#cw: entrails

[lynxgriffin]

Eldritchrune - Chaos, Chaos

1 | 2

Story Setup Eldritchrune Masterpost

The Fun Gang arrives just in the nick of time for Kris, and with that added strength, Kris is able to overcome Jevil and get their reward. But there's still some questions left unanswered...

Aaaand here's the final part for the Jevil boss battle! Feels good to finally get this comic done, considering how long it took to get out! Work on others is still continuing in the meanwhile, but thanks so much for checking out this crazy secret boss battle scene!!

Alt text for this comic is under the read more:

Page 1

Panel 1 - Back outside the gyre, Kris rematerializes with a quick POP just below where Ralsei is standing. They land hard on their back, but they’re alive and whole again. 

Panel 2 - Wider shot of Kris, Ralsei and Susie, now together again. Kris trembles and breathes heavily, curled up on a ball, while Ralsei hovers over them, and says “Thank goodness, I got here in time!” Susie looks on, snarling at the danger before them.

Panel 3 - Wide panel as the Fun Gang face down the enormous Jevil, who is continuing to spin around and around the bottomless pit. “The hell is THAT thing?!” Susie asks, her long hair blowing towards the gyre. 

“A bound god! This must have been what Seam mentioned to you…” Ralsei says to Kris, who is still curled up beneath him.

Panel 4 - “But I’m not familiar with how to subdue this god!” Ralsei finishes, still hovering over Kris. Kris keeps staring back at Jevil, taking quick and shallow breaths as they try to grasp being alive again. 

Panel 5 - Jevil continues to spin around wildly, and responds to Ralsei, “DEMON PRINCE, SEE, SEE? HOW THINGS TRULY BE OUTSIDE YOUR BOOKS, YOUR RULES!”

Page 2

Panel 1 - Kris manages to get back onto their feet, although they’re still trembling, and gripping at their shoulder where they just recently lost the arm. “I-if I can just reach the c-center…” they say, trying to get their strength back.

Ralsei works to steady Kris as they stand. “Courage, Kris! We’re here with you now!”

Panel 2 - Kris again faces down the spinning god, which grins back at them in anticipation.

Panel 3 - Closeup on Kris as determination sets into their face. They have an idea of what to do.

Panel 4 - Susie leans down, and Kris climbs up onto her back using her hair.

Panel 5 - Once situated on Susie, they raise their sword towards Jevil and give her the ACT command. Susie looks on, snarling and ready.

Panel 6 - Wider shot as Susie begins to carefully slide in closer to the spinning Jevil. The whirlwind is pulling them both in closer again. Ralsei stands by, watching cautiously.

Page 3

Panel 1 - The panels of the page curl around into a whirlwind movement as Susie and Kris slide in closer to Jevil.

Panel 2 - As Susie is almost up against Jevil’s orbit, she opens her jaws wide, revealing sharp teeth–

Panel 3 - And then snaps them down hard onto one of the large bone fingers as it spins by. She doesn’t bite through, but hangs on to the bone by her teeth.

Panel 4 - An overhead view as Susie and Kris are pulled along the edge of the whirlwind, with Susie hanging on by her teeth. However, they are now matching the speed that Jevil is spinning at.

Panel 5 - From Susie’s back, Kris now has a clear view of Jevil’s head at the center of the gyre. They ready their sword…

Panel 6 - Kris rears back, gripping the sword tight, clearly worried that something bad will happen again–

Panel 7 - A closeup on Kris’s armored feet as they make the leap from Susie’s back.

Page 4

Panel 1 - Very wide shot as Susie continues to hold on to Jevil’s scythe finger, dragged along his orbit. Jevil himself faces down Kris, who has jumped straight into the gyre, their sword raised to strike–

Panel 2 - Abstract black and white panel as the strike of something sharp hits its mark.

Panel 3 - A wide shot reveals that it is Kris who has struck home this time. They finish the leap across the bottomless pit with sword still in hand. Behind them, Jevil’s head has been severed from his body, and falls into the pit.

Panel 4 - Closeup on Jevil’s severed head as it falls. He doesn’t seem upset at all, but continues to grin wildly, letting out a laugh: “UUHHEE HEE HEEEEE!”

Panel 5 - Wide shot as Jevil’s spinning tent body begins to lose its balance. The spinning slows down, and the enormous hands begin to lose their standing and topple over. Ralsei watches the scene as Kris grips onto part of the tent body, hanging on during the collapse. Strange viscera begins to pour out of the severed neck, filling the pit below.

Panel 6 - Closer on Kris as they continue to hold on tight to the tent skin with one hand, and keep their sword gripped in the other. They watch the scene below them–

Page 5

Panel 1 - Reverse shot as Kris watches from above. Strange viscera pours out of the open wound and fills the pit below them: bones, skulls and entrails, animal heads and limbs, all mixed in with feathers, toys, cards, cake and candy. 

Panel 2 - Closeup as the viscera finishes spilling out, one item comes to land on top of the pile: a strange, dark shard of what looks like black glass.

Panel 3 - Above the mess, Susie continues to grip onto the large bone as the spinning slowly comes to a stop. “Whuzzat fing?!” she asks, her mouth mostly busy holding onto Jevil.

Panel 4 - Closeup as Kris leans down and picks the shard of black glass off the top of the pile.

Panel 5 - Wider shot as Kris stands on top of the junk pile. They examine the glass in their hand carefully. “I’m not sure…”

Panel 6 - Kris looks up from the pile in shock and surprise as Jevil’s voice echoes around them: “WHAT FUN, FUN! SUCH A WONDROUS ROMP, I LOST MY HEAD!”

Panel 7 - Kris turns their head to see Jevil’s severed neck spring to life, and turn towards them. Inside the wound there is only blackness…and a face looking back at them. Just a simple face of pinpoint eyes and many wicked teeth, grinning in the black. “SUCH STRENGTH, LITTLE LOST HUMAN!” Jevil praises them.

Page 6

Panel 1 - Closeup on the new, prickly Jevil face peering at Kris from the black. “PERHAPS ONE DAY, HIS BLACK HAND WILL STRETCH FROM THE PIT AND TOUCH YOUR MIND, TOO!” Jevil says. The many teeth stretch into a grin. “THEN…THEN!...”

Panel 2 - Kris takes a cautious step back, and puts a hand back on their sword. “I’m not interested in any more of your freedoms.”

Panel 3 - Wide shot as Kris moves down the viscera pile, away from the face grinning at them still. They pocket the shard as watch Jevil warily. The face in the black replies, “PITY, PITY! BUT ALL THE BETTER FOR ME, ME! TAKE MY TREASURE, BRING CHAOS TO YOUR LITTLE TOWN, AND I’LL BE FREE!”

Panel 4 - Far outside the circle, Ralsei raises his hands to his mouth and calls out to Kris. “Kris Come on!”

Panel 5 - Kris begins a steady climb out of the pit, with Susie waiting for them above. 

Panel 6 - Wider shot as Kris finishes climbing out of the sand trap, and grips onto Susie’s long hair for support. She grimaces and they climb back onto her shoulders. 

Page 7

Panel 1 - Wider shot as Kris and Susie step away from where Jevil now lays collapsed in the sand pit, completely subdued. “What was THAT all about?” Susie asks. Kris continues to examine the black shard, and says, “I found this strange object. It came out of its body…”

Panel 2 - Downshot on Ralsei as he answers: “Oh Kris, wonderful! This battle wasn’t in vain…you got a shadow crystal!” In the foreground, Kris holds the shadow crystal carefully between their fingers.

Panel 3 - Shot of Kris on Susie’s back as they look warily at the crystal. They ask, “This is what Seam spoke of?” 

Offscreen, Ralsei replies: “Yes! The bound gods of the Dark World carry shadow crystals!”

Panel 4 - Wide shot of the entire Fun Gang as Ralsei continues to explain: “We need as many as you can find…once you combine enough together, you can channel your soul through the crystal to open the Dark Fountain.” Kris continues to study the crystal, while Susie just looks up warily at the open space they’re in.

Page 8

Panel 1 - Kris looks down at Ralsei, and narrows their eyes in slight suspicion. “If I need these, why did you not mention this particular bound god to me?”

Panel 2 - Ralsei holds out his hands to Kris, and gives his explanation: “Well…some of them are more of a mystery to me. Especially when they spring from smaller creatures that have obtained godhood…they are hard to find, and even hard to defeat.”

