#*sobs in satyr*

[mo-mode]

Okay so now that we have more satyr lore in the show, I’m gonna need an in-universe documentary about all of the magical creatures and monsters narrated by minor god of nature himself David Attenborough and filmed by a crew of brave satyrs but it always goes horribly wrong. every time they try to document a monster in its natural habitat, the monster’s just reading a book or like eating a churro or something until either it tries to eat the crew or a demigod child appears and then they turn into a living nightmare and David is like “oh dear” in his posh British accent and they cut to some b-roll footage of centaurs galloping or something. And then when they try to get some cute footage of magical creatures, either the satyrs almost die or there’s a tragic death of the creatures like hippocampus babies traveling in a pod with their family, but then one of them gets eaten by a sea serpent and you see a satyr wailing in the corner as we hear David say something like “oh what a shame but that’s the circle of life” and they just keep on going. the satyrs keep trying to give the animals satyr’s blessings but that’s not allowed cuz they can’t interfere like normal documentarians can’t so it’s just them trying and failing to protect the animals while the omniscient god David Attenborough keeps narrating without pause. But it’s also their duty as satyrs to preserve nature so they still need to make the best show possible

It’s a Need. I will write the script myself, okay? Don’t tempt me. Rick Riordan hire me PLEASE

[noratilney]

Maurus, Chronicles of Narnia + a moodboard for every oc (118/?)

tag list: @akabluekat, @arrthurpendragon, @bravelittleflower, @foxesandmagic, @juliaswickcrs, @kendelias, @kingsmakers, @nixdragon, @ocs-supporting-ocs, @starcrossedjedis, @sunlitscribe, @villain-connoisseur, @waterloou, @wordspin-shares

[umbra-borealis]

A chrimbo doodle I made because I was having a rough night. (This is Tenebris, they/them pronouns please)

[lanternlightss]

he was a horse

[fruitmouse]

do NOT invite me to your fantasy au i’ll show up with goat legs and a strange assortment of Items that do Things

[xspeter]

꥟ part of the ‘dancing with our hands tied’ collection. main masterlist.

IN WHICH… Luke Castellan has returned from his quest, but he refuses to see anyone. Too bad you’ve been assigned to watch over him.

W.C: 4.3k

You didn’t like being awoken in the middle of the night. Not by your siblings, not by a nightmare, and definitely not by Chiron.

He’d practically forced you awake, and then started telling you that there was an emergency and you were desperately needed.

Your sleep stricken mind you’d barely been able to process it, blinking a few times as you sat up slowly. Chiron stared at you expectantly, like he expected you to jump out of bed and follow him. If he wanted someone to do that, he should’ve woken up a morning person.

“…What?”

Chiron didn’t repeat himself, instead just leaving the building with a hushed whisper of, “Follow me.”

You swallowed, blinked again, and then did as you were told, slipping on a pair of crocs and wrapping your arms around your chest. The night time summer air was cold, and goosebumps rose on your skin as you followed the centaur.

Chiron didn’t say anything as you walked, well, more like jogged, and it frustrated you. Where was he taking you? What was so important that he had to wake you, and only you, up in the middle of the night?

“Chiron,” You whispered, “What’s going on?”

“Luke’s returned from his quest,” He said as you approached the Big House.

You grinned. You didn’t know Luke all that well, but you knew everyone was excitedly awaiting his return. But, your smile dropped once you noticed the worried knit in Chirons brow. “That’s supposed to be good, isn’t it?”

Chiron sighed as he placed his hand on the front door, an unusual look of worry and maybe even fear in his eyes. “I want you to be prepared when we go in here. Remember, I chose you because I believe you are the most capable in calming him.”

Your mouth went dry as you realized something was very, very wrong. “Calming… who? Luke? Did something happen?”

Chiron doesn’t say anything, instead turning the doorknob and practically forcing you inside. You wish he hadn’t.

The first thing you notice is the sobbing. Pure, unfiltered, scream-crying that makes your heart ache for someone you don’t even know. Then it’s the people, nymphs running around in a panic, random medical supplies and blankets dropping from their arms as they dart around the room.

Then it’s Mr. D. You’ve never seen Dionsysis as anything other than annoyed and irritated. But right now, he looks nervous. Scared. It’s terrifying.

You can’t tell where the sobbing is coming from, it’s so loud it feels like it’s all-consuming. Like it’s coming from every inch of the room.

You turn to Chiron, slight determination in your features, “Where is he?”

Chiron looks almost relieved, like he was expecting you to turn tail and run. Honestly? You wanted to. You weren’t equipped to handle something like this, and you had no idea what was wrong with him anyway!

He gestures towards the stairs, “First room on the left. Grover and some other satyrs are in there with him. I’ll have a nymph bring you the things you’ll need, just try to calm him down for now, alright?” You nod, sucking in a breath as he walks away from you.

There’s not many things to say as you approach the room. You can hear the Satyrs and their hushed whispers of panic and worry, and you can hear the pain in Luke’s screams. The way he cries like he’s been torn limb from limb, and maybe he had been.

You take a deep breath before you peak into the room, but you can’t see Luke. You can see Grover, tears in his eyes as tries wiping something in front of him. You notice the blood that coats his shirt and hands, the deep red cloths that surround him.

A satyr you recognize, Alder, notices you first. And you see the relief that floods his body when he does.

You swallow, and enter the room. Hands clammy as you approach Alder. Your voice wobbles a bit as you speak, “Give me a rundown of what happened.”

Alder is shaking, his breath coming in unevenly. “He- he got back barely even ten minutes ago, and he was sobbing. I couldn’t see his face at first so I didn’t understand but- but-” He sucks in another breath, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s deep, Y/N.”

You nod. You still don’t understand completely- but you know it must be a cut of sorts which helps relieve you a bit. At least now you have an idea of what you’re dealing with.

From what you knew of Luke’s quest, he had to receive an apple from The Garden of Hesperides. And even though you didn’t know much about this garden, you had an idea of what might have given him the laceration.

You placed a hand on Grovers shoulder, and watched as he turned around to face you. You could see the blood on his shirt much better now, as well as the blood that dripped from his fingertips.

Grover didn’t question you for a moment, but you both winced as Luke let out another wail. Grover must’ve understood why you were there, so he shakily nodded his head and stepped away, letting you finally see Luke fully for the first time.

The sight makes you gasp. Luke’s face is practically covered in blood, all leaking from a jagged cut that runs down his left cheek. His eyes are squeezed shut, body practically flailing as he gasps and groans in pain.

“Okay, okay, okay..” You chant to yourself, hands unsure of where to go or what to do. You didn’t have any of the supplies you needed, not yet anyway, and Luke clearly didn’t even notice you were there. You don’t think he noticed anyone was there.

You squeezed your eyes shut, sucking in your bottom lip as you struggled with what to do. “Luke, can you- can you hear me?” You asked shakily. A stupid question, you knew he couldn’t hear you, you just weren’t sure of what else to say.

Luke didn’t respond, instead, more tears rolled down his face, making the blood run and drip down onto his pillow.

You struggled with what to do, unsure of what you could even do or say to calm him. Honestly, you weren’t sure if there even was anything you could do right now.

You glanced back to the satyrs, and then to Grover, and you felt your stomach drop. He was staring at you expectantly, his own tears leaving dark lines on his tan skin. You knew about his history with Luke, how much he cared for the older boy, and you knew seeing him like this must’ve been terrifying.

So, you did the one thing you could think of.

When you were younger, every time you cried your mother sang you a song. It was silly, and it didn’t really hold any value to Luke as far as you could tell, but it was the only thing you could think to do.

“Here comes the sun and I say, ‘It’s alright, Little Darling..’” You started hesitantly, voice quiet as you leaned down to luke, your fingers tracing his jawline.

He didn’t say anything, in fact he didn’t even react, instead continuing to writhe and scream in pain and fear. Still, you continued.

“The smiles returning to the faces, Little Darling..”

The satyrs all just stared at you in what you assumed was confusion. You didn’t blame them- you were unsure of what you were doing yourself.

“It seems like years since it’s been here, here comes the sun..”

Sometimes, if you were in an exceptionally good mood, you’d sing this song during the campfire. Apollo kids always sang during it, but you weren’t one to enjoy that with them. That’s why you think Luke recognizes it.

Slowly, his breathing evens, and his splintering sobs turn to quiet whimpers. His body relaxes, practically going still as his eyes return to their natural shut state.

You smile, cupping his uninjured cheek with your hand, ignoring the blood that soaks into your skin. “Here comes the sun and I say, ‘It’s alright’..”

☀︎

It’s five days before Luke wakes up.

You come in every morning and every night, checking on him and cleaning him up. Changing his bandages, shifting him around so he doesn’t develop sores from laying in the same position. Sometimes you go in just to keep him company.

But, still, you nearly jump out of your skin when you enter the room and find Luke sitting up, staring out the window with an obvious knit in his brows.

He turns to you once he hears the door click shut, but neither of you say anything. You feel small under his burning gaze, but still, you swallow and approach him.

You turn to the bedside table, where you’ve been keeping the fresh bandages, and silently get to work.

Luke doesn’t say anything as you gently turn his head towards you, and he doesn’t say anything as you peel back the bloody bandage that covers his left eye. It makes you nervous.

But, you know Luke has been through something traumatizing. Something you’ll probably never understand, so you don’t say anything either. If he wants to talk, you’ll let him go first.

The next three days pass by just the same. Every morning and every night, you change his bandages, check his vitals, make sure he eats, and leave. All without saying a single word.

You want to ask him what happened, if he remembers anything, if he remembers that you were there that night. Does he even remember that night? Does he even know your name?

But you don’t ask. And on that fourth day, Luke finally says something to you.

You're changing his bandage again, and make a pleased hum in the back of your throat when you notice it’s completely clean.

Luke, who usually looks anywhere but at you when you’re doing this, locks his gaze with yours. He swallows, leaning back onto his hands, “Is it better?” He asks.

You're stunned for a moment, but quickly pull yourself together. His voice is rough and raspy from what you assume is not talking for literal days, but it’s still got a soft kindness too it you’re not sure you’ve ever heard from anyone else.

“Um, yeah. There’s not any blood soaking through it anymore which is a really good thing. I mean, I was starting to get a little worried with all the bleeding but you seem to be healing up nicely.” You fiddle with your fingers a bit nervously, looking at anything but Luke.

Luke doesn’t say anything for a moment, turning his head and staring out the window. You take his indifference as a sign to leave, so you take your things and walk towards the door.

Just as you are about to close it, there’s a voice.

“Wait,”

It’s soft, and if you hadn’t been listening you probably wouldn’t have noticed it. But you do as told, turning around and making contact with the curly haired boy.

He looks to be struggling with what to say, as if he’s unsure of how to get the words out. Your hand grips the doorknob uncomfortably, eyes wide as you look expectantly at Luke.

Finally, he releases a breath and relaxes his shoulders. He looks back towards the window, and murmurs, “Thank you.”

It’s the last thing you were expecting to hear from the demi-god, but still, you practically glow once it falls from his lips.

“Of course.” You say, quietly waiting to see if he’ll say anything else. You don’t let it disappoint you much when he doesn’t, baby steps and all that, but still, for the first time in a week, you leave that room with a smile.

☀︎

The first thing you notice when you enter The Big House is yelling. Lots of it.

You’re confused, because Mr. D is standing right next to you and you’re not sure Chiron has ever raised his voice a day in his life. And then it registers. Luke.

“He’s been going at it all day.” Mr. D says, that familiar annoyance in his tone. “Get him to stop, would you?”

Your lips part as you stare up at him in shock. “Me?”

Dionysus shrugs, taking a gulp of his Coke. “You did it the last time he was raising hell! Just do whatever you did then.”

This was a completely different situation then last time! Then, Luke was barely even conscious. He couldn’t register what was going on around him, and he was screaming in pain. Not anger!

You shook your head, stumbling over your words a bit as Mr. D grabbed you by the wrist and began dragging you upstairs. “I can’t! This is completely different and has nothing to do with me! And I can’t do what I did last time- It’d be weird now!”

But, you don’t have any more time to argue, because Mr. D barges into Luke’s room without a second thought, pushing you inside and slamming the door.

Chiron and Luke both go silent, both turning to face you. Chiron looks confused, a silent question on his face. While Luke.. doesn’t look like anything. The knit in his brows relaxes, and the obvious frown that was on his face disappears. He looks as if nothing happened.

“I’m sorry,” You huff, wincing a bit as you reach for the doorknob to exit, “Mr. D kinda forced me in here, Not sure what he thought I could do…” You mumble the last part, clearly very annoyed. “But I’ll uh, i’ll just leave you guys to.. continue.” You gesture to the two of them with a fake smile on your face, struggling to open the door. Mr. D must’ve locked it, that old bastard.

