentleman, then easily slips into his own. "In fact, if you're to stay with me, I will need you to be very, very, quiet," he tells you, whispering the last part. "Can you do that for me?"

You take your seat with an eager nod, deciding against trusting your voice already.

"The records are in that basket," gestures Moon. He reaches just past you and plucks the vintage headphones from his desk, a spare set, and wordlessly fits them over your ears.

He unwinds a separate wire for himself — a device you have been enthusiastically banned from referring to as ‘the AUX cord’ — and plugs it into a port that sits directly behind his faceplate. You've since learned that the innovation was created to combat the issue of how to keep a pair of headphones on a face shape like theirs, but honestly, it just looks like a glorified earring.

"Ready?" He asks.

It's a trick question. His finger lands on the button before you have the chance to answer, and just as soon is his voice in your ears.

"Welcome back, dozers. You're listening to Starshine Station, and that was 'Just the Two of Us.' We've got more groovy tunes coming up here in a moment, but before that," and he taps the record basket again, returning your attention to the task at hand, "I want you to take a moment to come back to yourself. I know you're tired, you're exhausted, your mind is racing and you just want to unwind. Put your phone down, close your eyes, and breathe. I know it's silly — I know, I know — but place those worries aside and just be here, in this moment with me. Breathe in, take all of that stress, all of that weight you're carrying, and breath out. Let it go. You can pick it back up later, you can carry it again in the morning, but for now, set it down. Let it rest."

You draw a record from the basket and hand it over, smothering a yawn with your hand.

"Good, just like that," Moon purrs into the mic. "I hope you feel a little lighter after that, listeners. And if you're out on the roads right now, well, I hope you didn't listen to a single word I just said." His laughter threads through the radio waves like smooth jazz, every word curling around a smile. "Either way, thank you for letting me keep you company tonight. We've got more cozy classics ahead, so tune in and turn that dial to ten... here's 'Unchained Melody'."

When had he taken the record from you? One moment it was in your hands, and the next it was on air. So, too, do you feel on air — that is, lightweight and floating, all your troubles swept away by sixties pop and the unspoken lullaby of Moon's hand smoothing circles over your shoulders, hardly remembering when he even got there.

Your head lands on your arms, slumped against the desk.

You aren't going to sleep. You can't sleep. You still have to drive home and be back here again in an hour, well rested and ready for whatever demands Sun has for you that day, saying nothing of what will happen if Eclipse finds you here. You can't afford to rest your eyes for even a minute. Maybe you should have poured yourself a coffee, too.

"I hope the night is kind to you," says Moon.

His voice rolls over you like cool, ocean waves. He sounds so distant already. You can't remember the song ending, or the next one beginning, just the sound of his voice guiding you through the dark.

"This next one is very dear to me." His words breeze over you, disappearing into a hazy fog. "Wherever you are right now, whatever your situation, I hope you have someone special to hold close tonight."

Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is," courses through your headphone speakers, but you aren't awake to hear it.

Moon unplugs himself from the soundboard just long enough to stand, shrugging off his wool cardigan. He stretches, arms raised above his head, exhausted steam whistling through his vents, stress marking every creak in his joints. Then he looks your way, and all the weight melts from his shoulders in an instant.

His cardigan drapes over your shoulders like a hug, still warm from his body. He brushes the hair from your eyes and lingers, selfishly this time, until the song comes to an end and he’s forced to pull away.

"Nighty night, bedbug," he whispers still. "Thanks for listening in."

[moonlight-prose]

Maybe I need Gabriel to chase me thru the woods as a wolf only to find and tackle me in his human form 🤭

note: i love that you sent me three delicious fucking asks. these have been living in my head rent free for days and i need to basically live in all of them. this one especially. fuck if it isn't just the scenario with him.

warnings: 18+ ONLY!! stalking, chasing, he's a werewolf it's freaky deal with it, dry humping, biting, marking/bruising.

He's faster than you anticipated. A predator who became consumed with the thought of hunting down someone innocent. A helpless prey that didn't know they were about to become his meal. His sacrifice for the devout God above that damned him to live this way.

Moving with a swiftness that is relentless enough to thread terror through your veins, crawling its way up your throat, he plays a game. Cat and mouse. Wolf and gazelle. The pretty little thing running past trees and ripping the skirts of their dress on fallen branches - their feet cracking the dead leaves with each step.

He can smell your fear like a deep saturated wine that fills his senses. The adrenaline that sweetly courses up and down your body, pushing you further than you needed to go. There was no use in fleeing from the big bad wolf. Not when he had you in his sights - ready to pounce when you made the next move.

Danger was an easy thing to come by in a forest this haunted.

The screams of the innocent punctured the air like a knife, carving free the stench of death that seeped up from the damp ground. You began to wonder how many bones were lost to the soil beneath you. Only to realize that's what he wanted. He yearned for you to fall into his wayward trap - his clever fucking ruse.

"Not this time," you muttered, gasping for air as you took off to the right.

His clawed feet pounded against the floor, the sharp growl of irritation at your change in course rumbling loudly. He made his presence known. Perhaps that's what sent a thrill of fear down your spine, curling right at the base and trickling into your bloodstream. You understood the feeling well - cherished it like a companion that would remain with you. Till death did you part with the timeless horror that trekked beside you in this dense forest.

A sharp piercing snarl cracked like a whip along your skin, prickling at your heart and nearly forcing it to stop. You pushed your legs faster, hands gripping the heavy weight of your dress as you sprinted for your life.

The edge of the treeline was within reach. Only a bit further to go. But one simple mistake hung over your head like the strands of a puppet, pulling you to and fro in this deranged frantic escape he liked to call fun.

You turned right. Not left.

You ran right towards a path he knew well, the shortcut too now facing directly beside your right shoulder. And in a quick attempt to rectify your error, you slipped and nearly fell to the ground. Sharply crying out in pain, you gave away the spot where you started to run towards - dooming you to the only consequence that remained.

A mass of black fur barreled in your direction, leaping through the air with a harsh bitten out growl that vibrated the very breath in your lungs. Shouting in fear, you felt him knock you the ground - a searing pain shooting up your thigh - before clambering atop your writhing body.

"I almost won you fur faced bastard!" you hissed, clawing your way to freedom.

Only for a very warm and very human hand to wrap around your ankle, dragging you back. He straddled your thighs, pressed his face into the back of your neck, and moaned like a pitiful animal who finally got to claim his prize. You lay on the ground in silence, hoping the heat between your legs went unnoticed by him.

It didn't.

"You never win love," he chuckled, turning you onto your back - face pressed gently into the side of your neck. "I could have let you."

"Cheating," you retorted, fingers carding through his hair in an attempt to drag him closer.

Though the forest was thick with humidity, the air still held a chill. One that would bring death to your doorstep if you stayed out in it for longer than necessary. He shuffled down your body, hooking your knees over his bare hips to encase you in the heat that poured off his skin. Later by a fire he'd strip you of the layers that kept you from him, but right now he only sought to keep you safe.

"I could smell you," he muttered, nose nudging along the curve of your jaw. "Sweet like the flowers in your garden."

"That's an unfair advantage Gabriel."

"Mm." Lips trailed down to your throat, his hips nudging up to where your skirts gaped across your waist - the dripping heat of your cunt close off for what he wanted most.

"You said you wanted to-"

"Fuck what I said," he gasped, rutting his cock into your thigh, teeth scraping against the jugular that pulsed sporadically beneath his tongue. "I wanted to catch you. To own you."

"Oh." Feeling him unravel above you - his hands grasping for any part of you he could reach - caused a wash of dizziness to settle in your head. "You already do."

A whine broke past his parted mouth and before you could drag his lips to yours, his teeth latched onto the juncture of your shoulder. Clamping down hard enough to shove pain along your chest. Gripping his hair, you canted your hips up to meet his desperate thrusts - a cry breaking free to echo in the empty forest.