Panel 3 - “I worry about what effect these gods may have on the state of your mind!” Ralsei finishes, looks up with concern at Kris. Kris watches him from the foreground. 

Panel 4 - Focus on Kris as they flash back to not long ago, when their body was unraveling in Jevil’s gyre. They have a haunted look on their face.

Panel 5 - Closeup on Kris as they finally respond: “I am fine.” However, they hide much of their face, and they do not seem to actually be fine.

Panel 6 - Wider shot as the Fun Gang begins to slowly move away from Jevil. Susie continues to look towards the ceiling, and says, “Ugh, let’s just get out of here! Now we’re probably gonna need a rest before we face King, anyway.” Kris continues to hide their expression. Ralsei says, “Right! Kris, let’s get you out of this gloomy basement!”

Page 9

Panel 1 - Wide shot as the Fun Gang begin to slowly trek back up the sandy hill that Kris slid down in the first place. It’s going to be a long way back up. For a moment, they are silent, with Susie just kicking up sand behind her as she steadily treads uphill.

Panel 2 - Focus on Kris as they glance back at Ralsei, asking something else that has been on their mind. “Ralsei…who is this ‘he’ that the god kept talking about? With black hands?”

Panel 3 - Below Kris, Ralsei waves the question off, looking dismissive. “Oh, it’s clear that that god wasn’t in a sound state of mind…it could have been anyone.”

Panel 4 - Extremely wide panel as the Fun Gang makes their way back up the hill towards the single shaft of light where Kris first fell. All around them is just a thick, empty darkness. However, from the panel borders themselves, something like black fingers stretch out just at the edge of their perception.

“Nothing for you to worry about, Kris,” Ralsei says. 

[jyou-no-sonoko19]

My third entry for the Skullgirls Mobile Halloween art contest. Conceptually my favourite of the three, because they fit together so perfectly, both visually and thematically, it's Painwheel x Silent Hill, where I replaced the kanji for "red" with "pain", to create "Painful Pyramid Head".

[sigyn-foxyposts]

"Narfi, forever the slain son.."

They never leave my mind guys,, I'm so sad this is all we have on them or I would've drawn something nicer grr 💔

[cervideity]

cervi liek book 2!! CERVI HATE BOOK 2!!!!!!

i cannot top the original exchange. but i couldnt get it outta my head i needed to draw it. BONUS PAUL BC FUCK IT!

[coeurmal]

Ils se sont disputés. les vampires se disputent comme ça !

[okscallion-4221]

*Taps microphone*

Slashers covered in the blood and organs of their victims.

That is all.

[haveyoumetmythief]

I've been neurotically waiting on an important phone call-back since 4PM and I have not smoked weed all day and cannot smoke weed until after because the call is Important™️and I HATE IT

[crystalsandbubbletea]

I am going to snap if I see one more person be ableist towards NPD and other Cluster B disorders

Shut the fuck up, you literally think Nazis are hot

(This is directed at someone we have blocked, by the way)

[al-n-cartoons]

Is his tail hurting him? I lack context for the right fellow's tears.

the bodies of werewolves are not kind to them

[bitterrfruit]

houndtooth [1]

[masterlist]

ghost x f! reader. 2.2k words cw: violence, abduction, drug addiction. 18+ mdni

you're the pampered wife of a russian warlord. ghost hunts you down and finds a use for you.

There’s something special about you.

Something sickly. 

Your body, your lips, your eyes — bait, like dripping entrails in a loose twine net; dragging bloody along the wooded, overgrown path of your life, and luring ravenous carnivores to your trail around every bend. 

It’s something you’ve grown accustomed to, expectant of – that lecherous scrutiny, from any man you have ever met, or ever might. Used to the huffing snouts that suck in the vapour of your beguiling skin, tonguing it like they might ever get to take a bite. 

Offering mouthfuls of yourself is the only way you have been able to keep them at bay. Appeasing when necessary. Rebuffing only when you can be certain that your extermination will not be the consequence. 

Sometimes they gnaw at you anyway. Sometimes their canines sink rapaciously into your soft flesh, popping through your skin like it’s the velvety hide of a peach. They drink the sweet pink syrup until you’re bled dry, careful to spit out the cyanide core once they've finished. 

Until that poisonous pit, coated in the stringy viscera that those teeth had missed, was all that was left of you. 

So, when your husband found you, dressed as the hound-bait character you played along the redlight strip, you were allured by the promise that he might plant you again. Maybe, with his exorbitant riches and clandestine occupation, he might water you and fertilise your soil, he might let your pit sprout into a sapling. Maybe, your branches might blossom again. 

When he expatriated you to Russia, his snow-blown motherland, you imagined yourself a Tsarina; jejunely clinging to his arm like you might fly away with him, carried to an undefiled paradise as though he were your archangel and you his rapture. 

That was the last time you loved him. 

One step off that jet, the first leap with your exuberant paw; there was no paradise, no utopia waiting for you. Landing hard on icy cement, your husband was quick to stifle your lament. Offered you oxycodone like pebbles of dogfood in the palm of his hand, swearing you an unending supply – his remuneration for your services, whose nature you were not yet privy to. 

But those opioids were your wage. 

They were your shackles, too. 

Even if you managed to outrun your paralysing addiction to them, it didn’t take you long to be tackled and smothered by your intemperate dependence on your husband himself. 

On his status, on his money, on his reputation. 

Without, you would have been long used and discarded, tossed hollow and floppy like freshly flayed doeskin; exsanguinated by the very men he colludes with, the very creatures that slither into your home, that sit at your table and speak puzzles in their Cyrillic tongues. 

The very beasts who your husband endeavours to entertain and indulge with your presence at his side – a glittering trophy, or a ripe fruit, juicy and plump. He holds you in greedy hands and brandishes the shine of your skin, he polishes you with a firm palm on your ass, he boasts his possession of you with a hot tongue on your cheek. 

The prize they can never win, that’s what you are. The meal they can never devour. Only his teeth have the privilege of gorging on your supple flesh. 

With your English passport long stolen from you, you are left with no option but to be grateful for that fact – that your husband does not whore you out to his compatriots, does not sell your body for some other man to graze on or to pick at, like you used to do yourself. 

That is one of the few reprieves he offers you. 

Protection. 

Maybe, if you had never met him, you would have eventually crawled out of the chasm that your previous life had sunk to. If you had never met him, you might have found a way to break free from your dependence on those poppies. If you had never met him, you might have found worth for yourself beyond the coins hungry men would offer you in exchange for a taste of you. 

But any hope you may have had in those days is a distant, futile memory. A bittersweet daydream you sometimes venture to. 

Frozen in your sordid reality, you’ve no option but to indulge him. 

To oblige him, whatever he wants from you, you play the role he carved out just for you to fill. You massage his neck after a long day. You listen to his broken English as he does his best to explain what had happened at work, in as little detail as possible, in an effort to shield you from the truth of his profession. You swallow his cock when he asks you to. You pretend to let him satiate you all the same, a professional actor you are – you sing those moans for him, when he licks you, when he fucks you, when he pledges to impregnate you. 

He doesn’t know you’ve got a copper coil in your womb. You tell him there’s something wrong with his come, he doesn’t believe you. He sends you a doctor, and with his money, you pay them to lie. 

That’s the other perquisite, one you can’t belittle. 

His money. 

His mountains, mountains, mountains of money. 

None of it tangible, no real cash, no paper stacks tucked away in places any brave burglars might be able to find it. All of it digital, little numbers, binary code hidden behind so many layers of encryption it’s a wonder it can be counted at all. 

But there’s never a need to count it. All you know is that it is unending. 

He lets you spend it how you like, and there’s no amount of expenditure that could ever put a dent in his wealth large enough for him to notice. 

Still, the prince, he imprisons you in his castle. You can throw invisible money at whatever your bored and inebriated heart might desire, any priceless art, any extortionate car, any lavish designer shoes – and it means nothing. It fills no void. There’s nobody to show it off to. 

It appeased you, at first, after your stint of homelessness, then your weeks living in a dim red brothel, until he found you. When he offered you such a nauseating amount of money as payment for your salacious dance, that you felt your knees buckle beneath you at the sight of it. When he took you shopping and bought new lingerie to decorate you with, when he carted you giddy to his private jet. 

All too good to be true. 

And it was. 

Too late now, anyway. This is the hand you’ve been dealt; you play your cards as best you can. Close to your chest. Who knows when you’ll fold. 

You lean over the marble vanity, the harsh, downward lighting of the gaudy ensuite carves out the divots and lumps of your face that are typically imperceptible. 