Chiron shakes his head, giving you a small smile. You can tell he’s exhausted though, his eyes say it. “No, please, stay. I’ll go.” He shoots a look to Luke, who’s frown has returned onto his pink lips. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

Luke doesn’t say anything, and Chiron opens the door so easily you almost feel embarrassed.

There’s silence as you approach him, deafening, sickening silence, and you itch to ask why he was yelling. What made him so angry?

You suck in your bottom lip and risk a glance at Luke. He’s staring out the window still, and you wonder what he thinks when he looks out there. Does he miss everyone? Does he want to go back and finish his quest?

“Um,” You release a breath, shrugging your shoulders in an attempt to seem completely indifferent. You sit on the stool next to Luke’s bed and begin to get to work, “Not to be.. nosy or anything like that, but, what was that about?”

Your hands are gentle as you softly position his head so you can get the best angle, softly peeling the bandages away and checking in on his progress. The cut has healed nicely, and it’s no longer blaring red and raw. Instead, it’s a nice pinkish color, and you can tell that scar tissue is beginning to form.

Luke doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you begin to worry that you crossed a line. “You don’t have to answer that-”

“Chiron wants to tell everyone that I’m back from my quest.”

Your blink a couple times, but smile a bit that he felt comfortable enough to answer you. You hadn’t registered that his return had been a secret until now, but you can understand why he’d want it to stay that way.

He was supposed to be this great swordsman, someone all of camp looked up to and depended on. You assumed that’s how he saw the quest, something else the rest of camp would be proud of him for.

So, when he failed? Probably not the best for his pride.

“I understand why you wouldn’t want to tell. But.. they’ll all find out eventually. Wouldn’t you rather rip the band-aid off now instead of waiting?” You ask, voice a little hesitant. You don’t want to scare him off, or make him feel like he’s being attacked.

He huffs, gnawing on his lower lip as you gently replace his bandages. “What would the difference be? Disappoint everyone now, or disappoint everyone later. How fun.”

There’s a bitterness in his voice that you hadn’t expected, but you understand it. “They aren’t going to be disappointed, Luke. They’re worried for you. I see them, you know? They sit and watch the hill, waiting for you. And I don’t want to… push you, or anything, but I think maybe it’s time you let them help you.”

Luke’s lips thin, and he goes back to staring out the window. You finish your work silently and stand to leave, but a hand on your wrist stops you.

You look down surprised, finding his fingers barely locked around your wrist to stop you. He looks up, making soft eye contact with you, almost as if he were begging you not to go. You listen.

You sit back down, and Luke releases you without saying a word. It’s this moment when you can finally take the time to really admire him, not the things that leave him scarred.

His hair is a deep brown. Not quite black, but still so dark it could be mistaken for charcoal. The sunlight from the window streams onto it, making it glow a soft mocha color. His eyes match, but they're more honey-colored than anything.

Freckles dot his skin like stars, aligning to form different constellations. You resist the urge to trace them. But his lips.. they're so soft, so pink. So.. unique. You want to trace them, too.

Luke sniffles, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not… not that I don’t want to. It’s more like I can’t. How am I supposed to tell them I failed when they expected so much more of me? If I tell them that.. that I’m not as amazing as they think I am, then who do I become?”

You smile gently, eyes crinkling in the corners. You risk interlocking your fingers with his, fully expecting him to pull away, but he doesn’t. His breath hitches in his throat for a moment and you can tell he’s hesitant, but, he returns your gesture, holding your hand with a softness you hadn't expected.

“You become human.”

☀︎

News of Luke’s return spreads around the camp like wildfire. Everyone is excited, happy that he returned at all, but they are also confused. If Luke had returned, where was he? And why had no one seen him?

You honestly couldn’t help the swell of pride in your chest the next morning when you’d gone to check on Luke and he’d told you he was having Chiron tell camp. Some selfish part of you wanted to believe it was because of what you’d told him, but you knew realistically it was something Chiron had said.

You chew on your nails as your siblings talk in hushed whispers at your table. All of them talking about where the hell the hero could be and why he hadn’t been seen. Some say Chiron is just waiting until Luke is cleared of any injuries he may have gotten, others get more extreme and say he hadn't really returned at all and Chiron was just waiting to tell everyone he had died.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would you, Y/N? You’ve been acting pretty secretive lately..”

Your head whips to your brother, Lee, as he eyes you suspiciously. You stammer on your words, eyes gluing to the space around him as you struggle to come up with the words. You’d never been good at lying.

“No! How would I even know anything? I know as much as you, and also, I'm sure Luke’s okay wherever he’s at so you guys should stop worrying and stop talking about it.”

Lee gasps, eyes going wide as he points an accusing finger at you. “You do know something!”

“No I don’t!”

Your sister, Marcia, snorts and rolls her eyes. “You totally do.”

You stutter for a second, racking your brain for an excuse. “I’m- your- whatever! I have to go!” You stand abruptly, walking away and ignoring the way Lee groans and pleads with you to tell him.

You find yourself in the strawberry field, just as you always do when you feel conflicted, and pick so many red berries that your basket feels as if it weighs more than a super fat cat.

You huff as you drag them to The Big House, your arm slightly aching. Look, you weren’t one to… physically exert yourself. You’d stick to nursing people back to health, thank you.

Luke watches you curiously as you plop the strawberries onto the bedside table, slightly panting as you do. You rub at your forearms, doing your best to smooth the ache there. “I figured Chiron wasn’t bringing you any of these, and I remembered someone told me that you really liked them. So…”

You winced a bit, mentally cursing yourself for mentioning that last part.

But Luke doesn’t mention it, instead he just stares up at you, and you watch as his lips quirk up into a small, genuine smile. “Thank you.”

There’s a swell of pride in your chest, one that you allow yourself to be selfish about, because Luke Castellan is smiling and it’s just about the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.

“Don’t mention it.”

You both chat aimlessly as you patch him up and you even stay to talk with him way after you finish. In the two weeks Luke has been holed up in this room, you can tell the effect it’s having on him mentally and physically.

He’s lost most of the tan that used to kiss his skin, and instead is an uncharacteristic pale color. His muscles have become less defined (not that you were paying attention to that), and he just seems more bored than anything now. You don’t blame him, having to have his only conversations revolve with the same four people. Chiron, Mr. D. Grover, and you.

“No, come on, there's no way you purposely skip out on capture the flag!”

You shrug nonchalantly, playing with the ends of your hair as you lean back onto the backrest of the stool. “I just don’t see the point. And, besides, I enjoy helping everyone with their injuries. It’s usually only the younger kids who come in with little scrapes and cuts, so it’s super easy and they always give me these adorable little smiles.”

Luke listens intently to your reason, and he finds it almost endearing how you ramble, a soft smile on your face as you think of the kids. “I understand that then, I guess. I love those troublemakers too. Sometimes.”

You snort, glancing up from the hair you were tangling and towards him. His eyes are soft, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the headboard. “Only sometimes?”

He shrugs, “Yeah, only when they’re not causing some kind of trouble. Which is pretty much always..”

You silently agree with him on that, nodding your head. You want to ask him when he plans to leave this room, you’d cleared him two days ago, but decide against it. Luke would leave when he was ready, but maybe he just needed a push in the right direction, just like last time.

“I heard Connor talking about you today.”

Luke sits up a bit in interest, scratching his forearm. “Really? What’d he say?”

You suck in a breath, wetting your lips nervously. “He said he missed you. And that he was worried about you.”

The smile on Luke’s lips falls, and is replaced with his usual nonchalance. His body deflates, and he turns his attention to the sheets in front of him. “Oh.”

You nod, “I think everyone misses you. And they all kinda just wait to hear any news about you they can get. It’s kind of sad, honestly. And, to be perfectly clear, I am an absolute horrible liar and my siblings are starting to catch onto my daily visits here. I fear if you don’t make an appearance soon they might follow me.”

Luke snorts at that, but he doesn’t smile. You want to pry open his mind and understand just what he’s thinking. “I want to. I’m just.. I'm scared of them. Of how they’ll look at me.”

You shake your head, “Luke, they love you. Like, seriously love you. You’ve gotta stop getting in your head about this, let them show you how they’ll look at you. Not your head.”

Luke sighs, letting his eyes fall shut as he processes. You think that deep down he knows your right, he just needs to set his fear to the side. And you definitely understand how hard that can be.

You stand, walking over to the door quietly. You open it, but pause before you leave and look back at him. “Let them love you, Luke.”

You're not surprised when the next morning, Luke isn’t in his usual spot. You’re especially not surprised once you hear the cheers that come from the lunch area.

You peek around the corner with a smile, happily watching as practically everyone in camp surrounds Luke.

None of them even seem to care about the new jagged scar that covers his left eye, or the way he seems like a completely different boy from the one who left all that time ago.

“What happened on your quest? Did you complete it?” Someone, you can’t make out who, asks. You hold your breath as Luke hears it, his smile faltering slightly.

“I, uh,” He stammers, looking uneasy. You curse and step out of your hiding place, doing your best to put yourself in Luke’s line of sight.

He spots you almost instantly, and you watch as relief floods his entire body. You give him an encouraging thumbs up and a large smile.

He returns the smile, and looks back to the camper who asked. “I didn’t get the apple, but, I did get this super cool scar-”

You watch as Luke makes eye contact with you again, and he doesn’t have to speak for you to know what hes saying.

Thank you.

[love-that-we-were-in]

indelible scars, pivotal marks

pairing: luke castellan x implied apollo!reader

summary: you might be the only person who actually knows luke castellan. you don't think anyone else is willing to try.

a/n: what if i told you i got yelled at a lot after writing this. enjoy! oh this is also my first x reader in the 5 years i've been writing who cheered. have fun !

Luke is fourteen the first time he can remember sleeping through the night. He’s barely been at Camp Half-Blood for three hours, skin still splotched purple and blue, Thalia’s yells echoing in his skull. There’s no silence, a steady hum of nature that’s leveled by the voices of people he doesn’t know, and he knows he shouldn’t sleep. They’ve lost Thalia, left her just beyond the borders of an unknown place, and it’s a risk to welcome the flimsy pillow they gave him. He does it anyway, eyes closing to the sound of Annabeth’s soft breaths. 

The respite lasts one night.

By morning, he’s recounted the last five years more than he ever wanted to. Annabeth clings to him then, a known comfort. She knows the broad strokes of the story, could recount them herself, but there’s gaps from before her time, and there’s things Thalia made him swear not to tell. If she notices, she doesn’t comment, just keeps her fingers close to her side. He knows that’s where she keeps her dagger - he wonders if Chiron can tell as well.

Chiron brings them to Thalia, explains what happened and how lucky it is. Luke looks at the tree, the first time Thalia has stood taller than him since they met - something she always swore she would do one day - and leans back against it as Annabeth sobs into his shoulder. 

Mr D sends Annabeth to the Athena cabin before lunch. Luke doesn’t need to be told to make his way to Cabin 11. He knows who his father is. His backpack is left at the base of a bed in the far corner of the room, a group of boys gathered around the area turning to watch him the second he walks in. They move away but they don’t stop their stares.

Sleep doesn’t come as easily to him that night.

*

You meet Luke Castellan when you’re fifteen, standing on the edge of the lake as a golden sun rises in the horizon. It’s your first morning at camp, your first morning admiring the sunrise in months, and you think you could find a home here. Within the hour, you’re sure the calm won’t be the same – too many kids in the same space, swords and satyrs and strawberries guiding the day along – but for now there’s sunlight. 

“Breakfast isn’t for two more hours,” someone says from behind you. It should be scarier than it is, put you on high alert with the way he creeps into the space without a sound. “Just in case someone forgot to mention that.”

He’s pretty. Strong chin, dark eyes. On most people you’ve met, that’s where pretty ends. Not him. There’s this way he stands in your periphery; comfortable in his worn camp t-shirt, like he was made to live in it, to have it define him for an eternity. Very few people are pretty in a way that speaks of forever.

“I like to watch the sunrise.” 

He hums. “I’m Luke.”

He waits, steps away, until you offer him a seat beside you on the grass. It was something you were told once, an eclectic art teacher draped in shawls and chunky jewelry, how the sun is only as beautiful as it is when shared with another. As Luke sits next to you, you enjoy the quiet you’re positive isn’t built to last.

*

Luke becomes a counselor that summer. Everyone saw it coming, the way he’s known to everyone and not just the Hermes kids. Whispers of a legacy, of a potential legend in the making, followed him already, two years at camp creating grand ideas for his future – counselor status just helps to further them. It’s not that big of a deal normally. It’s potentially defining when you’re the best swordsman in almost three hundred years.

