#just like liminal spaces old pictures and darkness

[ilovescp]

I just love everything that reminds me of a old cartoon or the 50s, it's my passion.

[solsticehymns]

written in the stars: oneshot

sirius black x f!reader / flangst / whimsical!reader

summary: He has spent his life running from the name they gave him. But under the stars, with you beside him, Sirius Black finally stops to listen.

a/n: this was heavily inspired after reading @bartonomy's lovely work a glimpse between the veil, so i wanted to tag her here as thanks for writing that one in the first place! i love the whimsical!reader trope and i've always been an astrology girlie myself i really do believe (and call me crazy but) the stars do have an influence on how we feel, our moods, our lives. okay done rambling, hope you like it!!! <333 xoxo, sunny ☀️🌻

wc: 1849

The stars have always been watching.

The moon watches too, thrumming with an unseen pulse. She spills her thin, silvery light over the earth, seeping into the spaces between breaths and between thoughts, a quiet witness to the night. You can feel the traces of something ancient, felt by every wanderer who has ever turned their face to the sky. The grass is damp beneath your legs, blades curling gently, as if the earth itself is holding you in place. Overhead, the sky stretches indefinitely, a great cosmic sea where stars drift like scattered embers, still burning long after their fire has gone.

You breathe it in, slow and deep, letting the night fill your lungs. The moonlight seeps into your being, turning your limbs ethereal, half-real, as if you, too, might dissolve into the constellations above. You are at peace here, in this liminal space between night and morning, between earth and sky.

And so, without thinking, you begin to speak.

You tell him about the constellations the way one tells old stories by a fire, familiar and worn at the edges, but no less magical. Your fingers trace invisible lines between the stars, connecting them into shapes, into myths, your voice weaving pictures into the darkness.

"That’s Orion," you say, arm outstretched, your fingertip drawing the belt in the air. "A mighty hunter, cursed to chase his prey forever across the sky. He thought he was unstoppable. Then the gods decided otherwise."

Sirius follows your gaze, his eyes tracing the constellations as you map them with effortless certainty. He watches the way your lips shape each name, each legend, as though they belong to you, as though you are the one weaving them into the night.

"And Cassiopeia?" you continue, shifting slightly so that your shoulder brushes against his. "She was too proud. Too vain. Thought she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, so Poseidon made sure she’d never look at her reflection the same way again. He chained her upside down in the sky, just to remind her."

You pause, tilting your head toward him, a knowing smile playing at your lips. "Strange, isn't it? The stars don’t tell these stories—we do. We named them, shaped them into hunters and queens and fleeing sisters. We gave them meaning because we needed them to mean something. Because our ancestors looked up at the same sky and whispered their fears, their hopes, their warnings into the dark, and the stars have been listening ever since."

He doesn't answer, but he doesn’t look away, either.

Encouraged, you shift onto your side, propping your head on your hand. Your other hand lifts, fingers tracing another invisible line. "That one—there. The cluster? That’s the Pleiades. Seven sisters, running from a love they never asked for. They were so desperate to be free that the gods pitied them, lifted them from the earth, and set them here—far from grasp, far from harm. A sanctuary in the sky."

You let the words hang, let the weight of them settle. "Such a contrast," you continue, voice lower now, more measured. "One woman, bound to the stars as punishment. The Pleiades, seven sisters, cast into them as an escape. One sentenced. One spared. Both still written into the heavens."

Sirius exhales, a slow, quiet breath, his gaze locked on the vast sprawl above. His fingers twitch against the dewy grass, restless, as if they might catch on something unseen. The rise and fall of his chest is steady, but there’s a tension beneath it, a thread pulled taut, waiting to snap. He doesn’t know whether the sky is a tether or a noose, if its vastness offers escape or only makes him feel smaller.

His eyes flicker to you, thoughtful, hesitant. He never believed in fate. But right now, he believes in the way your voice bends around the stories, in the way your fingers move through the air, slow and deliberate, as though you are shaping the constellations yourself.

Sirius doesn't believe in fate. He doesn’t believe in divine intervention, or cosmic prophecy, or the nonsense his mother used to whisper over candle flames and tea leaves. He doesn’t believe in signs, doesn’t believe in destiny, doesn’t believe in anything that claims to know him better than he knows himself.

But he listens when you speak.

You lie beside him, arms outstretched, fingers gliding through the night as if plucking melodies from the stars. Your voice is quiet but assured, each word carrying the weight of something ancient. The stories of the stars are not just myths—they are memories, stitched into the sky by those who feared being forgotten.

“They named you after the brightest star in the sky,” you murmur, your breath warm against the night air. Your voice is different now, softer, as if the words are heavy with meaning, not just meant to be spoken but entrusted. “Did you know that?”

Sirius exhales sharply through his nose, turns his head just enough to glance at you, but he doesn’t respond right away. The mood has shifted, the playful storytelling dissolving into something heavier, yet somehow more fragile.

“Yeah,” he says at last, but his voice is shrouded behind something guarded. Careful. “I know.”

Your gaze stays on the sky, on the vast darkness where his name burns, distant but unwavering. “Sirius is a guiding star,” you continue, your voice carrying the slow reverence of a secret. “Sailors used it for centuries to find their way home.” Your fingers dance between the stars, drawing invisible maps in the air, tracing a path that has existed for millennia.

His eyes follow the movement of your hand, but his expression remains unreadable.

You press on. “It’s part of Canis Major. The Great Dog.” There’s a pause, just long enough for the words to linger. “A loyal companion.”

His laugh is abrupt, cutting through the quiet. But it isn’t real, not really. The sound is empty, edged with something bitter.

“Loyalty,” he repeats, tasting the word, like one might taste wine to test if it's spoiled. And indeed, it lies bitter and pungent on his tongue. He shakes his head, a slow, almost imperceptible movement. “Funny.”

You don’t flinch, or argue, or try to tell him he’s wrong. You just let the silence settle, let the sky breathe between you. And then, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it, you ask, “What do you think it means?”

He doesn’t answer at first. Because the truth is, he doesn’t know. He’s spent his whole life running from the name they gave him, the weight of it pressing into his bones, the chains of his bloodline clanking at his heels. The Black family had always spoken of the stars with reverence, with hushed voices and heads bowed as if they were sacred, as if their fates were written in them before they were even born.

But he doesn’t want to be written into anything. Doesn’t want to be another Black, another link in the chain, another name in a long list of cruel men with cold hands and empty hearts.

“They named me after the brightest star in the sky.” He pauses, just for a moment, as if weighing the words in his mouth, feeling their weight settle into his bones. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet, almost resigned. “But they never wanted me to shine.”

The words hang there between you, fragile as gossamer, trembling under the weight of the truth. The night swallows them whole, but they don’t disappear. They linger, stretching out between the space of his ribs, curling in the back of his throat like smoke from a fire long extinguished.

You don’t speak right away. You let the silence settle, let the night air breathe around you. There’s no rush. No demand. Just time. Just the quiet hum of something unspoken threading between you, waiting to be understood.

Sirius swallows hard, tilting his head back toward the stars, searching their endless sprawl as if they might hold an answer he’s never been able to find.

“I wonder,” you say eventually, voice softer than before, contemplative. Your breath catches, just slightly, before you continue, “if stars ever get tired of burning.”

His eyes flick toward you, sharp but thoughtful, considering your words the way he considers so few things.

You continue, tracing slow, delicate patterns against the sky. “They burn for centuries. Millennia. Pouring their light into the universe, unraveling themselves in the process, until there is nothing left but the faint remnants of their glow. But eventually, even the brightest ones collapse.”

A pause. Then, softer, “Even the ones that guide people home.”

Sirius exhales, long and quiet, the breath leaving him like something unraveling, like a tether slipping free. His fingers twitch against the dewy grass, restless, as if they might catch on something unseen. The rise and fall of his chest is steady, but there’s a tension beneath it, a thread pulled taut, waiting to snap. He feels as if you’ve reached into the hollow of his chest and found a feeling he had locked away, hidden in the quiet corners of himself.

Then you turn to look at him, and your eyes are burning with an emotion he can’t quite name—wild, consuming, stretching beyond reach, reflecting the infinite sprawl of the cosmos.

“But,” you murmur, your voice carrying the weight of a truth so delicate it feels as if it might shatter if spoken too loudly, “they don’t really disappear, do they?”

His breath catches.

You watch him carefully, as if measuring each second that passes, as if willing him to believe you. “Even after they’re gone, their light travels. We still see them. Still follow them. They don’t stop shining just because they aren’t there anymore.”

Sirius doesn’t know what to say to that. Because no one has ever told him that before. No one has ever spoken of him like a presence that lingers, a light refusing to dim.

You shift closer, just enough for your shoulder to brush his, a steadying presence against the weight of his thoughts. He doesn’t move away, doesn’t speak. But the tension in his jaw eases, just slightly, as if the closeness anchors him to something real, something here.

“Sirius,” you say, like it’s a vow unspoken, a promise woven between the stars. “You are burning brighter than they ever will.”

For the first time, the words land with weight, pressing into his chest, firm and steady, an anchor against the pull of everything he’s been running from. They don’t scatter into the night, don’t vanish before he can hold onto them. They stay. They linger, heavy and certain, settling into the spaces he’s long believed to be hollow. A quiet warmth stirs in his chest, like embers coaxed back to life. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t disturb the stillness that has wrapped itself around the two of you. He allows it to exist, lets the night cradle the silence, and leaves none but the stars to bear witness.

And for once, he doesn’t feel the need to disappear.

☀️🌻 masterlist

[bisnes-socks]

i love kot kot. i've always loved kot kot. and i'm gonna tell you why.

i think it's a beautiful song, i think it's a banger, i think it's a nostalgic sound, and i think it's an incredibly sad song.

musically, i think kot kot sounds like a summer night in finland. the contrast between the melodic, soaring chorus and the darker, harder verses sounds like walking back and forth between the bright light midnight and the dark clubs or bars or restaurants or something. going from the first verse into the chorus again feels like stepping out from a dark venue and it's 2 am but the light outside is the same as it was when you went in hours ago. it's actually super eerie the way time doesn't seem to move at all during the height of summer in finland. it's a sort of a liminal space that can feel either like never ending horror or an addictive state of true living, depening on how you deal with endless light. 

this is a summer song to me.

i love love love the free flying chorus.

i love love love the old school sound of the verses.

the chorus is beautiful with it's long soaring vowels and lines. the verses are mega bangers that remind of early 2000's music. the echoes of like old school drum and bass, breakbeat etc. are super nostalgic to me and have sent me down the rabbit hole of music from my childhood multiple times since the song came out. and i personally love the contrasts and different sections in the song. i think they go together well, i don't think they clash.

i think jurek and allu have composed a clever song. and honestly allu deserves more recognition across the board i am sorry i've been slipping in that department.

now. to the sad part.

i always felt like the chorus was sort of... wistful and melancholic. but the album puts all of that in a different context. he's not just mr. lonely. he's fucking terrified of being alone. 

"pelottaa, ettei jatkopläänit ehkä osukkaa, kuumottaa tosissaan, osote ois saatava, poket tos jo hoputta siis vastatkaa nyt saatana" meaning "i'm scared that after party plans will fall through, seriously getting jittery about it, i need an address, bouncers are on my case, somebody pick up the phone" like with the context of the full album now, it's really painting a picture of someone who does not want to go home and face being alone with his thoughts.

i remember when the song came out and people had all sorts of headcanons and ideas as to why the second time round the voice on the phone is in english - things like maybe he's making an international call or something. well, the truth is that in finland, that message is always played in three languages: finnish, swedish and english. so why is it in english the second time? honestly in all seriousness i think it's just a little nod to his international fans or something, like i don't think there is a real story reason for it. but if there was.. well, if anything, to me it suggests that he must have stayed on the phone, listening through the whole litany: valitsemaanne numeroon ei juuri nyt saada yhteyttä, kontakt med numret ni har valt fås ej, the number you have dialed cannot be reached. to get to the english part he has already been told twice in two languages that there is no one there, nobody is picking up, but he's still there.

honestly this song more than anything feels like the true pair of autiomaa, because to me, this song is someone trying to avoid feeling exactly the way autiomaa describes. feeling empty, feeling nothing, feeling alone. he says as much: "tää klubi on yht tyhjä ku sen katsoja" meaning this club is as empty as he who is looking at it. he's empty and finding other people to party and hang out with is the only way out of feeling empty, the only way to distract himself from the fact that he is lost.

and so for skit and autiomaa to come right after this? he has reached a breaking point and realised he has to face the nothingness inside.

and again, like with takavoltti, i think this song represents that long standing finnish tradition of writing funny lyrics about difficult subjects. it's also very very typical in finnish culture to make songs that seem to be about drinking on the surface level but are actually not about that. this song builds a lot of very comedic images: him vibing to celine dion alone in a club and refusing to leave, fighting with bouncers etc. and then of course there is the whole chicken thing with kot kot kot. it's funny - except it's not funny at all.

but the thing is, it's okay to find things funny in the song. they both are and are not funny at the same time, because isn't that what life is. i don't think the intention of these songs is to make you feel one specific way, it's just a matter of perspective. and that can change from day to day. so i think it's okay if one day the song breaks your heart on behalf of the käärijä in the story of the song, and on another day you just want to belt out the chorus and dance through the verses. it's all okay, it's all good.

and that's pretty skilled song writing.

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Tea and Coffee and Rat Corpses

Frankenstein König! More!!! Next up I think we'll do some Kidnapper!König, but I'm not sure. Either that or something else. Dunno yet. Either way, meet Dr. Humboldt, a rather critical character in this story! Also, I am so aware of how medically inaccurate this all is. I need to go over it again for sure.

Tws: Resurrection, death, dead animals, animal experimentation

Wordcount: 3.1K

Art from This Post

Rest of the Story Below the Cut

Tea and Coffee and Rat Corpses

The house was alive with an electric buzz in the air. You fretted over the potted plants you put on your windowsill before turning to fuss over the coasters stacked on the side table. Round and round the room you circled around you dear beloved König, who sat bitterly in the centre of your chaos.

“I don’t want him touching me,” König said as you dusted for the umpteenth time around him.

“He’s not gonna touch you,” you said again, “well, maybe, but not much.”

“So he’s going to touch me? If he pulls out a scalpel I don’t care if it’s a stereotype, but I’m bashing his brains out.”

“It would only be a stereotype if you ate his brains,” you pointed out as you picked up an old vase to wipe the dust out from underneath.

“So I wouldn’t be setting a bad example for the newly undead.”

You sent him a withering glare. In turn, König only rolled his eyes and slumped back into the worn down sofa he sat on, making a threatening creak as he flopped.

“Don’t break that. It cost me a hundred bucks off Craigslist,” you warned him.

“Off Craigslist?” König sneered, “why would you use Craigslist?”

You put down your cleaning cloth and said, “It was cheap.”

“You could’ve spent an afternoon driving around to see if there was a couch on the street or something,” König muttered more to himself than to you.

You didn’t dignify him with a response. Instead, you focussed on straightening the picture behind König, first a bit to the left, then back again to the right. König, for his part, simply shifted out of the way to give you space. Once you were finished fussing over all the inconsequential details of the home, you were left with the matter of trying to explain to König why this was necessary in the first place.

“Is he going to take pictures of me?” König asked again.

“Probably,” you said as you settled into the seat beside him with a humph, “that’s usually what these sorts of papers need. There needs to be visual proof of what we’re doing here.”

König sneered, “So he’s going to have my nudes?”

You sucked ai through your teeth.