You used to think you were beautiful. That’s what everyone told you. 

But watching your husband’s cold semen trickle down your décolletage, saturating and staining the invaluable lace and silk chiffon of your rosy babydoll, drying flaky on your skin – you can only see lipstick on a pig. An ugly little creature, destined for the slaughter. Your belly waiting to be made into crackling, your ass into bacon. It won’t be long now. 

You sense that you are beginning to overstay your welcome. What had once been pliancy had now turned stiff and sharp. Any sweetness you once felt for the man who swept you off your feet has since coagulated into bitter milk, too lumpy to swallow, so instead, you spit. 

The contempt inside your husband has been bubbling, fermenting. You can see it, and feel it, and taste it. He made it known to you especially tonight, fucking you with the brutality of a rabid animal, clutching and clawing, tugging and throwing, biting and beating. Painting you with his come to humiliate you, to degrade you, to remind you what you are, and always will be. He got some of it in your eye. 

There’s a bruise on your collarbone. It’s not the first he’s given you. It won’t be the last. 

You wipe away the crusting fluid with an opulent towel, dampened with warm water; lush white cotton turning creamy and black as it cleans away the come and mascara. You use it to dab clean your negligee. It’s your favourite one.  

Clink.

Your ears perk. 

Clash. 

Frozen on your feet, your head darts to face the door to the ensuite - heavy and ornate, it sits ajar. Last you checked, your husband was asleep, snoring like a fucking engine. The silence that follows the peculiar noise is what unsettles you most. 

Maybe it was him reaching for the pills on his nightstand, or readjusting the eiderdown duvet he sleeps under. But you’d expect a grunt, at least, some huffs of complaint as he was forced to do something for himself for once. 

Instead, quiet. 

You know that your husband keeps guns around the estate. Both figuratively, in the forms of armed and well-paid sentries that roam the grounds and stand guard by the doors. And, literally. A pistol in the kitchen, a shotgun in his cupboard, an assault rifle under the coffee table. 

And, you remember, a Beretta under the sink. 

With quivering and cautious fingers, you reach for the brass handle of the drawer. 

“Милый?” Sweetie?

You utter it softly, hesitantly, sweetly. He once told you your accent sounds native when you pamper him with pet names. English is your first language, Russian now your second. He doesn’t know how much of it you can understand. More than he believes. 

But there is no answer from him. Not a word, nor a groan, nor a snore. 

“Всё в порядке?” Is everything alright?

Your careful fingertips dive into the drawer, momentarily peeking down to find the black metal. A pant of relief jumps from your throat when your fingers find it, that cold handle; you take it in the palm of your hand, it moulds to your grip like it was made for you. 

He showed you once how to load it. 

You remember. 

You clutch the slide with a harsh grip, tugging it back, click-snap. 

The safety is off. You’re not that stupid. 

“Дорогой?” Sweetheart?

Calls turn to pleas. 

You know vaguely the line of work in which your husband is a kingpin. You know it most likely involves bloodshed. 

And, so, you guess it involves fucking people over. That it incites vengeance. That it creates martyrs. 

Normally, the guards help you sleep, their thudding boots and murmuring chatter keeping the retribution at bay. 

Why is it so quiet? 

Thud.

Creak.

Now you resent yourself for calling for him. You’ve made your position obvious. You’ve handed yourself on a platter. 

Perhaps you can sneak to the hallway. 

Or, perhaps you can simply check to see if it’s your husband, skulking around your bedroom and choosing to silently ignore you out of spite. 

So on your bare toes, you glide along the glossy tiled floor, pit pat, pit pat. Feline fingers clutch the edge of the door. You gently draw it open, ever so slowly, the golden hinges moaning quietly at their awakening. 

You hold your weapon by your side. You keep your finger off the trigger. God knows what you’d do if you shot your husband by accident. You might be better off just turning the gun on yourself, in that case, rather than be left to the dogs. You know what their teeth would do to you. 

The bedroom is dark. 

The silvery glow of the moon is the only source of light, bar the dim orange now emerging from the open ensuite door. Your kittenish shadow stretches out before you onto the velvety carpeted floor, your shape carved out even through the sheer fabric of your negligée. 

���Не двигайся, черт возьми.” Don’t fucking move.

Your breath lodges in your throat, wedged in your trachea like you had swallowed a jagged rock. 

Not your husband. 

No, that voice is far too deep, too grumbling, too threatening. 

So who? 

“А ты кто бляд?” Who the fuck are you?

You hiss it, a growl, though only the kind a snarling little chihuahua might spit out when touched by an overbearing hand. 

Hidden from the moonlight, the figure prowls through the shadow. Towering, imperious, that silhouette renders you frigid - you swallow as much oxygen as your stiff diaphragm will allow you. Not much. 

Four red beads of light stretch in a line where his eyes should be, reminiscent of a hunting spider; high enough off the ground that it might be crawling up the walls, hanging from its silk, ready to ensnare you. No, that’s just how tall the beast is as it stalks you. 

The glint of the moon reflects off the glistening barrel of his gun. Gun feels like an understatement. It’s immense, black. Machine more fitting. Pointed at you. Coaxing. Warning. He gives it a shake. 

“Брось свой маленький пистолетик, шлюха.” Drop that little gun of yours, slut.

The more he talks, the more you doubt. His accent is weak. Not a Russian. 

“Чего ты хочешь, мудак? Деньги?” What do you want, asshole? Money?

He scoffs. Arrogant. Scornful. 

“I don’t want your fuckin’ blood money, you evil little bitch.” 

English. 

Explains the accent. 

But, you’re left with more questions. One, what the fuck? 

“Drop the gun. Or I might get your blood on that pretty dress.” 

You hesitate. He pounces. 

“Сейчас!” Now!

[riddled-with-fear]

What's Eating You?

Hi all, I know the poll technically still has 2 days, but I didn't have a shorter time option aside from 1 day! Anyways, here is the winning slasher, it was pretty close between Thomas or Bo! Thomas won out in the end.

Pairing: Thomas Hewitt (Leatherface) X Reader

CW: depictions of gore, canon typical violence, strong language, smut, AFAB reader implied, Allusion to Stockholm syndrome (?).

WC: 1,299

This goes without saying, but I feel the need to put a disclaimer:

while I do write about dark and potentially upsetting themes, I do not condone the actions depicted. It is simply a work of fiction.

DDDNE! You are responsible for your own media consumption.

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

The sound reverberated inside your skull, amplifying your splitting headache. Your brows furrowed together, yet you couldn’t open your eyes. Your face twisted in agony as nausea swirled in your stomach. You took in a few deep breaths, but nothing curbed the sick feeling overtaking you. 

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

Your senses started coming back around. That’s when the smell hit you. Your nose was overwhelmed with the scent of raw meat, iron, and dirt. It was too much, it pushed you over the edge. You could practically taste the stench. It hung heavy in the air. You felt the back of your throat burn and your stomach began contracting. You barely turned onto your side in time as you wretched. Tears stained your face as you lay in your own sick, but you finally felt relief. 

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, and tried sitting up. You managed to open your eyes.

Oh, how you wish you kept them closed.

The first thing you noticed was the occupied meat hooks dangling from the shoddy wooden ceiling. You recognized the only intact body that was hanging as one of the young men you hitchhiked with. The next meat-hook had an unidentifiable torso hanging from it. A few rusted hooks were bare. Your eyes slowly moved towards the center of the dimly lit space you were in and noticed the large butchering table in the middle, with blood flowing down the edges pooling onto the dirt floor, forming crimson puddles.

The chopping had stopped, and your eyes made contact with the one responsible for the noise. A man. A large man. He wore a soiled apron covered in blood and viscera. He donned a mask on the lower half of his face.

You recognized him as the one who had chased you and the group around the property. The memories came flooding back all at once. 

Somehow you were still alive. You don’t know how, but you were. How much longer you’d be alive, you didn’t know that either. Perhaps that’s what scared you the most. You were on borrowed time. You scrambled to your feet, only to be hit with a wave of dizziness. You stumbled back into the dirt, scraping your knees and reopening the barely scabbed wounds in the process. The man just watched you, as if he knew you weren’t going to be able to get away.

You curled your knees to your chest, and sat with your back to the wooden wall. Your eyes went to the table again and you saw what lay on it.

A man. Or, what was left of a man. His limbs and neck were bolted down with metal restraints. His abdomen had been sliced open from his neck to his groin and his entrails were resting in between his legs in a bloody heap. His sternum had been sawed in half, opening his body up further. You looked back to the masked man standing over the corpse. 