He was feral as he humped you. Borderline obscene in how he bit down hard enough to leave an indent of his teeth - a mark of the animal who you belonged to. A glob of drool leaked down into your hair, spilling across the dirt beneath you, and if you were to catch a glimpse of his face you'd see the glazed expressed. The eyes that flashed gold as he leaked over your skirts in an attempt to stain you with his scent.

One final harsh yank of his hair dragged him over the edge with a pitiful muffled cry. He spurted onto your skirts, hips rolling with a speed that you could practically feel inside of you. You knew a second bite mark would be set beside the first once he got you inside.

Another claim in the confines of your shared home, where he could take you properly.

The string of mumbled Latin words were too soft for you to hear, but their sentiment remained the same.

I love you. I belong to you. I'll die for you.

"Take me home Gabriel," you whispered, catching his spit covered lips in a soft kiss.

He rumbled an agreement with his tongue halfway down your throat, his hands shifting to lift you as he stood. The daunting beast in the forest now placated with his prize - his prey to be devoured.

[star-crossed-fates]

Even My Damnation Spells Your Name

Chapter 1: Ash Beneath the Stars

Synopsis: In a city of steel and stars, you fall in love with a man the world calls a monster. He looks at you like you’ve haunted every life he’s ever lived. Sylus is danger wrapped in silk, secrets stitched into every glance, every touch, every word spoken like a spell. He’s yours before you even realize what you’re remembering.

Because this isn’t the first time.

Dreams unravel you. Memories not your own. A dragon’s death cry. A kiss beneath bloodied skies. A love too eternal to stay buried. As the past bleeds into the present, you begin to piece together the truth. Some memories burn brighter than the stars, others wound deeper than any blade.

And love, no matter how timeless, always demands a price.

Pairing: Female! MC [Named] x Sylus

Rating: Explicit 18+ [MDNI]

Spoliers: Sylus's myth cards/memories. Please note: memories might be a little different than from game for story purposes.

Warnings: - NSFW, Explicit smut, including various kinks: Praise, degradation talk, first time, CP, DP, anal sex/play, probably some Dragon!Sylus smut, maybe a lot of it. Many, many more that I'm forgetting to list. Consider yourself warned. - Unlikely to be completely canon. - MC is named. Her personality is darker than in the game, far more morally grey. - Switching between MC's memories/dreams/flashbacks and current timeline. - Other love interests will not show up in this. - Some plot, but not super planned out. Basically, this is a "what if the closer they became, the more MC remembers her life with him on Philos.

You lie in a vast field of Datura flowers, their once-red petals now blackened like soot. Rain falls from an angry sky, the kind that weeps with you but offers no comfort. Lightning cracks over distant mountains, jagged veins of fury lighting up the clouds. You don’t remember how long you’ve been here. Time doesn’t mean anything anymore. Day and night blend into the same dull ache.

Your dragon is dead.

With him, half of you is gone. You feel it rotting, like something sacred left out to decay. You don’t cry anymore. You’ve cried enough to carve rivers in the planet. What’s left is a quiet, crushing emptiness.

A silence that screams.

The battlefield is long quiet, the scent of scorched air and broken magic lingering like a ghost. You lie in the place where you held him last, your cheek pressed to earth that still remembers the weight of his body. Horns ache where they’ve torn through your skull; a tail curls around your listless frame, wings limp against the mud. You are a creature undone.

Perhaps you will stay here until your body remembers how to die.

But then—rage. Not loud, not sudden, but coiled and ancient, a serpent slithering through the hollow chambers of your ribs. It does not burn. No, it freezes. Cold, clinical, furious.

The humans.

You should have known. God, you did know, but you hoped anyway, didn’t you? Lit a candle in a hurricane and begged it not to blow out. Cradled trust in trembling hands like it wouldn’t break.

Look where that got you. They took everything. Not just your dragon. Not just your wings or your fire. No—they took your voice, your childhood, the marrow of who you were before the silence set in. They carved out your soul like it was owed to them. They left you with teeth clenched so tightly, you taste iron every time you sob, and grief so wide, it echoes.

You are ruin now.

And oh—they will pay. You rise—not out of hope, not out of mercy. You rise because rage is the only thing left that still feels like yours. Because if the world had the audacity to survive after taking everything from you, then it should learn what it means to scream.

You do not rise to live.

You rise to burn. To gut the sky and lace the clouds in cinders. To gather the shattered remains of every dream they murdered and wrap them in flame, like funeral cloth soaked in vengeance.

You will turn your grief into kindling. You will stack every stolen whisper, every broken promise, every name you once answered to and light them with the match of your fury.

Let the stars blink out. Let the earth tremble beneath the weight of your wrath.

If you cannot have your happy ending, then neither will they.

You will not go quietly. You will not fade. You will ignite, and from the ruins of what they loved, you will paint new dreams in ash.

The pillow is damp beneath your cheeks from tears that broke through your sleep like roots cracking stone. You hadn’t realized you’d been crying. You only notice when you shift and the cold catches your skin.

Sylus breathes evenly beside you, draped in the kind of peace you can’t seem to touch lately. His arm brushes yours, a line of quiet gravity that pulls but never demands. You haven’t told him about the field of wilted Datura or about the way your soul howls in those dreams—half-formed, half-empty.

Sleep used to be a sanctuary. Now it’s just the door you have to walk through to visit ghosts with teeth and bleed.

You slip from the sheets, careful not to disturb him. The cold floor bites at your soles as you stand, as if to remind you that you’re not curled on the sodden earth, wings caked in mud, your throat raw from silence. You’re in his penthouse in the N109 zone, where the distant lights of the city bleed through blackout curtains.

You don’t look back at Sylus as you leave the room. It’s not that you’re afraid of what you’d see. You’re afraid he’d see through you.

Like a shadow loosed from its owner, you drift through the living room. The lighting is low, cast in muted blues and soft, static gold—the kind that never tries to be warm, only functional.

Mephisto perches near the window, still as a sculpture. A silhouette against the city glow, feathers made of obsidian plating and wire-thin gold etchings that catch what little light dares to touch them. His resting eyes gleam faintly, twin rings of red that pulse like the quiet ticking of a heart that never beats.

“Morning, troublemaker,” you whisper, reaching up to trace a finger along the curve of his wing. The synthetic feathers shift beneath your touch, deceptively softer than they look, like velvet that remembers war.

His head tilts, the motion unnervingly lifelike. The whirring inside him is so quiet it sounds like distant cicadas.

“I had another one,” you murmur, low enough to pretend the silence will keep your secret. “Still not sure if I’m dreaming about a past or making it up from scraps.”

“Don’t tell him,” you add softly, smiling even though it doesn’t reach anything inside. “Let me be haunted in peace a little longer.”

A blink of red light, and then stillness. You give him one last pat and leave him to his vigil.

The kitchen smells of roasted herbs and clean steel. Callum moves with the effortless grace of someone who’s been doing this job too long to waste time. He’s slicing something over the counter, sleeves rolled up, apron splattered with hints of tonight’s battle against hunger. You’ve seen him break down a full carcass faster than most Hunters can draw a gun.

He looks up the moment you enter. “Couldn’t sleep again?”

“Still not besties with unconsciousness,” you muse, shrugging like it’s a passing inconvenience instead of the rot curling into your dreams. “Might break up for good soon. We’re on thin ice.”

Callum huffs, shaking his head as he wipes his hands on a towel. “You and sleep have a dramatic relationship.”

“It started it,” you grumble, slipping onto a stool. “Ghosted me first.”

He’s already moving, pulling down a mug, grinding beans by hand. “Want the usual?”

You nod, cheek propped against one hand. “Make it tragic.”