You find him on his way back from the Big House that evening, heading in no particular direction but with a clear idea of where he doesn’t want to be. It’s something you’ve learnt to read in the last few weeks, the way Luke fluctuates. How he dips in and out of personas as if it’s possible to switch them out. It comes with renown, you suppose. 

“Counselor Castellan, is it?” 

He smiles something bitter. “So they tell me.”

Without hesitation, you take hold of his hand. It’s warmer than yours and you feel the difference in your bloodstream. Luke doesn’t look at you, doesn’t comment, and you lead him away from the cabins and down to the lake. 

There’s maybe an hour until sunset. You’re almost attuned to it now, mornings spent watching it with rapt attention. Luke normally joins you, sword dropped between you. Some mornings, the thud of metal onto stone is the only reason you know he’s arrived, still so silent in his arrival that you wonder if it’s on purpose. 

“Does it make you anxious?” You ask when the silence stretches on for too long, when Luke stares unblinkingly at the horizon for longer than he should. He blinks, irises shifting from a glassy bronze and back to muted brown as the film clears. “Did they even ask if it was something you wanted?” 

He scoffs and you wonder if this is where everything changes. Luke always has things he wants to say, balancing on the tip of his tongue until he figures out how to swallow them down and burn them. It’s like you can see it play out in real time, his jaw shifting, arm tensing.

“Mr D told me it was a great honor. Chiron told me it was long overdue.” 

“You weren’t given a chance to say no.”

It’s a pattern you’ve noticed, not just within camp but with all the Gods. Clarisse was sent a spear with no note, but everyone knew who had sent it. Annabeth’s hat was exactly the same. Gifts. All gifts. No receipts or return addresses provided. Life at camp was something to be grateful for, always, considering the alternative most of you had already been forced to live. To comment on it would make you an enemy of those too powerful to consider.

Looking at the tense set of Luke’s shoulders, you kind of want to say it anyway.

“I’m about to have all the glory Camp Half-Blood could offer me,” Luke says and the sun begins to dip below the surface of the lake. His palm is warm in yours again. “Why would I complain?”

*

There’s a flurry of new arrivals no one anticipated the next summer They come in pairs, mostly, with the odd trio. Always one unclaimed within the group. Always one who gets marched to Cabin 11 in the middle of the night, sometimes after hours of questioning.

You know the nights that it’s happened, taking in the way Luke’s movements are less sharp, the way he breathes more shallowly. A conservation of energy. It doesn’t affect you much until it does, the sharp sting of Luke’s sword on your arm as he loses his footing, turns too suddenly at the sound of your footsteps. 

“This is insane,” you say as you press your shirt into the cut. It’s not bad, something that will heal quickly and fade into nothingness, but Luke locks his gaze on the red dotting your skin as if he doesn’t understand how it got there. “They can’t keep waking you up in the middle of the night for this.”

“The only other place they can go is the med bay and none of them have been beaten up badly enough to be worth waking an Apollo kid.”

“I’ve seen some of the kids when they’ve gotten here, Luke,” you mutter, shirt hem dropping as the wound stops bleeding. You glance up at him. “They could do with being patched up.” 

He sinks down to the floor. You stay on your feet. “This is what I signed up for when I took the position.”

There’s this way Luke’s voice gets sometimes, sharp and low and just a little spiteful. A build-up of years with little mercy granted. That’s how it is now, speaking through clenched teeth, completely biting back the vitriol and pretending there’s no heat to his words. 

He’s always been pretty in the sunrise, from the day you met, but you think he might be prettiest right now – lying to himself more than he can lie to you in the moments before there’s any sunlight at all. When you would let darkness spill into itself, Luke forces light to filter in. If you caught him at the darkest hour, you wonder if that would remain.

Taking in the way he digs his nail into the fabric of his pants, you doubt even he would know how to stop himself then. 

*

You aren’t chosen for Luke’s quest. He finds you after the ceremony, face pulled taut and bag thrown over his shoulder already. There’s no regret in his eyes, no determination either. You stand straighter when you hear him approach, grateful that he cared enough not to take you by surprise for once. 

“Don’t be mad at me.” 

“Why would I be mad?” You say. It’s disingenuous to your own ears, the way it pitches, so you fold your arms across your chest. “Chris and Ethan will be great questmates. A band of brothers.”

Luke swallows. “Is that really what you think this is? That I wanted to make my quest a guys trip?”

“I don’t think anything of it, Luke.” 

In the middle of the day, you can see him clearest. See the golden boy of Camp Half-Blood the way everyone else does. In broad daylight, there’s few things more noticeable on Luke Castellan. The slope of his nose, the straightness of his back, the comfortable weight of his sword on his hip – almost a tether to who he proclaims himself to be. It’s your least favorite version of him.

“I would’ve chosen you. In a heartbeat, I would’ve chosen you,” he says, brown eyes shifting from dim to desperate in moments. A plea to be heard. You know you’re the only one to ever truly listen when he speaks.

“Doesn’t really seem that way.”

“I just needed a reason to come back when it’s over.”

It stills the air around you. The words tangle themselves together in your brain, drown out the archers in the distance, the birds overhead. They echo and twist and they maintain their tone, the low pitch Luke uses when he’s decided to say something he doesn’t want to be heard. They bury themselves in the corner with the other times he’s used it, forever ingrained, and you don’t know what to make of them. How to define them at all.

He waits, gaze firm, until you nod slightly. You keep your chin low, determined to give little satisfaction to the situation. To Hermes giving Luke a reused quest, to the possibility of losing him because you aren’t there. It curdles deep in your gut, refusing to remain unknown.

There’s a moment where Luke hesitates, his hand twitching slightly, arm moving minutely higher from where it hangs down by his waist. Instead, his fist clenches and he exhales long and low. 

“Promise to be here when I get back?” 

“I’ll be really annoyed if you’re not the one knocking on my cabin door.”

He turns back to face you after he joins Chris and Ethan at the border. They’re all capable, with a history of working together. They’ll succeed, return to praise and glory and everything they deserve to have. The sun beats down on Luke as he nods goodbye and you wonder if it shines on anyone else at all.

*

The scar becomes a part of him. 

It fades into his skin with time, going from raised and rotten to a streak of pale across his cheek. You overhear some of the Ares kids praising it as symbolic of his win, a prize of sorts, and some of the Aphrodite kids saying it makes him more appealing, makes him look stronger. You’re not sure what you think of it, tracing it with gentle fingers as it heals. 

It becomes a habit, running a knuckle down Luke’s cheek each morning. Feeling where the skin tied itself back together. He never comments. You want to ask if he minds, that you’ll stop if it’s too much. The first few times you did it, in the days right after his return, he had flinched, features pinching together. Your hand had dropped, all too aware of the matted skin, how it probably still ached but Luke had taken your hand and placed it back where it had been. 

His scar becomes a statement, a badge of skill that everyone at camp can recognise. There had been little debate on the truth of his swordsmanship before but now it hardly existed, undeniable proof the first thing people noticed when introduced to him. 

Most people don’t bother to ask Luke about it. Percy Jackson isn’t most people.

“You got attacked by a dragon?” 

It’s the first time in years that anyone has joined you and Luke at the lake this early. Annabeth used to, on the rare occasions the worst of her nightmares returned. It’s different with Percy, like being close to the water rewires him completely. It makes sense days later when you watch him push open the door to the empty Cabin 3.

“Last year,” Luke hums, one hand resting softly in yours and the other keeping a loose grip on the sword handle in his lap. Percy had wanted to see him in action after hearing the stories, so you’d both obliged. “I made a wrong call and I paid for it.”

“At least it looks pretty cool.” 

The way Percy says it is different to everyone else. It’s not ingrained with this odd lust, whether for adventure or the story or Luke himself. It’s more muted, a fact of life. He’s not saying it to make anyone feel better – he’s saying it to disregard. A scar is just a scar to Percy Jackson, as if he’s known too many to care.

“I guess it kind of is,” Luke says and the three of you listen to the morning begin.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Actually obsessed with your Satyr!König :((( He needs a pretty nymph that just freezes when she sees him, ‘cause! Look at him!! He’s tall, handsome, got a good layer of fat on his muscles AND a big dick with breeder balls!! Her friends and sisters all scatter but she doesn’t because he’s a catch!! And he wants to mate?!! Count her in! Reader ends up happy while the other nymphs watch with jealousy as she gets dicked down to her heart’s content 😌

CW: 18+ cockwarming, breeding kink, pure filth, horny, selfish König

Sorry but Satyr!König is just awful, thinking he's entitled to a pretty, soft nymph like you :( This big hairy beast thinks it's only natural that a nasty faun wants to grope a poor, sensitive, shy little nymph, only thinks satyrs and nymphs are a perfect match! It's disgusting!

You don't know what came over you, walking over to him and dismissing the other nymphs' shocked, hissed warnings. You were just mesmerized by that thing between his legs, wanting to try if it would fit inside you, but you almost faint when the gross faun stops what he's doing and shoots all his attention towards you. The cock pulses in his hand just from the sight of you, and you feel like collapsing as you weakly go and straddle this beast. Legs spread on both sides of a hairy stomach, the monstrous cock is jumping, eager to get inside you.

Satyr!König has no trouble with taking you right here in this glade while the other nymphs watch and whisper in horror and in awe. All your friends you just frolicked with are staring in shock as this beast bullies his cock into you, inch by throbbing inch. You're helpless and sobbing by the time he groans, long and hard, and bottoms out…

Gives you no mercy as he starts to pound into you, tries to paw and squish your tits with large clawed hands, has a vile smile across his face when he finally gets to fuck a cute, silly nymph. Solely thinks with his dick as he ruts you with a frenzy, almost bucking you off of his hips.

You have to take support from the sweaty, hairy chest as he uses you like you're just a warm, wet hole for him to finally spurt his seed into: and of course you're a much better option than the cold, wet ground! He's not holding back now that he finally got a sweet nymph to sit on his cock...!

He's possessed, growling and grunting like an animal in heat as he stares at your bouncing breasts, right there in front of his face as you try to desperately hold on with both hands, unable to cover your soft, jiggling tits from a hungry lustful gaze. Groans when you try to caress the fat horns on his head, whining he's about to cum, and you get so angry at him, you only just got started! :(

He goes still without warning, balls pressed fat against your bum, thick shaft shooting rude spurts inside you as he roars and shudders beneath you. There's nowhere to escape, he keeps you in place with two strong hands, making sure you won't try to wriggle away. You should've known that he's horrible; he's a satyr after all, and satyr men are blessed with long orgasms and thick, ample seed. You will be in so much trouble now, this one is such a big specimen, too...

When you complain that he was too rough and only thought of himself, he laughs darkly and promises to give you a wash and lap you with his tongue. He will make you scream, nice and pretty for him! Pats your butt like you're just a dumb little creature for him to use as he pleases.

Satyrs can't be trusted at all, he won't even let you off of his cock, clearly just wants to warm himself inside a cute, grumpy nymph :(

Tries the place where you are joined with his fingers, and rumbles with content when he feels how snug you are around him, the seed safe where it belongs and not leaking out if he keeps his cock stuffed inside you like this :((

[number-onekidqueen]

The Seven Times Luke Castellan Said 'I Love You'

Luke Castellan x Apollo!fem!reader

Pure angst.

3.7k words

Warnings: death, injury, insecurities, bad parenting, spoilers for Percy Jackson book series.

One. 

Luke must’ve been four the first time he ever said those three words. 

He’d been at preschool, and it was the second week. He’d missed mommy. He felt different to all the other kids, and there were all these really scary faces that kept popping out of bushes that no one else could see. His mommy had picked him up early when the preschool called, and taken him home to a surprise. She’d baked his favourite: choc chip cookies, and he was even allowed to drink Kool-Aid too! 

“I love you, mommy!!” He’d mumbled, while he stuffed his little mouth with the baked goods, in a sugary daze. 

It made him feel so much better, knowing at least he had mommy to always come home to and rely on. 

If only that had been true. 

Two. 

He was 9 when he said that sentence for the second time. 

Mom wasn’t there for him anymore. 

He was scared to go to school and leave her alone, because every time he got home, she would be insane. It’s like she wasn’t there with him anymore. 

She would scream so loud and her eyes would be bright green, and she’d shake him and cry, wailing about how he was going to die. Usually it would make him so disturbed he’d run into his bedroom and lock the door, hoping she wouldn’t follow. 

She always did. 

It was when she started to pound on his door, begging him to come out, that he’d begin to sob, shaking in fright. 

He’d pray and pray to his dad in desperate tears, asking and asking him to bless his mom, to free her from this curse and to make her better again. It didn’t ever stop. 

She’d still make cookies, sometimes, but she’d forget about them and leave them in for so long they’d always be burnt to cinders. She’d serve Kool-Aid too, but he’d grown out of it. 