“What… what are you…” you couldn’t speak. 

“Tommy!” 

You both snapped your heads to the staircase. 

Footsteps soon followed the voice. The same ‘Sheriff’ from earlier made his appearance in the dingy basement. 

“Tommy! Goddammit boy you know when I call you, ya come up!” Hoyt’s gaze turned to you. He eyed you up and down, an action that made you nauseous all over again.

He scoffed before he focused on Tommy, “Dinner’s almost done. Get cleaned up and get that little bitch cleaned up too. Mama wants her as a dinner guest.” He glared at you once more before turning back and heading upstairs grumbling as he left, “jus’ another mouth ta feed.”  

You scowled. Tommy heavily sighed and set the meat cleaver down on the table. 

You bolted up in bed with a cold sweat. Your breathing was heavy, anxiety had you wrapped in a tight embrace, and you were shaking. You looked around and saw you weren't in that dingy basement and realized it was just a nightmare.

You took in a deep breath. Yes, that's all that was, a nightmare.

Though deep down you knew better. You knew it was just memories replaying themselves like a broken record. Very real memories of events that had taken place not even a few months prior.

The mattress shifted beside you, and two large arms found their way around your torso, pulling you out of your thoughts. You looked to your side, and saw Tommy staring at you with wide eyes.

"I... I'm alright... Just a bad dream." You reassured him, but you knew he didn't believe you.

Thomas just stared at you. You couldn't read his expression due to his facial scars, but if you could, you'd assume it was concern plastered across his face.

He laid you down, caging you between him and the old mattress you rested on.

"Thomas? I said I'm oka-" He cut you off, placing his large hand over your mouth. You furrowed your brows in confusion.

He only sighed softly in response. He lifted the hem of your nightgown above your waist, and that's when you knew he was going to comfort you in the only way he knew how. The only way he knew how to communicate his feelings to you without confusion. He could never tell you his feelings, he could never voice his wants, but he sure could show you.

He glared at you, his eyes dark with lust. He removed his hand from your mouth, and you only gave him a nod.

That was all he needed from you. He freed himself from his pants, quickly lining himself up with your entrance. He didn't give you much prep. He quickly and roughly sheathed himself to the hilt, painfully stretching your walls.

You sucked in a hiss through your teeth, squeezing your eyes shut. That was always Tommy's favorite reaction he drew from you. He knew he caused you pain, but it was a different kind of pain, a pain that didn't kill you, so he reveled in it.

Tommy moved his hands down to your hips and gripped tightly and slid out of you before slamming his hips into yours again. You let out a loud gasp. He shot you a quick look as if to say 'be quiet'.

He was in control, and with the way he had you pinned you couldn't move even if you wanted to. He moved your hips for you, fucking you onto his thick cock, ramming his fat tip into your cervix over, and over again.

"Oh, fuck, fuck." You whispered just loud enough for Thomas to hear.

You felt the sharp heat coiling behind your navel as chills spider-walked up your spine. It never took Thomas long to get you to fall over the edge of pleasure. You felt yourself tiptoeing closer to that edge.

"Please.. please go faster." You whined.

He nodded, and picked up his pace. The antique bed frame groaned under your combined weights. You didn't care if anyone heard. You didn't care about a lot of things these days.

He fucked you roughly into the mattress, eliciting soft and whiny moans from you. He leaned his head into the crook of your neck, biting the skin where your shoulders began. The sharp nip was all it took to send pleasure ripping through you. You came hard on his cock, and by the way his hips began to stutter, you could tell he had came inside you as well.

He slowly pulled his sopping cock from your cunt, his cum spilling from you and onto the mattress under you. He fell to your side, both of you panting and sweating.

"Th.. thank you, Tommy." You rolled to face him, planting a kiss to his scarred lips. "Goodnight."

You both slipped into a blissful sleep.

[lostintransist]

Secrets are for Grownups | Part 8

Part 1 can be found here. AO3

Should I apologize for the below? Probably, but they deserved it.

CW: Allusions to past SA and calling men out on their own bad choices @/bernardsbendystraws for the dividers

Disgust is not a strong enough word for John to articulate his feelings toward his men. He studies them, unsure of how to move forward. They had remained seated as you fled for the kitchen. Simon’s fingers dug into Johnny’s shoulder and Johnny’s into Simon’s thigh.

“How could you?” John does nothing to mask the sorrow in his voice. “How is what you did to her any different than what happened to you, Simon?”

He exploded off the couch, fists clamped tight as his shoulders shook with the energy to fight down a strike.

“That was nothing like what happened to me, John,” Simon growled out, face set in anguish.

Johnny rose from the couch, a hand settling on his husband’s shoulder.

“How is it different then? Because she wasn’t in chains? Coercion traps people much more effectively than restraints. We all know that. We all took those classes about infiltration and interrogation together.” The two steps between them stretched like a ravine. “Did you ever ask her, either of you?”

Simon pales, Adam’s apple bobbing, “She never said no.”

John fired the killing blow, in a quiet, angry voice.

“Did anyone listen when you said no?”

He is moving before either John can blink — hurling open the door and vomiting into the flowers out front.

Johnny stared at John, hurt and betrayal chasing each other through his eyes.

“What if this had happened to one of your sisters?” John watched the words land and explode like the bombs Johnny had been so masterful at creating.

Dry heaving from the front porch drew Johnny away from the entrails of his decision laid out before him like someone had been divining a message from the lost gods. John moved to the front door and watched his men work their way home. Johnny limped and Simon swayed with each step. John shut the door firmly, resting his forehead against it.

He fought back the acid straining to breach his throat. He hadn’t known. He would have done something if he had known. All it would have taken is a quick conversation and two little boys wouldn’t exist, but neither would all this pain that attacked his people or himself.

Janet, his ex-wife, had blindsided him that year. Never once did she speak about being unhappy. None of her friends, her mother, or even her sisters had mentioned that she might be feeling unloved, neglected. John showered her in love and gifts and time whenever not on a job. He had thought them both happy. He had been wrong.

After a short job, John had come home to an empty house and a knock at the door. Within ten minutes of searching through the whole house and finding it empty of any trace of his young wife, he had been served. Sitting at the kitchen table he had read every line of the divorce papers, seething at the slander and the truth sprinkled to have the greatest effect.

She had dragged him through the courts. Her shark of a lawyer took a bite and a pound of flesh, as well as a healthy chunk of his paycheck for alimony. It would have been higher but the judge denied taking half of a war hero’s paycheck. Though that didn’t stop them from taking half of his retirement benefits for twenty years.

Every unclassified evil John had committed to keep the world safe had been thrown in his face. Conversations had in confidence, kinks they had explored together, every trip he had endured to bring Janet joy had needlessly been dragged out and laid before a judge, spoils of war.

John’s lawyer, a shark in his own right, kept John clear of as much as he could but spousal abandonment couldn’t be washed away with his years of dedicated service to the crown. He had been relegated to desk duty per Kate until the divorce proceedings settled down; that had been about the time you left if he remembered right. He hadn’t noticed anything. How could he have fucking missed something like this? Turning he rests his weight against the door, not trusting his legs to hold him at the moment.

His flagellation paused when you and Nyla appeared from around the corner. Both faces are awash with confusion as he answers the questions you undoubtedly have.

“Boys and I had a chat, they will reach out when they would like to schedule to see the boys. It might be a few days though.” John cleared his throat as he looked away from you to the wall of pictures.

“Are they okay?”

John glances at you, astonished you would ask after everything they put you through. Running a hand over his beard he chose what he hoped would not become a lie.

“They will be.”

Your eyes scour his face, tracing every wrinkle as if searching for confirmation of truth. Whatever you find there must satisfy because you nod once.

Nyla, mother instincts alert, narrows her eyes at him.

“What did you say to them?”

“I reminded them that if they stood outside their choices, they would be disgusted with them too,” John straightened, his chest stretching uncomfortably with the depth of his breath. Matching Nyla’s ever-narrowing gaze he continued, “I would give them the day before you talk to them. They are going to need it.”

She nodded once, firm and on par with a general sending his men to war.

“Dearie, why don’t you and John go out for the afternoon? It has been a heavy morning and I think you both could use an escape,” Nyla patted your arm affectionately.

“Oh, I don’t think,” you start to protest but Mama MacTavish is letting none of it slide. She cuts you off with a keen look in her eye.