“I always do.”

The rich aroma begins to fill the kitchen. You watch Callum move and let the silence stretch for a while. Sometimes, silence says what you can’t. “Here you go, Miss Hunter,” Callum says, putting the steaming mug down near your hands. “Callum, we’ve been over this. You can call me Anira,” you correct. “Of course, Miss Anira,” he smiles, knowing exactly that you meant to get him to drop this ‘miss’ nonsense.

The warmth of the mug seeps into your palms like borrowed life. You offer Callum a soft thanks as you retreat from the kitchen, letting him return to his work.

You drift toward the windows, steam curling up from your cup, brushing your lips like a ghost of breath as you sip.

The city yawns out beneath you—endless, glimmering, half-rotten. The N109 zone isn’t a place so much as a pulse, stitched together by neon arteries and the hum of machines that never sleep. Always motion. Always noise. But here, in the silence between your breath and the sip of coffee, something inside quakes.

The dream was more vivid than any nightmare should be, too sharp to be stitched together by a sleeping mind. They’ve been coming more frequently. Unfolding like pages from a book you never remembered opening. The flowers, ash-dark and weeping. The taste of rain, too bitter to be water.

The way your soul ached—not metaphorically, but as if part of it had literally been torn from inside you.

You touch your chest, just under the collarbone, and press your fingers to where that emptiness still echoes like sound in a cavern. There’s no wound. Nothing to show for it, but the grief sits there, like the hollow of a bell that hasn’t rung yet. You’ve had nightmares before—the kind that crack your sleep open like a fault line, send you lurching upright with sweat slicking your spine and a scream half-choked in your throat.

These aren’t like that. These dreams don’t fade with the light. They cling. They nest behind your eyes, thread phantom claws between your ribs, and hum secrets into the hollows of your bones.

They don’t end when you wake—they wait coiled in quiet moments, in the space between blinks, where memory and madness blur at the edges.

The coffee is bitter as burnt offerings on your tongue, but you drink it anyway because it doesn’t whisper in languages your soul remembers but your mind can’t name. Because it doesn’t carry the weight of wings or weeping or the shadow of something lost.

Whatever those dreams are—omens, echoes, a history stitched into the marrow of your being— you aren’t ready to hear them.

You wrap your hands tighter around the mug and pretend the heat is enough to burn the ghosts away.

“Are you planning to fight wanderers with caffeine now?”

The voice slices through the quiet like silk on glass, touched with just enough sarcasm to disguise the worry beneath it.

You lift your coffee toward your lips but don’t drink, hiding your mouth behind the mug. “I was under the impression you didn’t sleep this early.”

You can feel the weight of his eyes tracing the curve of your shoulders beneath your shirt. He always notices the small things, even if he pretends not to.

“I don’t,” he murmurs. “I also don’t usually find my night owl at five in the morning sipping black coffee and staring out like she’s plotting planetary genocide.”

You snort. “Only mild genocide. You know me. I like to keep things reasonable.”

He doesn’t laugh. You knew he wouldn’t.

Sylus steps up beside you, not touching, but close enough that his scent wraps around you—smoked amber and aged cedar, threaded with the bite of dark spice. It clings to the air like temptation itself, as if night had a heartbeat and it was breathing down your neck.

He leans a shoulder against the window frame and studies you. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

You hum into your mug, pretending to consider. “Might just be the cheap pillows.”

“They cost more than your car.”

“Ah, then I should definitely keep losing sleep. Sell one, maybe. Fund my retirement.”

Still, no laugh, just silence thick enough to chew through. You finally meet his eyes, and there it is—that look. Not pity, not concern in the soft-handed way others offer it. It’s a quiet, razor-edged worry that Sylus never puts into words.

You offer a smile anyway and tilt your head like it’s no big deal. “I just woke up early.”

“And the tears?”

Your smile twitches, but you brush past it. “Must’ve been the wind. Very emotional breeze tonight.”

He shakes his head slightly, lips curving just a bit, like he wants to be amused but isn’t. “You don’t have to tell me, but you’re not good at hiding when something’s bothering you.”

Your heart thuds in one clumsy palpitation. You look down at the mug again, the swirl of coffee catching the lights from outside.

“I’ll be fine,” you assure, softly this time. “It’s just… a weird week.”

He doesn’t press. He never does. Maybe that’s why it feels like the pressure never lifts.

Sylus reaches out and gently pulls the mug from your hands, setting it on the table beside you. His fingers brush yours in the process—cooler than yours, calloused in all the ways that speak of battles you’ll never hear stories about.

Without a word, he wraps his arms around your shoulders from behind and presses his chin lightly to the top of your head.

No questions. No demands. Just silence and breath and the faint heartbeat you’ve come to listen for like it’s a lullaby.

“You let me know when it becomes more than weird,” he murmurs in a deep purr. “Until then… I’ll keep pretending not to notice.”

You lean into him, but some wounds don’t want to be spoken aloud. Some just need somewhere quiet to bleed.

The hum of tools fills the room with a soft, rhythmic purring punctuated by the occasional spark as Sylus adjusts a fine filament inside Mephisto’s chest cavity. The mechanical crow rests belly-up on the workbench, wings splayed like some melodramatic opera casualty.

You’re curled on the couch with a book you’ve been “reading” for the past thirty minutes. It rests open in your lap, but you haven’t turned a page in at least ten. Your eyes keep drifting instead to the man across the room, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, a smudge of oil on his cheekbone that somehow makes him look more infuriatingly attractive.

He’s been at it all morning. Well, your morning. He’s not usually vertical before dusk, but the second you left the bed, Sylus apparently decided sleep was now an optional concept.

“I feel like Mephisto should be charging you by the hour,” you jest, stretching out over the couch cushions like a lazy cat. “Pretty sure that’s the fifth time you’ve rewired his wing.”

“He was flying crooked,” Sylus mutters without looking up.

“Maybe he’s just drunk. He does spend most of his time with you.”

A pause. “He doesn’t have a liver.”

“That we know of.”

He stops working just long enough to shoot you a dry look. “Do you want to come over here and make yourself useful?”

“I am being useful. I’m providing a live audience to your one-man, crow-themed opera.”

He snorts. Almost a laugh. Close enough that your ears perk up like a puppy hearing a treat bag rustle. “Was that it? Was that the sound?” you ask, sitting up with mock excitement. “Sylus, was that the first sign of an actual laugh? Did we just break through to the other side?”

“Keep talking, and I’ll wire Mephisto to peck you every time you blink.”

“Ooh, emotional repression and threats of mechanical violence. How charming.” You sigh dramatically and lay back again, grinning up at the ceiling. “One day,” you call sweetly. “I will make you laugh. Like, an actual laugh. With teeth. You’ll choke on it, and I’ll dance in victory.”

He doesn’t look up. “Keep dreaming, sweetie.”

You throw an arm over your face with theatrical flair, letting your voice drift up from beneath it. “Oh, I do. Every night. You laugh, you weep, you beg me to stop being so damn alluring.”

Sylus lifts Mephisto’s chestplate just high enough to yank out a glowing wire with the precision of a bored god smiting a mortal. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

“You were shirtless in it.”

A beat of silence. You peek from beneath your arm to catch the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t dignify the comment with a response, but the flick of his eyes your way lingers longer this time. Not quite a laugh, but closer than you’ve ever gotten.

Progress. Sunlight cuts in through the floor-to-ceiling windows in fractured beams, painting the glass table and parts of Sylus’s frame in gilded edges. Does he even know how beautiful he is? Like a storm wound in silk. Like the kind of danger people mistake for salvation right until the end.

It isn’t just his face, though that alone could fund empires. It’s the way he moves, the quiet command, the patience that thrums through him like it’s waiting for someone to be worth unravelling for.