Eventually, he couldn’t stand it anymore. His mom wasn’t getting better, but worse. Her fits were getting more frequent, and Luke’s dad wasn’t doing anything to help him. 

Luke couldn’t stay here a second longer. 

“I love you, mum,” he whispered to her curled figure on the couch, a full backpack on his shoulder and all his childhood allowance in his pockets as he softly closed the door. 

He knew they’d be better off without each other. 

Three. 

Luke was fourteen when he said that phrase for the third time. 

He’d finally found his family. 

Sure, it hurt to think of his mother, all alone in his old house, but he had two amazing, brave and funny sisters to make up for that.

Until he didn’t. 

It was all such a blur. 

One second, they’d just been meeting some satyr by the name of Grover, who claimed to be their protector, a safeguard back to a camp for kids like them. 

They’d been on the journey, he, Thalia, Annabeth, wondering what it would be like when they got there, what would happen. 

And then the cyclops had struck. 

It had all gone too quickly from there. They’d been running madly, tripping through the forest scrub, their hearts pumping, their adrenaline pulsing, Grover yelling that the entrance to camp wasn’t far, that they’d be safe there and to keep going. 

The cyclops was still gaining on them,  and Luke was starting to feel an awful sense of dread. 

Then Thalia - brave, amazing, stupid Thalia - had volunteered to fight the monster. She’d told them to run ahead, that she had the sucker and would be right behind them. 

And Luke was scared and thinking of Annabeth and safety, and he agreed, he kept running. 

He left her. 

His sister. 

He swore he blinked once, and then she was dying, crumpled on the dirt, bleeding out and groaning in pain, camp only an ironic few metres away. 

None of them even had time to reach out a hand to help her before she turned golden, vanished into a great big pine tree. 

Gone forever before he could say goodbye. 

“I love you, Thalia,” he whispered that night, not caring that he was breaking curfew rules, getting too close to the dangerous outskirts of camp. 

Not caring he was using present tense. He refused to say ‘loved.’

Because he would love Thalia forever. 

Four

Luke was sixteen the fourth time he uttered those words. 

After all his life he was finally at home. 

He’d grown accustomed and comfortable with camp, accepting it as his home. Even though sometimes it was weird to be at a summer camp all year round, he found happiness in his new place, trying to forget about the bad things. Thalia. His mother. 

He’d found peace in routine, and confidence. Chiron said he was becoming what would be the best swordsman Camp Half-Blood had seen in 300 years. 

There were his friends and siblings. He had Chris and the Stolls, and all the other Hermes kids that made his cabin rowdy and feel homelike. 

Then there was y/n, probably his best friend, an Apollo girl who’d healed him immediately after he got to camp and had been there for him since. 

There were heaps of activities to keep him busy. Training. Capture the flag. Parties, when he was old enough. 

It had been the second of one of the post-curfew parties Luke had been to, and he admitted he had drank too much. Far too much. 

Things had got out of hand when an Ares boy had insulted you, someone who was lovely to everyone. He couldn’t really even remember what the boy had said, only that it enraged him and he’d only seen red after that. 

It all sort of went downhill from there. He’d thrown a punch, received one, and the rest was a sweaty and jagged dance of thrown limbs. 

And now he was here, replaying the events in his mind, sat on the bathroom floor of the Apollo cabin, you kneeling over him with a warm cloth. His fists clenched at the thought of that stupid boy again. 

“Luke,” you whispered, and the thoughts disappeared. “Look at me so I can fix you up.”

He didn’t have to be asked twice. It gave him an excuse to openly stare at you. In this dim light, you were gorgeous. Your skin seemed to glow golden from within, which mirrored the bright warmth of your eyes, and the radiance of your hair that framed your face. It was bittersweet, making him happy yet sick with longing, especially in his drunken state, to think of how you weren’t his. I want you, he wanted to whisper. He nearly did. 

“Thank you. You’re so good.” He said instead. 

“I don’t know about that, but always. That’s what best friends are for,” you reassured, smiling. 

His heart sank. He didn’t want you like a best friend. He wanted you to want him like he wanted you. 

“Yeah,” he said offhandedly. 

There was a long pause. Your touch was soft on the cuts all over him, and although it stung, it was worth it. It was finished all too soon except-

“I’m still hurt,” he tried to explain, but the words wouldn’t form, “like, my chest.”

“He got you there too? Through your shirt?”

“Yeah. Little sucker had a pocketknife and everything.”

“Ok,” you replied. The room stayed silent. Suddenly, he was confused. 

“Um-“

“Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out, um-“

Your hands reached for him almost… shyly. Could it be possible that you were overthinking seeing him like this, flustered, also thinking about him like he was about you? It drew a grin to his face. He decided to play with you. 

“You don’t have to treat me that delicately. I promise it doesn’t hurt that much.” 

You gave a nervous laugh, your hands moving slightly faster as he lifted his arms. 

And then it was time to gauge your reaction. Your eyes were certainly not on him, but his chest, and it almost seemed your cheeks had transitioned from golden to rosy. His grin turned into a smirk. 

“I gather that stare is either in reaction to my amazing abs or really bad cut. Either way, take it all in,” he teased. It occurred to him later he would never have said anything remotely like this if he was sober. 

“Haha, Castellan,” you said sarcastically, rolling your eyes and continuing your job. But you were smiling. 

Your features were even softer closer up. It took his breath away, and he couldn’t help the words that next escaped from the confines of his heart. 

“I love you,” he whispered. 

You froze, midway through finishing dabbing a cut. Your eyes looked up at his, his earnest, vulnerable irises. And then you looked down at his lips. And dropping the cloth, you took his face into your hands and kissed him. It was the most exhilarating, fantastic five seconds of his life. And then you pulled away, stepping back. 

“There you go. That’s probably all you wanted, since you’re drunk. You’re-you’re healed now.” You stuttered out. 

And he wanted to chase you, have another kiss, try to create a proper response to that, to why he loved you, but you’d ran away from him, and he didn’t want to be snooping through someone else’s cabin, even in his state. 

He was left reeling in the moonlight, stumbling back to his cabin before the harpies found him. Once he was between the sheets, his mind muddled, he found it easy to fall asleep, the image and feel of you still in his mind. 

He woke up the next day, baffled that his mind could come up with a dream so lifelike. Even mad that maybe a Hypnos kid has taken note of his crush and decided to create a dream like that as a prank. What assholes. 

Because you would never kiss someone like him, he knew that. 

Like ever. 

Five

Luke was seventeen the fifth time he said that statement. 

He hadn’t known things could get so much worse. 

His father, finally acknowledging him after his claiming, had sent him on a quest. Sure, it was a reused quest from Heracles, but Luke knew just how glorified and contested quests were, and so he accepted happily, choosing two of the older and more experienced campers to assist him in retrieving the golden apples from the dragon. 

You were a bit offended that he hadn’t chose you, and he had no explanation that he could offer you, save for a confession. It made for a parting laced with bitterness. 

The quest started off fine, and they got to their destination smoothly, but it quickly went downhill from there. 

Once they were in the garden, almost immediately the dragon was alerted of their presence. It began to attack, using quick, violent manoeuvres that were hard to keep up with for even the most experienced. 

Too hard for one of his quest mates, who became food for the monster’s jaws. It was a sickening, gruesome sight that Luke could never wipe from his mind. 

The other quest mate became injured soon after that, and then it was Luke on his own. 

At that point, even he knew the quest was lost. He was just defending himself and trying to get out alive. And so he did, with a painful scar from eye to chin as a marking of his forever defeat against the dragon. 

He returned as a failure. 

He was wounded, with a permanent and ugly physical memory, one of his quest mates was dead, the other also mortally wounded, and their fingers hadn’t even grazed the golden flesh of the apples. He couldn’t even finish an already done quest. 

Worse was the pity. 

The moment he stepped past Thalia’s tree and into camp, all he received was pity. Quiet voices, soft glances, stopped conversations, permits, excuses. 

It was as if he were the dragon, and they were afraid that if they did not tread lightly he may begin roaring flames at them. 

He never did. 

Just like y/n never treated him with pity. 

Your eyes were objective, calculating as they surveyed his wounds. Of course your words were soft, but they always were, with your perfect bedside manner. In those moments where you treated him normally, he couldn’t appreciate you more. 

Worst of all probably were the nightmares. He had one awful recurring one: he’d be back in that hellish garden, the dying screams of his dead quest mate and the roaring of the dragon in his ears, the adrenaline and chase all through him, and then every camper he’d ever known would appear, surround him and shake their heads, looking at him in pity and knowing he was a failure. They would chant it, and pelt burning rocks at him, and he would run, run, run, but he could never escape it. 

He couldn’t bear it one hot late July night, and slipped away under the stars. He was always calmer there, where he could put himself and his feelings into perspective. 

And that’s where y/n had found him, sitting on the dew-soaked grass with his knees loosely curled to his chest. 

You didn’t say anything in the beginning, just sat there beside him, breathing, stargazing too. 

“I’ve seen you come out here, every night this week.” You stated, finally looking over at him. “Are the nightmares that bad?”

He nodded, gulping down the fear and tears that submerged at the thought. 

“You should’ve come to me, you know we have dreamless tonic at the infirmary-“

“Yeah I know. But I deserve it, don’t I?” He asked bitterly, turning to you, “I failed and so I get to live with the consequences. The nightmares.”

“No. No, of course not. You don’t have to face consequences-“

“But I do already, don’t I? I feel like I’m not even the same at all, like I’ll never be the same again. I’ve got this stupid, disgusting scar,” he spat, jabbing at his face, “as this reminder and I’ve got to live knowing I wasn’t ever good enough to succeed and my failure led to someone’s death.”

There was silence for a while, where you gazed at him, at his eyes. 

“Stop blaming yourself,” you said softly, “I won’t let you.”

“I can’t help it though,” he whispered, voice cracking, “after training for so long and everyone telling me I’m the best swordsman, I couldn’t save someone, could barely defend myself. And now they’re dead, because of me. And every time I try and forget it- I look in the mirror and see this-this scar and-“

You scooted closer, and one of your hands laid over his. 

“Your scar isn’t a symbol of failure. It should never be. It means you’re brave, that you survived that dragon-“ you reached for his face, and so, so gently began to run your index finger down his scar, “-that you’ve overcome all that horror and emerged stronger.”

You cupped his cheek after you finished tracing. His heart was racing. 

“And you’re still the same to me. You’re still smart, funny, brave, handsome, strong. You’re still you. Don’t let anyone take that away.”

Your hand slowly drew away from his face, but he caught it, keeping you there. 

And he stared. 

Stared at this beautiful, golden girl who was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He could only think of three words. 

“I love you,” he whispered to you, and he slowly leaned in. 

You kissed, his hands in your silky hair and yours on his strong back, and this was the most effective healing Luke had ever had. 

He knew at this moment that the best he would ever be was with you. 

And that would be always, he hoped. 

Six. 

Luke was nineteen the next time he spoke from his heart. 

Things were finally getting better, but they had a long way to go. Luke would be there to see the good change come through. 

Camp was normal. Demigods died, demigods lived. They got claimed, their parents ignored them for months or years. They would train for quests, row, sing at camp fires. He would teach sword classes, rowing, and in his spare time he and y/n would go to their secret spot at the lake and…. Spend some time together in private. 

Flustered and a little ruffled they would return to have dinner, stargaze, play wild games of Capture the Flag. 

Luke was happy enough. But he didn’t know how long this would last, this calm joy. 

He couldn’t live like this, waiting in fear for the other shoe to drop with no help from his dad and the other gods. 

He’d made his decisions, laid his plans, and now he waited. Waited. 

Tangled in your arms, he traced shapes on your hands as you played with his hair. It was a warm environment, like the home he never had. 

The nightmares never really left Luke. Well, unless you were with him. 

It was many a night, after curfew, when snores were in the air that he would sneak into your cabin and join you (There were too many people in Hermes cabin for the alternative to ever happen). 

And there in your bed he would stay. Sometimes you would talk. Sometimes you would make out. And sometimes you would have quiet times like this, all of each other intertwined as you were lost in comforting thoughts. 

Well, you were. 

Luke was lost in guilt and impossible choices. He never wanted to leave you, be apart from you. He didn’t know how he’d live without seeing you, hearing your voice. And he hated to leave you like this.  But he knew you would never join him. Apollo hadn’t been great, but he hadn’t been terrible and he knew his plans would scare you. He wanted the best for half bloods. This was the only way he could think of. When he came back, surely you would understand. 

“You’re so quiet,” you mumbled, from your place under his chin. “What’s wrong?”

“You know what I was thinking about?” And he made up some deep philosophical thought that the two of you quietly discussed and argued about for the next little while, the conversation drifting to other topics before you got drowsy. 