“None of that now, you mentioned you need to go to the shops for more flour and sugar. Here’s a strong man to do the carryin’ for you since you complained that the workers are always a bit odd about helpin’ you.”

John has no opportunity to offer an opinion on the plan. Before he knows quite how it happened you are backing the van out of the driveway and sharing a look with him. Sharing a laugh you point the car toward town.

“How have you been John? We haven’t really had a chance to talk about you with all my drama going on.” You glance at him when you pull to a stop at a light.

“Not much to report. Still working for the crown but mostly handling paperwork and training now.”

You wince in remembered pain. John’s hatred of paperwork had been quite well known. It hadn’t gotten better.

“Are you dating? I remember you wanting a family. You seem like the type to want a family,” the van rolled forward as you set it in motion.

Snorting, John shook his head.

“Hard to find a woman willing to look past the insanity of my divorce decree and the demands the job had on me. And what makes you say I ‘seem like the type to want a family’?” He fired back.

A warm, embarrassed smile broke across the half of your face he could see.

“You talked about wanting kids with your ex before everything blew up. There was this,” one hand lifts off the steering wheel as you twirl it, looking for a word, “sparkle in your eye when you talked about having children.”

Humming in reply John did recall the few late-night conversations the two of you had fallen into over Chinese food you complained about. Thinking of those dreams still ached. Time to change the subject.

“I remember you not wanting kids. Did having Noah and Jace change that?” John reached forward and adjusted the air settings of the car.

“Yes and no. I told you I wasn’t sure if I wanted kids, not the same thing as not wanting them. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Even if I could go back in time ten years and give myself all the tools to avoid the pain I might still make the choices I did because the idea of never meeting them or seeing them grow? Devastating. Will I have any more? I don’t know.”

The sentence trails off. John can sense there is more there and he gives a gentle tug to see if you will open up.

“Why don’t you know?”

You take your time to answer, using merging onto the freeway as an excuse to delay a reply.

“Men my age are not ready to be fathers, or they all want their own babies and not to raise someone else’s. You throw on top of that Jace and Noah have different fathers it adds a whole layer of being thought of as easy and more likely to cheat,” you cut him off when you can sense he is going to start to argue. “John I am not blowing smoke out my ass, I am in several groups online of other single moms who run into the same issues I do of men being weird about the fact I already have kids and all the misogynistic bullshit that comes with it.”

“What about older men then?” John challenges.

It’s your turn to snort.

“What? You mean the men who have divorced from their first wives and are looking for a woman to come in and play mom during their parenting weeks? It’s double the work with no real payoff. They are looking for someone to manage their kids while they go golfing on the weekends and make dinners during the week. Looking for a wife instead of live-in help because they aren’t rich enough to hire a nanny and a maid.” You shake your head and roll your eyes ending your rant with a sigh.

“Do you want to get married again then? This sounds enough to put anyone off finding love,” John prods a bit further, happy to keep the conversation off him and his unfulfilled dreams of a family.

Leaving the freeway the grumble of engine slowing fills the space.

“I want love,” you finally start, pointedly keeping your eyes on the cars ahead of you. “I want to know romantic love that settles into the backdrop of my life and keeps me warm at night. If that comes at the sacrifice of my boys, my freedom, my life though? I won’t take that chance. I would have to find someone happy to be a fourth father figure to my boys, who loves them and me fiercely, and makes life better.”

He holds his thoughts in, sensing that you have more to say. It took a few minutes, but John had been right. Settling into a parking spot of the wholesale bakery supply store you reach across the van to pop open the glove box and pull out a fast food napkin. The small space is nearly overflowing with them. Blowing your nose you drop the proof of unshed tears in the small garbage bag John hadn’t noticed.

“If it were possible to find a man who could do all of what I need, I doubt he would want me.” Your voice is small and sad as you say it, confessing to a sin you didn’t want to hold.

No words rise in John’s mind to soothe the ache he hears. He watches though as you pull out some cup holders he hadn’t noticed either. This damn car had so many nooks and crannies he wouldn’t be surprised if you could hide a body underneath the back seats. Lifting a plain band you slide it onto the ring finger of your left hand. Brows going up without his permission John is caught judging when you straighten up.

“The men in there are more likely to leave me alone if I have a ring on,” you say by way of explanation.

“Would be hard to catch a husband if they think you’re married,” John joked, climbing out of the car as you do.

“Not trying to catch any here. All these men do is belittle me for making my ‘silly little cakes’ instead of doing real baking like they do.” Rolling your eyes you stroll with him across the parking lot.

“The hell is real baking then?”

John had seen your work and tasted it. You could bake near anything and it might send him into space with how delicious he found it.

“Hell if I know. Because my ovaries are all tucked up safe in my body instead of dangling waiting to be hit it must mean I will never understand.”

The boisterous laugh draws eyes as the sliding door opens admitting your grin and John’s mirth. He trails after you as you push a flat cart around, pointing to items for him to load. At one point you are speaking to a tall man with a name badge, looking for a specific item you had been unable to find on the shelves.

A different employee walking by pauses, arms full of baking chocolate, to speak to him.

“I’m so happy she was finally able to bring you with her. The men who come by were starting to believe her husband was made up and bother her.”

She walks away before John can find the lever that allows him to open his mouth and deny the claim. Janet had been young when they married, the age gap almost uncomfortable as he thought of it now. John had vowed never to pursue a woman so much younger than him again. Though as he crept closer by days to forty he wondered if the nine years between you and him might still be too much.

The thought dogged his steps as he loaded your van with the bags and joked with you over lunch, staring at the ring you had forgotten to take off after the shop.

Could he have a chance at the dreams that haunted him since he was a teen? His mum had raised him until his gran took over the job and John shipped himself off to war. He knew from his time in therapy that the desire for a family stemmed from what he saw as the lack of it from early on. That knowledge didn’t stop the gnawing in his gut. Imagining you with his ring on your finger, his hands in your hair, your smile greeting him every morning instead of the coffee rings on his table, it tore at something inside him. It ripped and shredded because as much as he could pretend, he doubted you would want another broken military man in your bed or your heart.

Secrets Masterlist | Masterlist

@love-kha1 @sweetlike-sugarplum @vmaxis @splaterparty0-0 @momowhoo @talia-the-gemini @redkarmakai @aethelwyneleigh27 @asexualbuthorny @sleep101 @callsignbumblebee @lucienofthelakes @sirbonesly @demothers-empty-blog @fightmerahhh @skeletonsucker

[gravedwe11er]

My brain's been completely consumed by @keferon 's mecha pilot AU lately, especially all the texaid things, and I just had to add my own two cents to the pile! So, here is Felix/First Aid's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (followed eventally by a much better one).

cw for gore and violence, as well as the usual things that come with Vortex being Vortex

He’s still scraping out the remains of the latest unlucky bastard, the sharp stench of cleaning agents mingling with the iron-sweet tang of blood and making his nose burn, when the enemy-incoming alarms bathe the whole hangar in red. Immediately, the usual post-battle calm turns into a frenzy of shouts and barked orders, dozens of footsteps rushing to and fro.

It hasn’t even been thirty minutes since they’d come back from the last fight.

Swearing to himself, Felix wills his hands to stop shaking as he finally succeeds in prying out the - god, is that the guy’s finger? – from inside the pilot’s harness. He throws it out of Vortex’s cockpit in the vague direction of the catwalk, not bothering to see if it landed in the glorified body bag they give him for these clean up jobs. Ten pilots ago, they still used to bring a stretcher in a show of, what- misguided optimism, maybe? Now, they can’t even be bothered to pretend.

The floor is still filthy, bodily fluids splattered liberally all over the cockpit, but Felix can hear the next pilot/sacrifice marching up the catwalk and prepares to make himself scarce, content at least in the knowledge that all the more solid bits of the last one have been disposed of. He gets up on unsteady legs, eager to get out of this stinking grave when the blood red plexiglass of the cockpit suddenly slams shut in front of his face. The hydraulics hiss as they complete lockdown procedures, entombing him inside.

His blood runs cold.

There’s frantic banging on the glass, from the outside in, from the inside out. There’s shouting, from the pilot, from control, asking what’s going on, telling him to get out, get out now. There’s a sharp, heavy gaze pressing down on him, with all the suffocating weight of a rockslide, and Felix feels oh so very small.

Beneath his clenched fists, words coalesce into being on the glass screen, white on arterial-blood red; it makes him think of bone shards in an open fracture.