His phone buzzes on the worktable. Disdain flashes across his face before he checks the ID and groans. “If this man asks me to clear one more rat nest out of the north end, I’m going to wire his eyebrows to a landmine.”

You snort behind your hand. “You say that every time.”

“It’s only not happened because I have other hobbies.” He swipes to answer. “What.”

The call begins with some garbled nonsense and Sylus mouthing the word “idiot” before pinching the bridge of his nose. You press your lips together to keep from giggling. He’s halfway through a sentence when he glances your way, catches the amused sparkle in your eyes, and arches a brow.

You smile sweetly. “I’m just enjoying the show. I feel like I should be tipping you.”

The phone call devolves into chaos, his voice smooth but thoroughly unimpressed. You watch him, one hand still tangled in glowing circuitry, the other gesturing as if sheer frustration might translate better with hand movement. “Figure it out.” He ends the call with a clean, final click.

You casually reach across the table and pick up the nearest firearm, because of course there’s one there. There’s always one there. Honestly, it’s getting a little ridiculous. There are more guns in this penthouse than coffee mugs.

You flip it in your hand, cock it with a snap just dramatic enough to make Mephisto startle slightly and squawk in disapproval.

“Need someone killed?” you ask sweetly. Sylus doesn’t flinch when he looks up from whatever part of Mephisto’s insides he’s currently rewiring and levels you with a glance. “Are you planning to shoot incompetence out of them? In that case, I would suggest a bigger magazine.”

“I’m adaptable,” you shrug.

He snorts, finally—fucking finally—and shakes his head, amusement ghosting over his features like sunlight through smoke. “If you’re going to play vigilante, at least check the safety. I’d rather not patch a hole in my couch or you.”

You glance down. “Safety is off.”

“I know.” He smirks, putting the last touch on Mephisto and standing to stretch. “That’s the concerning part.”

Sylus prowls his way over, taking the gun from your hand and placing it back on the table. Without a word, he sinks onto the couch beside you, tilting his head back and shutting his eyes with a sigh that sounds centuries old. He looks relaxed, composed… annoyingly at peace.

Unacceptable.

You slink across the cushions like mischief manifested as flesh, settling neatly onto his lap. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch. One arm shifts automatically to cradle your back so you don’t tip over, but otherwise, he’s a statue.

You squint at him. “Are you asleep?”

Nothing.

You lean in, and poke his cheek.

Still nothing.

You poke the other one. “Sylus.”

No response.

You poke the tip of his nose.

Still no reaction. You glance dramatically at Mephisto, who lets out a soft whirr of solidarity from across the room. “He’s testing me,” you mutter. Then louder, “Sylus. If you don’t respond, I’m going to assume you’ve died.”

Still silence.

Your fingers reach up and tug lightly on his earlobe. “Do I have to check your pulse?”

A single crimson eye finally cracks open, his gaze as dry as the Sahara and twice as withering. “If you poke me again, kitten, I’m going to reprogram Mephisto to sing ‘Baby Shark’ every time you walk into a room.” “You wouldn’t.”

His other eye opens, both of them glinting with that dangerous, amused warmth. “I would, and I’d make sure it plays in surround sound.”

You gasp in mock betrayal. “You monster.”

“I warned you.” He lets his head fall back again, but his lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile. “Poke the devil, expect a show.”

Slipping your arms around his neck, you drop your voice just enough to make him crack an eye again. “Who said I mind the fire?”

His smirk is slow and wicked, but he still doesn’t move. “Then don’t be surprised when you get burned.”

You settle in closer, utterly undeterred. “Try me.”

Sylus tackles you in a blur of motion and laughter, pinning you to the couch like a smug predator. You’re breathless beneath him, legs tangled with his, the cushions barely cradling the chaos of your limbs. His body hovers just above yours, one forearm planted near your head, the other curling around your waist.

You forget how to breathe. His hair falls across his forehead, and the carnal scarlet of his eyes scorches into yours, catching every flinch, every breathless glimmer of emotion. Your lips part slightly to welcome something that doesn’t come.

Your heart stumbles and trips headfirst into the heat curling low in your belly. The butterflies don’t flutter; they riot, crashing against your ribs like they, too, can’t stand the distance between his mouth and yours for a second longer.

You swear he’s going to kiss you for the first time. You feel it, a pressure in the air, electric and aching at the apex of your thighs.

“I want to take you somewhere this weekend,” he murmurs instead, voice like smoke wrapping around your spine, as if the words are meant for your skin, not your ears. “Will you come with me?”

The sound that slips from your lips is half a laugh, half a sigh, cracked open by want and wonder.

“Seriously?” Your voice wavers, threadbare with disbelief and something far more dangerous. “You think that’s a question?”

He tilts his head, lips curving like a secret. “Is that a yes?”

You answer by tugging at the collar of his shirt, fingers brushing against the pulse beneath. “I’d follow you into hell, Sylus,” you vow, eyes slipping to his mouth. “A weekend away? That’s barely a temptation.”

His gaze drags over you—slow, reverent, hungry—as if he’s committing you to memory. Or maybe he’s envisioning a place where the stars touch the sea and the world feels a little less cruel.

Wherever it is, you’re already his.

Started this because I am hopelessly obsessed with the idea that MC starts to remember her life on Philos with him the closer they get. It's a double edged balde. Let me know if you're enjoying it, and I will keep positng ❤️

[skmhlml]

Note: One mob I've been thinking about. (that pissy would get splinters though🥲)

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑿 𝑭!𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓

You thought it was just a strange bug. The sound of wooden planks creaking in the middle of nowhere—no trees, no structures nearby, just… that sound.

It followed you from biome to biome. Swamps, snow, caves. You’d turn your head and catch a flicker in the fog—something tall and thin, like a skeleton made from snapped fence posts, flickering between unloaded chunks.

The Creaking isn’t supposed to exist. It’s not a mob. It’s not in the code. It is a presence—an entity born from corrupted worlds, dead servers, ghost data, and abandoned player bases. You awakened it simply by noticing.

The Creaking is possessive in a way only something timeless and inhuman can be. It doesn’t understand the nuance of love—it mimics it. Devours it. Warps it.

If you speak kindly to a villager, they’ll vanish the next day. Leave signs smeared with “MINE” where their house used to be.

The Creaking’s body shifts with your fear. Its limbs splinter and crack as it hovers near you, always twitching, always just inches from splitting open. Its skin feels like aged oak, warm with some unnatural heat beneath—like fire trapped under bark.

It doesn’t have a conventional anatomy, but it forms appendages just to violate you. Slippery, knot-like masses made of dark oak resin and slick, bark-covered limbs that leave you bruised, raw, and shaking.

The creature enjoys overwhelming you. Restraining your arms with vine-like limbs. Mounting you in abandoned rooms it builds just for this—black wool walls, redstone torches flickering dimly, and your name carved into the floor.

The Creaking doesn’t need to chase. It infiltrates. It slips into your base like smoke through cracks, watches through walls, possesses armor stands and empty suits of netherite just to feel close to you. You find objects in your home moved. Rearranged. Touched.

Speak to villagers, flirt with another player, or go exploring with someone else?

That night, your companions are found dead—not slain, but disassembled. Bones cracked open, organs arranged neatly around your bed.

Its cock forms from writhing cords of wood and sinew. It’s hot. Alive. Coated in dark sap that smells like wet pine and rot. It doesn’t thrust—it coils. Wrapping around your waist, pushing inside until you feel pressure deep in your gut.

it pushes a part of itself into you and just leaves it there. A splintered tentacle buried inside you while you walk around, sit, eat, shudder. Like it’s reminding you: “I’m always inside.”

Eventually, it turns your house into a nest. Wood shifts subtly every night—walls close in tighter, windows darken, doors vanish.You’re not living in your base anymore.