“I don’t want him taking pictures of me to spread online!”

“They’re not being spread online, they’re being put in medical journals-”

“So you’re putting me in magazines for nerds to look at!” König slipped his phone back into his pocket, “I’m going to be poked and prodded like an alien!”

“No, you’re just going to be given a few tests,” you tried to explain, “knowing how you’ve been healing, probably mostly cognitive. It’s just a shame we don’t have a good baseline…”

“Couldn’t you use the psych evals from KorTac?” König offered.

“You’re offering me your psych evaluations?” you raised an eyebrow at the notion.

König huffed and said, “I’d rather you give me puzzles than shove rods up my ass.”

“For the last time, nobody’s going to probe you!” you rubbed your temples as ire wormed its ways through your shoulders, “Dr. Humboldt is a descendent of the soviet scientists who first began the tests. If they were going to test any physical signs, it would be your rate of healing or signs of life.”

König grumbled something under his breath, but it seemed your assurances had calmed him slightly. His reservations were more than understandable. He was a living liminal space, being both not alive enough to be considered a living being but not dead enough to need a coffin. He was just… Somewhere in between. He was in the fog between light and darkness and all things in between.

You lowered your hands to your knees and sighed.

“It must be really hard for you.”

König made a small grunt of affirmation.

“I mean,” you rubbed your hand down his neck, “I’m not even sure what you are anymore.”

“You don’t know?” König’s eyebrows knit together.

“Not really,” you admitted, “all I know is that you’re the only human to ever come back to life.”

König said nothing in response. What was there to say? Not even the person who’d raised him from the dead was sure of what they’d created. He was just… There. He existed, but whether his existence was valid or not entirely depended on the life you’d form together. It all depended on how his body reacted to this new state of being.

“Will Dr. Humboldt be able to tell me what I am?”

You frowned. You didn’t want to say no, but you weren’t sure. The man was an enigma on the best of days. Studying under him had been a gruelling task in your university days. However, he was the type to reward effort and in you he placed his full trust. He secured you the toughest internships as a reward for your struggles as his student. The fact you kept his phone number was a testament to the relationship you’d formed with your former mentor.

You trusted Dr. Humboldt. Or at least, he was the only person you could trust. Dr. Humboldt was a strange man with stranger ideas, but it was his eccentricity that fueled his innovation. That was exactly why he was the one man you could turn to. Any other professor of yours would have you shackled behind bars before your phonecall had been up. More worryingly, they might have tried to destroy all evidence of your experiments, including König himself. If nothing else, you could trust Dr. Humboldt to fight for your experiment. His experiment? It was hard to say at this point.

The thoughts whirled through your mind, colourful and bright and full of overwhelming energy and brightness. Dr. Humboldt was only the beginning of this journey, and you had no clue what would happen next.

“Do you think your professor will think I’m a human being?”

The question knocked you upside the head like a sledgehammer.

“What?” you turned to stare at him, “what sort of question is that?”

König seemed strangely withdrawn as he quietly said, “Well, you don’t seem to think I’m a living person anymore.”

You blinked once, twice.

“Why would you think that?” you said softly, “König, you know I see you as a person. You’re my boyfriend.”

“But ever since you’ve brought me back, you treat me differently,” König trepidatiously replied.

“Do I?” your brows creased, “how do I-”

The doorbell rang, effectively cutting you off.

“You should go answer that,” König said sullenly.

The doorbell rang again impatiently.

You patted his knee, “We’ll talk about this later,” and stood up.

When you opened the door, you took in the wiry frame of one Dr. Timothy Humboldt. He smoothed the long black tie under his long auburn beard as he strode inside to examine your dingy home.

“I wouldn’t have thought you to live in a place like this,” he murmured as he slipped his oxfords off his feet and placed them by the door.

“I had to buy this place in a pinch,” you explained, “now come in! König’s waiting for us in the living room.”

“He’s waiting for us?” Dr. Humboldt’s electric blue eyes flashed at you.

“He is,” you nodded curtly, “he’s a bit worried about how intensive your examinations will be today.”

“Fully capable of cognisant speech,” Dr. Humboldt muttered as he followed you down the creaking wood hallway.

“It’s like he never died,” you grinned at him.

Dr. Humboldt nodded and stepped through the doorway to the living room. Immediately his eyes were drawn to the dark shroud over König’s face. He seemed at a loss for what to say. His entire body was frozen in place, his eyes wide as he took in the sheer size of your boyfriend as he stood up and reached out his hand.

“Hallo doctor!” König practically chirped as the doctor weakly took his hand for a limp shake.

“You are my student’s experiment,” Dr. Humboldt adjusted his thick glasses as he looked around the room.

“I am your student’s boyfriend,” König corrected him before waving a hand to the loveseat across from him, “take a seat.”

Dr. Humboldt stiffly stepped around the glass coffee table to sit down. He folded his legs at the ankle and pulled a manilla folder out of his shoulder bag.

“My name is Dr. Humboldt, the current head of the medical research and technologies department at your partner’s old university. You are König, I presume,” Dr. Humboldt said in his characteristically cold tone.

“I am,” König looked at you as though he were screaming for help.

“You are telling me you were declared deceased and you have…” Dr. Humboldt’s furry eyebrow twitched, “returned.”

“I am alive, yes,” König shuffled over to give you room on the sofa.

“Do you have evidence of such?” Dr. Humboldt glanced between you both.

You took a binder off the side table and flipped through the plastic pages. It took a couple of beats, but you unclipped the metal rings and brandished the page in question.

“This is the death certificate,” you handed it over to the doctor, “you can check it.”

“I will,” Dr. Humboldt pulled out his phone. His eyes scanned over the screen a few times before widening. He nodded and put his phone back in his suit pocket. He handed the paper back, “It’s recorded. As far as I can tell, it seems authentic. Do you have medical reports of the death?”

You handed them over.

Dr. Humboldt glanced at the pages, his bushy moustache pulling at the corners as he put the pieces together. He returned the papers and adjusted his tie before looking at König.

“Do you have some photo ID to confirm that König is who he says he is?” Dr. Humboldt looked the living cadaver up and down suspiciously.

König drew out his wallet and flipped it to his driver’s license.

“I need to see your face,” Dr. Humboldt frowned.

König hesitantly lifted the hood  and held the driver’s license up side by side. Dr. Humboldt glanced at the photo, then back at König, then back at the photo. His forehead creased before he shook his head and sat back down. Without a word, König slipped his hood back over his face.

“I can see why you keep the hood,” Dr. Humboldt admitted as he took a steadying breath.

“Is that enough to confirm his identity?” you asked.

“For now,” Dr. Humboldt agreed, “but I admit a DNA sample would be the best way to confirm. In our next meeting we can test that. As for right now,” Dr. Humboldt’s sharp features softened, “you, König, may be the most incredible man I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

König glanced at you for help.

“He really is,” you smiled brightly as you wrapped an arm around his waist and hugged him tight.

“Now, König, do you consent to having our conversation recorded?” Dr. Humboldt pulled out his phone again.

König looked to you for help.

“It’s up to you,” you nudged him gently.

König nodded and said, “That’s fine, doctor.”

In an instant the phone was placed between you both.

“Excellent. Now, I want to ask my first question. König has been resurrected for how long now?” Dr. Humboldt pulled out a pen and notepad.

You pulled out your calender to check then said, “Three weeks and four days.”

“And results have been stable?” Dr. Humboldt asked suspiciously.

“Heart rate is stable, breathing is regular, blood pressure has improved drastically,” you rattled off and checked your notes, “all vitals are stable, if not improved.”

“So you’re saying König has healed since the resurrection?” Dr. Humboldt asked.

You nodded silently.

Dr. Humboldt stared at König for a moment, then noted it down in his worn notebook. He muttered incomprehensible observations to himself as he wrote down your answers.

As Dr. Humboldt jotted down his observations, you took a moment to put a hand on König’s knee.

“Are you okay?” you whispered softly.

“So far.”

Dr. Humboldt put his pen down and straightened up again, looking far too composed and put together for his disheveled surroundings. He eyed up König warily.

“Tell me König: Do you feel as though you’ve experienced any changes since being brought back?”

König glanced to you for an assuring nod before he tentatively replied, “I find it hard to remember things around the accident.”

“The hit and run?” Dr. Humboldt checked.

König winced briefly.

“I apologise if I’m bringing up a sensitive topic, but I do need to confirm for my notes,” Dr. Humboldt finally gave an inclination of humanity.

König nodded shakily, “Of course, doctor.”

“Now, do you remember many details of the accident?” Dr. Humboldt said as he clicked his pen.

“I remember being hit,” König shuddered briefly, “and the pain. I remember the pain well. After that, I remember watching the car drive away. I dragged myself to the side of the road, and that’s all.”

“Do you have any recollections beyond that?” Dr. Humboldt asked, a sliver of eagerness edging his voice.

“I remember a bright light, and then someone talking to me.”

“Who was talking to you?”

“I…” König faltered, “I think it was something in the afterlife. I thought it was God or something like that.”

Dr. Humboldt didn’t react, only diligently noting down his words.

“I think I saw some other people too. It was nice, but just when I was about to reach them, I woke up,” König shuddered at the thought, “and then I was here. It’s been pretty much the same as before since I was brought back.”

Dr. Humboldt nodded as he continued his notetaking. As he asked questions, you slowly saw König relax and settle back into the sofa. His grip on your knee loosened and his posture slouched as he melted into a sort of awkward comfort. Dr. Humboldt was the type of man to set anyone on edge, but he wasn’t pushing König in the way you expected. You hadn’t told König, but you thought your professor might have been the type to do a full thorough physical examination within five minutes of walking through the door. And yet, Dr. Humboldt had been nothing but polite as he asked questions and jotted things down.

When he’d had his fair share of König’s answers, Dr. Humboldt turned on you.

“How did you even come up with the idea to resurrect König?” he asked as his bright eyes met yours.

“Through your work, sir,” you told him easily.

“My work?” Dr. Humboldt paused, “you mean with the rats?”

“Exactly that,” you affirmed, “the experiments you conducted eighteen years ago.”

“The ones based on Dr. Volkov’s works during his time in the soviet union,” Dr. Humboldt checked.

“The ones where he tried to resurrect dogs,” you clarified.

The man’s forehead creased as he glanced at the phone still recording the conversation on the table. With a final sigh, he took a deep breath and set his notebook to the side, letting it hit the glass with a small pat and setting his ballpoint pen on top. He slowly drew himself back together and met your eyes with a sad, forlorn look.

“Is everything alright, Dr. Humboldt?”

He shook his head softly, “That’s of no matter. Please, tell me how you thought that experiments done on dogs and rats could possibly be used to resurrect a human being.”

“The Lazarus study performed in nineteen sixty eight by Dr. Yuri Volkov were done on dogs, yes, but the logic behind the methodology was sound,” you carefully said, “the use of mechanical assistance to supplement the cardiac and respiratory cycles was ingenious, though difficult to build in my lab. I slowly introduced a set of fluids into the body to preserve the body and encourage rapid healing.”

“But that was not nearly enough to bring the body back,” Dr. Humboldt scoffed.

“No sir, that’s when I needed the most important part,” you leaned in close, “electricity. You remember the storm that came three weeks ago?”

“How could I forget? It nearly tore my roof off.”

“The electrical charge generated in that storm was powerful enough to shock the body off of the machinery,” you explained, “though I didn’t realise it was a success until much later.”

“Much later?” Dr. Humboldt reached for his pen and paper again.

“I left the room thinking I failed,” you explained, “but then…”

“I woke up in the freezer,” König explained, “I made some noise, and my girlfriend came to investigate.”

“And that’s how I found out he was awake,” you finished for him.

“So the results of the resurrection were not immediate,” Dr. Humboldt scribbled furiously.

“I can’t tell you why the body needed to rest,” you admitted, “just that it worked that way.”

Dr. Humboldt took in a deep breath and adjusted his tie. He closed his eyes as he softly uttered, “I’d never thought that leaving the body would’ve been necessary. I had always just ended the experiment with the shock.”

“But maybe all it needed was either a stronger shock, or a rest period,” you told him.

Dr. Humboldt smiled wryly, “So we were close back then.”

“Probably,” you said, “but I only left König as a mistake.”

Dr. Humboldt laughed, “Another medical miracle born out of a physician's mistake.”

“Like penicillin?” König offered.

You wavered your hand and said, “Maybe. Sorta. Not really the same, but close enough.”

The interview wrapped up shortly afterwards. After a quick exchange of tea and coffee, Dr. Humboldt winced as he checked his wrist watch.

“I need to get going,” he hissed.

“Already?” you asked, “it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“I’ve been here for nearly five hours,” Dr. Humboldt showed you his watch. You gawked at it briefly, then shut your jaw with a click and stood up.

“Alright, so you need to get going?” you said as Dr. Humboldt followed your lead.

“Yes, but first,” Dr. Humboldt scribbled on the back of a business card and passed it to you, “come to my lab later. I need to set up, but we can further authenticate König’s case and we can do further testing to see how König’s body has held up since the resurrection.”

You frowned and glanced down at your giant boyfriend.

“But sir,” you said timidly, “how are we going to get König there?”

Dr. Humboldt smiled for the first time since he entered your home, “I have an idea.”

“And what’s your idea?”

“We’re going to smuggle him in.”

Konig Dump

Konig Alternate Universes

Frankenstein!Konig

[itwasrealtome]

AGENT GRAY

Chapter 19 • Burning Out — Part II

TAGLIST FORM

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

⚠️ DO NOT READ IF THIS MIGHT TRIGGER YOU

Olivia Benson x fem! FBI Agent OC

Summary: Alexis is sick. Olivia stays with her.

Content Warning: Usual SVU & Violent Crime talk • mention of the ongoing case (human trafficking, victims under 18) — Alexis being sick

*

MONDAY, MARCH 20

Manhattan — Alexis' Apartment

03:12 PM

Olivia knew she should've gone back to work.

Her unit was knee-deep in the early stages of a trafficking case–one of those sprawling, insidious networks where the monsters wore familiar faces and the victims slipped through the cracks like smoke. Most were girls from Eastern Europe, barely more than teenagers, their names surfacing in fragments across reports: a missing persons file here, a whispered alias there. They'd started to piece it together weeks ago–a pattern hidden in plain sight. Arrests that didn't line up, timelines that bent under pressure, survivors too terrified to speak.

Now, the picture was beginning to take shape–dark, jagged, and far from complete. More names had surfaced in the last forty-eight hours, young women pulled from online reports, immigration detentions, and missing persons databases, all with the same vacant fear behind their eyes. Some had faces. Others were still just initials on a board, names without stories, bodies not yet found. And the men behind it–the ones pulling strings and buying silence–remained ghosts. No arrests. No confirmation. Just shadows and broken trails.

But Olivia wasn't at her desk.

She wasn't chasing down leads or pinning fresh photos to the corkboard in the squadroom.

She was here.

In the still, dim hush of Alexis' apartment, leash slack in her hand as Champ–the agent's six-year-old Belgian Malinois–padded ahead through the door. The dog moved with quiet purpose, his path familiar, his ears flicking as he trotted toward the bedroom, tail swaying low and easy. He didn't need direction. This was his domain, even more than it was hers.

The apartment itself surprised Olivia every time she stepped inside.

It wasn't sterile–not exactly–but it carried the weight of someone who never fully unpacked. The kind of place that held function above comfort, that whispered of temporary stays and half-formed roots. A clean pair of boots by the door. A single jacket on the wall hook. One coffee mug in the drying rack, and another on the windowsill, still faintly stained with the remains of whatever had been in it that morning.