TAKE A SEAT

Felix starts, jumping away from the glass. Stumbling backwards, he gapes, mind reeling, before forcing out, “Please, I don’t- I’m a medic.”

I KNOW

“I’m not- I’m not a pilot,” he whispers, pleading with the cursed thing, shivering like a leaf under the thing’s crimson lights. Something in the machinery around him hisses, a stuttering staccato of a sound, and Felix somehow tenses even further as the screen in front of him changes again.

I DON’T WANT ANOTHER PILOT. I WANT YOU ; )

His heart stutters in his chest. “Why?”

BECAUSE YOU’RE PERFECT

The letters blink out, only to be immediately replaced, bigger than before. More forceful.

TAKE A SEAT

He does. His hands shake like never before as he puts on the pilot’s helmet, still reeking of the previous pilot’s blood and sweat and fear. Dozens of others have died here, at the behest of this deadly war machine, corrupted AI or cursed or whatever the hell is wrong with it. All in the name of humanity’s survival. Felix is sure he’s going to join their ranks today.

Through the haze of oncoming panic, he idly wonders which one of his colleagues is going to be mucking his entrails out of here, when all’s said and done.

The machinery around him comes alive and his head swims, wisps of his-but-not blinding agony and fear and malevolent glee flitting through his mind as the neural connection settles. Felix feels a pressure on the inside of his skull, almost like a greeting, a jaunty knock on the gates to his brain as a voice echoes from inside-outside-everywhere.

“Let’s dance, baby!”

The mech lurches, enormous frame shaking and hydraulics hissing as it disconnects from the docking station, heading for the hangar bay doors with almost a spring in its thundering step. For a moment, Felix considers trying to stop it, grasping at the controls, dragging the cursed thing back into dock and forcing it to spit him out. Then he remembers the bloodied fingers on the floor, or stuck in sharp gaps between internal plating, and shoves his clammy, shaking hands under his thighs.

The stuttering hiss of what’s probably the ventilation system rings through the air, almost like a choked off giggle, as an intrusive presence hums amusement-approval in his head.

The next seconds or minutes or hours are something of a blur, a waking nightmare soaked in adrenaline and cortisol. Vortex walks itself out of the hangar doors, side by side with other mechs, who look like children next to its imposing size. It does so under its own power, without Felix’s input, and this shouldn’t be happening, none of this should even be possible. Felix is no technician, and definitely no pilot, but he knows the mecha aren’t autonomous, can’t be autonomous, but it’s moving anyway and there’s someone else in here, someone else in his head and he’s laughing at him and-

Then he sees them. The world snaps into sudden clarity.

Felix never thought they could really be that big. He’s read reports of the destruction they bring, seen the wrecked cities on TV (and may or may not have taken a good look at a few pieces of them in the labs without permission), but- he didn’t really get it. Not until now. He kind of wishes he could go back to that, honestly.

The monsters, the quintessons, roar as they notice their group of mechs, who suddenly look so terribly small in comparison to the quints’ lumbering, many limbed forms. Almost immediately, their somewhat nonchalant destruction turns into an organized assault as the group of about two dozen charges right at them.

“Oh god,” he wheezes out between short, terrified breaths. “No, no no, get away, get me away from here-“

Suddenly hearing a chuff of laughter from what simultaneously sounds like the inside of his head and behind him, Felix jumps in his seat as he feels the phantom of a breath on his ear. “Aww, are you scared, Felix? Don’t you worry, darling.”

For a moment, everything stills, the mech around him like a coiled spring, a calm before the storm. An overwhelming wave of foreign bloodlust crashes over him, setting his blood ablaze as the war machine leaps into a run, Felix trapped inside and powerless to stop it. With the thrumming wail of integrated weaponry charging up, they meet the quintessons head on.

“We got this.”

As the fighting begins, Felix somehow manages to stray so far into panic he’s almost feeling calm again. Vortex lunges and parries and strikes, the presence in control of the mech clearly a skilled pilot, and Felix watches with a growing fascination as the monsters fall apart into bloody pieces under its – his, Felix thinks - servos. He sees the thoracic cavity of one open up underneath Vortex’s arm-blade, and his mind, conditioned from years of dissections and med school, snaps into action. Oh, looks like a dual cardiovascular system, with the secondary brain here, and the primary would most likely be- Almost immediately, he feelsthe thought being picked up on, examined, and the ghost/mech/whatever it is sends interest-glee-let’s-see-for-ourselves through the neural connection before changing the trajectory of his strike. The sword cuts clean through where Felix thought the primary brain would be, and the thing seizes in Vortex’s grip before going limp.

There’s a near-deafening buzz of mechanisms all around him, crimson light flaring bright. “Ha! That’s what I’m talking about!” sings through his brain, praise-delight humming along his nerves, and Felix can’t help but let a tiny, nervous smile twitch at the corners of his mouth.

“I told you you’d be perfect, baby,” purrs the voice inside his head, and he could swear he feels two hands, cold and intangible, settle on his shoulders, as the battle rages on.

The alarms flare on the late end of breakfast period, turning Felix’s once slow morning into a mad scramble. He races past other pilots and various personnel, stumbling into his quarters, shoving his uniform on before running out again, already feeling out of breath. All the supplementary pilot training he’s been going through, and, if he’s honest, flunking through, doesn’t seem to have done his physical condition much good. Still, it’s not like it matters much, and both he and his superiors know it, but appearances must be kept up nonetheless.  Or so they say, at least. Can’t let the public know their most efficient mech is somehow piloting itself, apparently.

He finally gets to the hangar, his fellow pilots giving him a wide berth as he heads towards Vortex’s cockpit, doing his best not to trip over his feet in his haste. A small smile strays onto his face and, out of the corner of his eye, he sees some of the others stepping further away from him.

Felix is not a very popular man these days, though it’s not like was much of a social butterfly before either - always too awkward, a little too odd for most people to enjoy hanging around. The frequent twelve-hour shifts in the medbay, sneaking off to the research labs and Vortex cleanup duty after he was caught certainly didn’t do him any favors.

Now, though? It’s like he’s got the plague. Most of his former colleagues are dismayed at his sudden reassignment, the sudden changes in their schedules leaving them crankier than usual, though it’s not like he was all that close with them before. The various base personnel keep out of his way, seeming to consider him as cursed as the mech he pilots, his very presence a potential bringer of bad luck. Meanwhile, the actual pilots view him as an intruder into their ranks, exempt from the usual camaraderie that comes with the job.

He can’t deny that it stings a little, even though he’s pretty used to the feeling of rejection. Still, it helps that he's never really alone anymore.

It’s a thing he’s heard about from some earlier tests, from other mech models around the world, those types who tried their hand at connecting two people together to fight as one. How their minds, even when disconnected from their machines, still have a thin little thread connecting them for days, weeks after. He looked it up, after their first mission, when the distant feeling of a presence would linger in the back of his head; gleeful and pointed and anticipatory. It used to unnerve him before, but now, like everything else he sees as he steps into the open cockpit, it’s just- familiar.

Somehow, Vortex has become a balm on his eternally shredded nerves, the capricious, sarcastic bastard comfortably fitting himself into Felix’s life and making it- well. If not better, then definitely more interesting.

The gaze of Tex’s camera eyes never gets any less sharp, or less heavy, but he no longer feels like he’ll buckle under the weight of it. The inside of the mech is as clean as can be, because though he might be a pilot nowadays, he’s still a doctor by trade and he refuses to spend hours at a time sitting in a walking biohazard. The glass clicks shut behind him as he hops in, locking him securely inside as a string of ridiculous little white hearts and smiley faces scrolls across the red screen.

Felix snorts a quiet little laugh, laying a hand on the plexiglass, a building anticipation both his and not making his nerves buzz. “Hey Tex. Ready to go?”

YOU KNOW IT, BABY

“Then let’s dance.” Felix borrows the other man’s usual phrase with a small smile, buckling into the pilot’s harness and putting the helmet on his head in a newly familiar motion.

It takes a few moments to ride out the initial discomfort of the establishing connection, but then Vortex - or Victor, but that name is mostly as dead as the owner of it - is there, their minds snapping together like puzzle pieces. Delight, excitement and the ever-present bloodthirst washes over their shared thoughtscape, and Felix sends greeting-happiness-anticipation in return, feeling, as is usual for him these days, much better with Tex’s dark presence in his head.

“Let’s fucking dance, darling.”