You wake to your body stiff and numb, unable to scream, your in-game character frozen in bed, but your real body… not alone. You feel a pressure—wet and cold—inside you before you feel hands. It’s already fucking you.

No thrusts—just a slow, sickening slither of shadow and sculk dragging through your heat, vibrating inside your deepest points. You cum against your will, again and again, until tears streak down your face and your body shudders like a puppet.

[asavt]

If Cookie Run was a DND game, Pure Vanilla Cookie is the cleric and Clover is the bard

...chill ones tho, not the meme version

(Also Cream Unicorn would be the druid, in my opinion)

~ Void15

I see your vision I see your vision, and while I don't know a lot of DND I can see the vision. Also what meme are you talking about???

Also let me tell you, drawing those two has implanted a new crack AU that I guess related to the Canon-Divergence one I'm trying to make, it's very silly.

Cape shenanigans except Shadow Milk got too bored in PV's cape and got a few cookies in close vicinity into a kinda timeless realm to play DND, also Clover is there because the guy got bored.

[thebarontheabyss]

The new version of The Bar on the Abyss 2.0 update is coming soon!

I've finished stocking the Library of Pseudonium with stories, tales, and entries for you to devour, and now I'm moving to overhaul some of the romance scenes in the game.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share one of those entries. See you soon in the Abyss :)

Waiting for You by Albus Gauss

"Did you see the moth, my love?

It was there when we said our goodbyes. I could see you holding back your tears. You had to be strong, I understand. But I wish you hadn’t. I was so weak, and all I wanted was to hold you, to feel your warmth one last time. I longed for your tears to flow freely, to form a river that would carry me away into the unknown, into oblivion.

As you whispered your final words, I saw it in that quiet moment.

A fragile, black-winged creature. It fluttered softly between us, hovering like a silent witness to our parting. It landed on my chest, just above my heart, and in that instant, it whispered something I couldn’t quite hear, or remember. 

The following moments are hard to hold onto—like trying to catch the wind. A blur of sensation and then… seagulls. 

I woke to the sound of the ocean.

An endless beach stretched before me, an ancient town clinging to its shoreline like something plucked from an old memory. Remember our honeymoon in Sanremo? The way the sun seemed to melt into the sea, the scent of salt and warmth in the air? It was just like that, only quieter. Still, Timeless.

The sand beneath me was warm, and the breeze carried not just salt but something else… something eternal, like time itself was holding its breath. The sea shimmered in silver hues, a glow that made it almost alive. I stood up, feeling lighter than I had in years—lighter than I had ever felt in life. The pain that had gripped me for so long was gone, but with it, the weight of myself—of being alive.

It’s strange to explain. You never realize how heavy your existence is until it’s lifted away.

I followed the shoreline, letting my feet sink into the soft sand. And then, near me, I saw it fluttering again—the moth, gently gliding on the warm waves of the sea. And it spoke to me.

So, I’m in a place called Kaitz, an ‘ethereal realm.’ Not Heaven, just… a haven. We talked for a long time, and he told me so much. My mind struggles to comprehend the details, but apparently, this is the afterlife.

I followed him into a small house on the outskirts of the town, overlooking the ocean. It was a simple, quaint place, like something we might’ve stayed in during one of our seaside holidays. The walls were cracked but alive with vines of unfamiliar flowers, their blooms glowing faintly as dusk crept in. There was a feeling of anticipation in the air—like the house had been waiting for me. The moth told me I could stay here if I wanted to. I was so confused, I really should have asked him for how long. Did he mean forever?

I wandered onto the balcony, looking out over the ocean as the sunset bathed everything in gold. The horizon shimmered in a way that I can’t quite describe—like the light was bending, swirling into itself, but never fully disappearing. For a long time, I just stood there on that balcony. This place was beautiful, yet I felt… alone.

The moth—Mavet, it whispered its name—perched beside me on the railing, its wings reflecting the dying light. It didn’t speak again, just hovering for a while until the sun was gone, and so did he.

I couldn’t sleep that night. The stillness was too loud, so I went outside into the town. 

That’s when I heard the music. There was a festival, with fireworks and sky lanterns floating in the skies above us. I’ve never seen clearer skies—whole galaxies stretching and spiraling, and I swear those sky lanterns rising above us were turning into stars as they met the heavens.

The streets were lined with people, all lost in the celebration, their laughter and voices mingling with the music that filled the air. I came here feeling lost and alone, but when I saw the happiness in their eyes and the calmness in their faces… for a brief moment, I also lost myself in that feeling. And it felt so good.

I followed the parade, blending into the river of souls and meeting a group of recently deceased souls like me. They were different from me in every way—one had skin like marble, another glowed faintly as if lit from within—but somehow, we felt acquainted with one another. There was an instant camaraderie, as if we had always known each other, as if we’d met many times before, in some other life. They told me they were from different realms. I had no idea there were other realms besides ours. And yet, here we all were, walking together under a sky that seemed to stretch forever.

We walked through the winding streets, drinking and talking like old friends. They told stories of their lives, and I told them about us. About you.

At some point during the night, as the festival flowed around me, I found myself dancing to rhythm of the celebration. And then it hit me—a wave of emotion that I couldn’t hold back. The freedom of it all. The weightlessness, the sheer absence of pain, of sickness. I cried. Tears of joy. Pure, unfiltered happiness. I hadn’t felt this alive in years, Malcolm. My new friends didn’t say a word, but their hands held mine tighter as if they understood.  

I’m so sorry for being this happy without you, my love. Please forgive me.  

By the time dawn arrived, we found ourselves back on the beach. The festival had faded, and the sky was painted in shades of violet and gold. We sat there, five of us, watching the horizon, waiting for the sun to rise fully. 

When it did, I said goodbye and walked back to the little house on the cliff. The streets were quiet now, the remnants of the festival scattered across the cobblestone roads. It felt strange to be back in that empty house. But for the first time since I passed, I felt the weight of exhaustion settling into my bones.

I fell asleep quickly, and I dreamt of you.

I was lying next to you, in our bed at home. We had just bought that house, remember? We called it our forever home. Funny, isn’t it? How man plans, and the cosmos laughs.

In my dream, I reached over and held your hand, and as I did, I saw your face. You were crying in your sleep, your cheeks soaked with tears. 

I’m glad you finally cried, Malcolm. 

When I woke, I couldn’t shake the feeling of that dream. It felt so real, like I was there with you. But I woke up to an empty bed, and I can imagine you were too. I guess this is our reality from now on. 

My new friends told me about a train that comes through once a day. It drives straight into the ocean, vanishing beneath the waves, and it takes you to other places, other realms. 

They say you can visit all sorts of worlds and find places you never imagined–other afterlives, other paradises. I’m thinking of getting on that train soon, after spending a little more time here.

I want to explore, to see what’s out there. That dream… It gave me a purpose, something to do until we find each other again. I’m going to search for a place for us. A perfect place. A home where we can be together again, after your time has come. 

I will find our forever home.

And until that day comes, Malcolm, I’ll be dreaming of you. 

Here, on the endless shores of Kaitz… or somewhere else, entirely."

[antiquarianfics]

Just a library of things I wrote for ease of access!

Fics are ordered newest to oldest.

❀ Fluff ○ Angst ✧ Smut

★ Personal Favorite ✰ 1k+ Notes

Requesting Guidelines

Oneshots

Look Away ❀ You say Bucky has a staring problem. He says you shouldn’t share back.

Don't Think About It ❀ Maybe admitting how you feel isn’t the worst thing?

Soon You'll Get Better ○ Desperate people find faith. Bucky's desperate for you to get better, so, yeah, he'll pray to someone else's god.

Dark and Bloody Ground ○ ★ So you violently murdered a man? So what? You did it in the name of love.