“Good night,” you murmured, lifting your face to kiss his nose, scar and lips softly. You returned your head to its place, your warm lips in a smile against his neck, “see you in the morning.”

His stomach plunged, and he felt sick with guilt. He reached over for you, drawing you in for a long, passionate kiss. You, still half asleep, confusedly frowned, but settled back into him with a grin on your face. It was a goodbye, but you didn’t know that. 

“I love you,” he breathed, while you fell asleep, and he swore he saw your lips turn upwards. You succumbed to sleep quickly, and it made it simple to softly slip away, escape from you. 

As he passed Thalia’s tree, he turned back to look at the cabins, your cabin. 

He’d run away once from a home, and it had hurt him. But it had been worth it in the end, and he didn’t regret it. 

It hurt running away from this home. Was it worth leaving if it tore his heart into two? He supposed only time would tell. Fitting, giving who his new master was. 

——————

And that was the last time Luke ever said I love you. 

Well, there was once more. 

——————————

Seven. 

He didn’t know how old he was when he said that small sentence for the final time. 

All he knew was he obeyed Kronos and that the gods had to be slain. 

The city at least was familiar. A deep, small part of him felt almost… scared and upset that this city was being damaged. 

Oh, and the people. There was a boy he hated, who was powerful and threatening. And a girl with him, who he should hate but he seemed to, well, not. 

It had all unfolded so suddenly, the defeat, and suddenly he remembered bits and pieces. 

He’d betrayed camp half blood, the only home that he had known, but only so the gods would pay attention to them, be better parents. But what he was doing now wasn’t what he had wanted. Not at all. 

He supposed it was an easy decision to make when the boy - ….. Percy - told him to stab himself in the armpit. 

He did and finally, in the deadly silence, he was himself again. He was Luke Castellan. A demigod, a child of Hermes. A lot of other things. 

For a moment all he could see was the blonde girl whose name he couldn’t remember, that stared at him as he began to writhe in pain. The same blonde girl he couldn’t seem to hate, who he seemed to be soft for. 

A lot of other faces stared too, who seemed to be familiar to him but he couldn’t place. 

And then there was screaming. Loud, pained screams and running footsteps and a panic rose inside of him. He knew that scream, although he’d rarely heard it. 

And there was you, y/n. A face and voice he instantly knew, that he would remember half-dead, which ironically reflected the place he was in now. 

You were as beautiful as he remembered, even now, your face contorted, grimy, tears streaming, your hair a sweaty mess. 

“No, I can heal him, I can heal him.” You sobbed, kneeling beside him and trying to staunch the bleeding which he could oddly not feel. 

He hated seeing you like this. So sad, hurt, in pain. Knowing there was nothing he could do to improve it made it even worse. 

He reached for your hand, squeezing it and attempting a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, “I’m sorry for everything I ever did to you, because you never deserved it. And-“ he coughed, dust in his lungs. 

“I love you.” He said, loud and clear for the world to hear. He wanted to say more, but his chest was weak. 

It was only them for that moment. You dove in and kissed him, just as passionately as he had that final night. It took his breath away, and he found himself grinning, joyous, at peace. 

It was a goodbye, but he didn’t know that.

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

to leave the blood stay in the veins

monster!könig x f!rcursed!reader (no use of 'y/n') 6.6k words NSFW!

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT‼️CW: extremely NSFW, descriptions of gore, implied consumption of human flesh by a non-human monster, mention of necrotic curse, monsterfucking, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, knotting (no omegaverse), outdoor sex, ambiguous ending, pre-established relationship, 0% proofread, könig and reader are both fucking unhinged.

Day 01 of the Haunted Hoedown Challenge by @/inklore

taboo au (monsterfucking) + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into." + oh no i'm dating the town serial killer

There is a beast in the woods, and it leaves so little meat on the bone that not even carrion birds find value in the corpses it leaves behind.

It’s a strange town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, full of little sicknesses hiding in the corners, and you learned them well when you moved here. No one goes past the treeline at night. Hardly anyone is outside of home if they can help it. Tourists are the beast’s fodder.

Your boyfriend thinks it’s funny. 

König, under his ever-present hood–a not altogether uncommon sight in your town, people come here when they have something to hide, something they are uncomfortable with or find hideous in themselves, and he has given an unimaginable amount for you out of love–laughs, sharp in the tooth.

“Anyone dumb enough to head into the trees is dumb enough to die,” he teases, but there is an arrogance and a contempt swimming deep in his bloodshot blue eyes. 

“That’s coldblooded, but not wrong,” you tell him, from behind your own mask. Plain thing, blank in expression, modeled from the one from Eyes Without A Face. It covers the ravages of a curse, numb necrosis slowly spreading up your face through the years. “I still want you to get me a gun.”

“What’s a gun going to do against a thing like that?” he asks, tilting his head, the hood bagging off the curled horns that start at his temples and sweep back over his ears. “Something like that, you need silver. I’ll get you a knife. Big one. Nice and fucking sharp, Schatzi.”

The knife isn’t a comfort when the beast begins to hunt in town. It stalks from house to house, preying on people in their beds, their living rooms, their bathtubs–there is no rhyme or reason, not a whit of discernable pattern. 

Only teeth-gouged bones and viscera ground into wall, tile, and carpet alike. Your neighbor falls victim, and you watch the police from your window, flinching when a veteran officer stumbles out into the fall-frosted grass to vomit, sobbing and pulling his hair.

“It got Emil,” you say, still watching through your sheer curtains. 

König nearly cackles from your bed, lounging as he visits. “Good. Emil was a piece of shit. Depperte Fut.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, over your shoulder, before returning back to the circus in the yard next door. “‘Stupid cunt’ is a pretty strong insult. He was an asshole, but I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” you mumble.

“You don’t know all that much about your neighbors, Schatzi.”

You begin to rock side-to-side on your hips, the enormous silver blade König gifted you turning over and over in your hands, the point digging lightly into your palm. 

It’s insane, the way you begin to tell yourself that you’ve seen König’s face nearly everyday for the last two years—you can see it right now. He lies on your bed, pointed teeth gleaming under his split philtrum in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamp and the red-blue flash of the cruisers. You know there is a man under the hood, however odd and satyr-seeming.

And yet. And yet.

The blade digs a little too deep, drawing a curse-blackened bead of blood. König’s eyes burn into the back of your neck, and you can only guess his horizontal pupils dilate into black holes. 

Just quit your job. I’ll take care of you.

It’s a simple enough promise, and one you know König will keep, but not one you’re willing to make. You have few shreds of independence, hard-bought through years of fighting back against misfortunes and setbacks, and, no matter the depths with which you love him, you’re not willing to trade your shit wage on faith for love of a man. It doesn’t matter how helplessly besotted he is. 

It’s this molar-cracking grit that delivers you right to the beast. Because you were forced to pick up an extra half shift at the hotel to fold towels behind the front desk, because you needed the money, because you wanted to pay back your beautiful, bloodthirsty boyfriend for the ridiculous blade he begat you. 

The god forsaken thing lumbers down a deserted street, blocks from your little rental, and something fucking horrendous seizes you. It’s enormous, walking on cloven hooves and back-bent legs. Its arms are too fucking long, clawed, jagged. And worst is the skull, bleached white and glowing like a beacon in the dark, an enormous rack of brutally sharp horns dripping trinkets of bone and gold that glints in the street lamp it approaches. 

A horrible fact hits you. It’s not lumbering, it’s wandering. Putting a massive, craggy hand on fences and peering into houses, taking its time, evaluating. You swear you can almost hear it humming. 

You don’t know when your hand found the handle of the silver blade strapped to your belt under your coat, but the leather on the grip bites your palm with the force of your grip, a nauseous, cold sweat terror tearing apart your ability to think. 

It’s a primal fear, one that makes you want to protect your soft, vulnerable neck, even if the blood that warms it runs venomous. 

It’s a bad choice, but there are no good ones. When the beast lifts its head and scents the air, skull snapping your direction and shaking its grisly trophies, you run. You snap the huge blade off your hip and drop into a dead sprint, cutting between yards, trying to escape the horrendous bellow that reverberates through the bony chambers of the monster’s skull.

Choosing to run instead of freezing maybe bought you a few extra minutes before death decided it was time to seize your pulse in reclamation, and it hurts. The physical exertion it takes to bomb through the last stretches of suburbia before the forest closes in feels like you are breaking every bit of your body by forced choice, listening to that awful fucking thing chase after you. 

Your blade makes a slicing sound cutting through the air at your side, the monster’s hooves pound the dirt as it digs in and chases after you, but, good god, it doesn’t sound like it’s even trying.

You don’t dare look back, pushing your body past agony, your lungs shredding in your chest. You’ve never moved this fast, you’ve never run this hard for this long. Your body is TV static—hissing, popping, distant—and, insanely, the urge to cry drills into your eye sockets.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to fucking die, stupidly and dumbly and pointlessly, because you wanted to pay your boyfriend a stupid sum of fucking money, for a stupid fucking knife that he bought you on a stupid fucking joke. 

Two meters from the second worst decision of your life, the monster snaps out, rough hand between your shoulder blades, crashing you into the goddamned dirt. Your eyebrow splits on a tree root, your eyes roll in the back of your head, your hand stays manically tight on the blade, slicing your other arm. 

“Schaaaatzi,” the miserable fucking thing hisses, pressing that same hand between your shoulder blades, pinning you into the freezing dirt. 

Oh, god, no, it has König’s voice. It’s—it’s not him, but it has his voice, thin and washed out as low-hung fog, but you would know that voice. In hell, in high water, in the dirt with a massive, bark-rough hand grinding your skin raw through your coat—you - know - his - voice. 

Furiously, you slash the blade over your head, behind your back, screaming and digging your feet in the dirt. For a brief second, as you hack at the wood of the monster’s hand and wrist, you’re even able to push yourself off the ground by mere inches. The beast growls and shoves you back down twice as hard, knocking the wind out of you, spasming your hand open. The knife drops, and you begin to blindly try digging and dragging yourself away. 

“Stop…hurting…me,” the beast lows, still in your boyfriend’s voice, and you imagine a bathtub full of gnawed bones, a living room with scattered body parts, your kitchen smeared with blood like cave wall art, and you start to scream as loud as your lungs will allow, your mask filling with dirt in your horrendous and futile bid to escape. Bloody murder bellows, filled with rage, wanting to kill and consume and conflagrate.

If König is dead, you will take your pound of flesh. You will either die fighting, or win, and you will hack apart this freak-fuck’s corpse to burn in your woodstove to warm your home. You’ll mount its fucking skull on your front door, so anything else in these woods will know you won’t hesitate to make trophies of them either. 

Bone, warm to the touch, presses against the back of your head. When it breathes, the air is as hot as exhaust, almost scalding your back. “Schatzi,” it bids you slowly once again.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” it rips your throat raw to shriek it, reaching back and almost dislocating your arms to rip at anything you can. Your hands fall on the dressings attached to its horns, you tear off a vertebra, and a gold wedding band, and a bracelet of rave kandi in plastic beads. “IF YOU HURT HIM, I’LL YOU FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The head presses harder, driving your face into the dirt. There is something desperate in the pressure. It spits all at once, grating and wide in a voice you know better than your own, “You pissed off a fucking witch, because you ran out of riddles to tell her, when she was ransoming you to your arshloch grandmother. She never paid. That’s why you were cursed—no one gave a fuck. But I gave her my face for you, to stop it halfway, better than fucking nothing.”

Your rage freezes immediately, your chest heaving under the weight it presses down on you. 

No one knows that. Only König. He’s the only person who would know about his lonely and quiet climb up to the Scottish highlands. Besides you, and the witch, König is the only one who would know why his human face was distorted, malformed, made animalistic. 

“Lee?” you pant, unleashing part of his first name, the only one he ever tolerates. And, fuck, instantly the pressure pulls away, the skull rubbing against your back to soothe it.

“It’s me, Schatzi,” the slow voice promises, nuzzling you. There’s rustling above you that you don’t dare turn to see. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

A tinkling piece of jewelry lowers in front of your eyes, and you can see that it dangles from an enormous, ligneous finger. You’re being shown a sterling silver charm bracelet. You’re being shown your bracelet, the one you thought you had lost months ago. 

Your hand shoots out, wrapping around the finger, the peeling bark shearing off under your grip. You find instantly that you can pull yourself up on your hip, sitting, caged and protected under the beast’s massive body—under König’s massive body. 