The living room was sparsely furnished–one worn leather couch, a low, functionable table, and an aging bookshelf with more gaps than volume. A baseball under glass sat alone on the top shelf, catching a shaft of weak afternoon light. Beside it, a photo frame faced slightly toward the wall, its contents not immediately visible. There were no plants. No candles. No trace of domesticity for its own sake.

In the far corner, Olivia's gaze settled on a military-issued duffel bag–the kind that had seen years of deployment. Its canvas sides were still creased from recent travel, half-zipped and slumped against the wall like it was waiting for its next call to duty. Not unpacked, not forgotten. Just...paused.

The whole place echoed that same sense of suspension. It was clean, carefully arranged, and unmistakingly temporary in feeling. There were personal touches—a framed photo of a unit, that worn baseball under glass, a few books stacked on a side table–but nothing indulgent, nothing that said permanence. It felt like a place someone lived in out of necessity, not choice. Like a rest stop, not a home.

It felt, Olivia thought, like Alexis.

Purposeful. Controlled. Pulled together just enough to function, but never quite enough to belong. The apartment had a quiet precision about it–a lived-in sense of discipline, not comfort. And that, Benson realized, was the woman she'd come to know in the liminal spaces between chaos. Agent Gray, who had slipped into her world with steel-edged focus, bone-deep loyalty, and a wit that came dry as dust and twice as sharp.

The lieutenant hadn't expected to admire her so quickly. She hadn't expected to care this much.

But she did. And now Alexis was in bed, feverish, worn out, and–as ever–gritting her teeth through the very idea of being looked after.

The leash was still in Olivia's hand, forgotten in the doorway. She could've left it on the hook in the hall, but she hadn't. Her fingers tightened around it, the nylon digging faintly into her palm as she stood motionless in the stillness of the place. Champ's nails had already clicked out of earshot, the dog weaving through the narrow hallway with that uncanny sense of purpose only service-training animals seemed to have. He didn't need any instructions. He knew exactly where he was needed.

So did Olivia.

She moved quietly, her steps muffled by the faded runner rug, her hand brushing the wall as she turned the corner. The hallway was dim, the air inside the apartment noticeably warmer than it had been earlier, thick with stillness and the faint scent of eucalyptus from the diffuser the agent had probably forgotten she owned.

The bedroom door was cracked open. Through it, the oldest could already see the silhouette of the dog, curled into his usual post at the foot of the bed–watchful but at ease, his presence both sentinel and comfort.

She nudged the door open with a whisper of movement, slipping into the room.

The curtains were drawn against the afternoon light, letting only a soft, gray glow filter in. The air was hushed, the kind of stillness that came with fevered sleep and drawn-out exhaustion. Alexis was curled on her side, her back to the doorway, tangled in the bedsheets that she hadn't quite managed to wrestle into order. The blanket rode low on one hip, her shoulder exposed, skin damp with sweat. Her breathing was shallow, her face flushed and still.

She looked–Olivia hated the word, but there was no escaping it–fragile.

The sharp, composed edges that usually defined the young commander were absent now. The quiet power in her bearing, the controlled energy she carried like armor–it had all given way to something softer, more uncertain. Olivia had seen her bleeding before. She'd seen her fight through pain, push past fear. But this... this was something else. A surrender, not to weakness, but to the sheer weight of being worn down.

The brunette eased herself down beside the bed, one knee pressing softly to the floor, mindful not to jostle the mattress. Her eyes lingered on the woman before her, drawn to the subtle flicker of her lashes, the small furrow in her brow, even in rest–like Alexis was still fighting something invisible in the dark.

She reached out with care, brushing a loose strand of hair from the younger woman's damp forehead. Her fingertips barely grazed the flushed skin, but the heat radiating off her was unmistakable. Too high. Still rising. Still burning up.

Beneath the blankets, Alexis stirred–a faint shift, her shoulder twitching as her breath caught. Olivia stilled.

A few seconds passed in silence.

Then Gray's eyelids fluttered, struggling against the weight of fever and fatigue. Her gaze wandered, unfocused, until it finally landed on her friend.

She blinked. Once. Twice. As if unsure whether what she saw was real.

—Hey, Olivia said softly, her voice low and warm, barely above a whisper. It's just me.

The agent let out a faint exhale. Not quite a sigh. Not quite relief. Her eyes shut again, then cracked open.

—You stayed? she murmured, the words dry and gravel-thin.

—I did.

—You should've gone back.

—I know.

The quiet between them stretched, thick and lingering. Alexis shifted again, a faint wince tugging at the corners of her mouth as she tried to lift herself and failed. Her throat worked as she swallowed hard, voice raw.

—You don't have to babysit me, Benson.

—I'm not, Olivia replied, reaching for the cloth again and dabbing gently at Lexi's temple. I'm just... not leaving.

A stillness settled over them–not tense, not uncomfortable, but heavy in the way that silence can feel when two people understand something unspoken. Benson stayed close, her fingers stilling on the damp edge of the cloth. She watched the young SEAL, saw the fight in her start to fold, piece by piece. It wasn't just the fever. It was something quieter–bone-deep exhaustion, and that particular brand of discomfort that came from being seen too clearly. Olivia understood that kind of tired. She'd worn it herself more than once.

Her voice dropped even softer.

—You upset?

A shiver ran through Alexis. Her jaw twitched as she tried to respond, but nothing came at first. Olivia wondered if she'd slipped back into sleep. Then, slowly, the woman's eyes cracked open, unfocused and glassy as they drifted somewhere just past the lieutenant's shoulder.

—I'm tired, she muttered, barely audible. The words dragged behind the fever, slow and slurred.

Olivia's brow knit with concern. She leaned in, pressing the back of her hand gently to the woman's forehead. The heat that met her skin made her heart kick up. Too warm. Alexis flinched slightly beneath the touch, the cool contrast too much. Her features twisted briefly before her expression flattened again, all effort spent.

—You're burning up, the oldest said, worry threading more plainly through her tone. She shifted her weight, fingers moving to the edge of the quilt. You need to cool off a bit.

She began to tug the blanket back, just enough to help. But Alexis' hand jerked up from beneath it, latching on fast.

—No–

Her voice cracked on the word, rough and breathless. Her grip was shaky, not strong, but the panic behind it made Benson still instantly.

—I'm not... the commander tried again, blinking hard, as if that might help her gather the words. I'm in... underwear.

The words landed with a flicker of something fragile–embarrassment, hesitation, maybe even shame. Olivia's hand froze on instinct, the blanket still bunched gently between her fingers. The stubbornness in Alexis' voice wasn't the kind she usually heard from her in the field–this wasn't defiance rooted in pride or authority. This was something rawer. Something closer to self-preservation.

—I see, she murmured softly, letting go of the quilt at once. She didn't step back. She didn't make a joke to defuse the moment or try to convince her otherwise. She simply stayed where she was, kneeling beside the bed, her voice steady and calm in the thick, fever-warmed air. Then the blanket stays. It's okay.

The brunette's hand lingered where it had caught the edge, her fingers still curled, though the tension in her grip was fading fast. Her eyelids drooped again. Whatever adrenaline had flared moments before was already burning out, leaving her visibly weaker, her breaths shallow and uneven beneath the heat.

—I just... need some rest.

Olivia gave a quiet nod, even though the SEAL's eyes were already drifting shut again. She wrung out the cloth once more, placed it gently along the side of her neck, and stayed there a moment longer, watching the younger woman settle beneath the covers, her breathing uneven but easing.

—I'll let you sleep, Benson said softly, rising to her feet with practiced care, like any sudden movement might undo the fragile calm they'd managed to carve out. She smoothed the edge of the blanket Alexis had clutched moments ago, then took a slow step back. You need the rest.

She turned halfway, meaning to cross back toward the door, give the agent some quiet, let the weight of sleep do what medicine hadn't yet.

But then—

—Wait.

It was quiet. Barely a whisper.

Olivia froze. Turned. Alexis' hand hadn't moved from where it rested on the blanket, but her eyes were open again–just barely–and fixed on the woman's silhouette through the dim light.

—You can... stay, she said, her voice rough, barely formed, like she was fighting to get the words through cotton and heat. Just–just sit or something. You don't have to talk. Or...

She trailed off, blinking slowly. Her brow furrowed as if she were already regretting asking, the apology forming before she could even finish the thought.

—I know you've got that case, Alexis mumbled, voice rasping now. The girls. The ring. You probably have a thousand things to do and I'm— She exhaled roughly, frustrated with herself, her expression creasing. I'm just lying here like some half-dead stubborn idiot and you should be out there doing something that actually matters, but I—

—Lex.

The nickname slipped from Olivia's lips–soft, but unwavering. She'd stepped closer without thinking, one hand braced against the footboard, the other relaxed at her side. Her voice was low, even, but beneath it ran something unmistakable: quiet resolve, like steel hidden beneath velvet.

—You matter, she said plainly.

Alexis blinked, slow and dazed, but the words reached her. The lieutenant saw it in the subtle way her jaw unclenched, in the faint flicker of awareness behind her fevered gaze.

—And I'm exactly where I want to be.

The silence that followed wasn't heavy this time–it carried warmth, a quiet pulse of understanding that seemed to settle over both of them. Alexis' expression shifted, the lines of pain and resistance softening by degrees. Not erased. But eased.

Her head tilted ever so slightly in a nod, lashes falling back to her cheeks as she surrendered again to sleep.

Olivia lingered beside the bed for another moment, watching the rise and fall of the younger woman's breath until it found a steady rhythm. Then, with practiced care, she moved around the edge of the bed and lowered herself onto the mattress beside her–slowly, gently–keeping a respectful distance, but close enough that Alexis wouldn't feel alone.

She didn't touch her. Didn't need to. Her presence was quiet but unmistakable.

Champ shifted only slightly at the foot of the bed, lifting his head just long enough to glance back and confirm everything was still as it should be. Satisfied, he laid it back down, his sigh soft and steady as he resumed his vigil.

And there, in the hush of the room, Olivia sat. The world outside–its cases, its chaos–faded into the background.

She didn't reach for her phone. She didn't think about the case files waiting on her desk.

She just stayed. Still.

Close enough to protect, but far enough to let Alexis rest.

*

Time moved gently, muffled by the soft rise and fall of Champ's breathing and the distant groans of old pipes shifting somewhere behind the walls. Olivia stayed still, her back resting against the headboard, one knee bent beneath her and the other stretched along the edge of the bed. Her gaze wandered–sometimes to the window, where the afternoon light had dulled to a muted gray, sometimes to the woman lying beside her.

Alexis looked asleep. Her body was heavy under the quilt, her face slack with exhaustion. But the lieutenant had been watching long enough to know better. Every now and then, a flicker passed through her brow, a small shift in her jaw–as if her mind hovered just beneath the surface, caught somewhere between waking and rest, unable or unwilling to fully let go.

Several more minutes slipped by before Olivia moved. She leaned slightly, reaching across the narrow space to adjust the compress resting against her friend's forehead. Her fingers were careful, practiced–gentle in the way one learns only after enough years tending to others who won't ask for help.

The touch stirred Alexis. Her lashes trembled, then lifted just enough to reveal a sliver of glassy eyes. Her voice emerged like a breath caught on smoke, thin and hoarse.

—I'm not asleep.

Olivia glanced down, the faintest curve lifting one corner of her mouth. She didn't seem surprised–only patient.

—I thought maybe not.

The youngest brunette didn't answer right away. Her eyes wandered again, past her friend's shoulder toward some point on the far wall, distant and unfocused. Then, after a moment, she blinked–slow and heavy–and her lips parted, as though whatever she was holding back had worn thin.

—Thank you... for taking care of my boy. Of me.

The admission hung between them like a thread tugged loose. Olivia didn't speak right away. Her hand remained where it was, resting near Alexis' temple, her thumb brushing lightly against the curve of her brow in something that was more comfort than habit.

—You don't have to thank me, she said after a moment, voice low. I wanted to.

The agent's eyes drifted shut again—not asleep, not fully, but hovering in that hazy place just above it. Her breathing had leveled out, steadier now, though the occasional flicker of tension still ran through her shoulders, a subtle twitch here and there. Olivia didn't speak. She simply watched her, quiet and still, as if afraid that any sudden movement might jolt her out of whatever fragile calm she'd found.

Then, barely louder than the sound of breath between them, Alexis spoke.

—When I was a kid... my mother used to send me to school even when I was sick.

Her voice was hoarse, dulled at the edges, as though the words had taken too long to surface and were worn down by the time they reached her lips. Olivia turned slightly, her head tilting just enough to catch her gaze, even if Alexis kept her eyes closed.

—She'd say I was being dramatic. Making it up, the brunette went on, her brow twitching faintly beneath the fever sheen. Didn't matter if I had a fever or could barely keep my eyes open. I'd get dressed, drag myself to school, sit through the day like a ghost.

The oldest woman didn't say anything. She didn't need to. She just shifted slightly, lowering her hand until it rested gently on the blanket near Alexis' arm–close, warm, but not invasive. Her presence, quiet and steady, filled the space that words couldn't.

—But Tommy..., she whispered, voice nearly swallowed by the dark. If he got a bruise? A bump? He'd stay home. My mom would set him up on the couch with a blanket and cartoons. Make soup from scratch. Sit with him, dote on him, tell him how brave he was for being in pain.

Her throat worked around something dry, brittle.

—He was hurting, so he got to stay. I was hurting... so I was a burden.

The quiet that followed didn't press like silence usually did–it hovered, tender and understanding. It wrapped around them like something living, like the apartment itself was listening. Olivia didn't move her hand. She just let it stay–something solid in the soft dark, in all the space Alexis had never been given as a child.

The commander's jaw twitched, just once, then stilled again.

—Sometimes I'd fake feeling better, she went on, her voice thinner now, fraying at the edges. Just so she wouldn't roll her eyes when I walked into the kitchen. Just so I didn't have to hear her tell my dad I was faking again while he was deployed. While he couldn't see.

A beat passed. Then Alexis' brow furrowed, barely, and her lips parted again, the words shaky and small.

—She used to say I was too sensitive. That I made things worse for everyone.

Olivia's chest tightened. But when she spoke, her voice was calm, low, unwavering.

—She was wrong.

Gray didn't open her eyes. Her face didn't shift. But her next breath caught slightly, like something unsteady had loosened in her ribs.

—I think..., she started, then paused. The words clung to her throat. I think I used to try to earn it. Her kindness. Like maybe if I was strong enough... quiet enough... she'd stop seeing me as a problem.

The hand near hers moved. Olivia let her fingers settle lightly on top of Alexis' forearm, just a brush of contact—steady, respectful, grounding.

—You didn't have to earn that, the lieutenant said, the steadiness in  her voice quiet but sure. Not then. Not now.

Another moment passed. The air between them held still, wrapped in something heavier than silence and warmer than pity. The oldest watched as the muscles in Lexi's face softened, just slightly–like some piece of her was loosening for the first time in a long time.

Then, quietly–almost like the words slipped out on their own–the agent drew in a shallow breath and murmured, "Sorry."

Olivia angled her head, gentle curiosity in her eyes.

—For what?

—For rambling, came the rough reply. Alexis grimaced faintly, her lips twitching as if she was trying to suppress the instinct to wince at herself. Her eyes shut for a beat, lashes brushing fever-warmed skin.  It's the fever. I don't... talk like this. Not about myself. Not really.

A swallow. The muscles in her throat tightened as embarrassment crept into her voice.

—I probably sound ridiculous.