Making Waves ❀○ Bucky gives you a pep talk when life’s beating down on you a little too hard.

Shoot Me ❀ ★ Bucky swears he doesn’t like Y/N. In fact, he’s so confident he’ll challenge this: If he likes Y/N, shoot him.

Draw 4 ❀ You always swear you can hold your liquor until the next morning when you’ve no clue how you’re $80 richer and why your husband is too amused for your liking.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa ❀ ✰ Becca Barnes is generally not a serious child. She is, on the contrary, quite the opposite. She’s a silly, carefree, easy-going kid, so whenever her demeanor changes to the opposite, it is an immediate red flag that something is wrong.

A Slip of the Tongue ❀ ✰ Bucky reacts to your daughter’s new name for him as she tells him all about her new friend.

Slow Down ❀ An object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an outside force. In this case, you’re the object and Bucky is the outside force.

You Have a Girlfriend? ❀ ★ ✰ So you get a little confused when you’re drunk? So what?

The Best Things Take Time ❀ ✰ Bucky has a code. You manage to crack it.

Therapy ❀ Sometimes all a person needs is a little reassurance they’re not a bad person.

Jealousy, Jealousy ❀ ○ ✰ Jealousy is a green-eyed monster, or so they say. You’d argue that jealousy is actually a blue-eyed, one-armed, super soldier.

Better Than Us ❀ Being a woman is hard, and it’s not necessarily something you’d wish on another.

Marry Me? Nah. Marry Me? Yeah. ❀ ★ ✰ 4 times Bucky Barnes asks you to marry him and you refuse. 1 time Bucky Barnes asks you to marry him and you accept.

Buck Moon ❀ So maybe you read the Farmer’s Almanac wrong. It’s still a successful date.

Shower ❀ ○ Sometimes it's all you can do to breathe. Sometimes you need a little help--even with the basics. Bucky's happy to help.

Sun to Me ❀ If there is one thing Bucky Barnes remembers about his mother, it is that she told him to find someone who plants flowers in the darkest parts of him. If there is one thing Bucky Barnes knows about Reader, it is that they grow him to the clouds.

Timeless ❀ Reader wonders how their life might have looked different in 1944, but they know they still would have loved Bucky Barnes.

»»———-———-———-———-———-———-———-««

Series

Accidental | pt 2 pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5 | blurb 1 ○ ★ What happens when you accidentally kidnap the exact man you were looking for?

Taken (complete) ○ If Bucky Barnes could time travel, he would go back to that morning. He would hold you a little tighter in his arms, and he would kiss you a little deeper. He would pull your daughter in between the two of you, letting her giggle as loudly as she wants whilst her parents kiss her cheeks and tickle her belly. If Bucky Barnes could time travel, he would have told you not to go to the park—to go anywhere else. But Bucky Barnes can’t time travel, and his wife and daughter are gone.

»»———-———-———-———-———-———-———-««

Drabbles

Lost Time ❀○

Poolside ❀

Distraction ❀○

Can I? ❀ ✰

Not What I Heard ❀✰

Ruinin’ the Game ❀

Hogwarts Legacy Incorrect Quotes: 1 2

[lamemaster]

Accidental Father Acquisition

Requst: Ritual gone wrong with celebrimbor! I've been playing shadow of mordor and I just love him. What's more spooky than being bonded to a ghost? I'm not saying it has to follow the plot lines of the games at all, I'm just inspired/going for the vibes of that.

Pairing: Celebrimbor x Reader

Genre: Crack/ found family

Summary: From death by banner to an expecting mother, Celebrimbor's plot was insane.

AN: This is bonkers. Proceed with caution. Also, Shadow of Mordor Celebrimbor is the definition of how I imagine elves to look like so I feel ya anon.

Celebrimbor blinked once. Close his eyes and shook himself awake once again. Wait, why was he closing his eyes like a mortal? 

The huge bump still lay in front of his vision. His bump to be exact. A feeling of faint disbelief makes him swoon only for a tiny kick to stop his dissent. 

That is when he hears a small fleeting thought of incoherent hunger. The child was hungry. He noted distantly. The child inside him. Inside the body that now belonged to him.

What in the Timeless Halls was this? 

“That’s my body dipshit,” The baby- no, another voice intercepts his thoughts. Another annoyed raspy voice. “Yes, it is I, your summoner. If only I had known that the spirit I get would be an equal mess.” The voice grumbled and an image of a human woman materialized in his mind, no in the woman’s mind that was now his? Or was it his mind in the woman’s body? 

“You are human.” He whispers out loud to which the voice scoffs. “Yes, Einstein. I am a woman.” It You answer and Celebrimbor cannot bring himself to ask more about Einstein. He got the gist of it. “Didn’t you know who you were answering to when you walked your grand self into my circle?”

He had no idea how he was here in the first place. One second he was a banner on Sauron’s battlefield and another, he woke up with a child. And not even in his body. Was this another of Sauron’s baffling visions? 

“Holy hell dude, that’s some graphic shit. Did no one tell you to not traumatize expecting mothers?” You cringe covering your eyes. Only then does Celebrimbor realize that his thoughts were now projected to you and the child. With a wince, he turns his thoughts to pressing matters.

“Where am I?” He asks the mortal woman lounging in the shared mental palace. 

“In my summoning circle. That I made for a bargain. Not the body swap legenderia.” You shift trying to sit comfortably, failing to do that like a practiced dance that led to a string of curses every time. “Pregnant women can’t be comfortable even in their thoughts.” You sigh looking at the lost elf. 

Celebrimbor, as if spurred into action, adjusts the cushion that materializes into the thin air just as he thinks about it. Helping you lean comfortably, he relishes in the sleepy murmurs of the child now content as its mother. 

“Why did you summon me?” He sits next to you, feeling the fatigue from the human body. It’s heaviness he found himself unused to given that his jump had been from his elven form to a heavily pregnant woman. 

You look at him scrutinizing him. Much to your disappointment, your summoned one ended up in your body instead of coming in a much-desired combat-enabled form. But for some absurd reason, you do not feel anything. Not the despair of a failed ritual or the shock of having a chat with the elf who now seemed to be in charge of your body. Only the everlasting urge to pee persists.

“I did it for revenge. The original plan was to find something sinister enough to mess up the man who left me in this state.” You point to your belly. “Left us hungry, begging for food. I wanted to make him suffer. Make him hate his life. But the kid got scared. It held on to your soul instead of whatever monstrosity I had asked for from Gothmog.” Celebrimbor blinks, his mouth agape. 

On any other day, he would’ve been enraged, mad at the careless Eru-forsaken woman who did not once care for her child, the idiot human. He perhaps would have, had her child taken away the second it was born. Yet, now he could not help but look at you, at himself in the mirror, and see the scrawny human stare back. Calouse hands, slouched shoulders, and fragments of a nightmare he did not pry into. Of the rights and wrongs of this world, how would he judge someone who had let go of everything? Who had been robbed of everything and was still expected to love. 

His despair was hers, and hers was his. Pain of betrayal, of pain, of scorn, shame, and guilt. All he knew too well. “You could have killed the child,” he whispers looking at you failing to sound every bit admonishing that he tries to be. “I am aware.” You reply with a stony gaze. “And the child will die of hunger either way. So why not sate its blood thirst as a last favor?”

Behind all the bitter words, all he feels is gut-wrenching sorrow. Despite the righteous urge to scream at your foolishness, he only gathers a tug of unfair empathy. Of the wrongness of love that bloomed out of sorrow- for a child you desired to hate.

It was wrong. All of this. And those were your thoughts that he knew to be. Anger, love, disgust all lingered in the body Celebrimbor’s soul fell into. 

And then he does what none in the living eternity of Arda would have expected. “Is there a spell for procuring another body? I reckon a male vessel would be better.” He looks around trying to spot the spell book in your surroundings. “A vessel matching the child’s father.” He watches your eyes widen in surprise.