He shifts back onto his digitagrade haunches, holding himself over you, still offering your bracelet. He shudders at your touch on his hand, and you imagine that he may’ve never been handled with kindness in this shape. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Because he fucking kills and eats people.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, staring dead into the hollow sockets of his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably, turning his head. “Why—you have me so fucked up—what have you been thinking—?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to—”

“Yes, I have to, fucker.” It’s impossible to wrap your head around the magnitude of what a simple secret and a silver bracelet has done to your understanding of the world. A complete unraveling—upheaval, utterly. 

You take the bracelet from his finger, on which it fits like a ring, and push it into your wrist, sitting up on your knees and grabbing him by the underside of his jaw. Though it puts you in his blind spot, staring dead center at the sinus dimples between his eyes, it feels like you have a mote of power over him. 

(If he were asked, he would say the power you hold over him could corrupt, absolutely. He would badly like you to ask someday.)

“Why are you—what are you? Have you always been like this? Or was this new, with the fucking witch? Are—Jesus Christ—why are—the monster isn’t supposed to come into town, why are you in TOWN?” you run off at the mouth, words stalling and crashing and fusing together as your thoughts overwhelm just how quickly you can speak. 

And up from that impossibly deep throat–simultaneously from the center of your brain, and from all around you all at once–crawls König’s pitchy hyena-laugh, edged, always, with cruelty. He butts the jagged end of his nasal cavities into your stomach, catching on the threads of your sweater. 

“Leshy, Schatzi, say it for me.”

Your hands pull his jaw closer, digging the bone into your stomach, wondering if he can feel the pressure of your deep breathing. Oh, fuck, you could crack. This is your König. You start to wonder how many of his perverse buttons you can hit, the part of you that felt shame for your attraction to what the world discarded as ‘ugly’ long ago removed from your emotional bank.

“Leshy,” you say, really leaning into the word, saying it deep in your chest. One of your hands travels the long length to the hinge of his jaw, gripping tight, directing his head to turn so you can meet one of his empty eyes. “Answer my fucking questions.”

The laugh doesn’t come this time. In its place is a near-violent whole-body shudder that wracks through you. 

“Old! Alwaaays been this way,” and even in the strange disconnect of his voice from his physical form, you can tell his arousal is eating away at him in big bites–clipping his speech, broiling his brain with body heat, “can’t remember ever being young, haa-haa. And why do you think I’m hunting in town?”

Another trap, a stupid pop quiz, wanting to test your knowledge of him, or a gotcha! to check your observations and what you had missed.

Your hands get tighter, and you pull his jaw open, marveling at the sharp grooves ground into his teeth, like nightmarish, ivory rook pieces, tall and straight in the dry sockets. His chest begins to heave, his breath fogging into steaming clouds over your hands, and, remarkably, it smells like nothing at all apart from pin needles and snow.

You’d thought you’d smell decaying flesh or rotten blood. The only blood you can smell comes from your own busted brow and sliced arm, crusting black on your skin and in the fabric of your sweater as it coagulates.

“If I was working on a hunter’s instincts, I would say that Schladming has become too good at keeping people out of the forests. Even during daylight hours. It cuts down on prey,” you say, ice cold and clean as a slit throat. Your eyes flick back up to the socket, surrounded by the feeling that those glass-blue eyes of his humanoid form are drilling into you. He’s waiting for you to hit the hook. “But I’m working on your logic.”

“Oh, yeeaah,” he drawls, his hips shifting, and you feel as if he would bite his lips in anticipation now, if he could. 

“Oh, yeeaah,” you echo him, “the logic of a fucking crazy asshole.” He feels like a huge grin, hands on his muscular, bunched, and flexing thighs. That detail is not lost on you. “You’re hunting in town because you’re pissed off. You reached a limit, and you got tired of sitting on your fucking reaction.”

You swear to god he moans a little. Just softly. It could be a breath, but you know him too well to dismiss it out of hand. 

“That’s good, Schatzi. I like that. I like that you figured that out,” he says, definitely panting in rhythm now, his fogging breath giving away the rhythm secondary. “People are looking at you too much. I don’t fucking like it when they look at you too much.”

That’s a sudden thought that had not occurred to you, and you lash yourself silently because it hadn’t. König has always been possessive of you. Jealous. Protective. And he held grudges in ways that could spark blood feuds and successive generations of death.

Like a curse.

It’s a testament to how fucking cracked and perfectly matched the two of you are that you start laughing, stroking his orbital bones in big, pleased pats, kissing the bridge of his nose. 

“Schatzi, please,” he groans, pressing into you insistently. “Promise you won’t tell. Promise me.”

“Why the fuck would I tell?” you laugh, losing track of your faculties, your very sense. What does it matter? What does it all even mean? You’ve found a man that loves you so deeply and truly and twistedly that he slaughters those who desire or deign you. You’ve found, and fallen in love with a man that would sell his face to save as much of yours as he could. “Who the fuck would I tell?”

The slope of his shoulders relaxes, and he moves closer to you, once again shielding you with the massive bulk of his body, warming you in the cold air. Tucked under his chin, you can study the soft suede-like material of his body, how the bark covering his arms gives way to a ruff of dense, double-layered fur around his shoulders and his long, muscular neck. 

The rest of the muscle on him is horrendously hard, flexed like steel cabling under a layer of fat. There is something about this body that reminds you of the shape of the human one so well–long legs, a nipped waist, and flat hips built to strut and rock, all of it buttressing a broad set of shoulders.

You press your face into the ruff, pushing your fingers into it. Dear god, your hand goes deeper and deeper, and it just never seems to stop. His scent is–it’s almost familiar. He’s in there, somewhere–his musk, the metallic tang of blood seemingly sunken into his skin–but there’s so much more to it. Green, and earthy, almost like soil and moss. 

A sound comes from his body, like a house settling. A deep, broad creak. The trophies on his horns rattle together, clinking like dull wind chimes. “More,” he says simply, leaving you to figure it out. Simple enough.

Your hand drops from the ruff, tracing over his convex chest, down to his stomach. Another shudder, and he pulls those big arms around your entire body, a fuller, more protective hug than you’ve ever felt. 

“Schatzi–would you let me…” he breathes, a heaving sigh. 

Another laugh cracks out of you, hysterical, constricted by your mask. Why not? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve always been a woman that loves monsters. You, yourself, are one. You can’t find a reason to halt your hands, nor your body, nor his desire.

In an odd show of tip-to-tail, you push the mask off your face, and kick off your boots, going for your zipper. “Yeah. Yeah, honey, come on. Show me,” you urge him, pawing at his massive waist as you struggle out of your jeans. 

He groans and this obscene trill escapes his body–a low, rattling moan that travels miles through every cell of your body, his legs spreading wider. You laugh in delight and mania, watching rapt as his cock slides out of a sheath you hadn’t even caught sight of, his monstrous body a foreign land you hadn’t traveled yet, but, fuck, do you want to learn the lands well enough to call them home. 

It’s heavy in your hands, a little slick, and, childishly, you almost giggle (holy shit, that is a sound that has never left your mouth in your living memory, and yet, here you are). It’s hot, hotter than you expected, and a vulnerable shade of pale, like a plant slip. Oh, and it’s elegant, almost spiraling. He huffs as you stroke the length of it, pushing your fingertips into his sheath at the base. 

“I don’t think this is gonna fit,” you warn him, and it somehow feels as if you’re challenging yourself with the statement.

He takes it as a challenge for himself, though, and an aspiration to hold for you, “You are going to take all of it. I’m going to make sure.”

His massive hand comes to the back of your waist, finding your fulcrum without needing to search, pulling you off your knees to hold to beneath him. “You naked yet, or still fucking around?” he asks, breathing heavily, and you shove your jeans off the rest of the way. 

“You’re being a little bitch,” you snipe, a dumb swipe at reclaiming dignity after you realize you’re so wet that it slicks your thighs, having darkened the crotch of your freshly abandoned jeans pathetically. 

He throws another coarse laugh, haa-haa, shifting his massive body long, pulling you into place. 

It’s on you, then, to figure out the logistics. Somehow, it just works, even through layers of physical translation. Under your hands, he reads König, loud and clear. 

There’s a brief, flighty moment of terror as you rub the head of his cock between the lips of your cunt, rolling your hips to stimulate your clit against it. It is just fucking enormous, almost half again the size of his human cock. But then you grit your teeth, tipping your weight back so your shoulders rest against the dirt, bleak and unyielding ruthlessness seizing your mind.

You do not back down, you have never done it once in your life, and tonight is no different. 

His head lifts, bottom jaw dropping, and he bays as you push yourself down on his length. The sound crashes into you, rocking your entire body, and the stretch burns, but you buckle down. What are the people in the houses just at the edge of suburbia thinking? Has the fucking abberation that has been slowly killing its way through their number taken to a different form of punishment? Has someone unlucky fallen to its new tastes?

It cuts your mouth into a horrid grin. If they only knew that you were no victim at all, if only they had an inkling of the fact that you are a victor. That you are the hand holding this nightmare’s collar, and he attacks for the sake of you.

Inch by inch, a slow journey, he fills you, pressing completely against your walls, body shaking with the effort it takes not to thrust fully into you. Oh, what destruction that would result in, what a wreckage that would make of your body, what lengths he would go to not ruin you in such a fashion.

“Fuck–fuck–Liebes,” he mutters, just for you, the moment he is as deep in you as he can go, most of his length still outside of what your body can handle, pleading, “I can’t–I. I have to move. Please, meine Liebes.”

“Go. Go-go-go,” you answer back, almost frantic, too full and occupied, needing motion or you might split apart into atoms. The way he answers is instant, undeniable, desperate, rocking into you as if testing waters, going faster as if he finds them warm and welcoming. 

You lose yourselves to it, and your eyes threaten to roll back into your head, gripping onto the elbow of the arm suspending you, blood rushing to your head in an ache from the way you hang off him, forcing you lightheaded. Sap-like blood from where you’d hacked at him in rage drips down your arm, your waist, clinging to your skin in a way that feels permanent. 

He tenses all around you, panting, clouds of steam fogging the air over your head from his pants. Words escape him, leaving nothing but animalistic grunts, the grinding of his dry, exposed teeth as your desperate pussy sucks him deeper and tighter.

You’d taught him as a human to find your g-spot, to destroy your brain with a steady climb, and he doesn’t even need to search now, every movement pressing every inch of his cock into it, and unrelenting onslaught that makes you shake and nearly drool, being fucked like a sacrifice. 

König raps his other fist above your head and pulls out without warning, shaking his head and breathing roughly. 

You imagine brutally grabbing him by the scruff and biting his ear–what kind of punishment would that even be, no worse than a bug bite to him, more likely than anything else–for the loss of his cock. Mostly just an impulsive fantasy, too barbaric and stupid to actually act upon, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, and it feels like hell to be split open against him with nothing inside you.

Breathless–and naked, sweating, and trembling in the woods–you start to sit up on your elbows, cunt throbbing. "What is it? Are you okay?" you ask, your love for him–your fear for him–overwhelming even your damnation-worthy starvation. 

König, massive and so dark he's almost indistinguishable from the night apart from his skull, shakes his head again and puts up a clawed hand. Fine, the gesture says, and you’re realizing he’s beyond words now, but trying his best to communicate. Then he curls it into a loose fist and pantomimes masturbating and finishing.

"Christ!" But you’re laughing, tugging at a tuft of fur on his chest, spun out in your giddiness. It’s still him, you’ve already known, but to see it. To find him through this–this utterly new reality. "They teach you that signal in the forces?"

In his hollow sockets, twisting his body to watch you closely, he looks pleased with himself, ducking forward, bracing on his free hand to one side of your head as he nuzzles into your neck and breathes deeply.

He huffs, rough fingers running over your back, claws trailing the parts of your spine he can reach as he holds you, before he taps the side of your thigh with his other hand. At your eye level, he turns his finger in a slow loop. Roll over, maybe? It's worth a shot.

"Okay. Alright," you sigh, relieved. When you try to roll in his palm, he shakes his head and sets you down, pressing down against your body, pushing his arm under your ribs. With his other hand, he gestures a flat line on the ground. You ask, "On my stomach?"

Two knocks against the ground next to your head. Yes.

You stretch out flat over the frost-crisp grass, too hot to even register the chill against your bare skin, and König lowers with you, sliding the arm under you down to your diaphragm. With his knuckles, he taps your outer-thighs until they're drawn back together, and your breathing hitches when you understand what he intends.

With his legs on the outside of yours, he uses his free hand to run his cock up the length of your seam to tease your pussy, but he takes his sweet time with it. Impatient, you slide onto your knees with near-perfect timing, driving your entrance against his head, snarling with indignation when he bows away. "Fucker!"

He rumbles something almost humanoid, between a laugh and a gruff, trilling ‘rrrr’ you recognize as cousin to a sharp, challenging hum he makes when faced with an idiot comment in his human shape.