—You don't, Olivia said without pause, her voice steady, quiet but firm. You sound like someone who's been holding everything in for a long time. And who finally let a little of it out.

Alexis shifted slightly beneath the blanket, enough for Olivia to feel the movement where her hand still rested gently atop her forearm. There was a pause–long and quiet–and for a moment, Benson thought she might've slipped back into that hazy edge of sleep.

But then, softer than before, the young woman spoke again.

—It's easier when I don't talk about it, she confessed, barely above a whisper. Most of the time, if I pretend it doesn't matter... it almost doesn't.

The lieutenant's fingers gave the faintest squeeze in response–not pressing, just there. Present.

—I know that feeling, she said. But it does matter. And so do you.

No protest followed. No sarcastic deflection or shrug. Just stillness–and the sense that, for once, Alexis was letting the words settle in without pushing them away. Letting herself believe, if only a little.

*

The apartment had settled into a gentle stillness, broken only by the soft tick of the radiator and the occasional sleepy sigh from Champ, stretched out near the foot of the bed. The quiet wrapped around the room like a thick, familiar blanket. Olivia sat leaned back against the headboard, one leg bent beneath her, the glow of her phone lighting her face in intervals. She scrolled slowly, eyes flicking over updates she wasn't fully processing–half-distracted by the quiet rhythm of Alexis' breathing just inches away.

At last, the younger woman had given in to real sleep. Not the restless, half-aware drifting from earlier, but something deeper–limbs slack, face softened, the tension she wore like armor finally eased for a little while. However, she didn't lie still for long. Not completely.

Even in sleep, Alexis moved with the unconscious restlessness of someone not used to staying still. A sigh escaped her, low and muted, as her body shifted under the weight of fever and dreams. The quilt slipped lower, sliding down past her hips to pool loosely around her thighs. Olivia didn't notice at first–still scrolling, mind somewhere between SVU reports and the soft cadence of late afternoon–but the shift of motion caught her eye.

She looked over instinctively, and there–bare skin, long legs stretched half across the mattress, her underwear just barely visible beneath the hem of her tee. Olivia blinked, startled not by the sight itself, but by the sudden, uninvited flush of warmth in her chest. She looked away quickly, not wanting to invade anything sacred, already reaching to gently adjust the blanket—

But before she could move, the agent stirred again.

Without warning, she rolled toward Olivia, slow and heavy like someone chasing comfort in a dream. One leg lifted, bare and warm, draping itself across the lieutenant's lap. Then an arm followed, slipping around her waist with surprising surety. Within seconds, the younger woman had tucked herself close–cheek pressed to her friend's side, breath warm through the fabric of her shirt.

The embrace wasn't neat or careful. It was instinctive. Raw. The kind of unconscious gesture made only when walls were down.

Olivia froze. Not out of discomfort–but out of sheer surprise. She didn't breathe at first, afraid to startle her. And then, as the realization sank in–Alexis Gray was literally cuddling her in her sleep—something twisted in her chest. A slow, impossible mix of tenderness and something else. Something quieter. Something she didn't have the courage to name.

She felt like a teenager again, flushed and still, her pulse drumming faintly in her ears. The SEAL's leg was heavy across hers, warm against her hip. Her arm was slung around her waist like they'd done this a hundred times before.

It was ridiculous. It was sweet. It was intimate in a way Olivia hadn't expected.

She glanced down, brushing a few strands of dark hair from Alexis' forehead with the gentlest touch. And then she settled again–slowly, carefully, her hand resting lightly over the young woman's where it curled against her side.

Outside, the city carried on without them. But here, in this quiet corner of the world, Olivia stayed still.

And she didn't mind at all.

*

TAGLIST: @ginasbaby @nciscmjunkie @thefatobsession @makkaroni221 @certainlychaotic @hi-i-1 @kiwiana145 @kobayashi-fr @alexis042499

[springsylph]

WITCHING HOUR, CH 3/3 — [18+]

(18+) - MARKED FOR EVENTUAL SMUT, MINORS DNI!

fem!reader x arthur morgan

summary: high time for a baptism

tags: a whole lotta words, reader is so totally sexually repressed, angst if you squint really really hard, 18+ CONTENT, masturbation, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex (wrap before you tap)

word count: 9k (jesus, wren. what the hell.)

a/n: SURPRISE! (sorry this took two months?? hot damn??)

<< previous chapter | read on ao3 here | masterlist

The walls are blockades of tar when you wake.

Tangled in the liminal spider web of consciousness, your eyes crack open in hesitant increments. Movement isn’t an option—not yet. So you bide your time. Lethargic. Still tangled.

But distant bird chatter punctures your eardrums, and you’re jostled back into an awareness of the minutes sliding through your fingers with all the lenience of serrated glass. It’s with unfocused eyes and bleeding hands that you take in the reality of the dark, saturating the floorboards with promises of deep pinks and purples. 

Dawn. You’d slept to the edge of dawn.

Your first voluntary gulp coats your lungs in sticky air, snags on the cotton lodged in your throat, and you fold over with a violent cough and a twinge of pain in your sides. One of Mrs. Campbell’s complaints about chairs screams when you go to uncurl your spine, and the left side of your neck is strained from where you’d been slumped sideways. 

Familiar shapes and smells return to their rightful places only after the initial shock of your aches subside. And perhaps it was the framed pictures—faces unrelated yet well-learned, softened into ambiguity by youth and dust and a lack of light. Or exhaustion, more realistically. Either way, one of the two has you slouching down in your seat, blanketing your eyelids with the back of your hand despite the swampy darkness.  

You find that it’s easier to focus on the little chirps this way. Easier to visualize the fattened droplets of morning dew rolling from the fogged windows to the porch, and eventually to the ground below. The acrid smell of dried sweat and rainwater is draped over your imagined backdrop as a thin screen—apparent, but not enough to disturb. Something close to serenity, you think, even with the fireplace burnt down to nothingness and still tickling your nostrils. 

But when a memory suddenly flashes white-hot, you slam your hand back into the arm of your chair with an agonizing groan, the shooting pain that rattles up your forearm just barely managing to surpass the burgeoning mortification.

Stupid.

This is beyond stupid.

You’re many things. Many, many things, if you take the (societally imposed) negatives into account. You’re also perfectly capable of becoming many things. But a bitch in heat, to your knowledge, is not one of them. 

Only, you’d spent the vacant space following Arthur Morgan’s departure waiting for that pang of true regret, for that honed blade of self-preservation to unsheathe itself and sever the grip of what had nearly drowned you. You’d slipped your shirt back over your shoulders and paced. And paced, and paced. Paced till you’d carved a new trench into your dirty rug and dropped, regrettably, into the very chair you awoke in.

Your gut squeezes, and you know that the grip still has yet to unwind. It makes you sick. Feverish. Confused. Like you’ve pulled a scorching pot from a frigid stove.

Discomfort spreads when you sit up to refasten the buttons of your shirt, fabric now stiff with rain and resisting the pull of your fingers, and your mind, lost to the beginnings of repetition, wanders further.

You were no prude, if only out of spite. The top button closes, and you’re brought back to your first spark of rebellion—some fresh-faced businessman looking to pawn his talents off on your father. Bright hair, stiff collar, fingernails clean but hands grubby. Not much “talent” about him, either.

Hardship was unmistakably foreign to him, old family money softening him like rotting fruit. He’d likely continue to be softened into a pulp, considering the funds your father had shelled out to keep his mouth shut after you’d stumbled your way into fucking him. 

(The statement would only fall flat once his buggy had mysteriously turned over into a ditch, just outside of Saint Denis.

You never did find out what he’d planned to do with the money.)

Desperation found a way to manifest in other ways; you suppose it had worked out somewhat in your favor. You’d been granted deliverance from society. Your father.

Right into the arms of your stranger.

Your fingers are pinching air when the very thought of him surges through you. Suddenly aware of a tingly tightness in your throat, you hastily pop the first button back open before settling your hands back into your lap. The buzzing fades, and you can breathe again.

You let out a stuttering puff of air.

…Limits.

You’re aware of them. How short of a leash to hold yourself on. But you think, just before the sun is privy to your misdeeds, you can offer a little give. A simple test, just to see if the burning you feel might burn you back for once.

(You slip. Just enough.)

You’re almost surprised at the harsh sound of your hand sliding to the button of your trousers. But the metal of it isn’t hot. Not cold, either. Nothing to provoke or dissuade, it just is. And suddenly, remorse is far, far away. 

It’s even further when you test the pressure of your fingers on the clothed warmth spreading over your cunt. Farther still, once the unpracticed pressure morphs into a steady roll.

Instinct rears its ugly head, and you relish in the fact that you’d only had words before—on pages, floating through hallways, locked behind a vault. Relegated to dreams, raging fires, cavernous hallways.

Now you have more. More. More. Fresh memories become markers in your search for that spark, that jolt of life you’d only seen hints of in passing.

A strangled gasp punches out of you when the pad of a finger catches on that bundle of nerves, and the inky black walls fall to pieces. But you’re still lost in the rhythm of hands, and hips, and dirt, mind glazing over at the thought of Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.

More than a little flustered, but still curious, you begin to paint. The colors smush together the moment they hit the canvas: blue eyes, weathered hands, weathered soul. Pink tongue darting out to catch sweat, blood, life. From a thigh. A cheek. The inside of an elbow. 

Alive. Yes, that’s what radiates when you finally work up the nerve to slip shaky fingers between fabric, searching for the dewy apex of your thighs. Alive in the friction from your clothes, the isolation of your whimpers and whines, Arthur running phantom fingers along your neck.

You’re delirious enough for that rasp to work its way into your ear again. Arthur is saying something, mumbling some unidentifiable remark into the thick silence made thicker by the obscene squelch of your pumping fingers, but still maintaining that tense distance, and it dawns on you that he isn’t quite real yet. 

Heat begins to kick up debris underneath your navel. Bastard. Riling you up, leaving, just when you begin to know; even in your most debauched fantasies he does nothing but watch. Perspiration fixes your back to the chair, and you catch your bottom lip between your teeth. Crush your eyelids shut. Inhale and crook your fingers almost enough, but not quite.

You miss that spongy spot inside of you by what feels like a mile, and you feel it like a bullet to the chest. Fingers frantic, scraping at whatever buzz you can salvage, you press into creaking wood for leverage. Little twitches and gasps and it’s still not enough, but if you could just see him, feel him—

—and before you can stretch your work over the mold you’ve conjured up, natural warmth cascades over your cheeks. The train of your high whooshes past. You’re splitting your eyes open, ripping your hand from between your thighs, surging out of your chair and towards the lifeless fireplace before that damning sensation can slam into the base of your spine. Undecided weight and legs close to crumpling are only leveled out by the shame burning in the back of your throat. 

Damn it.

The walls are back up, color crowding the suddenly cramped room. You force yourself to will the ache away, still your swimming vision, make space with steadying breaths. Try to, at least. The unresolved tremble in your thighs is still there, wetness still coating your fingers. You settle for wiping it on the side of your pants only after a stone settles in your chest.

There’s nothing to lean up against; it’s just you and the sparse furniture. But it’s cramped. Why is it still cramped?

(Something needs to move.)

Sun flush against your back, you blindly reach out behind you to pull the chair in the general direction of the table. By the angry clack, you’ve slid it a touch too far. Which was fine. It was perfectly fine, so long as it was out of the way.

(Something needs to move.)

—

You’re a little lost after that.

Muscle memory preserves you long enough to notice that Mrs. Campbell is looking at you with an abnormal amount of pity. 

You pretend not to notice, crouched over the tiny green tendrils poking free of the earth, the beginnings of oats planted only a week ago fluttering under the gentle passing of your finger pads.

Mrs. Campbell’s voice whistles in from over your shoulder. “Growin’ mighty quick,” she says. Watchful over how far your fingers prod the fresh sprouts. There isn’t much experience for you to draw on, so you nod, and your knees give a muted pop when you push yourself to stand and try for a small smile.

It’s a little harder to pretend now that you're somewhat close to eye level. The unease you feel knotting just underneath your clavicle only comes to a stop when Mrs. Campbell’s face finally relaxes, and your ears catch the wet plod of work boots emerging from your left.

“Should be caught up on our planting real soon, mm?” Mr. Campbell loops an arm around his wife, Mrs. Campbell acknowledges her husband, and you’re fully convinced that the smug tilt of his mouth is an early morning test.

His tell is picked up almost immediately. She pulls back, takes his face in her hands: “You been sticking your hands in the sap again.”

“Francis.”

“Howard. Again?”

“The bucket was gooped up from the rain anyhow—”

His protests are smothered by hands wiping harshly at the corners of his lips, and you can only watch as the two of them chirp back and forth. It takes a while for Mrs. Campbell to feel that her grievances have been heard, and she steps back from him with a huff.

“Ought to ask that helper to start tailin’ you early. You make my head hurt, you know that?”

The confusion must show on your face, because Mrs. Campbell is retracing steps in her head before realizing she’s made a mistake. She says nothing, only regards you with that renewed sense of pity before removing her glasses to wipe them on a handkerchief she’s tucked into her apron.

“Got news,” she murmurs to no one in particular, and your head is spinning just enough to justify your slow descent to the ground. Legs crossed, you wait for her to find her footing.

Mr. Campbell looks almost pained, thumbs tucked into his belt loops and looking at you with that same chest-scraping pity. Pity, pity, pity. You find you’re quite sick of pity. But it seems he has enough of it to scrounge up what’s left of your death sentence. 

“Your Pa rang in a couple nights ago.” Your Pa. “Says you’ve ‘repented enough.’ Tried to talk that coward out of it, but—” and he cuts off, that anger you’ve only seen a few times punching the rest of his words down.

Hit after insurmountable hit, you’re left to sink into the dirt until your grave is marked out plain as day. They look to you now. And you’re looking up at them. You’re not sure who says what. If it’s you, or the wind, or maybe one of the cows is stuck in the fence again. Maybe the barkeep has run out of tales to spin.

What now?

“We make do.”

—

The moon hangs precariously in the sky, swathing the quiet river in a soft, pale muslin. Swelling water is pushed apart—disturbed not by the breeze, or the pull of the current, but by something innately warm, foreign. 

A delicate shimmer of damp skin peeks out from between the throng of maple trees. Night bathing is never ideal, never really a feasible option, but they shield your modesty as best as they can. Water slithers just under your collarbone as you wade silently, only stopping every so often to pluck a stray leaf from an arm, and the current carries away the fans of green with little protest.

The tepid undulation of the river pushes against the slight prune of your fingers when you sway your arm just below the surface. It was the shock of the chill that you’d sought out tonight, sating that need for something a little stronger than a pinch. It helps that you have an excuse: the grime you’d washed away, surrounding your naked body like a halo before floating downriver.

That was hours ago. Two, if you’re being precise. You can’t feel the cold, not anymore, but the gooseflesh spreading up and down your forearms hang onto every word of the open air.

You pass another hand over a hardened knot in your shoulder, press into it with a little more force than necessary. And for once, regrettably, your body listens. Untangles it in a matter of seconds, leaving you with nothing to do but stand loose-limbed against the steady brush of the water.

Some animals had the teeth to gnaw off their legs when caught in a trap. And yet, they didn’t. Rarely did, anyhow. But here you are, wondering if some miracle might strike your jaw and grant you something sharp enough to cut free of the numbness. To toss the dead weight into some unspecified corner where it would fizzle, crumble, or crack.

(Going home isn’t an option. Not with your father still yanking the reins. You could leave. But…alone?

No. Never alone.

Not anymore.)