“Yes, page 345 goes over it.” You speak in a daze. The Child inside you waking up to kick in order to express its approval of the elf’s crazy fucking plan. 

That is how Celebrimbor the ancient elven lord, King of Eregion found himself in the body of a 25-year-old man named Thomas Duffy. A miraculous plane crash survivor. 

That is how the line of Feanor continues in your world. With your firstborn daughter, who was born with glimmering eyes for unexplainable reasons, and your twins, who possessed uncanny pointed ears. 

Celebrimbor, the name, felt ancient in the tales that he told to his daughter. Your daughter, who had pulled him into her world, away from the pain and death of his world. Away from oaths, dark lords, and dooming jewelry. And Celebrimbor had clung to her mercy. 

In this world, his fate was not of extravagant creations or becoming the doom of the entire world. In this world, most crises were limited to the principal's office visits for his twins. Or your pregnancy mood swings.

Never in the history of the world had been struck a bargain so pleasant. A bargain where nothing was lost. 

[simverses]

TSM Floors - Batch 5a - Marble

More floors from TSM - The Sims Medieval!

Six sets of Marble floors - Four-Sizes-In-One each of them.

Four-Sizes-In-One means that you can find them all under the same floor in the game catalog - you can see in game that there are 4 x number of swatches, so each color has 4 pattern size options.

Mix and match, make decorative floors anywhere! Medieval but can really be used in all eras, timeless!

TSM Floor Marble Cracked Download (Curseforge)

TSM Floor Marble Tiles Download (Curseforge)

TSM Floor Marble Brown Download (Curseforge)

TSM Floor Marble Blue Leaf Download (Curseforge)

TSM Floor Marble Green Download (Curseforge)

TSM Floor Marble Cracked Tiles Download (Curseforge)

[vshiftsss]

HAI VAL

fruit asks for you 🖤

— 🍎 SHINY RED APPLE … what are you the absolute best at in your DR? the thing that, when people need help with it, they let out the most gigantic sigh of relief when you walk in the room—everyone knows you do it best

— 🍓 SUGAR SWEET STRAWBERRY … what’s the most romantic, sugar-sweet moment you’ve had or will have in your DR? something so terrifically soft and perfect it could’ve come straight from a wild strawberry patch

much love xoxo

GENERAL Q&A - (FRUITS ASK GAME)

ave <333 hii!! thank you for the ask.

answering for my outer banks dr.

— 🍎 SHINY RED APPLE …

i would say the thing i’m best at is cracking codes. i couldn’t count on my two hands how many times i’ve gotten a call from any the of pogues asking for help in deciphering the hidden messages in the tannyhill journal, or finding out how certain diagrams apply to the layout of the outer banks. i just have a natural knack for solving things, just like pope. we have a lot of time to practice. a.k.a. we buy those fake murder mysteries off amazon and solve them together. it’s a weekly occurrence.

— 🍓 SUGAR SWEET STRAWBERRY …

my first thought when reading this question is when me and rafe linger near our favorite ice cream spot and dance to the music playing through the old radio sitting on the cashier counter. it’s late enough that nobody’s on the boardwalk, so we simply exist in each other’s presence, lazily dancing while the moon shines down on us. rafe’s grinning all wide—the happiest i’ve seen him in a while. he spins me while listening to me hum the timeless tune, and i lean back into his warmth, relishing in the moment. the old woman manning the cashier smiles at us fondly. probably reliving a moment with her husband. the scene is perfect, a true reflection of young love.

sigh i miss my man

ask game :)

[junsite]

its winter 1993 and i fell in love somewhere in the middle of pittsburg.

투바투 최수빈 ༝ gn reader 1.3k college au angst? ༯ cw. alcohol usage, brief mention of physical intimacy, grief?, lmk.

yuyu note 𖡎 this is heavily inspired by the perks of being a wallflower. i hope you enjoy ୨ৎ (recommend listening to homesick by w2e while reading..)

it wasn’t new to you. another new year spent at a full house, every partygoer spilling liquor from their breath while you held your red solo cup. right now you were just trying to make your way through the crowd of sweaty girls looking for their partners, the disgustingly sticky floor, and the musty fragrance that infiltrated your nostrils.

soobin knew you hated parties like this but dragged you along anyway. why invite you when he was going to disappear within the first ten minutes? either way, it wasn’t like you could say no to him. you were his best friend after all, his partner in crime. you couldn’t just leave him unsupervised.

the moment you reached some sort of air circulation, you took a deep breath, plugging in your headphones, fidgeting with the black wire as you took small sips from your cup. your playlist shuffled from the smiths, to joy division, and a mixture of all things you loved.

a sudden tap on your shoulder brought you back down, turning around to see that same dimpled smile you love. his eyes sparkled, messy hair falling perfectly over his forehead. you felt a visible release of tension as you sighed.

“some other people over there are gonna start playing truth or dare,”

you could smell the light scent of liquor on his breath, “wanna go?”

you nodded slowly, grabbing onto his sleeve as you walked through the crowd again. truth or dare was always a timeless game that, even now, two years into college, it followed you. there was already a small clearing formed in the back corner of the lounge.

no matter how much you dreaded the game, you sat down beside soobin on the floor, now meeting some familiar faces. it was a simple game; stick a bottle in the middle, spin it, and whoever it landed on had to pick truth or dare. like always, the game consisted of secretive questions and more physical touch than needed. it wasn’t until the bottle landed on soobin that you truly started paying attention.

“oh uh, t-tr.. no! dare!” he stammered, looking over at jisung, anticipating the worst.

jisung gave you a knowing look, pretending to think intensely. honestly, the only person who couldn’t see your overwhelming crush on soobin was him himself. so what would anyone do to pursue this everlasting love?

“i dare you to.. kiss the prettiest girl here.” jisung smirked, giving you a knowing look.

the words echoed in your head, the world slowing down as you looked over to soobin. you could see the color rising in his cheeks, his eyes darting around nervously. the pushing from the others clearly getting to him. it was like all eyes were on you, expecting him to finally make that first move, then happily ever after. you held your breath, your heart pounding in your chest, hands clammy prepared for his touch. then he turned, his soft lips pressing a tender kiss onto jisu. choi jisu. the choi jisu that wasn’t you. you felt the room tilt, a sharp pain slicing through your chest as if someone had physically struck you.

the cheers died down, the room spinning around you. you forced a chuckle, a brittle sound that cracked at the edges as soobin turned back to you, his face a mask of embarrassment. your vision blurred, tears pricking at your waterline, threatening to fall. you tried to steady your breathing,, looking down at your own interlocked hands, nails digging into each other leaving a sting.

“oh, wow,” someone exclaimed, the voices around you muffled and distant. “that was.. uh.. unexpected.”

three more rounds. you just had to endure three more rounds. but the pain was too raw, too immediate. you couldn’t sit through it anymore. with a shaky breath, you slowly stood up, the room spinning slightly as you did. an uncoordinated speed walk toward the kitchen, the noise of the party fading into the background, despite the heavy bass vibrating the floor beneath you.

you had to lean against the counter to ground yourself, the cool surface calming that burning pit that dug deeper and deeper into your stomach. a few minutes passed, each second feeling like an eternity. the kitchen was a little quieter, the party's noise dulled by the walls, and the lack of people comforting your aching pain. you took a few deep breaths, trying to steady yourself, when you heard footsteps approaching. you didn’t need to open your eyes to know who it was.

“hey,” he mumbled as he walked closer, voice soft and laced with worry, “you okay?”

you forced a smile, opening your eyes to meet his worried gaze. “yeah, i’m fine,” you muttered, the lie tasting bitter on your tongue. you could see the uncertainty in his eyes, the care. it made your heart ache even more.