"Stop teasing me. I can't stand it," you try instead, turning to give him big eyes over your shoulder because you know that it works well on him.

He bends down and barely-barely nips the top of your ear, a startling move that leaves you perfectly inflamed all over again again. Greedy brat, it says to you, so pleased in the fact he is so desperately wanted. 

The feeling of him inside you is extraordinary. He lubricates in this state, but you hardly need it with the nearly absurd way you’re wet, slick down your thighs. You wonder if your cunt is glimmering under the dim moon and streetlamps, because he'd said that to you once. Heilige sheiße, you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever fucking seen, could just stare at how wet you get for me forever, he'd laughed during one delirious, marathon session of staying sunken between your legs.

He begins to rock his hips, growling quietly and pleased at the wet sounds of your of cunt squelching around him–another sound he enjoys, a marker of pride, how wet can I make my girl get–settling onto his forearm and pressing a little weight against your back. 

He rests his head across your shoulders, burying his snout in your hair, breathing in hard-bought bursts of restraint.

"Yes, honey," you almost seethe, loosening your body, giving up a little of your own iron will to become just a little lost in the feeling of him. You relax your walls in a bid to take more of him, breathing tight, voice pitching up into a plea, "Yes, baby, that's perfect. That's so perfect, keep going. Just like that."

He rocks a little faster, thrusts a little deeper, breathes a little harder. The hand around your waist shifts up to your breast, but isn't dexterous enough to do more than give it an encompassing squeeze. 

With your thighs pressed together, you feel as if your body can't stretch properly to take as much of him as you want (and you want all of him, every burning hot inch, fucking him so well that he cannot disappear into one of his miseries where he will not let you follow, because they all live in his head). 

He ratchets back his speed, tries a new motion with his hips. He rolls instead of thrusting, a more fluid movement, brushing your insides in new ways that leave your swollen clit screaming for attention and your eyes watering. You breathe in ragged pants, fingers digging into the turf over your head, trying not to rip it with the force of your grip by the fistful.

You might cum. You might cum. You want to cum, and you might, and he's so much deeper now, panting hot as fire against your shoulders. You can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench and dance, his horns cutting the air in swipes of agitation above you, and he is so much this way. König: bigger, sometimes bloodier, but always so, so amplified.

"Honey, honey, honey," you whine in a chant under your breath, trying to ground yourself, trying to encourage him. You squeeze your thighs together for the extra stimulation, but you know you’re going to orgasm from him alone, no extra assistance needed. You’re just greedy, you just want it all, but you want him the worst.

When he pulls out this time, you snarl loud and gnash your teeth, digging your dirt-packed nails into his unyielding skin. You were full to the brim and on the wire-edge of climax, and he is so suddenly fucking gone it's almost as abrupt as violence. 

"KÖNIG!" you shout, his callsign cutting from between your teeth like the desire to slit a throat, shattering the quiet around you both, reeling to find him with your burning eyes. 

He collapses onto his side, cock jumping and leaking, and he whines deep in his throat, pulling at you with the flat of his hand. Your thigh, then his hip, your chest, then his–more hand signals, a story-told like a man with a sucking chest wound needing saving. He snakes his arm under you again, whining growing deeper, and you understand.

You roll, throwing your thigh over his hip, tucking tight against his chest. You give yourself one second of feeling cool air against your overheated pussy before you take him in hand and direct him home, and his deep, slick slide into you knocks the air out of your lungs like a punch to the solar plexus. 

You’re only seconds away, and he can't be much farther, driving his head under yours to give you something to rest on that isn't the ground.

You don't utilize his offering, craning your neck as if you'll somehow get a glimpse of your connection from this angle–flat against him from belly to breast, resting your cheek and forehead against his heaving chest. His whine turns into a series of small, strangled howls and gasps as your voice crawls from whimpering to keening.

You’ve known you were going to cum, but you’re still somehow surprised with yourself at how quickly it's raced up, and how overwhelming it feels like it's going to be. You feel like you’re going insane.

His other arm wraps your ribs, too, squeezing you to him like you’re the only thing in the world worth keeping close, and damn him for it. You don't know why, but damn him.

"Cum, baby, cum," you instruct, gasping when you aren't clenching your teeth. You curl close to him, as close as your body will allow, spreading your legs as wide as you can. You drive back down into his thrusts, giving as much of yourself as you can, taking as much of him as you’re able. 

You want it all–everything–every little bit of blood and bone that's built him into a home he offers only to you. "Cum in me. I'm ready, I want you to cum," you demand, finding it truer than true, finding yourself right on the razor-edge.

The command is all it takes. Three hard thrusts, and he's buried in you to the base, punching the wind out of your lungs, and filling you to the point of what feels like impossibility with his spend. It forces you to finish as well, lighting you up like a lightning storm, swallowing him deeper as you cum and cum like you'll never be able to stop, soaking the both of you. 

You gasp a raw-throated howl, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, and you praise him as his cock kicks and kicks, emptying everything he's got to give into you.

A pressure builds inside you, beginning nearly unpleasant, until something just gives and his knot anchoring him to you feels right. 

It feels special and dazzlingly intimate, and you’re boggled, again, with the knowledge you’re the only person in the world that he's ever shown himself to this way. It’s just a thing you know in your marrow, an immutable truth, like the sun setting in the west, or the cruelty of witches without their wants.

You wind down, sweating and panting and filthy in each other's arms, and you rock against him,  holding him inside, clenching around him what little you can. You feel so wonderfully safe, so immaculately powerful, so stupidly, crazily, fantastically in love.

When your combined breathing evens, and the knot between you retreats, you groan when König shifts back into his human form, but only for the resituating you both have to endure. 

The body against yours is familiar again, and you’re dreadfully sleepy, though you want to clean yourself and eat. You crave something raw, something bloody. You hunger the way an animal hungers after a hard fuck. His spend drips out of you now that his cock's returned to normal, and it forms a trail of cooling wet down the crease where your thigh meets your ass.

You feel lovely.

König laughs, rough and spent, tucking hair out of your face and kissing your closed eyelids. "Holy fucking shit, Schatzi," he marvels, looking at you like you are the only god that has ever mattered. 

Your smile cuts sharp, and your fingers find his pulse point, tracing it thoughtfully. “You hungry? I bet you're fucking starved,” is all you say in return, eyes trailing the way his hand finds the charm bracelet newly returned to your wrist, touching it like a token.

It’s late and dark when you both manage to stumble your way back to your rental. He stays close, needy and soft, his hand on your hip, tugging you into his body when he can, careful of not knocking into the big, silver knife you’d placed back in the scabbard on your belt. 

The hood is back on his head, rolled up to his nose, and his split mouth kisses against your neck and behind your ear, his eyes closed like he endures a waking dream. You, in your own filthied mask again, allow it, craning your neck to give him more room, anchoring him with an arm around his waist in return.

It is late now, and the neighborhood is silent. Again, you wonder what the quiet lives inside must be thinking–whether they think the crimes have increased into a new field of brutality, if they are fearing and wondering what body parts they will find at the treeline come dawn. 

You know they will not leave the safety of their homes to investigate. They would be stupid to do something like that.

“That shower is going to feel so goddamned good,” you mutter, unlocking your door, and he nods against your skin.

“Oh, yeeaah,” he says, and the familiarity of the phrase makes you hum a laugh, shutting your eyes as you push through the threshold. "Get that blood off your skin before it stains. Your poor face, your poor arm. Poor Schatzi."

He splits off from you with a facsimile of a kiss–your masks pressing together at the mouth–and he pinches your ass before he takes off to the kitchen, his stomach growling, not even bothering to take off his boots.

You, however, kick off your shoes, and pull together clean clothes, heading toward the bathroom in the hall, the one with the big shower, in case he decides to join you.

Sleepy and content, you listen to his boots move heavily over the kitchen tile, the sound of the fridge door hissing snickt as he pulls it open, and shoves things around in his search for food. You nearly sway up to the closed door–why is it closed, you barely manage to wonder–your eyelids lead-weighted.

It takes only one thing to make them snap open wide, your back going ramrod straight. A dark smear, curling around the knob, around the edge of the door where it seams to the jamb.

Cold grips your lungs, sending your heart galloping painfully in the cage of your ribs, wondering if it really is copper you smell, or if it is a trick of your mind. The hall is too dark to tell if the swipe on the white door is red or black–if it is blood, if it is König’s or yours. 

There is a presence at your back, and enormous hands on the door on either side of your head, so fast you cannot tell if you were even able to blink before you saw his wide, scarred, and knuckle-broken limbs spreading wide across the wood.

Your hand finds the grip of the knife, looking at the brutal gouges you had hacked into his forearm earlier in the night, and you are thinking faster and harder than you ever have in your life, realizing in a terrible microsecond that you will have to make a decision–that you will have to choose what reality you are willing to live with, or that you are simply mistaken. 

Either way, you are moments from learning.

“Something wrong, Schatzi?” your boyfriend’s familiar voice asks, low and raspy, hot against the nape of your neck.

The laugh in his tone is cruel, and you can’t tell whether it belongs to König, or something pretending to be him.

tag-list: @alittleposhtoad @bitchoftoji @dotcie @kastlequill @miyabilicious @moths569 @parttimeprophet @pssytrux <3

[xoxochb]

Hey!! Can I request one with Jason and fem!reader maybe she had a bad day and went to see Jason and he comforts her and it's all cute please

— hoax

warnings: hurt/comfort + tons and tons of tooth rotting fluff!! pairing: jason grace x fem! reader a/n: this is for everyone who had a shitty day today like me

It started when you woke up late and missed breakfast and lunch. you had to scavenge for leftovers in the kitchen, even going as far as to asking the satyrs if they had stolen anything (they hadn’t— which was infuriating because usually they would have). you didn’t eat either meals today. then next at arts and crafts you hurt your finger with a hole puncher and had the be brought to the infirmary where you received stitches over your injury. then you couldn’t find your favorite strawberry chapstick and in a fit of ‘I’m not using cherry!’ you decided to leave your lips chapped (unfortunately you started peeling away at the dead skin until it started bleeding— you took your second visit to the infirmary after this)

then you found out that you had spilled paint all over your shirt and with your laundry not yet done all you had was an old shirt with a cringe saying written on the front of it. stupid luck, tyche would be hearing many complaints during your offerings at dinner (that is— if you even got to eat dinner!). the next thing that sent you into a frenzy was your siblings. noisy and constantly fighting. you thought it would be okay to read in your cabin for a while but the noise in there compared to outside was ten times worse. then you ran into a tree, how you even managed this was a mystery

now with your hair disheveled, a silly shirt with an inappropriate term splayed on the front, two injuries, and hot tears streaming uncontrollably down your face you knock on the door belonging to cabin one. although you were always welcomed in your boyfriend’s cabin the thought of walking in unannounced worried you. stupid anxiety, you should add that to your list of awful things that happened today. after five seconds you hear shuffling and the door opens in front of you. the sight of your blond boyfriend has you crumbling into his arms with a sob. jason is quick to return your embrace, one hand resting on your back while the other rests on your head, keeping your head against his chest

“come here, angel. come sit”

jason closes the door behind you and leads you to his bed, where you sit and curl yourself into him swiftly. he runs his hand up and down your back in a soothing manner— indeed soothing you

“do you want to talk about it?”

you sigh before saying, “just a bad day”

he frowns and places his lips to the top of your head. “poor girl. let it out, I’m here”

you indeed do. the held in emotions from the previous experiences from the terrible day you had pool out, soaking into jason’s shirt. when your tears slowed down a bit you begin to ramble about your day and the unruly events

“I woke up late and missed breakfast and lunch. then I cut my finger open with a hole puncher” you lift your pointer finger up to show jason, who kisses it gently. “and I lost my chapstick then I dropped paint all over my shirt so I had to change into this!” you grab at the fabric of your shirt and pull it up for him to see— displayed on it says, ‘reading is sexy’ “which apparently isn’t camp appropriate according to chiron. dionysus was fine with it though but again he’s fine with anything. then I was trying to read and my siblings kept fighting so I went out to the woods to read but I walked into a tree and then I just came here”

“you could’ve come over earlier y’know?”

“you were busy today. you told me yesterday”

“and you don’t think I would’ve dropped everything for you?”

you hide your head in his neck to hide the rising blood rushing to your cheeks. “can I sleep here tonight?”