Your feet skim just barely above the bottom of the river, weightless. The lapping of the water against the riverbank cradles the shells of your ears.

There’s not much left to contemplate. Nothing you have a say in, really. So it’s no surprise that you’re tipping backward, water finally laying claim to your cheeks, your breasts, the space between your outstretched arms and your sides. 

You think you’ve floated once before—some distant dream pulled from childhood. But you don’t startle when the river begins to seal over the tip of your nose as you sink. Eyes closed. Breath sucked down so hard you think it burns. 

True silence.

Until the drum beats.

The water is punctured by heavy footfall and you’re swaying, rocking back and forth in what was once still water before your shoulders are seized and you’re hauled upwards.

A name you think might be yours is bouncing in and out of clogged ears while your lungs make space for new air. Hacking, you look up, met with a bleary mess of a man and the moon. He’s breathing hard, so hard you can feel the cigarette smoke rattling his chest; it doesn’t occur to you that you’ve met him before, even after his heaving only slows once your eyes have begun to refocus. 

Gingerly pulling you into the crook of his elbow, he dips his other hand back into the water before bringing it up to wipe at your forehead and the base of your skull. One, two, three times. His work is quiet. Fingers prodding at what might be a bruise or mud—neither of you are entirely sure. Rather than asking, you twist your head away and watch listlessly as decaying foliage floats off into the night.

More dirt. You knew there was more. 

“That ugly, huh?”

Although your surroundings have solidified, your turn back is a slow, labored thing. Arthur is looking up at an owl circling just overhead. But the arm anchored under your back is a hot iron, molding itself to the curve of your spine just so. It’d be hard for a figment of your imagination to do such a thing.

“You can let go.” You choke.

Arthur’s arm stiffens around you just in time to brace the two of you against a sudden gust of wind.

“...You got somewhere to be?” You shake your head. “Then you’re fine right here. Till I know you won’t go and drown yourself in another puddle.”

Drown yourself?

But you hadn’t—

You would never—

“I think you should let go. Now.” You push weakly at his chest, but he only gathers you and your limbs closer.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

You’re going to kill him.

It’s then that he fixes his gaze on something just beyond your shoulder and hooks an arm under your knee, swallows the whole of you into his chest and begins to trudge toward the riverbank.

“Arthur.” Even through the dampness of his shirt, you can smell him. “Arthur I mean it, let go—”

“Behave.”

You yelp when he pinches the skin underneath your thigh, shock and sudden recognition of your bareness sizzling in your tear ducts. It’s enough to get you to pound a fist into his chest and kick out your legs.

“Arthur Morgan, I am naked!”

He stops. Solid ground is there, right there, but you wait for him to speak.

His voice is a tight rasp, and you think you feel his thumb twitch underneath your shoulder. “Was trying to ignore that.” 

“I know it. You know it. Now put me down.”

He complies almost immediately, sliding you out of his arms and turning around the moment your feet hit the riverbank. The loss of warmth sends a shiver in full force, and you stumble over to where your clothes sit neatly folded atop a rock.

You check over your shoulder to make sure he isn’t looking before wiping yourself down with a dry rag.

“How often are you pullin’ women trying to bathe out of rivers?” You call out. The water continues to pulse. Arthur is silent. “That many, really?”

The sound of his hand raking through wet hair gives you pause.

“Didn’t look much like bathing to me,” he says, voice laced with a cool sort of dismissal. He’s a little right. Just a little, but the idea of you thinking you could convince him of anything otherwise stings more than his accuracy.

The rag is suddenly sandpaper in your hands, and you set it down, reach to pull a too loose shirt over your head. But just as the collar settles, you spy a separate pile of things just a few paces from your own.

You pad over silently. In the grass sits the same revolver you’d seen Arthur carrying during his last appearance, alongside his hat and a small satchel. All relatively familiar things you’ve come into contact with since you’d first met him, save for one thing. A small leather-bound journal pokes out from within the bag, the cover curiously well-kept despite the obvious wear and tear of the pages.

No. You shouldn’t.

You shouldn’t. But you’re drying your hands on your shirt and picking it up anyway, leafing through the pages carefully. A journal. Arthur Morgan was keeping a journal.

A smile begins to build when you catch how easily Arthur’s disposition reveals itself in his penmanship. He’s well-practiced, that much is obvious. A selfish part of you wonders how different life might’ve been if he’d been educated as you were, been just as defiant toward the circles you’d fought so hard to keep yourself from.

The drawings are another world entirely; you keep your fingers at the edges of the pages just to avoid any chance of smudging them. Birds, trees, sunrises, sunsets, and people. So many people. They’re etched with so much care that each turning of paper finds you faced with a deeper shade of envy.

You can count on hand the number of people you’ve loved. Cared for. And yet, Arthur seemed to have enough in him to immortalize these people as best as he could, smudges and all.

“If you’re robbin’ me, I ain’t got much on my person.”

You jump, thumb through just a little quicker after casting a quick glance over your shoulder. His back is still turned. “Y-Yeah,” You reply. “Almost done, I mean. Not stealing.” Cool it. “Just uh…gimme a minute?”

The end of the journal comes sooner than expected, and you’re flipping back and forth between the used pages with renewed fervor. You tuck the one in your hands underneath your arm and squat down to stick your hand in the satchel, eyebrows knitting together when nothing even remotely resembling a book finds its way to your fingers.

You’re on your second pass through the book when the slight bend of an otherwise unused section catches your attention. You pull it.

Scraps of paper have been slipped into the very back of the journal, Arthur’s handwriting filling up every inch. The blurbs aren’t dated, but ascertaining the sequence of events is fairly straightforward.

Came across the strangest creature one evening. I say “creature” only because she looked more nymph than human. Was on my way out of some farmland after nabbing a couple things, but I felt like I had to stop. Caught her talking to the cattle out in the cold like they was kinfolk. Might’ve been laughing right along with her, if I wasn’t so flummoxed. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile that irked me this bad since Micah told me what he does with his dirty socks. I ain’t in the business of prying, so I left. Hope she gets that smile fixed real soon. 

Stopped by to get more stuff. Watched her try and haggle out of a deal from some pushy hoax trying to sell papers. Pulled a knife on her and I nearly came out of hiding to snap his neck then and there, but she’d beat me to it. Flashed the same rifle she’s been trying to scare me off with, so polished it nearly blinded me, and told him something I don’t think I’ll repeat. She did good. Real good. But she looked spooked.

Don’t believe I’m fit to be an outlaw no more. Ran into her after I’d sniffed around a few more times on her property than I should have. Took care of some real nasty men. But she’s awful pretty up close. Pretty and angry. So much so that I’d fibbed and said I’d had a chicken I ain’t know what to do with after I turned up on her doorstep. I’m not good with women and I’m an awful liar, so I feel a little guilty that she believed me so easy. It helped that she seemed a little happier. She knows who I am, though. That’s no good.

Appears my intuition ain’t completely shot, after all. Even if my aim is. Nasty idiot I thought I’d gotten rid of caught me off guard near Valentine, told me his employer had a “deal” to help get the gang out of that whole Blackwater mess. I will say that the lady and her Pa look nothing alike, that’s for certain. Hard to believe they’re even related at all. He’s a real piece of work. Real slim too, like those snakes that used to nick my heels as a kid. Told me if I got rid of her he’d clear my name with the Cornwalls. Seemed like an unfair shake to me. I can see why she’d looked so hot in the face when she told me about him. Dutch and the others don’t know I’ve been sneaking off, so I’ll have to handle this alone.

Saw that lady again rushing past the saloon a few weeks after that. High noon, I reckon. Only remembered because of what color the sun was when it hit her eyelashes. Had her skirt hiked up all lopsided, so one end was dragging in the dirt while the other end was left unscathed. Uncle caught a flash of an ankle and said he’d like to take her out horse riding, and I told him I’d gut him like a fish if he tried anything untoward. I don’t think I want her to die. I just hope she don’t want that neither.

Ran into her again. Same night after an ugly tumble at the saloon. My head feels like a brick but I remember her a little too clearly. I don’t know how I ended up at her door again, but I think she might really be one of them fairies I’ve heard so much about. Even her yells sounded like beautiful music. I said some real dumb things. Dumbest I’ve been in a hot minute. Think the bashing and the rain did me in. But that spark in her eyes made me believe seeing her again might do her some good. Or do me some good. I don’t know. I’m to see her tomorrow, Dutch be damned. 

And it’s a strange thing, seeing yourself reflected through the eyes of someone else. You flip the smallest scrap to find what you think is a scribbled mess. It’d obviously been done in a hurry, like he might’ve forgotten what he was drawing if he waited any longer. But the longer you look, the more the pieces begin to fit together.

The barrel of a rifle. Finger curled just under the trigger. Tense shoulders. Rickety porch. Billowing fabric at your sides and a smile so wicked your heartbeat quickens at the thought of being faced with it as anything other than a sketched memory.

It’s you.

It’s snatched from your hands the moment you’ve locked it into place. You spin, Arthur still drenched and engulfing your wrist with his hand before he’s pulling you up.

You don’t know what to say. Neither does he. So he holds you there, suspends the two of you in an easily escapable bind. The water trickles all the way down from his arm to your sleeve. Replaces the dampness that you’d rid yourself of only moments prior. But neither of you choose to move. 

Until you speak first.

“You came back.”

You’re not sure which time you’re referring to. The first? The last? Perhaps all of them.

Arthur’s grip loosens. “You asked.”

“That was one time, if I remember correctly.”

It’s then that he lowers his arm, though his hand still circles your wrist. You think you know enough now to deduce that it’s more for him than for you. The thought warms your insides. But you can feel the silence coming, find that you’re a little sick of silence, and open your mouth to fill it. Arthur beats you to it.

“Just the one was…enough.”

He looks confused for a second. Then it’s washed away, leaving behind that calm certainty.

Good. This was going good.

—

You don’t know how the two of you end up back at your cabin. You don’t think you care, now that the silence is shut out. The two of you spend the next hour trading tales like schoolchildren after you’d changed into a proper nightgown. A botched heist here, a messy cow birth there, all as time slips farther and farther away. 

Arthur is kind, you realize. Remember, actually.

All bark, a whole lot of bite, but kind. A little odd, freakishly crude, and a massive flirt to boot, but still kind. You won’t tell him though—not unless you want him to pop an eyeball out of his socket. For the time being you’re simply content with observing.

Arthur sits across from you in his chair (his chair), much like that first night, trying to parse through some knuckle-headed joke. You’ve migrated over to the kitchen—the pots and pans, you’ve decided, are in desperate need of organizing. You tell Arthur as much when you hastily slip the blankets off of your shoulders to stand. You don’t tell him about the embarrassment you’d felt, eying the hairs that covered his broad chest. Overheated from the fireplace, he’d said. So he’d popped a couple of extra buttons and gave his neck an exaggerated pat of a handkerchief. 

The nerve.

But it was the seemingly innocuous flirting that had crumbled the last of your resistance; the cattle could pay you no compliments, and the catcalls thrown at the markets were a far cry from flattering. But this. This was exhilarating.

But Arthur’s gone strangely quiet when you reach up to hang a dingy pot onto a hook.

“…Arthur?” You hesitate. “You see somethin’?”

It’s then that you remember that odd habit of his. So you close the blinds to the small window over the sink, force a shaky breath, and return to your chair so that you’re facing him. He says it as soon as your bottom hits the seat.

“You.”

Oh.

It’s then that you notice just how quiet the inside of the cabin is, in comparison to what it’d been like outside. The sound of the howling wind is kept at bay with the help of the front door, leaving only the crackling of the fireplace and labored breathing from opposite ends of the room.

You cross your ankles. Then you uncross them, and cross them the other way. 

Damn this gown. 

The ignominy of your wandering eyes has produced nervous beads of sweat, and the fabric still on you anchors itself to your body with its help. Determined to give you away.

Arthur watches you fidget.

His face flashes with the same look you’d caught glimpses of when he’d first showed up on your porch. When he’d watched your lips as you spoke. Methodical. Analyzing. Eager. You thought you’d imagined it. Arthur must have been weighing something within himself, too. His words, eager to inspect yet all too happy to flee at the slightest hint of apprehension. The results of his investigation are presented to you with his bare hands.

“S’there someone I need to be frettin’ over if I touch you?”

You shake your head.

“Good.”

Then Arthur is standing. Christ, he’s standing, and he’s crossing the distance in three agonizingly slow strides—boots hitting the floor with a thunk, thunk, thunk. Till he looms right over you. He boxes you in; hands braced on the arms of your chair, hat tipped forward just so.

Maybe it wasn’t a mangy cat, or a crook, or a ghost that you’d allowed into your home. 

This was a wolf.

The wolf curls his fingers under your chin and tips your face upwards, eyes half-lidded and hungry.

“Am I leaving?” The words scrape out of him. The thought of leaving pains him, but the words are a necessary evil.

You’re almost too afraid to speak—doing so means his thumb might stray from the path it’s begun to trace on your bottom lip, and you can’t possibly give that up. Instead, you consider Arthur carefully. 

It’s a rather precarious situation you’ve found yourself in—lusting over the very thing that might bring you to ruin. You’d given up on misplaced hands in quiet corridors years ago, replaced them with hatred for the man who’d had the gall to call himself your father. The shame of letting your unruly desires steer you. There was doubt, too. Lingering at the far corners of your mind, wondering if maybe, just maybe, your affections might be dangerously misplaced. That you’d end up like the others.

Taking whatever it was he had to give would be the final nail in the coffin, and you knew it. You’d known from the moment you’d caught him (and him, you) that Arthur would be no good. No good for you, no good for him, no good for anyone. 

But, that was then. This is now. 

And how often was it that the light of a fire enveloped someone so earnestly, so wholeheartedly? You would be mad not to want him. 

And oh, how you’d wanted.

But what to do, where to look? 

You settle for his lips. 

With a shuddering breath, you allow your mouth to fall open. His thumb goes stock-still, just before it presses past the rosy flesh and onto the top of your tongue. But just as quickly as it enters, it retreats. You chase after it with a humiliating whine, a trail of saliva marking the falter in your promise to stay away, away, away. Arthur smears the remainder of your shame on the corner of your mouth, his lips twitching up just enough to betray the beginnings of a smirk. 

“I don’t play that,” he chides softly. “I need words, darlin’.”

Leave it to Arthur to make things difficult, the bastard. 

You tilt your head till he’s catching your cheek in his palm. Let out a breathy whimper when he rubs his fingers at the sensitive base of your ear.

“S’not fair,” you whisper. It really isn’t, but it sounds pathetic after it bubbles up from your throat. But you can’t bring yourself to utter anything else. Arthur presses closer in place of an answer, eyes tracking every blink, every inhale, every eyelash that catches the puffs of air that leave him. 

His eyes tell you that he’s hoping to pull your confessions from you like weeds—and it might feel good, perhaps. To let yourself put a name to the desire that curdled in your veins. Too big to be contained. But there was something delightfully emboldening about being “trapped” with Arthur. 

He was stuck with you, just as much as you were stuck with him.

Breath intermingling, you ghost your mouth over the inside of his wrist. Teeth peek out just enough to graze him, and you keep your eyes locked with his when you go to bite weakly at the exposed skin. You mumble against the shiny spot left behind.

“I ain’t a beggin’ woman, Arthur Morgan. You know that.”

He doesn’t laugh. Just smiles, slow and sure. “Do  I, now?” He croons.

You nod, and you’re smiling dreamily right back at him.