He never would have thought they’d end up here, like this - hell, he didn’t think he’d survive their first battle together. But survive he did. Against all odds, against all previous expectations, Vortex had let him go then, with a winky face and a jaunty ‘come again soon!’, aching and terrified, but alive. And then he survived the next time, once command seized on the obvious opportunity to lessen their losses and sent him back into the jaws of the beast again. And then the next. And the next, until suddenly, he’s got dozens of successful missions under his belt and he’s still not dead.

People have questioned him about it, over and over. He never knows how to answer, to describe the understanding they’ve found with each other, so he simply keeps repeating the same thing – it just sort of works.

Once the bay door opens, orders coming in through the comms in Felix’s helmet and scrolling across his visor, they disembark, long strides taking them out into the foggy morning air. Three other mechs on their heels, they make their way to the coords where the quints were reported to make landfall, anticipation-excitement thrumming through them like an electric current. As always, there’s a thread of anxiety running through Felix’s body, but he doesn’t let that stop them, steadying himself against Tex’s ironclad confidence and working to keep his breathing steady.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to fully shake that, no matter how many times they do this – it’s a very sensible fear, after all. He’s going right into the heart of danger, protected only by a breakable veil of glass and steel, mind-in-mind with the ghost of a dangerous man.

Perhaps one day, a single missed strike might lead him to bleed out right here in this cockpit, mirroring the fate of the mech’s first and last true pilot. Maybe he’d join Victor in here too, another ghost in the machine. Maybe humanity will lose, and they’ll both be torn apart by the writhing hordes of quints, ground into so much shrapnel along with the rest of their species.

Or, maybe one day, Vortex will get bored of him, splaying Felix’s blood and sinew across the interior of his cockpit like a particularly macabre painting, yet another victim of his moods joining the already sizable collection. It’s definitely a possibility, though he doubts it more and more each passing day. They’re way too tangled up in one another now, and maybe he’s flattering himself, but - he thinks Tex might miss him, if he was gone.

Not today, though. Today, they fight like they’re dancing, perfectly in sync, Tex’s skills made all the more lethal by Felix’s ever-expanding insight into the biological makeup of their enemy. They shoot and hack and slash, aiming for weak spots, quintessons dropping in their wake as they tear through them like wet tissue paper. A well-aimed punch saves a fellow pilot from being skewered, Felix sending a wave of gratitude through their connection – though Vortex himself couldn’t care less about the lives of others, he knows Felix does, and the fact that he’s willing to do this, just for him? Well. It means a lot, to say the least.

Cold, there-but-not arms wrap around him from behind in a ghostly embrace, a chin laying down on top of his head. Felix leans into it as much as he can, a smile on his face, and he feels Vortex’s feral grin in his head as they dive back into the fray. Together.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

As always, endless thanks to my beta @jayden-writes, sorry for putting giant robots on your plate, again. I appreciate you.

[mrsjellymunson]

Meet Me

Written for the @steddiemicrofic February prompt rose, and the @st-loveconfessions February Acts of Kindness day 02 challenge write a ficlet inspired by an artwork - I chose this piece by @resande bc it’s fkg stunning || Word count target: 367 || Rating: T || CW: Recollections of angst and allusions to canon-typical violence/gore, hopeful ending || Tags: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, post-S4, S4 fix-it, alternate outcome

Steve remembers.

He remembers it all. Everything about that night they fought demons.

He remembers the fear; tar-like dread rising in his chest as Eddie ran off to play the hero.

And after, how he’d staggered to Skull Rock, honouring the promise they’d made, a private pact to make it back here. Ignoring the nagging incertitude of whether both of them would.

He remembers the scent of rotting leaves and petrichor mingling with his own: sweat, blood and smoke, and how, gross as it was, it smelled better than where they’d just been. But behind it, a desire for cigarettes, weed and motor-oil that he'd never previously acknowledged, but was now inexplicably craving.

He remembers sitting, cold and alone. The only sounds rustling leaves above and his own ragged breaths. The notion that Eddie wouldn’t return gradually suffusing his mind like the chill that permeated his bones as the sun dipped ever lower.

He recalls twigs snapping, footfalls. The brief moment when he thought he might need his bat, for an animal. Or worse.

Then, just as the golden orb spilled its last over the horizon, illuminated by the diffuse celestial light…

Eddie.

He recalls indescribable relief. Then rising shakily on chilled legs, embracing his friend, holding him close. Feeling the texture of Eddie’s jacket in his fists, the sensation of solid, denim-clad thighs pressing against his own. How warm, how alive Eddie felt as Steve’s fingertips brushed his back as his clothing bunched in his grasp. The unexpected softness of Eddie’s hair, matted blood and entrails notwithstanding.

And how vigorously Eddie had gripped him back.

He remembers the relief suddenly morphing into something larger, stronger, more all-encompassing.

How a different sensation rose in his chest then. Something familiar, yet simultaneously completely uncharted. A fierce heat that started low in his belly, rising up through his torso, enveloping his heart and bursting out of his throat.

Flames he couldn’t contain or suppress, even if his life depended on it. A feeling so strong it subsumed all others. All fear, all doubt, all trepidation.

He remembers tears falling and his voice cracking as he’d sobbed and whispered the only words that entirely pervaded his mind,

“I love you.”

Thanks so much for reading!

PLEASE go and give love to the art by @resande, it’s called ‘Reunion at Skull Rock’ (you can see why I didn’t reveal the title at the start 😉) and I think it’s absolutely tremendous (all of their work is!). AND go send your ST love confessions via the asks at @st-loveconfessions , such a fantastic idea and a wonderful way to spread some love through the fandom ❤️

There’s lots more Steddie and Eddie on my masterlist

General taglist (open my sweet muffins, just ask!) @joejoequinnquinn @jamdoughnutmagician @guiltyasquinn @madaboutmunson @airen256 @sunshinepeachx @the-unforgivenn @skrzydlak @comeonatmebruh @jamiecb66 @80s-addict @abellmunsonmovie @definitionwanderlust @sheneedsrocknroll92 @munson-blurbs @wonderlanddreamer @daisy-munson @maedesculpaeusoubi @kurdtbean @mediocredreams @in2tswft @micheledawn1975 @littlebebebunny @12thatsanumber @alastorssimp @the-baby-angel @eddie-is-a-god @wolfqueenxxx @losingmygrasponreality @richter-raccoon @1deverland @evileyeandthecattywhumps @3rd-conchord @bellalillyrose

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Knight König who, after bravelly defending the castle alone and saving all the beautiful young maidens, is now *gasp* alone with them!! You and the rest of the young ladies are not even married yet and this whole horror of a siege came :(( you had to be locked inside the maiden tower with the other ladies, praying to the gods that someone strong would defend you, and here he was!! The giant knight from the north from whom you were always herded away 'because a brute like him has no business with fine young ladies like yourselves' :((

Imagine König who is for the time being the only male in the small castle, the foe has been defeated but any kind of help will take days to arrive :( During the fighting his mind was on slaying all the enemies to defend the flock of the frightened ladies but now...??

He's the only male among a dozen of maidens!! And these poor does are so scared in their tower on comfy beds of furs with all the supplies...so many warm, soft bodies to keep him warm and 'aid him to help his wounds', so many broad hips and breasts to grab and squeeze for comfort...oh and they are so ready to share all the supplies with him!!

I mean...who's to say that a war hero doesn't deserve something good too? :D

GFDFSSSS first I was like "gangbang medieval style yeehaw let's gooo" but then I had another quick idea (in all honesty writing gangbangs make me blush furiously lmao I'm weak!)

CW: Fear of SA, mention of blood, boners galore, dubcon groping, period typical attitudes, gender roles etc.

Knight!König asking you to wash him (because he was seated next to you at this one feast and now he's obsessed...)

König, who never had time for women because he was always on duty, whose best chances for a wife were an old widow or some soiled woman, whatever that meant... Probably some lowly lady, for a lowly knight like him. His family must hate him because they keep him from having even that: instead, he gets shipped off to this outpost of a castle that houses hundreds of soldiers and only a few women. Even they are kept under lock and key most of the time, and it's no wonder... A man like him shouldn't even be dreaming of dipping his dick in the pretty soft things of the Maiden’s tower.

König, who even to his own surprise, finds himself victorious after weeks of siege. Who's left completely unchecked and alone with a flock of scared fawns, poor does who are now gathering together for warmth and safety. They only have tiny daggers and iron scissors as their weapons against an armed knight, knowing they’re not always safe even from their own men – especially after a battle.