“of course. we gotta get you something to eat though”

“after. I wanna stay here for a bit”

you lift your head up from jason’s neck, he takes this to his advantage and kisses your very chapped lips

“whatever you want”

[moorishflower]

Apropos of the Addams family post from a few weeks back: Hob meeting Gomez and them immediately vibing. Freak4freak friendship. Taking one look at the horrific sublime and wanting to kiss it with tongue

GOD yes like I have trouble imagining writing Hob meeting Gomez Addams actually because the IPs are so different but if he ever did it would be IMMEDIATE recognition. Same hat vibes. Have you beheld my big beautiful spouse? Behold them and despair (the despair is lovely this time of year)

Like can you imagine Hob attending ANY function in the Dreaming, either as the Dreamlord's husband or his consort? Normal McNormalman wandering around amongst gods and fey and nightmares and angels and being so painfully ordinary and HUMAN that he loops back around to being just. The cryptid in the room. Everyone whispering to each other, "Does anyone know that guy? Who is that? Did he sneak in?"

Hob just happily chatting away eating canapes and mingling and discussing footie with satyrs and shit, and finally some asshole god or demigod strolls on up to him and clears their throat, and demands to know "Who are you? Why are you here? You're just some human."

And Hob blinks his big beautiful brown cow eyes and he says "Oh! I'm here with my husband! Here he is now!" And just simp mode activates IMMEDIATELY. Dream standing there in full nightmare regalia glowering daggers at whoever has dared to impugn the honor of HIS husband, visibly bleeding shadows while the unfortunate guest contemplates how swiftly their mortality is about to be ripped from their still-conscious body, and Hob tucks his arm through Dream's, "How's your night been so far, baby? Good party, the brownies seemed very interested in the latest scores for Manchester, think they might be close to setting up a league of their own, dunno who they'd play against though. Christ, you look fantastic tonight. Doesn't he look fantastic? We should definitely dance later, imagine how you'd look on the floor with all these shadows around you. Phwoar. Are you thirsty, darling?"

"Wine will suffice."

"Sure, love, be right back. Nice talking with you, mate!" And off he trots to the refreshments table, and meanwhile Dream has expanded to roughly 1.5 times his normal height and living darkness wreathes him in an aura of cold sweat and midnight shivers, and he has to lean down almost at the waist to address whoever this unfortunate SOB is. Blinking slow and deliberate, like a lizard eyeing a mouse.

"You are lucky. My husband is in a charitable mood. If you ever speak ill of him again. It will not be his mercy you must seek."

And Hob comes back with two glasses of wine right as Dream is straightening up, and the unfortunate god or demigod looks like they're about to simultaneously weep and piss themselves, and he gives Dream his drink and then in a smooth and seamless motion gets his arm around Dream's waist and dips the 8ft tall nightmare man. Logically, and based on their respective heights, it should not be that easy, but Dream is visibly enjoying it.

"My sweet," Hob is murmuring into Dream's clavicle, "my darling, my Dream. Have I told you how beautiful you are tonight?"

"Yes. But tell me again."

And at this point Hob's would-be detractor takes the opportunity to flee, just as Hob is planting a line of smacking kisses up the Dreamlord's neck. "Beautiful," he's saying, "ravishing, stunning, awe-inspiring."

And after that there's a sort of flyer or pamphlet that gets circulated through a bunch of supernatural circles, with Hob Gadling's name and description and picture, THIS IS THE PRINCE-CONSORT OF THE NIGHTMARE KING, HE IS ALLOWED AND ENCOURAGED TO BE HERE.

[ahllohehn]

I noticed you said before that Zedaph wasn't exactly a satyr. Are you willing to explain that or are we left in the dark again sob emoji

Children of Hecate can control the Mist

[gabessquishytum]

Seeing saytr dreamling fics in AO3 made me nostalgic for the original saytr dream ask someone (yan anon, maybe?) and its immaculate vibes. Here’s hoping someone does a saytr dream fic too?? He deserves one too!

After his first…encounter with Dream, Hob knows he should move out of the forest but he’s tried to leave and there is something wrong with the road. It never takes him out of the forest but loops back to his own cabin. No matter what he does, he can’t seem to leave. Dream doesn’t want him to.

But food shows up on his doorstep anyway, fruits, vegetables and freshly killed animals from the forest. So hob knows the saytr knows where he is. He knows he is the reason hob can’t leave. In his feverish, hot dreams, he seems Dream’s wild animal grin, his glittering eyes and feels his massive c*ck ramming into hob’s arse again and again… and he wakes up hard and aching.

Hob waits, anxious, feeling watched all the time. He feels somewhat safe in his cabin…

Until one night he dreams that he’s back in the clearing with the saytr.

“Miss me?” Dream purrs and tears his pajamas off. Hob scrambles to get away but dream just pins him down and starts fucking him. Only this time dream isn’t fucking his arse. Dream’s pounding into a brand new pussy Hob never had before.

He cries and struggles but dream is so much stronger than he is, and faster too. Even if hob gets away, dream just treats it like a little game of tag, and pounces on him again, grinning like he’s having the time of his life. And dream feels so good that eventually hob just begs for more through his sobs.

Dream fucks his new pussy all night, against a tree, on his knees, on his back, even his mouth, for variety.

Hob wakes up in the morning, relieved it was just a dream. But he’s naked and all sticky. Somehow he’s covered in hickeys and bruises and cum…and he is deliciously sore, aching for something to fill a nonexistent hole…

OOOOH yes. You can tell how behind I am on answering these but YES we were indeed blessed with some excellent satyr Hob content a little while ago!!!

I also really love possessive, magical, low-key scary but extremely sexy satyr Dream. Especially with dream sex as well!!!!

Poor Hob, missing the pussy that he never actually had! He stumbles out of his cabin half dressed, sweating and aching, and goes on this half angry, half horny rampage through the forest to look for Dream. He keeps catching glimpses in the foliage, but every time he makes a grab for him he comes up empty handed, and all he can hear is laughter. Seems like he's much better at being prey than predator.

And thanks to Dream’s magic, he just ends up going in circles, ending up back at his cabin each time. Hob is exhausted and panting and he slumps down in the clearing outside his house, desperately rutting himself against the grass. He's so humiliated by his neediness, but he just can't stop!

And perhaps Dream lazily appears at the edge of the clearing, leaning against a tree and just watching his favourite pet human as he exposes himself for the world. Humans are so boring but this one is just delightful.

"Did you enjoy my gift, darling?" He purrs. Hob just whines and keeps rubbing himself against the ground. He aches inside. He wants his fucking pussy back! "I can give it back to you, my sweet. Would you like that?"

Hob has no clue what Dream even means, but even so he's spreading his legs and shuffling towards Dream through the grass. Dream’s flaming eyes glow, and his beautiful midnight black hair stands at an end with what looks like excitement. Hob’s heart hammers and he's deeply terrified, but more than that - he needs something inside him. Anything.

And Dream looks so willing to give him whatever he needs... perhaps a little magic to permanently make his cock into a pretty little cunt? He could fuck Hob until he's forever changed. It would be so worth the effort.

[little-blurry-stars5]

editing this as i go--

so started right off at crusty's, and heres the thing- they walked right in and instantly took him down. the thing im a bit disappointed about is that in the books, its percy that thinks quickly on his feet to rescue his friends, and im sad they weren't able to portray that in the show, because too many times hes percived as dumb or slow when in reality hes actully really smart

grovers stress toy 😭 someone give this man (satyr?) a BREAK

ohhhhh i know percy's finna break a pearl and demolish new reader's hopes and dreams

WOAHHHH THEYRE BAIBIES THEYRE CHILDREN WHYS THE UNDERWORLD SO LIKE THAT? omg nico has to go there 😭😭

CHARON WHY YOU COULD OF GOTTON A RAISE DAKLFJDA;

HOLY FRIGGIN HELL THATS A BIG DOG (love that they kept the rottweiler detail tho)

GROVER GROVER R U OK PLEASE BE OKAY OH MY GODS oh wait annabeth has the ball itll b ok

shes. shes petting it

awww hes just a doggy just a very very big doggy oh hello grover thats. thats really gross but atleast ur ok

oh THE SHOES THEYRE FINNA DO THE THING OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

annabeth HOLD ON GIRL

shoes didnt do the the thing. huh

THERE THEY GO. awww theyre playing with him <3 glad they kept that. grovers in awe i would be too

why is his palace upsidedown...???

OOP HE LOST THE PEARL. AHFKDHAKH;DKAL THERES THE ANGST

oh aw no.... poor sally. she didnt deserve everything that sucks. also poor percy

HE GAVE HIM IS PEARL THEY REALLY ARE BEST FRIENDS HUH

FUCK THATS CREEPY. oh theres more. wonderful. oh theyre in asphodel. why are they so creepy........... stop

annabeth?? girl whats goin on?? WHY IS SHE TIED UP ohh she regrets thalia doesnt she... how is she going to get out of there oh the pearl.. AIGHT GO GO GET OUTTA THERE i know it must break his heart to leave her but atleast shes safe

OOP THE SHOES. THEYRE THEY GO hes going to fall into that hole in five years oh my gods. and they were red converse too... damn. oh theres the bolt. wait he was supossed to figure it out himself why did it just. appear. what are they going to do... i thought they were supossed to meet hades??? oh there they go. HADES ISNT INVOLVED GUYS... OH HES FINNA GO FOR HIS MOM THATS HOW HADES IS INVOLVED

stop youre breaking my heart. stop stop thiS MADNESS [cries and sobs]

the underworld is weirddd but lowk cool?? its diff from wut i had in mind but still

is that.... hades??? THAT IS HUH.

cilp clack clip clack clip clack clip clack oh i could listen to that all day

WHY IS SHE A STATUE?? true hades... true... he looks way diff than i imagined. love the big speech.. hun... but he doesnt want the bolt

hades just minding his own buisness 😭

HES FIGIURING IT OUT HE FIGURED IT OUT woooooooo there he goessss

hes protecting them omg. hes such a good guy. ok we wiat why does ohhhh hes actully smart?? hes actully practical. hades is js trying to live his life man...

STOPP POISEDION?? he cares he cares so much- is he british?? im crying stop SALLY DESERVES BETTER SHE JS WANTS HER SON TO BE SAFE IM CRYING aww sally and poisiodon <333 hes here for here - at least now. oh wiat thats THATS SO GOOD STOP THIS SHOW IS AMAZING ADKLAJFKLDAJSFKL;SAJFKLAS;

THERE THEY ARE THE TRIO LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO

ARES FIGHT SCENE LTES GO LETS GO WOOOOOOOOOOO I LOVE THIS SHOWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[jakkon-and-rose-topic]

Grief

Cw: Mentions to death, grief, and depression (I guess?)

Jakkon fell against the door heavily, the tears finally coming as the footsteps of his former best friend receded. He sank to his knees, desperate gasping sobs shaking his whole body as his grief spilled down his face and bled from his shattered heart. Maybe they were better off now. Away from him and all the danger, where he couldn't hurt them anymore.

But as he tried to convince himself they'd be alright; the reality of their deaths came crashing down on him and the tears just came harder. The Satyr pressed his eyes closed and gritted sharp teeth. Blood seeping through his fingers and sticking to the blade stained in Rune's life.

He shuddered, gasping for air through sobs as screams echoed in his head and he covered his ears. Flashes of fire, hoarse shouts of his name. Over and over again in his head, tormenting him as he tried to block it out.

He couldn't speak, the clear ring his voice used to have, now dulled to a low rasp. He hated it. Screaming echoed again and he huddled into the corner, pulling his knees to his chest in a desperate search for warmth and comfort. He no longer had anyone else to help fend off the cold emptiness of an ocean dragging him deeper and deeper as ice claimed his throat and his mind.

Jakkon flinched, his throat and lungs burning with every sobbing gasp like he really were drowning, with all this air around him just out of reach. The pressure of the night pressed in around him, crushing the air out of his lungs and leaving only the hollow terror of being alone.

Time flew by in a blur of tears and terror, leaving the man so many looked up to as a hero into a shivering, whimpering mess. No tears remained, only a burning headache as Rose stepped into the room to check on him, clearing tears from her own cheeks as she cleared her throat. "H...hey Horns. Are you..." But the fae stopped as she saw her brother-in-law curled up in the corner, overcoat ripped to shreds beside him as he hugged his arms close, shivering in the cold darkness.

Jakkon looked up weakly, eyes glazed with grief as Rose smoothed out her voice. "Are you okay?"

The Satyr clenched his fists and opened his mouth to say something. But he stopped and began crying again raspy gasps echoing in the silence as one of his hands flew to his throat and he tried to start a word. But instead, only the soft bleat of a goat escaped his lips, and he froze. He paused, and managed a small sniff as he stood, dissolving back into tears as he enveloped Rose in a hug.

She hugged him back and the two cried into each other, spilling their grief of losing their last family out into the heavy air, dark crimson rose petals drifting into a ring around them.

Neither spoke. Neither could anyway. But they didn't have to. This embrace spoke a silent promise both understood. You're all I have left. I will stand by you, love you, and I will never leave you. I will protect you.