You try your best to keep the thundering of your pulse contained when his mouth is a hair's breadth away from your own. But the steady thump of Arthur’s heartbeat is strong and stable, setting the tempo for your own to follow suit all too easily. 

He speaks to you. “You feel like fixin’ that, doll?”

“Dunno. Can you fix it, Arthur?”

And like a thin branch caught underneath a heavy pelting of snow, the tension cracks—but it falls to the ground in complete silence. It’s gentle. Smothering. Freeing.  All consuming. His lips are rough, and light, and a little dry, but he’s kissing you. You.

You realize a little belatedly that he’s wrapped his other arm around your middle, and he’s pulling you up from the chair to meet him. Maybe the whiskey on his lips that you’d offered earlier has gotten to you, because you stand up so quickly that the chair you’ve been sitting on crashes to the ground with an embarrassing thud. Ignoring the huff of laughter against your mouth, you snake your arms up from where they’ve gone limp at your sides to wrap them around Arthur’s neck.

The press of his body is warm—accommodating. A hand cradling the back of your head, the other a teasing warmth skimming the side of your ribcage. It’s…nice. Merciful, almost.

But you weren’t looking for mercy.

So, you do what you know best. 

Piss him off.

With the precision of a skilled hunter, you nip his bottom lip with your teeth and bring him into you with the help of a hand between his shoulder blades.  The reward for your efforts is a chain reaction: Arthur pitches forward, licking into your mouth with a groan. Hands clutch: hips, waist, neck, and back to your waist. You have to arch away to accommodate the sudden shift of weight, and he’s swaying the two of you backward till your hips collide with the rough edge of the kitchen countertop. 

It’s forceful enough to knock the air out of you. At your exhale of surprise, the pressure against you lessens. Your pulse picks up when rough hands find your flank, offering what you believe to be an apologetic squeeze. But his hands don’t stop there: they iron past the fleshy mounds, friction intensifying the swelling heat before his hand cups you.

You break away with a gasp.

Apparently satisfied with his repentance, Arthur withdraws his hand and leaves you with a parting kiss before he noses downward to suck at the skin of your neck. The warmth of his mouth and the scrape of his beard invite an electric buzz underneath your skin. 

“Been drivin’ me crazy, woman, Jesus.”

“Then quit bein’ nice,” you breathe. Your hands have grown impatient, they take the liberty of slipping between the two of you in search of the hardness straining against the confines of  Arthur’s pants.

“I ain’t—ngh—nice,” Arthur clips. Score.

You swallow a moan when you feel him buck against your palm. “You lyin’ to me, Morgan?” 

When your fingers go to find his belt loops, he bats them away and slams your hips back into the counter before leaving a quelling nip to your shoulder.

He’s got a hand in your hair now; it yanks your head back, and broadens the depth of Arthur’s tongue when he recaptures your lips in a scathing kiss. The parting of your thighs is almost instinctual, and you’re soon scrambling to grab at any article of clothing that might bring him closer once he slots himself between them. 

Can he feel your arousal, you wonder? Painting the inside of your legs with a sloppy depiction of your poorly concealed lust, hoping that Arthur might notice, might see. 

But Arthur is far from unaffected. With each mewl that escapes your lips, he rocks up into you. Swallowing your wretched noises whole and using them as fuel for the fire that would weld your bodies together. Each brush of his lips siphons the air from your lungs, though you don’t mind. It only stirs the warmth that’s begun to swirl in your abdomen. But through the heat and the haze, you can faintly register the wriggling of fingers at your hip and air hitting your bare thighs.

Spit slicks your lips when Arthur pulls away, and he peppers open-mouthed kisses down the center of your body; your neck, the dip of your collarbones, over the thin fabric of your nightgown—all while his other hand continues to ruck your hem up, and up, and up. There’s a new weight to your skull, too. It shades your tired eyes, dims your overexposed senses and forces you to focus on the mess he’s made of you. 

The pads of his fingers skirt over where your nipples have pebbled underneath your chemise, but only just. It isn’t until Arthur’s fully sunken to his knees that you’re able to take in the sight of the top of his head. 

The top of his head?

Wrenching your fingers from where you’re sure they’ve put indents into the wooden countertop, you tighten them into his hair and tug him away from where he’s made contact with your navel.

He’s pulled away with a dicey rumble reverberating from his chest. “What in the—”

“Arthur,” you say, still breathless, “Arthur w-wait. Your hat, where is it?” 

Your knowledge of outlaws was limited, but you knew their hats weren’t to be trifled with. The very last thing you needed was to incite the wrath of the outlaw gods in the middle of…this.

And if you weren’t so blissed out, you might kick Arthur for the look he gives you: depraved and utterly devoid of remorse. 

“Arthur, I’m being serio—ohh, f-fuck!”

He yanks your bloomers down in one fell swoop, pulling your hips flush against his mouth and dragging the flat of his tongue up through your slick folds with a groan. Arthur, idiot that he is, dares to laugh. Laugh in the face of the embarrassing slew of curses that follow after he just barely reaches your clit.

You’re being mapped, you realize with a shiver. Every twitch is cataloged, every gasp a lesson. If the building pressure in your gut is any indication, he’s a quick study. Firm hands rub soothingly at the backs of your thighs, though they’ve somehow managed to worsen the growing ache. 

Each push of his muscle plucks at a string so deep, so tender, that your vision leaves you in bursts of white flashes. You pull the collar of your chemise up and into your mouth; the stars winking behind your closed eyelids aren’t enough to shield you from the utterly obscene noises coming from the both of you as he laps at your weeping cunt. 

But a particularly electrifying flick of his tongue sends one of your hands flying to your hair, only to find that something rather hat-like sits atop it. 

Ah. So that’s where it went.

You feel Arthur smile against you. “You alright up there?”

That devil.

Chest heaving, you risk a look down once you notice the absence of pressure against you. 

(You’ve been doing a lot of risking, lately. But what was one more?)

If this was a test of resilience, you were failing miserably. You’re torn between wanting to hide and wanting to preen: Arthur’s stalled his ministrations, index finger now tracing lazily over the juncture where your thigh meets your sex. He’s eyeing you lecherously from his place on his haunches, hair mussed from violent fingers and jaw slick. You swallow. You’d done this to him.

But, he’d stopped. Why had he stopped?

Greed attempts to force Arthur’s hand with a buck of your hips, but you’re met with a palm pressing you back. It seems the warmth of the fireplace hasn’t yet reached this corner of the cabin. Arthur’s mouth has been what kept you warm, kept you sated, but he’s taken that away from you. You’ve been doing fine, and he’s taken it. Why?

“Arthur, what—”

The finger that’s been tracing you slides its way just above where your clit throbs. Works it underneath his finger in slow, slow circles. Your abdomen spasms, a guttural sob shooting out from your throat. The sensation makes your mind go fuzzy, and Arthur has to lean back to avoid the abrupt closing of your legs while you steady your breathing.

God, you really were going to kill this man. 

Arthur, apparently, is none the wiser. Either that or he’s blatantly ignoring it—though you suspect it’s the latter. He’s knocking your legs back apart before you have a chance to shield yourself. 

“Don’t go all shy on me now, darlin’,” he says, voice cut with an edge of warning. He’s pressing a finger at your entrance. It’s just enough to frustrate you, just enough to entice the moisture that begins to build in your tear ducts. See what you could have, it taunts. He begins another slow circle with the pad of his finger, pride swamping his features at your sharp intake of breath. “I came to see a show.”

You don’t know how long you stare at him, watching as he molds you at his will. But it’s Arthur who detaches the hand that you’ve clapped over your mouth, guides it dutifully back to where it’d been tangled in his hair only moments before. The gentle stretch of his finger slipping inside of you only prompts a pleased sigh as your head lolls back. 

He slathers your cunt with praises. “Gorgeous,” he says, nudging his nose alongside it, “this all for me, pretty girl?” The warmth returns with his admiration. Interlacing with each stuttering breath, climbing higher and higher till it’s crawling out of your throat. You welcome it enthusiastically. By the time he’s slipped in a second finger, you’ve long forgotten any shame felt beforehand in favor of the prickling pressure in your belly.

“M’gonna—gonna kill you, Morgan.”

“S’alright,” Arthur drawls. “Keep talkin’, baby.” He keeps his opposite hand poised at your wrist, ready to strike should you choose to stifle any of the sounds he’s worked so hard to coax from you. 

Too tired, you wanted to tell him. You were barely keeping yourself standing as it was. But the sounds being pulled from you are gentle, yearning. Easy.

This was easy, you think. Safe. Within your control. You’d bitten off more than you had room to chew, goading Arthur on like you had. But his fingers, ever so forgiving, weigh your eyes shut with every delicate pass over your walls. You could ride the high of this warm haze forever.

Pity that “forever” hinges on Arthur’s terms.

A chaste kiss to your inner thigh is the only warning you have before Arthur is surging forward, crooking his fingers and sealing his lips around your clit. 

Your legs are the first to go, knees buckling and calves straining from exertion. Unfortunately, the only things capable of keeping you upright are the fingers and the tongue that got you into this mess.

Arthur wastes no time reveling in a slow pace—and why would he? Why the hell would he, when he could keep you dancing on this rocky cliff for as long as he damn pleased. He presses a kiss to your inner thigh again, fingers still plucking at that warm bundle of strings that made you weep. “Atta girl,” he rumbles, “Y’look real pretty like this, don’t you think?”

“Yes, fuck, yes!” You curl over him with a wanton moan, taking his head in your hands and pushing him as close as he can go. You’re only half listening, throbbing with the threat of your impending release.

“You gonna give me what I deserve, sweetheart?” He’s back to lavishing your cunt with devilish flicks. You meet him there, in time; aimlessly grinding your hips down and using his soft strands for leverage. Studious monster that he is, each pass of his thick fingers gives new life to your limbs, now roused into feverish jerks and quivers. “You don’t get to hide from me, you hear? Too pretty for all that crap.”

Arthur’s still waiting for you to respond. But the praises you sing have been wrung completely dry, leaving only high-pitched squeals and chants to ricochet off the cabin’s walls. 

You think you imagine the hand he’s got shoved down his pants, working over his length in short tugs before your eyes flutter shut, and you’re twitching at the bites Arthur leaves on your legs in return—rough, possessive, claiming. 

You can feel it. It’s there, it’s right there. It burns. It scrapes at your very being, keeping you drawn taut against the pump of Arthur’s fingers, soaked and hell-bent on pulling it out of you.

“C’mon, give it to me.” He’s commanding you now, voice desperate. He must feel it too. “Lemme see what I came here for.” You sob, and his name leaves you in bits and pieces. Whether you nod or shake your head is a mystery, but you do know that you wrest your eyes open. Brush aside the hair blocking Arthur’s face with trembling fingers, and through the hot tears you find pools of blue. Waiting.

You slip. You fall. And it’s his.

Your orgasm is ripped from you in a scream and a violent storm. Tremors shaking your body, stomach tightening, stars exploding—it’s everything but calm, and too loud. But Arthur’s fingers are there to guide you through it all, ensuring that every last inch of your body he covets is handed over in full. You’ll have to thank him, later. 

He’s pulling you down into his lap once you’re nothing more than a puddle of warm flesh, still pulsating. Your temples are warm where his lips greet them. Eyes blown wide, throat raw, Arthur sweeps an appraising gaze over your crumpled shoulders and moves the hat from your head to his. 

“That’s one,” he says. 

…Were there more?

Your voice finds the two of you slumped chest to chest. You look up at him to poke a finger to his cheek, and wince at the feeling of how hoarse your throat is.

“You—you pull a stunt like that again, and I’m kicking your sorry ass out.” Arthur quirks a brow. Another bluff, and you both knew it. You let him litter your forehead with kisses while you wait for your mind to reinhabit your body.

But in the interim, your hand snakes its way down his burly chest. Slip it between the waistband of his pants before you’re pulling his cock out as he hisses.

“Don’t need to,” he says, only you do need to. Want to. Have to. And you think you tell him so because he’s nodding. Turning you to face him, guiding your legs apart and sliding himself up against your wet heat. He begins to rock with you, tipping your head up to mouth at your chin. Hums, a wretched thing you’ve decided is yours and yours alone.

“You got any idea—” Arthur begins, burying his face into the crook of your neck, “you got any idea what you do to me? Hm, pretty girl?” He grunts when the tip of his cock bumps up against your clit and you arch away. But he’s quick to reign you back in with one hand at the back of your neck.

“Arthur, c’mon. P-please. I wanna—”

He’s vibrating a no into your neck, tongue rolling out to lick a stripe upwards till he’s got your earlobe between his teeth.

“You can wait. Lemme hear you say it.”

“Say what.” You moan into the open air when he bites at the underside of your jaw, hard, and you have to fight a smile when you realize it’ll likely be there tomorrow.

A light gasp leaves you when you feel his hand reaching between the two of you to position his length at your slick entrance. Almost, almost—

“Arthur, say what.”

What little control he has left is contained in the fingers he’s using to hold himself steady. His hips begin that slow roll. “I need you to tell me what you were thinkin’ about this morning.”

This morning? What did he—

This morning.

Hand caught between your cunt and the chair, fingers working through a steady gush of arousal. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.

He only catches you off guard because you’re distracted.

You’re split slowly. Greedily sucking him in while your forehead taps against his so you can try and sharpen your focus.

“Easy, baby. Easy. I got you.”

You whimper. He was there. He was there, watching, just like he was watching you now.

But you couldn’t care less.

There’s no hiding that fullness you feel, the fullness that is. The two of you go quiet as he sinks further and further in. Warmth is flooding your body, circulating between your joined bodies as an inescapable circle of fire and need, and you can’t help but feel that this was how things were supposed to be from the beginning.

Arthur doesn’t have to remind you not to stifle any noises. Not when he’s unsheathing himself for barely a second before he’s got his hands on your hips to guide you up and down his length. You clench and Arthur’s hips give a stutter.

He slides his hands up the back of your sweaty chemise and he eases you to the floor. Slides the fabric off of you, looms over you like an unwavering mountain. “Jesus, you’re perfect. Too good, you fuckin’ hear me? Christ.” Arthur’s control is wavering, you can feel it. So you take his face between your hands and kiss him hard enough to get him to move faster, damn it.

It’s a gradual start. But his rhythm begins to pick up just as that brightness begins to hurtle around your gut again. His mouth is tasting everything it can reach: the salty sweat beginning to collect on your brow, the poke of your nipples, each time finding himself eagerly gulping down the noises spilling from your mouth.

And too suddenly, his cock brushes up against that spiral of light and you arch with a cry. Arch so hard that you think you can see your climax right before it’s pulling at your abdomen with such heated vehemence that the tears spilling down your cheeks only make the sparks brighter.

Arthur isn’t far behind, and you sigh at the feeling of him sliding out of you before he takes himself in his hand while you’re still a jolting pile of bones on the floor. It takes one, two, three strokes in quick succession before he’s coming in thick spurts over your belly with a grunt.

He curls over you then, pulling you into his arms and pressing kisses back at your temple,  atta girl, you did so well.

Your heartbeats are pressed together and you realize that he’s still clothed.

But—you’re giddy. That felt good. Feels good. You didn’t think you got to feel good anymore.

So you look at Arthur, really look at him this time. The rise and fall of his chest. The hair curled at the nape of his neck. The blacks of his pupils, still blown wide and dark as the night. You close your eyes, and he’s hung the moon.

When you open them, you’re in your bed. Tiny, creaky, but a welcome opposition to the floor. There’s light spilling in from a crack in the door, and the wind howls just outside. Arthur has already wiped you clean, tucked you under the blankets (just a little too tightly). He sits in the corner with an ankle crossed over his knee and arms folded. He smiles.