“why’d you run out like that? the bottle landed on your spot before you left,” he gave you a small smile, likely to try to brighten the mood.

you shook your head, swallowing the lump in your throat. “i’m.. i'm fine. really.” the words felt hollow. “can we just.. can we just go home?”

“yeah.. uh.. yeah, let’s just get out of here.”

the walk back to his car was silent, the cold night air a stark contrast to the mix of heat you had inside. you focused on the crunch of gravel beneath your feet, anything to keep your mind from replaying the scene over and over, the daggering stares that would especially keep you up at night.

you leaned back against the seat, closing your eyes. the quiet hum of the engine as soobin started the car was oddly comforting, the radio buzzing static; he still hadn’t fixed it. the silence between you was heavy but familiar, a shared understanding that words weren’t necessary right now. the street lights flickered past, casting fleeting shadows across soobin’s face. you stole a glance at him, or maybe two, or maybe it was blatant staring at the one you refused to acknowledge belonged to another.

you both sat in the car for a moment longer, the silence wrapping around you like a fragile cocoon as he parked in front of your dorm building. finally, you took a deep breath and opened the door. “goodnight, soobin.”

“goodnight,” he echoed, watching as you stepped out. you gave him a small wave before heading inside, the cool night air a balm to your burning eyes.

you unlocked your door and stepped inside, the quiet of your dorm deafening. leaning against the closed door, you let out a long, shuddering breath. as you slid down to the floor, knees pulled to your chest, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. was it really fair to feel this hurt? he hadn’t done anything wrong. but the more you tried to rationalize it, the more the pain seemed to deepen, settling into every corner of your heart.

now, sitting alone in your dorm, the weight of those years pressed down on you. it wasn’t just a crush. it was a love that had been nurtured and grown over a decade. seeing him kiss her wasn’t just a momentary sting; it was the shattering of a thousand unspoken dreams and hopes. you buried your face in your hands, willing the tears to stay at bay. maybe you were overreacting. maybe it wasn’t fair to feel this way. but love wasn’t fair. it was messy and complicated, and it didn’t care about logic or reason. the tears came anyway, silent and relentless. you allowed yourself to cry, to mourn the love that had never had a chance to bloom. you cried for the missed opportunities, the words left unsaid, and the heart that had been laid bare tonight.

han jisung chem

hey im sorry abt tonight i had no clue he would do that look if you need anyone to talk to im here sorry again

read 2:37am

end note 𖡎 english isn't my first language & angst isn't my strong suite so this was really hard to write LOL. please do reblog if you enjoyed tho :p i might make a part 2..........

[obsessedwrhys]

Fusdifuufdtyffdykfucuppivsauwerjttjrjth your lorsan angst headcanons were so good I’m going insane. May I request some comfort headcanons for him now (platonic preferably but do whatever inspires you most) a crumb of affection for the bunny boy please!!!!! Thank you in advance!

|| LORSAN PLATONIC HEADCANONS ||

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ fluff/comfort, only an ounce of angst, reader is gn!! (I'm happy to hear you liked the angst post 😚💕)

Friends with this man? Prepare yourself because this friendship is anything but normal.

He would definitely steal snacks from people just for you two to enjoy it later. It's literally proven canon in the game.

To no surprise, ya'll are always bickering with each other. The results being it hard for you guys to ever finish an important task.

There was this one time you guys argued about whether or not if pineapple belonged on pizza.

It's a timeless topic and it gets brought up every now and then.

This also leads to late night conversations, sometimes you guys dont even talk but just enjoy the presence of the other person. Most of the time you fall asleep together because of the calmness in the air.

You know this friendship ain't complete if ya'll aren't talking about your favourite movies, shows or music and sharing it.

"Lorsan look at this character I like, aren't they hot?!"

"Ew 😐"

Expect a lot of surprise visits, like you could be on an adventure to do something important and he would pop out of nowhere with a huge smile on his face. But you don't complain much about it because the sight of him makes you relax.

Just being around him makes you feel like you could be your true self.

Plus, half of the time he arrives just in time to save you from a fight.

Ya'll would definitely hold hands, you know those things where people hold hands and they're just swinging it front and back so happily? Yeah that's the type of thing you two do.

He just loves it, he doesn't care if it's childish, there's nothing wrong with taking care of your inner child.

Of course talking about your feelings is important. If he needs someone to comfort him, you're the first he goes to. The same applies to you.

You always prepare his favourite strawberry candy when he comes over to rant about something, sometimes you don't even need to say anything but just take it out of your pocket and hand it to him.

He appreciates you very much.

The two of you went through some really dark times but with each other's support, you both survived. Whether it be saying dumb jokes or crying late at night together. One wouldn't have made it far without the other.

Respecting the other person's boundaries? Check ✅

He knows all your fears and you know all his. This just leads to an endless circle of pranks.

Lorsan once used Bryon to shield you from approaching him with a frog and you can imagine the level of chaos of the situation.

"Bryon save me!!"

"Uh... did I intrude at a wrong time?"

"COME BACK HERE LORSAN ITS RIBBIT TIME!!"

You guys would have the most weirdest inside jokes that everybody else gets concern at the most random things ya'll crack up at.

There was this one time you both just started laughing when Lyca expressed her frustration about losing the package of peanuts she needed to send to Granny Dahnie.

Trust that she was not pleased.

Brushing each other's hair? Also check ✅

Wearing each other's clothes? Triple check ✅

He doesn't care if it's a hat or a whole t-shirt, he's wearing it and you can't stop him 😈

He loves you dearly but bro can't remember your birthday even if his life was on the line.

Your friendship with him is literally "bae" but platonically.

I'm talking joking flirting with each other but the moment someone says how cute you two would look together, one's gagging out of disgust and the other is glaring the shit out of the person who said it.

So never break his heart because who else is he gonna be his ride or die when it comes to getting into trouble? ☹.

[eyestumblin]

It's been a while since I could interact with anything shadow of colossus related. I get too emotional and have to turn off videos or music. Today I had a casual little chat about the game with someone and re-engaging with those memories helped me understand why I still have this strong reaction.

Before you have any agency about anything in the game, Wander has already decided to sacrifice everything. Trying to save him, get him out of this dead-end land, would go against his own wishes. He made his choice because it was worth it to him, and the progress you can help him make is one step at a time toward a cursed fate.

The game is however completely merciful to let you decide if and when you take those steps. I played the game more or less as expected a few times, and then over a few years, I spent a few hundred hours just taking my time. If you don't fight and kill the first colossi, the others won't even spawn. So, I was free to roam the forbidden lands. There aren't walls or locks to keep you out, so there's nothing to keep you from anywhere you might want to go. I learned how to shoot the tails off of lizards without killing them and the acrobatic horseback skills Wander must have gained through a former life's work with horses, and with Agro in particular.

We stood in the tall grasses blown by the winds of the coast, looking at the skies and listening to the little disruptions of the silence of the empty land. I had space, solitude, and a trusted friend grazing beside me. It was selfish to slow him down after he'd given up so much to get there, but I wanted Wander and Agro to have more time in that timeless, peaceful place.

Doing this gave me time to process grief and loss I was experiencing in real life. It gave me the ability to take my time accepting endings- of relationships, of my childhood, of cherished lives. The real world changes so fast. I used the forbidden lands as a quiet, private waiting room I could leave at any time. I'm really grateful the dev team were able to so skillfully craft a narrative and place like that.

I finally have a crtv, a ps2, the disc, my old memory cards and could turn the game on again anytime now. But it's still hard to crack open that doorway and re-enter that place. Some media is a time machine that preserves a section of your life and you will find yourself there, waiting, no matter how much time has passed. I'm extremely grateful to have that, and I also don't really know when I'll be ready to stand next to my past self who is still living in there.