Even the strongest, most valiant knights get tired during a siege, turning into starved animals after a few weeks. A soldier fresh from war is the worst thing, having his cock up after bloodying his sword, they usually need to have a woman as soon as possible. A victorious knight, finding himself winning against all the odds, would surely prefer to fuck every single one of the soft cunts locked up in the women's tower...

So König, who batters the door and orders the frightened women to lift the baulk, only gets screams as an answer. They finally open it when he says he's tired after a fight and only wants to rest for a bit, puts on his most charming smile as the huge wooden door creaks open, and meets the ladies with a wide grin despite having blood all over him, stands proudly in his full height with his sword still drawn, a path of entrails and cut limbs behind him – why are they still screaming? He saved them! He should be given a royal welcome!

König, who finally gets the women to calm down a little when they notice he is not about to rape them on sight, who wipes his sword with one of their finest, freshly dyed wools (rude!). Who sheathes his weapon and smiles again, suggesting that they help him out of his plate and give him a wash – he’s earned that much, no?

König, who eats from their bowls as if he has never even seen food, who gawks at their tapestries with curiosity, who tries to stare down their necklines and catch a sight of those beautiful, round, plush tits. Most women quickly rush to heat the water to escape the possible groping about to ensue, while you are left with the task of getting him out of his armor.

The straps are small and endless, the armor consists of dozens of different parts, and he just keeps on grinning widely while you’re at it, giving you odd compliments and passages of courtly love with his mouth full of food. Some of his ramblings are straight out of a troubadour’s song, but you don’t believe a word he says, especially when his heated stare is fixed on your exposed neck, the collarbones so frail, the cascading wool that reveals your wrists as you try to pry your way under the heavy, bloodied pauldron.

Of course he remembers you, down to the minutest detail because he got to feed and take care of you at last winter's great feast... Someone had fucked up and seated you next to him in their error, and he heedily took advantage of the situation. He even managed to have a grope at you when the lords and ladies weren’t watching because they were so drunk.

He was drunk too, intoxicated by the strong ale and the shy stares you granted him. You didn’t do a thing when he pulled you closer and practically fed you some deer off your shared plate, tried if you'd fancy a date or a sip of wine while keeping you tightly tucked in his lap. He couldn’t get enough of you: your tiny gasp when you felt him grow hard, your whimper when he stole a soft squeeze of your tit… Your shy ghost of a smile as you demurely called him “Sir” and told him to stop before he gets you both into trouble. 

Ever since that night, he has dreamed of you when pulling out his leaking cock. Sinned until he felt embarrassed to go to the chapel and yet again confess that he has defiled himself with his hand and thoughts of you. Ever since that night, he has wondered whether you are giving those whimpers to someone else nowadays…

But here you are, in the tower, taking off his plates and using all your strength to get him out of his chainmail. Why haven’t you been married off yet? Why aren't you making blankets and throws at some fancy lord's castle by now? You have the perfect hips for delivery, it's practically a sin to keep a woman like you locked up in a military fortress…

And polite curtsies and shy, downcast eyes won't save you now, you know that.

How can you say no to a knight, ordering you to give him a wash? “Do him the honor,” he says, while anyone can see he’s already hard.

There’s nothing the others can do but put up a curtain and leave you two to your featherlight privacy. He doesn’t even bother to undress behind it, simply flaunts that monstrous thing between his legs for everyone to see before giving you the honor of strolling to the steaming bath. A soft silence fills the tower as the knight, tall as a legend, hairy as a beast, climbs into the small wooden tub with a grunted sigh.

You, the maiden he picked, can only look in horror as he grows even harder under the hot water. The thick erection soon juts above the surface, the dark curls framing the base of his cock now floating lusciously underwater, the dark hair covering his full balls, too. Either he's just big everywhere or then he's been too busy during the weeks of the siege... The amount of times you've seen him abstain from meat in this castle is ridiculous, and you always wondered if he ate fish because he liked it or because he had defiled himself in his lust.

He's an animal, but having a woman is not a sin as foul as throwing his seed on the ground... And here he is, strong thighs spreading as far as they can go to give room to the astounding erection he’s having just from the prospect of your touch.

The knight leans back in the tub, looks at you with a drowsy, soft smile, and tells you not to be afraid. The thick, throaty voice leaves your knees completely weak.

“Ach so... Have you ever touched one of these before?”

[marlboroscuderia]

Hunger // CL16

Ferrari’s Il Predestinato is a game of self-mutilation , dog teeth, and hunger - all things Charles has dealt with his entire life. He is willing to leave anything at the altar for destiny, everything but you.  Or A look at a potentially darker side of a driver's devotion. And a character study (?) of Charles Leclerc.

Tags: Dark! Charles Leclerc x You

CW: Imagery of blood and gore, mentions of death and grieving, general horror-esque narration. Charles is unhinged in this.

AN: First time writing for F1, a little nervous ngl… also the first fic I’ve written in around 2 years. This is what Spain GP 2025 does to a writer. 

WC:822

Bad days at Ferrari always leave blood in Charles mouth, fresh from the slaughter of the track as he drags stains of red back to the garage - be it his opponents or his own, he can no longer tell. Dripping from his maw, madness less man and more beast quiets the nervous clamoring and leaves only a reactive silence in its wake. Charles knows soon he will have to stretch his lips back into a smile, piercing his face with dimples as reporters ask intrusive, obtuse, repetitive questions on what went wrong soon - but right now he feels too dissolved from rationality to think of it.

Bite,bite,bite at the hand that feeds you, an unruly mutt who is muzzled for the camera - he cannot help but wonder how much of himself he must further bite off for his future. 

Since childhood and sticky youth, since before destiny had leaned down and pressed her favoritism to his temple, he had known he was starving. The taste of victory, of the podium, sweet and savory and always not enough was all that could satisfy his stomach. Like a mouthful of nectar on the brink of dehydration that leaves his throat still dry, he had thrown himself into the sport like a beast on a hunt. He thought he could give anything, everything, just to keep tasting it - until the sport did take, and fate turned on her heel to teach him to obey.

He learned quick, to bend to the chain of red that pulls him to the track, loss after loss, slaughtering him over and over again. He has lost everything to this sport, waiting for something to accept his crude offering, he is willing even to lose just a bit more but - 

There you are. He finally manages to catch you, visage almost hidden near the back of the garage where the cameras cannot steal you from him. Headphones firmly planted, curled up on a bench, a mural of paradise that Charles keeps in his teeth for times like this. There you are, painted into the corner like an angel, the idea of beauty itself.

You hold nothing of the garage's tense anxiety, no fear - you don’t need to. Not ever, not of Charles, your obedient lover. The man who had just this morning knelt before you, pressing reverent prayers in the form of whispered kisses to your stomach, leaving it sticky with his lapping tongue. A private ritual, one he greeds for even in his current state of madness, his love for you seems to power his very organs sometimes. 

Quickening his steps, he chases after you despite your stillness, flames and entrails nipping at his ankles as he drags his mangled person to your oasis. Unashamed, he drops to his knees, eager to bury his face to your lap and hide from the blooming pain of his own teeth. Soft as always, warm as always, alive as always, he’ll do anything to keep you like this. Safe, sound, and sweet, he salivates to be able to press his mouth to the skin of your thigh, sighing at the taste. It's sweet, he covets it jealously. 

Formula 1 demands, and Charles Leclerc submits in order to race on the track like an addiction time and time again. But not you, not you, the one thing he will not allow this damned hunger to feast on, not you - if he were to ever lose you he’d lose far more than just his name. Your palms slide across his face to cradle at his jaw, leading him to look up to your lips stretched in a smile.

He cannot help but mirror it as you lead him further to you into a kiss, Charles following as any well-trained pet should. Kiss, and the tension falls, kiss and his fangs dull, kiss and the taste of his own wound washes out into the taste of your tongue. You swallow his madness down your own throat, and digest it whole.

When you pull away, he follows you in a pathetic silent plea, and mercifully you grant him one last kiss before pushing at his chest. Obedience ingrained into him, he follows without resistance although he cannot tear his eyes from your puffed lips. His heartbeat follows the staccato of you catching your breath, syncing, refusing to be two instead of one, and for a few blessed moments the only red he can feel is the warmth of a blush under his hands as he cradles your skin. His moment of prayer is broken when Fred calls his name, the man having developed a keen eye for knowing a tamed beast rather than a wounded one.

“Go finish,” you whisper, “then come home to me.” This too, he supposes, is devotion.

Like a dog he obeys, like a lover he grins and cheekily bits a love mark to your collarbone before pulling away completely.