And you have a thought. An idea. A terrible one, actually. So acute you can feel it cutting your tongue. 

“Take me with you?”

[silly-moth-123]

I'm at my grandparents house and istg it looks like a liminal space outside-

Like ok. First of all, context as to this place being insanely spooky:

It's across the street from a graveyard

The house is very old and has a unique and atypical structure with a lot of weird rooms and closets

It's in the middle of nowhere (rural area, there aren't fences between people's yards or anything but there are still other houses in sight)

It's on a steep hill, which especially makes it hard to see what's up the hill when it's dark and/or foggy (this house is not at the top, there's more higher up than this, but I've always considered this house to be the top because I've never been up that hill)

I cannot describe how the streetlights illuminate the road here, but trust me it is Spooky™

Everything about this house feels haunted

So anyways you can imagine how weird it feels to take my dog outside at night when it's dark and all you see is just- literally a weirdcore photo edit

I took some pictures but they don't really do it justice and half of them are just too dark to actually see anything. I don't think I'm gonna post the photos cuz that just feels weird to me somehow? But yeah this house is weird and creepy (I mean this as a compliment. I love my grandparents house it's very cool)

[caffeineivore]

Medianoche

Liminal spaces, pt 2. M/N, PG13-ish

Everything they said about Texas was fucking true, and he'd been driving through the damn state for a day and a half with a shitty four-hour nap somewhere in the middle, and he was still within its borders.

Working for a moving company means that Noah sees a lot of time on the road, hauling anything from furniture and electronics to someone's fancy-ass fish tank complete with tiny underwater castle, Nemo, Dory and the whole gang. This trip includes curio cabinets full of highly-insured antique knick-knacks and fine china and some fancy artwork, all from some dearly-departed old lady's grand estate in Aspen, en route to her son's home in Freeport, and honestly, he would rather have hauled another damn fish tank. The responsibility of transporting old, fragile, irreplaceable rich-people shit sits differently than hauling someone's generic IKEA set cross-country.

Texas traffic is an absolute nightmare in the greater Houston area, and in the interests of saving time, Noah powers through what would have been dinnertime to continue on well into the outskirts, but by time the roads around him are finally in some semblance of "normal", it's full dark outside and his stomach is growling louder than the hard rock he's blasting on the radio. He's in the middle of freaking nowhere, of course, and for another fifteen miles, doesn't see so much as a freeway exit. Finally, though, a blue road sign with the fork and knife symbol for food pops up ahead, and he signals, turns right onto an exit ramp that leads down into a small side street.

There's a tiny tin can of a building ahead, where his truck takes up three spots in the stingy little parking lot, and in place of a name, there's simply a neon sign with a picture of what might optimistically be called a sandwich. But every single light inside is lit up, and the door pulls open easily. A faded handwritten sign tells Noah to sit anywhere he likes, and he makes his way to the deserted counter, rings the bell.

"Buenas noches," The woman who emerges from behind the swinging double-doors is tall and tanned and buxom, wearing a candy-pink blouse just a few shades lighter than her smile. She says something else in Spanish, and Noah only surmises that it's a question based on the quizzical look in her forest green eyes.

"Do you have a menu, darlin'? I'm hungrier than a bear out of hibernation."

That only earns him another quizzical look, but damned if she's not a sight for sore eyes. There's an endearing spray of freckles across her nose and when she tilts her head, the lights pick up the glossy chestnut tints of her hair, tied back in a practical ponytail. Noah mimes eating a sandwich, taking a sip of a drink.

"Tienes hambre," she says slowly, and he nods in agreement. Whatever that means.

"Sure. Surprise me. I trust you."

She hums something to herself, then pours him a cup of coffee in a sturdy white mug, slides it across the counter. It's hot and strong and he gulps it down black as he watches her disappear back through those double-doors.

It's perhaps a few minutes later when she reappears like a benevolent goddess, and sets down a generous-sized sandwich in front of him, its bread crisp and crossed with grill marks and still slick with melted butter. "La medianoche," she tells him, and waves a hand at the wall clock which reads the hour of midnight.

Noah is too busy inhaling possibly the best fucking thing he's ever tasted before in his whole natural life to look at the time. The bread is grilled crisp on the outside but is sweet and pillowy-soft around decadent slices of ham and roast pork, sharp mustard and melty cheese punctuated with the sweet-salty bite of sliced pickles. In his peripheral vision, she refills his coffee cup, then leaves the bill at his elbow. He pulls out a twenty-- roughly twice the bill-- and shouts a "Keep the change, sweetheart!" over his shoulder as the food and coffee give him a new lease on life. Maybe with luck, Grandma's creepy antique shit will make it to its new home before whatever undoubtedly haunted artifact decides to rise up and possess his soul from the trailer of the truck.

He makes it to his destination sometime the next day, and takes the night off to rest at a decently nice hotel, and his dreams sound like lightning storms and smell like roses and fresh bread. He sees her in his mind as he sleeps-- that gentle smile, that statuesque figure draped in emerald silk rather than pink calico. The next trip takes him west, and somewhat impulsively, he passes through that stretch of lonely Texan road again. It's not too much out the way, after all.

In broad daylight, though he's quite certain it's the same exact road, there's no blue road sign, and no neon sandwich atop a tin can diner shining like a beacon anywhere on that stretch. It's as though the place and the girl sprung to life, only at midnight.

Only when he needed them.

[banana-zim]

SCENT OF STEAM CONTEST WINNERS

Thank you to everyone who joined the first SCENT OF STEAM art contest, for the band @scentofsteam!! Every entry received was appreciated, and it meant a lot to us to have you guys enjoy the music and create something from it. Both myself and the band were judges for the entries, and the results and commentary are down below. I will be DM'ing the winners individually for their prizes~

1ST PLACE - @nichiperi

Scent of Steam: This fits the vibe of Emotions are Social perfectly. A quiet loneliness with an ever watching eye. Bleeding in a monitored solitude. Not to mention the composition used in this piece. The bright contrasts draw your attention into every detail. BananaZim: This piece feels like it should be one of the classics you see in museums, from the decaying texture on the canvas, to the classic style of painting/shading/coloring/shapes. The colors used in this piece are immediately attention-grabbing, and the composition is elegance at its finest. The eye in the sky is an immediate winner, too - this piece is something burned into my brain, and I constantly think of it.

2ND PLACE - chxoticspecter (Instagram)

Scent of Steam: I feel this piece not only comments on Emotions are Social, but the album as a whole. The caskets pointing venomously towards the bleeding heart while eyes drip with memories of blood from the bottom. Absolutely fantastic.

BananaZim: I knew the moment I saw this, it was instantly placed for a winning spot. The anatomical heart is a symbol close to my own, and the gradients add such a powerful touch here. I also love the fine details on the heart and the coffins around it. It perfectly captures the song.

3RD PLACE -@faithfulwhispers-art

Scent of Steam: Dark, decaying, empty. Like someone wandering through old, decrepit memories, unable to escape. Things they no longer wish to see but are forced to relive again and again. As the years move on, the place the memories reside begins to crumble and distort, yet they cannot leave. A perfect fit for Room in the House of Lore.

BananaZim: Faith has a talent to take a song and create the exact imagery and environment the song is projecting. It was pretty damn spooky just how perfectly this piece was set up, from the broken down house, to the construction pieces in the back, to the foreground pieces. Also, the entire thing is glazed over in this dark, rich red, showcasing the artist's coloring skills.. I love how this draws you in.

HONORABLE MENTION - @spanglespants

Scent of Steam: This was heavily considered for 3rd place and needed to have at least a mention made. I find myself with this image in my head quite a lot. Not this exact picture, but the dark silhouettes of power lines and trees, with the last dying lights of the sun illuminating the horizon. This has always been a scene that has attracted my eyes, with the anticipation of the stars coming out for the night. This moment is captured perfectly in this picture.

BananaZim: Scent of Steam and I were sold on this photograph when we saw it. As stated, it absolutely needed to be recognized in our results as an honorable mention. The lavender/blue sky that has just a single star and the distant moon, to the telephone lines... It whispers to me a liminal space, or a wash of nostalgia. It also was a beautiful fit to the album, and to the songs referenced, and it deserves more eyes on it.

[musicarenagh]

Alexander James Rodriguez Resurrects Seductive Heart On "Noche Sin Fin" Alexander James Rodriguez, the Marbella-born artist who scooped up the 'Rising Star Award' at the 2021 Hollywood Music in Media Awards, understands this liminal space intimately. His newest song, "Noche Sin Fin" (Endless Night), moves through this dark area with the ease of someone who speaks desire like a native. The track opens with "Bailando entre mis dedos" ("Dancing between my fingers"),it creates a sexual scenery right away, where touch turns into movement, movement turns into language, and language disappears into pure feeling. It is impossible to deny that the track has a late-night energy, a hot, electric expectation that only the best Latin music can create. The synths move back and forth, making an auditory experience that is as much about feeling as it is about hearing. And the percussion? It’s the heartbeat of the night, insistent and intoxicating, urging you to shed your inhibitions and simply move. The arrangement sounds like the golden age of Latin disco—think Giorgio Moroder's cosmic pulse with the drug-filled nights in Miami—but it has a very current emotional intelligence to it. What’s particularly fascinating about “Noche Sin Fin” is its seamless fusion of eras. Rodriguez doesn’t just dabble in retro; he embraces it. He mixes classic disco strings and sounds with a more modern Latin pop sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDVyIzpXFfY It is like discovering an old picture that has been carefully kept but has a bright, modern tint put on it. This is not a repeat of old memories; it is a polite tribute that moves the limits forward. This is the right place for his signature synth-pop style, which is often emotional, because it lets his voice be both cocky and vulnerable at the same time. He walks across the line with the ease of a dancer. Rodriguez is a great performer in both English and Spanish, but "Noche Sin Fin" shows how his Spanish-language work touches on deeper emotional levels. In lines like "Clávame con tus espinas / Cuando bailas me fascinas" ("Pierce me with your thorns / When you dance you fascinate me"), the language itself plays a big role in showing how strange attraction can be. Rodriguez's voice moves very skilfully between being vulnerable and in charge. His delivery makes me think of someone who has learnt from both Abel Tesfaye's late-night confessions and Luis Miguel's romantic grandeur, but refuses to be constrained by either. [caption id="attachment_60446" align="alignnone" width="1066"] Alexander James Rodriguez Resurrects Seductive Heart On Noche Sin Fin[/caption] His way of thinking about desire is very Gen Z—it is straight and complicated at the same time, honest and deeply thoughtful. Alexander James Rodriguez's sound is changing all the time, but "Noche Sin Fin" is a big, rhythm-filled moment that shows he is not afraid to try new things, mix sounds, and make something truly original. This track isn't just for Latin pop playlists; it’s for global dance collections, for summer rotations, for those moments when passion meets pulse and the world outside fades away. It’s a track that demands to be experienced, not just heard. Rodriguez's 2024 debut album 'Call Me Alexander' was independently released on vinyl, CD and digital platforms, establishing him as an artist committed to complete creative control. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most profound experiences are found on the dance floor, under the glow of a thousand tiny lights, lost in an endless night. https://open.spotify.com/album/659PsxBAoZ6BCvx9CIjzEE?si=VZUA3v01Rl-Tsz1w0-YxGA

[promisewrites]

starting a new project

The liminal space between an old project and a new project.

A few days ago I finished collating the first draft of page of swords into one document by importing all the individual documents I had accumulated over the course of NaNoWriMo into one Scrivener file. It was a tiring process, to say the least. And disheartening. When I stepped back to see all of the scene cards laid out, what had once been a monolith was now bone-thin.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. I had cut so many scenes in my race to finish the novel before the close of the month. It’s kind of silly because I didn’t finish the story by November 30, in the end, anyway. The 50,000-word goal was accomplished, but I still had the fourth act (the dénouement where the characters return to a more familiar setting, changed) to write.

Because of this, I didn’t take a break from the draft in December, ready to leap back into it with fresh eyes in the new year. Instead, I worked (less furiously) to reach those magnificent words—’the end’—which I typed out at twenty-to-midnight, December 31.

While I relished working at a more leisurely pace that allowed me to flesh the prose out and tune it the way I wanted to, it gave me no room to breathe. It’s interesting. That something can continue to inspire you, but your mental energy does not keep pace with your creativity. For example, I added two epilogue chapters in a moment of evil genius. Crushing, vivid, emotional chapters.

But now I can’t bring myself to work on it anymore. Which is good, since I am supposed to have stashed the printed manuscript in a dark drawer to collect cobwebs over a month by now.

So I come to where I am now: beginning something new. Among the cut scenes, some require writing and some I loved but they just didn’t fit. It is the latter that I have interest with. And looking at aesthetically curated images in my world setting Pinterest board. A perfect marriage.

the world—I know it’s a cop-out name, but it’s simply a placeholder like the rest—is something a bit different than I have done. Looser. Less thought-out. I already have the basic plot of the rest of this series, and onyx spills afresh, mapped out in summary form at the least. But for the world, I made it on a whim. And that’s the same for all its contents. Bits and pieces of half-formed ideas my romantic brain has latched onto that I am collecting like scraps of paper.

I’ll admit quite freely: I enjoy painting pictures with words as much as with gouache. I probably do it as egregiously as Robert Jordan. So I will probably enjoy this change of pace immensely, and I don’t think anyone can complain about purple prose if that is the whole point of the piece.

To conclude, there is a gold nugget of truth in authors’ recommendations to let your first draft marinate—especially if it was written in the firestorm of a one-month writing challenge—and I am immensely excited to embark on my next project.

It’s like getting a new journal full of crisp, blank pages, in a way, after putting your lovingly worn Moleskine to rest on the shelf.

[ckret2]

Do you think bill would like dreamcore/weirdcore aesthetics/music? also I feel like the chaotic nature of the everywhere at the end of time soundtrack would suit him well. What do you think?

Commenting generally on dreamcore/weirdcore as a person who is aware of what they are and what their goals are but who doesn't personally regularly consume them and so is currently skimming a lot of pictures & playlists to compare to What I Think Bill's Tastes Are:

Look at a bunch of weirdcore and it's pictures of very mundane things in very mundane places, feels kind of like an old Polaroid, but framed (and sometimes added to in photoshop) in such a way to make it seem unsettling or eerie—to humans. Dreamcore is pretty similar except with less unsettling vibes, and more photoshopping of impossible things (ex: skies for floors), to evoke the sense of being in a dream. To humans, weirdcore is Very Strange And Threatening and dreamcore is Very Strange But Nonthreatening. To Bill? I think it would just hit him as "pictures of very mundane things." The things that make these aesthetics eerie and otherworldly to us are just part of his regular life. On a weirdness scale of 1 to 10, Bill considers Earth to be a 2, would probably consider weirdcore/dreamcore a 3, and he starts having fun at a 5.

He's a dream demon, he spends a lot of time inside humans' dreams, he probably sees forty liminal spaces with unseeable doorways that recede into the shadows each week.

To humans, places like that are barely-remembered phantom realms we only experience while vividly hallucinating in the dark at night, and in the waking world we use dreamcore to recapture that sense of unreality and weirdcore to sprinkle on a little dread. But to Bill, that's like, where he does his business transactions with humans. That's his workplace. That's like going to the office. Dreamcore is like human tourists visiting him at work and then going home and trying to make badly-remembered fanart of his office.

I feel like we get a pretty good glimpse of his preferred aesthetics during Weirdmageddon, with the Fearamid, the penthouse, and that ridiculous car—not to mention the mess he made of the town. As far as his aesthetic/artistic preferences go, the vibe I get off him is like... 20% Lisa Frank meets Clive Barker, 30% Hollywood Regency, and 50% the way a teenage boy in the 1990s would decorate his room if he was given a million dollars and no rules. The majority of dreamcore/weirdcore is too subdued, understate, desolate, and beige/pastel to reach his standards.

I can understand the instinct to tack that on him, though. I think weirdcore would love Bill. C'mon, try it out.

It works! It works.

I just don't think Bill would love weirdcore back.

Same goes for the music; to be incredibly reductive of a very loose umbrella term, most dreamcore music sounds like soothing relaxing 60s/70s music, played slow, with some static and an echo effect, and occasionally throw in some vaporwave or retrowave for variety. Weirdcore, pretty similar from what I can tell, but with more electronica and less of the 60s/70s music. Some of the most experimental least-conventionally-musical music might start to edge into "yeah this hits the same as listening to Shepard tones for five hours straight" but I think most of it only sounds like "weird music" to humans, and to Bill would sound like "human music." Nothing we've seen about his musical tastes so far suggest to me that his preferences are "dreamy" rather than, say, "party."

About Everywhere at the End of Time specifically: this thing is six and a half hours long, and I'm not gonna sit and dedicate my full attention to six and a half hours of concept-driven experimental music to figure out whether I think Bill would be into it, so unfortunately I'm only able to give a half-ass answer to this question with a subpar understanding of the thing I'm being asked to comment on.

Based on what Wikipedia tells me the albums are about, I think he'd respect the artistic ambition because he strikes me as the kind of guy who likes to think he's sophisticated as heck and able to Appreciate things that are Deep; and then he'd probably try to comment on how accurate it is—because like, hey, dream demon, he's probably been in and out of the heads of people with Alzheimer's. "He'd respect the artistic ambition" isn't necessarily the same as "he'd like it." I fully think he'd sing the praises of something he hates and/or that bores him to death if he thinks sophisticated people like it. (Alternatively, if he hates something he thinks people think is deep, he might go "it's pretentious and overhyped and if you were HALF as sophisticated as I am you'd be able to see that too." There's no room in his world for admitting "I think it's sophisticated but I don't personally like it.)

Listening to little fifteen-second chunks of the soundtrack on youtube while randomly skipping over several minutes at a time, I think that he'd think the first few stages just sound like normal human music (even as, from our perspective, they get even more staticky & distorted), and wouldn't fully appreciate the way the sound/memory progressively declines in those sections just because he's a little too alien to fully grasp the "wrongness" of it. From stage 4 on it starts to sound like the kind of "noise" I think Bill might register as "good music", a la Shepard tones or tornado sirens; but I'm not about to dedicate enough specific listening to pick out any sections that REALLY strike me as "yeah this is what I think Bill thinks music is," so that's just a preliminary answer. the Caretaker's attempts to represent the melancholy, depression, and confusion of having your mind and memories shut down on you might accidentally sound like a bop to Bill's alien tastes.

[galpalaven]

wip wednesday

The smell of ozone hangs heavy over the forest as she creeps up to the side of the warehouse, a storm brewing, ready to open up and swallow the tiny town any moment. The humidity threatens to choke her, making her already difficult breathing harder to control as she works to keep herself undetected. The sound of voices gets louder as she nears the front of the warehouse.  Pressing close to the wall, she cautiously peers around the corner, expecting to find the strange people that she’d been told had been seen ‘creeping around’ the old fishing dispensary. She’s holding her breath as she looks around the corner only to find — nothing. No one is standing there, despite the fact that she had definitely heard shouting as she crept through the dark, stumbling over thorny underbrush and pushing through rotting crates and broken fencing. It had sounded like there was quite the fight going on over here, but there’s just… nothing. Maybe the sounds were coming from inside? Thunder rumbles ominously over the treetops as she steps carefully around the corner, gravel crunching under her boots as she steps onto the old, cracked asphalt of the parking lot. The openness of the space makes her feel exposed, and a certain electric charge in the air preceding the incoming storm makes her hurry to the double doors at the entrance of the warehouse.  The building is old, crumbling red brick taking the place of what in today’s world would likely be a depressing liminal space of a grey concrete box. It makes a pretty, if dramatic picture of a decaying world where companies like Farris and Sons are getting slowly consumed by conglomerates and big business. It would make a good cover image for this story, if it turned out that their source had given them a good tip. The old hinges creak ominously as she pulls the door open, frowning at the way it had already been ajar when she walked up. Part of her wants to call out — maybe the part of her that had, however begrudgingly, sat through Academy training — but the snoop in her knows better. She hesitates in the doorway for a moment, listening carefully as she allows her eyes to adjust. After a moment, she hears the sound of movement from deeper in, a shuffling sound that she’s almost sure is the sound of feet scuffing against the dilapidated concrete floor. Human feet, probably. Not rats. Though the urge to keep pushing in tugs at her gut, she stays still, breathing softly and keeping the door from closing with her hand. She lets her eyes unfocus a little as she listens, trying to discern the direction of the noise— A bright flash lights up the empty main room, rain starting to pitter-patter on the roof and against the broken glass of the windows. Saoirse blinks hard to try and clear her eyes of the visual imprint of the lightning, only to freeze as thunder rumbles around the building a few seconds later, followed by another set of flashes that illuminate the room again. There’s a figure standing in front of her that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Feeling suddenly very much like a prey animal, she freezes, staring at the tall, gangly figure silhouetted in the middle of the room. Another flash, and one side of a man’s face is revealed—staring directly at her, too-wide grin on his face making her heart leap into her throat, strangling the noise that tries to leave her at the sight. “Hey, he’s over here!”

Investigative Journalist AU Wayhaven Chronicles Rewrite is a go lmao

[notoverjoyed]

In which a creepy basement is double-booked

Vlad holds a party. Spike and Jazz go exploring.

For @faedemon, aka @moipale

Tyler Hammond, known as ‘Spike’ to his friends, was faced with a choice.

“Please Spike,” Jazz said. “I really don’t want to go to this thing alone. By ‘thing’, she was referring to the party Mayor Masters was holding.

Jasmine’s family was old friends with Masters. Or something? By old friend, he meant that she complained how the man wanted her and her brother to call him ‘Uncle Vlad’. Jazz didn’t complain about a lot, so that was saying something. Anyway, she’d been invited to this gala and couldn’t get out of going, so she was begging Spike to be her plus one.

He opened his mouth to say no, again, when Jazz seemed to be struck by inspiration.

“You do know where he’s holding the gala, right?” she said carefully.

Sighing, he replied, “Where?”

“City Hall.”

“Yeah, what of it?” he said. Then, “Wait, city hall?”

“Yep,” she said brightly. “In the ballroom.”

“The one with the creepy basement?”

“You mean the underground parking garage that they only use for storage?” Jazz was particular about definitions, and even Spike had to admit she was an expert on creepy basements.

“So the the creepy underground parking garage, whatever.”

“Right next to the ballroom in fact.”

She frowned. “ I don’t know why they build it in the first place, we never needed that much parking downtown.”

“I don’t care why they built it, but I do know it’ll be perfect for my photography project.”

“The thematic analysis of liminal spaces as depicted in horror and suspense films? I’m looking forward to seeing it!”

“I’m not using that title, but yeah.”

“So you’re coming to the gala?”

Damn. Spike may be strong against Jazz’s begging, but not against her bribery.

“If you can get me into that basement, then sure.”

“Great!” she said.

. . .

The door to the underground parking garage is strangely unlocked, and creaked ominously as it opened. The sound was odd in contrast with the brightly lit hallway. Spike grinned at the noise, the expression almost as odd on his normally dour face.

“C’mon,” he said excitedly. He gripped his camera in one hand and grabbed Jazz’s hand and they ducked through the doorway, letting the door clunk close behind them. All sound from the ballroom vanished, as did the light.

They stood there in darkness for a moment before a beam of light lit the corridor in front of them. Spike looked to Jazz and saw a flashlight in her hand.

“Uh, thanks,” he said sheepishly.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and he appreciated the lack of sarcasm. It’s just like Jazz to plan ahead like that.

They continued down the corridor, and Spike noted the downhill slope. ‘At least we’re going in the right direction,’ he thought to himself.

“So how do you think you’ll incorporate the pictures from down in here into your project?” Jazz asked as they walked.

“I’m thinking that it can be like… the abandoned urban space, kinda mazelike? Like in zombie movies where they’re looking for supplies and everything’s quiet and your senses are all on high alert.”

“So like the anxious, hypervigilant aspect of horror movies, the suspense leading to the jump scare.”

“Exactly.”

Jazz hums in appreciation. “I bet my brother and his friends would love your project,” she said. “Especially Sam.”

“Yeah, I can see Sam into that, but your brother? He doesn’t seem the type to be into the creepy stuff.”

“Trust me, he is very familiar with the creepy stuff. And all three of them love horror movies. They’re big fan’s of that ‘Dead Teacher’ series.”

“Oh man, those are so cheesy.” Spike says with a laugh. “Quality jump scares thought.”

“And speaking of creepy, I think we’re here,” Jazz says, shining her light on a door in front of them.

Spike thought it was odd that there’d been no doors or hallways branching off from this corridor, but he didn’t dwell on it. Most of the public buildings in Amity Park had quirks like this. He opened the door, which was also conveniently unlocked, and they stepped through together.

The door opened into a dark, cavelike space. The ceiling was low, but the garage continued well beyond the ranges of Jazz’s flashlight. The vast space was broken only by concrete pillars and a wall obstructing their view off to their right.

“Perfect,” Spike said. He brought up his camera to fiddle with the settings in the light of Jazz’s flashlight.

“So how are we going to to do this?” She asked.

He was about to respond when he heard an echoing shout and the murmur of multiple voices. He looked at Jazz and it was clear she heard it too. Without speaking, she turned he flashlight so the beam wouldn’t shine beyond the wall to the right. That was the direction the the voices were coming from, and it was clear that Jazz wanted to investigate. She started walking slowly that way, and Spike followed.

They made it to the wall, Jazz’s flashlight now pointed fully behind them. A faint light can be seen around the corner, and she turned the flashlight off. With that light gone, it only took them a few moments to see more clearly into the distance.

The light in the distance was soft and flickering, and a number of figures were silhouetted against it.

“Creepy is right,” Spike said breathlessly.

Jazz didn’t respond, and he saw her crouch as she crept to a pillar in between them and the light ahead. He followed her, not willing to let her investigate alone.

They went like this from pillar to pillar until they got close enough to seem the figures more clearly. They seemed to be wearing robes.

“So, this demon summoning or whatever is cool and all, but the weird cult vibe wasn’t exactly what I was going for with this project,” Spike whispered.

“I’m more worried about what they’re trying to summon to be honest,” Jazz replies softly. In the dim light he can see her take out from her pocket what looks like lipstick in a shiny chrome tube. He knew that was actually one of her parents inventions, and he wondered what a weapon against ghosts would do against seemingly human cultists.

“Really?” he says.

“Really.”

“He’s about to reply with something sarcastic when he catches a glimpse of the only figure not wearing robes. A familiar figure.

“Uh, Jazz,” He says. “I think you should be worried about what they’re sacrificing, instead.”

She follows his gaze, then sucks in a gasping breath.

“Danny!” she whispers worriedly.

[ohbuckie]

from the mind of bucky barnes;

blog posts & journal entries

series

❝ I have been single for eleven days. ❞

❝ I have not spoken to my best friend—my ex-girlfriend, a term which makes me want to throw up—in nine. I haven’t showered in three.

I have never lived by myself before. There were always parents, or roommates, or alleged live-in life-partners. Now, only I exist in the liminal space that is the apartment we picked out together. We searched for weeks to find the perfect one. We had an extra bedroom, because, she said, “you never know what might happen.” I guess you really don’t.

I am bored, with all of this new-found free time. It feels like my plans have been cancelled, only I didn’t actually have any—I just figured that they’d happen. I figured that I would marry her and that she’d pop out a kid or two, but I guess I missed my chance.

I’ve written almost an entire album, and recorded about half of it entirely on my own. I will never release it, because the thought of composing myself for long enough to play these songs live fills me with incomprehensible dread. I will listen to my home-recorded demos and pick them apart and re-record them until I can think of another hobby to pick up (I’ve been told that doing lines off of my nightstand in the dark by myself doesn’t count).

I am hungry always, because I can’t think hard enough to know what I want for dinner. My eyes and nose are red and raw, because when I venture too far onto her side of our bed—my bed now, I guess—I can smell her and I am hit by a wave of sadness that paralyzes me and takes control of my body, forces me to cry and forces those sobs to destroy me physically and leave me weak and sore and exhausted when it’s all over.

I am packing away my life currently so that I can move back in with my mom and sister. I’m embarrassed that they’ll see me like this, because I’ve never been this bad.

I keep thinking of the tattoo of my initials that exists on her left hip, and the spot on her ribcage where my right hand would always end up when she was in my lap. I think of the clothes of mine that she would wear, and the makeup that she would leave on the bathroom counter, and the way that she would play with my hair absentmindedly whenever it was available to her.

I don’t know where to find drugs in New York. My townie friends sell weed, I know that, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

I wonder if I will bump into my ex-girlfriend or old hookups from high school—at the grocery store, or the pharmacy, or the gas station. I think that if I do, I’ll make some unhealthy decisions.

Once I close my laptop I will pack a bowl before tucking away now-empty picture frames and throwing boxes of tampons and packages of cotton rounds into bags for donation because I can’t handle feeling her presence, especially not while I’m sober.

My sister is upset with me because she’s gone. My mom is too, but she won’t say it. My friends have all tried desperately to get me to leave my house. My flight is in three days and I’m not even close to being finished packing my apartment to put into storage for God knows how long. I can’t wait to leave this city. ❞

[pixelrose-voidpunk]

Yes space is voidpunk and yes liminal spaces are voidpunk but I think we’re not fully appreciating the forest voidpunk:

- dead flowers hanging in bundles

- crossing over a creek and the whole feeling of the forest shifts, maybe not better or worse, but definitely different

- foggy forests and the crunch of early morning frost

- looking out the back door at night, seeing a semicircle of light from the porch light, and solid thick darkness beyond

- hearing wind chimes where wind chimes should not be

- steep hills with weaving trails, landmarks in the form of old decaying stumps in suspiciously regular clearings, this land is private and you should be the only one here…

- passing someone on a hiking trail and they’re just odd enough to stick out in your mind, be it their dress or their mannerisms something just feels off

- deer. Not in the “that’s not a deer” way, but in the soft, ethereal, sitting on either side of a path, staring at each other, each waiting for the other to move. The world goes still, you could have been sitting there for a minute or an hour, waiting for them to pass you don’t startle them.

- mushrooms that grow in lines rather than rings, like a fence. What could it be keeping out? Keeping in?

- the compulsion you get to take pictures of animals you already have dozens of pictures of

-a hawk swooping down into a field of neglected alfalfa to catch a mouse, it’s shriek echoing into the nearby woods

-piles of junk on a piece of long abandoned property, the owner several states away and clearly never coming back to finish the project, yet refuses to sell it. Half finished foundations, abandoned shacks crawling with mice, boards and pipes and shingles stacked in piles, collecting pine needles from their years left undisturbed. How far back does it go? What did he leave here? Though you know no one is there, you still hold your breath as you walk the path in front of it, staring at the old dog house twenty feet or so from the road.